ACT 1
INT. BATHROOM, JOSH AND DONNA'S APARTMENT

Donna lifted her wrist out of the water and turned it over gingerly. It had turned an unappealing rainbow of black, blue, and brown since they'd wrapped it at the embassy. When she'd removed the ACE bandage, the pain had begun anew, but the warm water started it throbbing with a vengeance.

She dropped her hand back beneath the suds as the door opened. She just…didn't feel like dealing with it tonight. She'd tell him tomorrow. I mean, of course. She'd have to tell him tomorrow. Just not tonight.

"Here we go," Josh said as he closed the door behind him and handed her a glass of white wine. She took it with her right hand and have him a languid smile as she slid deeper into the suds. He cocked his head at her. "Feeling better?"

"I told you it was nothing a hot bath wouldn't fix," she took a sip from the wine glass and set it on the tile floor. "I feel almost perfect."

Josh sat on the side of the tub and tucked a wet strand of hair behind her ear. "Almost?"

She grinned coyly at him. "Are you comin' in here or not?"

A genuine smile split his face, and he scooped his hand into the water, then smeared a clump of suds on her nose. "I'll smell all girly."

"You love it, and you know it."

He sighed heavily, pretending to be put upon. "I think you take advantage of my deep and abiding love for you and your perfect, soft skin."

"Mmm," Donna leaned her head back against the wall and reached for the wine glass. "That sounds like a personal problem to me. Strip."

'Don't have to tell me twice," Josh muttered as he wriggled out of his shirt.

CUT TO: INT. WHITE HOUSE RESIDENCE, SAME TIME

"You have got to be kidding me," Perez stood in the doorway, gaping.

"I'm not," Santos clapped him on the shoulder. "Good night."

Perez stepped into the room and spun slowly in a circle. "It's just…when you said, 'Have you ever spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom?' I sorta thought it was a joke."

"It was," Santos grinned. "Mostly. Good night, Jeff."

INT. WHITE HOUSE RESIDENCE HALLWAY, CONTINUOUS

Matt came up behind Helen and planted a kiss on her cheek as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Decided not to wake them, huh?" he whispered.

"I was still deciding," a teary-eyed Helen said as she watched her kids sleeping like angels in their adjacent rooms.

"You're back more than a day ahead of schedule. Let them find out when they wake up in the morning."

Helen sniffled a little. "What did you tell them?"

Matt pulled her along by the hand toward their bedroom. "Nothing. I didn't want to upset them until we knew for sure something had happened, and by the time we knew you were alright, there didn't seem to be much point. Just have it be a surprise tomorrow you're home early. There's no need to frighten them."

INT. MATT AND HELEN'S BEDROOM, CONTINUOUS

Helen closed the door and leaned against it, lost in thought. "I suppose."

Matt unbuttoned his dress shirt and shrugged out of it while Helen stared into space. "You OK?"

She blinked, then reached down to pull off her shoes. "Yeah, I'm just exhausted."

"Yeah," He undid his belt and whipped it through the belt loops, dropping it on the floor with his shirt. "Yeah, me too. Can I have your undivided attention for a minute, though?"

She cocked her head at him in interest, an amused smile playing across her face.

"For whatever it was we were fighting about, a million years ago when you left for the trip--"

"Matt--"

"And the many grievous mistakes I am sure I made that led us to the point--"

"Matt--"

"And the many, MANY little things I don't even realize I did that just made it worse --"

"Matt!"

He grinned at her. "Sorry."

She chortled. "You were doing so well, and then you just blurted out the end."

"I felt rushed." He pulled her close and kissed her forehead.

"We broke a rule, didn't we?" She wrapped her arms around his neck.

He nodded. "We parted ways angry."

She laid her head on his shoulder. "Let's never do that again."

He tightened his arms around her. "When we couldn't get any information on your location, all I could think about was that the last time we saw each other, we were –"

"I know. Me too."

He squeezed her even tighter and closed his eyes. "If something had happened to you after I--"

"Matt," she leaned back a little to look at him. "Let's not play the 'what-if' game tonight." A gentle kiss, on just the right spot on his neck, set him grinning.

"What do you suggest we do instead?"

"Well," Helen pretended to muse. "We had a fight, and I've been gone…I don't know, what do you think?"

"I think you're overdue for a proper welcome home." He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

CUT TO: INT. SAM & HARRY'S, SAME TIME

Annabeth watched with fascination, chin propped in her hand, as Arnold Vinick made quick work of his medium rare t-bone. "I think this is more than a little odd."

Vinick regarded her cautiously. "That when I get hungry I like to eat?"

"That we just had that Alice-in-Wonderland adventure, and here you sit, eating a steak like it's any regular Tuesday."

Vinick stopped chewing. "It is a regular Tuesday."

"Hogwash." Annabeth pushed her nearly untouched plate away and leaned toward him, despite the deserted dining room that minimized the chances of their conversation being overheard. "What you have experienced in the last 24 hours is nothing short of remarkable. You were standing right next to the President of Amiir during his attempted assassination, you were hurt in the scuffle, there was that gauntlet to get to the embassy and then we were stuck there, waiting for some way to get out."

Vinick waved the words away with his hand. "It was a tough day at the office. Tomorrow we'll try again."

Annabeth cocked her head. "I just didn't take you to be one for such bravado."

"Not bravado," Vinick shook his head and put his fork down. "The president asked me to go to Amiir and do a job. I did. We pulled it off, just barely. We'll be spending the next few days trying to make sure it sails. When you sign up to be a public servant, you don't stand around waiting for someone to say thank you. And you don't take a bow and a victory lap. It can never be about the glory. Serving the president, serving your country is an honor. I'll take time to think about how hard it was when I stop to write my memoirs."

"You sound like Leo," Annabeth blurted.

Vinick cut another piece of meat from the bone. "That's a compliment."

Annabeth's surprise continued to grow. "Really?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" he asked around a bite of steak. "Because I'm one of the big bad Republicans?"

"I just didn't think--"

"I knew Leo for…God, close to 30 years? We stood together on some issues, toe-to-toe on others. But he always fought honorably, he always owned his mistakes, and whether or not our ideologies lined up…Leo McGarry epitomized what a public servant should be. Hardworking, tireless, unstoppable…and always humble."

Annabeth hung her head, folding her napkin nervously in her lap. "Not so unstoppable, as it turns out." An unbidden sting hurt her eyes.

Vinick nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose not."

"It's been…God, it's been almost a year. And it still feels like…I can still see it like it was tonight."

Vinick leaned back in his seat. "You were the one, weren't you? News reports said a campaign staffer discovered him. You were his press wrangler for most of the campaign." He watched her fidget in her seat. "It was you."

Annabeth nodded, then took a steadying breath. "It was me. I was the one. The one who found him, the one who rode in the ambulance, the one the doctors told. The one who had to tell Josh." She sniffed suddenly, blinking rapidly to dissipate the gathering tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Seeing a thing like that changes a person. Forever." Vinick said. "When my wife…it was months before I could think of her without remembering those last weeks in the hospital. Those last few days, waiting for the final shoe to drop. The hell that was her last few moments." He fell silent, staring at a spot on the far wall. "But eventually, you realize that the end of a person's life is just that, and that's not the part you should spend your time remembering. And you start to think about the other things."

Annabeth smiled sympathetically. "He wasn't my husband."

"That doesn't matter," Vinick said gently. "Leo McGarry spent a lifetime serving his country, in the military, in politics, in the Cabinet, in the White House…it seems a shame that anyone who knew him well should remember him in some hotel room in Texas. Or in a hospital."

Annabeth's eyes widened. "It does."

"So…" Vinick turned his attention back to his plate. "You get up in the morning, and you do the job you were hired to do, whether or not it was the job you thought you wanted. And you don't stop to think too much about it. In this town…it can overwhelm you. Indulgent thoughts like that can eat you whole. Do you think Lincoln ever sat back and said, 'My God, look at what I'm trying to do here?' He just hoped like hell he could pull it off. If there are people who think I'm doing great things, let them talk about it when I'm not around to be bored by the conversation."

Annabeth smiled. "So you're saying I should just get over myself and go to bed so I can get a fresh start in the morning."

"Exactly. But eat first." He pointed at her plate with his fork. "Humble or not, occasionally a nice perk comes your way, like Mario keeping the dining room open a little late for you. That kind of glory, you accept with open arms."

Annabeth smiled as she picked up her fork. **So much like Leo**, she thought.

CUT TO: INT. BATHROOM, JOSH & DONNA'S APARTMENT

"So, this bigger place we mentioned earlier," Josh mumbled against her shoulder.

"Mmm," Donna acknowledged, half-asleep as she leaned back against his chest in the warm water. "No energy for heavy stuff right now."

"No, I'm just saying, we need to make sure we get one with a bigger tub," he whispered.

She smiled. "I like those antique claw-foot tubs."

He ran his hand up her arms to her shoulders, dropping a kiss there before letting his hands slide back to her elbows. "You can't take showers in those."

"They make a special thing," she sighed, his gentle caresses lulling her closer and closer to sleep. He ran his fingers along her forearms, then back to her elbows.

"A thing so you can take showers in a claw-foot tub?"

"An attachment."

Josh frowned. "I think I'd have to see it." He ran his hands down her arms again. "Maybe we can get one with a separate shower instead." He let go of her arms and reached for her hands underwater. "But we have definitely got to do this more often." He laid his chin on her shoulder. "I'm glad to have
you home." He laced the fingers of both hands through hers squeezed.

Donna scared him half to death when she yelped and shot straight up in the tub, splashing water over the side as she cradled her left wrist to her chest.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said through gritted teeth. "It's a little sore."

"I hurt it?" he reached for her hand, which she pulled away from him.

"No." She huffed, frustrated that her cover was blown. "I kind of banged it up a little on the car ride to the embassy. It's just a little sore."

"Let me see."

"It's fine, Josh, it's just--"

"Let me see it, please." He tugged gently on her forearm, and she finally released her hold on her throbbing wrist. "It looks worse than it is."

He turned her hand toward the light. Her pale skin was mottled with a bluish-purple bruise, and a sizeable knot had formed on the outside of her wrist. "Oh, my God, Donna."

"Josh, it's really not--"

"Can you move your fingers?"

She wiggled them gently. "It's more when I twist--" she hissed as she tried to demonstrate.

Josh slid out of the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. "You need to get that looked at."

"I did."

"When?"

"At the embassy," she said. "Dr. Perez said he thinks it's just a bad sprain."

"That doesn't look like a sprain, Donna." He leaned over her wrist for another close look. "That looks broken."

"I don't think it's broken, Josh, I just haven't been…I was supposed to be icing it, and I got off schedule with it. I'm sure that's why it's so tender."

"You need to get it looked at again," he said. "I'm gonna tell Rodney to--"

She caught his hand in her uninjured one. "Josh, I appreciate your concern. I really do. But right now, I'm exhausted, and I just wanna go to bed. I don't want you to overreact to this."

"I don't overreact to things," he snapped, then pulled out of her grasp and left the room.

CUT TO: INT. GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM

"I don't overreact to things," Donna mimicked as she swung her feet idly from the gurney.

"I don't," he said flatly from his corner in the tiny curtained exam area.

"They cleared the entrance and put me directly back here," Donna said.

"That was because of me. It was either take us back immediately or clear the waiting room for the Secret Service to maintain their precious protocols."

"It was **all** because of you," she snapped. "I don't even want to be here."

"I care about your welfare," he said hollowly. "Forgive me."

Donna looked down at the icepack on her wrist "Thank you," she said. That got him to look at her. "Really. But it isn't a big deal. So I didn't want to **make** a big deal."

"So much so that you neglected to even mention it."

"It just hadn't come up yet," she muttered.

He rolled his eyes and went back to staring at the equipment around him. "How did it happen?" he asked after more than a minute of silence.

"The car ride to the embassy, I told you."

"The Secret Service did this?" he demanded, voice rising.

"Of course the Secret Service didn't do this, don't go on a rampage," she placated. "It was kind of a wild ride, I slid out of my seatbelt for a minute to grab my purse, we hit a bump, and I went wrist-first into the car door."

"Why the hell were you out of your seatbelt?"

"Because I'm not that bright, Josh!"

That brought him up short. "All I'm saying is it was dangerous, Donna. You need to be more careful."

"I'm careful," she sighed.

"**More** careful, I'm saying. Can't be too sure." He flashed his dimples at her for good measure, and she remained silent, but pouted.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to worry."

"I mean once you got home tonight. You never said a word."

"You know why I didn't tell you?"

"I'm asking."

"Because you overreact--"

"I don't overreact to things. They took x-rays; I did not overreact to this." His anger flared anew, and he began pacing the length of the small space, keeping his back to her.

The doctor broke the awkward silence a few minutes later when he re-entered with Donna's x-rays. "I was suspicious when I saw that knot," he said as he put the film on the light panel. "See? Right there. You've got a little hairline fracture."

"Really?" Donna squeaked. Josh came back to her side and stared at the picture.

"Wrist fractures are pretty common in a fall like you described, and they're often misdiagnosed in the beginning as bad sprains. Yours is very mild. I'm not even going to cast it. I want to do a couple weeks in a removable brace and see how it heals. I'll refer you to an orthopedist for a follow-up."

CUT TO: EXT. GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, NIGHT

"So, what was it you were saying about me overreacting to things?" Josh said as Rodney led them to the car.

Donna gave him a look that told him he'd be better off not pushing the subject. "We'll go home and get another ice pack on it," he said. "I'm sure it hurts."

"It doesn't hurt," she said reflexively as she climbed in the car, but was surprised by his bark of a laugh. "What?"

"It just makes me wonder," he said bitterly, "what else you lie to me about."