tartanfics

Title: Bureaucracy

Fandom/Ships: The West Wing, Josh/Donna

Word Count: 1100 words

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own The West Wing and I'm only writing this because I think up strange things when sitting in classes.

Warnings: Vague spoilers for all of West Wing.

Summary: Donna thought if they had a god for every function who looked after everything, surely those gods must need deputies, and the deputies must need senior assistants, and isn't that a very bureaucratic way to run the universe?

Bureaucracy, n.: An administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action.

Donna took a religion class once, back before she dropped out of college to support "Dr. Freeride," when she was still trying out majors. She hadn't actually expected to major in religious studies, but it fulfilled a distribution requirement and she thought it might be interesting. It was a survey of concepts of religion from the ancient Greeks through the present day, which for the most part left her with a vague understanding of ten different religions and not a lot of knowledge about what made them tick.

Later, the most she remembers about the class is that it spawned her strange theory about life. They'd been talking about the Greek pantheon, and Donna thought if they had a god for every function who looked after everything, surely those gods must need deputies, and the deputies must need senior assistants, and isn't that a very bureaucratic way to run the universe? And maybe that explains all the world's problems.

Still, she marvels sometimes that it all runs so smoothly, that it's all so beautiful. You don't have to go through paperwork and offices and red tape to plant and admire a flower, or to have sex and carry on the species, or to fall in love (no, that was a complete accident).

She thinks about this after Rosslyn, sitting by Josh's bed, holding his hand and watching the monitors beep. Somewhere, did some god's deputy's assistant find a file buried under the more important things on her desk, sent over weeks ago from someone in some other department, and think, "Wait, maybe this man shouldn't die." And she'd bring the file to her boss, and he'd bring it to his boss, and that god would nudge the bullet a little to the left, or make sure the surgeon was a little better rested. Donna sort of hates to think this is how it works. Still, there's some comfort in it, too. She knows bureaucracy, knows how to work the system.

And anything that means Josh is still alive is good with her. She feels a sort of kinship with that deputy god's senior assistant.

Donna doesn't think about what bureaucratic chance keeps her alive after Gaza. She's too tired, too confused, knocked out by the morphine. Josh is too distracting. And when she comes home, she's too afraid it was pure bureaucratic accident that some god found her file but not Fitzwallace's or the Congressmen's, so she pushes it out of her mind.

The next time Donna thinks about this strange, pantheistic bureaucracy is in Hawaii. This time it has nothing to do with life and death. She's lying in bed in their hotel room, bare shoulders and long arms and her feet peeking out from under the sheet. She watches Josh, standing by the window with sunlight on his face, and wonders if this explains the past nine years. If they were just making their way through universal government agencies, sitting in waiting rooms and filling out forms, hoping for phone calls that would give them approval to move on to the next step, start talking to a different department, get a little closer to the final red rubber stamp that would authorize this situation. They've made it through; Donna's not wearing any clothes and Josh is in his underwear, turning and looking at her over his shoulder with a certain, familiar expression on his face.

"Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever think..." But she can't quite explain it; it's going to sound too stupid and it's been floating around her brain for too long. "No, never mind."

"What?" he asks, and he crosses the room to climb onto the bed, kneeling on the bedspread and running his knuckles down the side of her face.

Her mouth quirks. "It's like, I've been putting calls to all these departments, I don't know, Treasury and the DOD and State, whatever, I've called Congressmen's offices and every other department, too, and for years I've been getting put on hold and talking to interns and assistants, or I have to go down to their office and dig through files and fill out forms. And you have too, though the idea of you calling people yourself is kind of funny. And for all these years we've been wading through this bureaucracy, and finally we get the green light. The bill's passed; approval's come in the mail; it's finally here."

"Well, if I'd known you were such an ineffective assistant that you always get put on hold, I'd have--"

"Josh! I'm speaking figuratively, here. Do you see what I mean?"

He pauses and leans back, studying her. She looks a little bit desperate. She's never said any of this aloud before, and she never needed to explain it in her own head. "Yeah, okay. The bureaucratic government agencies of life. Yeah, I think you've spent too much time working for the government."

She grins. "Not done yet."

"Four more years, anyway."

"Eight. Thank you for understanding my bizarre metaphors."

"Does it say something about our relationship that we're always going to describe it in terms of politics?"

Donna considers this, looking up at him and chewing on her bottom lip. "It's what we know. At least we have some kind of language. It's--it's better than nothing."

Josh stretches out on the bed beside her, lying on his side. He places a hand on the curve of her waist under the sheet, thumb brushing back and forth, and stares at the crook of her elbow. "I do understand. We're this bill that we've been trying to get through Congress, one of the really great ones like universal healthcare.” He grins, dimples showing. “And people keep tacking obnoxious earmarks on it, or we get all kinds of flimsy little bills that they give us to pacify us, and it gets voted down and we try again, and again. And finally, it's passed. We got the bill through Congress. It only took us nine years." He chances a look up at her face, now, and is surprised by the dopey grin he sees.

"You like me as much as you like universal healthcare?"

"You are my healthcare."

Donna smacks his arm. "That was a terrible line, Josh!"

"What? I only meant, you know, you make me eat salads, and stuff."

She raises an eyebrow. He blushes.

"Fine, yeah. You know what I meant."

"I do."

And silently, Donna thanks whatever deputy god's senior assistant is responsible for this, their triumph over bureaucracy.