"Donna," Josh muses aloud, "How would you feel about...leaving the White House to work a campaign."

Donna's heart freezes a little, because they know each other better than anyone else in the world but she's not used to Josh Lyman reading her actual thoughts. Then she takes a breath, realizes he can't possibly have guessed, and asks, "What do you mean? I thought you hated Russell."

"Not Russell," Josh admits, looking faintly mischievous. "I've been thinking about Matt Santos."

It's an instant of pure possibility. Donna can see it, a good, smart, compassionate man, can see that with Josh running his show, that man could make it to the White House. "He'd be a good candidate," she acknowledges.

"Yeah." Josh peers at her, looking sly. "Ideally I'd take you with me, but, uh, probably not as an assistant."

"Not as an assistant," she echoes, and tries not to smile too suddenly.

Josh clears his throat. "Yeah, I mean, you've been talking about wanting more responsibility, and there's not much I can give you here, but on a campaign..."

"What would I be doing?" she asks.

"Everything? I uh, the thing is-"

"Matt Santos doesn't know he's running, yet, does he?" Donna deduces. "Josh-"

"I was thinking of flying out tonight," he tells her, quickly. "Talk to him, give him a chance to talk it over with his wife. If he says yes, then I want you on our team."

Donna stares at him for a long, hard moment, and makes a decision. "That lunch you canceled?" she tells him, "I was going to quit."

She's never in her life seen the expression drain out of a person's face so quickly. "I was going to quit because I want more from my career," she explains, looking him dead in the eye. "I want more responsibility. I want to do something more valuable than filing and typing."

Josh opens his mouth with a thunderous frown, but she forestalls him with a hand. "I know I've done good things and helped pass good legislation. But I want more. If Matt Santos says he'll run, I want in."

"And if he doesn't?" Josh asks, looking pale.

"Then I'm going to ask Will if he has a place for me," she admits. Josh presses his lips together, swallows.

"Okay," he says, then again, more determined. "Okay. That's incentive, I guess."

"How are you going to convince him?" Donna asks, because no matter what she's just threatened to do, she knows Josh is going to convince him.

He grins at her, a devil-may-care smirk the likes of which she hasn't seen in what feels like years, and begins to outline his plan.

A week later, Donna walks out of the bullpen with a cardboard box in her arms, turns in her credentials, and flies to New Hampshire.