Chesapeake

by: Allison

Character(s): Josh, Donna
Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Category(s): Romance
Rating: TEEN
Summary: Donna's getting really fed up at Josh.

Josh Lyman approached his office door with understandable trepidation. When he finally worked up the courage to enter, he was greeted with the sight of his young assistant, Donna, glaring at his computer from a distance of about four feet. She was dangerously, frighteningly calm.

"Hi, Donna," he tried nonchalantly.

She raised one eyebrow and looked at him without moving. "Where have you been?"

"Um, meetings?" he said, sounding uncertain. Off her skeptical look he added, "Important meetings."

"Oh," she said sarcastically. "Well, while you were at your 'important meetings,' I was here, battling technology."

"How do you do that?" he couldn't help asking.

"Do what?" She was teetering on the brink of out-and-out rage and he could see it coming. Somehow he couldn't help himself.

"Make it sound like I've been negotiating the price of coffee with the vendor on the corner."

"Oh, I'm sure you were engaged in some thrilling discussion of great national import," she fairly hissed. "Which is clearly why you can't be bothered to update your files or save anything to disc - which I would have done oh, sometime before nine PM on a Friday night except that I've been busy stalling drunken Ukrainians!" Her voice had risen to a pitch that could surely be heard out in the hallway - as if CJ, Sam, Carol, and probably even Ainsley didn't have their ears pressed to the door anyway.

"Donna," he attempted, taking a conciliatory tone. It was the wrong move.

"Don't Donna me, Joshua," she lectured sternly. "It's bad enough I get used as a dupe whenever you need 'someone of absolutely no consequence' - and don't think I've forgotten that one - but I do not need to be here on a Friday night trying to undo your technological ineptitude!"

He couldn't help it. He really couldn't. His eyebrows shot up. "Wow, Donna, I hope you were angry when you took the SATs - it works wonders for your vocabulary."

He ducked as a throw pillow flew at his head at an alarming speed. He was beginning to worry. In their years of working together he had honestly never seen Donna so angry. He wondered whether this had been building for some time now, and had only come to a crux with his admittedly harsh comments earlier in the week. It was already apparent that teasing her out of her mood was not going to work - it seldom did, really, only made her sulky - nor was being nice to her. Josh chose to shout.

"Then what are you still doing here, huh?" he asked forcefully, taking a step back from her. "It's Friday night, your work here is done. You're my assistant; I no longer require assistance at this time. Get out, go home." She froze and he stepped back again, gesturing toward the door. "Go on, go!"

"So that's really all I am?" Donna asked, no longer shouting exactly but in a much higher pitch than usual. "A glorified secretary? Thanks Donna, but you've outlived your usefulness for the day, you're dismissed? That's it?"

"Is this about carpal tunnal syndrome?" he asked. It was definitely the wrong move.

"This is not about carpal tunnal syndrome," she replied quietly and tightly. "This is about you and me and our working relationship, and the fact that after three years you still see me as a piece of office furniture."

"You know that's not true," he said angrily.

"Prove it," she retorted. "Take me seriously, just once. Do you know how often you do that? Do you? Never!" She was almost back to throwing things, and he cringed in advance. "Do you ever even pretend to listen to me? Has it ever really occurred to you that I might have something intelligent to say?" She was being at least slightly unfair, and she knew it. She knew that Josh did listen to her, and the worst part was that deep down she knew he did value her. That made his complete inability to show it all the worse.

"Donna," he interrupted, "I listen to you all the time. I listened to you when you were..." He stopped speaking suddenly. His mind knew that he looked ridiculous, that only people in bad movies trailed off like that when they had something dramatic to say, but he couldn't help himself. He literally could not voice the thought in his head. He was too angry, too - something.

But she knew. She knew immediately what he was thinking, because she had been thinking the same thing herself from the other point of view. When she spoke, it was almost in a whisper. "How could you go back to the way things were after that?"

His mind flooded with images: Donna sitting beside his bed in the hospital, chattering on as always - except that when he'd really looked at her he'd seen the red-rimmed eyes, the tears waiting to be shed, the exhaustion and the misery. Donna in his apartment the day he'd come home and all the days after that, driving all the way from the White House to have lunch with him and catch him up on the doings of the office. Donna keeping other visitors at bay like a mother hen watching out for hawks. He'd seen her actions as the behavior of a concerned, if perhaps slightly overenthusiastic assistant. But then there was the night she'd let him outside, let the others come over. That night they were all just friends, and if anyone noticed that Donna was the only assistant present they didn't mention it. In fact, it was silently acknowledged that Donna had the power over the small gathering. That night, after everyone else had left and she'd fussed over him for another few minutes, making tea and checking everything fifty times, she'd suddenly turned and looked at him and her eyes had filled up. She'd rushed at him the way she had the previous Christmas after reading his message, thrown both arms around him and hugged him tightly. He'd been surprised, since even after he'd come out of surgery she'd refrained from such strong displays of affection. Pleasantly surprised, as he had been at Christmas. After all, he had a great deal of affection for Donna - he always had. He'd hugged her back that night, soothing her tears even as he closed his eyes and reveled in the warm human contact. They'd stood that way for a long time.

He looked again at his furious assistant and noticed that her eyes had begun to tear up. He had the feeling she wasn't going to hug him this time.

"Things aren't the same, Donna," he said gently but sincerely. "You're right. They can't be. But I had to pretend they were." He swallowed and added, "I think I'm trying too hard."

She shook her head. "I don't understand, you've lost me." Her tone was harsh and ironic, but her voice trembled.

"When I was hurt," Josh began tentatively, "you were always there. You were the one who made sure I was still alive day to day. It may have just felt like you were fetching lunch and doing my laundry, but I needed you more than I've had to need anyone in a long time. Can you understand that after that I needed to get back to normal?"

"Normal?" she echoed, unconvinced. "Normal is being cruel? That's normal to you?"

"I wasn't trying to be cruel!" he nearly shouted. "I was trying to put some professional space between us because I was uncomfortable with the fact that my assistant had to lift me off the couch for two and a half months and then I had to go back to being her boss and try to stop feeling helpless! I was trying not to need you twenty-four hours a day!"

She was caught and she knew it. Her anger had been replaced by a deep-looking sadness. "It wasn't enough to convince yourself you didn't need me; you had to convince both of us?" she asked quietly. "Never mind, don't answer that."

"Donnatella..."

"Don't." She held her hand up as if to ward him off, but the tears started to overflow her eyes. "I am not going to do this," she said, more to herself than to him.

He saw that he was close to winning, if only he could say exactly the right thing. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Don't," she repeated helplessly, turning away from him and wiping angrily at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Just leave me alone to behave like a child in peace, please."

"You're not behaving like a child; I was," he said gently. "You know what a selfish jerk I am. I really just thought it was business as usual around here. Really. I did. See what an idiot I am without you to keep me straight?"

Her shoulders heaved as she choked for air. "I always knew that," she said in an almost normal tone.

He smiled but carefully didn't laugh out loud. Instead he crossed the room slowly. "I never asked," he said softly, "if you were okay. I was so glad you weren't there to be physically hurt that after all these months it never occurred to me..."

There was a long pause. He didn't move.

"I was terrified," Donna whispered finally. He put a hand on her shoulder and she jerked away. "Don't. I don't need to be comforted, Joshua. It's over. What I need is your respect."

"You have that," he said - sadly? To his very great surprise there was a lump in his throat. He hated having Donna mad at him, but he'd come into the office feeling a bit amused at his eccentric assistant's latest antics. What an idiot he'd been. And the worst of it was that he had no idea how to get back what they'd once had. "Donna," he said. She turned around, shock in her eyes.

He knew why, but he couldn't explain because he was just as shocked. Her name had come out on a sob, a heavy choking explosion that was followed by tears he hadn't shed the entire time of his recovery. For a moment Donna could do nothing but stare in horror.

When it became clear that she was frozen, he knew he had to try to say - something. Anything. "I don't know what to do," he stammered through his tears. "I don't want to condescend to you, or ignore you, or hurt you - but I'm a selfish person and I need you. You're not a glorified secretary, you're my friend and I need you. And I don't even know why in the name of God I'm crying!"

She laughed, sort of. She took one tentative step forward, then seemed to reconsider. "Oh, hell," she said finally and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

He held onto her for dear life, trying to regain control of his breathing. "I'm sorry," he whispered, stroking her fair hair gently. "I'm sorry for the way I've been, sorry for yelling at you, sorry for the drama . . ."

She did laugh at that. "Okay, I'll take responsibility for some of the drama."

They pulled back and looked each other in the eye. "Are you okay?" Josh asked, brushing tears from her cheeks with his thumb.

She nodded, visibly trying to collect herself. "You?"

He nodded. "Actually, I'm surprised it's taken us this long to have that out."

"Should I have thrown myself weeping on your bed when you first woke up?"

He was glad to see her smile. "Yes, I think that might have helped. But, as I recall, you did bring me coffee once. I guess I should have taken that as a sign."

"Nah, I just thought they were going to fire you while you were down," she retorted quickly.

"If you really thought they were going to fire me you'd have put sugar in it."

"You were out."

"Donna, you were doing the shopping."

"I got the coffee, didn't I?"

"Sugar would have killed you?"

"Skis would have killed you?" she replied, grinning broadly.

"Yes!" he exclaimed.

"Okay."

He turned toward the door. "Sam, Claudia Jean, Carol, and God help you Ainsley if you're out there, this is your one-minute warning to get away from the door before it hits you in the face."

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

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