Lessons

by: Allison

Character(s): Josh, Donna, CJ
Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Category(s): Romance
Rating: YTEEN
Summary: A friendship provides a basis for dealing with other relationships as well.

When I finally stir, I open my eyes reluctantly and look over at the clock. Good God, it's nearly midnight. The sounds of rustling papers tell me that Josh is still working - as I think that I feel him shift so he can turn a page. Okay, I really need to get up now. Damn.

I sit up slowly away from him, feeling rather awkward about the whole thing. He turns to look at me as if nothing at all is out of the ordinary. "Hey," he says. "I didn't wake you and send you home because I didn't think you should be driving that tired."

I scrub my face with one hand. "I think I'll be okay now."

"Good."

We look at each other. What am I supposed to say now? Thank you for holding me while I slept? Um. . .

"Thanks," I say noncommittally, leaving it up to him to decide what I'm talking about.

He gives me a one-sided grin, which I find hopelessly endearing. "Sure," he says. He reaches up and pushes back the hair on one side of my face, brushing his hand against my cheek in the process. "I have a couple things to finish up. Go home and get some rest."

I have no idea what else to say here. Throwing myself into his arms seems a bad idea, as does asking him to come with me. I really don't feel that at this point I should be telling him that I have a hard time sleeping lately and that I think he might help. No, no, no. No, no. Big no.

"Okay," I say, getting to my feet. "Goodnight."

He gives me a distracted wave as I gather my coat, and I stare at him in wonder for a minute. To me it seemed like our relationship just crossed some giant imaginary line, but to him everything seems to be exactly the same. Unchanged. He's just as casual about me as ever.

Hmm. Maybe I like it that way. After all, I wouldn't want our relationship to change all that much. Not at work, anyway.

Where do thoughts like that come from? I'm a bad girl. Really. I definitely should not be entertaining thoughts of dating my boss. Uh-uh.

I can't help myself, though. Before I leave I stop and brush a kiss across his forehead. For a millisecond I freeze, thinking I've gone too far. But he is completely unfazed. He reaches up to squeeze my arm for a second, barely looking up from the brief in his lap, and says, "See you tomorrow."

Well, that was easy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I actually manage to sleep some - probably because all that melatonin is still rushing around my body - and make it to work this morning vaguely alert and awake. Thank you, early morning coffee. My morning is not destined to be peaceful, though - not by a long shot. As I start up my computer outside Josh's still dark and uninhabited office (at least I hope it's uninhabited - he could be asleep on the floor) I feel someone behind me, and with that weird radar we all have at times I can tell the person towers over me. "Hey, CJ," I say, before turning to greet her.

"Hey, Donna." I look up to give her a better greeting and from the look on her face I know immediately that she was in Josh's office last night after I fell asleep. I mean, while I was - right. Oh, this could be bad.

She sits on the edge of my desk, then apparently decides not to intimidate me with her height and slides gracefully into a visitor's chair instead. "How are you?" she asks.

Okay, hello, loaded question. "I'm good, CJ, how are you?" Play dumb, Donna, that's it.

"I'm good." She takes a deep breath. She's deciding how to approach this. "Donna, about that conversation we had last weekend..."

"Yes," I say, doing a hideously bad job of concealing my nervousness.

"Did you and Josh..."

"He sent me home at 11:48!" I interrupt excitedly.

CJ looks at me in confusion for a moment. "Okay."

I can feel my face turning beet red. Darned alabaster skin. "I mean, nothing - um - oh, hell." I realize that I've just confirmed any suspicions she might be harboring by being nervous about what could have been completely innocuous. In fact, Josh seems to think it was completely innocuous. Oh, oh, I can use that. "I woke up on the couch, Josh was reading - I'm not even sure he noticed when I left." I force myself to sound casual.

She's not buying it for a second, but all of a sudden her face softens and that suspicious look goes away. "Look, Donna," she says much more gently, "I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong - hell, he and I do stuff like that all the time. I'm just worried about you."

"About me?" Okay, she's officially lost me.

"It's just..." She's uncomfortable talking about this with me, that much is clear. "I know you're lonely sometimes - cause God knows I am too - and it would be really easy. . ."

I decide to have mercy on her. "You're worried that I'm in love with Josh and I'm taking the fact that he let me sleep on his couch as some kind of encouragement?"

CJ's eyebrows lift. "Well, when you say it that way it just sounds stupid."

I like her enough that I'm not mad at her interfering. "There's nothing to worry about," I reassure her.

She gets to her feet, then stops, making sure there's no one around. "He does love you, Donna," she says sincerely. "Very much. But I'm not quite sure in what way."

I meet her eyes. "Neither am I."

She nods. There's nothing more to say.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (about a week later, give or take)

So today I wasn't expecting any more Josh lessons. Really, I thought we'd about covered them. It seems I was wrong.

Because what I'm seeing right now is Josh, sprawled on his couch, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. "Big night?" I joke, seeing as how he really shouldn't be this tired already at eight AM.

"I was up late," he replies without looking at me.

Wait a sec. We weren't working late last night. I saw him leave. "Have you developed a social life, Joshua?" I ask, straining to keep my voice light. Please, please say no.

He grins, eyes still closed. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"No, not really," I say, stung. "You have a meeting with Leo in nineteen seconds."

"What about?"

"Make that seventeen. The education thing." He doesn't move. "Fourteen seconds, Josh."

"I was with CJ," he says, sitting up and trying to straighten his jacket. I don't know why he bothers.

"CJ?" I repeat dumbly. Please don't tell me - no, that seems highly unlikely.

"Yeah, she came over and we sat outside and talked for a couple hours, about work and life and Danny and stuff. It was nice." I'm not sure why he's telling me this - relieved, yes, but still confused. He grabs a folder and heads for Leo's office, leaving me to my thoughts.

By the time we're ready to check out tonight, it's already nine. I have got to get him to quit earlier. This schedule is leaving me with permanent circles under my eyes and absolutely no life. Not that I really had one before all this working late. But now I'm missing ER much more frequently.

As I'm gathering my things together, CJ comes in. I pray she doesn't have something that Josh or I need to handle.

She doesn't. She gives me an intense look, which I completely don't understand, and says, "Hey."

"Hey," I reply. She goes into his office and starts to close the door, but changes her mind and leaves it open.

"Just coming to say goodnight," I hear her say. Well, all right.

"Donna?" Josh calls. "Just a sec," he tells CJ. "Can you come and find the 916 folder for me?"

As I dig through the piles on his desk, I try to be as unobtrusive as possible in case she had something she wanted to talk about. Evidently she didn't. Only now I get Lesson 3. I'm not sure what it means yet, but it sure is interesting.

"Okay, goodnight," Josh tells CJ. Then, completely ignoring the fact that I'm right there, he breaks Unwritten Cardinal Rule Number One - No displays of affection in front of other people. He leans over and kisses her goodnight - a small, chaste kiss on the cheek, but still something he's never allowed anyone at work to see before. CJ smiles and says, "Goodnight, mi amor." Then she looks straight at me, and I don't know what I'm expecting - embarrassment, maybe? - but she just smiles and says, "See you tomorrow, Donna."

"Yeah," I say idiotically. What is going on here? Has Josh suddenly become the Love Fairy and I didn't know about it? All of a sudden it's okay to be affectionate in front of anyone and everyone?

Wait.

I get it.

The click you hear is the pieces falling into place.

They're not being affectionate in front of anyone and everyone. Just me.

Follow me here for a second, this is a bit of a leap in logic, but it makes sense.

The evidence? Tonight, for starters. The fact that Josh willingly told me CJ was at his house late last night talking to him about their personal lives. Plus the fact that when I feel asleep on Josh last week, I woke up in the exact same position despite the fact that CJ had been in there. No, follow my thought here. That means that he didn't move when she came in. That for however long she was in his office he simply let her see us like that. He held me in front of her. And now he's kissing her in front of me.

Get it?

I do.

No, this is not some kind of psychopathic plan to make us both insanely jealous. All three of us know their relationship is platonic, and ours is, well, undefined.

That's just it. Don't you see? After at least three years of being such intimate friends in private and keeping up the façade of professionalism in public, for whatever reason, Josh and CJ have clearly decided between them to let me in. They're letting me into their circle of two, letting me see and understand their relationship. And Josh isn't keeping whatever affection he might have for me (please God!) from her, either. They're sharing something beautiful and private with me, and that means a lot of things. A lot. It means they both trust me. It means they see me as a friend, not just a coworker.

So here's the grand question. What makes me, not a member of the senior staff and distinctly out of the loop, on a different level here than Sam or Toby?

That's when Lesson 3 hits me hard. And it's so unbelievable that I nearly drop the 916 folder and Josh looks at me like I've lost it.

I'm not ever going to be their friend the way they are each other's. They have age, experience, and a deep, non-replicable bond going for them. So in what capacity am I being introduced to this equation?

Oh, yeah. That's what I thought. See, the only possible role I can see for another person here is that of significant other to one of the parties involved. For one glorious, heart-stopping second I think, yes, they're letting me in because I'm going to be the person he...

Then I realize I'm an idiot. I still don't understand my role in all this, but it can't be that. Josh might, indeed, love me very much, as CJ said, but I can't quite make myself believe that he's prepping me to be his lover by letting me get to know his best friend.

But I'd really like to believe it.

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

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