Still Standing

by: Allison

Character(s): Josh, Donna
Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Category(s): Romance
Rating: TEEN
Summary: Sequel to Great Expectations

When his phone rang about four minutes after he arrived home, Josh knew exactly who had to be on the other end. "C.J.," he said as soon as he picked it up.

She didn't even ask how he knew. "Schmuck."

"What've I done now?"

He could hear her impatient sigh on the other end. "Do I even have to tell you?"

"Probably not," he said resignedly. "Look, I apologized profusely already."

"You better have," she replied. "I thought it was funny when I thought we were laughing at you. Laughing at Donna's embarrassment - not so funny."

"We really have covered this," he said. "I apologized, we talked, she's going to punish me - very little change in the status quo here."

"You do understand all the many reasons why that was a stupid thing to do?" she asked, her tone indicating that she had been somewhat placated.

"Fully and completely." He shifted the phone to the other ear. "Admit it, C.J., in retrospect the whole thing is kind of funny."

There was a pause on the other end. "Did she really ask the President to call Karen and explain?" He could hear the amusement beginning to show in her voice.

"She made Charlie ask," he replied, fighting his own laughter.

"What did Charlie do to deserve that?"

"I don't even want to think about it," Josh replied sincerely. He was in danger of getting a bad case of the giggles, which he suspected would be highly undignified.

"Josh, is Karen -"

"Don't go into press secretary mode on me. No, I really don't think Karen Cahill is going to write a column about Donna dropping her underwear..."

"How could you apologize when you can't even say it without laughing?" C.J. asked.

"I have no idea." He calmed himself and asked finally, "Did you talk to Toby at all?"

"No," she said, her words suddenly becoming clipped and angry.

"Oh," he replied. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Maybe." It didn't sound like a promise.

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

The next morning Josh arrived at work to find his desk already covered with paperwork needing his attention. Before he could open his mouth to bellow Donna came breezing into the office with another stack approximately the size of an average phone book. "What the hell is that?" he asked.

She set the stack down carefully on his desk and pointed to various piles in turn. "Nine o'clock meeting, Senator Ryan. Ten o'clock meeting, three Republican Congresswomen. Ten-thirty, that guy from the thing. Eleven-thirty, the people from the EPA. Twelve-forty-five -"

He held up his hand, stopping her. "Donna, when I left yesterday I had like two meetings scheduled for all day."

She looked up from his desk. "Yeah, you did," she said in that infuriatingly calm, chipper tone of hers.

"When did all this happen?"

"About midnight, I think."

He faced her over the desk. "I'm being punished."

"Probably."

"By Leo?"

"That would be my guess."

"For what, exactly?"

Her brow wrinkled in thought. "Probably for delegating to Sam in the first place. Or for the fire, or for yelling at him. Possibly all of the above."

He sighed heavily. "Right. The guy from the thing?"

"You know, the guy."

"From the thing."

"Right."

"That would be the tuition vouchers guy that Toby was supposed to meet with tomorrow?"

"Yes." She grinned cheerfully at him. "He got bumped up."

"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?"

She took a second to look suggestively at him over her shoulder. "Oh, yeah."

"I don't suppose you're enjoying it enough that you won't feel the need to punish me yourself?"

"I wouldn't get your hopes up."

"Right." He sat down and stared at the piles on his desk. "Which one was the nine o'clock?"

"The one in the middle," she yelled back from the bullpen.

"What time is it?"

"Four clocks on the wall," she reminded him.

"Can't see them."

"Get up and look!"

"You're fired!"

"Forty!" she yelled cheerfully.

He leaned forward so he could see her. "I just wanted to get us to a nice, round number."

"I appreciate that, Josh."

"I thought you might." He found himself sliding his chair over just enough that he could watch her work from his desk. Oblivious to his scrutiny, she sat carefully typing a memo, pausing periodically to hit the backspace button several times in rapid succession. Actual secretarial skills were not among her many talents - but she did such a neat job of organizing his life that he'd never thought to complain. Well, not often. The end result was usually okay, so he saved his complaints for her handwriting.

Donna. He laid down the file he'd been reading and watched her unabashedly, a thoughtful smile playing across his face. She'd been occupying much of his thoughts lately, and he couldn't quite pinpoint where it had started. Probably with C.J., he decided. It was always better when he could blame something on C.J. anyway, but her advice on New Year's had started the whole thing in motion - without her he might never have looked twice at Donna dancing with Sam, wouldn't have been so over-aware of the way he held her, touched her, might not have followed her home when she fled the party and might not have spent the night with her. And therefore would not have kissed her. Right. Because much as he tried to push it out of his mind, explain it away, explain away her reaction - there were times when he looked at her and could still feel her lips on his. He'd been so concerned with why she'd kissed him back that he hadn't given much thought to why he kissed her in the first place.

Because he wanted to. He shook his head, not sure of what was happening. He couldn't deny that he'd wanted to kiss Donna that night - or that he'd wanted to kiss her once or twice since then. They'd always had that flirting thing going on, as C.J.'d pointed out and probably everyone had noticed, but he'd never before felt such a tangible attraction between them. A bond. That's it, he thought. We have a bond.

That was almost scarier than realizing they had chemistry.

So. They had chemistry, and they had a bond - there was a connection that had been slowly building between him and Donna that he couldn't keep ignoring now that it had been brought to his attention. They were linked. He leaned back in his chair, watching her fingers move over the keyboard and pondering this concept. Linked. Did that mean, though, that they should be together, or just that they should be friends? He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself with Donna - not physically per se, but in a *relationship.* He tried to picture going home with her at night, having dinner with her, ordinary nights lounging on the couch, being allowed to touch her - *allowed*? Where had that come from? It implied that he wanted to -

He swallowed hard. All right. Time to take stock here.

*Have I just fantasized about my assistant? Yes. Do most bosses do this at some point? Sure. Do most guys, when they do this, fantasize about commitment more than they fantasize about sex? Probably not. Am I thinking about sex now? Okay, yes. Is this bad? Not necessarily. After all, most guys could fantasize quite happily about almost anyone, right? I mean, for all I know something could set me off fantasizing about - Margaret, for example.* Pause. *Okay, that didn't work. So it's just Donna? Seems that way. All right.*

He shuffled some papers around, trying to look busy in case anyone walked past the open door of his office. *I have a meeting in - half an hour. Wait, no, damn - fifteen minutes. I need to stop - I need to resolve this. Fine. Big question - could I see myself having a relationship with Donna?* He tried very hard to sabotage this idea. *Damn. Yes. I could.* Oddly, he thought Donna might be just eccentric enough herself to be a perfect match for him. *Okay. Would she drive me crazy? Yes. Would I enjoy it?* She turned, caught him looking at her, and gave him a quick smile before returning to her work. *Oh, yeah.*

He buried his head in his hands. *I have a crush on my twenty-six-year-old assistant. This can't be good.*

"Senator in fifteen, Joshua!" she yelled from her desk, oblivious to his reverie.

"You know, Leo's going to be getting back at me for weeks," he started almost by reflex.

"Oh, I'm still going to punish you," she replied, smiling calmly at her monitor.

*You know, when she said that yesterday it didn't sound at all dirty.* He laid his head on the desk and groaned. *I need to kill C.J.*

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

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