Work Text:
We lost the World, We Found Ourselves
by: Lora
Character(s): Josh, Donna
Pairing(s): J/D
Category(s): Romance/Angst
Rating: YTEEN
Disclaimer: I wish these characters were mine, but honest to God, I don't have that kind of luck, or talent. Don't sue; the only thing of worth I own are my West Wing DVDs, and life would be over for me if I lost them.
Summary: Post ep to 7A WF 83429, but a little AU at a couple of points.
Spoiler: Great whacking ones for 7A WF 83429
Feedback: [email protected] Would be so great if you had a second. It makes my day.
Author's Note: The first quote is in fact Henry David Thoreau; the second I made up because I couldn't find anything that said what I wanted it to say.
In the show, Josh and Donna go off to the vigil at a certain point, but I decided to make them stay in his office, this was basically because the look on Josh's face was so classic I didn't want to waste it!
Thanks to Joell, whose comments were invaluable.
I work at the White House, so "working late" is a phrase I know all too well. However that particular night it was beyond "working late" by the time I was ready to leave. It was the first night after Zoey Bartlet went missing. I was just about to escape when I saw the light still on in Josh's office. He looked adorable despite the signs of fatigue indicated by his vacant gaze and the way he screwed up his eyes and blinked every few seconds to clear his vision. I stepped into his office. He was typing furiously on his computer. This is never a good sign; Josh and computers are like oil and vinegar, they do not mix. I knew he was blaming himself for this terrifying situation with Zoey. He always makes himself responsible for everything that goes wrong, even when it's clearly not his fault. I could already see he was starting to burn out again like he had that Christmas. I wasn't going to watch him fall back into that hole again.
"Josh?"
"Donna," he answered without even looking up.
"I thought Leo told you to go home?"
"Yeah."
"Come on, get your coat."
"I have some things I want to finish up, you go ahead though," he said still typing away at his keyboard as if it would make me go away.
"Carol said people have been leaving stuff for Zoey by the fence all day long. I thought I might walk by on my way home, check it out."
He didn't look up or say anything, but he stopped typing then. I had discovered long ago that bluntness was a sure fire way of getting Josh's attention. I hadn't wanted to bring it up directly, but I had to say something to get a reaction out of him.
"Josh?"
He finally glanced up at me and did a sort of double take as he saw the concern I wasn't trying to hide on my face. He scrutinized me for a moment, I suppose trying to figure out what I wanted from him.
I just wanted to see him smile again, but anyone who knew Josh half as well as I did would know that it was a pipedream. The intensity of his gaze forced me to glance briefly out the window to escape his stifling scrutiny.
Josh wearily rose and came to stand in front of me. Even as exhausted and careworn as he was I couldn't help but be distracted momentarily by how breath taking he was. Then his eyes met mine and I almost wept at what I saw there. His sorrow and guilt shone through his gaze, reflecting the torture he was putting himself through. I wish he would learn that he can't protect everyone all the time, that he's only human, and every bad thing that happens isn't his fault. I couldn't bear to see the anguish. I reached out for him to be sure he wasn't slipping away from me like he did that Christmas. I just wanted to wrap my arms around him and comfort him. I saw him flinch before I even touched him, and he sprang back out of my reach. I tried not to show the hurt this caused, but I think he saw it because he gazed at me pleadingly, willing me to understand. Trying to speak to me without saying a word.
I tried to understand, but I couldn't comprehend how contact with me would be too much for him to bear. My world began to crumble.
"Josh..?" I whispered, barely able to get his name out past the lump in my throat.
He didn't say anything; he just gazed at the floor. The silence screamed in the semi-darkness. This awkwardness between us was something new.
Completely heartbroken, I turned to go, but before I could leave I felt his hand on my arm turning me back to face him. He must have seen the distress in my eyes, because he abruptly removed his hand and looked even more pained. 'Good,' the lesser part of me thought, 'he deserved that.'
"Donna, I'm sorry. It's just...I just...I can't fall apart right now. And I think if I let you hold me like that, I'll break down right there in your arms." He shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other and rubbed his eyes to avoid looking at me. His way of distancing himself again, and I'm not surprised. That must have taken a lot of effort for him to say.
I couldn't help but savour the phrase "in your arms" though. All fleeting resentment at him previously not letting me in was gone.
"Donna, I can't do this. I've got to hold everything together."
"Says who?"
He shrugged in confusion and raked his hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it was before. "Leo?"
"You think Leo hasn't cried about this? That Leo doesn't understand? Why do you think he told you to go home, Josh?" I say, taking a step closer again.
"I can't." In turn he edged back, away from me, but looked up at my face.
His eyes met mine, this time allowing me to see behind his emotional shield. The brightness that I always see in his eyes, the essence of what makes him Josh, was missing. He seemed like a shell, filled with anguish and nothing more. I'd only seen him this way a few times before, and then he was in too much pain to even remember his own name.
Once again awkward silence filled the space between us.
"You should probably go home, Donna, it's late."
I didn't know what to think. My best friend had pushed me away for the second time in the space of two minutes. The rejection stung me to the core. I thought I got Josh. I thought he got that I'd always be there for him.
Since he was doggedly refusing my attempt to help him, I turned once more to leave. I heard him instantly flop down on the couch by the wall but forced myself not to look back. I needed to go someplace where my mind could stop spinning and try to think clearly. I was just outside his door when I heard the burst of soft crying. I practically jumped back into the room. There was Josh, head in his hands, crying his eyes out. Before I knew it, I was on the couch beside him, holding him and crying silent tears of my own as he clung to me. Forgetting myself, I kissed his wet cheeks. As our salty tears mingled I thought it was the most intimate moment of my life.
I don't know how long we stayed like that. I don't know when I stopped comforting him and he started comforting me. I don't know when exactly his tears subsided and mine grew stronger. The closer and tighter he held me, the more concerned his murmurings became, and the more tears flowed from my eyes. I wasn't crying because of Zoey anymore, although the horrific situation and the pressure of the day was part of it. I was crying because I was sitting there with Josh's arms around me, and I knew that it might be the only chance I got to be this close to him. That may have been the wrong thing to be thinking at the time, but I couldn't help it. I'd pushed thoughts of Josh away for so long, I was too tired to fight it anymore. I thought I'd take the unhappiness of what must come, as long as he kept holding me right now. After all I didn't know he wouldn't shut me out again after this. He didn't love me, I'd forced myself to believe that he never would, but the closeness of our friendship was something that I worshipped and adored.
Almost certainly clueless to the reason of my tears now, he kissed my forehead. His hands ran through my hair and across my neck. My spine tingled, and my tears stopped. I was practically sitting in his lap now. I wanted as much of my body touching him as possible. I kept my arms around him and pressed my face up to his neck trying to make all our pain go away.
He had one arm around my waist, the other one slowly running down my back. I stopped breathing, anxiously trying to guess how far down he would go. He stopped in the small of my back, and began to draw little circles across it. I looked up at him, and saw him watching my body so intently, in a way I'd never seen before, at least not by Josh. It was a look almost of awe. Suddenly I realized how the way he was holding me could look to anyone who came into the room, and just as suddenly realized I didn't care.
"Josh." I murmured breaking the silence.
"Hmm."
"Joshua?" I questioned quietly.
"Hmm?" He'd heard me that time. He tore his eyes away from my back and turned to glance at me with a far-away look in his eyes.
"What are you doing?" I asked, and immediately reproached myself in fear he would stop the rhythmic movements still being played up and down my spine. I felt his eyes focus on me properly, and it seemed that all the sadness in the world hung in his eyes. It probably did. He stopped caressing my back. I inwardly cursed, but my fears were immediately calmed when he pulled me tighter to him, still looking me in the eye.
"Is it wrong that I'm partly thinking of myself right now?" he questioned softly, not breaking the eye contact we had forged.
I knew he was headed right back to his guilt-ridden thought pattern.
"Josh, you can't keep blaming yourself for everything bad that happens around here! We work in the White House, for God's sake! The strain of you taking the blame for the countless things that go wrong in this building alone is killing you!" I exclaim, unable to keep my frustration in check. "Tell me one thing that you could have done that would have changed what happened to Zoey!"
He looked a little shocked at my outburst. I'm about to apologize when he begins to speak with quiet resolution in his voice.
"I get that it doesn't make sense, I've been told so a lot. It's just that Zoey is," he said almost too emphatically, I involuntarily winced, "like a little sister. And I don't have a lot of friends, family or people who are close to me. I work too hard. God knows, most people don't like me, just ask anyone on the Hill." He tried to grin, but the laughter didn't come close to reaching his eyes.
I didn't laugh, didn't respond with a smile, and I knew he didn't want me to. He was just being Josh, and his half of our banter came naturally to him even in the worst of times. He continued after a second, with none of the sparkle his voice usually had when he was joking with me.
"I've lost a lot of friends, one way or another. Leo says I'm a compulsive fixer, that I walk around with so much guilt because the people I love keep dying."
"I know," I reply gently, "he told me. I...you see..." I stopped. I couldn't think of anywhere to go from there. I wanted to comfort him. The only thing I could think to say was "It's not your fault."
He seemed to ignore this. I was not surprised. His head might have believed the truth of my outburst, but his heart refused to accept it. I wondered if it's completely futile trying to rid him of his guilt completely, because this is the way it's always been for him. Others fall apart, then Josh falls apart, then I put him back together by forcing logic upon him until he appears to forget. I fall apart later.
"I'm so thankful for the people that I have now, even though I'm constantly terrified I'm going to lose them. For Toby, CJ, Leo, even the President...and for you, Donna. Especially you. I don't know how I'd cope without you."
Even as my heart swelled at this unexpected compliment, I mentally shrank back. I didn't want him to keep saying things he might not really mean, because he was so exhausted he'd turned to the first source of comfort.
"You should go home, get some rest, you're worn out." I realised it physically pained me to tell him to leave my embrace. He didn't move though, he just watched me with such concentration in his eyes. He reached out with one hand, and gently stroked my cheek. It sounds clichéd, but electricity sparkled between us, and I was helpless under his hand. He opened his mouth to speak.
"There's a quote, Donna, it goes "Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves". It's Eleanor Roosevelt, I think."
"No, it's Thoreau." Again, these few words were all I could manage, as his thumb worked magic against my cheek. He gazed at me a second almost expectantly, I barely noticed, and then suddenly he began to speak again.
"'In tragedy we turn to the ones we love, the ones that we adore but never had the courage to tell them so, before the fear of disaster instilled the audacity into our hearts.' That's Eleanor Roosevelt, for sure."
"No, Josh. It's J.H. Roberts," I replied quickly. "Oh!" I gasped as I deciphered the meaning of what he was saying. My brain seemed to stop working temporarily.
I dimly registered him smiling at me… He smiled at me! Mission accomplished. His brown eyes grinned down at me. My Josh was back!
For the second time that night I saw that mixture of awe and surprise in his eyes. He had forgotten everything else: this day, his job, even Zoey. Then it hit me. I knew why he was looking at me differently. I had always wondered why he seemed to need me as much as I needed him. All this time I thought I was the only one who was in love. I had always believed that I understood Josh completely, but now I saw that I had only just achieved that.
My mouth fell open, I may have gasped because his smile widened like he read my mind, and he lent down and kissed me. It was tender and innocent at first, giving way to the passion and the enthusiasm that resulted from years of pent-up emotions.
In that moment we'd forgotten about Zoey and the President and everyone else around us. It all came back the day after, of course, and we had to face it and make it right. Eventually we did, because the next day it wasn't all so bad, because we had woken up next to each other, to face it together.
THE END.