Work Text:
“Josh!”
“What?”
“Mail!”
Donna hears some grumbling, the normal bout of flared annoyance, before her boss appears in his open doorway. Hair disheveled, collar crinkled, sigh leaving his nose. She smiles bright, knowing he spent another full night here. She holds out a cup of coffee under his nose.
“Donna—”
“I didn’t specifically stop in for you. I wanted a mocha and thought to be nice for once.”
More grumbling, but he wordlessly grabs the cup from her hand, fingers brushing fingers, before taking a lengthy sip. “You said there was mail?” He follows her to her desk, stopping when she does by the filing cabinet.
“Yes, it appears,” she replies, grabbing the thick stack from beside her purse and handing it to him. “Good thing your personal address hasn’t been leaked to your little fangirls yet. I’d hate to see what their egos try to send you there instead of a federal building.”
“Jealousy doesn’t look good on you, Donnatella,” he idly comments, a half-hearted smirk in his voice.
“A full night’s sleep does though,” she shoots back, lips curled in triumph at her better quip. He just glances at her from beneath his eyelashes where he’s perusing through the envelopes in hand, blatantly ignoring her. She wonders if he considered calling her last night to come in at one in the morning like he’s done countless times before. She’s not sure if she would have been annoyed by it or not.
“Here, some of this is for you,” Josh tells her, picking out a few manila folders and such to give back to her. “Looks like I’m not the only one with secret admirers.”
“More like people will address documents to me because they know I’ll read it instead of you.”
He sends her another exhausted look, bypassing her to head back to his office. “You wound me,” he jokes. He’s still sipping at his coffee though and it puts a little bloom of warmth in her chest.
After clearing out what she needs to stay in her morning routine, she grabs the mail Josh had handed back to her and flicks through what’s there. Something from the CDC, a memo from the Natural Resources Defense Council, a dense folder that actually might be for Sam and not Josh, plus a—
Donna takes pause, chest squeezing. She lets herself breathe for one, two, three seconds before she turns over the thin white envelope, sliding her finger under the pressed down lip. She rips it upward, heart in her throat.
There’s a single sheet of paper tucked inside. She unfolds it, flattening it open, fingers shaking where it’s in her grip.
The words are printed in neat black print. Only a few lines. It takes about six read-throughs for it to sink in. Her pulse is in her ears and something is stinging behind her eyes. She clears her throat, stumbling away from her desk chair.
“Josh?” she calls, grabbing hold of the glass wall to steady herself as she comes closer to his office doorway.
There isn’t an answer right away so she tries again.
“Josh!”
“What?”
Donna’s in his doorway now, aware that he’s staring at her from behind his desk, but she’s still looking down at the sheet of paper. Like if she looks away it will disappear, like a figment of her imagination. Like this is all just some weird dream she’s having, and she’ll wake up to Josh calling her to come in to work two hours early, pull an all-nighter with him to go over some policy—
“Donna?” His voice is closer, maybe softer, too. “What’s wrong?”
She can’t speak. Can’t put into words what’s going through her right now. So she just meets his eyes, barely, flickering from his worried gaze to the wall over his shoulder. Instead she just holds out the piece of paper, feeling like it’s so small, so worthless, yet so heavy.
Josh peels his line of sight from her face to grab the paper, looking down at it. She watches his eyes move over the words, reading them in her brain with him as he goes.
Donna Moss:
I’m collecting all the guns you’ve banned
and there’s a bullet with your name on it in each one
When he’s done, his face has darkened, jaw rigid and eyebrows lowered. She thinks he reads it a second time, can’t be sure, before he looks back up at her. “Where’s the envelope?” he asks, voice tight.
Donna swallows, feeling slow. Sluggish. “Uh—I think I set it on my—”
He’s gone before she can acknowledge it, and soon she’s sitting in the chair in front of his desk, also not sure when she decided to move there. But it’s where Josh finds her upon coming back in his office, frantic and focused. He’s breathing a bit heavy. “There’s not a return address,” he points out aloud, not necessarily to her.
“Josh—”
He paces over to his desk, hand finding the receiver of his phone. “I’m getting an agent over here. I don’t want you anywhere alone for the next year—”
“Josh, I’m—”
“I can’t believe that letter wasn’t red-flagged before it made it in the building, let alone the mail room—”
“Josh.”
He stops with the phone at his ear and looks over at her. She’s slack-jawed, unsure what it is she needs from him, but the stinging behind her eyes has gotten worse and—oh, she’s crying. The tear hits her upper lip, sliding into her mouth, and then more come before she can stop them.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Josh murmurs, phone clattering to the desk as he rounds it to come over to her. He crouches in front of her and lets his hand find her leg, warm and broad. “It’s okay, Donna, you’re safe—”
“This is stupid, so stupid, I know nothing is gonna—”
“No, you have every right to react like this,” he stops her, palm squeezing at her knee. She drinks in his open, encouraging face, the gentle firmness he’s showing her making her insides heat up. “This wasn’t okay, but you’re going to be fine. We’re going to keep you safe.”
She nods, trying to suppress the sobs clawing their way up her throat. Josh’s other hand reaches up and finds the side of her neck, pressing there to help his thumb swipe at her cheek to rid of some tears. The small smile that finds her lips feels unintentional.
“Here, I’m gonna call for an agent, give me—”
“No! Josh, I don’t want a fuss—”
“Donna, don’t fight me on this—”
“Joshua,” she huffs, hiccuping a bit at the force of air she lets out with the word. He’s halfway toward his phone but stops at the proclamation, turning to her with a quirked eyebrow. In any other situation she would say he looks amused at her usage of his full first name but knows it’s because he’s waiting for her to continue arguing. “I’m fine. We know threats like this never see the light of day. Do not stick some poor agent on me.”
“You know it’s just a precaution. Remember CJ? Remember how you reacted when—”
“She was getting e-mails. Constantly,” Donna reminds him, fluttering her hands about her space. He’s still peering down at her from his position on his feet, clearly attempting to find another sentence in his head that could convince her. “This is one letter. Let’s not make it something bigger than it needs to be unless it happens again.”
He inhales once, sharp. “Donna, I know you don’t want to be a bother. But you’re not. You’re never a bother. Please, just allow me to—”
“The answer is no.”
“Would it help if I told you I’d sleep a lot easier tonight knowing you’re under full protection by the U.S. government?” he tries, a lopsided, unsure grin taking over the corners of his lips.
Somehow, she manages a watery smile in return. “I thought I already was, seeing as I’ve been a citizen for the past thirty years?”
Josh huffs through his nose, face softening to something serious. He comes back over to her in front of his desk, leaning against the edge of it and crossing his arms over his chest. “If you won’t let me call an agent for you then at least let me get you home safe. It’d probably be best if you take the rest of the day off.” She watches his eyes harden at the suggestion, already seeing the possibility of a fight growing him.
“Josh—”
“If you’re about to argue please save it for someone else.”
“Hiding out at home to potentially wait for a threat that will never come is pointless,” Donna smarts back. “I’d rather be useful here. If it gets overwhelming I will let you know.”
The gaze they haughtily share borders on the unspoken agreement that, no, they both know she will not let him know. She’s far too stubborn and willing to help and he’s far too indebted to her assistance for that to be a real possibility. At least her hands have stopped shaking. Josh’s office does have a ridiculous lack of tissues so she’s settled for using the sleeves of her cardigan to wipe under her eyes.
Her boss clears his throat. “Donna.”
She lands her still-wet glare near his shoulder. “What?”
Judging by the way he won’t quite look at her and how his shoulders have tensed, her stomach curls knowing he’s about to say something he normally wouldn’t. Now he has her attention.
“Ever since CJ, this has been my biggest fear,” Josh admits quietly, jaw working roughly. “I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for the next shoe to drop. And now that it has, you’re making me go against every instinctual, rational, logical bone in my body.”
“Employees receive threats every day, it was bound to happen to someone again—”
“It didn’t happen to someone, Donna, it happened to you.”
Her heart seizes in her throat. The fire in his voice brightens the honey-warm feeling bubbling in her abdomen, making her eyes snap to his lightning fast. Her fingers clench around the armrests of his office chair, breath stuttering.
His biggest fear was this exact thing happening to her. Not just any random someone in the White House. Oh. Oh.
Donna mirrors him, clearing her throat. “I see.”
There’s silence for a moment after that, charging the air around them. He’s still against his desk in front of her, looking into her eyes while also just quite not. He seems to be considering, contemplating. She crosses her legs, unsure of what else to do. Then, the tension breaks as he blinks, a bit of the fog swirling around them fading away.
“You can stay,” he acquiesces, “but I’m going to drive you home tonight and not leave until I know you’ve made it inside okay.”
She nods, the back of her mouth thick again. “I can deal with that.”
“You’re going to have to.”
Donna decides she’s had enough of tugging on this tether dangling between them for one day and gets to her feet. As she goes to slide away from Josh toward his open doorway, he reaches out and grabs her hand, quick and gentle. Her head turns to meet him, idle and patient.
She knows Josh pretty well at this point. Can read his body, his heart, all without meaning to. Right now, she can tell he wants to say more, has paragraphs perched on the edge of his tongue. And she watches as he swallows it all down and settles for: “Let me know if you need anything.” Then he finishes it with a small perk of the lips, releasing the grip he has on her fingers.
“Of course.”
She exits, hearing the sound of a paper being ripped to shreds as she does.