Work Text:
Show me a smile then
Don't be unhappy, can't remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You can call me up
Because you know I'll be there
And I see your true colors shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow
She drops everything she’d been carrying the second the door is closed behind her. She steps out of her shoes and shrugs off her grey suit jacket on her way to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind her. Her apricot-colored satin blouse itches, and she tears it off, distracted for a second by the sound of something small clattering on the floor tiles. Everything feels so hot, and her skin feels ten sizes too small. She rids herself of her pants and underwear and sits down in the shower, reaching up blindly to turn on the water.
The feeling of the first drops startles her, the warm water slowly running down the side of her face and down her neck. No, this isn’t what she needs. She turns one knob all the way back, and then the other all the way forward, making the water as cold as possible and the spray as intense as it goes. The cold water chills her in an instant and she can finally breathe. Cold, not hot. Wet, not dry. The loud smattering of the water hitting the tiles, not deafening silence that allows her to hear her own thoughts.
She’s not even sure what caused it this time. Other times there’s been something tangible, like three black Suburbans waiting for them when they step off Air Force One, fireworks at their first Fourth of July with the Santos administration, newspaper clippings from the explosion, a nightmare where she wakes up gasping for air, or any number of things. She had wrecked her brain trying to find a clue as to why she was feeling like she was dissolving into nothing on her way home, but this time she comes up empty. Instead, she lets her mind wander, the rush of the water fading into white noise after a while.
When she was younger, she used to yearn for excitement, something to sweep her off her feet from the diner she worked at, take her far away. She dreamt of an epic romance that could have been taken straight from a novel by Nicholas Sparks, a romance that could even be tragic, just so she could feel something. Now, she has seen more tragedy than she thought was possible and felt physical and psychological pain the depths of which she could never describe. Sometimes she hates her younger self. And then she shamefully admits to herself that she’s just jealous of herself from fifteen years ago. The Donna whose biggest problem was deciding on a major in college or choosing what dress to wear to the sorority party. The Donna who hadn’t known true fear, or true pain.
She is so tired, but closing her eyes doesn’t feel like an option, so she tracks a droplet on the glass partition in the shower, from the top and all the way down. And then she does it again. And again. And again, until her pulse has slowed somewhat.
If she could tell her younger self one thing it would be that all of those big feelings she longed for, they reside in their truest form in the mundane and not in the extremes. In being so close to someone that they know exactly how you like your coffee. In being so intimately familiar with someone that they know how you like your clothes folded and sorted into the drawers. In being comforted by the smallest of touches, a pinky hooked around yours, a hand resting at the small of your back. In them knowing what you need without you needing to ask for it. In being there, always. The Donna of ten years ago might have never experienced the gut-wrenching moments when she didn’t know if the man she loved would survive, or the fear of dying on an operating table in a foreign country. But neither had the old Donna experienced a love as safe and comforting as the one she now felt and received from Josh.
He finds her like that, sitting in the shower, the cold water running over her shoulders, hair plastered to her face, staring at nothing. He strips silently, turns the heat up slightly and joins her, sitting down next to her. He bumps her shoulder with his. “Hey.”
She doesn’t react when he sits down. He must have left the White House just minutes after her, she hasn’t been sitting here long. Or maybe she has been sitting here for hours. She honestly can’t tell.
“Bad day?” he asks. She nods, eyes still fixed on the water drops. He presses a kiss to her shoulder, “is this okay?” She nods again and leans into him.
“I’m not sure why- what- what reminded me of-” she says after a while, trying to put into words a feeling she knows he understands. She hates that he knows how she feels on days like this but can’t help to feel a little bit comforted. If she would have to live her life trying to explain why she feels like this, it would be too much. Josh is always just there, listening to all the things she says, and understands all the things she doesn’t.
He keeps pressing kisses to her shoulder, her neck, wherever he can reach.
“Josh, I’m- I’m just so tired of feeling like this,” she sighs.
“I know,” he murmurs, his arms tightening around her, “I know.”
She is thankful he doesn’t try to tell her it will disappear, that one day she won’t even remember. She knows that’s not true. Almost ten years later, he still wakes up in a cold sweat some nights, hands clawing at his chest. But, she thinks as she leans further into him, pressing her back against his chest to feel his heartbeat, at least now he has her. And she’s got him.