A/N: Hey all! This here chapter is dedicated to Amemsmom. And you know why? It's because I got a review from them yesterday, on this story that hadn't been reviewed in a while (because it's been forever since I updated). And I was like Oh. Shit. Because at that time, this chapter did not exist. Not at all. Not one word of it. I've written it all in the past 24 hours. And while I appreciate all of your reviews (seriously, you guys are all the bomb dot com) you can all thank Amemsmom for the one that pushed me to action, haha.

Sorry I've been slacking, everyone. I love you guys and hope you'll forgive me.

Disclaimer: Not mine yadda yadda you get it

Rating: T

Reviews: Yes please! Even though I don't deserve them, I'd still love to hear what you guys think about this long overdue update.

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Josh wakes up with a jump at his alarm clock going off, alerting him that it was 6:00. He scrambles to shut it off, registering slight surprise that Donna was still here, in bed beside him. He half expected that she had been an apparition.

He sits up on the edge of the bed, staring straight ahead. At her voice, he twists around to look at her.

"Where are you going?"

He looks at her, sleep muddled and so real, and he smiles a little. "I have to get ready for work, Donnatella. It's Monday, remember?"

"It is?"

"Yes. I'd imagine you have to be at work, too, at some point."

"Not until nine."

"Lucky."

"Come back here. Work can wait." She reaches out a long, lanky limb to touch him, her voice wheedling.

"I've gotta go shower."

"No."

"Yes." But he bends down to kiss her, anyway. He kisses her, his hand in her terribly tangled hair, her lips dry and parting immediately. "You can stay and sleep, if you want."

"Mm." She closes her eyes, burrowing into his pillows. "Jerk."

He chuckles, and reluctantly steps into his bathroom. By the time he's back in his bedroom, she's gone, but her clothes remain on the floor. He gets dressed, curiously, and follows the smell of fresh coffee into the kitchen.

There she is, barefoot on the tile floor, wearing his shirt from the previous night. Her chaotic hair falls over her shoulders and glints in the fluorescent light. She turns to smile at him brightly. "Morning."

"I thought you were going back to sleep."

"You're not getting away from me that easily. Anyway, I made coffee."

But he couldn't give less of a damn about coffee in that moment. He grabs her, one hand on her waist, and the other on the back of her neck. He pushes her against the fridge, and she giggles madly, her hands on his chest.

"You're not wearing anything under that, are you?"

"Nope. Nothing."

"You're trying really hard to keep me from going to work, aren't you?"

"Pulling out all the stops." She mumbles, smiling against his throat. He meets her mouth with his, kissing her feverishly, trying to erase the last sixth months from his mind with the force of this moment. A phone rings, he doesn't know or care whose, and they ignore it. He is holding her tightly, too tightly, because he is still afraid she will fade away at any moment.

When the phone rings for the second time, she pulls back breathlessly. Her lips are swollen and her hands freeze at his fourth shirt button. She looks up at him with wide eyes. "That's me. It could be my boss."

He sighs. His forehead comes to a rest on the refrigerator door, his chin against her shoulder. "You should probably get that, then." He doesn't move, though, from where he's got her practically pinned. His hands are firmly holding onto her hips.

"Josh?"

"Mm?"

"You've gotta let me go." She says with laughter in her voice.

"Right." He finally releases her, and she treads weak-kneed into the living room to retrieve her phone from her bag, but not before kissing his cheek apologetically.

When she picks up her cell phone, she sees that she has two missed calls and a voicemail. Stomach filling with dread, she opens it and presses the button to listen.

She forces her eyes shut at the voice on the other end. "Hey, Donna, it's me. I don't really understand what happened last night, but I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I know you needed time to cool off, and I get that, but I'm starting to get worried. I called CJ, because I thought you might be there, but she said you weren't, so I called your old place to see if you went to stay with your roommate, but... God, Donna, I'm freaking out. I never meant for things to get out of hand, and I love you, and please call me, or just come home. Please come home."

With shaking hands, she snaps her phone shut. When she finally opens her eyes, it's to find Josh looking at her curiously.

"Who was that?"

And she can't lie to him. Not anymore. "It was Scott."

"Oh... Oh." The calm, peaceful expression slips from his face in an instant. He forces himself to appear neutral, but it's forced. "What did he want?"

Her voice is barely above a whisper. "He wanted to know where I was."

His brow furrows. "Why would he want to know that?"

"Probably because... Because." She forces air in and out of her lungs, in and out. She reaches over to her purse, on the sofa beside her, and roots around for something in the bottom. She finds it, finally, and holds up the diamond ring with trembling hands. "Probably because I'm still technically engaged to him."

"You're... You're..." He can't form the words. He can't articulate the crushing weight that has just landed on his chest. She no longer looks so tempting, standing there with her messy hair and his shirt falling off her shoulders. She looks unreal. Wispy, intangible. Like something he'd never really had. "I can't fucking believe you." He says with as much venom as he can muster. But he imagines that he just sounds robbed. That's how he feels.

Her eyes are filling up with tears, and she takes a step toward him. "Josh, no. I didn't. I mean, I'm not going to be engaged to him for much longer, and-"

"You cheated. You cheated on him with me."

"I... I didn't think..."

"Oh, would you quit looking at me like that?" He bursts out angrily. He glares at her. "You can cut the crap, Donna. The tears and all that bullshit. Stop acting like you're the victim in this. Because you're not."

Her shoulders are starting to shake. "I never wanted this to happen."

"Of course you didn't, Donna! But you're an adult, now, for Christ's sake. You have to make some decisions. You can't just keep running. From Dr. Free ride to me. Back to him. Back to me again. To Jack, to me, to Scott, to me, what the fuck is next? You've gotta make up your mind. You've gotta find out what you want."

This goads her into strength. She swallows her tears and glares at him. "I am not just the sum of all the men in my life, Joshua."

"I know you're not. But you're sure as hell acting like it."

"I want you, okay? That's what I want."

"Since when? Last night? While you were still engaged to some other guy? No. I'm sorry. But that doesn't cut it."

"Where are you going?" She asks, watching him collect his coat and his shoes.

"I'm going to work, Donna, what do you think? I'm getting away from you. I can't even look at you." He gives her one last glare before heading for the door.

"But I'm not done talking to you." She protests, taking another step toward him. He gives her a wary look.

"Well that's really too bad, because I'm done listening."

"Aren't you going to... I don't know, kick me out?"

"What the fuck do I care? Stay, if you want. Just be gone by the time I'm back."

The door slams, and she looks around the empty apartment. She's alone, with a full pot of coffee, wiping her eyes on sleeves that weren't hers. And she only had one person to blame.

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Josh leaves work around six. Try as he might to bury himself in work, as was his usual coping method, he kept finding himself distracted. He kept trying to shake the memory of her kiss. Of her, ethereal and unreal, a beautiful mirage. He kept trying to ignore the crushing weight in his chest.

It wasn't his own decision to leave work, of course. But after he'd called and yelled at the wrong congressman, after he'd accidentally spouted the energy consumption statistics from 1994 instead of 2004 in a meeting with the ambassador to the Emirates, and after he'd sent out a memo on the Iran Contra affair of 1987 rather than the actual assigned topic, which was contraband on Iranian vessels, Leo showed him the door with direct orders to "take a nap or something. Just don't come back until you can function at a higher level than the President's six year old grandson."

In his opinion, his contextualization of the Iran-Contra affair and its relation to current foreign relations was actually quite inspired.

He drags himself in the door of his dark apartment. He's almost disappointed that it's empty. But then, he's relieved. He presses the button on his answering machine, and both of those feelings dissipate.

"Hey. It's me. I just wanted to let you know that I'm on my way to talk to Scott. Didn't think I should bother you at work, so I, umm. Called here. Even though I just left here. Decided not to go to work today. Just the latest in my incredible streak of bad decisions. I cleaned your apartment, by the way. I couldn't just sit there, so. I cleaned it."

She sounds slightly embarrassed by this. He remembers fondly her tendency for "stress-cleaning." During his recovery, the apartment was spotless. He looks around to see that no longer are there papers strewn on every surface. The counters, and the floor, gleam. He can smell pinesol.

"But, yeah. Please call me. I know that you're really pissed at me, but... I love you. And I'm not saying that because I feel trapped with Scott, and I'm not saying it in that helpless way, like 'what can I do?' I'm just saying it because I mean it. And I'm really sick of being helpless. And what you said this morning... Well, you had a point."

There is a pause, and he can see her, in her car or on the sidewalk or wherever, he can see her exact expression. He can see her biting her lip, brow furrowed, frustrated to accept defeat.

"Anyway. Please call me. Not so I can explain myself, because there's really not much to explain. But I just want to tell you I'm sorry. There. I said it. I'm sorry. Okay. Bye."

He hears his machine start playing his next message, from his mother most likely, but he can't hear it. He can't hear anything. He grabs his keys and is out the door before he can stop himself.

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He finds her exactly where he'd expected to. She sits on the steps of her apartment building - or perhaps just Scott's apartment building, now - with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them tightly. It's hot outside (he'd long since ditched his tie and coat) but he thinks that she might be shivering in the warm evening breeze. He strolls up to her, hands in his pockets.

"Hey."

She looks up at him. If she's surprised by his presence, she doesn't show it. "Hey."

"Wanna go for a walk?"

"Okay."

He helps her up from the stoop, but lets go of her hand shortly thereafter. They walk together in silence for more than a few blocks, only stopping when they reach a little square park, a stone fountain in the middle. He sits on the fountain's edge and she follows suit, watching him for any signs as to what he might be thinking.

Finally, she decides to break the silence. "I told Scott what happened."

He nods. "And how'd he take it?"

"Me cheating on him? Oh, he was thrilled." He gives her a look. "We broke up. But I was going to do that anyway."

"Right."

"Yeah."

"Did you tell him it was me?"

She shrugs. "He guessed."

"Ah." Josh processes this. "So... how are you feeling?"

She turns to him with a slight smile. "Me? What does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

"Oh, does it now?"

"I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I mean, I meant it. But I shouldn't have been so... I don't know."

"No, it's okay. You were right." She looks down at her hands. She'd grown accustomed to fiddling with her engagement ring, and without it, she doesn't know what to do. She settles for picking at her nails. "It's just that... I was starting to resent you."

He furrows his brow. "Me?"

"Yeah. I didn't like that I felt... beholden to you. I didn't like feeling like you controlled my life."

"I never meant to-"

"I know you didn't. But that's how it felt. I felt like you already occupied so much space in my life, like I already cared about you so much. And then you wanted more. And god... I really didn't want to give it to you." Her chin falls to her chest, her hair shielding her face. She'd brushed it since this morning.

"I didn't think about it like that."

"I felt like that's what everyone expected of me. Josh Lyman's doting assistant, who'd one day fall in love with him and give him the last bit of herself that she had left." Her face is just as he'd pictured it earlier. The furrowed brow, the bitten lip. "I just didn't want my life to hinge upon you, you know?"

He speaks softly. "I never saw you like that, Donna."

"But I did."

"I shouldn't have butted into your engagement. It was inappropriate, it was presumptuous, it was-"

"It was the right thing to do. If you hadn't, I'd still be marrying a guy I don't really love."

"I'm still sorry, though."

"I am too."

And there it was. The crushing weight on his chest lightens, and the gnawing pit of guilt her stomach settles. Not forever, and not completely, but enough to breathe.

"So what now?" He asks.

"Well." She shakes her head. "I have to find a place to sleep tonight."

"You could stay with me." He offers.

She looks at him, smiling gently. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Because it won't just be one night. It'll blur into a week, into a month, and... I just think that I should live by myself for a while."

He can't fault her. "You're right. You should."

"But... as far as we go."

"Yes. As far as we go." He stares straight ahead. Where the hell did they go from here?

"I still want to be with you."

"Yeah?"

"That much has always been clear to me, believe it or not."

He can't help smiling at that. He slips his hand into hers, their first physical contact since he'd helped her off the stoop. "So."

"So..." She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "So, let's take it slow."

"That's probably for the best."

"I don't want to barge into your apartment in the middle of the night and have sex with you anymore." He gives her a look, and she blushes. "I mean, I do. But I want to do all the other stuff too. I want to go out. I want us to learn to like each other again, without feeling bad about it."

"That sounds like a good plan." He squeezes her hand.

She nods, looking more at ease than she had in months. "So I'll call CJ, and see if I can stay with her tonight."

Josh laughs. "Oh, she's gonna have a cow with this one."

"Probably."

"When do you move your stuff out of Scott's place?"

"Thursday, while he's at work."

"I can help, if you want."

"That'd be great, actually. Thanks."

"And then afterward, we could, I dunno. Do something. Get something to eat."

She turns to look at him, one eyebrow quirked up. "Are you asking me out?"

He shrugs, grinning madly. "Maybe."

"Well. I accept."

"Good." He stands, and pulls her up with him. "C'mon, I'll walk you to your car."

"Worried about me?"

He ignores her. "But I think I'll kiss you here. Because it'd be bad tact to do it in front of Scott's building, I reckon."

"You're so considerate." She grins, leaning in.

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For a year, Scott doesn't see Donna Moss at all. He returns home on Thursday to a decidedly empty apartment, and his key arrives at his office by Friday morning. It was as if she had never existed. She was like a wonderful dream, turned nightmare. And then he'd woken up, when all he wanted was to keep dreaming. He realizes they'd built a life on borrowed time. She'd never been his. His apartment looked like it had been robbed, and he had only a ghost to blame.

But a year later, he finds himself face to face with his ghost. And he is forced to reconcile the fact that it really had happened, whether or not he'd been sleepwalking.

He is sitting at a table by the window in in a coffee shop he didn't often visit. He wasn't normally one to pass time sipping espresso and reading the paper, but he'd found himself waking up earlier than usual these days, and he needed some place to kill time before work - someplace he wouldn't be alone with his thoughts. Today, he had a consultation across town, and was thus trying out someplace new. The coffee was pretty okay. Maybe he'd stop by again.

But then, out the window, just feet away from him, he sees them. They are separated from him by only an inch of glass, and they don't seem able to see through it to where he sits, staring.

They're arguing about something. That much he can tell. She's talking at high speed, and gesturing with her hands, a mode he recognizes with a pang. They stop a few feet from the door to the shop, and he stands in front of her, cutting her off occasionally with a smarmy grin. She keeps glancing at her watch, like there's somewhere she needs to be, but also continues to smile playfully at him, like there's no one she'd rather have making her late. Eventually, she cuts him off by holding up a hand, and points to her watch again. He gives her a disappointed look, but it melts into a smile when she leans in to kiss him.

At this point, Scott tries to look away. He really does. But he can't help watching their kiss, and comparing it in his mind to the many he'd shared with his ex-fiancee. Whereas the peck she would give Scott before they parted ways in the morning was practically platonic, this kiss clearly held more. She has one hand on the back of his neck, and his are on her waist. It's not an inappropriate display of affection, per se, but it was enough to make you think that they didn't really hold much regard for their surroundings. And then the kiss is over, and they're smiling at each other and they're saying something and then she's walking away. She's walking away, and Scott hadn't even gotten the chance to speak her. He hadn't confirmed that she was real.

The wrong person is entering the coffee shop. Josh steps through the door, and the little bell chimes. He joins the back of the line, and he definitely hasn't noticed Scott. Scott braces himself, somehow unable to get up and walk out. Maybe he wants to be seen.

Eventually, he is. Josh turns around after ordering and his jaw practically drops. He stares at Scott for a few seconds, as if he is trying to decide if it's really him. But then he's closed his mouth, and with a shake of his head, he's approaching the table. Before Scott can escape, the man he'd spent a year trying to hate is standing in front of him, a timid half-smile on his face.

"Hi, Scott. It's been a while."

"Josh. Yeah, hi."

"Mind if I sit down?"

"No, by all means." Why is he being so polite?

Josh pulls up a chair, and spends a not-entirely-socially-acceptable length of time just looking at him. "So, how you been, man?"

Oh, fantastic. Ever since my fiancee left me for you, I've been on the up and up. "Fine. And you?"

"I'm great." He catches himself, realizing this sounds too much like gloating. "Umm, good, I mean."

"That's good."

"What brings you around here? I thought you lived on the other side of town."

"I do. But I'm meeting a client around here in half an hour."

"Ah."

But Scott isn't really listening. He's staring at the third finger of Josh's left hand. After a moment of some small-talk babble, Josh notices and meets his eyes with a touch of apprehension.

"Oh. Yeah. We got married a few months ago."

"Oh."

Josh stares at him a little longer, wondering what to say. Eventually, he smiles slightly. "If you're miffed about not getting an invite, it was really small. It was at city hall. There were like ten people there."

"Huh." He knows that Josh isn't trying to be a jerk. He was just naturally abrasive. But Scott can't help remember Donna's meticulous wedding planning, her fretting over table settings and color schemes. She had cared so much about their wedding. But with Josh, evidently she hadn't. It wasn't about the wedding - it was about who she was marrying.

Josh shifts uncomfortably, having detected that he'd caused some tension. "I don't think I ever apologized, Scott."

Scott closes his eyes. "Don't."

"It's just, I didn't think you'd want to see me, and I didn't know how to-"

"Don't." Scott holds up a hand and opens his eyes. "It wasn't your fault. It's just one of those things."

Josh furrows his brow at him, puzzled. But Scott doesn't feel like explaining. He doesn't feel like talking about something he'd spent a year trying to erase from his memory. "Okay, Scott. I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well. I'm sorry too."

Josh's drinks come up, and he stands to get them. He pauses beside Scott's table again on his way out. "Well, I'd, uh, better go. I'm bringing her coffee, because apparently that's my job now." He chances a slight smirk and roll of his eyes. As if to say, See, even paradise has its drawbacks. "Or, well, tea."

Scott squints at him. "Since when does she drink tea?"

Josh looks like he's very much regretting adding in that detail. The guy really could put his foot in his mouth like no one else. "Well, uhh. Since she got pregnant."

"She's pregnant?"

"Yeah. Only six weeks, but yeah." His eyes betray him. They're shining.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks, man." Josh regards him curiously. "Anyway. It was good to see you."

"Yeah. You too." And strangely enough, he means it. Because perhaps he and Donna had built a life on borrowed time, but today had given him hope. Today had given him hope that one day soon, maybe he'd find someone he loved as much as Donna loved her chaotic former boss, or as much as Josh loved his dynamic former assistant. What he had had with Donna had been the ghost of a relationship. But he'd just witnessed the real thing. And that's what he wants.

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Aaaaaand that's a wrap! Hope you guys liked it. Leave me a review letting me know what you think!

Why was I so into the ghost/dream/(un)real theme in this chapter? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me, you guys. It's been a blast, and my readers keep me going. Love you all!