Josh dropped the bucket he was trying to fill with ice and swore. He bent to retrieve it and winced. Putting ice on his sore back seemed like a good idea in theory, but not if he had to injure himself further. Not that he was injured, per se, unless you counted stress, exhaustion, a chronic inability to sleep- and a gaping hole in his chest where his heart was supposed to be after a certain blonde who shall remain nameless walked away with it– he wasn't really injured unless you counted those things as an injury. He knew it was just his old back problems coming back to haunt him from the shooting, but somehow it seemed more like fate was conspiring against him to bring his physical state of being in line with his emotional state by making his back muscles seize up in this God forsaken hotel in Iowa.

He glanced up at the vending machine on his left and for a split second he considered buying a pack of cigarettes and anaesthetizing himself against the pain with nicotine. He was surprised at himself at the thought. He hadn't smoked since college, and then only occasionally. He hadn't been the least bit tempted by cigarettes in more years than he could remember.

He wouldn't do it, of course. The ravages of lung cancer would practically be a relief compared to the state he was in right now, but he was a Democrat, dammit. He was ideologically opposed to adding to the dollar power of Big Tobacco by even five bucks, and besides Donna would kill him if she ever found out he was even thinking about it–

He kicked himself inwardly. She would not, he reminded himself savagely. First of all, there's no way she would ever find out, seeing as you're not really speaking to each other. Second of all, she wouldn't give a damn even if she did.

The fact that he had no idea if this were true thoroughly depressed him. He jabbed savagely at the button on the ice machine in a vain effort to clear his mind of her for at least one fucking minute.

He heard a rustling, and a startled "Oh–" and looked up to see her in the doorway, half-turned, as though she'd intended to go back the way she came once she saw him, but had been caught by his gaze before she could complete her escape.

Figures, he thought to himself. Speak of the devil. Only with her long hair loose around her shoulders and her lips softly parted, she looked more like an angel. She wasn't an angel, though; she was human: sarcastic, sweet, heartbreaking, and just as lovely as ever. He let his eyes rake over her as they were always wont to do, this time without exercising the restraint he had always made an effort to employ in the past. He wondered if she had any idea how attractive she looked in her mismatched pajamas. She probably didn't, which made her all the more irresistible. He regarded her openly, making no effort to hide his covetous gaze. She was already angry with him, so there was no incentive not to leer, and he intended to look his fill for once.

He smiled wryly, looking pointedly at her figure, poised for flight. "Leaving?" he said harshly. He meant it to hurt, and it did.

She turned crimson. "I was just– I was hungry. I was going to get something from the vending machine, but then I realized I don't have enough change-"

She was babbling, just as she always did when she was nervous. Wordlessly, he took out a bill and put it into the machine. He punched two buttons and a bag of Cheez-its and a Twix bar fell into the tray. He picked them up and handed them to her, and hated himself for the way his heart involuntarily jumped when her soft fingers accidentally brushed his.

She took them with her head bowed, not meeting his eyes. "Thank you." He didn't reply. The fact that he'd remembered her favorites seemed significant in some way, but she was at a loss as to how to respond. "I can go get your change–" she said hesitantly.

"Forget it." He went back to jabbing the ice machine button. He looked mad.

She felt she'd been dismissed, but she couldn't bring herself to leave. She lingered in the doorway, trying to think of something to say, a peace offering, anything to make things less strained between them. "So... how are you?" she said finally.

"Just peachy," he said sarcastically.

"You look good," she tried. Flattery had always been a good tactic with him in the past.

He looked at her incredulously, and then turned back to jabbing the ice machine without deigning to respond. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Or maybe not.

"You guys did well today," she said, determined to sound cheerful.

He laughed harshly. "Sure. Nothing like undermining your own political values right out of the gate. Of course, that's better than not having any of your own to undermine in the first place," he said snidely.

She ignored the jibe at Russell. Okay, she had deserved that. Mentioning the ethanol pledge, that had just been stupid. A rookie mistake. She tried not to think about whether Russell deserved that or not because she was pretty sure he did. She changed tactics. "What do you need all this ice for, anyway?"

He hesitated for a fraction of a second. "I was going to make myself a drink."

He was driving her crazy the way he was stabbing that button. She stepped forward and pressed the button, holding it down. He inhaled sharply when she stepped close to him. He could smell her. Shit. That was just where he'd gone wrong yesterday, too, and what had nearly caused him to break down her door and throw himself begging at her feet, just because he'd caught a whiff of her hair when she'd leaned past him to open his door for him.

The ice came pouring out of the machine and the bucket was full at last. "Scotch on the rocks? I know you like to pretend to yourself that you can handle your liquor, but do you really think–" she stopped abruptly. He cringed as he saw the gears in her head click into place. Part of him was surprised it had taken her that long. In the old days she would have caught it right away. He didn't know whether to be depressed that she hadn't caught it as quickly as she once would have, or relieved that she'd caught it at all.

There was a moment of awkward silence. She turned her head slightly towards him. "Your back's bothering you, isn't it?"

It wouldn't do any good to deny it. He said nothing.

"From stress?" She knew him too well. Still, his only response was silence.

She sighed. "Why didn't you just say so?"

He shrugged uncomfortably.

"Have you been taking your medication?"

"When I remember," he said grudgingly.

"How often do you remember?"

"Every couple of days," he admitted.

She looked upset. "You're supposed to take them every day."

"What do you care?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, but he couldn't say he regretted them.

She looked like he'd slapped her in the face. She looked down. She was silent for a long moment, and then she took the ice bucket from him and started walking back down the hall towards their rooms. "I care," she said, so quietly he almost didn't hear her. Part of him wanted to press his advantage, to shout that if she cared, she had a fine way of showing it, what with leaving him, and all, but when it came right down to it, he was so wretchedly grateful that she'd bothered to contradict him at all that he said nothing, merely followed her silently down the hall.

She stopped in front of his door and held out her hand. "Give me your key."

He handed it to her without a fight, and followed her into his room a moment later when she opened the door. She set down the ice bucket on the dresser and started bustling around the room, rummaging through his baggage. He sat down on the bed, watching her warily.

She disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared with a glass of water and some pills. "Take these," she said, tipping the pills into his hand. He recognized his meds as well as a couple of Advil. He swallowed them dutifully with a large gulp of water.

"What was the last thing you ate?"

"Don't remember." He felt tired. His emotions churned inside him, his anger mixed in with relief that she was here talking to him at all and a pull deep in his gut that could only be called a kind of wistful longing. He wondered that her presence could magnify a sickening anguish that had plagued him for months at the same time that it eased something deep inside him. And that somehow the easing was more important.

She sighed. "You shouldn't take those on an empty stomach." She gave him half her Twix bar.

He was pathetic. She's back in his life five minutes and already he's depending on her, drawing immeasurable comfort from her mere presence. This was a bad sign, at least in terms of proving that he could survive without her. On the other hand, surviving without her wasn't working out so great for him, so what did he know?

"Horrible," he said suddenly.

She frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Before. By the ice machine. You asked how I'm doing. I'm doing horrible."

She grew very still. "Horrible?"

He raked his hand through his hair. "I'm tired, I'm stressed out, I can't sleep, I'm working twenty hours a day for a candidate who isn't sure he wants to run and who may or may not trust me, I'm miserable, and I feel like shit."

"You look like crap," she agreed.

He glanced at her. "I thought you said I looked good."

"I lied."

"Why?"

"I was trying to get you to talk to me."

He pondered this. "And now?"

"The dam has broken. Lie down."

He obeyed. It wasn't until he was flat on his back that he realized how odd it was he could refuse to speak to her for weeks, but at some level, his trust in her was so deeply ingrained that even in the middle of one of the more emotionally fraught conversations of a lifetime, he followed her directives blindly, without question.

"Turn over."

He turned so he was lying on his stomach. She wrapped the ice in a towel and placed it at the small of his back.

It was freezing.

"You still hate icing your injuries, I see," she commented, noting his grimace. "I'm surprised you were going to do it voluntarily."

"Well, you always said it was good for me." Belatedly, he realized this was probably the nicest thing he'd said to her since they met at the ice machine, and wished he'd offered something a little better in terms of an olive branch.

She was quiet for a long moment. "So... the ethanol pledge," she said hesitantly.

"Hm," Josh said, his eyes closed, thinking about how he could feel her sitting next to him on the bed.

"I was surprised he took it."

Josh opened his eyes. "He didn't want to. I convinced him to do it."

She nodded. "It was the right thing to do politically. If he doesn't make a strong showing in Iowa he hasn't got a chance."

"I wasn't surprised Russell took it." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them and he winced. So much for his olive branch.

She flinched.

He grasped for something to help him recover. "You said it was the right thing to do politically. Not the right thing to do. What would you have told him to do?"

"I would have told him to listen to you."

He brushed the compliment aside impatiently. "All right, what would you have told me to do?"

She hesitated. "I would have told you to find another way."

"Is that what you told Russell?" He didn't mean it as a jibe, but it came out that way.

She let it pass. "I wasn't asked."

He was surprised. "You weren't?"

"Will's calling the shots right now."

"His loss."

She let the compliment pass, too. "When did your back start hurting you again?"

"Couple of weeks ago."

"Cold weather never did agree with it, did it?" She took the ice off and put it back in the bucket. "Why do you think the Congressman doesn't trust you?"

"I don't know, it was just something I said," he mumbled into his pillow.

She sat down beside him again. "I don't think it was."

"He just– trying to get him to tell me stuff is like pulling teeth, and then when he does want to say something it's usually to forcefully object to the campaign strategy I've outlined."

"He's probably nervous. Give him some time. He'll get used to you."

Josh closed his eyes again and they were silent for a moment. He tried to say something to say, something that would communicate how much he missed her, how sorry he was for whatever it was he did that pissed her off so much, how he really didn't give a damn about Santos, or Russell, or any of it right now, he just didn't want to fight with her anymore. He was debating the relative merits of opening with a simple, "I'm sorry," or "I miss you," trying to decide which one was less terrifying in its truth, when he felt the bed shift under him and he panicked. "What are you doing?" She couldn't leave, not now, if she left he didn't think he'd be able to face another day in Iowa–

"I'm going to give you a massage."

He was so startled he couldn't even think of a randy remark. "Why?"

"Because you need one."

She placed her hands on his shoulders and started kneading his muscles. He bit his lip to keep from groaning aloud at the feeling of her touch.

"Why haven't you been sleeping?" she said after a moment as she continued her ministrations. Her fingers were gentle and firm, and felt amazing.

"Can't stop thinking," he grunted. "I try to drown it out with work but it doesn't work."

She worked the broad muscles of his back with sure, gentle fingers. "Can't stop thinking about what?"

"You," he said honestly.

She froze for a moment, then went back to massaging him as though nothing had happened. "About being mad at me."

He wondered if she'd hypnotized him with her touch, because he felt like he's been put under a spell, or drugged, because the words spilled out as though he'd taken truth serum; he didn't even try to pretend or evade. "Sometimes," he admitted. "I was pretty angry at you for leaving."

"You said was. Are you still mad at me for leaving?"

"I'm not mad at you for leaving anymore. Now I'm just mad at you for leaving me for Russell. And I know I don't have any right, but I don't think I can forgive you for that."

"You can't?"

"He doesn't deserve you, Donna. He's just not good enough for you, plain and simple."

"He was the logical choice at the time," Donna said, and he could hear her voice straining to stay light.

"But what about now? You know Santos would be a better President, I can hear it in your voice."

"That would be irresponsible of me," she said tightly. "I made a commitment, and I intend to see it through."

He exhaled. He didn't want to fight with her. Frankly, he thought it was a miracle they'd made it this far without devolving into a shouting match.

"So that's what's been keeping you awake at night?" she said bitterly. "My betrayal of you for Russell?"

"No." He hadn't meant to say that either, but he was glad he did, in this case. "That's just what I use to distract myself from the pain."

"The pain?" She sounded confused and Josh wondered if she could possibly be so clueless she didn't know what he was talking about.

He studied the grain of the headboard in front of him as she rubbed his lower back. "I said I wasn't angry about you leaving anymore, not that it didn't hurt."

She inhaled sharply. "Me leaving... hurt?"

Now it was his turn to make an effort to keep his voice light. "Hello? Pain, misery, sleeplessness– any of this ringing a bell?"

"Because of me?" she said faintly, working his muscles mechanically at this point.

He closed his eyes. Why pretend now? If he was going to be honest, he might as well go for broke. And he might as well be honest. He tried everything else he knew to stop the pain; this was the only thing he could think of that was left. "I hate not being with you." He paused. "I miss you."

She took a deep breath. "You do?"

He closed his eyes. "I know you think it's just the work, but it's not. I don't even know how you could think that, honestly. Work is harder, it's immeasurably harder. So much harder that sometimes I wonder if I'm not absolutely useless without you. I don't think it's just you, it's everything, but mostly I don't care about that, I just miss talking to you. I'm lonelier than I have ever been in my whole life. Toby and CJ aren't talking to me, and I hardly ever hear from Sam, and things are awful with you, and I just miss you so much..." He was sleepy, that's why he was rambling so much. He didn't usually ramble this much, at least not about anything besides politics, or maybe Donna's fingers were working out more than the kinks in his back; maybe her fingers were working out words buried deep inside him, causing them to rise to the surface, unbidden. Maybe her fingers were magic, and they had the power to make him ramble on like a fool, but he was so tired he didn't care, and he was more relaxed than he'd been in a longer time than he cared to remember, and it felt good, even if her magic fingers had reduced him to a puddle of incoherent, babbling flesh.

Vaguely he became aware that she'd stopped massaging him; his muscles were relaxed, his back felt amazing. He didn't think he ever wanted to move from this spot. Moreover, he was fighting off sleep; sleep, for the first time in a horribly long time, and it felt so good he thought he just might give in. He shifted deeper into his pillow and tried to recall why he was trying to stay awake.

Soft fingertips hesitantly brushed the curls from his temple. "I should go," she said softly.

She stood, and moved to leave, but he reached out and caught her by the wrist. She stopped, her head bent, but she didn't pull away. "Stay," he said, his voice soft with sleep, but also with wishfulness, or longing.

He heard her hesitate. "All right," she said cautiously. He heard her walk around to the other side of the bed. She sat down with her back to him and toed off her shoes, then swung her legs up and lay down beside him.

He rolled over so he was facing her. He pulled the blanket up and tucked it around her, his eyes half-closed. He cupped her face in his hand as he lowered it. "Love you," he said sleepily.

But if she responded, he didn't hear it, because he was already asleep.

When Josh woke up, he felt rested for the first time in a very, very long time. He opened his eyes to see Donna lying on her side beside him, watching him. "What time is it?" he mumbled.

She didn't take her eyes from his face. "Eight-thirty."

He nodded, and closed his eyes again. There was a time when learning he'd slept til eight-thirty in the middle of the week during a crucial point in the campaign would cause him to flip out, but this was not that time. In fact, he was having trouble summoning up any energy to care at all. "Kay."

"I cleared your schedule for the morning, so you don't have to rush."

He opened his eyes again. "You didn't have to do that."

"You needed the rest."

There had also been a time when her clearing his schedule without his permission, especially when she was working for the opposition, would have made him irate, but this was also not that time. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Something he should have thought of earlier occurred to him. "What about your schedule?"

"I told Will I'd catch up with them at the rally this afternoon."

There was something significant in that, but he couldn't quite grasp it in his pre-coffee state. "I didn't hear you get up."

She smiled slightly. "That's because you sleep like the dead." She didn't mention that she'd woken up with his body pressed full length against hers, her head tucked under his chin, her lips touching the hollow of his throat, their legs tangled together, and his arm holding her protectively to him, or that he'd stirred fretfully when she eased away to take care of the business of the day.

They lay in silence for a moment, and Josh stared at the way her hair spilled over the pillow. He tried to focus on something else– for God's sake, what if he never had another opportunity to observe Donnatella Moss in his bed, inches from him? He ought to be looking at the curve of her hip under the sheet, the length of her legs stretched along the mattress, her hand resting on the pillow between them, memorizing every detail he could, not fixating on her hair, of all things.

"I'm horrible, too."

His gaze left her hair and moved to her eyes. "What?"

"Last night. You said you were doing horrible. I'm doing horrible, too."

He cleared his throat. "You are?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"What's so horrible?" He meant it to come out neutral, but he didn't succeed in keeping out the tiniest note of hope.

"I have a great job that challenges and interests me, I'm finally in a place financially where I'm not worrying about whether I can pay my rent from month to month, my opinions are respected and even solicited on important issues, but what it all comes down to is that I'm working long hours for a man I don't really believe in."

"You never minded working long hours before," he commented.

"Before, I was working for a man who inspired me."

"President Bartlet inspired you to work long hours?"

She met his gaze and held it. "Him, too."

Suddenly, he felt very warm, and unable to breathe. He tried to think of something to say to make it an even exchange. "I think I might be able to forgive you for leaving me for Russell," he blurted out. Well, it wasn't great, and it wasn't equal, but it was something.

She lowered her eyes. "Josh. You understand why I left, don't you?"

There was a short silence. He had some ideas, but the truth was– "No. Not really. I get that you wanted to do more, and I know I was a jerk about it, but I didn't think... I guess I thought even if I was a jerk about it, you would stick around and ultimately force me listen to reason, like you usually do. I didn't understand why you didn't do that. Why you left, instead."

"I left because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being thought of as the ditzy blonde who Josh Lyman kept around because she has blue eyes and long legs," she interrupted him.

If he'd been expecting anything, it hadn't been this. "What? Donna, no one thought that."

"Josh. Yes, they did," she said quietly, in a way that made him realize that she was speaking from experience. He found himself unspeakably angry with whoever had made her feel like that, and he wondered why she'd never told him about it. Then he realized that wasn't the kind of thing Donna would tell him.

"That's why you left?" Josh said breathlessly. He was missing the most important thing in his life because some ignorant sexist meddler had made Donna feel like less than she is?

"That was only part of the reason, Josh."

"What was the rest of the reason?"

"I always thought I expressed my desire to be more involved in the process of governing than answering phones pretty clearly–"

Images flooded his brain– of Donna insisting on going to South Carolina with the campaign the first day he'd met her, talking about making substantive contributions, saying 'I want to do more,' and scheduling six lunches with him. He thought guiltily that he hadn't paid heed to her ambition to take on a larger role for the simple reason that he hadn't wanted to let her go. "I should have– "

"It wasn't your responsibility to advance my career," she cut him off. "It was mine." She said it with a finality that made him think she'd wrestled with that particular issue a long time, and now that she accepted it as true, she wouldn't hear a word against it. She hesitated. "Do you remember Ryan?"

Josh was thrown by the non sequitur. "Ryan who?"

"The intern. Do you remember what he said when Brady died?"

He frowned. What did Pierce have to do with anything? "I try to block out all recollection of his existence from my memory at all costs."

"He made a mistake with a flower order, and he said next time, we should leave stuff like that for Donna, because she's good at trivial tasks like that."

"He said you were good at details," Josh corrected her.

"He said that, but what he meant was that I should do it because he felt such menial tasks were beneath him."

"And I told him that he was a worthless piece of shit and that you were invaluable," he reminded her.

"I know."

"Then what– "

"He was an intern who worked at the White House for five months, and he assumed he was above ordering flowers because he went to a prestigious school and he was on his way to bigger and better things, whereas I was going to be there forever, because I was just a secretary, and secretaries don't move on to bigger and better things. They remain secretaries." She took a deep breath. "And the thing is, you thought so, too."

Josh had never heard her refer to herself as a secretary before, and he didn't like it. "What do you mean, I thought so too? I never agreed with that little snot on a thing in my life, least of all when it comes to you."

"I mean, you thought I was going to be around forever to answer your phone and pick up the dry cleaning."

"I didn't– "

She stopped him with a look. He exhaled. He could hardly deny that he hadn't wanted her to leave. "Okay, maybe I did, a little. But that's not how I thought of you. Jesus, Donna, you were half my office. When you left, it was like you took half of me with you."

She didn't meet his eyes. "Charlie said the President pushed him to finish school and get a new job because he didn't want him holding his jacket the rest of his life."

Josh knew she was sensitive about the fact she'd never finished school. "I know I'm demanding, but if you'd wanted to take some night classes, I would have–"

"That's not the point, Josh."

"What is the point?"

"The point is you didn't care enough about me to want better for me than I wanted for myself."

"That's not true," he said tightly. But even as he said it he felt a stab of shame. He cared. But it was true that he'd put a lot more effort into keeping her close to him than thinking about what she wanted. And it was also true he hadn't realized exactly how selfish that had been until this moment.

Still... "It's different with us," he said, not without a note of pleading in his voice. "It's more complicated." He paused for a moment. "Is it so wrong that I loved working with you so much I didn't want to give you up?"

She sighed. "Josh, haven't you ever heard the saying 'if you love something, you should set it free?'"

"But what if the thing you're supposed to set free is necessary to your survival?" Is it wrong that he'd acted to protect himself, albeit like a hunted animal might, that as soon as he perceived the danger of her leaving him, he'd followed his most basic instincts in order to eliminate that threat, without regard to the trap his actions had led him into?

"It would have come back to you," she said softly. "If you had just shown it meant more to you than your legislative agenda."

Josh was enraged. "My legislative agenda? Are you crazy?" How could she possibly think-?

But Donna interrupted him before he could tell her it wasn't his political survival he was concerned about. "Charlie didn't even want to leave. The President had to push him out the door."

"The President isn't– " He stopped. In love with Charlie. "I'm not the President," he tried. "And Charlie isn't you."

"No," she agreed. "But that's the other part of why I left."

"Because of Charlie and the President?"

"Because I wanted more from you than you were willing to give."

"I would have come around eventually, Donna. I would have found you something in Legislative Affairs, or– "

"I'm not talking about the job, Josh."

"Oh." He felt somewhat deflated. "What did you want, then?"

Her voice was steady. "Your love."

He thought it was quite possible he was never going to breathe again. "My... love?" he croaked.

She nodded. "I just couldn't stay in a one-sided relationship anymore. Realizing you didn't want the same things as me was killing me, and made me start to hate you. I know I was... unfair to you, in some ways. But that knowledge was poisoning me, and I couldn't stop the bitterness from bubbling over in my behavior towards you. And then, to find out I was basically a laughingstock of the West Wing, poor devoted Donna making a fool of herself over her boss– that was the straw that broke the camel's back, I guess. After that, I knew I had to leave. It took me a year to work up the nerve to do it, but it was the right thing to do."'

One-sided...? His head was spinning. "What do you mean, a laughingstock of the West Wing?"

She didn't meet his eyes. "Everyone knew I was in love with you. And everyone knew I would always mean more to you as an assistant than anything else."

Josh felt his blood boil. "Who told you that?"

She hesitated. "CJ."

CJ? The woman who took him out to get drunk in the middle of the first campaign after Donna left him for Dr. Freeride, telling him grasshoppers were the perfect cure for a broken heart? "Are we talking about the same CJ?"

"It wasn't just because of CJ. She was just... the impetus."

He was going to kill CJ. "What the hell did she say to you?"

"It's not important."

"The hell it isn't– "

"I don't want you getting mad at CJ over this," Donna said firmly. "It wasn't her fault. It was mine. I should have been honest about what I wanted." She took a deep breath. "And I shouldn't have quit like that."

"But you said quitting was the right thing to do."

"It was. But I should have done it professionally. Two weeks notice, and all that. I was just so mad, and... heartsick, that I couldn't see straight." She smiled slightly, but there was no humor in it. "Blinded by heartache, I guess."

Josh couldn't stand the look on her face. "Hey." He scooted closer to her and took her hand in his. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'm sorry. I should have done better. I shouldn't have put you through all that." He laughed, but the laugh was directed at himself, devoid of mirth. "I did love you, you know. I didn't want to. I fought it for such a long time. And then at some point I realized it was too late, I'd already lost the battle, and it scared the crap out of me." He inhaled sharply. "All that time I tried not to let you get too close because I was scared of how much it would hurt if you left me, and then you left and it was a million times worse than I imagined, only I didn't even have the memory of what it was like to be truly close to you." He stopped. "But I did love you."

Donna sighed. "Josh, that kind of love is no good to me."

His heart stopped. "My love is no good to you?"

"Love bound by fear and unwillingly given? That kind of love is not healthy. For either of us. That's why I needed to get away. I needed you to love me freely, and completely. And we couldn't do that in the place we were before, so I left. Because anything less is only destructive. For both of us."

His throat was dry. "I don't know how to love like that."

"Yes, you do. I've seen you do it."

"When?" he said disbelievingly.

She looked at their hands clasped between them. "Well... you're not doing too badly right now."

"Really?"

"Risking jail and flying to Germany without any luggage also qualifies."

He brushed a piece of hair from her face. "I want to do better. What else can I do?"

She looked down. "Well... you could kiss me."

He met her eyes. "The world might end."

She held his gaze. "Frankly, at this point, that's a chance I'm willing to take."

He ran his fingers through her hair. "Yeah?"

She closed her eyes as he moved closer to her. "Yeah."

The world didn't end.