Title: Comfortable
Author: Barenaked Bostonian AKA ScullyAsTrinity
Category: MAJOR angst
Feedback: BNLXPhile12aol.com
Disclaimer: I've been forgetting about this lately. Yeah, not mine. But
ohhhhhhh the things I'd do to Rob Lowe.
Summary: Sometimes we say things that were never meant to be said.
[Comfortable]
He wasn't quite sure where it began. He was even less sure if now, it had ended because of something he had done earlier. Often times, the problems that arose during the day fell through the cracks, but this time, she had caught one, and he thought briefly, that it would ruin them.
Donna was wearing a maroon suit, and it made the skin of her calves even more noticeable. Flashes of white against a dark background and Josh watched as she moved. He paid special attention to the way her ankles moved under her thin nylons. The way her hair sways against her back as she turns, sharply.
He shouldn't be thinking about this now. He should be concentrating on the two seats that need filling, the kinks in the defense committee and the Senate Oversight drafts being drawn. He shouldn't be thinking that today she looks thinner, and how her hair, while still brilliant, has been getting dry. She hasn't been eating as much as she should. Donna hasn't seen much sleep either. He should probably let her off early a few nights, but it would be more than likely that she'd only deny his request and stay until well after he leaves.
She does that often, watches him leave. Waits until she's sure that he's safe inside his car, then she begins tidying his office, taking special care to reorganize.
When he arrives in the morning, his office smells of her and he always breathes it in before retrieving his coffee.
Now, late at night, when the bullpen is just winding down before leaving completely, he realizes that he shouldn't have let his comment even be said. He should never have let her hear it.
The feeling in the pit of his stomach, the warm tingly feeling that he pretends to ignore when she is near him has become near unbearable. It almost burns now. His fingers itch more than ever to reach out and unbutton her blouse, just to see her skin. Now, he finds nothing more erotic than watching her when she speaks, reach out and touch the fabric of her blouse when she is close enough. He remembers briefly how he had once held her undergarments in his hand and found them much less amazing than they would be if he had been the one to remove them from her body.
He shouldn't be thinking about this now. He should be checking up on Fowler and the meeting on the Hill and the goddamned Incentive Bill.
He twirls his tie, one he realizes that she gave him two years ago but it means nothing now. He has washed it, worn it countless times. She had once commented on how nice it looked on him, and complimented herself on her choice. All he had wanted to do was move in and capture her lips with his and wondered if he did if there really would be a national scandal. He assumed that there wouldn't be, that he has assured himself of this do distance himself.
Now he wondered if the comment he made held more weight than he had once thought. It was apparent that she had far more control over him than he wanted to admit. She had once organized the entire secretarial staff to type at a fraction of their ability because her suggestions were being rebuffed. She made it easy for him by nagging him at all times when she wasn't getting enough attention, or when he wasn't working to his full potential or she wanted something done. She pushed, she nagged, and she did what she wanted even if she knew it wasn't to his liking. He was wrapped around her finger, but neither of them knew it.
"You have enormous value to me, you have no value to Eastern Europe." It's comments of that sort that always get her thinking. The actual meaning is always hidden by a thinly veiled afterthought. It irks her, and she wonders why he hides his true intentions. He treats her like he has some pull over her social life often times and gets testy for weeks at a time when he finds out that she has a date.
He grills her on the man's intentions, about his background, his education. He always asks if their education can possibly live up to his. Wonders, and articulates his speculations on his family history, if they're Democrats and if they discuss and support the President. It seems that no one lives up to Josh's expectations, and it's not surprising.
Josh sets the standards so high that she herself doesn't meet them. She wonders why she's not miffed about the calls he makes to her at two o'clock in the morning. She wonders why it doesn't put her off when he shows up at her apartment drunk at half past midnight. She wonders if he knows that she knows that he watches her as she works and that when he repeatedly bellows her name she pretends not to hear for a moment so that everyone else in the bullpen can hear that she is his.
She wonders why his comment had stung so much when she was sure he had said it flippantly, hope he said it flippantly.
They had been walking through the halls of the West Wing at such a fevered pace and she had been briefing on the background of the bill being passed about missile criteria that she had almost missed it. He had looked her and in the middle of the speech has said, "Now this is why I love you." And they had continued walking and she had pretended like she hadn't heard it. They both knew she had, and they both knew that he had said it.
Now, they had ignored things for far too long and this was sure to just boil over if it wasn't addressed. That was why now, in the calm that the bullpen seemed to be overcome by at this late hour, he decided that it would be good to discuss it. His eyes are still following her as she paces from desk to desk, placing reports here and there.
"Donna!" He bellows, hoping his casual calling will make the situation easier to deal with. It won't. He knows it won't but he's nervous and is suddenly looking for ways out of something he started.
She appears in his doorway, files in hand. He asks her to please step inside and close the door. She thinks for a moment that she has done something wrong, that he is going to reprimand her.
"I just wanted to apologize for earlier, it slipped out it-"
"Josh, it's not a big deal. I didn't really think much about it." Her hand was gesturing to the door. She felt very uncomfortable with him speaking to her like this, and she wished that she was back at her desk just pondering over all the things that Josh meant when he said that to her.
"I just, it didn't mean anything." And she looks momentarily hurt. She realizes that there is a point in a relationship when the parties involved make a decision to continue on as friends or cross into the uncharted territory in which they become lovers. Donna realizes that Josh has chosen to be her friend in the most inappropriate way possible in the most inappropriate place with the most banal words. She is hurt and he knows it.
"No Donna, I don't mean to say that it didn't mean anything. I meant..." His voice takes on a softer tone. "Look, we're three years in and something- I don't know something..."
"Josh, what are you trying to say? You're not making sense."
"I'm saying you're my assistant. You-Donna, you take me home when I'm drunk and you let me sleep on your couch and you don't bring me coffee. And you come when I bellow at you and I love you more than you know or could possibly begin to fathom." His voice has steadily risen as he speaks the words.
"You're not just my assistant Donna, and that's the damn problem."
But that was two years ago, September, and he is with Amy now. And everyone thinks that she's gorgeous, and for a moment they all forget about Donna and leave her to her own thoughts. They think Amy's so witty, and wonderful.
And Donna just smiles through it all, pretending not to notice. Her air of nonchalance has everyone nonplussed for only a moment. They see through the facade just as easy as Amy does. But Josh doesn't. She still comes scurrying when he bellows and he still treats her like more than he'd like to believe she is.
He sees nothing of Amy in her now and he never has. He sees nothing of Donna in Amy and wonders why he tries to find common characteristics, but can't seem to find any likable eccentricities like he can in Donna. He finds everything about her intriguing and often he wonders why Amy can't be like that. But he realizes that to think that is not fair, they are two different people with two completely different personalities.
Josh Lyman needs movement, he craves change. Sitting still for too long only causes him to act with pent up frustration at the static object. He has been more irritable to Donna lately, thinking of that day two years ago.
While Josh is wondering about Donna, Josh is just as common in Donna's thoughts. She thinks about Amy and all of the other women that she knows Josh never loved. She would watch him walk, quick and calculated and wonders if that's how he got over them. If he was done with them that fast. She wonders why. She thinks that if he were with her, he would walk slower and pay more attention. He would learn the beauty of delicacy and he just wouldn't walk as fast as he did now, like he was trying to escape from something.
She's right in front of him, and yet he misses her. Misses the late night briefings, misses touching her hair accidentally, now that Amy watches him. Before he was able to steal glances of Donna unguarded, now he guards himself against Amy. She watches him like a hawk. She knows that there's no need to watch Donna, because Donna knows better to let her yearning show. Amy can see through her, but Donna won't let her yearning show.
Now, Josh walks faster than ever and Donna doesn't return directly home after work. She often finds herself driving north with no real destination, because that is how she feels. She feels lost and she wants to get out. Leo catches her crying one evening as she is walking towards her car, and he questions her about it. "It's the cold." She tells him, knowing full well that he won't believe her. It is an early night and Leo asks if she'd come back inside and sit down please, she has some people worried.
She walks with Leo back up the frost encrusted walk and wondered how it came to this. She is determined to put him off, tell him that it is anything but what it is. Her tears stop when she enters the building, but being to well back up when Leo asks her to have a seat on the couch.
"What's on your mind?" He asks her, treating her with the level of compassion that he always uses when speaking with her. Leo is delicate and tries not to press, but people have been talking. Saying that she doesn't talk as much anymore. She's not as animated as she used to be; they expect the worst. They think she may be considering leaving, and they all know how that would affect Josh.
"Nothing is wrong. It's nothing." But once glance at Leo has her spitting out the truth. "He walks too fast Leo. Too fast!"
The Chief of Staff is confused and for a moment thinks that she is talking about something having to do with Josh's post traumatic stress disorder. The look in her eyes tells him different. "All he asks me is if I've slept, if I've eaten... when he hasn't slept and eaten. He doesn't talk to me. He just-"
Leo McGarry, the man who helps the President of the United States run the country, does not know what to say. He is at a loss for words. He simply sits there and clasps her hand in his, both of them deep in thought. The tears have dried up and she feels suddenly abashed for even shedding them.
"Leo, I'm so sorry about this. I really have to get home." She does not look at him as she stands and straightens out her coat. He makes no moves to follow her from the room. The one thing that he knows now is that Donna Moss needs time, or she is going to break; and Donna Moss isn't one who often cracks.
Her head hangs low as she walks briskly out of Leo's office. She barely sees Josh out of the corner of her eye, but she keeps walking. She doesn't want to see him, and she doesn't want to talk to him. She wants to drive and forget about him.
But he calls out to her. Softly. The only time she's ever used that tone with her was when she was sitting by his hospital bed after Rosslyn. It had made her cry then; it makes her cry now.
What else can she do? She can deny it all she wants but...
Donna turns around to face the Deputy Chief of Staff, and his heart breaks for an instant. He wants to tell her everything that he never has. He wants to cry with her, but he doesn't. He just looks at her for a moment. He moves slowly towards her, but she holds up her hand to fend him off. He stops dead in his tracks and looks at her with sad eyes.
She turns her head away and allows her hair to fall in front of her face. She takes a deep breath and looks back up at him. He is closer than he was before and she finds it odd that she didn't sense him moving up to her.
He touches her hair with his left hand and envelops her with his right. Breathes her in.
He's not quite sure what to say.
And he's still not quite sure where it all began.
[Comfortable]
He wasn't quite sure where it began. He was even less sure if now, it had ended because of something he had done earlier. Often times, the problems that arose during the day fell through the cracks, but this time, she had caught one, and he thought briefly, that it would ruin them.
Donna was wearing a maroon suit, and it made the skin of her calves even more noticeable. Flashes of white against a dark background and Josh watched as she moved. He paid special attention to the way her ankles moved under her thin nylons. The way her hair sways against her back as she turns, sharply.
He shouldn't be thinking about this now. He should be concentrating on the two seats that need filling, the kinks in the defense committee and the Senate Oversight drafts being drawn. He shouldn't be thinking that today she looks thinner, and how her hair, while still brilliant, has been getting dry. She hasn't been eating as much as she should. Donna hasn't seen much sleep either. He should probably let her off early a few nights, but it would be more than likely that she'd only deny his request and stay until well after he leaves.
She does that often, watches him leave. Waits until she's sure that he's safe inside his car, then she begins tidying his office, taking special care to reorganize.
When he arrives in the morning, his office smells of her and he always breathes it in before retrieving his coffee.
Now, late at night, when the bullpen is just winding down before leaving completely, he realizes that he shouldn't have let his comment even be said. He should never have let her hear it.
The feeling in the pit of his stomach, the warm tingly feeling that he pretends to ignore when she is near him has become near unbearable. It almost burns now. His fingers itch more than ever to reach out and unbutton her blouse, just to see her skin. Now, he finds nothing more erotic than watching her when she speaks, reach out and touch the fabric of her blouse when she is close enough. He remembers briefly how he had once held her undergarments in his hand and found them much less amazing than they would be if he had been the one to remove them from her body.
He shouldn't be thinking about this now. He should be checking up on Fowler and the meeting on the Hill and the goddamned Incentive Bill.
He twirls his tie, one he realizes that she gave him two years ago but it means nothing now. He has washed it, worn it countless times. She had once commented on how nice it looked on him, and complimented herself on her choice. All he had wanted to do was move in and capture her lips with his and wondered if he did if there really would be a national scandal. He assumed that there wouldn't be, that he has assured himself of this do distance himself.
Now he wondered if the comment he made held more weight than he had once thought. It was apparent that she had far more control over him than he wanted to admit. She had once organized the entire secretarial staff to type at a fraction of their ability because her suggestions were being rebuffed. She made it easy for him by nagging him at all times when she wasn't getting enough attention, or when he wasn't working to his full potential or she wanted something done. She pushed, she nagged, and she did what she wanted even if she knew it wasn't to his liking. He was wrapped around her finger, but neither of them knew it.
"You have enormous value to me, you have no value to Eastern Europe." It's comments of that sort that always get her thinking. The actual meaning is always hidden by a thinly veiled afterthought. It irks her, and she wonders why he hides his true intentions. He treats her like he has some pull over her social life often times and gets testy for weeks at a time when he finds out that she has a date.
He grills her on the man's intentions, about his background, his education. He always asks if their education can possibly live up to his. Wonders, and articulates his speculations on his family history, if they're Democrats and if they discuss and support the President. It seems that no one lives up to Josh's expectations, and it's not surprising.
Josh sets the standards so high that she herself doesn't meet them. She wonders why she's not miffed about the calls he makes to her at two o'clock in the morning. She wonders why it doesn't put her off when he shows up at her apartment drunk at half past midnight. She wonders if he knows that she knows that he watches her as she works and that when he repeatedly bellows her name she pretends not to hear for a moment so that everyone else in the bullpen can hear that she is his.
She wonders why his comment had stung so much when she was sure he had said it flippantly, hope he said it flippantly.
They had been walking through the halls of the West Wing at such a fevered pace and she had been briefing on the background of the bill being passed about missile criteria that she had almost missed it. He had looked her and in the middle of the speech has said, "Now this is why I love you." And they had continued walking and she had pretended like she hadn't heard it. They both knew she had, and they both knew that he had said it.
Now, they had ignored things for far too long and this was sure to just boil over if it wasn't addressed. That was why now, in the calm that the bullpen seemed to be overcome by at this late hour, he decided that it would be good to discuss it. His eyes are still following her as she paces from desk to desk, placing reports here and there.
"Donna!" He bellows, hoping his casual calling will make the situation easier to deal with. It won't. He knows it won't but he's nervous and is suddenly looking for ways out of something he started.
She appears in his doorway, files in hand. He asks her to please step inside and close the door. She thinks for a moment that she has done something wrong, that he is going to reprimand her.
"I just wanted to apologize for earlier, it slipped out it-"
"Josh, it's not a big deal. I didn't really think much about it." Her hand was gesturing to the door. She felt very uncomfortable with him speaking to her like this, and she wished that she was back at her desk just pondering over all the things that Josh meant when he said that to her.
"I just, it didn't mean anything." And she looks momentarily hurt. She realizes that there is a point in a relationship when the parties involved make a decision to continue on as friends or cross into the uncharted territory in which they become lovers. Donna realizes that Josh has chosen to be her friend in the most inappropriate way possible in the most inappropriate place with the most banal words. She is hurt and he knows it.
"No Donna, I don't mean to say that it didn't mean anything. I meant..." His voice takes on a softer tone. "Look, we're three years in and something- I don't know something..."
"Josh, what are you trying to say? You're not making sense."
"I'm saying you're my assistant. You-Donna, you take me home when I'm drunk and you let me sleep on your couch and you don't bring me coffee. And you come when I bellow at you and I love you more than you know or could possibly begin to fathom." His voice has steadily risen as he speaks the words.
"You're not just my assistant Donna, and that's the damn problem."
But that was two years ago, September, and he is with Amy now. And everyone thinks that she's gorgeous, and for a moment they all forget about Donna and leave her to her own thoughts. They think Amy's so witty, and wonderful.
And Donna just smiles through it all, pretending not to notice. Her air of nonchalance has everyone nonplussed for only a moment. They see through the facade just as easy as Amy does. But Josh doesn't. She still comes scurrying when he bellows and he still treats her like more than he'd like to believe she is.
He sees nothing of Amy in her now and he never has. He sees nothing of Donna in Amy and wonders why he tries to find common characteristics, but can't seem to find any likable eccentricities like he can in Donna. He finds everything about her intriguing and often he wonders why Amy can't be like that. But he realizes that to think that is not fair, they are two different people with two completely different personalities.
Josh Lyman needs movement, he craves change. Sitting still for too long only causes him to act with pent up frustration at the static object. He has been more irritable to Donna lately, thinking of that day two years ago.
While Josh is wondering about Donna, Josh is just as common in Donna's thoughts. She thinks about Amy and all of the other women that she knows Josh never loved. She would watch him walk, quick and calculated and wonders if that's how he got over them. If he was done with them that fast. She wonders why. She thinks that if he were with her, he would walk slower and pay more attention. He would learn the beauty of delicacy and he just wouldn't walk as fast as he did now, like he was trying to escape from something.
She's right in front of him, and yet he misses her. Misses the late night briefings, misses touching her hair accidentally, now that Amy watches him. Before he was able to steal glances of Donna unguarded, now he guards himself against Amy. She watches him like a hawk. She knows that there's no need to watch Donna, because Donna knows better to let her yearning show. Amy can see through her, but Donna won't let her yearning show.
Now, Josh walks faster than ever and Donna doesn't return directly home after work. She often finds herself driving north with no real destination, because that is how she feels. She feels lost and she wants to get out. Leo catches her crying one evening as she is walking towards her car, and he questions her about it. "It's the cold." She tells him, knowing full well that he won't believe her. It is an early night and Leo asks if she'd come back inside and sit down please, she has some people worried.
She walks with Leo back up the frost encrusted walk and wondered how it came to this. She is determined to put him off, tell him that it is anything but what it is. Her tears stop when she enters the building, but being to well back up when Leo asks her to have a seat on the couch.
"What's on your mind?" He asks her, treating her with the level of compassion that he always uses when speaking with her. Leo is delicate and tries not to press, but people have been talking. Saying that she doesn't talk as much anymore. She's not as animated as she used to be; they expect the worst. They think she may be considering leaving, and they all know how that would affect Josh.
"Nothing is wrong. It's nothing." But once glance at Leo has her spitting out the truth. "He walks too fast Leo. Too fast!"
The Chief of Staff is confused and for a moment thinks that she is talking about something having to do with Josh's post traumatic stress disorder. The look in her eyes tells him different. "All he asks me is if I've slept, if I've eaten... when he hasn't slept and eaten. He doesn't talk to me. He just-"
Leo McGarry, the man who helps the President of the United States run the country, does not know what to say. He is at a loss for words. He simply sits there and clasps her hand in his, both of them deep in thought. The tears have dried up and she feels suddenly abashed for even shedding them.
"Leo, I'm so sorry about this. I really have to get home." She does not look at him as she stands and straightens out her coat. He makes no moves to follow her from the room. The one thing that he knows now is that Donna Moss needs time, or she is going to break; and Donna Moss isn't one who often cracks.
Her head hangs low as she walks briskly out of Leo's office. She barely sees Josh out of the corner of her eye, but she keeps walking. She doesn't want to see him, and she doesn't want to talk to him. She wants to drive and forget about him.
But he calls out to her. Softly. The only time she's ever used that tone with her was when she was sitting by his hospital bed after Rosslyn. It had made her cry then; it makes her cry now.
What else can she do? She can deny it all she wants but...
Donna turns around to face the Deputy Chief of Staff, and his heart breaks for an instant. He wants to tell her everything that he never has. He wants to cry with her, but he doesn't. He just looks at her for a moment. He moves slowly towards her, but she holds up her hand to fend him off. He stops dead in his tracks and looks at her with sad eyes.
She turns her head away and allows her hair to fall in front of her face. She takes a deep breath and looks back up at him. He is closer than he was before and she finds it odd that she didn't sense him moving up to her.
He touches her hair with his left hand and envelops her with his right. Breathes her in.
He's not quite sure what to say.
And he's still not quite sure where it all began.