Part Four

Run

And I can barely look at you

But every single time I do

I know we'll make it anywhere

Away from here

…

Louder louder

And we'll run for our lives

I can hardly speak I understand

Why you can't raise your voice to say

-Run (Snow Patrol)

She wakes up, and for the first time in weeks of falling asleep in a different hotel almost ever night, she's not hit by Traveler's Sickness. She knows exactly where she is. Josh's apartment. His bedroom. His bed. She blinks and squints and reluctantly opens her eyes. Josh. A length of a hand away from her, snoring slightly, a grin playing on his face, dimples and all, even as he's sleeping. She feels a giant rushing in her heart, feels herself winded by the simple realization that if she could have this moment for the rest of her life, waking up next to a sleeping, dimple-showing-smiling Josh, she would need nothing else. She moves her face a little closer to his, so that they're almost touching and stares at him. "What happens now?" She whispers, and he stirs but doesn't wake up. "What do we do?" Whispers, and still he doesn't wake up, but he does reach out his hand and pull her a little closer. She feels her throat constrict with all the things she wants to say to him, and can't, and couldn't, and didn't, and should have said last night, before they ended up in bed, fighting out the battle of love and leaving with their fingers, skin burning and kisses so powerful her mouth almost feels sore. Josh's arms, pulling her close, the way her little moans made him grin as he kissed her. She reaches out and traces the soft skin along his temple, and lets her face fall into his shoulders. And whispers. "I love you."

She's said it. She has not-been-saying these words for such a long time that now that she's said them, she's expecting lights and fireworks and the Hallelujah-Chorus, at least. But it's quiet, except for Josh's deep, even breathing and the gentle tick-tocking of his alarm. And suddenly, as though it's been waiting for the moment in which she'll be the most vulnerable, biding it's time like a monster under his bed, fear creeps into her. This is too big for her. This is too big for both of them, and what happened last night, it was a mistake. She shouldn't have come. He shouldn't have left that message on her machine -"I'm really proud of you, in a weird way"-, and they certainly shouldn't have started kissing against his refrigerator.

What she wanted was a life free of Josh Lyman. That was what she needed, the day she agreed to take Will's job offer. She wanted to cut her ties and run into the opposite direction, she wanted to be herself again, not half of a flawed, floundering Josh-And-Donna.

Instead, she got a year of working harder than she'd ever worked before and telling herself she was enjoying herself because at least she wasn't thinking about him, and this morning, in his bed. She's never going to be free of him now. But they'll never work it out, either. This is the final straw, the magnificent last hurrah of this epically doomed not-relationship.

They've truly fucked it up this time. Literally.

Next to her, Josh stirs. And wakes up to find Donna curled into his arms, looking away from him and silently crying. He's awake in an instant. "Hey," he whispers, gently turning her face toward him, "what?"

She looks up at him, with the face –like her hamster just died- and shakes her head. And he gets it. She's scared and confused and ashamed and she's only now realizing that this thing –this thing that they have, that they've had since Day One- is so big, so terrifying that the only sane option is to turn and run into the opposite direction as quickly as you can. He knows that feeling, he's been going through it, on and off, since Gaza. He's hurt her, she's hurt him, and he knows that this will be her last and desperate attempt to cut him out of her life, to end it.

He's paralyzed. He doesn't want this, he doesn't want her to leave, he wants her to smile at him in her most Donna-ish way and ask him annoying questions and not bring him coffee and keep his change to prove a point. That's all he's ever wanted. Well. Not quite.

She wipes her cheeks and turns herself towards him properly, pulls herself up into a sitting position, with his sheets wrapped around her like a shield. He glances up at her with an unreadable expression on her face, and she braces herself for the words she has to say.

"We can't go on like this, Josh."

Silence. He just looks at her, and he's trying to burn the image of her, on this morning, in the pale light filtering in, wrapped into his sheets, shining cheeks and unruly hear, into his mind.

"I don't want this. Not…not like this. I want…" She stops, lamely. "I don't know what I want. But this isn't it." It's not perfect. And I will accept nothing less than the perfection I know we could have from you.

He knew this was coming, but any counter-argument he might have thought of, any brilliant strategy he might have had to convince her to change her mind, something involving waffles for breakfast and showing her the Christmas present he still has, and never gave her because she quit two days before, gets caught in his throat when she puts it like that. He feels the words entangling themselves in his mouth and swallows, pushes them down, down, into the very depths of his gut, where they can stay.

This is the hardest thing she's ever done, and the fact that she's not even sure it's right makes it worse. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

He nods. I understand, and I'm still here.

She gets up, still wrapped into the sheet, which makes her look ridiculous. But beautiful. So beautiful. "Do you…do you want something to eat?" He asks, randomly.

She shakes her head. "I'm fine. I'll just…" she starts collecting her clothes, blushing as he wordlessly hands her her bra, it's hypnotic raspberry coloring much, much paler in the light of a dawning day.

"Here," he slips on his boxers, gets up, crosses to the closet and hands her a sweatshirt of his. She hesitates, but takes it. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." She slips on the sweatshirt, her skirt, and hurries into the kitchen to retrieve her blouse, and that old, pink cardigan. Seeing her stuff it unceremoniously into her bag, he almost looses it completely. Half of him wants to shake her, press her against the wall and cover her in kisses until she changes her mind, but he knows that'll never do. He knows it's too late.

"Want me to call you a cab?" She shakes her head and helplessly pushes open the door, turning towards him.

"Goodbye, Josh."

"Bye." She turns away, and walks out of the door. When he hears it click it shut, he says, loudly, to the inside of his door, "I love you, Donna."

When she unlocks her door ten minutes later, she's greeted by an answering machine that's not blinking and her radiator pipes are humming as loudly as ever. And she sinks down on her sofa, feeling nothing but his absence and the weight of the night's events and the morning's decision, on her shoulders. And she misses him, misses everything from his smile to his hair to the way his skin around the elbows is all wrinkled and rough, like sandpaper.

And it's only now that she realized, no matter how far she runs, she'll only keep running into him.

Fin.