She puts herself back together and gets through the week. Amy drops by again, and says she can't imagine Josh gone, outside of politics, and out of D.C. She thinks he'll be back as a Special Advisor to the President within three months.

Donna doesn't. She knows he's gone, and not coming back. She tries to imagine a White House with Josh in it or trying to get in it. She can't. Even in the campaign, when she thought Russell would crush Santos, she thought that Josh would sign onto the Vice President's campaign, and they'd take the White House and Josh would do something there, and she'd have a great job, and maybe they could be together. A White House without Josh... she's thankful she'll be working in the East Wing, where his absence from Leo's office won't be a daily wound to her.

Until the wound begins to heal. And she knows it can.

Donna has a choice, and she knows it. Life is full of choices, every decision is a choice, even ones you don't realize at the time, and some choices are major, massive. Leaving Paul to join an insurgent Presidential campaign was one. Coming back to the campaign, to Josh, was one. Lying about the damn diary was one. Sleeping with Colin was one in hindsight, although she just thought it was a harmless fling at the time. Leaving the White House was one. Trying to get onto the Santos campaign was one. Making the first move with Josh was one. Giving him that deadline was one. And walking out at Thanksgiving was one.

Each of these radically changed the course of her life. Every choice is significant, but this one, this one she knows will determine the course of the entire rest of her life.

Josh is gone. He has moved to Florida and it's clear to Donna he doesn't ever plan on coming back to D.C. To her. So she has a choice.

She can accept this, and close the book on Donna and Josh. Look back on it as nine years in close proximity with a wonderful, infuriating, inspiring man who set her on the course to being the player in the Democratic Party that she is today. Look fondly at the two kisses and seventeen days of sex as a wonderful fling with a man she once adored, treasure the memories, watch the hurt and the wounds scab over, and get on with her life.

She knows she can do this. It's very tempting – they've hurt one another so much, and maybe it's just time to let go, finally, and look to the future.

She can see this possible future very clearly. The occasional emails or phone calls that get less frequent as time goes on. They'll see each other at weddings and funerals, and chat awkwardly. Eventually at one of these she will introduce him to her husband, and he'll introduce her to his wife, and she'll rate a few mentions in his autobiography, and he'll rate a few chapters in hers. And one day she'll go to his funeral and say a final goodbye.

It's surprisingly tempting, to finally move on.

There's another choice. She can fight it. Not let Donna and Josh end like this. Fulfill those promises she made to God and herself after Rosslyn, after Gaza, after his heart attack, and tell him she loved him, she loves him, she will always love him. Take the risk with her heart that's she's never taken, the one so much greater and more terrifying than inviting him into her bed was. To finally and fully give him her heart, not wait for him to tell her how he feels, to give him her heart and risk him destroying it. It would be hard, he'd be wary, and his mother doesn't believe in her anymore, but if she took that step she never has, it could be everything she's ever dreamed.

It's a hard choice for her to make, and she doesn't want to leave it too long.

She flies down to Florida the next Thursday, and drives to Rachel's house. She doesn't call ahead – they've never returned her calls, and she wants to take the risk in person. If he's going to say he wants nothing to do with her, at least she's going to see him one last time.

She stands in front of the door and knocks.

Rachel is surprised to see her. She greets her warily, but invites her in. Josh is upstairs sleeping, she says. He's doing well without all the pressures of Washington. What is Donna doing here?

I didn't get to say goodbye, she says. She tells her she couldn't just leave it like that, she wanted to talk to Josh, and if it was goodbye, she wanted a proper one. She won't stress him, she won't, she promises, but she needs this. If nine years are going to end, she needs to see him one last time. And if the years are not ending, she needs to start them up again. Will Rachel please let her see him?

He's tired, Rachel says. I'm not going to wake him up. But she invites her to sit down, and pours her some tea, and invites her to talk.

It's simple stuff at first, awkward and stilted. Donna tells her about the First Lady and the new job, and what it was like for her on the Santos campaign. Rachel says she watched all of her press conferences, all her appearances, even when it was for Bob Russell, and Rachel was so proud of her, of how she's grown. And Donna can tell she means it, and goes and hugs the older women, and the hug back is warm, not like the hug of seventeen days ago, but like the hugs after Rosslyn and the times she's seen her since.

And Donna breaks down. She's sorry, she's oh so sorry, she never meant to hurt him, to hurt him so much. She didn't mean to give him a heart attack. She just wanted to know he wanted her in his life.

Rachel is crying now, too. He doesn't blame you, she says. He could never blame you. She shouldn't have blamed Donna, and she's so sorry she did. But didn't Donna know he loved her? Couldn't she see?

And Donna says she couldn't. Not until the end, and then she was so mad she thought she didn't care, but she was so wrong, she cared so much. She cares so much.

Rachel says the two of them are so deluded. He couldn't see how much she loved him. She couldn't see how much he loved her. He's so sad. He doesn't tell Rachel that, but she knows her boy is.

She tells Donna that she'll be staying with them, obviously, and Donna is so grateful. This is how it always was with Rachel before, how she feared it never would be again.

And then she hears him. He shouts down the stairs, asking who she's talking to, and his mother shouts up that he has a visitor, and to make himself decent. And after a minute, she sends Donna up.

He wasn't expecting her. The smile she gives him is shy, like the smile she gave him just before that horrible interview. He's shocked to see her, but invites her to sit down. She takes the chair by the bed, but doesn't touch him. She's afraid again.

He asks how she is, and how work is going. She tells him about how it is, how the staff hates Goodwin, how they think Josh may have been overly intense, but they respected him. She tells him about Annabeth, and how CJ misses him, and how she just can't figure out Amy, who has been very nice to her ever since she was hired for the Santos White House, although she can't figure out whether she's being sincere or snarky. And that gets a laugh from Josh, the first laugh she's heard from him since the election, really, as he says it's probably both.

He tells her he's doing better, and he has a good doctor here in Palm Beach, and he's gets to take a walk once a day along the beach for ten minutes. She asks if he's gone yet today, and he shakes his head. She then asks, more shyly that she ever thought she would be again, if he'd like her to go with him. And he smiles, and it's the first smile she's seen from him since he came back from California, and says he'd like that. Rachel makes sure he's dressed warmly, and they journey out into the afternoon.

It's slow going for him, but she's right there with him. They don't say much, as it's a struggle for him, but she holds his arm and stays with him. He says he's getting better, and his mom is great, but it's not how it was last time, not without... and he leaves the rest unsaid. She wipes away a tear.

When they get back, they sit in the living room together, and Rachel says she has to go to the supermarket for tonight, because they weren't planning on having company, and she wants to make something special.

Josh says he's done with politics, and doesn't know what he's going to do. His mother suggested he be a teacher, although he doesn't think he'd be a good one. She nearly starts crying, but stops herself, and says he is a good teacher, the best she ever had, and she's so sorry she said that and made him doubt himself and how wonderful he was. And he doesn't know what to say, so he reaches out a hand to her, and soon their fingers are interlaced.

Even in the seventeen days together, they've never done that.

I love you, she says. She tells him she's loved him forever, and she's sorry she never told him. She's sorry she left him doubting, but she never stopped loving him, and never will stop loving him. Even when she left. Even when they broke up. Even if he doesn't love her any more.

Through her tears, she thinks she sees him smile. He says he never stopped loving her either, and didn't think they broke up until he heard through the grapevine that she thought that. He never wanted to break up, and he knew he wanted to be with her forever, but when she set that deadline, and said it might not be worth the trouble, he panicked. He didn't want to face losing her yet again, and hoped she'd just forget the deadline and forget threatening to leave him again. But by doing it, he did the same thing as he did last year.

Maybe, she says, maybe we can go back. Forget the breakup. If he still feels that way.

And he shakes his head no, and she starts to cry until he grabs both her hands and begs her not to cry. He doesn't want to go back to what they had, fun as it was, as he wants them to be right this time. And he tells her he loves her and will love her forever, and can't they start again from the beginning, now that they know how they feel?

And the tears don't stop, and she holds him tight and says she'll never let him go again.

They light the sixth candle of the menorah that night, and she stays right through until the day after Christmas, but then she has to go back. Before she leaves, she covers his face with gentle kisses in between telling him Boxing Day trivia, and he's smirking at her like he hasn't in years and tells her how much he's missed this, how much he's going to miss it. But she has to go back, and he needs to stay in Florida, just for a little while, and get better. It's nice to be with his mom again after so long away, and Donna knows this, sad as she is she won't see him every day.

But he'll be up for the 20th, and they'll go to the Inauguration together, and she'll take him to one of the balls, even though there will be no dancing or drinking for him.

And he comes up and sees everyone, and it's very nice, and the new President tells him how much they miss him, and when he gets better to see him about a job, although Donna knows he won't. CJ greets him more warmly than she has in over a year, and she looks free now, and is smiling with Danny, and Donna thinks maybe without politics involved CJ and Josh can get their friendship back. And they chat pleasantly at the ball with Amy and her wood sculptor, who looks upon her adoringly, and who Donna finds she quite likes. After they say goodbye, Josh starts singing the Lumberjack Song from Monty Python quietly, and Donna bursts into laughter, and the smirk on his face as she does so makes her so happy she could burst. Which, as she controls her laughter, she realizes she has.

They go to the White House the next day, and she proudly shows him her gigantic office, and he says he's so proud of her, that she did this. And she kisses him right there in the office and tells him she would never have been there if it weren't for him.

He goes back on the Monday, and she promises she'll visit him every couple of weeks if she can, and she finds out she usually can. They talk, and it can be difficult but they don't let it break them apart, and they don't let the tears get in between them. On one of the visits down, he puts a ring on her finger and she's so glad the doctors cleared him for vigorous activity, because it's like never before, not even during their first seventeen days.

He moves back into his apartment just before the spring term starts at Georgetown. She's been living there for months, and it's so good to have him back. They've stayed in his apartment before, in those terrible glorious three months seven years before, and she visited him during that November when they were sleeping together, but this is their home now, and it's so much more special now.

And as she masters the role of Chief of Staff to the First Lady, and commiserates with Annabeth and Amy and Lou and Will about how much of a tool Barry Goodwin is, how he's no Leo, no CJ, not even a Bingo Bob, as the Santos Administration sputters worse than the Bartlet Administration did in the beginning, Josh isn't tempted to go back. He's done with that, although he has a wealth of stories and anecdotes for his students. His lecture halls are always full, far more than the officially registered number of students, and he sends humorous emails responding to Toby's acerbic ones, complaining about students and how they can't write.

It's not all smiles and sunshine with Donna and Josh, they're both stubborn people, and their banter and snark turns to fighting occasionally, and there are hurt feelings, and harsh words, but there's love and caring and sweetness and laughter, and tender caresses and verbal foreplay and wild passionate nights. And eventually there's a chuppah and cradles and cribs. And there's friends who visit, and who they visit, but at the end of every night there's their best friend there in bed with them, as another endless day together gets ticked off the calendar.

And there's no pressure at all.

The End.