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It took approximately one week after quitting for someone to call her.
In truth, she's just surprised that it took this long. Josh not trying to get ahold of her over the last seven and a half days was shocking enough, though she suspects he might actually have gotten the hint this time that she was done.
What's more shocking though is that when her phone does finally ring it's Toby of all people.
"Donna."
There's something about his tone that takes her straight back to the waiting room of GW Hospital where he ever so gently told her that Josh had taken a bullet to the chest. Soft, yet serious, a balance that only he can deliver so effectively.
It makes her nervous.
"Hey, Toby." She answers evenly, "What's up?"
"I'm sorry to bug you," He begins, "Listen, I think it's great your moving on. It's- that not what this is about, I need you to know that. I'm not... anyway, have you talked to Josh?"
She bites back a sigh because of course this conversation was about Josh. What else did her life revolve around?
"No, I haven't." She does her best to be gentle about it but even she can hear the slight bite to her words.
"Yeah, okay, I figured." Toby sighs, "Listen, just let me know if you hear from him okay?"
If it were anyone else she would think it's an unspoken request for her to call Josh. But she knows Toby. He was a man of few words, and they were never to be wasted on half baked riddles and implications to something bigger.
That unsettles her more.
"Toby," She says slowly, "What's going on?"
"Just let me know if you hear from him, will you?"
"Toby."
There's silence, then a sigh.
"Look, he went home. He's fine. Just...off. Yelled at the President. Yelled at Leo. Listen, Donna, you did what you had to do, he'll get over it, he's just gonna be upset for a while. It's fine. He's fine. Just- if he calls you or something, let me know. For my own peace of mind."
It's probably most she's ever heard Toby say to her in one go. She's not sure what unnerves her more; that, or his clear concern for Josh's emotional state. It holds the residue of the unabashed concern everyone had for Josh after Rosslyn, but feels slightly more out of place given the circumstances comparatively.
But Josh wasn't her problem anymore.
"Yeah, I can do that."
"Thanks Donna. Have a good night."
Maybe it was because Josh didn't call her that she feels sick. She was angry - furious, even - at him. For ignoring her, for acting like nothing had happened, like nothing had changed between them after he showed up in Germany. Because Josh knows so much better than anyone how isolating trauma and PTSD can feel. He knows and refused to see it. To see her.
And yet the thought of him not calling her when something was so obviously wrong even now makes her head spin. How far they had fallen from the peak they once sat.
Which is how she found herself standing outside of his apartment, knowing full well its a horrendous idea and yet self aware enough to understand there's no where else she could possibly bring herself to be despite her best efforts.
She hesitates though. Does she knock? Call him and tell him she's outside his door? Given how one of the last things she said to him was her proclamation of quitting she's unsure he would even take her call. Once upon a time she would have walked in as though it was her own home. It practically had been after Rosslyn.
But then the sound of something shattering rings out into the hallway, so crisp and clear that her heart begins pounding rapidly in her chest and she's jamming the key into the door without a second thought.
Of all the things she was prepared to see - another broken window, namely - Josh standing in the middle of his living room staring blankly at the wall was not one of them.
He wore a familiar Harvard red sweatshirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. On the floor lay his suit jacket and tie, clearly having been thrown off the moment he walked through the door. She follows his gaze to a nick in the drywall; below it a damp carpet and a scattered mess of dark glass.
It dawns on her then what must have happened. He hadn't shoved his hand through a window this time. No sirens, no music, no panic attack.
It was far more simple and yet was just as telling. She knows, in the way she always knows, that he had been overwhelmed by his own mind and lashed out in an attempt to placate his anger. She had seen it done a million times. Papers chucked at the floor, pens thrown across the room, a hand through a window.
“Josh?”
He hadn't even noticed her.
At the sound of his name his head snaps over in her direction and it’s only then does she see the tears streaking down his cheeks.
“Why are you here?”
The brokenness and simultaneous bite to his words is enough to almost knock her off balance completely. In all the years she’s known him she’s seen him in various stages of emotional turmoil, but this was something entirely foreign.
“I…” She tries, but nothing comes out. She’s too shocked by the scene in front of her.
“Just-“ He stops abruptly and sucks in a labored breath, “I’m not your problem anymore, so you don’t have to stand there looking at me like that. Go, Donna. You wanted to go, so go .”
And then it hits her square in the chest; a realization that she hadn't been able to see before through the fog of her own turmoil.
Josh thinks she’s leaving him and not just the job.
And that was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? They were intertwined. CJ had told her to find anything that didn’t have to do with Josh Lyman. But CJ had overlooked one crucial detail. He wasn’t just her boss. She could do it. She could move on professionally without him.
But not having anything to do with Josh; her best friend?
She's unsure if there was an even a universe in existence that would allow that. They were bound together by some cosmic force that she has never fully been able to articulate.
“Josh.” Is her quiet reply. She can’t think of anything else to do but say his name.
“Don’t,” He runs a hand over his face, “I bet it was Leo, wasn’t it? Told you to come here? This isn’t some guilt-trip I staged to get you to come back, okay? I’m not keeping you this time. I’m not chaining you to the desk, so go.”
But she doesn’t, because how could she? How could she walk away and leave him like this?
“You broke it.”
There were a million things she could have said and yet, as she stood staring at the broken bottle, its the only thing she could come up with.
He laughs. It’s cutting and humorless and she knows it’s directed at himself and not at her.
“Yeah, well, I have a habit of breaking things.”
The statement can mean a hundred things and yet she knows it has nothing to do with things that are tangible and everything to do with what they could not define.
“No, you don’t.” She chances a few steps in his direction and he looks startled - frightened, really - when as she inches closer and it makes her sick.
“Take a look around Donna, I fucking shattered this, didn’t I? Hell, I sent you on a trip and it literally broke you. Seeing you in that bed sure as hell broke me. I was a shit friend and wrecked whatever this was. I’m just adding another tally to the count.”
It feels like the deepest form of a betrayal when something in her soul cracks at his words.
Josh had always been a bit self-deprecating, if only to hide how he was actually feeling about things. Over the years she had slowly learned what dots to connect between his words and unspoken emotions. Nightmares and flashbacks aside, she had never seen him so distraught. That too breaks her heart and simultaneously angers her even more. She's not sure which feeling overshadows the other.
“It’s ironic,” The venom is gone, the only thing left is a harrowing sadness, “I kept you chained to that desk because I couldn’t bare the thought of you leaving, and that's the very thing that did it. You're the most... you somehow managed to waltz into my life as easy as you did the job and then you became probably the most significant person in the world to me, and I still fucked that up. So go, Donna. I’m not gonna stop you.”
The tears are flowing with reckless abandon, the buzz from the half drank beer probably doing him no favors, and she knows that he’s thinking of more than just her in that moment. Joanie, his father, anyone who’s ever died or left.
And she’s so angry, because how could he not see that she was hurting? That Gaza wrecked her in more ways than she could begin to articulate? Or worse, that he did see it all and did nothing about it.
Because out of everyone in her life he’s the one person who has always, always understood her.
“Come here.”
He looks at her as though he shouldn’t be allowed. Like she was executioner beckoning him into his own demise.
“Don’t do this.” He says, cemented in place.
“Josh,” She says, softly but firm, “Come here.”
“I'm giving you an out, Donna. You can go and I won't stop you.”
She takes a step towards him and he takes one back.
It's stings like nothing ever has before and its written all over her face. She knows because its reflected so clearly in his own expression.
“You deserve better,” He chokes out, “And I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry that you think I don’t see you, because I do. I always see you. Sometimes I can't see anything but you. Of course I did. But you’re the one who’s hurting and I can’t have you here trying to comfort me. I can be a selfish bastard sometimes, but not this selfish. So you have to go.”
Her own body finally betrays her and the first of the tears she so desperately had been trying to fight off finally slip out, and she can see Josh's expression go from broken to horrified in a matter of seconds.
"Please don't cry." He whispers, finally moving a a bit closer to where she stood, though the distance between them still feels monumental, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
Then he stops, the sentence trailing off into nothing, but she understands. She always understands. Josh doesn't know what he didn't mean to do, because there were a million things that he could begin to rattle off.
"I needed you." She chokes out, voice suddenly held hostage by the sob threatening to escape her, "You flew to Germany for me. And I... I wanted to see you before my surgery. Because I didn't know- I was petrified and you were the only person I wanted to see."
Never in her wildest fears did she think they would end up like this; tear ridden with an invisible wall between them.
"I still hear the sirens." He says abruptly, "Every time I hear sirens I swear its happening all over again and I thought acting like nothing changed - like you were okay - would make everything okay. I didn't want to have people look at you like they did me. And that was wrong of me. I know that was messed up, okay?"
The ache that fills her chest is harrowing and she wonders how she's still breathing, because surely the pain was going to kill her. Surely this would be the thing that stopped her heart from beating.
"You hear sirens, I hear explosives." Is her reply, "And I'm angry, Josh. I'm so god damn angry at everything because nothing in my life makes sense. People get shot and people get blown up and I need a purpose again. I need to move on and do something to make life feel worthwhile."
Josh wipes away the tears with the cuff of his sweatshirt, but it does nothing to stop the fresh ones from falling.
His words were quieter this time, the vigor that was there gone in an instant, "Life is always going to be worthwhile as long as your breathing, Donna."
"If I stay at that desk I'll never feel that way. I'll never be able to move on."
"From the job, or from me?"
The wave of tears that hits her is unrelenting at his words and she wonders if its possible to drown in your own sadness.
"I wanted more, Josh. I want more. I just- how do you not see it? I wanted more in my life and with you but I can't do that where I am now. I want to leave the job but I never, ever want to leave you. How-" She inhales a shaky and ragged breath, "How don't you see it?"
She doesn't know if its her words that done it, or if he had just run out of tears to cry, but when she looks at him they had stopped and the only thing left behind were damp cheeks and broken eyes.
"I thought you didn't see it."
She feels lightheaded. If she weren't so frozen in place she's almost certain her knees would have buckled from under her.
"I got blown up," It comes out as a whisper and it's the first time since she returned stateside that she's said the words aloud, "And you came, and I thought I was going to die in that surgery, and all I wanted was to see you. I didn't... I didn't know it until then. I didn't know what it meant until I saw you before they put me under. And then we came back and you acted like it never happened."
"I'm sorry."
"I know." She says, because she does, and she's unsure if that makes it better or worse, "Come here?"
Even now, through the haze of the trauma circling her thoughts and the numbness settling in her bones, she wants so desperately for him to get away from the wreckage of his outburst.
"If you need to go to get better then who am I to stop you?" He says, as if he hadn't even heard her request, "You wouldn't have been in that car if I hadn't sent you. Maybe... maybe leaving is the best thing you can do. Maybe you need time away from me. And, god Donna, if its going to help you get better I swear I'm not going to stop you."
He goes through everyday worrying someone he likes will die, and its going to be his fault.
He was weighed down by guilt, and she by grief.
It was the one thing that CJ would never understand. Maybe leaving her job in the past was what she needed to grow, but having Josh in her future was what she needed to heal.
"Joshua, please come here."
She thinks its a lost cause; that the space between them had grown so monumentally that they couldn't even breech what physical distance lay between them.
But then his shoulders drop in defeat and he takes slow, measured steps in her direction.
It's too agonizing to wait for him to reach her though, and before she can talk herself out of it she's rushing towards him and throwing her arms around whatever part of him she can grab on too.
The way he wraps her in his arms and buries his face in her neck both hurts and heals her.
He's trembling, or maybe it's her. She doesn't know and can't find it within her to care. It didn't matter. They were going to hold one another together in that moment.
"If you want to go, you can go. If the job isn't what you want anymore, then you can go." He whispers, breath dancing warmly against her skin, "I see it, Donna. I see it and I feel it. I swear I do. And - fuck - I'll do whatever it takes for you to be okay."
And that's what does it; that's what causes all the walls she had been putting up since Gaza to crumble around her.
The tips of her fingers tingle, her eyes burn with a fresh onslaught of tears and even though it suddenly feels like she can't catch her breath, it somehow feels like maybe the first time she can let go and breathe.
She doesn't see him, not through the haziness of her memories. Everything became a blur but she can feel him, holding her tighter than she's ever been held by another person until she's lifted from the ground.
Later, after the dust settles, she'll realize he had gathered her in his arms the moment he felt her grow limp and carried her to his room.
Everything hits her at once then. Its overwhelming, she feels sick, but she never once relinquishes her grip. She sobs and shakes and fights to feel like she can breathe and its the most she's let go since she came home. She had been fighting tirelessly to regain some sort of control over her life since the moment that car exploded; so desperately grasping at whatever she could hold on so she doesn't spiral. But maybe this, letting go, was what she needed to start taking control again.
And Josh never lets her go, he simply holds her and whispers so much gentleness and love in her ear as the tide rolls in.
When her eyes flutter open she finds herself surrounded by darkness with only the ambient glow of the city lights slipping through the cracks of the blinds.
She's not alone though. Josh is still there, arms still cradling her against him.
At some point he had migrated them along the bed until his back rested against the head board, never once letting her go or letting her fall apart completely. She must have fallen asleep in the aftermath of the tears and the panic attacks and the bone-deep exhaustion she hasn't been able to shake since waking up in the hospital.
Maybe Toby knew, in that uncanny way he seemed to know everything, that she needed to go see Josh as much as he needed to see her.
It takes her only moments to figure out he's awake. She and his breathing patterns were old friends after all the days spent caring for her post-Rosslyn. His chest rose and fell in uneven patterns, far from the soft and measured breaths she knows come from a deep sleep and she wonders how long they've been there.
Tentatively she shifts in his arms. Slowly in an attempt not to startle him, but enough that he knows she's awake.
The raw concern in his eyes is blinding even through the darkness and it takes everything in her not to look away.
"Hi." She breathes out.
"Hi."
A silence settles in. It feels lighter than it did before, like an invisible weight that had been looming over them had finally began to let up.
She leans into him and wraps her arms around his shoulders. It's the first proper hug they've shared in longer than she likes to think about. Earlier had been able not crumbling to pieces. This was not that. This was simple and gentle and so very much needed.
"I see you, Donna." He says after a while, "And... I see it. Of course I see it."
She loosens her grip on him, just enough that she can sit back up and look at him face to face.
"I'm not-" She pauses, trying desperately to grasp onto the right words, "This isn't going to be easy."
He runs his hands up and down the length of her arms, a ghost of a touch that grounds her to reality.
"You're worth it," His reply is soft, but more sincere than it had any right to be, "And I'm sorry I put an impossible distance between us. Whatever you need and in whatever capacity, I swear I'm here for you."
Every bone in her body aches and she's so, so tired. But there is a comfort his words and proximity brings that soothes the hurt.
"I don't know what I need," She confesses, because its the only truth she can give, "I can't be chained to that desk anymore. I can't be there. Not now. I need something else. There are probably a lot of things I need. I don't know what they are but... I know that I need you."
The tears are back, threatening to spill over once again, but she wills herself not to cry.
"Can I-“ He begins, but stops himself just as quick as he began.
“Josh?”
His eyes close momentarily and she can feel the deep, shuttering breath that fills his lungs.
“If you don’t work for me anymore then…” He opens his eyes and stares directly into hers and he looks so, so tired, “Can I please just kiss you now?”
It’s not the first time she’s felt lightheaded that night, but it is the first time it hasn’t been from pain or panic.
The words come tumbling out before her thoughts actually catch up to what he's asking.
"You better."
His movements are slow and timid and so very un-Josh like. The seconds are agonizing, but the warmth that courses through her when the tip of his nose brushes her own is enough to tether her to reality, maybe forever.
And then finally - finally - his lips brush hers in a featherlight kiss, so gentle it makes her want to cry all over again.
A shaky hand brushes the underside of her jaw, and its almost instinctual in the way her own hands come up to cradle his face.
Even through the blinding turmoil of everything that has transpired she can see it clearly; she's been hopelessly in love with him for so long now. It wouldn't fix her, not even close. But in this moment she can feel the smallest fleck of her soul heal.
She won't tell him yet. Not now. Not while everything is so raw and broken. She knows that he knows, just as she knows he loves her too. It wasn't the time for such declarations, but the lack of vocalization didn't make it any less true.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers, words dancing against her lips as he speaks.
She knows deep down in her bones that this should not have been the catalyst; that their first kiss should not have came from the aftermath of her near death. They deserved so much better. But hadn't that always been the case? They deserved better than gunshots and car bombs and everything else that happened to them. The timing had never been right and she thinks maybe there never would be a right time for them if they waited any longer.
"I'm sorry too." For what she doesn't know exactly.
His lips move to the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her jaw, then one final kiss is pressed to her neck before he buries his face into her shoulder. Its the first time she's felt safe in so long.
"I need you too, Donnatella." He says against her.
They stay like that, clinging on to one another shrouded in darkness for what felt like hours. Maybe it had been. She's not quite sure. Time hadn't felt linear for her in so long that days could have passed and it would have felt the same as seconds flying by.
When Josh does eventually relinquish his hold on her the anxiety comes flooding back. Part of the barriers she had been so meticulously building since her return from Germany were just as much physical as they were emotional, and that realization hit's her square in the chest when he pulls away.
How long had it been since someone just held her? Since she allowed someone to do so?
Touch-starved was just another addition to the long list if things Gaza caused her to be.
"I'm gonna, you know," He nods in the general direction of the living room, "The glass."
The beer bottle. She had almost forgotten.
"I'll help you."
She moves to stand but Josh is quicker and plants his hands firmly on her shoulders, gently keeping her in place.
"I can do it," He tells her gently, "You don't have to... I got it, okay? Just stay here."
There's something about the gentleness mixed with the resolution in his tone that drains whatever - if any - fight there was left in her, and all she can do is nod at his request.
Even through the dark she can make out the way the corner of his mouth twitches up into an almost smile.
"I got you, okay?" Josh assures her before kissing her forehead.
When he leaves the room she forces herself on her feet. Even without the soft glow of the city lights trickling in through the window Donna knew exactly where everything in his room was. The months spent here while he was recovering after Rosslyn meant she became intimately acquainted with every nook and cranny of his apartment, including where every article of clothing resided.
It wasn't something that needed to be said aloud. She was going to stay there tonight, she knew it as well as he did because really, where else would she be? Where else would either of them be tonight than with one another?
Because things between them have shifted irrevocably between them since Gaza, and now the unspoken line that had always existed between them had been crossed.
When he returns she's sitting in the center of his bed, clad in a set of his boxers and some old t-shirt she didn't bother to look too closely at. She's sure she looks pathetic, with her tear-stained cheeks and knees pulled tightly to her chest.
He doesn't look at her any different than he always does though, and she can't tell if it makes her feel better or worse.
"Here," He sits a glass of water and a bottle of pain reliver on the bedside table, "I used to get achy after."
The sentence ends too abruptly to be considered a fully realized thought, but she knows exactly what he means. After a panic attack.
It's almost comical, really, how after all these years of taking care of him he's trying to do the same for her. And to think he was the one on the brink of a breakdown when she first arrived. How the tables turned so quickly.
"Do you want me too..." He gestures vaguely in the direction of the living room. The couch, he means.
She doesn't trust her voice, so all she does is shake her head and hope he sees it in her eyes how desperately she doesn't want to be alone right now.
"Okay." He says softly.
It wasn't the first time they had slept in the same bed. On the campaign they had both fallen asleep in more hotels rooms than she could probably count. Fully clothed, papers and numbers scattered atop the covers.
And then there was Rosslyn and all the nightmare ridden nights that she had held his hand until he fell back asleep. Sometimes she migrated back to the couch and sometimes she didn't. She had fallen asleep sitting up against the headboard with his hand still in hers on more than one occasion. And then there were the more unspoken nights where she sank down beside him.
This was different in its entirety, because now they were both trauma ridden and full of grief and Josh had kissed her, which changes things.
He slides under the covers, tentative in his movements, and she follows his lead. The moment they're both settled she latches on to him, head burrowing into the hollow of his neck and arms wound around his torso.
He cradles her against his chest and she fights desperately not to cry.
"I get them," She says after a while, "Nightmares, I mean."
"Okay," He breathes out, tone one of intimate familiarity with the affliction, "I got you."
She knows he means more than just for tonight.
"I had to quit." She whispers, "I just...I had too. I can do more than I was. And I can't- I'm not the same now, and I can't stay there and be unmoving. Not anymore."
Its slight, but his grip on her tightens.
"I was angry that you quit." He says, "I think I still am, in a way. And that's on me, not you. Because I sent you to Gaza, and I almost lost you. It didn't matter in the end, anyway. Because you came back and I still lost you anyway."
At his words she shifts around, still in his arms but enough that she can lay her head on the pillow beside his.
"I'm leaving the job, but I'm not leaving you."
She knows he's going to kiss her again before he actually does and it feels like coming home.
"It's gonna kill me," He whispers, "Not working with you. It makes my days better. Easier. But this... this is gonna be better, I think."
Her nose brushes his as she speaks, "I'm not going to be easier right now."
Even though nothing about the night calls for it, he smiles at her.
"I wasn't easy either," He says, "And you stuck around."
Despite herself she smiles a bit too.
"You were worth it," Is her reply, echoing his words from earlier, "You're my best friend."
"You're more than that for me."
This time it's her that kisses him.
"Me too."
Tomorrow there would be more to discuss. Arguments to be had, more tears to be shed, and so many more things to say to one another. But for now she simply curls herself into him and lets him press his lips to her forehead.
There was no looking back now. They weren't going that way anymore.