Title: You Have to Get Away
Author: Mary (parkerma@gmail.com)
Fandom: West Wing
Pairing: Josh/Donna
Rating: R



Donna dreamed of Josh, as she had almost every night that week. She woke frustrated, the familiar aching pulse of desire between her legs to match the ache of desire between her breasts. She sighed, her fingers wandering over her body in a too-familiar pattern that had gained efficiency over the years, but seemed to have lost its power to comfort. After a few moments she bit down on his name and turned her face into the pillow, unwilling to get up. She didn’t want to go to work. She was tired of facing Josh; he had been edgy around her since she’d gotten back from Germany, as if he was afraid she would suddenly realize that he was in love with her. It was startling to her still that a man with as brilliant a mind as Josh’s could be so blind to what seemed to her incredibly fundamental details.

She lay in bed and played through the day in her head. She would go into the office, blush a bit when she saw Josh (but he wouldn't notice), keep his office and the staff running perfectly while he was absorbed in staking out political territory in competition with CJ and Toby of all people (but he wouldn't notice), she would go out for his lunch and organize his reimbursements and make sure his dry cleaning went out and he wouldn't ever notice.

This great, life-altering thing had happened to her and he had charged out like Don Quixote to sit by her bed and pick at her unfinished Jello and now he was pretending nothing had changed.

She wanted to shout at him. She wanted to sweep all those untidy piles of paper off his desk and demand an explanation. She wanted to corner him tenderly and ask if he thought she didn't know? If he thought she hadn't known for years? She knew she wasn't wrong, but she also knew about his tendency to panic, to backpedal. Under the comforter, she had a revelation: it was time to leave. Everyone he'd ever loved had left him. Now it was her turn.

Donna knew what it would do to Josh when he realized that she had left. She knew the look in his eyes. She knew the droop in his step, the way he would push his hands through his hair, and the desperate way he would seek out Leo or CJ or Toby to talk to. He wouldn't call her. That would be admitting his destruction. He was too proud for that.

It was time for both of them to grow up.

She burrowed out from under the comforter and headed for the shower to let the hot water wash away the last traces of a fantasy that would never be fulfilled.

Get yourself free