I lean against the door frame to Josh's office, sighing. He has to know I'm here. I've been standing here for at least five minutes and while I know he can get lost in his work, he's not that oblivious. I don't know why it's so important that he notice me on his own at this point, I just know that it is.

He has his elbow on his desk, his forehead against his palm as he reads over endless amounts of notes and memos. I'm sure he's legitimately busy—he always is—but that's never stopped him from having a few moments for me. That's all I'm asking for, honestly; just a few moments of his time.

With another sigh—an aggravated one—I propel myself a few feet into his office, and there's no possible way he can pretend that he doesn't know I'm there.

He makes a noise, flipping over a piece of paper. "What's up, Donna?"

I count to myself for a couple of seconds, hoping to keep myself in check. "I'm heading home soon," I answer quietly.

"Okay."

Wow. That's it. Just "okay." I pause for a few long moments, waiting to see if he'll say anything else.

Silence.

I clear my throat, hoping to push down the emotions I feel creeping up. "Will I see you tonight?"

"Huh? Oh, probably not. I'll be home late so don't wait up."

"If you even bother coming home," I mumble.

He actually looks up at me for a second, irritation all over his face, before going back to his work. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You just seem to be sleeping in your office more than in your own bed lately."

"It happens, Donna," he tells me, condescension seeping through his tone. "And I don't know if I like what you're implying."

"I'm not implying anything," I answer, feeling heat rush to my face. Whatever else is happening, Josh isn't a cheater. If he's not home with me during the night, it's because he's working or fell asleep at his desk. I don't have confidence in much right now, but I know he's not sleeping with someone else.

He shakes his head, burying his face in his work, and I take a few deep breaths. There's really no need for me to be this bent out of shape right now. We're both running on too little sleep—have been for years—and emotions tend to run high when exhaustion sets in.

Eventually, he must realize I'm still standing in front of his desk because I see his forehead scrunch as he lifts his eyes in my general direction. "Was there something else?"

I count to five in my head again. "I just feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

"Donna—"

"You're not there when I go to sleep, you're gone when I wake up…I miss you." My stomach twists and I'm not entirely sure if I mean that I miss his physical presence, or the man he was just a few short weeks ago. The guy in front of me now feels more like a stranger than he ever has, and the worst part is I can't even begin to guess why.

"It's the job, Donna. I'm not staying away from you on purpose."

Disbelief rushes through me, pushing my sadness out of the way. He absolutely is avoiding me. We've been in office for two years and he's rarely at work all that late or early, and when he is, it's not for more than a day or two at a time. Even then, he'll make a point to meet me for lunch or will find five minutes just to touch base. Even still, I'm not sure if that's a point worth calling him out on right now.

"We're getting married in a couple of weeks," I finally say after the silence between us grew almost too large to overcome.

It's almost imperceptible but his entire body tenses even further. "Yeah."

The knot that's been in my stomach for days now tightens. "Hard to believe, isn't it?"

"I guess."

A lump forms in my throat and I do my best to push it back down. "Could you, you know, try to be excited about it?"

He makes a face and rolls his eyes a little, but it's enough to make my blood boil. "I am excited about it."

"Could have fooled me."

He drops his hands on his desk with a loud thud, making me jump before I can control myself. "Look, I'm sorry I don't have time to fawn over color schemes and flower arrangements with you. I'm only trying to run a country here. Granted, it's not as important as a party, but it's worth noting."

My blood boils. I actually feel everything inside of me catch on fire. "Fuck you."

His head snaps up, his eyes wide as he stares at me. "What?"

"Fuck. You. Josh."

He hesitates for just a moment before clearing his throat and looking back to the files on his desk. "Why are you getting so pissy?"

I swear my blood turns into lava. Josh has made me mad before—of course he has. I've known him for more than ten years, and if he didn't do it while we were working together, he's certainly been an insensitive ass more than once while living together. He's never—he's never—been anything like this before. He's usually hurtful by accident, not spiteful on purpose. "Why am I being pissy? Are you serious?"

"Donna, you're making a mountain out of a molehill."

"You're so full of shit."

He smirks again, and I have to physically restrain myself from reaching over his desk and throttling him. "And how exactly am I—"

"There is nothing that big or that important going on right now."

He tilts his head at me, his entire demeanor oozing a level condescension that's previously been reserved for obstinate Republicans. "And how would you know if there's something going on around here or not? You don't exactly have clearance—"

"Because the President isn't working right now, you ass," I spit out, actually forcing myself to take a step back. I absolutely can't be too close to him right now.

For whatever reason, that stops him in his tracks. "What?"

"The President—you know, your boss?—hasn't been pulling these kinds of hours. He's been spending time with his family.

"Have you—"

"I'm not checking up on you; I just happen to have conversations with my boss, and she's been talking about how nice it is that things have been so calm lately and that he can spend so much time with her and the kids. I know he's not working around the clock because if there was something so big it was keeping you here all hours, he'd be here, too."

He gives me his smug face, the one he makes when he thinks he can see the world as a chessboard and has someone in checkmate. "Maybe there are things—"

"Sam hasn't been here, either," I tell him, knowing what he was going to try to pull. "Even if you thought the President didn't need to be involved in something, you'd have Sam here, but I know he's been at home with his wife most nights, enjoying his relative free time. And I know this because he's always asking if we want to have dinner with the two of them to relax before the wedding, or even offering to help with some of the planning details. He has time right now. Time you have, too."

"What are you trying to say to me? I should stop doing my job so I can focus on a wedding?"

I can feel myself deflate a little. I feel like…like nothing I've felt before. I've never felt like I mattered less to this man, and he's had some moments over the years where he's made me feel pretty small. "Go to hell. I'm not talking about a wedding; I'm talking about our wedding. You know—the thing that's supposed to bind us together for the rest of our lives? But I can see how that wouldn't be a big deal."

"I have a job to do."

"And I've never asked you to stop doing it. Never. I've never demanded that I be your top priority, or that everything else come to a halt so we can do wedding stuff, and I'd never ask you to stop everything and focus on the minutia of it all. Have I asked you to do that?"

He's back to actively avoiding my gaze. "Well, no—"

"Because I know how important this job is, Josh. I know. I know that none of this or even I can take precedence over it all." My voice catches in my throat and I take a moment to try to regain control. Since he became chief of staff, I really haven't asked him to make me a priority, but I also haven't needed to. He's been really good about trying to balance work and our personal life, almost always choosing me over something that could keep him at work for another three hours.

I hate to be this person. I hate feeling needy, and I hate that I always think I might be blowing things out of proportion, but something is seriously going on with Josh and he won't talk to me about it. In the little more than two years we've been together, I've never had to ask him to make me a priority because he's always done it on his own. Maybe I took it for granted. He's just always been so sweet and attentive and is usually the one to slow us down. He's always talking about how we shouldn't put our lives on hold for work.

"You said you didn't want to be Leo," I finally say, my voice quiet, strained.

He scrunches his face up in confusion. "What? I didn't—I wish I knew half as much as Leo did."

"With your personal life. You said you didn't want to be Leo with your personal life." I pause, taking several deep breaths as I try to collect myself. "You said you didn't want what happened to Leo and Jenny to happen to us."

"It's not," he insists. "Don't be dramatic."

"Dramatic," I whisper. "Right."

"I don't know what your problem is lately, but you're being a real nag."

My heart actually twists in agony. "Josh, we are getting married in two weeks. This is a big deal. I've hardly seen you since well before the State of the Union. It's not a matter of me feeling the need to control you or keep track of your every move, but I would like to check in with you every few days. You used to like being around me, but now it feels like you can't stand the sight of me. I don't know if you've even touched me in a month." He gives me a look of utter disbelief but I just shake my head miserably, wrapping my arms across my stomach. I honestly can't recall the last time he kissed me good morning, and the last time we made love was probably the first week of January.

"You asked me to marry you, remember? I never forced you or gave you an ultimatum. We talked about it—we've been talking about it for a long time. We both knew we wanted to get married at some point but I never told you it had to be a certain time or in a certain way. If you're not ready, you shouldn't have asked me, but you're the one who walked around with an engagement ring for months. You're the one who told me that on our first day back from Hawaii, after I kept telling you I wouldn't move in with you, that you hoped I wouldn't put up that kind of fight when you proposed." I feel my eyes start to well up and I bite the inside of my cheek as hard as I can stand to keep it at bay. "If you're having second thoughts about all of this, you could at least have the decency to talk to me about it. I'm not asking for much, but I would like to know if you're planning to bail on the rest of our life."

He leans back in his chair, crinkling his forehead at me in confusion. "I'm not bailing on anything. I'm sorry that I've been too busy with my actual job to hold your hand during all of this—"

"Go to hell." I straighten myself up, trying to feel rage instead of profound sadness. "You're not blaming me for this. I realize that you think my job isn't as important as yours, and maybe it isn't. Maybe Helen and I aren't saving the world from terrorists, but it's still something that keeps me busy for ten or twelve hours a day. I've still found time to deal with our wedding. Just because we have a planner doesn't mean that there aren't decisions to be made, and I want to be involved in one of the most important days of my life. Forgive me for thinking you'd feel the same. I thought you'd show just a little more interest in the whole process than you have. I haven't wanted to bother you with things I know you'd never care about or notice, but I sure as hell never thought I'd be the only one taking care of this whole thing. I'm not the little woman, Josh. I'm not sitting at home keeping dinner warm on the off chance you'll grace me with your presence, and planning our wedding isn't just my responsibility." I take a deep breath, trying to gather my courage; my heart pounds out of control. "If this isn't what you want to do then be an adult and tell me, but I'm not going to wait around until our wedding day for you to figure it out." I want to say more. I need to say more, but my throat all but closes up as tears that I can't fight back fill my eyes.

I turn as quickly as I can and walk away from his office. A tiny part of me hopes I'll hear him come after me even though I know it'll never happen. Whatever is going on his head right now is going to stop him from being a normal human being.

I make it outside and hail a cab without incident, surprised for just a few moments that none of the usual detail is trailing me before I remember that they usually don't if I'm not with Josh. That's all supposed to change after the wedding—not that I actually want my own personal detail, but it's part of the package. Still, I leave the White House with no fanfare, giving the cab driver my address. I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts, finally pressing send when I get to the First Lady.

"Donna!" she answers after just a couple of rings. "I thought I sent you home a while ago—did something come up?"

"No, ma'am—Helen. Sorry. I just needed to ask a small favor."

"Shoot."

I clear my throat, trying to push back the lump. "I know I'm already taking a lot of time off for the whole wedding thing, but would it be a problem to take a couple of days now?"

"Now?"

"Now. As in tomorrow and probably the day after?"

"No, that shouldn't be a problem. Do you and Josh need to take a few days before the wedding? Matt and I had to do that. Well, we couldn't get away for a couple of days but we had to make an effort to spend time talking about something other than our wedding. It can be overwhelming."

I don't say anything in response—I can't say anything. I don't know how to answer her. I don't know what's happening right now. I have no plan. I'm going back to my and Josh's apartment and…then what? Calling Helen and asking for a couple of days off was impulsive and I had nothing in mind for it. I only knew that I needed space. But what does that mean? I share an apartment with the guy I'm supposed to be marrying in a matter of days but the thought of being around him right now is agonizing. Not that he's been home much lately. Hell, I could lock myself in our apartment for the next week and not have to worry about bumping into him.

That thought fills with me more sadness than it ought to.

"Donna? Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine, Helen," I answer, my voice high and choked and very obviously everything but okay. The cab driver pulls up the apartment and I hop out as I pay the driver, barely pausing for the change. "I've got some stuff to take care of, though."

"Anything I can do to help?" Damn—she sounds really worried now. If I've learned one thing about Helen Santos over the last few years it's that her mom-sense kicks into overdrive the moment someone tells the slightest fib about their wellbeing and she'll latch onto it until she sorts it out. It's how she gets the President to slow down when he thinks it's only the sniffles but is actually the flu, and how she knows when her kids aren't actually sick and are just trying to get out of going to school. She doesn't often use that ability on the rest of us, but it can be hard to get anything past her.

"No, but thank you," I answer as I shove open the apartment door, taken aback all over again by the lack of security trailing me. Even when I'm by myself, if I'm headed home, one of the members of the detail will usually follow to make sure the place is secure, I'm sure if nothing else in preparation for Josh's arrival. "I'll give you a call tomorrow, all right? To let you know if I need the day after off, too."

"Donna—"

"I've gotta go. Have a good night."

She hesitates on the other end; I can tell she wants to ask questions and that my behavior is throwing her off, but she holds off. Unfortunately, it won't be long before she talks to her husband about it, which means he'll go to Josh after that to find out if I'm all right. Still, if Josh is still being an arrogant ass, and I'm betting that he is, he won't think that anything's wrong with me, other than that I'm a nagging bitch.

"Okay. You have a good night, too."

I nod and click my phone shut, not sure of what else to say. I glance around the dark apartment and turn on one of the lamps next to the couch. I reach for my laptop, determined to find somewhere to go before I back away from the device like it's on fire. Josh would have no idea how to track my search history but he knows plenty of people who do, and it feels vitally important that he not have it that easy if he's suddenly inclined to search me out.

With a sigh I dig out a phone book and make my way into our bedroom. I force myself not to think about what I'm doing as I flip to hotel listings in the Yellow Pages and grab one of my overnight bags, shoving in a few days worth of clothes and toiletries into it while I make reservations in Arlington. Maybe I'm being dramatic right now; maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion. Maybe I'm perfectly justified in my response to the situation. All I know is right now I don't want to be somewhere that reminds me so much of Josh. I can't think about him without shaking with anger. I don't want to be in this home that we've been making together for two years. I don't want to be somewhere he can easily corner me to tell me just how ridiculous I'm being about this "wedding stuff."

I pause and take several deep breaths, dozens of emotions flooding through me. I don't know what's going on with him. I don't know why he's pulled back from me for the last month or so. I don't know what changed between the holidays—when all he could talk about was us getting married—and now, when he's avoiding me like the plague. God knows I've tried to figure it out. I've tried giving him space so he can sort it out on his own, I've tried talking to him repeatedly but he's made himself almost completely unavailable, locking himself up in meetings or even just his office with explicit instructions that no one is allowed to bother him, save the President of the United States. Honestly, if we were on the verge of war, I'd get it. If something major was happening in the country right now, I'd understand. The world has been fairly quiet as of late, or at least it's been no more confusing than normal. But even at the beginning of the administration, Josh would make his way home as often as possible and as early as he could, and even if it wasn't much, we'd still get to spend a few hours together. If I was asleep when he got home, he'd wake me up just so we could talk to each for a few minutes, and he'd always say goodbye to me in the mornings if he was headed in before I.

I shake myself out of my reverie and grab my stuff, heading back down to the street. I hate that I'm disappointed that I don't spot any of Josh's detail lurking around, letting me know that he's on his way to talk to me, but I should have expected as much. He's incredibly stubborn and if he's refusing to see an issue with the way he's been behaving lately, I don't know if he'll ever reach out.

My stomach clenches as I hail another cab, giving the driver the address. I briefly considered taking Josh's car but…it's Josh's car. It's registered to him. If he were so inclined, he'd have no trouble tracking it down. He'd have even less trouble saying it was stolen if he was still in the mood to be an ass.

I stare out the window as DC at night rolls by me, the sights that usually fill me with wonder not even registering. I ignore the cab driver's attempts at conversation, certain that I'll wind up telling him far more than he bargained for. I'm so lost in my own little world that I don't notice when the cab stops in front of the hotel. I drag myself out of the car after paying and make my way down to an ATM before checking into the hotel. If I use my credit card to pay for this, anyone who wants to find me, including the press, will thank me for the engraved invitation. At least cash will give me a little bit of time to myself.

I chuckle to myself mirthlessly as I make my way back to the hotel, almost amused by the odd amount of thought I'm putting into this. I'm assuming that Josh will want to find me so I'm making it as difficult as I can but…the truth is he may not give a damn. He might not even notice that I'm gone. As much as this isn't a test to see if he'll come after me, I can't help but wish that he'll want to know where I am. I only barely keep my tears at bay as I check in, declining the offer to have my bags brought up for me. Instead, I pull out my cell phone again, calling CJ as I trudge into my room. It's still early enough in California that I shouldn't be disturbing Henry, if she and Danny have even put him to bed yet. She picks up after only a couple of rings.

"Sadie, Sadie, married lady," she croons into my ear by way of a greeting. "See what's on my hand. There's nothing quite as touching as a simple wedding band."

"CJ—"

"How's the future Mrs. Lyman tonight?"

"Well—"

"Before you can ask, the flowers are beautiful, the music will knock 'em dead, and you look so gorgeous in your wedding dress that I'm considering marrying you."

"But—"

"As for your choice of groom, I'm still questioning it but he seems to make you happy so who am I to judge?"

No matter how hard I try not to cry, I feel a little sob bubble out of me and am met with silence on the other end of the line. I didn't call CJ to cry—I really didn't. I just needed a sounding board for all this and who better than my maid of honor? But there's nothing I can do to stop it now.

"Donna? What's wrong?"

"I…I…"

"I'll kill him."

"You don't even know—"

"I don't care; I will kill him."

I want to laugh at CJ's vehemence but all I can do is try to choke back my tears.

I've been in a writing slump lately and I started working on this something like two months ago. Words have been hard. Anyway, it's full of angst and such, I guess because I hadn't done anything like that in a while. There's more to come because it's insanely long and unedited and I still need to possibly write an epilogue. I also don't know if I'm including this in my head cannon. It might be somewhat independent. Who cares, right? At any rate, once you start writing something like this, you have to try to figure out why it's happening (unless you're a better writer than I am, in which case you might have a story worked out before you start writing). It's called Fourteen Days because I'm crap at naming stories and this is what I called it as I wrote and then I couldn't think of anything else. Womp womp.