Not the wind that cracked your shoulder

Eh, not sure what's going on these days- I have started a bunch of fics but I just can't finish anything…wrote this after "The Ticket". Maybe will be the start of something, maybe not but just had to get it out of my word files, see if it had any kind of shelf life...

I don't own anything from, of, or about the West Wing. Not even close

She couldn't believe it.

She could not believe it.

Her entire body was numb. There was a ringing in her ears she hadn't heard in a year to match the frantic racing of her heart. The keys shook uncontrollably in her hand trying to unlock her car. She turned around and pressed her back into the car, closed her eyes and took a beat.

Bram said you're gonna want to take this one

She had smiled at the look on his face when he turned around. He looked as caught off guard as she had ever seen him and she almost laughed out loud. But then she remembered why he was anxious in her presence, why she had given him cause to be.

They walked down the hall to his office too fast, she rambled too much with small talk and his hand was conspicuously absent from her back. She was nervous.

Nice headline in the Post today, that's gotta feel good

Yea it does, it's heady stuff. How's Will?

Oh back in the VP's office, wanders around a lot like a guy who can't find his glasses

Yea…you goin back there too?

Yea she had hoped. Well, hoped, dreaded; she couldn't tell the difference anymore. And the way he still hadn't looked her in the eye made her just want turn right around and run out the door.

I'm glad you brought that up…

She had thought she might throw up.

I'm proud to say I've grown a lot in the last few months. The Russell campaign gave me some wonderful opportunities. I took an active role in drafting policy positions and eventually was promoted to the role of campaign spokesperson-

Donna…

But she had to keep going. She would have never gotten this out if he stopped her, and she had to say her peace, she had to surrender her last shred of dignity because she knew he wouldn't take anything less. She hated giving him the satisfaction, she knew he was angry when she left and damn if that ego was going to let her forget it. She had offered up a silent plea, "Please, just let me keep going…"

Lemme get through this, it's one of the more awkward moments of a lifetime-

She had to keep going. She opened her car and slid gracelessly into the seat, taking deep steadying breaths. Though, as soon as the door slammed shut, tears began to blur her vision. She couldn't do this anymore, and she heard the echo of his voice in her head,

We can't do this…

She had been all set to start dialing up the rhetoric, to convince him how good she could be, how much she had learned on the trail for months, but mostly how much she had learned from him over the years. But then he completely caught her off guard. She almost hadn't heard him, hadn't heard the break of his voice that was there. They couldn't do this? Was he serious, because she could pretty much guarantee that they were doing that. That this was the way things had always been between them, they screwed up, but they always came back to start again; the PTSD, the diary, Amy, Jack, Carrick, and now this.

It was only fair, he could play the victim, she couldn't deny him that but if he thought for one moment that it was not killing her to beg like this, and if he thought he was going to- to just give up, just going to wash his hands of the whole thing, without, without even looking at her... She would play the game, but she sure as hell wasn't going to lose. This time she was not some wide-eyed lost girl with nothing. She may be fighting for her life but eight years later at least it was going to be on her own terms. If she could do this, then he sure as hell could.

I'm good, is the point. I'm as surprised as you are and rumor has it you could use a deputy.

But when he had finally looked at her, all her anger with his attitude, all the anger that was giving her confidence disappeared. In the nine years she had known Joshua Lyman she could count on one hand the number of times he looked at her that way; that pained, haunted, way that said "I am holding it together with both hands here." At Christmas, in Manchester, after Carrick, in Germany she had known what to do- hell it was her job, but at that moment, in that room, she had no clue. She had realized in that moment, watching him swing his legs off the desk and pull something from a drawer, just how far they had strayed from that familiar path of the past years and wondered if it was even possible to find their way back.

Matthew Santos is throwing a ton of numbers at you…

She had flinched at the sound of her own words. Oh God. She tried to backpedal, but she couldn't deny everything and frankly she didn't want to. Yes, she had said those things, but she he was a jackass to bring it up because it was what she was supposed to do. She had held her own in the big leagues, she was proud of it, and now he was holding it against her. And he knew it.

She slammed her fists on the steering wheel, "God damnit!" stuck in her throat as wrenching sob. The tears came hot and fast down her face and she quickly lost the battle of trying to wipe them away. She had just been doing her job, why couldn't he understand.

You called Russell a cowpoke, you said the President avoided him in the halls, you hummed 'These boots were made for walkin' every time the press mentioned his name!-

Yea but I won…

She opened her eyes and whispered into the silence of the car, "It was my job Josh. I was just doing my job." She hung her head bracing herself to remember the words he had said next, the ones that had changed everything between them.

"…and if you think I don't miss you everyday"

She had looked down at her lap as if she had just been slapped. She couldn't think beyond the fact that he had just turned her down. It was not supposed to happen that way. The plan was for everything to go back to normal, working together, bantering, and most of all, just allowing her to be near him everyday. She was in love with him, there was no doubt in her mind about that, and she knew that if she heard him say how much he missed her organization, her efficiency, or any of her assistantly capacities she wouldn't have been able to take it. She knew she had to leave as soon as possible.

Thank you for your time.

And so here she was. Her head rested on her arms folded across the steering wheel. Her hands were stained with mascara from wiping her eyes and she didn't even want to know what her face looked like. So tomorrow she would go back to the VP's office, thank goodness she had taken the rest of the day off, and then…look for a job somewhere far, far away. Far away from professional politics, and far away from Joshua Lyman, maybe somewhere warm. California would be nice, maybe Sam would know someone or maybe she would go north to Boston- surely Leo had old friends there. She sighed, feeling ancient, decades older than ten minutes ago. Her eyes burned and she could feel the beginning assault of a migraine. She leaned over to the passenger seat to find where she tossed the keys and lost in thoughts of beaches and clam chowder she almost didn't hear the tapping on her window. But she looked up to see him there, standing in the rain that had begun to fall, his hand against the glass.