Title: None is Left to Protest
Author: Aerial312
Rating: PG
Category: Angst/Romance
Spoiler Info: Post Ep for Transition.
Disclaimer: I own nothing…I just borrow.
Feedback: Greatly appreciated. Sure. Just let me know where its going.
A/N: 3rd (and I think last) in my fun-with-Shakespeare post-ep series for Transition. This is a sequel to "By Fearing to Attempt" and "This Above All".

Josh sat in a deck chair by the pool, watching Donna. She was on the porch, under the protection of an awning, reading one of his mother's books. She kept glancing over at him, with a concerned look in her eyes, while he was pretending to be asleep behind his sunglasses.

He had chickened out. Completely. He'd had her in his arms on the couch not half an hour earlier, and his mind went blank. All the ways he'd though about doing it left his head. And he'd thought about very little else in the last few days…how could it all just vanish? It did though, and he was suddenly back at square one. So he chickened out and suggested they go swimming. She laughed, and told him to go ahead, but that she was going to give her skin a break from the midday sun.

That left him sitting alone, across the yard from Donna, who was eyeing him curiously. Yeah, there was no way pretending to be asleep was working. His mom was going to be so disappointed when she returned from whatever fake emergency she had concocted to leave them alone. Well, he might as well swim.

Donna watched as Josh peeled off the dark glasses and tossed them into his heap of shirt on the cement. He dove into the pool in a smooth movement. She smiled, as he began to swim laps back and forth in the little pool. He didn't have a towel. He must not have intended on actually swimming. In fact, the whole idea of swimming had come up very quickly.

He was up to something, or at least trying to be. His brain had been somewhere else all afternoon. Well, really for the last few days. They'd be doing one thing, and a moment later he'd be off on a tangent, struggling to explain why. It was like Josh to jump from topic to topic like lightening, but usually he knew why. This time she wasn't sure. He was just so scattered.

Something was up. She couldn't read him, but his mother had very obviously made herself scarce. Unless something was up, she highly doubted that Rita would give up any time of this rare, and brief visit. She had been touched that visiting his mom had been part of the agenda for their vacation, but he hadn't mentioned it until a few days in. She'd been hazy on a lot of the details from the beginning, but she was really surprised when he told her that the last two days of the trip would be spent in West Palm. It was another of those spur of the moment changes.

She couldn't really fault this strangeness in his mood though. As much as he'd been all over the place in his head, they had really had the most amazing vacation. Finally taking the time to really enjoy each other, and make it clear that they wanted to make this work. He loved her. She'd known it for a long time, but he finally admitted it. And she finally told him what he'd known for a long time as well.

Donna turned back to the complete works that she'd been browsing through. She was looking for a specific quote that she couldn't quite remember from her college course on Shakespeare. Something about just how much the woman loved the man. At the time she'd applied to Dr. Freeride, but now, she thought for sure that it applied to Josh. So much of my heart. She was never going to find it. Love…I love you…with…so much of my heart… Then what?

The sliding door closed behind her, and Rita joined her at the table, looking at her curiously.

"Hello, Rita. Did your friend's problem work itself out?"

"Yes, yes it did." Rita looked at Donna's hand. No ring. She looked over at her son in the pool. "How long's he been in there?"

"He only just jumped in. He lay in the sun for a while before that."

"Oh."

"All of a sudden he was very into swimming."

"I see."

"He's been a little scattered the last few days. I can't read him. It's weird. Nothing's wrong, he's just on edge."

"He's not used to being so relaxed. Or with a woman that he's madly in love with."

Donna felt herself blush furiously. Of course, he'd told her that himself in the past week, but it was different to hear his mother say it.

"He is, you know."

"I know. And I'm madly in love with him…I still think he's afraid though."

"He'll always be afraid of something. Hopefully he can learn to conquer his fears more quickly. Nine years is an awfully long time to wait every time."

Donna smiled and looked at Josh's mother intently. "What do you think he's afraid of now?"

Rita looked at the younger woman, wishing that she could tell her. "Maybe you should ask him."

Donna nodded. "Is that your way of telling me that you know, but its not your place to say?"

Rita smiled. "So, what do you have the complete works out for?" Diversionary tactics.

" I've been looking through this book for a while now, trying to find this quote I used to love and now I can't remember. The phrase I remember of it has "so much of my heart"—"

"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest."

"Yes!" Donna grinned, and looked out at Josh in the pool.

"I'll be inside if you need anything else, dear."

Donna stood, plucked a towel off of the shelf, and made her way down to the pool.

"How's the water?"

No response.

A little louder. "How's the water?"

Josh looked up, surprised to see that Donna had parked herself in the deck chair he had formerly occupied.

"It's pretty nice. Colder than what we've been swimming in though."

"Well, that's hard to match."

He stared up at her.

"You okay?"

"Huh?"

"The vacant stare."

"I'm fine…I…was just…thinking about how beautiful you are."

Donna smirked. A good cover on his part, and while she was sure he meant the words, she had no doubt that that's not where his mind was at that moment.

"You've been kind of in your own little world for a few days now."

"I've just been thinking."

"Are you worried about something?"

He looked her straight in the eye for a minute, before shifting his gaze back down to the pool. "I'm…I just…why do you ask?"

"You just seem like you're trying really hard to work something out…"

His eyes briefly found hers again, and she crossed over to the pool, squatting beside him.

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

He took her hand in his wet one and squeezed it tightly. "I'm okay."

"Okay, then." He wasn't telling her the whole truth, but she wasn't going to push him any further.

"You gonna swim?"

"Nah. I'll just sit over here for a while. You really shouldn't leave your shirt in a heap on the cement."

Donna stooped to pick it up, and Josh nearly vaulted out of the pool.

"No, just leave it there!"

As Donna picked it up, the small black box tumbled to the ground. She froze. She knew exactly what that was, and suddenly everything made sense. The getting lost in thought, the trip to his mother's. Donna stared at the little black box. It was his grandmother's ring. It had to be. She knew that Josh's mom had it. She'd told Donna about it once in one of their phone calls years ago; all about how she was keeping it safe until…no wonder Rita had been evading her questions! She knew!

Josh slowly approached, dripping water. He had no idea what she was thinking. But there was no turning back at this point. All hope of doing this in some well thought out, romantic way, gone. As he got closer to her, she looked from the box to him, to back to the box.

"I…" Josh began, and his voice faltered. "I didn't…" Donna still hadn't moved. "This…" Deep breath. No turning back. "Donna…" Josh squatted down the pick up the box, and was about to stand back up to face her, when he suddenly changed his mind and dropped to his knee. Also not the way he'd thought about doing it, but at this point it was all improvisation. "This..." He began to laugh softly, and looked up at her. "This is not the way I'd intended to do this…hell, I'm not even quite sure how I intended to do this…but I did intend to do it…" She was smiling now. Deep breath. "Donna, will you marry me?"

She knelt slowly beside him, and kissed his forehead. "Yes. Of course I will." Her eyes were misting over, and he pulled her into him and kissed her deeply.

Inside the house, from where she'd been watching out the window, Rita Lyman began to jump up and down and squeal like a young girl, frantically making her way to the phone to call Ethel.

"I don't think I've ever been more afraid of anything."

Donna smiled, and they sat back on the deck chair. "You don't have to be afraid of anything. I love you."

"God, I love you so much."

Donna smiled, and laughed.

"What?"

"Your mom just helped me remember a quote…I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest."

"That's exactly how I feel."

"Me too. No fighting this anymore."

"Never." He leaned in and kissed her deeply again.

When the broke apart, Donna asked, "Are you going to open the box?"

Josh looked at the box, still closed in his hand, and smiled sheepishly. Full dimples. "Yeah, you want to see this, don't you?"

"Would be nice." She giggled.

He pulled open the cover and pulled the ring out, reaching for Donna's hand at the same time. "This was my grandmother's ring. She left it to me. My mom's had it for safekeeping. We might need to re-size…" He slid it onto her finger. "I guess not. That fits, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Josh stared at her for a moment, then kissed the hand he still held, and stood up, pulling her to join him. "Ready to go tell mom?"

"You bet."

They turned toward the house.

"You know, I think this'll be one time that she doesn't care that I'll be standing dripping in her kitchen."

"Take the towel."

"I'm just saying."

"Take it."

Donna picked it up, and smacked him playfully with it before handing it over. He clasped his hand in hers, and they set off to tell his mother what she was already telling her friends.

FIN