Title: Do What You Have to Do Author: Kelley Rating: PG-13 to R Pairing: J/D, naturally Feedback: Feedback is like a fine wine.Okay, I don't really have anything for that one, just send me some! Disclaimers: I'm a high school senior with no job and low income parents; do you Hollywood bigwigs really want to waste your time on me? Notes: This is the fourth in my "Love" series. It starts off roughly a month after, "Beautiful". For those of you too lazy to go back and read the other three stories, here's the breakdown: Donna got sick, Josh fell for Donna, Donna had a daughter before she joined the campaign, Donna gets better, Josh, Donna, and child, [Emma], become a family, Abbey dies, Jed resigns, Josh and Donna get hitched, Josh and Donna have daughter, [Natalie], Josh runs for and wins Senatorial seat, Sam hates Josh because of said campaign, Family moves to Washington with new friends in tow, Josh and Donna have huge fight, and Donna splits town with the girls. If you want anything more in-depth than this, take the time and read the other stories.

March 13, 2005: Thunder Bay, Ontario
What ravages of sprit conjured this temptuous rage?

Created you a monster, broken by the rules of love.

And fate has led you through it

You do what you have to do.

And fate has led you through it

You do what you have to do.

And I have the sense to recognize, That I don't know how to let you go.

Every moment marked with apparitions on your soul. I'm ever swiftly moving, trying to escape this desire. The yearning to be near you, I do what I have to do. The yearning to be near you, I do what I have to do...

But I have the sense to recognize, That I don't know how to let you go. I don't know how to let you go.

The glowing ember, Burning hot and burning slow. Deep with in I'm shaken, By the violence of existing for only you.

I know I can't be with you, I do what I have to do. I know I can't be with you, I do what I have to do.

But I have the sense to recognize, That I don't know how to let you go. I don't know how to let you go. I don't know how to let you go.

"That was Canada's own, Sarah McLachlan, waking you up this fine morning on." The annoying radio personality's voice was cut off as Donna reached over and slapped the snooze button on the alarm clock. She cracked one of her eyes open and saw that the sun was just starting to rise in the still dark sky. She closed her eyes and rolled back over on her bed, the song's lyrics still reverberating in her mind over and over. "Snap out of it, Donna," she mumbled to herself, burying herself further into the blankets, trying to steal just a little more calm and peace in the early morning.

"Mommy?" a familiar voice whispered from the doorway of the room, foiling Donna's plans.

Donna pulled the blankets back a little and peeked over them to see Emma standing next to her bed her most treasured possession, her stuffed dog Petey, clutched in her hands. "Hey you," she said, her voice a little gravelly from disuse. "What are you doing up so early?"

Emma shrugged. "I woke up and the moon was still out and I couldn't fall back asleep." She jutted out her lower lip in a recognizable fashion. "Can I come in your bed with you?"

Donna smiled and moved over to one side, pushing the blankets back to make room for the child. "Come here, baby," she said, patting down the bed. Emma climbed on up, settling against her mother's side. Donna reached over to wrap an arm around her and snuggled her closer to her. "This is nice," she commented, kissing Emma's head. "Here in the morning, all quiet. Just you and me." Of course, the toddler in the crib across the room chose now to make her presence known. "And your sister." Donna giggled as she untangled herself from Emma, pushed aside the blankets and got out of bed, going over to the crib and picking up Natalie. Quickly changing her diaper, she brought her back over to the bed and climbed back in, settling the baby in between herself and Emma.

"Good morning, Natty," Emma said, leaning over to kiss her little sister's forehead.

"Emmy!" Natalie exclaimed, reaching up and wrapping her little arms around Emma's neck.

"Ah! Attack of the Mutant Baby!" the older girl mocked shouted, flailing her arms about in that over-the-top way that only children can pull off. "Mommy, save me!" Donna laughed quietly and scooped Natalie up in her arms, holding her high above her head, jiggling her a little bit before pulling her back down against her chest and piling kisses all over her face while Emma reached over with Petey, and the stuffed animal pelted her with his own kisses. Natalie squealed and twisted and gurgled with happiness over the attention her mother and sister showered over her. It wasn't something that she was unfamiliar with; in fact, this had been morning ritual for weekend mornings for quite some time. Except for one thing that was missing.

"Where Daddy? Daddy fly!" Natalie asked happily after she'd calmed down, referring to how Josh would run her around the room, over his head like she were flying. She looked up into her mother's warm, blue eyes with such innocence and joy in her brown eyes, Josh's eyes. She didn't have any of the pain or sorrow that Donna knew her own eyes had reflected back in the past few weeks. "Where Daddy?"

"Daddy's not here, Natty," Emma explained for Donna, more than a hint of sadness in her words. "Remember I told you? He's at home and we're here on a little vacation and when we go home, we have all these great stories to tell him."

"When home?"

Emma looked at her mother with a questioning expression, her eyes boring into Donna's with concern and a longing to be at home again. Donna could only rub Natalie's back and look down at the bedspread. "I don't know," the older girl whispered to the now quiet toddler. Almost being able to see Emma's sadness, Donna reached over and pulled Emma into her arms.

"Oh I'm so sorry, Emma," Donna said, hugging both girls to her. She felt the tears start sliding down her cheeks yet again and she wondered if she would ever stop crying or if she would eventually just dissolve into one giant puddle of water. "I didn't mean for you girls to get--"

The door burst open and a middle-aged woman in exercise clothes stepped into the room without preamble. "Hello darlings! Rise and shine, face the day head on." The woman stopped mid-rant when she saw the scene before her of Donna crying, Emma clinging to her, and Natalie quietly playing with blankets. "Am I interrupting something?"

Donna sniffed and furiously wiped at her eyes. "Yes Catherine," she replied tersely. "As a matter of fact you were. Don't you ever hear of knocking?"

"Don't you ever hear that this is my house and I'll barge in any room I damn well please?" The plucky Brit shot back with a wink and Donna had to laugh a little despite her earlier gloom.

Instinctively, Emma covered up her ears. "Grown up word! Grown up word!" Catherine reached her hand across the bed and pulled Emma up and onto the floor. "If you think that's a grown up word, princess, wait until I get through with you. Now come on, both of you scatter so your mummy can get some much needed beauty rest." Donna nodded and kissed each girl on the head, trying extra hard to pour a little bit more love into Emma's kiss. Catherine plucked Natalie off the bed and into her arms. She herded both girls to the door before she turned back to Donna who had collapsed back against the bed. "Oh darling, I almost forgot. My offspring called to inform me that she'd be arriving her this afternoon. Make sure you're presentable," she told her flippantly.

Donna shot up from her bed like a rocket. "What the hell.?" she cried looking at Catherine incredulously. "You mean Lily's coming here today?"

"That's what I just said isn't it?"

"Really?" Emma asked, her face lighting up. "Lily's going to be here soon?"

Donna got up and took Natalie out of Catherine's arms, setting her on the floor on her feet. "Emma, take your sister and go sit in the kitchen," Donna instructed. "Don't try to get any food yourself. Ask Maria to make you something," she added, referring to the housekeeper.

"Oh and Emma," Catherine interjected. She kneeled down to the girl's height and quietly whispered in her ear, "There's a glass with some brown liquid called Jack Daniels in it on the counter. Don't touch it, it's me morning pick me up." She ruffled Emma's hair a bit too much and pushed her and Natalie out the door. "Now scoot you little buggers!"

Once they were alone, Donna turned back to Catherine. "What do you mean Lily's coming today? I thought you said you'd respect my privacy and you wouldn't tell anyone we were here?"

"I do respect your privacy, darling," Catherine fussed, taking Donna's arm and forcibly leading her back into the bed. "But I also want you and your children out of house by next week and I figured that Lily could talk some sense into you."

"You don't want us staying here? Than why--?"

"Oh it's not that," Catherine interrupted pushing Donna onto the bed and pulling the covers around her. "I love you and those girls. I just have a gentleman friend coming up next Monday and since I only see him once or twice a year, we usually spend all our time in the house screwing each other like bunny rabbits." Donna's face visibly blanched at the mental image that presented and shook herself of the thoughts. "Now you go back to sleep and I'll go do my daily exercise regime."

"You have a daily exercise regime?" Donna asked disbelievingly.

"Of course I do. You've seen it." "I've seen you use a Thigh Master for five minutes while chain smoking Virginia Slims."

"And aren't I a sexy little bitch," Catherine replied cattily while rubbing her slightly overweight stomach before getting up and going for the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go work on my thighs while my maid fill up those little girls' tummies."

"Oh Catherine," Donna called out when she'd reached the door. "You're almost out of the whole wheat bread I bought the other day so just have Maria give the girls some yogurt and fruit for breakfast."

Catherine looked at her oddly. "Why do you do that? I've wondered that since you've been here. Feed them berries and twigs and god knows what else instead of normal food like Poptarts and Cocoa Krispies?"

"Because the berries and twigs are good for them and what you would feed them would help to clog their arteries and put them at a higher risk for heart failure in adulthood," she said as if explaining it to a small child.

"Well that is just bloody ridiculous," Catherine disagreed, shaking her head. "The young ones, they need the sugar in their systems and they can't get it from that garbage you shovel down their throats."

"Why do they need refined sugar coursing through veins?" Donna asked, propping her head up and smiling a little.

"Because if they don't get the sugar, they don't run around like little wildebeests, which means they don't get tired as easily, which means you have to slip a little something from Rip Van Winkle into the bedtime drink to keep 'em down all night instead of saving it for yourself," Catherine said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She shook her head as she left the room, shutting the door behind her. "Damn Yankees," Donna heard her mutter under her breath.

"Catherine Irving, the twenty-first century's answer to Dr. Spock," Donna said to herself with a roll of her eyes as she fell back against the pillows of the luxurious king-sized bed that had been hers for nearly a month, since she and the girls had made their way to Canada. The night they had left DC, they'd boarded an early flight that took them to St. Paul, Minnesota. First thinking she'd go to her grandmother's home in Madison, Donna realized that wouldn't work, considering her grandmother was out of the country until April and people would expect her to go there. But they wouldn't expect her to go to Catherine's.

Catherine Irving was the owner of a hugely successful chain of family-style resort hotels that had stemmed from her first project, a small B&B in Madison Wisconsin. She was fifty-eight, beautiful, intelligent, loving, drunk, and eccentric most of the time but she had the money to back it up, and most importantly she was the mother of Donna's best friend, Lily Irving. That was how Donna had come to know her nearly twenty-five years earlier. She and Lily had moved to Madison after Catherine and Lily's father, Charles, had divorced. Donna and Lily had become joined at the hip almost immediately, thereby guaranteeing that Lily and Catherine were included in nearly every family function. Catherine was like the kooky, fun aunt that made your parents seem boring and the Moss children had adored her in their youth and so did their mother, who considered Catherine a good friend. But after their mother died, they'd all clung to their grandmother in support, almost afraid that if they relied on Catherine for the support she'd have so readily given it would be sort of like she was replacing Toni in some way and none of them were ready for that. So after they'd all moved into their adult lives, they'd lost touch with her but when Donna called her from a snowy airport across the border, that day Catherine had put her life on hold and taken Donna and her family in, putting them up at her vacation house in Canada. Which is where they still found themselves, repeating every day as if it were the one before it. They didn't leave the grounds of the spacious home except to venture into town every once in awhile. They didn't talk with any neighbors or go outside much. And they certainly didn't call anyone, especially Josh.

'I wonder what he's doing now,' she thought to herself as she tossed and turned to try to get comfortable. She'd battled insomnia since she got to the house and had found herself starting to sleep past eight o'clock, something unheard of for her. It was just at night, she couldn't help but think about her estranged husband. Was he eating right? Was he working too hard? Was he trying to find them right now at this very moment? 'No, no, and of course,' Donna answered herself as she tried to relax. She thought about Josh at least once every moment of every day. Sometimes she would get angry thinking about him, about what he had said to her that night and then how he'd just walked away. But then the reasonable part of her brain would remind her that she'd basically done the same thing, only much worse; at least Josh hadn't stolen her children away from her. She knew it was a cruel thing to do to him but she needed her girls like she need oxygen. She couldn't imagine being away from them, especially in the state she'd been in. It would have killed her to be away from them. And if she were completely honest with herself, a very, very small petty part of her had wanted to punish Josh on some level for what he'd done. But now she wanted nothing more than to go back to him. Yet something still held her back.

She couldn't pinpoint it or describe it but every time she picked up the phone, ready to call Josh, and tell him they were coming home, a part of her wouldn't let her finish dialing her phone number. It was like an invisible rope just kept pulling her back whenever she felt like she couldn't take it anymore, couldn't take not being with him. It was killing her and even worse she could see it was hurting the girls as well. There wasn't a day that went by that they didn't ask when they could go home to Daddy. And the only thing Donna could tell them was that they'd go home when they were ready to. Which she knew would need to be soon. She couldn't keep Emma out of school forever, no matter how smart she was, and she did miss her family and friends back in Washington. Add to the fact that Emma was throwing daily temper tantrums about not being at home and with Josh, and Donna should have had them on flight back to DC at least two weeks ago.

Not that Donna was completely wrapped up in her own problems she denied her daughter's emotional needs. Donna had brought her laptop with her and Emma was allowed to email Josh once every few days. Just short notes, telling him that she and Natalie were fine. Donna knew Josh had buddies in the fields of intelligence gathering so she made sure to have the IP address changed so Josh couldn't trace it to her computer nor was Emma allowed to tell Josh where they were or who they were with. It sounded ridiculous, even in Donna's mind, but she felt it had to be done. Knowing how fragile Josh's emotional state probably was right now, she didn't want to risk him finding them out of fear of what either of them would do. She wasn't afraid of him per say but rather what his reaction to her would be. Selfish, she knew, but that was what her life had become. Yet despite her fears and insecurities, she still wanted to go back to him, wanted it more than anything.

But there was just this nagging feeling inside of her that kept persisting, no matter how much she tried to ignore it. 'But what is it? What's holding me back?' she thought helplessly as she continued to toss and turn until she fell into a restless sleep.

When she woke up a few hours later, the sun was shining brightly into her room signaling that she'd slept much later than she'd wanted to. She got up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and went into the bathroom in her room to shower. When she emerged, she dressed and wandered from her room to downstairs. Going left at the bottom of the stairs to go into the kitchen, she had the uneasy feeling of being watched by someone. Turning slowly, she found herself meeting the gaze of her best friend, who was sitting perched on an armchair in the living room and looked none to happy to see her at the moment. "Hey Lily," she said weakly. No response from Lily, other than a cold, blank stare. "So.what's up? Obligatory yearly visit with your mom?" Still nothing. "Look Lily, if you're going to lay it into me, can you just do it now and cut the bull." Without warning, Lily got up, strode over to where Donna was and wrapped her arms around her in a comforting embrace. Donna didn't do anything for a moment, more out of shock than anything, before she reached up and wrapped her arms around Lily's waist. They stayed like that for a little while until a voice broke them from the peace of the moment.

"My God, Donna, I knew you and your man were having troubles but I didn't know you were considering playing for the other team," a slightly tipsy Catherine exclaimed from the kitchen as she entered the room.

"Wonderful timing as always, Mother dear," Lily quipped as she broke apart from Donna. "It's almost ten in the morning. Shouldn't you be out by the pool, sexually harassing your gardener?"

"Shouldn't you have come out of my uterus a lot less like your father than you are?" Catherine retorted, scrunching her nose and taking a sip from what looked to be a martini. "What are you gonna do, stand there all day or give your Mummy a kiss?"

"Well I would but I'm afraid to light this anywhere near you," Lily replied, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a cigarette and lighter, waving them around before lighting the cigarette.

"Ha ha ha," Catherine mock laughed. "Your father's subtle, dry humor, of course. Glad to see that despite my best attempts to rid myself of that fiend, he still haunts me through my one and only child." Another sip of the drink as she began heading towards the deck that overlooked the majestic Canadian mountain area. "Well ladies, I see you're about to have a very personal and emotional discussion which we all know requires me to have a lot more alcohol in me than I presently do, so I'm going to get fabulously smashed now and leave you two to your girl talk."

Donna, who had moved further into the living room to avoid any residual crossfire from Lily and Catherine, looked at her watch and then at Catherine. "It's only 9:45 in the morning," she pointed out as Catherine passed her.

"Drunkenness is a marathon, darling, not a sprint," the older woman explained, squeezing Donna's face a little roughly in her hand as she passed.

As Donna and Lily turned back to face each other, Catherine pulled open the sliding door and poked her head in. "Oh and Marissa.Mariah.Margarita, you know the one who works for me. She took your girls into town for some provisions. They'll be back soon. Have fun, sweethearts." With that, she pulled open the sliding door and practically stumbled on to the deck, leaving the two women alone in the room once again.

"So," Donna started awkwardly. "How have you been?"

"Well," Lily began, taking a drag from her cigarette, "I was a hell of lot better last night until Catherine called me and told me that you and the girls were here, alone, and that you wouldn't say why. Which was a bit of a relief, actually, because I've been bombarded by phone calls from your family about where you were because according to them, a month ago you ran off with Emma and Natalie after some fight with Josh. And that troubled me because the last time I heard from you, you said everything was going fine in Washington when clearly it wasn't." Another impatient drag. "So that leaves me with just two conclusions: you were either abducted by aliens and replaced by a pod person sometime in the last two months or you lied to me and everyone else around you."

"Yes Lily, thank you so much for your support and caring during what is arguably the lowest point in my life," Donna shot back sarcastically. "I've been fine by the way, being away from my husband and taking my daughters away from their lives!"

"Alright, alright cool down," Lily said, holding her arms up in a sign of defense. She motioned to the couch for them to sit down. Once they were settled next to each other, Lily placed her free hand on Donna's shoulder. "So how you been?" Not saying anything, Donna eyed the cigarette trapped in between Lily's fingers and with catlike quickness, reached out to grab it. But Lily was always protective when it came to two things: her friends and her cigarettes. "Hey, hey," she scolded, batting Donna's hand away. "Bad enough one of us is going to die from throat cancer, it might as well be the one without children." She extinguished the cigarette in a nearby ashtray. "So seriously, what happened with you and Josh?"

"I'd tell you if I knew, Lily," she replied quietly. "But I just don't know what went wrong."

Lily sighed in frustration. "Oh please, kill the dramatics--"

"It's not dramatics, it's the truth," Donna disagreed angrily before Lily could finish. "I don't know what happened. I don't which one of us changed or what led up to it or even if we can fix it! I just don't know anymore!"

"Okay, I'm sorry," Lily apologized hastily, in an effort to keep her friend from going over the edge. "I'm sorry. I just.had no idea that things were going badly for you guys."

"They weren't. I mean it wasn't like we were screaming at each other everyday or he was hitting the girls or me. It just kept building little by little and then it got to a point where I couldn't take it anymore."

"Take what?"

"Everything." Donna went on to spend the next hour telling Lily about the horrible fight she and Josh had had. About how he'd left and about the desperation she'd felt. About taking Emma and Natalie and putting all three of them on a plane to a city where she didn't know anyone with very little money. And finally about coming to Catherine's and basically hiding out ever since.

"So let me get this straight," Lily finally asked. "You left Josh a month ago with his children and you haven't tried to call him or see him to tell him you're all safe since? And you only let Emma email him in a way in which he can't find you? And you yourself still haven't contacted him at all? Or anyone for that matter?"

"Look, if you're going to say how stupid it was."

"I wasn't," Lily protested. "I mean, it was stupid but that wasn't what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was I'm really not that surprised, after hearing about it, that you left."

Donna looked at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"You ran away from the problem, Donna. It's what you always do when you can't control the situation anymore."

"That is just so untrue." Donna denied haughtily, getting up to pace.

"No it is not untrue. You're doing it right now," Lily pointed out, getting mad at Donna and following her. "You're walking away from me because you know I'm right. Anytime you've gotten in over your head with something, you ignore until you can't and then you run away until it gets better. Your parents' fighting, Ben, the anemia; you put everything on a backburner until you couldn't handle it. And you're doing the same thing right now, only this time you're dragging two children along with you who don't deserve be caught up in it! So what was it this time you couldn't handle?"

"Me, Lily! I couldn't handle me this time!" Donna shouted at her, saying out loud what she hadn't said to anyone. Lily just always had a way of getting the truth out of her, even when she didn't want to. "I couldn't handle who I was becoming. This.this woman who lived for the happiness of a man. Because that's what I was doing, living for Josh. Living and dying everyday with his accomplishments and failures. There was nothing in my life that was mine anymore, that I could take pride in for myself, except for the girls. And I couldn't stand it and I didn't know how to change it because it was me who needed to change and I didn't know how to!"

"Because you never have! You're the same person now that you were when we were kids, with a few additions. You never wanted to change because every time something changed in your life when you were young, it hurt you. And you just don't want to get hurt anymore so you run from change and confrontation all the time!"

"So?!" Donna cried, throwing her arms up in frustration. "Is that so bad, to not want to get hurt? To want to prevent it from happening?"

"It wouldn't be if you didn't also prevent yourself from living," Lily said softly, looking her in the eye. Donna stopped her pacing and stared thoughtfully into Lily's wise brown eyes. "And with a limited number of exceptions, that's exactly what you've done."

Donna rubbed her tired eyes and walked back over to the couch, not having the energy to try to argue with Lily about something like that. Instead, she fell back into it in a heap. She stared up at the ceiling fan as if it held the secrets of the universe. Lily joined her after a minute, lying at her side. It was a while before Donna spoke again. "Do you think Josh and I got married too soon? I mean, shouldn't we have done things normally instead of doing it our own way?"

"How do you mean normally?

"Oh come on," Donna scoffed. "I nearly died so Josh proposed to me before we'd even dated or kissed. That's not how the whole engagement process generally goes. Maybe we should have taken the time to get to know each other better and discuss what our plans were."

"So you could have what? Finished each other's sentences within two seconds as opposed to three? Made plans that would've probably gotten changed anyways? That's what engagements are about and you and Josh were doing that for the four years prior to your marriage. Besides, think of it this way: if you hadn't done everything the way you did it, Emma might still be an only child."

"Yeah," Donna whispered her agreement, thinking of what she would do without seeing Natalie's beautiful brown eyes or hearing her voice. "You're right. I just.I've been wracking my brain for the past month to try to figure out a reason for why we're where we are. How it got to where I had to leave."

"Can I make a suggestion?" Lily asked. Donna nodded. "Truthfully, I think it happened before you even met Josh. I think it happened when your dad left."

"What?" a surprised Donna turned to look at Lily, not expecting that one.

"When Evan left," Lily continued, "from that day you devoted yourself completely to everyone you loved, without considering what it would do to you. And you've been that way ever since with everyone you've ever loved. Josh, the girls, your brother and sister, me; you just never know when to stop giving yourself to us. You give so much to us that you lose who you are in the process of being who you are."

"I don't understand," Donna said, even though she was pretty sure she did.

"Yes you do. You understand that you have to change and you don't want to. Why is that?"

"Because."

"Because what, Donna?" Lily urged her.

"What if they don't love me anymore?" Donna admitted quietly. "What if who I am isn't what they want me to be anymore? What if I change so much Josh leaves me behind?"

"You have to risk it," Lily advised. "You have to risk it because if you don't, you'll die. You will suffocate in your hatred of your life and it will kill you." She turned back to look at the ceiling and took Donna's hand in her own. "You know you need to go back, right? If not for your marriage, for the children. They're learning from your examples all the time. Do you want them to learn that it's okay to do this, to run away, every time something hurts them?"

"I can't yet," Donna replied. "I don't why but I don't feel ready yet."

"That's okay," Lily reassured her, squeezing her hand. "I'm not forcing you to go back. What I am going to force you to do is to call your husband."

"Lily." Donna tried to argue with her.

"Donna if you don't, I swear to God I will," Lily vowed seriously. "You don't have to tell him where you are; just tell him that you and the girls are okay. He's probably worried out of his mind by now."

Donna sighed and closed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. Wanting to talk to Josh was one thing; actually doing it was another thing. She could only imagine how angry he was going to be at her for basically kidnapping their daughters. But Lily was right; she would have been the same way if the tables were turned. "I'll call him tonight, after the girls are asleep," Donna promised. "So he and I can hash it out with minimal psychological damage to them."

"Oh it won't be that bad."

"Really? What makes you think that?"

"Donna, I was sired by the only two people in the world who should have never married, with the exception of the Pope and Marilyn Manson. And I turned out just peachy."

"Oh God. If this is what happened to you as a result of your childhood, I don't want to think about how Emma and Natalie are gonna turn out," Donna teased her.

"So that's how it's gonna be?" Lily laughed, reaching for a throw pillow. She bopped Donna on the head until Donna managed to get a weapon of her own. They giggled and whacked and shrieked for what felt like hours until they heard a car pulling up to the house, signaling the girls' arrival home. Lily halted all action and jumped down off the couch to go greet the children, leaving Donna alone in the living room amid a pile of pillows and couch cushions. The smile faded off her face as her mind went back to the reality that she'd taken a momentary break from.

'I wonder what he's doing right now,' Donna wondered again as she slowly started counting down to their inevitable conversation tonight.