Incomplete
TEASER: Josh alone on the campaign trail with pen and paper.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, although I would have Vinick and Santos on the show without separating Josh and Donna. John Wells, Warner Brothers, and a whole bunch of other people get the credit and the rap as well as the money.
RATING: R for sexual content and language
SPOILERS: Anything through "King Corn" is fair game for spoilers. This is future fic/flashback and may or may not reflect the direction the show actually takes.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This came to me as I was driving to one of my youth group member's basketball games. I've been channeling Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle for CSI for so long that Josh and Donna needed attention, I guess. I'm posting it now as a preemptive strike against the return of that Amy person. Reviews appreciated but nothing held hostage for them.
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Rivulets of icy rainwater streamed down the window, creating crazy patterns along the glass before merging into a tidal pool along the cross bar of the pane, only to overflow onto the next pane and repeat the process. Beyond the window, the rain pelted hard-packed snow left from the blizzard two days before, leaving pits in the surface that would be hazardous by later in the day when the temperature dropped below freezing.
The lithe blonde woman at the window already felt the cold. Or maybe the more truthful statement was that she had been feeling the cold for two days already, but not the cold of the frigid winter snows.
"Mom?" Her son Seth called from the doorway in a voice so reminiscent of his father that she choked back a sob as she turned, startled, and wiped at her eyes.
He stepped in to gather her in his arms. "Everyone is here. The rabbi wants to know if . . . if you're ready."
After a moment of selfish comfort, Donna Moss Lyman straightened her spine, mustering all the strength she could summon. "I will never be ready for this, honey."
Seth Lyman nodded and nuzzled her hair like he used to as a small child. "I know."
"I, um, need a few more minutes. Is everyone here?" She fiddled with his tie, just like she used to fix Josh's tie whether it needed it or not.
"Everyone we knew was coming." He stepped back, letting his arms fall to his sides. "Uncle Charlie said to tell you that he's ready to do whatever you want him to do, and Uncle Sam is still very willing to come in and walk you in."
She smiled as best she could. "And I bet your Aunt Ainsley has Jed's tie fixed and his hair smoothed far better than I could convince him to do this morning."
Seth chuckled. "Aw, Mom, cut him a break. He's so young to be losing . . . It's hard enough on me and Noah to think he won't be there when we get married and when Noah graduates from med school. I can't imagine Dad not being there when I graduated from high school or college."
"You're right. When did you get so smart?"
His tight smile also reminded her of Josh and her heart cramped at the sight. "When I got Dad for my father and you for my mother. I'll send Noah back for you in five minutes, okay?"
"Okay." It wasn't, really, but then none of this was okay. Neither of them was ever supposed to be incomplete again.
-
The first letter appeared under her hotel room door a couple of days after Bob Russell had made his obligatory speech in support of ethanol at the Iowa Corn Grower's Expo. Donna Moss wasn't even sure what state she was in, having flown through five airports and driven over 400 miles since the Expo – but she was sure whose handwriting identified the standard business-sized envelope as hers without even picking it up.
"Josh." It would be funny under other circumstances, them being in the same hotel for the third night in a week. Fate, even, if she believed in it.
Did she want to deal with the time bomb ticking at her feet tonight, or wait until tomorrow – she looked at her watch and corrected herself – later today to open it? She snorted to herself that the question wasn't whether or not she would open it, just when.
With a sigh, she picked up the envelope and made her way to the vanity, where she let the missive stare at her as she got ready for bed. She finished her ablutions, made her request for a blessedly late 6:45 wake-up call, and slid into the hotel bed. The light was out for a total of three minutes by the bedside clock before her curiosity got the better of her.
She sat up and turned on the light, blinking against its brightness as she reached for the envelope. She opened it without tearing it, knowing that despite everything that had happened between her and Josh, she would keep this just like she had kept all the other personal notes he had ever written to her. It wasn't a big collection, but it was special to her just because everything came from him.
Inside, she found a single sheet of paper , one side covered in his clipped, concise scratch. At least his was legible to most people, unlike her "distinctive" penmanship. The letter was dated the day before, with a time noted at the beginning of just an hour before she found it upon her return from a late meeting with potential donors.
My dear, dear Donna,
When did I lose you? When did I get so focused on the results that I forgot to look for my partner along the way?
She laughed. "How many beers had you had when you wrote this, Joshua?"
I know what you're thinking. The answer is "None." I haven't had more than one beer in a night since . . . since the night I realized that I had lost you. And that night, I was smart enough to stay home because the last thing I could have faced just then was you. I shudder to think what we might have said, me in my drunken stupor and you loosed from the bonds of boss-employee convention.
Why, you're probably asking, have I limited myself to one beer in a night since you left to be the Media Coordinator for Russell in the Northeast and the Northwest? (See, I do pay attention.)
Donna was, in fact, wondering that very thing, and she chuckled to see that even under current circumstances, she and Josh were so in sync.
Well, Donnatella, if you must know, it's because I don't have anyone else to entrust with the "delicate system" you insist that I have. Sam is in California, and even when we get there, he may not be willing to put up with me the way he was back in the day. And you, well . . . you're moving up in the world, and now even when we happen to be in the same city or even the same hotel, I can't bring myself to impose upon you because . . .
. . . Because I'm afraid you don't want me anymore, if you ever really did.
"Oh, Josh," she mumbled, shaking her head. "If you had let me talk to you . . . or told me what you were up to . . ."
Then she realized what he actually meant. "Oh, God. Josh . . ."
There was nothing more to the note, just his name signed with the flourish she knew so well.
She slept with the letter under pillow that night and for the next two weeks, although not once in that time did she cross paths with Josh himself.
