Thanks so much for Lauren for beta-ing this. Always coming through in a pinch. :)
It was a night that she would remember. It was the sort of evening-the sort of moment really-that was worth committing to the annals of the mind. Oh, and it was something that she wanted to keep and repeat over and over and over again.
It was in there with the late nights spent in the mess, sans footwear, going over proposals. It would sit next to the memory of him holding her hair back for her when bending into a deep filing cabinet drawer, to keep her from eating it. Nestle, it would, down between twin memories of the times he slipped his hand into hers and held it for more than a moment.
Barely a romantic-that part of her she had shed like old skin-there were certain instances in time that she captured as though a trained photographer. Dull, sweet, blissful moments that gave her pleasure to replay. Smiles, only given to her, happy and sad; the way his face would move and only for her, was such a secret amazement for her.
The tactic remembrance of him winking at her and she feeling as though she'd been kicked in the gut, so sick with love that she truly couldn't take lunch.
But the night, the night he asked her to dinner would top them all.
They'd already had sex (made love, really, that was the only thing they could ever do) and indulged in intimate activities, but the way he asked her to dinner was precious and heart wrenching and perfectly innocent that in hindsight, she was surprised her hadn't burst to tears when he voiced the question.
"Donatella, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to dinner?" Eyes bright, shining, expectant but so frightened, he waited, balancing on the balls of his feet.
Thrown off balance by the formality of the question, by the sheer chivalry, he was displaying, Donna tripped over her words. "I uh, where?"
He grinned, smiled as when he did when knowing he had won an argument, bested someone in a joke, "Anywhere, Wendy's." Pausing, his voice dropped and gently, he took her hand, reeling the grin in to form a soft smile. "I just want to go on a date with you."
It was difficult then, to overcome the lump that had formed in her throat, to catalogue the myriad of emotions that threatened to swallow her. "Well, if sub-standard bar food constitutes a date, we've been on plenty of those." She was almost disappointed in herself for deflecting his overt affection.
Josh leaned in to her, "But those never ended with a goodnight kiss and never began with flowers at your doorstep."
"The doorstep to my hotel room?" She couldn't stop, she was in turn both uncomfortable and shocked by his affection; a part of her, a fraction she didn't want to admit to, didn't believe he was capable of any of this, not after so long. But the other part of her, the larger fraction-the one that had known him for seven years, that had known him forever-knew that this was the Josh that few got to see. This was the Josh that cried, that felt, that wanted and needed.
Both of his hands threaded through hers then and he took a deep breath, apparently steeling himself for what was about to come out of his mouth. "I want to do all of this right, with you; I need to do everything right with you." He blinked, looked at their joined hands and added, as though an afterthought, quietly, "This is my last first date."
"How depressing for you," Donna quipped, really only wanting to kiss him, to hold him, to something other than crack wise.
Josh smiled, surely sensing her defense tactic. "Not at all."
Agreeing to the dinner with, "Sure, you can take me to dinner," and a squeeze of her hand, she went off to see about closing out her work day before midnight.
Josh didn't give roses, but daisies because they reminded him of spring and she reminded him of spring and so it was only fitting.
The meal itself was nothing remarkable, chicken marsala and steak (medium rare). The wine was nothing to fuss over, and neither was the dessert. What was remarkable and to be fussed over, was the electricity he exuded. The manner in which he regarded her, with such attention, as though she might disappear in between courses.
What was remarkable was how final the whole situation felt to her; this was her last first date as well, and that solidified sometime around when the dessert was served. When he eyed it with suspicion, when he pushed the plate a fraction closer to her than to himself. Joshua Lyman was the last man she would ever date.
They were new together, they were seventeen again together, they were doing it all over again, for the first time. "Want to do the first kiss?" he'd asked her, walking her back to her hotel room.
Confused, she stuttered, "But I thought we were-"
"We are, just... humor me," he smiled, that charming, disarming thing.
Shuffled up against her door, Donna slid her hands up the arms of his coat. "Well, I had a great time tonight."
"Hmmm," Josh hummed, moving into her, chest against chest, his lips in her hair, next to her ear. "The pleasure was all mine."
Beneath the fluorescent lights in an enormously long hallway inside a cookie-cutter Hilton, he kissed her softly and slowly and succinctly, parting when they both knew it was over. A hand on her cheek, brushing up and over to cradle her jaw, Josh smiled and swiftly kissed her cheek. "It really was all mine."
"No," Donna wriggled playfully, summarily breaking the magic of the moment. "Some of it was mine too, but only a little bit."
An arm around her waist, he spun her around and propelled her towards his room. Handing her the passkey, he whispered, holding her almost too close, "Open the door."
From that night, she promised herself that she would remember more than she had before. That he was the one to initiate cuddling. That he could never cook eggs properly, but she ate them anyway. That he insisted on doing the laundry, because he needed it a certain way. They weren't living together but they might have been, with the amount of time they were spending in one another's homes, room, wherever.
Donna almost never made the coffee, and he didn't like to shower alone. When they were alone, she was the only person in his world and she enjoyed that, but didn't voice her enjoyment for fear it would stroke his ego.
And so, all things considered, it didn't shock her that he was the first one to declare love.