"Donna," Leo calls. "Hey. How ya doing?"
Donna turns, smiles a little. "Well, I think we're making progress on the church." It's not an answer and they both know it. What it is, is easier than an answer. It's what Leo wants to hear, and Leo's not entirely sure how to feel about that, about watching this girl who came into his staff as a kid, basically, giving an evasive non-answer to do any politician proud.
"I'm glad to hear it, but you can stop worrying about Isreal. It's Christmas Eve, and I found a news crew taking a helicopter up towards the Washington Inn. Figure we can get you on your way."
Her face does something very interesting as he tells her, her brows furrowing together and her lips pulling back from her teeth in something not entirely dissimilar to a grimace. "Oh," she says, not at all enthusiastically. "I—thank you."
She doesn't run for her bag or make any move to go anywhere, in fact, and instead she frowns at him a while longer. "You know, kid, far be it from me to interfere," Leo says, finally, "but you don't have to go spend Christmas with this guy. You've been dating him, what, three months?"
"We met on Election Day," Donna corrects, "So it's actually more like two." He can practically see her wondering why he's asking, why he cares.
"You might already be aware of this, but I have a daughter about your age," he jokes. "Good girl, not the best taste in men, but my point is I can take a certain amount of talk about boyfriends before I fly off the handle. You like this guy?"
"Yeah." It's not the ringing endorsement of a woman passionately in love. Leo wonders, in passing, what she'd say if he were to ask her the same of Josh. Fifty bucks in the office pool says it'd be a damn sight stronger than yeah.
"Donna, don't listen to me, cause I'm the guy who's going home to a hotel, but Christmas isn't, in my experience, a holiday that you spend with a person you like. It's a day you spend with the people you love. Now, I'm not telling you how to live your life, but you don't have to get on that helicopter."
She's wearing a wide-eyed expression, nodding a little, and if Leo basks a little in the feeling of fatherly advice being accepted without debate, well, who can blame him. "Thank you," she says, softly. "And, um..."
"My lips are sealed," Leo promises. "Go have Christmas."
"Thank you," she says again, blushing, and hurries off.
"We're going to my place?" Josh echoes, watching Donna pull on her coat by the bar of the Hawk and Dove. "Why? I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm going to my place, but—"
"My roommate was under the impression I was going to be at the Washington Inn having a romantic weekend," Donna explains. "So she and Alan are having a romantic weekend at the apartment. I am therefore going to your place. We're going to watch a movie and then I'm going to sleep in the guest room. Thanks for your hospitality." She's talking very quickly, the way she does when she's just barely drunk, but tipping quickly over the precipice, and Josh takes her heavy overnight bag away from her to give himself time to parse her meaning through the gentle fuzz of fine scotch in his brain.
"Okay," he agrees, eventually. "Sounds like a plan. What do you have in here, anyway, bricks?
"Wait, no," he muses, as she brushes past him and through the door of the bar, out into the snowy street. "The complete Encyclopedia Britannica. Am I close?"
"Ha ha," Donna says, drily. "I brought bath stuff. Bubble bath and nice-smelling soaps."
Josh stares ahead of them for a moment, the snow crunching under their feet even as it falls on their heads and shoulders. "I don't get it," he says, finally. "You were gonna spend your romantic weekend in the bathtub?"
"Yeah," Donna shrugs.
"How is that, you know, romantic?"
Donna stops, catches his elbow. "Are you serious?"
Her face is comically aghast, like he's just announced his intention to run the campaign of the next Republican Presidential Candidate, and she's shaking her head a little, wide-eyed. "Josh—"
"I just don't see what's romantic about locking yourself in the bathroom!" he protests, and Donna shakes her head more vehemently, starting to laugh.
"Not alone," she explains. "Haven't you ever taken a bath with someone?"
His silence is eloquent, his vaguely distorted expression more so.
"Okay, then," Donna dismisses, setting her feet in motion again. "Guess not. It can be nice, is my point."
Josh lets her tow him along with a hand in his elbow, and tries not to contemplate the idea she's just given him.
He's not really a bath-taking guy, hasn't been since he was old enough to turn on the shower in his family's antique house without burning himself on the taps. It's probably natural that he wouldn't have every thought about bathing as a couple's activity, since his only real notion of it is as something Donna does to escape from him and the world of a weekend. The logistics of it puzzle him momentarily, but he imagines being submerged, holding a warm, wet, loose-limbed Donnatella against his chest, and suddenly the appeal is blatantly obvious.
They walk in comfortable silence, under the gold of the streetlights, the snow falling around them, untroubled by wind. It's only a few blocks from the bar to his apartment, something that has always been wonderfully convenient, and so they're inside again in less than fifteen minutes, stripping off coats and laughing at each other's reddened noses.
Josh goes to excavate his cupboards in search of instant hot chocolate, and Donna stares after him for a moment, before she lugs her bag onto the desk by the door, and begins to dig through it.
"I don't think I have any," Josh reports back, coming into the room. "I'm actually pretty sure I don't have anything. Two cans of soup, some stale Cheerios, and a whole lot of dust. We're gonna have to get takeout tomorrow. Jewish Christmas."
"What do you think of this," Donna asks, holding out an open jar and continuing to explore her duffel one-handed. "Smell it."
Josh approaches her as he might a crazy person or a Libertarian, and takes the jar from her hand. It's an antique-y green with an understated label, proclaiming the contents to be "Chamomile-Lavender Soak", and he raises it to his nose for a sniff. "It's nice," he tells her. "What are you doing?"
"You've never had a nice bath," Donna says, in abstract tones. "What about this one?"
This one proves to be lemon ginger bubble bath, and it smells so good his stomach growls at it.
"Excellent," she proclaims, and then with arms full of bottles she marches towards his bathroom.
Josh has met a drunk Donnatella Moss frequently enough to recognize her when he sees her. She's something of a rare creature, her Irish heritage and her level-headed restraint meaning that even when she decides to live a little she's usually going to be the sober one by the end of the evening. Sometimes, though, she really goes all in, on occasion matching Toby glass for glass until she's giggling and making irrational decisions with the best of them. On those nights, Josh usually stops a little earlier than he did tonight, sees her home, looks after her. This time he'd been too busy enjoying his own buzz to keep a close eye on her.
He spots her now, though, in the faintly weaving, swaying gait as Donna sidles through his kitchen and down his hall, into his bedroom, where she lays her collection on his bed as though it were priceless treasure.
"You want me to take a bath?" Josh guesses, hoping there's some easy way to derail the situation.
"Yeah," she agrees, "But you have to do it right. I'll show you."
"I don't think I need supervision," Josh asserts, but ruthlessly, Donna overrules him. "You're terrible at fun," she tells him, "And you're terrible at relaxing."
"I'm not terrible at either of those things," Josh asserts. "You're just never around when I'm doing them."
She favors him with a look that tells him how very little she trusts that notion, and says, "Well that ends tonight."
He watches her as she saunters into his bathroom to run the tub, watches her with a vague sense of panic and a total inability to decide how to act. The desired outcome is obvious—no way in hell he's getting naked, much less bathing under her watchful gaze—but there's no tactful way he can think of to diffuse the situation. She can't go home so he can't kick her out. He's not quite lost enough to his morals to get her drunker still, so that's out. An inane discussion of trivia might derail her, or some impolitic commentary on her family or home state, but Josh is feeling neither particularly clever nor particularly suicidal. The fact of the matter is that Donnatella Moss is a determined, focused, driven woman, even when she's drunk, and any attempts to derail her plans will meet with almost certain failure.
Steam rises visibly from the tub, where Donna's bent over, dabbling her hands in the water. "It has to be very hot," she informs him in her best teacher's voice. "Especially for you; your shoulders are all tense."
"Burning myself makes me less tense?" Josh asks, helplessly.
"It relaxes you," Donna contradicts, gently. Then she stands, crosses her arms, and strips off her festive Christmas sweater, leaving herself clad in only jeans and a green-and-red striped bra with jaunty lace around the cups.
Josh squeaks a protest as her top lands on the tile next to the toilet, and she turns to him, red-cheeked and smiling. "You should take off your clothes," she says, matter-of-factly. She lets her whole body brush against him as she pushes past, moving back into the bedroom to gather up her jars. "You could start with your tie," she adds, clearly unperturbed, while Josh gapes and blinks like a carp.
He does as he's told, in absence of any better judgment. It's possible that under better circumstances he might be able to turn off the taps, wrestle her back into her sweater, or at least one of his t-shirts, tuck her into bed, prevent this whole mess, but he's had three smooth glasses of Johnny Walker Red and his operating system is written in instructions from Donna. His fingers pull apart the knot on his tie, and it hits the floor just before his suit jacket. Donna turns at the sound, and under the intoxication of her smile he finds himself unbuttoning his shirt.
The heady scent of the lemon-ginger bubbles is rising in the bathroom, spilling out on a cloud of steam, and Josh realizes, in one of those odd sober moments one sometimes has when pleasantly drunk, that he's smelled it before, on Donna, in her room on the campaign trail when she's used a rare evening off to indulge herself. In her hair, her clothes.
She's taking off her jeans.
"Donna," Josh says, and he leaves his shirt gaping open, only barely buttoned, taking cautious steps towards her as he suddenly becomes privy to more of her body than he's ever allowed himself to hope for. "Why are you getting naked?"
"I don't wanna get my clothes wet," she answers, practically.
"You're not getting in the tub," Josh tells her, firmly. Then, in a burst of self-control, "Actually, I'm not getting in the tub either."
"Yes, you are." She walks right up to him, bold as brass, and takes hold of his shirt where he's left off with the buttons.
He stares at the top of her head as she concentrates on undressing him one inch at a time, wondering what's happening and how they've gotten here.
Even drunk as a fish, she shouldn't be quite this...he can't even think what to call it. Thoughtless? They want each other the way drowning men want air or a man dying of thirst wants water, but in all their years of unacknowledged passion, they've neither of them ever made to act on it. On nights when they've both been much worse off than this, they've held it together. And, more confusing still, she has Jack. Has him to a sufficient extent that she'd planned to spend Christmas with him.
Still, though, she's just freed the last of his buttons, and her warm, deft hands are pushing up and under the dress shirt, over his shoulders and down his arms, til it hits the floor at their feet, leaving him in his undershirt and trousers.
She looks up into his eyes, and her gaze is clear, too clear.
"Come on," Donna says, and he can hear now, how she doesn't quite sound right. She's talking too loud, but her words aren't slurring. She's acting a caricature of herself, drunk. "Pants off."
Josh just stares at her, daring her with his eyes to open his belt, pop the button on his slacks, pull down the fly, but her hands hover over his wrists instead, fingers fluttering with indecision. "What are you doing?" he asks her, deadly quiet, and she turns abruptly away, busies herself bending over the tub and closing the taps.
He recognizes one of her usual tactics for taking back the conversational upper hand, the strategic silence. Normally she'll hold her peace until he can't help but fill the lull, but he's not buying it now. Too much is tied up in her answer.
Donna keeps silent for several long, excruciating minutes, back turned.
"I'm sick of pretending," she admits, finally, nearly inaudibly.
"What?" Josh lets himself step closer, just once, wills his hands to stay at his sides rather than rise to cup her bare shoulders.
"I'm sick of pretending I don't..." Her voice is louder, but it loses conviction as she tries to decide what it is she's feeling. "I'm sick of us, pretending we don't want to be together when we both know it's not true."
She turns to him as she says it, hair flying and eyes snapping, and then she's taking the two steps to press against him, pulling his mouth against hers.
For a brain that's usually unhelpfully active, refusing to spin down at bedtime, gleefully listing consequences and worst-case-scenarios at inopportune moments, chattering busily about anything and everything except what it is Josh is working on, his is inconveniently silent now. He's not entirely sure what's just happened, let alone what to do about it, and his stream of consciousness is so much radio static between his ears.
Donna tastes like the bitter lime of her gin and tonics.
Kissing her is more reflex than art, his body going through the motions of press and bite and suck, and enjoying itself quite a bit, while his brain fizzles helplessly. He can feel the warm skin of her belly through his shirt—and then abruptly against his own skin, as Donna presses her palms flat against his hips and starts pushing, pushing up his sides, taking his undershirt in her wake.
She's the one who pulls away, letting their lips linger together before she stands back, pulls his shirt off over his head. Josh is able to tune in just enough to cooperate in the arms department, and as Donna shakes out the white cotton and drops it to the floor, he manages to assemble some more synapses, enough to lift his hands, hold her away from him.
"Donna," he says, and his stomach cramps with dread, but he goes on anyway, "You have a boyfriend."
She regards him with something like desperation, or maybe pity. "I'm with Jack because I wasn't with you," she tells him, simply.
This is like getting slammed in the chest by one of those huge horses that draw carriages around New York, the ones with the hooves the size of dinner plates. Josh has to swallow, has to compose himself, because everything he's ever wanted—in a personal context—is standing right in front of him, and she's offering herself to him wholeheartedly.
And he can't accept her.
"But you are with him," Josh repeats, and Donna reaches up to lay her warm, soft, slightly damp hand on his wrist. "And I'm not gonna be that guy."
"If you don't want me," she says, low, and with absolute conviction in her voice, "that's one thing. If you don't want to be with me, that's your choice, but Jack is my problem, not yours. He's not the man I want to spend my life with; you are. Does it really matter if I dump him yesterday or on Monday?"
Again, Josh finds his brain caught between channels, but this time Donna doesn't speak, doesn't touch him or distract him, only watches him with something like fear tight around her eyes. He chews his bottom lip as he considers her, considers what she's just admitted.
It's good, objectively speaking, that she wants to spend her life with him; that's pretty much in line with even his most vague plans for the future. It's also good, not objectively at all, that she's planning to dump Captain Wonderful, but no power on this earth would be capable of drawing that truth from his lips. It also doesn't really alleviate the uneasy twinges in his stomach. Josh has many, many failings, but he isn't the kind of man who sleeps with people who are dating other people.
No matter how badly he might wish he was, right this very second.
"It does matter," he tells her, softly, feeling twin pangs of disappointment; one in himself, one in her. "You're not...I don't know, maybe you are the kind of person who doesn't care about...being unfaithful. I don't think you are, though."
"I'm not," Donna says, and now she is touching him, taking his hand off her shoulder and threading her fingers through his. "And I'm not saying this lightly. There's something between me and Jack, but compared to what's between me and you, it's nothing. I'm not about to let our chance go just because I happened to mess up the timing and go on a couple dates with another guy."
Josh swallows, squeezes her hand. "I appreciate the difference, I do," he tells her. "You don't have to let it go. You figure out the timing; I'll still be here."
And then he's sliding his free hand from her shoulder, up, into her hair, gripping the back of her neck, and kissing her, ever so gently, on the forehead.
"Take your bath," he says. "I'm gonna make up the couch."
Josh leaves her standing, mostly naked and wide-eyed in the steamy, sweet-scented bathroom, pulls a tshirt out of his hamper on the way to the living room, still reeling from the abrupt seismic shift his world has just undergone. He stares at the couch as he pulls on the shirt. Donnatella Moss is sick of pretending, wants to be with him.
Tried, in her own odd and roundabout way, to seduce him.
There are blankets and sheets and a spare pillow in the hall closet, and he makes up a bed for her the way he always has done, when she's slept in his apartment, except this time it's not just for plausible deniability. She'll actually sleep on the couch tonight, for the first time since the very first night after Rosslyn, and he'll sleep in his own bed.
They've come so much closer together, tonight, and he thinks he might have to fight to keep them from teetering straight over the precipice, into the downhill slide that will bring them, inevitably, together.
Donna peeks around the living room door just as Josh is shaking her favorite afghan out over the couch, and she gives him the scintilla of a hint of a smile, mostly a flutter of her lashes and a faint twitch of her lips. "Joshua," she calls, quietly. His full name, claim and endearment in one, just as it always has been.
"Donnatella," he replies in kind, letting himself smile at her clothes.
She's wearing his things, her favorite ratty Harvard sweatshirt and a pair of shrunken flannel pants that Josh can no longer put on, for fear of emasculating himself. Covered neck to ankle, she's a far cry from the bathroom temptress, and that makes the floor feel a little more solid under his feet.
"Are we okay?" she asks him, moving around the doorframe but still clinging to the wall.
"C'mere," he says, and she does, moving easily into the circle of his arms. He presses his lips to her hair, still dry but scented faintly with ginger. "Of course we're gonna be okay," he says. "Just you wait and see."