AN: This pic is based off of the Selena Gomez song Survivors. I had my music on shuffle yesterday when this came on, and I knew it would be perfect for Josh and Donna. Please read and review! I hope you enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All rights belong to the respective owners.
You built me from a broken heart.
When Josh Lyman walked into his office at campaign headquarters in New Hampshire that day, he never knew how much his life would change. There, standing in front of him was the most beautiful woman he had ever set his eyes on.
His decision to hire her, Donna, she said her name was, changed her life forever. For the better. He figured her out within two minutes of meeting her. She left home and her free-riding boyfriend for a better chance. She had even dropped out of school for that gomer.
He knew then, as they were walking side by side, her telling him what she majored in during college, that he would do whatever he could to save her, to protect her. To make sure she wasn't hurting anymore.
Donna will look back on that day she hired herself; it was the day her broken heart started to heal. All thanks to Joshua Lyman and his need to protect her.
With bricks you made from broken parts.
He sends her flowers in April, not February. It irks her. He sends them in April because that's the day she came back to him for good. She doesn't think April is their anniversary - it's February. February is the day he saved her. The day he started to heal her heart.
And yes, She did go back to Dr. Freeride, but she knew she made a mistake. She knew being back with him couldn't, wouldn't mend her heart like Josh had started to.
You've fixed the pain, so we could start.
Josh showed Donna what love, real love, was like.
It wasn't sacrificing yourself and your dreams for the sake of the other. It was growing with your partner and sharing your dreams together. It wasn't explosive and angry. It was soft and gentle. It wasn't about putting one's self above the other. It was about sharing the load of everyday life.
Josh didn't know it, but he fixed her pain.
So now what's mine is ours.
They were only together for two months before he proposed. He told her he couldn't wait any longer to make her his wife. To share their lives together.
They got married one month later in a small ceremony surrounded by their friends and family. Though they hardly noticed it; they only had eyes for each other.
When they got back from their honeymoon they were even more in love. They were finally one. Whatever was his or hers was now theirs. And life couldn't be much more perfect.
Until eight months later when she said she was pregnant. The one thing, besides his life with her, he would never want to share with another person. A child. Their child.
I still have proof in forms of scars.
Sometimes, when she puts her feet on his lap as they're laying on the couch together, he looks down at her ankle and softly rubs against her scar. The one she got back in Madison when she left him. When she went back to Dr. Freeride. When she got into a car accident and he went to a bar with his friends to have a beer. To have a beer. When she was in the hospital.
Donna once told him she'd never stop for red lights. And when she said that to him, he realized he wouldn't stop for them either.
The first time always falls so far.
He knows, without her telling him, that Dr. Freeride was her first love. The first one to date her, to love her. The first one to crush her dreams and expectations. The first one to break her heart.
And when Donna realized she loved Josh, that she was in love with Josh, she realized how your first love always falls so far. Or at least her first love.
Those healing wounds heal twice as hard.
She was different for about a month when she came back from Madison.
She lied to him about her injury, claiming she slipped on ice. Not that he knew she was lying at the time. She was withdrawn and melancholy.
He tried. He tried jokes and chocolate and flowers. Things he would never do for anyone else. And slowly, she started to come back to him. To the woman she was when she was first hired.
It might have taken her twice as long to become her again, but Josh was there. He would always be there.
We are survivors. We are survivors of the wild.
It was the first time she broke down in front of him after they started dating that he told her. He talked about how they were survivors - her surviving her tumultuous love with Dr. Freeride; him surviving the loss of his sister, and the guilt and pain he still feels. He said they were survivors of the wild.
So now, when either one of them is down or sad, they just say, "We are survivors."
My sweet devoted counterpart.
When they first started dating, he couldn't wait to show her off. It only got worse once they got married.
He was so proud of her. He was proud of the woman she was, the work she did. He was proud he was the one that got to love her.
When their first child was born - Noah - he was by her side for all 29 hours of labor. He held her hand, encouraged her, kept telling her how proud of her he was. He would tell her how much he loved her, how he was so excited he was to be a father. He told her he would always be devoted to her.
He did this - standing by her side, talking to her - during the birth of their other children too.
We catch each other's shooting stars.
When Donna gets the offer to become Helen Santos's Chief of Staff, she's ecstatic. Josh tells her how well she's going to do, how much she'll achieve, how ready she is for this.
When he gets a bill no one thought would make it through Congress passed, she's right there next to him. Telling him how proud of him she was, how she knew he could do it.
We are survivors of the wild.