TITLE: Realignment
RATING: PG-13 for language
CATEGORIES: Angst/Romance
PAIRING: J/D, baby!
SPOILERS: Uh, King Corn, and general for the new campaigns
DISCLAIMER: Fuck John Wells. That is all.
A/N: Never done a West Wing fic before, but Josh's slightly psychotic thoughts started to leak out onto the page, and here we are. I also needed a break from Grissom's stupidity, so I switched to Josh's, instead! This one goes out to Leslie, who's loyalty to this fandom sparked my interest, and whose deranged challenged inspired me to look into some creative avoidance tactics.

Summary: With one phone call, two lives are finally realigned and back where they belong: together.

Across the hall...across the hall...that's right you worthless loser, right across the hall...

Josh groaned and rolled gracelessly over onto his stomach, slamming his pillow over his head, and wishing absently for swift suffocation. But, as usual, the fates weren't up to much more than thumbing their noses at him and wandering off, leaving him very much alive, his breath continuing to come out in somewhat anguished puffs against the mattress.

It had been weeks now, and still, that useless mantra kept rattling around in his head, whispering in his ear all the horrible things he already knew about himself. 'Dickless' was becoming a favorite term that bounced around inside his brain, and it irked him that his subconscious would turn on him in such a degrading way, but he could hardly argue, first because he didn't want to succumb to the nagging insanity of fighting with oneself, and secondly because...it was true. If it wasn't true, if Josh were someone with any courage, any guts at all...

...He would have knocked on her fucking door.

Of course, he didn't, because that's the way things always played out for him, wasn't it? He could bullshit his way through helping run a country, fight for so many issues, push so hard for so many things, but when it came down to just him and one woman who haunted him endlessly, he simply couldn't push himself hard enough. Couldn't force his stubborn spirit into the one thing he'd ever truly wanted, needed to do.

Not to say he didn't push, of course. God no, that wasn't the case at all. He'd pushed her right on out the door, after all, to the other side of the playing field, to foreign ground where he could never follow. And she knew that. She always knew the detailed workings of his slightly erratic mind, before he'd even brought the issue up with himself. It's what had made him trust her in the start, what he often thought kept her with him for so long. He'd always thought that every time he shut her out, or demanded so much, or simply yelled at her because there was nothing left inside him, she would always stick with him, because she understood.

Understood what exactly, Josh couldn't say. Understood the fact that every time he had the urge to give up the game and claim her lips under his own, he instead sent her on some mundane task? Understood the fact that sometimes, when he couldn't do it anymore, simply couldn't find the strength to go on one more second, he'd demand her appearance for some trivial grunt work, simply so he could bask in her presence for one brief moment? Understood that she was the one who had turned his mind into this lump of useless mush that liked to wax poetic on how pathetic he was?

Understood he loved her?

Josh was just another guy, really, when it got down to it. Sure, he worked for the President, helped keep the country together, had a fairly brilliant political mind, and a skill for cynicism that so many would envy, but in the end, he was just...another guy. He lived alone, and worked too much, and when the night was so big and so dark it seemed to swallow him up, Josh sometimes got lonely.

Josh had fallen in love. He'd met and fallen for his employee, and was wrapped around her little finger like a strand of her white-blonde hair, even if he was the one who technically gave the orders at work. Work. In the end, work was just, well, work, wasn't it? It changed and shifted, and eventually, you said your last goodbye and got to sit on your ass for the last few decades of your life. Even if he pulled off this new election, ended up in the White House again for four or eight more years, what then? When it ended, who would be there to keep his memories with him?

And what...what if she was the one who ended up back in the White House? Only this time, in a position she deserved, where she was respected for her radiant brilliance, for her wit and loyalty, for her laughter. What then? So many possibilities, either way, and none of them seemed to end with the two of them where Josh rather believed they belonged. Together.

Right across the hall...

Damnit! He threw the covers off the hotel bed in disgust and sat up, swearing and watching the seconds tick by on the alarm clock. He'd done that then too, wondering if she was doing the same thing, a few feet away. Or perhaps she was sleeping, her features softened in sleep, curled up under warm cover, where he wished he was as well, and–

The crunch of wall and alarm clock was grimly satisfying, although Josh now had the new dilemma of a hole in the once smooth plaster, and the fact that his only time-telling device was now littering the carpet in sad little pieces. He eyed the lamp for a moment, before deciding he didn't have the energy to heave it, too, and let the poor inanimate object be.

He'd been furious with her, at first. The trust he'd put in her and in their connection betrayed like that. She'd known him for so long, and he had been so certain that she knew him, that she could translate his stiff manner into the caring that really simmered beneath. He'd been so sure that she'd understood, and so very, very furious when she left, because it meant that she hadn't understood any of it. Not at all.

But then, of course, as it has a way of doing, the truth made itself painfully clear to his reluctant mind. Slowly, but every so surely, he began to see things for what they really were. He began to see that she hadn't left because she didn't understand–

she had left because she did.

She understood he loved her. She understood everything about him, from his tendency to behave as a foolish bastard, to the fact that when his hair was a mess, it meant he'd had a particularly bad day. Mostly, though, it meant she understood that he was too pathetic and too scared to ever do anything about it. About them. She saw it for what it was, understood it with a completeness that startled him. And that, that was why she left.

Christ, how had he let it get this far? How had he let himself fall in love? How had he let himself become this sad, cold, pathetic man who let the most beautiful, wonderful thing in his small existence pass him by? When had he become so much like Toby, for God's sake?

He was pacing now, trying to escape this epiphany that had been gnawing at him since he had pulled his fist back to his side, and returned silently to his own room. Pathetic didn't even begin to describe it. Stupid, idiotic, worthless...

He couldn't keep his thoughts straight now, and there was no one left to get his reason back. That had always been her job, and now what was he going to do?

There were flashes in his mind, over and over again, of a speech he helped write, and her smile, of the Bartlets, and CJ, and Toby and Sam, of the way her eyes danced when she laughed, of his sad, quiet lonely little house where no one was ever waiting for him to come home, and back to her.

God, why hadn't he knocked? He'd had that chance, thrust out there at him, for all his worthlessness, and again, he'd chickened out. Fucking chickened out. Always, he chickened out, for one reason or another, one goddamn trivial excuse after another. But now, stuck in his tiny room in the small hours of the morning, Josh was finally out of reasons and left only with this lost desperation.

Josh had felt pressure before. Really, he had. But for the first time, this panicky desperation wasn't about saving the US from some sort of havoc-inducing war with Russia. It was about the rest of his life, and the missing puzzle piece he didn't have. Like a puzzle, without her, he could still be something, still work, but it just wouldn't be quite...right. Not at all.

He was talking to himself by the time he got to the phone, swearing angrily and wondering how this realization was coming so slowly and still managed to make him feel like he'd been hit by a bus. Swearing and wondering what time it was. Swearing, and wondering if this was all happening to late.

"You worthless son of a bitch!" The snarl came out sounding broken, and he wished there was someone else to tell him this but himself. It didn't seem to hurt quite as bad as it should. "Stupid, stupid fool!" He was never one to talk to himself, but sometimes, it just had to be done. Jesus, he needed her.

The receiver was out of its cradle and jammed against his ear with all the force of his confused clarity. His fingers felt awkward and clumsy and were shaking slightly as he tried to dial the number, not comprehending how badly he simply needed to hear her voice, if only to damn him as he deserved. Damnit, he couldn't even dial the numbers, he had yet to punch in one. "You, Josh Lyman, are a pathetic bastard, and you don't deserve her!"

"Don't you think that ought to be up to her?" He almost dropped the phone, and did jerk it away from his ear to stare at it for a moment, quite aware he had not punched in the numbers yet. So how then...how? He quickly put it back to his ear, slumping down on the edge of the lumpy mattress.

"Uh..."

Her laugh, low and sweet came through, teasing him and comforting him all at once. "You've never been the silent type, Josh." Still, he could say nothing, listening to her breathe, and staring into the darkness. Finally, he heard her sigh. "So, I guess I beat you to it, right? I was calling because...we need to talk. In fact, I sort of liked the route you were going, about being a pathetic bastard, though, so you can keep going if you'd like. In fact, I insist." Her words were biting, but her words were warm and forgiving, filling him up with something bright and content. Filling him up with her.

"Donna." And just like that, the world realigned.

Props go out to Kara, who saved this fic from my Grammar Monster, who likes to stick commas in the middle of sentences and scare off little children. Thanks, babe, I owe you! Any remaining mistakes are mine. So, Please tell me what you think and tell me whether I should give this fandom another shot or not! Thanks for Reading!