Title: "The Lamentable Demise of George" Part 3
Author: Madeleine Mitchell Carr
Email:
Category: General, Josh/Donna
Rating: PG
Summary: Josh, Donna, a chinchilla. General mayhem and confusion. Many misunderstandings ensue. A touch of angst and a pinch of romance.
Josh POV continued
Spoilers: Post-'Noel'. General season 2 stuff
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Aaron Sorkin and NBC; I'm just borrowing them. Please don't sue me, as I have no money.
Feedback will be taken in, fed and loved to excess
My day just continued to get better and better. Having agreed to do Stanley's thing, I thought I may as well get into it a bit, so when I had come back from a meeting on the Hill unexpectedly early, I decided to do a spot of research on the Internet. How Donna manages to pull so much information off this thing, I will never know; I certainly wasn't going to ask her. A guy can only take so much of his beautiful blonde assistant mother-henning him. Having grappled with the 'browser' (who the hell names these things?) for half an hour, I very gladly gave up and went back to running the country. All I'd managed to unearth were a bunch of technical medical sites, which were making me, feel faint, I was aiming more for bland platitudes when I addressed the ATVA guys.
An hour of relative peace, work, a bit of half-hearted banter with Donnatella, then the vet guy, Anderson, called me back. My apologies DR Anderson. (I can't believe we let these people call themselves doctors. I may just as well call my car mechanic a doctor.) He was a dork.
Once Donna had 'creeped' out of my office (and I could tell she was seething with curiosity), I told the dork all about George's strange behaviour. Once he'd stopped laughing, he proceeded to inform me in a frankly offensive tone of voice that George was obviously bored out of his tiny mind and I ought to buy him some toys to play with.
Excuse me?
Toys?
I say again. We let these people call themselves doctors?
Still…
I walked over to my door and yanked it open to lean outside.
"Donna, your…"
And the woman herself fell into my office. She had an apple in her hand.
If I didn't know her better, I would suspect her of pulling a Margaret and listening at my door. Donna has a lot of very irritating habits, but listening at doors is not one of them, (Generally. Sometimes I tell her to.) So this was pretty uncharacteristic behaviour.
She must be really curious.
"Were you listening at my door?"
"Who's Dr Anderson?"
Well she kind of blurted that out. And she looked flustered.
"Why were you listening at my door?"
She recovered from her stagger into the room and pulled herself up to her not inconsiderable fullest height. Her cheeks were a rather becoming pink.
"I was not listening at your door, Joshua, I was on my way in to…to, er… give you a thing when you threw the door open."
She waved her hand vaguely in the air.
"And who's Dr. Anderson?"
"You came to give me a half-eaten apple?"
Damn, who'd have Alabaster skin, her cheeks are flushed much pinker now.
"Yes, because I remembered that you hadn't had any fruit for lunch, and you need to eat fruit. Everybody should have at least 5 portions of fresh fruit a day. Who's Dr. Anderson?"
God the woman can be relentless. Normally I'd be proud.
I threw up my hands in frustration. I hate it when Donna obsesses. She's definitely lost her chance to hear about George.
"Dr Anderson is a…a guy!"
"A friend?"
"NO! he's a dork. He doesn't know anything!"
Whoops, tactical error.
Donna's starting to look a little wild eyed. What is with her today?
"Doesn't know anything about what? Is he…is he a medical doctor?"
"Sort of"
She's starting to scare me now. She actually looks worried.
"Sort of? Sort of? What does that mean? He is or he isn't!"
How did this get started? Perhaps I ought to tell her just to get her to shut up.
"He's a…um", on second thoughts, I won't tell her, "He's a specialist".
So there.
"Specialist!"
Her eyes are so big now, there's barely any blue left, and the pink has gone from her cheeks.
"Donna, how much coffee have you had this morning?"
"Don't change the subject Joshua"
"I'm not changing the subject. I didn't even start the subject. A subject, I might add that is none of your business."
My annoyance must have come through, because she pulls herself together.
"Sorry. It's just… I mean, you would tell me if…"
"Donna"
"Yes?"
"Your flat mate"
"Cindy? What about her?"
"Not about her. About her cats."
"What about Cindy's cats?"
"Do they… do they get bored?"
"Do my flat mate Cindy's cats get bored?"
Damn, she's starting to get wild-eyed again. It was a perfectly reasonable question. I hope George appreciates the torture he's putting me through.
"Yes"
Silence
"Well do they?"
"Do they what?"
"Get bored?"
"Do they get bored?"
What is going on? Why is Tom Stoppard scripting my life?
"Donna, are you all right?"
As I ask that question, it suddenly hits me. Her frankly bizarre behaviour. Her paranoia over a doctor she's never met. The fact that one minute she is flushed, the next as pale as a ghost.
Oh. My. God.
Is she sick? Is she afraid I'll find out? Is it serious? Am I jumping to conclusions?
Maybe. But that doesn't stop a very, very cold lump appearing in the vicinity of my stomach. I'm finding it difficult to breathe. The thought of Donnatella Moss being sick is enough to send my poor abused heart crazy with anxiety.
"No, I don't think I am", she says distractedly. She has her hand on her head as though trying to keep her hair from flying off.
"What?"
God, did that sound as strangled as it felt?
I guess it did because her eyes bore into mine with sudden intensity. Her expression has moved from confused and worried to alarmed. The cold gets more intense. There must be something wrong. I can see it in her face, the way she's looking at me. I think I even groan a little.
"Josh…", almost whispered.
The phone rings.
I grab at it as though it was the last cookie in Mrs. Landingham's jar, and given the sort of luck I've had on the phone today, that's saying quite a lot. I want to talk to Donna, but not just yet, I need time to think a bit first.
It's my neighbour's son Robin (Not Robbie, apparently).
"Hey, Robin. How's George?"
Donna is still standing there and she's getting that curious look in her eyes again. Damn, perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned George.
Then my day gets worse.
Robin (who's 11, and a bit 'sensitive') is tearful and incoherent. But even in my distracted state I manage to hear the words.
George is dead.
I'm so stunned by this turn of events that I simply gape at the phone like a drunken guppy. I'm peripherally aware of Donna saying my name, but I'm trying to concentrate on Robin's garbled explanation. He say's it's all his fault - then something about not securing the cage properly, and as he left, my chinchilla making a desperate bid for freedom through the door, straight into the path of a passing Ford.
George is dead. Squashed flat by a car.
Quick, painful and bloody.
Poor George.
TBC
How will Josh react to George's death? Why is he so stupid about Donna? And what does Donna think about all this?
Read on and find out…