Belladonna

Belladonna

By Len

Spoilers:  Everything, nothing…no clue.

Teaser:  The final installment in the Operation Moss series, wherein Donna still has a hangover, Josh is characteristically confused about life in general, and a conspiracy is revealed.  Oh, and Donna is armed and dangerous.

Authors notes:  Thanks first and foremost to Norma, who is a saint amongst betas, as well as being quite handy with a thesaurus.  And thanks also to everyone who has given me "advanced" feedback on this fic – you know who you are, and I love you all.  Thanks also to everyone who has sent such wonderful feedback on the previous installments of Operation Moss.  I truly appreciate it!!

More notes:  This along with all of my other fic can be found on my website: 

     http://www.geocities.com/sekhmet_poppy/home.html

Even More Notes:  Please, please send feedback.  It honestly will help me finish this story faster.  Plus I love hearing from you all.

Still More Notes:  This immediately follows "Good Morning: An Interlude" If you haven't read that one, you may want to go to my page really quick and look it over.  Otherwise you may get lost.  Although I tend to have that effect on people anyway….ahem.

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Chapter One: The Date With David

   My bedroom door flies open and hits the opposite wall, surprising my eyes into popping open. The clock on my night stand reads SOG, and this makes be feel sad because I can't for the life of me make SOG mean anything...no, wait. Five oh six. Oh, okay.

"'kay, now you _really_ have to get up," Cammie tells me. She has a glass of water in one hand, a glass of lake scum in the other, a dress draped over her arm and a coil of rope around her neck. I sit up blearily and consider inquiring about the latter.

I decide not to. "Give me one good reason," I suggest.

She smirks. "David's coming to take you out to dinner in an hour."

"WHAT?" I leap out of bed with true Barishnikov panache, and snatch the glass of water out of her hand on the way to the shower. "I should have been up hours ago!"

My room-mate follows me, thoughtfully picking up things I might need along the way. Like, you know, a towel. "I tried to wake you up, but you just-"

"Yeah, I know. Maybe I should call David and cancel..." I wonder.

Cammie shakes her head so vehemently her scrunchy flies off across the bathroom and lands in the tub. "Not a chance. Do you realize what today is?"

My alcohol-fogged brain churns out a short alphabetized list of holidays, but none that could really concern Cammie, David, or me. "Um, Sunday?" I try.

She nods encouragingly. "It's your anniversary! Remember?"

I stare at her stupidly. "My anniversary was in February, or in April, depending on whom you ask. And anyway, I somehow doubt that David would be…oh. You mean the David and me, anniversary."

"Yeah."

"That's today?" I push her out the door, but not before she shoves the glass of pond scum into my hand.

"Yes," she says from the other side of the door, "and drink this. It'll help."

I take a sip. "Wow," I comment, gagging, "the flavor of road kill and the unexpected color of your run-of-the-mill garden mulch. Cam, you've surpassed yourself."

"Shut up," she says good-naturedly. "If you're not ready by the time David gets here, I may take him!"

To be perfectly honest, I almost wished she would. It would save me so much trouble.

Does that sound bitchy? Uncharitable? Perhaps. But let me give you a quick over-view of the bad knitting-ish qualities my life has recently taken on. Starting from the beginning, I have a boyfriend.

What, you ask? Why isn't Donnatella Moss leaping for joy? Why isn't she shouting it across the city? Could it possibly be because she doesn't really care? I'd like to answer your question in two parts - first, shut up, you're really starting to sound like Josh, and that just bugs me, and second...okay, there's just the one part. I'm getting there.

I'm calling David my boyfriend because after two months of rather sporadic dating, he finally kissed me - properly kissed me - yesterday at lunch. Although this would have been much more romantic and sweet had he not actually kissed my twin sister, thinking it was me.

All the same, from where I sat, the kiss looked very pleasant.

Secondly, Josh...

I sigh and step into the shower. Josh. Josh Josh Joshua Josh Josh. Josh has been acting strange. I mean, he's usually acting strange, whether it's buying me flowers at the wrong time or covertly burning the White House down. But this is a whole other kind of strange. This is staring off into space, forgetting what he's talking to me about kind of strange. I actually caught him skipping down the hall from the mess two days ago.

This troubled me.

The next confusing aspect of my life is that I have a twin sister. Actually, this has confused me for nearly thirty years, and generally confused everyone else, too. The current problem I have with this is that she originally showed up to beat up my boss (call me a pacifist, but I just don't like people doing that) but ended up making out with my boyfriend on a public street.

Don't look at me like that. I only asked her to fill in for me at lunch, not stick her tongue down his throat.

After successfully stirring up my life like a small boy on an anthill with a stick, she traipsed off to Vegas to elope with her occasionally-employed Scotch boyfriend.

This I could have dealt with. Up until this point, I still had some degree of control over my life. But after this point...Oh, I just don't want to talk about it.

I sigh, step out of the shower and wrap a towel around myself. For a moment, I have a flash back to my childhood. Until I was, like, eight, I used to have to take baths with my sister. We would sit there and play mermaids with our Barbies, our toes turning into prunes, until our mother would bustle into the unheated bathroom. I remember thinking at the moment when she whisked me out of the tepid water and wrapped me securely in a thick towel, that I would like to stay cocooned like that forever.

Well, maybe that wasn't my precise thought - I was seven years old - but it was somewhere along those lines.

It occurs to me that I may be becoming sickeningly sentimental in my old age. But since it looks like I'm going to an anniversary dinner, this is probably just the right age to be stuck in. If I can manage to tear myself out of my comfortable towel cocoon, that is.

For the moment, I can't. Instead, I walk over to where Camilla Brown's Super Hangover Remover is watching me, and upend the glass over the sink.

Nothing happens. The sludgy contents remain firmly lodged at the bottom.

Just the idea of drinking this stuff on a regular basis would be enough to turn me into a teetotaler. Cammie, who actually does drink it, must have the digestive capabilities of a small hippopotamus.

Eeew.

Sorry, that was just me thinking about digesting anything. The very concept of food nauseates me at the moment. I wonder if I can ask the waiter for a plate of Saltines. That probably wouldn't go over to well at any of the places David likes to take me - he really likes those fancy French bistros. As long as I can avoid ingesting any type of creature that spends it's days under a rock, I think I'll be okay.

Oh, augh.

Studiously ignoring the toilet, I sit down on the edge of the tub and remember how I got into this state. It fits in nicely with Josh's recent strangeness. It's directly related to Josh's strangeness. I can, in fact, blame every tap-dancing elephant in my head on him.

He told me he loved me. And then passed out, drunk.

Of all the cruel, thoughtless things he's ever said to me, that takes the cake.

I take those three words very, very seriously. Maybe, you wonder, it's because somewhere in my tragic past, no-one ever said them to me? No, actually. I come from a very verbal family, and they never for a moment let me think I wasn't loved. It's just kind of...it's really weird. It's just that _I_ can't say it. I can't say the words "I Love You" unless I really mean it.

Yeah, I know. I have the emotional maturity of a six-year old. But there's no real turning back from "I Love You". Those words can't be laughed off. They don't go away. So when someone whom I've been close to for years tells me he loves me and smells like beer - let just say I've been down that path before.

Once, just once, I'd like a man to be in his right mind before making me a promise like that. I deserve that much, don't I?

No, that was an actual question. You can go ahead and answer. `Cause I'm beginning to wonder.

I wrap a robe around myself and pad to my bedroom. Across the rumpled quilt lies a short, shimmery, pale blue dress. It has a scooped neckline and happens to be one size to small.

"Cammie!" I holler. Surprisingly enough, my head does feel better. "Why is your dress on my bed?"

"Because you're going to wear it!"

"It's too small!"

"It'll look great!" She pokes her head once again in the door. "Trust me on this, Donna. It makes _me_ look provocative. On you it will look—"

   I survey the hem-line. "Indecent?" I suggest.

"Unbearably seductive."

"It's six inches too short!"

"It looks great on me," she replies.

"You're five feet tall!"

"It'll drive David nuts. In fact, I think you should seriously consider garters."

"Go away!"

As usual, she doesn't. "Dress for sex, Donna!"

I stand there and gape at her for a moment. Eventually I get my vocal cords working again. "What?"

"Tonight is the night, Donna."

I wince. That sounds painfully familiar. "The night for sex?"

"Yep. I think you've waited long enough, don't you?"

"No!" I screech. She looks startled, so I try to tone it down a little. "I'm David's first relationship since his wife died in that freak accident."

"Things like that happen. He should get on with his life."

"Things like that do _not_ happen! She was crushed by an elevator while she was jogging. An accident like that simply does not happen. That's like being killed by a...a...vending machine or something!"

"So you're really only concerned about David, huh? You're taking it slow for his sake?"

"Yes," I tell her defiantly. I slip the dress over my head and enjoy the feel of the cool cloth against my skin.

"It has nothing to do with-"

"No!"

Her green eyes crinkle skeptically. I sniff and dig around in the closet for a pair of heels. It's true, I insist to myself, I just don't want David to get hurt.

"I think he is."

I look up, curious. "Who's what?"

"Big Bad Deputy Man. I think he's in love with you."

"You're a lunatic!" I gasp. "But - wait. How did you...?"

There's the Cheshire grin again. "'Donna Moss Tells All Under The Influence'," she says, sketching the headline out in the air.

"He was drunk."

"And your point is...?"

"He didn't know what he was saying. He probably doesn't even remember it."

Cammie crinkles her eyes again and leaves, letting me complete my beautification process in peace. I take meticulous care with my make-up, more out of absent-mindedness than any intention to wow my date. Although, I think, surveying my face in the mirror – I _do_ look pretty good.

I hear the doorbell ring and rush out to get it. Outside in the hall David stands in slacks and a polo shirt, suddenly making me feel ridiculously over-dressed. He _does_ stare at me in impressed shock, and that makes up for a lot. That, and the fact that he has a dozen red roses in his hand.

Yes, he brought me flowers.  Roses, unfortunately, but flowers nonetheless. That is just so sweet and old-fashioned! If he pulls a box of chocolates out from behind his back, I may fall over laughing.

Fortunately for the dress, he doesn't. He holds the flowers out to me. "Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady,"

`Wait,' says a snide little internal voice that sounds like (of course), Josh. `I heard that line on AMC last night!'

`You don't even watch AMC, you dork,' I retort. "Thank you, David! They're absolutely beautiful! I don't know what to say!"

`That'd be a first,' says snide Josh.

"Why don't you run and put those in some water, sweetheart? Then we can go to dinner."

I turn back into the apartment and obey. Outside the kitchen he's still talking. "I know you don't really like the fancy places, so I got us reservations at Tony's. I hope that's okay?"

Tony's. Me and Josh used to go to Tony's every once in a while, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes with Sam or CJ and Toby. Of course, all of that stopped since the MS hit the press. "Yeah, that's great," I call back. I quickly arrange the roses in the vase - the same one that my last batch of April flowers came in. As I turn to leave the kitchen, it the top-heavy flowers tip it over and spray across the floor.

"I'll get them for you, Donna," Cammie tells me from her spot next to the stove. "But I think it's a sign."

I raise an eyebrow. "A sign?"

"That he loves you."

I got the feeling she wasn't talking about the man out in the living room. I shake my head. "Sometimes, Cam..."

"Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes I fear for your sanity." She opens her mouth to make a smart remark, but I talk fast and back out the door. "I'll be back later. See you!"

He doesn't love me, I tell myself. Just saying it in my head makes me wilt a little more. But I'd bet money that he doesn't even remember anything that happened.

David gallantly offers his arm. I take it and try to force myself out of my strange mood. "Shall we depart, mi Donna?" He says poetically.

I smile at this; he really is such a ham sometimes.

`Oh, gag me,' says that annoying voice.

"Shut up," I tell it.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, sorry David, not you. I was talking..." To the Josh in my head? Oh, that'll go over well. "Never mind. Let's blow this popsicle stand," I say in my best Bogart voice. This makes him laugh. And it makes the Josh in my head smile.

Remind me to apologize to Cammie when I get back. It turns out _I'm_ the lunatic in apartment 42C.