TITLE: She
AUTHOR: alaira
SPOILERS: Yeah, well, what don't I spoil? Very significant references to season four and vague allusions to season three and/or five.
RATING: PG
ARCHIVE: at alairasdomain.tripod.com. Otherwise, please ask first.
DISCLAIMER: I own neither the characters nor the subtitles. Offer feedback, not legal action. NOTE: With subtitles by Tori Amos; for challenge 16 at the amydonna livejournal.
For Michellek, because once upon a time she said she wanted someone to write something between Posse Comitatus and Constituency of One.
She
the face i can't forget
You've been working with the Stackhouse campaign for three weeks when you start having the dreams. They're all different, but then again they're all the same.
She sits in a bar, or at her desk, or at yours, and she seems to glow. Her aura, a gentle sweetness exudes from the blonde hair that falls loosely around her perfect face. Sometimes she's in Josh's apartment, and you get the feeling she belongs there, and it's you who is the outsider and this variation bothers you the most.
"Come home with me," she says sometimes; other times she just kisses you with such force your lips are still tingling after you wake up.
You didn't know you had such fantasies, but that might be a lie. You didn't know they were so vivid in your subconscious, which is not.
You see Josh at Rock the Vote, and tell him you miss him. It may be true, but you think it's more likely a distraction. You want to distract him from screwing you over again; part of you wants to be distracted from the dreams.
Where there is Josh, there is usually Donna, so you know she's there, too, somewhere. You don't look too hard to find her. She won't glow like she does in the dreams, and part of you is worried this will make them stop.
the trace of pleasure or regret
Stackhouse backs the President and the election draws closer, and the dreams stop without you having seen her again. You spend your days with a faint memory of the electricity; your nights are a dreamless black.
The President wins his re-election bid and while the television calls it a 'surprising victory,' you are not surprised. When you go to the official White House party to collect your winnings, you've almost forgotten about the dreams.
Air-kisses are flying, and when you greet Donna, one of you turns your head at the last moment, so your lips brush hers. You don't pull back right away, and to your surprise she doesn't either.
She squeezes your wrist instead, and steps back, smiling. She tells you that Josh will probably be along any time now, and scurries away. Something twitches in your memory, nostalgia or a faint recollection.
You see her again later, standing in the distance and looking radiant, her skin sparkling under the light, her hair a warm gold. A hand on her shoulder, attached to an attractive man in navy blues.
You get your coat from Josh's office and slip swiftly into the night. The next morning you book a flight to California; Sam's going to run in the 47th, and it's never too early to start fundraising.
You tell yourself to forget the whole thing, but as DC fades to a speck out the window, you wonder why you didn't act sooner, why you didn't act at all.
maybe the treasure
For some months, you live as a transient, alternating between hotel rooms in California and your townhouse, which has started to feel equally alien. You sister's kids have adopted Henry, and you stay in California longer than you thought you would.
She comes out, once, as part of the President's entourage. You make yourself busy during this time, cleverly avoiding her, though you're starting to realise you'll never get away, because the dreams have followed you.
Only the setting has changed, and now she's in the hotel lobby, or poolside sipping a margarita, on the beach in a polka-dot bikini. The dreams become more risque; she's naked in your hotel room, raindrops on the window casting a rainbow of colour on her pale skin.
You begin to despise your listless existence, your track record of ten jobs in three years, when the First Lady offers you Chief of Staff. It seems like the thing to do, so you take the job, pretending you're not dreading going back to face her, or what could have been.
You live through your first day, and then your second. Time passes, and you find liaising with Josh's office is easier than you thought it would be, being around Donna is almost effortless.
She pulls you aside one day and tells you it's good to have you back in town. Keeps Josh on his toes, she says, and she doesn't mind your presence either
You're giddy with what this might mean and that night your sleep, though dreamless, is soothed with the memory of her conspiratorial grin.
the price i have to pay
You'll finally work up the nerve to ask if she's in love with Josh, the same way you asked if he was dating his assistant a year and a half before.
It's more a formality than anything else; you like your bases to be clear before you start something and you don't know why you've waited this long to ask. Possibly you were afraid of what she would say; possibly you knew you would want to start this regardless.
She wipes her face clean of any emotion, and tells you 'no.'
Then the news comes about Zoey's kidnapping, and you both switch gears instantly, focusing on making it through the night. You escort Abbey into CJ's office, and when you look over your shoulder she's watching you. Abbey drifts in and out of sleep, and you creep out quietly.
You find her a few moments later, leaning against a door frame, her face hidden in shadow. You reach out and brush your fingers through her hair, squeezing her shoulder. She looks up, her face pale, and you pull her toward you.
When you kiss her, she responds with a fierce desperation, as though everything else might disappear. But nothing glows, nothing tingles. Nothing disappears. Everything about this night laced with anxiety, a sense of the forbidden. The kiss is no exception and you know you shouldn't be doing this, you know it will never work out.
You decide it might be worth it anyway.