Title: Expecting Roses

Author: ScullyAsTrinity

Rating: PG

Category: Fluff, Josh/Donna, Josh POV

Summary: How it feels to be in love... and how far one secretly falls.

Spoilers: Ellie, Bartlet's Third State Of The Union

Author's Notes: Because no one will read my ORIGINAL fiction, this is being written. Taking a break from the copious X-Files and Matrix to indulge in some Josh&Donna. To let everyone know, the West Wing is witty and amazing and just wow. P.S. ... Poor Donna.

THANKS: To Ivy for beta.

[Expecting Roses]

Can someone please explain to me why I feel like I have some power over this woman that I clearly don't. Conversations with her make me feel like I'm the smallest person on earth because regardless of whether she's right or wrong she steps all over me until she gets her way or until I finally take her side. I don't know why that is, because I'm clearly in control. I clearly sign her paychecks. I'm clearly the one who doesn't send in her standard reviews like I'm supposed to.

How exactly does she do that? I'm an intelligent individual. I work at the White House for Christ's sake. I graduated from two Ivy League schools. Not one, but two. At the risk of sounding completely full of myself I have to point out, just to make my point, that Donnatella Moss (and I address her by her given name here for purposes which will make me sound much more credible) did not graduate college.

Some people would assume that this would serve to make me a smarter person than her. If this was so, why is it that if she asked me to wear lederhosen into work... I would do it? Hell, I've worn rain gear for her... in the White House. If that isn't inappropriate, I don't know what is.

It may be say that I am one of the most powerful men on the planet at the moment. This is due only to the fact that I have a great influence on the President and he on me. If this were true, then that would mean that Donna is far more influential than me and has caused far more things to happen (whether political or not) than I have. Yes, I am quite aware as the Deputy Chief of Staff that it is quite pathetical that my assistant of all people as more pull in world politics than I do.

To think I studied for seven years to be controlled by a woman.

A beautiful, blonde, exceptional...

It's amazing. I admit it. She runs me. She is the whole of everything I do, and everything that I am now. If it weren't for her, it is clear that I would be in a ditch somewhere, drunk out of my mind, after another bachelor party that she, ironically, told me not to attend. If she were in my mind, she'd be rectifying these run on sentences in my mind. I hate it. I hate that no matter what I think about, I think about how Donna would do it, how Donna would want it to be.

When I'm in bed with Amy, when she is draped across my chest, sated and loving me... I want nothing more than to pick up the phone and hear Donna's voice. It's so completely backwards. So wrong. When I'm with Amy all I can think of how it's so wrong and all I'm living for is to serve both the President, and Donna and it gets jumbled and I realize how fucked up it sounds.

I speculate often of how much more peaceful the world would be if she were in my arm. At the same time I realize how the butterflies in my stomach are so wonderful and I wonder if they would dissipate if her lips were to kiss mine. Not knowing is half the fun. Dear God, yes, I enjoy pining over her, wondering what it would be like. Part of me is fearful that once I had her it would not possibly live up to what I've imaging. Another part of me yells at the latter part for being so selfish, tells it that Donna would live up to every expectation I have ever made for her because she is my soul mate.

Politicians don't have souls, people say. How could I have a soul mate then?

I can't stop thinking, I just can't. It's like work. I've worked all my life and I simply cannot stop working. It has to go on, and on and on, until I'm either fed up or have come to an adequate conclusion to the problem.

I know it's selfish to say, but when we all went to the movie, and I mean all of us, Toby and all... the only thing I wanted to do was turn to my left and kiss her, just to see what it felt like. Feel the fireworks. If they were there. Instead, I made some comment about the President not talking, about something silly. I knew she would respond with a logical explanation. At least I'd be able to hear her speak. After all, I'd never been to a movie with her; see how the lights played across her features as a completely different plot unfolded on the screen. I was infinitely glad when she didn't ask me about the film after. I wouldn't have been able to come up with a comment. It would be possible that I would have told her how surreal her skin had looked. How her eyes had glittered at the angle I was looking at them, and how the only thing I could really concentrate on was the occasional brush of her knee against mine.

She enters my office, and I stare at her for a moment. She briefs me, like always, and absentmindedly places a cup of coffee on my desk. I love her for it. I love her. She speaks about a meeting with Leo, about the agricultural brief with CJ and I don't care. Finally, after years it seems, I snap out of my reverie.

"Donna, shut the door." I ask, rising from my seat and placing the file the she put on my desk in a rapidly growing pile.

"Josh, you really have to-"

"Shut the door." I say again, looking at the floor, and quickly, while her back is turned, running my right hand through my hair. Her eyes are wide as she looks at me, tattered clipboard in hand.

I think of what to say. "Donna..." I trail off, my mind not on words but on how exceptional she looks in that outfit. How amazing her hair looks in waves.

"Aw, hell." I mumble, and I move forward and press her lips to mine. She is shocked. I can tell. It's nothing but a press of lips to lips but I can surely hear the blood pounding in my ears. As I had hoped, I can almost certainly feel the world shift just a bit and know that the future will be just as butterfly-inducing as the chase.

I let her go for a moment, my hands still on her shoulders.

"Josh! We're still in-"

"It doesn't matter. It just, nothing matters."

I kiss her again, and as I hadn't hoped to dream, it's better than the first. I feel more, I see more, I know more.

We part again.

"Except for the... Third Circuit... and re-election... and the stain that's on this jacket, I really need you to call that cleaner's on Connecticut and- "

She hits me with the clipboard, smiling and walks out of my office.

We'll be alright. It'll all be roses.