Longing

Author: ScarlettMithruiel

Rating: PG-13 for language

Classification: R (Josh/Donna), A (Character Death), AU

Summary: Josh died during surgery from the shooting at Rosslyn and Donna is furious.

Author's Note: First West Wing fanfiction. Sorry if Donna is off canon. I'm not really familiar with Jewish customs either, so again, sorry if the funeral seems off.

Feedback: Please! IM me at RogueLeeIshii or e-mail me at

It was all a blur. How could this happen? When I got here, CJ and the others told me that the President was all right, but Josh had been shot. I saw their faces. I saw the sympathy. I saw the sadness they were all experiencing. Josh? Josh couldn't have been shot. He was so strong...invincible, even. He was so brilliant. How could he be shot?

In the waiting room, I began to tick off the hours in my head. It would be a fourteen to sixteen hour surgery, they said. His lung had collapsed and they were doing their best to fix it. As soon as I heard the news, I contacted his mother. Tearfully, she informed me that she would try and find the earliest flight up.

And all I could do, all I could think to do was to pray. I sat there and closed my eyes, and I wholeheartedly put whatever energy I had left to play all my cards and do anything I could. I couldn't just sit there and hope that Josh would make it out okay. He means too much to me for me to do something like that.

God, I realize we haven't spoken for a long time, since I've been a child. I'm asking you, from the bottom of my heart, to save this man. I need him just as much as he needs me. Please don't let him die. I'm begging. Please. Save him. He's done nothing but try to be a good person. All he ever wanted to do in his life was help people. Please don't let him die. I love him, God. I truly love him. Please don't let him die.

Around the tenth hour, I was sitting there, with CJ on my left, who was trying to comfort me, and Josh's mother, on my right, who was squeezing my hand just as hard as I was squeezing hers. I saw the slightest bit of pristine white and I knew it was the doctor's lab coat. He walked in, strided in, with a straight face. He stood in front of all of us and his tone, like his face, displayed absolutely no emotion. His eyes displayed his weariness and I anticipated the news and hoped I was wrong.

He cleared his throat and held his head up a little to look us all in the eye. "Mr. Lyman had intensive bleeding in his lung. He arrested twice in the operating room. His vitals are better, but we have him on life support. It doesn't look good. We still have five or six hours yet. We should expect the worst."

Three hours later, that doctor returned again to inform us that Josh had arrested and could not be resuscitated. As others around me began to weep, I felt this deep, burning apathy working its way from my soul. All I thought about was my Josh, and how he couldn't be dead and how all those opportunities we had were squandered.

I cried. I wept for all the lost opportunities, lost chances that we never had the courage to take. We were always thinking about the Administration. Until after his term. It can wait until after his second term. What if Sam had wanted to run? Would we have had to wait 12 years?

Two days later, at Josh's funeral, at the end of the ceremony, I placed a red rose on his casket and took a few steps back as they ceremoniously carried the casket. Later, his mother approached me and gave me two boxes, with his clothing, and an envelope marked "Donna" in a familiar scrawl. As Mrs. Lyman prepares to leave, she says to me, "I've mourned a great love also." Then, she pats my shoulder and leaves.

At my apartment, I read the letter Josh wrote me, while clasping desperately onto one of his old Harvard sweatshirts. His scent still lingers on it. That familiar masculine, musky scent that's just Josh.

Dear Donna,

There's no way I can write this without sounding like a cliché. I guess that's how love goes. Love itself is a cliché. Anyway, if you're reading this, this is obviously not a happy time. I told my lawyer that, if I should die, you should be given this letter. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the missed opportunities. I only wanted to be with you, Donna, and I'm sorry the administration got in the way. And I know what you're going to say. "No, you're not, Josh, you love your job." Yeah, so what? I would've been much happier being with you. But all these 'What Ifs' don't do us any good.

I love you.

Josh

I tucked the letter back in its envelope and I buried my face in his sweatshirt. Just a little more time. Some more time with him. That's what I needed.