Colin watched the way she walked, agonizing over the slight hitch in her gait. She was still wearing the aftereffects of the attack, still suffering the indignities she'd lived through. "Donna, I-"
She held up a hand as she drew in breath after breath. Her shoulders bobbing with the exertion. "Just... give me a minute."
He waited, willing to give her at least some respite before he begged for forgiveness. She lifted the photos and slowly leafed through them. He waited... waited on pins and needles... waited for God himself to strike him down where he stood.
Instead, he stood untouched and waited while each emotion traveled across her features like a funeral procession, ponderous and full of weighty memories. Gentle smiles, barely contained laughter and then the pain of confusion... a perhaps a little bit of betrayal thrown in for good measure.
"This is why you came here today?"
He wasn't going to try to excuse it, he owed her so much more than that. "I thought... I felt you needed to see them."
She paused for a moment. He held his tongue, desperate not to rush her.
"Well, I've seen them. What's supposed to happen now?"
Her eyes were quiet, focused, calm... something was going horribly wrong. "I can't say that, Donna, I didn't come here with answers."
"Then, why did you come?" There it was... a gentle quiver in her tone.
"I needed to show them to you, Donna. Needed the decisions to be yours."
"Decisions." She parroted him, her eyes... hooded with dark thoughts. "Mine... What decision?"
"Do I throw them out? And, luv, do you throw me out?"
Her eyes scanned the photo again, her lips pressed together into a grim line. "I look..." he didn't have ask her what photo she had on top of the pile. "I look... my God, Colin... I was dying, wasn't I?"
He nodded slowly, even though she didn't look up. They both knew the answer. "I didn't take the pictures to hurt you Donna."
"Oh good, then it was just morbid curiosity?"
"No," it hurt, but he deserved the jab, "Have you ever had a moment when you faced down a situation you had no control over?" He saw her questioning look and continued on, "Think about it, Donna. The world is falling down around your ears and you can't do a damn thing to make it right?"
"I still don't-"
"I saw you slipping away, Donna. I saw you, bleeding... damn it, Donna, I thought you were dead and there wasn't a thing I could do. So, for better or worse, I went numb and I did what I've done a thousand times before. I took pictures."
She looked haunted, as though death itself had just passed behind her eyes.
"I'm not asking for your forgiveness, Donna. I don't think there's a single thing I could say that wouldn't sound like some pretty excuse even to my own ears, but I wanted you to know."
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her lips together and stood stock still.
The room echoed in silence.
"Colin?"
"Yeah, luv?"
Her lids rose slowly as her gaze fixed on his face. "You've been there before, haven't you? You been there when other bombs have gone off... when people have died. Right?"
He nodded.
"It's a reflex thing. It didn't... doesn't mean anything special. Right?"
It sounded so cold on her lips. "Donna-"
"It's alright, Colin.. I think... I understand." She moved forward a step, no more that a foot closing between them. "It's a learned response. We have something like that here in the West Wing. Crisis Mode." She lifted her hands and stared at them, noticing the quiver of her fingers. "You forget what it is to be... normal. You shut out the emotions and you deal with what you can, when you can. You become a machine... like your camera. For a short time, you forget what it means to...feel instead of just reacting." She reached one hand up and traced a near-invisible scar. "The trick is, never spending so much time in 'Crisis Mode' that you forget what it is to be human."
He was stunned into silence. It sounded like a death sentence of one kind or another. In a few words, she'd reduced him from man to stainless-steel robot. The sad thing was, Colin wasn't quite sure that she was wrong.
Colin reached out for her hand and was surprised when she wrapped her fingers around his. "I don't hate you," she whispered. "I don't think you did anything wrong..." he felt his heart begin to beat again, "but I don't think we are going to work."
An embarrassed little smile marred his stricken look. "No?"
She shook her head, "No." Her cheeks flushed like peaches ripening in the sun. "Colin... I... it's not you-"
"Awww, luv, if I only had a penny..."
Donna gave a weak smile. "How about a kiss? A friend once told me a penny isn't worth a thing anymore." She closed the distance and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. She pulled away as she headed for the door, turning back for a moment before she left him behind. "Colin, you need a shave."