Disclaimer: Aren't mine, wish they were. You know the drill.

Author's Notes: Mark the date one the calendar folks: Two updates in less than twenty-four hours! I know, I'm just as astounded as you are. Enter Chapter the eighth in which the angst quota rockets to previously unmeasured levels and leaves us scrambling to keep up. Fun for all. As I was putting the final spit polish on this chapter, "Ave Maria" came on my random playlist shuffle and I almost had a coronary. Life mimicking art and all that. Anyhoo, read the chapter, leave a review and win my undying love and gratitude. (edit: for some reason doesn't seem to want to let me indent my paragraphs. Go figure.)

I am getting a very good idea of how someone standing on the highest point of a steep hill feels right before the rockslide starts. Shifting ground, the feeling of the earth rolling under your feet and the knowledge that you're going to fall and fall only to be buried by all the shit that's falling after you. My life seems to have veered completely out of control in the space of two weeks.

The look on my face must be positively terror inducing as I leave the bullpen and storm into the hall. People are literally leaping out of my path as I pass by. Parting the Red freaking Seas, that's me, I think with a black humour as I make an aimless corner, not knowing or caring where I'm headed.

Donna's following me. I know because she's wearing heels and her gait has taken on a peculiar uneven sound quality since her accident and I can now hear her click-thumping towards me at an alarmingly high speed.

"Josh." She calls, closing the gap. Her voice has an uncharacteristic edge to it, as though it's been laced with steel. The effect is like having knives whizzing past my head as I walk. "Josh, for God's sake, turn around and look at me."

I halt mid-stride and whirl around to glare at my assistant. She is giving me a look that I'm pretty sure could cause something or someone to spontaneously combust if she tried hard enough, "I have somewhere to be Donna." I growl.

"No you do not." Donna says incredulously, crossing her arms.

"Oh yeah? How do you know that?"

"Because I'm your assistant you idiot," She spits, "When have I ever not known your schedule inside and out?"

She has a point.

"We're going to talk Josh, because this is, quite frankly, starting to get on my nerves."

"Fine," I take her by the arm and pull her into the nearest room, which is, thankfully, unoccupied, "Fine, let's talk Donna. Let's share our emotions like good well-balanced boys and girls shall we?"

Donna looks positively disgusted with me, "Oh please, grow up." She practically snarls. I have very rarely, maybe never, seen Donna Moss so angry and I'm still enough in my right mind to be unnerved by it.

I decide that now would be a good time to change tack, "What the hell did you think you were doing Donna?" I demand.

If I was looking to catch her off guard I fail miserably because Donna's facial expression shifts immediately from disgust to disbelief. "What was I doing?" She repeats, her voice getting oddly high on the last syllable. "Worrying myself sick over you, that's what."

I roll my eyes, ignoring the sharp pang that shoots through me at her response, "Yeah," I hiss, practically spitting out the words, "and part of that obviously included telling the entire White House staff that I'm some sort of emotionally unstable head case!"

Donna, whose furious face I'm sure matches my own, gives a tiny, bemused laugh and says, "Well going on past experience Josh, I wasn't that far off."

For a moment I'm so angry I'm unable to string enough words together to form a coherent sentence. I spin on my heel take several steps away from her, one hand on my hip, the other pulling at my hair. "What the hell did you think I was going to do?" I demand, whirling back on her suddenly enough that she jumps. "String myself up by my necktie in the middle of the bullpen? Throw myself in front of the motorcade?"

I've maybe gone a little too far with that one because Donna flinches away from me and goes slightly pale, "Josh..." she says softly, looking a little sick to her stomach.

I take a deep breath and try to calm down before someone in the hall hears the noise and thinks someone's being murdered. "In what part of your mind." I say, disliking the tight, strained quality of my voice, "did you think that finding out that my co-workers are holding secret meetings about me would help?"

It takes Donna a minute to realize what I'm referring to and when she does, she rolls her eyes and makes a low growling noise in the back of her throat, "It wasn't a secret meeting Josh." She says sounding thoroughly exasperated. "It was exactly what Leo said. We all just ended up in the room at the same time. Then Will asked me how you were doing and I told them that I'd been to staying late nights to..." She stops here and takes a moment to collect herself, tucking her hair behind her ears and looking embarrassed. "They were yelling at me when you walked in. Your name hardly came up expect for when everyone was threatening to kill you on my behalf."

I have no response to this little revelation. Now I just feel incredibly stupid and more than a little like a paranoid lunatic. My silence has obviously made Donna feel marginally braver because she takes a few steps toward me and lays a hand on my arm.

"I told them because I was worried Josh." She says softly. The fury that was previously etched across Donna's face is gone, replaced by a gentle honesty that is almost harder to look at. "You were scaring me."

I pull away from her touch and sigh, rubbing my face with both hands. "You don't have to worry about me."

Donna laughs darkly, disbelief hanging from the sound like drops of ice water. "Yeah?" She says, "Then look me in the eye right now and tell me that everything is fine. Look me in the eye and tell me that I didn't have any reason to be concerned."

"Donna..." I can't do it. I can't and she knows it, which is of course, the reason we're having this discussion. The fact remains that nobody on Earth, not Sam, not Leo, nobody knows me as well as Donnatella Moss.

Donna presses her lips into a thin, anxious line and looks at something above my right shoulder, "You can talk to me you know."

I wince. I was wondering when she would say that. I was wondering when she would ask me, once again, to burden her with my problems. "No, Donna, no. You wouldn't understand."

I can almost feel the distress and frustration radiating from her body, "How do you know?" She demands, "Maybe I would if you'd just..."

Suddenly, I'm yelling again, "What do you want me to say? What the Hell..." I stop, biting off the end of the sentence, "I have no one left." I growl, "everyone who has ever cared about me is gone."

Donna recoils as though she's been slapped. For a minute I'm confused at this reaction until I realize what a very, very stupid thing I've just said. Donna's voice is deadly low, "Excuse me?"

I open my mouth but it is precious seconds before any sound comes out, "I... wait, I didn't..."

Donna begins to back towards the door, anger in her face and hurt in her eyes, "Fine Josh, fine." She says, every syllable tinged with ice. "If you don't think I give a damn I won't. Do whatever the hell you want." She fumbles for the doorknob and flings open the door.

"No Donna, wait...I..." But she's gone and I'm left alone.

What I feel at the moment is absolute loathing towards the person I've become in the last few weeks. I will be lucky if Donna doesn't march back to her desk, get her things and march straight out the front door.

It would be her right to leave. She should get as far away from me as she possibly can.

The problem is I'm terrified that she'll do just that.

Somehow I have to fix this.

Somehow.