Chapter 3

An hour later Josh was sitting next to Donna on the floor, the chairs abandoned for the time being. They were trying to organize the files…well, Josh was trying to organize the files with a little help from Donna whenever he was at a complete loss of what went where.

"Thanks for staying with me Donna."

"No problem." Josh took a deep breath.

"It's lonely around here."

"Well, yeah, no one's here besides us."

"No, I mean, it's lonely around here without CJ, Toby, Sam, and you. It's not the same." His eyes focused anywhere except on Donna.

"I know what you mean." Josh looked over at her.

"What happened?"

"With what?"

"With everything…everyone. What happened to us? We used to be a group…Bartlet's gang. Now we hardly talk," Josh said. Donna sighed.

"I don't really know, Josh. We've all been busy…"

"Yeah, that's a crappy excuse. We all worked in the White House and we still found time to go out and have a drink, now we don't even pick up the phone for a five minute conversation. I know Toby's angry with me, Sam's doing his thing in California, CJ's got a lot on her plate, and you…well…I don't know."

"Yeah."

"Yeah? What do you mean by yeah?"

"Well, it's not like you called me either! I was nervous, Josh, I was starting a new job and I didn't have my best friend to talk to. You wouldn't even listen to me when I was leaving…I didn't think you would listen to me then. I was afraid."

"Donna, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm Josh, you're Donna. That's the way it's always been, you should never be scared to talk to me."

"But that's exactly it!" she pointed out and then immediately stopped speaking.

"What?"

"Nothing. I mean, why didn't you ever call me? You never even asked me why I left, you just let me go. I thought our friendship meant more to you than that."

"It does…I just thought…I mean…well…jeez….Donna, it's just that…this is hard!" She laughed a little. "And being back here, back in New Hampshire and back in the office where I met you, it's been really difficult for me. I can't get you out of my mind. I've tried," he said while getting up to pace. "I really have but you're always just…there! And I can't stand it. No, actually I love it, but I can't think straight and it bothers the heck out of me. I can't go through every day wondering if you ate or slept enough, wondering how you're being treated by stupid-ass Bob Russell and his campaign of idiots, or if you're thinking about me. Oh, and that's what gets me going. I can't even figure out if you miss me or if you know how much I..." He paused, looked down with his hands on his hips, blew some air out of his mouth and quickly replayed his words in his head. "I…you know what…I'm going to be right back."

Josh quickly walked out of the office, heading straight for the coffee machine. He couldn't believe what he had just said. He couldn't believe that she had not said anything back. He couldn't believe what an ass he'd been! How was he supposed to go back and face her?

And there was no coffee in the pot, just great! A perfect addition to the stupidity that he had just inflicted on himself. Josh took a deep breath and turned back to his office, determined to meet his fate. What could Donna be thinking?

Author's Note: This isn't going exactly as planned. I'm not sure if I like the way it's shaping up, let me know what you think.