Interlude 2

The voice wrapped around her, familiar and comforting, but the memories that the words invoked were anything but.  She was caught in the past.  The scenes playing out in her mind with no way for her to escape from them. . .

He tensed as ambulances sped by, sirens blasting the closer they got to the ER at GW.  He didn't want to be doing this, but saw no way out.

"You ok, Josh?" she had asked, concern evident in her face and voice.

"Peachy," he shot back through gritted teeth as he turned to stare out the window, frowning at the honk of a horn and a poorly muffled sob from his companion.  "I didn't slit my wrist."

"OK."

"I didn't plan this.  People who want to kill themselves have a plan, don't they?"

"I guess," she sighed as she pulled into a vacant spot in GW's parking lot, just outside of the ER.  "But then again, you can't ask the people who really wanted to kill themselves."

"I just want people to stop treating me like. . ." he stopped and pushed the car door open, climbing out to inhale the cold night air.

"Like what?" she asked from the other side of the car, watching his shoulders slump before he turned to her. 

"Like I have one foot in the grave," he admitted.

"You almost were in one, Josh," she reminded harshly.

"Like I could forget!?!?!?!"  My mirror reminds me every morning when I step out of the shower!" he shot back, a touch of anger resonant in his voice as it dropped.  "Not to mention my nightmares." 

"Believe it or not, you're not the only one to have them."

"Oh yeah? And just what are your nightmares made up?" he challenged coldly.

"Aside from the view of you on that table with chest open and your heart coming to a stop try you in a grave," she shot back stiffly as she crossed in front of the car and started towards the entrance of the emergency room, refusing to look at him to see his reaction to her revelation.  It was, after all, just one of those things that they never talked about.  One of those things that she hadn't told anyone about--- well, except for Toby and Ellie.  Toby because he forced the truth  out of her early one Saturday morning before making her go to his place and try to get some sleep and Ellie because she had been at her apartment while on one of her rare trips to DC and she had one.

"You never. . ." he started as he jogged to catch up with her.

"Not while I was staying with you, no.  But there have been nights. . . " she sighed.  "It doesn't really matter."

"Why didn't you?"

"Why didn't you?" Donna shot back as she came to a stop and stared at him.  "Why did you lie to my face?"

"I didn't."

"You were having them when I was at your place, weren't you?"

"Donna. . ." he sighed trying to find the words to make her understand, but she didn't let him as she just pushed on.  "It wasn't pain that kept you awake or made you wake up in a sweat, was it?  It wasn't because of the 'fuzziness' that you didn't want to take the sleeping pills but because you didn't want to be trapped in a nightmare, did you?" she demanded as she shrugged off the hand he put on her shoulder. 

"I thought I could handle it," he admitted.  "The music was the trigger.  That's what Stanley said.  I didn't know.  I thought I could handle it."

"And when you started to realize that you couldn't?"

"I didn't have a plan, Donna," Josh justified.

"Apparently."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"When you make up your plan. . ."

"I'm not suicidal."

"Just remember who'll probably be the one they send looking for you when you don't show up at work and we can't reach you by phone.  Just remember who'll probably be the one who'll find your lifeless body."

"G-d Donna. . ." he said stiffly, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach at the implication.

Swallowing back tears, Donna forced herself to continue, her eyes fixed on the entrance to the emergency room, "contrary to popular culture suicide is not painless, at least not to the people that are left behind, and especially not to the person who finds the body."

"Donna?" he gasped, unsure what to make of the subtext of what she was telling him.

"It's Christmas Eve Josh.  Can we please go inside? I don't want to spend what's left of it in a parking lot," she said evenly as she tiredly rubbed her eyes, wanting to change the subject.  To deny what had happened and what could have happened.

"OK," he blew out a breath hadn't realized he had been holding, watching it crystallize in front of him.  "Somehow I don't think that spending your holiday in the ER was part of your plan."

"You've got that right."

"What are your plans for tomorrow?" he wondered as they started walking.  She shrugged as she muttered an answer he couldn't catch.  "What?"

"I don't have any."

"You do now," he told her as the automatic door opened and they entered the waiting room.

"So I noticed."

"No, I mean. . . Look, why don't you come over to my place.  Watch CNN, eat take out. . ."

"Substitute movies for CNN."

"How about both?" he asked flashing her a long absent dimpled smile.

"You're hopeless, you know that?"

"Is that a yes?"

"Go sit down while I take care of your paperwork."

"Yes dear," he quipped.

"You're a jerk, you know that?"

"You love me anyway," he shot back expecting a wiseass answer in return.

"Don't you forget it," she said softly and sincerely before turning and walking towards the admitting desk, leaving him staring after her. . .