Always Something There to Remind Me
Character(s): Josh
Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Category(s): Romance, Post Episode "Impact Winter"
Rating: TEEN
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. Feel free to sue if you like, but it would be a waste of your time since you all have more pocket change than I have in my checking account!
Summary: Josh returns to his townhouse after his hasty get-away to Houston.
Author's Notes: You know how you just hear something and it just inspires you – well, this song came across my LaunchCast yesterday and inspiration hit (which I have been struggling with since its summer and I got NUTHIN' in the way of inspiration for some reason… I don't know how you all do it!) Enjoy! The title belongs to the group Naked Eyes and whoever else might be out there!
Josh dropped his backpack and shut the door. He sighed as he looked around his quasi-home, since he spent more time in his office than in his living room these days. He just looked around his apartment as he took off his jacket.
The first thing he noticed was the quilt over the back of his couch. She had bought it that summer he was recovering, claiming he kept his apartment like an ice box, so she needed something while she sat on the couch. He sighed as he made his way over to the couch and plopped down on it. How had he let it all, her, get away from him. Had it really only been a day and a half since he found that temp at her desk?
He sat in the silence for a minute before he flipped on the TV. He must have flipped past all the channels twice before he realized that there was nothing on. He looked at the complex remote for a minute, trying to remember how she had showed him how to switch over to the DVD player without getting up off the couch. It took him a good 5 minutes to do since she usually did it for him.
The movie started up halfway through her current favorite – "Love Actually". He remembered that they had to stop halfway through cause CJ had called wanting to get a beer, since she was actually leaving the office at a decent time, since the First Lady had made the President take it easy that Saturday. Seemed like a lifetime ago to him, but he realized it had only been about a month.
He flipped the TV and DVD player off since that movie was just too distracting for him. That was just another example of how he had brushed her off. 'If I could just rewind a month, things would be so different right now' he thought to himself as he hauled his ass off the couch. He looked around. He needed noise, something to break up this deafening silence that was so rare in his apartment. Usually, if he was here this early in the evening, then so was she.
He hit power and play on the CD player as he made his way to the kitchen. He stopped short of the refrigerator when he heard John Mayer starting to sing. She was always making him CD's on his home computer so that, as she put it, 'he could keep up with all the grad students he liked to fawn over at the bars'. He closed his eyes as he listened to John Mayer morph into Jewel as the next song started.
He opened his freezer for some unknown reason, only to come face to face with her Rocky Road ice cream. He grabbed the ice cream, reached into the drawer for a spoon, and started to eat it as he sat down at the small dining room table. He didn't really like Rocky Road, but it was her favorite, so she always made sure his freezer was fully stocked.
He finished what little was left in the pint and listened as Jewel morphed into Dave Matthews. As he walked past the entertainment center, he stopped the CD and turned on the radio. At least she hadn't managed to mess with that – NPR immediately came on.
He took off his clothes as he made his way to the bathroom, knowing full well that it would be days before he would actually pick them up. Usually, she followed the mess while he changed and took a shower, so it never actually occurred to him that it had been forever since he had picked up after himself.
He let the water beat down on him as he stood in a daze under the hot water. He grabbed his shampoo bottle, only to have it be empty. He cursed under his breath as he got out of the shower and opened his closet to get a new bottle. He had to move her shampoo, conditioner, lotion, body wash, and other such things to get his shampoo, which was all the way at the back. He cursed again as he got back in the shower and quickly washed his hair and the plane stink off his body.
He walked into his bedroom and opened the top drawer to pull out a pair of boxers. He opened the second drawer to get an old t-shirt to wear. He pulled open the third to get out a pair of jogging pants when he saw, sitting right on top, her favorite pair of pajama pants and an old Mets t-shirt that she had commandeered as her own.
"Enough!" he yelled to his empty apartment.
He stormed into his spare room, grabbed an empty box that he brought a bunch of stuff home in during the whole Carrick thing and the resulting shutdown. He stormed through the house, tossing in her pajama pants, the Mets shirt, her shampoo, conditioner, lotion, body wash, the toothbrush, comb, and hair clip that were currently sitting on his sink. He walked through the kitchen and opened cabinet after cabinet, throwing in her coffee mugs, her Rocky Road ice cream, and her carrots and dip. He threw the box on the floor of his living room as he walked around grabbing the quilt. He pulled the DVD out of the player and the CD out of its player and threw them all in the box. He started grabbing the pictures to get rid of them as well when he stopped. The first picture he grabbed was one of just the two of them. The pictures of just the two of them were rare – they were usually group pictures or candids that the White House photographer decided not to use. It was taken the night of the Stackhouse filibuster. He had been so proud of her that night and Ainsley had a disposable camera she needed to finish up. He remembers it clearly.
Ainsley came around the corner as Josh was helping Donna on with her coat so that they could finally leave.
"Josh, Donna, gimme a pose."
Before he really knew what he was doing, he dropped his backpack and grabbed her around the waist and twirled her around. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they stood cheek to cheek as Ainsley snapped the picture. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and told them they better get a move on or he would sleep right through his 'dude' sighting the next day.
He ran his index finger along the edge of the picture frame and sighed. He looked down at the box of items and started to empty it.
"This is stupid" he said out loud, again, to no one in particular.
He knew that he would have to move in order to rid himself of everything that was Donna. She had become so entrenched in his life that he would not only have to move, but also suffer amnesia in order to get rid of every Donna moment and memory.
It didn't take him long to put all the items back where he had found them. As he rounded through the kitchen, he grabbed his cell phone. He collapsed on the bed and just stared at the keypad. He hit the number 1 and was about to hit dial when he realized that he didn't have any idea what to say to her, even if she answered the phone. He tossed the phone on the night stand and flipped on the TV in his room. Thank god there was a Republican to yell at on CNN. He needed something to take his mind off Donna, at least for the moment. Later he would think about what his next step would be. For now, he just wanted to be – to be in his home with all his Donna reminders surrounding him.
THE END