Verité

Spoilers: Everything up until and including the CODEL storyline and its aftermath.

Summary: Josh reflects on the real reason for not telling Donna how he feels.

Part of my series of vignettes, "Stress," this one chronologically occurs before Sláinte.

A/N: I usually write in "Donna voice," but Josh just wouldn't leave me alone this time. I know this is tried and true territory, but…like I said, Josh just wouldn't shut the hell up.

Most people who care about our ridiculous dance think that Donna almost losing her life in Gaza should have been the trigger. You know…that thing that made me finally "wake up and smell the coffee she'd never bring me." A near death experience that would shake me out of the denial I'd been living in since the first campaign.

And to be honest, maybe they're not all that far off base. I mean, I guess it's something you'd expect to happen if you've watched a lot of Lifetime or the WE network. (And yes, I do know what those channels are, especially after hanging out at Donna's during her recovery. I think you know what I'm talking about… even if you aren't man enough to admit that your remote control sometimes stops clicking when you land on the Melissa Gilbert helmed sob story of the night.)

Really, the plot is simple: Guy and girl meet. Girl gets seriously hurt. Guy professes love. Music swells. Lips meet. Credits roll. Happily Every After ensues.

But here's the problem. You've left out the fact that there's another version of the storyline. The script is similar, but the players are switched: Guy and girl meet. Guy gets hurt, woman professes love for him…yadda yadda yadda.

And I've gotta say that both stories are pretty dramatic, pretty ratings-worthy. A shooting may not have all the pyrotechnics of an explosion, but the fact is that I almost died. I think that's an exciting start for a movie-of-the-week. Not to mention that things were touch and go for a while, so there was bedside hand holding and fevered prayers. Plus, don't forget that Donna took care of me for months. So, in my story there was even the added Florence Nightingale element. But even with all this heartache and gimmicky suspense, the violins didn't soar, the cymbals didn't chime, and Donna certainly didn't tell me that she loved me.

Well, she couldn't say it then, so why should I say it now?

I know what you're going to say. That Rosslyn happened so early on in our time together that it's a totally different story, similar plot points be damned. That the Newseum was before Cliff and Amy and MS and heart attacks, but that's just the point. It was before all the bad stuff that should have split us apart. So if she couldn't say it then, why should I say it now?

And furthermore…

Am I that much of a bastard? Am I that fucked up that I'd rather blame Donna for my inability to open up my own damned mouth than admit my complicity? Short answer? Yes.

Yes. Because it's easier to say that she started the trend of not saying exactly what we feel than to admit that it's not about keeping score.

That it's about life NOT being a made for TV movie. That watching the woman you love getting blown up in an SUV doesn't mean that you'll fly across the ocean to see her, bring her roses, and sit at her bedside.

Ok, well, maybe you'll do all of those things. But you certainly won't tell her you love her. That's the sort of thing reserved for made-up heroes with names like Thad and Slade who have hair like Fabio and pretty words like Cyrano. Or Sam. These larger than life men have no fear. Those three little words are easy for them to say.

But not me. I'm afraid all the time.

Maybe before Gaza I could have told her. I could have been honest with her - with myself - and told her that for all the diaries and shattered windows there would someday be text to our subtext.

But that was before I really understood what it would be like to lose her. Now I know that I can't tell her, that I can never tell her how I feel. It's too big now, too overpowering. And yes, I've talked to Stanley about this, but for all of his straight talk he can't convince me that the obvious isn't true -

The people I love always leave me in the end.

So there will be no tearful reunion with a swell of strings against a backdrop of a cabin fire. No bedside confession of undying love and a promising future.

I love Donna too much to doom her to that fate.