Thanks Michelle for the beta. This is for Clannadlvr... my new favorite West Wing writer. :-D
Flowers, the biggest bunch she had ever seen, arrived on the sixteenth of April. It wasn't a celebration, it was a death wish. They were flowers for her grave; when she saw that beautiful bunch of stems something withered and died within her.
Carnations with roses. Daisies and lilies. If she had taken a moment to step back and observe it very closely she would have found over fifteen different varieties of flora. If she had done that, she would have found there to be no rhyme or reason to the selection; if she had done that she would have pictured him on the phone, delightfully flustered, ordering them for her.
And the whole of her soul would have withered, so she didn't; she didn't think about it.
How many other women had he sent flowers? Not a question for her, never a question for her.
If she had taken two seconds to remember what he looked like when he was with her, both in conversation and in her head, she would have found herself at the bottom of a bottle, crying her eyes out over what wasn't. She wasn't that woman, she wasn't...
... But it just so happened that there was a bottle of Glenlivet sitting in her cabinet, just begging her to pop the cap and have a gander at the wonderful depression a few swigs could bring. No, no. Alcohol would solve nothing. It would dull things until morning, when she would wake up with him throbbing in her skull and have to cry him out. No, she was sure there was no real solution. How can one stop love? How can one stop loving another?
A flick of her fingers and a thrust of her hips and the door was shut, the card opened. The only thing penned on the paper was 'February.' No question whom they were from. It angered her, the bright colors, the pastels, the baby's breath.
It was long minutes, perhaps hours, before she brought them into the living room and placed them on an end table. Staring right at them as they were the puzzle to be solved, Donna thought once more about the sentiment on the card. 'February.'
Her thoughts became twisted and befuddled and if the knock at the door hadn't pulled her from them, she might have been bogged down in them all day. Bones heavy, she struggled to make her way to the door without crumpling to the floor and sobbing.
He was on the other side of the door… of course he was. Who else would it be other than the one person who was slowly stealing all of the remaining spaces of her heart.
She was sure her silhouette was burned into his memory from moments hanging onto the door jamb of his office, waiting for him to answer a question, or accept an appointment. She was sure of that. But the way he was standing before her in his good suit, rumpled, tired and lovely, he was burned into hers. His outline, sharp at point, curve in others, it tickled her senses just to watch him there. "Hello."
"Yeah, hey." Josh passed a hand through his hair and rearranged the strap of the backpack on his shoulder. "It's just... you know... its April."
Donna leaned against the cool frame of the door, "Yeah."
The way he had stood in her door it would have been more appropriate to have been drenched in rain. But it was sunny out, too sunny. And there he was sunglasses and all.
It stung to look at him, but she did, raking her eyes up and down just like she did every day, sizing him up... asking herself why she wanted him so badly.
Thinking back, wracking her memory as he stood there, she remembered back to the point where she had indulged in falling for him. Back, way back, still in love with someone, still in love with the man she thought she would marry. Way back when Joshua Lyman had snatched her affection away from the other man.
To think, being in love with two men... "Can I come in?"
She remembered the comforting lull of his heart thumping against her fingertips as she changed the dressing on his chest, as a friend, as a friend. Donna remembered how wonderful it had felt to be reassured that he was still alive, still breathing, still pissing the hell out of her. The warm strength of male skin under her palm, and she, wanting to kiss it... and he would have been with her, like always.
Not with her really though, not anymore. The brief reprieve between jobs had created a fissure in their relationship that she was sure no amount of caulk could fill. That didn't mean she wouldn't try.
Donna stepped aside and let him in, let him back in.
There was a thing about love. The right kind of love, the kind of love she had was debilitating; it was heart-wrenching and sad. The kind of love that she loved for him made her nauseous and depressed, cut up her soul into little bite-sized pieces. The kind of love she felt for him was deep and burning, made her hands shake and made her restless. The kind of love she loved made her hate him for all the time they didn't spend together, made her hate him for what would never be.
It was an everlasting scar on her being, her entire soul, not just her heart.
Bottom line, it was real and it was killing her.
They stood in her foyer, tacit accusations waiting to be uttered. "I never danced with you," he said, plucking the shades from his eyes.
"Excuse me?"
Josh walked slowly into her living room and dropped his backpack down on her couch. "We never danced together at a ball."
"Your loss," she muttered and tossed a bit of hair out of her eyes.
"You're right, it is."
"Oh, don't do this," she began bitterly, advancing on him. Her voice raised a notch, "Why do you do this? You have no solution! So we won, so we're back in. It's not the same." Choking up wasn't an option, so anger was her next best refuge. "It's not going to be the same."
A thousand violins were playing for her somewhere, she though sardonically. "No. No, it won't."
"So don't come here!" A demand, thick, sure, tinged with sorrow. "Don't come here anymore." Withering in her the need to fight, the need to assert herself, the need to show him how much better she was now, stronger.
Sitting by his bed with a hole in his chest, holding his hand when Simon... when Simon...Waking up next to him, surprised to find she wasn't among the shrapnel... waking up next to him... "Why the hell are you here? You can't be here, I don't want you here," and she lost it, "Why are you here?"
"Because I love you, damn it!"
Rolling her eyes, her mouth full of cotton she moved to grab the bouquet and did with a forceful hand. "Take these... and leave."
"No," his voice was so steady, so sure, that all she could think of to do was slap him. But she didn't; she just increased the pressure of the vase in her hands. It was pressing against his chest, the china sure to be creating impressions in the skin beneath his shirt.
"Take these and really... leave."
Josh caved and took the flowers, but just a quickly he sent them careening into a wall. The expensive Swarovski shattered and tinkled onto the floor. "What-you asshole!" Donna seethed, words slipping between clenched teeth. "You fucking bastard."
"You know I don't know what I'm doing and then I think about you and I think maybe-"
"No, no, not now."
"Yeah." He whispered, smiled slowly. "Yeah, now."
"Josh-"
"Listen," he asked. "Listen..."
"What?"
"I... I don't..."
"Exactly! You don't know!" Hands were flailing and she was crying and everything in front of her really, was a blur. "You don't eve-"
And then she stopped talking because his lips were pressed to hers hard, not so much a kiss and simply a brutal pressure. A sob opened her mouth and he took the advantage, pressing his tongue to hers as she cried, curling arms around her frame. "Stop," was whispered against pliant lips, and she did.
She stopped talking, stopped fighting and just kissed him back. Just that, just kissing. Just him kissing her and just... just that.
The flowers were scattered over the floor, delicate petals among shards of glass. Everything gone, everything torn to pieces but her heart… slowly mending itself right back up.