No real note for this... sorry it took me so long. :(

The waiter carried over their food and placed it down in front of them.

"Thanks." Donna said as she grabbed her fork.

Before she could even get a piece of food in her mouth, Mrs. Bartlet started interrogating her again.

"Now, what happened after you realized that you really had a crush on Josh?"

Donna blushed.

"Initially, I tried to avoid him as much as possible. I think the efficiency of my work probably declined to the ability level of someone with only one typing hand."

"Why? Wouldn't you want to see him more?"

"Did I ever. But we --- I --- had to stay professional. I couldn't let him know that I liked him more than just a friend. Or a boss for that matter."

"But the two of you --- you've never really been the usual boss-assistant relationship."

"No. Mostly because he didn't really hire me," Donna laughed.

"That and the fact that you have this intangible attraction with one another."

"People always say that, now, since we're public. But, I've never seen it. Neither has Josh. It's just been that we liked one another."

Mrs. Bartlet raised her eyebrows. "The two of you can't see the attraction between one another?"

"Well, we're attracted to one another," Donna retreated, "but that certain 'thing' that people say we have we've both never been able to grasp. Did people say that about you and the President?"

"Did people say there was a certain something between us?"

"Yes."

"Well, I suppose that they did, but every couple has something between them. It just differs. Jed and I have this constant faux-arguing between one another, which is basically our flirting.

"But, what you and Josh have is something magnetic. No one can figure it out. You two can't even see it. Zoey and I have talked about it, C.J. and I have talked about it, and none of us girls can figure out what it is. It's there, though."

"Is it really that apparent? The 'thing' between Josh and me?"

"Oh, Donna, it has been apparent for years. From just those long hours on the campaign to the balls and functions that you attended together, everyone saw it."

Donna poked at her food.

"I guess so. Maybe I would have seen it earlier, but I never could figure out whether or not Josh was actually interested."

"You know he's interested now, and yet you can't see it."

"Can you see the 'thing' with you and the President?"

Mrs. Bartlet stopped.

"Well, actually, that's a good point. I guess we never can tell what it is between the person we love and ourselves."

"Maybe that's a good thing, though. It's an X factor in the relationship."

"You're wise beyond your years, Donna. Except, however, when it comes seeing the magic between you and Josh. At least you finally got together, though. You're perfectly suited for one another, Donna."

"Thank you, ma'am. We're very happy."

The First Lady leaned back in her chair.

"Now that we've got that part over it, I want to hear some stories."

"What kind?"

"You know, a good love story! One you'd find in a cheap paperback."

"Josh told the President about the first time we kissed."

"Yes. But, what happened after that?"

"Well, actually, things didn't go wonderfully after that."

"What do you mean, 'things didn't go wonderfully' --- you had finally kissed!"

"That part was wonderful, yes, but the next few days weren't perfect.

"After we kissed there was just a lot of silence, which is rare between the two of us. That wasn't bad though, because, you know, we were just there, holding one another. And, I, of course, was a complete mess because I had been crying. The problem was that Sam walked in on us in each other's arms."

"Wait --- you're saying that Sam saw you two holding one another and didn't put two and two together?"

Donna laughed. "No, he didn't. He asked me why I had been crying and Josh said that my cat back home in Wisconsin had died."

"Sam's a genius, but he doesn't become suspicious when he finds you and Josh in each other's arms."

"Nope."

"Amazing. Then again, he is a man."

They paused.

"Well, what happened after that? Sam walked in, Josh lied to cover up the situation, and then what?"

"They both left to help with the commerce speech that everyone was working on, and so I was left by myself, deep in thought. I just sat at Josh's desk and stared off into space. I didn't want to leave without talking to him and figuring out what was going to happen next.

"At first I was ecstatic. Josh and I had finally happened! A dream come true! But, then I started thinking about how it would be damaging to the administration. And, those thoughts took over in my head. The scenarios of how if the press found out we'd become a national scandal, lose our jobs, hurt the President, were running rampant.

"After about ten minutes of panicking within, I decided to leave. I figured that if I left now, it could have just been a fluke and we'd go on as normal. I knew that I wasn't being honest to myself, but I had to do that to think that I was doing the right thing.

"I went back to my desk, grabbed my things, and threw on my coat. I didn't bother saying goodbye or letting anyone know I was leaving --- I bolted."

"No one saw you leaving?"

"Not Josh at least."

"Then what did he do when he realized you had left?"

"Well, I --- this is kind of pathetic, really --- I left the White House and then sat in my car and cried. Once he realized I wasn't hiding out inside the building somewhere he called my cell phone, where I tried to explain to him why what had just happened was a mistake."

"And did that work out well?"

"Not at all. Josh was yelling, I was yelling, and then he hung up on me."

"He hung up on you?"

"I may have said some slightly less than complimentary things as well as crushed his heart."

"Wait a minute --- the commerce speech? Was the day after the one we're talking about the day when it seemed that Josh was getting a bit too upset over you having the flu?"

"You remember that?"

"He was pissed at you for having influenza!"

"Ah. Yes. Well, Josh isn't great at hiding his emotions sometimes, even when they're disguised in a cloak of sickness."

"You weren't really home with the flu, were you?"

"No. I couldn't face Josh, so I slept until 10:00, woke up, ate ice cream, and watched daytime talk shows."

"You poor thing!"

"Well, it really was my own fault. I had screwed things up."

"But so did Josh."

"I guess so, but I didn't see it like that. And I don't know if he did, then."

"He fixed it?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Well, he came over the next night, but I'm getting ahead of myself."

"There's more before that?"

"Oh, quite a bit.

"Around 5:00 or so, Josh called me and yelled some more, which wasn't exactly a morale booster.

"He was really upset, because, a few days before, he had 'bared his soul' to me and told me how much he cared about me. And Josh being Josh, decided that it wasn't fair that I was shutting him out because I thought it was more important that the administration prosper.

"I thought was being rational, but now, after the fact, I realize that I was being completely irrational. Hindsight is 20/20, of course."

"Of course, but everyone has second thoughts about what they did."

"Yes, but in this case, I was wrong.

"So, Josh yelled at me some more and told me how behind he had ended up being with work today and that if I didn't come into work tomorrow, he'd fire me. Josh had 'fired' me before, but this was the first time he had actually threatened to with vengeance. He was upset because I had let him down. You know, normally, when he'd say that he would fire me, I'd just reply back with a short little 'Impervious,' but this time it was different. The circumstances were nothing like they had ever been before."

"I'm assuming you showed up for work the next day."

"Yep, right at 8:00."

"Was Josh there to greet you?"

"No, I purposely timed it so that he would not be in the office when I got there."

"Why bother when you know you're not going to get a wide armed welcome."

"Exactly.

"At 8:00 Josh had a meeting up at the hill which was certain to take some time. So, I spent the majority of the morning filing things and catching up with the work I had missed the previous day. Luckily, I hadn't missed much, so soon I was working up to speed. Though Josh takes no credit for what he does, he can actually manage himself rather well. I just aid him.

"He got back around lunch, which was actually earlier than what I had expected. He walked into the bullpen and ignored me. Unfortunately, I couldn't just leave him alone after that."

"The timing with which he arrived was precisely the time when you needed to go into his office."

"Yes."

"Did you try to wait it out?"

"For ten minutes. I realized that it was to no avail, so I just dove in there."

"Metaphorically donning your armor, I imagine."

"From chain mail to bulletproof vest.

"I walked in and Josh was staring down at his desk. I handed him a folder and left."

"You weren't verbally assaulted?"

"No, to your surprise as much as mine. He didn't feel like spearing me right then. When he finally walked out of his office to go God knows where, he told me that it was Nice of me to show up to work today."

"Asshole."

"I didn't see him the rest of the day. I kept mainly to myself, but after he had been gone for about an hour after walking out and harassing me, I asked Sam if he knew where he had gone. Sam had no idea, so I tried Toby. Toby had no idea. Eventually I got Ginger to page him, and he returned the page. She told him that everyone was wondering where he had gone off to and if he was okay and all he said was that he was fine and would be back later tonight."

"Josh went AWOL. I can't believe it, for some reason."

"Turns out he was at the Potomac, staring at it."

"That's quite dramatic. And he got no work done, I suppose."

"Yes, but apparently that river spoke to him in many different ways.

"I waited around the office until about 7:00, and he still wasn't back. I had Sam call him on his cell phone this time, and he told Sam he'd be back in about a half hour and that I could go home, that he wasn't going to need me to stick around. So, I got everything organized and left. I didn't know what to think. Today should have been a day of reckoning for Josh, and yet I hadn't seen him at all. Up to that point, I thought that ignoring him and leaving the problem be was going to be the way to solve it, but at the end of the day I felt worse than at the beginning.

"Walking to my car I started to cry again, and thought to myself how I had cried more times in that week than I had in years, excluding Rosslyn. The fact that really got to me was how I had been crying about Josh. It seemed to me that ever since I had come back to work with Josh and the administration, the only times I had cried were over Josh. Sure, I was pretty broken up in general over Rosslyn when the President and Josh were shot, but, once it was known that the President was going to be fine, I cried for Josh quite a bit more. You were there, I'm sure you saw."

"If Kleenex had been having financial troubles, you certainly put them back in business that night and the next few days, Donna."

"Well, I probably gave them a boost in their stock over this time we're talking about, too. I went through every box I had in my apartment. Even when Josh came over that night."

"What time did he come over? Because, you left around 7:00, and he got back there at 7:30?"

"He came over around 9:00. By that time I was at home having another night with Ben and Jerry, watching chick flicks. That night the choice was While You Were Sleeping with Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, and Peter Gallagher. Have you seen that one?"

"The one where Sandra Bullock's the person that works at the train as a token person and Peter Gallagher falls on the tracks?"

"Yeah."

"And then the family thinks that she's his fiancée and it turns out she falls in love with the brother?"

"Exactly."

"That's a chick flick of some high quality."

"Tell me about it. It's also great if you're crying over the love of your life."

"Well, really it's a romantic comedy. So, you should have been laughing, not crying."

"If only. I wasn't really paying attention to the movie. Despite my efforts of trying to escape, I just couldn't. But, then, soon enough, someone buzzed my apartment."

"Josh."

"Yes. I went over answering it just saying Hello and then he said

'Donna. It's me. Can you let me up a minute?'

"I didn't really want to, so I had to make it difficult.

'Why are you here?'

'I need to talk to you.'

'Phones do work, Josh.'

'I know that, but it's really important that I talk to you right now, Donna.'

'Is it something you could have told me today? Because, you know, you didn't have to leave the office all day and ignore me.'

'Donna. It's freezing out here. Please, just let me up?'

'I'm not exactly dressed for company.'

'It really doesn't matter, I swear to God I won't tell anyone what you look like, I just --- I gotta talk to you Donna. Right now.'

"There was a bit of silence while I finally decided what it was I was going to do.

'Fine. But only for a little while.'

"I let him in and ran around trying to clean up my apartment. Grabbing all the tissues that I had just left lying around, then finally running to the mirror to check how I looked. The best way to describe my appearance at that point was train wreck. But, it didn't matter, Josh was coming up anyway.

"I heard him knock at the door, took a deep breath, and opened it. The deep breath I had taken right before didn't last long.

"Josh looked even more disheveled than I, his hair all messed up, and, even more important, he was carrying a big bouquet of flowers. So totally cliché, but, how can a girl resist. I couldn't even get a coherent sentence out. I just started crying again."

"Isn't it a wonder how when people cry all the time their tear ducts don't dry up? I'm the doctor and I don't even know how people can still cry after all that time."

"I swear, Dr. Bartlet, I must have super-human capabilities, because I just started balling. I couldn't even let Josh inside because I just started collapsing. I walked back and sat down leaning against the wall, crying my eyes out.

"Josh walked in, shut the door, and went right over to me, crouching down in front of me trying to get me to stop crying. It was losing battle, but Josh tried anyway. I just couldn't stop crying. Here I was --- I had been so upset with Josh the whole day, I had sworn to myself that I wouldn't go near him, fall for him, and I couldn't help it. He already knew how I felt, so there wasn't any reason for me to pretend to be okay like I had so many times before.

'Shh. Donna. Donna, it's okay. Come here.'

"He took me into his arms again like he had before the other night in his office, except this time we were on the floor of my apartment, his back up against the opposite wall I had been on. He just held me, flowers next to him on the floor, my sniffling and gasping for breath between sobs.

'I'm --- sorry --- Josh. I'm --- so --- s --- sorry. I thought I was doing everything --- right, but I --- I --- I wasn't. And, now, I've made everything --- impossible. I'm so, so, so sorry, Josh. It's --- it's --- it's all my fault. And I want to be with you. More --- more than anything. I really, really do Josh. I do, I do, I just I wa---'

"And then I started breaking into a sobbing fit and he had to try and get me to relax and actually, you know, breathe, because it's something I wasn't doing.

'No. Donna. It's fine. It's not your fault. It's my fault for yelling at you about this. I should have done it differently, thought it out before hand. But, Donna, I love you. I'm so sorry I've caused you this much pain. I just want you to know that we can do this. It's not right for the two of us to live separately. I can't handle you being mad at me. I go insane, I go crazy, I just want everything to be okay.'

'But it can't be. The press --- the press can't find out, Josh. They'd have a field day.'

'Who says they're going to find out? I mean, eventually they will, but not until we're ready, C.J.'s ready, everyone's ready to deal with this effectively. We're not just plunging into this head first without any sort of plan. I've thought this through, we can do more, but it's stupid that we be at odds with each other over something we both want. I love you, and I'm willing to change. You said I needed to change, so I have. I know that we can do it, now you're second guessing yourself.'

"I realized that he was right. We were fighting a pointless battle. It was as if we had just changed roles --- I was now the one who was paranoid, as Josh had been before. I sat up and looked at him. The expression on his face was one I had never seen before. It was just full of --- longing, desire --- full of hurt. I knew I had to agree with him.

'Okay.'

'You understand what I'm saying?'

'Yes. And I'm sorry for being so stubborn, Josh.'

'You mean it? You're actually going to go along with this?'

"I laughed.

'Yes. Yes, I will, and I'm so sorry I delayed it.'

"He then grabbed me in his arms again and started rocking back and forth hugging me.

'Donna, I love you so much. I'm sorry I've been making you cry. I'm sorry I've been such an asshole.'

"All I could do was laugh. He was doing nothing but apologize. Something you don't usually hear from Josh Lyman.

'Josh. Stop apologizing. We were both wrong, but everything's okay now.'

'Yeah.'

"We sat there for a few more minutes, until I interjected.

'Josh, do you want to get up off the floor?'

'Yeah, that's probably a good idea. What are you watching?'

"I had left the movie on pause and it had gone to the DVD screen.

'It's a chick flick. While You Were Sleeping.'

'The one with the person who works with trains?'

'Yes, Sandra Bullock.'

'I know this one. Would you mind if I finished watching it with you?'

'You want to watch it?'

'I just want to be able to lie somewhere and hold you right now.'

'You sure you don't want to talk about us? Or do something else?'

'No. Not right now. Right now I just want to let everything be as it is.'

"So, we sat on the sofa, and soon I was falling asleep. I looked behind me to see what Josh was doing.

'It's okay, you can fall asleep.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yeah. I'm not going to leave. I'll be here when you wake up.'

'I love you, Josh.'

'I know. I love you too.'

"And then the next morning I woke up to find Josh exactly where he had been before, holding me while he still slept. I got up, got ready for work, and then woke him up and took him home so he could get ready."

"So you're telling me that the two of you didn't have sex that night?"

Donna blushed.

"No, ma'am."

"You already professed your love for one another, and yet you hadn't slept together."

"Yeah, not exactly the textbook romance of our time."

"Well, you have had sex now, right? You don't seem like the wait until your wedding day type of girl, Donna, not to sound demeaning."

"Yes, ma'am. It happened the following evening."

"How was it?"

"Ma'am, this is slightly awkward to be tal---"

"Oh, whatever. I just want to know if it was everything your story makes it out to be? You're telling me a love story, Donna, I have to know the ending."

"Yes, it was very nice."

"That's spectacular to hear. Thank you for coming to breakfast with me, Donna. The President's version just didn't quite crack up to your analysis."

"Any time, ma'am. This was quite a treat."

"Now, get back there and work. I'll expect you to tell me some more stories later, but next time, it's going to be one large girls night. You, me, C.J., and even Margaret and Mrs. Landingham. It's going to be love story night with the ladies of the West Wing."

"Thank you, ma'am. That's quite an honor."

"Let Josh know that if he hurts you, I'll have my husband put him in jail for something."

Donna laughed.

"Thank you, ma'am, but the President has already threatened Josh. I think he knows not to screw this up."

Mrs. Bartlet stood up and extended her hand.

"Good. It was lovely to speak with you, Donna. And, keep working hard. I'm hoping that a wedding is on the way soon."

Donna shook the First Lady's already extended hand.

"There are no plans as of yet, but hopefully. Thank you again, Mrs. Bartlet."

She pushed in her chair and left walking back to the bullpen. When she got there, Josh was hovering around her desk, waiting to pounce for information.

"So, how was it?"

"Well, it was a bit strange."

Josh sat down on Donna's desk.

"Why?"

"Well, it's not every day --- or ever, for most people --- that the First Lady of the United States of America asks you about your sex life."

Josh's eyes widened.

"She asked you what?"

"She asked about our sex life at the very end."

"And what did you tell her?"

"Nothing, really. I just told her all the illicit details including a detailed report of that one time at the reception for the governor of Texas at the Watergate where we---"

"Oh, my God. You didn't."

"Of course I didn't, Josh!" Donna said with a laugh. "Who do you think I am?"

"I don't know. Just --- wow. Just --- what did she actually ask you?"

"She just asked when it was we first consummated our relationship."

"That's it?"

"Yes, and I told her the general date. Nothing too specific."

"Okay. Good."

Donna surveyed the area around her desk.

"Josh, have you done any work since I've been gone?"

"Not really, but Sam stopped by earlier and so I've been doing some brainstorming for him."

"On what?"

"You're going to have to pencil in a meeting at lunch."

"Why? What for?"

"It's going to be you, Sam, and me. We've gotta brainstorm ideas on how to leak Sam's non-existant relationship to the press."

"Who's the relationship with?"

"Ainsley."

And with that, all Donna could do was smile.