A/N: This is an alternative ending for chapter 1, I got this idea right after I posted it. It picks up right after the line break - you should recognize the first paragraphs but that's intended :)
They make their way over to the elevator, Donna making tiny, random throwaway observations about Mike and Rachel or some aspect of the wedding planning, but they're mostly silent. Her heels are heavy in his hand, the back straps hanging off his index finger. It feels weirdly intimate, carrying her shoes, her barefoot next to him, as they leave together. He wants to thank her for thinking of getting him the room - for even telling him about the wedding in the first place and convincing him to come. He wants to thank her for having his back, for walking down the aisle with him, for sharing the grief he's feeling at the fact that his best friend (because, yes, Mike really is his best friend) is leaving.
He thinks it'll make the moment weird, though; it's already weird enough that they're standing next to each other in an empty hotel lobby waiting for the elevator doors to open in silence, stealing furtive glances at each other.
On the ride up, he thinks of a lot of things. How old he feels, how dispirited he actually is by the merger, how nice Donna's hair looks all to the side like this. He thinks of Zane Specter Litt, or Specter Zane Litt (and Litt comes last but he's already thinking he needs to talk to Louis about how they're gonna handle Robert), he thinks of Jessica in Chicago, and he thinks he can't remember ever having carried another woman's shoes like this. He thinks he would gladly carry hers more often.
All too quickly, without him even noticing it, they're standing by her door. He's on a different floor and he's weirdly dreading the walk over. She doesn't say 'Well, this is me', or 'Okay, here we are'. She just fishes her key from her purse and unlocks her door, opens it wide and turns to him.
Once again the air shifts between them. She's looking up at him, the height difference bigger than he's used to, and she seems small and her eyes are sharp and deep, and they're not dark exactly, but they're not as clear as always. He can't read her, the way her lips are slightly pressed together and her face isn't giving anything away.
He thinks she wants him to kiss her. He thinks she'll ask him to come inside. He thinks she's reaching for his hand and maybe she'll take it and pull him in or stand on her toes and he thinks maybe all the difference in the air around them will seep into their bodies and they'll be different, act different, and everything will change.
He thought all that but it still catches him by surprise when her fingers thread through his, warm and delicate in his tired hand. It still catches him by surprise when she does stand on her toes at the same time as she pulls him in. She kissed him not a month ago and it still catches him by surprise that her lips are soft and pliant and intoxicating as they slide against his bottom one and settle around it.
He made her promise not to do this again. He is such a fucking idiot.
He can barely breathe and his brain is malfunctioning but his body saves him and reacts accordingly, kissing her back, adding pressure and intent. Donna parts her lips slightly and he doesn't even need to wait for her tongue; he follows her lead, parting his as well, and then she does slip her tongue inside his mouth and he feels completely drunk, his mind spinning as if he'd taken all his whisky doses of the night in one go.
He thought they'd be different, act different, and everything would change but nothing changes, at all. It doesn't feel different at all and he realizes that maybe different really just meant right all along.
He's suddenly shaken from his stupor as her tongue slides against his and he wraps an arm around her waist - the arm that's holding her heels. He feels them bumping against her back but he doesn't care, just pulls her closer, presses their bodies together to iron out every inch of wrinkles they allowed to form between them these past weeks, or maybe these past years.
She inhales against him, wrapping her other arm around his neck and pulling him down as she lowers back onto her feet. They're kissing, like they'd only ever kissed on one night before, and their fingers are linked and he's holding her heels in front of her hotel room and they just married their best friends and he's merging with Robert Zane and he was on a plane not that many hours ago.
He was exhausted but now he is burning up, the heat of her body and the light of her soul engulfing him, making his blood boil and speed through his veins.
She makes a tiny noise at the back of her throat and he realizes they've completely lost themselves, making out in the middle of the corridor, him hunched over her so completely she's almost bending over backwards.
He doesn't care, really. Mike is leaving, he hates public PDA, he might not have a firm come Monday and still, he could strip her naked right here, right now and not pay any of that any mind.
But he is short of breath, though, and so he pulls back a little to pant, notices her swollen lips, the way her hair fell back from her shoulder and is swaying behind her. He notices her whole face, beautiful open and- hopeful?
The fingers that are resting on the back of his head scratch the fine hairs there and she takes a deep breath as they straighten back up. She's looking at him expectantly and he doesn't know if he's even capable of forming a coherent string of words right now, so far gone that he is. But he tightens his hold on her hand, nods, tries to show her that this isn't them, horny and drunk and sad after all that's happened.
He tries to show her - and hopes one day he can tell her - that this is them finding each other after years of searching, this is them not running anymore, this is them taking a deep breath and facing fate. He doesn't know how or why he suddenly knows all this and he is absolutely sure he cannot properly articulate it. But her hand in his and his lips on hers felt exactly like that.
Her face softens, and he thinks she gets it.
She leans in again, catching his lips more chastely this time, but not any less assuredly. This kiss tastes like a promise, like understanding, like truce. This kiss tastes like Donna and he realizes he's been thinking of that taste almost every day for a decade.
"I guess you won't need your room tonight," she murmurs against his lips, voice low and raspy, before she looks into his eyes, and if her eyes didn't look dark before, they do now. What little breath he'd managed to retrieve escapes him again as he feels her tugging on his hand, pulling him behind her as she walks inside the hotel room. He follows willingly, if somewhat stunned, her shoes still hanging limply off his finger, and just like that all the exhaustion he's been carrying for twelve years dissipates.
He stays.