A/N: Hey guys! Another chapter of my most depressing fic is up! Sorry in advance. If it helps, I plan to make it less depressing relatively soon.

I really love this fic for some reason, even if it's not as popular as EDC or The Formative Years. You could say it's my pet fic right now. Thanks for indulging me.

Love you guys!

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Our embrace lasted too long.

We loved right down to the bone.

I hear the bones grind, I see

our two skeletons.

Now I am waiting

till you leave, till

the clatter of your shoes

is heard no more. Now, silence.

Tonight I am going to sleep alone

on the bedclothes of purity.

Aloneness

is the first hygienic measure.

Aloneness

will enlarge the walls of the room,

I will open the window

and the large, frosty air will enter,

healthy as tragedy.

Human thoughts will enter

and human concerns,

misfortune of others, saintliness of others.

They will converse softly and sternly.

Do not come anymore.

I am an animal

very rarely.

-Anna Swir

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"So, how are things with Ben?"

She asks the question at just the right time. The long day of trekking is just winding down. They covered a lot of ground today, nearly eleven miles, and they're exhausted. Three spider bites, one snake sighting, and a long tussle with a tent later, they're almost unsurprised to find themselves ready to turn in for the night by seven o'clock. They're sat around the dying embers of their campfire, which they'd used to cook canned soup. For dessert, they're passing a bag of dried apricots back and forth. The stars are just starting to peak through the dusty sky, and the trees are singing a faint hymn on the wind.

By asking this, she's signaling, it's time for the heavy lifting. If I can ask about your life, you can ask about mine.

"Oh." CJ sounds mildly surprised by her inquiry, as if she'd almost forgotten about Ben entirely. "They're... Good."

Donna doesn't even have to look at her to convey her skepticism. "Good, huh?"

CJ sighs. "I don't know. He's a good guy. I like being with him, I do. Really. But, it's just..."

"Forgive me, but that sounds like a pretty weak defense of a relationship you couldn't care less about."

CJ forces down a laugh at Donna's blunt insightfulness. "I do care about him, it's just..."

"He's a nice guy. At least, that's what you've been telling me. So what's the problem?"

"I don't know." CJ shrugs listlessly. "I just feel like I'm going through the motions, you know? I've been here before. It doesn't feel like anything different, or new. I kept telling myself I needed to get a life out of work, and that's why I've been pursuing this, but... If I was being honest with myself? Choosing between him and the job..."

"The job wins out every time?"

CJ gives a small nod. "In a landslide."

"Well, you can't be so sure that that's him." Donna reasons. She does, after all, have some very close experience with dating a White House workaholic. "You didn't want to compromise your job for Danny, but he was something new, and he was different, right? He's always been that 'if things were different' guy."

"That's true." CJ acknowledges. "But that was the integrity of my entire career. With Ben, it's like... Sometimes being with him isn't any more gratifying than a night in with some briefing memos."

A smile bubbles on Donna's lips. "The sex is that bad?"

CJ laughs out loud. "That's not what I meant, Donna Moss, and you know it."

"I know, I'm sorry." She reins in her chuckling.

CJ tilts her head, considering. "Though, now that you mention it..."

Donna points a finger at her. "I knew it!"

CJ shakes her head at Donna's antics. "It's not that it's bad. We're just not... I don't know. I won't minimize the importance of actively wanting someone, and with Ben, it's just..."

"He's no more appealing than briefing memos?"

CJ grins. "I'm not saying that. I'm saying we never had that chemistry, you know? We've never been unable to keep our hands off each other. Not like you and..." She trails off mid-sentence. "Sorry."

Donna gives her a tired smile. "I don't remember dating anyone named Sorry."

CJ looks at her hesitantly. "I just didn't know if I could..."

"I asked about the intimate details of your life, CJ. Mine are up for discussion, it's only fair."

"It's that time of night, huh?"

"Yeah. I think we've avoided it long enough, don't you?"

CJ smiles sheepishly. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"I was just saying, you guys definitely had that heat, you know? You couldn't stay away from each other. Which, if you'll remember, was very inconvenient for me at times," she confesses pointedly, "But, it was sweet, you know? You were... Enamored."

Donna snorts dryly, trying not to let the dull pain of nostalgia spread into her chest. "We were certainly very good with the physical, weren't we?"

CJ remembers one specific instance, at a reception being hosted in the foyer of the White House. It was for a visiting delegation from somewhere or other. The night involved the usual amount of glitz, glamour, and barely maintained propriety. From her spot in the corner chatting to Congresswoman Wyatt, CJ couldn't help but notice DC's most enthralling sideshow, Josh and Donna, enjoying each other's company a little too much.

They weren't necessarily being inappropriate. There was just a certain intimacy to the way they were acting, that made the entire room feel like it was intruding. They'd always had that peculiar ability, even before they were dating. That night, they were the usual amount of too close to each other, with his hand on her waist and their sides pressed comfortably into each other. They spoke only to each other, in low voices and directly into each other's ears, thanks to their close proximity. Their smiles were delirious and furtive.

CJ watched them with something between irritation and amusement. His other hand crept to her arm, and he began gently tracing patterns on her skin. CJ rolled her eyes. This was definitely one step too far. The action was one you might do in bed, not at a large White House reception. She started to say goodbye to Andy, fully intending to head over there and tell them in no uncertain terms to get it together or get a room, but they beat her to the punch.

He leaned in to whisper something in her ear, and she giggled. He followed this up by lightly kissing her neck, which of course sounded several alarm bells in CJ's head, but a moment later they were leaving, hand in hand, slinking off toward the West Wing.

She stared after them with a furrowed brow. This couldn't possibly be good, but what was she to do? Head them off, like a stern camp counselor?

They returned some twenty or thirty minutes later, looking more delirious if possible, and considerably looser. CJ stormed over to them the moment she was able to extricate herself, and both looked totally taken aback by her demeanor.

"I cannot believe you two!"

Both looked around idly. "What?"

"Did you just do what I think you did?"

Their grins were a dead give away. "That depends. What do you think we did?"

She glowered. "Did you just leave the reception to have sex?"

They dissolved into laughter. "What? No, CJ, we would never."

Josh put a hand over his heart. "I can't believe you'd think-"

"Are you drunk?"

They exchanged a look. "Totally sober!"

"Where did you even do it? This is the White House, you can't just-"

"My office." He interrupted easily. Donna shot him a look. "If we even-"

"Can it, idiot boy!" She snarled. "I should just send the two of you home."

"This is giving me serious high school flashbacks." Donna told her, spirits remarkably undiminished.

Josh turned to look at her. "Do I want to know?" She smiled. "Yeah, I don't wanna know."

CJ continued to stare at them incredulously. "I'm serious. If you can't act in a way that doesn't reek of impropriety, then you should just-"

"No, CJ." Josh cut her off. "I've gotta talk to Congressman Lopez about the thing tonight."

"Great! Just great!" She folded her arms. "And you're in such a good mood to do it, that's perfect."

"I think so." He said amicably.

"We're sorry, CJ," Donna said for both of them, though she looked completely unapologetic. "It was a mistake, we shouldn't have-"

"Oh, so now you regret it? That's funny, because you didn't seem so regretful a few minutes ago, when you were-"

"So help me god, Lyman, if you finish that sentence..." CJ said warningly.

"Right." They dissolved into laughter again.

CJ shook her head, disbelieving. "At least try to get the lipstick off his collar before he talks to anyone important, okay?"

With that, she stormed off, leaving them to fumble blindly to complete her directive, still completely lost in their own world. On the surface, she was fuming, but beneath that, she felt a sort of ache. She wanted something like that. She wanted a romance that couldn't sit still through a three hour reception. She wanted a love that tugged her away from the real world, and made rules and obligations seem arbitrary. She wanted to look at someone the way they looked at each other, as if they were the only two people alive.

She gazed forlornly across the room at Danny, who was covering the event. She remembered the days when she couldn't resist grabbing him and kissing him, no matter their professional conflict of interest. If Josh and Donna had been able to figure it out, despite their (possibly worse) professional situation, why couldn't she? Why couldn't she find that kind of courage?

"You were." CJ tells her. "I have to admit, I'm a little jealous of what you had."

"Well, don't be, because I don't have it anymore." Donna says, aiming for humor and missing wildly. She winces. "Sorry, I didn't mean..."

"It's okay."

"It was pretty good for a while." Donna admits. She hugs her knees to her. "I'd never felt like that about anyone, you know? I never wanted someone that much. I think I've been with people who wanted me that way, but I never... I never really felt that." She remembers with mild disgust Roy reaching under the skirt of her waitress uniform despite her obvious apathy. "But we were different. We were both in it. It wasn't imbalanced that way."

She'd never before felt so much desire brought on by such little things. Him loosening his tie, or smiling could weaken her knees. And it wasn't just her - she'd see his eyes fill with desire as he watched her tie her shoes, or make coffee.

"Yeah. See, Ben and I don't have that."

"Well, the intensity comes with its drawbacks. If things go south, they implode with that same kind of intensity." She says bitterly.

"Right."

"And it sucks, you know? If anything in the world made me as happy as just lying beside him, maybe things would be easier."

CJ smiles sadly. "Maybe if lying beside Ben made me happier than anything else, things would be easier."

Donna shakes her head. "Maybe."

"How's that for irony?"

Donna snorts. "Well, like I said. We were pretty good with the physical, but the verbal part wasn't so strong. The communicating."

"I don't know." CJ tells her. "You were pretty okay there, for a while."

"For a while." She agrees. "But toward the end..."

CJ takes off her glasses and attempts to clean the flecks of dirt off them. "That was your problem. You guys spilled all that stuff at the beginning, all the 'I love you' and 'you're the most important thing in my life' and suddenly you looked around and realized you'd laid it all on the line. You were in too deep. Neither of you are good with vulnerability, so you backed off."

"Yeah, that was certainly part of it." Donna sighs.

The Virginian wilderness is suddenly too quiet. The noise of the city might've interrupted them during this conversation, a honking car, a laughing group of drunk friends. It would've lightened the situation. In the peaceful forest, all Donna can hear is her own thoughts, and the cicadas. But all they serve to do is make her want to cry along with them.

Suddenly, she turns to CJ with wide eyes. "CJ, do you think he could ever forgive me?"

CJ gazes back at her with undeniable pity. "I don't know, Donna. Could you ever forgive him?"

Donna looks away. "We have very different things to forgive each other for."

"Still."

"I could." She says softly. "Of course I could. I hate that about myself, but I think I'll always be able to forgive him. For anything."

"You're that way for him, too."

Donna bites her lip. "You don't know that."

"Yeah, Donna, I do." She still looks skeptical, so CJ continues. "Do you want to forgive each other?"

"I don't know." Donna admits. "I resent that it matters so much to me, you know? Like, I don't want my life to hinge on whether or not the guy who's had a monopoly on my life for six years can still stand me."

"Donna..."

"It wasn't like that with Dave." She says suddenly, forcing CJ to try and remember what 'like that' means. She says Dave the way you might expect someone to say the name of their worst mistake. "Like I was talking about before, I mean. Wanting someone. I didn't want him. At first I couldn't remember much about it, because of how drunk I was, but... I'm starting to piece it together. I didn't want him at all, CJ. The entire time, I just felt numb. Apathetic. I just let it happen." She continues in a rambling fashion, "All I could think about was him. Josh, I mean. And when I woke up in the morning..."

There's such remorse in her voice that CJ doesn't need her to continue. She puts a hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, I know."

"I couldn't believe myself."

"It's okay, Donna."

"He was the only thing I wanted, and I'd ruined it, forever."

"You were upset."

"Yeah, well, he was upset too, and he didn't..." She trails off, shaking her head bitterly.

"He hurt you really badly, Donna."

"So I had to go and one up him? What is this, Hammurabi's code?"

"You've been beating yourself up for this for a long time, that's all I'm saying. Maybe it's time..."

"That's what I'm trying to do." Donna gestures broadly at their surroundings. "Moving on, and all that."

CJ rubs her back. "I'm glad."

"But I'm worried that it'll always be like this. That I won't be able to be with anyone else, because I'll just be thinking about him."

CJ attempts a smile. "Can you imagine how obnoxious Josh would be if he found out that he'd ruined you for other men?"

Donna chokes on a laugh. "Yeah."

"Don't worry. I won't tell him."

Donna takes a deep breath. "You shouldn't break up with Ben, CJ. He's a good guy."

"Well, sure, but like I said-"

"Give it time to grow. After all, it took me and Josh five years to get to that place, you know?"

CJ nods, though secretly she believes that they would've been in that place even if they'd gotten together five years earlier. "Okay."

"And don't let me make the conversation all about me again, okay?"

CJ smiles. "I'm the one that made it about you, if you'll remember."

"Still." Donna shakes her head, and starts brushing off her pants. "Anyway, you ready to turn in?"

CJ looks around. During their conversation, the last of the evening light had disappeared, leaving them under a beautiful array of stars. "Yeah. I'm beat."

"Walking in the woods is harder than I imagined."

CJ snorts. "No kidding."

They were together the morning it all ended, Donna reflects fifteen minutes later, once she and CJ are tucked safely in their sleeping bags.

He'd come home late the previous night, after she'd fallen asleep. She woke up to him holding her, but she wasn't awake enough to understand why it felt foreign. Without opening his eyes, he started to kiss her, and feel her, and without opening hers, she responded with enthusiasm. The parts of her that would've told her this was wrong were still asleep, but the parts of her that wanted him were always awake. It was fast, but it was good, with that sort of hunger that only prolonged separation could bring.

They showered separately, and he looked at her wearily when she came into the kitchen. "Are we going to talk about this?"

"Talk about what?"

That's when things had gone irreparably south.

"Donna?" CJ mercifully interrupts her train of thought.

"Yeah?"

"Are you also, by chance, really cold?"

"Freezing." Donna admits.

"I thought these sleeping bags were insulated."

"Are they not?"

"Obviously not insulated enough."

"Hmm. Fair point."

A few minutes later, they're huddled together in one sleeping bag. Unable to help herself, CJ blurts, "Do you know how many men would go wild with this image?"

Donna laughs, and it fills the whole tent.

Though they'd talked about men a lot on this trip, in truth, this adventure had little to do with men. It was about them. It was about doing difficult things on their own, and not needing anyone else to keep them warm.

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Josh turns around twice in the middle of his living room. He paces indecisively a few times. For the life of him, he can't decide what he wants to do. He feels the same desperation that had forced his hand through a window clawing its way up his chest. He doesn't want to go to bed, even though he's beyond tired, because the bed feels so damn big.

That's probably why he's so tired these days.

He's haunted by the images of what might've greeted him had he come home in a similar state only a few months ago. He's not sure if the memory really exists, or if it's simply a conglomeration of many similar scenes that he'd lived.

He'd creep in the doorway, and depending on how late it was, she'd either be sprawled on the couch or curled in bed. But no matter what, when she heard him coming in, she'd blink open those sapphire blue eyes that didn't let him get away with anything.

"Bad day?"

He'd shrug evasively. "Something like that."

She would give him the slightest, most sympathetic smile with those perfectly inviting lips. Then she'd pat the bed or couch cushion beside her. "Come here."

He wonders when it is that she'd stopped caring. Or, he admits, when it was he'd given her a reason to stop trying.

The worst thing about all this is that she's the person he most wants to talk everything through with. He loves CJ, and even Toby has been helpful on occasion, but he needs his best friend.

He thought that everything about them had gotten better when they got together. She could now ease his mind with a simple touch, he could kiss the pout from her lips. Their bad days became bearable and their good days were made even better. All of their moments were magnified, intensified, and allowed to be lived to their fullest extent.

He knows now that there are some things that should've been left in the proverbial Pandora's box.

The problem is that just like in the myth, hope remains.

He thinks about her, sleeping under the stars with CJ. He imagines her moving on and away from him with every step she takes through the woods. He thinks about her slowly unlearning him, unlearning them, and cauterizing the place where they used to be forever.

He picks up his phone, dials a familiar number, and starts to explain. Everything.

Because busting the window didn't get him anywhere he wanted to be.

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I'm just going to leave this confusing, ambiguous, sad thing here until next time, when I actually explain their breakup...

Also, I think CJ and Ben weren't together this early in the series, but I moved them forward a little for the purposes of this story.

Thanks for reading! Sorry for the, ya know, crippling sadness.