She was slipping. Josh didn't believe her. He was looking at her oddly all day and she wanted any excuse to not leave him by himself. She had this sudden, irrational fear that he wasn't going to be okay, that Rick the therapist had pushed him too far and that now he was in a massive amount of pain and there was nothing she could do about it.

It was exhausting, being constantly worried. She was tired and it was only mid-afternoon.

'I've been half alive but I'm mostly dead' Jewel sang on the radio on the way to the office.

Donna snorted. Yeah, she knew how that felt.

She needed to get over this. She needed to stop dreaming, she needed to stop thinking, she needed to stop feeling like Josh was already dead and she might as well be too.

He was alive and mostly well. He'd be okay, at the very least. Soon he'd be terrorizing the West Wing again and it would go back to normal. She would go back to her apartment and not worry if Josh had enough food or if he had slipped in his shower and hit his head. She needed a break. There were lots of people to take care of Josh, she could get CJ or Sam to keep him company. She could even hire a nurse. But she couldn't let herself. As sick as it was, she didn't trust anyone else to look after him.

The bullpen was happily busy. Nobody would really notice her. The files she needed would be waiting for her on her desk, she could collect them and go.

"Ms. Moss?" an intern asked.

Donna sighed. Normally she had remarkable patience with interns, answering their every question and always tried to be nice about it. "Yes?"

"Mr. McGarry's office sent me."

"And?" she winced, she shouldn't be so short with the poor intern, but she needed to get to Josh's so she could make sure he was okay and she could finally sleep.

"He would like to meet with you."

"Oh. Alright, I'll be right there."

"Er..." the intern hesitated, obviously having more information to impart and not wanting to do so.

"What is it now?"

"I'm supposed to escort you there, Ms. Moss."

Donna raised her eyebrows. She had only been to Leo's office a few times, but he never sent someone to collect her. She was vaguely insulted. Did Leo think that she was going to avoid him? That she was just going to blow him off? What in the hell was going on?

The intern walked with her through the halls, every once in awhile casting a nervous glance at her, like she was going to yell or perhaps turn around back to the bullpen and the intern would be forced to either drag her back or tell Mr. McGarry that Ms. Moss would not be coming. Neither of those options really appealed to the intern.

Leo was sitting at his desk, writing something when Donna walked into his office.

"Donna," Leo said with a warm smile. "How are you?"

God, why did people keep asking her that question? "I'm fine, Leo. How're you?"

"Good, good," Leo nodded. "And Josh?"

"Making progress. He hates physical therapy."

Leo chuckled. "I'm not at all surprised."

Donna fidgeted nervously, still unsure what this meeting was about. She doubting it was just small talk.

"Josh called me today," Leo said.

"Oh?"

"He's worried about you, Donna. He told me you were crying today and he didn't know why."

Hearing Leo tell her that Josh actually cared, that he worried, even, made her want to cry all over again.

She shrugged. "I was tired. It's been a stressful week."

"I don't think that's the whole story, Donna."

She raised her eyebrows, challenging him.

"Sam also has talked to me. He's been worried for a while as well. He thought it was just Josh being...Josh, but he's voiced his concerns to me as well."

"Well, that's great for Sam, Leo."

Leo sighed. He wondered if those two had any idea how stubborn they could be.

"If you don't mind I have a lot of work to do, and then I have to get home so I can help-"

"Donna, I think you should talk with someone."

Donna took a deep breath. "Leo, I'm fine. I've just been tired. It makes me emotional. Working for Josh when he's healthy is a challenge, but that's nothing compared to Josh injured, and I have to make dinner and make sure he does his exercises and make sure he doesn't stress out and...and..."she started to sob and she didn't know how to make it stop.

"Donna," Leo said quietly.

"Damn it, Leo, I'm fine!" she yelled.

Then she realized that she just yelled at the Chief of Staff for the White House and her boss.

She turned white. "Leo, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-"

He raised a hand. "If anything, it proves my point that you should see someone. Josh needs looking after, I'll admit, but how are you going to achieve that if you aren't looking after yourself?"

Donna only nodded, feeling like she was in the principal's office all over again.

"Josh is nothing without you, Donna. If I allowed you to fall to pieces I'm not sure he'd recover."

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. "Okay."

"Do you know what ATVA is?"

She felt better, on the way home. She was still exhausted, but she didn't feel like she was drowning. She would need to make sure Josh didn't find the papers on ATVA Leo gave her, there was no need to let him know, not yet. She would have to, eventually, if for no other reason other than he would bug her wanting to know where she was going.

He was sitting on his sofa, watching the news.

"Hey," he greeted. "How was the office? Is it in deep mourning because I'm not there?"

She laughed. "Yeah, Josh. Federal government has basically shut down and even the interns are wearing black armbands."

"I know. The place must be so lonely without me."

She made her way to her bedroom, putting the ATVA papers in a desk drawer where Josh couldn't find them.

"I'm going to make chicken tonight, is that okay?"

"Can we have Chinese food?"

"No, I'm making dinner. Live with it."

"Okay," he said. "Everything go okay today?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Everything's fine."

She saw him wince.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Do you need more pain medication?"

"No," he said hurriedly. "I'm fine."

She stared at him for a few seconds, obviously trying to find anything signs of pain. He was in pain, thanks to Rick the living Ken doll, but he wasn't going to let her see, he had to be lucid for this, for her, for tonight.

He was lying to her, but she was willing to accept it. The look in his eyes told her that no matter how much she tried, she wouldn't get him to take any pain meds.

She wondered what was on his mind. He looked like he wanted to say something, and as it always did it made her smile, the look in his eyes that he wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure how to say it and he wasn't sure how it was going to be received and he was thinking too much and he was nervous and it was cute, in Donna's opinion. Josh once told her that she was the girl in elementary school that he made fun of, but he was the guy in high school who was incredibly sweet and incredibly egotistical and more than likely incredibly nerdy, but Donna would have secretly thought he was cute and wished that he asked her out to the homecoming dance.

"Here are the papers that Leo wanted to look over," she told him.

"Thanks," he took them and started pouring over them.

She made dinner, ravioli in Alfredo sauce with mushrooms, and found Josh still looking over the memo.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said distractedly.

"I made you dinner."

"Oh," he said, looking up. "Thank you. It looks great."

She sat across him in his living room, watching him as he read the memo, then reread it and reread it again. He hadn't touched his food.

"Josh," she said quietly.

"What?"

"You haven't touched your food."

"I'll eat in a second."

"You've read that memo at least twenty times now. What is it?"

"It's a memo on hate groups."

"Oh...oh."

"Yeah."

"Are you okay?"

"I don't...I can't concentrate right now."

"Josh, I don't think anyone expects you-"

"People, Donna, expect me to do my job. They expect me to tell the President that it's politically advantageous for him to do one thing over another. I'm supposed to know everyone and everything that's going on and I'm supposed to read these memos and give him advice and they expect me to be good at this and I am good at this, it's possibly the only thing I am good at and I don't know how to tell the president that he should go after hate groups but he's going to have to be careful of free-speech when right now I really want to put qualifications on the bill of rights, including, but not limited to, not shooting at the president and not being a god-damned Neo-nazi!"

She stared at him, wishing that she had the right thing to say, but she didn't. She was coming apart and he was coming apart and this shouldn't be about it, not for a second, but for the life of her she didn't know how to make it better.

"Josh, you're amazing at your job, and you're good at a lot of things."

He looked at her and he looked so desperate, like he was drowning, just as she was and neither of them knew the answer to the question that lay before them.

She got up, walked over and sat next to him, taking the memo out of his hands.

"You're good at this," she whispered and kissed him.