Rating: NC-17
Archive: Sure, but let me know.
Summary: "It was just between us, Josh. Besides -- nothing really happened," she says in a strange tone he can't quite interpret.
Spoilers: Two Cathedrals
Disclaimers: Not mine.
Date: 7/24/01
Notes: There's a related fic -- Something Warm About the Rain
Jeds Winner -- Third Place, Outstanding Romance Story, UST.
He's been obsessing all day. Well, it actually started a couple of weeks ago, when he first found out that Babish would be talking to Donna -- to all the assistants. But before, he still had a couple of weeks to talk to her, now he only has tonight.
Time flies by pretty quickly when you're trying to avoid an issue, he decides.
"Donna?"
"Yeah?" she pauses outside his door, sees him motion for her to come in.
"Should I..." she waves her hand behind her and he nods wearily, before she pulls on the doorknob, swinging the door shut.
"Yeah?"
"Um, you're talking to Babish tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah," she replies, not looking down, but not quite meeting his gaze.
"It's okay to..." He starts, his words picked carefully as he's spent the last two weeks trying to chose just the right ones:
- It's okay to tell him we almost made love
that night. Because we did and it was my fault and you should blame me -- make Babish
blame me.
He cringes jokingly, making her smile. "Oh god, not the rules!" His hands go to his face as he pretends to cower in terror, which earns him a full-fledged giggle.
"The rules, Josh. The first rule," she whispers seriously a second later.
"I remember the rule, Donna."
"Okay, then. I'm not telling him about the bathroom mishap or how the medication made you sick, and I'm not telling him about that night -- or any night," she adds, looking down at her hands. "It was just between us, Josh. Besides -- nothing really happened," she says in a strange tone he can't quite interpret.
"Yeah," he agrees, wondering if she regrets that as much as he does.
***
Doctor's appointments, medications, physical therapy -- she can't believe she's actually busier now than when Josh is in the office twelve hours a day. But then, Donna's still practically doing her job *and* taking care of him, so she may not spend twelve hours at the White House anymore but her work days have gotten even longer.
At first she was in a daze, her body not even registering her fatigue. She'd almost lost him -- but she didn't and that's all that mattered to her.
Not her aching back or her foggy head. Nothing but the fact that Josh was alive and although he was a bit grumpy and in a lot of pain, there would be scattered moments where she'd catch him looking at her and he'd be smiling -- or at least not frowning or grimacing. She found herself living for those rare times.
The first month spent in the hospital is a blur of doctors, nurses, and a whole new terminology she needs to learn to keep up with him and the progress of his recovery. It's so hard on him, suddenly being helpless and suffering through a multitude of indignities -- many of which she's right there to view.
So she decides to make some rules, the first and most important one being that it's just them. That he's going to need her help to get better and that he shouldn't feel weird about anything. Nothing that happens while he's recovering will ever leave his hospital room or his apartment -- it's just between them. Taking care of him is probably going to produce some awkward boss/assistant moments, but she stresses to him, "that's just too bad. Deal with it. Because I didn't lose you, Josh and I'm damn well going to make sure that you get better."
"Besides", she teases, "if I'm always around to assure that you take your medication and rest, maybe you'll get lucky and catch me in the shower or something."
When he does come home from the hospital, Donna does indeed hover over him. He never asked her to, she's just there -- he really didn't expect anything less. Fluffing pillows and fussing. Making dinner and telling him stories from work, like about Sam accidentally gluing his tie to an index card or CJ's incredible save at that day's 2:00 briefing, where she successfully avoided all the questions they had feared and even made one of the more annoying reporters from the National Review look like a complete ninny in front of the whole press room.
When he starts working from home in the afternoons, she divides her time between the White House and his apartment, handling the Deputy Chief of Staff's office during the morning and then stopping by his place with lunch and research on whatever they're working on that day.
Sometimes she stays the rest of the day, working with him on the living room floor until one of them gets tired and they take a break to watch some Cartoon Network or C-Span -- "aren't they the same channel?" Josh asks, giving her a big smirk -- until it's time to order out for dinner.
A few times she even gets creative and tries to make something she saw on the Food Network the previous weekend.
On the days when she doesn't stay all afternoon, she comes back that night to check on him and just never leaves. By the beginning of September, Donna has about half her wardrobe there, as well as most of her makeup and toiletries. This leads to interesting moments like the night she walks in around 9:00 PM to find Josh watching Larry King Live on his couch, with her green, clay mud mask on his face -- most of it cracked away from yelling at Larry's guest.
Surprisingly, the nightmares don't start right away -- they wait until his body is stronger but his emotions start to become the weak link.
***
She must have heard him from the couch. He was screaming from his bedroom and suddenly she's in his room in a matter of seconds and is trying to wake him up. He comes out of his nightmare-induced haze, shaking and crying and she holds him until he settles down.
She stays in bed with him that night and he cries quietly against her chest, soaking the front of her camisole. His hands wander under the material covering her stomach and she assists him and pulls the top up and over her arms and off her body so he can rest his head against her skin. He needs to feel her and she understands -- she pulls his shirt of too so their bodies can touch.
She whispers that it's okay and that it will get better. She calls him honey. He kisses the skin between her breasts and falls asleep.
The next night she skips the pretense of the couch entirely and around midnight and just follows him wordlessly into the bedroom when he takes her hand.
She sleeps beside him for the next two weeks -- wearing boxers and a t-shirt and except for a couple of nights after excessively bad nightmares, she manages to stay clothed.
The last night she sleeps in his bed he has one of those dreams -- she rouses him from and comforts him, like that first night.
"I'm sorry I don't have more of a pillow for you," she whispers quietly.
It takes her statement a second to register. He finds himself smiling slightly against her when it does.
"This is a perfect pillow, Donna."
A few seconds later he finds himself making slight adjustments to the pillow.
His head lays against one breast and his hand comes to rest on the other. It happens so slowly that neither really notices what he's doing at first. His fingers brush lightly over her nipple, making it hard and sensitive, as he turns his head and kisses her skin. He slowly moves his face until he brushes his lips against her nipple, first licking softly across the surface, then using his teeth to lightly graze against the hardened peak.
Encouraged by her body's response, he closes his lips down completely and gently sucks, while his fingers play with the other, hardened tip. Her breathing grows shallow and Donna becomes acutely aware of the feel of his mouth and hands on her -- of her own arousal as her stomach flutters and her material between her legs dampens.
His one hand travels down her front lightly and just inside the waistband of the boxers when she can't keep quiet any longer and moans loudly.
It's the only sound in his quiet bedroom and it seems to vibrate off the walls. His hand freezes and he pulls his mouth from her flesh. For the longest moment neither says anything, they both just stare at the other, trying to read the situation.
He decides that she's just doing this to comfort him because of the nightmares and she assesses that his sudden desire for her is fueled by her taking care of him. Moments later, they smile shyly at each other as he hands her the discarded t-shirt and adverts his eyes as she quickly puts it back on.
The next night she sleeps on the couch and the week after that she starts going home after Larry King Live.
He returns to work the following week.
***
He often dwells on what would have happened next on that night last Fall.
He's got a pretty good idea of what he might have done if they hadn't stopped -- he's certainly given the logical progression of events enough thought.
He would have run his fingers across the skin of her lower stomach before tugging the boxers she wore down. Instead of her moan breaking them from the moment, it would have incensed him, incensed both of them. Without moving his mouth from her breasts, his hand would have snaked down between her legs, stroking the skin of her thighs lightly, reassuringly, before she spreads her legs wide, letting him in without any hesitation.
He knows Donna thinks she's too timid in bed, especially at first and he'd try extra hard to let her know how sexy he thinks she is -- that she could let go.
That it was just him and it was okay -- he'd make that a rule, he thinks with a small laugh.
It had started out innocently enough, late one night in his office, with a bottle of Jose Cuervo Sam had brought back from Mexico. Donna wandering in early and Sam and CJ poking their heads in about an hour later -- Toby was in Texas for a local DNC meeting. The four of them had done shots and gotten silly; someone, he thinks it was CJ, had complained about the lack of a sex life when you work in the White House and the discussion had just gotten explicitly raunchy from there.
Because of a silly, drunken, late-night conversation during their first year in the White House, he now knows things. He's privy to certain personal information about his co-workers thanks to cheap tequila and the stress of one too many late nights learning how to be The Bartlet Administration. He knows that Sam has had sex in a barn surrounded by horses and he knows that CJ loves to give head. He also knows that Donna's shy when she's first with someone and that, at the time, she'd only had sex with three men.
He wonders if he would have been the fourth or if someone else has since beaten him to that position.
Going back to his favorite fantasy from that night in his bed, she knows him, he thinks, she trusts him, so that if his hand had kept going and touched her lower body -- he's pretty sure she would have already been all wet for him. So wet and warm that he would have moaned at the feel of her, he would have kissed his way down her belly and used his tongue to spread her even wider -- to open her up completely.
Even though he typically doesn't go down on a woman first thing -- knowledge now shared by Donna, Sam, and CJ, much to his chagrin -- he knows he would have wanted to taste Donna right away.
He still wants to taste her right away.
If his thoughts are any indication, he would have been so turned on, listening to her gasp and moan as he lapped at her clit. He would have made her come with his mouth, before burying his cock deep inside her body and making her come that way too.
Sometimes he catches a certain look on her face as she watches him and he wonders if he read her wrong that night. If her responses were more about him and less about the situation than he originally assumed. He wonders ruefully if he made a tactical error by pulling back -- he's definitely curious to know if she wishes that they hadn't stopped where they did either.
He wonders if she wants him now as much as he wants her.
***
"Josh?"
"Yeah?" He shakes his head lightly, focusing on the pink shade of her lips before slowly dragging his eyes up to meet hers.
"Babish has an awfully big gavel."
"Excuse me? What?"
"I'm just saying, he has an awfully big gavel. I might have to tell him something."
"O-okay," Josh replies, slightly confused.
"So, if he asks me if you like to wear facial masks while you watch Larry King Live, well, I'm gonna tell him the truth," she teases, smiling broadly.
"Oh yeah? Well, if he asks me if you have bunny slippers, I'm gonna spill on that one then," he laughs, dimples emerging, causing something deep inside her chest to tighten.
She knows she shouldn't be thinking about Josh the way she does, especially the night before she's more than likely going to be questioned on the extent of their relationship. She also fears that he more than likely doesn't think about her in that way -- but sometimes she catches him staring at her and she really has to reconsider that notion. When she feels his eyes watching her on those occasions, well, she could swear that he feels it too.
At times she'll be standing next to him working, maybe leaning over his shoulder to read a report on his desk and Donna can't help but remember the way his mouth felt on her skin or the way his hardness felt pressing into her hip.
"Wanna grab some dinner?" She asks impulsively, watching his fingers absentmindedly play with a paper clip -- twirling it around meticulously.
She tries hard not to imagine what those careful and precise fingers would feel like nestled between her thighs or what his erection would be like, pounding into her body intimately.
She's pretty sure both would feel amazing. Donna used to hope he'd be the fourth guy she'd go to bed with -- that didn't happen but part of her is committed to holding out spot number five for him.
"Sounds good. The Thai place I like?"
"The Thai place *I* like," she answers, grinning widely.
"Great minds and all that, huh?" He questions, returning her smile, as he puts a hand on her lower back, guiding her out of his office.
"Yeah," she responds, hoping that the saying is true for more than just dinner choices.
Now, she thinks, if only she can get through tomorrow without alerting the White House Chief Counsel to the fact that even though nothing really happened that one night, she certainly hopes that it will soon.
***
Feedback is like a big gavel of love.
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