Buses, Cars and Airplanes Leaving {TWW, J/D}
Title: Buses, Cars, And Airplanes Leaving
Author: so_bambiesque
Prompt: How did we get here again?
Fandom: The West Wing, Josh/Donna
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Warning: Spoilers through the end of series. I know most people won't need this, but I have friends who are just now watching, and I'm sure there are others out there.
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, and Aaron Sorkin owns everything. Thank God.
Summary: She can’t decide if she’s come too far, or not that far at all.
A/N 1: Thank you to girlie_girl_23 for the beta ♥
A/N 2: The title is taken from the song Easy Silence by The Dixie Chicks.
How did we get here again?
He told her later that she really didn't need to take her car to Charleston, just so that she'd have somewhere to sleep. She might have to share with Margaret or one of the other assistants, but she certainly wouldn't be spending the night alone, in a car that doesn't lock properly, in the freezing cold, with only two sweaters and a coat for warmth. (She neglects to tell him that that's how she’s spent the last two nights.) So she winds up sleeping on Ginger’s floor, falling asleep to the click-click-clacking of her typing up notes for Toby on the vicious circle enshrouding education in America. The next night, having sold her car for $500, she sleeps, as they all do, on the bus back to Manchester.
Except for him. He doesn't sleep. He stays up until his Biro runs out of ink, making plans and charts and diagrams, and she falls asleep watching him. She doesn't know anything about him, other than his name is Josh Lyman, and he gave her a chance when she'd used up all of her others.
How did we get here again?
It's a cold, damp night, and she thinks that she should have brought a scarf against the cold, and so should he. She remembers that her grandmother once told her that if you forget you have to pee, you won't need to, so she thinks about everything and anything that isn't, "It's freezing out here." She thinks about red dresses, and rosebud-gathering and flowers, and she can trace this night back to their anniversary (non-anniversary), and confessions, things that should probably have gone unsaid, about beer and red lights and accidents. She thinks that she shouldn't have been quite so eager to go out with someone else, just because his name wasn't Josh Lyman.
He thinks that he doesn't want to analyze too much the reasons why, or how, he's sitting here. Either he's really the good guy, doing whatever it takes to keep his President from further investigation, and to keep his staff from being investigated and their minds being kept off the job, or he's sitting here because more than anything he needs to protect her, and he needs to show her, however subtly, that he would do anything for her, including risking himself, and her, just to stop her from being caused one day of pain in her life. He doesn't dwell too much on that, because if it's the latter... Well, he needs it to not be the latter.
How did we get here again?
She can't decide if she's come too far, or not that far at all. She understands these people, their lives, and prize-winning apples, and that scares her. Big, grown-up Donna Moss lives in the city. She works in politics, and she's busy and important to the country. She isn't small town. And yet, despite her best efforts, she still is. Maybe she's still exactly the same naïve, idealist young woman that she was then. And although she's been travelling, travelling, always moving for over 20 hours (four years), she finds herself closer to home than she thought she ever would be again.
He's always hated metaphors. But he can't help but realise that maybe her journey hasn't just been from MiddleOfNowhere, Indiana to Washington, DC or from Madison, Wisconsin to Nashua, New Hampshire. In the past 20 hours she’s gotten two of the greatest contemporary American minds from A to B, all on her own initiative. She’s stood up to them both, and she's proven herself to be more than valuable. (Invaluable.) And he thinks back to the day that he "hired" her, not realising that she'd go quite so far, and thinking that at least the poor kid would be able to put the experience on her résumé.
How did we get here again?
It's ironic to her that there are so many unspoken barriers between them, so many things (and people) keeping them apart, and yet, not even an ocean or the cost of a last minute transatlantic flight (business class, it was all that was left) can keep him from being with her when it matters. She doesn't know if she finds it surprising or completely predictable that he'd be there, but all she knows is that she doesn't care. He's there. And not even making half-hearted quips about when she'll be up to typing memos for him. Maybe it's the drugs, but for a few fleeting seconds she allows herself to think that possibly these insane, impossible feelings aren’t unrequited, and that he might, maybe, possibly, be here because he cares about her almost as much as she cares about (loves) him, and that it isn't hopeless after all. That he's kept her around because he likes (needs) her being there, and not because her notes are always clear and concise. (Or maybe it's just the drugs.)
It's a cold, damp night in Germany, and he knows that he isn’t there because he has to be, he's there because he needs to be.
How did we get here again?
Apart from the four year old kicking the back of her seat, and the man who felt the need to tell her the history of his wife's bowel movements and his daughter's infertility, the flight from Charlotte wasn't bad. She's had worse. She misses the days of Air Force One, but this is part of her larger journey. She's spent too long following someone else and being the hostess. She's on her own, and discovering more of the world (and herself) and now that she has this second chance, she intends to make a name for herself, define herself as Donnatella Moss and break away from Donna-Josh-Lyman's-Assistant. And she is. And she's never been prouder of herself. But then, in a matter of seconds she’s standing next to him in a claustrophobic elevator, right back to where she started. Donna Moss, (such a Nice Girl) small, alone, and needing his approval.
Years later, he knows that the phrase six of one and half a dozen of the other was never so appropriate, but right now, he can't decide if this is hatred, or love. He wouldn't hate her this much if he didn't love her, but then, he could never love someone who treated him how she did that day. Months later they'll lie on a Hawaiian beach, and she'll make him realise that with him pulling away, what else could she assume but that it was the job keeping them apart, and she'll tell him that she waited all night for him to arrive at her apartment with nothing but the realisation that now they were free to do whatever the hell they wanted. But walking alongside him, she's never felt as out of reach as she does now, and he's never needed her more than he needs her right now, and it has nothing to do with her typing, or the way she deals with senators. He just needs to know that this isn't the end of Donna-And-Josh.
How did we get here again?
They've had their ups and downs and their ins and outs, but before they've been spread over years. Now she finds that too much is happening in the space of weeks, and although it didn't seem to be possible, she feels even more dazed and confused by their relationship (or lack thereof) than she was before. Four months ago they were barely on speaking terms, and now they're lying beside each other, and she tries to remember how it started, and when they began this road to recovery. After at least an hour, she realises that she doesn't care if it was when she realised that he missed (loved) her too, or how he'd gradually come to trust her again, or even that breath-taking, heart-stopping, mind-blowing kiss early that morning. She doesn't care. They're here now. And while it's going to be as awkward as sin in the morning, there's no going back from this. Neither of them can deny what was said last night. (Years, wanting, thought it would never happen.) They're moving, it seems, finally, in the same direction.
Admitting to Lou Thornton that he's damn glad she hired Donna Moss isn’t something that he'll ever do, but on this cold (hot) Texas night, the smell of sex still lingering in the air, he's never been more grateful of anything in his entire life. He's oddly grateful to Donna for being so good at her job that he had no choice but to let her keep it, and, in a moment of revelation, he's glad that he let her go, because God knows if they'd both stayed on the same White House route, they'’d probably still be doing their dances of denial, and never quite managing to express what they almost wordlessly did last night.
How did we get here again?
As much as they try to resist, they both sleep on the flight out. The stopover in LA passes by in a blur of last minute shopping, because although they both remembered to pack condoms, they also both forgot to bring sun cream, a swimsuit, a beach towel, and he forgot toothpaste. She's baffled that he can remember a toothbrush, but not toothpaste. Aren't the two inextricably linked? She says later that after months of rallies and stump speeches and wait-are-we-in-North-or-South-Carolina, she's sick of travelling, and she can’t wait to just be still, even for a short while, and to be able to just enjoy her surroundings. And he thinks that after years of bow-ties and vigils and jealousy and distance and second, third, fourth chances, neither can he.
Author: so_bambiesque
Prompt: How did we get here again?
Fandom: The West Wing, Josh/Donna
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Josh/Donna
Warning: Spoilers through the end of series. I know most people won't need this, but I have friends who are just now watching, and I'm sure there are others out there.
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, and Aaron Sorkin owns everything. Thank God.
Summary: She can’t decide if she’s come too far, or not that far at all.
A/N 1: Thank you to girlie_girl_23 for the beta ♥
A/N 2: The title is taken from the song Easy Silence by The Dixie Chicks.
How did we get here again?
He told her later that she really didn't need to take her car to Charleston, just so that she'd have somewhere to sleep. She might have to share with Margaret or one of the other assistants, but she certainly wouldn't be spending the night alone, in a car that doesn't lock properly, in the freezing cold, with only two sweaters and a coat for warmth. (She neglects to tell him that that's how she’s spent the last two nights.) So she winds up sleeping on Ginger’s floor, falling asleep to the click-click-clacking of her typing up notes for Toby on the vicious circle enshrouding education in America. The next night, having sold her car for $500, she sleeps, as they all do, on the bus back to Manchester.
Except for him. He doesn't sleep. He stays up until his Biro runs out of ink, making plans and charts and diagrams, and she falls asleep watching him. She doesn't know anything about him, other than his name is Josh Lyman, and he gave her a chance when she'd used up all of her others.
How did we get here again?
It's a cold, damp night, and she thinks that she should have brought a scarf against the cold, and so should he. She remembers that her grandmother once told her that if you forget you have to pee, you won't need to, so she thinks about everything and anything that isn't, "It's freezing out here." She thinks about red dresses, and rosebud-gathering and flowers, and she can trace this night back to their anniversary (non-anniversary), and confessions, things that should probably have gone unsaid, about beer and red lights and accidents. She thinks that she shouldn't have been quite so eager to go out with someone else, just because his name wasn't Josh Lyman.
He thinks that he doesn't want to analyze too much the reasons why, or how, he's sitting here. Either he's really the good guy, doing whatever it takes to keep his President from further investigation, and to keep his staff from being investigated and their minds being kept off the job, or he's sitting here because more than anything he needs to protect her, and he needs to show her, however subtly, that he would do anything for her, including risking himself, and her, just to stop her from being caused one day of pain in her life. He doesn't dwell too much on that, because if it's the latter... Well, he needs it to not be the latter.
How did we get here again?
She can't decide if she's come too far, or not that far at all. She understands these people, their lives, and prize-winning apples, and that scares her. Big, grown-up Donna Moss lives in the city. She works in politics, and she's busy and important to the country. She isn't small town. And yet, despite her best efforts, she still is. Maybe she's still exactly the same naïve, idealist young woman that she was then. And although she's been travelling, travelling, always moving for over 20 hours (four years), she finds herself closer to home than she thought she ever would be again.
He's always hated metaphors. But he can't help but realise that maybe her journey hasn't just been from MiddleOfNowhere, Indiana to Washington, DC or from Madison, Wisconsin to Nashua, New Hampshire. In the past 20 hours she’s gotten two of the greatest contemporary American minds from A to B, all on her own initiative. She’s stood up to them both, and she's proven herself to be more than valuable. (Invaluable.) And he thinks back to the day that he "hired" her, not realising that she'd go quite so far, and thinking that at least the poor kid would be able to put the experience on her résumé.
How did we get here again?
It's ironic to her that there are so many unspoken barriers between them, so many things (and people) keeping them apart, and yet, not even an ocean or the cost of a last minute transatlantic flight (business class, it was all that was left) can keep him from being with her when it matters. She doesn't know if she finds it surprising or completely predictable that he'd be there, but all she knows is that she doesn't care. He's there. And not even making half-hearted quips about when she'll be up to typing memos for him. Maybe it's the drugs, but for a few fleeting seconds she allows herself to think that possibly these insane, impossible feelings aren’t unrequited, and that he might, maybe, possibly, be here because he cares about her almost as much as she cares about (loves) him, and that it isn't hopeless after all. That he's kept her around because he likes (needs) her being there, and not because her notes are always clear and concise. (Or maybe it's just the drugs.)
It's a cold, damp night in Germany, and he knows that he isn’t there because he has to be, he's there because he needs to be.
How did we get here again?
Apart from the four year old kicking the back of her seat, and the man who felt the need to tell her the history of his wife's bowel movements and his daughter's infertility, the flight from Charlotte wasn't bad. She's had worse. She misses the days of Air Force One, but this is part of her larger journey. She's spent too long following someone else and being the hostess. She's on her own, and discovering more of the world (and herself) and now that she has this second chance, she intends to make a name for herself, define herself as Donnatella Moss and break away from Donna-Josh-Lyman's-Assistant. And she is. And she's never been prouder of herself. But then, in a matter of seconds she’s standing next to him in a claustrophobic elevator, right back to where she started. Donna Moss, (such a Nice Girl) small, alone, and needing his approval.
Years later, he knows that the phrase six of one and half a dozen of the other was never so appropriate, but right now, he can't decide if this is hatred, or love. He wouldn't hate her this much if he didn't love her, but then, he could never love someone who treated him how she did that day. Months later they'll lie on a Hawaiian beach, and she'll make him realise that with him pulling away, what else could she assume but that it was the job keeping them apart, and she'll tell him that she waited all night for him to arrive at her apartment with nothing but the realisation that now they were free to do whatever the hell they wanted. But walking alongside him, she's never felt as out of reach as she does now, and he's never needed her more than he needs her right now, and it has nothing to do with her typing, or the way she deals with senators. He just needs to know that this isn't the end of Donna-And-Josh.
How did we get here again?
They've had their ups and downs and their ins and outs, but before they've been spread over years. Now she finds that too much is happening in the space of weeks, and although it didn't seem to be possible, she feels even more dazed and confused by their relationship (or lack thereof) than she was before. Four months ago they were barely on speaking terms, and now they're lying beside each other, and she tries to remember how it started, and when they began this road to recovery. After at least an hour, she realises that she doesn't care if it was when she realised that he missed (loved) her too, or how he'd gradually come to trust her again, or even that breath-taking, heart-stopping, mind-blowing kiss early that morning. She doesn't care. They're here now. And while it's going to be as awkward as sin in the morning, there's no going back from this. Neither of them can deny what was said last night. (Years, wanting, thought it would never happen.) They're moving, it seems, finally, in the same direction.
Admitting to Lou Thornton that he's damn glad she hired Donna Moss isn’t something that he'll ever do, but on this cold (hot) Texas night, the smell of sex still lingering in the air, he's never been more grateful of anything in his entire life. He's oddly grateful to Donna for being so good at her job that he had no choice but to let her keep it, and, in a moment of revelation, he's glad that he let her go, because God knows if they'd both stayed on the same White House route, they'’d probably still be doing their dances of denial, and never quite managing to express what they almost wordlessly did last night.
How did we get here again?
As much as they try to resist, they both sleep on the flight out. The stopover in LA passes by in a blur of last minute shopping, because although they both remembered to pack condoms, they also both forgot to bring sun cream, a swimsuit, a beach towel, and he forgot toothpaste. She's baffled that he can remember a toothbrush, but not toothpaste. Aren't the two inextricably linked? She says later that after months of rallies and stump speeches and wait-are-we-in-North-or-South-Carolina, she's sick of travelling, and she can’t wait to just be still, even for a short while, and to be able to just enjoy her surroundings. And he thinks that after years of bow-ties and vigils and jealousy and distance and second, third, fourth chances, neither can he.