Title: Coffee Black and Egg White
Author: Courtney (imperviousness@gmail.com)
Category: Josh and Donna, Future
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing. No, seriously, I own nothing.
Notes: References to the Gaza arc, and what came (or didn't come)
after. Big thank yous to caz963 for her beta and help.
Summary: "You aren't up at..." his eyes searched for the wall clock,
"3:36 to pound out the education agenda. Now, tell me, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine."



Coffee Black and Egg White
By Courtney
__

I am covered in skin;
No one gets to come in.
Pull me out from inside.
I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding.
I am colorblind,
Coffee black and egg white.
Pull me out from inside.
I am ready. I am ready. I am ready. I am fine.
("Colorblind"; Counting Crows)
__

It had been months since she had an attack, and 3 am on a Tuesday
morning after a somewhat low-key Monday was the last time she expected
one to flare up.

The Santos Administration was nearing its two hundredth day, and in
those two hundred days Donna had accomplished a substantial amount of
work. She had steered the First Lady in a direction she thought
fitting, using a more condensed and Santos-friendly version of her
"What a Shame" folder, focusing the East Wing's agenda primarily on
education issues. She had gained the respect and credibility that she
had longed for during her time as a senior assistant during the
Bartlet Administration.

She had the love of the man who was currently -- and soundly --
sleeping next to her. And she had even taken a well-deserved,
week-long vacation to Hawaii, leaving the resort only a handful of
times to amend her pale post-campaign complexion by sunbathing under
the tropical sky. After months in a tailspin, her life was finally
falling into place.

So why had her mind decided that now was the best time to assault her
with images of upturned black sedans, her nose with the bitter tang of
burning oil and rubber, and her veins with the raging assault of
adrenaline?

Donna breathed in and out, in and out, trying to calm the thrum of her
racing heart. Gingerly, she tossed the bed covers away from her body
and stood, careful not to stir Josh from his sleep.

The last attack had been during her time with the Russell campaign,
three days after Matthew Santos turned down the Vice-Presidential slot
on Russell's ticket. It, like the one this morning, had come with no
warning. There had been no recent car bombing, or bombing of any kind.
No one had been shot at, no car had backfired, no music had
crescendoed.

She padded in bare feet along the hardwood floor of the hallway and
slipped into the kitchen. Flipping the switch of the small lamp near
the microwave stand, the room filled with an immediate warm orange
glow.

Donna stared absently into the open refrigerator, the cool processed
air whipping around her bare legs like a low fog cloud. She fished a
bottle of water out from behind the leftover lasagna and beer.

As her heart rate slowed and her adrenaline level decreased, the
intense desire to sleep worked its way through her muscles. But the
threat of another nightmare kept her eyes open. She was so tired... of
the guilt, of the panic, of the wakeful nights... Her face contorted
with unshed tears, Donna backed up to the wall near the refrigerator
and slid down, pulling her knees tight to her chest.

She wanted to sob out loud, but it wouldn't change anything, and she
doubted it would make her feel better.

"What are you doing up?" Josh's voice was raspy with sleep. He leaned
against the doorframe, lazily running a hand over his stomach and then
scrubbing his fingers over his eyes.

"Oh, hey," Donna looked up, rubbing the flat sides of her palms over
her cheeks, brushing away the few tears that had managed to fall
without her permission. The crease in his brow deepened as he studied
her.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She kept her tone light. "Just... thinking." Josh moved to
lean against the sink and folded his arms over his chest.

"Yeah? What about?"

"The education agenda," it surprised her how quickly the lie fell from
her lips. "I mean sure, it's a soft issue, which is so condescending,
by the way. Because education is stereotypically a woman's issue, it's
naturally a soft issue. The dichotomy of the whole thing has always
amazed me, you know? Like if President Santos took the same approach
to education, would it still be a soft issue? And would the critics
say that to his face?" She shrugged absently, not exactly remembering
everything she had just said. "But, you know the First Lady is pretty
excited, especially since her children attend public schools and so
she's seen the state of the system at first hand. So it's a good
thing-"

"Donna." Josh's voice was low and even, the raspy quality already fading.

"Hmm?" She blinked.

"You aren't up at..." his eyes searched for the wall clock, "3:36 to
pound out the education agenda. Now, tell me, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, everything's fine." She drew in a shaky breath, her
forced, even tone cracking over the last words. When he didn't move
from the sink, when he didn't lower his arms or lower his gaze, she
found she couldn't keep the emotions at bay. He could see through her
words, he could read what she wasn't saying in her broken posture. The
sobs were stuck in her throat.

"But that's just it, Josh. Everything's fine. And I thought it was
over, I really did. Otherwise, I would've brought it up before now.
But suddenly, tonight, after months of-I never told you." She paused,
chancing a glance at him. "I never told you how angry I was, and boy,
was I. I was just so mad at everything: you, the extremists who blew
up a government-issued sedan... but mostly I was mad at me." She hugged
her knees closer to her chest, and felt her shoulders pop against the
strain. "These great men died, and I... I didn't, the girl there to take
notes and make phone calls." She looked up at him and was surprised by
the intensity with which he was watching her. "Do you know how many
battles and conflicts Admiral Fitzwallace had been through; or the
number of legislative agendas the Congressmen had fronted and pushed
through? And what did I do, compared to that? Apart from being able to
type eighty-five words a minute."

With a twist of her wrist, she finally snapped open her bottle of water.

"But, like I said, I didn't mean to keep it from you. At first, I
wasn't ready to deal with it; it was still too fresh. I didn't
remember much of the actual explosion, or the first couple of days at
the hospital. But I remembered that I was the lone survivor of a car
bomb. That's not exactly something that's easy to forget."

"You could've come to me once you were ready," he offered, finding his
voice once again. She knew it hurt him that he hadn't seen this
coming, that he hadn't been there to stop it, but he realized that it
had hurt her even more and so he curbed his typical guilt for the
moment. He'd find a way to make it up to her. He could comfort her now
in ways he wasn't able to then, and not only with lips and hands, but
with words he'd never let himself say.

"Yeah, but by then, we weren't really talking. We were running in
different circles, completely out of sync."

"Completely? We were never completely out of sync." His lips quirked
in a slight smile.

"Perhaps not completely, no." She smiled briefly, and then continued.
"Once I was back at work I tried to get into the groove, but the
entire administration was topsy-turvy, and I felt even more... lost. I
was battling phone calls from talk shows, and book deals, and-did you
know Lifetime wanted to make a movie out of my life story? With a few
strategically placed lights and filters, Vancouver would suddenly
transform into both Gaza and D.C., can you imagine?" She snorted
mirthlessly and shrugged.

"And so I left. I didn't want to be an 'also dead' the next time a
black sedan flipped over-"

"Donna," he reproved through clenched teeth as she tucked her head down.

"I was angry, and I'd been given a second chance at something, and I
had to figure out what it was, and I know you didn't approve but-"

"No, but I like to think it worked out in the end. From a purely
selfish stand-point." He moved across the floor and sat next to her,
his muscles slightly resisting the contortion. "And you proved you're
good at it, which, despite whatever you think, is not something you
ever had to actually prove to me."

"But I had to prove it to me. I had to prove that I wasn't just the
girl with the steno pad. Great men died, Josh."

"You keep saying that," he grumbled, unable to hide his growing anger,
"and I get it, I really do. The whole survivor's guilt thing. But,
Donna, I- Fitzwallace, Congressmen DeSantos and Korb, was I upset they
died? Yeah, of course. But I was terrified-beyond terrified, really-at
the thought of you-" His throat constricted and it took him a moment
before he could continue. "The entire flight to Germany, I just read
and reread your emails. I don't know why, really, none of that
mattered anymore. I just needed to hear your voice; I needed to be
inundated with facts and trivia.

"And then you got better, and you came back, but you didn't really. I
know I handled that poorly, and I can't begin to explain my behavior-"

"The kisses have made up for some of that," she teased softly, and he smiled.

"Well, I'm glad. You think of anything else that might repay some of
the debt, you let me know."

"There's no debt," she quietly replied.

"There's a little bit of debt, but we're not talking about me and my
whatever right now. We're talking about you, and your inability to
sleep."

"Yeah, there's that."

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah, exploding vehicles, burning rubber-your standard post traumatic
stress scenario."

"So you know, then? You've had a diagnosis?" He leaned back to look at her.

"I talked to someone once or twice, before they would let me come back
to the White House, but at the time it was just a variation of acute
stress disorder. I'm thinking now it could be classified as
delayed-onset." While she took another sip of water, she noticed his
eyebrow quirk in surprise. "I'm the one who researched trauma
disorders and ATVA all those years ago. I had the symptoms and
classifications memorized."

"You always were one for memorization." Josh sighed deeply, and she
could see the heavy sadness in his eyes despite his light tone.

"A blessing and, as it now seems, a curse."

"But you haven't seen a professional?"

"No, not regularly. It's been months since-" she paused. "I thought I
had it under control."

"God, Donna, have you learned nothing from me?" He extended his right
hand, palm up, and she traced her fingers over the fading scar there.

"I didn't break anything," she replied.

"Nothing tangible." She looked up at him, startled. But before she
could say anything, he stopped her tracing movements with his free
hand. She had been running clockwise and counterclockwise for months,
and now he was holding her still. Usually, their relationship went the
other way; but Donna was learning to deal with the quiet and
thoughtful side of Josh that she always knew existed beneath the
gulping of coffee and the yelling for stats.

"I thought this was all behind me. But now that the campaigning is
over, and the administration is in its freshman full swing, I suppose
I'm finally slowing down enough to-" she gestured broadly with the
hand that wasn't entwined with Josh's.

"Yeah."

"And this probably means I'll have to make a phone call or two, if I
ever want to stop hearing the crush of metal in surround sound when I
try to sleep..." His fingers immediately constricted against hers.

"Well, as it just so happens you're in luck."

"How's that?" She tilted her head to rest on his shoulder, suddenly
feeling sleepy.

"Well, I know a guy. I know a couple of guys, actually. Top notch, the
best in their field."

"You don't say?"

"I do say. In fact, I happen to know a few things about this
particular area, and other like areas."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. But that's not why you're in luck, really." He untangled their
hands and reached for her bare legs, swinging them around so she was
strewn across his lap.

"It's not?" She raised her head and studied him, her manner growing playful.

"No. You see, you're in luck because I've been down here before, and
it just so happens that I may have written the way out down
somewhere." He placed a soft kiss on her forehead and she snuggled
against his chest.

The End