Doing Penance
by: Carrie
gigagirlyq@yahoo.com
Characters: Donna, Josh
Category: Angst/Romance
Rating: MATURE
Summary: Post-Ep for "Process Stories" and S4 in general.  Amy's red
dress on Election Night reminds Josh and Donna of another red dress;
Josh finally gets a clue, and Josh and Donna finally have a
long-overdue shouting match about their relationship.
Notes: For fun, the final chapter is about "The Fight" told from
Ginger and Margaret's POV.

"Donna!"

Donna rolled her eyes, laid a gentle hand on Jack's arm, murmuring,
"Excuse me, please, I'll be back in a bit," and crossed the crowded
room of celebrants to present herself to her boss.   She crossed her
arms as she replied, "Yes?"  Her annoyance was quite evident in her
tone, body language, and facial expression.

Josh looked past her to the good-looking young man in uniform, then
back again.  "Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting you?  You do work here,
you know."

"Yes, I'm painfully aware that I'm the only person required to be
working and not having fun tonight, Joshua.  What can I do for you?"
she said, walking past him and heading for her desk.

Josh followed her and watched as she bent to fish her purse out of her
bottom drawer.  He tried - really, he did - not to notice how nicely
her grey pants pulled across the backs of her legs when she did so.
He spent some quality time investigating the ceiling over her desk
until he was sure she was upright again.  He watched now as she
searched in the bottom of her enormous bag for something, then stuck
out a hand in the universal sign for "give me one" when he saw that it
was a half-gone roll of Spearmint Certs.

"So, what, Josh?" she said, folding herself onto her chair in a huff,
with a mint tucked in behind her teeth.

"What?  Oh, nothing, really," Josh said, smiling a bit as he pulled a
nearby rolling chair close to her, and sat in it himself.

"Nothing?" She asked, throwing her hands up.  "Nothing?  Then why did
you bellow?"

"I do not *bellow,*" Josh said, narrowing his eyes at her in a purely
adolescent gesture that seemed to say, "I know you are, but what am
I?"   Which was a shame, because what he was really going for was "I
am your dignified boss, respect my authority."

"Would you like me to get any number of staffers in here to tell you
about the bellowing?" she said, rising a bit out of her chair and
gesturing towards the party behind the double doors behind her.

"Ok, fine, I bellowed.  But I wanted to tell you about Sam, you're
never going to believe what's happ..."

"Oh my gosh!"  Donna said, interrupting excitedly now, her eyes wide
open.  "Is he going to accept?  Did he talk to Mrs. Wilde yet?"

"Ye...hey...how do you know already?  It just happened," Josh said,
annoyed that he wasn't the one giving her the story.

"I know, but he told me yesterday that he had given his name to Will
Bailey to give to Mrs. Wilde," she said, enjoying the look of
disbelief and annoyance that spread across Josh's face at that.  "I
think he wanted someone to talk to about it," she said, trying hard
not to laugh.

"I...you...he...YESTERDAY?" Josh said, incredulous.  "He told you YESTERDAY?
 Why didn't he tell me until he HAD to?"  Josh looked like he was
working up a decent mad over this, so Donna immediately tried to
diffuse the eruption of his ridiculously wounded ego.

"Because if all had gone the way the world was supposed to have gone
tonight, he never would have had to tell you at all.  It wouldn't have
been an issue.  It'd be a funny story he'd tell you in a couple of
years over beers, a 'can you believe what a nightmare that would have
been?' sort of thing.  Only now, he's living the nightmare," Donna
said, leaning forward a bit to put her hand on Josh's arm.  "Don't be
mad at him, Josh.  Be proud of him.  He did a good thing.  He needs
your support right now.  And he's going to be a fantastic candidate.
Hell, I'd vote for him even if he was running as a Republican," Donna
said, smiling, leaning back and earning another glare from Josh.

"Well, thank God that'll never happen," Josh said, settling back and
picking up his beer.  He narrowed his eyes at Donna as he started
picking at the peeling label on the bottle in his hand.  "So you and
Sam spent some time together yesterday," he said, ready to get a
little payback.

"Yeeeeeees," Donna said, narrowing her own eyes right back at him and
crossing her arms across her chest.  "So?"

"I don't know, Donnatella.  I'm just sayin', you guys were awful cozy
tonight, too.  I was wondering why you were both holed up in Sam's
office earlier.  And someone told me you came out holding his hand."

"What, are we in third grade now, Josh?" Donna said, supremely annoyed
now.  "Are you going to ask me if I like him next?  If I want him to
carry my books home from school?"

Something in her tone worried him a bit.  "Do you?" Josh said,
completely forgetting that he had started this as a joke.  He was
relieved when she all but exploded with a very loud "Are you crazy?"
that helped him regain his snarky footing.

"I don't know, Donna, do you think Captain Fantastic out there," he
said, gesturing with his head and chin towards Jack Reese in the room
beyond, "will be happy to hear that you've got your eye on another
guy?"

Now Donna cocked her head at Josh, annoyance giving way to amusement.
"That's Lieutenant Commander Fantastic, thank you very much," she
said, swiveling in her chair and looking over at her new friend.  Jack
saw her looking, smiled warmly and waved, then went back to talking to
a couple people he had just met.  "He's awful cute, don't you think?"
she asked a bit nonchalantly, hoping to get a rise out of Josh in the
process.

Her comment and Reese's wave/smile combination worked, of course; Josh
was *really* annoyed now.  He briefly considered looking into whether
or not any subs in the Arctic needed new commanders, but then thought
it would take too much time.  "Another gomer for the list, huh
Donnatella?"  Ah, the old reliable.  He'd just try a put-down instead.

"I hardly think a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy
qualifies as a gomer, Josh," she said with all sorts of false
sweetness.   "But I'll make sure I find out for sure tomorrow night
when Jack and I have dinner, and give you a full report on his gomer
rating," she said, noting silently, with pleasure, a wave of annoyance
float across Josh's face.  Josh didn't need to know that she had
agreed to the dinner to be polite, but that she didn't really think
there were any sparks between her and Reese.  The man was going to
vote Republican, for crying out loud!  She'd been down that road once
before.  The words "didn't go well" came painfully to mind.

Just then, Amy came sailing into the bullpen, tipsy and chewing on yet
another shrimp.  "Hey, J," she drawled, coming over to run her hand
over his hair.  She stumbled a bit, and quite obviously made it seem
like the only possible way she'd ever be able to not fall down was to
land in Josh's lap.  It took all of Donna's strength and willpower not
to roll her eyes right out of her head at the sight.

"Hi, Amy, I'm fine, thanks for asking," Donna said, completely unable
to contain her annoyance at once again being ignored by
Josh's...whatever she was now.  God, Donna was so over the two of them,
she didn't think she could take much more of the bickering and Amy
trying to get his attention again.  And if that completely
inappropriate dress didn't screamed "Hi Josh, let's have sex," well
then nothing did.  Donna fought back a nearly uncontrollable urge to
throw her pencil caddy at Amy.

Amy, drunk and oblivious to the sarcasm in Donna's voice, said, "Oh,
Hi Donna," then went back to draping herself over Josh.  The only
thing keeping Donna from evacuating the premises was the very
interesting look of...what was it...embarrassment?  Discomfort?  on Josh's
face.  *Gomer, huh?  Well.  You know what they say about payback,*
Donna thought.

"Nice dress, Amy," Donna said, without a shred of sincerity in her
voice.  Josh picked up on the hostility, and raised his eyebrows, but
said nothing.  He tried to find a place to put his hands that wasn't
suggestive, indecent, or encouraging to the woman draped all over him,
but he was having a hard time of it.

"Thanks.  Do *you* like my dress, J?" she slurred, craning her neck a
bit to try to look at the man she was sitting on.  "You told me you
had a thing for little red dresses, once," she said, oblivious to the
instant look of panic Josh gave Donna at that point, and the shocked
look on Donna's face when she heard that little tidbit.   Now Amy gave
a very annoying high-pitched laugh as she cracked herself up.  "Not
that I bought this dress with you in mind or anything, J," she said,
standing up now and doing a poor job of pulling the already too-short
dress down to a respectable level.  "I'm gonna go get my coat, J.  Do
you wanna walk me out?" she said, trailing her fingers along Josh's
arm as she stumbled towards the doorway to his office.  Donna and Josh
heard her knocking things off his desk as she moved around the inner
room.

Josh and Donna just sat and stared at each other, remembering a night
long before, and a similar dress, and a moment when all things between
them seemed possible.

Finally, they heard Amy fall into Josh's office chair and pick up his
desk phone to make a call.  They were able to ignore her for a few
more minutes.

Finally, Josh spoke.  "Are you leaving from here tomorrow night?"

Not following, Donna narrowed her eyes at him.  "What?"

"Your dinner with Reese.  Leaving from here?"

"Yes, why?"

"No reason."  He stood up now, his eyes glued to the floor.

Finally, he spoke again.  "You should wear it for your date," he said,
quietly, as he turned to go get Amy and put her in a cab.

Donna was having a hard time breathing.  "How do you know I kept it?"
she said in a quiet voice to his retreating form.

Josh smiled a rueful smile as he turned to look at her.  "You kept
it," he said with conviction.  "And you look better in it."  And he
walked into his office before he could say too much more.

And so he never saw the look of hope on Donna's face, or saw her
heartbeat hammering out an uneasy pulse in her throat.

Donna got up, and with another look behind her towards his office,
left the bullpen and rejoined the party.



Her alarm went off at 9:00am, but she needn't have set it; she hadn't
slept one bit since getting home just past 3am.  Donna got up off of
the end of her bed, where she had been sitting, staring into her
closet, and went over to turn off the radio as it cheerily blared
away.  She went back to her perch at the end of the bed, and stared at
her clothes some more, mentally checking off each item in her mind as
she scanned the colorful hanging pieces of her wardrobe.

She sighed.  She was going to need some help with this one.

She got up and quietly went to her bedroom door, opened it, and padded
down the hall.  She knocked quietly on the door at the opposite end of
the hall, and then pushed Ginger's door open a crack.

"Ginger?" Donna whispered into the pitch-black room.  Whatever Ginger
had paid for those room-darkening shades, she had gotten her money's
worth, that was for sure.  It was darker than night in there.

Hating herself for what she was about to do, Donna tip-toed into the
room, around haphazardly-thrown piles of clothes and shoes on her
floor.  Ginger was not the neater of the two of them, but she at least
kept the destruction confined to her own room.

Donna got to the foot of Ginger's bed, and gently shook her friend's
foot with her hand, calling, "Ginger!" again in a sotto-voce whisper.

There was still no response from the lump under the floral comforter.

Finally, a bit desperate now, and committed to waking up her poor
friend who was, no doubt, about to realize the full force of the
alcohol she had drunk the night before, Donna walked up to where she
thought Ginger's head was under the covers, squinched her eyes shut
hard, gave her roommate a quick shake on the shoulder, and said, in
her normal voice, "Ginger?"

"What!  I'm up!  Toby?  What!  I've got it!  What?"  Ginger woke with
a loud start, threw the covers off and started looking around the room
in a panic, her hair flying everywhere due to static electricity.  She
started looking around for a phone to answer.  "What?" she said, not
really grasping what was going on.

Donna was trying not to laugh, because she knew that Ginger wasn't
going to be happy when she realized what was going on.  "Ginger,
you're home, it's ok..."

"Did I oversleep?  What time is it?" she said, her head whipping
around as she squinted at her clock radio with contact lens-less eyes.

"It's 9 o'clock..."

"WHAAAAAT?  Oh sweet Jesus, Toby's going to kill me..."  Ginger tried to
get out of bed all at once and fell off the far side as her feet
tangled in the sheets.

"No, Ginger, remember, the election?  We won, Leo told us we don't
have to go in until noon..."

Ginger scrambled to stand before Donna, with one leg pulled into a
pair of dress slacks, her royal blue silk nightshirt hanging over the
front of the pants, her hair standing on end, with sheet-marks
criss-crossing her face.  "What?" Ginger whined, coming around now.
"Why are you...what the...why aren't I sleeping right now?"

Donna put her most contrite face on.  "I know, I'm sorry, I'm just,
I'm having a crisis, I need your help, and I couldn't wait any
longer...."  She watched a look of despair wash over Ginger's face, as
the redhead slowly realized that the first morning she'd had to sleep
in over a year was about to vanish like a puff of smoke.

Ginger stood, still half in of yesterday's work pants.  "Please tell
me someone's dead and you need me to help you bury the body.  Because
anything short of that..."

"Ginger, I'm so sorry, but I'm freaking out, I really need your help,
here," Donna said, pleading now as Ginger started heading back for the
covers.  Donna grabbed her by the back of the night shirt and pulled
her back to a standing position.  "Pleeeeeease, I'm sorry, please come
help me, I'll make coffee to help you wake up.  Just don't go back to
sleep."

Ginger sat on the end of her bed now, desperation settling into
resignation on her face.  "Ok.  But you owe me big time," she said,
grumbling.  "Go make me coffee. I'm going to brush my teeth and find
some aspirin to make the marching band in my head go away."

Donna leaned down to press a big noisy kiss to the top of Ginger's
head, whispering "Thank you!" as she skipped out the door, and
eliciting an unhappy groan from the woman still sitting on the bed,
and a tortured "Please, Donna, don't walk so loudly."  This was going
to be a doozy of a hangover.

Ten minutes later, a still-groggy Ginger came into Donna's bedroom
holding onto a mug of coffee for dear life.  She sat heavily on
Donna's desk chair, took an enormous gulp from her mug, scalded her
tongue, sighed, and finally focused her eyes.  She saw Donna standing
in front of her open closet, staring at her short red dress which was
hung on the back of the open door.

"Ok.  I'm up.  What's the emergency?"

Donna sighed, and turned to her friend.  "Ok.  Do you remember me
telling you, in the cab ride home last night, everything that's going
on?  With Jack and Josh and the dress and everything?"

"No.  We took a cab home?  Where's my car?"

Donna just shook her head at Ginger.  "You really should stop at two
beers, you know that, right?  You have a weaker tolerance than Josh."

"Whatever.  So, ok, I'm assuming my car's at work.  Ok.  Who's Jack?"
she said, squinting a bit as she tried to put the fuzzy post-election
celebratory events of the night before back into place in her mind.

"Remember?  Jack Reese?  He voted for Bartlet for me?  Uniform?"
Donna could see that it still wasn't ringing a bell w/Ginger.  "Really
cute?  You said he reminded you of that guy from the movie..."

"Oh, *right.*  Him.  Yes, very cute," she said, sipping again and
nodding her head.  She crossed a leg beneath her and pulled her big
blue fuzzy robe tighter around her midsection.  "Yes.  Jack Reese.
So?"

"Ok, so, I'm having dinner with him tonight."

"Uh huh," Ginger said, still not seeing where the crisis was in the
whole scenario.

"So, I need help with what to wear."

Ginger just sat, blinking, for a moment, at her obviously deranged
roommate.  Because, seriously, there was no way that Donna could have
woken her up, the one morning she could sleep in, for help in choosing
a date dress, when they both knew that between them they only had 4
good date dresses and three of them were at the cleaners.

The blinking continued.  Finally, Ginger spoke.  "You're kidding me, right?"

"No!  I can't...what if he..."

"Donna!  You're looking at the date dress!  Why am I awake again?"
Ginger started to get up to go back to bed for another hour, coffee be
damned.

"No, wait!  You're obviously not remembering me telling you what
happened with Josh and Amy," Donna said, desperate to keep Ginger in
the room.  So desperate, in fact, that she was going to do what she
very rarely did - spill some of her feelings about Josh.  Ginger was
always desperate for more dirt on that subject, but Donna had always
protected herself by admitting to very little regarding her feelings
for Josh.  Even if it was clear to Ginger and Margaret and, you know,
the Western Hemisphere, that they had once been crazy about each
other.  Once.  A long time ago.  Before Cliff and Amy and it all went
wrong.

Donna got out of her head, and focused on the problem at hand once
again.   She could see Ginger trying to make her brain work again, and
that the coffee just wasn't working on that part of her yet.  Ginger
waved her hand at Donna in the international symbol for "spill it,"
and said, "What happened with Josh and Amy?  And, by the way?  Do I
remember that Amy was, like, barely clothed last night?  Wearing a
red..." and as she said the word, Ginger looked to the red dress on
Donna's door, and began, slowly, to put some of the pieces together.
"Ah.  I think I see where this is going," she said, happy to be in on
the conversation now.  "What happened with Josh and Amy?" she asked,
eyes wide open and focused, finally.

Donna started pacing in front of her closet door as she told Ginger
about the jealous banter that she and Josh had been trading about
Jack, and about how Amy, in all her drunken wonder, came in and
plastered herself all over Josh.

Ginger piped up at that point.  "God, could she BE any more obvious?"
she said, shaking her head.

Donna stopped, and cast a relieved look at Ginger.  "THANK you!"
Donna said.  "So it's not just me, then, who thinks that she's..."

"...trying desperately to get Josh back, and is willing to use skin to
do it?  Nope," Ginger said, fully on Donna's side in this.

"Ok.  Well, you won't believe what happened next.  So, well, wait, you
remember what happened the night I wore this dress in the Wing, when
Josh told me I looked good in it, and that I should keep it?  What was
that, like two years ago?"

"God, that seems like a million years ago," Ginger said, remembering.
She arched an eyebrow at Donna, cocked her head, and stated the
obvious.  "Clearly, you took his advice," she said, letting her
now-awake mind whirl.  "Have you worn it since?"

"No," Donna said slowly.

"And now I know why you never let me wear that dress," Ginger said, a
sly look coming over her face as she began to figure it out.  "It's
your Josh-dress."

"My what?"  Donna said, hoping the rising blush in her cheeks would go
unnoticed.

It didn't.  "Your Josh-dress.  And you're blushing."

"Shut up.  What do you mean..."

"It's a special dress.  It makes you think of Josh and a special
moment between you.  It's like you wore it to the Oscars or something,
now you can't wear it again, unless it's for him...ah," Ginger said,
getting the big picture a little bit more.

"Yeah, 'ah.'  But wait, it gets better.  Let me tell you what happened
next," Donna said.  "Amy said, right in front of me, like I wasn't
even there, that Josh had told her once that he had a thing for little
red dresses," she said, remembering.

Ginger's eyes went wide.  "Shut.  UP.  She did not say that."

"She most certainly did."

"What did Josh say?"

"Nothing.  He just sort of..."

"What?"

"Well, I might be projecting, here, but he looked kind of...I don't
know, nervous, when she said it.  He looked right at me after she said
it."

"Shut.  UP!  Then what happened?"

"Well, there was more groping on her part, and then she tottered off
into his office.  And he went after her, but as he did, he asked me if
I was going to be leaving from the office for my date, and then he
said..." and Donna trailed off as she remembered his words, and as her
heart started beating wildly in her chest again.

"WHAT?"  Ginger shrieked, left seriously hanging as Donna retreated
into her brain.

"Oh, sorry.  He said...all he said was, 'You should wear it on your date.'"

"Oh get OUT.  He did NOT say that to you.  He meant your Josh-dress?"

"Yup.  And I said, 'How do you know I kept it,' and then he got all
Josh and said, 'You kept it,' like he knows me so WELL, right?  I
mean, I might not have kept it!  How does he know I kept it?  Maybe I
did bring it back to the store after that night!"  Donna said
indignantly, stomping around a bit before stopping to look at Ginger.

Ginger just cocked another eyebrow at her, and pointedly gestured at
the tell-tale dress on the closet door.

"Oh, alright," Donna huffed, as she flounced onto the edge of her bed.
 "I kept the damn dress.  And damn him for knowing I'd keep the stupid
damn dress."

"So did he answer you?"

"Yeah," Donna said, bringing her eyes to Ginger's now.  "He said, 'You
kept it," and then, just as he walked off, he said, 'And you look
better in it.'"

There was dead silence as Ginger's mouth dropped open in shock, and
her lips silently mouthed the words "Shut.  Up!"

"I know," Donna said, now desperately looking at Ginger.

"Did you talk to him again after that?"

"No," Donna said, with worry creeping into her voice.  "He said he was
going to go put her in a cab, but he didn't come back to the party.
So I can only assume..."

"Ugh, thank you, no need to continue that thought, I don't want to
think about the possibility of them horizontal," Ginger said,
shuddering.

"Seriously," Donna said, agreeing with her.   "But, this brings me
back to my dilemma.  What do I do about tonight?  If I wear the
dress...the only date-worthy outfit we currently have in the apartment,
by the way..."

"Oh my god, I totally see the problem now," Ginger said, a hand
pressed to her forehead as she tried to help Donna sort it all out.
"If Josh sees you in the dress, it's like..."

"...it's like I'm trying to send him a message or something," Donna
said.  "But what would he take the message to be?  'I was so right,
she kept the dress?'  'She finally did something I told her to?'
Which, by the way," she said in an aside to Ginger, "would be so like
him, to take delight in the fact that he was RIGHT about me keeping
the dress," she said, now up and pacing again.  "But anyway, on the
off chance that he looks past that portion of the ego..."

"...he might see another message there.  That *you* know that *he* has a
thing for women in little red dresses," Ginger added, narrowing her
eyes at Donna now, and noticing that Donna was starting to get fidgety
with this new line of thinking.  "And that *you* now know that he
thinks that *you* look better in it than Amy does," she said, taking
another sip of her coffee.

"Yeah.  He could take me wearing the dress to be a sign of...interest,
on my part," Donna said, pacing again.  "But then again, I have a
date!  With a cute, non-gomer!  And this is the only dress I have to
wear!"  Donna said, trying hard to convince herself.  "Why shouldn't I
wear the dress?  And besides," Donna said, crossing to look at the
dress more closely,  "I mean, Josh is my boss, so he shouldn't care,
right?"  Donna said, a little desperately now.  "He'll just ignore me
like usual, and not even notice, right?  Because really, who cares
about me and the gomers.  I'll just go out and have a nice time, and
Josh won't even notice what I'm wearing.  He couldn't care less,
right?"

Ginger just watched as Donna got more desperate.  "We could call
Bonnie, see if she has something you could wear," Ginger suggested.
"She has that blue thing with the criss-crossy straps in the back."

Donna perked up a bit at that.  "That might work.  Do you think it'd fit?"

"Yeah, and if not, we can work some magic at lunch in the bathroom
with some safety pins.  But the real issue here, Donna, is that even
if you wear the blue dress, you'll be sending Josh a message.  I think
he made it pretty clear last night that he's going to notice what you
wear tonight.  So the question here, Donna, is are you ready to send a
message?"

Donna just stared at her for a minute, dumbfounded.  She didn't know
if she was ready to do this with Josh.  They had just finally gotten
back on solid ground with each other, after Cliff and the diary, after
the struggles of the reelection campaign...why, *why* did he have to go
and remind her of that night from two years before?  Why was he
bringing it up, now?  Was she reading too much into this?

Ginger pressed on.  "What do you think, Donna?  What dress do you
think you should wear, and what message do you want to send?   If you
go with the blue one, I think you're saying..."

"...that I'm not interested," Donna said, finishing the sentence for her.

"Right.  He told you to wear the red one, because it turns him on; you
wear the blue one, case closed, you're saying 'Josh, I don't want to
turn you on, and you don't have a say in my love life one way or the
other.'"

"Right.  And, I'd be saying, 'Don't compare me to Amy in any way,
shape, or form.'  Or, I wear the red one," Donna said, hesitantly.

"And you send a different message."

"Which is, that I think I'm hotter than Amy too?"  Donna said, hopefully.

"At least," Ginger said.  "But I think he'll see more in it than
that," she said, standing now.  She smiled a bit.  "I'm glad you woke
me up.  Clearly, this was not a decision to be made on your own.  Do
you want me to call Bonnie?"

"Yeah.  But...I'm still not sure what to do," Donna said, sitting again
on her bed as she pulled her pillow into her arms and hunched around
it.

"Well, at least you'll have a couple of options, and all day to think
about it," Ginger said, bending over to give Donna a hug.   She headed
for Donna's doorway, thought for a second, and then turned to her dear
friend.

"I don't know..."  She sighed, and tried again.  "You guys used to be so
*obvious,*" she said, struggling to find the right words.  "Margaret
and I used to laugh and wonder when you and Josh would finally just do
it and get it over with.  I know something happened last year," and
she noted a look of misery on Donna's face, so she started talking
faster to smooth it over.  "I know you can't talk about it," she
added, understanding like few people could how with their jobs, there
was often lots that had to go unsaid.  "But it was pretty clear that
whatever it was, it screwed up your 'you-and-Joshness'."  She suddenly
got an idea in her head, and had to ask.  "Oh my god, you guys didn't,
I mean, it's not because you guys finally..."

Donna understood what Ginger was getting at.  "No, that wasn't it.
We've never...no.  It...I can't really get into it, but it was over
Cliff," Donna said, leaving it at that.  It was pretty much the truth,
anyway.

"Ah," Ginger said, understanding.  "And then there was Amy.  I'd bet
she was his version of a rebound, but that's besides the point," she
said.  "The point is that it sounds to me like he was trying to remind
you of the good old days, last night," she said, leaning on the door
jamb now.  "And you have to ask yourself if you want to go back to
that time, too.  If you want to go back to the Josh and Donna of old.
Or if you maybe want to try to have something new with him.  Or, you
know, if you don't want anything at all.  You are going on a date with
someone else, after all.  You might want to ask yourself why you're
going out with Jack Reese to begin with."

Donna just nodded, not able to say anything at all as she processed
Ginger's words.

"I'll call Bonnie," Ginger said, as she started to pull the door closed.

"Ginger?"  Donna said, calling her back in.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

Ginger smiled.  "You're welcome."  And with that, she shut the door behind her.

And Donna sat on her bed, hugged her pillow, and stared at the red
dress some more.



*God* it had been an interminable day.  How could a half-day in the
office be so unbearably drawn-out?  Josh thought he was going to go
insane by three-thirty, the minutes had crept along so slowly.  There
wasn't much of anything going on; it was going to be a sort of "lost
week," like the one between Christmas and New Years, as folks took
long-needed and awaited vacations and generally got their lives back
together after putting them on hold during the final frantic weeks of
the campaign.  President Bartlet was even wearing jeans in the Oval -
things were *that* relaxed.  It was making Josh crazy.

Ok, no, that's wasn't the truth.  What was making him crazy was that
Donna seemed to be avoiding him, and he found himself counting the
long seconds until she had to start getting ready for her date with
the 'Sub Stud.'  That was the intensely annoying nickname that some of
the female assistants had not-so-secretly given Nancy McNally's new
man in uniform.  Josh wanted to throw up every time he thought about
it.  What the hell did women see in a uniform, anyway?  With all the
decorations and doo-dads, uniforms looked awful girly to him, if you
wanted his opinion on the matter.

Not that anyone did.  Which was just one more annoyance to add to the
long, annoying annoyance list.

 So he was bored and annoyed.  Not a good combination.

He started rooting around on his desk for something, anything that he
could give Donna to do that might force her to cut short or even
cancel her date with Sailor Boy.  Josh snorted, thinking about Reese.
*Probably wasn't man enough to join the Marines,* Josh thought
derisively, to make himself feel better.  He tried very hard not to
think about the fact that he himself had no military experience to
bolster his own argument.  Josh sat back hard in his chair, frustrated
by finding absolutely no unfinished business on his desk - Donna had
been working overtime lately to clear his plate of any lingering
problems.  Damn her competence.

Josh sighed, and went back to making paper clip chains and watching
the clock with annoyed eyes.

At six o'clock, he heard Donna talking to someone right outside his
door, and decided that he'd come up with something meaningless for her
to do on the fly.  He got up, straightened his tie, and then pulled
open his door to find...Ginger sitting at Donna's desk, and Donna
nowhere in sight.

Josh stalked over to where she was sitting, annoyance clearly written
all over his face.  "Ginger.  You lost?"

But Ginger hadn't worked for years for the crustiest man on earth -
Toby - for nothing.  She knew how to work with the annoyed.  "Hi Josh,
nice to see you too.  Nope, I'm not lost; Donna asked me to fill in
for her while she's out tonight.  She wanted to make sure that you'd
be covered in her absence.  Isn't she thoughtful?" Ginger said, using
all of the sugar she had in her so that Josh wouldn't have reason to
flip out unnecessarily.  "So conscientious.  Can I help you with
something?" she said, with wide, innocent eyes.

Josh was thrown by this.  "N...No.  I'm...no.  Can you just tell Donna to
come see me before she leaves?" he said, hands on his hips now as his
eyes swung around the bullpen, looking for her.

"Sure," Ginger said, all sweetness and light, trying not to laugh as
Josh retreated back into his office and closed his door behind him, a
little too loudly.  "Happy to help out!" she added brightly, chuckling
to herself all the while.  Donna had predicted a Josh stealth sabotage
attempt, so she had seen his bluff, and raised him one competent
replacement assistant for the evening.  Ginger happily turned back to
playing Solitaire on Donna's computer.

**********

Donna stood in the chilly ladies room, arms crossed, with one long
blue dress in hanging on the outside of the stall door on the left,
and a short red one hanging on the outside of the stall door on the
right.  She had 5 minutes to decide what to do.

She paced back and forth a bit as she weighed the pros and cons.
Finally, with a resigned sigh, she reached up and pulled one of the
dresses off of its door, pulled off its protective plastic, and
slipped into a stall to pull it on.

***********

Donna appeared back at her desk in her long winter overcoat.
"Everything ok?" she whispered to Ginger.

Ginger turned back to her.  "Yeah...but he wants to see you before you go."

"Did he say what it was about?"  Donna said, her brow furrowed in worry now.

"No, but what do you think it's going to be about?" Ginger said,
shaking her head at Donna.  "By the way, which dress did you finally
decide on?"

Donna pulled her coat lapels open a bit to reveal the dress beneath.
"I hope I made the right decision," she said, pulling the coat back
together quickly again.  "Will you remember to go get the other one
and bring it home with you later?  It's still in the bathroom," Donna
said, glancing at Josh's closed office door.

"No problem.  Get in there and deal with Josh so you can go, Jack'll
be here in like a minute, and I'd be willing to bet he's the punctual
type," Ginger said, nudging Donna towards Josh's door.

Donna sighed, knocked on the heavy wooden door, and entered when Josh
said "Come in."

Josh looked up and tried not to let his annoyance and frustration show
on his face.  Her hair looked beautiful, pulled back in a French twist
with a pretty clip holding it in place.  Her skin shone.  But he
couldn't see what dress she was wearing, because of her long coat.  He
let his eyes wander over her, more than was strictly polite, and he
didn't care if she noticed.

She did.

"So you're going?" Josh finally said, raising his eyes to hers, not
really knowing what else to say.

"Yes," Donna said, her hands jammed in her pockets.  "Ginger's got
everything under control out there; I don't think anything'll come up,
though, so you should be in good shape."

"'Kay," Josh said, just watching her for a minute.  She watched him right back.

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore, so she said, "Ok, well, I'm gonna..."

"Do you want my coat?"

"What?"  Donna turned back at Josh's totally unexpected question.

"You...you said once that your coat's not as warm as mine," he said,
stammering a bit now.  "The night with the Flenders and the phone
calls, you took mine to be warm...So, you know, if you want, you can
wear my coat again.  You'll be warmer," he said, watching her eyes for
any non-verbal reactions she might have.

She looked back at him for a second, a million thoughts running
through her mind.  *Is it that you want to see the dress that bad?*
*Is it that you want me to have a piece of you with me when I'm on a
date with another guy, so that I can't quite fully concentrate on him
because I'll be smelling *you* all night?*  *Is it that you finally
are thinking of someone other than yourself, and you really just want
me to be warm and don't care one bit that I'm going out with some
other guy?*  She had no idea which thought held the right question, or
what the answer would be if she voiced any of them.

Without smiling, she said, "No, thanks.  I'll be fine in my own coat.
But...again, thanks."  She paused, then added, " I'm going to go, ok?  I
hear Jack out there."

"Fine," Josh said, a little too quickly.  "I'll see you..."

"In the morning, Josh, I'm not coming back tonight."

Josh started to argue with her, a natural reflex, but then caught
himself at the last second, and nodded.  "Ok.  Have fun," he said,
pulling a random folder in front of him, throwing it open, and
pretending to start reading it thoroughly.

She watched him for another second, then said, "Ok," and exited,
closing the door behind her.

Josh heard her greeting Jack through the door, and felt his heart hang
a little lower in his chest.

***********

Amy sat at her desk with her legs crossed, a distant look in her eyes,
and a key turning over and over in her fingers.  Using her foot as a
pivot, she was rhythmically and aimlessly turning left and right in
her chair as she contemplated whether or not to pick up the phone.
She let her eyes dart around her office; her gaze fell on balloon
animals of indeterminate shape; on a flower lei that she brought back
to her office from "Tahiti" that now hung on her coat rack; and on the
pile of CD's on her desk, with Van Morrison's Greatest Hits on top.

She sighed, and deciding to give it one last try, she picked up the
phone and dialed Josh's cell phone number. As the phone rang in her
ear, she tried to remember where she had last left her dignity.  How
many more times was she going to have to put herself in Josh's wake
before he gave her a second chance?

"Josh Lyman."

*Wow, he sounds annoyed.*  "J, it's me."

"Amy?"

Amy furrowed her brow, annoyed that he no longer knew her voice
automatically.  She decided to ignore that and press on.

"Yeah, it's Amy," she said, pausing a bit before asking, "How are you today?"

"Fine."  Josh sighed, and ran a hand over his face.  He so didn't want
to deal with this right now.  "How's *your* head today?"

"Fine.  I never get hungover," Amy said, up and pacing her office now.

"That's right," Josh said, aimlessly.  "I remember from college.
Chris always admired that about you," he added.

Amy raised her eyebrows at that, trying hard not to be annoyed at a
long-ago boyfriend who apparently found only her drinking abilities
admirable.  She shook that off and soldiered on.  "So, anyway.  Um, I
had fun last night," she said, trying desperately to make a
conversation happen here.

"Yeah, it was...nice to see you," Josh said distractedly, and faltering
a bit as he tried to think of the right words to use.

Amy frowned again.  Nice? She thought.  Hmmm.

"Thanks.  Listen," she started, now standing in front of her window
and frowning at her reflection.

"What's up?" she heard him answer.

"I was wondering if you wanted to catch dinner," she said, biting the
bullet and putting the idea out there.  She pulled on her ponytail and
waited for a response for a long, long moment.

"Umm, sssssure," Josh said, slowly, finally. She could hear him
fiddling with papers.  "Can you leave now?"

Amy was pleasantly surprised that Josh wanted to do dinner so soon.
"Um, yeah, I guess.  Where should we go?  There's a new place on D
Street that..."

"Actually, I'd like to go to Julia's," he said quickly into the phone.

"Oh, ok," Amy said, surprised again.  "I'm glad I wore a dress today.
That's a pretty fancy place," she said, hopeful now.  *And *romantic,*
she thought to herself.  She silently congratulated herself for
playing the red dress card the night before, and apparently hitting
paydirt with it.

"Ok.  I'll be by in about 20 minutes," Josh said, as she heard him
moving about a bit more.

Amy imagined Josh in his office, standing up and putting on his coat.
If she had been in the West Wing, however, Amy would have seen Josh
standing at Donna's desk, watching furtively to see if Ginger was on
her way back from the photocopier; and Amy would have seen Josh with
his finger marking an entry in Donna's date book, which indicated the
time and location of her dinner with Jack Reese.

But Amy couldn't see all of that.  So she happily told Josh that she'd
be ready outside her building in 20 minutes.  And she happily looked
forward to another chance with Josh.  She looked down at the key she
still held in her hand, and gripped it tightly in triumph.



Josh pulled up in front of Amy's building, and seeing her waiting
inside the glassed-in entryway, he beeped.  She hurried out to his
car, and slid into the passenger seat.

"Hey, J," she purred, leaning over to kiss him.  She tamped down the
beginnings of annoyance when he gave her his cheek instead of meeting
her lips with his own.  Determined not to blow this chance, she
settled back in her seat and watched the city pass by.

"So how was your day?" she asked, trying to reestablish a
relationshippy vibe to their conversation.  "I'm sure it was pretty
quiet, right?"

"Umm, yeah," Josh mumbled, his eyes on the road and his mind
completely not on work or Amy or anything other than Donna.  "Ummm,
what did you do today?  Any job prospects?"

"Actually, yes," Amy said, and began chattering to Josh about the
various phone calls she had made and received that day from Women's
organizations and a couple of liberal politicians potentially looking
for an advisor on feminist issues.  As she went on about these things,
Josh's mind continued to spin.

*Donna had to know that I'd be looking to see if she wore the red
dress,* he thought aimlessly, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to
drive safely yet puzzle through his emotions about his assistant.
*That has to be why she came into my office all buttoned up...but why?
Why wouldn't she let me see it?  Now that she knows how I feel about
that dress...and more importantly, her in that dress, why wouldn't she
take the opportunity to make me crazy?*  Josh downshifted a little
more forcefully than he needed to, drawing a puzzled look from Amy;
she then just shook off his movements and continued droning on about
her own life.

*She can't really be that interested in _Jack Reese,_ can she?  She
just met him!  What the hell can she possibly see in him?*  Josh
thought as he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant.  He threw
it into park and shot out of the car so quickly, Amy was afraid that
he had hit something and he was getting out to check out the damage.
Bewildered, she let herself out of the car on her own side, and
hurried around the car to catch up with Josh, who was headed for the
restaurant's front door.

Josh was still inside his own head, and was getting angry now.  *What
the hell does she think she's trying to pull, having dinner with some
other guy in _my_ dress?* he thought as Amy caught up with him, and
purposefully linked her left arm through his own.  *Doesn't she know
how that's gonna make me...*

And at the door of the restaurant, his hand on the handle, with Amy
self-tucked into his side, Josh stopped dead in his tracks, and
finally *got it.*

"Josh?"  Amy had almost fallen over, he had stopped short so quickly.
"What's wrong?  What the hell's *wrong* with you...you've barely spoken
to me, you drove like a maniac to get here...are you ok?"

Josh just stood, staring at Amy, but not staring at Amy, and in a
matter of seconds rapidly came to some conclusions about his life.

"No," he said aimlessly, still looking at her.

"No, you're not ok?" Amy said, now with her own arms wrapped around
her own shoulders, trying to stay warm.

"No.  I mean, yes," Josh said, smiling a bit now.  He focused his
eyes, and looked at Amy now for perhaps the first time.  "I can't do
this."  And he grabbed Amy's elbow and started leading her away from
the restaurant and back towards his car.

"You can't do *what?*" Amy fairly shrieked, looking back behind her
towards the restaurant like the answer was there.

Josh went around to unlock Amy's door and hold it open for her.  She
stared at him in angry disbelief, then flounced into her seat with a
huff.

Josh hurried back around to the driver's side, and got in, starting
the car immediately.

"Josh, what in the hell..."

"Amy, I'm sorry.  I can't do this.  I need to take you home.  I'll
explain when we get there."

Amy opened her mouth to say something nasty back to him, but then
thought better of it, sat back with her arms crossed over her chest,
and glared out the front window as they pulled back out of the
restaurant parking lot and headed back to her apartment.

Within ten stonily silent minutes, they were pulled up in front of
Amy's apartment building.  Josh threw the car into park, and went to
cut the engine, but Amy stopped him with a hand over his own.  "Let's
talk here," she said with ice in her voice.  "What's going on?"

Josh sat back in his seat, rested his hands on the wheel, and tried
not to grin.  Amy wouldn't appreciate a grin right now.

"Amy, I just...I just came to a couple conclusions tonight.  One was
about you and me.  Why'd you wear the red dress last night, and why'd
you call me tonight?"

"What?" Amy said, completely undone by how pointed Josh's questions
were.  This was completely unlike him, to not evade or dance around a
tough personal subject.  She didn't know what to think about him
anymore.  "What do you..."

"Come on, Amy.  Let's be honest.  Why the dress, why'd you call?"

Amy just sat back, angry beyond words now.  "Because for reasons
passing understanding, I wanted to get back together with you.  I'm
starting to rethink that decision," she said, intensely annoyed.  She
thought for another second while he processed her words, and then
asked, "Can I ask you a question?  Why'd you say yes and come out with
me tonight?"

Josh chose his words carefully.  "Because I wanted an excuse to go to
that restaurant."

Amy just looked at him.  "But not because you wanted to be with me,
necessarily."

Josh looked at her, then away, then back at her again.  "I'm sorry.
Amy, I just don't think we're good for each other.  And...truth be told,
I haven't had...the sort of feelings you wish that I'd have for you for
a long time.  I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have accepted your invitation
tonight."

"No, you shouldn't have," Amy snapped back.  She still felt like she
was missing something, that there was some part of this puzzle that
she wasn't quite putting into place.  But she was suddenly so very,
very tired, and ready to just be done with this and to move on.  With
an enormous sigh, she dug into her coat pocket for something, and
wrapped her gloved hand around it.

"Is there any chance that we'll be able to be civil to each other
after this?" Josh asked, dreading the answer.  No matter what, he was
going to run into Amy in the course of his job, and he didn't want her
hating him and making the President's life difficult as a result.

"Yes, J," Amy snorted, rolling her eyes.  "I can be mad at you and not
be vindictive.  I've had lots of practice over the past months," she
said, resigned now.  "I'm sorry we didn't work out," she said,
unsnapping her seat belt.  "I think we could have been good together.
I hope you figure out what it is you're looking for," she said
bitterly, adding in her own brain that she really wished that what he
was looking for was *her.*  Amy reached over and grabbed Josh's right
hand off the steering wheel; she turned it over, and dropped the key
from her coat pocket into his palm.  "Here's your key back," she
whispered hoarsely.  "Be well."  And with that, Amy got out of his
car, and out of his life, and with the click of the door lock, Josh's
thoughts were already winging towards the one woman that he *did* want
in his life.

****************

"Thank you, Jack; I had a great time tonight," Donna said, shivering a
bit in her thin coat as she said goodbye to Jack on the sidewalk in
front of her apartment building.  She really hoped that her one
semester of drama at Madison was enough to convince Jack that she
meant it.  In reality, she had been bored senseless, and had been
thinking about Josh all night.  She hoped it hadn't shown; she thought
Jack was a nice guy, and she felt guilty for going on a date with him
when she was thinking about someone else.  At any rate, thank the
gods, the night was finally over.

Jack stood in the open cab door, smiling at the pretty woman before
him.  *How long before she figures out that she's in love with her
boss?* he thought to himself with a secret smile.  *I hope Lyman's
worth it...she's a wonderful person.*  "Yeah, me too," Jack said
cheerfully.  "We should do it again sometime," he said, already
turning his body back towards the cab.

"Sure," Donna said brightly...but not too brightly, she hoped.  No need
to lead the guy on.  "So, I'll see you tomorrow?" she said.

"Right.  Thanks again for all the help getting settled...and for
breaking my radiator," he said, laughing as he sat back down into the
cab.

Donna laughed at him.  "That's what you get for considering voting for
Ritchie!" she yelled so that he could hear her through the glass of
the cab's window.

Jack smiled at her from inside, waved, and then told the cabbie where
to go next.

Donna turned around, and the smile she had plastered on her face all
night finally dropped away.  With a sigh, she trudged up the outside
steps to her apartment building, unlocked the heavy outside door, and
trudged inside.

She headed over to the elevator, and of course, it was on the fritz
again.  "How utterly typical of my day is this?" she said out loud to
herself.

Resigned, she began trudging up the four long flights of stairs to her
and Ginger's place.  At least Reese was so short that she had to wear
the smallest heel possible that night; it made the trekking easier.

Finally, she turned the last corner, on the last landing, and looked
up at the last set of 15 steps that lay between her and a hot bath and
bed.

And on stair 7 or 8, she wasn't really sure which, she saw Josh,
sitting with his elbows resting on his knees, and his hands folded
together in front of him.  And she had absolutely no idea of what to
think when his eyes brightened at the sight of her, or when he finally
spoke to say:

"I was kind of hoping that we could talk."



Donna stood, one hand on the banister that ran along the inside wall,
the other clutching her keys to her chest.  She could feel her pulse
pounding, but she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with all the
stairs she just climbed.  For the umpteenth time over the last few
years, she cursed the fact that her system went haywire whenever she
got too close to Josh, or when he surprised her, like he was right
now.

Donna didn't know what to think, so she took the safe route, and
walked up past Josh to reach her apartment door at the top of the
stairs behind him.  "Josh, look, it's late; whatever it is, can it
wait until the morning?  Or can you leave me the folder or the
information or whatever and I'll..."

"I'm not here to talk about work stuff, Donna."  Josh was still
sitting, his elbows resting on his knees, facing away from her.

Donna turned to face his back, puzzled now.  "Is this because I had
Ginger cover for me and I didn't ask you first?  Because while I
realize that I am actually your assis..."

"It's not about Ginger.  I want...look, we need to talk about some
stuff."  Josh stood now, and turned to face her.  He looked slightly
nervous, but resolute as he jammed his hands in the pockets of his
coat.

Now *Donna* was starting to get nervous.  She tried to put her key in
the lock twice, and missed both times.  She steadied her hand and
finally unlocked the door as she tried again to misdirect Josh.
"Don't you think it would be more appropriate for us to talk about
whatever it is you need to talk to me about at the office tomorrow?"
she said, pushing open the door and turning on the living room light
to match the small one in the corner that Ginger had left burning for
her.  Donna could tell from the coat hanging on the rack next to the
door and the music coming from the room down the hall that Ginger was
home, and probably still awake.

Donna threw her keys on a small table by the door, and turned to look
at Josh, who was standing uncomfortably in the open doorway.  She
jammed her hands in her coat pockets, much as Josh had done in the
hall.  Now he was running one hand through his hair and resting one on
a hip.  She tried again to get him out the door by saying,  "Look,
Josh, I'm tired, I'll clear some time for us to chat tomorrow, and we
can work out whatever it is that's bothering you..."

"Dammit, Donna, stop it.  I don't want to talk to you at work," he
said with an edge to his voice.  Keeping his eyes on hers, he reached
out an arm and grabbed the open door, pushing it shut a little more
forcefully than was normally polite at midnight.  With the apartment
still ringing from the door slamming into place, he said, "This isn't
a work problem we need to talk about.  It's...us.  I need to talk to you
about us," he said, finally laying his cards on the table.

Donna just stared at him, trying not to sway as all of the blood
rushed from her head.  "What do you mean, 'us?'" she whispered.

"You know exactly what I mean."

His tone annoyed her a bit, and to protect herself, she snorted
derisively, and called his bluff.  "You don't honestly think we're in
danger of having an actual conversation about us, do you?" she said,
as she tried to walk past him to get to the door to kick him out.

But Josh grabbed her hand as she walked past, and stopped her cold,
right in front of him.  "I think we have to," he said, in a deadly
serious voice.  "I don't think we have a choice anymore.  And I think
we should have done it a long time ago."

Just then, they heard Ginger's bedroom door open down the hall, and
the music she was playing within get louder.  She came padding down
the hall, calling for Donna as she emerged, saying, "Hey!  How did it
go?  And what happened with..."  and just as she came around the corner,
she saw Josh and Donna standing toe to toe, with a layer of sexual
tension so thick you could see it hanging in the air.

"Umm, ok, umm, nevermind, you can tell me tomorrow," Ginger said,
trying desperately to pull down her nightshirt to a respectable level,
but then she realized that Josh wasn't looking at her anyway.  "I'll
just head to bed," she said as she ran back down the hall.  She shut
her door, pressed her ear up to the inside of it, and then said to
herself... "Yeah, I'll head to bed...riiiiiiiight after I call Margaret to
tell her what's going on, and after I try to hear more of what's going
on in there."  She ran over to her nightstand, grabbed her cell phone
and dialed, and was back with her ear pressed up against the door in a
matter of seconds.

Josh and Donna were right where she had left them, standing an inch
away from each other, with Josh's hand wrapped around Donna's wrist.
They looked at each other for another long minute, and then Donna
yanked her wrist a bit, so that Josh would let go of it.  "Josh, my
hand..." she said in a low voice, and without taking his eyes from her,
he let go.  Donna took a step back, and, still in her long overcoat,
she stepped into her tiny kitchen.  She'd be able to do this if she
could keep her hands busy.

"Do you want something to drink?" she said as she started noisily
opening cabinets and banging them closes as she looked for...something,
anything beverage-oriented to prepare.  Preferably with many long,
drawn-out steps that would bore him senseless, making him want to go
home and forget about this supposed conversation about "them" that he
wanted to have.

As he watched her, Josh realized that she was nervous, and a smile
finally peeked at the corners of his mouth.  That made him feel like
he had control of the situation again, and it calmed him down
considerably.

Unfortunately, Donna looked up at him at that point, caught the smile,
and a shroud dropped over the features of her face as she recognized
Josh's "smug look."  *Fuck you, Josh,* she thought to herself.  *I'm
not going to make this easy on you.*

Oblivious to what was going on in Donna's brain, Josh thought he might
press his luck on the beverage front.  "Got any coffee?" he said,
coming closer now and standing in the narrow entryway to the kitchen,
blocking off her escape route.  He took off his coat, and threw it on
a nearby chair, and then reached up with his hands to hang off of the
low archway that separated the kitchen from the living room.  He
watched her rattling around the kitchen with amused eyes.

Donna tried to ignore the little lurch she got in her heart at the
sight of Josh in a dark sweater and jeans, his arms up over his head,
and a grin on his face.  *Not easy.  I am not making this easy on
him,* she reminded herself as she started looking in a cabinet under
the sink for something...anything to heat up and serve him.  Preferably
over his head.  "I know we're not in the office, but I'm still not
making you coffee, Josh," she said pointedly.  She pulled an old tin
out from the back of a low cabinet, and dropped it with a *clang* on
the counter, and she looked inside to see what her options were.  "Hot
cocoa or tea.  Take your pick," she said, turning her back to him and
reaching up over the sink for two mugs.  When she turned back around,
he was right behind her, much closer than he should have been.

"Let me help," he said, boxing her in, and reaching his arms around
her.  For a brief, brief second, Donna thought he was going to put his
arms around her body, and pull her in.  She could see him doing it, in
her mind, and she began to close her eyes in anticipation of it.  But
just as they began to lower, she snapped them back open again.   Donna
could feel the blush coming over her face, and was helpless to stop
it.  She was also quite sure that at this point, Josh could actually
hear her heart beating out of control and was just being polite about
it.  But instead of touching her, he reached past her, grabbed the two
mugs from the counter behind her, and pulled them out to hold in
between them.  "I'd like cocoa, please," he added, watching her
breathe unevenly and her eyes flicker from the mugs to his eyes and
back again.  He noted the flush on her skin, and reigned in an urge to
press his hand to her face to feel how warm, and soft, it was.

Josh smiled at her a bit, instead, and then moved to the stove to grab
her tea kettle, and turned back towards the sink so that he could fill
it with water.  But Donna remained standing in the way.  "Donna?  Can
you...?" Josh motioned for her to move so he could fill the kettle.

"No," she said, coming to a bit now.  *NOT easy on him, Donna!* she
thought angrily to herself as she shook her head a bit and tried to
get a grip on herself.  She grabbed the kettle from him and put it
back on the stove.  "I make cocoa with milk," she said, grabbing his
arm and pushing him out of the kitchen.  "I'll take care of it, you go
sit down."  She turned to the fridge and pulled out a gallon jug of
milk.

As she bent to find a saucepan to heat the milk in, Josh went back to
his earlier position, hanging off of the archway again.  He watched
her with interested eyes.  "I don't think I've ever had cocoa made
with milk before," he said quietly.  "I've always just made do with
the 'add water' kind."  *Just one more thing that makes Donna...Donna,*
he thought quietly to himself.  *Just another thing that makes her
special.  And unique.*  He took another look at her as she poured the
milk into the pan, and thought it was time that he circled the
conversation back to where it began.  "Why don't you take your coat
off and stay awhile?" he asked, not-so-innocently.

"I'm not warm yet," Donna lied, keeping her eyes away from him as she
started searching for the other ingredients that she needed.  Josh
watched in silence as Donna added unsweetened cocoa and sugar and a
pinch of salt to the pan, and set the gas burner on low.

*Now,* Josh thought, *we can talk.*  "So, about what I said when I
first got here..."

"I'm not done with the cocoa yet, Josh," Donna said firmly.  "And I
can't do two things at once.  If you're tired, you're welcome to go
home, and we can do this tomorrow," she said, a bit snippishly.

"No, I'm not tired," Josh countered, one eyebrow up now that he caught
her mood.  "And I'm in no rush.  I'll wait."  He dropped his arms from
the archway now, and leaning on the entryway wall, crossed his arms
over his chest and watched her move gracefully around the kitchen.  He
became enormously amused as she started looking for yet more
ingredients to put in the cocoa.  He was beginning to think this was
the most elaborately-constructed batch of hot chocolate in all of
recorded history, and he had no doubt that it had everything to do
with Donna wanting to put off their talk.

To push her buttons, he said, "You know, it's faster if you do it the
simple way, with water."

"Yes, but it's better if it takes longer and if it's...complicated,"
Donna said, faltering a bit as she realized that she could be talking
about the cocoa, or them.  She wasn't really sure anymore.

She looked over at Josh after she said that, and saw him watching her
intently.  "Maybe you're right," he murmured, not taking his eyes from
hers.  She was afraid he had heard her double meaning as well.
Finally, a smile hinting at his mouth again, he nodded at the stove
and said, "Milk's bubbling."

"Oh," Donna said, a bit voluntarily as she turned down the flame on
the stove and added light cream from her refrigerator, and vanilla
extract and cinnamon from her spice cabinet.  "It wasn't supposed to
boil over that quickly," she said, her eyes darting back to Josh
again.  *Oh good GOD, Donna,* she thought to herself, *could you stop
it with the double entendres already?*  Rolling her eyes at herself,
she put a pout in her voice to say, "I don't have any whipped cream."

Josh, amused now, said, with exaggerated anger, "What?  No whipped
cream?  Well then, just forget it, Donnatella Moss, I am out of here,"
he said, throwing his nose in the air and finally, finally, eliciting
a smile from Donna, and then a laugh.

"Well, if I had known that that was going to be the way to get you to
leave," she said, smiling a bit now as she reached over to turn off
the oven, stir the cocoa one last time, and finally pour it into the
two mugs.  She placed one mug on the far counter, in front of Josh,
and picked up her own, warming her ice-cold hands with it.  With a
resigned sigh, she said, "Do you...why don't you sit down.  We might as
well be comfortable," she said, regretting not throwing him out
immediately when he first came in.

Josh watched her for a second, then shook his head, and took a step
closer to her, leaving his mug on the counter to cool.  "Nah.  I'd
rather you not be too comfortable for this," he said, coming over and
boxing her in by placing one hand on either side of Donna on the
counter behind her.

"So," he said, an inch away from her, watching her eyes.

"So," she said, holding the mug of cocoa between them, as a buffer,
for dear life.

"How did your date go?" he said, finally getting down to it.



Donna raised her eyes to Josh - not hard to do, since he was currently
way closer than the general rules of Personal Space allowed - and
tried very hard to make the next words out of her mouth sound
convincing.  She put on a smile to match.  "It was great," she
chirped, lowering her mouth to blow on the steaming mug of cocoa.

Josh watched her mouth pucker and blow air from her mouth across the
surface of the mug, and felt his gut tighten in response.  He brought
his eyes up to hers again, and smiling a bit, said, "Let me help you
out, there."  He blew on the cocoa for her from the other side, and
then tried again.  "So, it was great, huh?  What was so great about
it?"

Donna completely didn't hear a word of his question, because she was a
bit dumbstruck by the feeling of Josh's breath moving over her face.
"Huh...what?  I'm sorry, what?" she asked, shaking her head a bit and
now leaning back, to put some, any, distance between them.  *Stay
focused, Donna!* she said to herself.

Josh asked again.  "The date.  With Reese.  Why so great?"

Donna was a bit confused now with where he was going, but decided to
play along.  "It...was great.  The restaurant was fantastic - great
food," she said, dipping to take a sip now.  She snaked her tongue out
of her mouth to make sure she got all of the chocolate off of her
lips.

Josh watched her do so, intently.

Donna continued.  "It was so wonderful to be out, have a relaxing
meal, talk about something other than politics, have a reason to dress
up a bit," she said, flicking her eyes to Josh's, and then back to the
mug in her hands.  "Can't wait to do it again."

Josh cocked his head, and smiled the smuggest of smiles at her, which
of course she picked up on, and which of course annoyed her to no end.

"And what's that look for, Joshua?" she asked, annoyance returning.

"Oh, no reason.  Well, I mean, ok, I just find it interesting..."  and
he paused for a moment, considering what to say next.

"What?" Donna said, narrowing her eyes at him.  She knew him well
enough to know he was about to say something that he, no doubt,
thought was clever, but which would, in fact, aggravate her to no end.

She was right.  "I just find it interesting that you came up those
stairs alone, if it was such a great date," Josh said, shrugging his
shoulders for emphasis.

He looked back to her eyes, expecting to see...well, anything other than
the blaze of blue anger that he saw reflected there.  He opened his
mouth to start to backtrack, but it was too late.  Shaking, Donna
turned, dropped her mug and the rest of her cocoa into the sink,
sloshing it everywhere, and then she turned back to Josh, pushed
against his arms, and knocked him back three steps.  "Get out," she
said in an unsteady voice.

"Donna, what..."

"You don't have the right to do this, Josh.  Get out."

"Donna, wait a minute..."  Josh got another shove from Donna and then
got a face full of coat as Donna threw his at him and stalked over to
the doorway, throwing it open.

"Josh, the banter portion of the evening is over.  Get the hell out of
my apartment, right now."

Josh stood, gaping like a fish, and then took one step towards the
door.  But then he remembered why he came over in the first place, and
simply pulled the door from her hand and shut it, keeping both of them
in the apartment.

"No, I'm not leaving Donna," he said, hands on his hips, ready to do
battle.  "We can have this out here, we can have it out in the hall,
we can have it out in my car, or you can come to my place and we'll do
it there, but I'm not leaving you tonight until we talk about...until we
get everything out in the open," he said, struggling for words.

"Oh, really?"  Donna said, her eyes wide open with anger and her arms
crossed forcefully across her chest.  "We're really going to
*honestly* talk about...*everything?*" she said with a sarcastic tone in
her voice on the last word.  "You can't even say out loud what it is
that *brought* you here tonight!  So why don't I start *for* you,
Josh," she said, revving up now, and working herself up into an
indignant, fevered pitch.  "Why don't we talk about why you're really
here.  God!  I can't believe I didn't see it this clearly before," she
said, stalking into the living room and standing in front of the line
of windows that overlooked the street below.

"Ok, Donna, you tell me, why am I really here," Josh said, following
her but keeping the length of the room between them.

"Because I'm looking at someone else," she spat out.  "How's that for
honest?  You're here because things have been...difficult, with Amy
lately," Donna said, waving her hand at the word "difficult" as if
trying for another word and failing to find it.  "And every time
you're coming out of a relationship, or faced with the prospect of
*no* relationship, you turn to me, old reliable, to pick up the
slack."

Josh was *so* not following her at the moment.  "What are you talking
about?" he asked, honestly perplexed by her line of thought.

"You do this!  You do this every time!  You did this after Mandy
finally left, and when you had that...that...that *thing* with the woman
who worked at State, and now again with Amy."

"What?  What in the hell is it that you think I do?" Josh said, waving
his arms in the space between them for emphasis.

"You need me, and then you drop me when someone else comes in, and
then when they're gone, you come looking for me again!" she yelled
back.  "When you're single, it's just you and me.  And we're in sync.
We don't fight.  We laugh.  You're my best friend, when it's just you
and me," she said, trying desperately not to cry, because if she gave
in to tears, she didn't think she'd be able to yell any more, and she
was really enjoying the yelling.  "And then...someone else comes along,
and you don't need me anymore.  I'm just there to place your calls, or
find your stupid files, or to be your girl-fucking-Friday, or to help
you plan your evenings of sex together!" she said, glaring at him and
daring him not to remember how he got her involved in Amy's "Tahiti"
night.  "You don't call me at night to make sure I got home ok, and if
you do call me in the morning it's...it's..." she said, not able to get
the words out.

Josh came closer.  "It's what?  What do I do when I call you in the
morning?" he asked, his voice softer.  *God, I'm an ass,* he thought
to himself.  Because she was right about almost everything, so far.

"Stay over there," Donna said, putting one hand out to keep him away.
He stopped in the middle of the room, and dropped to the couch.  Donna
now started pacing around the living room.

"Finish what you were going to say, Donnatella," Josh said from his
new position in the middle of the room.

But she wasn't ready to go *there* yet, no matter how honest they were
getting.  So she started over.  "You do this.  You ignore me, and our
friendship, when you're with someone else.  And then it ends, and
you're faced with being alone, so you start looking for me again to be
your friend, to pick up the slack.  Like I'm, what..." she said,
pausing.  "What's the line from *When Harry Met Sally?"* Like I'm the
consolation prize.  I'm *not* the consolation prize, Josh," she said,
eyes blazing now.

"Donna, listen, I..."

"No, you listen," she said, fired up now.  "But it's only half the
story when *you're* dating someone.  Look what happens when *I* start
dating someone," she said, her arms out to indicate that night's
situation.  She then re-folded her coated arms around herself,
protectively.  "I go out with a great guy tonight, and I have a
wonderful night, and who's here to ruin it at the end?  You are, Josh,
like you tried to ruin almost all the others, by having me work late,
or not letting me go to make it to the date at all.  Because if
*you're* going to be alone, *I* have to be alone, so I can be there to
be your consolation prize.  Your life won't work if I'm off with
someone else, happy - because if that happens, I won't be there for
YOU.  When YOU'RE alone."

She was stalking back across the room now, and stopped across from
Josh, with a loveseat and a coffee table between them.

"Nothing to say, Josh?" she said angrily.

He looked at her with frustrated eyes.  "I just...I want to do this,
Donna, but I really *don't want to do this with Ginger hanging on
every word," he said, waving a hand in her direction.

They both looked up, startled, when they heard a very loud "I'm not
listening!" come echoing from inside Ginger's room.

Josh just looked at Donna with a very pointed "see what I mean?" look
on his face.

Donna just laughed a mirthless laugh at him.  "I knew we weren't in
danger of this going very far, Josh.  Go home." She brought one hand
up to her temple and began rubbing at the headache forming there.

*That's not going to happen,* Josh thought angrily.  He made the
decision to stay easily.  *Screw it.  Ginger'll have something good
for the office gossip mill tomorrow.*

Josh finally spoke, in a low voice, Ginger be damned.  "You didn't
have that great a time tonight, Donna, admit it."

Donna just glared at him before answering.  "Why is it so
inconceivable that I could have a great time out with a gorgeous,
successful, VERY non-gomerish guy, Josh?  Why is that so hard for you
to believe?"

 "Because I asked you what was so great about your date, Donna," Josh
said, watching her eyes, "and not one of the things you listed about
it as 'great' had anything to do with him.  It was all 'the
restaurant,' 'the night out,' and getting dressed up," Josh said,
pointedly looking at her coat and then back up at her eyes.

And because he was right, and was bringing the conversation back
dangerously close to her dress, Donna tried misdirection.  "And why
don't you go back to what you really want to ask about, Josh?  About
why Jack didn't walk me upstairs.  That's why you were really getting
at earlier, wasn't it?  Wanting to know why I'm not here screwing Jack
Reese on the first date instead of talking to you?  How long am I
going to have to do penance for sleeping with Cliff Calley, Josh?
Seriously.  I'd like to know," she said with mock sincerity.  "Because
I'm done beating myself up over him, and I've moved on, but it's
pretty clear to me that you haven't, by asking me what you did about
Jack earlier tonight.  And how *dare* you ask me that question at all,
Josh?" she said, barreling on now.  "Have I ever asked you whether you
and *Amy* did it on the first date?"

"Oh, but it was ok for you to ask me, in the office, mind you, if I
was tired from 'all the lovemaking,'" Josh said, making air quotes
with his fingers to emphasize the point.

"When I did, I wasn't insinuating that you were a whore, Josh.
There's a big difference," she said, her eyes starting to burn with
the beginnings of tears.  She looked away, towards the wall of
windows, until she forced them down again.  She wasn't going to cry.
She just wasn't.  Not until he left, anyway.

"Did you ever ask yourself *why* it bothered me so much that you were
with Cliff, Donna?" Josh said, standing now, his eyes glinting as he
got angry at Donna's words.  *She's wrong,* he thought in frustration.
 *Why doesn't she see how wrong she is about this?*

"I just *told* you why!" she shouted now, digging her hands into the
back of the loveseat in front of her.  "You were alone when I met
Cliff, and you needed me to be alone, because if I'm with someone else
it doesn't work for *you.*"  Donna gave a mirthless laugh now,
remembering.  "You didn't even have to resort to sabotaging my dates
with Cliff, though; I managed to do it all on my own.  I'm sure you
were thrilled that I saved you the time and trouble," she said
bitterly.

"Oh, yes, Donna, I just loved having to sit in a cold park in the
middle of the night with you, scared out of my mind that Cliff Calley
was going to hand you over to Congress over a fucking diary," Josh
said, frustrated that she couldn't, or wouldn't, see the truth right
in front of her.

"Well, I'm sorry that I caused you so much trouble, Josh," she said
bitterly.  "I'm sure if I work hard enough I'll be able to cause an
international incident if I ever sleep with Jack."

Josh walked closer to her now, and had only the loveseat between them.
 "You're not going to sleep with Jack Reese," Josh said slowly, and
quietly.

"Oh, is that an order, Josh?" she said derisively, crossing her arms
in front of her again.

"No, it's a fact.  The reason I know this is that you came up those
stairs alone tonight," he began.

Donna, misunderstanding, began to work up to another explosion, but
Josh put out a hand to stop her.

"You talked, now it's my turn," Josh said, crossing his arms and
following Donna towards the windows as she stalked off.  He cornered
her there as she sat on the window seat, facing away from him.  "I
know you're not interested in him, because you weren't gushing about
*him* after your date.  You were trying to convince me, and maybe
yourself, that you had a great time.  I know you, Donna, and I know
when you're excited about something.  Reese isn't it."

Donna started to interrupt him, but he put up a hand again.  "I'm not
through yet.  I also know that you're not interested in him, because
there's no way, if he had a pulse, that he wasn't going to try to walk
you to your door, or kiss you goodnight, or try to make his way in
here, if you hadn't put the brakes on downstairs, or at the
restaurant, or whatever.  Because there's no way, with you looking the
way I bet you look under that coat," he said, his eyes traveling over
her again, "that he wouldn't want to try to be up here alone with you.
 *That's* what I meant by what I said earlier tonight, Donna.  I
didn't mean to insinuate that you were some sort of..."  Josh couldn't
use the word she had used before, it was *that* upsetting to him that
she had thought that that was what *he* had thought of her.  He just
waved his hand in the air instead.

Then he ran the same hand through his hair, and sighed a bit.  "You
were right about a lot of what you said to me, Donna.  You're right, I
probably have treated you in a way that made you feel like the
consolation prize in the past.  I'm sorry about that."

Donna was ready to argue with him again, so when she heard his words,
she was so completely thrown for a loop that she almost fell off the
window seat from her already-seated position.  She put her hands to
either side of herself to become steady again, and then just knit her
eyes in concentration, sure that there was a catch somewhere that she
was missing.

Josh went on.  "You were right about some things, but...I think you're
wrong, in a way, about something else.  Something important.  It's not
that you were the consolation prize, Donna.  You were...God, Donna, you
*are* the brass ring, don't you know that?"

Now you really could have knocked her over with a feather.  She just
stared at him, speechless.

Now that he had crossed the line, he just had to keep going and get it
all out.  "You're the brass ring, Donna.  The thing you reach out for,
once you've figured out how to balance yourself on the merry-go-round,
and you're no longer afraid you're going to fall off.  And if reach
out far enough, if you're brave enough to put yourself out there, and
you finally grab it, you win.  You're the brass ring, Donna.  Not the
fucking consolation prize.  And of course you wouldn't know that,
because I never had the guts to tell you that before now."

Now Josh started pacing the living room, and running his hand through
his hair, and ignoring her absolutely stunned look and body language.
"You said that I always want you to be alone if I'm alone.  Well, what
does this information do to your theory...Amy called tonight, to ask me
to dinner, and see if we could get back together."

Donna rolled her eyes.  "You are the most clueless man on Earth, Josh.
 The half of a red dress she had on last night didn't tip you off to
that fact?"

Josh looked back at Donna now quickly, and said, "No.  I'll tell you
why in a minute.  But back to me and Amy.  She wants me back; I don't
have to be alone.  It was pretty clear from what happened last night
when I took her home," he said, and watched as Donna closed her eyes
in pain, "and it was pretty clear tonight, when she called me and
asked me to go to dinner, that we could be together again.  All I had
to do was say the word."

"So how was dinner?" Donna asked wearily, assuming she knew the
answer, and wondering when and if and how this was all going to end.

"It never happened," Josh said, moving now to stand in front of her.
"I'm here instead with you."

Donna raised very unhappy eyes to Josh's as he stood above her.
"Josh, what do you want from me?" she whispered, on the verge of
tears.

"I want to know what you have on under that coat," Josh whispered
back, meeting her eyes with his own.

"Why does it matter?" she whispered back, knowing the answer well enough.

Josh watched her for a minute, and then held out a hand to her.  She
hesitated, then wearily put one hand in his, and let him pull her up
to stand in front of him.

"It matters," Josh said simply.  "It matters because I bet you have
that red dress on under there.  I bet you heard me last night - that
you *really* heard me, when I finally started reaching out for you.  I
bet you heard me say that you looked better in that dress than Amy
did.  And I bet you figured out that I wanted to see you in it again,
when I asked you if you'd be leaving for your date from the Wing."

Donna just watched Josh's eyes while he spoke to her, inches away once again.

"And I bet you knew it'd make me crazy to see you in that dress," he
continued.  "Or at least, I bet you were hoping it would.  I bet you
were hoping that I'd be jealous seeing you go off with another guy,
wearing that dress that I told you to keep.  That's why it matters,
Donna.  Because I bet you're wearing that dress, and I bet you wore it
to make me crazy.  And the fact that it *would* make me crazy, and the
fact that you'd wear that dress to  *make* me crazy, says something
about you and me.  I'm tired of just riding the merry-go-round.  I
want the brass ring."

They watched each other for another long moment.  Then Josh's heart
started to pound as he saw Donna bring her hands up to the top button
of her coat, and slip the first button from the eye that held it.
Then he watched her slender fingers move to the second, then the
third, the fourth, and then the fifth.  And then he watched as she
shrugged her shoulders, and let the coat fall down her arms; and he
watched as she caught it with her hands, and turned to lay it behind
her on the window seat.  And as she turned to face him again, after
all that he had said, and with all that remained to be said, Josh
Lyman, proud owner of a 760 verbal score on his SATs, only had one
thing to say to her:

"Wow."



Donna watched Josh's eyes run all over her, and then back up to her
eyes again.  She raised her eyebrows in a silent question, and then
repeated his own word back to him. "Wow?  Anything else?"

"Wow...was *I* wrong," Josh said, amending his first statement.  He
stepped back a bit to get a better view of Donna in what was most
definitely *not* the red dress he remembered from so long ago.

"Disappointed?" Donna asked, anger and frustration and sadness and
hope and desperate love all filling her voice at once.  Josh felt
every one of those emotions from her, in that one word, and just
wanted to hold her now to try to make it all better.  But he knew that
they needed to get all the words out, first, so he balled his itching
hands into fists to keep them from reaching for her.

"Am I disappointed that I'm standing here in the semi-darkness, with a
beautiful woman, who's wearing a curve-hugging, unbelievably sexy blue
dress that makes the skin on her arms glow, and that makes her eyes
look bluer than ever?  A dress which, by the way, has sexy, skinny
little straps, one of which keeps slipping off her right shoulder in a
way designed to make me insane? Ah, no," he said, smiling a bit and
forcing his eyes to travel from those curves and those shoulders up to
the eyes he just described.  He took heart when he saw them beginning
to thaw, just a little, and he hoped it was because she was finally
hearing his words, and believing them.  "I'm not disappointed about
that at all."

He continued now, with a bit of a smile on his face.  "Am I
disappointed, however, that I was so unbelievably dead wrong about
what you had on under that coat?" he asked, watching her face.

"That's what I'd like to know," Donna whispered back to him.

"Well, yeah, Donna; you know how much I like to be right," he said,
trying to make her laugh.  But when she didn't laugh back, and kept an
unhappy look on her face, he almost moved to her, unable to understand
what she was trying to say.  And just as he started to reach for her,
he stopped, and took a step backward.  "Oh," he said, finally thinking
that he was getting it.  *She's sending a message, alright,"* he
thought, a sickening ball of bile forming quickly in his stomach and
throat.  *She doesn't want you, after all,* his brain screamed at him,
taunting him.  *God, what a fool I've been all night...*  Josh took
another step back, panic and pain and despair all over his face as he
tried to think of a way to escape.

Donna watched him start to move away from her, and acted quickly to
make it stop.  "Don't you want to know why I'm wearing this dress,
Josh?" she asked, following him across the room as he went searching
for his coat.

"No, I got it, thanks," Josh mumbled, desperate to get out of the
apartment now.  "I'm sorry I...I'm sorry, Donna.  Get some sleep.   I'll
go, now."   He was struggling to get into his coat and for some
reason, forgetting how to do so; it kept getting tangled on his arms
and finally he was so flustered he thought about leaving without it.
He couldn't breathe, he was so in need of escape.

"Josh, don't go, we're not finished here," Donna said, reaching out a
hand to him.  Josh shied away, though, like her touch would burn his
skin if she made contact.

"Why, so you can continue the torture, Donna?  I'm not a masochist.  I
get it.  Blue dress.  You're not interested.  I read you loud and
clear.  Let's forget tonight ever happened."  Josh was at the front
door now, and had his hand on the knob.

Later, when he looked back on the night, he found it odd that he
remembered, perfectly, the feel of that cold, hard knob in his hand,
and the way it reflected the light of the slim lamp across from it on
the other side of the living room.  Perhaps, he thought later, he
remembered it so well because it was the last thing he saw, or
touched, before Donnatella Moss grabbed his free hand, spun him
around, and pressed her mouth to his own.  Because all he could see,
or touch, or feel or smell or hear or taste, for that matter, from
then on, was Donna.

He was shocked for a millisecond, and then he recovered and pulled her
closer with desperate hands.  Donna ran her own hands along his ribs,
under his coat, and then pushed the heavy jacket off his shoulders
while her lips battled with his own.  She let out a groan as his
fingers danced down her back, and tangled with the thin straps of the
dress as they criss-crossed across her shoulder blades.  She walked
him backwards into the kitchen, and pressed the full length of her
body against him as he rested his hips against the counter.  He ran
his hands up her shoulders, to her neck, and then he pulled the clip
free that held her french twist together.  Josh plunged his hands into
her hair as it fell, and thus pulled her mouth even closer to his own
as they kissed, and touched, and fought for breath.

Josh finally came up for air, and buried his face in her neck.  He
couldn't stop himself from pressing his mouth to the curve of her
throat as he did so, but as soon as he could breathe again, he had to
ask her what was going on.  "Donna?  I don't understand..."

She smiled as a wave of shivers traveled across her body from the
feeling of his lips moving across her skin as he spoke to her.  "Wow,
that's a first," she said, laughing.

But Josh couldn't joke, yet; there was too much at stake.  He pulled
back, misery in his eyes, and asked again.  "Donna, please.  Tell me
what it means," he whispered, running his hands along the sides of her
body, following the cut of the dress from the sides of her breasts
down to her hips, and back again.

Donna leaned back, so that Josh would pick his head up and so that she
could see his eyes.  She watched them for a few seconds, changing
color from brown to hazel and back again as all of his feelings swam
there before her.

"I put the red one on," she said, barely able to speak above a whisper
for all the emotion in her throat.  "In the ladies' room at work.  I
was going to flounce out and make you suffer," she said, smiling a
bit.  "But..." Donna looked down and gave a sigh instead of continuing.

"What, Donnatella?" Josh whispered back, ducking his head so he could
see her eyes.

She raised her head, then, and held it a bit higher, and continued.
"It looked great on me, it's still the right size and everything, but
the dress just...didn't *fit* me anymore," she said, watching his eyes.
"I just felt like I was taking a giant step backwards by putting on
that dress. I'm not that girl, anymore, Josh.  I'm not the person I
was when I wore that dress for you the first time."

Josh smiled a bit, able to laugh now.  "A-ha," he said, cocking an
eyebrow at her.  "I *knew* you wore it for me that night."

Donna rolled her eyes at him, and then got serious again.  "I just...It
didn't fit *me* anymore," she said again, shrugging her shoulders and
holding up her hands in a helpless measure.  "I didn't want to go back
there, again.  And then on top of that..." She started to speak again,
but didn't have the words, and couldn't look at Josh now.  In fact, in
a move that freaked Josh out a little, she tried to push away from him
and walk off, but he grabbed her hands and pulled her back, alarmed to
see tears in her eyes.

"Donna, what?" he said, his heart breaking a little to watch her try
desperately to hold tears in, and then his heart broke wide open as
she pulled her hands to her face and sobbed.

Helpless, Josh just pulled her in, flat against him, with one hand
splayed against the back of her head, holding her to his neck, and the
other arm across her body, pinning her to him tightly.  He held her
and shushed her until she calmed down enough to talk to him.

"Donnatella, please tell me what's wrong," he said, desperately hoping
that there was some way that they could come out on the other side of
this ok.

"It's just..." *sniff* *sniff*  "I don't..."  *sniff* *sniff*  And now she
pulled back, to try to escape again, and when he wouldn't let go, she
pulled her hands up to cover her face.  Through her fingers, and her
sobs, he heard her say, "I looked in the mirror, and I saw that red
dress, and all I could see was you and Amy," she said, sobbing again
and trying to duck her head as Josh pulled her hands down so he could
see her eyes.  "I couldn't wear it any longer.  I couldn't stand it.
So I put on the blue one," she said, her lip quavering and one tear
rolling down her cheek.

Josh pulled her back in against him, and held her for another minute,
and then put his lips to her ear.  "That's funny, that you saw me and
Amy.  Because I looked at Amy in half of a red dress, and all I could
see was you."

He thought that she would have been happy to hear that, but Donna just
started crying harder against his neck, her arms helplessly trapped
between their bodies, her hands splayed against his chest.  "You
called me from her bed," Donna whispered miserably.

"What?" Josh said, trying to get her to look at him again.

"You called me from her bed," Donna said, pulling back to show Josh
the pain in her eyes, in case he missed it in her voice.  "That's what
changed this time, when you started dating Amy," Donna said, covering
her eyes with the palm and fingers of one hand.  "Before, with the
other women, I could ignore the two of you together, but this time...in
the mornings, if you called me, I could hear the two of you, together,
in bed, getting dressed..."  She sobbed a bit more now.  "Do you know
what that did to me to *hear* the two of you together like that?" she
demanded, trying to pull back again and then relenting when he
wouldn't let her.

Josh didn't know what to say other than "I'm so sorry, Donnatella.
I'm so, so sorry."  And he held her while she cried for a while
longer.

Finally, Donna pulled herself together, but realized that she had
another hard question for him.  She leaned back again to watch his
eyes when she asked it.  "What happened when you took her home last
night, Josh?" she asked, dreading the answer.

Josh looked at Donna with pleading eyes, begging her to believe him.
"She was all over me, and tried to drag me into bed with her.  I
walked her inside," he said, as Donna's eyes grew wide.  "I had to,
she couldn't walk a straight line by the time we got back to her
place.  Even if I had wanted to...do something with her - which, by the
way, I didn't," he added, quickly, "she passed out almost before her
head hit the pillow.  I left her some aspirin and a glass of water,
and then I walked home.  Aaaaaaall three miles of it," he said, trying
to make Donna feel bad for him.  "In the cold.  Uphill," he added for
good measure, making her smile.  He thought for a second before
continuing.  "You asked me earlier how I could have missed it that she
was wearing the red dress to turn me on?  Easy.  Because all night -
before the results came in, once they called it for us, during the
party, while I was putting her sorry, drunk ass to bed, and during my
long walk home, I was thinking about you.  Now, I'm not going to lie
to you," Josh said, trying hard to contain a smirk and failing
miserably.  "You were, in fact, wearing a tiny red dress in most of
these thoughts that I had about you," he said, smiling a bit as Donna
unconsciously pulled up the one strap of her dress that kept slipping
off her shoulder.  Every time she did, Josh would knock it back off
with his finger, and caress her bare shoulder with his hand.

"But the thing is," he said, pulling her closer now, if possible, and
now framing her face with his hands, wiping the last tear tracks from
her cheeks.  "From now on, whenever I think of you?  You're not going
to be in the red dress.  I discovered a lot of things about myself
lately, and most especially tonight," he said, relieved beyond words
to finally see her smiling.  "It seems that my tastes have changed, of
late, to elegant navy blue dresses that show off your curves," he
said, trailing a hand down her side, "and your neck," he added,
running his mouth from her collarbone up to her ear.   "And, I already
mentioned this, but I *really* enjoy the way this dress makes your
eyes look even bluer than they normally are," he growled directly in
her ear, sending goosebumps cascading down her arms.  "And, see, the
thing about a dress like this, Donnatella?  Is that you've left quite
a bit to my imagination.  That's damn sexy.  And I have a hell of an
imagination."

He watched her eyes light up, and felt and heard her gasp in surprise
and pleasure at his words, and so he kept going.  "So one of the
amazing discoveries I've made about myself tonight?  Is that I am
really, really *really* turned on by the sight of you in a long, blue
sexy dress with a lazy strap that keeps slipping down your arm.  Hell,
I'm turned on by the sight of you, period, Donnatella Moss.  And I
have been for a very long time.  And I'm finally not afraid to tell
you that anymore."

He watched her process all of that, and to break the tension, he
added, "I'm like, 'Discovery Guy' tonight, Donna.  I'm like Jacques
Freakin' Cousteau."

It made her laugh, as he had hoped, and when she opened her eyes again
after laughing, she saw him watching her fall back into happiness.
And he reached out, held her face in his hands again, and kissed her,
slowly this time, saying, without words, that he was sorry, and that
he loved her, and that they'd make it work, and that she was never
getting away from him again.

And in kissing him back, she said it all to him as well.

When they finally pulled apart, Donna buried her face in his neck
again, and sighed with relief, and exhaustion, and happiness. "I don't
want to fight with you anymore.  I just want to be with you.  Can we
just be together?" she asked, hopefully.

"I'll talk to Leo tomorrow," Josh said, his eyes closed, one hand
smoothing down her hair.

At their boss's name, Donna pulled back in worry.  "Oh, God, Leo...what
are we going to do?"

Josh smiled at her, and made her believe him when he said, "We'll make
it work.  I promise."

"Ok," Donna said, smiling again, but still worried.  "It's just that
it's going to be so...complicated," she said, a worry line reemerging
between her eyebrows.

Josh planted a kiss there to rub it away, and, grinning, said, "Well,
it's better when it's complicated," he said, making her laugh.  "The
most beautiful, amazing woman I've ever met told me that once.
Although she might have just meant that about cocoa, I'm not sure," he
said, earning a fake swat across the back of his head as Donna laughed
at him, too touched by his words about her to care that he was now
making fun of her.

"And speaking of which," Josh said, peering around Donna's shoulder to
the opposite counter.

"What?" Donna said, turning to see what he was looking at.

In so doing, she missed the wicked gleam in his eye, but heard it in
his voice.  "Can I finally drink my cocoa now?"

And from down the hall, they heard, from behind Ginger's door, "And
can I have some too?"

Donna just pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, laughed, and
shouted "Yes!  I'll make some more.  I'm going to have to, I seem to
have poured mine down the drain."  Josh leaned in to kiss her one more
time, and then opened the fridge to get out the milk.

"You know, Donna?" he said, with his head buried in the fridge.

"Yeah?" she asked, as she reached up for two new mugs.

"I wasn't entirely truthful about something earlier..." he said, coming
out now and putting the milk on the counter.

"Oh, God, Josh, what..." she said, worried now.

But she shouldn't have been, and she wasn't anymore when she saw the
amused look on his face.  "In my fantasies about you in this blue
dress?" he said, inching closer to box her in again against the
counter, like he had earlier in the night.

"Yes?" she said, smiling back at him now.

"You're making me cocoa at the same time," he said in a deep,
faux-sexy voice, while at the same time arching an eyebrow
suggestively at her.  The look of outrage on her face had him laughing
in response, and leaning in to kiss the annoyed retort from her lips.

"You're going to start demanding cocoa at work, aren't you, Josh?" she
said, dreamily, as Josh moved his mouth down her neck.

"Mmmm, with whipped cream, or else," he said, capturing her mouth with
his own again.

And Ginger came down the hall to see Josh and Donna wrapped around
each other in the tiny kitchen alcove, and at the sight, she smiled
brightly, and thought that finally, *finally,* Josh and Donna had
gotten it right.



(Ed. Note:  Chapter 8 is "the fight" from Ginger and Margaret's POVs.  Enjoy!)

"COME SAIL AWAY!

COME SAIL AWAY!

COME SAIL AWAY WITH ME!"

Ginger bounced around her bedroom while the music coming out of her
stereo reverberated off the four walls. Every so often she'd stop in
the middle of the room, wait for the right beat, and then throw a
little air guitar into the mix.

*God, I love Styx,* she thought, bopping around the room, bending now
and then to scoop up errant piles of clothes, and sort them into
whites and darks for the load of laundry she needed to do that night.
Thank goodness she was going to have to wait up for Donna to get home,
to see how both the date and Donna's meeting with Josh went; it gave
her an excuse to clean her room and get some other chores done.
Otherwise, she thought honestly to herself, she probably would have
just put off the laundry for another night, and been forced to wear
her last, most uncomfortable clean pair of underwear the next day to
work.

*God, those are annoying days in the office,* she thought aimlessly as
she moved around the room. *Those are the sorts of days when all you
can think about, all day long, is the atomic wedgie that you've given
yourself because you were too lazy to do laundry on time, and how you
could totally believe it if you heard that in certain countries, they
used too-small panties as torture devices on political prisoners.
Those are the days,* she continued thinking, as she jammed the smaller
pile of dirty whites into a laundry bag, *when all you want to do is
just head for the nearest office, shut the door, yank off the panties
and take your chances going Commando while within 100 feet of the Oval
Office.*

She stopped short, and cracked herself up at an image of Sam
accidentally walking in on her while she used his office to divest
herself of her skivvies.  *God, that'd make his hair fall out,* she
thought with a laugh, as she went to work on the other pile of
clothes.  *Which, you know, would be a crime against humanity,
because...damn, the man has a sexy head of hair,* she thought, stuffing
clothes into another bag.

Then she stood upright as she realized that she just had a lascivious
thought about Sam.  "Oh, Christ," she said out loud to herself,
shaking her head violently to make the bad thoughts go away.  "It's
catching."  Back inside her head, she thought,  *I'm going to have to
quarantine myself from Donna and her boss-lust before I come down with
it too.*

Just as Styx gave way to Journey on her 5-disc CD changer, she heard
the front door shut; and it must have been shut loudly, because she
could hear it over Steve Perry and "Any Way You Want It" turned up to
levels that could probably be heard in space.

"Whoo-hoo!" Ginger said to herself, and then added *Gossip time!* via
her inner monologue.

Ginger paused briefly by her closet door, where Donna's red dress was
hanging.  She had retrieved it for Donna from the ladies' room earlier
that night, and hung it on her own closet door when she first got
home.  She thought about bringing it with her to hand to Donna, but
then figured she'd just give it to her later, there was no rush.
Ginger threw open her door and wandered down the hall, calling out to
Donna as she went.

"Hey! How did it go? And what happened with..."  Ginger stopped short at
the utterly surprising scene before her:  Donna and *Josh,* standing
toe to toe, and eye to eye, both looking like they were ready to go to
war with each other.  Or rip each others' clothes off.  Ginger wasn't
sure which it was, but she had a feeling that at the moment, there
wasn't a very great distance between the two extremes.

Then, of course, she realized that the blue silk nightshirt that she
had on was WAY too short for Josh to be seeing her in it, and she
started trying to tug it down her thighs.  But she gave that up
quickly, as it became obvious that Josh hadn't even looked at her
since she entered the room.  His eyes were locked on Donna's, and
Ginger could see, in profile, that Donna was returning the stare.

"Umm, ok, umm, nevermind, you can tell me tomorrow," Ginger said,
adding quickly, "I'll just head to bed," she said as she ran back down
the hall.

Once she was out of sight, Ginger kicked it into overdrive, and
hurried into her room, almost slamming it behind her in her haste, and
then she sank down to press her ear to the keyhole.  She heard Josh
and Donna move into the kitchen, and after a minute, heard Donna
slamming the cabinet doors open and closed.  Fascinated, and too
excited to keep it to herself, she got up, thinking, *Yeah, I'll head
to bed...riiiiiiiight after I call Margaret to tell her what's going
on...* she thought, grabbing her cell phone from her bedside stand.  As
she headed back to the floor in front of the door, she added, out loud
yet under her breath, "and after I hear more of what's going on out
there!"

She hit Margaret's home number on the speed dial, pressed the receiver
to her left ear, and pressed her right ear to the door again.

"Hello?"

"Margaret, it's me..."

"Ginger, oh thank God you called.  Quick, turn on the Food Network..."

"Margaret, I can't..."

But Margaret just talked right over her.  "I'm taping 'Nigella' for
Leo again, and...Oh.  My.  GOD, Woman!  You can't DO that to produce on
TV in this country!"

"Margaret, listen..." Ginger said, trying again to break in.

"Seriously, Ginger, she's fondling a pair of kumquats!  God, I feel so
dirty right now.  I can't believe Leo likes watching this.  It's just
too much information about his probable sexual pref..."

"MARGARET!"

That got her attention.  "What?"

"Thank you," Ginger said, rolling her eyes and talking with the
loudest voice that she dared to use, lest Josh and Donna hear her.
"You're never going to guess what's going on here right now."

"Oooh, are Donna and Jack..."

"No, better."

Margaret frowned, on her end, thinking.  "Did you suddenly get a life
that I'm not aware of?"

Ginger sighed for a moment, adding "Sadly, no.  One more guess."

"Oh, god, Ginger, I don't know, my brain went on strike when it saw
Nigella stroking a ham hock earlier...Seriously, I want to shower again
to get the stench of it off of me," she complained.

"Whatever.  I have news that'll take your mind off of it.  Josh is
here," she said, straining to listen as she heard the two of them
murmuring and moving around in the kitchen.

"Is he drunk?" Margaret asked, knowing all about the continuing saga
of Josh and Donna, and the many missteps they had had along the way.

"No, I don't think so...but I went out there to see how her night was
when I heard her come home, and there they were, standing all up in
each other's business, and looking like they were either going to
throw punches or start ripping each other's clothes off."

"REALLY!"  Margaret said, her eyes opening wide.  She hit "mute" on
the TV, but then realized that if she did that, then Leo wouldn't be
able to hear Nigella talking her smutty food porn talk.  So she turned
the volume back on, and left the living room to go curl up on her bed
and listen to Ginger's reports coming in.

"So what's going on now?" Margaret asked as she threw various stuffed
animals and throw pillows onto the floor.  She was obsessively neat
for Leo, so she could let it all hang out at home, she thought to
herself.

"They're in the kitchen, and..." Ginger paused as she tried to hear what
they were saying.  "I can't quite hear them...I'm going to try to open
my door a crack and see if that helps," she said.

Just as she reached for the knob, Margaret said, "Wait!" very loudly
in Ginger's ear.

"Ok, Margaret?  If I have to whisper, so do you.  OW!" she said,
angrily into the phone.

"Sorry," Margaret said, much more quietly.  "But before you open the
door, well...do you think we should be doing this?"

Ginger paused at that.  "You mean, listening in on their conversation
like this?  Hmmm, you may have a point, there."

"It'd be wrong," Margaret said, solemnly.

"It'd be an invasion of their privacy," Ginger added with a grimace.

There was another long moment of silence, and then, Ginger shrugging
her shoulders, said, "You know she's going to tell me, anyway...."

Margaret smiled on her end, and added, "I'll go to confession."

Ginger grinned into her phone as well.  "I'm an atheist."

"Ok, then I'll pray for both our souls.  Now get the hell out there
and tell me what they're talking about!" Margaret ordered with gusto.

"Ok," Ginger said, adding, "let me put the phone down for a second...if
I use two hands, maybe I can keep it from creaking when I open it,"
she said, not waiting for a response from Margaret.  She lay the phone
on the floor, stood, and eased her door open a crack.  With wide eyes,
she overheard Josh say to Donna, "Why don't you take off your coat and
stay awhile," and she couldn't dive back for the phone fast enough.

"Margaret!" she whispered.  "Oh my god!"

"What?" Margaret whispered back, before rolling her eyes at herself
for actually whispering too.

"He just said 'why don't you take off your coat and stay awhile!' to
her!"  Ginger reporte.

"Oh my...do you think he knows..."

"No, I don't think he does," Ginger said.  "He was gone already when I
left with Donna's dress, and she told me that she didn't show him what
she was wearing under the coat.  In fact," Ginger said, remembering,
"Oh my god, I can't believe I forgot to tell you; when Donna went in
to see Josh in his office, she was about to leave, and he offered to
let her wear his coat tonight."

"Shut.  UP!" Margaret said, gasping into the phone.  "How much more obvious..."

"I KNOW," Ginger said.  "I tried to tell Donna that that was a sign,
but she wasn't listening to me at that point, she just headed..." and
Ginger trailed off when a wave of milk chocolately goodness wafted
around the corner of the hallway and down into her room via the
cracked-open door.  "Oh, mother of God, she's making him hot cocoa,"
Ginger said, moaning a bit into the phone now.

Margaret frowned.  "Ok, you're starting to scare me," she said,
adding, "I hope that's not what Leo sounds like when he watches
you-know-who..."

"Oh, I am *so* hungry all of a sudden.  Have you ever had her hot
chocolate, Margaret?  It's sinful.  Oooh, I wonder if this is some
sort of foreplay thing they've got going on or something."

"Oy, too much information," Margaret said, but then added, "Ok, I
can't take it anymore.  Now what's happening?"

"Hold on," Ginger said, sticking her ear into the space made open by
the door, and trying not to whimper as she smelled the hot cocoa
bubbling.  What she heard next nearly sent her tumbling head-first
into the hallway.

"Ok, Margaret, I'm going to start giving you the blow-by-blow, here..."

"Hopefully not..." Margaret said drolly.

"Eww, Margaret.  You know what I mean.  Anyway, check this...he just
asked her how her date was..."

"Oh my God, he *went* there," Margaret said.

But Ginger was already shushing her, and trying to listen.  "Donna's
saying it was great...great food...nice to go out...blah blah blah; oh Lord
even *I* can tell Jack bored her senseless, and I'm all the way in
here," Ginger hissed into the phone.

"Jeez, I hope Josh is buying it," Margaret said, adding "Don't stroke
The Ego, Donna!" in mock solidarity through the phone.

"Seriously," Ginger agreed.  "Hold on..." she said, listening again.
Then, Margaret heard her hiss an indignant "Oh.  My.  God." into the
phone.

"Now what?" Margaret asked, desperately wishing there was a way she
could teleport over to Ginger's bedroom and just cut out the middle
man.  Margaret was slightly disturbed to realize that in the next
instant, she immediately thought, *I wonder if Leo has anything from
the Pentagon on teleportation studies...*  Shaking her head, she now
thought, *Seriously, Margaret.  Work on getting a life.*

Ginger was just listening for another few seconds, until an impatient
"What's going on?" from Margaret drew her back.  "Ok, oh my...it's World
War Three out there.  Josh asked her...it sounded like he asked her why
she came home alone, ie, why isn't she doing the horizontal hokey
pokey with Jack on my grandmother's couch...and she's in the process of
*flipping* *out* on him right now...*God* this is an overdue
conversation.  The only thing keeping me from totally enjoying this
is, you know, the fact that he can FIRE her for this!"

"He won't fire her, he's in love with her," Margaret said, dismissing
the ridiculous notion of Josh doing anything proactive where Donna was
concerned, either professionally or personally.  "I wish *I* had that
kind of job security," she added a bit wistfully.

That brought Ginger right back to earth.  "Ok, Margaret?  When this
whole thing is over tonight, you and I are going to revisit that
little statement you just made.  Because, seriously?  EW, Margaret!
Anyway, let me listen...Oh my god, now SHE went there."

"Went where?"

"She told him that he wanted an honest conversation, so she's giving
him one...and that...oh, you *go* girl; she's telling him about how he
treats her when he's got a girlfriend," Ginger reported, eyes still
wide.

"Is she ripping him on the 'Girl Friday' treatment?"

"Yup, she even used the term.  A bit more colorfully than that, but
she used it."

"Good for her!  He totally treats her like crap when he's
'ensorcelled,' and God, can I just say how much I wish Toby hadn't
told you about that, to tell me about it; it sounds..."

"Dirty, I know.  Everything's dirty to you.  You really should get
that checked, Margaret."

"Whatever.  What's happening now?"

Ginger listened a bit more, then covered her mouth with her hand in an
unconscious gesture of self-preservation.  Remembering that that would
do Margaret no good, she ripped her hand away and delivered more
commentary.  "Margaret - are you ready for this?  She just told him
she's not his consolation prize."

Margaret drew in a sharp breath.  "Get OUT.  'When Harry Met Sally?'"

"Yup.  And she just totally called him on him wanting her alone if
he's alone."  Ginger paused now, and let out a low, "uh-oh."

The next thing Margaret heard was Ginger yelling, at the top of her
lungs, "I'm not listening!"

"GIN-GER!" Margaret stage-whispered, completely baffled.  "What are
you doing?  You're NOT supposed to be listening, you idiot!"

"I know, I panicked!" Ginger whispered back, her hands cradled around
her head in embarrassment.  "Josh just said that he didn't want to
talk to her about all this stuff with me in here hanging on every word
and I just...It was a reflex," Ginger said sheepishly.

"You're an idiot," Margaret said, in a way that only a friend who
loved you but yet could still call you on your screw-ups could.  "Are
they leaving?"

"Hold on...no, they're still here.  Oooh, he's trying to get her to
admit she had a crappy time with Jack..."

"What's she saying?"

"'Yes I did, why's it so hard for you to believe it...;' and now he's
all 'because I can tell you had a crappy time...'"

"NOW he gets perceptive?" Margaret added, rolling her eyes at the
wonder that was Josh.

"Seriously.  Ok...wow."

"Wow...what?"

"She just asked him how long she was going to have to do penance for Cliff."

"Yikes," Margaret said, wincing.  "But...just for dating him?  I don't
understand...they didn't go out that long.  I just figured Josh ran him
off like he did the others...."

But Ginger cut her off with a "Shhh!" so she could listen to the next
part.  "Margaret," she whispered, not believing her ears.

"What?" Margaret replied, sensing something was wrong.

"She said that she was the one who screwed it up with Cliff, and that
Josh was probably happy about that...but then, Margaret, I don't
understand this.  He said..." and Ginger listened again.  "He said,
really sarcastically, that he loved having to sit in a cold park in
the middle of the night with her, scared out of his mind that Cliff
was going to hand her over to Congress...over a, quote, "fucking diary,"
end quote...what the hell is that all about?" Ginger demanded, angrily.
"What did Cliff try to do to her?"

"I don't know...and I haven't been Josh's greatest fan," Margaret said,
"but holy shit, it sounds like he went out on a mighty big limb for
her over that, whatever it was," she added, seeing Josh with new eyes,
and coming around to the possibility that he might be good enough for
Donna.  She still had her doubts.

"Ok, now Josh is talking...he didn't mean to call her a whore, he just
meant that he couldn't believe...awww," Ginger said, her heart much
softer than Margaret's.

"What?"

"He said he bets she looks amazing under the coat.  And now...Oh my god."

"Ginger, don't make me kill you."

"He told her she's not the consolation prize...she's the brass ring."

Both women were silent, as Ginger tried to listen some more, and
Margaret's heart thawed a bit more in Josh's favor.

"Now...he's asking her what does it say to her that Amy was throwing
herself at him..."

"Hello, Red Dress!" Margaret added indignantly.

"Mmm-hmm!" Ginger murmured, agreeing.  "And he's telling her...that he
doesn't have to be alone, he could be with Amy...but instead he's here
with her."

There was a pause, and then Margaret grudgingly admitted, "Ok.  That was good."

Ginger sighed.  "Just once, I want someone to be that desperately in
love with me."

Margaret knit her eyebrows at that.  "Do you really think it's done
either of them any good?"

"Do you really think they'd be who they are without the other,
unrequited love and all?"

"Good point.  What's happening now?"

"Hold on...oh god, that's the sexiest thing I think I've ever heard."

"What?"

"He's telling her why it matters that she wore the red dress for him
tonight...that it's a sign, that she knows that he wants her, and that
she wants to tell him that she wants him, too."

Margaret did the math much faster than Ginger, however.  "But Ginger,
she's not WEARING the red dress!"

Ginger looked up at the dress, still in its plastic wrap, hanging on
her door.  "Oh, crap," she said.  Now she peeked out her door and got
a glimpse of what was actually happening in the living room.  "Oh,
CRAP," she said, with gusto now.  "She's taking off the coat!" Ginger
hissed into the phone.

"Oh, mother of God..." Margaret said, having no idea what to expect next.

"Jesus.  Let me repeat, for the record, that I want a man to look at
me like that someday."

Margaret couldn't help herself.  "Like what?"

"Like...God, Margaret, like he's ready to devour her.  Like he's ready
to rip the coat off of her himself so he can get to her underneath it.
 Oh god, here we go.  Houston, we have a blue dress.  Repeat:  Blue
Dress."

"So what's his reaction?"

"Wow."

"Wow, what?"

"Wow.  That was his reaction."

"Ginger, you are making no sense right now."

"Margaret, next you're going to ask me 'Who's on First!'  He said
'Wow' when he saw the dress...and pretty much undressed her with his
eyes right afterwards, by the way...Hold on, I'm listening...he's telling
her that he's not disappointed by it, because she looks so pretty in
it...but...uh oh...."

"Uh-oh, what?" Margaret asked, worried by the change in the tone of
Ginger's voice.

"He...oh no.  He's freaking out.  Oh my god, I've never seen Josh move
that fast before.  He...oh NO.  I think he got the wrong message from
the dress."

"Go stop him!" Margaret said, panicking a bit now, too.

"I'm not supposed to be listening!" Ginger whispered back.  "Oh, no,
he's at the door...oh..."  and Ginger gasped and then smiled at what she
saw next, covering her mouth with her hand to keep from cheering out
loud.

"GINGER!" Margaret yelled, left hanging as she leapt to her knees from
the excitement of it all.

"Sorry!" Ginger said, laughing a bit.  "Well, Donna finally figured
out a way to shut him up and make him stop moving.  He was about to
take off, and she grabbed him by the hand, whipped him around, and
started kissing him."

"Where?"

"On the mouth, Margaret, where do you think?"

"No, where are they?"

"Still in front of the door...wow.  Wow.  Wow."

"Wow, what?"

"Hoo, our boy Josh can *kiss,* Ginger said, laughing a bit now.  "Yay,
Donna!  Oh, no, wait, BOO!  Boo, Donna, don't...oh, dammit."

"What?" Margaret said,

"Oh, dammit, she backed him into the kitchen.  I can't see them from here!"

"Can you still hear them?"

"What, above the slurping?"

"Ewww, there's slurping?"

Ginger grinned, happy to gross Margaret out at any opportunity.  "And
I think I hear some moaning out there, too."

"Ewww.  Ok, I'm jealous, shut up."

Ginger sighed, and leaned back against her door jamb.  "I am too, but
I'm so happy for her I can't stand it."

"Me too, although if Josh screws with her I'm going to rip his head
off and feed it to Amy for breakfast."

"I'll be right behind you firing up the grill, don't you worry,"
Ginger said, thoughtfully.  "I don't think he'll hurt her, Margaret,
not on purpose, anyhow.  He really does love her, everyone can see
that."

"Everyone except, well, you know, Josh and Donna."

"Yeah, well, I think they finally figured it out tonight," Ginger
said, laughing.

"What's happening now?"

Ginger listened, and got worried.  "Oh, god, NOW what's wrong?  She's crying?"

"She's crying?" Margaret asked, annoyed that she was going to have to
kill Josh after all, and so soon after she decided he was good enough
for Donna.

"She's *sobbing*...I can't really hear them that well anymore...she's
saying...what?  "I hooked in the meer, and I saw the bed rest, and
allocate see was you and Amy?"

Margaret listened, incredulous.  "What are you *talking* about?"

"I don't know, I can barely hear them!  I think she said, "I looked in
the mirror, and saw...the red dress?  And all she could see..."

"Was him and Amy?  Wow.  Now we know why she wore the blue one,"
Margaret said, thoughtful now.

"Yeah.  Wow.  It sounds like he's shushing her.  He better be holding
onto her or I'm going to kick his ass."

"Tough talk."

"Ok.  I'll have Toby kick his ass.  I know powerful people.  I can
make this happen."

"Whatever," Margaret said, smiling now.  "What's going on now?"

"More sobbing.  More shushing."

"God, I could never do that," Margaret said.

"Do what?"

"Cry all over Leo like that."

"Well, for God's sake, Margaret, I hope not!"

"I don't mean because I was in love with him, Ginger!  Jeez.
Although, in all fairness, I think that if you knew him as well as I
did, you'd see a certain quality in him that..."

"Oh, Margaret, please, I don't think I can handle this..."

"I'm just saying, he's an attractive man, Ginger!"

"La la la la la," Ginger said over her, determined not to hear
Margaret on this.  "I forbid you to lust after Leo, Margaret.  It's
just not right."

"Ok, whatever.  How was Sam's hair today, by the way?"

"Gorgeous as usu...HEY!"

"Heh.  Gotcha."

"You're evil."

"Something to add to my list of sins when I hit the confessional.
What's happening now?"

"He's...awww.  He's turnipped by the slight of her in bluegrass."

Margaret sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose.  "He's turned on
by the sight of her in a blue dress?"

"Yeah, that.  And he's turnipped by the slight of her period...and he
has been for a long time...and he's not afraid to teller Hat anymore."

Margaret smiled.  "He's not afraid to tell her that anymore?"

"Yeah.  God that's sweet," Ginger said, smiling as well.  Then she
frowned.  "Ok, now he's telling her that he's Jacques Freakin'
Cousteau."

"What?  That has to be wrong," Margaret said, confused.

"Yeah, but I don't know what to make of it."

"Me neither."

"Awww...more slurping."

"Ewww.  And, awwww.  Yay.  So they're together?" Margaret asked, hopefully.

"Sounds like it," Ginger said, leaning back against the door frame again.

"Finally."

"And how...oooh, wait a second..." Ginger said, listening again.

"Why?  What's..."  Margaret began, but she was cut off when, once again,
she heard Ginger yell out.  But this time, she yelled "And can I have
some too?"

"Oh, good god, some *what?*" Margaret asked.

Ginger got up now, and threw on her robe.  "Some cocoa.  Sounds like
she's making a new batch!" Ginger said, laughing.

"You better hope it's *not* foreplay, or else the three of you will
REALLY have something to tell Leo when this all comes out."

"Ewww.  Hey, that reminds me...do you still have your pull-out couch?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well, once I have my cocoa, I figure I'll leave the lovebirds alone.
Can I crash with you?"

"Of course. I'll leave the door open for you."

"Thanks, Margaret. I'll be by in a half-hour."

Margaret smiled.  "Ok.  Be careful driving!"

"'Kay.   Bye."

Ginger hung up, and replaced her phone in the jack.  She pushed open
her bedroom door, padded down the hall, and turned to look into the
kitchen, to see Josh and Donna wound around each other, just holding
on to each other and both looking like their worlds finally made
sense.

With a grin, Ginger said, "Well, hell, forget the cocoa," bringing
them out of their happy oblivion.  Donna smiled at Ginger over Josh's
shoulder, but then got a puzzled look on her face as Ginger went for
the coat rack.  "Ginger?  Where are you going?" she asked as she
extricated herself from Josh and the two of them moved towards the
living room.

Ginger smiled at them.  "Margaret's.  I'll see you tomorrow," she
said, laughing as a blush crept over Donna's face as she realized that
Ginger was giving her the apartment so that she and Josh could be
alone.  Josh couldn't have looked happier about it.  With a laugh,
Ginger bounced over to Donna and gave her an enormous hug, whispering,
"Be happy" in her friend's ear.  Letting go of Donna, Ginger moved to
stand in front of Josh, and she put her sternest face on before saying
"She's the best thing that ever happened to you.  If you hurt her, I'm
going to sic Margaret on you."

Josh got a suitably worried look on his face at the notion of facing
the wrath of Margaret, and that was enough to make Ginger laugh, give
him a hug, and then head for the door.

Josh, a bit worried, yelled after her, "Ginger...one thing...Umm, I'm
going to talk to Leo tomorrow, but until I do, can you keep quiet
about this?"

Grinning, Ginger opened the door, pulling a hat on her head, and said,
"Keep quiet about what?  I didn't hear a thing."  And with a wink, she
ran out the door, closing it behind her.

The End.