Fandom: The West Wing
Title: Oldest Trick in the Book
Rated: PG13
Pairing: Josh/Donna
Notes: for teddibear who requested a post-ep for King Corn of Donna
and Josh in the elevator. And this time, I'm being decidedly NOT evil.


[ oldest trick in the book ]
by kHo

He shut off his cellphone and he wasn't even sure the person he was
talking to had said goodbye. Hell, he wasn't even sure who the hell
he'd been talking to anymore. The second, the millisecond, his brain
recognized that it was Donna he was sharing an elevator with, his
synapses had begun misfiring. She was saying something to him, and he
was saying something back, but in the back of his mind he had one
thought on repeat.

It hurts, Donna, can't you see it hurts? It hurts that you're not here with me...'

He stares at the lit up number four on the elevator key pad and thinks
to himself that isn't that just like God. Isn't that just like God to
put him on the same floor as her. Doesn't he just love to play
practical jokes that rip Josh's heart out. He stares at the number on
the pad, and he looks up at the numbers as they tick by above the
door, and when it hits two he freezes in his spot.

Don't let her leave, do not let her walk out that door without facing you...

And just before the number clicks to three he takes a step forward and
his hand flies out and he hits the emergency stop button. He panics
when he realizes he hasn't been paying attention, he's not even sure
he knows what he just hit. He's only seen this on television, in
movies, and even in one commercial that always made him laugh no
matter how many times he saw it, but he's never actually pulled the
old 'stop the elevator' trick.

Please let it stop, and oh God don't pick now to play a trick on me...
please let it stop...

The elevator makes a sick groaning sound as it grinds, literally
grinds, to a stop, just as the number three light goes off as they
pass it. He's not looking at Donna, he can't seem to force himself to
yet, but he can see her wide eyes in the reflection of the mirror-like
panel. He hears her stop breathing, and he thinks he's not breathing
either, and probably hasn't been since he stepped in the damned thing
and saw it was her.

"What the hell, Josh," she says, and her voice is small, and timid,
and maybe even a little frightened.

"Listen," he says, and then he stops. He doesn't know what to say.
Alarm bells go off in his head. Abort, abort, they say. Rewind and
don't do it. Go back and stay in your neutral corner, and let the time
pass no matter how excruciatingly. The chicken trembling in fear in
his head doesn't realize it's too late for that, but Josh does and he
closes his eyes because ready or not, here it comes.

"Josh, what the hell..."

"We need to talk," he says after a deep breath, whirling around to
face her. He props his hand on the side of the elevator because it
makes him look commanding and also because he finds it hard to stand
up straight right now. The fear and the proximity of someone he's just
realized he's in love with is dancing the Macarena on his equilibrium.

She shrunk back into the wall and hugged her FedEx box closer to her
chest, her eyes wide. And yes, definitely, frightened. "Can't we talk
tomorrow? It's really late, and I'm only going to get 3 hours of sleep
as it is..."

"So am I, and no, Donna, we can't talk tomorrow, because we won't," he
says, and he realizes he's talking at an alarmingly fast pace. He
realizes the words are coming out of his mouth so fast that any 10
people passing by would think he was a crazy person. But Donna knows
him. She's already privy to that. "And you know how I know that?
Because you haven't spoken to me in any kind of normal way since you
left, and actually before that, because ever since you got back you've
been acting weird around me, and I want to know why!"

Her eyes are glued to the numbers that aren't lighting up anymore, as
if by some sort of telepathic wishing she can will them to move. He's
just thrown enough by her mere presence that a trickle of fear at the
thought that she could passes through him so he steps forward. It
hurts the way she flinches away from him, but he refuses to step back.
"We'll talk about this tomorrow, Josh," she says, swallowing and
blinking at him. "I'm tired."

"No," he says, reaching out and taking her FedEx box in one hand and
placing it on the floor. He takes her folders next, and lets them drop
to the floor as well. "We're talking now, Donna."

She stares at the items on the floor and before she can realize she
doesn't have anything blocking him anymore, he's stepped even closer
into her personal space and she has no way to keep him out. He's not
touching her, not exactly, but he's blocking her in the corner, and
there's no way she's getting out if he doesn't want her to. "Josh..."

"I miss you," he says quietly, his voice just above a whisper. "I miss
fighting with you, I miss singing with you. I miss... damnit Donna, I
miss everything." He reaches out and runs his fingers through her hair
and down her back. "I miss you not bringing me coffee, Donna, how's
that for messed up," he asks, laughing through the pain he feels
thrumming dully in his chest.

Her eyes are still wide but they're not frightened anymore and he
takes that for a good sign. They're wide and glassy and he hopes to
God she won't cry because if she does he can't guarantee he won't.
"Please. Don't."

He feels like he's about to hyperventilate. His heart is pounding in
his chest, and there's the dull roar of something somewhere between
hope and fear rolling through him, and he's only dimly aware that he's
leaning forward even closer. "I didn't know," he said, his voice even
softer as his hand spanned across her cheek, his thumb tracing a slow
arc. "I swear, Donna, I didn't."

Her mouth opens a few times and he can tell it's hard for her to
breath too. He would feel victorious if he weren't such a mess right
now too. "Didn't know what," she asked finally, her eyes glued to his.
Her hand comes forward and locks on his tie. "Didn't know what, Josh?"

He feels the sob coming, he feels it boiling in his gut. His
fingertips brush her hair back and just when he knows the sob is about
to come out he curtails it by kissing her. He presses his lips to her
gently and his fingers tighten in her hair as he feels her tugging on
his tie, yanking him gently closer to her. He presses his body into
hers and he breathes in her scent as he deepens the kiss. Flowers of
some kind, he thinks before his brain shuts completely off.

But then she's pushing back and he's doing everything in his power to
not let her. He's nipping at her lip and running his fingers down her
side. He growls into her mouth and he knows she knows it means no. She
pushes back anyway, and finally he gives up and leans back, his eyes
tightly squeezed shut. He can't look at her while she rips his heart
apart again, he just can't.

"Didn't know what," she asked softly, her hand still holding onto his tie.

He props one hand on the wall and one hand on his hip and he opens his
eyes and decides one more Harrah. One more last ditch effort, and then
he's giving up, because this is all he's got. "Didn't know I loved
you."

And a tear tracks down her face but it's followed by a brilliant
smile, and that's the Donna he's been missing. That's the Donna he
hasn't seen since before she went to Gaza. That smile has been missing
for far too long. "Really," she asks, her voice hopeful, her eyebrows
raised.

He tries to push the hope down but it's too much. He smiles back at
her and steps forward again, his hands on her hips. "Yeah."

She bites her lip and looks up at him. "Josh, I really am tired."

He nods. "Me too."

She looks at the number on the top of the elevator and she looks to
the panel and then she looks back at Josh, and there's something in
her eyes that makes Josh's brain downshift to his more animalistic
side. "Make it start again," she says, that smile still in place.

He frowns at her. "What?"

"The elevator, make it start again," she said, motioning to the panel.
"The things I want to do you right now I do not want to do in an
elevator that most likely has security cameras trained on us right
now."

He hears her, he hears every word, but 'the things I want to do to
you' are the last words that actually register because everything else
is lost in the sudden and overpowering lust he feels. He looks at her
and sees the same lust and blindly reaches behind him, pushing every
single button about five times until they hear it grind again and
lurch forward.

It lurches hard enough for him to fall into her and she looks into his
eyes. "Do you know how long I've been waiting to hear that?"

His hand reaches up and brushes her hair back again and his smile is
sad. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't know... and I'm sorry it
took me so long. And I'm sorry for how you must have felt all these
years when you thought I..."

"Josh," she says, resting her hands on his chest and pushing him out
of the opening elevator doors when they reach the fourth floor. "We
can say all of this later, ok? Right now I want you in my room on my
bed."

He makes a strangled sound and would have fallen flat on his butt when
he ran into the small table behind him, but Donna grabbed his hands
and began walking him down the hallway to her suite. It vaguely
registered in his head that her room was right across the hall from
his, but by the time he thought to say so her mouth was back on his
and her hands were unbuttoning his shirt, and once again there was
only one thing repeating in the back of his mind.

Thank you... I'll go to Temple next week and for the rest of my life if
you just let me not screw this up...