Hours had passed now, hours since Donna first brought Josh the "what a shame" folder, as she referred to it, and they had been combing through it with persistent single-mindedness ever since. The sun had long set, and judging from the silence that now enveloped them, everyone else had gone home some time ago. Yet here they remained, just the two of them, holed up in Josh's office, the lamp on his desk casting a delicate play of light and shadow across the room as they continued working on reports that, in the grand scheme of things, weren't particularly important to the future of the country.

Josh was still there because he was convinced that the minute he ceased this pointless activity, the minute he took a break and allowed his mind to settle, he would be buried in an avalanche of panic and despair and self-loathing that would smother him completely. So he kept on working, concentrating on minutiae, keeping the danger at bay. And Donna, for reasons passing his understanding, stayed with him.

Eventually, though, he couldn't take it anymore, couldn't continue the charade. He threw the file he had been reading down on the desk and buried his face in his hands. "Why don't you go home, Donna," he said. "I've kept you here way too late. We can handle these --" he gestured to the pile on his desk -- "oh so very important matters of state tomorrow. God knows it's not like I'm going to have anything else to do."

Donna stopped writing and folded her hands in her lap. "I thought this was helping," she said carefully. "The files, I mean."

"It was," he assured her quickly. "It is. And I appreciate it, I do. But it's time to give up and go home."

"If I leave, are you going to stay here all night and not get any sleep?"

"No," he said defensively, not sure if he was lying or not.

"Okay. If I leave, are you going to go home and drink yourself into a stupor and inflict some sort of property damage on your apartment?" she said evenly.

He opened his mouth, not sure what to say to that. Finally, he said, "You don't think I learned my lesson from the last time?"

"I don't know, did you?"

They stared at each other until he broke the eye contact. "I'm not going to damage my apartment or myself," he said bitterly. "Go home."

"Fine." She stood up and started gathering file folders, not looking at him.

"It's just..." he found himself saying. "It's just that I don't know how many more days like this I can take." She paused, listening. Why was he telling her this? The words tumbled from his mouth before he could stop them. "I feel like every day that passes this way I'm going to die a little inside, bit by bit until there's nothing left. Until I'm a useless husk who isn't any good to anybody, at least not in the business of politics. And what do I have besides politics? A receding hairline and a halfway decent baseball card collection." He chanced a look at her, and she was biting her lip, worry clear on her face. "Forget it," he said, kicking himself for upsetting her.

"Josh --"

"Really, forget it. I'm fine." He reached for his coffee cup and winced. "Damn it."

"What's the matter?"

He let out a short, harsh laugh. "On top of everything else, my back has been acting up lately. Because mental anguish isn't enough cosmic punishment for my crimes, apparently."

"It's because you're tense, Josh," Donna said. "The muscles are bunching up."

"Yeah."

"Turn your chair around."

His eyebrows shot up into his forehead. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, turn your chair around," she said. "I'm going to give you a shoulder rub, loosen up some of those muscles."

He hesitated. "Donna, that's not exactly in your job description."

"Then don't think of it as a duty performed by your assistant. Think of it as a favor from a friend."

Faced with her pleading expression, he didn't see how he could argue his way out of that. So he turned his chair toward the wall and waited.

She began kneading his shoulders and upper back with a deft touch, and he absentmindedly wondered how many men had been on the receiving end of this sort of attention from Donnatella Moss. Then she started digging deeper and it felt so good he didn't think about much of anything for a while.

"No wonder your back hurts," Donna murmured. "Your muscles are incredibly tight." She exerted her thumb on a pressure point near his shoulder blade and he let out a low hiss. "Breathe into it," she told him.

He inhaled deeply. "Where did you learn how to do this?" he asked, eyes shut, gritting his teeth.

"I once dated a guy who used to date a masseuse," she said. "I picked up some pointers."

"Well, I'm glad one of your failed relationships was good for something," he muttered. "Ow!" He jerked beneath her hands. "You did that on purpose!"

"It's not wise to mock the person holding your neck in her hands," Donna said.

"So noted."

They went back to silence, Donna's hands continuing to work his upper back, finding knots and massaging them until he could feel them loosen under her touch. After a while her hands slipped beneath his collar, pressing against bare skin. Her fingers were soft and warm as they kneaded muscle and sinew, her thumbs tracing lines up the back of his neck, the heels of her palms exerting exquisite pressure against his shoulders. He let his head hang even lower, heard his breathing hitch, and tried not to think about how arousing he was beginning to find all this.

As if she were reading his mind and hell-bent on torturing him, her ministrations slowed down a bit, making them feel more deliberate, more erotic. Maybe he was imagining things, but her attention to his muscles seemed to be turning into motions that resembled caresses, her fingers sliding purposefully over his bare skin. He could feel her breath warm on the back of his neck and realized she must be leaning in closer to him. The air suddenly seemed charged with an electric anticipation. His mouth felt unaccountably dry.

"Donna," he whispered unthinkingly, and then froze at the way her name sounded on his lips. He'd never said her name aloud quite that way before, imbued with longing and desire, and they both knew it. Her hands paused on his shoulders. He barely breathed as he remained still and waited for her reaction.

To his surprise she slowly swiveled his chair around so that he was facing her. She had a look on her face he couldn't quite read, an expression that seemed to encompass determination and compassion and something else. Josh watched in shock, unable to move, as she gingerly straddled him in the chair, placing her shins on either side of his thighs, her crotch dangerously close to his. She cradled his head in her hands and placed a soft, tender kiss on his forehead, then on his cheek, on his chin.

"What are you doing?" he croaked.

She looked at him with glistening blue eyes. "Helping you to relax," she whispered.

"Donna, I –" She put a finger to his lips.

"Don't," she said. "For once in your life, Joshua, just keep quiet." And then she lowered her lips to his, gently, slipping her tongue into his mouth, her mouth delicately working with unhurried movements, breathing life into his body.

With the first feel of her mouth on his he was lost. Every functioning brain cell screamed that what they were doing was wrong, or at the very least inappropriate, but there was simply no way he could stop himself from responding in kind, searching Donna's mouth with his tongue, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. At the brusque movement Donna let out a soft groan from deep in her throat, and he felt himself go from merely firm to rock hard within seconds. Donna seemed to sense his reaction, for she responded by pushing her body harder into his, causing his hips to spasm up of their own volition.

Her mouth moved down to his throat, her tongue flickering at the delicate skin beneath his ear. He let out a sound he was mortified to recognize as a growl and brought one hand up to cup her breast through the soft cotton of her shirt. Donna let out a ragged breath and started tugging at his belt buckle with urgency.

This is happening way too fast, he thought dimly, but then Donna was undoing his zipper and wriggling off of his lap so she could tug his pants down around his legs and oh my god --

Her hot, wet mouth engulfed his shaft, her tongue gliding against sensitive, enflamed skin, her hand gripping him at the root and applying gentle but firm pressure. "God, Donna," he whispered. He ran his fingers through her heavy blonde hair, and listened to his breathing grow more rapid by the moment. He let his head fall back and closed his eyes and his mind went blank.

When he felt the painful absence of her mouth from his cock he opened his eyes to see her standing up and swiftly slipping out of her dress pants, then out of her cream-colored cotton panties. He watched mutely as she climbed back into his lap, straddled him once more, and then reached down and guided him inside her.

She placed her hands on either side of the chair for balance; he gripped her waist with one hand and held her back with the other. She lifted herself up once and then plunged back down on him again, making them both gasp. He stopped her for a moment so he could unbutton her tailored shirt, revealing her white lace bra, the shadow of her pink nipples showing faintly through the material.

They reassumed their positions and this time he thrust up into her, making her moan. Again, and she whispered his name. Again, and a low groan issued from his throat. The chair squeaked beneath them as their coupling quickly escalated to a feverish tempo, the wheels causing the chair to move back and forth slightly with each thrust. He transferred one hand to her breast, teasing the nipple through the lace, watching her breasts move up and down in time with their movements.

They were both breathing hard now, panting and moaning and sweating and she felt so hot and tight and "Oh my god," Donna whispered, and he thought he detected a hint of surprise. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god," and then she was coming, contracting around him, and the exquisite grip of her internal muscles pushed him to the edge so that he was bucking wildly, high-pitched moans escaping his mouth as he spilled into her in a dizzying release.

They stayed frozen in place for a moment, breathless, Donna's hair falling in front of her face and tickling his nose, her lips parted and swollen, hovering temptingly near his. She moved her head a fraction of an inch toward him and he lifted his chin so he could kiss her, hard, putting all of his caring and wanting and gratitude into it.

When their lips parted, Donna took his head in her hands and rested her forehead against his, caressing the sides of his face with trembling fingers. Then she released him and pulled herself off of him and began putting her clothes back on.

Unsure what to do next, he pulled his pants back up and fastened his belt. Donna finished dressing and started gathering up file folders.

He looked at her disbelievingly. "Donna --"

"You don't have to say anything, Josh," she said. "I just wanted to make you feel better."

"You did," he said honestly. "Although that could change if you don't put down those folders and talk to me."

She paused in mid-movement, then put the files down and looked at him. "I'm not looking to complicate your life any more than it already is, Josh. There weren't any strings attached to what just happened." She scooped up her files and headed out to the bullpen.

What the -- He leapt up out of his chair and ran out to the deserted work area. "Donna --"

"Yes?" She sat down in front of her computer.

"Donna, stop it." He knelt down next to her and grabbed her chair, turned it toward him. "Donna..." God, he had no idea what to say to her. He closed his eyes for a second, tried to gather his thoughts, tried to think of something he could say that wouldn't hurt her.

"It's true that I'm not in any kind of emotional state to be able to make promises right now," he said finally, choosing his words with care.

"I know," she said. "I'm not asking for any."

"You've made that pretty clear," he cracked. "But I'd like to make a couple of things clear, too."

She looked at him, waiting.

He took a deep breath before continuing. "We both know it's been a rough few years for me. And it seems like whenever I feel like I'm drowning, you're there with a life jacket."

"You'd do the same for me," she said. "You have already."

He nodded, acknowledging the truth of it, but stuck to what he was trying to say. "The thing is, I feel like I don't always know how to repay your seemingly inexhaustible supply of life preservers, so I usually just...ignore it. Because it scares me sometimes, how important you are to me. It scares me that I rely on you so much. And it's a lot easier to just not deal with it."

He took her hand in his before continuing. "I care about you, Donna. And what just happened in there -- well, that was, uh, unexpected, obviously, but it was also pretty great if I do say so myself."

She smiled hesitantly. "I won't deny that."

"So...I don't want to pretend it never happened." He met her eyes, silently pleading with her to understand. "I don't want to ignore it, the way I seem to do with everything else. But at the same time...the way things are right now...."

"Right," she said quietly, and his heart broke at the catch in her voice.

He soldiered on. "I just don't think I can do this, not now. There's too much else going on, and I'm too much of a mess. And I don't want whatever this is," he squeezed her hand, "to be the thing that upsets the apple cart that is my head these days. That's not fair to either of us."

"No," she whispered, looking down at their hands. "It's not."

"So I guess ultimately what I'm trying to say is...thank you," he rasped. "Thank you for making my night a whole hell of a lot better. And I can only hope you don't regret it."

"I don't," she said firmly. "If I thought I might, I wouldn't have done it. I'm a big girl, Josh."

"I know."

They were silent for a while, then she reached up and lightly traced the line of his jaw. "Look, Josh...I'm not going anywhere. Tomorrow morning I'll be right here, same as always. I'm not going anywhere," she repeated.

Relief flooded his heart. He leaned over and pressed his lips to her cheek, lingering there, not sure when he'd be able to do it again. "Neither am I," he vowed. "No matter what they throw at me."

She smiled. "Now that sounds more like the Josh Lyman I know," she said.

"Yeah, well..." He ducked his head, embarrassed suddenly. "Someone helped me to remember that there's more to life than politics."

"Sounds like that someone was an insightful, intelligent woman."

He cracked a small grin. "Yeah." He stood up, stretched out his much improved back. "How about I take you home. I'll even stop for some takeout along the way."

"Wendy's?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure. My treat."

They gathered up their belongings and headed for the exit together, leaving the west wing in darkness.

end.