"Josh!" Toby yelled as he swung open the door to Josh's office. "We
need to talk about the--" He stopped short at the sight of the empty room. "Where the hell is he?" he muttered to himself. He turned around, absentmindedly closing the door behind him. "Joshua!" he bellowed as he continued down the hallway.

Donna poked her head up from behind Josh's desk, breathing hard. "Do you think he suspected anything?"

Josh's head rose up beside her. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead. "Nah. He'll
be running all over the building looking for me now."

"That should give us some more time," Donna said.

"That's what I'm thinking," Josh agreed, and pulled her back down to the
floor with him.

*******

Josh looked up from his computer at the sound of Donna entering his office. "Wow. You look hot," he said.

"I know." She twirled around so that he could better appreciate the nearly
backless black sheath she was wearing. "An attractive, powerful government official is taking me out to dinner tonight."

He got up from his desk, walked over to her, placed his hands on her waist. "Anyone I know?"

She tilted her head, pretended to consider it. "Maybe. He looks kind of like
you, only cuter."

"I bet I could take him," he said.

"I don't know, he's pretty buff."

They shared a slow smile. "Ready to go?" she asked.

"Yeah, let me just grab my coat."

"Josh!"

He stopped short at the sound of his assistant's voice. "No way," he muttered.
"I'm not here!" he yelled.

His assistant appeared in the doorway. "Leo wants to see you."

"Dammit." He looked at Donna helplessly. "I gotta do this."

She nodded. "I'll wait here for a while in case it doesn't take too long."

"Okay. I'll try to make it fast." He kissed her quickly on the lips and
left.

*****

"Anything else?"

"That's it sir," Leo said.

Bartlet put his glasses back on and picked up a report from his desk. "In that
case I'll expect to see all of you for chili tonight."

"Sir, Josh has something he needs to tell you about that," CJ said with
an evil grin.

Josh shot CJ a look of death. "No I don't."

"Yes he does."

"No, I don't," he said loudly.

"Josh is bringing a date tonight," CJ continued, enjoying herself entirely
too much.

Bartlet raised an eyebrow. "While it's all well and good that you're dating,
Josh, I'm not sure this is really the forum for outsiders --"

"It's Donna," CJ said, and Josh rubbed his face with his palm.

"Oh really? Is that true, Josh?" the president asked.

Josh looked down at the rug, cleared his throat. "Yes sir."

"Well in that case, son, congratulations on finally removing your head from
your ass. What's next?"

*****

"What are you staring at?" she asked.

"Nothing, I just --" Josh looked her up and down, smiled. "It's just
weird. You're my girlfriend."

Donna smiled shyly. "You make it sound like we're in high school."

"You have a better term?"

She started walking down the hallway and he hurried to keep up with her. "I
don't know. Paramour? Love goddess? Object of your slavish devotion and affection?"

"Let's just stick with girlfriend," he said.

"If you insist."

"I'm leaving the office now," Josh yelled to the bullpen. "I'm going
out to dinner with my girlfriend!"

"Oh my god."

"That's right! My girlfriend and I are about to spend an entire evening together and are not to be disturbed!"

"Josh."

"If anyone's looking for me, tell them I'm with my girlfriend!"

"I really hate you sometimes, you know that?"

*****

The ringing phone shattered the silence of the darkened bedroom. Josh groped for the phone until he found the receiver. "Yeah." Pause. "Really? But I
-- okay. I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up the phone and let out a sound of frustration as he pulled himself into a sitting position.

Donna stirred beside him, rested her hand on his bare back. "Emergency?"

"Kind of," he said, rubbing his eyes. "There's a thing. Something
with India and Pakistan, I don't know. Leo’s still in California so they want me there even though I'm not going to have any idea what they’re talking about."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No," he said quickly. "You stay here, sleep." He leaned down
and kissed her. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"If you're staying through til morning call me and I'll bring you a change
of clothes on my way to work."

"Yeah." He kissed her again and threw aside the sheets with a muttered
curse.

*****

"You heading home?" Leo asked when he ran into Josh in the main lobby.

"Yeah."

"Any plans?"

"Donna's making dinner, a prospect that fills me on the one hand with neanderthal chauvinist joy and on the other hand with stark terror at the thought of chewing my way through an inedible pile of congealed pasta."

"Uh huh. So how's that working out?"

"The cooking?"

Leo gave him a look.

"It's uh, it's going okay." Josh stopped, grinned. "It's going extremely
okay."

"Good."

"Yeah."

They started walking again. "You're going to tell her you like the food no
matter what, right?" Leo asked.

"You think I'm an idiot?"

"Okay then."

"Night, Leo."

*****

"Are you harassing my assistant again?"

"I don't think her filing system is quite up to par," Donna said defensively.

"Yeah, hers is actually alphabetical. It boggles the mind."

"I'm just saying there's always room for improvement."

"Don't you have a job of your own you should be doing right now?"

"I was going to ask my assistant to bring a report over to Toby but decided
to do it myself." She paused. "You know, so I could visit a certain guy who
I just knew would be overjoyed to see me in the middle of the day and wouldn't give me any guff about it."

"Guff? Whatever you say, Minnie Pearl."

"Look, do you want to make out for a while or what?"

He blinked. "Yeah, okay." He got up, went to the door. "Hold my calls
for a few minutes," he yelled out to the bullpen as he shut the door behind him.

*****

"You're looking even more pleased with yourself than usual."

"I slept very well last night."

"How nice for you." Toby sat down, took a sip of coffee. "So about
this environmental fundraiser --"

"Well, truth be told, I didn't do a whole a lot of sleeping, if you know what
I mean," Josh said with a smug grin.

"Oh god," Toby said.

"I mean, when I did sleep, I slept well, but that was when I was actually sleeping, and not doing other things of a purely recreational nature."

"Please kill me now," Toby said, studiously looking down at his coffee.

"There are, after all, other things one can do at night--"

"So help me, Josh, if you do not stop talking right now I will hurl myself
out this window."

"We're on the first floor."

"Nonetheless."

*****

"Josh, Sam called and he asked me to give you a message," Bonnie said.

Josh looked up from his desk. "What is it?"

Bonnie read the note. "He just said, 'Tell him it's about damn time.' I assume you
know what that means?"

Josh paused, then smiled to himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."

End...?