"I never thought it would happen like this," Donna said.

"I don't think anybody did," Josh said. He fiddled with his key
chain, turning the Swiss pocket knife over and over in his hands,
then realized he might never need any of his keys ever again.
Repulsed suddenly, he threw the keys across the room, wincing
when they hit the far corner and jangled to the ground. "How
could anyone think this would actually happen? This is the stuff
of science fiction, of, of Hollywood, not of reality. This is a bad
Ben Affleck movie."

Donna, leaning against the far wall, her arms crossed over her
chest protectively, looked at the abandoned key ring, then back
at him. "How much longer?" she asked.

Josh checked his watch. "I'm not sure. Maybe another hour? Give
or take." He started pacing in the small confines of the room,
bleeding nervous energy. "I wish there was something I could do."

"We all do," Donna said, watching him as he strode back and forth.
"But I think we've pretty much exhausted all our options, or else we
wouldn't be here."

"Yeah." He was having trouble following the chain of events that
had brought them to this place; the past 48 hours were a blur of panic
and desperation and a single-minded dedication to making sure Donna
was safe. Once the missiles failed, the members of the Bartlet administration
had had to accept the fact that they weren't going to be able to prevent
the massive, incoming meteor from crashing to Earth, somewhere in the
vicinity of New Zealand. To his surprise and disgust Josh had found
himself wishing he'd kept the nuclear emergency card the NSA had
tried to give him back at the beginning of Bartlet's first term, but as
it turned out he didn't need it; there was enough lead-time that the
senior staff had been taken to one of the designated shelters to ride
out the impact and subsequent expected disasters. He had refused to
go anywhere without Donna, and so now the two of them, as well as
their friends, were a couple of miles beneath the ground in a DoD-built
shelter somewhere in the middle of Kansas, far enough away to avoid
the worst of the forecasted flooding and other natural phenomena on
the horizon. Although Josh didn't see how there was anything "natural"
about any of this.

He and Donna currently occupied a room they were expected to share
with eight other people; bunks lined the walls and various personal
possessions, gathered in haste yesterday before they took flight, were
scattered about the room in casual disarray. Everyone else -- Toby, CJ,
Will, Charlie, and the rest -- had wandered off to find others, to find
reassurance and security in the presence of other people, but for some
reason he and Donna had stayed behind. It seemed that they were only
interested in being with each other, now.

Not sure why he was doing so, Josh moved to the door and closed it,
then turned the lock.

"What are you doing?" Donna asked.

He looked blankly at the lock for a while, trying to figure out the
answer to her question. "I don't know. I...I guess I wanted to make
sure we wouldn't be disturbed."

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked confusedly.

"When this is over, we don't know what we're going to find out there,"
he said, ignoring the question. "Scientists could only give us projections,
nothing they told us was 100% accurate. Probably wasn't even 75% accurate.
The ground above us could be covered in water for months, followed by
mountains of snow, or ash. No one knows for sure. We could be stuck
here indefinitely. We could...we might not..." He trailed off, not wanting
to finish the thought.

The color drained from her face and she sat down on one of the bottom
bunks. "Please don't say things like that," she said tightly. She folded her
hands in her lap, the knuckles white. "Don't."

Regret washed over him. "I'm sorry," he croaked. He went to her, sinking
to his knees before her so that they were at eye level. "I know you're scared.
I didn't mean to make it worse."

"I am scared, Josh," she said, looking down at her lap. "I'm absolutely
terrified, and my parents -- my parents --" Her voice broke on the words,
and she covered her face with her hands, letting the tears fall.

"God, Donna, don't cry," he said helplessly. He sat down next to her on
the bunk and took her into his arms, holding her as she cried into his shoulder,
wetting the front of his shirt. "I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair. "I'm
sorry. Don't cry."

She continued sobbing for a while, clutching his back, gathering the
material of his shirt between her fingers in clawing, desperate grasps.
Finally she subsided to sniffles and the occasional hiccup and with a flush
of embarrassment she asked him for a tissue. He went into the adjoining
bathroom and came out with a wad of toilet paper, which she took from
him silently and used to blow her nose. He sat back down next to her and
rubbed her back. "You okay?"

She nodded, not looking at him. "Yeah. Okay as anyone can be right now,
I guess."

"Yeah."

She took his wrist, turned it so she could see his watch. "And now we're
that much closer to the end of the world," she said bleakly.

"It's not the end of the world," he said with a false bravado that contradicted
his earlier sentiments.

"If it is...I'm..." She exhaled. "This shouldn't be so hard to say, not now.
I'm...I'm glad I'm with you."

He looked at her, at her red eyes and runny nose and tangled blonde hair,
and felt as if he were seeing her for the first time. "Me too," he said.

She almost smiled at that, and he took it as an invitation to lean over and
kiss her. He started out tentatively, unsure if he was pushing too hard
under strenuous circumstances, but to his relief she returned the kiss fully,
opening her mouth beneath his and reaching up to wrap her arms around
his neck. He responded in kind, embracing her tightly, and the kissing
grew more and more urgent until they were frantically running their
hands over each other's bodies, exploring, seeking, claiming, unable to
get close to each other fast enough.

He lay her down on the narrow bunk. She continued to kiss him as he
worked at the buttons of her shirt, pushing the material aside to expose
her pale pink bra. He smoothed his hand over her breasts and she arched
into his touch.

"Is this wrong?" she wondered when his mouth moved to her neck. "I
mean, considering..."

He raised his head to look at her. "I don't think so," he breathed. "Why?
Does it...does it feel wrong?"

She shook her head vigorously and twined her fingers in his unruly hair.
"No," she said, and kissed him again. "Don't stop," she whispered against
his lips.

He obeyed by undoing the front clasp of her bra, freeing her breasts, and
catching a nipple between his fingers. She sighed into his mouth, a rush
of hope and longing that wrenched his heart. He lowered his head to her
chest, replacing his fingers with his mouth, drawing the nipple between
his teeth and sucking hard. Donna's hands clutched his shoulders and her
mouth found his earlobe, mimicking the workings of his lips at her breast.

Her flickering tongue in his ear roused him back into a frenzy, and he
tugged impatiently at her jeans, undoing the button fly and helping her
wiggle out of them. He slid his hand between her legs and parted her
folds with his fingers. Her hips bucked up against him when he found
her clit, and he was pleased to discover she was quite ready for him.

"Now, Josh..." she murmured. "Hurry..."

He stopped what he was doing just long enough to divest himself of
his clothing, then rejoined her on the bunk, careful not to hit his head
on the underside of the bunk on top of them. "Are you on the pill?"
he thought to ask.

Her eyes were very blue as she looked up at him. "Does it really matter?"

He swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat and shook his head.
"I guess not. Donna...before we do this...I should probably tell you..."

"I love you too," she said, rescuing him.

Josh smiled for the first time in days. "Good." She wrapped her long
legs around his waist and he eased himself inside of her, his mind
reeling at the snug warmth of her, his body aflame with wanting her.
"You okay?" he asked.

She kissed him in answer. He took one of her hands in his and then
began to thrust slowly in and out of her, finding a rhythm they both
liked. Their eyes met and held, gazes locked, adding to the wordless
sensual conversation of their bodies. He squeezed her hand tightly
and thrust into her harder, making her gasp with surprise and pleasure.

Soon they were moving faster, her hips rising again and again, tight
hot friction sending electricity up his spine, the feeling of being inside
Donna almost more than he could handle. He reached up with one hand,
snaked his fingers up her neck to her face, rested his thumb on her lower
lip. She took his thumb into her mouth and sucked on it in time to their
movements, her tongue winding around the tip, and the sight of it brought
him to the brink a lot faster than he would have been ideal. He removed
his thumb from her mouth and moved it down to her clit, frantically
swirling the wet digit around her swollen nub. Donna's breathing grew
heavier and faster and her chest flushed pink. He could practically see
the trails of capillaries beneath her alabaster skin.

"Josh..." she breathed. "Make me forget..."

Merciful oblivion was the only thing she'd asked of him since this
whole mess had started, and he wasn't about to disappoint her. He
worked her clit harder and shifted inside of her, finding a new angle,
desperate to drive her over the edge. He must have found the right
spot because almost immediately she started coming, clenching around
him, her head falling back in rapture, soft, steady cries emitting from
her throat. Relieved that he was able to hold out for her, he spent himself
right after with a guttural moan and blessed blankness in his mind,
becoming for a few precious moments a creature of pure sensation.

When they both stopped shuddering, following a few more half-hearted
spasms, he fell onto the bunk beside her and wrapped himself around her,
the twin-sized mattress barely holding them both. He covered her face
in kisses and tangled his fingers in her hair. Tears leaked from beneath
her closed eyelids, and he swept them away with his thumb. "Donna,
seriously, please don't cry," he said, afraid that this time he would join her.

She opened her eyes and blinked rapidly to dispel the tears. "I don't
know what I'd do if you weren't here with me, Josh."

Another time he would have made a smug remark, but he didn't have
it in him under the circumstances. "I know," he said instead. "Me too."
He propped himself up on one elbow and used his free hand to smooth
her hair away from her forehead. "We're in this together, okay?
Whatever happens...we'll face it together."

"You promise?" she said.

"I promise," he said. "Nothing's going to take me away from you."
Not as long as I'm still breathing, he added silently.

She nodded, appeased for the moment, and pulled him back down to
her. They held each other close in comfortable silence, each of them
lost in their own thoughts.

Josh chanced a surreptitious look at his watch. Outside, the world as
they knew it was ending. He only hoped that he and Donna would
survive to build a new one.

End.