"The news is not good, Mr. President. At least, it's not what we'd hoped."

"Great," Josh muttered under his breath, and shifted in the uncomfortable folding chair. He was sitting quietly (more or less) in the back of the conference room along with Toby and a few others as President Bartlet was briefed by the head of the geological team on the latest environmental reports from the Outside. Josh saw the capital letter in his mind whenever anyone said the word, now. Outside. Shangri-La.

Rumors had been running rampant for weeks that they might be able to go up to the surface soon, finally leaving behind the cavernous DoD shelter that had become nothing so much as a prison of concrete and steel buried deep beneath the Earth. In Kansas, no less. Will liked to tease Josh and Toby about being forced to live in the heartland, but that joke grew old after the first year.

Josh, like everyone else trapped in this half-life, wanted the hell out. And so he had come to this meeting with a hope in his breast that danced lightly around his heart.

Reality stopped the music real quick.

"I'm sorry, sir," the chief geologist was saying, his weathered face grave, his gray eyes projecting regret. "But the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are still too high for us to feel comfortable allowing anyone above the surface without a hazmat suit."

Bartlet laced his fingers together, as he often did when deep in thought, and let out a soft sigh. "Okay," he said. "Is there any chance, any at all, that people are still alive up there?"

"It's possible," the geologist conceded -- Josh could never remember the guy's name, even though Donna reminded him constantly. "We scientists believe that despite all evidence to the contrary, humanity always finds a way. But the numbers -- the numbers would be small, sir."

"Yeah." Bartlet pulled himself up out of his chair, and seemed smaller than usual, weighed down by unimaginable problems no other President had ever had to face. "So how much longer before we will be able to go topside?"

The geologist cleared his throat uneasily. "Our revised projection is six months."

Josh felt his stomach plummet as Toby let out a muttered curse.

"Six months?" Leo said, from where he stood at Bartlet's side. "When we spoke a month ago you said six weeks." Josh could hear the dangerous undercurrent in the older man's voice, could sense the way he was desperately trying to hold rein on his emotions. Josh understood the feeling all too well. He dug his nails into his palm, the fresh pain giving him something to focus on besides despair.

"Sir, you have to understand -- no human being has practical experience in this area," the scientist said; he managed to appear calm yet defensive at the same time. "We're learning as we go. I'm sorry the projections aren't what you would like, but they are our best estimates based on the latest round of testing."

The room was swallowed in oppressive silence; finally, Bartlet said, "Okay," again, and walked stiffly toward the door, Leo following behind. No doubt he was off to break the news to his family.

Josh had to do the same; he had to go break the news to Donna. "Shit," he said fervently. He leapt up from his chair and slammed his open palm against the concrete wall. Six more months cooped up down here…damn it all to hell. He flexed his hand and bit his lip.

"We knew it was a possibility," Toby said. He got up from his chair, put his hands in his pockets, didn't look over at Josh.

"Yeah, but one I was getting pretty good at ignoring," Josh said. "God, Toby, what the hell am I going to tell Donna?"

"The same thing I'm going to tell CJ," he said shortly.

"Yeah," Josh breathed as he and Toby exited the room. They walked together down one long hallway, then Toby muttered "Good luck," and veered to the right, toward the quarters he shared with CJ, Will, and a few others. Josh continued down the hall toward the glorified storage closet that he and Donna called home.

When they had first been taken down to the shelter, at the time of the impact, there had been ten of them to a room. But the first time Josh and Donna had been caught quietly making love in their bunk when they'd erroneously thought everyone else was sleeping -- Donna had bemoaned that Toby, of all people, had been the one to hear them -- was the last night they'd spent there. The next day a chagrined Josh had, after an exhaustive search, found the large storage closet, cleared out the cleaning supplies and shifted them to another storage room, and moved two cots in there, side by side. It was a small, dingy space that still smelled vaguely like disinfectant, but Donna had tried her best to make it feel homey, pasting pictures torn from old magazines on the walls and making a collage of the photos she'd grabbed from her apartment before their flight. And when the light was off, and Donna was warm and soft beside him, he quite frankly didn't give a damn what any of it looked like.

She was standing in the entranceway to their room, waiting for him, her blonde hair dull in the unflattering artificial light. She wore faded sweatpants, a t-shirt, socks, and a hopeful expression that tore at his heart. "What did they say?" she asked him. She twisted the hem of her shirt between her fingers.

He stepped closer to her, caught a whiff of olive oil. She'd been sneaking small drops of various cooking oils to use on her skin; her hands were chapped and dry from the heating systems and moisturizer hadn't been high on anyone's list of supplies, before. She always smelled vaguely like dinner now, which was off-putting and arousing all at once. "Six months," he said without preamble. Might as well get it over with. "I'm sorry."

"Six months?" she repeated. "Six months?" Her lower lip trembled. "That's -- that's so much longer than they said last time."

"I know," he said, trying to keep his own disappointment out of his voice. "But they warned us they wouldn't always be able to accurately predict this stuff. I'm sorry, Donna, I know how much you wanted --"

"I can't do it, Josh," she wildly, wringing her hands with a force that made him wince. "I can't be here for another six months, I can't, I can't I can't I can't --" She was almost hyperventilating now, gasping for air, tears forming in her eyes.

He pulled her into their room and shut the door behind them, then scooped her into his arms -- she was so light these days, frail, even -- and settled down with her on the bed. He stroked her hair and let her cry on his shoulder as she practically wrapped herself in a fetal position around his body. "It's going to be okay," he whispered into her hair. "It's just a little more time, we can do it. It'll be okay."

Her sobs eventually eased and she sniffled and sighed against his shirt. "It's not, though, Josh," she said quietly. "You keep saying that, but it's not going to be okay. It's never going to be okay again."

"Hey. Stop that," he pleaded. He lifted her chin so that she was looking at him. "You're going to be all right. I'm going to take care of you," he promised. "It's only fair, really, considering how you took care of me for so many years." He smiled at her, consciously flashing his dimples.

She gave a small smile at that, but he could still see the bitterness in her eyes. "Just hold me, okay?" she said in a voice heavy with defeat. "That'll do for right now."

"That I can do," he said. They lay down on the joined cots and Josh spooned himself around her, holding her close against his chest, his chin on her shoulder, his arm circling her waist, his legs tangled with hers. She let out a shuddering sigh and grasped his hand where it lay against her stomach.

"I love you," he said, figuring it couldn't hurt.

She sighed again. "I know."

"We're not going to be down here forever."

"I'm not so sure of that anymore," she said, barely audible.

"Donna --"

"Please stop talking," she whispered.

He subsided, doing as she asked, but he wasn't happy about it. She seemed to withdraw more and more into herself by the day, and he missed the warm, open woman who had walked into his campaign office seven years ago and taken over the place with a determined look and a sunny smile. Not that he didn't love the harder-edged, haunted woman who had replaced her, but --

His line of thought was cut short when Donna pressed herself more firmly against him and brought his hand up to her breast. She made him cup it, and he could feel her nipple harden against his palm through the material of her shirt. He squeezed reflexively, soft buoyant tissue beneath his fingers. "Donna --" he said again.

She responded by reaching her other hand back, slipping it between their bodies, and pressing her palm against his crotch.

"Donna, I don't --" But she was moving her hand up and down now, and he felt himself stir to hardness despite himself. "Donna," he said helplessly, and shifted so that he was fully embracing her, both of his hands free to cup her breasts. He squeezed them gently through her shirt, dropping hot kisses on her neck as her breathing grew ragged. The scent of her filled his senses, the incongruous odor of her soft skin, her shampoo, and olive oil.

"Don't...talk," she gasped, grabbing blindly at the zipper of his jeans. "Just...fuck me."

He groaned at her words even as he grew harder, almost painfully so. He slid one hand down the front of her sweatpants and began stroking her between her legs, hot slick warmth against his fingers; his other hand continued to knead her breast.

"Yes," she hissed, arching back into him. She removed her hand from his crotch long enough to pull up her t-shirt and throw it aside, then pushed back up against him again. He tried to turn her over to face him, but she resisted and rolled the other way instead so that she was face down on the bed. She lifted her ass up off the mattress and started tugging at her sweatpants.

Realizing what she wanted, Josh pulled himself up, getting on his knees behind her, and helped her take off her sweats and underpants. He fumbled with his jeans and pushed them down to his knees as she waited for him, propped up on all fours. They were both breathing hard, now, hard and loud, and Donna clenched the sheets between her fingers and let out a low moan when Josh took hold of his cock and guided it inside of her. They'd run out of every kind of contraceptive some time ago, everyone had, but he and Donna had decided they didn't particularly give a damn. They weren't about to stop, not when this was one of the only things that kept them going.

He held still inside of her, his cock twitching in anticipation, and caressed the curve of her ass with his palm. "You like that?" he asked roughly, knowing it was what she was in the mood to hear. Sometimes they made love tenderly, sweetly, but other times, like now --

"Yes," she whispered.

He pulled out of her almost all the way, then pushed himself back in slowly, her hot flesh sheathing him completely. He let his weight fall on her for a moment, almost slipping out of her, so that he could unhook her bra, letting the straps slide down her shoulders. Then he thrust into her again and reached one hand around her body to cup her breast. He pinched her nipple between thumb and forefinger.

"More," she breathed, clenching her muscles around him.

He obeyed, setting a steady rhythm, pumping in and out of her, sweat making his shirt stick uncomfortably to his chest. Annoyed, he pulled the shirt up over his head with one hand and threw it aside. Donna's ass slapped against his thighs in counterpoint to their harsh breathing. He closed his eyes, let the sensation of being swallowed by her overtake him, obliterate him. "So good," he panted, his fingers digging into the delicate skin of her hip. "So good so good --"

"Harder," was her strangled response. He opened his eyes, saw her reach down to stroke her clit; she wrapped her other hand around the metal bar at the head of the cot to steady herself. "Harder, Josh."

Again, he did as she asked, driving into her with increasingly loud grunts of exertion, pushing her body forward with each thrust. He took hold of her hips and pulled her up higher so that he sunk deeper into her, ramming against the entrance to her womb. Her head was smashed down into the pillow, her eyes closed, and still she kept touching herself, kept moaning, kept muttering "Harder, harder, harder" with grim determination.

"I'm trying," he whispered, "I'm trying," as he continued bucking against her, harder and faster and harder and faster until they were both practically screaming with the effort (they'd stopped caring months ago if anyone heard them), animalistic sounds of pleasure and strain and then a jagged cry escaped from her throat and she clenched around him, milking his cock as she came, and the exquisite pressure of it dragged him over the edge too. His breath caught in his throat as he jerked inside of her spasmodically, sweet release flooding his veins.

When he finished emptying himself inside of her his rubbery limbs gave out from under him and he collapsed back onto the cheap mattress, gasping for air, shivering at the chill of sweat cooling on his skin. Donna huddled herself into a ball and curled up next to him, her eyes squeezed shut and her fists clenched.

"Donna," he said. He placed a hand on her shoulder, then brushed her sweaty hair away from her face. "Donna, come on."

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. Tears fell, sliding down her face. "Damn it, Donna," he muttered, having seen this before. "C'mere."

She let him take her into his arms and hold her close. He wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could and whispered into her ear, telling her over and over that he loved her and would take care of her and would never leave her. Her hair tickled his nose as he fed her these assurances until she finally drifted off into a restless slumber, her mouth open, her face stained with angry tear tracks that marred her fair skin.

He used to think of her as the strong one, he mused, as he watched her sleep. She was supposed to be the one who held him up. When had the roles reversed on him?

It didn't matter, he told himself. He would be strong enough for the both of them, now. He had to be.

He lay down beside her and stared up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. He'd let her sleep for a while, but then he'd wake her up, and they'd go find Toby and CJ, and they'd talk, damn it, they'd talk about what they were going to do, how they were going to cope, what their plan was going to be. Because they had to have hope, didn't they? They had to have something more than this. They had to.

End.