Donna floated back to consciousness, slowly, lazily, from a dreamless sleep. She lay there, mind devoid of everything but the thought of how comfortable she was. The room was just the right temperature, pillows in the perfect place, her favorite sweatshirt soft and cozy on her skin.

She went to stretch her arms over her head and found the left one wouldn’t really cooperate. Thinking it was just tangled in the sheets, she pulled with a little more force and was rewarded with a shooting pain in her shoulder. She yelped, but no sound came out. Her voice was hoarse from not having used it for many hours.

Cracking her eyes open, she realized for the first time that she wasn’t in her room.

It was Josh’s room. Her brow furrowed in confusion. It wasn’t the first time she’d woken up in Josh’s room, but it was one of only a handful of times. She’d slept there nightly when he first came home from GW. A hospital bed had been moved in for him and she’d slept on a rollaway in the same room at first, terrified she wouldn’t hear him from the next room if something happened. She’d moved out to the couch quickly enough as he’d gotten stronger.

Then there’d been Christmas Eve. That Christmas. After another long night in the GW Emergency Room, she’d walked him home and put him to bed. She said she was going to stay on the couch, making some excuse about being too tired to go back to her place. But he’d looked so...broken. Hand wrapped in a fresh bandage, face painted with embarrassment and exhaustion, looking like a sad little boy. She’d ended up climbing in with him, in a pair of his pajama pants and what was now her favorite Harvard sweatshirt, and jokingly told him a bedtime story about a very good man from faraway place called New Hampshire who, with the help of his merry men and women, became king. They’d laughed themselves silly at her description of themselves and their co-workers — Tobias the Grumpy Poet, Samuel the Innocent Genius, Donnatella the Amazing and her troll of a boss. That had been a major point of contention. They’d both fallen asleep before she’d finished. The next morning, when they’d woken up at virtually the same time, he’d simply wished her a merry Christmas before he got out of bed and pretended it was too awkward to talk about. The scary thing, for both of them, was that it wasn’t awkward at all. It should have been, but it wasn’t. That had been the last time Donna had woken up in Josh’s room, until now.

Something was eating away at the sleepy haze her brain was comfortably wrapped in. The pain was beginning to subside, and she tried to will the gnawing at her mind to go away with it.

But it was too late. Her brain had already begun to stir. Something about GW. Josh at GW, the GW Emergency Room...her eyes flew open. The previous night came crashing back to her, with all its hardness and heaviness and jagged edges. Donna heaved a heavy sigh and blinked back the sting in her eyes. She wasn’t floating anymore.

She looked over and found that she was alone, as she’d thought. The lamp was off too, but she hadn’t noticed because the room was filled with daylight. She tried to sit up, but had to roll into a sitting position awkwardly because her left side was being stubborn.

It took her a second to get the standing thing right. Her balance was off. But she felt solid on her feet by the time she went padding toward the living area.

Josh was on the phone, already dressed in jeans and a brown heather polo-collar sweater, in sock feet, hair just a little damp. His back was turned and he didn’t see her, so she took advantage of the circumstances, and leaned against the doorjamb for a moment to listen.

“Still asleep,” he said into the phone. “No, me either... She did fine, not a peep out of her all night...Yeah, I hope so...I don’t know, I talked to Leo a couple hours ago. I’ve been reading some briefing books he sent over with Ryan but I don’t have to come in today. I think I will though, for a little while, if I can get her to take a nap later...Yeah, or she can come in if she really wants to, but just to hang out while I do a couple things, I don’t want her working today.” A long silence followed. “Really.” It was not a question. “Well, I can’t say I’m overjoyed by that news, CJ...No, of course you should have told me, don’t NOT tell me any of this stuff, OK?” Another silence. “Oh, man. I was hoping she’d have a little more time before she had to deal with this part...No, I know, we were lucky we got off as easy as we did last night...OK. Well, she’ll either call you or come see you if she decides to come in, but I think that sounds like the way to go. Make sure you run everything by her, though...OK.”

Josh was quiet as he scrolled through a file on his laptop. He’d spread out on the coffee table with the work that Ryan had brought over. “I don’t know about tonight, CJ, I just told you she was still asleep...I said she could stay for as long as she wants and I meant it. How would you feel if you were in her position right now?” Another pause. “It’s not going to look like anything to anybody, CJ, because nobody but the inner circle knows. If anybody in the press room finds out it’s going to be because you told them...Yes...Yes, I will tell her it’s a standing invitation...I’m not saying I’m going to bring it up today, but when the opportunity presents itself...CJ, the whole thing is perfectly innocent and you know that…OK, you know what, I’m not having this conversation with you right now, either. I’ll see you when I get in.”

He pushed the “off” button on the cordless handset with a thinly veiled disgust.

“Hi,” she said.

He was on his feet and spinning so quickly he nearly took the laptop with him. “Hi. You’re very stealthy this morning.” He saw immediately that Dr. Bennett had known what he was talking about. She looked more like the Donna he had known yesterday morning. He had to force himself not to grin like an idiot. “How are you f— how’s your shoulder?”

“Really stiff, my whole arm is,” Donna said coming toward him. She tried to move it a little to demonstrate, but only managed to hurt herself again.

“I believe you,” Josh said when she winced. “Did...did you sleep OK?”

“So well I don’t remember any of it.”

Josh smiled at that. “Yeah, that Vicodin will do a number on you. If you’d really like a trippy experience you ought to try morphine sometime. You won’t know who you are, or who anyone around you is, but you’ll be strangely OK with it, which is oddly relaxing.”

“I remember,” Donna smiled, a little sadly. “Or remember watching it, anyway. It was pretty entertaining from my side of it, too. You’d agree to anything.”

“Because I didn’t know who I was or what you were talking about, but I was—”

“Strangely OK with it,” she finished with him, a little grin on her face. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking down at his feet. Even after all this time, they didn’t talk about the shooting much. Little bits here and there, but nothing substantial. But in his attempt to steer them away from the sensitive subject at hand, he’d managed to steer them straight into another uncomfortable area.

“I have Advil, or the doctor said you could have another Vicodin if you wanted it,” Josh said.

“Advil,” Donna said. “I don’t like feeling so out of it.”

Josh nodded. “Coffee?”

“God, yes.”

“Sit down,” he called on his way to the kitchen. “I made you breakfast.”

“See, that’s the kind of thing you want to wait and tell me after I’m already sitting,” she said.

“What? I’m nice. I did a nice thing because I wanted to be nice. I’m a perfectly nice person, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you people!” Josh moaned.

Donna glanced behind her to the living area. “Just out of curiosity, how many of us do you see here?”

“No, it’s just...last night, Toby and CJ...they were picking on me, never mind.”

“Poor baby.”

“I really am,” he said, eyes wide with mock seriousness.

She gave him a full-wattage smile for that one, and Josh felt like he’d accomplished his first constructive thing all morning.

“Well, not that I don’t appreciate all the niceness and the...making of things to be nice, but I’m not hungry, Josh.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d say that,” Josh called from the kitchen. “But I know you didn’t eat dinner yesterday,” he said, not elaborating on how he obviously knew, “And lunch yesterday sucked, and I made French toast, which I happen to know is your favorite, so you’re going to eat at least one piece, out of guilt, if for no other reason,” he said as he came back around the corner with a plate.

Donna looked at the plate and fought against becoming misty-eyed. “Well-played.”

“Thank you, I know. Eat.”

“’Kay.”

She kept her left arm in her lap so she didn’t have to move her shoulder at all, and was suddenly grateful that it was her left, and not her right shoulder, that had been hit. She was rolling all this over in her brain when she realized Josh was still standing there.

“Okay, you’re not gonna like, stand there and watch, are you?”

“Huh? Oh. No.”

“Get some toast and sit down.”

“Already ate some,” Josh said into his coffee mug as he pulled out the chair next to hers.

She felt immediately nauseous after the first bite, but was pretty sure she successfully hid it from Josh.

“What time is it?” she asked through a yawn.

“Almost 11,” Josh said as he took another sip of coffee.

“ELEVEN!?!” she screeched. “HOW COULD YOU—”

“Donna, I’m gonna need you to bring it back within human decibel levels,” Josh said, flinching.

Donna took a breath. “How could you let me sleep that late?”

“I figured you needed it,” Josh said innocently. “Take your Advil.”

Donna noticed the pills beside her plate for the first time and swallowed them with a sip of coffee.

“We’ve got to get to the office,” she said.

“We don’t actually,” Josh said. “Ryan brought me some stuff that I’ve been working on from here. I may be going in for an hour or two later on, but you have the weekend off.”

Uh oh. She was pissed. She was giving him that look again. That look that made him wish he were already dead, because what she was going to put him through was going to be much worse than actually being dead. She knew why. She knew why he wasn’t going to let her go in to work. Think of another reason, think of another reason...

“Why exactly do I have the weekend off?”

“Eat another bite of toast and I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me and I’ll take another bite.”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I beat you to the punch with that one. You don’t have to eat, but I’m not going to tell you unless you do.”

She pouted for a second, then shoved a forkful of syrupy toast in her mouth silently.

“Thank you,” he said smugly. “The reason you have the weekend off—”

“Is because of the thing yesterday and you’re having a nutty and thinking I’m not OK, when I’m fine, I’m perfectly fine, I’m sitting right here in front of you telling you I’m fine, but you’re a very stupid man who can’t see what’s sitting right in front of you.”

“Wrong.”

She blinked. “Huh?”

“Wrong, spoilsport. It has nothing to do with the thing yesterday, it has to do with the other thing yesterday.”

Donna was thoroughly confused. “What other thing yesterday?”

“The thing where I went to my meeting on the Hill and made the Blue Dogs beg for mercy, which I graciously agreed to give to them, you know, because after all, I am such a genuinely nice person, everyone thinks so—” Donna was waving her fork at him in the universal “move it along” signal. “Oh. So I graciously agreed to show them a little mercy in exchange for their support for the funding for Charlie’s Teachers, and they said OK.”

He stopped cold and raised his eyebrows at her, letting that information process. God, he was good.

She blinked once. “Josh! All of it? Everything we wanted for Phase 2?”

He just grinned at her. “Who’s the master, Donna?”

“You are, you are, you are, Joshua Lyman! You are the master of all you survey.”

“Okay, you’re laying it on a little thick now.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got the weekend off, I figure I can kiss your ass for 10 seconds.”

“I figure for the weekend off, you can do it for a lot longer than that,” he mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” he was doing that thing again, where he couldn’t stop smiling at her. God, she was beautiful. Smiling and safe and happy in his Harvard sweatshirt she had shamelessly stolen, eating breakfast in his apartment. For the briefest of moments, an unexpected thought wormed its way into his consciousness. The idea that she could actually NOT be there in his stolen sweatshirt, eating breakfast in his apartment, because things might have gone differently the night before. It hit him full on, and he was completely unprepared for it. The first thing that hit him was a wave of dizziness, followed by ringing in his ears. Then he was sure he was going to be sick.

Donna saw the look on his face. “What?”

“Nothing...I just...ugh, I’ll be right back,” he rushed off to the bathroom and promptly threw up his breakfast.

Donna was standing at the door when he opened it.

“Why are you sick?”

“I don’t know, I think I may be coming down with something,” he muttered.

“Do you think maybe the eggs were bad?” Donna asked, putting her right hand to his forehead.

He leaned into her touch a little, in spite of himself.

“No, I think it’s just me,” Josh said, finally taking her hand off his face. “But I suppose that’s it for you and the toast, huh?”

“I ate almost a whole piece,” she wheedled.

“Ahkay.”

“You want a cold cloth?”

“No, I don’t want a cold cloth, I want you to come sit back down, I wanna talk to you about some stuff, and this time it is about the thing last night,” he said, putting a hand on her back and steering her toward the living room.

He’d come to some realizations while he had his head in the toilet. It always seemed to happen that way. He wasn’t going to be able to banter with her forever and pretend that what happened last night didn’t happen. He wasn’t going to be able to avoid the subject forever, because there were some things that had to be taken care of in the next couple of days. He would have given anything to spare her that, but it couldn’t be done, so he may as well get started. The sooner he got her started on it, the sooner it would be over, and the sooner she could start to put this behind her. That seemed like good reasoning in the bathroom, but looking at her now, he didn’t know if he could do it.

“There are loose ends,” Donna started for him, having resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to talk about it. “There are always loose ends, aren’t there?”

“Yeah,” Josh nodded. “Listen, some of this I’m sure you don’t want to think about, and most of it, I don’t want to tell you, but it’s stuff that’s of an...urgent nature, and I’m gonna take care of as much of it as I can for you but—”

“But I’ve got to be in on it,” Donna finished for him. She took a deep breath. “The sooner we start, the sooner it’ll be over.”

Josh smiled. He couldn’t help but be a little proud of her. “Okay, the first thing I need to tell you is that Detective Linden called this morning. He’s...a friend of Sam’s that was keeping me updated last night during the thing. They didn’t get an answer at your place, so he called me and said that he has several of your things for you. Sam is going to be picking them up from him sometime today.”

“Several of my things?”

“A lot of your personal effects were left at the bank last night, and after they, I guess, processed the scene, they’re returning things to everyone. Your bag, wallet, your ID, your keys, also your coat and suit jacket, and I think he said they found your cell phone in the jacket. It makes it a lot easier since you were the only customer in the bank,” Josh said watching Donna carefully. She seemed to be taking it all in stride. “The coat and jacket are a little messed up because of the...” he motioned to his left shoulder and Donna nodded. “But everything else appears to be OK. Anyway, Sam’s picking all that up for you, so you should have your ID and cards and everything back today.”

Donna took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Josh continued to size her up. “Okay, the second thing is...okay. Donna, I've gotta talk to you a little bit about the robbers.”

“They’re in custody,” Donna said, remembering hearing that from a familiar voice at some point the night before. “Well, except for the strong one, obviously.”

“The...strong one?”

God, he doesn’t know anything about this, she thought. “There was, I don’t know his name, but one of them was killed by the S.W.A.T. team.”

“Um, that’s...Palmer. Larry Palmer, he was killed at the...wait a second, how did you — oh God, Donna.”

She was more surprised than anyone, but she honestly didn’t feel anything. Just numb. It was like she’d seen it in a movie the night before. “It’s fine,” she said. “It was all kind of in a small area, I saw him after, on my way out of the bank. Just for a second. It’s fine.” If Josh was that upset about her seeing the strong one after he’d been killed, she decided not to bring up how close she was to Bernard when the whole thing went down. She wasn’t in the mood to volunteer any information anyway. She was OK just thinking about it in snippets here and there, but she didn’t want to dwell on it.

Josh just stared at her, his heart a whirlwind of emotions. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

She reached out and took his hand. “What were you going to say about the other two?”

Josh snapped out of his trance. “Uh, the one, Harold Sullivan, he’s in custody and cooperating, but the ringleader—”

“Bernard,” Donna supplied softly.

“Yeah,” Josh eyed her carefully. “Bernard Packard, he was critically injured last night, and they weren’t actually sure he’d survive the night, but he did; CJ called. He’s in critical condition, a coma actually, but he survived the night. So...that’s where things stand with them. They…told you their names?”

“Not…I heard them call each other by name. All except the one. Palmer,” the name dropped from her tongue like it pained her. There was something about him. Bernard had been the one who’d…Bernard had been the reason she didn’t want to stay at her place last night, but…something had happened with the strong one, with Palmer…she shook the memory away, sensing that it would lead to nothing pleasant. She refocused her eyes on Josh, who seemed to be getting more and more worried. “Anyway…” she signaled that she was ready to move on.

“Yeah, anyway…Linden, Sam’s friend Linden said the police came by the hospital last night before we got there.”

“Yeah,” Donna said, her voice sounding a little faraway. “Some officer. He took my statement, just asked a couple of questions.” All of a sudden she felt like she was forgetting something. Something she was supposed to do. But she couldn’t think what.

“Yeah, but that wasn’t the actual statement,” Josh was saying. “He cut it short because…well, you were just a little upset last night to deal with all of it, I think. A-And they wanted to let the doctor work on you,” he ran a hand across his eyes quickly. “But they’re going to have to get a detailed statement from you soon. If they wait too long it might not be admissible. They want to do it tomorrow,” the last part came out in a rush.

For a second he was worried he’d sent her into some kind of episode, because she looked at him with terror in her eyes.

“Donna?”

“T-tomorrow?”

“That’s when they want to,” he nodded, running his thumb across the back of her hand.

“How detailed?”

She was afraid. That was obvious. She didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t know what to tell her. With seconds to decide, he chose the truth.

“Pretty detailed, I think,” Josh said. “Linden said the DA will build the case based on the eyewitness statements.”

Donna breathed out heavily. “So they’re going to want to go through everything, moment by moment. Get a play-by-play. Compare our statements against each other. And then probably do it again.”

Josh’s resolve was gone. “Listen, you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to. If you don’t think you can…they have seven people who were there, six statements should be enough. If you want to wait, see if you can later, and if they won’t admit your statement, they’ve still got the others—”

“No,” she said firmly. Seven people. What was it she was forgetting that she had to do?

“Donna, if it’s gonna do more harm than good, then—”

“No. I’m not gonna do that. I’m not gonna leave it up to everybody else to do this. They probably don’t want to do it any more than I do, Josh, why is it OK for me to cop out and not them?”

“Because you might not be ready to do this yet!” Josh didn’t even realize he’d raised his voice.

“Don’t shout at me!” there were tears in her voice immediately.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry Donna. God, I don’t know why I did that,” Josh was off the couch and on his knees in front of her. “Donna. Donna, please look at me. Please.”

She lifted her eyes from her knees. His face was inches from hers. “I’m sorry I shouted. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t mad at you, I swear. I’m not mad, I’m just...worried.”

“I know,” she said.

He put his hands on her knees. “I just don’t want to see you put yourself through more than you have to.”

“I know that, too,” she said. “And you might be right. She tilted her head forward and rested her forehead against his. “But because I’m not ready is not reason enough not to do it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can guarantee you nobody else from last night is ready, but I think...I don’t know. I kinda feel like we’re all in this together,” she admitted.

“I’m sorry I raised my voice,” he whispered.

“Don’t care. Know why?” she grinned.

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m impervious.”

Josh rolled his eyes and sat back on the coffee table. “Okay?”

Donna swallowed hard and nodded. “What else?”

“Nothing else,” Josh lied. “That’s all that’s pressing right now.” He’d blown the statement part of the conversation. He’d nearly made it ten times worse. He wasn’t going to bring her the press fiasco. Not now.

“There was something else.”

“No, there wasn’t,” he lied again, widening his eyes in an attempt to look innocent.

“What were you talking to CJ about?”

“How the hell long were you standing there?” he asked.

“Long enough to know you’re lying and that you’re bad at it,” Donna admonished. “I don’t want to drag it out, Josh. Spill it.”

“On the phone while ago, CJ, she...they’ve got the story, Donna. They know you were in the bank, and that it’s the same Donna Moss. Steve got it from his city editor and asked CJ about it after the morning gaggle. After the gaggle, which I give him credit for, and he asked how you were first, which was just plain smart, but which I also give him credit for,” Josh said. “He’ll ask about it in the room if CJ doesn’t address it this afternoon, so she’s going to.”

“But, the White House doesn’t comment on the personal lives of its staff,” Donna quoted the company line.

“And we’re not going to go deeply into it, but we’re going to confirm what the police report says, that you were there banking when it happened, and were a victim of...bad timing. That you were there several hours and were released after the S.W.A.T. team went in and ended the situation. That you were in—” Josh stopped and closed his eyes for a second. “That you were injured, but not seriously. CJ will do it better with you. You don’t give any interviews unless and until you want to.”

“I still don’t want to,” Donna said.

“Make sure CJ knows that. She’ll tell the room and they’ll stay mostly clear of you. If they harass you, she’ll call them on it in the room, where their editors can watch it live.”

Donna grinned. “CJ rules with an iron fist.”

“They love her for it, at least that’s what she keeps telling them,” Josh said.

“OK. That part’s gonna suck, but what can you do? Anything else?”

“That is the something else,” Josh said, looking at her expectantly.

“What...is the something else?” It wasn’t clicking with her.

“The story...the story’s gonna break in wide circulation no later than tomorrow, so, you know, you’re gonna want to tell anybody that you don’t want to hear it first on the news. I’ll call anybody you want me to, say anything you want me to, but Donna...you’re gonna need to tell your family. Your parents. Your mom. Today.”

She froze. She even stopped breathing. He could see it, and he could feel it, because he still had his hands on her knees. “Donna.”

“My mom.” Her voice was completely void of emotion.

“Yeah.”

“Tell my mother that I was...that I was held hostage in a bank robbery? That I was in the room when the S.W.A.T. team came in shooting? That I was hit in the shoulder with a bullet?”

“I know,” Josh said sympathetically.

“You don’t know,” she said, more than a little harshly.

“I...Okay,” he stuttered.

“No, I didn’t even know how to tell you. Last night. Last night, everyone kept saying, ‘Ms. Moss, can’t we call someone for you?’ and all I could think was that I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know how to tell you! And now...my mother?” Donna started pacing the living area, tears pooling in her eyes. “She’s absolutely going to lose it. And I don’t even have a choice about this, do I? I have to tell her.”

Josh had never met Donna’s mother, only spoken on the phone to her a couple of times. She’d seemed nice, if a little...Republican. But Donna had always said that he couldn’t imagine how good her mother’s act was. Their relationship was strained, he knew that. He knew that she didn’t approve of Donna’s career or probably lifestyle, but he didn’t know details. All he knew was that Donna had always described her mother as emotionally fragile, even to an extreme. They talked fairly regularly, but those conversations consisted mostly of small talk, Donna had told him once. She didn’t tell her mother much about work or life, and it was easier that way. Above all, he knew that Donna avoided any topic that would upset her mother. Her mother’s greatest fear, Donna had told him once, was that something would happen to Donna or her sister and her mother wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

Any parent’s fear, Josh had surmised. But Donna had given him that knowing look. “To an extreme, remember?” she’d said. Her mother spent so much time worrying about things that might happen that she’d wasted much of her life, or at least that was the way Donna viewed it, in agony needlessly. Fear of the unknown had kept her mother confined to Madison her whole life. So there was no basis for understanding the daughter who packed her car and drove to Nashua on a whim to volunteer for an obscure Presidential candidate.

Well, something had happened last night.

Donna had stopped her pacing and sat back down in the club chair. She was leaned forward, right elbow propped on her right knee, head in her hand.

“Okay,” she said finally, quietly. She’d resigned herself to it. Josh could tell. “I’ve got to do it sooner or later. I may as well get it over with.”

She’d called her father first. Divorced since Donna was a preteen, both of her parents still lived in Madison. The conversation had gone about as well as could have been expected. Emotional in some parts, quiet in others. He’d been worried, naturally. There’d been tears shed, on both sides of the conversation, Josh imagined. But it had gone OK. They’d ended the call with an assurance from her father that he would tell Donna’s sister and extended family, but with them agreeing that nothing short of a phone call from Donna herself would do for her mother.

She’d gone back into the bedroom to make that call. It had been a lengthy and emotional conversation, and that was just Donna’s side of it. At least, the parts of it Josh could hear through the door. It wasn’t that he was eavesdropping; it was that her voice was raised for most of it.

He’d stopped himself from charging in several times, when Donna had sounded particularly upset. When she’d been quiet for a while, he rapped lightly on the bedroom door with his index finger and pushed it open.

She was sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, knees pulled up to her chest, right arm hugged around her ankles. Her left arm was cradled tightly to her, pretty much as it had been all morning. Her forehead rested on her knees.

Josh couldn’t get over how small she had come to look in the last 12 hours. Without a word, he took a seat beside her on the floor. He wasn’t sure whether she was crying or just exhausted after the exchange, but either way, it obviously hadn’t gone well.

He sat there silently for a few seconds, with Donna unmoving. He finally decided to force a reaction.

“So how’d it go?” he asked in an overly sunny tone.

A combination of a laugh and a sob came out sounding like a strangled noise as her shoulders hitched a little.

“Ah, Donna,” Josh said sympathetically, as he laid his hand on the back of her head. “I’m sorry it’s gonna be so public. I’m sorry you had to tell her so soon.”

“She wants me to come home,” Donna said tearfully, pulling herself upright and swiping at her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

“Come home?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah, like this couldn’t have just as easily happened in a bank in Madison,” she sniffled.

“What did you say?”

She sighed. “Something I shouldn’t have. I can smile sweetly at people I despise but with my mother…I take the bait every time. It’s like I see it coming, I know what it is, and I do it anyway. I just can’t stop myself. It’s like I’m…channeling you.” She quirked one corner of her mouth up at him.

“And this is a bad thing…how?” he smirked.

Donna sighed, “It was on and on and on about how I was living in a city that was too dangerous, that things like this didn’t happen in Madison, which, I’m sorry, but last year, two guys I was in Trig class with my junior year in high school knocked over a mini-mart a few miles from my mother’s house. Doesn’t happen in Madison my ass.”

“And that’s what you said?” Josh asked.

“No,” she said sadly. “I told her I was home. I told her Washington was home, had been for a long time now, and that home was where I had every intention of being.” She hung her head like she was ashamed. “I said it to hurt her.”

“Oh,” Josh said, wondering how long he was going to be having these rapid mood swings that depended entirely on how Donna seemed to feel at the moment. “It wasn’t true.”

“No, of course it’s true,” she said, lifting her red-rimmed eyes to Josh’s for the first time. “But I said it because I knew it would hurt her.”

Josh nodded. “And that was how you left it?”

“No, we left it when she became too hysterical to talk, and finally hung the phone up,” Donna said bitterly. “Which was a good thing, because I wasn’t far behind her.”

“Do you think she’s OK to be alone?”

“My stepdad was there.” She propped her chin on her knees. “Why does it always have to be like this between us?”

“I don’t know,” Josh said softly, truly lacking any understanding for such an odd dynamic as Donna and her mother had. “Women are strange creatures.”

She smiled a little at that. “We’re mysterious.”

“A little weird.”

“Complicated,” she countered.

“TOTALLY nuts.”

She laughed out loud at that, and he thought his heart would soar. God, when did he become such a sap?

“Hey, guess what?” he said, seeing her tears had finally subsided.

“What?”

“I think you just officially got that part over with.”

Donna looked at him with a combination of amazement and…something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Okay,” he said, standing and reaching for her right hand. “Now we get to see how smart you really are. You can stay here and take a nap, you know, not because you need one, but because…because naps are good things,” he pretended to physically hold that option in his left hand. “Or, you can come to work and hang out while a I do a couple things. Work, blegh!” He held his right hand out to indicate that option.

She swatted his right hand with a grin.

“Aw, and here I was beginning to be impressed with you.”

“You’re just now beginning to be impressed with me?”

“I was. Now I’m not, ‘cause you make dumb decisions, see. Like coming in to work on your day off,” Josh grinned playfully.

“I’m just gonna hang out. I wanna say hey to CJ and Sam and Toby. We won’t be there long, right?”

“No.”

“Hey, are you sure you didn’t have an appointment with somebody today?”

“Yeah, I was just gonna be reading briefing books and writing memos. Which I’m doing here. Why?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like I’m forgetting something for some reason. Something important.”

“It’s a weird day,” Josh said. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Yeah,” she said, trying to make her brain focus. “Yeah, I guess it is a weird day.”

“Weird like women are weird.”

“Go away,” she pointed him out of the room and started digging through the duffle bag.