"I...I'm not...they're not just about..." Donna floundered for an answer. The truth was, she didn't know.

"I mean," Stanley continued as if she hadn't said a word, almost as if he was thinking to himself, "Josh wasn't even there that night. Why do you suppose he's in the dreams?"

"The first dream wasn't about the bank," she said defensively. "Just Bernard. Bernard coming after me. Josh just got in the way." 

"Much like in reality," Stanley quipped.

"Stanley, I told you, the guy saw my license, he knows where I live. I guess in the back of my head, I...it may not make much sense, considering his medical condition, but in the back of my head I probably thought...there's nothing to stop him from coming to my apartment and—"

"But you weren't at your apartment in the dream," Stanley said calmly. "You were at Josh's. You told me. That's why Josh was there, it was his apartment." He paused a little to let that sink in. "How would he ever find you at Josh's apartment, Donna?"

Angry tears filled Donna's eyes. "He followed me," she whispered.

"But he didn't hurt you," Stanley said. "He shot Josh and he didn't shoot you."

"He might have," Donna said. "I woke up."

Stanley moved on. "And then in last night's dream, you replaced Fred's grave with Josh's at Arlington and you replaced Fred with Josh at the bank."

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything, Stanley, don't go all Freudian on me," Donna said. "Toby was at the bank too in the dream. Toby, Sam and CJ were at Arlington in the dream, when Toby and CJ didn't come in reality. It was a dream. The details, faces, places, the order of things, they're all jumbled up, that's all. I think you guys want to overanalyze this."

"I'm not generally Freudian, Donna," Stanley said. "But Sigmund wasn't a slouch. Sometimes a nightmare is just a nightmare. But sometimes, it's something more."

Donna breathed out in a huff and stood. She paced over to the window in Toby's office, which she'd commandeered for some privacy to make her call to Stanley while Toby and Sam were in with the President going over the UN address. "Why do you think?" she said finally as she gazed absently through the white shutters at the light rain that had begun to fall.

"Why do I think what?" Stanley asked.

"Why do you think I keep having dreams where Josh is shot?"

"I didn't ask why you thought you were having dreams where Josh was shot," Stanley said matter-of-factly. "I asked why you thought you were having dreams where Josh was killed."

Donna furrowed her brow. "How is that different?"

Stanley let a beat of silence pass between them. "Because it's possible to get shot without getting killed."

Donna didn't move an inch. She didn't even breathe.

"It's possible to be shot and not be killed, Donna. If you don't believe me, ask Josh, he can vouch—"

Donna turned from the window and let the phone fly from her hand without even thinking. She swore as it hit the desk and clattered loudly. She spent several seconds with her hand on her chest, getting her breathing under control and fighting back the tears that threatened to overtake her. She eventually became aware of Stanley's tiny, disembodied voice in the room asking if she was there. She swallowed hard and wrapped her hand around the phone, lifting it to ear but not holding it as close as before.

"Donna? Hello?"

"This isn't about that," Donna said, near hatred dripping off every word. "This is a completely separate thing, Stanley, one has nothing to do with the other."

Stanley pretended to consider this. "Yeah. No, I think you're wrong about that."

"How would you know?" she spat coldly.

"I don't. Half the time I'm just making things up as I go along," Stanley said. "Donna, if I've gotten to know you and your friends at all over the last few years, I think I know the answer to this question. But I'm going to ask it anyway. Did you talk to anyone after Josh was shot at Rosslyn?"

"Did I talk to anyone? No. Why would I need to talk to anyone? I wasn't even there!"

"I know you weren't," Stanley said, flashing on his first meeting with Donna and his first conversation with Josh that Christmas Eve. He'd interviewed her briefly at Leo's request, along with several of Josh's closest colleagues, to get a perspective on the problem before sitting down with Josh. He saw it then, he realized now, but he was too focused on his brand new patient to give it the proper attention. Donna Moss was about as conflicted and guilty as a person could get about being absent from an event she didn't even know was going to happen. All of them, CJ Cregg, Sam Seaborn, even Leo, had been obviously affected by the shooting. But they'd also all been there when it happened. Donna...Donna's mind processed the whole thing differently because it had to.

"It was different for the others because they'd seen it. They'd seen Josh after it happened, and those images were haunting, demanding their attention," Stanley began. "You were the one who had the advantage. You hadn't been there. You hadn't been there and it allowed you to create the scene however you wanted it in your mind. You were able to make it better when you needed some relief from the idea of Josh being shot, and worse when you wanted to punish yourself. But you never had to deal with the reality of what happened to him in Rosslyn."

"You don't think I dealt with the reality of it?!?" Donna shouted, attracting Ginger and Bonnie's attention in the bullpen. "I went...there was an observation window in the...I WATCHED his damn surgery, Stanley! I saw more reality than anybody at Rosslyn did. I saw his chest opened, I saw his heart stopped, I saw the breathing tube down his throat, the I.V.s and everything everywhere, the blood that was just..." she trailed off into sobs.

"Donna," Stanley called into the receiver. Dammit. This was why he didn't like doing therapy over the phone. She needed a push to get in touch with the emotion behind the dreams, but it was difficult to gauge if he'd pushed far enough, or too far. "Donna. Why are you having the dreams about Josh?" he said in slow, measured tones.

"I don't know," she moaned through the tears.

"You do."

"Stanley, God, I don't want to...I don't want to go into—"

"I know you don't want to, Donna, but you've been ignoring it for more than three years," Stanley said. "And things have changed now. Now, your mind can't just gloss over the details you don't want to deal with. You saw it. You saw it happen. You saw a case that didn't have Josh's happy ending. And it's eating you up inside. Why?"

"Because I didn't realize how close he came," Donna whispered tearfully.

"How close who came?" Stanley asked, his hopes sky high that he was actually going to be able to pull this off.

"Josh," Donna said. "I watched him lying there, for hours it felt like, I don't know how long. And I just...he looked the same. He looked the same as Fred that night at the bank. I kept thinking if he were about to die I'd know it. Surely I'd see...something. Some indication. But Fred did die, he was dead, and he looked just like Josh did on the surgery table that night. Just...quiet. And so still."

Stanley closed his eyes and took a breath. She was as close as he was going to get her today. "Nightmares," he began in a casual, conversational tone, "Are usually manifestations of latent fears that we're unwilling to acknowledge on a conscious level." 

"Yeah," Donna said, her tears beginning to subside a little. "So you said before."

"So I did," Stanley said. "What are you afraid of, Donna?"

Donna closed her eyes and another few tears coursed down her cheeks. "Losing him," she whispered.

Stanley rubbed his forehead distractedly. "He wasn't in any danger at the bank. You were. You were the one who could've been killed."

"I know," she said, then broke into a tearful, self-deprecating laugh. "Ready to commit me yet?"

"Nah. But I'll let you know," Stanley said.

He listened for a moment as Donna's ragged breaths became more even. "Why would nearly getting killed in a bank robbery make me freak out over Josh? I mean, shouldn't I be freaking out over...over myself?"

"Oh, you are," Stanley said assuredly.

"I am?"

"Absolutely," Stanley said. "The whole...Josh factor is just a little side neurosis that developed BECAUSE you'd never given it the proper attention after Rosslyn. It's been there for years, Donna, you've just been ignoring it."

"Stanley, let's do ourselves a favor and never tell him that there's such a thing as a 'Josh factor.'"

Stanley smiled softly, but would not allow himself to be swayed off course. "We've got to get that out of the way first. You've got to get that under control before we can move forward. We can't start to do any real work on the new trauma until we get the old trauma taken care of," Stanley said.

Donna breathed out heavily. "Stanley, I already know I'm gonna regret asking this, but...what is the new trauma, exactly?"

"Oh, I don't know yet, exactly," Stanley said. "But you've got this thing with going back to your apartment, which probably stems from him threatening you, you've got Fred's death, which believe it or not, you haven't really spent much time on. Most of the stuff about him has just been old Josh stuff in disguise. And there's also the fact you were caught in the middle of a firefight, which can't be...you know...good for the emotional tranquility. So, we'll need to start sifting through that."

"Wow," Donna breathed. "I'm gonna need to take the afternoon off."

"No you don't," Stanley said. "We're done for today."

"We're done?"

"Yeah," Stanley said. "I'll call you day after tomorrow at our scheduled time. Call me sooner if you need to."

"But..." Donna sat forward on the couch. "But...what if I have another nightmare tonight?"

"Well," Stanley said, shutting his notebook. "I'm not gonna lie to you, Donna, it's a possibility. But you need to spend some time thinking about what we talked about today. What's causing you to have these nightmares. You'll be in a better position to cope with them."

"Okay," Donna said. "Thanks, Stanley."

"Sure thing," Stanley said. "You gonna try to stop by your apartment again today?"

Donna nodded, even though Stanley couldn't see. "Yeah, I think so."

"Okay. I'll talk to you Friday," Stanley said.

Donna disconnected the call and let her head fall back on the couch cushion, reveling in the silence of the room before she had to head back to the bullpen.

************

"Good morning, Congressman," Josh popped out from behind a pillar, stepping directly into Bill Pruitt's path. "You're awfully hard to reach today."

Pruitt tried unsuccessfully to hide his intimidation. "I've been busy," Pruitt said. "As a matter of fact, we were all just coming from one meeting and heading straight to another—" he gestured at the group of four Congressmen walking with him, some of whom were having a tough time keeping the smiles off their faces. They'd all seen Josh like this before. Admittedly, it was a lot more amusing when they weren't on the receiving end of his passive aggressive behavior.

"Yes, well, I don't want to keep you," Josh said, surveying the group quickly. Two Democrats, two Republicans, all yea votes yesterday. Perfect. "I just wanted to stop by and say that the President is looking forward to signing off on the funding for the Teacher Corps once the Senate approves it, and he thanks you all for your support yesterday," Josh's voice and facial expressions were both deceptively soft. "Everybody except you, Congressman. Since you didn't actually vote for the funding, as you indicated you would, the President doesn't really have anything that he can thank you for."

"Josh—"

"You're looking at a primary challenge that has the potential to unseat you, Bill," Josh said. "You don't want to campaign on education? More teachers in classrooms? How can that be a bad thing for anybody? The voters in your district would understand that."

"They wouldn't understand when I've got an opponent calling it subsidizing kids straight out of college," Pruitt said. "What do I say when he says that?"

"Well, I'd start by saying, `My opponent is a moron—',"

"Thanks, Josh," Pruitt said sarcastically. "I'll get my guys right on that."

"You know, it's not so much the primary that worries me for you, Congressman, it's the general election," Josh pretended to muse. "I mean if the DNC were to run a strong candidate with good ideas, one who supported causes of the people, like say, education, then..."

"I have to go," Pruitt stomped off disgustedly.

"Where ya going?" Josh called after him, smug smile plastered across his face. "I'm giving you free political advice here...do you have any idea how much political consulting from someone with my résumé is worth?"

Pruitt didn't answer as the group headed down the hallway toward their next meeting.

"Josh."

Josh turned to see Matt Skinner standing on the other side of the Capitol Rotunda.

"I love the smell of Congressmen running scared in the morning," Josh said in his best Robert Duvall voice, once he was close enough he wouldn't be overheard. "Smells like...victory."

"Is that what that God-awful stench was?" Skinner said with a grin. "Congratulations. It's a good program."

Josh nodded. "I know. Thank you for your vote, Matt." 

"Next comes the part where you threaten me?" Skinner asked.

"No, next comes the part where I tell you I need your help in the Senate," Josh said.

"Ah, OK," Skinner said. "You headed back to the White House?"

"Yeah."

"I'm on my way back to Rayburn," Skinner said. "Walk me out. How's Donna doing?"

"She's good," Josh answered automatically before meeting Skinner's eyes and remembering who he was talking to. "She's, you know, I mean you can imagine how you'd feel if..."

Skinner nodded.

"But she's doing OK," Josh finished.

"She's a force of nature, Josh," Skinner said. "Donna doesn't know how to quit. She'll see her way clear of this."

"Yeah," Josh said.

"You'll tell her I asked about her?"

"I will, and she'll appreciate it," Josh said, turning toward Skinner. "Listen, let me ask you..." he trailed off, looking over Skinner's shoulder.

Skinner turned and looked behind him, seeing Josh was distracted. They'd stopped in front of the Capitol's gift shop, and Josh was mesmerized by something in the window. "Josh?"

A smile spread across Josh's face slowly. "I'm...I'm sorry, Congressman," he looked back at Skinner finally. "Can I catch up with you later?"

"Everything alright?"

"Sure," Josh nodded.

"OK, call the office. Have Linda set up lunch for us and we'll talk Senate votes."

Josh nodded as Skinner walked away, gaze fixed on the gift shop window. He took a step closer. "Safe, secure and cared about," he said to himself. "You may be just what I need."

***************

"Do you want to tell me about your session with Stanley?" Josh said as Donna picked at a bowl of leftover spaghetti late that night.

"No," she shook her head.

Josh furrowed his brow. "Wasn't it helpful?"

Donna looked up. "It was, it was just...exhausting," she said finally. "Not to mention, I hung up feeling like I had more road ahead of me than behind. And after all of that, he still can't guarantee me the nightmares will stop."

"Donna," he said softly. "They'll get much less frequent, that's for sure. But there's always gonna be something out there that might make you have one. Crazy, stupid things. A song. A movie. A news story. Bumping into someone. I just don't want you going off half- cocked like you did last night. That's not good for you."

"I'm sorry," she said, embarrassed.

"Don't be sorry," Josh said. "Just...try not to get so upset when you wake up, OK? You don't accomplish anything by getting yourself all worked up like that."

Donna weighed sharing a little of her new revelation with him. It had been all she'd thought about when she'd dropped her car at her apartment earlier in the evening and spent her half hour there, and she still couldn't decide whether the pros outweighed the cons.

"You know, Stanley, he...he asked me why I was having all these dreams about you when you weren't even at the bank," she tried, testing the waters.

"Really?" Josh said, feigning only moderate interest. "What did you tell him?"

All of a sudden she couldn't do it. Not yet.

"I told him that you pester me every minute of my waking my life, and apparently you've decided to follow me into my dreams as well," Donna said, bailing on the idea of sharing anything big tonight.

"Alright, that's it! Go brush your teeth, I'm not taking any more flack off of you tonight," Josh said, taking her half-empty spaghetti bowl from her.

In the bathroom, Donna opened the medicine cabinet and took out the bottle of Tylenol PM she'd bought that day at lunch, downing a couple with a handful of water. She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment afterward. She looked like hell. She had to try to get some sleep tonight.

She walked into the bedroom to see something unfamiliar sitting in the center of the bed. She came closer, and saw that it was a large, fluffy, fat, beanbag-bottomed stuffed donkey. She smiled as she picked him up. He was the perfect kind of stuffed animal...big enough to be an armful, soft, cuddly, and cute as all get-out. Without a thought, she hugged him tightly to her chest. He almost demanded it. He was just so...huggable.

"When I was a kid I had terrible nightmares about the fire," Josh said softly from the doorway behind her. "I mean, every night. For months. I can still remember how hard my heart would be pounding when I'd wake up."

Donna turned toward him, the donkey still clutched to her chest. Josh looked down, suddenly shy about spilling his guts to Donna's face instead of her back.

"Anyway, Dad went to Philly for a couple days for a case, and he always brought me something when he went on trips. He used to bring something to me and Joanie both, but that was before..." he trailed off. "And when he came back, he had this, this big stuffed tiger he'd gotten for me. Told me he was tough enough to fight off anything scary I could dream about. I slept with him every night for years."

"And you stopped having the nightmares?" Donna asked.

"No, not altogether," Josh said. "But I stopped dreading going to sleep every night."

Donna fought to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling over. "Does he have a name?"

"Stripe," Josh said.

Donna looked down at her donkey. "Stripe?"

"Oh, no," Josh said. "The donkey doesn't...I don't think he has a name. I just made damn sure he was a Democrat."

Donna looked back up, her smile going from ear to ear. "Stripe was the tiger's name."

Josh looked down at the floor again. "I don't really remember. Something like that."

Donna closed the space between them and hugged Josh tightly, squishing the donkey between them. Josh resisted only slightly for a few seconds before he gave in and wrapped his arms around her back.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You're welcome, Don," he said into her shoulder. "Do you think you'll be able to get to sleep?"

Donna pulled back to look at him, and they held each other's gaze for just a beat too long. Josh made himself take a step back. It was this kind of thing that had gotten them into trouble yesterday.

"Yeah, I think so. I have you and I have Jack."

"Jack?"

Donna held up the donkey. Josh looked at it for a beat, then a knowing smile spread across his face. "Jackass. Great name for a donkey."

"I named him after you," she said.

"Hey, what kind of gratitude is that?"

"My kind."

"Ahkay."

The lights were turned off and they settled into bed, and this time they only waited a few moments before Josh gave up his old fallback position of hugging the edge of the mattress. He knew it was probably a mistake, but he also knew it was the right thing to do. Donna curled up beside him, her head on his shoulder, her arm around Jack, who had apparently decided to spend the night on Josh's chest. "Thank you, Joshua," she said drowsily.

He tilted his face and kissed her forehead, ignoring the spike in his pulse it caused. "Go to sleep," he said. "You've got me and you've got Jack."

Her breathing evened out moments later, and Josh allowed himself to drift off.