The hip bar that was housed in the same building as 1789 was called F. Scott's, and Donna seized the opportunity to give Josh an informal education on Fitzgerald. He knew most of it already, but he let her talk anyway. It was fun to watch her talk about something she found interesting, even if it was as mundane as...as a postage stamp. Her enthusiasm was contagious, even if he pretended it wasn't, and the look on her face while her brain was working away, recounting stories and recalling historical trivia, was priceless.

Josh had finished a martini and Donna a glass of the house label White Zinfandel by the time the maitre d' came to get them. They said goodbye to Giancarlo, the longtime bartender they'd befriended during their Great Gatsby discussion and were led to their table.

Minutes later they were seated at a small table near the fireplace in the restaurant's intimate main dining room. Josh had steered her toward the seat that was closer to the fire, insisting that she needed to "thaw out" before they had to go back outside.

She'd looked around a little nervously as they settled in at the table.

"The cold getting to your brain?" he asked.

She frowned a little. "This is awfully…public."

"It's a restaurant, Donna," he said.

"No, I mean, it's…the whole place is filled with couples."

"It's Valentine's Day weekend! And it's not really a family-style restaurant. Did you think it was gonna be like a Denny's?"

"Well, it's just…if people were to…things might be misconstrued," she glanced back over her shoulder again at the table-filled room.

"Stop it," he leaned forward, putting his hand over hers where it rested on the table. "We're not gonna do this. I'm having dinner with you, which is perfectly legal, at least in most states. If I were trying to hide something I could do a much better job of it."

She looked at him for a second. "But it would look like—"

"I. Don't. Care," he said firmly, making a mental note that CJ might be in need of another smack down. "And anyway, there is no concern at all allowed on your part during the Evening of Appreciation."

She wasn't sure what moved her to do it, really. Something about what he'd said had taken her back to last weekend. The grilled cheese sandwiches. Harry and Sally. That stupid free association game. He was doing all of this for her, because he wanted her to feel better. She flipped her hand under his so they were palm to palm and squeezed gently. He returned the gesture, seeming to understand exactly what she couldn't bring herself to say aloud.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Something about that made him suddenly shy, and he looked down at the tablecloth with a sheepish, dimpled grin. "You're welcome, Don."

"Very nice," she said, letting go of his hand as they turned their attention to the approaching waiter.

She'd been so astonished when he'd ordered a bottle of rather expensive wine that she'd almost forgotten to make fun of his sensitive system. But she'd recovered quickly, blabbing on about how the martini probably had him well on his way to an inebriated state, and that it was a shame he was such a lightweight. He'd jokingly challenged her to a drinking contest just as the waiter came back.

It was a five-course meal including dessert, but they elected to simply choose their entrées and let the waiter suggest the rest. Donna ordered a chicken entrée with mushrooms in a lemon balsamic sauce, and Josh hesitated momentarily before finally saying, "The same."

She stopped the waiter with a hand on his arm. "Not the same. He'll have the veal."

"No, the chicken's fine," Josh said, reaching for his wine glass.

"The veal," Donna said looking at the waiter pointedly.

The waiter smiled. "Most of the time, the female diners are trying to convince the men NOT to eat the red meat."

"I can't have the red meat," Josh looked up at him. "Because it's baby cow, and that constitutes animal cruelty. You're lucky she hasn't called the authorities."

The waiter nodded in understanding.

"No, it's fine," she looked at him, then back at the waiter. "It is fine. He'll have the veal. If he doesn't, he'll laud it over me all night. Saint Joshua with his tremendous personal sacrifice because I'm sensitive to the plight of baby cows. The veal. Go."

The waiter retreated steadily, and Josh looked at Donna in amazement. "So the baby cows…"

"This particular poor, pitiful baby cow has already lost its life tonight, whether you eat it or not. So you may as well enjoy it," she said, taking a sip of her wine.

He thought for a second. "I'm gonna be scared all night now about, I don't know…retribution."

"There will be no retribution. And do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because you ordered the chicken first. That was nice. I appreciated that," she said.

"So…the Evening of Appreciation goes both ways, then?"

"It would seem so."

"Ahkay."

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

They'd spent most of the soup course talking about, well, the soup. By the time the salad course arrived, Donna's attention had turned to the building again. "It was a house?"

"Built in the 19th century," Josh said. "But it's been some incarnation of a business forever, though. This place alone has been here some 40 years. I think it used to be more of a student hangout before for the Georgetown kids."

"A place like this?"

"I'm sure it was nowhere near this formal," He said around a bite of salad. There's still a nightclub downstairs. It's called The Tombs."

"That does sound like a college hangout," she said, skewering another bite of salad.

"Then there's F. Scott's. I actually like having dinner there alright. That's why I couldn't believe you'd never been here. I thought I'd dragged you to all my haunts by now."

She looked at him. "We could have had dinner in F. Scott's. I loved it in there. The whole jazz/twenties theme was great."

"I know," he grinned at her. "We will. Another time. But 1789 was what Fred said, so 1789 is what we did." He blanched a little at the accidental mention of Fred and looked up quickly.

Donna found herself smiling warmly at the memory. "I wish I could tell him you actually did it," she said. "Once I told him that I didn't bring you coffee, he said turnabout was fair play and you didn't have to take me to dinner."

"He had an excellent point," Josh said. "I notice you neglected to mention that little tidbit when you told me about it the first time."

Donna waved her hand in the air. "It wasn't relevant."

"You could teach courses on bending the facts to work for you, you know that?"

"Yes, I do."

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

"Is it good?"

Josh nodded enthusiastically. "It's very good. Thank you for your benevolence."

Donna stared at his plate. "What does it taste like?"

Josh stopped cold. "You've never had veal before?"

"No! It's b—"

"Baby cow," Josh said. "But you want to know what it tastes like?"

"Just out of curiosity," she shrugged. "Does it taste just like steak, or…"

"It doesn't taste just like steak. If it tasted just like steak it would be steak. It tastes like veal. It's hard to describe without a frame of reference. More tender than steak. Milder than steak. Better than steak," he pierced a piece of the meat. "Do you want to try it?" he said in a singsong tone.

"No," Donna said, shoving another forkful of chicken into her mouth.

"Yes, you do," Josh said, waving the end of his fork back and forth across her line of vision. "Your curiosity cannot be satisfied by a simple description. You need to try it. Experience it. Live it."

"I do not."

"Live the veal, Donna."

She lifted her eyes from her plate to meet his. "Well, the damage is already done, after all."

Josh nodded, fighting a smile. "True. So you wouldn't actually be contributing to the baby cow mortality rate."

"And you won't hold it against me? Sick PETA on me? Call the hypocrite police?"

"If you don't bring the retribution, neither will I," he said.

Donna tapped her fingers on the tabletop. "And you—"

"I'm gettin' old over here, Donna," Josh said. "Now or never."

"I…ok."

She leaned forward and he moved his fork closer to her so she could try his food. Neither one of them thought in that moment about just
how "couple-like" that gesture was. She didn't get a bite on her own fork, and he didn't hand her his. He just fed her the much-debated piece of veal, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Between the pleasant, non-emotionally wrenching dinner conversation and the wine, they'd both relaxed, and Donna had forgotten about image altogether. It was just the two of them, doing what they always did when they shared a beer or when she stole his fries.

Her lips closed over the fork about the time they heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, guys."

Donna froze. Please, God, don't let it be him. She cast her eyes up to the figure standing by the table. Oh, hell. She leaned back and let the fork slide from her lips, doing her best not to choke on the veal and forcing herself not to run screaming from the restaurant.

"How's it goin'?" Danny asked.

Josh hadn't moved since the moment Danny had spoken, but he finally regained the power of speech. "Good!" he said, a little too loudly and enthusiastically. "Excellent." He stood and shook Danny's hand. "And, uh…yourself?"

"Great," Danny said in a patronizing way, grin plastered across his face. Bastard's actually enjoying this, Donna thought.

Danny looked down at her. "You look great, Donna," he said with a smile.

"Thanks," she said coldly.

"I'm serious," he said, catching that something was off about her tone. "That's a nice dress."

"Where's your nice dress?" Josh said in low, menacing tone.

Danny turned back toward him. "I usually don't wear it out, Josh. It's at home."

"No, I…are you here with someone?"

"Over there," he motioned to the table halfway across the dining room where a pretty brunette was looking at the menu.

"Who's that?"

"Angelina," Danny said, waggling his eyebrows a little. "It's too early for the whole, Valentine's Day, serious thing, but I figured, nice restaurant, Cupid is in town, I don't know, might work out alright for me."

Donna had been quickly unspooling while Josh and Danny talked. She kept seeing her name and Josh's splashed across the front page of The Post. She finally shot out of her chair.

"We're not here together."

Josh and Danny stopped their small talk cold.

"Donna—" Josh started.

"We're not here together," she said again, looking directly at Danny. "I mean I know it looks, because of Valentine's Day weekend, and…" she looked down. "And the dress, and everything, but it's not what maybe you think it is."

Danny saw the desperation in her eyes. "I don't think it's—"

"Josh is…it's a treat for me, for, because of the thing last…I'd never been here, and last week, at the…and the dress is just because I was in New York today and…" she looked back down as she motioned at the dress again and saw that her hands were shaking.

Danny wasn't sure whether she was going to faint or cry. He took half a step closer. "Josh decided you deserved a night out on the town, huh?" he said as disarmingly as he could. "Smart man."

She glanced at Josh, who was looking at her with his mouth hanging open a little.

"I mean, if nothing else, it beats the hell out of spending your evening the way you did last Friday, right?" Danny said softly. She just looked at him. Poor thing, he thought. He very casually reached forward and took her hand. "Right?"

Donna nodded. "Yeah."

"Yeah," he said, smiling as warmly as he knew how. He squeezed her hand. "You got a Valentine for tomorrow?"

Donna shook her head, relieved that he hadn't assumed she'd be with Josh.

"Wanna be mine?" he asked with a huge grin.

She couldn't help but smile a little at that. "What about Angelina?"

"Valentine's Day is still several hours away," Danny said. "I'm sure I'll piss her off before then."

Donna laughed, but only slightly.

"Speaking of which, I'd better get back to her," he said, letting Donna's hand go. "You can get back to me on the Valentine thing."

Donna nodded, feeling her heart rate begin to slow to a pace that she could actually feel the individual beats again.

"You look very nice," he said, stepping back from her. "You," he said, turning to Josh, and shaking his hand again, "are ugly as ever. Enjoy your meal. I plan on enjoying mine."

"Good luck," Josh said.

He slapped Josh on the arm and with a conspiratorial wink, he was gone.

Donna watched him go and tried to will the beating in her chest to slow even further.

"Sit down before you fall down," Josh said quietly.

She dropped wordlessly into her seat, overcome with a combination of relief and dread. "Do you think he's gonna say something?"

Josh sat back down in his chair and picked his napkin up off the table. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

She stopped twisting to look at Danny and faced front again. "You're not sure?"

He picked up his fork again and forced himself to take a deep breath. "I really have no idea, Donna," he said evenly.

"What are the odds?" she said bitterly.

"Of what?" he said exasperatedly.

"That of all the people we wouldn't want to see us, a White House reporter would be—"

"You wouldn't want to see us," he said.

"What?"

"Of all the people you wouldn't want to see us, Donna. I don't care who sees us. If I did, I wouldn't have suggested this. I wouldn't have...I don't give a damn who sees us together in public, Donna." He pushed his food around on his plate sullenly. "I'm not ashamed of you. And I'm not gonna...I'm having dinner with you and if every last member of the White House Press Corps wants to write about that, then they're welcome to. I'm tired of walking around feeling guilty just for...for doing nothing. For being friends with you." He dropped his napkin on the table again and stood. "I'll be back in a minute."

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

He was standing at the sink in the second-floor men's room when Danny came in.

"She all right?"

"Off the record?"

Danny nodded.

"She's fine, Danny. But CJ's got her spooked out of her wits. She keeps thinking she's gonna be scandalized, or I'm gonna be scandalized, or the President's gonna be scandalized…" he let out a frustrated sigh. "She doesn't seem to buy into the notion that there's gotta be something actually happening for there to be a scandal."

"Well, my paper didn't exactly help assuage any of those fears with the column," Danny said remorsefully.

"Wasn't you," Josh said. "You didn't write it, you didn't know about it. Couldn't have been helped. It was just one of those things." He threw a paper towel into the trash dejectedly. "CJ and Carol have pushed her to the verge of becoming a paranoid schizophrenic."

"That's their world," Danny shrugged. "Donna doesn't have to worry. I mean, I don't think she has to worry at all, but…she sure as hell doesn't have to worry about me."

Josh looked at him for a second. "I know."

"Make sure she knows."

"I will."

"I meant every word I said to her down there," Danny said.

Josh rubbed at his eye tiredly. "She's down there freaking out," he mumbled. "It was just supposed to be a distraction, you know, with the anniversary and everything." He started toward the door. "I didn't think it would make her…"

"Almost every word," Danny said, stepping into Josh's path and leaning against the door.

"What?"

"I meant almost every word I said down there," Danny said carefully. "Except for the part about you being a smart man."

Josh looked at him blank-faced.

"Fulbright scholar, Harvard graduate, Yale graduate," Danny ticked off on his fingers. "And yet, you are so incredibly stupid."

"What the hell are you—"

"I'm down there with some woman whose name I won't remember next month, Josh, because professional ethics kept me from ever seeing where things would lead with CJ. I didn't have a problem with it, but she did. And she needed that distance to do her job. And I loved this job too much to give it up. So it was never gonna happen. And I would make the same decision if I had it to do over again, but…I don't know. Sometimes I wonder."

Josh opened his mouth to interrupt, but Danny continued.

"If Donna knew, if she only knew the lack of press interest in the two of you at this point. You can't really be that oblivious, Josh. Half of Washington thinks there's something between you, or that there has been at some point. I don't, because I think you'd both seem a little happier if you'd ever just come right out and said what you've both probably been thinking for years." He paused to let that sink in. "Look, I'm not trying to…what I'm saying is this: You're the Deputy Chief of Staff and she's your assistant, and because of how it would look the two of you have danced around this thing for years. But Bartlet's not gonna be President forever, Josh."

Josh swallowed hard, unable to form a response.

"If it were me, I wouldn't wait. If I had felt even half the connection to CJ that you've very obviously got with Donna, especially after all this time…screw the job. Screw the consequences. Screw your loyalties to other people. There comes a point that the consequences of NOT trying are worse. You've both been pretty lucky until now. The shooting, the bank. I'm not your fairy godmother, but…luck runs out, sooner or later. So stop pushing yours quite so hard." He rocked back on his heels and the door swung open. "Tell her she doesn't have anything to worry about from me."

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

She'd gulped an entire glass of wine in her nervousness before the moment began to replay in her head, and she realized just how badly she'd screwed up. She'd said they weren't there together. She'd denied his importance every way she knew how, terrified of what the ramifications would be. And when the moment had passed, she'd ignored the hurt on his face in favor of worrying about Danny. Oh, God.

Josh sat back down at the table just as the waiter brought the cheese course. "I ran into Danny in the men's room and he said to tell you not to worry about anything," he said neutrally, dropping his napkin back in his lap. Most people would never have picked up on anything being wrong. Donna was not most people.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. Josh looked at her for the first time, only to see tears balancing on her lower eyelids. "That was just…I never meant to…I never meant to act as if…I can't believe I did that."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

He'd given it his best try. He wasn't great at accepting apologies, and even worse at acknowledging that he'd been hurt, especially by something someone said or did, so he usually just brushed these things off. But Donna heard the false joviality in his tone, saw the forced smile that didn't reach his eyes. It killed her to know she was the reason. She took a deep breath.

"I think of all the possible reactions for that particular scenario… I think I went with the worst possible one," she said.

Josh furrowed his brow a little as he pretended to be interested in the cheese selection. "Don't worry about it."

"Too late."

"Donna, let's just—"

"Josh," she cut him off. "That was maybe the most thoughtless thing I can ever remember doing. This week, this week you've been great, you've been…great doesn't even begin to describe it. You couldn't have made it any easier on me if you'd tried. And there I was, denying you like I was Peter the Apostle or something."

"You had the thing with the column," Josh said, moving the cheese selection around a little but not making a move to eat anything. "And then the guy from Madison, so I think it's understandable that—"

"Stop it." She put her hand over his as it hovered above the cheese platter.

He lifted his eyes to hers wordlessly. She dipped her fingers under his and tilted his hand so his palm was facing hers. She laced her fingers with his and clamped down on his hand tightly. The gesture was obvious, easily visible, and she meant for it to be.

"I have never, ever in my life, been ashamed of you," she said. "So don't ever think that. I'll never be ashamed of you, Josh. It was a poor choice of words. It wasn't…promise me that you know that I've never been ashamed of you."

He squeezed her hand only slightly and tried to pull away, eager to break the intensity of the moment. But she held on tightly.

"Promise me, please."

"I promise."

She raised an eyebrow at him. He rolled his eyes before he acquiesced. "I promise, Don."

She smiled and blinked back the tears that had been threatening. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

He smiled a little, genuinely this time, and nodded. "OK." 

They were both so caught up in each other's eyes that they didn't even notice when the waiter reached over their joined hands and cleared the cheese course from the table.

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

"Even if I had my hair dyed some glow-in-the-dark blue color?"

Donna looked up from her cheesecake. "Would you ever do that?"

"I might. You never know. Maybe some kind of mid-life crisis."

"OK. Even if you did that, which I highly doubt. Even then, I would never be ashamed of you."

Josh smiled. "This could get interesting."

"Don't dye your hair blue. I mean it."

He took another bite of his chocolate cake. "Even if I got all kinds of piercings? Like one in my eyebrow and one in my nose, and one in my ear with a chain that connects to the one in my nose…" he gestured at his face with his fork.

"You couldn't tolerate that kind of pain," she said, taking a sip of the dessert wine the waiter had brought. Between them, they'd finished off the bottle of Beaujolais during dinner. "This cheesecake is incredible."

"You should have gotten the chocolate," he said. "Even if I got a donkey tattoo somewhere really visible?"

She couldn't help it. She laughed. "You always have to push, don't you?"

"Answer the question."

She looked up, and fought another grin. "Even if you had chocolate on your forehead in a public place, I would not be ashamed of you."

His face fell. "Do I?"

She nodded and leaned forward. "Right above where your hypothetical eyebrow piercing would be." She wiped the frosting away with the corner of her napkin.

He skewered a large bite of the cake and offered it to her as a thank-you. She ate it off of his fork without hesitation. "Testing me?"

He shook his head silently, but she doubted him. "You have to earn a bite of cake this good."

"You're right, that is better than mine," she reached for his plate.

"Donna, if your hand gets any closer it's gonna have a fork mark in it."

"Give me another bite."

"No."

"You can have my cheesecake."

He looked up. "Wow! Thanks! No."

He was distracted momentarily when the waiter brought the bill and he handed over his card. When he turned back to her, she'd pulled out the pout. He rolled his eyes and silently held out another bite of the cake.

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

"Well," Donna said as they stepped outside. "After all the Beaujolais, AND the dessert wine, AND the drinks before dinner, it was probably a pretty good idea that we walked."

"And the pneumonia you're gonna end up catching makes no never mind to you," Josh said, shuddering a little against the temperature, which had dropped a couple degrees while they'd been in the restaurant.

"You're a killjoy, you know that?" she said walking a couple steps ahead of him. "Thank you for dinner. And the flowers." She was already starting to shiver but hell if she was going to admit it. "So—"

"Put this on."

She turned around. "What?"

He held his coat open for her. "It's freezing out here, it's colder than before. You can't get by with just that little scarf thing."

"Pashmina. I am fine."

"You're about to go into hypothermia standing there."

"I am n-not." The stutter had slipped out as another chill swept
over her unexpectedly.

"Ah ha! Put it on."

She looked at the coat. God, it looked warm. "What about you?"

"I'm wearing more layers than you are. And anyway, I can take it. I'm a man." He bounced in place a little. "Let's GO, it's FREEZING!"

She considered poking fun at his manhood momentarily, but finally gave in to temptation and slipped into the coat. She started to warm instantly, though it was tough to say whether it was from the gesture or the coat itself.

"How long were we in there?" she said, pulling the coat sleeve up to see her watch.

"It's almost 10:30," Josh said, looking at his own watch.

She was quiet as they walked for a second. "God, it was already over by now."

Josh wasn't sure what to say. "Yeah." His own mind started to wander a little. "I'm not exactly sure when I got the call. Whether it was before or after now."

"His deadline was at 10," Donna said. "Fred knew the police wouldn't let it go past 10." She sighed a little. "He was so damn close to making it."

"I'm sorry," he said softly, his head down as he walked, hands shoved in his pants pockets to keep warm. She looped her arm through his. "I know."

He finally decided to ask what had been in the back of his mind most of the evening. "Hey, are your wrists healing OK?"

Donna furrowed her brown at him. "Yeah, they're healing fine. Why?"

"I just…I noticed you still have the bandages, and it's been a week, so…I just wondered if maybe they weren't healing like they should."

She looked off across the street as they walked. "They're fine, Josh. I hadn't planned on wearing them with the dress, but...I don't know. I just thought the cuts looked worse somehow."

"I didn't think they looked that bad," he said.

"When you saw them, you cried, Josh," she said.

"I did not!"

"Please."

"I was…a little emotional, I was…it was an emotional moment, but I didn't cr— get emotional because they were grotesque, Donna. It wasn't like that. I just…I just hated that it had to happen to you. I just hate that any of it had to happen to you."

Neither of them looked at each other as they talked, but she hugged a little tighter to his arm.

"What are we gonna do about going back to my place?"

Damn. He was hoping she would forget about that. "What do you mean, what are we gonna do?"

"Well, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a little tipsy," she nudged him with her elbow.

He nodded with a laugh. "A little, yes, I did notice that."

"And what with you and your sensitive—"

"We'll take a cab," Josh moaned. "Happy?"

"Yes, I am."

"Good." He found he really meant it.

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

"He was not ogling."

"He was. There was definite ogle there."

"There was not! I'd know if I was being ogled, Josh."

"`Donna, that's a nice dress.' `Donna, you look great.' He couldn't have known those things if he wasn't looking," Josh said.

"First of all, you can look and not…ogle. Secondly, you said the same thing. Third, it's Danny. It's Danny. There was no ogling. He was just being polite."

Neither of them really noticed the college-aged kid getting into the beat-up sedan that was probably older than he was as they walked past. They were too absorbed in their own conversation.

"You're wrong. Do you know how I know that? Because I'm a man. Men ogle. We're disgusting, womanizing, ogling creatures. All of us."

She turned to look at him, a sly grin on her face. "So does that mean you were—"

The kid started his car and the engine sputtered and wheezed for a second as it tried to turn over. He pressed the gas pedal and the car cranked loudly, several small puffs of black escaping from the tailpipe with a few loud pops in quick succession. Josh recognized it almost immediately for what it was, having driven a similar dinosaur of a car through most of his college and law school years. But to Donna, it sounded like rapid gunfire.

He felt that something was wrong a split second before he saw it. She went whiter than a sheet, then tilted forward without warning. She fought to remain standing, but her knees were giving out. "No, no, no, no, no," she whispered softly, repeatedly. He couldn't be sure whether she was willing herself not to break down or willing whatever nightmare had commenced in her brain to cease.

His arms were around her before she could fall. "It's OK. It was a car. It was just a car, Donna. Everything's OK," he cooed in her ear, rocking her back and forth. He could tell he was supporting almost all her weight.

"Josh?" she whispered.

"Everything's OK," he whispered in her ear. "Everything's fine. It was just a car, Donna."

Her breathing was a little labored, and she'd shed a few tears, but she wasn't really sobbing outright.

He bent to sneak a look at her face. Her eyes had kind of a faraway look in them. "Hey," he said softly. "You're not leaving me, are you? Stay here, Donna."

"Um…" she closed her eyes and shook her head to clear it.

"I'm here, Donna," he said, a new thought striking him suddenly. "If I'm here, it can't still be happening. It's over. It has to be over if I'm here."

He felt her take a deep breath. "Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"You're here."

He squeezed her a little tighter to emphasize his answer. "You bet."

"And you're OK?"

"Sure," he said softly. "And so are you."

"We're OK," she whispered.

"We're great," he said. She pulled herself a little more upright and leaned her head into his shoulder. "Donna? Where are you?"

She lifted her head so that the side of her face was pressed against his and her lips were next to his ear. "Saint Joshua's Grand Evening of Appreciation," she said into his ear.

He laughed out loud to hear her give such an answer, picking her up off the ground a couple inches in an enthusiastic hug. He set her down and pulled back to look at her. "You're getting pretty good at this," he said.

Donna swallowed. "Having breakdowns in public?"

"Handling it, Donna," he said, leaning his forehead against hers. "You're getting pretty good at handling it."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. "It sounded like the guns…that night," she said.

"I figured."

"Did it sound like that to you?"

"It sounded like he had a hole in his muffler to me," Josh said.

Donna laughed. "Why do you never react that way? You'd think you would have some reaction to noises like that after everything."

"I'm weird that way," he said. "You'd have to ask Stanley why."

She laughed again. "Saint Joshua."

"No, I ate the veal, remember?"

"It's what you are, though. It's what you've been to me since this whole thing. Patron Saint of Donna Moss."

He smiled over her shoulder. "Sit down for a minute."

"I'm OK, Josh."

"Just humor me, OK?"

She sat down on a bench in front of a plant store at his urging. Her tear tracks were cold on her cheeks. She started searching his overcoat pockets. "You don't have a handkerchief or anything, do you?"

"I thought I did," he said, fumbling inside his suit jacket.

"I think it's gonna start raining again," she said distractedly as she looked up, continuing to feel in his coat pockets. Her hand clamped around something flat and stiff and she fished it out to look at it.

It was an index card. One of the colored index cards she ordered by the crate and used at work. He'd scrawled something on it, and without even thinking, she started to read.

"Hey!" he snatched it out of her hand. "That's not for you."

"What is it?"

"It's none of your business," he said, shoving it in his left suit jacket pocket and continuing to search for something she could use to wipe her face.

"It has my name on it," she said pointedly. "I read my name."

"No, you didn't," he said. Now his face was turning red.

"Josh, what the hell are you—" she reached for his pocket and he jerked away.

"I'll tell you later, OK? It's another part of the whole Evening of Appreciation thing."

"It's not over?"

"It's not over until the night's over," he said with a little grin. "I don't have anything. Use the scarf thing. The pashmina." She'd draped it around her neck when she'd donned his coat, and he took the end and swiped at her cheeks, the way a parent would a child.

"I knew you could say it," she said, then frowned. "Your hands are freezing, Josh." She held both of his in her own and rubbed them to warm them a little.

"Then let's get outta here." He held out his right arm.

"Okay," she said, reaching for his left arm instead.

"Don't even think about getting near my left jacket pocket. Other side," he pulled her around to his right.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

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

Josh called her certifiable, but Donna had refused to go in when they got back to the townhouse, saying it would be too big a temptation to stay. Josh had called a cab, brought out her coat and the flowers from earlier that evening at her request. 

They were huddled together for warmth (among other unspoken reasons) 10 minutes later when the first raindrops began to fall as the cab pulled up.

"Jesus, man, I would have honked the horn, you know?" the cab driver said as he leaned out the window.

"We're fine," Josh said as he opened his trunk to get Donna's bags while she climbed in the cab. "It's just a little brisk."

The driver laughed as Josh transferred the bags.

They both nearly drifted off on the ride over.

"Josh?"

"Hmm?"

"You asleep?"

"No."

"Don't go to sleep."

"I'm not, Donna. Wait, why?"

"Because you have to wake me up when we get there," she yawned as she snuggled closer to him.

"It's 10 minutes," he said, wrapping his arm a little tighter around her. "You can make it 10 minutes."

"Mmm."

Another few moments of silence.

"My feet are gonna get wet when we have to get out of the cab. You know how much I despise having my feet wet," she mumbled drowsily.

"Doesn't matter."

"Why?"

"You won't feel it. Your feet have been two blocks of ice for a while now anyway."

She was quiet for a moment.

"That's kinda hard to deny."

He smiled, never opening his eyes. "I know. Donna?"

"Hmm?"

"You wanna get your hand the hell out of my left jacket pocket?"

"Dammit."

"Nice try, though."

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

She'd taken off like an Olympic sprinter when the cab had pulled to a stop in front of her building, trying to keep her feet as dry as possible. Josh had been close behind with her two duffels and his own, unbeknownst to her, but he was more than a little damp in the few seconds it took to get the bags and pay the driver. The rain had become a downpour.

"Well," Donna said as they stood on her stoop, sheltered from the rain by the overhang. "I don't want to make the cab wait. You wanna just say good night here?"

"It's fine," Josh said, waving to the driver to pull away, despite Donna's signal that he should stay. "I'll get you settled in."

"But if the cab leaves—" She threw her hand up at the driver.

"I'll call another one, Donna," he said with a little smirk.

She looked at him for a moment before they both waved the driver away. He reached for the door handle, but she beat him to it, and held the door in place.

"I wanna know what was on that index card."

"I told you, at the end of the evening—"

"Josh, this is the end of the evening. I want this to be the end of it. When we go up there...I mean, I feel good about it. I do. I feel like I'm gonna be able to do this. But if I can't, if something happens and I can't, I don't want the one thing to be tied to the other, just in case."

He looked at her pleading eyes, and for some reason, he understood her need to compartmentalize the two parts of the night. But he didn't feel ready to say what he was planning to say. And he certainly hadn't imagined saying it here.

"It was just...it was just some stuff I was thinking about saying. Because it was the Evening of Appreciation and all. I wasn't even sure I was gonna say it. I don't know, maybe it's stupid."

"But...you wrote it down," Donna said.

"Yeah...I needed to get my thoughts organized so I wrote it to try and keep myself from flubbing it and making no sense whatsoever, you know?"

She cocked her head at him. "What was it?"

He thought his heart was going to stop. "Nothing."

"Josh."

"Donna, it's freezing out here."

"Then the sooner you say it, the sooner we can—"

"I'm trying." He looked in her eyes and she saw his nervousness. His uncertainty. She looked down at the street, watched the pouring rain as it created a mist on the sidewalk. After everything he'd done this week, after everything he'd done tonight...she could go out on a limb for him this time.

"Stanley thinks I ought to tell you some things that I haven't," she said, not tearing her eyes from the sidewalk below.

"Stanley?"

"Yeah."

"Thinks you ought to tell me some things?"

She looked him in the face again. "Yeah."

"Things I don't know already?"

She shook her head. "No. I tried to tell you the other night, but...I don't know, I chickened out."

His eyes were wide and his mouth was a little agape.

"I'm not gonna chicken out this time."

He swallowed hard. "What things?"

She took a deep breath. "We were talking about the nightmares. He was trying to help me figure out why I was dreaming about the images I had. The ones about you, specifically, which have been the strongest. I told him it was just because nightmares can mix together all sorts of images that have nothing to do with each other. He knew better."

Josh was silent, eyes glued to her face as she spoke.

"He said we couldn't start to work on any of the new issues until I worked through my old ones." She smiled ruefully. "I didn't even know I had old issues."

"Neither did I," Josh said.

Donna nodded. "Stanley said nightmares are often an indication of fears or feelings we don't allow ourselves to acknowledge consciously. We went round and round for a while, but the long and the short of it is, ever since Rosslyn, one of my greatest fears is that something will happen to you and I'll lose you."

He stopped moving altogether in that moment. He stopped breathing; he even stopped shivering against the cold.

For her part, Donna had forced the whole thing out so quickly she wasn't entirely sure she'd said it. She took another deep breath.

"He asked me what I was afraid of, and it turns out that, among other things, I'm terrified that something will happen to you. So, you know, if you could maybe be careful, I'd appreciate it."

"I already told you nothing was gonna happen to me," he said finally, a look of utter shock on his face.

"Well, I know, Josh, but you didn't say, `I'm gonna get shot tonight after the meeting,' on your way out to the Newseum," Donna said. "It's not the stuff you see coming. It's never gonna be the stuff you see coming. It's the teenage skinheads and the bank robbers, and the cars that blindside you on your way back to work. I just...I nearly lost you once. And I've been afraid of it happening again ever since. So be careful, is all I'm asking." She looked down at her feet, which really were two big blocks of ice at this point. "Anyway," she said softly. "That's what Stanley thought I ought to say to you."

For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the rain as it came down around them. She looked back up when she heard his voice again and saw that his eyes were bright.

"Up until a week ago tonight," he said before stopping to clear his throat, "The thought had never occurred to me, that you might not be there when I needed you to be. I walked into my office during the campaign and there you were, answering my phone. I didn't even know I needed an assistant until I got one. And you've just...been here ever since. You've learned to do the job as well as I could, but that's not what tonight was about. You're there when I show up here in the middle of the night, drunk and feeling sorry for myself because I've screwed up yet again. You were there after Rosslyn, every single day, every single ache and pain, every single complication and fever and nauseous spell. You were there when they made me get to my feet the first time after the surgery, you were there for most of the physical therapy, you were there when they discharged me. You were there that Christmas. You were there when we were making the MS announcement, and for re-election, and through...a couple stupid mistakes I made who shall remain nameless. And I just grew to count on that. And I don't want to imagine a time, even a moment, when you're not there. But in the last week, I've thought about it, been forced to think about it, more than once. Forced to think about how easily things could have gone another way. I guess what I'm trying to say, and not doing it well, is...that I appreciate you very much."

Her eyes had long since filled with tears. "That's what you were going to say?" He nodded, his eyes still fixed on the ground. "You didn't just say it because of what I said?"

He pulled the index card out of his pocket and handed it to her wordlessly. The tears spilled from her eyes as she read, her fingers over her mouth.

"Josh," she whispered, barely audible over the rain. He looked up at her for the first time since he started speaking. "I appreciate you, too. Very, very much."

The second time he kissed her, it was on her front doorstep in the rain. They were both shivering from the cold. And neither one of them gave a damn how easily they might have been seen. 

Special thanks to Ro, who provided me with some great details about 1789.