Chapter Text
Donna dreads the early alarm. It blares at 6 sharp, the sun barely lighting the sky. There's always something so melancholy about the day that someone leaves a vacation, a still blueness that settles over the room. They both start a bit at the noise, and Josh groans and twists to hit snooze before rolling over and burrowing into her back. "No," he moans, holding her to him. "I don't wanna go."
"Me neither," she sighs, rubbing her hands on his forearms around her stomach.
"Do you think we can stay here forever?"
"Why, so you can start itching like a dog the moment someone says something stupid and you can't chew them out?"
Josh pinches her stomach gently before flattening his hand out. "I'm excited to sleep in our bed tonight, though. This mattress is a killer on my back."
There's something about the anonymity of the morning that brings her to say, "I really like that it's our bed now."
"Me, too," he says shyly, and grins into her hair. "I'm also really glad we have tomorrow off, too: I'd like at least one nice morning in our bed together before we're waking up way too early every day."
"Same. We're gonna be so jetlagged."
"Ew, don't remind me."
"Worth it, though."
"Absolutely."
"Tomorrow's Thursday, right?"
"Yeah."
"Wanna order in and watch the football game?"
"You know I love you, right?"
Donna chuckles. "I do. I also want pizza from that place near your house."
"Eddie's?"
"Yeah. Their olive pizza is the only thing getting me to tomorrow."
"Gross."
"You don't have to eat them," she says haughtily. "We can order them on half."
Just then, the snooze blares, and Josh groans and finally shuts it off before sitting up and stretching. "Thanks for making us pack last night."
"No problem; nothing like a good old-fashioned late-night edition of 'let's shove everything back in our suitcases as fast as possible so we can keep making out'."
"Hey, it worked."
"True." Josh gets up first and totters to the bathroom. Donna takes her time sitting up, stretching luxuriously in the sheets one last time, relishing in the feeling of the fabric sliding across her skin. She shifts out of bed as Josh exits, his toiletry bag clutched in his hand. He gently trails his hand along her side, a grounding touch to the present.
She uses the bathroom and gets ready for the long day of travel. Donna carefully packs up her things, making sure to double check the shower and the cabinets for anything before she makes her way into the bedroom. They pack in silence, the room bathed in the faux light from the lamp; a stark difference from the natural sunlight just hours before.
Donna's fixing her hair in the bathroom mirror before they go when Josh sidles up behind her and spoons against her back, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Got everything?" he murmurs, kissing the back of her head and hooking his chin over her shoulder.
"Sadly." She leans forward to spit, rinse her brush, and tuck it into its carrier, all with Josh attached to her at the hip. "Ready for a long day of travel?"
"We don't have much of a choice," he sighs, and he leads her out of the bathroom with a mournful look back to the shower. "I wish we had spent more time in there."
"We spent plenty of time in there."
"I wish we had spent more time in there," he repeats, waggling his eyebrows, and Donna rolls her eyes.
"Men," she scoffs, and Josh gently bites down on her shoulder; she's got a tank top on for the ride to the airport, but has a sweater packed in her backpack for when they touch down in DC (one of Josh's that she stole when she was staying with him during Rosslyn; it's old, a white Harvard crewneck that is so painfully 80's she had to take it. It was stuffed in the back of his closet, anyway, and clearly hadn't been worn for years. She doesn't think he even remembered he had it, so now she's taking care of it the way it deserves to be.).
Josh tucks some money on the bedside table for the housekeeping as Donna gets her suitcase under control, and then they wander down to the lobby. He checks them out as she heads outside to hail them a cab, and when she's rejoined a minute later the cabbie is already loading their bags into the trunk. "You look hot in a tank top and jeans," Josh whispers hotly into her ear: she can feel the breeze, already humid at 7 in the morning, hitting the small strip of skin exposed at her waist.
"Thanks," she replies distractedly, forcing herself to not look at him. He runs a hand down the low ponytail falling down her back. "Josh," she chides, elbowing him softly.
"Sorry," he says, absolutely not sorry at all, and he shepherds her into the cab.
The ride is quiet, both of them content to hold hands on the seat between them as they gaze at the passing forestry. The cab approaches the airport, and Josh pays the cab drivers as Donna checks in their bags. A very similar dynamic to the Bartlet administration, really, only this time when Josh joins her after she's got their boarding passes he accepts his with a kiss.
Security is insane, and when they eventually do get through there's barely enough time for them to grab a coffee from Starbucks before they have to rush to their gate to board their connecting flight to LAX.
***
Walking into Josh's—their—condo feels like a breath of fresh air. Donna still feels claustrophobic from the plane, and her leg is aching from the pressure change and the uncomfortable seating. She limps over to the couch and plops down, kneading her thigh harshly. Josh follows her lead, and leans over to bat her hands away.
"That can't feel good," he says suspiciously.
"Not particularly, but it helps."
"Here, let me—" he says, gently pressing the heel of his hand down her quad. Donna leans her head back and moans gratefully; she can never massage her leg as hard as she'd like to, her arms only so strong.
"Like this," she mutters, and repositions Josh's fingers to start squeezing the scar tissue there. "Yeah—"
They're silent except for the sound of Donna's pant leg shifting, and her occasional groan of pleasure as the knots there unwind. Once her leg feels sufficiently stretched out she picks her head up and looks to Josh, who's now looking at her worriedly.
"Does your leg do this a lot?"
She shrugs. "It's not constant, but…if I'm wearing heels for too long, it can get achy." Exhaustion hits her like a freight train, then; she sinks further into the couch cushions. "Plus…" she trails off into a large yawn. "The flight didn't help, either."
"Sleepy?"
"Yeah." Donna stretches. "Don't wanna get up."
"You gotta get up."
"What time is it?"
"Almost midnight. We still have tomorrow off, too, so let's not mess up our sleep schedule too much."
"Carry me," she whines, prying her eyes open and lifting her arms pathetically. She's mostly joking—honestly, she expects Josh to roll his eyes and give her a hand instead, so she squawks with complete surprise as Josh stands and lifts her, bridal-style, to carry her into the bedroom. "Josh, what are you—"
"You're tired," he says simply, juggling her a bit in his arms before she settles.
Donna accepts that this just happened, and slings her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder. "My hero," she mumbles sleepily, and Josh chuckles under her cheek before walking them into the bedroom and gently setting her down on the bed. She pushes herself up to a seated position as Josh starts stripping next to the bed. "I really could have walked in here myself, you know."
"I do," he confirms. "But I wanted to. I, uh…" he blushes.
"What?" Donna starts unbuttoning her shirt, making the official decision to put off showering until tomorrow.
"Well…" He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly unbearably shy.
Donna stands and strips until she's also in just her underwear, matching Josh's state of dress. She steps forward and gently places her fingers under his chin, tilting his head towards her. "Josh," she murmurs. "You can tell me. Promise."
"It's stupid," he mutters, trying to look away from him, but she holds his chin strong.
"Josh," she says, firmer this time. "It's not."
Josh takes a second to gather his courage, and he looks her dead in the eyes when he says, "I used to imagine carrying the woman I love like that, so…I wanted to. I want to."
The admission hits Donna square in the chest, and it takes her a second to push down the lump forming in her throat. "Oh," is all she can think to say. She swallows. "Okay, then."
"Do you…Do you not want me to?"
"No, I do, I like it, I…" she's stuttering, because she's imagined the same thing; the warmth of the sturdy chest of her lover as he carries her against his chest. It's an intimate embrace, allowing herself to trust that she won't be dropped, to let her weight fall into his arms, and it's a scene she never let herself imagine with Josh—not that it mattered whether she let herself or not, because no matter what she did her daydreams always circled back around to him. "I've just…also imagined that, too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she confirms, and looks back to him with a sardonic gleam in her eye. "Oh my God, who are we?"
They both dissolve into laughter at that point, both from the ridiculousness of what they're saying and from sheer, unbridled joy at realizing that they had been daydreaming of that exact scenario for years.
"I plan on doing it a lot, you know."
"Okay, Lyman, don't get too ahead of yourself," she teases. "You've also got a shifty back. Remember the plane ride—"
"Yes, I remember the plane ride to Indiana in October."
"Really? I was going to say the plane ride to Omaha in August."
Josh groans and drops his head to her shoulder, squeezing her to him as she swats at his shoulder. "My body is falling apart, Donna."
"I think you proved this week that it's working just fine."
She can feel him smirk into her shoulder, and he reaches down to grab her ass teasingly before pulling away suddenly, his body wracked with a yawn. That sets Donna off into a large yawn of her own, and they both turn their heads to their packed suitcases by the front door, then to each other, and wordlessly agree that that's a problem for them twelve hours from now.
"We've got to get those photos developed," he says.
"We can go tomorrow," she yawns. Donna undresses quickly and hops in bed. "Get in here." She pats the mattress next to her, and after shutting the lights off Josh jumps in, pulling the covers away from him so he can maneuver before he's pulling her to his chest.
"Our first night in our place," he says softly, grinning ear to ear.
"The first night of forever," she teases, and Josh huffs a laugh before pulling her closer.
"God, I hope so."
Donna smiles secretly into the hollow of his neck, and places a soft kiss there. "Me too."
They lay in the moonlight silently, basking in a final night of pure relaxation. Idly, Donna thinks about the small collection of pictures they have from the past week; a brief chronicle of the beginning. The real beginning.
Josh's hands trails up and down her back, and when Donna falls asleep, Josh smiles into her hair and makes a plan to call his mother about his Grandmother's ring.
***
A few weeks later, just before the inauguration, Donna strolls into his office. It's a wreck; boxes thrown open and blenching binders, memos stacked haphazardly in a corner to be shredded, and Josh's laptop is doing a delicate balancing act on a large pile of paper.
It's their last few weeks in the OEOB before they all move into the White House, and even Donna's office isn't looking too hot right now, so she can't bring herself to chide him. Josh is sprawled in his desk chair, sleeves rolled haphazardly up to his elbows and his hand buried in his hair as he holds the phone up to his ear with the other.
When she knocks softly and slinks in, he turns his head in acknowledgement before he settles back into the conversation when she sits in the chair across from his desk.
"No, Ma, we won't have time then." He pauses as Beth Lyman responds. "The first 100 days are going to be a shitshow, but we can probably make it down there for Memorial Day or something."
Donna raises her eyebrows: this is the first she's hearing of this. Josh turns to her and cringes, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. She tilts her head and furrows her brow, and he shakes his head before begging off the call and burying his face in his hands.
"What did your mom want?" Donna sks, standing and circling his desk to run her hand through his hair.
"Just called to ask how things are before Inauguration," he says, his face still in his hands.
"Was it that bad?"
Josh huffs a sigh, but before she can finish her sentence her eyes trail to his desktop. There's new frames lining the side of his desk, with new pictures she hasn't seen before. A picture of Josh, Beth, and Noah at Josh's Harvard graduation, with his mother wearing a Yale Law tank top. Josh looks incredibly handsome; his face young, care-free, smiling broadly at the camera as his parents look tearily on. There's an older, black and white portrait of a toddler Joanie and a baby Josh, sitting in an absolutely hideous chair with Josh in a sailor outfit and Joanie in a fluffy gown. Josh had clearly been bawling just minutes before the picture, and Joanie didn't look too happy either.
Her lips tick up as she continues down the line: a group shot of him, her, CJ, Toby, and Leo on the night of their first DNC after they had gotten the nomination. Donna's tucked between Toby and Leo, CJ next to Toby, with Josh hanging on the end hoisting an open bottle of champagne. Each of the guys have cigars dangling from their mouths, and the photo is horribly underexposed, but it's one of her favorite memories.
Next to that one is the one from their first night in Hawai'i that Kali had taken, cuddled up in front of the gorgeous flower wall. It strikes her how radiant they look: Donna resting against Josh like it's the most natural thing in the world, and Josh puffed up under her, both of them grinning broadly. He's so handsome in that picture, and she suddenly understands where Faith and Veronica were coming from.
And then her eyes get to the last photo, and she squawks and smacks his shoulder. "Josh!" she cries, scandalized.
"What? What's happening?" he asks, jerking to attention and swiveling his head around.
"Why do you have this photo on your desk?"
The photo in question was one taken during their shopping excursion. They had passed a rundown strip mall, and one of the stores had been bought by some evangelical church. In the windows were signs declaring various sins, and urging people to repent or else they'd go to hell. The one that had made Donna stop and laugh the hardest was one that proclaimed premarital sex a sin, and Josh had snapped a photo of Donna pointing at the sign and smiling cheekily.
This photo is now standing on his desk.
He grins fondly at the photo. "Yeah. It's my favorite one."
"Why?"
"It's hilarious."
"Come on, Josh, seriously."
"No one's gonna see it!"
"Joshua Lyman, if you ever want to have premarital sex again--" she thunders, but Josh just placatingly lifts his hands in surrender.
"Fine! Fine. I'll take it down."
"Thank you," she sniffs, and Josh stands to envelop her in a hug.
He buries his face in her shoulder and takes a deep breath, relaxing as she brings her arms around him. "This is the best part of my day," he says into her skin, and she grins bashfully.
"Oh, stop," she teases, squeezing him harder.
"I was thinking…" he says, pulling back to look at her. "Pre-marital sex implies there's post-marital sex."
Donna blinks in surprise. "I…suppose that's true."
"And, um…I know it's still early, really, to maybe bring this up, but…does that idea interest you?"
"Is this a proposal?" she whispers. "Are you proposing to me by asking if I want to have post-marital sex with you?"
"No! I mean…I guess technically..." he cuts himself off at the expression forming on her face. "No. I am not asking you to marry me, but…maybe…start to think…about it?" Josh shrugs his shoulders, dropping his head in defeat. "Oh, God, I'm fucking this up," he whispers, and Donna quickly fans her hand out to tilt his head up towards her.
"You're doing fine, just…maybe work on your delivery next time."
Josh chuckles self-deprecatingly and shrugs again. "Okay, I'll try."
"Thank you."
She kisses the tip of his nose, and then his lips. Admittedly, they get a bit carried away; Josh's hands are fully groping her ass (granted, she wore this skirt knowing it makes her ass look good), and her hand is resting just above his belt buckle, about three inches from just grabbing his dick through his pants. Josh, surprisingly, is the one who breaks the kiss, leaning their foreheads together as they calm down.
"Can we order pizza?" he asks, and Donna huffs a laugh before nodding.
"Yeah, that's fine. We'll order pizza."
"God, I love you so much," he says, and Donna grins into his mouth and wraps her arms around his neck, public space be damned.
"I love you, too," she whispers, and she connects their lips once more.