Chapter Text
Donna's just arrived home ready to run a bath and pour a glass of wine. Her prior conversation with Josh rattles around her head, echoing loudly: Wow, that's great…there's no way I'm going to be able to get a handle on what's going on between the two of us…
She knows Josh is stressed and stretched thin; she knows that they're starting something new together; she knows that Josh isn't great with emotions at even the best of times; she knows she knows she knows, but the sting still slices through her. She gave him the ultimatum for two reasons: to force him to make a move, and to keep her feelings shallow. Sure, Donna's gonna let herself fall a little bit: after all, this is finally her chance to. If four weeks pass, though…she's not sure what she'll do. And then it's the way he looked at her blankly, looked her in her fucking eyes while he tried to squirm out of it. Especially because she knows how Josh is about things he wants to get done, and it isn't like this.
Deputy Press Secretary, on top of all of that. Deputy fucking Press Secretary. Donna knows that he knows how huge this is, how hard she's worked, how bloody she's gotten her fingertips clawing her way out of the hole of pre-conceptions everyone has of her. It's still prestigious, but it feels like a slap in the face. How had he dragged his feet about offering her a job and then only gave her the crumbs? Especially when he wanted to put her in a position where he was her boss again. The thing that had held them back before…she assumes.
She shakes her head, pushing the anger away. This time, Josh knows where she stands: firm on the deadline, not ready to let her heart break again. It's out of her hands now. Donna drops her bag tiredly next to the couch, kicks her shoes off, and flumps down on the couch. She's starting to sweat a little bit in her coat, but she just needs to stare at her ceiling and think about nothing for, like, two minutes.
A pressure headache is starting to form behind her eyes the longer she thinks about everything; her new job, her new apartment that she now has to find…her new Josh. She finally pulls herself off the couch and slips her arms out of her coat, careful to fix the disheveled cushion: this isn't really her home, it's CJ's, and even though she isn't home most of the time to care about some frumpy pillows, Donna's not going to force CJ to live in squalor.
Just as she starts to head towards the bathroom her phone rings. It takes her a few tries to fish it out of her coat pocket, and she just manages to pull it out of her pocket before it stops ringing. She accepts the call before she can read the caller ID. "Donna Moss."
"Donna!" It's Josh, and he sounds much livelier than he did a few hours ago. "Hi."
"Hi," she says cautiously, unwilling to let herself read too deeply into it. "What's up?"
"I have a question for you."
"And what would that be?"
"Did you still want to go to Hawai'i?"
The question is so far from what she was expecting that she has to take a pause. "What?"
"You said once that you've always wanted to go to Hawai'i."
She has to reach back when she said that. "I did, yes."
"Do you still want to?"
"Josh, if I ever said no to that question, something is wrong." Josh laughs, and her stomach flutters at the sound. "What prompted this question?"
"Well, what does your schedule look like this week?"
"It's mostly filled with nothing right now."
"Want to go?"
She stops. "What?"
"Want to go to Hawai'i? With me? Please?”
"Josh, are you nuts?"
"Probably," he says plainly.
She chuckles nervously. "I mean, I love the idea, but, this is kind of last-minute, Josh." Deflect, give her some time to parse out his meaning.
Josh is silent for a moment. "Well…how would you feel if I told you our flight leaves tonight…?"
Her brain short-circuits. "Tonight? What—How—When—did you already—"
"I already booked the tickets. Our flight is Delta, it leaves at 8," he tumbles out, "Please come. Please." He's begging her, she realizes, and she has the lightbulb realization that this is Josh's move. This is his version of a declaration, his way of telling her that he's willing to work it out.
"I—" she takes a deep breath, and checks the clock: 3:08. There’s time. She takes another deep breath and smiles again. "Yes. Of course."
"Thank you," he breathes, and she can hear him smile. "If I may, I have a humble request."
"And what would that be?" Donna sing songs as she changes course to her bedroom to throw her suitcase on her bed.
"Bring your smallest bikinis."
Donna barks out a laugh. "Sure, I can do that."
"Also, bring that red dress."
"Red dress?"
"You know which one I'm talking about. The one you wore to that fundraising dinner in Portland."
Her breath catches at the growl he slips into. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," she breathes. "I'll see you at the airport."
"I'll save us seats on the plane."
"Good. See you then."
"Yeah, see you." Donna shuts her phone and grins to herself for a minute, before she flips open her phone to give Helen a call.
***
Donna ends up running later than she planned. She can't find any of her bathing suits so she has to make an impromptu trip to the mall to buy some, and it takes her way too long of a time to find some bathing suits that aren't horribly too young or horribly too old (she can hear Josh calling her Goldilocks so clearly that she vows to never tell him about this). By the time she's able to get home it's just before 5, and she throws them in the washer on the quickest option. Once the machine starts churning she runs to her closet and rifles through, trying to find the dress: it's been a hot minute since she's worn it, and she's having trouble finding it.
After combing through her closet for way longer than she should have had to, she finally finds the stupid thing. She turns to throw the dress on her bed, and is shocked to see the amount of clothes she also threw on the bed while trying to pick out clothes to pack. The washer beeps, and she rushes to throw them in the dryer on the hottest heat. She quickly rifles through her clothes and throws in anything that would be appropriate for a tropical vacation, suddenly very glad that her summer wardrobe is pretty small and well put-together.
She grabs her carry-on bag and throws it onto her now-zipped suitcase and tosses her travel toiletry bag in, as well as an outfit to change into (she's had enough of her suitcases get lost in travel to not be paranoid). The dryer beeps behind her, and she slides across the floor in her haste to grab her new suits. They get tossed hastily in her bag, and she runs downstairs to meet the cab.
By some miracle checking in and security are a breeze, and Donna makes it to the plane with plenty of time to spare. She scans for Josh’s curly hair but comes up short, so she gets in line to board. The line starts growing behind her, and she’s glad that she got in line when she did. She tucks her coat in her bag; it's not like she's going to need it.
After no time at all she’s on the plane, and she finally spots Josh’s mop by the window. She lets herself grin as she approaches the seat, a knot of anxiety she didn't know she had untying itself. He’s staring contemplatively out the window.
“Once again, thank you,” he says softly, lolling his around to look at her, and she finally gets to see his face. She hasn't really seen him this…this soft, this unguarded, since she was trapped in her own body in a hospital bed across the ocean.
“Might I say, a truly excellent notion,” she teases to try and push the feelings back, and suddenly she can’t stop staring at his lips.
“It was Sam’s.”
“Of course.”
“The vacation.” He looks at her so openly, and she feels her willpower crumbling. “The going with you part was all me.”
Her heart swells, and her mouth slowly ticks up before she finally gives in and kisses him. He kisses her back chastely, all too aware of the people around them. They break apart after a few seconds and Josh briefly presses their foreheads together, before he leans back and intertwines their fingers. “You’re going to lose your mind when you see the hotel room.”
“Josh, I am very excited, but I have known you for about a decade now, and only once have you even tried to take an impromptu vacation like this. What happened?"
He looks at her like a deer caught in headlights, before he shakes his head. “I don’t know how you do that,” he mutters, turtling a bit. “I, uh…I kind of lost my mind, earlier today.”
“Lost your mind?”
“Not—Not like that,” he adds hastily. “I just…” he exhales heavily, his shoulders slumping. “I gave Otto my phone to update the software, and then I forgot I gave Otto my phone, and then I yelled at him in front of everyone because I couldn’t find it.”
“Okay,” she says slowly, trying to process.
“And then, uh…Sam told me that he won’t take the job unless I take a vacation.”
“He did.” she states questioningly.
“He told me that we have 10 weeks until we take office, and that I should take one of them off.”
“And the President-Elect is okay with that?“
Josh flushes slightly. “He, ah—he actually told me that he would drive me to the airport myself if he could.”
“I see. So you were shoved out.”
“Yeah, more or less.” He stares contemplatively at the back of the seat in front of him and fiddles with her fingers absent-mindedly. “So I went back to my office, and I did some thinking.” More fiddling, before he looks to her, just as openly as before. “And I realized that, honestly, I didn’t want to go on vacation unless it was with you.” He smiles at her again. “So, I’m really, really glad you were able to come.”
She has to kiss him for that. It’s not exactly what she wants to hear, and it doesn’t completely quell the uncertainty roiling in her, but that really isn’t a conversation they need to have on the plane. They have all week for that anyway, so she decides to just enjoy the moment.