At Least It Wasn't Hawaii

6:13 AM

As I come into the bullpen I see Margaret waiting at my desk, looking like she has been there for a while.

"Late night or early day?" I ask as I hang up my coat and drop my tote bag to the floor with a satisfying thud.

"Early day. Trouble in Vieques. Leo phoned at 4:30." sighs Margaret wearily.

"Wow. Leo looking for Josh?" as I stick my head into the hallway to see if Josh's light is on. His office is dark.

"Uh, Josh is on his way. Leo just called him at home. I think Josh was uh..."

"Josh was what?" I ask as I boot up the computer and pull Josh's schedule for the day out of the folder in my top drawer.

"He was obviously expecting someone else to be on the phone when Leo called."

"Leo told you that?"

"No, Josh was on the speaker. Anyway, he must have thought Leo was Amy..."

I stand up and wave my arms a bit to cut Margaret off, "Please if this involves phone sex of any kind I really don't want to hear about it. I don't want my breakfast to make a reappearance."

"No, it wasn't that bad. Well, it was bad enough."

"Margaret, please, I can't...not right now." I plead as I sit down at my desk. I pick up a pen and start to jot down some notes for Josh on his schedule.

Margaret takes the opportunity to go to my filing cabinet and pick up a photo of Josh and I.

"What's really going on?" she asks as she holds out the photo to me.

I take the picture and stare at it sadly for a moment. It is a picture of us taken late one night on Air Force One. Josh is curled up across the seats, half asleep with his feet in my lap. I have a blue folder propped against his legs and one hand resting casually on his knee. I too am nearly asleep.

With a sad smile and a little sniff I run my fingers over the picture and hand it back to Margaret. "I have no idea what's going on. With us, I mean. If there is even an us."

"Donna, there is. Look at those pictures." she says motioning towards the collection of small photos on the cabinet. "There most certainly is something there." says Margaret with a smile.

"You have a few minutes to go grab something in the Mess?"

"Sure. Let me just go see Leo for a minute."

"Great, I'll meet you down there."

I take Josh's schedule into his office and put it on his desk. I can't help but notice that the one photograph he has of the two of us alone currently has a brochure for the Women's Leadership Coalition propped up against it, effectively covering my face. I drop a stack of files on the desk from a decent height, causing a breeze that sends the brochure sliding off into the abyss under Josh's desk. I turn on his computer, flick on the overhead light and leave him a short note with my destination.

Margaret has staked out a quiet corner of the Mess and is currently reading the ingredients on the bottle of Snapple Lime Green Tea she decided to try.

"Any good?" I ask as I point to the bottle.

"Yeah, actually. Here, try it."

"No thanks." I mumble as I sit down.

"So..." said Margaret, trying to get the conversation rolling.

"So, what? Josh is dating Amy, I'm seeing someone, things should be great. Right?"

"Right. So how are things with you and..."

"Good. Things are fine between us."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Josh and I are...things are different. And they shouldn't be. We've dated other people before and things haven't changed between us."

"But have you two ever been seriously involved with other people?"

"No. For Josh, the wheels usually fall off the wagon around the second date. With me, I'm lucky if Josh doesn't ruin my first dates."

"So what's changed?"

"Everything. Josh and I used to be so comfortable around each other. We didn't have to pretend. We were just...us. Now things have changed. It's like in order for him to get closer to Amy he has to distance himself from me."

"You can probably blame that on Amy. I'm sure she's already been complaining about how close you are Josh were...are...whatever."

I take a sip of my own coffee, letting the bitterness take over for a minute as I contemplate how to put my feelings into words.

"Are you going out with him just because Josh is with Amy?" asks Margaret before I am able to put that feeling into words without sounding like a complete loser.

"Probably." I sigh as I glanced at my watch. "I have to run. I'm sure Josh's here and that he's lost something already. I'll talk to you later." I add quickly as I get up from the table and walk away before Margaret can have a chance to reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the afternoon I am convinced things would never be the same between Josh and I. Our whole "whatever it was we have" was off, terribly. No banter, no smiles. I have given him more than one opportunity to tease me about things and he hasn't taken the bait.

Now he is in his office making reservations for Tahiti. As he stumbles through the ins and outs of Travelocity.com I sit at my desk muttering to myself, "At least it isn't Hawaii". I know I should go in and do the nice thing and offer to help before he completely screws everything up, but at this point, being nice is the furthest thing from my mind.

The ringing of my phone brings me out of my jealous mutterings with a start. It's Leo. Things are coming to an end in Vieques and he is looking for Josh. I consider just leaning back in my chair and bellowing for Josh but decide to get up and tell him in person.

As I get to his office I see him hunched over his computer, rifling through his wallet looking for something.

"9876 3465 5467 0093" I say as I walk to Josh's desk and sit down on the corner.

"Huh?" Josh mutters.

"Your MasterCard number."

"Oh. Can you say that again, a little slower?"

With an air of annoyance I repeat the number, adding, "expiration 11/04".

"Done. We leave the day after tomorrow with connections in San Francisco and Hawaii."

Hawaii. My face falls and I stand up. "L-leo's looking for you." I stutter as I quickly leave the room.

Josh turns in time to see me glance over my shoulder as I head down the hallway. The look of confusion on his face is quickly replaced by one of clarity when he realizes what caused me to leave so quickly.

Hawaii, it is one of our long running jokes.

An hour later Josh is coming towards my desk with a look on his face that I can't quite place. It's like a strange combination of dread and relief.

"Everything OK?

"Uh, yeah. Can you get Amy on the phone for me."

"Sure" I mutter as he turns to go into his office. "And why can't you just call your girlfriend yourself." I mutter as I call the now disgustingly familiar number.

"Hi Amy, it's Donna...Yeah, I heard, sounds like a great trip. Look, I'm transferring you to Josh"

"Josh." I bellow just for the hell of it, cause I see him watching me from the doorway of his office.

I glance at the phone two minutes later and the light for the line is off already. Quick glance over my shoulder and Josh's door is still closed. I grab any old file to make it look like a have a reason to go into his office. Out of respect I do knock once before opening the door.

"Hey." I say as I toss the folder on the desk and sit down in a visitor's chair.

Josh is sitting with his head in his hands. Not a good sign. Part of me wants to just back out of the room as quickly as I came in and not bother asking what's wrong. But I can't. So I get comfortable by kicking off my shoes and propping my feet on the corner of the desk.

"You know, I don't have time to give you a foot massage Donnatella. I do have work to do." he says, trying to ease some of the tension that's in the room. It's a lame attempt but at least he tried. I take another look at him now that he's removed his head from his hands and is currently staring at something over my left shoulder, he looks like crap.

"You ok?" I ask, trying not to sound like I really care, when of course, deep down, I do.

"No...yeah...I had to cancel the trip."

I quickly bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling too broadly. "Why, Vieques?"

"Yeah, I have to take a meeting the day after tomorrow."

"And Leo won't let you out of it? That seems pretty harsh, even for him."

Josh doesn't respond. He just turns his attention to the folder I just put on the desk. "Do I really need this?" he asks as he realizes the folder contains the bills I am supposed to pay some time today.

"No." I grin as I reach for it. "You need anything?" I ask as I take another good look at him. He looks incredibly tired as he stands up and tries to stretch out his back.

"Advil."

"Sure. I think I ran out, I'll go get some from Margaret. Why don't you stand against the wall for a few minutes?

He grins as I leave and for a second things are almost back to normal.

Ten minutes later I am on my way back through the bullpen armed with some interesting information. Josh didn't have to cancel the trip. Leo told him he could skip the meeting and yet he canceled Tahiti anyway.

Interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Part of me is thrilled, of course. But part of me is a little, I don't know, pissed that he would cancel so easily, even if it means he won't be going away with Amy. I can only imagine how she feels at the moment. She's probably planning a water balloon attack of massive proportions.

I push the door open without knocking and I hear a muffled moan from behind the door. Whoops, forgot he was standing against the wall. I close the door and see Josh rubbing his forehead and mumbling about how I scuffed his shoes with the bottom of the door. Like they weren't already scuffed. The only thing that stops me from saying that aloud is the fact that he's wearing the shoes his mother sent him. And for some reason that stops me.

"Here's the Advil. And by the way, could you possibly be a bigger jerk if you tried?" I ask as I hand him the pills and move to get him a bottle of water out of the fridge.

"What'd I do now?"

"Oh, let's see, in the past hour and a half you've asked Amy to go away with you, managed to make plane reservations by yourself and then canceled the whole thing for no good reason."

"I have a meeting." he says, loud enough to cause the people in the bullpen to turn and look in his direction.

"And you don't have to go to it." I yell back as I reach to push the door closed.

And for a rare instant Josh is quiet. He sighs, takes the pills and slumps down in his chair.

"Who told you?"

"Doesn't matter. Now what are you going to do to fix it?" I ask suddenly worked up about the situation, more than I should be, more than I ever thought I would be.

His cell phone rings and while he takes the call I take a few minutes to try and figure out just how I feel. I should be glad he's not going on a tropical vacation with the bra-burning, balloon throwing Ms. Amy Gardner. And I suppose I am but I also can't help but wonder...what if Josh and I had been planning to go to Hawaii or somewhere, would he have canceled the trip in the same heartbeat? Something to think about, should we ever find ourselves heading for a vacation in Hawaii, or heading to dinner at a place where the waiter doesn't ask, 'do you want fries with that?'.

Josh is wrapping up the call. He settles back in his chair and puts his feet up. He looks miserable and my heart sinks. As much as I want Amy out of the picture I am not really looking forward to trying to pick Josh up after she breaks his heart. I envision the two of us in my cramped bathroom. Him drunk and hanging over the toilet puking his guts up and me rubbing his back and trying to make it all better. Been there, done that, don't need to repeat it. I look up and stare at Josh until he cracks.

"What should I do?"

"I don't know. Something...something big...something sweet...romantic" I say, managing not to gag as I say the word romantic.

"Donna," he whines. "I have work to do. I have a country to run. I don't have time to be sweet, romantic..."

"No kidding. Don't talk to me for a minute, let me think" I mutter as he looks at me with the look on his face he gets when he has a brilliant idea, or at least an idea he thinks is brilliant.

"My dear Donnatella..."

"No. Don't talk to me" I cut him off before he can say anything more.

He's quiet for about two minutes.

"Come on, at least give me some ideas." he whines. I have never met a grown man who can whine like Josh. I put on my thinking face for a minute as I let him get more agitated and whiny. "What'll it cost me to have you help me out?" he asks finally.

"Next Saturday and Sunday off."

"No way. How about you work Saturday morning and take the afternoon and Sunday off?"

I think for a minute while he squirms some more.

"OK and you buy lunch on Saturday."

"Don't I always?"

"Yeah, but we're going out. Somewhere with a waiter, crystal glasses and no wide screen TVs."

"Oh for the love of God, fine." he grunts as he runs his hands through his hair, giving him that adorable rumpled look that I am trying to ignore.

"Good. Now hand over your credit card." I say as I hold out my hand.

"Why you already know the number?" he smirks as he reaches for his wallet.

"When you actually go into the store, they prefer to see the card." I smirk right back.

He hands it over and I go to leave the office. His voice calls me back as I hit the bullpen.

"Thanks." he says sincerely with a dimpled smile.

I go back to my desk, drag out the phone book, make a few notes and grab my purse.

An hour and a half later I deposit a bag from the party store and two bottles of rum on his desk. I picked up some decorations, they look more Hawaiian than Tahitian but I don't think Josh will know the difference and besides I don't care. I downloaded a few drink recipes to go with the rum and put them in his backpack. While I do this Josh is staring at me, strangely quiet.

"What? I said I would help and I did. I take it you have some music that's at least semi-appropriate."

"I think I do."

He takes a peek into the bag and smiles.

"What?"

"Nothing, you just surprised me." he says, suddenly sounding a little, I don't know, almost shy. "I know you're not wild about Amy..."

"Josh, let's not even go there." I say in an effort to end the conversation right here and now. "I just don't want to see you get hurt."

"I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself."

"I've seen evidence to the contrary." I say with a smile as I head back to my desk.

Margaret's waiting for me. We head down to the Mess for a quick snack.

"Did you find everything you were looking for?"

"Yeah, I think so."

She eyes me suspiciously; "I can't believe you did that for him."

"Part of me can't believe it either. But honestly, I want him to be happy. Not that I think Amy's going to make him happy or anything. But for the moment he thinks he's happy. And we all know when Josh is happy things are much more pleasant around here."

"Donna, how are you, really?"

I take a moment to think of something witty to say but come up empty handed. "I'm fine. Believe it or not I feel better than I did this morning. And Josh and I are having lunch, a nice lunch next Saturday and he's giving me one and a half days off."

"You let him off easy." she says with a grin.

"Yeah. Well, he was looking pretty pathetic and I caved."

"The puppy dog look, huh?"

I nod and smile. Margaret knows me so well.

When I get back to the bullpen I grab a few things and go into Josh's office. He's on the phone, something about Vieques again. He hangs up and sighs. He looks terrible.

"You ok?"

"Yeah. It's this damn mess in Vieques. I feel like I've been used."

"You have been used." I say as I hand him the bottle of Snapple I brought back for him from the Mess.

"Why is it that you can carry this heavy glass bottle and you can't carry a Styrofoam container of coffee?" he teases as he twists the cap off. He glances at it, "Not a winner, please try again." he snorts. "That's typical."

"Josh why don't you take off. You look exhausted and you need some strength for the..."

"Donna, please, don't say that again." he says with a grin.

"OK" I agree as I hold out my hand for the Snapple.

He passes it across the desk and I take a sip. This is nice, we haven't share a drink like this in a long time. I think Josh has just realized the same thing, judging by the smile on his face.

He looks like he wants to say something but just can't bring himself to speak.

"What?" I ask softly.

"I've...this is going to sound stupid...I've missed you."

"Joshua, you see me everyday." I reply, trying my best not to break out into a huge grin and reach across the desk to hug him.

"Donna, please I'm trying to, well, not be me for a minute."

I smile at the phrase he uses and think back to that moment nearly a year ago when we were in this very office. We weren't much more than a heartbeat away from throwing each other on the desk.

"Things have been strange lately, with the MS stuff, the hearings and well, other stuff. I miss...I miss what we had."

"And exactly what did we have?" I ask, curious to hear what he thinks.

"I don't know. Hard to put it into words. We're just...us."

"Yeah, we are." I nod.

I look Josh in the eye and in the fading daylight I can see he's actually blushing.

"You need to get going." I say as I toss the empty bottle in his trashcan and stand up.

"Yeah. You leaving now?"

"No, I'm going to stay for a little while. Margaret and I are going out to eat later."

"Good for you. Think you can look at my computer, it's doing that weird thing again."

"Which weird thing is that?"

"I don't know." he whines.

"Fine, turn it on."

Josh leans over and turns the computer on as I kick my shoes in the corner and walk behind the desk. We do the little dance around the desk as we try to pass by each other. And for the first time in a long time I just reach out, grab him by the shoulders and move him out of my way. He grins at my actions.

I sit down in his chair as he packs his backpack and grabs his coat. A minute later, coat on and backpack on his shoulder he's standing next to me, well, basically standing over me as I am sitting in his chair.

"Look, uh...thanks. For everything." he stutters as I tip my head back to look at him.

He smiles a little and leans down to kiss me on the forehead.

"You're welcome." I reply with what I hope looks like a genuine smile.

As I watch him swagger down the hallway I'm once again torn about how I feel. I know I should be adult about the situation and look at things this way---

If he's happy, then I should be happy for him.

But part of me is tired of being an adult. And that part thinks---

The balloon tossing, bra-burning bitch has got to go.

By the time Margaret wanders in looking for me I have finished fixing Josh's computer and I am currently relaxing with my feet up on his desk, the picture of the two of us in my lap.

"Hey, you ok?" she asks as she sits in a visitor's chair.

"I think so."

"Josh leave already?"

"Yep. Let me just grab my stuff and we can go. Where are we going?" I ask as I put the picture back on the corner of his desk, shut down the computer and straighten up a few things.

"I don't know, what are you in the mood for?"

"Don't laugh, but I think I want a big burger and a chocolate shake."

"Sounds good to me. Johnny Rocket's?"

"Sure, then we can wander around Union Station for a while." agrees Margaret.

Half an hour later we're sitting in a red vinyl booth in the back corner of Johnny Rocket's in Union Station. We've ordered burgers, cheese fries and chocolate shakes. Margaret is currently digging through her purse for nickels, while I flip through the songs on the jukebox.

My eyes stop on song D16 Elvis' Blue Hawaii. I grab nickel off the table and make my selection as the waiter delivers the shakes.

"What did you put on?"

"You'll see."

Margaret waits until the song starts and she breaks out into a grin.

I think about the long running joke Josh and I have as I raise my glass in a toast.

"At least it wasn't Hawaii."

Margaret laughs and clinks her glass against mine.

"You'll get there, someday." she assures me.

"Maybe." I whisper as I sit back, take a drink and listen to The King.

THE END

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