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*
Apart from the quiet Josh, let’s go outside the gates, as he stood transfixed by the sounds of sirens, he and Donna hadn’t spoken. She had been a warm solid pillar next to him all along the sidewalks, the cold clacking walk to the hospital. It was late on Christmas Eve, the streets were nearly bare, and Josh suddenly wondered where Leo was going for the holiday. To Mallory’s, maybe. With the President, possibly. He hoped Leo wouldn’t be alone.
He didn’t want to be alone.
Donna kept her arm threaded through his, her hair soft and sweet-smelling, brushing his bare cheek with the wind every so often. She didn’t chatter, though, nothing about Yo-Yo Ma or her holiday plans or whatever. He didn’t even remember what she was doing for Christmas. He didn’t remember anything except for the choking sensation in his chest and throat, and sweat, and blood streaked on splintered glass.
So that’s going to be my reaction every time I hear music?
No.
Why not?
Because we get better.
“Josh.”
Donna had stopped walking, just behind him. Cold air curled in the space her body had kept, right against his ribs. He glanced back, through the swirling snow flurries and the soft streetlights, watching her, tall and pale and steady, her hand outstretched. “We’re here.”
He ducked his head and moved back into her space, letting her lead him on in a silent echo of their usual hallway dance. Her fingers clutched his forearm, just a little tighter than before.
The air in the emergency room was too warm, too sterile, the lights horribly bright. Mutely, he let Donna sit him down in a too-stiff plastic chair as she went to the nurses’ desk. He watched her from below his lashes, suddenly bone-tired. His chest ached, a faint stitch around the hard silvery knot of scar tissue he knew by heart. Shutting his eyes, he leaned his head back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, breathing with a slow even rhythm.
“It’ll be a few minutes.”
He opened his eyes a bit, glancing over as Donna settled herself in the chair next to him, her dark coat wrapped tightly around her, legs crossed primly. “They have a lot of Christmas dinner incidents and wrapping issues. Apparently wrapping paper is quite dangerous,” she added, drumming her fingers on the armrest.
“I’m okay,” he said finally, voice strange to his ears, too hoarse, too raw. “I can wait.”
She looked at him sharply, a look he knew she saved only for him. “You are not a patient man, Josh.”
“Don’t have anywhere to go,” he said with a shrug, shutting his eyes again.
Next to him she sighed, he imagined she rolled her eyes, but her hand gently rested on his crossed arms for a moment, touching his bandaged hand. “Did you know that open wounds lead to gangrene and loss of limbs almost twenty-five percent of the time?”
He snorted, dislodging the hard ache in his chest. “That’s such a lie.”
“Truth.”
“From when?”
A pause, and then: “You know, eighty years ago.”
He couldn’t help but snort again, something like warmth tingling through his extremities once more, for the first time in weeks. “If this is your form of a scolding, it’s terrible.”
“I’m reining in my wrath due to your delicate state,” she said coolly.
“Har har,” he mumbled, a dull ache spreading through his injured hand. “I’m not delicate.”
After a moment, the hand on his moved to his hair, stroking gently. “Sometimes you are.”
It was natural to turn into her touch, something soft and quiet settling in the back of his mind and all through his body, and it should have worried him, should have set off the alarms he was careful to always have on in the back of his head when it came to Donna. He knew what people thought of him and Donna, how incredibly unfair it was to the both of them, especially her, and so he was careful all the time, even if there wasn’t anything to be careful of (even if maybe just maybe there was).
But god he was tired, and he was hurt, and he had wounded her, among others, in the last weeks, and if she wanted to be here, if she wanted to do this, he was going to let her, and he was going to enjoy it.
“Especially when you drink more than one beer,” she was saying, her thumb lingering near his temple.
“I hate when you bring that up,” he said, a tinge of whining in his tone.
“One of the favorite moments of my life, finding you in that prone position on the floor of your office. Good god, Josh, you couldn’t even keep coffee in your mouth that morning,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice, masking something tremulous.
The nurses called out for someone not him, and he relaxed into the chair, trying to ignore the throbbing in his hand, the ibuprofen he’d taken earlier finally wearing off. “And then there was the other shock of Joey Lucas as deaf and female. A horrible, horrible day,” he muttered.
Her fingers stilled for a moment, light against the thinning, coarse strands of his hair. “Not the worst,” she said thinly.
He opened his eyes, watching as her face, which had been so stalwart and steady all day, all night, began to crack. “Donna—“
“We never talked about it,” she interrupted, staring past him, her hand falling to the armrest.
He sighed, head lolling slightly. All summer, with her hovering and care-taking and nursing, they’d talked about everything except it. “I know. I was there.”
Abruptly, she faced him dead-on, eyes too blue and too sharp, tear-less. “I’m glad you’re here, Josh. I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said firmly, all fiercely affectionate, and there was that alarm in the back of his mind, distant and easy to push aside, which tonight, he had no problem doing.
Inching himself up, he uncrossed his arms and covered her hand with his good one. “I’m glad too,” he said quietly.
“Are you sure?” she pressed softly.
Donna knows?
She’s the one who figured it out.
“Donna, how did you know?” he asked instead, voice soft and ragged around the edges.
She tilted her head and smiled faintly, a half-twist of the corner of her mouth. “I know you, Josh.”
He smiled slightly back at her, and gave her hand a squeeze. At least someone does.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Scandinavia, or on a dairy farm somewhere by now?” he asked after a moment.
She shook her head. “I decided not to go home for Christmas this year.”
“When did you decide that?” he asked.
Shrugging, she looked up as the nurse called his name. “It doesn’t matter. Come on.”
He let her pull him up out of the chair and guide him over to the nurse. As she walked back to her chair with a wave and an I’ll be here when you get back, he craned his neck to watch her, nearly running into the nurse before she showed him to a curtained bed.
In the middle of antiseptic wipes and stitches, it came to him, under the sterile fluorescent lights. She had known. And she’d stayed for him.
*