Spoilers: anything's game.

Summary: Another Josh POV, on Donna's return to the office

Rating: PG

Note: the two songs Donna sings along to in this story are "Winter" by Tori
Amos (where the title of this story came from) and "Why Should I Cry For
You?" by Sting (a little foreshadowing for the next story). I really
recommend you try to find the Badlees song I quoted (it's on their album
_River Songs_). It's totally appropriate for this story.

Another note: This is the seventh in the "Crash into Me" series wherein our
favorite non-couple moves toward each other with all due speed, "all due
speed" being translated to mean "sometime after the Second Coming." The
previous installments are:

"Best Served Cold" (PG-13) "Inside Me, the Time Moves" (PG-13)
"There's Something About Robert" (PG-15) "Limbo" (PG-13)
"Flying Machines" (PG-13) "Just Another Day" (PG)

-----------------------------------

"A Little Warm in My Heart" (1/1)

The beautiful acquaintance I desired
has inspired me to levels unforeseen
true admiration for someone who's made it back
from the hell she was in
-- The Badlees, "Angeline is Coming Home"

DECEMBER 31
-----------

My aide has a knack for stealth. I'm not talking Renee -- who is to aides
what Diet Coke is to the real thing -- but Donna. From day one, that
woman's had an uncanny talent for sneaking up on me and anticipating my
requests. Following them is a different story, but she knows how to read
the Josh Lyman forecast. Sam sometimes comments that the reason I keep
her on is because knowing how to ambush me is critical tactical
information, and I don't want Donna and her skills falling into enemy hands.

Right now, I'd just settle for knowing when she plans on showing up in
friendly territory. I thought I'd see her in the new year, but here she is
extracting herself from Sam's fraternal embrace and thanking him warmly
for all his help.

Somehow it seems wrong that I'm not the first one to see her and welcome
her back. It also seems wrong that she's not throwing Sam aside to fling
herself into my arms, singing rapturous praise for my magnificence as a
boss. Not that I deserve it, but that doesn't really stop me from pondering
why *Sam* gets an enthusiastic hello. I wonder why this irritates me, then
shove it to the back of my mind. After Sam leaves -- gushing like a
schoolboy over how much easier I'll be to deal with now that Donna's back
-- I amble on over. Time to bust out that caustic charm. It usually comes so
easy to me.

Where is it when I need it?

We look at each other over the stack of boxes. I think we're both tallying
what's changed in the seven weeks she's been gone. I'm reasonably sure I
look the same. Her new haircut does look good on her, even if it's still
something of a shock to see her hair curling on the ends instead of hanging
down straight.

"So?" she says. I give her a careful hug. She feels thinner than when she
left. Donna doesn't need to get any thinner.

"Welcome back," I say, and I can't help grinning. She's back. All's right with
the world. Well, in a manner of speaking. "What are you doing here? You're
not supposed to be at work for another two days."

"Friday is going to be awful if I walk in unprepared," she says with a shrug.
"So I'm going to file the incredible amount of paper I amassed for you, and
see what Renee's done to my desk, and set up my computer again. You
know, your typical, fun-loving New Year's Eve."

"In other words, your family drove you crazy, you hopped in the car, and
you had no plans for New Year's," I jibe.

"Permit me my illusions of workaholism," she huffs, then bends to unpack
her computer.

I retreat to my office. That went differently than I thought it would.

An hour later, I open the door again. Donna's wearing a walkman and she's
singing along absently, something about frozen ropes and endless seas as
she rifles through file drawers inserting and replacing folders.

I knew Donna had an affinity for music, but I think I'm only now beginning
to understand how it moves her. "You have a really nice voice," I comment.

She looks startled, then recovers. "I should," she shoots back. "I've had
plenty of practice time in the car."

There's something old in her eyes -- loneliness, I think? I know that look. I'm
usually the one wearing it, when I'm up at 2 a.m. and I catch my reflection.

"What was it like up there?" I ask. "What were you doing up there?"

I've wondered every day. I'm so used to thinking of her as part of my life.
I've missed feeling like I'm part of hers.

Well. *This* is a revelation.

Donna finishes her box of files and goes to get the next one. "Are you
going to help me?" she asks.

"I'll order dinner," I offer.

"Why, Joshua Lyman. Don't tell me you don't have plans for New Year's?"

"None," I admit.

"And here I figured you'd be chasing Renee out the door tonight," Donna
continues.

"Renee?" And after the shock wears off, I remember this is Donna's second
formidable talent: catching me off-guard.

"You've got a demonstrated tendency to fall for feisty brunettes," Donna
muses. It's a good thing her back is to me; I don't think I need her to see
me gaping at her. Donna passing judgement on my love life isn't new, but
she's -- she's sounding like me.

"I do not," I finally manage. "I may have a thing for feisty women, but hair
color has nothing to do with it. Come on -- I'm offering you dinner here.
Chinese?"

"Definitely."

"Now answer my question: what were you doing up there? What was it
like?"

Donna, to my great surprise, actually takes off her walkman and fulfills my
request. For the next hour, she talks while she puts away files, telling me
about the quiet rhythm of her days -- up at five-something to talk to me,
working nonstop until about noon, overhauling her parents' house in
between Renee's hysterical phone calls and my irate ones, reading and
working at night. I just sit and listen to the music in her voice.

"I felt really weird when everyone came back for the service," she
comments. "I was used to having the house to myself. On the nights
where--"

And she stops, clearly weighing what to tell me.

"The nights where you what? Couldn't sleep?"

"Yes," she sighs. "On nights where I couldn't sleep, I used to grab a sleeping
bag and head out to the back porch. I'd sit on the swing and watch the
stars until I was too cold or too tired."

"You could have given yourself hypothermia!" God help me, I just turned
into my mother.

"That's what the sleeping bag was for. I just sat out and watched the stars
turn at night. I think I'm going to miss that here. Too much light pollution
here, you know."

"To say nothing of what would happen if you tried that in your
neighborhood."

We both laugh. It feels good to hear her do that.

The phone rings. It's our food; I stroll down to get it and come back in time
to hear Donna softly singing again, something winter and snow and making
up her mind. I stand there for a moment, not wanting to interrupt her.

She bends to another box and I take that as my entrance cue, coming in
with the food. For the next half hour, we eat silently and ravenously.

"Donna," I finally say. "Don't they have Chinese food in Wisconsin?"

"Not like this," she says around a mouthful of Three Harmonious Vegetables.
"Those immigration quotas in the 1890s really hurt Wisconsin's chances of
building a thriving Chinese outpost."

I must give her a strange look because she starts laughing again. "I'm sorry,"
she gasps between giggles, "but I'm not used to that look you give me
anymore."

What look? She reads my mind -- another thing that she's apparently kept
up on despite her long hiatus -- and finishes, "The look where you wonder
where on God's green earth all this useless information comes from."

"I know where it comes from," I say. "There are entire industries devoted
to the generation and marketing of information without context. I just
marvel at your seemingly infinite capacity for consuming all of it."

"It's a rare gift," she asserts, and begins clearing up the empty cartons. I've
missed dinner with Donna. I've missed a lot of things that have something to
do with Donna. This is an interesting new admission.

"Your fortune cookie," she says and tosses it to me. I snap open the cookie
and read the slip of paper: "Your aide will bring you coffee in the New
Year."

"Keep dreaming."

"Actually, it says 'a good friend is one who listens.'"

"Thus eliminating ninety percent of the people you deal with on a daily
basis," Donna cracks.

"To say nothing of my no-coffee-bringing aide." Which is a patent falsehood,
of course. Donna's the one person whom I've never doubted listens to me,
even when she shouldn't.

Donna fixes me with her outraged look and breaks open her fortune
cookie. She looks up and gives me a sly smile, then reads, "You will be
getting a raise, and back combat pay, when the new budget passes."

"Let me see that!" I reach for it and Donna stretches her arm above her
head. I lean over her and grab it. "You're sensitive and creative."

"Turn it over and read the Chinese part," Donna informs me. "The part
where it says, " and your genius will finally be recognized with a
staggeringly large raise."

"It says all that in four characters?"

"Ideograms contain a wealth of information," Donna informs me loftily. I grin
again. I can't help it. Something that's been missing for the last few months
just slid back into place.

Donna smiles back, then moves to clear my desk and return to work. "How
many boxes do you have left?" I call out.

"Five," she hollers back. "I've done six already. I should be done by
midnight."

Midnight, eh? I have enough work to keep me busy until then.

The time passes pleasantly enough. I'm knee-deep in policy papers on
human rights and epidemics -- some student group is trying to sue us for
violating civil liberties, since highly contagious carriers of deadly diseases
apparently have the inalienable civil right to run about in the general
population -- and Donna's still singing along as she works. When the singing
stops, I peer up from my desk. Donna's holding my calendar in her lap,
muttering darkly as she flips through the pages.

"Now you know what I've been going through," I say. She looks up with the
don't-mess-with-me look and I duck back to work.

Five minutes later, I decide work can wait. "Donna!" I yell.

"What?" she yells back. I know by that tone in her voice she has no
intention of actually coming in my office.

"*Donna!*" I yell again. Oh, how the bullpen will rejoice in knowing things
are back to normal. They've missed this. I can tell.

Donna appears in my door, one hand cocked on her hip. So nice to know
she remembers this portion of our relationship too. She raises an eyebrow
in my general direction.

"Let's go see the stars," I say. "I'll drive."

* * *

The air has a cold, dry snap to it that makes me think of glass breaking. As
we walk out to my car, I can see Donna's breath coming in little puffs.

I let her into my car and she sinks in gratefully. "Thank you for driving," she
says. "It will be too soon before I get behind Sven's wheel again."

"Sven?"

"I named the car. It was easier to talk to him then."

Only Donna would talk to her car. She has this knack for day to day life I
really envy, some way of doing it entirely off-kilter without breaking stride.

"And as much as I love Sven," Donna continues, "I've been spending a little
too much time with him lately. We need our space."

"Space is important in a relationship," I agree, and switch lanes.

"Where are we going?" Donna asks.

"It only occured to you to ask that now?"

"Well, it occured to me that perhaps you were driving to the middle of
nowhere to kill me and bury my body. Then I realized that so long as I'm
the only one who knows your schedule, you wouldn't risk it."

"You know me too well." I switch from 495 to 66, heading out to the
hinterlands of Virginia. Donna doesn't say a word, just reads the signs as
they pass. When we get to Manassas, she murmurs, "Joshua..."

"Out past the light pollution," I reply.

"So long as we stick near the highway. I don't want any more of these 'I'm a
woodsman' episodes."

"I believe it was 'outdoorsman.'"

"Whatever it was, you're no Grizzly Adams. Remember that."

We get to the 29 exchange and I exit onto the four-lane highway. We're
chasing the moon, following the thin ribbon of road into the foothills of
the Shenandoah Mountains.

It occurs to me that this is the kind of thing you do with a lover. It also
occurs to me that not only is Donna *not* my lover, she's my aide and she's
still reeling from her parents' death. And we're friends in one of the
strangest senses of the word. Putting the moves on her -- a bad idea under
normal conditions -- is just plain wrong right now.

And then it occurs to me that I'm an idiot for entertaining these thoughts
about Donna, period.

I look over at her fine-boned profile, washed in moonlight, and I resolve to
think out this suddenly very interesting problem of what to do about the
way I'm regarding my aide. I switch to a small, two-lane highway, and roll to
a stop beside a fenced-in field.

We get out and the cold air makes my eyes snap open. I join Donna on the
passenger side of the car. For several minutes we stand side-by-side
silently, just looking up at the stars in the vast dark sky.

Donna starts suddenly and checks her watch. "Eleven fifty-five," she says.
"Shall we count down here?"

"From what, three hundred?"

"From whatever we want," she says. "It's the new year. We can make
resolutions. We can bicker over how very wrong your watch probably is.
We can --"

"What time is it now?"

"Eleven fifty-seven."

"What's your resolution for the new year?" I ask.

"To re-elect the President," she says. "Yours? Make it snappy; it's eleven
fifty-eight."

"The same," I say. "Keep the White House. Figure out what to do next."

Especially since "next" will require dealing with this crush I seem to be
developing on Donna as we stand here.

"That's a good one," Donna says thoughtfully. "Figure out what to do next."

I grab Donna's wrist. "Fifteen seconds," I announce. "Ten ... nine ..."

Donna joins me, "eight ... seven ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ..."

We look at each other, and we are both poised on the edge of
*something*. I have no idea what. "Happy New Year," I manage, and brush
back her bangs to press a kiss to her forehead. She kisses me back, very
chastely and gently, on the cheek, and we embrace.

The air is warm between us. I spin her around so her back is to me, and I
lean back against the car. We stand and stare at the stars in silence.
Donna's hair tickles my neck a little, but I don't want to move; holding her
like this feels good. Her gloved fingers idly rubbing mine feel much better
than they should.

I wonder what's going to happen next. It should be an interesting year.