Noel

She shuffles in her chair, thinks it's about time someone spoke to someone about getting this carpet cleaned.

"I'm sorry," he says, and she wonders if he will be this gentle with Josh tomorrow. "I know this can seem intrusive. But I have to ask. Get the complete picture."

She looks up at him, remembers what her mother used to tell her about making eye contact, that if you don't it can seem like a lie even if you're telling the truth.

"No," she says.

"Nothing at all?"

She shrugs, hopes it looks sufficiently casual, forgets for a moment that she is not dealing with her second grade teacher. Or the paper boy. "I'd say we're friends, as well as colleagues."

"Just friends?"

Inside her the familiar little ball of frustration makes its presence felt, like a singer clearing her throat before a rendition of Handel's Messiah. She twists her hands, wraps them around each other. "Yes."

"But you were the one who first mentioned to Leo McGarry that Josh should see me?"

"Yes."

He looks at her and waits. He knows there is more. His eyes, more than his qualifications, tell her he is not so easily thrown off course. Do his eyes tell her that? Maybe she just imagines it. Who knows what you can really guess from someone's eyes. Sometimes in Josh's eyes she sees what looks like tenderness for her, sometimes even what looks like love, and she's clearly wrong about that. So, there you go.

But still, she has the distinct impression he is not fooled.

Inside her the ball of frustration threatens to start an avalanche. She takes a sip of water, looks into his eyes again.

"We've worked together closely for a while now. I know him. He's not... well, not himself."

"Okay," he says, and again he waits. She's not used to people waiting for her to speak. In her line of work it's deliver the words now and quickly while walking very fast down a narrow corridor, and if you miss your window, well tough, you gotta be quick in this game.

"I just - "

She takes a deep breath, another sip of water.

"I just worry about him."

"Okay," he says again. "And Rosslyn?"

"Yeah." Carol will know whom to contact about the carpet. Right after this meeting she will ask her.

"You weren't there."

She cradles her face in her hands and bites her lip furiously. She will not cry. If it's the last dignifed thing she ever does she will not cry in this meeting. She has cried enough tears over Rosslyn, over Josh, over the thought of his being all alone when -

"It's okay," he says again, so softly she almost misses it. "Donna," he says, when she doesn't move. "Look at me."

She raises her head. He says the words slowly, so that each one has the chance to register in that sleepless brain of hers.

"Do you think your being there would have changed anything?"

She pours herself more water and does not state the obvious.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a bullet for someone else?"

She shakes her head, but it's not an answer to his question, not really. You don't understand, is what she's thinking. It's not a question of hard. It would be instinct.

"Do you have any idea of the guilt he'd be suffering from if you had done?"

"Still. I should have been there," she whispers after drinking the glass slowly, sip by sip. "And at the hospital. I should have been there from the word go."

"It sounds to me like you were an amazing support to him."

"It was nothing," she said. "I was just doing what comes naturally. It's what you do when you..." Damn it, she thinks. He nearly got me.

"Donna," he says. "Look at me."

When she meets his gaze he speaks as if to a deaf child who is just learning to lip read.

"It. Wasn't. Your. Fault."

The constriction in her chest eases and she breathes more deeply that she has in weeks.

"I promise I'll do my best with him," he says. "It might take a while. But he'll get there."

She knows they're done; he closes the file and sits back. When she reaches the door he calls her name.

"There's really nothing else you want to tell me?"

"No," she says again, and forces a smile. She's not ready to hear herself say it. First let's get Josh back on his feet.

One thing at a time.