Connected

Part 4 - Inevitable

Josh was washing his mug when Donna returned to the kitchen. "I meant what I said," she told him. "I had a good time. And I was sorry it ended when it did."

"The music?" Josh asked with a smile.

"No, not the music." Donna was watching Josh carefully. "If it had been anyone but Leo who interrupted us, I'd have told them to leave us alone."

"If I'd have known you felt like that I'd have told Leo myself." Josh had almost yelled at Leo when he interrupted them, until he remembered where they were. "So it wasn't just the drink then?"

"I'd only had three glasses of wine. Also, I have a confession about the flight home. I wasn't asleep most of the time, I was just enjoying lying against you."

Josh grinned. Donna was enjoying lying against him. She wanted him to kiss her. This was huge. This was a whole other thing, but he had no idea what she wanted him to do next.

"I just wanted you to know that," Donna told him, wondering why she suddenly felt so shy.

Josh placed his mug on the counter and walked over to her. "Maybe we should carry on from where we were interrupted?"

Donna glanced at Josh across the breakfast table the next morning and smiled. "Well that's never happened before."

"No," Josh agreed with a grin, "though I'm not sure it was entirely unexpected."

"No, not entirely," Donna agreed.

Josh sighed, "I suppose we should get dressed then."

"Why?" Donna asked. "Do you have somewhere to be? Somewhere you'd rather be?" she smiles.

"Nowhere at all. Do you have any suggestions for the day then?"

"I love spending Sunday vegging in front of the TV, eating junk food and doing nothing at all."

"Nothing at all?" Josh asked.

"Well, maybe something will spring to mind." Donna smiled as she stood and went to make another coffee. "I can't believe I did that last night, by the way," she admitted. "It's not something I've ever done before, you do know that?"

"So you don't normally seduce men who've kindly let you stay the night?" Josh teased.

"As I recall you didn't take too much seducing," Donna laughed. "And Millicent Griffith is right."

"I should eat more healthily?" he grinned as he walked over to her.

"Well yes, obviously, but that's not what I meant." She placed her hand on Josh's chest. When she'd taken his top off last night she'd felt him tense slightly and she knew why. She hadn't seen his scar for three years and it had faded from the angry red line she remembered. She wanted him to know that he really shouldn't be embarrassed by it, especially not in front of her. "It is a beautiful scar." 

Josh looked at Donna like she was a little mad, "How can any scar be beautiful?"

"It saved your life," Donna replied.

"Yeah," Josh agreed with a faint smile. He took her hand in his and led her back to the bedroom.

The door buzzer dragged Josh and Donna back to reality around 4.30. Luckily they were watching TV at the time, although they hadn't bothered to dress yet. Josh reluctantly answered the intercom.

"Hey, Josh."

"Toby, come in." Josh pressed the button. Donna dashed to the guest room to get dressed, while Josh quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and opened the front door. "'Sup?" he asked.

"Nothing, I was bored."

"Thanks," Josh replied, trying to look happy to see Toby.

"What you doing?"

"Watching TV and doing nothing else really."

"Hey, Toby," Donna smiled, as she walked into the living room.

"Hey, I didn't know you were here."

"Yeah, I've hijacked his guest room. There's no power in my apartment, but my super neglected to tell me until I got back last night."

Toby watched Josh and Donna and wondered, just for a second, if he had interrupted something, but decided not. An opinion that was confirmed when Donna added.

"Why don't we phone the others and all do something?"

"Okay," Toby agreed, not noticing the scowl that Josh gave Donna.

Three hours later, with Toby, Will, CJ and Charlie watching sport in the living room, Donna managed to get Josh on his own the kitchen. "Okay," she began. "They're my friends too, you know that right?"

"But you wish they'd leave," Josh grinned.

"Yes. What the hell was I thinking?"

"Misdirection," Josh supplied.

"What are you two up to?" CJ asked from the doorway.

"Trying to decide on food," Donna told her.

"Chinese?" Josh held out the menu.

"Good idea," CJ replied, taking the menu off him.

Josh and Donna gave each other a resigned look and followed CJ back into the living room.

What would normally have been a pleasant evening for Josh and Donna was dragging by very slowly. Both of them had spent most of the time trying to work out how they could get rid of the others, without it being obvious or rude. As 10.30 approached with no sign of anyone leaving, Josh was seriously considering that rude would be fine.

"Has all the food gone?" Will asked.

"Two hours ago," CJ laughed. "I can't believe we've found someone who gets drunk easier than Josh."

"I'm not drunk," Will protested as he stared at his empty beer bottle. "Actually I may be a little. I think I need the bathroom....." he stood and made a dash to the bathroom.

"And I think it could be time to leave," CJ told Toby.

Charlie looked hopefully at Josh. "Do you know how hard it is to find a cab that'll go to my place at this time of night?"

Josh automatically asked, "You wanna stay on the sofa?"

"Please."

"We'll take Will home," CJ told them.

"We?" Toby asked.

"He's your deputy."

"Yeah," Toby sighed.

After the others had gone and Charlie was in the shower, Donna cornered Josh in the living room. "Why did you do that?"

"What?"

"Ask Charlie to stay over."

"You don't like Charlie?"

"Of course I like....... how can we spend the night together if Charlie's asleep on the sofa?" she whispered.

"Oh yeah," Josh looked dismayed for a second, before he grinned. "He wouldn't care. It'll mean he could have the guest room."

Donna stared questioningly at Josh.

"Yeah," Josh agreed. "Dumb idea. Sorry."

At 5.20 the following morning Charlie was woken by Josh turning the kitchen light on. He looked at his watch and groaned. "Do you always get up this early?"

'There's not much keeping me in bed' Josh thought. "Sorry," he offered, "you want a coffee?"

"Yeah please, I should go and get ready for work anyway."

Twenty minutes later Charlie had left and Josh and Donna were sat in silence eating breakfast. "Okay," Donna said, "what's going on?"

"I don't know," Josh admitted."Is this going to be awkward. At work I mean?"

"I don't want it to be. You still think if anyone knew what we did it'd cause problems?"

"Yeah, I would think, given our jobs and where we work, it'd cause massive problems."

"So we should forget Saturday night?" Donna asked.

"No, I don't want to forget it," Josh insisted. "But I think that if we want to carry on working together then we can't have a relationship," he reluctantly added.

"I know. I just don't know how easy that's going to be."

"Can it be any more difficult than it has been?"

Donna didn't have to ask what he meant by that. "No, I don't suppose it can. So we just carry on as before then. We both date other people and act as if nothing happened?"

"You think you can do that?"

"No."

"Me either, but it's that or we tell Leo and one of us gets moved."

"By 'one of us' you mean me," Donna sighed.

"Probably. God this sucks."

"But we have to try, because I don't want either of us to be moved."

"Yeah," Josh reluctantly agreed.

Part 5, Watching The Moon.