They were the very last words that Donna had expected to hear from Josh Lyman, and for a second, she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, was sure her heart had stopped beating. Her first discernible thought was that she would have to hear him say it again – she wasn't sure how many times it would take – to believe that he'd said it all. When she turned around to him, her expression registered shock more than anything.

"What did you say?" she asked, a little breathlessly.

Just at that moment, another elevator arrived on the floor, and they could hear loud conversation and laughter as the doors began to open. Afraid they were about to be accosted by another band of merrymakers, Josh grabbed Donna's wrist, pulling her back into the elevator with him, and automatically punched the button for his floor.

He watched the number 22 light up and felt himself transfixed by the small, illuminated circle, unable to look back up into her searching gaze. He wasn't sure what he'd expected her reaction to be, but he hadn't anticipated having to repeat himself without some assurance that she felt. . .something. In her face, he'd seen only disbelief.

"Josh. . ." Her voice was both a question and a plea, and he couldn't help but raise his eyes to meet hers. But not even a second later, the elevator granted him one last reprieve, stopping at his floor before he'd had a chance to respond. Josh stepped out quickly, then turned around and held his arm out for Donna to follow. She didn't move. Alarmed, he finally found his voice.

"Donna?"

"What did you say?" It was more of a demand this time, and she looked unflinching into his eyes.

Josh cleared his throat and glanced quickly over his shoulder. His room wasn't ten doors down. "I don't want to do this in the hallway. Please?"

Waiting only a beat, she silently relented, and followed as he led her to his room, stopping to pull the key from his back pocket and opening the door on the first try. She felt like she was walking in a fog, her entire attention focused on the words he had said two minutes earlier and was now either unwilling or unable to repeat.

It almost didn't register that she was walking into Josh's hotel room until she saw his coat thrown across a chair, his briefcase on the floor, and papers covering virtually every other surface in the room. What in the hell had gone on here? She looked back at him quizzically, but he was still facing away from her with his hands on the door he had just shut behind them. It looked as though he might be contemplating an escape route.

And in truth, he was. Now that the initial jolt of courage was fading, true panic had started to set in. Josh felt his mouth go dry, and he was pretty sure that his hands were shaking in spite of their death grip on the doorknob.

Watching him from across the room, Donna felt thrown back to a time when she was certain no one could read Josh Lyman better than she could. In spite of everything that had come between them since then, it took nothing more than the stiff line of his shoulders to tell her that he needed her to take the lead.

At that moment, though, it felt more like taking a leap. Off a cliff. Without a parachute. To certain death. Trying to keep her voice steady, she began. "I thought I was imagining. . ."

Josh lifted his head at her words, but didn't turn.

"In Germany. . .after the surgery. . ."

His heart came to a sudden stop before beginning to beat frantically against his chest. Don't go there, he pleaded silently.

"You were there when I woke up, and the way you looked at me. . .it made me feel. . .safe. Like everything was going to be OK, like I was going to be OK. . .

Her words were picking up pace. His hands let go of the door.

"And I would have sworn, in that moment, that something had changed between us. I was sure of it, until I got back. And then. . .I don't really know what I was expecting. Not any dramatic declarations or – God! Maybe I was. But everything was the same. Nothing had changed! You were my boss. You were glad I was back at my desk, you were jealous of my flowers, but you were definitely not in love with me."

At this, Josh finally turned around to face her. Unshed tears were shining in her eyes, and he knew that the emotions breaking the surface in her voice had been held under for far, far too long.

"Because if you were. . .wouldn't it have mattered that I almost died? Wouldn't something have changed?" Donna's voice finally broke, and a tear spilled down her cheek. Impatiently, she wiped it away and kept going. In spite of herself, she was getting angry.

"And so I decided that I'd imagined it, the way you looked at me in the hospital. I must have seen things that weren't there. It must have been the drugs. That's what I told myself. And I must have told myself that ten thousand times, but I still couldn't believe it, not entirely, until I left and you didn't care! What was I supposed to think then, Josh? So really. . .you're going to have to tell me what it was that you just said in the elevator. Because I don't believe it!"

Josh stood staring at her in amazement, his own anger tempered at first by the shock of everything that she had just said to him. Wouldn't it have mattered if she almost died? I left and you didn't care? In a heartbeat, Josh was across the room, standing directly in front of her, and she was stunned by the expression on his face. He was absolutely furious.

"You think it didn't matter to me when you almost died?" he practically shrieked. "Why in the hell do you think I was in Germany at your bedside in the first place! I went halfway across the world to get to you because it didn't matter that you almost died? I thought I was going to die, Donna! All I could think about was how I had put you in that hospital."

She flinched at the pain in his voice, and for some reason, it made his anger subside. Softly, raggedly, he finished, "If you hadn't come through, I don't know what I might have done."

Donna felt a shiver go through her at the intensity of his words, and hope flickered in her heart. But the cruelly detached voice that she had relied on to distance herself from him for the past year and a half wouldn't be easily silenced. So it was guilt, she told herself. It was guilt that made him come to me.

But looking up into his face, she couldn't bring herself to say those words out loud. He looked so tired all of a sudden, and so vulnerable. She wanted to comfort him, and without thinking, lifted a hand to his cheek. He closed his eyes at her touch, and his hand went up to hers, his fingers encircling her wrist. It would be so easy just to stop now, he thought to himself. Just to kiss her now. But for some reason, he couldn't. He had to get through this if it killed him.

Opening his eyes, he lowered her hand from his face, but didn't let it go. In a rough whisper, he asked, "How could you think that I didn't care when you left?"

Donna's heart was hammering in her chest. She couldn't stop staring at his mouth. They were standing so close, it would only take the slightest movement forward. . .

But his words brought her back to reality, and she pulled her wrist free from his grip. Looking back up into his eyes, she realized with some surprise that her anger had drained away. And without it to distract her, all she felt was sadness at the way their seven years together in the White House had ended.

"You never called," she whispered back. "Not once."

"You left me," he challenged.

"I left my job."

"You left me, without so much as a 'see ya later!'"

"You didn't give me a chance, Josh! I had a whole speech prepared for that lunch date that you broke SIX TIMES. I was going. . ." Donna stopped and sighed. She'd somehow lost conviction in the argument that she'd had with herself hundreds of times. If now wasn't the time for honesty, then when? "OK. You're right! I should have done something more to make you listen to me. I should have said good-bye. I should have said thank you."

Josh looked up to see another tear spill down her cheek. He wanted to wipe it away and pull her into his arms, but he was frozen again, unable to make himself move. The feelings that he had pushed away ever since she'd left had come rushing back as she spoke, and he felt paralyzed.

Donna wiped her own tears and pushed herself to keep going. She knew she couldn't stop now. "So thank you. Thank you for everything that you taught me, and for taking me back when I left, and for letting me hire myself in the first place. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, working at the White House. . .being with you."

Not working with you, being with you. The difference wasn't lost on Josh, and his courage began creeping back. "I never thought you would leave," he whispered.

"Josh. . ." There was some exasperation in Donna's sigh.

"No -- I mean that I took it for granted that you'd always be there to take care of me, keep me sane –" At the ironic look in her eyes, he grinned. "Or at least honest."

She smiled a little, but he was suddenly serious again and took a step closer. The breath caught in her throat as he leaned forward and took her hands in his. "I think I knew from the second we met that I'd be lost without you. And I have been." Their eyes, full of tears, were locked on each other. "Every day, not having you there – every night, wanting you with me – it's been hell on earth. And I thought it couldn't get worse until tonight. . .and the idea of you with anyone but me. . .I need you, Donna. I love you." Shaking, Josh brought his hands up to her face and smiled gently. "I'm in love with you," he whispered. "That's what I said in the elevator."

Donna's tears slipped unheeded down her face as she beamed up at man she had loved for what seemed like her whole life, forever. His words had washed over her, leaving no trace of doubt or anger or fear. "I love you, too, Joshua Lyman; I always have." Leaning into him, she whispered, "I always will," before, finally, their lips met in a kiss that would render them speechless for the rest of the night. . .