"Two hours," she said from somewhere behind him, and he started and jabbed at a few random keys on his keyboard.  When that failed to shut down the web-page he'd been viewing, he stood and nonchalantly leaned against the desk hosting his computer.

"What's in two hours?" he asked, hoping he'd managed to block the screen before she saw what he'd been in the process of doing.

"Your meeting with the Governor."

"The one who insulted my shoes?"

"That would be him."

"The one who said they looked like the shoes of a kindergartener trying to impress his teacher on the first day of school?"

"He didn't know who you were at the time."

"And if I'd been anyone else, that might have meant something.  You know, my mother gave me those shoes."

"Tell me again why he wasn't impressed with that?"

"Hey," he protested, "you like my mom, remember?"

"And she likes me," Donna agreed, which stopped him short and wiped his mind clean of whatever they'd been saying before that revelation.

His mother *did* like Donna, far more than any of his previous girlfriends-

And that was not wording he was prepared to use just yet, even mentally.

But... Donna *was* special, for reasons other than her ability to charm his mother - though that was a talent he could've used in high school, and was thus one he admired greatly - and while many of them were work-related, most of them were not.

It was a strange thought, the idea that she could be more than simply his assistant, his friend, but one that, once planted, had become surprisingly difficult to uproot.  It  slipped its feelers into his head and wound its way through his everyday life until he no longer had to wonder - not that he ever actually *had*, of course - what it would be like to view her in a romantic light, because it was slowly dawning on him that that *was* how he saw her, lately.

After his disastrously short relationship with Amy, he hadn't been sure he'd even *want* to date again, but Donna... there was just something about her, something he hadn't noticed before and wasn't exactly able to pinpoint, but it was there.  He wasn't quite ready to admit he felt something more for her than he'd first thought he did, but it wouldn't hurt to test the waters a little, in his own subtle way.

After all, it wasn't as though she had a boyf-

Wait a second.  Back track.  A few weeks ago, during the planning for the botched trip to Tahiti that had ended his relationship with Amy, Donna had said something about... Something about... a boyfriend?  Had she mentioned having a boyfriend?

He blinked and wondered how, even with his momentary infatuation with another woman and the Billy thing, he'd missed that.  The sound of her voice snapped him back to the present, and he saw that she stood directly before him, a file in her hands and an expectant expression on her face.

"Josh?  You didn't send another incendiary message to that website, did you?" she asked, apparently deciding that he'd been thinking of ways to get her out of his office instead of out of her cl-

Dammit.

He hadn't, definitely had not, been imagining her naked.  Or in her underwear.  Though what she wore beneath her work clothes was something he'd be interested in discovering.  At some point.  In the future.

But for now, he had an assistant to deceive and a mission to execute.

"No," he lied, fumbling for the off-button on the computer and switching it off.

"You turned off the monitor, not the computer," she said, not smiling externally, but he could tell she found the situation amusing by the smirky gleam in her eyes.

It was a good look for her.

"I know that.  The screen was... too bright," he said, hoping she wouldn't point out that his back was to the computer.

"Okay." She opened the file and began to flip to the page she wanted.

He thanked God for small favors and thought that it would be the perfect time to ask her about The Gomer.

"So, you were telling me about your boyfriend," he remarked casually, hoping to just slip that in and get an answer before she realized what he'd done.

"I don't think I was," she said distractedly, leafing through the sheaf of papers with a speed that amazed him.

"Yeah, you were.  You know, the... guy.  The lawyer?"

"Which one?"

"There's more than one?"

"What?  No, I mean- Josh, when exactly did this conversation take place?"

"It was... a couple weeks back - you're telling me you don't remember?"

"Well, in my own defence, there really doesn't seem to be much *to* remember."

"And yet I know that he's a lawyer."

"He isn't-  *There* isn't-"

"There isn't?  So you're saying you *don't* have a boyfriend?"

"No, well, not exactly-"

"It can't be both, Donna.  Which is it, no or not exactly?"

"The thing is... oh, this is just ridiculous.  I'm going to lunch."

She set the file down on his desk and marched towards the door, stopping only when he stepped in front of her and said, his smile quick and hopefully cajoling, "C'mon, Donna, confession is good for the soul - just think of me as your priest."

Mentally, he winced, because it had been a bad move; he might as well have asked her to castrate him.

"You're Jewish, and I'm not Catholic." She tried to sidestep him but he moved with her, easily anticipating her moves.

"I can appreciate the rites of all religions."

"Why is this so important to you?" she asked, obviously exasperated, and stilled, ending their little dance.

"It just... is."

"Josh."

"Donna.  Tell me, or the president will discover your interest in Guam," he said, knowing that particular threat was somewhat devious, but more than willing to pay the cost in his after-life if it got him answers in *this* one.

"Why would I have an interest in Guam?" she asked.  "Why would *anyone* have an interest in Guam?"

"It's taken over four years, but I now know not to ask."

"And where is Guam, anyway?"

"It's... in the Atlantic... somewhere," he said, suitably vague considering that he had no idea where Guam was.

"Maybe you should be getting the lesson in Guam," she muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing.  I'm going to the cafeteria - do you want a sandwich or something?"

"Yeah, but nothing with avocado, I'm-"

"Allergic, I know."

"Yeah," he mused as she walked away, "I guess you do."

It was only when he was once more ensconced in his office and surrounded by Donna's neatly typed notes that he realized she hadn't answered him.

Donna Moss, he thought, was fine-tuning the art of evasion.  But he'd get her, eventually, because he was a government official, dammit, and he'd had far more practice at being evasive than she could ever learn.

Yeah, he'd get her all right.  He smiled and bent back to his papers, because-

He'd get her.
 

~end~