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They say nothing for a while, choosing instead to savor the aftermath 
and the heat from the fire that warms their naked skin, as their body 
heat returns to normal.  Her fingers toy with the coarse hair on his 
chest as he strokes a hand gently up and down her spine.

Drowsy with contentment, though not yet ready to surrender the night, 
she turns her face up to his, placing a series of unhurried kisses 
anywhere she can reach.  "I think," she says, with a touch of 
laughter in her voice, "that I'm not the only one who's a little bit 
magic."

"Well, you know…." He smiles confidently, displaying his dimples.  "I 
do my best."

"At the risk of inflating your already impossibly large ego, I'd say 
that you certainly did."

"And there's more where that came from, Donnatella," he assures her.

"Is there?" she teases.

"Just give me an hour and I'll show you."

"I'm timing you."

"I perform very well under pressure."

"We'll see," she laughs.  The conversation drift into a comfortable 
silence for a moment, something they hadn't been able to share for a 
long time it seems.  Before, as the tensions between them mounted, 
silences were filled with unspoken words hanging in the air – and the 
occasional accusation.

"How did you get here?" she asks later.

"I got the first flight out of Dulles that I could get, which was 
only a couple of hours after yours.  I had a layover in Atlanta.  
Man, I hate that airport – it's like the seventh ring of Hell."

"I was in Atlanta for seven hours," she informs him.

"Seriously?  You must have left not long after I got there.  Luckily, 
I didn't have to wait that long in Atlanta.  From there I flew to 
Denver, where we were one of the last flights in before they shut 
down the airport."

"They were predicting a storm."

"They were right.  I spent the night in one of the airport hotels, 
and not one of the better ones.  The runways didn't open back up 
until 4:30 the next afternoon.  By the time my flight number came up 
it was after midnight."

"I'm sorry, Josh.  I know how you hate holiday travel."

"S'okay," he slurs warmly.  "It was all worth it to get to you."

"Mmmm," she hums, hugging him closer.

"Besides, I'll let you make it up to me later."

"A debt I will have no problem with repaying."

"Anyway," he sighs.  "Somewhere between D.C. and Reno, I lost your 
itinerary."

"Oh, Josh," she chuckles, shaking her head.

"Yeah, not one of my better moves.  So, it took me a few hours to 
figure out which resort you were staying in.  On top of that, it was 
impossible to get a rental car."

"'Tis the season," she says.

"I finally rolled into town on a shuttle bus, crammed with twenty 
other people, all of whom were carrying their skis.  It took me three 
hours to convince the concierge at the lodge that I wasn't stalking 
you."

"How did you get inside?"

"I gave the guy a hundred bucks.  It would be nice if you would thank 
him for letting me in sometime.  Which won't be tomorrow, because I'm 
not letting you out of this cabin for the next 24 hours."

"You have to leave?" she realizes.

"Yeah.  I have to be back in Washington.  Leo wouldn't let me take 
more than a few days, and unfortunately I used most of them 
traveling."

"You didn't tell him…?"

"No," he answers.  "I told him I needed to spend some time with my 
lonely mother."

"You didn't!"

"I did," he confirms.

"Josh, what if…?"

"It won't," he promises.  "I called Mom, she's covering for us."

"You told her?"

"Yeah, and she said you wouldn't need to buy her anymore gifts from 
me for a while.  She wanted me to tell you that this covers all the 
holidays, plus her birthday for the next year."

"She's happy?  Really?"

"She's beside herself.  You know she adores you."

"I adore her, too," Donna smiles.

"Of course, if you give her a grandchild she'll think you hung the 
moon," Josh says, offhandedly.

Donna's heart skips a beat, but she doesn't say anything.  They're 
not there yet, but maybe someday, if they can find a way to hold it 
all together, they will be.  Josh pulls her closer, placing a sweet, 
lingering kiss on her mouth, as though he knows what she's thinking, 
and agrees.

"Merry Christmas, Donna," he whispers.

"Merry Christmas, Josh," she returns.

****

Unfortunately, Josh can't keep his promise about not allowing her to 
leave the cabin for the next 24 hours.

Imogen calls the next morning to tell Donna that, though the groom 
has changed, the wedding is still on.  She seems a bit confused when 
Josh answers the phone.

Donna explains as they dress for the wedding, telling him the story 
of Spencer and Imogen, and how she helped them find each other 
again.  She glosses over the parts where Damien stuck his tongue in 
her mouth and fondled her breast.  However, she manages to fit in all 
the parts about Senator Gray and his questionable activities.  Josh 
sweeps her off her feet, taking her lips in a heated kiss as a reward 
for her intelligence gathering abilities. 

At the lodge, she takes the opportunity to thank the concierge behind 
the counter for letting Josh into her cottage.  He smiles a sighs 
with relief, glad to know he did the right thing.

After the wedding, Donna introduces Josh to Spencer and Imogen.  He 
thanks Spencer for looking after Donna, and for offering the advice 
he did.  When Josh's back is turned, Spencer winks at Donna and 
offers a thumbs up.

They slip away from the reception amid whispered promises of seeing a 
certain red bikini and taking an erotic dip in the private hot tub.  
The make the most of their time together, knowing that it's sadly 
limited.  As he makes love to her, their bodies enclosed in hot 
soothing water, he vows to find a way to make it work.  She's glad to 
know that just as she suspected, the glass picture windows steam up 
from the heat they and the hot tub generate, creating a warm cocoon 
that cuts them off from the rest of the world.  If only for a little 
while.

Before he's set to leave, he's reminded of a jewelry box in the 
hidden pocket of his suitcase.  This time she accepts the bracelet, 
deeming the circumstances more amenable, though she worries about the 
necessity for discretion.

"You can just tell everyone Santa gave it to you," he suggests.

"Yeah, because in the White House, no one loves a mystery."

She drives him to the airport to catch his red-eye flight to Atlanta, 
where he'll catch a connection to D.C.  It's difficult to let him go 
when the final boarding call is announced over the intercom, but when 
he walks away, with a final glance back at her, she doesn't cry.  She 
doesn't feel the need to.

When she returns from her vacation he'll be waiting for her.

She even manages to learn a thing or two about skiing during the last 
two days of her vacation.  From a ski instructor named Marjorie.  She 
enjoys the sport, though it leaves her muscles aching from exertion.  
At night, she spends her fair share of time on the phone with Josh, 
talking until long after midnight – which mean, with the time 
difference, he's not getting any sleep.  Donna makes mental plans to 
come back some other time, this time not alone.

When she packs her bags and loads the rental car she promised to 
return, she glances at the nearby patch of woods, and decides that 
she can spare a few more minutes.

Her boots crunch in the new fallen snow as she makes her way through 
the trail into the clearing.  The hike seems to take longer this 
time, and most of it feels uphill, though she's more appropriately 
dressed this time.  When she reaches the clearing in the woods, her 
feet come to halt at the outer edge.

She glances behind her, trying to remember every detail of the night 
she was here talking to her stone angel with the Mona Lisa smile.  It 
was dark, she thinks, but not that dark.

The benches are covered in white, piled high after days of a 
ceaseless but silent snowfall.  She identifies the bench where she 
sat when she was drawn here to seek a solace she couldn't quite 
find.  But still she can't breathe.  She opens and closes her eyes, 
resisting the urge to rub them like a child wiping sleep from her 
eyes on Christmas morn.  She came here to tell her angel that she 
believes again.   She made the trek through the woods to offer her 
thanks as a parting gift.  Incredulous, she sees that her thanks are 
needless, because in the center of the clearing there's only a simple 
birdbath.  There's no fountain.

There's no granite angel with a mystifying smile or moonstruck 
wingspan to accept her thanks.


The end