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[3rd person pov, donna focus]

She wants to revert to their unwritten script, but she’s not sure how. She’s no longer even sure of what this unwritten script, their concealed rulebook, dictates for them. Perhaps this new direction is what it tells them to do, and if that’s the case, she’d like to backtrack a few weeks, months even, and start over and hope that the words, the stage directions, can change.

Recently she’s noticed that he’s been ignoring her. At first it was a subtle difference in their relationship, here and there he would do something different to their unspoken rules. Now it has all changed. If he speaks to her at all, it’s not the bantering tones that they used to speak, or his demanding tones that she pretends to find annoying. Now there’s merely indifference.

She doesn’t know how she feels about this. She realises at first that she tried to fight it, to make him react as the original script would have him do, but now she’s begun to become indifferent herself.

She thinks that maybe it’s some sort of Pavlovian conditioning response, her attempts to redirect the script were unheard, ignored, and so she now knows not to try.

If she is honest with herself, however, she knows that it makes a difference. She never used to drink as much as she does now, nor eat as much chocolate or ice cream, which she knows are just substitutes for happiness.

What annoys her most is that she can’t find any reason to hate either of them. She knows that the change occurred when Amy came back into his life, but that’s no reason to dislike her. Perhaps her dating methods are unethical, immoral, but apart from that she can’t dislike her for any specific reason. It makes her detest her yet more.

Although she’s not sure whether it’s Amy she hates, or herself for allowing herself to become affected by Amy’s presence in his life. Considering that she’s spoken barely five sentences at a time to the woman, she thinks that its probably more herself that she hates. She thinks ruefully that this might be more difficult to resolve.

The job offer has come at a bad time. Or is it a good time? She cannot decide. She also doesn’t know whether to take it or not. Part of her wants to make a clean break, to start anew. The other part ridicules that part for trying to see that running away from the problems is any sort of solution. She has done that with her life already, and suffice to say that it lead her to the mess that she’s currently in. Running away is, unfortunately, not the answer.

She wants to know if they could go back to the way they were, but she doesn’t know any clairvoyants, and she’s not sure if she believes in their powers anyway. She hasn’t the money to waste on such frivolous activities, and she’s not sure that she wants to know the truth either.

Perhaps if Amy were to leave the stage, then she might secure herself a larger part, or at least have him notice her once in a while, notice that she is still there for him. It’s another reason that she’s contemplating the job. Aside from the money, something in her wants to see his reaction, to see if he would notice her absence, but she’s decided that this would backfire on her. For one, how would she find out what his reaction was, for another, what would happen if he decided that he was better off without her, and besides, she thinks that it’s quite an elementary school idea. She used to do such things back then, although it was more to do with taking crayons and seeing if anyone would notice that she’d suddenly acquired a nice new color that she hadn’t had before. They often didn’t.

She knows that it’s not Amy’s fault. She can see that they’re not meant to be together, there’s something missing from their relationship, but she’s not about to enlighten them. She’s not sure that her opinion would even be appreciated.

She feels neglected though, and she knows that she doesn’t like the feeling. It’s little to do with her hypothesised ‘more than just friends’ liking that she’s taken to Josh recently. It’s to do with her life long insecurities that she doesn’t like to acknowledge. Maybe if she were to resign from this current bit part she might find herself happier elsewhere.

But deep down she wonders if it isn’t merely just a jealous reaction to him being with Amy, and if so she doesn’t want to do anything rash without first thinking about the consequences. She supposes that she won’t find out until Amy is no longer around, but she doesn’t foresee this in the near future.

She’s not so sure that it would effect her in anyway should it happen. She even considers that their relationship is beyond reparation, that should Amy magically disappear, it’s unlikely that all of a sudden he would come bouncing back into her life and apologise for the way that he’d behaved towards her. In fact, her fantasy scenario is so completely beyond reality that she feels ridiculous for even having thought it. And it distracts her from the point as well. That unless this unlikely notion was to come true, she’s not sure that she would want to stay.

She’s not surprised that it takes her several days to officially learn that Amy has gone back to her ex boyfriend. Unofficially, she had known the day that it occurred, because she can read his moods so well. She decides, however, that she’d make a pretty terrible clairvoyant.

She’s under no illusion that this will automatically change everything, though. She came to that conclusion a while ago when she started to understand his avoidance of her. She might find out some sort of hidden truth, and he didn’t trust her with it. That alone made her investigate the job offer more. They can’t sustain even a working relationship if he can’t trust her to know and deal appropriately with the truth.

She tells him again that she’s considering taking the job, this time less to see his reaction, and more to warn him that she might not be around much longer. He is more surprised than she had expected him to be, especially considering the recent self-pity routine that he had been going through since Amy had left.

She wonders why he asks her to join him in his office at the end of the day, although she suspects that it as some amount to do with her words that morning.

He asks her why she might be considering such an offer, what the offer entails, and she is confused ultimately by his sudden concern, before she decides that it merely a self-consideration. That it would cause him more disruption and effort to replace her and to wait for someone else to be acquainted with his style.

She tells him everything that she knows about the offer, even telling him of the facts and figures that she had managed to uncover in her search into the company. He says nothing, just waits for her to finish, and even then does not tell her that it would be a mistake, or any of the other insults that she is expecting. Instead she sees that he looks confused, hurt almost, and she wonders about the origin of it.

He asks her if she is not happy in the White House. She doesn’t know how to respond without offending. Finally she opts for the light hearted banter, one last attempt to see what his reaction would be, and tells him that he should have considered giving her a raise. She’s not sure what she expecting, but it’s not the barely concealed smile, nor the teasing reply that he gives.

She leaves his office sometime later, phoning her friend and giving a definite no to the job. She looks up from the conversation to see him looking at her, watching her from his office door in a way that she hasn’t seen in a while. She’s not sure what it means, but she thinks it’s a good sign. She’s not a clairvoyant, and she doesn’t need to consult one to tell her that they might be back on track to the unwritten script that she has missed so much recently.

And she knows for certain that that’s no bad thing.

THE END

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