Approaching the Bench by Jo March and Ryo Sen (PG)

[willagurl.livejournal.com]

Fandom: THE WEST WING
Pairing: Josh/Donna, mentions Donna/Cliff
Author Website: The Jo & Ryo Collective
Why this must be read:

The very first story I ever read in this fandom was Jo and Ryo's "A Winning Strategy." It was everything that I wanted in my first taste of the West Wing fandom, and I think it took me a little under two weeks to read every single story on the site. I devoured their writing the way I devoured the first season on DVD, voraciously. Jo and Ryo write the characters like I want them to be, oftentimes with dialog that matches the actual show.

"Approaching the Bench" is set in the middle of "War Crimes," and deals with one of the great WW fanfic conventions - The Diary. Oh, the diary, which spawned gazillions of "I did it because I love you, stupid" pieces of fanfiction.

This story isn't that, thankfully. It has a Josh who wants to fix the situation, but also wants to fix an inherent flaw that he sees in Donna. It has a Donna who realizes that she can't make the situation better on her own, but who hates that she needs Josh to pull her through. It's also got some delicious Josh/Donna tension - not the sexy kind, the kind where everyone is struggling really hard to figure out why things that shouldn't matter so much do.

"I don't want to be the sort of person who lies automatically."

Approaching the Bench