Something Changed
Category: alternative universe
Rating: PG
Archive: It's all yours
Disclaimer/Acknowledgements: TWW belongs to another, as does Pulp's "Something Changed" from the album "Different Class".
Summary: Where would everyone be today if Jed and Abbey had never met?
Their glasses clinked as Jed offered a toast, "to us – and the next thirty- five years."
They drew closer together on the couch and he offered a silent prayer of thanks for Leo's reminder. It would have been unwise to have been caught out on yet another anniversary.
"Honey," he began, twisting a lock of her hair round his finger. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we'd never met?"
"It doesn't matter. We did. Life happened. End of story."
She leaned in and began placing tiny kisses round his earlobe.
"Some philosophers believe that everything that could possibly happen *does* happen somewhere. In some alternate universe I might not have met you."
"Who cares? We got the good version."
Almost automatically he was tracing circles on her thigh yet his eyes held a far-away expression.
"But what if..."
~~~~~
'I wrote this song
Two hours before we met
I didn't know your name
Or what you looked like yet.'
~~~~~
"Hurry up, Jed! We have to get out of here!"
"Calm down, Leo! I mean, the music's pretty terrible but overall it's not such an awful party..."
"No – I've just seen a girl I know; we really have to get out of here!"
Jed Bartlet stopped to catch his breath. Theology never was the sportiest of majors.
"Did you get her pregnant or is she just the needy type?"
He tried very hard to keep the trace of disapproval out of his voice. It wasn't like his friend to be running *away* from a girl.
"Don't even- Oh my God, Jed, did you really have to put that image in my head?!"
"I'm just wondering why you can ditch me when you pick up a girl but when you're fleeing from one I have to hold your hand."
"In case she catches me!"
"Oh, come on, how scary can a girl be?"
"You wouldn't ask that if you'd ever met her. We went out for three weeks in my sophomore year of high school. I was too terrified to date again until college."
"You still don't date, you just screw around," Jed grimaced.
"Yeah, well, we're not all so scared of chicks that we plan on being priests."
Jed detected the familiar note of amused contempt accompanying the last word.
Leo saw he was about to make a comment concerning which of them had just insisted on running away from a girl and pre-empted it with, "Look, this one is the exception to *all* the rules!"
"Okay, McGarry. Tell me about the scary little girlie."
"Her name is Abigail and she made me call her Miss Big!"
Jed made no attempt to conceal his snort of laughter.
"I think I like her already."
There was a bear, a round black fuzzy one, chasing Jed through the forest, which seemed to be composed entirely of vines. He was breathing hard and thinking that he should have gone to the toilet before he left the house.
Suddenly he came upon a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the centre of the forest. He tried to crash through the doors and was knocked backwards before noticing that the sign said, 'Pull'. Once inside he yelled at the blank- looking boy at the counter to barricade the door and went to look for the men's room.
Unfortunately both bathrooms had pictures of pig-tailed girls bearing axes and innocent expressions on the doors.
"They can't *both* be the ladies' room!" Jed groaned, just as both doors opened and two women in dominatrix costumes walked out.
Before he could choose a course of action a hurried knocking was heard from the front door. As he headed back in that direction Jed realised he had been mistaken. It wasn't KFC, it was a chapel – and the spotty-faced kid he had been yelling at was in fact the Bishop.
And the bear's knocking at the door was getting louder and louder...
"Open up! I need your help!"
Jed groaned as he was dragged into wakefulness. He rolled over in his bunk and glanced at his alarm clock. Four a.m. – was any friend worth this?
Oh well. He had to pee anyway.
He stumbled over to the light-switch, colliding with his desk on the way.
"Come on, Jed!"
"Shut up! I'll find the door soon enough!"
He had long since learned that it wasn't as urgent as it first appeared when Leo hammered on his door in the middle of the night. Well, Leo usually considered it fairly urgent – he used Jed's room to bring girls to when he was in town because his mother had rediscovered religion after his father's death and was liable to scream and cry and say they were all going to Hell if he brought them home.
From Jed's point of view, it got a little old.
He was suspicious when he made it to the door and Leo appeared to be alone.
"She saw me, Jed!"
Leo grasped his friend's shoulder and pulled the door firmly shut behind them.
"Who?"
Jed's mind was still running along the lines of a bear-wrestling dominatrix serving him a bucket of chicken.
"Miss Big! I mean, Abigail. She saw me running away and some damn fool gave her my phone number! She wants me to meet her tomorrow for dinner, Jed."
"Oh, Leo. You have a date. How ever will you get over the trauma of it?"
"Sarcasm is not a becoming trait in a man of the cloth," Leo snapped.
"Mockery of future career plans is not a becoming trait in a best friend," Jed returned blithely.
"I'm serious about this, Jed. You'll have to go in my place."
"What?!"
"You have to meet her instead of me. You can tell her – tell her I've taken suddenly ill – or overnight I got the opportunity to travel to Africa – or my entire family died and I have to arrange the funerals."
"You cannot be serious."
Jed closed his eyes, thinking, 'He's perfectly serious, and I'm going to go along with it like always.'
Then he thought, 'I don't *have* to go along with it. I have paid back every favour I ever owed him. I could just say no for once.'
He looked at Leo's pleading face and caught sight of his own baggy eyes in the mirror and had the odd impression that his next words would somehow determine the kind of man he turned out to be.
"Leo, I-"
~~~~~
'Oh, I could have stayed at home
And gone to bed.
I could have gone to see
A film instead.
You might have changed your mind
And seen your friend.'
~~~~~
Father Bartlet glanced edgily about the garden before lighting up. His smoking was another thing his congregation didn't like about him.
He liked to think that he could have quit long ago if he'd really wanted to but he kept it up because in his line of work it was enjoyable to have a little mischief.
Neither Jed's years of training nor his years of practise had completely erased his pleasure at Breaking the Rules.
Certain members of the congregation did not approve of his recent promise to baptize a young girl's baby, legitimate or no. There was talk of complaining to a higher authority. Jed felt relatively secure in his belief that talk was all it was. At any rate, he didn't think the only higher authority he still cared about would pay a lot of attention to their squawking, so it didn't trouble him a great deal one way or the other.
He leaned on the gate and looked out over the city. It was a sight he never tired of.
He had never been sure why he had gravitated to Washington. It had seemed like the place he should be at the time. Maybe he had hoped to save the souls of a few politicians.
Sometimes he thought being a politician was probably much like being a priest. Both often found themselves in the situation of not being able to say what they really meant and neither made the kind of difference they thought they would when they signed up for their jobs.
He flicked cigarette ash into the rosebushes. Let the old ladies bridle at that.
He wondered if he should give Leo a call. It had been a while since they had spoken and he'd woken up last night with a bad feeling that he couldn't put his finger on.
On the other hand, what was the point? Their conversations always led to Jed half-heartedly preaching and Leo getting on his high horse and yelling. It had been impossible to maintain their friendship when Jed was ordained and Leo went into the military.
A priest and a fighter pilot didn't have a lot to discuss that didn't involve judgements and recriminations.
They had kept in touch with Christmas cards and the odd phone call but they had grown so far apart that Jed knew nothing he could say could help Leo out of the mess he had dug himself into over the years.
And Leo couldn't help him when he had a crisis of confidence.
It was a lonely life, being the person people came to with their problems. It left you with no-one to go to with yours, because you weren't supposed to have any. You were supposed to know the answers.
Now he was ill and, other than his doctors, he was the only person who knew. Sooner or later everyone would notice but Jed's money was on later. No-one wanted to believe that their priest was just as weak as they were.
Not that he was complaining, not really. There were wonderful things about his job. There had been a beautiful christening today, a couple who had been trying for years for a baby. Their efforts had finally produced a bouncing little girl. They'd decided to name her Elizabeth, which for some reason made him smile.
Even his fussiest congregants had been happy for the young family. Jed was looking forward to watching Elizabeth grow and become a young woman.
Yes, there were advantages to doing what he did. He was privy to some of the happiest moments of people's lives as well as the most painful.
The only trouble was, sometimes he felt like he was letting his own life slip away unnoticed.
~~~~~
'Life could have been very different
But then:
Something changed.'
~~~~~
Abbey Kennedy sprawled on the bed in the honeymoon suite she had booked to celebrate her latest divorce.
She pulled the rings off her wedding finger and wondered how much the jeweller would give her for them. This time round it was of little importance since her lawyers had negotiated such a highly satisfactory settlement.
Or at least it should have been satisfactory. The attorneys really had been very sneaky in manoeuvring around the pre-nup. Of course, this time she had made sure that could be done before signing it. Twice burned... third time more sensible.
But Abbey couldn't help feeling that something was missing.
She took another swig of wine to make sure that the missing ingredient wasn't alcohol in her system.
Abbey wasn't much given to pondering spiritual matters. It was just age that was putting these doubts in her mind, she told herself firmly.
Her standard lie that she was forty-five was becoming harder and harder to claim without at least one of the listeners bursting into fits of giggles.
She would have to move fast if she was going to snag another husband before she turned sixty. She wondered if it was worth the trouble. She didn't really need the money any more. It was more... a desire for company.
That thought had to go. Abbey frowned. Sentimentality had no place in real life. All men were pigs, it had long served her well to remember that.
Now and then she heard news of some of the men who had messed with her over the years. Some of them claimed to be happily married. A few had been divorced more times than she had. Many were too busy with their careers to seek companionship beyond that of the occasional call girl. There was even the odd one who had been bankrupted, humiliated and completely ruined.
The thought brought a tiny smile to Abbey's lips but it wasn't good enough.
She flipped back to the obituaries page in the Post, trying once again to remember where she knew Leo McGarry's name from. Perhaps they had met when she was very young and had yet to form such a hard inner core to match her prickly exterior.
Anyway, he had died of alcohol poisoning a few days ago. Sounded like any number of men she'd been involved with.
She caught herself wondering if she should send flowers. She really was mellowing with age, it was disturbing.
Trying to put the thought out of her mind she looked at the picture accompanying the front-page story about President Hoynes's success in passing a new Trade bill. The photograph was of his Deputy Chief of Staff who had also supplied several crowing quotes.
Abbey felt the customary stab of jealousy a woman experiences when she sees someone younger and more attractive achieving success. The woman's hen- pecked husband hovered in the background of the photograph looking like he was about to have a coronary. Abbey doubted any of her former husbands would have allowed their careers to take such a backslide in order to support hers had she asked them to.
With a bitter sigh at opportunities lost, Abbey turned to the real estate pages and began mentally spending her settlement.
~~~~~
'Do you believe
That there's someone up above?
And does He have a timetable
Directing acts of love?'
~~~~~
"I cannot work under these conditions!"
The actress flipped her hair over her shoulders and flounced away, apparently unconcerned that she was wearing only a bikini and stilettos.
'I couldn't walk in those things, let alone flounce...' CJ thought absently.
She realised everyone was looking at her expectantly and remembered that she was supposed to care about these things.
"I told you before, it is not up to me to handle the – talent."
She grimaced over the use of the last word in connection with most of the people she worked with and felt she should hope it had gone unnoticed. She was close enough to being fired as it was. The truth was, she just didn't care.
"Anyway, I have that meeting about the Archer plagiarism suit."
"Ah." CJ's boss flashed a wicked grin. He would cut her down to size yet. "With Sudden-Death Seaborn."
"That's right, Sam Seaborn is representing them. I don't think we need to be too worried; he hasn't got a leg to stand on."
"CJ, darling," another of the publicists cooed. "Have you ever *met* Sam Seaborn? He's the most ruthless among a profession based on ruthlessness!"
CJ narrowed her eyes. Among the many rumours she had heard about Seaborn was that he was disarmingly attractive – and still unmarried. Which would explain why most of the women (and some of the men) were trying to poach this meeting. The others, of course, were just hoping she would screw up and find herself out of a job.
Both would have been good reasons for getting well-prepared for the coming meeting. However, CJ had had good reasons to spend more time studying than partying in high school. She'd had good reasons to work her ass off in waitressing jobs she'd been terrible at so that she could afford to go to one of the more prestigious colleges. There had been lots of good reasons to get a good (i.e. well-paying) job and absolutely great reasons to stick at it even though she hated it with every fibre (physical and metaphysical) of her soul.
Somewhere along the line CJ had decided that good reasons didn't lead to a good life.
And if during the course of this meeting she felt, for all the wrong reasons of course, that she'd like to tell Sam Seaborn to take his sudden death and shove it somewhere dark, she didn't think she would have the motivation to resist.
The first thing that struck CJ was that he really was terribly attractive. Hearing about it was a very different thing to seeing him in person. She wondered how on earth he had managed to escape marriage.
Once he'd been yelling at her for half an hour, she had a pretty good answer.
And yet... there was something in his eyes that suggested he was on autopilot, like firing off these scathing responses was second nature to him and he wasn't really paying much attention.
To CJ he looked like someone who wasn't enjoying his job, and it took one to know one.
He had been talking for ten minutes without a pause. She hadn't been listening to a word he was saying, but the studio's lawyers looked rather chastened. It was actually very enjoyable for CJ to see them stripped of the smug air of men with seven-figure salaries.
"Mr. Seaborn," she said, interrupting him mid-sentence. "Did you ever consider going into politics?"
He continued with his speech for a few seconds and then floundered. She had managed to throw the autopilot off and engage the man underneath.
"Well, actually," he hesitated, "I always have maintained an interest in... but what's that got to do with my client's royalties?!"
An amused smile rose to CJ's lips. He thought she was trying to distract him. He thought she actually gave a damn.
"I bet you'd never, ever call me 'darling', would you, Mr. Seaborn?"
It didn't matter if he thought she was crazy. Maybe she was. She was experiencing the kind of thrill she imagined a suicidal man might feel when he felt the rush of wind on his face as he stood atop a high building.
"I think you're far too talented – and I don't mean that word in the Hollywood sense – to waste your time fighting over a movie that was so obviously, undisputedly crap. It was a congealed lump of clichés wrapped in old wives' tales topped with psychobabble. It stunk worse than the job I am presently talking my way out of."
He was staring at her trying to figure out whether she was serious or just trying to psyche him out. There was something else there too - curiosity? Or could it be... admiration?
She stood up slowly, gradually pulling herself up to her full height.
"I think," she said, pronouncing each word carefully as if she was making a statement of great import, "I shall go and drink a grasshopper now."
"It's eleven in the morning."
"Then I'll be just nicely tipsy by the time the cool kids get to the bars."
"You're just leaving?"
'He's having trouble understanding the concept of rebellion,' CJ thought pityingly, which was a strange way to think about someone who could buy and sell her with the change in his pocket. 'He's been too busy earning authority and power to actually have any over the things that matter.'
"You should think about the politics thing," she suggested kindly and headed for the door before her mystique started to wear off.
"Wait..."
She kept walking but slowed her pace a little.
"Maybe we should discuss this over lunch?"
~~~~~
'Why did I write this song
On that one day?
Why did you touch my hand
And softly say
Stop asking questions
That don't matter anyway.
Just give us a kiss to celebrate
Here, today:
Something changed.'
~~~~~
"It looks like we won because of my skilled manoeuvring, right, Josh?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"Josh? Are you listening to me?"
"Always, sunshine."
"If I've told you once I've told you five hundred times, do not call me that!"
Josh shot a look of meek repentance in his wife's direction, simultaneously sorting through her messages and discarding those that were irrelevant.
"Look, it says, 'The dedicated efforts of Madeline Lyman undoubtedly contributed to the President's success.' Do you think that makes it sound like someone else contributed more?"
"No, I think it's pretty obvious when you get a personal mention that you were Queen Bee on this."
'When isn't she?' The thought rose unbidden to the surface of his mind.
"So what's next?"
"Next?"
"If I'm going to take over as Chief of Staff when Ol' Leatherface retires we have to raise my profile. That's going to have to be your job."
"I thought my job was to stay home, look after the kids and offer moral support?"
"My morale is fine; it's my public image that needs supporting!"
Mandy was pacing in circles round the little office, making Josh dizzy.
"Donna! I need caffeine!"
Mandy's assistant had been fired twice for failure to provide coffee but each time the replacements had proved so incapable of coping with their boss's mood swings that she had been rehired.
"Donna! Now!"
Mandy wasn't one to quit trying.
Not for the first time he wondered what would have happened if he'd found what he was looking for when he was working on the Hoynes campaign. He'd wanted to find something or someone worth fighting for. He'd hoped to throw his weight behind someone who cared enough to make a difference. He had stuck with Hoynes as long as he could then he'd quit to look for something better.
It hadn't been his intention to settle down at that time. He had been a young man looking for a cause. Out there seeking something to believe in.
Nothing suitable had materialised so instead he had found a woman – and she had led him straight back to where he started from, this time in the role of loyal husband.
He supposed he had been naive. Knights on white horses didn't exist. One politician was no different from any other.
He felt a pang of guilt at that thought and glanced up at his wife's visage, frozen in a frown of concentration.
Mandy had something to believe in. She believed in achievements and she believed in herself and she never, ever had a crisis of faith.
She had the right to expect him to believe in her too.
He did, in the sense that he thought she would probably be the President one day. But he did not believe that Mandy would change anything.
He had so wanted to make a difference to the world and now he knew it would never happen.
What irritated him most about the situation was that he knew none of it would ever make her happy. He didn't believe she knew how to be.
Poor Mandy. He would give her everything and she would win the world and still he would never get to see her truly smile.
Still, it wasn't so bad. He had his children. He had never expected to have the opportunity to be a father. He had thought he would be too busy with his mythical perfect candidate to go romancing.
Joseph and Madeline Junior made up for a lot of things and he couldn't really picture himself being satisfied without them, though he'd never realised how much he wanted them until they were born.
He still couldn't help feeling he'd been cheated somewhere along the line.
After all, if he was going to give it all up to become a househusband surely he should at least have enough time to spend with the kids?
He usually managed to pick them up from school, but Joey was already bitter about the number of baseball practices he'd missed and Maddie (stubbornly determined not to have the same nickname as her mother) had thrown a classic Hampton temper tantrum when he had been too busy attending a fundraiser to see her in her grade-school production of 'The Lion King'.
But when he was lying awake feeling Mandy toss and turn and cry in her sleep he knew for certain that he loved her.
Maybe if there had been something else for him to fight for, Josh would have left but there was nothing and there was no use fooling himself that there ever would be.
So he would stay and continue to do his best to raise his children and to do whatever he could to help Mandy keep battling her way through life with no real concept of victory.
~~~~~
'When we woke up that morning
We had no way of knowing
That in a matter of hours
We'd change the way we were going.'
~~~~~
"You're going lose by a small amount, Andi, I can feel it!"
"Why, thank you, Toby, I'm glad you're so excited about my imminent failure."
"But that's *good*, Andi – we knew you weren't going to actually win this time round. You're doing so well, next time we might even have a chance."
"Once again your vote of confidence overwhelms me."
The couple faced each other, Andrea's hands on her hips, Toby's cupping his chin. They broke into laughter.
"I wasn't made to play the loyal husband role."
"What role were you made to play then?"
"I was meant to be the frustrated genius that drives everyone at the office crazy but whose fierce integrity and refusal to proven wrong often saves the day."
"Well, you have the driving everyone crazy down."
"I try," he shrugged modestly.
"Also," he added, "my frustrated genius was meant to have a beard."
"Don't blame me, you're the one who shaved it off."
"Only because you wouldn't stop scratching it!"
"I didn't scratch, I tickled."
He drew her a dirty look which was as genuine as all the other foul glares he'd shot her but this time was different because she knew it would pass.
"You know, you're really terrible at the loyal husband role. There's a much better class of loyal husband going around at some of those awful fundraisers."
"Bring them before me and I will vanquish them."
Andrea grinned widely.
"I'd rather like to see you vanquish."
He gave her a hard stare.
"I get the impression you're teasing me. That is not appropriate wifely behaviour."
"Yeah? You planning on teaching me a lesson?"
Andi had forgotten how much fun they could have just teasing each other. They really seemed to have made it through their rocky patch since he had joined her campaign for Governor.
"You're a very bad pupil."
"Oh? How bad?"
Her friends had all told her mixing business and pleasure was the kiss of death and maybe that was normally true – but Toby had never exactly been normal, had he? That was part of his appeal.
A secretary stuck her head round the door and shrank back in horror at the sight of Toby Ziegler displaying something akin to affection.
"Andrea?" she said in a muffled voice from outside. "They need you to sign for a message."
"Duty calls."
Toby followed her out and took the envelope from the messenger. His face took on a dreamy expression.
"White House? Now that's where I'm meant to be, Andi."
"Thanks, Charlie," she said, signing her name with typical flair. She turned back to her husband. It made her nervous when he got in this type of mood, like she wasn't enough for him. Like he needed more.
"Are you going to get me there or do I have to ditch you for a woman that can?"
He was still teasing. He *was*, she told herself firmly. It was hard to tell because he used the same tone of voice whether he was teasing or preparing to rip someone's throat out, but she was fairly sure he was teasing.
"I'll take you anywhere you need to go," she promised, not entirely light- heartedly.
"That's quite an offer, little lady."
Andi relaxed a little. He was definitely teasing now.
"I told you that if you ever called me that again..."
But still – what if, as predicted, she lost? Another entry on his list of failures and he took each one personally, this one even more so.
He hadn't spoken to Andrea about what he'd do next, or whether it involved her.
She wondered if she was holding him back. He *was* a genius, near enough, though she'd never admit it to his face she did enjoy bragging about him behind his back.
Maybe there was somewhere else he was meant to be, another life he was supposed to have led.
Andi snapped out of it.
This was a lot of nonsense. He was where was and Andrea didn't believe in destiny and she couldn't swallow the idea that Toby did either.
One way or another, things just happened and now Toby just happened to be hers. Andi intended to enjoy him.
~~~~~
'Where would I be now?
Where would I be now
If we'd never met?
Would I be singing this song
To someone else instead?'
~~~~~
Jed stood staring out of the window. Abbey groaned theatrically and followed him. She laid a hand on his shoulder and shook him back to the real world.
"Trust me to marry the only man in the world who thinks too much about his anniversary."
"Sorry. I just keep wondering, you know? Things could have been so different."
"Don't you have enough actual problems, that you have to worry about problems that might have been?"
He turned to face her, the twinkle back in his eye.
"Oh no, I wasn't thinking about problems. I was thinking about all the women I could have taught to make love..."
The Secret Service agent at the door rolled his eyes as the First Couple started laughing and making cutesy noises.
He was used to protecting men who'd rather be underneath a herd of stampeding bison than on top of their wives and he privately felt that that was a more natural state of affairs than all this 'emotion' nonsense.
God, was that a squeal from Mrs. Bartlet? Agent Dylan shuddered. Somewhere in the past he wished his life had taken a different turn...
~~~~~
'I don't know
But like you just said:
Something changed.'
THE END
First posted June 2001
Category: alternative universe
Rating: PG
Archive: It's all yours
Disclaimer/Acknowledgements: TWW belongs to another, as does Pulp's "Something Changed" from the album "Different Class".
Summary: Where would everyone be today if Jed and Abbey had never met?
Their glasses clinked as Jed offered a toast, "to us – and the next thirty- five years."
They drew closer together on the couch and he offered a silent prayer of thanks for Leo's reminder. It would have been unwise to have been caught out on yet another anniversary.
"Honey," he began, twisting a lock of her hair round his finger. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we'd never met?"
"It doesn't matter. We did. Life happened. End of story."
She leaned in and began placing tiny kisses round his earlobe.
"Some philosophers believe that everything that could possibly happen *does* happen somewhere. In some alternate universe I might not have met you."
"Who cares? We got the good version."
Almost automatically he was tracing circles on her thigh yet his eyes held a far-away expression.
"But what if..."
~~~~~
'I wrote this song
Two hours before we met
I didn't know your name
Or what you looked like yet.'
~~~~~
"Hurry up, Jed! We have to get out of here!"
"Calm down, Leo! I mean, the music's pretty terrible but overall it's not such an awful party..."
"No – I've just seen a girl I know; we really have to get out of here!"
Jed Bartlet stopped to catch his breath. Theology never was the sportiest of majors.
"Did you get her pregnant or is she just the needy type?"
He tried very hard to keep the trace of disapproval out of his voice. It wasn't like his friend to be running *away* from a girl.
"Don't even- Oh my God, Jed, did you really have to put that image in my head?!"
"I'm just wondering why you can ditch me when you pick up a girl but when you're fleeing from one I have to hold your hand."
"In case she catches me!"
"Oh, come on, how scary can a girl be?"
"You wouldn't ask that if you'd ever met her. We went out for three weeks in my sophomore year of high school. I was too terrified to date again until college."
"You still don't date, you just screw around," Jed grimaced.
"Yeah, well, we're not all so scared of chicks that we plan on being priests."
Jed detected the familiar note of amused contempt accompanying the last word.
Leo saw he was about to make a comment concerning which of them had just insisted on running away from a girl and pre-empted it with, "Look, this one is the exception to *all* the rules!"
"Okay, McGarry. Tell me about the scary little girlie."
"Her name is Abigail and she made me call her Miss Big!"
Jed made no attempt to conceal his snort of laughter.
"I think I like her already."
There was a bear, a round black fuzzy one, chasing Jed through the forest, which seemed to be composed entirely of vines. He was breathing hard and thinking that he should have gone to the toilet before he left the house.
Suddenly he came upon a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the centre of the forest. He tried to crash through the doors and was knocked backwards before noticing that the sign said, 'Pull'. Once inside he yelled at the blank- looking boy at the counter to barricade the door and went to look for the men's room.
Unfortunately both bathrooms had pictures of pig-tailed girls bearing axes and innocent expressions on the doors.
"They can't *both* be the ladies' room!" Jed groaned, just as both doors opened and two women in dominatrix costumes walked out.
Before he could choose a course of action a hurried knocking was heard from the front door. As he headed back in that direction Jed realised he had been mistaken. It wasn't KFC, it was a chapel – and the spotty-faced kid he had been yelling at was in fact the Bishop.
And the bear's knocking at the door was getting louder and louder...
"Open up! I need your help!"
Jed groaned as he was dragged into wakefulness. He rolled over in his bunk and glanced at his alarm clock. Four a.m. – was any friend worth this?
Oh well. He had to pee anyway.
He stumbled over to the light-switch, colliding with his desk on the way.
"Come on, Jed!"
"Shut up! I'll find the door soon enough!"
He had long since learned that it wasn't as urgent as it first appeared when Leo hammered on his door in the middle of the night. Well, Leo usually considered it fairly urgent – he used Jed's room to bring girls to when he was in town because his mother had rediscovered religion after his father's death and was liable to scream and cry and say they were all going to Hell if he brought them home.
From Jed's point of view, it got a little old.
He was suspicious when he made it to the door and Leo appeared to be alone.
"She saw me, Jed!"
Leo grasped his friend's shoulder and pulled the door firmly shut behind them.
"Who?"
Jed's mind was still running along the lines of a bear-wrestling dominatrix serving him a bucket of chicken.
"Miss Big! I mean, Abigail. She saw me running away and some damn fool gave her my phone number! She wants me to meet her tomorrow for dinner, Jed."
"Oh, Leo. You have a date. How ever will you get over the trauma of it?"
"Sarcasm is not a becoming trait in a man of the cloth," Leo snapped.
"Mockery of future career plans is not a becoming trait in a best friend," Jed returned blithely.
"I'm serious about this, Jed. You'll have to go in my place."
"What?!"
"You have to meet her instead of me. You can tell her – tell her I've taken suddenly ill – or overnight I got the opportunity to travel to Africa – or my entire family died and I have to arrange the funerals."
"You cannot be serious."
Jed closed his eyes, thinking, 'He's perfectly serious, and I'm going to go along with it like always.'
Then he thought, 'I don't *have* to go along with it. I have paid back every favour I ever owed him. I could just say no for once.'
He looked at Leo's pleading face and caught sight of his own baggy eyes in the mirror and had the odd impression that his next words would somehow determine the kind of man he turned out to be.
"Leo, I-"
~~~~~
'Oh, I could have stayed at home
And gone to bed.
I could have gone to see
A film instead.
You might have changed your mind
And seen your friend.'
~~~~~
Father Bartlet glanced edgily about the garden before lighting up. His smoking was another thing his congregation didn't like about him.
He liked to think that he could have quit long ago if he'd really wanted to but he kept it up because in his line of work it was enjoyable to have a little mischief.
Neither Jed's years of training nor his years of practise had completely erased his pleasure at Breaking the Rules.
Certain members of the congregation did not approve of his recent promise to baptize a young girl's baby, legitimate or no. There was talk of complaining to a higher authority. Jed felt relatively secure in his belief that talk was all it was. At any rate, he didn't think the only higher authority he still cared about would pay a lot of attention to their squawking, so it didn't trouble him a great deal one way or the other.
He leaned on the gate and looked out over the city. It was a sight he never tired of.
He had never been sure why he had gravitated to Washington. It had seemed like the place he should be at the time. Maybe he had hoped to save the souls of a few politicians.
Sometimes he thought being a politician was probably much like being a priest. Both often found themselves in the situation of not being able to say what they really meant and neither made the kind of difference they thought they would when they signed up for their jobs.
He flicked cigarette ash into the rosebushes. Let the old ladies bridle at that.
He wondered if he should give Leo a call. It had been a while since they had spoken and he'd woken up last night with a bad feeling that he couldn't put his finger on.
On the other hand, what was the point? Their conversations always led to Jed half-heartedly preaching and Leo getting on his high horse and yelling. It had been impossible to maintain their friendship when Jed was ordained and Leo went into the military.
A priest and a fighter pilot didn't have a lot to discuss that didn't involve judgements and recriminations.
They had kept in touch with Christmas cards and the odd phone call but they had grown so far apart that Jed knew nothing he could say could help Leo out of the mess he had dug himself into over the years.
And Leo couldn't help him when he had a crisis of confidence.
It was a lonely life, being the person people came to with their problems. It left you with no-one to go to with yours, because you weren't supposed to have any. You were supposed to know the answers.
Now he was ill and, other than his doctors, he was the only person who knew. Sooner or later everyone would notice but Jed's money was on later. No-one wanted to believe that their priest was just as weak as they were.
Not that he was complaining, not really. There were wonderful things about his job. There had been a beautiful christening today, a couple who had been trying for years for a baby. Their efforts had finally produced a bouncing little girl. They'd decided to name her Elizabeth, which for some reason made him smile.
Even his fussiest congregants had been happy for the young family. Jed was looking forward to watching Elizabeth grow and become a young woman.
Yes, there were advantages to doing what he did. He was privy to some of the happiest moments of people's lives as well as the most painful.
The only trouble was, sometimes he felt like he was letting his own life slip away unnoticed.
~~~~~
'Life could have been very different
But then:
Something changed.'
~~~~~
Abbey Kennedy sprawled on the bed in the honeymoon suite she had booked to celebrate her latest divorce.
She pulled the rings off her wedding finger and wondered how much the jeweller would give her for them. This time round it was of little importance since her lawyers had negotiated such a highly satisfactory settlement.
Or at least it should have been satisfactory. The attorneys really had been very sneaky in manoeuvring around the pre-nup. Of course, this time she had made sure that could be done before signing it. Twice burned... third time more sensible.
But Abbey couldn't help feeling that something was missing.
She took another swig of wine to make sure that the missing ingredient wasn't alcohol in her system.
Abbey wasn't much given to pondering spiritual matters. It was just age that was putting these doubts in her mind, she told herself firmly.
Her standard lie that she was forty-five was becoming harder and harder to claim without at least one of the listeners bursting into fits of giggles.
She would have to move fast if she was going to snag another husband before she turned sixty. She wondered if it was worth the trouble. She didn't really need the money any more. It was more... a desire for company.
That thought had to go. Abbey frowned. Sentimentality had no place in real life. All men were pigs, it had long served her well to remember that.
Now and then she heard news of some of the men who had messed with her over the years. Some of them claimed to be happily married. A few had been divorced more times than she had. Many were too busy with their careers to seek companionship beyond that of the occasional call girl. There was even the odd one who had been bankrupted, humiliated and completely ruined.
The thought brought a tiny smile to Abbey's lips but it wasn't good enough.
She flipped back to the obituaries page in the Post, trying once again to remember where she knew Leo McGarry's name from. Perhaps they had met when she was very young and had yet to form such a hard inner core to match her prickly exterior.
Anyway, he had died of alcohol poisoning a few days ago. Sounded like any number of men she'd been involved with.
She caught herself wondering if she should send flowers. She really was mellowing with age, it was disturbing.
Trying to put the thought out of her mind she looked at the picture accompanying the front-page story about President Hoynes's success in passing a new Trade bill. The photograph was of his Deputy Chief of Staff who had also supplied several crowing quotes.
Abbey felt the customary stab of jealousy a woman experiences when she sees someone younger and more attractive achieving success. The woman's hen- pecked husband hovered in the background of the photograph looking like he was about to have a coronary. Abbey doubted any of her former husbands would have allowed their careers to take such a backslide in order to support hers had she asked them to.
With a bitter sigh at opportunities lost, Abbey turned to the real estate pages and began mentally spending her settlement.
~~~~~
'Do you believe
That there's someone up above?
And does He have a timetable
Directing acts of love?'
~~~~~
"I cannot work under these conditions!"
The actress flipped her hair over her shoulders and flounced away, apparently unconcerned that she was wearing only a bikini and stilettos.
'I couldn't walk in those things, let alone flounce...' CJ thought absently.
She realised everyone was looking at her expectantly and remembered that she was supposed to care about these things.
"I told you before, it is not up to me to handle the – talent."
She grimaced over the use of the last word in connection with most of the people she worked with and felt she should hope it had gone unnoticed. She was close enough to being fired as it was. The truth was, she just didn't care.
"Anyway, I have that meeting about the Archer plagiarism suit."
"Ah." CJ's boss flashed a wicked grin. He would cut her down to size yet. "With Sudden-Death Seaborn."
"That's right, Sam Seaborn is representing them. I don't think we need to be too worried; he hasn't got a leg to stand on."
"CJ, darling," another of the publicists cooed. "Have you ever *met* Sam Seaborn? He's the most ruthless among a profession based on ruthlessness!"
CJ narrowed her eyes. Among the many rumours she had heard about Seaborn was that he was disarmingly attractive – and still unmarried. Which would explain why most of the women (and some of the men) were trying to poach this meeting. The others, of course, were just hoping she would screw up and find herself out of a job.
Both would have been good reasons for getting well-prepared for the coming meeting. However, CJ had had good reasons to spend more time studying than partying in high school. She'd had good reasons to work her ass off in waitressing jobs she'd been terrible at so that she could afford to go to one of the more prestigious colleges. There had been lots of good reasons to get a good (i.e. well-paying) job and absolutely great reasons to stick at it even though she hated it with every fibre (physical and metaphysical) of her soul.
Somewhere along the line CJ had decided that good reasons didn't lead to a good life.
And if during the course of this meeting she felt, for all the wrong reasons of course, that she'd like to tell Sam Seaborn to take his sudden death and shove it somewhere dark, she didn't think she would have the motivation to resist.
The first thing that struck CJ was that he really was terribly attractive. Hearing about it was a very different thing to seeing him in person. She wondered how on earth he had managed to escape marriage.
Once he'd been yelling at her for half an hour, she had a pretty good answer.
And yet... there was something in his eyes that suggested he was on autopilot, like firing off these scathing responses was second nature to him and he wasn't really paying much attention.
To CJ he looked like someone who wasn't enjoying his job, and it took one to know one.
He had been talking for ten minutes without a pause. She hadn't been listening to a word he was saying, but the studio's lawyers looked rather chastened. It was actually very enjoyable for CJ to see them stripped of the smug air of men with seven-figure salaries.
"Mr. Seaborn," she said, interrupting him mid-sentence. "Did you ever consider going into politics?"
He continued with his speech for a few seconds and then floundered. She had managed to throw the autopilot off and engage the man underneath.
"Well, actually," he hesitated, "I always have maintained an interest in... but what's that got to do with my client's royalties?!"
An amused smile rose to CJ's lips. He thought she was trying to distract him. He thought she actually gave a damn.
"I bet you'd never, ever call me 'darling', would you, Mr. Seaborn?"
It didn't matter if he thought she was crazy. Maybe she was. She was experiencing the kind of thrill she imagined a suicidal man might feel when he felt the rush of wind on his face as he stood atop a high building.
"I think you're far too talented – and I don't mean that word in the Hollywood sense – to waste your time fighting over a movie that was so obviously, undisputedly crap. It was a congealed lump of clichés wrapped in old wives' tales topped with psychobabble. It stunk worse than the job I am presently talking my way out of."
He was staring at her trying to figure out whether she was serious or just trying to psyche him out. There was something else there too - curiosity? Or could it be... admiration?
She stood up slowly, gradually pulling herself up to her full height.
"I think," she said, pronouncing each word carefully as if she was making a statement of great import, "I shall go and drink a grasshopper now."
"It's eleven in the morning."
"Then I'll be just nicely tipsy by the time the cool kids get to the bars."
"You're just leaving?"
'He's having trouble understanding the concept of rebellion,' CJ thought pityingly, which was a strange way to think about someone who could buy and sell her with the change in his pocket. 'He's been too busy earning authority and power to actually have any over the things that matter.'
"You should think about the politics thing," she suggested kindly and headed for the door before her mystique started to wear off.
"Wait..."
She kept walking but slowed her pace a little.
"Maybe we should discuss this over lunch?"
~~~~~
'Why did I write this song
On that one day?
Why did you touch my hand
And softly say
Stop asking questions
That don't matter anyway.
Just give us a kiss to celebrate
Here, today:
Something changed.'
~~~~~
"It looks like we won because of my skilled manoeuvring, right, Josh?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"Josh? Are you listening to me?"
"Always, sunshine."
"If I've told you once I've told you five hundred times, do not call me that!"
Josh shot a look of meek repentance in his wife's direction, simultaneously sorting through her messages and discarding those that were irrelevant.
"Look, it says, 'The dedicated efforts of Madeline Lyman undoubtedly contributed to the President's success.' Do you think that makes it sound like someone else contributed more?"
"No, I think it's pretty obvious when you get a personal mention that you were Queen Bee on this."
'When isn't she?' The thought rose unbidden to the surface of his mind.
"So what's next?"
"Next?"
"If I'm going to take over as Chief of Staff when Ol' Leatherface retires we have to raise my profile. That's going to have to be your job."
"I thought my job was to stay home, look after the kids and offer moral support?"
"My morale is fine; it's my public image that needs supporting!"
Mandy was pacing in circles round the little office, making Josh dizzy.
"Donna! I need caffeine!"
Mandy's assistant had been fired twice for failure to provide coffee but each time the replacements had proved so incapable of coping with their boss's mood swings that she had been rehired.
"Donna! Now!"
Mandy wasn't one to quit trying.
Not for the first time he wondered what would have happened if he'd found what he was looking for when he was working on the Hoynes campaign. He'd wanted to find something or someone worth fighting for. He'd hoped to throw his weight behind someone who cared enough to make a difference. He had stuck with Hoynes as long as he could then he'd quit to look for something better.
It hadn't been his intention to settle down at that time. He had been a young man looking for a cause. Out there seeking something to believe in.
Nothing suitable had materialised so instead he had found a woman – and she had led him straight back to where he started from, this time in the role of loyal husband.
He supposed he had been naive. Knights on white horses didn't exist. One politician was no different from any other.
He felt a pang of guilt at that thought and glanced up at his wife's visage, frozen in a frown of concentration.
Mandy had something to believe in. She believed in achievements and she believed in herself and she never, ever had a crisis of faith.
She had the right to expect him to believe in her too.
He did, in the sense that he thought she would probably be the President one day. But he did not believe that Mandy would change anything.
He had so wanted to make a difference to the world and now he knew it would never happen.
What irritated him most about the situation was that he knew none of it would ever make her happy. He didn't believe she knew how to be.
Poor Mandy. He would give her everything and she would win the world and still he would never get to see her truly smile.
Still, it wasn't so bad. He had his children. He had never expected to have the opportunity to be a father. He had thought he would be too busy with his mythical perfect candidate to go romancing.
Joseph and Madeline Junior made up for a lot of things and he couldn't really picture himself being satisfied without them, though he'd never realised how much he wanted them until they were born.
He still couldn't help feeling he'd been cheated somewhere along the line.
After all, if he was going to give it all up to become a househusband surely he should at least have enough time to spend with the kids?
He usually managed to pick them up from school, but Joey was already bitter about the number of baseball practices he'd missed and Maddie (stubbornly determined not to have the same nickname as her mother) had thrown a classic Hampton temper tantrum when he had been too busy attending a fundraiser to see her in her grade-school production of 'The Lion King'.
But when he was lying awake feeling Mandy toss and turn and cry in her sleep he knew for certain that he loved her.
Maybe if there had been something else for him to fight for, Josh would have left but there was nothing and there was no use fooling himself that there ever would be.
So he would stay and continue to do his best to raise his children and to do whatever he could to help Mandy keep battling her way through life with no real concept of victory.
~~~~~
'When we woke up that morning
We had no way of knowing
That in a matter of hours
We'd change the way we were going.'
~~~~~
"You're going lose by a small amount, Andi, I can feel it!"
"Why, thank you, Toby, I'm glad you're so excited about my imminent failure."
"But that's *good*, Andi – we knew you weren't going to actually win this time round. You're doing so well, next time we might even have a chance."
"Once again your vote of confidence overwhelms me."
The couple faced each other, Andrea's hands on her hips, Toby's cupping his chin. They broke into laughter.
"I wasn't made to play the loyal husband role."
"What role were you made to play then?"
"I was meant to be the frustrated genius that drives everyone at the office crazy but whose fierce integrity and refusal to proven wrong often saves the day."
"Well, you have the driving everyone crazy down."
"I try," he shrugged modestly.
"Also," he added, "my frustrated genius was meant to have a beard."
"Don't blame me, you're the one who shaved it off."
"Only because you wouldn't stop scratching it!"
"I didn't scratch, I tickled."
He drew her a dirty look which was as genuine as all the other foul glares he'd shot her but this time was different because she knew it would pass.
"You know, you're really terrible at the loyal husband role. There's a much better class of loyal husband going around at some of those awful fundraisers."
"Bring them before me and I will vanquish them."
Andrea grinned widely.
"I'd rather like to see you vanquish."
He gave her a hard stare.
"I get the impression you're teasing me. That is not appropriate wifely behaviour."
"Yeah? You planning on teaching me a lesson?"
Andi had forgotten how much fun they could have just teasing each other. They really seemed to have made it through their rocky patch since he had joined her campaign for Governor.
"You're a very bad pupil."
"Oh? How bad?"
Her friends had all told her mixing business and pleasure was the kiss of death and maybe that was normally true – but Toby had never exactly been normal, had he? That was part of his appeal.
A secretary stuck her head round the door and shrank back in horror at the sight of Toby Ziegler displaying something akin to affection.
"Andrea?" she said in a muffled voice from outside. "They need you to sign for a message."
"Duty calls."
Toby followed her out and took the envelope from the messenger. His face took on a dreamy expression.
"White House? Now that's where I'm meant to be, Andi."
"Thanks, Charlie," she said, signing her name with typical flair. She turned back to her husband. It made her nervous when he got in this type of mood, like she wasn't enough for him. Like he needed more.
"Are you going to get me there or do I have to ditch you for a woman that can?"
He was still teasing. He *was*, she told herself firmly. It was hard to tell because he used the same tone of voice whether he was teasing or preparing to rip someone's throat out, but she was fairly sure he was teasing.
"I'll take you anywhere you need to go," she promised, not entirely light- heartedly.
"That's quite an offer, little lady."
Andi relaxed a little. He was definitely teasing now.
"I told you that if you ever called me that again..."
But still – what if, as predicted, she lost? Another entry on his list of failures and he took each one personally, this one even more so.
He hadn't spoken to Andrea about what he'd do next, or whether it involved her.
She wondered if she was holding him back. He *was* a genius, near enough, though she'd never admit it to his face she did enjoy bragging about him behind his back.
Maybe there was somewhere else he was meant to be, another life he was supposed to have led.
Andi snapped out of it.
This was a lot of nonsense. He was where was and Andrea didn't believe in destiny and she couldn't swallow the idea that Toby did either.
One way or another, things just happened and now Toby just happened to be hers. Andi intended to enjoy him.
~~~~~
'Where would I be now?
Where would I be now
If we'd never met?
Would I be singing this song
To someone else instead?'
~~~~~
Jed stood staring out of the window. Abbey groaned theatrically and followed him. She laid a hand on his shoulder and shook him back to the real world.
"Trust me to marry the only man in the world who thinks too much about his anniversary."
"Sorry. I just keep wondering, you know? Things could have been so different."
"Don't you have enough actual problems, that you have to worry about problems that might have been?"
He turned to face her, the twinkle back in his eye.
"Oh no, I wasn't thinking about problems. I was thinking about all the women I could have taught to make love..."
The Secret Service agent at the door rolled his eyes as the First Couple started laughing and making cutesy noises.
He was used to protecting men who'd rather be underneath a herd of stampeding bison than on top of their wives and he privately felt that that was a more natural state of affairs than all this 'emotion' nonsense.
God, was that a squeal from Mrs. Bartlet? Agent Dylan shuddered. Somewhere in the past he wished his life had taken a different turn...
~~~~~
'I don't know
But like you just said:
Something changed.'
THE END
First posted June 2001