Slide Show
Category: In-ep ITSOTG – written before I'd seen it so there may be minor inaccuracies.
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Feel free
Disclaimer/Acknowledgements: TWW plots and characters are being used without permission as is "Slide Show", written by Fran Healy and found on Travis's album "The Man Who".
Summary: Sometimes even the First Lady loses her cool.
Thank God there's a wall here or I'd fall. I can't breathe, I can't think – what am I supposed to do now?
I try to say that last part aloud. I don't know if I succeed or not but someone's taken me by the arm and is leading me to a chair.
I recognise the person now; it's Mrs. Landingham, one of the many members of my husband's staff. He's told me of her, if I'm not confusing her with someone else. He tells me about a lot of people. I always remember the details, my mother taught me it's the personal touches that count, but just now I can't think. It's terrifying me, maybe even more than what's happened.
I think it must be her I'm thinking of: she's so calm. The woman I'm thinking of is used to the people that matter to her dying.
Jesus Christ. I wish I'd made him go to mass more often.
Jed's been shot.
I reach for the water glass Mrs. Landingham is offering me but I can't focus on it so I miss and it falls.
Jed's been shot.
Mrs. Landingham is telling me it's all right, dear, and not to worry. It's only when she says she'll make sure it's cleaned up so no-one hurts themselves on the glass that I realise she's talking about the spilt water.
Jed's been shot.
I start to laugh hysterically.
Then out of the corner of my eye I catch two Secret Service agents exchanging a look.
That's it. Suddenly I can see clearly again.
Jed's been shot. I'm his First Lady. I'm also his doctor. Somewhere, there is a job for me right now.
I'm Abigail Bartlet, also known as The Strong One. I hold my husband, the President of the United States, together when he's falling apart. Except he's usually only falling apart metaphorically.
I stand up quickly before I lose my grip again.
I curtly thank Mrs. Landingham, or whoever the hell she is, and order the agents to get me to my husband's side, five minutes ago.
They look at each other again and I almost start sobbing right there and then. I don't feel at all strong right now. How can I possibly challenge a bullet in terms of strength?
Instead I snap, "Let's go!" in a tone that gives no indication that I'm not sure if I can make it to the door let alone the hospital and everything starts to move faster.
In the corridors everyone is running. They all stare at me on their way past. I make a mental note to get them all fired when this is all over. It helps me to maintain the illusion that I'm in control of anything at all.
I bark questions at the agents who are rushing me through the White House but I don't really hear the answers even though I know they are important. I try hard to remember what they said. I hope not thinking about how jelly- like my legs are will stop them from giving way.
Jed's been shot.
I wonder if it's true that a dying man's life flashes before his eyes. As a doctor I witnessed many men's dying moments. I've seen old men and women sit upright for the first time in months, eyes wide and smiling, seconds before dying. I always told the families, they liked to believe an angel had come to escort the deceased to heaven. Sometimes their eyes just take in a sweep of the room and sometimes they just look at a point in the distance. I have always wondered what they see.
My knees buckle just as I am bundled into the back of the car waiting to take us to Jed. I sink down in the car and I desperately want to know what Jed can see right now.
* * * * *
"Today is the day
For dancing and for singing
The birds in the trees and all
The bells are ringing."
Really, short of the priest being abducted by aliens, I think everything that possibly could have gone wrong at our wedding, did.
The proposal did not bode well for the nuptials, I have to say.
I was still in medical school and it was the first day of my paediatrics rotation.
I went in fresh from success in the ER. I had loved the intensity and variety of emergency medicine. More importantly, the patients passed through the ER fairly quickly. The survivors of my expert care were either swiftly passed on to a ward or summarily shown the door. Of course there were fatalities, many of them, but none that I had had the chance to get to know beforehand.
Thus I trotted into the paeds ward blissfully unaware of my failure to develop a clinical detachment. That first day much of my time was spent caring for a nine-year-old boy called Terry who'd been fighting leukaemia most of his life. Naturally enough, he was bitter but he bore no malice with it. The kid was friendly and open and had by no means given up the fight. I could learn a lot about attitude from him, I figured. We bonded right away; I hadn't had the corners knocked off me yet, he said. I didn't understand what he meant.
As I was leaving at the end of my shift, I heard a scream (I later found out it was his mother) and a nurse shouted for help in Terry's room. Of course, he died.
I hung around, most probably getting in the way of the team trying to save him. It seemed to me that they weren't doing enough, that they didn't care. I soon realised with hindsight that it was just that they all knew it was inevitable but at the time I was yelling at them, jumping in myself, behaving in the most unprofessional manner possible. Later I felt terrible for my behaviour in front of the boy's grieving mother.
I arrived home to find a pissed off boyfriend and a ruined dinner. I was mildly bemused as to why he had cooked for me – it was a first, let me tell you – but I was too upset to pay much attention.
After a brief rant about the importance of punctuality, Jed asked me to marry him anyway. I promptly burst into tears, accused him of being an insensitive bastard and locked myself in the bathroom.
He sat for hours outside the bathroom begging for forgiveness for a crime he didn't comprehend but was willing to confess to. I finally opened up when I heard him snoring. He had fallen asleep slumped against the door - he hit his head on the floor when I opened the door.
He sheepishly explained that the unaccustomed exertion of cooking had tired him out. I started crying all over again, this time burying my face in his neck and pulling him into a bear hug.
I don't think he ever fully understood what was going on in my head that night but within six months we were married.
First of all, it failed to occur to my dear fiancée that holding his bachelor party on the eve of the wedding spelled disaster, with capitals of all the letters.
That's right, folks, the President of the United States was late for his own wedding. I don't know how many times Leo (singularly failing in his duty as best man to get the groom to the church on time) had to signal us to drive round the block one more time. I also lost count of the number of times my father said, "Are you sure, honey?"
Give him his due, he turned up eventually, having escaped from the field in the next state where he'd been tied to a tree wearing a Daffy Duck costume. He had even changed his outfit, which was fortunate, as I really don't think I would have been able to hold my brothers back from beating him up otherwise.
We looked a treat for the photographs: Jed wild-eyed and stony-faced from the hangover and my mascara all over my face because even my maid of honour's best efforts couldn't keep me from crying when the car began it's thirty-second circuit.
The photographer suggested a shot of 'the happy couple' kissing might work – after all our faces wouldn't be visible.
It was unfortunate that Leo chose that moment to attempt to salvage the situation by releasing the pair of doves my mother had ordered, insisting they would be a 'lovely touch'.
We leaned in for the kiss and I swear to God I heard it coming. We were both making an effort with the kiss – it's not like we wanted to be mad at each other on our wedding day – and when the bird defecated on his head, he bit my tongue.
When I think about the ensuing chaos (which included Jed receiving a black eye from my eldest brother and my father asking the priest if he could take back giving me away) I realise what a miracle it is we've stayed married.
It was many years and many disasters later before I could see the funny side.
Leo's wedding to Jennifer was another matter altogether. That's one of my happiest ever memories and I'm sure it's one of Jed's too.
I wasn't looking forward to it, the memory of the humiliation that was my own wedding fresh in my mind, and besides I'd never been able to warm to Jenny. She was tall, graceful, elegant, tactful – a real class package, to borrow Jed's words - and I was… different.
There's a fabulous photograph that we have on the wall in the Residence; I remember the moment it was taken. It was a few minutes after they were married; Jed had just signed the papers as a witness. The bells were ringing – they sounded so loud up close! – and I had let my breath out once the ceremony had gone without a glitch.
The photographer was busily bossing everyone around. She had just finished taking Leo and Jenny on their own and now wanted the newlyweds with the best man and bridesmaids. Jed stepped up next to the couple and picked Elizabeth, who was in her element as the flower girl, up with one arm. She flung one arm round her daddy's neck and waved at the camera with the other, like a little beauty queen in training. Just as the photographer was beginning, Jed grabbed me and dragged me into the frame. I laughed and struggled to get away, not wanting to spoil the picture, but he held me there with an arm around my middle, and that's exactly what's captured in the photograph that hangs in our bedroom.
The thing is, everyone looks so fantastic in that picture. Leo and Jenny are gazing into each other's eyes looking like they just won the lottery; none of the bridesmaids looks even slightly jealous; the page boy has a very innocent expression on his face, the hands containing the guilty booger hidden behind his back; Jed and I have movie star smiles on our faces and they're real. The fact that we're looking at each other rather than the camera improves rather than detracts from the picture.
That's the only one of Lizzie's kiddie pictures that doesn't make her scream with embarrassment.
The reception was nigh on perfect. Leo had hired a band that played traditional Irish folk tunes. Though a few of Leo's older relatives on his mother's side were the only ones who knew how to dance to that kind of music, the beer was flowing fast and freely enough to keep the dance floor full.
I didn't know about the McGarrys' history of alcoholism then, and if Jed did he kept it quiet. At any rate there was no trouble that night. We all had the time of our lives.
Jed swung me round with gusto and when I slipped on someone's spilt drink, he pulled me the length of the hall on my ass. The next time I fell, I made sure I brought him down with me.
Later the band gamely allowed a few of the best-oiled guests to sing. I had just got back from checking on Liz in the room where the children were sleeping when I saw my husband on the stage, slurring his speech as he said, "This is for my lovely grumpy little wife, Abbey…"
I ended up crying with laughter as he mixed up his Celtic cultures and started singing "Wild Mountain Thyme". Josiah Bartlet is a man of many talents. Singing isn't one of them. Melting my heart always has been.
He got right to the end, in spite of the threats from the audience to storm the stage if he didn't get off. It was the first and, so far, the only time in my life I've been called a 'lassie' but I can't say I altogether objected.
Not to go into detail or anything, but I'm fairly sure Ellie was conceived on Leo's wedding night.
* * * * *
"The sun in the sky
Is bright, as bright as second sight
Is bright, oh God, I hope I'm all right
Cause I'm gonna cry."
What if he's dead? What if he's taken a turn for the worse while we've been on the road and they're waiting till I get there to tell me? What will I do? What will I do?
I'm Abigail Bartlet, human hurricane. I will do what I always do when anything threatens me or mine. I will raise hell.
I decide here and now that if he dies, the person who shot him will die too. My life will be dedicated to ending theirs and that will keep me going on. If somehow the courts don't do it, I'll do it myself. With my bare hands if necessary. I have good relations with the director of the CIA. I'll find an assassin if I need one. Maybe one of the bastard's own colleagues. I don't care how he dies, but if my husband dies his killer will die too.
We're getting close to the hospital now. I'm still worried I won't be able to stand when we get there. What if someone from the press gets a photo of me on my knees?
That won't look good for the public. It will look weak; I'll look weak. If I look weak it will make Jed look weak. I'm going to fall as soon as I try to get out of this car. I'm going to let him down.
I never, ever thought it would come to this. Of course the word 'assassination' strikes terror into every First Lady's heart, but to be honest I thought Jed was too middle-of-the-road for that to be a danger.
I thought it would be the multiple sclerosis. I was so stupid. Every night since I realised he was going to run for president the thought that one day one crisis or another would push him too far has cost me sleep. I knew he was going to run long before he told me, maybe even before he knew himself. If I'd tried harder I could have stopped him, but I gave in. It terrified me but deep down I wanted him to do it.
I wanted him to be the President. I wanted him to save our nation. I wanted him to be the leader people could believe in. I knew he could be that. I knew he was a greater man than I'd ever suspected when I married him.
But maybe I was thinking selfishly too. Maybe I wanted the status hike of being the First Lady.
Maybe I helped sign his death warrant because I wanted to be the centre of attention at dinner parties.
I have to stop thinking like this before I get to the hospital. I'm Abigail Bartlet. I'm his strength under fire. Without me he'd never have made it to the White House. Without me he'd never have been in the position to get shot by some maniac.
No. No, for God's sake, I know better than this. This isn't my fault.
It's just that I never thought it would come to this. I thought it would be his own body that brought him down.
And in the end all it came down to was standing in the path of a bullet.
Suddenly I get a vision of Jed smiling at me and saying, "It's not the end, Abbey…"
I pray it's not just a hallucination.
We pull up outside the hospital. We're at the back entrance and there are ambulances backed up. I look up and the blue lights blind me.
They're so bright. They make me think of those stories survivors tell about the light at the end of the tunnel. Oh, Jed, don't follow the light. It may be dark sometimes but we can make it light again.
I have to follow the light, though. I have to get out of this car and stand up and walk through those doors and it will take me to Jed.
I try to focus my eyes but all I can see are dancing blue lights, mocking me and my husband and all my hopes for the future.
* * * * *
"Hold on, hold on
Slow down, slow down
You're out of touch
Out of touch.
Cause there is no design for life
There's no devil's haircut in my mind
There is not a wonderwall
To climb or to step around."
I'm not sure which of us screamed louder when I squeezed Leo's hand.
As if he hadn't been reluctant enough to be there.
Leo has enough trouble relating to women at the best of times. Hurricane Abbey going into premature labour when her husband's on some stupid-assed lecture tour on the other side of the continent is not, for some reason, on Leo's list of best of times.
"McGarry!" I hollered. I was shooting for 'displeased figure of authority' but I think it came out more as desperate and terrified.
"I called him, Abbey." Leo had no clue what to say to me. "Three times already. He's on his way."
"This is all your fault! You and him, in league against me."
I was joking but even I didn't find it funny at that point.
I already knew something was badly wrong. I mean, not knew as a doctor, not knew because it's pretty damn obvious when you go into labour at seven months that there's something wrong. I felt it deep within me that there was something wrong with my baby.
I knew well enough that giving birth wasn't supposed to be easy. It wasn't such a very long time since I'd had Lizzie and that had been tough, no question.
But that was different. Now I was scared. More so than I could ever remember being.
Leo was babbling about how he could send Jenny in, or call my mother. Yeah, right. Having my mother join me would really alleviate my terror.
I wished someone could tell me what I was doing wrong. It had to be something. It was my job for nine months to be the physical vessel for my child and I was screwing up.
What was wrong with my body that it couldn't hold the baby like it was supposed to? The simplest, most natural thing in the world and I was doing it wrong.
And Jed wasn't there.
"Turn the monitor around, I want to see."
The doctors were talking fast and I was trying hard to listen, to take it in, but they saw me looking and lowered their voices.
I realised Leo had escaped when I wasn't looking.
I was fighting for my child's life and I was doing it alone.
It was purely coincidental that the next contraction coincided with my scream.
I heard Jed's voice yelling at my doctor long before he appeared at my window.
I had been spending my time formulating witty rants with which to berate him but I was so damn happy to see the old fool that all I could manage was a tearful, "Look what you've done to me, bastard," before losing myself in his embrace.
"Abbey... Abbey, I'm so sorry... I'm here now. It's going to be okay."
I pulled back to shake my head at him.
"No. No, it's not. I can feel it. I'm not doing this right."
"Abbey, don't start with the blaming yourself before anything's even gone wrong."
"Believe me, if you'd been here through this, you'd know something's gone far wrong!"
He chose to ignore the rebuke – he's good at ignoring things he doesn't want to hear – and continued:
"I just had a word with the doctors about not communicating with you. Stupid asses said something about you not thinking clearly, not keeping your head. I told them he obviously hadn't been paying attention because my wife had a better head than all of them put together."
I started crying harder then because he was finally there and he didn't understand at all.
"Abbey, just hold on... The baby's going to be fine."
It's not, I thought but didn't know how to tell him. I'm not doing my job. My body is failing his child. He should never have married me.
Things went quiet for quite a while then.
Once he'd stopped talking and sat beside me holding my hand, the difference Jed's being there made was indescribable.
The panic was gone. He started talking about the pictures Elizabeth had painted at school; how awkward Thanksgiving at my parents' house had been; his grandmother's prediction that he would have three daughters.
I know – all that should have made me feel worse. I know it should. It was the way he said it all somehow. He made me start to believe that if I had all that love, I couldn't be such a terrible person.
I couldn't even be such a terrible mother if I already had such a wonderful child.
The drugs must have been starting to kick in: I was even starting to believe him when he told me I was going to be okay.
A little later nothing could have convinced me of that.
"Abbey, it's all right! You've done this before; you can do it again!"
I was too occupied with gasping for breath to tell him to shut up.
"What do you think?" one of the doctors asked his colleague.
"Get it out!" I yelled.
I'll tell you this, it makes no difference how much clinical training you have, when a baby's coming out of you, you only want one thing.
"Look at the monitor. Caesarian?" the other doctor was suggesting.
"I think that would be a good idea. The foetus is clearly in distress."
"How would you feel about that, Dr. Bartlet?"
Back in the days before I was the First Lady, when I was just Jed's wife, people still used the title I had worked for.
By this stage I was almost beyond feeling anything other than fear.
I nodded, too short of breath to speak.
It wasn't what I would have wanted but I'd already had one natural birth with Lizzie and at that moment all I cared about was keeping the baby alive. I didn't really care what they had to do so long as they got it out safely.
"Aaaaaaargh!"
"Don't worry about a thing, Dr. Bartlet," a nurse said briskly.
"She's not worrying, she's having a contraction," Jed snapped.
I decided I loved him again.
The medical team chose to ignore him – we weren't the first panicking parents they'd dealt with and we certainly weren't going to be the last.
"If we're going to do a Caesarian, we'll have to proceed right away before your labour is too far advanced."
I nodded again; I didn't trust myself to speak without my voice shaking.
"Hey," Jed said, drawing my attention back to him. "Pretty soon we're going to have a baby, Abigail."
A couple of hours later I lay prone on the bed feeling suitably drowsy for the amount of drugs in my system.
It had been the most emotionally draining few days of my life. I had known all along that something was wrong with my baby but it had still been a shock when she (yes, the child proved her great-grandmother at least two thirds right) came out so small and silent.
It had only taken the doctors a minute to get her breathing but it was the longest sixty seconds of my life and Jed's.
I don't believe anyone's ever been so happy to hear a baby cry.
She wasn't well. Of course she wasn't; she was too small – but she was okay. She made rapid progress (it was like she was determined she wasn't going to let the other babies out-do her) and was already out of the incubator.
As I lay in a state of semi-consciousness I heard another already-familiar wail. I looked up and saw Jed jerk awake. The sight of our little girl in his arms made him jump.
"Wake up, Daddy," I murmur. He probably couldn't make out a word but he smiled at me anyway while he rocked her back and forth.
"Two down, one to go," he said after she had quietened down.
"What do you mean?"
"Three daughters, Grandma Bartlet promised me."
"Oh no. No no no. We are never ever doing this again, Josiah Bartlet, not a chance in hell, I'll get a chastity belt if I have to."
"Ah, you'd never stick to chastity. You like me too much."
We smiled at each other. He was right.
Eleanor Bartlet did not come into the world without a fight. She hasn't done anything without a fight since.
People think that's why there's a been some familial tension over the years but I think it's more because I've tended to treat her differently. I didn't mean for things to be that way but I have difficulty looking at Ellie without remembering that feeling that I was losing her. That she was dying.
I haven't been too hard on myself about it. Better to have a smothering mother than one who doesn't care.
So maybe I've been over-protective. Maybe I was too concerned for her health, maybe that's what drove her into medicine. Maybe she felt she had to hide herself from me. Maybe it was me that made her feel apart from the rest of the family.
But her fighting spirit? That's just what makes her a Bartlet.
* * * * *
"But there is a slide show
And it's so slow
Flashing through my mind.
Today was the day
But only for the first time."
Before we get out of the car I take in one of the Secret Service goons telling me this happened because of my baby girl. The people who shot Jed were after Charlie. My husband was shot because Zoey is dating a black man.
What was she thinking?
What was I thinking, allowing her to take a risk like that over a teenage crush?
It's not like Charlie's the love of her life the way Jed is of mine.
He could be dead because Zoey wanted a prom date.
Even as I think it I know that's not true.
She's been different since she's known him. I know what he means to her. More importantly, I know what she means to him.
That makes him one of us Bartlets.
Still... all she had to do was wait a few years. She's not even ready for love yet. If she'd waited until after her father left office she could have fallen in love with anyone she chose without risking anything other than her own innocent heart.
If her father dies because of this her heart will never heal.
Well, at least I seem to have started thinking straight again.
My little girl has been threatened. I cannot allow myself the luxury of hysteria. I have to protect her.
First I have to get to her father.
If he dies... I can't finish that thought. I guess I'm not one hundred percent together yet. I have to get there. This is not one of those times that I get to show my weaknesses. This is one of those times when everyone has to get out of my way or risk disembowelment.
So I start by getting one foot on the ground. Then another. Okay, now I'm standing. All by myself.
I shake off the agents' grips on my arm. This walking thing is a lot easier now I remember exactly who I am.
I can't believe they wanted to kill Charlie. A President – that made me sick with fury but I had some sense of the motivation. Charlie's just a boy. Nothing he does has any effect on the world except the worlds of those who love him.
I wonder if anyone's spoken to his sister. That poor child.
Only Charlie hasn't been killed. My husband might have been.
I feel like a hypocrite but right now I don't care.
Jed would die for his principles. He took that risk when he took office. He takes more risks every time he stands up for what's right, or at least what he believes to be right. I admire him for it. I love him for it.
But I don't want Zoey to do that.
We never tried to dissaude her from dating Charlie. Neither of us believed there was any reason they shouldn't be together. We didn't think of it as an issue. We should have.
We should have known that a white President's daughter dating a black man would be risking her life.
It would have been wrong to object. Wrong to foster bigotry and pander to prejudice in our own family. It didn't even occur to us.
But if we had she would have stayed safe. I hate myself for allowing these people to make me think like that but I do. I wish my family had been kept safe - and Charlie too because he's a part of my family now.
I wonder if he'd have considered dating her if he'd had the slightest idea what was going to happen.
My daughter Zoey has her entire life ahead of her. She's nineteen, a baby still. She's too young to die for a principle. She should be living each day like it's the first of the rest of her life.
Instead, today is the day she finds out how much evil there is in her world.
I never considered myself naive.. but it occurs to me that maybe today is the day I find that out too.
* * * * *
"Hold on, hold on
Slow down, slow down
You're out of touch
Out of touch.
Cause there is no design for life
There's no devil's haircut in your mind
There is not a wonderwall
To climb or to step around."
There was another day when what I thought my world was coming apart at the seams. I remember it better than I remember what happened this morning.
My father never did get over his initial disapproval of my choice of husband, nor did he ever forgive me for choosing him.
I was the only girl among five boys, and growing up I was a lot more interested in my brothers' pursuits than the hair-braiding and Barbies that occupied my classmates at the all-girls school my parents sent me to.
Their whole married life they lived in the same house. Every time I'd go back to visit I'd remember my childhood – being chased round the garden by my elder brothers and mercilessly chasing the only younger one. Since I was a girl my parents permitted me to pick on him, the thinking being that he should be able to defend himself, in spite of the fact that I was four years older and two feet taller.
We sat on the swing that hung from the chestnut tree I used to climb down when I was sneaking out as a teenager.
It felt strange, being with my husband in the place where my dates and I used to clumsily kiss goodnight.
There was nothing clumsy about the way Jed was kissing me then but it still felt awkward with my parents so close by.
"Honey," I said, pulling away. "This is not going to improve my father's opinion of you if he sees us."
"Abbey, we have three kids and a grand-daughter," he whined. "I think you father knows you've kissed a boy before..."
"Jeddy..."
I've always had great difficulty in pushing him away. Strength and willpower don't always go together.
"Hon, your career's going from strength to strength. One day we're going to have the whole world – we don't have to do this in my parents' garden."
He gave an exaggerated sigh and stood up, swaying slightly.
I caught his hand and laughed.
"Tell me you haven't been drinking. My father takes a shot of whisky whenever a grandchild is born and at funerals and that's it."
"No, I'm just dizzy with suppressed desire," he teased.
He pulled me up after him and we took a stroll around the garden, my head resting on his shoulder and his arm around my waist.
I signalled him to stop at the goldfish pond. My brothers and I used to go up the hills to catch the fish in the stream. We'd bring them back in plastic bags with airholes, just like when you buy them at a pet store, and put them in the pond. We had to replenish the stocks often because either birds or the neighbour's cat got at them but it was one of those traditions we never gave up on.
"I wonder if anything lives in there now," I mused, lost in memories.
"Soon find out."
He leaned forward and lost his footing, almost pulling me in after him.
"Jed!" I cried. I was in tears of laughter at the sight of him soaking wet and covered in mud.
But he didn't move.
"Jed? Get up!"
I kicked off my heels and waded in.
"This is not funny."
I reached him and pulled his head up, feeling the panic start to take me over.
"Jed!"
My screams roused my parents from the house. I'm sure my father was still living in hope that I was going to give him an excuse to chase Jed off the premises but to his credit he was the first to pull himself together and call an ambulance.
When I calmed down I was impressed by how quickly the MS was diagnosed. They dealt with him efficiently at the time and by the evening he was tucked up in bed in what had formerly been my brother Andrew's room.
I discreetly informed the hospital about the other symptoms I'd noticed but put to the back of my mind. It wasn't long before the first round of tests came back and still less time before they invited him back for more.
I wasn't sure in myself of what it was until we were sitting in the doctor's waiting room five minutes before she told us. The pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked into place.
"No..."
"What's wrong, baby?"
I shook my head and tried to ignore the images I was seeing.
"Nothing, sweetie. Just a cramp."
He was too nervous himself to press me.
I was looking at his face while she said it and I knew what he was thinking. After a moment he thought about seeing Zoey and Annie grow up, Ellie graduate, me turn sixty.
But his first thought was of his career.
I got up and walked out.
He didn't want to tell Leo. Not because it had to be kept quiet if he wanted to keep his job – he still trusted Leo even in the state he was in then – but because he didn't want to add to the stress on the McGarrys.
Leo was having a hard enough time holding on to any semblance of functionality as it was. He was in no fit state to face his best friend's illness. And his career was linked with Jed's, even then.
He was hanging on to his job by a thread and by the grace of those (including his personal assistant and my husband) who were doing the greater part of his work for him. Without Jed's support he would be finished for sure.
I very nearly told him one night when not for the first time he turned up drunk on our doorstep, cursing us both.
Jed had been at the hospital that day getting his medication sorted out. We'd finally told the girls the truth. It had been a day filled with emotional stress.
Hearing what Leo called the man who had saved his ass more times than I could count was the last straw for me.
I opened the window and doused him in icy water, all the while screaming language I hadn't used since the days when I used to try to impress my brothers when I was twelve.
"Abbey."
I ignored Jed and continued with my tirade. I was about to tell him, let him know exactly how loyal his friend was, when my husband said,
"I still want to be President some day."
We didn't settle the issue that night. We didn't even settle it that year but in the end I uttered, "All right," and the rest, as they say, is history.
On Inauguration Day with the breeze in my hair and the President of the United States on my arm I believed it was worth it.
Now... I don't believe anything's worth what's happened now.
* * * * *
"But there is a slide show
And it's so slow
Flashing through my mind."
I'm finally inside the hospital. I feel like I've aged a hundred years in the time it's taken for me to get here.
Everything that's ever mattered in my life has revolved around this man. He's been at my side through everything that's shaped the woman I've become. Without him I don't even know who I am.
But he must be alive or they would have told me. That means I'm still what I've always been. I've always been the strong one.
If they want to see any signs of weakness, they'll have to shoot me too.
If he dies, they might as well.
Zoey. Zoey's here. Oh, it feels so good to hold her. My baby girl. The completion of the trilogy Jed's grandmother had seen in her dream.
I wonder how close the bullet that hit him passed to her. The thought makes my stomach turn.
I have to know what's going on. Someone should be telling me. I am Abigail Bartlet, First Lady of the United States of America, someone should damn well be keeping me informed.
Maybe no-one's telling me because they're afraid to.
I squeeze Zoey harder to avoid swaying on my legs. How can I sit down without letting people see that I need to sit down?
God dammit, I do not need to sit down. I need to keep moving and get to his side so I can see for myself.
I take a few faux-confident strides then something stops me in my tracks.
My husband's best friend is standing in front of me.
I realise that through all the life-altering events Jed's seen me through, Leo's been there somewhere. Sometimes hovering in the background; sometimes at Jed's other side; always there, part of the moment.
I've seen the play of many expressions across his face. I've seen him embarrassed, overjoyed, drunk, high, coming down, despairing, loving, stressed, afraid, excited, exhausted. Without speaking to him very much, I've come to know him inside out.
If my husband was about to die I would see it now in the face of his right- hand man.
Leo just looks relieved to see me.
I want to embrace him – but that would be inappropriate behaviour for someone who is still the First Lady and in complete control of her emotions.
Instead I walk towards him slowly but confidently and as I become more sure of what I see (and don't see) in his face, I allow a tiny yelp of relief to escape my throat. I don't think it's loud enough for anyone to notice.
I'm Abigail Bartlet.
My husband's been shot.
I seem to be doing fairly well considering.
"Today was the day
But only for the first time.
I hope it's not the last time."
THE END
First posted April 2001
Category: In-ep ITSOTG – written before I'd seen it so there may be minor inaccuracies.
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Feel free
Disclaimer/Acknowledgements: TWW plots and characters are being used without permission as is "Slide Show", written by Fran Healy and found on Travis's album "The Man Who".
Summary: Sometimes even the First Lady loses her cool.
Thank God there's a wall here or I'd fall. I can't breathe, I can't think – what am I supposed to do now?
I try to say that last part aloud. I don't know if I succeed or not but someone's taken me by the arm and is leading me to a chair.
I recognise the person now; it's Mrs. Landingham, one of the many members of my husband's staff. He's told me of her, if I'm not confusing her with someone else. He tells me about a lot of people. I always remember the details, my mother taught me it's the personal touches that count, but just now I can't think. It's terrifying me, maybe even more than what's happened.
I think it must be her I'm thinking of: she's so calm. The woman I'm thinking of is used to the people that matter to her dying.
Jesus Christ. I wish I'd made him go to mass more often.
Jed's been shot.
I reach for the water glass Mrs. Landingham is offering me but I can't focus on it so I miss and it falls.
Jed's been shot.
Mrs. Landingham is telling me it's all right, dear, and not to worry. It's only when she says she'll make sure it's cleaned up so no-one hurts themselves on the glass that I realise she's talking about the spilt water.
Jed's been shot.
I start to laugh hysterically.
Then out of the corner of my eye I catch two Secret Service agents exchanging a look.
That's it. Suddenly I can see clearly again.
Jed's been shot. I'm his First Lady. I'm also his doctor. Somewhere, there is a job for me right now.
I'm Abigail Bartlet, also known as The Strong One. I hold my husband, the President of the United States, together when he's falling apart. Except he's usually only falling apart metaphorically.
I stand up quickly before I lose my grip again.
I curtly thank Mrs. Landingham, or whoever the hell she is, and order the agents to get me to my husband's side, five minutes ago.
They look at each other again and I almost start sobbing right there and then. I don't feel at all strong right now. How can I possibly challenge a bullet in terms of strength?
Instead I snap, "Let's go!" in a tone that gives no indication that I'm not sure if I can make it to the door let alone the hospital and everything starts to move faster.
In the corridors everyone is running. They all stare at me on their way past. I make a mental note to get them all fired when this is all over. It helps me to maintain the illusion that I'm in control of anything at all.
I bark questions at the agents who are rushing me through the White House but I don't really hear the answers even though I know they are important. I try hard to remember what they said. I hope not thinking about how jelly- like my legs are will stop them from giving way.
Jed's been shot.
I wonder if it's true that a dying man's life flashes before his eyes. As a doctor I witnessed many men's dying moments. I've seen old men and women sit upright for the first time in months, eyes wide and smiling, seconds before dying. I always told the families, they liked to believe an angel had come to escort the deceased to heaven. Sometimes their eyes just take in a sweep of the room and sometimes they just look at a point in the distance. I have always wondered what they see.
My knees buckle just as I am bundled into the back of the car waiting to take us to Jed. I sink down in the car and I desperately want to know what Jed can see right now.
* * * * *
"Today is the day
For dancing and for singing
The birds in the trees and all
The bells are ringing."
Really, short of the priest being abducted by aliens, I think everything that possibly could have gone wrong at our wedding, did.
The proposal did not bode well for the nuptials, I have to say.
I was still in medical school and it was the first day of my paediatrics rotation.
I went in fresh from success in the ER. I had loved the intensity and variety of emergency medicine. More importantly, the patients passed through the ER fairly quickly. The survivors of my expert care were either swiftly passed on to a ward or summarily shown the door. Of course there were fatalities, many of them, but none that I had had the chance to get to know beforehand.
Thus I trotted into the paeds ward blissfully unaware of my failure to develop a clinical detachment. That first day much of my time was spent caring for a nine-year-old boy called Terry who'd been fighting leukaemia most of his life. Naturally enough, he was bitter but he bore no malice with it. The kid was friendly and open and had by no means given up the fight. I could learn a lot about attitude from him, I figured. We bonded right away; I hadn't had the corners knocked off me yet, he said. I didn't understand what he meant.
As I was leaving at the end of my shift, I heard a scream (I later found out it was his mother) and a nurse shouted for help in Terry's room. Of course, he died.
I hung around, most probably getting in the way of the team trying to save him. It seemed to me that they weren't doing enough, that they didn't care. I soon realised with hindsight that it was just that they all knew it was inevitable but at the time I was yelling at them, jumping in myself, behaving in the most unprofessional manner possible. Later I felt terrible for my behaviour in front of the boy's grieving mother.
I arrived home to find a pissed off boyfriend and a ruined dinner. I was mildly bemused as to why he had cooked for me – it was a first, let me tell you – but I was too upset to pay much attention.
After a brief rant about the importance of punctuality, Jed asked me to marry him anyway. I promptly burst into tears, accused him of being an insensitive bastard and locked myself in the bathroom.
He sat for hours outside the bathroom begging for forgiveness for a crime he didn't comprehend but was willing to confess to. I finally opened up when I heard him snoring. He had fallen asleep slumped against the door - he hit his head on the floor when I opened the door.
He sheepishly explained that the unaccustomed exertion of cooking had tired him out. I started crying all over again, this time burying my face in his neck and pulling him into a bear hug.
I don't think he ever fully understood what was going on in my head that night but within six months we were married.
First of all, it failed to occur to my dear fiancée that holding his bachelor party on the eve of the wedding spelled disaster, with capitals of all the letters.
That's right, folks, the President of the United States was late for his own wedding. I don't know how many times Leo (singularly failing in his duty as best man to get the groom to the church on time) had to signal us to drive round the block one more time. I also lost count of the number of times my father said, "Are you sure, honey?"
Give him his due, he turned up eventually, having escaped from the field in the next state where he'd been tied to a tree wearing a Daffy Duck costume. He had even changed his outfit, which was fortunate, as I really don't think I would have been able to hold my brothers back from beating him up otherwise.
We looked a treat for the photographs: Jed wild-eyed and stony-faced from the hangover and my mascara all over my face because even my maid of honour's best efforts couldn't keep me from crying when the car began it's thirty-second circuit.
The photographer suggested a shot of 'the happy couple' kissing might work – after all our faces wouldn't be visible.
It was unfortunate that Leo chose that moment to attempt to salvage the situation by releasing the pair of doves my mother had ordered, insisting they would be a 'lovely touch'.
We leaned in for the kiss and I swear to God I heard it coming. We were both making an effort with the kiss – it's not like we wanted to be mad at each other on our wedding day – and when the bird defecated on his head, he bit my tongue.
When I think about the ensuing chaos (which included Jed receiving a black eye from my eldest brother and my father asking the priest if he could take back giving me away) I realise what a miracle it is we've stayed married.
It was many years and many disasters later before I could see the funny side.
Leo's wedding to Jennifer was another matter altogether. That's one of my happiest ever memories and I'm sure it's one of Jed's too.
I wasn't looking forward to it, the memory of the humiliation that was my own wedding fresh in my mind, and besides I'd never been able to warm to Jenny. She was tall, graceful, elegant, tactful – a real class package, to borrow Jed's words - and I was… different.
There's a fabulous photograph that we have on the wall in the Residence; I remember the moment it was taken. It was a few minutes after they were married; Jed had just signed the papers as a witness. The bells were ringing – they sounded so loud up close! – and I had let my breath out once the ceremony had gone without a glitch.
The photographer was busily bossing everyone around. She had just finished taking Leo and Jenny on their own and now wanted the newlyweds with the best man and bridesmaids. Jed stepped up next to the couple and picked Elizabeth, who was in her element as the flower girl, up with one arm. She flung one arm round her daddy's neck and waved at the camera with the other, like a little beauty queen in training. Just as the photographer was beginning, Jed grabbed me and dragged me into the frame. I laughed and struggled to get away, not wanting to spoil the picture, but he held me there with an arm around my middle, and that's exactly what's captured in the photograph that hangs in our bedroom.
The thing is, everyone looks so fantastic in that picture. Leo and Jenny are gazing into each other's eyes looking like they just won the lottery; none of the bridesmaids looks even slightly jealous; the page boy has a very innocent expression on his face, the hands containing the guilty booger hidden behind his back; Jed and I have movie star smiles on our faces and they're real. The fact that we're looking at each other rather than the camera improves rather than detracts from the picture.
That's the only one of Lizzie's kiddie pictures that doesn't make her scream with embarrassment.
The reception was nigh on perfect. Leo had hired a band that played traditional Irish folk tunes. Though a few of Leo's older relatives on his mother's side were the only ones who knew how to dance to that kind of music, the beer was flowing fast and freely enough to keep the dance floor full.
I didn't know about the McGarrys' history of alcoholism then, and if Jed did he kept it quiet. At any rate there was no trouble that night. We all had the time of our lives.
Jed swung me round with gusto and when I slipped on someone's spilt drink, he pulled me the length of the hall on my ass. The next time I fell, I made sure I brought him down with me.
Later the band gamely allowed a few of the best-oiled guests to sing. I had just got back from checking on Liz in the room where the children were sleeping when I saw my husband on the stage, slurring his speech as he said, "This is for my lovely grumpy little wife, Abbey…"
I ended up crying with laughter as he mixed up his Celtic cultures and started singing "Wild Mountain Thyme". Josiah Bartlet is a man of many talents. Singing isn't one of them. Melting my heart always has been.
He got right to the end, in spite of the threats from the audience to storm the stage if he didn't get off. It was the first and, so far, the only time in my life I've been called a 'lassie' but I can't say I altogether objected.
Not to go into detail or anything, but I'm fairly sure Ellie was conceived on Leo's wedding night.
* * * * *
"The sun in the sky
Is bright, as bright as second sight
Is bright, oh God, I hope I'm all right
Cause I'm gonna cry."
What if he's dead? What if he's taken a turn for the worse while we've been on the road and they're waiting till I get there to tell me? What will I do? What will I do?
I'm Abigail Bartlet, human hurricane. I will do what I always do when anything threatens me or mine. I will raise hell.
I decide here and now that if he dies, the person who shot him will die too. My life will be dedicated to ending theirs and that will keep me going on. If somehow the courts don't do it, I'll do it myself. With my bare hands if necessary. I have good relations with the director of the CIA. I'll find an assassin if I need one. Maybe one of the bastard's own colleagues. I don't care how he dies, but if my husband dies his killer will die too.
We're getting close to the hospital now. I'm still worried I won't be able to stand when we get there. What if someone from the press gets a photo of me on my knees?
That won't look good for the public. It will look weak; I'll look weak. If I look weak it will make Jed look weak. I'm going to fall as soon as I try to get out of this car. I'm going to let him down.
I never, ever thought it would come to this. Of course the word 'assassination' strikes terror into every First Lady's heart, but to be honest I thought Jed was too middle-of-the-road for that to be a danger.
I thought it would be the multiple sclerosis. I was so stupid. Every night since I realised he was going to run for president the thought that one day one crisis or another would push him too far has cost me sleep. I knew he was going to run long before he told me, maybe even before he knew himself. If I'd tried harder I could have stopped him, but I gave in. It terrified me but deep down I wanted him to do it.
I wanted him to be the President. I wanted him to save our nation. I wanted him to be the leader people could believe in. I knew he could be that. I knew he was a greater man than I'd ever suspected when I married him.
But maybe I was thinking selfishly too. Maybe I wanted the status hike of being the First Lady.
Maybe I helped sign his death warrant because I wanted to be the centre of attention at dinner parties.
I have to stop thinking like this before I get to the hospital. I'm Abigail Bartlet. I'm his strength under fire. Without me he'd never have made it to the White House. Without me he'd never have been in the position to get shot by some maniac.
No. No, for God's sake, I know better than this. This isn't my fault.
It's just that I never thought it would come to this. I thought it would be his own body that brought him down.
And in the end all it came down to was standing in the path of a bullet.
Suddenly I get a vision of Jed smiling at me and saying, "It's not the end, Abbey…"
I pray it's not just a hallucination.
We pull up outside the hospital. We're at the back entrance and there are ambulances backed up. I look up and the blue lights blind me.
They're so bright. They make me think of those stories survivors tell about the light at the end of the tunnel. Oh, Jed, don't follow the light. It may be dark sometimes but we can make it light again.
I have to follow the light, though. I have to get out of this car and stand up and walk through those doors and it will take me to Jed.
I try to focus my eyes but all I can see are dancing blue lights, mocking me and my husband and all my hopes for the future.
* * * * *
"Hold on, hold on
Slow down, slow down
You're out of touch
Out of touch.
Cause there is no design for life
There's no devil's haircut in my mind
There is not a wonderwall
To climb or to step around."
I'm not sure which of us screamed louder when I squeezed Leo's hand.
As if he hadn't been reluctant enough to be there.
Leo has enough trouble relating to women at the best of times. Hurricane Abbey going into premature labour when her husband's on some stupid-assed lecture tour on the other side of the continent is not, for some reason, on Leo's list of best of times.
"McGarry!" I hollered. I was shooting for 'displeased figure of authority' but I think it came out more as desperate and terrified.
"I called him, Abbey." Leo had no clue what to say to me. "Three times already. He's on his way."
"This is all your fault! You and him, in league against me."
I was joking but even I didn't find it funny at that point.
I already knew something was badly wrong. I mean, not knew as a doctor, not knew because it's pretty damn obvious when you go into labour at seven months that there's something wrong. I felt it deep within me that there was something wrong with my baby.
I knew well enough that giving birth wasn't supposed to be easy. It wasn't such a very long time since I'd had Lizzie and that had been tough, no question.
But that was different. Now I was scared. More so than I could ever remember being.
Leo was babbling about how he could send Jenny in, or call my mother. Yeah, right. Having my mother join me would really alleviate my terror.
I wished someone could tell me what I was doing wrong. It had to be something. It was my job for nine months to be the physical vessel for my child and I was screwing up.
What was wrong with my body that it couldn't hold the baby like it was supposed to? The simplest, most natural thing in the world and I was doing it wrong.
And Jed wasn't there.
"Turn the monitor around, I want to see."
The doctors were talking fast and I was trying hard to listen, to take it in, but they saw me looking and lowered their voices.
I realised Leo had escaped when I wasn't looking.
I was fighting for my child's life and I was doing it alone.
It was purely coincidental that the next contraction coincided with my scream.
I heard Jed's voice yelling at my doctor long before he appeared at my window.
I had been spending my time formulating witty rants with which to berate him but I was so damn happy to see the old fool that all I could manage was a tearful, "Look what you've done to me, bastard," before losing myself in his embrace.
"Abbey... Abbey, I'm so sorry... I'm here now. It's going to be okay."
I pulled back to shake my head at him.
"No. No, it's not. I can feel it. I'm not doing this right."
"Abbey, don't start with the blaming yourself before anything's even gone wrong."
"Believe me, if you'd been here through this, you'd know something's gone far wrong!"
He chose to ignore the rebuke – he's good at ignoring things he doesn't want to hear – and continued:
"I just had a word with the doctors about not communicating with you. Stupid asses said something about you not thinking clearly, not keeping your head. I told them he obviously hadn't been paying attention because my wife had a better head than all of them put together."
I started crying harder then because he was finally there and he didn't understand at all.
"Abbey, just hold on... The baby's going to be fine."
It's not, I thought but didn't know how to tell him. I'm not doing my job. My body is failing his child. He should never have married me.
Things went quiet for quite a while then.
Once he'd stopped talking and sat beside me holding my hand, the difference Jed's being there made was indescribable.
The panic was gone. He started talking about the pictures Elizabeth had painted at school; how awkward Thanksgiving at my parents' house had been; his grandmother's prediction that he would have three daughters.
I know – all that should have made me feel worse. I know it should. It was the way he said it all somehow. He made me start to believe that if I had all that love, I couldn't be such a terrible person.
I couldn't even be such a terrible mother if I already had such a wonderful child.
The drugs must have been starting to kick in: I was even starting to believe him when he told me I was going to be okay.
A little later nothing could have convinced me of that.
"Abbey, it's all right! You've done this before; you can do it again!"
I was too occupied with gasping for breath to tell him to shut up.
"What do you think?" one of the doctors asked his colleague.
"Get it out!" I yelled.
I'll tell you this, it makes no difference how much clinical training you have, when a baby's coming out of you, you only want one thing.
"Look at the monitor. Caesarian?" the other doctor was suggesting.
"I think that would be a good idea. The foetus is clearly in distress."
"How would you feel about that, Dr. Bartlet?"
Back in the days before I was the First Lady, when I was just Jed's wife, people still used the title I had worked for.
By this stage I was almost beyond feeling anything other than fear.
I nodded, too short of breath to speak.
It wasn't what I would have wanted but I'd already had one natural birth with Lizzie and at that moment all I cared about was keeping the baby alive. I didn't really care what they had to do so long as they got it out safely.
"Aaaaaaargh!"
"Don't worry about a thing, Dr. Bartlet," a nurse said briskly.
"She's not worrying, she's having a contraction," Jed snapped.
I decided I loved him again.
The medical team chose to ignore him – we weren't the first panicking parents they'd dealt with and we certainly weren't going to be the last.
"If we're going to do a Caesarian, we'll have to proceed right away before your labour is too far advanced."
I nodded again; I didn't trust myself to speak without my voice shaking.
"Hey," Jed said, drawing my attention back to him. "Pretty soon we're going to have a baby, Abigail."
A couple of hours later I lay prone on the bed feeling suitably drowsy for the amount of drugs in my system.
It had been the most emotionally draining few days of my life. I had known all along that something was wrong with my baby but it had still been a shock when she (yes, the child proved her great-grandmother at least two thirds right) came out so small and silent.
It had only taken the doctors a minute to get her breathing but it was the longest sixty seconds of my life and Jed's.
I don't believe anyone's ever been so happy to hear a baby cry.
She wasn't well. Of course she wasn't; she was too small – but she was okay. She made rapid progress (it was like she was determined she wasn't going to let the other babies out-do her) and was already out of the incubator.
As I lay in a state of semi-consciousness I heard another already-familiar wail. I looked up and saw Jed jerk awake. The sight of our little girl in his arms made him jump.
"Wake up, Daddy," I murmur. He probably couldn't make out a word but he smiled at me anyway while he rocked her back and forth.
"Two down, one to go," he said after she had quietened down.
"What do you mean?"
"Three daughters, Grandma Bartlet promised me."
"Oh no. No no no. We are never ever doing this again, Josiah Bartlet, not a chance in hell, I'll get a chastity belt if I have to."
"Ah, you'd never stick to chastity. You like me too much."
We smiled at each other. He was right.
Eleanor Bartlet did not come into the world without a fight. She hasn't done anything without a fight since.
People think that's why there's a been some familial tension over the years but I think it's more because I've tended to treat her differently. I didn't mean for things to be that way but I have difficulty looking at Ellie without remembering that feeling that I was losing her. That she was dying.
I haven't been too hard on myself about it. Better to have a smothering mother than one who doesn't care.
So maybe I've been over-protective. Maybe I was too concerned for her health, maybe that's what drove her into medicine. Maybe she felt she had to hide herself from me. Maybe it was me that made her feel apart from the rest of the family.
But her fighting spirit? That's just what makes her a Bartlet.
* * * * *
"But there is a slide show
And it's so slow
Flashing through my mind.
Today was the day
But only for the first time."
Before we get out of the car I take in one of the Secret Service goons telling me this happened because of my baby girl. The people who shot Jed were after Charlie. My husband was shot because Zoey is dating a black man.
What was she thinking?
What was I thinking, allowing her to take a risk like that over a teenage crush?
It's not like Charlie's the love of her life the way Jed is of mine.
He could be dead because Zoey wanted a prom date.
Even as I think it I know that's not true.
She's been different since she's known him. I know what he means to her. More importantly, I know what she means to him.
That makes him one of us Bartlets.
Still... all she had to do was wait a few years. She's not even ready for love yet. If she'd waited until after her father left office she could have fallen in love with anyone she chose without risking anything other than her own innocent heart.
If her father dies because of this her heart will never heal.
Well, at least I seem to have started thinking straight again.
My little girl has been threatened. I cannot allow myself the luxury of hysteria. I have to protect her.
First I have to get to her father.
If he dies... I can't finish that thought. I guess I'm not one hundred percent together yet. I have to get there. This is not one of those times that I get to show my weaknesses. This is one of those times when everyone has to get out of my way or risk disembowelment.
So I start by getting one foot on the ground. Then another. Okay, now I'm standing. All by myself.
I shake off the agents' grips on my arm. This walking thing is a lot easier now I remember exactly who I am.
I can't believe they wanted to kill Charlie. A President – that made me sick with fury but I had some sense of the motivation. Charlie's just a boy. Nothing he does has any effect on the world except the worlds of those who love him.
I wonder if anyone's spoken to his sister. That poor child.
Only Charlie hasn't been killed. My husband might have been.
I feel like a hypocrite but right now I don't care.
Jed would die for his principles. He took that risk when he took office. He takes more risks every time he stands up for what's right, or at least what he believes to be right. I admire him for it. I love him for it.
But I don't want Zoey to do that.
We never tried to dissaude her from dating Charlie. Neither of us believed there was any reason they shouldn't be together. We didn't think of it as an issue. We should have.
We should have known that a white President's daughter dating a black man would be risking her life.
It would have been wrong to object. Wrong to foster bigotry and pander to prejudice in our own family. It didn't even occur to us.
But if we had she would have stayed safe. I hate myself for allowing these people to make me think like that but I do. I wish my family had been kept safe - and Charlie too because he's a part of my family now.
I wonder if he'd have considered dating her if he'd had the slightest idea what was going to happen.
My daughter Zoey has her entire life ahead of her. She's nineteen, a baby still. She's too young to die for a principle. She should be living each day like it's the first of the rest of her life.
Instead, today is the day she finds out how much evil there is in her world.
I never considered myself naive.. but it occurs to me that maybe today is the day I find that out too.
* * * * *
"Hold on, hold on
Slow down, slow down
You're out of touch
Out of touch.
Cause there is no design for life
There's no devil's haircut in your mind
There is not a wonderwall
To climb or to step around."
There was another day when what I thought my world was coming apart at the seams. I remember it better than I remember what happened this morning.
My father never did get over his initial disapproval of my choice of husband, nor did he ever forgive me for choosing him.
I was the only girl among five boys, and growing up I was a lot more interested in my brothers' pursuits than the hair-braiding and Barbies that occupied my classmates at the all-girls school my parents sent me to.
Their whole married life they lived in the same house. Every time I'd go back to visit I'd remember my childhood – being chased round the garden by my elder brothers and mercilessly chasing the only younger one. Since I was a girl my parents permitted me to pick on him, the thinking being that he should be able to defend himself, in spite of the fact that I was four years older and two feet taller.
We sat on the swing that hung from the chestnut tree I used to climb down when I was sneaking out as a teenager.
It felt strange, being with my husband in the place where my dates and I used to clumsily kiss goodnight.
There was nothing clumsy about the way Jed was kissing me then but it still felt awkward with my parents so close by.
"Honey," I said, pulling away. "This is not going to improve my father's opinion of you if he sees us."
"Abbey, we have three kids and a grand-daughter," he whined. "I think you father knows you've kissed a boy before..."
"Jeddy..."
I've always had great difficulty in pushing him away. Strength and willpower don't always go together.
"Hon, your career's going from strength to strength. One day we're going to have the whole world – we don't have to do this in my parents' garden."
He gave an exaggerated sigh and stood up, swaying slightly.
I caught his hand and laughed.
"Tell me you haven't been drinking. My father takes a shot of whisky whenever a grandchild is born and at funerals and that's it."
"No, I'm just dizzy with suppressed desire," he teased.
He pulled me up after him and we took a stroll around the garden, my head resting on his shoulder and his arm around my waist.
I signalled him to stop at the goldfish pond. My brothers and I used to go up the hills to catch the fish in the stream. We'd bring them back in plastic bags with airholes, just like when you buy them at a pet store, and put them in the pond. We had to replenish the stocks often because either birds or the neighbour's cat got at them but it was one of those traditions we never gave up on.
"I wonder if anything lives in there now," I mused, lost in memories.
"Soon find out."
He leaned forward and lost his footing, almost pulling me in after him.
"Jed!" I cried. I was in tears of laughter at the sight of him soaking wet and covered in mud.
But he didn't move.
"Jed? Get up!"
I kicked off my heels and waded in.
"This is not funny."
I reached him and pulled his head up, feeling the panic start to take me over.
"Jed!"
My screams roused my parents from the house. I'm sure my father was still living in hope that I was going to give him an excuse to chase Jed off the premises but to his credit he was the first to pull himself together and call an ambulance.
When I calmed down I was impressed by how quickly the MS was diagnosed. They dealt with him efficiently at the time and by the evening he was tucked up in bed in what had formerly been my brother Andrew's room.
I discreetly informed the hospital about the other symptoms I'd noticed but put to the back of my mind. It wasn't long before the first round of tests came back and still less time before they invited him back for more.
I wasn't sure in myself of what it was until we were sitting in the doctor's waiting room five minutes before she told us. The pieces of the puzzle suddenly clicked into place.
"No..."
"What's wrong, baby?"
I shook my head and tried to ignore the images I was seeing.
"Nothing, sweetie. Just a cramp."
He was too nervous himself to press me.
I was looking at his face while she said it and I knew what he was thinking. After a moment he thought about seeing Zoey and Annie grow up, Ellie graduate, me turn sixty.
But his first thought was of his career.
I got up and walked out.
He didn't want to tell Leo. Not because it had to be kept quiet if he wanted to keep his job – he still trusted Leo even in the state he was in then – but because he didn't want to add to the stress on the McGarrys.
Leo was having a hard enough time holding on to any semblance of functionality as it was. He was in no fit state to face his best friend's illness. And his career was linked with Jed's, even then.
He was hanging on to his job by a thread and by the grace of those (including his personal assistant and my husband) who were doing the greater part of his work for him. Without Jed's support he would be finished for sure.
I very nearly told him one night when not for the first time he turned up drunk on our doorstep, cursing us both.
Jed had been at the hospital that day getting his medication sorted out. We'd finally told the girls the truth. It had been a day filled with emotional stress.
Hearing what Leo called the man who had saved his ass more times than I could count was the last straw for me.
I opened the window and doused him in icy water, all the while screaming language I hadn't used since the days when I used to try to impress my brothers when I was twelve.
"Abbey."
I ignored Jed and continued with my tirade. I was about to tell him, let him know exactly how loyal his friend was, when my husband said,
"I still want to be President some day."
We didn't settle the issue that night. We didn't even settle it that year but in the end I uttered, "All right," and the rest, as they say, is history.
On Inauguration Day with the breeze in my hair and the President of the United States on my arm I believed it was worth it.
Now... I don't believe anything's worth what's happened now.
* * * * *
"But there is a slide show
And it's so slow
Flashing through my mind."
I'm finally inside the hospital. I feel like I've aged a hundred years in the time it's taken for me to get here.
Everything that's ever mattered in my life has revolved around this man. He's been at my side through everything that's shaped the woman I've become. Without him I don't even know who I am.
But he must be alive or they would have told me. That means I'm still what I've always been. I've always been the strong one.
If they want to see any signs of weakness, they'll have to shoot me too.
If he dies, they might as well.
Zoey. Zoey's here. Oh, it feels so good to hold her. My baby girl. The completion of the trilogy Jed's grandmother had seen in her dream.
I wonder how close the bullet that hit him passed to her. The thought makes my stomach turn.
I have to know what's going on. Someone should be telling me. I am Abigail Bartlet, First Lady of the United States of America, someone should damn well be keeping me informed.
Maybe no-one's telling me because they're afraid to.
I squeeze Zoey harder to avoid swaying on my legs. How can I sit down without letting people see that I need to sit down?
God dammit, I do not need to sit down. I need to keep moving and get to his side so I can see for myself.
I take a few faux-confident strides then something stops me in my tracks.
My husband's best friend is standing in front of me.
I realise that through all the life-altering events Jed's seen me through, Leo's been there somewhere. Sometimes hovering in the background; sometimes at Jed's other side; always there, part of the moment.
I've seen the play of many expressions across his face. I've seen him embarrassed, overjoyed, drunk, high, coming down, despairing, loving, stressed, afraid, excited, exhausted. Without speaking to him very much, I've come to know him inside out.
If my husband was about to die I would see it now in the face of his right- hand man.
Leo just looks relieved to see me.
I want to embrace him – but that would be inappropriate behaviour for someone who is still the First Lady and in complete control of her emotions.
Instead I walk towards him slowly but confidently and as I become more sure of what I see (and don't see) in his face, I allow a tiny yelp of relief to escape my throat. I don't think it's loud enough for anyone to notice.
I'm Abigail Bartlet.
My husband's been shot.
I seem to be doing fairly well considering.
"Today was the day
But only for the first time.
I hope it's not the last time."
THE END
First posted April 2001