"Colpo di fulmine. The thunderbolt, as Italians call it. When love strikes someone like lightning, so powerful and intense it can't be denied. It's beautiful and messy, cracking a chest open and spilling their soul out for the world to see. It turns a person inside out, and there's no going back from it. Once the thunderbolt hits, your life is irrevocably changed."J.M. Darhower, Sempre


November 1960 - Indiana, Notre Dame University Campus Library

"Thou shall not be tempted. Thou shall not be tried. Thou shall not suffer. Thou shall not be overcome."

Jed Bartlet strictly murmured to himself, one of the many Catholic proverbs his faith adhered to. Much to his fathers Protestant distaste, Jed had shown a clear preference for the Catholic faith his Irish mother had raised him in and, while his initial belief had been born out of a respect for her, Jed quickly found that he followed the doctrine with an individual intensity. To that end, Jed had accepted that his destiny lay with the church. It was to be the first decision he had ever made in the unadulterated trance of adulthood and he had never dared to question it, until she entered his hemisphere.

"Hey babe, so sorry I couldn't be here earlier. You wouldn't believe the queues in the mess for lunch."

The brunette plopped herself in the chair beside him and planted a tender kiss upon his cheek, which instantly flamed with objection at the most intimate contact he had received from a member of the opposite sex. A male student surveyed the scene and scoffed loudly with amusement, "Abbey?" If she seriously expected him to fall for such an immature ruse, she had severely underestimated him.

"What?" Nonchalance seeped from her tone, if not her cool expression.

A bystander in the matter at hand, Jed observed the interaction with a pinch of confusion. "Abbey, Jane and I are old friends."

"Well, it really doesn't matter either way, Alan, because you and I are not an item. Remember?" She dismissively refused to share eye contact with her paramour and positioned a selection of medical journals on the table, which scattered across the open book Jed had attempted to invest his afternoon in. "Now if you wouldn't mind, we are in the middle of a study date." He wasn't certain why but Jed forced a smile when looked to for affirmation of the implication made by Abbey's hand balanced on the curve of his left shoulder. Thrown by her curveball, Alan retreated and Jed was mildly disappointed when she removed her hand in unison. "Jerk." She flared under her breath. The second she witnessed the unease with which Jed shuffled, the reality of the situation hit her and Abbey bowed her head, in the hopes that her heated checks would fall unnoticed by the perfect stranger she had invaded with her petty dramatics. "Sorry about that."

"No need to be sorry." Jed raised both hands upward, in a show of indifference but his quickened heartbeat proclaimed otherwise.

She tousled her curls, which ran like a waterfall of autumn beyond her ample bust. Except, it was not her feminine shape that Jed explored with vivid admiration but the almond eyes that had flamed with fury mere moments beforehand. "The Freedom of the Will."

"Pardon me?" Jed stammered.

Abbey picked up the book Jed had lost all interest in and paused with a smirk, aware of his reverence. "Jonathan Edwards." She skimmed the book, with no particular interest in the topic at hand, but her interest in her fellow student had peaked. "What do you major in?"

"Philosophy and theology. It's a joint major." He informed her matter-of-factly, his manner oh-so-preppy that Jed inwardly kicked himself for it. "I hope to become a priest in the Roman Catholic Church." He added, only for the statement to have him appear all the more wasp-like. It simply appeared that, no matter how hard he tried, the upper-class education Jed had received only increased his aloofness.

She inspected him, with an ounce of cynicism. "Shame. You're pretty cute." She snapped the book shut and playfully smiled, when his blue eyes widened underneath a collection of thick lashes that rivalled her own. His naivety warmed her heart. There were very few men who blushed at such a compliment. "Abigail Barrington." She stretched her plain-manicured hand forward, by means of a formal introduction. "But my friends call me Abbey. I study biology and biochemistry at Saint Mary's."

"Josiah Bartlet." He politely accepted her hand, her skin of soft, so supple. "Jed."

Abbey maintained eye contact, while her hand hesitated to release from his touch. The look she shone at him was that of a lioness, as it circled the prey it had stalked for quite some time. "Well, Jed, thank you very much for your help. Sorry I disturbed you." She started to repack her materials into the shoulder-bag she had absent-mindedly dumped between their feet, until she detected that the library bustled with students and tables were very limited in availability. In fact, the table Jed acquired was one of the only free spaces within her line of vision. It was no wonder; the males-only university campus was provided with a library far better equipped than its sister institute. "Would you mind terribly if I stayed here and studied for the next hour?"

Her hopeful expression caused extreme discomfort for Jed, who unearthed the realisation that he found it impossible to deny the woman he had known all of five minutes, if that. Any God he worshipped had been obliterated from his mind. "No, please… feel free." He stood to attention, and motioned for her to sit.

"You're a doll."

The dimple-like folds between his eyebrows deepened, in expression of hilarity at her compliment. He discretely watched, as Abbey opened her own book to reveal a craze of colour had accentuated for notation. The pace with which she browsed each sentence astounded him, and she had completed a chapter within a few minutes. He instantly attained a heavy respect for her intellect and ambition. She was a model of the second-wave feminism that had recently surfaced within the country and it suited her well. Jed and Abbey remained studious and limited conversation, in order to retain full attention to their respective work. Still, Jed shyly marvelled at the woman that had captured every aspect of his mind, body and soul, from an introduction no less. Each peek over the rim of his book did not escape Abbey, as she scribbled a bunch of handwritten notes to paper and pondered the kind of man who voluntarily surrendered his life to God.

Hours rolled by in silence and the library emptied, but for a few senior staff, before Abbey succumbed to the late hour exhaustion and prepared to return to her dorm. "I didn't realise priests were required to be so studious," she verbally prodded Jed. Startled by how much time had passed, Jed flashed a meek smile at Abbey. "Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Jed Bartlet."

He quickly shoved his books away and rose to his feet, "It's pretty dark out. Let me walk you back to your dorm."

If any female was un-damsel like, it was Abbey but she smiled at his sincere kindness and accepted the offer. "Thank you." A seasonal chill in the air embraced them, as they exited the library, and Jed instinctively removed his coat, which he wrapped around her shoulders instead. Reluctant to deprive him, Abbey quipped, "You don't feel the cold?"

Jed shyly shook his head, "This is like summer in New Hampshire."

They walked in the direction of the female residential campus, side-by-side for several minutes before Abbey posed her question. "I hope you don't think me too forward but I have to ask; clerical celibacy?" The question sounded as abrupt as she feared it would. Jed clamped his mouth shut, before it could drop open, in dismay. "You said you planned to become a priest," she reminded him. His head nodded, in confirmation, and she followed-up her previous question. "That must mean no sexual relations of any kind."

Jed pondered how exactly to respond. "Well, yes." He nervously adjusted the coke-bottle spectacles that framed his eyes.

"And you're content not to be married, or have children… you plan to devote your life to God." Jed nodded. That was exactly what he planned, for quite some time. Yet, to hear the words from another set of lips, especially ones so kissable, he wondered why on earth he had. "Hmm…" Even as a Catholic herself, Abbey failed to comprehend the motivation but likened it to her own decision to attain a formal education. Far from most women, Abbey had refused to marry and play out her days as the humble housewife, neither would her parents have demanded as such from her. To have her own career was a staple in the future Abbey outlined for herself.

"I believe I have a perspective unlike any other that I could offer the church." Jed attempted to explain the decision. He disliked how obvious it sounded that her probe had caused him to rethink his entire life plan. No woman had ever affected him quite like it.

"Well, I don't envy you. A lifetime of abstinence…" Abbey contemplated his future and the God-honest boredom that would consume him. "But I suppose you're destined to find fulfilment elsewhere." Before he could respond, Abbey returned his coat and retrieved a set of keys from her own pocket. "This is my dorm." Jed was visibly baffled by the entire conversation. "I hope I see you around." With that, Abbey softly kissed his cheek for the second time and departed his world as quickly as she had entered. He momentarily wondered if her very existence had all been an outlandish daydream he had concocted. If not for his heated cheek, he would have believed so.

Little did he realise, Abbey Barrington was his very own thunderbolt.