AN: I miss the McCord kids! So I suppose this is something of an episode tag to 5x03/04, though it's just roughly set in Season 5. In true MSec style, it's all wrapped up neatly at the end. :) I used to watch this show with my mom all the time and was so surprised and pleased to find out it was still on, so I'm new/ish to the fandom, I guess? Anyway, hi all- and I hope you guys enjoy!

Jason flipped his phone around in his hand, watching light glitter off the case as he glanced up every few moments through the window of the Georgetown coffee shop where he was supposed to meet his sister.

At exactly three o'clock from his table, his detail sat, confused at the appeal of Pumpkin Spice Lattes as both of the men took small sips, and coughed and sputtered at the sheer amount of sugar now floating in their mouths. He liked Jackson and Matt, who has been assigned to him now for several years. They seemed to enjoy their jobs and liked to test the boundaries as much as Jason did, often leaving him more alone than he was sure the rules technically allowed.

Allison blew in with the chill fall breeze, her heels clicking on the tile with the same precise and decided authority as their mother's sounded when she would descend the stairs at home on her way in to work. Several paces behind her was Arlene, Allison's Secret Service agent, whose eyes swept over the shop before she too joined the line to order herself a drink.

She made her towards the table by the window where Jason sat, and set her bags down on the extra chair.

"We need to talk.", she told him without any warning, forcing him out of the daydreaming haze that often accompanied sitting in quaint coffeeshops with a warm hot chocolate on the table.

Up close, Allison looked tired, her hair windblown and her heavy coat and scarf making her look much smaller underneath the layers than Jason knew her to be. His breath hitched up in his throat suddenly, thinking of the worst. He'd been to enough college parties and watched enough Law and Order reruns at home to know what could happen, but he'd never considered it would be his sister. He didn't even think there were any guys who would be interested in that at fashion school of all places.

"Ali-"

"It's about Stevie."

The breath woodshed from him like a great wave of relief. Stevie was stalwart, like their mother, and unflappable, like their father. She took every setback in stride and had even survived the White House bombing like it was nothing more than having the wind knocked out of her. Stevie even wanted to take him to get matching tattoos over the thin scar on her back for his 18th birthday, giggling as she told him she still wanted to "look bomb on the beach."

Jason wouldn't admit it, even probably under oath, but he looked up to his oldest sister an embarrassing amount.

He turned back to Allison, grinning suddenly. Her tiredness could easily be explained by midterms and the long drive, and perhaps she'd lost some weight in the weeks since she had visited home. Girls did that, and it was weird, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world at all. She probably wanted to meet him so they could coordinate for Stevie's birthday, but he wished she hadn't made him come all the way out to town. He'd just gotten Red Dead II and their Dad was out all day meaning he could kill zombies and pillage villages at his heart's content.

"Please, please tell me I can book Soulja Boy for her birthday.", Jason joked, watching as Allison's face hardened into a glare that seemed lifted from their mother's face.

"Okay, so that's a no on Soulja Boy."

"Jason, I'm serious."

She leaned in closer and lowered her voice.

"Something's wrong with her. Something is wrong with Stevie."

Jason shook his head, furtively glancing back at the table where Arlene has joined Matt and Jackson.

"No way. She was off pain meds before she left the hospital and I know that Dad totally checked her room, too."

"Are you really that dense? It's not- Jason- it's not that."

He shut his eyes and forced himself to think.

"Is it about her...the scar, you know? Girls care about that stuff...but she even told me we were gonna get tattoos together. I mean, maybe you just caught her on a bad day. She's really busy with Russell Jackson, too. The whole White House is pretty much losing the plot." Jason offered.

"Do you know she collapsed at Phoenix Jim's?"

"The boba stand?"

"Yes, the boba stand! She was out getting boba for her office and she just passed out."

"Today? When-"

Jason unlocked his phone and urgently pulled up the group chat with their parents.

"What hospital- Where is she?"

His fingers were flying as Alison reached out her hand to stop him.

"Last week. It happened last week."

"How did we not know this?"

"I don't know. Arlene asked me how she was after the hospital and I didn't know. Jason, how did we not know?"

"I-"

He paused to consider her question. Allison was away at college, and after the bombing, everyone at the White House was working on overdrive. Jason had barely even seen their father, and he was just White House adjacent. He'd heard the little whispers, rumors that their mother was going to run for President, and knew that meant yet another upheaval for them at home.

But, in the space of a few months, Jason would be gone.

He would be off, to where he wasn't yet sure, but his mind crowded with possibilities, with excuses he would ply to avoid joining his parents on the campaign trail, Christmases he would magically be unavailable for, perhaps until he had his own family. He wanted his children to know their grandparents, but he knew (more than he wanted to admit) that all that would come after he'd gotten away from them, the tension and pressure and ever-shrinking pinpricks of when they would all be okay together.

He hadn't even thought about how Stevie and Allison would figure into his next few years.

"Did Mom and Dad know?", he asked, finally. "She was on the couch when I came home but- she was sleeping. I thought she was just sleeping."

"I think they did. Someone had to drive her home from the hospital."

"So Mom had to have talked to her. Mom's good with...that stuff.", he said, awkwardly.

"Mom's busy...she hasn't even been answering my texts."

"Yeah, but passing out at Phoenix Jim's is a pretty big deal...I mean, maybe Dad drove her. Dad's even better with you know, feelings and- all of that."

"Jason!", Allison snapped. "She's our sister, and we aren't little kids anymore. We can't make Mom and Dad pick up the slack when we should be helping!"

"We- you mean me. Since you're too busy to come home most of the time, too."

His voice raised, and Jason's eyes flashed with an anger that could only come from some tender, still painful, part of him being pressed against.

"Like you aren't? Please. You can't wait to be rid of us. I sure hope you don't ever need someone to pull you out of a hole you dig yourself.", Allison seethed.

"Yeah, well, we're McCords. If it's not nuclear war, it's not our problem. I'm not very high up on the list anyway."

Allison opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again.

"Jason-"

"No, I get it. Stevie has a problem and I'm not Dad, and I can't talk to...I can't be him, but I can, I don't know. I can put candy in her lunch and hide the knives. It's only a few more months, right?", he muttered.

Allison squeezed her eyes shut. "Jason, I didn't mean it like that."

"Why not? It's the truth. Maybe our sister is losing it, and we can't even help her because we just can't be enough."

They stayed silent for several beats, the din of the coffee shop suddenly seeming far too loud and invasive.

"Jason-"

"Ali- I don't want an apology, okay? It's just life, and sometimes life just sucks."

"I didn't mean it. I would never just leave you."

"But if you did, it wouldn't be you fault.", he told her, sighing as he took a sip from his already-cold hot chocolate.

"I wouldn't. Just like we can't let Stevie think that we won't be- that we aren't here for her. Even if Mom and Dad are busy with...nuclear war.", Allison said, quieter that Jason could remember her being in his entire seventeen years.

The realization sunk into both of them, deep into their bones through layers of coats and sweaters. It was cold and electric, and bit into their insides. For the first time in their memorable lives, they were alone, not quite adrift, but certainly losing sight of the shore. The anchor that their family had always been had been pulled from the ocean floor. They were setting sail, in painfully obvious different directions.

Jason wished he had inherited more than just his father's hair and long, gangly limbs. He would know what to do. His voice wouldn't have shaken and he wouldn't have lashed out. He knew how to handle emotions, and Jason kept them bottled up in the pit of his stomach, like his mother, spilling over only when it was most inopportune.

"Yeah...she should be at the top of our lists at least. She's like our nuclear war."

"If Stevie stopped doing your laundry, I'm pretty sure we'd also have to call in the quarantine squad.", Alison chuckled.

Jason willed himself to smile back up at his sister.

"Yeah. But...I really don't know what to do or how to...I mean, do we go to Dad?"

"Maybe not yet. Jase, it doesn't have to be something big. Think about how Mom deals with stuff. We have to start smaller."

Jason willed himself to imagine their living room, and drift upstairs in his mind's eye to the bathroom. It smelled of vanilla and strawberries, but it was missing something. The sharper scent of cocoa and cinnamon- Stevie's bath bombs.

That's it.

"Small stuff...right. Think we can get Matt, Jackson and Arlene to let us swing by Lush?", he wondered aloud.

"Arlene's allergic to half the stuff in there- and it's definitely going to be a national incident if she vomits over the soap.", Alison told him.

"C'mon.", she said, grabbing her brother's arm from across the table. "They just got their danishes. We've got twenty minutes. Think we can make it back?"

"Yeah, but I can't promise Mom won't actually kill us when she finds out we dropped our details again."

"Mom's not on our list.", Allison reminded him, as the two of them made their way towards the door and back out into the world.

AN: I really wish they would have family conversations again, okay. Especially now that the kids are older and can talk to each other! I might do a second chapter where the three siblings get together and try to deal with the aftermath of the bombing and Elizabeth's more and more obvious run for president on their family, but that depends on demand. Thanks for reading!