I never intended to write a sequel to DNTJ because to me the story felt done and dusted and I couldn't see where else it could go. However, I was toying with the way that fic ended today when this idea occurred to me and I decided to see if I could make it work. Obviously the jury is still out on that so please let me know what you think…

xxx

Exitus felix,interruptis

The Sequel to Definitely Not the Jackal

By Fic Fairy

Abbey and CJ were known for many things. To the public they were known as a First Lady and Press Secretary who crossed the unthinkable line and fell in love. To the LGB community they were legends. To their daughter they were the funny and caring mummies who made her life complete and to their friends they were the comedy twosome who threw the best dinner parties and made Key Lime Pie to die for.

What they weren't known for however, was having screaming rows in public. Sure, their family, their friends, they guessed it went on, because madly in love or not, they were two highly strong willed individuals with equally as strong opinions but never had any arguments or issues in their otherwise perfect relationship reared their head in public.

Until that day.

And yes, given the circumstances, it was understandable. If ever there were going to be cracks to see it would be when they were under pressure, and never had they been under the pressure they were facing at that moment. But all the same, it was such stark contrast to what they were used to, that for Donna, Josh, Charlie and Zoey it came as a real shock.

As CJ disappeared from the room, and Abbey collapsed in a heap, sobbing the kind of heartbroken tears that ripped through the heart of anyone who heard them, Josh, his face ashen, got to his feet. He glanced from the tea, spilt from the pot onto the coffee table, to his wife, looking to her for guidance, "I should get a cloth yeah?"

Donna nodded, picking up the photograph that had been the source of the argument, the one that CJ had spilt the tea onto. "Yeah, and…" she looked to Charlie, handing the photograph over, "could you see if you could rescue that?" The picture was, in truth, past saving, but Donna knew boys. All boys. Working with Josh, and then marrying him had told her everything she needed to know, and one thing she knew for sure was that boys and crying women didn't go well together, and that Charlie would be as desperate for an escape route as her husband was.

Charlie took his get out of jail free card and headed to the kitchen leaving the three women alone, with only Abbey's sobbing for company. Zoey had moved to sit beside her mother, wrapping her arms around her, but no amount of hugs seemed to slow her crying.

Zoey looked over at Donna, her own eyes twinkling with tears, "Why are they arguing? They should be pulling together. They need each other. Why would CJ go off at mom like that?"

The answer to the question had been very clear to Donna over the course of the last 90 minutes. From the moment she and Josh had arrived at the CJ and Abbey's Rock Creek home, she'd seen not only panic and stress on her friend's face as she'd expected, but guilt too. And since they'd had 'the conversation' some time ago, it didn't take Einstein to work out the reason why. It was the same reason why she'd not followed the other woman out of the room; because she knew she'd need time alone to get her head around it. Need time to lick her wounds.

"It's hard on both of them." Donna said gently, knowing that Zoey needed tender loving care almost as much as her mom did. "They're frightened. And CJ probably feels guilty too."

"What does she have to feel guilty about?" Zoey asked, perplexed by the idea, "She wasn't even with Lily when she was taken."

And that, Donna knew, was all part of the problem. The fact that her adopted daughter had been abducted two hours previously and she hadn't been there to stop it was taking its toll on CJ, but by the same token there was more to it. More than she could share.

Luckily, she was saved from having to do so by the timely arrival of one Jed Bartlet, who came haring into the room like a whirlwind, a trail of secret service agents in his wake.

"Abbey…" he'd crossed the room to his ex wife and extracted her from their daughter's arms in seconds, before quickly engulfing her in a hug, "Abbey." He said again, wanting to get her attention, although it was to no avail as she just continued leaning into him, sobbing against his chest. Realising he was getting nowhere he looked to Zoey questioningly,

"Where is she Zoey? Is there no chance she's just run away?"

At his words, the tears that had been threatening to make an appearance for so long finally came, as Zoey fears for her 'little sister' finally completely overtook her and she took broke down, leaving Donna to answer the question,

"Mr President, she's six years old. Her nanny is lying in the morgue with a bullet in her head."

"Damn it!" Jed visibly tensed at her words, "How the hell did this happen? Why did it happen?" and then, he raised the subject Donna had most been dreading, "If only she'd had security." She opened her mouth to respond but was beaten to it by Abbey, whose attention Jed had finally got without even meaning to. She looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks,

"Jed, don't…"

Her words provoked a real reaction in Jed, and it seemed to Donna liked he aged as he stood in front of her, before he shook his head sadly, "Don't what Abigail? Lest we forget the last thing you asked me not to do was get your daughter a protective detail, and look how well that's worked out."

At any other time, she suspected war would have broken out between the former First Couple over less, but in that instance, it didn't. Instead Abbey stared up at her husband, and let him rant as he came up with reason after reason as to why her daughter should have had protection. It was out of fear of course, they all knew that, as unorthodox as it was, Jed loved the little Chinese girl as if she was his own, but still Donna and Zoey looked on in horror as Abbey appeared to let his words hit her head on without providing any kind of defence.

Eventually, his tirade was finally brought to a halt as a voice spoke from the other side of the room and they turned to see CJ standing there, in the doorway she'd disappeared through minutes before, her face pale and her body so rigid she was almost shaking.

"Tell him Abs." she blurted out, "Don't just stand and take that. Tell him." Aware of what was coming, Donna got up from her seat to move to her side but CJ held up her hand, "No Donna. I'm fine. We need to do this." She turned her attention back to her wife, "Tell Jed why you refused to let Lily have a detail. Tell him; tell me, so we can at least have it out in the open. So we can stop pretending you're NOT pissed at me. Please." She paused a second, as if waiting for Abbey to speak but when no words came she finished the job herself, "I'm the reason she doesn't have a detail. I refused to let her have one. So," she turned to Jed, her friend, her one time love rival and former boss, "if you want to yell, yell at me."

xxx

"Well I made an almighty great mess of that one didn't I?" It was some fifteen minutes later, and Jed was sat on the porch with Donna, Josh, Charlie and Zoey, smoking a much needed cigarette. "They're already going through hell and I come in with my hefty size 9's and don't so much put my foot in my mouth as trample all over CJ's feelings with it."

"Actually Sir," Donna said hesitantly, "I think you did what was needed."

At his side, Zoey reached out and touched her father's arm supportively, "Donna's right." She murmured, recalling the way that her mother had gone to CJ's side straight after her admission, held her as she'd began to cry and then led her out of the room and in the direction of their bedroom, "Like CJ said, it needed to be out in the open. It's obviously been an issue since we arrived, I just didn't know what the problem actually was. Donna knew though."

"Did you?" Jed looked over at the blonde woman, who nodded in response to his question,

"Yeah, CJ and I talked about it. She just wanted Lily to be able to be an ordinary little girl."

At her words Jed got to his feet and moved away slightly, looking out over the lawn where he'd spent so many hours watching the bright sparky six year old play, while her two mothers had looked on so proudly. "Lily is anything but ordinary." He said, to no one in particular, "She's charming, and she's smart," he turned to look at Zoey, "and she's better than you at math."

His daughter smiled weakly as her eyes filled with tears again, "dad, that's not really saying much."

Finding a certain comfort in pursing an old debate Jed decided to roll with it, "You know what, you could have been better at math." He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and removed another one from the packet, putting it into his mouth and lighting it, "You just never tried. And you should have, because you could have been an economist by now, instead of a mere theatre critic."

Before Zoey could respond, Charlie cut in, "She's a very fine theatre critic; the finest theatre critic in the whole of DC."

"You have to say that. You're married to her." It was a joke they'd had so often, and yet, it jarred given the situation and finally broke the spell and brought Jed back to reality. He reached out and wrapped his arm around his daughter, "I love you Zoey, and I'm proud of you." He glanced towards the house, "You reckon your mom's ok in there?"

Zoey shrugged, "As OK as they're gonna be I reckon." She sighed, her face etched with concern, "What's going to happen to Lily dad?"

He sat down again, taking a long drag on his cigarette, "They'll find her. The FBI will be on it by now. Abbey's detail too I'd presume. I'd hope." He looked across the table at Josh and Donna, "You still work in the White House, would be able to confirm that?"

Josh nodded, "Yeah, extra agents too. Matt's sanctioned whatever it takes." He smiled weakly, "Largely because Helen twisted his arm behind his back with the force and might that only a mother putting herself in CJ and Abbey's place could summon up."

"See, your sister is going to be absolutely fine." He said to Zoey, wanting to comfort her, in spite of the fact that even with Josh's reassurances he was feeling a long way from positive. Because of that, and wanting to move on quickly, he turned his attention quickly back to his former Deputy Chief of Staff, "It was good of you to come. I'm sure CJ and Abbey will appreciate having their friends around them."

"They'll be glad you're here too." Donna said gently, causing Jed to shake his head, angry at himself all over again,

"I messed up. I made CJ cry."

Donna smiled knowingly, "Like I said before, that was precisely what she needed to do."

xxx

As the others talked outside, Abbey and CJ lay on their bed, clinging to each other through fear and grief. The tears, on both their parts, had started to dry, although they knew they had a hell of a lot more left inside them.

Abbey reached out, gently stroking CJ's cheek, "It's not your fault Claud."

CJ shook her head, a lump fast rising in her throat, "You wanted her to have protection."

"I did." Abbey replied, honestly, truthfully, because there was little point in denying it, they both knew it was true, "But, you didn't want her to go to school today. You said she was sick. You'd have kept her home." She thought back to that morning, their daughter's pouty little face as she begged to be allowed to stay home, and the way CJ had been prepared to let her until Abbey had put her foot down and said that with no obvious symptoms and a normal temperature she was clearly just trying it on. Not that her words were of any comfort to her wife who didn't see it as an accurate or justified comparison.

"It's not the same thing." She said, her guilt written all over her face, "And you know it. That's why you got so pissed at me before; with the tea."

"No." Abbey pulled CJ closer, and reached for her hand, entwining their fingers, "The tea landed on Lily's picture and it just felt symbolic. Honey, I'm sorry I overreacted, I'm sorry I made you think I was angry. I don't blame you."

CJ pulled away from her then, sitting up and hunching over wrapping her arms around herself as she started to cry again, "It doesn't matter Abbey. I blame me. If she'd had agents around her they'd have acted the minute the gunshot rang out. Maybe even before. You know how good they are, they see things we don't." She buried her head in her hands, "Alice could still be alive. And Lily," she let out a sob that cut through Abbey like a knife, "Lily would be here. With you."

She said nothing else, she knew there was no point; nothing she said or did at that juncture was going to make it better for CJ or prove that her guilt was unjustified. Instead she just pulled her back into her arms, rubbing her shoulders and back, trying to soothe her.

When her tears reached their end for the second time, CJ looked up at her, "What we were saying before, about the argument, over the tea. I'm sorry I shouted right back at you. I'm sorry I said what I did."

Abbey thought back to the way CJ had rounded on her, let rip with a tirade about her 'always having to be the perfect parent', about her 'always having to be the one in the right'. It didn't take much of a leap to understand what she'd been thinking about when she'd said it, nor why she'd lashed out in the way that she had. She leant over and gently brushed her lips against hers, "It's ok sweetheart, I understand. But Zoey was right, we have to pull together on this."

There was a moment of silence as CJ kissed her back, a long lingering kiss, the type that they did so well and that usually made her so happy although at that second, with her daughter gone she doubted she could ever be happy again, and when they finally broke apart, she answered.

"We're pulling together now aren't we?" She said pointedly, "Because of Jed." Even though there were still tears in her eyes she managed a faint smile, "I don't know how your ex husband does it Abs but he seems to be able to resolve a situation even when he's being a complete jackass."

xxx