*

The mess is quiet this early of the morning, behind the scenes food is being prepared for the day but in the meantime the tables are empty and silent. The three sit triangularly around the table, warm cups of coffee from the pots upstairs in their hands, waiting for Simon to begin.

"Premature termination of a pregnancy before the fetus can survive outside of the uterus, that's what they call it." Simon says almost ironically. "It's like JAR, just another rifle, it goes no way to explaining the damage and the grief it has a power to cause."

"It was terrible." He begins moving his hands around the cup, "I found her in the shower when I got home, she was just crying and crying, gasping and choking on her own sobs. I knew she wasn't crying about the physical pain, I knew it was because she knew it was happening again. She was leaning against the wall and there was all this blood..."

He pauses and Margaret thinks he might break down, slowly she inches a comforting hand over his encouraging him to continue.

"There was so much blood, I've seen people shot before, I've fired my gun but I've never seen so much blood come from someone who's still alive and standing up. I didn't know what to do except get her out of there when she'd stopped bleeding and get her to a hospital."

"What did they say?" Margaret asks squeezing the hand gently resting on his.

"It was worse than last time, last time they told us she'd had a complete miscarriage its the same sort of symptoms, this time the nurse told us it was an incomplete miscarriage. They had to do a dilation and curettage with a curette where they scraped the remaining..."

He stops again and pulls his hand from Margaret's pressing them to his eyes.

"Contents they called it, the placenta, to prevent infection. The whole time before the general anesthetic she just cried and cried, she didn't know what they were about to do to her, she didn't care, all that she was thinking about and I could see it in her eyes was 'I've let him down again, I've failed again'."

"Did you...?" Margaret broaches.

"I told her it was ok, it wasn't her fault, I still loved her no matter what." Simon tells them as he stares into his coffee.

"She knows," Margaret whispers squeezing his hand. "Are there some tests they can run?"

"Nothing, they won't do anything except smile sympathetically." Simon shakes his head. "They can only tell us it might have been an abnormal or defective fetus."

"How far along was she?" Leo asks.

"Eight weeks." Simon says barely. "We thought this time we were all right, we were about to come and tell you."

"Surely there's something." Margaret insists and she's met with a somber shake of Simon's head.

"Miscarriage isn't medically significant till you've suffered three or more, then they call it 'recurrent miscarriage.."

"Are you going to try again?" Margaret asks gently.

"I don't know if CJ can cope." Simon tells her his eyes wide and honest. "I don't think she could cope with loosing another child and on top of that having to go through medical histories, the tests for sexually transmitted diseases, the blood tests for hormonal imbalances and malfunctions in the immune system, the tests for chromosomal abnormalities and genetic diseases, the X-rays for blockage, scar tissue or fibroid of her reproductive organs."

"You can't give up." Margaret says encouragingly.

"We did everything right this time, we made doubly sure." Simon shakes his head as he counts off his fingers. "No smoking, eating well, no alcohol or recreational drugs, no medications what so ever, she wasn't sick or had had a recent serious infection or disease and she cut back here a work ever more for her stress levels."

"Where is CJ now?" Leo asks hesitantly.

"They wanted to keep her at GW overnight for observation, when I left her this morning she was finally asleep. When she wasn't crying last night she was so quiet but I could see her mind turning over behind her eyes, I knew she'd be torturing herself with blame and it took me all night just to get her to wrap her arms around me and cry on my shoulder and all I knew I could say was I loved her no matter what and this wasn't her fault, when she finally got some sleep the nurse came and gave me a prescription for these antibiotics to get for her to stop any infection."

"You should talk to someone...a professional." Margaret advises.

"They gave us a name of a grief councilor." Simon's hands shake as he reaches for a card in his pocket.

"It's ok." Margaret assures him when he becomes too visibly upset to even get it out of his pocket.

"You should go back and be with CJ, tell her not to worry about rushing back, take the time she needs." Leo says evenly.

Simon nods thankfully. "We'll be at home after this afternoon."

"Give CJ our love." Margaret wishes as he weaves through the tables back out of the mess.

They watch the man who carries a gun for almost all hours of the day, who survived Rosslyn and has been a part of the Presidents detail wander back up the stairs, his footsteps heavy with grief and disappointment. There's vulnerability and a feeling of helplessness in each step that you would never usually see in a Secret Service Agent.

*