Cadence couldn't hide her surprise as she entered the Vice President's office and found her father and the President there. As she shut the door behind her she had that feeling again of voluntarily sealing herself up in an awkward situation.

She glanced to all three men, unsure who to address. John looked apologetic, as if he knew he had lured her into a trap, her father appeared anxious, his brow was draw up and lines of worry drew grooves in his face, and the President was stern eyed as he stared at her unblinking. It made Cadence feel like the disobedient schoolgirl called to the principal's office for punishment but as usual she wasn't sure which disobedience of hers had been discovered this time.

"Good afternoon Mr President, Mr Vice President, Mr McGarry," she greeted calmly.

Leo frowned as she gave him his title despite him telling her not to use it. Leo imagined Cadence probably thought she was making it easier for him, as if by calling him Mr McGarry she could make him forget his ties to her and not see her as his daughter for a moment. He knew as he studied her forcibly calm face that he was going to have to let her know later how wrong she was about that.

Jed waved her in and away from the door. He glanced up to the bronze clock John detested and knew he wasn't going to have much time with Cadence before Director Wolfe got fed up and left to learn of the news that was breaking now.

"Cadence I'm sorry that I am going to be blunt but we have a time limit here," Jed explained solemnly as he studied her. She still looked a little pale and there was a redness to her eyes and she had evidently dressed for comfort over style for a very rare change. Jed wondered if she was still feeling a little fluish or if it was more than that considering the news of Robbie. He had pried a little about her with Leo but had been a little too preoccupied with the CIA, Colombia and the threats to his own daughter Zoey, and he couldn't even recall what Leo might have said about Cadence.

Cadence nodded numbly as she continued to wonder what the President was going to discuss with her. Her hands raised to her hips, pushing up her cream jumper slightly before dropping by her sides again. She could feel her stomach tighten a little as dread manifested in it.

"Cadence, this afternoon we met with the Director of the CIA, one Sebastian Wolfe, I don't know if you are familiar with that name or not."

Jed continued talking briskly not given Cadence a chance to respond. "We met about renegade agents in Colombia and you came into the conversation. As you can imagine, we were all a little surprised," he added sardonically as he stared at her sternly. "This is what we know, at some point during the past two years exempting the few months you have been with ourselves, you were in Colombia and while there you were in a plane crash. I want you to tell us about that because Director Wolfe has told us something about that.

We know the CIA have been in Colombia giving weapons to the cartel," he added, "and now I have four more CIA agents telling me they were there recently trying to infiltrate terrorists planning attacks in America, convenient for them to be doing something so heroic while Colombia keeps asking us about our own people arming their criminals!" Jed's voice rose an octave as he let his anger slip through.

Seeing Cadence tense slightly Jed tried to mollify his temper but he couldn't. He was the President of the United States and he didn't have a damn clue what was going on.

Jed pointed at Cadence accusingly. "Cadence I want the truth now damn it, you've kept things from us and now we have a very public mess on our hands. Damn it we might even have a war coming. You had dealings with the CIA and Colombian soldiers didn't you? And yet you didn't think," he added sardonically, "that it would be a good idea to tell someone that before you came to work for the Vice President and on my recommendation God damn it!"

Jed thrust his hand down and glowered at her as he awaited a response. He sensed Leo beside him, tense and barely holding himself to silence.

"Dealings," Cadence echoed numbly. She stepped back against the wall and shook her head before looking at Jed in confusion. "Were are you getting this information from sir?" Her voice was quiet with a forced calm. "I have no idea who Director Wolfe is."

Jed's blue eyes filled with a fury and he glanced to Leo disbelievingly. "Is that the important thing?" he snapped.

"The CIA Cadence, may be behind the leak to the press about Robbie and your suicide," Leo retorted quietly. "At least, Director Wolfe seems to be implying it, and now he is talking about leaking a story about you in Colombia to them, which they will pay attention to because you're on the radar already."

Leo didn't know what to feel right now- disappointment, sympathy, empathy, anger? His mind was a muddle of emotions.

Cadence almost looked amused at this as she shook her head. "You think the CIA leaked a story about me trying to kill myself over Robbie getting murdered?" she queried cynically. "No."

"Cadence I know how it sounds," Leo murmured, "but it is what's been implied."

"It's not our concern," Jed grumbled, "the business in Colombia with you is the issue here."

Cadence stepped away from the wall and paused to sweep her hands through her hair, pushing it back over her shoulders.

"I know who that leak was," she confessed, still calm although her bloodshot stare betrayed that she was on edge.

"Who?" John quipped with a glance of intrigue. He wanted to hear it if only so he could be vindicated before Leo.

"Not the CIA," Cadence murmured. She glanced to her father. "Although they may indeed be trying to take advantage it, perhaps seeing me in the press reminded them of my existence," she said bitterly. She started to pluck at the fluff on her right sleeve as she glanced about the room awkwardly.

"Alright," Leo retorted bluntly. He was getting annoyed with her evasiveness, it wasn't helping anyone and it was eating into time they didn't have. "So maybe Director Wolfe just wants us to think he knows more about you than he does but this business in Colombia is real," he said sternly, "and it is going to come out in the press. Look at me Cadence," he ordered sharply.

Cadence glanced up from her arm and the fluff she was plucking at. Her blue-grey gaze was tired and glazed at the edges.

"Director Wolfe tried to blackmail the President today," Leo said bluntly. "He wants the President to downplay this business with the CIA and the cartel and promote a story of four agents risking their lives and even suffering torture at the hands of Colombian soldiers whilst trying to infiltrate Colombian terrorists who plan to target people up here in retaliation for our government helping theirs. His terms were a story about you and how it could be interpreted. He had someone else with him to corroborate, an Agent Sparks." He watched her as he said the name, hoping for a reaction.

Cadence went to sit but she missed the seat beside her and landed hard on the floor. As if unaware of her actions she began to speak in an emotionless tone as she stared ahead at the President's legs and shoes.

John watched her fall rather than sit with surprise. He almost moved to help her before reminding himself swiftly that it was a gesture her father and the President might read a little too much into.

"Benny," she murmured. She shook her head again. "I was in Colombia," she murmured, "trying to help people. I was being selfish by being selfless," she added bitingly, "helping the less fortunate but only so I could distract myself."

"The less fortunate," the President growled, "now was that people who believed their government had left them that way and that they needed to do something about it?"

Cadence glanced up at the President in puzzlement. "No," she protested. "They were remote from all that, they lived in a small village in the jungle, they didn't care about politics and by God that was nice sir," she added pointedly.

"Cady what in the hell went on down there?" Leo queried, his voice quiet as a worried tenderness crept into his grey gaze. She was being evasive but he realised they were too.

None of them wanted to tell her exactly what accusations Director Wolfe had made because then it might give her a chance to lie, they would more likely get the truth from her if she didn't know what he had said.

"And why didn't you tell us?" Jed demanded in an accusing tone. "There's going to be a lot of damage from this," he warned her, "damage you could have avoided if you had only mentioned this before."

Cadence pushed herself to her feet again, determined to look stronger than she felt. She made it upright but her stance was guarded as she hugged her arms about her torso.

"Before I got a job here?" Cadence quipped savagely. "I just wanted a moment were I could be doing something right!" she snapped. "Something that maybe mom would finally be proud of me for and you dad," she added as she glanced to Leo. "I didn't mention Colombia because I couldn't and I knew I wouldn't be believed and I was right, you've made your assumptions and now you're making your accusations."

"Cadence I am the President of the United States," Jed addressed her warningly, "you don't talk to me like this. Do you realise this could mean a war for us? That your silence for reasons you still haven't divulged could have one hell of a price to pay! You knew about the CIA activities in Colombia months before anyone in the White House and you didn't think it was something to tell anyone, why?"

"All due respect sir," John finally intruded into the heated conversation as he moved to stand beside Jed, "but you cannot talk to her like this. It's an interrogation, this isn't how we should be doing this."

Jed turned a furious glare onto his Vice and for a moment felt a burning anger for him he hadn't felt in months. He couldn't understand John's brazen interruption, could the VP not understand the gravity of the situation? Had he forgotten that Director Wolfe was waiting for their return and that C.J was running the story out to the press now of the treachery of a few minor CIA agents, and that Leo had Toby and Sam and Josh at the panic stations making apologies for Colombia and statements for the American people whilst trying to work how to neither blow this out of proportion or be seen as sweeping it under the carpet? No one had the time for Cadence to delay over telling her story, a story that should have come long before she had taken on her post.

"I was just on a break," Cadence snapped. "I was in a tiny village that isn't even on the damn map." She shook her head anxiously. "I'd travelled around the States but then you got your Presidency and sir I just wanted some peace from all the things here," she admitted as she glanced at Jed tiredly. "I ran away, I admit it," she said as her gaze shifted back down to her arms, "and I sought somewhere quiet, out of the way because I didn't want anything to do with politics or even America anymore. I was trying to move on."

Cadence's head tipped up again and her eyes suddenly met John's and budded with tears. She looked away quickly and sank her nails into her sleeves.

"I even met someone," she added wistfully. "I really thought I could just stay with him, out of the way, out of scandal, out of the spotlight. He called himself Ben Finch, a freelance photographer from New Mexico. He was quirky, always looked at the world a bit differently but I liked that," she said with a faint smile as she pushed back a stray strand of hair from her face. "He took me through the jungle to see ruins I didn't even know where there. He could always find these nice spots to look at. We did some work together for the village, we trying to make just a little easier for them. They had so little," she murmured with a sorrowful stare, "but they didn't mind, they appreciated our help but they never asked for it."

Cadence looked to Jed but she couldn't meet his gaze anymore, knowing the disappointment and rage he would have in it for her. "I wasn't there for them, I was just trying to hide and I think they knew it but they didn't mind, I was just another tourist trying to undo bad deeds with good ones, so utterly selfish."

Cadence sighed and swallowed hard. "That's all it was, I swear, all I was meant to be there for. All I wanted. Anyway, there was all this talk of the cartel coming to make heroin in the jungle or hide money or both, I don't know. Ben got nervous, said we should go to the towns where it was safer but I didn't want to. It was stupid, he kept asking me to go with him but I kept thinking I hadn't gone there for...that. I'd left that behind."

John tensed slightly at his words. The entire she had talked he had kept his focus on her, worried for her and so curious to hear the truth of where she had been. He knew what 'that' had to mean and he didn't even know how to feel about it. Guilt he supposed and perhaps a little anger but why? Because she had left? Because she made it sound so final, like she didn't want 'that' back.

"A week later the Colombian soldiers came," Cadence continue, her voice stiff now, wooden as she she tried to keep the emotion from it even as her face bore her sorrow and guilt, "and forced some of us onto this small plane to get us out of the area, for our own good they said."

"The soldiers put you on the plane?" Leo queried carefully.

Cadence glanced at him with surprise. She had forgotten her father was there listening to her story. "Yeah, it was raining and the thing was rickety and there were so many trees, I didn't want to go but I had no choice." She swallowed hard again before correcting herself. "They gave me no choice. That I swear, they had guns, they were aggressive and I suddenly realised how stupid I was staying without Ben, the lone, American woman in the middle of a jungle but me too foolish to even tell anyone I was there."

Cadence's bitter smile was back and both her hands were gripping her arms tightly now.

"It took off in a clear spot of land, everything was quick," she murmured.

Cadence paused and appeared confused before her expression became one of revulsion and her skin greyed at the edges. "It was all fast, I can't even see the soldiers' faces, the rain was warm and there was the smell of damp everywhere. The plane was shaking but it got up, cleared the trees and then the wing was clipped and it was down again, it hit the ground with a thump, I lost my breath and my chest hurt, it skidded the wheels I think but it...it was in one piece."

"What do you mean the wing was clipped?" Leo queried.

"It was a deliberate shot," Cadence explained, "I learned that after, makes sense though, if they wanted it damaged it would've been, they ensured it was coming back down but with every chance for a smooth landing. I keep thinking about the why, I mean they were just innocent villagers. God I've been trying to forget it." She tensed up and shuddered without warning.

John moved at last, thoroughly fed up now with Jed's manner of conducting things. He headed towards Cadence but stopped without doing anything, leaving him standing awkwardly before her putting her in his shadow.

"There was something on the plane, something they wanted, you know I tried to block it all out but then I tried to bring it back but the memory's not there," Cadence murmured, "whatever it was I can't see it. I wasn't supposed to see and maybe they knew I didn't know."

"They?" Jed snapped. He sidestepped John so he could see Cadence again but he didn't move any closer, leaving John half a foot in front of him. "Who are they?"

"The CIA," she said numbly. "They shot the plane, they clipped it. They brought us out, separated us, interrogated us, told the soldiers the villages were part of the terrorist group, rebels against the government. I think..." She hesitated with a frown and a puzzled look. "I keep thinking anyway that it was easier because of me, the American, the soldiers let the CIA do things because I was there and the thought maybe it was a bigger organisation."

Cadence paled and stumbled back until her back hit the wall.

"They executed them." Her voice was clear and emotionless. She shut her eyes as she heard the gunfire in her mind and jolted three times.

"I don't believe this," Jed muttered under his breath. He filled with frustration and shook his head. "I don't, it's a web and everyone has a different pattern to show me. Leo, the Colombians are going to want answers and I do too."

Jed glanced at Leo in anger but Leo only had eyes for his daughter.

Cadence gave a weak smile. "Ben showed up except he wasn't a photographer, he was Agent Sparks, which I guess you know except I'm not sure what you've been told about any of this," she reminded them. "I guess I can't be too mad at him, I'd told him my name was O'Brien. He saw me and started arguing with the other agents about what should happen to me because I was American. There were two holding me, they asked me about what I knew, what I thought was going on."

Cadence's smile turned bitter. "I was foolish, the whole damn trip I made mistake after mistake, the first trusting Ben was a photographer. I said they'd shot the plane, I should've lied. I said the villagers were innocent but I should've lied about that too. They were going to kill me and I told another truth I shouldn't have. I said who I was, I screamed it at them, shouted that I was a McGarry, daughter of Leo, recently appointed Chief of Staff."

Cadence started to laugh as tears slipped down her cheeks. "There was a redhead and he said he knew me because of that thesis, that he remembered seeing me on the television over a year ago and that I was her, the woman who hated democracy. That thesis saved my life."

John glanced over his shoulder to Jed imploringly, wanting this to end. He knew the trouble they were in for with this but he couldn't muster any blame for Cadence over it. He was more than a little annoyed she hadn't told him about it before now but he understood why. She had been threatened, frightened into silence and thinking no one would believe it anyway. He got that, it did sound surreal.

Jed ignored John, they were too close to the heart of things for him to bid Cadence to silence.

"I don't remember much after that," Cadence continued tiredly, "they took me somewhere. I was kept alone in a hut, the smell of damp never went away and I heard shouting and gunfire all the time. I don't even know how long it took. They said I had to sign things, disclosures, they kept insisting the villagers were terrorists and after a while I stopped caring. I was sore, I'd hurt my arm when the plane went down and no one had helped me, I hadn't slept or eaten in days and the villagers were dead and Ben Finch had never been real, I just wanted it all to stop."

Leo's brow furrowed and he clenched his fists to suppress a tremble. He knew what had happened even if Cadence didn't seem to, it was warfare tactics. They had exhausted her, starved her and isolated her, all to wear her down into submission and compliance.

Leo knew why she had gotten to live as well, someone in the CIA had undoubtedly jumped for joy upon learning who Cadence was and had planned for the long term, for this moment they were dealing with right now when they could exploit the daughter of the Chief of Staff to manipulate a Presidential pardon for their misdeeds and murders in Colombia. They had just been waiting for the right time and the press had given it to them thanks to some still unknown leak.

"They were adamant I told no one, insisted I would be seen as a helper of terrorists whether I had meant to or not. Ben came, they sent him with the forms and a smile." She shook her head. "It didn't quite work, I can smell the blood still, he had it about his nostrils and on his lip and his eyes were so strange. He kept saying we and us, that I was signing for our freedom, he looked like hell but I did too."

Cadence looked up to Jed and finally met his gaze with her exhausted one. "I betrayed the villagers, I did nothing while they were shot except listen. I betrayed everyone here too with my silence as you say but I had pushed it away, I tried to say it happened to Cadence O'Brien not to me. I was scared," she confessed quietly, "and I had signed things. They said if I kept silent it would all go away, that I been somewhere I shouldn't have been but it was okay if I was quiet. If I spoke I would be outed as a terrorist or as the helper of one, I would go to jail and my father's career would be over and maybe worse things because maybe I wasn't to be trusted they said. It was the plane, I know it was, there was something on it that the CIA wanted but I don't know why people had to die for it."

Cadence bowed her head wearily and fell silent.

"Sir, this has to be enough," John said firmly. Although his tone was stern his stare for Jed was begging. It was killing him to keep formal when the anger in him was growing but he was trying to stay on the President's good side so that he might give in and spare Cadence anymore grief.

Jed's cerulean stare was fierce in answer but only because he knew John was right to be cross with him. He had pushed Cadence for answers and lost his temper with her because he couldn't see how she could have any innocence in this. Hell he had to admit it for what it was, he had allowed Director Wolfe to manipulate him.

"It's enough to talk to those agents again," Jed grumbled.

Jed knew there was no time to be personal so he turned to face Leo and started giving orders.

"Leo, start talking to other people, Sam, Toby, some lawyers who can deal with this and someone who can police these damn CIA agents and their director. We need them separated, we need answers and we need to make sure they can't disappear and avoid answering for this," he added firmly as he stabbed downwards through the air with one finger. "It sounds like Colombia isn't entirely faultless mind and that's what we must lead with, they have bad people and unfortunately so do we and they have been working together but now we have exposed them and we will stop them. Although it pains me that our own have betrayed us this isn't something we shall shirk from or hide, we're admitting our guilt and we're going to make amends for it."

"I'll go to Colombia," John remarked sombrely. He was addressing Jed but his gaze was still fixed on Cadence. "And I'll say what you need me to."

John glanced to Jed and then over to Leo. "You need to return to Director Wolfe," he reminded them.

Jed's blue eyes were upon Cadence again but he didn't know what to say or even how to feel about her story. At the moment he was still outraged that she couldn't have brought herself to mention it before now. How could she not have believed that he and her father would have been able to protect her had she only come to them first? He was the President after all.

"I have no evidence for any of this," Cadence remarked, seeming to guess at the unvoiced question. "Only my word and what is that worth these days?" she queried bitingly.

"More than you think," Jed said seriously. He glanced to Leo. "Leo we need to go, now."

Leo was silent, caught up in shock at his daughter's revelation. He was still trying to digest it and make sense of it. He was stuck on the motives just like Cadence and certain now that Agent Sparks and the other three had simply been a cover, a guise for other goings on, the trade of weapons with cartel was the real action of the CIA. He wondered how much Sparks and the others had known about their duties and knew he had many more questions for this half-mad agent who had seemingly both deceived and saved his daughter.

"Leo," John addressed him quietly, "you need to get a handle on this. I'll see she's looked after."

Leo turned a bewildered expression to the Vice President. "Hmm?" He blinked and his grey gaze darted from John to Cadence and then back to John. "Right John, I'll...I'll call."

Leo headed from the room first, desperate to escape, knowing he had to be professional again and couldn't afford even a moment to console his distraught daughter because if he attempted that then he might not be able to leave her and the President needed him now. The country was going to be in a turmoil soon and they were about to have the potential of a war.

Jed followed wordlessly without an invite to his Vice.

"You need to sit," John addressed Cadence quietly.

She stared at him at him blankly, her gaze still glazed at the edges.

John gestured gently with his hand to a row of leather backed seats near her and against the wall.

Cadence followed his gesture and blinked before moving to a chair but she missed again, opting to slump to the floor by choice this time.

John looked down at her pityingly as she drew her knees up against herself and sat, still and silent. He put himself beside her and moved down to the floor to sit with her. He couldn't keep from her any longer, the watchful eyes of her father and the President were gone, now he needed to embrace her because by God she needed consoled.

Cadence stiffened when she felt the Vice President's hand reaching for her. At first she dared to wonder at his motives as a hand crept around her back and to her shoulder but then it stopped at her shoulder and tugged her gently to his torso.

Cadence went willingly to lean against his coal grey jacket although it was a little rough against her skin. She was quiet against him, unsure what to do anymore.

John kissed her gently on the head. "We're going to stay like this for a while," he murmured softly.

"You should've let me quit," she murmured with a forced hint of dark mockery.

John shook his head as his other hand reached out to push through her hair. "Cady no matter how many donkeys you tell me you've made out of things I'm not letting you go again."

She let out a hiss of laughter. "Jesus John," she scorned him, "what the hell does that mean?"

He shrugged. "It was your word choice, remember?"

"I'm going to be accused of terrorism by the CIA, that's what's going to happen, isn't it? Because the President won't stand by them and their lies."

"Yes," John admitted.

Cadence let out an aggrieved sigh as she slackened her legs and let them straighten on the floor. "I think it was better when I was just bashing the Electoral College."

"Cady you weren't to blame for those villagers' deaths, you couldn't have stopped that," John assured her.

"John, I did nothing."

"You would have died too if you hadn't."

"I should have exposed them," she mumbled. "God I shouldn't have taken this job but I wanted to settle, I wanted something steady and dad was pleased and mom was too and I...I missed you."

John smiled. "I wondered if you had."

"You know I did but it was all selfishness again," she murmured. She felt the salty sting of tears again and tried to blink them away. "I should have turned it down."

"I'm glad you didn't," John assured her.

John turned her into him and hugged her close, embracing her to him with both hands.

Cadence welcomed it even though she knew it was wrong but she felt a pained loneliness inside and this helped it just a little. She breathed in John's aftershave and snuggled into his warmth, wanting that bubble of pretence again, even just for a few minutes was better than nothing.

"We'll get through this," John said confidently, "and that is we Cady, you are a part of my team and no matter what you are staying a part of it, anti-democratic thesis, mental health issues, CIA trouble, donkeys, sheep, raccoons, Cady I don't care, I will not let you go again and by God if they try to ruin you with this then I will do everything I can to see them burn for it."

"I think I need a drink," she mumbled.

John laughed. "You can have water."

"I think I've earned something stronger," she complained.

"You can have orange juice then," he teased.

Cadence felt herself smile even as the tears continued to run.