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"Oh my God." James breathed out, the same thought Claire had when they walked inside Francis's hospital room. "Mom, he doesn't look like himself."

She was right. Francis laid unconscious with wires and monitors attached to his arms and disappearing under his hospital gown. Instead of a breathing tube, they had inserted the nostril oxygen tubes. An IV hung behind him and the monitor tracking his vitals. Despite the telltale signs of trauma, Claire wasn't prepared to see her husband look so helpless. His skin was ghostly pale, and the circles around his eyes matched Doug's. If his chest wouldn't have been moving, she would've feared he was dead. "It's okay. It's from the blood loss."

Claire rested her hand on the small of James's back, urging her further inside the room before stepping alongside the bed herself. Gently, she stroked his face, brushing back his hair. Despite his complexion, his skin was warm to the touch, and it comforted her to finally feel him again after their ordeal the night before. She leaned down and kissed his cheek. "We're here, Francis."

"I wonder if he can hear us." James thought out loud before seeing her father's eyelashes twitching as if he were looking around. "The doctor said he wouldn't wake up until tomorrow night?"

"He might wake up, but he'd be too out of it to know what's really going on." Claire replied, taking her husband's hand into hers. "The drugs won't wear off until early tomorrow morning. He could start going in and out this afternoon." She looked down to see what James was seeing. "He must be dreaming about something. Hopefully, something peaceful. Your father works too hard. Not many peaceful nights."

James smiled as she sat down. "Daddy deplores sleeping more than necessary. He won't say it, but he'll probably think this day was a waste of time considering he laid in a bed." She bit her lip, clasping her hands together. "What if it's worse, Mom? What if it's not just a removal of a kidney? What if there's something else wrong?"

Claire cut off her daughter, her hair dropping in front of her eyes slightly. "Let's not dwell on the 'what ifs'. They will only drive us insane until we know for sure." She glanced around the room, seeing the clock hanging by the tv. "We've been awake for far too long to be thinking straight anyway. We can head back to the White House and get some rest. I need to get some food in you. We'll come back with clear heads."

If only Francis had a clear head. His was taking him down plenty of what ifs as his last memories toyed with him. Before his eyes, the gun lowered down, pointed at the two most important people in his universe, and he jumped in front of the bullet without a second thought. The drop to the floor had winded him, and he struggled to fight for breath as he listened to his wife and daughter scream. He witnessed as Garrett practically lifted his daughter up and onto the desk before stepping between her thighs. The plea in his daughter's voice, the fear, was haunting enough, but it was when Claire's pleas to stop touching their daughter that the blood loss captured his consciousness and forced him to retreat from trying to save them.

He didn't know if Garrett had finished his deed and raped his daughter on the Oval office desk, making Claire watch as James was violated. And, where would he be? Three feet away, lying on the floor like an old dog waiting for death. Then again, Garrett might've decided to stop with James, but then he would grab Claire and subject James to watching him force his will on her mother. Hell, Garrett probably got Brighton involved too. For all he knew, they both could've been assaulted in their own house, trying to fight off men he should've taken care of in the first place. If it did happen, what happened afterwards? Did Garrett shoot them? If he didn't go through with it, did he still shoot them anyway?

And, Francis saw what he didn't want to see. His wife and daughter bleeding out, dying beside him. The cruel irony would be if he survived to bury them together. Watch as their mahogany eternities were lowered side by side into the hollowed ground. A mirage of the pawns who believed they were friends of the family, even family to them in a way, surrounding around the tragedy like flies to horse shit. And while they dabbed at their tears in their best mourning black, he would dive in after them in hopes the ground would swallow him whole.

That's when the monitor sprung to life beside Francis.

"What's happening?" James asked quickly, seeing the screen's number plummet. "Daddy?"

"Francis?" Claire squeezed his hand before nurses rushed in yelling and pushing them aside. She grabbed James's hand and flinched when Francis started to seize, making the whole bed shake and rattle as if it would combust at any moment.

One of the nurses blocked their view of him though. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to need you two to leave while we help the President." She ushered them to the door, nearly slamming the door once they were in the hallway.

Claire kept her arms around James as she clung to her. She could feel her daughter trembling, obviously scared by what just happened. Her own legs felt weak from seeing her husband like that, and she didn't know how they managed to end up huddled on the ground together, leaning back against the opposite wall staring at the closed door. "James, sweetheart, I need you to breathe."

"Mom, his heart stopped beating." James managed to get out, tears flowing down her cheeks as her face scrunched up.

"I know." Claire felt her own face flood, and she wiped at the tears even as they kept falling. "But, they're going to help him. As soon as they heard that alarm, they were surrounding him to try and fix it." She held James close, resting her head on hers and rubbing her back soothingly. She wanted to break down, sob until her body was too tired to worry anymore. But, she knew Francis wouldn't want that. Her daughter needed her, and Claire wanted to be awake in case anything happened. "We're going to pull through this. I promise."


"What's his status?" Doug asked, writing on a pad of paper even as he kept his eyes closed. He would follow the nurse's orders as best he could, but it wouldn't stop him from finishing what they had all started. "I don't care if his wife is holding out hope that he'll pull through. If he is vulnerable, finish the job. He tried to kill the President of the United States and attempted to attack his wife and daughter. Do you really think the country will be sad if he dies? Do it." He ended the call, turning away the screen to avoid the brightness and setting down face down on the meal tray beside him.

A moment later, his nurse returned with his breakfast tray, giving him a small smile before her eyes saw the pink phone case. "Is that my phone?"

Doug glanced at it. "I think you set it down when you were trying to find the menu for me." He watched as she put the phone back in her pocket after setting down his food. "That looks delicious. Thank you so much. While you're here, is there a way we could just have the tv on if we cover up the screen? Sitting in silence is kind of driving me to the edge of insanity."

"I think I may have a solution." The nurse smiled as she picked up the blanket she had just changed from his bed.


"Mrs. Underwood?" Dr. Crawford's voice pulled Claire and James out from their thoughts as he stood by Francis's door. It was now open, the nurses leaving one by one in different directions. Before Claire could even think to stand up, Crawford crouched down in front of them. "I'm sorry for the delay. I wanted to do a thorough check before I gave you any news on your husband."

Claire swallowed hard, squeezing James into her side. "What happened?"

"The President went into shock. We'll have to do some tests to determine what from, but we do have him stabilized. Vitals and brain activity are perfect. This could've been something just as minor as all the stress that his body has been through. It could've been a mental trigger. I'll run every test I can to pinpoint it for you. In the meantime, you can go back inside, but I must remind you again that he'll be mostly out of it until evening. Getting some rest and food would be beneficial. You've been here since one last night."

"I'm not leaving." Claire stated before running a hand down her face. "But, thank you." Crawford nodded to her before standing and walking away to help his other patients. She looked down at James, seeing her tired eyes gaze towards her father's room. "How about you, sweetheart? I can have the agents take you home and bring you back later this afternoon. Actually, I'd rather Cathy come get you. She'll make sure you eat something."

James shook her head. "I don't want to leave him." She glanced up and down the hallway. "Isn't there a foodcourt?"

"I hope they let us have more than one jello." Claire breathed before she and James stood up.


Claire wiped her mouth. Despite her growling stomach and lack of food in the past sixteen hours, she had to force herself to eat what they had gotten. Her stress over Francis had trumped everything else, and it seemed to be doing the same to her daughter. "You need to eat something, baby."

"I've never seen him like that." James breathed, staring down at her stabbed jello cup.

"It was unsettling. I'll admit that." Claire confessed with a nod, resting her arms on the table. "It's not easy for someone to see their parent suffer from something out of your control. But, he made it through. The doctor said it could still be something minor, something manageable. We're not in trouble yet."

James met her mother's eyes, her lip trembling. "I can't lose him."

Claire was quick to James's side, grabbing a chair from another table to sit next to her. "Hey, I don't want to hear that." She took her daughter's hands into hers. "James, look at me." She felt her throat constrict seeing more tears gather in James's eyes. "C'mon, baby, look at me." She cupped her daughter's face when she finally looked up to her. "I know you're scared right now. I'm scared too. I don't want to lose your father either. I love him so much, and I'm not ready to say goodbye to him. But, we need to be strong for him. Okay? If we give up hope on him, there will be no one." She kissed James's forehead. "We haven't lost him."

She hoped they wouldn't. Despite her pride of being an independent woman, she still needed her husband around. Her daughter still needed her father around. In no way was Claire ready to stand against everyone else while mourning her loss. It just wasn't plausible. There were still so many things Francis wanted to do, and so many memories of their family she wasn't ready to recall fondly just to remember Francis.

"What are you two up to?" Claire chuckled as she entered the kitchen, finding their eight year old sitting on the counter with a bowl of some concoction in her lap while Francis sprayed a cooking tray. There were more ingredients on the counter and faded into Francis and James's clothes than in the actual bowl. "I hope you plan to clean this up when you're done."

"Of course," Francis smiled before cracking an egg and adding it to the bowl in James's lap. Holding his dirty hands out to his sides, he leaned over and pecked her lips in greeting. "I saw the letter from the school about the Christmas cookie exchange and decided I would take it off your shoulders. You've been working all hours of the day at work. I am extremely proud of you for taking on this new project, so I figured I would let you relax for one night."

Claire grinned, standing by the counter where James was sitting and peering into the bowl. "You did look at the allergy list, didn't you?"

Francis stopped in the middle of cracking another egg. "What allergy list?"

"On the fridge, Daddy." James pointed, obviously having told him earlier. "I don't think Henry can have sugar."

"What the hell kind of cookie can you make without sugar?" Francis asked before looking at the list pinned up on the fridge by a magnet James had made at school the previous year. "Flour too? We might as well just put a bag of carrots in her bag and give the kids a bowl of depression medication."

Claire chuckled before holding up her phone. "That's why I called the teacher. I got her class a tour of the White House. We are out of cookie baking duty." She set her purse aside and started combing James's hair with her fingers, moving to pull it up and away from her flour covered cheeks.

Francis grinned before handing James a spoon to start stirring. "That's a great idea. I'm sure they would love to see James again. She made quite the impression on them when I brought her in for Daddy-Daughter day." He glanced over at Claire. "Although, they still say, 'that little girl of yours'."

"They'll remember my name soon enough." James declared before lifting up the spoon and eating off the raw cookie dough.

"That they will." Francis laughed before taking the bowl from her and setting her down on the ground. "Go wash up before bed. One of us will be up shortly." His gaze turned to Claire when their daughter bounded upstairs, the cookie batter covered spoon dangling from his fingertips. "I'll admit. She sounded like me for a moment."

Claire giggled, grabbing the spoon from him and taking her own bite. "She's you through and through. Francis, she locked Natalie's daughter in the janitor's closet and distracted the teacher last month so she could read the speech at the Veteran's Day Program when the newspaper was there to cover it." She crossed her arms over her chest with a smirk when Francis grabbed the spoon back to take his own bite. "No one caught her. Even Natalie thought James ran out of the closet to head back and the door closed on her, locking her in."

Francis failed to hide his smile. "We should've disciplined her for that."

"You don't believe that for one moment." Claire laughed. "You want to reward her for it."

Francis shrugged. "I must say. I might have to do that same trick sometime. It would be a lot easier than other things I've done."

James nodded before looking back at her tray of food. "Do you think I could eat this in his room? I want to go back."

"Of course," Claire breathed, wiping her daughter's cheeks, "let's go see your father."

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