The following weekend: Annabeth has flown to Georgia, ostensibly to surprise Julia and Bill and give them a break from caring for her mom. Julia was surprised to see her given everything going on at work, but grateful for the chance to get away.
Julia and Bill are getting ready to leave.
Julia: "We'll be back in the morning. But promise you'll call if something goes wrong, or you just need help or something."
Annabeth: "Jules, we're going to be fine."
Julia: "I cannot believe you're here and doing this, Annabee!"
Annabeth: "Yeah, I'm a regular Mother Theresa."
Bill calls from the driveway.
Julia: "Ok. Yeah. We're going. See you tomorrow!"
Annabeth closes the door and leans heavily against it.
She walks to her mom's bedroom.
Mom: (looks up) "Julia?"
Annabeth: "No, Mom, it's me, Annabeth."
Mom: "Who?"
Annabeth: "It's me, Mom, I'm just home for a quick visit."
Mom: (gestures around the room) "I don't like this."
Annabeth: "Don't like what, Mom?"
Mom: (frustrated) "The…it's all broken."
Annabeth: "I think it's ok, Mom. It doesn't look broken to me."
Mom: (more frustrated) "You have to fix it!"
Annabeth: "Okay, Okay. Let me…I'll try, okay?"
She walks over to the other side of the room and picks up the remote control to the TV. She walks back.
Annabeth: "Here, Mom, this thing wasn't working, but it is now."
Mom looks suspiciously at the remote.
Annabeth: (clicking on the TV) "Do you want to watch TV?"
Mom: "No. It's…it's broken."
Annabeth: (clicks the TV off) "Ok. How about…"
She turns on the radio.
Annabeth: "How about this?"
Her mom loosens her grip on the chair.
Annabeth: "Do you like this?"
She flips through a few stations.
Annabeth: "Mom, do you remember this one? This is the station you used to listen to all the time when I was a kid."
Mom looks blank, but she's not agitated.
Annabeth: "Okay. We're going to go with this one."
Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay plays softly.
Annabeth: "I need to talk to you, Mom"
Her mom glances in her direction and then returns to staring straight ahead.
Annabeth: "There's a lot going on for me right now and I have no one to talk to. There's really no one I can go to with what I have to talk about. But, I need to say it out loud."
Her mom reaches for the radio and pulls it into her lap.
Annabeth: "Okay. That's fine. You can listen to that and I'll just talk, okay?"
Annabeth sits down on her mom's bed.
"I got involved with Leo McGarry during the campaign. I didn't decide to be with him, Mom. There wasn't a moment. In fact, it was like there was never even a question to be answered. I could push on the edges of who he and I were going to be; I could try to control some of the timing or the circumstances, but that was it.
Our relationship is the most honest thing I have ever done in that it's like breathing. You don't think about breathing; you don't ask other people if breathing is a good idea; you don't question the choice to breathe. Being with Leo McGarry has felt like the truest line to who I am.
Continuing to be with him means trusting myself above everything and everyone else.
Because if anyone else…I don't know how I would explain this to anyone else."
She looks over at her mom, who is still just sitting there with the radio in her lap.
Annabeth: "The minor stuff, Mom, is ditching me for a month and wrestling his own demons about his marriage and addiction and what he chose to prioritize his entire life.
Annabeth laughs, "That's the minor stuff. And I was actually okay with that part."
She looks at her mom. "I get running away when you feel too much..."
Annabeth stands up and walks over to her Mom's dresser and runs her hand over the tops of a few framed photos.
"We had to deal with some power dynamic stuff, but…well, that got addressed."
She shakes her head and stares at the ground.
"He…he did something, Mom. And there's a lot that's bad about it. But the worst part, for me, is that I understand.
He couldn't tell me the truth. If it had just been something he had done I think he would have.
She stops and thinks for a second.
I know he would have.
It involved other people, though, and he wouldn't betray them.
When he asked me to let him be the press and for me to answer as Press Secretary...The questions he asked me: 'Is the speed with which the Santos administration is responding to this an indication that it was aware of VP McGarry's intentions… Do Pres Santos and VP McGarry not respect the will of the people?'
He was preparing me. He was having me practice answers in case the truth emerged.
He was telling me the truth, in his own way. And he was giving me what I would need to do my job. It was loving, in its own dark and deceptive way. Loving as filtered through Leo McGarry.
Annabeth sits back down on the bed.
"And then he did tell me the truth. When I was going to walk out of his house, he told me the truth. He told me something that could destroy him, destroy his best friend and the current President.
He did that because it was better than losing me. And because he knew I could take it.
And it is better than losing him. And I can take it.
What does that say, Mom? What does that say about me?"
Her mom turns up the radio.
Annabeth: (laughs) Yeah, I'm tired of listening to myself talk, too."
She shouts over the high-volume of The Beatles 'Here Comes the Sun'
"I'm gonna shut up and just breathe!"
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right
Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun Here comes the sun, and I say It's all right