After Jed was moved back to the third floor Neuro ICU for closer observation, Abbey sat in the waiting room by herself, trying to decide her next move. Dr. Wilson had said that the regression could last overnight, while the sedative worked its way through the brain and out of the body or if the brain had been overwhelmed by the information Abbey had given Jed, then nobody knows when he would wake up. It would be up to his brain to decide when it could handle the waking state again. There was no way to tell.
Either way, Abbey felt totally responsible for either giving him the sedative in trying to help him rest or giving him all of the information about his condition, him not being President, and having to move back to farm all at once. For a person already so fragile, she just heaped insult onto injury. And she had done all those things. Decisions had consequences. And right now, her decisions could have killed her husband. And still could. There were no guarantees that he would survive this latest setback.
She picked up her phone and dialed Leo. She knew he would still be at the White House, probably talking with Russell.
The phone rang a couple of times and finally Leo picked up. "Abbey," he whispered. "Can I call you back?"
"Leo, it's Jed. He's taken a turn for the worse. And I'm the one that did it. Can you come?"
There was a pause. "I'll be there as soon as I can." The line went dead.
Within thirty minutes, Leo was in the waiting room, sitting by Abbey's side. "What happened?"
"Oh, Leo. I did it. I'm responsible for this." She only kept repeating those words. Her sobs echoed off the tiled walls of the waiting area of the room. Nothing he could do could calm her down. Finally, he left her in a chair and sought out a nurse in the ICU. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm a friend of Mrs. Bartlet's. She's out in the waiting room, and she's just crying hysterically and I can't get her to calm down. I don't know if it's exhaustion or what, but can you help her?"
"Yes, sir. We'll get someone to see her."
Within fifteen minutes Abbey had been wheeled down to the ER to be assessed by the staff. Leo had accompanied her, but they wouldn't let him go in the exam room. Over an hour later, a nurse came out and said he could come in and see her. He found her lying on a stretcher, covered by a sheet. Her clothes had been exchanged for a hospital gown and an IV was infusing in her left arm. Her eyes were closed and her head lagged to the side. Leo sat down in the only chair and softly called her name. "Abbey?" She opened her eyes but they were glazed over, not really focusing on anything.
"Abbey? It's Leo."
"Leo? What are you doing here?"
Before he answered, a doctor came to the door and motioned Leo outside.
"Are you the friend that brought her in?"
"Well, she was upstairs with her husband and she called me to come see her. When I got here, she was crying hysterically and saying something like 'I'm responsible for this.' I have no idea what that means though. What's wrong with her?"
"I've had our on-call psychiatrist evaluate her and he thinks she is either on the verge of a nervous breakdown or could have been on the verge of committing suicide. He thinks her call to you was a cry for help and that, if you had not come, it could have turned out not to be a very nice night. By the way, forgive me if I am wrong, is this the former First Lady Abigail Bartlet?"
"Yes. Did you run a drug screen?
The young doctor stared at him. "How do you know about those things?"
"Let's just say I do. Did you run a drug screen? What did it show?"
He looked at the chart. "High levels of Valium and Xanax. Not life-threatening levels, but certainly higher levels than we would normally expect."
'Damn Abbey.' Leo had tried to warn her about those drugs months ago.
"We gave her an anti-psychotic drug to calm her down and we are going to admit her overnight for observation. Is there any family that we should notify?"
"She has three daughters, one a student here at GW, one a medical resident at Hopkins and one who lives in New Hampshire. I'll notify all of them. Would she tell me anything if I talked to her right now?"
"I doubt it. The medicine has her pretty zoned out. It's for her own good. I would gather she's been under a good amount of stress recently."
"Yeah. A lot. And most of it hasn't been reported in the news."
"Well, something triggered this reaction tonight and this was the outcome. Now we have to see if we can put her back together. Thank you for coming. Mr...?"
"McGarry. Leo McGarry."
"White House Chief of…?"
"Staff, yeah. Goodnight Doctor."