realTheodoreBagwell: My heart goes out to S. Tancredi at this time. An astonishing woman but as today's tragedy shows, the wrong president for US. Hopefully one day the Knights will have the power to prevent this kind of violence on the innocent. #SupportTheKnights #LoveAmerica #VoteToSaveLives

AlexMahone: The Republicans stand united behind our president. Our prayers are with Sara Tancredi. We will support every measure to discover what has happened and who is responsible. This will NOT go unpunished. #JusticeForSara #UnitedAmerica

CarolineReynolds: We thank Americans for their support at this terrible time. Our administration stands strong now as ever. The president's state is stable.

"Stable!" Gretchen scoffed when she read the Vice President's statement on Twitter. "That's an accurate way to say the commander-in-chief is lying on the operating table with her insides facing the ceiling."

Kellerman didn't reply.

"Sorry," Gretchen said. "Dark humor is my way of coping with things."

"Dark's my second favorite type of humor."

"What's the first?"

"No humor."

"Figures." Gretchen said, and meant it. Paul Kellerman had that military-man look about him that suggested his skull would burst before he'd laugh. He didn't smile: he smirked. And taking pleasure in humiliating or asserting his authority over others was a long shot from humor.

They were both in the waiting room of the hospital, which was clear except from people close to the president. All present were holding cups of coffee they either drank in one go, blind to the pain of the burning liquid traveling down their stomachs, or just held it like they'd forgotten they were supposed to drink it at all.

It made Gretchen think of people in a church, holding candles.

This made her want to laugh.

Which would be in awful bad taste right at this second.

"The heart," Paul said.

"Excuse me?"

He seemed to be talking to himself rather than to her. All the people in the room were very absorbed with their own thoughts.

"That bullet," he said. "I was just thinking about it. About what are the odds of it getting to such a small organ from that distance. The heart. If I'd been the shooter, I would have aimed for the head. Bigger target. And you don't get up from that. Kennedy wasn't having no brain operation in '63, was he? No, that's the surer way to go."

Gretchen was uncertain what to think of this.

She was starting to think that, short of a sense of humor, Kellerman had very dark side to him, one that didn't laugh.

It crossed her mind she might like him the better for it.

"D'you think he missed?"

"The bodyguard did get in the way. I don't know. But to think that bullet they're trying to get out of her chest without killing her went through a grown man's body first – you have to think, what were the chances of it hitting the spot?"

Gretchen didn't know what to say. This would be a conversation for later – everyone in America would be having it. Who had shot the president?

A grim shiver ran through her as she thought that, depending on what happened in the next few hours, the title of the headlines might not read 'shot' but 'killed'.

The surgery had been going on for over four hours.

This wasn't the first time that Gretchen was cramped in a small waiting room with anxious people. This must have been what Obama's people felt like, when they waited to hear news on the SWAT team that killed Bin Laden.

No, Gretchen reflected finally. Nothing in American history could have ever felt quite like this.

A reporter from CBS got footage of Frank Tancredi as he got out of his mansion that afternoon, likely intending to catch a plane to Washington.

"Sir, any comments? Your thoughts? Someone reported you argued with your daughter last time you saw her at the White House, did you know something like this was going to happen?"

What was then caught on camera wasn't unprecedented in the history of the press; but it was unexpected from a long-term politician like Fran Tancredi.

His hand covered his face, and it looked like he was trying to avoid the eye of the camera.

After the journalist insisted with a few more questions, he burst out, "For Christ's sake, leave me alone. You want a comment, when my daughter's hooked to a machine? Here's your headline. Go fuck yourselves."

"Go fuck yourselves?" Alex Mahone looked bewildered.

"I know," said John Abruzzi. "It's hard to believe, coming from a guy you wouldn't think ever fucked in his life, if the proof of his procreation hadn't spent the past two years leading the free world."

They were sitting in John's office over a glass of chardonnay. It was a little early for drinks, barely six p.m. But on a day the country watched its own president get shot on TV, her life and the country's stability hanging in the balance, Abruzzi figured you had a right to indulge.

Not that this shooting wasn't technically good news for him.

Still… still.

He wasn't completely deprived of feelings. "You know, I really liked that girl, Alex. She had guts, and what's maybe more special in a place like Washington, she had balls. That didn't turn out too good for her. At any point, she could have backed off. You don't think her advisors were hammering her brains with how much she was putting herself on the line? A'course they did. That was a brave piece of woman. Maybe more brave, more balls, than there ever was in the White House."

Abruzzi sighed.

Mahone looked intently at his glass, uncertain how to join such an unusual praise about his rival.

"But that was her mistake. A moral code that won't settle for compromises can't live long in Washington. I thought it would get her in the end. And it has."

"The White House hasn't made a statement about her chances of recovery yet," Alex ventured to say.

"Yeah, and why do you think that is? Don't worry, Alex. Just do as we said. Play your cards right. For the next two years, anyway, Caroline Reynolds is going to be in charge. And trust me, after that, she's going to be very careful about rocking the boat. You just be a good Republican – look patriotic. Mourn your president. Two years from now, people are going to remember you tried to unite the country in its grief rather than sow discord, and they'll line up to vote for you."

"You don't think Reynolds has a chance?"

John chuckled. "Nah. Smart girl, probably, but nothing special. Worse, no charisma. You'll wipe the floor with her on the debate floor."

Alex was silent for a while. "And if Sara Tancredi survives?"

John took a sip of chardonnay. "You're an educated man, Alex. You tell me. Does America kick its own martyrs out of office?"

"She better die, then?" Alex's tone barely ventured in the realm of sarcasm.

But John met him halfway, humor in his voice, although there was a grave solemn look into his eyes. "You got that right. She better die."

WhiteHouse: We thank the American people for its heartfelt support at such a time. We can now announce the president is out of surgery and her state is hopeful. Please keep her in your prayers. God bless America.

"What does it really mean?" Michael asked.

He and Bruce were rolling down Swann Street, on their way to the hospital. Words like 'stable' and 'hopeful' had a way of losing their meaning entirely when they were used by politicians. It might mean Sara was now standing chances to see a few more days of coma instead of instant death. You couldn't know. You could never know.

And if she were to die, how long until the White House would make a statement?

"I'm trying to reach an old friend of mine who works in her administration," Bruce said. "He should be able to tell me something more – definite."

The word jammed Michael's throat with concern.

"In any case, we'll soon be here ourselves."

"Are you sure they'll let us see her?"

"No."

You had to admire the patience in Bruce's voice.

In any other context, Michael would have hated himself for being the pushy person who asked the same question over and over again.

But now there was no room at all for him to care about what kind of impression he was making.

"No, Michael, I'm not sure of anything."

They spent the rest of the ride in silence. Finally, the car stopped. Michael's hand reached for the knob but Bruce put a hand on his wrist and their eyes met.

"Are you sure?" Bruce asked. "There can be no going back after this. You think you've known fame, but until now, you've always kept hidden from the cameras. Few in this country know what you look like. If you come with me, today, if we go through with the plan – this is all going to change."

Michael heard the words without considering them.

There was nothing to consider.

What was he supposed to do now? Cringe like a spider at the threat of daylight?

Say something like, No, thank you, thank you very much, but I'll go back to the shadows, I'll just crawl back into a hole while the love of my life is more exposed than ever.

It didn't matter that Michael would never go back to life as he knew it, that he may never know anonymity or the quiet of true silence ever again.

"From the moment Sara was shot," he said, "no going back was possible. I'm sure."

Bruce nodded his head. "Then let's go."

They walked out of the car and into a crowd whose size would have made Michael nervous at any other time. Michael used to hate crowds. What can be worse to a sensitive child whose mind is all too likely to hijack itself, to follow every thread until the sheer multitude is threatening him with implosion?

It was difficult to stop himself from holding his hand before his face or lowering his head.

Bruce had warned him. You must walk with me like you have nothing to hide.

And so, for the first time he looked directly into the eye of the cameras, his chin straight, his eyes wild.

There was too much noise for him to hear Bruce talking to the security men posted at the entrance, but he saw a few nods and soon, they let them through, and Michael and Bruce were disappearing inside the hall of the hospital.

"The whole of wing A's been cleared," Bruce said once they were alone. "Naturally, we must avoid going through the waiting room while Paul Kellerman's in it. We wouldn't want him to see you and sound some alarm."

Michael nodded dutifully, although he was conscious of a strange desire that contradicted everything Bruce was saying.

Suddenly, Michael felt he would like to run into Paul Kellerman. In his present state of mind, he wished even for violence. That Paul Kellerman would punch him, that Michael would tackle him to the ground and make his first imprint into this jungle world where he had for so long been a spectator.

Maybe it was only that after what had happened today, Michael was in the mood to punch just about anyone. Certainly, many men would be, but that was one of the things Michael had never understood. The language of violence was one he'd never learnt to speak.

Would the jungle teach him?

Without thinking, Michael stopped and looked at Bruce, "We don't have to wait." He didn't wait for the older man's puzzlement to form into words. "Kellerman doesn't know what I look like. He wouldn't know me if he saw me, anyway."

Michael didn't know why he was saying this. Was it just that the thought of waiting until he could see Sara was intolerable, now that he was so close to her?

His usual caution would have urged him to wait. It was true he'd been very careful about not being caught on camera since he'd gotten to Washington, and before then, he hadn't had much of a public persona. No Instagram or Facebook pictures of him on the internet, for sure. He had googled himself a few months ago and all you could dig up was a group photograph at his high school graduation.

Then, a dangerous thought crept into his head.

There was also whatever footage had been taken on the night of Halloween, back in 2020. The scandalous sex tape which he had never seen himself, but knew for a fact that Kellerman had.

Not that he was going to say that to Bruce now.

Surely, Kellerman wouldn't know him from that.

After a while, Bruce nodded his head. "All right. Please, let me do the talking. If he's never seen you before, he might assume you're my bodyguard and dismiss you."

Michael eagerly nodded but something wasn't right, and Bruce still looked like he was having doubts. "Michael, I feel like I have to ask you again –"

"I'm sure," he said. "Of course I am."

"Once you've stepped into this room, you can never take it back. They will never forget they've seen you. I know your anonymity matters to you."

"A lot of things mattered until Sara got shot in front of me. She matters more than the rest. I'll take the consequences whatever they are. But I'll never live with myself if I can't see her right at this moment."

Bruce put his hand on Michael's shoulder. The gesture was unexpected but somehow felt logical to Michael's understanding; Bruce was an ally. That they had never met before today was inconsequential. That their only common ground was Sara made no difference.

"Then follow me," Bruce said.

And Michael did.

They walked corridor after corridor, and each time, Michael let Bruce do the talking with the staff and security.

Finally, Bruce opened the door and they stepped into a room filled with a dozen of people, that Michael all recognized as members of Sara's administration.

Bruce walked in, and Michael followed before he could think of doing otherwise.

There was nothing to think about.

This wasn't the point of no return.

The point of no return had been falling in love with Sara, back in the '20 presidential race.

And if there had ever been the slightest chance that he would come back from it, he would have by now.

Bruce greeted the men and women in the room and introduced him as an associate, and Michael didn't feel like he was being welcomed into the jungle.

He had been a long time ago, though he remained at its fringes, an exile living alone under the tropical heat and stifling nature.

Maybe it was about time that he mingled with its wild animals.

He was quite certain that what had happened today had changed him for life; hopefully, it would have made him wild enough to survive.

End Notes: Please share your thoughts in the comment section. Dying to know your theories ;-). The title is borrowed from Cat Stevens's "Wild World".