"That's the best thing about little sisters: They spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters that in the end they're far wiser than the elder ones could ever be." ― Gemma Burgess

August 1968 - New Hampshire, Bartlet Townhouse

By the time Jed and Abbey returned home across the Atlantic, their family of two was destined to become three.

In fact, in the space of 365 days, their lives had advanced dramatically: the very paper that had almost caused Jed to be dismissed from LSE was exactly why Dartmouth University had been intent to hire him; he achieved his doctorate and was credited for his innovative research; and they had relinquished their London apartment in favour of a quaint, three-bedroom Manchester townhouse. It had been a whirlwind experience.

Abbey applied the final touch - an array of dutch tulips, delicately placed on the windowsill - to the beautifully decorated nursery and patted her five month old bump in satisfaction with her work. Subtle hints of fire coral complimented the all-white bedroom and the crib Jed's brother had sculpted by hand was the centre-piece of the furnished room. A musical mobile swayed slowly above; it was one of the many purchases Abbey's mother had made with abandon.

"I'm back," the front door clicked shut, followed by the plummy voice of her sister and hyperactive footsteps that bound up the stairs. "They only had the chicken on rye with mustard left." Linda appeared in the doorway of the nursery - her tiny waist, curtained by a tousled blonde mane - and dumped the lunch she had purposely walked across town for the second she saw that Abbey's eyes had watered. "Abs, what's up?" There was no physical injury visible and Linda assured herself that no harm had come to Abbey or her unborn niece in her thirty-minute absence. Praise the Lord, because her brother-in-law would have her head if that had not been the case. She ushered Abbey into the armchair beside the overfilled bookshelf and kneeled at her feet, "Abbey, what's the matter?"

Abbey rolled her eyes, "It's stupid."

Linda humorously dismissed her sisters attempt to evade the conversation, "I find that hard to believe." She had overcome the harsh reality that Abbey would always be the more academic of the two, the same way Abbey had accepted Linda was the more desirable one.

"Millie called from New York." Linda rolled her eyes, this time around, and mentally bemoaned how insensitive Abbey's best friend could be.

"…and it made you wonder what life would be like if that were you." Linda predicted, her sister an all-too-open book. In spite of the fact that they were as different as chalk and cheese, the sisters were the closest of confidantes. It was an odd occurrence for three-year old Abbey when the newborn Linda appeared and proceeded to defy every rule her older sister set. If Abbey went left, she could be confident that Linda would take the exact opposite direction. Yet, in the face of adversity, Linda had always been the very backbone of support. "Have you talked to Jed?"

"He wouldn't understand." Those were three words Abbey never expected to leave her lips, especially if the 'he' was her husband. She hadn't foreseen that she would become that kind of wife. Neither had Linda, and her expression said as much. "God…" Abbey blasted, exasperated with her own self and the doubts that plagued her mind. "I hate that I said that."

"Listen, Abs, I am no psychoanalyst but I say it's okay. I mean, you can plan your life out until the day you die but fate will always intervene. When it doesn't work out the way you hoped, you can daydream and be envious of others. Everybody has a touch of the green-eyed monster every now and then," Linda pinched Abbey's upper-arm and the sisters shared a wistful smile.

Abbey's smile faded quickly, and she tilted her head, ashamed. "Sometimes, it just seems like I am the only one who has to make the sacrifice." That was what irked her most, that it was her forced to press pause on her future while Jed's career in economics could flourish, whether he and Abbey had one child or twelve. Historically, women were born to produce and raise their children. Period. Little else mattered, least of all the opportunity to advance in any kind of profession, but the difficulties women faced in that era existed no more and Abbey was lumbered with a whole other reality; it was her career or her child. "Natural consequences, dad called it." Abbey quoted their father's response, when she had subtly solicited his advice on the matter in the most roundabout of ways. "He recited the details of his childhood."

Linda's eyes flashed upward, in playful horror at the idea, and mimicked almost word-for-word what their father had said. "Grandmother raised five boys by herself. She always put food on the table, even if it meant she didn't eat. She worked seven days a week, relinquished her dreams of the ballet, and cast aside any talent to provide for her family."

The interpretation of their father was funny, nevertheless, Abbey swallowed the lump in her throat. Her father had - quite literally - hit the nail on the head. His mother had put family above ambition; he expected her to do just the same. It wasn't that their father didn't support Abbey and her ambitions but he didn't understand why Abbey couldn't put her career into another hiatus for the first few years of her child's life. Except, for the second time since she had become Mrs. Bartlet, her medical career had been placed on the back-burner; the arrival of baby Bartlet would result in another year of deferral for her medical residency in Boston. Further postponement, after the year she spent in London, where she had all but shunned medicine did not sit well with Abbey one bit. "Am I selfish?"

Sympathetic to Abbey's weariness, Linda exhaled softly and squeezed Abbey's hands in hers for effect. "Abbey, you are the least selfish person I have ever known in my lifetime. What you are, however, is one of the most sleep-deprived." Abbey nodded her head, in consent. Her delicate condition had rendered her the perpetual insomniac with stomach ache. While, ordinarily, her body ran on very little sleep, her mind had been blown into overdrive and rendered Abbey exhausted. On the one hand, she was a married woman and motherhood was the next natural step forward. Yet, she was filled with a sense of dread, and Linda sensed that her fear remained. "At 23, most women are married, with children or the first on the way and, at the very least, an aspiration for the future. Meanwhile, I study Art History, which happens to be the fourth time I switched my major but that is irrelevant. Why?" Linda raised an eyebrow, "Because I refuse to conform to societal norms, I rebel from authority exactly the way you showed me to," she dramatically answered the very question she posed, and Abbey nearly doubled over with laughter. "Abbey," her sister refocused, more serious this time around. "Promise me that you will talk to Jed. He deserves to know how you really feel."

"I promise." It was one of the few promises Abbey made to her sister that she had absolutely no intention to keep.