V

Jed Bartlet was not a morning person. Normally, it took the combined efforts of an alarm clock, several telephone calls and an insistent Charlie to make him admit that he was awake.

Not this morning. This morning, he was well awake and had been for some hours. There might have been some sweaty hours of fitful sleep in there somewhere, but he couldn't swear to it. Certainly there had been no rest.

The phone beside his bed suddenly exploded with ringing. A blur of possibilities chased through his mind in a fraction of an instant.

They've found him.

There's been a ransom note.

He's fine.

He's hurt.

He's dead.

None of those, it's just your morning wake-up call, you stupid old fool.

He snatched the phone out of its cradle in mid-ring, and discovered he'd been wrong on all counts.

"Jed?" Abbey sounded taken aback. Calling this early, she had been probably been prepared to wait ten or twenty rings before he reluctantly accepted that he'd have to answer.

For the first time in his life, the sound of that beautifully familiar voice down the phone line brought not delight, but a bitter twist of disappointment. "Abbey." He sought for a less flat-sounding greeting, and couldn't find one.

"Jed?" she said again. "Jed, are you okay? You sound..."

"I..." What could he tell her? Abbey was his confidante, but she was in another state, and there were things he couldn't say over the telephone. "Things are... things are rough here."

"Is there anything I can do?" she asked immediately.

Normally, normally he would say Talk to me. Speak to me. Cheer me up. Make me feel better. Remind me you're there, even if you can't be close. Today, horribly, all he could think was every instant that Abbey was on the phone could be an instant when the news of Leo's condition wasn't getting through.

"No," he said, closing his eyes in the dark. "No, I don't think so."

There was a brief silence, and then Abbey said, haltingly "Jed-"

"I'm sorry, Abbey," he said quickly, steam-rolling over her before he could hear the sympathetic pain in her voice. "I can't... I really can't talk about this. And I can't... I can't talk to you now. I wish..."

"I understand," she cut him off. And he knew she did, just as he also knew that it hurt. It hurt them both, and more than anything he wished she could be by his side.

Vanity, he thought harshly. What was I thinking? Why did I ever believe I could be the President? He had chosen to be here, in this place where his wife was missing two days out of three, where the world was hanging on a decision he couldn't make, where his best friend had paid who knew what price for his vanity... "I'm sorry, Abbey," he said again.

"I should... I should probably go."

Don't go! Don't leave me all alone with this. But that thought arrived in parallel with the relief that the phone would be free again, free to carry that all-important message to his ear. And he let her words hang in the silence, and said nothing.

"Okay, I'm, I'm going. Goodbye. I love you."

"I love you," he replied, and for an instant his heart lightened, buoyed up with the knowledge that even here and even now, those words were more than just a formality to him.

But only for an instant.

Josh was stirred awake by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He blinked, pushing himself up off the desk to look into Donna's worried face.

"You didn't get home, huh?"

He smiled wryly, and said "I am home." He wasn't even sure if he was joking.

She offered him a fragile smile. Then she reached behind her back, and offered him a Starbucks cup. He blinked at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, then cautiously reached out for it.

The cup was warm. He lifted it to his lips, tasted it. Looked up at her.

"This is coffee. Warm coffee." He almost made a joke about his being fired, before it died on his lips with the realisation that right now there was nobody to fire him.

"Moment of weakness," she claimed, but there was a stretched quality to the automatic banter, a suggestion that if you pushed it too hard, it would shatter with a crash. And yet, it felt as if the unspoken connection behind it had grown stronger than ever. It was almost as if there was something unseen flowing between them, warming him faster even than the coffee cup in his hands.

He reached out, impulsively, and took Donna's hand in his left. His mouth was open to speak, but there were no words waiting to come out, so he closed it again and just smiled at her. She smiled tenuously back, and for a moment they just looked at each other.

They broke apart with a rapid, almost guilty jerk as Josh's office door flew open. Josh jolted to his feet, nearly spilling the precious coffee, when he saw who it was. "Mr. Vice President!"

Hoynes scowled down at him. "What the hell is going on?"

"Sir?" he asked blankly. The last of the morning's little oasis of calm disappeared as Donna slipped silently away.

"Don't play coy with me, Josh!" the Vice President thundered. "Where the hell is Leo? He knows he's supposed to be meeting me this morning. I'm the Vice President of the United States, and I don't appreciate being dumped like a cheap date!"

Josh gaped at him for a second. He'd dealt with Leo's appointments... hadn't he? Had Margaret mentioned a meeting with Hoynes? He couldn't work out if it had slipped his mind, or never been there in the first place. "Leo's... not here," he said lamely.

Hoynes's irritation was derailed by confusion. "Not here?" he frowned. "Where is he?"

It was almost funny the way people couldn't process the idea of Leo not being at work... almost funny, apart from the part where it really wasn't. "Leo's, um, he's sick."

Damn Sam, and his stupid cover story. Sam, who'd been the one to tell him years ago that he had no poker face. He fully expected Hoynes to throw his stumbling lie back in his face, demand the real explanation. He was totally knocked off balance when the Vice President actually looked dismayed and drew back.

"I... I'm sorry, Josh," he apologised. Josh blinked at him, confused. Huh? "I should've, um, I should've checked my facts before I blew up at you. I'm guessing you must be pretty snowed under, so I'll, I'll call Margaret or something later, okay? I'll do that." He exited fairly promptly, and Josh was left staring after him.

What the hell just happened here?

"Mr. Vice President?"

As Isaac entered his boss's office, his eyes were drawn almost immediately to the way Hoynes's hands were fiddling with the coaster his coffee cup usually stood on. He was tapping it against the table, absently.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It was a nervous mannerism, Isaac knew. A very bad nervous mannerism. It was the way Hoynes's hands occupied themselves when they really wanted to be pouring out a shot of whiskey.

Isaac had been with John Hoynes since the days when he had been running for the Presidency and nobody outside of New Hampshire had ever heard of Josiah Bartlet. As the Vice President's personal assistant, he was one of the very select few who knew his boss's long-held secret. As such, he drove himself near insane with worry, knowing he might well be the only one who was looking out for the signs. He could only pray that whatever was eating his boss was something easily fixed.

"Sir?" he prompted, when Hoynes said nothing. The older man focused on him, as if he'd only just remembered his presence.

"Ah, Isaac, yes. Do you have a minute?" Hoynes leaned forwards towards him, but Isaac's eyes followed the coaster as he began flexing it between his hands.

"Yes, sir," he replied, refraining from pointing out that Hoynes was the one who set his schedule in the first place.

"Good. I need you to do a favour for me... a slightly strange favour."

"Sir?" he asked, apprehensively.

Hoynes, mercifully, dropped the coaster on the desk and reached for a business card with an address written on the back in his own neat letters. He pushed the card across the desk to Isaac. "I need you to go to this address."

"Whose is it?" asked Isaac, pocketing it, and for a moment feeling absurdly like he was he was being set up to make some kind of drugs rendezvous.

"Leo McGarry's." Hoynes gave him a pointed look. "I need you to check on him. In a very unofficial capacity."

"Sir?" he asked, now completely confused. His boss had been set to meet with McGarry that morning, but he'd returned early, and disappeared into his office... and this brooding mood.

"I think he might be in trouble." Isaac had seen the news reports. He knew the kind of 'trouble' Hoynes was thinking of.

"Sir?" he questioned. "What do you-"

"Just something Josh said," his boss cut him off. "Or rather, something he didn't say." He looked up at Isaac. "Leo McGarry's a strong man," he said softly. "He kept my secrets; I'll keep his. I just want you to make sure he's okay."

Isaac nodded in acknowledgement, and wondered to himself if Leo McGarry's personal assistant ever felt the same icy dread as he did when his boss's hands were tapping coasters.

"Mr. McGarry?"

Standing in the apartment block hallway, Isaac felt more than a little stupid. What would he do if McGarry actually answered the door? He barely knew the man.

But no one came to the door. He knocked again, and stood around somewhat helplessly. What was he supposed to do now? He really didn't want to go back to his boss empty-handed. Not when Hoynes was so visibily agitated over this. His boss had confided to him late one night during their early days in the White House that he drew strength from Leo.

The man drives me crazy, he'd said. He drives me crazy, but he's a man of steel. He makes you believe it can be done. He makes you believe it's possible to stay that strong.

Isaac dreaded to think how his boss might take it if Leo had relapsed into his drinking ways. It would be a cruel blow to his own willpower to see someone whose resolve he so admired crash and burn.

One of the doors down the hall opened, and an elderly woman gave him a flash of a smile. He was considering approaching her when she called to him "You're not looking for Mr. McGarry, are you?"

"Uh, yes. Yes, actually," he called back, hoping against hope she might know something.

"You won't find him there; not this time of the day," the woman told him. "He'll be at work. Works all the hours God sends, that one, and then some."

"Oh. Oh, right. Thank you," he said, groundless hope fading. He should have guessed McGarry's neighbours would barely see the man. He made for the elevator, and then held it open for the little old woman.

"Thank you, dear," she said with a smile. "You're a friend of Mr. McGarry's, then? That's nice. He doesn't get many visitors. Well, not usually, though it seems the world's been beating a path to his door lately."

"Really?" asked Isaac politely, feeling a bit disgusted at himself for misleading a friendly old woman about his intentions. I definitely wasn't made to be a private investigator.

"Oh yes. There was that tall red-headed girl yesterday morning; I saw her go in just as I was leaving to do my shopping."

"That was probably Margaret," Isaac supplied, wondering why she would be visiting her boss at home. "She's his, um, secretary." Though it always bugged him being called a secretary himself, he wasn't really in the mood to debate the difference between one and a personal assistant with a kindly old lady.

"Oh, yes. I should have guessed it was something to do with his work. That man works too hard, you know." Isaac nodded neutrally. "I wonder about the other one, though."

"Hmm?"

"He didn't look like the sort of man who'd be friends with your Mr. McGarry. He's a real gentleman, Mr. McGarry; always immaculately turned out. I always think it's lovely to see a man take an effort with his appearance; these days, men just don't dress smartly anymore."

"And this other man?" Isaac prompted, curious now.

"Oh, he- well, I feel awful to judge you know. He might have been a lovely man, but he looked... well, he bothered me a little I'll admit. Oh, I feel so silly, but you can't be too careful these days. You hear all about these purse-snatchers, even this close to the White House..." Isaac nodded tolerantly in all the right places. Working in politics, you got used to long-winded talkers.

"Anyway, this fellow had a terrible scar. Ooh, I know, I tried not to stare, it's hardly his fault, is it? But he was wearing camouflage colours, too, you know those splotchy greens and browns like soldiers wear. And he wasn't a young man, either; he must have been around Mr. McGarry's age. I always think that's terribly sad; these people are so in love with their wars. My boy Alfie, he died in one of their wars, and there wasn't anything wonderful about that, I can tell you."

"I'm sorry," said Isaac, and meant it. The woman gave a gentle shrug.

"Mustn't dwell, now. It's all in the past." The elevator reached the bottom, and she turned to Isaac with a smile. "Next time you see your friend, you tell him not to work so hard. And tell him anytime he thinks he needs a proper meal, I'll cook one for him. He needs some feeding up. I'm Elsie Bannerman, by the way."

"I'll do that," Isaac agreed, with a smile. It faded quickly, though, as he left the apartment building and hurried away.

What the hell was going on with Leo McGarry?