XIII
"Well? What have you got for me?" Jed leaned forward in his chair, a welcome flicker of his old vitality returning to him.
Ron Butterfield handed a folder to him, and copies to Josh and Hoynes. The rest of the senior staff crowded around to peer over their shoulders.
Jed flipped open the file folder, and found himself looking at a large black and white photo of a man with a long, jagged scar on his cheek. The military buzz-cut his hair was in was close enough to a skinhead to bring back unpleasant associations, and there was a troubling blankness to his eyes.
"Robert Alan Trachtenberg," Ron supplied. "Also called Trace. Fifty-six years old. Recently released from Springdale Psychiatric Hospital. He was shot down over Vietnam during his military service, and suffered severe torture upon being captured. After his return he suffered from psychotic episodes, and spent time in numerous mental facilities. His doctors noted he had become obsessed with the way his squad had abandoned him after he was shot down."
"And they let him out?" raged Josh disbelievingly. Jed put him down with a cool look.
"We can discuss the culpability of this country's mental healthy facilities at a later date. But before we worry about that barn door, let's try and catch the horse. Ron, what do we have on this Trachtenberg's current whereabouts?"
Butterfield looked as close as he ever got to uncomfortable. "The address he was using turned out to be a fake, and he missed the last two meetings he was supposed to have with his psychotherapist. We're co-ordinating with local police and checking out a few leads, but-"
"I don't want to hear it," Jed told him, shaking his head. "Just find him. Now."
"Yes, sir." Butterfield left the room, and Jed turned to his agitated staff. "The rest of you, get back to your jobs. You'll hear as soon as there's news." They all looked ready to protest, but did as he ordered.
"Charlie!" he called. His body man came running. "Cancel my next meeting, would you?" He got up awkwardly from behind his desk, his legs too stiff for his liking. "I need to see my wife."
Abbey found herself wandering the corridors of the West Wing vaguely. It was late, but the place was even more a hive of activity than usual. She didn't think anybody would be going home tonight.
She would have to go 'home' soon enough; return to the residence, and Jed. It pained her to see him like this, so torn up inside, and know that no comfort she could offer him would be enough.
A light was on in an unfamiliar office, and as she glanced in curiously she saw John Hoynes, poring over some document or other and rubbing his forehead. She would have gone on without troubling him, but some change in the light level must have alerted him. He looked up, and sprang quickly to his feet.
"Dr. Bartlet," he said, with a nod. Normally she would be secretly delighted with somebody using her proper title, but today she was far too tired to care. Let them call her whatever they liked. She didn't care what anybody said to her today, provided one of them said that Leo had been found, safe and well.
"You seem to have moved in," she observed. Automatic small-talk, wouldn't mother be proud? Her mother had always maintained that a lady should be polite and gracious at all times. She would have been delighted to see her Abigail the toast of society as the First Lady... and horrified by the playful and not-so-playful arguments she frequently had with Jed and his closest allies.
Her usual appetite for a good old knock-down fight had shrivelled and died, even facing a man like John Hoynes. It was hard to tell how she felt about Hoynes; part of her rankled at the way he opposed her husband on so many things, whilst another, more treacherous part whispered how much better things might have been for her family if he'd only won.
You were supposed to win, didn't you know that? My Jed was supposed to run against you and do surprisingly well but still come second, and then we could have gone home and got back to normal and talked about how close he'd come to being President...
She wasn't sure when in the campaign it had hit her that Jed was going to win. It hadn't been a gradual thing. His chances had seemed as slim as ever, and then the next minute she'd seen him up there at his podium, ruling the crowd, and thought to herself My God, he's going to win. And from that moment to the day he was elected President, it had all seemed pre-ordained.
Despite everything, despite the deal he'd gone back on and her crushing fears for his future health, she knew in her heart that Jed Bartlet and the Presidency were a union made in heaven. Days like this, however, it became harder and harder to remember why that was a good thing.
Hoynes seemed to find it as awkward relating to her as she did to him. What did they have in common, apart from the fact that they'd been the only ones who knew Jed Bartlet was supposed to have been a one-term President? Hoynes had acquiesced to the change in plans fairly gracefully, she had to give him that. Not that he'd really had much of a choice.
Of course, if Leo didn't come back alive, he might well find himself President sooner than he'd expected. Abbey knew, perhaps better than anyone else, how tenuous the threads holding her husband together truly were. She herself was one of them, and she was terrified that any moment now she might snap under the pressure.
"I know... this must be a difficult time for you," the Vice President said awkwardly. Abbey thought to herself sometimes that Hoynes didn't seem altogether comfortable around people. That was what had lost him the leadership race, perhaps more so than anything of his politics or his beliefs; he was a good enough man, a good enough politician, but he didn't have the powerful halo of charisma that seemed to glow around her Jed.
That was what Jed was in danger of losing. His halo, his glow, the thing that made people straighten up in his presence and believe in a power of politics they thought they'd forgotten.
The administration was a beast with many heads and many voices; some of the finest brains in the country worked in this very wing, often unobserved behind the scenes. But over and behind and through it all was Jed; not just the head of the government, but its very soul. If the light of that soul winked out, then what was left? Nothing worth saving.
And what was Hoynes, in this governmental body? Some overshadowed, thankless organ like the spleen; quietly chugging away in the background, ignored until it was suddenly realised it was needed.
The Vice President shuffled his feet, disconcerted by the lingering silence. Abigail Bartlet was not best known for her silences. "How is he?" he asked awkwardly.
"Suffering," Abbey answered shortly, painfully. What else was there to say?
"It can't be easy, having to support him through this," said Hoynes, and his awkward brand of sympathy somehow cut more deeply than any more polished words. "I know how close he and Leo are. The President-"
"Dammit, John, he's my friend too!" The words were torn out of her almost unwittingly, the words that she hadn't been able to scream at Jed no matter how much she wanted to. She lowered her eyes, unable to hold back the tears that were forcing their way to the surface. "He's my friend too," she said brokenly. And suddenly she found herself crying on the shoulder of a man she really hardly knew at all, crying for herself and her old friend because she couldn't let those tears fall in front of the husband who needed her so desperately.
Sam threaded his way through the crowd in the bar. There she was, at last, sitting on a stool at the bar and nursing a glass of clear liquid. He didn't know what it was, but he was willing to bet it wasn't water.
Sam moved over to her side, and watched her with some concern. "Mallory?" he said gently. She turned to look at him, the glass in her hand wobbling somewhat.
"Sam," she said, not sounding terribly surprised.
"I think you're a little drunk," he said without accusation, slipping in beside her.
"I know," she agreed.
He gently prised the glass from her fingers. "I don't think your dad would like to see you drinking." She let him take the glass without resistance.
For a moment they just sat there. Then she shook her head, and said "I just feel, so, so, so-"
"Helpless?" supplied Sam.
"Thank you, Mr. Speechwriter. Yes. Helpless. Frustrated. Useless. Not to mention pissed off." She looked up at him, suddenly. "You should call your dad."
Sam was caught off-guard by the abrupt swing in topic. "I, um, we don't-"
"You should talk to him," she insisted, slurring a little on the 'sh' sound. "You shouldn't let things fester. Mustn't let them fester. 'Cause if you do, one day you're gonna wake up and find it's too late."
"It's not too late," he said gently, taking her hand. She looked up at him, seeming almost childish in that moment in her desire to believe him.
"It's not too late?"
"It's not." He pulled her up from her stool, and hugged her briefly against his chest. "I promise. Come with me."
"Where are we going?" she asked uncertainly, glancing back at her abandoned drink sitting on the bar-top.
"Back to the White House. The others will be there. We can wait together."
Jenny couldn't help an irrational stab of relief as she saw Sam guide Mallory into the room. She knew, intellectually, that there had been no reason to fear for her daughter's safety, but that knowledge was no match for the icy feeling in her gut.
Nobody had actually come out and suggested that the area outside the Oval Office become an informal crash-pad for the people who lingered here, but somehow it had happened anyway. She suspected Donna had been behind the couches that had mysteriously appeared here. It was probably breaking some White House rule or other, but right now nobody cared.
Donnatella Moss had seemed like a fragile little thing when Jenny had first met her on the campaign, and she had wondered how such a quiet girl could possibly cope with Noah Lyman's boisterous son. But Donna had proved her wrong; there was steel behind that pale skin and puppy-dog expression.
Right now, she sat perched on the arm of one of the couches beside her boss. They talked quietly, barely touching, and yet Jenny could feel the warmth flowing between them like some kind of secret hug.
Josh. She still had a soft spot for the son of her husband's dear old friend. Poor Josh, so like his father, and so scarred by tragedy. When she'd heard of his injuries after the shooting, her first instinct had been to rush down there and mother him until his own mother could be there. But she had held herself back, feeling somehow that it was no longer her place. Josh belonged fully to Leo, now; he was part of the world she'd given up claim to when she divorced him.
Sam and her daughter settled onto the other end of that same couch, Mallory snuggling closer to his chest as he gently stroked her hair. He was a good boy, that Sam Seaborn, for all the chaos he seemed to get himself into. She was just glad her Mallory had him to lean on.
In fact, it seemed like everybody had somebody to lean on. CJ and Toby were huddled close together, talking in low voices, and Margaret seemed to have found a kindred spirit in Hoynes's assistant, Isaac. He seemed like a nice enough young man, very earnest; she wondered if there was something deeper going on there. Lord knew Margaret was over-due a social life; Jenny was constantly horrified at the way her husband worked the poor girl to death, though in truth she seemed to thrive on it.
Just please, let him come back to work her to death a few more times.
Somewhere, she knew, the country's Chief Executive and her old childhood friend were sequestered together; perhaps the First Couple could have drawn some comfort from this little gathering, but even now they had a part to play and a place to be.
Still, at least they were together in their solititude. Everybody had somebody... everybody except her. Jenny looked around at all the private little comfort zones that surrounded her, and felt more alone than ever.