Please see Chapter 1 for general info and disclaimers.
*~*
"Am I late? Did I miss anything?"
Ainsley swooped into Josh's bullpen with a can of Fresca in one hand and her purse in the other. As she pulled up beside Josh and Donna, who were standing in front of a TV tuned to Full Circle, she dropped her bag onto the floor and popped the tab on her soda can.
"They're just doing introductions right now," Donna informed her without looking away from the screen. "She looks kind of nervous, don't you think?"
"Well, who wouldn't be?" Josh asked, reaching around Donna to grab a brownie off of a plate on the desk in front of them. Donna slapped his hand it passed across her body. "Hey," Josh yelped. "What gives? That hurt."
"Those brownies aren't for you."
"Well, if they aren't for me, then what are they doing sitting in my bullpen?"
"I baked them for everyone else, Joshua. They've been working hard and I thought they could use a treat."
"So let me make sure I got this right. You baked brownies for everyone but me?"
"Yeah."
"That's just so wrong. Why?"
"You really want me going into my list of reasons right now?"
Josh pondered her question for a second before confessing, "No."
"I didn't think so."
Josh quickly stuffed the brownie he'd managed to snag into his mouth and turned his attention back to the TV. "She looks good," he observed with a full mouth.
"Yeah," Ainsley agreed proudly. "I lent her that red shirt. I thought the red would do a good job offsetting the darkness of the suit. But the curls were all her idea. They're a nice touch."
Josh shot Ainsley a puzzled look but decided to let her remark pass without any further comment. "She looks good in red. Just like you do," he added as he turned towards Donna. "You should wear red more often."
Donna blushed at the compliment and smiled in bemusement. "Thank you." Before she had a chance to say more, she caught sight of Margaret in the hallway and chased after her with a document Leo needed to sign.
Once Donna was gone, Ainsley grinned slyly at Josh. "What was that all about?"
"What?" he asked, snatching another forbidden brownie.
"That stuff you just said to Donna. 'You look good in red. You should wear more red.' You were flirting her."
"What?" Josh glared at Ainsley in exasperation. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, I do," she insisted. "I know flirting when I see it, and that was definitely flirting."
"What are you, in fifth grade?"
"Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch," Ainsley retorted, doubled over in laughter. "I was just kidding around."
Josh narrowed his eyes and stiffly asked, "Ainsley, do I have to remind you that I was the one who said you could watch Jenn's appearance up here? Do you want me to send you back down to the dungeon?"
She gasped and pointed an accusing finger at Josh. "I knew that's what you guys call my office."
"Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch," he mocked.
"Do I need to send you two to your rooms without dinner?" Donna admonished as she stepped back into the bullpen.
"Donna, she—" Josh attempted to gripe before being hushed by his assistant.
"Shh. They're coming back from commercials. Here we go."
____________________
"Mind if I join you?"
Leo looked over his shoulder to see Jed striding into his office with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets.
"I thought you were going to watch this with Abbey over at the Residence, sir," Leo stated, his forehead furrowed in surprise.
"Oh, well, I, uh…" Jed pursed his lips and stared down at the floor. "She looked like she wanted to be left alone, so I decided that I'd come here and keep you company instead."
"Are you avoiding your wife, sir?"
"Don't you think that's kind of a personal question?"
"You really shouldn't be avoiding her, Mr. President. I don't see that helping matters any."
"Gee, Leo, isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black?"
"I never avoided Jenny, sir."
"No, you just turned a blind eye to everything until it was too late."
Both men fell silent and watched as Full Circle returned from its commercial break. The camera focused in on Jenn, and they got an unobscured shot of Jenn looking cool and composed in her new suit as soft waves framed her face. It was also obvious, however, that she was feeling uneasy.
"She looks nervous," Jed pointed out mournfully.
"I'm sure she is."
Jed sighed and glanced at his best friend. "Did we do the right thing by putting her on this show?"
"It had to be done."
"I really need her to come out of this unscathed, Leo."
This time Leo was the one who sighed. "I want that, too, Mr. President, but I think we both know the odds of that happening are next to impossible."
"Yeah."
The camera panned out to reveal both Matt and Jenn as the interview got underway.
____________________
"So, Jenn, I'm sure you already know that we're eager to hear about your current relationship with your father, the President, but why don't we ease into things by discussing your mother. Is that okay?" Matt oozed charm as he gazed amiably at Jenn from across the table.
"Sure."
"I understand that you and your mother were close. Would you mind telling us a little more about that?"
It appeared almost as if the mention of her mother caused Jenn to fall into a daze. She stared ahead blankly and looked like a deer caught in a pair of headlights.
"C'mon, Jenn," Sam encouraged quietly from his post behind the cameras, "snap out of it. You can do this."
Jenn blinked several times, panicked, before regaining the use of her tongue. As she remembered the question was one of the ones from the list and that she had an answer already prepared, she flipped some hair over her right shoulder and smiled confidently. "Yes, Matt, my mom and I were very close. I know it sounds trite, but I think you could honestly say we were best friends. My mom was only in her twenties when she had me, so I guess you could say we kind of grew up together. She was the sweetest, most wonderful person I know."
"Do you think it would be fair to say you kept each other's confidences and did whatever the other asked?"
Sam raised an eyebrow and looked up from the phone number he'd been punching into his cell phone. It wasn't one of the 'allowed' questions, but he didn't feel like it was so out of line that he had to be concerned.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Jenn responded, trying not to appear too startled.
"Then is that why you hid your identity all these years?" Matt's eyes twinkled triumphantly as he saw Jenn's face fall.
"What the hell?" Josh cried, his mouth dropping open.
"That's one of the questions on the list?" Donna asked in disbelief.
"No!" Josh grabbed the phone nearest to him and dialed Toby's extension. When he got a busy signal, he slammed the receiver down and stalked off in the direction of Toby's office.
On the screen, the camera was pulling in for an up-close shot of Jenn's stunned face. "I don't—" she squeaked in a small voice.
"Oh, c'mon, Jenn," Matt jeered. "Isn't it true that the President told your mother that he wanted to keep you a secret? So she, in turn, asked you to conceal your father's identity?"
"No, that's not true," Jenn asserted as firmly as she could. When had things spun so out of control, she asked herself. "No one ever asked me to keep my father's identity a secret."
"Are you saying that you expect us to believe that you never tried to contact your father for more than a decade because you just didn't feel like it?" The venom in Matt's voice was unmistakable.
Josh burst into Toby's office without bothering to knock. "Toby, we—"
Toby silenced Josh by holding up his hand and continued his phone conversation. "Yes, Leo, I know….I don't know what happened….No, I—…Let me talk to him and I'll get back to you." Looking up to address Josh, Toby muttered, "I've got to call Sam." He punched in Sam's cell phone number and waited impatiently for him to pick up.
"It wasn't that I didn't feel like it," Jenn countered weakly. "It's just that…my mom wasn't well. She…was bipolar and thought the President would…she was just scared, that's all. She asked him not to contact me, but she never forbid me from contacting him. I just didn't—"
Sam jumped and almost dropped his phone as it vibrated in his hand. He'd been hanging on to every halting word coming out of Jenn's mouth. She had paled by two shades after the questions had turned critical and now looked close to what Sam imagined death to look like. "Sam Seaborn," he whispered into the phone as he turned his back on the set and stuck a finger in his left ear.
"What the hell is going on over there?" Toby shouted into his ear.
"I don't know. I think we're getting sandbagged."
"You think, Sam? Well, I know that's what's happening. Get her out of there. Now."
"What do you want me to do? Run up there and drag her off the set while the cameras are rolling? That would look great."
"Then what do you suggest? Durkin's killing her and the President's about to have a heart attack!"
"I'll pull her at the next commercial break."
"Which will be when?"
"I don't know." Sam turned back around to see Jenn's lower lip quavering. "I gotta go. Bye."
Toby moved the receiver away from his ear and stared at it as it emitted a dial tone. "He hung up on me," he declared, faintly astonished.
Josh rubbed his hands over his face and mumbled, "What's he gonna do?"
"Pull her at the next break."
"Which is when?"
"He doesn't know."
"Oh, God."
"Yeah."
Both men refocused their attention on the show in time to see Matt berate Jenn some more.
"Your father is the governor of New Hampshire and he's well aware of the fact that your mother is mentally unstable, and yet he has no qualms with leaving his daughter in her hands? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Yes. No. Wait, I—" Jenn gazed beseechingly at the cameras as she tried to locate Sam hidden behind them.
"Oh, this is bad," Josh stated, wincing. "This is very, very bad. The things he's implying…he's…"
"I know," Toby said. "I don't know what could be worse."
"I do."
Toby and Josh turned to see C.J. lurking in the doorway, a briefing book clutched in her right hand.
"You want to know what's worse?" she challenged as she walked towards them. "You could be in Jenn's shoes right now."
The two men ducked their heads guiltily and nodded. C.J. stared at the TV and shook her head in dismay as she watched a distraught Jenn look as if she wished the floor below her would open up and swallow her whole.
"You were ten years old when you met the President for the first time," Matt began to say before being interrupted by Jenn, who murmured, "He wasn't the President then."
"Well, yes, I realize that, but my point is that you were only ten when your father introduced himself to you and then abandoned you. Both you and the President claim that your mother was the one who precipitated that break in your relationship, but you're also claiming that no one ever stopped you from contacting him as you got older. Now how can that be? Actions were taken that you're now not being frank about! Who made these atrocious decisions? Who are you protecting? It's your father, isn't it?"
Just as Sam was about to disregard his own arguments on why he should wait until the next commercial break to pull Jenn off the show, her face clouded over and she stopped cowering in her chair.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" she demanded loudly, her face livid.
Not expecting Jenn to start arguing back, Matt shot a hasty look to the director standing off to the sidelines. "Well, maybe we should—"
"No," Jenn interrupted. "You keep your eyes right here," she ordered, pointing to her own eyes. "Who the hell do you think you are to sit there and question the decisions that have been made in my life? You have no idea what I've gone through and what my mother has gone through. Did you spend your 21st birthday pleading with your mother to open a locked bathroom door as she threatened to smash in the medicine cabinet mirror and slice her wrists open with the shards? At the age of 13, did you have to learn how to beg store managers to allow you to return wore merchandise that your mother had bought on a whim because if they didn't, then that would mean both of you would end up on the streets? Did you grow up having to hide the fact that your mother wasn't well so that people wouldn't pity you and say 'Oh, you poor thing' every time they saw you? No? Well, guess what? I did. I had to do all of that and more. Yes, decisions were made when I was young and as I got older, and I may regret some of them now and they may seem absurd to some people, but I don't care. I don't care because those of you who are irked by this don't know what it's like. There are over 2.3 million adults who suffer from manic depression in the United States, and they and their families struggle through every hour of every day, just like my mother and I did, to try to hold on and keep things from falling apart. So, don't you dare sit there and judge them or me or my mother or anyone else in my family. Don't you dare."
A hush fell over the studio. Jenn's eyes filled with tears as she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. Matt stared at her, stunned. Soon the man with the headset appeared beside two of the cameras and began waving his arms around wildly. Taking notice of him, Matt blinked and stammered, "Well, it, uh, it looks like it's time for another word from our sponsors, so we'll be right back."
"And we're out," the headset man yelled in relief.
Jenn yanked the microphone off of her jacket and flung it away from her, not caring that it probably broke when it smacked against the cold floor. "You bastard," she condemned Matt as she rose from her seat and pushed her way through various cameramen and crewmembers.
Sam rushed to her side. "Jenn, I—"
She broke his gaze and advised with a strained voice, "I really wouldn't talk to me right now, Sam, because I might end up saying something I'll regret later."
He nodded in understanding and asked her to give him a second as he marched over to Matt, who hadn't moved from his chair.
"She can't leave yet," Matt informed him flatly. "We're supposed to have her for another segment."
"Then that's your problem, not mine."
When Matt opened his mouth to protest, Sam snapped, "What? You want to sue us over this? Fine, go ahead. I'm sure the Counsel's Office would have a field day with you."
Matt closed his mouth and looked away as he tried to avoid Sam's eyes. But Sam slammed both of his hands against the table and moved his face within inches of Matt's. "Congratulations, Matt," Sam hissed, "you just succeeded in committing not one, but three grave mistakes. First, you pissed off the President. Second, you pissed off Leo McGarry. And your third and most critical mistake? You pissed off me. Hope it was all worth it."
Sam then spun himself around and made his way towards Jenn. It was time to return to the White House.