Please see Chapter 1 for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

The car ride back to the White House was a silent one. Sam glanced at Jenn periodically during the trip, but her eyes were always focused on the scenery blurring by her window as the car raced through the streets. They were minutes away from reaching 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when Sam cleared his throat and gently touched Jenn's right thigh. She jumped and instinctually pulled away.

"I'm sorry," Sam apologized. "I didn't mean to… We're about to arrive at the White House, and I just wanted to let you know that, once we get there, we're going to have a meeting in Leo's office. The President, Leo, and the senior staff will be there. It's not a meeting we pulled together especially for you. It's just something that we always hold whenever one of us makes a public appearance. We'll go over what was said, what wasn't said, and what wasn't said but might as well have been. It helps C.J. get an idea of what kind of questions to expect at her briefing. Is that okay?"

"Sure." Jenn's voice was dull and emotionless.

The two once again fell silent until the car pulled around to the back of the White House and slowed to a stop. As Sam began to push the door open, Jenn declared, "I really messed up back there, didn't I?" There was regret in her voice as well as resentment. It was obvious she was still incensed.

"What? No."

"I lost my temper. I couldn't remember any of the stuff I was supposed to say. And then I just—"

"Jenn," Sam interrupted, "you didn't mess up. You did as well as any of us would have if we'd been in your place. He was attacking you. You had every right to say what you did." Sam reached down and helped Jenn out of the car.

"Yeah, but—"

"No buts. As far as I'm concerned, you did great."

They had just entered the West Wing and Sam was about to lead them to Leo's office when she grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. "Can I ask you for a favor?" she begged. "Do you know if there's some place I can go to…pull myself together? All I need is a couple of minutes, that's all."

Sam smiled kindly and pointed in the direction of his office. "You can use my office, and take as long as you need. I'll go to Leo's and hold them off until you're ready."

"Thanks."

Sam watched her flee towards his office before walking in the opposite direction. Outside Leo's office, Margaret was seated at her desk, typing away like a speed-demon. "They in there?" Sam asked, gesturing towards the closed door with his head.

"Yeah," Margaret replied without looking away from her screen. "Where's Jenn? She okay?"

"Yeah, she's…" Sam paused mid-sentence to rub his eyes as a sense of weariness suddenly hit him. "She's kind of beating herself up about what happened, but I think she'll be fine. She should be headed this way in a few minutes. Send her in when she shows up?"

"Sure. Poor kid. She shouldn't have had to go through that. Some people just have no clue what it means to be a decent human being."

"Yeah." Sam left Margaret to continue fuming on her own as he let himself into Leo's office. Five pairs of eyes turned and looked at the door expectantly as the hinges squeaked his arrival. Sam noticed all their faces fall as they saw only him walk into the room. "Yeah, it's only me," he mumbled, stating the obvious for them.

"Where's Jenn?" the President asked with concern.

"In my office. She's a little upset, so she asked for some time to herself, which I thought was a completely reasonable request. She should be joining us shortly."

"Oh, okay."

Left, once again, with some unexpected time to kill, the President, Chief of Staff, and senior staff didn't seem to know what to do with themselves. They exchanged furtive glances and scrutinized the already familiar surroundings.

To break the awkward silence, Josh asked, "So, while we're waiting, should we, you know, go over what we think went wrong?"

"It'd probably go faster if we instead went over what went right," Toby pointed out brusquely.

"Okay, then, what do we think went right?"

The six occupants in the room, who held an array of degrees and prestigious awards between them, wracked their brains for an answer but were unable to come up with one.

"It wasn't that bad…was it?" Jed asked after several seconds had passed without a response.

"No, it wasn't," Sam chimed in as he decided to be the one who would find the silver lining to their current dark cloud. "Some things did go right, sir. Like…um…well…Jenn looked good. She really did."

As the other men in the room began to nod their heads, C.J. crossed her arms and scoffed, "That's your example of something that went right? 'Jenn looked good'? Aside from being one of the more sexist comments you could've said, it's an incredibly stupid one. The reason none of us can come up with anything more positive than 'she looked good' is because nothing went right during that interview. Jenn got massacred, and the only ones we have to blame for that are ourselves. We promised Jenn that if she memorized those questions and she memorized those answers, then she'd be fine. Well, she held up her end of the bargain, but we didn't hold up ours."

"Now, wait a minute," Toby interjected. "We did everything we could. How could we have known that Durkin wasn't going to stick to the list like he said he would?"

"Oh, c'mon, Toby. Why did we think we could give Durkin that directive and expect him to follow it? When did we develop that kind of hubris? Let's face it, guys, we failed her, and we're damn lucky that things didn't disintegrate more than they did. She could have just sat there and fallen apart."

C.J.'s words rang true in everyone's ears, which caused them to lapse into silence. As Jed watched his staff process C.J.'s comments, he was pleasantly surprised to find that, while his staff still sometimes averted their gaze from his, they did so out of a sense of them having let him down and not the other way around. His eyes settled on Josh, who appeared to be deep in thought. "What about you, Josh?" Jed asked. "You've been uncharacteristically quiet. What are your thoughts on what transpired during the show?"

Josh frowned and waited a second before growling, "I think Matthew Durkin's a gigantic jackass who'll get his when he least expects it."

The response elicited a series of wicked smiles from everyone in the room. Trying to suppress his own grin, Jed moved over to Josh and patted him on the shoulder. "Thank you, Josh. Always my beacon of wisdom, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

As a feeling of camaraderie slowly filled the room, Leo sneaked a peep at his watch. "Sam, how much time did Jenn say she wanted by herself?"

People's smiles faded as Sam checked his own watch, his eyebrows furrowed in apprehension. "She said a couple minutes, but…"

Leo caught the President's eye and noticed that his friend looked as alarmed as he felt. "Mr. President, may I—"

"Please."

Leo nodded and rushed out of the room, remembering at the very last second to look over his shoulder and say, "Thank you, sir. I'll return as soon as I can."

With Leo gone, the senior staff didn't seem to be able to decide whether or not they should stay. "Sir, do you think we should—" Toby began to suggest before being hushed by a wave of Jed's hand.

"Oh, I don't think Leo'll mind if we loiter here a little longer. If something comes up that needs my attention, Charlie'll come get me." Jed paused to settle himself into one of the armchairs. "Oh, and before I forget, I'd like to thank you, Sam, for a job well done on that speech I'm set to give in New York."

Sam stared at the President in bewilderment. "The teacher union speech?" he asked as he shot Toby a questioning look.

"Yeah, that's the one. Great job. Leo gave me the final draft earlier today and I signed off on it about an hour ago. I like how you kept it short and sweet. I wanna be in and outta there before any of them have a chance to sharpen their claws."

"Well, uh," Sam stammered, scratching his head, "I'd love to accept your praise, sir, but I'm afraid I can't."

"You can't?"

"No, sir. The draft I wrote and handed off to Toby was horrendous. I wish I'd done a better job on it, but…my mind was on other times at the time. Sorry."

Jed turned his attention to Toby and gave him a courtly nod. "Well, then, my compliments go to the revisionist. Nice job, Toby."

Toby's eyes fell to his lap as he mumbled, "I'm afraid I can't accept your praise, either, sir."

Taken slightly aback, Jed stated wryly, "Lemme guess. You weren't the one who revised the speech."

"I rewrote part of it, but not the entire thing."

"May I be bold enough to ask whose help you received?"

"Your daughter, sir."

Jed was now completely confused. He knew he'd been preoccupied with various things during the past few days, but was it possible that one of his daughters had dropped in for a visit without his knowledge? "Zoey?"

"It was Jenn, sir," Toby begrudgingly admitted.

Various mouths fell at the mention of her name, especially Jed's. "She hasn't even been here for a week yet, but you've already put her to work? Were you trying to make sure she was earning her keep?" he asked, feeling slightly miffed.

"It wasn't like that. We were in my office going over the questions one last time, when I was…called away from my desk. By the time I returned, she'd already rewritten half of the thing. She did a decent job so I just followed her lead and finished it up. In retrospect, I guess her work was pretty impressive." When Toby looked up from his explanation, he saw four faces smirking back at him. "What? I give credit where credit's due."

Josh chortled and threw his hands over his heart as he feigned having a heart attack. "Can this be? The great Toby Ziegler is actually handing out compliments? If we don't intervene soon, people, he may just start apologizing!"

"Well, Josh, I am sorry. I'm sorry you're such an idiot," Toby countered sarcastically.

Both C.J. and Sam started laughing at this point as all thoughts of Matt Durkin flew out the window. Even Jed allowed the corners of mouth to push upwards. Everything's going to be fine, he reassured himself. His staff was no longer angry with him. He and Abbey would kiss and make up the way they always did. And Leo would make sure Jenn was all right and then convince her to stay in town. Everything would be just fine.