Please see Chapter 1 for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

A woman, who Jenn assumed was Lilly, led her into the First Couple's parlor and asked her to wait there for the First Lady. It was the first time Jenn had returned to that particular room since her initial night in town. She didn't have fond memories of that night and now found that being back in the room was causing her limbs to shake. She was in the process of deciding whether she should sit down somewhere when Abbey emerged from the bedroom, her head tilted to the left as she finished putting on a pair of earrings.

"Jenn," she declared when she saw the young woman standing uncomfortably in the middle of the room, "it's good to see you again. I was wondering when we were going to have this little meeting."

"I'm sorry. It should have occurred sooner."

Abbey stared incredulously at Jenn before taking a seat on the couch and crossing her legs. "Word of advice? I wouldn't be so eager to apologize for things around here, if I were you. Once people catch on to your penchant for doing that, they'll eat you alive."

Jenn shifted the weight of her body from her right foot to her left, uncertain of how to respond. "Um, okay."

"So, how are you doing? You got beat up pretty good yesterday."

At the brief mention of her disastrous television debut, Jenn grimaced and sighed. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Everyone – including my husband – should have done a better job protecting you. There's no reason you should have needed to defend yourself the way you did."

"But they didn't know that was going to happen. I mean, they put together this list and they—"

"Oh, they knew it was going to happen," Abbey interjected. "Or they at least had a feeling it might happen. That's why you were sent to the show with Sam instead of Toby."

Jenn's eyes grew large. Even though she had uttered the exact same accusation a day and a half earlier, she hadn't been entirely sure at the time that there was any credence behind her words.

"But you knew that already, didn't you?" Abbey asked after studying the stunned expression on Jenn's face.

"Well, I…"

"Yeah, they screwed you over pretty bad," Abbey stated matter-of-factly as she looked down at her chest and picked some lint off of her sweater.

"I don't know if—" Jenn attempted to say in Jed, Leo, and the senior staff's defense before being cut off by Abbey, who wasn't done with her rant yet.

"Once you've spent enough time around here, Jenn, you'll realize that the men in this outfit have a tendency to screw over the women. Oh, they don't mean to, of course. They always mean well, but that doesn't stop them from hanging you out to dry faster than you can say Gloria Steinem." Abbey paused for a breath, her lips pursed into a tight smile that lacked warmth. "But what can you do, right? The only option you're left with is to ride out the wave and hope for the best while suppressing the urge to pitch one of them over the nearest cliff." She then laughed sardonically. "And, as you can tell, I obviously have some residual anger of my own to deal with."

Jenn recollected only the tiniest slivers of the time she'd spent with the Bartlets in New Hampshire all those years ago. The Jed she remembered from then was much like the Jed of now: always trying to please all the women in his life even though he often failed. Zoey was the precocious five-year-old who was forever on the go and caked in dirt. Ellie, the Bartlet daughter closest to her in age, was more reserved and could often be found by her mother's side. Elizabeth was already in her teens by the time Jenn met her, so she always seemed to be aloof and disinterested in what the younger girls were doing.

Despite only being able to paint the most abstract portraits of those days long past, Jenn found that she had the most concrete memories of Abbey. She remembered her as a woman who greeted her with a smile and told her that their home was now hers as well, but who also held her at arm's length. What resonated the most in Jenn's mind was how frightened she'd been of Abbey, almost as if she had understood, at her young age, how Abbey viewed her as a threat to both herself and the family she had built.

And now, as she stood in the parlor, not sure what to make of the evident disparity between Abbey's cool and collected appearance and the harsh opinions she was espousing, all of Jenn's former feelings of fear came back to her. Dressed in a simple black sweater and pressed, tan chinos, Abbey looked every bit the part of a compliant and wallflower-ish First Lady. But the hardened expression on her face and the biting words flying out of her mouth divulged a woman who could bring a country to its knees if that was her desire.

Abbey could tell she was being examined, so she cocked an eyebrow and said, "You never did tell me how you're doing. My husband treating you well?"

"Yes, he been very…um…"

"He's been an ass. You can say it. I don't mind."

"Actually, I was going to say he's been very kind to me."

"Oh. Well, that's just because you're young and sweet. But that's okay. You'll grow out of it."

"All right." A low chuckle burst forth from Jenn's chest before she was able to suppress it.

"You're not taking me seriously," Abbey accused with a frown.

"No, I…I really don't think it's possible for me to take you any more seriously than I am right now."

"Mm-hmm." The frown didn't budge on Abbey's face.

Jenn exhaled slowly and shifted the weight of her body once more. "Your comments actually provide a, uh, nice segue – kind of – to what I came here to talk to you about."

"Oh?"

"Ye-yeah." Jenn licked her lips and tried to gather the nerve to say what was on her mind. "As you might already know, I…haven't exactly decided whether or not I'm going to stay in town. The President and Uncle Leo keep telling me that the only person who can make that decision is me. And while I know they're right about that, I also know that, every time you see me, I'm a constant reminder of a time in your life you'd probably rather just forget. So, I'm…I'm gonna let you have a say in whether I should stay. If you tell me that my being around would cause you too much pain, then I'll just tell everyone that I've made up my mind to go back to California. No one will ever know we had this conversation."

In spite of her foul mood and how much she wanted to revel in it, Abbey found herself covering her face with her hands as she started laughing. "Jenn, I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that, so I'm just not going to."

Jenn, who'd been gazing at the First Lady in earnest, grew perplexed. "I'm sorry?"

"What exactly were you hoping I'd say, Jenn?" Abbey asked in a kind voice as her icy exterior melted away. "Were you hoping I'd give you some sort of definitive answer, thereby making your decision for you? That's not going to happen. As much as I'd hate to agree with my addle-brained husband right now, he's right. The choice to stay or leave is yours and yours alone." When she saw Jenn's face fall in disgrace, she lightheartedly added, "Good try, though."

Jenn looked down at the floor and shook her head in chagrin. "You saw through that ploy pretty fast."

"I'm a mother of three girls. Trust me when I say there isn't much I can't see through."

"I meant what I said about causing you pain, though. I don't want to do that. We've both been through so much that I…"

"Jenn, I'm not going to lie. Seeing you does hurt me, but not for the reasons you think. When I look at you, I'm reminded of how stupid I was. Instead of fighting to save the love I had for my husband, I ran when the times got tough and stuck my head in the sand like an ostrich with a pea-sized brain. He wanted us to get counseling, but I couldn't get past the fact that the love of my life didn't always involve violins playing in the background and cherubs frolicking in the sky. So don't worry about me and whatever crazy pains I may experience. I'll get over it."

"But what about you and the President? It's obvious the two of you aren't… That you're both kind of…"

"We're pissed at each other," Abbey supplied, nodding. "I appreciate your attempt to describe our relationship in more delicate terms, but Jed and I pissed at each other and there's really no nice way of putting that. Although, I'm sure that if you ask him, he'd say he isn't mad at me, and that's true because he doesn't really have any right to be mad at me. So, I guess that just leaves me being mad at him." Abbey stopped talking in order to allow her mind to catch up with her mouth, and then chuckled wryly at herself. "Look, I've been mad at Jed and I'm still mad at him, but my anger has nothing to do with your unexpected arrival. Jed and I, we have this habit of openly fighting whenever we're upset with each other. We'll rant and rave, tear each other down, and throw out accusations about how one person is preventing the other from discussing why we're arguing. And then, after weeks of sniping, one of us will say something that won't be an insult and that'll lead to us making up without having resolved anything. We've been doing that for years, Jenn. When you showed up here, I was still mad at him for deciding to run for reelection without consulting me first. I suppose you could say you were just the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm tired of fighting with him and then realizing, months later, that nothing has changed. So, I'm going to stay pissed at him for a little while longer, and then I'm going to make him – whether he wants to or not – deal with some of the problems in our relationship. All of that, however, has no bearing whatsoever on whether you should stay. Unless, of course, the sound of the President whimpering disturbs you."

Jenn laughed and tucked her hair behind her ears. "We women have to be pretty resilient, huh?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." Abbey hesitated for a second before quietly saying, "I never met your mom, but as one mother speaking for another, I'm pretty sure she would've been real proud of how you handled yourself yesterday. I want you to know that. You did good out there."

Jenn's hand flew up to cover her mouth, which had fallen open, as she felt tears of gratitude spring to her eyes. Waving her hands in front of her moist eyes, she cried, "God, I'm sorry. I told myself I wasn't going to cry when I came up here, but I swear, I must have opened some floodgates or something last night."

Abbey smiled and looked upon the young woman in front of her as if she was her own daughter. "Hey, there's never any shame in crying."

After taking a moment to compose herself, Jenn mumbled, "I should, uh…I should go. I've got a meeting to get to."

"Okay. I'm glad you came to see me."

"Me, too."

As Jenn turned to leave, she heard Abbey say, "You know, if you decide to stick around, I wouldn't mind us having more of these chats."

Before she was able to take any proactive preventive measures, the tears were back in her eyes. Jenn smiled and replied, "Me, neither." Even though she had shared several kind words with Sam, Charlie, and Zoey, she knew, then and there, that she would never forget this moment with Abbey. "I'd better go before I start bawling."

"Okay. I'll talk to you later."

The fact Abbey's last remark was a statement rather than a question did not allude Jenn. "Yes, we will."