"Hey, big sis. Can I come in?" Noah asked from the doorway of her hospital room.

"I don't have anything you haven't seen before, Noah," Jodi told him.

"Uhh..."

"Oh for God's sake, Noah. I'm decent. Get in here and meet your nephew," she ordered.

"I was going to come by this morning, but we had a thing with the ESEA Bill."

"What kind of thing?" she demanded. Jodi had worked hard to usher the bill through the House for the last four months. "I'm in the hospital less than 24 hours and there's a thing?"

"Clark..." Noah began to explain.

"No!"

"...and Mary Marsh..." Noah continued wincing a little at the eruption that he knew was to come.

"Oh my God...no! Anybody but her!"

"...introduced a rider that would mandate English Only classrooms and require children be transitioned into the mainstream classrooms within three years."

"What?!" Jodi screeched. "You're kidding me!"

"Jodi..."

"You've got to be kidding me, Noah!!"

"Jodi...."

"No, I mean it. You're joking right. I know you didn't just tell me that Mary Marsh and her sidekick, Dan Clark, have introduced a rider that will torpedo the ESEA bill?" Jodi demanded. "Tell me you didn't just say that."

"I just said that."

"Go get my doctor...I'm checking myself out. She's not going to do this. That....that..." Jodi sputtered.

"Sanctimonious, right-wing, Holier than thou..." Sara supplied from the doorway as she dropped her duffel bag to the ground.

"Bitch!" Jodi finished as she struggled to pull the monitors from her skin.

"Relax, Jodi," Sara ordered.

"No, I will not relax. I've spent the last four months working that Bill through committee, and I'm not going to let....that...that...woman...ruin it."

"Mom and I helped Becky fix it," Noah reassured her as he gently tucked her back into bed. "Get back in bed before that nurse Matt called the Marine reject comes to find out what's going on. Those monitors are going off like a Christmas tree."

"Don't I even get a hug?" complained Sara as she helped force her sister back into bed.

"You look like shit, Sara" Jodi told her after she got a real look at her sister's appearance. Her t-shirt was torn and stained with something that looked suspiciously like blood, and she held her arm protectively at her side. "You look worse than me, and I'm the one that's hospitalized. You'd better get cleaned up before mom or dad sees you."

"Too late," Donna announced from just inside the door. "Your sister is right, Sara. You look like shit, and what's wrong with your arm?"

"Nothing's wrong with my arm," Sara answered as truthfully as the daughter of two of Washington's top politicians was likely to answer considering the situation.

"Then how many ribs have you broken?" Donna asked. Being said top Washington politician and Sara's mother, she'd seen through the evasion. None of her kids could ever get one past Donnatella Lyman. In that they took after their father.

"Three," Sara admitted. "There was this little..."

"Riot," Donna finished for her. "Which is quickly becoming a little revolution. We get CNN here in DC, Sara. Not to mention the Washington Post. I believe you know of that fine news organization...wait...yes...you work for them don't you?"

"Mom...." Sara moaned. "Please, can we do this later?"

Donna stared at her youngest child. "You get a small reprieve, Sara, because I need to talk to the three of you alone. And since you're all here we're going to take advantage of it. After we've had our little chat, you're going to see Ellie."

"Mom..." Sara complained.

"You can't possibly imagine that's going to work?" Noah asked.

Sara frowned then acquiesced. "What do you need to talk to us about?" she asked.

"Well, your dad should be here too, but he's going to be in meetings all day. So he'll just have to forgive me for telling you by myself. Dad and I had a talk last night after we got home from seeing Jodi."

"About what?" asked Jodi.

"A change of address," Donna told them cryptically.

"To?" asked Noah.

Jodi saw something in her mother's eyes though, an excitement and purpose that she'd seen before in photos of her parents during two campaigns before she was even born, and answered for her. "Pennsylvania Avenue."

"Yeah," Donna confirmed. "How do you feel about that?"

"Dad or you?" asked Noah.

"Me."

Jodi frowned thinking about what it would mean for her and Matt. "Matt couldn't stay at the Post, and I'd be useless in the House."

"We were kinda hoping you'd want to be part of the staff. Both of you."

"As what?" Jodi asked.

"It's a little early to decide that don't you think?" Donna asked. "We aren't even officially running yet. Your dad just wants to start positioning me to run."

"You can't have two of your kids working for you in the West Wing, Mom" Noah informed her. "It would be a PR mistake."

"We'll work it out."

"Mom, how sure are you that you're going to do this?" Noah asked.

Donna looked her son in the eye not saying a word. She wasn't sure how to answer, but she didn't need to say anything aloud. Noah always could read his mother from the look in her eyes. He nodded. "Ok," he decided. "Here's what we're going to do, Mom. I'm going to resign."

"Noah!" she protested.

"Kate offered me a position at the SPLC a month ago. I wasn't going to take it because I've been content working for you, but now I think it would be a good idea. If I leave now it won't attract any attention. If we wait someone will notice and start asking questions," he explained.

"But Noah," Donna said. "Is this what you want?"

Noah smirked. "A chance to work with the infamous Kate Ziegler. Are you kidding?"

"Oh God," Donna mumbled recognizing the gleam in his eye. It was the same one Josh got in his eye for her. "Noah, if you hurt CJ's baby girl she'll break your kneecaps," Donna warned her son.

"Not to mention what Toby will do to you," Jodi added.