"Sara, can I see you in my office?" Danny requested as he stuck his head out the door.

Sara quickly saved the file she was working on then rose from Matt's borrowed desk. She settled into the visitor's chair opposite her boss then waited patiently to find out what he wanted. He had sounded so serious when he asked her into his office. Sara could only think that whatever it was, she wasn't going to like it.

"What's this file?" he asked turning the screen on his desk in her direction and pointing to it.

"It's a document file," Sara answered which earned her a glare.

"What's it about?"

"It's personal."

"Yeah, I figured that out when I tried to open it and realized it was encrypted with a password. Which is why I'm asking. What's it about?" Danny asked again. His eyes softened as he noticed Sara flinch slightly. "It's a pretty big file...about the size of a book I'd guess."

Sara nodded, but kept her head down.

"About The Thing," Danny guessed. It was the obvious guess considering the file was labeled 'Rosslyn.'

Sara nodded again but kept her eyes downcast.

"Sara, look at me," Danny ordered then waited until she'd complied before continuing. "I want to read it."

"Danny, I..." Sara said but trailed off as for once words failed her.

"Writer to writer, Sara" he told her looking directly into her eyes. "It will go no farther than that unless you want it."

"The password is 'thing'," Sara whispered as she stood and bolted from the room.

Danny stared after her for only a moment before his well honed sense of curiosity turned his attention once again to the file labeled 'Rosslyn' among all the other research files Sara had opened to the investigation. It only took a moment for the file to open, and then he began to read:

Prologue

I was fourteen before I truly understood what my father's 'Thing' was. In our family, 'the thing' is just another pronoun. We use it to mean just about anything, but the 'Thing' means the day my father was shot. You can hear the capitalization when we say it, though it's spoken of rarely enough in my family. Like a stone thrown in a pond the ripples from the 'Thing' continue to expand outward even today...

Danny was soon so engrossed in Sara's book he didn't even notice Margaret enter his office to get him for lunch. She took one look at the intense concentration on his face and resigned herself to lunch alone. When she returned more than an hour later with a sandwich and chips, she wasn't even surprised to find him exactly as she'd left him. Without taking his eyes from the screen in front of him Danny mumbled his thanks and reached for the sandwich.

"Danny!" Margaret called from the doorway late in the afternoon. She noticed he'd finally finished reading whatever had captured his attention for the better part of the day. "Editorial meeting. Now," Margaret reminded her boss/husband.

Danny took off his reading glasses to rub tiredly at the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, okay. I need to talk to Sara after." he told her as he gathered the papers and disks he'd need for this meeting and ambled towards the conference room with Margaret trailing on his heels.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Because I'm her boss, and she works for me," Danny quipped. "Relax, Aunt Margaret. I'm not going to make your god-daughter cry."

"Better not," she reminded her husband as she took her seat at the table where the rest of the meetings participants had already gathered.

Returning from the editorial meeting an hour later, Danny was for a second confused by the sight of Sara waiting for him in his office. "Sara," he greeted her as he sank into the chair behind his desk, dropping the papers he'd been carrying in a pile as he did so. "I've finished reading the book. Why haven't you finished it?" Danny asked.

"It's..." Sara began.

"Not finished," Danny completed for her. "There's only one thing left to do to finish it. All this stuff with the law suit doesn't really belong in there."

"I know," Sara admitted. "I just don't want to..."

"You should finish this, Sara" Danny advised her. "I want to help you get it published. It's good, Sara. Really good."

"I just don't know, Danny" Sara said. "It's..."

"I know," Danny told her, and he did. This book laid bare everything about the shooting in Rosslyn so many years ago. Sara had done her research well. It wasn't just another victim's book though. She had looked at the whole event: from the events leading up to it, to her father's recovery, and events beyond. She'd looked at the events from both sides of the guns. He'd been shocked as he'd read to learn that Sara had visited the federal prison in Terre Haute where the surviving assassin was held. Sara had also spoken with members of the slain gunmen's families and learned how they too had been effected. Sara had obviously put her heart into this book. The assassination attempt in Rosslyn was the 2 ton elephant of the extended Bartlet family. Everyone knew it was there, but know one talked about it. Sara's book would change that if it were published. He knew that it was an excellent piece of writing, but he also knew it lacked one thing to complete it. "I also know what needs to be done to finish it. Do you?" Danny asked though he suspected he knew the answer already. He suspected it was the real reason she'd asked for an overseas assignment.

Sara nodded not trusting herself to speak. "I was going to..." she mumbled. "I went over the night the Genaro thing broke to ask them about it. They were...." Sara's voiced trailed off to nothing. "I don't want to hurt them Danny. I don't want to bring it all back for them."

"It's why you asked for a transfer?" Danny asked.

"They were sitting on the floor in the living room with their photo albums and a couple bottles of wine," Sara whispered. "They were holding each other and crying. They didn't even realize I'd come in. I left before they noticed me."

"And asked for a transfer the next morning. Because you didn't want to be tempted to ask them about it?" Danny questioned her.

"Yes," Sara agreed. "I'd been thinking about the transfer for awhile before that, but..."

"The law suit has already brought it back, Sara. Go. Now," he ordered. "Go interview your parents. I want it on my desk in 48 hours. Consider it your first feature assignment. You can't keep avoiding it forever."