XII

Ron hesitated a long time on the front path before he could bring himself to knock. Finally he did, and then wondered if he had time to run away before the door opened.

Out of the possible options for who could have answered the door, Abbey's mother didn't seem like such a bad deal. "Good morning, Mrs. Barrington," he said politely. "Um... could I speak to Abbey?"

From the way her mother remained unmoved, he knew Abbey had spilled that there had been a disagreement. "I'd like to apologise to her," he added for good measure.

Mrs. Barrington regarded him with pursed lips for a moment, then nodded briskly. "I think you'd better come in."

He walked inside cautiously, into a house where he'd previously been made nothing but welcome, but that now all of a sudden felt hostile. He passed through into the dining room... and stopped abruptly as he recognised the boy buttering toast at one end of the table. The boy paused in mid-action.

At the other end of the table, Dr. Barrington gave him a slight nod. "Ron." He followed Ron's gaze, and smiled thinly. "Jed's a family friend. He'll be staying with us for a while with a back injury."

And Ron felt like just about the biggest idiot alive. He hesitated, then steeled himself, and stepped up to the plate.

He cautiously extended a hand. "I'd like to apologise for... being a complete and utter moron yesterday. I was totally insane. I'm sorry."

Jed stood up, and gave him a polite - if not excessively friendly - smile. "Hey, that's okay." He shook Ron's hand with a surprisingly strong grip.

"Did I hurt your back?" he asked worriedly.

Jed shook his head. "It's fine."

Ron sighed heavily, and brought a hand up to his forehead in depression. "Seriously, I'm sorry, man. I don't know what got into me. That was totally out of line."

Jed shrugged his forgiveness, and he looked up to see Abbey in the opposite doorway. "Good start," she said, though her voice and body language remained cool to him.

"Could I... apologise to you?" he tried tentatively.

She hesitated for a moment, then headed for the front door. "Come on."

He followed her out.

Abbey wasn't sure how she was supposed to be feeling about Ron right now. He'd come to apologise, and that was good... but then, he'd still been a complete jerk in the first place, and... and other, more complicated stuff.

She was working on an explanation for the prickly heat she'd sensed in the room between her and Jed the previous night. So far, it went somewhere along the lines of 'Male, bare skin, natural instinct'. What it lacked in finesse she thought it made up in believability.

Now, if only she could make herself believe it.

He's gonna be a priest, you idiot. A priest. A priest. He didn't think of her like that; he didn't think of any girl like that. Even if there was a certain way he smiled sometimes...

But even priests were human, and if there was something... Well, it wasn't because it was her. It could have been any girl. It didn't mean anything.

Just like Jed could have been any boy, and the feel of the smooth skin on his back...

Didn't mean anything.

Outside of the house, she folded her arms, and waited for Ron to speak. He lowered his head and spoke looking at the ground.

"I wanted to... I'm sorry, Abbey. I know I shouldn't have- I shouldn't have leapt to conclusions like that, I just... I missed you so much." He looked up at her, and the misery in his eyes took an unwelcome chip out of her core of righteous anger. "I was so worried, I just... You're so amazing and I know I don't deserve you, and sometimes I... Sometimes I worry you're just gonna wake up one day and realise that and wonder what you're doing hanging out with a loser like me."

Her heart was melting, but a little spark of anger still remained. "You should trust me, Ron," she said softly, echoing Jed's words of the night before. "How can we ever be anything if you don't trust me?"

"I know," he said miserably. "I... I screwed up, Abbey. I know that. And I know I probably don't deserve another chance."

Any resolve she might have had to tear a strip off him was slipping away. She guessed she understood, a little... the way it felt like the two of them had been sliding away from each other, growing apart. Oh, it still stung that he would ever suspect her of cheating, but...

But maybe, deep down, maybe there was just a tiny little bit of her that liked Jed... that way.

And that wasn't fair.

"Everybody deserves a second chance, Ron." She crossed to him, and gave him a brief hug. "But we can't just... I can't just pretend this hasn't changed anything," she said earnestly.

"I know," he agreed. She looked up to lock eyes with him.

"I'm gonna have to put you on boyfriend probation," she warned.

"Okay." He smiled softly. And she thought that Jed, no matter how mad she was at him, could never have resisted making some kind of a joke out of that.

And because she felt guilty to be thinking about Jed, she pushed herself up on tiptoes to give Ron a gentle kiss on the lips.

He was sitting up in his - Matthew's - room when she came back in. "How'd it go?" Jed asked her gently.

She offered him a fragile smile. "I made up with Ron," she said. "We're... we're not right yet, but... we made it up."

"Good," he said, and he smiled.

And something inside of him very quietly shattered.

But afterwards, he decided it was better that way. His feelings for Abbey... they were a dream. She was his friend, she was happy with Ron, and besides... maybe it wasn't really about her at all.

He was becoming increasingly sure that this was all some kind of elaborate fantasy his brain was constructing, trying to send him a message. Trying to tell him that he didn't belong in the priesthood, that this wasn't the life for him.

Abbey wasn't his dream girl, she was a message. Maybe even from God. God could call you to the priesthood; surely he could just as easily call you away from it, and tell you that you'd made a mistake. He wasn't in love, this wasn't really even an infatuation... this was just him, coming to terms with what he was and what he wanted to be.

And if Abbey was safely with Ron... well, that just made it easier to know that he was making this decision for himself, and not out of any hopeless romantic dreams. Because he'd made his decision.

He wasn't going to be a priest.

And even as he thought it, a great weight seemed to lift from his shoulders.

It almost made up for the heavy stone hanging suspended where he thought he'd once used to have a heart.

Daniel stopped in his study doorway, and smiled to see Jed frowning over an arrangement on the chessboard.

"Practising, son?"

"Yes, sir." He moved a piece.

"You think you can beat me?" he smiled.

"One day, sir," Jed said, with absolute confidence. Daniel was struck again by the complications inherent in this boy; there was a politeness and a hesitancy on the surface that made him seem quite shy, but if you looked a little deeper there was something infinitely less soft and yielding beneath it. In spite of whatever horrors his upbringing had held - or perhaps because of them - there was a core of greatness not so particularly well hidden inside Josiah Bartlet.

Daniel watched him play chess against himself for a few moments.

"I've been thinking," Jed said quietly, after a couple of moves.

"Mmm?"

"When term starts again, I'm going to see about transferring out of theology. I think I'll take economics. I always liked math." He made another move. "I'm not going to be a priest. I'm going to be..." He smiled slightly, and shrugged. "Something else."

"Are you now?" Daniel said softly, and he sat down opposite him. He'd suspected this was coming for a while, after seeing how progressively more uncomfortable Jed had become when anybody had mentioned his religious future. He'd just wondered if Jed himself was going to see it soon enough. "So tell me then, Jed... what are you going to be?"

Jed slowly smiled in reply, and after his solemn face the day before it was like watching the sun coming up. "I think I'm going to be... whatever I want to be."

"That sounds like a good idea," Daniel nodded, taking over the black pieces and making his move.

Jed countermoved. "It really does," he agreed.