VI

"Hey, babe."

The corners of his mouth turned up as Jed heard the voice on the other end of the phone. "Excuse me, ma'am, do I know you?" he asked with exaggerated politeness.

Abbey chuckled softly. "Is that the Josiah Bartlet School of Wedding Trivia?"

"Indeed it is. Did you know that in 1984 a hundred-and-three-year-old man married his eighty-four-year-old fiancée?"

"Mm-hmm." He could picture her eye-roll as she humoured him.

"I'm saying, it's not too late for Zoey to realise she can take her time."

"And find a man nineteen years older than her?"

"Perhaps not," he conceded.

"Jed, she's twenty-three."

"Exactly! What's that, in modern terms? It's nothing!"

"It's two years older than you were when you married me."

"Hey, I'll have you know I was the picture of innocence until you lured me away from the priesthood to have your wicked way with me."

She laughed again, and he wished she could be near enough to reach out and touch. "They're not cancelling the wedding, Jed."

"I know," he grumbled.

"I know you, Jed," she reminded him. "You'll bitch about it all the way up to the ceremony, and then you'll get teary-eyed, make a big old sentimental speech, get drunk and trip over the bridegroom."

"I resent that."

"I have photographic evidence."

"I bribed Rick to destroy those."

"Yes, but I got to Liz first."

"Dammit."

There was a silence, and he swore he could feel her amused expression down the phone line. "You're nervous," she teased.

"I am not!" he refuted.

"You're as jittery as Zoey."

"I'm solid as a rock," he insisted.

"That's so sweet."

"I am not nervous!"

"Of course you aren't," Abbey agreed tolerantly. "Just like you weren't nervous the day we got married?"

"I keep telling you, the breakfast disagreed with me that day," he said huffily.

"Of course it did, of course it did. And that's why you were pale and shaky and you couldn't remember your lines."

"I say again, I was eating in a hurry, and the motion of the car-"

If they were face to face she would have silenced him with a kiss, but the amused sound that purred out of the receiver was almost the next best thing. "Jed," she said, and abruptly her tone shifted into something less light-hearted. "Don't overdo it today, okay?"

The word 'stressful' and its medical associations lingered unspoken somewhere across the airwaves between them.

"I won't," he promised.

"Did you take a nap like I told you?"

He'd lie, but she'd catch him if he did. "I'll sleep on the plane."

"Jed-" she groaned despairingly.

"Seriously, sweetknees, all I've got is a meeting with Hoynes and then I'm done for the day. I'll sleep on the plane."

"You won't," she reminded him.

"Then I'll sleep when I get to New Hampshire, and you're there." They both knew he'd get more rest that way than any other, anyway.

"Okay." She hesitated, and he heard the smirk return to her voice. "You're meeting with Hoynes before you go?"

"It's a very important piece of government business," he said sternly.

"You just want to hand over your country and tell him not to break it," Abbey cut him off.

Well, okay. Maybe a little bit.

"It's for ceremonial reasons."

"He's gonna love you for it."

"Hey, in three and a quarter years' time, he can have it to do what he wants with it."

"Does that mean I can have and do what I want with you?"

"Always," he agreed, voice rumbling in his chest with sincerity.

"I love you," Abbey said fondly.

"I love you more."

"Start that, and I'll kick your ass," she threatened.

"I know," he smiled.

"I'll see you tonight."

"Yeah."

"And try not to patronise Hoynes too much, okay?"

"Would I do a thing like that?" he asked innocently.

"I'm just saying, if 'Secret Service Restrain Vice President' knocks Zoey off the front pages tomorrow..."

"It won't."

"Good."

"We have ways of covering up things like that."

She sighed, an exhalation of long-suffering affection. "Goodbye, Jed."

He smiled to himself. "I love you. I'll see you tonight."

Thirty-seven minutes to go, and her boss showed no inclination of stopping working.

"Leo."

No answer.

More pointedly; "Leo."

He looked up and scowled over his glasses. Funny; Margaret hadn't realised how much she appreciated that irascible glare until those godawful months when there had been nothing but a blank, expressionless mask in its usual place. "I'm leaving, already!"

"And you're doing it from a sitting position, too," she noted. "Were you planning to hover?"

"I have, like, three quarters of an hour left," he shrugged, continuing to tap away at his keyboard. Margaret had to restrain her secretarial urge to shoulder him out of the way and take over at a more respectable pace. Leo wasn't supposed to do any of his own typing. Did the president ever respond to his own email? Okay, the president probably didn't even know he had an email address, but still...

"We have thirty-seven minutes," she corrected sternly.

"Yeah, well, leaving aside the fact that that's really kind of freakish, that's plenty of time."

"We have to leave now."

He gave her a look. "Margaret, what am I gonna be doing that's gonna be taking me thirty-seven minutes?"

"Well, you have to power down the computer, which takes a minimum of forty-eight seconds, and then you have to put on your jacket, and then you're going to walk over to Josh to ask him about the thing even though I already told you he won't have the thing until Sunday, and then Josh won't know if he's got the thing, and he'll yell for Donna, and then she'll tell him he's an idiot, and then she'll tell you that he won't have the thing until Sunday. And then you'll call Josh an idiot as well, and you'll come back here and shout at me for being right about the thing, and then you'll try to switch your computer back on and go back to work, and I'll have to-"

"Okay, okay!" Leo held up his hands in surrender, and switched off the computer. He fussed around with things on his desk, and she stood and looked at him until the flickering reflection in his glasses dimmed as the screen went black.

"Forty-eight seconds, Leo," she said knowingly.

He glared and stood up, and then somewhat self-consciously reached past her to pick up his jacket and put it on.

"Are you going to see Josh now?" she asked brightly.

"I'm just going to go and ask him about... something other than... the thing," Leo hedged, brows lowered petulantly. Margaret bobbed her head in a nod.

"Really something freakish about you," he muttered as he brushed past.

"Thirty-six seconds to walk over to Josh's office!" she called after him.