XII
"-And we'll be keeping you updated on the Cambodian situation as it develops. Okay, that's the lid."
CJ turned and left the podium, heart still beating a little too hard. The question hadn't come, but she could sense it lurking in the shadows; the story hadn't yet been grasped, but the reporters had the scent of it. Next briefing.
Or sooner.
Katie followed her out. "CJ-" she began warningly.
"Katie..." CJ matched her tone, but the reporter wasn't discouraged. She held her tongue until they were safely away from the rest of the press in CJ's office.
"CJ, I've held back on this for long enough so you could let the president have some breathing space. But the story's breaking now, and after I've sat on this for months, I'm not about to sit back and let somebody else steal the story out from under my nose."
CJ supposed it was true they owed her that much, but it still left a bitter taste in her mouth. Nobody should be owed this story.
'Story'. A tale to be told for other people's entertainment.
Sometimes her job description and everything that surrounded it made her feel sick to her stomach.
But for better or worse, it was going to be made a story. She sighed heavily, and turned on her heel to face her. "Okay. What's your question?"
"You can't-" Katie frowned, caught off-balance by this from a press secretary who knew how the game was played. "Oh, come on, CJ, you can't just-"
"Katie, by all rights there is no way in hell I should be saying anything beyond 'We don't comment on the president's family life' out there, so-"
It was a reflexive attack, and Katie punctured it like the obvious bluff it was. "Come on, CJ, you know that line's taking you nowhere. Nobody in that press room is blind or stupid-"
"Apart from Jackie Grant," CJ mumbled, at which Katie grinned and quickly swallowed the expression as if she shouldn't have.
"I'll assume that was off the record," she said dryly.
"No, I'm more than happy to go on the record with that." She'd been looking for a good reason to kick out that flagrant excuse for a gossip columnist out of her press room for a long time, but the woman was just too sneaky. She picked her battles too well, stepping over the line at exactly the worst time, and then retreating back into a sham of chastised good behaviour... until the next time.
Better to be fielding this kind of question from the Katie Jacksons of this world than the Jackie Grants, that was a damn sure. She experienced a brief pang of missing Danny; her press room was woefully thin on friendly faces these days, and none of the ones she had would stretch the lines for her as far as he had.
But then, there'd been times when she'd stretched the lines right back.
Katie's face was almost sympathetic as she continued her argument. "CJ, nobody out there is letting go of this story no matter what you say. You slap them down with a flat 'no comment', you're losing any chance you have of controlling the angle on this."
She knew that, they all knew that, but it was still too easy to explode. "There is no damn angle on this, Katie, it's the president's goddamn-" She choked herself off with an effort, but she still saw Katie's eyes widen fractionally at the level of tension in her voice. Crap. Katie must have known from the way they were handling this that this wasn't going to be as simple as an emphatic denial, but still...
Crap.
Katie's voice was momentarily gentler. "CJ, it's not my job to help you spin things," she reminded her softly.
CJ locked eyes with her. "And it's not my job to brief on things that are so far outside the scope of this administration and its purposes it's not even funny."
"The people have a right to try and understand him, CJ," Katie said, and it was just as well she hadn't finished that sentence with 'know', CJ reflected, because it was entirely possible the file folder she was holding on to extremely tightly would have gone flying across the room. "They want to know how his mind works, they want to be assured he's the best man to do what he does. He's the president."
"He's also a human being," she countered softly.
"Not while he's sitting behind that desk, CJ," Katie reminded her. "He gave up his right to protect family secrets when he announced his intention to run for office."
"Yes, he did." She gave a short, bitter laugh. "He gave up his right to walk down the street without the fear someone would try to kill him, he gave up his right to suffer a chronic medical condition without having every stutter he makes dissected for brain damage, and God help us all, he gave up his right to keep whatever pain he did or didn't suffer in the distant past to himself. But tomorrow morning, he's going to be sitting watching the briefing when you ask me whatever the hell it is you're going to ask me, so I'm asking you... what's your question?"
Katie hesitated a moment, then looked down and quickly nodded her assent. CJ let out a quiet breath. At least now they had the tiniest chance to control the tone of the revelations as they first hit the public consciousness.
For what little good it would do them.
"Abbey!" Leo looked up and smiled, startled. "What are you doing back? I thought you weren't due in until Thursday."
"Yeah," she said softly. Her sorrowfully resigned tone wiped away the smile, and any optimistic desire to believe that this was anything as simple as an abandoned publicity stunt.
"You're not here because they cancelled your thing, are you?" he said quietly.
She shook her head. "No."
"What's wrong with him, Abbey?" It was hard to force the words out past the tightness in his throat and chest. "Is he- is he sick?"
She shook her head. "He's not sick, Leo. There's... there's a thing."
"What kind of a thing?" His voice was rising, despite his best intentions. This sounded too much, felt too much, like another meeting three years ago, with his best friend collapsed on the floor of the Oval Office, and India moving in on Pakistan.
He has multiple sclerosis, Leo.
Abbey hesitated for a long moment. "There's a book-"
"There's a book? I haven't heard anything about a book!" he said sharply. He was the Chief of Staff, how the hell could there possibly be any kind of loop he was getting left out of?
"I thought it was best if CJ-"
"CJ knows there's a book?" he demanded incredulously.
"Leo!" Abbey cut him off with just enough force to remind him that he wasn't dealing with one of his staff here. When she spoke again, her voice was taut and brittle-sounding. "There's... a book about his childhood, and... and questions are going to be asked about his father. Today... or tomorrow."
"Oh God, Abbey, what don't I know about his father?" he asked.
She looked down. When Abigail Bartlet didn't meet your eyes... it wasn't good.
Leo reached out and tilted her chin up to look at him, a gesture that probably surprised him more than her, and momentarily pulled him out of his Chief of Staff persona and into the world when he'd once just been just a friend.
"Abbey?" he asked softly.
"He... Jed and his father, things weren't good." In her lap, her fingers knotted together. "They were... bad. They were very bad."
"I don't understand," Leo frowned. "Abbey, he talks about his father, he-"
"Yes." The smile she gave him was bitter and pained. "Yes, he does. He loved him very much."
And Leo heard Mallory's voice saying 'I love you, daddy', in tones of tearful dismay, and tasted the mingled flavours of alcohol and self-disgust.
"What happened, Abbey? Tell me," he urged quietly. "Tell me!" he repeated when the silenced lingered, more forcefully than he'd intended. Needing to know, needing to understand what was getting under Jed's skin, what had been haunting him these past few weeks.
"I don't know, Leo," she said in tones of such misery that he wanted to wrap his arms around her, and didn't know if he should. "He doesn't talk about it. He never did."
Still he hesitated over what gesture of support he should make, and the moment to make it in was lost. "What does the book say, Abbey?"
She smiled wryly, her strength returning when an enemy appeared to focus it on. "A whole lot of cobwebs and shadows," she said dangerously. "Hints, Leo. But it's gonna make people dig for more, and they're probably going to find it."
"What-" His mouth was dry, and he had to lick his lips before he could continue. "What are we talking about, Abbey?"
"They're going to be calling it child abuse," she said quietly. She held his gaze. "They're going to be right, too."
He had to look away. "Oh, Abbey..." He trailed off.
"John Bartlet," she said venomously, "was a small-minded, bigoted, limited little man. He didn't like being outstripped by his son. He didn't like it at all. And he made Jed suffer for it every day of his life."
He made to speak, but she overrode him. "Jed had an appalling childhood, Leo, but somehow he survived. He came through things that would have crushed and warped and ruined a hundred other children, and he survived. He survived living with a father who denigrated him, and tore him down, and belittled everything he was and everything he did at every turn. And Jed-" her voice cracked - "loves him. He loves him a whole lot. And this-" She made a one-handed gesture that might encompass the press room or perhaps the entire outside world, "is going to tear him apart."