Blood and State

By Anne Callanan and Kathleen E. Lehew

Part 16/22

The smoldering flame, the renewed vitality she saw in his eyes startled her. His searching lips smothered her gasp of surprise. What little was left of Abbey's calm was shattered by the hunger of that hard kiss. There was nothing slow or thoughtful about it, and she was shocked by her own eager response to the demand, the sheer desperation they both shared. Two day's growth of stubble on his chin only made it seem more real, more intense.

Lost, she was… and yet some small, still-rational part of her knew she was forgetting something. She was damn sure of it.

When Abbey felt his hand, where more often than not there were two, move towards...

Oh, yeah. That was it.

Flushed, blood pounding, she reluctantly broke away. He wasn't ready for that! She wasn't sure she was either. "Down, boy."

Abbey didn't fool herself into believing he'd take the first no for an answer. He didn't. Just moved his point of attack. She shivered at the heady sensation of his lips against her neck. He never did fight fair, not that she'd ever really wanted him to. As for what that hand was doing, talented boy...

"Must I?" Bartlet murmured, the first hint of thwarted disappointment in his voice.

"One of us has to see reason," she gasped, capturing that hand, moving it to a much safer, less enticing position. Best to remove all temptation. "Enthusiasm..."

He laughed, but allowed her the field and leaned back, breathing just a touch heavier than usual. Truthfully, his imagination and enthusiasm had got the better of his condition, although at this point he ruefully admitted condition was uncomfortably relative.

"... isn't a substitute for just a few hours' rest," Abbey finished firmly, no less disappointed than her husband. A few deep breaths got that under control.

"A few hours?" His brows rose incredulously. "I slept all that night, on board Marine One," - all things considered, those three hours had surprised him - "the motorcade to the farm, and all day once we got here. I'm not entirely sure, but I also seem to be missing an entire day. This is Saturday, right?"

Abbey laughed, trailing her fingers up his arm. "It's Saturday."

"Imagine that. A new presidential and personal record," he protested, still hopeful. "It's a promising alternative."

"Not this time." Abbey smiled sadly, spreading her fingers across his chest in a gesture both loving and restraining. His heart rate was fast, excited. So was hers. It was tempting, but... damn! "Later," she promised.

And she knew now there would be a later.

"Damn," he growled, echoing his wife's thoughts.

"Don't get petulant."

He snorted with profound disgust at the unfairness of that statement. "My house. I can do what I want."

"I've heard that one before." At least he would admit, reluctantly, that now was not the time. But still, it was time to put an end to this all together. "Leo's outside," she pointed out gently, watching with a laugh as what was left of his ill-advised enthusiasm soured completely.

"Oh well, now that is one hell of a mood killer." Bartlet sighed, releasing her. With that admission went a bit more of the energy he'd managed to find. She was right. Enthusiasm was a poor substitute. Still, he grinned and said, not too unkindly, "Let him find his own girl."

"Be nice, Jed." Abbey patted him gently on the arm, reveling in the fact that such a simple gesture was no longer beyond her reach. "He won't come in while I'm here."

"You?" He didn't miss the emphasis, or the fact that Leo had a good many other things to concern him at this moment besides a hastily planned vacation. His brows rose suspiciously. "Far be it for me to even speculate on your methods, scary as I know they can be, but how exactly did you get him to agree to this presidential escape?"

"I didn't get him to agree."

"Oh?" This didn't bode well for poor Leo.

"I told him."

Bartlet laughed at the totally smug expression on his wife's face. Given what he'd seen of her mood when she'd informed him about their travel plans, Leo hadn't stood a chance. Neither one of them had. "Thereby leaving him no room for argument. Or me, for that matter."

"You bet your ass, Jethro."

"An interesting challenge." His hand wandered to the area in question. The other, heavily bandaged, went carefully around her neck. There was a little energy left. "And don't call me that."

"You haven't been able to stop me yet."

Impulsively, still desperate for reassurance that she could, she kissed him almost savagely, lingeringly and savoring every moment. She demanded a like response and, as always, he didn't disappoint her. There would be a later and she couldn't deny the spark of excitement, the promise, at the prospect.

Besides, it was an easy way of getting the last word and one of the more entertaining methods of shutting him up. He did have a maddening tendency to talk too much.

Ending it, she sat back and smiled.

Short-circuited and not quite sure where he'd lost control of this situation, Bartlet took a deep, steadying breath. It didn't help. "Now that wasn't fair. Abbey, you can't just..."

"I can and did." Chastely this time, she brushed her lips across his and stood up. He was still too stunned to try and stop her. "Leo, Jed. Talk to him. He's worried."

And that, for now, was all the sympathy Abbey was going to allow her husband's oldest friend. She hadn't forgiven him completely, not yet. That he cared, deeply and without reservation, she wasn't about to argue. They shared that. But he also had his job, and that was where both their considerations clashed. She couldn't care less that Jed was the President.

Leo McGarry couldn't forget it.

"Yeah," Bartlet muttered, expression darkening. Even here, at home, there were things he wasn't allowed to forget. Things that, for the moment, he didn't dare tell his wife. What was left of the mood disappeared completely.

Abbey saw this, realized suddenly that there was more than the normal burden of his office riding on her husband's shoulders and conscience. She wanted to ask, but didn't. It would have ruined the progress they'd already made. From experience she also knew he wouldn't answer. This particular burden was his, and one he would only share reluctantly. She wasn't ready to force him.

As if having someone trying to kill him, for whatever spurious reason, wasn't burden enough.

"I'll send him in," she said softly.

"Must you?" The shadow in his eyes was replaced with a familiar, amorously disappointed plea.

"I must."

"Fine," the President of the United States grumbled. So much for the rest of his afternoon. And it had started so very promisingly. "While you're at it, find Toby for me, will you? Or is he running in fear of your considerable and probably well-deserved wrath as well?"

"Should he be?" And what, exactly, did he think she should be directing her wrath at? Her suspicions only grew.

"I'm beginning to wonder who really rules the White House." He grinned shamelessly. "Bell him for me, will you?"

"Okay." Abbey replied, already on her way out. Easily done - and she had her own reasons now for wanting to corner and bell Toby Ziegler.

Passing Leo and Ron Butterfield in the hallway, Abbey said nothing. Allowing her husband's oldest friend only a cool, regal nod, she gave him and his tall shadow silent permission to enter. This was her home, not the White House. He was not Chief of Staff here, and without reservation she was letting him know exactly who was going to be calling the shots for the next few days. He owed her that at least.

For Ron Butterfield, who had rarely been outside of shouting distance and eye contact with his charge since they had arrived at the farm, she spared nothing. Having three times as many of his people underfoot was bad enough. Oh, she understood the reasons, she just wondered if they would do any good.

Butterfield's features, carved in granite, showed no expression as the lady of the house walked away without any word. He wasn't looking for redemption, he never did. The job didn't allow it. In this, though, he found himself wishing for some small acknowledgement, accusing or otherwise.

His gaze hooded, the President's chief bodyguard watched the coldly silent First Lady disappear around a corner.

"She saw the briefing?" It wasn't really a question.

McGarry nodded tiredly, wondering at the ridiculous relief he felt. She hadn't confronted them, demanding answers they couldn't give. He ignored the mocking voice inside asking why. He knew why; so did she.

Abigail Bartlet would lower the boom when she was good and ready.

"This doesn't make my job any easier," Butterfield growled. "She has to know."

"She already does."

A muscle in Butterfield's jaw twitched.

McGarry simply sighed heavily and shook his head. There would be nothing from that quarter, not that he'd expected it or truly felt a kind word from Abbey was warranted. Too much had happened, with more to come. He hadn't earned the absolution, not yet. Might not in the foreseeable future. A hand on Butterfield's arm indicated the meeting now to take place was private.

The agent nodded curtly in return, satisfied to stay on the outskirts of this one.

The frustrated flush he saw on Josiah Bartlet's face as he walked in to the living room cracked McGarry's grim facade. The laugh he barely stifled in time. He knew the man, understood the reasons for the high color all too well. The still slightly heavy breathing was a dead giveaway as well. That was one for Abigail. Good for her!

McGarry grinned.

That grin did little to improve the President's foul mood. "You're fired," he growled, knowing exactly what was going through the other man's mind.

"Again?" McGarry chuckled and sat down in a facing chair. His eyes went to the bandaged limb his friend carefully moved to his lap. No obvious wince of pain or evidence of fatigue. Abbey had been right. "You're getting repetitive, sir. Besides, the paperwork from your last executive tantrum hasn't even cleared the out-box hurdle on Charlie's desk yet. Where are you gonna slip this one in?"

"You've been bribing Charlie."

"Yep. Easy enough. You shouldn't have threatened to send him to the Yukon." Reluctantly, silently relieved that the President was clearly on the mend and could play again, McGarry gave up the verbal game and indicated the TV, the Press Secretary once again visible mounting the podium. "You gonna try and get her another raise?"

"Another one? I have just informed my wife that the first hasn't even gone through yet." Bartlet picked up the remote and changed the channel. Another repeat of C.J.'s performance was being recapped. "She went a little further than the original outline you gave me. Or did you change the script?"

"A tentative outline at best. And script changes weren't needed. Performance anxiety is not one of C.J.'s failings." McGarry shrugged uncomfortably. "You know as well I do that the press rarely cooperates. It's a hydra that never sleeps. She played them just right. Aside from delivering the profile, she handled the inevitable... multiple sclerosis questions..." - it took a nearly physical effort to say the words - "... perfectly. This relapse won't be an election issue."

"This one," Bartlet muttered. "And I could care less about reelection right now."

"You should, sir." He so wanted to say Jed, to make that tentative connection begun only... was it only two days before? But he couldn't, not now. Cowardice, perhaps. "It will be an issue, whether you like it or not. Or care."

"And there goes the rest of my warm and fuzzy mood. Can we change the subject?"

"God forbid you should be in any way, shape or form warm and fuzzy."  He laughed, and then allowed the change of subject. He could take a hint. "You do look better, Jed." There! He'd said it.

"Not crappy, huh?" The President didn't seem to notice the use of his name. "I feel better."

"Good, 'cause that incident boarding Marine One..."

"I was already on board, not boarding. Get it right, will you? No cameras," the President protested with a slightly defensive twinkle in his eye. A lack of self-mockery, he knew, wasn't one of his many character failings. Forcing himself to board the helicopter had been hard enough. Hyperventilating while climbing steep stairs wouldn't have made for a good public image, but he'd managed somehow. Till he'd got on board and stumbled, reaching out instinctively and hitting his injured hand against the back of a chair. That had added insult to injury. One without the other would have served, but both?

Seeing some of the joviality disappear from his friend's face, McGarry realized that bringing up the incident hadn't quite served the purpose for which it had been intended. "I'm sorry, sir," he apologized. "I shouldn't have brought that up."

"Nah," the apology was waved off with a self-conscious shrug. "You are bound and determined to drive whatever warm feelings I have left into the proverbial dust, aren't you?" Despite the words, there is no rancor in Bartlet's voice, only a gentle teasing.

Accepting it in kind, McGarry responded, "It's what you pay me for."

"I pay you?"

"Sometimes."

"That's okay then. As long as I'm not taking you for granted." Bartlet looked back at the TV, his expression sobering. "She didn't ask, Leo."

"Sir?"

"Abbey." Congressman Lillianfield's face appeared on the screen, beginning a new round. The President could make a pretty good guess as to what he was about to spew out to an eager press. The vitriol was going to be flying and he suspected Abbey had already caught some small part of it.

Bartlet turned off the television and disgustedly tossed the remote onto the cushion next to him. "She knows, Leo. She has to. That profile doesn't fit what I told her about what happened with Marine One."

"Maybe she forgot," McGarry offered weakly. He hadn't missed the appearance of Lillianfield and the President's pointed refusal to watch. This was an emotional tangle he really didn't want to deal with right now. "She has had a great deal on her mind."

The President gave his chief advisor and best friend a clearly sour and sarcastic look.

McGarry chuckled ruefully. "Okay, bad example." Abigail Bartlet never forgot anything. That was the problem.

"Has she hit you for anything?" The question was asked cautiously.

"No," McGarry shook his head, his reply equally cautious and uncomfortable with the direction this speculation was taking. Even thinking that Abbey would try and corner him was a daunting prospect. "She managed to get me on a few other things, though. Spectacularly so."

"I figured." This time Bartlet did grin at his friend's obvious reluctance to remember or admit to the dressing-down his wife had so obviously given him. "A classic, huh?"

"You have no idea." Or maybe he did. Abbey's righteous anger had been one thing. Her fear had been what convinced McGarry that her demands were warranted. Considering the President's clearly thwarted frustration earlier, she'd been right. Home was a cure for so many ills.

So were other things. He managed to somehow keep the knowing smirk off his face.

Still, he had to ask, "Sir..."

"Leave it, Leo." Determined steel edged Bartlet's voice. He'd no doubts as to what Abbey had hit Leo with, and he didn't want to talk about it. Dysesthesia. Childish, maybe, but it was the way he dealt with his condition. "I'm better, all right? It's bad enough getting knocked back into my chair; I don't need this."

He didn't need any of it, and for a moment McGarry was tempted to not let it go. A friend wouldn't have left it. But this was the President, and he had, however obliquely, been given an order. Grimly, letting the other man know that in future it would not be shelved, he nodded.

Bartlet accepted his agreement, and the implied promise, with narrowed eyes. He knew full well it would come up again. Leo McGarry was nothing if not tenacious. "John delivered my message?"

"His Lordship was more than happy to oblige," McGarry replied dryly. "No doubt he managed to embellish the simple text into something totally unrecognizable to someone who speaks English as a second language."

"Be nice, Leo," the President chided his advisor gently. "He has his uses. Any response from the Russians?"

"Not as yet. Given their blatant omission of certain important facts, they're probably nearly comatose with relief that you're still even talking to them, let alone sending Lord Fauntleroy..."

"Leo... " The warning was stern.

"... his Lordship," McGarry corrected with a barely stifled sneer, "to reassure them. My guess is they're waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Speaking of shoes, how did you handle Josh and the others over this?"

McGarry winced. "I didn't."

"Leo..." There was kind censure in his voice.

"I didn't handle that well," McGarry allowed a little censure of his own to come out in the rebuke. Events had gone by too quickly to allow for sentiment. "Abbey didn't give me much of a chance to cover that base."

"You mean I didn't, don't you?"

McGarry didn't dare answer.

Letting that subject go, Bartlet leaned his head back, closing his eyes against a growing throb in his hand. The painkillers were already beginning to wear off. Abbey had once told him that tolerance and sensitivity went hand in hand. Rather than increase the doses or their frequency, he'd often had to do without and he wondered dryly why he even bothered in the first place. "We've shaken the tree. I suppose now we just wait to see what falls out of it?"

"If anything falls out of it."

"You're such an optimist, Leo."

 "Now you're just being insulting."

"I'm home." Bartlet shot his friend a knowing glance and grinned at that; not at all surprised that he actually meant it. "You've no idea how... inspiring that can be."

Inspiration came in many forms. McGarry's face split into one of his own, rare full-blown smiles. The President was back and ready to take on the world again. Nothing else mattered. Perhaps that bit of good news would be enough to bring Josh and the others around.

"Home, Leo, not the White House," the President was saying. "The security and safety distinction is not lost on me." Bartlet's satisfied grin faded and his expression became serious, darker.

So did McGarry's. Reality had an ugly way of doing that lately.

Home or not, there were still shadows to be battled. Bartlet leaned forward, careful of his injured hand, eyeing his friend shrewdly and ready to get some work done before Abbey returned and chased his chief advisor away. 

"Get Ron in here, and you two can explain it to me all over again. Oh, and it would be nice if one or both of you could give me a name. Call it an idiosyncrasy of mine, but I find when someone's trying to kill me, I'd like a face and a name to go with it. We need that name, Leo. Or this whole exercise may well prove pointless."

McGarry nodded grimly. Idiosyncrasy or not, he wouldn't mind it either. It was going to be a long day.

To be continued…