IX

The silence exploded as Leo's office door slammed inwards and bounced against its hinges. "Leo!" the president bellowed.

Normally, Leo would have been the only one in the room to calmly take his best friend's temper without flinching.

Today, normal was a distant dream.

The president's face was an unhealthy red, and his eyes ablaze with such fury that CJ and Sam, nearest the door, both took a step backwards.

He turned cold, almost unrecognisable eyes on CJ, and she felt her heart shrink several sizes within her chest. "CJ..." he warned. The soft, affectionately paternal rumble was gone, buried beneath the voice he used to reduce his enemies to a trembling ruin. For the first time, in the white heat of his anger, she thought she saw his father's hand in him, and she had to fight the instinct to recoil.

"Mr. President, I-"

"I want that reporter out of my White House," he said, dangerously evenly. This was far beyond his quickly passing squalls of blustering rage, and deep into the cool, hard fury she hadn't seen unleashed since Charlie was attacked. "I want her out of the press room, I want you to take her badge, I want her gone."

"Sir-" Sam's interjection was soft, but the president whirled as if he'd shouted, and the Deputy Communications Director visibly flinched.

"We do not stand for that kind of journalistic behaviour in this White House," he snarled. His voice was rising. "We do not stand for it anywhere in the civilised world! That kind of- That kind of- Those kind of lies-"

Leo stepped forward, taking his arm, trying to take control. "Mr. President, you need to-"

The president wrenched away from him with a startling violence. "No!" he bellowed. "I don't want to calm down, Leo! I want a full retraction, in writing, I want to see that woman sued for libel! My father would never- He would never-"

"Jed." They all registered the change in Leo's address, an intimacy they'd never heard from him even back in the campaign days.

The president had lowered his head into his hands. "It wasn't like that," he choked quietly, and the naked pain in his voice was paralysing to his audience. "They're making him out to be some kind of monster, Leo. And he wasn't a monster, he was just my father, and I love him, and I don't want to do this, Leo, I just-"

CJ was distantly aware of the fact that there were tears gathering on her cheeks, and she should have been ashamed and embarrassed and horrified to be crying in this office, in front of these men, but she wasn't even thinking of it.

Leo took his old friend by the elbow with incredible gentleness. "It's okay," he said softly. "It's okay." He slid an arm across the president's shoulders and glanced back once, briefly, at the frozen staff. "Come on," he guided gently. "You need to sit down, and breathe for a moment, and it's gonna be okay..."

The president allowed himself to be led away. And the four of them were left, just staring after, unable to move.

After a long, endless moment, Toby moved quietly over to CJ's side, and gave her arm a brief, wordless squeeze. Josh moved closer and did the same, and then Sam thirded the gesture. And they just stood, together and apart, watching the doorway through which the leader of the free world had just been led, near-paralysed in pain.

Knowing there was nothing they could do to fix it.

Not a damn thing.

Stanley sat alone in his office, reading through case notes. His normal focus was lacking, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why.

It was a necessary part of a psychiatrist's routine to be able to jettison case details as easily as you assimilated them; blank your mind to the depths of human suffering you plumbed every day, and be alone with your own thoughts. Those who spent their professional lives helping others with their hidden pains had to do it without dwelling on those pains, for the good of the patients as well as for themselves.

With some cases, it was easier than others.

He could swear blind that the president was just another patient to him, but that didn't make it true. It wasn't a case of being awed by the position, or dazzled by social rankings, it was simply that the president's job was so intertwined with every aspect of his being that you couldn't set it aside so easily. Excise that from the discussion, and you were left with no meaningful discussion at all.

The president lived his life of a different scale to other men. He didn't have the luxury of personal time, of allowing himself moments to rest and regroup. He didn't get to put his own well-being first; before the man came the nation resting on his shoulders. And when his secrets were exposed, he didn't have the option of retreat or escape. Stanley had treated patients before who had delicate responsibilities and sensitive jobs. He'd sat with men who would be unceremoniously kicked out and pilloried in the press if deemed to be mentally unfit for their duties.

But how could you even begin to compare that to a man who lived with the knowledge that every tiny aspect of his life was international news? For the President of the United States, there were no safety zones and no respected boundaries. He belonged more thoroughly to his people than they could ever belong to him.

Sympathy and empathy were tools of his trade; empathetic pain was a new one to him. There was no escape from the endless speculation on the president's childhood, and Stanley found himself wincing by association, knowing how desperately private the president needed to be about these things, how fiercely he hoarded his secrets to himself and kept them...

He'd been expecting every phonecall to be the one for days. This time, it was.

"Stanley Keyworth."

"Stanley." He recognised the voice of Leo McGarry, and the depth of the tightly wound tension in it.

"Leo. Do you-?"

"Whatever you've got, cancel it. We need you here. Now."

Stanley never even contemplated arguing the directive. He sat up straight in his chair, feeling an icy chill scrape down his spine. "I'm on my way."

"So anyway, Dr. Acton's all 'Do you think we're in ER? Do I look like George Clooney?' And of course, Mike has to just go ahead and say-"

Karen cut off, abruptly, as the glass doors before them burst open - propelled, not by a speeding gurney, but by a man with a hand-held voice recorder.

"Eleanor!" he snapped, faster than Ellie had a chance to process his appearance. "Edgar Drumm, Charleston Citadel. Eleanor, how has your father's dysfunctional background affected your relationship with him?"

The words didn't even seem to enter her brain, reflecting off the wall of incredulity with a resounding 'huh'? But the reporter kept going, ignoring the Secret Service agents advancing on him.

"Do you feel that your father's abusive history contributed to the divisions in your own family?" Agent Chowdry had him by the collar and up against a wall, yet somehow he kept talking. "Was it the family atmosphere that encouraged your older sister to leave home at such a young age?"

Disbelief had faded into outrage. "What? You can't-"

"Do you feel that your father emotionally neglected you? Was that the reason behind your lack of contact with him after you moved away for college?"

The words were barbed, leading, insidious, but with that painful edge of an almost truth that kept her off-balance as the barrage of questions flew at her, even as Drumm was dragged away by her agents. Of course her family hadn't been any of those things he was suggesting - but hadn't she played that game, hadn't she slumped around in a teenage drama wailing about how her father never paid attention to her? Only now that the darkest edges of such a suggestion were being paraded before her did she really realise how shallow the old 'scars' were... and yet they were old, and she'd dwelled on them and chewed over them for so long that stripping the truth out of the melodrama felt next to impossible.

Her jaw was flapping like a fish as she scrambled to pick out the right words, the emphatic denials that should have been blazing from her lips before he even started speaking. But of course, she was Ellie. The one who never spoke up for herself. "I- It-"

Karen took her arm. "Don't even answer him, Ellie. Don't listen to him."

She turned troubled eyes on her friend. "I-"

"I know. I know. Don't even think about it. He's not worth it. Your agents are kicking him out, don't think about him anymore. Just come and sit down in the lounge, take a moment."

Ellie let herself be led. After all, that was her nature. The meek, quiet, useless one who couldn't stand up for herself, who couldn't say what she wanted, who couldn't seem to do anything without needing someone else to push her into it. Her father didn't neglect her - she just shrank so completely into her own lack of self-esteem it was a wonder anyone could see her at all.

Sitting down in the lounge, she tried not to hyperventilate while Karen frowned worriedly and twirled a ringlet of hair around her finger as she regarded her.

"I think you should go see your therapist, El," she said finally, not unkindly.

Ellie blew out her breath in a miserable sigh. "Yeah." Here she was... self-destructing again.

Just like she always did.

"Yeah," she repeated softly.