XIV
The phone rang, and Donna reluctantly excused herself. There was something almost awe-inspiring in being allowed a glimpse into this more private side of the first couple. The president was tired and in need of cheering up, his wife was trying to provide the air of comfort and normalcy he so desperately needed, and by some strange confluence of events she'd ended up a witness to their private little circle of warmth. She felt simultaneously extremely honoured and very much like a third wheel.
The sound of the phone from the office signalled an end to whatever unlikely spell had been cast; she knew that she would feel too awkward to barge back into their conversation even if they invited her. Both seemed quite happy to sit and chat with her as if there was nothing abnormal in that... but then, both of them were incredibly friendly people. Her heart ached for the president, forced by the nature of his hurts to avoid the very things that usually brought him solace. Jed Bartlet's friends were his heart and soul, but that was what made it so difficult for him to stand to see them look at him with sympathy and sorrow.
"Excuse me, ma'am, Mr. President." Donna quickly ducked back into the office to answer the call. This late, it could well be something important. "Josh Lyman's office."
"Donnatella." Her sister's clipped tones dissolved the comfortably, cosy feeling of close conversation as quickly as a slap to the face. "Still at work, I see." She didn't even need to articulate the world of disapproval of her younger sister's job that was loaded into that comment.
"Yes, and I can't really-"
"Really, Donnatella, I have to insist you talk to Joletta. I do believe she's hell-bent on signing those divorce papers, without a thought for what it will do to her reputation."
There was a whole universe of wrongness driving that particular mindset, but now was not the time to beat her head against the brick wall that constituted her older sister's set of Rules For Living a Socially Acceptable Life. "Alexia, I can't really talk right-"
"And what does she think she's going to do next, hmm?" her sister continued, barrelling right on over her as she'd always been accustomed to doing. "She's leaving Mike, but does she have somewhere to go to? Who does she think is going to take on a penniless divorcee with two young children? She's signing her whole life away without even thinking about-"
"Alexia!" Donna finally grated. "I've got the President of the United States and the First Lady sitting outside the office, I can't really sit around debating our little sister's right to run her own life right now!"
There was a beat of heavy, textured silence.
"Well, really, Donnatella, your excuses get less believable every day."
"I'm hanging up the phone now," Donna informed her shortly.
"Donna, don't even think about-"
"I am hanging up the phone now," she repeated. She glanced up at a movement, and saw the president hovering in the doorway to give her a quick nod of acknowledgement - how like Jed Bartlet, to think that it was necessary for him to politely take his leave before walking away. She cradled the phone momentarily under her chin, ignoring her sister's continued haranguing. "It's okay, Mr. President, it's just my sister," she explained dryly.
"Your sister that I met?" he asked politely.
"Uh, no, sir, my older sister."
"Oh, well, tell her I said hello."
"The president says hello," Donna said, into the suddenly silent phone. She guessed those familiar rumbling tones carried rather well even over phone lines to Wisconsin.
"Goodnight, Donna," the president said lightly. The First Lady arrived to take him by the arm, flashing Donna a quick smile in passing.
"Hey, babe, quit hassling the poor girl, she's obviously hard at work."
"It's just my sister," she felt obliged to re-explain.
"Well, then, tell her hello from us and we'll leave you to it. Goodnight, Donna."
"Goodnight, sir, ma'am." Donna shifted the phone back against her ear as they left. "The First Lady says hi also," she added. With perhaps just a touch more malevolent glee than was strictly necessary, but hey - it had been a long day.
Alexia spluttered; Donna didn't stop long enough to let her get her act together.
"Frankly, Alexia, I have more important things to do than listen to you all the time, and I'm getting pretty tired of you phoning me up and hassling me at work. Guess what; the world isn't going to end if Joletta gets divorced. Not my world, not your world, and certainly not her world. In fact, considering she's spent the past eleven years married to Mike Vincent, I'd say her quality of life is on its way to getting a whole lot better. Now, if you'll excuse me, I work for important people who deal with real problems... and my time is really far too precious to waste on your little delusions of running this family. Goodnight."
She put the phone down. Then, after checking very carefully to see that the bullpen contained nobody resembling her country's premiere couple, she spun around in her swivel chair and performed a little victory air punch.
It was amazing what hanging out with the leader of the free world could do for your sense of self-confidence once in a while.
Leo sat in his office and sighed heavily. He could feel that the point where he might get any further work done had gone, yet he was reluctant to follow it.
He didn't want to go home. He wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to be accomplishing, sat here in his office not doing any work, but... he didn't want to go home. What if Jed needed him? Hell, there was no 'if' about it - Jed did need him.
It was just that he had no goddamn idea how he could possibly help.
By nature a taciturn man himself, he understood and respected Jed's need to keep private pains private. But that privacy had been cracked open, and he ached to see his old friend hurting so openly, and be able to do nothing to stop it. There were no strings to pull or deals to cut, no political manoeuvring that could take the sting out of long ago wounds and humiliations spread out before the world for everyone to see.
It was still difficult to think of, impossible to imagine. Old memories of the darkest times with his own father were more bitter than brutal; there had been disgust and disappointment and endless frustration, but not the kind of constant, relentless terror Jed must have lived with all his childhood. He had never feared his father - feared becoming him, yes, that was the nightmare that had dogged him since his early teens and showed no signs of ever slackening - but never feared the man himself. He had been altogether too pathetic and broken a man to ever be intimidating.
Had he loved his father? Leo supposed so, although the flavour of the feeling that lingered was a kind of washed-out, sorrowful regret. There had been good in his father in between the drunken times, and it still twisted his heart to think that if he'd only had a friend the quality of Josiah Bartlet, he too might have been able to save himself.
As much as Leo could call himself saved, anyway, which was a variable that changed from day to day. The lure of the bottle was ever-present, but it waxed and waned; today, no doubt fortunately, he was too preoccupied with worries over Jed to pay his own familiar weaknesses much heed.
That scene after the press briefing had been painful to see. The staff had been set reeling by what Leo had known his old friend well enough to already suspect; Jed wasn't thinking about his own pain. Travesties that, visited on anyone else, would have had him storming through the corridors roaring in fury simply rolled off his shoulders as he focused on the duties he had kept to long beyond the point they were required of him.
Honour thy father and thy mother. Leo's lips quirked in a smile of bitter recognition. It was John Bartlet who had committed the crimes, but it was his son who punished himself for not deflecting the long-overdue recriminations.
He wanted to wrest that crazy mindset from his old friend, cast it down and let him at last stop swimming against the tide and be at peace, but knew he couldn't. It was too much a part of what made Jed Bartlet the man they loved so fiercely. He would never cease to drive himself, never stop forcing himself to stretch for a perfection nobody should ever have to demand.
The door creaked open, and he looked up to see Margaret. "Leo, it's late," she said softly.
Leo gave a tired smile. "It usually is."
She handed his jacket to him, and somehow it was just less effort to stand and shrug it on than try to resist. "I'll sort everything out here before I go," she assured him, steering him gently but inexorably towards the door.
He made half a sound of protest, but she ignored him as she usually did. No matter how hard he worked himself, Margaret was always at his shoulder, trying to be there before he arrived and stay until after he left. He didn't know if she knew it, but it was the most effective weapon she had in her arsenal of ways to pressure him into working less hours.
He smiled at her tiredly as he made ready to leave, not having the words of thanks but knowing she wouldn't expect them from him anyway. She knew she was needed and appreciated and, incredibly, she honestly seemed to think that was enough.
Margaret closed the office door behind him, perhaps just in case of a last-minute dash to return to it. "Is the president okay?" she asked softly, searching his face.
Leo could have given her an empty reassurance... but he wasn't sure he had any left to spare. "I don't know," he admitted, with naked honestly. "I really don't know."
He went home.
Charlie was still at his post as they made to return to the Residence. "Good evening, Mr. President, ma'am," he said, although by now it was really closer to being night. Abbey mentally rolled her eyes over the titles, but didn't bother to pick a losing battle over it; in certain closer settings they might convince him to treat them as family, but this near to the Oval Office he was as resistant to informality as Leo.
"What are you doing here?" Jed frowned. "I thought I sent you home hours ago."
"I stayed in case you needed me," Charlie said matter-of-factly. Abbey felt a warm surge of affection towards the young man for his loyalty to her husband. She couldn't have asked for Jed to have a better protector, never mind son-in-law.
"You shouldn't have done that, son," he said, but there was love in his tone and she could see from Charlie's smile that he felt it. "Now, go on home, you've got a pregnant wife waiting for you, you shouldn't be here babysitting me."
"She's not that pregnant, sir," Charlie reminded him.
The president lowered his eyebrows, a trace of his delightedly pedantic side returning to him. "It's a binary state, Charlie, she either is or she isn't," he chastised sternly.
"Thus speaks the man who's never had to walk around feeling like he's got a bowling ball sitting on top of his bladder," Abbey said wryly. Jed nudged Charlie.
"Quick, run for your life, before she brings out the 'you have no idea what it feels like to be pregnant' speech," he advised urgently.
She let that slide. However, if he didn't think she was storing all these little things up to revisit when he was in a less fragile mood, he was in for a rude awakening somewhere down the line...
Charlie just smiled. "Goodnight, Mr. President," he said dryly.
"Goodnight, Charlie."
Abbey echoed the sentiment, and then, impulsively, stepped up to give the young man a kiss on the cheek. He grinned shyly, both pleased and embarrassed, and Jed looked on fondly. He slid an arm around Abbey's shoulder.
"Come on, babe," he counselled. "Let's get to sleep."
She'd found herself increasingly reassured by the return of his sense of humour, and the relaxed mood the long and pointless conversation about baby names had put him in... perhaps that had been premature. As they withdrew from the company of others, so he withdrew from her, sinking deeper into solemn silence. As they undressed for bed there was none of his usual chatter or the lascivious comments he liked to trade even when they both knew they were far too tired for it to be anything more than talk.
When the lights went down, he pulled her close to him, and held her wordlessly and tightly. Abbey embraced him back, a grip that had nothing to do with lust and romance, and everything to do with the kind of unconditional comfort she had meted out to the girls in moments of childhood distress.
She only wished that her husband's pain could be erased with so simple a cure as a kiss on the forehead and a night of dreamless sleep.