XIV

Dinner at the Bartlet household was a nervewracking affair. Abbey could feel the waves of disapproval emanating from Jed's father, and couldn't quite understand them. She'd been braced for the man to dislike her, everything Jed had said about him suggested that he would, but this was something else. He was angry at Jed, that much was obvious, but surely not just over inviting strangers to the supper table. It felt like a bigger, deeper anger than that, some great chasm of fundamental disagreement. She wondered if he was still furious about Jed abandoning the priesthood... but that didn't seem right, because Jed had said his father wasn't Catholic himself and didn't really approve of Jed taking on the religion.

There were things going on in this atmosphere that she didn't understand. Matt knew something, she couldn't imagine what, and it'd had his hackles raised from the moment Jed's father had arrived on the scene. She wondered if Jonathan had told him something; she couldn't believe Jed would have told her brother anything he couldn't tell her.

Jonathan was a puzzle as well. From what she'd seen of him he was a typically brash, loud and carefree excuse for a teenager, but for the whole duration of the meal he'd been staring determinedly down at his plate as if his life depended on it. He seemed almost violently tense, as if waiting for the room to explode at any moment. She wondered if it often did. Jed was deeply passionate about many things, but she couldn't imagine him having any kind of screaming row with his father.

Jed himself was unusually solemn. His looks and the little moments when he would not so accidentally brush against her hand were as warm as ever, but his words were guarded, and his playful sense of humour tightly reined. The way he studiously avoided looking his father's way was as obvious as any series of repeated glances.

Abbey did her best to preserve the fragile atmosphere, keeping the conversation bright and light, but she felt more than a little like she was lost in subtext without a map. The worst part was being so uncertain of her ground - she knew there were landmines buried here she didn't want to set off, but while she could guess what subjects some lay under, she was sure there were others littered around she could stumble over by mistake. It left her scrabbling for trite small-talk, and she hated that. She'd always liked that she could talk to Jed about the deeper things.

"So, um... how's your dad's practice doing?" Jed seemed similarly starved for safe topics of conversation. Strip away political views and school and religion and future plans and anything too in-depth about their relationship, and suddenly they were all finding it necessary to perform mental gymnastics to steer the conversation along a safe path.

At times like this, Abbey reflected, it would probably help if she cared about sport.

"Pretty good," she smiled. "Did he tell you about that article he was writing for-"

"Yeah." Jed cut her off a little too quickly, and she guessed it was a warning against name-dropping her father's highly prestigious publication opportunity. It seemed strange - John Bartlet hardly seemed like the kind of man who would be ferociously anti-snobbery. "They printed it?"

"Yeah. And he got a letter from a French surgeon about co-writing another piece."

"That's great," Jed beamed, and she marvelled at his ability to be genuinely pleased for her father in the midst of this strained and awkward conversational black hole. She tried another gambit.

"And he says to tell you he's been brushing up his chess moves. Do you play chess, Mr. Bartlet?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Johnny twitch every so slightly. Boom! Landmine. What had she stepped in here? Jed's father smiled tightly.

"I find I have no taste for the game, Miss Barrington. Rigidly restricted rules and arbitrary goals may help to govern pieces on a playing board, but they do not translate well to the real world."

That sounded dumb to her, for surely strategy and logic were valuable whatever set of rules you learned them under, and besides, who said chess had to prove anything? It was an intellectual exercise in itself. But this was this man's home and he was her boyfriend's father, and she knew all about smiling politely. "Yes, I suppose that's true." She could read Jed's body language well enough to read both his urge to speak up and how he restrained it.

Apparently, though, she'd hit on one of his father's pet issues, and now he was preparing to hold forth on it.

"In this world, people are too ready to hand out crowns for intellectualism." The curl of contempt to his lip startled her - why would a man who was a schoolmaster consider being intellectual a bad thing? "They treat test scores and the name of the institution on a degree as the be all and end all, as if either of those was any substitute for good, hard work."

She could almost see the shadow of a point there, but she didn't like the way he delivered it. Yes, of course it was bad to disregard people who worked hard just because they weren't straight-A students. That didn't mean the people who got those straight As shouldn't be praised for it.

This would normally be a good time to start an argument, but something told her Mr. Bartlet wasn't someone greatly open to disagreement. If he was anybody else she'd dive in there just the same and enjoy the fireworks, but... he was Jed's dad.

"I suppose you're right, sir," she half-agreed politely. "There's more to being a good student than just how smart you are."

"Precisely," he agreed coolly. "Some people think they can coast through life without effort or responsibility on the strength of some SAT scores." This was accompanied by a pointed glance at Jed, but Abbey couldn't guess what this was in reference to, for it was hard to think of a single boy less inclined to cruise through his studies than Jed. He didn't just hit every book on the reading list, he had to be alternately bribed, cajoled and threatened to drag him away from every advanced-level text he could find that was even remotely related to the subject. Jed was probably one of the brightest people she'd ever met, but he threw himself at his classes as if he'd be kicked off the course if he misplaced an apostrophe.

She wondered if it was his father who'd made him that way. Certainly he showed no sign of appreciating any of Jed's many and varied achievements. He treated his oldest son with a cold disdain that was close to incomprehensible to her. She was used to her own father, rigidly stern at times but never less than a pillar of no-nonsense support and gruff affection. This blank and distant disapproval was awful, choking every last flicker of life out of the conversation and the room.

If it was like this all the time, she couldn't imagine how it hadn't yet choked the life out of Jed.

The rest of the meal passed in similarly stilted conversation and flat silences, and she'd never been so grateful to get out of a room.

Jed hovered on the doorstep with her as Matt wandered on a little way ahead, giving them some space. "I'm sorry," he sighed heavily. "He's like that sometimes, it's not-"

Abbey stopped him with a gentle kiss, heartbroken that he thought it was him who needed to apologise. "It's okay," she smiled softly. "I wasn't expecting anybody to throw me a party. I'm in love with you, not your dad."

Jed hunched his shoulders, hands scrunched defensively in his pockets. "Yeah, but he's kind of part of the package," he pointed out sadly.

Abbey smiled, shaking her head at him, and hugged him close to her. "Oh, honey, there's nothing they could add to this package that's bad enough to stop me wanting it," she assured him.

"I wanted him to like you," Jed said miserably. "I'm sure he would, if he would only-"

"Well, he'll have plenty of time to learn to," Abbey said firmly. "He doesn't have to like me by tomorrow, or next week, or next year, 'cause I'm not going anywhere."

"Yeah." Jed grinned back at her now, somewhat sheepish and all the cuter for it. "Yeah, I guess so. It's just-" He smirked. "How can anybody not fall in love with you the instant they meet you?"

"It's a mystery to me," she said wryly, and lightly slapped his shoulder. "Stop it, you, you'll go to a girl's head."

"Or other parts," he leered, mugging furiously. Jed trying to be wicked was so theatrically over the top it was hysterical... and, disturbingly, strangely hot.

"Oh, you were never really going to be a Catholic priest," she teased him.

"Was too. You corrupted me."

Abbey smirked. "Then my work here is done."

"Oh, I think I could stand to be corrupted some more," he said, leaning into her. "-But not on my dad's front porch," he added quickly, remembering himself. They reluctantly pulled apart.

"I'd better go," she admitted with a sigh.

"And I'd better stay," he said, similarly woebegone. She wanted to ask him to come back with her and Matt to the hotel again, but she restrained herself. He would if she asked him, and the last thing she wanted to do was get him into any more trouble with his dad.

"Guess I'll see you tomorrow." They shared another quick kiss; these were chaste kisses, both of them keenly aware of his father's likely opinion of more overt demonstrations, but they still knocked her out more than any clumsy make-out session with any boy she'd dated before.

"Our last day together," Jed said sadly. "I'll miss you so much."

"We'll make it count," Abbey promised to him.

"It doesn't matter what we do, it'll count," Jed said earnestly. "I'm just so glad you could come down here, I was going crazy without you. Tell your dad I'm so grateful to him, if there's anything I can-"

"Jed," she laughed. "He wouldn't take it if you could! He likes you, Jed."

"Yeah. Wish I could say the same about my dad," he said heavily.

After they finally parted, that phrase hung with her. She couldn't help but wonder if it had been an accident of clumsy wording in wishing his dad would like her... or something else it broke her heart to even contemplate.

"Hey, Matty." His sister smiled tiredly at him, sitting crosslegged in her pyjamas and looking even younger than she usually did. No, Abbey couldn't be dating and on her way to college. She was just a baby!

"Don't call me that, squirt." The automatic protest was as much affectionate as irritated. He flopped back onto the hotel bed next to her, deliberately bouncing the springs.

"Hey, budge up." She shoved him. "You've got your own bed, who said you can crash on mine?"

"It's rule four of the big brother code. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is also mine."

"And you're absolutely welcome to any of my dresses you think you'd look good in. What are the first three rules?"

"The three As. Annoy, annoy, annoy."

She gave him her best cruel smile. "You're a natural."

"Runs in the family."

"Some things don't." Abbey sighed, becoming serious and resting her head on her chin. "I really wanted to-" She broke off. "Jed's dad is not what I was expecting."

"He was pretty much what I was expecting," Matt said, leaning back against the wall and feeling his boisterous mood drain away. Poor Jed.

Abbey sat up and regarded him sharply. "Yeah. Yeah, you were. What the hell is that, Matt? Did Johnny tell you something about him?"

Matt was caught twisting in the wind. Daniel Barrington had brought his children up to be honest whatever the consequences, and lying to family was double the crime... but Jed had specifically asked that Abbey not be told about his father's violence. He didn't want to be pitied, which Matt guessed he could understand, but at the same time he didn't feel right about keeping Abbey in the dark about what kind of man they were dealing with here.

"Dad had a word with me before we came," he hedged carefully. "He... I think Jed said something to him, I don't know. He warned me that things with Jed's dad were gonna be pretty crappy, and I should watch out for the guy because he might be dangerous."

"Dangerous?" She scowled. "He's a bully! Plain and simple."

He had to smile fondly at his sister. "Yeah, and I agree with you, but contrary to what your kindergarten experiences may have taught you, not all bullies can be defeated with a scathing look and an uppercut to the jaw."

"Beg to differ," Abbey said with a feral light in her eye, but she snorted a brief laugh at herself and lay back. "I know, I know. He's Jed's dad and everything..." She sighed. "It's not right. I mean, I swear, he didn't even look at him once except to glare. And to keep cutting him off like that! Like he doesn't even have the right to an opinion."

Abbey was building up to a blaze of righteous rage. Matt was almost surprised she hadn't made the connection between Jed's sorry home life and the mysterious bruises that tended to sprout on him during the holidays, but he supposed it was too horrific a possibility to let herself think it. It made his own eyes burn and his fists itch just to contemplate it.

"He can't stay here," Matt said angrily. He hated feeling so powerless, not even able to just yank Jed aside and say 'Jesus, man, what are you doing? Get yourself out of here!'

"Yeah, but what are we gonna do, kidnap him?" Abbey demanded, a touch bitterly. "They're his family."

"Yeah, but we're-" He viewed the sentence ahead, mentally whacked himself around the head for it, and revised. "We're his friends," he finished somewhat lamely.

Of course, little sister was too sharp to miss that skipped beat. She smirked at him. "Did you just adopt my boyfriend into the family?"

"No!"

"You did. You totally just did."

"I said we're his friends! I don't know how you get from that to-"

"I get from that to that was totally not what you were going to say first of all."

When in doubt, reach for the witty repartee. "Shut up."

She giggled. "Ha! You like my boyfriend. You think he's family!"

"Do not!"

"Do too."

"You are so immature."

"Yeah, well, I've got you as a role model."

He retaliated by tickling her, she hit him with a pillow, and it turned into a typical hair-pulling, name-calling, scuffling sibling fight.

It cheered the two of them both up immensely.