POV: Donna
Spoilers: "Night Five" (for the name of the desk in the Oval Office)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Some of these characters are mine, but most were created by
AS.
A Dagger Unseen – Chapter Six A West Wing Story
by MAHC
Banished from the White House?
Banished from the White House.
She had never actually heard of that happening to anyone before, although certainly it must have. Surely over the course of 204 years, there had been others that fell into that ignominious group. Still, for the President's brother-in-law to get kicked out –
Donna shook her head, peeking out from behind the folder of briefs she was reading to watch her husband scribble notes on the papers before him. The harsh scratch of metal point on paper cut across the room. Apparently, Jed was taking his frustrations out on the helpless draft of the speech Toby and Will had left for him. The pen struggled in a death grip in his fingers. She wouldn't have been surprised to see it snap in two at any minute.
Could have been worse. For a few minutes the night before, she had almost thought Jed was going to order the Secret Service to draw and quarter her brother right there in the room. Maybe banishment was the lightest sentence he could have expected.
Well, she would work on him, talk him into letting Gino come back. A loud pop jerked her head up just in time to hear Jed curse and see him fling the ruined pen into the trashcan.
Okay, maybe she wouldn't mention Gino just yet.
He apparently hadn't quite gotten over last night's interruption. Of course, it hadn't helped that after Gino's very untimely arrival and the immediate and humiliating appearance of half their Secret Service contingent, Leo had iced the cake by calling to pull Jed back down to the Sit Room. The plane, the threats, Korea – she didn't know which, maybe all. At least it rescued Gino from imminent execution.
She still grimaced at the sight of her husband stalking off, face still flushed, body still quite obviously struggling to shake off the intense arousal that had taken him to the edge but cruelly snagged him back before he could plunge over. And maybe it didn't really matter that his jeans couldn't hide the proof of his body's stubborn refusal to release him; everyone in the room, and a few outside in the sitting room, knew exactly what had happened. Some had even seen – Oh hell. She grimaced in mortification with the memory of exactly what they had seen.
Later that night, when the world was through with him for a few hours, he had stumbled back to the Residence, fatigue and stress finally taking care of his earlier problem. Pausing only long enough to strip to his boxers, he fell into bed with a grunt, snoring softly before he had even gotten completely under the covers. Sighing, she drew the comforter up to his waist and ran her fingers over the muscles of his shoulder, remembering how they had moved under her touch only hours before. With a gentle smile, she pressed a trail of kisses across his chest before snuggling up behind him. It didn't matter that her own desires still surged. Their evening was over.
Damn Gino anyway. Maybe she wouldn't try to talk Jed into letting him back, after all.
Another sharp bit of profanity burst out from behind the desk and she saw that the new pen apparently hadn't faired any better than the old one.
"Why the hell can't anyone make a decent writing instrument anymore?" he growled.
Donna wisely chose not to answer the rhetorical question. Instead, she watched J.T. wiggle on the blanket under his Sesame Street gym, while his father destroyed several days' worth of labor by Toby and Will. Technically, they should still be on holiday, even Jed to some degree, but circumstances had pulled them all back into action early. To compensate, and maybe just to keep her close, Jed had insisted Donna and J.T. join him in the Oval Office that morning.
Even though they still operated under a partial lockdown the day after Christmas, Ron had personally lifted the protective curtain to allow for the return of the senior staff. C.J., Toby, Josh, Will, and all of their assistants had made their ways back to work, not completely sure what was happening, but knowing enough to give their boss a wide berth that morning.
It was only a matter of time before someone drew the short straw.
"Mister President?" Donna looked up as C.J. Cregg stood in the doorway to the Oval Office, her wary expression showing that she had heard the story, that she knew what kind of mood she would find her chief executive in, and that she would rather be just about anywhere except where she was at the moment.
"Yeah?" A curt reply. It was the best she would get.
With a deep breath, she took another step into the room, easing the door closed behind her. "I know this is probably not a good time to, well, to discuss the treatment we should give – give the – photographs that might hit the press – "
From her seat on the couch, Donna tensed, feeling the snap of anger that Jed just barely held in check. This was C.J.'s job, after all.
"Yeah." Again, that tight response was all she would get.
Another deep breath. "Well, there are several ways we could go about this – "
Uh oh. Donna felt the reaction before it even started.
Glasses hit the desk abruptly and C.J. stopped, body braced for the onslaught. "C.J., I have North Korea on the verge of nuclear proficiency. I have a terrorist attack that crashed a commercial airliner, killing 182 people. I have death threats against my child, my wife, and now me. Truthfully, I really don't give a damn about a picture showing a husband and wife expressing their love." The blue of his eyes seemed even sharper with the intensity of his emotion.
To her credit, his press secretary didn't retreat. Nodding automatically in agreement, she nevertheless continued. "Yes, sir. I understand that, Mister President."
"But we're gonna do this, right?" he asked, standing and bracing his hands on the desk. "We're actually gonna give attention to a moment that – "
"To a moment that will create quite a sensation when it hits, with all due respect, sir." Donna gave C.J. credit. She had guts.
"A moment between a husband and wife – "
"A moment in the Oval Office, Mister President."
He stopped, jaw jutting out defensively. She had him with that blatant statement. Donna watched the anger shift to guilt and then to acceptance. He couldn't deny C.J.'s point. Finally, he lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. "I'm just saying it's insignificant when you compare it with what's going on in the world right now. I can't believe people would see this as more important than all of us being obliterated by North Korea." His hands had moved to his hips, now, and his lips pressed hard together.
C.J. shifted slightly and cocked her head. "It's not that it's more important, sir, it's that it is more – sensational."
He had slipped on the glasses again and now peered at her from over them. It was a patented Jed Bartlet glare. They all knew it well. The press secretary waited warily. Donna expected a tirade, or a stiff dismissal, or maybe even a brush off. What she didn't expect, however, was what actually happened.
He smiled. Well, almost.
Lips pursed, he lifted a brow. All right. Definitely a smile. "Sensational?" he asked, and the timbre of his voice had changed. With a sly glance toward his wife, he said, "Well, I can assure you from my perspective it certainly was. You'd have to ask Donna how she felt – "
Blood rushed to her cheeks. "Jed!" Still, she preferred this light teasing to the brooding darkness.
It was possible the press secretary's face turned even brighter red. "I didn't mean that – I mean, I meant – I meant – "
Mercifully, his smile widened and he rescued her. "I know what you meant, Claudia Jean." The glasses came off again. "If anybody prints a photo, they print it. There's nothing we can do about it."
Always the professional, C.J. shook off her embarrassment and plunged ahead. "We can spin it – "
He laughed quietly and shook his head. "How do you spin the President and First Lady having sex on the Resolute Desk?"
Donna flinched. Fair point.
C.J. continued boldly, ignoring his stark observation. "We can tell the truth."
"Which is?"
Now she faltered a bit. "Well, I suppose you would know better than I, but – "
Of course, Donna thought. Tell the truth.
"C.J.'s right," she offered. They turned to look toward her. "Tell the truth. And the truth is that I had a baby seven weeks ago, that we had not had sex since then, that the doctor had cleared me that morning, that I entered the Oval Office with the express intent of seducing my husband, and that it worked."
Now it was her husband's turn to blush. "Like there was any remote possibility it wouldn't," he mumbled.
That might have been a grin tugging at C.J.'s lips, but she suppressed it, managing to stay on track. "Still, Mister President, there are those who would see this as a lack of respect for the Oval Office."
Ouch. Bingo. Donna winced along with her husband at the bull's eye C.J. had hit. They had already talked about this, had already blushed together in rueful memory of what they had done in a room that was considered by many to be sacred ground.
Exhaling heavily, Jed leaned against the front panel of the object of discussion. "Yeah," he acknowledged. "It was – it was an impulsive moment, C.J. We didn't really – plan for it to happen there. It just – did. Once we got – involved, it was hard to – well, we couldn't – " He wasn't meeting his press secretary's eyes, but that was okay, because she didn't seem to want him to.
Never in her life had Donna anticipated having such casual conversations about her sex life with – well, with anybody, really. She and Josh had joked, but there was never any real knowledge of what either of them was doing. This was different. Everyone in the White House apparently knew that she and Jed had christened the Resolute Desk.
"I understand," C.J. interrupted quickly, apparently eager not to learn any more details about that particular encounter. After a moment's silence, she said, "Okay. What about this? 'The President and First Lady are a loving, physical couple, who are at liberty to express that love, as do all husbands and wives. We should be enraged that someone breached the grounds of the White House to invade their right to privacy, and we are investigating how this could have occurred.'"
Jed pressed his lips together, considering the quote, then nodded and sat, picking up the glasses in a sign that the crisis had been solved. "Okay."
Instantly, he was absorbed in the speech again.
Relieved, C.J. backed out. "Thank you, Mister President." But before she left, she turned to Donna and winked.
The First Lady listened to J.T.'s cooing for a little while, scanning the paragraphs her chief of staff had prepared for her about the upcoming healthcare summit, but her mind couldn't wrap around any of the scattered information. Instead, her thoughts kept bouncing back and forth between the horrible pictures they had been sent and the plane crash. There was some connection, she knew, especially if her parents were truly targets, yet she still tried to convince herself it was all a strange coincidence. After all, there was no proof. No one had taken credit for the explosion, and NTSB was probably weeks or even months away from a definitive conclusion.
With some of the tension inadvertently relieved by C.J.'s visit, Donna noticed that the Presidential pens were surviving longer. They still scribbled notes for him, but without the violent scratches from earlier. Smiling slightly, she reached for her folders just as the door opened again.
"Mister President?" Debbie Fiderer stepped through, her flowing scarves more quirky than exotic. So she had come back, too. It gave Donna a touch of warm pride that all of them felt it necessary to be with their President when he needed them, regardless of their own plans for the holidays.
"Yeah?" Jed called absently, still engrossed in the draft.
"Ron Butterfield to see you."
That was an attention-getter. Immediately, they both stiffened. "Send him in," Jed ordered in a tight voice.
The tall agent strode in as usual, all business. "Mister President."
"What do you have, Ron?" Jed asked, jumping straight through any pleasantries, not that Ron would have been interested in them, anyway.
"We found Tony Fahrwell."
They found him. They found Tony Fahrwell. She stood, heart pounding. If they had found him, they knew what was happening, why he hated them, why he had felt so strongly about J.T.'s conception.
"Where?"
The slight hesitation was enough to telegraph the agent's displeasure with his news. "The Potomac River."
Jed cocked his head to one side, physically trying to comprehend what Ron was telling him. "The Potomac – "
"He's dead, sir. Single gunshot to the head."
The sudden billow of wind that had inflated their hopes collapsed with Jed's exclamation. "Damn it!" His fist hit the table with a thud, and Donna had to hold back from checking to see if he had hurt himself. "Damn it!"
"There is one thing, though." No one spoke and Ron continued with silent prompting. "At his apartment, we found several items partially burned in the kitchen sink. One of them is a plane ticket to Tokyo."
"Tokyo?"
"What does that mean, Ron?" Donna asked. It must mean something, or he wouldn't mention it, but she didn't find the connection.
"It could mean nothing. He was a photographer. He might have been going on another shoot."
"But you don't think so," Jed predicted, rubbing the outside of his hand.
"No, sir." With a deep breath, the agent squared his shoulders with his boss and told them, "He was assassinated, Mister President. Executed. We believe he was involved in a conspiracy. We think he didn't act alone."
There it was, the magic word. The word that evoked terror in public figures and intrigue in novel readers. Dear God. Donna sat back on the couch, stunned.
A conspiracy. Visions of the grassy knoll and a speeding limousine racing to Parkland Memorial Hospital flashed through her mind.
A conspiracy. Being targeted by a madman who thought he was righting a sin was bad enough, but knowing you were the intended victim of an entire conspiracy was almost incomprehensible.
A conspiracy.
Jed was not sitting anymore. He had pushed up from the chair as soon as Ron made his declaration and now stared at the agent. "A conspiracy." His voice shook, but he didn't question the conclusion.
"Yes, sir."
"Who else?"
"We don't know that, yet, sir."
"In Japan?"
"Possibly, Mister President. I don't want to say until we have more specific evidence."
Running a hand over his face, the President took a calming breath and his tone held more control when he spoke next. "All right. Keep me informed."
"Yes, sir." With a crisp spin on his heel, Ron left.
Donna's eyes found her husband's and they let their gazes lock for a long moment before stepped into his arms and let him hold her, let him rub his hands up and down her back, let him reassure her with gentle words that said nothing, but meant everything.
A conspiracy, then. But by whom? God knew the world was full of people who might want to kill Jed Bartlet. That was harsh reality. Even if he had not made one enemy with his actions, he had stepped into that danger simply by raising his right hand and taking the oath of office. There were almost too many possible suspects to list.
Lists.
Throughout his career, he had been on many lists. The list of summa cum laude graduates from Notre Dame. The list of Nobel Prize winners. The list of dark horse candidates for President. The list of most admired men in the world. The list of landslide winners. The list of most eligible bachelors. But as leader of the free world, as the head of the most envied country on earth, as the symbol of capitalistic bullying, there was one more list he had made.
A hit list.
And that was the one type she'd just as soon he not be on.
A Dagger Unseen – Chapter Six A West Wing Story
by MAHC
Banished from the White House?
Banished from the White House.
She had never actually heard of that happening to anyone before, although certainly it must have. Surely over the course of 204 years, there had been others that fell into that ignominious group. Still, for the President's brother-in-law to get kicked out –
Donna shook her head, peeking out from behind the folder of briefs she was reading to watch her husband scribble notes on the papers before him. The harsh scratch of metal point on paper cut across the room. Apparently, Jed was taking his frustrations out on the helpless draft of the speech Toby and Will had left for him. The pen struggled in a death grip in his fingers. She wouldn't have been surprised to see it snap in two at any minute.
Could have been worse. For a few minutes the night before, she had almost thought Jed was going to order the Secret Service to draw and quarter her brother right there in the room. Maybe banishment was the lightest sentence he could have expected.
Well, she would work on him, talk him into letting Gino come back. A loud pop jerked her head up just in time to hear Jed curse and see him fling the ruined pen into the trashcan.
Okay, maybe she wouldn't mention Gino just yet.
He apparently hadn't quite gotten over last night's interruption. Of course, it hadn't helped that after Gino's very untimely arrival and the immediate and humiliating appearance of half their Secret Service contingent, Leo had iced the cake by calling to pull Jed back down to the Sit Room. The plane, the threats, Korea – she didn't know which, maybe all. At least it rescued Gino from imminent execution.
She still grimaced at the sight of her husband stalking off, face still flushed, body still quite obviously struggling to shake off the intense arousal that had taken him to the edge but cruelly snagged him back before he could plunge over. And maybe it didn't really matter that his jeans couldn't hide the proof of his body's stubborn refusal to release him; everyone in the room, and a few outside in the sitting room, knew exactly what had happened. Some had even seen – Oh hell. She grimaced in mortification with the memory of exactly what they had seen.
Later that night, when the world was through with him for a few hours, he had stumbled back to the Residence, fatigue and stress finally taking care of his earlier problem. Pausing only long enough to strip to his boxers, he fell into bed with a grunt, snoring softly before he had even gotten completely under the covers. Sighing, she drew the comforter up to his waist and ran her fingers over the muscles of his shoulder, remembering how they had moved under her touch only hours before. With a gentle smile, she pressed a trail of kisses across his chest before snuggling up behind him. It didn't matter that her own desires still surged. Their evening was over.
Damn Gino anyway. Maybe she wouldn't try to talk Jed into letting him back, after all.
Another sharp bit of profanity burst out from behind the desk and she saw that the new pen apparently hadn't faired any better than the old one.
"Why the hell can't anyone make a decent writing instrument anymore?" he growled.
Donna wisely chose not to answer the rhetorical question. Instead, she watched J.T. wiggle on the blanket under his Sesame Street gym, while his father destroyed several days' worth of labor by Toby and Will. Technically, they should still be on holiday, even Jed to some degree, but circumstances had pulled them all back into action early. To compensate, and maybe just to keep her close, Jed had insisted Donna and J.T. join him in the Oval Office that morning.
Even though they still operated under a partial lockdown the day after Christmas, Ron had personally lifted the protective curtain to allow for the return of the senior staff. C.J., Toby, Josh, Will, and all of their assistants had made their ways back to work, not completely sure what was happening, but knowing enough to give their boss a wide berth that morning.
It was only a matter of time before someone drew the short straw.
"Mister President?" Donna looked up as C.J. Cregg stood in the doorway to the Oval Office, her wary expression showing that she had heard the story, that she knew what kind of mood she would find her chief executive in, and that she would rather be just about anywhere except where she was at the moment.
"Yeah?" A curt reply. It was the best she would get.
With a deep breath, she took another step into the room, easing the door closed behind her. "I know this is probably not a good time to, well, to discuss the treatment we should give – give the – photographs that might hit the press – "
From her seat on the couch, Donna tensed, feeling the snap of anger that Jed just barely held in check. This was C.J.'s job, after all.
"Yeah." Again, that tight response was all she would get.
Another deep breath. "Well, there are several ways we could go about this – "
Uh oh. Donna felt the reaction before it even started.
Glasses hit the desk abruptly and C.J. stopped, body braced for the onslaught. "C.J., I have North Korea on the verge of nuclear proficiency. I have a terrorist attack that crashed a commercial airliner, killing 182 people. I have death threats against my child, my wife, and now me. Truthfully, I really don't give a damn about a picture showing a husband and wife expressing their love." The blue of his eyes seemed even sharper with the intensity of his emotion.
To her credit, his press secretary didn't retreat. Nodding automatically in agreement, she nevertheless continued. "Yes, sir. I understand that, Mister President."
"But we're gonna do this, right?" he asked, standing and bracing his hands on the desk. "We're actually gonna give attention to a moment that – "
"To a moment that will create quite a sensation when it hits, with all due respect, sir." Donna gave C.J. credit. She had guts.
"A moment between a husband and wife – "
"A moment in the Oval Office, Mister President."
He stopped, jaw jutting out defensively. She had him with that blatant statement. Donna watched the anger shift to guilt and then to acceptance. He couldn't deny C.J.'s point. Finally, he lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. "I'm just saying it's insignificant when you compare it with what's going on in the world right now. I can't believe people would see this as more important than all of us being obliterated by North Korea." His hands had moved to his hips, now, and his lips pressed hard together.
C.J. shifted slightly and cocked her head. "It's not that it's more important, sir, it's that it is more – sensational."
He had slipped on the glasses again and now peered at her from over them. It was a patented Jed Bartlet glare. They all knew it well. The press secretary waited warily. Donna expected a tirade, or a stiff dismissal, or maybe even a brush off. What she didn't expect, however, was what actually happened.
He smiled. Well, almost.
Lips pursed, he lifted a brow. All right. Definitely a smile. "Sensational?" he asked, and the timbre of his voice had changed. With a sly glance toward his wife, he said, "Well, I can assure you from my perspective it certainly was. You'd have to ask Donna how she felt – "
Blood rushed to her cheeks. "Jed!" Still, she preferred this light teasing to the brooding darkness.
It was possible the press secretary's face turned even brighter red. "I didn't mean that – I mean, I meant – I meant – "
Mercifully, his smile widened and he rescued her. "I know what you meant, Claudia Jean." The glasses came off again. "If anybody prints a photo, they print it. There's nothing we can do about it."
Always the professional, C.J. shook off her embarrassment and plunged ahead. "We can spin it – "
He laughed quietly and shook his head. "How do you spin the President and First Lady having sex on the Resolute Desk?"
Donna flinched. Fair point.
C.J. continued boldly, ignoring his stark observation. "We can tell the truth."
"Which is?"
Now she faltered a bit. "Well, I suppose you would know better than I, but – "
Of course, Donna thought. Tell the truth.
"C.J.'s right," she offered. They turned to look toward her. "Tell the truth. And the truth is that I had a baby seven weeks ago, that we had not had sex since then, that the doctor had cleared me that morning, that I entered the Oval Office with the express intent of seducing my husband, and that it worked."
Now it was her husband's turn to blush. "Like there was any remote possibility it wouldn't," he mumbled.
That might have been a grin tugging at C.J.'s lips, but she suppressed it, managing to stay on track. "Still, Mister President, there are those who would see this as a lack of respect for the Oval Office."
Ouch. Bingo. Donna winced along with her husband at the bull's eye C.J. had hit. They had already talked about this, had already blushed together in rueful memory of what they had done in a room that was considered by many to be sacred ground.
Exhaling heavily, Jed leaned against the front panel of the object of discussion. "Yeah," he acknowledged. "It was – it was an impulsive moment, C.J. We didn't really – plan for it to happen there. It just – did. Once we got – involved, it was hard to – well, we couldn't – " He wasn't meeting his press secretary's eyes, but that was okay, because she didn't seem to want him to.
Never in her life had Donna anticipated having such casual conversations about her sex life with – well, with anybody, really. She and Josh had joked, but there was never any real knowledge of what either of them was doing. This was different. Everyone in the White House apparently knew that she and Jed had christened the Resolute Desk.
"I understand," C.J. interrupted quickly, apparently eager not to learn any more details about that particular encounter. After a moment's silence, she said, "Okay. What about this? 'The President and First Lady are a loving, physical couple, who are at liberty to express that love, as do all husbands and wives. We should be enraged that someone breached the grounds of the White House to invade their right to privacy, and we are investigating how this could have occurred.'"
Jed pressed his lips together, considering the quote, then nodded and sat, picking up the glasses in a sign that the crisis had been solved. "Okay."
Instantly, he was absorbed in the speech again.
Relieved, C.J. backed out. "Thank you, Mister President." But before she left, she turned to Donna and winked.
The First Lady listened to J.T.'s cooing for a little while, scanning the paragraphs her chief of staff had prepared for her about the upcoming healthcare summit, but her mind couldn't wrap around any of the scattered information. Instead, her thoughts kept bouncing back and forth between the horrible pictures they had been sent and the plane crash. There was some connection, she knew, especially if her parents were truly targets, yet she still tried to convince herself it was all a strange coincidence. After all, there was no proof. No one had taken credit for the explosion, and NTSB was probably weeks or even months away from a definitive conclusion.
With some of the tension inadvertently relieved by C.J.'s visit, Donna noticed that the Presidential pens were surviving longer. They still scribbled notes for him, but without the violent scratches from earlier. Smiling slightly, she reached for her folders just as the door opened again.
"Mister President?" Debbie Fiderer stepped through, her flowing scarves more quirky than exotic. So she had come back, too. It gave Donna a touch of warm pride that all of them felt it necessary to be with their President when he needed them, regardless of their own plans for the holidays.
"Yeah?" Jed called absently, still engrossed in the draft.
"Ron Butterfield to see you."
That was an attention-getter. Immediately, they both stiffened. "Send him in," Jed ordered in a tight voice.
The tall agent strode in as usual, all business. "Mister President."
"What do you have, Ron?" Jed asked, jumping straight through any pleasantries, not that Ron would have been interested in them, anyway.
"We found Tony Fahrwell."
They found him. They found Tony Fahrwell. She stood, heart pounding. If they had found him, they knew what was happening, why he hated them, why he had felt so strongly about J.T.'s conception.
"Where?"
The slight hesitation was enough to telegraph the agent's displeasure with his news. "The Potomac River."
Jed cocked his head to one side, physically trying to comprehend what Ron was telling him. "The Potomac – "
"He's dead, sir. Single gunshot to the head."
The sudden billow of wind that had inflated their hopes collapsed with Jed's exclamation. "Damn it!" His fist hit the table with a thud, and Donna had to hold back from checking to see if he had hurt himself. "Damn it!"
"There is one thing, though." No one spoke and Ron continued with silent prompting. "At his apartment, we found several items partially burned in the kitchen sink. One of them is a plane ticket to Tokyo."
"Tokyo?"
"What does that mean, Ron?" Donna asked. It must mean something, or he wouldn't mention it, but she didn't find the connection.
"It could mean nothing. He was a photographer. He might have been going on another shoot."
"But you don't think so," Jed predicted, rubbing the outside of his hand.
"No, sir." With a deep breath, the agent squared his shoulders with his boss and told them, "He was assassinated, Mister President. Executed. We believe he was involved in a conspiracy. We think he didn't act alone."
There it was, the magic word. The word that evoked terror in public figures and intrigue in novel readers. Dear God. Donna sat back on the couch, stunned.
A conspiracy. Visions of the grassy knoll and a speeding limousine racing to Parkland Memorial Hospital flashed through her mind.
A conspiracy. Being targeted by a madman who thought he was righting a sin was bad enough, but knowing you were the intended victim of an entire conspiracy was almost incomprehensible.
A conspiracy.
Jed was not sitting anymore. He had pushed up from the chair as soon as Ron made his declaration and now stared at the agent. "A conspiracy." His voice shook, but he didn't question the conclusion.
"Yes, sir."
"Who else?"
"We don't know that, yet, sir."
"In Japan?"
"Possibly, Mister President. I don't want to say until we have more specific evidence."
Running a hand over his face, the President took a calming breath and his tone held more control when he spoke next. "All right. Keep me informed."
"Yes, sir." With a crisp spin on his heel, Ron left.
Donna's eyes found her husband's and they let their gazes lock for a long moment before stepped into his arms and let him hold her, let him rub his hands up and down her back, let him reassure her with gentle words that said nothing, but meant everything.
A conspiracy, then. But by whom? God knew the world was full of people who might want to kill Jed Bartlet. That was harsh reality. Even if he had not made one enemy with his actions, he had stepped into that danger simply by raising his right hand and taking the oath of office. There were almost too many possible suspects to list.
Lists.
Throughout his career, he had been on many lists. The list of summa cum laude graduates from Notre Dame. The list of Nobel Prize winners. The list of dark horse candidates for President. The list of most admired men in the world. The list of landslide winners. The list of most eligible bachelors. But as leader of the free world, as the head of the most envied country on earth, as the symbol of capitalistic bullying, there was one more list he had made.
A hit list.
And that was the one type she'd just as soon he not be on.