Series: Snapshots of the Past
Story: Endings and Beginnings
Chapter 4
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Previously: The Bartlets were blessed with their second daughter
Summary: Abbey tries to ease Liz's fears with regards to Ellie; Jed gets a "suggestion" from his boss; Liz recalls a frightening experience at school
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Three weeks earlier, Elizabeth Bartlet's biggest wish had come true. Eleanor Emily Bartlet entered the world and she finally had that little sister she wanted for so long. But something changed. The images of joyful sisterly bonding time had vanished. Ellie wasn't old enough to play. She wasn't old enough to do much of anything, in fact. She was fragile and, in a six-year-old's mind, breakable. Every instinct told her to reach out to little Ellie, but something deep inside her held her back. It was fear.
Still, she couldn't help but peek into her parents' room now and then to just stare at the newborn. She'd stand by the crib and smile to an oblivious Ellie, not realizing the baby was too young to smile back. The only response she ever got out of her was the heartwarming coos she'd hear when she dangled something just out of Ellie's reach. Usually, it was a piece of ribbon or something similar, but today, it was a bottle of baby powder.
She sensed Ellie's fascination with the pink, swan-shaped bottle. She held it above the infant's face to hear the sweet sounds she was anticipating. Ellie squirmed slightly, her eyes fixated on her sister's hands. She let out a loud squeal of delight and in response, Liz inadvertently twisted the bottle. Little sprinkles of powder dropped from above and blanketed Ellie's face, causing her to cry in horror.
"Mommy! Mommy!" Liz's screams came from the depths of her lungs.
"What? What's wrong?" Abbey was immediately drawn to the messy baby. "Oh God." She scooped her up into her arms.
"I'm sorry! Please help her!" The plea from Liz was more jarring than the cries from Ellie.
Abbey gently swept a damp cloth over the newborn's face. Her sensitive skin glowed a slightly red shade, but soon, her tears were gone when she was comforted with a loving hug and a couple of soothing pats on her back. "Are you okay, Precious?" The baby simply cooed in reply to her mother's voice. "Yeah, I think you're okay now," she said with a sigh of relief.
It wasn't as simple for the nervous six-year-old who stood framed in the doorway, trembling with fear. She put Ellie back in her crib and led Liz out of the room.
"I didn't mean to do it," Liz insisted several times as Abbey dabbed her wet eyes with a tissue.
"I know you didn't."
"I'm sorry."
"Sweetie, Ellie is fine. The powder didn't go into her eyes or her mouth. It just scared her. It was an accident. Accidents happen. You just have to be careful because she's so little."
"I know." She lowered her head in a show of acknowledgment as well as a bit of shame.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"What?"
Crouched down in front of her, Abbey lifted her chin so she could face her at eye level. "You like having a sister, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"You haven't asked to hold her or touch her. All you ever want to do is look at her."
"She's too young to play."
"I know, but I think it's more than that. Are you afraid?"
"I don't wanna break her," Liz quietly muttered with a simple shrug.
Those words definitely sounded familiar. She had heard them from Jed as soon as Liz was born and just as she did with him, she was determined to put her daughter's mind at ease. "I want you to do me a favor. Go sit on the sofa."
"Okay." Liz made herself just comfortable enough to still be able to wiggle around and spy on her mother.
Abbey came out of the bedroom with Ellie nestled in her arms. "Scoot back and hold out your arms."
"No! I'll drop her." She quivered at the thought of being even mildly responsible for someone so small and helpless.
"No, you won't. I'm right here. I won't let you." She placed the infant on top of Liz's arms, allowing her to rest her back on Liz's legs while keeping her own hands extended until she was sure she wasn't needed. "Just hold her head up, just like that."
One glance at Ellie's tiny face relieved some of the stiffness in the six-year-old's posture. "She's looking at me."
"Yes, she is. Tell her who you are."
"Hi, Ellie."
"Ellie, this is your big sister," Abbey added when Liz's excitement didn't allow her to continue.
"I'm Lizzie." Her eyes burned into Ellie's as she smiled. Ellie studied the facial expression intently. Finally, she mimicked her sister. "She's smiling!"
"She must really like you, Lizzie. That's the first time she's done that," Abbey replied tearfully.
While the two sisters got to know one another, their father faced a whole new set of challenges when he returned to work at the university.
Jed sat at his desk, occasionally turning towards the window at the rampant sounds echoing outside. His fingers curled around a black pen that he used as a distraction while his three students completed their midterm exam. A class of twenty-four and it all came down to three. It wasn't because the others were finished. It was merely because the others had never shown up.
He knew why. The whole school knew why. Tyler Payne's vision of a unified campus protesting the Vietnam War had come to fruition. Sporting clothing to depict and visualize their outrage, students armed themselves with signs then lined the grassy trails bordering the courtyard. It was their chants that Jed was hearing through the closed window. It was those very sounds that made him remember his own protests in his younger days. Unfortunately, it was that demonstration of rebellion that also landed him in hot water all these years later.
Dean Campbell waited for his students to leave before he approached Jed. When he finally went in, he did so cautiously, initially sparking a benign conversation that seemed to lead nowhere before tackling a more disagreeable topic.
"Your students all deserted your exam today?" he asked somewhat rhetorically.
"Not all of them."
"It wasn't just you. Professor Flynn administered only one exam in his Constitutional Law class. Professor Pollard, same thing."
Jed wasn't surprised. He wasn't even disappointed. "Yeah."
"That's why I'm taking a stand on this." The man balled up his hand, clenching his fist to express his previously undetected anger.
"I don't understand."
"Any student who skipped out on midterms automatically fails the semester." It was said bluntly, leaving no room for discussion, but that didn't stop Jed.
"I was planning to give a make-up," he said.
"Not this time. The protest had been planned for a week, maybe longer. The school knew about it and warned these students that midterms were mandatory. This isn't the time to show their displeasure with government's stand on foreign relations."
He fumbled with his stapler in an effort to avoid the Dean's glare. "It's their right to protest something with which they disagree."
"Not on my time, or yours for that matter. They expect to do this today then show up next week for make-ups with no regard for the schedule their professors -- and this school -- adhere to. Forget it. If they didn't show up today, you'll fail them."
His head shot up in response to what sounded like an order. "I don't feel comfortable doing that, Sir."
"Surely you don't approve?"
"It's not about approval or disapproval."
"Whether or not they agree with this nation's involvement in this war is not up for debate. But their peers are out there serving their country and shedding their own blood while doing it. These protests are nothing more than a colossal show of disrespect towards those brave soldiers. I won't support it and neither will the university."
"We can disagree with the message without disagreeing with their right to express it. I'd be surprised if most of these students didn't learn that very thing in the Constitutional Law class you spoke of earlier."
"As I said, the war isn't up for debate and neither is this conversation. I'm not asking you to fail them. I'll telling you to." Yep, it certainly was an order.
Jed nodded reluctantly as he brushed by the Dean to approach the window. He stared at the sea of protesters, all brought together with a common goal, all believing they were making some kind of difference, no matter what the consequences. "If I refuse?"
The Dean took a step towards the Professor. His professional objection didn't work. It was time to hit him on a personal level. "I'm surprised you'd want to. Don't you have a friend who served?"
"I do. My best friend. I never said I support this particular protest. Frankly, I think it's shortsighted to blame soldiers who are simply following the orders of their Commander-in-Chief."
"Okay then."
"But in defending the laws that govern our nation, I think it's important to remember that American soldiers gave their lives so those students could do exactly what they're doing out there." And with that firm declaration, he turned his gaze to the Dean one last time. "I'm giving a make-up exam next week."
The Dean slipped his hands into his pocket as he refused to surrender his position. Neither the professional approach nor the personal approached worked, so he turned to a new tactic. "The faculty members at this school are all part of a team. You're never going to get tenure here if you don't learn to play ball, Professor."
Jed collapsed onto his chair as he watched the man turn and leave his classroom. It was a veiled threat, disguised as a fact he couldn't dispute. The only person Jed Bartlet had ever relinquished his own thoughts and opinions to was his father. And now that he no longer had contact with John, he wasn't about to allow another domineering person take his place.
That evening, his silence at the dinner table was overshadowed by a disagreement between Abbey and Liz.
"Do I have to eat my green beans?" Liz asked repeatedly.
"Yes, you do." It was a response she had already given. This time, her irritation was showing.
"Daddy didn't."
"Of course he did." Abbey turned towards her husband, convinced she would have his support. "Didn't you?"
Jed thought about bluffing his way out of it, but when he glanced at his young daughter, he let that plan fall by the wayside. He shook his head instead. "You know I don't like green beans."
"See?" Liz replied with a triumphant smile.
"All right, it doesn't matter. Eat your green beans. I'm going to go check on Ellie."
Liz watched her mother disappear into the bedroom before pleading with her father. "Can't I just throw them away?"
"No, but how about you have an apple instead?" he offered.
She took the apple from his hand and inspected it carefully. "But an apple is a fruit. She wanted me to have veggies."
"I'll talk to her. And from now on, we'll give you a choice of veggies so you aren't forced to eat something you really don't like. How's that?"
"Okay."
He stood up and began to clear off the table, his eyes still drawn to a reluctant Liz. "Lizzie, in order for your Mom to go along with this, you have to actually eat the apple."
The green beans may taste awful, but at least they'd be painless. She hadn't told him that her mouth hurt. "But I don't like apples either. Can't I have a grape?"
"No, eat your apple." One compromise was enough from Jed's point of view.
"Why can't I have a grape?"
"Because I handed you an apple," he replied from the kitchen. "You used to like them."
"I don't anymore."
"You'll learn to like them again. Now eat."
She accepted defeat and opened her mouth wide. With one bite, she screamed out in pain, dropping the apple with a trail of blood leading down her lips. Jed beat Abbey to her side, frantically patting her face to clean up the blood.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Daddy made me get hurt!"
"I swear, I didn't touch her." Jed's insistence fell on deaf ears as Abbey pushed him out of the way to examine Liz's mouth.
"Let me see." Her cries softened at her mother's gentle touch. "Oh, Lizzie, it's okay, Sweetie. You just lost a tooth."
"I did?"
"Yeah." She held the tooth in a small piece of tissue and showed it to her. "Did you know it was loose?"
She shook her head begrudgingly, still reeling from the sight of all the blood. "No."
"Well, it looks like you're going to get your very first visit from the tooth fairy tonight." With a kiss to her forehead, Abbey helped her to the bathroom to wash out her mouth.
Liz didn't know she had a loose tooth. That part was true. But now that it fell out, she knew exactly how it was knocked loose. It wasn't the result of regular childhood horseplay. It was something much more frightening to the little girl.
Her parents were certain she would like her new school. At first, she did. But as the weeks went on and the violence escalated, she longed for her old school. The novelty of Roxbury's diverse student population soon wore off and while darting angry protesters on her way to class, she had been caught in the crossfire of two men who accidentally pushed her into a wall.
She was hurt, but she didn't cry. She wiped off the tiny bit of blood that escaped her lip and made her way to class. By simply avoiding that area of the school, she believed she'd be safer, separated from the hatred and fury of those around her. At her tender age, she didn't realize she had just put a Band-Aid on a problem that was about to get much worse.
TBC
