I held her as best I can.

I knew maybe it would have been better for her if it were one of her daughters, or maybe someone who's known her longer, but I'm the one who was there so I was the one doing the holding.

It had been six weeks, I guess, since he was laid to rest. I think it took the whole god-damn six weeks for the press to find something more interesting to talk about than a dead ex-President of the United States.

They deified him, which I think made it all that much harder for Abbey. I'd been calling her Abbey a lot at the time. It seemed to go better for her not to hear the name "Bartlet" quite so much. Helped her forget, if such a thing was possible.

God, she loved the old guy. I loved him myself, in a different way. I never met a man like Jed Bartlet before, and I'll never meet another one like him again. I don't have that much faith in God. I think he's good for one or two Jed Bartlets a millennium, and after that, we're stuck with the normal bozos passing for men.

She didn't want to cry. Gods, she'd been so strong. Her kids came, of course, and the grandchildren. Friends calling at all hours. The media, oh give me a small thermonuclear device and an hour alone with the god-damned media!

Deifying him. Don't you people know what it does to a woman to see her late husband deified? How can you rage against the pain, mourn it, mock it, when everybody and his modem is telling you what a god your late husband was? How can you be petty and ask "what about me?" "What am I supposed to do now?"

She'd been so fucking strong. For the kids. For the cameras. Hell, she was even strong for me, though I begged her not to.

I was not a person Abbey Bartlet needed to worry about. I wanted to do the worrying for both of us.

I probably broke a few laws when I made them go away. The Secret Service detail, the few lurking reporters who still found something newsworthy about a grieving woman's front lawn. I yelled at them, told them to just fuck off and leave the poor woman an evening to herself.

And somehow, it worked. Somehow, they just disappeared.

She sat on the couch, feet curled up under her knees, staring at a television that hadn't been turned on since the funeral. She sat there, in the dark room, fingers playing against her ankles as she watched the nothingness that had become so rare in the Bartlet's New Hampshire home.

I tried to leave her, but she asked me to stay.

When she started crying, the first time I saw her really cry since the President died, I found myself moving to her side. It wasn't about me, I swore silently as I wrapped her in my arms. It wasn't about how much I cared for her, or how much I missed the guy—so much it ached sometimes. It wasn't about being the one with the connection, the former First Lady's closest confidante.

It was about Abbey. It was all about Abbey, and about giving her this strength so she didn't need to use any more of her own. It was about her cheek on my shoulder, the hotness of the tears, her arms around my neck. It was about the thoughts, thoughts I'd never share or understand, that raced through her grieving mind, thoughts of him, of their life together. It was about fear, of the future, of her purpose, of being alone.

It was about Abbey, and I was humbled by the fact that I was able to be there for her. Maybe she remembered knowing that I loved her, that I'd been in love with her for years. Maybe she didn't even remember my name. And it didn't matter at all to me.

End