Series: Snapshots of the Past

Story: Say You Love Me Too

Chapter 10

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Previously: Lizzie wanted to know what happened to Abbey; Abbey freaked out over Lizzie's safety; Abbey couldn't stop her memories of the attack from intruding on her other memories; Jed helped guide Abbey through their past; a familiar song comforted Abbey

Summary: Abbey tries to understand why she can't stop her memories from overlapping; Jed deals with his feelings of guilt for not being able to protect Abbey

- - -

"And then what?"

"And then I realize that I can't do anything to help them. I can't take away their pain and I can't protect my girls from the same thing."

"The same thing?"

"That happened to me."

To an untrained eye, it would almost seem as if Abbey recounted her nightmares with very little emotion, but to Dr. Susan Hunter, it was troubling to see her colleague so disturbed by the content that she refused to acknowledge the raw wounds.

Abbey leaned back against the plush-cushioned chair, her hands clasped neatly on her lap. Her voice remained monotone, a spark of inflection being drowned out by a conscious effort to swallow her fear.

This is what frightened her most.

Delving into the depths of her mind, of her memory, of her subconscious - a subconscious that sheltered her from the horror of one night - would destroy her.

But even greater than the panic-stricken anxiety she wanted to keep hidden, was a desire to remember the last fourteen years of her life. For weeks, she strived to do one without the other, but at times, a seemingly coincidental collision would occur, forcing her to surrender her memories of her family in order to avoid memories of her attacker.

"I don't understand the connection," she said to Susan.

"There probably isn't one."

"Then why can't I remember one without the other?"

"In some cases you can. The problem is that your mind is ready to heal and sometimes, memories come flooding back. They're not isolated the way you'd prefer and you're afraid of that. So when you remember something about Jed, you can't get your mind to compartmentalize the attack."

Abbey nervously brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Is that typical?"

"There is no typical when we're talking about what we're talking about. I would have expected you to remember things in order, from the earliest memories to the most recent. I would have expected that the memories of the attack itself would be buried at least until you heal physically. But that didn't happen." Susan leaned forward towards her patient. "I wonder if you're now trying to consciously protect yourself from what you don't want to know."

"You think I'm doing this on purpose?" Abbey asked, a hint of accusation in her tone.

"No, not at all. I think you're scared of the unknown. And that's what we need to deal with."

Susan was right and Abbey knew it. She was barreling deeper into a hell she didn't want to face. She would sacrifice her progress for the reward of ignorance. At least then, she was in control.

As the women continued the session inside the confines of the sound-proofed office, Jed sat in the waiting room. He, too, clasped his hands around one another, but unlike Abbey, his fidgety nature soon took over. His elbows rested on his knees as his thumbs circled each other. Every few minutes, he'd lift his head with his body still slouched over. Curiosity is what motivated him, frustration is what outraged him.

He was shut out of the session for Abbey's own good. That's what Susan had told him. That's what he was pressured to accept. But after three and a half weeks of torment, his wife wasn't the only one in need of professional care.

The immeasurable toll on the entire family was obvious. Only Ellie seemed to be adjusting without fully understanding the impact of a single incident that changed all their lives. Elizabeth flailed between strong emotions of sadness and deep-seeded feelings of optimism. Now that her mother was home, she was certainly happier than she was the week she was away, but her carefree nature had been visibly suppressed.

And Jed. He worked so hard to hide his disappointment every time Abbey would ask a question or make a reference to something she should already know. He wanted to be gentle with her, if that's what would help. He wanted to push her, if that would do any good. He wanted to do whatever he could to rush the process along. But nothing he did seemed to garner any positive results, leaving him feeling as powerless as everyone else.

Every day that passed closed a small portion of the gap between him and the overwhelming anger he was trying to keep at bay. But today was different. On this day, he didn't try to smother the anger. He welcomed it. He cherished it. He wanted to feel as much rage as possible and he wanted to be the one to control it.

With the anger, came guilt. The guilt was the part that ate away at him, caused his stomach to do flip-flops, and consumed him with a trembling tingle that inhibited his logical thoughts.

As a husband, he failed. He had vowed to take care of Abbey for the rest of his life. He vowed to keep her safe. He promised her father he always would. He would have planted himself in a hail of bullets to save her from the pain she was going through now. But when she needed him most, he wasn't there. He wasn't there in that parking lot the night she was taken. He wasn't there when she cried out for his help.

Her cries went unanswered. And today, it all hit home.

He allowed himself to drift into a trance that filled his brain with ideas. Incomplete ideas. He had never felt this way before. When Jed Bartlet wanted vengeance, he always had a target in mind, whether it was taking action against the city when Lizzie was injured in the Boston busing controversy, or finally standing up to his father before he could infiltrate himself in his granddaughter's life, or challenging Elliot Roush on the floor of the State House over bills he found discriminatory. He always had a place to direct his fury.

But not this time. This time, he was chasing a phantom. He was after a person he couldn't identify. A person he couldn't imagine. And that was the most infuriating part.

"Jed?" Susan called, interrupting his thoughts.

He leapt to his feet, eager to see his wife. "Yes?"

Abbey walked slowly past Susan's frame and towards her husband. Her demeanor more subdued than when she went in, she took a seat beside him. "She wants to see you."

He moved calmly into the office and watched as Susan closed the door. "What's wrong? What did Abbey say?"

"This isn't about Abbey. This is about you."

"Me? I'm not your patient."

"No, you're not. But I'm not talking to you in an official capacity right now. I'm talking to you, not as your wife's doctor, but as your wife's colleague and friend."

Dumbfounded, he asked her to elaborate. "What?"

"Are you pressuring her?"

"No," he answered firmly, his steely eyes piercing into hers.

"The less overwhelmed Abbey feels, the faster things will fall into place."

"I'm not pressuring her," he repeated, a little softer this time. "At least not intentionally."

She inhaled a rapid breath in agreement. "I know you wouldn't do it intentionally, but I also know how important it is that she remembers you..."

"She does remember me. She has some memories."

"You want her to remember it all."

"I want her to remember her life, yes. I want her to remember her daughters." He stiffened a bit as he continued. "I want her to remember the person who did this to her."

The last part was spoken with such coldness that his body language even changed.

"That may never happen." Susan warned. "Sometimes, those kinds of memories, memories of a person who hurt us, are buried so deep in our subconscious that they may never surface."

"That's unacceptable."

"Jed..."

"No, it's unacceptable! Abbey is going to remember." He crossed in front of her to the other side of the square-shaped room. "She'll remember that night, she'll remember who did this, and he'll pay for it. That's the way it works."

"And what if it doesn't?"

He spun back around on her. "It will."

His conviction infallible, Susan raised her head, shooting him a clear indication of disapproval. "This is what's going to destroy her."

"That's crazy."

"No, it isn't," she quickly countered. "You weren't like this during her last session. You were loving and caring and gentle. What happened?"

"I'm still loving and caring and gentle."

"Yes, you are. To Abbey, you are. But today, you're also filled with anger. What happened?"

"Nothing."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing."

His insistence was met with a cynical sigh as Susan plopped back down in her chair and conceded. "Okay."

Jed closed his eyes with relief. The thoughts that had been going through him earlier were to be protected and shielded from scrutiny until he was ready to confront them. But at the moment, there was only one person he wanted to turn to. Someone could offer him guidance and help him find his way out of a dark, guilt and anger-laced abyss.

And that's where he headed after he left Abbey.

- - -

"Jed?" Father Cavanaugh stood just behind the pews when his former altar boy walked in.

"Hi. I know I didn't call..."

"What else is new?" he joked.

"Do you have a few minutes?"

The depths of his desperation were obvious from the way he asked that question. Those six words were spoken with such despair that Tom quickly realized it had taken everything in the world for Jed to ask them.

With a reassuring nod, he gestured towards a seat. "Is this okay, or would you prefer to come to my office?"

"I'd rather we do this in the office. I don't think I want to be right here when I say what I want to say."

A rather ominous statement that didn't go by unnoticed. This is where Jed liked to talk. This is where he always received counsel. Things had changed and if not apparent by the way he walked and the way he spoke, it was surely apparent by the sudden request for a change of venue.

"Better?" Tom asked as they reached his office.

"Yeah. Thanks."

"How's Abbey?"

His nerves on-edge, Jed refused to sit. "I've been...all day, I've been trying to wrap my mind around protocol and the right thing. And I can't do it."

"What can't you do?"

"This morning, before I took Abbey to her session with Dr. Hunter, I went to see the police. You know, for weeks, I've been concentrating so much on Abbey that I overlooked everything else. I buried my anger towards the person who did this to her. To us."

"So you wanted to find out what progress they made on the investigation?"

"Do you know much about this condition...this type of amnesia?" Jed's thoughts seemed to be scattered with no cohesive bond.

Tom just nodded and waited for him to make sense of it all. "No."

"I didn't either. So I read up on it. I've been doing a lot of reading." His hands ran furiously through his hair. "The person blocks out what's too painful to remember. I knew that. But I've been trying to figure out what happened to Abbey. What did that bastard do to her that caused her to forget me, to forget her daughters."

"What did you find out, Jed?" Tom asked, trying to direct him towards admitting the source of his distress.

"Nothing. Well, that's not true. They did tell me something. But nothing that will make a difference. They don't know who they're looking for. They don't know anything and according to everyone I've talked to, Abbey may never remember the person who did this. That person may get away with it."

"He'll never get away with it. He'll pay a price."

"Please, Tom, don't bring Him into it right now. I'm not talking about God's wrath. I'm talking about justice."

"So am I. And so are you, or else you wouldn't be here. We're all held accountable, Jed."

Jed took a breath and turned sharply towards the door, unable to look Tom in the eye. "We don't know who did this and suddenly, today, I wonder if that's a curse or a blessing because honest to God, I'm scared."

Tom stood and reached out to Jed's shoulder, turning him gently. "Of what?"

"Of what I'll do to the son of a bitch if they ever find him."

"Jed, what happened when you went to see the police this morning?"

"I want them to find this guy. I want Abbey to remember him. But, at the same time, I'm afraid of what that will do to her. Emotionally. Psychologically."

"You're not answering my question. What started all this?"

Jed brushed by Tom in a confused effort to veer off subject. "You know they can do excellent things with science now? Ever since the discovery of DNA, forensics experts have been storing evidence in the hopes that maybe someday, someone will figure out a way to use DNA to prove whether or not someone committed a crime, whether it's their fingerprints, their saliva, their blood, their hair on the crime scene."

"They're close to doing that."

Jed shrugged, indifferent to Tom's statement. "In the meantime, they do the best they can."

"Okay."

"So, the police, the night of the attack, they found a latex glove about a block away from wherever the crime took place. You know, like the kind that healthcare professionals wear."

"Yeah?"

"It's the kind that Abbey wears at the hospital. Most of the nurses and doctors do. At least, when they come into contact with someone who's contagious."

"You think the glove is connected to Abbey's attack?"

"The police think the glove they found belonged to a man. It was an extra large and it looked like it had been stretched. They think it belonged to the man who did this."

"Do you mean that someone at the hospital may be responsible..."

Jed ignored his question before he had a chance to finish it. "So I asked them why they think the man who attacked Abbey wore this glove. I mean, the hospital's right there. Anyone could have dropped a glove or forgotten to properly dispose of it, right?"

"Right."

"But the cop said, off the record, they found evidence...not from the attacker, but Abbey. They don't know for sure. They just put it under their microscope. But they found something of hers on the glove. Maybe someday when they can positively identify it, they can use it in court."

"When they learn to use DNA," Tom concluded.

Visibly upset, Jed seemed to almost ramble. "Yeah. But right now, they just have to rely on whatever they have in the forensic lab."

"And what did they tell you?"

"So I asked what they found. Was it a hair, a strand of her beautiful auburn hair? They said no. I asked if it was her blood? No, it wasn't that either. So I asked was it her saliva?"

He shook his head again.

"What was it?"

"I don't know why I'm so surprised. I mean, it makes sense. She was attacked for God's sake!"

"Jed?"

"You want to know what it was? You want to know what they think my wife left behind? What they found of Abbey's on that glove?"

"Yes."

"Her tears," Jed replied as Tom fell silent with the somber words. "And somehow to me, the person who's supposed to keep her safe and happy, that's so much worse than anything else."

TBC