Series: Snapshots of the Past

Story: Phoenix

Chapter 19

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Previously: While taking Liz shopping for a bra, Jed realizes that his little girl is growing up; it's clear to Jed how much the girls miss Abbey; just before Frank Crews's court appearance, Jed finds out that he's agreed to a plea bargain and that Abbey knew about it; Jed charges for Frank

Summary: Mike tries to calm Jed after his outburst; when Jed confronts Abbey, it leads to a heated argument

"JED!"

Mike ran through the crowd of spectators milling around the front of the courtroom. In only seconds of reaction time, he prepared to slide his arms under Jed's to pull him back from the target who was about to reap the brunt of his boiling temper. But as Jed drew his fist, ready for the first swing, a bailiff leapt over the wooden railing and used his own bulky frame to misdirect the punch meant for Frankie's jaw.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Jed screamed as he squirmed to break from the restrictive hold of the bailiff and two passersby.

"Jed, stop it!" Mike tried to ease the burning anger that caused him to fight the bailiff.

"Get that psycho away from me before I'm the one suing for assault and battery," Frank warned, his smug grin noticeably widening.

Lunging forward with all his rage, Jed's hands clawed for the man. "You son of a bitch!"

His erratic movements provoked the intervention of another bailiff. Mike used his weight to block Jed as the defense attorney yanked Frankie's arm, expanding the gap of open space between the two men and allowing Frank to escape Jed's furious clutches.

Jed Bartlet wasn't a violent man. Because he was born into a family whose patriarch frequently staggered over that tenuous line between discipline and child abuse, he chose a different path for himself. A lesser man may have followed in the footsteps of John Bartlet, embracing the lessons that defined a childhood that enforced physical consequences for every negative action.

But not Jed.

His upbringing didn't groom him to mirror his father's behavior. It groomed him to denounce it. He became a gentle, caring individual without a hint of violent tendencies. But somewhere, deep in the hollow crevasses of his soul, lurked a smidgen of vengeful thoughts reserved for those who dared to threaten his loved ones.

In addition to the marriage vows he made more than twelve years earlier, he was reminded of a personal vow. He pledged to protect Abbey and his daughters from the dangers of the world, to shelter them from the menacing situations that could inflict physical or psychological harm. That pledge was carelessly broken the night Frank Crews slithered across a dark parking lot and violated Abbey's security with his depraved intentions.

Now, the legal ramifications of that brutal crime left him powerless, and if there was one thing that could defy the boundaries of Jed's mental stability, it was sheer impotence in the face of injustice.

"Dammit!" He slammed his closed fist into a vacant wall directly outside the courtroom.

"Feel better?" Mike reached for his hand, but Jed pulled away.

"Why did you stop me? You shouldn't have stopped me."

"If I hadn't, you'd be in jail right now."

Jed shook his head, a gesture highlighting the rage that overshadowed everything else. "I don't care. That bastard is worth it."

"Your wife needs you." Mike handed him his watch which had become unclasped and fallen to the floor during the scuffle. "Go home."

"Is that what you do? You work to make the streets safer and all that happens is scum like Frankie Crews get off with a slap on the wrist?"

"It won't be a slap on the wrist. He will do time for this." Perhaps he would, but this hearing would declare to the world that Frankie's only crime was assaulting Abbey with the knife. It was a poor interpretation of his true transgressions and the damaging ripple that disrupted all their lives in the aftermath.

"You know, my oldest, Elizabeth...she has a bit of a temper. She inherited that from me. She's usually a pretty good kid, but like all kids, she sometimes gets into trouble."

"Yeah." Mike silently looked on as Jed coiled the watch around his wrist then joined him as he began to stroll down the hall.

"When she breaks the rules, her mother and I ground her. It's usually just a week or two, but we do ground her. And then, like clockwork, she waits about a day and figures it's time to try to manipulate me. She chooses me because she knows I'm a bit of a softie. At least, more so than Abbey."

"Hmm, have I just ignored this softer side of you?" Mike smiled to ease the tension, but Jed continued without batting an eye.

"The reason she doesn't go to her mother is because her mother doesn't negotiate punishment. Abbey believes that when you break the rules, you pay the price. No bargaining, no promises of better future behavior. She doesn't stand for any of that stuff, not when it comes to Liz."

And there it was - the source of his anger that erupted into the confrontation with Frank was a direct result of the bombshell he learned about Abbey. How could she not want to fight to put him away? How could she ignore the blows that left permanent emotional scars inside her and unraveled the fabric of her family's safety? How could she have disregarded Jed's opinion in any of this?

"Jed, you're going to have to talk to Abbey about this."

"I will," he adamantly assured him. "But in the meantime, I just wonder why we even bother. I mean, why bother putting in all the money and effort into solving cases, arresting these lowlifes just so they can cop a plea and negotiate punishment. Is that how the judicial system in the most powerful nation in the world is supposed to work?"

"It's how it does work."

"And when I'm not feeling so disillusioned with this thing called 'justice,' I'll recognize that, but at the moment, it occurs to me that in some countries, Frank Crews would be maimed and castrated for his crimes against Abbey and Maggie."

"Do you really want to follow the precedent set by those countries?"

He dismissed the idea with a shake of his head after briefly pausing to ponder the question. "But when I look at the man sitting in there, the man who raised his hand to my wife..." His voice broke slightly as the image of a helpless Abbey flashed before his eyes. "...and cut her skin with the sharp blade of a shiny knife, laughing maniacally as she pleaded for him to let her live...when I look at him, I'm tempted to say 'damn, those countries got it right.'"

His hands stuffed in his pockets, he picked up his pace, walking away sullen and defeated. The hearing didn't matter. The judge's instructions made no difference. This fight was over before it officially began. So Jed did the only thing he could do. He sat on a bench outside the courtroom. He leaned his head against the wall and listened.

"Guilty," Frankie said.

Guilty. He pleaded guilty to assault and battery with a deadly weapon other than a gun, a charge that wasn't governed by a minimum sentence. Ideally, he would spend several years in prison. But Jed's fear dictated his emotions and that fear revolved around the possibility that a lenient judge would grant a sentence that would free Frank Crews from his cell and return him to the streets of Hanover in less than a year.

His lips twitched as he thought about the unfairness etched in New Hampshire law, the very law he hoped to supplement with mandatory sentences for people like Frank. It would help other women, but all the advocacy in the world wouldn't help Abbey.

It wouldn't ensure her assailant receive a fair punishment, reflective of the heinous crime he committed against her. It wouldn't heal the open wounds Frank's cruel attack inflicted on the family. It wouldn't replace the weeks that Jed and the girls spent worrying if Abbey would ever remember them or the months of stress that culminated in Zoey's premature birth. It wouldn't erase the turmoil that shadowed Jed and Abbey's marriage while she struggled to get her memories back or the subtle changes in her behavior that blemished their relationship once she did.

Nothing he could do would help Abbey, partly because Abbey made a choice, a choice that left him dumbfounded. If she hadn't pushed for a plea bargain, he wondered if perhaps Frank Crews would get exactly what he deserved. But now, he'd never know and the only person who could quell the disappointment that guided that uncertainty was Abbey.

But it would have to wait. By the time he arrived home, the family was dressed and ready to leave. The news that hit him so sharply had dominated his mind and, as a result, he had nearly forgotten it was the night of Ellie's Christmas pageant. With a forged smile, he wrapped an arm around Abbey and led her out of the house, trailing a few steps behind Mary, James, Ellie, and Liz.

His touch felt different. Stiffer. Harder. Almost rigid and forced. And that wasn't all. Abbey could sense his discomfort from the short responses to any attempt at conversation or his snippy answers to a myriad of shallow questions. It was distressingly clear something was bothering him, but she swallowed her curiosity and waited until they returned home to delve deeper into his sudden defensive attitude.

"Are you going to tell me about it?" she asked, watching him pace around the kitchen as if looking for something to eat. It was busy work, really. He wanted a distraction from a one-on-one conversation.

"I thought you were going to help Ellie get ready for her bath."

"My mother is helping her."

"Well, then maybe you could spend some time with Lizzie." He wanted so badly to talk to her, but his temper was still simmering and likely to incite a fight he didn't want to have.

"Dad's taking care of Lizzie. And I'm not going back to the hospital until I tuck Ellie in, so I have a few minutes." She walked to a chair at the kitchen table and sat down, hoping he would join her. "I'd like to talk."

"Fine." He reached for a glass in the cupboard and retrieved a carton of milk from the fridge. "My brother called. He and Kellie want to fly in when the kids are on break next week so they can help out until Zoey gets a little stronger."

"That'll be nice. They also sent flowers. So did your father."

"My father," Jed scoffed as he poured the milk. "I still can't believe he..."

"Jed." Abbey folded her arms in front of her chest, impatiently waiting for him to finish circling around the point when she noticed the purple bruise that marked his knuckles. "What happened to your hand?"

He shot a quick look in her direction, then lowered the carton onto the countertop and rested his hands beside it as he focused on a benign object straight ahead. "I found out today that Frank Crews is pleading out."

She knew this was coming. She wanted to be the one to tell him, but lately, things between them just hadn't been the same. There seemed to be a stressful edge to most of their conversations, an unfamiliar tendency to skirt the issues. "Oh."

"Assault and battery with a deadly weapon. Can you believe it?"

"You didn't...tell me that isn't how you hurt your hand."

"No. I hurt my hand by punching a wall when I found out about the plea bargain."

He gave no hint of whether or not he knew her about role in this, so she simply played along. "It's amazing what our legal system can do."

"It's amazing what victims allow it to do," he growled as he threw his head over his shoulder to look at her. It wasn't an ambiguous look. This was an accusatory stare loaded with passion.

"I won't lie to you. I'm thrilled we're not going to trial."

"You're thrilled." It was a statement, not a question. "You're thrilled that the man who nearly destroyed our lives won't get what he deserves?"

"I understand that you're upset..."

She tried to rationalize the situation, but nothing she would say could relieve his sorrow. Not this time. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you talk to me? Why didn't we make this decision together?"

"Because I knew you'd try to talk me into fighting him and I didn't want that."

"Well, as long as you didn't want it..." He abandoned the milk and sauntered around the chair directly across from her. Folding his palms across the backrest, he lifted the legs from the floor.

"He did this to me!" Abbey snapped.

"No, Abbey, he didn't!" Jed released the chair, letting it crash to the ground. "Not just to you! He also did it to me. He did it to Liz. He did it to Ellie. And he did it to that innocent little baby fighting for her life at the hospital!"

Abbey took a deep breath as she stood to reach his level. "I don't want to go to trial, Jed. I can't face that man ever again. I just want him out of our lives! The jury isn't going to believe me anyway, not when the defense gets into the problems with my memory. So when Mike Conroy called me and explained the situation, I told him to go for it, offer the plea. I wanted Frank to take it. I still do. And if you think you're going to change my mind..."

"It's too late to change your mind! I went to court today. I listened to that despicable rat as he stood in front of the judge and said he was guilty of assault battery. Assault and BATTERY, Abbey!"

Her heart broke for his pain. She had no idea he had gone to the hearing, that he had been ambushed by the plea bargain. Her green eyes pierced into his baby blues. "I'm sorry you found out the way you did, but I don't regret my decision. I couldn't bear to sit on the witness stand and recount every second of that night and then listen to his lawyer twist my words afterwards. I couldn't do it, Jed."

"This shouldn't have been YOUR decision. It should have been OURS."

"It wouldn't have mattered. No matter what we wanted, we wouldn't have gotten the conviction."

Momentarily, the importance of the conviction faded. This wasn't like Abbey, at least not the old Abbey. That Abbey prided herself on her honesty and openness. She wouldn't have left him in the dark. "You don't know what would have happened. And even if by some miracle, you did, you still should have come to me. I should have been part of this."

"If that's what you're upset about..."

"You're damn right that's what I'm upset about!" Jed's raised voice drew stares from Ellie and Mary as well as Lizzie and James. They rushed out of their bedrooms and stopped just short of the kitchen.

"What's going on?" Lizzie asked.

"Nothing," Abbey answered. "Mom, can you..."

"Of course. Come on, girls." Mary led the girls into Ellie's room as James approached his daughter.

"Abigail?"

"Dad, it's nothing. Please stay out of it," she pleaded, reassuring him with a nod and silently asking for privacy.

James glanced at Jed who respectfully returned his gaze. "Okay."

Abbey watched James turn the corner of the hallway before she addressed her husband. "As I was saying, if you're upset because I didn't tell you, I can explain."

"Go ahead." Jed backed up towards the counter and waited eagerly for her to make this better. If she could offer any kind of reasonable explanation that would alleviate the hurt, he'd take her into his arms and work tirelessly to repair the rift between them.

"I told you earlier that I didn't want to give you a chance to change my mind. But I also didn't want to cause more tension between us and that's exactly what would have happened. So I kept my mouth shut and I know it was a mistake, but..."

"You don't get it." He dissuasively waved his arm at her. "This isn't a one-time thing."

"Excuse me?"

"The past several months, you've been flying solo. Every decision has been yours, Abbey. You act as if I'm not even here, as if you don't even have a husband."

She was caught off-guard. The feeling of control had been ripped out of her hands when she was attacked and in her mind, these past few months, she had been doing nothing more than getting it back. "I resent that."

"It's the truth. It all goes back to the days you spent lying to me about your memory, pretending you remembered more than you actually did. You remember that? Then, of course, you made the decision to let Susan walk you through the night of your attack even though I strongly disapproved."

"I apologized for shutting you out of that decision," Abbey argued, her temper quickly rising to rival his. His chilly glare barely changed as he squinted his eyes and twisted his head to the side.

"Then you decided to go back to your residency, despite my hesitation..." He crossed to the other side of the kitchen as she followed.

"...which you didn't even express," she finished. "And, by the way, if we're going to fight, let's fight fair. When I realized how uncomfortable you were with that, I decided to work at the clinic instead and put off residency until the Spring."

Jed glossed over that truthful fact to make his next point. "You didn't bother to tell me when you were having trouble with your pregnancy. I had to hear about the pain you were having when you finally told the doctor."

"I didn't think it was anything serious," she countered.

"No, because you thought you knew best. You always think you know best."

"I'm not intentionally leaving you out."

"Yes, you are. You're doing it now with Zoey."

Abbey flinched, confused by his accusation. "What?"

"You're the only one who talks to the doctors. I get the test results and a few superficial updates, but you don't even tell me what's going on medically. You're so consumed with being there 24/7 that you don't let anyone else near her."

"I'm her mother!"

He heard a fair amount of anger in her declaration, but he didn't back down. "And I'm her father! But for some reason, that doesn't mean as much, does it?"

"Of course it does."

"The only time you let me spend some time alone with her is when you come home to shower or change and even then, you make sure that Patti is checking on her every few minutes. It's as if you don't even trust me to just sit there and watch her." Jed blinked away the tears that wet his eyes. Even he was amazed by the misery that sparked the flow of emotions.

"How can you say that?"

"I love her just as much as you do, but you can't stand to leave her alone, not even with me."

"She needs me."

"And so do your other two daughters," he harshly replied. "They miss you. Ellie and Lizzie, they miss you so much."

"I miss them too," Abbey muttered, almost like she was appealing to his sensitivity, begging him to recognize her sincerity and believe how difficult this was for her. "I miss them just as much."

"How can you? How can you have time to miss them when you're always with Zoey?"

"That's not fair! I love them. All three of them."

"Look at yourself, Abbey. You're exhausted. You're surviving on nothing but coffee. Your hair is thin and shaggy. I wouldn't be surprised if it starts falling out because of lack of nutrition. You have dark circles under your eyes. You've lost so much weight no one would even believe you had a baby just a couple of weeks ago."

She ran a hand through her dark auburn locks and stared down at her petite frame. "Well, gee, Jed, I'm sorry I'm not looking like the blushing bride you want me to be."

"Stop it! That isn't what I mean and you know it."

She did know it. Jed was as worried about her as her parents, but just as she had done with them, she instantly rejected his concern. "I need Zoey as much as she needs me."

"You have an entire family who needs you! We need both of you. The girls haven't even SEEN Zoey yet. They haven't even met their little sister."

"We talked about that."

"Yes, for about five minutes. You told me that from a medical standpoint, the less visitors Zoey has, the less chance of germs and infection."

"That's true."

"The girls are not going to make her sick and you know that. So I have to wonder - is it the infection you're afraid of or is there something else going on that I don't know? Is Zoey's condition worse than you're telling me? Is that why you don't want Liz and Ellie getting close? Is it because...just in case?"

He was teetering at the edge of a dangerous line. Abbey wasn't ready to think about Zoey's mortality any more than Jed was ready to question it. But he could no longer live with the doubt that burdened him.

Husband and wife stood still for several minutes, neither willing to break the silence. Finally, Abbey bit down on her bottom lip and then opened her mouth. "I have been completely honest with you about Zoey."

"Then let me sit with her while you spend time with Liz and Ellie. I took Lizzie shopping for a bra this afternoon. Did you know that?" She didn't verbally respond, but her eyes held the answer. "She wanted you there. And Ellie, I can't even tell you how much Ellie misses you."

"You've already told me. You told me last week."

"And it didn't make much of a difference, did it?"

"Don't do this." Her eyes brimmed with tears that immediately trailed down her cheeks as she turned from him.

"Why didn't it make a difference? Why weren't you home the very next night reading to Ellie just as you have since the day she was born?" He hovered around her, his head poking over the back of her shoulder. He was baiting her now, but he couldn't stop, not if he wanted the truth.

"Because I was with Zoey!"

"Zoey gets the lion's share of your attention and Ellie and Liz are just cast aside?"

"NO!"

"Then why?"

Abbey spun around so sharply that the force of her turn caused Jed to step back. Her breaths were short and ragged and her face was red, a tribute to her steely indignation. "Because I'm the one who did this to her!"

"What?"

On the verge of a meltdown, she dabbed at her eyes with a dry tissue as she gathered her composure. "I should have listened to you. That day...you told me not to go with you to Ellie's school. You told me you'd handle it. I should have trusted you. I shouldn't have gone. If I hadn't...God, Jed, I should have listened. I should have listened to you."

Abbey didn't know what she expected from him in response. Maybe a warm smile or a gentle hand on her shoulder. Maybe just a softened tone or a whisper to affirm that it wasn't her fault. But that isn't what she got.

Instead, Jed paused to collect his thoughts then looked directly into her eyes. With an unforgiving tone, he asked, "Why didn't you?"

TBC