Disclaimer: The character is not mine, the show is not mine, and I gain nothing financially. Ave Maria is not mine, and neither is Schubert. Although I wish that he were.
Author's note: This story contains spoilers for The Crackpots and These Women.
Our lot of care
When he goes back to his office he knows that everything isn't okay. Isn't going to be okay. He doesn't have a card any more, so, you know, it's not like he has to feel bad or anything. But the day won't go away just because the president puts an arm around you, just because you made a little speech. He knows that. A night doesn't go away just because you were a little boy. He knows that too.
O Jungfrau, sieh der Jungfrau Sorgen,
O Mutter, hör ein bittend Kind!
He's got all these women working around him every day, and God knows he understands everything the president said to him. But none of them is the woman that he wants, because she has never come to visit the White House, take a tour, wide-eyed and wowed by what he's done. Occasionally when he goes to the Kennedy Center he thinks he sees this girl just slipping out of the room, this girl with long dark hair, darker than his, and a dress that doesn't look quite right, it's the kind of thing Jackie Kennedy would have worn in the sixties, he thinks, not that he really remembers much. Funny how so much of those early, early years is hazy and undefined, but he still remembers one night perfectly. Funny how clearly he remembers music. Funny how he's never mentioned that girl in the Kennedy Center to Stanley – he knows he only imagined that her strong fingers curved round a baton with an assurance he recognises, that her eyes were not merely gazing through the crowd but were looking right at him, that her lips formed words he's heard a thousand times, a thousand, thousand times.
We bow us to our lot of care,
Beneath thy guidance reconciled
This is my first West Wing story, so feedback will be particularly valued and loved.