Story: On My Honor
Chapter 15
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Previously: Liz lied to Jed about what she heard John say in order to protect her father's pride; Abbey said she no longer wants John around the girls; after telling Ellie he still can't give her her badge, a disappointed Ellie rejected Jed's help; Megan Carmichael's mother transferred her sick daughter to another hospital after finding out Dr. Mark Allen is gay (chapter 11)
Summary: Abbey runs interference with Ellie; the Carmichaels go to the press about Dr. Allen; Jed and Abbey contemplate fighting back; Jed's political rival infuriates him
AN: In order to tell this story as accurately as possible, we have to show the ugly side of it as documented by numerous sources. The views we've assigned to Elliot Roush do not reflect our views or beliefs
Rated R for inflammatory language
Ellie looked up at her mother, then sprinkled the bread crumbs over the turkey, pasta, and veggies that filled the baking dish. "Am I doing it right?"
"You're doing it great!"
Chores in the Bartlet house were always assigned with a purpose. Tonight, after Abbey and Ellie prepared the turkey tetrazzini, Jed and Lizzie would set and clear the table and wash the dishes afterwards. Teaming up with their daughters instead of sending them out on solo tasks was a way to bond with the girls, to steal a few moments for private conversations, or to simply squeeze in some quality time while helping out around the house.
"I want it to be really delicious," Ellie said as she dipped the crumbs into the corner with a small spoon.
"You're getting so good at this, you could probably earn your cooking badge with no problem," Abbey replied. She tilted her head to the side when Ellie's joyful expression suddenly faded and the seven year old stared down at the dish. "Ellie, I know you're still upset about the Space Exploration badge."
Ellie shrugged. "A little."
Abbey tucked a finger under her chin to raise her head. "Did I ever tell you about the time your father tried to get his hiking badge when he was a Boy Scout?"
"No."
"This badge was special. It was blue and green with mountains on it and every boy in his troop wanted it, but in order to get it, they had to complete a two-hour hike during a camping trip in the White Mountains."
"Then that was easy because Daddy likes to hike."
"Now he does. I'm not so sure about then. Anyway, while they were hiking, your dad stopped to tie his shoe and as he bent over, his compass fell out of his pocket and into a small stream."
"Did he get it back?"
"He did, but he didn't want to hold up the other guys, so he didn't call for help. Instead, he fished it out of the water, then ran to catch up with everyone else. Only, there was a fork in the trail and he didn't know which way they had gone. He took one route, but he didn't see them, so he turned around to take the other path, but by then, he was confused about where he even started and his compass wasn't working very well."
"So he got lost?" Ellie sympathetically asked, remembering the scary few hours she spent in the woods during the Girl Scout camping trip in September.
"Yeah, he got lost. He was lost for an entire night, Ellie. The troop leader didn't even know where they had abandoned him and it was dark by the time they figured out he was missing. It wasn't until the next morning they found him."
"Was he okay?"
"He was cold and scared, probably the way you were when you got lost in the woods. I think that's why he was upset with you at first. He was so worried that you had gone through what he went through."
"But we weren't lost for the whole night. We spent the night with another troop who found us."
"Your dad wasn't so lucky. He was all by himself and he had to start his own fire just to keep warm. He told me he stayed up all night because he was afraid of the animals he could hear in the distance."
"They didn't hurt him, did they?"
"No," Abbey answered, touched that Ellie was so affected by the thought of her father injured that her face nearly crumpled until she heard her mother's response. "He didn't get hurt. In fact, when they finally found him, he was curled up next to a tree surrounded by a couple of squirrels he had become awfully friendly with."
Ellie laughed. "He was friends with the squirrels?"
"It became lonely out there. Apparently, the squirrels ran from him at first, then gathered around him when he shared the few crackers he was carrying with him. It was a small price to pay, he told me, to have someone - or something - to talk to."
"I bet he told them all about the stars!"
"I'm sure he did," an amused Abbey agreed. "Anyway, the point is, his leader felt so bad about what happened, and he was so impressed with your dad because he had survived a whole night by himself in the woods, that he wanted to award him with the hiking badge anyway."
"Daddy deserved it."
"No, Sweetie, he didn't. Your father wanted it and he almost took it, but at the last minute, he said he couldn't because he was supposed to complete the hike and he hadn't done that. When they found him, they carried him back to camp through a short-cut, so he didn't walk the trail. He didn't finish."
"Oh." Ellie was so convinced Jed didn't understand her position, but learning he had been in the same situation as a young boy softened her feelings considerably.
"Instead, he rejected the badge and a few weeks after the ceremony, the troop went to the same campsite. Your dad led the hike through the mountains and this time, he walked the whole thing."
"So then he got his badge?"
"Yep! Because no matter how badly he wanted to get it at the same time all his friends did, he couldn't bring himself to wear his uniform if it had a badge on it that he hadn't earned. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
"I think so."
"He would give anything if he could give you the badge, Ellie. But it would be dishonest and that goes against everything the Girl Scouts are about, doesn't it?"
Ellie reluctantly nodded. "Yeah."
"Your dad and I can help you get your badge, just not by the ceremony next month. I know you're upset about that, but sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to." Abbey lifted the baking dish and slid it into the oven.
"What if I never get it?"
"You will. Your dad's a genius when it comes to astronomy and do I have to remind you I'm a scientist myself? We're going to help you. Both of us. But before we can, you've gotta do something for me."
"What?"
"Give your dad a break. You've been making him feel very bad, Ellie."
Confused, she arched her brows. "I didn't mean to make him feel bad."
"But you have," Abbey countered as she took a damp washcloth to the countertop. "Are you really mad at him?" Again, Ellie shrugged. "You know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think you're mad at yourself more than you are at him. You wish now that you had given your presentation, but Sweetie, you can't change what happened. You were overwhelmed that night."
"Is Daddy mad that I didn't do it?" Convinced she had disappointed Jed as much as he had disappointed her, Ellie held her breath while she waited for Abbey's answer.
"No, he isn't. I think the only person your father is mad at is himself and that isn't fair because he did nothing wrong. He's not trying to punish you. He just wants you to be the very best Girl Scout you can be and in order to do that, you have to be honest."
"I am honest."
"I know you are. I never have to doubt what you say because you've never lied to me. You never tell people you did something you didn't do. That's why you can't have this badge until you earn it. That makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," Ellie sadly replied. This was the same message Jed tried to send her, but she was so lost in her anger and bitterness that she made no effort to comprehend his words.
"So how about you stop blaming your dad?"
"Does he still want to help me get my badge?"
"I'm sure he does, but maybe you want to ask him later? Make him feel like you want his help."
"I do want his help," she confirmed.
"I'm sure he'd love to hear that."
Ellie knew she was taking advantage of the fact that her leader was her father, the man who put her needs and wants above everything else. But her young mind hadn't allowed her to see the bigger picture. The whole board, Jed would call it in one of his famous chess metaphors. So it was Abbey's job to soothe the turbulence between Jed and Ellie by helping her separate Jed, her father from Jed, her leader. After all, she told her daughter, if Miss Shelly was still her leader, Ellie would have realized she wouldn't get her badge and she would have accepted it without a fight.
Armed with a new perspective, Ellie prepared to make peace with Jed that night. Unfortunately, before she could broach the subject, something else monopolized the dinnertable discussion.
"'We did nothing wrong. My daughter did nothing wrong and now she's dying because her doctor failed to disclose that he has this gay disease,' Carmichael said in a phone interview."
Lizzie read the newspaper article without pausing until the juice Abbey poured into Zoey's sippy cup overflowed the rim and splashed onto the tray. "They have a quote from her? She spoke to the press?"
"Abbey." Jed leapt to his feet to help his wife clean up the mess.
"Does he have it, Mom? Does Mark have the gay disease?"
"Don't call it that, Lizzie," Abbey replied as she dried Zoey's interfering hands.
"But that's what people call it."
"I don't care what other people say. It isn't a gay disease and I don't want you calling it that."
"What is it then?" Encouraged by Jed and Abbey to come to the dinnertable each and every night with a current events item ready to discuss, Liz wasn't afraid to ask questions.
"It's a virus of some sort. We don't know much about it yet."
"But the article says that close to ninety people have died from it and they're all gay."
"What's gay?" Ellie asked her sister.
"It's when a man wants to marry another man, El. Or when a woman wants to marry another woman. It's like Mom's friend, Uncle Mark and his friend Kevin."
Jed interrupted before Lizzie continued. "All right, look, your mother said we don't know much about this illness, but something we do know is that there's no such thing as a gay disease. That's not how diseases work. They don't target people."
"It really steams me the way this story was written." With Zoey taken care of, Abbey took her seat and skimmed the article, shaking her head in disgust. "The reporter's only sources are Megan's mother and her current doctor in Boston. I bet she didn't even bother to get Mark's side."
"She didn't talk to the hospital either, did she?"
"It says here our hospital declined comment." She threw the paper across the table. "Can you believe that? They're going to let them run this trash and crucify one of the most brilliant doctors on staff without so much as a word."
"That's probably because the hospital hasn't decided how to handle this yet," Jed offered as he picked up the paper.
"There's absolutely no science in that story! It's all based on the diagnosis of a Boston physician and a mother's conjecture. I wish I could call the reporter and inform her that there's no possible way that Mark can pass on a disease he doesn't have."
"You can't do that, you know," he told her. "Call the reporter."
"Why not? I was the consulting physician on this case. Mark came to me to ask about a lung biopsy. If I go on the record, I could tell the world what others are afraid to say."
"The hospital officially declined comment, Abbey. If you said anything, if you gave any indication that you were this little girl's doctor and you disputed the claims, you could be fired."
"I'm starting to wonder if that would be so bad."
"Honey, I love you for your passion, but if you get kicked out of your residency this late into the game, that's it. You can't go on the record. You know that."
Abbey posture shrank in acknowledgment. "Yeah."
Jed folded the paper and laid it beside his plate, then looked up at his wife with eyes sparkling with determination. "But I can."
"You?"
"I'm a state representative. This is a health issue that's affecting the people I represent. If you coached me on what to say, scientifically, I could come out as someone unrelated to the hospital but still knowledgeable enough to discount blatant ignorance that's sure to cause panic within the community."
"I think you should, Dad," Liz encouraged him. "If it isn't a gay disease then it's not right that people say it is. You should tell them that."
"I think you should do it too, Daddy," Ellie added.
"Are we all in agreement?" Jed rested his eyes on Abbey.
"No. You're not going to take the bullet for me on this. If you come out as a politician, you're going to provoke all your enemies to come out as well and then it turns into a political issue."
"It already is a political issue, Abbey. The President has yet to acknowledge there's a problem. Do you really think the federal government wouldn't be funding this thing to the hilt if it had showed up anywhere besides the gay population first? The CDC lab assigned to this thing can barely afford microscopes, you said so yourself."
"And what if people hate what you have to say? You're running again next year, Jed. I can't let you risk your seat in the State House for me."
"It's not just for you. Innocent people like Mark are being ostracized all over this country and it's time someone stood up for them...publicly."
"That should be me, not you."
"No," he said again, a little more sternly this time. "You're not going to throw away all your years of med school and training to make a point that I'm quite capable of making without losing my career. If I piss people off, I'll work harder to win them back next year. You'll help me."
That was the Jed she knew and loved. Protective of her, yet willing to gear up for a fight to defend others. More than his ego, his dedication to his fellow man was the driving force behind his commitment to public service. A warm smile was her response and with a reassuring squeeze of his arm, she asked Lizzie to watch Zoey and then retreated to the living room.
Jed followed. "Abbey?"
"We'll talk about it in a second. It's just after six. I want to see if the TV stations picked up the story."
She surfed past the Boston channels and landed on one out of Manchester, stepping back to watch when she saw the familiar hospital graphic behind the anchor.
"A New Hampshire girl is battling a rare form of pneumonia tonight and her mother says she caught it from her pediatrician." The anchor threw the coverage to a reporter and suddenly, images of ten-year-old Megan filled the screen.
"Six weeks ago, Megan Carmichael was a healthy, happy little girl," the reporter began.
"Not again." Abbey moved closer to her husband and as he wrapped an arm around her waist, she leaned into his chest and exclaimed, "Mark doesn't have this thing!"
They watched the rest of the broadcast, stunned that there was no mention of the disease itself. It didn't surprise Jed nearly as much as it did Abbey. While constantly monitoring the news, he had already noticed that aside from occasional briefs, the mainstream press had ignored GRID as much as possible.
But it was something else that caught Jed's eye and made his gasp in amazement. It was an interview with someone he immediately recognized, someone he already despised.
"Doctors are supposed to save lives, not take them! It's a travesty! It's unconscionable that this little girl is fighting for her life because of the immorality of her doctor. He may not show the symptoms, but he has it. This is an issue we, lawmakers, need to think seriously about. Given the complexities of the disease, maybe doctors who engage in homosexual behavior shouldn't be allowed to be doctors. Maybe it should be known that if you break God's rules, you don't get to practice medicine in the state of New Hampshire. Or teach, or be a cop, or anything else that puts the rest of us normal folks at risk."
Elliot Roush.
How Jed hated that name. How he hated the bigotry that defined this man. He hated the way Elliot manipulated his religious beliefs to defend his own ignorance. He hated the way Elliot's voice trembled when he raised it while delivering a floor speech in the State House. He hated the way Elliot's dark eyebrows narrowed when someone dared to challenge him. He hated Elliot Roush and that clip was a perfect example as to why.
"Wow." Nearly speechless, Abbey left Jed's embrace and shut off the television. She turned to look at her husband, concerned when Jed's face seemed frozen in time, his eyes staring blankly at the screen. "Jed?"
He waited another few seconds before he said, "Yeah. I'm in this thing now."
TBC