Summary: A memory from happier times while Leo observes Jed and Josh at the hospital after Rosslyn.
As Leo watched the President stroke Josh's unkempt curls, his own fingers itching to do the same, he was struck by a memory from over three decades ago.
Leo had been with his brother and Noah Lyman on the back porch of the Lyman family home. Leo and Mike were seated on wicker chairs, Leo with a cold beer in one hand and Mike softly tapping an uneven rhythm against the glass of his usual Coke. Noah had been across from them on the porch swing with his sleeping son's head on his lap.
It had been years since Leo had last seen Josh, so long that it would've been nearly impossible for Leo to have recognized him, Josh only been a few months old the last time he'd since Leo had seen him.
He couldn't remember what the topic, or topics, of conversation had been that afternoon but he remembered that Mike had said something that made Leo and Noah laugh.
"Sorry, did I wake him?" Mike had asked when their laughter started to fade.
Noah had looked down at Josh who was still dead asleep, affection burning bright in Noah's eyes, and idly began to stroke the boy's unruly brown curls.
"The world could be ending and he'd sleep through it. Sleeps through Joanie hammering away at the piano, he can't get enough of her playing when he's awake but when he's asleep he doesn't even twitch when she shows off with Rachmaninoff."
Leo remembered that part of the conversation clearly, Noah's pride for his children had burned the words into his memory. Ada had come out shortly after that and, upon seeing Josh fast asleep, volunteered to take Josh up to bed. Noah shook his head and told her he would take him up later, at his wife's suggestion Noah had looked like a little boy who didn't want to hand over his puppy and Leo's lips had curled into a smile.
In that moment Leo had wondered if his own father had ever shown him such affection. Certainly he hadn't hated or mistreated Leo the way he'd done with Mike, but- this?
Surely the McGarry patriarch would have frowned on such an open display of tender love toward either of his sons. But Noah Lyman wasn't like Frank McGarry, and neither was Jed Bartlet. Neither man was afraid to show the love they felt for their boy.
As the memory faded, and he was brought hurtling back to the present and the terrible reality before him, Leo felt a pang in his chest.
What would Noah make of all this, Leo asked himself.
Just as that question formed in his head he caught sight of Ada, graceful even as she rushed to reach her son's bedside.
She'd come to collect her boy and this time Noah wouldn't be keeping him.