Chapter 12
Hannah was sitting in John's office; she never had noticed how large the offices of the higher ups were, she was half lying on the couch across from John's office, he was reading some reports, his eyes often stealing glimpses to the clock on the side of his desk, he leaves the pen on his desk, she can see him running his hand over his face.
"Hannah, before we leave for the white house, I need to ask you something."
"I'm not sleeping with you." She doesn't look up from her paper, John chuckled and she looks up seeing the small smile on his face.
"No, not that." He whispers making her smile .
"Sure go on"
"I want you to be my deputy director." She looks at him shocked, she's not sure she understands what he just asked of her.
"Jason's job?"
"Yeah, I couldn't think of a better person to have it." She smiles, slowly, as if she's scared that this is all a dream and she'll wake up.
"Yes." The smirk on his lips grew into a smile.
"Great, Deputy Director Wells."
Tom walks to the door opening it, John and Hannah were standing there waiting for him, he sees Hannah's eyes widen, John just took a couple steps back.
"Hannah, John, come in" they look at each other in shock, he can't help but chuckle. "I'm not on drugs." They slowly walked in the oval, still shocked with the changing in his mood, everyone who interacted with him today seemed to be as well.
"Take a seat. Do you have the report, of what happened?" John reaches inside his briefcase and takes out a thick file slowly giving it to him.
"Yes sir, the whole report is here." He takes the file in his hands, looking at the folder, his hands are itching to open it but he doesn't leaving the folder on the table next to him.
"Thank you John, you know, both of you, there will be backlash from what you did." He takes a couple deep breaths if he's being honest there will be backlash against all of them. "You will have the full support of this white house though."
"Thank you sir." John closes his briefcase, the three of them just sat there for a couple minutes, not really talking to one another.
"Ok, I need to talk to Hannah for a moment, excuse us." John nodes and leaves the room faster than Tom probably ever saw him do. As soon as the door closed behind him Tom turned to Hannah, she was still sitting on the couch looking at the floor. This was the last time the two of them were alone since he was waitng for her in her office and fired her.
"Hannah, I owe you an apology for the way I acted five days ago. You didn't deserve that." She looks up, smirking at him.
"We're fine sir, I might not but I wasn't innocent, no need to apologize, it should be me apologizing for deceiving you, for bringing Damian into your lives, you might have been angry but weren't wrong."
"Still I was out of line. Your job is here if you want it." The smile fell from her lips, she looks at the floor again and he hears her take a deep breath.
"I'm sorry but," she bites her lip; "I already accepted a promotion," she pauses he looks confused, "in the agency."
"A promotion?" Tom asks, he's slightly confused, but even though he won't admit it also relieved.
"I'm the new deputy director of the FBI." He forces a smile on his face and extends his hand to her.
"Congratulations are in order then." She shakes his hand, the smile back on her face again.
"Thank you sir, you can always count on me for help if you need it though." There's a stinging feeling to his heart. He can't pinpoint why exactly but he really isn't comfortable with the thought of asking Hannah for help.
"Thank you Hannah, I'll keep it in mind."
Tom leads Hannah to the door, letting her out, John was sitting on the chair in front of Wyatt's desk, he stood up nervously when he saw them coming out of the oval.
"John, can I have a moment with you please?" Tom sees him straightening his back.
"Of course sir," he turns to Hannah who was standing next to him. "I'll meet you in the car." The two men walked in the oval, Tom closed the door behind them and turned to John who was standing by the coach, he was nervously playing with his watch.
"No need to sit I'll be brief" Tom walks to his office, John's eyes following him the entire time. "I know and I understand why you might have lied to me for all this time, and I am glad you saved Alex's life, but I would like to ask you to let Hannah conduct the briefings to the white house, for some time." He sits down looking at a picture on his desk take from the last Halloween Party. "Until the tensions calm." John bites his lip, he looks around uncomfortable although his voice betrayed just how relieved he was.
"Of course sir. That would be no problem."
"Thank you John."
"Thank you sir."
Tom soon grew tired of all the shocked looks coming his way every time he said 'hello' to anyone and withdrew into his private office, his good mood soon all but disappeared. He felt a headache starting and he closed the briefing in front of him, leaning back on his chair, his eyes tightly closed he took off his glasses and threw them carelessly on the desk.
"Hey," he is startled when the door opened and he barely caught himself not to yell at whoever dared to bother him. he opens his eyes and sees Alex standing there, she's smiling at him and he can't but smile back as well.
"Hey," she steps aside and Penny runs in the room, "Little pea!" he barely manages to catch her before she jumped on him.
"Daddy!"
"I missed you so much." He bites his lip trying as hard as he can not to tear up, in his pain and anger he had totally forgotten how good his daughters hugs felt, how a small child could make him feel like on top of the world.
"I missed you too daddy." He pulls back, Leo is standing behind Alex, he didn't acknowledge him just his looking at his phone, he'll never admit it but it hurts him a lot.
"Let's go outside, lunch is ready." Penny smiles widely grabbing his hand tightly and almost leads him outside. They settle down, the food is waiting for them, no doubt just served, an awkward silence falls around them, the sound of forks and knives cluttering against the porcelain filled the space around them.
Alex looked around, she could tell that something was seriously wrong with Tom and Leo but she also knew that both were too stubborn to go first.
"So Leo why don't you tell us which schools you have chosen." She asked, Leo looked up from his plate for a while, he seemed uncertain for a moment but left the fork down.
"Yale, Georgetown, Harvard, Stanford, NYU and Berkley. They are the best law schools in the country." She sees Tom's interest is peaked.
"Those are great schools Leo; you know Cornell has an amazing law school too. Slightly better than Georgetown actually." He mentions, Alex smirks, she knows she almost won this round, if she got them talking then half of her job is done.
"It was in the top ten but I had to cross some out, Notre Dame was there too, George Washington and Columbia." Leo returned to his plate, Tom sat back, she saw him looking down, taking a deep breath she realizes that this might be more difficult than she originally had planned.
"I agree with your father on that, you shouldn't eliminate Cornell, or Notre Dame or GW or Columbia. You should apply to all." She joins in, Leo looks up, smiling at her.
"You think mom?"
"Yeah, University of Chicago is amazing too and Universities of Pennsylvania and Virginia as well." She looks at Tom his eyes follow their talk but he's not going to join in.
"I'm not so sure of Notre Dame it's a catholic school and," he stops for a moment looking down, "Well I'm not." Alex smiles nodding.
"You are right, other than Notre Dame then." She's almost fed up with Tom's silence, so she decides to force him into the conversation. "What do you think Tom?"
"I still like Cornell better." He says under his breath while eating, she can see him almost pouting. That makes Penny giggle and to her surprise even Leo smirks at it.
"Objectively Tom."
"I am objective." Leo is biting his lip to stop himself from laughing, she knew that Tom is acting like a child and thankfully that was still something that made their kids laugh at him.
"Tom!" she insists.
"Fine, Yale, Harvard and Stanford are the top schools in the country with median GPA of 3.9, 3.88 and 3.87 and with median LSAT of 173 for Yale and Harvard and 171 for Stanford; they're great schools, objectively, but you'll need to study a lot to get into those. I think you have the brain to do it." Alex and Leo were taken back by Tom's rant, he stopped and looked around the table. "I agree with you mother, you need to apply to all schools you like, and see where you get accepted. Notre Dame is an example of a school with Median GPA of 3.6 which bred Presidents, one of the most successful one of our times might I add." Leo nodes, "So yeah, those schools are great, you shouldn't focus only on them, it's not the end of the world if you don't get into one of those." There's another awkward silence falling over them for a minute or two before Tom talking again.
"Although there's no reason for you not to." Alex sees Leo smiling and nodding, and smiles too, her boys might be very book smart but they are at the same time the most idiotic people she has ever met.
"What the hell happened?" Tom stormed into PEOC, he was furious and he didn't even know what had happened.
"A plane full with American soldiers and other military personnel has crashed after getting hit by a missile on takeoff from Aleppo International Airport." Aaron told him. the young man took a step back allowing him to walk closer to the large screens on the other side of them room.
"HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?" he yelled, Aaron was the closes to him and he could see a vain on his temple pulsing, he was furious and it almost scared him.
"Sir, the missiles were," General Chernow looks around, it's like if the six foot two man is looking for help but the rest of the generals in the room have grown silent "There's a high possibility that those missiles came from the President himself." Tom straightens his back, his face grows cold.
"He wants war? I'll give him war!"
"Sir?" Aaron asks, Tom ignores him and looks at General Chernow who right now looks around unsure of what he had just heard.
"General, I need a plan to destroy their supply of missiles immediately." Everyone in the room froze, they all knew what he was suggesting was a suicide mission.
"Sir, there is another plan, we have formulated, what you are suggesting is suicide it will drag us into another war." Aaron tries to reason with him, he hopes that he'll understand.
"THAT'S WHAT THEY WANTED WHEN THEY SHOT OUR MEN AND WOMEN DOWN!" The president's explosion scares him, he takes a couple steps back, moving away from the raging man. "Stop giving me bullshit excuses AND DO IT!" he says to the general before storming out of the room. General Chernow walks closer to him, he leans closer.
"Aaron, you know we can't move forward with this attack." He says, Aaron looks at the older man and nods he knows that as well.
"I know, give me some time, formulate the plan he asked you just in case, and I will bring him to his senses." The general nodes,
"Please do, this is a war we won't win." He tells him before walking away.
A/N: Tom's happiness wasn't going to last long, I'm sorry but seriously people we have another 10 chapters to go!
Sneak peak…
Tom wakes up, there's a chill going down his spine, the room is cold. He looks next to him, Alex seemed to be sleeping peacefully covered with the thin blanket. He looks on the other side, he almost yelps when he sees her standing there. "What are you doing here again?" he asks, but she doesn't respond…