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, "Why are you here?" he tries again, the old familiar sick smile appears on her lips again.

"You honestly thought that she came back because she loves you so much?" he looks at Alex, thankful that she's still sleeping peacefully, "You poor foul!" she says chuckling. The sound is making him sick; he hates it to his core.

"Why not, she loves me," he tells her, he found himself much more willing to fight her while Alex's warm body is sleeping next to him.

"She loves the title more. She loves the white house more." She walks closer to the bed and Tom tries to shield Alex from her sight, "Foul, she'll leave you again as soon as she finds something better." She leans over him, her breath is on his face, Tom closes his eyes trying to calm his breathing down.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" he yells trying to push her away from him but she, once again, is gone.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Alex walks up to Tom yelling in his sleep, he is twitching and turning, as if he's trying to get away from something,

"Tom?" she says his name softly, her hand on his shoulder, but he doesn't respond, instead he just tries to get away from her hand. "Tom!" this time she says his name louder and tries to shake him awake, he opens his eyes and gasps. His eyes hazy with sleep try to find her and she can see his face relaxing as soon as he does.

"Alex!" she takes her hand away from his shoulder and takes hold of his hand.

"Did you have a nightmare?" she asks him.

"It was nothing." He tries to shake the image from his head, but he can still see her bloody face.

"Wanna talk about it?" he shakes his head, getting out of the bed, her hand falls on the mattress.

"No, it was nothing. Go back to sleep I'll," he's almost out the door, when he stops for a moment, as if he's unsure of what he wanted to say. "I need a glass of water."

"Alright." She sees him opening the door, she doesn't know why but she wants to stop him. "Tom." He freezes on the doorstep and slowly turns around, "I love you." She tells him, he gives her a sad smile,

"Love you too." He responds and closes the door behind him softly.

Tom sat in the kitchen for hours, the sun was almost up when he decided to go back in the bedroom, he didn't know what to say to Alex, he hoped she would be asleep long enough for him to get ready and slid out of the residence. When he opens the door to the bedroom she's still sleeping hugging his pillow, he feels guilty leaving her alone, bolting like he did last night but he knew that if he had stayed the nightmares would not stop. He's able to finish getting ready before she wakes up and sneaks down to his office with no problem, he'll have to make up to Alex and the kids for this but for now he's glad to be in the safe space of his office, looking at his calendar he groans, today was the state visit of the French president, he can't believe he had forgotten that, his day had just gotten worse.

Tom looks at his watch once again, they have at least another hour before they have to be downstairs to welcome the French president but he's nervous that they are going to be late. He gets up from the couch and starts pacing up and down the room.

"Come on Alex!" he calls her again, his frustration clear in his voice.

"I'm ready!" she comes out of the wardrobe, her heels are hitting the wood floor, her light blue dress was hugging her figure nicely, but he was too frustrated to notice and he just turned around and left.

"For crying out loud we'll be late on our own house!" he says frustrated. Alex walked to him and grabbed his arm.

"Will you please relax?" she tells him, Tom scoffs and tries to turn away. "Tom!" she grips his arm tighter, "The kids can hear you, relax." She tells him through her teeth.

"Alright." He responds, his voice slightly calmer, still she could sense the storm brewing under his skin.

"Alright." They walk out of the room, Leo was waiting for them in the living room, he smiled widely when he saw her.

"Wow, mom you look great!" he came over and gave her a hug, carefully not to wrinkle or stain her dress.

"Thank you darling." Tom walked out of the living room going to Penny's bedroom he was nervous, his hands shaking when he opened and closed the door.

"What's his problem?" Leo asks, his face changing, the smile instantly turning to a cold scowl.

"His name is dad and I would appreciate it if you called him that." Alex says, Leo rolled his eyes and turned around to return to his room.

"Whatever." He murmured under his breath.

"Leo!"

"Fine, what's dad's problem?" he asks again, his hands in his pockets, fidgeting from leg to leg.

"He's nervous this is our first state dinner, we're all bit out of our comfort zone." She fixes her shawl and gloves.

"I still didn't like the way he talked to you." She smiles and gives another hug to her son who was still scoffing.

"Oh honey, don't worry, it's fine halfway through the dinner when everything is going great he'll start apologizing until probably the next state dinner." Tom reappears in the living room, Penny following him closely behind,

"Are you coming Alex?" she asks impatiently.

"Just a moment, both of you, you better be in bed before bedtime." She warns them both, Leo nods, Penny runs to her the little girl less careful with her clothes and hair when hugging her.

"Mommy you look like amazing!"

"Thank you darling." She kisses her little girl; Tom impatiently leaves the room, "Good night!" she tells both and follows Tom out of the room. He was close to the top of the grand staircase when she caught up with him. Alex grabbed his hand stopping him dead on his feet.

"Tom, what's your problem tonight?" he turns his head, but the grip on his hand didn't let him walk away. "It's my first state dinner too and I am not acting like that." He tries to avoid her eyes looking at the red carpet under his feet.

"We're gonna be late." He murmurs. Alex smiles and uses her free hand to raise his chin, their eyes met and she could see the anger and frustration subsiding and embarrassment over his behavior setting in.

"We are the hosts Tom, we're never late the others are early remember?" he nodes and Alex lets go of his arm, Tom reaches for Alex's hand, it's like he's trying to anchor himself to the world and the reality around him.

"Honey, relax, everything is perfect, you know President Massett and she even likes you!"

"You planned everything right?" Alex smiles, a wide warm smile on her face makes Tom feel everything was falling into place, he didn't know what was going on with him, maybe last night's dream shook him harder than he was even willing to admit.

"Down to the slightest detail." She reassures him once more.

"We're gonna be ok?" he asks, he looks like a lost child for a moment, Alex doesn't know how to deal with that, it's not normal of Tom to look so overwhelmed these days, maybe in the first months of the administration he was but he had finally settled into his role.

"If you get it together." He finally manages to offer her a smile; he lowered his head again and nodded.

"Sorry I was a bit,"

"Of an asshole?" that makes him laugh, it makes her feel slightly lighter, he was a brewing volcano the whole day and she hoped that this would be the end of it.

"Yeah."

"You were." He offers her his arm which she takes and they get ready to walk down the stairs. "I forgive you." He looks at her, for the first time he notices how beautiful she looks, her dark blonde hair tucked neatly in a bun on the nape of her neck a few soft curls framing her face, her silver shawl almost shined on the light of the chandeliers. He wonders how he could not notice how gorgeous she looked tonight.

"Leo and Penny were right, you do look great." He tells her when they start walking down the stairs. Her face split in a huge smile and stops him from taking another step, her gloved hand cups his cheek and she leans in giving him a kiss.

"Oh Tom." She whispers against his lips.

The dinner went along just as perfectly as Alex had planned, and by the end of the night Tom was in a much better mood than he was when they left the residence, she was surprised to even hear him sing under his breath in the shower. She was though slightly disappointed when she woke up the next morning to find his side of the bed already cold.

She got ready, and headed for her office in the east wing as soon as Penny and Leo left for school. She looked at all the papers on her desk wondering what could be so important to need so many paperwork, she was sure that her chief of staff told her that her work was going to calm down after the end of the state visit but the amount of paper work on her desk was telling her another story. She drops her briefcase on the floor and walks to the window overlooking the Jackie Kennedy garden, it's a wonderful day outside, after a week of rain and winds she is glad for the sunlight and warm breeze.

It was that long after when she heard a knock on the door, and Kendra poked her head in. Alex tells her to come in, Kendra walks in and leaves her folder on Alex's already overloaded desk, "Kendra! How are you I barely saw you last night!"

"I am great ma'am," Alex gives her a look which makes Kendra to look down on her hands. "Alex." Alex smiles and nodes in satisfaction. "I'm really great!"

"I saw you and Seth last night." Alex leans back on her chair, Kendra can't help but notice how similar her posture is to the presidents or ignore the fact that her chair is extremely similar to the one the president has in his private office in the west wing. "Are you two together?" Kendra's eyes widened her eyebrows almost hiding under her hair.

"Oh come on Kendra!"

"Yes." She says there's a small smile on her lips while she sneaks looks up to the other woman in the room who was now smiling widely. "Last night." She adds, Alex throws her head back in laughter.

"Your first date was at a state dinner, your boss' first state dinner which means that he was nothing more than a ball of nerves?"

"Yeah, that was fun." The two women laughed for a while just enjoying how light hearted that moment just felt. "He dealt with it fine though."

"Yeah, I mean after I had to remind him for the tenth time to stop being an asshole." Alex states, she looks out of the window for a moment trying to ignore the bubbling feeling that something isn't right in her gut.

"That must have been fun!"

"Yeah, but that's not why you came here is it?" Alex turns back to the younger woman sitting across from her.

"No I came here to get you this," she pushes the folder to Alex, who opens it and takes the papers in her hands.

"My social security card and a marriage certificate?" Alex says showing Kendra her social security card.

"Yeah, we had to issue new ones, or more likely reissue the old ones" Alex places the papers back in the folder and places them on the top drawer of her desk.

"Thank you so much Kendra."

Alex left her office just in time to meet Penny and Leo at the door, they just came back from school, Penny was extremely happy having scored a perfect A on her test and she couldn't stop talking about going upstairs, Leo on the other hand was extremely silent. The three of them had lunch, with just Penny talking about her test again and again. After the plates were taken away Leo lingered in the room looking nervously on the floor.

"Hey mom"

"Leo, is there anything wrong honey?"

"I am seeing this girl here and a few months," Alex smiles at her son's nervousness, this was another trait got from Tom.

"And?" she crosses her hands over her chest, smiling mischievously at Leo's uncomfortable stance.

"I'd like to invite her here, at home," he stops for a moment looking at the floor again. "Maybe give her a tour of the place?"

"You should," Leo smiles and turns around ready to leave, Alex smiles she calls Leo, this was a perfect opportunity to hopefully make her boys patch things up.

"Leo."

"Yeah?"

"Ask your dad to let you give her a tour of the west wing too, it's gonna be interesting."

"Mom" he looks up, breathing heavily for a while, she can sense that he doesn't like the mere idea. "I don't want to."

"Honey, he's your dad he'd like to help you."

"Sir I strongly believe we shouldn't go through with this plan, it's dangerous to our national security, PEGASUS allows us the ability to destroy a large amount of their missiles that are still in the airfield not to mention that by bombing the airstrip will render all their airplanes unable to take off for at least a couple months." Aaron takes a couple deep breaths, this was his last chance to convince the president not to start a potential world war 3. The president looked at the two folders on his desk, his eyes moving from one side to the other as he studied both plans carefully.

"You think we'll be dragged into a war with HERCULES?" he asks, Aaron nodes his head even before the president finishes his sentence.

"Yes sir, and so do all the generals." The president closed both folders and took off his glasses, he ran his hand over his face, leaning back on his chair.

"Ok," Aaron tries hard to hide the smile that was forming on his lips. The president stood up and started walking to PEOC Aaron following him closely behind.

Everyone in the room stood up as soon as they walked in, the chairman of the joint chiefs looked at both of them Aaron nodding slightly to him.

"Sir."

"General move forward with operation PEGASUS."

"Yes sir!"

Tom was uneasy since authorizing the attack on the Syrian air force base. He was trying to delay going back to the residence as the day was going by he felt worse for how he behaved to Alex and the kids last night, he knew that hiding out in his office wasn't helping but he was hoping that he could find a way to make it up to them. Leo pokes his head in, he seemed to be just as uncomfortable being there as Tom was to be found alone with his son after their last fight.

"Leo?"

"Hey, I want to ask a favor." Tom closes the folders on his desk and walks to the other side of the desk.

"Tell me."

"There's a friend and I would like to invite her over, could I give her a tour of the place?" he says, Tom is curious, he sees Leo's behavior, he was nervous, for some reason that made him really curious.

"What's her name?" He sees Leo's face changing for a second, biting his lip.

"Umm, Jamie"

"Doesn't this Jamie have a last name?"

"Forstell."

"Forstell?" Tom wasn't sure that he heard right, he could believe that his own son was dating John Forstell's daughter, he knew that his youngest daughter was attending the same school as Leo but he was surprised to hear that the two of them were close, especially since Leo seemed to hate and blame John Forstell the weeks after the car accident.

"Yeah."

"Director Forstell's daughter?"

"Yeah can I?" he asks, he seemed to have run out of patience with his questions, but Tom wasn't sure he could just let it go.

"You're dating John Forstell's daughter?" he asks again, Leo rolls his eyes.

"We're friends."

"I do not approve of that." Leo rolled his eyes again and turned to leave.

"Fine" he murmurs under his breath, already on his way out of the room.

"Where are you going?"he asks, he knows he's pushing for another fight but his irrational brain just can't stop.

"Upstairs to call Jamie."

"Didn't you hear what I said to you?" he turns around, chuckling at him, a shocked and surprised smile on his frozen on his face, soon falls and his son's face turns to ice.

"You really meant that I need to stop hanging out with Jamie because you don't like her father?" he raises his hand before Tom has a chance to respond. "No need, I'm not gonna do that." He says and storms out of the room slamming the door behind him.

"Leo!" Tom was left once more yelling his son's name while he was just leaving as far away from him as he could.

After his fight with Leo Tom grew restless he started pacing up and down the office his brain unable to stop reminding him all the ways he fucked up just today. He catches a glimpse of a file Kendra dropped on his desk earlier, there were some documents that needed his signature, looking at the clock he knows that Wyatt is probably on his way out so he decides to just drop them off at her office himself. He reaches her office and stops outside her door; he's ready to knock when he heard the laughter coming from the other side of the door. He's getting curious and tries to hear what was happening in the room. He is surprised to hear Seth's voice and he opens the door without knocking, coming face to face with Kendra and Seth kissing on the couch, her hands were in his hair, while his were softly running up and down her back and cupping her cheek.

"What's going on here?" he asks, the couple was startled and got away from each other, he could see Kendra turning bright red as soon as she noticed him in the room.

"Sir!"

"We can explain." Kendra says raising her hands trying to stop Seth from going farther.

"I don't need an explanation I saw what I saw!" Tom yells, the tone of his voice scared Kendra who gasped and took a few steps back, Seth on the other hand took a couple steps forward using his body almost as a shield to Kendra. "How dare you play grab ass in office?"

"Sir!" Seth can't stop himself this time, he yells back to Tom who seems to be out of his mind. The president raises a hand.

"Stop! You are both suspended for a week; get the hell out of my face!" he turns around and slams the door behind him; Kendra falls on the couch behind him and buries her face in her palms.

Emily leaned back to her chair closing her eyes trying to relax after the day she had when the door of her office flew open and a furious looking Tom Kirkman stormed in the room.

"Sir, I thought you were in the residence" she tells him trying to put on another fake smile like the ones she is used using around him in the last few months.

"Apparently many of my staff think I'm gone. Did you knew that Seth and Kendra are dating?" he asks her, his hands in his pockets, his face stone cold, it's an image that still startles her to her core.

"Yes sir, they disclosed it to me and to HR, there's no rule against it as long as it doesn't affect their work performance." Something changes in his eyes, there's something malicious there, something she didn't think he had it in him in all the years she knew him.

"I think them making out in Kendra's office is 'affecting their work performance' isn't it?"

"It's after hours sir, unless this happen earlier in the day. I can't punish them for something they did in private and after hours, even if it was on the grounds, I'm sorry but it's not my job to police what the staff is doing when they are alone." He turns around and is almost at the door when he turns around, his expression scares her to her core.

"Then you can join them for a week, you are suspended for a week too, settle your affairs and get out."

Emily spend an hour in her office trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened, she was trying tooth and nail not to cry as she packed some files from her desk that she might need and took off to Lyor's office, her friend was packing some of his things too when she walked in his office.

"Hey Emily"

"Hey."

"You ok?" he asks as soon as he realizes how horrible she looks.

"Yeah, Lyor I want you to take over for a week." He looks at her confused.

"Why?" Emily took a deep breath and looked at the floor before responding.

"The president suspended me."

"What? Why?"he asks her shocked, Lyor walks to her and takes her hand in his.

"I kinda missed something, don't worry, just run the ship for a week will you?" he smiles sweetly, probably the first time she has seen him smiling like that.

"Yeah, you go get some rest alright?"

"Will do."

A/N: Next chapter will be set a week after during which Tom's behavior becomes more and more erratic.

Sneak Peak:

A week has passed since Tom found Seth and Kendra kissing in her office and he knew that they were both back to work and so was Emily, the past week has been hell, Leo wouldn't even talk to him, he had a fight with Alex who kicked him out of the bedroom and wouldn't talk to him unless it was about the kids…