Chapter 16: Confessions Part 2

Kendra was almost dreading the day she was going back to work, the weekend she spend with Alex and Emily in Camp David was the first completely relaxing weekend in a long time. She got to know better both Penny and Leo and just relax from all the madness she knew was awaiting for her back in D.C. standing outside the president's private office she realizes that this is the time to finally come face to face with the madness. She heard the rumors the morning she walked in, how the president was often walking around drunk in the weekend, how he didn't even came in the office in Saturday, how he was smelling of alcohol from a distance, how he blew off Hookstraten and Moss twice.

She knows the door but get's no response, looking right and left no one is coming her way so she just opens the door and slides in the room.

"Mr. President?" she looks around peaking in the oval but he's not there, she turns to leave and sees him lying on the couch he's curled up, his face barely visible from the quilt he's using. She walks closer to him, she kicked the empty bottle of whiskey she hadn't noticed was there, she kneels down, the smell of alcohol filled her nostrils as soon as she got face to face with him. "Tom!" she shakes him a little harder than it was maybe appropriate.

"What?" his smell still smells alcohol and his eyes are still hazy.

"Oh my god! Are you drunk?" she knows the answer but the shock still overcame her.

"What time is it?" he asks her, she sees he's having trouble sitting up so she helps him.

"It's 8."

"It's night." He looks at her puzzled, she bites her tongue, it's almost scary how different her reaction is this time around. She realizes that this time she's acting differently because her goal is different. It hurts her to even admit it to herself but the first time around she cared less about him breaking down, the first time around she wanted him to be able to finish his term, she wasn't that interested in anything else, but this time she wanted him to get better. This time he had something, someone to get back to, someone to win over again. And also this time she knows the feeling, she knows how he felt, Seth made her understand, she knows now that if she ever lost Seth, or even thought she had lost Seth her reaction wasn't going to be much different than Tom's.

"Come on, I'll help you upstairs." She helps him up from the couch, his feet were slightly shaky.

"Wait I need some papers for tomorrow." He tries to go to his desk, but Kendra stops him.

"You can't work like that, Emily will understand." He looks at her the question clear in his eyes but her smile appeared to be enough to reassure him.

Kendra got him to the residence with no problem, they didn't meet anyone on the way there, so that saved him the embarrassment, Mike was walking behind them a few feet, keeping a safe distance to give Tom the needed privacy but also keep on a lookout for people possibly coming their way.

"What is going on?"She asks him as soon as she waves Mike goodnight and closes the door behind her.

"She's gone again." She walks closer and sits down next to him on the couch. She studies his face for a while and realizes that there is a real possibility that he doesn't know what exactly was going on or why Alex decided to leave.

"You pushed her away, Tom," he continues to look at the floor trying to avoid looking at her. "Look at me." She gets hold of his chin and makes him look at her. "You don't understand do you?" she sits back, her hands rubbing over her face.

"She didn't want to leave, you forced her to, you started ignoring her, you got angry for no reason, she had to think about your kids," Kendra looks away, how she always found herself in these situations is beyond her. "And she had to get better herself."

"What?"

"She spend months in solitary, alone in the middle of nowhere, no one to talk, no one to," she stops and realizes that he's looking at her just as puzzled as he was when she started talking to him. "She was alone, that does things to people, it messes with your mind."

"But she went somewhere where she's again, alone."

"No, she's somewhere with people that love her, people that, well," how could she explain it, "Don't have problems to work through themselves."

"You think I was making her worse?

"Yes." He lowers his head again, it seems as if he can't keep his head up most of the time he even has trouble with those simple things. He is growing older by each passing day Cornelius told him many times that eight years in the oval feel like eighteen years in any other office in the country, he guesses that's what he meant after all.

"I pushed her away because I'm afraid," It shocks her not the statement itself but the admission, she never thought he would say it a loud. Maybe Alex was right, maybe this choice she made, leaving, was the catalyst for him to face the truth he was trying to evade all along. "I'm afraid I'll wake up one morning and it's all going to be a dream," he didn't turn to face her; he stayed frozen almost staring dead ahead. "She'll still be dead, and I" Kendra sees him losing control of his emotions, it's slow and then all at once. She reaches out puts a hand on his back, she hopes it's reassuring, she hopes he understands that she's there for him. He reaches up and holds her hand.

"You are afraid that you'll lose her forever." It surprises her that this didn't come out as a question, and she's even more surprised to see him nodding.

"When she was gone, I would dream of her, the longer I stayed away, the longer she lingered." She sees him struggling to even form the words, she wonders how long he had kept it in, she knew something was wrong she was afraid that this might be it but facing it was hard. "I guessed I stayed away for too long." The sob that comes out at the end of the sentence breaks her heart. "She doesn't want to stay away" she reassures him, she hopes he will believe her but deep down she knows he's not in a place to do so yet. He asks her "Then why she did?" as if she has all the answers when she doesn't, and he knows that, but she tries, she tries and for this issue she does have the answer.

"Because you have issues," she responds, "Issues that cloud you, you can't see her pain because you are blinded by yours." he hangs his head too many emotions pass through his tired body, shame, for the way he treated everyone around him, exhaustion, for trying to keep his head above water for so long, everything. He remembers what the grief counselor, his staff forced him to see told him, 'People who tread water for too long they eventually drown' Kendra is offering him a life vest, again, and maybe this time he needs to take it because there won't be a third time.

"I know."

Cornelius was studding the woman sitting in front of him, she wasn't eating, just running her fork through her mashed potatoes again and again. "What's wrong?" he asks her even though he knows the answer, he was in the same cabinet meeting after all.

"Kirkman was not good today." He smiles sadly, it's really amazing how much they changed since the bombing, they became a tightly knighted family when they started out as accountancies at best.

"I know my dear, he was," he looks down at his stake but he can't concentrate on food either. "I'll talk to him tomorrow." She smiles warmly and turns back to her food, "I know where he is." Cornelius murmurs into his bite. He hears her fork hitting the table; she sits back and crosses her arms. "I'm afraid Cornelius; he drinks on the job, what if he starts a war?" he nods, her concerns are valid, Kimble wasn't knows of overstating things after all.

"I'm not gonna let him, I'll… I'll start working more closely with the white house from now and on. I'll get him to choose a VP, or running mate." She nods, biting her lip, that's the sign he needs, she has something else to tell him, they are alone in his townhouse and yet she looks right and left as if there's someone watching them, and sure there are secret service agents, but they are waiting outside.

"The republicans will pick Bowman; he's far too ahead in the polls and votes, Jacobs will drop within the week," she whispers, he leans closer to her, "Strange, the democrat will go all the way too." He responds, it seems silly that they are whispering in an empty room, as if they are conspiring of the highest crime, but this was one of their quirks.

"Will he run?" she asks him, he takes his time to respond, biting the inside of his cheek, "Everyone in the white house thinks so." She chuckles sadly.

"Yeah but what does he thinks?"

"I'll find out tomorrow."

Hannah spend about an hour today going through some generic details of their lives with Chuck, the doctors insisted that she wouldn't tell him anything major, because that was something that he had to remember on his own but she couldn't stop answering the questions he asked, even if they treaded into big issues.

"So we work together?' he asks her again, this time though it's less of a question and more of a statement, she smiles and tells him, "Yeah, you're my closest friend, family, almost."

"I'm sorry I can't remember." He says lowering his head, she curses herself, why the hell did she tell him that? Why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut?

"It's ok, for now, just know you can trust me, I'll be here all the way." She hopes that's enough to make him feel better, to maybe remove the guilt from his eyes that she hated. And it did, his eyes lighted up, smiling widely he asked her, "Really?" as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"I'll be here till you kick me out." She tells him taking his hand in hers, and for the first time in months he squeezes back.

"You do?" Kendra asks in amazement.

"I do have issues, not just with what happened to Alex. I still see the bombing in my sleep, I," he stops taking a deep breath, "I can feel the bullet," every word was coming out of his mouth with difficulty and all Kendra could do was hold his hand tighter as she sat down closer to him. "The burn on my chest." he uses his free hand to clutch his shirt; it's as if he's trying to scratch the scar away. "The scar is making me sick."

"Maybe you should cover it, I don't know if you're a tattoo guy but." she sees Tom start laughing almost hysterically and it puzzles her "Why are you laughing?" she asks him, to her surprise he stands up and starts unbuttoning his shirt, "Why are you taking your shirt off?" the white cotton falls on the couch revealing his upper half, to her surprise his right arm was almost completely covered by tattoos, she could count three on his right arm, one on his left, and from two on his upper right and left arm. "Oh! You are a tattoo guy."

"Yeah, I got eight." He tells her casually, he didn't put his dress shirt on sitting down with just the white cotton t shirt he had underneath.

"That will be a feast for the press."

"Yeah." She sees his mood had improved vastly, she likes seeing him like that, more relaxed, it feels like she's getting glimpses into his real self, the one so guarded all the time while in office.

She breaks the comfortable, for once, silence between them "The hostages are on their way back, Secretary Moss dealt with it." She tells him, there's a small almost shy smile on his face, "He can take over as much as he can, to give you time to recover, get back on your feet." He nodes, for a moment they are both silent, the wheels in his mind working overtime.

"I know a way to start." He tells her, smiling widely, there's something in his eyes that almost reminds her the man she only seen in pictures, all those old and worn out photographs behind his desk, behind Alex's desk.

"What?"

"Do you any good tattoo artists that can stay silent?"

A/N: Thank you so so much for reading please leave a comment if you liked it till next time have fun!

Sneak Peek:

Tom was waiting for her nervously, "Well?" he asked her. "He's gonna be waiting us tomorrow night, after the shop closes, you talk to Mike and we're good to go." She tells him, he smiles for the first time actually reflecting on his eyes. "Thank you" he whispers…