SINS OF THE FATHER

RATED R

FIRST PART OF THE 'HISTORY REPEATS' SERIES

SAM/DONNA ROMANCE

SPOILERS FOR 'SOMEONE'S GOING TO EMERGENCY, SOMEONE'S GOING TO JAIL'

"There are only so many ways to say it, sir," Nancy McNally said to the President, standing tall and proud in front of the desk in the Oval Office. It took a lot to shake Nancy and, though the situation was had the potential to spin out of control faster than usual—having the Vice President involved guaranteed that—she was confident. Even the niggling doubt she felt about the lack of intelligence coming in on the group that had taken over the embassy didn't show, seasoned professional that she was. "Until the terrorists make a move there is no action that we can take that won't lead to loss of hostages inside the embassy."

"And everyone agrees on this?" Bartlet asked. It was clear that the situation was driving him as crazy as it was everyone else, if not more so.

"No, but the ones who don't agree are inexperienced when it comes to hostage situations and suicide bombers and my recommendation is that you order the Marine guards and any other protection force in the area to hold until the situation changes," Nancy said.

Bartlet chewed on the advice Nancy was giving him. Doing nothing, even for a little while, was like torture, but he didn't know what else to do. "How do you fight an enemy who wants to die?" he asked rhetorically. "So ordered," Bartlet said to Nancy who needed to hear the Presidential order before she could officially do anything. "Charlie!" he called. A moment later Charlie appeared in the doorway, ready as ever to serve at the pleasure of the President. "Get the senior staff in here."

"CJ went home," Charlie said as Nancy exited the room.

That, normally, wouldn't be strange. CJ had called a full lid four hours earlier, it was late, and the President was sure that CJ had put in a full day of work before taking off. But he knew that everyone had been called in, that his Senior Staff was supposed to be there for damage control—because, really, there wasn't much else that they could do—and not having the face of the Administration there was definitely out of the ordinary. "Why the hell would she do something like that?" Bartlet grumbled.

"According to Sam, who sent her home, she was not fit to face the press, especially during a situation like this," Charlie said tactfully. Frowning in confusion, Bartlet made a motion for his bodyman to elaborate, which he did, though reluctantly. "She was drunk, sir. I'm not entirely sure what is in a Grasshopper, but whatever is in those things knocked CJ for a loop."

"What the hell is a Grasshopper?" Bartlet asked.

Charlie shrugged. "All I know is that it's green, looks like a wheat grass shake, and the wait-staff at Georgetowne Station usually refuse to order them for her."

Rolling his eyes, Bartlet waved Charlie out of the office to round up the remains of his Senior Staff. Though he was something of a busybody, Bartlet was learning that whenever he tried to find something out about the lives of his staffers he ended up alternatively confused, amused, and infuriated, all things that took up more time than he had to spare at that moment.

While he waited for Leo, Josh, Sam, and Toby to arrive, Bartlet reread the slim file that Nancy had left with him. There wasn't much in there, most of the scant number of pages showing nothing more thrilling than basic research that anyone could do on the internet in a few minutes, certainly not anything like what he was accustomed to coming out of the Situation Room. Travel outline for Hoynes' trip, statistics on the building itself, a few details on the area, and a brief summery of the Secret Service protection that had been added to the Vice President's detail while he was travelling.

Josh was the first to arrive, followed almost immediately by Sam and Toby. Leo was the last to appear, his suit rumpled in a way that Bartlet hadn't seen it since the days of booze and pills and Leo passing out on a couch heedless of his Savant Row suit that was being tortured by its wearer. There were no jokes, no banter, and no CJ; though Bartlet supposed that the last wasn't all that odd seeing as many Oval Office meetings didn't include the Press Secretary, whether for reasons of job description or maintaining her level of deniability. He wondered how whoever was going to stand behind the podium in CJ's place would explain the fact that she wasn't there during what amounted to a major crisis. Then, as quickly as the thought had come to Bartlet's mind, it vanished because he had long ago stopped worrying about things like that; that was why he had a staff, after all.

"The consensus in the Sit Room is that we hold back, quash any press leaks, and wait for them to make the first move. I don't like it, but it's the right thing to do at this moment so that's what we're going to do," Bartlet said without preamble. "Sam, you sat with them," he said, nodding his head in the general direction of the Situation Room. "Is there anything Nancy didn't tell me that I should know?"

Feeling a little like he was being asked to rat out the kid who beat up the first graders at recess—a role he had been stuck with far too often in the early years of grade school, the teachers feeling that he was popular enough to not have to worry about the playground equivalent to retribution and unobtrusive enough that any bullies wouldn't notice the lanky kid who was earnest in every sense of the word and who, after the bully had moved on to other scared little kids, had been known to make sure that the target had enough for milk or juice at lunch to go with their peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and carrot sticks or whatever they had in their little cubby hole in the coat room inside their classroom door—Sam shifted his weight awkwardly before finally shrugging.

"They're frustrated, sir. The instinct for most of them was to go in with some kind of stealth… military, CIA… wetworks kind of thing, I guess, but the CIA director refused to act in the situation without a direct order from this office," Sam said, his eyes flitting from the Resolute desk to the seal on the floor before turning to the President himself.

"And you agree?" Leo asked.

Sam shrugged again. "I have problems with wetworks operations, morally, but if we were to make a move it would have to be in that vein anyway. As far as waiting goes, until these people make a hostile move we can't risk going in and escalating this thing."

"Until they make a hostile move? They took the building hostage, Sam! They have bombs and guns and it's no skin off their noses if they don't make it out of there alive because they'll be martyrs to their cause and Allah will reward them generously with paradise and virgins! I'd say they passed hostile the minute they walked into the place," Josh argued.

"Maybe so, but there's no way to win against these people by using force," Sam reasoned. "It'll just give them what they want—death in the name of their cause. The worst case scenario here is escalation."

Josh looked at his friend. "And the best case?"

Biting the inside of his lip, Sam hesitated. "Ideally the best case scenario is a peaceful negotiation. Rationally this is a centuries old battle and a peaceful solution isn't going to happen in the next few hours."

"So the realistic best case scenario is that we take them out before they take out the people in the embassy?" Toby asked. Sam nodded gravely.

Josh closed his eyes tightly. "How long are we going to just let our people sit there with guns or bombs or god knows what hanging over their heads?"

"Good question," Bartlet said, looking at Leo who shrugged and remained silent.

Sighing heavily, Toby pulled a notebook out of his breast pocket and flipped to the last page with writing on it. Two sentence fragments, the start of two separate statements, one which would never be heard, the other that would play in sound bites for days, possibly weeks, to come after the particular portion of their collective hero's trial was complete.

It is with great joy and relief that I announce that…

It is with a heavy heart that I must report…

Since the West Wing had more or less returned to the usual day-time level of staff, Donna had made sure that her desk was covered before slipping away to the Residence. She knew that if there was a problem Zoey would call, and with the increased Secret Service protection there was little reason to worry, but Donna still wanted to check on Meredith, make sure that she was alright being in a strange city in a strange building with men and women with guns around most every corner. Donna doubted that her presence would offer much comfort to the little girl, having known her only a scant hour or so longer than she had known her impromptu babysitter, Zoey, but Donna was feeling particularly useless sitting at her desk not doing much of anything because there was little left to do.

The agent who had taken over on Zoey's detail when Gina rotated out at Ron Butterfield's insistence—Roslyn had weighed heavy on the young agent and Ron was afraid that Gina would begin to doubt herself—smiled at Donna and told her to go on in, that Zoey and Meredith were watching a movie when she'd come on duty ten minutes earlier, and commented on how sweet the little girl was and how she had hidden behind a chair until Zoey took her hand and brought her out into the middle of the room to introduce them.

Donna tapped on the door as she slipped into the room. It was dark save the flickering the light from the large television. "Hey," the blonde whispered as she crept over to the couch where Zoey had stretched out. Meredith was sitting on the floor with a bowl of popcorn in her lap. "How's it going?" she asked, her voice soft enough to avoid interrupting the movie.

"Good," Zoey smiled. "Sam's got a pretty cool niece here."

"Yeah, he does," Donna grinned. "Can I talk to you for a second?" she asked, motioning toward the door.

Zoey nodded and got up, following Donna into the hall and pulling the door closed so that Meredith wouldn't hear what she had to say. "What's up?" Zoey asked.

"This thing… the thing that's going on," Donna said, unsure of how much the President would want his youngest daughter to know, "is going to last all night, maybe longer. I don't know if she has any pyjamas or anything in her backpack."

"I'll check. If she doesn't I'm sure there's something around here she can wear. A big tee shirt or something," Zoey said. She looked down at her hands. "What's going on, Donna? Why has the Secret Service presence doubled in the last two hours?"

"I… I can't tell you that. Not because of anything… I just… it should be your parents who tell you what's going on," Donna hedged.

"Donna, just tell me," Zoey pled.

Sighing heavily, Donna rubbed her hands over her face. "I'm sorry, Zoey. I can't. It's not my place," Donna apologized.

"Okay," Zoey said, knowing she wasn't going to get any information out of Donna if she wasn't willing to share. "If he has a free minute Sam should come up and say goodnight."

"I'll try to catch him," Donna nodded. "What are you watching?" she asked when she heard Meredith let out a long, loud, giggling laugh.

Zoey shrugged. "One of dad's old comedies. She probably doesn't get half the jokes, but there's a lot of physical comedy and she seems to be enjoying it."

"Okay. I should get back before Josh gets out of the Oval and starts bellowing," Donna said, checking her watch and realizing that she had been gone for a little longer than she had planned.

The Senior Staff was filing out of the Oval Office when Nancy rushed in without pausing when Charlie rose to his feet to tell the President that she was there. "I'm sorry sir," Nancy said, slightly out of breath. "I have some news."

I realize it's been an insanely long time since I updated but writers block is not something I have learned how to master yet.

M