Thanks as ever to everyone reading and commenting on this story, you're all fabulous and I'm thrilled you're enjoying this so far :) x

Chapter Five

The door to the Oval Office had been shut for almost twenty minutes, long enough that Stevie had given up loitering outside and instead retreated to the Office of the Chief of Staff where she sat blankly staring at the same three minutes of headlines and information on the rolling news channel.

Things had been a blur ever since Russell had told her what had happened just as she had been about to pack up to leave for the day.

The Chief of Staff had appeared in the doorway with his phone clutched loosely in his hand, his face grey as sweat broke out at his hairline, and she hadn't seen him look like that since the day he had the heart attack, which had been concerning enough in itself. Then he had fixed his gaze on her and something in his look told her that something was very wrong. "Stevie," he'd said, beckoning her with a jerk of his head inside his office.

Then he had kindly but unceremoniously told her that someone had tried to shoot her mother.

She was still trying to get her head around that fact.

And now Russell was holed up in the Oval Office with the President and some guys from Diplomatic Security and the FBI and the National Security Advisor.

And she was desperate for answers.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to dash to the hospital, to take Russell up on the offer he had made of a car or "a tank or Marine One or whatever you damn well need" to get there. But she knew that there was nothing she could do at the hospital. She knew her dad was there with her mom, and the truth of it was she would only be in the way. She could do more good getting information at the White House.

If sitting in Russell's office watching the same news footage as the rest of the world counted as getting information.

Starting to go stir crazy, Stevie was just about to force herself to do some work – any work, anything to keep her occupied – when Russell barrelled back into the room, attention absorbed in his phone.

Stevie stood up as he came in. "Hey."

He looked up. "I swear some days I just despair about the state of the world."

The statement was just so classic Russell Jackson that for a moment things felt normal again, making her smile in familiar amusement. "Only some days?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Today in particular." Russell tossed his phone down on the desk and then turned to lean back against the sturdy wood, looking up at Stevie. "The FBI has started talking to the guy who shot at your mom."

Even though the information shouldn't have been a surprise, a jolt ran through her and Stevie stumbled a couple of steps forward, eager for anything that the Chief of Staff might tell her. "Have they… have they found anything out?"

Russell snorted. "Turns out our guy's not a big talker. Surprise of the century. But they did get his name. The name Justin Wallowski mean anything to you?"

"That's the guy who –"

"Yes."

She guessed it was protocol to see whether the man was anyone known to her mom or her family. And wasn't that a great thought that he might be? Stevie searched her memory banks but came up blank. "No. He say anything else?" There was a good chance that she wasn't actually supposed to know what was going on in the interrogation, but she figured Russell wasn't about to deny her in the circumstances.

Still, he hesitated before he answered, an apology colouring his tone as he gave her information he obviously would prefer her not to have – but knew that she needed to know. "Just that he was sorry the Secretary wasn't wearing her red blazer today. Because he thinks it makes her an easier target."

Stevie knew from watching the shooting footage on a loop that her mother that day was wearing a dove grey dress with matching fitted jacket. Good, she thought spitefully at the unintentional denial of Justin Wallowski's wishes. Then something occurred to her. "Russell."

"Yes?"

"Why isn't he talking?"

Russell looked impatient at the question, no doubt thinking he was not the right man to be talking the Secretary of State's daughter through her emotional turmoil. But he sounded uncharacteristically tolerant when he replied, "They very often don't, to start with."

"No, I mean…" She tried to think how best to say it. "He was there on his own, right? The agents at the scene who tackled him said he looked to be working alone."

"Right." Russell glanced down at his phone as it buzzed insistently on the desk.

Stevie took the hint and got to the point. "He wasn't hiding. He didn't run. He must have known he was going to get caught. So why clam up now?" Seeing that she now had Russell's undivided attention as he considered the question, she took another step towards him. "Wouldn't he want to tell the world why he fired that gun tonight?"

And, oh, how she wished that he would, just so that she could know.

"Why would he clam up unless he had a reason to?" She held Russell's gaze, watching the cogs working in his head, watching the calculations play out on his face.

"You mean unless he wasn't working alone," he said. Unless he had someone or something to protect – an unfinished plan still in motion.

She nodded. "I really hope I'm wrong, but… what if it's something more than this?"

Eventually the doctor had finished her examination and had taken her flashing light away with her, but she had not let Elizabeth go from the hospital. Further monitoring was required, apparently, until Dr Gerber was satisfied that it was safe to send her patient home.

Irony of the situation was that Elizabeth wasn't entirely sure she would be safe when the doctor sent her home. The concerned hum of the DS agents standing outside the door was confirmation of the lingering threat.

She sat upright on the uncomfortable hospital bed, still wearing her grey dress although her jacket had been removed so that the doctor could clean and dress a cut on her arm that she didn't remember receiving and that had bled through the sleeve of the jacket. She had only noticed it when she had become aware of Henry staring at the blood intently like just the sight of it was hurting him; until then the pain in her arm had been an abstract thing, incorporated into her general sense of discomfort and bubbling distress. Henry now stood in the corner of the room, talking to Jason on the phone.

"It's okay, buddy," Henry said to their son. "Mom's okay." There was quiet as he listened for a moment. Then he said, "I'm not surprised there's press outside the hospital… Yeah, I know. The footage of the shooting is terrifying."

Wait. Elizabeth stilled as she processed the news. There was footage of the shooting? She hadn't known that, although she supposed she shouldn't be surprised. Still, that didn't help to make it any better.

The thought of the entire world being able to watch as someone tried to kill her made her stomach churn. It wasn't something she particularly wanted to share with anyone else. Never mind the fact she knew that most people – even the ones who vehemently disliked her – would be on her side in this particular scenario.

Never mind that, because there was at least one person out there who thought that she would be better off dead and wanted everyone to know it, and that was enough to make Elizabeth want to shrink down and hide inside of herself for a good long while until she had been able to process it all.

The bullets may have missed her, but that didn't mean that the shooter had entirely missed his target.

She buried her face against her knees, heat rising in her cheeks and tears spilling over to leave cooling salty tracks in their wake. The press was waiting outside the hospital. As much as she was desperate to leave and go home, she found herself half-hoping that Dr Gerber would insist on keeping her in overnight so that she didn't have to face them.

She didn't think that she could face them.

Her head throbbed as if in sympathy to her thoughts.

"Babe?" Henry said, softly, and it was only then that she realised that he was off the phone.

She looked up, slowly, mindful of the – thankfully mild – concussion that was really starting to make its presence known. "Yeah."

Henry reached out one hand and gently wiped away the tears from her face, although he did nothing to stem the flow of the ones that still fell occasionally from her eyes; he had always been good at knowing when she needed to cry. "It's okay," he whispered. Then he settled himself next to her on the bed, sitting close on the thin mattress and wrapping his arm securely around her in comfort and protection. He kissed the side of her head. "Stevie just texted," he told her. "She says the name of the shooter is Justin Wallowski. You recognise it?"

Elizabeth thought about it – thought how peculiar it seemed that the faceless would-be assassin in the crowd was really a guy with a name and a life. Tried to think whether she recognised his name.

She was just about to reply to Henry when there was a single knock on the door before it opened abruptly and Matt the DS agent stepped through, his face troubled and a sense of urgency in his stride. "Sorry to interrupt, ma'am," he said, "but there's something that you need to know."

There was something about the way he looked and the way he spoke that told her that this was something serious, something to properly worry about.

An icy finger of a shiver ran down her spine and all the flushed heat drained rapidly out of her face. She felt herself instinctively withdrawing into the shelter of Henry's arm around her – but then her head throbbed in protest and the inconvenience of it pissed her off and her pride started hesitantly to kick back in.

What the hell did she have to shrink from? She should be mad as hell about what had happened and any new developments should only be fuel for her to burn. She shouldn't be hiding.

If only she could maintain that illusion. When she spoke to answer Matt her voice was steady but she could clearly hear herself forcing the control, doing her best to keep hold of the threads of the act: "What is it, Matt?"

There was something in the DS agent's hands and he fiddled with it as he stood at the end of the hospital bed. "A note was couriered to the hospital for you."

"What note?" Henry asked, leaning forward like he was ready to protect her from a threat, his own voice clear and confident and demanding answers.

Maybe she could just shrink back into him for a little while.

Matt looked down and then held out the thing that he held in his hands – a single small sheet of paper protected by a plastic wallet.

And that protective plastic was enough to tell Elizabeth that the note, whatever it contained, was evidence. Her heartbeat thumped heavy punctuation into the silence of the hospital room.

Henry reached around her with his free hand to take the note and then he lowered it to hold it between them so that they could both read it.

Elizabeth heard her husband's sharp intake of breath before she had even forced herself to look down at the page to read the words it held.

When she did, time stalled.

Next time, the bullets won't miss.

TBC