And here we go, onto Season 2! I hope you enjoy. And though this doesn't really change anything there are twenty more chapters left of this story!
Disclaimer-Nothing but Jacob is mine.
And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know.
There will be a second part that follows this...eventually. Each series should cover about seven chapters some chapters several episodes. Flashbacks included when needed.
Also I do not do Private Messaging anymore, any questions stick them in a review and I will get back to you next chapter note.
Also please be aware of a bit of a time jump between these chapters.
Also after much thought and consideration I have decided not to include Mandy in this story. She's there for like one Season and misses half of the episode and while she was an okay character played by a very good actress her disappearance and everything that follows is just too hard to write. So no Mandy. Ever.
And a couple of the episodes are mixed around here but please keep that in mind.
Perhaps Love
Chapter 8-No Sanctuary
The shooting in the aftermath, AKA CJ and Toby try to get to their son. First Chapter of the Season 2 arc.
At some point the shooting stopped. The ringing in her ears continued but the shooting stopped and so she pushed herself to her feet. She had both her legs, both her shoes (why she noted that she didn't know) and Sam next to her brushing glass of out her hair his expression one of marble helped her to her feet and she sat on the edge of a cop car that had the glass shot out of the window and she took one moment to look around at the devastation.
The President was gone, Leo was gone, Zoey was gone. All of that she knew. That didn't meant the President was dead. Granted she didn't know what happened when the President died but she didn't think it was this. This was too chaotic, too…too whatever it was right now.
"CJ?" she turned to see Toby coming towards her and she had to look away least she start weeping. She was not used to someone looking at her with that much concern etched upon his face and with Toby it was always tied into the complicated sweep of feelings that came with Jake and…
The second she thought of him she felt the same fear that was etched upon his face enter her blood stream like ice and it paralysed her unable to move and unable to think and suddenly it didn't matter that the President might be dead or that the Press Corps had just gotten a front row seat to the ending of the world as they knew it.
But Jake…Jake…Jake who had been here tonight with his friend who had left the room earlier than she had done. Who had stepped outside, out of her line of sight.
Who was not here, right in front of her.
Who needed to be right here, right in front of her.
Right now.
She opened her mouth but nothing came out as Sam chimed in that they didn't know where Josh was either.
And then came the thin voice over the crowd of the one person she loved more than life itself.
"MOM! DAD! SOMEONE HELP PLEASE?"
She shouldn't have been able to hear him over the chaotic, catastrophic, din that was going on around them but it was like her entire body was primed to hear him, primed to feel him, primed to recognise him. Jake was her baby and her baby needed her.
It was the same for Toby and so she didn't have to even look to know that he was running right behind her. They ran together, as far as Jake was concerned they were always together.
And there he was. Jake, he was standing and CJ noticed that he didn't seem to be bleeding but then he turned and she felt vomit rise up in her so strong she was almost dizzy with it. She reached out and grabbed Toby's arm and then his hand and he gripped her back and she couldn't tell where he started and she began. She didn't know either if he was keeping her upright or if she was keeping him upright. Either way it was a moment she knew would be haunting her nightmares for decades to come.
Jake was stood there and she could see that his face and hands were coated in blood. His nice polo shirt was splattered with it as was his jeans and there was a splash of it under his chin and he looked almost dazed when he turned back to look at his mother and father.
For a second none of them could speak and then he put them out of their eternal misery a second later.
"It's not mine" he said and even his voice sounded hollow and like an echo.
"It's Josh's"
For a second none of them spoke and she tore her gaze from her son to see the girl…Anna her name had been holding what looked like Josh's suit jacket to his stomach to hold down pressure on the wound. For a second her eyes met CJ's and they were grim too but then CJ saw Toby reach out and tug Jake into his arms and she went to join the little embrace just as Sam started screaming for help.
That was the easy thing CJ thought.
The look on Leo's face when they arrived at the hospital and he got a look of Josh on the gurney was going to stay with her for the rest of her life too.
Breathe, just breathe, they are alive, your mother and father are alive, Anna is alive…everyone is alive…
Well…the President is in surgery, Josh might be dead. And you stood there and did nothing as Anna ripped his jacket off him and stopped him bleeding all over the place and…
"Jake?"
He looked up to see Anna staring at him. She had clearly been to the bathroom as she had done her best to get the blood off her face and hands though there were huge gaps in her make up from where she had splashed water on her face. She sat down next to him her hands folded in her lap and Jake tried to smile but couldn't quite muster it.
"Hell of a thing" Anna said finally. "You…I used a cell phone to speak to my Dads…there on their way but I need to know who to speak to, to get them through this" she gestured at the insanity that was the Secret Service lockdown that they were all under.
Jake nodded and then…
"This was really not how I wanted tonight to go" he said finally. "I…I had a plan Anna"
"Yeah…duh" she said with an eyeroll. "I figured the President being shot is not how anyone wanted this night to end"
Jake nodded and looked down at his shoes. There was blood on them too and suddenly he turned and retched into the nearest trash can. They were both standing in the corridor everyone mulling around them and in and out of a small room and he had lost sight of his parents in the huddle of the crowd. He wondered how it was going to work when they got back to the White House. All the press had been there. He didn't even want to think about what that was going to be like for his Mom to deal with.
Anna said nothing.
"It's okay" she said breaking the stalemate when he had finally finished throwing up. "I kinda gagged in the car on the way here. If your Mom hadn't been there I'm pretty sure the adrenaline would have gotten to me"
"How sexy" he muttered and she made a small noise that might have once upon a time been a laugh and now reminded him of something trapped and tortured.
"Your doing fine Jake" she said sitting back down. She grabbed his hand in his and he turned and even now with the world in disarray around them and democracy on the brink—or whatever had been used twice on the news now to describe this thing—he found that he was blushing with…well…he didn't know what with but he knew that he was blushing.
"You were amazing" he said softly and this time it was her turn to blush. "You saved Josh's life"
"Nah" she said shaking her head. "Too many ER bedroom stories did that."
"I froze" he pointed out.
"Yeah well…that is perfectly understandable" she pointed out. "Anyone in your shoes would have frozen. I nearly froze. Hell I think I blacked most of it out. All I could think was that the whole place smelt like smoke and then I realised that was from the gunshots and I had to sit up then least I throw up. Josh was…and I know it must sound horrible, but Josh was a nice distraction from the chaos that was going on inside my whole head. And besides…they seem to have Doctor's here that know what they are doing."
"That they do" came a voice and he turned standing to see Mrs Bartlett her face as white as chalk come down the corridor. First Lady or not she swept Jake into a hug and then she swept Anna into one.
"Jake…and you must be Anna. I heard how you put pressure on Josh's wound. Nice trick"
"Er…thanks Mrs…Doctor Bartlett. I really just did what my Dad said to do in this situation and—"
"Your Dad a Doctor?"
"Brain Surgeon"
Despite the fact that her husband was in surgery Jake could see that momentarily the woman was distracted.
"Who?"
"Ben Grey"
"Oh I know him…yeah he's did that spinal tumour surgery on the kid a while back that was supposed to be inoperable. Ended up making the front page of every medical journal in the land. Tell me…does he really not have one single pore or did they photoshop that photo?"
"Nah I think that was him…my other Dad teases him about it enough times but he doesn't remember posing for it. The surgery was like eighteen hours long, I think he was a walking zombie for a very long time afterwards."
"Been there" Mrs Bartlett said with a nod and she patted Anna on the arm. "Are they coming?"
"There on their way but everything's crazy out there and I don't—"
"Give me your Dad's number dear and I'll call him and tell him he can meet us as the White House. At some point senior staff are gonna have to come back and deal with the press and it's gonna be easier for them to meet you there than it is to meet you here. I'll speak to Ron Butterfield and we can get a way of getting them through the gates discretely okay?"
Anna nodded her face crumpling a little with relief and Jake took his opening.
"Ma'am how is the President"
"Good" she said with a warm smile. "That was what I came here to tell everyone. He came through surgery with flying colours, the bullet seemed to have gone out of the way not to hit anything"
Josh breathed a sigh of relief breathing in and breathing out and finding that he could smile a little bit easier. Anna next to him grinned.
"What's happening with Josh?"
The smile on Mrs Bartlett's face fell somewhat.
"That's a bit more complicated Jacob"
And the smiled died from his face.
There was a knock at the door and she knew that she should stand up but she couldn't.
She had gone into the ladies room for privacy and had snapped at the nurse that she should be left alone and had then felt her knees go the second the door was shut.
So here she was sat on the dirty public bathroom and here Toby was watching her.
He tended to do that.
CJ was nothing if not predictable.
"Jake is fine" he said coming to sit down next to her. "Mrs Bartlett's getting that girl's parents to her at the White House as soon as she can. Leo needs you to go back and brief and I need to speak to Ron Butterfield and—"
"Secret Service doesn't comment—"
"I know. Doesn't mean I can't try"
She nodded. She didn't have her necklace and she rested her head on his shoulder.
"I need a minute" she said and he nodded.
"I told Sam. He's happy to stand outside the door for a while."
"He could have died Toby"
"I know" Toby said quietly. "I was pushed to the ground and trampled on and it was all that I could do to keep my head down and my eyes shut and my legs out of the way but when I saw him and the blood and…" he squeezed his eyes shut and then shook his head as if he was coming up from underwater and CJ knew the feeling. It was supposed to be a town hall meeting. It was supposed to be her son's first date and now the world was tipped upside down and was burning all around her and she was still sat on this bathroom floor.
"I'm gonna call Ginger, she has a spare set of keys and she has two brothers so I'm gonna get her to pick Jake up some clothes. I don't…I don't want him walking around the White House looking like he does now. I don't want him near the press. You know if it crops up…"
"Nobody in that room is gonna ask me about my son tonight" she said and though she didn't know much in this brave new world that they were being forced to live in—in which fifteen year old kids shot at the President as if he was target range with no thought to their own life, she knew that much.
"He's okay CJ" Toby said softly and it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself of that. "He didn't get shot, he didn't get ran down. Our son is fine…"
She stifled back her sob and then nodded.
"Can we stay here for a bit longer before we go?" she said and the tears were coming thick and fast and it was taking all her effort for them not to turn into sobs and Toby tucked her into his side and kissed her. It was a platonic kiss she knew, designed more for comfort than anything else but she needed it and he tucked her into his side his own face wet with the aftermath of the terrible fear that they had, had for their son and for a second they weren't not the White House Press Secretary or the White House Communications Director but they were just Toby and CJ. Jake's parents.
There was work to be done and they knew it but in that moment they were just Toby and CJ, Jake's parents and it was a brave new world and everyone had guns and tonight someone had shot at the President of the United States who was surrounded by the best armed guards money could buy and tomorrow…
Well…who knew what tomorrow would look like.
Who knew what the next hour was going to look like?
Nobody. That's who.
And that's that, next chapter will be a flashback one. There might be flashbacks for a while.
Next Chapter- Jake remembers the day his Dad came to tell his Mom about a guy called Bartlett. Meanwhile senior staff return to the White House.
