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.

There will be a lot of flashbacks in the Season 2 arc as well.

Perhaps Love

Chapter 10-See One, Do One, Teach One

In the aftermath of the shooting Jake, CJ and Toby take a moment alone as they finally find out if Josh pulled through surgery. Meanwhile in the past CJ remembers when Toby asked her to work for the future President of the United States.

There was a knock at the door and she knew it was Toby without turning around.

"Where is he?"

"In my office" he said holding his hands up in a form of surrender. "Anna's fathers came to pick her up and he went to the door to say goodbye. Then he went back to my office and the adrenaline hit him and he's half in and out of sleep. CJ I think we should take him back home and get him into bed. He needs to at least try and sleep tonight"

She nodded. She wanted to go with him. She wanted to go back to her apartment and sink down into the covers and snuggle down where it was warm and wrap her arms around her baby and fall asleep and pretend that the world as she and Toby and Jake knew was over.

It was hard.

So, so hard to imagine that her son had been shot at tonight. It was coming out now (the manhunt over) and it was apparent that Charlie had been the target all along but the skinhead facing life without parole (and that was if he was lucky considering there were a lot of people calling for the death penalty to be back in place) and she didn't want to think about weather or not the racist had known that there were three Jews in the crowd and that he had hit one of them.

"Any news on Josh?"

"Nothing. President won't leave the hospital until he's out of surgery"

"Can the President leave the hospital?"

"No but he's telling people that he's waiting for Josh so…"

CJ smiled. It did sound like the President.

"You think he will be alright?"

"I don't know" Toby said softly and they both knew that they weren't talking about the President or Josh. They were talking about Jake and he shut the door and sat down on her couch body exhausted down to the last skin cell.

"I don't know" he said again. "I want to see if he can sleep, I mean…maybe all we get out of this is a few nightmares and a few…I don't know, I don't know, all I know is that it could have been a lot worse. I had to call Josh's mother…Christ she knew why I was calling, I don't know how but she knew why I was calling and she sounded…"

"What?"

"Like she had done this before, and then I realised that she's buried a husband and a daughter so of course she has done this before. And then I thought about how obscene it was that she had done this before and for reasons beyond my comprehension she ended up comforting me"

He shook his head and CJ nodded. She didn't want to think about how resigned Josh's mother must have been. She didn't want to think about burying children right now. She didn't want to think in general.

"I need to speak to Ron so I'll come back tomorrow. You gonna stay for the press?"

"Please, they were the witness to the near end of the world this is the kind of thing that political reporters live for. There will be articles after articles after articles on this, international press will run this for weeks never mind domestic, I have to stay and brief until I am ready to drop and even then they are going to crowd me like vultures picking the skin off my bones.

He nodded quietly and for a second they stared at each other and then…

"Ron Butterfield is going to tell you the Secret Service doesn't comment on procedures"

"Might just leak my memo anyway"

"They are going to hate that Toby"

"Maybe but they are not getting the blame for what happened tonight. Come home when you can but they are not getting the blame for what happened tonight. I won't let them take the blame for this. They…I mean…I won't let them"

Her smile was soft.

It was a long night.

"You fell in the pool there"

"I know" she said and her fabric was wet and dripping and sticking to her and she would have shivered but this was California and shivering here was a bit much even if it was six fifteen.

"I know I fell…what do you want?"

Toby was looking at her and she didn't know weather or not she wanted Toby to look at her like that. Even now with their thirteen year old son upstairs probably asleep in his bed despite the fact that he had stayed up late the night before was immaterial.

"I've been working for Bartlett."

"I know"

"He wants you"

She turned to stare at him in surprise, actually shock was more of an appropriate word for it. He grinned at her in that way that Toby grinned at people.

"Beg pardon"

"Bartlett. He was impressed with the work that you did on the girl group thing…Emily's List"

"It's not a girls group"

"Yeah but he was impressed by it"

"0kay" she said as Toby passed her a towel and she tried to ring water out of her hair.

And then it hit her.

Bartlett. Jed Bartlett.

Frontrunner or near as damn it to the nomination of the President of the United States providing they got around John Hoynes. Wanted her.

Wanted her.

She swallowed again feeling the tang of chlorine stick down her throat. God why had she listened to her son when he had asked for a pool? Seriously he only ever used it for pool parties and even then she tried to be out when he did that.

The mess you understand…

The mess.

"Bartlett wants me?"

It was a powerful thing to be wanted by that man. CJ followed politics just like the rest of the world and she found that she was growing rather fond of Bartlett. She had been a bit dubious, as a pro-choice woman she was naturally suspicious of Catholic politicians but his stance on abortion and Roe was rather good and he was married to Abigail Bartlett who was like Wonder Woman and a pioneer in female medicine and he was making the right kind of noise when it came to healthcare and reproductive rights and so she was kinda intrigued by him. And coming off a firing because a man had put his foot down in a way that her son had never done even during his terrible two stages she had to admit that it would solve all her problems in terms of employment.

But there was one issue.

"Does he even know who I am?"

Toby's face said it all.

Well. Now there was two issues.

"Leo McGarry wants you"

Now that caught her attention. Leo McGarry was a beast when it came to politics, he was unapologetically forthright about everything and anything and he been the guy behind the throne of nearly every election in the last quarter of a century. He was also rumoured to be an alcoholic but he had passed through more bills on the Hill than she had ever seen and personally she didn't judge unless she had to. Leo McGarry wanting you was like having a badge of honour, it was like a pedigree and CJ was not thick skinned enough to turn that kind of thing away.

"Leo McGarry wants me?"

Toby nodded. "Come on as Press Secretary and then…"

"Press Secretary?"

"You and I both know he is abysmal with the Press"

She nodded because that was true. She didn't know who was advising this man but he was shocking when it came to the Press. When he got there he was good, he had charisma and he had soul and he had skill the kind that couldn't be taught. He knew what he was doing when he was in front of the camera it was just getting him there and though she did not want to admit it there was the acknowledgement that she could do some good with him. He was already there it was just keeping him on point and on message because everyone knew that Jed Bartlett was a trivia buff with a tendency to…well…wander.

See one. Do one. Teach one.

Isn't that what they said in medical school?

There was just the other problem.

"Leo McGarry wants me?"

"Yeah"

"Does he know I've only worked stateside does he know I've never worked a national campaign?"

"Yes"

There was something deceptively simple with the way he was putting it which told CJ that he had not considered the most important thing of all.

She was wrong though. She was so, so wrong though.

He had thought about it.

That was what was rather worrying.

"Does he know we have a thirteen year old we might be dragging around the country with us?"

"Yes"

She paused staring at him in surprise. "He does?"

"Yes"

"You told him about Jake?"

"Yes"

"You told him that Jake and I are a package deal?"

"Yes"

"And he was fine with it?"

"He…well…I don't know how fine he is with it but he wants you and he knows that we have a kid and he knows that the kid is going to come with you. And look…this might be a great opportunity for Jake, we can take him out of school and hire him tutors and spend time with him on the campaign. He's going to see how American Politics work and the ins and the outs of it. It's a fantastic learning—"

"Toby don't sell it too hard will you"

He nods his head and she can see the joy in his face and she doesn't know what to make of it. She knows that the certainty of it is that he can spend time with Jake while changing the world.

Wasn't Bartlett down to be whumped on Super Tuesday?

"What happens if he doesn't win?"

"Then we all go home"

"What does it pay?"

He smiles at her and she can feel herself melt a little like sugar in a source pot. He knows that he has her where he wants her and he knows it. She's half in on this.

"Jake?"

"Yeah I suppose we should go and get his opinion shouldn't we?"

She snorts at him and doesn't say anything.

I mean really? She thinks to herself as she lets him guide her up the steps to the back door where she can find her emergency glasses.

What's the worst that could happen?

She knocks on the door and Toby opens it. She can tell that he's not sleeping.

"Josh just got out of surgery. He's weak and he's tired but he's going to be fine, he's speaking at the very least. Leo and the President are with him and Donna went to pick up his mother at the airport" she says in one long rush and he watches her for a second before heaving a huge sigh of relief melting against the back of the door and she knows it because she remembers Carole coming to her with the same news. She remembers Bonnie and Ginger hugging each other in the background and the grey sheen on Ed and Larry's faces being lifted for a second before they all had to get back to work and carry on least the ship sink in the ocean.

"Press?" he said scrubbing a hand over his face and CJ shrugged.

"Counsel took Danny's questions and that's an end to that, Ron Butterfield won't let your memo be released so good luck with that tomorrow and Hoynes hasn't blown up Iraq yet so I don't know weather or not that's a good thing or not. The kid flipped on his group to save his own skin and he's looking at life with no possibility of parole but he's going to get to live which I suppose for his parents who apparently had no clue what he was into that's something. FBI is launching raids on the rest of the group now—do you have wine?"

"Fridge"

"Jake?"

"Asleep. Ish"

"What does that mean?"

"It means I got him to sleep and then he woke up again, ten minutes later same thing, I don't know how long we are gonna be able to keep him like that I think it's exhaustion battling out with the rest of it. I don't know how long this is going to last either"

She shrugged taking the wine off him and then moving so she kicked off her shoes and fell on his couch. He came and sat next to her and then the door to the left opened and Jake was there.

"I heard" he said and he crawled in between them both looking more like the kid that he had been rather than the man he was slowly turning into and she pressed a kiss to the side of his head as he snuggled down between them.

"What could go wrong?" she muttered and Toby flashed her a look. It was the same thing he had said to her when she had come to work for Bartlett taking Jake with her and Jake scoffed a little as his eyes closed again exhaustion clearly playing on his face, dragging his whole body down.

"I don't know" Toby said finally.

Jake fell asleep between them in the night that dragged on and she took a sip of her wine and knew that she had quite a lot tonight to forgive and at least try to forget.

And there you go, I hope you enjoy and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-Josh is back at work, Sam is enamoured with a blonde Republican sex kitten (his words) and the White House prepares for Thanksgiving which may or may not include CJ and some Turkey's Jake in a crash course in Turkey pardoning and an offer of football and beer. In flashbacks Jake Cregg-Zeilger meets Jed Bartlett for the first time.