Hi, and so we are on to Season 3!

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 bit of a time jump through Season 3 as we near to the end, I predict maybe two more chapters of the Season 3 arc. As I always sat this story is not and will never be all episode specific.

Trigger Warnings for some alcoholism.

Perhaps Love

Chapter 19-Media Relations

Tensions erupt between the President and Toby over the Presidents father causing Jed to confess something to Stanley Keyworth (next chapter will be mostly Jed's POV)

He had not thought about the bastard in years. He really, really hadn't. When they had buried his father he had watched the coffin go down into the hole and had thought that if he never had to see the damn thing again that was that.

His father had never even come up during the campaign. Toby and Sam had thrown some ideas into speeches but Jed had put the lid on that before the horse was well and truly out the gate. Abby was the only person who knew about his father…well…he thought of Dolores and had to concede she was the only person now alive.

Not even Leo knew the truth about his father.

And look…it wasn't that he hated the man per say. It wasn't that he was jealous about other fathers and their sons. He wasn't jealous of the reverence that Josh held Noah Lyman in, nor had he ever been jealous when he saw Noah that time and all the man could do was gush about his son. He never judged Sam and Norman Seaborn and how they managed to get their relationship back on track after a body blow. Leo never spoke about Thom McGarry and all Jed knew about the man was that he was an alcoholic who had shot his brains out when Leo was fifteen which incidentally was the first time Leo realised he could drink scotch neat.

Toby…he knew Toby's father had a complicated past but he never looked at Toby and Jake and thought what it would be like to have that.

"But you are jealous?" Stanley Keyworth asked him on night five.

"No" he said flatly. "No I am not."

And then.

"I don't understand how it is that easy."

"For a father to love his children unconditionally"

"Not that" he said flatly. He was not going to get into that right now. He could remember the sting of Millie's words when she had said that it was apparent to Ellie that he loved Zoey and Liz more, he could remember the dull tone Ellie had used when she had thrown the words back at him and she had believed them, he didn't want to think about how she had nearly cried when he had told her something he had never thought she had to know. For him loving his girls came the second Abby had told him she was pregnant. Three girls made him (according to Donna Moss at any rate) a girl-dad and he was damn proud of it.

"Then what?"

"Fathers and sons" he said heavily. "You remember that teenager who was killed because he was gay, Lyle…I forget his surname, but he's the reason why we have a stronger hate crimes bill?"

At the nod he continued.

"His Dad…I was told he might be a problem at the bill signing because he didn't say much. I asked CJ to look into it and they ended up not coming and I asked her once was it because he was ashamed that he was gay. And she looked at me like I was speaking a different language…Toby did too. Sam, Josh…even Danny from the Press Office all understood what I was asking and yet they looked at me like…I don't know. I don't think it would have ever bothered them if Jake had been gay—"

"And if it had been one of your girls it would have bothered you?"

"No" he said firmly. With Ellie there had always been a question and so he had realised a long time ago that he didn't care. To be honest it would have been a relief. He was dreading another Doug.

Charlie…Charlie had been the dream. And that had still ended.

Typical really.

"So what then?"

"Fathers and sons" he said simply. "My father never liked me. I know it. Now Toby knows it. And I see him and his son and their relationship and I don't understand how he does it because my father could never love me. Maybe it is because I don't have a son of my own but let me tell you Doctor a part of me is very glad I have three girls simply because I don't know what I would have done with a boy"

And there it was the bald faced truth.

Stanley Keyworth said nothing for a second and then…

"Your jealous of what they have"

It was said softly and yet there was a truth to it. A truth to what was being said. Because Jed was jealous. He was jealous of anyone who had what he hadn't, and with Toby and Jake it was playing out in front of him. Because the two of them had the relationship that he had never known you could have between father and sons. He had never experienced that kind of pride, had never been on the receiving end of it. Everything that they went through, everything that he did and it was never enough. Always Jed had to be better. Always he had to do better, be better, and when better wasn't enough he remembered…well…he remembered the stinging backhands all too well.

He looked at Jake and Toby and he felt his heart ache with a longing he had thought that he had never experienced before. He had never thought of what he had missed with his own father until he had seen it playing out with someone else's.

The rest of the meeting went by without little effort. Personally Jed couldn't believe that someone could charge 375 dollars per hour for a session and he made a mental note to see who had paid for Josh's session (he suspected it was Leo—actually he would be gobsmacked if it wasn't Leo) and so he carried on smoking and staring out the window as they went into night six.

By night seven he knew he was in trouble. By night seven he was prepared to take more than his fair share of the pills, by night seven he was prepared to call his wife.

Which was saying something all things considered.

He was moving around the White House when he heard the soft fuck and he turned to see a teenager sat outside Toby's office. The communications bullpen was rather empty as it was a Sunday but Toby had been in with the speech to the UN on Monday on his mind. That would have been fine but the kid sat on the floor with math books spread around him was not Toby's son.

It was another kid this one with blonde hair and blue eyes and Jed knew it was one of Jake's friends.

"Problem?"

"Nah" the kid said not looking up. "Just history I mean I don't get it I really—"

And then in slow motion he looked up. For a second they looked at each other and then.

"Oh God Mr President Sir" he said scrambling to his feet. He did something that might have been a mock salute and then a bow and Jed could hear Abby snickering in his head and her here precious comment and he smiled.

"I mean I didn't…I didn't expect…"

"Your okay kid, your Harold aren't you?"

"Harrison"

"Okay"

"I was just…I was waiting for Jake. I mean he's usually a lot better at this than me when it comes to this and I…I mean he…"

"What's the paper about?"

"Russia, World War I"

"Oh"

"Yeah, this is the price I have to pay to get into AP classes for next year. Only way I get into the Naval Academy"

"You want to join the Navy?"

"I want to join Top Gun"

Jed sighed. Okay so it was an epic film, it wasn't Yeoman of the Guard but it was a good film. Abby had made him go and see it six times when it had come out and she had been all kinds of emotions during it. Jed personally didn't understand what it was about Tom Cruise that made all staff go gaga but he knew if he ever invited the man to the White House he was going to be the one man standing, hell the staff alone—well—he didn't know what it would look like but he imagined nothing was less dignified than the President shoved into a corner while the junior assistants crowded round the man like God.

"Not cause of the film" the kid said as if he knew what Jed was thinking. "My Dad was a Navy pilot, he died when I was six"

Oh.

"I'm sorry" he said sitting down.

"It's alright I don't remember him very much" the kid said and Jed didn't know what was worse what he said or the matter of fact way he said it. "We make do my Mom and me, she voted for you and everything and I have good friends but If I want to get into the Academy then I have to do this right. And I have to give them no excuse to turn me down"

"You're an alumni though? Surely that should count"

Harrison sighed and his expression twisted in a way that Jed remembered only too well.

"You haven't met my mother" was all he said.

He rolled his eyes then but Jed thought that this boy's mother had already buried a husband and was now watching her son follow in his footsteps and he thought that he could understand exactly what it was that was frightening her.

"What's the essay question?"

"Who started World War One, Germany or Russia?"

"Oh that's a good one! Pass me the book"

And that was where Jake found them ten minutes later when he came back with bear claws and coffee and the three of them were working out an essay plan when Leo came to find him and then for reasons beyond his comprehension Sam and Josh had come and they were all sat on the floor debating Russia verses Germany.

"This" Leo muttered to him as they paused for food and he ended up referring a debate on Stalingrad between Josh and Sam that had gotten particularly heated. "This is why I don't bring Mallory around"

Yeah. Jed thought quietly, that was the reason.

He thought about it some more as he went through the futile routine of going to bed and he thought about his father the rat bastard that he was.

He could picture him perfectly and he could see the cold smile that people believed radiated warmth and love towards his son and Jed knew he would always come down to him getting his ass kicked by his father later behind closed doors. Jed had gotten to eighteen and had cut him off completely. He had done Christmas only when he had, had too, he had not invited him to the wedding, none of the girls had ever met him. And when he had died it had taken all his considerable efforts not to spit on the grave.

Maybe that's it. Dolores's voice came through his head as clear as if she had just yelled at him for not using the intercom.

Maybe that's it, maybe that is the problem Jed. Cause God damn It, nobody would blame you for hating the bastard. Nobody would ever blame you for it. So maybe it's time now to admit that you do.

He stared up at the canopy and for the first time he acknowledged it.

He, Jed Barlett. President of the United States, happily married, three wonderful, beautiful children, okay ish son in law, two lovely grandchildren, great friends, great staff, good polling numbers, Nobel prize winner and one of the youngest teachers to get tenure at Notre Dame and he hated, hated his father.

And with that he turned over fully expecting to stay awake for night eight.

He fell asleep.

Such was the depth of his sleep that Charlie perhaps knowing more than he dared to about fathers and sons and the hatred of one co-ordinated with Leo who knew more about it than Jed wanted to admit, pushed back his entire schedule until lunchtime.

It was the best night's sleep he'd gotten in a while.

And Harrison Edwards got an A.

And yeah, there you go, I hope you enjoy.

Next Chapter-The lives of the Cregg/Zeigler clan are thrown into choas when CJ gets a death threat and is assigned a Secret Service officer who Jake is pretty sure he knows from somewhere.