Hi, so here is the sequel to Perhaps Love! I am so excited to get this out and finish Season 5-7.

So...the usual. This will not be episode specific, certain episodes will be skipped. Dialogue will not be the same. If that's something you look for in a story then please don't start because you won't get it here.

Also in my West Wing Universe Sam doesn't leave and Ainsley joins full time. Will is in the story...so far...Mandy is not and never will be. Andy had Toby's babies via embryo's not by sex. Also Jake is bisexual.

Pairings are CJ/Toby (eventually) Josh/Donna, Sam/Ainsley, Jed/Abby.

Disclaimer-Nothing but Jacob is mine.

It is advised that you read Perhaps Love before you read this.

And this is 28 chapters long.

And there will always be swearing in this story. If this offends you then please don't read.

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.

And look...I don't like Amy. I don't like her. Nothing against the actress but as a feminist, pro choice woman (and damn proud of it) she was so annoying. In Season 5 I skip her scenes because she doesn't get it. No disrespect to anyone who likes her but she was wrong for Josh and wrong for the show. Sorry, not sorry. That's just my opinion, you are of course completely entitled to yours.

Future Perfect

Chapter 9-An Act Of Random Violence

As his Mom is shadowed by a camera crew for the day, Jake finds himself on camera and get's a healthy appreciation for what his mother does. Flashbacks in italics indicate pre Bartlett presidency.

Somehow this turned into a rant against unfair media.

"Just to be clear, your access is to me and to my staff. Now you might get some one on one interviews with senior staff and some people on the assistant level but don't think that you are going to get lots of one to ones in the oval because that's not what I do. And I cannot in anyway let you compromise my obligations to the President of the United States…see there…I was bragging"

Jake rolled his eyes. His Mom had been practising that all morning and this time as she got dressed in one of the only pink outfits that she had and she paid extra attention to her hair and her eyeliner in a way he had never really seen his Mom do he found that if this thing was not done and dusted today he was going to move to his Dad's.

The announcement that his mother was going to do a tv interview day in the life kind of thing had gone through the West Winglike fire. Some…like Sam thought it a wonderful lesson in media management, teaching everyone out there what it was like to stand there and take the bullet so maybe they would be kinder. His Mom was either impervious to the badness out there, the comments and the snide little emails or maybe since Simon she did not consider them at all. As far as she was concerned she said what she had always said. She had a job to do. She had known when she had started that it was not going to be easy…she had known that the job was going to be hard on the soul as well as the body because when you're the one face articulating a message there are always going to be people that disagree with that message. She had not gone through this to be universally popular. She had done this because the man that she had helped make President had asked her too.

Jake personally thought she should sell that line to the newspapers. It was going to be a hell of a lot easier to make the case that there was a plan to the government's actions if you didn't show them the behind the scenes footage. Jake had been in the White House the night before the State of The Union and though the beer he had stolen when his Dad wasn't looking had made him sick he had thought the effort totally well deserved.

"Jake?"

"Mom?"

"Jeff asked me if you would like to be interviewed. I said I'd leave it up to you" she said watching as Jake choked on his cereal.

"Me? They want to interview me?"

"You have two parents both of whom work in the White House. That makes you for lack of a better word…cool"

Jake paused. He knew what he had to experience, what he had seen was cool most of the time. But sometimes when he was really feeling it he could still remember the weight of Simon's body on top of his as the man had shot bullets at a kid not much older than Jake was. He could still remember Anna taking his hand her own wet with blood, could still see the look on his Dad's face when he'd seen Josh's body lying there with Anna trying to keep the blood inside and not out.

He remembered only too well the broken expression on Mrs B's face when Zoe had been kidnapped, the hollowed out expression that was etched on the President's face. Leo who had looked older than Jake had though was even possible. He remembered the fear and the panic and the terror that came with not knowing what the hell was going on, that powerless feeling that came with something happening that had shocked the foundations of the world.

Jake had never been good at being powerless. He had never been able to conceive it until those moments.

Yes…sometimes it was cool to walk into the White House. Other times it was downright terrifying.

Other times it was not even appropriate to put it into words. The White House was borderline awe inspiring and downright terrifying. Try finding polite words to describe that for a made to TV interview where you had no real power and anything could be edited to make you say anything.

"I don't know Mom"

"Well…think about it and let me know. I'll lay down the law and make it so that you know what you're dealing with."

Jake said nothing. He just took another mouthful of his breakfast and said nothing. It was easier that way.

He did think it a bad idea right up until he got clipped for the interview. Turns out there was a whole processes to these things involving microphones and video cameras and make up and a new shirt. Jake did it on the provision that he keep it. Clothes horse he was not but even he had to admit that Ralph Lauren did good shirts that did not come cheap.

"Eh well…how do I do…"

"Well I'll just ask some questions, just some easy stuff and then we'll see what can go into the press.. So…when did your parents tell you about the White House?"

"Eh I was…about thirteen and my Mom had been sacked from this job and my Dad came up to California…he had been on the road I knew that much and he told her that Jed Bartlett as he was known then wanted her…or rather that Leo McGerry did. And so it kind of steamrolled from there to be honest with you" he nodded at the encouraging nod.

"And so when did you and the President meet each other—"

"Ah a little bit after that. I mean I think he knew that I was there sure but I don't think I met him until after we had gone to Chicago. To be honest at that point it was all about figuring things out. The First Lady knew more than he did because she made sure that I had a private tutor and that I was able to carry on with my school. She put her foot down too and made sure that I got to carry on."

"Good God…did I miss something?"

"Governor?"

"I assumed I had three daughters all older than the boy who has been sitting there watching you throw a ball around for the past ten minutes and smash a window"

Jake who had been watching simply so he didn't have to look at the shit show he knew his math homework was going to be looked up to see the Governor watching him. he stood up just as Leo spoke.

"We talked about this Sir. This is Jake Cregg-Zeigler, CJ and Toby's son, he's thirteen and—"

"And I remember you said they had a son I didn't not know that we were running a daycare centre while I was running for President—"

"I'm thirteen" Jake said bluntly. At once everyone turned to look at him and he squared his jaw and looked the man that his parents were trying to make the most powerful man in the world square in the eye.

"With all due respect sir I am thirteen years old. This isn't a dare care"

For a second something flickered across the other man's face as if he was amused by something but then he turned around and Jake felt the cold sense of dismissal as if it had hit him in the face. Resisting the urge to make a very rude hand gesture behind the older man's back he flopped down onto the couch and went back to his book.

Harry Potter never had to deal with any of this shit.

Why should he?

"What's Next?"

Asshole.

Jake tried very much not to smile at the memory and instead he chewed his bottom lip for a second until his expression was smooth again.

"So…your Mom is the public face of the administration, does that have a knock on effect on you?"

"Not so much. A lot of these reporters covered the plane with us when the President first made the nomination and so we managed to get on very well. I think…there is always that view that I am fair game…a way that people can get under my parents skin and I don't think it's a fair representation of the people who sit in that briefing room. I mean some of them have been covering this beat for more than a decade and they are good at it, they are dedicated to the news, to asking truth from power and then going out and finding it when they don't get it, when they sense that there is something more to the story. I think when people think of the press they think of phone hacking and break ins and cars in a Paris tunnel taking photographs, I think they think of scum media like that. And you do get a lot of scum media like that but the guys and girls who work behind me are top notch at what they do. They work ridiculous hours, report on stories that nobody really wants to listen too but they do it anyway…they cover highly stressful situations—reporters that were at Rosslyn came straight back to the briefing room. They made one phone call to let their loved ones or their editors know that they were alive and then they went straight back into the briefing room and mu Mom…she loves them. And I admire them, because they are journalists you know? You want tattle tittle then you aren't going to find it here, they hate it as much as we do and I think…sometimes I think people forget that for every bad journalist there are twenty more who just simply want to tell the truth to the people"

Jake had only been speaking the truth but he knew that he had gone off tangent a little. He opened his mouth to apologise but he got the strange sense that nearly everyone had wanted to applaud him.

The Casey Creak 2.0 didn't happen. Jake had not even been aware until after his interview that he had been in the middle of it.

He watched his mother pack up her bag and he smiled. She had that sad look about her that told him that his grandfather was not doing well…maybe it was a sad sign that he had virtually no relationship with his grandfathers. Even when his Mom's Dad had not been in the final stages of Alzheimer's there had been no effort…not really to keep the relationship going. There was also not much from his other grandfather though that was better. The ex hitman for the Murder Incorporated gang had found out what had happened and had asked him quite politely if he wanted Amy to be handled.

"I still have a few people who owe me favours—" he said.

Jake had stopped him right there. The thought of what his father would do if he got a hold of that conversation was both too funny and too frightening for the right words.

It was hard to miss what you had never had.

But he missed it all the same.

"Good day?" she asked conversationally and he nodded.

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's go out for dinner tonight. Just you and me"

His Mom shot him a look of surprise and then she nodded.

"You know what" she said beaming as he linked their arms together and she sent a wave to Leo. "I think that would be lovely."

Jake nodded and the two of them, mother and son walked through the halls of the West Wing and into the cold night another day behind them and the camera's finally stopping their rolling.

And there you go, two more of Season 5 left I think, maybe three.

Next Chapter-With John Hoynes bringing out his book CJ is plagued with guilt, Toby with jealousy and Jake...well...Jake just wonders why on Earth people keep thinking he's stupid.