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.

Also I know that we are heading towards the end of Season 5 and into Israel/Gaza. I ask that you please keep your comments respectful as I will try and be respectful also. That story takes place in the West Wing Universe and has no reflection on today's life.

I wrote this chapter while on a Yellowstone/1883/1923 Binge. Some of the quotes in italic are from that show in case you wonder-none of it is mine though some of the words have changed and adapted. Anything in italics is in Jake's first point of view.

Not a massive fan of Kate either, she gets better in Season 6-7 but I really don't like her in Season 5 early Season 6. Personally I think she plays too big a role in the Jed/Leo breakdown.

Future Perfect

Chapter 15-Muddy Waters

Jake is up in hospital but slightly groggy when both of his parents are sent to Camp David, Josh stays behind which is both the best place to be in the world and the worst when Donna goes into surgery and Leo has a heart attack. Part One of a Three Part Handler.

He found very quickly that it was boring in hospital. Donna was half in and half out of consciousness most of the time and Josh was watching her and therefore that made it so that Jake had very little to do with it. He was awake and pleasantly doped up which made life interesting for a while but as he told Josh one morning as his body ached with shrapnel, he did not think he could be a addict long term.

Josh watched him with an odd expression and then nodded patting him on his shoulder with an amused fond kind of look which Jake had learnt a long time ago was code for Josh didn't know what the hell he was doing.

He had a feeling he was saying some right stupid shit and he told that to Harrison when he rang Josh and Jake was finally able to speak to him. He didn't know what Harrison said back to him only that Josh spoke to Harrison's mother afterwards who was a nurse completely sensible and would be able to figure out his treatments from what Josh could basically tell her.

There were other things too he knew, other things that made it more of a crisis. He knew enough to know that his parents weren't there, knew that the President had called them, knew that they had entrusted his care to Josh who was swearing softly at the TV whenever the Speaker was on. This was the world that they lived in but Jake didn't care, he didn't think that he was ever going to care about politics as long as he lived.

"You say that now" Josh said softly.

There was a pause where he stood there and then Josh went out to take a phone call.

And Donna coded.

And Jake didn't remember much after that.

SLAM.

Carole flinched catching Ainsley's eye and then she nodded.

"CJ?"

"Not in the mood Carole"

"Leo is heading up to Camp David to meet with the President and he's grey which I don't know…well….anyway CNN want to know if we have a comment on the widow of Congressman—"

"No we don't"

"Shall I say—"

"Carol at this very minute right now all I can think about is getting up there so I can get out, I don't want to be there, I…tell CNN that I am thinking about doing sixty mins—"

She trailed off.

Leo was standing there.

Carol melted out of sight so fast it was almost an art from.

"How is he?" Leo said sitting down on her couch.

"Hooked up to wires…like snakes…" she stopped herself from breaking and then blinked rapidly. She was too much a professional working woman to this, she had been raised by her mother to be too much a professional woman to cry in the office. CJ had come up working since college, had stared down one or more jokes about being with the boys, had been hunted and stalked and spat at more than once and put through the emotional ringer by the press but the truth of the matter was that she was tired…and more than that she was angry.

"He's…doing well" she said eventually.

"Toby said as much, he went up to the Camp yesterday—"

"Why?"

"The President needs—"

She threw her folder against the wall, it was the first outright sign of anger she had ever given in this office or in this West Wing but Leo didn't let it affect him. It would take more than this to get Leo upset she knew, he didn't even flinch.

"Your angry" he said and she ran a hand through her hair.

"Yes" she said flatly.

"Because of what happened—"

"Because of what he isn't doing"

There was no question who he was, they both knew she was talking about the President.

"You want him to bomb Gaza?"

"I want him to do SOMETHING" She said throwing her hands up in the air and then sitting down next to him. "I mean seriously Leo a summit? We've done that before, it lasts about three weeks and then it starts all over again, Hamas or the IDF or whatever it all falls apart and we then spend time wondering why the Middle East hates us, why Jordan negotiates with us through raised eyebrows…why Egypt tells us that they don't want our help and…and I don't make foreign policy of this government but the cannot even get the man who did this in his own custody because he's…I don't know what it is, it's like he's terrified. This is the man who wanted to blow up half of Syria over ONE doctor he met three days ago! He's…" she shook her head and then.

"Do you remember Lyle Lodell?"

"Where the hell did that—"

"His Dad told me that he wasn't ashamed of his son the President was, he said that the President had been unable to serve and he did two tours in Vietnam, and I cannot tell you how many men and woman in uniform we've turned away from the State of the Union because they all fundamentally think the President doesn't get it, I mean honestly Leo I love the man I do but right now my baby is in a hospital bed and I don't think the President gets that the country doesn't want peace at the moment it wants blood…I mean for fucks sake the amount of shit that we have gotten wrong since…since he took on the Second Term…I mean look at Qumar!"

And with that the anger drained out of her as quickly as it had risen and she burst into tears.

Leo watched her for a second with eyes that were both kind and wise and then he reached out and took her gently in his arms and let her cry on his shoulder as if he was the father here and not her boss while Carole with the knowledge of a strong passionate intelligent woman working with another strong, passionate and intelligent woman for too long cancelled her afternoon appointments.

She got better as she had to, she was a professional after all.

But sometimes it felt good to cry.

Toby was up in Camp David listening to the words when Kate suddenly appeared at his shoulder with Charlie. He knew that they had come from the Palestinian side of things listening into their prayers for peace as he did the same.

"You're not going in?" Charlie asked but Toby was already shaking his head.

"I don't want too" he said quietly. "I gave up religion a long time ago."

"You go to temple"

"I know"

"I don't—"

"Charlie don't try and understand this"

He let the words of the prayer hit him and then he turned and walked on his heel outside. Charlie didn't follow him, Kate did.

"You know you have more in common than you think" she said quietly. "Jews and Palestinians"

"Oh?"

"Nobody's wanted you throughout history"

"Wow that is a simple statement"

She shrugged. "I've seen it from both sides"

"Oh from your overseas assignments"

She gave him that long slow smile that anyone in the Intelligence Community gave anyone they thought beneath them.

"You've been talking him out of fighting back"

"Yes"

"Why?"

She looked at him as if the idea was overly simple and then she sighed.

"It will do more harm than good. You see it from the White House perspective, from the American public…I…and a lot of people like me don't see it like that, you know no journalist can go into Gaza and report? Everything that your son and your ex-wife and Donna Moss saw, wrote down, took pictures off it all gets looked over by Mossad. You know the last time there was a conflict 120 journalists wrote open letters and the next time it will be a 120x1000. There's an age of something coming that will make privacy take a back seat and the truth of the matter is that it does more harm than good. You think that whenever we blow up a house or kill fifty people and call it collateral it does anything? All it does is train more people to hate us"

The words were so reminiscent to what his wife had said that for a moment it stole his breath away, she was right to some extent and he knew it and more to the point she did. CJ, Donna, Abby, Zoe, Ellie, Elizabeth, Mrs L, Debbie, Ainsley, Andy, Ginger, Bonnie, Kathy, Margaret, Carole, Mallory, Amy, even Anna…Toby had lived his life around strong and confident woman so it was not an uncommon thing but Kate Harper had a confidence about her that was so extraordinary it made him pause to look sideways at her.

"Can I give you some advice?" he asked quietly and she turned to look at him.

"Of course, I might not take it"

He smiled.

"I know. But I am going to say it anyway, you might be right and I respect that as much as the next person does, you have opinions and that's good, you've earned your place I don't deny or dispute that, but what I do think is that your going about this wrong, getting between Leo and the President doesn't work and that's what you've done and coming out with bullshit cliché statements like plagues of jealousy and hatred make you seem…annoying at best naïve at worst. I am speaking to you here both as Democrat and as a parent, if you'd have come on TV and said that I would have lobbed a bottle at you"

Kate nodded slowly as if the words took a long time to sink in, she didn't try to say anything for a while and then.

"I am more sorry about your son than I can say" she said quietly. "Everyone in the Intelligence Community…this is the second time in recent memory that something has happened that we did not see coming and it sticks to our shoes weighing us down—"

"If you mean New York—"

"We knew he was going to some something" she didn't need to say more than that, Toby had known it.

There was a pause and then.

"We got Sharrif" he said quietly. "In the end we stopped the second wave"

She sighed and then nodded and then.

"How is Jake?"

"I don't know"

"Then why are you here? Go back to Germany and—"

"And what?" he turned to looks at her and smiled though it was bitter.

"You think he doesn't know that Jake's in hospital? He still asked for us, he's not said a word Kate to me that's not been official, Josh…I don't know…I don't know what's wrong with him I don't know what this plan is that he thinks that he can do, I don't know what he thinks that he can change I just…I know that he needs me. And he knows it, and when you serve at the pleasure of the President then when he says jump you say how high"

She nodded and looked out over the little bridge.

"That" Kate Harper said ever career Navy, "Is something that I can understand"

Toby was walking down the narrow stream when his phone binged. You had to be standing in the right place at the right time with Camp David and he stared and sighed.

Donna was back in surgery. It didn't look good.

"Toby"

"Mr President"

"News?"

"Donna's back in surgery, it doesn't look good"

For a second the President his hands in his pockets said nothing.

"I appreciate—"

"Sir with respect please don't. Right now I have to find a way to do what you want me to do even though I don't agree with it and I have to find a way to do it in a way that keeps me in my job. And that is hard enough to be honest."

Jed Bartlett sighed and looked at him and Toby thought that the president was about to say something…for a second they locked eyes and then Jed nodded.

"Send Jake my love. And find Charlie, I want to get Donna's parents on the phone"

And with that he turned and walked down the path alone and Toby watching him suddenly felt the wave of righteous anger drain from him and he sighed scrubbing a hand down his face.

Thank God they were in the home stretch.

Because he knew he couldn't do another term of this.

And there you go.

Next Chapter-As Leo arrives at Camp David, Jake get his discharge papers and begins the long process of coming home. Part Two of a Three Part Handler.