Hi, so I have buckled down and got this done which is a huge sigh of relief for me so I am just going to post it in one swoop. Just a couple of things to consider-due to my wanting to end this story on a happy note I have decided that I am not going to kill Leo off. Just keep that in mind.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.
Please Read and Review.
Future Perfect
Chapter 24-The Way He Was
As we enter Season 7 the campaign for President gets underway. Jake gets mail. Toby and CJ celebrate.
He didn't watch coverage of the campaign. Indeed it was almost cathartic that way, there was a sense that everything was winding down somewhat and he liked that, the President was fine now abet walking with a cane and Leo was healthy it seemed. Everyone was burnt out but there was sense of finality that came with it. It was time for someone else to take charge and despite the fact that they shouldn't Jake sensed that it was like they were looking for what to do next.
He found that he too was in the same boat. His High School education was nearly over and the college applications had been sent in. He had chosen as his essay to write about working in the White House because that was mostly true. In the one interview he'd had he'd had Margaret call using her full boss voice to make sure that Gaza was not mentioned. Considering this was the tone that was used to keep Leo in line for nearly six years Jake was impressed. Nobody asked him about the one thing he would rather die than answer questions about. Instead he was as honest as he could be about the life that he had lived, the gaps in his education that came with parents who worked for the President and the rather…different education that he'd had.
He had thought it worked well but he didn't expect much, he didn't know if he too was going to burn out by the end of this year but with finals just around the corner he had to admit that he was feeling it. He did not know if he could go through college without some kind of a break. There was a world out there that existed outside of Washington and the West Wing and he wanted to see it.
The good news was that once this was over the restrictions on his life was over. He was allowed to be a normal college student. His Mom might get security if she wanted it but Jake had already had that conversation with Ron Butterfield. Like him as he did he did not want Zane following him for the rest of his life and there was a sense of relief from the other man when Jake told him this.
Maybe it was kismet. Maybe it was fate that had brought them together at the right time. There was as sense of closure that came with the three of them, Harrison and Zane and his mother. A sense that finally the ghosts of the past could be put to rest and things could move on.
Now he just had to find a way to do it with his own family.
He'd had an idea of what he wanted to do and he'd just not told anyone yet. He didn't think that it was going to happen. He had taken two subjects that he had loved into his degree choices and he'd only applied for Ivy because everyone else had, he was not Anna who had woken him up screaming and nearly caused a Secret Service breach when she had ran into the West Wing screaming at the top of her lungs and lobbed herself into Mrs B's arms shouting that she'd gotten John's Hopkins and nearly causing herself to be shot.
He was not Harrison who got the Navy Academy which was what he wanted…he was…he was Jake.
And so when the envelope he really wanted arrived he thanked his lucky starts both his parents were in work and he opened it with shaking fingers.
Zane had, had to stop the car while he'd had a minor freak out and then had bought him a coffee and a donut for breakfast and the two of them had sat and ate in comfortable silence.
And so he walked into the West Wing and asked Margaret to penicil in ten minutes of his mother's time as soon as she had it and then he'd walked back to the Communications bullpen and told Ginger the same thing and managed to keep his face straight the entire time.
He'd had a lifetime of working with politicians and so he reckoned he could do a pretty good poker face if he had to.
And so when he walked into his Mom's office both of his parents were there.
"Hey"
"Hey son"
"What are you both looking at?"
"Ellie's getting married at the West Wing so we have to look over everything and do an approval check"
"Isn't it her wedding?"
"Yes"
"But your vetoing fish choices?"
"Salmon is a protected species"
"Since when?"
"And she can't have swordfish either she seems to say, or goats cheese and then as it happens the Secretary of Defence told me that means she's pregnant—"
Jake considered it.
"Suppose that would add to the whole urgency of the thing" he said sighing. "Might explain why she's in Will's office panicking about her dress"
His Mom looked at him and then looked at his Dad who shot her a pointed look.
"I am not going in there. I did my bit this morning when I told her that we couldn't have prawns because the Duke of Edinburgh doesn't like them"
"He's coming?"
"Well someone from over there is coming"
"Ah can't it be the really hot one?"
His Dad looked at him?
"Who—do you mean Prince William?"
"Now there's a man I wouldn't—"
"Stop talking" his Dad said firmly. "Lord John has bat signals for stuff like that and he's mad enough to play matchmaker and I am not writing a press release for that. I mean it Jake. Behave or I will Boleyn your head from your body"
Jake rolled his eyes. Sometimes his parents just asked for it they really did.
His Mom caught his expression and cut through it.
"What's happened?"
"Nothing" he said in what he hoped was a would be innocent tone. Apparently not so much because both his parents straightened up and looked at him.
"Jake?"
"Mother. Father"
"Jacob"
"Oh alright" Jake said grinning. "I thought I ought to tell you that I got the college of my choice"
Both of them straightened up like a dog that had just seen prime rib. Jake sighed but this time it was a happy one. Sometimes his parents were so predicable but they were his parents and at the end of the day he loved them more than he had ever loved anything. And they had worked hard for this moment he knew, both of them had patiently allowed him to run this at his own speed and now they were both looking at him with interest that was borderline an ferocity that would have scared the balls up the hardest man in the world.
Good thing that he knew they both loved him.
"Ah Jacob" his Dad said snapping him out of his thought process. "If you wouldn't mind getting to the punchline. We know you applied to a few colleges but which was the one you wanted?"
"Well it wasn't Princeton and it wasn't Yale though I got into both of them—"
His mother made a noise that sounded like a mouse being trodden on. She raised her hand and his Dad took it and he knew that he was grinning.
"I did get the one I wanted though for the course I wanted to"
"Oh?"
"Say it Jacob" his Dad growled.
Jake kept them hanging a second more for fun and then.
"You are looking at the newest member of the Dartmouth student body"
For a second his parents were stunned into silence.
Jake counted down in his head.
Three.
Two.
One.
And they had liftoff.
Jed had been looking at the list of guests with Abby and had been wishing almost wistfully for an international crisis. Oh he knew that China and Russia were doing something over Kazakhstan but right now they had agreed that no news was good news and he was sticking to that because Abby had point blank threated to castrate him if he missed this wedding and Jed had been around his wife long enough to know when she was serious about a threat and when she wasn't. Coupled that with the knowledge that Abby could do what she threatened too quite easily and he had agreed to spend an afternoon looking over the most boring seating chart known to man and picking his stand in…which was just insulting.
"I didn't like the first one and I still walked Elizabeth down the aisle."
"Yes" Abby said looking at him over her glasses. "And you do like this one?"
"I liked him well enough before I found out that this was a shotgun wedding"
"Just think though…another grandchild. And this time we might actually be able to do stuff with them that isn't planned three months in advance."
Jed had to concede to the point. It would be nice to actually spend time with his grandchildren. Gus was too small to remember a world where his Grandpa had not been the President and he knew that unintentionally he had dragged Annie through hell and back sometimes. He also knew that she was rapidly turning into a teenager and he found he wanted to be the cool grandpa that told her she could spend money on that skirt even though he thought it too short.
In truth he had not given much thought to what life was going to be like after this but he did know that he was going to sleep for a week with no interruptions and then he was going to take this woman to bed and never let her go.
He opened his mouth to comment on that and maybe to throw something romantic into the mix when there was an explosion of noise from his Chief of Staff's office.
He jumped but Abby didn't so much as flinch.
"Jake" she said and Jed stood up reaching for his cane.
"You think he's okay?" he asked. He was not blind to the kid's struggles. He had not wanted to get too involved in it, after all he was more than aware that it was his fault but the truth of the matter was that he loved that kid as if he was his own, the same way he loved them all. Sam, Ainsley, Josh, Donna, Toby, CJ, Charlie…
"I think he's fine" she said and then the door opened and CJ poked her head round.
"Sorry about that Mr President but I might need the afternoon off. Toby too."
"Why?"
But then Jake was there and the years had been stripped away from him
"I got Dartmouth sir"
Jed very carefully did not jump but he did feel his face break out into a smile and then before anyone could stop him he crossed the Oval Office and took the kid into his arms and hugged him and Jake hugged him back grinning and Jed would swear to God in that moment it was like Gaza had never happened.
He pulled back and looked the kid in the eye and spoke from the bottom of his heart.
"I am so proud of you son"
"Thank you Mr President"
He clapped the kid on the back and then turned to Abby who embraced Jake and then CJ and Toby. Jed looked at the two of them and thought in that moment what a lovely couple they made, maybe once they were away from here…
But then as Abby had always told him, meddling never worked well with him.
"What course did you decide on" he asked casually.
"Journalism with a minor in History"
It was a good thing Jed had a sense of irony he thought grinning.
The look on Toby's face when his son said that he wanted to be a journalist was like a balm to the wounded soul.
And there you go
Next Chapter-With their son moving out CJ and Toby have to consider what they want in life. Part 1 of a 2 part handler. Will include flashbacks.