And here we are the FINAL CHAPTER OF THIS STORY AND THE END OF Jake's.
I am so happy to get this done! I want to thank you all for your support. This was a a mammoth undertaking and at times draining but I am so glad that I got it done.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.
Please Read and Review.
And I will let you all guess for who Jake voted for and for what happened next. But i do know that in my head they all got a very happy ever after.
And A MASSIVE THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY!
Future Perfect
Chapter 28-Hope For Tomorrow
THE FINAL CHAPTER!-Jake casts his vote and thinks back on eight years in the White House. Includes flashbacks.
There was something oddly emotional about casting your first vote Jake thought as he stood there staring at the box. He had taken Arnie Vinnicks advice to heart and he had chosen the man that he best believed could get the job done the way he wanted too. He had not watched the debate but he had listened to the soundbites and Rock the Vote and had been educated as he could be without having it rammed down his throat and so when he put his mark against the name that he wanted he knew that he could do it with a clean conscious.
He put the square of paper neatly folded into the box and knew that he had done the right thing, done his job, done the only thing that he could do.
He was calm, he was happy he was good.
But he knew that Arnie Vinnick was right on one thing.
He was never going to tell his parents who he had voted for.
He didn't have to.
That was the joy of living in a democracy.
Both of his parents had been outside waiting for him when he had come out and both of them were beaming, they were holding each others hands too.
That was new but it was okay…Jake liked it.
He embraced both of them and then for a change they walked back to the White House.
It was nice, it was normal .
And soon it would be real life.
"Jacob!"
"Good Afternoon Mr President"
The President of the United States dressed as if he was a grandfather taking his grandchildren to the mall and clutching a walking cane with a far too jovial expression for someone who had just rode his bike into a tree, limped into view. Jake had been on his way to get another soda and possibly to draft an email to the Education Secretary proposing a new radical agenda that would get rid of math.
"You doing alright sir?"
"Nothing a good dose of novocaine wouldn't cure. Unfortunately the First Lady keeps giving me the child proof locked ones"
"You mean fortunately Sir?"
"No I most certainly do not. Now what have you got with you today?"
"Formulating algebraic conversions Sir"
"Oh! Ilovethem, let me deal with my staff and that idiot Mary Marsh and I can do them for you"
"I'd let you Sir but Mom says getting the President of the United States to do my math homework because he's board governing is an unfair advantage"
"What does your Dad say?"
"I think at this point he just puts his head down on the desk and laments."
The President laughed. Jake thought it was utterly jarring that he, a fifteen year old was having this conversation with the leader of the free world but then again since his parents began to work in the West Wing his entire life had gone upside down.
Not that he would change it. Sure it had it's downsides, he didn't get the conventional nine to fives that other kids got with their parents, he didn't get the school plays and the parents evenings and the report cards and contrary to what his friends thought he didn't get to advise the President on shit(seriously did Harry think that if he advised the President they would be doing both Math and Gym until they graduated?)but he thought as he watched the President verbally smack down Mary Marsh and then galvanise the troops, save Josh from the job market and then ask what was next all in ten minutes or so that, he wouldn't trade this crazy life for anything else in the whole wide world.
"Jacob"
He turned.
"Mr President"
For a second the old man and the young man smiled at each other and then the President jerked his head to the outside and Jake followed watching as he eased himself onto one of the seats.
"Forgive me son if I don't want to see myself made unemployed on national TV"
"No worries Sir"
"Are you alright son?"
Jake looked out over the gardens and nodded.
"I think I can be" he said finally. "It's a work in progress like everything else"
The President laughed.
"Amen to that son. Tell me what were you thinking about right now?"
"About the last eight years to tell you the truth. About the first time that we met, about all of it."
The President nodded.
"Tell you what I remember"
"What Mr President?"
"Jacob?"
"Mr President?"
"Step into the office please"
Jake followed the President into the office, the snow was still on the ground and he saw the two passes.
"For your friend and that pretty girl. And I told Ron that I want to meet them when they turn up too so do it on a day I am in the office."
"Okay, Mr President you don't have too—"
"I know you were prepared to lie even after we told you not too"
Jake said nothing.
"That was awfully nice of you son" the President said quietly. "To risk your future for two old men."
"You're not that old Mr President"
"Don't be cute kid, I am feeling it today more than I have ever felt it before"
There was a pause as Jake took the passes and then.
"You wanna see a map Jacob?"
"Is it the one that doesn't recognise Israel?"
"Oh God did they get to you too?"
"No, I told Dad it was insane—"
From outside the room Charlie Young who was debating if Dolores Landingham was right about Glee club heard what sounded like a very loud.THANK YOU!coming from the Oval Office.
He bit his lip and grinned.
Surely now all could go back to normal.
Couldn't it?
"I wasn't lying that day Jacob, It was awfully nice of you"
"Nah" Jake said easily. "Your family Mr President."
"I nearly got you killed son"
"No you didn't"
"Jake—"
"Sir you didn't do shit" the kid said and he was so shockingly informal and maybe that was what Jed needed now more than ever. He was on the cusp of returning to mere mortal life after all.
"I did what I did out of love and I always will, you didn't put a bomb underneath any car, you didn't want to put me in danger. And you're the great man but you're not God, you don't get to blame yourself for that"
Jed looked at the boy and then he reached out and took his face in his hands and gently patted it.
"It's been a pleasure Jacob"
"Pleasure's been all mine Mr President"
The result came in at three and Jake sat up and watched it. Harrison was next to him and he reached down and kissed him.
"Promise me when you become the next Tom Cruise you won't forget me" he said quietly as the election results were announced.
Harrison looked at him.
"Never" he said simply kissing him back. "Never"
Jake smiled into the kiss and then he stood up and knocked on his parents doors. They had both gone to sleep early in the same bed and thank the Lord they were not doing anything other than sleeping when he stuck his head round the door.
"What?" his Dad asked.
"You both wanted to know when we had a new President?"
"Do we have one?"
"Yeah Dad"
"A clear one?"
"Yes Mom"
"Well son don't beat around the bush who is it?"
Jake just grinned.
The day that Matthew Vicente Santos and Leo Thomas McGarry were elected President and Vice President of the United States of America, Jacob Zacharay Cregg-Zeilger woke up and smiled.
It was over.
It was a nice feeling he thought. He walked to the West Wing to turn in his ID badge and he looked around the Bullpen for a second. There were memories here, good memories and bad memories and he smiled as he looked around. In an hour it would all be over and someone else would walk down these hallways and Jake knew that he would miss it sometimes but most of the time he would not.
It was a great thing that they got to do he thought as he walked down the hallways. They got to overthrow the government every two years and for real every four years, they got to have a say in who made the laws and they got to fight back if they didn't like it. Democracy he knew was a beautiful and precious thing that deserved protecting no matter what and it was hard to believe that when he had walked in here he had been a boy and when he walked out of here he was a man, about to start college, about to start a new life.
He knew that he would have lifelong friends for the rest of his life too, not just Anna and Harrison but Sam, Ainsley, Josh, Donna, Debbie, Charlie, Zoey, Ellie, Elizabeth, Ginger, Will, Annie, Gus, Bonnie, Kathy, Margaret, Carol, Ed, Larry, Zane, Ron Butterfield, Nancy, Kate Harper, Annabeth Scott, Oliver Babbish, even Amy…and the dear departed ones like Mrs Landingham who was the very definition of an unsung hero. He knew he would miss Danny and Steve, Katie, Chris and all the reporters of the West Wing but as he stopped at the Oval Office he knew that it would be Leo McGarry, Abigail Barlett and Jed Bartlett that he would miss the most. Those three, the most consummate professionals that he had ever had the honour of knowing and the highest ranking of dignity and truth.
"Debbie" he said seeing her cry and he passed her a tissue sitting down next to her on the desk as the Bartlett Oval Office was being dismantled. "Don't start you'll set me off"
Debbie grabbed the tissue and for once didn't admonish him for sitting on the desk.
"It's a cold dear boy" she said dabbing at her eye.
"Of course"
"Get off my desk"
"Yes Ma'am"
He watched as the oath of office was taken and then he turned and walked outside breathing in the fresh clean air and he heard the distant sounds of Hail To The Chief and he knew in his bones that finally, it was over.
He opened his eyes again and blinked back tears.
He had done it.
Eight years of the Bartlett White House and he had done it.
He was here, he was healthy, he was whole.
He was alive.
Jake sighed, shoved his hands in his pocket, sighed and went to find his parents.
And when they left the West Wing, they left the same way they had entered it.
As a family.
Together.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked his Mom as they went home.
"Nothing" she said beaming and she reached out to take his chin in his hand. Jake grinned. His Dad beamed.
"Absolutely nothing"
There is a moment where your dreams and your memories merge together and form a perfect world. That is heaven. And each heaven is unique. It is the world of you. The land is filled with all you hold dear. And the sky is your imagination.
My heaven is filled with two loving parents, a slightly insane best friend who helped me when I couldn't help myself. Good people all around me and a man who loves me.
My heaven is filled with happiness and a hope for the future and a chance to be normal which in my world or at any rate my world for the last eight years has not been a given.
I was told what I had was a great privilege and it is. But an even greater privilege is to be normal. And tomorrow normal will be exactly what I am.
That's my heaven.
Thank you for listening to my story. But for now my name is Jake Cregg-Zeilger.
And I am signing off.
And there you go, thank you all so much for your support. I am going to take a break from this fandom and I don't know when I will be back but I wish you all the health and happiness in the world.