The morning of the planned clambake found Windy Point blanketed by a thick coat of fog. It was one of those deeply penetrating fogs that only happened on the coast and could burn off with the turn of the tide or, more often than not, last for days.

Abbey Bartlet lay snuggled in her sleeping husband's warm arms, her head on resting on his bare torso. It was very early and the house was remarkably quiet and still. The only sounds were that of the clanking bell buoy way out at the tip of the point and the mournful repeated moans of a foghorn. She knew some people found the fog eerie or disturbing, her mother-in-law was completely unnerved when the fog settled in, but Abbey had always found being enveloped in the white cocoon oddly peaceful and comforting.

"I think the clambake is out for today," Jed yawned, rubbing his chin against his wife's silky hair.

"How long have you been awake?" Abbey asked, snuggling closer to his warm body and nuzzling her nose into him. Just like a little kitten, Jed thought with a smile, as he wrapped his arm around her to accommodate her desire to cuddle.

"A little while," his voice was still husky with sleep. "Just laying here listening to the foghorn. Looks like we're socked in for the day."

"Looks that way," she got up on one elbow and began to trace her finger up and down the bridge of his nose. "Do you remember that foggy week that we made Zoey?"

"How could I forget?" He kissed the tip of the finger that had moved down to start tracing his lips. "My parents had taken Liz and Ellie to Boothbay for the regatta," he sucked her finger into his warm mouth, "and then the fog rolled in. Three days, with nothing to do but make love..." he kissed her palm "and make love," he kissed the pulse point on her wrist, "and make love," he pressed his lips into the bend of her elbow.

"And make a baby," she smiled warmly at the memory, then sat up and placed a leg on each side of his hips. "And, except for the end result, I can't think of a better way to spend this foggy morning."

"Me either," he smiled, cupping a hand behind her neck to pull her head down for a deep kiss. "To hell with the clambake."

****

Jed added another log to the fire he had started in the fireplace to ward off the damp and cold that came with the fog. Ellie, Zoey, Annie, and Izzy were in the kitchen with Abbey.

"Are you sure you and Dad don't want to come see 'Pearl Harbor' with us?" Ellie asked.

"No, we screened it at the White House before it came out. You go and have fun. Just remember your hankies, girls," Abbey warned.

"And are you sure that you don't mind me going?" Izzy asked, worried.

"Izzy, you deserve some time off. Go enjoy yourself. The President and I are perfectly capable of taking care of our children."

"Well, if you're sure."

"I'm sure, now go before you miss the beginning."

Jed heard the screen door shut and entered the kitchen to put his arms around Abbey's waist.

"Alone at last," he nipped her neck, "whatever will we do?"

"Let's play another game," she squirmed from his arms to clean up the pieces of Trivial Pursuit, which they had been sitting in front of the fireplace playing.

"I just whipped your gorgeous little ass. Do you really want the humiliation of further defeat?"

"I would hardly call winning by one pie piece whipping my ass. And, this time we will play a game of my expertise." She dug into the old sea chest that held dozens of the Bartlet family's favorite board games. "Ah ha! Here it is."

"I'm not playing THAT against you," he groaned.

"What's the matter? Chicken?" She asked, placing the game Operation on the table. "You're not going to wimp out on me, Josiah, are you?" Jed glared at her, knowing she had him right where she wanted him. His intensely competitive nature and his male pride would force him to challenge her in a game he knew he did not have a hope in hell of ever winning.

****

"Ok, that was way too easy," Abbey said, placing the plastic bones in the box, while Jed was still getting zapped trying to get out the spare ribs. He hated this damn game. Every time he touched the side with the tweezers and the buzzer went off, it always startled him and caused him to jump. Abbey was watching him with a grin of superiority on her face.

"Want me to take it out?" She put her hand out for the tweezers.

"I've got it, I've got it," he grumbled, then jumped as the buzzer blared at him for touching the side. "Fine, take it," he placed the tweezers in her still outstretched hand. He watched her intently admiring the way her delicate hand did not shake at all. Her precise surgeon's fingers easily took out the small plastic piece without hitting the side and dropped it into the box.

"Now, let's play something a little more challenging. How about Scrabble?" She began to dig in the chest again. Scrabble had always been a toss-up between them. Both had extensive vocabularies and it was Abbey's father's favorite game, which meant that she had played it often growing up. So, she wasn't bragging, when, after getting a triple word score for an obscure medical term that Jed had forced her to prove to him was a word in the dictionary, she gave him a saucy grin.

"I think you better give it up, muffin, you'll never catch me now."

"You're an awfully cocky little thing, aren't you?" He asked, grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her up on to his lap, placing her legs on each side of his waist. Abbey gasped as her groin came into contact with his.

"Yeah, I am," she breathed. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"Do I need to explain?" He asked, running his tongue lightly over her bottom lip.

"No explanations needed, but we can't, Jed. Who knows when the girls will get back? I think we've been caught in enough compromising situations this week."

"All right, so the main event is out, but when was the last time we just necked like a couple of teenagers on the couch?" He sat up and lifted her to her feet, leading her in front of the sofa.

"We're usually too rushed for time," she said, sitting down and allowing herself to be pulled into his embrace. "Too worried we might be interrupted before getting to that main event, or worse, before finish."

"You talk too much, lady," he said, covering her lips with his. "Be quiet and just let me kiss your breath away."

"Yes sir," Abbey smiled against his lips.

****

The two of them were wrapped in each other's arms on the couch in front of the fireplace enjoying the sensation of each other's lips and tongues. Reveling in long, sensuous, drugging kisses. Kissing for the simple sake of kissing, not as foreplay. They didn't get to do that nearly enough anymore. Jed's fingers were running through Abbey's soft hair and stroking the nape of her neck while hers ran tenderly over his cheeks, her tongue gently stroking his...

"Josiah! Abigail! What is going on in here?!" The male voice was loud and stern causing the couple to jump apart like two guilty teenagers. Their startled gazes moved to the doorway to see Dr. Michael O'Neill grinning devilishly, with his wife Beth and Jed's mother Emily on each side of him.

"Daddy!" Abbey cried, jumping to her feet to go and greet both her parents with a hug.

"Well, damned if this wasn't just like old times," Michael laughed. "It sure wasn't easy keeping you two kids out of each other's arms and off our couch when you were dating."

"Hi Dad," Jed shook his father-in-law's hand somewhat sheepishly.

Emily was eyeing her daughter-in-law sharply, taking in her kiss swollen lips and the slightly red whisker burn rash on her cheeks, then turned to see her son's tousled hair.

"Really Josiah," she said in that clipped aristocratic New England voice, "your daughters could have walked in here and caught you just the way we did. What kind of an example would that be setting?"

"A good one," Jed said, putting an arm around Abbey's waist.

"It's good for kids to see that their parents love each other. It makes them feel secure," Beth said, coming to her son-in-law's defense.

"Besides, believe me Mother, the girls wouldn't blink an eye if they caught Abbey and I sucking face. It certainly wouldn't be the first time."

"Oh Josiah, what a perfectly horrid term. And, I mean really, it is the middle of the day."

"Is there a rule I missed about not kissing in the middle of the day?" Abbey asked innocently.

"You know some people even have..." Abbey slapped her hand over Jed's mouth before he could continue with what he was about to say, but Emily didn't notice for she was eyeing the Scrabble board now. She was shaking her head, her lips pursed with disapproval at the word 'orgasm' going down the middle of the board. That was not the only word that caught her disapproval as sex and medical terms seemed to be the theme of the board. Then, her brow furrowed with puzzlement and she turned to her son and daughter-in-law.

What does 'fellatio' mean?" Emily asked, and both Jed and Abbey turned red with embarrassment. At that moment, the twins' petulant cries arose from the nursery, causing Abbey to sigh with relief.

"Well, I hate to skip the end of this lovely conversation, but that's my cue," she turned to go up the stairs.

"Coward," Jed called up after her.

"Josiah?" Emily insisted.

"Well..uh...well..it's, um...how can I explain...it's when...uh."

"Oh, never mind, I should have known it would be something dirty," she sniffed. Jed was about to contradict her that it wasn't dirty at all, but he also knew his mother. He knew she would consider that very dirty indeed.

****

Beth O'Neill sat in the nursery watching her daughter who was nursing her infant son.

"You've been lucky this time, getting to nurse them this long. You had to wean the girls so early to go back to work."

"I know," Abbey said, stroking Nicky's silky head. "I think I'll go for a couple more months."

"Until their teeth start really coming in," Beth laughed softly.

"Yeah," she smiled sadly.

"Why the gloom honey?"

"I just get a little sad when I think of weaning them. This will be my last time ever nursing a baby, just like it was my last time being pregnant. Everything with them will be the last time. The last time watching them take their first steps, the last time for the first day of school. I never felt that way with Zoey, because I didn't know it was going to be the last time. Well, for quite a few years anyway. We thought we'd still give it a few years to try for a little boy. But, now I am 100% sure this is it, so the moments are bittersweet."

"Don't let them be. You just thank God that you got this last time to experience it all again, and since you know it's the last time, savor every moment. People don't do that enough. You get to have all those firsts again Abbey, enjoy it."

"How'd you get to be so smart?" Abbey asked, switching breasts.

"My mother. Growing up, your Grandma Anne always stressed two things to me that I have tried to pass on to you and your sister and brother. To live by the golden rule, doing unto others as you'd have done to you, and to always view life as if the glass is half full, never half empty. You can't enjoy life if you always think the glass is half empty."

"I think I've been forgetting to think that way ever since Jed got shot. Especially these last few months with everything that has happened. I got a little lost along the way."

"Everyone gets a little lost at time,s sweetheart," she kissed Abbey's forehead and gazed down at her grandson who was suckling so intently, "but as long as you find your way back home you're fine." Abbey thought about the closeness and renewed passion that she and Jed had regained since he had arrived and they had come to terms with his decision to run again.

"I have found my way back home, Mama. We both have."

"Good. Just remember, and make sure that husband of yours remembers, that the glass is always half full."

"We'll try," Abbey promised, lifting Nicholas to her shoulder and patting his back to burp him. She deeply inhaled the scent of baby shampoo and talcum powder that came from her son. Her mother was right, she should just be thankful for all that she had. Jed had recovered almost fully from his injuries and had not had a relapse in a couple years, so things were looking good on that front. She had come through her pregnancy without any ill effects, and other than being slightly premature, her babies were happy and healthy. Her daughters were bright, healthy young women. Were there bad things going on at the moment with the disclosure of Jed's MS ? Hell yes, and, they were most probably going to get much worse. But her family was healthy and intact. Her mother was right. The glass was half full.

****

It was still damp and foggy as darkness was settling in over the coast. Jed was relaxing on the porch sipping coffee with his mother, his in-laws, and his staff. Abbey had invited them all over for a meal of homemade creamy clam chowder, dinner rolls, and blueberry pie.

Abbey had been inside tucking the twins in for the night and came back out onto the porch wearing one of Jed's old worn Notre Dame sweatshirts that was too big for her small frame. She loved wearing his clothes, clothes that had the lingering smell of his soap and aftershave, along with the unmistakable scent that was his alone. She knew that deep inside, in some primitive animal way, she could go blindfolded into a room of men and she would be able to find her mate by scent alone.

"Abbey, the food was great," CJ said. "The perfect meal for a night like this."

"Thank you CJ," Abbey said, cupping her warm coffee mug in both her hands, as she moved across the porch to sit next to Jed on the porch swing. "The chowder was my grandmother's recipe." She tucked her legs underneath her cuddling up to her husband's side. As they conversed into the evening, Abbey's head rested on Jed's shoulder and her fingers found their way to the front of his shirt to absently play with the buttons. Jed's hand stroked up and down her arm and he twisted a few strands of her hair around his finger. What was so amazing to Jed's staff, all of whom were single, was the fact that neither was truly conscious of the moves that they were making; it was simply a part of them to want to have that physical contact.

CJ watched them with some ambivalence. While one part of her was thrilled to see them this way again after all the tension and anger in Manchester, another part of her wondered wistfully what it must be like to share that kind of intimate closeness with a man. She had never been with a man long enough to get to that point. She turned briefly away and her gaze caught Leo off guard. She was surprised to see the same wistful expression on his face that she had. Well, that is, if Leo McGarry could look wistful. Maybe envious was a better term. The look of pure longing in his eyes took CJ by surprise and she began to wonder if it was envy for the relationship his best friend had with his wife and family, or if it was a longing for the woman who was being held in his best friend's arms? Leo caught her gaze and looked down with embarrassment. When he looked back up, CJ could see that the shield was back in place and the wall closing in all his emotions was back on guard. But, for one moment, she had seen the way Leo McGarry really felt.

Much to everyone's delight, the fog had lifted and the following day dawned sunny, bright, and clear. A perfect day for a clam bake.

TBC...