It was the soft gray of early dawn when Jed finally crawled out of bed. He'd been awake for hours, had in fact never really fallen asleep at all. He'd tossed and turned most of the night re-thinking his childhood in the wake of all that his mother had told him this afternoon. And, as if that hadn't been enough to keep him awake butterflies over the election were right there to help out. According to the polls he had the contest locked up, but strange things happened on election days, people could change their minds, polls could be wrong. As he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got to his feet he felt a little shaky and had to brace himself against the nightstand. Last minute jitters he told himself.

He felt a little better once he'd brushed his teeth and splashed some water on his face but after lathering up with shaving cream he'd placed the razor to his jaw and had seen his hand shaking just as he'd felt the nick to his skin.

"Dammit," he swore, holding the offending hand against his chest. "Not today, please God, not today."

"You're up awfully early," Abbey said, entering the bathroom with a yawn.

"It's a big day."

"Did you get any sleep at all?"

"How'd you know I didn't sleep?"

"I was right there beside you. Do you think I didn't feel you rolling around, punching your pillow, sighing away."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to keep you up."

Abbey's eyes went from sleepy to wide awake as she saw the blood dripping down her husband's neck. "Jesus, Jed, you sure nicked the hell out of yourself this morning."

"Mmmm…."

Abbey placed her fingers under his chin wiping the shaving cream away to survey the damage.

"Well, am I gonna live, doc?"

"Doesn't look like a mortal wound, this time anyway." She dabbed at it with a cotton ball, then placed a piece of tissue paper over it so he could continue on. "You nervous or something?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Let her think it was nerves. The last thing he needed was Abbey thinking he was on the verge of an episode. No, he amended; the last thing he needed was to actually BE on the verge of an episode.

"Nothing like four years ago though, huh?"

"That wasn't nerves, that was sheer terror." Jed had been waiting for her to leave so that he could continue on shaving but it was obvious as she twisted her hair back into a clip that she was about to start her own morning ablutions. He really didn't want to continue shaving under Abbey's scrutiny. His wife had the eyes of a hawk, she knew him better than anyone and she would pick up on the minutest change in his behavior. But, there was no way around it. She was standing right next to him, and now she was brushing her teeth. He closed his eyes in silent prayer and lifted his razor back to his jaw. Thankfully, his hand moved slow and steady and he figured that maybe he really had just been over tired. Maybe it wasn't an episode after all.

Jed felt even better about things when he didn't have any symptoms over breakfast. He filled the kids bottles with milk without spilling a drop and ate his scrambled eggs without shaking bits of egg everywhere. Everything was perfectly normal and he was able to push any negative thoughts into the back of his mind. Denial had always come easy to him.

Denial was not so easy just a couple of hours later when he stood in the voting booth at the First Emmanuel Episcopal church. His eyes were having trouble focusing on the ballot before him and that put him in a bit of a pickle. Abbey was voting right beside him, he could get her attention and her help but then she would know about his condition and if he brought it out to ask questions the dozens of reporters and TV cameras watching him at this very moment would know there was a problem. No, he had to figure this out on his own. The idea of simply leaving the ballot blank was completely out of the realm of possibility. It was his civic duty to vote. Besides, New Hampshire was a tight race. What if he lost by one vote? He lifted the ballot willing his eyes to regain their focus.

He knew the moment Abbey left the booth, heard the reporters questioning her about who she voted for and Abbey giving them a typical smart ass answer about not voting for anyone, that she had just been in the booth fixing her make up. He grinned at the answer but knew they would be wondering what was taking him so long. Miraculously his eyes cleared but he didn't have time to go over the ballot thoroughly so he ended up doing something that he never did. He voted the straight democratic ticket. Not that voting for all democrats was strange for him, but he usually took his time to vote for each individual candidate, today he didn't have that luxury. Not if he wanted to keep his wife from knowing there was a problem.

He stepped out to see Abbey signing autographs while she gave flip answers to the press. She really had become quite good at this. Four years ago she was just emerging from the cloak of simply being known as Mrs. Bartlet to the world and now she was a celebrity. Abbey. It was strange to think that people all over the world from America to Asia to remote areas of Africa knew exactly who was being referred to by that one name. And, just a few more minutes was all he needed to keep his Abbey in the dark. When they left the church they would separate, he was making thank you stops all the way back to D.C. while Abbey was going to fly back to their nations capitol later in the afternoon with the kids and the whole Bartlet and O'Neill clans so they could be there for the celebration. It scared him to think that he might not be in any condition to make it to that celebration.

He stood on the steps of the church, waved to the well-wishers, answered the reporters questions, kissed Abbey good bye and made his way toward the waiting car. On the way he asked Charlie to score him some aspirin. He knew Charlie had to be wondering why he was asking him for aspirin. Not only was his wife a doctor, she was also, obviously, a woman, and women were notorious for carrying aspirin in their purses. To his credit Charlie merely asked him if he had a headache.

Once in the car when he was finally alone he slipped his hidden right hand out of his pocket, the same hand that had been shaking on and off all morning and tried to sign some documents he'd been given. True to form as soon as he gripped the pen his hand began to shake again.

"Come on," Jed willed his hand to stop shaking. Nothing frustrated him more than not being in control of his own body. Finally, he simply shut the folder and told the driver to go. He closed his fist on his knee and felt it shaking terribly against his thigh. Impatient with this weakness he covered it with his left hand, thankful that Abbey was taking a later flight.

He knew his wife was going to be pissed if this turned into a full-blown attack and she found out that he'd been having symptoms since this morning. But, it was hard for him. It had been hard for him when she'd been his physician, and was doubly hard now. She was his wife and she was his lover. She was not his mother or his nurse. He wanted her to see him as her strong, virile husband, not weak and sick and out of control of even the most basic functions of his body. He knew it was vain but he liked being powerful and in control and he knew how much of a turn on it was for Abbey to watch him trying to fix the world. He didn't know how he was going to bear it if his condition progressed and she ended up having to care for him as she did their children, for her to look at him with eyes filled with tenderness and pity rather than sparkling with lust. How he was going to bear going from being her lover to her patient. He closed his eyes resting his head back against the seat.

"Please, God," he prayed. "Please, don't ever let it come to that."

****

As the day progressed Jed was thankful that his symptoms did not appear to worsen. Every so often his eye went blurry but his hand had stopped shaking continuously, and there was no numbness or tingling in his thigh. He was beginning to think that he was going to make it through this one without anyone's knowledge.

His frazzled wife missed any symptoms that she might have picked up on when he returned to the residence for a pre-celebratory dinner. The residence had been overrun with Bartlet's and O'Neills, Flynns and Warrens, their children, parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Abbey was trying to entertain them all along with trying to get the over stimulated twins to take a late nap amidst the chaos so they would be ready to go on stage later that night way past their bedtime.

Supper was a buffet for there were too many people for a sit down meal in the small residence dining room. So, relatives chatted and balanced plates of food in their hands or on their laps while TV's blared out election results. Stories were being told, the elders remembering the young boy Jed had been all swearing they had known the boy was special, that they had known he was destined for greatness. Pride that one of their own had actually reached this pinnacle was in abundance throughout the room.

Jed was able to mingle and steer clear of Abbey and her father, for even at his father in laws advanced age he was afraid Dr. Michael O'Neill might spot the slight tremor in the hand that held his fork or the way that he rubbed impatiently at his eye at times.

Supper was a quick meal for Jed. Unlike four years ago when he'd sat with Abbey and the staff watching all the election results come in, he had work to do in the oval office. Everything about this election was different. He'd had the job for four years now and there wasn't that horrible overwhelming fear that he was in way over his head. That he wasn't ready to be the President of the United States. He knew exactly what to expect in this second term.

****

Back in the oval office, while everyone outside his door crowded around the TV waiting for the networks to call the race state by state, Jed quietly went over his acceptance speech. His solitude was interrupted when Leo and CJ entered the room with looks of gloom. He watched with growing concern as CJ moved to pour him a glass of scotch.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"We've got some news," she said flatly.

"What?" He tried to read CJ's face but it was stony, unreadable. He turned to Leo. "What?" He asked again.

Leo couldn't keep the smile in any longer; this was the news they'd all been longing to give their boss, their friend. "You're gonna win New Hampshire."

A sweet, relieved smile curved across Jed's lips and suddenly they were all grinning. Jed sipped at his scotch offering a silent thanks to the woman upstairs. He thought quickly of Abbey as she had been just a few hours ago back in the residence chasing Max out of the platter of carved ham and carrying a sniffling toddler on her hip while the other tugged at her skirt with fingers covered in shrimp dip. Without Abbey's frequent visits to their home state with their children he knew there was no way he would have won. He owed her a huge debt of gratitude for that one and he was a man who always repaid his debts.

****

The crowd was cheering wildly as Jed, Abbey and their entourage of family and friends took the stage. Only an hour before Josiah Bartlet had been proclaimed the winner of the 2002 election in what was a landslide victory surpassing even the most optimistic Bartlet staffer's predictions.

Abbey stood just behind Jed holding tightly to Nicholas and Aislinn's hands to keep them from wandering too close to the edge of the stage and taking away attention from Jed's acceptance speech. Both children kept their eyes glued to the ceiling for their mother had promised them if they were good that balloons were going to fall from the sky and they could play with them. Every time the crowd cheered at something their father said they waited breathlessly for that magical moment to happen for that was how it had happened the last time they were on the stage with him at the Democratic National Convention.

Abbey was enjoying the moment, basking in her husband's moment of glory. Her heart was bursting with pride in him, pride in all that he was and all that he had accomplished. Pride that he had been strong enough to deal with all that life had thrown at him and that despite his difficult childhood he had not been broken or beaten. Just one year ago nobody that didn't really know Jed could have predicted this. The pollsters and journalists had written him off after he had come clean about the MS. He had been censured, the country felt betrayed, the Democratic leadership hadn't wanted him to run again, hell, she hadn't wanted him to run again. Somehow Jed had found the strength to fight them all, to ignore that the odds were against him and fight all the way until the bitter end, and this time the good guy had finished first, not last. Somehow, through sheer grit and strength of character and with supreme confidence in who he was and what he believed in Jed Bartlet had triumphed over all the naysayers that had said it couldn't be done.

That she was one of those who hadn't wanted him to run again barely flit across her mind. Once she had made up her mind to support him she had done so with all her heart and soul and now she was enjoying watching her husband reap the benefits of his hard work, tenacity and generosity of spirit.

She was passing Nicky's hand over to her sister Jane when she heard Jed veer off course in his speech. It was nothing overt, nothing anyone would notice, but she did because she'd heard him practicing it at the residence and in the car on the way over. Always aware that the camera was on her she continued to clap and smile as she discreetly leaned her body so that she could get a look at the prompter and found that she was right. There hadn't been any last minute changes to the speech; her husband was simply making it up as he went along. A small stab of fear lanced her heart. Jed couldn't read the prompter and that meant only one thing, he was either in the midst of an episode or just starting one. Her eyes fell immediately to his hands to look for any shaking but they were gripping the podium tightly so she couldn't tell.

The crowd erupted with cheers as Jed finished his speech and turned to her. Putting on a brave face Abbey smiled happily up at him and accepted the joyful kiss to her lips. He clasped her hand tightly and raised her arm with his to even louder cheers. "The Times Are A'Changin" began blaring out over the loudspeakers as Jed lifted Aislinn into his arms. She was at first bashful, burying her face into her father's chest but as he whispered something in her ear she turned around and faced the crowd giving a shy wave the way her father showed her. Nicholas leaned over from Abbey's arms and Jed suddenly had a toddler in each arm, his beaming smile of fatherly pride lighting the room and electrifying the crowd. As the balloons fell from the ceiling and confetti began to fly, Jed set them down so they could play with the balloons as promised and he turned to accept hugs and kisses from his older daughters and Annie and all of his relatives, in laws and friends.

After quite a while the stage cleared leaving just he and Abbey. Abbey hung back allowing her husband this moment, his last election victory. She had never been all that comfortable basking in this kind of adulation, this was Jed's domain and he was king of it. She watched him leaning over the edge of the stage to shake the hands of well wishers. She was comfortable in the background, but Jed didn't let her remain there for long. With a happy grin he re-took her hand and lifted it heavenward in victory, she could almost feel the joy and excitement pulsating through him, and yet, that niggling fear for his health sapped any joy that she felt in the moment.

Finally, they were able to leave the stage.

"That was wonderful," Abbey said, shaking the confetti from her hair.

"That was fun."

"How are you feeling?"

"I feel great."

"You want a glass of water?"

"No, I'm fine."

"You seem a little dry. You sure you don't want a glass of water?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe I should get you a glass of water just in case. You can hold it in your hand."

Jed knew in that moment that Abbey knew. The smile of joy that had lit his face slowly faded as he leaned in close to her so he could talk over the music without being overheard.

"How did you know?"

Abbey found that she couldn't look him in the eye, she couldn't bear to see the pain and fear that she knew she would find there. "You were off the prompter." She tried desperately to keep the tears from filling her eyes.

"Just for a minute at the end, I couldn't see it." His face searched hers looking for reproach but it wasn't there. Instead, her eyes were shining with tenderness and with love.

"It's all right," Abbey quickly reassured him. "There are going to be more days like this. It starts now. It's going to be harder this time."

"Yeah, I know." He looked up and into her eyes. He knew all that was at stake yet a sweet smile crossed his face. "We can still have tonight though, right?"

It was that hopeful boyish optimism that did Abbey in. The tears welled in her eyes. "You got lots of nights," she choked. "Smart people who love you are going to have your back." A gentle smile touched her lips as she gazed reassuringly into the eyes of the man she loved.

"All right." He smiled back at her and leaned down to kiss her on the mouth. Her arm had come up around his neck and his lips were trailing kisses along her cheek when CJ interrupted them.

"Excuse me," CJ grinned. "You want to take another curtain call?"

Jed looked to Abbey for approval, he was afraid she might coddle him knowing about his symptoms. She surprised him with her answer.

"Sure" she gave him a big happy grin and squeezed his hand. There was no way she was going to ruin this moment for him. She wanted him to enjoy every moment of it.

Together, hands clasped tightly he and Abbey made their way back out on the stage where the crowd was still cheering like crazy. With the future uncertain, they waved and smiled and basked in the glow of the moment, savoring it all, knowing that if the worse happened that they would always have this time, this perfect moment to remember.

TBC...