It took Abbey less than a couple of seconds to acknowledge that the child crying in the nursery was Aislinn, not Nicholas. Her two children had two completely distinct cries, Nicky having inherited a bit of his father's bellow. She lay back in bed for a moment, waiting for somebody to go to her, but she could hear Jed singing away in the shower and by looking at the clock she realized that her mother was at early mass. They had decided to attend church in shifts and she and Jed were getting the late mass.  Unable to stand her daughter's heartbreaking cries any longer, Abbey made her way to the nursery.

She paused for a moment in the doorway, bringing her fingers to the tender smile on her lips. Evidently Nicholas had been unable to bear Aislinn's crying either and had climbed out of his crib to go to her. He stood beside his sister's crib, gripping the rails and eyeing her through the bars while he babbled something only she could decipher. It was hard to remember just how shocked and overwhelmed that she had been when the ultrasound had revealed that she was carrying twins, but now she was so thankful that there had been two babies inside of her. It was an absolute delight to watch them interact with each other and she didn't have to be worried about them being lonely or not being around children their own age, things that would have been a real worry if either had been an only child, so to speak. No, Nicholas and Aislinn would always have each other and the special bond that had come from sharing her womb.

"What's all this carrying on about, young lady?" Abbey asked, as she approached the crib. Aislinn had calmed slightly thanks to Nicholas but when she saw her mother her tears stopped completely and she gave her a tremulous smile. "Just what I thought," Abbey admonished her. "Crocodile tears."

Aislinn put her arms up for her mother to take her out of the crib and Abbey bent over.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!"

All three jumped, Abbey's hand going over her chest, Nicholas falling on his butt. Abbey turned to see Jed in the doorway, wearing just a towel around his waist, shampoo still lathered in his hair and dripping down his face.

"Don't you dare lift her up," he warned her. "You know better than that, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that my daughter is crying, my mother is at church and my husband is singing about the long way to Tipperary in the shower. Somebody needed to take care of her." Abbey ran a soothing hand over Aislinn's head.

"I would have taken care of her."

"Jed, you couldn't hear her in the shower."

"Of course I could. I'm not a complete idiot. I brought the monitor in the bathroom with me." He lifted his hand to show her the monitor.

"Oh."

"Oh? Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

"Well, I was kind of wondering what kind of jackass jumps out of the shower still full of soap," she eyed him up and down with a chuckle.

"The kind of jackass who HEARD you in here and knew you'd pull this kind of stunt."

"It wasn't a stunt, Jed. It's been a week and I'm feeling MUCH better and YOU need to stop following me around clucking like a mother hen."

"I resent that characterization."

"Cluck, cluck, cluck."

"Abbey, you're trying my patience."

"I'M trying YOUR patience? Try having someone following you around and looking over your shoulder all the time. Hell, I'm surprised you actually let me pee on my own."

"I wouldn't if I thought you might have to lift something."

"I guess I should be thankful I'm not a male then."

"Abbey!" Jed looked from Nicholas to Aislinn who were watching their parents with wide-eyed interest.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Bartlet. I was referring to the toilet seat." There was a momentary battle of wills as blue eyes clashed with green. Both Irish, both temperamental, and both stubborn to the core, neither would relent until Jed finally began to squint in pain as the shampoo ran in rivulets down his forehead and into his eye.

"Ah, damn!" he lifted his towel to try to wipe at his eye, but he had it knotted around his waist too tight and it wouldn't reach.

Abbey grabbed a face cloth off the twins changing table and approached him.

She shook her head. 'You stubborn old Irishman."

"It stings, Abbey, hurry up."

"It's just a little soap in your eye, Jed, stop behaving like a big baby." She began dabbing at his eye with the cloth

"I'm not, it hurts." He grabbed the cloth from her impatiently and rubbed at his eye with it. When he felt he'd gotten all the soap out he stopped rubbing and looked at Abbey. "I know, I know, go ahead and say it. Jackass."

Abbey smiled and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Yeah, but you're MY jackass."

"You're not mad at me anymore?" Would he ever get used to his wife's quicksilver moods?

"Not at the moment, no. I know you're just trying to do what's best for me. But I'm going stir crazy here, Jed. It's been a week; I'm not taking the pain meds anymore. Why don't we go out somewhere this afternoon after church?

"Out? Where?"

"Oh, I don't know. Why don't we take the kids over to Ida's to get an ice cream?"

"You know the press will be out in full force. CJ said they've been bugging her for photo ops all week."

"Yeah, well, you've never been one to shy away from that."

"I don't like how they were when I brought the kids to the hospital, they scared them and I felt like I didn't have any control over it."

"You don't, not really. All we can do is shield them as best as we can. But, they also have to get used to it. They are the President's children and they always will be. Even when you are long out of office, their comings and goings will be of interest. How we handle that now, when they're young, will probably determine how they handle it when they're older."

"You're right. It's just so damn hard when your first instinct is to protect. I swear to God, Abbey, I wanted to walk over and shove those camera's down their throats."

"Protecting is a good thing, Jed, it's OVER protecting that gets you into trouble."

"Are you talking about them, or you?"

"All of us. You do have a tendency to overdo it at times. But I'd rather have you this way than to be indifferent. Now, back to the ice cream.  It'll be low tide so we can put the kids in their strollers and walk along the hard packed sand. The press will be able to get some pictures but they'll be at a far enough distance that it shouldn't affect Nicholas or Aislinn."

"Okay, ice cream it is then."

****

A few hours later, Aislinn and Nicholas stood with their parents at the take out window of "Ida's" waiting to order their ice cream. Jed placed the order for Abbey's coffee crunch and his own blueberry, then turned to the children.

"Okay, mommy told you what kind of ice cream there is. Tell the nice lady what you want." He lifted Nicholas to face the grinning college student, who could not believe that she was waiting on the first family.

Never one to miss an opportunity to emulate his beloved father, Nicholas took his thumb out of his mouth to give the waitress a drooling shy smile. "Booberry."

"Okay, I guess both men want the wild Maine blueberry." He set Nicholas down and lifted Aislinn so she could see. "What about you, sunshine, you want to tell us what kind of ice cream you want?"

"I want pink."

"Well, that was pretty definitive. It will be strawberry for the young lady."

Once the family had their ice cream cones in hand, they made their way to one of the picnic tables overlooking the harbor. The service was a heavy presence, however, they had not cordoned off the small ice cream parlor and people were allowed to come and go. Some people openly stared, but most just gave surreptitious glances and allowed the family their privacy. The press had not been allowed close, however, that didn't stop them from trying to get pictures from boats out on the water. They weren't close enough to bother the children, so Abbey and Jed simply ignored their presence and went about enjoying their day.

Both parents had known that cones and toddlers were not a good mix, but they were not here to make an impression, they were here to have fun and the twins were certainly having fun burying their faces in their ice cream cones and offering tastes to their parents. Abbey gave half-hearted swipes at their faces and fingers with napkins, but gave up when they took their cones and went toddling off to explore their surroundings.  She smiled as she watched them approach a couple of other children close to their own age and all four began offering each other tastes of their flavor choices.

"It's nice to be normal, " she said.

"Huh?" Jed's eyes moved from his kids to his wife.

"I said it's nice to be just a normal American family again spending a warm summer Sunday going to church, getting ice cream and listening to the baseball game playing on someone's radio."

"Mmm…" Jed agreed. It had been nice to laze around in their big bed doing the New York Times crossword puzzle together and then enjoying a big brunch with their children and his mother in law after church. "It is nice." His face closed for a moment.

"What is it?" Always attuned to his moods, Abbey knew instantly that his had changed.

"Am I taking all this away from you?"

"What?"

"My decision to run again. It's taken all this away from you, hasn't it? If I hadn't decided to run again we could be 'normal' again in about six months. We could have this all the time."

"Normal is nice at times, Jed, but normal can also get a little boring. Our life in the White House is incredible. It's exciting and fulfilling and glamorous, and just when all that gets to be too much, we can try to take off and be normal again. It certainly has made me appreciate and enjoy these times more. If I truly hadn't wanted you to run again I would have jumped on your offer not to do so, last summer. I'm not a martyr, Jed, never have been, never will be."

Jed nodded and took her hand with a smile She licked at her cone and he wondered if she knew how much she could turn him on by just watching the innocent strokes of her pink tongue lapping at the ice cream. For the first few days of Abbey's convalescence he had been too exhausted to even think about anything sexual, but with Beth's arrival things had begun to run more smoothly and now he was thinking about it. Oh boy was he thinking about it. It was amazing how much sex came to mean to a person when they knew they couldn't have it. He'd gone for longer periods of time without making love with Abbey, mainly when she was on one of her trips abroad, and he didn't always get so worked up about it. Sure he might wander the halls of the White House until all hours of the night, but that was because he missed her; it wasn't like this. When she was away he didn't have to deal with her sleeping beside him with her delectable little rear pressed back against his morning erection and the hair pulling, frustrating knowledge that he couldn't make love to her. When she was away he didn't have to watch her tonguing an ice cream cone and wishing that it were he she was lavishing with such intent enjoyment.

"Do you want a lick" she asked.

"Huh, what!" he nearly jumped, his mind going straight back into the gutter Abbey had accused it of being in that morning.

"I asked if you wanted a lick of my ice cream. You're eyeing it like you want a taste."

"Not of your ice cream" he mumbled.

"What?"

Before she could get Jed to repeat what he had said they both watched Aislinn trip over a rock in her path and fall face first in the dirt and grass. Abbey beat Jed to their daughter's side by a stride.

"Maaaama" she howled.

"Don't, Abbey." Jed gripped her elbow to keep Abbey from lifting her and instead he bent to pick up the crying little girl. He knew from experience not to let his own worry show, as that would only scare the child even more.

"Hey, sunshine," he said, as he wiped dirt off Aislinn's nose with his thumb. "Did you take a spill?"

Aislinn nodded her crying turning to sniffles at her father's calm nonchalance. While Jed held her, Abbey checked her over looking for skinned knees or even lost teeth.

"Is she all right?" One of the other mothers asked.

"She's fine," Abbey smiled. "I suspect it's more of a bruised ego, and the loss of her ice cream than anything else."

"That, and we're getting awfully close to naptime." Jed grinned as Aislinn yawned, and rubbed her pink sticky fists into her eyes.

"She's a beautiful baby. She favors you Mr. President." The woman all but batted her eyes at Jed.

"Thank you," Jed beamed. "Did you hear that Ash, this lady thinks you look like your dear old dad."

Aislinn turned in her father's arms to see whom he was talking to. The woman waved at her and Aislinn shyly tucked her head back against her father's chest.

"Beautiful and bashful," Jed laughed.

"Mama, here. Abbey was too busy watching the woman who was flirting so outrageously with her husband to pay much attention to what her son was handing her, she simply stuck her hand out, then grimaced at the cold wet sticky ooze. She gazed down with dismay at the dirt covered ice cream cone that Aislinn had dropped and Nicholas had so graciously retrieved for her.

"And he's just adorable," the woman continued on. "What a little gentleman. You've done a fine job raising him, sir."

"You've done a fine job raising him, sir" Abbey mimicked, when the woman had gone back to her friends and she and Jed were settling the kids back in their strollers and doing their best to rid both children of their ice cream remnants with baby wipes. "What am I chopped liver? They do have a mother."

"The woman was just being friendly, Abbey."

"A little overly friendly if you ask me," she grumbled.

"Is that the little green eyed monster rearing his ugly head?" He teased her, as he adjusted the kids sun hats.

"I wasn't jealous, Jed." She sniffed. " I just hate to watch people make fools of themselves."

"You really WERE jealous. YES!" He pumped his fist with glee. "I've still got it."

" I wasn't aware that you ever thought you lost it." Abbey shook her head and began pushing her stroller forward. Jed followed right after her with boyish enthusiasm. Just as they'd expected both kids were fast asleep before they even made it to the lighthouse.

****

Leo McGarry stood on top of the grassy knoll in front of the guest cottage. He'd been gone for over a week, gone at the insistence of the President. Gone so that the President could help his wife recover and regain her strength without any other agenda's dragging at him. Obviously things had gone well on that front. When he'd first gone over to the Bartlet's cottage he had found Beth O' Neill tucking her grandchildren into their cribs and had been told that Abbey and Jed were taking a walk on the beach. Now here he stood at sunset watching them bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun. Abbey was barefoot and wore faded jean cutoffs and a pale yellow tank top with the arms of a navy blue sweater dangling over her shoulders. Jed was also barefoot and he wore his favorite old worn khaki shorts with the corny "Worlds Greatest Dad" T-shirt Abbey had gotten him from the twins for father's day this past spring. He watched Jed pick up a stick and throw it out into the surf for Max to fetch. The big dog took off into the waves and returned to Jed's feet to drop the stick before giving his big hairy body a thorough shake sending seawater everywhere. Jed and Abbey's shrieking laughter carried over to him on the wind and he couldn't help but smile wistfully at the fun they were having. It was so nice to see Abbey up and active again. Watching her, anyone would be hard pressed to believe that she had almost died just a couple of weeks ago. Leo swallowed tightly at the reminder of that night. Back in D.C. he'd had nightmares for a week re-living that storm tossed evening. Nightmares not only of Abbey dying, but also of what happened to Jed after she died. The slow, agonizing dissolution of a man.

"Go get it Max!" Jed's exuberant voice brought Leo back to the present and he watched for a few more minutes longer as the first couple walked hand in hand pausing only to throw the stick to their dog. He didn't want to intrude or take away any of these last moments of their vacation. After all, he was here to take Jed away to California.

****

Later that evening, after doing the dishes together, Abbey sent Jed out to the porch while she made coffee. Sensing that her daughter and son in law needed some privacy, Beth went up to her bedroom to read and said she would listen for the children. When the coffee was finished Abbey poured them each a steaming cup and made her way out to the porch. She handed Jed his mug, but didn't join him on the swing. Instead she moved forward to the porch rail, setting her coffee down and leaning forward on her hands facing out to the sea. It was a poignant moment. Jed was leaving in the morning; their summer was over. There would be no more long lazy days reading in the sun together, or building sandcastles with their children. No more evenings playing backgammon, scrabble, cribbage and hearts. No more socked in foggy day chess battles. It was time to go back to the real world. Tears stung her eyes and she swallowed hard refusing to give in to them.

"Abbey?" She felt his hands on her hips, his breath warm against her ear. "You look so sad right now."

"I'm okay. I'm just going to miss you."

"You'll be joining me in a week."

"You know what I mean. I'm going to miss the way we are here. I'm even going to miss Nurse Jed."

"That's Dr. Bartlet to you" He growled. "And I thought I annoyed you by behaving like a mother hen?"

Abbey chuckled and turned in his arms to stroke his cheek softly. "You did, but it was also kind of nice watching you with the kids and having you take care of me. You really are so good with them, they just adore you."

"Don't sound so surprised. We do have three other children together," he grinned, playing on their earlier conversation.

"I'm not surprised. It's just that it would be very easy for you to stay immersed in being President and leave the child rearing to me."

"Hey, that's not how I operate, babe. You know that. I had just as much to do with creating those children as you did." He placed his palm on her flat belly. "I admit you had to do all the hard work in bringing them into the world, but now that they're here I want my share of the responsibility and the joy, at least as much as I can. I just hate leaving you before your follow up exam."

"I'm fine, Jed. I have my mother here and Izzy is coming back tomorrow. I'm sure everything will be fine with the follow up and I'll be joining you next week. You just knock'em dead in California."

****

A week later, just as she'd planned; Abbey arrived at the bustling hotel suite her husband was occupying in San Francisco. He had spent the previous week campaigning all over the large state and now that was culminating with the start of the Democratic National Convention. When she and the children arrived he was speaking at a breakfast and it was Leo who had seen her first. She had seen the questions in his eyes but thankfully they were left unasked and she was left to unpack and settle the children in their room in peace.

Instead, Leo geared his questions to Jed. "I just saw Abbey up in the room," he said, as Jed entered the lobby.

"Oh good, she's here." There was real excitement in his voice and he began to walk fast toward the elevators.

"Yeah, she's here. Is there something wrong? Something we should know about?"

"Wrong, what are you talking about?" Jed hit the up button.

"I don't know. She looked different from the way she was at the beach. Tired, preoccupied. "

"I don't know. She hasn't said anything." He strode down the hall and opened the door to the suite. Senior staff members were perched on the available seating in the sitting room going over schedules and speeches. Lily Mays was there working with Abbey's schedule for the week, but Abbey was not in the room. With a quick greeting, he walked past them and entered the bedroom. Abbey was unpacking and when she turned to look at him he knew exactly what Leo meant. This was not the same woman that he'd left a week ago, bursting with a healthy vitality and a light tan. She was pale and drawn and there were soft bruiselike smudges under her eyes.

"Abbey?" the concern was evident in his voice and she knew the questions were coming. "Is something wrong?"

"Now that's a hell of a greeting," she attempted lightness and failed miserably.

"You look exhausted. Is everything okay?"

Tears burned at the back of Abbey's throat at his worried frown and the concern in his voice. How easy it would be to unburden herself to him, to wrap herself up in his comfort. Her eyes moved past her husband though, over his shoulder to the staff working hard in the next room and re-considered. How selfish would it be of her to ruin this moment for him, for all of them? This was the event they'd been waiting for all year, she couldn't destroy it, and she knew that her news might very well destroy everything.

"I'm fine, Jed." She forced a smile and moved forward into his arms. "It was just a long flight." She held tightly to her husband, taking comfort even if he didn't know that he was giving it, and if he felt her shaking slightly in his arms he didn't let on, he simply let her hold on to him as if she would never let him go.

TBC...