"Why didn't you ever tell me that you saw Leo and me that night at the DNC fundraiser?" Abbey asked bluntly. She and Jenny were sipping iced tea on the patio of Jenny's garden.

Jenny had known that question was coming ever since Abbey had called wanting to see her. Leo had told her about the picture and Mallory had told her what had happened on the mother/daughter outing, and since Abbey was not one to let sleeping dogs lie, she knew it wouldn't take long for some type of confrontation. "What was I supposed to say, Abbey? I'm sorry that my husband has wanted to know what it was like to sleep with you for over 20 years. I'm sorry that he tried to rip your dress off and take you right in the middle of a big political fundraiser?" Jenny's eyes filled with tears at the memory of that painful, humiliating night.

Abbey reached out a hand to cover hers. "You have nothing to be sorry for. That isn't why I came here, Jenny."

"I want you to know, Abbey, that I wouldn't have let it go any further. I wouldn't have let him hurt you. I started to go to help you just as you backed away and let Leo have it. I've never seen a man deserve a wallop as much as Leo did that night. Seeing what he did to you was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as I was concerned. I told him that night that if he didn't go away and get better I was going to file for divorce."

"I know. Mallory told me. But why, Jenny, why did you put up with it for so long?"

"The other women?" Jenny asked sadly.

"Yes. How could you stand it?"

"Because the reason that Leo was so messed up, that our marriage was such a mess was all because of me. It was all my fault."

"Because you were in love with Jed?" Abbey asked gently.

"Yes," Jenny whispered with shame. " He was my first love, my first real crush and my best friend. We got so close working for Father Flynn, but I knew he was off limits. I knew he was thinking of joining the seminary and I was a good Catholic girl, I wasn't going to get involved with a man who'd had a calling for the priesthood. But, as I got to know Jed he began to tell me about all his doubts. He knew he hadn't had the calling. He knew that he was joining the priesthood for all the wrong reasons, to please his mother and piss off his father, and he was beginning to wonder if those were good enough reasons. I had hope then, hope that when he finally made the decision not to join the seminary, which I knew he would do sooner or later, that I would be the one that he would turn to. That he would one-day wake up and not see me as his good old pal Jenny, but as a desirable woman. I never got that chance. We went to that party together and he met you, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"He never knew how you felt, Jenn. He never meant to hurt you. He feels terrible about that. If he'd know how you felt he never would have come to you gushing about me and how I was his message from God telling him not to join the priesthood."

"I know. I don't blame him. I might have hated YOU for awhile, " she smiled sadly, "but I never blamed him. I knew that he never saw me the way that I saw him. He was a totally different man after he fell in love with you; happier, more confident, eager to face the future, and so full of life. You two were a perfect fit. I learned how to deal with your relationship because, as much as it hurt, I still wanted to be his friend. He was too important to me for me to lose that friendship."

"God, that had to be so hard. We were pretty into each other back then."

"Back then?" Jenny laughed. "You mean that's changed?"

"I guess not. But I mean you were with us a lot at that time."

Jenny, remembering how it had been to be around a couple who was falling in love. They were always holding hands, always touching and kissing. Even when they were studying in the library they held hands or played footsie under the table.

"It was hard, but not as hard as being a part of your wedding."

"Oh Jenny," Abbey groaned. "I hadn't thought about that. If I'd known how you felt I never would have asked you to be one of my bridesmaids. I mean Jed didn't have any sisters and you were so close to him and you and I had become friends so that's why I asked."

"I know, " Jenny smiled. "It's OK. I really was honored that you thought of me that way and I did love how happy that you made Jed. I loved him. I wanted him to be happy; nobody deserved that more than he did. I thought it would be OK. I thought I was over him. I hadn't counted on it hurting as much as it did. And that's where Leo came in. We were paired up bridesmaid to usher. We were both hurting, me over Jed and he because his father had just recently committed suicide. I knew that he was Jed's best friend and subconsciously I think that I thought I could use him as a substitute. I married him thinking that I would have a husband just like Jed."

"They're such different people, Jenn."

"I found that out soon enough, and when I did I spent years trying to turn poor Leo into Jed. I never let Leo be Leo. I was always comparing him to Jed and somehow he always came up lacking. It's no wonder he turned to the alcohol."

"Jenny, Leo was already drinking pretty heavily when he came back from Vietnam. The seeds for alcoholism were rooted deeply in his childhood. You didn't turn him into an alcoholic."

"Well I didn't help matters, did I? Maybe I could have nipped it in the bud if I'd been a better wife, if I'd loved him more than I did, if I did the things that he wanted to do."

"What kind of things are you talking about?" Abbey gave her puzzled look.

"You know…sexual things." Jenny actually blushed. "I wasn't… you know… a very sexual person. It's not that I hate it or anything it's just that I've never had a very strong sex drive and Leo's was fairly normal I guess." This conversation was obviously difficult for the straightlaced Jenny. The Jenny who'd tried to talk Abbey out of getting the tattoo on her hip, the Jenny who had been shocked by some of Abbey's amorous answers to the Cosmo questionnaire last summer. "Leo was always wanting to experiment. He wanted to do some things that I just couldn't bring myself to do things that I heard him asking you to do. He knew that your sex life with Jed was a little more…how shall we say, adventurous, because one time when we were staying at your house he went into the master bath to get some aspirin for me and on the way there he saw one of those sex books on the bookshelf in your bedroom. You know the one with all the…positions and stuff."

"Kama Sutra," Abbey nodded.

"He showed it to me. He wanted to ask Jed if we could borrow it and I was horrified. I told him there was no way that he was bringing that pornography into my home."

"Oh Jenny, it's not pornographic, it's really about the art of making love and how to enhance your pleasure by using your entire body, along with different positions and techniques. You should have let Leo read it, it even teaches a man how to hold off his orgasm in order to give his partner more pleasure." Abbey gave her a lascivious smile and Jenny couldn't help but grin; though her cheeks had turned rosy red with embarrassment.

"You see, you're the kind of woman that Leo wanted, a woman who could be open to all that kind of stuff. I couldn't be that, so I really can't blame him for turning to other women. I stayed with Leo even though he cheated on me because I felt guilty. If I'd been able to love him for who he was and give him the intimacy that he wanted he wouldn't have had to turn to the bottle for comfort and he wouldn't have had to turn to other women." Jenny couldn't bring herself to admit to Abbey that she'd always wondered if she would have enjoyed sex more with Jed. If she would have been able to be more relaxed and open or if it was simply in her nature to be more reticent or repressed as Leo would often say.

"Even if you did have differences in your libido levels he still never should have cheated on you. It was wrong of him to sleep with other women while he was married to you. You were his WIFE, Jenny; he owed you his loyalty and his respect. I used to look at you and wonder how you could do it. How could you live with him and sleep with him knowing that he'd been with other women. It would have KILLED me."

Jenny gave Abbey a long look knowing that what the other woman said was true. But, Abbey was one of the lucky ones. She was as sure of her Jed as any woman could be of her husband. "You wonder what happened to my self respect?

"I didn't say, Jenn. I'm not here to judge you."

"But you were thinking it. Believe me, I used to wonder the same thing. But you see, if I'd left Leo I would have had nothing. I wasn't like you; I didn't have a career to fall back on. Hell, if you'd ever had to leave Jed you could have supported yourself and the girls easily, you've always made more money than he did."

"Leo may not have been the greatest of husbands but I KNOW that he would have seen to it that you and Mallory were well taken care of."

"Money," Jenny snorted. "Money means nothing in this town. In this town it's all about power and prestige, who's in and who's out. I liked my life as Mrs. Leo McGarry. I loved being a Washington hostess and having my house filled with all the movers and shakers of the government. I liked working on my charities and going to events at the White House. I really could see myself as the First Lady someday. If I had divorced Leo I would have lost all of that. I would have become persona non grata. No more invitations to glitzy embassy parties, no more White House teas, and no more calls to head up the latest fashionable charity. That's the way that it would be now if I weren't a friend of yours and the Presidents. I will tell you though, that I was not a fool. I'd been hearing the rumors of Leo's womanizing for quite a while, but this was Washington and rumors were always flying. Then, one day I was going into town to have brunch with a friend. Leo was supposedly out of town giving a speech somewhere in the mid-west, but as I drove by the Watergate I saw him coming out with a young woman. I was stunned. For a minute I couldn't believe what my eyes were telling me. I pulled over to the side of the road and I watched him. There was no doubt about it. He gave her a long kiss, the kind of kiss you give your lover, helped her into her car, picked up his suitcase and headed for his car. I think I must have sat there crying for more than a half-hour. When he came home later that day I had moved his things into the guestroom. I didn't sleep with him again until after he went through rehab."

"Jenny, did you know how Leo felt. About me, I mean?"

"Yeah, I guess I did," Jenny said quietly. "He never spoke about it to me but I could see the way that he looked at you sometimes and I could tell from the way that he talked about you that he thought you were pretty hot."

"Hot?" Abbey laughed.

"Yeah, after all you were the one who brought home that pornographic sex book," Jenny grinned. " You were sexy and Leo has always gone for sexy, but you were also unattainable so it was almost like he had a crush on some Hollywood moviestar that he was never going to have. You were Leo's fantasy. You were also his best friends wife so I never really had any fears that he would act on his feelings for you."

"God, you must have hated me at times."

"Yeah, at times I did," Jenny said honestly. "But they were just brief moments. You are who you are. I knew you never encouraged Leo and how could I blame you for falling in love with Jed? He was such an easy guy to fall in love with, you were just the lucky one in that he fell madly, wildly, and passionately in love with YOU."

"I'm sorry, Jenny." Tears now filled Abbey's eyes. "I'm sorry that your entire marriage was estranged. I'm sorry that you've never known that kind of wild, passionate love. You don't have that with Jeffrey, do you?"

"Is it so easy to see?"

"Only for one who knows what that kind of love is like."

"No, what I have with Jeffrey is comfortable, it's easy, and there's none of the turmoil that I shared with Leo."

"Sounds kind of boring if you ask me. Jenny, don't limit yourself. We only get one life, go out and grab the bull by the horns. Don't commit yourself to a man until you find one who is absolutely, crazy in love with you, a man who needs you so fiercely it will take your breath away." This was the same advice that Jed had given her at the state dinner last winter. They really were two halves of a whole.

"I don't think that I'm the kind of woman to rouse those kind of emotions in a man, and if I did it would scare the hell out of me."

"I think every woman has that in her. Just let yourself go. Let yourself feel. I'm telling you, Jenn, every woman deserves to be insanely loved at least once in her life."

It was so easy for her, Jenny thought. As much as Abbey's profession called for her to be cool and level headed, in her private life she had always been emotional and tempestuous and ruled by her heart. Maybe that was what drove men crazy about her, that combination of cool competence on the one side and unrestrained sensuality on the other. Maybe that was why Jenny's ex-husband found her so damn irresistible.

* * * *

"Abbey, I still don't think this is such a good idea." CJ was pacing in the First Lady's bedroom while Abbey tucked her hair into the short blond wig Millie had given her.

"It'll be fine, CJ."

"If something happens to you out there and we don't have an agent with us the President is going to blow a gasket. He'll KILL me. "

"He won't KILL you, CJ. He might fire you, but he won't kill you."

"That's a comforting thought, ma'am. Thanks."

"CJ, don't be such an old lady. Nothing is going to happen to me."

"I just know that somehow this is going to backfire on me. Somehow, someway we're gonna get caught. I always get caught," she was babbling now, as she always did when she was nervous. "Back when I was in high school I could never play hooky. I…"

"CJ"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Yes ma'am."

As Abbey finished fixing her wig there was a knock on the door. It was Millie and she was dressed just the way that Abbey had asked her to be, in black jeans and a black sweater. It was the exact clothing that both she and CJ were wearing. When Abbey left the White House it would be as Dr. Millicent Griffith.

"Abbey, are you sure that you want to go through with this?" Millie asked. "I mean I could follow Danny with CJ."

"No way. I came up with this plan and I'm damn well going to be a part of it. That picture has caused major emotional upheaval in my family and I want to know just who is responsible for that. I'm not going to let some lily livered, gossip hungry, S.O.B use ME to ruin Jed's re-election chances. My husband wants four more years and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that he gets them."

Both Millie and CJ knew what she had left unsaid. That she wanted to find out who had caused her husband all this unneeded stress and heartache and make them pay for that. Abbey was just as protective of Jed as Jed was of her and she wasn't going to let anyone get away with hurting him.

"Speaking of that husband," Millie said. "Jed is going to kill you if he finds out that you went out of the White House without Secret Service protection."

"Well, it's not like he hasn't done it before."

"To go shopping in a bookstore and into 'Victoria's Secret' to buy you a naughty nightie, NOT to drive around DC and go to some nightclub."

"Will you both stop worrying. Jed is giving a speech in Florida; he won't be home until well after midnight. Besides, I can handle my husband, he's hardly the homicidal maniac that you two are making him out to be."

Millie gave CJ a worried look over Abbey's head but there wasn't much they could do. When Abbey made up her mind there was no changing it.

"OK, we better go." Abbey stuffed a small digital camera in its carrying case. "Don't forget Millie, don't answer the door. You're me for the night."

"What about the kids? Don't you usually put them to bed."

"It's all taken care of. I told Izzy I have a horrible migraine and that I don't want to be disturbed tonight. You can watch TV in here. I left you some snacks in the little fridge. Now we really have to fly. Wish us luck."

"Good luck," Millie sighed. "Be careful."

With Abbey gone, Millie grabbed a yogurt and plopped herself down on the presidential bed. It had been nothing to sit on Abbey's bed back home at the farm; she had done so often. But, this was the presidential bed and sitting here watching TV was something that she was going to be able to boast about for some time to come. Quickly bored with the offerings from the TV world, she got to her feet to check out the DVD that lay on top of the player. "Unfaithful", she mused, how appropriate for what was going on at the moment. Evidently it had been the last DVD the couple had watched since it was still in the DVD player. Millie pressed play, then laid back on the bed to watch.

* * * *

Jed entered the residence whistling a happy little tune. An unexpected night off. A tropical storm had closed off any flights into Tampa so he was off the hook for his speaking engagement. Knowing that Abbey was off tonight as well; he headed toward the bedroom with a bounce in his step. Since the birth of the twins she tried to really limit her nightly speaking engagements so that she could be there for supper and baths and tucking in. That was definitely good news for him. He opened the door to the bedroom slowly. It was dark but the TV was on and Abbey was lying in bed sleeping. He was surprised to see that she was watching "Unfaithful" again. They'd just watched it quite recently and neither of them had particularly enjoyed it. The subject matter had just been a little too raw at the moment and it had been hard for either of them to get into a movie where they could feel neither compassion nor empathy for the main character. He tossed his suitcoat onto a chair and began to undo his tie as he approached the sleeping form of his wife.

"Abbey," he said softly. "Abigail. Abbey, I have the whole night off. Got any ideas about what we might do?" He bent down to press a kiss to her cheek.

"Mr. President!" Millie awoke with a start and jumped at the touch of his lips to her cheek.

"Millie!" Jed gasped, jerking his head back. "What are you doing in my bed? And where the hell is my wife?"

TBC...