Jed sat alone in the elegant hotel suite. He eyed the bottle of champagne chilling on ice and the flowers by the bed. He had meant this to be a romantic evening for he and Abbey, a reminder of past trips to New York City. Trips when they would fly out on the shuttle for a Broadway show, dinner and dancing at "The Rainbow Room" until all hours, and a knock your socks off intimate conclusion, away from the children and away from pagers. Now he was glad that he had convinced her to go ahead and return home to take care of Nicholas. Their son's fever had spiked dangerously high and he could see that Abbey was nervous about it. They both knew the boy was in good hands, but as Abbey always said, "no hands are as good as a parent's hands when a child is sick." And so they had agreed that she would fly home. There was a part of him who needed her more tonight than he had ever needed her before but there was also a part, an even bigger part of himself that needed her far, far away where she would not be tainted by the stench of the crime that had been committed tonight. He remembered the horror in her eyes when she thought he had been responsible for the death of Marcus Hughes and that man had done unspeakably horrific things to her. He wasn't sure if he could stand to see any censure in her eyes. Not tonight.

He had just said good bye to her in the hall when Leo had approached him. He knew it was time to make the decision that had been plaguing him for days now. He knew what he had to do but a part of him was still fighting against doing it. He wanted to take Shareef down, wanted to bring him to justice, but he wanted to do it the American way in a court of law. He knew that was no longer possible but that didn't keep him from wishing that it could be so. He didn't like the idea of this vigilante justice at all, no matter how much the man deserved what he was getting. He knew that Leo had no such compunction. As his chief of staff had stood before him shooting down all his doubts, Jed had thought for one brief moment how much easier things would be if he were more like Leo. Decisions like these did not weigh Leo down. He didn't look at things through the past, the present and the future. Leo didn't get caught up in the quagmire of complex moral philosophy the way that he did. He didn't let things tear and claw and eat him away with guilt. Leo had always said that it wasn't easy to be Jed Bartlet and tonight Jed had to concur. "It sure as hell isn't easy to be me," he said to himself, as he lit a cigarette.

Leo thought his hesitation was due to his religion. In part it was. His religion taught, as most religions did, not to kill. He had joked with Abbey before about being a sinner and going to hell because he knew that his sins had been small, minor transgressions. He didn't steal, he didn't cheat on his wife, and he didn't kill. At least he hadn't as of yet. Things were going to get a lot murkier after tonight. But, it wasn't just the demands of his religion that was holding him back. Ordering the hit made him feel like he was wallowing in the mud with Mafia dons, drug kingpins, and terrorists. How could he look anyone in the eye and say that he was any better than the criminals in those evil groups were? How was he not lowering the standards of a great nation by committing this foul act?

Leo had stood there waiting anxiously for the OK to move forward. Great men must make the difficult decisions and move on, Jed thought. Surprisingly enough, he couldn't remember who said that, but it did give him pause. He had to think like a leader now, not as just a man. He had to do what was best for his country. In his mind he could see it all so vividly. He could see the Golden Gate Bridge crashing down. He could see hundreds of cars plunging into San Francisco Bay. He could see terrified teenagers, and babies in car seats. He could see the confusion on the faces of the elderly and the horror of young parents whose children were seat belted in the back. He could hear the screaming and the fear and even more than that he could hear their accusations. "You knew…you knew what this monster was planning and you let him go." It was that scenario that had made up his mind. "Take him". He had said it firmly. The decision was made, it had been his and his alone and he would take the blame for it when the time came. In the end he had done the only thing that he could do and still be able live with himself. He had sacrificed one life for lives of many. He had put his country above personal convictions because in the end Leo had been right. He had won.

* * * *

Abbey strode up the stairs of the Harmony Point farmhouse. It was late but the lights were on in the hall and in the nursery. She found Izzy in the nursery rocking Nicholas while one of his agents gazed down at him. Aislinn, it seemed, already had her father's ability to sleep through any chaos.

"How is he?" Abbey asked, as she walked through the door and knelt beside them.

"He's so listless, ma'am."

Abbey nodded; Nicholas had barely looked her way when she knelt at his side. "Hi, Nicky, mommy's home. I hear you aren't feeling so good, sport." She placed a hand on her son's forehead and gave a sharp intake of breath when she felt how hot that he was. The fact that he was not sweating was not a good sign.

"Take his pajamas off Izzy, we don't want to hold in the heat. Just leave him in his diaper. I'm going to get my bag."

Abbey might no longer have a medical license but that didn't mean that she had gotten rid of her bag and it didn't mean that she wasn't going to use her knowledge when it was needed. She returned quickly and gently slipped her digital thermometer into Nicky's ear. Her eyes widened when she read the results, 105.3. She was a doctor, she had mothered three older children through childhood fevers, she knew they could spike higher than adults could and then come down just as fast, but just seeing that reading caused her heart to race.

"Izzy, he's burning up," she said anxiously. "Go run me a tepid bath, not too cold."

"Yes ma'am." Izzy left for the bathroom, while Abbey filled a dropper with baby Tylenol. She placed it between his lips and squirted gently. Nicholas gave a soft weak cry as he swallowed the liquid.

"I know, baby, I know your throat hurts." Abbey began to examine his ears and his throat, and satisfied that he didn't have something like strep throat, or scarlet fever, she stripped his diaper off and brought him to the tub.

As soon as his small hot body hit the cooler water Nicholas began to cry. It was such a weak pitiful cry, nothing like his usual demanding bellow, and when his lips began to tremble and his teeth to chatter it pretty much broke Abbey's heart.

"I'm sorry, Nicky," she choked out as she poured more of the water over him causing him more distress. "Mommy has to get this fever down." She turned to Izzy. "Go tell the agents that if I can't get his fever down in a half hour I'm going to bring him in to the hospital." Izzy nodded and departed the room.

When Abbey finished with the cooling bath she laid Nicholas on a towel on the floor and began to give him an alcohol rubdown. The toddler weakly thrashed trying to get away from her.

Izzy came back in with a fresh diaper and the thermometer. When she saw Abbey struggling she knelt on the floor to hold Nicholas while Abbey rubbed him with the alcohol.

"Poor little guy," Abbey said softly. "He has no idea why I'm doing this to him."

"Do you think it's working?"

"Hard to tell. He feels cooler but that could be from the water." Abbey took the thermometer and placed it in the baby's ear. "102.8," she said. It's still high but a more manageable high now. I don't thing we'll have to rush off to the hospital. I'm going to try to get him to go to sleep now."

"Ma'am do you realize that you're still in your dress?"

Abbey glanced down at her silk de la Renta. It was pretty much ruined, covered with spots from the water, the alcohol and Nicky's drool. She hadn't even thought about the fact that she was still dressed for the theater.

"Well, I guess this one won't go up for auction," she said philosophically. "I'm going to go throw my robe on and get him a bottle. I'll be right back."

When she returned, Abbey shut all the lights off in the nursery save for a spinning night light that cast the moving figures of stars and moons over the walls and ceiling. She turned on Kenny Loggins "Return to Pooh Corner" and sat with Nicholas in the rocking chair giving him a bottle. It had seemed like a long time since she'd had to hold a bottle for him, but he was just too weak to do so now. Both kids were still allowed one bottle before bed. It was a sort of security issue, and even though Nicholas had already had his earlier Abbey knew that he would be more comforted and easier to get to sleep with the bottle. She traced her fingers gently over his little snub nose, the tiny dip between his lower lip and his chin that he had inherited from his father, and the little dimple in his right cheek that he had inherited from her. She stroked his silky blond eyebrows and pushed his hair back off his face, all the while singing along softly to the music that played on the CD. It didn't take long before he fell asleep, one arm over his Tigger and his mouth open and drooling on her breast. Abbey smiled down at him and still she rocked and sang.

* * * *

With Nicholas finally asleep in his crib with Tigger, Abbey made her way wearily to the bedroom her only thought to climb between the sheets and get some sleep. However, as she began to turn down the bed covers insidious flashes of Marcus Hughes sneaking into her bedroom caused her head to whip around to make sure that he was not standing there menacingly in the doorway. Panic began to claw at her insides as she realized that this was the first time she had been here alone since the attack. Always before Jed had been with her, and just recently her parents had been spending time at the farm visiting after coming to help with the twins during the summit. Tonight was the first night she was truly on her own. Well, she wasn't completely on her own Abbey told herself. Izzy was just down the hall and her agents were right outside, she was foolish to be worried. Still, all those people had been present before and Hughes had still found a way to get to her.

"You're dead," Abbey said firmly to the ghost of the man who had haunted her for so many years. She wasn't sure whom she was trying to convince of that fact, him or her. She was angry with herself for allowing her rapist to still plague her with fear and even more angry that she was still susceptible to that feeling of helplessness and panic. "You're dead and you can't hurt me anymore."

Still, despite the conviction in her voice Abbey couldn't help but peer out the door and down the hall looking for any movement. Feeling silly for worrying about a dead man, she turned back into the bedroom and made her way toward the bed. Suddenly it did not seem quite so inviting, not when she was all nerves and jitters. Instead she ran herself a bath, poured herself a snifter of brandy and put a soothing Chopin CD on the stereo. A little while later with the baby monitor up on the sink, Abbey slipped her robe off and sank under the bubbles into the luxuriously warm water. She took a sip from the snifter she had set on the tubs edge then leaned back and closed her eyes allowing the combination of alcohol, warm silky water and soft classical piano music to work their magic and relieve the tension in her body. The combination worked just fine until she re-entered her bedroom wearing just a big fluffy towel wrapped under her arms. The CD had ended and the house was quiet save for the soft moan of the wind. She had just slipped into a simple sleeveless white cotton nightgown nd began to draw her silk robe around her waist when a loud bang against the house caused her gasp with fright. Max eyed her with concern his big head tilted to one side as he tried to figure out why she had cried out. Abbey took comfort from the fact that her dog was not reacting to the noise as if it were an intruder.

"Look at me jumping like that over a little wind." She tried to laugh off her unreasonable fear. " I'm just a big baby, aren't I Max?" She bent to scratch behind the dog's ear. Max moaned with pleasure and just as Abbey was thinking how foolish she was being reacting this way there was another bang against the house and all the lights went out. In an instant she was plunged into silence and darkness. Terror gripped her, as her first thought was that someone had cut off the power. Oh, God, how could this be happening again? Her second thought was that she had to make her way down the hall and check on the kids, she had to get to her children. It was a moonless night and she had to make her way gingerly toward the bed in the pitch black. She felt her way along the bed to the nightstand. Inside the nightstand was a lighter and on the stand were stress relieving and sensual aromatherepy candles. It was a good thing that she loved the romance of candlelight she thought, as she lit one of the candles. Then, with candle in hand she and Max made their way down the hall. The flickering light from the candle caused shadows to move along the walls and floors, several times generating a horrible suffocating panic in Abbey. She wished with all her heart that Jed were with her and her heart began beating erratically as she approached the nursery. She closed her eyes briefly as a flashback of what had happened just a few months before assailed her, of finding the dead agent on the floor and hearing her screaming children. Tonight there was no screaming.

Abbey quietly opened the door to the nursery and quickly moved to check on each of her children. Aislinn was stretched out on her back sound asleep. She had kicked all her covers off per usual. Abbey took a moment to pull the blanket back up over her daughter before moving to her son. Nicholas also slept, but his was a more restless, noisy sleep. Abbey had put him to bed in only a diaper and tank top in an attempt to keep his fever from spiking again. He lay on his belly with his knees drawn up and his little bum in the air. His thumb was in his mouth and he was so congested he had to breath through his mouth, around the thumb. Abbey could hear the wheezing in his chest with every breath that he took. She ran a gentle hand over his back. He was still hot, still feverish, but nothing like what she had come home to. She stood for a moment in the nursery undecided as to whether to stay with the children, or find out what was going on. Finally she decided to shut Max in the nursery with the kids and made her way downstairs with the aid of the candle.

As soon as she opened the door to the porch she felt the cold blast from the wind, heard the tree limbs creaking and moaning. She wrapped her robe more tightly around her as the wind whipped across the porch slamming the door behind her. "Is everything all right?" She asked the agents.

"Yeah, the wind knocked the power out, that's all. I sent Michael to go and start the emergency generator so you should have power back any second."

"There's a storm coming over the bay, " Abbey told him. She had grown up by the sea and knew how quickly these squalls could form. She turned from the moonless, starless, dark sky and gave the agent a long measured look. "You're sure it's the wind?" There was still a niggling of doubt inside her and she needed reassurance.

"Yes, it's been knocking down tree branches against the house and it brought one of the wires down.

Satisfied that nothing nefarious was going on Abbey made her way back inside. She knew with the way that the adrenaline was rushing through her veins that sleep was out of the question. After making herself a cup of hot herbal tea, she stretched out on the couch and began to read. She must have been more tired than she thought for it didn't take long for her eyes to get heavy with sleep.

She felt the sharp edge of a knife pierce the soft skin of her throat, the man's breath was hot and fetid against her cheek. Terror rose within her as she knew her fate was sealed. This evil beast of a man was going to rape her in front of her husband and then he was going to slice her throat. He could not allow her to live; she knew that with every fiber of being. Jed wouldn't leave, she wanted him to leave the room, she couldn't stand for him to see what was going to happen to her, but he had refused. Hughes issued his disgusting order in her ear again, this time running his tongue wetly over her cheek. She swallowed against the nausea that was overtaking her. She saw the anger and the frustration and finally the tears in her husband's eyes as she moved to do as she was instructed, knowing that when she did this she was going to throw up. She started to go down onto her knees…

"Maaamaaa…Maaamaaa!!!"

Abbey awoke with a start, her heart pounding terribly. For a moment she was disoriented, but after taking in the book that lay on her chest she realized that it had all been a nightmare. She had just been reliving what had happened to her. As she began taking deep breaths to try to calm herself she saw a bright flash of lightening.

"Maaamaaa!" The cry had not been part of her nightmare. It was Nicholas and he was crying for her. Abbey raced up the stairs, a part of her still back in the frightening depths of her nightmare. She flung open the door to the nursery and found Izzy trying to calm both children.

"I think the storm woke them," she told Abbey.

Abbey nodded and felt Nicky's forehead. He was a little cooler and clammy to the touch, his hair damp against his forehead. His fever had broken and he had begun to sweat profusely. By the time Abbey had cleaned him up with a cool wet cloth, changed his diaper and his pajamas and given him some more cold medication, Aislinn was already starting to doze back off. The baby girl was still not fully recovered from her own bout with this virus.

"I'm going to take him downstairs, are you all set with Aislinn?"

"We'll be fine, you go ahead."

Nicholas had awakened fussy, cranky, and miserable. Nothing Abbey did seemed to please him. She walked with him in her arms, rocked and sang to him, gave him his favorite toys to hold but nothing seemed to help. She looked tiredly at the clock seeing that it was after 3 a.m. and she sighed with exhaustion knowing that her son was nowhere near to falling back asleep. She finally caved in and turned the TV on popping a copy of "The Jungle Book" in the VCR. The movie seemed to do the trick. Nicholas curled up on her lap in the rocking chair and began to suck his thumb along with the sash of her bathrobe. His glazed blue eyes focused sleepily on the TV while Abbey's head fell back and her eyes closed tiredly as she absently stroked his hair.

* * * *

Jed sat alone at his desk on Air Force One. It was just after 6 a.m. and he knew the staff had been disgruntled at such an early departure. They'd given him a clear morning schedule so that he could do a little schmoozing in Manhattan if he were so inclined. It turned out that he was not. Maybe if Abbey had stayed he might have been more receptive to a late departure, but she hadn't, and now all that he wanted was to go home and be with his family. He wanted to just be Jed Bartlet husband and father and try to forget about the moral and legal ramifications of what he had done last night. Shareef was dead. He had ordered it and it was done and he was going to have to live with that for the rest of his life. Beating Marcus Hughes to within an inch of his life and holding a knife to his throat had never felt this wrong. He knew that he could have done it, he could have killed the man to protect his wife and his family, but somehow this planned and pre-meditated murder just seemed worse. He had not slept all night and his eyes were gritty with fatigue and his chest heavy from too many cigarettes. Over and over all night long, every time he closed his eyes he saw the shock on Abdul Shareef's face as he was riddled with bullets. The man was evil. He was a killer and he deserved what had happened to him tonight. As a father Jed had to protect his family and the day that he had been inaugurated President of the United States every citizen had become his family, his responsibility. He had to make decisions, tough decisions on how best to shield them from evil. It was so easy when the decisions were black and white, it had always been so easy for him to distinguish between right and wrong, yet this situation was so different. How could something that was so absolutely wrong also have been the right thing to do?

A part of him still felt dirty from his part in the assassination and the cover up. That part of him wanted to go home to Abbey and pour his heart out, to confess to her his sins and allow himself the comfort of being held in her arms. That was the selfish part of him. The other part never wanted her to find out about what he had done never wanted her find out that she was married to a killer because right now that was exactly how he felt. He knew he wouldn't tell Abbey and it had nothing to do with security, it had to do with seeing a look of shock and disappointment and, yes, even disgust for him in her eyes. It had to do with her turning away from him and knowing that he was no longer the same man she had married. And most of all it had to do with the unselfish part of him that wanted to keep her clean and unsullied and untouched by all of this. When the news leaked, as he was sure it someday would, he didn't want anyone to be able to be able to point a finger at Abbey and say that she knew and covered it up. She had lost her medical license because of just such a situation and he would never put her through something like that again. EVER.

"Sir?" Ron poked his head in. "We're landing in about 15 minutes. Have you decided yet if you will be going to Maryland or the White House."

Jed took a deep breath, as the very real need to be comforted waged war with his need to push away and hide. "I'm going to Maryland, Ron."

TBC...