"Sir, I really don't think you should talk to him right now. Not while you are still so up…" CJ's voice trailed off as she made a grab for the President's arm and was shrugged off angrily as he strode toward the door that connected his office to that of his chief of staff.

"I'm not going to TALK to him, CJ. I'm going to knock his damn teeth in."

"Sir, WAIT" CJ gave one last attempt at stopping her boss before he flung the door open and stormed the room like a bull in a china shop. His furious gaze scanned the office wildly, and he became even more infuriated at finding it empty.

"MARGARET!" He bellowed. Margaret entered the room with wide, fearful eyes. She had never heard the President yell for her in quite that tone. Seeing him red faced and breathing heavily only increased her trepidation.

"Wh…what's wrong, sir?" Her voice trembled.

"Where the hell is Leo?" He ground out.

"He's on the hill. He has meetings this afternoon. He should be back by…" She stopped talking as the President ignored her explanation and stalked out of the room. Margaret's eyes widened further and her jaw dropped as she watched a frantic CJ chasing him down the hall.

"Sir, where are you going?" CJ called out to his back. "We need to talk." Jed stopped and turned and the overwhelming agony on his face stopped CJ in her tracks. The man was suffering the torments of hell at the moment and she didn't have a clue as to how to help him.

"I don't have an explanation for you, CJ" he spat out acidly. "But after I find my WIFE I just might have one for you." He turned and strode off toward the east wing.

God help Abbey Bartlet, CJ thought as her hand moved on it's own volition to cover her mouth. She had no doubt that if Leo had been in his office the President would have been on him quicker than the service could react. Instead, it was Abbey who was going to face that wrath. If the President's reaction to the picture was any indication, CJ wouldn't put it past him to throw Abbey out of the White House if she didn't have an acceptable explanation. She had been expecting an explosion and that was exactly what she had gotten. Still, somewhere deep inside a part of her had truly believed that the President would look at the picture and start to laugh. That he would have some completely innocent explanation of what had happened. But, that certainly had not been the case. Now, he was on his way to confront his wife with her betrayal. Nothing good could come of that. She knew the saying was "Hell hath no fury like a WOMAN…" but men didn't react much better in these situations. How many times had she watched news reports of men killing their wives for cheating? Not that she thought the President would actually kill his wife, but if Abbey were guilty of betraying him, she would probably be facing a man she had never seen before.

* * * *

After storming Abbey's office much as he had Leo's, only to be told that Abbey too was out of the building at meetings, Jed returned to the residence to await his wife's arrival.

He sat on the couch and stared down at the picture in his hand, the bile rising in his throat. He thought of Abbey, so radiantly beautiful in her white wedding gown, the candlelight catching the fiery highlights in her auburn hair. "Do you, Abigail Anne O'Neill, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to love, honor, and cherish him, keeping yourself only unto him, until death do you part?" Her sparkling green eyes had been filled with love and glistening with tears as she committed herself to him. "I do".

I do, he thought, but had she? There in front of him was Abbey kissing Leo. Leo fondling her breast and trying to hike up her dress. How far had it gone? Had she slept with him? Had she loved him? He didn't know when exactly they had started but he saw a tear drip from his jaw down onto the picture on his lap. He closed his eyes and rubbed his palms over his cheeks to brush them away. He didn't know how much longer he could bear the tight pain in his chest; it hurt just to breathe. Now he knew why they called it breaking your heart because at this very moment he felt like his heart was being broken into a million pieces. Everything he had known to be true, to rely on, had been destroyed when he had seen that picture of his wife's betrayal. His world was completely shattering and all he could do was sit and try to breathe through the pain.

He gazed down with tear blurred vision at the large gold wedding band he had been twisting on his finger. The ring Abbey had placed on his finger as a symbol of her loyalty to him. "Jed, take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity, in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit."

How could she? How could his Abigail betray him like this? He had put all his love and trust into her, into their marriage, and if he didn't have this picture in his hand there was no way he ever would have believed that she would be capable of that kind of treachery. He just could not reconcile the woman who gave up her medical license for him, the woman who had borne his children, the woman who told him that she loved him in so many little ways, the woman who made love to him with such abandon, with the adulterous woman in the arms of his best friend.

His best friend, Jed thought with a snort. He couldn't look at that picture, at the way that Leo was holding Abbey without the overpowering urge to plant his fist in the man's face. He thought of the other night, of seeing Leo gazing in on Abbey rocking Aislinn to sleep. How could he have been so blind? There were so many signs that he had misread. Leo's solicitousness during Abbey's pregnancy, the way he had hovered over her and worried along with him about how small she was to give birth to twins. Jed had teased him back then about being a mother hen, but now he knew that the feelings were obviously more than that of a caring, worried friend.

Then there were the admiring looks. There had been so many over the years but Jed had never really paid much attention to them. He was used to the way men ogled his wife; he even secretly took pride in it knowing how he was envied that Abbey was his. But, was she? Had Leo sampled his wife's lovely charms and been unable to let her go? He groaned aloud at the pain that that image caused. The image of Abbey laying under Leo arching her back toward him and moaning the way that she did when she wanted it bad. The image of her calling out Leo's name as he slid inside her, slid inside his WIFE. Jed's stomach clenched with a dry heave and he kicked out furiously at the coffee table knocking it over with a bang. He didn't know why, maybe because the level of betrayal was not quite so high, but his feelings toward Leo's disloyalty were much less crushing than what he felt about Abbey. Leo's deception caused fury and a need for punishment, Abbey's had completely staggered him and brought him to his knees. Had he been played a fool? Was he a cuckold?

Finally, Jed placed the deplorable picture on the table where Abbey always set her purse when she returned home. He didn't want her to be able to miss it when she came in. Then he sat on the couch for he didn't know how long, waiting for her arrival. Afternoon turned to dusk and he simply sat there numbly not even noticing the passing of time.

* * * *

The door to their bedroom opened and Jed heard the kids fussing in the hall.

"Stay with Izzy" Abbey called back over her shoulder. " I'll be right back over to play with you in a few minutes. Mama just needs to change out of her work clothes." She shut the door behind her and kicked off her high heels with a sigh. Moving into the room she set her purse down then leaned over to turn on the little table lamp. Jed heard her sharp intake of breath as she saw the photo. He watched her reach for it, her eyes widening, her hand covering her mouth."

"Oh my God," she moaned softly. "How did they find out?"

Her reaction spurred Jed out of his numb state and he stood up. "So, CJ was right. It isn't doctored."

Abbey jumped at her husband's voice and looked up to see his stony eyes shooting daggers at her. He watched a guilty flush rise in her cheeks and never had the urge to strike her been stronger inside him. He clenched his fists at his side and knew he had to get out of that room before he did something that he would regret for the rest of his life.

"No, it isn't doctored," she admitted. "But, let me explain."

"Explain what?" His voice dripped with icy disdain. "How you fucked around with my best friend behind my back? I sure hope that he was worth it, Abbey." He didn't even look at her as he passed her on his way to the door.

"Jed, wait. Please let me explain," she pleaded.

He turned back to her in the doorway his eyes so filled with suffering it brought tears to her eyes.

"I love you, Abbey. More than anyone on this earth, I love you. I guess my love has never been enough for anyone, has it?"

Abbey rushed forward to grab at his arm as he turned to leave. "Jed, please stay here and talk," she beseeched him.

"I can't talk to you right now, Abbey, " he seethed, as his sadness turned back to anger. He shrugged violently out of her grasp and Abbey watched in stunned disbelief as her husband slammed the door with all his might. She stared at the closed door for a few moments in complete shock over what had happened.

How could Jed, her brilliant, funny, impossibly carnal husband, even think that she would want another man, let alone LEO?

Her first reaction was one of outrage. She wanted to hunt her husband down and slap his face for not believing in her, not trusting her. After all these years of marriage how in the hell could he not believe in her fidelity to him? He was the man she had been in love with since she was 19 years old, the father of her children, the man who's arms she wanted to die in when she was old and gray. How could he ever believe that she would betray him? A part of her wanted to let him stew in his own misguided accusations but she couldn't do that. The part of her that loved him unconditionally wouldn't let her. That part of her kept conjuring up the image of him as he had spoke of his love for her, of the abject suffering in his eyes and the heartbreaking sadness of him thinking that his love had never been enough for anyone. She looked back down at the picture and her hand began to shake. It was pretty damn incriminating. If she had seen Jed in a clinch like this with another woman, she might have jumped to the same conclusions. As much as she wanted Jed to come to the determination that he could trust her, on his own, Abbey knew she had to go to him. She had to find a way to make him listen to what had truly happened that night. In the long run he would still be plenty angry, but at least he would not be tormented by the thought that she had betrayed him. Oh Leo, she thought, we're in big trouble.

* * * *

It wasn't very difficult for Abbey to ever find her husband. Where his agents were, he was, and right now they were standing outside of his study. She opened the door slowly not sure of what she would find. Jed stood leaning against the fireplace. In one hand was a picture of the two of them in eveningwear on a cliff overlooking the ocean at their anniversary party last summer and in the other was a glass of scotch on the rocks. Abbey saw him flinch when he heard the door shut but he didn't look up from his picture. She knew he heard her approaching but he still only stared at the picture. However, just as soon as she got close enough to touch, his voice stopped her.

"I just need to know. Did you sleep with him?" The words came out tight and choked and Jed held his breath awaiting her answer.

"Jed…" she touched his arm and he whirled around on her his Scotch sloshing over his glass to spill over the front of her blouse.

"DID YOU SCREW LEO!" He shouted it at her, but Abbey refused to match his ire. Instead she ignored her soaked blouse and took a step forward to cup his cheeks in her palms. She stared deeply into his tormented blue eyes.

"No," she said simply. "No Jed, I never screwed Leo. You're the only man that I've ever SCREWED." She started to turn away from him as she felt her anger rising but he gripped her shoulder and kept her facing him.

"Then why did you kiss him like that?"

"It wasn't like what you saw in the picture."

"Christ Abbey, he had his hands full of your tits and ass, just how wasn't it like what I saw?"

"Jed, shut up and stop being such a JACKASS." She watched his eyes widen with surprise and he stopped his belligerent tirade. "There, now that I have your attention, sit down, stop accusing me, and I will explain to you exactly what happened that night."

TBC...