Abbey returned to the residence after an early morning breakfast speaking engagement with the International Red Cross. It had been a week since the Rosslyn anniversary and she felt as if an incredible weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It was amazing how much better she felt now that she was not being plagued by those horrible nightmares.

"Hello, Izzy," she smiled at the nanny as she entered the nursery. "Ah ha, here are my little angels." She leaned down over the crib rail to scoop Aislinn up into her arms.

"They just woke up from their morning nap, ma'am," Izzy turned to look at Abbey while continuing to change Nicky's diaper.

"It's a beautiful, sunny day. I think I'm going to take them out for some fresh air.

++++

Abbey pushed the stroller through the White House gardens, careful to stay behind the shrubs and trees. She knew that on the other side of those bushes and behind the iron fence lay the throngs of tourists who clamored to get a peek at the First Family. She glanced up at the roof of the White House aware that, because she and the babies were outside, the snipers up there were on full alert. Behind her, the agents assigned to her and the children walked at a discreet distance. She tried not to allow the claustrophobia of it all get to her. Tried not to compare this stroll with the relative freedom they had been allowed at the beach. She had been right to tell Jed that if they were to spend five more years here they would need to purchase a little getaway farm. Her children could not grow up this way without any sense of freedom.

+++

Jed watched his staff depart the Oval Office after a mid- morning meeting and moved to the glass doors that led out to the portico to take a quick breather before digging into the briefing file for his next meeting. A smile touched his lips as he watched Abbey pushing the stroller across the lawn, still wearing one of the slim fitting, short-skirted First Lady suits she favored and that gave the religious right a coronary. This one was in a pretty shade of deep purple. He opened the doors calling out her name and motioned her to come in.

Abbey breezed into the Oval Office bringing with her the scents of sunshine and flowers.

"I have some time before my next meeting. Do you have time for a little visit?" He asked.

"We can stay for a little while," she began to unbuckle the babies from the stroller. "I'm going to have lunch with the twins, then spend the afternoon in my office."

Jed took a soft blanket from the back of the stroller and laid it on the floor to sit the babies on. Abbey left for a moment to get some water from the bubblier just outside Mrs. Landingham's office. Good lord, she still referred to it that way. She wondered if she would always think of it as Mrs. Landingham's office. She noticed a stack of papers and correspondence on the desk. She took a moment to neaten the papers only looking up when Charlie entered.

"Can I help you find something?" He asked.

"No, I just couldn't help but notice how things are piling up here. You really need to find a new secretary."

"I've had plenty of inquiries but he refuses to interview anyone."

"He, meaning my husband?"

"Yes."

Abbey sighed. Jed always took things very hard and this was not going to be an exception. Not only would he see hiring a new secretary as trying to replace Mrs. Landingham, he also hated change and she cringed when she thought of what a new secretary would have to go through in establishing a new routine with him.

"I'll talk to him, Charlie," she promised.

"Abbey! Abbey! Come quick!" The demand was loud and it was urgent. Abbey felt her heart race wondering how one of the babies might have injured themselves. She raced in through the door to see Nicholas on all fours weaving back and forth as he tried to propel himself to get the rattle Jed held just out of his reach. Her son gazed up at her with his big blue eyes, looking a bit startled at the predicament he had gotten himself into. "He's going to crawl," Jed said with excitement as Abbey sat beside him on the floor.

"Come on, Nicky," Abbey urged her own voice touched with excitement, "Come get the rattle from Daddy." Nicholas gave a frustrated half cry then moved his hand forward which was quickly followed by his knee to keep himself from falling and he had actually moved! He looked up at his parents with surprise and they both laughed at the expression.

"Keep coming, son," Jed enthused. Leo stood in the still open doorway watching the little family scene for a moment. Abbey's skirt had risen up her thigh and Jed's hand rested familiarly on her knee. Both wore broad smiles of parental delight. Leo felt that dull ache begin to spread in his chest and he cleared his throat.

"Leo," Jed turned to him. "Come in, Nicholas just learned how to crawl." Leo couldn't help but note his old friend's beaming pride in his son's accomplishment. Leo smiled down at the adorable baby boy and his sister who was, at the moment, trying to mimic her brother and get her share of attention.

"That's great, but you do realize that you have a meeting with the Sierra Club members in about a half hour. We should go over the briefing." The statement came out harsher than he had planned causing Abbey to give him a startled look and Jed to flash him an angry frown.

"I'm well aware of my schedule, Leo," Jed retorted, standing to help Abbey strap the babies back in their stroller. Abbey gave Jed a questioning look to which he responded with a shrug. He didn't know what was up with Leo lately, but he was about to find out.

++++

Once Abbey had gathered all the kid's things together and had begun to head back to the residence for lunch, Jed turned on Leo.

"What is up your ass lately?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Leo. Lately you've had some kind of bug up your ass every time I am with my children. Do you have a problem with me spending time with them?"

"Of course not."

"Then what is it, Leo?"

"It's nothing, sir."

"I'm not letting this go Leo, so you may as well spill the beans. What is it that is pissing you off?"

"All right, you want to know? Sometimes I don't think you realize how lucky you are to be President. You don't always put your heart and your soul into the job, especially ever since Abbey got pregnant."

"I can't believe you are saying this to me, Leo. Of course I put my heart into this job, but my heart also belongs to my wife and my children, ALL of my children."

"I just don't think it was an opportune time to have babies. We have all this fallout from the MS and now we have to start thinking about re-election. You need to be focused."

"Jesus, Leo, do you think Abbey and I planned this? Do you think she purposefully forgot to bring her pills to Asia so she could lure me into having another baby? Do you think I should have waltzed into a pharmacy with the crew from CNN trailing me and bought a box of condoms?" Jed's voice dripped with exasperated sarcasm.

"No," Leo said, eyes averted. But you could have left her alone for one damn week he thought.

"It was an ACCIDENT, Leo, but I'll tell you it is one that I am extremely grateful for. And you didn't seem too upset while Abbey was pregnant. You hovered over her like a mother hen."

"I did not," Leo frowned as he remembered his fear for his friend's diminutive wife every time he saw her with her belly swollen so big with Jed's babies. "I was just worried about something happening to her."

"I realize that, and I am grateful for your concern, but many other men have been able function as President AND be a father. It's not good to be completely focused on one thing, Leo. You need to live a balanced life. Right now, your life is too geared to work. You live and breathe this job. Hell man, you need a woman. I wish you'd let Abbey set you up with one of those women she is always bugging me about."

"No way," Leo groaned.

"Come on, don't you miss having somebody there at the end of the day?" Leo's mind moved to Abbey standing at the bottom of a staircase with a radiant smile on her lips as she moved forward to embrace him, but then it wasn't he that was holding her, kissing her, it was Jed. It would always be Jed.

"No," he scowled. "I may watch you and Abbey and have a touch, just a touch, of envy that you get to start again, but that isn't for me. I sucked at it the first time around, I'd suck at it again. To be honest, it is a relief not to have to worry about Jenny anymore. I don't have to worry about working late and forgetting to call her; I don't have to live with her silent treatments and guilt. I can work late in peace. I don't need another wife."

"Sounds damn lonely to me."

"It would," Leo grinned. "You're the one that mopes around here like a little boy when Abbey is gone for the night."

"I love my job Leo, and I take it very seriously. You know that Abbey and I understand that it has to come first most times. But, I am also a husband and father and you are just going to have to understand that. My wife and children are my world, Leo, and when I leave here, they will go back to being the biggest part of my life. If I hadn't believed that I could be a good President AND a husband and father, I never would have decided to run again. Understood?"

"Loud and clear."

++++

Jed was in the middle of his meeting when Ron, Nancy, and Admiral Fitzwallace burst in through the door. He knew right away that something major was up, as nobody ever just burst in on the President in the Oval Office.

"What is it?" He asked flatly.

"Sir, we have just received word that bombs have exploded at three airports around the country, one in Dallas, one in Minneapolis, and one in New Jersey. We also have reports that there was a car bombing at the Governor's mansion in Sacramento."

"Simultaneously?" Jed asked.

"To the minute. This is a concerted effort, sir."

"Do we know anything about casualties?"

"Not yet sir, although we do know that the Governor's mansion was empty at the time of attack."

"Do we know who it is yet?"

"Not yet," Nancy responded, "but we have a couple of good ideas." An aide burst through the door and spoke into the Admiral's ear. His face fell and he turned to look at the President.

"Sir, another bomb has just detonated at Chicago's O'Hara."

"Jesus Christ," Jed groaned, knowing the extreme amount of human traffic that made its way through that busy airport at any time of day. "We need to get to the situation room."

"No sir, we are under attack. You need to get to the bunker." Ron grabbed his arm.

"I'm not hiding out like some fucking ostrich in the sand while my people are under attack," Jed exploded. "What the hell kind of example is that?"

"There is no question about this sir, you WILL go into the bunker. You'll be able to monitor things very well there," Ron stated.

Jed could see there wasn't going to be any arguing but he had a few orders of his own to issue first.

"I want to evacuate and close down all the airports in the country, and put the military on a code red and defcon 4. AND, before I go hide out, I want to go on TV and talk to the country."

"All due respect sir, what exactly are you going to say?" Sam asked, as the white faced senior staff members had begun to enter the room. "We don't know anything yet."

"I will tell them to be calm and know that we are taking care of things."

"Sir, you have exactly 10 minutes to do this speech, then Ron is going to put you in the bunker," Nancy stated bluntly. "We have just received intelligence information that there is a bomb in DC that will be detonating sometime in the next 5 hours."

"In the airport?"

"We don't know where, sir. And this bomb is not like the others, this is a dirty bomb." Nancy's tone was calm but he could see the fear and urgency beginning to flash in her eyes.

"A dirty bomb?" Toby asked.

"It means it's full of radiation," Jed said with gravity. "If that thing goes off, thousands of people will die from the radiation alone. CJ, I want you to quickly pull one cameraman in here. Ron," he turned to the agent, "my wife and children."

"Don't worry," Ron's voice was calm, "right now agents should have Mrs. Bartlet and the babies on their way to the bunker. Gina has Zoey en route and Ellie, Liz, and Liz's family are being brought to safe shelters as we speak. We are also evacuating the White House." Ron saw the relief in the President's eyes before it was again replaced with steely determination.

"Tell me, Fitz, what are we doing to find this bomb?"

"We're evacuating Congress, the State Department and all federal office buildings so the bomb sniffing dogs can go in. They are already at the airports."

"It's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, isn't Jed said grimly.

"We'll find it, Mr. President."

Jed heard the rush of activity as all non-essential personnel were evacuated from the building and through that clamor, he heard his wife's raised voice. It was a tone he knew well, exasperation and anger, but this time mixed with a liberal amount of fear.

"Let GO of me! I want to see my husband!!"

TBC...