Anyone who worked in the White House would've paid good money to watch their somber, uber-professional chief of staff chase a giggling sixteen-month-old around the living room floor. He let Nora stay a scoot ahead of him, and sometimes he didn't have to try hard; she was young and nimble and fit into crannies Leo didn't even see.

CJ's eyes burned Leo's neck from the bottom of the stairway. Nora stretched her arms out to him. "Daddy, up."

He wiggled his lips in his best Groucho Marx. "Daddy up?" He shrugged and stood. "OK."

She gave him the look CJ gave when she was exasperated with him. "Daddy! Nora up."

"Nora up....?" He put his hands behind his back.

"Up, pease." "L" after consonants was difficult for her.

Leo bent down and picked her up. It had been so many years, so many dips and turns in the road since he'd done this, and he'd imagined he was done forever. But Nora fit in his arms in a way Mallory had never seemed to, and he had started believing in second chances again. "Come on, Nora. Let's go see why Mommy's mad at me." He came to the foot of the stairs. "Hi."

CJ smiled at Nora, but not at Leo. "Hello."

"You seem a bit...not pleased with me."

"'A bit not pleased'? No wonder the President made you chief of staff, Leo." He did not reply. She shrugged and chipped a flake of paint off the banister. "Did Josh talk to you today?"

He shifted Nora to his other arm. "They'll be fine."

She nodded. "They always are." Twice a year, Josh and Sam's son was carted back to California for a week with his biological mother, and the deputies fell apart. CJ stared over Leo's head out the sunburst window at the top of the door. "Call Mallory."

Leo blinked. "Did she call?"

"No."

"Then I don't--"

CJ blew her bangs off her forehead. "Because we go through this every time, Leo. Angela comes to carry off Sebastian; Sam and Josh flip out; and you come home and lavish all this attention on Nora."

He stroked Nora's hair. She looked between her parents with widened eyes, just enough aware of something wrong to maybe want to cry. "And you're saying this is a bad thing?"

"I'm saying you have two daughters."

Leo's shoulders fell. Relations between Mallory and himself had been strained since she found out CJ was pregnant. Most days he claimed she was pushing him away, but sometimes he had to admit that maybe he was the one doing the pushing.

Nora reached for her mother. Leo handed her over and returned to the living room, sitting beside the phone and rubbing his pant legs. The phone looked like alien technology. When he picked up the receiver, he tried to decide if he'd willed himself to forget Mallory's number, or if it were really a thing he no longer knew, but it came back to him, and he was struck by the way his brain had attached meaning to what was, after all, a random string of numbers.

"Hello?" She sounded exactly like her mother, and Leo held the phone away from his ear while he reoriented himself in time and space.

"Hey, Mallory."

"Dad." She seemed unshocked. "What a coincidence."

"Oh?" He leaned into the cushions.

"I--" She sounded embarrassed. "I was about to call you."

"Really?"

She sighed. "Yeah. I need -- what are you guys doing tomorrow night?"

"I don't -- hang on." He covered the mouthpiece. "Claude?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do we have plans for tomorrow night?"

She laughed. "We seldom have plans, Gerald. But somehow, plans always find us."

Leo uncovered the phone, shook his head, remembered Mallory couldn't see him. "I think we're free."

"Great. Good. That's -- come over to my place for dinner."

"You're going to cook for me?" This she had refused to do while he was single.

"For all of you," she corrected. "Is eight o'clock okay? Or is that too late for Eleanor?"

He smiled, though he didn't understand why Mallory insisted on calling her half-sister by her given name instead of the nickname they had agreed on. "If you don't mind her falling asleep in the middle of dessert."

"No -- yeah. It's fine." He couldn't remember her ever sounding so uncertain.

"You okay, baby?"

"I, uh...I just really need to talk to you."

A cold fist clenched around Leo's stomach. "Mal--"

"It's fine, Dad, really. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay."

"And, Dad? I love you." She so rarely said that anymore.

"I love you, too. See you tomorrow."

Mallory hung up. Leo returned the phone to the cradle and stared at the painting on the wall. It was an innocuous, unremarkable landscape CJ had picked up while bumming around Europe the summer after Berkeley, and it was soothing the way tapioca and old bathrobes are soothing.

"Gerald?" CJ called from the top of the stairs, "you talk to Mallory?"

He exhaled slowly. "Yeah. That was a great idea you had there, Claude. We're having dinner at her place tomorrow night."

"Super," she said decidedly. "Now get up here and tell me if this thing my mother sent is too weird to hang on Nora's wall."

The wall hanging was ketchup red with a four-foot-tall clown head laughing obscenely, its mouth like a gaping wound. Leo recoiled when he saw it, his hand over his mouth. "Shit!" he gasped.

"Leo!" CJ jerked her head toward Nora, playing with the cat in the middle of the room.

"Sorry. What is your mother thinking?" He took a cautious step forward, half expecting Bozo to lunge out of the linen bindings and swallow him whole.

"She's thinking she'd like to bring some cheer to her granddaughter's life, which is not, you know, an unadmirable goal. She may be...somewhat misguided as to the best way to do that, but we shouldn't ignore the sentiment just because her choice of gifts scares a sixteen-month-old."

Leo raised his hand weakly. "CJ, her choice of gifts scares me."

The press secretary looked at Nora, unaware of anything unusual occurring around her. "She doesn't seem traumatized," CJ pointed out.

"Not now. Her parents are with her; the lights are on; she's wide awake. At two in the morning when everything's dark, it's going to be like sleeping under the gaze of Satan's gatekeeper."

CJ leaned back, eyebrows raised. "Well, that was a...thank you for that image, Leo. Now that you have effectively ruined my chances for getting any sleep tonight..."

They pulled the clown off the wall and folded it. "Take it to the basement," CJ told Leo. "I'm going to write Mom a thank-you."

He frowned. "You're sending her a thank-you for that...that thing?"

"It's a gift, Leo. You send a thank-you even if the gift is awful. Didn't your mother teach you etiquette?"

"I'll write a thank-you," he muttered as he lugged the wall hanging to the basement. "'Dear Amanda, thank you so much for the demonic clown. We're hanging it directly over Nora's bed, so that when she ends up in therapy someday, she'll have something other than her parents to blame.'"

"I heard that!" CJ called from the living room.

"Too honest?" He shut off the basement light and tugged the door shut.

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'Thanks for the wall hanging; everyone here is great.'"

He shrugged and grabbed the file on 855 from his briefcase. "Tuh-may-toe, tuh-mah-toe, Claude."

**********

Saturday was a quiet day in the White House, and Leo determined that he and CJ would have no problem getting away in time for their dinner with Mallory. If only he could decide whether he wanted to make it.

By the time they pulled up outside Mallory's house, he had decided this was a terrible mistake. "This is a terrible mistake." Well, didn't mean to say that out loud, but...okay.

CJ barely looked at him as she unbuckled Nora from her car seat. "It's too late to be thinking that, Gerald. We're sort of...here."

He ran strap of the diaper bag between his thumb and forefinger. "I...I've been thinking it. I just--"

"Leo."

"I know. She's my daughter, and I love her. But whatever she has to say tonight, I don't think it's going to be good, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it."

CJ hit a button on the door and the locks popped up with a soft click. "Things have not been great between you two lately. She's reaching out to you, Leo; don't lose her."

In the thirty seconds that passed between CJ ringing the doorbell and Mallory coming to the door, Leo allowed himself to hope that all she wanted was to introduce them to a new man in her life. She hadn't dated much since the questionable Greg fell by the wayside three years ago. But she opened the door and looked everywhere but at her father's face, and Leo felt a familiar sinking in his stomach and knew his first guess had been correct. He stepped forward and hugged her. "Hey, baby."

"Hi, Dad." She pulled away and bit her lip and still would not make eye contact. She brightened some as she turned to CJ and Nora. "Hi, CJ."

"Hey, Mallory." They embraced awkwardly around Nora. The women were almost friends these days, but there were still tense moments, especially when Mallory allowed herself to notice how much better Leo was as a father to Nora than he had been to her.

Mallory held out her hands for Nora, and CJ handed her off. "Good evening, Eleanor," Mallory said, and Leo was struck again by the bizarre formality she always exhibited toward her young sister.

"Hi, Mallie," Nora greeted her.

Mallory smiled at Leo over the top of Nora's head. "Bring me anything?"

Leo held out the sparkling pear cider. "Will this go?"

"Go where?"

He rolled his eyes. "With whatever we're having for dinner."

"It's perfect, Dad." She stepped back from the door so they could come in. "Come on in." They trudged down the front hallway like a little parade, CJ watching Nora anxiously, Mallory trying not to smile at CJ's nervousness, and Leo trying to decide just how disastrous tonight would end up being. "I can take your coats," Mal said once they were in the living room. She draped their jackets over her free arm, and CJ stepped in closer.

"I can--"

"Nah." Mallory smiled at Nora. "We're fine, aren't we, Eleanor?"

Nora nodded. "We fine."

Mallory laughed as though against her will. "Sam must love you -- no verbs." CJ continued to hover half a step behind them. "CJ, it's fine. You and Dad go sit, and Eleanor and I will put the coats away." She arched an eyebrow. "I promise not to drop her."

CJ sqeezed Leo's hand as they sat down in the living room, CJ in the armchair, Leo next to her at the end of the love seat. She tried to read his expression, but he made his face as blank as he could. Mal came into the room, leading Nora by the hand. She sat next to Leo and propped Nora between them; Nora peeked around Leo to make sure her mother was still around, then began tracing the outlines of the flowers in the upholstery with her fingers.

Mallory watched her for a minute. "Doesn't say much, does she?"

CJ smiled, but Leo felt his defenses rising. "She says what she needs to, and no more. I know quite a few people in this town who could take lessons from her."

"Calm down, Dad. I didn't mean anything by it." She plucked at the front of her dress. "How are things at work?"

CJ groaned. "I don't know what they're putting in the water in the press room, but the entire corps seems to have gone dumb recently." She frowned. "Even Danny. I swear, that question he asked me today about President Ganesha--"

"I heard that," Mallory said. "It seemed...suspect."

The press secretary dispelled the corp with one sharp swipe of her hand. "It becomes harder and harder to care as the weeks pass. We're not interesting to them anymore. They're already sniffing around for stories about 2006."

Mal grimaced. "I can't even plan for next semester's classes, let alone an election three and a half years from now." Something crossed her eyes then, something that felt to Leo like loss or bewilderment, then she cleared her throat and stood hastily, putting her hand on the back of the love seat to regain her balance. "I'm going to go check on dinner."

CJ and Leo frowned at each other as the young teacher disappeared into the kitchen. "Is this going well?" CJ whispered.

Leo wrapped his arm around Nora's shoulders. "I can't tell."

Mallory popped out of the kitchen again. "Dinner's just about ready. Why doesn't everyone come over to the table?" When they reached the dining room, they discovered that she had put out the good china and crystal she'd inherited from Jenny's mother, and she lit a pair of black pillar candles in silver candlesticks, and the whole affair became elegant -- and alien.

Dinner was of the kind had among strangers, or the most casual of accquaintences. Mallory steered the conversation to bright, frivolous topics, and every time Leo or CJ tried to reach something deeper, she gently but firmly backed them out again. Candlelight flickered off the heart-shaped diamond and ruby pendant at her throat, and she touched it frequently, her trembling fingers drifting across the stones as though for strength.

Only once, after the duck with plum sauce and asparagus but before the tiramisu and coffee, did Mallory let Leo touch a nerve. "Sebastian's gone this week," he said.

Mallory sipped pear cider, grateful for the way the carbonation burned the back of her throat. The last stone in the rocky path of Mallory and Sam's relationship had been replaced after the arrival of Sebastian, who was impossible not to love. "Angela?" Her father nodded. "I should -- maybe I'll call Sam tomorrow." And changed the subject with finality.

After the dishes had been cleared away they continued to sit at the table, clutching their coffee cups and waiting for Something Big to happen. Nora had been asleep for some time, curled up on the love seat in unencumbered bliss. Mallory cleared her throat once, then again, and turned her coffee cup in a slow circle on the table cloth.

Leo placed his hand over hers. "Mal--"

"I'm moving to New Guinea."

Out of the corner of his awareness, Leo realized he'd moved his hand away, and that CJ had gasped. His eyes were glued to Mallory, whose eyes were glued to the bottom of her cup. "What?" he whispered.

"I didn't--" She raised her eyes; they were bright with tears. "It wasn't supposed to come out like that." A gasping laugh escaped her and she wiped at her eyes. "Dad, CJ, next month I will be going to New Guinea to teach."

"Why?" Leo's voice was strangled, and his hands shook.

"To teach," she repeated.

"No, I -- why?" Something high above Leo's head teetered, swayed, began to topple.

She pressed her palms together as though praying. "Because I..." Her hands dropped back to the table. CJ wanted to touch Mal's hand, offer some assurance, but she couldn't quite reach, so she took Leo's hand instead. "My life has become a series of slow collapses. Somehow, there has to be a way to put something back together."

"In New Guinea?"

She nodded. "Yes."

Leo looked out the window into the night. It didn't provide him with answers. CJ looked at her Mallory. "How long?"

"Five years."

Leo stood so fast his chair toppled. Nora turned in her sleep. "Five years! Mallory, what the hell kind of -- next month? That's not -- when did you decide this?" His words beat each other up, held each other down, hurt his mouth as they leapt out at her.

CJ touched his arm -- brushed it, really. "Leo, sit down," she murmured.

But Mallory had anticipated the outburst. She shrugged and flicked the corner of her napkin. "About a month ago."

"A month!" Leo sat because he had to, because his feet were no longer things that could support the weight of his body. "Why the hell didn't you tell me earlier?"

She rolled her eyes. "Because I knew that, whenever I told you, you would be like this, and I didn't want to deal with it. I love you, Dad. But I'm a grown woman now, and I've made my decision."

Leo wanted to argue with that, but nothing she had said was untrue. He suspected some sort of underlying logical fallacy, but his head hurt too much to get into it now. Dimly, he was aware that CJ and Mallory were still talking, subdued now, Mal describing the program and how she found it; CJ asking questions about New Guinea and what had led Mallory to her decision. He lurched to his feet and the two women looked up at him, only faintly worried. "I'm going to..." He swallowed. "I have to..." Leo swallowed again and gestured in the direction of the door. "Air." As he staggered to the door, he felt a stabbing desire to take Nora with him, but she had her head pillowed on her hands, and a tiny smile curled her lips, and someone should find a little peace tonight.

He'd been sitting in the car for ten minutes when CJ and Nora came outside. CJ didn't say anything, but she smiled sadly and rubbed his arm as she backed the car out of the driveway and headed toward home. Leo stared out the window, his hands clutching each other in his lap, and he tried not to think about the distance between the US and New Guinea, between himself and his daughter.

**********

A man who might have been Leo McGarry in a former life dragged himself into the West Wing at seven the next morning. There was no reason he *needed* to be there, but CJ had sat across the breakfast table looking like she Wanted To Talk, and Nora had watched him like she needed the bland assurances children do, and he had to get out of the house. Noting with a sad, absent smile that Josh's and Sam's lights were both on, Leo locked himself in his office and kept his head bent over his desk for the next six hours.

When he staggered his way into Sam's office at one-thirty, after fifteen minutes protracted staring out his window, he found the speechwriter doing much the same. "Sam?"

He looked up and smiled distractedly. "Hi, Leo."

"You were here early."

"The internal clock, you know?" He clicked his pen a few times, then tucked it into his shirt pocket. "You get so used to getting up before god, you keep doing it even when--" He swallowed hard. "Even on the weekends."

"Yeah." Leo sat in Sam's visitor's chair, and Sam raised his eyebrows and waited for the chief of staff to speak again. "Listen, Sam, did -- have you talked to Mallory lately?"

"Not for a couple months, no." Sam shook his head. "Why?"

Leo sighed. "She...there's this program. American teachers go to underdeveloped countries--"

"I'm familiar with it. It's a great program."

"Mallory's joined it." Leo kept his eyes on the floor.

"Oh?" Sam asked as neutrally as possible.

"She's leaving next month for New Guinea. She'll be gone for five years." Leo was proud of himself; he'd said all of that without choking, and his voice was amazingly calm.

Sam's eyes widened. "Are you okay?"

Leo held up his hand. "I'd rather not -- I'm not ready to talk about it yet," he said.

"Okay."

"You should call her." Leo rubbed the surface of the desk. "Talk to her, you know, before she goes."

"I will. And, Leo, if you change your mind about wanting to talk -- I mean, I know the situations aren't exactly analogous, but Josh and I are always here."

"Thanks, Sam." All the pictures of Sebastian that usually sat on Josh's desk were on Sam's for the week. "I think...I think I came in here to apologize."

The speechwriter leaned back. "Apologize? What for?"

"It's--" He cleared his throat, embarrassed. "It's almost a joke around here, the way you and Josh act when Sebastian's gone. I guess last night I realized how unfunny it is."

Sam nodded and took his pen out of his pocket again. "Yeah."

They sat for a moment, not speaking, then Leo sighed again and hauled himself to his feet. "I'm going back to my office."

"Okay. Hey, Leo?"

He stopped. "What?"

"Maybe you should, I don't know, take Mallory out for a late lunch today or something."

He smiled faintly. "Maybe I will."

**********

Toby looked mildly irritated with the world. Toby always looked at least midly irritated with the world, and the fact that he didn't look immensely irritated with the world was a favorable sign to CJ. "Hey, Toby," she said, trying to sound casual.

He looked up and took in her ensemble: black jeans; a light blue sweater worn at the elbows; and a sixteen-month-old. "Hi, CJ," he said cautiously. "I didn't think you were coming in today."

"I didn't. I mean, I'm not. Not officially, anyway. Here, I mean." She bit her lip and looked at the floor.

"Okay." The communications director came around his desk and nodded at Nora. "May I?"

"Oh! Sure." CJ nudged her. Nora hadn't decided yet if she was afraid of Toby or amused by him, but she felt safe enough, with her mother standing right here, to go to him.

He grunted as he picked her up. "Hey, Wonder Bread." Where he came up with these nicknames, CJ would never know, but he called Sebastian "Potato-Head Junior," so she supposed she could live with "Wonder Bread."

"Hi." Nora said, dropping her head against his shoulder.

Toby smiled at CJ. "So what, uh, doesn't bring you in today?"

She frowned at her hands. "I wanted to talk to you. Can we, maybe, take a walk? Outside?"

"I don't know, CJ. There's, there's trees, and...fresh air outside."

She groaned and grabbed his arm. "I promise you won't die."

He harumphed and hitched Nora up on his hip. "We'll see."

She didn't say much until they arrived at the Mall. Halfway there, Nora demanded to walk, and CJ's thoughts were too torn between trying to formulate what she wanted to say to Toby and making sure Nora didn't get too far ahead to be much of a conversationalist.

It was just past four, and the late afternoon haze made the city seem dreamlike and surreal -- not the government, but the dream of what government was supposed to be. She leaned back and propped herself up on her elbows, watching Toby try to engage her daughter in a conversation about Wittgenstein.

"We never talk anymore," CJ said.

"Clearly," Toby said, setting Nora down in the grass. "She's a Stoic, that one."

"Toby." She rolled her eyes. "You and I. We don't talk anymore."

"Don't we?" He put on his vaguely surprised face.

"Toby, don't." She sat up, frustrated by his evasions. "Let's not play this game. You and I haven't talked -- I mean really talked, the way we used to -- since I got involved with Leo."

He brushed grass off his hands. "That is true. Although, at the time we stopped talking like we used to, I, uh, had no idea it had anything to do with Leo."

She looked out over the Mall. "No," she said, "I guess you didn't."

He glanced over at her. "And now?"

"Leo isn't talking to me."

Toby frowned. "In general, or about something in particular?"

"About Mallory. He won't talk to me about Mallory."

"What about her?"

"She's moving to New Guinea."

"What in God's name for?" Nora looked up, amused, at the sharp rise in Toby's voice.

"To teach."

He considered. "Damn."

She nodded. "And Leo won't talk about it." Toby was silent. "Toby?"

"I, uh -- you know he might not."

"He's in pain, Toby. His daughter -- she'll be gone for five years. How can he not need to talk about that?"

"He needs to, definitely." Toby nodded. "I'm just saying, uh, you shouldn't put too much money on his actually doing it."

"And why would that be?"

"He's a man." Toby watched the way the wind shoved the blades of grass over. "He's Leo McGarry, and talking about things is not his way."

"No, it's not." CJ turned her head so Nora wouldn't see the bitterness in her eyes. "Burying everything until it explodes is his way. The bottom of a bottle of scotch is his way."

"He won't," Toby said, and touched his fingertips to her forearm. "Not again. He loves you and Nora too much to--"

"He loved Jenny and Mallory, too!" Her voice was sharper than she'd wanted it to be, and she pulled air in over her tongue to cool her rage.

Suddenly Nora was standing beside her, wiping away tears CJ hadn't noticed falling. She shook her head. "No. Mommy, no."

CJ wrapped her arms around her daughter. "I won't be the next casualty."

Toby smiled. "I know you won't."

CJ loosened her grip on Nora and really looked at Toby for the first time. "You look good today, Toby."

"Thank you."

She leaned closer. He was blushing. "Toby, do you -- you wouldn't happen to have a date tonight, would you?" His blush deepened. "You do!"

An almost involuntary smile lit his face, and he looked her straight in the eye. "I do."

"With whom?" Then he reached over and tousled Nora's hair, and CJ knew Toby Ziegler had been taken over by an alien life-form. "Toby?"

"Robin."

"Robin?" Her eyes widened. "Robin McCall?"

"The one and only."

"She remarried," CJ said.

"And then she redivorced."

"And she finally succumbed to your innumerable charms?" President Shepard's press secretary had spurned Toby's advances only slightly less frequently than CJ had spurned Danny's.

"She realized that the only way to get rid of me was to go out with me."

"So you'll have one date, and you'll change her mind."

For the first time, he looked uncertain. "I hope to."

She smiled and smoothed his lapel. "You will. No woman who goes on one date with you can turn down a second."

"You did," he countered, scowling.

"You and I didn't have a date, because you were drunk and didn't really mean it when you asked."

"You don't know what I meant." But he was smiling.

"Your wife did." She squeezed his shoulder. "You'll be great."

They stood, and Nora ran off ahead again, and this time CJ let her go. Toby's eyes never stopped moving, watching the flow of DC life the same way he would watch the flow of his own blood. "Look at it, CJ," he said, "Look at this city. I never thought I'd love a place as much as I love New York, but this city -- murderers, politicians, humidity -- and I can't imagine leaving."

She smiled and nodded as Nora came back and grabbed her hand.

"Talk to Leo," Toby said as they stopped in front of the White House gate. "Just don't be surprised if it's not--"

"I know."

"Coming back in?"

She shook her head. "No, we're going home." She sighed. "Thank you, Toby, for everything."

His self-deprecating shrug wasn't convincing. "That's what old friends are for, right?"

"Right." She nodded. "Have a terrific time tonight. Don't, you know, hit Robin with a carrot or anything."

"I will never forgive Andi for telling you that story," he muttered.

"Catch ya later, Pokey!" she called.

He flipped her off as he walked through the gate.

**********

Nora had declared war against lima beans, and lima beans didn't stand a chance. CJ had exhausted her arsenal when Leo walked through the door and surveyed the battlefield with a tiny twinkle in his eyes. "Hey, honey. How's it going?"

She shoved her hair out of her eyes. "Leo McGarry, if you've fathered a child who resists vegetables as strenuously as you do--"

"They're lima beans, CJ." He set his briefcase on the table and kissed them both on the forehead. "I know of no one whose life was shortened or otherwise impaired by a lima bean deficient diet." CJ growled and tossed a lima bean at him, which he easily ducked, laughing. He pulled a chair up next to them. "You came into work today."

She pursed her lips and focused on Nora. "Not really. I was in the office, briefly, yes, but not to work. I talked to Toby."

He nodded carefully. "That's...that's good. You two don't talk much anymore." He rubbed Nora's arm with his thumb. "What did you talk about?"

"You."

If she hadn't been watching so closely, she wouldn't have seen his thumb still for less than a second. "Oh?"

"He told me that I shouldn't expect you to talk to me about Mallory."

He kept his eyes trained on Nora, making stupid airplane noises and elaborate shadow puppets that fell occasionally across CJ's face.

"Leo."

"I heard you."

"And you're not even going to talk to me about not talking to me, are you?"

He dropped his hands. "It's not..."

"Your way." She crossed her arms. "So I've noted, yes. So it has been noted to me. But Leo, you have to give me something. We have this life together -- or, we're supposed to -- and I won't be shut out of it."

"I'm not trying to shut you out of it, CJ!" He passed his hand over his eyes, and a lifetime of images passed behind the closed lids: his father pouring another drink and telling him that men weren't like women, didn't talk like women talk; the terrified eyes of a Viet Cong soldier who can't have been more than 12; the way a parking lot looks when your face is pressed into it. If he told CJ about Mallory -- told her how his stomach churned every time he thought of her gone for five years -- would he be able to stop, or would fifty-odd years of rage and fear and disappointment pour out of him, cutting him again and again with the knife-edge of long-buried emotions?

"Then tell me, Leo," she said and touched his arm.

Leo gritted his teeth and stared into the fireplace they hadn't used the entire time they'd lived here. It stared emptily back. "I'm sick," he said. "It makes me sick to think of her going away." His hands clenched into fists, and CJ lay her hands over his. "I -- I'm sorry, CJ. That's all I can--" He felt the tide swelling behind his eyes, and he knew he had to stop now if he wanted to stay ahead of the wave.

She nodded. "I understand." And she did. She wasn't sure she had any idea how to help him, but she didn't intend to go anywhere until they had figured it out. "But Leo, it's going to hurt for a while. It has to hurt. It's the beginning."

And he smiled at her, squeezed her hand, and touched Nora's cheek. He nodded. "It's the beginning."