TITLE: The Local Weather ((Hey – Sorkin recycles Sports Night titles, why can’t I?)) AUTHOR: Kasey RATING: PG/PG-13 mild language, death, EPOTUSF MID-EP: Two Cathedrals SUMMARY: The President remembers Arlington as rain threatens. DISCLAIMERS: Not mine, I’m not on NEARLY enough drugs to be the great ABS. THANKS: To the Lieutenant, as always. They wouldn’t let me go to her burial. I’m pretty pissed about that. They’re burying her at Arlington, next to Henry and Andrew and Simon, and I, meanwhile, am in a small room at the OEOB, empty but for me and Leo. I’ve been to Arlington exactly three times – once with Abby and the girls touring.  And twice with her. The first time, it was pouring down rain, that sort of slushy-rain you get when the temperature’s almost exactly 32.  I was on one side, Henry on the other, as she stood, stone-faced against the icy rain that pelted us.  IT was January, after all, and a “Heat wave” had hit, meaning it wasn’t snowing. Andrew and Simon had been good boys – a few years younger than me.  I’d met them a few dozen times, and both were incredibly articulate and funny and charming…and both were dead at the ripe old age of 21. I, at 25, had very little understanding of the sort of grief she was going through. The next time I was at Arlington Cemetery was 20 years later, and the sun was so bright it burned our eyes and made us broil in our black clothes.  I had grown to know the pain of losing a son, but couldn’t even fathom losing Abby.  And while I didn’t always agree with what he said, Henry was a good man and wonderful to his wife.  A penny-pincher sometimes, and too old-fashioned for her feminist ideas, but never unfaithful, never drunk, and never mean.  The classic idea of the World War II hero that he was. She refused to let herself cry as they lowered the casket into the ground.  I hugged her – a much more serious gesture than we usually shared – and vowed silently to God that I would take care of her. She was, after all, practically my big sister. She’d always stopped by my political showcases of sorts – if I was giving a big speech or something I could count on seeing her face in the crowd.  And she hadn’t worked in awhile – Henry insisted.  So I offered her a job (and promised her she would be paid at least as much as the men). The rest is history. It was rough for her after Henry was gone, slowly but surely getting better.  And I was so excited for her getting the new car.  It was a big step for her, getting a car by herself, especially, without Henry’s help, and especially that she had saved enough of her own money to get a NEW car for the first time in her life…a really nice new car… Yet here I am, looking out the window as rain threatens and she’s lowered into the ground across the river. “Sir?” “Yeah,” I answer, snapped from my memories.  “I’m screwed.  Tell the staff it’s done.”