TITLE: A Tale of Three Dinners AUTHOR: Kasey POST-EP: Shibboleth RATING: PG Gen. SUMMARY: “Each gave thanks and appreciated the gifts they’d received in the past year.” DISCLAIMERS: They belong to Sorkin and his crew.  They don’t belong to me. Don’t sue. (Nice little poem) THANKS: To Flip, an amazing beta and best friend. There were three Thanksgiving dinners of interest going on at once that afternoon. The food was far from being comparable – one was fully catered with all the food anyone could hope to eat; one consisted mostly of chips and pretzels and beer and goldfish crackers with turkey sandwiches because no one in that house knew how to cook better than the occasional waffle; one consisted of microwave turkey TV dinners because there were only three people at that dinner, so they didn’t need a big meal, nor could they afford one. One of the people attending the TV dinner feast could’ve been at the most extravagant feast with her mother and father and godfather and sisters, but was instead eating lukewarm mashed potatoes with her boyfriend and his sister. And one of the people at the most extravagant and catered feast couldn’t enjoy it, because he felt he should have been eating with his wife and daughter across town in the house he used to call his own. And as two men cheered on the Jets and drank their beer between high-fives, another stewed over his turkey sandwich about a past that only the woman who had made the sandwiches knew about.  And one of the cheering men remembered the bride he wished he could be dining with while his best friend thought about the blonde-haired woman whose plans consisted of who-knew-what, but she would be alone in her endeavor. And the man who sat at the head of the large mahogany table filled with food and a handful of family and near-family pondered and second-guessed his decision once more, finally returning to the fact that he was right, because what if it was him?  He would want the same opportunity he gave to the refugees.  So he tried his best to put such thoughts out of his mind while he dug into his mashed potatoes with gravy that wasn’t nearly as good as his wife’s. And across town, a daughter picked at familiar foods and surveyed the huge amount of food that would become leftovers until the next Thanksgiving and remembered a day when there would’ve been a man at the table, but because things were the way they were, the man was feasting in a modern-day palace.  But she would’ve bet anything he would have rather been there with her and her mother. And all said prayers of some sort – whether blessings of bread sung in a foreign tongue or eloquent thanks that would make one wonder why such an orator would ever need a speech team in the first place.  Each gave thanks and appreciated the gifts they’d received in the past year. Humility (from getting his ass kicked on television, and from receiving plenty of flack for not having called the boss’s daughter, the one he wanted to date so much) Reassurance (that no one had assumed she was overly ambitious because it was a fine line, after all, especially for a woman in politics) Peace of Mind (that any group he wanted to be in would be protected at least as much as all the extremist groups he had attempted to eliminate) Understanding (of what he had done that was so wrong as to ruin his family and why it could never be different than it was) A Reminder (of the power she could wield over her husband when he was too busy being powerful to remember the things he had believed in with her once) A Reminder (that family still needed to come first, because he wasn’t about to end up like his best friend) Love (that would endure for longer than they had originally thought; if it could live through the gunshots, it could live through anything) Life