Author: Regency

Title: Mi Amor: Until Forever

Pairing: Jed/Abbey

Rating: PG-PG 13

Spoilers/Season:

Sequels: The sequel to Un Corazon: God Only Knows

Summary: They’ve reached the end of this road and the beginning of another.

Author’s Notes: I know I said the last part was the last part, but I was wrong. Sorry. I know, I just changed the tenses, but I had to. This is like the Prologue. This is the end. It’s been a blast.

Disclaimer: I’m pretty sure I don’t own anymore than I did in the last few parts.

~~~~~

It’d been months since she’d seen him and weeks since they’d spoken. When he’d first disappeared, he’d called only days later from wherever he’d ended up. At first, she hadn’t wanted to take his call. She felt betrayed, abandoned, hurt and unloved. But eventually, the desire to hear from him won out and she picked up the phone.

She didn’t know if it was the distance or him, but his voice sounded weak, so weak. She had lay there on what was formerly their bed and listened to him go on about how worried he’d been when she hadn’t taken his calls. He was still worried. Then, she got mad. How dare he lecture her on consideration when he’d left her like that? How dare he?

She almost yelled, but she couldn’t. She just listened as he told her how much he missed her. If he missed her, why wouldn’t he come home? Why won’t you come back? He missed her more than words could say. There were no words for it, no ways to express it. He simply missed her. She missed him too.

“Are you coming home?” The silence on the line held her heart for long moments.

“Yes.” She fell back against the pillows with a stunned expression.

“When?”

“Within the next month, most likely.” She turned over, her hair falling into her face. She mumbled a curse, regretting having let it grow long again.

“Hair trouble?”

“Shut up, jackass.”

“Okay.” The silence between them was filled with hope. A hope for something more, a hope for something better, hope for just a little more time. It was more a prayer than anything else.

“I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

“You worried about me, didn’t you?” As hypocritical as it sounded, Abbey was touched.

“Yeah.”

“I figured.” She counted the gentle in and out of his breath. He lived. Then, so did she.

“When you didn’t answer my calls after the first two dozen, I was on my way home.” She flinched a little, almost cursing herself for her timing. He could have been home by now.

“You could come home now.” It was weedling, yes, but she was desperate.

“I could, but by the time, I got home, you’d be asleep.”

“I’d wake up for you.” She could see a smile playing over his lips.

“But could I stay awake for you? I’m not as well or as young as I used to be.” Her smile faded into a concerned frown.

“How are you, really?” His end of the line drowned in silence. “Jed.”

“I’ve seen better days, love.”

“We all have.” It was true. No one had been quite themselves since Jed had ‘gone on sabbatical.’ The media had gone nuts when she’d arrived home alone and the former President was nowhere to be seen. They were all convinced that he’d died. Nothing, she, the girls (who were mostly in the dark), CJ or Leo (who was also in the dark) had said had made a bit of a difference. Only his arrival and communication with the press would convince the masses.

“Is it cold in Manchester?” She pulled his sweater tighter around herself. It was cold everywhere since she’d seen him last.

“Define cold and crisp for me, sweetheart.” He gave a deep-throated laugh. He couldn’t wait to see her.

“I can’t wait to see you.” She held the phone closer as though it would bring him with it.

“I can’t wait to see you either.” He held a picture of her in his hands. It was one of her as she slept on the plane, the last time they’d been together. Her hair spilled over the pillow and over her face, leaving her with the slightest veneer of innocence. She looked beautiful.

“Only space separates us, never time. This time, be us together or apart, is our time. Our time.” Tears blurred her vision.

“Our time.”

~~~~~

She could hear the crunching of the gavel beneath the coasting wheels and literally feel the distance closing between them. This was their time and their place. They would have it.

The rain tickled her senses, but another kind of distraction had the rest of her. He cradled her close, the longing of having her away so long taking its toll. She held to him with the same thoughts in mind. Her face was pressed into the crook of his neck. He was home.

A thousand cameras flashed and reporters were in a frenzy. The President was home and he wasn’t dead. He was alive and he was back. At last.

~~~~

They lay on the floor in front of the fireplace, wrapped together in a blanket just sharing in the serenity around them. They were together like they should have been a hundred times before. She listened to him breathe and felt the constant beating of his heart. His strong, strong heart. It beat in time with hers.

“You were gone for so long that I was sure that I’d never see you again.” He smiled into her hair and sighed in contentment.

“I could never really be gone from your life. I tried because I thought it was best, but when I realized what I was doing to you, I had to come back. I wasn’t only killing you, I was killing myself.”

“Nice to know that I wasn’t alone in feeling the way I did. I thought I was being stupid.”

“Nah. Just in love. I know the feeling.” She grinned, eyes drawn the brightness of the fire.

“Me too.” She could feel her blood pumping just beneath the surface of her skin, her heart beating with life. She was alive for the first time in so long. She was alive. They were alive. Together.

~~~

He ran his fingers down her spine, giving her a chill that made her purr. His mouth blazed the path his fingers had began taking her heartbeat along for the ride.

Her breath blew her long bangs off of her forehead, her fingers curled around the edge of the sheet, the ends of her lips turn up as she suppressed a smile as his eyelashes brushed the back of her knees. A little giggle slipped out and she buried her face in the pillows to stifle it. Soon, his face fell onto her back and the room was filled with their sweet laughter. Instead of naked…something else; it was naked laughter. She’d remember that. Especially the little kiss he pressed at the small of her back. It tingled long after that moment. That sensation would never leave her; it warmed her from head to toe. His kisses always had.

~~~

Days went by and as the blinding fog of their reunion had started to lift, Abbey began to wonder about her husband’s time away. He’d never mentioned it and didn’t seem to have any plans on mentioning it in the future. She was curious, because despite his rosy demeanor, he wasn’t all right. He was still too weak (not so much in bed), too pale, and sometimes had a terrible shortness of breath. No matter how he waved off her concern, that wasn’t all right. He was sick and he was hiding it. After, all this. Finally, she couldn’t take it. It had been bad enough when he was sick and miles away, but now he was sleeping beside her at night as she was no more informed than she had been.

“Jed, where were you?” He looked up at her from his newspaper and coffee. She stared at him across the breakfast table with a clear expression. He looked around himself, slightly puzzled.

“I was…right here, wasn’t I?” He was pretty sure that he had been. Though, he could be wrong…he supposed.

Admittedly, his expression was enough to make Abbey’s cheek twitch, but she persevered and kept her firm expression.

“I mean, all that time that you were gone--where were you?” A look of realization came over his face and he put down his newspaper. He opened his mouth to speak, but only ended up heaving a great sigh. He removed his glasses and clasped his hands on the table.

“You really want to talk about this?” She nodded, she really did. “Abbey…I have cancer, complicated by the fact that I have MS. It’s not secondary-progressive, but it’s MS and it’s a problem. That’s why I left. I was dying.” Her throat had closed and her breath came in short painful gasps. She choked out a response.

“And now?” He put his hands up in futility.

“And now…I’m not.”

“You’re in remission?” He nodded.

“I am.”

“What type of cancer?”

“What type?”

“Yeah.”

“Leukemia.” She blinked and nodded.

“Are you on some sort of treatment regimen that I should know about?” He took a sip of his coffee and shook his head.

“Nah, I’m just out there. I have to go back to see my doctor in a few days, but other than that…No.” She kept her silence and nodded again. She took a gulp of orange juice and very nearly choked before she realized that the knot in her throat had yet to dissipate. She coughed violently and Jed walked around to rub her back. “You all right, honey? You don’t need me to do the Heimlich on you, do you?” She shook her head vehemently and waved him off.

“No, no don’t worry about me. When did you say you had to go back?” He tipped his head in thought and rocked on his heels.

“A few days.” She nodded for him to elaborate. “This Friday.” She ticked off the days in her head. She couldn’t think of anything she’d have to be doing then. As though, it wouldn’t have been immediately cancelled or rescheduled either way.

“I could go with you, this time.” It was his turn to choke.

“You don’t have to. I mean, I’m sure you have things to do.”

“Nothing that can’t be cancelled or rescheduled. I’d rather be with you any day. This is too important.” He accepted that without further argument. She voiced the question that had clawed at her throat since this revelation. “Why didn’t you tell me you had leukemia? Did you think I would love you less? That I’d leave you? Why?”

“My prognosis was grim and my life expectancy nearly nonexistent. I wasn’t going to saddle you down with that. I don’t plan to.”

“So, if it comes back, you’ll just up and leave again?”

“Seems pointless now,” he said with a shrug.

“It didn’t seem a little pointless before?”

“No, it didn’t. Not to me.” For him, it had been an honest effort to save their whole family from a whole lot of unnecessary pain. The deception just happened to be a necessity to that end. “Despite what you might think after all of this, my intentions were honorable. I owe you peace and ease and I wanted you to have that…I just didn‘t count on my heart getting in the way.” She looked down and pushed her cooling eggs around the plate.

“You couldn’t leave me alone.” It was a statement, not a question. Either way, she already knew the answer to it. “The heart brings you back.”

“Every time,” he whispered. “Was it a mistake?” She looked up at him in confusion.

“What?”

“Coming back?” She shakes her head slowly and deliberately.

“No, babe, no. The worst mistake you could have made was not coming back.”

“I know…You gave me something to live for. Hearing your voice, dreaming of you. A picture was all I had, just a single picture of you. I didn’t dare take more. I never would’ve been able to leave you. It was already so hard to do.”

“You made it look easy.”

“I know.”

“It really wasn’t me?” He shook his head and kneeled beside her chair, taking both of her hands in his.

“It could never have been you. I thought of you, day in and day out. I wanted you with me. There just wasn’t a way.” She stood up and turned away to look out of the kitchen window.

“If you’d really wanted me there, you could’ve found a way.”

“I didn’t want you there. I needed you there, but I would have died before I let you see me the way I was.” She turned back to face to find him still kneeling on the floor. She rested a hand in his hair. She couldn’t imagine him not having it.

“Did you lose your hair?” That felt like such an insensitive question, but she didn’t take it back.

“A lot of it, but it started growing back when the doctor changed my treatment regimen.” A small smile touched her lips as she mussed his hair.

“It’s thick…and soft.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I’d even love you if you were bald though. I love you any way you are.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his face against her stomach. He sighed softly, warming the alabaster skin beneath her sweater.

“I hope so.” She squeezed him against her.

“Hope is unnecessary, trust is all you need. Do you trust me?”

“Implicitly.” She lifted his chin so she could look into his eyes.

“Then we’re halfway there.”

“Only halfway?”

“Yeah, we still have to win.”

~~~~~~

Abbey was waiting when Jed boarded the plane, looking through a magazine she had brought with her. He plopped down beside her and opened his planner, looking up his schedule for the trip. Abbey finally threw down the magazine with a sigh and looked over Jed’s shoulder to see what he was doing.

“Whatcha doin’?” He looked back at her. He turned his planner back and showed her.

“My schedule for the trip. I have my aides write it out and I add the personal stuff in myself.”

“Personal stuff?”

“Yeah, visits to friends, sight-seeing, you know, whatever.”

“Oh, okay. You have friends there? Wherever there is? Where is there anyway?”

“Okay, one question at a time. Yes, I have friends there. And there is Verona, Italy.” Abbey leaned back with a raised eyebrow.

“Verona? As in The Two Gentlemen of Verona?”

“As in Romeo and Juliet.” She nodded.

“Very classy.”

“Very well-skilled. I think you’ll be quite impressed with their bedside manner. I know I am.”

“They’re good, I take it?”

“Almost as good as a certain Board-Certified Thoracic Surgeon, I happen to know well.”

“Oh, well. I suppose if they secretly kept you alive for a few months, they can’t be too bad.”

“See, I told you almost as good as you.”

“Oh! You were referring to me? I wouldn’t have known.” He slid an arm around her and pressed a kiss to her temple.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“Jed.” Her voice reached him at the lowest rung.

“Yeah, babe.”

“Can you promise me that no matter what you won’t leave again?” He looked over her head and out of the window for a moment.

“I can’t promise you that I won’t leave again, but I can promise that I will say goodbye first. I won’t leave you until I have to.” She rested her head against his shoulder.

“And I won’t let you go without a fight. You’d better believe it.”

“I do.” The pilot’s voice broke through the mood over the P.A.

“Please fasten your seatbelts. We are a go for take-off.” One of the stewards slipped through the curtain.

“Please put your seats in an upright and fixed position.” They just looked at him and nodded. He slipped back behind the curtain.

“Wow, feels like commercial flying all over again.”

“Tell me about it.”

~~~~~~~

“Hey.” Abbey jumped when Jed dropped into the seat beside her.

“Hey.”

“You okay? You look a little out of it.”

“Yeah, just thinking about…us.”

“What about us?”

“Jed, what is ever?” He pushed up the armrest separating their seats and pulled her to rest her back against his chest. She snuggled down into his arms and pushed her head under his chin.

“Ever is…Always. At any time, in any place. Ever is yesterday, tomorrow, and today. If you ever need me, here I am.” He slid his fingers through hers. “I will love you for-ever.”

“Today, tomorrow, and always.”

“You’d better believe it.”

And as she lay in his arms, she let go of what could’ve been and reached forward to what be. Their love would live forever. As long as she loved him.

And she would love him until the day she died.

Until forever.

~~~~~~

Last Part