Jed had been asleep for well over an hour when there was a knock at the door. He groused and hid his head under the pillow. The knocking became louder and more insistent. He finally threw the pillow and the covers off and stalked to the door. He had literally just gone to sleep.

He yanked the door open, prepared to give whoever dared to wake him the tongue-lashing of their lives, but then he saw who it was and he could do nothing of the sort. Abbey stood before him, trembling and wet from head to toe. It had started raining out not too long ago, but she looked soaked to the bone.

“Abbey.” She didn’t respond, but only stood there shivering and looking nervously around her. She’d just gone on a desperate journey to find Jed after daring to return to that house. She’d felt brave and unstoppable. She had hoped beyond hope that her sudden burst of confidence would benefit her when she faced him again, but she was mistaken. Sadly so, in fact. Conviction was conquered by his superior size and the force of his fists.

The cut on her lip had been reopened and one of her eyes was black instead of green; the shirt she’d borrowed for the Katz’s clinic was missing several buttons and failed to hide the new bruises on her chest. The ones beneath were not yet a day old.

“Abbey,” he called to her again. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her lips moved to form words, but her throat was strained from having screamed so hard for so long.

“Help me,” she exhaled hoarsely. “Please, help me.” He waffled for a moment before stepping back to let her in.

“What happened to you?” She just shook her head and stood awkwardly in the middle of the hotel room he was supposed to be sharing with his brother. As she tightened her arms around herself, the hem of her blouse rose to show a brief expanse of normally pale skin. Instead it was mottled with ugly fist and heel marks. Oh, Abbey, he thought to himself.

She suddenly felt the need to explain herself. “I’m sorry I left the clinic without you. I just had to go back to that house…I had to end it. I had to give that ring back and take back my life. I had to do it.” He held his hands up placatingly.

“It’s okay. I knew that was gonna happen. I’m not offended. As a man, I was probably the last person you wanted to be anywhere near anyway.” She shrugged with a tense smile. She still felt guilty.

“It’s not even that, you know. You’re good, Jed. I can tell that just by looking at you. You’re good inside. Even the Drs. Katz said so. You were right, they are good people; trustworthy people. They took good care of me.” Jed sent her a tightly satisfied smile.

“I‘m glad to hear that.” He looked her over discreetly, noting her shifty gaze and darkening skin.

“They also told me that you’re their resident Good Samaritan. You’re always bringing some lost soul to safety. They’re drawn to you like a moth to flame.” He looked away embarrassedly. “Or maybe like a shadow to the sun.”

“Maybe.” She looked to be in enormous pain, simply lingering there. “Do you want to sit?” he gestured towards the bed, but thinking better of it, pointed to a chair situated between the small twin beds.

“Mmm hmm. Thank you.” She sat down, teeth chattering audibly now. That took no time to dawn on him.

“Oh, honey. You must be freezing. Let me get you something to wear.” Speaking of getting her something, he noticed his own state of undress. No shirt and pajama bottoms. He felt the like the biggest jerk to ever live. “And me. Definitely me. Just wait here for a moment.” He paid her weak protestations little mind and rifled through his armoire and luggage for something that might not completely drown her in fabric.

He ‘aha’d’ as he snagged a Notre Dame sweatshirt and a pair of clean boxer shorts. Held them up for her inspection. “These okay?” She nodded reluctantly, truly not wanting to be any trouble.

“Fine. Great, even.” He raised an eyebrow blankly.

“Uh huh. Great. Yeah, no. I think these will be fine though.” She accepted the clothes cautiously, waiting for him to change his mind at any moment. “Go ahead, I’m not gonna change my mind. You need them, I don’t. You can change in the bathroom. It’s right through there.” He pointed his thumb to the cracked door over his shoulder. She responded positively, rising with the minor gifts hugged to her chest. “You can take a shower to if you like.”

She paused to look at him, at an honest loss for words. “I don’t have any…you know, with me. So…”she shrugged restlessly.

“Ah, yes. Well, I don’t think I have any of that with me, but I can look.” She snorted, but bit it back at the end. Her chest muscles spasmed terribly with the effort. She grunted and rubbed at her chest breathlessly. He stepped towards her in natural concern. “Abbey, you okay?” She nodded even as she wheezed dreadfully. “You don’t sound okay.”

“My chest,” she gasped, “hurts.”

“Were you hit there? Did he hit you there?” She didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to admit how badly she had misjudged herself and her strength. “Abigail?” She couldn’t deny him the truth after all he had done for her.

“He, um, yeah. He punched me here,” she pointed to her sternum and solar plexus, achingly. “It hurts to breathe,” she gasped. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”

“When did he do this?”

“When I went back.” He stepped back in obvious chagrin.

“You actually went back? Why? What for, Abbey?” She shrugged but gagged at the pain that immediately followed.

“I told you,” she paused to breathe, “I had to end it. I had to get away for good. I said that the engagement was off, that I would go to Harvard without him.” He reached out and steadied her by her shoulder. She wrenched away from the contact hastily, skin paling further still.

He gently retook her arm in his grasp and rolled up her sleeve to find it in varying stages of bruising. He reached for her other arm, but she held it behind her to prevent his seeing it. He only had to look at her sternly for her to acquiesce. The state of that arm was no better. He suspected that the rest of her was covered with much uglier, more extensive bruising, but he wouldn’t push the issue. The upset was still too fresh.

He lifted her face up so that he could see her eyes. There was so much shame. The simple fact that she felt she had to be ashamed made his blood boil. “Do not be ashamed of anything.” She shuffled about inelegantly, but didn’t respond. How did he know? “You did nothing wrong.”

“I should’ve known better. He has too much pride to just let me leave. I won’t be safe anywhere for long.” He tugged her hands to him and held them against his bare chest. She blushed and pulled them slightly from his grasp. He wouldn’t let go.

“You’ll be safe with me.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“But I can.”

“How?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet, but I won’t let you be hurt again. I don’t care what I have to do. If your family won’t be there for you, I’ll be there. I’ll be anything you need me to be.”

“Even everything?” She snuck a look at him through her puffy, tearstained eyes. He kissed her hand certainly.

“Especially everything.”

“Okay.” She wasn’t sure whether or not she believed him, or even if it was wise to believe him, but she did know that she was at a loss for anything else to hold onto. So, why not? The deafening silence in the room was stifling, so she broke it by moving away from him towards the bathroom. “I’m gonna go…to the bathroom. Excuse me.”

“Yeah.” He crossed his arms over his chest as the door shut and he was blanketed in darkness. His guilt elevated a dozen notches and he barely stopped himself from smashing the mirror over his dresser. That son of a bitch! It blew his mind how that bastard could batter her once and then turn around and do it twice. It confounded him truly how she could go back to him, knowing what he’d done to her before.

Of course, the Drs. Katz had said that often of him always returning home to his father. Why return to someone that will surely harm you again? Because, there are no other choices. It’s that or nothing. And he would rather the pain, a hundred times again, over nothing at all. Not that he had all that much. He was by no means poor, but he was always wanting for something. He craved the unconditional affection that was supposed to accompany home; the warmth of open and welcoming arms; the proud approval of a loving dad. Anything other than the cold reception and dismissal his own father meted to him. Or worse, the violent attention he received from the back of his hand. Every blow was more inwardly crushing than the last. He placated himself with the hope that the next time, he’d be sorry or he’d hesitate even a moment before he made contact. John Bartlet Sr. never hesitated and he was never sorry. He was also never going to be as smart as his exceptional brothers or his wholly gifted son. He would always be just a step too slow to follow. Therefore, since he couldn’t punish his brothers, he’d punish Jed in the hopes of somehow beating him to the point of mediocrity. Maybe then, he’d measure up.

There were times when the sharpness of the beatings were so acute that Jed considered bending to his father’s will to be a little less idealistic, to conform a bit more, to simply to be silent when words were called for. Yet, when the moment came to show his newly minted mediocrity, his brilliance would shine through in the form of prose far above his father’s level, but in the lexis of his audience. It would always come. He never knew how to not outshine the sun. It wasn’t who he was. He was radiant. His radiance defined him as it did others’ perceptions of him. He was good, as Abbey had said was her belief. But the rings of his life that marked him showed the harsh weathering of his father’s defamations. He had survived them, but they had scarred him and would scar him until the time in which he genuinely broke away. He feared that he would never escape the man’s ill-contempt and would forever be treading water in an impossible sea that washed only to a shore littered with more abuse of the same kind. Had his father never laid a hand on him, the name-calling alone would surely have crippled him were he born a lesser being.

He supposed, then, that he was born lucky. Jed gave the thought a minor wry chuckle as he tugged a grey t-shirt over his head. He rushed his fingers through his wily hair as the bathroom door opened and timid Abbey poked her head out. In the harsh hotel lights, her face seemed positively desecrated. He was stopped short when she stepped out and pulled nervously at the plaid shorts in an attempt to make them cover more of her. She tried in vain to hide the ghastly finger-shaped bruises that stamped her thighs.

If her stormy expression was any indication, he failed to keep heart-shattering disbelief off of his face. Her brows furrowed and her eyes narrowed like the coming of a summer monsoon. “Don’t you dare pity me, Jed Bartlet. Don’t you dare! I don’t need your pity…or your protection. I just need your help. That’s all. Do you understand me?” He didn’t take anything she said at that moment with more than a grain of salt, but he’d be damned if he’d be a victim of her wrath. It rivaled his father’s in almost every way.

“I understand.” She seemed to shrink following her rant, afraid that she had exercised her welcome and would be told to leave. He’d felt that way before. “You must be tired, and hungry. I don’t have much to eat here, but if you can wait until morning we can go to the café down the street and get something. The weather’s just so bad right now.”

“Okay.” She wouldn’t argue. She was just glad to have somewhere to stay the night. She looked around for somewhere to sleep. There were two beds, but she was certain that one had to be for Johnny. “Where am I going to sleep?” He went to the bed nearest to the bathroom, which had been his, and straightened the disordered sheets.

“You can sleep here. It’s closer to the bathroom. You know, in case you need to go during the night.”

She thanked him graciously and sat down beside the turned down bedcovers. “But where will you sleep?” He patted the bed he was perched on across from her. “Here.”

“What about Johnny? I can’t put him out.”

“You’re not; he’s staying with friends. I probably won’t even see him again until it’s time to go back to Manchester.” She looked at him incredulously. “Yeah, we’re not all that close, but we have moments.” She pulled the covers up around her and turned on her side to look at him.

“Like what?” He hadn’t expected her to want specifics, so he was caught off guard, but he pulled a memory out of the air and went along with it.

“Well, the trip here, for instance. We drove all the way from Manchester.”

“You drove!” He nodded cheekily. “I can’t believe you drove. It would’ve been so much easier to fly.”

“Yeah, my father wouldn’t pay for it.”

“Well, why the hell not?”

“Because he didn’t see the sense in paying for two round-trip tickets when there was a chance that only Johnny was coming back.”

“Why is there a chance of that?” He slid under the covers on his bed.

“Well, I was using this trip as the time to decide whether I’d be returning to Manchester to attend Notre Dame and become priest or whether I’d be going on to the London School of Economics in England and studying to become an economist.” She rested her head on her folded hands.

“Have you decided yet?” He thought about as he lay on his back and stared at the beige ceiling.

“No.”

“May I ask why?”

“Honestly, it’s becoming a muddier decision with every passing day. I’ve gone back and forth on it. I just don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.”

“Are you sure about that?” Jed didn’t answer, but closed his eyes and feigned sleep. She knew better, but realized that maybe his silence was the best answer he could offer; maybe it was the best answer for both of them. She turned over and contrived sleep herself, though she was still conscious enough to hear him rise to tuck the covers more snugly around her shoulders and turn off the lights. Then she heard him, too, fall asleep, or at least pretend to fall asleep again. Soon, they both did drift away into dreams, neither particularly sweet, but both more peaceful than in recent memory. Morning seemed millennia away and precious night ruled their circumstance. They were calm; they were serene; they were at peace.