Author: Regency

Title: Guess Who...

Spoilers: “In The Room” missing scene

POV: Abbey

Summary: Abbey gets the call about Jed’s collapse. Here’s the stuff that’s going through her head.

Disclaimer: No infringement intended. You know who owns who.

Author’s Notes: I was asked to do this in the Wednesday Chat. I feel obligated.

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I knew I should’ve stayed. I should’ve stayed with my hardheaded, stubborn, jackass of a husband. Yes, it would have looked suspicious, but does that matter now that he’s lying on his back with no feeling from the neck down? I don’t think it does, but as they say, “Hindsight is 20/20.” Ain’t that the truth?

I was asleep when I got the call. You know that whole ‘Greenland Mean Time Line’ something-or-other. Either way, the times were different. They were awake and I was asleep. It was Millie, who I’d insisted go on this trip. She was calm, collected, detached. She sugarcoated it at first, knowing that it’d piss me off. She wanted to be forced to tell me, because she didn’t feel that she could do it any other way. But when she did, well, I don’t remember how I felt. There was a loss for a moment. A loss of time, sound, and space. I was in a vacuum. All of the things that would change from that moment floored me.

I was in for the battle of my life and Jed was in for his. It wasn’t one either of us could afford to lose. The last year of our lives suddenly seemed so long ago. I let it go and prayed that I’d have another year to remember in its place. I prayed all the way to China.

Upon my arrival, I did not stand on ceremony. I wanted to see my husband, that’s what I was there for. I didn’t give a damn what kind of impression I made as the First Lady. All I cared about was being there as my husband’s wife.

I sat there for hours, my agents tracking and keeping me informed of their narrowing ETA. Every time someone came to the door, my first instinct was to stand. It’s been years since I’ve done things like that, rising when someone entered the room. Especially Jed.

Back when we were newlyweds, whenever one of us would beat the other home from work, we’d wait behind the door as the other came in and hold our hands over their eyes. We’d ask them to guess who it was. It was silly, but we were crazy about each other. Eventually, we stopped that. But we never stopped telling one another to guess who. As though it could be anyone else.

It was then that I realized that I missed being asked to guess who and I missed meeting Jed at the door. I missed thirty years ago. I miss it now. I don’t know when we stopped doing those things. Maybe it was when we got to the Capitol, or the Governor’s Mansion, or even the White House. It escaped me at the time. But today, I could clearly see all the times when either of us had entered the room to find the other doing something presumably more important. We stopped asking about each other’s days. We stopped asking about each other period. It’s like we just got sick of it period.

It shouldn’t have gotten that way. As angry as you get, as old as you get, you never get sick of one another. You never get sick of asking.

I told him not to go. I asked him to let me stay, but he was adamant. And I wondered, ‘Since when did I listen to him?’ I got tired of being responsible for someone else’s illness. I didn’t want to deal with the stress of what he was bringing on himself. I was tired of Xanex-popping. I couldn’t afford to be the one with the thing. Someone in this family has to be functioning at the end of the day. And I guess it’s going to have to be me.

They tell me that the plane has arrived, but that there were complications with the lift…thing. I told them that I’d come down with them and that we could do that later. I need to see him again. I’ve got a question to ask him.

I jog up the steps, taking little care to insure that I don’t go down, crown first. The agent behind me keeps a protective hand at my back, but eases up as I enter the hatch. I encounter CJ, Kate, and Toby in passing, but I my mind is set solely on one man. A man I’ve known for nearly as many decades as some of them have lived.

He sits patiently in his chair of dispute with his large new Charlie standing sentry beside him. I nod to him and motion for him to give us a moment. I can feel Jed’s eyes on me the entire way. Without making eye contact, I lean near his ear and whisper the fateful question.

“Guess who?”