Changes

by: Allison

Character(s): Jed, Abbey
Pairing(s): Jed/Abbey
Category(s): Drama, AU
Rating: MATURE
Summary: A (probably AU) view of what might happen after "the announcement."

"I can't believe we didn't know - I mean I can't believe no one..."

"Hmm?" he asked, a bit confused.

She shook her head, staring down into her second scotch. "I just..."

"How on earth could you have known?" he asked, wanting to take her hand but settling for the most soothing tone he could muster. "It's not like it shows. He's not missing a limb, he has a disease."

"He's sick," she said firmly, swirling the scotch in her glass. "Shouldn't someone have noticed that he was sick?"

"He doesn't have the flu," he said in the same gentle tones. "It's not like he's having attacks every - what is it?" He'd seen her head snap up, a horrified expression on her tired face.

"Oh, God," she muttered to herself. "That's - that's not possible. That would have been the worst possible time..."

"The worst possible time for what?" he asked, a sneaking suspicion beginning to dawn on him. Perhaps he was having attacks after all.

"When you said about the flu -" Suddenly she looked at him with all the force of a fury. "Off the record?"

He looked insulted, and a little hurt. "When I'm with you, socially? I promised once it would always be off the record."

Her face melted into an expression of regret. "I know," she said softly. Then she shook herself and returned to what had startled her. "Last year - right before the State of the Union -"

"The President had the flu," he finished. Then the same terrified light dawned in his eyes. "You don't think..."

"He passed out," she recalled, letting him in on something that had not been shared with the press. "In the Oval, he passed out. He broke a - a thing. Leo said it was the flu. Everybody said it was the flu. What if he's - he said it was in remission but it can't be in remission if he's having -"

"Attacks?"

She didn't even nod, but she didn't have to. Her eyes, shadowed and betrayed, answered for her. Instead of holding her, he handed her an orange slice from the little dish and then licked the juice off his fingers, saying, "Maybe it was the flu."

"It wasn't," she said with absolute certainty. "Oh, God."

He watched her with concern. She had started to nibble delicately on the tip of her finger, where the sharp pain of her teeth was the most noticeable. She wasn't looking at him anymore, and her eyes had grown darker. Very carefully he took her by the wrist and pulled her hand away from her mouth, handing her another orange slice instead. She turned half away from him and ran her tongue along the smooth surface, biting idly just hard enough to release juice but not break off pieces. He watched her worry the peel between her fingers and wondered if she'd let him take her home, and knew that he shouldn't.

*******************

"This is crazy," she muttered to herself with absolutely no doubt in her mind. Ahead of her, he staggered up the stairs, doing a remarkably good imitation of a drunk for a man who hadn't had any alcohol. "My family would take me out back and shoot me if they knew. People would be lining up to take me out back and shoot me." He faltered, leaning on the banister, and she planted a hand firmly in the small of his back and urged him upward. "Almost there," she said quietly, in a tone strikingly more tender than the one she'd been using to herself.

He didn't - possibly couldn't - look at her as he fumbled with the keys and pushed the door open, letting them both into his apartment. He shut the door behind her and for a moment they stood motionlessly in the entryway, dealing silently with the possibility that what was supposed to happen was that she would drive him home, maybe force him to lie down, and then leave. That was probably, she considered, still a good idea.

And unlikely to happen. He finally met her eyes, with the shy uncertainty of a teenager on his first date, and one corner of her mouth turned up in a sad half-smile as she held out her arms. He held her very tight, but just stood for a long while, inhaling deeply and rubbing her back. When, as before in her office, his lips found her neck, her fingers tightened reflexively on his shoulders and he pulled back. It suddenly struck him what was going on here, what she was really doing, and a line appeared between his eyebrows. "Are you okay with this?" he asked softly, still holding onto her waist.

Last out, she thought. But as she stood there with her chest heaving like the heroine of some cheap romance novel, she knew very well that there was a lot more going on here than pity. Allowing those feelings free reign while he was vulnerable was still dicey territory, but - in a split second she evaluated whether she was taking advantage of him because it had been a while, or whether she thought he legitimately needed her. The latter won out, and she nodded. He bent to kiss her lips this time, more carefully than she would have expected under the circumstances, but then this was only the first of many surprises she could expect tonight. It was still a bit odd to have your first kiss with someone after you'd mutually decided in advance to have sex, but it was a nice kiss all the same. It built from gentle to fiery at a steady pace; she couldn't tell whether it was from actual passion and desire or from the simple knowledge that they had decided to take this all the way right now. Even as his fingers fumbled with her shirt buttons she wasn't sure whether he was really desiring her or just thinking that if he could work up the enthusiasm then sleeping with her would help him forget.

Surprise number two was a rather longer, drawn out surprise. In this particular situation she would have expected it to be desperate, fast, hard, and over quickly - almost violent in its intensity and as emotionally detached as high-impact aerobics. In fact, the only twinge of doubt still pulling at her was the question of whether she could bury her feelings enough to sleep with him seeing that he wasn't feeling anything for her. She was therefore rather surprised - stunned, even, but pleasantly - by the actual event. He made love to her slowly and tenderly, worshipfully even. It was her name he cried out, and even in the dark room in his darkened eyes she recognized that he was present with her. She was still strangely disoriented lying awkwardly in his bed while he trooped off to take care of the protection afterwards, not knowing what to expect of him but anticipating the worst-case scenario. Instead he slipped into the bed, shy enough not to meet her eyes but immediately reaching out and curling her into him. He stroked her hair with a lover's touch, not the gesture of a man who wanted a quick fling to take his mind off his troubles, and kissed her forehead before inhaling and sighing deeply. As she tentatively stroked his chest, still not sure of her place, he held her and whispered, "It's just that there are some things you're sure of." She couldn't have known that he was repeating his own past words, but she correctly read the emotion behind them. She twisted a little so that she could wrap her arms around him in return, and as he nestled his head close to hers the answer to the night's mystery came to her as clear as day - it had been unlike what she expected because he hadn't been craving sex per se to make him forget. His drug of choice was affection and love, and he hadn't known how else to ask it from her. He'd thought she was offering sex - which, who knew, maybe she was - and decided he would take physical closeness if that was what he could have.

****************

When they had reached the top of his stairs he pulled out his keys and she asked worriedly, "I didn't see Sam. Do you think he's okay?"

He stopped fumbling with the lock and looked at her thoughtfully. "He looked pretty upset, but he went tearing off - I don't know where he was going, but I thought he was headed home."

She frowned, clearly still worried, and he found that he couldn't resist that face any more now than he could before. "You want to call him?" he asked, leaning into the door as it opened.

"I don't know," she replied, following him inside. "I don't know if it's my - I mean, we're friends, but..."

"Do you want me to call him?" he relented, watching her sink onto his couch. She paused for just a moment before nodding, an apologetic expression on her face.

He patted her shoulder. "Okay."

The phone rang four times and the machine picked up, with the eternally perky voice asking him to leave a message. He cleared his throat. "Hey, buddy. I hope you're not picking up because you're in bed already. We - I mean, I was - we were - we wanted to make sure you were okay. Um - you can call any time, you know, whenever. Somebody'll pick it up. Just - yeah. I'll talk to you later." He hung up gently and rubbed his forearm over his face.

"You still want me to stay?" she asked in her most helpful voice. She'd offered in a hazy moment while he was still in her arms, and he had nodded against her stomach before pushing back and gathering his things. Now he crossed back to her and rested one hand on top of her head, caressing her hair as if she weren't the one offering solace but the one requesting it. Although a careful look at her reddening eyes suggested she was only hiding her pain until she felt he didn't need her anymore.

"I want you to stay," he said, surprising them both by being so forthcoming. He rubbed his hand over his forehead. "It's pretty warm, I can get you some shorts or something?" She nodded and he continued, "There's still that cot in my hall closet from my mom - I could put it in here, or I could stay in there..." He trailed off, not wanting to suggest more than she had in mind.

She shook her head. "First of all, I didn't offer to stay so that I could kick you out of your bed." An almost unnoticeable blush crept over her cheeks as she continued, "And let's keep the cot in the bedroom."

"Okay," he said quietly. He decided to break the tension once and for all by acting as though this whole insane mess were something completely normal. He held out his hand. "Come on, let's get some sleep." When she stood and took his hand he used it to draw her to him, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her to the bedroom. "You can go and change," he said calmly, leaving her to pull clothes out of a dresser drawer, "and I'll pull out the cot." He put the pile of shorts and t-shirt in her hands and turned her toward the bathroom.

By the time she returned he was perched on the small cot waiting for her, practically matching her in cotton boxers and a white t-shirt. He blushed faintly in the dark when a look at her reminded him that a half-transparent old white shirt might not be as effective for her as for him, but it was dark and when she clicked out the light on her way that made it darker. In the shadows they embraced tightly, and he thanked her for staying and kissed her forehead before gently prodding her toward the bed. Before she fell asleep she murmured, "You'll wake me if you want me?" He answered in the affirmative, and she was satisfied enough to let go.

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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