Author: Regency
Title: He Should Have Been President
Rating: G
Pairing: Jed/Abbey
Spoilers: Bartlet's Third State of the Union, The War At Home, Commencement, Twenty-five, The Fall's Going To Kill You
Summary: He should have been President. He should have lived.
Disclaimer: Abbey nor Jed are mine. Aaron Sorkin owns them.
Author's Notes: It's AU.
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He'd kept their deal. He wasn't going to run for President. He'd smiled at her smile. They went home. He didn't run for President. The MS came out. Everyone thought he was dying and he couldn't tell them any different. John Hoynes got the Democratic nomination and won. He should have been President.
Zoey graduated from Georgetown the following year and had her party at some hotspot nightclub. Without anyone knowing, she disappeared. John bombed Qumar; the assassination came out. They heard about it on the news from Manchester. It should've been him; he should've been President. It still shouldn't have been his call.
Zoey was dead. The words rang 'round his mind. His baby was dead. It should've been his call.
Zoey was dead. All she did was watch him. He sat there on the edge of the bed and she watched him. She couldn't find within her any blame, only regret. He should have been President. She didn't touch him for fear he'd break. And he would break her in return. Zoey was dead. She couldn't stand another loss.
She ran her fingers through his hair, but he didn't move. He barely breathed and didn't move his head from her lap. It'd been resting there forever now, ever since they'd been told Zoey's final fate. He didn't ask, he just rested it there. There were no emotions; no sadness or anger or resentment. Where'd the man go? He left with the President.
It took her legs falling asleep for her to check his pulse. He was barely there and she'd screamed. She could barely breathe and her heart was barely beating, but she'd found it within her to scream. He'd been rushed to a hospital and stabilized. His MS was all over the board. He was barely living, but he wouldn't die and she couldn't let him. He should have been President. The President wouldn't have been here.
She almost died, but wouldn't leave. She had to be sedated before she could be taken away. She was a thoracic surgeon, she knew a heart attack when she was having one. She was having a heart attack. They shared a room. He didn't wake up, but she spent her every waking moment waiting for him to. He wouldn't wake up. When she recovered, she sat at his side again and waited. But then she waited for him to die. He wouldn't die and she started to crumble. She never spoke; not to her children or to her friends. She was simply silent. She listened to the automatic sounds of his breath and the beep of his heart. He wouldn't die and a part of her didn't want him to.
There was a chair at his right side; it was her chair. No one else was to sit there when she wasn't in it and if they did, they were watched silently by all present parties until they got the idea and moved. It was her place, as it always had been. No one else could have it.
She stayed the whole time as the machines were cut off. She watched as in mirror to what felt like a thousand years ago, his eyes opened and looked straight at her as though he'd been waiting to for so long. That one moment felt like an eternity as his eyes closed and he stopped breathing. And at that moment, she stopped living. She should have been his First Lady and he should have been her President.
She wished he hadn't kept their deal. He should have been President. He should have lived.
