Author: Regency
Title: In The Family
Spoiler/Season: None/This has no place in canon. Zoey’s thing hasn’t happened, but reelection isn’t really a point. Just tuck this wherever you feel warranted.
Summary: When Abbey’s estranged sister, Sienna, abandoned her children with Jed and Abbey, can they adjust to having two new children in their life? What about when she wants the children back? What secret do Jed and Abbey have up their sleeve to insure that that doesn’t happen?
Disclaimer: I don’t own the premise of ‘The Unexpected Family.’ Nor the characters of TWW. The others belong to me.
~~~
It was a dark and stormy night--Well, outside it was. Inside the high walls of the imposing Residence, it was warm, even a little stuffy. Abbey thought so, but tried not to fan herself while she surrounded by these people. She smiled and took a casual sip of her warm champagne. She hated warm champagne. She couldn’t see a steward anywhere and pretending to be so engaged in this conversation robbed her of any chance to find one.
Just as her name’s called, she was saved from an embarrassing moment when her husband passed near her and met her eyes to signal that it was their time to end the evening. She nodded and excused herself from her quorum with a sigh and a hallelujah. She couldn’t stand those women. And people said that Abbey was a dilettante.
She took his proffered arm and walked beside him to the head of the room. She couldn’t wait to go to bed.
She looked around patiently as Jed toasted the evening and thanked a bunch of people he wouldn’t remember in the morning for coming. Out of the corner of her eye a familiar silhouette caught her attention. She jerked her head around as it occurred to her. It was her sister. Sienna, realizing she’s been caught, lifted her chin discreetly from the side of the room. She was wearing some gown Abbey had given her a few years back and it just fit.
One would have been surprised how little she and Abbey resembled one another. Her eyes were a muddy brown while Abbey’s were a wiling greenish-hazel and sometimes-gold. Her lips were long and slim where Abbey’s, like Cupid’s Bow with the bottom full and pouty while the top dipped in the middle and turned up at the ends just so. She had always envied her sister’s smile. The only things they had in common were a pair of killer legs and the softest alabaster skin you’d ever lay your hands on. She was lucky enough to get their mother’s nose, though it does little for her. Jed said that Abbey’s nose gave her character. Sienna could’ve used a bit of that.
Abbey tugged on Jed’s coat sleeve and tipped her head to her sister. He nodded, but didn’t halt his toast. Abbey weaved through the crowd separating them and stopped in front of her sister.
“What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet your big sister?” Abbey only narrowed her eyes in response. “Come now, Abbey, surely the past is water under the bridge.”
“Surely. What do want?”
“Can’t a girl come see her little sister just to see how she is?” She rolled her eyes.
“You wanna see how I am, turn on CNN. You want a favor, come in person. You,” she pointed to her sister darkly. “Want something from me…” She groaned as the truth crystallized. “Or you want something from my husband. You want something from Jed. What is it?”
“I’m disappointed in you, Abbey. He, who has not sinned, cast the first stone.” She rolled her eyes again.
“You are the last one that needs to quote the bible at me. I should be quoting it at you. You are the one who needs God.”
“Why thank you, Abigail, I didn’t know you cared.”
“I really don’t, but you’re here now and I don’t want you making a scene as you have a habit of doing.”
“Oh, Abbey--”
“Bite me.”
“Mother would have your hide for speaking like that.”
“Don’t make me laugh, sister dear, mother turns in her grave over the things you say just when you’re speaking to yourself.”
“I didn’t come here to be abused.”
“Then, why did you come?”
“I need a favor.” Abbey sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Now, the truth comes out. Let’s go. We’ll meet Jed upstairs.” She took Sienna’s hand and pulled her out of the side door as Jed finished his toast and wished every one a good night.
~~~
Abbey sat Sienna down in the Sitting Room and warned her not to touch anything. Her sister had sticky fingers. That’s how they’d lost their first Steuben glass pitcher.
“You shouldn’t treat me like a child, Abbey.”
“You shouldn’t act like a child, Sienna.”
“I do not act like a child.” The whining tone in her voice didn’t escape her sister. And it certainly didn’t help her case.
“Do you ever just listen to yourself talk? You should. You’d hear what the rest of us hear and you’d do us all a favor and keep quiet.”
“Could you please save your diatribe for someone who gives a damn?” Abbey turned away from her sister’s belittling stare and poured herself a drink.
“Would you like a drink?”
“You’re offering?” Abbey restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Her mother had warned her about rolling her eyes. One day, they’ll get stuck that way.
“Yes, Si-Si, I’m offering.”
“You haven’t called me Si-Si in years.” She paused to think of them as little girls. Though, it pained her to admit it, there was a picture of them in her study back in Manchester. She never went through there without stopping to look at it. Those were the days.
“You haven’t been around in years.”
“I know. It was just that after mom...I got lost.”
“And you haven’t been found since,” Abbey muttered to herself.
“You can’t look down on me, Abs. You’ve done your fair share of things that mother wouldn’t be proud of. Giving up your hard-earned license for a man. Mother would think that you’d thrown away everything she’d ever taught us.”
“At least, I had a license to give away. You never even tried. You say that it was after mom died that you got lost, but you were never anywhere. You have to have been somewhere to be found. And certainly found to be lost.”
“There you go, again. Talking in riddles, and proverbs, and verse. You think you’re so much better than me, because you’ve found your holier-than-thou God boy.” Abbey whirled around and threw an accusing look at her older sister.
“Hey, you say what you want, but Jed has never beaten me. He has never raised a hand that was not loving and gentle to me. How many of your one-night-stands can you say that about?” Sienna shifted in her wing-backed chair. “Any, Si-Si? No, I didn’t think so. And, another thing, as long as you live, don’t you dare speak down to me about my husband. He is a thousand times better in his sleep than you are when you live in the day.”
“And you wonder why I stayed gone? This is why.” Abbey stared down at Sienna disdainfully.
“This? This is why? I don’t think this is why.” She turned away, her sister’s ancient, but blatant betrayal still burning fresh on her heart. “Did you want that drink?”
“Yes. Scotch, a double.” Abbey poured her drink and refilled her own drained glass.
She handed the drink over as Jed slipped in. At first, he didn’t see Sienna. He leaned over and kissed Abbey instinctively. Her eyes fluttered shut as she forgot her sister for a moment. The odd woman out cleared her throat. They didn’t notice and Jed pulled his wife closer, placing his hands on her waist possessively. She smacked her tumbler down on the mahogany end table and the canoodling couple broke apart. The younger Barrington narrowed her eyes at the intrusion. Jed narrowed his eyes in confusion. He knew this woman, but for a brief second, he couldn’t place her. However, when he did he struggled not to have a similar reaction to Abbey‘s.
“Sienna.”
“Jed.”
“What brings you to our humble abode?” She sat forward in her chair.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“A favor.” He slid his eyes to Abbey momentarily, then back to Sienna. “What type of favor?”
“I need you to watch the kids for me.” Even Abbey was taken aback at the magnitude and thoughtlessness of such a request.
“Are you kidding me, Sienna? Of all the thing you could come to us with...you have to nerve to come with this. How dare you?” Jed laid a calming hand on her shoulder and whispered her name softly. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because, there’s nowhere else for them to be and here is the best place for them. They’ll be safe with you and taken care of.” Abbey was too shocked to speak and threw up her hands in frustration before walking out the room in near tears of anger.
Jed had to curb his desire to go after her. He knew she needed to be alone right then. “What’s going on, Sienna?”
“I have to go away for a while.”
“You can’t take the children?” He sat down in the chair across from her.
“It’d be easier if they weren’t with me. Besides, we’re always moving. They need a steady home.” He nodded, understandingly.
“This is gonna sound pretty bad, but I don’t remember you having another child.”
“Yeah. Toby, my son. He’s six.” ‘Good Lord, another Toby,’ Jed thought to himself. Of all the thing that would surely kill him...
“Six?”
“Yeah.”
“The same way?” She hesitated before nodding. “Where’s Reynold?”
“Waiting for me.”
“You’re going back to him?”
“He’s my husband, Jed. He needs me. You have to understand that, if nothing else.” He nodded again.
“I do, I do.” ‘I don’t understand going back to a man who treats you like the crap on his shoes, but that’s your prerogative, I suppose.’ Jed was truly no fan of Reynold.
“So, what’s it gonna be?” He inhaled deeply.
“I don’t know. I’ve got to talk to Abbey first, but I would never turn family away.” She exhaled in relief.
“Thank you so much.” She threw her arms around him and he patted her back awkwardly.
“Don’t thank me yet. This isn’t a done deal yet.” He pried her arms from around his neck and stepped away. “I have to talk to Abbey, so just stay here and I’ll be back.”
“Okay.” He then hightailed it out of the room, because he had about as much tolerance for that woman as he did for republicans. And republicans won by a hair.
Josiah Bartlet did not like the tall grass...though somehow, it seemed that he was already two feet into it.
~~~~
