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And So It Goes Jane Harper RATING:PG-13/TV-14 SYNOPSIS: Unmitigated schlock. ARCHIVE: Sure, just let me know. DISCLAIMER: One of these characters belongs to me. The other belongs to the Evil Genius. You'll know which is which; and I intend nothing other than intense admiration for the other. Lyrics quoted are ©1989, Joel Songs, reprinted without permission.
* * * * * It's getting harder and harder for me to keep telling myself what a bad idea this is. I _am_ still trying, but it's a losing battle. Especially when you come in here like tonight, half-dead from working for thirty-six hours straight. You can hardly walk, and yet there you are after dinner, pulling out a hundred pages of total b.s. to hack your way through before morning. I don't know how you do it; that stuff bores me silly. But you force yourself - and by the morning meeting tomorrow you'll be able to rattle facts and figures like a human almanac. Well, maybe not tomorrow. Tonight you're going to get a good night's sleep. So I'll do my patriotic duty, I'll take the glasses off your nose, and take off your shoes. I'll take off your tie, and unbutton your collar, and tuck you in right where you are, on the sofa, because if I wake you up to go to bed, you won't. You'll insist on staying up until every one of these memos has been digested and processed. And tomorrow morning, you'll get up at five and do it again. Do you have any idea what I'd give to see this look on your face when you're awake? The lines between your eyes are almost gone. In the year I've known you, you've aged five. I can count the times I've heard you laugh - a deep down, inner-child-like, belly laugh - on one hand. In the press every once in a while there's a remark about how the President has aged, how his hair is grayer, how his eyes don't sparkle as often as they used to. The whole world knows what a load he carries, but they neither know nor care what it's doing to you. And if I ever said that out loud you'd ream me a new one. I can just hear you -- "Sarah, _I'm_ not the issue here!" But you're wrong. For me, for now and the foreseeable future, you _are_ the issue. You go right on believing that you were born to follow Jed Bartlet through history, standing one step behind and to the left. But everybody inside the Beltway knows that if you hadn't gone to his house and talked him into running, he'd be the most popular economics professor at Dartmouth, period. And the world would be so much worse off. And they - we - have _you_ to thank for that. There. I'll just sit here awhile and work on my cross-stitch... and watch you sleep... What's that song on the radio? "And so it goes, and so it goes / and so will you soon I suppose ..." I can only imagine what it was like for you after Jenny left. You must have relied on her for so much, and I can't begin to fill that gap. Margaret has taken up the professional slack, making sure you don't forget things, seeing that all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed, reminding you of birthdays and holidays and social obligations. You've actually gotten _closer_ to Mallory since the divorce; she's become much more of a friend than a daughter. And me? Yeah, there are things that Jenny did for you that I've taken on. But it's taken three of us to replace her. When you've finished doing your country this service, when you've stepped back out of the Presidential glow and are no longer a topic of conversation inside the Beltway, it will be time for you to move on, to find someone who can stand beside you rather than behind, and I'll have to step aside. "So I would choose to be with you / if the choice were mine to make / but you can make decisions too..." Just don't get the idea that all this is because I've let myself care about you. I don't do that. I can't do that. You have your priorities, and they're the right ones; any relationship you and I may have is pretty far down the list. So for however long you'll let me, I'll stand one pace behind and to _your_ right. And I'll be proud to do it. And when our time is over, I'll have no regrets. So I keep my distance, avoid expectations, take one day at a time. I'm grateful for the hours we have. "... and you can have this heart to break. And so it goes..." Who am I kidding? Good night, my heart. I love you. --
The End
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