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It was raining. A cold, soaking rain that chilled everyone to the bone...everyone who had gathered this day to pay final honor to a courageous young woman who’d died in the line of duty. President Josiah Bartlet seemed to have aged years in the past two days. His face was lined with weariness as he stood beside his daughter.

Zoey’s face was pale, and one arm rested in a sling. The injury had occurred when her bodyguard had shoved her out of the way of a speeding bullet. Gina hadn’t meant to push so hard – it was the impact of the bullet that had done that.

Charlie Young stood in his customary place, one pace behind the First Family, wondering for the hundredth time if this was really his fault. They’d all assured him that it wasn’t – that no one was to blame but the creep who’d pulled the trigger - but still, he wondered. Would Zoey have been a target if she hadn’t been going out with him? And why didn’t they just take a shot at him, instead of an innocent teenaged girl?

‘Because they’re cowards,’ a voice seemed to whisper. Charlie heard that voice every once in a great while, when he was feeling particularly low. He liked to think that it was his mom, still looking out for him. She was right of course, just as he remembered. The guy who’d done this was a small-minded punk with nothing but hatred in his heart – someone who’d never learned the lessons of tolerance, and honor, and courage. Not like Gina.

Charlie took a half-step closer to Zoey. As if sensing his nearness, she reached back and insinuated one small hand into his own.

******

Jed Bartlet noticed when his daughter reached out to Charlie, and he was glad. Charlie was a good man, and that was all that mattered to him. He watched attentively as the minister concluded his blessing and the honor guard stepped into place. Although he had no military background himself, he recalled Gina telling him that she’d been an Army officer before assuming her post, and he had personally arranged for her to be buried all appropriate honors.

He watched as the honor guard reverently lifted the flag from her coffin in their white-gloved hands and began to fold it, every move precisely choreographed and emanating respect both for the deceased, and the symbol of the nation that she had served.

He watched them lift the flag from the polished wooden casket of a brave young woman who’d given her life to protect his daughter, and he thought about some punk setting a match to it. Bile rose in his throat. He thought about the proposed amendment to the Constitution and a calm resolution filled him. Burn the flag? No way. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Fin.