The door to the room jerked open, startling Abbey so much she banged her head against the wall. She watched with trepidation as the three men approached them. She held Aislinn tighter to her body and reached a hand out to take Zoey's. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Toby tighten up as if getting ready to do battle.

"So, you think you are so smart, you stupid American WHORE." Azim paced in front of Abbey. "You still refuse to write a letter to your husband, your President."

Abbey stared straight ahead, silent, unbreakable.

"Take the little one." Azim nodded to Hassan. Aislinn screamed as she was ripped from her mother's arms.

"NO!!!" Abbey jumped to her feet but before she could rush forward Azim grabbed her from behind. At the feel of his arms holding her back from her daughter, Abbey went into a frenzy, kicking and scratching and fighting. She was wild with the primal need to protect her young. She felt the skin rip from Azim's face as her fingernails dug into his flesh. Aislinn's screams just drove into her more of a state of panic. "LEAVE HER ALONE! SHE'S JUST A BABY!"

"JED BARTLET'S baby. For that she will pay."

"MaaaaMaaaa!!!MaaaMaaa!!!" Aislinn's shrieks filled the room as she kicked at the man who held her back from her mother.

Rage and nausea filled Toby as he and a crying Zoey were held at bay by Habibs revolver, helpless to do anything to help the terrified baby.

"Please�PLEASE, I'll do whatever you want," Abbey pleaded. She had fallen to her knees all dignity gone her only conscious thought to save her child. "Please, just don't hurt her, please�please�."

Azim smiled that cold, cold smile. He had wanted to see Abigail Bartlet broken, crawling on her knees and he had gotten his wish. In the end it had not been such a difficult task at all. Azim knelt before her, lifted her chin, and took in the frantic tear filled eyes.

"We have a direct feed linked to the White House. You are going to go on that camera and you are going to beg your husband to release my Qumari cousins who were so unjustly thrown into prison in Israel. You are going to tell him that we are going to kill his little girl if he doesn't do it."

Abbey felt sick to her stomach. She knew what it was going to do to Jed to see that, to hear that ultimatum, and she also knew that it couldn't make any difference. He couldn't do what they demanded. "Yes�yes�I'll do it. Whatever you say. Just don't hurt my baby."

"You will be VERY convincing."

"I said I'll do it, just give me my baby back." Abbey held her arms out. Hassan dangled Aislinn before her by one arm, taunting her. He hadn't expected the little girl's lunge toward her mother. He lost his grip on her arm and with a sickening thud and a shriek of pain Aislinn hit the floor.

****

"Leo." Elizabeth Bartlet Weston answered the door to the living room of the residence. She was a small slender woman, like her mother, with the same rich auburn hair and green eyes that both had passed on to young Anabeth who Leo noticed was sitting on the couch pale- faced and staring at a TV that was showing scenes of the Bartlet family history. There was Jed having a tea party with little Zoey on the porch of the farm and cradling newborn baby Aislinn in the hospital. There was Jed dancing at his Inauguration with Abbey and Abbey and Jed chasing Aislinn on the beach in Maine. On and on it went, as it had been all night and day now.

"Hi, Liz" Leo kissed her cheek then uncomfortably scanned the roomful of O'Neills and Bartlets. He knew them all, Jed and Abbey's immediate family, but he felt out of place being around them in this time of turmoil and grief.

"I'm assuming you're here to see Daddy."

"Yeah."

"Any news about my mother and sisters." Elizabeth tried for calm but Leo could see the white knuckled grip with which she held her glass.

"Nothing definite yet. But, I do need to see your father."

Liz could tell by Leo's tone and by what he left unsaid that he probably had more news than he was willing to give her. "Daddy's in the nursery." Liz lead him along and Leo felt extreme discomfort as the strained and still shocked faces of the Bartlet's and the O'Neills followed his every move. They knew he was the liaison with the new President and that his arrival could mean good news or bad news, life or death. He now knew how Abbey must have felt when approaching the family members of her patients, as if she held their world, their future, in her hands.

Elizabeth opened the door to the nursery smiling softly as she saw her father, Nicholas, and Gus working on an upside down tricycle. Knowing that little ears did not need to hear what Leo McGarry had to say Elizabeth entered the room. "Boys, why don't you come with me. Gramma Beth made some peanut butter cookies and I think your names are on a few."

Gus quickly jumped to his feet, waiting patiently for the younger Nicholas to join him. With a pang of tenderness Jed watched little Gus take Nicky's hand to follow Liz to the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" Leo's brow was furrowed as he took in the grease on Jed's forehead and his hands.

"I'm oiling Aislinn's tricycle. I want it to be ready for her when she comes back."

Leo could see the denial. Jed was making deals with God. "Is that why you're hiding out in here instead of being out there with your family?"

"I'm not hiding out."

"They don't blame you, you know."

"Well they should."

"What?"

"They should blame me. It's my fault."

"How is this YOUR fault."

"I gave the order to kill Shareef, Leo. ME. And now my girls are paying the price."

"We don't know that this has anything to do with Shareef. They haven't said a word about Shareef. The only contact that we've had has been the letter asking us to release the three Qumari terrorists that plotted the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister."

"Walken isn't going to do it?"

"He can't, Jed. You know that."

"Yeah," Jed placed his attention back on the little red tricycle. "That's why I stepped down. A part of me wants to strangle him for not forcing Israel to release them. But, you didn't come here to tell me that, did you?"

"No, I came to tell you that Jean Paul is awake."

"What did he have to say for himself," Jed sneered.

"He isn't saying much of anything. In spite of the fact that they pumped him full of drugs and left him for dead he isn't speaking."

"I want to see him."

"What?" Leo's eyes widened with surprise.

"If that mewling little son of a bitch knows where my wife and daughters are being held he damn well better tell us. Let Ron know. We're going to GW."

****

Abbey was at Aislinn's side in an instant. The little girl was screaming in pain, holding onto her arm and thrashing against Abbey when she tried to touch her.

"Ash, baby�it's okay. Mommy needs to see where you're hurt." Abbey probed the bruise on the girl's jaw but she knew that Aislinn's arm had born the brunt of her awkward fall. Hesitantly, but knowing she had to do it, Abbey began to manipulate her daughter's arm starting from her shoulder and moving down to her elbow.

As her mother's fingers probed down along her forearm, Aislinn shrieked and yanked herself away. Tears blurred Abbey's eyes; it was just as she had suspected a fracture of the radial bone. It wasn't compound, had not broken through the flesh, but it was bad enough that she'd been able to feel it without needing a x-ray. Already the arm was blackening and swelling.

"You heartless, dirty, FUCKING son of bitch!" Abbey turned to Hassan the venom from her words and the fire flashing in her eyes in direct contrast to the gentleness with which she pulled her sobbing daughter onto her lap. "You broke her fucking arm!"

"Ah, such language," Hassan tssked, tssked. He blew a bubble with his bubble gum completely unmindful of what he'd just done to the innocent little girl. "And in front of such little ears."

"You broke her arm." Tears streamed unchecked down Abbey's cheeks as she rocked her daughter in her arms trying to comfort her. "She needs help. You have to let her go�she needs to see a doctor�Keep me, but let her go."

The men simply turned and started to leave the room. Abbey eyed the gun in Azim's holster with longing. If only she could get that gun. For the first time in her life she knew that she would kill another human being and the way she felt right now it would give her great pleasure to watch these men die.

Abbey called out to their retreating forms. "DAMMIT, she needs a DOCTOR."

"I guess you'll have to do then, DOCTOR Bartlet." Azim turned to face her, a look of disdain for the idea of a female doctor written all over his face, and then he shut the door leaving them with the crying child.

****

"Well, well, look who came to see me." Jean Paul was laying in the hospital bed attached to an IV but Jed didn't feel one iota of pity for the young man who had used his daughter so shamelessly.

"Where are my wife and daughters?" Jed tone was pure ice.

"What, no hello Jean Paul, how are you? Oh that's right you couldn't even remember my NAME."

"I opened up my HOME to you. I took you to my church, I let you eat at my table."

"And I watched you fuck your wife."

Jed's face paled with the shock of the boy's words.

Jean Paul laughed a tired, jaded sound. "Oh, yes, Mr. PRESIDENT, I know a lot more about you than you think that I do. I know that it damn near killed you to let Zoey bring me home. You think I didn't know how you felt about me. You think you're so fucking superior. I descend from the house of BOURBON and you could barely tolerate having me in your home."

"I guess I wasn't so off base, was I, you little scumbag? You USED my little girl."

"Yes, well that was the fun part," Jean Paul smirked. Jed's fist caught the young man on the jaw jerking his head back against the pillow.

"Hey!" Jean Paul dabbed at the blood on his lip and eyed the impassive looking secret service agent who stood by the door. "You can't let him do that to me."

"I didn't see a thing." Ron stared straight ahead.

Jed grabbed a fistful of Jean Paul's hospital gown and hauled him up off the pillow. "You tell me where my wife and daughters are, NOW."

"I don't know." Jean Paul felt a frission of fear at the rage that burned in Jed Bartlet's eyes. "I wasn't part of the plans. All I know is that they're somewhere in Pennsylvania"

"Don't give me that BULLSHIT" Jed drew his fist back.

"I SWEAR. All I was supposed to do was lure Mrs. Bartlet and the girls into the barn."

"For what?" Jed's tone was deadly. "What was the price for my wife and daughters."

"Enough money to restore my family's home to its ancient splendor."

Jed snorted. "Too bad you'll never see that money get put to use."

"Oh, yes I will. I'll be extradited by the end of this week."

"You're not going anywhere. You're standing trial right here where you are going to have to face a jury of American women and men and tell them how you PLANNED the kidnapping of their first family and how you DRUGGED the First Lady and her young daughters."

"Hey, I didn't kidnap them!" Jean Paul was panicking now. "They'll have to believe me!"

"Listen to me, you mealy mouthed little pissant." Jed's hand shot out grasping the boy's throat and pressing in hard until Jean Paul was choking, his face turning first red and then purple. He struggled trying to pull Jed's hand from his larynx but the wrath of the older man was stronger. Jed leaned in close; his blue eyes burning into Jean Paul's his voice icy, deadly. "If they DIE, I'm going to see to it that YOU do. Believe that."

****

Abbey rocked Aislinn back and forth in her arms, her head pillowed against her breasts. The little girls hysterical sobbing had calmed into soft shocky hiccups that shook her little body. Her face was soaking wet from the tears, blotchy and swollen and her nose was running. Abbey soothed her, sang to her, tried to calm her and all the while her own tears trailed silently down her cheeks.

Still, in spite of her mother's comfort there was only one thing that Aislinn wanted. The one person who could make the monsters go away. "I wan my daddy�I wan my daddy�. I wan my daddy�. I wan my daddy�."It was like a soft pitiful mantra that the little girl could not stop repeating, something that brought tears to Toby eyes and something he knew would kill Jed if he knew how badly his little girl needed him.

"I want your daddy too, sweetness�" Abbey brushed the hair back off her forehead. "I want your daddy too."

"Mumma�I pee peed�"

"I know, honey�It's okay. You couldn't help it."

"Sowy, mumma� I sowy"

"Oh, God, baby, don't, it's okay." Abbey started to cry then, her heart breaking for her brave little girl. " You don't have to be sorry. You're a brave, brave little girl, Aislinn�"

Fayih quietly entered the room and made her way hesitantly to the corner where the group of captives sat.

"Azim and Habib are out at the shed working on the electronics. I bring water�for the little girl�" Fayih handed Abbey a bottle of water.

"Water isn't going to help her," Abbey seethed. "Her arm his BROKEN. She needs to be at a hospital. Please, you have to help us."

"I cannot. Please understand. If I help you they will kill me, they will kill my own children."

"Your husband would kill his own child?" Abbey was incredulous.

"My husband would do whatever he has to do. Your little one. She loves her father?"

Fayih could hear Aislinn's continuing pleas for her daddy.

"Very much. She's the apple of her daddy's eye."

"Which is, I imagine why they took her, why they took all of you. You must mean a lot to the President."

"Look, I've been thinking. There is a way that you can help us and the men don't have to know it was you."

Abbey watched Fayih withdraw warily and she jumped right in. " I see Hassan likes to chew gum, does he have any laying around?"

"All over the place. Why?"

"There's no way that we can all escape. They'd catch us for sure. But there is a way for Zoey to get out of here with Aislinn."

"Mom�" Zoey knew she wasn't going to like what her mother was about to say.

"No, hear me out. I know what Hassan wants and I know it's only a matter of time before he takes it. If you stay, Zoey, it's going to happen to both of us. I've lived through being violated and I WON'T have that happen to you. Fayih, if you put a piece of gum on the door latch it won't lock when you shut it. I can distract Hassan and when I do, Zoey you take Aislinn and run."

"Distract him?" Toby was shocked. "You'd give your body to that perverted monster? You're the First Lady of the United States, you can't do that."

Abbey turned to him green eyes filled with righteousness. "I'd sell my soul to the devil, Toby, if it would mean saving my children."

"I'm not leaving you here, Mom." Tears filled Zoey's eyes at the thought.

"Zoey, you HAVE to. Aislinn needs medical attention. I'm going to be honest with you, honey. These men are going to kill us. Regardless of what your father does, we aren't going to get out of this alive. YOU are my only hope. You get Aislinn to safety and you can help the FBI find me. Toby, you go with them and �"

"I'm staying right here." Toby knew that if Abigail Bartlet had enough courage to deal with what was going to happen to her than he had to have the courage to stay behind and help her get through it all.

"Toby----"

"Do you think that I could live with myself if I left you here alone with these bastards? Do you think that I could face Jed Bartlet if I left his wife here at the mercy of terrorists? Whether I can help you or not, I'm staying."

Abbey could see that Toby was adamant about staying behind so she turned back to Zoey.

"Don't make me do this, Mom." Zoey gripped Abbey's hand tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I can't leave you here, Mommy�Don't make me leave you here."

"You listen to me Zoey Bartlet." Abbey lifted her daughter's chin looking deeply into eyes that mirrored her own. Her daughter was a lovely girl, a sheltered, pampered next to youngest daughter of a family of great privilege. But there was also a strength in her, a fearlessness for which her husband had been so proud. "This is your chance to show us all what you're made of. You keep telling me that you're not a child anymore, and you're right. You're an adult and as such I need to be able to trust you to do this for me."

"But�but how can you�you know�"

"I have to hope that it will buy you time." It took all that Abbey had not to show her daughter her fear, her revulsion. "And I have to trust in your father that he will understand what I've done."

Zoey nodded. She knew her father, knew how he felt about her mother and knew that he would forgive her pretty much anything.

"Okay, good." Abbey smoothed Zoey's hair back then turned to Fayih. "So, will you help us?

Fayih saw the bravery inside Abigail Bartlet and inside her daughter and felt shame that she was so weak.

"I will get you the gum."

TBC...