Invisible String

C.2: one single thread of gold tied me to you

"How long have you been back?" Bartlet asked, once the rest of the staff trailed away, searching for another person to converse with or to talk policy with. He already knew the answer to this question, as he always did.

Madison gave him the look that could be interpreted as "Really?" A look that Bartlet knew all too well, he'd been one the receiving end of it from her since the day she turned thirteen.

"Sir," She opened her mouth to speak, nervously ramble was a better descriptive, "I know you already know this answer, as you probably speak to my mother more than I do. I just occasionally sleep in one of the guest rooms, sometimes I don't even make it there. The couch in the front room is a good place to crash, has to be face first though. And kinda drunk. Well pretty drunk." She nervously corrected herself, instead of making things better, she made them worse somehow.

Bartlet gave her a wiry smile, one that she'd greatly missed. As always it managed to calm her down, just enough for her to continue speaking.

"I've been back in country for just under two months. I spent the first few weeks in New York, crashing on Meredith's couch. It took them three weeks to kick me out," Madison spoke, capturing the President's attention, as he hadn't heard this side of the story before, "because according to my sister and her roommates, I was really killing the vibe, sitting on the couch in tears complaining about how much it hurts to get your heart broken, is just like mood killing for anytime they wanted to bring anyone else around." she rambled, "Also apparently pouring the bottle of wine into the ice cream carton that you've been crying into for the past few hours and eating it is disgusting," Madison used air quotes around the last word.

"And I wasn't getting any jobs, so I thought, y'know might as well move home, well was it ever a home? Nah. And risk getting kicked out at a seconds notice just seemed so much fun."

"So yeah," she trailed off as she took a sip from the glass that had been shoved into her hand by Donna less than ten minutes ago.

"How's the family?" Bartlet asked, again trying to get the information he wanted out of her without directly asking.

"Again, like I said Sir, you probably know more than me." Madison paused for a second, "Meredith, she's good, waiting for college to be over, but I think she'll miss it when it's done. Peter, he's in town, he's a trauma fellow. I'm not sure what hospital if I'm honest. Adam and Dad, they're god knows where. You probably know where they are. I think Adam's on peacekeeping mission somewhere in like... I want to say somewhere in central Africa region. Dad?" she questioned, "Probably trying to overthrow a small country. Gotta keep busy in your old age, y'know?"

Bartlet shook his head, having forgotten how much Madison talked when she was nervous.

"A democratic DC finally manage to entice you back?" Bartlet asked in the same vein as Leo's earlier question.

"So I'm six years too early?" Madison joked, trying to set herself at ease, "I got my heartbroken. I got cheated on..." she trailed off, not aware of how much of the truth that Constance had told him.

The pair skirted around the remaining elephant in the room, as they discussed everything else without limits. The one topic which weighed heavily on her still remained, no matter how much the pair wished to ignore it. Madison was unaware of how to bring it up to the President who happened to be her Godfather.

"Can I speak with candour, Sir?" Madison asked, "With all due respect of course." She quickly added.

"That wasn't you speaking with candour before," The President smiled briefly.

"Sir..." She started speaking before Jed stopped her.

"If you're going to speak with candour, at least drop the formalities."