"Leo," you say, "did I just hear you right? Because if I did --"

"Yes, Nancy. The president has MS." You sit on one of his chairs, careful to cross your ankles, right over left, like you've always been taught. He's acting nonchalant, as if this is a routine update on the Pakistani/Indian border, or a coup in Argentina, but you're not sitting down to narrate, you're sitting to prepare for attack.

"How long has he known?"

"Seven years." You're resisting the urge to gasp. Your eyebrows go up, your head slightly right, and he's looking down because he knows. The ramifications of this are already tumbling through your head, how this will play in France, how North Korea could really trust a man's word when he has a debilitating illness that could strike at any second --

"And you?"

"During the campaign." Of course, Leo would have known at the beginning.

"Who else knows?"

"Well, the family, the Vice-President, Fitzwallace, Toby Ziegler, Josh, CJ--" You stop him before the list gets longer, before your temper explodes, but you can't keep the anger out of your voice. "You told the senior staff before you told me?"

"We have to control the story, Nancy, it's going to be leaked and --" You've stopped listening.

"I am the National Security Advisor to the President, Leo. I was appointed, by your suggestion, to the office. I accepted because I trusted you, and the President, and I can't believe, all those hours in the Security room and, what if--"

"Would it have changed anything you decided? Would you think any less of his decisions or his capabilities to understand the situations you presented in front of him?"

You stand up. "I would have had a contingency plan. I would have known that this could be a problem. I would have thought differently, yes, because my job is to think differently and figure out what the other persons in the room are thinking. My job is to protect this country and that man, and now you're telling me that he is sick, I can't do nothing to protect him from this, and I am practically the last person to know?"

"It's nothing personal." Leo fiddles with papers. You know there's nothing pressing. Hell, you know better than he does what the state of the world looks like.

"The hell it isn't, Leo. I would have expected more from you." You press your palms hard against your suit coat. You turn toward the door. "You can expect to see my resignation on his desk by morning."

"Nancy," he calls after you, but you're already at the door. Yet something in you stops, so you turn and say, "It's about trust, Leo. Everything in this game is about trust. And I know how to admit defeat."

"You lose the battles but you win the wars. I knew what I was doing when I recommended you for the position, Nancy. It just, it wasn't my secret to tell."