Chapter Three

They spent the night at the hospital even though visiting hours wouldn't officially allow it. Henry managed to fall asleep, but Elizabeth had eventually accepted that sleep wouldn't happen for her. After drifting as close to sleep as she was likely to get for a few hours, Elizabeth gave up. It would be a far better use of her time to work on her speech. Typically Matt was the one to write all of her speeches, but this one was personal. She wanted to do it herself. She would get a little bit written and then get distracted watching Jason. The doctors had taken the tube out earlier in the evening. Some of Elizabeth's fear had been removed with the tube. Now she could look at her son and think of him as merely asleep.

Elizabeth wrote a few more lines at the end of her speech and glanced up at Jason. It had become habit to watch him as she thought. At first what she was seeing didn't register. Then she sat bolt upright, nearly dropping her pen and speech out of her lap.

"Henry! Henry!" she called as she reached over and gave her husband's shoulder a shove.

Henry jerked awake and blinked blearily at her. Elizabeth ignored him and was already at Jason's bedside. She was watching him intently.

"Jason?" she asked as she brushed her son's hair back off his face.

When Henry realized what was going on, he scrambled out of his chair to join Elizabeth and Jason. Then he saw Jason's eyes opened and his heart leapt.

"Jas?"

Jason groaned and rolled a bit toward them.

"Mom? Dad? What happened?"

His voice was scratchy and weak from being so dry, but he was speaking. Henry and Elizabeth couldn't help grinning like crazy. The relief of seeing him awake was so great Elizabeth was fighting not to cry and losing that battle. A few tears slid down her face, and she had to brush them away.

"Mom?"

Jason was confused and concerned. He never saw his mother cry. When she didn't answer Jason's eyes flicked to his dad. Henry smiled at him reassuringly.

"We're so glad you're awake, Jason."

"Do you remember what happened, baby?"

It was a harder question than Jason thought it should have been. He had to close his eyes and dig through his scattered memories to come up with an answer. Unfortunately the answer, once he remembered, wasn't one he was going to be able to tell his parents. They hadn't known about the party before, and he definitely didn't want to tell them now. If they knew where he'd been and what he'd been doing they would kill him. When he opened his eyes and looked up at his parents again he didn't know what to say.

Elizabeth could read his eyes. There was memory there. And fear.

"We already know, Jason. There's no point in hiding anything."

Jason's face twisted painfully.

"I was at a party."

"Drinking," Henry added.

Jason closed his eyes and nodded reluctantly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Elizabeth rested her hand on Jason's cheek, drawing his full attention. There were tears trickling down her face again. Now wasn't the time to fully confront him about his decision, but Jason had to understand how serious the situation was. If he hadn't already figured that out for himself.

"You have no idea how sorry you could have been, Jason. You nearly died."

Jason paled and looked at his father with wide eyes.

"She's not exaggerating, buddy," Henry confirmed.

Tears filled Jason's eyes, and he began trembling. The realization of the potential consequences of going to that party were finally sinking in, and it terrified him. He hadn't meant to almost get himself killed. He hadn't even meant for anything bad to happen. The plan had been to go to the party, have some fun, and come back home without his parents even knowing. Obviously that plan had been blown to absolute smithereens. He hadn't achieved any part of it except for going to the party and having fun, except it didn't feel like so much fun now. It felt like the absolute opposite of fun really.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean…"

Elizabeth reached out and pulled Jason into her arms. He clung to her like a lifeline. Henry settled himself onto the bed next to them and began stroking Jason's head and back. Jason was going to continue learning from this experience, and Elizabeth and Henry would be there to help him through the process.

O . o . O . o . O

There was a soft knock on the hospital door that drew the three McCords' attention. Blake was standing at the door with a fresh change of clothes for Elizabeth in his hand. He smiled warmly at them.

"It's good to see you awake, Jason," Blake offered before turning his attention to Elizabeth. "Everything is set up, Ma'am."

Jason's eyes immediately snapped to his mom. He had no idea what Blake was talking about, but it looked like his mom was planning on leaving.

Elizabeth kissed Jason's head and told him, "I'll be back in a little bit."

While Elizabeth followed Blake out of the room, Jason once again turned frantic eyes on his father for an explanation. Henry smiled sadly. Another lesson was coming for Jason. He was now going to learn how far-reaching consequences could be.

"Mom has to do a press conference. The news got your exit from the party on live TV. They've been playing it as a scandal about Mom. She has to try and turn that around."

"Because of me," Jason sighed.

"You didn't make the best decisions, bud."

"And now Mom's going to lose her job."

"Your mom's solved worse problems. I would trust her ability to solve this one too."

Outside the hospital, Elizabeth was hoping the same thing. There was a whole group of media waiting for her. They would be ready to pound her with questions and criticisms, but she was going to try and head them off. Not only that, she wanted to try and bring something good out of this terrible situation. With a deep breath and a last glance at her speech notes, she stepped up to speak.

"You all know me as Secretary McCord, but more importantly I'm the mother of a fifteen year old son. A fifteen year old son who made the bad decision to drink at an underage party and wound up in the hospital for treatment of alcohol poisoning. He regained consciousness for the first time this morning, and the doctors believe there wasn't any lasting damage. But there could have been. And my son wasn't the only one. There were dozens of kids at that party, and that party was one of many.

Teenage drinking is a serious problem, and it's going to take everyone to fix it. Hopefully Jason's story will be a start, so more people than just my family can learn from his poor choice.

Parents, learn from my experience so you don't have to go through the fear and anxiety of wondering if your child will live to see the next day. One discussion about alcohol isn't enough. In my experience, two wasn't enough. As terrible as those discussions might be, they aren't nearly as bad as seeing your child with a tube down their throat.

Teens, every drink has an impact. Jason thought he would know when to stop, but when he started feeling something it was already far too late. The effects aren't instant, and they build up. If he hadn't gotten help when he did he would be dead. It's a terrifying wake up call to regain consciousness in a hospital bed with no memory of how you go there, and to then have to undergo testing for brain damage. Learn from Jason. You don't want to wake up on a ventilator, or worse never wake up at all. One drink can lead to another and another. Don't put yourself in that situation because sometimes there's not a way back out. For those who are lucky enough to have one, it's not an easy way back.

Everyone makes mistakes in their lives, even when they aren't teenagers. I can't condemn the mistakes of a young man who is not yet an adult when I've made mistakes when I was a lot older than he is now. But I know that he will learn from this mistake, and isn't that the whole point of life? You learn from your mistakes so you can make better choices in the future. That's all anyone can ask as a parent, and as a person. We learn from mistakes. Let's let Jason's be a lesson for everyone."

When Elizabeth finished speaking there was a momentary pause as the press considered her words. She'd done her job and more. The blame couldn't truly be placed on her, and in her speech even Jason had escaped any true blame. She'd managed to take the ugliness of the last 24 hours and get some benefit from it. Conrad, at least, should be happy with that. The press would likely never be satisfied, but she might have changed some minds. She would find out how many as the questions began to erupt.

"Madam Secretary," a reporter called out. "Will your son face the juvenile justice system?"

There was little question that he would, Elizabeth knew, which would give the press even more of a field day. She would deal with that when the time came; however, she could potentially keep that round of the news cycle to a minimum with a good answer right now.

"I would certainly assume so. He has a lot of lessons to learn, and I want to use every way I can to get them to sink in. Jason won't be exempt from anything any other teenager would face."

"Do you plan on punishing your son for his actions?" another reporter asked.

"We are definitely going to have a long discussion with him," Elizabeth returned. "As for punishment, I think he has suffered enough, though that doesn't mean there won't be consequences for breaking our trust."

What those consequences would be where still unknown. She would have to talk to Henry. And to Jason. Her son's reaction to all of this would play a big role in how she responded. Lessons needed to be learned, but she suspected Jason was well on his way to learning them without any involvement from her. The whole family would get through and move past the scandal the media wanted to turn the event into. They could even come out better for it.