imnotrobin | and so from time to time he opened his doors to those who wished an audience

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and so from time to time he opened his doors to those who wished an audience

Sam spends much of his time actually drafting speeches on behalf of the president, especially considering there's a re-election to consider, but every once in a while he starts to go cross-eyed and it's time for a break. He doesn't really mean break in the sense of "temporary closing of eyes and/or inhaling of food in the White House" but, rather, means break in the sense of actually getting to see his girlfriend face to face and sleep in a real bed.

Today is one of those days.

Sam is up to his neck in spin control and he thinks the cure for what ails him is a nice little trip to the hotel. The last few times he's tried, he hasn't gotten through, but Sam thinks that's because he genuinely was just trying to avoid work and didn't actually need the break. This time, though, he's determined to make it work and he opens his office door and steps through several times with eyes closed. He runs into a very startled intern on turn three but on turn four, he steps into the hallway in front of the suite that he sometimes, occasionally, not-often-enough visits with Ainsley in tow.

"Obviously the door is a plot device from an opera," Sam says, not checking to see if Ainsley is here yet or not. Normally they time this pretty well but he wonders, just a little, if he shouldn't have warned her before coming through so she could make her way here.

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"Buy me some and I could be persuaded to wear them," is her coy reply, seeing as she doesn't think she'd ever protest to spending more time with Sam. Settling on the bed, Ainsley pats her lap to coax Sam to come down and join her. "I think property ownership together is a little bit of a leap from dating, Sam," she notes, lecturing him only mildly. "Maybe we should meet each other's parents before that?"

"I don't think meeting the parents is out of the question," Sam says, settling on the bed next to her and reaching for her. "I have been told that parents adore me. I bet I could make your parents think I'm the best thing since sliced bread in spite of my liberal problem."

"My parents are dyed in the wool Republicans, Sam," she patiently reminds him, even as she moves to curl up in his arms, grinning as she thinks of the meeting and wondering which of them are the wolves in this scenario. "Either they're going to chew you up and spit you out or you're going to get so passionate that they recommend I find someone 'more appropriate'," she notes, making the air quotes.

"Now, now. I'm fantastic when it comes to meeting the parents. I have never had any complaints." Admittedly, Sam has never met a set of parents he cares as much about impressing but that's beside the point. He'd had the unique and difficult challenge of trying to date Leo's daughter and he thinks if he could survive such a trial by fire, he can survive Ainsley's parents.

And, yet, since he cares so much about what they think of him (and whether or not they'll allow him to ask their daughter to marry him), he thinks it's a hell of a lot more frightening than taking Leo McGarry's daughter out.

She's hiding her smile behind her hand at this point, awfully amused at the idea of Sam striving so hard and with such determination to impress her parents. "It's okay. I may send your parents screaming. How do they feel about stubborn, opinionated, clearly always right woman in their son's life?" she asks, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she leans forward to pry her socks off.

"They'd probably ask what took me so long," Sam says dryly. "I prefer my women stubborn, opinionated and willing to fight to the death. It's something I basically require, at this point, and having met someone who so perfectly embodies all of that, I can't imagine being with anyone else."

Sam is, above all, a wordsmith and he would be remiss if he did not lavish praise where it was due.

Ainsley grins as she stretches out on the bed, feeling just as nervous as ever. "You realize that I locked myself in Leo McGarry's office, made a fool of myself in front of the President, and have embarrassed myself, numerous times, in situations that I, Ainsley Hayes, could not even predict," she drawls.

"I'll probably throw up all over your parents' shoes when I say it's nice to meet them."

"You won't," Sam assures her. "And if you do, I'm certain they won't hold it against you. I can imagine they're going to find it as charming as I do, which says something about their taste in these matters."

One thing he isn't nervous about at all is the fact that things are serious enough to discuss meeting the parents with some sort of inevitability. Sam cannot be anything but serious where Ainsley is concerned.

She gives Sam a wary look because while it might not be as bad as the throwing up, she has the feeling that there's probably some verbal acrobatics she could end up tripping in and it's just not going to be a good thing. "And if I do mess it all up? Are they the kind of people that do second chances?"

"If it's someone that their son loves more than life itself," Sam says. The smile he gives her is more than a little sappy but he can't help it. Not with Ainsley.

"It's going to be fine."

Ainsley sits up slowly and stares at Sam with a broad grin, tipping her head to the side. "Are we going to end up sitting around in a hotel room tonight, Sam?" she wonders, twirling a lock of her hair. "Not that I'd mind, but as always, and ever, I'm starving."

"Do you want to go out to dinner or order in? I kind of fancy the idea of going on a proper date and taking our time but it's up to you. I don't know what kind of day you've had today."

Sometimes time doesn't pass the same way here as it does back in DC and the days don't match up the same way. He doesn't know when Ainsley's from, this time, but it doesn't matter. Not in this place.

"I don't mind if you're willing to give me a few seconds to freshen up, maybe change." She's started to bring a few things with her and one of them is a tight little orange number that she wouldn't mind putting on. "If you're willing to be patient, I can be ready in fifteen and then we'll go out wherever you like," she vows, with a warm smile on her face.

"Fifteen minutes is perfectly fine," Sam assures her. "Because I know you and you can work magic in just a short amount of time." Ainsley is one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen - especially when she has a few moments to herself to really gild the lily.

"You're lucky my hair's done, otherwise we'd be getting room service before we went out for dinner," Ainsley says, stepping into the bathroom with her things so she can run the water and get herself stripped bare, leaving the door just open a tiny nudge.

"What kind of food are you in the mood for?" she calls back, stepping into the shower once her shower-cap is fixed on.

"Personally, I could go for steak but I'm open to suggestions," Sam calls out. He's always been fairly adventurous when it comes to dining and DC has only contributed to that, with the wide variety of restaurants that surround the city. He's found that letting a lady choose more often than not ends up in a better night overall - especially when the lady in question is Ainsley Hayes.

"What are you in the mood for?"

"Steak and potatoes are practically music to my ears, especially if we're talking double-baked potatoes," Ainsley promises as she starts to work on getting dressed, reaching for her good date underwear and bra because she has the feeling that she might need them. With those in hand, she returns to the shower, doing a quick wash and scrub before she towels off, dressing quickly and affixing earrings in and doing a little comb-through before adjusting her dress.

She grabs her clutch and digs through her shoes before deciding on flats, thinking Sam can deal with the height difference. "Ready?"

"Absolutely," Sam assures her, offering his arm. "Come on, let's see what door is going to offer us steak and potatoes and all the wine we can drink."

Sam thinks a nice red would be a good way to polish off the evening."So anything interesting going on in legal right now? Not that we should talk about work but I like hearing about what you do."

"I'm keeping the White House from being sued by malignant and irritating little lawsuits that are much less interesting than I had high hopes for," she confesses, seeing as she'd built up this job as a lofty prospect and forgotten all about the part where the minutia of the job harkens back to law school.

She takes Sam's arm to slowly wander. "Of course, every time one of your speeches makes a too-big promise, I get to comb through the Constitution and make sure you aren't promising the moon."

"I don't tend to think about the Constitution when writing a clever turn of phrase," Sam admits, laughing softly. He wonders just how often Ainsley has had to play clean up for him and decides that right now, exactly, probably isn't the time for an itemized list.

"But I think we can leave that for another day."

"Maybe we can surprise ourselves and not talk about work," she teases, but even she doesn't know what they would end up talking about in that case. She's pretty much reached a point in her life where she works nearly the whole day and then goes home to sleep, with very few personal moments apart from that.

Half of her actually wonders if her relationship with Sam would ever have existed, if not for th White House, really.

"That would be a miracle in and of itself," Sam admits. "Both of us work too hard. We can play hard, too," he says, grinning a little. That, he hopes, will be a nice segue into an evening out.

"Dinner, drinks and then dancing?"

"We're going to need a lot of drinks if we're going dancing," Ainsley says knowingly, because her whole body doesn't really loosen up until there's alcohol in her veins, which is a precursor usually to her embarrassing herself, but she thinks she can make an attempt here. "Are you paying? If you are, I think it's your right to pick."

"Of course I'm paying," Sam says incredulously. The idea that he might offer to take Ainsley out on a date without paying is ludicrous and he wonders what sorts of men she normally dates if that's something that could even occur to her.

That isn't how he operates, anyway. He thinks it's the gentlemanly thing to do to hold the doors and buy the dinners and genuinely make each and every date just a little bit special, even if it's not a special occasion. He definitely wants to pull out the stops with Ainsley.

She levels him with a slightly sharp look. "You know I don't mind going in evenly on dates, I like the equality behind it. But if you're the one paying, that means you should also get the benefit of choosing." Now, though, she imagines she's going to try and pick up as much of the check as she can. "Don't get so huffy, Sam," she counters. "It was an innocent question."

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