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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"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."

"I'm an old-fashioned man," Sam says. In spite of her warning for him to not be huffy, he is, because he still thinks there are certain things that men should do for women and one of them is paying for the dates.

"Next time, if we go dutch, I'll let you pick the place?"

"It'll be incredibly rich barbecue," Ainsley already knows, reaching over to take Sam's hand in hers and squeezing to try and give him a little comfort before he starts going too far down this line of thinking. "Sam, don't tell me we're going to argue about equality all night either."

"You realize that arguing is foreplay for you and I've already figured that out, yes?" Sam is well aware of Ainsley's fiery personality and her determination when she's right and he likes that in her. If it means he picks a fight occasionally just to see it, well, guilty as charged.

"I hadn't noticed in the least," is Ainsley's insistently innocent reply, even if her lips quirk upwards and refuse to let her get away with this. She leans up on her toes to press a kiss to Sam's lips with delight, holding onto his collar. "Besides, I don't like arguing with just anybody. It has to be you," she adds, with a simple shrug of her shoulders.

"It has to be you for me," Sam agrees. "It doesn't have the same flair with anyone else. It doesn't mean as much with anyone else."

The kiss is soft and slow, a prelude to what he hopes will happen later tonight.

"You're such a romantic," she accuses with all the fondness in the world. Drawing closer, Ainsley leans up to kiss his cheek and hold onto his hand, peering down a row of doors. "So which one do you think will take us to the kind of food that'll tide me over?"

Sam assesses the doors and after a moment, he settles on a set that are mahogany. They look like they might lead to the type of restaurant he's been craving and he tips his head in that direction.

"These ones? They look classic and solid."

"Just like you," she says, patting his very nicely defined chest. "Classic and solid and dependable and more than a little attractive," she adds, feeling inclined to expand. She leans forward to try the knob, grinning when it opens to a very fancy looking steakhouse with a view of a place that seems to have three moons.

"I wonder if they take American," she deadpans.

"Well, we're going to have to find out," Sam says, sliding his arm around her waist to walk her into the restaurant.

"If not, I'm not above washing some dishes to pay for my lady's supper. I'm not too good for that." Though, really, it's going to be the first time Sam Seaborn's monogrammed sleeves have ever gotten damp from dishwater.

"If you're going to wash dishes, then I might as well order dessert," she jokes as she takes his elbow and approaches the host with a charming smile. "Hi there," she says, quickly finding out that while they don't take cash, they do accept credit cards because apparently there is some very advanced trade deals between here and Earth at this point in the future.

As they get to their table, there's an amazed look on Ainsley's face. "Can you imagine politics in this kind of climate? Imagine negotiating trade deals with other planets. Imagine sanctions."

"Imagine the extradition treaties," Sam says, his mind immediately wandering to the way the law might work."We can barely get countries with the same species to cooperate, much less different species on different planets."

"I think we need to turn our work sides off," she says with a wary laugh, "otherwise we're going to be stuck here for the next five decades working out the best way to set up this planet as a trading partner with earth and I don't know about you, Sam, but I'm a little bit starving right now."

Though, when isn't she, is more accurate.

"Agreed," Sam says. Still, he's itching to get his hands on some legislation from this place, even if it's just trade or something, and he knows he's going to be coming back to ask questions to satisfy his own curiosity.

"I would much rather spend time with my beautiful girlfriend."

Ainsley gives Sam a fond smile, reaching out to tug on his fingertips as they walk to the table. "Is that what I am?" she asks, mainly wanting to hear it from his own lips. "I'm your girlfriend? Actually your girlfriend," she teases, knowing very well that she is.

"We've been exclusive since day one," Sam says. He doesn't think this should come as a shock to Ainsley, considering he's been floating the idea of buying a house in recent weeks, but maybe it does.

"Nobody for me but you."

"And here I thought you were married to your job, and by extension, Toby," she dryly jokes, giving him a fond smile as she leans forward to rest her hand on top of his. "Speaking of, does he know about us? I would've thought I'd have heard much more sighing if he did. Or maybe my office genuinely is too far away."

Sam shakes his head. "No, I figured I would let you take the lead on telling anyone. I know it doesn't matter, as I'm not your boss and you're not mine and in no way have you been hired because of your relationship to me - other than the fact that you thoroughly embarrassed me on national television and the administration thought that was a good thing - but I didn't want you to think I was undermining you in any way by mentioning we were involved. That being said, if you want to tell people, I am perfectly happy to tell people."

Ainsley gives him a warm smile for being considerate of their relationship, tapping her nails a little on the table as she leans forward and rests her forearms there. "Sam, I want to start telling people. I can tell Leo," she says, because after the embarrassment of other events, this should be a walk in the park. "You can tell Toby, and we'll just arrange for Josh to find us in a compromising position."

"The more compromising the better, for Josh, since he's going to lose his mind when he realizes we're together."

Sam takes a special pleasure in torturing Josh Lyman and he's really glad that Ainsley can share in that with him. Besides, it's about time he gets one up on Josh. He's overdue.

"I vote we have a camera installed, because I really, really want to see what his face looks like when he finds us. Preferably right on his desk," Ainsley airs her want, seeing as she thinks it'd be most worth it if she got recorded evidence of Josh's face after finding that out. "God help him when he realizes it's not just a fling, either."

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