Surely To Their Credit

[theirlawyer]

The trouble with arguing with Sam isn't that it's annoying or exasperating. He's frustrating because he's a Democrat with several misinformed beliefs, but that's not really the problem with arguing with him. As Ainsley helps to balance coffee cups on the tray as they take the stairs, her ponytail swinging behind her, she knows the real problem.

She likes it.

She likes arguing with Sam to the point that if he looks like he's in a good mood, she's tempted to bring up the ideal size of government just to see him start ranting. If she can get him to take off his reading glasses to make one of his points, all the better. Flicking her hair over her shoulder, she turns to back her way up the last door, opening her mouth to goad him on a little more, not really thinking beyond the repartee she's sure to get (that makes her feel alive, that makes her heart beat a little quicker, that makes her skin flush).

"You know," she begins, "at this rate, you'll be switching parties faster than I can say Abraham Lincoln was one of...ours..."

She trails off because Sam's not following her anymore, but that's not the problem. The problem is that it looks like the White House managed to get a new decorator in the time it'd taken them to go downstairs to the cafeteria for some coffee. Gingerly, Ainsley steps forward, the tray of sugars and creams still in her hands.

"...Sam?" she calls out around the next corner, trying not to let herself believe this is all the beginning of a horror movie. She's fine. She's in the White House, she's fine, and she sees and hears stranger things in the Steampipe Distribution Venue every single day.

Comments

[imnotrobin]

"Mine is 1600 and yours is 1760. They're...probably not on the same hall?" That would make sense in a normal hotel but this doesn't seem to be a normal hotel as he's just passed 832 and 4000 next to one another. It makes no sense at all.

"I feel like we fell into the proverbial rabbit hole, Ainsley."

[theirlawyer]

Ainsley is starting to feel a headache come on. She pinches the bridge of her nose and feels like smacking her forehead against something very thick and wooden, just to try and get some of the cobwebs out, but before she can do that, she does a double-take. "Wait," she says, sharply. "Wait, Sam, look, here. 1600," she says, gesturing to it. "Here's yours."

[imnotrobin]

"Thank God for small favors," he says, swiping the key card and swinging the door in so that Ainsley can enter before he does. The room itself is fairly nice, a suite, with a nice writing desk and plenty of room to walk around. He's always hated hotel rooms that are nothing more than just a bed and a lamp and he's glad this one isn't that, even if he doesn't plan to be using it very often.

Weirdly, it looks like a suite he stayed in once at the Mandarin Oriental back in DC and he guesses that is as familiar as anything has been today.

"There's a phone in here. I'll just call Josh and get this straightened out."

[theirlawyer]

Ainsley's attention is everywhere at once as she takes in the room around her, sliding her palm along the walls before she heads to the bed and perches on the end of it, breathing in and out steadily and thinking that only a few hours ago, they had been bickering and getting coffee and she'd thought, for a moment there...

Her gaze flickers over Sam when he's occupied, a steady roaming gaze when he's not looking, and she thinks she can't be crazy. Can she? She'd thought she'd seen interest, but now they're in a strange hotel and both think the other has gone insane.

[imnotrobin]

Sam rolls up his sleeves and dials out, not really sure why his calls aren't going through. He tries several numbers - CJ, Toby, Leo. On a lark, he tries the actual Oval Office and half expects to hear Charlie pick up. He doesn't. Nobody does. All he gets is an automated message that his call cannot be completed as dialed and he slams the phone back into the cradle in frustration.

"Well, that was completely useless. Have you found a room service menu? Maybe I can just drink until I pass out."

[theirlawyer]

"I'm sort of stuck in an endless loop of 'how did I get here' and wondering if the speech is going to get finished after we stumbled into an alternate dimension without phone service," Ainsley admits, a little muted and dull as she stares forward. "You don't think the President would fire us for accidentally leaving work, would he? Is this in any of the nation's documents?"

[imnotrobin]

"I think," Sam says carefully, "that if the president wants to fire us, he'll do it whether or not we've got perfect attendance. As it stands, we can't dial out and we can't leave so I don't think anyone would begrudge us a little champagne and stress relief."

Sam stretches, lifting his arms above his head and arching his back to pop it. There's tension all the way down and he just thinks it's going to get worse the longer he's stuck in an Eagles song.

[theirlawyer]

Ainsley can't help but give a small laugh, leaning back on her hands on Sam's bed. "Why, Sam," she drawls, all sticky sweet and exaggeration. "Champagne? That makes it seem as if you're celebrating finding your way into a strange parallel hotel adjoined to the White House. What would your colleagues say?"

[imnotrobin]

"Go big or go home, Ainsley," Sam says, grinning at her. "Champagne and baked goods? Beignets?"

It's all a little ridiculous but when in Rome...

[theirlawyer]

"Well, when you say it so nicely and put it like that..." She actually hates herself for the frisson of excitement she feels at the sound of beignets and champagne, her stomach rumbling with hunger even though she'd eaten only an hour ago. "Well? Be a gentleman and pick up the phone and order. If we're going to be stuck in no man's land of hotels, we might as well be well-fed and drank for it."

[imnotrobin]

"Yes ma'am," Sam says, picking up the phone and ordering a bottle of champagne and a tray of pastries. It's a very New Orleans breakfast, he guesses, which is interesting considering it's probably late afternoon and in no discernible region of the country.

"Should be up soon. Let's drown our sorrows."

[theirlawyer]

She doesn't know if it's a great idea to be drinking with Sam after such a long day, but it's a hotel room that appears to be in the middle of a foreign universe, which means Ainsley's pretty sure that she's allowed a little bit of leeway when it comes to bad decisions. She tucks her keycard away and leans back on her hip, giving Sam a considerate look. "What's the last thing that happened to you, then, before I found you?"

[imnotrobin]

"I was about to introduce you to the president," Sam explains. "You were in a bathrobe dancing down in your office and I had President Bartlet with me for an introduction. I still don't know how you managed to go this long without meeting him."

[theirlawyer]

"Well, I hate to break it to you, Sam, but that's come and gone for me. It was humiliating," she says, beginning to count it off on her fingers, "it was embarrassing, and above all, I will never be able to think back on it without hating myself just a little bit, not only for my behavior, but for how the President saw me."

[imnotrobin]

"There's nothing to be ashamed about," Sam assures her. "He asked for you personally after you wiped the floor with me on Capitol Beat. I don't think there's much you could do to change his opinion of you."

Sam thinks that the president can appreciate a little...out of the ordinary behavior.

[theirlawyer]

"I was drunk on the site of my job and I met the most powerful man in America while wearing a bathrobe," she says firmly. "Sam, what part of that resembles non-embarrassing, please tell me and maybe I'll even give you a cookie," she deadpans. "I vowed to work three times as hard after that, just to prove he hadn't made a mistake."

[imnotrobin]

"It's really all right," Sam promises. "You haven't done anything that the rest of us haven't. I slept with a prostitute, after all."

He colors a little. "On accident. I wasn't aware of her profession at the time of the...indiscretion."

[theirlawyer]

"I know, I wrote columns about it," Ainsley replies flippantly, given that she'd written at least two about Sam's dalliance with a call girl, back when she hadn't known him and the topic had been too rife to ignore. "Did you sleep with her after you found out?"

[imnotrobin]

"No. Which is a shame. She was actually about to graduate law school and really quite an engaging woman. It's just...obviously I couldn't pursue a relationship with her. She'll be a fine attorney someday, I think."

Sam isn't shy about admitting that. When he believes in someone, he talks them up to any and everyone and he's always believed in Laurie's intelligence and talent.

[theirlawyer]

Ainsley vaguely remembers the bit where she was pursuing a law degree, but she holds back the comment about wanting to know whether Sam has a type or whether he's only interested in lawyers who are also call girls. "You know, if my job started to interfere with who I could and couldn't see, I think I'd go crazy," she admits. "Luckily for me, no one cares what the Republican lawyer in the steampipe distribution venue is doing in her spare time, so no one's haunting me with a camera."

[imnotrobin]

"Yet. If you make a name for yourself, you'll have cameras in your face too," Sam says. He doesn't have quite the following that Josh does but there are some parties who are very, very interested in his day to day activities.

"I would much rather be anonymous, all told. I like to do what I do for service of my country, not for planning my next political moves."

[theirlawyer]

"I find it amusing that you think with your good looks, you'd be anything but in the spotlight. I've written the columns, I know all about the lure," she guarantees, resting her chin on her hand. "Young, successful, handsome speechwriter? Sam, your articles practically write themselves. You could breathe a little differently and something would be picked up, even if it's only a sidenote."

[imnotrobin]

"Are you suggesting you only wrote articles about me because I was handsome and successful?"

It's a cheap shot but it's not every day that something like that falls from Ainsley's mouth. She's usually much more careful with what she says, endearing quirks aside.

[theirlawyer]

"I wrote articles about you because you were handsome, successful, and have incredibly poor judgment. People lap that up," she counters, her cheeks flushing slightly pink given that she's as good as confessed that she finds Sam attractive. It's the whole truth, so she isn't ashamed of it, but she'd much rather have led him on with doubt for a while.

[imnotrobin]

"I like to believe in people, Ainsley. It's the liberal in me." It's a little more than a political ideology, to be sure, but it's much easier to couch his optimism in the trappings of a political allegiance than admit that he has always been a half glass full type person. He's never bought into Washington cynicism, even after all these years.

"I also like it when attractive women write articles about me."