(no subject)

[theirlawyer]

The Nexus has a lot of benefits, ranging from plush comfortable mattresses to long buffets filled with all kinds of food that Ainsley could normally only dream of, but what she finds is the very best door so far is the one she opens when she goes to find Sam and instead opens a door to a tropical beach paradise. The calming rush of ocean waves to the shore of a private beach and a cabana makes Ainsley all too aware that what she's missing is a beach vacation.

She props the door open with her shoe before heading off to find the appropriate clothes and the right partner for that kind of thing. Dressed in an oversized t-shirt that belongs to some guy she'd accidentally stolen it from, Ainsley hitches her well-stocked bag of preparations (and food) higher over her shoulder while she tries the door right next to the beach one, as if Sam might have moved without telling her.

"Sam?" she calls, knocking steadily. "I'm giving you another thirty seconds. Trust me, you'll like it," she promises sweetly, because she really can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like the hot sun and sand of a beautiful beach where no expectations or responsibilities lay on their heads.

Comments

[imnotrobin]

"I would like for you to still be with me," Sam says softly, pulling her that much closer.

"We fit, Ainsley. We fit in a way I don't think I've fit with anyone else in a long time and I want, very much, to keep exploring what's going on between us. I hope you're interested in it too. Does that scare you? To be thinking about a potential long term thing?"

[theirlawyer]

"It scares me a little because I don't even know what I'll be doing when the President's term ends," she admits, given that she's started to think of her life in four-term batches. After all, if a Republican wins, would they really want Ainsley to stay? Is she tainted by the Bartlet administration now? "I mean, I hope we work. I don't like taking chances if there's no good base, but I also know your history with relationships," she points out.

"A call girl and Leo's daughter, Sam?"

[imnotrobin]

Sam frowns a little. "I didn't know she was a call girl and I didn't think that Leo's daughter was repugnant to you. I was also engaged, for a while, before the both of them. It seems like you want to write it off before we get a chance to get started. I like to look at these things with a little more of a glass half-full mentality."

Sam likes to think he's a good guy and that they have a good thing and it wounds him a bit to think that Ainsley is critical of how this is going because he can't pinpoint the cause.

[theirlawyer]

"Sam, I'm just saying that before me, you'd made some interesting decisions," is her way of calmly replying, easing away from him to settle down into the water on her own two feet. "I wrote op-eds about it," she says, "and I'm sorry for that. I am," she concedes. "I just don't want to be some scandal in the paper with you that you move away from when you're done with me," she says.

"I want it to be real. I want it to last."

[imnotrobin]

"I want it to be real too. I think it is real," Sam admits. "You were your own woman with your own identity long before I met you. You'll be that even if we did break up. I'm insanely attracted to that. It's more real to me than anything has been for a long time."

[theirlawyer]

Ainsley stares at him with a smile that's warming up, her doubts slowly inching away moment by moment. She trusts Sam, she does, and if she's going to go into this, then she needs to do it with him. "Okay," is all she says, and that's it, she's all in. She knows it. "Then you and I are going to do this properly," she promises. "But maybe let's get out of the water? I think I'm pruning."

[imnotrobin]

"Don't want all that creamy skin to suffer," Sam agrees, offering his hand to her so they can walk back into out of the water and to the warm sand again.

[theirlawyer]

"No, I'd hate to have to explain where I went to get so tanned and the last thing I need are a dozen Josh Lyman jokes about spray-tanning," Ainsley admits, reaching for her towel when they get to dry ground. "I mean, mostly because he's just really not a funny man. But he thinks he is. Is that your fault, Sam?"

[imnotrobin]

"Oh, no. Josh Lyman thought he was funny long before I knew him," Sam says, laughing a little at the image. "He was born thinking he was God's gift to comedy and we just all go along with it so he doesn't make that sad little face when his jokes go flat. You know the one I'm talking about, right? Donna makes him do it all the time."

Sam reaches for his own towel, drying off, and draws up close to Ainsley again. "This is...I want this forever. Just this. No pressure, no work creeping in. Just us spending time together."

[theirlawyer]

"You'd have thought that Donna would have taken that out of him," Ainsley says, shaking her head as she wonders how that happened. "I'd like to imagine that one day he'll learn his lesson, but the stubbornness that man possesses is rival only to yours," she teases, staring up at him from where she stands (so much shorter because of the lack of heels).

"Forever, huh?" she repeats. "I'd go crazy without work, Sam. You would, too."

[imnotrobin]

"I know," he admits. "I think if I honestly had that, I would be bored with it, but right now the idea of just spending all my time with you without the pressures of the job? It sounds a little like heaven."

Sam brushes his fingers back against her cheek. "We're going to do great things, Ainsley. Not just with this administration but - Congress, private sector, lobbying. The doors are wide open for us."

[theirlawyer]

Ainsley's always had her own goals and pursuits in life, but the way Sam talks is so ambitious and dedicated and it's kind of a big turn-on, if she's honest. She loves the idea of taking the world by storm together and she gives him a bright grin. "Why stop at Congress?" is all she says before she kisses him to prevent him responding.

[imnotrobin]

"Thinking about running for President? I'll be right there," Sam says. It occurs to him that he might run for president someday but for all his ideas about how to change things, he thinks he's much better suited to legislate than execute.

Ainsley, on the other hand, might make a fantastic president.

[theirlawyer]

Ainsley can't help her little smug smile of delight, lifting up her shoulder. "If it happened to be part of my future, I wouldn't mind, but let's be realistic. I don't have anywhere near the patience to be President. My popularity would dive as soon as I met the first person I disagreed with and refused to keep quiet."

[imnotrobin]

"Might not be a bad thing, a president who sticks to her guns," Sam says, always wanting to argue the counterpoint to her point. It was one of the reasons he liked being with Ainsley much more than other women he'd dated in the recent past; she's always got something to say and she says it oh so eloquently.

"I'd like to see it."

[theirlawyer]

"Maybe so, but who'd vote for it?" she asks wryly and pointedly, but still gives Sam a kiss for the effort and for saying the words. She's trained him well and they've only really barely started dating. Reaching for her tank top, she shimmies into it, allowing her bikini bottoms to get some sun and start to dry. "Better someone who knows how to sweet talk the public, like a CJ."