Down Home

PG (right now)

I haven't posted anything in a while, and for that I apologize.

This is a cute little piece that I came up with after watching a rerun of Debate Camp a few weeks ago. There will be at least two parts, but I'm only submitting the first part now (mainly because I'm a little stumped on the ending) but I will have it posted eventually.

I own nothing…please don't sue (This means you NBC, JWP, and Aaron Sorkin!)

I love to hear what you think. Reviews please!

"He will ask about school uniforms, Josh."

"We have an answer already."

"I want it on paper. Sam!"

"Hold on a second, CJ."

Sam was searching his notes as Josh and CJ were arguing about the debate questions. Unable to locate the information he needed, he turned to face the Press Secretary.

"What do you need?"

"You're Ritchie."

"Huh?"

"You need to be the opposition."

"Why do I always have to be the Republican?"

"Because I say so."

Toby rolled his eyes pointedly at his deputy.

"When, oh when did we revert to grade school antics? Sam, you are the most articulate, have the most stage presence, and none of us flirt shamelessly with Republicans regularly on White House premises."

"Hey!"

"Sam, please."

"Fine. I'll be Ritchie."

"We need to go through and figure out what his answers will be to every question."

"We can't even figure out what our answers are."

"Well, Ritchie is predictable."

Half an hour later, they were still in CJ's office and were stuck on the opposition responses.

"Hey guys, the plane leaves in forty minutes."

Toby glanced at his watch.

"Yeah, let's stop for now, we'll talk on the plane and figure this out."

They all trooped out, CJ calling after Sam.

"Yeah?"

"You have got to have these answers down, Sam."

"I know."

"We need help."

"I know."

"Talk to Ainsley."

"No."

"Sam!"

"She's visiting her parents this week."

"And her parents live where?"

Sam sighed deeply, knowing CJ was right, and he certainly wouldn't complain about seeing their resident conservative, but he also knew that this election was a gray area for her. He didn't want to push her into anything she didn't want to do. But he didn't have much choice.

"I'll call her."

"Thank you."

"So then the tortoise turns around and says, 'see you at the finish line, bunny boy.'"

Ainsley laughed at her four-year-old niece's story, incoherent as it was. She was sitting on the porch swing watching Annie's reenactment of the classic children's tale, simply enjoying the warmth of the southern sun on her face. It was good to be home but she missed some things about DC.

"Aunt Ainsley!" She heard her eleven-year-old nephew before he appeared at the screen door, out of breath.

"What is it, Pete?"

"Your cell." He held out the bleating phone. She quickly grabbed it.

"Ainsley Hayes."

"I didn't think you were going to answer."

"Hey, Sam. Sorry it was in the house. My nephew had to run it out to me."

"No problem."

"So…what's up?"

"I need your help."

"Really?"

"Uh huh."

"Hey Dad!" she yelled away from the phone. Her father was not within earshot.

"Oh, stop it!"

"Sorry, couldn't resist. What do you need?"

"You were gone earlier in the week, but we're doing a two day debate rehearsal. CJ needs--"

"An opposition?"

"We're having some trouble with Ritchie's arguments."

"They're over your heads."

"Very funny. Look I know this election puts you in an awkward position, but we need your help. If you don't want to do it, that's fine, but--"

"Awkward position? My job is to help the President. Who I vote for in November isn't anyone's business but mine. The two aren't related."

"Well technically, you won't have a job if the President looses."

"Who says I haven't been approached by the Ritchie camp to stay on if they win?"

"What?!?!"

"What do you need me to do?" she changed the subject.

"But—"

"Answer my question Sam."

"We're going to be at the Saybrook Institute in--"

"I know exactly where it is. It's only about an hour and a half from here."

"Okay, we'll be landing in about forty-five minutes, and it will take us a while to get settled in. The President will get in tomorrow morning. Can you be over in about three hours? I'll have to notify the Secret Service and get you a room."

"Yeah, I was supposed to leave tonight to go back to DC anyway. I'm assuming that this means I don't have to be back in the office until y'all get back?"

"I'll let Babish know."

"All right. I'll see you in three hours, then."

"Bye, Ainsley. And thank you."

"You're welcome."

Ainsley folded her cell, and pushed herself off the swing to go gather her things.

The outdoor patio area was filled with White House staffers both eating and discussing the President's debate answers…except Sam. Not really hungry, he'd chosen to forego dinner and work on the opposition answers, which were not as cut and dry as he had hoped. Sitting on the porch of one of the buildings, he hoped some of the Southern conservatism the opponent focused on so much would rub off on him. Anyway, he knew help was on the way.

It was that help that made him a bit nervous. Ainsley had seemed okay with the idea of helping the President in the debate when they had spoken on the phone, but he wondered if she was just putting on a front. He had this strange tendency of wanting to protect her, and he wasn't sure why.

Whatever Ainsley's motivation, it was clear CJ had been right. He needed help.

A car door pulled him out of his thoughts. He saw only the top of a blonde head above the sporty two-door. He chuckled to himself as he rose from his seat on the porch swing and walked in her direction. When she emerged from behind the car, she saw him immediately.

"Hey!" she called out to him with a smile.

He thought she looked more relaxed than he had ever seen her. In a moss green tank top under a lightweight printed button down with blue jeans and flip-flops, long thick hair in natural waves down her back, she looked every bit the part of the modern Southern belle. She seemed very comfortable in these surroundings.

"Hey," he replied. "You had a safe trip?"

"Yep. It was a nice day for a drive, and I took back roads rather than interstate."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

She winked at him coquettishly and handed him her bag she had just removed from her trunk.

They walked toward the cabin he had secured for her in a pleasant silence, until she asked the inevitable.

"Is there any food on the premises, Sam?

"There may be some pizza left. Let's drop your stuff off, then we can go and see."

"Sounds good. You know, I don't understand y'all."

"About what?"

"Y'all are here in the South, but you order pizza. You're missing some of the best barbeque and fried chicken you'll ever get the chance to taste."

"Barbeque is tomorrow night. The President made us promise to wait for him."

Ainsley nervously looked at him with a sideways glance.

"When…when is the President getting in exactly?"

"Trying to think of a good hiding spot?"

"Oh, these woods are full of good places in which to hide from the Leader of Free World. When we were kids, my sister and I always hid from my big brother in the woods at the back of our property. So you see, I'm well versed in hiding in the woods."

"Secret Service might frown on that."

"Then I'm not leaving my cabin."

"Oh no, you've got to help me learn to speak Republican, remember?"

"Those are words I always knew I'd hear you say to me," she said in her sweetest Carolina drawl, as they ascended the steps to her cabin. "Be still my heart."

They faced one another.

"I hope you enjoyed it, you'll never hear it come out of my mouth again."

He opened the door, but neither went inside.

"We'll see about that, Mr. Seaborn."

"It'll happen when you name your children Kennedy and Carter."

They both cracked up at that moment, and he handed her bag to her, which she, in turn, tossed inside the cabin and shut the door again.

"Lead me to the pizza, kind sir."

"Follow me."

"Hey, who let her in here?!?!"

"Good to see you, too, Josh."

"What Josh is trying to say is thank you for coming. Aren't you, Josh?"

"Yes, Mother CJ. Besides Ainsley can take a joke, right Ainsley?"

"I do work for you people, don't I?"

Everyone in the different groups around heard the conversation and laughed along with all involved. Sam remembered that Ainsley was hungry and, he admitted to himself, so was he.

"Any pizza left?"

"There's about four pieces of anchovy left, I think," Ed supplied.

Ainsley's eyes lit up, as Sam turned an interesting shade of green. She made her way over to the table housing the fifteen or so empty and greasy square boxes. She quickly found the leftover anchovy and managed to happen upon a single piece of pepperoni and bell pepper, which she offered to Sam. He gratefully accepted.

They both took a seat as Josh got everyone's attention.

"All right, everybody. Since we're all here now, I just wanted to welcome you all to Debate Camp." Everyone rolled their eyes, accompanied by a few groans, at Josh. "Hey, is that any way to show respect for me, your leader?"

A balled up napkin soared through the air directly hitting the Deputy Chief of Staff on the forehead, causing everyone to crack up, even Josh himself.

"I'd bet that if the President were standing here instead of me, who ever did that would've thought twice. Anyway, I do want to express my thanks to all of you, especially Congresswoman Wyatt, and Congressmen Pennington and Cline for your extra effort and support. Also, our presence has been graced by our White House Republican. Ainsley thank you for giving up part of your vacation to help us."

She smiled politely and nodded at Josh.

"Now, let's get down to business."

"Okay, what's the next question?"

"Social profiling. The Governor will bring up Rooker."

The two were sitting on the soft rug in the sitting area that connected to the kitchenette of his cabin. Papers full of notes and graphs and articles littered the surrounding ground.

"I can't bring up Rooker."

"Sam, you can't not bring up Rooker."

"I can't."

"Why not."

"Because I was the one staff member who thought he wasn't the guy."

"Ah, and you don't want to play 'I told you so' with the President."

"Right."

"That is understandable, but isn't your job to play the part of Ritchie here?"

"He'll take it personally."

"He'll have to get over it."

"You want to tell him that?"

"No thank you, no."

"Didn't think so. Is there any other way?"

"Nope."

Sam conceded that she was right and he just had to suck it up. His head was starting to throb.

"Okay, I need a break."

"Sam, we've got like fifteen more questions to go over."

"It's only ten-thirty."

"And heaven forbid we get to sleep at a reasonable hour."

"Come on, let's take a walk. You can fill my head with more conservative mumbo jumbo after that."

He stood up, and looked down into her exasperated face. Holding out his hand to help her up, he saw a smile appear. She grasped his hand and pulled herself up. She was close and looking into his eyes.

"Thirty minutes," she said, tapping him on the chest, then backing away. Both were suddenly acutely aware that their hands were still intertwined. Both pulling back, his hand went to his pants pocket, and hers went about pushing a piece of hair behind her ear.

"So, let's go."

He held the door open for her. They silently headed outside into the warm autumn breezes.

She broke the silence with a happy sounding sigh.

"What?"

"Nothing, its just nice to be able to walk outside and not freeze. I love it down here."

"Haven't you been here for a week?"

"I never get tired of any of it. The warmth, the cricket's chirping. It's so…so tranquil. It reminds me of when I was a little girl; my dad took me, my siblings and my mom camping out on the farm."

"I thought you're from Charlotte."

"Raleigh, actually."

"Oh, my mistake. You grew up on a farm?"

"That so hard to believe?"

"I'm trying to imagine you milking cows." A crooked smile appeared on his face.

"We never actually lived there full time. We had the typical suburban life, but it was nice to have the country available to us. It's about forty-five minutes from our house, and it's been in my mother's family for the past two hundred years. It used to be a tobacco farm, and then I think my great grandfather raised Angus, but now they just do timber harvesting and also take people out quail hunting. Some of the best quail trails in the country. And to answer your question, yes I've milked a cow."

"That's something I'd pay money to see."

The path the two were on meandered up a small hill towards the main buildings of the institute, through a densely wooded area.

"Anyway we'd spend two weekends every summer camping and then one other weekend visiting Civil War Battlefields. You know there are several in this area. General Sherman made sure his presence was known in the Carolinas before he destroyed most of Georgia."

"Well there's a very Southern thing to do. You do know that you lost, right?"

She chuckled at his tone, and shrugged him off.

"Doesn't matter."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a part of our heritage."

"A heritage that endorsed the buying and selling of human life."

"A heritage willing to fight for each states right to make the choices that effect it directly. You forget that slavery was only one issue of many that caused the War. So many people forget that the main reason we were fighting was because the South was being ignored by the lawmakers in Washington. These were the same lawmakers who treated the urban impoverished in the big Northern cities worse than a vast majority of those slaves who worked the fields in the South and were—"

"Whoa, whoa. Hold it. Time out. Didn't mean to get you started."

"I apologize. Once I get on the topic…I've just heard my father recite that speech over and over, although I do believe it to be true. It's not like I think slavery was a good thing."

"I never said you did."

"I'm merely stating that the lawmakers in the North were as much to blame as Southern plantation owners were."

"I don't doubt it." He stared at her for a long moment.

"What?"

"I'm just waiting for you to break into a dead-on portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara."

She smiled smugly at him.

"Well, as God as my witness, if you don't stop staring at me like that, I might just have to kick that cute little ass of yours...again"

They both cracked up, and the tension that had crept into their conversation earlier dissipated. By that point they were at the main buildings, and found Josh, CJ and Toby sitting on the steps.

"Hey, you two. We were wondering how much longer you would be. Beer?"

"Oh, we're still not done. Sure, thanks."

"You realize the President will be here in like nine hours," CJ said as she passed him the cool beverage.

"We'll get it done."

"What he means is I'll get it done. He just sits there and argues with me. I've had to remind him over and over that just this once he has to agree with me."

"In theory only."

"Of course. Hand me a beer, please."

The five adults sat and talked for the next half hour until Toby got a call from Ginger back in DC and Ainsley and Sam headed back to his cabin to finish the opposition answers. The body language they gave off, a closeness, a flirtation, spoke volumes to the two remaining lookers-on. CJ and Josh kept their places on the top step.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That Toby isn't the only one who needs a little push in the romance department?" CJ supplied, ignoring the irony of this coming from Josh.

"Exactly."

"Josh, our little boy is growing up. He's fallen for his first Republican."

"That part, I'm trying to ignore."

"Oh, you like her. Say it—you like a Republican."

"I can tolerate that Republican, but only because she provided me with a lifetime of blackmail material. I still have the Capital Beat tape."

"You're evil."

"I know. So how do we go about this?"

"I have a plan, Joshy boy."