Where We Overlap
Category: a little bit of everyone.
Rating: PG-13 possibly eventually R for language, and maybe innuendos.
Notes and Disclaimer: This is a little West Wing with a twist. The year is 2024 and the freshly inaugurate President of the United State is none other than former White House Sr. Counsel, Samuel Norman Seaborn. I've taken the Bartlet Administration and shaken things up a bit and I hope you find this story to your liking. We focus on Graceland "Gracie" Jennifer Seaborn, daughter of Mallory O'Brien and Sam Seaborn. Born, October 31st 2004 she is 19yrs old when the story takes place, going on 20. Expect to see appearances by a majority of the originally west wing cast, the only twist is, aside from Gracie, Zoey Bartlet, Charlie Young, and Molly and Huck Zeigler and Ryan Pierce (the intern, remember him?), no one has aged exactly as they should have. For simplicity sake, and because I really wanted to do this without making anyone ancient, Sam is only 50 and as it really doesn't matter, most of the characters from the original cast are around that age too, unless of course they were significantly older on the show then that will be reflected, either way, its just the magic of television brought into my world so deal. Oh yeah, and enjoy! P.S. aside from Gracie and other non-west wing related characters, I own none of this it was all created by the remarkably talented Aaron Sorkin- the prince of creativity :o) (Bob Guza being king). Other than that, basically everything in the past that you know to be true, is.
Special Thanks to: Laura: Because she is fantastic and helped with so many facts that my head hurts just thinking about it. Amy: Because she likes to say nice things. And then both Laura and Amy, for guiding me through the "deep respect" of more than one television show in my life. Xara: for her creative mind and non-americaness. The recappers at Television Without Pity (www.televisionwithoutpity.com) without whom I would ever have lurked upon all of the useless information I seek daily to make this story possible. And last, but certainly not least Bartlet4america.org, for the quotes and character background, most of which I don't need, all of which I now pride myself in knowing. OH AND, www.ask.com because jeeves is the man! There will be more eventually I'm sure, but now to the story...
Those of you looking for the familiar immediately... bare with me... there's a bit that must be set up...
Where We Overlap
"I know there is strength in the differences between us and I know there is comfort where we overlap." ~Ani DiFranco
Chapter One- Grace Under Fire
Graceland McGarry paced. She'd been pacing for close to an hour, relaying possible conversation outcomes in her head. This wasn't going to end well and no matter how hard she tried to imagine everything would turn out fine, she really couldn't. She jumped when the phone rang.
"You ok in there?" Talia asked, her thick Italian accent, something Gracie had initially found terribly difficult to understand, shining through. Gracie laughed nervously as she looked into the surveillance camera above her head.
"I'm fine."
"You don't look it."
Gracie gave the camera the finger and Talia laughed.
"Your father'd be so proud," Talia continued sarcastically. "Don't look now but he's on his way."
"My father?"
"No Moron! Evan!"
Gracie bit her lip to stop it from trembling.
"Thanks," she muttered, hanging up the phone and lighting a cigarette.
Puffing away, she began moving towards the window. Gracie looked down, spotted Evan and then looked up and across to the window across the street where she gave Talia a quick wave. She inhaled, exhaled then continued pacing. This is going to be like the time when I told him I graduated from Princeton in less than three years and that I was fifteen when I started she thought to herself as her stomach turned. "Or worse," she spoke out loud. The door buzzer rang and she jumped. Less than a week she kept thinking to herself as she quickly stubbed out her cigarette. Less than a week...
"Ciao," she spoke into the intercom nervously.
"Gracie it's me," Evan replied cheerily and she buzzed him up.
"Deep breath's, Gracie," she started whispering to herself. "Deep..." she stopped when she heard the knock at the door, contemplated grabbing another cigarette, but stopped shaking her head, throwing the pack back into the large mahogany box in which she stored them. "Oh god..." she walked slowly, as if time could drag on without her, and unlocked the door.
"Hey," he said breathlessly as he immediately pulled her into a kiss. Gracie was the first to pull back and despite her nervousness she was smiling.
"Hi..." she whispered softly.
"You ok?" he asked making a face. He swallowed hard at the taste of cigarettes on her lips then frowned, noting the tension in her voice.
"I..." Gracie began but stopped, unsure of where to begin, but on a mission to plow through. "We should sit down."
Evan narrowed his eyes at her but quickly followed as she took a seat on the large, expensive, brown leather couch he had spent many nights sitting on as they watched bad American movies with Italian subtitles.
"So we're going home in a little less than a week," Gracie said as she began fiddling with the strings on the cashmere throw slung over the back of the couch. She fought hard, resisting the urge to storm over to the box and grad another cigarette, but she knew how Evan hated it.
"I know," Evan said nodding and smiling. "I can't wait, I want you to meet my mom, and I want us to be able to show each other our favorite spots in Washington, and I can't wait to get settled into my new apartment, and Georgetown... everything's going to be so great."
Gracie looked away.
"Yeah..." she signed. "That's what I wanted to talk about," she took a deep breath, and instead of fixing her gaze to his eyes, stared straight ahead at the mahogany box. "When we get home, things are going to be different, I mean here in Italy its been great, nothing's been in our way," she forced herself to at least look his way. "Who would've thought I'd come here and find someone from my home and now look at us..." she paused again. "Look Evan, there's some stuff I haven't been telling you."
Evan's face fell.
"Gracie..." he began slowly. But she stopped him.
"Hear me out."
"Is there another guy?" Evan asked ignoring her.
"No!" Gracie replied quickly. "There's no other guy, I mean there is, but not the way you think. Evan I love you, its not a relationship like ours its..." she took a deep breath. "It's my family."
"You're family? Gracie, I don't understand. You've said nothing but good things about your family, and how much they do for you and how much they love you, how big it is..." he scratched his head, something he did often when he was nervous. "Am I missing something?"
Gracie looked away.
"It's my father."
"Your father?"
"Evan I'm not who you think I am."
"Honestly Gracie, what are you talking about?"
"It's like that time when you realized that I had graduated college and I was only nineteen. Like you were shocked but at the same time proud, just like my father had been because you know his genes and my mother's genes, well I mean they knew I was smart to begin with but..." she began to babble, something she'd done every time she had reached her height of personal nervousness for as long as she'd remembered, well at least since she'd took up the past-time of smoking. "Then it was okay that I was nineteen, because age isn't anything but a number, I'm mature for my age, and I'm an adult but that's beside the point. I mean I can vote, and in America that's really all that matters anyways. Well that and a strong education platform apparently. I mean, even though I was an art history major with an American studies minor, you started talking me into going to Georgetown law school, even though I told you that my father graduated from Duke and probably wouldn't even let me utter the words Georgetown and law school in the same sentence without thinking I was completely betraying all of the loyalty he had to his alma mater just like Mr. Bartlet used to with Notre Dame and..."
"Gracie!" Evan shouted cutting her off. "What in the HELL are you talking about?"
"My last name isn't McGarry," she mumbled quietly, looking down, hoping he wouldn't hear.
"What?"
"My last name isn't McGarry," she said looking up. "It's Seaborn. I'm Graceland Jennifer Seaborn. My mother, Mallory McGarry, well now Seaborn, gave birth to me on air force one, with the help of Abbey Bartlet, flying over Graceland, which is where I got my name. She had actually hitched a ride with her father's boss who was going to join my father who was at the time in Louisiana for a Democratic Fundraiser in Baton Rouge. My father is Sam Seaborn," Gracie finished quietly. Evan nodded and took a long moment before responding.
"As in President of the United States Sam Seaborn?" he asked momentarily uncertain of everything including the air around him. Gracie nodded.
"Yes."
"And you're just telling me this NOW?" he shouted standing up. Gracie closed her eyes and inhaled sharply.
"Yes," she squeaked meekly.
"WHY?"
She took a moment thinking through her answer.
"It's hard for me," was the first thing she could allow out of her mouth. "It's hard for me to go up to someone and say hi my name's Gracie and my father's President of the United States. Which is why I came here, and why I wasn't all over the television when he was elected, and why I left for Europe just five days after inauguration and why I'm really scared of going back to the states and why, most of all, I didn't come here looking to fall in love with someone let alone someone from America, who's going to school only BLOCKS FROM WHERE I LIVE!" Gracie took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell."
Evan opened his mouth to speak but closed it when there was a knock at the door.
"Shit," Gracie said standing up.
"What?"
"Secret Service," she began walking towards the door when she heard the all too familiar male voice calling out her name. "His name is Michael," she began explaining to Evan. "He lives across the hall, one of my father's guys, luckily with me being in Europe I only need two agents close by on duty as protection. Michael lives across the hall, Talia, the other, across the street. She watches from a surveillance camera but Michael only comes out if Talia calls him or he hears yelling."
She opened up the door.
"You alright?" Michael asked immediately.
"I'm fine. I just told Evan..." Gracie replied quietly.
"Oh..."
"Yeah."
"Well," Michael began backing away, back to his apartment. "You just let me know if you need anything."
Gracie smiled.
"Will do," she closed the door, glanced at the mahogany box, said to hell with it, picked up a cigarette, lit it, and walked back over to Evan, her head hung low.
"I'm sorry," she looked back up at him, her eyes welling with tears. "I just... I didn't know how to mention it and... I'm sorry, it just never seemed right," she took a long steady drag. "I didn't want it to get in the way."
"Get in the way? Gracie you actually think something like that would have gotten in the way? I love you, things just don't get in the way. This IS huge, but... this is just a hurtle," Evan tried to be calm, rational, as he imagined himself he would be in court defending an important case, something that was sure to be looming in his future. "We'll get over it, we, I mean, I, I just..."
"Are you mad?"
"A little."
"You have to understand..."
"I do understand I just," she cut him off.
"I can tell you more."
"I'm not too sure that now's the time."
"So now what?"
"I think I need to go for a walk."
"Will you come back?"
Evan nodded.
"I will."
"You promise?"
"Yeah I just need to... work some things out."
"You promise?"
"Yeah," he finished moving towards the door. "I promise."
Gracie nodded. He kissed her softly and then left.
Fifteen minutes must have passed before Gracie moved from her spot after having locked the door. She was on her second cigarette in twenty minutes, completely surpassing her daily limit, which, on the most stressful of days, had usually been two. When she finally realized what she was doing she quickly moved back to the couch and grabbed the phone, she picked up a place card from underneath the receiver and dialed the number at the bottom.
"Molly Zeigler," the voice on the other end answered after three rings.
"Mol, it's Gracie," Molly let out a quick shriek, forgetting where she was for a moment, much to the dismay of the people around her. She sat down on a bench in the middle of central park and loosened the strap of her right Jimmy Choo. "Where are you?" Gracie asked smiling at the sound of her best friends voice.
"The park, I had a break and I needed some inspiration, I am SO glad this shit is over soon, I'm going out of my mind Gracie, this one "design expert" on this committee I'm working on, Nazi I tell you he... oh my god," Molly paused to take a deep breath and finally realized that Gracie calling her wasn't exactly a commonplace event now a days. "I thought we said we weren't going to talk, barring emergency, until we were both back in DC 'cause then it'd be like we never left each other and your phone bills were getting out of hand."
Gracie laughed nervously then was silent for a long moment.
"Gracie?" Molly asked confused.
"Yeah?" Gracie replied distantly.
"You alright?"
Gracie let out a deep, overly tragic, sigh.
"I just told Evan..."
Category: a little bit of everyone.
Rating: PG-13 possibly eventually R for language, and maybe innuendos.
Notes and Disclaimer: This is a little West Wing with a twist. The year is 2024 and the freshly inaugurate President of the United State is none other than former White House Sr. Counsel, Samuel Norman Seaborn. I've taken the Bartlet Administration and shaken things up a bit and I hope you find this story to your liking. We focus on Graceland "Gracie" Jennifer Seaborn, daughter of Mallory O'Brien and Sam Seaborn. Born, October 31st 2004 she is 19yrs old when the story takes place, going on 20. Expect to see appearances by a majority of the originally west wing cast, the only twist is, aside from Gracie, Zoey Bartlet, Charlie Young, and Molly and Huck Zeigler and Ryan Pierce (the intern, remember him?), no one has aged exactly as they should have. For simplicity sake, and because I really wanted to do this without making anyone ancient, Sam is only 50 and as it really doesn't matter, most of the characters from the original cast are around that age too, unless of course they were significantly older on the show then that will be reflected, either way, its just the magic of television brought into my world so deal. Oh yeah, and enjoy! P.S. aside from Gracie and other non-west wing related characters, I own none of this it was all created by the remarkably talented Aaron Sorkin- the prince of creativity :o) (Bob Guza being king). Other than that, basically everything in the past that you know to be true, is.
Special Thanks to: Laura: Because she is fantastic and helped with so many facts that my head hurts just thinking about it. Amy: Because she likes to say nice things. And then both Laura and Amy, for guiding me through the "deep respect" of more than one television show in my life. Xara: for her creative mind and non-americaness. The recappers at Television Without Pity (www.televisionwithoutpity.com) without whom I would ever have lurked upon all of the useless information I seek daily to make this story possible. And last, but certainly not least Bartlet4america.org, for the quotes and character background, most of which I don't need, all of which I now pride myself in knowing. OH AND, www.ask.com because jeeves is the man! There will be more eventually I'm sure, but now to the story...
Those of you looking for the familiar immediately... bare with me... there's a bit that must be set up...
Where We Overlap
"I know there is strength in the differences between us and I know there is comfort where we overlap." ~Ani DiFranco
Chapter One- Grace Under Fire
Graceland McGarry paced. She'd been pacing for close to an hour, relaying possible conversation outcomes in her head. This wasn't going to end well and no matter how hard she tried to imagine everything would turn out fine, she really couldn't. She jumped when the phone rang.
"You ok in there?" Talia asked, her thick Italian accent, something Gracie had initially found terribly difficult to understand, shining through. Gracie laughed nervously as she looked into the surveillance camera above her head.
"I'm fine."
"You don't look it."
Gracie gave the camera the finger and Talia laughed.
"Your father'd be so proud," Talia continued sarcastically. "Don't look now but he's on his way."
"My father?"
"No Moron! Evan!"
Gracie bit her lip to stop it from trembling.
"Thanks," she muttered, hanging up the phone and lighting a cigarette.
Puffing away, she began moving towards the window. Gracie looked down, spotted Evan and then looked up and across to the window across the street where she gave Talia a quick wave. She inhaled, exhaled then continued pacing. This is going to be like the time when I told him I graduated from Princeton in less than three years and that I was fifteen when I started she thought to herself as her stomach turned. "Or worse," she spoke out loud. The door buzzer rang and she jumped. Less than a week she kept thinking to herself as she quickly stubbed out her cigarette. Less than a week...
"Ciao," she spoke into the intercom nervously.
"Gracie it's me," Evan replied cheerily and she buzzed him up.
"Deep breath's, Gracie," she started whispering to herself. "Deep..." she stopped when she heard the knock at the door, contemplated grabbing another cigarette, but stopped shaking her head, throwing the pack back into the large mahogany box in which she stored them. "Oh god..." she walked slowly, as if time could drag on without her, and unlocked the door.
"Hey," he said breathlessly as he immediately pulled her into a kiss. Gracie was the first to pull back and despite her nervousness she was smiling.
"Hi..." she whispered softly.
"You ok?" he asked making a face. He swallowed hard at the taste of cigarettes on her lips then frowned, noting the tension in her voice.
"I..." Gracie began but stopped, unsure of where to begin, but on a mission to plow through. "We should sit down."
Evan narrowed his eyes at her but quickly followed as she took a seat on the large, expensive, brown leather couch he had spent many nights sitting on as they watched bad American movies with Italian subtitles.
"So we're going home in a little less than a week," Gracie said as she began fiddling with the strings on the cashmere throw slung over the back of the couch. She fought hard, resisting the urge to storm over to the box and grad another cigarette, but she knew how Evan hated it.
"I know," Evan said nodding and smiling. "I can't wait, I want you to meet my mom, and I want us to be able to show each other our favorite spots in Washington, and I can't wait to get settled into my new apartment, and Georgetown... everything's going to be so great."
Gracie looked away.
"Yeah..." she signed. "That's what I wanted to talk about," she took a deep breath, and instead of fixing her gaze to his eyes, stared straight ahead at the mahogany box. "When we get home, things are going to be different, I mean here in Italy its been great, nothing's been in our way," she forced herself to at least look his way. "Who would've thought I'd come here and find someone from my home and now look at us..." she paused again. "Look Evan, there's some stuff I haven't been telling you."
Evan's face fell.
"Gracie..." he began slowly. But she stopped him.
"Hear me out."
"Is there another guy?" Evan asked ignoring her.
"No!" Gracie replied quickly. "There's no other guy, I mean there is, but not the way you think. Evan I love you, its not a relationship like ours its..." she took a deep breath. "It's my family."
"You're family? Gracie, I don't understand. You've said nothing but good things about your family, and how much they do for you and how much they love you, how big it is..." he scratched his head, something he did often when he was nervous. "Am I missing something?"
Gracie looked away.
"It's my father."
"Your father?"
"Evan I'm not who you think I am."
"Honestly Gracie, what are you talking about?"
"It's like that time when you realized that I had graduated college and I was only nineteen. Like you were shocked but at the same time proud, just like my father had been because you know his genes and my mother's genes, well I mean they knew I was smart to begin with but..." she began to babble, something she'd done every time she had reached her height of personal nervousness for as long as she'd remembered, well at least since she'd took up the past-time of smoking. "Then it was okay that I was nineteen, because age isn't anything but a number, I'm mature for my age, and I'm an adult but that's beside the point. I mean I can vote, and in America that's really all that matters anyways. Well that and a strong education platform apparently. I mean, even though I was an art history major with an American studies minor, you started talking me into going to Georgetown law school, even though I told you that my father graduated from Duke and probably wouldn't even let me utter the words Georgetown and law school in the same sentence without thinking I was completely betraying all of the loyalty he had to his alma mater just like Mr. Bartlet used to with Notre Dame and..."
"Gracie!" Evan shouted cutting her off. "What in the HELL are you talking about?"
"My last name isn't McGarry," she mumbled quietly, looking down, hoping he wouldn't hear.
"What?"
"My last name isn't McGarry," she said looking up. "It's Seaborn. I'm Graceland Jennifer Seaborn. My mother, Mallory McGarry, well now Seaborn, gave birth to me on air force one, with the help of Abbey Bartlet, flying over Graceland, which is where I got my name. She had actually hitched a ride with her father's boss who was going to join my father who was at the time in Louisiana for a Democratic Fundraiser in Baton Rouge. My father is Sam Seaborn," Gracie finished quietly. Evan nodded and took a long moment before responding.
"As in President of the United States Sam Seaborn?" he asked momentarily uncertain of everything including the air around him. Gracie nodded.
"Yes."
"And you're just telling me this NOW?" he shouted standing up. Gracie closed her eyes and inhaled sharply.
"Yes," she squeaked meekly.
"WHY?"
She took a moment thinking through her answer.
"It's hard for me," was the first thing she could allow out of her mouth. "It's hard for me to go up to someone and say hi my name's Gracie and my father's President of the United States. Which is why I came here, and why I wasn't all over the television when he was elected, and why I left for Europe just five days after inauguration and why I'm really scared of going back to the states and why, most of all, I didn't come here looking to fall in love with someone let alone someone from America, who's going to school only BLOCKS FROM WHERE I LIVE!" Gracie took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell."
Evan opened his mouth to speak but closed it when there was a knock at the door.
"Shit," Gracie said standing up.
"What?"
"Secret Service," she began walking towards the door when she heard the all too familiar male voice calling out her name. "His name is Michael," she began explaining to Evan. "He lives across the hall, one of my father's guys, luckily with me being in Europe I only need two agents close by on duty as protection. Michael lives across the hall, Talia, the other, across the street. She watches from a surveillance camera but Michael only comes out if Talia calls him or he hears yelling."
She opened up the door.
"You alright?" Michael asked immediately.
"I'm fine. I just told Evan..." Gracie replied quietly.
"Oh..."
"Yeah."
"Well," Michael began backing away, back to his apartment. "You just let me know if you need anything."
Gracie smiled.
"Will do," she closed the door, glanced at the mahogany box, said to hell with it, picked up a cigarette, lit it, and walked back over to Evan, her head hung low.
"I'm sorry," she looked back up at him, her eyes welling with tears. "I just... I didn't know how to mention it and... I'm sorry, it just never seemed right," she took a long steady drag. "I didn't want it to get in the way."
"Get in the way? Gracie you actually think something like that would have gotten in the way? I love you, things just don't get in the way. This IS huge, but... this is just a hurtle," Evan tried to be calm, rational, as he imagined himself he would be in court defending an important case, something that was sure to be looming in his future. "We'll get over it, we, I mean, I, I just..."
"Are you mad?"
"A little."
"You have to understand..."
"I do understand I just," she cut him off.
"I can tell you more."
"I'm not too sure that now's the time."
"So now what?"
"I think I need to go for a walk."
"Will you come back?"
Evan nodded.
"I will."
"You promise?"
"Yeah I just need to... work some things out."
"You promise?"
"Yeah," he finished moving towards the door. "I promise."
Gracie nodded. He kissed her softly and then left.
Fifteen minutes must have passed before Gracie moved from her spot after having locked the door. She was on her second cigarette in twenty minutes, completely surpassing her daily limit, which, on the most stressful of days, had usually been two. When she finally realized what she was doing she quickly moved back to the couch and grabbed the phone, she picked up a place card from underneath the receiver and dialed the number at the bottom.
"Molly Zeigler," the voice on the other end answered after three rings.
"Mol, it's Gracie," Molly let out a quick shriek, forgetting where she was for a moment, much to the dismay of the people around her. She sat down on a bench in the middle of central park and loosened the strap of her right Jimmy Choo. "Where are you?" Gracie asked smiling at the sound of her best friends voice.
"The park, I had a break and I needed some inspiration, I am SO glad this shit is over soon, I'm going out of my mind Gracie, this one "design expert" on this committee I'm working on, Nazi I tell you he... oh my god," Molly paused to take a deep breath and finally realized that Gracie calling her wasn't exactly a commonplace event now a days. "I thought we said we weren't going to talk, barring emergency, until we were both back in DC 'cause then it'd be like we never left each other and your phone bills were getting out of hand."
Gracie laughed nervously then was silent for a long moment.
"Gracie?" Molly asked confused.
"Yeah?" Gracie replied distantly.
"You alright?"
Gracie let out a deep, overly tragic, sigh.
"I just told Evan..."