Christine Davies, President of the United States, was exhausted and pissed off.

After a long day of shaking hands, kissing babies and sitting in on boring meetings that were way over her head, she should have been catching up on her beauty sleep by now in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Oh how she hated children.

Publicly of course, President Davies loved children. They were the foundation of America, the future of democracy, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth. She'd parroted enough speeches about them to understand that most voters had children and the sheep liked to feel good about their procreation.

Privately, the diaper-bombs that were babies made her want to cringe and she sometimes she wanted to throttle her own offspring. How could they be both the key to her rise to power and the bane of her existence? Lord only knew. Sometimes she could admit to feeling stirrings of pride about Kyla, but Ashley was always a problem and never an asset. Take tonight, as just one example in a sea of disappointment.

Christine shuffled through a few of the debriefs that remain scattered across her desk in the Oval Office, but she wasn't really seeing them.

She was fit to kill those daughters of hers.

Every few moments, her eyes swung up to check the time on a grandfather clock that once belonged to President Eisenhower. The stupid thing had annoyed her during her first few months in office, but three years later she found its incessant ticking to be a comfort – a reminder of the fact that time ticked on as steadily as ever, even if she felt like her time in office was passing her by at ten thousand miles an hour.

It was hard to believe that it was already an election year again. She'd barely had time to settle into the mantle of the presidency and now a handful of young gun Democrats were already campaigning to take her power away from her. Little liberal bitches. At least this time around, her supporters could do most of the campaigning for her and she didn't have to worry about jetting off to a new city every twelve hours.

Her poll numbers were looking good. With a little luck and a scandal or two on the blue side of the aisle, she'd have a second term in the bag.

That was if Ashley didn't manage to destroy everything Christine had ever worked for with a scandal of her own.

She ran her fingers through salt-and-pepper hair (perfectly dyed to keep her looking young but still conveying the wisdom and authority that came with age) before picking up her phone to page her Chief of Staff.

Moments later Kelly Erikson knocked three times before popping her head in through the door that connected her office to the president's.

"Yes Madame President?" Christine could tell that Kelly was as pissed off about the whole situation as she was. Probably more so, since she actually understood the international ramifications of what Ashley had just done. If Christine was the face of conservative America, Kelly was the political know-how.

"Are they back yet?" Christine drummed her perfectly manicured nails on the iconic presidential desk. It was nearly two in the morning. She wanted this whole issue buried as soon as possible, and the president always got what the president wanted. Perk of the job.

Kelly nodded briskly, and smoothed her palms down along her skirt in agitation. "They are just pulling into the garage now. I'll have the Secret Service send them in right away."

"At least the goons can be counted on to get that right." Christine growled, dismissing her assistant with a wave of her hand.

In no time at all, the doors to her office were opening again. This time, instead of her trustworthy Chief of Staff, Christine was faced with the sight of two of her greatest disappointments stumbling to a halt in front of her.

Her younger daughter, Kyla, was obviously drunk. She was swaying even while standing still and was using Ashley's shoulder as an anchor to keep her standing up right. She had a lazy grin on her face and her dark hair was in a wild disarray.

Ashley, on the other hand, was not nearly drunk enough for Christine's liking, given what had transpired that evening. She stood up straight, staring defiantly at her mother, a tiny smirk twitching at the corner of her mouth. For the moment, Christine resisted the urge to smack it off her face.

Ashley's blouse was unbuttoned to the naval, revealing a lacey black and red bra that Christine would have to instruct the White House launders to destroy on sight. There were traces of lipstick along her jaw and neckline, tracing a path to a fresh hickey by her collarbone. Wrapped around her left hand was what looked suspiciously like a hijab.

Wonderful.

The three Davies stood in silence for a moment, waiting to see who would get in the first jabs of the evening. It was Christine who struck first.

"I was under the impression that we all understood the sensitivity of our situation here. Do you have ANY idea what you've just done?" Christine was trying hard to rein in her temper. The doors to the hallway were still open, after all, and it wouldn't do for anyone to hear this conversation.

She stalked around her daughters and firmly closed the sound-proof, bullet-proof doors. Not even the Secret Service on the other side could hear them now. She was tired, she was cranky, and she wanted this whole situation over with as soon as possible. Christine parked herself in front of Ashley and cut to the chase.

"Tell me exactly what happened tonight. Did you sleep with the Saudi Arabian ambassador's daughter?"

Ashley looked for a moment like she might come up with one of her million dollar excuses, but Kyla managed to cut in first. "Believe me mother, they did anything but sleep."

Ashley somehow both hated and loved her sister in that moment. If there had been any chance that Ashley might have been able to weave this tale into something other than what it was, Kyla had just stomped on it. It was probably for the best. Ashley's mother probably already knew the truth anyway. She wouldn't be surprised if Christine had the CIA stalking them or something. It was better to rip off the band aid and get this over with.

Instead of sighing, Ashley shrugged with feigned nonchalance and let her smirk grow into an all-out grin. She wasn't going to win the war, but she sure as hell could win this battle.

"I just helping introduce a hot young thing to all the best the good old US of A has to offer. And when it comes to our evening activities, I can safely say that I am the best. If you want more details than that, I would be more than happy to share."

The slap came so fast that Ashley didn't even see it coming. She sure felt it though, and heard the sharp report of the slap echo though the Oval Office. She pressed her own palm to her check instinctually, the pressure easing the sting.

She was always surprised at how hard her mother could hit. With all the political rhetoric, designer clothes, and the best publicist money could buy, it was all too easy to forget that Christine Davies had grown up as trailer park trash on the outskirts of Baltimore. She had only risen to prominence after screwing rock star Raife Davies hard enough to get pregnant with his first-borne child and forcing him into an unhappy marriage.

"This 'alternative lesbian lifestyle' experiment of yours has gone on long enough Ashley Marie. I cannot have your exploits coming to light in an election year. You will not ruin this for me! And then there are all of the ties you may have just severed with the Middle East!"

Kyla hiccupped out a laugh. "Can we just take a moment to appreciate how having a gay daughter takes precedence over potentially severing sensitive and newly forged diplomatic ties with a very conservative Saudi royal family on your list of things to worry about?"

Ashley was impressed. Little miss eager-to-please had some feist.

The boldness was short-lived. One look from the president seemed to help sober her up quickly enough. Kyla suddenly took a strong interest in her Jimmy Choos.

Ashley scoffed. "Nothing is going to "come to light" mother. The Saudis will bury this deeper than even you would if they ever found out, which I promise you they won't. Besides, how could I possibly be a dirty lesbian? Everyone knows Ethan Rayne and I are so madly in love and are just waiting to the right moment to marry. Haven't you already sold MTV the rights to our magical wedding?"

Christine looked like she was ready to strike again – this time with a closed fist. Ashley lost some of her courage when she saw the crazy look in her mother's eyes. She took the smallest of steps backwards and lowered the defiant angle of her chin.

Christine clenched and unclenched her fists. A tiny vein looked fit to burst in her forehead.

"You may not want me for a mother Ashley, and I sure as hell know I would never choose you for a daughter, but that's the way it is and we are stuck together. You are part of the package deal here kid, and if you want the perks of this office or ever want to see that trust fund your father left in my care, you are going to play the role that I've set up for you, so help me God!"

Ashley bristled, but kept quiet. She remembered the deal they had made seven years ago, not long after Raife Davies had died. How could she forget? It forced her to live a lie for most of her adult life.

Following Raife's sudden and untimely death, someone (and Ashley wanted to strangle whoever it was) had made the suggestion that Christine use the attention and pity she was receiving from the public to slingshot herself into a career in politics. A few months after her father's funeral, Ashley's mother was being sworn into office as one of California's newest Congresswomen in the House of Representatives. Two years after that, somehow, incredibly, Ashley was standing on the steps of the White House watching her mother being sworn in as the next President of the United States.

Ashley had to admit, her mother was the perfect politician. She had spent her entire life learning how to tell people what they wanted to hear so that she could get what she wanted. She was a social chameleon who had climbed her way from white trash to the top office in the United States.

Sometimes Ashley suspected that the American public knew exactly what her mother was – that they saw through all of her lies, but that they just didn't care. After years of hard economic times, somehow, almost magically, months after Christine took office, by no action of her own, the economy had boomed. People had roofs over their heads, jobs to head to every morning and food on their plates at dinner every night.

They didn't care if the president was a bitch, as long as she got the job done. And surrounded as she was by the best Republican advisers that money and power could by, Christine Davies managed to get the job done in spite of herself.

Out of the silence following Christine's threat, Kyla started to giggle.

Her sister and mother both turned to glare at her.

"I was just thinking about what Ashley's bachelorette party would be like…" Ashley rolled her eyes, but suppressed a grin. Kyla might be a complete dork most of the time, a political wanna-be who actually enjoyed playing the role of perfect First Daughter, but once you got a little liquor into her, she was more like Ashley than she would ever admit sober and a pretty good sister to boot.

Christine had just raised a menacing finger in Kyla's direction to start on what Ashley knew would be a cringe-inducing bout of verbal abuse when her desk phone rang.

The First Family froze as the phone rang once, twice.

Finally, on the fourth ring, Christine managed to calm herself down enough to answer with a sharp but courteous, "This is the President."

Whoever was on the other end of the phone launched into what sounded like a long report.

"Hold on a second Larry," Christine interrupted, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her palm. She looked back up to her daughters, glaring. "I have to work on cleaning up your mess. Get out of my sight, the both of you. I'll deal with you more thoroughly in the morning!"

Ashley didn't need to be told twice. She grabbed her sister's elbow and steered her out of the office and in the direction of their suite. She wasn't sure what her mother had in mind for them, but whatever it was, it couldn't be good.