Sam stared out the window, the radio playing some Christmas song. Ainsley quietly slipped into the room and sat down on their bed.

"What are you thinking about?"

"It's snowing."

"Yes I saw that."

"I remember the Christmas before I was inaugurated as Governor we went to the house down in North Carolina."

"Yeah. That was a good Christmas." Ainsley murmured.

"Gracie was what? Four?"

Ainsley thought for a minute and nodded.

"Sam?"

"What?"

"Are you getting all sappy over the snow?"

"No."

"I think you are."

"I think you should be quiet."

"I'm right, aren't I?"

"No." Sam turned away from the window and plopped down on their bed next to Ainsley. "She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you."

"Yes she does."

"Well... maybe just a little," Ainsley grinned. Sam nudged her with his shoulder teasingly and she nudged him back. "You need to be a man and stop being afraid of your daughter."

"She scares the shit out of me."

"She scares the shit out of me too but you don't see me putting her under house arrest. It's Christmas Eve Sam. Do you really want to spend tomorrow bickering with her? Or ignoring her?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. I saw Anna in the hallway. She said Josh said that your father called him."

"Why would he call Josh?"

"Anna said Josh said he wanted to talk to you but didn't know how you would react. So call him and then talk to Gracie."

"Why do I get the feeling you're the only person in this family who loves me?" Sam asked. Ainsley smiled and headed into the bathroom to get changed. Sam sighed quietly and reached over for the phone. He stared at it for a minute then dialed his father's number. This was going to be bad. He could tell. Sam had not spoken to his father since his mother's funeral. After he had found out about his father cheating on his mother, it had taken him a long time to forgive him, a very long time. Thanks to Ainsley, Sam was forced to call him sometimes and occasionally write an e-mail. But when his mother had died and his father had shown up, his new wife on his arm, Sam had lost it. He had caused quite a scene and that had been the end of it. Ainsley didn't try to get Sam to talk to his father anymore but he knew he couldn't ignore a call from him.

"Hello?"

Sam jumped then realized someone had finally picked the phone up.

"Sarah?"

"Sam? Hey. What's going on?"

"Nothing. My assistant said that Dad had called." Sam said, listening to people laughing in the background. "What's going on?"

"Oh Dad and Olivia are having a Christmas party."

"And you went."

"Sam, he's our father. And she's our step-mother."

"He lied to all of us."

"You have to forgive him. Anyway I'll hand the phone over to him now. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." Sam waited for his father to come on and gave Ainsley a small smile as she came out of the bathroom. He eyed her for a second, frowned, and put his hand over the bottom of the phone. "That's my shirt."

"Were you going to be wearing it?" she drawled. When she saw the look on his face, she went on, "Well then what are you going to do about it?"

Sam turned his attention back to his phone call when he heard his father's voice.

"Sam,"

"Dad."

Ainsley leaned down and kissed the top of Sam's head, then turned the TV on quietly.

"Ainsley said that you called Josh before."

"Yeah. I wanted to talk to you."

"You should've called me then."

"Well I figured you were busy."

"Yeah well I get a lot of calls during the day and I manage to return them. You should've called me then Josh. Anyway, it's late here and I really don't want to get into a fight with you over calling Josh. Why did you call?"

"It's Christmas."

"It's been Christmas once a year since Mom died. I didn't see you calling any of those times."

Ainsley glanced at Sam over the back of the couch and gave him a warning look.

"I'm sick of ignoring you Sam."

"There has to be some other reason." he muttered, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "If you were sick of ignoring me, why the hell didn't you call when you saw Gracie was missing? Or did you not care enough to call?"

There was silence for a couple of minutes and Ainsley turned around and watched Sam for a minute. His face was unreadable but somehow, Ainsley knew something was wrong. She always knew when something was wrong.

"Um... okay. Call me tomorrow when you get home. Bye." Sam hung the phone up and stared at the wall for a minute. "Ah... I'm gonna go talk to Gracie now."

"What's going on?" Ainsley asked.

"Nothing."

"Sam..."

"It's nothing." he walked out of the room and headed down the hallway to Gracie's room. He knocked on the door lightly and heard Gracie's reluctant 'come in'. Sam entered the room and sat down on Gracie's bed. "We need to talk."

"I don't want to talk to you."

"I know you don't but we need to."

"No we don't."

"Yes we do Gracie."

"I don't feel the need to talk to you about anything." she said quietly.

"Listen to me. I am trying so hard to be here for you. You have to understand that. You know I cannot help if some country decides to go to war with us. You know I can't control a lot of things that go on around here."

"You're the President."

"That doesn't mean I work miracles. I can't help it when I'm needed. It's my job to run this country. I decided to do this and I'm stuck for another four years. I can't change that Gracie."

"You could've not run for reelection."

"I could've but..."

"But you were thinking of yourself and didn't bother to see how it affected me."

"I asked you a million times. If you had a problem with me running again, you should've told me. I'm not a mind reader." Sam said. "So don't blame this on me. Your mother was fine with it. I was fine with it. You should've said something."

"Oh like you would've listened!" Gracie exclaimed. "It wouldn't have made a difference anyway!"

"It wouldn't?"

"No. It wouldn't. You would've ran anyway because it doesn't matter what I think."

"Your opinion means a lot. You're part of this family too."

"I wish I wasn't."

"Gracie, if you told me you didn't want me running again, then I wouldn't have."

"You still would've ran."

"No. I wouldn't have." Sam said. "You and your mom and now the baby mean more to me than being president."

"I don't believe that."

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"What do you want me to do Gracie?" he asked. "Huh? Tell me what I should do to make things right between us again."

"We're just going to have to wait four years." she replied. "When can I have my laptop back?"

"Maybe you'll just have to wait four years."

"That's not fair."

"You want to know what's not fair? Having you act like this towards me. That isn't fair." Sam was beginning to feel his frustration build up again. This was what his father must have felt like for all those years and Sam was determined not to let it happen between him and Gracie. "You know, it was a lot easier to please you when you were littler."

"Things change."

"Why did we change?"

"You're not here a lot. I see you for a half hour in the morning before I go to school. I'll stop by the Oval when I get back. Once in a while you'll come up to the Residence for dinner at a normal time and then I see you for about ten minutes before I go to bed for the night." Gracie said. "When I was ten and you first became president, I thought it was cool. Now it's just annoying. I thought it was fun to come and sit in the Oval Office and watch you work after school. I thought it was cool to strut around school, boasting about how my dad is the most powerful man in the world. It's not. I sit at lunch and listen to all the things the other kids do with their fathers and I don't feel like boasting anymore. Telling about how you watched your dad veto a bill doesn't excite people anymore."

"You know, I thought we got somewhere. Things were good between us but then you grew distant from me again."

"Because Dad, it's like... some days you can be cool and not worry about me every second and then other days you seem to want to have the whole Army on top of me. You smother me and I'm sick of it."

"So I'm never here and I protect you too much." Sam mumbled. "Do you blame me? I almost lost you Gracie. When you got taken, that scared the shit out of me. I don't ever want to go through that again. As for me not being here, I... I don't know what to tell you. I really don't. I'm sure as hell going to try harder to be here but you know I can't do anything about how long I'm downstairs in the West Wing."

"I know."

"Are you at least going to give me credit for trying?"

"I guess I have to."

"You don't have to."

"Sometimes I think you're selfish for doing this."

"Being president?" Sam asked, making Gracie nod.

"Uncle Josh said that I was being selfish. That this was what you wanted and it won't kill me to bear another four years of this." she said.

"Sometimes I agree with you. I think I was being selfish when I decided to run."

"Then I talked to Grandpa Jed. He said that he already talked to you and was sick of the Seaborns crying to him when they had a problem." Sam laughed at this and Gracie cracked a small smile. "He also said that I should stop because I don't realize how good you are at being president. Then he went on to say that it was your destiny to be president and then added there's a slight chance you're plotting to take over the world but I think he was just saying that to cheer me up."

"Did it work?"

"Not really. I actually agreed with him at the time."

"Why?"

"Because after being President there's not any other political job you can take unless you like... conquer Canada and slowly take over the rest of the world and proclaim yourself Darth Seaborn or something."

"Okay, Darth Vader got killed before he could take over the galaxy. You better re-watch your DVDs."

"I dunno. You're pretty scary sometimes so I don't know anyone who would want to try a coup d'etat against you." Gracie said, leaning back in her chair. "Besides they wouldn't want to."

"Besides the fact that I'm scary?"

"You are a good President. I figured if I didn't tell you I didn't want you running again, fate would be on my side and you wouldn't get reelected. I took a look at the pollings and when I saw your approval rating was at 51, I knew that wasn't happening."

Sam beckoned Gracie over and she moved over to her bed. He pulled her into a tight hug and held her for a minute. Gracie hugged him back and they pulled away from each other.

"When you have a problem with me, tell me so we can solve it." Sam said.

"I try but we're both stubborn and won't give into each other." Gracie said. Sam laughed and nodded.

"Well that's going to have to change."

"I don't like fighting with you."

"Neither do I."

"I don't like admitting you're right either."

Sam looked over at Gracie, who gave him a sheepish look.

"You can't have it both ways."

"I know."

"You better get to bed." Sam said. Gracie nodded and crawled up her bed to her pillow and got under her blanket. Sam moved over so he was sitting next to her and leaned down, kissing her forehead. "I love you more than anything and nothing is going to change that."

"I love you too Dad."

"You really need to sleep or Santa isn't coming."

Gracie rolled her eyes, making Sam laugh quietly.

"What time can I get you and Mom up?"

"Make sure it's at least daylight out."

Gracie groaned and shut her light off.

"Night honey."

"Night Dad."

Sam headed out of Gracie's room and entered his room. Ainsley smiled, seeing the look on his face.

"I can tell everything is better now."

"She got a lot off her chest." Sam said.

"That's good." Ainsley said. "Now what about you? What's going on with your dad?"

Sam ignored her and quickly got changed for bed. He pulled back the blanket on his side of the bed and lay down, then wrapped an arm around Ainsley.

"Honey, is everything okay?"

"No."

"What? What did he say?"

"He went to the doctors last week for a test and something popped up so they made him get another test done and the results came back this morning."

"Is he okay?"

Sam was quiet for a minute and Ainsley sighed.

"Sweetheart..." she kissed his shoulder and he wrapped his arm tighter around her.

"He said the doctors said it was cancer and he could get treatments done but if he doesn't go through with it he's got a few months. So the bastard called to reconcile with me. Tie up his loose ends. Make things right again with me."

"He's not going through with it."

"He said there's no point in having the treatments done that he's just going to die anyway."

"Are you okay?"

"It's his choice. I can't stop him. As much as I hate him, I wish he didn't tell me. Now I know that it's going to happen. Sarah's not going to call me and say, 'Oh Dad died.' I know that in a few months he's gonna be gone."

"Sam, I don't think you hate him."

"I don't." he whispered. Ainsley kissed his forehead and held him tightly.