A/N: Here's yet another AU (I really like doing these, and I've already come up with at least one more)! This one will be a Gilmore Girls-type AU set in the timeline of the series. The only character I own is Ellie Lyman. I hope you enjoy, please read and review!
Chapter 1: Pilot
Fifteen year old Elizabeth "Ellie" Lyman woke up to soft streams of light on her pillow. She rolled over to see her clock, which read 7:07. Perfect timing, she thought. She had exactly 53 minutes before she needed to be at school and it was only fifteen minutes away, five minutes if she went to the diner first. She got dressed, got ready for the day, and came downstairs to the smell of coffee. Her father must have made a pot before immediately slipping over to CJ's for an additional cup or two. Laughing quietly, she grabbed her backpack and walked out the front door.
"Good morning, Dr. Bartlet, Mayor Bartlet!" She called to her neighbors, who were getting in their cars to head to their respective jobs. Jed Bartlet had been the mayor of Liberty, New Hampshire for over ten years, and his wife Abbey had been the town doctor for as long as Ellie could remember. They had three daughters-the youngest, Zoey, had been Ellie's playmate and favorite babysitter until she went away to college last year.
"Ah, good morning, Ellie!" Mayor Bartlet called over. He came to the fence that separated the Lymans from the Bartlets. "Off to school already?"
"Yes, sir. I want to get there early and work on the extra credit for my science project."
Mayor Bartlet nodded before he said, "There is one fruit…"
The groan escaped Ellie's lips before she could help herself. Aside from being the town's mayor, Mayor Bartlet was a major trivia buff, and anybody who was asked one of his questions found themselves in a kind of trap. Ellie usually loved trading trivia factoids with Mayor Bartlet, but today she just wanted to get to school. Especially with her exam in Hanover this afternoon.
"There is one fruit whose seeds are on the outside." Mayor Bartlet pressed on. "Name it, please."
"Um…" Ellie thought hard. "The kumquat?"
Mayor Bartlet had a soft smile on his face as he shook his head, barely containing his glee. "Nope."
Suddenly, the answer occurred to her. "The strawberry!"
"Right you are!" Mayor Bartlet praised her. He was about to ask another question, but then Dr. Bartlet stepped in. "Jed, let the poor girl get to school. Ellie, you have your test this afternoon, don't you?"
"Yes, I do." Ellie replied.
"Well, good luck."
"Thank you!" Ellie called as she hopped on her bike and rode away towards the town square. As she rode, calls of "Good morning, Ellie!" and "Have a good day!" rang out. She truly was the town's daughter.
Ellie had lived in Liberty for as long as she could remember. The story went that her mother Amy had walked out on her and her father Josh when she was six months old. Josh, a law school student, had gone to see his old friend Leo McGarry (since her grandparents were both gone), and Leo had pointed him to his old friend Jed Bartlet and the town of Liberty. The town had embraced her and Josh, giving them a makeshift family.
Parking her bike outside the diner, she pushed open the door just in time to hear CJ and her father having their daily argument.
"Kiss up to me all you want, mi amor, you're still not getting another cup of coffee."
"CJ, come on, I live on caffeine."
"That stuff'll put you in an early grave." CJ volleyed back.
"Hey, CJ." Ellie called out. "Morning, Dad." she told Josh, kissing his cheek.
"Morning, Ellie! Can I get you some sustenance?" Though she owned a diner, CJ had been a business major; she had a Master's degree and a vocabulary as big as a dictionary.
"Um, can I get some scrambled eggs, coffee, and a cheese danish?"
"Absolutely, under no circumstances, and sure."
Ellie shrugged. "Worth a shot."
"Listen, you're as bad as your father. You're not poisoning your body, especially before your test."
"I don't know why everyone's making such a big deal out of this, it's just a test."
"It's not just a test!" Josh spoke up. "You are taking an entrance exam to a huge private school. You're finally gonna get out of Liberty and get into Columbia, just like you've always wanted. You can do this." He kissed her forehead, as CJ watched the exchange with awe. "I believe in you."
Ellie nodded. "Okay. You're picking me up after school, right?"
"You know it!"
"Now," CJ cut in, putting a plate of food in front of the teenager. "Eat up!"
…
The Presidential Inn was a half-mile from the town square, just ten minutes from the diner. Josh pulled into his usual parking spot, taking a moment to reflect on his business.
He had initially applied for any position available at the tiny inn: he needed a job badly, if only for his baby daughter. Perhaps he could be a maintenance worker or a concierge. But Dolores Landingham had seen something in the young man who had dropped out of law school to be a single father. She had offered him the job of the desk clerk, and he worked his way up to become the daytime manager of the inn when Ellie was 7. It was a hard job, but one that he was eternally grateful for every day.
He got out of his car and walked into the inn, where Margaret was already manning the phones. No one really knew where Margaret had come from, she just showed up one day and started working.
"Presidential Inn, this is Margaret. No, I'm sorry, we've got a wedding here, we don't have any openings. No, we're completely booked." She looked over the calendar, clearly trying to appease the person on the other end rather than actually help. "No, we don't have anything. Yes, I'm sure."
"Margaret, any messages?" Josh asked.
In response, Margaret handed over a sheaf of index cards. As Josh flipped through the phone messages, he asked, "Has the electrician come to repair the air conditioner in room 15 yet?"
"He was here, he did nothing, and it's a hundred dollars."
"A hundred-they're shortchanging us!"
"Preaching to the choir." Margaret deadpanned. "Do you want the guy's-"
"Yeah." Margaret handed over the electrician's phone number, and Josh called him. After a fruitless conversation, and as Margaret yammered on to a client about being overbooked and begging her to choose another weekend, ANY OTHER weekend, Josh's best friend Sam came wandering in. Sam Seaborn was the PR and financial manager for the inn, and had a great gift for words.
"What do you guys think of this? 'The Presidential Inn-the West Wing of New England relics.'"
"Isn't that a little complicated?" Josh asked.
"Not really." Sam replied. "We are the Presidential Inn, and the place where the President works is called the West Wing." There was silence. "Too much explaining?" More silence. "Okay, then." Sam returned to his office, and Josh went back to work.
"Hey, Josh?" Margaret said. "Didn't Ellie have her big entrance exam for Central Academy today?"
"Yeah, she did."
"Well, how did she do?"
"I don't know yet."
…
Mayor Jed Bartlet was working in his office when his wife rapped on the door. "Jed? You busy?"
"No, not really." Jed told her. "Just land ordinances and people suing the HOA."
"We don't have an HOA."
"Exactly." At Abbey's expression, he waved a dismissive hand. "They're all nuisance suits anyway. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"
"Debbie Fiderer called. She'd like us to take a foster placement. They'll be here in an hour."
Jed looked up. "They want us?"
"Yes. Debbie said that this is his 6th foster home in four years, and she wants someone with our level of experience to take him." The Bartlets had been foster parents for New Hampshire's Child Protective Services department for 20 years. In fact, they had first met CJ as one of their foster children.
"Well." Jed sat back in thought. "Then let's go meet this kid!" He stood up and began to walk out.
"Jed, there's just one more thing." Abbey said.
Jed turned around. "What is it?"
"He's African-American. That's not a problem with us, is it?"
The response was immediate. "No, of course not." They would welcome any child into their home, regardless of what they looked or acted like.
Meanwhile, Debbie Fiderer was driving through Hanover on her way to Liberty, casting a stern glance at the teenager in her passenger's seat.
"Charlie. Charlie!" She shook his shoulder a little.
He whipped his head around, pulling off his headphones. "What?"
"We'll be at the Bartlets in ten minutes."
"Oh. Okay. Another white family who doesn't understand me."
"Charlie…"
"No, Ms. Fiderer! I'm sick of getting booted around!"
"Not half as sick as I am of getting the call to move you." Debbie muttered under her breath. Charlie Young was one of the more trying cases she had ever had.
"I heard that." Charlie snapped.
"Charlie, this is your sixth home since you entered foster care. Now, if this doesn't work out, I will be forced to recommend that you be placed into a group home for the remainder of your time in the foster system." As she was saying this, they pulled up in front of the Bartlets' house. "I don't think I need to tell you this is your last chance. Do you understand?"
Charlie said nothing.
"I said, do you understand?"
Finally, Charlie nodded. "Yeah."
They got out of the car, and Jed and Abbey came to meet the pair of them on the porch.
"Charlie." Jed greeted. "Welcome to our home."
Debbie elbowed Charlie, who mumbled a greeting. Abbey looked at Jed. Charlie was going to be a tough nut to crack.
…
Ellie barreled through the inn entrance. "Margaret, is he here?"
"Yeah, he should be working in his office." Margaret said. "How'd it go?"
"I'll tell you later!" Ellie called back as she ran into her dad's office.
Josh looked up as she came in. "Hey, baby."
"Dad! They graded the exam while I waited. I passed! I passed!"
Josh's face lit up with a grin. "You're going to Central?"
"I'm going to Central!"
"Whoo!" Josh cried as he hugged his daughter. "I knew you could do it!" He grabbed her hand and led her to the front. "Margaret! She got the results!"
"Well?" Margaret asked expectantly.
Ellie didn't need to answer verbally. The excitement was all on her face.
Margaret's face lit up (as much as it was capable of being lit up) and she came over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Congrats!"
"Thanks, Margaret." Ellie grinned.
"Shall we go to the inn for a celebratory dinner? I'm working 'till 10, but I can get an hour off."
"Yeah! CJ's gonna be so happy!" Over the years, Ellie had invariably wanted Josh and CJ to get together, but it was not to be. Ellie had accepted that CJ would just be her fun aunt figure and not her stepmom. Besides, it was more fun watching them banter, anyway.
But sometimes, Ellie still wondered: would her dad ever find someone to love?
…
Later that night, after her celebration dinner (CJ had pulled out all the stops for her favorite kid in Liberty), and Josh had gone back to the inn, Ellie was walking home in the rain when she suddenly saw a shadowy figure enter the town square. She could see that the figure was huddled over, with at least two suitcases.
"Hey!" Ellie called out. "Are you lost?"
The figure turned, and Ellie could see it was a woman-a woman not that much older than her, she noted, maybe in her mid-twenties.
"Um…" The woman seemed nervous, jumpy. "I'm trying to find a place to stay for the night. I was going to try to go to Hanover, but the bus dropped me off outside here instead."
"Are you looking for someone?" Ellie asked.
"No, no. I just-I'm just looking for somewhere to go...to start over. I left my boyfriend and I left my parents and I just got on the first bus out of town and went to the furthest place it was heading, and, oh God, I'm rambling."
Ellie stood in awe of this woman that she had only met thirty seconds prior. She could tell she needed help, and decided to do something about it. "My dad owns the town inn. It's about a half-mile away from here, we can probably walk."
"I don't have a lot of money." The woman explained.
"My dad won't care much about that." Ellie shrugged. "Come on. I'll take your bags."
"Thank you." The woman said, smiling gratefully. "And your name is…"
"Ellie. Ellie Lyman."
"I'm Donna Moss."
Ellie shook her hand. "It's nice to meet you." The pair walked towards the inn, and Ellie hoped that her father would be able to help Donna.
A/N: And there's the first chapter! I do hope you enjoy this alternate universe I've created. It'll be a longer story, with one or two "episodes" taking place in each chapter. It'll also skip around a lot, too, but it will hit all the milestones. Please let me know what you thought!
