In the eighth grade, she'd told her teacher that she wanted to be the first female Senate Majority Leader. In high school, she'd interned in Columbus with an Ohio state senator. During college, she'd volunteered with two congressional campaigns, and it was the winner of the last who'd recommended her for a White House intern position upon graduation from Yale. She'd been on her way.
The White House job was amazing. Quinn Fabray, Ohio nobody, was a tiny cog in the greatest machine of government that the world had ever seen. And she was working towards something she believed in! President Evans promised equal opportunity, more jobs, and a stronger America on the world stage. On her first day, she'd passed Henry Freakin' Kissinger, aged former secretary of state, on the way to the restroom. Quinn Fabray had arrived.
Of course she'd heard of Sam Evans. He'd just graduated high school at the start of his father's campaign for president, and the media loved him. He was gorgeous, all-American, everything a girl could hope for. It had been pretty evident that he hated the spotlight, but he bore his burden gracefully. Quinn shook his hand on her third day in the White House, and had passed him in the hallway once or twice after that, but she'd been too busy to spare the First Kid much thought.
But then a month ago she'd gone to that fundraiser. She'd felt out of place among the high rollers, and he'd looked bored. Quinn Fabray wasn't particularly brave, and it had been he who'd started the conversation. As it turned out, he hated Washington, while she loved it. Sam Evans liked the slower pace of rural Tennessee, while Quinn Fabray thrived on being right in the middle of the seat of power. They didn't disagree on everything, though.
"I don't know much about it," she'd admitted, "but it seems like Batman would definitely win. I could easily see him using Kryptonite tipped throwing stars or something."
"Exactly!" Sam had exclaimed loudly, surprising a banker from Connecticut who'd just written a check for twenty thousand dollars to the PAC. "I mean, Superman is stronger, yeah, but Batman's so much more resourceful! He uses his mind, you know?"
They'd probably had one champagne too many. Thinking back, it had probably been two or three too many. Quinn had mentioned something about hating riding the metro, and then her new friend, blood of the president, had noted that he had the use of a car and a driver. Those two Secret Service guys, Bill and Dill, or whatever, had ushered them into the back of a black SUV.
Face really, maddeningly, adorably red from the champagne, Sam had stood with his arm propped over his head against her doorframe as he told her that he'd never had so much fun at a political event before. "I think maybe I'll make sure you're on the guest list for the next one," he'd grinned, his speech only slightly slurred.
She'd never been good at flirting, and flirting tipsy was just god-awful. "Uh, um, you know, if you wanted, I guess you could come," Quinn remembered giggling then. "Not come! Come in, I meant!"
He'd smiled, shown off some really pretty teeth, and then waved the two secret service agents off. Quinn had never thought herself easy, but damn, he was just so, so good looking. And his abs, oh, his abs. The morning sun edged into the window to find her face plastered against those abs. She'd been so, so hungover, and had never had so much fun.
And now, for nothing more than great abs and a big dick, Quinn's future was gone. She could never achieve anything now - in the unlikely event that her career ever did take off, people would say it was because she was the mother of the president's grandchild.
XxXxX
Chief of Staff Joe Stebbins decided that Quinn would make her debut to the nation at a White House event for children's literacy. It was family friendly, he said, and the perfect venue to introduce the First Son's girlfriend to America. They were supposed to be there in half an hour, and Quinn was vomiting. She wasn't sure if it was morning sickness or nerves.
The Secret Service had swept her apartment the day before, so they didn't have to accompany Sam inside anymore. Quinn lifted her head from the toilet bowl to find him with his back against the bathroom wall, face white as a sheet.
"I, uh," he stuttered. "I knocked but you didn't answer."
Quinn pushed herself up. Sam moved closer, but she held up her hand to stop him. She felt disgusting and the last thing she wanted was him looking too close. "I'm okay," she managed.
He obviously didn't believe her. Sam turned on the sink and wet a washcloth. "Does this happen a lot? You see it in movies," he wrung out the cloth and offered it, "but I didn't know if it was like -"
"It sucks ass."
Sam frowned. Quinn could feel him staring at her back as she brushed her teeth. The minty taste of the toothpaste made her stomach roll.
"I'm sorry."
She spit. The son of the President of the United States of America was watching her spit. "You didn't do anything." She had to fix her makeup again.
"I guess," Sam shuffled his feet, "I guess I kinda did, you know, what with the, the," he sat down on the edge of her bathtub. "The sperm. You know, it fertilizes the egg, your egg. And it was my sperm, so, I'm sorry. That you're sick."
Before Quinn could come up with a response to that, Phil, or Will, or whatever the agent's name was, stuck his head through the door. "Sir," he said to Sam, "we need to leave soon for the event."
Sam shooed the agent away, promising they'd be ready in a minute.
"If you don't feel like doing this, we don't have to."
She'd been trying to come up with excuses already. Nothing worthwhile came to mind. "But we do have to." The leader of the free world didn't offer choices. He issued orders. Quinn walked past him to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed to put on her shoes.
Sam sat down next to her. It was the second time he'd been in her bedroom, after that night when they got themselves in trouble. "No, you don't. I'll take the heat for this." He took her hand. "All that wedding crap? It's batshit crazy. You don't really have to marry me, Quinn."
He'd told her about how the president and his chief of staff had mapped out her future in the Oval Office. Damage control was the Washington term for solving crises like this. Quinn had been so stunned that she hadn't been able to immediately say anything. She'd slumped back into his couch and stared at the wall.
When she cooled down, she knew she shouldn't have been surprised. She knew politics, it was her only interest, really. That was how people like Stebbins, people like the president, would react to a situation like hers. The First Son knocking up an intern would be a political obstacle. You solved obstacles, and damn the actual people involved. Quinn was politically savvy enough to know that Stebbins's solution was actually brilliant, a PR masterstroke if it worked. She'd respect it more if it wasn't her life in the crosshairs.
And it's Sam's life, too. He's sweet, he's trying to offer her a way out. She didn't know the father of her child that well. They'd had sex once, been out on one date, and she'd cried in his arms when she'd told him the news. That was pretty much it. But she knew that he hated this life and didn't want her to be trapped in it, too.
She squeezed his hand, looked into his earnest eyes. "Let's just get through today, and then we can figure the rest of it out."
Sam shrugged, pushed his bangs away from his forehead. "I just don't want you to feel trapped."
Too late.
XxXxX
The First Lady was opening a women's health clinic in Portland, so they asked Quinn to read a story to the kids at the literacy summit. Stebbins said it was a smart move; when, in a few months, they announced she was pregnant, the public would remember that they'd first seen Quinn in a nurturing, maternal role.
At first the press ignored her, probably because they thought she was just another intern. She'd been just another intern merely a week ago. But then they saw her holding the hand of the president's son. They saw the First Son put his hand to the small of her back and guide her to her seat. The photographers had no idea that the little touches, the little signs of affection, had been encouraged, or rather ordered, by Joe Stebbins, the coldest, most ruthless man in DC. Within a few minutes her eyes were aching from all the camera flashes.
"I guess you've had to deal with this all your life," Quinn whispered to Sam while they waited for the president to arrive. The president was always last. The president did not wait. "How are you not blind?"
"You get used to it," he said, scowling at a photographer who knelt not five feet in front of them. "Eventually, it'll all just be background noise." Sam leaned a little closer, whispered with his lips close to her ear. "I've asked the Secret Service to shoot them, but they say it's a bad idea."
She laughed and it's that image that graces the front page of the Life and Style section section the next morning. She won't make the actual front page, of the entire paper, until their news breaks, much later.
"Is it weird that I'm nervous about reading a ten page book to six year olds?"
"You'll do great." Sam puts his arm around the back of her chair. She's starting to pick up on little things about him, like how he's always going to be as spread out as possible, and how his bangs invariably fall over his eyes. "But no, it's not weird. I'm always nervous around these people."
"You don't ever look it." It's true. He's been in the media for years now, and though sometimes he looked annoyed, and who wouldn't be with a camera constantly shoved in your face, most of the time the First Son appeared at ease with the burdens of his father's job.
Sam shrugged. "Presidential genes, I guess." He pointed to the group of small children being led into the room. "You're up."
XxXxX
For the day at least, she's the new people's princess. The tabloids loved her. "First Son's First Love," The Star read. Her mother in Lima was soon beleaguered with press on the lawn, and people Quinn had gone to high school with were being harassed for comments.
Her coworkers did not love her.
She shared a tiny office with three other interns, and the morning after the literacy event, the event where she'd come to the world's attention, Quinn was met with cold stares at work.
She'd known it would happen. She'd told Sam that from the moment everyone realized she was involved with the boss's kid, she would be known as a gold digger. A man in similar circumstances would get friendly slaps on the back, get applause for "going for it." Quinn was labeled as a conniving bitch.
It was just little things. Someone went out to get coffee for everyone and "forgot" to ask Quinn what she wanted. She knew everyone was going to a bar after work, but no one asked if she wanted to join. Everyone was obviously making a point of having the newspaper page with her face on it out on their desks. It was college level hazing bullshit.
She knew she shouldn't care. She's working in the White House, and no one comes here to make friends. But she didn't ask for any of this, this relationship in the public eye, and they all should know her well enough by now to know that she wants to work her way up the ladder on her own merits. And now she's getting upset and damn these pregnancy hormones. She goes to the restroom and tries to get a grip. They will not see her like this.
It gets worse.
Working in the White House is a power game - everyone wants some, and there's never enough to go around. Quinn and her coworkers are interns, which means they're the lowest of the low. Whatever the lowest job is, interns are three levels below that. So, the guy in charge of the interns is not particularly important or powerful. He hates this fact. He takes out his frustrations on the only people beneath him.
"Do you have that funding report for the Council of Economic Advisors?"
Shit. She puts on her most contrite face. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I thought you wanted it in two days. That's tomorrow."
"You're right, I did want it in two days, but then you decided to take a day off to canoodle," he spat, "with your boyfriend." No one took a day off in the White House. The saying went that Friday was awesome, because there's only two more working days till Monday.
She grimaced. This was the first time anyone had specifically mentioned her situation. Up to this point, there had only been less than subtle hints and annoyed glances. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll get right on it, and have -"
"Forget it, I don't have time to fuck around." He yelled at another intern and told them to work on the report. Turning back to Quinn, the supervisor said, "Just go file something. This is the fucking White House, and there are a thousand people who want your job. I could replace you like that," he snapped his fingers. "So, don't think that just because you're fucking around with the president's kid that you're better than the rest of us."
The worst part is that Quinn knows he's vocalizing what everyone else in the office is thinking. In their minds, she thinks she's better than them, thinks that she can cheat the system and move up faster and further than they could even dream.
Defying all logic, things actually get even worse.
The dressing down finished, they both turned around to find Sam Evans standing in the doorway, a bag of Chinese food dangling from his hand, with two huge Secret Service agents flanking him.
The internship coordinator's mouth fell open. No one in the First Family had ever been down here. This was the basement. They kept the old files and the unimportant people down here. Anyone of any standing would never be caught dead here.
Until today.
"Everything alright?" He'd obviously heard everything.
Quinn moved to put herself between Sam and her boss. "Sam, it's fine."
"No, it's not." He moved closer to her boss, a man several inches shorter. "You don't get to talk to her like that."
"I. What I meant was, I -" The man's mouth kept opening and closing, like a fish.
Quinn knew she was actually watching her career go up in flames; there is no other possible result of what's going on in front of her. She'd expected it from the moment she'd learned she was pregnant with the president's grandchild, but actually seeing it happen was something else entirely.
"Yeah, well, whatever you meant, quit being a dick." He doesn't wait for an answer. Turning to Quinn, Sam held up the bag of Chinese takeout. "I thought you might like to have lunch together?"
What she wants is to just get out of the room, and Quinn doesn't have to see the look on her boss's face to know that there's no need to come back after lunch. Or ever.
XxXxX
"So, I was tellin' Blaine," Sam said around a mouth full of lo mein, "he's my best friend, by the way. Blaine's gay; dad's advisors say I shouldn't be friends with a gay dude cause we're Republicans and the evangelicals don't like gay dudes, but I don't care who's gay or straight or whatever." He swallowed, finally, and picked up an egg roll. "Anyway, I was talking with Blaine, and he was saying . . ."
Quinn was staring out the window, oblivious to gay dude Blaine's words of wisdom. She kept replaying the scene from her office. Her former office. It was all over now. Her career was over before it had really started.
"You want the last egg roll," Sam offered, evidently finished with a story she'd heard not a word of.
Quinn finally woke up to the other person in the room. "You shouldn't have done that."
Sam mournfully shook his head; he looked extremely guilty. "I know. They're so greasy, I'm going to have to do, like, a thousand extra crunches to make up for lunch today."
God. What the hell has happened to her life? "No, I meant that you shouldn't have said that to my boss."
He looked confused for a second. "That guy? He was being a jerk to you."
"He's my boss. Or, he was."
"What are you talking about?"
Quinn bit her lip, took a breath. There's probably some law on the books about screaming at the president's son while you're actually in the White House. She needed to get him outside, away from those Secret Service agents, so she could throttle him. The mental image was the only thing keeping her going right now. How could he be so obtuse?
"Sam," she said, patiently. "I just lost my job."
His eyebrows knit together, like he'd just seen the sun rise in the west or something. "Huh?"
"My job. It's gone."
"Well, I'll just go down there and tell him -"
"No, holy shit, don't do that." She shouldn't have to explain what rising and falling by your own merits, your own skills, meant. "It's done now."
"Dad'll get you another job. Any job you want." Sam tried what he obviously thought was an affable smile. "You wanna be Secretary of Defense? He hates the guy doing it now, so I'm pretty sure there's going to be an opening."
She didn't trust herself to open her mouth for several long seconds. Quinn watched the smile sink from his face when he realized that he couldn't just laugh the problem away.
"Can you ask your guys to give me a ride home? I'm really tired, and my stomach's bothering me. I don't think I can stand the metro today."
He didn't try to pick up the conversation.
XxXxX
Quinn did a quick Google search to make sure copious amounts of ice cream wouldn't cause her unborn child to sprout a second head or anything, and thus reassured, spent the rest of the afternoon with her new best friends, Hagen and Daaz.
Fate had been kind of pernicious lately, what with the unplanned pregnancy and getting fired from her job, but at least her roommate was out of the apartment when Sam dropped her off at home. Quinn didn't think she could stand listening to her blather about how the congressman she worked for had recently been selected for the "Hottest on the Hill" spring catalog. What did that have to do with getting bills passed?
Not that Quinn would ever be involved in getting bills passed. Not anymore. She didn't know what she was going to do, and that was the worst part.
Since middle school, Quinn Fabray had had everything planned out, with a spreadsheet, in fact. She was going to an Ivy League school, and that would give her the best prospects of getting an internship in Washington. After the internship, someone, a congressman, a senator, a high level staffer, someone, would hire her for their staff as a real employee. She'd work for several years, move up the ranks, all the while steadily gaining influence and support. And then she'd go back to Ohio and run for an open House seat, and maybe governor or senator a few years after that. It had been the perfect plan.
But now, for the first time in her life, Quinn Fabray was adrift, didn't know what she was going to do. Getting fired meant that she had no stepping stone to future prospects. She'd suddenly gone from a full work schedule to an empty calendar.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. She knew that, come hell or high water, in about eight months she'd be screaming in a hospital bed, pushing out a baby that had no place on the spreadsheet.
The doorbell rang, and she swore, then and there, that if Kim, the damned roommate, forgot her keys one more time, she was just going to let her sleep outside. But it's not Kim. It's Sam Evans.
The look on his face could probably be explained by the fact that she's wearing an extremely large, extremely old purple bathrobe, and that her hair's a mess and her mascara's dried in dark trenches down the length of her face. To complete the picture, she's holding an open ice cream carton and has a spoon sticking out the side of her mouth.
"Oh," was all he said.
She knew she should probably be embarrassed, but frankly, she didn't have the energy to stir up any more emotions at this point. She did, however, remove the spoon.
"Don't you ever call ahead?"
"Sorry, I don't have your number."
She cocked an eyebrow. "Says the guy who has access to the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and probably ten other government agencies that don't officially exist."
His smirk looked halfway guilty, halfway amused. "Well, I don't like to take advantage of who my dad is."
"Really?"
He nodded.
"Hmm, it didn't seem to bother you earlier today when you stalked into where I worked like you owned the place, and then proceeded to chew out my boss. That seems like something you'd do if you didn't mind taking advantage of who your dad is."
The smirk fell away.
Quinn turned and walked back into her apartment. She supposed he followed, but she didn't look back to see.
"I'm sorry, Quinn."
She put the ice cream back in the freezer before slumping into a purple pile on her couch. "I'm tired, I don't want to talk about it."
Quinn didn't know what she expected him to do. Maybe leave. Maybe pester her with offers to use his proximity to the presidency to get her a much better job than the one she lost. She didn't expect him to apologize for his semen.
"I'm sorry I've got, like, magic jizz or whatever."
Her mouth fell open, because, really, what the hell? There he sat, his pink lips pursed, his long fingers pulling at the hem of his shirt, saying something totally crazy.
"I probably shouldn't even ask," Quinn sighed, pushing her out of control hair out of her face, "But what the hell are you talking about?"
Sam spread his hands, palms up. He really did have long fingers. "I mean, that's gotta be it, right? You get pregnant with any other guy's kid and you don't lose your job, you don't end up in the newspaper." He licked his lips, which made them even pinker, if possible. "Gotta be something about my crazy baby gravy."
She smiled. She didn't want to, but she did. "Yeah, that's got to be it."
He held out his arms and scooted closer. Hugs really do help, and he's warm and his shirt's really soft, and he smells nice. He smelled like soap and manliness, whatever that meant.
"I really am sorry, Quinn," Sam whispered, voice serious again. He had his arms around her back, holding her to him. "It sucks so much, and I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," she said into his shoulder. It's true, it's not totally his fault that she'd been fired. "Everyone in that room had it out for me as soon as they found out about us. It wouldn't have been long before I lost my job, even if you hadn't called my boss a dick."
"He was being a dick."
"Yeah, but those of us who aren't related to the leader of the free world can't just go around pointing it out when people are being dicks."
He's rubbing her back with the flat of his hand; it felt really good. "We're saying "dick" a lot."
"It feels liberating."
Sam nodded. "It kinda does. Seriously, someone like you isn't going to be without a job for long." He squeezed her shoulder; it wasn't beneath her notice that they've never actually touched so much, not sober, anyway. "Again, totally sorry my magic splooge screwed up your life."
"How many slang words for semen do you know?"
"Plenty," he smiled. And then, out of left field: "Can I kiss you?"
She was starting to grasp that he really didn't care much for transitions and just said whatever was on his mind as soon as he thought it. She'd rather talk about kissing than sperm.
"Why? I look horrible."
Sam shrugged. "It's ok. You've had a rough day."
"So, you don't disagree when I say that I look horrible?"
"I hate women. You've got an incredibly hot guy wanting to kiss you, and you decide to be insulted."
"Wow. I mean, just, wow. I really don't know what to say to that."
"Say yes," he grinned.
She didn't stop him when he leaned in. They've never actually kissed before. Drunken slobbering didn't count. When he pulled back, Quinn said, "Your lips are really nice."
"I used to date a lesbian cheerleader who said they were like soft angel wings."
Quinn rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to ask about the lesbian part, but just so you know, it's usually not a great idea to talk about the old girl with the new girl, especially when the new girl is pregnant."
"Sorry, I don't have a lot of experience with wooing women."
"I guess the president's son doesn't have to work very hard at it, does he?"
The crooked grin again. "This will probably go in a presidential trivia book one day, but you're actually the first girl I've ever drunkenly hooked up with."
"That'll be good to know if I'm ever on Jeopardy. 'This incredibly hot former intern once shacked up with presidential goofball Sam Evans'," she mimed in a spectacularly awful Alex Trebek impression.
Sam clenched his hand like he was holding a buzzer. "Who is Quinn Fabray?"
"A Jeopardy champion and the scion of a political dynasty? You're multitalented."
He stuck his tongue out at her. "I don't know what a scion is, but I do know that your Trebek impression sucked. But you're in luck, because I happen to be an impressions expert."
"Really?"
He nodded earnestly. "Totally. I hope you're not busy tonight, because I'm about to do my dad's inaugural address as Yoda."
It was a horrible day, no doubt about it. Probably one of her worst days ever, up to that point. But the ending improved, a little. Things always look brighter when you're laughing.
To Be Continued
Thank you to everyone who left reviews on the last chapter! You're all very, very kind! If you don't mind, I'd love some reviews on this chapter. Let me know what you think!