His dad was going over the time-limit for his speech, but who's going to tell the President of the United States of America to shut up? The leader of the free world droned on and on, and even though he had a team of speechwriters working on every word he ever said, the commencement address wasn't that great. It was all about how the promise of tomorrow hinged on the hard work of today. Blah, blah, blah.

Sam didn't think he was being jerk for wishing that his graduation day could be a little more about him, and a little less about his dad. But whatever. You couldn't blame the university for using the fact that one particular student had a famous father to get the most sought after speaker in the world. The appointments secretary said that of course the president would be happy to deliver the address and accept an honorary degree; he knew it would mean so much to his son.

Yeah.

From his seat amongst his fellow graduates it was easy for Sam to find Quinn and his mom in the audience; they were the two people surrounded by men in dark suits and sunglasses.

Even from a distance she looked radiant. Quinn, not his mom. His mom was pretty, but he didn't tend to think about how she looked. She was his mom and that was gross. But from his seat, Sam could see his girlfriend's glow. She'd started glowing lately, and not in a weird way that involved CIA plots to create the ultimate super solider.

She had the littlest baby bump; it was almost impossible to see unless she pulled her shirt tight over her middle. It was adorable and he loved it. Sam knew she wasn't being serious when she complained about being fat.

Finally, his father stepped away from the microphone. But then someone else started speaking, and yeah, he knew he'd probably never graduate college because this ceremony would never end.

He really wouldn't have graduated college without Quinn. Well, if there'd really been a threat of not graduating his dad would have made a call, because the president's son can't not finish college. But Sam knew that he graduated for real, on his own terms, thanks to Quinn. She studied with him, helped him to organize his time. She coached him through exams and proofread his essays. She'd pulled him through this last semester, and he could admit that more than once he'd been kicking and screaming. Figuratively, anyway. But she got him through it.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

But you couldn't just say that any old way. For Sam, it was extremely important that it didn't come out like, "Well, we're stuck together thanks to this baby, so we might as well make the best of it." He knew that he'd love her even if they weren't expecting a baby. She just fit perfectly in his life, right where he needed her.

At last, they started calling names. Sam just hoped he didn't trip.

XxXxX

It was hard to think with a beautiful woman straddling your hips, her hands gripping your shoulders as she leaned down to kiss you, to press her body into yours and completely take you, take everything you are and were and will be.

That's why he screwed up.

"God, I love you," Sam mumbled into her ear when she collapsed against him, tired and hot and wet from sex.

His eyes immediately shot open as soon as it left his mouth. This was not the plan. The plan involved flowers and a violinist while they sat under the stars atop Mt. Rushmore.

You're notsupposed to say that during sex. He'd read it in Cosmo, for fuck's sake! He got all of his relationship information from Cosmo, and it hadn't failed him yet. Saying it while you were doing the nasty could mean that you only said it in appreciation of having your world rocked. You were supposed to say it when you had a clear head and everyone had their clothes on. Shit, shit, shit.

Quinn didn't react.

At least, he didn't think she did. She might be silently seething, but she's lying on top of him and he thought he'd probably feel it if she was seething. Her face is pressed into his shoulder, so she was perfectly positioned to bite into his neck and kill him, if Cosmo was right and you really weren't supposed to tell a girl you loved her while you were, err, inside her.

"Um, I'm sorry." He decided to get ahead of this, maybe salvage the evening.

Quinn groaned as she made herself more comfortable against him. They're sticky and the room smelled like sex. Her arm went around his neck, fingers loosely gripped in his hair. "For what?"

Did she not notice his epic fuck up?

"I, uh, I said that I loved you, you know, while we were on the train to humpsville station."

She pushed herself up to look down into his eyes. "Except for the horrible train metaphor, why would you apologize?"

Maybe she wasn't enlightened enough to know that you're supposed to read Cosmo. Sam said as much.

Quinn rolled her eyes. "God, I'm canceling your subscription. It's weird that you even have a subscription to Cosmo." She pushed her fingers through his hair, brushed his bangs away from his eyes. "You can tell me that whenever you like." She leaned in close, her lips almost touching his ear. "I love you, too."

He was getting better about thinking before talking, so he didn't make the mistake of asking her if her confession of love meant that she'd do anal. Cause he'd been wondering about that lately; Cosmo said it could be fun.

Instead he said, "I love you. I just wanted to say it again."

It was the right thing to say.

XxXxX

He hadn't seen Joe Stebbins since the media had reported on Quinn's teenage pregnancy. The chief of staff had gone apoplectic with rage that there might be a weak link in his plan to transform her into America's darling and then get the two of them married with the whole world watching. He'd said that it would be harder to sell their own baby as an "accident of love" when she'd already had the same accident a few years earlier.

"It makes her look like a whore," Stebbins had said that day, whereupon Sam yelled choice words of his own, before storming out of the office, a dazed and shocked Quinn in tow. Sam was in no hurry to see the man again.

"If we don't listen to what he has to say, he'll just do what he wants anyway, and we won't have any input," Quinn said. They were in the backseat of the SUV, on their way to the White House. They'd been summoned.

"Does it ever bother you that there are like, four wars going on right now, and the second most powerful man in the country is busy trying to plan our relationship?"

Quinn shrugged. "It does, but Washington's built on distractions like this. It's like that game where you try to guess which cup is covering a coin, but the cups keep moving."

When the secretary showed them into Stebbins's office, they found the chief of staff alone.

"Where's my dad?" If Sam had to meet with the world's leading douchebag, he's at least like there to be someone present who had the authority to fire said douchebag. The thought improved his mood.

"The president is meeting with the Peruvian ambassador. But we can handle our business here."

"And what's that?" He just wanted to get out of the room. It felt humid, like a terrarium for a lizard.

The chief waved them towards two chairs. Quinn sat, but Sam remained standing behind her, gripping the back of her chair. If the functionary thought his boss's son was being rude, he didn't seem to mind. "Obviously, the real nature of your relationship with Ms. Fabray cannot remain a secret for long." His eyes looked down at her stomach.

"Babies are inconvenient that way," Sam said. Quinn reached over her shoulder and put her hand on his. She'd told him on the way over not to lose his cool, and Sam tried to keep to her advice. But it irked him worse than the cancellation of Firefly that he was even having a conversation about this stuff with a politician.

"Exactly," Stebbins agreed, missing the sarcasm. "That being said, we want to announce that you two are engaged. If we get that out first, it will be easier to spin that you just couldn't wait, thus the baby."

Sam suppressed his desire to vomit. "But we're not engaged."

He lazily waved a hand. "Well, if you're going to be a stickler about it, ask her right now."

Quinn probably felt him seething; she spoke up before Sam could say anything rash. "Do you really think that our relationship is going to be a make or break issue in the campaign?"

The chief looked at her eyes for the first time since they'd arrived. "It's not my usual practice to explain my decisions to interns," he cleared his throat, "excuse me, I meant former interns."

She squeezed his hand again. Sam knew that she would eventually make it in politics, because she was able to keep her cool; he could look down and see her face, beautiful and serene, as always. He wanted to punch the dude, but she was collected and calm. He tried to keep that in mind when every instinct he had was telling him to break the man's arm.

"But yes, this is going to be an important issue." The presidential gatekeeper sat down behind his desk. "A love story between two young people will enliven the campaign. Voters don't care about real issues, they care about soap operas. This is our opportunity to reach out to the Religious Right and the rest of the value voters."

"And it doesn't bother you at all," Sam said through clenched teeth, "that you're talking about our lives?"

Stebbins rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm so sorry for giving your girlfriend a White House wedding. No girl in the world has ever wanted that. And please forgive me for doing my best to make sure that your father wins reelection, so that you can continue with your life of not having a job and sleeping with interns," He held up a finger. "Again, former intern. My mistake."

Quinn drug him out of the room after that, so he didn't have to depend on a presidential pardon to get away with murder.

XxXxX

"As much as I hate him, part of what he said wasn't wrong." That was probably what made Sam the most infuriated, that there was a kernel of truth in the chief of staff's speech.

"Which part?" Quinn continued typing without looking up at him. She'd been working on a policy paper for two weeks now, her take on the energy crisis. Sam didn't get it, like, at all, but she said that if she sent it to the right people, it might impress someone, and could, possibly, lead to a job offer.

"The part about me not doing anything."

That made her close the screen. "You do things."

In the vaguest sense, maybe. He'd graduated with a major in music. That had been a month ago, and he'd only written one song.

"You're writing songs all the time," she pressed. "You'll have enough for an album soon."

"Yeah, and I'm supposed to support our kid on an album that might never sell?" He actually wasn't depending on that. His grandfather owned the largest timber company in the southeast, so Sam and both of his siblings had substantial trust funds. The family business was what allowed Dwight Evans to run for office. Politics wasn't cheap.

So, they were basically living on someone else's money, and it sort of ate at him. Not that it had paid more than subsistence wages, but Quinn had lost her job, thanks to him, so neither of them were bringing anything in. But she at least was trying. She'd been writing policy analyses and sending them to think tanks and congressmen, hoping for a staff offer. Sam didn't know how he felt about her working while she was pregnant, well, he did know, but he wasn't going to say anything. He had promised to do everything he could to make sure she lived up to her potential in politics, that their unplanned pregnancy wouldn't stop her. But "everything he could" didn't actually amount to much.

"I love it when you sing to me," she was saying. "And, hey, don't forget about that offer you got the other day," she said with what could only be described as a wicked grin.

Sam flipped her off. Last week he'd gone for a run, armed bodyguards in tow, and the day being hot, he'd gone without his shirt. No big deal, right? For the next two days he'd been a trending topic on Twitter, and then he'd received an offer to star in a "tasteful" photoshoot, "exposing body and soul" to the nation. They'd offered him a hundred grand and already had a title for the spread: Hail to the Beef(cake)

"Can you imagine what my dad would do if I told them yes?"

"Call up the National Guard?"

"He'd probably arm the nukes, too." Sam spread his arms. She interpreted his expression correctly and moved into his lap. He sighed happily when she settled into him. "Even though I don't know what to do with my life," Sam mumbled, his face pressed into the crook of her neck, "I'm not really disappointed with how things have worked out."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, when you think about it, we didn't really know each other all that well when you got pregnant." His hands rested on her stomach, it ever so slightly larger than usual.

"That's putting it mildly." Quinn let her hands rest over his.

"And," Sam continued, "I think I was just really lucky that I happened to knock up an awesome girl that I love." He kissed her cheek. "I could've been stuck with a real bitch."

"You're so eloquent. But, I'm glad too. It was just by chance that I let a sweet boy drunkenly impregnate me. I could've been stuck with a real bastard."

Jokes aside, it was actually something that he thought about quite a bit. He'd stupidly slept with a stranger that first night. She was a beautiful stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. And they'd unwittingly made a decision that meant they would be involved, in one way or another, for the rest of their lives. Sam wondered if he ought to thank God, because he'd grown to love this girl, and it could have easily gone the other way.

Quinn interrupted his thoughts. "What should we tell Stebbins?"

Oh, she was talking about how various elements in the United States government were planning their future together. Yeah, he'd almost let himself forget about that.

Sam knew that he had a decision to make. He loved his dad, but he knew that he had to decide if he was living his own life, or if literally everything had to revolve around one man's career.

"I know that I'm in love with you, but this has to be about us." He wanted to touch her, to feel her. Sam settled for pushing a stray lock of blonde hair back from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. His thumb followed down the edge of her face. "It has to be when we think it's right. So, if you ever decide that you want to marry me, just tell me the time and place and I'll be waiting with my tux."

The first thing he'd noticed about her, the first thing he'd seen on the night that had changed their lives, was how beautiful her eyes appeared looking back at him. He was looking at them now, and maybe it was a pregnancy hormone thing, but she looked like she might cry. He hoped they were happy tears. Because he was happy. Whenever they were together like this, there was no White House, no photographers, no pressure. He was just happy.

Epilogue

Dwight Evans lost his campaign for reelection. It was the first electoral defeat in a storied career in politics. The pundits ascribed the unexpected result to a weak economy linked with a disappointing jobs forecast. Of those who claimed to know such things, not one analyst blamed the defeat, in whole or in part, on the marital status of the president's son. In fact, when in the last month of his presidency, just weeks before his opponent's inauguration, President Evans appeared on the White House steps with his newborn grandson, and his popularity soared to a record high. Pollsters spoke to how the scene humanized the commander-in-chief. It didn't hurt that the baby was adorable.

Just a day before the family would leave Washington on Marine One for the last time, the chairman of the Grover Cleveland Center for Public Policy called Quinn. He'd read her paper on energy subsidies. "The next administration is going to make renewable energy a priority and I think we could benefit from your perspective." The squeal that came out of her mouth woke up their son, but that was alright, because Sam was ready.

The first week home from the hospital had been pure hell. Nothing stopped the crying. Diaper changes didn't work, feeding, rocking, walking and bouncing, riding in the car - none of it had any effect on the wailing coming from their son's tiny body. But then Sam had picked up his guitar. It turned out that his newborn was calmed by the dulcet tones of "Here Comes the Sun." Now Sam was writing his own lullabies. There were seven so far, one for each night of the week. Sam was trying to think of a pseudonym so he could submit them to a record label anonymously. He was thinking about "Evan Troutman," but Quinn said it needed some work.

So, when the baby started crying, Sam grabbed his guitar and sat down in front of the swing. He sang lyrics he'd written himself, inspired by the green eyes he'd fallen in love with twice over now. Those eyes were staring back at him from the swing, slowly disappearing under tired eyelids, until finally his son gave up and fell asleep. Sam finished the song anyway.

XxXxX

It was January in Washington, and too cold to have an infant outside for two hours for the inauguration, so the baby was happily snoozing inside with a nanny hired for just this one day. Quinn and Sam were committed to raising their child in a normal way, as normal as was possible when the grandfather was a soon to be former president who had sworn to remain a presence on the world stage.

In the great American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power, the outgoing president always watched his successor take the oath of office, even if the two men loathed one another, as happened to be the case today. But standing behind his father, holding the hand of the woman he loved, the younger Evans had never been happier. He had a lot to be thankful for.

He hated the loss for his father's sake, but he was relieved that his own son wouldn't spend the first four years of his life in this toxic environment. He was excited that maybe other people might hear the songs he'd written. He was ecstatic that Quinn had been offered a job doing something she loved. And he was over the moon that under her glove she was wearing a ring on her finger that no one else in the world knew about yet.

As Sam watched this new president repeat the oath, he remembered how sad he'd been on this day, exactly four years earlier. He'd thought his life was over. And now, four years later, he knew that his life was just beginning.

It was daunting and scary and hopeful, and he couldn't wait to walk off this stage and get started.

The End

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