Rating: R-ish??
Pairing: Sam/Ginger
Spoilers: Lots up to the end of season three.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Sam finds out that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Author's Note: This was begun sometime in the late autumn, back before I knew how Sam was going to leave the West Wing, and, as such, it's now completely AU! As far as I know, the timeline is solid enough; any mistakes in dates, addition and guessage thereof, are entirely mine!

I've spent the last five and a half years writing for the President of the United States. I've spent the last five and a half years having my writing critiqued - and by that, I mean torn apart and put back together again in a state that no way resembles what went before - by Toby Ziegler, a man who abhors the use of clichés like the devil abhors holy water. My frequent use -and yes, I can admit it, over-use - of clichés has ever been a major stumbling point between us, and if he could edit my thoughts right now, he'd undoubtedly be railing against the clichés rattling around there.

The one about never saying never. Or that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Well, that's a lie for a start. If Toby could read my thoughts right now, he'd find my use of cliché the least of his worries. Nonetheless, it's what I choose to concentrate on.

And so, I find myself driving down a familiar street, a street that I've driven down many, many times in the past. Not recently though, in fact, so long ago as to be considered another lifetime, as if the man who drove his battered old Ford down this street, parked in this very spot as a matter of fact, is not that same man that I am now.

I know I'm not that guy any more.

But the funny thing is, as much as I've changed, as much as the world has changed, this street hasn't. It looks just the same now as it did thirteen years ago; a quiet, suburban street, where the kids play on bicycles and skateboards, where lawns are flawlessly manicured, the first early blooms of the year beginning to peek above the rich brown soil. The houses are neatly kept, in good repair, and while the paint has obviously been retouched over the years, the colour schemes are just the same.

I drove away from here nearly fourteen years ago, and I didn't think that I'd ever be back. Just goes to show that you should never make plans like that, that you should never say never.

I really did never expect to be back here though, not like this, under these circumstances. After all, we were done then, we both knew that the relationship couldn't last the way things were between us, and we were very grown-up about it all, deciding that we had to end it, while we could still walk away from each other and remain friends. That we did remain friends surprised us as much as anyone else I think, but we have.

At least we did, until two months ago. That's when she left, without a word of explanation to me. Which is most unlike her, and maybe that's why I couldn't let it go. The fact that I'm here is sheer coincidence, a lucky fluke, but once it came up, I knew I had to see her, knew I had to at least try. I've no idea what I'm going to say to her, no idea what's going to happen in the next few minutes. But I do know that I have to find out.

With that in mind, I screw up all my courage, get out of the car and begin the walk across the street, opening the gate and walking up to the front door. I hardly have time to raise my hand to the bell when the door opens, and a woman appears, bag over one shoulder, pulling a coat up over the other. She jumps when she sees me there, and for an instant when I stare at her, she's a stranger to me. Then I look closer at her, and her face morphs in my memory, changing into someone younger, with darker hair, then morphs again to the woman I see in front of me now, and I smile. "Mrs Brady," I tell her. "I'm looking for…"

I didn't expect her to recognise me, but her mouth sets in a firm line, and her blue eyes flick over me from head to toe. She definitely doesn't look happy to see me, and I swear the March temperature drops several degrees. "I know who you're looking for Sam," she tells me, and I struggle not to let my jaw drop. "She's out in the back garden." I stand, dumbstruck as she pushes by me. "I'll see you later."

She leaves the door open, an invitation to me to enter, and despite her coolness, it's one that I take. There are a few changes to the décor of the house, but I don't take much notice of them, making my way down the hall, into the kitchen, and out the French windows to the garden.

At least, that's the plan. When I actually get to the French windows, I find myself just standing there, staring at her. She's hanging out laundry, struggling with a large bed sheet, trying to straight it out before she can get it onto the line. Her red hair falls to her shoulders, blowing in the breeze, and she's wearing a long beige dress with little flowers on it, the skirt of which is blowing around her ankles, a matching wool cardigan over it. Her back is towards me, but she must hear my footsteps, because a low chuckle escapes her lips and she says, "What, you took pity on me before you went out?"

"It's not your Mom," I say, surprised at how choked my voice is, and she freezes, turning almost in slow motion. Her face drains of all colour as our eyes meet, and I don't quite know what to say, so I settle for stating the obvious. "It's me."

She swallows hard, the sheet sinking to the ground, and while there's a part of me that wants to tell her that if she's not careful she's going to have to wash it all over again, there's a greater part of me that's struck dumb not only by the power of seeing her again, but by the look on her face. She looks as if I'm the very last person that she ever wanted to see.

Not once in all the years I've known her has Ginger ever looked at me that way.

The first time I ever met her was in a little diner not very far away from here, although significantly nearer to the college. My college buddies and I used to hang out there a lot; good food, cheap, a jukebox in the corner, it was everything you could want in a hangout. We discovered it our freshman year and kept coming back, and it was during our junior year that I began to notice this young redheaded waitress who didn't say much, kept herself to herself, but sure looked pretty while she was doing it. The other guys didn't notice her, they were more preoccupied with the voluptuous blonde who shared her shifts, but not me. I was more focussed on the cute redhead behind the counter, the one who didn't speak, hardly smiled, just went about her work quietly. There was something about her that intrigued me, but I wasn't quite sure how to go about striking up a conversation with her. There were times when I thought that she might be looking at me, but I've never been much good at knowing if women are looking at me or not, and I didn't want to be shot down in flames in front of my buddies.

Things might never have got off the ground between us were it not for the fact that I kept going back there specifically to see if she was there. Sometimes I was in a gang, others on my own, but soon I had a pretty good handle on her schedule, and tailored mine accordingly. I was there on my own one day, sitting at the counter, and she was working the floor. There was a gang of guys in one of the corner booths, and one of them, a guy I knew to see, one of those empty vessels that makes all the noise, was making some very off-colour comments about waitresses in general and other girls in particular. She put up with it for a little while, but then he said something particularly bad, something that had me almost stepping in to defend her. Turns out she didn't need me though, because she turned to him and delivered the most stinging and incisive put-down that it's even been my pleasure to hear, and she did it all with the sweetest smile imaginable on her face. He was stunned, his friends were silenced, and I was smitten.

I was even more smitten when they all slunk out the door and she came over to me, coffee pot in hand, smiling a different kind of smile and asked me if I was ever going to get around to asking for her number.

She told me much later that she never would have done something like that normally, but that smacking down that guy had her on a natural high, and she didn't even realise what she was doing. I've often thought that I should have sent him a thank you note.

I got her number, called her up and we met to go to the movies that weekend. I could hardly even tell you what we saw, I was too busy looking at her. By the end of the evening, I was even more smitten, and after a couple more dates, I was head over heels for her. Things didn't quite run smoothly for us; I was a junior in college, she was a junior in high school, and her parents weren't keen on the idea of her dating a guy who was at such a different stage in his life. I had to meet them a couple of times before they realised that my motives were entirely innocent, but her older brother didn't see it quite that way. He never really accepted me, and quite a few of my buddies never really accepted her. You can imagine what they thought things would be like between us, and when I became serious about her, they thought that I'd lost my mind.

They thought that even more when my father offered to send me to Europe for the summer between junior and senior year. "Your last chance to enjoy yourself before you join the working world Sam," he told me, and he was shocked when I chose instead to clerk for peanuts at a law firm in downtown Princeton. Ginger was surprised as well, told me that I should go, but her heart wasn't in the argument, and mine sure as hell wasn't. I wanted to stay, I wanted to be with her, so I stayed in town for the summer.

My friends told me I was crazy, and my response was simple.

"I'm crazy about her."

Our senior years passed in much the same way, seeing each other at weekends, at weeknights when we could, me hanging out in the diner while she worked, bringing her home at night, walking her to the door. Our relationship was very sweet, although I hate that word, because I so often heard it used in a derogatory sense by college friends. But that's what it was.

I went to her high school graduation, and I still have the picture of her that I took that day. Proms were something that I thought were long in my past, but I took her to her senior prom, and I had never seen her look more beautiful. I knew that she'd been accepted to West Virginia University, knew that I was going to Duke for law school, and we had long talks about whether we should break up, or do the long distance thing. Neither one of us wanted to break up, so we decided on the latter, but before we went our separate ways that fall, we took a road trip together, heading to New England, taking it in turns to drive my battered Ford up and down interstates and country roads. We talked and laughed and made plans for our life together, stopping when we felt tired or when we came to a place that looked interesting to us. It lasted three weeks, and it was idyllic.

It was on that trip that we made love for the first time. I'd wanted to for a long time, but held off, sensing that Ginger wasn't ready yet. Even then, I still wasn't sure that it was the right thing to do; after all, we were going to be separated fairly soon. But she knew what she wanted, and Ginger's never been shy about going after what she wants. Who was I to argue with her?

The next year was one of the most difficult that either of us have ever gone through. We'd visit each other, as far as our schedules and finances allowed, we'd talk on the phone, we'd write. But I was buried in work for school, and I knew that she was having a great time in college. While she never mentioned other guys, I knew that they'd be interested in her - how could they not be?- and I didn't want to hold her back, didn't want her to end up hating me.

We spent that summer in California, me clerking at my dad's firm, her working in a local newspaper office. Dad managed to find us a small apartment, which was owned by a business associate of his who was looking for someone to take care of it for the summer. We were happy there, that summer just as idyllic as the last, but we had long late night talks, and we knew that when we went back to school in the fall, we'd no longer be together as a couple.

There were no fights, but plenty of tears, and it was, in the end, a mutual decision. We were too young, we told ourselves, two people at different points in their lives. If we'd met a couple of years later, things would have been different, but we agreed to keep in touch, to remain friends.

That's just what we did.

She came down for my law school graduation, I went to WVU for hers. She would visit me in New York, we'd hang out, talk for hours. She got along fine with Lisa, although I think that for Lisa, it was always a bit of a problem, me being that close to my ex-girlfriend. Ginger on the other hand knew better than to introduce me to her boyfriends. She told me that I was worse than her older brother; I told her that she should just stop dating down. None of the guys she was with were ever good enough for her I thought, and she'd just roll her eyes and shake her head.

She was the first one I called from New Hampshire, even before my parents. She was the one who reacted enthusiastically, telling me that I was doing the right thing. She was the one I told about Lisa screaming at me when I took the job, and she tried to tell me that Lisa would come around, that she'd still end up dancing at my wedding. She was the one who cried down the phone to me when I told her that she'd been wrong, that Lisa had given me back the ring.

She used to listen when I rang her at all hours of the night, telling her all about Governor Bartlet, and how we were going to make him President. She listened so well that when it came time to campaign in New York, when we got to the headquarters there, I was surprised to see a familiar redhead in amongst the volunteers. She shrugged her shoulders with a sheepish grin when I caught up to her, saying that I'd done a good job selling this guy to her, and that I shouldn't be surprised to see her there. She winked at me then, moving away to do whatever it was her job was that day, while I went back to Toby and the speech that we were working on that day.

After we secured the nomination, we were looking for staffers from all over the country to bring to New Hampshire to help run the campaign. We wanted people who'd worked in regional offices, asked the regional heads for names. Imagine my surprise when I saw the name Ginger Brady on the list from New Jersey. She accepted the job, but she took me aside and told me that she didn't want anyone to know that she and I had a past, didn't want people to think that that was how she got her job there. I took her point, keeping my mouth shut, and from that day to this, no-one's known what we once meant to each other. I told myself that we weren't doing anything wrong keeping our past to ourselves.

The only trouble was that the past didn't always stay in the past.

Election Night '98 was a triumph for us, and when the results were called, everyone was hugging everyone else. No-one noticed that I held her a little tighter, for a little longer than anyone else, and no-one noticed when she and I slipped away to my hotel room. It had been nine years since the last time we were together, but it was like no time at all had passed. We made love all night and into the morning, but the next day, we agreed that we shouldn't let it happen again.

The night of the Inaugural Ball, the same thing happened as she got into a cab with me, heading back to my apartment, where we stumbled our way through the hall into the living room, tripping over packing boxes. I didn't think we'd make it to the bedroom, and we didn't at first, but we made up for it later on. We agreed later on that it couldn't happen again, but then we'd said that on Election Night as well and still we'd ended up there.

This was a pattern that was to repeat itself time and again during our tenure in the White House. When the press found out about Laurie, I hid out with her. After Rosslyn, we spent a number of nights together, holding one another, each of us wondering how this could happen. The night I found out about my father's affair, I knocked on her door blind drunk at two in the morning, and she took me in, sobered me up and let me cry on her shoulder. She worried about me all that week, and that Friday, after I'd talked to my dad, when I was trying to sleep on Toby's couch again, I woke up to find her kneeling beside me, her hand running through my hair. There was a look of such sorrowful tenderness on her face that I reached up to touch her cheek, a wordless plea for her not to worry, but I dropped my hand straight away when I remembered who and where we were. She shook her head, telling me that everyone had gone home, then she helped me sit up on the couch, sitting down beside me, wrapping me in her arms again. She took me home that night, held me all night long, and a few weeks later, when the news of a crash at Eighteenth and Potomac had filtered through the West Wing, we held each other.

That was the last time for a long time because in the year that followed, with all the re-election hoopla, there was less time for any of that, and there are only a couple of instances that stand out in my mind that I saw my Ginger, rather than my assistant Ginger. The first was when Ainsley Hayes was holding forth about lipstick feminism in the bullpen, and Ginger piped up that she called it stiletto feminism. I looked over at her with a smirk, repeated "Stilettos?" A million memories flooded my mind about her complaining about her high heeled shoes making her feet ache, a million more from times that she'd greeted me wearing stilettos and nothing else. She gave me her most innocent look, the one that she'd used on that jerk in the diner a hundred years ago, but Ainsley distracted me by pointing out that I was in more than enough trouble already.

The second time was when we got back from Helsinki, all of us high over the success of the Russian summit. She met me in the lobby, fresh from the motorcade, asking me what I'd brought her back, and I told her that she was getting a collector's plate with a moose running through the forest. "I like moose," she'd said, and I remembered the two of us walking along the Santa Monica pier, me spending about a day's wages at the ring toss, trying to accrue enough points to win her a stuffed Bullwinkle. I'd done it too, and she'd laughed and kissed me as I swung her off the feet, and for the rest of the summer, that stuffed toy sat on the dresser in our bedroom. "I know how you do," I told her, the same smirk from the stiletto incident on my face, and she looked down with a smile of her own, blushing.

Then we got down to the serious business of campaigning, and it was all about work, nothing else. Election Night was the first night that we were anything like ourselves, when all the relief and anxiety was dissolved in the rush of elation over our victory. Just like four years earlier, we were all hugging one another, and I held her a little tighter and a little longer than anyone else. I knew then and there that we would end up together that night, and from the look in her eyes as she pulled away, I knew that she was thinking the same thing.

Neither of us were surprised when we woke up together the next morning, and we spent a leisurely morning saying farewell, promising one another that this really was the last time, that this couldn't happen again.

We showered and dressed, went back to work, and we never talked about that night again. Nothing new about that, that was just our way. I went back to my work, she went back to hers, and at Christmas, I went to California, she went to New Jersey.

I came back.

She didn't.

She never called me to tell me why, she didn't write either. I had to hear it from Toby before the first senior staff meeting of the New Year, and my contribution that particular morning was less than zero. I tried calling her, tried emailing and writing to her, but there was no reply, and the answering machine was always on. It wasn't lost on me that she was screening her calls, and I tried to forget about it, tried to go on with my work.

But I missed her.

Forget about not seeing her every day, I'd gone without that before. But this is by far the longest I've gone without talking to her. So when the chance came up to see her, I took it.

I didn't expect this reaction, this stunned silence. She shakes her head as she brushes past me, her familiar scent like a knife to my heart. "You shouldn't have come here Sam," she tells me, and I follow her back inside the house.

"I'm giving a speech at the university tonight," I tell her. The Law Society wanted an alumnus to talk, and they contacted me. The first thing that came to me was that I'd be able to see her, and that was a large factor in me agreeing to it.

"We don't live anywhere near there," she objects, and I can't deny it. But I'd have travelled a lot further to see her, and she knows it. Or she certainly should.

"I wanted to see you," I tell her, and she leans against the kitchen counter, her back to me, arms locked ramrod straight, knuckles white. "I missed you," I continue, and her back stiffens as we both hear the tears in my voice.

I knew I missed her. But I don't think I realised just how much until I saw her just now. All I want to do right now is take her in my arms, turn her around and kiss her until we're both breathless. I want to take her upstairs and remember just how good we were together, and I never want to let her go again.

We said we were in the past, but we've never been in the past, not really.

"Don't say that Sam," she whispers, her hair swinging from side to side as she shakes her head.

"What am I supposed to say?" I ask her, my voice more strident now. "You left Ginger. You didn't write, you didn't call, you were just gone. You just left."

"It was the right thing to do Sam." Her voice is very low, and she hasn't moved. "We needed to move on."

"I didn't." I'm behind her without even realising that I've moved, my hands resting on her shoulders. She wriggles slightly, trying to shift my hands, and I lift them quickly, letting them fall to my sides. "I was fine where I was."

"Sam…" she whispers again, her voice trailing off as my hands rest on her hips, slipping around her waist. Her back stiffens and so do I as my hands stop moving abruptly. It takes a second for it to register, and when it does, my hands drop, and I take a step away.

She turns to face me for the first time, eyes wide with tears, her freckles standing out in stark relief against her chalk white skin. I used to tease her all the time about trying to count her freckles, one drunken night, I did just that. I told her that I knew every inch of her body and she laughed, but it was a point that I stood behind. I've known her intimately off and on for over fifteen years, and I know her body. There's never been an excess pound of flesh on her frame, and the slight swell of her stomach now can be explained by only one thing.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I don't even ask her if it's true, and to her credit, she doesn't try to bullshit me.

"I couldn't Sam," she whispers, tears spilling down her cheeks. My heart contracts painfully in my chest, because I never could stand to see her cry. Part of me wants to take her in my arms and tell her that everything's going to be fine. There's an equal part that wants to shout and scream, shake her until her teeth rattle.

"What did you think I was going to do?" I ask, rubbing my forehead with my hand. "What, did you think I'd be angry? That I wouldn't care?"

"I didn't think that," she protests, shaking her head vehemently.

"So then why did you leave me?" I don't let her get anything else out, and she jumps at my shout. It startles even me, and I hold up my hands in defeat, backing away from her, heading towards the door. "I have to…I have to get out of here."

"Sam…" Her voice follows me down the hall, but I don't listen, don't stop, heading straight for my car. The only time I look back is when I'm driving away, and I see her in the rear-view mirror, standing in the street, arms wrapped around her middle. It's hard to tell if she's crying through my blurred vision, and I don't slow down to check.

It's fair to say that the last thing I want to do is to give a speech to a group of wide-eyed young students with the world at their feet, but the thing is booked, and there's a hall full of them eager to hear from the White House Deputy Communications Director, so I give the speech that I prepared, and I answer the questions that they ask me. I must do a good job at it, because I get a nice round of applause at the end, and they all seemed to understand what I said. I can't have been too incoherent then, certainly not as incoherent as I felt.

I mean, Ginger and I, since the day we met, we have never kept secrets from each other. Certainly not one this big. I was standing there at that podium and instead of the cool wood of the lectern, all I could feel was the warm swell of Ginger's stomach, our child growing inside her, and all I could think, all I can think is how could she not tell me that?

I shake hands with some students on my way out of the lecture hall, wondering if I was ever that young, and I draw in a deep breath as I walk out into the night. It's a warm night for March, and I consider taking a walk around the campus, maybe remember some of the good times I had here. But I know that if I do that, I'll end up remembering all the times that Ginger and I walked around here, and that's the last thing I want to do right now.

I soon realise that it's the second last thing that I want to do right now. I come to that realisation when I see Ginger standing not ten metres away from me. She's wearing a pale green dress, a colour that I always loved on her, a darker green cardigan pulled close around her, and she's biting her lip nervously. I don't know what to say to her, the first time that's ever happened to us, and I want to run away, far away, but I can't seem to move. She comes closer to me, arms crossed tightly across her chest.

"I had to come," she tells me with a shrug, answering my unspoken question, and I find myself shaking my head. "You did well tonight," she adds, and I chuckle bitterly.

"Considering I could barely frame a thought before I stepped on stage, I'll take that as a compliment." She winces at my tone, and I turn away from her, seeing a convenient low wall just behind me, sinking down on it. I stare up at her then, my anger, my bitterness disappearing like last month's snow, hurt welling up to take its place. "Why Ginger? Why didn't you tell me?"

She takes in a shuddering breath, her hand going to her lips for a second. "I was so proud of you tonight," she tells me, her jaw set, eyes looking above my head, off to my right. "The way you spoke, the things you said…I've always been so proud of you." She breaks off, resting a fist against her lips. "I love watching you talk, give a speech, write one… you get this look in your eyes, and every time I see it, I know it's what you were born to do. That's why I had to leave."

I shake my head, uncomprehending. "I don't understand."

She pushes her hair back with two hands, breathing deeply. "We've got history Sam, we both know that. But nobody else does. And I knew that when people found out, you wouldn't be Sam Seaborn, the Deputy Communications Director any more, you'd be Sam Seaborn, the White House staffer who screwed his assistant and got her pregnant. I knew what they'd say about us Sam, and I couldn't…" Her hand lifts up and presses against her forehead again, her voice getting more and more staccato. "I've been in love with you since I was seventeen years old, and I couldn't do that to you." She turns around, away from me. "I couldn't."

Her shoulders are shaking with sobs, and I've always said that her tears are the one thing that I could never stand. So I stand and go to her, pulling her around and into my arms, letting her cry into my shoulder as one of my hands moves up and down her back, the other cupping the back of her head. "You should have told me," I manage to choke out. "You should have told me."

It takes a while for her to pull herself together, then she lifts her head, wiping her eyes. Still holding her in my arms, we move back over to the wall, sitting down together. "I knew what you'd say. What you'd want to do," she tells me. "I knew what it would cost you and I couldn't do that to you."

"You're worth it." I don't even have to think about the words, and a look of shock settles on Ginger's face, either at my words or at the firm tone in which they're uttered, I'm not sure which. I'd be surprised myself if I wasn't so calm, so sure about what I've just said.

"Sam…" She tries to talk to me, but I shush her when I realise that she's still shaking, and not just from crying. It might be a warm night, but it's still only March, and she's just wearing a cardigan over her dress, and sitting on a stone wall.

"You must be freezing," I observe. "Come on, let's go." She lets me take her by the hand and lead her to my car, not saying a word as we drive to my hotel. She doesn't speak until we're both standing in the middle of the room.

"Sam, what are we doing?" are her first words.

For some reason, the words strike me as funny, and I find myself laughing. She looks at me strangely at first as I sink down on the bed, still laughing, but before long, she joins me, sitting down beside me. When I sober up somewhat, I reach out and take her hand, and the touch quells her giggles. "I don't know what we're doing Ginger," I admit. "I've told myself for the last four years that we were in the past. But we've never been in the past, have we?"

She just shakes her head sadly. "There have been other guys," she admits. "But they were never you."

I nod. "This," I say, holding up our joined hands in illustration. "This is not the past. And this-" My free hand rests on her stomach, feeling the tiny life growing there. "This is the future. We need to talk about that."

"I know," she admits. She looks like she's about to say something else, but then a huge yawn splits her face in two, and I'm laughing again. "It's not funny," she says, but I'm looking at her properly now, and I can see how tired she is. Her whole face is showing signs of strain, and I feel vaguely guilty as I realise how hard this day has been on her.

"You should get some sleep," I tell her, and she grimaces.

"I can call a cab," she says, checking her watch. "If you bring me home, Mom's going to give me another hour long lecture."

I stifle another chuckle. "That sounds familiar." Lord knows, it wouldn't be the first time.

"What do you expect when you knock up her daughter and leave her alone?" Ginger asks, but her smile takes any sting out of her words, and she stands up, reaching for the phone.

I catch her hand halfway there. "Stay here," I say and she looks down at me, keeping her face carefully neutral. "You're tired," I continue. "And we can talk in the morning. Work things out." I squeeze her fingers. "Ginger, please. Stay here tonight."

She considers it a moment, then I see her come to a decision. "You got something I can wear?"

I grin, going over to a bag on the dresser. "I picked this up today," I tell her, handing her a pale grey T-shirt, and she shakes it out, grinning when she sees the Princeton logo in the middle of it. I clear my throat, picking up something else, holding it out to her. "I couldn't resist this either."

She frowns, holding out her hand, shaking out the material, her eyes filling with tears when she sees a miniature version of the T-shirt that I've just handed her. "It's for a three month old," I tell her. "I didn't want it to be too small…"

"It's perfect," she whispers through her tears. Then a small smile emerges. "You can't resist a gift shop, can you?"

"Never could," I grin, stepping forward to give her a quick hug. "Call your mom," I tell her, grabbing my own old faded T-shirt. "I'll change in the bathroom."

Even over the sound of running water, I can hear her end of the conversation that she's having with her mother. "Mom it's me…I'm with Sam. No Mom, I'm staying here tonight. Mom…Mom…Mom, you know that Sam's not like that. No, he's not taking advantage…Mom, I'm hanging up now. I'll see you in the morning." The phone makes a jingling sound as the receiver is set down, and the silence in the room is horrible. I count to a hundred before I open the bathroom door, and when I step out, my breath catches in my throat.

The Princeton T-shirt is too big for her, as I knew it would be, and it comes down to about her knees. There's a full length mirror in the corner, and she's standing in front of it, hand pressed to her abdomen, and as I watch, she turns to the side, smoothing down the material. Her dresses, her long cardigans have camouflaged the changes in her body, but the T-shirt does none of that, and a lump rises in my throat.

"You're what?" I ask. "Four months?"

There's a peaceful smile on her lips as she turns to me, nodding. "Election Night," she confirms.

Just like earlier today, I'm beside her without having been aware that I've moved, one hand on the small of her back, the other covering hers on her belly, and I smile down at her. "Come to bed," I whisper, and she nods, allowing me to lead her there, pushing back the covers for her. She scoots over to the opposite side, and I slip in beside her, wriggling around until I'm comfortable. When I stop moving, she presses herself up against me, resting her head on my chest, and one of my arms goes around her shoulders, the other resting on her stomach.

"Can you feel it move yet?" I ask her, not sleepy now, and I feel her smile against my chest.

"Sometimes," she says. "Little flutters."

"When did you find out?" I know I said we'd talk in the morning, but I can't wait. I want to know everything I missed, and until she drifts off to sleep, I'm going to ask.

She takes a deep breath. "I suspected around the start of December," she admits. "Did a home test, and it was positive. That's when I went to the doctor, and she confirmed it. So I thought about what to do for the best…and when I went home for Christmas, I told Toby that I wasn't coming back."

"What did you-"

"I spun him some line about the hours, and missing my family. He tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn't let him." She shifts in my arms. "He gave me a really nice reference, told me if I ever needed anything that I should call him. I didn't expect him to be so nice." She shifts again, and I frown.

"You ok?"

I reach over and flick on the light, seeing her face contorted in a frown that has nothing to do with the sudden illumination. She smiles when she notices my worried look, resting one hand on my cheek, a move that's meant to reassure me. "I'm fine Sam. Someone's just trying to get comfortable."

Her words take a while to settle in my head, and when they do, my eyes travel down to her stomach in awe. "I can't feel anything," I say, and she chuckles.

"Give it time," is her dry response, but I'm utterly serious when I respond.

"OK." She frowns, but I don't let her ask any more questions, leaning forward and pressing my lips against hers. It's the first time I've kissed her since Election Night, and I'm reminded of our first real kiss all those years ago, standing on the front porch of her parents' house, afraid that I'd scare her, even more afraid that her parents or her older brother would catch us. A lifetime has passed since that night, but the feelings are just the same, and she sighs into my mouth, her tongue reaching out to trace a path along my upper lip. I don't know how long we spend just lying there, kissing, but a gasp from her brings me back to reality, and when my mind clears, I realise that my hand has worked its way under her T-shirt and is cupping her breast. "Is this ok?" I ask, afraid to hurt her, afraid to hurt the baby, and she bites her lip, nodding, eyes bright with emotion.

"It's fine," she whispers, kissing my lips briefly to underline her point. "Just a little sensitive…"

I nod, moving my hand around to her back. "I'll be careful," I promise, kissing her again. There's no need for words after that, fifteen years of memory and emotion supplanting verbal responses. The brand new shirt that she's only just put on comes off with a little bit of difficulty, my faded old one proving less resistant. Our underwear is next to go, and when we're lying next to each other, skin to skin, I actually groan because I can't believe that I'd forgotten how good this feels. I can't believe it took her leaving for me to go after her, for me to remember anew just what it was like between us. Even the times that we've been together in the last four years, it was never like this. Those other times, be they about triumph or comfort or whatever, we would always tell ourselves that it couldn't happen again, that we shouldn't be doing this.

This time, there's none of that. Being with Ginger like this, it's right, I know it is. This is where I'm supposed to be, and this is the woman that I'm supposed to be with. Not Lisa, not Mallory, or Laurie or Ainsley or anyone else.

Ginger. The woman I've loved since I was twenty-one years old.

She's always been beautiful to me, no matter if she was dressed up to the nines in a beautiful gown, or in that ugly old waitress uniform that she was wearing the first time that I met her. But I come to the conclusion as I look down at her now, our bodies joined and slowly rocking together, that she has never been more beautiful than she is at this moment in time.

When she arches her back against me, crying out my name, that's all it takes for my world to shatter around me, and I know then and there that I have never loved her more.

And when I hold her in my arms, fingers running through her hair, I know that I'm never going to let her go.

She falls asleep in my arms, but I stay awake, thinking hard, formulating plans in my mind, considering our opinions. The first one is the most obvious - we go back to D.C. together. I know why she left, I even agree with what she said the press's reaction would be, but there are ways around that. We could release our story, let people know that we were together a long time ago, that we've found one another again, that we're planning a life together.

We could spin that.

Except I don't want to spin Ginger, and what we have together. It's too precious for that.

Besides, even if we did go back to Washington, what kind of life would we have? The hours that we work - or that I work, because Ginger's not going to be able to keep up those kind of hours now, even if she does take her job back at the White House - are cruel and punishing, and we'd never see each other. And when the baby's born, I don't even want to think about how much of his or her early life I'd miss out on. I don't want to be a part time dad, I know that much.

When I finally do drop off to sleep, I'm still drafting plans in my head, but clarity only comes with the dawn, when I wake to find myself spooned up against her, her long hair tickling my nose. Propping myself up on one elbow, the better to look down at her, I can see the smile on her face, the deep flush on her cheeks, and the thought comes to me for the millionth time in twenty-four hours that I should have never let her go. I think the intensity of my stare wakes her, because she stirs, her head turning into the pillow, her body arching against mine. Not bothering to suppress my smile, I plant kisses along her shoulder, and she gives a low chuckle, twisting in my arms so that she's facing me. "Good morning," I smile, kissing her properly, and she responds with enthusiasm.

It's only when she pulls away that a glint of uncertainty shines in her eyes, and she sighs. "What are we going to do Sam?" she whispers.

My good morning mood goes down several notches, because I'd hoped that we could at least get breakfast out of the way without having this conversation. I should have known that Ginger would never let me get away with that. She's never been one to suffer fools gladly, and she's never let me away with a thing. "I was thinking about that," I tell her, shifting so that she's still lying in my arms, but that I can look down at her. "I'm going to resign."

She gasps, eyes widening in horror. "Sam, you can't…it's what you've always wanted…"

"This is what I've always wanted," I tell her, placing special emphasis on the first word. "You…this baby…I lost sight of that for a long time, and I'm not doing it again."

"Sam…"

"Ginger, last night you told me that you'd been in love with me since you were seventeen. Did you mean that?"

Her eyes narrow as she defensively replies, "You know I did."

I smile, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well, I've loved you since then too. Since that day you smacked down that jackass in that diner, wearing that ugly pink uniform…" I'm laughing at the memory, and so is she, though she still reaches out and smacks my chest, rather ineffectually I might add. "We told one another a long time ago that we were just too young, that if we'd met when we were a few years older, things might have been different for us…that we might have made it work. Well, we're older now. We can make it work now." Tears come into her eyes as she stares up at me. "We've got a second chance Ginger," I conclude in a whisper. "We can't give that up."

She's battling to keep those tears back, and she swipes the back of her hand across her eyes. "OK," she whispers.

"Yeah?" I ask, just to make sure, and she nods, this time with a self-conscious giggle for good measure.

"Yeah."

"Good," I say decisively, pulling her close to me as we seal the promise with a kiss.