fic: ann coulter wouldn't dare (tww)
ann coulter wouldn't dare
seven odd facts for an increasingly odd girl
fandom: the west wing
disclaimer: not mine
rating: pg
word count: 542
characters/pairings: ainsley; ainsley/sam
summary: she's just getting started.
notes: for captaincatapult. because i promised you this ages ago. also, the title? i was reading on Wikipedia - i know, right? - that the character of Ainsley was inspired by Ann Coulter. Not sure if I believe that or not, but yeah. There you have it.
it ain’t no famous name on a golden plaque
that keeps me, that makes me ride that railroad track
(washington, d.c.; magnetic fields)
one:
The night she was born a thunderstorm crashed in town. Her mother would later come to call it fitting and her father would laugh in kind.
There has yet to be a hurricane named Ainsley.
“Give it time,” she likes to say. “Give it time.”
two:
She picked Smith, like a rabbit out of a hat, for the simple reason of expectations. Daddy had ranted and raved, said something about the commies, but it was a shrug of her shoulders and later a diploma as she packed cardboard boxes and scrawled her name across in red.
Her roommate called her Miz Scarlett all of freshman year; it was irritating after week one.
three:
There is Capitol Beat and a surprise even she wasn’t expecting. ‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ her mother used to always say, accompanied by the shake of her head that was in either pride or disappointment, or maybe a strange mixture of the two.
After, when walks the expanse of the parking lot, a small smile spreading, her legs won’t stop shaking.
four:
She has always been a dreamer, playing pretend as Alice in Wonderland as a child and taking on bit parts in school plays. She always had a great imagination, but that aside, she was always grounded in a grim kind of realism. She never actually thought she would make it to the White House. Yes, she believed there were great things destined for herself, a fact she would vocalize with the merest of prompting, but deep down she was never fully sure how far it might reach.
She found out with the ringing of her phone.
five:
Her favorite president is FDR, not Ronald Reagan.
She tells Sam this on their second date.
There wasn’t a lot of talking on their first.
six:
She left without prompting or really an explanation.
It wasn’t out of disillusionment or some weird quarter-life crisis or anything. There just came a morning when walking into work didn’t have the same step it used to and the walls of her office felt too close, too tight, and she kind of realized - she had forgotten why she was here.
“Well, that just won’t do,” she had clucked, shuffling through an inbox more intimidating than you thought possible.
And for once - for once Ainsley Hayes was spontaneous.
She filed her two weeks notice, a tight smile on her face when Leo McGarry asked her why?
“I’m just getting started. Sir.”
He had laughed. And she left, just as quickly as she came.
seven:
She has never hated her name. Never. Ever.
Ainsley Hayes has a charming ring to it, she likes to think (in not nearly as smug a manner as you might expect). She likes the way it rings, the way it slips, sounds off her tongue. She could never come to change it.
And she’d thank you, kindly, Sam Seaborn, if maybe you’d stop asking.
-
fin.