The Best of Wives and The Best of Women

I'm not throwing away my shot

Here's the second chapter and please let me know your thoughts and if you want to read more!

DISCLAIMER:

1) I don't own anything related to the West Wing.

2) The story title 'The Best of Wives and the Best of Women' is inspired by and a tribute to Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton song of the same name.

3) The Chapter title is inspired by the Hamilton song My Shot by Lin Manuel Miranda.

Cw: mentions of mass shootings(Rosslyn) and profanity.

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The spicy sweet aromas from Ainsley's Thai takeout dinner from the night before still lingered in the apartment at 6 am on a Thursday morning. The last few days had been a blur, between her phone ringing off the hook with people calling to congratulate her for taking down The White House Deputy Communications Director, Sam Seaborn, on the Capital Beat earlier that week and all of the people, everyone from friends she ran into to strangers who recognized her the street, who had congratulated her everywhere she went after it aired. Bruce, one of her roommates, already sent the tape to an agent he knows. Apparently she was able to make that Taylor Reid, who started out as a bartender according to Bruce, into a household name. Even Mama called, which was a surprise because she was in the middle of preparing for the Mary Margaret Foundation's Spring Fling Gala, the organization's second biggest fundraiser of the year, on top of raising her siblings and running a proper southern household. That phone call meant more to her than all of the other ones, but the biggest surprise was when the White House called.

Ainsley Hayes considered all of this as she got ready for her appointment at the White House. Figures that this administration would call her in for creaming their golden boy on national television, just minutes after she overheard him and the host, Mark Gottfried, and Sam Seaborn say that she was 'in show business' because she was a 'young, blond, leggy Republican' and that it '... turned out that they didn't know anything.' And to top all that off was Mark Gottfried's display of mansplaining when he told her 'Don't overreach ..... Don't try to do too much. Don't try to know more than you do. My show is not the place or you to become a star... You'll be opposite Sam Seaborn. He's done the show a couple dozen times; the White House wouldn't keep sending him if he didn't keep wiping the floor with whoever's in your chair.' Little did he know he was talking to Ainsley Hayes, who had been defying expectations her whole life. As bizarre as it seemed for the White House administration to call her so they could reprimand her for beating Sam Seaborn on TV, she could not think of another explanation for them to do so. Well God help the poor souls who dared to harass a member of the Hayes family, even if it was the White House. Between Mama and Daddy, but especially Mama, the White House would have so many lawsuits that Bartlet probably would not be able to run for reelection.

After she finished her eggs and brushed her teeth at 7:30 am, she grabbed a hazelnut latte and a peach muffin with cream cheese at the coffee shop below her Alexandria apartment and caught a cab to the White House. And as insane the last few days had been, none of that compared with what came next.

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As The White House Chief of Staff's Secretary, Margaret, escorted her out of the office, the whirlwind of the events that had occurred over the course of the week were replaced with Leo McGarry, the White House Chief of Staff, offering her a job and then later concluding with, "The President likes smart people who disagree with him. He wants to hear from you. The President's asking you to serve. And everything else is crap."

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As the daylight outside faded, darkening the room, Sam's blue eyes gazed at her for a moment as she studied a picture on the wall outside Leo's office. "Hi."