TITLE: Trophy Daughters AUTHOR: Kasey RATING: PG, Past-fic SUMMARY: “They wanted to be normal kids watching television on a Saturday night, not trophy children who would grow into trophy wives like their mothers.” NOTES: I’ve been watching Ellie.  Betcha couldn’t tell from my last fic and this one.  DISCLAIMERS: I don’t own ‘em. THANKS: To Flip and her IM window, where I wrote this story. ::grins:: They were both afraid of their fathers and all the people around, so the two of them would hide up in a room together, away from the bustle and the noise, and wonder why it was that their fathers had to be the stars of the world. And oftentimes their mothers would join them, sick of being trophy wives of politicians.  The littlest of the sisters loved the attention and the eldest was the perfect child to show off, but the two of them, stuck in the middle, wanted so badly to escape the notice and the press and the attention.  They wanted to be normal kids watching television on a Saturday night, not trophy children who would grow into trophy wives like their mothers. And neither father ever meant to make them statuettes he paraded around for everyone to see, but that's what they became; So they hid out in an upstairs bedroom before most of the people arrived, and they read and watched television on usually a small set and they took turns sneaking to the top of the stairs to see if everyone was gone yet. They were sisters in misery, in a lack of real attention but rather the sort of fake smiley attention that all politicians they knew radiated from them. Including their fathers. And neither father ever so much as raised a fist or raised a voice unnecessarily - they were scolded when they were bad, and they were praised when they got good marks in school.  And every night they were each tucked into beds in separate houses by their parents and they were told they were loved by their mothers and their fathers. But they were still intimidated by the awesome power that their fathers posessed that neither one understood. He walked into the room and everyone gravitated toward him.  And everyone wanted to talk to him forever. They were too young to understand political deals and schmoozing and party fundraisers, but they understood that their fathers were the centers of the universe. And they understood that neither of them would ever be that.  They hoped to one day be as elegant and graceful and full of confidence and charm as their mothers were, that maybe someday they would not be so painstakingly shy around such well-dressed and powerful men, that maybe one day they, too, would join the party. But in the meantime, they wished their fathers could just be like everyone else's dad and sit around watching football in sweatpants on a Saturday night instead of hosting grand gala affairs in their homes.  And the red-headed child wished her father would stop drinking and the brown-haired child wished her father would stop winning things and wished that she could go back to live in New Hampshire with all the friends she had lost when her father had won his election. They wanted things they could not have; They were the daughters of prominent politicians - one a Congressman, the other a gifted political strategist.  And they went to school and learned things they already knew from overhearing conversations their fathers had with each other, or with other people.  They wished there was such a thing of Freedom FROM the Press instead of just Freedom OF the Press.  They were good girls, perfectly taught to be good hostesses if they would ever be social. IT wasn't their fault they were shy.  They were little girls who were always surrounded by people and found themselves yearning for privacy and solitude and silence the way an old woman, cooped up in her house by herself might yearn for company. But neither of them said anything to their fathers.  That wouldn't have been proper. They were the daughters of Jed Bartlet and Leo McGarry, after all.