Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Ella struggles to hold down a wiggling Amelia, rolling her eyes when she takes a foot to her lower stomach. “Amelia-Rose! Quit kicking me, I know you want dads but they’re not going to finish up any quicker with you throwing a temper tantrum.” 

“I want daddies now!” The words come out in what can only be described as a screech, causing Mason who had been loitering around the snack carts to wince.

“Come on princess,” Mason murmurs, walking up to them. “You know that they’re busy right now. How about this- if you stop kicking Ella I’ll give you some chocolate.” Bribery is low, even for them but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

“No! I want daddies!” She doesn’t give in, showing that she truly is the daughter of Alex Claremont-Diaz, biology be damned. She points angrily towards the right stage exit that she’d seen both her dads disappear through. 

“Amelia, do you wanna come and play with me?” The second youngest of the siblings skips over towards them, action figures gripped tightly in her hands. “You can even be Iron Man if you wanna be.” 

“Hmph.” Amelia finally stops fighting against Ella, looking towards Lily with curious eyes. “Okay.” She turns to look at Ella, portraying an innocence in her eyes as she speaks. “Can I go play with Lili?” 

“Fine, remember, daddy said to behave.” Ella lets go of her, assuming that she’s managed to prevent a tragedy when a familiar look of mischievous crosses Amelia’s face. 

“Bye-bye sissy!” There’s no time for Ella to react before Amelia has covered the short distance between the couch and ducked under Pez’s arm successfully making her way on the stage. 

“Amelia! No.” Pez gasps out, but it’s too late. There’s no way for them to catch the child without making the entire situation worse. 

The bright lights and crowd of people throw Amelia off for a moment, her eyes squinting against the stage lights as she carefully makes her way towards her dads. It was Henry who spots her first, eyes widening as he elbows Alex and mutters something making sure to point Amelia right out to him. 

“Oh my god.” When Alex speaks it’s picked up by the microphone that’s been attached to his jacket, it causes laughter to come from the crowd and encourages Amelia to speed up her venture across the stage. 

“Daddy, up please.” She holds her arms out demandingly towards Henry who seems to contemplate the best course of action and settle on it being to lift her up under her arm onto his lap. 

“Well folks, it appears we have ourselves an interview crasher.” Linda Parks, host of the nighttime show seems anything but upset about the interruption. 

“I’m so sorry.” Henry starts, immediately apologizing for their youngest daughter- something he finds himself doing more often since she’s learned to walk and proven herself to be the most troublesome out of all their children. “She’s only three, she doesn’t understand what she’s doing.” He continues, shifting her to lay comfortably against his chest and rubbing her back with his right hand knowing it will soothe her. 

“Not going to lie, I’m not. Fourteen years and four kids but up until now we’ve never had a child crash a live interview before.” Alex smiles charmingly, making light out of the situation is a manner that’s so like him it’s impossible to be offended or upset (unless you're a conservative, in which case it’s possible but your opinion is invalid.) 

“This must be young princess Amelia then?” Linda asks, waving at the small girl who shyly waves back before hiding her face in Henry's chest earning herself coos from the audience. 

“Yes, she’s our youngest.” Henry bounces her lightly on his knee. 

“Hi daddy, hi papa.” Her tiny voice is greatly amplified by the microphone on his suit jacket and he’s sure this moment will be all over the morning news. 

“Hello Amelia-Rose.“ Alex responds, pulling out her full name in an attempt to at least pretend they’ll turn this into a teachable moment. Truthfully, they won’t ever punish one of their children for needing to seek them out- even if it’s live on international TV. 

“Uh oh.” Amelia mutters, once again picked up by the microphone and the crowd begins to laugh as Alex does, taking her father laughing as permission to laugh. 

“What did we tell you to do?” Henry asks, shifting her so she’s looking at him in the face. 

“Mmm… stay with El?” 

“And what did you do?” Alex asks, a pointed look sent her way, more amused than anything. 

“Um… well… not that.” She reburries her face in Henry’s shoulder and they decide it’s time to take the attention off of her. 

“Can we move on with the interview?” The attention turns away from Amelia and back to the conversation at hand, and so it’s not until the next morning that people notice how Amelia grabbed Alex’s hand to cuddle with as she fell asleep on  Henry's lap, but the internet wouldn’t soon forget the adorable moment. 

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When Amelia discovers the princess thing she begins to find herself entranced in the fairytale idea of the magical princesses she’s seen on the TV her whole life.

The next time Amelia steals the spotlight from her parents is during an interview where she comes up as the topic of conversation. Though this time it’s only Alex sitting on the stage, Henry sits in the audience with their kids (as well as Pez, Nora and June who have been begrudgingly dragged along.)

“Recently people have noticed that your youngest daughter seems to be wearing more dresses and gowns, is there any reason for that?” Alex smiles a little wider at the interviewer, eyes flickering over to the side where Amelia has been seated quietly on Henry’s lap.

“Well, as I’m sure you know Amy is only three.” Alex begins, smiling as Amelia perks up at hearing her name. “We recently tried to explain the whole princess thing to her but we have disagreements on if she actually understands the concept or not. Henry thinks that she understands, but me and June are pretty sure she’s convinced herself that she’s a fairytale princess like Bella from beauty and the beast. Unfortunately there’s no way to truly explain the complexities of British royalty to a preschooler.” He laughs a little.

Realising she’s the topic of conversation Amelia starts to squirm on Henry’s lap, stubbornly pulling at his hands that are attempting to keep her still. “Daddy, let me goes.” She grumbles, twisting her body in a way that forces him to let go of her otherwise she’ll end up injuring herself.

This time she doesn’t run all the way onto the stage (perhaps she knows with her oldest sister and aunt hot on her tail she won’t make it that far before she’s caught). She does however make it to the front of the crowd, smiling brightly at everyone and spinning around showing the way her dress catches air and spins around her as she does. “It spins!”

The spinning is a miscalculated stunt as she begins to get dizzy and struggle to stay on her feet, before succumbing to the fate of falling on her bottom, tears welling in her eyes before the fall has even registered. “Oh Amelia-Rose,” Nora mutters, quickly rushing forward to pull the upset toddler into her arms and shush her soothingly. “You’re okay sweetheart.”

“She’s not hurt.” Alex assures, knowing that if she was, her reaction would’ve been much larger and she would’ve been trying to communicate that her bottom hurt. “She just scared herself when she fell, that’s all.” Henry takes her back into his arms, rubbing her back soothingly as June rests a hand in her hair running it through soothingly as well. Everyone fawns over the toddler until her tears come to a stop and she rests quietly against Henry again.

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The worst part of being famous and parenting is having to leave your kids behind for various amounts of time, knowing that it affects them to miss you but being unable to do anything to help the situation. It’s because of things like this that coming back and not being able to immediately give all your attention over to them can be even harder, this time it leaves small Amelia grasping tightly on to her fathers suit jacket and refusing to let go.

Alex, who is due to give a speech the day before his inauguration is trying to keep his attitude in check even as Henry begins to lose his patience with the toddler. “Amelia-Rose! Cut it out.” Henry’s scoldings do nothing to help the situation, though he can’t be blamed as he takes a tiny foot to the gut from his struggling daughter.

“Come on monkey, please let me go? I promise I’m not even going to leave your sight, I’ll be right there on the stage and then when I come back I’ll hold you for as long as you want.” It’s no surprise when logic does little to quell the toddlers' insistence that she should be taken with him. Her screeching in response is a clear sign of displeasure.

“You’re just going to have to take her with you.” June sighs, checking her watch. “I’m sure someone will make the connection of when mom, dad and Zahara used to do it with you back when mom was running for senator and you went through a clingy phase. She’s a toddler, there’s no reason for any bad press to come from it.”

“If anything it humanises you- and yes I hate using the children as political strategies but it’s true and right now you don’t have many other options. You need to get up there.” Nora starts to shove him towards the stage by his shoulder as she speaks, not giving him any time to consider it as an option but demanding that it is the solution instead.

“Shit, looks like you’re coming.” It’s all Alex has time to say before he takes off in a sprint to make it towards the left stage in time- silently praying there’s no cameras on him but subconsciously knowing he’s not lucky enough for that.

“Shit.” Amelia repeats with a tiny giggle, glee making its way onto her small face as she repeats the new word.

“No, Amelia, that's daddy’s word. Don’t say that word.” Because the last thing he needs is some reporter picking up on the fact that his three year old discovered the art of swearing the day before his inauguration.

“You’re papa?” She points out, frowning and poking Alex’s shoulder.

“Fine, daddy and papa share the word but they don’t share the word with Amelia so Amelia doesn’t say it.” He concedes, wondering when he started getting bested in arguments by his toddler.

“Okay.” The small victories should be taken that she’s the easy kid, as Ella or Mason would’ve never let him off that easily. Even at three years old.

“You’re gonna stay with papa, but you’ve gotta be quiet about it okay? Really quiet. Not even a peep.” Amelia nods, resting her head against Alex’s shoulder, a common sign to indicate that she’s tired from the day's events and she just wants to cuddle with whoever is closest.

In the end the speech goes by without a hitch, Amelia stays silent in his arms for the most part. Looking towards the crowd any time they make noise and waving back at people who wave at her, but otherwise not bothering anyone. Though at the very end as Alex goes to walk off stage she does manage to lean over and get one very tiny “bye-bye” into the microphone as they go to exit the stage.

If the next day there’s videos everywhere of their exit, nobody can even find it in themselves to be mad as the pure adorableness of the incident washing away any aggravation that may have come with her not following the one instruction she’d been given.

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Famous children are expected to put up with a lot from a young age, being hounded by paparazzi from the day they’re born despite their parents' best efforts. With Alex being the president there’s always reporters scattered everywhere in their own house (though, they aren’t allowed anywhere near their residence which is located between east and west wing unless they want to face the rage of one very upset Nora Holleran.)

For the most part Mason and Lily prefer to stay away, finding their time is best occupied away from the press inside the residential wing. However neither Ella nor Amelia seem to have the same qualms with being photographed and questioned, both of them spending more time outside the residence than their siblings.

Amelia is taken out of the residence by Nora, after bugging her aunt repeatedly about finding her papa. It’s rare that reporters actually manage to get a picture of Amelia, even if she’s prancing around the west wing stopping at everyone’s desks to say hi and peek at their work that she’s not yet old enough to understand (and she gets candies from the older ladies who work in speech writing everytime she stops- well daddy doesn’t need to know everything). Secret service is exceptionally good at ruining pictures of her, blocking her face with their bodies, hands, books or bags when necessary. “Amelia, I thought you wanted to find papa?” Nora sighs in exasperation as they stop at the desk of yet another amused intern.

“I do!” She responds, pouting at the idea that that wasn’t what she was out here to do. (It is! But everyone is so interesting.)

“Then keep walking, I haven’t got all day and neither does you papa.” She adds the last part hoping it will get her to move, knowing that there’s never a guarantee both she and Alex won’t be pulled away without so much as a warning to handle a National emergency.

“Hmph.” The grumble is adorable, and hardly has the effect Nora is sure it’s supposed to.

There’s a flash of light coming from somewhere off to their right, secret service not seeing the reporter who had hidden themselves by sitting at an empty desk until it was too late to block the already moody toddler. Amelia turns to the reporter, who looks gleeful to be getting pictures of her face- and glares sticking her tongue out at him. “No pictures!”

“Amelia-Rose!” Nora sighs, grabbing her from under her arms and lifting her up onto her hip. “No ma’am, you know better than to stick your tongue out at people. That’s rude.”

“He pictured me. That’s rude.” Amelia responds, turning to continue glaring at the reporter over Nora’s shoulder.

“You wanted to come down here, you knew that might happen.” Nora reminds her gently. “Come on, let’s go find papa.”

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The day that Amelia-Rose turns four, well it’s fair to say that nobody is spared the news. She runs around telling everyone who will listen- receiving many amused birthday wishes from White House staff (and a teeth rotting amount of candy). Her siblings find themselves rather annoyed after she reminds them for the eleventh time that it’s her birthday (but it’s okay because daddy told them to be nice about it, even if it’s annoying).

By ten in the morning she’s told her dads she’s four now at least ten times each and they can only hope that this is a phase she’ll grow out of - preferably by the next morning.

Everyone comes down to the White House for a party (everyone being Ellen, Oscar, Zahara, Shaan, Nora, Pez, June, Bea, and even Cathrine, Philp and Martha show up flying in from London for the day.) The party was supposed to be relatively small, and still is even as Amelia begs for some interns she’s fond of to come and hang out with them. (The interns in question look absolutely star struck when brought to hang around some of the most famous politicians in the world, but they seem to have settled into the odd but new normal by the end of the night.)

The party begins to come to an end, the only event left being the birthday cake when everyone goes outside to pose for some photos. Amelia gets to stand in the center with Lily, Henry standing next to her and Alex next to Lily, Ella next to Alex and Mason next to Henry while the rest of their family (and the chosen interns) fill in around them, everyone smiling brightly and laughing as some secret service members are inducted into taking the photos.

There’s a small crowd gathering outside the White House fence, waving at the young princess and shouting happy birthday wishes towards her. “I’m dis many!” Amelia shouts, holding up five fingers and waving them at the crowd- causing an array of laughter to come from her family as Henry leans down to gently push one of her fingers down. “Oh.” She mumbles. “I’m dis many!”

The crowd laughs, understanding the small mistake before they disperse at the sight of the royal and presidential family getting ready to head back inside for the last of the days events- birthday cake.