What about a female Josh Lyman? In a world where Joshua was born Jasmine and adopted the nickname Jamie as soon as she became old enough to have a preference (She wanted to be like her sister 'Jamie and Joanie' sounds amazing, like the name of the ballet company that will one day join the symphony that Jamie will conduct for. It sounds empty when it's said by itself.) Jamie Lyman grew up in Connecticut with a loving family. When she was eight, she wanted to be a ballerina. She became a Fulbright Scholar, graduated Cum Laude from Harvard, and attended Yale Law. Her IQ was high but didn't break the bank. The bare bones of her story look the same but there are differences.

Politics is a boy's club. Actually, for that matter, so is academia (Harvard with its ivy walls and blue-blooded boys is especially so). Early on she gets used to people calling her a frigid bitch. She learns to walk tall with a smirk on her face and a retort in her back pocket. Women are meant to smile, to give opinions quietly and fade into the background. She is allowed to excel only if she does so with grace. Fuck that, she thinks, grace ain't got nothin' on me. When she wins others know it. She refuses to be predictable; she refuses to be pigeon holed, most of all she refuses to be silent.

There were never many questions as to whether Josh Lyman belonged in politics. Sure, he was young and brash, but he was a genius and one of the best political minds on the planet. Put that brain in different packaging and there are suddenly concerns. What good is that boldness to a woman? What use is she if she can't be controlled? They try to close the door, shut her out of the room. She steals the keys, walks right in, and puts her feet on the coffee table. She wishes them luck in getting rid of her because they all know that they never will.

Politics is everything Jamie wants out of life. The law is in her blood and rhetoric is imprinted on her soul. It is a challenge and a game in one package. She knows that there are those that wish she'd leave, work in the private sector, become someone else's problem (so does her mother, but that's a different story, a different reason). She smiles at these people with her blood red lips and dark nails. She twirls her hair to disarm and speaks to eviscerate.

Jamie Lyman succeeds thorough sheer force of will. She softly states her opinions when asked and shouts them when she's not. She forces the world to take notice and dares it not to. When John Hoynes approaches her for his campaign she smiles and asks for a second. As she puts her hair up, bobby pins held between her lips, he smiles at her indulgently, disarmed. Once the last pin is in her hair, she immediately berates him for a comment he made in California that will hurt his numbers. Even as she outlines her plans, she savors the shocked look on his face (Later she'll try the trick on Leo McGarry and Josiah Bartlett. Leo looks unimpressed and asks her to hurry it up; he wants her opinion "You can multitask". Bartlett, father of two daughters and doting grandfather to precocious Lizzy, holds his hand below her mouth to drop the bobby pins into and keeps the discussion of polling numbers in Texas going. In other words, they both pass (even if they lose Texas)).

Hoynes still didn't listen to her. Not because she was a woman, but because he believed that other minds, older minds knew better (Two years later Hoynes will ask her if the moment that she walked out is the moment that he lost the election. She says it is and he looks at her in regret (She doesn't regret a thing)). She almost wishes it were because she was a woman, that would make it easier. Her intelligence is her best asset, the only one of any value in the world of politics. To have him ignore it is devastating. She's almost relieved when an old friend of her dad approaches her.

She meets Sam Seaborn at a party of all places. When Sam sees the beautiful brunette verbally eviscerating some frat douche, he thinks he may be in love and steps in to defend this amazing woman. Luckily, the attraction fades over the next hour as the same woman proceeds to explain to him exactly why his help was unneeded and unappreciated, how ineffective his 'help' actually was, and most importantly that his last article in the Law Review had enough holes to sink Noah's Ark. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

It was, Jamie thought years later, also the last time that Sam ever thought of her as female. Usually she didn't mind being one of the boys, in fact that generally works well for her in terms of respect. But the thing is Sam, though misguided, often has a fair amount of respect for CJ and the other female staff. Jamie doesn't often mind this aspect of their friendship, but there are times when she can't stand it. When the Laurie scandal happens, she is the one to face Sam's mistargeted rage. You don't even know do you Jasmine? You don't know hard it is to be a woman in this world. She's putting herself through law school, she should be respected not laughed at by bigots like you. She manages not to punch him in the face, but it's a close thing. Later, when discussing the ERA she and Ainsley Hayes will bond over Sam Seaborn telling them how to be female.

(Jamie really doesn't mind Laurie. In fact, if the situation was different, she feels that they could have been good friends. But Jamie works for the White House, and unlike some people she has an understanding of the behaviors that go along with that honor. She also resents the implication that somehow, she was lucky because she didn't choose become an escort to pay for law school like Laurie did. No, instead she worked multiple jobs and graduated with massive student loans, but to Sam that's just a sign of the privilege that Laurie didn't have. But hey, at least Laurie won't have the loans.)

But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Jasmine's family still has an unfortunate habit of dying before they should. She will always look at blank spaces in family photos and empty seats at graduations, celebrations, and inaugurations for a moment just to picture them there. Just for a second to imagine a world where her heart was whole instead of the shattered thing it had become. She will always longingly look for familiar warm faces in empty spaces and never find them. After Joanie dies it's like a permanent pause has been placed on her life. It takes years for her to stop listening for the second name attached to her own. And for the rest of her life Joanie's name in her mouth will taste like black smoke and burnt popcorn.

Later, much later. Decades and two presidential campaigns later Jamie will still have the urge to vomit when she smells popcorn that is even slightly charred. A single whiff and she becomes a little girl terrified of flames waiting for her sister to run out of the house. Terrified is not a good look on the Deputy Chief of Staff. She will be grateful, but never question the fact that while popcorn was a snack favored by most of the team during the election it had completely vanished from all late-night strategy meetings and poker games by the end of President Bartlett's second month in office.

(Only one person ever finds out about Jamie's popcorn aversion, and that's only due to close observation. Donnatella Moss never tells a single soul that Jamie Lyman goes pale and shaky when she smells popcorn. Instead she quietly places calorie counts and news articles that link popcorn consumption to cancer on Margret's desk. Margert takes it upon herself to warn the rest of the staff, including those in the kitchen who are in charge of purchasing).

Even with the popcorn gone the world still finds ways to hurt her. Roslyn is a mess of noise and pain. She'd been flying on the buzz of a good day, a pilot rescued, a space shuttle seen safely to landing. She laughed with CJ, snarked at Toby, nodded a job well done to the President, and hugged Sam within an inch of his life before they went outside. She had been warm, happy and content to be doing this immense thing in this place with these people. Then suddenly everything was too loud, too noisy, too painful, too everything – she blacked out. (And what was Jasmine Lyman? A warning shot? That was my daughter. Are you going to go after Zoey next, you feckless thug? What did I ever do to your child but praise his name?).

Life after Roslyn is like a dream, so close to the norm, but strangely muted. It's as if something is missing, a color, a noise, a laugh (Joanie's laugh will always be missing, she still listens for the sharp squeak that preceded the snorting laughter from her sister even all these years later). She listens to music and hears sirens, puts her fist through a window and remembers the breaking glass but nothing about the window. She is damaged, not whole, and not someone that anyone would want in politics. After years of screaming at the world for trying to quiet her, she quiets herself. She screams at herself for ruining this, this amazing thing that she has worked all of her life for and will soon lose because she cannot get her shit together. The screams eventually stop and turn into a wet smile (though she will deny the tears to her dying day) when it turns out that there is someone who still wants her in politics. ("A man falls down a hole" "And the women who pushed him laughs?" "Will you listen? A man falls down a hole … and his friend knows the way out. As long as I've got a job, you've got a job. Got it?")

Jasmine Lyman at her core is the same as Josh Lyman. Smart, funny, protective of family, desperate to be loved, and fearful of letting down the ones she loves. When you change the outer packaging of a product, the inside will still be the same. She will face obstacles head on and make more mistakes then she can count. But whether her name is Joshua or Jasmine doesn't matter. Because J. Lyman Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bartlett (Chief of Staff to President Santos, but that is a story for later) is a force of nature that cannot and should not be stopped.

I've had a Rule63!Josh hanging out in my head for a few years now but only just got around to putting her down on paper. There are some scenes that never came fully into being that might get posted later including things from Issac and Ishmael and interactions with the rest of the senior staff.

About Sam - I love Sam Seaborn, but he tends to get pretty preachy and condescending on issues relating to women's rights. That is the attitude that is reflected above.

~ BL223