xxxxx

"Has anyone heard yet?" Jed looked out at his senior staff members gathered at GW hospital. The President and Leo had been in the Situation Room when Charlie told them that Josh had called and there was something wrong with the Felicity. While the rest of the senior staff had rushed over to GW, President Bartlet wrapped up the meeting as fast as he could without causing a war of some sort.

"Josh ran in here about ten minutes ago. They delivered the baby," Toby whispered quietly.

"And?" Jed motioned for him to go on.

"She's stable for now," Donna said quietly.

Jed's face broke out into a half grin, "So they did have a girl. And Lis is alright?"

"Ten minutes ago, she was unconscious," CJ said from the other side of the room.

Jed sunk into a chair and began to speak without thinking, "Someone get Abbey over here, now. Someone else call Josh's mom. CJ, make sure that none of this gets to the press. Where's Josh, I want to see him."

"I'm afraid you can't do that, sir," a voice said from the doorway."I'm Dr. Barrack, the chief of OB here at GW. Mr. Lyman is with his daughter right now in a special room. She's in very fragile condition, and we have her in a bubble."

"And Felicity?" Sam asked, even though he was afraid to.

"Mrs. Lyman suffers from something called eclampsia. It's a disorder that develops in the latter half of the pregnancy. Mrs. Lyman's blood pressure is abnormally high and she's suffering from frequent seizures. When we delivered the baby, which we had to do by cesarean section, we discovered that her uterus was bleeding profusely, and we have since been trying to stop the bleeding." The doctor paused, indicating that he was open to questions.

"Doctor, correct me if I'm wrong, but the bleeding came from the placenta separating from the uterus, right?" Donna spoke quietly.

The doctor was surprised, "Yes, ma'am. That's right."

Donna smiled weakly,"I was a pre-med major for a year. And that's fatal, right?"

Once again, Dr. Barrack nodded gravely, "It can be. But I've got 7 of my best men in there right now to make sure that it doesn't. I'm going to head back in there now, sir." He acknowledged the President before making his way out.

"I'm going to go talk to him," CJ followed the doctor out.

"Sir," Leo said quietly, "you need to get back."

"No." Jed said firmly. "At least not until Abbey is here."

xxxxx

CJ watched through the window of the operating room in horror. She had just finished making it very clear to Dr. Barrack that nothing got leaked to the press. And now she was watching him valiantly trying to save her friend's life.

Oh, dear God, she looks so dead. Did Josh see her like this? How is there anyway anyone could live after they've looked like that?

And then CJ's attention was drawn to sudden change in Felicity's heart monitor.

Flat line.

Glancing frantically at the doctors, waiting for them to do something. But in her heart of hearts, she knew that there was nothing.

She saw Dr. Barrack remove his gloves and say, "Time of death, 1604."

She felt her knees give out beneath her as she crumbled to the floor in a mass of sobs.

xxxxx

2 Days Later

Joshua Lyman sat numbly as he watched his wife's casket get lowered into the ground.

No. No. It's the wrong person in there. Not my wife. Not my joy. Not my happiness.

Surrounded by his closest friends and family, Josh knew that he should be crying. Showing some sort of emotion or something. But there were no more tears in his pain-ravaged body. There was no more emotion in his weary soul.

He had chosen not to speak at the funeral. He knew that he couldn't. There was no way that he could put into words what this woman was to him.

Wisely, CJ had ordered a press blackout and the President had barred Felicity's fans from attending the simple service, leaving Josh alone with the people he trusted most. It didn't help the pain.

Josh knew that he had to be strong for Rebecca. His beautiful, wonderful, tiny Rebecca. She would need him to be strong. But thinking about her made it hurt even worse.

So he just chose to think about nothing at all.

He heard all of the wonderful words that everyone had said about his Felicity, but, at the same time, he didn't. He couldn't have completely grasped what was going on, because he refused to believe that it was happening.

Climbing back into the limo, he felt CJ climb in next to him.

"Joshua," she said quietly, "you can cry now."

"I don't have any tears left."

She smiled sadly,"That's ok. I just wanted to make sure you didn't think you needed to be strong or anything."

"No, I just don't have -" he choked back a sob. "CJ, I miss her so much."

Ushering him into her lap, CJ felt her tears mix with his. 'How is he ever going to survive this? How are we ever going to survive this?'

All she knew was that Josh's entire life was going to be Rebecca Lyman.

And she was scared.

xxxxx

I never wanted to be a mail girl.

Seriously, it was never on my list of career aspirations.

And yet, a mail girl I have become.

In the past three months since Felicity died and Rebecca was born, Josh has received about 1.2 million letters. That's more than the President receives in a year.

And being Josh's trusty assistant, it has become my job to go through them.

Letters, cards, prayers, Josh gets just about everything. I save the cute ones and the sweet ones. They all get automatic thank-you notes back, but I write real ones to those Josh actually reads. Every once and while, we get a letter written to Rebecca. I usually keep these, because they're usually really well written.

I spend most of my time reading letters.

Which is cool with me, because I need something to do.

Josh hasn't been around much lately. And every time he's actually here, he looks like something that my roommate's cat dragged in, chewed up and then threw up on. I am in no way exaggerating. He wanders in, insists on doing work and is promptly sent home by Leo, the President or Mrs. Bartlet, whoever gets to him first.

Don't get me wrong; he's not neglecting his duties. He's just doing them from home. With a three month old baby girl on his lap.

X Lip quivers X

I miss him so much.

I miss the banter, the yelling, and the outlandish demands. I miss the way he demanded coffee even though he knew I wouldn't get it. I miss the way he always took time to explain things to me without making me feel stupid for never graduating from college.

I wonder if he needs me?

It's 3 pm. I can't call because Becca will be napping.

I'll just go over there.

Just to give him his mail and check up on Becca.

xxxxx

It's got to be hard, having your daughter's birthday and the anniversary of your wife's death on the same day.

My goddaughter was 6 months old yesterday and my best friend's wife died sixth months ago yesterday.

I don't know how Josh does it.

I know that the only thing that keeps him going day to day is Becca. She's everything to him. I've never known a man so passionate about his daughter.

He came in for senior staff yesterday while Donna watched Becca in Josh's office. He refuses to hire a babysitter. That child is simply going to be raised in the White House. He's really good at taking care of her and the country at the same time; he's been doing it for half of a year now.

But anyway, at senior staff yesterday, he introduced this education plan he's been working on. I don't fully understand it, but it's an offshoot of Charlie's idea about tuition incentives.

It's amazing. It's the revitalization that this country needs. And all it took was for Josh to become a father.

He won't have to buy clothes for her until she 12, because every woman that works in the West Wing has bought, and continues to buy, clothes and stuff for Josh's little woman. Rebecca Lyman is quickly becoming the most popular and spoiled child in the White House.

I just hope her father can hold up.

xxxxx

He's doing it again.

I know he is.

He's doing what he did after Roslyn.

He's stuffing it all inside.

I've seen Josh everyday since the funeral, and to my knowledge, he hasn't cried for Felicity since that day.

The man's wife has been dead for a year and he hasn't cried since three days after she died.

I've been doing a little research on how people cope with the death of a spouse and there's this thing called grief work. It's the process by which people create a new identity for themselves after their spouse dies. First, they go through denial. Josh went through that in about a week, which is normal. Then, they mourn. I'm pretty sure that Josh skipped this one all together. The next step is depression, otherwise known as the land of Josh Lyman. Then, the person finally recovers.

There was a footnote in the book I read that said it takes longer for men to complete the process than women.

Frankly, I'm worried.

He's going to blow.

Before, it wasn't so bad. Just some broken glass and some screaming.

Now, he's got Rebecca.

He would never, ever hurt her.

But it's just a whole other factor in it all.

Josh wanted to cover his bases where it came to Rebecca and so he secured two godparents. Sam and I.

"Claudia Jean," he said to me, as I was feeding her one day, "you're a natural."

That lead to a discussion about women's intuition and how much I wanted children.

"You could have mine," he had said softly. "If anything ever happens to me, I want you and Sam to take care of her."

Raising an eyebrow, I had replied, "Should Spanky and I tie the knot for this little arrangement?"

Rebecca had begun to fuss at that moment, indicating a necessary diaper change.

We had never actually finished the discussion, but I heard him talking to her later.

"Drea," he whispered, "One day, you're going to grow up. As much as I hate thinking about it, you are. And you're going to have questions that I don't know how to answer and you're going to want to go shopping and things. At that point, I will direct you towards your Aunt CJ. She is wise in the ways of womanhood, and she's really rather good at it. However, if she ever married Sam, I would question her judgment."

Rebecca's middle name is Andrea. Rebecca Andrea Lyman. Felicity wanted a daughter named Rebecca more than life itself and Josh liked Andrea. So he named her Rebecca but calls her Andrea, or Drea for short.

"I know that you can't talk back to me and that you don't understand most of what I'm saying," he continued to his daughter as he rocked her to sleep, "but I'm going to keep talking in hope that osmosis really does work."

I had to stifle laughter at that point.

"You are going to be raised around the most amazing people on the planet. I may be rather partial, but they are. They are exactly the kind of people that I want you to emulate. I want you to be a servant, like Donna, compassionate, like CJ, passionate, like Toby, but please have a better disposition than Toby, optimistic, like Sam, loyal, like Leo, and reliable and responsible like Charlie."

He thinks I'm compassionate. X grin X

"But, Drea, I don't know what I'm going to do without your mom."

Darn it, he was doing so good there for a while.

I know that he's going to loose it and I think it's going to be soon. No one else sees it, but Josh and I are tuned to each other.

I just need to make sure I'm there to pick up the pieces.