Title: Analecta
Author: N. Y. Smith
Email: [email protected]
Category: AU (very), JDR, Josh POV, Angst, WIP
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: The reminiscences of a guy lucky enough to have become President.
Spoilers: Through Season Three
Author's Notes: Contains references to 9/11/2001. Amy-free universe.




It was surreal: a Catholic standing in the midst of mixed Protestants and a couple of lapsed Jews whose current faith, politics, had been torn from its foundation. The pen hovered over the paper, his eyes closed in supplication much as the first Josiah Bartlet must have done when faced with a circumstance of similar gravity, before, heavily, sadly, he scratched his name on the appropriate line. Handing the pen to his bodyman, he sighed heavily, "God help us all."
And so it was Josiah Bartlet became a wartime President.

Many things have been written about us–President Bartlet and the people who surrounded him. Some are true; some are not. Invariably the author tries to assign some greater meaning to the events, some historical significance. Not me. I'll leave history to the historians. They wouldn't be interested in anything that follows in this little analecta (that's a Sam Seaborn-caliber word for a collection of stories) because they seem to have forgotten that history always contains a story. So here is my collection of stories about people who made history. You don't have to assign meaning to them; they're just the reminiscences of a guy lucky enough to have become President.

Joshua Lyman, AD 2027