Even from the driveway, Ben felt a difference in the house. Windows lit, a sense of movement behind the curtains, just a simple sense of knowing someone was in the house -- his house -- gave him comfort. He closed the porch screen door quietly behind him, his briefcase swinging heavily by his leg, and stole a glance inside the living room window. Through the pale curtains he could see her shape, or rather her head and knee as she sprawled out on the sofa. Apparently she was reading something, the room lit from both lamplight and a busy, glowing fire. Ben couldn't remember the last time he had used that old fireplace...Barney fell to it easily enough, but that was Barney. Ben held no illusions that he could create a cozy atmosphere all for himself. Besides, from what he remembered the flue was jammed so he had let the fireplace sit cold and bare. No more. Quickly he scanned the porch for other changes and caught the stack of wood she had installed alongside the other end of the porch, realized the floor had been swept and tidied, and smiled to himself. It felt like a home, all at once. He almost checked the numbers on the side of the door to make sure he was in the right place, then just walked in, dropping his briefcase by the stairs, and poked his head into the living room.
"Hey," she said to him, swinging her legs from the sofa. "You made it home."
"Looks like I did," he told her. "Sorry I didn't get back at seven, like I said I would."
She shrugged. "Don't worry, I kept everything warm."
"Warm....?" he started but she shushed him and pulled him by his forearm to the kitchen, and swung the door wide. Light, warm and suffused from the stove and above the sink, streamed out at them and she pulled a seat back from the table, set for one, for him to sit. Ben glanced around, still feeling like he was in someone else's idea of a kitchen --she'd put down a fresh tablecloth, made a decoration for the centerpiece with red and gold leaves and a pine cone, set out two candles jammed into empty soda bottles, and laid out a full place setting. "Am I in the right house?" he asked finally, taken aback.
"Silly," she told him, and took his coat, draping it across a chair. He shrugged off his suit jacket and took off his loosened tie, which she took from him and hung on the back of another chair. "You are hungry, aren't you?"
"Starved," he said vaguely. "What about you?"
"I ate already. Got hungry around six or so, figured you'd be late when I didn't see you by seven. I hope you like spaghetti. I have a limited range, I'm afraid." And she set a bowl of tossed salad in front of him. "And I wasn't sure what dressing you like on salad, so I got two or three kinds. Italian seems appropriate, and I know you ate it at the Rainbow, so..."
"Italian's fine..." he stared at his lettuce, then poked it tentatively with a fork. "Alexa, I....don't know what to say."
She sat hurriedly in the seat next to him. "Oh, Ben, I'm sorry, I know I should have told you before going out and getting this stuff but there really wasn't any food in the fridge and that Chinese was practically applying for a green card, it'd been here so long....is it okay?"
"I...meant I asked you here so you could get away from your troubles...I didn't mean for you to become my maid."
She looked offended suddenly. "I know that."
He shook his head. "What I mean is," he paused, "is that -- you don't have to do any of this. Not that I don't appreciate it...I just...don't want you to think you have to do this kind of thing."
She stood. "Don't you know by now that I don't do anything I don't want to do?" And she shifted to the stove, pulling something from the oven.
He put down his fork and leaned over the back of his chair. "I suppose I do. I'm sorry. I'm just....a little overwhelmed."
"Are you too overwhelmed to eat?"
He leaned back to his plate, glad to hear the teasing back in her voice, and suddenly caught a wonderful scent of garlic, butter, and tomatoes. "Certainly not."
She watched him eat attentively as he fell to the food, downing the spaghetti and sauce and bread and salad like a person who hadn't had a real meal in weeks. While he ate she listened to him talk about his day, and the cases he was working on, and she heard him carefully sidestep her sisters' and didn't mind the omission at all. When he came up for air and said, "I doubt I have to ask...I'm sure I can just look around...but what did you do all day?" she told him about the fireplace, and the chimney sweep, and the kids getting the leaves into piles, ordering groceries and generally sweeping up the place.
"I just...went crazy, I suppose," she told him. "It was like, there was so much to do so I tried to do it all at once. And that fireplace....I just had to get it working again. It was crying to be used. And...I was so busy I wasn't thinking about...other things. Not once. I think you were right, Ben, this is exactly where I needed to be."
"And what about tomorrow?"
She drew her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. "I think tomorrow I need to spend some time at the hospital."
"I'll drive you in when I head out in the morning," he promised, though he felt like sighing. Something in him had hoped she'd forget about the outside world once she came to his home, however unrealistic. Ben laid his fork down. "That was quite a meal."
She shrugged. "Just mom's old meat sauce recipe. I'm no genius, you just don't get out much."
"No, I suppose I don't."
They cleared and set the dishes in the machine, then headed back to the living room, where she dashed to the dying fire. "Can you get another log, Ben?" she asked and he carted in two from the porch, which she tossed onto the red coals, then poked it around until the log caught light. He sat on the floor next to her, leaning up against the couch, and watched her face, as the flames reflected from her features, just stared at her for a long time, and she never turned, just let him watch.
She leaned back on her arms after a time and asked, "Do you always come home this late?"
"Sometimes," he told her, still watching her nose, her chin, her eyes, hypnotized by the fire. "Sometimes later, sometimes earlier. Why?"
"Do you have to stay so late? Or do you just stay late...because?"
He didn't answer at first. Most of the time he could stand coming home to a quiet, dark house. But most of the time, it was just easier if it was too late to think about anything else, if he could just fall into bed and wake up the next day and not have to think about whether he was alone, or lonely, or both. He preferred working in the office after hours to working alone at home, and he had been doing it so long he no longer remembered exactly why. "Late hours are part of the job, Alexa. But not...always as late as I make them."
She turned and inched to where he sat, on her hands and knees, and brought her face close to his. He could feel the heat from the fire radiating off of her and it was all he could do not to reach for her right there, but he waited. "Would you..." she asked slowly, "consider coming home earlier, now that you have someone to come home to?" And without waiting for a response, she leaned in and kissed him once on each cheek, then once on his nose, and finally paused just above his lips. "Hmm?"
Ben couldn't wait any more and reached behind her head, pulling her face to his and pushed her lips onto his, kissing her hard and then relaxing, slowing down and growing more gentle. She sat next to his raised knee and rested her arm on it, leaning up against him on the sofa and continuing to kiss him, carefully, lovingly. When they pulled back she still sat very close to him and his eyes scanned her face while his hand reached up to tuck some hair behind her ear, and she rested her cheek inside his hand. "So it did..." he began slowly, "mean something that other night."
She didn't answer, just crossed her hands on his knee and leaned her chin on them, watching him. She wasn't sure exactly what impelled her to kiss Ben Stone, who she had never really considered as a lover before, and yet it seemed the thing to do at that time. Somehow, it didn't seem a betrayal of Mike -- she'd pushed him from her mind, into a different area entirely. Here, she was someone else, someone who didn't mind cooking, or managing a house....tomorrow when she visited the hospital she would be her real self. But here, here was make-believe. Here, the rest of the world didn't count. Wasn't that what Ben had asked her to believe? And suddenly, it all seemed too perfect, too beautiful, and Ben was the only other person in the world for her at that moment, and she felt tears running down her face, heating up as they coursed down her cheeks into salty, warm rivers. "Hold me, please," she asked him softly, turned where she sat, letting his arms encircle her as she rested against his narrow chest. And they sat like that, staring at the fire, until the coals had nearly burned out and he felt her limp against his body. He wanted to be able to carry her up to her bed -- he really wanted to carry her up to his bed but that would be far too fast for the both of them -- but he simply wasn't up to it, and it made him grind his teeth that he could no longer expect to scale a flight of stairs carrying a woman in his arms. So after a the coals turned cool he shh'ed her awake, barely, and they climbed upstairs together, and he helped her sprawl out on her sheets, then pulled her socks off and lay the comforter over her, kissing her once on the forehead before turning off the light and closing her door behind him.

---

The morning was hectic.
Not so much so that he didn't take a few seconds before waking her to just watch her sleep, again noting how the early morning light slivered across her bed and painted a slash of yellow across the bridge of her nose. But he only allowed a few seconds for that kind of nonsense, then knocked on the door, not wanting to come too close, to invade her space, not knowing what might happen if he did, and not having the time to think it through. She started awake and rubbed her eyes, and he told her shortly that he'd be leaving in an hour if she still felt like going to the city. Then he headed off to shave, not noticing whether she got up or not. He never thought it through but his speed and efficiency was an instinctual shield -- the faster he moved, the less time to think about what was not immediately pressing. And what was really immediately pressing were the multiple motions to dismiss downstairs in his briefcase, papers he'd never looked at the night before because...well, because at first there had been dinner. Then, after he'd seen her to bed Ben had returned to his study to try and sort through the legalese he normally knew by heart, and by midnight, when concentration had truly eluded him, he'd given up and headed to sleep.
He heard her shuffling around and the sound of water running from the spare bathroom and realized that meant she'd be coming with him. Over the next hour they shunted past one another in the hallway, taking towels or retrieving something left in another room, but neither said more than a muttered "Morning." The faster they moved, the less there was to discuss.
Downstairs, the faint odor of warm bread and fruit wafted up to him and, finishing the knot on his tie he headed down. "I'm ready," she told him, swallowing her bite of bagel, then offering him the other half, which she'd topped off with some kind of jam. "You hungry?"
Absently he took it. "You didn't by chance make coffee, did you?"
She blinked at him as if expecting something, then tilted her head to the stove. "There."
He poured some in a mug with a lid and told her, "We should go."
She glanced at the clock. "Not until seven-twenty," she said. "You said we had an hour at six-twenty, that's when you came in for me. Right?"
"Yes."
"So why not sit down and eat your bagel?" she prompted, her sleepiness falling away, and the teasing coming back. "I'm not contagious."
"Hmm," said Ben, and took a seat across from her, thinking, If only she knew, and bit into his bagel stiffly, pulling the morning paper to him and reading the headlines. He ignored her effectively for the next ten minutes, and exactly at seven-twenty stood and said, "Let's go."
She returned the favor so well on the car ride to the subway station that the only noise they heard for the next forty-five minutes came from the public radio banter Ben played in the car. By the time they stood waiting for the next train in the station the silence had grown more than long; it had made them both irritated that all of a sudden they were unable to communicate. Ben knew the fault was probably his, and didn't know what to say to her, yet wanted to spend the next thirty-six hours talking nonstop, trying to hash out exactly what the hell was going on between them. But on the train she did not speak, and finally stopped looking at him. Then the subway lurched suddenly between stations, and she lost her grip on the dangling metal handle, stumbling into him.
"Sorry," she muttered, non-conciliatory, and stood back up again.
"So it speaks," he murmured back.
She shot him a narrow-eyed glance and didn't answer.
Her childishness made him sigh and he leaned forward. "You could come by around one or so and have lunch with me. We could talk then."
She looked at him coldly over her shoulder. "I already have plans."
"Like what?" It was out of his mouth before he could recall it from his brain, and he hated the way it sounded.
"Like none of your business," she told him.
"Miss, is this guy bothering you?" They both looked up at a tall, young man dressed smartly and expensively in a business suit. Ben thought, Investment yuppie. Alexa just smiled, amused, and slid a glance over at Ben, letting a moment of unease settle in him. Then, just as he was about to look worried, she waved off the stranger.
"No, thanks," she told him.
He shrugged, and inched closer to her. "No problem. I'm Buck," he told her, and offered her the hand that wasn't clutching a strap.
Figures, thought Ben, and he made a slight snorting sound.
Alexa frowned at him and turned back to Buck. "Alexa. At least someone here wants to talk," she told him, and Ben rolled his eyes, pretending to read the advertisements on the wall. They were nearly to the hospital stop, at least that meant this idiocy wouldn't last much longer.
"Yeah," laughed Buck, hearty and deep, "ya can't squeeze two words outta my pop in the morning, neither."
Alexa flushed deep red as the subway pulled into the next stop, and after an agonizing moment she turned to look behind her, only to catch Ben slipping out the doors. She raced to the doors just as they closed, and pressed a hand against the windowpane, slapping against it to try and catch his attention, but Ben just stood on the platform, leaning against one of the supporting girders, a hand clapped over his face. And then the train pulled away from the stop.

---

It took at least three hours of her meditating in front of Mike's bed before she was able to erase the subway image from her mind. She had hoped -- wanted -- to be able to slip effortlessly back and forth, from being attentive and worried and caring and concerned over Mike to being loved, and loving, and attentive, and caring at Ben's house, and was angry that it didn't happen that easily, that she was not able to disengage her feelings as easily as she would have liked, as if they were some electric socket. But by noon or so she was fully focused on Mike, remembering how he'd laughed, the sound of his voice, the feel of his hair beneath her palms and his body against hers as they danced, or made love, she held his hand, massaging the fingers and resting it against her cheek, as she had Ben's the night before. When the nurse wasn't watching she would lean over and kiss him on the forehead, or the nose, closing her eyes and trying to pretend to be Sleeping Beauty in reverse. She read him from a book he particularly liked, something about Philadelphia police detectives. But nothing changed, and finally she dozed next to him. There was no lunch appointment; Mike was her lunch date, and she took no breaks, trying to make up for the day before when she had been absent. The nurses, who were by now used to her, usually did not bother her with the half-hour limit. Vaguely she wondered where Mike's family were, and tried to keep it out of her mind. If they came, she would have had to leave, and she lived in fear of missing any development in Mike's condition.
She started reading to him again, trying to follow the story at the same time, and missed Ben, who stopped by the ICU and peered in at her for some time, then headed back out again unnoticed. By the time visiting hours were up at five she felt worn out, drained, and tired, though she knew she hadn't been exactly straining herself. They turned her out of the ward then, and she stared in at him on the bed, unchanged all day, and began the long, equally draining process of detaching herself from Mike so that she could go home to Ben.
Ben. And then, the morning's events came back to her, fresh and untouched, and she felt like crying again.

---

Ben took off his reading glasses and pinched the space between his eyes, seeing yellow spots, trying to clear his head, and glanced at the clock again. He knew visiting hours ended at five, so where was she an hour and a half later? He supposed he shouldn't wait around to see if she showed up; presumably she knew the way home by now, and certainly she could make it to his office if she liked. Or she might not be coming back. His departure on the subway and the events immediately preceding it pained him like an open wound, and he would not look back at them. All he knew, all he felt, was the dulling ache of humiliation and the desire to wholeheartedly apologize for being such an ass earlier in the day. If she had acted childishly, it was certainly not a whim on her part. He had forced her pique. He had meant to say something at ICU but the nurse said that aside from trips to the bathroom and water breaks, Alexa did not emerge from the ward for anything, so he had turned round and gone back to work.
But the strain was obvious; even Kincaid had commented on it later in the afternoon. "You're wound like a spring, Ben," she told him. "Maybe you should take the afternoon off early today."
He'd snapped at her, "What, and just let all of these nice blue papers stack up like a collage, Claire? Do you see any room here to be frivolous?"
She'd stood up and held her hands out to him, palms flat out. "Forget it, Ben. You stay. But you're going to snap if you don't relax."
Fortunately, no one had bothered him the rest of the afternoon, and now the offices lay silent and empty. Even Adam, his boss, had left, and Ben was given room to breathe and catch up on some motions reading. If his mind could stay focused, he might even get something done. But every ten minutes or so he found himself glancing at the clock again, and wondered how long he could stand it before he started calling around to find out where she was. Because whether he liked it or not, or thought it was dignified or not, where Alexa was became more and more important the later it got.
Another fifteen minutes later he heard the elevator outside whirr, and he dragged his eyes from the motion, frozen, listening. The doors opened on his floor, and footsteps inched to his door. Then, slowly, it opened, and Alexa poked her head in. "Vino?" she asked, thrusting a bottle of wine through the opening she'd made. "I even brought a corkscrew."
Ben waved her in and she pushed the door shut behind her, the blinds rattling against the windowpane. "They say," she told him, taking strolling steps to his desk, "that in ancient Mesopotamia the acceptance of a gift of wine meant all past sins were forgiven."
"Sins of the giver, or the recipient?" Ben raised his eyebrows, and took the bottle, glancing at the label.
She thought a moment. "Both."
He shook his head. "You made that up."
She nodded her head and came closer into the light that shone from his desk, kneeling down in front of him. "I did," she said quietly, smiling faintly. "But you almost believed me."
"Almost," he told her, and tried to smile back, but couldn't find it; his heart was pained at her appearance. Since that morning she'd grown sadder somehow, her eyes red-rimmed and turned down, no joy in them, her mouth set and older, and he noticed her hands trembling despite her bravado. "You've no sins to recant, though, Alexa."
"I did too much too soon. I asked for too much. That's my sin," she told him.
"Brother Jacob wouldn't call that worthy of confession," he told her, and accepted the offered corkscrew. "Now, as for my sins...." he jammed the screw into the top of the bottle and twisted.
"Shh," she told him. "You took the wine. It's all forgotten, okay?"
The cork popped out satisfyingly and he rested it on his desk, scanning for some paper cups, then filled them halfway with the red wine. She gulped hers down almost with one try, frowning when he sipped his properly. "Come on, Ben, do it right, first glass goes down at once."
He looked dubiously at her, then drank it all. The warm wine slid neatly down to his stomach and caught fire, and he could feel his cheeks flush, just as hers had a moment earlier. "I'd say you were trying to get me drunk, if I didn't know any better."
"Absolutely," she told him, pouring more wine in the glasses. "Maybe we'll just have to be a little drunk to start talking to each other again."
"I seem to recall we didn't always have this problem," he said and stared hard at her, then drank his cup down at once again, like a shot.
She mirrored him and filled the cups a third time. He noticed the trembling was gone, and with her cheeks flushed, Alexa was looking more familiar again, more like the person he remembered. And she was so beautiful in his eyes, he reached out a hand and smoothed the hair down her head, resting his fingers along the shape of the back of her head, then stopped, and rubbed his thumb along her jawline. She set her cup on the floor and half stood, resting her hands on his legs, and leaned forward to him, whispering, "That is, of course, if all you want to do is talk."
He pulled her to him and they kissed again like last night, tasting of wine, only of wine this time, but the kisses were long and hard and he felt the burning in his stomach spread all over. Slowly she began to inch his chair back to his desk, until she backed as far as she could, then pulled back from him and sat on the edge of his desk, legs slightly apart, and took his hand in hers, pulling him to her until he was standing and she had wrapped her legs around him, holding him there, and he leaned down to kiss her upturned face, cupping it in his hands, pushing her back down, against the desk. And leaning over he began to run his hand along her body, feeling it as a whole and not an unseen, shapeless thing underneath the clothes but up close, each contour turning to meet his fingers. Over her shirt he cupped her breast and pulled back from her, his lips feeling red and warm, suddenly not sure where her mouth ended and his began. And he made her look at him, stare him in the eyes and he whispered, "What are we doing?"
She smiled at him, the teasing glint in her eyes, and said, "It hasn't been that long, has it, Ben?"
For a moment he was furious, and made as if to pull back, then realized she had done exactly what she meant to do, gotten him riled up. This was on purpose, and this was what she wanted -- just the other night she had said she never did things she didn't want to do, so he leaned back to her, pressing his raw lips back on her cheeks, her mouth, her eyelids, and began to unbutton her blouse. A clicking noise made him open his eyes and he realized she had undone his pants button, but was having trouble with his suspenders. She pushed her lips up at him and giggled, "You're making this much harder for me than it needs to be," and in a motion he had slipped his arms through the suspender straps. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he pulled her straight up, feeling her chest work up against his, and the friction made it unbearable.
"Wait," she ordered him breathlessly, and stepped off the desk, her loose blouse shimmering as she headed to the door and closed the blinds, and pushed in the lock on the door. He stepped around the desk to meet her in the middle of the room and she sat lively on top of the table placed perpendicular to his desk, the negotiation table Ben normally sat at to wear the criminals down in plea bargaining. It was where he had questioned her all that time ago. It was clean, and empty, and she offered her hands to him. "Okay," she said, and he came to her, entering her as she lay back on the table. She gasped, and concerned he almost withdrew, but then she pushed back and he kept going, running his hands over her breasts, leaning down as far as he could physically to kiss her wherever he could reach, lacing his fingers with hers to hold her out straight, as if on a rack, helping her push back against him as he thrust into her, coming in her after not very long, and nearly stumbling after the effort, pulling out of her, wanting to fall down horizontally next to her and unable to. Keeping his balance by holding either side of the table he leaned down to her and stared into her eyes, and she reached up with both hands, holding his face, not letting him move.
"You are incredibly lovely," he told her, as they came together to kiss. And somehow he managed to slip his arms under her back and carry her the foot or so to the couch and let her down there. "That must be more comfortable."
She nodded. "Kiss me again, Ben, kiss me like you did in the dark in that alley near the pawnshop."
He tried to remember but the effort was too much, so he kissed her desperately, trying to bring up the exact feeling.
"That's not it," she told him, "but it'll do. I read somewhere that every kiss is different. And your pawnshop kiss can't be your office kiss. And that was your office kiss, Ben."
"Does it matter?"
"No," she told him. "They taste just about the same."
He looked at her, absorbing. "You always taste different."
She smiled a little. "That's a woman's right, I think."
He buttoned himself and sat on the couch, her legs dangling over his thighs, her back propped up against the back of the furniture, and he held her hand. And out of nowhere, he yawned widely, laying his head back against the backrest of the sofa, never taking his eyes from her. She sat up, legs still dangling across his, letting him hold her against his chest, and they sat like that, not talking, not doing anything, just recovering, for a very long time.

---

Later.
They sat on the floor of his office, facing one another, legs crossed Indian style, their cups filled with more wine. Ben knew he was drunk, and suspected Alexa was several sheets to the wind herself. But they had promised to talk, and here they were, talking. She had reminded him that he once told her he'd never want to face her on the stand, but tonight, she said, if they wanted to talk, for real, about....anything, he could cross-examine her. On one condition: for every question he asked, she could ask one back. And they weren't allowed to move from their positions on the floor. The first one to pass out, or change positions, lost the right to ask questions. Alexa swore it was an old drinking game from ancient Mesopotamia, and Ben nearly believed her again.
"State your name for the record," he told her.
"Alexa Radin Page." She said. "My turn. State yours."
"Benjamin T. Stone. My turn. Are you currently intoxicated."
"Yes. When was the last time you had sex?"
He looked taken aback. "Is that where we're going with this?"
"Is that your question?"
"No. I didn't answer yours yet. Relevancy."
Dexterously, she leaned forward without uncrossing her legs and kissed him, then sat back. "There's your relevancy. Instruct the witness to answer the question."
"Will Ms. Page repeat the question?"
"When was the last time you had sex. Made love. Whatever."
"An hour ago." She frowned, and he smiled craftily at her. "When was the last time you made love, Ms. Page, prior to an hour ago?"
She thought a moment. "Fifteen days ago."
He stared at her and she could imagine him counting the days back to the night before Logan was kidnapped, and for a moment he looked stricken, then his face emptied.
"How many partners have you had, Mr. Stone?"
Now he had to think. "I'm not certain. Six. Seven." He paused as she emptied her face, and let her anticipate the logical mirroring question. But he didn't let her have it. "Who was your first, Alexa?"
She remained impassive. "Please instruct Mr. Stone to address the court appropriately."
"Of course, Ms. Page. Please name the person who was your first partner."
She did not avert her eyes. "Michael Logan."
Ben started to stand, desperately wanting out of her gaze, needing to pace.
"Does Mr. Stone wish to abdicate his right to further questioning?" she continued in character.
Ben sat down hard. "No, he does not."
"Your turn, then."
"Why is Ms. Page no longer with Mr. Logan?"
"Because he's semi-comatose in a hospital ICU, Ben. That was a stupid question. Try again."
"Is that the only reason, Alexa?"
"I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself," she said, but her eyes were teary, and she finished her cup of wine, then poured it half full again. "My turn."
"No, mine. You didn't answer."
She waited.
"Does Ms. Page still consider herself to be 'with' Mr. Logan, despite his current state?"
She stared at her knees. "Yes."
Ben sat back on his arms, and breathed as if she had struck him in the stomach. "Right," he murmured to himself. "I deserve that."
"My turn," she said suddenly. "Why did Mr. Stone ask Ms. Page to come stay with him, knowing of her relationship with Mr. Logan?"
He looked away. "I was right. I wouldn't want to face you on the stand. You don't pull any punches."
"Non-responsive," she clipped at him. "Tell me."
Ben's gaze darted back to her and he leaned forward, his voice tight. "Because despite the complete stupidity of it, the complete lack of compatibility between us, the absolute obviousness that you were still very much attached to Mike, and the canyon-wide gulf in our ages, at some point I stopped just wanting to take care of you, and I just wanted you to be with me. And I decided to take that any way I could. It was pathetic, and nearsighted, and ridiculous of me."
She took his hands, which had grown cold, and squeezed them. "Ask me, Ben, it's your turn. Ask me."
"Ask you what?" he could barely speak, and couldn't move his gaze from the carpet.
"Just ask me it."
"What -- what does Ms. Page think of Mr. Stone?" The question came out as a double question -- was this what she wanted to be asked?
"Look at me, Ben," she ordered, and he turned to her. "I think Mr. Stone is the most un-pathetic, farsighted, unique, noble person I know. How does that line from the movie go? He's my knight in shining armor. He's got blue eyes that stare right through me. And I don't know what I'd do without him."
Ben stared at her for a moment, then broke from his cramped seated position and leaned over her, forcing her to lay back on the carpet, and he stared into her face, about to kiss her. But she pushed him away. "Does Mr. Stone wish to abdicate any more questions?" she asked him, teasingly.
"Yes," he told her, eyes still scanning, as if he could not capture her all at once. "I'm done with this witness for now." And he kissed her.

---

When they finally emerged from the building, it was nearly 7:00 in the morning, and Ben mentally blessed the fact that it was a Saturday. They'd spent the past hour staring out his boss's window at the sunrise, Ben holding her from behind, not saying a word. Then he'd kissed her on the ear and they'd stumbled from the building, bleary-eyed but peaceful, and once the cool morning air hit them their stomachs grumbled, angrily ravenous. They made it through a huge breakfast at a nearby diner called the Hummingbird, but on the subway back to the car she began to doze against his shoulder, and driving back to his house Ben nearly drove off the road, so complete was his exhaustion, in body and spirit. But they made it home safely, and upstairs they both collapsed in his bed, folded together like spoons, and slept until way into the late afternoon hours. By the time they woke up again, the sun they'd seen rise was making preparations for falling back into the horizon.
Ben woke up first, hungry again, and rested his face against her neck, feeling the soft downy hairs there against his cheek, and ran his fingers across her back, nearly tickling, just feeling her spine and collarbones, tracing them without seeing them. He ran his hand down her shoulder and the curve of her side, over her hips, stopping when he reached the unnatural slickness of her underpants, that fake silk, cool to the touch, and then he curved his hand around her belly, and pulled her to him. She started to stir, and brought a hand up to cover his, and he pulled tighter, pressing her against his chest. He wanted to have her again right there, but something kept him back, a kind of unspoken fear that she was only his for a limited time, and he didn't want her to grow tired of him prematurely.
She half turned to him, still holding on to his hand, and rubbed her eyelids open with her other hand. "What time is it?" she murmured, and he glanced over at the clock.
"Three-thirty," he told her.
"We've lost a whole day," she said petulantly.
"I wouldn't say that," he told her simply, and watched her features in silence.
She brought her arm around after a few minutes and stroked his cheek. "The way..." she began, "the way you look at me...you stare at me so much, and I don't know how to look away." She remembered what she'd said about his eyes earlier that morning. "I was telling the truth, you look right through me. I don't remember seeing eyes like yours before."
"I can't help it," he whispered. "You're just there, so I have to stare. I feel like you're going to disappear and all I'll have left is what I can remember."
She reached up and hugged him fiercely, and he hugged her back. "I'm not going anywhere, not just yet, Ben." And as they hugged he felt himself grow hard again and he reached down for her fake silk pants and found them wet, and without saying a word they were suddenly making love, no kissing, no real caressing, just a clutching, desperate kind of hugging. Neither of them tore their glances away from the other's faces, and their expressions remained as impassive as they had been cross-examining each other earlier, as if this was something that had to be done before they could move on, before they could even think of getting out of bed. It lasted longer than it had in the office, somehow, and they pulled each other tighter. Alexa could barely breathe, and when it was over she fell back to the bed like a doll. He leaned over her, concerned.
Without his even saying it, she giggled weakly and responded. "Yes, I'm all right, Ben."
He brushed her bangs back from her sweaty forehead and said, "I do love you, Alexa."
She closed her eyes, and nodded.
There wasn't much day left by the time they had changed and headed downstairs, so they sat outside on the back porch and watched the sun shrink behind the leafless trees, its fading light pink and orange, sliced by the tree limbs like veins. They took a walk around the yard and came upon the pile of leaves, now a little scattered, that Alexa had hired the neighborhood boy to pile up. She kicked it a little taller, scooping up a few leaves to make it bigger, then said to Ben, "Watch."
And she ran several feet from the pile, turned, and ran back, jumping and landing directly in the middle of the stack, sending brown and red leaves flying everywhere, laughing loud and long. When she emerged from the pile Ben annoyed her by not also breaking out in laughter, and by wearing an indulgent, 'isn't that cute' smile Alexa despised. She threw a stack of leaves at him and watched them catch in his sweater, in his hair, and started giggling all over again, falling on the ground.
Without a sound he scooped up his own stack and dumped them down on her, and she shook them off like a dog, saying, "Hit someone when they're down, will you?" and started a full-out leaf fight between them until they were both covered with the formerly neat pile of leaves, their cheeks rosy and their breath coming out in short smoky puffs. They lay back against what was left of the pile and held hands, staring up at the light-dimming sky and waited for dark.
"Somehow, we always end up watching the sun," she told him.
"It seems to mean more when you're older," he said vaguely.
Suddenly she landed on his chest, hard, her elbows poking into his rib cage, and he made a soft whoofing sound. "You are not old, Ben Stone, and I don't want to hear you talking like that. Sometimes you look at me like I'm a little girl, and I don't like that either. I told you before, I don't care how old we are, or how young we are." She rested her cheek on his chest and looked at his face. "I just care that we are."
Ben wished he could feel the same way. But he just let her speak her peace, knowing the bravado of the young was not something to be trifled with. She couldn't possibly know how the betrayal of his emotions and feelings was embarrassing him, how he had worked so long and hard to be respected, upstanding, intelligent, reliable, and how all of that went out the door the moment he kissed her outside the pawnshop. He wanted to be in love with her, he wanted to be silly and free with her, and he also greatly feared being found to be the kind of man who would want to be silly and free with a woman thirty years his junior. He ran a hand down her hair, and turned on his side to face her. "Alexa, you know how I feel about you. And I am trying not to make age a difference between us. But other people will see it differently."
She looked away. "I know."
"Can you live with not telling anyone about us?"
She wanted to be hurt by that but knew it wasn't directed personally. The fact was that Ben did have a reputation to protect, and his credibility in the office and with possible criminals was tantamount. Also, she never wanted Mike to know what was going on between them -- she was trying hard to keep the two selves separated but was finding the chalk line constantly erased -- and certainly no one in the police precinct could know, because that would be the same as Mike finding out. She had as much to protect as Ben did, and after a moment, she nodded. "I think," she said slowly, "that we shouldn't tell anyone." She sat up quickly, and took his hands in her fists. "Ben, from now on, we keep you and me here. Like it's a different world. And the only people we know are you and me, and we can do whatever we want here, in your home, in your town. But as soon as we leave this...fantasy world and enter New York City it all changes, and we're just a singer and a lawyer who happen to be friends. I can promise that. I can get very excited about that."
Ben was more realistic but the duality had him intrigued nonetheless. "No more offices," he told her.
"I can live with that," she told him back. "Your desk was not that comfortable."
He smiled. "But here --"
"Here," she interrupted, "here we can do anything."
He nodded. "Deal." And they kissed, sealing it.

---

Their immediate, mutual fears thus allayed, or at least brought into the leafy open, the enchanted land of Ben and Alexa, where time had no meaning except to indicate the next sunrise or sunset, was born. Ben worked at sloughing off his solitary, efficient, respectable cloak while Alexa fought to keep the specter of Mike out of Ben's house. And the more they worked at it, the better they got at pretending they could create a separate, equally meaningful existence than the one that fate and their personalities had carved out for them, and they started to laugh together a lot more. Silence wasn't just something to be broken with words after a time, it was something to experience together. On Sunday she came downstairs to find Ben on the front porch, reading glasses drooped over his nose, glancing at the paper, and with just a kiss on his forehead she took up residence in the swing with the Opinion and Travel sections, reading to herself. She stopped once, and looked around her, hearing the quiet of his suburban street, and took in the neatly-swept porch she maintained, glancing over at Ben, who was probably doing exactly what he always did every Sunday, and she felt comfortable, a sense of peace and belonging settling over her. And that was when she knew she had done it, when she knew she had reinvented herself. She sighed softly, and went back to the Travel section.
Ben glanced up at her from his paper, seeing her refracted twice in his regular vision and his glasses, and wondered just how she'd managed to fit so well in a place he hadn't imagined anyone ever filling. He'd foreseen the house being empty for the rest of his life, of coming out on the porch and reading the paper like he did every Sunday morning alone, and he realized if he was not careful he might exclude her out of sheer habit. So he found an amusing article in the Metro section of the paper, and folded it, then stood and slid next to her in the swing. "Here, Alexa, read this," he asked, and she slid over to him, under the crook of his arm, and held one side of the paper while he held the other, and they began to read it together. When he slipped some of his coffee up to her lips, she sipped absently, and licked her lips clean, then looked over at him a minute. Then they went back to reading the paper, dropping the sections by their feet, swaying gently back and forth in the swing.
Alexa, in her hausfrau attire, took to cooking. She'd never had a chance to do it for more than one person, and began to reuse all of her mother's recipes, then when she ran out, began to experiment with things she recalled liking. Ben ate it regardless of how terrible it tasted, waiting for her to make a pronouncement before giving his honest opinion, because as not much of a food connoisseur, he didn't care so long as it was edible. But mostly, it was all right. He found an old bread machine in the basement, used perhaps once or twice by Janice before being stored away with other faddish kitchen appliances, and Alexa nearly clapped her hands in excitement. It was one less thing to get from the grocery.
And then came Monday morning, and they had to face postponing their new lives. Alexa and Ben both knew his job was not one that forgave unexplained sudden vacations (when he'd broken his wrist a year or so back playing tennis he'd come in the next day), and while Claire was undoubtedly fully able to take over in a pinch, he could not just call in sick. It would never wash. Alexa was dressed and ready first, setting out a toasted bagel for Ben to inhale, and at exactly seven-twenty he said, "We should go," but in his voice was some trepidation, and sadness, because here was where she would leave him for the hospital, to spend her day with reality.
At his tone, she nearly said she wouldn't go. Mike's inert form against the sheets was real, living with Ben was not, and she wanted to avoid him suddenly, selfishly. But her heart ached at the thought of not seeing him at all, and it had been two days since her last visit, so she scooped up her backpack and tramped out in the cold to Ben's car. As on Friday, but this time for different reasons, only the public radio filled the car. Neither one of them had adjusted to this particular moment, the segue back into the real world. When they pulled up to the train station and Ben killed the motor, Alexa nearly jumped from the car in her rush to be away, but Ben did not move, and she slid back in for a moment.
"Are you okay, Ben?"
He stared at the car keys in his hands. "You take the first train, Alexa. I'll get the one after you. I need a minute for myself."
"Ben, I --"
He turned his head to her. "Don't, Alexa, don't be sorry. This is me. You go, and I'll see you around six or seven tonight at the office."
"Are you sure, Ben?"
He nodded, staring at the keys. She leaned over the midsection of the car and kissed him on the lips, and he brought his hands around her neck, the keys biting into her back, but she didn't flinch. They pulled back after a moment and she slid from the car, closing her door firmly and walking backwards to the station, watching him in his car, until she had to turn and run to catch the incoming subway.
Ben sat alone and watched her go, let the train pull away, rubbed his face and bit down hard on his tongue to bring him back to the real world. Then he locked the car and boarded the next subway.

---

Claire eyed him suspiciously over her Chinese food. "Well, I'm tempted to say you look a little more relaxed than last week, Ben."
He looked up over his glasses from the transcript he was slowly reading. "You have a fine eye for detail, Ms. Kincaid." He looked back down at the paper. "Only tempted, though?"
She stuck the chopsticks upright in the rice and wiped her hands off. "Keeping my options open," she said. "Come on, what was that, Man two with a recommendation on that Maxwell case? That was a lowball if I ever heard one."
"The boy gave us the mother, Claire," he told her. "Simple exchange. I hardly think it's a lowball if we get her into court."
Claire shrugged. "The recommendation threw me. You're lots of things, Stone, but soft isn't my first choice."
He threw the transcript down on his desk. "Do you have anything new to add, Ms. Kincaid? Because if you don't, I need to finish this before four."
She stood, bemused by his outburst. "As I say, I'm keeping my options open. I'll be across the hall." And she pulled his door closed behind her. Ben sat back with his papers but shook his head. She had been right; he'd offered a bad deal and naturally it had been snatched up. But the offer had been extended before he had caught himself; he was sympathizing with the people's problems today, not the law, and it annoyed him.
A few minutes later, the phone broke his concentration. "Stone," he said wearily.
"Ben, it's me."
He lightened immediately. "How are the trenches, Alexa?"
"Bad," she said, and coughed a little. "His mother came in today and started grilling me about who I was and why the nurse said I was always there and I tried to tell her...." she took a deep breath. "I'm heading home," she told him. "I'll get a cab or something from the subway, and I'll see you when I see you."
"You should stay longer." He didn't know why he said it, more out of an instinctual obligation than out of real feeling, but he said it.
"I can't," she told him. "I just...can't."
He nodded, though she couldn't see him. "All right. Come by here. I'll give you the keys to the car, you can drive it back to the house, and come pick me up when I get into the station."
"You trust me to drive your car?"
"Do you have a license?"
"Yes..."
"No major accidents in the past year? No hit and runs?"
She laughed a little. "No, Ben."
"Well, then."
When she arrived he was in conference with Adam, and Claire poked her head in the office a moment. "Ben, Alexa Page's here to see you. Should she wait outside or in your office?"
"She's just here to pick something up, Claire. Can you give her the paper bag on my desk?" Ben had tossed his keys in his old lunch sack with a note and taped the thing up, hoping it wouldn't rattle.
After she'd closed the door behind him Adam raised his eyebrows. "Still keeping in touch with that Page woman?"
"She's crucial in proving her sister's claims of self-defense are groundless, Adam. With her information we can establish that Amelia planned her crimes out deliberately."
Adam shuffled his feet. "You going to put her on the stand?"
"If I have to. I don't think I will, but I might."
"So she's picking up lunch from you today?"
Ben jerked his head suddenly, hearing a tone he didn't like in his boss's voice. "Just some papers she left in my office, Adam."
"In a paper bag?"
Frustrated, Ben sat forward on the couch. "Adam, what are you saying?"
Adam rubbed his neck. "I'm not saying anything, Ben. Not if there isn't anything to be said. Do you have anything to tell me?"
Ben felt a cold point pierce his insides. There was nothing to know about Alexa, not really, he never had any intention of using her in the case against her sister, but suddenly the tissue between her and her sister -- that person in Rikers -- felt tenuous and he realized there might be more than just his face to save if their connection was discovered. Adam, who could smell trouble before it even began, had sensed it. "No, Adam. There's nothing to tell you." And he felt it echo in his head, knowing immediately how Logan had felt when Claire had confronted him with his misdeed. Look at what you stepped in, you fool, he thought to himself.
"Good," said Adam. "Then let's get back to more pressing matters."

---

Alexa opened the taped bag on the subway and pressed the keys into her hand until they hurt, and unfolded the small paper Ben had included with them. I'll be home soon, it read, and we can talk again. I love you. And he hadn't signed it. She'd been uneasy when Claire had come out with the bag, saying Ben was in a meeting, but felt better now, knowing nothing had been suspected. She liked Claire, and hated that whatever she seemed to be doing aroused the lawyer's suspicions, but couldn't figure out a way to get around that. When Claire had emerged with the small parcel she'd handed it to Alexa, asking, "Have you seen Detective Logan recently?"
Alexa had nodded. "I just came from there. No change, yet."
Claire's mouth had turned down. "I'm sorry about that. How are you handling it?"
"Retreat," said Alexa slowly. "I try to go by the hospital during the day, then I'm staying with friends at night. I'm not going out much. I'm in this limbo."
"I keep meaning to get over there and see him," wondered Claire.
"He's still in ICU. They won't let you in yet," Alexa said.
"Well, if you need anything, just let me know," said Claire. "Take care."
Alexa had thanked her and left quickly, not wanting to answer more questions than she had to.
She had wondered if she'd be able to drive home. Alexa hadn't driven in over five years, and her driving wavered between reckless and hesitant, so she was thankful the roads weren't full this time of the afternoon. She peered closely at the roads, trying to remember exactly how to get to Ben's house -- she'd only been on the route a few times, but managed to wind her way back to the right development without holding up too much traffic. She'd almost sat back in relief, looking in her rear view mirror to make sure no one was behind her, when she noticed a large lump in the middle of the road, and had to press hard on the brakes to avoid running it over. She got out of the car and stepped carefully over to the lump, which on closer inspection turned out to be a young golden retriever, chest heaving, one bloody hindquarter twisted oddly. Another driver on the road stopped and helped her get the dog to a vet, who cleaned him up and bandaged the leg.
"He's bad off," the doctor told Alexa, "but he'll live. Leg's fractured, and he won't be able to walk on it for a while, but lots of dogs get used to three legs if they have to, so I expect he'll be stumping around soon. Looks like he stumbled near a trap of some kind, or fell in a hole. Hard to tell. There was glass in his leg, we got that out. He was also dehydrated, that's probably why he collapsed in the first place."
Alexa patted the tired dog's head, and he gazed up at her. Instantly, the two bonded. The dog thwapped his tail limply on the doctor's table. She asked, "Can I take him home?"

---

Alexa was waiting for him as he got off the subway, leaning against the car, twirling the keys in one hand, and as he strode over to the car she sauntered up to greet him. "Hello, Mr. Stone," she told him.
"Hello, Ms. Radin," he smiled at her. "Did the chariot survive your driving it?"
"It's better than new."
"Better?"
She nodded. "But first, don't you have something for me?"
"Like --" he began, and paused when she wrapped her hand around his. He stopped walking and put his briefcase down, turning to hug her tightly, kissing her cheek and then her lips, and she squeezed him back.
"I thought you'd forgotten that," she whispered as he hugged her off the ground a few inches, then settled her back down.
"Hardly," he said, and wiped the hair from her face. "I've been looking forward to that all day."
They climbed into the car and he turned the engine over. "So, how is the car better than it was before?"
"Well, it's more like what's in it that makes it better." She leaned over her seat and whistled softly. Ben turned to see what she was whistling at and a tawny blond face jumped up and licked him on the nose, then fell back and yipped. Ben fell against his horn, which bleated, and wiped his nose. Laughing, Alexa lowered the seat divider and the retriever set his head to rest on it, his brown eyes darting back and forth between the two people. "Ben," she said, "this is Clarence. Clarence, meet Ben."
"A dog, Alexa?"
She patted his shoulder. "That's good, Ben, your Ivy League education does come in handy sometimes. Want to try for the breed next?"
"Ha ha, my dear. How did you end up with him?"
As he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, she bubbled about what had happened and how Clarence had come to the house. The dog tried to keep its nose down the middle of the seats, but sometimes skidded backwards and yipped when his sensitive paw struck something that wouldn't give. "I hope you don't mind," she told Ben. "But I didn't see where else he could go. I can take him to the shelter in the morning, if you want."
"No," Ben said slowly, pulling onto his street, "but a dog, that's just something I hadn't figured into the picture." He pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, looking down at the sad face. "You would pick a Golden, wouldn't you," he murmured.
"What does that mean, Ben?"
He looked up. "A long story. I'll tell you later. I just have a special affection for Goldens, let's say."
"So you do like him, don't you, Ben?"
He cupped her jaw with his other hand. "He's great. I think we should give him a place to stay. But... Clarence?"
"Darrow, Ben," she smiled at him, and he laughed aloud.

---

She was quieter over dinner, a stir fry they threw together, but Ben didn't pry. Finally, Alexa said, "I'm not going back, Ben."
He put down his fork. "Where? The hospital?"
She nodded. "I can't...do both. I can't be here and there. Maybe you can do it better than me. But it's too hard. In lots of ways. For now, I think I need to stay in one world at a time."
He swirled the wine around in his glass. "Don't think for a second it's any easier for me, Alexa. I just don't have the options you do."
She mistook his words as admonishment and retorted, "You could make it very easy on yourself, Ben, just ask me to go back to the Village. That would make things a lot easier on you."
He swallowed and stared at her, incredulous. "You think that's an option, Alexa? You think after all that's happened I could just say 'go home' and things could go back to normal? I lost normal a long time ago, I lost my peace of mind way back there. Now I don't know what normal is supposed to be." He tossed his napkin on the table and removed his dishes to the sink, then leaned on the formica and stared out the window. "You want to know what I say? I hope you never go back to the damned hospital again. It'd be one less thing for me to think about." And he left the kitchen, retreating to his study.
Alexa cleaned up the kitchen and curled up with Clarence on the sofa to stare at the television, trying to avoid thinking. She found herself watching a very bad miniseries about hospitals with some very bad actresses starring, and had to switch the channel, letting the flickering blue light of "Dateline" wash over her. At some point her brain fell into neutral and she let her thoughts drift, realizing slowly that she could not continue to pine for Mike and live with Ben. It wasn't fair to him and it was making her irrational and uncertain. She'd always known where her loyalties lay before, and now the absence of certainty was making her dysfunctional. A truly loyal person would still be with Mike and would go home every night, returning in the morning, unmoved by parents or relatives or anything else in the way. Perhaps then, she wasn't as good a friend as she should have been. But Ben had been there for her, offered an escape valve, and she took it like a drowning woman grabs the first vine to come her way. And he was lovely, kind, and she admired him so that she suspected she might even love him. Had Mike not been removed they might have gone their entire lives as friends and no more. But with him gone the hole in her heart felt bigger than she was, and she needed someone, something, to hold on to. Ben fit the space, and made it fit himself. She really didn't know how she would live without him, and she also couldn't imagine never being with Mike again. But she had to choose, and for now, she decided to no longer think about Mike. She would not go to the hospital, she would not phone to check on him, she would not think about him. If his face came to her mind she would push it away, and think of something different, of leaves, of Golden Retrievers, of fireplaces, of wine. It would have to be as if he were dead.
A commercial, louder than the television program, snapped her from her trance, and she noticed Ben standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, his hands thrust into his pockets. He had been watching her, and she offered a hand out to him, which he came forward and took. Alexa pushed Clarence further down the couch and Ben slid next to her, wrapping an arm around her and muting the television from the remote. "You looked fairly deep in thought," he said, "was the program that provoking?"
She shook her head. "Just...going over a few things."
He joined his other hand around her and pulled her to him, resting his cheek on her head. "I was abrupt earlier. I'm sorry about that. Whatever you do, it's all right with me. But I am going to be selfish with you, Alexa. I am going to prefer it if you stay home, stay here. I can't always be your guide, because you got me personally involved in this. I know I'll always be number two on your list, and I wish to God I could change that, if possession as nine-tenths of the law worked with people I would use it to get you to stay with me always. But there's a part of you I can't touch, that is never fully with me, and it makes me greedy. So for as long as I can, I want you to stay here. And we won't discuss this any more."
She felt his lips brush her head, then he leaned back against the couch, and she sat up to see him face on. "I only wanted to be honest with you from the start," she told him. "I didn't want there to be any illusions, so I could try and have it all, and I failed miserably. I never wanted to hurt you, I really do mean it when I say I couldn't bear losing you. It's like I've known you my whole life. You're absolutely right, let's not discuss this any more. By dissecting everything, by examining each moment we're together piece by piece we're ruining it. I don't want to lie to you, Ben. Don't ask me questions you don't want to know the answers to. And let's just take this thing we have one day at a time. One cliche at a time." She paused for a breath, her mouth slightly open. "God, Ben, your eyes are bluer than I've ever seen them before. Frank Sinatra has nothing on you," and she leaned down and kissed him over each eye, then dragged her lips over his cheek to his mouth, and lightly brushed her lips against his, dangling them there for an agonizing moment, then brought their mouths together, sinking into his lap as they kissed, Ben cradling her head. When Clarence began to whine, concerned something was wrong, she slid from Ben's lap and grasped his tie, pulling him up from the sofa and led him to the stairs, up to their bedroom.

---

Somehow, with those ground rules established, they developed a routine. Ben was always up early, and would stay in bed a few extra minutes, touching and admiring Alexa as she slept, then gently he would slide out from behind her and hop in the shower. Sometimes she joined him. The first time he was so surprised and embarrassed he nearly slipped and fell. "There's not enough room in here for both of us," he'd said lamely, feeling somehow more naked in the shower than he had been in bed, and she'd smiled, standing directly under the shower head, water streaming down her face.
"That's the idea," she'd told him, taking the soap bar away from him. Those mornings she joined him he invariably was late getting out, but she kept them irregular, and he was always surprised anew.
Alexa let him have the car on most days, and spent a lot of time walking with Clarence, trying out his three-footed hop-jog, and would head down to the stores about a mile away and arrange for delivery later on. She spent her days keeping house, resting with Clarence, reading, walking, and felt all over lazy and pampered by the whole experience. In less than a week she had Clarence walking much faster, almost without a limp, and when she rooted around in Ben's basement she found a bicycle, which she tinkered with until it would hold her, and then she and Clarence started covering much more territory, long rides that brought her back flushed and breathing heavy, but pleased at accomplishing something. She began to read some of Ben's legal texts, not understanding much of it, but trying to get the general gist of things, and would post-it mark some of the more complicated points to ask him about later.
Ben would, regularly, get home between six-thirty and seven. He had warned her about extreme late nights in their earliest days, but she had yet to see one surface. They'd eat whatever she'd managed to invent as dinner, she'd ask him some questions from his books, and he'd retreat into his study for an hour or two, working on papers, typing up notes, organizing himself for the next day. When he came out they'd sit wrapped in blankets on the porch and watch the stars, sipping coffee or cocoa, and sometimes they would take Clarence for a night walk, and Alexa would point out the constellations to him. Sometimes they sat inside altogether and kept the fire alight, talking about his life, her life, and all the while sidestepping the issues they'd promised not to talk about. They made love most every night; Alexa felt she couldn't get enough of being next to him and feeling safe with him in her, around her, on her, and Ben felt more himself when he was with her than any other time of the day, even more than when he was in court. It tired him after, but before and during she made him feel thirty again, and on the one or two nights when he was really too worn out or stressed to perform, Alexa massaged his back, or just lay there with him, and assured him she was just as happy.
But the second time Alexa turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. "Is that the guy version of 'I have a headache, dear?'" she teased, and ran her hands down his chest. Without waiting for a response, she let one hand reach down further and took him in her hand, stroking him like a fine piece of cloth. She'd found Ben to be fairly conventional in what actually constituted sex, and she knew what he would initiate, and what he would not. The surprise on his face, though, when she used her hands delighted her and she knew she would have to find ways to shock him more in the future. "Is that better, then?" she asked between his breathy kisses, and from there on out he was not too tired that night.
"You're fearless," he told her when they were done.
"You're a fraidy cat," she told him, half-serious. "You can't tell me you never had anyone touch you before. I thought guys lived for oral sex and hand jobs."
Even in the dim light she could see him turn pinkish.
And then it hit her. "You lied on the stand," she told him, poking him in the chest. He tried to divert her by taking one of her breasts in his hand, but she shooed him off. "You told me you'd slept with six or seven women. You didn't even know. I've only been with you and...well, with two...and I know more about it than you do."
"So arrest me for perjury," he growled. "Sue me for being a good Catholic boy. There were three, before you."
"Go ahead," she prodded. "This I'm dying to hear."
"Oh, Alexa, you don't want to make me do this."
She pulled back and leaned on her hand. "I can withhold favors, my dear, on a night when you aren't too tired," she teased.
He sighed and stared off at the ceiling. "Maureen Sullivan," he said. "I was fifteen. We didn't know what the hell we were doing but suddenly we did it, and she never spoke to me again. She was fifteen, too. Then Janice. We were married twenty-two years. If you think I'm a ninny, you never met Janice. She acted like it was an ordeal."
"I don't think you're a ninny," she told him quietly, and kissed his ear. "I think you're wonderful."
He sat up and leaned on his arm, too, and ran a finger along her collarbone, up her neck, to her jaw, and rested it on her chin. "One year, when I was married, what, five years? We had this girl who came in a few days a week to type up transcriptions in the office. I was doing what Claire does now, plugging away, interviewing people to fill in the holes in police investigations, Adam was where I am now. It was a year since Janice had had Melissa, and she wore her pregnancy scars like battle wounds, and wasn't letting me near her. I was so young, I was stupid, and this girl, she had lovely legs. We were together two weeks, off and on --more off than on, and Janice found out. Needless to say, she did not want to let it lie. If she didn't want me, she sure as hell wasn't going to let anyone else have me either."
"What happened?"
Ben sighed. "She waited for me to come out of the girl's -- her name was Grace -- apartment one night, and greeted me on the steps. See, I never stayed over, just claimed a tough case that Adam was forcing me to work on late in the night. So I came out, and there she was. She didn't say a word as she drove me home. I remember feeling like a nun had caught me out smoking or something, there wasn't any hurt love radiating from her, just disappointment, disapproval, and some kind of satisfaction, as if she'd known all along and just had it confirmed that night. We pulled up here, this house, we were living here by then, and sat in the driveway a good five minutes. I wanted to say something, to apologize, or even stand up and say 'screw you, I'll do what I like,' but I didn't say anything. What a child I was. Finally she turned to me and said, 'If I ever find out you've done this again I'll take Melissa and you will never find her or me.' And she slid out of the car and slammed it without waiting for me. I just sat there for a while and debated the law with myself, telling myself that she couldn't legally do that, but in my heart I knew she would die trying. Janice, she was a rock. Immovable, solid, and intractable. I didn't want to lose my daughter. So I had Grace fired."
"Oh, Ben."
He turned on his back. "Not a great shining moment in my life. But in a way, I like to think that the jail sentence she put me under, life without parole, meant I could pour all my energies into my work. Adam's a good twelve years older than I am, and I'm next in line for DA when he goes, if I can get elected. I'll be one of the youngest, unless I screw it up somehow. In a twisted way, I owe my early success to the boot Janice stomped on me. After a while, I didn't think about it, I just worked."
She rested her head on his chest and listened to the words reverberating in him, then slid next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. "So how come you divorced then? Sounds like you worked it all out early on."
He thought for a moment before answering, pressing his lips together, and then said, "A lot of things happened in 1984. It was like the Orwellian spell the whole year had...came visiting personally. There was this case I won, months of day and night work. Reminds me of...what's happening with your sister, what I know I'm going to have to do with her case. And we got the conviction even without the body on this one, that's how guilty this man was. Smiled at me all through the trial. In any case, I was gone a lot of long hours, and Janice was getting paranoid again, thinking there was another Grace, and started warning me. But I didn't see it coming." He folded an arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling. "About a week after Adam promoted me she served me papers, saying I had all but abandoned the two of them, and she had gotten a job of her own upstate, and she and Melissa were moving. I could have the house and the car and she didn't want any alimony, not in that many words. She asked for sole custody of Melissa, and that I set up a college fund, and left me out of it from there on. Janice moved down south near where Melissa goes to school in Maryland... but after they left I didn't see much of her. I know she loves me, I was a good father, as good as anyone could be, I also know I lost my daughter years ago when her mother caught me coming out of Grace's house. I never saw that either, all those years of Janice brainwashing Melissa against me. I didn't see a lot of things. The fact is that Janice as good as left me on the day she caught me, only it took her another twenty years to actually pack her bags and get out."
"That's quite a grudge," Alexa whispered.
"I think it's what kept her going, all those years," he said. "At first she was too afraid to divorce because of the religion question, and she didn't think she could do it on her own, and finally when I really had repented and apologized and proved to be not so bad a guy she had only that ghost to hold on to. There was no way to make good to her, she wanted something to hold over my head, and she did, all those years."
She wrapped her arms around his right arm, grasping his hand and squeezing. "I'm sorry, Ben."
"I told you you didn't want me to do this."
"I am glad you told me."
"I didn't see where I had a choice. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, telling you."
"There really was nothing else, no one else, in all those years? What about when she left you? Not even then?"
He turned to face her and she pulled back a little. "Alexa, you just don't understand. I was brought up differently than you were, it was against God, and even if rationally you didn't believe it it was hard to do much of anything without a guilty conscience. Not that we didn't think about them, or know about them, but you get married, you figure, anything you want to try out, now's your chance. Janice didn't feel the same way. Funny, neither did Grace. I had a bad habit of falling in with parochial school products. You're the wildest thing I've ever known, and you're only one step removed from virginal." He paused. "How the hell do you know so much? Or do I not want to know this answer?"
She giggled. "I didn't perjure myself on the stand, Ben, but just because a girl doesn't sleep with a guy doesn't mean they don't fool aroud a lot. I did a lot of training in the field before, um, shall we say, settling on one player."
"I find it hard to believe that in this day and age anyone's going to let you learn the ropes without expecting something out of it."
She stared off into the room. "You'd be surprised, Ben. You might find yourself very surprised."
"You were a tease, weren't you," he smiled into the darkness, but she didn't take that well.
"Take it back, Ben Stone, that's a lie and you know it."
"Taken back. I don't know what went on. But you seem to be making up for lost time."
"Can I help it you're so irresistible?" she kissed his shoulder and took him in her hand again. "Do you think we can do this on our own one more time, or will you need help again, my dear?"
He rolled over on her. "I think I can handle you just fine, Alexa Page, all by myself. Now be quiet, I'm going to kiss you."

---

Though it felt like weeks, the routine they fell into was so secure and comfortable, in fact it was just nine days, not even half a month. They spent nearly all their free time together, on weekends taking long walks in the woods with Clarence, whose paw was healing slowly, spending much of Sunday afternoon reading the paper on the porch, talking in bed, sometimes making love, sometimes not, until neither could right away recall a time when the other hadn't been around in some way, commenting, kissing, holding on, listening. They tried not to cling, fearful of growing bored with one another, but love cannot be rationed out, it has to be consumed all at once until it makes you sick or until you lose your taste for it, and whenever one of them would try to start something on their own, in a short time the other was there, along side, helping or watching or participating.
And then, about nine days after they'd fallen into their routine, Ben got a call in his office. He spoke to the person on the other end for a moment, hung up, wrapped up the meeting he had been in efficiently but quickly, and asked Claire to get the notes to him by that afternoon. She closed the door behind herself and turned halfway, surprised that Ben was closing the blinds; there was no one in there but him, but she paused just short of knocking to see if everything was all right. She knew with Ben it probably was nothing to be concerned about; he just didn't want anyone to know if he was in there. She had turned and walked away by the time he threw the lock on the door and fell into his swivel chair behind his desk, turning to stare out the windows.
And then Ben did something he hadn't done in over ten years. He broke out in tears, balling his fists and pressing his forehead down against them.
Mike Logan had woken up.

---

At around 2:30, Logan had stirred in his sleep, the first movement they'd seen from him since he was recovered. At 2:50 he creaked open his eyes and asked for water in a husky, strained voice. They gave it to him, and he immediately fell back into sleep, but this one a light rest, not the near coma he'd been in for over a week. The call Ben had gotten came from the attending nurse, where he'd left a message to be one of the first notified. After he'd recovered in his office, and made himself come to terms with the fact that this would change everything, he picked up the phone and called Alexa.
She sounded breathless. "Oh, Ben! We were just outside running around the backyard. Are you going to be late?"
Ben felt his thoughts grow maudlin: how many men get to be the bearer of tidings like this? He savored her happy, clear voice and jumped in. "Alexa, Mike woke up."
"Oh," she said in a small, gasping voice. The silence drew out. "Oh."
"I was going to go over there," he said. "You've got the car today, so if you leave now you should be able to meet me there in about an hour. Do you want to do that?"
She was silent a moment, and Ben agonized. Then, "Yes, Ben, I'll meet you there. I'm leaving now."
And they hung up.
At the ICU, he flashed his identification to the guard, and half expected to see Alexa already there, in her vigil position next to the bed, but the room remained empty save for Logan. Ben was puzzled -- where was Briscoe, or Cragen, or his family? "Has anyone else been by?" he asked the nurse attending.
"Family's been notified," she told him. "Then you. Who else you want me to call?"
Ben stood straighter. He supposed it would be up to him to relay the news to the precinct, but that could wait, so he stepped into the sterile room alone, walking over to Logan's bed and stood there, his raincoat draped over his hands, taking a good look. Logan looked better, of course, the jaundice fading into a pinker, normal shade, and his face looked less drawn, but the normal circles around his eyes still looked deep, and dark. Stone wondered if Logan would ever look, or feel the same as before. He doubted it, and this saddened him too. This theft of health, of soul, the small deaths that appeared on the bodies of victims that survived was all too familiar, and something he occasionally got more angry over than actual, straightforward killing. He wondered what sort of person Mike would be when he came back to the world, and how Alexa would react to this new person. Oddly, Ben felt nothing more than that piteous twinge towards Logan. He had been trying to work up a good hate, a jealous rage, and instead he only felt empty.
After a few minutes, Logan's eyes blinked open, and he stared at the ceiling, then turned toward Ben, and smiled wanly. "Stone," he creaked out.
Ben smiled back at him. "I see you're laying down on the job again, Detective."
He swallowed dryly and Ben handed him water from a nearby nightstand. "Kinda...didn't expect to see you, first thing," Logan creaked out, his eyes attempting to scan the room.
"Has anyone else come to see you?"
Logan pressed his lips together a minute, looked across the room, back at him. "Doctors. Nurses. Maybe more. Nobody important. I've been...out of it."
"To say the least."
Logan smiled faintly. "How...long?"
"Over a week. Of course, you were missing for two."
Logan nodded. "Thought I was dead."
"Not you." Ben heard the bite in his voice, wondering where it had come from. That hadn't been admiration in his tone.
A silence fell for a few minutes. Then, "How....did you find me?"
"You conveniently had a few business cards in your leather jacket. We tracked you down to the basement of a pawnshop."
He nodded slowly. "Who did this?"
Ben sighed. "Let's not do too much at once."
Logan glared at him, and insisted louder. "Who did this?"
"It looks like the Pages were behind the scenes. Amelia engineered it from prison so we'd release her."
Logan took that in, and his eyes dulled. "Right."
"I think you should probably get some rest, Mike."
Logan wasn't listening. "That whole bunch....never should have gotten involved."
It seemed to make sense for a moment, but then Ben heard Logan's words again in his mind. The Amelia part of 'being involved' hadn't been an option, it had been Logan's job. The Alexa part, however..... could that be what he had just mumbled? Was he regretting something else entirely? "Detective? What are you saying?"
He rolled his eyes to Ben. "Nothing. I'm still..." he swallowed, "really tired."
Just then, Ben sensed a second person in the room and turned to see Alexa, standing just inside the door. She glanced at him briefly, gave no greeting, then softly stepped over to the bed. Mike had closed his eyes a moment, but when she took his hand and kissed him lightly on the forehead he opened them again. Ben felt his cheeks grow warm and, deciding it was time for him to leave, began to back away.
"Hi, Detective Mike," she whispered to him. "I missed you."
Their faces were so close Ben was certain he would try to kiss her, but instead Logan just stared at her, and finally turned away. "I think I need to sleep, now," he said, but he didn't sound as weary as when he had been talking to Ben. He sounded dismissive.
Stone's forehead creased at the rejection, and he saw Alexa flinch. But she let him have his way, murmuring, "I'll be right outside."
Logan had already closed his eyes. Ben followed her back out into the main waiting area, and they sat down. Alexa was near tears, and kept looking back out through the window, back at him.
"You must have raced over here," Ben said simply.
She riveted her gaze on him. "He hates me, Ben. It's just like you said a long time ago, he's blaming me."
Ben shook his head. "He can't possibly be blaming you. There's nothing to blame, Alexa. He didn't even know you were involved until a few seconds ago. You were the one who found him."
"I don't think you actually know what you're talking about in this case, Ben. I think everything would have been a lot better off if I'd just disappeared a while back."
"I can't agree with that."
"Why not?"
He took her hands in his. "Because I'd miss you."
She blinked, silenced, and started to lean over to him, to give him a kiss, then pulled back. "Thanks, Ben. I wouldn't have traded these past days for anything."
He felt his face contract. "Past tense already, Alexa?"
She stared at the floor. "Past tense, present tense, future..I don't know, Ben. It's all happening so fast, I don't know what is going on. When the phone rang at your house this afternoon Mike didn't exist. When I hung it up, he did. You knew -- you know this changes things. It has to."
He stared into the ICU lounge. He wanted to pick her up and shake sense into her, or at least shake Logan out of her. But he wasn't about to beg. "Are you coming home tonight?" he asked finally, the words like spines he had to drag out of his mouth.
She looked down, and wouldn't meet his gaze. "Oh, Ben," she said. "I don't think that would be a smart thing right now, for any of us. I just don't think I can."
He pulled his hands from hers, and nodded his head. "You do switch teams fast," he noted curtly, and stood.
Instantly she lost her vagueness and began to crumble under his gaze. "Ben, please, you know I want to."
"Then do it," he told her. "Do it because if you don't, I don't know if I can face you again."
Her eyes filled up and suddenly something hardened in him, and he no longer saw a miserable, torn woman, he just saw a child crying crocodile tears, and he waited for her response. "It...wouldn't be right," she whispered finally.
Hearing that, Ben felt a tearing in him, and walked out of the ICU. She followed him into the hall, about to say something, and he wheeled around so abruptly that their heads nearly smacked into each other. "I have seen you pretend to be your sister, I have seen you pretend to be a rock star, and I have seen you play house," he hissed at her, pointing. "And still, with all that as a warning, I never imagined you were actually pretending to love me. But you managed to fool me, too. Personally, I think you're in the wrong profession." And he stalked off down the hallway, turned the corner, and fled into a men's room stall, pounding the tiled wall with his fist until the pain overcame his anger. Then he sat on the seat, dropping his coat on the floor, and covered his face with his hands.

The rest of the day passed in a fugue state: Ben stumbled back to work and called the precinct about Logan, told Adam, crossed words with Claire again, then took the train home, realizing too late that Alexa still had the car back in the city, so he had to take a bus back to his house. Coming home depressed him even further, striding up after a long walk from the bus station in the dark, almost moonless night to an equally dark, lifeless house. He'd tried to come home late, but the walk from the bus stop had woken him up, and except for the cloud that seemed to have settled around his eyes he wasn't in the least bit sleepy. Wasn't something like this supposed to take the starch out of a person? Wasn't the most dramatic way to react to pain like this to simply sleep for days and days? Ben realized he wouldn't ever know; sleep was not going to let him pass the time, he would have to endure the rest of his life awake.
Clarence had no idea anything was amiss, other than that he'd been left alone a long time by himself, and when Ben came home he leapt all over him, never barking, just ecstatic, overenthusiastic tail wagging and jumping. Ben patted him on the head and quickly realized that he wasn't going to be able to just brush off the dog like that -- Clarence was going to need a walk. Which suddenly seemed like a fantastic idea to Ben, a chance to wander around alone, in the dark, as long as he liked. If I've got any luck, he thought, maybe I'll get lost.
They tramped into the woods behind Ben's house, a familiar walk between the evergreens, but Clarence sniffed at it all like he was visiting for the first time. He pulled Ben along, jerking and surging forward, and Ben tried to keep his mind clear, to just concentrate on getting lost. But the fugue was lifting, and he was left with what he'd done in the hospital to contend with.
He wasn't ready to let her go. That was all there was to it; it didn't matter to him that Logan had woken up. For Ben, just because Mike Logan had chosen this grim day to come back to reality didn't mean he'd reached some kind of personal expiry date. 'On this date, you will no longer sleep with Alexa Radin.' He knew, in her mind, that that was how it worked, however, and though he'd known this all along, he'd never really agreed to the terms. The only thing they'd agreed to do was not discuss the future, not figure out what they would do once Logan woke up. In the back of his mind Ben had of course hoped that she'd manage to fall out of love with Logan, to forget him entirely, and after only nine days that just hadn't happened.
What had hurt the most in the hospital, though, was the sinking realization that it didn't matter -- nine days, a month, a year, two years -- she would always go back to Logan. That had stung. The way she almost effortlessly tried to pass off their time together as an interlude had poked a hole right in Ben's ego and let a lot of the air out. He also sensed that it really had meant more than that to her, but she wouldn't allow herself to admit it. And now, out of some misplaced puppy affection, she was going to do an about face and run headlong back to someone who suddenly couldn't stand the sight of her. Well, that might be a bit extreme, Ben reasoned. But some change had come over the detective when he had been told of who had been involved in his kidnapping, and Ben had let him run with it, true or not. He might have broken in and corrected the situation, but then Alexa had arrived and everything had run downhill. There had been no time to correct a misconception -- even if Ben had wanted to.
He stopped walking suddenly and stared down at Clarence, just a dark shadow in the filtered moonlight, and realized his tail was between his legs and he was growling. Ben had never heard a sound from the dog before, and this sudden attack mode gave him chills. Ben couldn't see a thing, just the trees, and he began to feel exactly how dark it really was. The lack of light began to close in on him, and he pulled the leash, trying to make Clarence back up to the trail. As he tried to take a step back, though, the dog broke his stance and let his tail out, then dashed forward toward something in the distance Ben could not see. Not knowing what to do, Ben started after Clarence, calling the dog's name, not getting any response. The evening felt very quiet, and all he could feel around him were the trees, and the trail somewhere in the distance, where he'd wandered off it.
Suddenly, the bushes rustled next to him and he started violently. Clarence jumped out joyfully, and Ben felt an enormous sense of relief. Then, from behind him, he heard his name.
"Ben."
It was Alexa. He turned, but couldn't make out her face in the dark. "Alexa?" he whispered.
"I came home. Are you happy?"
"Alexa, I --"
But she wasn't listening. Instead, she whistled piercingly, once, and Clarence strode up to her, taking a formal seat next to her ankles where she stood. Ben began to feel uneasy. And then, in one shadowy movement, Alexa whispered, "Home, Clarence!" and the dog took off into the underbrush, his leash dragging after him. In amazement, Ben watched him go, and when he looked back, Alexa was gone too.
Ben raced off in the direction of the dog, but he couldn't tell which way the retriever had gone, and in a moment or two he stopped, panic flooding his system. I got my wish, he thought, I am now lost. The silence in the trees was absolute; if there was a person or a dog out there, he certainly couldn't hear it. He started to run in what he thought was the direction of the trail, and got hit by low branches and thorny underbrush, impossible to see without even a moon to guide him. Finally he stopped running, hearing his heart thud in his chest, and no other sound anywhere. It was cold out, and he had only dressed for a short walk, and the sweat under his coat was drying cool and clammy.
"Are you lost yet, Ben?"
He wheeled around at the voice, and could not tell where it came from. It was Alexa's, but it was affectless, and cruelly teasing.
"Do you feel alone yet, Ben? Are you afraid?"
Now the voice seemed to come from an entirely different location.
"Has someone abandoned you?"
Ben tried to muster an indignant response, and found the words jammed in his throat.
"Do you think you can make it back all by yourself?"
And then, in the distance he heard that whistle again, a lower-voiced "Clarence, home!" and then nothing.
The words came to him finally, and he tried to scream them, and nothing came out.

---

With a gasp, Ben woke up, disoriented and groggy, and fell back against his sheets and pillow. The dream had thoroughly unnerved him, and he rubbed his face to help bring him to reality. He had come home, he had walked the dog, he had heard the crackling of a twig, and then he had returned home. That his mind had wandered off with that reality and made up some sort of nightmare from it shocked him. Ben hadn't had a dream he could remember since he was a child. He swung his legs from the bed and stood by the window to his bedroom, peering out at the forest. For some reason he half expected to see Clarence emerging from it, Alexa trailing behind him.
After walking Clarence he had been let down anew to realize she hadn't come home in the meantime, and after some fruitless work in his study had gone to sleep, thinking to himself before he fell into unconsciousness that it would be best to just readjust to his old way of living, and think of Alexa in the same way she thought of him -- a passing event. For no particular reason, he walked into the hallway and stepped over to the room that had been his daughter's -- and then Alexa's, briefly. Opening the door he blinked at the streetlight streaming in the window, over which the blind had never been pulled, and he walked in to fix the shade. As he started to pull it down something shuffled behind him, and, still jumpy from the dream he whipped around.
She was sleeping in the bed, curled in a fetal position, hands tucked under her pillow. Ben gingerly sat on the bed next to her, and stroked her hair, wondering when she had come in and why she had come back, after the scene today. In his mind all he could hear was the dream Alexa's "are you happy?" and aloud he whispered to her, "Yes," in all sincerity. Instantly he was angry with himself for letting her manipulate him, consciously or unconsciously, but there was no denying that when she was there, he was a much happier person. And with that realization, he knew he was going to have to start pulling away from her. If he were to ever learn to live without her around, now would be the right time to start. And so while he wanted to wake her and hold her and tell her everything was all right, he didn't. Ben stroked her hair a little longer, then stood and left the room. Alexa never woke up.

---

The next day, Claire came in late from lunch and dropped the sandwich Ben had asked her to pick up for him on his desk. "It was terrible, Ben, really tragic."
He opened the bag and peered in. "Mayonnaise go off or something?"
She frowned. "I went to see Mike during lunch," she told him, her normally casually efficient manner speeded up and harassed. "Hadn't really checked in on him, so I figured I'd see how he was doing."
Stone took the sandwich out and unrolled it on his desk. "He is looking better, you know, not as bad as when they pulled him out."
She shook her head. "That's not what I was talking about. I got there with a card I'd picked up, and they've moved him from ICU, so I had to go to the 8th floor."
Apparently, Claire had walked in on a scene and, hearing raised voices coming from Logan's room, hung back and waited to see the outcome. She pretended not to hear, but it was hard not to, and what surprised her the most was that the voice raised the most was Logan's. She told Ben, "I didn't think he'd be up for it, not this soon, but then again, that's Logan for you."
"Who was he having it out with?"
"Alexa Radin."
Ben put his sandwich down, and his stomach twisted in two directions at once. "Oh, no."
Claire nodded. "He wasn't yelling, not really, just in the middle of a kind of lecture. Somebody -- Briscoe I guess -- must have told him a little something about how Alexa found him, but he obviously didn't get all the details." She watched Stone's face crease, and tried to explain it as she remembered. She'd paused at the raised voices coming from Logan's room, and leaned over a little to catch a glimpse of the faces in the room that were hearing all of this. It was just Logan and Radin, and Alexa had had her head turned downwards as if she were being scolded.
"I don't know what it is," Logan was growling, his voice growing as paranoid as his words, spiraling upwards as he continued, "about you people. You're like -- not normal. You think you can just throw money around and get whatever the hell you want. God, I compromised myself a thousand ways 'til Tuesday because I thought all that time you were innocent. You just led me along like all the others, probably figured you could get a good alibi if a cop was there."
"Mike, please, it wasn't me --" Alexa had tried to break in.
"No doubt," Mike ran right over her, "no doubt you and your sister had it all planned out in advance, big plans. I can just see you laughing at me, figuring out how you were going to get me next. But then I got sick down in that -- place --" here he paused just a second -- "and you figured well, we don't want to kill him, so you just tipped off Lennie, didn't you? You just folded your cards as soon as it got rough. Meanwhile I nearly died down there, with that water and those rats and...ah shit...."
He ran out of steam for a moment and Claire peered in again, watching him bend over over, hands on his face. Alexa had tried to put an arm around him and he'd thrown it right off, sitting up straight. He'd snarled at her -- that was the best reaction Claire could put to it, like a wolf he'd snarled -- and said something low and quiet. She didn't know what it was, but Alexa had instinctively pulled her hand back and smacked him across the face, then run from the room.
"It basically boiled down to that he didn't think she was worth the trouble," said Claire. "He started blaming her for getting internal affairs on his case, making up conspiracy theories that all this time she's been in league with her sister. I think they must have drugged him, but Ben, even when he's been angry I haven't heard Logan this irrational."
"He's scared, Claire," Ben told her, still not believing exactly, wondering where Alexa was suddenly, and hated that he couldn't just shrug her off. He'd sat up most of last night after the dream, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of aloneness like he never had before. "He doesn't have anyone to blame, and he's just taking it out on her."
"He may have been," she said, "but I have to tell you, I was the one who was a little scared. I was about to go into the room and try and smooth things over, but then she slapped him. That, I heard."
"It's my fault," said Ben. "I told him Amelia had been in on it."
Claire shook her head. "I don't think it's anybody's fault. I'm sure he'll come around, anyway, when he's up and moving again. She saved his life, and he'll realize that."
"Not until someone tells him," said Ben.
And suddenly, it dawned on him, that nobody might.

---

He was tired when he got home that night, tired as though he hadn't slept in a week, worn through to the bone. Around five that night, just before she slid on her overcoat and picked up her briefcase, Claire had stuck her head in his office and waited to be acknowledged. Ben, engrossed in a brief, didn't notice her at first and she had to cough in her fist. H