Two Roads

Part One
Claire Obscure

On the first day Claire had been assigned to work with Jack McCoy she did some quick research. Not that much had been needed: she had seen him wandering around the floors and knew of him peripherally. Until she had been asked down there, however, what she had heard had never coalesced into a person. He had just been one of the important faces she knew to refer to deferentially, and move along in her business. So she asked around, and what she discovered merged with what she already knew. He had his own alliance of assistants on the eighth floor, and took a lot of the shit cases with little prestige and much grunt work. He had languished as an ADA for four more years after Ben Stone had been promoted to EADA, until one of those shit trials had blown up in the face of the city, turning into a full-scale race war, and Jack McCoy had proved he could not only remain steadfast in the face of insults and harassment, but win what seemed an unwinnable case. He had slogged through the crap and come out smelling clean and...if not like a rose, something much better. So Adam Schiff, who had never been much of a champion in McCoy's corner, did the only thing he could do: he appointed him co-EADA with Ben Stone. They still kept their separate offices and separate floors, but now the felony cases, the high-profile trials were to be split down the middle. Adam knew what he was doing, of course. Ben Stone had not exactly been slacking off, but a little competition never hurt an office. Schiff had to have known that by putting them up against each other for cases he would end up with more dedication and individualized focus than if he had insisted on keeping McCoy in the trenches any longer. In any case, as Jack later told Claire, Adam was really left with no choice: after the show trial the corporate offers had become almost too good to pass up. Doubling, trebling his salary at the DA's office. Adam had chosen not to lose one of his best litigators, and handed over the promotion like the keys to the kingdom.
All of this Claire found out independently of whatever Ben had allowed her or what she had previously heard about Jack McCoy. Some of it was rumor, some was written fact, but she sensed the overall story rang true. She admired Jack his underdog status yet never conceded that there was anything wrong with Ben. She tried to find out how Ben had reacted to the promotion without asking him directly, but no one had anything to say on the subject. If he had taken it poorly, no one heard a negative word on Stone's floor. The promotion on eight simply passed like a dream on nine; suddenly the offices had a new EADA, and that was all there was to it.
Until he requested her, Claire had rarely had any reason to traffic on the eighth floor. Her work and her office was near Ben's, and when it became clear that she above all the other assistants could work coherently and sanely with Stone, she found her workload exclusively devoted to his cases. Then the word had come from downstairs: an ADA was taken ill and Jack needed a fast replacement, someone who could jump into the middle of a case and feel at home right away. Claire's workload was low just then, and her name came up. He called for her. So she had done some research and gone to meet him the next day, around eleven.
She knew he was in his office; his secretary insisted it was true, but when Claire first walked in, Jack McCoy was nowhere to be seen. She stood, waiting, searching the modest office with her eyes and holding her soft briefcase in front of her with both hands, wondering exactly how this was going to work out. She knew about him and his reputation now both professionally and personally. Three of his assistants had gotten involved with him before; she wasn't about to make that error. Claire had dressed as professionally as she had on her first few days at the job: hair pulled back in a bun, severe dark suit, low on the makeup factor. Not that she had ever gotten sloppy or overdone around Ben, but first appearances were crucial, and for her first time as not just a face in the hallways she wanted Jack McCoy to see her as an assistant, not potential date material. She wanted to state what she meant both visually and verbally.
And then -- movement. Behind the desk, sloppy with papers and stacks of folders like artwork, a mess she knew would make Ben Stone cringe she caught the blue flash of a shirt. Jack was there, just hunched over perhaps another stack on the floor, and abruptly he turned. "Claire Kincaid," he stated.
She matched him. "Jack McCoy."
"Your reputation precedes you," he said. "Glad to have you working with us plain folks."
"I was told you needed some assistance, so here I am," she said. "And as for reputations...yours precedes you, too. Professionally as well as personally."
He focused in on her. "Three assistants in twenty four years in this office, Claire. Including one ex-wife. I hardly think I should be penalized for finding my co-workers more exciting than someone I'd meet at the gym."
She sensed this was something he'd had to explain before, and he sounded every bit as unrepentant as he was practiced at it. She backed away; all Claire needed to do was state what to her was obvious: no chance this time. "I just wanted to let you know I was aware."
"And so you have," he said, shuffling through his papers again, lost, then lay his hands on what he had been searching for. "Aha. Here." He seemed to hear her tone in a delayed fashion. "I certainly don't expect there will be a problem."
She craned her neck and nodded.
"Good," he said, and smiled, his face lighting up like a boy's, and he held aloft the motion. "Now, can we get to work?"
The change from Ben Stone's office was startling; everything about Jack McCoy seemed to grin at her, from his sudden movements to the way he leaned against everything -- chairs, tables, sofas, the bookshelf -- as if he could conform his body into whatever shape he needed it to be. As opposed to Ben Stone's ramrod straight, brisk efficiency -- Jack came across to her as a model of confident, yet casual, authority. As he spoke to her she took in his appearance; the suit seemed to hang on him loosely, his tie was pulled away from his neck as if it constrained him. He seemed to her then a lawyer in the vein of Atticus Finch, loose and malleable, but focused and clear as to his goals. The suit, the tie, the office, the sofa -- they were all just extras which, if he had to have them, he would tolerate, but he would never feel fully comfortable within. And he changed as she looked at him; every angle of his face seemed to belong to a different person. Straight on Jack had a constantly surprised look, his eyes too narrow, his nose too hooked, and his face looked long and less intelligent than he obviously was. But from the side or at nearly any other angle she had been struck by the difference. He became regal, authoritative, absolute. His thick eyebrows shaded what turned out to be a most remarkable shade of brown eyes -- a color somewhere between cocoa and mahogany -- and when he smiled, which was often, his face squared out and they would sparkle, the lines around his eyes crinkling. That twinkle of secrecy, of mischief, of daring, was what endeared him to her from the start. He had seemed younger than his aging face or grizzly hair indicated, and decades younger than Ben. That first day she had met him Jack had seemed scattered, tossing piles of paper at her until she cried uncle. After that she had explained how she had always worked before, how she hoped to work with him. To her surprise, he listened.
It would not be fair to say that Ben was his exact opposite. That was to put the two of them in good and bad categories, and for many years Claire resisted that impulse. It was too easy, too pat. But the change between working with Ben exclusively and working with both Ben and Jack was refreshing -- whenever Ben felt too staid or immovable she would take a meeting with Jack and realize the weight of the world did not have to be hers. When Jack, on the other hand, decided on using some sort of questionable tactic, then rationalized it out with her, Claire rushed back up to Ben's office for some grounding. She liked the different poles they represented; the yin and the yang, and for a long time the office felt very balanced, just as the justice scales indicated it ought to be.
And then Amelia Page had been arrested.

Jack wanted the case. He demanded it from Adam.
"Stone's got eight pending cases, two trials and half of those are felony," he told Schiff. Claire had come with Jack to Adam's office for a meeting to discuss strategies on an upcoming motion hearing, but slowly it had devolved into who would get this most high-profile of cases: the Society Serial Killer. Claire kept silent for the entire discussion, which consisted of Jack getting increasingly infuriated and Schiff growing increasingly more curt, until Jack burst out, "You don't trust me with this, do you, Adam." He bent both hands on the DA's desk and leaned forward. "Even after Macauley, even after Starrs you don't trust me with the big fish, do you? You gave me this promotion and then just throw me the token bone when it suits you, when Stone's too busy. That is no longer acceptable. I want the Page case."
"Sit down," Adam said, rising from his chair. He was easily a foot and a half shorter than Jack, and nearly twenty years his senior, but he was Adam, he was the District Attorney, and Claire knew Jack had crossed the line by the dark, barely-suppressed anger in his voice.
Jack lowered himself into his chair and folded his arms defiantly.
Adam shot Claire a look. "You can go," he told her.
Jack reached over and lay his hand on Claire's forearm. "No," he said, never averting his eyes from Schiff. "She can stay. Whatever you want to tell me, she can hear it. You see, I know Ms. Kincaid trusts me. Even if you don't."
"You're damn right I don't," said Schiff, punching his words. "You've been with this office a long time, McCoy, and that means you have to move up sometime. But I am not about to give you a case this volatile, with players like these. I need someone who can stand back objectively on this one, not someone who has let his libido run a case."
Infuriated, Jack leaned forward. "I have never, ever, become personally involved with anyone I prosecuted. Before or after the fact. And you know damn well I never would. I demand that you apologize."
"You have no right to demand anything," Adam said. "Your conduct in the courtroom has been without reproach. Your conduct in these offices has been another matter. One day, I guarantee you, it will come back to bite us. You can't earn that back from me, Jack McCoy, you have lost that ability. And with a case like this, I refuse to risk anything. I am going with Ben Stone. Ms. Kincaid will second chair. And that is final."
Jack flashed a hurt glance at Claire, as if she were somehow in the conspiracy as well, then pushed himself away from his chair and stormed from the room without a word. Adam rubbed his head and opened his top desk drawer, pulling out a large bottle of aspirin.
Claire stared him for a long moment, trying to gather just how this had happened. "Adam, don't you think you were a little hard on him?"
"Ms. Kincaid," Schiff had told her, measuring his words, gulping down the pills, "you have only been with us a short time. If that had been the first conversation like that I'd had with Jack McCoy, I promise you, I could be concerned. But we do this at least once a year. He knows how I feel. And he tests me. He keeps thinking I'm going to get soft in my old age."
"He didn't deserve that, Sir." She kept her tone respectful, but firm.
Adam opened his eyes and stared at her for a long time. "You two --" he started.
She shook her head, piqued by his assumption, but squashed it. "There is no 'us two.' That's not what I'm here for."
"See that it stays that way."
"Mr. Schiff," she said, trying out the severe tone Ben had taught her, "my personal habits are not in question here. I don't appreciate how you just treated Jack McCoy."
"Appreciate." Adam laughed shortly, and pointed at her with his glasses. "Stick around a little longer, missy. You'll come to appreciate a lot more than my tone if you work with him long enough."

Jack wasn't in his office when she got back down; his secretary Mandy said he took an early lunch and raced out of there with his coat and helmet. Claire knew he drove a motorcycle by this point, though she had never seen it before, and chalked it up as yet another of his eccentricities. She knew lots of people who would consider his inability to give up the trappings of youth as some kind of inherent flaw, but she found them charming, signs of life beyond the office that she had never felt working with Ben.
Without a thought she hurried down to the garage under Hogan and after a brief survey of the concrete chamber caught a flurry of movement, then a roar of motor. She flagged him down as he circled the perimeter of the garage, heading to the exit in a great hurry. Jack pulled over beside her and put the cycle into neutral, slipping his helmet off. His hair stood out in various directions and Claire was seized with the impulse to brush it down, which was strange for her. The notion of touching Jack McCoy had not occurred to her until just then.
"What is it, Claire," he asked in a flat tone.
"I just --" she hesitated. What had she come down for? "I just wanted to let you know I thought what Adam said was outrageous."
"Believe me, it's not the first time," he told her, staring at his helmet for a moment, then jerking his gaze up to her. "I'll live."
"I don't know why you put up with it," she said.
He sighed. "Because I like my job," and his voice was that of a parent talking to a child. "Because I like my job and someday want his. He's already decided I'm irredeemable, and for some stupid reason I keep trying to prove him wrong. I used to think when I slipped into EADA that meant something -- today he just proved once again it was only for appearances. He knows I don't want to get into the corporate world."
"But why not? You could make so much more money."
He held out his arms wide. "Look at me, Claire. Take a good look. I can't start over. I'd be ridiculous. They'd hire me, but I'd just be on the masthead. I'd have even less power than I do here. In five years they'd want to retire me. And I doubt I'd ever try another case. Adam knows it, too. He doesn't want to keep me, particularly, but he doesn't want to lose me. And he knows I don't want to leave. So I'm basically fucked."
"It's not that bleak," she said, but her voice lacked conviction.
His eyes, which had been downturned until then, narrowed briefly, then lightened and the twinkle came into them. "Don't speak of what you don't know, Ms. Kincaid. But I appreciate the support."
The conversation felt over. "All right," she said. "I just wanted to tell you I didn't like it."
"And you told Adam as much."
She nodded.
He smiled a thin-lipped, sad smile at her. "You keep doing that. Stand up to him. Make him take you seriously. Because if you slip once, Claire, forget it."
"Will you..." she began.
He cocked his head at her and for a moment there was something that came over him, a questioning brightness, an indulgent eagerness, that stopped her words. "Will I what, Claire?"
"No," she said. "That's just not a good idea. Forget it."
"Now come on," he said. "We're both sucking up carbon monoxide here. Might as well spit it out before we asphyxiate."
"Well," she said, "if I need any help on Page...would you mind lending me advice?"
He laid a hand over his heart. "You mean there is wisdom out there you can't get from the Great Stone Archive?"
She laughed. "Now, now...."
"Well," he allowed. "I suppose there might be a few points I could give you reference on."
She wasn't why she asked him to assist; she didn't really need to involve him in a case Adam refused to allow him to litigate, but she sensed, somehow, that this was what Jack wanted. He wanted to feel relevant, and needed. Claire could sympathize with that. And now, hearing him give in so easily, to not even feign that her suggestion was insulting, she knew she had done the right thing. "Thanks, Jack," she said. "Have a good lunch."
Impulsively he reached forward and took her hand in his, giving it a quick squeeze. "You're a good person, Claire," he said, and let her hand go, slipping his helmet back on. "I'll be back."
"You better," she teased.
He winked once, and sped off, up the Exit ramp and into the South Manhattan streets.

What was of course most amusing about Adam's fears was that in the end, the one who had been corrupted by the Pages was not Jack at all. Removed and remote from the case, Jack had no influence at all over the one thing the entire city discussed, and it peeved him. He had enforced blinders on, down by the eighth floor; his only outlet to the case was through Claire. And she was, for at least the first few days of investigation, only talking legalities when she came to visit. No, the infiltration had not been through Jack at all; it had been with Ben. And looking back on it, Claire knew that to call what happened between Alexa and Ben 'corruption' or 'infiltration' was really not fair. That implied some sort of devious intent, and Claire knew, eventually, that Alexa never had designs on injuring the case. Later on, Claire realized that Alexa was not really a Page, and Ben had loved her as deeply as Claire had ever seen anyone attach himself to a person. It was so complete and total that it had taken Claire many days to even get a sense for it; Ben fought very hard around the offices to keep his emotions squelched, even when the case he had most of his attention on belonged to Alexa's twin.
For the first two weeks of the case investigation Claire had seen Alexa in and out of the office, sometimes having a long lunch with Ben, but always in an official-seeming capacity. Claire would return from some deposition or interview and find the two of them in deep conversation, sitting around Ben's interrogation table, and often they would not even notice she had come into the room until Claire cleared her throat. But that alone had not made her suspicious, not really. They did not seem to be discussing the Page case, that was true, but neither were they doing anything untoward. Alexa was nearly Claire's age; it never occurred to Claire that anything odd might be going on. And from what she learned later, that was true, up to a point.
By the time Mike Logan went missing, and then was found again -- that was the span of time in which for Claire the balance tipped. Until then she had been working fine with both Ben and Jack; she knew the work, she knew how everything operated, she knew where each had his limits. But shortly after Logan was found Ben began distancing himself from not only her, but the Page case in general. He would be unfocused in a meeting, wanting to go over a point they had cleared an hour before. He would ask her questions on topics she knew she had explained before. And if she attempted to bring it up, or mention why he suddenly seemed so dense, he would withdraw completely, or end the meeting, or, more frequently, snap that it was not her business. Ben had never bit at her before, he was not the sort of person who was overtly curt. His methods of dismissal were more subtle. As he became more erratic, she began to feel the case slipping from their hands. It was more than frustrating; it was becoming downright impossible.
And then...there had been the key incident. Keys. Key. Claire toyed with the words in her mind. It was funny, sometimes, how the random events of life took on symbolic meaning after the fact. Even after the key incident she had not fully caught on. It had taken Jack to make her realize what was happening then.
That whole day had been one long extended tense moment. She and Ben had been meeting with a lawyer to discuss a plea, and after some general bluster about the innocence of his client, the suspicious nature of the so-called witnesses, all at once Ben spoke up, interrupting. "Man two," he said.
Claire shot a look at him. This was the Maxwell case, a stalker who had run over his stalkee. Accidentally, or so he claimed. But the intent to follow, to harass, was obvious. She had no idea what Ben was saying.
Neither did the lawyer, but he wasn't stupid. "With a recommendation," he insisted, pushing as hard as he could go.
"Fine," said Ben.
"Ben," Claire frowned, but was leery of standing up to him in front of the defense attorney.
It didn't matter. Ben had retreated back into himself again and was staring over the shoulder of the other attorney, who stood and gathered his briefcase together. "I'll send you the papers this afternoon."
"Good," said Ben.
Claire had waited until over lunch to register her objection. "What was that?" she asked him, poking through her lo mein while he scanned a transcript. "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. "I'm keeping my options open. I'll be across the hall." And she pulled his door closed behind her.
That had been the first sign that something was definitely not right with him. She couldn't put her finger on it, exactly, only that his focus was keeping him elsewhere. Since stability was what she expected in Stone's office, Claire was more than unnerved, she was disappointed. She genuinely liked Ben from the little he had allowed her to know, and this was a personal affront. He would not share with her what he was going through, and she took that personally, above and beyond the cases they were working on.
And then, later that afternoon, while Ben had been in with Adam, Alexa Radin showed up next to Claire's desk. Every time Alexa appeared anywhere, whether strangely showing up with bagels that day they were looking over the blueprints in Ben's office, or sitting in with him for lunch, or coming in to be deposed -- Claire was, for a very long time, jarred. First she would think that Amelia had suddenly made bail. Then she would fear for her life; that a knife would suddenly be plunged into her own back. And then the instinctual reaction would fade, replaced by wariness. Claire didn't know much about Alexa, but she sensed that here was a person who wielded an enormous amount of power and control, and had no idea that she did so, a child with a fairy wand. Claire was perhaps only a few months away from Alexa in age, but felt years and years older than her. And she had begun to feel a sneaking suspicion that Alexa was not entirely free from blame in Ben's recent fog.
"Hi," Alexa said. "Did I startle you?"
Claire tossed her pen away. "Nope. Just engrossed. What can I do for you?"
"Ben said he had something for me," she said softly, and Claire had noticed the hollowed-out look in her eyes for the first time. The woman looked drained and on the verge of tears, attempting to hold it all together in front of other people, but not quite managing it. "I know you're not his gopher...but could you maybe see where he is?"
"He's in with Adam," Claire told her, and despite her distrust of Alexa, felt unable to be curt or rude with her. She looked as if she had been stepped on, and briefly Claire remembered: she had been spending most of her time at the hospital, keeping vigil over Detective Logan. I really have to get over there myself, thought Claire. "I'll go check."
After interrupting his discussion with Adam and getting instructions, Claire found a small, paper-bag wrapped parcel on his desk, and picked it up, feeling around the edges. It jangled slightly, and felt bumpy under her fingertips. She didn't have to be a DA's office investigator to know it was a set of keys. And though it was possible Ben was innocuously giving Alexa a set of keys that were not personally his, for whatever reason, the distance and the lunchtime conversations began to play out in her head, at least part of the way. But why would Ben give her keys?
She handed the package to Alexa without comment, then asked after Detective Logan.
Alexa sighed. "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 thanked her and left quickly. Claire watched her scurry out, her mind completely distracted from work, and she thought momentarily of asking Ben straight out: what are you giving Alexa Radin that requires keys? But she sensed all she would get for her troubles was another dismissal, another rejection. After fighting with getting her concentration back for another few minutes, Claire put her calls on forward and headed downstairs.

Jack was finishing a late lunch, leaning back against his sofa with a motion in one hand and a fork in the other when she knocked on his door, heading in without waiting for a response. "Claire Kincaid," he said. "You're a little late for Roarke, if that's what you're here for."
"Roarke?"
"You remember...or, then again, maybe you don't...two o'clock? Here? Discussing a plea?"
"Oh, shit," she said.
Jack's eyes widened and he swung his legs off of the end of the sofa, brushing it off. "Cursing like a sailor. Something must be up. Take a seat."
Claire shook her head. "Sorry, Jack. I think Ben's haziness is rubbing off on me. I completely forgot about our meeting."
He shrugged. "Not a problem. I'd have buzzed. It turns out Roarke postponed until tomorrow. I was just joking with you."
She smiled a quick, phantom smile. There was no meannness in his words, but she was still angry with herself for having let the meeting slip. "That was stupid of me," she said, and shook her head again, trying to clear it. "So, want to brief me on what Roarke'll be like tomorrow?"
"Nope," he told her. "I'm on lunch. You tell me what brings you down here."
She hesitated. For one thing, Claire wasn't entirely sure what she had come down for. But everything around the Page case struck her as odd, and everyone Alexa Radin seemed to come in contact with came away acting as if they had been hit with a boulder. Until now she had only mentioned small legal conundrums regarding the Page case with Jack, but now even more elements seemed connected to the case in ways she could not explain, and right now she needed some coaching. Ben was in charge of Page. Ben was friends with Alexa. Ben was acting oddly. And she, as second chair, could not puzzle it out. What she needed was an outside opinion, and Jack...well, here he was. Though she did not like the idea of telling tales or starting rumors -- what happened in Ben's office was between the two of them, and she respected that -- Claire was unsure of what to do next.
Her pause drew out and when she realized how the silence had filled Jack's office she glanced at him. He was watching her intently, waiting for a sign of life, unmoving. He took her exactly as gravely as she wanted to be taken, and she trusted him for his stillness. "I need...some advice," she began.
"So you say," said Jack gently.
She turned away. "But I don't know if I should be speaking out of turn."
"Then perhaps you shouldn't."
"It isn't legal advice."
Jack reached over and with his forefinger and thumb touched just under her jawbone, turning her face back to him. The sudden contact surprised Claire, or rather, the familiar yet businesslike intent of it took her by surprise. She had been coming down to talk to Jack about the case on and off since it began, enjoying to some extent the fact that he was so eager to hear what was going on from her -- she almost felt as if she were coaching an understudy and needed to help him learn his lines -- but now, abruptly, the power felt shifted. He still wanted to know what she would tell him, but he was no longer asking, he was quietly demanding. And she wanted to hash this out. "Claire," he said, serious. "What's got you rattled."
So she told him what she knew, bare facts only. She did not say anything she thought, or imagined, because until now she realized she had consciously tried not to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Telling him about the underbelly of the past few weeks, and telling him all at once, she began to see the bigger picture, then immediately regretted having brought it up at all. "But I think I must be overestimating all of this," she said as she finished, not liking the way he had morphed from serious to concerned to amused to delighted as she spoke. She was giving him a present, and didn't even know what was in the box.
"Right," said Jack when she finished. "I think we should just go upstairs right now and bring these suspicions to Ben personally. I don't think we should wait."
Claire sprung to her feet. "Don't you dare."
His face broke open into a grin. "Calm down, calm down. With that kind of reaction I don't need to ask what you think it all means."
"I don't think it means --" she cut herself off. "Or rather, I suppose I do."
"This tickles me," said Jack. "This really does. No wonder the man's befuddled."
"Stop it, Jack. He's not like that."
He shrugged his shoulders.
Claire realized she had made a mistake. "I shouldn't have said anything," she told him. "Certainly not to you."
The humor drained from him. "And why certainly not to me."
"Never mind," she told him, and stood. "Just forget I said anything."
"No, Claire," he ordered. "Why certainly not to me."
"Oh, come off it, Jack," she flared, defensive, angry with herself, lashing out at him. "Everybody knows you're gunning to see Ben take a fall. I don't plan on being the Judas to help you do that."
Jack leaned in close to her and narrowed his eyes. There was not one bit of sparkle in them. "You listen to me," he told her in a low voice. "What goes on upstairs in that little fantasy world I could care less about. What 'everybody' thinks I could care even less about. But when you come down here into my office and try to sit here and lecture me as to my motivations, that's when I do give a shit. I told you once already: do not speak of what you do not know. And never presume to have any idea of what I am planning." He backed away, and Claire felt her breath pulled out with him. "Now," he continued in a less harsh, but no less firm tone. "You came down for advice, didn't you?"
"I don't remember," she said, her heart pounding. "I don't have any recollection about why I did come down here."
"Would you like me to tell you?"
His arrogance snapped her back to attention. "I'm sure you will, Jack," she said, but without much force.
"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" he said, getting up and leaning on the T-table staring down at her. She was relieved to notice his fierce anger had faded. "Your problem, Claire Kincaid, is you think the best of everyone. You've got a crush on your boss and you're absolutely devastated to find he's as human as you are. You can't imagine he'd do something as stupid as getting involved with a relative of an accused killer. And even worse, you're shocked and dismayed that he doesn't trust you enough to fill you in. Finally --"
Claire's eyes narrowed. "I do not have a thing for Ben Stone."
"I didn't say that. Not every infatuation is sexual, my dear." He cleared his throat. "Finally, and most importantly, what's really eating at you is that you can see exactly how this is affecting the Page murder case, and that the effect is not positive. Am I right so far?"
She folded her arms but could think of no good argument to raise.
"Here's my advice: you do nothing."
"That's positively genius, McCoy," she told him. "How do you do it."
Pretending not to hear the bite in her voice, he tossed his hands in the air and he smiled at her. "Because I know that in the end Ben Stone is his own worst enemy. If he really is fucking up this case, he knows it, or will know it very soon. He won't need you or me to make him catch on. Might as well leave it alone and just remain aloof, Claire. You'll learn more that way."
"I don't understand."
"If people think you're clueless, Claire, they'll be more likely to tell you what you want to know. That applies everywhere, not just here, in this situation." He folded his arms and stared hard at her a moment. "Or rather...there is something you might consider. If you catch him right, you might even come out of this with more than just education."
"And what is that."
"Ask him to let you lead."
Claire shook her head. "Absolutely not."
He cocked his head, questioning her. "Why is that?"
"It's insulting. And we're weeks away from trial. This is probably just a passing phase. I'm not worried."
"If you weren't worried, Claire, why did you come down here."
Her mouth opened and closed
"I thought as much," said Jack.

She thought about what he had said. Over the next few days, as Ben remained erratic and sensitive she thought about it a lot. Taking over the lead was audacious and something she would never have come up with on her own, but now that someone else had suggested it, the possibility made sense. It would take the pressure from Ben to an extent, and if he really was conducting something illicit with Alexa Radin then it would also relieve a healthy amount of culpability, should anything go wrong. But she could not bring it up, not then. As she had told Jack, there was still a lot of time before they went to trial, and despite his occasional lapses in focus Ben was still very intent on the Page case. He knew it better than Claire did, and he knew exactly how he was going to present it to a jury. For her to attempt to take over would be unfair, and might even cause him to mistrust her.
But the days narrowed as the case approached, and she found herself considering Jack's words more carefully, thinking more about Jack McCoy than was sound. With all of the other things going on in her life, Jack stood out as the one person she knew she could rely on for constancy and sane advice. Of course she knew he wanted to hear anything about the Page case he could for his own reasons; he was living through her because he had wanted the case so badly, but she did not feel that was the only reason he enjoyed her visits. And the exchange was hardly one way: when Ben was in one of his moods and she felt she could not approach him Jack did assist and sometimes point her in the right direction. Once, a file she could not locate despite nearly an hour of frantic rustling around appeared once he made a few phone calls. He became her second chair. Naturally, Ben knew none of this; he would not have been very happy if he had known just how much of a hand Jack McCoy was lending.
So Claire began to shut herself off from Ben, just a little bit at a time, putting the brakes on whatever friendliness she had begun to develop with him before Amelia, before Alexa. Perhaps she did have a crush on him, as Jack said, and perhaps that he was being so distant from her made it necessary for her to respond in kind. She lingered less on nine when there was not immediate work to be done, and it seemed that Ben hardly missed her. All she knew was that the more time she spent with Jack, whether on the Page case or on cases of his own, the more time she wanted to spend with him. The notion snuck up on her so softly that she did not even sense it until it had its hands on her shoulders. She found it amusing and troubling at the same time -- after the insinuation she had made on her first day, to be drawn towards him in the end bothered her. Had things gone on in the balanced way they had for those first few months...who could say? But shift the symmetry in one place, and everything else has to right itself.
Claire contemplated Jack's words. And then she contemplated Jack.

She was talking, but nobody was listening. Finally, Claire stopped, to test the waters.
A full minute went by before Ben glanced up from the report, staring at her over his glasses. "Go ahead, Claire, I'm listening."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry." She took another breath and began again, backing up slightly. "The problem with using Clay Kingsberg as a witness is that he's an old family friend of the Pages, and the way things are looking --"
"You repeat yourself," Ben told her, his voice taking on a metallic tinge. "I heard that five minutes ago. I don't appreciate being treated as if I'm senile."
Claire bit the inside of her cheek. She had incident after incident welling up in her, every time where she had swallowed her words and left the room rather than cause an argument, because she knew she would lose against Ben. He was not only the boss, but he was usually right. But this time, for some reason, the pot was boiling over. He had heard, this one time he had been listening, but how many times had he not been? "Then you shouldn't act it," she heard pulled through her teeth before she could swallow the words. Once it was out, the surprised, hurt look on his face made her retract it immediately. "I'm sorry. I don't know where that came from."
To her next surprise, he did not declare indignantly that she was mistaken, how dare she, or any number of things he could have -- and normally might have -- said. Instead, Ben waved his hand and took off his glasses. "Don't worry about it. Go on."
Claire couldn't get out of there fast enough; if the air of the defeated was painful when seen on Alexa, it was impossible watching it on Ben. She always thought of him as so steadfast, and slowly he was crumbling before her. She wished she knew of some way to help, then realized just how impotent she was. This was personal, this was his own problem. And she was just a co-worker.
She had to get away from his office, and before she thought twice she had migrated down to Jack's place again. He had just gotten in from a hearing down at the courthouse, and was loosening his tie, paging through some documents that had been piled on his desk by his secretary while he was away.
"Afternoon, Claire," he told her, vaguely distracted. "What's on your mind?"
"This case," she said. "The Page case. I want to think of something other than this fucking Page case."
He glanced up at her, surprised at her tone. "Vulgarity again." He tsked. "Is it the fucking Page case or is it the way Ben Stone's handling the fucking Page case, Claire?"
"Both."
"Ah. Well," he said, shrugging. "So don't think about it. Tell me something else."
"Like what?"
"Like what's really on your mind." He sat at his desk and leaned back in the chair. "It is possible that you do have something else on your mind, isn't it?"
She felt a broom swish through her head, and Claire knew exactly what she wanted to ask. "Do you want to grab a drink after work with me, Jack?"
That surprised look on his face expanded, as if he had expected this every day since they met and had only just forgotten about it this morning. He leaned forward in his chair, becoming much more serious, and began to shake his head. "I don't think that's a very good idea."
Claire was speechless. She hadn't put much thought into the drink; it wasn't as though she had invited him back to her place, but now that he had taken it so gravely and was in the process of turning her down, she felt rejected personally. Embarrassment began to flood behind her eyes. "Why not?" came out stupidly.
He didn't answer immediately. "It just doesn't seem wise."
"It's a drink, for crying out loud." But she heard herself just sinking deeper.
"Thanks, Claire, I realize that. But I don't think I can." He glanced up at her from his papers. "In any case, I thought you told me this sort of thing wasn't going to be a problem." Jack turned back to his desk, scanning the papers on his desk, lost.
Claire hadn't recalled saying that, at least, not in the way he was implying. "That's not what I meant."
"The fact is," Jack continued, "I've been through this three times already. I don't see myself making that mistake again. I do think it would be a mistake." He blinked at her.
She nodded once, a long shake of the head. Get out, the voice inside her urged. "All right. Fine. No harm done."
"Of course not," he said, and his phone buzzed. "Sorry. I have to take this. Anything else?"
Claire shook her head just as slowly. "I'll head on back upstairs, then."
She held her poise until she got to the elevators, then slumped against the back wall as the doors closed on her. She had just made a complete ass of herself. He had turned her down. She had him all wrong; all this time he had not been coming on to her, it had just been his way. And here she was, the one who never wanted to get involved with someone in her office, making the first move. Of course, it was just a drink. Nothing more. That most neutral of insinuations -- anything could be meant by a drink. But he had seen right through her -- and said no.
Claire darted back in her cubicle and did not emerge for the rest of the afternoon. At some point she met with Ben, but that was abruptly called off when he got a phone call and left shortly thereafter, his face drained of all color. Claire barely noticed; she was so hunched over her work, making phone call after phone call, anything to push away the embarrassment of what she had done in Jack's office. He had been nothing but gentlemanly about it, but the fact was she had gone against everything she had said on that first day, proved herself a sham, and now she would have to live with it. Claire hadn't even thought past that one drink, not in any concrete way; the request had been almost as sudden to her as it must have been for Jack. Her motivations were muddy in her own mind. But there it was, in the open. She hoped she could face him again.
It got dark early these days, so she didn't pay much attention to the sky she could see through Ben's office windows, and when she next looked up from her work it was past six. Ben had come back briefly about an hour ago, still lackluster and vague; they had exchanged terse words and he had left again. The only thing she had learned from that exchange was that Mike Logan had woken up, but that news sank into obscurity as she buried herself back in her work. When her neck felt stiff she looked up again. Almost seven. Time to think about heading home. Closing her eyes, she kneaded the spine under her hair and leaned back in her seat.
"Want a hand with that?"
Her eyes jerked open and there was Jack, leaning on the doorjamb of her office, his jacket folded over an arm, changed into his after-work garb. He very rarely left the office in the same clothes he came in with; a conscious transition seemed necessary for him to shed the mantle of attorney. Claire lowered her hand from the back of her neck and said, "I thought you had gone home by now."
He shrugged, and a smile played at his mouth. "The midnight oil burns on every floor, Ms. Kincaid."
"So you decided to take a trip upstairs before heading home?"
"Yes," he said, "I reconsidered the offer of a drink."
Her head felt filled of helium all at once. "And what was the new consideration?"
"Come on," he said, jerking his head towards the elevators. "I know a good bar around here."

Now that she was letting him be so, Jack was effortlessly charming, as if by Claire making the first breach in the wall he was now permitted to be more of himself. She had not seen him outside of the office before now, other than over a quick lunch to discuss a case, and certainly not in his cycling home clothes. "Isn't it a little cold out to be riding home in a headwind?" she had asked him once.
"You," he pointed, "have obviously never been on a motorcycle. We laugh at the cold." And for effect he had cackled like an evil scientist.
Claire doubted it for herself, but he had made it seem appealing.
There was no motorcycle that night, though; Jack said he knew tens of bars in the general courthouse area, all ones Claire had never thought she'd be entering. Jack seemed drawn to the seedier and darker of all the bar choices, and they paused before one or two before he rejected them and made a final decision. "This way," he ordered, and they walked behind the main courthouse, past the basketball nets where some diehards were working up a game, and entered Chinatown. "I want to show you," said Jack, guiding her with his hand at her back, "a secret." They passed out of the lawyer-for-hire line of offices and dove into the ocean of foreign-labeled shops, the scent of raw fish and hot oil assailing their senses. They passed by two men in stained aprons sharing the load of a large slab of some kind of meat, like hunters coming in from the jungle. Voices streamed from every window, open even in the chill evening air, and a woman leaned out of one of the lit squares, dumping water into the alley below. More voices, chattering in dialects Claire would never learn. She had been into Chinatown, walked Canal Street and bought some black slippers for five dollars, but Jack led her through parts of the city she had never seen, winding dark alleyways like maze tunnels, where there were no white faces but their own. Children scurried by with their laughter trailing behind, and streetlights flashed on as she and Jack passed. At some point she looked down and realized he was pulling her now by her hand, and wondered when that had happened. She had not felt his fingers encircle hers but she was reassured by it nonetheless and squeezed faintly. Jack paused in his step and glanced over his shoulder, his eyes alight and his smile closed, but broad. He might have been taking her to his treehouse.
After what felt like so much winding Claire knew she could never figure the way home by herself, Jack stopped. "Here," he said, and Claire glanced up to read the name of the bar. The front of the doorway was smooth and gray, with no indication of what lay behind. The door itself was paneled and wooden, fortress-like, and Claire felt uneasy. This began to feel like the start of some Twilight Zone episode. "I don't know about this," she said.
"If you hate it, we'll leave," said Jack. "I promise. You'll be surprised."
"I already am," she told him.
Jack flung the door open with a flourish and ushered her inside. The steps sloped steeply, immediately down, and as they descended foreign sounds of music and accents drifted up like steam from a cauldron. Where the steps ended sat a tired looking teenager, reading a book with language that moved from top to bottom, and at the sight of Jack he came to a kind of life, nodding in acknowledgment, and waved at another door.
"Security," said Jack.
"I feel very safe now," she nodded.
Jack held the new door open for her and the sounds increased in volume. The room they entered was twisted into an indefinable shape, with a wide center and long hallways that seemed to poke out on all sides. Tables were strewn randomly, most filled with chattering patrons, hunched over drinks and votive candles. A middle-aged woman was karaokeing on the stage to a redundantly terrible version of "Sugar Walls."
Jack caught her staring at the entertainment. "Don't worry," he said. "They only do that until eight." He urged her to a booth just on the other side of one of the jutting walls, where they were cut off from most of the other patrons but could still see clearly to the stage. Jack let her sit and remained standing. "What do you want?"
"I feel I should buy," she said, opening her purse. "I asked you."
"You get the next round," he told her. "Name it."
When he left her alone she felt the warmth and the words in the room surround her like a gauzy blanket, and she felt very secure. She knew she shouldn't; she should feel as if someone had just dumped her on another planet and zoomed off in the only spaceship, but nothing about this place felt challenging in a fearful way. Claire liked it, she liked the anonymity she felt, despite being one of the few non-Asians in the room. It was seedy without being frightening, dark without being shadowy. And the way Jack moved within it, from the acknowledgment of the "security" to the way he could wave the bartender down just by approaching that section of the room was encouraging. She watched him order the drinks and then lean over, speaking closely with the barman a moment longer. They both nodded, and then Jack walked away, apparently without even paying.
Claire decided to let him be secretive if he wanted. "Thanks," she said as he slid in on the other side of the booth. "Cheers."
He said something in Chinese that she couldn't quite get and clinked his glass with hers.
"What's that mean?"
"Bottoms up. In Cantonese." He took a healthy swallow. "I don't know much else."
"Seems to be all you need here." She glanced over at the stage. "You karaoke in your spare time?"
He waved it off. "That? Weird little thing in this place. Guess they got enough Japanese visitors to make it worthwhile. Only been here a year or so. Fortunately, the entertainment improves vastly later on."
"I didn't realize we were at a dinner theater."
"More like a bar theater. Sometimes plays, sometimes poetry readings. It's actually a pretty hip place considering it's mostly a dive bar. But I like it."
"How did you ever find it?"
Jack settled his glass down and wiped his mouth with a finger. "Remember about two or three years ago we had the Chang family? Where their son was involved in a larceny sting?"
She nodded.
"We met here once for a meeting before trial. And I felt as lost then as you looked when we were outside."
"I had no idea this sort of place existed. I thought I'd seen all of Manhattan already."
"We're not in Manhattan, Claire."
"And where are we?" she tilted her head slightly.
"Well," he said mysteriously, "that's for you to let me know later on."
For a while it was just easy talk, banter almost, testing ground. But it completely diverged from anything they had spoken of in the office, and the subject of work, or law, or pending litigation was not mentioned by either of them. They were not here as lawyers. Claire could not be sure what they were here as, but it was not as representatives of their professions. Gradually, as the karaoke singers left the stage, to be replaced by a comedian telling jokes in another dialect Claire would never understand, their talk turned more inward. Jack talked about his days at University of Chicago, of his father the cop. She had not known Jack's father had also been John McCoy, since Jack studiously avoided the duplicity of something like a junior and insisted on being just Jack. Claire became more aware of the differences between them, from their backgrounds on forward -- she had not come from exactly a wealthy family, but an intellectual one where things had been just about comfortable; Jack had worked for scholarships and grants all the way through undergrad and then law school. He had worked during every year of higher education while Claire had spent a lot of time with the law review. They were of different generations; by the time Claire had finished law school Jack had already been with the DA's office for twenty years. They had so little in common, but it never hindered the conversation.
He began to ask her, and so she told him, about why she was currently not involved with anyone. But that sort of question was always more easily asked than answered; though Claire had not been seeing anyone on a long-term basis for three years now, it was not entirely true to say she was between boyfriends. "What a stupid term," she said. "When you're no longer a girl and they're no longer boys to use those words."
"Lover fits, and isn't gender-specific," Jack told her.
"But it feels archaic, too. And more romantic than most relationships I've had."
"I'm sorry about that, Claire."
She hadn't been poking for sympathy. "Nothing to be sorry about."
Mostly she told him about Dean, who had been her latest fling, and who had lasted three weeks. He had been achingly dull but knew quite a lot about what he felt he needed to know: investment banking, and some of it had rubbed off on her. "I dumped the boyfriend -- the lover, sorry -- and kept the mutual fund," she laughed into her drink.
"Is being dull a sin, then?"
She blinked and realized in that snap that she was close to being drunk. She had passed buzzed a few moments ago and knew if she finished the drink in front of her she would be drunk. Claire hated getting drunk; it was lazy and too easy to do. She pushed her glass to the side. "It is," she said, swallowing a great gulp of the smoky air. "Boring is a cardinal sin. This is a man who alphabetized his butterfly collection and printed computer labels for his videotapes."
"Personally, I organize my insects by phylum first," Jack told her.
She studied his face for a moment.
"Gotcha," said Jack. "Lighten up, Claire. You take me too seriously."
Laughter burst from her. "Well, you've got a pretty serious job."
"Ack," he mock-choked. "That three-letter word. Not in here."
"Sorry. I forgot. I just met you on the street and you dragged me in here."
He offered his hand. "Nice to meet you. The pleasure's all mine."
Claire took the shake and let his fingers wrap around hers, feeling them warm and rough against her skin, and when he lowered her hand on to the table and held it there she did not know what to say.
A waiter approached their table with two small bowls of steaming broth. "At last," said Jack, pulling his hand away and moving his glass from the delivery of the bowls. "They have to make this from scratch," he confided to Claire.
She stared into the clear broth and watched a few clear flakes float to the surface, surrounded by spring onions. "I didn't know we were eating dinner," she said lamely, still feeling the pressure of his fingers on her hand, and holding it under the table as if it would burn visually, too.
"Specialty," said Jack. "The bartender's a friend. It's not exactly a meal, but it is a delicacy."
"And it is?"
"Dragon wing soup."
She was just befuddled enough to believe him, then remembered his comment about being so serious. "What a cute name," she said. "Wonton and egg drop gets so repetitive."
"Believe what you want," he said. "For my part, I think they've got an imprisoned dragon back there." His eyes flashed. "Now, eat."
Tentatively she scooped up one small portion and blew on it, then tasted it. To say it was unusual was to underestimate it. To call it delicious would overstate. But she had never eaten anything like it, and the more she had the hungrier she realized she was. It had a meaty, gamy flavor to it, but not like chicken or beef or even pork. And the flakes she had thought were just very thin, translucent onions, were instead quite substantial, crisp and chewy. The soup trickled down her throat and warmed her stomach, cutting through the muddle and leaving just a pleasant lightheadedness. She finished the bowl without setting down the spoon once. "Okay," she said, after downing the last bits. "So what was it, really?"
"Dragon," he said emphatically. "You've just consumed part of a myth."
Claire thought about that. "Right. Sure."
"Not everything that appears strange on the surface is really frightening once you dig a little deeper."
"Are we talking about something other than soup?"
"We might."
"Are we talking about anyone sitting in this booth?"
"You tell me."
"I don't think I'm coherent enough to talk in circles tonight."
"So be straight," Jack encouraged.
She was made bolder by the drink, even though the soup had muted the effects. Her mind kept returning to the pressure of his hand on hers, his hand on her cheek the other day, how she wanted to ruffle and smooth down his hair. But she was still not sure what she was doing here with him; asking advice and starting some kind of interoffice relationship -- with this particular person indeed -- were two very different things. "I -- I don't want to be what's next, Jack. I don't want to be a fourth in a continuing series. That makes me incredibly uncomfortable."
"Claire," he said, with no trace of alcohol in his voice, "that's an impossible problem. Everyone is what's next. Everyone is the next in a continuing series. Until you finish the set, there's always a next volume."
"You know what I mean."
"I suppose I do."
"I don't only want to be that. It's so demeaning."
Jack shook his head. "I can't change what I've done before, Claire. And I wouldn't want to try. I haven't done anything I'm sorry or regretful for. Would it help you to make up your mind if I told you how lovely I think you are? That every time you tilt your head a little ways you have the most arrogant, wonderful jawline I've ever come across? That watching you try and work both with me and upstairs has bothered me more than I wanted it to, because about ten minutes after you came into my office and insisted you would never be the fourth in a series I wanted to have you work only alongside me? Would that make any difference to the demeaning fact of sharing my affections?"
Claire had flushed a cherry red and sat on her hands, staring at the beads of sweat on her glass, noting how the ice cubes were smoothed by the melting. The amber of her drink seemed to match Jack's eyes, which she could not meet just then. Too many things at once; she was in a strange bar in a part of town Jack swore was not Manhattan, she had eaten a legend for dinner, and her head was starting to pound. She stood. "I think we ought to call it a night," she said, pulling her coat on.
"I guess not," Jack murmured to himself and yanked his padded leather jacket around his arms, tossing some money on the table.
"I was going to get next rounds," said Claire absently.
Jack thrust his hands in his pockets. "It doesn't appear that there are going to be next rounds, Claire."
The walk out of Chinatown was much more subdued than the journey in. They walked side by side but said little, hands held alone in coat pockets, lost inside their own heads. The business of the early evening had given way to emptier, almost vacant streets, with the occasional pedestrian emerging from a grocery or couple walking down the middle of the sparsely-driven streets. At the garage entrance by Hogan they paused on the corner and Claire realized she should never have said anything to begin with. She had to have known a drink was not just a drink with Jack, and she had let him hold her hand...and at the time all of those events had reasons behind them. But she felt now she had wounded him, back in the bar they had been having such good conversation, and then she had insulted him. Claire was not entirely unused to being admired from afar, but not for a long time had she been so unaware of it, and not in an even longer period of time had she felt mutually admiring. But was it wise? Was it smart to do this thing? Shouldn't someone in the office remain focused and clear? Since it wasn't Ben, shouldn't it be her?
Jack cleared his throat. "I have," he said, "one other method of saving face."
He had not spoken in so long she was startled. "I don't understand."
"Let me drive you home."
"I think I'll do all right with the subway," she demurred.
He straightened, military style. "I promise. Nothing funny. I won't even get out of the seat to see you upstairs. I just don't like the idea of you taking the subway this late."
"It's ten."
"So indulge me." He smiled at her in the dark. "It's not that cold out."
"I thought you laughed in the face of cold."
"Exactly my point."

Claire hated feeling like such a goddamn girl but there was nothing else she could do. It was awfully cold on the back of that thing, the jolting made her feel as though she would fall and pull Jack with her, and she had no spit in her mouth. Claire opened her eyes only once, when they paused at a stoplight. Her exposed skin felt windburnt and she was plainly terrified for most of the eighty block trip up to the East Side. It was not exhilarating, it was like falling in a well, but when they arrived at the address she had given Jack she did not get off right away.
"Here," he told her, slipping down the kickstand with his heel. "Safe and sound."
Slowly she lifted her head and shivered, then felt her hands, which had gripped at the front of Jack's jacket in a cold rictus, begin to unfold. She had never been so frightened in her life; it put everything in perspective to be driving in a car without a car around you. He had made only two turns to get all the way up here, but those two had made her heart stop. And yet, she realized she had made it home safely, that all along he knew what he was doing, and she realized her fears had always been groundless.
"It wasn't that bad, was it?" he asked with a faint smile, accepting the helmet from her and turning to fit it in a side compartment. The smile broadened as he took in her still-frightened body language.
"Worse," she said carefully, swallowing a few times to get her tongue from sticking to the roof of her mouth.
"Maybe next time you'll enjoy it more."
"I suppose I thought there wouldn't be any more next times."
"It seems," said Jack, "that would be up to you at this stage, wouldn't it."
Claire didn't answer right away, caught between what she ought to do and what she wanted to do.
"Fine," he said, sliding his helmet back on. "It's late. We have work tomorrow." He lifted the stand and made to kick the motor back on.
"What, you going to drive around the block and reconsider again?" she called over the howl of the starting engine.
Jack stared forward a long moment as the motorcycle idled under him, then he shut it off and yanked off his helmet, hanging it on the handlebar. "Come here, Claire."
She didn't move.
"Look, stop playing with my mind and get over here." He held out his hand.
She realized she had waited as long as she could. He wouldn't let her push it much further. She was just going to have to jump in or abandon ship and...Claire did not think she could face him in the morning if she just turned tail and ran. She extended her hand and once again his fingers closed around it.
In one fleet motion he jerked her from the curb towards him to where she was standing only a few inches from where he sat. She could smell the drink and the soup on him, an alcoholic wildness she liked very much, and up close all of his features magnified exponentially, until his face and those eyes were all she could focus on. "You see?" he said quietly, restrained. "I didn't even get off my motorcycle. As I promised."
"I don't know about this," she said, her voice soft and not her own. Claire had no idea who was speaking for her.
"You asked me for a drink," he told her, running his eyes over her face. "Just say when."
The word never came. Instead, the next thing she was aware of was when his mouth pressed against hers, firmly, in control, but not without urgency. Jack craned backwards slowly so that she was leaning into him, pulling their joined hands to where she was pressing against his shirt, making her come to him, making her insist that this was something she was going fully towards. And Claire, to her surprise, went along with it, the steely lawyer left somewhere down on Center Street, and what had come home to York Avenue was something much softer, more suggestible, more giving. She kissed him back and felt a warmth spreading all over her, erasing the windburn, eliminating her stiffness, taking one fear and replacing it with something much bigger, yet more pleasurable. He backed off for a moment and they caught their breath but she did not stand down; Claire felt not unlike when she had been cruising uptown on the cycle -- windblown and out of control. He reached behind her head and loosed her short ponytail, coming back down with the cloth-covered elastic that had held it up. "What the hell do you even call these things," he asked without ever taking his eyes from her.
"Scrunchies," she told him, and the word was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. Claire started to giggle.
Jack tossed it into the middle of the street and shuffled his fingers through her loose hair until it flowed down her neck and the breeze caught it. "Much better."
"Than what?"
"Makes you look less like a librarian," he told her, and smiled, his eyes crinkling, sparkling with streetlight. "Now, should we do that again?"
"Absolutely," she told him, and this time they wrapped their arms around each other.

It was frigid that next morning and as she waited for the elevator to trundle down, Claire stomped her feet, hoping the heat was working at full blast upstairs. Behind her, Ben passed through the metal detector, and she turned to greet him. His cheeks were flushed from the blasting river air that swept through the streets and made anyone who absolutely had to go out race along the sidewalk to get out of the cold as soon as possible. Picking up his briefcase, Ben unbuttoned his wool overcoat and gave her a nod of acknowledgment.
"Morning, Ben," she said carefully, expecting for him to see something different in the way she spoke, or acted, or breathed. After last night she was certain he would sense something. But he said did not comment, and almost appeared to look through her. "Pretty cold out today, eh?"
"I suppose it is," he said. "Look, how free is your morning?"
"Open, as far as I know." But she was disappointed, having planned to keep the first hours of the day loose. Before he had left that night Jack had said she should come down for morning coffee.
"Good," he said. "Block it off. Amelia Page's lawyer wants to see us."
"Is he coming here or are we going to Rikers?"
The door behind them blew open just as the elevator pinged. The gust of air behind it made Claire, who had taken off her coat already, cringe, and she and Ben ducked into the open elevator as quickly as they could. "Meeting is here," began Ben. "It isn't necessary --"
"Hold that!"
Claire reached forward with her briefcase, hearing Jack's voice, and prevented the doors from closing all the way. "Thanks," he gasped, and slid inside, flanking Claire on the side Ben was not standing on. "Guess it's winter now, eh?" He grinned at her.
She grinned back, but only slightly; though it wasn't any of Ben's business, and surely he was too distracted these days to notice, there was no point in announcing what had gone on outside her apartment last night. Which, in the end, had not been much beyond a few minutes of deep kissing. Jack had not intimated he wanted more, at least not with words, and Claire had no intention of letting him up into her place right away. For one thing, it was a wreck. For another, she was at least trying to give the impression to herself that she was approaching this rationally and sanely, even if the facade wasn't very sturdy. She had gone back upstairs after watching his motorcycle swoop away, down the hill of uptown, and then hurried up to her apartment and took a long bath.
"In any case," Ben continued, business always, ignoring Jack, "since we're not accepting a plea it won't be necessary to have his client along. So he'll be in around nine-thirty, probably with about three or four new motions."
"Fine," said Claire, remotely disconcerted to have Ben on one side of her and Jack on the other. Particularly since while Ben spoke Jack had brushed his hand up against hers and not moved it away.
"I hear," said Jack in the extended pause as the elevator crept past the fourth floor, "that Detective Logan has come out of the coma he was in."
Claire backed her heel onto the soft middle of Jack's boot and glared at him, then blinked over at Ben, who remained impassive. But he was like a painting that if looked at long enough, it was possible to memorize, and Claire recognized any alteration of the basic scheme, though Jack probably wouldn't. There was a slight twitch under Ben's left eye, and he stared at the ceiling. Behind her, Jack cringed silently.
"That's what I heard," said Ben. "They say he's awake and alert."
"Great," said Jack, a little strangled. "Though alert would be an improvement."
Ben shot him a look and Jack grinned. The elevator halted at eight and the doors slid open. "Have a nice morning, Stone," said Jack, and snatched up Claire's briefcase, pulling her with him.
"Hey," said Claire, but she was out in the hallway of eight before the objection could be enforced. He continued to pull her along by her briefcase, down the hall and out the fire doors, and he did not let go until they were in the stairwell. She pulled her arm away in a final jerk and frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Jesus, woman, I think you broke my instep." Jack lifted the offended foot and rubbed it. "That hurt, goddamn it."
"Yeah, well, you shouldn't be such a boor, McCoy."
"Oh, that's right, bores are a cardinal sin."
"Not that kind of bore," she rolled her eyes. "A clod. A jerk, a churl. The kind of person who would say what you said in the elevator."
"I was only making note of recent developments."
"You were not," she said. "You were showing off for me. And I wasn't impressed."
"So I discovered."
"Do you not like anybody?" she asked him. "Between Logan and Stone I'd hate to be on your hit list."
"Oh," he said, and pinned her into a corner of the stairwell by spreading his arms, "I like you an awful lot."
"Watch out," she told him. "I wield a mean stiletto."
"Don't I know it." He craned in to kiss her, and she ducked away. "Oh, come on, Claire. All right, I promise. Nothing snide. Because you asked so nicely."
Claire moved closer to him and dropped the combativeness. "You know, you might try being a little more sensitive," she told him softly. "He doesn't badmouth you."
Jack touched her nose with his finger. "Not that you know of, of course."
"Okay. Qualified."
He darted down and planted a quick kiss on her lips. "I have to run. But I enjoyed last night."
"Me, too."
"So maybe this isn't a mistake?"
"It probably is," she sighed with a smile, "but I'm becoming more willing to make it."
"Me, too," he imitated her. "Look, remember what I told you last night?"
Claire's mind ran over it, his last final words before starting the motor again. "I don't know, Jack. It doesn't feel fair."
"Do it," he said. "At worst, you make your position clear. He needs to be made aware of what's going on outside his little fantasy --" Jack frowned, hearing himself "-- his own private world. There, see? I can do better. Anyway, I'll bet you he doesn't even realize jury selection starts the day after tomorrow. He still thinks Page's lawyer would be coming in with motions at this late date."
"I know." And he was right, Jack had a valid point. "I'll speak with him."
"There you go." He glanced at his watch. "I'm due in court in twenty minutes. You free tonight?"
"Maybe."
Jack eyed her. "You're playing with my mind again."
She shrugged. "It doesn't mean no," and she kissed him once, on the cheek, and bounded up the flight of steps behind her, heels clicking on the metal-lined staircase.

The phone rang that evening as she was coming out of the shower, her hair turbaned up in a towel. Without a greeting, Jack said, "So I guess 'maybe' was 'no.'"
"I had a talk with Ben after work," she told him. "I called your office from the bar but you weren't in."
"I didn't get back from court until nearly seven."
"So, we crossed paths." She shrugged and pulled the towel out, crumpling her hair in her hand as she walked around. "It happens."
"Had dinner yet?"
She glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. "Jack, it's late."
There was a long pause, then, "So, how did he take it? Are you first chairing or what?"
Claire wasn't sure how much of the conversation she had with Ben was necessary to repeat. Yes, she was filling Jack in on what happened, to get his outside opinion, but now that she had reached an accord of sorts with Ben she felt even more strongly that this was something to be left inside the office.
That evening, just before she left, Claire had stopped in his office as he read through some papers. Ben would clearly not be leaving for another hour or more, not if he could help it. Once again, he never saw her until she coughed into her hand, and then had only said, "Have a nice night, Claire."
She cleared her throat and decided it was enough of the distance between them. "And to you, Ben," she began formally, "but that wasn't actually why I stopped by. You seemed... preoccupied the past week or so, and I just wanted to know if you had refocused enough to realize the Amelia Page trial starts day after tomorrow. Jury selection."
Everything, for Claire, hinged on this question. She would not go any further into asking him for the case if he really seemed on top of things. But he glanced up at her and she could see he really had no idea. Perhaps as some abstract concept he knew the trial was coming down the path, but she knew from the vacant look in his face that he had not really know it would be so soon. The absence of what he really knew stood out more strongly than any words he might have said, and she saw he knew he was in trouble.
"Have you got a moment?" Ben asked her.
They had gone to a nearby bar, under very different circumstances than Claire had ended up with Jack the other night. In this bar, JR's, they were still lawyers, they could discuss the job. They left nothing behind in the offices. She suggested they get a postponement for the trial, but he shook his head. "It really isn't something you should let worry you. There is nothing else in my mind other than this upcoming trial."
She had sighed, and drank a large gulp of her drink, grimacing. "I wonder how long it'll take before I can just knock this stuff back."
"It's not how long," Ben had told her, "but how many trials."
"So after this one I should be throwing them back one after the other, eh?" she had said to him grimly. He hadn't replied and she decided she had to get to the point. "Ben, let me be lead for the Page case."
Ben had stared at her, a confused look on his face, and asked, "Why in the world would I do that?"
"You're not ready," she had said, faintly. "I told you that. That's why."
"That's bullshit," he had said plainly, without rancor. "Tell me why."
Her shoulders had sagged. He was drawing it all out of her, and she could say it only as if she were drafting a letter. "Dear Sirs: The reason I think Ben Stone should not try the Amelia Page case is that he is having an affair with her sister. Yours sincerely, Claire Kincaid." Then she had forced her eyes to meet his.
He had been speechless "How did you know?"
She had nodded slowly. "I wasn't sure, not until just now. I didn't really think anything until she came to pick up your car keys, but after then I had a pretty good idea. I spoke with her when I gave her the keys, and she was worse than you are. And Ben, you've been off in another world. Adam sees it too, but he doesn't work with you as close as I do. How could I not know?"
He had finished his gin and tonic and ran a hand against the back of his neck. "It is over. It was over as soon as Mike Logan opened his eyes yesterday."
Claire felt sorry for him, and she hated feeling sorry for him. He was her boss, he was the one who was supposed to be in charge, and though he wouldn't abdicate the throne he could not rule the country. Not this time. And she was powerless to do anything about it. She wanted him to be in charge, she wanted to take orders on this one, and this time, the order-giver was mute. "What is it about her?" Claire had wondered rhetorically. "What is it about her that makes good men forget themselves?"
She had half expected a knee-jerk defensive reaction from Ben, but his shoulders had just slumped and he ordered another drink. "I don't know, Claire. Truly, I wish I did."

She abbreviated this for Jack on the phone, ending, "So...he knows I know about her now."
"I almost can't believe it myself." Jack had kept respectfully, awe-fully silent while Claire told about the conversation, and this was the first comment she heard from him. "I'd thought until now we were just making up funny tales. But now...he's gone entirely off the deep end."
"I hate to say it, but I think he'd be in complete agreement with you this time," Claire said. "He's as dispossessed as I've ever seen."
"What a fine word," said Jack, and for the first time she heard tang in his voice. "I do something like this, I better call you, Claire, for the synonyms. Most people would just call it a fuckup."
She curled her legs under her and sat against the pillows on her bed, letting that sentence permeate. "You are so angry, Jack."
"Me? I'm cuddly."
"No, really. Why is that?"
He let out a long breath of air on the other side of the line. "You were in Schiff's office all those weeks ago, Claire. You know the score. But you see, it's not the playing of favorites that bothers me. I actually decided awhile ago that I like being on the outside, of doing things in my own way, of never having to lose anyone's faith -- because I didn't have it in the first place. And I've been at this too long to whine about such pettiness. It's just there's always someone new out there to give him the benefit of the doubt, whereas I seem to walk into a room with a scarlet 'A' on my forehead. And hearing it from you..." he made a small clicking noise with his mouth,"...just brings out the worst in me."
"I'm sorry, Jack," she told him, and meant it.
"I don't know. Are you? I keep getting the impression of ambivalence. Perhaps you are sorry, Claire. But you just don't quite understand." He paused and she did not know what to say to that, so the silence lingered until she heard shifting on the other end of the phone. "I take it we're done talking for now. See you in the morning." And as abruptly as he had signed on, he got off of the line.
Claire lay out on her bed for a long time, hands tucked under her damp hair, surrounded by terrycloth, and stared at the ceiling. She wondered how it was possible for opposites to both be nonexclusively correct. And incorrect. She fell asleep thinking of dragons in flight.

Part Two