Plot line: Jack visits Claire's grave on Valentines Day.
Inspiration: With Valentines Day approaching I decided to challenge myself to pick two of my favorite couples and write one happy Valentine fanfic and one sad Valentine fanfic, this obviously this is the sad one.
Rating: T, probably not needed, but I want to be safe.
Warning: Slightly angsty but it actually fits my mood this Valentines Day better than the other.
Disclaimer: Do you think Claire would be dead if Law & Order was mine?
Did they ever show Claire's tombstone in the series? Oh well if they did and I described it wrong, this is how I picture it. The supernatural element wasn't originally planned, but somehow it occured to me that I wanted Claire to say something.
It was a dull overcast Valentines Day, and Jack McCoy thought it suited his mood perfectly. At one time he had loved the holiday, when Claire was alive, but now it just felt like a burden and a time for old wounds to reopen. That was why he found himself, as with years before, in the cemetery with a boquet of red roses. It didn't take him long to find her grave. He stopped to brush some collected grass away from her picture on the headstone before he set the roses down in front of it.
Then as silly as it seemed even to him, he began to speak. "It's been almost sixteen years now Claire. Sometimes I feel like I can still hear your voice as if it were yesterday, and sometimes it feels like it's been a million years." he paused "I was supposed to be the one who died, not you. I'm old, almost seventy years now and you barely got thirty, life just doesn't seem fair does it?"
He didn't expect he to answer of course, but he could swear he heard her voice, "Fairness governs neither life nor death." He looked up shocked to find her standing a few feet from him in the gown she'd been buried in, her figure was slightly translucent, but it was definately her. The ghostly figure took a couple of steps towards him. "I've missed you Jack."
xxx
He was supposed to be home by now,Rebecca thought. She knew her father visited the cemetery every Valentines Day, but he was never this late. She supposed she'd have to go look for him, she'd start with the cemetery.
It was getting dark and she had trouble finding Claire Kincaid's grave where she knew her father would be if he hadn't already left. When she found the grave she didn't see him at first, until she tripped over something. Shining her flashlight at the object, she discovered her father lying on the grave.
"Dad, up!" she started to order pulling on his hand, it was ice cold.
Not your typical Valentines Day fanfic, but hey Jack and Claire are together again.