Authors' Note: We would like to say that, no matter how ludicrous this is,
our intentions are to get Jack and Claire back together, and nothing is
purer than that.
The Twins Of Hazzard got the idea for this fic shortly after watching a "Simpsons" episode parodying "Behind The Music" called "Behind The Laughter". Before each commercial break, the narrator would invariably say something like "the dream was over. Or WAS it? Yes, it was. Or WAS it?" And then, well, a few frapuccinos later and we got the idea for this fic.
In closing, we have one last thing to say: caffeine is bad. Very bad. And now, on to the fic!
*~*~*
Life After Love Was Not Going So Well....
*~*~*
John James McCoy, Executive Assistant Distract Attorney of Manhattan, was sitting in his office at one Hogan Place, a full tumbler of scotch in front of him, his head in his hands, crying.
"Claire was dead." The disembodied narrator said.
" Yes", McCoy said, " she's dead, the love of my life, and, and....it's all my fault!" He sobbed harder.
"Or WAS she?" The voice said.
"She's not dead?" McCoy asked in disbelief. A look of bliss came over his face and he began to dance around the office, " Claire isn't dead, Claire isn't dead, this is the most wonderful day in all the history of all the world!"
"Yes, she was." Said the voice that was starting to get on McCoy's fragile nerves.
"She's dead, she's dead, I loved her and now she's dead....." McCoy began to sob anew.
"Or WAS she?"
At this last affront of his sanity the lawyer in McCoy took over and began to, well, lawyer, lawyer like he had never lawyered before. "You sir," he said, speaking in classic courtroom McCoyish, "are going to tell me if Claire Kincaid is in fact dead or alive, and if you refuse, I'll subpoena you!"
"I'm not telling you anything," the voice said huffily.
McCoy was at a loss. Unable to think of anything else, he glared at the voice as best he could, which was hard, considering the fact that it was non-corporeal, and said in his most hostile tone: "DID YOU IN FACT..."
"All right, all right! I'll tell you!" The voice said, terrified. "Claire works at a gas station in Toledo. She has amnesia and she thinks her name is Peggy Sue. She misses you very much."
"I knew it! I knew it!" McCoy cried joyfully, doing a merry little dance around his desk. "Claire's alive! Claire's alive with me and I feel fine!.........wait, that doesn't really work...oh well. It's the happiest day of my life! I'm...hey, wait a minute!" He said accusatorily, attempting once again to glare at the voice. "If she has amnesia, how does she miss me?"
"I lied," the voice said, and in the process balking slightly (if a voice can balk) at the look McCoy was giving him. "What? I'm sorry, okay? But it's been so hard for me, you must understand it's not my fault that I behave this way-I'm an orphan, I grew up in a bad neighborhood, I dropped out of high school, I belonged to a gang, I was addicted to drugs, my parents abused me-"
"You said you were an orphan!" McCoy said.
"Um, right." The voice said uncomfortably. "Well, here's the truth: Claire is living in a halfway house in Brooklyn. It turned out she was in a coma, and she woke up about a month ago and escaped from the hospital. She has amnesia and she doesn't know who she is."
"Well," McCoy said, " we'll just have to get her back!" With that Adam Schiff came into his office and began to hum the opening bars to the Laverne and Shirley them song. Ben Stone, Paul Robinette, Jamie Ross and Abby Carmichel burst in in rockette outfits and began doing the can-can while McCoy and Schiff sang a pretty little duet.
"We're gonna do it, give us any chance we'll take it, give us any rule (that isn't legally binding, or we can't get a judge to say it's stupid) we'll break it, we're gonna make our dreams come true, doing our way, yes our way, make all our dreams come true, for the people of new York!!!!!!"
With that McCoy, who was high on life, the prospect of getting Claire, the love of his young, or elderly life, back, and having had finally remembered all the words to that damn song, ran off to the half way house in Brooklyn to get back the love of his.....(Oh all right, I'll shut up about that). Anyway, he was happy for the first time in five years, and the Twins Of Hazzard were going to make sure he stayed that way (what can we say, we have an excessive happiness trial coming up and can use the help from the DA's office on this one).
*~*~*
The halfway house was cold, and damp, and only halfway finished, which would account for the cold and damp if it weren't for the people sprinkling it with water and putting ice blocks in all the rooms.
McCoy strode along the long row of beds. It was a lot like that scene in "Amadeus" when Salieri's in the nut house (the halfway house, by the way, was right next to a nut house which specialized in pecans but also had some peanuts, hazelnuts, and even a few brazil nuts). There was one man who appeared to be under the impression that he was a radish, and another who rushed up to him, grabbing him by the lapels and yelling at him to be careful of the mangoes. McCoy held his briefcase (he had long since forgotten the combination and was pretty sure that he had a chicken salad sandwich rotting inside of it, but he carried it around just out of habit; it gave him the only comfort he had ever since Claire had been hit by that car all those years ago, but now everything was changing, and...anyway) protectively to his chest, telling himself that this was one more good thing about working for Schiff: no pro-bono, ever-when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spied Claire.
Claire was sitting on the bed that he presumed couldn't be hers because it was strewn with clothes, and his Claire was always meticulously clean and neat. In fact she often sent him to his apartment to clean, when she did that it made him feel like he was a little boy being told to clean his room. Not that he minded that, in fact sometimes they even.... he he, well, um, ah, right. Anyway at that moment she looked up and noticed McCoy.
McCoy was a little disappointed because he had expected bells to ring or a song to start playing or a slow smile to cover Claire's face, but no. There was no recognition at all in her eyes. McCoy dropped to his knees and began to wail. "Claire," he wailed very wailingly, "you're not dead, I knew you weren't dead, I love you so much, in fact, you're the love of my life."
"Really," said the Claire who was not really Claire, "good to know."
"Is that it?" said McCoy, "is that all you can say to me?"
"Well you know I kinda don't remember you."
McCoy was suddenly seized with inspiration, actually he wasn't, he just started doing whatever he started doing when someone wasn't giving him the answers he wanted, but that sounds really boring. "Claire," he began, " did you in fact work for the DA's office, have an affair with me, your boss, almost die in a car accident with Lennie Briscoe, wake up from a coma after five years and have amnesia and live here?"
"Um. I dunno," Claire said in an attempt to be polite, "hey, can I get back to you on this? Because it's almost time for dinner and they're having spaghetti, and that guy who thinks he's a radish always eats all the garlic bread. So if you wait here I'll come back and we can talk this over, I guess."
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!" McCoy sobbed, dropping to his knees and clutching the hem of Claire's T-shirt (which, for some reason, said "JARED INSPIRED ME; VISIT SUBWAY FOR 7 SUBS WITH SIX GRAMS OF FAT OR LESS!" On it) and, rather unromantically, blowing his nose on it. He looked deep into her eyes, willing her to remember him; the man loved her with all his heart, the man who would die for her.
"Ew," said Claire.
"CLAIRE!!" McCoy sobbed, holding her hands so tightly that he was probably cutting off circulation, "Claire, I love you so much! I always have! I loved you from the moment I met you, even though I promised myself I would never let myself fall in love again, even though I could have been fired, even though Stone was really mad at me for stealing the girl he had a crush on! We shared so much, we won so many cases, we went to so many fancy restaurants! You my ADA, I your EADA, you my Queen, I your King! I love you more than life itself; I would give my life to have you back. Now can you really say that you don't remember me, not even a little? PLEASE, Claire! Tell me you remember me! Tell me we can be together again, that I can finally have the love of my life back!"
"If you died to get me back you wouldn't have me anyway; you'd be dead." Claire pointed out.
With this last affront to his nerves, McCoy broke down, collapsing to the floor and sobbing hysterically (the floor was quite dirty, actually. The only part of McCoy's mind that had not given over to intense grief was calculating how much it would cost to have his shirt dry-cleaned).
Claire, taking pity on the poor hysterical EADA, pulled him off the floor, handed him a tissue, and said: "why don't I come back with you and then maybe I'll remember you?"
*~*~*
McCoy had a very busy day the next day; three closings, four jury's coming back, and a very unhappy goldfish to feed. So he suggested going back to his apartment to spend the night, Claire told him in no uncertain terms that she would not, absolutely not, sleep with him, so he took the couch, not that he minded, she was the only one, well, the, third girl he had ever love, and he would do anything, up to but excluding (do to new evidence), dying for her. As of yet she had no memory of him or his apartment but on walking in had told him to clean it, and change the sheets on his bed; he could sleep on the couch. McCoy didn't mind doing any of this because blah blah blah blah blah, you know the spiel.
The next morning he took Claire to their favorite restaurant. Actually, it didn't serve breakfast but McCoy had a very un-like McCoy moment and told the owner that if he didn't let them in and give them free breakfast he would shut them down with health violations and henceforth was quickly seated.
McCoy ordered Claire her favorite breakfast (eggs benedict), an Irish omelet for him (when it was pointed out that an Irish omelet did, in fact, not exist, he jumped up and put his hand suggestively to his breast pocket until the waiter, who looked very freaked out, rushed to the kitchen) and a bottle of champagne. Unfortunately, although Claire did not know who she was, she apparently did know that she was a feminist and immediately got very upset at McCoy for ordering food for her and ordered grape nuts on toast instead.
The breakfast went along badly, Claire remembered nothing about McCoy and so because of this he was getting rapidly depressed. By the time the waiter had come by with the check he was in such a stupor that when the timid server asked if there would be anything else he ordered straight scotch, not caring that he had a full day of litigating ahead. Being so absorbed in his problems McCoy failed to notice that from the moment he ordered his trademark drink Claire had been twitching. When the drink arrived and he rolled up his sleeves, picked it up and began to drink, she almost seemed to have a convulsion.
Claire jumped up and flung the table to the ground with such violence that McCoy nearly lost his Scotch. She had a look of both horror and joy on her face, and McCoy was about to try his breast pocket trick on her when she shrieked: "OH MY GOD! YOU'RE JACK McCOY!!"
"YES!!" McCoy yelled, tears in his eyes as he got up from his seat, "Claire, you're the love of my life! I-" But at this point, everyone in the restaurant, who had put up with McCoy's rants all through the fic yelled "SHUT UP, McCOY!" McCoy quickly obliged, waiting for the love of his life to tell him about how she would do anything for him.
Claire jumped on McCoy forcing him back in his seat. " My name is Claire Kincaid", she said accentuating each statement with a kiss, "I went to Harvard Law School (kiss), My stepfather teaches their (kiss), I used to work with Ben Stone (kiss), He had a crush on me (kiss), I used to ride on your motorcycle, (kiss) My favorite color is pink, (kiss) Being in a coma really sucks, (kiss) I'm anti-death penalty, (kiss) people think Logan and I should be together, (kiss), they're wrong, (kiss) I was meant to be with you, (very long kiss) You never took me to Ireland (kiss).
"We'll go next week. Your favorite color is pink?" McCoy asked raising one eyebrow and looking very McCoyish.
"I didn't say that!" Claire said, jumping up. "Did I say my favorite color was pink?" she said, gesturing to the restaurant in general even though no one was in it except the cook, the owner, and the waiter,who was so upset he had had to have been put down for his nap.
"It's okay, Claire. I like pink," McCoy said. "In fact, I have a pair of.um, anyway. What were you saying about Ireland?"
"I love you, Jack." Claire said, not sounding very Claire-ish at all.
"Oh, good. By they way, why didn't you say that you would do anything for me?" McCoy asked quizzically.
"Oh, Jack. You know how I feel about public displays of affection, they make me nervous." Claire said.
"Oh. Then why did you just say that you loved me?" McCoy asked.
"Shut up and kiss me," Claire said, sounding remarkably like Lauren Bacall, and not at all like Claire. It was at this point that McCoy resolved to call in sick.
And with that they walked off into the sunset, which was odd, as it was 9:30 in the morning. But whatever.
*~*~*
While all this was going on, Schiff sat at his desk pruning his bonsai pear tree. He was thinking about ordering chili fries, except then he would have a heart attack. Which would suck. 'Cause it was an election year. He was also thinking about Claire. He thought it would be good for her to come back to work, except then she and McCoy would play fottsie all day. And the press would get wind that once again the Manhattan DA couldn't control his loose canon. And that the resident Don Juan of the DA's office (one and the same with the loose canon) was once again having an affair with his assistant. Not that he didn't want his best attorneys to be happy, but they'd play footsie all the time. Damn that footsie.
It was then that a strange, disembodied voice called out to him: "Schifffffffff...Schiffffff..."
Schiff briefly considered having a heart attack, but considered against because, after all, it was an election year.
"Schiff!" The voice said, "you must hire Claire back as the ADA!"
"Why?" Schiff said defiantly, snipping a dead twig from his bonsai.
"Would you rather have Ms. Ross? Or....SERENA!?"
"No! Not...SERENA!" Schiff cried.
"Then hire back Claire! Face it, she's the best ADA you've had in years!"
"But...THE FOOTSIE!" Schiff said in horror.
"I will talk to them about...the footsie." The voice said dutifully.
"But....the footsie...DAMN THAT FOOTSIE!" Schiff said, clenching his pencil so tightly that his knuckles were white.
"Look," The narrator said, sounding a bit more desperate than narrators should, "I've got one more chance at a prime time story and if I screw this up they're sending me back to...to...TELETUBBIES!!"
"All right," Schiff said, taking pity, "as long as you take care of the footsie."
"I will," The voice promised.
FIN
The Twins Of Hazzard got the idea for this fic shortly after watching a "Simpsons" episode parodying "Behind The Music" called "Behind The Laughter". Before each commercial break, the narrator would invariably say something like "the dream was over. Or WAS it? Yes, it was. Or WAS it?" And then, well, a few frapuccinos later and we got the idea for this fic.
In closing, we have one last thing to say: caffeine is bad. Very bad. And now, on to the fic!
*~*~*
Life After Love Was Not Going So Well....
*~*~*
John James McCoy, Executive Assistant Distract Attorney of Manhattan, was sitting in his office at one Hogan Place, a full tumbler of scotch in front of him, his head in his hands, crying.
"Claire was dead." The disembodied narrator said.
" Yes", McCoy said, " she's dead, the love of my life, and, and....it's all my fault!" He sobbed harder.
"Or WAS she?" The voice said.
"She's not dead?" McCoy asked in disbelief. A look of bliss came over his face and he began to dance around the office, " Claire isn't dead, Claire isn't dead, this is the most wonderful day in all the history of all the world!"
"Yes, she was." Said the voice that was starting to get on McCoy's fragile nerves.
"She's dead, she's dead, I loved her and now she's dead....." McCoy began to sob anew.
"Or WAS she?"
At this last affront of his sanity the lawyer in McCoy took over and began to, well, lawyer, lawyer like he had never lawyered before. "You sir," he said, speaking in classic courtroom McCoyish, "are going to tell me if Claire Kincaid is in fact dead or alive, and if you refuse, I'll subpoena you!"
"I'm not telling you anything," the voice said huffily.
McCoy was at a loss. Unable to think of anything else, he glared at the voice as best he could, which was hard, considering the fact that it was non-corporeal, and said in his most hostile tone: "DID YOU IN FACT..."
"All right, all right! I'll tell you!" The voice said, terrified. "Claire works at a gas station in Toledo. She has amnesia and she thinks her name is Peggy Sue. She misses you very much."
"I knew it! I knew it!" McCoy cried joyfully, doing a merry little dance around his desk. "Claire's alive! Claire's alive with me and I feel fine!.........wait, that doesn't really work...oh well. It's the happiest day of my life! I'm...hey, wait a minute!" He said accusatorily, attempting once again to glare at the voice. "If she has amnesia, how does she miss me?"
"I lied," the voice said, and in the process balking slightly (if a voice can balk) at the look McCoy was giving him. "What? I'm sorry, okay? But it's been so hard for me, you must understand it's not my fault that I behave this way-I'm an orphan, I grew up in a bad neighborhood, I dropped out of high school, I belonged to a gang, I was addicted to drugs, my parents abused me-"
"You said you were an orphan!" McCoy said.
"Um, right." The voice said uncomfortably. "Well, here's the truth: Claire is living in a halfway house in Brooklyn. It turned out she was in a coma, and she woke up about a month ago and escaped from the hospital. She has amnesia and she doesn't know who she is."
"Well," McCoy said, " we'll just have to get her back!" With that Adam Schiff came into his office and began to hum the opening bars to the Laverne and Shirley them song. Ben Stone, Paul Robinette, Jamie Ross and Abby Carmichel burst in in rockette outfits and began doing the can-can while McCoy and Schiff sang a pretty little duet.
"We're gonna do it, give us any chance we'll take it, give us any rule (that isn't legally binding, or we can't get a judge to say it's stupid) we'll break it, we're gonna make our dreams come true, doing our way, yes our way, make all our dreams come true, for the people of new York!!!!!!"
With that McCoy, who was high on life, the prospect of getting Claire, the love of his young, or elderly life, back, and having had finally remembered all the words to that damn song, ran off to the half way house in Brooklyn to get back the love of his.....(Oh all right, I'll shut up about that). Anyway, he was happy for the first time in five years, and the Twins Of Hazzard were going to make sure he stayed that way (what can we say, we have an excessive happiness trial coming up and can use the help from the DA's office on this one).
*~*~*
The halfway house was cold, and damp, and only halfway finished, which would account for the cold and damp if it weren't for the people sprinkling it with water and putting ice blocks in all the rooms.
McCoy strode along the long row of beds. It was a lot like that scene in "Amadeus" when Salieri's in the nut house (the halfway house, by the way, was right next to a nut house which specialized in pecans but also had some peanuts, hazelnuts, and even a few brazil nuts). There was one man who appeared to be under the impression that he was a radish, and another who rushed up to him, grabbing him by the lapels and yelling at him to be careful of the mangoes. McCoy held his briefcase (he had long since forgotten the combination and was pretty sure that he had a chicken salad sandwich rotting inside of it, but he carried it around just out of habit; it gave him the only comfort he had ever since Claire had been hit by that car all those years ago, but now everything was changing, and...anyway) protectively to his chest, telling himself that this was one more good thing about working for Schiff: no pro-bono, ever-when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spied Claire.
Claire was sitting on the bed that he presumed couldn't be hers because it was strewn with clothes, and his Claire was always meticulously clean and neat. In fact she often sent him to his apartment to clean, when she did that it made him feel like he was a little boy being told to clean his room. Not that he minded that, in fact sometimes they even.... he he, well, um, ah, right. Anyway at that moment she looked up and noticed McCoy.
McCoy was a little disappointed because he had expected bells to ring or a song to start playing or a slow smile to cover Claire's face, but no. There was no recognition at all in her eyes. McCoy dropped to his knees and began to wail. "Claire," he wailed very wailingly, "you're not dead, I knew you weren't dead, I love you so much, in fact, you're the love of my life."
"Really," said the Claire who was not really Claire, "good to know."
"Is that it?" said McCoy, "is that all you can say to me?"
"Well you know I kinda don't remember you."
McCoy was suddenly seized with inspiration, actually he wasn't, he just started doing whatever he started doing when someone wasn't giving him the answers he wanted, but that sounds really boring. "Claire," he began, " did you in fact work for the DA's office, have an affair with me, your boss, almost die in a car accident with Lennie Briscoe, wake up from a coma after five years and have amnesia and live here?"
"Um. I dunno," Claire said in an attempt to be polite, "hey, can I get back to you on this? Because it's almost time for dinner and they're having spaghetti, and that guy who thinks he's a radish always eats all the garlic bread. So if you wait here I'll come back and we can talk this over, I guess."
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!" McCoy sobbed, dropping to his knees and clutching the hem of Claire's T-shirt (which, for some reason, said "JARED INSPIRED ME; VISIT SUBWAY FOR 7 SUBS WITH SIX GRAMS OF FAT OR LESS!" On it) and, rather unromantically, blowing his nose on it. He looked deep into her eyes, willing her to remember him; the man loved her with all his heart, the man who would die for her.
"Ew," said Claire.
"CLAIRE!!" McCoy sobbed, holding her hands so tightly that he was probably cutting off circulation, "Claire, I love you so much! I always have! I loved you from the moment I met you, even though I promised myself I would never let myself fall in love again, even though I could have been fired, even though Stone was really mad at me for stealing the girl he had a crush on! We shared so much, we won so many cases, we went to so many fancy restaurants! You my ADA, I your EADA, you my Queen, I your King! I love you more than life itself; I would give my life to have you back. Now can you really say that you don't remember me, not even a little? PLEASE, Claire! Tell me you remember me! Tell me we can be together again, that I can finally have the love of my life back!"
"If you died to get me back you wouldn't have me anyway; you'd be dead." Claire pointed out.
With this last affront to his nerves, McCoy broke down, collapsing to the floor and sobbing hysterically (the floor was quite dirty, actually. The only part of McCoy's mind that had not given over to intense grief was calculating how much it would cost to have his shirt dry-cleaned).
Claire, taking pity on the poor hysterical EADA, pulled him off the floor, handed him a tissue, and said: "why don't I come back with you and then maybe I'll remember you?"
*~*~*
McCoy had a very busy day the next day; three closings, four jury's coming back, and a very unhappy goldfish to feed. So he suggested going back to his apartment to spend the night, Claire told him in no uncertain terms that she would not, absolutely not, sleep with him, so he took the couch, not that he minded, she was the only one, well, the, third girl he had ever love, and he would do anything, up to but excluding (do to new evidence), dying for her. As of yet she had no memory of him or his apartment but on walking in had told him to clean it, and change the sheets on his bed; he could sleep on the couch. McCoy didn't mind doing any of this because blah blah blah blah blah, you know the spiel.
The next morning he took Claire to their favorite restaurant. Actually, it didn't serve breakfast but McCoy had a very un-like McCoy moment and told the owner that if he didn't let them in and give them free breakfast he would shut them down with health violations and henceforth was quickly seated.
McCoy ordered Claire her favorite breakfast (eggs benedict), an Irish omelet for him (when it was pointed out that an Irish omelet did, in fact, not exist, he jumped up and put his hand suggestively to his breast pocket until the waiter, who looked very freaked out, rushed to the kitchen) and a bottle of champagne. Unfortunately, although Claire did not know who she was, she apparently did know that she was a feminist and immediately got very upset at McCoy for ordering food for her and ordered grape nuts on toast instead.
The breakfast went along badly, Claire remembered nothing about McCoy and so because of this he was getting rapidly depressed. By the time the waiter had come by with the check he was in such a stupor that when the timid server asked if there would be anything else he ordered straight scotch, not caring that he had a full day of litigating ahead. Being so absorbed in his problems McCoy failed to notice that from the moment he ordered his trademark drink Claire had been twitching. When the drink arrived and he rolled up his sleeves, picked it up and began to drink, she almost seemed to have a convulsion.
Claire jumped up and flung the table to the ground with such violence that McCoy nearly lost his Scotch. She had a look of both horror and joy on her face, and McCoy was about to try his breast pocket trick on her when she shrieked: "OH MY GOD! YOU'RE JACK McCOY!!"
"YES!!" McCoy yelled, tears in his eyes as he got up from his seat, "Claire, you're the love of my life! I-" But at this point, everyone in the restaurant, who had put up with McCoy's rants all through the fic yelled "SHUT UP, McCOY!" McCoy quickly obliged, waiting for the love of his life to tell him about how she would do anything for him.
Claire jumped on McCoy forcing him back in his seat. " My name is Claire Kincaid", she said accentuating each statement with a kiss, "I went to Harvard Law School (kiss), My stepfather teaches their (kiss), I used to work with Ben Stone (kiss), He had a crush on me (kiss), I used to ride on your motorcycle, (kiss) My favorite color is pink, (kiss) Being in a coma really sucks, (kiss) I'm anti-death penalty, (kiss) people think Logan and I should be together, (kiss), they're wrong, (kiss) I was meant to be with you, (very long kiss) You never took me to Ireland (kiss).
"We'll go next week. Your favorite color is pink?" McCoy asked raising one eyebrow and looking very McCoyish.
"I didn't say that!" Claire said, jumping up. "Did I say my favorite color was pink?" she said, gesturing to the restaurant in general even though no one was in it except the cook, the owner, and the waiter,who was so upset he had had to have been put down for his nap.
"It's okay, Claire. I like pink," McCoy said. "In fact, I have a pair of.um, anyway. What were you saying about Ireland?"
"I love you, Jack." Claire said, not sounding very Claire-ish at all.
"Oh, good. By they way, why didn't you say that you would do anything for me?" McCoy asked quizzically.
"Oh, Jack. You know how I feel about public displays of affection, they make me nervous." Claire said.
"Oh. Then why did you just say that you loved me?" McCoy asked.
"Shut up and kiss me," Claire said, sounding remarkably like Lauren Bacall, and not at all like Claire. It was at this point that McCoy resolved to call in sick.
And with that they walked off into the sunset, which was odd, as it was 9:30 in the morning. But whatever.
*~*~*
While all this was going on, Schiff sat at his desk pruning his bonsai pear tree. He was thinking about ordering chili fries, except then he would have a heart attack. Which would suck. 'Cause it was an election year. He was also thinking about Claire. He thought it would be good for her to come back to work, except then she and McCoy would play fottsie all day. And the press would get wind that once again the Manhattan DA couldn't control his loose canon. And that the resident Don Juan of the DA's office (one and the same with the loose canon) was once again having an affair with his assistant. Not that he didn't want his best attorneys to be happy, but they'd play footsie all the time. Damn that footsie.
It was then that a strange, disembodied voice called out to him: "Schifffffffff...Schiffffff..."
Schiff briefly considered having a heart attack, but considered against because, after all, it was an election year.
"Schiff!" The voice said, "you must hire Claire back as the ADA!"
"Why?" Schiff said defiantly, snipping a dead twig from his bonsai.
"Would you rather have Ms. Ross? Or....SERENA!?"
"No! Not...SERENA!" Schiff cried.
"Then hire back Claire! Face it, she's the best ADA you've had in years!"
"But...THE FOOTSIE!" Schiff said in horror.
"I will talk to them about...the footsie." The voice said dutifully.
"But....the footsie...DAMN THAT FOOTSIE!" Schiff said, clenching his pencil so tightly that his knuckles were white.
"Look," The narrator said, sounding a bit more desperate than narrators should, "I've got one more chance at a prime time story and if I screw this up they're sending me back to...to...TELETUBBIES!!"
"All right," Schiff said, taking pity, "as long as you take care of the footsie."
"I will," The voice promised.
FIN