Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.

Author's Note: Another missing scene from episode fifteen, "Mr. Hardcastle Goes to Washington", in which Hardcastle's visit to the capital is complicated by the attentions of an escaped-felon-turned-newspaper-magnate, who doesn't want to be recognized by the judge.

A Horse of a Different Color

by L.M. Lewis

Mark wasn't sure when he'd started looking forward to quiet evenings, spent at home. He frowned, the notion of 'home' having just crept into mid-thought uninvited and unpremeditated.

That didn't matter, he shrugged, with no one around to notice the gesture. Hardcastle would be arriving soon—the gatehouse, dinner, six-sharp. Mark had chosen this venue because he had half a notion that if the judge had gotten wind of the menu prematurely, there would have been some carping and pointed remarks, maybe even a back-up pizza order.

No, you had to slip in the occasional culinary experiment as a fait accompli, especially something as radical as macrobiotics. For the judge, when it came to food, daring was not on the menu.

Mark added a dollop of miso to the mixture. The kelp worried him. Seaweed was going to be a tough sell. The 'weed' part was hard to get around. He was still contemplating kelp's many virtues when his dinner guest arrived, giving the usual one-second warning before lumbering in like he owned the place, which he did.

He looked a little surprised to see the table already set and the main, and only, course prepped and ready for serving. Surprise slid rapidly into suspicion when the meal was set before him. Mark waxed enthusiastically about it, even the kelp, but Hardcastle wasn't buying. He still hadn't tasted it, opting for a dose of the evening news as Mark took his first heaping forkful.

He wasn't sure exactly when it hit him, but by a couple of chews into it he was certain. Connie, who sat across the aisle from him in English class, had undoubtedly found the ultimate way to give a guy the brush-off without getting her hands dirty. That could be the only explanation for recommending food that tasted this bad.

On top of that he had to listen to Hardcastle's heated commentary on the headline news story—something that only an ex-judge could have gotten his socks in a knot about—the appointment of a new Supreme Court justice.

He'd just finished doing his best to condiment the concoction into edibility when, poised to take another bite, he thought he heard the newscaster utter Hardcastle's name in the list of potential nominees for the top-judge vacancy. The fork dropped from his hand. It had nothing to do, he would later swear, with not wanting to take another bite of the macrobiotic mess.

He hadn't misheard. Hardcastle looked just as stunned. This displaced Mark's second flash of a notion: that the judge had somehow rigged up all of this as some kind of elaborate joke, fake newscast and all. And then, before he could even get his head fully wrapped around the idea of Hardcase as a candidate for the Supreme Court, the phone rang and the madness began.

It was a reporter from the Washington Post, and almost as soon as the judge had finished chatting with them—bland, un-Hardcastlelike bromides—next up was the LA Times, and then a guy from the AP. Finally came the call from some undersecretary in the Department of Justice, making it official. The administration had indeed released that list. They apologized for not warning him beforehand. An oversight. They wanted him to come to Washington as soon as possible, make the rounds, meet with a few people.

After that call Mark took charge of the phone, replacing it only briefly in the cradle before taking it off the hook again and leaving it there on the end table, muffled with a throw pillow to mute the howler. The judge didn't object.

"What now?" Mark asked.

"Ah," Hardcastle furrowed his brow, "it's a job; you go for a job interview."

"Yeah, but this isn't exactly second shift at the 'Wash-n-Wax'."

"No," Hardcastle said simply. Then he added, quietly, almost to himself, "Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States." He shook his head slowly, still looking stunned.

Mark wasn't used to this. He supposed, since Hardcastle was in a league of his own, that it wasn't impossible for the man to be out of his league, but he'd had yet to see it in the few months he'd been tagging around after the guy. It was hard to adjust his mind to the notion that a retired superior court judge could be just a big fish in a small pond.

"Why you?" he murmured, and almost immediately regretted it.

But Hardcastle didn't look offended. He'd been frowning off into a distant spot. Now he finally let out a breath and said, "Coulda been that San Rio thing. We got that thank you letter from the State Department. Somebody must've had my file out."

"Did they pull mine, too?" Mark asked practically.

Hardcastle gave him a quick, sharp look and a quicker shrug. "Mighta been a little oversight there."

"Well, look on the bright side; I don't have any federal convictions . . . also no arrests in San Rio, which is more than I can say for some people. You're going to have some 'splainin' to do."

"Hah. Everybody knows that was a set-up. Ramirez got it sorted out once Avery was out of the way. My record has been expunged," he sniffed.

"How 'bout that little bust in Las Vegas? Threatening a desk sergeant and not carrying proper firearms owner's ID, was it?"

"Judge Henderson talked to the guy at the station. It was an honest mistake."

"I had to go back to traffic court there last month."

"That's 'cause you were actually speeding," Hardcastle explained firmly. Then he paused for a moment before adding, "and what the hell does this have to do with me going to Washington to get vetted for this Supreme Court thing?"

"Took your mind off your troubles for a minute, didn't I?" Mark grinned. "Look, you've been in jail twice in the last three months alone, not to mention how many times people have taken shots at you—real shots, bullets. How much worse could hob-nobbing with a bunch of senators and bureaucrats be?"

"Who said I was worried?"

"Nobody," Mark said, all innocence. "I just thought most people would be, that's all."

"Okay, yeah, well, maybe I'm a little worried. Like I was saying, the rest of these folks are all Ivy League academic-types."

"Yeah," Mark nodded, "but I'll bet none of them could go toe to toe with a mobster or a gun-runner."

Hardcastle cocked his head, appearing to give that some thought.

"I dunno about Maggie," he finally said. "She's a scrapper."

"Okay," Mark conceded, "maybe the Honorable Margaret Williams . . . but she's not in your weight class." He grinned and leaned forward in his chair. "Look at it this way. You may be the dark horse—"

"If this is heading for a donkey joke, I'm not in the mood."

"Shaddup," Mark swatted at him, "I'm trying to be encouraging here." He frowned, trying to regain his focus. "What I was saying is, they're all cut out with the same cookie-cutter. You're different, and different might be just the thing they're looking for."

"You think?"

Mark shrugged. "Okay, it's a long shot, but there's how many judges? Thousands, right?"

Hardcastle nodded.

"And they picked you—one of four. It's a helluva an honor, don'tcha think?"

The judge nodded again, this time with a little more enthusiasm.

"And it's important to remember they picked you, not a fourth guy who went to Harvard and spent twenty years in an appeals court second-guessing the guys in the trenches."

Hardcastle was giving him a disbelieving stare. "You know that actually makes sense," he said cautiously.

Mark shrugged. "That's 'cause it's true."

Hardcastle pondered quietly. "Just be myself?"

"Maybe not too much yourself." Mark's expression went a little more concerned. "Just yourself on a quiet day with no high-speed chases."

"Well, of course not. Who would I end up chasing?" Hardcastle grinned in confident assurance. "I don't even know any bad guys in Washington."