Title: Screensaver
Rating: T
Summary: She always means what she says. (Post-ep for "Legal Deficits")
Disclamer: No, I don't own Boston Legal. Nor, sadly, do I own Alan Shore. However, if anyone wants to give me an Alan plushie, I will love them forever. .
Author's Note: Yes, I am an Alan/Melissa shipper. I've been one since "Ass Fat Jungle". In other words, since before "Stick It." So, stick it! ;p
When he went out of his office- perhaps it was ten minutes later, perhaps 20- she had indeed changed her screensaver. It had been fish before: bright, frivolous fish, endlessly swimming back and forth across the screen.
The fish had suited her perfectly. She, too, was bright and frivolous. He liked that; she kept him amused.
Like the fish, she lacked direction, which bothered him. He know from her occasional outbursts that she was smarter than she let on. She was a quick learner, too. Her typing skills, for instance, while still sorely lacking were fast improving. She was also a curious, avid collector of new information. On the few occasions when she asked about something, a short answer was all she needed to gain a solid understanding that never really went away.
Her grasp of sexual harassment law impressed him.The contract she hadpresented him with had been thurough and precise. Her knowledge itself wasn't exactly noteworthy, but it was something that most people wouldn't expect from her. At times, she truly was a human Barbie doll, but he never made the mistake of forgetting (as so many others seemed to do) that there was a brain in her flaxen-encased head.
Other people would forget that she had a brain, and then she would present him with a well-written contract and he would laugh at the rest of the world, that misjudged her so severely.
They really were well-written. Rock-solid, really. Rock-solid? Maybe the phrase he wanted was "watertight". At any rate, rock-solid was not the phrase he wanted. It was far too easy to mix thoughts of sex and Melissa.
He would laugh, until he had to remove her from a jail cell. There was something singularly pleasing about the sight of Melissa in a jail cell. Melissa in a jail cell, in a dungeon, in handcuffs, in leather, in a hundred wonderful positions… Melissa suing him for sexual harassment.
What upset him, what bothered him, wasn't the fact that she was in jail. It wasn't what she had done to get there. It wasn't even the way she had acted when she was there. Her reaction to Lizzie had, in fact, been flattering. Melissa with her heckles up, marking her territory, defending her property, wasn't something that he would soon forget. Melissa putting him in handcuffs, Melissa... Suing him for sexual harassment.
No, it was the way she spoke on a regular basis. Statements free of analysis or clearly thought out ideas. Such a sharp contrast to her thorough contracts and demands regarding sex.
Sex. Demands. Melissa. Not a safe combination.
It was the bare (oh, bad, bad word) practicality of her statements and actions that frustrated him. Sexual self-preservation. That was her modus operandi, conscious or otherwise, in all things. It seemed so base, so wasteful. She could be so much better than that.
He watched the screen. For a moment, he fancied that he missed the fish. But what he really missed was Melissa. Not the synthetic brightness on the screen, but the real brightness of her, at her desk, in his office, in his home. Yes, he missed her, wasteful self-preservation and all. No, he did not miss the fish. In fact, he rather liked the new screensaver.
She had changed it to block letters. Large, 3D, all capitol letters that bounced around the screen, changing their dimensions to simulate distance, space, perspective.
The letters read CRANE, POOLE & SCHMIDT.
FIN
Go on, push the button! You know you want to!