Jack McCoy looked up from the newspaper he was reading as he lay on the couch as his office door slammed open. Serena Southerlyn strode in, coming to a stop beside him. She glared down at him, her arms folded, her mouth set.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Colleen says Leon Chiles is on his way in to discuss a plea," she said tightly.

McCoy raised his eyebrows. "That's right."

Serena stared at him. "You can't seriously be considering it, Jack!"

He sat up a little. "I want to hear what he has to say. Getting a look at defense's soft underbelly never makes it any harder in court."

She threw up her hands. "Something different to what we've been hearing in court all week? His client killed a cop, Jack!"

"This is unexpected," McCoy said. He dropped his newspaper and swung his feet to the floor. "Usually it's you wanting to know what defense has to say in mitigation and me wanting the maximum."

"There's mitigation, and then there's bullshit," Serena said. "Lee Martinson wasn't in any danger. It was a routine traffic stop, and a justified one! He ran two red lights, Officer Williams pulled him over, and Martinson shot him dead."

"At least some of the jury are buying it," McCoy pointed out. "And there's an argument that you and I aren't the best judges of Martinson's state of mind." He stood up, refastening his collar button and adjusting the knot of his tie. "We don't feel our heart beat faster at the sight of flashing lights in the read-view mirror. We don't wonder, every time we see a uniform, if this is going to be the time we end up as another police brutality complaint. I don't buy it as a complete defense any more than you do, Serena, but you have to admit you can't understand —"

"Can't understand what?" she snapped. "Sometimes being afraid just because of who I am? Because of something I can't help and can't change?"

McCoy paused in the act of taking his suit jacket from its hangar, remembering Mark Bruner's chilling smile. Oh, how I wish you hailed my cab, Serena, Serena. "Okay, that's fair," he conceded. "But neither of us gets pulled over because our car looks too expensive, or worries that reaching for our wallet to show our I.D. will get us shot." He shrugged into his jacket. "And at least four jurors in that courtroom know what that feels like. Leon Chiles has won with this strategy before, Serena. Latiff Miller walked. I'd rather take a deal on Murder Two than see Lee Martinson a free man."

She shook her head. "Chiles won't take anything over Manslaughter. He's probably coming in here to try and sell you on Man Two!"

"Then he won't find any buyers," McCoy assured her. "But let's hear what he has to say." He paused. "Why don't you take point? You can be the hard-ass, for a change, and I'll come in at the end as the soul of sweet reason."

"What does that make me, the dog or the pony?" Serena asked.

"Neither," McCoy said. "You're thinking of Mutt and Jeff. Here he comes."

He sank into his desk chair as Leon Chiles strode into the room, letting Serena shake the defense attorney's offered hand.

"I'm glad you've come to your senses," Serena said. "Some possibility of parole is better than none."

Chiles smiled. "Opening tough, I see Jack's been teaching you his bad habits. You know the best you can hope for at this point is a hung jury, a mistrial, and then we get to do all this again."

"I don't see it that way," Serena said. "The people in this city are kind of touchy about people shooting police officers these days. One reference to the Twin Towers in Jack's summation and your client does life."

"You underestimate the effect a lifetime's discrimination has, counselor," Chiles said. "Those jurors understand what you never will — what it's like to always wonder —"

"If holding the hand of my girlfriend in a public place might get me beaten bloody?" Serena said. "That my friends are routinely assaulted just because of who they are, including by the police during bogus arrests for things like using a public restroom? That if I kiss my date a little too enthusiastically when she walks me home I might wear a public lewdness charge? Why don't you tell me a little more about discrimination and harassment, Mr Chiles?"

Chiles looked startled, but he was too old a hand to let it show for more than a microsecond. "Then you, of all people, should know what's going through the minds of the jury."

"I do," Serena said. "They're thinking that they know what it's like to be afraid, because of something they can't help. They're thinking that they know what it's like to live in a society that tells them they're second-rate. They're thinking that they know how it feels to know that some people in the institutions that are supposed to protect them would rather hurt them, instead."

Chiles nodded, and opened his mouth.

Serena cut him off before he could speak. "And they're thinking, like I'm thinking, that despite all that they've never killed an innocent man who was just doing his job. They're sympathetic to your client's fear, Mr Chiles. They're not sympathetic to his crime."

"You've just heard a preview of my co-counsel's closing argument," McCoy said. "How do you like your client's chances now?"

"What's on offer?" Chiles asked after a moment.

"He pleads guilty and we won't ask for the death penalty." Serena said.

"You know it's not Murder One," Chiles protested. "As a matter of law — his emotional state —"

"Is not an issue," McCoy pointed out. "You entered the defense of justification, not extreme emotional disturbance. Big call, Leon, big play. A big risk that didn't pay off."

Chiles shook his head. "Manslaughter One. Five years. The facts support it."

"The jury won't," Serena said.

"Murder Two," McCoy said into the silence that followed. "He does it all."

"It's a gift," Serena said, and McCoy had to hide his smile.

Once Leon Chiles had made his disgruntled way back to the elevator, McCoy stood up. He went over to the couch and picked up the newspaper from the floor and folded it carefully. "Holding the hand of your girlfriend?"

"I don't have a girlfriend."

McCoy nodded, and sat down on the couch. "So you were snowing him. Well done —"

"I don't have a girlfriend right now." Serena said, and stopped. "This wasn't how I planned it."

He patted the couch beside him, patted it again when she hesitated, and waited until she sat down. "How did you plan it?"

"Some sort of —" She ran her fingers through her hair. "I don't know. Announcement. Or else bringing a hot girlfriend to the office Christmas drinks. Something …"

"Impressive," McCoy said with a smile, and she nodded ruefully. "This a new thing for you?"

Serena shook her head. "A few years. I … there was a woman, and I —" She shrugged. "It was different. To the guys I'd been with. It was … right." She paused. "If Martinson doesn't go for the deal, will you really let me make the closing?"

"Not the speech you just made to Chiles, no," McCoy said. "For one thing, we didn't ask the jury about their attitudes to homosexuality in voir dire. It would only take one bigot who thinks Jerry Falwell is right for the jury to hang."

"That's unfair," Serena said. "I can't deliver a summation at trial because I'm a lesbian?"

McCoy shook his head. "You can't deliver a summation about being a lesbian to a jury whose attitudes are an unknown quantity, and yes, it's unfair. It's also reality." He touched her arm lightly. "Our job is to win the trial in front of us, not to bring about social change."

"Unless there's a gun company on trial," Serena said. "Unless it's social change you want."

"Bring me a murder charge against an anti-gay bigot and I'll put his or her views on trial as well," McCoy said.

"I'll hold you to that."

"Good." He leaned his head against the back of the couch and studied her. "How much of what you said to Leon was true?"

Serena turned to look at him, frowning. "All of it. You've seen the complaints about the arrests at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Penn Station and you've seen the photos in the papers of some of those guys after their trip to the nearest Precinct."

"And have you been harassed?"

"About a year ago," Serena said, "I had my arms around my girlfriend on the sidewalk outside her apartment building. An off-duty cop tapped me on the shoulder, showed me his badge, and told us we were disgusting and that he could arrest us."

"Did you get his badge number?" McCoy asked, frowning.

"No. It happened, Jack!"

"I'm not doubting you," McCoy said. "I'm just thinking about the period of limitations on complaints of police misconduct. What did you do?"

"I showed him my badge and quoted C.P.L two-forty-five, and C.P.L. one hundred points fifteen and forty," Serena said. "But I was scared, Jack. You hear all sorts of stories."

"You do." He sat up, and put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. It shouldn't happen. I know that doesn't help."

"It does, actually," she said. "I was …" She shrugged. "A little nervous. About telling anyone in the office."

"Anyone gives you any grief, refer them to me," McCoy said. "You shouldn't have to hide anything, Serena." He paused. "Or feel that anyone has the right to invade your privacy, either. Up to you."

"That is the difference between me and Lee Martinson, isn't it?" Serena said. "I can choose to stay private. I can choose to run the risk of facing discrimination, or not. He can't."

McCoy got to his feet. "The difference between you and Lee Martinson is that he shot a cop." He took off his jacket again and unknotted his tie. "And he's going to jail for it, whether he takes a plea or not. Chiles is right, he can hang this jury. But you're right too — so can I."

"He can hang the next one, too," Serena pointed out.

"Then we'll try Mr Martinson as many times as it takes to get it right," McCoy said. He paused. "So, you said, no girlfriend at the moment?"

Serena rolled her eyes. "Jack, it's not like … I mean, I'm sure, it's not just —"

McCoy shook his head. "I'm not wondering if you're still bi-curious, Serena." He grinned at her. "I'm just wondering if you need a wingman."

Serena's eyebrows climbed so high they were practically at her hairline. "You're volunteering to help me pick up women?"

"You might have heard, I've some experience in that department," McCoy said. He waggled his eyebrows at her and Serena burst out laughing.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Jack," she said, getting to her feet. "Although I'm sure hitting the gay bars with you would be memorable, I think I'll pass."

He shrugged. "Let me know. Oh — do you have a phone number for Jessica Sheets?"

"No, but I can find one for you," Serena said. "Why?"

"Because," McCoy said, and winked, "I hear that at the moment, she's single too."