Disclaimer: The characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.
Rated: K
Author's note: I really like this episode and reference it fairly often, but this is my 'official' try at an epilogue. Also from Vol. 1 of the STAR for BK fundraising fic. Just a reminder: the auction is coming up soon. If you want more info, message me from my ffnet homepage. Thanks again.
Mr. Hardcastle Goes to Washington
epilogue by L.M.Lewis
Judge Hardcastle is the dark-horse nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy. He leaves Mark back at the estate—it wouldn't be prudent for a law-and-order guy to show up in Washington with an ex-con, even a reformed one. But Mark has trouble staying where he's put. He drives cross-country to offer moral support, arriving in the nick of time to rescue a kidnapped Hardcastle.
Turns out an old nemesis of the judge's, escaped murderer Lonnie Vanatta, has made a new career for himself as a newspaper publisher in D.C. under an alias. The kidnapping having failed, he goes ahead with a smear campaign, trying to guarantee that the judge doesn't take up permanent residency in the capital.
All this animosity piques the judge's interest. He and Mark track down the source and tag Vanatta with yet another murder. Riding for justice in D.C. has raised Hardcastle's profile a little. He goes from being not even on the radar, to merely a very long shot as a candidate. It doesn't matter, though; he tells the president he can't accept in any case. He's going back to California.
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"And anyway, I'll see you in four days."
"Well," Hardcastle groused to the younger man, "It'd better not be one and a half. I still think I should've cashed in my plane ticket. I could've spelled ya on the driving."
McCormick had already taken this one on several times already. "No room for the luggage. You don't want your tux to get all squashed, do you?" He smiled and handed the judge's bags off to the cabbie. "Besides, someone needs to get home and look after the place; better you than me." He was grinning his farewell as the judge stepped into the cab and closed the door.
"Four days," he said sternly. "This isn't the Le Mans."
Mark nodded in a way that seemed to imply, as usual, that whatever was being said was cheerfully transiting through without really registering. But, surprisingly, he actually replied.
"And if I take five days, you'll put out an interstate APB."
Hardcastle froze for a moment. It was a joke, wasn't it? Of course he had said something about riding herd on the kid a few minutes ago up in the hotel room. But that had been a joke, something tossed off to make light of his own refusal to be considered, even as the longest of long shots, for a Supreme Court nomination.
The judge managed a nervous smile as he repeated, "Four days," and added, "at least." This time Mark just nodded, and waved as the taxi pulled away from the curb.
He was nearly to the airport before it occurred to him that he'd never even asked McCormick what had prompted him to make that last-ditch effort to get to Washington in the first place. Awkward question, no doubt. After all, Hardcastle thought, if he was going to be honest about it to himself, it was only the circumstances of his arrival that had saved the kid from a royal chewing out.
If he'd arrived ten minutes earlier, he would have been an annoyance, not to mention in strict violation of the order to stay back in Malibu and 'look after things'. There would have been a good chance that he would have sent the kid packing, right back where he'd come from. Okay, well, you would have at least told him to hit the sack first, catch some shut eye . . . maybe.
On the other hand, if he'd arrived ten minutes later than he had, he would have been . . . too late.
The judge frowned to himself as the cab pulled up to the curb at the airport. He paid the driver, accepted his bags, and entered the terminal, still thinking about it. Timing. He wouldn't have said the guy was lucky, or maybe it was just that what luck he did have tended to be in the line of being there when he was needed. Which is way more often than you'd think. The frowned deepened.
When the hell had that happened?
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Two days later he was still thinking about it all, on and off, and no closer to the answers to any of it. He'd settled into the unusual quiet of estate minus McCormick, not expecting him back for at least another day and a half. And yet, somehow, the familiar and distinct sound of the Coyote, coming up the drive at ten-thirty that night, failed to surprise him—aggravate, yes . . . surprise, no.
He got up from the chair and stepped over to the window. McCormick was making no effort at concealing his return. Wouldn't have made much sense, the judge supposed, even the next morning would be still too early by far. But he was heading directly to the gatehouse.
Hardcastle stepped to the door for an interception. A sharp whistle brought the other man to a full stop with a glance over his shoulder. It looked like chagrin, but might've just been fatigue. He turned and hollered, "How 'bout tomorrow, Hardcase?" in a tone that seemed to indicate that chagrin had nothing to do with it.
"How 'bout now," Hardcastle replied, not phrasing it as a question. This time he was surprised. The younger man simply turned and trudged toward him, with no further argument.
When he'd come within range of the porch light, he looked even more ill-kempt and weary. Hardcastle felt a twinge of guilt and almost dismissed him; the aggravation, though, was too close to the surface, and it still had something to say. He gestured the other man past him and into the house.
All he got was a scant half-shrug, and some further trudging that carried McCormick all the way into the den. He didn't sit down—probably tired of that, Hardcastle thought absently. Instead, he slouched in a very casual way. But, despite this stance, his expression was tense, as though he was ready for an argument.
Hardcastle pushed the aggravation to one side for a moment and merely asked, "How fast'd you have to drive?"
That got him a brief, questioning raise of the eyebrow, then a mildly sullen, "Not that fast, just long."
"Did you stop at all?" Still fairly mild. It might have been concern instead of criticism.
"Um," the kid had clearly not been expecting a discussion, "Amarillo, I think." He frowned briefly. "Yeah. And for gas," he added, after a half-beat.
"Amarillo?" Hardcastle couldn't help it; that one had come out a little harsher. "That's a thousand miles."
It was a spark, and a spark was really all the younger man had needed. "Listen," he said—the frown became a scowl, "I'm here, didn't crash the car, didn't get busted, didn't even get a ticket. I know how to drive, for chrissake, Hardcase. I used to do it for a living."
There'd been the slightest emphasis on the 'used to' noticeable even among the rising tones of the rest of it. In the instant, Hardcastle fixed on the whole list of other things that McCormick used to do, and he was only a split-second from enumerating them out loud, when the look on the kid's face froze the words, unspoken,
There was defiance, of course, but it was shaded in with a regret that bordered on wistful. The older man's sudden silence seemed to take McCormick by surprise. The defiance was losing ground by the moment and the slump had become more pronounced.
"I'm just tired," Mark confessed. "And I'm gonna say something stupid pretty soon, and then I'm gonna be sorry and I just don't think this is worth it. So, maybe you could save the lecture for in the morning."
The judge found himself nodding and stepping aside, out of the doorway. McCormick hesitated a moment, then ducked past. He was almost to the door when Hardcastle heard him say, 'goodnight', and he was through it, and out of earshot, before the older man had a chance to respond.
What the hell just happened?
He walked the few steps to his desk and sat down heavily, still thinking. It occurred to him that he still hadn't asked the question—why the heck McCormick had gone to Washington in the first place. It was still awkward, he knew that, and chances were he would never ask at all. Why embarrass the kid?
He went there because he thought you'd need him. Exactly what part of a trip to Washington he was supposed to require a fast gun, well . . . He wasn't going there to be Tonto. He was going there because he thought you might need a friend.
Then what about all this driving home nonsense? Why the hell did he have to do that?
The judge sat there, sparing one quick look over his shoulder at the figure retreating down the drive toward the gatehouse, head down, hands in his pockets.
He did it because you told him not to.
The thought came to him fully-formed and undeniable, like something that must have been there all along, now suddenly illuminated by a lightening-stroke of insight. Oddly, though, the idea of McCormick being blindly defiant didn't make him angry.
Defiant when it makes no difference.
He pondered that for a moment, trying to figure out why it all felt vaguely familiar. Like having a teenager at home. The thought had bobbed up, and was, just as quickly, resubmerged. He's not a kid, for Pete's sake; he's almost thirty, and an ex-con.
But you do treat him like a kid sometimes. There was some undeniable truth to that. And he puts up with it. Again, just as true. And it might be that he kind of expects you to chew him out—kind of a ritual.
It had almost seemed that way tonight, only maybe that the younger man realized he was too tired to play by the rules and felt he'd had to postpone the game. Hardcastle almost smiled at this. There were rules, unspoken but more or less adhered to, and apparently one of them was that the kid had to break them . . . and he had to rag him about it.
Rules about rules. He was smiling outright now, up on his feet, heading for the door and the stairs. Rules made to be broken.
But never the important ones.