Jack McCoy took the empty bottle from the bottom drawer of his desk and replaced it with the one he had purchased on his way to work that morning. In the month since Brooke's pregnancy had been terminated, McCoy had stopped drinking at home in an effort to help curtail his wife's drinking.
While it hadn't been a smashing success, McCoy was optimistic that she was drinking less now that he refused to drink with her. Although, by the time he arrived home he often found his wife soundly sleeping.
"Jack, I didn't think you'd be in this early," Connie Rubirosa began, her bright smile dimmed as her eyes fell on the brown paper bag in his hand.
"Don't start Connie," he said brusquely as he threw the bagged bottle into the trash can. "I'm just getting rid of an empty. ; An empty that became an empty well before I came in this morning. Is there something I can do for you?"
"I just wanted to give you this," she said with equal harshness as she handed him a pink slip of paper. "The new girl must have gotten your messages mixed up with mine. Anyway, when I saw it was from your daughter, I thought you might want to take a look ASAP."
McCoy stared at the name on the paper and muttered a thank you as Rubirosa left the room.
Once McCoy and his wife had agreed to end the pregnancy, neither had the will to contact the numerous friends and family members that would needed to be told. Jake Cohen and Danielle Melnick had graciously offered to take on the task. McCoy knew his daughter had been abroad doing a photo shoot for a new client for the last several weeks. Staring down at the message he wondered if anyone had been able to reach her to give her the bad news.
Tempted to wait until he felt more inclined to visit, but knowing that time wouldn't come very soon, McCoy reached for the receiver and began dialing the seemingly endless list of numbers that made up the telephone number for the Grand Hotel in Paris.
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Brooke McCoy glanced at the clock on her computer and mentally counted the hours until lunch and her first drink of the day. She knew she could never pull off her husband's habit of keeping a bottle for after work in her desk and still be able to function well enough to hold onto her job. Instead, she kept her drinking at lunch to a two drink maximum and made a point of waiting until she was on the train home before indulging any further.
She was smart enough to know heavy drinking wasn't going to take away the sense of emptiness she felt upon not only aborting her baby, but consenting to a tubal litigation as well. But, it was one of only two things that seemed to motivate her to get out of bed every morning.
The other thing being the fact she knew she had to at least appear to be strong for her husband.
"Aren't you due in Part 14 in ten minutes," District Attorney Michael Jackowicz snapped as he exited the office across the hall.
Brooke glanced at the day planner on her desk and immediately leapt to her feet.
"I'm on my way. I just-"
Jackowicz's resigned sigh silenced the EADA, as she watched him come in and close her office door.
"I told you it was too soon for you to come back Brooke. I need my Executive focused and fast on her feet, not counting the minutes until she can get her next drink."
"I do my job and you know it, Michael," she snapped, while suppressing the string of swear words that ran through her mind. "I forgot a court date; a onetime thing. I think I've been doing this long enough to bluff my way through a simple sentencing hearing without breaking a sweat. As for my personal life -it's just that- personal. As long as I'm not at work, I'll have a drink whenever the hell I want and I won't be answering to you or anybody else for it, Dad."
Jackowicz shook his head as reached for the suit jacket on the rack.
"I want to see you after court," he said as she snatched the garment from him.
"Fine," she said primly as she threw the door open and nearly ran into Jake Cohen.
"Michael, before you-" Cohen began; fearing the worst as he took in the older man unsmiling gaze.
"You're not in court today," Jackowicz interjected.
"Nothing but motion drafts and depositions until next week."
"Good. You're taking the Executive position effective tomorrow," Jackowicz said flatly."You can start going through McCoy's case files immediately and-"
"What about Taz Montez," Cohen stammered. "She's next in seniority. Besides, Brooke just-"
"You know Taz is on maturity leave herself until next month," Jackowicz responded as he glanced down the hallway. Noting the passengers leaving the elevator, he motioned for Cohen to follow him into his office and closed the door behind him. "I know she's your friend, Jake. I hold Brooke in high regard as well. But she's getting sloppy right now and until she straightens herself out she's no good around here."
"So you're terminating her," Cohen said incredulously. "Not only is that unfair, but given why she's out of sorts, it could be grounds for a labor suit Michael-"
"If I wanted to can her Jake, I'd dot all the i's and cross all the t's," the other man said tersely. "I'm putting her on administrative leave until she pulls herself together. I told her not to push herself. She didn't want to listen. Now she doesn't have a choice."
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"Obviously I don't have a choice, do I," Brooke said as she downed the last of her drink and motioned for the bartender to bring another.
"If that's how you see it darlin', I know better than to argue," Sam Prescott said as the bartender set a drink in front of him. "Listen, I know you're not happy with me right now. I just wanted you to know how sorry-"
Brooke rolled her eyes as she silenced her former husband with a look of utter contempt. The pair were sitting in the club car of the Long Island Railroads 7:38 train to Manhattan. After her brief but devastating meeting with her boss, Brooke had made a beeline from her office to the train to the bar of the club car. She had been about to finish her third drink when Prescott sat down beside her.
"I told Jake to make it clear to you that you're the last person I want to see. Obviously you still don't get it. Do I need to get a God dammed restraining order to make my point?"
"Listen, I'm still workin' out of the Islip office. I take this train every night to get home-"
"Well, then I guess this won't be a problem after tonight," she said with a grimace as she picked up her glass.
"You mind tellin' me what that's 'posed to mean?"
"It means I have nothing else to say to you, so why don't you leave me the hell alone," she answered as she stubbornly decided to omit telling him about her forced leave.
"I'm not gonna just sit here and let you get dr-"
"Then leave," she said as she motioned for the bartender. "Listen; bring me a bottle of Jose Cuervo and a shot glass, would you?"
"Oh for God's sake, woman. Can't you stop wallowin' in self pity long enough to be glad you're alive-"
Prescott was ready when the glass shot up. His hand met her wrist as he brought the glass down on the wooden surface.
"You bastard," she hissed while eyeing him with a mix of rage and disgust. "If I'd known what a controlling, self gratifying son of a bitch you were when I thought you were dead, I'd have never have 'wallowed in it' as you call it, for five years. God, I never thought I'd live to say this, but I we all would have been better off if you had been in that casket or if you had at least let mekeep thinking you were in it!"
Prescott stood in stunned silence, unable to hide the searing pain as her words shot through him. He knew he'd pay a high price for showing Jack McCoy a copy of his former wife's medical records. He also knew if he didn't inform McCoy of the dangers of Brooke's pregnancy she could have very well died. At the time, Prescott felt he had no choice other than to fill McCoy in on the risk his wife was taking with her life.
As he watched her calmly pour herself a shot he began to realize not only the price he would pay for his decision, but the price Brooke herself was paying after being coerced in to giving up her child.
"We both know you don't mean that," he said at last as the train began to slow.
Brooke gave him a challenging look as she slipped some money on the bar and gathered her things.
"Think what you want," she said softly as she leaned close to him and met his injured stare. "But I know that I mean this. The moment I figured out what you did I stopped loving you. I stopped caring about what we had and whatever was left of the love I felt for you, instantly turned to hate. As far as I'm concerned, my first husband died by an assassins bullet. You? You may call yourself 'Sam Prescott' but you're not the man I married. Come near me again and I'll not only hit you with a restraining order, I'll make it my life's mission to find away to make you as miserable as I am now."
