3

The case was Hardwick vs. Andrews. Jason Hardwick was suing Monica Andrews for emotional discourse between them in high school. Apparently she had gone to the prom with him and left with another guy back in 1977. The unresolved feelings of that night had left Jason a basket case of insecurity and following his doctor's advice, he decided to resolve it by suing Monica for the money he had lost on her that night. Ally was pleading Jason's case pro bono when evidentiary events revealed that Monica had pulled the same stunt on seventeen others guys in the course of her life on separate events. John could stay behind as co-counsel and hear the results as Ally slipped home to pack and go off on her honeymoon.

"What's this crazy rumor I hear about you running off and getting married?" Her roommate, Renee Raddick, was using her lunch break at the district attorney's office to come home to the apartment and confront her. She stood in the doorway as Ally sat on her suitcase to close it.

"It's true." Ally grinned like a little girl. "I am now Ally McBeal-Collins… Although, I could drop the McBeal when I start having babies." She lifted her ring to show it off. "He even gave me a ring. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it…." Marriage had regressed her to a giddy teenager again.

"Uh-huh…" Renee held Ally's left hand checking it out. The diamond was big enough to require a band large enough for it. "That looks like it was purchased by a Collins all right." She lifted her eyes up to Ally. "What about your career?"

"Well, I'm not going to stop being a lawyer." Ally hopped her body up and down on her suitcase t latch it. "William says there's a law firm in Collinsport and that they go to Bangor and Augusta all the time."

"Sweetie…" Renee tried to talk sense to her best friend as Ally hopped to the floor and dragged her suitcase off the bed. "Are you seriously going to leave your life here to build it around this man."

"Renee… I'll still be coming to Boston with him." Ally's voice turned to a soft passionate whisper. "I love him. He loves me. When I'm around him…"

"You find you're with Billy again." Renee finished for him.

"No… Well, yes… Maybe…" Ally looked to her. "Don't confuse me." She paused. "I care about Billy…" Ally confessed. "But it's obvious I can't go back to what we had there. I'm moving forward now…"

"Honey," Renee sighed and sat on the bed. "As long as you really love each other…"

"We do…"

"Then…" Renee stood up again. "What else do you really need?" She hugged her.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you…"

Back at the law offices, Georgia strolled into Ally's office while the diminutive lawyer was in court. She thought Ally might have returned from court, but she was wrong. As she turned, she noticed Elaine stretched out on the sofa where William had carried her. Passed out from the stunning news of the marriage, the office sexpot stirred, scowled and looked up as Georgia stood over her.

"Oh…" she yawned. "I had a horrible dream. I dreamt that Ally and William got married and returned to flaunt it in my face."

"It really happened." Georgia broke the bad news.
Everyone's heads turned as Elaine screamed as if her world was coming to an end. William was puttering around the office as he waited for the new Mrs. William Collins to return to him. Sitting in the reception area, he looked at his wedding band and spinned it contently with his thumb and felt oddly at peace with the world around him. He had a wife. His life was changing. He saw himself taking her on trips, sharing his life with her and rushing to be with her. Before, his life had no meaning despite hollow pursuits, but now, it had a meaning. Crossing before him a few feet away, Ling noticed him, strolled up and stuck her leg upon a chair. She turned her head to him and seductively and silently growled under breath then stood shocked as William grinned, chuckled and turned away in amusement. Unprepared by that snubbing, Ling gasped and headed to Nell in a hurry. She pushed open the door and stood there.

"Something's wrong." She whined. "I stood before a man and he didn't notice me!"

"That would be William Collins." Nell grinned matter-of-factly. "The guy who married Ally."

"Oh," Ling sighed a breath of relief. "Then he just doesn't go for real women." She shined again. "That was close…" Elaine had passed behind Ling with a hurry to her step and a heavy sensation in her heart. Her feet carried her straight to the newly married Mr. Ally McBeal sitting and looking out the front windows. She stood before him and whimpered as she tried to talk as if she were about to cry. The tears wouldn't come as she looked to him.

"Why?" She asked him. "Why? Why?"

"Because I love her." William admitted. "I love you too, Elaine, but... what I have with Ally is different. I can connect with her on a different way."

"But…" She struggled with her feelings. "I've had feelings for you for years. You opened up to me in your e-mails ever since I first read your first book. I thought…" She tried to think what she was trying to say. "I thought if I was ever going to get married… that you'd be the one."

"Elaine…" William sighed and turned to her. "You gave me moral support. You were like the sister Sara never could be." He mentioned his sister. Elaine knew her as often self-obsessed, mischievous and flighty, mostly using William as a practice dummy in her karate and judo training. "You made it possible for me to talk to girls again after Paula left me." Paula had been his first and only other girlfriend in his life.

"What if I had darkened my hair, cut it and shopped where Ally does? I can wear mini-skirts! I just chose not to." She asked almost seriously as William grinned his boyish grin, secretly coveted his wedding band and platonically kissed her. Elaine's heart melted a bit as he turned for the unisex.

"I was too hot for him." She told herself. "I was so hot it intimidated him and he went for Ally instead." She paused. "It's that damned Ginger-and-Mary Ann thing all over again."

Upon entering the unisex, William looked up. Ally's former boyfriend and current colleague, Billy Thomas was washing his hands with two of his Billy girls hovering around him. He could see how Ally meant he had gone off the deep end. Rebelling against sensitivity after his wife showed a brief attraction to Ally's father, he had bleached his dark hair to blonde and turned himself into the poster child for the Hitler Youth. Accompanied by two shapely young ladies, he allowed them to lather his hands for him and turn the water on for him. He grinned amusingly at the spectacle and started for one of the stalls.

"Good God, it's Charlie Harper all over again…" He flashed upon a character from his past.

"What?" Billy asked him.

"Nothing," William remarked. "I just thought you'd be the last one to lose it."

"Lose nothing." Billy added. "I got smart. Georgia was using me, and I realized it. I'm doing what I want and living the way you live, and if you were smart you wouldn't have let Ally brainwash you into marriage. It's only good for women."

"Well," William's first thought was to punch him, but he wasn't his Cousin Jamison. "Billy, I respect your decisions, but at one time you cared enough about Georgia to sacrifice your life to her. What changed?" He paused. A brief memory came to him. "When did you last see a doctor?"

"Doctor?"

"Billy," The Collins heir liked William Thomas as a friend; it didn't matter to him that he once had a thing for Ally. "I once knew a guy in school named Walt Gentry. He was a good guy; levelheaded and respectable, but then he went off the deep end and started shoplifting, drinking and using drugs. He spiraled to nothing fast. When he tried holding up the town liquor store, the shop owner shot him in the head."

"And what…" Billy's heightened masculine ego made him stand face to face with his old girlfriend's new husband. "Does this have to do with me?"

"When the doctors fought to save his life and remove the bullet," William added dramatically.

"They found a tumor pressing on a part of the brain that controlled his cognitive and logical reasoning. It turns out that inflammations and certain pressures on the brain can cause personality shifts." William confided in him. "I'm not an expert, but… maybe you ought to get checked out."

"This isn't a tumor." Billy sneered and pointed to his hair.

"No, that's a bad choice." William answered. "But this…" He waved his hands all around Billy and his female posse. "…Is, and if you think I'm wrong, prove it."

Billy glared at him a moment more, ran his fingers over his blonde hair and stamped out. Shooing off his girls for the moment, he headed angry and disgruntled to his office and closed the door behind him. Nobody was getting it. This was him. He wasn't nuts. He wasn't off the deep end, and he didn't have a tumor. Entering his office, he looked up, and he saw himself!

"He's right." Brunette Billy looked back from the desk.

"What?"

"I'm tired of acting like an ass." His former self argued. "I want to go back to normal! I think we should go see a doctor. We owe it to Georgia and everyone else." He walked up to blonde Billy and gripped him by the lapels. "And if you don't go, I will."

"Oh, god." Blonde Billy stammered and realized he might actually have a tumor as Collins suggested. "So this is what it's like to be Ally!"