Non Constat
Non constat - It is not certain
Claire Kincaid is dreaming. She dreams she is sitting in the faculty room eating cornflakes while Mr Ed explains the Supreme Court's decision on non-legal counsel to her.
"Hey, Kincaid!" Mr Ed says, and Claire wakes with a start. She is in the faculty room, but the table in front of her holds a stack of marking, not breakfast food, and it's Professor Yang calling her, not a talking horse. "Kincaid, you wanna go to Tulsa?"
"What?" Her mouth is gluey with sleep. "Huh?"
"Panel discussion on law and justice," Yang says in his usual rapid-fire shorthand. "Does the adversarial system inhibit the search for truth, blah blah. They want us to send a speaker. Wanna go to Tulsa?"
"Sure," Claire says.
"Cool," Yang says. "You'll be debating Jack McCoy. Didn't you used to work for him?"
Claire hears her own voice saying yes, once, hears Yang asking her about Jack and what he's like and if the stories are true, hears herself answer but it's all a long way away and underwater. Her heart is beating so hard it hurts. Jack. Jack. Jack.
I can't go.
I have to go.
I can't go.
I can't not go.
For a week Claire swings between the two. Then she fills in the forms and sends them off and tells herself, too late now. Of course, it isn't too late now, and she goes through the whole agony again when it's time to book the plane ticket, when she starts preparing notes for the discussion, when she starts packing, when she calls the taxi to take her to the airport, when she checks in …
Wheels up and Claire thinks, too late now, and knows it really is true.
She wonders how he'll look. How she'll look to him. She knows that she's wondering about that to avoid the real questions – questions like: What the hell are you doing, after all it took you to get away, to be safe?
After ten minutes primping in the aeroplane toilet, wondering if the lines at the corner of her eyes are as visible in daylight as they seem at the moment and if she should have taken the time to get her hair cut, Claire admits that she's not only avoiding the real questions.
All the way from the airport in Tulsa to the hotel where the conference is being held Claire imagines she can taste cornflakes. A sensible woman would tell the cabbie to turn around and take her back while she's still safe and the world around her is still real.
Claire is not as sensible as she used to be before she made a thousand anonymous phone calls to a familiar Manhattan number. Safe is overrated.
The hotel lobby is crowded. Claire hefts her suitcase and heads for the desk to check in. She's taken only a few steps when she sees through the crowd – I'd know him anywhere – Jack McCoy turning away from reception towards the elevators.
Her heart stops.
He looks the same and he looks different. He looks older, and tired, and when he catches sight of her through the crowd as she stands there with her coat in one hand and her suitcase in the other, Claire thinks he looks sadder than she's ever seen him.
She takes a step forward, then another. She's almost halved the distance between them when he blinks, and turns his back on her, and starts to walk away.
Her heart breaks.
For a second she stops still, trying to work out why she's still standing upright and breathing when her heart has shattered into a thousand pieces inside her chest. And then she thinks, Oh no you don't, mister, and she drops her suitcase and coat on the floor and runs. She runs.
She catches him at the elevators as he's about to get on and grabs his arm.
"Jack," she says, panting a little.
"Claire," he says distantly. His voice is raspier than the last time she saw him. He sounds the way he sounded on the phone, as if there's still a long-distance phone line between them.
"Excuse me, miss?" Claire turns and one of the bellhops is holding out her coat and bag. "I think you dropped these?"
Claire thanks him and takes them and hears the elevator bing behind her. She spins around and the doors are shutting with Jack on the other side . Claire leaps forwards, shoving her arm in the doors before they can close. The sensors are a little tardy and the doors squeeze her arm hard before they fold back to show Jack with his finger on the button that opens them.
Claire gets into the elevator.
"Are you okay?" Jack asks her, looking at the floor.
"No," Claire says, and Jack looks sharply at her, frowning. It's the same frown that she's seen when testimony doesn't add up or a judge makes a ruling that hurts the People's case, and Claire can't help smiling to see it.
"What's so damn funny?" Jack asks. He sounds exactly like the cranky Jack McCoy of old, and Claire could cry except she's laughing.
And then she thinks, why not? So what if I disappear again. Is it really so bad? I've had three years of borrowed time.
She turns to Jack and drops her suitcase and grabs him by the lapels of his suit jacket and kisses him.
She doesn't disappear.
He doesn't turn vague and fuzzy.
His body is warm and solid against her and his five-o-clock shadow scratches her cheek and his breath is a little sour from a long day travelling and maybe a couple of drinks on the plane.
Without even a moment's hesitation he's kissing her back, tasting of whiskey. Claire pushes him against the wall of the elevator and bites his lip, and he holds her like a drowning man, like he's trying to imprint the shape of the body on his, like he can draw her closer to him than life itself.
The elevator doors open.
"Is this your floor?" Claire asks him.
"Who cares?" Jack whispers, and takes her face between his hands and kisses her lips, her cheekbone, her eyelid, her lips again. His tongue teases hers and Claire's thoughts scatter, but if she's learnt anything recently, it's to stay focused on what's important.
She pulls herself a little away from Jack. "On your floor is your room," she tells him. "And in your room is your bed. And I think we should go there."
He's always been quick on the uptake. Claire barely has time to grab her bag and coat from the floor where she dropped them before Jack has her by the hand and is towing her down the corridor. They find the right room. Jack curses like a sailor when he drops his key, and Claire is laughing helplessly when he finally gets the door open and pulls her inside.
They don't quite make it to the bed.
.oOo.
