When McCoy agreed to the terms Malinowski had laid out for him, the fact that it was early April and unseasonably warm, had not been lost on him. The weather that was hardly cap wearing weather.

The morning forecast had been for more showers and a high of 45 degrees, with no change until after the weekend.

As he put on the grey wool cap, he wondered for the tenth time that day, how badly global warming was affecting the weather in Manhattan. He also wondered how fast he could get from the tenth floor to the waiting town car without being seen.

"Jack, I'm glad I caught you before you..."

McCoy gave his new EADA a scathing glare, meant to make the younger man think twice about any comment, that was not of a professional nature.

"What is it Mike?"

Although Cutter hadn't worked for McCoy long, the new EADA had already learned provoking the boss was not only unwise, but an invitation to grief. He could feel his eyes begin to tear, as he fought the urge to laugh out loud at the sight of McCoy wearing a cap that was not only uneven and tight on his head, but pointed in a way that made Cutter think of Pinocchio's nose.

"Did you have something you wanted to say," McCoy growled impatiently.

"Humm yeah," he said running a quick hand over his eyes." I wanted to let you know the jury came back with a guilty verdict on the Conlin case. Connie thought you might want to join us at Clancy's for a drink."

McCoy instantly lowered his head, regretting his harsh tone. The Conlin case had been tough from the start. Even with a few fumbles, McCoy had been impressed by Cutter's determination, as well as his willingness to take responsibility for those fumbles.

"Next time," McCoy said as he grabbed his green jacket from the rack."I promised Brooke I'd stop buy that yarn mart on Baxter Street before it closes..."

"Ah, so that's why…,"Cutter began, suddenly changing his mind when he saw McCoy's eyebrows rise."How is Brooke?"

McCoy leaned on the edge of his desk and pondered the question. It had been almost two weeks since Malinowski had left the hospital and McCoy had yet to see her let on how much damage…physically or emotionally...she'd suffered. With the exception of the heated exchange they'd had her first night home from the hospital, his fiancée had been uncharacteristically nonconfrontational, almost to the point of passivity.

"She's good, but not half as good as the guy who just landed that guilty verdict," a familiar voice said, Malinowski extended her hand."I just passed Connie in the hall. She told me about the Conlin verdict. Congratulations Mike."

Cutter grasped the hand. Although what was left of the bruises on her face were well hidden, behind the carefully applied make up, Cutter knew Malinowski was far from 'good'. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, noting both its clammy feel and the shaking he pretended not to notice.

"Connie deserves equal credit. It would never have happened if my second chair hadn't reminded me of the importance of making sure the jury sees your victim as a flesh and blood human being and not just another statistic."

"Spoken like a man who's found his professional soul mate," she said as she turned to survey her fiancée with a wicked grin. "I see you are a man of your word. Bet you're longing for the old fedora right about now."

"The cap is the perfect hat for me now that I'm DA," McCoy quipped as he gave her a quick kiss."The voters will either take me for someone that belongs in the corner or assume the tip grows every time I tell a lie. I thought I was meeting you at the loft?"

"Change in plans," she said as she gave him a playful smack in the arm."Liz was running behind, so I finished my appointment later than expected. Figured, since I was a short cab ride away, I'd come over and see if I could talk you into a drink at Clancy's before we head home."

"Actually, Mike just invited me to celebrate his win down there and I turned him down. I thought you wanted more yarn and the store closes..."

"Jack," she said, in a tone so scholding Cutter had to turn his back to the pair, as he coughed to stifle a chuckle."What kind of DA doesn't buy the first round when his number one prosecutor scores one for the Gipper? Besides, let's be honest. Giving me more yarn, is like giving a serial killer an unlimited supply of knives. Nothing but mayhem can come from either scenario."

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McCoy gestured to the cocktail waitress for another round and returned his attention to discreetly observing his fiancée. McCoy knew Malinowski was deliberately holding back on the amount of liquor she was consuming. Well aware that they were not only in a public place, but sitting with most of McCoy's staff from the Major Felonies Bureau, she was carefully nursing her second drink. Her full attention on Rubirosa, who was describing how Cutter managed to pull the Conlin case out of the crapper in the eleventh hour.

While he admired the way Malinowski had tried to return to business as usual, he had seen enough victims to know it was just a matter of time before the confident facade would begin to crack. He knew her well enough to know the visits to Liz Olivett were tolerated only because McCoy had been in the room when the doctor insisted on them. As soon as she returned to work in Long Island, Malinowski would suddenly be too busy to manage to keep any more appointments with the Manhattan psychologist.

Not that I'd do any better with weekly visits to Liz Olivet. I'd have said to hell with it after the first session and never gone back, he reminded himself as he nodded politely to Cutter and made the right noises to keep everyone, but his fiancée, satisfied he was following the conversation.

It wasn't her unspoken apathy toward the sessions that bothered him most. It wasn't even the fact Ivan Janovich had seemed to vanish into thin air after his partner finally broke and gave the police information on the other man's whereabout. The thing that worried him the most was how hell bent Malinowski was to pretend that the relationship between herself and McCoy hadn't been affected on any level.

As he drained the liquid from his glass, his mind turned to the first night they were alone together in the loft. After inspecting the cabinet work McCoy had done in time she'd been away, she marveled at the efforts he'd made to tidy the place. When he presented her with Cohen's bag of crochet supplies, he thought for a moment she was going to let her guard down and open up. But, after a long thoughtful moment, she wiped the tears from her eyes and spent the next half hour telling McCoy stories about the ill fated projects she'd attempted when Cohen taught her the craft as a diversion from the heavy drinking she started shortly after the 'death' of her husband.

While McCoy prepared a simple meal of homemade stew and freshly baked bread, Malinowski had taken a leisurely bath. When he called her to the table, she opened the bathroom door shortly afterwards. Whne he looked across the room to where she stood, he knew things were about to go from bad to worse.

Malinowski smiled awkwardly, as she moved across the room to the bistro table. The black satin robe was open and revealed the lacy black nightgown McCoy had given her for her birthday. Any other time he would have reacted with ardor at the sight of his fiancée. That night, it was all he could do to keep from weeping at her hideous attempt at normalcy.

"Brooke, the heat's been acting up again," he said in an attempt to give them both an out."Maybe you'd be more comfortable if I brought you a sweat shirt or you flannel robe?"

"Nice try, but the heat goes on the fritz at your place, not here. Listen, Jack. I realize I'm not exactly looking my best these days," she said as she looked away and pulled the thin robe over her torso."I'm sorry. Obviously black and blue doesn't turn you on."

McCoy set the two bowls he'd been carrying down on the table and carefully pulled her into an embrace.

"Don't do this, Brooke," he whispered as he began to stroke her head."It's too soon. You don't have to prove anything. I'm grateful you're alive. The rest…the rest will come in time... you know that."

"What I know is I want my life back," she said as she looked up at him with eyes that were pleading."All of it. I want to sleep through the night without a sedative. I want to stop jumping out of my skin every time I hear footsteps. But most of all, I want to wash away every trace …every memory …of what those bastards did to me."

McCoy could hear the desperation in her voice before she pressed her lips to his. It felt wrong, but he feared pulling away would be seen as a form of rejection. McCoy had met enough kidnap victims to have a good idea of was in store for Malinowski, as well as himself. Dramatic mood swings, sudden irrational fears, panic attacks would all be par for the course. Throwing sexual assault into the mix, he'd assumed the last thing his lover would want was to be touched, at least until she'd had a chance to come to terms with her ordeal.

"Let's sit down before the stew gets cold," he said, giving her another quick kiss before pulling out her chair."I remember how much I looked forward to real food after my last stay in the hospital."

Instead of pressing him or even giving him some verbal shot about skirting the issue, Malinowski quietly took a seat across from him and let the subject drop.

"I was lucky," she said as she picked up her spoon."I had Andy smuggle in contraband from Emilio's a few times. But, I will admit, there's nothing quite like your stew."

And so the conversation had gone. Thru dinner and for many hours afterwards, they talked about everything except, the things that needed to be said. When both of them became too weary to avoid it any longer, they prepared for bed.

When McCoy came out of the bathroom, Malinowski was waiting for him under the covers. She waited until the figure clad in a tee shirt and briefs was beside her before setting her needle and yarn on the night table.

She caught McCoy's smile as he glanced at the yarn and smiled for the first time since before dinner.

"How could I make your cap color other than grey," she joked, before running her fingers through the comma of grey dripping below his eyes.

McCoy caught the hand and brought it to his lips.

"What can I say? I like grey."

"And I like you, Jack. Very much," she said as she slipped her hand out of his and began tracing small circles in around his nipples through the thin material."I can't tell you how much I missed this. Us. Alone at the end of the day. In our bed."

"Without you in it, it was just a bed," he said softly as he carefully pulled her to him, "A very big, very cold, very lonely bed."

He felt a sense of heady delight as his senses went on overload. His eyes closed as he took in the smell of her freshly washed hair, the sound of her voice saying she loved him, and warmth of her body as she wrapped herself around him. He knew he was sending the wrong signals. He knew in spite of his immediate euphoria, what he really wanted…no needed …to do, was hold her and thank God that he had the chance to do just that.

"I missed you too my love," she whispered as a hand moved from his chest and over his thigh."I thought I'd never see you again."

"Brooke," he started as he made a belated attempt to stop her hand from moving between his legs."Brooke, I'm sorry…"

The moment he looked in her eyes he knew his response…or lack thereof… had had a devastating effect on his lover.

"Don't be," she whispered, her voice thick with hurt."Not your fault."

"It's not a matter of fault," he said urgently as he ran a hand over the damp bruises on her cheeks.

"Damn it Jack, I didn't come home to be lied to," she snapped as she drew the covers closer.

"Brooke, this isn't the first time..."

"Oh my God…this isn't about fatigue or a migraine or even..."

"It's about not wanting to hurt you;" he said with exasperation, that he immediately regretted."Brooke. You've just been traumatized in the most intimate way possible. Not only is it too soon for you to physically..."

Before he could finish McCoy was holding his cheek, the sound her hand whiping across his face, still echoing in his ears.

"Damn you Jack," she shouted as she leaped out of bed threw on the discarded robe."I don't need your protection. I didn't ask you to start thinking for me and I sure as hell didn't ask you to let a fucking felon take a walk for me! I didn't ask you to intimidate Stan Webber into violating attorney client privilege! How many times did I tell you to do what you had to do on that god damned video…"

Between the slap and the unexpected tirade, McCoy was stunned.

"Brooke, I..."

"How many times, Jack," she demanded,as her emotional dam continued it's unyielding burst. "Three, four? Every time, praying one of those bastards didn't grow a brain cell and figure out what I was really trying to tell you! I thought YOU had enough smarts to know, I'd rather die than have you let criminals run the streets because of me!"

"I was buying you time," he shouted back as he stood and reached for the pair of jeans that lay nearby."I knew what you wanted…what you thought. You really thought I'd just stand ack and let them kill you? How the hell could you think you meant so little to me? What would you have me do..."

"What we all do when some thug tries to blackmail the system," she shrieked."You're supposed to face them down and tell them to go to hell. That's what you did when you sent Rostov back to Russia. That's what I wanted you to do …I begged you to do in that tape. That's what I begged you to do tonight!"

McCoy's head was spinning. With so much thrown at him, he wasn't sure how to begin defending himself. Feeling more like he was doing battle with Randall Dworkin in a courtroom, than trying to salvage what was left of his fiancées homecoming, he threw up his hands in frustration.

"I'm not going to apologize for not giving up on you, even if you were prepared to give up on yourself," he bellowed back, a defiant scowl on his face as he unflinchingly met her furious glare."You want to talk about whose lacking in smarts? Do you really think don't know self inflicted injuries when I see them? "

McCoy's pay back was as good as if he'd actually struck her.

"Bastard," she whispered as her hand flew to her mouth.

"Brooke –"he began hoarsely, immediately regretting his words."I know…What you did..."

"You know nothing," she said despondently, as she opened the bathroom door."Just go back to bed."

McCoy watched as the bathroom door closed. Even as he sat on the edge of the bed, he knew he wouldn't see her until morning. Weary as he was, it wasn't the lateness of the hour that kept him from going to the door and trying to coax his fiancée to come back to bed. What kept him sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, was the knowledge he'd failed her. He'd failed her not only morally, but as a man. As the man she looked to for help in ending the nightmare, McCoy knew was far from over.