Face To Face

Apartment of Regan Markham

Broadway Breslin

1186 Broadway

11.30 pm Thursday 2nd November 2006

Regan flailed herself free of a dream of blood stinking hot and Robbie screaming and screaming and screaming and – at the sound of her ringing phone. She tried to find it by the bed, lost her balance and rolled off the bed onto the floor, knocked the phone away and scrambled after it. It went silent before she could pick it up.

"Dammit!" Regan sat on the floor and rubbed the shin she'd barked falling out of bed, waiting for the beep that heralded a new voicemail. The apartment was cold enough to make her shiver. Regan welcomed the chill that stripped the last traces of sleep from her. Her phone beeped, and she pressed the right number of keys and heard McCoy's voice.

She listened to the whole of the message frowning, played it again. It made no sense. And oh lord, he sounded drunk.

She called him back, but the phone rang through to voicemail, did so again when she tried again.

Oh, god-fucking-dammit.

She was pissed with McCoy, and she knew she had every right to be. She was tempted to go back to bed. He's old enough to look after himself.

Except he sounded too drunk to find his way to the bathroom, let alone home from wherever he was. And you can't really take at face value someone's claims to be fine when they've been calling you by a dead woman's name.

What had Briscoe said? When your partner's in trouble, you don't leave him to the sharks, or leave him to drown. Regan hadn't really needed reminding, had asked the question just to hear the answer in another voice. Briscoe's metaphors were more nautical than Gran-Da Markham's but they boiled down to the same message:

Your partner's lost in the woods, girl, what you gonna do? You gonna leave him to freeze in the dark, or you gonna saddle up?

On the job, your partner could be closer than your family, closer than a lover. Even when you loathed each other, your partner had an absolute and final claim on you. When you are following someone through a door and the both of you have guns, Regan thought, there's not a lot of room for ambiguity in the relationship.

Your partner's broken down on the highway somewhere in the rain and the night, girl, what you gonna do? Stay inside where it's warm and dry, or drive out and find him?

She'd gone onto the force already primed to believe loyalty was the purest virtue. Not until she was cut loose from the blue line did Regan appreciate that fidelity could exist without a subject, isolation transmuting it into an inchoate longing and an abiding insecurity bred of knowing there was no-one to watch her back.

That had been just one of all the losses she had thought she'd learn to live with.

But leaning against the side of her bed in the dark Regan knew she was constitutionally incapable of going back to sleep and leaving Jack McCoy to whatever trouble he might find his way into to.

These days Jack McCoy was the closest thing to a partner Regan had, pain in ass though he could be. He was the closest thing in the world she had to a partner, which also meant he was just about the only thing she had in the world.

She got to her feet and dialled his cell phone number again. As she waited for him to answer she stepped to the dresser and ran her fingers over the cuff-link that lay there. Are you sure, he had asked in that cold grey early morning moment when the news came about Mary, Are you sure, trying futilely to delay knowing that what he heard was true. Regan wished she could change the way the world had turned in that instant, wished so hard she felt longing as a pain in her chest. Done's done. If wishing and wanting could change it you'd be back in Seattle worrying about how to afford braces and Nintendo on cops' salaries.

Done's done.

She was in New York, and Mary was in the hospital, and Jack McCoy was out there somewhere in the night.

The call went through to voicemail again. Regan hung up and got dressed. She grabbed her wallet and keys, looked up McCoy in the DA's Office emergency contact directory and wrote his address on the back of her hand in biro. She was pulling the door closed behind her when she thought cops, thought Walters.

She didn't want to drag her drunk boss out of a bar with an audience, but it was hard to see how it could be helped. But when she got downstairs and looked around to spot the officers watching her tonight she saw a patrol car up the street with the two cops standing next to it, bracing some guy outside the corner bodega.

Regan turned the other way. After half a block she risked a look behind her and saw that the car hadn't moved.

That was easy, she thought, a little unnerved. So much for New York's finest between me and Edward Walters

And now you're wandering around New York at midnight, unarmed, with a psycho possibly after you. What the fuck are you thinking, girl?

Looking for my partner. So shut up, Gran-Da.

Hailing a cab, she told the driver to take her to Le Petit Chiene. Serena had said she'd picked the restaurant because it was around the corner from McCoy's place. Odds were good he was in a bar somewhere between the two.

McCoy was in the third bar Regan tried, a hole-in-the-wall called McMurty's. It was nice, Regan thought, classy without being high-class: long bar, subdued décor, the kind of place Regan herself wouldn't have minded having as a local, instead of the tittie bars and dance clubs that filled her neighbourhood.

She stood by the door, watching McCoy, slumped on his barstool, argue with the bartender.

"You've had enough, Mr McCoy," she heard him say.

"I'll tell you when I've had enough," McCoy slurred.

Here goes. Regan took a deep breath and slipped onto the barstool beside McCoy. "Hey, Jack," she said.

He blinked blurrily at her for a moment. "What are you doing here?" he asked eventually. Regan wasn't entirely confident he was talking to her.

"Come to take you home," she told him. "It's late."

"Not tha' late."

"Late enough," Regan said. "Let's go, come on." Amazing how it all comes back to you. She stood up and coaxed him to his feet. McCoy started to protest and she hushed him. "Does he owe anything on his tab?" she asked the bartender.

"Yeah," the bartender said, and named a sum that made Regan blanch, and thank god she'd had the sense to withdraw the maximum today. She counted out the bills, corralled Jack before he could stumble back to the bar, and dragged him out into the night.

He staggered when the cold air hit him and Regan pulled his arm over her shoulders. With one arm around his waist she steered him slowly along the street.

"I think," McCoy said confidingly, "I think maybe I'm drunk."

"You think right," Regan said. McCoy sagged against her and she braced herself. "Try to stand up, Jack, it's going to make this easier. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. Come on, help me out here."

"'kay," McCoy said, then: "I think – I think maybe I'm going to be sick."

Regan steered him quickly towards the gutter but not quickly enough.

"Sorry," McCoy said after a moment, straightening up and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Regan looked down at her splattered boots. "Happens to the best of us," she said resignedly. "Come on, keep walking. Nearly there."

"Long way from there," McCoy said sadly, but he gave in to her urging and let her help him along the street. "Long way from anywhere."

The doorman at his building let them in. "Can you manage?" he asked Regan.

"Yeah," she said, his lack of surprise or concern telling her volumes. "I got this. Come on, Jack."

At his door, she leaned him against the wall and searched his pockets for his keys.

"Didn't know you cared," McCoy said with a leer as she fished them out of his pants pocket.

"And you still don't," Regan said, unlocking the door. "Which way's the bedroom?"

"End of the – I c'n find my way," McCoy said. "'m okay from here." He shrugged off his coat and tossed it towards the coat rack. Then he leaned sideways and reached out to where the wall wasn't to steady himself. Regan grabbed him before he could fall and McCoy clutched her. "Oops," he said.

"Down the end of the hall?" Regan said. McCoy nodded, and then put his head down on her shoulder. She poked him in the ribs. "No passing out," she warned him. "You weigh too much. And I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman."

"And a very nice body it is too," McCoy said with what Regan presumed was reflex charm, his hands moving from her shoulders to less neutral locations.

"None of that," she snorted, and half-dragged him down the hall, dumping him on his bed and rolling him over onto his side. McCoy closed his eyes and began to snore immediately.

Regan sighed, rubbing her back where the muscles protested the workout she'd just had. Another good deed to add to my karma bank. Her nose wrinkled at the smell coming from her boots and she shucked her coat and went in search of his bathroom.

The boots came up okay. Regan found a bucket beneath the bathroom sink and put it by the bed, then filled a glass with water and put it and two aspirin on the nightstand.

McCoy hadn't moved, Regan noted with a flicker of concern. She put her hand to his forehead and then checked his pulse. His temperature seemed normal, as did his pulse. She pinched his arm, hard, and McCoy roused a little.

"What?" he said.

"Nothing. Just checking," Regan told him.

"Checking?" McCoy heaved himself up on his elbow and blinked blearily at her. Regan was impressed. He was functioning remarkably well, given how drunk he was.

"Checking you don't have alcohol poisoning," she told him.

He processed that. "Do I?"

"No," Regan said. "You'll have a hell of a hangover tomorrow, though."

He collapsed back on the bed. "I know," he mumbled. Regan thought he had passed out again but after a moment he opened his eyes. "When did you learn to check for alcohol poisoning? On the job?"

"No. Childhood lessons in making sure mommy and daddy don't die in the night," Regan said.

"Oh," McCoy said. "So when you – so when I – I was a real asshole."

"You were a rolled-gold asshole," Regan agreed, sitting down on the end of the bed and starting to undo his shoelaces. "Not, may I add, for the first time." She pulled off one shoe, then the other, and set them on the floor by the end of the bed.

"You're unusually feisty tonight," McCoy said.

"I'm calmly confident that you won't remember a word of this tomorrow," Regan said, considering how much effort she should put into making McCoy comfortable. I'm sure as hell not putting him into his pyjamas! Watch, belt and shoes was the rule for Dad. Regan sat down on the edge of the bed and took off McCoy's watch, then unbuckled his belt and began to pull it off.

"You're being very forward, Ms Markham," McCoy said slyly.

Regan snorted. "I'm too old to be taken advantage of," she said, "And you're too drunk to take advantage of anybody."

"Probably," McCoy agreed.

Regan snorted. "Thanks," she said wryly.

"I mean, not that you're too old. Tha's not what I meant. Shit. How old are you?"

"Oh, no, you just forfeited your chance to ask me that," Regan said. "You should take these aspirin."

Raising himself on one elbow again, McCoy took the pills and then the water glass to wash them down. "I'm sure you're younger than – you lo- I mean - shit."

"When in hole," Regan told him, "cease to dig."

"I mean, you are practically a babe in arms," McCoy said, ignoring her advice. "A mere spring chicken. Hardly more than a teenager."

"Compared to you, maybe," Regan said, taking the glass back. "Compared to Qiao Chen, not so much."

" Chen. Chen is about twelve years old." McCoy slumped back down on the bed. "No, tha's not true. Chen is maybe eleven years old, on a good day."

"You gave him my office," Regan pointed out with an edge to her voice.

"He claimed your office. By Monday he'll have pot plants in there." McCoy rolled his head on the pillow to look at her as she put his belt on the dresser. "Boy knows how to stake a claim, hafta give him that."

"Maybe I should have got a pot plant," Regan said, sitting down on the edge of the bed by his feet.

"You shoulda," McCoy agreed, surprising her. "If you get given an inch – take a goddamn mile. Hear me?"

"Yeah," Regan said. " Jack, when you found me in that office I though you were going to sack me on the spot."

"It's Alex's office," McCoy said instantly, glaring at her.

"You told me it was temporary," Regan went on. "So – "

"You took me at my word," McCoy said. "Stupid of you."

"I should defy you?"

"When I'm being an asshole," McCoy said, and grinned.

"Can you hold up a flag or something? To let me know?" Regan asked, and he laughed aloud.

"Were you the class clown in high school?"

"No, I was a jock," Regan said.

"Really?" He studied her. "Basketball?"

"Good call."

"There's a pick-up game at the Y Thursday lunch-time. Cops against ADAs. You should come down."

Regan laughed. "You and me should play a little one-on-one. Every time you're being an asshole."

McCoy smiled, but it was a sad smile. "I didn't used to be. Well, maybe defendants thought so. Also my ex-wife. But you ask Serena. Ask Jamie. Or Abbie." He sighed. "Ask Alex."

"I can't ask Alex," Regan said carefully.

"I know," McCoy said irritably. "I do know. I'll know it every second. I can't – I can't walk past that office without looking to see if she's there. Every time I blink I see – you know, they dumped her, in that car, they dumped her alive. She was alive. If we found her – fast enough – maybe."

"It's always maybe." Regan put her hand on his ankle. "It's always maybe, Jack."

"She died like that, all alone, waiting to be found. And we didn't find her. I think about it. I can't stop thinking about it. That she's waiting. With the tape over her mouth, trying to breathe. Waiting. Waiting in vain."

" Jack," Regan said softly. She stroked his foot. "For her, it was a moment in time, and it's passed. You're the one trapped in it. Let it pass."

"Very fucking profound," McCoy snapped. "Where did you get that, a fortune cookie?"

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer, actually," Regan said. She stood up and went to the bedside table, reaching for the lamp.

"Leave the light on," McCoy said instantly.

"You need to sleep," Regan said.

"To sleep, to sleep perchance to dream," McCoy said sadly.

"You dream about her," Regan said.

"If I only dreamed about Alex it would be a good night," McCoy said. He rubbed one eye, then the other, with the heel of his hand. Regan could see moisture on his eyelashes when he dropped his hand back to the bedspread. "If I could sleep, just once. Just one night."

"That's what it's like," Regan agreed. "For a while."

"Don't try to tell me you know what it's like," McCoy said angrily. "Don't try to tell me you know what it's like to know a young woman who looks to you is missing somewhere being beaten and dying and waiting for you to find her while she chokes in her own blood and vomit, trapped in that car with the sun heating it and nobody coming – " He was shouting at her, half sitting up, and then his face changed, his mouth worked. "I'm going to – "

Regan took him by the elbow and hauled him over to lean over the bucket with more efficiency than gentleness. McCoy retched and coughed, his stomach all but empty. When the spasm eased he slumped back onto the bed. Regan took the bucket into the bathroom and rinsed it, then wet the facecloth hanging in the shower and went back into the bedroom. McCoy opened his eyes as she sat down on the bed beside him.

"Close your eyes," she said. He did. She wiped his face gently with the cool cloth.

"You're good at that," McCoy mumbled against the facecloth.

"Washing faces?"

"You're good at taking care of people. Is that childhood lessons as well?"

"Mostly it was the job," Regan said. "On patrol, most of the people you see are having a pretty bad day. Sometimes it's worst day of their life. Taking care of them is part of the job."

"You liked it?"

"Some cops hate patrol. I loved it. Never wanted to go plainclothes. You make a real difference to people, you're there when they really need someone to be there and you can take care of them when no-one else can." She folded the cloth again and patted his forehead. "If I had been able to stay on the street I'd still be a cop."

"Why the law?" McCoy asked. "You want to take care of people, why the law? Why not – I don't know - nursing?"

"I was already doing the law degree. I thought about being an EMT – but I was already doing the law degree. And – too much dying." She refolded the cloth and ran it along his hairline. "It's not the same. EMT – they yank people out of cars wrecks, take them to the hospital, leave them there. The cops – they're there with the families, we used to take them down to the hospital, sit with them. Get statements. Some cops can't stand it, the grief, the fear, all those people crying and angry and shocked. I used to go home and take off my uniform and think 'Today, you made a difference to someone who was having a very bad day'."

McCoy opened his eyes and looked directly at her, face completely open. Defenceless, Regan thought. No guile, no anger, no reflex charm. "I'm having a very bad day, Regan," he said softly.

"I know," Regan said, sitting patiently with her hands in her lap. In the DA's Office, she was running on the hamster wheel, trying to keep up and never knowing if she knew what she was doing or was just faking it. But here, she knew what to do. Her partner was lost in the dark. And I have a torch and a map. Or at the very least I've been lost here before. "I know you are, Jack."

"Is that why you're being nice to me?" he asked. "Even though I'm an asshole?"

"You're not an asshole," Regan said, not sure she was telling the truth. "You've just been acting like one."

"I know," McCoy said. "I'm not going to say I'm sorry. Different words keep coming out of my mouth."

"Okay."

"They get in the way. I open my mouth and I see them and things I don't mean to say come out of my mouth."

"I know," Regan said.

"You don't know," he said disdainfully. "Don't patronise me."

"I used to be a cop, remember? You think I never saw anyone I knew dead?"

McCoy's eyes popped open. "Oh," he said. "Oh. That's me being an asshole again, isn't it."

"Yep," Regan said. "But I forgive you. You need some sleep, Jack. And so do I." She got up from the bed and saw the slightest movement of McCoy's fingers towards her, quickly stilled.

"Maybe I should stay," she said after a moment. "In case."

She sat down on the floor by the bed and rested her arm on the bed near his hand – not touching, but close enough for him to feel the weight against the bedspread. After a moment McCoy moved his hand very slightly, just enough for his fingers to graze her sleeve.

"Ed Green told me something," Regan said, leaning her head against the bed so she could look at him. "He told me you got pulled off the trial for Borgia's killers. That true?"

"Yeah," McCoy said. Sprawled on his side, he showed no signs of falling asleep, gaze steady on her face. Sobering up, Regan thought. "I pushed the envelope."

"How far?"

"All the way to Toledo," McCoy said, with a laugh that could have been mistaken for a whimper of pain.

"No-one's going to take the Firienze case away from you," Regan said.

"Maybe they should," McCoy said.

"Maybe you should get your head in the game," Regan said, letting a little edge come into her voice. Good cop – bad cop is fine when you're working with a partner. When you're working your partner you gotta be both.

"I see those pictures – what Edwards did to Mary – " He was silent a moment. "It's like she's always dying, right in front of me. You know about that, too?"

"Moment in time," Regan said.

"You get all your spiritual guidance from television?" he asked.

"You want I should get it from the bible?"

"It's a more conventional approach," McCoy said, smiling.

"Does it work better?" Regan asked.

"I wouldn't know," McCoy said. "Moment in time, huh?"

"She lived a long time, Jack, a long time when she wasn't dying. It was just a part of what happened to her."

"She only lived a little while, and she'll be dead a long time." McCoy said. "That's the truth of it. I used to think I knew so many truths – about the law, about the job. All those girls – Sally, and Diana, Claire, Abbie – Alex … all those girls, and I was teaching 'em about the world. Teaching 'em about the law. Because I knew. I taught Alex to get killed, that's what I taught her." He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed convulsively, then looked intently at Regan. "Not gonna teach you those lessons, you can be sure of that."

"You honestly think you can keep me safe, Jack?" Regan said. "That anything you do or don't tell me can do that?"

"I'm doing my best," McCoy said. "And I'm damn sure not going to get you killed. I told Alex to do it, you know that? No, of course you don't. No-one was there. Except me. And her. And she's dead. Well, I told her. I told her not to let intimidation affect the way you prosecute a crime. I told it didn't make any difference if she was scared of getting killed. I told her the law only works if we make it work. What a fucking pompous windbag I was, eh?"

"Jack," Regan said softly, moving her hand a little so her fingers lay over his.

"I thought – I thought I was talking about my own decisions," McCoy said. "I thought I was teaching her a valuable life lesson, that I was leading by example. And I did teach her. And she did learn. And she ended up in the trunk of that car, and we couldn't find her. We couldn't find her."

"It's over, Jack," Regan said. "It's the past."

"A moment in fucking time? It's the only moment in time for her. I think about her, I see that fucking car, I can't remember – "

"Sure you can," Regan said. "What did she look like? I never met her, you know. What was she like?"

"She had dark hair," McCoy said, and then closed his eyes and was silent, sweat springing out on his face. "Dark hair, down past her shoulders," he forced out. "She wore bright colours. She had this lime green suit, you could see it three blocks away. And she had big, dark eyes."

"Nice headlights?" Regan asked, and thought she'd gone too far when McCoy's eyes snapped open. The he snorted, and she relaxed.

"Excellent headlights, god forgive me for saying it," he said. "But that wasn't what you noticed. It was her eyes, she was so intent. Especially when she was dealing with victims. She wanted to make it right for them. She didn't know yet that you can't ever make it right. It's not about justice. It's about winning, and about the law. She never knew. She'll never know."

"Did she win her cases?" Regan asked.

"Yeah. She was a good lawyer. She was smart, and quick on her feet, and she worked hard. She was a damn good lawyer."

"What did she sound like? When she talked? Did she have an accent?"

"She came from New York. She had – she had a gentle voice. She could hold her own, in court, in the office, but she wasn't naturally loud. She was sweet. She was a sweet girl. And brave." He was silent a moment. "You know, the first case I worked with her, it was about influenza. I never thought influenza would be in the Supreme Court Criminal Term, but there you are. And Alex – she promised the mother of this little boy that we would send the defendant down for life."

Regan sat silently, leaning against the bed, listening as McCoy told her the story of the case, something about a promise, about a sentencing deal. She fought to stay awake, to keep her eyes open, to follow the story and the one that came after, to ask the right questions, the questions that steered him away from the final case and the car in the woods. Once she had him started she didn't need to ask that many. McCoy could talk under wet cement. Just the things she knew were important: What did she wear, do you remember? Was her hair up or down? Try to picture her, Jack, I want to know. It's a girl thing. And McCoy cooperated, summoning up an Alex Borgia who was living and vital and wearing a white blouse with drop earrings and leaning back in her chair and frowning a little with her strong dark eyebrows as she tried to follow a particular legal argument …

An Alexandra Borgia who might live only in memory, but at least tonight was doing more than dying there.

Eventually his voice trailed away. Regan looked at the clock on his bedside table. Five am

Today is going to be hell.

She looked back at McCoy. His eyes were closed. His hand beneath hers was limp.

"I have to go, Jack," she whispered. "I gotta go to work."

His eyelids fluttered. "Me too."

"Go to sleep. I'll call in sick for you."

He considered. "Thanks," he said sleepily.

"No problem." She slid her hand from his. "Call me if you need anything."

"Yeah," McCoy said. "Regan – you should stay on the tenth floor. Don't go back to Fraud."

"I don't have a desk," Regan said.

"Use mine today," he murmured. His eyes closed and Regan thought he was gone but he blinked, struggling back up out of sleep. "Regan."

"I'm here," she promised. "Go to sleep." It seemed entirely natural to her to smooth his hair back from his forehead. McCoy's eyes closed again, a smile quirking his mouth.

"You're good to me," he said, voice a mere thread of sound as he gave himself up to exhaustion.

"Far better than you deserve," Regan told him, running her fingers through his hair, like he was a kid brother, a partner, a friend.

The smile widened, broke across his face, what Regan thought was a strangely uncomplicated expression for a cynical old bastard like Jack McCoy. "I know," he said. "I kn–" His voice trailed away and he was out.

Regan ran her fingers once more time through his hair and got up. She made sure that the alarm clock was turned off and the blinds closed against the lightening pre-dawn sky. She grabbed her coat.

At the bedroom door, she turned back to look for a long moment at McCoy, sleeping deeply and peacefully with a faint smile still on his face.

She closed the apartment door gently behind her, a smile on her own face, and got all the way down to the street before she realised she'd spent her cab fare home settling McCoy's bar-bill.

Sighing, she turned her collar against the chill and set out on the long walk home.

.oOo.

A/N: Well, a long chapter with a lot of talking. Too long? Too much talking? Could I have done it better? Is McCoy out of character? Let me know! Please!

A/N2: Regan's memory lets her down in this chapter: the line about a moment in time is not from Buffy but from Firefly. The mistake is the character's, and intentional.