"Jack, do you have a second?" She says, poking her head into his office, the door ajar.

"For you, Tracey? I'll find ten." He's always liked how she refuses to indulge him with anything more affectionate than an eye roll (he knew how much better that was than many of her myriad expressions). And he does have time. He's finishing some notes with one hand and some noodles with the other.

"There's something I could use your perspective on," she says as she clicks his office door shut behind her. It wasn't like her to come to anybody, let alone him, for advice on cases. He figures it must be a big one, though he thinks she'd go to Arthur for that, even though he knew she hated to. The woman was mysterious, but never deadpan.

"Whatever I can do," Jack says, gesturing to the seat across from him. And he is genuinely willing to help. He likes Kibre. He thinks her spiky reputation is well-earned and well-fitting. She's damn near as good as he is and that, he'd testify to (he expressed a sentiment like this one once, to Serena, who had called him an "egotistical ass," which he guessed he deserved. He missed her sometimes).

"It's not a case, actually it's not exactly work," she says, and Jack is even more surprised. If he doesn't think she'd come to him with work problems, he really doesn't think she'd come to him with personal problems. He raises his eyebrows as if to encourage her to continue. He closes his notebook and brandishes an extra set of chopsticks towards her. Her utterly horrified look is both wounding and amusing.

"You'll have to forgive me," she says, "I despise rumors, but nobody else around here has the same ones you do. I hoped you might have some," she narrows her eyes slightly, looking for the right word, "expertise, in this matter. I've consulted the Standards and a few more popular ethics publications,"

"And there's nothing in any of them about whether or not you can sleep with your associates." Tracey looks relieved for only a second at his commiserating smile.

"Possibly 3.1-7, but,"

"That concerns relationships to defense counsel." Tracey nods. "I know. Terrible, isn't it? That there isn't something somewhere that reads '4.1.: don't do that.'"

Tracey laughs begrudgingly. "Indeed. But when you don't have a statute, you seek out precedent... I truly exhausted my other options, I hope I'm not making you uncomfortable."

"Not at all," Jack says, and he's being truthful. There are elements of him, people with whom, circumstances in which he can be an open book. Tracey is clearly in a tough position and he knows she'll keep his secrets, if only for the possibility of using them against him down the line.

"And none of this gets to Arthur."

"My lips are sealed. So," he says, trying to strike a sensitive tone. "Kelly Gaffney?"

"Yes."

"You two are,"

"Not yet."

"But you're going to. Or you wonder if you should."

"Right." Jack thoughtfully places a stickful of stirfry into his mouth and chews.

"Is there any stopping it?" He asks, knowing that the answer is no, that if there was, she wouldn't be here.

"Not as far as I can tell. I mean, I wouldn't resign, and I couldn't ask for either of us to be reassigned,"

"And you also can't take another celebration scotch or late night research session?"

"You really have been there," Tracey says, with a wistful smile fighting her furrowed forehead. Jack nods. "So, should I just prepare myself for disaster? Or push her away, or... I don't know, take the risk?"

"You're sure she likes women?" Jack says, giving her a purposefully inquisitive look.

"Oh, come on, Jack," she says. He raises his shoulders. "Yes."

"I wouldn't've asked!" he replies defensively.

"Manhattan is a small town. I knew before we started working together."

"How?" Jack asks, but the look she gives him makes him concede defeat. "Maybe you should talk to her," he says, going against everything he did."

"Did that ever work for you? I mean, what would I even say,"

"You overestimate how well any of it worked."

"Do tell," Tracey says, "that is if you're comfortable," she says. With her eyes turned down, she looks almost demure.

Jack knows he can trust her. "Well," he starts, settling in for the storytelling, "Ellen fell pregnant very shortly after we started sleeping together, and then I cheated on her with Sally Bell, who lost interest very quickly. She's a good person, you know." He shrugs. "Diana, was, eventful, from start to end, as I'm sure you know." He takes the last bite of dinner and pushes the container elegantly aside.

"Wow," is all Tracey says, and Jack thinks that he wouldn't want to be like him either.

"You asked," Jack says, weakly smiling. "It's some pattern of behavior, I know."

"I never have," Tracey says. "I've had this bureau chief position ten years, just two associates. Before Kelly I worked with Elizabeth Lynwood,"

"Lutheran Lizzie, I remember," Jack chuckles and Tracey smiles back.

"The nickname was unfair," Tracey says, "Just barely. She's doing well, by the way, in Minneapolis. And before that I always had male bosses, and I defied any of them to look at me. Besides I was usually in one relationship or another," she says. Jack wouldn't've taken her for a serial monogamist.

"So you're not a repeat offender then, Ms. Kibre," Jack says, mock-serious. "Good. After Diana was Ted Baer and Dan Tenofsky, so I was in the clear, there." He braces himself for the next thing, because he knows it's going to hurt. And he doesn't want to scare Tracey, and he's done a good job (he thinks, hopes) of gluing the pieces together. "And then, Claire Kincaid."

The way he says her name is almost reverent. He's quiet, but more than that, soft, with his hands resting on the table. Tracey feels for him, the moments sitting across from Claire in these very chairs, the way her ghost (and Tracey doesn't believe in the spiritual) must follow him around. Tracey had been fond of Claire, though she never knew her that well. She was a kid, all of 26 when she started with Ben. She was intelligent, scarily so. Curious, passionate, all those traits with productive and dangerous sides. Jack had broken in half and the sound it made was loud enough to shut everyone up around him for as long as it was going to take.

"She was different?"

"Than anyone."

They look at each other for a moment, neither one knowing how to get back on track.

"Kelly is," Tracey says, breaking the heavy silence. "Relentlessly moral. She's funny. Her, capacity for compassion is, superhuman. She second guesses me, but not nearly as much as she could, not half as much as she does herself..." Tracey breathes into her next words, "she's pushy."

"She makes you want to be better?"

"More than anyone I've ever met."

"And?"

"Impossibly beautiful," she says, with the kind of smitten smile that makes a person look 20 years younger.

Jack leans back, her expression turning infectious, stretching his arms behind his head. "Look, I have regrets. How I treated Ellen, getting involved with Diana in the first place... Some things I said to Claire. But I never, once, regretted falling in love with her." Tracey nods, thinking. "I tried, you know. To stop myself halfway down the cliff."

"All that happens then is you hit the rocks before you hit the water."

Jack rests his chin in his hand, elbow propped on the table. "Does that help?"

"Yeah, it does, more than the Standards, anyway."

"I beat the BAR association!" Jack says, in that boyish tone Tracey knows lots of people find charming.

"Don't get too cocky," Tracey playfully warns him. Her cell rings, and her pulse quickens when she sees it's Kelly calling. She flips it open and catches an entertained look in Jack.

"Hey," she says breathlessly, softly, and Jack knows he's given her the right advice. "Sure, I'll meet you there. 20 minutes, yeah. I'll see you." He looks at her smugly. "I meant what I said, McCoy," she says as sharply as she can manage as she stands from the chair, pulling on her coat and picking up her attache. She stops in the doorway.

"Thanks, Jack."

"Anytime."