Author's Notes: Never written a Seinfeld fic before, but I just watched the finale, and then I watched the fantastic Legal Eagle video that completely deconstructs the Finale and how that sort of thing wouldn't fly in a real court. So just for fun, here's the realistic version of what would have happened immediately after the series ended.


Newman stepped out of his apartment doing a happy little jig. He hummed a merry little tune all the way to the elevator for his Daily Dance of Victory in front of a certain apartment. He sashayed to the elevator and swayed for so long he almost forgot to press the button. He would've Irish Step-Danced had it not been for the last time when it caused the elevator to shut down from the vibrations, leaving him trapped for forty-five minutes.

Once on the correct floor, he giddily skipped down the halls towards the apartment at the end of the hall - the former abode of his long time nemesis, Jerry Seinfeld. For nearly nine years, the two of them had battled it out like Popeye and Bluto, doing everything they could to ruin each others' lives. Now, Seinfeld, along with his three pals, sat locked up in the slammer, doing time on the Good Samaritan Law because they failed to help a guy being carjacked. At last, justice against those four miserable miscreants, and Newman had been there to witness it all.

He walked up to that familiar door and did as he had every day for the last week. He danced. He laughed. He pointed mockingly at it. He'd done it much louder the first time, but people complained about the noise, so now he just did it silently. He enjoyed it nonetheless. He stuck his tongue out and made funny faces at that accursed door. He proceeded to lift his jacket, bend over and present his rump to it as well, wiggling it back and forth while quietly going, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nahhhhhh!"

Naturally, as he did this, the door opened, and he froze.

"Well! I'd know that face anywhere!" an all-too-familiar voice said.

No. It couldn't be. The fates wouldn't be so cruel.

Newman slowly turned around and came face-to-face with -

"Hello, Newman."

"J-J-J-Jerry?!"

Jerry sneered down at him as right himself. "Now that we've dispensed with the pleasantries, why don't we just go back to not seeing each other?"

Newman continued to sputter in shock, pointing feebly at him, unable to comprehend this sudden plot twist in his day. He tried to form words, but his brain hadn't quite caught up yet.

Then, to his even greater shock, a familiar short, stocky, bald figure came around the corner from up the hall, carrying a newspaper and looking no different than he had a week ago. He didn't even seem to see Newman until he passed.

"Hey, Newman, how ya been?" George asked casually before breezing inside. "Can you believe this?! No traffic on the streets, and they still didn't get Sinatra to the hospital fast enough!"

"That's a shame," Jerry sighed, following him inside, not even bothering to shut the door in Newman's face.

Newman peered inside, watching as Jerry headed for the kitchen to pour himself some juice while George went straight to the sofa with the paper, and who should already be there but Elaine, watching TV with a blank expression.

"You done with the editorials?" she asked listlessly.

"Yeah, here you go," George replied, swiftly removing the desired section and handing it to her. He addressed Jerry as he came over. "So we going to the movies or what?"

"Yeah, but not until later," Jerry replied, sitting on a stool with his glass. "I hate afternoon movies. Everything's all blurred afterwards for at least an hour."

"What are we seeing?" asked Elaine, not looking up from reading.

"Whose turn is it to pick?"

George scoffed. "I'm not picking ever again. Not since you guys all turned your noses up at Ponce de Leon 2: the Unbirthing."

Jerry rolled his eyes. "We liked it."

"Aw, shut up. Ya did not. Ya talked through the whole thing."

"I can't help it! It's my default setting in a movie theater! It's all those years of watching the show with the guy and the robots! It doesn't go away!"

Newman watched them talk about nothing in stupefied silence. How could they be here?! What happened to their one year sentencing?! Had he come all this way to dance in front of this apartment door for nothing?!

Suddenly, the door behind him swung open and slammed shut abruptly, and he jumped as the familiar lanky frame of Kramer strode past, patting him on the back. "Hey, buddy, how ya been?" he asked casually before striding into the adjacent apartment. "Hey! Did we decide on a movie yet?"

"No, we're still discussing the Unbirthing," Jerry replied.

Kramer rounded on George. "I gave it three stars! What more do you want from me?!"

George waved him off and opened the paper to a different page. "Okay, let's just look," he said, skimming it for a moment. "Huh. Look at this. There's two movies about asteroids hitting the Earth."

Elaine craned her neck to look. "Really? Is that a sign of the End Times or something?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's mentioned in Leviticus somewhere," Jerry deadpanned.

Kramer headed for the fridge and pulled out the milk, followed by a bowl and some cereal. "I'll tell you a sign of the End Times. A read this article in the New Yorker - apparently X-Files has been foretelling the apocalypse all these years. They based the episodes on government files obtained through legally dubious means."

Jerry shook his head. "Damn. To think I spent all these years watching Animaniacs."

Newman's brain finally came back online, and he stormed into the apartment in a rage. "What the hell is going on?!" he bellowed.

They all jumped at his intrusion. Kramer, of course, sent his bowl of cereal all over himself in shock, but Newman didn't care. He wanted answers, dammit.

"You were supposed to be in jail! For a year! A whole twelve months! You're supposed to be locked up! In the slammer! Miserable! Rotting! Decaying like the scum you are! WHY?! AREN'T?! YOU?! IN?! PRISON ANYMORE?!"

He stood there, his heart racing, his face flushed, taking deep breaths to steady himself, and probably frothing like a rabid dog. They stared at him in silence.

Then, Jerry shrugged and went back to his juice as he replied, "They let us go."

With that, they all went back to their various activities as if the outburst never happened.

But Newman continued to froth angrily. "What do you mean they 'let you go'?!"

"We filed an appeal, and they let out," said Elaine, as if it were obvious.

Kramer nodded as he wiped himself off with a paper towel. "Yeah, it turns out, the afternoon after our trial, Jackie Chiles got some more lawyers to back us up."

Newman's forehead crinkled in confusion. "What?"

"Yeah, that's the beauty of it," said George as he circled some showtimes on the paper with a pen. "Turns out all those character witnesses they brought in were an example of, and I quote, 'clearly unjust and prejudicial'."

"So they took it to a higher court, they overturned the sentencing, and we were out in a couple of days," said Jerry. "Whole sentence was commuted."

"And the guy who brought all of them in?" chuckled George. "I can tell ya he's not working anymore."

Newman sputtered hopelessly. "You… what?!"

Kramer began to eat the still-edible cereal. "Yeah, so it turns out there's still a 'Duty to Report' Law. If anything, we were guilty of not reporting the crime when it happened. However, it turns out that the video I took of the whole thing not only provided police with video evidence of the perpetrator, it also showed that a policeman was on-duty and witnessed the whole thing and didn't do a thing to help the victim."

"Yeah, what the hell were we supposed to do?" scoffed Elaine. "The guy could've had a gun! The cop was worse than we were!"

"That's our story, and we're sticking to it," Jerry added.

Newman floundered. That couldn't be it. They'd been thrown in jail. They couldn't just waltz right back out as if nothing happened. "But… but you got out days ago?! Where've you been all that time?!"

Jerry raised an eyebrow. "Paris. Remember? Where we were originally going before someone hopped on the plane?"

Kramer rolled his eyes. "I said I was sorry!"

"We just pushed our vacation back a few days and got home yesterday," George added, still going over the movie listings. "How about that Mulan movie?"

"Oooh, I've heard good things about that!" said Elaine eagerly.

Newman grasped at whatever metaphorical straws he could. "But… you must've ruined your whole sitcom deal with NBC, right?!"

Jerry shook his head. "Nah, we just had a few meetings and cleared it up. In fact, the whole bogus trial got us some publicity. Turns out a lot of people got teed off we got tossed in the slammer over something so stupid."

"I'll say," said Kramer, putting his now-empty bowl in the sink. "I got fan mail you wouldn't believe. Y'know, someone actually mailed me their toenail clippings in tribute? Told them I was flattered, but I don't go in for that sort of thing."

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that," sighed Elaine.

Newman floundered. "So… you're still leaving New York then? For California? To make the… sitcom?"

But once again, Jerry shook his head. "Nah, we worked out a deal."

"Gonna film it at their NBC facilities here in New York," added George. "Of course, it's been so long, we have to recast - and thank god, too. The guy we had playing Kramer wanted to kill me."

"You accused him of stealing a box of raisins."

"Because that's a totally legit reason to kill someone over, right!"

Elaine grabbed her purse. "All right, well, if we're going to see a movie, let's get coffee first. One of us always starts to fall asleep during a movie."

"And those theater seats are uncomfortable for sleeping," added Kramer. "Y'know what we should get? Those neck pillows you see on the planes! Commuters use 'em! Why can't theater-goers?"

George frowned as he got up and headed for the door, completely sidestepping Newman. "How would we get one of those in?"

"You can smuggle 'em in!"

"Kramer, this isn't a pack of Skittles," reminded Jerry. "Where would you even smuggle it?"

"Oh, I could smuggle it," Kramer said confidently.

They all continued out the door and shut it behind them, having apparently forgotten the shell-shocked Newman still standing there, mouth agape and a look of horror on his face. His whole world crashed down around him, sending him to his knees before looking up to the ceiling, his fists raised in anguished fury.

"CURSE YOU, JERRY SEINFELD!" he wailed, and he descended into hysterical sobbing.