A/N: Continuing thanks to RebeccaInley for her continuing beta, and thanks to all the reviewers.


Suitable Punishment


Apartment of EADA Jack McCoy

9 pm Friday May 4th 2007


It wasn't until the phone began to ring for the fifth time in an hour and he reached for the cord to yank it out of the wall that McCoy realized the sun had set and he had been sitting in the dark.

He let his hand drop. The phone rang on. Should answer that, he thought. Or take it off the hook. Should turn on the light. Should order food.

He did none of those things.

The phone rang itself to silence and the machine picked up.

"Jack, it's Regan again."

Of course it is.

"I'm going to stop calling you, since obviously if you were going to talk to me you'd turn your cell on or answer your phone." Her voice was brusque and businesslike. McCoy couldn't tell if it concealed anything – perhaps the hurt she had every right to feel at the way he'd manipulated her and then shut her out. Perhaps the disgust she has every right to feel at what I've done. None of it showed in her voice. "I'll see you at Abbie's tomorrow morning at nine." She paused, and her voice softened as she added: "Try to get some sleep."

Dial tone. Silence.

Try to get some sleep.

Fat chance.

His mind was racing, racing but going nowhere except over and over the same barren ground. How could I ? After all time times I swore I would never turn into him – how could I?

The only distraction from the self-recriminations beating over and over in his head was the occasional horrifying glimpse of the future – arraignment. Sentencing. Jail.

Adam. Jamie. Abbie.

Imagination showed him their shocked and disappointed faces, theirs and more.

Danielle.

Oh, god, Lisbeth.

The thought of his sister's reaction was more than he could bear and he launched himself to his feet. Turn on the light. Take the phone off the hook. Do something. Do anything.

He hit the switch and the sudden glare made him squint. Turning to look for the phone, his eye was caught by the photo on the wall. Forgetting the phone, he crossed the room and gazed at the beautiful young woman laughing at the camera, her dark hair stirred by the breeze.

Thank god you'll never know, he thought, and then realized he had just been grateful Claire was dead because it spared him humiliation.

Grief and horror and sickening self-loathing combined to send a stab of pain through him so sharp he wavered on his feet. He steadied himself against the wall, and then took Claire's photo down. She was laughing, as she would always be laughing, but he imagined he could see sadness in her eyes. She always had a way of letting me know when I feel short of her expectations, he thought, running his fingers over the glass. Usually with those big eyes silently accusing me every time I looked at her.

He laid the picture face down on the nearest bookshelf and yanked the phone cord out at the wall.

The movement sent another stab of pain through his head, and this time he recognized it as the familiar, one-sided pain of migraine. Perfect end to a perfect day, he thought sourly, heading for the bathroom to find his pills.

Shaking one into his palm, he paused, studying the pill, and then his reflection in the mirror.

McCoy knew that family photographs showed only a slight resemblance to his father. But in every way that matters Keri Dyson saw a perfect replica of the old man last night.

A McCoy fist, coming right at the face.

His head throbbed. McCoy wondered if a migraine hurt as much as a cracked cheekbone, if different pains could be quantified and compared. Add an extra toll for the terror and the humiliation, he thought. For the senseless fear that lingers afterwards, once you've been taught that no-where's safe.

He looked again at the pill, and tilted his hand to let it fall into the basin and roll down the drain. The bottle was almost full – he'd refilled the prescription only weeks earlier – and after a moment's consideration McCoy popped the cap and tipped the rest of the pills into the toilet. He knew what was coming far too well to think that his resolve would hold once the pain really started.

The sound of the flush grated on his nerves. Sensitivity to sound, McCoy thought, number two on my personal list of reliable symptoms.

On cue, a trail of sparks began to work its way down the periphery of his vision and his gut clenched with nausea. As always, he fought against it, knowing that the battle was pointless, but knowing too that retching would drive the pain in his head up to intolerable levels.

He leaned over the basin, staring at the white porcelain in preference to looking at what he'd see in the mirror.

This'll get worse before it gets better.

No question.


...


When McCoy heard the bell shrilling through the apartment, the noise drilling into his head like a white-hot jackhammer, he had been lying on the bathroom floor for some time.

How long, he didn't know, didn't care. It hadn't taken long for the migraine to drive him to his knees, waves of nausea leaving him hanging over the toilet bowl. Some time after that, he had been unable to keep holding himself even nominally upright against the mounting pain, and so he'd curled up on the floor to ride it out.

Now he was so far down in the black agony of his migraine that the possibility of 'riding it out' was a thought he could no longer made sense of. There was neither a future nor a past to this single extended moment of pain that had hollowed him out, excavating memory and emotion, rendering him nothing more than a vessel for a pain so intense he would have considered it unendurable except, inexplicably, he continued to endure.

The bell went on and on. McCoy managed to put together the complex thought that the noise wouldn't be as loud if he covered his ears.

Trying to move brought shark shocks of pain like axe-blows to the side of his head and he retched. The spasms made the pain worse. By the time they'd passed and he lay limply on the cool tiles again, the bell had stopped.

Thank god, he thought.

Another sound, this time inside the apartment, made him flinch again. It took him a moment to separate the sound itself from the pain it caused him, and only when he heard it again did he realize what it was.

"Jack?" Regan Markham called.

McCoy knew that somewhere on the other side of the pain there were reasons he didn't want her there, reasons he didn't want to see her, but all of those reasons seemed to have burned up in the fire that blazed inside his skull. Although every sound seemed more painful than the last, McCoy inexplicably found he wanted to hear Regan speak again.

He gathered himself, and managed to make a noise.

He could hear her in the hall, footsteps staggeringly loud to him even on the carpet. Then, suddenly, the room was filled with light, blinding, searing through his closed eyelids, burning into his brain like acid. He tried to turn his head away, but couldn't manage it through the pain.

Regan let out her breath with a sharp sigh. "Of all the goddamn times to go on a bender," she said exasperatedly. "Goddamn, Jack!" She nudged his leg with her foot. "Come on. Time to sober up."

McCoy couldn't find words past the pain in his head to correct her assumption. He felt her hand on his arm and realized she was about to try and haul him up. Even the thought of moving made his stomach heave. He coughed bile and tried not to pass out as the sound echoed agonizingly inside his skull.

"Jack?" Regan said softly. She let go of his arm. He heard a rustle of clothing and then her voice was much nearer. "Jack?" Regan's fingers brushed his face, pressed against the pulse in his neck.

Her touch felt like sandpaper on sunburn, but McCoy found it gave him enough strength to speak.

"Light," he managed to mumble. "Off."

"Is it a migraine?" Regan asked. "Where are your pills?"

That was too complicated for McCoy to even try to answer. "Light," he whispered again. "Off. Please."

"Okay," Regan said softly. "Hang in there. I'm going to get you some help."

Blessedly, the light went off.

Regan left him. McCoy couldn't summon the presence of mind to protest, but as he lay on the floor in the dark he could hear her somewhere in the apartment, and for the first time in hours he could imagine a future, a future in which Regan would come back into the room, in which he'd feel her hand and hear her voice.

He waited.

When she came back she didn't touch the light switch. McCoy heard her moving cautiously, then her hand found his shoulder and she knelt down beside him.

"Dr Margolis is coming," she murmured softly. "He'll be here soon."

McCoy managed to make a noise of assent to let her know he understood and Regan hushed him, her fingers running lightly over his hair. Her other hand traced his arm and then her fingers rested lightly over his. Moving his hand took an effort of concentration and determination that McCoy wasn't sure he had until he had done it, turning his hand over beneath hers so he could grasp her fingers. Regan squeezed his hand gently.

"I'm here," she whispered in the dark.

McCoy tightened his grip on her hand, as if it could haul him out of the pain and back to life. There was nothing in the world but the cold tiles beneath his face, the pain, and Regan's hand in his. She was an anchor against the black tide of pain trying to sweep him away and he hung on to her as tightly as he could. Her hand was broad and strong for a woman and although he closed his fingers around hers crushingly hard she made only one soft sound and then sat quietly, waiting with him in the dark, beside him in the isolation of his pain.

When she moved to free her hand from his he murmured a protest.

"I'll come right back," Regan assured him.

"Stay," McCoy whispered.

"I have to let the doctor in," Regan said, gently but firmly prizing her fingers free. "I'll be right back, Jack. I'm just going into the hall for a moment."

He let her go, sliding away into the pain and the dark. When he heard her voice again it was paired with another, the familiar voice of Dr Margolis.

McCoy felt the sting of a needle, and then, miraculously, a lessening of pain.

"Can you hear me, Jack?" Margolis asked.

"Yes," McCoy said. His voice was hoarse with disuse. He opened his eyes and began to push himself up to a sitting position. Margolis took his arm and helped him. Beyond Margolis, McCoy could see Regan standing in the bathroom doorway. McCoy leaned against the side of the bath and closed his eyes again as the doctor took his pulse.

"Excuse me, doctor," Regan said, and McCoy opened his eyes as Margolis leaned aside to let Regan past him.

She was holding a glass of water and McCoy realized how thirsty he was. Gratefully, he drank, the slightly metallic tap water the sweetest refreshment he could ever remember. Regan dampened a washcloth at the sink and knelt beside him to wipe his face.

"Thank you," McCoy said as she finished. Wordlessly, she touched his shoulder gently.

"Jack," Margolis said, "You need to be lying down. Can you stand up?"

"Sure," McCoy said, although he wasn't entirely certain. The pain had receded but he felt drained and weak, his limbs rubbery and his head light.

"Here you go," Regan said, moving closer to him and drawing his arm over her shoulder. With her help, McCoy made it to his feet. Regan put her arms around his waist and braced him. Together, they shuffled across the hall to the bedroom. The movement made McCoy dizzy and Regan's arms tightened around him as he swayed a little. "Lean on me, Jack," she said softly. "I've gotcha. Lean on me."

He was surprised at her strength as she helped him to the bed and lowered him down. The soft and yielding bed beneath him made McCoy aware of how tired he was. He found his eyes closing as Regan knelt down to take off his shoes. He felt her fingers deft and nimble, on the laces and then her hand on his shoulder urging him to lie down.

His head touched the pillow and he was out.


….…………..


For a moment when he woke, McCoy didn't know where he was or what had woken him. He opened his eyes, wincing as the movement woke the memory of pain.

He was in his own bed, the room almost in darkness, lit only by a ray of light coming through the half-open door to the hall. Regan Markham had brought a chair from the dining room and positioned it so the crack of light fell on the papers in her lap. She was not reading, though: her eyes were closed, and as he watched a sheet of paper slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor, joining another already there. The soft susurration made McCoy realize that what had woken him was the sound of the first page falling. How long he'd been sleeping, he didn't know.

He remembered not wanting to see her, to talk to her, remembered shame and guilt and dread of what he'd see in her eyes, but the emotions were distant, leached of their charge by intervening hours of pain the way hot summer sunlight drained colour from the towels and cushions of the holiday-makers on the Jersey shore.

For a moment he watched Regan sleep, her back straight, head leaning back against the wall, exhaustion showing clearly on her face even in the low light

Another page escaped her slack fingers and whispered its way to the ground.

"Regan," McCoy said softly.

Her eyes opened instantly. "Jack," she said. "How do you feel?"

"I've felt better," he admitted. Regan frowned, and he added quickly, "And worse."

She set her papers aside and came to kneel beside him. "The doctor said you could have a pill if you needed one," she said.

"No," McCoy said.

"Don't be a martyr," Regan said.

"No, I mean, I don't need one," McCoy said. He started to raise himself on one elbow but settled for rolling over on to his back. "What time is it?"

Regan looked at her watch. "Ten," she said. "At night. You've been asleep twelve hours. That was some shot the doctor gave you."

"It was some headache," McCoy said. "You called him?"

"Yeah," Regan said. "You didn't turn up at Abbie's this morning. And I – still had your keys. Lucky for you."

McCoy hesitated, then: "Thanks."

"You owe me," Regan said matter-of-factly. "For yesterday, too. And I'll collect, Jack. I want you to cooperate with me on these charges. No more bullshit. Okay?"

It all seemed very far away, as if it had happened to someone else, and so McCoy nodded. "Okay."

"In the morning," Regan said. "I've got to – " A yaw-cracking yawn interrupted her. "I've got to get some sleep myself," she finished, getting to her feet.

"Don't go," McCoy said without thinking, then covered: "You look too tired to go anywhere. Get some sleep here."

"You need to rest," Regan said.

"That's not – " McCoy said sharply, and then more softly: "I'd like it if you'd stay." When Regan still hesitated, he realized what was going through her head. "You're scared of what I might do, aren't you?"

"Don't be an idiot," Regan said impatiently. "Of course not."

"Then stay."

Regan looked at him for a moment, and then slipped off her shoes and walked around to the other side of the bed. She lay down on her side, facing him, head pillowed on one hand, curled up primly.

For a few moments neither of them spoke. McCoy was slipping back into sleep when Regan said:

"Did you tip your pills down the drain?"

"It seemed appropriate," McCoy said. "How did you – ?"

"Date on the empty bottle," she said. "You going to do anything that stupid again?"

"No," McCoy said, and meant it.

"Okay, then," Regan said. "Because I'll kick your ass from here to Jericho if you do, you hear?"

"Jericho on Long Island?" McCoy asked. "Or Jericho up-state?"

"Could be Jericho in Palestine," Regan murmured, eyes closing. "Depends how pissed I am."

McCoy fell asleep smiling.


.oOo.


A/N: Please review!