A/N: Thanks again to RebeccaInley, who is both tactful and merciless (an excellent combination in a beta!) Thanks for all the reviews and feedback – don't be shy, send more! And don't forget, the poll is still open on my profile page.


Sunday Grace


Regan dragged herself reluctantly from sleep. She had the feeling that something large and horrible was waiting for her in the waking world, and all-in-all it seemed to be much more sensible to stay comfortably inside the dream she was having.

The dream was about Robbie, and for once it was a dream about the time in her life before everything changed. The time in her life when she would wake every morning with her head pillowed on Robbie's shoulder, his arm lying heavily across her shoulders.

It didn't seem quite right somehow: the arm around her, the body against hers, felt as if they belonged to someone rangier than Robbie's high-school football-star physique.

It was far too real a dream to be about anyone other than Robbie, though. Regan had slept beside him more nights of her adult life than not, and for a long time after they'd ended as a couple Regan had been able to conjure the memory of his arms around her, almost as real as this dream. She wondered why her subconscious had brought back the memory so vividly, and why it was getting the details wrong. Robbie used to sleep on the other side. … And Regan had inevitably woken with a crick in her neck, caused by Robbie's incurable habit of shifting her sideways when his arm around her shoulders began to go to sleep.

She had no crick in her neck. She felt as peaceful and comfortable as if she'd slept the night on a fine feather bed. Sighing, she shifted a little closer to the warm body beside her, and the arm that lightly encircled her shoulders tightened a little in response. Stay asleep a while longer, she told herself. Enjoy the dream while it lasts.

I deserve it. The past few days had been some of the worst in her life. Worse than getting shot – at least, worse than getting shot the first time.

Yesterday morning, after a mostly sleepless night she'd been up and dressed and braced to take Jack on and make him see reason by seven Saturday morning. Two hours of reviewing her notes from the previous night's meeting of the 'Jack McCoy Defence League', as Danielle Melnick had dubbed them, had not improved her mood. When nine o'clock had come and gone, she'd assumed McCoy had blown off the meeting. Calls to his cell phone got only voice-mail – calls to the landline had rung out.

She'd been pissed.

Not fuming, raging with the misdirected anger and guilt that had clouded her thinking the night before. No, just ordinary, What-the-fuck-is-he-playing-at? pissed. What-kind-of-9-o'clock-does-he-call-this? pissed.

Now he's going to just ignore me? she'd thought. We'll see about that!

When she'd found McCoy stretched out on the floor of the darkened bathroom, her first thought had been Of course he chose last night to go on a bender. Flicking on the light, she'd seen him flinch, and sighed to herself. It's a bad hangover when the sound of a light-switch is too much. Regan herself had spent a few nights lying on the bathroom floor – which combines comfortingly cool tiles with convenient distance to the toilet – but she had always managed to haul herself to her hands and knees to throw up, a complex task she could see McCoy had failed to manage at least once.

She'd started to rouse him, preparing to haul him into the shower and begin the process of sobering him up, until something nagging at her subconscious had forced its way to the front of her mind.

Drunk enough to end up passed out on the bathroom floor, McCoy should have reeked of sour alcohol, but there was no tang of alcohol on the air. Not drunk. Annoyance vanished, banished by gut-clenching dread.

Something's wrong. Something's really wrong. Call 9-11. No, see if he needs first aid right now first.

She knelt down beside him.

"Jack?" she said softly, pressing two fingers to the side of his neck. His pulse was steady, what she could see of his face was pale. His skin was cold but his shirt was drenched with sweat. "Jack?"

He made a low noise, turning his face further away from her. "Light," he mumbled. "Off."

Not drunk. His pallor, the cold sweat, photosensitivity …

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

As the words had left her mouth, she'd spotted a pharmacy bottle on the edge of the vanity. Empty.

Waiting for Margolis, sitting beside McCoy in the dark, Regan had felt helpless. He was in pain; there was nothing she could do to help him. That was sickeningly familiar. Ellie, Ellie, help me, oh god, it hurts … Just like there was nothing she could do to help him with the charges Keri Dyson had laid against him, nothing an inexperienced lawyer like herself could do. There's never anything I can do.

She had sat on the floor in the dark and held his hand even when his grip painfully squeezed the knuckles she'd bruised against Abbie's bathroom wall. And when she'd heard Dr Margolis's knock and moved to answer it, McCoy's fingers had tightened around hers. Stay, he'd asked her.

So she had. She'd stayed through the day as he slept, watching over him, Margolis's words when she'd shown him the empty pill bottle echoing in her head. I'm glad I'm not Catholic, the rotund doctor had said exasperatedly, Ex-alter boys always have a sentimental affection for hair-shirts and self flagellation.

And she'd stayed the night, sleeping beside him.

And now it was morning.

The thought seemed to carry with it a peculiar sense of grace, as if the night passing over them was an achievement rather than an inevitability. It gave Regan the courage to leave her comforting dream, to wake up and face the day.

She opened her eyes.

The arm around her shoulders, the body against hers, didn't disappear. For a moment Regan thought she was still sleeping.

No.

She had been awake for quite some time. The heartbeat she could hear had never been a memory of Robbie; she had slept and woken listening to the sound of Jack McCoy's heart.

Careful not to wake him, she slipped free from his embrace and back to the other side of the bed. Curling up on her side, she rested her head on her hand and studied him. His face was the same asleep as awake, as if he had merely closed his eyes to think, mouth set firm in the determined line so familiar to her.

As she watched him he stirred, opened his eyes, and turned his head to meet her gaze.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Regan could hear her own heart beating, could hear him breathing, could hear the Sunday traffic from the street.

Then McCoy yawned, and raised his hand to scratch his head. The ring on his finger caught the light as he did, and Regan blinked.

"Show me your ring," she said.

McCoy frowned, puzzled, but extended his right hand. Regan studied the ring. Solid, she noted. Thick edges.

"The first crack," she said aloud. First flaw in Keri Dyson's story. First inconsistency in the evidence.

First break in the case.

"What?" McCoy asked. He pulled his hand back and looked at the ring himself, as if trying to work out why she was so interested.

"The bruise was on the left side of Keri's face, her left eye was black," Regan said.

His gaze clouded over and he dropped his hand to the bedspread. "So?"

"So that's a right-handed punch," Regan said, leaning up on her elbow. "And that ring – that'd leave a mark at least, maybe a cut. I'll have to check the medical report to be sure, but I didn't see anything like that on her face."

"So I used the other hand," McCoy said dully.

"No, because – " Regan paused, trying to phrase the thought, then gave up. "Look, make a fist. Make like you're going to hit me."

McCoy recoiled from the suggestion, staring at her in shock.

"Look," she explained, scooting closer to him and taking his left hand in hers. "If you hit me with your left, the bruise would be on my right." She brought his hand to her face in illustration, his knuckles brushing her cheekbone.

He jerked his hand free from hers and shrugged. "She was turning her head," he said. "Or I took the ring off."

Regan shook her head. "If she was turning away the blow would have hit her closer to the nose. That shiner she had was a classic pop to the cheekbone. And she said in her statement that she never got any further in than the hall."

"What does that prove?" McCoy said.

"You're wearing your ring now, Jack, it's not like you drop it on the hall table with your keys. And – " She took both his hands in hers, studying his knuckles. 'There's not a mark on you." She held up her own right hand, palm toward her, showing him the swollen knuckles. "If you landed those blows, your hand should look like this."

"What happened?" McCoy asked, taking her wrist to hold her hand still, studying the bruises and grazes. "Did you – " He paused, and Regan could see him trying to work out how to phrase it.

"Lose it again?" she said, helping him out. "Knock down a defendant? Or a witness?"

"Did anything happen that I need to know about?" McCoy asked, refusing her bait.

Regan looked at him a moment, seeing that he'd forgotten that he was a defendant, and her client, not the EADA and her boss. He was asking her what kind of trouble he might need to get her out of – again.

And doing it as kindly as he can.

Her heart gave a little painful double beat.

"Regan?" McCoy prompted, an edge of impatience in his voice.

"I did my best to put my fist through the bathroom wall," Regan said. "I think I wanted to hit you, but you had wisely made yourself scarce." She tried to pull her hand free, but he held fast.

"Does it hurt much?" he asked, frowning.

She shrugged. "Nothing broken." She twisted her wrist free and laid her hand next to his. "See? No comparison. Take it from a brawler, Jack, you don't leave those kind of bruises without at least a bruised knuckle. No way you landed any punches Thursday night."

"I hit a woman, not a wall," he pointed out.

That was the first time he'd said it to her that baldly, and she guessed from the slight flinching around his eyes that it was the first time he'd said it out-loud to himself, either. Not I'm going to plead guilty, but I hit a woman.

Regan took the opening. "What happened?" she asked him softly.

McCoy was silent for so long she thought he wasn't going to answer. "You've read her affidavit," he said at last, looking at the ceiling, not at her.

"I have and it's bullshit. What happened?" She stretched out her hand to touch his shoulder, then hesitated and let it drop.

Another pause. Then he turned his head and met her gaze, for once without the cynicism and irony that armored him against the world. Regan read guilt in his eyes, guilt and confusion.

"I can't remember," McCoy admitted quietly. "None of it. Nothing. Two drinks at the bar and then – blank."

"Three drinks," Regan corrected.

"No, two," McCoy said.

"You had three," Regan insisted.

"I'd remember three," McCoy said shortly.

"You just said you don't remember," Regan pointed out.

"I must have – somewhere after the bar, I must have had more." McCoy shook his head a little. "I had the hangover to prove it the next morning. I've never in my life been so drunk as to lose where I was, what I did. But this time …"

"If you don't know what happened, why the hell do you keep telling me you're guilty?" Regan asked, not sure whether to be bewildered or angry.

"Her story stacks up." McCoy shook his head and closed his eyes for a second. "I can't see a way out of this. Her story stacks up."

"It doesn't even come close, Jack!" Regan said. "There's no way you'd do something like that."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"I smacked you right in the kisser and you didn't even raise your hand to me," Regan pointed out.

"I hadn't been drinking," McCoy said.

"If you were that kind of drunk I would have heard about it," Regan said.

"You'd think so," McCoy said. "You'd think that kind of thing can't stay a secret. But it can."

"No," Regan said, shaking her head. "No, it can't. It can be ignored, but it can't stay a secret. I'd have – "

"You don't know what you're talking about." McCoy's voice was so harsh it froze Regan to silence. "You don't have any idea what you're talking about."

He was glaring at her so angrily Regan had to take a steadying breath before she could respond. "I know you," she said. "And I know you didn't do this."

McCoy shook his head a little. "I don't believe that," he said softly.

"I know you don't," Regan said. "But I believe it enough for both of us. You can't see your way out of this? Then trust me to find one."

She reached across the little distance between them and took his hand. McCoy looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then down at her bruised hand clasping his. He shook his head. "I just want it over."

Regan changed tack. "You've made me part of this," she said. "You got me to file the complaint. You hired me to defend you. You just want it over? What's it going to be like for me when it is, huh?" His gaze flicked to her face and Regan tightened her hand around his. "You want to plead guilty, go directly to jail, and I'm the ADA who hung up her boss and let him get railroaded right to a cell. Thanks, Jack. I appreciate the career development."

He looked away from her. "It won't be like that."

"It will be exactly like that," Regan said, refusing to give him an out. "You've put me in this. You owe me the right to at least try to salvage my reputation." He was silent, and she pushed it: "You owe me. You said so last night."

McCoy said nothing. Regan chose to take it as assent. "First thing we have to do is get your hands photographed," she said briskly, releasing his hand and scrambling out of bed. "I'll call Dr Rodgers. She can meet us at the M.E.'s Office and do it there. We can grab coffee and bagels on the way." She stopped at the doorway, hands on hips. "Come on, Jack. The day's not getting any younger."

She waited long enough to see him swing his legs out of bed and then went hunting for her cell to call Liz Rodgers.

She found it in her bag in the kitchen. Rodgers agreed to meet them – Regan couldn't tell if she was delighted or pissed, the M.E.'s voice always sounded exactly the same to her whatever the conversation. The call done, the sound of the shower told Regan that McCoy was at least out of bed. Regan checked her reflection in the side of his toaster, raked her fingers through her hair and sniffed her armpits. I could use a shower, too, she thought. And clean clothes. A detour to Abbie's?

No. She'd take advantage of McCoy's co-operative mood while it lasted. Regan suspected it had as much to do with low blood sugar and exhaustion than with any faith in the strength of her arguments, and she meant to push her advantage while she had it. When McCoy appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and with his hair still damp, Regan jerked her thumb toward the front door of the apartment.

"Let's go," she said, then, "Wait. Your phone. It's unplugged."

McCoy shrugged.

"If Arthur is trying to call you to tell you he's had Keri Dyson arrested for perverting the course of justice, don't you want to know?" Regan asked exasperatedly. She dropped her bag in the hall and went hunting in the living room for the telephone.

Phone plugged in, she was turning back to the door when something caught her eye. For a second she couldn't work out what, then she realized – it was an absence that had drawn her attention. There was a square of paint on the wall a slightly darker shade than the rest where a picture of a dark-haired girl had hung the last time she was here.

Almost immediately, she saw the framed photograph, face down on the nearest bookshelf. She picked it up, gazing down at Claire Kincaid, forever laughing and young. An astonishing woman, McCoy had said, smart and idealistic

And now face down where she couldn't see him, where he didn't have to look at her.

Regan touched the cold glass, wondering if she could see something else in Claire's smile, something that hadn't been there the last time she'd looked.

"Regan?" McCoy called impatiently from the hallway.

"Right there," Regan said hastily, putting the picture down as she'd found it and turning to the door.

As she steered McCoy out of the apartment, Claire Kincaid's face stuck in her mind, beautiful and happy and young. And smart. A better lawyer than I'll ever be.

If she were here, I bet she'd tear the prosecution apart.

If she were here, this would never have happened.

Maybe that was what she'd seen in the photo, the same question she'd seen on the faces of Serena, Danielle, Abbie, Sally … How could you let this happen to him?

As the elevator doors closed behind them and Regan felt her stomach lurch with the decent, she closed her eyes and saw Claire's reproachful face in her mind's eye.

I'll do better, she promised. I'll look out for him.

Best I can.


.oOo.