McCoy came back into the dining room slowly.
"You get Sally safely down the stairs?" Regan asked.
"Yeah," he said. He picked up his motorcycle helmet and turned it over in his hands. "She's feeling no pain."
Regan stacked the last of the plates. "She'll feel it tomorrow."
McCoy nodded. "She's …" He paused. "I never really knew why she was so angry with me." He paused again, and then gave Regan a sideways grin. "Apart from the fact that I was an asshole. Generically."
Regan made her best effort at a noncommittal noise, and McCoy snorted. "What does that mean? 'Yes, you're an asshole, but I'm too polite to say it'?"
"I think I've told you before," Regan said, setting the plates down carefully. "I don't think you're an asshole."
"But sometimes I act like one?" McCoy's gift for mimicry had Regan hearing her own west-coast burr in his voice. "I wasn't that bad. It was just one of those things. Ship went down."
"Not what I meant." The words slipped out before she'd thought them through, courtesy of scotch and exhaustion. She kept her eyes on the plates, stacking and restacking them. "All these years and you never wondered why she left?"
Leave it. Leave it there.
Some conversations it just isn't productive to have.
"I'm not fucking psychic, Regan," McCoy said. "She never said a word about – Adam, or any of that."
"Right. She never said." The words kept coming, past better judgment. "And you never asked."
Regan turned her back on his glare before anything else could slip past her lips, past her guard, and carried the plates into the kitchen. McCoy followed her. She took her time rinsing the plates and stacking them in the dishwasher before she turned.
She expected one more of the angry stares she'd been on the receiving end of this week, but McCoy was leaning in the doorway, hands in his pickets, giving her the patented charming S.O.B. Jack McCoy smile. The knot of tension in her chest that she'd grown too used to to even notice loosened, and she found herself smiling back.
"Sally should have told me," McCoy said quietly. "Even if I might have been an asshole about it – and I'm not admitting I would have – she should have told me, rather than – than martyring herself for my career and then holding it against me."
Regan nodded agreement, and then said, equally quietly, "You should have seen it. That it might be causing problems for her. You should have thought it through."
McCoy sighed. "It was a different time, Regan. We weren't the only couple in the DA's office. Just the … the highest profile." He shrugged. "Adam never pushed for Diana Hawthorn's resignation. Or Claire's."
"That you know," Regan said.
He gave her a long, level look. "That I know."
Regan sighed. "Is there any scotch left?"
McCoy pivoted, shoulder still to the doorframe, to look back into the dining room. "Sally left us a little. Nightcap?"
Regan nodded, but McCoy didn't move. "Serena said you had news?"
It had gone from her head, pushed out by thoughts of different times and think about what's going to happen to you.
About Sally's choices.
And mine.
Been here before, Regan. Getting twisted around and away from where her priorities should be by feelings she shouldn't have.
Watching McCoy walk out of the bar with Keri Dyson, not having his back like a partner should …
Would've thought you'd learnt that lesson with Marco.
"News, yeah," she said. "Good news. Serena and Curtis found your doorman. He helped Keri carry you inside, dumped you on the bed. Called Margolis. And walked Keri out."
McCoy let his breath out, a long sigh. "So."
"Water-tight alibi," Regan said softly.
"You'd think Margolis might have mentioned it," McCoy said with a little irritation.
"I think he kind of did," Regan said. "On Saturday. He said something about ex-altar boys and hair-shirts. I thought he meant – well, I had the case on the brain. Except he didn't know anything about that, did he? He thought you were atoning for a bender."
McCoy snorted. "He should know the hangover's atonement enough."
"We've got him now, his testimony. And the doorman. We've got them," Regan said. She tried to put confidence in her voice. Don't let your own nerves spook your client. "The jury will have to find 'not guilty'."
McCoy did turn away then, crossing the little distance to the dining room table and picking up the scotch bottle as Regan followed him. "If the jury believes them. If they don't believe Keri Dyson."
Regan folded her arms. "Cutter won't even put her on the stand. He knows she's lying."
McCoy splashed scotch into two glasses and held one out to her. "Then you won't get the chance to let the jury know she's lying."
"Then I'll call her." Regan took the glass.
"And if the judge doesn't rule her adverse?" McCoy countered. "You're not going to be able to get those files in, in a straight examination."
"The doorman, the doctor …" Regan trailed off.
McCoy sipped his scotch, and then wandered towards the living room. "And if the jury decides they don't like them? Juries are odd and unpredictable creatures."
Regan followed him. "You mean, you don't think I'll be able to sell the case." She sank onto the couch and curled her feet under her. "Don't beat around the bush, Jack. I'm a big girl."
McCoy sat as well, not as far away from her as the size of the couch would have allowed. "Your client hasn't done you any favors."
"Yeah, well," Regan said, "I haven't done him any either."
McCoy glanced at her. "I wouldn't say that."
Regan stared into her glass. "I didn't have your back, Jack. I should've … done something. At the bar. I could feel … something was off. But …" She shrugged. "I thought it was just me. Being selfish." She tapped her finger on the glass, watching the reflected light shiver with movement, and then shot McCoy a wry, sideways smile. "Romance fucks everything up.
"Romance, eh?' McCoy said.
Regan felt herself blush. "You know what I mean."
"I know you mean you've stopped pretending that friendship – "
"Look," Regan said, holding her hands up, "I admit, I've got a – a little crush – on you. Okay? But I'll get over it."
McCoy turned his glass between his hands, slowly. "So you've decided you want to get over it? Arthur scare you that much?"
"He would sack me, Jack."
"And you don't want to make the mistake Sally did," McCoy said, finishing his scotch in one long swallow. "You're going to choose your career."
"Jesus," Regan snapped on a flare of anger she would have thought she was too tired to feel. "If I'd chosen my career I've been sitting where Cut-throat Cutter was today, for fuck's sake! I chose you. But – "
He turned more fully towards her, gaze steady, the same keen inquiry he used on witnesses on the stand. "But?"
"I don't choose some silly fling we'll both get over." Regan tossed back the last of her drink and set the glass down on the coffee table harder than she'd meant to. "You and me, Jack, we're partners. We have each other's backs, or we should. We can't screw that up."
"Who says it would be a silly fling?" McCoy said, and Regan thought that he sounded like he was smiling.
"You have a track record, Jack," Regan said. And so do I.
She heard him move a little, and then felt him closer, not touching her but close enough to sense the heat of his body. "Who says it would screw it up?"
"Me." Regan shrugged. "Experience. The way it is. It already has."
"I could make the argument that I'd never have left with – "
"Oh, for the love of god, Jack, just for once don't 'make the argument'!" Regan dropped her head to her hands. "Please."
McCoy put his hand on her back. "I am a lawyer," he said, and Regan knew it was about as close to an apology as she was likely to get.
"I'm just tired," she said, about as close to an apology as she was likely to give. "It's been a hell of a week. And next week's going to be – Jesus, Jack, I've got to get Cutter to call Keri, you're right, if I don't – " Panic swept over her out of nowhere. "If I make a mess of the cross, there won't be any other way – "
"Regan, come on now," McCoy said. He set his own glass down and took hold of her arm. "Regan."
Can't breathe, can't breathe, have to help him, can't – can't –
"Take it easy," McCoy said, turning her to face him. She saw his frown a long way off down a dim corridor that was getting darker. "Regan?"
"I'm – " Her teeth chattered. "I – "
McCoy put his hands on either side of her face, leaned forward, and kissed her.
The distant gunfire of memory was drowned out by the thunder of her own pulse. As his lips moved warm and firm against hers, the kiss neither teasing nor demanding, Regan felt her shivers ease and then cease as warmth stirred through her veins. McCoy's arms went around her and she leaned into him, letting herself forget for a moment all the very good reasons this was a very bad idea.
There were so many things she could not have and was doing her best not to want, but this moment, one moment, that's a reasonable, moderate request to make of the universe.
One moment.
The one after it.
And then she put her hand flat on McCoy's chest and pulled away a little.
That's all.
.oOo.
A/N: An 'adverse' or 'hostile' witness is one the judge has ruled is opposed to the case of the lawyer who has subpoenaed them to appear. This allows that lawyer to ask the kind of questions usually only allowed in cross-examination. The question "Permission to treat this witness as hostile?" is a request for such a judicial ruling.
