Regan watched McCoy push past the reporters. He's not a man who forgives.

And what she had done was unforgivable. Indefensible.

She couldn't let herself think about it. McCoy had just reminded her that the trial might be over but her job wasn't. It wasn't just about keeping McCoy from going to jail, although a week ago she'd have thought that was as close to a win as she was likely to get. It was about giving him back his life and his career, whole and untarnished, and Tracey Kibre's prosecution of Keri Dyson was part of that.

As is anything she can manage to get on the evening news cycle about said prosecution.

She shoved her papers into her briefcase and headed for the door. The reporters were focused on Mike Cutter, who was giving a mea culpa that would definitely run first at five. And will definitely do him no good at all with Arthur Branch.

They ignored Regan as she made her way to the doors. In the hierarchy of press interest, she was once again just McCoy's second chair, someone who might see her jacket sleeve in newspaper if the editors couldn't quite manage to crop it out.

McCoy's second chair, for as long as he was willing to work with her.

At first she'd thought she'd be lucky if that was as long as a whole day. Then a whole case — then she'd started to let herself think that maybe she'd found somewhere to belong, again. Maybe she'd found someone to belong to, the way she'd belonged to Marco, once upon a time.

That had ended in gunfire and blood.

And it had been her fault then, too.

Regan found Kibre in the corridor and discovered that there was nothing she needed to tell the senior prosecutor about Keri Dyson. "I was up the back," Kibre said, and then looked amused as Regan stammered an apology for not realizing. "Relax, Ms Markham, you were paying attention exactly where you should have been. Nice work on that cross."

"Mr McCoy is a good teacher."

"Don't do that," Kibre said. "When someone tells you that you've done a good job, own it. Don't start talking about which man really deserves the credit."

"Or she'll take away your feminist card," said a man's voice from behind Regan.

Regan turned and saw a tall, dark-haired man, a little thinner than she judged he usually was, face marked with recent pain and not quite tan enough for this time of year. And a cop, no question.

Then she placed him. "Detective Logan."

"I have to get out front and get in front of the cameras," Kibre said. "We'll talk about your attitude to feminism later, Detective Logan."

Logan held up his hands. "Hey, I'm sensitive, new-age, and reformed. Ask my lesbian partner."

Kibre rolled her eyes. "Later, Detective," she said, pushing past him. "And don't think I'll forget."

"Not for a heartbeat," Logan said to her retreating back. He grinned down at Regan. "I'd give Wheeler the same advice, you know. In fact, I'm pretty sure I gave you the same advice not that long ago. But yanking Kibre's chain never gets old." He put his hand in the small of her back, the absolutely impersonal touch of a police officer steering a bystander out of the line of fire. "Come on, counselor. I'll walk you out."

He steered her through the crowd. Regan, deprived now of anything she was required to do, let him. She supposed she ought to head back to One Hogan Place, get her badge back, and settle in for an afternoon working on whatever her next case was going to be.

Except that next case would depend on what came across Jack McCoy's desk and just who he wanted sitting next to him when he prosecuted it.

It might just be delaying the inevitable but Regan found she couldn't bear to contemplate McCoy standing in the door of her cubicle with the same distant look he'd given her as Judge Wright left the courtroom, saying I'm going to ask Fitzgerald — or Omardi, or Chen, or Connie Rubirosa — to sit second chair on this one.

But where could she go, if not back to her desk at One Hogan Place?

She'd learned, once upon a time, that you can lose everything, and keep living.

And she'd learned what to do when that happened.

She could fit everything she really needed into one suitcase, after all. She could walk away from what she'd done and what she hadn't, from what she'd become.

Now it was over, there was nothing stopping her.

"Lennie said you used to be a cop," Logan said, startling Regan from her thoughts.

"Yeah, once upon a time."

"What happened?"

"Got shot," Regan said shortly.

"Yeah, me too," Logan said.

"I know, remember? I caught part of that case. Until I got turned into a witness."

"I know," Logan said. "I was making conversation. You know, you say something, I say something, you say something … Or is Jack McCoy rubbing off on you?"

Regan rubbed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I got shot, yeah, I know you got shot. You got hit hard. So did I."

"And you never made it back?"

And there it is. Making conversation, my ass. "No," Regan said. "I never made it back."

"How did you know?" Logan asked. "How did you know you were done?"

"My partner told me," Regan said. "I wanted – I didn't know — but my partner told me." Marco, slipping a CD into her hand and turning away before she can say a word, leaving her with the incontrovertible proof and a Post-It note with three words that ends life as she knows it.

"Why?"

Regan shrugged. "I guess he thought one body on my gun was enough."

"I got more than one," Logan said.

"Everybody's different."

He paused. "Wheeler – she's just a kid. I don't think she'd know to tell me."

"Do you want to come back?' Regan asked.

"I don't know."

"Are you scared?"

"No," he said quickly, and then paused. "Yes." Longer pause. "I'd be letting a lot of people down."

"Being on the job when you shouldn't be, that lets more people down."

"Maybe," Logan said. "But Markham – if I'm not a cop, I don't know what I am."

"Yeah," Regan said. "I know the feeling."

They'd reached the doors. Regan could see Cutter and Connie Rubirosa down the steps a little way. She should thank Mike Cutter, she knew. As much as she'd wanted to sock him in the jaw from time to time these past two weeks, he'd put everything on the line today, to do the right thing.

She would thank him.

And then she would go.


.oOo.