Post-ep for "Savages", episode 3, season 6


He'd won.

Not much of a surprise, there. Jack McCoy almost always won, in the courtroom and out of it.

This time, the price of his victory was Paul Sandig's death.

Claire closed her eyes as the jury was polled. The price of his victory. Of our victory. She was a part of this, too. Not just in a general little-cog-in-a-big-machine way, either. Claire had done the research that McCoy had used to persuade the appellate court. Claire had prepped the witnesses. Claire had sat next to McCoy at the bar table every day of the trial.

She'd done her job. She'd done her job, and they'd won.

And Jack McCoy did like to win, in the courtroom and out of it.

Gathering her papers together, Claire wondered if that had been where she'd made her mistake. Trying to persuade him that the death penalty is wrong, and that this case and this defendant would be wrong for it either way.

The minute I made it an argument, I was always going to lose.

She followed McCoy out of the courtroom and stood silent as he talked to the reporters waiting on the front steps. He used words like justice and public confidence. Claire wondered if McCoy's concept of justice could really include killing the man they'd all seen sobbing on the stand, begging for his life.

She knew what he'd say if she asked him. He'd ask her if Bobby Croft would have begged for his life if he'd had the chance.

Everybody wants to live. That's hardly an argument for more people dying.

Claire knew she had the facts on her side. She had the crime statistics, the people sentenced to death and later found to be innocent, the savage barbarity of telling a man when and where he was going to die, to the square inch and to the second.

McCoy had the law. The law, and a driving need to win.

There had to be a way for her to reach him. She knew him: he wasn't this man, this man who could work so hard to end another human being's life. Not really, not inside.

He couldn't be, because she loved him. And how could she love a man like that?

McCoy finished with the reporters and she followed him down the steps. At the curb, he paused. "You may as well take the rest of the afternoon."

Claire nodded.

He paused. "Will I see you at home, later?"

Part of her wanted to say no. Part of her wanted to go back to her own tiny flat, shut and lock the door, and spend the night curled up alone in her own bed.

If she went to his place, he'd start the argument up again. Unless she lied, and pretended he'd persuaded her. And if she did that — how would she ever reach him, the good man she knew was inside somewhere, if she didn't fight for him? "Do you want to?" she asked.

And he hesitated.

"Fine," Claire said. "I'll see you in the office tomorrow."

She turned to go and he put a hand on her arm. "Claire. I'm just not sure I want to spend the evening with your eyes accusing me every time you look up."

"Do you want me to keep my eyes on the ground? Maybe walk a few steps behind you, Jack? Nice and demure and showing enough deference?"

"You know that's not what I mean! And you know I'm not the criminal here. I didn't take a gun and go to a man's home and shoot him in the chest."

"No. And you won't be the one taking Paul Sandig out of his cell and down the corridor and strapping him down and putting the needle in his arm, either. Is that how you live with it?"

"It's the law!"

"Well, excuse me if I can't stop hearing Sandig begging for his life."

"Excuse me if I can't stop hearing Bobby Croft begging for his. He was a cop, Claire! He put his life on the line for the sake of public safety. Your safety. Paul Sandig shot him to keep from going to jail. When someone kills a cop, the sanctions have to be severe. Otherwise every cop is going to need to keep one hand on his gun every time he makes a traffic stop."

"I know all the arguments."

"You just don't want to listen to them."

"Maybe they're just not very convincing."

"Convincing enough for the jury."

"And juries always get it right! Come on, Jack!" She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. "Look. We can't talk about this without fighting. Not now. Not today."

"We're not fighting, we're arguing," he countered. "Something we both do for a living so it shouldn't scare you."

"I can't see this the way you do."

McCoy smiled, but there was no humor in his tone. "That's funny, you're usually so good at seeing the defendant's point of view."

"That's not fair! We're both supposed to be in this for justice."

"We're supposed to be in this to win, Claire. And you're supposed to be on my side."

"I am!"

"It doesn't feel very much like it."

"I'm on your side, Jack."

But sometimes, it would be nice to feel that you're on mine.

"Then come over tonight," he said. "I won't argue if you won't. Please, Claire."

As if sex solves everything.

She had to admit though, that between them, between her and McCoy, sex solved a lot of things.

That night, like every night, it bridged the distance between her longing for justice and his need to win. It closed out the world where hard choices more and more often saw them on opposite sides of the question even while they were on the same side of the aisle. It made a new world, where she was Claire and he was Jack and they belonged with each other, now and forever.

She kept her face buried against his chest so he couldn't see her accusing eyes.