McCoy awoke to the pounding of his temples and the morning sun beating down on his face as it shined through the window his bedroom window. He grudgingly opened his eyes. With a groan, he immediately fell back on to his pillow and closed them. After the pounding in his head fell into a moderate bear, he made another attempt to face the morning sun.

This time, his eyes stayed open as he took in his surroundings. He was surprised to find himself alone in his own apartment. It took him a few seconds to recall the circumstances that had brought him back to modest dwelling. He reached for the robe on the floor, before slowly making his way to the kitchen.

By the time he had started a pot of coffee, McCoy had begun to mentally shift through the events of the night before. Logan and Brooke…the shattered glass on the floor…her tears….waking up in a cab in front of his building…

Logan and Brooke… what the hell was I thinking, he asked himself miserably, as he took his first gulp of coffee. Before he could think of an answer, he heard a soft tap on the front door, followed by a key turning the lock.

"I can give you your key and leave if you want me to," she said as she leaned against the door.

She looked pretty much the way he felt...disheveled. The auburn locks wild and unkept, the sweat suit a mass of wrinkles presumably from being slept in, the dark circles under her eyes betraying the weariness of her mind and body.

"Buy you a cup of coffee before you go," he asked, pulling another cup from the drain board as she nodded. "Did you sleep at all? You look like hell."

"Not you," she said with a smirk, following him to kitchen table."Dark circles and five o'clock shadow becomes you, especially with that 'finger in the light socket' thing your hair's doing."

McCoy bit back a smile as they eyed each other cautiously over the rims of their mugs.

"Danielle Melnick called this morning," Malinowski said thoughtfully. "Seems she wants to make amends for last night."

McCoy nodded, the turmoil at the bar association dinner a distant memory.

"We've had fallings out before. She knows what she has to do to make things right."

Malinowski eyed him curiously and waited.

"Chocolate," he explained with the slightest hint of a smile. "Preferably in the form of a chocolate torte."

"Yeah well, apparently Sam isn't that easily appeased," she replied, her eyes holding a look of amusement. "Danielle asked me if I'd heard from him. Apparently he didn't stay with her last night. You want to fill me in?"

Happy to dance around their own problems as long as he could, McCoy stood and opened the refrigerator door. As he gathered the ingredients for eggs and toast, he recalled the events of the previous evening. Malinowski listened with a combination of satisfaction at having her gut instincts confirmed and sorrow at knowing how painful it had to be for her lover, to know Melnick had used him to further her own ends on a case.

"Wow. That revelation might be enough to finish that relationship," Malinowski commented as she took one the two plates from McCoy, several minutes later. "Mark Featherstone was one of Sam's oldest friends. With everything else going on when he came back, I never did tell Sam about Mark's death."

"Well, I'm certainly not proud of telling him last night," McCoy remarked as he toyed with the eggs on his plate."I said a lot of things last night that were better left unsaid."

"Things you never would have said if you hadn't been provoked," she murmured as she focused on buttering a slice of toast.

"I wasn't just talking about what I said to Sam."

"Neither was I."

McCoy shook his head and waited for her to look up from her toast. Little of what happened after he left the loft was clear in his mind. His head had been pounding when he left, due to a combination of too much to drink, too little food in his stomach and too much drama to sort through both before and after reaching the loft. It was well after three a m when he had been abruptly awaken by a cabby impatiently wanting payment for the ride to McCoy's building.

What was clear in his mind was the caustic exchange and the image of the shattered vase on the chestnut floor.

"Brooke, look at me," he said while reaching across the table and taking the butter knife out of her hand."I had no business breaking that vase or talking to you the way I did."

"Hey, I threw a shoe at you," she said with a weak half smile.

"Hardly the same thing, Brooke" he said impatiently as his eyes searched hers."Throwing a shoe doesn't come close to justifying what I did."

"Maybe not, but throwing Mike Logan at you might."

McCoy's eyes widened. He remembered the look that had made him beat a hasty retreat from his vantage point behind the bathroom door he'd deliberately kept a jar. It was a look he knew well. The look of a man asking how far was too far, waiting for the nod or smile or another other form of nonverbal permission to take the next step with a woman his found desirable.

What troubled him wasn't so much the look on Logan's face. McCoy was well aware other men found his fiancée desirable. What troubled him was the easy rapport he'd witnessed between the pair.

What troubled him the most was the Malinowski's hesitation to send a swift response to Logan's inquiring gaze.

"Did you want to sleep with him," he responded softly, his eyes on the butter knife he taken from her.

"No."

As a woman she knew the most truthful of responses would have required much more than her one word reply. It was a deliberately prompt, yet not unthinking, response. A response she thought her fiancée very much needed to hear without pretense or preamble.

Despite a deep sense of guilt for her role the events of the previous night; Malinowski had a strong sense of self preservation. A sense that was strong enough to override any ideas of bearing her sole to her fiancée about her momentary lapse with the detective. No matter how much guilt she felt, Malinowski wasn't going to risk the life she'd started with Jack McCoy with a spontaneous outpouring meant to appease a guilty conscious.

That was a discussion to save for another time, with another man.

McCoy leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows raised, and a sad half smile on his lips. The well timed response made him think of this time on the witness stand during the Hawthorne mess. His answers had been given much like Malinowski's answer had been: To the point, well timed as to not appear rehearsed, given with a careful, even, tone…

"I didn't ask you if you planned on sleeping with him, Brooke. I asked you if you wanted to sleep with him."

"I know what you asked me, Jack," she snapped, annoyed more at herself than him, for not realizing how easily he'd see through her,"and I answered you. I'm sorry if you're unhappy with my response."

"I'm not unhappy with your response. I'm unhappy that's not a genuine one," he countered.

"You think I want to sleep with another man?"

"I think you're giving me the Webster's condensed version of an answer," he said bluntly."The answer I want is the one you'd give Jake if he were the one asking the question, Brooke. What aren't you telling me?"

Malinowski met his no nonsense gaze with a quiet sigh.

"You know the next step is finishing each other's sentences, right? Do you realize you know me far too well?"

"It cuts both ways," he said as his smile grew and he reached for her hand. "You're the woman that can read my inner thoughts. Remember how you were dead on about the sailboat? Come on Brooke, isn't it better to have this conversation now, as opposed to after the wedding?"

Malinowski smiled back, reassured by McCoy's quiet words.

"Like I said last night, I would have never let it get that far. Last night or any other time. I like Mike... the way I like Jake. I will spare you a list of his attributes, but I think you know what a good friend he has been to me."

McCoy nodded as he reached for his coffee cup.

"Logan's a hot head, but I would agree, he's a decent human being. Just not a human being I expected to see after midnight with you."

"Listen, I was waiting for you. We ran into each other and time got away from us..., "she began.

"Stop hedging. If you can't or won't give..."

"Jack. I was flattered, alright," she admitted with more than a little embarrassment. "I'm almost fifty, Jack. When a man looks at a woman like Mike looked at me … I'd be lying if I didn't say it felt good."

"Brooke, you're a beautiful woman," McCoy sputtered. "You don't need Mike Logan or anybody else to..."

"I didn't say I needed anything, I just said it felt good," she said as she stood up and took the empty plates. "I know it sounds pathetically vain. I know you love me, Jack. Nothing was going to happen. It wasn't about..."

McCoy closed the dishwasher as he turned her to face him and surprised her with a kiss.

He remembered the way he'd felt when he reached the half century mark himself. Between marriages at that milestone, as well as at an impasse in his career, McCoy had placated his own sense of mortality catching up to him with too many late nights and too many considerably younger women.

When he thought about his not too distant one night stand with Samantha Weaver, McCoy didn't have to hear anymore to understand what his fiancée had been trying so hard not to say.

"I know what it was about," he whispered after the kiss was over.

"I swear, I never would have..."

McCoy silenced her assurances with another kiss while he took her in his arms. Taking care not to press her lower body, he held her upper back, as he pressed her to him.

"For the record, you realize you have four years before you wake up and find you have one foot in the grave," he asked with an innocent smile.

"Actually three years and two months, but thanks for the vote of confidence," she said with a knowing smile. "I'm sorry I hurt you, Jack."

"I'm sorry I broke your vase," he said suddenly serious."Not just because it was a gift from your niece, but because I never should have lost control like that."

"Lindsay knows a few boxes got dropped in the move. She'll just assume it was one of the casualities of the move. Besides, things can be replaced," she said as she edged towards the topic that had been on her mind for weeks."Listen Jack. We need to clear the air….you know I love you, right?"

"I do," he said raising her left hand. "Speaking of 'I do', this finger has been bare long enough. I know we were going to try to get the sanding done at the loft today, but what's yet one more week of no cabinet doors in the kitchen? You still have a few things in my closet here. I say we shower, put on some fresh clothes, and head down to the diamond district and get you an engagement ring, what do you say, counselor?"