I'm sorry it's been so long, I've been really busy. My Youth & Government court case was last weekend, it was awesome and it did inspire me on this story- to write the ending, well, almost the ending. But anyway, here's this chapter.

I don't own Law & Order.

"Ms. Carmichael, isn't it true that you hated Matt Bergstrom?" Jack demanded in his best cross-examination style.

"I was disgusted by him, and scared of him, but I didn't hate him."

"You railroaded him into being convicted in the first place, didn't you?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. We've been doing this forever."

It was about eight in the evening, and they'd been working since early afternoon. They'd decided to start not with the questions Jack would ask on direct examination, but with preparing for the prosecution's cross.

Abbie hadn't realized how hard it would be. She was innocent. All she had to do was tell the truth, not let the prosecution bully her into saying something stupid. And she was not easily bullied. But now, being pounded by questions to which there were no right answers, she saw how easy it would be to break down on the stand. She could make one slip of the tongue, and the jury would believe she was a cold-blooded murderer.

"We'll take a break," Jack agreed. "You've had a long- has it only been a day?" It seemed hard to believe that about twenty four hours earlier, she had first seen Matt Bergstrom on the street.

"I'll go pick up some food," she offered, then regretted it, because she really, really, didn't want to repeat a single detail of what had happened the previous day. She couldn't live in fear, of course- and she wouldn't, she wasn't afraid to go outside, she wouldn't spend the rest of her life avoiding the block where she had seen him, or stepping over that spot on her carpet- she wouldn't- but did she have to go confront her fears right now? "Unless you want to go," she suggested to Jack, trying too hard to sound casual.

He wasn't fooled. He looked at her, and she could tell he wanted to say something but wasn't sure what. Finally, he said, "Sure, I'll be back in a couple minutes," like her, trying too hard to keep his voice casual.

Almost as soon as he'd left the house, Abbie regretted it. She felt like a wimp for giving in to her fear, for, as illogical as it sounded, letting Matt Bergstrom win. She felt like she was betraying her gender by staying locked in her house instead of going out and facing her fears, felt like she was living up to the stereotype that women are weak, although she knew that it had nothing to do with gender, that had it been Jack who had been attacked and had killed another human being, he wouldn't have gone out either. Except that he would have. She knew he would have. But then again, she always would have thought that she would have, too.

She pondered that, what Jack would have done had he been in her place. Maybe he never would have been in her place. Maybe it was her fault, for being too stupid to take the danger seriously, for being to proud to let him walk her into her house, for being too weak to be able to fight him off with less than lethal force, for not doing something, anything, differently.

But if she hadn't killed him, he would have killed her. She'd done what she had to, and as much as she regretted it, she wasn't sure if she thought she had done anything wrong. She was the victim there, but she didn't want to be a victim, but if she didn't take the role of victim, all that was left was the role of cold-blooded murderer.

Abbie was jolted out of her depressing thoughts by a knock on the door. She froze, but it was just Jack, carrying a bag of food, and she let him in. He took out a white styrofoam box, and opened it, revealing barbecued ribs.

The memories they evoked pushed back her insecurities, and she was once again her confident self. "No low-cal salad?" she joked as she took a rib and began to eat.

"You know I know you better than that now," Jack replied, and she was glad he remembered too. "I was asking you, isn't it true that Matt Bergstrom was in jail in the first place because you railroaded him?"

"He was in jail because he was a serial killer."

"They'd object, that's nonresponsive."

"Well, railroaded is vague and ambiguous."

"You're the witness, you can't object."

"Yeah, I hate that part. Remind me not to kill anyone again after this is over."

Jack laughed and asked her another intense cross-examination question, and she took a bite of food to give herself time to think of an answer.

The familiarity of eating together while working late on a case was weird- it was the same, but it wasn't. She had been the lawyer, now she was the client; they had been the prosecution, now they were trying to get her off. Even so, it reminded her so strongly of her days as an ADA, and she missed it. It wasn't that she didn't like her job as an AUSA, prosecuting terrorists and other federal criminals, but it wasn't the same. Although it was unlikely that she'd still have that job; the federal government didn't really like employing prosecutors who were accused of murder.

They worked for several more hours, until Abbie gave an enormous yawn and suddenly realized that she hadn't slept in about forty hours. "I want to go to sleep now," she told him.

He nodded. "It's been a long day. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Jack."

He left, and, suddenly overcome by the exhaustion she'd been suppressing, Abbie locked the door behind him and crawled into bed.

She was tired enough that despite everything she felt asleep quickly and that night, at least, she didn't dream.

TBC

The ribs and the low-cal salad reference is from the episode "DWB", if you've seen it you'll know what I'm talking about, if not, don't worry about it.

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