Note: It's been too long since I mentioned my stellar beta, the fabulous StartWriting, whose presence can be found in a perfect word or phrase sprinkled throughout this story. ~ D

TCOT Absurd Assumption C14

Perry scraped the leftover pasta into a Rubbermaid container and snapped on the beige lid. A bit of vodka sauce oozed out and he swiped a finger over it, then licked the finger clean. He had become quite adept at this recipe – sautéed onion, garlic, fresh basil, and prosciutto mixed with pureed crushed tomatoes, heavy cream, and a healthy shot of vodka served over al dente penne. Add lots of freshly shredded parmesan cheese, an oil-and-vinegar salad, crusty French bread, and a slightly sweet white wine to counteract the acidity of the sauce, and you had a meal that satisfied everyone – even persnickety Bartholomew Mason.

"Hand me that," Bart directed, "and I'll put it in the fridge."

Perry passed the container of pasta to his brother. Dinner had been a civil affair, and Perry would go so far as to call it pleasant. They spent two hours dining and talking, catching up on children, grandchildren, cousins, aunts and uncles, purposely staying away from certain topics such as Valerie Mason's pale, nervous thinness, and any bad news about children, grandchildren, cousins, aunts and uncles. There was plenty of time to go over all of that, as well as Della's upcoming preliminary hearing. No need to spoil everyone's first night in LA or the fine dinner Perry prepared.

Aggie Carpenter and her partner Teresa Burdick, who worked as a personal style consultant at Estelle's, now Aggie's boutique following her former partner's death, arrived just as everyone decided to finally stop picking at the food and clean up, and the women were all gathered in the dining room/sitting room, cut off from the men by that blasted wall. Carter, a ruffled apron tied around his slender waist, was filling one of the double sinks to wash dishes while Perry and Bart finished putting away leftovers. Perry poured powdered soap into the receptacle in the door of the GE Potscrubber dishwasher, lifted the door, slid the lock into place, pressed the wash cycle selector button, then the drying option button. Bart handed him a dish towel and the three men proceeded to wash whatever didn't fit in the dishwasher in virtual silence while the women could be heard chatting and laughing in the other room.

"Wasn't that wall supposed to come down?" Bart finally broke the silence, jerking his head toward the offending barrier.

Perry grimaced inwardly. "Never got around to it."

"It would be easier for Della to entertain without that wall," Bart continued, jabbing at his brother's obvious self-reproach. "I can't believe there isn't even a pass-through. Maybe it wasn't ever supposed to be a dining room. Maybe it – "

"The realtor said it was a dining room," Perry interrupted tightly. "Della doesn't need a dining room."

"That's why the kitchen should be opened up to create a hearth room," Carter offered. "Like in those old southern houses. She's made it into a hearth room already, despite the wall."

"Might be a load-bearing wall," Bart said musingly, squinting at the juncture of the wall and ceiling. "If the wall is taken down, there might have to be a beam or a couple of posts to support the second level."

"It is load-bearing," Perry nearly snapped. He didn't need his brother and Della's brother to point out his failures. He was painfully aware of them every time he looked at Della. "There would have been an archway to disguise the beam."

"I take it the living room wall was going to stay?"

"Some of it. There would have been another archway and an exposed brick corner column."

Carter nodded his approval at the unfulfilled renovation plans. "With four kids under six years old, Henny wanted to take down a few walls in the family house so she could see everyone, but the structure was too complicated and it would have cost a fortune to pour new footers and install new beams. That's why we finally moved out and into a house with what Henny calls an open concept, one of those sprawling ranches all on one level that takes ten minutes to get from one side to the other on a bicycle. Father sold the mansion about a year later, and the new owners gutted the thing and now it's what they call a bed and breakfast. You wouldn't even know it's the same house."

Perry didn't think he had ever heard Carter Street speak so many words at once in twenty-five years. He stared at the man he'd considered his brother-in-law, unable to come up with anything to say.

"Val isn't a fan of open concept floor plans," Bart stated conversationally. "She likes rooms to be a little more closed off, like our house in Ogden. When the boys were still at home I think she wanted as many barriers as possible between her and all the testosterone. We're in a retirement condominium now, and it's more open than she'd like, but it's fine for just the two of us." It seemed as if he wanted to say more, but decided against it. Perry surmised what went unspoken was how the condominium was being put up for sale because Valerie had difficulty navigating the stairs.

"Speaking of retirement," Carter began casually, cautiously, wiping wet hands on the apron before untying it and threading it through a cabinet door pull, "what are your plans for after Della Katherine is acquitted, Perry?"

Perry was dumbfounded it was Carter who asked that question and not his habitually reproving brother. The tart, scathing response he'd rehearsed for Bart languished on his tongue. "I'm considering re-opening my practice," he confessed, bracing himself for Bart to have his say.

"Re-opening your practice?" Bart boomed right on cue. Perry Mason's famous courtroom voice had nothing on his older brother's thunderous vocalization, honed at countless football games. "At your age?"

"I'm younger than you," Perry retorted.

"You're my age," Carter reminded him. "And I've been retired for almost a year."

"Bart only retired last year," Perry pointed out defensively, "He's seven years older than we are. And you only retired because the mill was going under."

"I worked Sundays for five months out of twelve," Bart clarified. "It was more of a hobby than work." Following an illustrious career as a college football coach and then several seasons as a flamboyant and celebrated NFL offensive coordinator, Bart and his mellifluous voice had moved on to acting as a 'color' commentator for a fledgling cable television sports network. It was personal tribulations and not age considerations that had precipitated his retirement the previous football season, so for Bart to pose any objection to his brother practicing law based on age was ludicrous.

"I have eight years to make up for," Perry countered. "All that time I sat on my ass and read. Occasionally, for a welcome change of pace, I sat on my ass and listened. I wasn't meant to be a judge. I was only a judge because in a moment of grief I made a promise I had no business making. I'm an attorney. I'm a good attorney."

"We know you're a good attorney, Perry. By all accounts you're a great attorney. But you're also sixty-three years old. Isn't that a bit long in the tooth to be going back into the courtroom and duking it out with a bunch of twenty-five year olds?" Bart's tone of voice dripped with patronizing big-brother superiority.

"I don't feel like I'm all that old," Perry said evenly. "It may be trite to say this, but age really is what you make of it. I may be of the age when most men retire, but I don't want to retire. I don't think I could retire."

"You have plenty of money." Carter pulled out a stool and sat down at the island. "Why don't you enjoy it?"

"I do enjoy it. I've been very fortunate in that regard. But I don't especially like to travel, I don't have any hobbies, and I don't have a passel of children and grandchildren to pester. What I do have is a knack for criminal law. I spent my life helping people, people in desperate situations fighting for their lives, and I was good at it. I miss that. I want to do it again. I never should have stopped doing it." What he left unspoken was the ulterior motive - work was what had brought him and Della together in the first place. He had to take a chance.

"And I suppose you want Della Katherine to do it again as well?" Carter asked quietly.

Perry folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the counter. Was mind-reading an inherited trait of the Street family? "I intend to ask her to be my assistant."

"Do you intend to ask her to be anything more than your assistant?"

"Carter, since when have you ever cared what Della does so long as it doesn't reflect poorly on you and the family name?"

"Look here, Mason," Carter Street responded indignantly, "don't presume to tell me I don't care about my sister. Aside from Henny and my children, she's the only family I have. Do you want her to be more than your employee again?"

"Actually, Perry, I'd like to know the answer to that question myself." Bart was leaning against the counter, arms folded across his chest as well, a bigger, older version of his brother. Seventy years old, Bart was large and grey-haired, strong-voiced and physically active. His wife hadn't aged as gracefully, plagued by illness and the stress of the past two difficult years in their family life apparent in her frail frame and weary, sagging features.

"I want to practice law again," Perry started, then stopped. That sounded selfish. But didn't he have the right to be selfish after being so selfless for eight years, fulfilling the dying wish of his oldest friend and becoming a judge, something he had never, ever considered for his career path, something that had cost him the most precious thing in his life? "Now that I've resigned from the Court, I can practice law again," he started over in a lower voice, "but without Della, it wouldn't be much of a practice. She was the reason I was so effective…she and Paul Drake. So yes, I will ask her to join me in reopening my practice, and if in doing so we…fall into old habits, I would consider myself doubly lucky."

Bart Mason and Carter Street exchanged oblique glances, realizing that Perry had just told them a very personal truth. It was Carter who chose to speak to Perry's words. "Do you think your plans are fair to Della Katherine?"

"Fair?" Perry exploded, "what has fairness got to do with anything? Life isn't fair. Life is life, and you have to take it as it comes, look it in the eye and sometimes spit. And I've taken it. Lord knows I've taken it up the –"

"We get your gist, Perry," Bart interrupted hastily. "I think what Carter is trying to get at is, and I share the same concern, is that a lot has happened in eight years. You and Della managed to make a go of it for a while, but it's been over for some little time now. Do you think that practicing law again will make the past few years disappear?" He paused for effect. "What about Robin Calhoun?"

"That's over," Perry stated flatly. Saying it out loud made him feel like a heel, but it was more truthful than Bart saying what he had with Della was over. Bart had enough problems in his own life. Why was he inserting himself where he wasn't needed or particularly wanted? Because Bart was Bart, that's why, and just like Gertie, would never change.

Bart rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He liked Robin Calhoun. Not as much as he liked Della, but the actress was okay in his book, and she seemed to genuinely care for Perry. "Was it over before or after Della called you to defend her?" There had been many discussions between the brothers about the status of the relationship, with Bart of the mind Perry needed to either fish or cut bait in regard to Robin, even if it meant breaking more promises. Perry was big on promises.

"First of all, Della didn't ask me to be her attorney. I made that decision on my own. She expected me to send in another attorney to defend her."

"So you took advantage of the situation to insinuate yourself back into Della's life?" Carter demanded, contempt undisguised in his slightly flat, nasal voice.

"No!" Perry's voice boomed to rival Bart's. "I took advantage of the situation to step down from the bench and practice law again. I did not take advantage of Della. You know she called me when she was arrested. I would never take advantage of her." Janet had accused him of virtually the same thing – of treating Della as a convenience to his mercurial whims. Robin was the one who understood his motives best – he did want to recapture his glory days as an attorney. The years he practiced law with Della by his side were the best, happiest years of his life. Didn't anyone understand that he and Della had loved each other, loved each other very much, and letting go completely was something neither of them could conceive of, let alone actually carry out? Didn't they understand how good they were together, how well they worked together, how many people they'd helped together?

Both Bart and Carter wore plainly skeptical expressions on their faces.

"You hurt her again," Bart said at length, "and I will thump you into the ground, little brother. Don't think I can't or won't."

"And I'll be exuberantly cheering him on," Carter added spiritedly, against his characteristically pacifistic deportment.

Perry straightened his posture and uncrossed his arms. "Why does everyone assume I'm the bad guy in everything or that I'm going to do something wrong? I was hurt, too. There are two people in a relationship."

Both Bart and Carter executed derisive snorts. If Perry didn't know better, he would have thought the two men had choreographed the entire conversation.

"You forget, Perry, that I witnessed the first of many little peccadillos you got yourself involved in while maintaining a committed relationship with your Miss Street. Or have you forgotten Ellen Payne?" Bart jutted out his jaw almost belligerently.

"If you hadn't interfered with my personal life, Ellen Payne wouldn't matter one bit." And I wasn't moved one bit by her years later when she came to me for help yet again. It was Della who smothered Ellen with concern then, pushing me from behind to help her the entire time.

"Ellen may have been there initially because of me that Christmas*, but I didn't have anything to do with your lapse of faithfulness to Miss Street."

"And you hurt Della Katherine so badly once she actually came running to me for comfort," Carter interjected.

"I guess neither one of you has ever made a mistake," Perry said with dry, defensive sourness.

"Not like the mistakes you've made," Bart replied.

"No," Carter agreed, "I haven't."

Perry ran his hands through his hair, thoroughly frustrated with the conversation and being the butt of Bart's and Carter's uninformed disdain. "Good Lord, I made stupid mistakes. I'm not perfect. I would give anything not to have made those mistakes, but since time-travel hasn't been invented yet, I can't very well go back in time and undo them." He took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. "All I want to do is reopen my practice and ask Della to work with me. I don't expect things to magically be the way they were, but I won't lie and say I'm not hoping we can find a way back to being more than friends. And it's no one's business but ours." Always has been, always will be. And I sincerely don't know what mistake I made that finally caused Della to jump ship…

"The most important thing is: can you get her acquitted?" Carter's flinty grey eyes bored into those Perry Mason. "None of what you want means a blessed thing if you can't concentrate on what's happening right now."

"Yes, I can get her acquitted. It isn't difficult to defend an innocent person."

"That's not what you used to say," Bart reminded him. "As I recall, all of your clients were innocent, but listening to you and Della talk, proving it was very difficult."

"It won't be difficult defending Della," Perry insisted. "I've got a theory about what happened that will cast serious doubt on anything the Prosecution throws at us. As a matter of fact, by the time the preliminary hearing convenes, I'll have so much contraindicating evidence there won't be a chance in hell the judge will bind her over."

Bart looked to Carter. "He's always been a cocky son-of-a-gun."

"Yes, that was my very first impression of him."

Perry slammed his hand down on the countertop. It hurt like hell, but no one was going to know it. "I've had enough of this crap. Bully someone else. I'm going to have a cigarette. Feel free to discuss me while I'm gone."

Perry paused his relentless pacing, and still boiling inside, lit his second cigarette. Just as he was snapping the lighter shut, the slider opened and Della very quietly stepped out onto the deck. He guiltily looked around for the galvanized bucket of sand, but Della reached him in a couple of quick steps, plucked the cigarette from between his fingers, and inhaled a lungful of smoke.

"You don't smoke anymore." She had been proud of her achievement, stopping cold turkey when Harvey Sayers was diagnosed with an unstoppable form of lung cancer in 1976 that killed him in two short weeks, and racking up days, months, then years without a puff. In truth, she had never smoked much, mostly when he offered, at social gatherings where everyone else lit up while drinking, or when under incredible stress on the job, so quitting hadn't been very difficult for her. He had quit the day of Paul Drake's funeral in 1979 – well, he began cutting back that day – and smoked his last cigarette three months later. That is, the last cigarette until Robin Calhoun offered him one immediately after they slept together for the first time in 1983 and he almost lunged for it, burning it to ashes with two huge drags. Here it was 1985 and he smoked as much as he had in 1955 – except when he was with Della, because oddly he had never felt much need to smoke in her presence.

Eyes closed, Della tilted her head back slightly and exhaled with leisurely savoring. "Doesn't mean I don't miss it," she replied. "Care to tell me what all the shouting was about and why you're out here pacing grooves in the deck boards?"

"I'll give you three guesses," he began.

"And the first two don't count," Della interrupted, finishing his familiar catch-phrase. "Bart behaving badly?"

"Believe it or not, Carter was worse than Bart."

Della took a small puff on the cigarette, made a little face of distaste and offered it to Perry. "I hope Val doesn't look outside." He took the cigarette from her and stubbed it out in the bucket of sand. "Does it really bother you that they're here?"

"No," he said too quickly, untruthfully, hearing the muted disappointment in her voice. The lifting of one impeccably groomed eyebrow pulled the truth from him ruthlessly. "Hell, yes. Talking with Bart for fifteen minutes took me back to when we were kids. I was defensive and surly and I stomped out like a two-year old."

"I wasn't going to point that out," Della remarked.

"Tell the truth, Della – how happy are you that they're all here?"

"Very."

The timing of her reply was perfect, and poignant in its simplicity. He was disgusted by what a selfish little boy he could be at times. Bart and Carter had been right to talk to him as if he were a child, even if they were ignorant of so much.

"Not as happy that you're here," she continued with candid poise, standing before him, eyes riveted to his. "I don't think I could handle what's going on as well as everyone remarks about if you weren't here. I have complete faith in you as my attorney but it's nerve-wracking that life as I know it is threatened by an Assistant DA champing at the bit to score points against the very person I'm relying on to save that life, and the person I'm relying on can't get along with his investigator and had a tantrum because his big brother picked on him. You said you'd take care of everything, and that I needed to let people take care of me. Okay, I'm letting people take care of me. Starting with you. Take care of me, Perry."

She felt warm and soft as he held her close in a tender embrace, so different from the hug they'd exchanged in the Criminal Courts Building. Under the terms of the contract they were allowed to comfort one another, and he was elated that she so naturally stepped into the circle of his arms. She was there, pressed against him, and he never wanted to let her go, wondered how he could have ever let her go. He should have fought harder for her, for them, demanded more than the unsatisfying explanations she'd given for not wanting to be with him any longer, because she belonged right where she was.

"That's all I've ever wanted to do, baby." The word 'baby' had not left his lips for a long time, but lately had broken free from him, and Della didn't object, so it kept popping up in conversation.

Della pushed away from him slightly, slid her hands up to rest on either side of his head, and tilted it downward, pressing cool, gentle lips against his forehead. "There is Kahlua and ice cream for dessert."

"Temptress," he said with a crooked little smile at her adroit deflection from yet another dangerously swirling whirlpool of emotion. Kiss her for real, you damn fool.

"With Bart around you know there will be plenty of sweets."

Perry briefly touched his forehead to hers. "I'll go in there and apologize to Bart and Carter in front of everyone." Kiss her!

"You'll do no such thing," she admonished. "I've known both of them long enough to realize they intentionally pushed you across a line. They've done it to me more times than I can count over the years. They will apologize to you."

Perry's crooked smile broke into a full-out grin. "Did you berate them with words or with eyebrows?"

A tiny flush crept across Della's phenomenal cheekbones and her fingers unconsciously curled. "Um, it might have been…shall we say…a digital berating."

Perry threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

The glass slider open with force and Bart's magnificent bulk filled the doorway. "Ice cream's melting," he announced, then slid the door shut with a resonant bang.

Della's peal of laughter blended with Perry's lingering chuckles, the harmonic treble line to his bass. She turned and took one step before Perry caught her wrist and spun her back to him, with every intention of finally kissing her for real, because kissing her would make him real again.

"Della, what Bart and Carter were…what they wanted to know…we have to talk about it."

She patted his chest lightly. "I know we do. You and your brother have voices that carry so I heard some of the conversation from the other room. But I don't want to get into it until after I'm acquitted, okay? Right now I'm, as the kids say, maxed out."

He refused to let her see how disappointed he was, because he had never seen such fragility in her eyes before. There would be no kiss. He would remain unreal in this real world for a bit longer. "I'm holding you to that."

She took his hand and squeezed it. "Come on. Let's have some ice cream."

"The ladies are very trusting that the three of us can behave ourselves," Bart commented, pouring another shot of Kahlua over his chocolate ice cream.

The men were together in the kitchen again, seated at the island with huge bowls of ice cream and a bottle of Kahlua in front of them.

"I accept your apology," Perry said, mouth full of his own Kahlua drenched vanilla ice cream.

"I made no apology."

"I'm being proactive and saving you the effort."

"Cocky son-of-a-bitch." Carter interposed.

Perry stared at Della's brother. "Is this what retirement has done to you, Carter? Where's the spineless, uptight, milquetoast we all knew and barely tolerated?" He turned to Bart. "Although it seems I've heard that particular phrase before rather recently."

"Do not misquote me. I called you a cocky son-of-a-gun. Carter improved on the phrase all by himself. Nicely done, Carter."

Perry jerked his head toward Carter Street. "I accept his apology as well."

They were silent for several seconds.

Perry heaved a sudden sigh. "Arthur Gordon's will was read this morning. He left Della five hundred thousand dollars. And he intended to remove his wife as Director of his philanthropic foundation in favor of Della."

Bart whistled, spoon oozing with ice cream held aloft partway to his mouth. "What does that mean for her defense?" He could have added, and what does that mean for you and Della?, but then he'd have to apologize again and he didn't like apologizing – whether directly or indirectly.

"It's not good, even though there was nothing untoward in either the Directorship or the bequest. The DA didn't have much of a motive to support first degree murder before the will was read."

"Della gives money away," Carter said, excitement creeping into his normally uninflected voice. "All the family money left to her she put into Danny's scholarship fund."

Perry sighed again. That was just it. All the family money she put into a family fund she established. Money from her employer, from him, she had a precedent of accepting. He pushed the half-eaten bowl of ice cream away. The money he had given her when he closed the practice paid for her house and vaulted the retirement fund she had started in 1956 with a twenty dollar deposit into a comfortable future indeed. An additional five hundred thousand dollars right now would make her a cash millionaire, and her relatively young age worked against her in combatting such a motive – even though she would have eventually become a millionaire by virtue of her own savviness in investing, a skill she shared with her grandmother but refused to acknowledge. He had sworn to take care of her, but she had nevertheless gone ahead and admirably provided for herself independently. How could Arthur Gordon have done such a thing to someone he obviously held in great esteem? Hell, the obvious answer was that the guy probably loved her and this was the only way he could tell her after being rebuffed. To satisfy his own jealous curiosity, Perry needed to find out exactly when the business tycoon added the bequest for Della to his will.

"What is she doing with the money? She isn't going to accept it, is she?" Carter reached for the bottle of Kahlua and shook a jigger of the coffee-flavored liqueur over the mounds of chocolate and vanilla ice cream in his bowl.

"She's going to accept it, but she's not going to keep it. After she's acquitted we'll figure out a proper philanthropic cause to donate it to."

"Danny's scholarship could be expanded to include more students or to build new baseball fields at the athletic park back home," Carter suggested. Kahlua dripped on his chin and he used the edge of his spoon to gather it and shovel it into his mouth.

Perry shook his head. "No, donating to a fund she established herself would go over like a turd in a punch bowl with the DA, as well as in the press."

"I did not teach him to talk like that," Bart proclaimed in response to Carter's odd expression. "You can blame me for a lot of the things that are wrong with him, but I did not teach him to cuss or talk dirty."

"Mom did," Perry deadpanned.

"Actually, I think he got that one from Della Katherine," Carter ventured tentatively, clearing his throat. "I remember her saying it when she was in high school. Grandmother almost fainted. She probably got it from that Domenico boy."

Perry grinned. "She got it from Danny." He was beginning to thaw toward Carter Street after twenty-five years. "Along with a certain one-fingered gesture I believe you two witnessed earlier."

Carter shook his head. "What a kid," he murmured, and Perry suspected he was talking about his younger brother and sister in the same breath.

Perry slid down from the stool, yawned, and stretched. "Gentlemen, I'll leave you to earn your keep and handle the dirty dessert dishes by yourselves. There's work to be done tonight before I can sleep, and I have a meeting at eight a.m. with our private investigator, who'd better show up on time, before Della gets to the office. He was supposed to tag along with the police today to check out the hotel room of the man I suspect killed Arthur Gordon."

"Wait a minute," Bart protested. "You can't drop something like that on us and walk out. You said you had a theory, not an actual suspect."

"That's all I can say right now. And don't pester Della about it. When I've got more evidence I'll be able to talk about what my theory is."

"Why aren't you staying here?" Carter tipped his bowl and poured a healthy stream of Kahlua laced with melted ice cream into his mouth. Good Lord, Perry thought. He should have given a bottle of Kahlua to Carter years ago.

"Yeah," Bart said, thinking he had really said, "Yes, Perry, why aren't you staying here with the rest of us?"

"Because I'm Della's attorney and it wouldn't be proper for me to stay here." Because we have this damnable contract, you see, and…oh hell, who was he kidding? He couldn't stay at the house because Della had been right – ethics be damned, he didn't trust himself. The desire to kiss her was strong and deep and he was weakening.

"You've always been Della's attorney. By that reasoning, you were improper for thirty years."

"He was also her…" Carter ducked his head a bit and said under his breath, "lover."

Perry rolled his eyes. "It's been an interesting evening, gentlemen. Unless something marginally better comes up, I might just join you for dinner tomorrow night as well."

Bart belched majestically. "Henny is cooking tomorrow. What's she making again, Carter?"

"Pasties," Carter replied, pronouncing the word very carefully with a short 'a'.

Bart grinned, enjoying the name of the Cornish delicacy. "That's right. We have to find a rutabaga tomorrow. This is your town, Perry. Any idea where we might find a rutabaga?"

Perry shook his head and walked out of the kitchen.

*Refer to my story Destination Christmas