CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Home, Claire changed clothes. Jack was getting out of his suit, too, and she accidentally bumped him, as they stood in front of the closet. "Sorry," she mumbled.

He took her shoulders and turned her. Looking down at her, he said "This will be over in the morning."

She put her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his bare chest. "I wish Annie had been able to come. Damned snowstorm."

Jack remembered Annie's apologetic call. Annie lived what was called the primitive life; she lived in a village in the Vermont mountains that still had dirt roads, she used a woodstove, made her own bread. She'd explained to Claire that a clipper system dumped eighteen inches of snow and she couldn't get out. Claire was disappointed, but understood. Annie promised to send good thoughts, which Claire could accept without bending to the incredulous. Jack dismissed Annie's claims of magic as wishful thinking. Claire thought they ran deeper but could not bring herself to actually believe in magic, but accepted Wicca as a valid religious point of view.

"I'm sorry, too," Jack said, "I know she brings you some kind of comfort that I can't."

Claire ran her fingers across his back. "Don't think of it that way. It's because we're old friends, she saw me change from shy girl to adult woman. She has an intuitive understanding, aside from being a woman herself and knowing exactly what this has been like."

He tried to concentrate on her words, but her fingers were sending signals to Mr. Winkie. He stepped away from her, turned back to the closet.

"Jack."

He stopped. She put her arms around his waist, her fingers caressing his abs this time. She pressed against his back. He knew her signals. He turned around, cupped her face, and kissed her. She kissed him back, then, walking backward, led him to the bed. "You sure?" he whispered. He remembered painfully well the one time they'd tried this.

"I'm sure." She was. She desperately wanted to return to the life she'd known, to embrace her sexuality again, to connect with Jack. It has to work, she thought, I need him so much.

--xx—

Jack went to work the next morning. Claire waited for a call from Alex, putting an official end to this nightmare. She tidied the already clean apartment, and then, restless and knowing it could be several hours before she heard from Alex, decided to call Annie.

"Hey," she said, when Annie answered her cell phone. "I'm waiting. Closing arguments start at ten, then it goes to the jury."

"Relax, girlfriend. How bad was it?"

"Pretty bad. Sitting in that chair, watching him smirk at me as I repeated the details, I thought I was going to hurl."

"But you didn't. I told you, you're stronger than you think. How's it going with Jack?"

"Good. I was actually able to do it with him last night."

Annie chuckled. "So all those perverted thoughts I sent your way scored." Claire heard Annie's smoking sounds, smiled at her friend's little digs. "We're still snowed in, it probably won't melt until spring. I'm the only one in the village without a horse, so I get checked on a lot. If I could get out, I'd be there."

"I know," Claire said.

"In many ways, winter is my least favorite season."

Claire smiled again, remembering the seasons of their youth with a quiet sense of loss. "I've changed my mind on that," she said, "I think my favorite is now the season of the witch." She wished she could reach through the line and hug her friend. "You helped me get through this."

Annie laughed. "God, Jack must have you listening to Donovan. I love you, too, you mutant giantess."

"Do I have to wait for spring to see you again?"

"Probably, unless there really is a season of the witch. In that case, I'll see you very soon. Now, hang up, because you're about to get a call from your friend. I'll talk to you very soon, I promise."

"OK." Claire hung up. Annie and her little premonitions, lucky guesses were more like it, but Claire felt warmed anyway. Leaning into the refrigerator for a drink, she heard the phone ring. She bumped her head on the freezer door backing out, rubbed it, and grabbed the wall phone. It was indeed Alex Cabot.

"He took a plea ten minutes ago, twenty to life for attempted murder and first degree rape. It's over, Claire."

"Thank you, Alex. Let's get together for a drink soon." Claire hung up after a few more pleasantries, then took her drink to the couch. It was over, legally anyway, and she could concentrate on taking her life back. She sipped and thought of Annie, who dropped everything in response to a stranger's call telling her Claire needed her. And Claire knew that whenever she looked back on this period of her life, she would always think of it as the season of the witch indeed.

END