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Chapter Text

In ‘96, Dan left the district attorney’s office for one of the most prestigious law firms in New York. Fourteen months later, he accepted another offer from Bobbi Lieberman of Sterling, Brady & Lieberman, where he earned a reputation as one of the firm’s best civil litigators (as well as a paycheck that frankly made him dizzy) and retired a senior partner. And other than helping Harry move his belongings out of his chambers (and into his office at Columbia), Dan hadn’t set foot back in the Criminal Court of the City of New York since. Hadn’t wanted to, either. But here he is now: seventy-six years old and back in the place where it all began. 

Admittedly, it hasn’t been the easiest adjustment. For one, he hasn’t practiced criminal law in close to thirty years, and certainly never on this side of the tracks. His first night as a public defender, Dan automatically went to sit at his old table (luckily he reversed course at the last second, but everyone still saw), and Leon had to keep reminding him that he was counsel for the defense, now, and thus couldn’t keep starting his opening statements by calling his clients the scum of the earth. Dan so badly wanted to snap back that it was a little difficult to think of his actively pissing client (arrested for public urination) as an outstanding pillar of the local community, but he managed to hold his tongue, channeled his inner Christine, and patiently explained that his client had a weak bladder and couldn’t find a bathroom, thus the urge to relieve himself all over the sidewalk outside a Hooters. 

Leon let Dan’s client off the hook with a fifty dollar fine. It felt good.

But having to defend the scum of the earth (just because he can’t say it anymore doesn’t mean he can’t think it) isn’t the problem. Or at least not Dan’s biggest problem. Two weeks into his new career and he’s still seeing ghosts. Well. Not ghosts, exactly. More like echoes. He’ll find himself watching where he steps in the hall, afraid of accidentally trampling Vincent Daniels. Or he’ll swear he can see Art among the janitors, talking about the Yankees; Christine reading a magazine at one of the tables in the cafeteria; Mac sitting behind the court clerk’s computer. Harry on the bench. But invariably, a few blinks and a pinch and his past gives way to the present again.

He’ll never get over having to call Leon Your Honor, though. That he knows for sure.

Not everything has changed. The courthouse still looks (and smells) like it’s on the verge of structural collapse. And the food is as unappetizing as ever. Dan has spent the last fifteen minutes of tonight’s dinner break poking at what the sign said was a Caesar salad but tastes like wet leaves. To make matters worse, or rather just more annoying, he can’t even concentrate on his copy of the Times because at the next table, Olivia is flirting so painfully badly with Gurgs that it’s giving him a migraine. God. With all the increasingly stupidly-named apps available for kids these days to use to hook up, he figured they’d be better at flirting than even he was in his heyday, but this…this is just sad. 

“I oughta go,” Gurgs is saying. “I promised Reggie down in strip search I’d help her dye her hair purple.”

“That hair dye’s red, though,” Olivia points out, nodding at the box tucked under Gurgs’s arm.

“Yeah, they ran out of purple dye at Walgreens,” Gurgs says. “So hopefully I can convince Reg that red’s way more her color.” She beams. “If I don’t make it, keep me in your thoughts.”

“You’re always in my thoughts,” Olivia says. “I-I mean, you’re in my thoughts a normal amount. A totally normal amount! Definitely not always, that’d be ridiculous to always think about something. Or someone. Ha ha. Right?”

“Speak for yourself, Livs,” Gurgs says. “There’s a part of me that’s always thinking about Beyoncé. I mean, what’s she gotta do to win Album of the Year? Record her next album in space?” She immediately looks enraptured by the idea. “Ooh. She could pose on the album cover like that lady from Aliens!” She gasps. “Beyliens.” And with that, she flounces off.

“Great talk,” Olivia calls lamely after her.

Dan can keep silent no longer. “You know,” he says, setting down his newspaper. “Just in case you missed the memo—or the TikTok, whatever—flirting with someone only works if you own the pick-up lines. Not if you take them back the second they come out of your mouth.”

Olivia bristles like a porcupine who stuck its face into an electric outlet. “What do you know about flirting?”

Dan raises his eyebrows, lifts his left hand, and taps his wedding ring. Olivia’s face flushes.

“Well, what do you know about flirting with women?”

Dan swears to God he can hear Harry howling with laughter. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me that.”

He flips up his newspaper again—maybe now he can finish that deliciously scathing op-ed lambasting the idiots who think throwing soup on the Mona Lisa counts as activism—but before he can find his place, Olivia’s hand circles his wrist in a vice grip. Her eyes bore into his, alight with desperation. “What do you know about flirting with women, Fielding?”

“Enough to know that whatever that was back there was the Chernobyl of flirting.” Dan, says the Harry in his head, and Dan sighs and tries again. “Look, let’s back up a little.” He pries her fingers off his wrist before she can cut off his circulation. “What’s your end goal with Gurgs? Long-term relationship? Casual sex?” Olivia squeaks. “Is that a yes?”

“No, it’s a—well, it’s not a no, but—I can’t just, just go up to Gurgs and ask her to have, you know,” Olivia’s voice drops to a scandalized whisper, “sex with me.”

“Why not?”

“Why—why not? Why not? Would you have sex with someone without even asking them to dinner first?”

Sometimes I had sex with someone during dinner, Dan manages not to say, on the grounds that it might give Olivia an aneurysm. Her whole generation is so damn Puritan, they make Christine look adventurous. “So ask her to dinner first.”

Olivia scoffs. “Well, obviously I can’t do that.”

“Why not? What’s the worst that could happen?”

“…She could hear me.”

Dear God. “So your end goal is—what, exactly? Dropping and taking back pick-up lines until Gurgs gets so confused she asks you out just to end the chaos?”

Olivia nods proudly.

“Alright.” Dan pinches the bridge of his nose. “As admirable of a goal as that is, you realize by doing this you run the risk of Gurgs getting so confused that she thinks you’re just straight and socially awkward and thus never asks you out.”

“Excuse you.” Olivia folds her arms over her chest. “I may not be the most comfortable socially, but there is nothing about me that’s straight. I drive a Subaru. With Xena bumper stickers.” She shoves her phone under his nose. “My home screen? Cate Blanchett.”

“Okay, so you’ve clearly got the lesbian part covered,” Dan says, pushing her phone away before he has to get into it about Tár again. “Congratulations. But if you don’t get over yourself and make a move, you’re going to spend the rest of your life driving yourself crazy wondering what might have been.” 

“What if I make a move and she says no?”

“Then she says no,” Dan says. “And you’ll find someone else.” After Patty broke off their engagement, Dan thought he’d never find anyone else who could make him feel as content as she could. But then there’d been Joan, if only for a few hours. And then Harry. And now there will never be anyone again.

Olivia bites her lip. “Gurgs is basically the only person I know who actually…likes me,” she says, so quietly Dan has to lean in to hear her over the hissing of the coffee machines nearby. “I don’t want to mess that up.”

Dan sips his coffee, hoping that will ease the sudden tightness in his chest. It doesn’t. “Listen, I…” He sighs. “I know how you feel, Olivia.”

Olivia looks surprised. “You do?”

Dan glances around the room instinctively, making sure that no one he knows is around to overhear. Which is stupid, he realizes immediately. Everyone who would care enough to tease him for opening up is long dead. Even so, he keeps his voice down. “My last year here as a prosecutor, I realized that my feelings for Harry weren’t as platonic as I originally thought. Even so, I didn’t even consider making a move.”

“Because you didn’t know for sure that he was gay?”

“Harry was bisexual,” Dan says, irritated by the interruption. “Same as me.” He does his best Ross Perot. “Can I finish?”

“…Is that a reference?”

Dan’s entire soul sighs. “Like I was saying, I didn’t even consider making a move. Not just because he was my boss, or because I wasn’t sure that he was even interested in men to begin with, but…because he was the only friend I had. My closest friend. And I didn’t want to ruin that.” He twists his wedding ring around his finger, reminding himself of his happy ending. “But after I accepted the offer from Pearson Hadley—”

Olivia actually chokes. “You worked at Pearson Hadley?” 

“For a while,” Dan says shortly. He doesn’t want to think about those days: how the boys’ club he’d worked so hard to ingratiate himself into had immediately turned their backs on him after he showed up at the firm’s annual Christmas party with Harry on his arm. How for months after, Dan dealt with endless AIDS jokes, his fellow associates (and even some of the partners) calling him Faggot Fielding and Philadelphia behind his back, only being given the cases that no one else would touch. How hard Dan tried to keep all of that a secret from Harry; how hard Harry cried when he found out. How determined Dan had been to stick it out anyway, to not let them win—until Tom Rollins, a partner, spotted Dan and Harry at a restaurant, came over to their table, and said something so despicable about their lifestyle that Dan lost his temper and broke Tom’s nose with one punch.

Bobbi Lieberman, who Dan had gone up against precisely once in court (and beat soundly), had been dining with a handful of friends nearby. After Harry bailed Dan out, Bobbi informed Tom that if he tried to take this to court, she and every person at her table would testify under oath that they witnessed Tom trying to solicit Dan (thus Dan’s completely justifiable reaction). Tom promptly dropped the charges, but told Dan to clear out his desk first thing Monday morning. Bobbi told Dan to come straight from Pearson Hadley to her firm, which would be more than happy to employ a lawyer of his caliber. And there he stayed for the next fifteen years.

Bobbi died in 2014. Ovarian cancer. Because the people who most deserved to die never went first.

“You were saying?” Olivia prompts. Dan blinks, returns to the present, and presses on.

“Harry took me out to dinner to celebrate, and I invited him back to my place afterwards for a nightcap. We were sitting on the sofa, drinking whiskey, shooting the breeze, when…” A lump rises in his throat. “I noticed Harry was crying.”

“Crying? Why?”

I don’t know, Harry had said, trying to smile through the tears he was wiping away. It just…hit me, I guess. All of a sudden. That you’re really leaving. Off to your next big adventure. 

Well, rest assured, I’m not going to forget you when I’m famous, Dan said. His heart was beating very quickly, like it wanted to break through his ribs and comfort Harry itself. Provided you don’t forget about me. 

I won’t forget about you, Harry said, like the thought had never even crossed his mind. I couldn’t. I just…I’ll miss you, Dan, that’s all. His laugh was wet, self-deprecating. Hell, I miss you already.

“Because he’d miss me,” Dan says. “Because he missed me already.”

A tear slid down Harry’s cheek. Dan leaned in, took off Harry’s glasses, placed them on the coffee table and wiped that tear away with his thumb. He kept his hand there, cradling Harry’s perfect face. Harry, he said softly. I’m right here.

They were inches away from each other. Harry’s eyes flickered to Dan’s mouth, then back up again. His voice was barely louder than a breath. Are you?

“I said I was right here,” Dan says. “And I kissed him.”

Olivia’s eyes are huge. “What, just like that?”

“Well, I figured I was leaving his court anyway, so if I misread him, at least he wouldn’t have to be in the same room with me every night,” Dan says. “And taking that risk paid off for me.” He taps his wedding ring again. “Maybe it’ll pay off for you too. Or maybe it won’t. But you’ll never know unless you try.”

Olivia considers this for a long time: long enough for Dan to finish his cup of mediocre coffee. “Okay,” she says decisively. “I’ll try. I will. I’ll make the first move.”

“Best of luck,” Dan says. He picks his newspaper back up, but can’t concentrate with Olivia staring holes into the side of his head. Reaching deep into his diminishing well of patience, Dan sets his newspaper down once more, folds his arms over his chest, and huffs a loud sigh. “Yes?”

“How do I make the first move?”

“Oh my God…”

“Come on, Fielding,” Olivia pleads. “Just give me a few tips. I’m a fast learner.” She lifts her chin high. “I memorized the entire globe when I was seven. Without the Animaniacs song.”

“…Is that a reference?”

“Please, Fielding.” Olivia looks desperate. And very, very young. “I don’t want to mess this up.” She swallows. “And you’re the only one I have to ask.”

The longer Dan looks at her, the more he sees himself—and the faster his resolve crumbles. He’d already promised to come out of retirement and help Leon. He supposes he can help Olivia too. After all, by God does she need it. “Meet me here during the dinner break tomorrow night,” he says. “I’ll write up some pointers.”

Olivia’s whole body goes loose with relief. “Thank you, Fielding. I owe you one.”

“I take cash, credit, and Venmo,” Dan says. Olivia laughs, like she thinks he’s kidding, and returns to her table (and her equally sad-looking salad). She’s smiling like—as Vincent Daniels used to say—someone who kicked the pot and ate the rainbow. Dan picks up his newspaper again and hides his face before anyone notices that he’s smiling too. 

Every night for the next week, Olivia shows up at Dan’s table during the dinner break armed with a bullet journal, a fistful of gel pens and an eagerness to learn. She might have been a quick study in law school (which undoubtedly contributed to why she’s such a formidable opponent in the courtroom, not that Dan will ever say so aloud), but the minutiae of romance goes completely over her head. She can’t smolder, thinks touching someone before marriage for longer than five seconds is slutty, and every time she’s in the same room as Gurgs, she shuts down and panic-smiles so wide that someone in the vicinity always asks if she’s being held hostage. 

But Dan doesn’t give up on her. He won’t give up on her. And not because the Harry in his head is telling him not to—in fact, the Harry in his head has mostly been staying out of this whole thing—but because Olivia Moore is the Eliza Doolittle to Dan’s Henry Higgins, and Dan will be damned if he can’t overcome the greatest challenge he’s ever faced.

(Alright, and maybe he’s gotten a little invested in the Gurgs-Olivia love story. Maybe. He’ll deny it under oath if he has to.)

It’s the promise of another meeting with Olivia tonight that keeps Dan upright when he steps into the 80th Street Residence on the third Wednesday of the month. Claudette, one of the nurses, greets him with a warm hug and a warmer smile and fills Dan in. “He’s been responding very well to the increased dosage of Namenda. No more fatigue, and he’s steady on his feet.”

It’s not making anything better, though, is it, Dan thinks bitterly. “Is he up for visitors?”

“Let’s head on over to the Tea Room and find out.”

Buddy sits in his usual spot on the sofa by the fireplace, holding court with some of the other residents and their families. Dan nods at some of the faces he recognizes—even the ones he’s sure don’t recognize him—and Claudette waits for Buddy to finish telling his story before she takes Dan over. “Buddy,” she says. “May Dan and I join you?”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Buddy says. One of the other residents and his daughter vacate their chairs, and Claudette and Dan take them. “Hey! You know, I used to have a beard.”

“Did you?” Dan says.

“Yep.” Buddy’s smile is wide. “But I’m feeling much better now.”

It’s a good day, today. Last month, Buddy hadn’t been very coherent, and the month before that he hadn’t wanted to talk to Dan at all, but today he’s in fine form, chatting pleasantly about Watergate and shadow puppets and bird calls. He repeats himself a lot, but being married to a man who constantly introduced himself as Harry, but then again, aren’t we all? prepared Dan well for a father-in-law with middle-stage Alzheimer’s who unknowingly tells the same stories and the same jokes over and over again. Not that Dan knew so at the time.

“And I told James McCord not to enlist those Cubans,” Buddy is saying. “But he did and he got caught and went to court and you know the rest. You ever been to court?”

Dan startles at the question. Buddy hardly ever addresses him directly when he’s lost in a story. “Yes, I have.”

“You ever see my son there?” Buddy says, and Dan’s heart seizes. “He’s a judge, you know. A real good one. Got his mother’s, uh…”

Dan’s lips are numb. “Compassion.”

“That’s it. You know him?”

Yes, I know him. I love him. I married him. You were at our wedding. “No.”

“Well, maybe you’ll meet him someday,” Buddy says. “He’s a judge, you know. A real good one. Real busy. Haven’t seen him in a while. My son.” His forehead puckers as he frowns, but it eases into a smile again. A proud smile. “My son, Harry.”

“I have to go,” Dan says. He’s going to lose it; he can feel bile rising in his throat and an explosive sob building in his chest, and it’s anyone’s guess which one will win out. “I’m sorry, I have to—” He stands, trying not to look at Claudette, whose eyes no doubt are swimming with pity. He can’t quite look at Buddy either, but he tries. For Harry’s sake. And for his father-in-law’s sake too. “Goodbye, Buddy.”

“Bye,” Buddy says. “Nice to meet you.”

Dan manages to get back in his car and all the way home before the tears win out. He sinks down on the couch and cries: cries for the man Buddy used to be and the shell he is now; cries remembering how he held a terrified Harry in his arms and kissed him and promised that he would still love Harry and take care of him even if Harry inherited Buddy’s Alzheimer’s and couldn’t remember him anymore; cries because his father-in-law is alive and doesn’t know him and the love of his life is dead and gone forever and it’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fucking fair. And then Dan pulls himself together, takes a shower, gets changed, and drives to the courthouse, where he finds Leon and Neil arguing in the middle of the cafeteria, dressed like Hobbits. 

Leon nods at him like they’ve run into each other at the grocery store. “‘Sup, Fielding.”

“I’m not even going to ask,” Dan says. A handful of rubberneckers block his path to the door; Dan tries to sidestep them, but they move left when he moves right, and he huffs in frustration. “Excuse me, will you let me pass?”

“My God, he’s perfect,” Neil breathes, and the next thing Dan knows, Neil’s hurled himself across the room and clinging to Dan’s leg like a limpet. Dan looks at Leon for assistance.

“Leon, if you wouldn’t mind telling the pride of the Shire to get off me?”

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a Lord of the Rings fan, Fielding,” Leon says, all while doing absolutely nothing to get Neil off Dan’s leg. Typical. 

“I happen to agree with most of the world that the movies are a masterpiece of filmmaking and storytelling,” Dan says archly. “And the tragedy of Sauron never managing to reclaim his stolen property…” He pretends to wipe away tears. “Heartwrenching.”

Leon rolls his eyes. Neil, his face buried in Dan’s thigh, says, “How do you feel about Gandalf?”

Dan scoffs. “Total amateur,” he says. “I would’ve taken the One Ring to Mordor myself. I’m not scared of corrupting my soul.” He adjusts his tie primly. “Though I do admire a man’s dedication to making others do his work for him.”

“So if you were Gandalf, you’d have done things way differently,” Leon summarizes.

“Exactly.”

“Glad you feel that way,” Leon says. “Because now’s your chance.”

Dan looks down at Neil, who is smiling up at him hopefully, and says, “Absolutely not.”

“Come on, Fielding,” Neil pleads. “You don’t even have to do anything. I just need a body.”

“Then go to the morgue.”

“Fielding.” Leon sounds so much like Harry that it temporarily punches the air out of Dan’s lungs. “At least hear the brother out for a minute.”

“…Fine,” Dan says. “Provided that the brother gets off me.”

Neil releases Dan’s leg and scrambles back up. “So you know how I’m on my way to becoming a big name in the Lord of the Rings fandom due to my acapella renditions of the soundtrack…”

“Didn’t know, didn’t care, didn’t ask.”

“Anyway, my Twitter arch-nemesis, GamgeeGab13, claims that no one can do an acapella rendition of The Bridge of Khazad-dûm. That’s the music that plays over the scene where Gandalf dies.”

“Fascinating,” Dan says. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“Judge Johnson thinks I’ll really be able to channel the emotion of the piece if I put myself in Frodo’s shoes,” Neil says. “So to speak.”

“And that means…”

“Dressing up like Frodo and watching someone else dressed as Gandalf die in front of me.” 

Dan stares at him. “So let me see if I have this straight. You’re asking me to dress up as Gandalf and pretend to plunge to my death, and then you’re going to sing at me?”

“No, no,” Neil says, laughing like it had been a stupid question. “I’ll sing later. This is just so I can experience the emotion in real time and then channel that emotion when I record the rendition this weekend.”

“And you want to experience this emotion,” Dan waves at his surroundings, “in the cafeteria?”

Neil shrugs. “There are worse places.”

Dan looks at Leon. “And you’re dressed as a Hobbit, why?”

“Moral support,” Leon says easily.

“Well, then maybe you could dress as Gandalf—”

“Already tried that,” Neil says. “He doesn’t have the right vibe.”

“That’s racist,” Dan says. “Isn’t that racist?”

“Fielding,” Leon sighs. “Can we skip ahead to the part where you quit complaining and man up and put the Gandalf costume on already?”

“Who’s putting on a Gandalf costume?” Gurgs says by way of greeting. 

“Fielding is,” Leon says, just as Dan snaps, “I am not!”

Gurgs actually claps her hands together with delight. “Judge, why didn’t you say we’d be dressing up as Lord of the Rings characters tonight? My Aragorn costume’s in my purse; I can go get it real quick.”

“You’ve got an Aragorn costume?” Neil says.

“Obviously,” Gurgs says, just as Olivia walks in. “I’ve got the whole hot brooding loner in a cloak thing down.”

“Definitely got the hot thing down,” Olivia chimes in. Everyone stares at her, and she blushes a deeper red than her blazer, but—to Dan’s surprise and pride—she doesn’t back down. “What? It’s true.”

“Aww.” Gurgs nudges her hip against Olivia’s. “Thanks, Livs. You got the hot thing down pretty well yourself.”

Olivia makes a noise that’s half giggle, half strangled cough. “Thank you, Gurgs.”

Gurgs winks. “Don’t mention it.”

“Anyway,” Leon says, after glancing between Gurgs and Olivia with arched eyebrows. Dan’ll fill him in later. “Fielding, you gonna help Neil out or what?”

“Oh, Fielding’s gonna be the Gandalf to your Frodo?” Gurgs says. Neil nods, and Gurgs cackles. “This I gotta see. Say you’ll do it, Fielding.”

“Gurgs, I—”

“Come on,” Gurgs says. “Don’t be scared. We’ll dress up too!” She throws her arm around Olivia’s shoulders. “Livs, you’ll help out, right?”

“Um,” Olivia says. Her eyes land on Dan. She looks very overwhelmed. “If Fielding helps, I’ll help.”

Goddamn it. Dan squeezes his eyes shut. “I’ll help.”

Gurgs whoops and giggles. “Come on, girl. There’s a Legolas costume in lost and found that’ll look great on you.”

“Which one is he again?” Olivia says. Gurgs laughs and leads her out of the cafeteria.

Leon’s grin stretches from ear to ear. “Follow me, Fielding,” he says. “I got your costume in my office.”

The costume, regrettably, fits him well. Dan manages to talk his way out of wearing it until the dinner break, when they all costume up (Olivia catches sight of Gurgs in her Aragorn costume and promptly trips over her own tongue) and reconvene themselves in Leon’s chambers. Dan stands by the door and pouts while Leon massages Neil’s shoulders like a coach hyping up a boxer to go back into the ring. “Alright, man,” he’s saying. “You ready?”

“Born ready, sir,” Neil chirps.

“That’s what I’m talking about! Okay, Fielding, up you get. Ready, and…action!”

“This is stupid,” Dan complains.

“Not your line, Fielding!”

Dan grumbles. He lifts his staff high (actually the mop handle Leon stole from the janitor’s closet), taps it on the floor, and deadpans in his best British accent, “You shall not pass!” Then, pretending like something is dragging him out the door, Dan staggers backwards step by step, grabbing onto the doorframe. Just before he loses his grip, he looks Neil in this eyes and hisses, “…Line?”

“Fly, you fools,” Gurgs says helpfully.

“Fly, you fools!” Dan hisses, releases the doorframe, and disappears from sight. He comes back in ten seconds later and says, “Can I take this off now?”

Leon glances at Neil, who shakes his head, then back at Dan. “Let’s take it from the top.”

Five run-throughs later, Neil is no closer to experiencing that satisfactory emotion that will aid him in his acapella rendition, but Dan is a lot closer to strangling the kid with his robe. Leon, evidently sensing Dan’s frustration, takes the staff out of Dan’s hands before he asks Neil, “Is there anything Fielding can do to help you get to where you need to be, Neil?”

“I’m just not getting Gandalf from him, is all,” Neil says. 

“Not getting—what the hell do you want me to do here, cast a spell?” Dan says, exasperated. “Just because I was married to a magician doesn’t make me one.”

“No one’s saying you have to cast a spell,” Leon says soothingly. “But maybe Neil’s right, Fielding. I mean, you haven’t exactly been putting your back into it over here.”

Because I’m doing this against my will, Dan wants to snap, but he holds his tongue. After all, relenting under excessive badgering isn’t the same thing as being coerced—and the sooner he ‘puts his back into it,’ as Leon said, the sooner he gets to take this stupid robe off. It itches. “How exactly do you suggest I put my back into it, Leon?”

“Allow me, Judge,” Gurgs says. She bounces up from the sofa—Olivia immediately looks disappointed—and puts her hand on Dan’s arm. “Fielding, something I learned at Guilliard—”

Dan blinks. “You went to Julliard?”

“No, Guilliard. With a G. It was voted the best drama school located over a bowling alley seven years in a row.”

“I bet,” Dan says.

“Anyway, what I learned in my three years there was how to really put myself into a character’s shoes. To focus on what you have in common with them, not what sets you apart. That’s how you get the best performances.”

“I don’t have anything in common with Gandalf,” Dan says. “Other than the beard. And admittedly, we both look very good in gray.”

“Well,” Gurgs says. “Think about it. Gandalf sacrificed his life to save the Fellowship. Is there anyone who you’d sacrifice your life to save?”

Dan’s wedding ring seems to burn and constrict. “Yes.”

“There you go,” Gurgs says brightly. “So just think about that person when you say your line.” She rejoins Olivia on the sofa—Olivia immediately starts panic-grinning again, though it’s not nearly as wide as usual—and snaps her fingers. “Take it from the top, gents.”

Leon hands Dan back his staff, and Dan returns to the door. This time, after Dan has slammed the staff on the floor and informed the room You shall not pass and clings to the door, he imagines it’s Harry standing in Neil’s place, in certain danger but refusing to flee. Emotion colors his voice as he croaks, “Fly, you fools!” and staggers out of sight once more.

Dan returns to the room, and for a single, heart-seizing moment, he sees Harry standing there, young and smiling and handsome, and Christine and Mac and Bull and Roz, clapping and cheering. Then he blinks, and it’s the kids again: Gurgs and Olivia and Neil and Leon, who looks particularly impressed. “Not bad, Fielding. Not bad at all.”

“If you ever want a spot at Guilliard, my ex is on the admissions board,” Gurgs says. “I’ll be glad to hit her up.” She scowls, which looks as wrong on her face as a smile would have on Roz’s. “And then hit her with my car.”

Olivia looks alarmed. “Why?”

“Oh, she stole my limited edition Puma tracksuit jacket with the peacock feathers,” Gurgs says. “She claims it got lost in the mail, but I know she’s holding it hostage out of spite.”

“I’d never do that to you,” Olivia says, with all the subtlety and light touch of a German jazz band.

Gurgs smiles and bumps Olivia’s shoulder playfully. “I know you wouldn’t.”

Olivia blushes. Dan bites back a smile. “Well, Neil,” he says. “Can I take this damn thing off now or what?”

“I don’t know,” Neil says. “I’m still not really feeling it.”

The smile drops off Dan’s face. “What do you mean, you’re still not feeling it?”

“Neil,” Leon warns quietly, but Neil cuts him off.

“Not saying you didn’t put on a great performance back there, Fielding, really!” Despite the anger pounding at his temples, Dan registers the sincerity in Neil’s voice—but that only makes his anger swell stronger and hotter. “It’s not you, it’s me. I just can’t put myself in Frodo’s feet; I can’t relate to losing a father figure. Not exactly.”

Something inside Dan snaps. “You want to know what it’s like to lose a father?” he demands. “I’ll tell you what it’s like. You’re going to wake up one morning to a call informing you that your father—the man who raised you, who helped you up when you fell down and believed in you, loved you no matter how despicable you acted—is dead. Gone. Just like that.” Dan snaps his fingers for effect. “And the whole flight over to his funeral, the only thing on your mind is going to be regret. Regret for all the times you didn’t visit, or let his call go to your machine. Regret that he died thinking you didn’t respect him, that you didn’t appreciate everything he ever did for you. Regret that you will never be able to tell him otherwise, because he’s dead. And that regret, that pain, is going to follow you for the rest of your life. And that’s just if you’re lucky enough to lose him in one fell swoop.” Dan can feel his throat beginning to close up, his composure beginning to crack. “So make sure you channel that feeling into your little rendition, Neil.” He throws the mop handle to the floor and heads for the door. Over his shoulder, he says, “Ciao, baby.”

Dan’s rage carries him to the roof, where the cold night air shocks the worst of it out of him. He wraps his robe tightly around himself and looks out at the city. The view hasn’t changed much since the last time Dan was up here. Well, minus the fact that he can’t see the Twin Towers anymore. And he can’t see any couples fornicating through the windows in the next building—nope, there’s one now. The more things change, et cetera, et cetera.

Dan, comes Harry’s voice, but it’s not stern this time, it’s soft. Tears burn Dan’s eyes, and he twists his wedding ring around his finger to keep them from falling. But it’s not his husband he misses right now. Well, it’s not just his husband. Though having him here right now—or any of the old gang—sure wouldn’t hurt.

“Fielding?”

Dan jumps so high he almost goes over the edge and plummets into the street below. “Jesus!”

“Neil,” says Neil. “Actually.”

“Oh, well,” Dan says. “In that case.” As casually as he can, he straightens his Gandalf hat and clears his throat. “Listen, Neil—”

“My dad died before I was born,” Neil says abruptly, and Dan thinks, Shit. “I, uh, I never knew him. I mean, my mother showed me pictures all the time, videos. My sisters told me stories about him. He used to read to them before bed. His favorite books.” 

“…The Lord of the Rings,” Dan says.

“And The Hobbit,” Neil confirms. “And The Silmarillion.”

“Naturally. Why limit yourself to one story the size of a phone book.”

A smile quirks Neil’s mouth, then quickly disappears. “Anyway. I think that’s why I’ve been having so much trouble with this piece.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, rocks back and forth on his heels. “I lost my dad, but I don’t miss him. I mean, I do, but not the way my mother and sisters do. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I know what you mean.”

Neil looks relieved. “Anyway, I’m sorry I acted like a…”

“Two-legged, lobotomized jackass?” Dan suggests. Neil looks alarmed. “Sorry, sorry. Inside joke. It’s alright. And I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just…I’ve had a rough day, is all.”

“That’s okay,” Neil says easily. “Happens to the best of us.” He hesitates, then says, “Is it because of your dad?”

“No,” Dan says, startled into honesty. “It didn’t have anything to do with my dad.” He wants to leave it there, but Neil had opened up to him; the least Dan can do is open up to him in return. “It had to do with Harry’s.”

“Your husband? His dad’s still alive?”

“He’s still alive,” Dan says. “He’s got Alzheimer’s. Middle-stage. He, uh…” His throat locks up. “He doesn’t know me anymore.”

“Oh,” Neil says softly. Dan can’t look at him.

“Yeah. Uh. He still remembers Harry, so that’s what counts. But. Today, I went to visit him—I try and visit him once a month; he lives in a memory care facility on the Upper East Side—and there was a minute where he was talking like Harry was still alive, and it…” Dan has to stop, take a breath. “It hurt more than I thought it would.”

“Were you close?”

“Buddy was closer to Harry,” Dan says. Up to the end, Harry and Buddy were thick as thieves: playing cards, telling jokes, sharing stories about Harry’s mother. “But we got along fine.” He and Buddy used to tease Harry during the peak of East Chesapeake lacrosse season; once, while Harry paced in front of the TV cursing the head coach’s ancestors and progeny, Buddy muttered to Dan, You know, somebody once told me insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results, and Dan snorted beer through his nose. Over the years, even though Buddy was still very much one scoop short of a full sundae, Dan grew to appreciate Buddy’s good cheer, his friendliness, his stories. How he would always hug Dan just as warmly as he hugged Harry. How he used to call Dan son.

Dan never told Buddy how much his warmth and support eased the pain of losing his parents within months of each other and losing his sister after she refused to accept his relationship with Harry. Yet another regret that would follow him to his grave. If he was ever so lucky to reach it.

“I liked him. And he liked me.” Dan tries for a smile. “One of the few who did.”

“Why few?” Neil asks, and Dan falters.

“Well. You know.” Dan gestures lamely at himself, from his Italian loafers to his pointy wizard hat. “I’m not exactly easy to like.”

“Says who?” And before Dan can reply promptly, Everyone who isn’t my husband, Neil says, “I like you, Fielding.”

That knocks the wind out of him. “You do?”

“Sure,” Neil says. “Any guy who’d dress up as Gandalf to help me out is good enough for me.”

“Oh,” Dan says stupidly. For a moment, he comes genuinely close to crying—but he promised himself years ago he’d never cry in front of anyone in a Halloween costume, and anyway, Neil’s only known him a few weeks. He’ll figure out that Dan’s not worth it eventually. Everyone before him did. (Well. Almost everyone. The few exceptions to the rule are either dead or senile.) Still, he says, “Thank you, Neil. And…I suppose you’re fairly tolerable yourself. When you aren’t dressed as a Hobbit.”

“Thanks,” Neil says, laughing. “I think.”

“Don’t mention it. And,” Dan can’t believe he’s saying this, “if you need any more help with your acapella, just let me know.”

“Ah, that’s okay,” Neil says. “I think I’ve got what I need. You gave me a lot to think about.”

“Hallelujah.” Dan rips his robe and wizard hat off and throws them over the side of the building—where they float down and land on the windshield of a taxicab, which swerves wildly and crashes into the back of a city bus. Dan gulps. “So! Back inside?”

“Yep,” Neil says, and they hastily scurry indoors as one.

Neil’s acapella rendition of The Bridge of Khazad-dûm is uploaded to his Tiktok and SoundCloud over the weekend. Dan’s interest in social media peaked somewhere around the first Obama administration—he’s got a Facebook, but hasn’t used it for anything since Harry died—so on Monday night during the dinner break, Leon lends Dan his AirPods and his iPhone and, with both Neil and Leon hovering behind him with bated breath, Dan listens to the song.

“Well?” Neil says eagerly. “What do you think?”

Dan removes Leon’s AirPods and takes his time answering. “Well,” he says, wiping his glasses with his pocket square. “First off, I still maintain that solo acapella is as much, if not more, of an affront to society than karaoke—”

“Fielding,” Leon groans, but Dan doesn’t need the warning.

“But…” Dan taps Leon’s phone. “I admit that this wasn’t so horrible. You definitely tapped into the emotion of the piece. The pain, the loss—”

“And the love,” Neil says.

“And the love,” Dan echoes. He replaces his glasses and rubs his thumb over his wedding ring. “Good job, kid.”

Leon grins at him, but Neil grins wider. “Thanks, Fielding.”

“Excuse me?” The three of them turn around to see a young woman standing hesitantly by their table. Everyone between the ages of twenty and forty looks the same to Dan now, but he thinks she’s about Neil’s age, maybe a little older. Pretty, definitely. Though the pink streaks in her hair, in Dan’s opinion, really wash her out. “Aren’t you Lord Neilrond?”

“Oh my God, tell me that isn’t your pen name,” Dan says.

“My username,” Neil says, but he’s looking at the woman he’s never seen one before. Jesus, this kid’s hopeless too. Maybe Dan should start a seminar. “And yes. Yes it is. Sorry, have we…met? Before?”

“Well,” the woman says, giving an awkward laugh. “Not officially. But we’ve talked before. Lots of times.”

“Uh, no, we haven’t,” Neil says. “I think I’d remember.”

Okay, Dan can admit that that was pretty smooth. Maybe Neil can tutor Olivia if Dan ever has to call in sick. The woman blushes. “I’m Gabby,” she says. “But, uh, you might know me better as GamgeeGab13.”

“You’re GamgeeGab13?” Gabby nods. “B-but you’re so…so…”

“Female?” Dan suggests in an undertone. Leon elbows him.

“I don’t want you to think I’m stalking you or anything!” Gabby says hastily. “I didn’t even know you lived in the city; I came here to drop off some Tupperware for my friend who works in probate, and then I came in here to buy a candy bar, and then I saw you sitting over here and I recognized you and so I had to come over and see if it was really you, and now I’m here and it’s you and I’m rambling.” Her blush deepens. Neil is still gawking. “I just wanted to say, I may not agree with you on everything Tolkien-related—for one thing, Sam is definitely the most heroic one in the story—”

“Okay, Frodo is the most heroic one,” Neil argues. “Ringbearer? Saves the world?”

“He couldn’t have saved the world or carried the Ring without Sam—”

“Time out!” Leon says. Thank God; Dan was starting to get a headache. “You were saying, Gabby?”

“Right. Sorry. Anyway, I really didn’t think you’d be able to do a good acapella cover of The Bridge of Khazad-dûm, but…you proved me wrong.” Her smile is full of admiration. “I’d love to know how you managed to channel all that emotion.”

“He’d be glad to tell you all about it,” Dan says, after Neil has stammered and stuttered for fifteen seconds straight. “Perhaps over drinks after court lets out? Right, Neil?”

Neil nods like a broken bobblehead. Gabby lights up. “Sounds like fun!”

“He thinks so too,” Dan says. “Don’t you, Neil?” Neil nods again. “He’ll meet you back here at ten thirty.” At which point he’ll hopefully regain control of his tongue and Dan’s work here will be done.

“Great,” Gabby says. “See you then, Neilrond. Neil.”

Neil waves after her dumbly. The second she’s gone, he puts his head down on the table. His voice is muffled. “Did that just happen?”

“Sure did,” Leon says. He pats Neil on the shoulder. To Dan, he says, “Nice ventriloquism back there, Fielding.”

Given that Neil is within earshot, Dan elects not to make a (very witty) comment about how he only got involved because he needed more charitable contributions to write off for his taxes. “Thanks. Picked up a few tricks from these ventriloquists I prosecuted back in the 80s.”

“What’d they do?”

“They were all auditioning for this local kiddie TV show when a riot broke out amongst them. And then while we were all waiting for Harry to issue a verdict, the ventriloquist’s dummy committed suicide.”

“…You mean the ventriloquist.”

“No, I mean the dummy.”

That gets Neil to lift his head off the table. “No way that really happened.”

“80s,” Dan repeats, and Leon and Neil both nod in acceptance and return to their meals without seeking further explanation. Probably for the best. Dan will save the story about Wile E. Coyote for another day.

The case that kicks off their Thursday night session is a real doozy. Jason Osmond (age 16, arrested for underage drinking and vandalism) loses his temper in the middle of the courtroom and starts yelling that he only did it to blow off steam because he found out he wasn’t going to be adopted by his current foster dad—and then said foster dad (Travis Turner, age 40) shows up in court and proclaims that it was a misunderstanding, that Jason only saw his suitcase by the front door because Turner had been trying to fix a squeaky wheel on it earlier. It was a surprise, Turner said. A shitty surprise, Jason muttered, which Dan agreed with. But wait, there’s more: Turner apparently had his heart set on adopting Jason for the last six months; he’d just kept quiet about it because he thought Jason wasn’t interested in being adopted. There’s yelling and hugging and crying until finally the charges are dropped and father and son walk out of the courtroom arm in arm.

Leon is quiet for the rest of the night. Dan notices. Evidently he’s the only one who notices, because Olivia and Gurgs and Neil all leave after court is adjourned without looking back. Then again, they’ve only known Leon a few weeks; that’s not enough time to become fluent in the signs of when something is wrong. Not to say that the handful of weeks Dan knew Leon in the 80s make him any better versed in reading Leon’s moods, but if Leon is anything like Harry—beyond the card tricks he does on the bench, and hadn’t that been a kick in the head the first few times—there’s quiet, and then there’s quiet. The kind of quiet Harry had been after he found out about his mother; after Judge Sims died; after Margaret left him. The kind of quiet Leon is now. 

Dan finds Leon at the third bar he tries, located a handful of blocks from the courthouse. It’s no pool hall circa 1986, but it’s dingy enough to be a third cousin removed. The Thursday night (or, since it’s past midnight, early Friday morning) crowd is thin; Dan spots Leon at the bar right away. He’s got an empty beer bottle beside him, and he’s making his way slowly but steadily through a second. 

“So,” Dan says by way of greeting, making himself comfortable on the rickety stool beside Leon. It’s disgustingly sticky. He bets no one’s cleaned this place since the first COVID lockdown. “This is the post-session hangout of choice, huh. Guess I’ve seen worse.”

Leon doesn’t even look at him. “Leave me alone, Fielding. I’m not in the mood.”

Dan would personally love to get up and go home, but something—a sense of duty, worry, being stuck to the stool—keeps him seated. “Fine,” he says. “Then I’ll just sit here in silence.” He hefts a world-weary, dramatic sigh. “And die of thirst.”

Leon rolls his eyes, but obligingly gestures for the bartender’s attention. “Another beer,” he says, then jerks a thumb at Dan. “And whatever the old man wants. Put it on my tab.”

“Club soda,” Dan says, ignoring the jibe, and off the bartender goes. He can feel Leon looking at him curiously. 

“You don’t drink?”

“I had my fill after Harry died.” Dan keeps his tone light enough to be reassuring but firm enough that Leon won’t ask any further questions. He doesn’t want Leon to know that after Harry’s memorial service, after everyone left and it finally hit Dan that he would never see his husband again, he spent the rest of the night on the living room floor sobbing and drinking whiskey right out of the bottle until he passed out. Over the days and nights that followed, he methodically finished off the contents of his and Harry’s liquor cabinet, bottle by bottle, chasing the sweet spot of inebriation that would, for a little while, render him too numb to feel the pain of his broken heart. He didn’t bathe, barely ate, passed out in his own puke and piss. It didn’t matter, he rationalized to himself during those few and far in between moments when he was sober enough to feel guilty enough to try and rationalize anything. Nothing mattered. Harry was gone. Nothing would ever matter again.

When the liquor cabinet ran dry, Dan drank the cooking wine. After that, he staggered to the bathroom to look for Listerine, rubbing alcohol, something, and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He didn’t recognize the person staring back at him: greasy hair, matted beard, sallow skin, dead eyes. It frightened him. The thought of Harry seeing him in this state dropped Dan to his knees in front of the toilet, where he brought up nothing but bile and tears and, eventually, came to a decision.

It would have broken Harry’s heart to see Dan like this. So for Harry’s sake, Dan would climb out of the hole he’d fallen into. He would clean up. He would get sober and stay that way. He would take care of himself. For Harry, Dan would live.

And for five years, he’s done just that. Not always happily, but he’s done it. Surely that counts for something.

The bartender returns with Leon’s beer and Dan’s club soda, which comes with a paper straw (ugh) and a slice of lime. Dan ties the straw in knots, drops the lime in the glass, and takes a fortifying sip. “Look,” he says. “If you don’t want to talk, I get it—”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Thank God.” Dan, the Harry in his head says pointedly, and Dan grits his teeth. “But, you know. On the off chance you did want to talk—not that it’s relevant since you said you didn’t want to—I was going to say…I’m here. To listen.”

Leon looks at the counter like it contains the secrets of the universe. Figuring that’s as much of a sign as any to shut up and drink his club soda, Dan shuts up and drinks his club soda. He’s halfway through the glass and debating ordering another when Leon says, apropos of nothing, “My mother left me at a firehouse.”

Dan freezes.

“I was three,” Leon says. “I wasn’t even potty-trained, and she left me there without looking back. Like she was dropping off a bag of old clothes at the Goodwill.” His laugh is slow and wrong. Everything about his voice is wrong, like he’s caught halfway between a dream and the waking world. “I thought she’d come back for me. I was so sure. I ran away when I was six to try and find her.” He picks at the label on the bottle. “Somebody from the state sat me down the second time I ran away and explained that finding my parents when I didn’t even remember their names or their faces was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. That I should focus on finding a new family. So I gave it a shot.”

“Didn’t work out, though,” Dan says quietly.

“Nope,” Leon says. “Didn’t work out.” He picks at the label some more, peeling it off with his nail in a long, damp ribbon. “S’funny, you know. In a way. I was looking for parents, and all these foster parents were looking for kids. Allegedly. But I always ended up coming home from school to my suitcase packed by the front door. No one ever wanted me. No matter how hard I tried. So I stopped trying.”

“Harry wanted you,” Dan says, because he can sense where this is going. “He loved you.”

“Then why—” Leon stops. His free hand curls into a fist so tight that his knuckles go pale. His voice is very small. “Then why didn’t he ever come visit me like he said he would?”

Dan hears the underlying question: Why didn’t he ever show up for me like Jason’s foster father did for him tonight? He finishes his club soda before he answers. “Your caseworker,” he says. “What was her name again? Lynn? Landon?”

“Lund,” Leon says. He looks surprised. “Mrs. Lund.”

“Right.” Dan knew it was something like that. “After you went back with her the last time—not too long after, she got pregnant, didn’t she?” 

“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Leon says, and Dan snorts.

“Wasn’t accusing you of that, Casanova, so slow your roll. I mean, she quit, right? And somebody else took over for her.” 

Leon’s mouth twists, which tells Dan everything he needs to know. “Mrs. Coolidge.”

“Right. Uppity bitch, wasn’t she.” 

“The worst,” Leon says. He’s stopped picking at the label now in favor of frowning at Dan. “You met her?”

“No,” Dan says. “Harry did. He tried to get your new address off her, but she wouldn’t give it to him. He begged her for it; he tried to tell her Mrs. Lund said he could come visit you anytime, but she said that that was Mrs. Lund, and she—”

“—did things differently,” Leon finishes. Dan wonders how many times he had to hear that little speech. 

“Harry came by so many times that she lost her temper and threatened to have him arrested. So he had to give up.” Dan remembers lying in bed with Harry, hearing this story for the first time. Remembers kissing Harry’s tears away, one by one, while imagining strangling that Coolidge woman with a phone cord. “But he never stopped thinking about you. He loved you, Leon. He loved you to the end.”

Tears catch on Leon’s eyelashes. He rubs them away with the heel of his hand. Roughly, he says, “You said he always wondered how I turned out.”

Dan hesitates. He doesn’t know if Harry would want him to share this—it was private, his and Harry’s little tradition—but he figures as it’s about Leon, why not tell him. “Every year,” he says, “on the same day, Harry and I’d play this game together. Even if we were on vacation or if we were on separate sides of the country.”

“Please tell me this isn’t a sex thing,” Leon says.

“No, it’s not a sex thing. God, what is it with your generation? So judgy and uptight. None of you know how to have a good time.”

“Hey now,” Leon protests. “I’m Gen X. We know how to have a good time. It’s millennials who’re uptight and judgy.”

“I’ll tell Olivia and Neil you said that,” Dan warns, and Leon holds both hands up in a gesture of surrender, laughing. It’s nice to see. Nice to know that he made that happen. 

“Uncle, uncle. C’mon, you were saying about your and Harry’s not-sex thing.”

“Right.” Dan’s smile fades slightly. “Like I was saying, we made a tradition out of it. We’d lay in bed together—and if I couldn’t be with him, I’d call, or Skype, FaceTime, whatever—and we’d talk about what we thought you were up to. Harry always had these wild ideas: he’d say you were out in California, working your way up the Hollywood ladder, or you were in a jazz band in Chicago, that you were the second coming of the Velvet Fog. Things like that.” And then Dan would build off Harry’s ideas, sketching out the more bare bones details— he does horror movies, mostly, loves all that fake blood; he never sings Barry Manilow, can’t stand the guy after their confrontation at the Grammys— until the whole thing became so silly they’d both dissolve into laughter. Dan tells Leon this, then says, “But in the end, he’d always say he hoped you were happy now. Wherever you were.”

Leon sits with this for a long time. “Every year you’d do this with him?”

“Every year,” Dan says. “Same day.”

“What day?” 

Dan suspects Leon already knows the answer, but he gives it to him anyway. “The day he lost you.”

Leon wipes away more tears. Dan politely pretends not to notice. “You think he’d be proud of me? The way I turned out?” He tries for a laugh. “I mean, it’s no Hollywood career, but…”

“He’d have been proud of you,” Dan says. Harry would have shown up in court every night, beaming at Leon on the bench and workshopping magic tricks with him during the dinner break. That’s my kid, he’d boast to anyone in earshot. Look at him go. “You do him proud every day just being yourself. You…” Dan bites his tongue, but it’s too late to take it back. “You do us both proud.”

Leon startles a little and stares at him, stunned. Dan is fully prepared for him to say, I didn’t ask about you, Fielding, which is why he’s so blindsided when Leon instead says, “Thank you, Fielding.”

“Sure,” Dan says, relieved and surprised in equal measure. “Anytime.”

The bartender stops by again and rests her elbows on the counter. She’s been vaping; Dan can smell it on her clothes. “Another round?”

Leon opens his mouth, then closes it. “Nah,” he says. “I’ll close my tab.”

Once the bartender has walked off again, Dan says, “Suppose I wanted another club soda?”

Leon’s grin is quicksilver. “Then next time, you do the buying.”

Next time. A shot of warmth goes through Dan’s heart. “Deal.”

They walk out into the bracing wind, bouncing on their heels and rubbing their hands together to keep warm. “Now I know why you grew the beard,” Leon says, and Dan laughs.

“I’ll have you know I chose to grow out my beard because it makes me look distinguished.” Dan smirks and lifts his chin high for effect, showing the beard off. “But the extra warmth certainly doesn’t hurt.”

“Distinguished, huh. That what Harry used to say?”

“Oh, Harry hated the beard,” Dan says, as if Harry were right beside him, as if he were just trying to rile Harry up. “He’d spend all of No-Shave November whining about stubble burn.” There you are, Harry would say every December, brushing his knuckles gently over Dan’s once again smooth cheek. I missed you. 

Dan doesn’t realize he’s teared up until Leon places a tentative hand on his shoulder. “You really miss him, don’t you.”

“Yeah.” Dan can barely get the word out. “All the time.”

Leon grips his shoulder tightly. “Me too.”

But it’s not true, Dan realizes later that night, after he’d seen Leon back to his car and drove home and changed for bed. Not what Leon said; what he’d said. For the last five years, Dan’s felt like he’s been spending every waking second trying to swim up from the bottom of a deep pool with weights chained to his ankles. But these past few weeks, there have been more and more moments where Dan feels like he’s breached the surface and can breathe again. When he’s mentoring Olivia, or helping Neil out, or making Gurgs giggle, or bantering with Leon, his grief is not at the forefront of his mind.

He doesn’t miss Harry any less. But he doesn’t miss him all the time.

Dan presses his knuckles to his mouth. The metal of his wedding ring is cool against his lips and helps steady his breathing. It’s not a bad thing, he tries to convince himself, to not miss his husband every second. It’s a good thing. Harry would be glad that Dan has the occasional respite from the pain of his broken heart. If their places were reversed, Dan wouldn’t want Harry to be weighed down by grief forever. He’d want Harry to be happy again.

But their places aren’t reversed. Harry is dead; the best, kindest, warmest, most compassionate man Dan ever knew, the only person in this world who saw something in Dan worth loving, and somehow, after everything Dan has done—after everyone Dan hurt and insulted and disrespected—Dan still outlived him. And now Dan has to spend the rest of his life alone and miserable and grieving. That, not happiness, not a temporary respite, is exactly what he deserves.

On the nightstand, his phone vibrates. Confused, Dan fumbles for his glasses, then picks up his phone, squinting at the text message—and then the two that follow in quick succession.

Your Honor 👨🏿⚖️: Thanks again for tonight Fielding

Your Honor 👨🏿⚖️: Hope you made it home safe

Your Honor 👨🏿⚖️: PS Took the liberty of adding my name and number when you were in the bathroom last week

Dan snorts, changes Leon’s name, and painstakingly types out a reply.

Dan: new phone who dis

Leon: You know I didn’t think a single text message was capable of making me want to die

Leon: I was wrong

Leon: Don’t do that again

Leon: Also in case you’re serious this is Leon

Dan: Yes, I figured.

Dan: I’m almost afraid to ask what unoriginal nonsense you have me saved under in your phone.

Dan: I’m envisioning ‘Fielding’ with a Santa emoticon next to it. Am I close?

Leon: I plead the Fifth

Leon: Also it’s emoji not emoticon

Leon: Get with the 2020s old man

Dan: Oh, so now the fifty year old is going to preach to me.

Leon: FORTY NINE

Dan: My apologies. That’s an enormous difference.

Leon: Damn straight

Leon: Seriously though thanks for being there for me tonight

Leon: I appreciate you

A lump rises in Dan’s throat.

Dan: Anytime.

Three dots appear, then disappear. Dan hastily thumbs another response.

Dan: Except on Sundays, that’s laundry day.

The dots disappear, then reappear.

Leon: [laughed at a message]

Leon: I’ll keep that in mind

Leon: See you in court Fielding

Dan: See you in court, Leon.

Dan replaces his phone and glasses on the nightstand, switches off the lamp, and curls up on his side, hugging Harry’s pillow to his chest. For the first time in ages, Dan falls asleep easily: breathing deeply, feeling alright.

The following night, Dan is tackled the moment he sets foot in the courthouse. He pushes back a little, taking in the color orange and the smell of Aveda shampoo, and says, by way of greeting, “What the hell are you trying to do, kill me? Because if you are—”

“I asked out Gurgs last night,” Olivia says. 

“—that’s a much better way to do it,” Dan finishes, gawking at her. “You what?”

“I know, I know, it wasn’t part of the plan, but we were walking to the City Hall station—I mean, I was walking her there, I always take the bus on Thursdays—and we were talking about last night’s docket and then Gurgs started talking about her step class and she was showing off this routine she’s working on and I just, I did what you did with Harry, I panicked and took the plunge and I kissed her.”

“Excuse you,” Dan says, “I never panicked,” but Olivia continues without any indication she’d heard.

“And then I start freaking out and I start talking, I’m rambling, I don’t even know what I was saying—I think I said something about how her smile makes flowers grow? Which it could, it totally could, don’t you think? I mean, she’s just sunshine in human form. God, I think I said that too. It’s a blur, it’s all a blur, I’m rambling so much, it’s awful, it’s word vomit, and Gurgs finally goes, Livs, what are you saying to me right now, and I’m like, I’m saying I want to go out with you, please, I really like you, Gurgs, your smile makes flowers grow—”

“My God, you said that twice?”

“I think I’ve established that I was panicking, Fielding!”

“Clearly,” Dan says. Jesus, this is a disaster on wheels. He’s going to have to give up his weekend to plot damage control. “So? What’d she say?”

“She said yes.”

“…She said yes?”

“We’re going to grab a drink after court lets out tonight,” Olivia says. Her smile is both joyous and disbelieving, like she can’t comprehend her own luck. “See what happens.”

“You asked out Gurgs,” Dan says.

“I asked out Gurgs!”

Dan starts laughing, and this time when Olivia flings herself at him, Dan catches her in his arms and spins her around, almost wiping out (and throwing out his back) in the process. Despite that near humiliation—God, he really is old—when Dan sets Olivia back down, he’s smiling so hard that it takes him twice as long to school his expression again. “Ahem,” he says, clearing his throat. “Congratulations, Olivia.”

“Thank you,” Olivia says. Her expression is all cool professionalism again, and Dan thinks for a moment that that’s it, they’ll get on with their jobs now, but Olivia hugs him round the middle: tight and fast. “Thank you, Fielding.”

It’s all Dan can do to keep his voice steady. “So you’ve said.”

“I said thank you for congratulating me,” Olivia says. “Now I’m saying thank you for your advice.”

“I don’t recall advising you to ramble,” Dan says, and it’s such an unbelievably obnoxious thing to say that he’s cringing even before the Harry in his head snaps at him. Luckily, Olivia snorts.

“Still. Without your help I would never have gotten this far, so. Thank you. Really.”

“You’re…” Dan swallows. “You’re welcome.” Before his emotions really get the better of him, Dan changes the subject. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Olivia looks down at her burnt orange double-breasted blazer, matching pants, and complementing high heels. “Yes?”

“This is your work outfit,” Dan says. “You can’t wear your work outfit on a date.” 

“I know that,” Olivia says archly. “That’s why I brought a change of clothes.”

“Oh,” Dan says, impressed with her initiative. “Very good.”

“Actually, I brought six changes of clothes,” Olivia says. “Just in case.” She smiles sheepishly at him. “Any chance you could help me narrow it down during the dinner break?”

“Sure,” Dan says. “Why not.”

They enter the courtroom together and sit at their respective tables, waiting for Leon. Neil is texting rapidly with one hand and typing on the computer with the other, and Gurgs winks at Olivia before announcing, “All rise. Manhattan Criminal Court Part Two is now in session. The Honorable Leon Johnson presiding.”

Leon moonwalks over to the bench—two homeless men seated behind Dan whistle in appreciation—and tips an imaginary hat. “Be seated,” he says. “Alright, Neil, who’s on first?”

“The People versus Rene Keller,” Neil reads off, and Gurgs escorts a Black woman in her late thirties up to the front of the bench. Keller wears her dark hair in a pixie cut and tiny gold hoops in her ears. She’s holding a paper bag to her mouth and smells like the inside of a margarita blender.

“Madam Prosecutor, what’s the story here?”

“Your Honor,” Olivia says, flipping through her meticulously organized notes, “Mrs. Keller was arrested for inciting a riot at a bar near Washington Square Park.”

“Inciting a riot?” Leon says.

“Yes, sir. According to three eyewitnesses, Mrs. Keller threw her shot glass and shattered an antique mirror; after that, it was open season.”

Mrs. Keller groans. Leon’s brow furrows in concern. “Are you alright, Mrs. Keller?”

“I’ll be better,” Mrs. Keller says into her paper bag, “if you quit calling me Keller.”

“…That is your name, isn’t it?”

“I’m divorced,” Mrs. Keller says. “I filed all the paperwork to go back to my maiden name. It just hasn’t gone through yet.”

“Your maiden name,” Leon says slowly. “And that is…”

“Robinson,” Dan says.

Everyone looks at him. Leon frowns. “What?”

“Her maiden name,” Dan says. His heart is pounding against his ribs; his blood is pounding against his skull. He feels like he’s floating above the ground and sinking beneath it at the same time. “It’s Robinson.”

Rene Robinson looks his way for the first time since setting foot in the courtroom—for the first time since Harry’s memorial service. The startled, suspicious look on her face, so much like Mac’s, morphs to one of confusion. And then, all at once, recognition dawns. Her lips part to release a shocked whisper. “Dan?”

Dan swallows hard. “Hello, Rene.”

Rene promptly bends at the waist and throws up all over his shoes.

Disgust audibly ripples through the room. Dan squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to focus on what’s dripping into his socks. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. Rene doesn’t even live here; she lives in Chicago, her and Mac and—

“Excuse me!” comes a familiar voice, and Dan thinks, Oh hell. Slowly, as if the world has turned to honey, Dan opens his eyes and turns to see a tiny Asian woman pushing past the gate. She shoves him aside without looking at him and approaches the bench with no fear. “Your Honor, this woman is my daughter. I am more than happy to provide an explanation for her actions last night, which I believe will encourage the prosecution to drop the charges.”

“You better talk to her lawyer first,” Leon says.

“Yes!” says Quon Le Robinson. Dan wonders how much of her pep is natural and how much of it is brought on by the venti cup of iced coffee she’s clutching in her hands. Probably fifty-fifty. “Of course, Your Honor. Where can I find them?”

Leon points at Dan.

If facing Rene for the first time in five years had been overwhelming, facing Quon Le is even more so. Especially because he has to wait twice as long for her to look all the way up at him, to take in his face. Recognition shutters her expression, makes her voice cold. “Dan Fielding.”

“Quon Le Robinson,” Dan says. He tries for a grin. “So, how’s ya been?”

In response, Quon Le pops the lid off her to-go cup and tosses her iced coffee right in his face.

“I see,” Dan says. He removes his glasses and uses his pocket square to wipe himself off the best he can. It gets about ten percent of the job done. “The defense would like to request a short recess, Your Honor.”

Leon bangs his gavel to seal the deal. While the peanut gallery whispers and gawks and points, Leon leans forward. “All of you,” he says, his voice low and brooking no argument. “My chambers. Now.”

Chapter Text

Going by all the stories Harry told him about the hijinks and shenanigans he oversaw as a night court judge, Leon figured it was only a matter of time before he had to call a recess to mediate a dispute. In his head, though, he was always smoothing things over for, say, the Rockettes. Or foreign dignitaries, or a group of people claiming to be aliens. Not for Dan Fielding and Mac Robinson’s wife and daughter. But—as Harry always said—all in a night’s work.

Quon Le Robinson has aged gracefully since Leon last saw her. She wears her hair in a stylish bob, and she’s cast aside her old power suit, heels, and ascot look in favor of a blouse and jeans tucked into comfortable flats. Like Fielding, she still wears her wedding ring, though hers is strung on a chain around her neck. He can tell by the crow’s feet around her mouth and eyes that she smiles a lot—he remembers her smiling a lot—but she’s not smiling now.

Rene Robinson’s not smiling either, but given that Leon can smell stale tequila on her from three feet away (and the state and smell of the holding cells), Leon can’t blame her. While Rene drops down onto the green leather sofa beside her mother, who rubs her back and says something to her in Vietnamese, Leon gets a better look at her. Rene takes after Mac the most, but she’s got Quon Le’s eyes and cheekbones. And when Fielding steps into Leon’s office, flanked by Olivia, Neil, and Gurgs, it becomes evident that Rene also inherited her mother’s thundercloud of a scowl. Boy, is Leon glad he’s not on the receiving end of that look.

“So!” Leon says, once it becomes clear that neither party is going to speak up without his intervention. “Fielding, you want to start things off?”

Fielding sneers at him around the wad of travel-sized Kleenex (probably Gurgs’s contribution from that bottomless abyss she calls a purse) he’s wiping his face with. “I’d rather not.”

“That wasn’t a request.”

“Then bang your gavel and make it a decree.”

“Oh, so you need a decree to talk to us now,” Quon Le says snidely. “That sounds about right.”

Fielding crushes the wad of coffee-stained Kleenex in his fist. “I do not need a decree,” he snaps. “It’s just that the last time I asked you a question, you threw your coffee in my face.”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t hot,” Rene mutters, which is exactly what Leon was thinking. 

“I am all out of coffee,” Quon Le says. “Hot or cold. So go ahead, Dan, if you dare. Ask away.”

“Fine.” Fielding practically spits the word in her face, leaving a trail of sarcasm oozing in its wake. “Do tell, Quon Le. What’s new with you?”

“Oh, you know,” Quon Le says. “I bought a new car. Started watching Suits. Oh, and my husband died.”

“So did mine,” Fielding says. “You’re not special.”

“Fielding,” Leon snaps, and Fielding rolls his eyes. He still has Rene’s puke on his loafers and iced coffee dripping down his hairline, but he’s loose and limber, as smug and confident and snakelike as he was when he used to stiff Leon for a shoeshine. The pompous facade cracks when Fielding looks at Rene, whose eyebrows are furrowed as she takes him in, staring at him, almost through him, like she doesn’t understand what she’s seeing. Fielding swallows, twists his wedding ring around his finger and looks away. Leon takes that as his cue to pick up where he left off. “Now, what we’re gonna do is—”

“Uh, I’m gonna stop you right there, Phil Donahue,” Fielding says. “Because I’m not doing anything until I get cleaned up.”

“Fine,” Leon says shortly. It’s a fair request, and besides, Leon doesn’t particularly want Fielding in his office dripping iced coffee and smearing vomit on his rug any longer than he has to. “Olivia, go find something for Fielding to change into. Neil, take Fielding to the men’s room and help him get cleaned up.”

“What can I do, Judge?” Gurgs says.

“Stand guard at the door so he doesn’t make a run for it.”

“Right!” Gurgs snaps a salute. “Come on, Fielding.”

Fielding sizes her up, as if weighing the odds of him successfully managing to make a run for it. Then his shoulders slump—evidently he’s realized the odds aren’t in his favor—and he trudges after her, Neil, and Olivia like a prisoner on his way to the electric chair.

Now that Leon is alone with the Robinsons, he almost wishes Fielding had stayed. He’s pretty good at mediating disputes, but making small talk with people he hasn’t laid eyes on in over thirty years isn’t his strong suit. Still, he gives it the old college try. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. “I didn’t know Mac well,” in fact, the only thing he can remember about Mac Robinson is him refusing to get involved when Quon Le’s family threatened to commit ritual suicide at Fielding’s surprise party, “but he was a good man.”

Rene looks his way for the first time, and Leon is suddenly struck by how pretty she is. Not that that matters at all. “You knew my dad?”

“Yeah. I, uh…” Damn it. He should have led with this. “Harry Stone fostered me for a few weeks way back in the day—”

Quon Le gasps. “Leon?”

Well then. “You remember me?”

“Of course I do!” Quon Le says. The light is back in her eyes. She looks kind, excitable, much more like the woman who tipped Leon five dollars for giving her directions to the ladies’ room and invited him to come see her new restaurant. She rushes toward him and hugs him tightly; she’s so short that Leon can see right over her head. “My goodness, look at you, Leon! So much taller now—but still so cute! Don’t you think so, Rene?”

In response, Rene dry-heaves into her paper bag.

“Gee, thanks,” Leon says.

“No, no, it’s not because of you, Your Honor,” Rene says at once, lifting her head again. “Should’ve realized last night I’m too old for tequila, is all.”

Leon winces in sympathy. “I feel that. Hey, here.” He steps away from Quon Le and digs around in his desk drawer. Back in Brooklyn, he made friends with a perennial defendant who fancied herself a scientist: most of her inventions were disasters, thus the constant arrests, but she did invent a ginger-flavored hard candy that, while doing nothing to cure hair loss, cured hangovers in five minutes flat. He tried to tell Lucie a hundred times that she could make bank selling them, but she was determined to make the candies fulfill their original purpose, and Leon was happy to continue collecting the rejects. “Try one of these. It’ll help with the nausea.”

“God bless,” Rene says feelingly, and pops the candy into her mouth. 

“Good-hearted and cute,” Quon Le sing-songs. “Not a combination you see every day, Rene.”

“Mama, please,” Rene groans, which Leon is pleased to note is not a denial of his alleged cuteness. “Jesus, what’s in this, crack?”

“Yeah, it’s crack,” Leon says. “I thought I’d try and supplement my income.”

“Ha ha. Seriously, what’s in this candy? My stomach doesn’t feel like the Xenomorph is gonna claw through it anymore.”

“No idea,” Leon says. “Friend of mine invented these to cure hair loss. Ended up that they cure hangovers instead.”

“Shit,” Rene says. “Well, pass my thanks along to your friend, Your Honor.”

“Call me Leon.”

Rene smiles at him warmly. “Leon it is,” she says, and Leon thinks he could listen to her say his name a hundred times and never tire once.

Leon realizes he’s staring and hastily clears his throat. You’re not at a bar, he tells himself sternly. She’s a defendant, and you’re a judge. Act like it. “So listen, about Fielding.” Quon Le’s bright smile immediately dims, so Leon focuses on Rene instead. “Whatever he did to you two, I’ll make sure he apologizes for it when he gets back.”

Rene’s laugh is all bitterness, no humor. “Yeah,” she says, and jerks her thumb at the door. “That guy you’re talking about? That’s not Dan Fielding.”

“…If you’re talking about the beard, it threw me at first too, but—”

“I don’t mean the beard,” Rene says. “Though yeah, that’s new too. Never thought I’d see Dan look like Santa’s twin brother.”

Leon bites back a smile. “What do you mean, then?”

“Dan Fielding is silly,” Rene says. “Playful. Obnoxious, for sure, and stubborn as hell, but not…not mean.” She falters and looks down at her lap. “Not cold.”

Leon opens his mouth to inform Rene that actually, take it from him, Fielding could be plenty mean back in the day and he still has his moments now—but that had been Fielding pre-Harry, he suddenly realizes. And now, Fielding post-Harry. Come to think of it, the Dan Fielding in that photograph Leon saw on Fielding’s bookshelf hadn’t looked mean or cold. That Dan Fielding looked like a man who was capable of being silly and playful, who could make people laugh. A man who wasn’t stiff and standoffish, but warm. Open. Happy. 

Christ. If that’s the Dan Fielding that Rene grew up with, no wonder the Dan Fielding Leon sees in court five nights a week doesn’t feel like the real deal to her. 

“I guess losing Harry really did a number on him,” Leon says at last, which has got to be a contender for the understatement of the decade. 

“Yes.” Quon Le sounds like she has a bad head cold. “On all of us.”

For that, Leon has no response. “So you all stayed in touch, then,” he says. “After Harry and Fielding left night court, I mean.”

“Mac left night court first,” Quon Le says. “For film school.” She fiddles with the wedding ring on her necklace, smiling sadly. “We moved to Chicago because I got a new job. Mac worked as a camera operator there for many different television shows for many years. If you only knew how many crew sweatshirts and coffee mugs we had in our basement.”

“I can imagine,” Leon says. Film school. Huh. He supposes that makes sense. Mac did always have something critical to say about the compositions of the shots in the dirty magazines Leon used to steal out of Fielding’s briefcase. 

“Christine was elected to Congress,” Quon Le says. “She became a senator, eventually, and retired not long before she passed. Bull got married and moved to Nevada with his wife, Wanda; they lived just outside Area 51. Roz—do you remember Roz? The bailiff who replaced Florence?”

Leon’s mind conjures an image of a heavy-set Black woman with an impassive expression standing next to Bull. “Vaguely.”

“Well, Roz went—what is the phrase, Rene? Off the grid?” 

“That’s the one.”

“Yes. She quit as a bailiff a few weeks before Harry retired from the bench and went off the grid for some time. I believe she is working as a private investigator now, and she has a serious girlfriend. But I have not seen her in person since Bull’s funeral earlier this year.”

“And…that’s the last place you saw Fielding?” Leon hazards.

“No.” Quon Le’s expression darkens. “I have not seen Dan since Harry’s memorial service. He did not attend Bull’s funeral. Or Christine’s.”

“Or Dad’s,” Rene puts in. Her jaw is set; her eyes glimmer with grief and a fiery fury.

“He didn’t go?” Leon repeats incredulously. “What—why? Did the others go?” Maybe Fielding misunderstood; maybe it was billed as a private ceremony and he didn’t want to intrude—

“Bull and Wanda came,” Rene says bitterly. “Roz came. Christine was still undergoing chemotherapy and she came. And Dan and Harry spent Thanksgiving and two weeks every summer with us—he and Harry came to my wedding, but no, Dan couldn’t bother showing up to my father’s fucking funeral.”

“Is that what you think?” Fielding says. Everyone in the room jumps. Leon hadn’t even noticed Fielding coming back in. Behind him, Olivia, Gurgs, and Neil huddle in a clump out in the hall, clearly unsure whether they’re welcome or not.

Leon means to wave Olivia, Gurgs, and Neil inside—he’s got a feeling he’s going to need all the help he can get to smooth over these tensions—but he’s too taken aback by Fielding’s outfit to do so. “You found a clean three-piece suit in the lost and found?”

“I keep a spare suit and spare pair of shoes in the trunk of my car,” Fielding says dismissively. “I’m not an animal.” He’s not looking at Leon at all. “Is that what you think, Rene? You think I couldn’t be bothered to show up to Mac’s funeral?”

“Fielding, let’s be civil for a minute here,” Leon begins, but Rene pushes herself up off the couch and steamrollers right over his attempt to mediate. 

“Well, what the hell am I supposed to think, Dan? Mama and I called you a hundred times; we made sure you knew the details. You said you’d be there, you promised, and then you never fucking showed!”

“I sent flowers,” Fielding says stiffly.

“Oh, well,” Rene says sarcastically. “Since you sent flowers, it’s all okay then, isn’t it? You sent flowers, so it’s okay that you couldn’t book your sorry ass a plane ticket and fly two and a half hours to Chicago to help us put my father, your husband’s best friend, in the ground?” She scoffs. “God. You know, if Harry could see you now, he’d be so disappointed in you.”

For a second, Fielding looks like he’s been stabbed. His voice, when he finds it again, is low, dangerous. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Rene.”

“I don’t know what I’m talking about?” Rene challenges. “I know that Harry would’ve gone to Dad’s funeral. I know he would’ve gone to Christine and Bull’s. And I know that you got the details for all three of their funerals, I know that there was nothing stopping you from coming, but no, you couldn’t be bothered—”

“That isn’t why—”

“Then tell me why!” Rene’s voice breaks. She furiously wipes away the tears that spilled down her cheeks. “Tell me why you didn’t come, Dan! Tell me why the hell you weren’t there for me and Mama when we needed you!”

“You did not need me,” Fielding snarls. Every line of him is rendered with grief and guilt. And pain. So much pain it hurts to look at him directly. “Half the greater Chicago area was at Mac’s funeral. You had your friends, you had your family. Christine and Roz and Bull were there. You didn’t need me.”

“Yes, we did.” Quon Le’s voice is loud and angry, even more so than Rene’s. When Leon looks at her, he can tell she’s been seething for quite some time. “You do not get to tell me who I did and did not need with me that day, Dan. I needed my daughter and her family, and they were there. I needed Christine and Bull and Roz, and they were there. I wanted you there. I needed you there. And you were not there.”

Fielding laughs, the sound sharp and cruel. Rene and Leon recoil. Quon Le’s eyes flash.

“What about this is funny to you, Dan?”

“That neither you nor your daughter will cut the crap and admit the truth,” Fielding says. “You didn’t want me at Mac’s funeral, Quon Le. You didn’t want me there any more than Wanda wanted me at Bull’s or Charlie wanted me at Christine’s. You wanted Harry there, and seeing as I was the closest thing you had to him, you settled for me. So excuse me for not squeezing myself into the suit I wore to my husband’s memorial service and flying two and a half hours just to be your consolation shoulder to cry on.”

“What are you—”

“Oh, what, you’re really going to make me spell it out for you?” Fielding snaps. “Harry was Mac’s friend. Harry was your friend. Harry was your godfather,” he adds, glaring at Rene. “Meanwhile, did you ever invite me to Chicago before Harry and I got together? No. Of course not. Because I wasn’t your friend. You didn’t care whether I lived or died until Harry and I got together. So why don’t you just go ahead and admit you only invited me to Mac’s funeral as a courtesy, not because you actually wanted me there. Because I was the closest thing you had to Harry. Admit it.”

Quon Le says nothing. Her face is pale.

Fielding’s voice breaks, almost imperceptibly. “Admit it, Quon Le.”

Silence.

“Admit it!”

“I will not admit it,” Quon Le says. “Because it is not true.”

“The hell it’s not. You—”

“I what?” Quon Le demands. “I invited you over for our usual two weeks and Thanksgiving the year that Harry died. And the year after that, and the year after that. I called you all the time. You were the one who never answered. It was you who always pulled away when I reached out!”

“Because I knew you were only reaching out because you felt like you had to!”

“You believe I did all of that solely as a courtesy? That I do not care for you the same way I cared for Harry?”

“I know you don’t care about me the same way you cared about Harry. No one does. That was made more than clear to me after he died.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rene says.

“You want to know what the hell I’m talking about? I’ll tell you what the hell I’m talking about. Does Harry’s memorial service ring any bells? Do you remember how everyone shared stories about Harry that entire afternoon? Talking about him and grieving him like he was theirs. Well, he wasn’t theirs. And he wasn’t yours. He was mine. Harry was mine.”

Quon Le looks disgusted with him. “I cannot believe you could be so selfish.”

“Selfish?!”

“Yes, selfish! My God, Dan, you are not the only one who lost Harry! You are not the only one who loved him. We all loved him, the same as you.”

The temperature in the room seems to drop twenty degrees. The look on Fielding’s face is so cold, so furious, that for the first time in his entire life, Leon is actually afraid of him.

“You did not love Harry the same as me, Quon Le.” Quon Le begins to retort, but Fielding steamrollers over her. He seems to be growing before Leon’s very eyes, his grief and anger making him ten feet tall. “Shut up. You didn’t. Don’t you dare, don’t you dare say that to me. Harry was your friend? You had a few laughs together, some good times? He was my husband. You didn’t love him like I love him. Your world didn’t fucking end when Harry’s did, so you don’t get to stand there and tell me your loss was the same as mine. You don’t get to do that.”

“That is not—”

“Do you think that just because I was friends with Mac, because I worked with him for almost a decade, that my loss and your loss are the same? Do you think anyone who came to his funeral could understand what you were feeling when you lowered him into the ground? What you live with every day, having to live without him?”

That shuts Quon Le up. Fielding nods, tight and triumphant. His mouth is pinched; his nostrils are flared; his movements are stiff. There is nothing in his eyes at all. 

“I know that I’m not the only one who loved Harry. I know that. I’m well aware of that. Just as I’m well aware that Harry was the only one who loved me.”

“That’s not true,” Rene protests.

“Then explain to me why after Harry—” Fielding’s voice shatters and comes back brittle. “Harry and I were together for twenty-two years. We knew each other for over thirty. I’ve been wearing his ring since he got down on one knee and put it on my finger and I married him the minute we could do it here legally. He once set our kitchen on fire trying to pull lit candles out of a hat and he talked during every movie we ever watched and sometimes he could be so stubborn I wanted to rip my hair out and scream, but God, I loved him. I still love him. And he loved me.” Tears brim in his eyes, threatening to spill. “And then one night I went to bed with him and woke up without him, and not one, not one person out of the hundreds that came to pay their respects at his memorial service told me that they were sorry for my loss. Not one person acted like my loss was greater than theirs. Not one person acted like I was even fucking capable of feeling any loss. None of them did.”

“Dan,” Quon Le whispers, but Fielding ignores her.

“Would you like to know what people did say to me, Quon Le? ‘Harry Stone was a great man,’ that was a common refrain. ‘Harry Stone saved my life.’ ‘Harry Stone treated me with respect when no one else would.’ ‘Harry Stone married a lecherous, misanthropic, selfish bastard who he’s lucky to be free of now.’”

Rene looks aghast. “Who said that to you?”

“No one said it,” Fielding says tightly. “But it was implied.”

“Dan, I am sure that was not what anyone was implying—”

“Wasn’t it?” Fielding challenges, turning on Quon Le again. “Tell me, Quon Le, exactly how was I supposed to take it when half the Eastern Seaboard came up to me extolling my husband’s virtues, talking about him like he was a saint, and then look between me and his urn and sigh and say, ‘Well, at least he’s at peace now’? What could they have been implying other than that it was better for Harry to be dead than alive and married to me? But hey, that was just at his memorial service. It’s not like anyone said that to me when he was alive. It’s not like when Harry and I first told you and Mac we were together, Mac asked Harry if he was being held hostage. It’s not like for twenty-two years I had to listen to everyone, including my so-called friends, constantly ask and joke about what the hell the love of my life saw in a degenerate slimeball like me. Oh, wait.” His laugh is serrated. “That’s right. I did.”

Quon Le and Rene’s eyes are full of tears. Leon’s eyes aren’t too dry either.

“And you’re right, you know,” Fielding says. The sudden quiet of his voice is chilling. “Harry would have gone to Mac’s funeral. He would have gone to Christine’s. And he would have gone to Bull’s. But I’m not him, and it was made abundantly clear to me after he died that no one was interested in me as a solo act. So I’m sorry Harry’s dead and you all got stuck with me. I wish it’d been me who died too.”

“I don’t,” Leon says.

That gets Fielding’s attention. “What?”

“I don’t wish you were dead.”

Fielding stares at Leon, looking truly thrown. Then his face hardens, and he scoffs. “Sure you don’t.”

Leon recoils. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t!” Leon says. “Jesus, Fielding, you think I want you dead?”

“You didn’t even want me here, Leon! You wanted Harry, just like they did. I was the closest thing you had to him; that’s the only reason you wanted me to be your temporary public defender in the first place, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But what?” Fielding snaps. “You expect me to believe that you actually prefer me over Harry? That you wouldn’t trade me in for Harry in a heartbeat if you could?” 

And because he’s a judge, Leon gives Fielding’s question his fair and due consideration. He imagines having Harry in his court every night, having Harry as his public defender instead of Fielding. Making Harry laugh, getting Harry to teach him new card tricks, feeling Harry’s arms wrap around him in a tight embrace. A month ago, Leon would have done anything, agreed to anything, if it meant he could have Harry back in his life.

But then he thinks of Fielding: his wit and his stories, his three-piece suits and rare smiles. How Fielding has made Neil and Olivia more confident. How Fielding came after him last night; how Fielding listened to him, told Leon he was proud of him. The idea of losing that, of losing any of that—of losing Dan Fielding, even if it would mean getting Harry back—is unthinkable.

“No,” Leon says. “I wouldn’t.”

“…What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t want Harry back,” Leon says. “Not if it means I’d have to lose you.”

Even when he saw that his shoes had been eaten away by battery acid, Fielding hadn’t looked half this pale and shaken. “I thought you loved Harry.”

“I do,” Leon says. Harry Stone was the father he’d never had, and he’d inspired Leon to follow in his footsteps as a lawyer and a judge. Leon will love and admire and miss Harry to his dying day. But… “That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you too.”

“We all do,” Olivia says. Fielding jumps a foot in the air and gawks at her incredulously. She blushes, but stands her ground. “I care about you, Fielding.”

“So do I,” Gurgs says, and Neil says, “Me too.”

“And so do we,” Quon Le says. Leon looks back at her sharply; he’d almost forgotten she was there. Step by slow, deliberate step, she closes the distance between herself and Fielding, who is shaking like a leaf. “That is why we wanted you at Mac’s—” Her voice breaks. “At Mac’s funeral. Because he loved you, and we love you. You specifically, Dan. And not because Harry loved you. Because you are who you are.” Tears drip silently down Fielding’s face. “I cannot speak for Christine or Bull, but I am sorry that we made you feel like you did not matter to us for all these years. It was not our intention. But that is no excuse.” Her lips tremble. “I do not blame you for not wanting to come to Mac’s funeral.”

Fielding exhales and breathes in again wetly, jerkily, wiping his eyes under his glasses with trembling fingers. It’s a long time before he gets out, “I was going to come.”

Quon Le frowns. Confused, Rene says, “What?”

“I promised you I’d go to Mac’s funeral,” Fielding croaks. “So I bought a ticket. I didn’t think you really needed or wanted me there, but I figured if nothing else I owed it to Harry to go. Because he loved Mac like a brother. But when I…when I got to the airport, I remembered…” A shudder courses through Fielding’s body like he touched a live wire. “After…after that time my plane crashed, I couldn’t—I had a prescription, but I couldn’t, it was only really bearable if Harry was with me. And the last time—I remembered the last time I flew anywhere, it was with Harry, and after we came back, that was when, when he got sick, and…” He starts to sob—horrible, gut-wrenching sobs—and sinks to his knees, curling in on himself. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t get on the plane without him.”

“Oh, Dan…”

“I should have gone. I should have been there for you. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”

“Shh. Hush. I understand.” Quon Le crouches down so she and Fielding are at eye level. “I understand, Dan. I do. I forgive you.”

Slowly, Fielding gets himself back under control. His face is streaked with snot and tears; his eyes are bloodshot behind his fogged up glasses. “Really?”

“Yes.” Quon Le nods and places her hand on his arm, looking at him intently. “I am very sorry for your loss, Dan.”

Fielding’s face crumples again. “Thank you,” he manages. “And I’m sorry for yours.”

Quon Le embraces him. Fielding holds onto her just as tightly, only loosening his grasp and opening his arms when Rene kneels down and hugs him too. They’re all crying. Everyone is crying. Leon is crying too. You were right, Harry, he thinks, before he follows Gurgs’s lead and joins the hug pile. All in a night’s work.

After all that, the rest of the night is a breeze. He sentences the former Mrs. Keller (the ‘former’ part is emphasized by Quon Le at least twice more just on the way from Leon’s chambers to the courtroom, much to Rene’s obvious embarrassment) to time served and a two hundred dollar fine, and the Robinsons spend the next couple hours seated in the front row watching the proceedings and gossiping with Fielding. Leon is pulled away to help settle a bet between two ladies of the night, so to his disappointment, he doesn’t get to say goodbye. Or get Rene’s number. Though that last part is definitely a pipe dream. 

Leon runs into Fielding again by the courthouse entrance. Unconsciously, they fall into step on the way to their cars. “So,” Leon says. “Talk about a blast from the past tonight.”

“Yeah.” Fielding’s eyes are still a little red. Leon’s pretty sure he burst a capillary from all that crying. “Not nearly as out of the blue as you showing up on my doorstep after all these years, though.”

“At least I didn’t puke on your shoes.”

“And thank God for that.” Fielding glances at Leon. “Any chance you know how to get vomit out of Italian loafers?”

“I’ll text you some tips,” Leon says, laughing. “It can be your Sunday project. A real fun time.”

“Yeah. Swell.” Fielding’s Mercedes, as it turns out, is parked right behind Leon’s Honda Civic. Neither make any move to get into them. “Listen, about what you said tonight—”

“I meant it.”

“I know,” Fielding says, but he looks a little startled at Leon’s conviction. To be fair, Leon is also a little startled at his own conviction. “I just wanted to say…” He twists his wedding ring around his finger slowly, like he’s reassuring himself it’s still there. “Thank you, Leon,” he says at last, haltingly. “It—meant a lot. Coming from you.”

“Like I said,” Leon says. “I meant it. And it means a lot to me having you here.” He chews at the inside of his cheek, suddenly nervous. “So, uh, if you wanted to be here on a…less temporary basis, that’d be fine by me.”

A slow, smug smile spreads across Fielding’s face. “Are you asking me to be your permanent public defender, Judge Johnson?”

“Well, reaching out to Legal Aid for a replacement is such a hassle…”

“Oh, trust me, I know. You know how many public defenders came and went while Harry sat on that bench?”

“Only one prosecutor, though.”

Fielding lifts his chin. “That’s right.”

“One ex-prosecutor who’s a pretty damn good public defender,” Leon says. “Besides, I’ve just gotten you broken in to where I can handle you. I don’t want to take my chances with some new lawyer.”

For some reason, that makes Fielding snort. “You make a good argument,” he says. “But I’m still not hearing a request.”

Leon is about to sigh heavily and feign irritation when he remembers what Fielding had yelled at Quon Le and Rene. It’s not like for twenty-two years I had to listen to everyone, including my so-called friends, constantly ask and joke about what the hell the love of my life saw in a degenerate slimeball like me. He’s long overdue for some sincerity. “I want you to be my permanent public defender, Fielding,” he says. “Please. Say you will.”

Fielding’s face goes soft with surprise. His nod is resolute. “I will.”

“Thank you,” Leon says. Fielding looks like he’s going to say something else, and then his eyes catch on something over Leon’s shoulder, and he smiles. Leon frowns and turns around, squinting across the street. Gurgs and Olivia are walking away from the courthouse, towards the bars. He can’t see their outfits under their coats, but Olivia’s blush is visible all the way from where Leon is standing—as is the fact that Gurgs and Olivia are holding hands. “That your handiwork?”

“Yep,” Fielding says.

Leon hums. “They make a cute couple,” he says. “Maybe you should put matchmaker on your business cards.”

“Yeah. It’ll go great underneath the length of my tongue.” Leon can’t tell if he’s kidding or not. Either way, he’s not about to ask. “See you in court, Leon.”

Leon smiles. “See you in court, Fielding.”

“Two hundred dollar fine and forty hours of community service,” Leon says. “And the next time you get the idea to fly south for the winter, I suggest Delta.”

The defendant spits a feather out of her mouth, shrugs, and lets Gurgs escort her (and her Icarus-like apparatus) back to holding.

“Let’s take an hour for dinner, people.” Leon bangs the gavel, and Olivia and Fielding return to their sides of the room. Leon stands up and stretches his arms over his head until his back pops, then hops down the steps to join the others. He’s about to suggest their little gang gets something to eat down the street when he gets a glimpse of the two women coming up the aisle. “Now, do my eyes deceive me or is that the Chicago Family Robinson?”

“Hi, everybody!” Quon Le says brightly. Rene smiles at Leon, who does his best not to grin back like a complete idiot. “Is now a good time?”

“We’re on break now, so Fielding’s all yours,” Leon says. “Just have him back home in an hour, and no funny business.”

“Actually, we were hoping we’d be able to steal you too,” Rene says.

Leon perks up. “Oh?”

“Mostly your office and your computer,” Quon Le says. Leon shrivels. “But you are welcome to watch what we found. I think you will find it very illuminating and exciting.”

“I’m always down for something illuminating and exciting,” Leon says. “Let’s do it.”

Evidently Neil, Olivia, and Gurgs are also fans of illuminating and exciting things, so the whole gang files into Leon’s chambers. Thanks to the courthouse WiFi, it takes about fifteen minutes longer than it should for Rene to pull up whatever she’d been talking about on Leon’s computer. “Dan, come here, you sit down,” Quon Le says. Fielding narrows his eyes at her and sits slowly in Leon’s desk chair, like he’s half expecting to land on a Whoopee cushion. Leon, Olivia, Gurgs, and Neil crowd behind and beside him. There’s nothing on the monitor but a paused video with a killscreen-blue thumbnail. “Okay, Rene. Lights, camera, action!”

Rene turns up the volume and clicks play.

“Mac, are you getting this? Are you—okay, good. Hey, excuse me, can I have everybody’s attention? God, I knew I should’ve brought my gavel…”

Everything in Leon’s body freezes. Fielding makes a noise like he got punched in the gut and sits up straight. He presses his fist to his mouth, but Leon still sees his lips move. Harry.  

“Is that,” Olivia begins, and Gurgs and Neil loudly shush her. She loudly shushes them back.

“Thank you, thank you very much.” The camera zooms in on Harry, who’s standing by what looks like a DJ booth with a flute of champagne in one hand and a microphone in the other. He’s wearing a deep black tux; a red bow tie hangs loosely around his neck. His hair is entirely gray, his face is more lined, and he has silver round glasses, but his smile is the same as Leon remembers. Leon’s eyes sting just looking at him. He looks so happy. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Harry T. Stone—”

“Yeah, you are!”

“Thank you, Christine,” Harry says, laughing with the rest of the guests. “Somebody want to get the senator some water, maybe? Thanks, Roz. You’re a pal.” Harry waits for the laughter to die down before he continues. “And so are all of you. Really, I can’t thank everybody here enough for coming out to celebrate with us tonight. Dan and I are both incredibly grateful for your presence. Aren’t we, Dan?”

The camera pans right and zooms in to reveal the Dan Fielding of 2011 (clean-shaven, more trim, more gray in his hair than white), who is seated at a table with Quon Le and two couples who Leon doesn’t recognize. That Dan Fielding screws up his face and swivels his hand from side to side. “I could do without some of you.”

“Dan,” sighs Harry, exasperated, and the Fielding beside Leon sobs.

“Alright, alright, I’m grateful for all of you being here too.”

“We’re both grateful,” Harry says. “Not only for coming out to celebrate with us tonight, but for coming along on this journey with us to begin with. I mean, who could have predicted we’d end up here? The night Dan and I met, my first night on the job, I shot plastic snakes at everyone in my office to prove I was the judge. Hit Dan right in the face. Remember that, babe?”

“Vividly,” Fielding of 2011 deadpans, to the laughter of the guests.

“It was clear no one knew what to do with me,” Harry continues. “Not that that was new. But Dan shook it off first, and he introduced himself. He shook my hand. He was professional; he was polite. And maybe it’s cliché, but I knew right then that he was special.” Harry smirks. “And that he had a cute butt.”

Fielding’s laugh is wet. Tears trail down his cheeks and disappear into his beard.

“And over the years I’d come to discover that cute butt and professionalism aside, yes, Dan Fielding could be arrogant, and self-indulgent, and vain—but he could also make me laugh like no one else could. That, yes, he had his perverted side—which I’ve come to enjoy—” Leon wishes he could dunk his brain in bleach. “—but he could also be kind, and compassionate, and caring. Whenever my world was falling apart, he was there for me to lean on. He changed my life.” Harry’s eyes soften. “And there’s no one I’d rather spend the rest of it with than him.” He raises his glass high. “I love you, Dan.”

“I love you, Harry,” Fielding whispers.

“To Dan and Harry!” hollers a clearly tipsy Christine Sullivan, and the guests erupt in whoops and cheers. The camera pans quickly around the room, taking in the celebration, pausing briefly on the faces of Christine Sullivan and Bull Shannon and Roz Russell and a much younger Rene, who sits next to a man Leon assumes is her now ex-husband. Then the camera returns to Harry, who hands the microphone to the DJ and jogs back to his husband’s side. “Come on, she’s playing our song next.”

Fielding of 2011 accepts Harry’s hand and stands up. If either of them notice the camera, they show no sign of it. “Remind me, are any of our songs not by Mel Tormé?”

“Hey, you married me, you married Mel.”

“I don’t think that’s what I agreed to.”

“No going back now,” Harry says, and Fielding of 2011 laughs.

“Don’t worry.” He wraps his arms around Harry’s waist and draws him close. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” Harry breathes. He loops his arms around Fielding’s neck and kisses him for a long time: long enough that all the women at their table start wolf-whistling. Harry breaks the kiss, laughing, and the look on Fielding’s face rocks Leon to his core.

This is the Dan Fielding Rene grew up with. This is the Dan Fielding who was happy.

The video ends. The silence in the office is total. Even Olivia, Neil, and Gurgs don’t make a sound.

Fielding’s eyes are fixed hungrily on the monitor. Slowly, so tenderly it makes a lump rise in Leon’s throat, he reaches out and brushes his fingertips over Harry’s face, frozen in a joyful smile. At last, he retracts his hand and turns to Quon Le, who is wiping away tears of her own. He startles with a quiet Oh! and passes her his pocket square. She accepts it with a tearful smile. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Fielding says. His voice is barely a croak, but is still somehow stronger than Leon has ever heard it. “Where’d you find this?”

“We digitized all of Dad’s old videotapes the Christmas after he died,” Rene says. “I guess he cut this from your wedding video to make room for when you got drunk and sang that one Barry Manilow song to Harry.”

“You sing, Fielding?” Neil says. “And this isn’t something you cared to share with me before?”

“Probably because he sings real songs,” Olivia mutters.

Gurgs cackles. “Ooh, got ‘em!”

If you ask Leon, the kids aren’t focusing on the real shocker here. “You sang Barry Manilow to Harry? And he didn’t drop your ass like a bad habit on the spot?”

“What can I say,” Fielding says. “He loved me.” He leans back in Leon’s chair, folds his arms behind his head, and smirks like a cat in cream. “Trust me, he got me back later.”

“Aw, Fielding,” Leon groans. “Come on, man.”

“Who else is that at your table?” Gurgs says. Quon Le rewinds the video so Fielding can point out the other guests—his maid of honor Charlene and her husband, his coworker Bobbi and her husband, all of whom from the sound of it are long-gone too—but Leon stops listening once he notices Rene leaving the room, wiping tears from her eyes as she goes. 

“Be back in a minute,” Leon says, and he slips out of the room too. 

He finds Rene by Neil’s table, slowly running her fingers over the wood and over the stack of case files. He’s still trying to come up with a way to get her attention without scaring her when she notices him and jumps. “Sorry,” she says. Her eyes are still a little shiny. “Am I allowed to be in here when court’s adjourned?”

“I’ll let it slide,” Leon says. “You alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely.” Rene thumbs away a tear. “It’s just…being back here without Dad, and watching how Dan used to be when Harry was around, it’s…it’s a lot to process all at once.”

“I bet,” Leon says, which has to be up there with the lamest things he’s ever said. “Mac used to bring you here when you were little?”

“Yeah.” That makes Rene smile. “He’d strap me to his chest and work like that all night. Apparently I used to drool all over his files.” She laughs. “I oughta bring Mack by sometime; keep the tradition going. Though she’s too old now to strap to my chest.” 

“Mack?”

“Mackayla,” Rene says. “My daughter.”

Oh. “Fielding didn’t mention you had a daughter.”

Rene shows him a picture on her phone. It’s a family photo: Mac and Quon Le and Rene and her daughter, who wears a big toothy smile and her hair in two buns with bright pink butterfly clips. “Dad used to call her mini-me. She loved that. Not so much now that she’s all grown up, but…”

“All grown up meaning…”

“Nine.”

“Ah. Best of luck.”

“Thanks. From what Mama tells me, I’m gonna need it.” Rene drops her phone back into her purse. “You got any kids, Judge?”

“Leon. And nah, no kids.” There was a minute back in law school where his girlfriend Trish thought she was pregnant, but the test turned out to be a false positive. He’s had his fair share of relationships since, but no further pregnancy scares. “Never married either. Not because I never wanted to, I mean,” he adds hastily, because he doesn’t want to give her the wrong idea. “It just never worked out for me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Leon inclines his head. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you either.” 

Rene tries to smile, but can’t quite do it. “With me and Jaylen,” she says, “it was good when it was good, you know? And we tried to keep it good for a long time, for Mack’s sake, but…honestly, it was a relief for both of us when we finally called it quits.”

“It wasn’t hard?”

“No,” Rene says. “It was the hardest thing I ever did. But it would’ve been a lot harder if we stayed together and stayed miserable.” She shrugs. “And who knows. Maybe now I’ll find someone that life’s always good with. Even the bad parts. Like Dad and Mama.”

“Or Fielding and Harry,” Leon says.

“Exactly.”

Leon pictures Harry’s blissful expression in that photograph on Fielding’s bookshelf; Fielding’s joy in the wedding video. “Were they always so…” He makes a vague gesture that he hopes encompasses his point.

“Oh, yeah.” Rene’s eye roll is both fond and exasperated. “You should’ve seen them at my wedding. I must’ve run into them in every janitor’s closet and shadowy corner in the building.”

Leon smirks. “And just what were you doing in every janitor’s closet and shadowy corner in the building, Ms. Robinson?”

“I plead the Fifth,” Rene says smoothly. “And I think we’re at the point where you can call me Rene. Seeing as I tossed my cookies in your courtroom and all.”

Leon laughs. “I’m usually not on a first name basis with everyone who tosses their cookies in my courtroom,” he teases, “but for you, I’ll make an exception.”

Rene circles with her hand, prompting, “For you, I’ll make an exception…”

“Rene,” Leon says. Saying her name feels like a breath finally released. “I’ll get the hang of it next time you’re in town.”

“Then you better get the hang of it real quick, seeing as I live here.”

If Leon had been drinking anything, he would have spewed it halfway across the room. “Say what now?”

“I teach at NYU,” Rene says. “Mack and Mama and I moved here this past spring. Honestly, I’m surprised we didn’t run into Dan again sooner—but you know him. He wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere outside of Manhattan.” 

“What do you teach?” Leon says, because the enormity of everything else he wants to ask (is your ex here too, are you dating anyone, do you want to date anyone) threatens to rip him in two.

“Broadcast journalism,” Rene says. “Dad was hoping I’d go the filmmaking route and make it big in LA, and Mama wanted me to get my MBA and end up chairwoman of the board somewhere, so naturally I didn’t end up doing either. But I love it. And I love NYU. My department chair’s way less of a snob than the one I had back at UChicago.”

“Huh,” Leon says stupidly. “Well, uh. Welcome. Or welcome back, I guess.”

“Thanks.” Rene looks like she’s trying very hard not to laugh at him. “So like I said, it looks like you better get the hang of it real quick.”

“Will you come by and check on my progress? Give me pop quizzes?”

Rene’s smile is bright and playful. “Yeah, Leon,” she says. “I’ll come by.”

“Then I guess I better get to work getting the hang of it,” Leon says. He chances moving a little closer to her. In her platform Docs, she isn’t that much shorter than him. “Rene.”

Rene’s breathing noticeably quickens. Leon’s heart is dancing a hot-foot jig in his chest. The air between them feels like it’s crackling with electricity, like the moment of calm before lightning strikes. He tilts his head right and leans in, inch by slow inch, and Rene leans up on her tiptoes and—

“There you are, Rene!” Quon Le says, rushing into the courtroom. “We were wondering where you had gotten off to—oh.” She comes to a halt, looking between Leon and Rene, now a good ten feet apart, with a furrowed brow. “Are we interrupting something?”

“No,” Leon lies through gritted teeth. Fielding leans against the doorframe, watching the show with a smirk that Leon wants to smack off his face. “Not at all.”

“We should get going,” Rene says, looking both amused and embarrassed. “I promised Mack we’d pick up dinner on the way home. I’ll see you later, Dan. Leon.”

“See you,” Leon echoes lamely, and watches the Robinsons go on their merry way. After they’ve left, he sighs and looks back at Fielding, whose smirk, if possible, has only gotten bigger. “Shut up.”

“I’m not saying anything, Your Honor,” Fielding says, his voice so sugary sweet and innocent it makes Leon’s eye twitch. “But if you want any pointers, you know where to find me.”

“If I want any pointers, which I do not, I will go to literally anyone but you, Fielding.”

“Your funeral,” Fielding says, and turns on his heel and leaves.

Leon sinks into Neil’s chair and buries his face in his hands. What feels simultaneously like two minutes and two hours later, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

Fielding 🎅: Want her phone number?

Leon squeezes his eyes shut and counts backwards from one hundred by fives. The explanation for how the hell this is his life does not magically appear when he hits zero.

Leon: Yes

Fielding 🎅: [shared a Contact]

Fielding 🎅: Do you know what to do from here or should I write you up some openers?

Leon: 🖕🏿🖕🏿🖕🏿

Leon: And thanks

Fielding 🎅: [liked a message]

Fielding 🎅: Anytime.