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"For the prosecution, Claire Kincaid."
Claire stands in front of the unseen judge in her favorite leather jacket: she looks vibrant, stunning - alive. A slight smirk crosses her face, as if she knows something none of the rest of them do.
Jack has these dreams, more than he'd admit while awake. He longs to reach for her, hold her close, smell her eucalyptus soap one more time. Tell her the things he'd wanted to say, and never did.
Hear her laugh, say his name.
She shimmers, vanishes from view, before he can; he wakes up, in a drenched sweat.
Alone.
Death isn't a complete ending, like Claire had feared, but it is an ending of one thing that matters: no matter what she does, Jack doesn't know.
She doesn't see him much. Doesn't have the opportunity. But every time she does, he looks older - the gray of his hair fading to white, the wrinkles on his forehead becoming more pronounced; the gait of his walk that much slower. She loves that he changes. She wishes she could.
"I see you," she wants to say.
"I miss you."
"I love you."
She'd say it for both of them, if she could.
Every so often, Jack sees a flash of someone who looks like her. In a city of millions, there are enough women who bear a passing resemblance.
Up close, none of them are. None of them could ever be.
Their hair's too dark; their smile, not pronounced enough. And he knows, too, if he spoke with them, they wouldn't challenge him the way Claire did. The way she made him a better lawyer - a better man.
He should be grateful for the time they had, but he's truly a selfish man: he's always going to want more time with her.
There is a world:
- Where she survived the car crash
- Where the car never slammed into hers
- Where she never drove to the bar at all
There is a world:
- Where she went straight home from Anita's
- Where she entered his apartment to find him reeking of booze, and told him to call her after he sobered up, and went home
- Where he arrived at her apartment, eyes bloodshot, looking for something she couldn't give, so she gave him a glass of water and Advil and slept on her couch, listening for him.
She wishes those worlds were this one.
In a just world, she'd have lived.
He could prosecute every drunk driver in the city, the state - the world, even - and none of those convictions would move the needle one bit toward bringing her back.
He's a lawyer, and a damn good one, with titles and laurels bestowed on him, but he can't do anything to create the just world that they deserved, the two of them.
He could have taken her leaving the DA's office, eventually; he can't take knowing that she didn't get to make that choice for herself.
Or, that she didn't get to choose him.
At Harvard, it seemed like you could divide everyone: people who were looking to go back home when they finished, and people who wanted to stay away forever.
If she'd never gone back to New York, it would have been easier to avoid her mother, and easier to escape Mac's shadow. She probably would have had to eat mediocre pizza and shop at chain stores and miss off-off-Broadway debuts entirely, but she would have had her own life.
If she hadn't gone back, she might have lived.
But then she never would have met Jack.
She made the right choice.
He'd escaped the terror of his father's abuse, escaped somewhere where Chicago held no sway.
He'd gotten away, never to return. Never looked back, never wanted to.
He'd sought comfort, something that looked like love; he thought he'd found it, until he didn't. Sworn off the assistants, eventually. Too many problems, without easy answers.
Until she walked into his life. Turned it askew. Showed him there was more to the world than met his eyes. (And could knock back a scotch with the best of them.)
Every choice he'd ever made led directly to Claire. He could never regret that.
Claire didn't believe in great romances. Her friends fell in and out of love quickly, thinking each next relationship might be The One; she was cynical, always seeing the cracks before they spider-webbed out, and ready with a pint of ice cream and some bourbon when things inevitably shattered.
When she had her affair with Thayer, she was never under any delusions; he was smart and he was powerful and she thought, this will work until it doesn't. It worked until it didn't.
She'd tried to stay cynical about whatever she had with Jack.
That worked until it didn't, too.
Some people would have looked askance at him, if they'd known about him and Claire while she was alive.
Maybe that's why he's so protective of her in death, preserving her memory like the gem that it is - nobody could understand, not unless they'd lived it.
He'd never wish this exquisite anguish on anyone, the love of a good woman - too good for him, yet his anyway? - taken away before they had a chance to see what it could have been.
He's no great romantic; his exes would agree.
But, Claire - they could have been something real.
They already were.
Claire knows her reputation. Just because she wears leather jackets and reads feminist literature and has inadvisable affairs.
But Claire doesn't want their version of safe: Safe, like proscribed roles and planned-out futures. Safe, like sacrificing rewards to avoid any risk.
(Safe, like don't drive to the bar that night. Safe, like not taking your eyes off the road to tell Lennie she doesn't hate you.)
When Claire wants safe, she thinks of a Yamaha motorcycle and a warm body pressed against hers, holding on so tight she can feel their hearts beating together over the roar of the motor.
He rides on his Yamaha, losing himself to the rhythm of the city and the rumble of the motor. He rides to forget his pain, and to remember his pleasure.
There's a little dive bar they'd found together, one where the booths were sticky and the drinks flowed with ease. He'd play his favorites on the ancient jukebox, delight in her raucous laughter as she reconciled the straight-laced attorney before her with a punk rock rebel at heart.
He'd pour quarters into the jukebox all night long before riding into the sunrise, if it meant one more night with Claire.
Jack McCoy's reputation preceded him. He was a hothead, but more than that, he was a serious-minded lawyer who never turned away from the quest for justice.
They lay in his bed, listening to vinyl albums that he said were classic, and Claire teased were old, and to the CDs he got her at the Virgin Megastore when he had to go to Midtown. They wallowed in lyrics that promised a different world than the one he'd grown up in, different than the one they had now.
She couldn't imagine her colleagues meeting this Jack. She kept him for herself.
Jack wonders, sometimes, what she would have done with her life, if a drunken asshole hadn't decided for her. She'd have been brilliant, no matter what path she'd chosen.
He'd have supported her. Because the world deserved to see her brilliance.
He holds onto the memories, of the long nights spent listening to music only she understood, of shared office meals and spirited debates about current events and the law and life and everything in-between.
No one else understands. No one needs to.
There are some things that are shared simply between him and Claire, and that's all there is.
Claire can imagine a world where they grow old together.
Not the romantic fantasies she'd rejected, but something hard and messy and complicated and theirs. They'd argue over legal precedents at the breakfast table and listen to music in bed and heckle reruns of Perry Mason and stop speaking to each other for days and love each other unconditionally.
They'd do everything they'd done in what little time they'd had, but they'd do it forever.
She feels bad that Jack has to hold the memories for both of them. But he's the only person she'd trust to keep them safe.