Title: Ours Is Not A Fairytale
Fandom: Justice
Pairing/Characters: Tom Nicholson/Susan Hale
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tom, Susan, and the night before a verdict.
Warnings: Spoilers through 1x12.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

“I only smoke when I’m waiting for a verdict.”
“You and Tom should wait together, then. He only gets engaged when he’s waiting for a verdict.”
-- Susan Hale and Luther Graves, “Shotgun”

Only three times, Hale has lost a case. Once, when she was fresh from law school, new and naïve and too young for the rigors of the District Attorney’s office. Twice, against Tom Nicholson. A coin toss is all that stands between Hale and a third loss to Nicholson: a juror that likes Nicholson’s bright eyes and earnest smile, a mediocre cross during the second day of trial, one wrong word in her closing.

A coin toss. Enough to drive her to the bar, where she sips her customary White Russian, the quarter spinning brightly on the screen of her mind’s eye. She’s as careful with her alcohol as she is with her cigarettes, only ever drinking enough for a buzz, never enough to be properly drunk. There’s no one but herself to drive the car home, after all.

Hale has grown intimately familiar with what high stakes trials do to lawyers; she barely lifts an eyebrow when Nicholson arrives. He stares at her for a moment, hair a mess, shadows under his eyes. She stares back unblinkingly, the thin line of her mouth an unspoken challenge. Finally, he sighs, slipping into the seat beside her. Her hand tightens minutely around her glass, but she doesn’t protest.

She knows Nicholson’s type like the back of her hand. They’re almost a cliché in the legal world: painfully sweet-natured kids barely out of law school, their heads full of grand ideas of justice, falling asleep to fantasies of doing right by their fancy degrees, flitting from one sob story case to another. The sort everyone loves, the sort that always knows the right thing to say, until the day they don’t. Until the day they wake up and realize that a break runs through the world that’s a million feet deep which no one will ever repair. Until they learn that some problems cannot be solved with even the most beautifully wrought legalese. The weaker types break; the stronger ones retreat within themselves, growing a protective shell of cynicism and experience, and in their hands, the law transforms from a surgeon’s delicate scalpel to the wickedly curved knife of a hired mercenary.

Nicholson’s no different. He may be smarter than the others, more clever with people, more confident in his abilities and ideals, but even he will find a limit one day. After all, Hale did, and she refuses to believe that an overpriced defense lawyer will outdo her in the long run. She’s fared better than most, remaining a prosecutor to the core, meting out what justice she can with language and logic and well-used evidence. For every murderer she puts away, there will be ten more, but she’s grown to accept it. Nicholson would never be able to.

“You know,” he says suddenly, his tone thoughtful, “when I was a kid, I never could imagine what I’d end up doing with myself. Adulthood seems like it’s a hundred years away when you’re that young.”

Hale looks at Nicholson sharply, startled. She’d forgotten how close he was sitting, but remembers his client’s face in a flash: big doe eyes, an eighteen-year-old who looks closer to fourteen, pouty lips, a poster child’s not-guilty face to match her lawyer’s. Sarah Vaughn.

“We’re not supposed to talk about the case,” she says primly, and takes another sip of her drink.

His chuckle startles her again; she wishes she would stop letting him surprise her. It doesn’t improve her chances against him, should they meet in court again. “Nah, I’m not talking about Sarah. It just seems weird to sit here without saying anything.” When she doesn’t answer, he continues, a little ruefully, “Sometimes, I think that there’s a rule no one taught me in law school that says prosecutors and defense attorneys are supposed to hate each other, even outside of the courtroom. Keller was Luther’s friend, once. Or something like a friend, anyway. Now they can’t stand each other.”

Hale finds herself turning towards him despite herself, her face a little hot from the alcohol. “There doesn’t have to be a rule,” she spits out now. “I just don’t understand the sort of man who willingly chooses to protect criminals. Just because you have a soft spot for kids and illegal immigrants doesn’t make what you do any more admirable. You still think you can play the hero. There aren’t any heroes in the justice system, Tom. And certainly not on the side of the lawbreakers.”

The faint grin slips off his face, and she can see his jaw working. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to leave, or yell. She wishes he would. She doesn’t like having him so close on the eve of a verdict, but if he has to stay, she’s spoiling for a fight. He’s too charming, too subconsciously used to people who bend like paper dolls to that charm. Hale would rather make him hate her, than let him insult her by using her as the one token prosecutor who’ll befriend him. He already has Luther on his side.

“I went into law because I wanted to protect innocent people,” he says finally. “Alden tells me I’m a romantic.” He laughs a little. “Maybe she’s right. But then, so are you.”

“I’m nothing like you.”

“No,” he concedes, “you could never be a defense lawyer. But if I went into law to protect the innocent, you did it to put bad people in prison. Am I right?”

She stares at him, and he wears a knowing smile.

“Like it does any good when there are people like you out there,” she snaps, too shaken to say anything else, and stands up to leave.

“Wait.” Suddenly, his hand is on her wrist. It’s cool against her alcohol-heated skin, his grasp firm but not painful. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For upsetting you. It’s not what I meant to do. Look, I know how things get before a verdict. Believe me, some of the things I’ve done while waiting around…”

“Like getting engaged,” she says, the words slipping out of her mouth before she can stop them. His fingers go slack on her wrist, his eyes widening a little, and she uses the opportunity to pull away. But she doesn’t go. Not yet.

His gaze is hard on her. “How do you know about that?”

“It’s something Luther mentioned once. Forget it.” She sits down, hard, takes a healthy swig from her glass, no longer thinking of her car or the drive home, then orders another.

He’s smiling ruefully in the corner of her eye. “I’m not that great with the dating thing,” he admits. “Or at least, I haven’t been, not since I joined Ron’s firm.”

He shares too many personal details, she thinks, but doesn’t bring it up. “Funny thing. I had you pegged as a ladies’ man.”

“What?”

“It’s the smile. And the way you handle juries.” She looks long and hard at him, the taste of alcohol and bitter laughter on her tongue. “All about the charm.”

He colors faintly, and it occurs to her that he hasn’t ordered anything to drink. Her mind remains sharp, her words unslurred, but her cheeks burn, and a hum is building in her ears. “This was stupid of me,” she mutters. “I don’t think I can drive.”

Wordlessly, he stretches out a hand to her. When she stares at him uncomphrehendingly, he gives her that rueful smile again. “I’ll take you.”

“You don’t know where I live,” she retorts. “And my car is here.”

“You can get it in the morning. Come on.”

To hell with it, she thinks, and lets him pull her to her feet. They walk out to the parking lot together, and drive in silence. When they pull up to her apartment, she stumbles out the passenger door hurriedly, walks around the length of the car, then waits, eyes closed, night air cool against her skin. She hears rather than sees him open his own door, mumbling something like, “Here, I’ll walk you up…”

She isn't entirely sure what she's thinking, but he isn’t even halfway out before she has him backed up against his car, her hands planted on either side of his shoulders in an attempt to steady herself. He looks at her with wide eyes. “Susan,” he starts, but the rest of his words die away. They stand for a moment, their faces close enough for her to feel his breath, free of alcohol, against her face.

Then she laughs. It’s a small, bittersweet, defeated sound, and her lips touch his, chaste and butterfly light. “I want to hate you,” she whispers against his mouth.

One of his hands cups the side of her face with boyish experience, the other trembling hesitantly over the thin cotton of her shirt. “Susan,” he says again. “Susan, I don’t know if this is right.”

“For once in your life,” she says, “would you stop being such a self-righteous jerk?”

Tomorrow, she may regret this. Tomorrow, she will wake up with a dry mouth, her heart pounding with every step she takes to the courthouse. Their eyes will meet across the room, and it’ll be this moment she remembers as the verdict is read.

Tonight, though, there’s only the breeze and the darkness of the night. A silver coin spinning into infinity. Cool hands, and the warmth waiting in their mouths.

She isn’t sure who initiates the second kiss, but by the time they stumble into her apartment, it doesn’t matter anymore.


“In this matter, we the jury find the defendant…”


A/N: I miss this series. ;___;