keep your last word in your hand (law & order | claire & lennie)

[fiachairecht]

keep your last words in your hand. law & order, claire & lennie. the implausibility of moving on. 829w, rated t. for sidewinder in trickortreatex 2016

A ghost haunting the precinct or Lennie’s dreams, maybe the victim of an unsolved murder or, if you really want to go sad and heartbreaking, Claire Kincaid.
Lennie’s own ghost haunting the precinct and/or one of his old partners.

Kincaid's perched on his desk when Lennie finally makes it into the bullpen. He smiles at the sight: small sharp Claire and her shadowed eyes, ankles crossed with one heel dangling precariously off her toe.

"Hey," he says, when he's close enough he doesn't have to shout. "I thought we weren't meeting until..." He trails off, suddenly lost for words. It's going around today. The desk sergeant didn't even glance at him during shift change, and Rey barely offered more than an absent-minded wave as he passed in the hallway, absorbed in some report or another.

Claire doesn't say anything, just blinks slowly at him, and her odd quiet tugs at something in his memory.

Claire quiet.

Claire dead.

Claire's broken body next to him in the car.

"Wait," he says, because he's many things, but he's still a detective. "You died. Which means either I'm hallucinating you and everyone's taking pity on the poor old man mumbling to himself, or..."

She shakes her head, and her smile is very sad. "Sorry, old man. It was a very brave death though. Line of duty and everything. Saved a couple of kids, the way I hear it."

Lennie sighs, and drops into his chair. It squeaks in protest, like always, and no one turns around. Also like always. "I don't remember," he admits. There's a gap in his mind, the more he thinks about it: two days ago he was at work, and now ... nothing's changed. Everything's changed. "That's gonna be what really sucks. Not even being able to make a joke about it."

"I don't remember much of mine, either," she says. "Just ... a car. That's all there is."

His heart would stop, if it still beat. Three years on his guilt is just one more fact in his life, one more death on his conscience like the ones in 'Nam, but one he could make amends for in life. Never did he think he would have to face her in death.

"Oh," he says, and then nothing else, because the space where he should say something is filled with the reality that he has no idea how things are supposed to work now. "So ... now what?"

"I've been working, still," she says. "You could — we can—"

It's an offer he thinks he should refuse, but he's not sure how. So instead he smiles, just a little, because of course Claire Kincaid wouldn't let death stop her relentless drive forward, and says, "Sure, kid."

*

"I didn't want to go alone," Claire confesses, resting her head on his shoulder. They're on the couch in the break room, watching Rey make coffee. Lennie's taken to bringing in better stuff lately — not that he ever cared, but some of the younger detectives have noticed. There's at least one betting pool going around over who's responsible, and though Lennie doesn't think his LT would get involved, her wistful smile and just the sort of thing Briscoe would do if he hung around makes her the winner in his mind.

It's what's in your mind that counts most when you're dead, Claire says.

Time moves funny now. Silences don't seem to matter as much. "Go where?" he asks, though he thinks he has a pretty good idea.

Claire half-shrugs. "Wherever we're supposed to. Staying here was easier. Trying to ... keep doing good, or something."

Lennie snorts. "The only good I've managed to do is reorganise the kid's filing system into something legible."

"You mean illegible?" Claire asks.

"I'm a detective! We have standards." He adopts a severe politician's tone. "'Important papers must not take fewer than ten minutes to find in one drawer. No more than fifty percent of the letters in a word four letters or shorter may be readable, a percentage that increases proportional to the increasing length of a word..."

Claire laughs, rich and free and for a moment Rey turns to the couch like he can hear them. It's too much for Lennie to bear.

"I'm sorry I took this from you," he says suddenly. He's not sure how long they've been like this, hanging around the precinct, around New York, seeing all the new ways the city has to welcome them to this not-life, but he does know that in all that time it's the closest thing to a confession or an apology that he's managed.

She pulls back, just slightly, and her face is more open than he's ever seen it. "But you're here now," she says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it is. "And it's not that different. Come on. Rey didn't notice the new coffee, which means you owe me a hot dog."

"Extortionist," he grumbles, getting to his feet. That's another thing easier in death.

Claire's eyes are sparkling. Van Buren can't reprimand him for playing pranks on the bureaucrats in 1PP. He could, he thinks, get used to this.

It's sunny outside, the city is waiting.