Glimpses

Author: Mel

Email: Mel@guardian-ffa.com 

Rating: PG

Summary: Barbara and Nick have a talk at The Incline.

Author's Notes: This is a missing scene for "The Funnies." It takes
place after everything with Russell and Web is settled, but the night
before Mr. Trout meets the kids that did the mural. It does contain
spoilers for that ep. Also, I'm a relatively new fan of the show, so
please excuse any glaring inconsistencies. And it was written in an
hour, so it's a little rough. =)

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Walking in through the door to The Incline, Barbara shook off her jacket
and brushed a stray lock of long auburn hair behind her ear. Quickly
glancing around the bar, she soon found the man she was looking for.
Walking over to the table he had chosen far in the corner, she smiled as
she noticed the case files he was looking over. Even out of the office,
he was still working.

"Can't you ever take a break?" she asked in greeting. Nick's head raised
at the sound of her voice, and he smiled lightly.

"Sure, as soon as there's no more work."

"Well, when's that gonna be?" she asked as she slid into the booth
across from him. He shrugged, and looked back down to the file he had
been writing in when she walked up.

"Probably never." He spoke quietly as he quickly wrote something down,
then flipped the file closed. He looked up at her and smiled as he
reached for his tall glass of beer. Taking a long sip, he placed the
glass back on the table then leaned back in the booth.

"How're you holding up?"

Barbara could tell from his eyes that he wasn't just asking to be
polite, he genuinely wanted to know.

She sighed then, and laid her coat beside her in the booth. "OK, I
guess. It just all was so?" her voice trailed off, the words hard to
find. How did you describe how it felt to have your son and his father
in jail? "Everything's changed," she settled on.

Nick nodded at her, and glanced to his side as a waitress walked up to
them. " Get you anything?" The blond asked Barbara.

"Uh, ginger ale, please." The young girl nodded then looked at Nick with
a different look in her eye. Barbara recognized the look; she had seen
it before. But Nick was oblivious to it as always. "Get you another one
of those? " the waitress asked with a sugary tone in her voice.

He simply nodded, "Thanks."

Walking off, the waitress whose nametag said "Susan" cast one more
glance in Nick's direction over her shoulder, but Nick was already
directing his attention. As he started to ask Barbara something, he
stopped.

"What's so funny?" his tone was defensive.

Barbara couldn't stop smiling. Either Nick didn't notice the way women
fell over him, or he just simply didn't care. "Nothing." She said with a
laughing tone in her voice.

Shaking his head in slight confusion, Nick leaned forward resting his
right elbow on the table. "Have you talked to him yet?"

Barbara nodded slightly. "Yeah. He called me last night. Just to say
?hi," he said. He said he would call as often as he could. Which is odd,
because when he was home, I had to bug him to call me if he was going to
be out late. Now he can't call me enough."

"He seems like a good kid." Nick said, watching Barbara stare at the
table in thought. She lifted her eyes to his.

"Listen, Nick?" she started, but trailed off as Susan returned with
their drinks. She waited until the waitress had left then leaned forward
slightly over the table. "Thank you." She said with complete sincerity.

"Barbara, I didn't?" he started to dismiss her words, but she held up a
hand to stop him.

"No, you don't understand. The public defender wouldn't have done half
the stuff you did to help Russell. I know that you were hesitant to
help, but I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate everything
you did." She paused then, and took his hand in hers, startling him
slightly. "Thank you." She said again, and smiled. After a second, he
grinned back. Squeezing his hand briefly, she released it and reached
for her drink.

"You're welcome," he said, and took a drink from his beer. Now that she
had that out of the way, Barbara had one other thing to ask him.

"Nick, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." The answer came too quickly, and she tilted her head to the
side slightly. The whole time he had been helping Russell, she had
sensed something was troubling him. At first she hadn't noticed because
she had been so wrapped up in the case, but it weighed down on her more
and more as things had played out.

"Something's bothering you." She stated matter-of-factly. He smiled
slightly, but she noticed that the emotion didn't quite reach his eyes.

Shrugging slightly he replied, "Nothing's bothering me."

"You know, for a lawyer you're a pretty bad liar.? He looked down at the
table, and she tried to read his face for what he must be thinking. It
was something she had never been able to do. He always kept his emotions
carefully guarded; it was almost impossible to tell what he was thinking.

"You wouldn't understand." He said, his eyes still glued to the table.

"Maybe not, but I can try."

Finally glancing up and looking her in the eye, he sighed and took
another drink of his beer. After he set the glass back down, he looked
around the bar. It dawned on her that he was making sure there was no
one around then that might hear their conversation. It was impossible to
hide her surprise that he was actually going to talk to her. She had
been expecting nothing but the normal evasive answers. Finally, he
cleared his throat, and lowered his voice as he spoke.

"When I was talking to Russell, I told him to call his dealer to get the
bad meth off the street."

"Yeah, you told me that." she said quietly, waiting for him to finish.

"I wanted him to get it off the streets, because?" his voice faltered,
but he kept talking, "I didn't want anyone else to use it. Including
me." He said the last two words almost in a whisper, his voice laced
with guilt. "That 's all I was thinking, Barbara. I'm still in that
mindset." He tapped the side of his head in emphasis.

The words were not what she had expected. It had left her speechless. In
all the times they had talked, she had never asked about his past, and
he had nev er told her anything. This was a first, and she had no idea
how to respond.

"And you thought I was a good guy." He said with a sad smile on his face
as he leaned back against the seat of the booth. This time the swig of
beer he took almost emptied the glass.

"Nick?" she started, but stopped as Jake walked up to their table.

"Hey, guys!" he said cheerfully, sliding into the booth beside Nick who
moved over to make room. Barbara watched Nick carefully, and saw the
look in his eyes change instantly. Gone was the openness that had been
there, replaced now by the guarded expression that she knew so well.

The two talked about something, she didn't know what. The only thing
that she could think about was the man sitting across from her. Their
brief conversation, no matter how short, had been remarkably candid and
something she had never expected from him. It was so rare she wasn't
even sure what had caused it.

There were so many things she wanted to tell him. To make him understand
that he was not a bad guy. Anyone who would bend over backwards to help
a friends son was not a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination. But
now that Jake was there and she'd have to wait for another time. And she
would. She just didn't know if that day would ever come again.

THE END