usattorney | giving up won't get you out (Reply)

giving up won't get you out;
Luke gets shot on Saturday and is back at work on Tuesday. He feels everyone else's eyes on him as he walks through the fifth-floor bullpen toward his desk. The John Wexler case is all over the news and while no one knows that he was directly involved, everyone knows he was with Bryan at Wexler's party on Friday. They're all wondering what he knows and he's not going to tell.

Thanks to his unwillingness to wear a sling, no one can tell that he's been shot. The only way it's noticeable is if he takes off his jacket because the shirt doesn't obscure the bandage underneath. So of course Kevin walks into his office while he's taking off his jacket. "What happened to you?" his best friend asks, to which Luke only mutters, "I don't want to talk about it." He doesn't want to do anything but get back to work.

"You didn't come in yesterday."

"I had some things to take care of." Luke settles at his desk and flips on his computer to start going through his email. "Did you need something specific, or...?"

"I wanted to see what was going on with you." Kevin gives him an annoyed look because he doesn't deserve that kind of attitude for caring about him. "Which something obviously did if you're not willing to talk about it."

"Yeah, so the perfect course of action is to keep asking." Luke could probably just tell him and be done with it. There's no shame in being shot when their own boss showed him his bullet scar. But he knows Bryan doesn't talk about that either and so why should he. Especially when he's still working through his feelings about it. The physical pain is an annoyance; the experience of potential death and having to tourniquet his own arm in the middle of a shootout is something else. He had at least called Christie Ballesteros and made an appointment.

"I'm just saying that when you don't show up and Ryden has to handle your arraignments it looks strange. If you don't want to talk about it, fine, but you might want to come up with some kind of an excuse because people are talking." When you're a control freak who never takes days off, even one starts the courthouse rumor mill going.

"For the love of..." Luke grits his teeth and spits it out. "Someone shot me, okay?"

"What?" Kevin blinks like he's misheard. "Why are you here?"

"Because it's not serious." He gestures with his other hand at the bandage still concealed under his shirt. "As long as I don't move my arm too much, I'll be fine in a couple of weeks."

"How the fuck did you even get shot?" Kevin replies, then thinks on it for a second and remembers seeing Janet in the press conference on the news and puts it together. "Were you involved in the Wexler case?"

"I'm the reason there is a case."

There are a half-dozen other questions that come to Kevin's mind at that statement like any good attorney. But he doesn't ask them because he knows that either Luke won't answer or he shouldn't if he's a material witness. So he drops them and asks instead, "Are you okay? Really okay, not any of your typical stoicism."

"I'm working through it." Luke says. "Which is what I'd like to do, just work through it instead of having everyone worry about me or being left alone in my apartment, so if you want to support me... Just let me get back to this."

"Okay." Kevin agrees. "But if you decide you want to talk... I'm here." He turns to leave but pauses and lingers in Luke's office doorway. "Just tell everyone you had the flu. You'll get less sympathetic worrying that way."

Luke nods and goes back to checking his email. He has no intention of talking to anyone other than Christie, especially since Janet made him aware that everyone has to keep their mouth shut about the human trafficking side of the case. He's not going to jeopardize someone else's conviction just to get his emotions off his chest. But it is a step, however small, for him to acknowledge that he's not okay. That what happened has some kind of effect on him. He can admit that before he dives back into paperwork.