Ride and Die, Bonnie and Clyde

bleeding out in an empty alley

A/N: Let me start this off by saying, I researched for like two hours trying to figure out how the Canadian legal system works, but I cannot figure it out for the life of me. The internet doesn't explain things easy enough sometimes. And I only known bits and pieces of how the US legal system works. So, this takes place in an AU universe of some unknown city in some unknown place in a made-up country with some kind of made up, kind of real legal system with the terms district attorney and stuff only because I didn't want to make anything else up. So enjoy. (ps if you know how the Canadian legal system works, possibly in a comparison chart to the US and want to explain it, you'd be the bomb diggity)

Meeting him for the first time was a chance encounter. A million to one possibility. It was completely accidental and totally life changing. For the better or worse, neither was sure at the time, but it was life altering nonetheless.

It started in a twenty-four-hour diner. Well, at least that's where it started for Courtney Veras.

She sat in a corner booth, coffee mug placed in front of her along with a case file. The papers inside were bracketed neatly together and Courtney flipped through them for the millionth time that night. She had a case coming up and she needed to be sure she understood everything about it. She needed to memorize every shred of evidence, every second of the timeline, and every possible angle the defense would throw. It might have just been a simple petty theft and trespassing case, but it was her first solo case and she wanted no screw ups.

It had only been a little over six months since she graduated from law school and scored a job at the District Attorney's Office. One of her mentors throughout law school had seen promise in her and had fought tooth and nail, making vouch after vouch, to gain her a job at the DA's Office. Of course, for the past six months she had been on a sort of probation, working under her mentor, not being able to be a full ADA with her own cases and faith and trust bestowed upon her.

But that was going to change and soon. Courtney had been given her first ever case, a solo, you-are-in-charge case, with her mentor only acting as an advisor and a backup if she screwed up.

However, he was going to be completely unnecessary, because Courtney Veras was not planning to fail! She was going to succeed! She was going to prove her worth and show everyone that her mentor had placed his faith in the right person. She was going to be as great as he thought she would be, show everyone that she did have that promise he saw.

Courtney rubbed at her eyes tiredly before reaching out and grabbing her coffee mug. She brought the mug to her lips absentmindedly as she read over a page of the file once again. She let out a heavy sigh when she was not met with the warm caffeine usually promised by coffee but was instead met with nothingness. She set her mug down, reaching out for the coffee pot in front of her, only to discover that it too was empty. Courtney let out a sigh, turning in her booth to wave down her waitress.

"Hi Ida," Courtney greeted when her waitress, her usual waitress, walked up. Ida was an older woman, sweet as can be, and from all of the times Courtney had been there, she could tell that Ida was a motherly person who was anything but a pushover. She was a kind woman in a city of anything but. "Can I have another pot of coffee?"

"You have been here for hours," Ida sighed out, setting Courtney with a motherly stare, "It's one in the morning, don't you think you should be heading home?"

"Ida, I need to make sure everything is perfect and in line, I can't have anything sneaking up on me," Courtney told her, her voice twisting into a childish whine as she gestured to the file folder in front of her. Ida raised a brow at her and Courtney already knew that she was going to lose. Courtney might have been a lawyer, and she might have lived to make arguments since she was a child, but Ida was an anomaly. No matter what Courtney argued, no matter what she was arguing, Ida always seemed to win and get her way. Damn woman should've been a lawyer instead of waitress.