Hairspray and a .45

Clementine is, for lack of a better word, in hell. An eight-by-nine foot hell that she has to share with Trudy and Raineesha, when she's not being threatened by other inmates or being beaten up for a stick of gum.

Raineesha keeps telling them life stories. Stories about arguing 'so richly' with her fiance that she knew she was going to give him some. This was two husbands ago, and Clementine knows he'll never hold a candle to Jonesy for her. Clem herself used to feel that exact way about Jones - until she met Sam and the world decide to change.

God, she misses him. Misses him and can't tell anyone that she misses him, which sucks doubly worse than it would if she could vent to somebody. Part of her has accepted that she's stuck waiting for the Bar to work its magic and bring her back to where she wants to be. The rest of her keeps trying visualization exercises. There's no such thing as trying too hard.

But when it does happen she's not expecting it at all.

Clementine doesn't mean to get locked out of Bar, but does anybody? One day she heads toward her door, tries to open it.

And it's gone.

Completely gone.

She freaks out for days over the idea that she'll never get to see Sam again; then she worries she'll forget everything about the place, the people she knows there - time stops.

Life goes on, though, and Clem flows with it; she has a very brief, very intense, vodka-soaked fling with Garcia for about two weeks before she realizes she's trying to replace the man she's really in love with, but Garcia's the one who pushes her away, right on camera and it's intrusive eye.

Time heals it all. It has to.

And then Garcia and Jones are caught on-camera beating a man in a milkshake costume. Clementine can't really blame them; the guy was a prick, all of them knew it, and if she'd been in their place she would have hit him twice as hard.

That's not how the American public nor the judicial system see it. After the perp walks accidentally into traffic and dies in a splattery mess on the Grand Junction Highway, Garcia and Jones are charged with murder. The station surrenders their tapes, and suddenly all of them are under fire.

Clem can go up the river for this. She's beyond aware of this fact, and it sucks.

She goes home and contemplates her sucky life under the low glow of candles and a marijuana haze.


And when she looks to the right, there's the door.

There's.

The.

Fucking.

Door.

Clementine doesn't quite know how they're going to do this - but they're going to try.

She's already in her stage makeup and costume and is chain-smoking just inside of her door - the door, thankfully, to the back of the theatre. "Come on in," she encourages.

Clementine doesn't know why she tried to marry Steed.

Later on - when she's somewhere else - she'll think about the haste with which she followed her glands and write it all off. She'd wanted to marry him forever - since those long-ago GED classes, since those passed-around notes. They've been seeing each other quite regularly since then - though with less frequency since she found Milliways - and he seemed the best choice at the time. She tells the camera that she wants to be with him forever with a smile on her face.

It's marriage she's really lusting after - stability - and Steed is a familiar warhorse in that respect. She gets to be a glitter-speckled bride with great cleavage in a trailer-park ceremony. The ratings are gangbusters. Everyone she knows is fairly disappointed in her, but she's cool with that. She's got a guy and a ring, at last, what more does she want?

She knows exactly what she wants. He has a much bigger jaw, brown eyes, a soft laugh and gentle hands. The guy who took her to Miami and taught her how to fish and does things to her with his mouth that defy all laws of sexual expectation. The one she thought she'd end up with, in spite of their mutual cynicism.

The night before the ceremony happens he so obsesses her thoughts that she cracks and heads down to the station after hours, trying to get to her door.

But all she sees is Jim hosing out the drunk tank.

When an otherwise-naked man in motorcycle boots gives you a Come to Jesus talk, you know you're making a shitty decision.

But she's not gonna do any better. So she bites the bullet and wears her something blue and goes through with the ceremony. After a brief reception he takes her off to a no-tell motel and they get on with the best part of marriage.

She calls him Sam when he makes her come. Twice.

The brawl results in a broken jaw for Steed and a black eye for Clementine. She throws him out, then puts in an emergency call to a public defender who owes her a favor. When he finds out they forgot to get a license, she nearly sobs her relief.

She comes into work the next day and spills her guts. Jim gives her a hug, Jones sighs his obvious relief, Garcia pats her shoulder, and Raineesha demands details. The rest of the day is refreshingly normal. At the bar Jim pays for a round in her name.

When she goes to bed that night, another conversation plays in her head.

I don't see my ass ever leaving you.

But he did leave her.

Men just do.

She chokes down the bitterness and meditates herself to sleep, tears on her mascara-spiked lashes.

It's late.

Probably somewhere past midnight, but she hasn't really noticed the moon's movement. Normally, after a good screw she falls right to sleep, but she's lying there instead, smelling Sam's skin and listening to him breathe as the night wears in.

So she lies still and lets time pass.

She can't even remember what month it is anymore.