Title: Roses
Pairing: Will/Alicia
Summary: Valentine's Day and Alicia receives Roses.
Author's Note: Takes place during Season 3, after "Parenting Made Easy" but before "Long Way Home"
Words: 794
She remembers a time when Valentine's Day was something to be celebrated. There were cards to give out to classmates in elementary school, flowers to sell during lunch period for student council in high school, sorority mixers in college, and fancy dinners with Peter during law school.
After, she was buying cards for Peter, making heart shaped pancakes for Zach and Grace, arranging cupcakes for their classmates, and prepping for charity banquets for the Chicago chapter of the American Heart and Lung Association.
Valentine's Days were always busy. Now, not so much. She doesn't buy cards for anyone this year. She's not making breakfast, arranging flowers, or being woken up to breakfast in bed by Peter and the kids. It's just any other day.
It would go completely unnoticed if it weren't for the radio station playing during her drive to work. Her usual radio station decided it would be romantic to play love songs all day. Another station decided it would be ironic and played break up songs instead. She's in the mood for neither.
When she gets to her office, there's a vase of yellow roses sitting on her desk next to the phone. Without even looking at the card, she knows the yellow roses are from Peter. When they first started dating, he sent her a bouquet of yellow roses and when she called to thank him, saying he was so thoughtful to think of her, that the pale yellow was so unique, he took that to mean yellow roses were her favorites. He's sent her the same bouquet of flowers every year since then (well, except the year he was in jail and the one he was on house arrest). They're supposed to be keeping up appearances, pretending to be happily married still, so this year is no exception. She doesn't bother to read the card. Last year, when he sent the flowers, curiosity got the best of her and she looked up the significance of yellow roses: friendship, jealousy, infidelity, or apology, a broken heart, intense emotion, dying love, extreme betrayal. How fitting she thinks now. She wonders if he knows this. She moves the flowers to the coffee table in front of the sofa because they might be easier to ignore if she doesn't have to see them every time she picks up the phone.
Midmorning and Courtney walks into her office holding a huge glass container. It's not until Courtney sets the container next to her that Alicia realizes it's filled with hundreds of Hersey's Kisses. "Who are these from?" she asks.
"No idea, I didn't read the card," Courtney replies.
Alicia,
I've missed you. I expect we'll see each other again real soon.
Colin Sweeney
"Ugh," is the only response Alicia has after reading the card. "Can you take this to the kitchen or the reception desk? Actually, I don't care what you do with it as long as you take it out of my office."
"No problem Alicia," Courtney says as she picks the glass container up off the desk.
Just as Courtney's walking out of Alicia's office, Will enters. "Kisses?" he asks with a smirk.
"From Colin Sweeney."
"Yikes! . . . and the yellow roses?" he asks after noticing the flowers on the coffee table.
With a tight smile Alicia answers "from Peter." With that Will leaves her office without another word.
Hours later, Alicia is returning from a settlement conference when David Lee walks into her office with a beautiful arraignment of daffodils and forget-me-nots.
"Stupid messenger brought these to my office. Do I look like Alicia Florrick?" David retorts, "well look who's Miss Popular," he adds when he notices the yellow roses on her coffee table.
"I'll take those," she replies, ignoring David's comments.
"Not that I care, but who are they from? The card only says your name."
"No idea, my kids maybe," Alicia shrugs in response.
Alicia's received this arrangement once before. The morning of her graduation from Georgetown, no message on that card either. She never gave the mystery sender much thought because she was so busy with the ceremony, her crazy family in town, packing her apartment and Peter's proposal that day. But now she's curious. She quickly goes to her laptop to look up the meaning of these flowers. Daffodil: uncertainty, chivalry, respect or unrequited love. Forget-Me-Not seems obvious but it also means true love. And now she feels stupid because she never realized the graduation flowers came from Will, nor had she realized the depth of his feelings for her. She sighs because the flowers don't change the fact that it's all "too much" for her right now but she does place the flowers on her desk, close to her laptop, so she won't forget.