He likes running because generally it's the only thing that can get him to stop thinking.
His sneakers slap the pavement- there's a rhythm to it, like swinging a baseball bat, like thrusting his hips. Before, work would provide the in between of blissfully structured mental capacity- but that was before, and now any time he thinks about working he thinks about his goals, thinks about destroying, thinks about Alicia, thinks, thinks, thinks. Running lets the mind sway.
His calves are burning nicely by the time he slows to a stop in front of his apartment building.
The sun hasn't even risen. He tells himself it's too early to think, anyway. Too early to pause when he opens his door and finds Isabelle lying naked in his bed, splayed out like she's sky diving, taking up every spare place that was ever empty before. He tells himself he doesn't still feel achingly free of depth, of soul. What meager remains he had left of his soul went out the window approximately three months ago. Left without saying goodbye, left with a desk full of nothing strewn across the floor.
Or maybe it was before that.
Maybe for the past two years, since things had been too much he'd just been in stasis, maybe the truth is he's been aching since he fell in love twenty years ago and never really fell out. Maybe he lost his soul at that pool party. Even now, a firm thriving and another branch opening in New York, a blonde bombshell in his bed, and his thoughts are still flickering to a married woman who'll never love him the way he wants.
Not that he gives a damn.
Not that she ever gave a damn about him.
Pathetic.
This is why he avoids thinking, if he can. Dignity comes in the form of a cold shower, that December morning. His lungs are still heavy from the exertion, and he swallows, painfully thick, relishes in the frigidness against his skin. Closes his eyes once he's settled under the spray, tilts his head back.
William Paul Gardner tries not to think.
(About her cherry lips, her smile, that lilting laughter he'll never hear again, so different from the uncomfortable stares and mocking scoffs, and everything is different, everything. She is winter where she used to be spring, their spring. Nothing matters and nothing ever did. He never mattered to her, and she was his whole world, she, she, she.)
Isabelle wakes up as he begins to dress for his day, slides up behind him and slinks her arms around his waist. He allows her to hum in his ear, allows her to stake her claim.
He thinks- he'll never be able to hold anyone else the way he once held her- and then he doesn't think again, for the next few hours.
He's started kissing Isabelle goodbye in the mornings.
It's never gotten easier. Will is just getting better at it.
/
Snow starts to fall as he's pulling into his parking space. Chicago is always gray, but there's something about the moisture that bites, stings at his cheeks. He takes off his gloves as he gets into the lobby, thankful to be out of the weather. Kalinda gets into the elevator with him.
They have an unspoken agreement, nowadays.
Far different from that first night, with scotch and mumbled admittances, declarations spoken in fire. He relies on her more than he probably should. Trust never came easy to him, not as a child, not as an adult, but he can count on one hand the number of people in his life he has trusted completely. All of them women. Half of them blood. Half of them stabbed him in the back with a rusted blade faster than he could say "I love you", and that's saying a lot.
So, no. He doesn't trust Kalinda.
He just knows that when shit hit the fan, it was Kalinda who stayed. Maybe Alicia never realized how much he-
No, no thinking.
-but Kalinda did. Kalinda saw him huddled over a bar stool, watched him watch Alicia. Kalinda knows how much a cross examination means. Sometimes he thinks Kalinda must think him cellophane, the way her vision seems to see the bits and pieces of him, the rips in his decency and his tact. After the Ashbaugh case a few weeks ago, Kalinda had stood at his door the night of the Christmas party that he barely joined, an unopened bottle of whiskey in her grasp.
She'd helped him get drunk enough not to think about it all.
Maybe Kalinda, in that sense, doesn't like thinking much either.
/
The thing about heartbreak that nobody bothers to tell is that it doesn't have to be three o clock in the morning, huddled around a pillow, fetal position, sobbing. It doesn't have to, not really.
For him, heartbreak came in the words "She's leaving."
That constant, tearing thrum that came the first time he used his office bathroom after the knock down drag out and remembered; remembered her thighs spread on his porcelain sink, the say her laughter had echoed when he locked the door. Gone.
Heartbreak is being asked by a new client, "How did you like law school?"
Heartbreak is not knowing how to answer, because she was such a large part of his college experience, and he hates her. He hates that she makes him feel this way, hates that he ever lo-
He doesn't think. He can't think without breaking his own heart, over and over, little rips and then large chunks taken from what used to be soft as spun sugar. He has always been a romantic, by accident. Had he been able to go back to the moment when his wet hand had grasped her soft, soft one. "Alicia Cavanaugh."
If he'd been able to go back, he would have said to his twenty-something year old self-
Don't waste your life.
Don't waste your love.
Don't fall in love with her.
She's never loved him back. Not when they were twenty-something and her hair had been curly and everywhere. Not during the study sessions and the nights spend practically sitting in his lap. Obviously not after Peter Florrick and his ambition, not when she got married and had children and stayed away, stayed away for fifteen years. She didn't love him when they rebuilt.
She shied away when he said it aloud, that once.
The bathroom romps, the lunches, the quiet mornings spent in his bed with his mouth on her neck, the balcony in New York-
None of it mattered-
And no thinking, no thinking, no thinking.
/
Damian Boyle comes to him about noon.
"We've got a problem with the Middleton suit," he tells Will, accent ringing. "F&A have shite to do with it, of course."
Damian's hands are shaking, like he wants to swing his fist. Will sighs, chest heavy.
Boyle starts ranting, quick and slurring, anger coloring every word. Half way through explaining, Will puts up his hand to stop him. "Do you know how you're going to fix it?"
Damian nods.
He's just so tired of getting involved. One moment he's full of the hot wire fury, ready to snap and tear as much as he can, as much as he feels. The next, he's like this.
Just a forty three year old man with so much other stuff going on, and she is the weak, vulnerable part of him that is still tender to touch. Her firm, by extension, is her.
"Then fix it," Will orders.
Damian doesn't need to be told twice. If his grin is just a little too sinister as he leaves, well-
Will doesn't ask.
/
Isabelle comes with lunch-slash-dinner-slash-quickie-on-the-couch a few hours are in her hair, and it almost reminds him of a time at Georgetown, when her nose had been frost bitten and her hands were in the sleeves of his jacket, mouth warm against his-
Isabelle goes, "Buried up to your knees?"
She's being a good girlfriend, with tattoos and small talk, asking about his work. Still, the words are recognition, the words are memories, the words are thinking. He doesn't answer her.
Up to my knees.
He's giving it time.
All he needs is time.
/
Hours later, and he hears from someone the roads are icy.
It hasn't been a particularly busy day, but he still had things to sign off on. Will manages to make it home early, considering his own status quo, at least. The precipitation has been on and off since the morning. His car slides a little through the streets, and he reminds himself to put chains on in the morning. It'll be hell when the slush freezes over tonight. He opens a beer, when he finally settled on his couch. Starts on a stack of paperwork, manages to make the last half of the game.
Kicks up his feet.
/
Will startles.
The phone is ringing, shrill and demanding. He grapples around until he finds it, stuck between the cushions. He must have fallen asleep by accident. It's winter- the temperature makes him tired, sometimes. And it's not as if he's sleeping much on a regular basis, anyway.
Insomnia is a bitch.
He rubs his eyes when he reads the name, manages a deep breath before he answers, checking his watch before pressing the screen to his ear.
"Kalinda? It's midnight."
"Will."
She sounds desperate.
"What's wrong? Kalinda?"
"What did you tell Damian to do?"
He stops, eyes narrowing. "What? What do you mean?"
"It's."
Her breathing is heavy, like she's crying. Will's heart begins to pound.
"Kalinda? K, talk to me. What happened?"
It's a long, meticulous pause before she answers the question.
"It's Alicia."
The hairs on the back of his neck rise, and something leaves him, like time bates and slows. He can barely form the syllables, but he manages. Weak, in his salvation.
"What happ- what happened?"
"Car accident. I only know because I have a friend in- "
The first thought that crosses his tremulous mind is:
She's dead.
The phone falls out of his hands.
The screen shatters.
/
He almost doesn't make it to the bathroom fast enough.
/
After, he slumps down against the toilet seat, eyes stinging so harshly he finally shuts them entirely, ears set at this kind of a frequency that spells numbness, as if everything is operating on a different circuit in his stubborn head. He hates.
He hates, and he hates, and he cries loudly, the kind of tears that make men embarrassed. Sobs so hard he can't help himself, can't help anything. He is not ashamed.
He doesn't have the nerve to be ashamed.
He can't think, doesn't know how to-
Because all there is, is this absolute.
"Alicia," he whimpers openly, and covers his mouth with his hand.
This is a moment he will never let anyone be privy to, as long as he lives.
(But Kalinda doesn't count.)
/
Sometime later, his front door is opened. Kalinda picks the lock, slips her lithe body inside.
Her heels clack on the wood flooring, lead her around the living area, through the kitchen, into the bedroom. Into the place where the light is bright and there's mess, plaster.
As if someone repeatedly shoved their fist into the drywall.
She finds Will like this.
Head hung, a razor blade in his hand. Kalinda, in all her life, has only felt fear few and far between. This is one of the few times she has truly been apprehensive. Scared.
"Will," she says lowly, voice thick and blanketing like spread honey.
His eyes creep up.
The look on his face- that's something that will never leave her, not for years. It's what she will think of every time she hears the word suicide. Every time someone mentions Romeo and Juliet, she thinks of him, sunk down on his bathroom floor, at the end of his rope with the safety off.
She says the words precisely, so that there is no way he will mistake them.
"Alicia is going to be fine."
She watches him wilt- or maybe begin again, blinking, suddenly heaving air like a dying man, pardon the pun. Will feels it in his veins- like warm chasing out the ice, like finding hope on the edge of a cliff.
It's pathetic. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, he thinks to himself, as he's filled with a mere sense of self loathing for his rolled up sleeves. He chucks the razor blade against his tub.
Hates himself.
But then, as sudden as it comes-
He loves. He can breathe again.
Loves. Loves her. He can love her. He can love her.
The metal he threw made a clattering twang, and Kalinda nearly smiles at the reaction, at the life that tangibly fills him. She leans up against the wood of the doorframe, crosses her arms across her chest.
They will never talk about this moment, never.
But she knows it existed.
/
He's sitting on the couch, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. It's almost one in the morning, and he knows there's no chance of him sleeping again tonight. They haven't really talked yet, not since Kalinda helped him to his feet and lead him into his living room, made him a hot beverage.
Finally, she speaks.
"Damian cut Alicia's breaks. Or someone did. Although, from the way he's been posturing all day, I would venture to say he did it. Give me time. I'll look into it, if need-
"No," Will stops her, a raw kind of hatred in his gaze. "It was Damian."
Kalinda shifts, kicking one heeled boot up on his coffee table. "What're you going to do about it?"
Something comes across his face, something that might be a demented, twisted manipulation of a smile, but it is there. It's foreboding. Readying. "What needs to be done," he tells her, echoing the same sentiment from earlier, what feels like a lifetime ago.
"I thought cryptic was my thing," she deadpans.
Will doesn't laugh.
Something in his gaze shifts suddenly, goes all quiet and open again. He takes a searing sip of the bitter swill, doesn't flinch away from the burn on his tongue. Relishes in the discomfort, the distraction.
"Alicia's hurt."
It's not quite a question.
"Concussion. A minor laceration on her forehead, bruises. Nothing fatal."
The last word hangs, the true meaning of it apparent in Kalinda's pitch.
It was too close, and he knows it.
/
He arrives at the offices at six in the morning.
Waits in the parking lot, fists shaking like promises. His jaw is ticking, he can see his breath in the frigid air- she always liked cold like this. He waits until he sees Damian's car before kicking off of his own, striding across the lot.
Working out more pays off in little ways. First and foremost being that when he slams the man against the concrete, he does so with finality.
"What the bloody hell, man?" Damian shouts hoarsely, red at his temple.
Will's shoes are expensive, the kind of shine that his father would be proud of.
He proceeds to press his heel against Damian's fingers. Crushes them.
/
Here's the thing:
There are parts of himself Will hates.
There are dark, twisted alleys of immoral behavior, qualities he doesn't like pulling out until necessary, until the urge drives within him to compete, to win, to take. He doesn't fancy himself a greedy individual, but he enjoys having, enjoys taking. He's selfish, until he isn't.
Until Alicia, with her red lips and her bright eyes.
Until Alicia, who sees all of the parts of him he didn't know existed- the clients and their families and the fighting, Alicia has always seen the good. Alicia is the good. He likes himself when she's there, encouraging him, tempting him. Without her, the world makes little sense. The bad wins.
Which is why when she took herself, took her and her red lips and her joy, away-
Everything went to hell rather quickly.
And he was filled with it- the constant burn of sin, of disgusting fears and the things he never wanted to face, the things like his father's suicide and the shame, the knowledge that people have hurt because of him and he can never get anything right, never. Not even his love, something he's built, something he's loyal to. But nothing- nothing was more terrifying than that moment when he thought that she was-
Now, only a day later, that is the kind of thing he refuses to think about, ever, ever again.
Between the shattering of his phone and Kalinda's arrival, an hour and twelve minutes passed.
Those were the worst minutes of his life.
They encumbered everything he hates about himself, every discrepancy. Every painful truth.
Here's the thing:
Second chances are not meant to be wasted.
/
Isabelle calls him around two.
He breaks up with her in short sentences, and almost, almost feels bad at her choppy comeback, at the obvious waver in her voice. "It's because you're really not over the Alicia chick, right? Jack-o-lantern was right, wasn't he?"
"Isabelle, don't make this harder than it needs to be," Will says softly, because he can't very well tell her-
Yes. Alicia. It's always about Alicia, and it's always going to be about Alicia. I want to spend the rest of my life with her and I'm going to forgive her for stabbing me in the back with a rusty knife because I am a fool, I am still a fool in love after months of hate, and I am going to find out if Owen was right, I am. I am going to offer my heart up on a plate once again, because I am a crazy son of a bitch and by now it is apparent I am never going to love anyone else like I love that stupid, stubborn woman. Yes. The short answer is yes.
But while I'm at it, did I mention she is the best person I have ever met? I mean, even if she likes to routinely break my heart, she's perfect. Absolutely fucking exquisite, Isabelle. You don't hold a candle to her.
Will tells himself he lets her down easy.
/
She opens her door at two in the afternoon, and he's glad he was right about her staying home today. He's glad she's still in pajama pants, hair loose around her shoulders, face nearly void of all traces of make-up, off guard. She looks about twenty-something. She looks like Alicia Cavanaugh.
This is a movie they've already seen, a book they've already read. The way she looks at him, hovered in her doorway- it's like she half expected him to be there hours ago.
But then it hits him. The months. The years.
It hits him that this woman, this frustrating woman, is the only person in the world who can reduce him to razor blades and needy terror, to scrapes and cuts. It's all for her. It hits him like a ton of bricks, and when he takes a step forward, and then another, and then another, he realizes that the first time couldn't have been any other way. Not after everything.
His stance is strung tight, shoulders drawn, hands clenched into fists at his side. Alicia looks worn, like she's waiting for something, a bomb to go off, a scream to resonate. When he's finally standing within touching distance, Will swallows thickly.
They stare at each other like they are afraid to speak.
Which is why, when her eyes fall upon the taught line of his mouth, she lets him stumble into her. Falling is like this. Dreams and decisions trees can only do so much. And there's a faint rosy hue in her cheeks, and she's got a bruise over her left brow, but God, she's beautiful. As beautiful as she was hunched over books at twenty-six, hunched over paperwork at forty.
He kisses her, before she can even react to the close proximity.
He buries his fingers in her hair and drinks her in, tastes the law library and an open New York skyline. Tastes love. It takes a moment, one where he is pressed hard against her and she is still frozen. But then, quick, like the release of water through floodgates, she goes all pliable, all loose.
Her tongue slips into his mouth, and he moans so loudly he nearly blushes, the bastard he is.
Only her. Only she can reduce him to this.
Will runs his hands down her arms, grasping for some kind of semblance of normalcy, pushing her back until they're inside her apartment. The door clicks softly behind them, and he presses her against it. It's not of loathing, this thing crawling up their throats and taking root in their bodies, no. This is not fighting.
This is not war.
But it's desperate. Heady.
That's what must throw Alicia off guard, because when they finally break the kiss for air, her eyes linger on his face, her hand coming up to cup his jaw. "Will," she whispers.
There's a cut on her wrist, bandaged in white. Will stops, studies it for seconds that positively burn before he lifts it to his mouth, pressing a kiss there. Soothing, reinstating beliefs from years ago that meant I am here for you, I am here. Those beliefs had gone out the window with soul three months ago, hadn't they?
The way she ravages him, hoists her legs around his waist and clings tells him those fundamental truths still exist.
Despite everything. Despite it all.
He moans at her heat, grinds himself against her so that she feels how hard he is already, how much they've needed this connection, this catalyst- it's all too real. It makes them squirm with the longing, tear at clothes, and he knows he has to get to the general direction of a place they can have it all out quickly.
Will knows where her bedroom is, carries her the distance.
But Alicia has to busy herself with unzipping his fly with deft fingers when he lays her down on her own mattress, her own sheets- and yes, yes, this is what has had her wishing on dead stars for as long as she can remember, the way his expression is tormented and alive, they are so alive, when he pulls off cotton and more cotton, doesn't hesitate to reach down and slip two fingers into her heat.
Alicia doesn't have to, but she puts a hand over her mouth to muffle her moan, bites her palm and squeezes her eyes shut. She's always been sensitive, always, but this is different. Something deep and gnawing in her stomach, and she twists her hips to move against his hand that he holds, suspended.
Will groans at how wet she is, this quick.
He bucks his hips against her when she reaches down to stroke his erection, hisses at the way her nails run up and down him softly. It's fast and then it's slow, the kind of pace that makes it enjoyable and all the more desperate. Alicia finally slips away from his hand, moving backward on the comforter until he's following her, leaning over her.
She opens her legs, lets him crawl between, taking the hair at the nape of his neck between her fingers and clenching when he proceeds to bury himself deep.
"Will," she whined, tossing her head and trying not to lose control so quick. She could feel him holding back to, and God, it had been too long. The stretch was delicious for her, but for him it was the sweetest agony, hot and tight and the kind of thing that makes him recall suffocating.
"Fuck, Alicia," he mutters hoarsely, thrusting shallowly.
He had wanted to be as gentle with her as possible, considering the accident, but Alicia is a mess of limbs beneath him, legs wrapping around his waist and pulling him deeper, so deep her back arches up off the mattress and her keen is long and loud-
She wants him to mark her, because he's already ruined her.
He braces his palms against the side of her head and begins to slam his hips. It's not the most perfect encounter they've ever had, and it's painful, bruising- but it's fulfilling. The angle is perfect, rare to come by. Alicia aches, her nipples hard against his chest, heaving with every drag of his tip against a place that makes her jerk uncontrollably. Sweat beads on the back of her neck, pulse thundering at her carotid.
"Please, please don't stop," Alicia chokes out, eyes shut tightly.
Will doesn't, doesn't until she cries out sharply into his shoulder, reaching up to drag him down for a kiss while he keeps going. Keeps going until he's stuttering out his release as well, groaning into her mouth. She can feel the warmth spread.
It makes her shiver hotly.
"Don't go," she begs, wincing when he pulls out, pulls away.
Thankfully, he doesn't. Instead, he pulls the covers around them, wraps his arms around her middle, and pulls her to his chest.
She certainly wasn't expecting that either.
/
It takes them a few minutes to get their bearings, but when they do-
"I missed you," she tells him, and it's quiet. A secret.
She's not supposed to have missed him. She caused this. She caused all of this.
But he understands in a way he hasn't in months. Kisses her forehead. Tightens his hold on her.
"I missed you too."
She knows he's getting the words, so she offers some up herself. What she can give, at least. Alicia opens her mouth and speaks unscripted. She doesn't think about what she's saying. She just says it.
"I don't want to have to miss you anymore."
She studies his features, the way his brown eyes lighten and his mouth pulls up at the corners. Something akin to love presses its fingers to her skin, to this haze of their bodies in the afternoon light.
"That's what I was thinking," Will says, and he's the happiest he's ever been, in that moment, because somehow, despite all the bad timing, despite every fact working against them, this was their good timing, this was their time.
It wasn't something he even had to think about. It just was.
A/N: This could be terribly OOC, and I think it might be because it IS four thirty in the morning and I squeezed it out in an hour, but I had to do it because I needed Will and Alicia to experience this near death experience, and eh, the plot bunny wouldn't leave.