Mistaken Identity

It was eleven at night and the rain was pouring down as Alicia drove into the covered parking garage at Lockhart Gardner. A place that up until six weeks ago she hadn't been in nearly a year. She hadn't called ahead to announce her arrival. She didn't need to. Even if she and Will were still at war eighteen months after her exit from his firm, she knew him like the back of her hand. And knew he would never stop burning the late night oil.

She was nervous as she got out of her car. She sensed time was running out, and felt like everything was past the point of being out of control. At what point had she lost control of everything? She wondered as she stepped into the elevator hitting the button for the twenty-eighth floor. She knew the answer. It had been two weeks ago, and now it was fear more than anything that had brought her here late at night in a thunderstorm. It was fear that a client who six months earlier had come in charming her, and nearly everyone else in the firm along with the promise of twenty million plus billable hours per year that had brought her here. No one suspected the tall, dark, handsome, successful businessman had a secret, and that he was actually a clever criminal.

What does a real criminal look like anyway? She'd defended many. She knew the answer and it was that they looked exactly like the rest of us. John Pierson had built up such a good facade that he'd gone undetected. That was exactly what he was counting on when he entered the offices of Florrick, Agos & Associates. It was no accident that Pierson had chosen Alicia as his attorney. He researched the women that worked for him well. He'd chosen the perfect time to come in and ask for her assistance just weeks after she had to resign as State's Attorney elect. He knew she and the firm would be at a vulnerable state then, and took advantage of it.. He wasn't wrong. Alicia had no idea when Pierson walked into her office and asked if she could take care of his venture capital business transactions all those months ago, that he was a criminal. She also didn't know that his victims were women just like her. Strong, independent, successful women who he charmed to get what he wanted or needed. But if they didn't produce the results he wanted he got rid of them.

Six months after meeting him, Pierson had come in needing her help on a criminal suit against his business partner who had been accused of rape. The state's attorney's office had dropped the case because there was never enough evidence to convict him. So the victim decided to sue, and had hired Lockhart Gardner as her firm.

Pierson insisted Alicia be the head attorney on the case. His insistence was met with resistance. Ten months earlier there had been a quiet pact made between Diane and Cary that Alicia and Will were to never be put on the same case again. Diane hadn't told Will, but Cary had put his foot down more than once with Alicia and after the trial she'd faced against Will ten months earlier she couldn't really argue with Cary's logic. Will and Alicia both still held some hurt and bitterness from her exit from his firm. While they could have a civil conversation on the rare occasion they happened to meet at Chicago law functions, it was a completely different story when they were in court together. They knew each other too well, knew all the right buttons to push, and it turned the courtroom into a fair amount of chaos.

In a meeting between Alicia and Pierson, he threatened to pull his business if Alicia didn't head the case. He argued that, who better to use than a lawyer who used to work at the firm that was suing his partner? Who better to use than someone who used to have an intimate relationship with their lead attorney? The relationship had been exposed during her campaign after some of the emails from Lockhart Gardner had been hacked into and released to the public. Pierson even went as far as telling her she that maybe she could use that past relationship to convince Will to settle this case quietly. She would have normally told the client to get lost after such a statement. But they needed his business so she took the case.

Things had gone smoothly until two weeks prior when after a few weeks of heated depositions and attempts at settling, Will's client wouldn't accept any of Alicia's offers, and the case moved to trial. That's when Pierson began to slowly put fear into Alicia like she'd never know before. He threatened her life if she didn't win. Which at first she didn't take seriously. In the following days she realized he was very serious and she would have gone to the authorities, but he'd threatened Grace's life if she told anyone.

So now here she was stepping off the elevator walking through the quiet halls towards Will's office. In less than twelve hours the judge would be coming back with a verdict. She wondered where the reinforcement was that had figured out Pierson was the bad guy as she approached the office. Nowhere was her answer. Not even the FBI had figured out what she had over the course of the past two weeks. And she was about to be the next victim if she couldn't convince Will to get his client to settle.

Will was her last defense against this man, her last protection. He could protect her, literally save her life. But she didn't deserve his protection anymore. He'd made that perfectly clear over the past eighteen months. If it had been two years earlier when she still worked for him she would have told him everything, and she knew he would have done everything he could to stop this threat on her life. But that was then and this was now.

Will sat at his desk looking through the pile of work that sat before him not reading any of it. His mind was on Alicia and some of the things she'd tried to do and use to win over the course of the trial. It had taken everyone by surprise, especially him. He wasn't sure if he'd been the one to change in the past months, or if it had been her, but everything about her had seemed off to him.

She paused at the door watching him, thinking he would look up and acknowledge her, but he didn't. So she knocked lightly on the door and then moved into the all too familiar space of his office. She noticed he hadn't changed a thing. He looked surprised when he looked up and saw her, but before he could object to her being there she sat confidently in the chair in front of his desk.

"I'm here to offer a settlement."

"Really?" he said with a smirk, sitting back in his chair. "We're not negotiating at this point. I'm pretty sure the judge will rule in my client's favor tomorrow." He folded his arms across his chest.

"Oh come on Will, my client didn't do this and you know it. This whole suit was just an attempt on your client's part to destroy my client's reputation. Their companies are in competition. He's a good man, and would have never even touched your client."

Her eyes never wandered from his as he sat up in his chair and leaned forward. "If that's true then why am I confident that my client will walk away with more money tomorrow than I'm sure your client is willing to settle for tonight? Why would you even be here offering to settle if you're so sure your client's innocent?"

The real issue was that her client really was innocent, really was everything she'd just said. It was Pierson who had committed the rape, but his partner was taking the blame for it.

"My client and his partner don't want their multi-million dollar company's name drug through the mud, and he's innocent." She shot back raising her tone.

"What's he offering?" Will asked, not because he was going to take it to his client, but two could play this game.

"Three million and your client keeps this quiet."

Will chuckled. "So he did do it?"

Alicia stood placing her hands on his desk leaning forward. "No he didn't do it." Her tone had risen and it was irritating him. But she had to convince him. She was about to push the line of silence she'd been threatened with over the edge. "My client is innocent."

"No, there wasn't enough evidence to convict him. He was never proven innocent," Will said, raising his tone to meet hers.

"So my client's guilty because your client gave a sketch artist a description of the man that raped her and it looked similar to my client? There was never a match to the DNA. Prosecutors thought it was someone in his family, but that didn't pan out. Everyone had a solid alibi and the DNA didn't match any of them. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe my client has a sibling out there that no one knows about?" And then she stopped. She'd just given away more than she should have. But it didn't matter she knew the whole thing sounded crazy.

"Do you know how ridiculous that sounds Alicia?" He stood to meet her gaze. "That there's a relative of your client whom he knows nothing about, but just happened to be in the same restaurant as your client that night?" He paused, his eyes boring into hers. "Let alone the fact that I can barely afford to eat at that restaurant, what you're telling me is that your mufti-million dollar client just happens to have a blood relative who he doesn't know, with just as much money as he does in the same city? You're grasping at straws." He placed his hands on his desk and leaned forward moving within inches of her.

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm telling you." She held her gaze and he couldn't help but be startled at the fact that she looked completely honest in what she'd just said. He'd spent hours staring into those eyes in the past and he could still read them. But this whole notion was absurd. He looked down briefly and for the second time that day noticed the purple colored flesh of a bruise on her. This time it sat just above her left breast and under her collar bone. A different spot from the one he'd caught sight of earlier. It was hard to miss at the angle she occupied in front of him. She'd covered it well and unless you were at just the right angle and close to her like he was, it would have remained undetected. The thought of how that bruise had come to be there sickened him. He looked back up into her eyes and continued in a lowered tone.

"Alicia I'm not negotiating with you anymore. We are going to wait for the judge's verdict tomorrow."

She looked away, and neither one said anything for a few moments. He was still trying to figure out what was going on with her. She had spent the entire trial fighting his every point to the bitter end, just as she was now doing, and it infuriated him. However, part of him could not resist how attractive this side of her was. He still had feelings for her, but they had been buried for months. It was just in the past six months he'd allowed some of them to creep back into his subconscious. If he'd really stopped to think about it before this moment he would have admitted he could sense something was wrong.

She looked back over to him. "You aren't even going to take the offer to your client?" she said, holding her firm stance leant over his desk.

"No" he said, standing up straight again. She looked at him for a moment then away again. As she did he caught a brief glimpse of the fear that gripped her at the moment. She sighed and turned to grab her things. The offer was all she had. There wasn't anything else she could do.

"Alicia, why are you fighting this so hard?" he said, moving out from behind his desk.

She didn't meet his gaze but continued to pull her bag over her shoulder. "This is my last defense, my last case. I just wanted it to be a win." She turned to leave his office and briefly looked over to him as she made her way to the door.

"Wait, what do you mean this is your last case?'

She paused at the door and turned back around as he started to walk towards her. The confusion was written all over his face, and for the first time in nearly two years he actually looked at her with gentle eyes. She was ready to crack and he didn't even know it. All she wanted was for him to call his client and make the deal. That was all he had to do to save her, but she wasn't going to beg, and she couldn't tell him the truth or Grace's life would be in great danger. So she responded with a lie.

"With Peter's campaign, my schedule has become full. It's getting to be too complicated to follow him around the country and run a law firm at the same time. When he gets elected, and I think he will, we'll be moving to D.C. anyway." The sadness in her eyes didn't go unnoticed, and he was surprised at her response. He couldn't believe she was actually going to give up the law again for her husband whom he suspected had been the one to talk her into this.

"Is this your decision or Peter's?"

Alicia shook her head and became defensive again. She didn't have time to play this game anymore. "Mine Will. It was my decision, all of this comes down to me," she said, pointing her finger to herself. She could have left it there, but she was beyond caring at this point. "This case was my decision, and now I'm going to lose it because of some ridiculous notion that I had eighteen months ago to start my own firm, and be forced to take on this case."

He looked at her processing what she was saying. She turned to fully face him and walked within a few feet of him as he spoke.

"What do you mean forced too take it? No one forces a name partner to take on any case. How do you and Cary run that firm anyway? Is he the final word on cases?"

She was surprised at the gentleness in his tone, but she continued raising hers. "No, I decide which cases I take. Just for the record Will, I didn't leave because I wanted to poach your clients, or stab you and Diane in the back." If this was her last chance to talk with him she had to get this out.

"What does you leaving my firm have to do with this case, or you quitting the law again?"

"I just want to set the record straight. You're the one who has spent the past eighteen months trying to ruin my firm because you've never been interested in the real reason I left. Not me. I stopped trying to fight you a long time ago, partially due the fact that I finally realized you were just out for revenge. You threw everything we ever had out the door without ever trying to talk to me about it. You've always just assumed since the day you fired me that everything we had, or everything that I had done over the previous five years was just an act. That I didn't mean any of it. I never thought in a million years you'd crush me like you did that day, and hold your bitterness towards me for so long. Well guess what? After tomorrow it won't be my firm anymore, and you can move on with your life." He realized there was some truth in her words and he almost let her go but as she got to the door he spoke up again.

"Then tell me the real reason." he said, moving over to her. "Let's have this discussion now." He reached out and grabbed her arm to prevent her from leaving. She immediately tensed up at his touch and inhaled deeply. She looked terrified as she pulled away from his grasp and backed up. He couldn't fully understand her reaction.

It took a moment for her to ease the anxiety that had just swept over her. Finally she looked up at him again, and in a calmer tone said, "It doesn't matter anymore. I guess I had a different view of things back then than you did." She turned once again to leave, but she stopped when he spoke.

"You're wrong. I was bitter for awhile, but I'm not anymore. And since we're setting the record straight I have tried to talk to you. You're the one who has avoided me the past six months. I did call. After your resignation I called. Your resignation had Peter's hand written all over it." He watched as she looked down at the floor then turned her gaze back to his. The slight sense of guilt returning to her.

"I know" She inhaled swallowing hard the lump that was now set in her throat. She was scared to death and her defenses were wearing down. Were they really to a point where they were starting to forgive each other? She didn't know, and likely in less than a day it wouldn't matter anyway. Here he was proposing a possible talk that may lead to some sort of reconciliation. Something she'd realized in that moment she wanted. The silence at that quiet late hour in his office was soothing for her. She realized that his office was the only place she'd felt safe in weeks, but she had things to do. She'd have to leave at any moment. Finally he spoke up breaking the silence.

"Alicia, where did the bruises come from?" he said, moving cautiously towards her again.

The question caught her off guard bringing her thoughts back to reality. She wanted so badly to tell him exactly what was going on, so he could put an end to it, but she couldn't. She pulled up her sleeves revealing her wrists. A purple circle covered both. "These bruises? They're from the handcuffs being placed to tightly the other day when I was held in contempt." All true, and yet another mystery in his mind as to why she'd lost control and gotten herself held in contempt in the first place. That was a line he never thought he'd see Alicia Florrick cross. He moved to stand just a foot in front of her.

"Not those bruises. The one further up on your arm and the one on your chest." He didn't dare touch her after her previous reaction, so he placed his hand on his upper chest to indicate where he meant. She couldn't figure out how he'd even seen them. She'd been meticulous in choosing her clothing the past few days so they wouldn't be seen.

She looked down backing up from him again towards the door. "I have to go," she said, taking one last glance at him. "Goodbye Will." She turned and hurried out the door before he could say anymore. He watched as she rushed down the hall towards the elevators. He was left standing there with confusing, unfinished conversations running through his mind, and a thought as to whom he assumed had been the cause of her bruising. He'd have a word with that person after court the next day. No matter what his relationship with Alicia looked like, there was no excuse for her to be treated that way. Then he contemplated the way she had just looked at him and spoken her goodbye. It haunted him. It was if she was saying goodbye forever.

A/N; A big thanks to Missthirdward and Guategal for encouraging me to write this a few months back! Reviews are always welcomed!