A/N: My ever-active writer's brain cannot seem to stay in just one place. So, yes, another multi-chapter from me. Title taken from a line in a Paul Simon song, and the lyrics below are from The Weepies' "World Spins Madly On."

Some canon sadness in this one, mixed with happy flashbacks. I took some liberties with their explanations of their lives, because I don't think we ever found out where they went to undergrad or anything like that. This is set in the same universe as "Last Chance at Happiness," but you don't need to read that to understand what's happening here.

Hope you enjoy. If you do, there will be more. :) And I promise updates to my other stories shortly!

I woke up and wished that I was dead

with an aching in my head

I lay motionless in bed

I thought of you and where you'd gone

let the world spin madly on

It was a few days before she got out of bed.

The past several mornings, in that split second before full consciousness, she'd forgotten that he was gone.

And then she realized her head was pounding and her heart was aching for that very reason.

She lay there, motionless, her eyes fixated on the ceiling, before she turned and pulled the covers back over her head.

The world kept moving, but Alicia did not.

It was a decision she made when Zach and Grace came into her room. He sat next to her on the bed, looking concerned.

"I'm okay," she whispered to her son, but he shook his head.

"You don't have to pretend," he told her, and he allowed her to pull him into her arms and hold him as she cried.

"I need...I need to go away for a few days. You guys will be okay with dad?"

"Of course. Whatever you need, mom," he said, and Grace nodded from the doorway.

She takes a window seat on the left side of the plane, shrugging on a soft gray jacket that matches the color of the sky outside. It's cold and drizzling in Chicago, not atypical for the beginning of April.

As the flight attendants give the safety demonstration, Alicia watches the rain drip down the tiny windowpane. She doesn't need to listen; she's flown dozens of times before. She knows how to fasten her seatbelt. She knows the life vests are under the seat, that oxygen masks will drop down from overhead if necessary. She knows the lights on the floor will guide her to the exits, of which there are six.

There are other things that she doesn't know or understand, but these are not things the flight attendants could explain to her.

They can't explain to her why the bailiff hadn't snapped his holster shut, or why he wasn't paying any attention to the twitchy, anxious young man who sat next to him. They can't explain to her why Jeffrey started shooting people, or why he shot one person in particular. They can't explain to her why the paramedics weren't able to get there fast enough to save that person, either.

They can't explain to her why that person, her best friend, the true love of her life, is dead. They can't explain to her how or why she's supposed to come to terms with this sudden, unwarranted, and unfair loss of life.

It hadn't made sense a week ago, and it doesn't make any more sense now.

As the power of the engines makes the plane start to rumble, Alicia begins to feel uneasy about the journey ahead of her. She knows it's necessary—something she needs to do—but it is going to be among the most difficult experiences of her life.

Alicia is going home to say goodbye.

It hasn't been her home in a long time; not for almost twenty years. But it will always feel like home, because it's where they began their lives together.

It's where it all started.

It's where she met William Paul Gardner, and Will would always feel like home to her.

Since he hadn't been given the opportunity to say goodbye to her, the least she can do—for their bad timing, for their missed chances, for their love that never really got to be—the least she can do is say goodbye.

For both of them.

As the plane takes off down the runway, she leans back and closes her eyes, picturing clearly in her mind August 23, 1991.

She'll need to start at the beginning.

He was handsome; incredibly so, if she allowed herself to admit that. He was doing cannonballs into one end of the pool while she sipped moscato from a plastic red cup at the other. She couldn't tell if he was trying to show off or just have fun, but a small part of her secretly hoped it was the latter.

Alicia noticed that most, if not all of the girls were staring at him as he hopped out of the pool and onto dry land. He grabbed a towel from a chair nearby, and when he looked up, his eyes met hers and never left.

"Hey," he said when he made his way to her side of the pool. "I'm Will. Gardner."

"Alicia Cavanaugh," she said, smiling as she accepted his handshake.

"Alicia," he repeated, almost as if by saying it out loud, he would ingrain those three syllables on his lips forever. He pulled the navy polo shirt he'd been wearing earlier back over his head and adjusted the collar. "Can I get you more wine?" he asked, nodding toward her cup.

"Oh, sure," she said, offering over her cup. "It was the moscato."

Will smiled. "Hang onto your cup."

Alicia looked at him curiously, but grinned in understanding when he picked up an unopened bottle from the picnic table.

"Let's sit," she suggested, as she sat gently in her flowy red sundress. He took his place next to her, dipping his feet back into the water. Her toes skimmed the surface for a few minutes before she put her feet in.

"So, Alicia. Tell me about you," he said, popping the cork out of the bottle and taking a sip.

"Oh, I'm not that interesting," she replied, blushing a little.

"Sure you are. Where did you do your undergrad?"

"UNC," she said, and he realized he could hear a little bit of that Chapel Hill lilt in her voice. "I majored in Public Policy and minored in Classics. Kinda nerdy, I know."

"Not at all," he assured her. "I went to Dartmouth. Majored in Government."

Alicia chuckled. "I was supposed to go to Dartmouth. Well, I wanted to go to Dartmouth. Or Brown. I got in, but…" She paused. "My dad died, and my mom wasn't...isn't...all that present in my life, and there were money things…" she trailed off. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get into all of that."

"It's okay," he said, and she couldn't comprehend how kind his eyes were, or how sweet his voice sounded when he said those words. "We all have our family things, don't we?"

"Yeah. I also have a younger brother, Owen. He's smart, but he doesn't really apply himself. I keep telling him he needs to get it together so he can get into a good college. He's so good at math. I think he might end up coming here, to D.C., so he can be close to me. I'd like that," she admits.

"You're a good sister. A much better sibling than I am."

She laughed. "Now what would make you say that?"

Will shrugged. "I'm not very close with my older sister. Sara. She...nags a lot," he explained. "And my younger sister, Aubrey...I should have watched out for her more. She's kinda crazy."

"Don't beat yourself up. It's probably just normal teenage girl crazy," Alicia said.

They talked long into the night, drinking moscato straight from the bottle and telling each other things they'd never told anyone else.

Alicia had never believed in the possibility of love at first sight, but that night, getting drunk on moscato and sitting next to the smartest, kindest, most handsome man she'd ever met, she might have believed in it just a little.