A/N: Begun for the "It's a Lockhart Gardner Tradition" 2012 Summer Ficathon, worked on by sentence increments ever since. Because I can't get enough of jealous Alicia/Lana snarking, or over the idea that Alicia is always subconsciously punishing Kalinda for "cheating" on her.
Begins at the conclusion of the Season 3 finale, so spoilers through 3x22.
So as it turns out, Kalinda is married.
Married, apparently, to someone dangerous. Someone with a horror movie villain laugh, who also has Alicia's home phone number. This is a lovely bow to top a motley gift-package of secrets that has left Alicia vacillating between frustrated, puzzled, and simply done.
Tonight, Alicia refuses to think about it. Having pizza with Peter and the kids in that big, rambling house with Zach's growth chart on the wall and the tree they all planted together in the backyard might have proved a decent distraction, except for the fact that sometimes Peter's mere presence reminds her of Kalinda - mental effigies of one time, before I knew you, dancing through her imagination like grotesque marionettes.
So she's home alone, and once again reminded of how horrible she is at it - the alone thing. She tries to read a book; it seems the thing to do when you have time to kill, and this one is a best-seller with a shiny stamp of Oprah's approval. But twenty-three pages in, the prose is just annoying Alicia. Too many similes, maybe; every other word seems to be like or as, and she finds herself wishing the author would just call things what they are. The tv proves no better: dozens of network dramas full of characters she doesn't know, a dozen reality shows with questionably talented entertainers, depending on people with too much time on their hands to call and vote now and make them the Next Big Star.
Her apartment isn't that big - certainly not as big as the house she's invested so much time and emotional energy into procuring. Apparently her children take up more space than she realized, because without them here it feels too open. Drafty, even. "Cold and empty as a scorned wife," she thinks, trying on one of those similes and laughing at her own macabre cleverness.
The liquor cabinet beckons. Now that's entertainment. But closer examination confirms her fears - she hadn't taken the time to replenish her supply since Owen's last visit, and what remains in the tequila bottle barely covers the glass bottom. There is a nearly full bottle of expensive vodka left-over from her hostess days, but she hasn't been able to touch the stuff since a particularly unfortunate incident in college that involved Truth or Dare and a midnight trip to the nearby playground (Will has been sworn to secrecy, but still sometimes slyly asks if she wants a Cosmopolitan, just to chuckle at the face she makes).
No one is laughing tonight, and Alicia scowls at her lack of foresight.
When the doorbell rings, she jumps so much she nearly knocks over the collection of highballs and brandy snifters that line the top of the cabinet. In a flash she's reminded of that movie-villain laugh. Is he dangerous?
Yeah.
Peering through the peephole, she half-expects to see a hulking, menacing figure in a hockey mask, ignoring the fact that the boogeyman would likely find a more creative mode of entry than the front door (and also the fact that just because she'd said he was dangerous doesn't mean that Kalinda was married to Freddy Krueger). Who she sees instead is less alarming, but somehow more irritating.
Lana Delaney has been a progressively sharper thorn in her side, and Alicia is sure that the prickliness has something (everything) to do with Kalinda Sharma. Being that this is just the person Alicia is trying to forget, Lana's too-pretty-for-government-work face is a highly unwelcome sight.
Still, Alicia's bored, and has not just a little aggression to expend tonight. She opens the door.
She and Agent Delaney share office attire in common, save the short coat Lana is wearing despite the relatively warm weather; it's only then Alicia realizes that the entire time she's been trying to relax, she's been in her work suit.
Typical.
She leans against the doorframe, coolly appraising. "Why?"
"You didn't answer your phone," Lana says, too-big eyes and too-simple answers.
Well. That much was true. Alicia had decided that there was nothing else to talk about, on the matters in which Agent Delaney seemed the most interested. "Unless you have a subpoena, I'm not discussing my client with you." Reason number three hundred forty-eight to be annoyed with Kalinda - the questionable company she keeps.
"I'm not gay," Kalinda clarified a year too late.
Yes, thank you. I figured that out along with the revelation that you slept with my husband.
"It's not what you think," Lana continues smoothly. "I have new business to discuss. You and I are on the same side on this one."
Alicia has had an inkling for a very long time that Agent Delaney is trouble; Alicia trusts her about as much as she trusts... well, most of the people she encounters through her work on a daily basis. The sentiment is mutual, she's sure - which makes these impromptu visits especially perplexing. She tilts her head, challenging her visitor to earn entrance.
Lana's game. "You had a class action case last year against a pharmaceutical company selling a bad drug. You were tricked into accepted a joke settlement."
Canning. Alicia's not sure she wants to think about him any more than she wants to think about Kalinda. "Don't tell me people are killing themselves again."
"No, thank God. But they're misbranding. Marketing a drug as treating lupus, when the FDA says no. Basically, they need to stop. They need to stop everything. They think they can get away with murder because they've already done it, with minimal blowback." The irritation in Lana's voice seems real enough, but these are easy enough things to fake. "I want to stop them, but I need more information supporting the fact that they willfully disregard public health issues and federal guidelines."
"You want to shut them down, not just slap a fine on them?" Alicia cocks an eyebrow at her. "This doesn't seem like your type of case."
Lana smiles wryly. "Not every day is glamour and intrigue, no matter what the cop shows tell you."
That part rings true too; Alicia deals enough with that side of the justice system to know that police work is at least ninety percent drudgery. "This really couldn't have waited until the morning?" she asks anyway, because the thing about drudgery is that it's rarely urgent.
Lana's eyelashes lower... picture-perfect conciliation. "I confess - I have another agenda."
No shit, Sherlock, Alicia's mind scoffs, and the mom in her immediately chastises the language choice.
"I know our previous meetings were... not as pleasant as they could have been. I regret that." Lana loosens her trench; from somewhere inside she procures a bottle of amber-colored something-or-other and holds it out in front of her - a high-proof peace offering. "Let me make it up to you."
Alicia eyes the bottle.
"Aberlour A'bunadh. Single malt. Batch 15," Lana tries.
It's all foreign to Alicia - she's not a scotch-drinker - but she turns to eye her good-as-empty liquor cabinet.
Lana sees the notch in Alicia's armor. "It's rich. Caramel notes. I think if you try it, you won't regret it."
Her voice has a teasing note, and Alicia deliberately ignores the cutesiness. She has been wanting a distraction, and there is always an extra measure of satisfaction she gets from besting Canning, who she assumes is still representing this particular branch of Big Pharma. And if Agent Delaney leaves, she might take her particular brand of medication with her. There is a long-suffering sigh as Alicia reaches for the bottle. "A half hour," she warns, and receives no protest. "And we're not talking about Kalinda."
The name still feels like it has a sharp edge to it, leaving Alicia's lips. She presses them together to dull the tingle.
Agent Delaney gives a winning smile, slides off her coat in agreement. The click of her pumps echo on the tile, then muffle as she follows Alicia from the foyer into the living area.
She's not certain what glass is most appropriate, but absolutely refuses to care about impressing Agent Delaney. She pulls out the brandy snifters and dares Lana with her eyes to criticize the choice. Lana doesn't, accepting the glass graciously with elegant, manicured fingers that scream anything but police work. Alicia's eyes linger on those fingers; wonders with a hint of distaste where they've been.
"She reminds me of you," Will had told Alicia off-handedly once, after one of Agent Delaney's visits to Lockhart Gardner. He was flipping through a stack of depositions and completely seeming to miss Alicia's choking on her swallow of too-strong coffee from the cart downstairs. When he glanced up and saw her expression - caught somewhere between skepticism and horror - he added "physically. As in, is that Alicia Cavanaugh I see in the group study room in Wolff Library? Not as in whatever other way you're thinking that is obviously negative."
She's still not a scotch person - too malty for her, really - but it is strong, and expensive-tasting, and she's in too foul a mood tonight to be picky about such things. She takes a bigger first gulp than she should, while Lana watches her with amused velvet eyes.
"Let's go," Alicia says, and then, to Lana's open mouth, "don't forget the rules." The returned obedient nod satisfies her. She leads Agent Delaney to the family room and absolutely does not think about how she knows having this woman in her house is a bad decision.
But to Lana's credit, she stays strictly business for an impressive length of time. They talk about labeling and advertising and interstate commerce, and Alicia is mildly surprised that Agent Delaney indeed seems to have done her homework. Although she tries not to fall prey to stereotypes, she sometimes finds it hard to believe that this woman devotes time to anything other than her skincare routine and finding ways to insert herself in the life of Kalinda Sharma.
"How long have you known Kalinda?" Lana had asked Alicia in her office, "You're friends, right?" And Alicia has been far too tired to even let herself hear the implications, but now in the sanctuary of her own home everything feels a little more personal, and something is ringing in her ears.
Yes, she's distracted now. But by mid-conversation Alicia is still feeling good about there being enough evidence between them to cause a serious blow to the drug company. Three-quarters of the way through, she is feeling good about wiping a few smug smiles from Louis Canning's face. Near the end, she is just feeling good. She had doubted letting Lana past her doorstep, but Agent Delaney's position gives her a power that Alicia simply doesn't have, and sometimes when you need something, rules are bendable.
"Flexible," Kalinda had clarified, and it felt very much like playing with semantics. Across the couch, Lana is talking with her hands folded on her laps, demure. Alicia wonders how she'd classify herself if Alicia would ever, ever deign to ask someone again.
Lana pauses. "All is well?"
Alicia's head is spinning a bit. She's only had about three fingers' worth of the scotch, but she feels like she's downed half the bottle. She wonders if... but no. She does happen to think that Agent Delaney is perhaps a bit crazy. But Alicia doesn't believe she is Mickey-slipping crazy. "It's a bit strong," Lana says, reading Alicia's expression. "I maybe should have warned you."
Somehow responding to that seems like losing the upper hand, but she is getting past the point of being able to discuss business effectively. "You don't dress like an FBI agent," she says instead, because Lana's blouse is buttoned just a notch above her breasts, and her slacks are just a little too fitted.
Lana smiles, lips together, and for a minute Alicia imagines there might be shark teeth under there. "I could have worn my raid jacket, if it made you more comfortable. Perhaps my bulletproof vest?"
Alicia is having a hard time picturing it - the ample cleavage and too-snug pants make more sense to her. And then she stops trying to picture it because she's staring.
Flexible. Jesus. Fuzzily she regrets this whole thing, this trying to make something work. Some strange Pandora's Box is open in her head, undesirable escapees on the loose.
Lana recognizes the tangent; takes liberties with it.
"Your place is nice. Not what I expected."
Off-topic again - a place Alicia had proclaimed to not want to go. But she started it, and has lost the right to protest. "What did you expect?"
Lana shrugs a shoulder. "More beige, maybe. Sturdy furniture with flourishes. Paisley. Something befitting a woman of your prestigious standing, fine morals, and traditional lifestyle." Her tone is twinkling, for God's sake, and she might as well be laughing. Then she fake-sobers. "But then again, maybe you aren't quite as you appear. After all, how many moral, prestigious, traditional people get close to... well, the people you associate with."
Okay, no. Alicia can ignore a lot of goading, but Lana Delaney has the delicacy of an anvil, and now it's taking up way too much space in Alicia's mind anyway. There is no dancing around an elephant that takes up the whole room, and Alicia can't dance very well when she's drunk anyway.
Her lips have loosened. "Look. I don't know what the deal is, with you and Kalinda. I don't want to know. But it really shouldn't involve me."
And suddenly, drugs and Canning and misbranding feel faint and far away, the flimsiest of alibis. Objection, your honor, entry was granted under false pretenses.
"Hmm. It really shouldn't," Agent Delaney agrees idly, wholly unsurprised that the bait has been taken and tipping her snifter toward Alicia before taking another sip. "But in any case, I could say the same thing to you."
There's not a government agent here anymore, it seems - just a jealous lover with too-perfect skin and twisted intuition, and this is what Alicia gets for trying to make something work. "But it wouldn't be true. You do want to know. You wouldn't even be here if you didn't."
"Again, I could say the same thing to you. Protest if you want. Your curiosity is terminal."
The point of tonight - not thinking of Kalinda - is failing miserably. (And maybe that's what Lana feels like most or all of the time: trying to suppress the insuppressible, trying to close off her mind to the one person who always finds a way in.) Horrible as Alicia is at being alone, it's sounding better and better at the moment. "Are we done?" She thinks of standing to punctuate her point, but is afraid of wobbling. "It's getting late, and I do have a life." It's not true, but Lana need not know it.
"Don't be angry." Her voice is silky smooth, pacifying. Alicia imagines briefly being the type of woman who would catfight in the normal way, how satisfying could be that slap.
Lana continues. "What I'm trying to say is that I get it now. I'd been wracking my brain, trying to understand what makes you so special. There's something about you, Alicia." Lana sets her snifter on the coaster, angles herself toward Alicia. And really, Lana gives her plenty of time to stop what is obviously about to happen; her movements are slow and deliberate. She reaches out, strokes a strand of hair from Alicia's face. "I'd like to find out more."
Alicia has purposely stayed on the fringe of this, not wanting part of Kalinda's mess any more than Kalinda wants it. But now she is finding herself distinctly in the middle, and there is power here, consequential enough to be a pawn in this particular game, strong enough to force the board. "Really," she says. Flexible, she thinks. Wouldn't it be nice.
"She's the complicated one," Lana says, thumb brushing a hypnotic rhythm against Alicia's chin. "There's always something. It's easier to leave her out of the equation altogether, don't you think?"
Kalinda is not out of the equation. She is the equal sign. But Lana's hand is warm and her eyes magnetic, and Alicia wonders, wonders what Kalinda would think if she knew this was happening. Wonders why she cares.
It would really be a good thing to stop this charade now, Alicia thinks as Lana kisses her - lips soft, but not at all tentative. It's the second pair of lips Alicia's kissed that have kissed Kalinda's, and she briefly and crazily thinks of why she never tasted it - some flavor of dark mystery, of secrets and pain.
It's clear now – the answer to Alicia's very first "why." Misbranding, Louis Canning, all of it flimsy excuses because it will always, always be about Kalinda.
"I know what you're doing," Alicia says faintly upon parting, before moving in again, sampling a forbidden delicacy: something you'll regret in the morning because you always knew it was bad for you.
Lana's hand is wandering, and she murmurs against Alicia's jawline. "I've never been good at subtlety."
Point.
"You won't make her jealous," Alicia tries one more time, and Lana laughs musically - knowing.
"I thought you said you didn't want to talk about Kalinda," she whispers, that wandering hand risking more adventure. "So let's not talk about her."
Lana's fingers are exactly the same color as Alicia's thigh where they come together. Alicia stares, thinks again of where they've been. This time, Alicia's distaste is replaced with a dark curiosity.
She reminds me of you, Will had said. Physically. Alicia wonders if Kalinda has ever noticed that - the near-perfect match of porcelain skin, the fall of mahogany hair.
Lana is trouble. This is not a thing that a married, suburban (fine, prestigious) mother of two should be doing.
Tonight, that somehow makes it absolutely the perfect thing to do.
She laughs as she pulls Lana toward her, with feeling this time; Lana makes the pleased sound of a woman who's gotten what she wants, and kisses deliberately - committedly. She's got something to prove.
Alicia's sort of counting on it.
Somewhere else in Chicago, a shot is fired.
Closing all senses to the things she's coming to know, Alicia refuses to listen.