Summary: a kind of AU fic, where Peter is not married to Alicia, in fact Alicia doesn't even exist in this fic and Diane and Peter already have 'a thing', when Will comes into the picture
Timeline: approximately 7 years before the Pilot of the show, when Will's firm merged with Stern/Lockhart and he became a name partner
Disclaimer: unfortunately I don't own the characters, they belong to the writers of TGW and CBS

Note: I decided to post the first chapter of this fic to test the waters here. I know it's sth new and not sure it's to everyone's liking, but I'm having way too much fun with it and I hope you'll enjoy too. I'm not begging for reviews here, but if you want me to post more of this fic, you really have to tell me, so I know.


Chapter One

"Objection, not in evidence," her voice echoes through the courtroom and from the corner of her eyes she can actually see her co council's head turn in her direction. Her reactivity seems to be better than his.

"Councillors, please approach the bench," the judge says, trying to sound patient.

The trial session only began forty minutes ago, but she and the ASA have been by his bench quite a few times already. The tension is just getting higher and higher, both of them wants to win this case and both of them has a special reason for it. She has to make a good impression on her new law firm partner, who's sitting next to her, as second chair and merely as an observer of her courtroom tactics. They have to get to know each other and the other's legal strategies as best as possible.

The ASA's main reason is to defeat her and the fact that she may have agreed to a date with him in case she loses this case, just makes him more eager. She doesn't really remember it the same way he does, but he swears that he told her he'd take her out to dinner if she lost and she agreed. She tried to argue with him about it, but decided to just let it rest instead, partly because she was confident in her case and partly because she knew that she could still talk herself out of the appointment later.

She places her glasses on the desk and with the rhythmical sound of her high heels on the floor she approaches the bench. She tries her best not to even look at her tall opponent who soon arrives beside her. He let her get there first, he always pretends to be a real gentleman, on the other hand hiding evidence from the defence is apparently not beyond him either.

"Your Honour, our investigators found the murder weapon only 2 hours ago," the ASA tries to explain, but it just adds fuel to her flame.

"Two hours ago? Your Honour, I just had a meeting with Mr Florrick an hour ago and he didn't mention anything about finding the murder weapon," probably she shouldn't bring up that meeting, since it didn't have much to do with the case, but she has nothing to lose, she has to at least try to exclude the evidence.

"Is that true Mr Florrick?" the judge looks in his direction, but she doesn't, she just stares at the judge, trying to figure out Peter's next step, so she can be one step ahead of him.

"Yes, Your Honour, but Miss Lockhart left in a hurry and I didn't have time to share the news with her."

She knows she shouldn't do it, but she simply can't suppress her laughter, if Peter wants to blame her, she should at least try to benefit from it.

"We were discussing a deal, he offered us a ridiculous deal without mentioning the new evidence," it isn't true, but she can't exactly tell the judge what happened in Peter's office and she knows he can't talk about it either. At least she tries to get him off guard with this statement.

"Maybe I did it because I wanted to give you a last chance to accept that deal before I mention we found the murder weapon."

She has to admit it's very gentlemanlike to say something like that and a nice attempt to influence the judge, but she knows him too well and hopefully the judge sees throw him as well.

"And why would you do that?" she asks, finally turning in his direction a little and looks into his eyes for a short while. She sees that he has an answer for her, one he can't say out loud and she almost starts to smile, when the judge interferes.

"Miss Lockhart, Mr Florrick, may I remind you that there's a trial going on here? The objection is overruled, but Mr Florrick, please make sure that the defence gets to examine the murder weapon."

"But Your Honour," Diane tries her last chance, even though she knows she's lost this round.

"I said overruled."

She has to control her anger against the judge, it's not his fault after all, of course she had no chance excluding the evidence, but at least she tried. Her anger is forming against the man, who is now walking on her other side as they both turned around. She looks over to him and she sees him smiling. She turns her head forward and takes her seat again. Maybe Peter Florrick won this little battle, but she surely won't let him win the war.