Author's note: Here's another old episode reference, set right after the season 1 finale ("Running"), back when the characters used 'phone' as a verb as often as a noun. Once again, these are not my characters, but I do enjoy borrowing them. Enjoy!


He waited all night for a return call, but his phone never rang. No, that wasn't true. His phone had rung, several times, but none of those calls mattered - they weren't from her.

He had finished the ridiculously expensive bottle of wine, still drinking from a coffee mug, powerless to forget how many times he and Alicia had done the same thing at Georgetown. By the time the bottle was empty, he was beginning to realize she wasn't going to phone him back, and he moved on to whiskey.

Since the office was empty, and he had no intention of going back to his place, Will turned the television back on and flipped idly through the channels. He was looking for the Cubs game, but he kept running into press conference footage, particularly the moment Peter pulled Alicia up on stage.

Angry and disheartened, he flung the remote onto a nearby table after turning the television off. The phone that had not been out of reach since he'd called her hours earlier rested heavily in his pocket, and he considered trying once more.

Unfortunately, there was nothing left to say. His last message had used up all of his ammunition and, as much as he loved her, he wasn't going to beg. He pulled the phone from his pocket and dropped it onto his desk; then, he walked away.


What seemed like hours after Eli and Peter rushed her onto the podium, the crowd finally dissipated and Alicia was free to retrieve her phone from Eli, to seek peace in the back hallway. She blinked hard, trying to shake the annoying resonance of the numerous flashbulbs she'd faced that night, and hoped that Will had left a message. For a moment, she wondered if Eli had interfered in any way, given that he knew something was up, but she dismissed the notion. She glanced at her phone and saw that she had a voicemail.

She could hear Peter and Eli in the banquet hall, crowing about the success of the press conference and decided not to wait any longer. She hit the button to queue up her voicemail and, not unlike a giddy schoolgirl, waited to hear Will's voice on the line.

But the message was nothing like she'd expected. Will's voice, cold, saying to just drop it -she had not anticipated that. Attempted romance, maybe, or some quick response to her request for a plan, sure, but Will backing away was not something that she'd considered.

His rejection, even as reasonable as it appeared on the surface, hurt. He was the one who'd thrown her a lifeline when her family was sinking after Peter's scandal broke; he was the one who could make her smile when life got rougher than normal; he was the one she missed when they were apart...

Stop, she ordered herself. Since she'd lived through the mess with Peter, she'd make it through this, too, even if the ache in her chest persisted. She and Will were over, before they'd even had a chance to begin, but she was strong. She just didn't know how to make it through Monday when she would see him again.

Before she could dwell on her predicament any longer, Peter and Eli approached, sweeping her off to a celebratory dinner in which she had no interest. Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice Eli's glances in her direction as he congratulated himself for neutralizing one of the biggest obstacles to Peter's re-election...