A/N: Yes, another one-shot. This is not how I think the episode will play out. It's more how I would write the final scenes it if I had to incorporate the general gist of the episode and the scene in the car when Diane interrupts them. Alicia might be a tad OOC at the end but, please, go with it. Enjoy and let's hope that tonight brings us the real thing!
When she emerged from the courtroom she found Will talking to Zach and ready to leave.
"Mom, Eli called. They will count the votes without the county accused of vote tampering and then see how to deal with the situation. He's sending us a car to go there and wait for the results."
"Excellent. It will avoid me taking a cab. You'll give me a ride home, right, Will?" Diane interjected.
He nodded and everything had fallen easily in place. Diane, Zach, Eli were reminding them of what their position in the world was. Stolen moments in a dark car did not a life make. They were the moments that destroyed lives. The people around them knew better. Diane hadn't left them a second after finding them in a compromising position. She hadn't yelled, but her look had told them everything they needed to know.
She had expected Will to invent some reason for them to be able to talk. He had always been creative with excuses and way-outs. Instead, he seemed to have fallen in line. Following Zach out, maybe as a reminder to himself that those kisses were wrong, despite how incredibly satisfying they felt.
Diane and Will moved away, with the due reassurances of being updated while she waited with their son for their ride. That was the way it should be.
Back at the hotel, with Peter a wreck of insecurities and excitement she had put Will on the back burner. A flurry of people had come and gone, asked her opinion on something or other, looked at her, the guru of everything. Compliments on her shoes, her dress, her elegance, her interview, her eloquence, her wit, her support. On election nights she understood the meaning of the expression "kiss the ring" in a much more immediate way.
Peter had made it his mission to always check on her throughout the night. He sent her disbelieving eye-rolls when his current companion was droning about his one priority that didn't matter to anyone else but him or when she got stuck in the same conversation he had had minutes prior. He smirked at her pained smile and knitted his eyebrows in fake concentration when Eli seemed to be having the secret of the world in his next words, given how animated he was. She could read every one of his tells and she suspected he was exaggerating them a bit so she could be close to him even when she was tens of people away. It reminded her of the golden days of their partnership. Maybe, after all the hurt, the chaos, the never-ending cycle of problems they had gotten back to a true marriage.
Maybe it was the right time to renew their vows.
Peter had been projected winner, even without the votes of the incriminated county. No matter what the Electoral Commission decided, her husband was the new Governor of Illinois. Immediately she had been taken in a family hug by Zach, Grace and Peter. Even the always-present Eli had decided to give them this moment. They had done it. The family that 4 years before had been sneered at, laughed upon, looked down on was now the First Family of Illinois. She had done it. She had been the lynchpin, the one that had borne the most to get there.
That was the night of their victory. That was the night Alicia Florrick had won.
The rush of happiness had lasted up until she had been waiting in the wings with her excited children for their call on the stage, after Peter's first speech as Governor. Her phone was in her hand since everyone in Chicago and their mother seemed to have the need of congratulating her and Peter and the kids. She was reminded of another press event. The phone had ringed and his voice had been on the other end. Offering an alternative, if confused and not fully-formed. She had begged for a plan and never got the chance to hear it. Would that malaise due to the missed connection ever end? She hadn't heard from him that night. No call, no message. Diane had been one of the first. She had talked both to her and Peter and never mentioned what had happened a few hours prior. But Will hadn't. His silence was maybe more telling than many words. He had accepted the situation and given up. He was letting her go. It was the only possible reaction to the events, wasn't it?
Then why had she so desperately hoped for something else?
The victory party was in full swing but all of a sudden she felt inexplicably tired. She knew that they had some rooms and she longed for the solitude of one, for a bed.
"Hey, Peter, do you mind if a crash for an hour or two? I have been working non-stop this last week and..."
"Of course. I'll see you later. And Alicia, thanks, for everything."
She answered his smile with a mirroring one and moved back, after having acquired a keycard from Eli. The walk alone was way too similar to the one two years before for her mind not to jump at the connection.
How utterly destroyed she had been!
The discovery of Kalinda and Peter together had pierced her. The past was gone but the scar of that feeling remained. She remembered the void of emotions, that need to turn it all off. She also remembered who had given her the push she needed to recover her self-confidence.
Will.
When Peter had first humiliated her he had been the friendly ear, he had been the hand in the storm she had grasped not to drown. When she had lost Kalinda and her husband again in one swoop, he had been her tequila buddy and much, much more. He had helped her rebuild her image, he had reminded her who Alicia Cavanaugh was, who she would always be no matter what the universe threw at her. And then, whenever she had felt secure enough to ride without him, she had discarded him like the unneeded training wheels.
She had claimed the victory for herself but none of it would have been possible without Will. Without his much-needed nudge towards the recovery of her self-confidence. And yet he wasn't there to celebrate with them. He was alone somewhere, probably drinking,
Just as she had conjured up his image, her phone beeped. A message from Will.
"Congratulations to you Alicia, because tonight is your victory. He never would have made it without you."
Oh, Will.
Then, before she could even react properly to the first text, another one appeared. Only one word.
"Goodbye."
The second text had painted such a bleak picture that she had immediately raided the mini-bar and then hoped that the alcohol, added to the copious amounts of wine she had already consumed during the evening would put her to sleep. At the moment, unconsciousness was the only way to escape the meaning of Will's text. So she put herself on the bed and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come.
The cure had worked like a charm because when she opened her eyelids again, the clock on her phone read 4:15. The noise had dimmed, the celebration had probably died down. A message from Peter had confirmed it.
"Didn't see you reemerge. I figured I should let you sleep. See you tomorrow, Mrs Governor"
She was off the hook till dawn came. She could go back to sleep but what she truly needed was a walk. She took her coat and tried to slip quietly out of the hotel. She managed without too much trouble and found herself on the sidewalk, the brisk air forcing her to tighten the belt. But she didn't stop. Her brain, on autopilot, turned and crossed when appropriate and after a short while she reached her destination.
At first, when she glanced at the building, she experienced a burst of surprise. Then she realized that ever since she had woken up, she had always known she would end up in front of Will's house.
It had been that text. The one word that had unsettled her. If she were a little more a 19th-century heroine she could have taken the "Goodbye" much more ominously. Will could have meant he was going away forever or taking his life, not wanting to live it without her. She wasn't and she knew Will.
He had wanted to say that there was no need to talk about what happened in the car, that he had already read the next page from the book. He was acknowledging that this was the true end of whatever it had been between them.
Her whole being rebelled to that conclusion. Something was seriously wrong if she stubbornly refused to accept it even if the whole Illinois was implicitly telling her so.
She dropped all hesitations and crossed the door. The building had a doorman that recognized her on the spot. She suspected that Hal, that was the name of the man currently staring at her, knew how to be discrete, and knew better than to have any news-source on speed-dial. But just because she was breaking all the rules, that didn't mean that she could be completely careless. She took that one step more.
"There has been an emergency with a client and I can't seem to contact Mr. Gardner. Can I go up?"
The man didn't seem truly convinced but he nodded anyway.
"Sure and Mrs Florrick, congratulations."
She rang the bell, eager, even without having the faintest idea of what to say when the door opened.
Will took his time and was clearly lethargic as a man that had been woken up from a deep sleep.
"Alicia, what's wrong?"
He immediately panicked. She couldn't blame him. A house call at almost 5 in the morning wasn't for ordinary matters.
"Did I miss your call? Some emergency at work?"
"No, Will. Everything is fine. Can I come in?"
He looked hesitant but then moved to let her inside the apartment.
"What are you doing here?"
A fair question she didn't know how to answer. Then, all of a sudden, she repeated herself.
"I need a plan."
A snort came out of him coupled with desolate eyes.
"You don't need a plan. You have a plan. You go back to the hotel, do some press, pack your bags, go to the Hawaii, renew your vows with all of Illinois cheering for the reunited family, you come back and you're the First Lady of our state, with children, a powerful husband and a demanding job. You'll help our firm more by mingling and courting clients than by actually litigating cases and you and I will see each other at partners' meetings and whenever David Lee wants to see us. Here is your plan, Alicia. All laid out for you."
She couldn't miss the bitterness in his voice and it brought tears to her eyes.
"So I'll ask again, what are you doing here?"
She paused and then dared to vocalize the one thought that would not leave her alone.
"What if I don't want to follow the plan?"
"Everything that matters needs a plan, Alicia. You told me so and I never forgot it."
"What if I was wrong?"
He didn't seem to have an answer to that one.
"I keep telling myself that I should let us go, Will. I am entangled in a complicated situation. Following that plan is the only thing that makes sense. But, I can't seem to muster the strength anymore."
"So what do you want from me? Should I tell you that if there is someone that can do it, that one person is you?"
"No, no."
She wasn't being an adult, she knew that. And then, despite the anger she had recognized in his voice, Will had taken her in his arms.
"I'm sorry, Alicia. I know it can't be easy. I have been fighting with this feeling for 20 years now and I am still failing."
Being in his arms had sobered her up all of a sudden.
"And if we stopped fighting it?"
"It wouldn't be easy. You would lose a life, Alicia."
"What would I gain, Will?"
He pondered over it, trying to find the words to answer her suddenly fundamental question.
"Freedom, Alicia. Freedom from a plan. Freedom to be whomever you are, to be loved for the woman and not for the political machine. I would love you as well as I can, I would show you the devotion that I have felt ever since Georgetown, I would be your shoulder to cry on, your partner in everything. I would defend you tirelessly against anyone, but only if you feel you need my help. I know you are quite capable to chew your enemies on your own!"
Her laugh interrupted him for a second or two.
"I would give you space when you needed it and let you take the lead to go as fast as you're comfortable. I know it's not much, especially because I would do exactly the same things even while you followed your original plan. I'm afraid it's not under my control."
Just like that, she had decided.
"You're wrong, Will. It is much. Most of all, it is what I want. I'm sorry it took so long."
She cupped his face and added in a whisper, suddenly sure of her course.
"I love you, Will. The plan can go to hell."
They both smiled before kissing. This time, no interruptions. No Diane, no work, no courtroom. No urges to run, no whatifs.
No regrets.
"Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong."