Same universe as 'Physical Therapy' but you don't need to have read that to follow this.
Will's stuck at a conference in New York, Celeste is there annoying him about his domesticity and pregnant wife when he gets a call from Owen saying he was with Alicia and Grace having dinner when she's gone into labor. Will's terrified because she's 3 weeks from her due date but calls the airport for a flight – only to be told the next doesn't leave for 3 ½ hours, so he wouldn't be able to get to the hospital for 6 hours.
"I know I told you to go, but dammit I hate you Will" "I know baby, I'm so sorry," he says helplessly, he can't take away her pain and now he can't even hold her hand when he tells her how well she's doing, "just hold on okay? I'm coming home, and I'm so proud of you, you're amazing" "Will I really need you, I can't do this without you." It broke his heart to hear her voice break but he knew what he had to say next, the only thing he could say, "Yes you can, if you have to then you can, you've done so much, raised the kids, the scandal, your career, made the leap with me, for us, if I cannot get there in time then you CAN do this Leesh, I know you can, but tell her to hang on for me okay because I really want to be there to hold your hand for this." He heard her sniffle on the other end and almost regretted implying she might have to do this alone.
"Tell that pilot to hurry the fuck up!" He laughed then, loudly and the older woman next to him, who'd heard his speech to Alicia no doubt, smiled at him knowingly.
Will was lounging on the living room couch with his wife sitting between his legs resting her back against his chest while he ran his left hand over her 37 weeks bump where their baby girl was sleeping. "So what time's your flight again?"
"Baby brain, I swear," he mumbled under his breath, then spoke up, " 8am,"
"Urgh..."
"You don't have to get up Leesh, Grace is driving me since my car's in the shop, so you can stay in bed and enjoy your Sunday off." She'd been on pseudo-maternity leave for a month now, no court but she still went into the office of LCGA to do paperwork and work on some contracts.
"You'd better wake me up before you leave mind Gardner!"
"Hmm I will do Cavanaugh, as long as you promise not to be a grouch when I do." Alicia had kept her name when they'd gotten married, just like Diane had when she'd married Kurt, and he liked it, though he never objected when she got the occasional 'Mrs. Gardner' and neither did she.
"Well I wouldn't be a grouch in the mornings if your offspring didn't like to wake mommy up in the middle of the night to play soccer with my kidneys. She's just like Grace with the feet!"
Will snickered at her but promptly stopped as she turned her head to glare at him. She rested her head back on his chest still glaring up at him so he leaned down to kiss the adorable pout off her lips. He kept his mouth fused with his wife's until the front door opening broke the mood.
Peter and his new wife, Andrea, had taken Grace out for a couple of hours today and Will hoped that Grace was the only one walking through the door as those two had a habit of inviting themselves in for a drink. Tonight his luck really was out.
"Hey guys!" Andrea's too high voice reverberated through the house and Will cringed, more so as he felt Alicia sigh against him.
"Hi, did you three have fun?" Alicia asked, smiling at Grace over the back rest of the couch.
"Sure, fun, that's one way to go," Grace said lowly to them as she came around to the front of the couch and kissed Will's cheek, then her mother's then bent down further to add loudly, "Hi Munchkin! I missed you peanut." to her baby sister.
Will just smirked at her, after a rather unpleasant comment from Peter and a worse one from Jackie back in May at Grace's high school graduation, when Alicia had been only 4 months along, Grace had taken to being, not more, but more loudly, affectionate towards the baby in either of their presences, and Will for one was glad of Grace's show of support, for Alicia's sake more than his own. Zach had been great too, he couldn't make it home often, even with Will sending him the money for a flight whenever he asked, school and his part-time job kept him too busy for frequent visits, but he called and emailed all three of them a lot and came home when he could, and made a point to stay at the house, not with Peter or Jackie, simply stating that 'mom's is home.'
"Do you two want something to drink?" Will found himself asking, though he wondered when he'd become as polite as his wife, though he supposed there could be a small part that wanted to keep the slightly distressed look that appeared on Peter's face now, and really whenever he saw Will and Alicia be affectionate or when he looked at her stomach. Will never thought a baby bump could make a man like Peter uncomfortable, but Grace had explained it to him perfectly, she really was too smart sometimes, just like her mother. "He sees her belly as the final straw, before, when he saw you together he was sad but I guess he always thought it might get boring and be over, but having a baby together, to him that means that she really loves you, that you two aren't just getting something out of your system, that she trusts you to stay, he knows now he can't win her back, no matter how hard he tries."
Peter looked just as uncomfortable now as Will had ever seen him, even with his wife next to him, his 32 and blonde wife that Zach and Grace tolerated for their father's sake but didn't really like. Didn't have even half the relationship with her as they had with him, mainly because he was age appropriate and he had tried, really made an effort to be their friend.
"Sure thanks," Peter tried to be as civil as possible, at least.
Will started to manoeuvre himself up but Grace jumped up from where she was crouched by her mother with her head pressed to Alicia's swollen stomach, "Don't make her move Will, I got it." With that she was off to the kitchen, "What do you want?"
After they'd replied Alicia offered them a seat and they sat on the other side of the giant cream corner sofa and Alicia leaned back on his chest again. He continued his soft stroking of her bump, seeing no reason to stop and thankfully Grace was back quickly to provide a buffer as she pulled the matching foot stool over to sit by his feet and Alicia's legs. Grace's hand landed on her mother's stomach again before she leaned over and mumbled something to her sister that Will couldn't hear, but Alicia obviously did as she snickered at her daughter and nudged her shoulder with her right hand while her left continued to move up and down the side of Will's leg out of view of the others.
"How are you feeling Alicia, nervous?" Andrea, never one for silence from what Will had seen of her, piped up, smiling at his wife.
"A little, I've done it before so I know how much this is going to hurt," she joked, but Will found nothing funny in the thought of the pain she's going to be in soon enough, "worth it though." He couldn't help but smile at that, glad she thought highly enough of him to endure this to have a baby with him. " I want another baby Will," she'd murmured to him one night, on Christmas eve last year, "What you said the other day, about wanting a baby if I did, I thought about it and I want a baby with you, they'll be adorable, with your puppy dog eyes they'll be spoilt too!" He'd just grinned at her before getting up and walking into the bedroom he shared with her in what used to be just his apartment and grabbed her birth-control pill out of the medicine cabinet in their bathroom and walked into the kitchen. She'd looked over at him from the couch curiously as he held up the packet over the bin and pressed his foot to the pedal to open it, "Are you sure Leesh? You want to have a baby with me?"
She grinned like an idiot at him, "Yes Will, I'm sure." Will dropped the pill packet into the trash and walked to her and lifted her up bridal style, as he started to move to the bedroom she spoke through her laughter, "Better make it good Gardner, gotta be memorable if this is how we're making our baby." Challenge accepted Cavanaugh.
"I'm terrified at the very thought! We're going to have kids at some point but I wanted to wait a couple of years, enjoy each other, y'know?" Will didn't know if Andrea realised what she'd just spilt, but by the look on Grace's face she wasn't thrilled at the thought of Andrea being the mother of her theoretical sibling. The teenager quickly changed the subject away from babies and to the holidays, where after five minutes of Andrea gushing about how they could have such a nice first Christmas as a family Grace asserted, in a very Alicia-like manner, that she and Zach would be over on the 27th and no earlier. "The rest of the family is flying in and I'm not missing that to come to Springfield when they're still here." She went on to tell them that her and Zach would be coming to the Governor's mansion on the Saturday after Thanksgiving but that was only if "Mom's not mid-childbirth, because I'm not missing that either."
10 minutes later and Andrea seemed no closer to the end of her conversation with Grace about dresses and perfume and what boys like on a girl in college. The other three adults juts looked wholly uncomfortable. Will felt Alicia shift as if to get up and moved his hands from her sides as she pushed herself into a sitting position across his legs, she patted his legs as she stood. "Well as fun as this is I'm going to bed, growing a human kinda takes it out of me." Will snickered at her banter and she just grinned down at him before inclining her head in question. He nodded and swung his feet off the couch. Alicia leaned in and pressed her lips to the crown of Grace's head and said, "Night baby" and mumbled a good night to the two on the other end of the couch with a polite smile. Will moved to press a kiss to Grace's head with a smile and a, "Night kiddo," before he nodded to Peter and Andrea and followed his wife up the stairs.
After the two had disappeared Grace turned to her father, "I'll see you on Friday night dad."
"Sure Grace, we'll get going, let you get to bed."
Grace got up and lead them to the door, taking their glasses from them as she opened the front door.
"Night guys."
"Goodnight honey, love you."
"'Night Grace, see you soon."
Peter turned back to ask what Grace wanted for dinner on Friday night, to see if he should book some place, but the door of his ex-wife's house had already closed and locked.
Upstairs Will and Alicia had both brushed their teeth and used to bathroom and Alicia turned her back to Will for him to help her change, her bump inhibiting her movements, as Grace knocked and pushed open their bedroom door, "they're gone, thank God, sorry about them, can't seem to take a hint to say goodbye to me in the car."
"It's okay kiddo, not your fault," Will smiled at her and got a beaming smile back.
" bright and early right Will? Leave 6.30?"
"Yep, sleep well Grace." She stepped into the room and hugged her mother as best she could then leaned down to whisper a goodnight to the baby before leaving the room.
"She's so cute with her already, I can't wait to see them together," Alicia whispered as Will unzipped her cotton dress and slid it off her body and pressed his lips to her left shoulder where it met her neck.
"Mhmm, not as cute as you," Will stated quietly, but definitively. His lips moved up her neck while his hands unclasped her bra and slid the straps off her shoulders before reaching around to rub his thumb across his wife's right nipple. She moaned at the contact.
"Will," he cut her off before she could finish her sentence.
"I couldn't leave for three days without making the most of my last night with you..."
I've had this written for a while, but decided to publish now as I don't have time to write the rest of the story at the minute, and there's currently a distinct lack of Willicia fic and that upsets me, so I thought I'd put the first chapter out there now, any feedback is appreciated. If you haven't read Physical Therapy it was a one-shot for The Good Wife ficathon on Live Journal, that smushes 5 years of cute into one story, and I do have a few stories half-written to pad that out and this one of them, depicting how Millie came to be.
Thanks for reading, Jenny xx