Disclaimer: All recognizable The Good Wife characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to the Kings and CBS. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fan fiction story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No financial gain is associated with the publishing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: I believe the correct setting for this is the end of "The Deconstruction" (06x20). The prompt once again comes from Good Scottish Wife. To her creativity we all are indebted. -dkc
The Fallout
She had been forced to walk away from her hard-fought win. Politics had always frustrated her in the way it got in the way of good people doing good things for good reasons. Her frustration was deeper than that, though. She had wanted this. She had really wanted this.
The elevator seemed slower than usual. She couldn't bear the quiet. Something she was trying to come to grips with since Zach had gone to college and Grace had been more and more occupied with her own life was the silence and loneliness of spending time with herself. Tonight it was heavier than usual.
As the doors began to open she could see the figure standing near her apartment door. The leather boots could not be mistaken for any other visitor.
Kalinda. God, not now.
Stepping out of the elevator, she wouldn't allow her surprise visitor to keep her from a glass of wine and a solo pity party.
"Kalinda, your timing could not be worse," Alicia shook her head and made her way toward the door.
Walking past her once closest friend, she didn't even look at her. She couldn't. The pain of everything that had happened between them was always right there in Kalinda's eyes, reminding her of how terrible they had both been to each other.
She allowed herself to lean slightly on the doorframe and reached in her purse for the key just as she felt a gentle yet insistent grasp on her wrist.
"That's why I'm here," Kalinda's broken voice whispered.
When the lawyer's eyes rose, the realization of Kalinda's friendly intent setting in, she could not hold in the emotions she had been battling all evening in the wake of her withdrawing from a position she had fought hard for and truly found herself wanting. The tears pooled in her eyes, first a stray tear making its way down her cheek and more and more falling as she lost control entirely.
"Oh, Leesh," the younger woman wrapped her arms around her as she fell apart.
It didn't take much for Kalinda to lead the broken woman into the apartment. She left Alicia at the couch with a box of tissues and went in search of wine. She came back with a generously filled glass of red wine. Handing it to the lawyer, she sat down beside her without ever uttering a word.
"I'm sorry about that," Alicia tilted her head in the direction of her front door before rolling her eyes.
The tears hadn't even dried on her cheeks and she was apologizing for being emotional. This is how shattered their once-friendship had become—neither able to show vulnerability to the other.
Shaking her head, Kalinda would have given anything to return to the days when being themselves around each other meant never having to apologize.
"I didn't know that I wanted it so much until it was ripped from me."
The words Alicia spoke resonated with Kalinda. Wasn't that exactly what had happened when their friendship ended?
"I know the feeling," she found herself quietly voicing an inner thought that was not intended to be shared.
Alicia let out a heavy sigh. They would always return to this place, wouldn't they?
"Why did you come here tonight?" the lawyer had a sense that something was wrong, but didn't know what.
Kalinda shook her head in disbelief. Of course Alicia wouldn't expect or believe that the investigator had come for no other reason than to tell the lawyer she was sorry that her candidacy had fizzled.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we could make up reasons for celebratory tequila shots again?" she spoke.
Sitting on the couch, they were less than a foot apart. It was far too close for one and far too distant for the other.
"'Congratulations, your candidacy blew up in your face. Have a shot,'" Alicia spoke in a mocking tone. "'Congratulations, your intimate emails were revealed to the entire world. Have another.'"
The pain of the latter was obviously greater for Alicia and it was evident in the slight change in her tone as well as the expression on her face.
"Can I ask you something?" Kalinda lacked her usual confidence.
Nodding while taking a long, needed drink from her wine glass, Alicia's eyes never left the other woman.
"Why didn't you delete them?" she asked.
Alicia seemed to be taking a moment to think about the reason.
"I didn't view them as a threat," she spoke. There was something else she wanted to say, her body language was tentative.
Kalinda appeared to be considering Alicia's response. Her own body language suggested she wasn't buying the answer.
"There was no denying their…" she paused to find the right word. "Carnality."
A slight smile formed on the brunette's lips at the uttered word. Leave it to Kalinda to describe an affair in such a way. And she was right. The emails were intimate because she and Will had been intimate. They portrayed both Alicia's hesitance to embark on what she knew could be both torrid and damaging; damaging to their careers as well as their long-term friendship.
"They couldn't be misconstrued," Alicia remarked. "Though Eli's attempt to paint them as such mostly succeeded."
Eli had done his job in so far as he was able to frame the emails as something they were not for the sake of the campaign. However, Alicia knew that how the public immediately received them was absolutely factual—she had embarked on an affair with her boss.
Considering what this meant, both to Alicia and for her, Kalinda wondered what would constitute a threat if something like these explicit emails weren't.
"What happened to our emails?" she couldn't stop herself from asking, the words tumbling out of her mouth unfiltered.
This caused the lawyer to pause. She appeared to be staring into her wine glass, avoiding eye contact with Kalinda.
"I deleted them."
"Why?" she couldn't drop this now that she had asked.
Draining her glass and placing it on the coffee table, Alicia tucked her legs beneath her and seemed to be planning what she would say.
"I only want the truth," Kalinda prodded.
"They could have been misconstrued."
What this meant, the investigator didn't know. Misconstrued as what? They had only exchanged emails about cases, hadn't they? Kalinda was thinking back over every message she had ever opened from one Alicia Florrick. It then hit her. Flirtation. The emails were often flirtatious.
"They were a threat," Kalinda said.
Alicia did not need to respond. She knew Kalinda was beginning to understand how the emails had been viewed and why she felt the need to delete them.
"The polling question Eli mentioned," the investigator's skills kicked in and she began piecing together the last several months of Alicia's campaign. "Was it really about Prady?"
"I'm not gay, Kalinda."
Knowing for herself how many times she had said those very words and how little meaning they actually had, she smirked. You're flexible, she thought to herself.
"No, the question wasn't about me," the path of the questioning exasperated Alicia. "But it very well could have been."
"You have a secret girlfriend in your closet full of skeletons," Kalinda deadpanned.
This made them both laugh, the first real laugh they'd shared in months.
"A closet full of skeletons, yes. A closet I am intimately familiar with, yes. A girlfriend, no."
Alicia stood up and picked up her wine glass, making her way toward the kitchen. Kalinda followed. She had just stepped foot in the kitchen to find the wine bottle being tilted in her direction, an offering gesture. Her instincts said no, but she found herself agreeing.
"What ever happened to your FBI agent?" Alicia asked, her back turned to the surprised woman in her kitchen.
"My FBI agent?" Kalinda responded somewhat defensively.
Turning around, Alicia's facial expression was soft. She was curious, not accusatory. Handing over a full wine glass, she leaned against the kitchen island and awaited an actual response.
"I may have unknowingly got her fired," Kalinda shook her head in shame. "Maybe knowingly."
Alicia's eyes widened at the revelation. She knew Kalinda often used people to get what she wanted in investigations and in her personal life, but she didn't believe she ever would have put the agent's job in peril. They had seemed closer than Kalinda and, well, anyone else.
"I asked for something for a case. She gave it to me. I think it got her in trouble."
Taking a seat at one of the island stools, Kalinda took a hearty drink of her wine while contemplating if she needed to say anything else to explain what had happened with Lana. It was one of her biggest regrets. She never meant to hurt Lana, just as she had never meant to hurt Alicia. The similarities between the two women were strong. For the first time, she found herself noticing their physical characteristics. They were very much alike.
"Were you in love with her?" Alicia blurted out, the second glass of wine loosening her tongue.
Looking up at the woman who leaned forward against the counter, revealing a touch of cleavage, Kalinda's eyes didn't latch onto her eyes immediately. Alicia noticed this and a slight blush invaded her cheeks at the realization that the woman before her was checking her out.
"No, but…" she paused, noting the pink hew of Alicia's cheeks, and her own willingness to talk about this. "She may have been in love with me."
"Ever the heartbreaker," the lawyer smiled gently.
"I'm going to break Cary's heart," Kalinda found herself musing aloud. "I'm powerless to stop it."
"It's amazing how many things in our lives we feel we have no power over. However, as little as I believe you to be powerless over anything, I'm afraid you were destined to break his heart."
"Destined?" Kalinda's eyebrows lifted.
"He's wanted you for years, Kalinda. While you may have entertained that recently, you can never be anything less than who you are," she spoke with certainty.
Both women took another drink of their glass. While the brunette's words brought clarity, they also brought more questions.
"Because I'm flexible?" the shorter woman spoke without a hint of sarcasm.
"No, because you're Kalinda. You do what you want. And settling down with Cary or whatever it is he wanted long term never would have fit who you are."
"Aw, because I have no morals," her tone was lighter, but still with a degree of seriousness beneath.
Alicia's hand came across the counter, covering the hand Kalinda was using to play with the stem of her wine glass.
"That's not what I meant. Do you really see yourself as someone who would be at Cary's beck and call for the next however many years?" she didn't let go of the hand beneath her own, instead giving a gentle squeeze.
Looking down at their hands and feeling a rush of adrenaline and something else coursing through her body, Kalinda knew Alicia was right. But what did it say about her? Was she incapable of ever being with someone in the long term? Would she always go from one thing to the next? The only long-term relationship she could base her behavior on was that with her husband, Nick. That was not a relationship to base anything on.
Before Kalinda could answer the question, the phone rang in Alicia's hallway. Going to check the caller ID, Kalinda's hand was abandoned. The investigator was rather surprised by how much she missed Alicia's touch.
"God, it's Grace," Alicia allowed the phone to continue ringing. "She's going to want to talk about the race. I can't."
Alicia came back into the kitchen, her head in her hands, letting out a sigh as she leaned against the refrigerator. She was taking her hands off her face when her cell phone on the counter began ringing. At this she groaned.
"Here, let me," Kalinda rose and walked around the island to pick up the phone. "Hello Grace, it's Kalinda."
The mom in Alicia felt guilty, but she couldn't rehash this with Grace. Not tonight. She was surprised at the easy way Kalinda spoke to her daughter, explaining that Alicia was tired and going to bed. She could only hear one side of the conversation, but it seemed friendly. The promise was made that the mother would call her daughter tomorrow and then Kalinda hung up the phone.
"You didn't have to do that," Alicia stared at the leather-clad woman.
Kalinda shrugged her shoulders and found herself walking toward the lawyer, joining her as she leaned against the large fridge. Ruminating on what Grace had said to her about being glad Kalinda was there with her mom tonight, that she was precisely the person to help her after the day she had. What did that mean? She remained silent, as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Alicia.
"You have always been very good with my kids," Alicia remarked.
"They're good kids," Kalinda's soft tone was barely above a whisper.
When Alicia's pinky brushed Kalinda's, she felt that same rush she had felt when she was sitting at the island and Alicia placed her hand over hers. God, what am I doing, she thought.
"I don't know where they get that from," the brunette said, immediately surprised by Kalinda taking her hand, threading together their fingers and squeezing.
"I do."
"Why are you really here, Kalinda?" Alicia sighed.
The investigator tried very hard to not be hurt, but it did sting. She refused to allow Alicia's skepticism to ruin this moment.
"I need a lawyer," she answered with a completely straight face.
Alicia's expression was priceless. It caused Kalinda to chuckle. Shaking her head, she found herself leaning further against the brunette.
"I do," she smiled. "That isn't why I'm here. Heard about the campaign and thought you might like some company. It was crazy, really, to expect you would even let me in."
"Would you like to stay?" Alicia's words were a surprise to them both.
"That's up to you," she found herself hoping.
With the investigator leaning into her shoulder, Alicia tilted her head until it touched the top of Kalinda's head. Standing like this felt natural. It struck her that they'd never held hands like this before. In between all the flirtation and tension, hand holding never entered the equation. There had been one time when she dragged Kalinda along with her—the same night she met Donna—but that hadn't been hand holding like this. This was unquestionably intimate. The way they leaned against one another was as well. Standing there in her kitchen together seemed to wipe away years of anger and hurt. They felt like the two women who had developed an unlikely friendship and relied on one another when they felt they couldn't trust anyone else.
"I deleted the emails because I tormented myself by reading them over and over again," Alicia spoke quietly, failing to look at Kalinda. "After—"
She didn't need to finish that thought for it to be obvious when she was talking about. There were two distinct periods in the time since they'd met. The after could only mean one thing.
"They weren't…" Kalinda started and stopped.
They weren't what? A threat? Loaded? Full of things left said? Even in the fallout of Alicia's discovery of how Kalinda became Kalinda, there was an underlying current in their communication that truly could be misconstrued. Or perhaps it wouldn't be misconstrued; they would be seen for exactly what it was.
"Weren't what? Dangerous?" Alicia's voice took on an edgy tone that made Kalinda worry the moment they'd been sharing would come to a fiery end, she squeezed Alicia's hand as if holding on to her would prevent the crash. "God, Kalinda. I flirted relentlessly. Your rejection would turn to contemplation and then eager participation. You don't think that would be hard to stomach for me? After—"
Without the slightest idea how to respond verbally, Kalinda did the only thing that made sense to her: She turned her head and captured Alicia's pouty lips.
Alicia's surprise was captured in the back of her throat, trapped by their locked lips. She felt Kalinda's hand slip into her hair, holding the side of her head as the kiss continued.
When their lips parted, Kalinda's hand did not fall away. Her thumb brushed a strand of hair away from lawyer's face. Their eyes were as locked as their lips had been seconds ago. It was the first time Alicia truly appreciated the caramel hints in the darks of Kalinda's eyes. It wasn't the first time Kalinda had studied Alicia's eyes, memorizing every fleck of gold.
"I understand why you deleted them," the investigator spoke with the slight lilt in her tone that made her accent distinctly Kalinda. "I'm sorry a hundred times over."
The lawyer leaned in and led the way. With every gentle touch lip-to-lip the hurt and anguish that had defined who they were to one another sloughed off. Lightness came over them, helped by the wine of course. When their lips parted for the second time, a touch of a smile crossed Alicia's face. Her free hand grasped the shorter woman's hip and pulled her closer.
Before the kiss continued, she wanted to make something completely clear.
"You're staying," she spoke with certitude.
The kiss could resume.
-finis-