A/N: This one will be a two-shot and this short chapter is just the introduction to the second which will be a Kalinda/Alicia confrontation. The omission of the author of the quote in the summary is intentional. If you don't know the quote, you should look it up, then read the book 1000 times and then obsess over it as you obsess over The Good Wife ;)
Kalinda knew Will Gardner.
When he had come to tell her the outcome of her interview he had smiled and said:
"Don't look so irritated, K, you're in. Do you want to get a drink?"
"Ok, no, and don't ever call me K again."
"You should give up, we'll become friends, K. I'll surprise you."
He had.
At first, Will had seemed like the kind of man who didn't take relationships seriously. He moved from woman to woman just as Kalinda moved from man to woman and vice versa. And yet, since the beginning there had been a quid she could not place. Will had fun, laughed, looked proud of his conquests but somehow it all looked like second-best.
Until her of course.
The news had caught her by surprise, and it was unheard of in Kalinda's book. Background checks on new associates had always been part of her duties so she had learned everything important about the people in question before they even had the chance to step off the elevator. Instead, bullpen chatter had alerted her to the new junior associate hired together with Cary.
The name had her sprinting for Will's office, demanding why this candidate didn't need to be vetted, why a political wife that had at most glanced at a law court in the previous 13 years was being given this chance. Moreover, she hadn't liked the pang of something resembling guilt at the idea of having to work with a woman that hadn't meant anything that night of long before.
When it came to hiring lawyers, Will was always suspicious and ill-disposed towards the new faces. She expected to find an ally. Just the mere mentioning of Alicia Florrick had been enough to cause a transformation in him.
"I know, Kalinda. We should have talked to you about it. But it was all last-minute."
"Why wasn't she vetted?"
"She has been vetted by the entire Chicago enough, don't you think? And I can assure you there are no skeletons in her closet."
"You can assure me?"
"I've known Alicia since Georgetown. We have been friends ever since."
The warmth in his words was unmistakable and prompted the question.
"Just friends?"
"You two are going to be fast friends."
She hadn't missed the avoiding tactic but at the same time the statement had surprised her so much that she needed to answer to that one first.
"Me, friends with the wife with the big house that talks about the kids and smiles and political events? Please."
"Give her a chance, will you? For me?"
"Why should I?"
"Did you believe me when I told you I would surprise you?"
"No."
He smiled.
"Were you a tiny-bit wrong?"
"..."
"I'll take your silence as an affirmative. If that bought me any trust on your part, I'm cashing it in now. Give Alicia a chance and she'll surprise you even more than I did."
She left his office with an overwhelming curiosity of meeting Alicia Florrick and seeing what had Will so enthralled.
She had never explicitly told him but Will had to have garnered that he had been right again. By the end of that first case, she had discovered in Alicia much more than what she had seen on TV. Observing the two of them together she had also clenched the idea that Will was in love with Alicia and she was not indifferent to Will.
Kalinda knew what kind of friend Will Gardner was.
He was the one that stood by judges, lawyers and aldermen in their difficult moments.
The first time he had supported one of them, at her raised eyebrow he had answered:
"I always forget that you're new here. In Chicago you need your friends three times: at your wedding, your wake and your first indictment."
Once you became Will Gardner's friend, you could expect him to have pronounced a sort of friendship vow. He took the "for better or for worse" part very seriously.
When it came to Alicia then, Will was willing to be toyed with, stepped on, pushed away and still protect her as well as he could.
Kalinda shared the instinct. Thus she could not blame him.
Kalinda knew what kind of lawyer Will Gardner was.
A fierce one. An unyielding one. A bloodthirsty and implacable one if necessary.
She had grimaced more than once at his practices, at his strenuous defense of clients that did not deserve any lawyer, least of all one of Will Gardner's caliber. She had cursed herself for finding information that would be used by him to let a case go the "wrong" way, that would for example make women profit from being their husband's murderers.
Then she had just placed the piece in the puzzle. Will was a coherent and loyal being. Once he took on a case, a client, for money or for whim, nothing mattered anymore. Once trust had been placed in him he would not destroy it, no matter how much it cost him to unleash the immoral beast within him.
Kalinda knew what kind of man Will Gardner was.
To most, the enthusiasm Will placed in representing clients he wanted to fight for was indiscernible. Not to the most brilliant investigator in Chicago. She had never asked him if he had detected her responding hint of a smile. Knowing that one of her bosses was something more than a lawyer was strangely comforting.
Will was used to loose-moral codes and he tolerated them with the easiness of a consummate pro.
But, unlike many others Kalinda had met, worked for, slept with, he had drawn a line.
No friend of Will Gardner could send kids in jail for money.
No friend of Will Gardner could take money from a drug-dealer to help him control territory without him calling him on it, without losing his friendship.
No friend of Will Gardner could betray him without consequences. She had learned it early in her tenure at Lockhart/Gardner. She wondered what the punishment for Alicia would be.
Even after living and breathing the Chicago law for years, Will still cared about the judgment of his character. Alicia had always had the most effective weapons in this sense. A word from her, a disapproving look and Will was suddenly bare, without his expensive counselor-suit, a beaten dog that begged for forgiveness.
Kalinda knew what kind of boyfriend Will Gardner was.
Considerate but not cheesy, boastful but never without humor, faithful up until She decided to interfere in his life. Willing to step aside without fuss when he was not wanted anymore. Never vindictive or obsessively possessive. Trusting and not afraid to show his sillier side. Ready to protect the man he hated most in the world just to protect her.
Kalinda knew Will Gardner.
The man in his office, drowning scotch with the vacant eyes and the dejected pose was not Will Gardner.