A/N: I should be working on the new chapter of "A Study in Contradictions" but I can't wait a week to hope that Robert and Michelle will fix the situation. So I made my own version of it. Short but I think it gets the job done :). This takes place very soon after the night that ends 4x21.
"...A te la speme*
Nego, mi disse, anche la speme;
E d'altro Non brillin gli occhi tuoi se non di pianto."
He was tired.
Tired of fighting all the time and never seeing any victory that lasted more than a second.
Tired of watching Her eyes criticizing him when they had reached a decision on the assistants' protests. She, who had started it all, if unwillingly, in the first place.
Tired of being afraid of losing Kalinda, of her not considering him "family", or at least something more than a boss she could play for a raise. Hadn't he advocated her name since the beginning? Hadn't he given her the job she had wanted and the freedom she had asked for, without trying too hard to link her to Lockhart/Gardner? Did that mean nothing?
Tired at the mere thought of a future in which he had to discuss any minimal thing with David Lee without Diane at his side.
Tired of not having a real family to rely on. One that did not necessarily pursue the personal interest but looked for harmony and for the other one's wellness. He had put his entire efforts in Lockhart/Gardner but it didn't seem to matter much. Not in front of money or health-care insurance or flexibility.
Tired of watching her on TV, swearing allegiance to a man that had never treated the way he should have.
Tired of being asked to act on his feelings for Alicia, whether it be from Kalinda or from her mother. As if he had any power at all in deciding what happened between the two of them.
Tired of being rejected when he even made a minimal step in that direction.
Tired of watching her run away whenever their attraction felt sizzling and ready to explode.
She would renew her vows with Peter and ride off into the sunset with him, a Mrs Governor title to top her other qualifications. He would let her.
Diane would become a Justice for the Illinois Supreme Court. He would let her.
Kalinda would become the Head of her own department of Investigators in some other firm. He would let her.
He was tired of fighting. He was dull to everything that was happening around him.
The women in his life could all leave him.
He would survive. He always did.
He heard footsteps in the background. Heels. Someone that had to have forgotten something. No other reason to be at the office this late. Not if they weren't in the middle of a silent self-pity party.
He ignored them and kept sipping his drink while watching the rainy Chicago out the window.
The steps were getting closer but he didn't move. He hoped that whoever she was would leave him alone. He didn't want to chit-chat. He didn't want to argue. He just wanted to make it all stop.
"Will, are you ok? I came back for the Chumhum briefs and saw your light."
Alicia.
He turned and the light caught a new sparkle on her left finger. So she had said yes. Good for her, for Peter, for Zach and Grace and for Illinois.
Was he ok? Absolutely not.
Would he fake it to make her go away? Sure.
"Yes, just drinking the day away. Nothing to worry about."
Any other time he would have been glad of any such unexpected visit. He would have hoped that she was there to let go of the restraints or even simply to enjoy some friendly-time with him.
No more. He didn't have the strength to sustain an unreasonable hope. Time had deprived him even of that.
He went back to his view of skyscrapers and hoped to hear her recede.
Instead he felt the warmth of her hand on his shoulder. A hand of a shoulder had started it all, 4 years before. It was fitting that the same gesture would be repeated in the night that ended all dreams.
"Will, you can talk to me."
He would have laughed at her statement if he could just have mustered some energy. He had so many retorts to her words. Sarcastic retorts, cruel retorts, sad retorts. They would have led to something akin to a discussion and he desired only apathy. So he met her sentence with silence.
He waited for her to take the hint but she didn't. Even at his most exhausted state he managed to locate enough force to get angry.
Did she care so little for him that she believed it fair for her to break his heart, flash the new rock on his face and then expect him to let her console him?
He had to stop "feeling", avoid her, not say anything about her decisions and she could waltz in at his most vulnerable to what? Clean her conscience by making sure she had not completely broken him?
Enough was enough. If she wouldn't move, he would before he started yelling at her and making her do things that she would regret. Oh, wait that did not apply anymore. Apparently she could turn off her feelings for him whenever they were inconvenient. The memory flashed painfully in his head.
"Now this has to end."
"Can you just decide that?"
"I can. I have to."
He had to, definitely but he never could. At least he could try to enter into a alcohol-induced torpor, if only for a couple of hours.
"Time for me to go. Goodnight."
"Will, wait!"
At that he could contain himself anymore.
"What, Alicia, what do you want to say? Do you want to say that the ring on your finger represents the reconciliation of the First Couple of Illinois? Thanks for the information but I already knew that."
"Will, it's just because..."
"Because of the children, because of Peter's political career, because you love him. I don't care. I get it, Alicia, I'm not enough. I have never been. I will never be. Nothing more to add."
He hated crying but he could not stop the tears at the admission of the excruciating truth. Will Gardner wasn't enough for Diane. He wasn't enough for Kalinda. He wasn't enough for Alicia.
She joined the weeping and then said:
"Plenty more to add, Will. I'm sorry. I..."
She hesitated a bit and then her lips were on his, demanding, forceful, full of life. Instinct reacted for him and even his rationality allowed him to enjoy their farewell kiss.
But she wasn't stopping at a passionate kiss. One of her hands were tugging his hair and the other went under his jacket. Then she froze and with a sudden move freed her left finger of her rings, all of her rings and threw them on the couch.
Then she approached him and seemed intent on connecting their lips again but she talked instead.
"I thought I could. Stop this. Us. Just by my sheer willpower. Being in love with you wouldn't make sense so I had not to be. As simple as that. But it's not this simple. You were right. The ring meant my renewed commitment to Peter."
He cast his eyes downward. Was she playing with him again?
She searched for his eyes and then finished her thought.
"You were right but you are not right anymore. I can't commit to him when I am in love with someone else. It wouldn't be fair to him, but especially to us."
He was confused at her words. They indicated that in the night in which he had abandoned hope, he seemed to have reason to hold on to it.
"What are you saying?"
"I am saying that I have been an idiot. That what I can stop is my marriage to Peter. What I won't stop, what I don't want to stop is being in love with you."
A teary smile found his way to his face. When he had given up on Alicia, Alicia had finally remembered him. But he had to be sure of something. He didn't want to be just her secret booty call.
"If we do this, it has to be something real."
"Yes, meet-the-kids, take the hate of my soon-to-be ex-mother-in-law, bear my real mother and suffer my brother teasing real."
"I can work with that."
"Good, then it's settled."
She smiled mischievously before concluding:
"The office is all empty. It would be a shame not to celebrate a very successful settlement."
He had only the time to say "It would be" before she had backed him on his desk predatorily and was already unbuttoning his zip. Then only the sweetest sensations followed. And a discovery.
He wasn't tired anymore.
*This verse if from one of my favorite poems ever. Will should be thankful to see it associated to his thoughts ;). It's called "La sera del dì di festa" ("The holiday evening") by Giacomo Leopardi. The translation you can read here is by Steven J. Willett:
"... To you I deny
Hope, she said, even hope and nothing else
Will ever brighten your eyes, if not weeping."