in the morning, in the winter shade
on the first of March, on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing.
When she hears the gunshot, she doesn't react immediately.
Alicia doesn't react immediately, because she wasn't expecting to hear it. Of course she wasn't expecting to hear it. She's just sitting in the back of a courtroom, watching Will argue with the ASA, and they were just at the bench talking to the judge and—and then someone fires a gun and the whole world stops.
She jumps out of her seat as everyone else dives under their seats, and she's looking around wildly, panicked, and she thinks she can hear someone yelling at her to get down, but she doesn't.
She can't.
And then she sees Jeffrey and he's got the gun and she decides it's probably smart to get out of the way. So she crouches down, then there are more gunshots and glass shattering and people screaming and the alarm starts going off, and then—
there's nothing.
The alarm keeps ringing, but in her mind, everything and everyone else is silent.
She stands.
"Ma'am? Ma'am!" she hears an officer hiss. "You need to get down. There might be others."
"No. No," she says, choking on her tears. "I need—I need to get to my friend."
So Alicia ignores his words and walks through the broken glass and the strewn items on the floor—there's someone's jacket, and there's a shoe.
There's a shoe, and there's blood smeared on the floor, and she knows exactly who that shoe belongs to.
And then, she realizes, the blood.
Alicia considers collapsing on the floor right then and there, because what if—he might be—but she presses on, knowing if any version of that truth is real—
"He needs help," the ASA tells her, and it's then she collapses on the floor, in front of the man who knows her better than anyone else, the man she should've promised her life to, the man who is now covered in blood, struggling to breathe and fighting for his life.
She screams hysterically for the paramedics, thinking they can't possibly be that far, thinking they can't be, because she desperately loves this man who is bleeding to death right in front of her eyes and she needs to tell him she's sorry before it's too late.
"I love you," she whispers, grabbing his hand and locking eyes with his. She doesn't know if he can see her, or if he can hear her, but she repeats herself. "I love you, Will. That's all that matters. I love you. And I'm so sorry."
"You're gonna be okay," she whispers, but she knows it's more for herself than for him. If he's conscious at all right now, it's likely he knows what she knows—that he's not going to make it.
"I love you, and you're gonna be okay," she repeats. "I love you."
I can see a lot of life in you
I can see a lot of bright in you
and I think the dress looks nice on you
I can see a lot of life in you.
When he hears the gunshot, he doesn't react immediately.
Will doesn't react immediately, because he wasn't expecting to hear it. Of course he wasn't expecting to hear it. He's just standing at the bench, next to Finn, and then someone fires a gun and the whole world stops.
His world stops a few seconds later when the next bullet fired hits him. And then again, and then again.
Before he can comprehend the pain, the pain of a bullet tearing through skin and muscle, he's on the floor, being dragged to apparent safety by Finn, and then all he hears are more gunshots, and glass shattering, and screams and sirens and then—
there's nothing.
He thinks he can hear, somewhere in the distance, a police officer telling someone—a woman, he knows—to get down, or something, and all he hears her say is "No."
Alicia.
It's Alicia.
It's his Alicia.
His throat is dry, and closing up on him, and he's starting to have trouble breathing.
And then, what feels like hours later, Finn speaks. "He needs help," he tells Alicia, and it's then she collapses on the floor in front of him. He sees her, the woman who knows him better than anyone else, the woman he should've made his own, the woman who is now hysterically crying at his feet, and he just wants to tell her everything is going to be okay.
It will.
It will, because even if he dies in the next ten minutes, he will always love her.
Always.
Will can feel her grab his hand, and he hears her say "I love you." She says it over, and over, and she says that she's sorry, and that he's gonna be okay, but all her words start to blur together and in this moment, he just tries to keep his eyes open so he can see hers—those greenish-hazel eyes that match his so perfectly—and before his eyes close, he sees the dress she's wearing and wishes he could smile.
He wishes he could smile and tell her how nice that dress looks on her.
It was something he told her their first night at Georgetown, at that pool party, when she wore that red sundress. Red was her color, even then, and the dress fit her so perfectly.
"That dress looks really nice on you," he told her, and she blushed just a little.
"You're too kind," she insisted, taking another sip of wine.
Will smiled at her, realizing she didn't readily accept compliments. "Alicia…the dress looks nice on you."
"Thank you," she said, accepting the compliment as she returned the smile.
It was something he told her again several months later, when she put on an emerald green dress for St. Patrick's Day.
And a few months after that, when she bought a new sundress to wear for her birthday.
And two years after that, when she donned a sapphire blue gown for their 3L formal.
And a couple years after that, when she wore an exquisite white dress on her wedding day.
His only reservation was that she was wearing the dress to marry another man—but he couldn't deny how nice it looked on her.
Then a decade passed, and they were reunited. They started attending formal, professional events, like swearing-in receptions for judges and firm holiday parties and Shamrock Dinners and all those horrible things that forced him to put on those stupid bow ties.
But he would've put on a bow tie any day if it meant getting to see his beautiful Alicia in another beautiful dress.
This dress seems the most important, though, this black dress, the one she's wearing now as she kneels before him. Because this is the dress he will remember her wearing, if there is a heaven or an afterlife or an anything—he'll remember this, exactly what she looked like.
He'll remember how full of life she was, and how full she made his life, even just in these last minutes.
Will had never thought much about dying before, or what it might look like or feel like, or who he might want by his side when it happened. He figured he had years—another half of his life—to think about that kind of thing.
But now he knows he's dying, and now he knows he doesn't have that kind of time.
So he just stares into Alicia's eyes and tries to choke out two last things.
I love you.
And that dress looks nice on you.
A/N: The idea for this story has been on my mind for a few days. It was inspired by two Sufjan Stevens songs, "The Dress Looks Nice On You" and "Casimir Pulaski Day," after which I titled this story. CPD is, in my mind, one of the most poignant and heartbreaking songs in existence, and even though the events of the song don't match up with this, the sentiments certainly do. This was mostly written to explore the idea of Alicia being by Will's side when he died, offering her a closure (albeit a heartbreaking one) the show never did. I know this is much sadder than the fluff I've been writing, but I hope you enjoy it just the same. Thanks for reading, friends.