Disclaimer: All recognizable The Good Wife characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to 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: This wasn't necessarily inspired by the First Lady wearing the very outfit Alicia Florrick did, but I threw that bit in for good measure. :) -dkc

Polling Data

They were sitting quietly in Alicia's SUV. Neither woman knew when they had last worked in close proximity or why this case had brought them together. Of course it was Diane's doing. She had sent Kalinda to meet the lawyer. Alicia was attempting her own stakeout of a potential witness who the entire defense team believed was lying. The question of motive remained.

The silence inside the vehicle was deafening.

There was no denying the underlying strain between them. Tension had always existed in varying degrees, but their no longer being close somehow escalated the tension.

"Alicia?" the tentative voice startled the brunette.

Shaking her head, Alicia considered ignoring Kalinda's question entirely, but knowing the persistent investigator would simply keep pushing, she gave in.

"Just a bit longer. He has to be in there," she said.

She believed the witness was inside the home of the plaintiff, collusion most likely. But sitting here for several more hours might not establish this as fact.

"And if he is? What are you going to do, march in there in your Michael Kors dress and stiletto heels and tell him you've caught him?" Kalinda smirked in her subtle way.

"I'm never going to live this down, am I?" Alicia rolled her eyes, referring to the interoffice joke. "I can't help that the First Lady of the United States wore the same dress."

"And I can't help that biker gangs wish they could be as stylish as me."

At this they both chuckled a bit. No biker would ever look as good in leather as Kalinda.

The silence of moments before settled back into the vehicle. Both women lost in their own thoughts and unwilling to share them aloud.

"Alicia?" her tone this time tipped Alicia off to what was actually being asked, if she hadn't known already when she answered with the case at hand rather than the friction between them.

The lawyer couldn't bring herself to look at her once best friend.

Kalinda was prepared to wait. She could be unbelievably patient when it came to Alicia Florrick.

Watching Alicia blink multiple times before chewing on her bottom lip, she decided to not let this chance slip away. She placed her hand on the back of the brunette's closest hand and wrist. The lawyer's sudden intake of breath did not go unnoticed. She slid her hand slightly higher to a bare forearm and then back down to fingers that separated as she reached them. Slipping her own fingers between them, Kalinda's gaze remained on the side of Alicia's face.

"Ali—" she was abruptly prevented from speaking that name again.

"If you ask again, I will give you answers to questions you may not be asking," she spoke in a breathy, nervous manner.

"Then I won't," Kalinda gave in. "I only ask that you look at me."

Closing her eyes and taking a slow breath, Alicia slowly turned her head toward Kalinda before opening her eyes with a combination of trepidation and interest.

"I don't—" it was her turn to be cut off, this time by forceful lips.

The kiss was similar to the first kiss they once shared only this time representative of the deep division between them. Their friendship hadn't fallen apart immediately after Alicia learned of Kalinda's—or Leela's—past, quite the opposite actually. The fallout from that revelation only amplified the current that sparked between them and one late night in the office when the investigator arrived to report her findings on a case, their mutual wavering willpower bent and they found themselves finally exposing their desires to one another in the form of a heated kiss. It may have been their first kiss, but it wouldn't be their last. Not by a mile. Embarking on a torrid affair, the two women fell hard. But it ended, catastrophically even, and the two women had kept their distance for some time.

"This isn't about the poll, is it?" Kalinda mumbled as their lips parted.

"How did you know? I mean… How did you know about the question?" Alicia asked.

A week prior the first countywide polling was leaked to the media. Quickly it became evident to Alicia that a sneakily placed question about how the voters would feel if they knew a candidate had had a secret same-sex relationship in their recent past wasn't inserted by either her own campaign or the semi-associated PAC that supported her. This could only mean that Prady knew. He knew that Alicia had been involved with Kalinda.

"Eli called me," she replied.

"Oh, god," Alicia sighed. "And he knew you and I…"

She couldn't bring herself to speak the words. Since she and Kalinda ceased to be both lovers and friends, she couldn't think of the whirlwind that transpired between them without a heavy amount of guilt and pain.

"He didn't. He merely suspected. I don't think he called me to confirm that suspicion, either. He called me with the hope that I might be able to protect you in some way," she said, her face still awfully close to the lawyer's, her voice gentle in its quietness.

"He wanted to keep you quiet?" Alicia was immediately defensive and angry.

Kalinda placed a hand behind Alicia's neck and used her thumb to tilt the brunette's head up so that their eyes could meet.

"That's not what he was concerned about," she assured her. "He knew I would never speak of it. Not to him, not to the Governor, not to the press. Eli isn't an idiot, Alicia. He knew that the poll would get back to you and the memory might—"

Kalinda stopped. Might what? Might sting? Might remind the lawyer of her shame? Or was he afraid that the memory of their affair might reignite feelings in Alicia that she had long since buried? If that was the case, the kiss they had shared in her car would confirm the return of feelings or…

"I never stopped," Alicia admitted with a darkened expression of something Kalinda was all too familiar with.

"Alicia…" she used that faint but recognizable lilt when she pronounced her name.

Alicia was leaning in, looking from Kalinda's eyes to her lips and back again. This time it was she who initiated the kiss and it was she who took it from fervent to frenzied. When the investigator moaned into her mouth, Alicia was conquered. She had never kissed another person and felt this way. It was erotic. And it was full of a love that never existed between she and Peter.

A car alarm went off in the neighborhood as Alicia's hands found the top button of Kalinda's leather jacket. Her hands stilled, her lips released their counterparts and she leaned her forehead against a caramel-toned chin.

"Kalinda?" she spoke hoarsely.

"Hmm?"

"I want this back. Us back," her sentimentality resonated in her voice.

Kalinda pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of Alicia's head.

"Is this stakeout necessary?" her response wasn't exactly what the other woman had expected, but the playful squeeze to her hand made Kalinda's true question clear.

"Not at all," she admitted, not in defeat now that she knew giving up on surveillance would lead her to Kalinda's bed with a very naked Kalinda.

"Let's get out of here then."

Alicia sat up and looked into the dark brown orbs she had missed seeing over the last months. Rather than answer, she pulled her right hand free of Kalinda's and reached for the key in the ignition.

The key turning was Kalinda's answer.

-finis-