(The story does not contain spoilers for 5x15, but the author's notes do.)

Author's note:

Hello everyone. I've been writing for myself for quite a while now, but I'd never felt confident enough to publish… So this will be my first fanfic.

I absolutely loved episode 5x14 and I felt inspired to write this. I wanted to publish it before 5x15 but I actually finished writing it just as it was airing. I don't live on the US so I didn't get to watch it until today… Oh my. So I decided to go ahead and publish anyway, even though my bad timing is on par with Will and Alicia's, if that's even possible.

I wrote the entire thing before watching 5x15, so there are no spoilers in the text. But looking back now, some of the words and sentences I used… Seemed almost like foreboding. Anyway, I'd like to believe this story happened, it doesn't really contradict the show... It's just my version of events after Alicia left Will at the coffee shop and before 5x15. It's all Will's POV and I hope I made him justice.

It was a brief, firm handsake. Her hand was as soft as he remembered, not that he cared to recall it anymore. Her smile was also brief, soon interrupted by an important phone call, and then she was gone and he was left munching on a burger that was below average and on old, stale regrets.

He watched her retreating figure as she crossed the street and entered the hotel, her walk graceful as ever. An unvoluntary flash of memory brought him back to another hotel, on another terms, on another lifetime. The Presidential Suite had lived up to his wildest expectations.

Not that he cared to recall it, anymore.

The neon lights reading 'Coffee shop' were too bright, and her clothes had been too dark. Clad all in black, she'd looked almost funereal. He preferred her in light colors, or in deep, crimson red. He preferred her in nothing at all.

He downed pint after pint of beer, determined to prove her wrong. You could definitely get drunk on beer. The trick was to keep on drinking. He could also find his way to the hotel bar, but she was there, somewhere, and he didn't like her. Didn't hate her either, as much as he wanted to. His only purpose was to beat her in every possible game and every posible courtroom, to get back at her for the way she'd beaten him in the most important game of all. Real life. But she'd always had the upper hand on that one, hadn't she?

The beer was just okay, but he was warming up to it. Her table remained unocccupied, her empty seat filled with the ghost of her. Just like her old office chair, back in Chicago, empty and forlorn in an office she had never really bothered to decorate. Three weeks. She had lied to his face for three weeks and he'd had no clue. No excuses or explanations could ever make up for that. David Lee had claimed her office seconds after she'd set foot outside the door, but in the end it had gone to Beth, the new partner, the traitor amongst traitors. He hadn't entered the room in months and he didn't plan to, lest the urge to clear away her desk again be too strong even if its occupant was different.

The waitress kept bringing him pints, and the memories kept coming. Her speech had touched him, but he'd never tell her. He had helped her selflessly, and she had spat his kindness in his face. They said that no good deed ever goes unpunished. How true, that.

He remembered their first fortuitous meeting in some elevator five years ago, and how he couldn't help turning around and preventing the closing of the metal doors, if only to spend a few more seconds with her. That should have been the first warning sing. He had let her back into his life, gone home and searched for their old yearbooks, made her laugh, even offered her a job when no one else -no one sane- would. And he had pulled all the stops for her to get it. He wondered if Crozier, Abrams & Abbott happened to be still alive and in his vicinity, because he'd very much like to tell them they'd been wrong. She had a killer instinct alright. Who would have thought?

He remembered her smile when he told her she'd got the job, and the warmth that had expanded in his chest at her excitement. He couldn't remember how she'd done her hair or what she'd been wearing -unlike the suit she wore on their first night together, whose every button he had committed to memory- but he remembered her smile, bright and genuine and sincere. He hadn't known, not yet, but that smile would become his downfall. One smile from her, and he would turn the world on its head. Not anymore, though. He was immunised. Not that she'd graced him with any genuine smiles since she left his firm, but anyway, he wouldn't fall for that again. He knew better now.

But still his heart had ached a little when she saw her face as her listeners walked out, one by one, to the nearest exit. Her speech had been a good one, and he appreciated the sentiment when she talked about 'her interviewer', how in a subtle way she was proclaiming before the world that she was nothing if not for him. Not that it mattered. He had stayed until the end, knowing Diane was taking care of the pharmaceuticals. He was on the sidelines, but towards the end her eyes had landed on him and she'd made an unnecesarily long pause, then looked away and gone on.

He had not clapped, just got up and left. He didn't know if her eyes had sought him again, if she had seen him quietly slip away without so much as nod. How funny that she believed him a witness to her humilition, and not to one of her greatest achievements. Few speeches had ever rang so true within the walls of the ABA.

'Sir, do you want your note?' The waitress interrupted his train of thought, eyeing him warily. Clearly, she though he'd had one too many.

'Yes, please.' He answered politely. She left to fecth it and the corners of his mouth twisted up in the semblance of a smile as an image of a slightly inebriated Alicia calling out 'bitch!' popped up in his head. One thing he'd give her, she was never boring.

He paid in cash, tipped the due amount and then retraced Alicia's steps some half hour earlier to the hotel entrance. He craved Scotch, so he risked going to the hotel bar. He wasn't even surprised when he saw her haughtily perched on the stool to the far left, nursing a glass of red wine.

'Drunk yet?' He asked, taking the stool next to her. He had fun unsettling her, and she was looking especially prickly. Anyway, he wanted his whiskey and he had nothing better to do.

'Yep. You following me?' She seemed irritated already. Too easy.

'Not really. You just happen to get in the way. Scotch, no ice.' He said, for the benefit of the bartender. 'And a refill for the lady.'

'How generous.' She replied drily.

'You look like you need it. Not surprising, after your speech fiasco and losing Raina Hecht to Elsbeth Tascioni.' The bartender set his Scotch in front of him and greedily, he took a generous gulp.

'How'd you...?'

'She told me.' She'd texted him while he was at the diner, but the news had barely registered. He didn't care for things like he used to, anymore.

'Well, don't you look so cocky, you lost her too.' She sipped on her wine, ever so poised, ever so classy. Unknowingly, she was rattling him.

'That's alright. I wanted to put my moves on her, but it'd been awkward if we wound up working together. I don't do that anymore.' He lied, just to see her reaction. He'd never had any intention of hitting on Raina, but a cruel, conceited part of him wanted to check if it'd bother her.

'Go to hell, Will.' She snapped.

'After you.' He said, raising his glass in her direction, then finishing it off in one long gulp.

'How many beers have you had?'

'Oh, don't be like that, Alicia. You've most likely matched me drink for drink.'

'Leave me alone.'

'No.' He stated.

'What?' Her brown eyes were wide open, her red lips parted in ashtonishment.

'I said no. I'm gonna be your shadow, I'm gonna use every tactic to throw you off balance and I'm gonna leave you no respite from me. That's what it means being your competitor.'

'You don't play fair.' That almost made him laugh. As if she'd ever been fair to him.

'I never said I would.'

'You know what, Will? I'm not in the mood for these childish games. You want to make my life hell? Fine, I get it. I probably deserve it. Just admit the reason why you're doing this. I hurt you, and I'm sorry. But I wasn't just another partner and don't say those things were never linked because they were and you wouldn't be doing this to anyone but me.'

She stormed off her stool, darting for the elevator, leaving behind her glass of wine, only half-finished.

'Charge it to room 591.' He instructed the bartender, then he chased after her.

His hand stopped the elevator doors just as they were closing, a déjà vu if there ever was one. Perhaps this time he should just let her go.

Instead, he jumped in right next to her and the elevator started up.

For a moment they stood side by side, looking on ahead, like they had on that other night, on that other hotel elevator, on that other, long-lost, lifetime. Not that he cared to recall it. Anymore.

This time he was the one to break the silence.

'You're right.' He muttered.

She glanced sideways at him, shocked.

'It's personal.' He went on. 'It's always been personal. You used me. You betrayed me. So how did you think I'd react?'

'I didn't use you.' Her tone was pleading. 'At least not... not consciously.'

'But you did. You practically said so in your speech. "Use anything you've got, to get the job" wasn't it?

'That's not what I meant, Will.' Her eyes were tearing up, he saw, and he averted his. 'You saved me. You can't even begin to guess how... how desperate I was when I first called you. But you decided to give me a chance, you believed in me. I never asked you for a chance, I was too proud to ask. And yet, you did it anyway. And I know what you're about to say, I know...'

'I wasn't referring to that.'

'I know, just let me finish... I never meant for things to get so out of hand. We got together. It didn't work out. What I said at the coffee shop was true... we could never make it work.'

'You never tried.' His hurt poured out into his words.

'I did try. And I failed. And then I tried to forget it, I tried to let you get on with your life but it wasn't working. I had to get away, then Cary offered me a way out and I took it. I was a coward and I took it and I'm sorry. But I never wanted to hurt you.' Tears were freely spilling down her face and for a moment there he wanted to believe her. But he was too wounded.

'So what? You knew you would. You knew perfectly well what you were doing, you had three weeks to sit on it.'

'I convinced myself it was the only way.' She whispered.

'Oh, cut it out.' He wanted her to stop crying. He couldn't take it.

'You think I'm faking this?' Her eyes were red and wild.

'I think I don't believe any word that comes out of your lying mouth anymore. Not after everything.'

He was too wounded. But he really wanted to believe her, to reconcile the image of her lovely, vulnerable self when she came for help five years ago with the woman that stood in tears beside him, apologetic now, after breaking his heart and selling the pieces.

'I'm sorry, Will. It's no use now but I really am.'

'Whatever.' He really wanted to. But he couldn't.

The elevator halted.

'This is me.'

He gave no sing that he'd heard her.

'Goodnight, Will. And thank you, for at least admitting it.'

She wiped her face on her sleeve as she stepped out of the elevator. Tears don't leave stains. In slow motion, he saw her walk away from him, his heart bleeding for everything they could have been, for everything they'd lost. For everything they'd said, and had not said. The elevator remained open, as no button had been pressed, but soon someone would summon it from another floor and he'd lose sight of her. He could not bring himself to push the button to his own floor. He just stood there, motionless, watching. Her silhoutte became smaller with every step that she took.

Her words, the ones he'd just said he'd never believe would haunt him, he knew, and no amount of Scotch would ever be enough to drown them. Her voice hovered at the edge of his numb, jaded mind. "I was too proud to ask."

He started to run. He heard the elevator doors finally closing behind him but he only cared for the clicking of her heels ahead.

'Alicia.' In seconds he had caught up to her. 'Wait.' She stopped and turned.

'What else is there to say?' Her cheeks were still wet.

'Did you ever love me?' He had burned to ask that question but he'd always been too scared. Too proud. 'I need to know.'

She seemed taken aback by the sudden question.

'Will it make any difference?' She managed to say.

He just stared at her, wondering. Could she had loved him and still used him? Did that change anything?

'Yes.'

'I loved you.' Her voice broke when she said it, but it sounded true enough. He wanted it to be true. Owen had tried to tell him, but he hadn't wanted to listen.

Her words were a pain and a relief at the same time. They came too late and spoken in past tense, but he'd longed to hear them for so, so long.

'You did?' He inquired, half in pain and half in disbelief.

Her sad smile broke his heart in two.

'Yes.'

'Why didn't you tell me?' His tone was accusing, but inside he only felt disappointed. If only she'd told him...

'We were doomed from the start, why make it any harder?' Her shoulders were slumped, defeated.

'We never had a real chance. You shut me out, and I let you. Damn it, I let you.' He cursed himself then, for giving up too easily, for refusing to put up a fight.

'It wouldn't have worked.' She was beginning to sound like a broken record and he guessed she had repeated those words to herself way too many times.

'It would have. We would have made it to. I should have fought for you, for us. Because you never did.'

'It doesn't matter now. You hate me, rightfully too. I did what I did and I don't regret it. It was my decision then, and I had my reasons. The only thing I regret is ever causing you pain.'

'Goddammit, Alicia. You could have told me you were leaving, you could have told me why. Instead you went behind my back, you stole my clients and you're saying... you left because of me.'

'Of course it was because of you! I couldn't stand it! Do you hard any idea how hard it was to pretend I didn't want you? To have to see you day after day, to have you there, wanting me... And don't say you didn't, Will, 'cause that would be a lie.'

'Well then, your master plan backfired on you. Now you see me more than ever.'

'Because you've made it that way. But it's fine now. You don't want me anymore.'

'I don't want you?' He almost choked with the inaccuracy of her assumption.

He grabbed her forcefully, and kissed her. His lips pried hers open and his fingers wove through her hair, pulling her face closer. His kiss was aggresive, feral even, but she returned it with equal passion. Her hands grabbed a fistful of his shirt and he pushed her against the wall, his tongue mercilessly attacking hers as one of his hands found its way beneath her blouse and caressed her heated skin.

She'd believed he didn't want her? He had never wanted her more. Two years without her body had been a living hell. He pressed himself against her, buried his face on her neck, heard her answering moans, which only served to inflame him. He needed to get her out of those clothes.

He never knew how they managed to stumble to her door, nor how he managed to stay away from her long enough for her to fish out the key card and open it. This time it worked on the first try.

Slamming the door behind them, he lifted her off the floor and carried her to the bed. Her skin was milky white, a stark contrast against her black garb, which he lost no time in getting rid of. She didn't stay behind either and soon they were both naked, writhing beneath the sheets. He took her hard, but she never complained. Her nails scratched at his back, encouraging him, as her lips said 'faster, faster...'. He silenced her with a sudden kiss, but increased the pace.

He spent the night. It didn't mean he forgave her, and she probably knew. But for this night, they wouldn't question it. She rode him for a while, and he enjoyed the view. She hadn't changed at all, maybe she had become even more beautiful for the time they'd spent apart.

At some point he deluded himself into thinking she loved him. After all she had, before. Now he knew. So he took her slow and looked into her eyes and kissed her sweetly for a while. Then he remembered himself.

He lost count of the times she reached her climax. He left no inch of her skin unkissed, no corner unexplored. He remembered what she liked and he did it all. She remebered what he liked too. He screamed her name, he whispered it, he moaned it.

Sweaty and spent, they fell asleep in a tangle of sheets in each other's arms.

A dutiful receptionist interrupted their short slumber with his wake-up call. Softly stirring, she looked even more precious in the early morning light. He leaned in and kissed her, because it felt natural, because why the hell not. Then he held her, looking into her face, pushing away wayward strands of auburn hair. They stayed like that for a while, saying nothing, lost in memories of the night before. Finally, painfully, he disentangled himself from her and began searching for his clothes. They were spread all over the floor, his shoes somewhere in the adjoining room. He gathered them all, then returned to the bedroom to get dressed, capitalizing on the last minutes he had with her.

Her arms snaked around his body, and she started biting his earlobe. He was tempted, but one look at his watch told him he'd better hurry if he wanted to avoid the third degree from Diane.

'I have a plane to catch.' His flight left earlier than hers, he'd found out during the night, though he couldn't exactly say when.

'Thank you. For last night.'

'This doesn't change things, you know. I'm still out to get you.'

She gave him a lazy, contented smile.

'Oh, I know. I'm not afraid of you.'

He finished buttoning his shirt, grabbed his jacket and kissed her again. It was longer this time, a kiss good-bye. Not that he actually believed they wouldn't repeat this, and soon. If she'd ever really doubted he wanted her, every doubt had certainly been vanished.

They desired each other, yes. A little too much. He didn't know what would become of them, but he didn't really care. He took things as they came now.

He left her in bed and hurried to his room, to finish packing. All the way he was thinking about her, markedly with less anger and bitterness than he had the day before. He saw her again just as he was leaving, she was in line for check out and she smiled at him. It was a knowing, daring smile.

Bring it on, it seemed to say. Do your very best.

He would.

He smiled back, taking her in her new, brighter attire. She looked great in red. She'd always looked great in red.

Now that he cared to recall it, anyhow.

Thank you so much for reading!

It would mean a lot to me if you'd leave a comment… Seeing as this is my first fic and now, after watching 5x15, I'm just not functioning. Any comment will be welcome. Feel free to PM me too if you're in need of someone to commiserate with. Hugs to you all.

Willicia, always.