Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
A/N: Hello, everyone! This is the missing flashback I was talking about in Cannonballs. I know it took a while for me to update it, but that's because I kind of wanted to work it into a proper one-shot and couldn't let go of it just yet. Anyway, here it is so love you all, and please enjoy.
Oh, and also, like I said this is not a songfic, I just liked that title.
(By the way, I'm still French and un-betaed so all mistakes are mine. And I'm still looking for one – a beta – if anyone's interested ^^).
The Edge Of Glory
The pictures themselves, they don't scare her; they're almost cute. He's holding her hand in black and white and the cheap newspaper ink taints her fingers when she flips it over to page two. She's careful not to show Eli anything; she makes a living out of it. There's no anger, no shrug, not even a hint of the smile that memories can sometimes force upon her.
Eli retreats to his office and Alicia throws herself into work, pretending not to notice other people's stares as they pass by.
She wishes she remembered everyone she knew when they were young and on the edge of glory; when they weren't really doing anything else other than thinking about how one day, they'd do something great. She remembers Will though, Will who was late one morning after a particularly long night and argued his way into class with enough ironic quips and self-confidence to get himself kicked out, had he not already been so brilliant at it. Alicia thinks he likes to think he could still never be satisfied with what he has, just like almost all of them back then. She'd always thought that the day Will would stop trying to snatch things out of life, he'd die.
In law school, she recalls, he used to look a bit younger, twenty or twenty-one maybe; and look as though the world belonged to him. Things, they rolled off his back; he crawled and swam against the current but never allowed himself to float. Took his smartest and most thought-out decisions in milliseconds, always knowing where he wanted to go. She liked that about him, admired it, that and the endless glint of excitement that reflected in his eyes when he looked so high no one would ever dare to touch him. She used to think he would never, ever grow out of that spontaneity.
"Oh, look at this!" He shouted once, over the sound of the air rushing inside his car. In the forty years of her life, she thinks the car Will owned throughout their first two years of law school is probably the worst moving vehicle she's ever been in. She remembers the way it looked and the way it smelled and the unbelievable noises it would make every time they drove past anything over the size of a cigarette. Before his father died and his mother lost the house (before he started to think about money and moved in with her after her German roommate went back to her country), she'd thought he was purposefully trying to get it stolen, conveniently 'forgetting' to lock it every time they stepped out of a parking lot. "You want to stop and take some pictures?" He asked and she nodded, covering her ears in anticipation, ready for his foot to hit the brake.
The coast was beautiful in the winter, white sun falling against the horizon and dark ocean brushing the edge of a cliff. She'd send the pictures to Owen, she thought, show him she wasn't studying 'all the fucking time' after all. She took a few shots from afar and Will called after her when she tried to hide, "Oh come on, Alicia, come closer!"
She threw an annoyed glance in his direction, pulling her coat against the cold, fighting the urge to grab his hand and lock him back inside before he did something stupid. He was leaning against the railing, grinning like an idiot, his hair wild by the force of the wind. "Oh Alicia, you're not afraid of heights, are you?"
"Shut up!"
He walked towards her, took her hand in his. "Come on, I'll hold you," he said and lead her behind him.
They were always together, always touching, always talking, always laughing. Sometimes, she'd look to her side and be surprised if he wasn't right there following her, joking and teasing and whispering. He brought up things in her she didn't even know she secretly held, instincts, the possibility to stop hiding and maybe let go.
Terrified, she watched Will while he laughed and cracked jokes at her about how much more beautiful it was over there, and how she should come closer, always closer to the edge. When she finally dared to join him, he smiled and coached her. "Don't look down," he repeated over and over again until she relaxed and let go of his hand, "don't look down." When she looked straight into the horizon, she almost thought one day she'd be like him.
"Yeah, that's it", he said and, of course, impulsivity got the better of him.
She tells herself that at the time, he was young and reckless and that now they've grown and that's that. But when she watches him fight with Diane or in court, all she can think about is that Will hasn't changed (will never change), not really. Somehow, he believes that's what still makes him a kid, as if his spur-of-the-moment calls balance the fact that now, he seems to be willing to give up on some of the things that he wants. But her children aren't like that, (hell, she's never been like that), and she doesn't believe spontaneity is something you can grow out of when it's rooted that deep inside you. It doesn't conceal the fact that he's grown, that he's not exactly the same person he used to be when on the day of his twenty-fourth birthday, out of the blue, he pushed himself over the railing and stood by the precipice, both his hands still holding on the metallic arc behind him. The strong waves ate at the rock eighty feet below and Alicia suddenly shrieked and grabbed his arm.
"Oh, you're worried about me? I'm flattered," he shouted over the noise. Her heart drummed against her ribcage, her panicked hands tried to force him back on the safe side. "Will!" she said, again and again and he laughed, hard. "Okay, fine!" He finally said after what felt like an hour, "I don't want to scare you!" and he jumped back next to her. It lasted just a couple of minutes but it was a fright she would never forget.
She looked daggers at him all the way back to DC.
He unlocked the apartment and she was about to head straight to her room with a disappointed look on her face when he caught her wrist, chuckling a little. "Seriously, Alicia, how long are you going to stay pissed at me?"
"I don't know. You think you'll be able to keep pulling stunts like those forever?"
They've had had fights, before, but not like this. He swallowed, let go of her and sat on the floor, his back against the wall. "I'm sorry I scared you," he said.
She used to think she liked this raw aspect of his personality. "It was a risk, Will."
He bit his lower lip, tried to always use the same words, soothing, caring, "I couldn't fall, Alicia, I couldn't fall. The ground was stable, I held the railing. And it's not even about falling," he pointed out, "it's about knowing you can, knowing you have to take the best out of life because one day, one day everything might just stop. Don't over-analyze this into something important it clearly isn't."
The old Alicia tried to block this away as the scariest thing anyone had ever said to her because the old Alicia's life had been devoted to making plans for the future, plans of family dinners and children and soccer games and spontaneous, risky decisions had never been her thing, (you never have to improvise when you're always prepared). But she started taking control, started an affair with Will on a whim and came to admire (or almost envy) certain things about him she'd never been able to understand before. Once, when she'd had a bad day and caught him staring at her as he passed her office, she texted him.
Please don't ever stop looking at me like that.
Her phone shrilled; she could picture his cocky but somewhat confused smile in her head when he just answered, O-kay. Then again. Lunch?
She chuckled to herself, shook her head in disbelief and sent: At 3:30 p.m?
Afternoon snack, then?
She laughed this time, almost too loud, and she caught herself not thinking like she used to. No. Take me to dinner tonight.
He didn't answer right away. You sure?
She tried to draw one of those smiley faces her kids sometimes sent her but quickly dropped it. Yeah. Just once, nothing fancy. Just dinner.
Okay. Pick you up at seven.
So when, after the divorce becomes public, Alicia sees printed pictures of her and Will holding hands and kissing each other in a small restaurant booth around the corner, she just breathes in and shows nothing to Eli, not even the smile the memories trigger in her mind. For a very short moment, she's almost happy, thinks that you don't always have to morn the plans you don't make, but then she looks at Will and at how he chose the suspension, how he gave up on whatever he wished they were and wonders what he's yearning for now. She'd like to think he's learned to be satisfied with what he has but then that'd mean he's outgrown her.
THE END.
A/N: Thank you for reading. This is dedicated to everyone who asked for a follow-up on Cannonballs or wanted me to write from Alicia's POV. I really don't feel comfortable writing her, I truly hope this wasn't too OOC.
Also, for anyone who's interested, there's a moment in the parking lot scene in Cannonballs when it says "She titters again a bit though he's not entirely sure why (it's like the secondary shakes after an earthquake) and inspects his body, his posture, the way his tired gaze travels to meet hers. Will is tall, athletic, has put on just the right amount of weight since their Georgetown days. She has memories too, she muses, like that one time they went on a road trip near the shore and he stupidly stepped over a railing, his body inches away from tumbling down a cliff. She shrieked at him as he tried to explain. "It's not even about falling," he pointed out, reassuring, "it's about knowing you can if you want to."": that's where this was originally set, oviously. But like I said, I took it off because I felt it broke halfway through a scene that was too emotional to be broken.
Anyway, love you all, again, the feedback I've had has been amazing so far so don't hesitate to comment, even if you didn't like the story, constructive criticism is always helpful ;p.