A/N: This one was originally much angstier than the first one. Then I added the last part to put a glimpse of hope at the end of the scene. But the warning stands. The conversation is angsty and assumes that Alicia and Will haven't truly talked in a few months. Wounds heal with time. Infected ones fester.

"Enough. Mrs Florrick, Mr Gardner, I hold you both in contempt. Let's see if a cell helps you get rid of this senseless animosity."

There they were, sitting on the opposite sides of the bench in the cell. Alone for the first time in months.

"We should report him for judicial overreach. He can't just hold us in contempt for no reason."

Will was tense and visibly upset at having to spend even a few unnecessary minutes with her.

"Maybe he's not completely wrong. We have been at each other's throats during this case. And the one before that, and so on. Now that we're here we should try to solve our unexplainable rage."

"Your unexplainable rage. Mine is very justified."

True. Her anger was just a consequence of his. Nothing more than that.

"Will, I act angry with you because I don't know how to act around you."

"Whose fault is that? What did you expect, Alicia?"

It was a reasonable question. She had caused all of this mayhem. She should have foreseen it all. Somehow she hadn't.

"I didn't expect anything. I didn't plan that far ahead. I just reacted to the circumstances."

"You didn't plan? Everything that matters needs a plan, hasn't anybody ever told you that? You know what, my bad, I don't matter so you didn't need a plan after all."

She physically perceived the violence of the verbal whip Will had just cracked. Most of all, distance hadn't worked at all because all she desired to do at that moment was to kiss him, to make him forget all the devastation she had generated. She settled for words.

"How could you think that you don't matter to me?"

"How could I not think that?"

He was angry. He had every right to be. But she didn't know how to fix it. She resorted to tell the truth.

"I'm sorry."

"I have such a collection of your sorrys, I don't know where to put them anymore. At times, I wonder if sorry means something else to you than it does to me."

Hearing Will rubbing in her face her track record was another vehement blow. She had never wished to cause him pain.

"I never..."

"Don't. Don't you dare say that you never meant to hurt me because it would be an insult to my intelligence. You did mean to hurt me. More than that, you wanted to hurt us, our relationship. You have always known that the dangerous element between us has never been our mutual attraction. Attraction isn't difficult to feel. It also isn't that difficult to control. We're hard-wired to do it. The problem has always been our friendship. How we always got each other with a look, how hard we laugh when we are together, how casual and blunt we could be. No masks, no efforts. That kind of thing is much more difficult to replicate. Indeed, it's so rare that one might not come across it more than once or twice during an entire lifetime. You knew that to get rid of me you had to hurt our friendship and very deliberately set out to do it. Bravo, Alicia, bravo. You reached your goal, as always."

She needed to cry. She never deliberately set to do anything. She just found herself unable to control the perfect storm and saw in Cary and his offer her only possible life-raft. That's all she had done. But she could clearly see how it would look to him. How easy it was to interpret the facts in his way.

It had always been on the back of her head, his sorrow. She had avoided facing him with the resignation letter for precisely with that rationale. Then she had reasoned herself out of the guilt. She couldn't be that important to him. He would get over it and they would be merely adversaries.

Seeing him like this ended the charade.

She had been that important to him. He would not get over it.

"So we're stuck forever in this circle of bitterness and animosity?"

Don't tell me that, Will. Tell me that in the future we could be able to repair some fragment of what was between us.

"I'll do my best to tone down the animosity. But I don't see how I can easily get rid of the bitterness."

He went back to his silence. Their silences used to be full of non-verbal communication, comfortable. This one was painful. Could a silence be painful? She had to end it.

"Is Kalinda coming to get you?"

"I think so."

"You two are getting closer lately."

They had been. Always huddled together whispering. And then at the bar, drinking and smiling. There to remind her and Cary of what they had lost with their new venture.

"What are you trying to do, Alicia?"

Anything to break the silence. Anything.

"Chit-chat? Let's just be silent until they come to get us, shall we?"

She nodded but she couldn't even acquiesce to this basic request. Will had been far away for so long and she had so many things to tell him. All the times she had impulsively called him and then closed the phone before the call could go through, all the instances she had just ached to unwind with him, or to report to him something that was sure to make him laugh, flashed in her mind.

The words bubbled out, without her control.

"Zach is doing great in college. It turns out that I am one of those moms that needs to hear from her children way more if they're far away. Anxiously obsessive, he calls me. Having a corner office is quite distracting. I find myself looking at the view much more than I did before. Dealing with employees is incredibly stressful. How can they not understand that if we overextend ourselves we are only going to get into trouble? We're just a start-up business. Me and Cary, we have inaugurated a tradition. A glass of wine every night before leaving to talk about the firm. The other fourth-years don't seem to take lightly our privileges and so we have to work together against them at times. They're supposed to be partners, you know?"

Will was giving her his back and hadn't said a word during her rant. At least he was listening. She had so craved being listened to. For so long.

"Being the First Lady of Illinois is extremely tedious. Eli makes me go to these charity openings as if I have nothing better to do. Ribbon-cuttings and compliments flow from all over. I have to know exactly the designer of each garment I wear because the press might be interested or the label might get upset if I don't give them their due credit in a public appearance. God forbid I mistake one for the other. Then the polite conversation at these events is painstakingly cruel. I try to use them as networking opportunities for the firm but I wish I could go back to work rather than be there and bore myself to death. I saw Diane at some of these events."

That had to spark his interest, didn't it?

"She still only uses pleasantries with me."

Ask the reason, Will. Instead it was still all quiet.

"It's because of you. She told me that she was very grateful for everything Peter did for her but that she didn't think she could easily forgive what I had done to you."

"Diane is an astonishing person. She is also a loyal friend."

Eleven words. That's all she had managed to elicit from him. Eleven.

"Do you think that me and Cary can reach that kind of relationship?"

"I don't know."

"Indulge me, Will, please."

"Why?"

"These last few months I have been approached by so many people that want to be friends. The last time it happened Maddie used me to get information on Peter. So I smile and nod and shake their hands but I'm never going to consider them friends. And I..."

"You need a friend."

She would accept that assessment of her situation even if it wasn't the truth. She didn't need a friend. She needed Will back.

"I do. Will, isn't there any way to mend things between us?"

"No."

"What if I said that I made a mistake? Would that change anything?"

"No. It wouldn't. Why are you never going to consider them friends, Alicia?"

"I don't trust them."

"Precisely, that's the core of everything. It took you four years to completely recover your trust in your husband and you fought tooth and nails to do that, because you wanted to preserve your family."

She hadn't completely recovered her trust in Peter. She was still hesitant about revealing some of her sexual fantasies, for example. What if he had tried with Amber and found her lacking? What if he had chosen Amber precisely because she had to remain the relatively-pure wife? She still found herself paying one look more than necessary to Peter's aides and staffers. But she didn't reveal it to Will because it would be the final nail in her coffin.

"I have no reason to fight."

That she couldn't tolerate. Of course he did.

"You said yourself that the kind of relationship we had is something you come across once or twice during your lifetime. It's worth fighting for."

She sounded more and more like Peter and it frightened her. In the span of one conversation she had developed a keen empathy for all of her husband's pleas and at the same time a deep loathing for herself. She, who knew what being profoundly hurt meant, had done the same to Will.

"You didn't believe it so, why should I?"

The path of their dialogue seemed already written and she had perceived the finality of it. Just as Peter had irreparably broken their marriage, she had irreparably broken whatever she had with Will. In a way, Will was right, she had achieved her goal. It just left her feeling like she imagined any drowning victim would. Fighting with all her might to preserve something vital, despite already knowing her destiny.

"Because you're better than me."

He almost laughed but then said:

"Even if I were to force myself to do it, Alicia, it wouldn't work. Say we get out of here and we get a drink..."

Such an heavenly scenario that was!

"I might want to tell you about what a pain in the ass one of my clients is being. Or how I am hating more and more one of my equity partners but it would have to be a redacted conversation. Just as in the documents we get from the Army or from Secret Services, I would have to stop before each compromising word, before telling you too much, giving you the chance to steal my client or my attorney."

"I would never do that."

"Wouldn't you? How would I know? You did it before, Alicia. What's changed?"

"I have changed. I know better now."

Peter had practically already written the script needed for this talk with Will. She didn't need to think, she just had to remember. It wouldn't work on Will just as it hadn't worked on her.

"That's great for you, but not enough for me. I can't be sure and trust is about being sure."

An officer interrupted their charged exchange.

"Mr. Gardner, you can go."

"Thank you."

"Will, I'm not done trying to change your mind."

He said nothing while he moved towards the exit and his life without her.

She took it as a tiny victory.

Maybe behind all his misery and affliction, behind his bitter and resentful words, behind his declarations of distrust, Will still wanted to be proven wrong.

She would be up to the task.