A/N: This is part two of 506. Again Will's POV. I tweaked with the timeline in 506. If the writers can add different numbers of years to the kids, I can certainly eat a day to trim this chapter a bit :). The chapters are getting away from me. I never imagined I'd enjoy writing Will with a woman who isn't Alicia as much as I am but I'm loving it and my Emma more and more. I can't believe they came up with Isabel when there was all this fun to be had with a 3-D woman. Also, this chapter might be my favorite yet because I finally got back to writing Will and Diane which is, in my opinion, the best relationship in the show, bar none. The partnership between those two is amazing. Thanks to Mary for looking over that part from the height of her expertise! Enjoy and let me know what you think!

He would leverage the loss to get Kalinda to commit exclusively to his firm.

That was his outtake from the ACDB meeting. He would not let the day go to waste like that, conceding to Cary and to an unlikely investigator he had saved from a life of perennial babysitting. If he could pile her sense of guilt over his defeat against FA&A and over her having concealed Cary's plans, he had a chance of making her a full-fledged Lockhart/Gardner employee. They would not be forced to give away more client files for Kalinda's penchant for freedom. Nonetheless, he was still utterly dejected when he sat down in his office.

Without a second thought, he took his phone out and called her.

"You're lucky I am not one of those to fret before presentations."

"Hello would have been the more common response."

"I'm in advertising. I strive to be original. And as someone who could potentially benefit from my originality, you should too."

"I had to hand out those files."

They had discussed his situation the night before, in what had been a drastic turn change in his habits. He had never approached the topic of work with his non-lawyer women. In retrospect, that was probably why they hadn't lasted much. His job was too engrained a factor for him not to share and be quiet to not be boring. Emma, on the other hand, had prompted him on it. After the phone-call, he had tried to get the name of the client out of her. Unsuccessfully. She, instead, had gotten him to open up about what he was working on at the moment. He had talked about the war with this other firm, without details on who the partners were and why he was infused with such animosity. He had been afraid to scare her with the war jargon he kept on using. On the contrary, she had nodded and kept asking question after question. When he realized just how long he had been talking, he had wanted to understand the why behind her many question marks. She had just shrugged and said: "There's no strategy behind it. I'm just curious. In my experience, anyone worth knowing is." He had sat there agape at the woman in front of him until she had called him on it.

"See? Not being original enough."

"Law is not always about being original."

"That's not what you said yesterday. Were you lying to me already?"

"You never let up, do you?"

"Occasionally, I do. Certainly not in situations like these. If you wished for someone to hold your hand via phone and use a concerned, mom-ish voice while you talked about all the scary feelings that losing those files brought up in you, then no, I'm definitely not the person for that."

He laughed, uproariously, enough for Diane to notice and give him a worried look. He had called exactly the right person. He had needed to remember that Will Gardner did not whine about lost files. Will Gardner acted.

"It's a war, Will. We discussed it yesterday while you were eyeing my hamburger and admiring my superior capabilities of ordering out. So, you lost a battle, it happens. Learn something from it and move forward."

And he had. He would tie Kalinda to L&G and Emma was dangerously close to speaking from his own brain.

"I did and I will."

"Good. And I'll make it more interesting."

"Let's hear it."

"Come up with something brilliant to get back at that opposing firm and the midday thirst will happen whether I get my client or not."

"I thought you weren't coddling me. That unfair balance is definitely akin to coddling. Win your client, I'll pull a rabbit out of my legal hat and we'll meet for a midday encounter. Otherwise, deal is off."

"You're on, Counselor."

"Fine, I'll let you go now. You might not fret but you need to prepare. Big stakes."

"Oh yeah, big stakes."

The drawing out of the i was suspicious without him being able to see whether or not she was rolling her eyes.

"Was that genuine, sarcasm or both?"

"You're smart enough to figure it out."

And with that she was gone and the scowl on his face had conspicuously vanished.


It turned out that the opportunity for a rematch came immediately.

Alicia and Cary needed the warranty files and they were still under his protection. The ACDB call was, again, instantaneous when they refused to messenger them. His baseball moving from one hand to the other, he concentrated on how to best Alicia. The idea came to him from his secretary coming in to tell him that the retainer agreement had been signed by a new client. He thanked her with more enthusiasm than ever before and she seemed uncertain on whether to accept his good mood or deem it as a sign of folly. Maybe both. Just as he had put in his folder the necessary sheet of paper, his phone vibrated with a message. Emma.

"I expected a victory. I got a triumph. Are you up to par?"

"I found my shotgun. But I have the meeting relatively soon. Can you meet me in the car?"

"Car it is but it better be hidden from plain view."

"Are you not into being the subject of voyeurism?"

"I might be but it'd ruin my image for the client."

"Am I getting the name of this client?"

"We'll see. Text me the address?"

"Yep."

They ended up in his car in a semi-deserted floor of a parking lot near the ACDB building, her perfectly-coiffed hair ruffled and his breath ragged.

"Somehow a car doesn't add to the mystique of the middle-of-the-day thirst."

"You know what would have? The office of your new client."

She laughed, without inhibitions and filling up the entire relatively-cramped space with her hilarity.

"Keep dreaming! And do you think I'd fall for tricks like that?"

"No, you don't. Please, tell me the name of the client."

"Do you promise not to cower but to only appropriately bow to my greatness?"

Her tone light and jesting did not match the ghost of skepticism that had haunted her eyes for a moment. Coupled with a similar reaction the day before, it wasn't complicated to infer that someone hadn't supported her success. Probably her ex-boyfriend. He put once again the drama aside and concentrated on showing her that he was not that kind of man.

"I promise."

"Kraft Foods Group."

"Their MidWestern Interests?"

"For now. With a promise for more."

"How many products?"

"All of them."

Two days in a row he had been left open-mouthed and incapable of speech. That was a spectacular win for an advertising agency. His lips turned up while he admired her in total amazement. How glorious she looked when the pride for her coup was noticeable all over her face.

"Normally I'd worry about you not talking but I agree it's the correct reaction in this case."

"I thought I was supposed to bow."

"Sure, go ahead."

"Nah, you won't be able to admire my bowing style in the car with such a short time."

"You have a bowing style?"

"An admired one. But I think I'll need to spice it up in this case. Such an achievement deserves the proper celebration. Tonight?"

"I can't. I'm celebrating with my friends."

"My pitch wasn't good enough?"

He schooled his face to show all his mock-offense.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. It was a solid effort. But my friends are my friends. You can't compete with that."

A mere few weeks before he would have agreed. Then his friends had proceeded to prove him wrong. He hoped she'd never have to suffer the same fate.

"Fine. How about I come over after?"

"I don't like putting a preemptive cap to my girls' nights. I'll see how tired I am when I'm done."

"Fine... "

She kissed him then, her teeth grazing his tongue in a rhythm that made him surrender all control.

"I've got to go. But if you were trying to get me to stop harassing you about tonight that was not the way to go."

"As long as you know that I'm not going to change my mind... I'll come up with you. I don't have the keys to close your car."

"I could give you the keys in exchange for you changing your mind."

"And what would I do with your keys? Is that how you negotiate? I wonder how your firm has lasted this long."

"HA, Ha, ha. Funny."

"Text me when you have the result of your battle. I want to know if I've wasted time on a loser."

He sheathed his Cheshire-cat smile.

"Never."


When he arrived in the room, everyone was already seated and Mr. Deerfield took pain in reminding him of his lateness.

"We were about to start without you."

Yeah, it was never going to work as a way to make him regret Emma and the charge he always received from seeing her, in more ways than one.

"I'm here. Rock and roll."

From the severe and austere stare Alicia threw him, she had attributed his lateness to the right reason. He rejoiced in that. Let her bear witness of just how incredible he could feel merely days after her betrayal. He was flying high on Emma and the success he was about to obtain while she was sternly and properly playing the part of the quietly-outraged serious lawyer. He listened to Mr. Deerfield grandfatherly reprimand and he dropped the bomb only when Diane was starting to argue against the sanctions.

"That won't be necessary. We'll turn over everything immediately."

Alicia raised her eyebrows in surprise. When had she taken to the habit of underestimating him?

"Once we are properly compensated for our time and effort."

He particularly enjoyed the disapproving gaze she had on before leaving the room in what was nothing else but a retreat for manifest superiority. It almost made up for his amusement being so brutally cut short. His theatrical protest had apparently no effect but the victory look he shared with his partner made it all worth it.


The energy of the win gave no sign of waning and he wanted to enjoy it to the fullest. Running and then Emma again. He had still not given up trying to wrangle her out of her friends' night. A smile was playing on his lips. It had been a great day and if the tax lawyers' deal came through it would be close to be a perfect day.

He spotted Diane coming into his office.

"So you're going running now?"

"Yeah, I've got this energy. I don't know where it's coming from but I'm gonna ride it."

He had some idea on when the energy was coming from. The thrill of a car encounter, as he had named it, followed by a victory over his worst enemy was never going to disappear in a few short hours.

"What's up?"

"Nothing, so we got Heather back."

"We did, didn't we? It was like old times. I was angry and you were calm."

And it really had been. Sitting on the same side of the woman who would always remain his partner, stopping her objections with a solution that they could both enjoy. It also took him back in time, when he had been a young, brassy Baltimore lawyer with too much anger and passion to put in the law as an antidote to gambling. Stern had insisted on Diane accompanying him in some occasions. "You're a kid. Shut up and learn!" and Diane's hand on his wrist had been the only thing saving Stern from a punch in the face. It was them all over again, history repeating seemingly in circles. Him back to gambling and playing the game and her back to the presence that reigned him in.

"What would you say if I stayed?"

The question took him by surprise but he knew the reason for it right away. Ever since the night of the Shamrock Dinner, he had caught himself wishing more than once that the entire night never happened. That Alicia had never urged him to stop feeling, that Peter had never made Diane that offer. A sense of loneliness had pervaded him ever since. The realization that he would have traded a solitary reign over his firm for the chance to keep working with Diane at his side hadn't even been that shocking. He had come to rely on her. He had come to love raising his eyes and knowing she was there. For whatever problem they had. Diane was just there. But never once, not even after that damn interview, he had hoped for something like this. For his regal partner stoically accepting that her dream of a lifetime had been taken away by a man's misguided sense of loyalty and machismo.

"Peter screwed you over"

His wasn't a question, it was a statement. After everything Diane had done, after turning against her partner, after having withstood being pushed away from a world she had built, after being conflicted between helping her firm and not project the image of an enemy of the Governor, she was paying a steep price for not having taken betrayal face down. Unacceptable. He had never heard that teary voice from her. He could practically see the toll that the "Yes" was taking on her. Regal, impassible, resilient Diane being taken for a ride by a man that belonged under the sole of her shoe.

"It's an odd psychology, isn't it? He can hurt his wife all he wants but anyone else tries and he goes absolutely tribal."

And his wife shared it. His selective blindness when it came to Alicia had engulfed that too. Peter and Alicia were the perfect couple. A couple that thrived on abusing their powers for personal gain.

"Bill and Hillary on steroids."

"He shouldn't get away with it."

Suddenly, with a sentence thrown impulsively in a conversation to make his partner understand that if he couldn't share her pain, he could definitely share her frustration, his game-plan had been amended. And it included sweet, satisfying, served-cold revenge with a capital R.

"What?"

Yes. He was already deeply in love with the idea. They couldn't let Peter Florrick ride into the sunset of a blooming political career while all the others suffered at his hand.

"He underestimates us. He called her phone when I had it and told me that I didn't want to make him my enemy and I certainly didn't want him and Alicia together. But he doesn't seem to have any fear concerning me and you, does he?"

"No he doesn't."

"But he should."

He punctuated his last words already pre-savoring the taste of Peter getting his due, of him winning the war against the one that had won every other battle. Diane flirted with a smile and finally looked passionate again.

"He definitely should. Do you have something in mind?"

"Not specifically, no. But I just realized that he gave me the chance to pay for all of the mistakes I made in my past and I never repaid him."

"We should definitely get right on that."

"Right? It's only fair. And think about it. The special election for the new State's Attorney is soon, isn't it?"

"It is. It's either going to be a Republican..."

"...or Wendy Scott-Carr."

A glint of triumph was shining in his partner's eyes. From the almost-defeated tone and demeanor she had before, she was now Diane Lockhart on the warpath and he wouldn't want to be in her way.

"Either way, it's going to be someone that will jump at the chance to unseat the current Governor."

"Yep."

"We'll have to be careful."

"Yes but I don't think it will be that difficult. He suffers from a tremendous hubris."

And he did. The hubris of the royally-inbred. Peter had been brought up in a world of politics. He had always known that with the right leverage, everything he ever desired could happen and he had smartly exploited the web of connections that his father had left him as an inheritance. He had lived a cushioned life, and his sense of entitlement made his egomaniacal tendencies insufferable. He had told Alicia that ever since the beginning. "He hasn't done anything to deserve you, Alicia. He takes you for granted, like everything in his life, Alicia. He expects that with an handshake and the right combination of words everything will be fixed, Alicia. You don't want to marry a politician, Alicia. You'll never know if you're talking to the man or the cardboard figurine in the lawn, Alicia". Warnings that had fallen on deaf ears. It had never occurred to him that with the marriage Alicia had adopted the sense of entitlement as her own. Just the umpteenth thing he had missed.

"He thinks himself above repercussions."

"He does. We'll have to gather evidence and burst that bubble for him, won't we?"

"Lockhart/Gardner style."

He chuckled. It seemed so long since he and Diane had shared a Lockhart/Gardner night. The idea that it didn't have to end, that Diane would accompany him in this new rise to the top was what he needed to bump his mood up to excellent.

"I like that perspective. I'm taking this firm to the top, Diane. We're gonna rip through our opponents. No votes, just decide and go. And it won't be polite anymore. Anyone in our way we kick their ass, fire them, buy them out or send them to jail. Sounds like a good plan?"

"Sounds like an excellent plan. I'm through being polite."

How he liked her Medusa-stare when it was pointed towards someone other than him. Not only Peter was an entitled bully. He was an idiot. Nobody in Illinois would make a better judge than Diane. At the same time, nobody in the world would make a more formidable enemy than Diane.

"Great, then welcome back home."

Home felt the right word to use. Diane could own any room merely by walking in it but her office was special and it would have never been the same without her in it. Without the nightcaps, without the panicked stares across the offices or without the knowledge that there was someone in the firm that cared as much as him.

"Thanks, Will. For having my back."

He nodded and he watched her hesitating on whether or not to keep talking.

"I never should have gone behind yours."

He supposed that it could be seen as ironic from the outside, just how much Alicia's betrayal had put things in perspective. Indeed, even though the wound still stung, he had found a renewed sense of admiration and respect for how Diane approached things head on rather than hiding behind fake smiles and polite conversation.

"It's water under the bridge."

"Is it?"

It mostly was. That his trust could be broken like that and they could repair it spoke of just how perfect a couple they were. Plus, steering his rage towards Peter helped.

"Well, not entirely, the Governor will pay for having come between us."

"Oh, yes, he will."

"But for the rest... You could have stayed quiet about Alicia. You could have signed your exit package and walked away. I never would have found out and I would have been the fool that sends a publicist going around promoting a stable firm. Not to mention the catastrophic damage to the firm, had we not gone in emergency mode. It means something that you came to tell me."

It was absurd that she had lost her judgeship for letting him know that they were being backstabbed. Just how sycophantic did Peter expect his nominees to be?

"There was never any other option. You deserved to know."

"You were right and I was wrong. About her."

He should have listened to her from the beginning. Diane's judgment had always been deeply valued but back then they were still trying to compete with one another and Alicia was still the best-friend he had lost, the only woman he had ever loved. Idiot.

"Will...

"It won't happen again."

That he was sure of. Never again her charm would paint her in a more flattering way. Never again he would let himself be fooled. Never again he would drop his guard.

"I don't think any less of you."

"What?"

"Because of what happened."

How didn't she? He did. Despite his new competitive edge, he could not seem to accept what a colossal error of judgment he had made. How a man of his age and with his experience could have been so utterly deceived as to the nature of her care for him.

"You should. I was a simpleton. It's not a great quality in a lawyer."

It was not a great quality in general. A particularly dangerous foe for a lawyer.

"You were a friend. It's a great quality in a man. What she did is on her."

Rationally, he knew that. But he still had to force himself not to dwell on the pain it had caused and on why she had the power of affecting him so deeply. That was definitely all his fault.

She put her hand on his shoulder in Diane-speak for "I'm here. I understand. I'm on your side".

"Well, in a few minutes the tax lawyers should call and her firm won't have an office. Nor tax-lawyers."

"Good to know. I should get home. Kurt will be waiting."

"So you're living together now, eh? Color me impressed."

"If that's what impresses you, I can't imagine what a look at my left hand will do."

His eyes immediately focused on the target even though the sentence could only have one meaning.

"No."

"Yes."

"You got married?"

"I did."

He got up and went for a hug which she willingly accepted. He discovered himself genuinely happy for them.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"Look at that. A beaming bride."

"Shut up! You hadn't even noticed."

"You're right. What an awful partner. When did it happen?"

"The morning it all exploded."

"Now, that's a wedding day you won't forget."

"I think that any wedding day is a day you won't forget."

"Fair enough. But you certainly gave a whole new spin to the word bridezilla."

She smiled indulgently at him, like she often did. It never failed to make him feel appreciated.

"He's a lucky man."

"He knows. A lucky man who was willing to help Alicia with the case."

"Really? Do you want me to hurt him?"

"You do know he's a ballistic expert, right?"

"So? I can be stealthy."

He had no chance whatsoever in a fight with Kurt but the statement still stood. Maybe he could get Kalinda on it.

"Somehow I think I'd be more successful. I'll handle my own payback. But thanks for the offer."

"But seriously, how are you handling that? I know how much this case means to you."

"He's a man of principle. It's one of the reasons why I love him."

He had no doubt about it. And yet, he knew Diane better than that.

"But you still would have preferred him not to help her."

"Yes."

"Does he know, about the judgeship?"

"Not yet. It just happened."

"He'll be there for you."

"I know that. Do you think..."

She stopped, almost afraid to continue.

"No, he won't."

"Won't what? I haven't even finished the question."

"He will never think less of you, Diane. He's not an idiot. But he might want to kill Peter."

"I don't know about that."

"You're re-thinking your position on the right to bear arms right about now, aren't you?"

"Will..."

He smirked and the phone rang, almost on cue.

"Tax lawyers..."

"I'll leave you to it."

"Until tomorrow, Diane."

"Until tomorrow, Will."