"Can you …?" says Alicia, her voice strained with something other than pain, something like desire, something like need.
Kalinda tries to follow her gaze in the dimness; it's a second before she figures out what Alicia's asking. The force of her hesitation startles her.
It's the fourth night she's spent in Alicia's bed. Often her arrival displaces the Florrick children and their significant adolescent others; upon learning that Alicia will have company into the evening, they pile into Zach's car and return to the North Shore, offering hasty, loving goodnights to Alicia, who has spent her days taking antibiotics to fight a silly secondary case of strep throat, doing the physical therapy that her CT scan cleared her to begin.
Alicia's always eager to receive Kalinda, but tired, sliding into their kisses as easily as the sleep that follows soon behind them.
"Don't you want to?" Alicia says.
"Yeah, but … We're in a hospital," Kalinda whispers.
After the previous week, where each individual hour etched itself into her flesh, the last few nights for Kalinda have been gloriously blurred. Kissing Alicia seems to smear the very fabric of time, leaving Kalinda lost in the night, anchored by nothing but the loveliness of the woman beside her, which so far has proved more than enough. But Kalinda can't bear it when she hurts Alicia, even for a second, even when it's only a wince. She simply lies against her right side and caresses her, tender and soft and very, very careful.
"Josie wouldn't care. The door's closed, right?"
"Yeah," Kalinda says uncertainly. That's not really what she's talking about. But it's hard to think about what she's talking about when Alicia's wearing this expression, brimming with a desire Kalinda long since stopped allowing herself to wish for. Kalinda's own need for Alicia pulses, and she hopes Alicia can't tell, but she's pretty sure she can.
"Well, then?"
"You're sure you're okay?"
"Kalinda."
Kalinda sits up. Two weeks ago she couldn't have imagined this hesitation, but two weeks ago she couldn't have imagined this situation at all. She unbuttons her blouse, checking Alicia's face, so gratified by the hunger there that she almost forgets the strange vulnerability of it all. She unclasps and removes her bra, slowly, almost shyly.
"Beautiful." Alicia smiles and reaches her good arm up to palm Kalinda's breast with a deep, lovely satisfaction.
Kalinda murmurs when Alicia rubs a gentle thumb against her nipple, then gasps when she uses that to pull Kalinda forward, to propel the breast towards her lips. Kalinda's breaths are short and rough as sandpaper.
"Fuck, Alicia," she whispers, shocked at the electric surge caused by nothing more than the movement of Alicia's lips. She sighs into the dim, beeping night, and she feels Alicia's smile against her breast. For Kalinda doesn't know how long, she loses herself in it, pleasure spiking out. It's almost too much when Alicia's good hand slides up her thigh, teasing its way under the hem of her skirt. Kalinda gasps and looks up, meeting Alicia's eyes.
"I want to," Alicia says. "Do you want?"
Kalinda nods, and Alicia's fingers slip into her underwear. It's as clumsy as Kalinda would expect of someone who's never pleasured a woman and has only one functional arm, but Kalinda has years of longing to feed her and—oh. She squirms against Alicia's hand. Alicia watches her, and her focus feels almost as good to Kalinda as her fingers.
Kalinda wants to be quiet, but as Alicia's fingers learn their way around she can't hold back a few full moans. The madness of it all slips in and out of her mind—where she is, what has happened, who is beside her, touching her and causing unspeakably delicious sensation to shoot through her in every direction. Kalinda's breath slips out of her control. She falls forward as she comes, pressing her mouth to Alicia's shoulder to muffle noises and words she shouldn't let slip out.
Alicia kisses Kalinda's hair as she comes down, laughs a little, softly. Kalinda wants to ask what's funny, but speaking is still a bit beyond her ability and, besides, she thinks she gets it.
"Thank you," says Alicia.
Kalinda still doesn't feel she can talk. She lies against Alicia, the hospital gown thin and sweaty and soft beneath her cheek.
/
By the time Kalinda leaves the office, only a few people are still present, and judging from the parking garage when she arrives, not many more remain in the building. Talking to Evelyn Harmond's ex-husband had taken much longer than Kalinda planned, and when she finally returned and was preparing to leave, Will stepped into her office, starved for casual conversation or the closest the two of them ever come. Kalinda understands how confusing the last two weeks must have been for him, and she accepted the open beer and obliquely answered his oblique questions about Alicia's condition, leaving herself out of the equation altogether. After the third beer Will departed, claiming he would hail a taxi; Kalinda didn't want to be separated from her car and decided to wait at Lockhart/Gardner until the buzz wore off, doing a background check for David Lee's new high-profile soon-to-be divorcée.
It's late now, and Alicia will be expecting her.
And oddly enough, Kalinda realizes, she wants to be expected.
It's unfamiliar and a bit alarming. The five months she spent re-leashed to Nick made her realize anew how much she chafes at expectations, how easily using someone else's needs to build your days can leave you boxed in, trapped, paralyzed, with no means of escape. She remembers how much it took to run the first time, and the real truth is she doesn't think she has the strength to do it again. She needs to be careful, more careful than she's been. The fact that it's Alicia shouldn't change that, no matter how much Kalinda wants it to.
But all that is for a different day. Right now, Kalinda knows, Alicia needs to hear from her. Alicia needs to know where she's been, and where she will be within the hour.
She takes out her phone to call Alicia as she turns the key in the ignition. The signal in the garage tends to be spotty, but Kalinda's made a call from this spot on more than one occasion. Warm air rushes from the vents as the car springs to life, and as Kalinda sits back and listens to the phone ring, it takes her a second to feel the barrel of the gun pressing on the hinge of her jaw.
She meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, shadowy in the parking garage's dim light. Her phone hand drops to her lap slowly.
"Drive," Bill says.
Kalinda drives.
