AN; So sorry for the delay on this. I appreciate all the reviews and follows! This chapter continues on with Will and Julia's discussion. A few have asked about Alicia's missing ring. Don't worry, I will get back to that.

Will continued to stare at Julia in confusion from across the room. "I would never tell Alicia to stay away from a case," he insisted.

Julia just sighed, curling her legs beneath her. "Look Will, all I know is that there was a suit against a hospital for trying to protect one of their top doctors from malpractice over labor and delivery."

"The Davidson, Chicago General case? Alicia didn't work on that. I told her we should both stay out of that mess, and we did." Will's thoughts shifted back to six months prior.

He stood just outside Alicia's office door, watching her concentrate on her work. It was something he had done routinely over the ten years since Lockhart, Gardner, & Gardner had formed, and they began working together. These stolen moments always brought a smile to his lips.

Even though they had recently celebrated eighteen years of marriage, he would never get over her beauty or the way she made him feel complete. He was proud to be living the life they had built together.

She caught a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye. "Are you going to just stand there staring at me, or did you actually have reason for lingering at my door?" she smiled broadly at him, and got up from her desk to meet him in the middle of the room. A sheepish grin was now slapped across his face.

"I was just thinking about our long weekend together," he hummed moving closer pressing his lips to hers. She responded in kind until the moment was broken with a light chuckle from Diane who entered the office.

They both turned to her slightly embarrassed.

"Don't mind me," she said, waving a hand, moving past them. "You two are always like this for weeks after you've had some time away together." She sat on the sofa opposite them.

"Are we?" Alicia said in a teasing tone, raising a brow to Will. They both knew it was the absolute truth.

This only caused Diane to laugh some more. "I'm just as guilty when Kurt shows up unexpectedly. And anyway, I'm used to this affection you two think you're so discreet with after all these years. Let's not forget the day I walked into Will's office three weeks after your honeymoon and found the reason my most promising associate was twenty minutes late to an important client meeting was because he was completely distracted by his wife's lips." She raised her brow to them,

They all shared in the laughter. "And yet, you didn't fire me," he commented moving to sit next to her.

"I should have. We almost lost that company as clients because of you."

"Why didn't you fire me?" He sat back opening the file in his lap.

She looked at him over the rim of her glasses. "I liked your wife. She respected my position as your boss, but she wasn't afraid to share her educated opinion with me either. Alicia always talked to me like a colleague, instead of acting like I was the queen of England, like so many other young associates seemed to do."

"So Alicia was the only reason you didn't fire me?" He couldn't help but chuckle.

Diane's serious gaze remained, although she was about to laugh aloud. "Yes..."

Alicia chuckled. Will feigned hurt.

"And like I said, you were my most promising associate."

Will's eyes fell on Alicia whose gaze met his. "I married well," he said gently.

"You did, and don't forget it, because I'd take her over you if I ever had to make such a choice!"

Will just smiled shaking his head. It was useless to plead his case with these two women who sat next to him. They both held his sway and affection in completely different ways, and they both knew it. "Can we get back to the topic at hand, instead of you two planning my exit from the firm?" he chuckled, looking back to his file.

The two women laughed. Alicia placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Don't feel bad. Even if you get out voted here more than you would like, you hold just as much power as I do at home with the kids."

He only smiled. "I'm not so sure about that, but it's a discussion for another day. And if you keep this banter up, you know the consequences Mrs. Gardner!"

Alicia laughed, turning her attention to the file Will handed her.

The three discussed upcoming cases, including the malpractice suit. Will was hesitant when Diane had originally mentioned the new case to him. He told her to use discretion when they discussed it with Alicia. He knew this malpractice suit against the hospital, and ultimately the physician who had been the cause of at least five infant deaths due to his negligence, would infuriate her.

He wasn't wrong. As Diane discussed the case, leaving out as many details as possible, Will watched intensely. He could almost see Alicia's blood getting to a boiling point.

After their meeting, Will hung behind to talk to Alicia.

"Can you believe this Will!" She was outraged. "That man should have to spend the rest of his life in prison. I can't believe the hospital is defending his actions." She continued to pace in front of him.

He moved over to her, placing his hands on her arms to stop her movement, and help calm her down. She was wound as tight as a knot. "I know it's outrageous. And we will win this case. But I think we should let Diane and Karen handle it. You and I need to stay out of this one. It hits too close to home for us, and it's bound to turn into an ugly emotional battle."

"You mean I should stay out of this, because I might get too emotionally involved?" she said, with a gentle hint of disappointment.

He looked away briefly. "Yes. I'm not going to lie to you Leesh. You know exactly the kinds of things this case will involve, and there is no reason to place yourself - ourselves - in a position that might force us to relive some of the worst moments of our lives."

She moved from out of his grasp. "Our situation was different. The doctor wasn't at fault in our case. I want to help with this."

He sighed, placing his hands in his pockets. "I don't think it's smart. It's Diane's case, and she can handle it."

She folded her arms across her chest, leaning against her desk. "I know you're right. It's better this way. But it doesn't make it any less infuriating, or cause me to want to strangle that man any less."

He moved to her again, pulling her close, placing a gentle kiss to her forehead. "Me either, but we have to let this one go." She nodded in acknowledged defeat, grateful she had him to calm, and bring her back to level mindedness.

"Let's take the kids out for dinner tonight," he mused, looking into her eyes. He could feel the built up tension in her muscles.

"It's the middle of the week," she protested, knowing that by the time they got finished with work, and he got home with Grace from soccer practice, it would be well past eight.

"It will be fun, spontaneous! I'll call Abbey, and tell her to give the kids a good snack. We can surprise them. Their strict, never stray from the schedule during the week parent's, can be fun sometimes."

She couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm. "You mean their strict, scheduled mother?" she raised a brow to him.

"I wasn't going to point that out, but..." he ran his hands along her arms.

She lightly patted his chest. "Hey I can be fun to you know?"

He moved closer to her. "Yes, and tonight after they've had their fun, and are in bed, I'll run a warm bath for you for some adult fun!"

She kissed his cheek, and moved back to her desk. "Mmm, tempting. If you put them to bed, maybe I'll let you join me in the bath." She winked at him, and then pretended to get back to her work.

"I was hoping as much!" he whispered, and then turned leaving her office.

Julia continued. "She led you to believe she hadn't worked on that case. In fact she did stay away from it for two weeks. But then one day the other attorney on the case couldn't find Diane, and had some questions. So she went and asked Alicia's opinion. An hour later, statements from bereaved parents, photos, deposition notes, lay strewn across Alicia's desk. She just couldn't get it out of her mind, and she wasn't about ready to let this doctor get away with ruining these parents' lives. So she offered to do research, and help with briefs, off the books of course. She told me Diane ended up putting another attorney on the case because you guys had… how did she put it? The case of your lives landed in your laps."

Will smiled. "It was a pretty good case. One that increased our year to date income by quite a bit, but it destroyed our personal lives. I think we were all getting about four hours of sleep a night for nearly two months. We're getting too old for that kind of stuff."

"Yes, but that case gave Alicia an excuse to work a few late nights on the malpractice case. She was physically and emotionally drained. I gathered from what she told me that all three of you were. It's no wonder you two started having problems, aside from the fact that by Thanksgiving the malpractice case was over, it had taken its emotional toll on her. Then you accused her of an affair, and neither one of you were getting enough sleep to handle the larger, unspoken issues at hand."

Will ran a hand through his hair. "And things just got worse from there."

"Apparently."

Will took the last of his drink into his mouth, letting the liquid burn his throat on its way down. He shook his head. "We never should have taken that malpractice case."

"There was no way for you to have known what would happen Will. I hate to say it, but Alicia is the one that got herself into that mess."

"I know." He slumped back into the cushions of the sofa. "Answer me this. If she was trying to turn things around, knew I still loved her, wanted to fix things, why did she want a separation?"

It was Julia who looked surprised this time, and furrowed her brow. "She really asked for a separation?"

"Yes, the whole reason she got into the accident was because we had an argument and she told me we needed some time apart."

Julia sighed, and stood making her way back to the kitchen to refill her drink. She turned and faced Will from the other side of the bar. He didn't like the expression on her face.

"What?"

"Are you sure it was accident?"

He couldn't believe she would even suggest Alicia would have purposefully caused the car accident. Although it did cause him to pause briefly to consider it, now knowing her mental state at the time. He quickly dismissed the idea.

"What did the police report say? Who was at fault for the accident?"

He stood and moved to stand opposite the bar from her. "No one was at fault. It was snowing, the roads were slick. There was a layer of black ice. Alicia was driving through an intersection, and a truck slid on the ice unable to stop at the red light. The truck hit the passenger side of her car pushing her into oncoming traffic where her car was hit again causing it to spin out and finally come to a stop at the curb across the intersection. It's a miracle she even lived through it. You should have seen her car, it was completely totaled. There is no reason to believe she did anything to cause that accident."

She shook her head. "Okay, I believe you." She moved to sit next to him on the bar stools. "I don't know why she thought you needed time apart. She called me the day before the accident, because she was upset about going back on medication. She didn't say anything about wanting to separate. She wasn't herself Will. This depression… no one saw it coming. She didn't see it coming. It just hit her like a fever." She took a sip of her drink, and then reached out for his hand, placing hers on top of his. "Don't worry, it will all work out."

"I don't know Jules." He was less optimistic about things when he was tired, and it had been two weeks since Alicia had remembered knowing Veronica. Her memory of her past hadn't improved since.

"Let's be honest here Will. You feel guilty about the past. You want answers that you may never get, just so you can move on. But the past isn't the real issue. It's the future that scares you the most. You're afraid the woman you love more than life itself, will never return. That you're going to live with a complete stranger for the rest of your ice. That everything is going to be different now. You're worried you'll always hold these past months against her, even though you know that isn't fair."

Sometimes he hated how brutally honest she was. It was true, all of it. He was scared to death as to what the future held, and worried things would never be the same between himself and Alicia again. It didn't make him angry, it made him deeply sad. He would always love her. He knew this from the depths of his soul. But would Alicia love him back?

He didn't have to answer her, he just nodded in agreement. "It's going to all work out Will."

He looked over to her. She could have read his doubt from miles away. "I've been around since the beginning, and you two were always meant to be together. I've never doubted it. Not even during the time she dated Peter. She was never as happy as she was when she was with you. She was never really herself without you."

She stood placing a gentle hand to his shoulder. "Give her some time. The Alicia we all know is in there somewhere. She'll come back to you - she always does." She moved past him and headed to bed.

He moved back to the sofa, and opened the album Julia had brought with her to share with Alicia. It held memories from their college days. He hoped seeing Julia, and some of the photos from those days would jog Alicia's memory in some way.

Later he lay in bed pondering Julia's words. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was time to forgive Alicia for the pain they had suffered in previous months and start looking towards the future - their future. No matter what that might hold. He had to begin thinking in terms that she may never recall their past. That for her their life together started six weeks ago. It was hard to swallow, and he didn't know if he could do it. But with every passing day, it was becoming more and more the reality they were living in.

He turned to his side, and looked at the empty space next to him. They hadn't spent this many nights in separate beds since before their last few weeks of college. He missed watching her sleep, and the quiet sound of her breathing next to him at night. Trying to meld their past, and form their future at the same time wasn't going to be easy. But it was time to face that reality.