A/N: There, I did it. Another W/A story that starts mid-season five where Will, once again, survives the shooting. Now, the intention is definitely to make this another multi-chapter (I guess the ending basically forces me to), but I also want to be honest here and say that I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to update, so do bear with me (if anyone's still out here to begin with, of course).
Summary: "Can you stay?" He asked once his eyes met hers. And even though she couldn't - not really, not according to her principles at least - she nodded, because her heart wanted to, because she was intending to stay the moment she got into her car and because this was the first time in a very, very long time that she actually felt like herself again.

Scandal

Part 1.

Seismic Shift

"And if we pursue it, it will just be like last time."

"What was last time?"

"I don't know. It will be worse."

And it would be worse.

/ / /

Alicia's always enjoyed the luxurious, hotel vibe of Will's apartment. Even though it's been over 2,5 years since she was here last, she still knows her way around the spacious loft. She hops under the large rain fall shower and lets the hot water cleanse off last night's sex and with that, the smell of Will's cologne that was still lingering on her chest. Last night took her by surprise but it's not as if she didn't saw it coming. It was bound to happen. All it needed was the right place and the right time. What it mostly needed though, was Alicia to acknowledge that she was still, deeply, in love with him and that, no matter how strategic and thought through, her life choices wouldn't make that feeling go away.

/ / /

Alicia had spotted him in the back of the room during a charity even that evening. She didn't expect him back at work, or back at life for that matter, so quickly. After all the monotone speeches had received their mandatory applauses, Alicia found him on one of the balconies connected to the conference room, staring over the streets of Chicago, alone.

"Needed some fresh air after all that?"

The sound of her voice made him look up. "That was excruciating," he said. "Or is that just me?"

"I can assure you, it's not just you."

"That's a relief," he smiled.

There was a moment of silence, where Alicia wondered whether or not to ask how he was doing, since she tried calling him twice these past weeks and he clearly wasn't interested in such a conversation and Will felt bad that he hadn't answered those same calls, and doubted whether or not he should apologize for it.

"It's good to see you," Alicia finally said, breaking the awkward silence.

"You too," he answered. "I'm sorry for not getting back to you, I didn't really know—"

"No, please, don't worry about it. Maybe I shouldn't have called, it's not as if we were on the best of terms before anyways," she said and offered him an apologetic smile.

"No, I appreciated it," Will said. "I did. It was just a really weird time."

"Yeah," Alicia said.

Will silently sipped from his Scotch and let his eyes stray back to the dark street underneath him.

Alicia observed him for a moment. There was a certain darkness surrounding him, one that she wasn't used to. Yes, she'd seen him angry before. She knows, first hand, how relentless and blood thirsty he can be. But this was different. He seemed withdrawn, apathetic almost. And then there was this deep, overpowering frown buried in his forehead that took away all the softness in his face she loves. Loved.

"How are you holding up?" Alicia finally asked carefully.

Will remained silent and twitched his neck in a way that told her he wasn't very willing to talk about it.

"Oh, Will, I'm sorry. If you don't want to talk about—"

"—No, no," he interrupted her. "Hard question to answer, that's all." He brought the glass back to his lips, drank his Scotch and chewed on an ice cube before bluntly saying, "I saw a man shot to death."

Alicia's eyes grew wide, unprepared for a statement like that. But Will didn't see, or didn't want to see, her response. "You know he pointed the gun at me first?" He asked, and then looked back to her.

Her eyes met his and she quickly shook her head, unable to say anything else.

"I think he meant to kill me," he continued.

"Will, no, he was panicking," Alicia tried. "He wasn't thinking straight…"

"Yeah well. That doesn't make it better, does it?"

"No," she answered quietly.

"You know, it's odd because… he's the one who looked helpless… The guy holding the gun was the most desperate of all. I can't wrap my head around that."

Alicia didn't know how to respond to any of that and watched him go on.

"He looked me in the eyes and I was convinced he'd shoot me. Then, he shoots the gun next to me and hits Finn instead."

It was the first time Alicia heard any details about what exactly had gone down in that courtroom and she could have cried right there, but she was perfectly aware that this was not about her own emotions. She'd done her crying in the days following the incident, she had to be the strong one here.

"So two weeks ago, I thought I was about to die," Will concluded and downed the last of his whisky. "Didn't, so that's good," he added and pushed a mechanical smile over his lips, as if it would somehow lighten the situation.

During everything he said, Alicia's mind kept going back to that moment when she was standing in front of the courthouse, watching those entrance doors next to Diane, trying to prepare herself for being about to see a dead, or otherwise dying Will, being rolled out on a gurney.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she blurted out with a broken voice and without giving it a second thought, she grabbed his wrist.

Will was startled by the unexpected feeling of his whole body heating up instantly at her touch.

"I'm sorry," Alicia said and pulled her hand away as quickly as she'd placed it there.

"No…I—" Will mumbled softly, not ready for the feeling to disappear again, so he placed his

hand on her upper arm and almost immediately, pulled her into a hug.

Alicia held onto him, tightly, closed her eyes and in that moment, fully forgot about her surroundings and all the decisions she told herself she had to make this past year. She looked into those dark, sad eyes that stared at her with a hope and expectation that she, perhaps for the first time ever, was desperate to fulfill, without any fear or doubt holding her back. So she kissed him, tenderly and deeply, trying to take away all the pain and hoping to convey just how relieved she was that he survived. He softly moaned in response, overwhelmed by what this moment had become in only a matter of minutes, but when he was about to speak, an unfamiliar sound made the two of them pull away from each other.

"Did you hear that?" Alicia asked worried and looked down to the street. "Did that come from inside?"

"It was nothing," Will said quickly, even though he heard it too. "But we shouldn't be out here."

"Can we go somewhere else?"

"Yeah, we should," Will replied and opened the door to the conference room, gesturing Alicia to follow him.

But she stayed put. "No," she said. "I meant… can we go somewhere else?"

"You want to…?" He asked for confirmation, convinced he must have heard her wrong.

But she took his hand in hers and squeezed it lightly. "Yes," she told him, her green eyes looking directly into his, leaving no room for any misinterpretation, and he knew enough.

So that evening, they met in his apartment. He left first and she followed soon after. Even though over two years passed, the automatism kicked in immediately: never leave together, never arrive anywhere at the same time. Will knew exactly what they are doing, or so he thought.

Back at his apartment, he waited for her to arrive with his front door ajar, like they always did when they'd meet after work at night. She called out his name when she entered and found him leaning against the kitchen counters. Things moved quickly after that. She was still fully clothed then but he managed to undress her long before they even reached his bedroom. He ushered her to the leather chair in the corner, sat down and placed her on top of him. Without saying a word, she willingly wrapped her arms around his upper back and let him lift her up and down, slow and steadily, while he buried his moans in her neck, until they both reached an overwhelming release and collapsed in each others arms.

"I missed you," he mumbled afterwards, and they were the first words he said to her since she arrived. "Can you stay?" He asked once his eyes met hers. And even though she couldn't - not really, not according to her principles at least - she nodded, because her heart wanted to, because she was intending to stay the moment she got into her car and because this was the first time in a very, very long time that she actually felt like herself again.

/ / /

Two weeks earlier, Alicia approached the courthouse in a hurry to get to court on time, only to be stunned by an usual amount of people standing outside. There were police cars blocking the entry way, an ambulance driving up the sidewalk and guards restlessly pacing around the doors. She asked bystanders what was going on and all she could find out was that there'd been some sort of shooting. Shocked but also sceptical (that would never happen with all that security, right?) she made her way through the crowd, hoping to find someone familiar.

Alicia wasn't even supposed to be at the courthouse that day. In fact, she should have been standing behind a microphone, giving a speech at the correspondence luncheon. But then Cary fell sick and she'd told both Eli and Peter that she was the only one who could, and should, take over his case. Something that was only partly true, because her associates would have been perfectly capable of handling this case by themselves and she hadn't even bother asking them. Because lately, Alicia had been taking every opportunity to escape the obligations that came with being the governor's wife. Alicia couldn't pinpoint why she's been resenting that part of her life recently. She was perfectly aware of the benefits it brought her professionally, but her private life had been suffering. Or better said, was non-existent outside the continuous arguments between her and Peter.

Just when she thought there was no one around that she knew, she bumped into Diane, who was standing right in front of the yellow crime scene tape, with her arms wrapped tight around her upper body.

"Diane," she announced herself. "Are you okay? Are they serious? There's been a shooting?"

Diane briefly looked at her with hollow, grieving eyes that immediately told Alicia everything she'd heard so far was true. Diane nodded slowly and turned back to the entrance. "In Will's court," she added, with a dry and distant voice.

"Will…? Will's inside?"

Diane nodded again.

"Oh my God," Alicia gasped and looked at Diane as if she needed some sort of confirmation that she heard her right, but Diane didn't make any eye contact with her. She was fixated on the entrance doors, barely blinking, her fingers clenched around her upper arms.

"Do you know if—" Alicia couldn't help to try, but Diane shook her head.

"—We have no information," she cut her off.

Alicia took in a deep breath and desperately tried to stay calm. Where is he now? Do we know he's safe? Is he hurt? Why was there a shooting in the first place? When did this happen? The questions kept coming but she knew Diane would have told her more if she could. As a gesture of support, she reached out to briefly touch Diane's hand, who squeezed hers in return, the competition between them subsiding as they stood there.

Police men and paramedics kept going in and out the building and Alicia watched them, only thinking about Will, preparing herself for the worst. She kept having this vision of Will being rolled out on a gurney, covered in blood with a paramedic on top of him, giving him chest compressions. But there was another scenario that was much worse and was also starting to pry its way into her brain: A gurney carrying a plastic body bag, with Will inside. But that thought was too brutal, too sickening to accept. So she went back to imagining him alive on that gurney, with his eyes briefly meeting hers, his hand stretched out towards her. A hand that she would hold as she'd sit next to him in the ambulance, kissing his cheek before he'd be wheeled into surgery.

But that's not what would happen. They'd grown apart. They'd become each others competition, and that's all it was. If anything, that's what the Ashbaugh hearing proved to her, when she was his witness and she confessed her crimes. But then again, there was also that conversation, only the day before, in front of the court room. The smile they shared. And their talk in the coffee house in New York. That was something, wasn't it? And then there's still, always, the kiss. That kiss in his car that had made her doubt everything she'd ever done and at the same time confirmed she had to take drastic measures to prevent that from ever happening again.

But right then, without any further announcement, Will walked out of the building.

He was alive.

He walked.

Supported by a paramedic and covered in an emergency blanket, but he walked, slowly down the steps and away from the crowd. It was right in that moment that she realized just how much she loved Will, and everything fell into place.

/ / /

The paramedics told Will to sit down on the steps around the corner. Dazed, he leaned back against the cold stone outside wall of the courthouse. His shirt and pants were covered in blood. "I'm fine, i'm fine," he kept repeating while the paramedics examined him. "The blood isn't mine," he said emotionless.

He'd lost any sense of time. It might have only taken minutes, but it felt like he'd been sitting in that courtroom for hours, desperately trying to keep pressure on Finn Polmar's wounded arm. He'd watched the paramedics come in, take Finn away from him and lift him on a gurney, but he didn't register a single sound. It was only when he stepped outside and was confronted with loud sirens and yelling police man that he started processing sound again. This is what shock must feel like, he thought to himself.

Once the paramedics let go of him, he looked up to take in his surroundings. Kalinda was standing to his left, talking to the police. Diane was talking to someone on the phone and then, he spotted her. Alicia, white as a sheet, standing next to Diane. What is she doing here, he wondered. Confused, he stared at her and she stared back at him with tears in those beautiful green eyes that radiated a genuine compassion and sorrow that, at least for a little while, carried him away from the horrific scene he witnessed that day. "I'm okay," he mouthed. She offered him a sad, smile in return. He smiled back, trying to somehow make light of the situation, but only his lips managed to. His eyes were still elsewhere.

Later, he asked Kalinda to please, take him home. Back at his place, they drunk three whiskeys each before he told her he should really try and get some sleep. But he laid awake most of the night, trying to somehow process that he could have died that afternoon. It was a daunting realisation, one that would force him to put things into perspective in the weeks ahead.

Wrapped in one of those massive, white fluffy towels Alicia tiptoes back into his bedroom, where Will's still fast asleep. She sits down next to him and gently caresses his hair. She still can't quite believe this is real. She even slept on his chest most of the night, with his arm wrapped around her back. Alicia isn't the kind of person to sleep in someone's arms, Will knows that. She needs her space in bed in order to get a good night's sleep. But last night was different, as if they both needed to savour every minute of it. Maybe because it almost never happened, had that bullet gone the other way. Or maybe because Alicia fears that this might be a one time thing. Because who says it will ever be more than that?

"I need to get going," she whispers softly.

Will groans in return but doesn't open his eyes. It's endearing how he always looks so much younger when he sleeps. God, she needs to talk to Peter. She can't deny her feelings for him, not anymore. They've become too overpowering, too real, to deny any longer.

"Will, I need to get home," she tries again. "I have court in two hours."

That does the trick. "Don't leave," he says with a hoarse voice and wraps his arm around her upper legs.

The gesture makes her smile. "I know. But it's almost seven."

"Oh," he mumbles and looks up at her with sleepy, small eyes. "Hi," he says.

"Hi," she replies with a chuckle. I love you, she thinks. Oh, so much. But she doesn't say it. Not now. Time will come for that conversation.

He trails his fingers over her bare legs. "Did you sleep alright?"

"I did."

"Good." He kisses her cheek and then leans over to grab his phone.

Alicia knows she should get dressed and hurry out the door, but something's holding her back. Will notices it too.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Yes. It's just…This was…" She starts but seems to doubt how to continue. Will watches her with a questioning look, praying she's not going to say what he thinks she's going to say. That this was a mistake, a slip-up, an error of judgement… Something that wasn't supposed to happen and that she got carried away. He's heard it all before. But the way she stares at him doesn't seem apologetic. It's something else he's unable to pinpoint.

"For you…" she tries again. "…Was this a one time thing?"

He lifts his head off the pillow. That's a question he definitely didn't see coming. "Did it feel like that to you?"

Alicia quickly shakes her head. "No. And I don't want it to be."

"Good," he smiles at her. He studies her face that gives away that, as always, her mind is going a hundred miles an hour. "Look, Alicia, if you need a plan—"

"—No," she cuts him off. "No need."

"What do you need then?"

She searches his eyes for a second, then leans in and kisses him. "This," she whispers against his lips.

Will can't suppress a smug smile when she says that. She's never been so direct with him and he loves her even more for it. He's not sure what exactly triggered this seismic shift, but it's one that he imagined, over and over, for years and years, and somehow, he can tell that this time, it might be for real.

"Court can wait," he tells her and pulls her back in bed, the towel ending up on the floor, lonely.

/ / /

An hour later, Alicia drives out of his garage, too rushed to notice that there's a man hanging out of a car window with a massive camera lens. What she also doesn't notice, is that this same man was there last night and that it was his camera that produced the sound that had made the two of them look up.

As Alicia drives off, the man quickly pulls his camera back in the car, shuts the window and leans back in his chair. He studies the photograph on the small screen of the device. "Perfect," he mumbles once he sees that he managed to clearly capture the governor's wife leaving the apartment of her former boss at eight in the morning. He immediately texts his client: Was worth the effort to stick around. Got you a headliner. Photos follow ASAP.

Thank you for reading. So…. What do you guys think? And are you still remotely interested in a new multi chapter? Do let me know in the reviews :)