A/N: Eli has admitted to Alicia that he deleted Will's voicemail from 2010. Alicia has returned from Iowa and wants to talk. This is the continuation of the chapter.
Who Loves You (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons)
Chicago, December 2015
"He took that away from me. Eli took it away from me," she continued, her voice rising so that Angela felt the anger and pain in her words, before breaking into sobs. Angela came around the counter, swiping a Kleenex from a nearby box and handing it to Alicia. She dabbed her eyes then, through stifled sniffles wiped her the palms of her hands across her eyes, stemming the tears. "Sorry, you must think I'm so weak," she paused, "an idiot for getting this upset after so long," she stammered.
Angela sighed and gave a weak smile, "I don't." Alicia looked up sharply at the redhead, "You don't?"
"No. I think you loved him. I'm not sure if his love for you was truly reciprocated at the time, but I think you did love him and that is why you are hurting so much now."
Alicia sniffed and added, "I did love him. You're right. I don't think I let myself love him or express my feelings for him as much as I should have. I told him I was happy with him. He made me deliriously happy – the happiest I'd ever been – and yet I let him go."
Angela smiled and sat down on the stool next to Alicia. "We all let him go. I could have had the whole marriage, family, big house," she paused and added, laughing, "maybe even divorce with him when we were younger, but I didn't. Neither of us was ready for that."
"We parted because of my kids," Alicia began, "there was a problem with Grace and it made me realize I'd taken them for granted, I'd spent too long putting myself and my relationship with Will above them. I needed to end it before it got out of hand and someone got hurt." She looked Angela in the eye, "One of them got hurt."
"But instead you and Will were the ones hurting," Angela gave a nod to Alicia.
"Yes," she answered quietly. "I threw plates at Eli. I lost it. I totally lost it."
"What?" Angela asked, her eyes widening as she scanned Alicia's face for answers.
"I couldn't believe he deleted the message and kept the call from me all this time. Even when Will died he…" her voice trailed off and she pressed her lips together to stop herself from crying, "he didn't tell me."
"Plates! Blimey! I think he got your message. Would hate to come up against you in court." Her comment made Alicia's mouth turn into a half smile.
"I was angry that he denied me the chance to hear the message, to make up my own mind what I would do. I didn't get the opportunity to make a plan with Will."
"You can't say for certain that things would have been rosy for you and Will. After all, you did have a relationship; you got to see what it was like to take him to bed and have him demonstrate his love for you. A plan might not have changed anything. Do you think it would have changed anything?"
"I don't know, I'll never know," she answered sadly, staring into her cooling coffee.
…..
"He told me he loved me once, at the end of a phone call during our affair, it just came out," Alicia smiled and shook her head, "it was the most natural thing in the world to come from his lips, but took both of us by surprise. He quickly backtracked and we both said it was just a slip, but I really believe he meant it."
"He freaked out a little about the fact he said it. It was true for him," Angela reassured her. "He didn't want to scare you or force you to confront your real feelings, especially as you didn't seem to want to take the relationship further."
"What do you mean?"
Angela ran her tongue along her top lip, "You, err.., didn't seem to want a full relationship. You didn't want him to meet your kids and I think he saw that as a barrier you put up – they were your priority, and rightly so, but you used them as a wall between you and potential happiness."
"Huh, he did ask me if I thought he should meet my kids. I said no."
"There you go. He wanted to make things right. He knew what you guys were doing would cause problems, but he really wanted to come out of the shadows. He didn't want to hide the relationship he had waited his whole life for."
Alicia smiled and sipped her coffee.
"Do you think he loved me when he died?"
Angela laughed nervously, biting her bottom lip and turning away from Alicia. "He loved you," she said quietly, reassuring the brunette, "however, the pain you caused him meant that he didn't see a relationship in your future." Alicia looked stunned. "At least in the immediate future. If there hadn't been a shooting, in time he may have thought about it if you divorced Peter. If he survived being shot," she paused, "it is difficult to say, but he would have taken it as a point for contemplation, to reassess his life. My best guess, he would have declared his love for you and begged you to leave Peter."
Alicia took a deep breath and stood up, moving towards the picture window. Spreading her arms and placing her hands on the sill, she said, "You think that?"
"Yeah, I do, but," she paused, "who knows what he would have done. Will did not follow convention – he had his own playbook. Or, and this might not be what you want to hear," she finished her now cold coffee, "he might have made a similar proposal to me."
Alicia looked downcast and furrowed her brow. Angela continued, "If he had asked, would you have left Peter and pursued a relationship – a life – with Will?"
She sighed and felt tears welling in her eyes. "I don't know. I honestly do not know. I have kids – they were younger and at home then," her breathing quickened and she wiped a tear away with her right hand, "and there was Diane…" She let the thought of the older woman hang in the air.
"Diane was concerned for the firm when you and Will got it together. When he was shot you were at Florrick/Agos. It was a different situation. If it was made clear from the start and you definitively split from Peter, I don't think she, or Cary, could argue. Peter would suffer and Eli would have a fit, but at the end of the day, you were two people and the love in your hearts should be the most important thing. I wouldn't mind; I just wanted Will to be happy."
Alicia let one corner of her mouth turn up ever so slightly as she took a deep breath and turned to look out of the window.
….
A/N: OK, what do you think? I left some space for discussion between A&A later on.
