A/N: Now that I've completed my multi-chapter story Force Majeure, I felt like it was time to publish another one shot. This is a continuation of the hotel scene of Executive Order, written as a flashback from Will's POV on the day of 5x15, just before he goes back to the Jeffrey Grant trial. Story is published on AO3 as well.
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. The, characters, the scenario and some of the dialogue is 100% opened by the King's, and well, so is the whole backdrop to all of this. Forever grateful!
Summary: "I don't want easy. I want her, Alicia Cavenaugh. After all, I'm not interested in anyone else." Continuation of the hotel scene in 'Executive Order', 3x07, written as a flashback from Will's POV during 5x15, on the day of the shooting.
Disenchanted
"I'm not interested in anyone else."
– Will Gardner
Flashback to two years ago (3x07)
I watch Alicia lay on the bed, next to me. My hands stroke the contours of her hips, her stomach, her breasts… If it was up to me, we could stay in this hotel room for hours, days or weeks to come. There's always something new I get to discover during these hours alone: how she responds if I touch her in a certain way, what makes her laugh and how I get her to fully let go and truly relax. That last one has always been the biggest challenge. But I think I got quite close this afternoon, judging by the way she's laying here.
My thoughts are interrupted abruptly when my phone rings.
"You're on your way back?" Diane. I glance at Alicia and gesture her to stay quiet.
She gives me an obedient, but obviously cheeky, look. Her mind's still with what we were doing twenty minutes ago.
"In about thirty minutes, why?" I respond, while I continue to touch her Alicia. My fingers trail off to her curves and so do my thoughts.
"Kalinda thinks we might have a possibility on this torture case."
"Really?" I reply, desperately trying to keep up with the conversation. "Thought everything was top, top secret."
"Well, there might be a way to find evidence of Danny at the camp through not-top secret means," Kalinda chimes in.
"But it will mean taking the case to the next level," Diane continues. "Confrontationally."
"And you're wondering if I'm alright with poking the bear even harder?" For a second I lift up my hand from the warmth of Alicia's body in an attempt to focus on what she's asking me. This is important.
"Yes. So to speak."
"This is not some corrupt oil company that we can pressure to settle Diane, this is the government making our lives hard for us."
I wait for Diane to answer. Then, out of the blue, we're interrupted.
Hey mom pick up the phone, hey mom pick up the phone, hey mom pick up the phone.
The next few seconds seem to pass in slow motion. That's Alicia's phone. That's Grace voice. And we're not the only one's hearing it.
My eyes find Alicia's, caught like a deer in the headlights.
Immediately, she rolls over to cover her phone with her hands. She jumps up from the bed and runs off to the bathroom.
"I… Where are you Will?"
Shit.
"…Lunch?" I try.
"I'll… see you back here in half an hour?" This is not going well, I realize.
"Right. Yeah, I'll be there in about half an hour," I just repeat what she says.
"Bye."
I sigh deeply and put my phone back in my pocket. I turn around and see Alicia on the other side of the room, talking to her daughter. The way she stands there, hunched over with her back towards me, makes it seem as if she's not just hiding from Diane, but from me as well. I'm not supposed to listen in to these conversations.
I have enough distractions floating around in my mind. Did Diane just find out we're having an affair? Is she going to get to the bottom of this? Will she pretend this never happened? Should I say something?
Alicia hangs up and walks back in towards me.
"I should go," she mumbles flustered, avoiding eye contact, and starts to pick her clothes up from the floor.
"Lunch at this hour… Couldn't we think of something else," she rambles and restlessly looks around the room."Where's my top?"
"We'll find a different way next time," I answer calmly and lift up the sheets. "Here," I say and hand her the wine red top that I took off of her the minute we walked in.
She gratefully takes it from me. "I don't know if there should be a next time," she continues and puts it back on. "Not like this. I mean –"
"Hey, hey hey," I walk up to her and rest my hands on her shoulders. "Wait a minute. Calm down." I hate to see her worked up like this, especially so soon after the really, really, great sex we just had.
She looks up to me, not amused that I interrupted her in her little ramble. "Diane knows."
"You don't know that."
"Will." She gives me that look. That you-know-better look.
"She might suspect something, yes," I admit.
"Well, that's the understatement of the year."
Her cynical response makes me chuckle. In return, that makes her smile. Oh God, we're in love.
Again, we're interrupted by Alicia's phone ringing. She picks up and sits down on the side of the bed.
"Hi Jen. Yes. Why?" She looks back up to me. "Diane asked where I was?" She rolls her eyes and gives me a stare.
I close my eyes for a second. Shit, shit, shit. She's not going to let this pass.
"I'll be back in about an…" she looks at me. Don't say thirty minutes. "An hour?"
I give her a reaffirming nod.
She hangs up. "Oh my God."
I sit down next to her.
"She's after us," she states.
I put my hand on her upper leg and sigh deeply. "I know."
Alicia clears her throat, gets up and walks to the chair where she threw her bag on. "No more sneaking out during workdays," she sounds as if she's trying to convince herself that that's the best idea. I don't necessarily agree, so I keep my mouth shut.
She turns around to me, her eyes pleading for a response.
"You prefer my office bathroom?" I can't help to joke.
But she doesn't smile in return. She walks over to the window, her back towards me. "I don't know if I can keep this up." She sounds defeated.
It makes my heart drop, that sentence. I don't want to have this discussion, I don't want to allow ourselves to go there, because I know what the end result will be.
So I just walk towards her, stand behind her and wrap my arms around the small of her back. I gently push her hair away and kiss her neck. "Shh," I just whisper. "Tell me, what did Grace call about?" I ask, changing the subject.
"To ask if she could go to… bibleclass." She turns around with an arched brow.
"Wow," I just respond.
"What am I supposed to say to that?"
"There's no harm in that, right?"
"Isn't there? I don't know… She also said, it was a little late for lunch."
I glance at my watch. "She's right. Guess we lost track of time, huh?" I mumble in her ear.
She turns around and gives me one of those big, beautiful smiles. "It was really good," she throatily whispers in my ear.
"I thought it's always really good?"
She smiles. "Being your humble self," she teases me. "I liked it like that."
"I heard," I joke.
"Stop it," she laughs.
That makes me smile. It always makes me smile when she laughs.
But almost immediately, the sparkle in her eyes is replaced by a hollow, worried stare.
"How are we supposed to keep this up?" She asks, more serious this time. I can sense there's no more room to laugh it away.
"Don't worry about it."
"I have to."
I just shake my head, place my hands on her cheeks and kiss her lips. "Leesh," I hold her face in my hands. "We're fine. We're just… figuring it out."
"Are we?" I see the doubt in her eyes. I've seen that look before, many times, and I absolutely hate it. As soon as that doubt hits her, the first thing she always does is distancing herself from me. It's as if her can just see her slipping further and further away from me, and I don't always know how to get her back.
"Close your eyes," I try.
She throws me a look.
"Close your eyes," I say again. Reluctantly, she does.
I wrap my arms around her back, burry my face in her neck and place a kiss on her collarbone. "Tell me, how does that make you feel?"
"Good," she moans and opens her eyes. "Will. It's not that. It's never about that. Being with you… always makes me feel…" for a second, I think she's going to say loved, because she is loved. "…good," she says instead.
"Same," I say and look up to her. "So, let's not waste this."
"I don't want to."
She sighs and pulls away from my hold.
"Is this weekend still on, your place?" I ask and try to mask the insecurity that's creeping up on me.
"Yes," she replies decisive and gets up from my lap. "Kids are with Peter."
"Ok."
On our way to the elevator, her phone rings for the third time. I hear her talking to Zach, who seems to be asking if he can invite a friend over that weekend and stay home. She tells him that, of course, he can. Because what else is she supposed to say? She gives me an apologising look.
We don't talk about it on our way out, but I know enough. I won't go there this weekend. And Alicia can't come to me. It will have to wait.
I will have to wait.
We will have to wait.
The uncomfortable conversation I had with Zach last week is still fresh in my mind. All the more, it made me realize how loving Alicia wasn't just as simple as twenty years ago. She has a family now, and they'll always come first. That's what her life has become. And I'm just a small part of it, only because I fought my way in. It's not like that came naturally.
These hotel rooms make us feel like the real world has paused, just for the hour we're in them. But the world never ends. The world comes banging at your door, through your phone, in your e-mail, everywhere. I want to take us away from all of it. To carry her to a world that's just the two of us. But I know I can't do that. And she wouldn't want me to either.
So it's not easy. But it doesn't matter. To me, it doesn't. I'm willing to risk a lot.
I don't want easy. I want her, Alicia Cavenaugh. After all, I'm not interested in anyone else.
Present day (5x15)
Later that day, back at the firm, I noticed that she was still stressed out about what had happened that afternoon. My words had done little to calm her down. In that hotel room, it had worked for a little bit but here, in the real world, they didn't make much of a difference.
"You OK?" I asked, when I found her sitting in her office.
"Yeah," she mumbled, not convincing me.
"You want to talk about it?" I tried and closed the door behind me.
"We're fine," she answered.
"I know. No fuss no muss right?" I offered her a smile.
"Exactly. And I'm sorry about the weekend."
"Oh, don't worry about it."
"I'll make it up to you." She looked me straight in my eyes. "I promise."
"I don't doubt that," I grinned and went back to work.
But she wouldn't be able to make it up to me. Later that week, she walked into my office and told me that she couldn't.
I sat right here when she walked in and told me that, two years ago. And now I'm sitting here alone, and she doesn't even work here anymore. I've been so mad at her these past months, and then when she came to my trial this morning, warning me about Grant's parents, we suddenly shared a smile.
She's been non-stop in my mind ever since, and I've been replaying those last couple of days of our affair in my mind, thinking ifthere's anything I could have done to turn it around.
But we were over. Maybe because she didn't want to take that extra step. Maybe because she couldn't. Maybe because she got scared, or maybe because it was all, still, bad timing.
I don't know.
I don't know if she'll ever tell me, and if she'll ever give us a chance to try again. But if she does, I'll be there. I like to tell myself that I won't wait for her, but that's not the whole truth. Yes, my life goes on, but I will love her every minute of it, no matter what happens.
But she'll never know.
"You wanna go through the evidence one more time?" Kalinda wakes me up from my thoughts.
"Yeah, sure. Now?"
"Jeffrey hearing's restarts in an hour."
Right, back to work.
Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed, please leave a review and let me know what you think. Also, eager to hear if there are any requests/prompts for other one shots. I'm thinking of writing more one-shots that are linked to scenes from the show, either as a continuation or a different ending to them. Love to hear your ideas!