Author's note: Hello everyone! I would like to thank all the people who took the time to review this story as well as everyone who takes the time to read it. Thank you also to the people who followed it or faved it, it means a lot! Without further ado, I'll leave you with the third chapter of this story. I sincerely hope you enjoy it. As always, thank you for reading. - hannahorgrace

- This takes place almost immediately after the end of the previous chapter.

Chapter 3

"Hey," he says as she opens the door.

His smile is genuine, but he looks sad. Nostalgic, she thinks. "Hey," she smiles back.

It's less awkward than she thought it would be. He follows her into the kitchen, she pours him a glass of wine and refills her own. They clink glasses, the tinkling of the crystal the only sound interrupting their quietness. It all looks too familiar, and yet there is a foreign feeling growing heavier in between them. Apprehension, or caution maybe.

Will thinks Alicia is different. She seems guarded when she moves, and cautious, in the way it seems she chooses her words carefully so as to not cause any turmoil.

"How was court yesterday?" she asks, breaking the uneasy silence with the easy topics.

"Good, good," he nods, feeling a certain sense of relief and thankfulness at her ability to make small talk feel comfortable. "Prosecution didn't expect for us to put Sarah's father on the stand as a witness, or at least they didn't expect it to happen so quickly during trial. They were really caught off guard with that."

She grins. "Which I assume was the point of bringing him in so early on?"

"Yes," he confirms. "It was actually Sarah's idea, which I thought would never work, considering their relationship. Turns out I was wrong."

"And you're admitting to it," she smiles.

Will chuckles. "Yeah, not something you get to see every day. Anyway, they were unprepared for cross and the prosecutor is this new kid who looks like he doesn't know who put him there and why, so he asked for a continuance."

"Didn't you try to fight it?" she wonders.

"I did, but the judge went with him on that one," he says, taking a sip of his wine. "Gives us more time to prep the rest of the witnesses, anyway."

She smiles, but doesn't answer. The weight of the conversation she knows they're about to have slowly changes from an unpleasant worry to a suffocating anguish. She walks to the living room and sits on the couch, shortly followed by Will.

A week ago, he would have sat just a little closer. He would have put his arm around her and she would have laid her head onto his shoulder. But he doesn't, and she doesn't look at him. That's one of the things he misses the most, the look in her eyes. Sometimes tender, sometimes sexy, always caring. He can't see her eyes now, but he imagines he wouldn't find any of this in them if he could.

"Alicia," he starts, and he can almost see her close down as she slowly puts that figurative wall in between them again. She doesn't look at him but he knows he has her attention. "I don't want to things to end the way they did the other day."

She doesn't say anything, so he goes on. "I mean," he continues, looking down at his hands, thinking of how it would feel to hold hers again. She's still not looking at him so, slowly, he takes one of her hands in his, caressing it softly. "I don't want to end things at all. I want to give this a shot." His voice is steady, firm, as he tries to express how much this means to him.

Slowly, she takes his hand in hers, intertwines their fingers together, then brings his hand to her mouth and presses her lips against his knuckles, softly.

His heart jumps in his chest and he wants to move, to take her in his arms and kiss her with everything he has, but something in her affection feels unnatural. As though she could hear him and had heard his thoughts, she puts his hand back down and finally raises her eyes to meet his.

"Will," she starts, her voice so soft, as if the words won't be as painful if she says them quietly. "I don't think we can do this."

He sighs. "I don't know anything about this, Alicia, I'm not good at… sharing feelings. But I've only ever felt this way with you. It's just — you're the only one —", and as he looks for the right words to finish that sentence, he realizes he doesn't need to add more, so he whispers, for confirmation. "You're the only one."

"Will…" she starts, but he's not done yet.

"I know you're married, and I know I'm not supposed to be in love with you," and she tries to hide it but he hears her gasp as he says the words, "but it's not —", he interrupts himself, having trouble putting the right words onto his feelings. "I want to feel like this. I want to be with you."

She looks down, her voice low. "I have a family, Will."

"I know you do, I'm not saying I can ever compete with that — and I don't want to, Alicia. That's not what I'm saying —"

"Then what are you saying," she cuts him off, before she can let his words affect her any more than they already have. "Because I don't see how this is supposed to work, Will."

He doesn't know how to handle this. Anything he says, she takes down, piece by piece. He doesn't know what he can give her that will make her reconsider them, because she's not thinking of them, she's not even thinking of herself. She's putting her family first; Peter, their children. Her happiness and well being come after that.

He doesn't stand a chance.

"You said you were happy," he recalls suddenly, and he flashes back to her sitting in his lap, his arms around her, stroking the skin at the small of her back, both of them naked and basking in the comfort of their intimacy. "You said it was the happiest you'd ever been," and his tone holds no sense of question, not wanting to give her the opportunity to tell him it was lie.

"Yes," she starts, at first not wanting to be dishonest, but then, "Will, it was in the moment. Of course I was happy," and she doesn't know how to put this, how she can ever think of a lie that will sound true enough for him to believe her, "but we can't lose our heads over a few months of temporary happiness."

He frowns. "You don't mean that," he says, and his voice is soft, barely audible. His eyes are pleading with her, his lips tense with sorrow. She hates that she's hurting him. She wishes he hadn't come. But maybe this is what she needs to do, both for him and for herself.

"Was there ever anything else?" She asks, and by asking she tries to convince herself that the answer is no, but her voice is trembling and a part of her begs him to see beyond her lying words. She catches her breath and holds herself straight, steady. Indifferent.

"Alicia," he starts, leaning in closer to her. He's overthrown by her question. Surely she can't possibly mean that. "You're not — you don't believe that."

His voice is hoarse, and for the first time since he got to her apartment he feels angry. She's not being fair. They have — or had — something, and she can't simply disregard it as if it didn't mean anything, as though all it had ever been about was sex.

"You don't mean that," he adds.

She bites her lip, willing herself to keep quiet. Of course she doesn't mean it. It was always so much more between them. Even from the beginning, back in Georgetown; she remembers their study sessions, hours spent cramming for criminal procedure, burden of proof and probable cause, but mostly she remembers watching him, and later at night, alone in her bed, thinking of what it would feel like if he were to hold her in his arms, just for a minute. They'd hugged before of course, had held each other, she remembers, but what would it be like if he really held her? If she could just slide her arms around his chest and lay her head in his neck, feel the warmth of his skin and his arms holding her around the waist. What would it look like if this was who they were? What would it feel like to be loved by him?

She shuts down her younger self, eyes closed as she fights the emotions flowing over her, memories and fantasies taking over her mind.

It had always been more with them. But it was impossible, and she couldn't allow that brief parenthesis, those little out-of-time moments they'd shared recently, to make her lose control.

"It was bound to end sooner or later, Will. There's no room, in either of our lives, for this."

He tenses up again, his voice harsh, throwing the words at her. "Is that what you think it was, an insignificant, pointless affair? Some sort of trivial distraction?"

She sighs in defeat. "That's not fair, Will."

He laughs.

"Yeah, I'm the one that's being unfair," he says, his tone accusing.

She gets up from the couch and walks around the table to face him, creating distance between them. "Yeah, you are," and her voice is louder, her tone almost hostile. "We can't keep doing this, and you can't just show up at my place and think that I'm going to abandon everything because this feels like right timing for you. It's not, Will. It never was." The words come flowing out of her mouth in a mix of anger and despair. She never thought it would be so difficult to push him away, to make him understand that there is no way out for them, no possibility of an outcome. She never thought he would put so much effort into trying to convince her otherwise.

When she looks back at him, his eyes are staring into her living room, but he doesn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. She lies to herself in silence, telling herself that his eyes aren't glistening, that it's just the ceiling light reflecting in his gaze, and as she listens to herself, she feels a wave of self-resentment washing over her. Her throat feels tight again, and the air burns when it fills her lungs. She never thought she was capable of this.

Slowly, he stands, avoiding her gaze, searching for his jacket instead.

"I'm gonna go," he says, and his voice is dull, his eyes settling on everything but hers.

She is slowly overcome by a sudden wave of panic, like a weight pressing against her chest, preventing her from taking full, satiating breaths, restraining her entire body. Her lips form his name, but no sound comes out.

He doesn't speak any more, just walks away from her, each step he takes a blow to her heart. She sees herself twenty years ago, hair in a ponytail, sitting in an empty classroom, both of them wearing one of these blue sweaters from Georgetown, his lips so close to hers as they talked about their future and the law firm they would be working at. She'd wondered what his reaction would have been if she had just pressed her lips against his, interrupting his thoughts, giving in to her curiosity. She had imagined him pulling her closer, sliding his arms around her waist, brushing her hair behind her ear, dragging her onto his lap.

She can feel the tears now pooling under her lids, unable to stop them, as she cherishes the vision in her mind. Will doesn't turn around, doesn't look at her when he opens the door, and the combination of her blissful illusion with the agonizing reality shatters her heart.

The door closes behind him.

Slowly, steadily, Alicia walks towards the couch, sits down, and lets the tears fall free.

Author's note: Hi again, and thanks so much for reading! These two never have it easy, do they? I'm working on writing some lighter stuff for them in the next chapters, we all know I'm not going to leave them broken-hearted. As always, let me know if you'd like to see more and I'll gladly read your thoughts on this chapter! Thanks again for reading! - hannahorgrace