A/N Hello again to all my friends (sorry it sounded good and it is 3 in the morning...) I present the 23rd chapter in the continuing saga of Will Gardner and Alicia Cavanaugh. I apologize for the wait between all these recent chapters. Writing until tonight has been difficult with my muse fleeting. With our show returning in just 9 days I find myself clinging desperately to the magical place that is AULand where I don't have to watch Alicia struggle with Will's death and grasp the concept of a world where William Paul Gardner no longer exists. Although with the return of our show i hope that my muse will return as strong as it once was so that I can continue on with this story. Thank you ALL for hanging in there with me and not losing faith in me. Here's to US!

With Zach away at college and Grace spending more time with Connor, Alicia found herself cooking less and less. However it seemed that Will knew more places in the city to eat that Alicia was fairly certain they hadn't repeated a restaurant in the 6 months they'd been married. It was odd that she spent so much less time in the kitchen but when they had gone to look for a new apartment she had turned down more than one apartment because the kitchen was too small. Although deciding which apartment to take had been… stimulating for lack of a better term.

Alicia sat in the living room with her feet on the coffee table surrounded by brochures from at least ten houses when Will walked in from the bedroom,

"Come to bed" Will whined, "you've been looking at those for hours, we have time to decide you know?"

Will had turned on the puppy dog eyes, though Alicia was almost getting used to them.

"We can even just stay here if it means you'll come to bed."

"Just a few more minutes, ok?"

A few more minutes had turned into an hour and Alicia had succumbed to sleep on top of the flyers. Will had kissed her awake and carried her to the bedroom where he proceeded to show her what she had missed by not coming to bed earlier, they would choose their new home later, after all they had the rest of their lives together. Who cared where they lived?

The new apartment was a stunning mix of classic and modern design. Just as Alicia had wanted, the apartment centered around the kitchen. The kitchen was open and inviting. There was an island with seating to keep the chef company. The living room was designed for entertaining guests and featured a couch that created a cozy gathering place perfect for conversations and cocktails. The couch had cost far more than Alicia would have ever considered spending on furniture, but Will had insisted when he had seen the look on her face when she saw it in the design magazine she was flipping through. It had been a feature in some award winning actress's home and she fell in love instantly. There were wood floors throughout the main living area with beautiful rugs that had been handpicked by Alicia. They had had their bedroom designed as an oasis and when choosing the apartment had deemed it perfect as the master bedroom was miles away from the other bedrooms in the house. Of course they had spent many weekends personalizing the house. And while they would never tell Zach and Grace, Will and Alicia had officially christened every room of the house.

Grace had picked out a pale but bright yellow for her room. Alicia had decided to finish painting it as a surprise for Grace when she returned from a weekend in Springfield with her dad. Will was at the office going over details of a case with Kalinda, Alicia had expected him to be gone all day. That was how she found herself alone in the apartment with more paint on her than the walls and paint in her ponytail. She had pretty much stuck her foot into the paint tray trying to step back and check her handy work. She had jumped when she heard Will's laugh as he found her sitting in the middle of Grace's room looking thoroughly defeated. The paint fight that occurred would lead to other activities that made Alicia blush when she walked into Grace's room and she glanced around at the walls. Although she would also later cringe when she took Will's jeans to the cleaners hoping in vain that they might be able to save the designer label jeans.

It had been all these little personal touches though that had made the apartment truly home. Each wall in the house had been painted with the help of the family including Owen and her mom, Sara and Aubrey, even Will's niece had put a few brush strokes in. The hardest battle in designing the new house however had been discouraging Will from keeping the yellow sheets from his old bed. He had claimed that the sheets had sentimental value and therefore should not be discarded. Alicia had fervently promised him she would make the new sheets just as special. It was odd to see Will as the sentimental one of the relationship. She couldn't help but fall in love a little more each day. It was the little things: The cup of coffee that mysteriously appeared on her desk when she was due back from court, flowers that appeared on the dining room table for no reason other than it was Monday, and Mondays suck.

Today there were flowers and a bottle of wine on the table. The flowers had a message that proclaimed that it would be 21 years this month since he had worked up the courage to sit next to her in Torts. The wine was for later when they would be having dinner with Diane and her husband that evening. If you had told Alicia 3 years ago that she would be driving an hour out of the city to have dinner with Diane Lockhart and her cowboy husband; accompanied by Will while wearing his ring on her left hand she would have politely rolled her eyes and asked you sincerely what kind of drugs you had partaken of that moment.

Alicia turned on the radio as she headed to the shower to get ready to head out for dinner. She smiled to herself when she heard the lyrics

"In a New York Minute,

Everything can change.

In a New York Minute

things can get a little strange,

In a New York Minute,

Everything can change,

In a New York Minute." *

Things certainly had changed in a minute and they were certainly stranger than fiction. But as she thought about it, the only thing she might change was the catalyst that had set the whole chain of events in motion, but the outcome was pretty damn good.

*A/N 2 - song is New York Minute by Don Henley