Author's Note: I'M SOOOOOO SORRY! Truly there is a part of me that won't ever forgive me for making you all wait 7 months for an update. Honestly I felt like I wrote myself into a corner and had to wait for the dust to settle to worm my way out, I also began feeling a disconnect with the show. I couldn't find the Alicia I knew in the storylines playing out on screen and couldn't translate those feelings to words. This lead me to discovering other shows and I found myself trapped in a glorious place called Stars Hollow. Stars Hollow was such a happy place, nobody got shot, and only the old people died… Comedy flowed rampant through the streets and I could find no reason to drag myself from the blissful ignorance of a small town as hard as I tried I couldn't drag myself to leave the world of those adorable Gilmore girls. Through all of this I took a very Lorelai Gilmore approach feeling that if I ignored my story it would all resolve itself, but instead I found myself feeling guilty for leaving people hanging. I feel I need to bring this story to a close and anticipate three more chapters to bring us all to a place where we can feel that the story is complete and that Will and Alicia will be together in a way that they should have been so long ago. Also please see the author's note at the end of this to address story points.

"The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday. "

~Mary Schmich

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

We all like to imagine how we will react to random scenarios that enter our minds, but you don't know until the moment the most unimaginable situations that take our breath away, and not it the good way that makes you want to remember the moment forever, But in the way that makes you wonder if you'll ever be able to catch your breath again. These moments are the ones that make us stop and wonder where it all went wrong and how you took it all for granted. These are the moments you realize it was all over all too soon.

Will never expected to walk in the door of the home he shared with Alicia to find her doubled over in a chair by the dining room table, a letter on the floor next to her where it had fluttered out of her hand. Will was taken aback, he'd seen Alicia hurt before but never had she looked so… broken. Will rushed to her, kneeled down beside her and placed a hand on her knee as he looked up into her now tear stained face. As Alicia looked down at him she was overtaken with sobs again and she covered her mouth. Without a word Will reached down to pick up the letter, he read quietly for a few minutes then pulled Alicia to the floor with him. He gathered her in his arms and gently rocked her while she sobbed. Will would like to think it took only moments to bring Alicia the comfort she sought in his arms but it was nearly midnight when Alicia had finally succumbed to exhaustion. Will gently woke her to take her to the bedroom. He helped her perch precariously on the edge of the bed and then went to get pajamas from the drawer. He gently tucked her into bed then cuddled close to her as she drifted off as more tears rolled down her face.

Alicia spent much of the next week walking around in a daze, she seemed almost numb to any human emotion. Often seeming as if she was not part of this world. Then one day at dinner her silence broke. Grace was at her college prep class and it was just the two of them.

"Charles Lester was here this morning"

Will put his fork down and looked at her with a furrowed brow.

"He wanted to know where Kalinda was" She paused.

"I don't know where she is, Will and that scares me more than I thought possible. She'll do anything to protect us and she'll never let us help her." The letter had been succinct, to the point and all boiled down to the fact that Kalinda was gone, and she wasn't coming back.

Alicia stopped and drew in a deep breath. She closed her eyes as her mind drifted over the past few months.

It had all started with the phone call from Kalinda about Cary. It took them a day and half before they were able to see him, he was disheveled and Alicia had quietly wondered if he had ever looked so unkempt in his entire life.

Finn Polmar the front runner for the States Attorney race had been helpful in providing Will with the details of the charges against Cary, but no one realized in those moments the chain of events that would begin playing out.

Lemond Bishop was not a man you wanted to mess with and everyone including Kalinda had found themselves trying desperately to protect Cary from a prison sentence.

The months that had preceded Alicia finding the letter unceremoniously propped up on the fruit bowl had been tense and filled with uncertainty. It hadn't gone without its funnier moments however the best being Eli sitting Alicia down and asking her if she would be willing to run for States Attorney for Cook County.

Alicia had laughed so hard that tears rolled down her face and she could barely relay the story to Will without losing it again.

Diane had come close to being disbarred for using the evidence that Kalinda had manufactured. And Will had found himself caught between protecting Alicia while she continually tried to protect Kalinda.

It seemed now that this would no longer be an issue. It appeared the Kalinda had thrown herself onto the proverbial sword. The danger was that in order to extricate herself from the situation she had pulled data from Lemond Bishop's computer and turned it over to the ASA Geneva Pine.

Alicia imagines that she and Will are the only ones with this knowledge. Well maybe Cary knows too she thinks. This is what makes the letter so scary. The not knowing where or what might happen to Kalinda is as bad as the painful hole in her heart that misses her best friend.

The fact that Charles Lester had appeared on her doorstep and threatened her family makes the situation all too real and is terrifying in a way that seems impossible. Secretly she had hoped it was all a terrible nightmare, the kind that you wake from and need days to recover from. But with that knock on the door came the all to certain realization that Kalinda was gone and that all of them were in danger.

Author's note part deux:

Kalinda's leaving was what finally broke through my inability to put pen to paper. The shock that I wouldn't see Alicia and Kalinda giggling drunk at the bar tipsy on Tequila struck something that I couldn't resist. Please bear with me as I promise that while she is gone in the story for now, SHE WILL BE BACK, I have already begun penning the final chapter for this story and have mapped out the chapters in between and I will do everything in my power to place these people as imaginary as they are into the places I want them to be. So stay tuned and in the words of Mandy Moore "Have a little faith in me"