"Mr Preston, hello," Alicia said, shaking his hand, "You ready-"

Behind him was Will Gardner. Alicia didn't expect to see Will at her office again, definitely not co-representing the plaintiff in a classic David versus Goliath case. Based on his manner, it appeared that he had forgotten about the events of the previous week and was again ready to fight.

"I believe you know Mr Gardner?" Mr Preston said. Oh, how that is the understatement of the century, Alicia thought to herself.

"Alicia, Cary. How are you?" Will asked, flames of anger spitting from his words. Alicia could not keep her eyes off him. Her mouth was slightly open. It revealed her discomfort by displaying her clenched jaw and half-bitten lip. Will wondered if he was the only one to notice and smirked to himself.

"Good," Cary answered, appearing unaffected by Will's appearance. He could feel Alicia squeezing his hand for reassurance behind his back. He stroked her thumb gently as if to say, 'It's going to be okay.' Mr Preston's next words didn't reach Alicia's ears. She felt rather faint and was trying to keep herself from passing out. Cary noted that she looked rather pale.

"Shall we?" Mr Preston suggested.

"This way," Cary directed, with a slight bow of his head. He pulled himself away from Alicia's grip with one final squeeze, leaving her to feel heavy. As the other representative followed Cary to the conference room, Alicia held Will back for a moment.

"You should get over it," she said, barely recognising herself.

"Get over what?" he replied, almost against her ear. She could feel his hot breath against her ear and inhaled sharply.

"Me," she spat out.

"You have an odd view of me, Alicia," Will murmured with a chuckle. Alicia could see the world spinning and that pain in her chest was coming back, more painful than ever.

"It's just a coincidence that we keep opposing each other on cases," she managed to get out, gripping her hand onto her other arm tightly.

"Yes. Burl came to me, thinking you were still working at Lockhart/Gardner and I just-"

Everything became too much for Alicia. Her limbs became too tired to move and she felt herself fall backwards against Will with a dull thump. Thankfully, she was still conscious but she could barely see. Only blurred shapes in a spinning office appeared to her. Almost immediately, she tried to stand up but Will's hands against her arms stopped her. He turned her around so she faced him. He couldn't deny her pallor or the heaviness of her limbs.

"Alicia, are you okay?" he murmured, worry piercing through his chest. Alicia blinked to focus and then answered as brightly as she could muster,

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, I must have slipped."

"No, you didn't," Will responded, "You collapsed. Here, take a seat."

He led her over to a chair at a random desk and helped her sit down despite her protests that she was fine.

"I'm going to get you some water, okay?" he murmured, "I need you to tell me honestly how you are feeling, Alicia. I… You need to be fine."

He poured her a cup of water from a jug that rested nearby and proffered it to her. She eagerly gulped down a few sips. Will crouched down in front of her, eyes tense with worry, placed both his hands on her arms and stroked tenderly. He knew he shouldn't be doing such things as they would bring back memories but in that moment, he would do anything to comfort her. He watched as the pallor left her face and her limbs gained strength. She stood up, wobbled slightly but persevered and said,

"I'm fine, Will. I just didn't eat any breakfast. Let's go to the conference room,"

"Maybe, we should delay the case, to give you time to recover," Will suggested, standing up. Alicia laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh. Will knew what her real laugh sounded like.

"Not a chance," she said, "I'm not delaying this case so don't try to give yourself that advantage."

She stalked off, hiding her shakiness well. Will just looked at her, frowning. She refused to see that he still cared for her, instead pretending it was a ploy. Perhaps, that is for the better, Will thought, before following behind her.

Immediately after he sat down in their conference room, Alicia started confidently and as if nothing had happened.

"Given that Drama Camp stole our client's song…"

"Your client's song," Will corrected. The glower Alicia responded with was enough to make Will stop feeling sorry for her.

"Our client's cover of the Rebel Kane song," she answered, finding her rhythm, "We are suggesting 50% of the network's profits. 1.2 million up to this point and 50% moving forward."

Will looked at Mr Preston, the sympathy in his eyes having dissipated.

"No," he said clearly.

"Okay, what's your offer?" Cary asked. Mr Preston said,

"$800,000 with punitive damages."

Alicia furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't know that it would be so easy to get the opposition to hand over money. It saved the embarrassment of going to court with it.

"You're giving us $800,000?" Alicia asked in disbelief.

"No, we're suing you for $800,000?" Will said. The two plaintiffs looked at each other in confusion.

"You're suing us? How does that work?" She snorted.

"You stole our client's cover of Thicky Trick," Will retorted, already knowing that Alicia wouldn't like the idea of going to court with such a case. He already knew she believed it to be a David and Goliath case when it wasn't. It was just one music artist group against another.

"Wait, are you saying that I'm-" the plaintiff attempted to protest. Alicia said,

"Rowby, it's a negotiating point."

Will scoffed.

"No it's not. This is a derivative copyright granted exclusively to Tiller Television. You'll get your five dollars back."

A muscle ticked in Alicia's jaw as she remembered the exchange of five dollars from her clients to Rebel Kane, to sell the derivative copyright. She should have known that the larger company made sure to follow all the steps.

"We'll see you in court," Alicia said firmly.

"Alicia!" Cary whispered, "We should think this through."

"I have," Alicia responded, then raised her tone, "We'll see you in court."