Will and Alicia didn't look at each other the rest of the trial. At the end of it though, when Alicia and Cary won, he said,
"You did good. Congratulations."
Alicia could tell he meant it, but she didn't know why he would. She had played dirty and he had played dirty. Then, they almost had sex in the court's bathroom. Both considered it a lapse in judgement; a moment of weakness. This time, Alicia knew she could trust Will to not mention anything. His firm was supposed to be against hers and this would only hurt both of their reputations.
A little over a week later, Will and Alicia met in court again. It was an odd case with a double jury. Originally, Will, Diane, Alicia and Cary worked on it together as one firm. But now, Will refused to work with Alicia and vice versa. Neither wanted another slip. They both took second chair, letting Diane and Cary take first. Their counterparts thought it wise after their last appearance in court together.
For the whole trial, Lockhart/Gardner tried to subject the blame on Florrick/Agos' client and Cary did the same. Alicia and Cary's client ended up being arrested, forcing him to leave his young, pretty lover for two years in jail. Both had been caught smuggling drugs on a return flight from Argentina. Only the male client had been arrested because both juries ended up believing that he had manipulated the young lady into smuggling drugs with him. The two lovebirds denied this many times, but that was the best sentence offered. A tearful goodbye was dramatically said as the male client was led by the officer through the door at the front of the courtroom.
Alicia swore she could see Will looking at her out of the corner of her eye, as if he was saying, 'If they made it work, maybe we could have.' She didn't believe that for a minute. Everything was complicated and her feelings for Will were too intense to hold back while keeping her marriage alive.
Copious nights she had sex with Peter in his office after a steamy battle against him. She had slept with Peter the night after Ashbaugh's trial, biting her lip the whole way through to stop herself saying Will's name as she reached her climax. She wondered if Will had done the same thing. He hadn't. For the first time, instead of numbing his feelings with a woman, Will sat on the end of his bed and watched the New York skyline. It wasn't for lack of options though. His then girlfriend, another meaningless fling, had tried desperately to get him to join her in the shower but he told her he wasn't in the mood.
Will, in fact, was not thinking what Alicia thought he was. He was thinking about another time where his clients crying had struck a chord in his chest.
A father, mother and little boy hugged in the centre of the courtroom, tears streaming from all of their eyes.
"I knew you were innocent, baby," the mother whispered repeatedly to the father. Will had spent a gruelling six weeks fighting for an innocent man not to go to jail for murder. He finally had gotten the proof he needed and it was worth all of the hours to see the family's happy faces. Alicia was in the stands. She had been for most of the trial. She offered him a congratulatory smile but he was watching the family. She tilted her head.
"That's nice," he said in response, a heaviness nestling into his chest. Alicia gave him a sympathetic smile and put her hand on his arm. He looked down at it, not expecting her to make contact with him. His eyes followed her arm until it reached her body. She was wearing a cream suit that showed generous amounts of cleavage. Neither knew it yet but that was the night they began their affair. An affair that, in hindsight, never ended.
*Author's note*
I promise more will happen in the next few chapters. I needed a bridge to get from 5x12 to 5x14, which is all about Alicia's speech, and this was that.