will

"Do you love my daughter? Because if you do, it's time to stop being polite about it."

Will's mind had been replaying those seventeen words like a broken damn record, over and over and over again, since the night Alicia's mother had confronted him and by doing that forced him to come face to face with how much of a coward he had been the last almost two decades and probably always would be.

That had been a week ago.

Last night he had woken up with a cold sweat from of a nightmare, unable to fall back asleep. The nightmare was the same one he always had. He was in his office standing in front of the TV watching Alicia stand next to Peter at that God forsaken press conference all those years ago.

Watching her look so small and frail made Will's stomach turn, it always had. He despised Peter for a lot of things. It would take days for him to list it all. But the hatred had become so deep rooted, so well seeded and planted in his heart. He had covered and bottled it all up so well, he couldn't even remember where one thing started and the other began.

But seeing her stand there with crouched shoulders and pale skin, looking like a wounded animal, he knew what he loathed the most about Peter Florrick. He had reduced the most bright and magnetic person Will had ever met to a cracked and torn beaten down shell of what she used to be. Reduced her to a woman who sacrificed her morals and pride and her happiness for a selfish excuse of a man. He had used, taken advantage of and abused her warm heart and caring nature as he pleased.

And Will had watched. He had observed. He had let it happen. For years. Because he was a coward.

He was just so terrified. Terrified of commitment, terrified of change, terrified of how deep his love ran for her. Because he did love her. Of course he did. And admired her. Jesus, how he admired the shit out of her. Her strength, the way she had proven everyone who had dragged her name through the mud these past few years wrong. Her kindness, how she cared so deeply about everyone around her.

If he was honest with himself, she was the one who had taught him how to care. She had inspired him to care about law again. She had inspired him to care about his clients. She made him a better person just by being in his orbit. She made him a better person just by existing.

"I like myself around you, Alicia. And I don't like myself around a lot of people."

Looking back, that was the most honest he had ever been with her, and he hated himself for it. In a way, deeper than he had ever hated Peter Florrick or any of the guy's vile actions and wrong doings.

Because he was Will, he was her best friend and he was supposed to do right by her. She deserved better. She deserved honesty, she deserved truth and most of all she deserved to be loved properly and steadily, not this half hearted mess he constantly found himself offering to her.

He could have told her the truth about the damn voicemail. But he lied. He had had so many opportunities to fight for her the last fifteen fucking years. But he never had. He hadn't even attempted.

So, as so many times before, he found himself sitting back in his office chair, distracting himself with a case in order to forget her and the ache she caused inside of him even for just a few hours.

Once again letting her go before they ever even began and convincing himself he was doing it for her and not because he was so used to doing the wrong thing - that at this point he had no idea how to do anything right anymore.

alicia

"Mom!" Grace's voice came from the living room.

Alicia was sitting cross legged on her bed, hands fidgeting in her lap, thinking about him as she always did somehow.

Wondering what he was thinking about right at that exact moment. Hoping he wasn't with someone else, as selfish as she knew that was.

She felt haunted by him. Haunted by his hands touching her skin, his lips gracing her hair and his voice telling everything she needed to hear but the truth.

She missed him so much it felt like every littlecell and bone in her entire body ached. Like her heart only beat half the beats it was supposed to but it wasn't killing her. She felt half alive without him.

Sometimes she regretted ever touching his skin or tasting his lips or breathing in his scent. Sometimes she wished she had never even met him at all. Because now there was no going back. She had inhaled him and she knew without a single doubt he would forever be imprinted on her skin. Like an invisible tattoo that covered her entire body. A tattoo full of memories and laughs and late night talks and warmth.

But she could never regret it as much as she tried. Of course she couldn't. She couldn't regret the very thing that got her up in the morning. She couldn't just erase her main reason for living. Her main source to happiness.

Him.

Always him.

When he was with her she felt whole, like she knew her place in the world. He had been her life vest these past few years, the thing to keep her from drowning in thr shame and the humiliation and the weight of it all. After the scandal all those years ago she had felt stuck on a crashing plane with no air. He had been her oxygen mask. He still was in many ways.

Deep inside, if she was being completely honest with herself, she had always felt like he was more important to her than she to him. Like he would be able to breathe in the summer air and exhale in the winter in her absence, but she would suffocate without him.

She full well knew she relied too much on his presence and his ability to always bring out the stars in her own little universe even on her darkest days. For as many tears she had shed thinking about this, she was well aware that one day, one of his temporary flings would become permanent and she would still be a gutless rationalist who's heart beat hopelessly for him anyway.

But then sometimes, sometimes he would look at her like she was the sun, the moon and all of the stars combined into one human and she wasn't so sure after all. Because how could he look at her like that and not feel anything? How could he smile at her the way he smiled at her and not care?

She wasn't naive. She had heard all the stories there were to hear about him. Hell, she had witnessed most of them herself. Back at Georgetown and during her years at the firm. She couldn't even count how many women she had seen him with through the years she had known him. A lot of them about half her age without laughter lines or any signs of life haven taken it's toll and she couldn't deny that it stung, as much as she wanted not to care.

Of course she knew she was being completely ridiculous, he had every right to sleep around as much as he wanted. So she let herself be okay with it.

Because he deserved to be happy more than anyone she had ever known and most importantly he deserved to live his life the way he wanted to live it.

And becoming the step dad to two teenage kids while being under the media's scrutiny for being Peter Florrick's ex-wife's boyfriend probably wasn't part of the Will Gardner life style. She understood that, but it didn't make it any easier for her to let him go.

It was like he always said to her; bad timing. They had always had bad timing.

"Mom!" Grace yelled a little louder this time, startling Alicia out of her own tiny fantasy world that she preferred to live in these days.

That had become protocol. Every time she thought about him, someone or something would remind her of her responsibilities and the real world and she would have to face reality once again.

So she got up from her bed, cleared her throat, tried her best to clear her mind and walked out into the living room, looking as responsible and collected as ever. Like her world wasn't falling apart and every single one of her limbs didn't feel like breaking at any given moment.