AN: I'm so sorry for the super late update. I wanted to write a longer chapter this time and that combined with me really being busy and wanting the dialogue to sound genuine took its time. But I hope you enjoy it and I will try my very hardest to upload this story once a week from now on!

alicia

"you owe yourself the love you so freely give to other people" - anonymous

(song: strong by london grammar)

Entering the living room Alicia found Grace curled up on their couch, covered in a blanket with a book in her hands. Under closer inspection she recognized the worn leather, slightly torn spine and the faded cursive letters covering its surface.

Her Georgetown yearbook.

Alicia smiled, she couldn't even remember the last time she had seen it, "Where did you find that thing?"

Grace looked up gave her mom a smile back, "In one of the boxes we never got around to packing out when we moved in." She looked down again and carefully traced a picture located in the middle of the page, "I can't believe this is you, you look so different. So young."

Alicia laughed, plopped down on the couch and snuggled up next to Grace tugging herself under the blanket, "Hey, watch it, you!"

Smiling, she wrapped her arm around Grace, and placed her head on her shoulder, joining her daughter in taking in a much younger version of herself she barely even recognized anymore.

From the big curly hair, she remembered desperately trying to comb the morning of the day the picture was taken (and failing terribly by the way) to the little too preppy Peter Pan collared dress she could still hear Will annoyingly tease her about in the back of her mind.

It felt like another life. It didn't even feel like a life that belonged to her anymore. It felt like she had stolen the memories of a stranger.

Grace's kind voice and laugh interrupted her thoughts, "No! I didn't mean it like that. You're still just as pretty, mom. You just look so different here. Happier."

Alicia felt a small lump forming in her throat but did her best to suppress it as quickly as it came.

She thought of that day, the day that picture was taken. And Grace was right, she had been happy. It made her smile remembering how simple everything had been back then. Of course it didn't feel simple at the time. But looking back it had been so easy… so carefree. So free of head-aches and pounding temples and tears being hidden behind stubborn eyelids.

If she concentrated hard enough she could almost hear the ghost of Will's laughter in the school library or faintly smell the coffee she used to make for him every night to help him get the energy to study for his finale exams, since he always ended up doing his work at the last minute while she had done hers pretty much before they even got it assigned. She almost chuckled out loud at the memory.

But those days were gone and the reality was that as much as she yearned for it, that time was a ghost in the wind. Not ever returning.

"I guess that's what time does to you. Make everything less colorful." Alicia breathed out and looked over at Grace doing her best to look like she wasn't falling apart. She could practically see the wheels turning in her daughter's brain in that very Grace-like way.

"But that isn't true. You still smile like this sometimes." Grace paused for a second and continued, "The months after you left dad last year. When you really left him. You smiled like this all the time."

Slowly starting to get worried about where her daughter was going with the topic at hand, Alicialaughed and stroked Grace's cheek softly, "You and all your observations. Sure you don't want to look into a career as an investigator?"

Grace smiled somberly and turned her head to look Alicia dead in the eyes, "I just want you to be happy, mom. I can't stand the thought of you not being happy."

"Hey, you. I'm happy. I swear to you I'm happy." Alicia assured her daughter, "I have you and your brother, don't I, how could I not be?" And she wasn't lying. She did love her children more than anything in the entire world, there was nothing she wouldn't do for them and they did make her incredibly happy. Her failed love life and messed up heart hadn't and would never change that.

"But dad doesn't. Make you happy that is." Grace added somberly, "Why do you stay with him, mom? If he doesn't make you happy."

It felt as if someone had dropped a tiny nuclear bomb in the middle of their living room and it was slowly but surely exploding, gradually unmasking everything Alicia had been trying so desperately to suppress, to keep buried so deep inside it had almost gotten lost. And the one who had dropped it was the person she had given her all, sacrificed her all, to protect from it's contents. Clearly she had failed.

Taking a deep breath, Alicia tried her best not to let the nausea gathering in her stomach at lightning speed get to her and quickly suited up in her too familiar diplomatic armor that she had gotten so used to wearing it almost felt like her pajamas, "It's not always that simple," She took another shaky breath, "There's so much more to consider in life than happiness, Grace." She cleared her throat and continued with an unsteady voice, "I know that sounds harsh and cold and I wish… I wish so badly I could phrase it nicer or kinder but the truth isn't always as soft as you wish it would be."

"That's… that's complete bullshit!" Grace's harsh words didn't even properly register with Alicia before her daughter had continued on, "All you're doing is making excuses and avoiding answering what I asked in the first place."

Alicia wanted to scold her daughter for her foul language but the complete and utter shock she was currently drowning and being swallowed in had left her speechless. She felt as if someone had cut out her tongue and all she could do was sit and uselessly gape while Grace went on.

"In my whole life I have never seen you take care of yourself, mom. You spend all your time taking care of everyone else, even people who don't deserve it at all. But you never think about yourself."

Alicia's eyes were starting to water by the second and her hands were slowly beginning to shake. She was losing her composure and and at the moment she couldn't see a way out.

"And it doesn't just hurt you, mom. It hurts me, and I know it hurts Zach too," Grace stuttered, clearly terrified to be voicing her concerns out loud, making Alicia feel even more of a failure in protecting her daughter, since she had obviously felt this way for a while.

She tried her best to collect herself enough to choke out a few words, "Grace, I-," but she was interrupted before she could continue, "Why can't you just be with him? If he means so much to you?"

"Be… be with who?" Alicia stuttered, uselessly, since she pretty much already knew who her daughter was referring to.

"Will." Grace bit out, rolling her eyes. "He makes you happy, you become a complete stuttering mess whenever I even mention his name and I saw the way you looked at him the night of Zach's court hearing… I've never seen you look at dad that way, ever."

With now officially completely shaking hands and a tear gingerly running down her cheek, Alicia softly retorted, "Is that what brought this on, the night of the court hearing?"

"No, mom!" Grace choked out acutely, "It's been pretty freaking obvious since the day you started working for him… to literally everyone… I mean I'm pretty sure even grandma figured it out."

Alicia chuckled quietly despite feeling completely claustrophobically trapped in a corner, almost like her unconscious knew she needed to lighten the mood to survive this, "Grandma thought he was gay and interested in your uncle actually."

"What?" Grace stared at her mom, looking completely flabbergasted, a laugh escaping her mouth, a mouth that had been strictly reserved for frowning and snapping the last few minutes, covering Alicia in a blanket of fabricated warmth.

Taking the opportunity of a momentary truce, Alicia waved an invincible white flag and laughed warily, "She saw them talking at the firm after a meeting she had with a colleague of mine and assumed they were a thing. And you know grandma… two plus two usually… equals six in her mind."

They sat in silence for a few seconds until Grace broke the ice once again. "She's the reason then?" She smiled sadly, "You won't choose to be happy because of grandma and the way she abandoned you and uncle Owen when you were kids."

"Grace…" Alicia quietly pleaded with her daughter to end her questioning without using the exact words.

Standing up so abruptly that Alicia did a faint jump in her seat, her daughter went on, "No, but don't you see, mom…" She took a deep breath and looked as if she was concentrating deeply to find the right words, "If you let grandma's mistakes control your whole life, you're allowing yours to control mine too."

And that was it, the little composure Alicia desperately had tried to savor a few seconds ago – completely and officially nowhere to be found. She was done for.

But her daughter proceeded, "And it's toxic, mom. It's an evil circle and it won't ever stop if you just let it go on like this. It will just eat away at all of us until you realize that you aren't grandma and you choosing to be happy over being with dad and being miserable isn't you repeating her mistakes; it's you deciding not to live in the shadow of her inabilities anymore." Grace's voice was heavy with the tears she desperately was trying to conceal by wiping them away with the sleeve of her sweater.

It felt like the room was getting smaller and smaller. It surprised Alicia she could even breathe anymore, it seemed strange to her that her lungs weren't shutting down or her heart hadn't stopped. Because she felt as if she was going to black out at any moment.

It wasn't like she hadn't heard the things her daughter was telling her a million times before. From her brother over countless of lectures and 'You need to be with Will' talks, to her mother's infuriating mother-daughter things that always made her want to do everything she was told not to, to her father, just a few months before he passed away, begging her to start taking care of herself or she would burn out just like he had. Always the same thing. Stop being so selfless, Alicia.

But this was different. This was her daughter. Her daughter telling her she was hurting her children by doing something she had assumed all along was the best for them. Her daughter crying because of something she had done. Her daughter crying because she loved her mother and was hurt by her being miserable. Stop being so selfless, Alicia.

Maybe she wasn't so selfless after all. Maybe it was just an illusion she had created in her own head to avoid having to ever listen to her heart.

"I'm happy, Alicia. I never do anything I don't want to do. The older you get, the more you realize there's only one thing: Happiness."

She should have expected this entire conversation, of course she should have. Grace was smart. In a way she herself never had been. She could see right through people, she always had been able to, even back when she was just a tiny girl with braids in her hair running around in cute little dotted summer dresses.

How she, Alicia Florrick, the most out-of-touch-with-her-feelings human being on the face of the earth had raised such an emotionally capable girl was out of her understanding.

"I have to stop thinking about myself."

"Sometimes it's good to think about yourself."

This was just the boiling point, she realized. She had had this coming for years now.

So she surrendered.

Alicia cleared her throat, "You're right," she swallowed, feeling like a million pounds were being lifted from her heart with every painful word, "I'm not happy. I'm so unhappy it hurts, Grace."

Grace's eyes softened and her entire body seemed to get less tense. She gently sat down next to her mother and softly put her head on her shoulder, "Then go and make yourself happy, mom." She almost-whispered.

Which they both fully knew was her sneaky way of saying: Then go and be with him, mom.

Alicia chuckled tiredly, "I should, shouldn't I?" she sighed cautiously, "But… what if he doesn't need me like I need him, Gracey?" She breathed out nervously.

She couldn't believe she was talking about Will with her daughter but somehow it felt like the rightest thing that had happened in a long while. Which was probably why her daughter's childhood nickname, that she had been forbid against using since she was around twelve, had slipped off her tongue so easily.

There was a tiny pause until Grace broke it. "He looks at you like you're the sun, mom." She said almost shyly, "Why would he look at you like that if he didn't need you?"

Alicia laughed softly wrapping her arm around her daughter, resting her palm and wrist on her forehead and kissing her temple, "How did you get so smart with a mom like me?"

Grace snorted, "I really don't know," she turned her head and looked at said-mother, "But you really should start charging me as your in-house therapist at this point."

They slowly made eye contact and then cracked up laughing. It felt good having everything out on the table like this. It felt right. Like everything was how it was supposed to be.

After what felt like minutes of that kind of laughter that makes you feel alive again after being so numb it hurt, Alicia cleared her throat, "So I suppose this is when you tell me to go and find him?"

Grace's expression turned sincere again, "No. This is when I demand you to go and find him."