A/N: Thank you all so much for the reviews. Some of them were quite impassioned. ;) That makes us happy, though, to know you're so invested in this story and where it's going. And we know you love Will and Alicia! (Don't worry. So do we.)

I'll be bringing you this chapter and the next, then May will be back at it with Chapter 8.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

With Grace at soccer practice and Zach studying at Neesa's, Alicia is unusually grateful for the silence her apartment offers her on this late September afternoon.

She'd spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon at a bar in the South Loop, figuring no one would be looking for her there. She tucked herself into a booth in the corner, munching on as many bowls of chips and salsa as they'd let her have to help wash down the extra-strong margaritas.

Of all the bad decisions Alicia has made in her life (albeit very few), the decision to hide this life-changing decision from her best friend and partner is definitely the biggest, surpassing even the decision to marry Peter (although that hadn't seemed like such a bad decision at the time-and neither had this one).

She throws her bag unceremoniously on the floor of the entryway, her keys following, and kicks off her heels. Her jacket finds a home on the kitchen island before she collapses on the couch.

All of these things aren't really like Alicia. Her bag has a rightful place near the armchair in the bedroom; her keys in the bowl by the door. Her jacket belongs in the closet, hung neatly beside the shoes placed next to each other on the rack.

But Alicia thinks she might have lost the love of her life today, so to her, it really doesn't matter how many of her things are out of place or what state of chaos her apartment is in.

Without Will, most things in life lack meaning.

She pulls the blanket down from the top of the couch and buries herself in it. Will's harsh and unrelenting fury keeps replaying over and over in her mind.

Bullshit.

This is the last time you do this. The last time you ever do this to me. I love you, but I'm not letting you do this again.

If he'd just given her a chance—sixty seconds would've been all she needed—all she needed to explain everything, to explain that this was the logical move not only professionally, but also personally—that they would be able to stop tiptoeing around each other at the office, that they could come home every night and not worry about conflicts of interest or Diane getting suspicious or the other partners making assumptions.

That she did this for them, not to destroy them, that she did this for him, not to hurt him, because she loves him and she wants to be happy with him—

Alicia sighs, her heart weighing her chest down like a brick.

Stop it, Alicia. I don't want to hear it.

Get out.

Grace and Zach arrive home together, as he'd picked his sister up from practice. Alicia is half-asleep on the couch when she hears the door open and her kids bickering playfully.

All chatter stops as soon as they enter the living room and see their mother surrounded by a pile of tissues.

"Mom?" Zach asks uncertainly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm not feeling well," Alicia lies, pretending her sniffles are coming from a cold as opposed to tears.

Grace looks at her mother a little sadly. "Want me to make dinner? Or order takeout? We can watch movies with you after we finish our homework."

Alicia smiles. "You guys don't have to take care of me. I'll be fine."

Zach shakes his head. "You always take care of us. Here. Find something that sounds good. We'll order dinner," he says firmly, bringing her the Chinese food menu from the fridge.

She beckons her son closer with her index finger, and he smiles as she kisses him on the forehead. She scans the menu and chooses her usual: egg drop soup with extra wontons and an order of beef and broccoli. Grace heads to her room to work on her advanced algebra homework while Zach orders dinner. As he takes a seat on the couch, he lets Alicia pull him close into a one-armed hug.

"Sit with me," she instructs him, and Zach smiles, reaching for the remote.

When the food arrives, Grace takes the white cardboard containers out of the plastic bag and lines them up on the dining room table. She places the napkins and plasticware next to each dinner plate and calls "dinner!" to her mom and brother.

Alicia kisses Grace on the top of her head. "Thanks for making all this," she jokes, and Grace giggles as she unwraps her chopsticks.

She takes a sip of the familiar yellow broth and smiles sadly to herself.

Will stood at her door, shaking the water out of his hair and carefully hanging up his wet jacket.

"Is it raining?" Alicia teased.

"Nope, nope. Just thought I'd get in the shower before I came over to see you, but I somehow managed to forget to take all my clothes off. Wet denim is the new thing, you know?" he teased back.

"Is Chinese okay for dinner?" she proposed, grabbing the menu from the coffee table.

"Perfect," Will declared, taking the menu from her. "So many egg rolls, please. And beef and broccoli. And rice."

"How many is so many?" Alicia asked. "Are we talking five, or twenty, or…"

"At least five. Maybe ten. I haven't eaten since that half-muffin you gave me in Legal Process and Society."

"...that was nine hours ago!"

He shrugged. "I'm a busy man, Leesh."

"Uh-huh. Busy with all the women?"

"Nope. Just one woman," he declared, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. Will kissed her cheek and Alicia smiled, turning forward to place a kiss on his lips.

"Well, this woman wants egg drop soup, pronto."

"Let's make that happen," Will declared, reaching behind her to grab the phone.

Cary called after dinner, and Alicia stepped into the hallway to talk with him. She hadn't told Zach and Grace what had happened at work today; considering she didn't know what her next steps would be, it seemed easier to avoid the subject altogether.

"What are we going to do?" are the first words out of her mouth.

"Well hello to you too, Alicia," Cary responded, and Alicia sighed.

"Sorry. Hi, Cary."

"Hey. So, I got the office space thing figured out, and I talked Diane into letting us submit formal resignations as opposed to getting fired."

"She always liked you," Alicia mused.

"Why didn't Will fire you?" he asked. "I saw your office after you left. Did he really throw everything off your desk?"

"Yeah. It was...scary," she admitted. "There's...stuff, Cary. Between me and Will."

"I know," Cary said. "But that still doesn't explain why he didn't fire our asses and kick us out."

"For the same reason Diane didn't. No need for the drama. We're adults. We'll clean out our offices tomorrow and be on our way."

"How is this going to affect...you two?" Cary asked gingerly.

"I don't know. I've never seen Will that furious,, so I'm thinking it's going to affect it quite a bit."

"I'm sorry," he says sincerely, and Alicia knows he means it. "I never meant for this to cause a rift between you two."

"Don't be sorry. It's my fault. I-we-should have been more up front with them. Especially me, as a partner. I deserved to get fired. The only reason I didn't is because Will's personal feelings clouded his professional judgment too much. I deserved much more than just that little lashing out."

"Well, the only thing we can do is move forward," he says, and Alicia nods to herself in assent. "We can get into the new space on Monday. Robyn is going to turn in her resignation tomorrow, too. She's coming with us."

"Wow. That's...that's great. I didn't know if she'd jump ship for sure."

"She respects you, Alicia. Quite a bit, actually. I think we can make this work."

"I hope so," she adds. "I guess I'll see you in the morning?"

"Yeah. See you then," Cary replies.

After going back inside, she walks into the kitchen, sets her phone down on the island, then makes her way to the small storage space. Dumping some of Peter's things into trash bags, she empties two cardboard boxes and places a roll of packing tape inside.

The laptop's sleep indicator glows at her from the coffee table, and she sighs, picking it up and opening the word processor.

She stares at the screen, the cursor blinking at her almost mockingly. But she has no choice; she has to do this.

Her heart aches with every word she types. The words on this page are starting to sound all too familiar.

This resignation letter to Lockhart/Gardner feels a lot more like a goodbye letter to Will, a goodbye letter eerily similar to the one she'd written him nearly twenty years earlier.

This is the last time you do this. The last time you ever do this to me. I love you, but I'm not letting you do this again.

Again.

Alicia had already done this before-broken Will's heart by saying goodbye.

He'd forgiven her once, but she doesn't expect him to do it again.

Stop it, Alicia. I don't want to hear it.

Get out.