A/N: I'm on a roll. I couldn't leave my poor, poor Will like that. So this was born. It can be read as a sequel to "Ad se ipsum" but it can also be read on its own. It's much, much less angsty than that one. Alicia veers into OOCness towards the end, but since IC Alicia doesn't deserve Will, I feel justified in writing her like this. I'll be referring to some of the 5 stages of grief by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. In order they are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I think that Will will experience Alicia's betrayal as a loss and that's why the 5 stages felt organic. What else? The quote at the end is from T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding". The quote at the beginning and in the summary is by J.R.R. Tolkien. Also, after this healing process for me, I think I can go back to write "A Study in Contradictions" :). Last thing, the quote that I mention from Parks & Recreation is from episode 5x14. Enjoy!
"Justice is not Healing. Healing cometh only by suffering and patience, and maketh no demand, not even for Justice."
The first time had been at the end of their first case against each other. He had won. The pupil hadn't surpassed the teacher. Yet.
She had followed him out of the courtroom.
"What the hell was that? Why did you have to go so hard on her, Will? That is not like you."
"I thought that betraying friends wasn't like you. Guess we were both wrong."
He didn't turn to admire the effect of his bomb on her but the image of the girl he had seriously badgered in court plagued him during the night.
It happened again at the party for Diane's confirmation. He had been tempted to bring a date but he didn't want to celebrate an event as important as this one with a complete stranger.
He had unleashed the shark inside him and put the firm back when it belonged. Diane had pleaded with her clients to stay at "Gardner & Associates" and he had held a partners' meeting inviting whoever wanted to leave, to do it immediately because he didn't have any patience anymore. If they wished to join Cary and Alicia and being ordered around by those that used to be their underlings they were free to do so.
Nobody else had deemed it wise to resign.
He crowed over Diane. She was shining in the joy of her new role and in the steadfast relationship with Kurt. He was so genuinely happy for her that he even joked with David Lee and, shocker, Eli.
He had barely glanced at Her and noticed she was wearing blue when his newly-anointed protector had brought him away and offered him a drink. Kalinda had been his rock in this troubled time. When Diane joined the duo, his eyes moved from one woman to the other and he realized that maybe the meaning of the word friendship wasn't totally lost in this world.
He still slipped away as soon as he could. He heard a faint voice behind him on the stairs.
"Will."
A voice he recognized.
Instead of stopping, he hastened his pace.
It turned out that Kalinda was the best wing-woman there ever could be. That night at the bar they had approached a pair of giggling med students, drinking to the end of a horrible semester. The brunette had been eyeing Kalinda all evening and they had left together soon after. He stayed with the blonde.
He was avoiding brunettes anyway.
She was entirely too young for him but she was in town for the night and he had freed his inhibitions. There was no harm in a bit of fun.
She had come in late, with her second chair in the case and found him flirting shamelessly with the woman. He knew already what her reaction would be. The same she had had with Giada. That air of superiority held over his childish behavior.
"Claire seems sweet."
She would have said, after talking to her a grand total of one minute.
He didn't care anymore. At least Claire wouldn't cheat on him, least of all with prostitutes.
He ignored the voice in his head that hinted that his snarky comments were the ultimate proof he still cared and was still not over her. Before paying and moving away with Claire he ordered the bartender a drink for Alicia and her colleague.
Claire had caught his earlobe in her teeth and he wasn't concentrated enough to hear if the bartender had relayed the message correctly.
"A toast, to friendships that last."
Just the night after his little number at the bar, Claire already forgotten, he had gotten home early to watch the game in peace.
The doorbell interrupted his night of relax, beer and basket. He ignored it the first time, focused on the Bulls defending the ball just as the seconds on the clock were in one digit.
"I know you're in there. I can hear the TV from out here."
The woman out the door was the woman he had actively tried to elude for the last months. The woman he never wanted to talk to again.
"Come on, Will. You can't avoid me forever. Please."
That last word still had an effect on him. It wasn't absurd to just get all the rage off in one conversation. Then she would get the hint and leave him alone.
"Thanks."
"You insisted."
He went back towards the couch and tried to focus on the ad currently on TV. Anything not to think about her.
"So, this is how it's going to be forever? You acting like an offended 6-year-old child?"
"How do you want it to be?"
"I expect you to be civil. To act with me and Cary the way you treat Canning and the others."
The gall of her. He had been backstabbed and now he wasn't even allowed to be angry about it.
He laughed, exasperated.
"My God, Alicia, forgive me, my role in your life had slipped my mind."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're not dense, Alicia. Don't pretend."
"Will, I don't understand."
"Of course you do. You hurt me, I sweep it under the rug and forget. Isn't that what you're asking me to do here? Tell me, was it so easy for you to forget Peter and his prostitute?"
"Please, Will. You're embarrassing yourself. That was entirely different."
"He disrespected a years-long relationship for his own benefit. Sooooo unlike what you have done."
She seemed horrified when the thought crossed her mind.
"Maybe in your world, I was nothing more than your boss. Leaving me to start a new firm was just the right amount of ambition to make it in Chicago. But I believed I meant more to you than that. And I felt betrayed by one of the few people I trusted."
He knew the hurt was seeping in his speech and contaminating his anger but he couldn't keep it from happening.
" I guess my behavior was my way of showing you that actions have consequences. Your firm is booming with new business, Peter has been elected Governor, your family has been reunited. I wanted for it to be a sign that everything was not perfect, that what you did to me was not ok."
She was crying earnestly and murmuring "Sorry". Then she tried to approach him. He moved and made it impossible.
"But if I want to move forward I have to stop holding on to that. In this sense, you're right. It's time for me to start being civil."
"Will, please, let's talk about it. I don't want things between us to be like this."
"Too little, too late, Alicia. We should have talked months ago but you decided to talk with a gesture. Now everything is in shambles. Words won't fix it. Now, please, leave. Halftime is over."
She was staying stubbornly still but he wasn't about to change his mind and be manipulated again.
"You got what you wanted, Alicia. Now, please, go."
She acquiesced this time and he sighed when he closed the door behind her.
He had just abandoned Anger to pass to Bargaining.
But while he was resting on the wood that separated them, he couldn't miss her words from the other side.
"I got what I deserved. I never got what I wanted."
"Mrs Florrick. Mr Sweeney will have to settle this. Preferably out of my court. I have so many cases on my docket, I won't be lenient if I have to decide."
"Yes, Your Honor. We'll try for an agreement."
"Excellent. Next case."
She came to him and he immediately suggested their conference room. He still didn't like her around "Gardner & Associates". It tainted old memories.
She nodded and they walked together. Mr. Sweeney behind them added before they could be out of earshot:
"You two kids behave."
It had taken three hours but they had reached the end.
"In medio stat virtus."
"Well, you fleeced Mr. Sweeney, Will. I'm not sure he will take it kindly because I explain it to him in Latin."
"He can afford it."
"Now, but I suspect he will have other problems with the law and the money won't be infinite."
"He can use the money he'll save on alimony."
"What?"
"If he kills his wives they won't have time to hire David Lee, will they?"
She gave him an outraged stare before bursting in laughter.
He joined in and in the seconds till his scope focused on the letters on the glass entrance of the conference-room, it felt like a moment from so long before.
She noticed the change in his countenance and commented:
"It's never going to be like this again, is it? I know that I shouldn't be saying this but I miss us more than I can fully articulate."
"You have Cary now."
"Cary is great but he is not you."
She was being unfair again towards him and now he could lucidly recognize what she was trying to do. She wanted to recover their friendship because she had probably already realized that it was lonely at the top and the Dianes and Carys of the world could not substitute for old class-mates that made you at ease without even trying.
He missed them too. Now that he had taken one step more and reached Depression, he kept tormenting himself with the countless scenes between them during her time at L/G. Diane's absence had hit him harder than he had imagined and he couldn't possibly convince Kalinda to spend all of her time in his office, just so he could have a friendly ear.
It would be so easy to surrender. They could call each other at the end of the day and complain about nothing and everything. But he could not obliterate all the progress he had done and risk getting hurt again.
She had depleted all her chances with him.
"Lean on him, Alicia. Sharing the burden will make it much less heavier to bear it. He is young, he can take it."
He resorted to advice because cruelty and pain were his other two choices and they wouldn't help him in any way to get better. He still hoped that she had heard his unsaid implication.
"Who do you have, Will?"
"Kalinda. And Pouch if she ever does decide to get a dog. I'm convincing her of the clear usefulness of such an animal in her line of work."
She grinned.
"And I can always call Diane, I'm learning a lot about the workings of the Supreme Court."
"Do you think they will ever be enough?"
He didn't want to conceal the truth.
"Probably not. But I will make do."
"As we all shall."
When he heard the news over a year had gone by.
The TV was playing in the background while he was getting ready for his evening. The First Couple of Illinois had called a press-conference to announce that they were divorcing.
The added thump in his heartbeat didn't last much. Just the time it took him to remember Olivia, his kickass, neurosurgeon girlfriend. A woman that miraculously got his crazy hours and the rush of adrenaline he experienced at the end of each victory. When they had discussed the opposite sides of the morality scale of their jobs she had simply shrugged and said:
"We are not that different, Will. Just because we heal it doesn't mean that we don't enjoy to cut."
He had kissed her then and it had marked the beginning of their relationship.
Alicia was talking now, saying that Peter had not cheated on her again but that, like in many marriages, things had just stopped working. They could have played the part of a political couple but Illinois deserved the truth. Instead of raising the volume, he turned off the TV and left to meet Olivia.
The night had ended way earlier than he had predicted. She had been called in. Apparently a motorcycle had collided with a car and his girlfriend's gifted hands were needed at the hospital. He wasn't angry with her though, especially because she had promised to make it up to him. He loved when she owed him something. It always made for extremely pleasurable experiences.
He stopped dead cold when he saw who was standing in front of his door.
The soon-to-be-ex First Lady of Illinois.
He had no intention of starting the conversation so he made for the keyhole after having searched for the key in his jacket.
"I suppose you have heard the news."
"I have."
"Nothing to say?"
"What do you want me to say?"
He would not reveal anything about himself. Even if he wanted to, he wasn't even sure about what his feelings were on the matter.
"Ideally, I would like you to say that you're not sorry at all about my divorce. Indeed you are quite happy about it."
"Happy? That would entail that I have a vested interest in your divorce and I don't. Although now that I think about it, maybe I can repay the favor and poach some of your clients, now that you will no longer be the wife the of the Governor."
He smiled to take the sting out of the words and to indicate that while it wasn't water under the bridge yet, he had finally reached the state of Acceptance.
"Do you want to know why?"
"Not really, no"
He was hesitating on the door because he didn't truly want to invite her in, to contaminate his renovated apartment with her presence.
"I'm going to tell you anyway."
"I don't have much choice in the matter, do I?"
Instead of answering with the "No, you don't" he was expecting, she jumped immediately to the reason.
"I couldn't make do anymore."
To anyone else, the words would have made little sense but to his brain, that catalogued every conversation they had ever had with each other, they did. The implication knocked the breath out of him for a second. Then he recovered. He had accepted and moved on. Apparently, she hadn't.
"These last few days, my daughter convinced me that I was in dire need of comedy, to contrast the divorce. So she forced me to watch an entire season of Parks & Recreation. Have you ever seen it?"
He couldn't foresee her point. When had Alicia started to talk in pop-culture-laden riddles? He shook his head.
"In one episode the main couple gets married. You know I'm not one for movies or TV but what the woman said stuck to me so much that I memorized it."
This was borderline delirious on her part. She didn't seem drunk or high so she had to be sick.
"Are you ok, Alicia? You sound feverish."
She took note of his concern, smiled and pressed on.
"The things that you have done for me, to help me, support me, surprise me, to make me happy, go above and beyond what every person deserves. You're all I need. I love you and I like you Will."
That he was most certainly not expecting. His tear-ducts reacted before he could even fully comprehend what she had said and soon his eyes were drowning.
"Maybe not all I need. That is just a TV-exaggeration. I need my job and my kids and my brother and maybe even my mother but other than the obvious, I need you."
The concept she was reiterating was beginning to dawn on him. Alicia was getting divorced, for real. She was offering him something real. His ears had not deceived him. She had just done a cheesy love declaration. As cheesy as she had allowed herself to be.
A beep interrupted the heavy silence they had fallen in.
A message from Olivia that was scrubbing in and wishing him a good night. It dawned on him on Alicia had him again under a spell. She was playing him. She had probably broken up with Peter over something else and now she needed to be put back on her feet.
Too bad he was done being a sacrificial lamb.
"Look, Alicia, I don't know if that's true or not."
"Of course it's true."
"Fine, but I'm with someone now and it's serious. And even if I were free..."
"I saw her the other day in court. She looks fierce."
"She is. Amazing."
His lips turned up involuntarily. Olivia was a spectacular woman and she seemed quite taken with him.
"I see. I didn't come here expecting you to drop off everything and to declare your undying love."
Good, progress.
"But I want you to know that I am not letting you go without a fight."
"You let me go a long time ago, Alicia."
Pearly tears adorned her lively eyes and left a pattern on the make-up on her cheek and he had the almost-overwhelming temptation to dry them.
"I know, Will, I know. I know that I should have told you this the night of Peter's election, when I hadn't destroyed everything. I know that now because I see clearly that cutting you off of my life was only a false solution. It didn't keep you away from my thoughts. You were there even more than before. I kept berating me for betraying you like that, and..."
By then she was a mumbling mess and the instinct to comfort her was growing more and more urgent.
"The point is, I like you, Will. I like the way you always manage to break the tension, the innumerable ideas you have to make me laugh and feel carefree, I like the passion you put in the cases you believe in, the care you infuse into handling the most delicate clients. I like the competitive streak in you that pushes you to always be the best you can be. I like your brilliance in court, the flashes of wit during the strategizing sessions like the unquestioned loyalty that you can bestow upon those you deem worthy. I like your way of being a friend. I like how you knew precisely where to touch me since the very beginning, I like how you can make me lose my mind with a simple kiss that I can't seem to shake it for years, I like how you can focus the attention on someone and forget about everybody else in the world. I like everything about you, Will. I love you and I like you Will and from now on I'll do everything in my power to make you happy."
He was completely speechless. She closed the gap between them and kissed him on the cheek. Then before walking away she murmured:
"If you decide that you can't get over what I have done and that I am not the one you want now or that you'll want in the future, I'll understand and I'll leave you alone."
He had been in a fugue state throughout the night and he had called sick the day after. Unheard of in Will Gardner's book.
He had to be able to give a sense to his cogitations. Everything he had desired for 4 years of his life had been offered to him on a silver platter now that he had moved past it. Her timing was awful and he had half a mind to chew her head off just for that.
She should have kept everything for herself and endure, just as he had. She should have let him live his chance with Olivia.
Ignorance was bliss in situations like these.
Now he couldn't turn back the clock and un-hear all her words. They were stuck in his head, coercing from him emotional responses he had believed gone forever.
As a first step, he had broken up with Olivia. It had come out of the blue, he had agreed, but an important piece of his past had resurfaced. He had been on the other side of a non-closed relationship and could not put her through the same painstaking process. She seemed to understand but she had warned him:
"By the time you choose me, I might not want you anymore."
With a tinge of sadness, he had realized it was a risk he was willing to take.
He had taken his time to answer her. She had texted him more than once and smiled whenever they crossed in court.
This time he had recognized sooner his serious illness and raced through the 5 stages to get to Acceptance. He reached her in her office, at night.
"Will."
"Please, let me talk first."
"Sure."
"Here is how it is going to go. For me to be able to trust you again, we need to mend our friendship first. So, Alicia, will you come get a drink with me and Kalinda?"
He had begged Kalinda to come. If he had to start the path of forgiveness, Kalinda had to come with him. Plus, she was under strict orders to not let them get too close to each other. He would have liked to put faith in his self-control but the raw sensations that Alicia could always elicit from him were at times unpredictable.
The first ten minutes or so had been extremely awkward but then tequila and scotch had loosened them up. Kalinda had started revealing embarrassing truths on some of the people in the bar, Alicia had joined in and he soon after.
At times, friendship was no different than riding a bike.
It had taken hundreds of apologies from her, hundreds of phone-conversations, hundreds of hot and cold drinks, tens of dinners alone and with others, including Kalinda, Cary, Diane, Owen and even her children to get to that day.
He knew she was working late because she had whined about being alone in her office. He had a little time to stare at her, adorably concentrated on her research, heels thrown away and legs on her desk.
"I love you, Alicia. And I like you again."
She dropped the papers she was holding and in record time reached him.
"Don't ever betray me again. This is your last do-over."
"Never."
"Good. Then, let's do this properly."
"I love you and I like you, Will."
"I love you and I like you, Alicia."
Their matching beams from ear to ear were covered by their lips finding each other but he could still see her sparkling eyes.
"You know what the best thing about this is?"
"Enlighten me, Alicia."
"Whenever we battle in court, I won't have to be frustrated for days. Brain sex can be followed by real sex. My secretary will send you a bouquet of flowers at a certain point."
He laughed heartily and pushed her gently on her desk.
"Fine, but no roses. They are way too banal for Will Gardner."
"Deal."
"Deal."
Finally on the same page.
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
A/N: Not my best work, I admit but therapeutic all the same :)