Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
A/N: This is the last chapter I'm putting up tonight before I head off to bed. If you want more, you'll just have to wait. For OctoberGirl82 and soundofmusicjibbsjunkie4ever, this is the chapter with the voicemail confrontation. I just hope that I haven't gone to mushy on this one. Enjoy!
We'll See
Chapter 7
Alicia came into work the morning after meeting with Eli, and settled in with her open case files. She often used work to distract her before, but in truth she really enjoyed her work. Will came in and asked to speak with her. She was unsure what it was about as he wasn't following or chairing any of her cases. He seemed upbeat and a little breathless. She followed him into his office. He told her to close the door and take a seat. She sat and waited for him to tell her what was going on.
"How are you?" He asked her. He looked to be studying her critically, looking for signs of unhappiness, tiredness, and pain.
"I'm fine, thank you." He continued his study of her. He nodded after a moment, as if silently agreeing with her.
"How are your kids taking it?"
"They're fine for the most part. They've had a few issues at school but seem to be dealing well enough. Will, what is this about?"
"The night of Peter's press conference I called you. You didn't answer."
"I gave my phone to Eli, while we were in front of the cameras. I got your voicemail, Will. I thought you had decided to let things go. I made my choice. I had to live with it."
"Wait, you said voicemail. I left two, one right after the other." She looked confused, before the light dawned on her.
"Ah. Eli. He must have deleted it." She could feel her anger rising. She had trusted him, and he had betrayed that trust. "What was the message you left?"
"That I wanted to find a way for us to work. I wanted a chance with you, plan or no plan. I wanted to be with you no matter what." He was agitated on her behalf. He still loved her. She sighed.
"Even if I had received the message Will, that wouldn't have happened. I like you Will. I think at one point I could have fallen in love with you. Sometimes I wish you'd made your move when were in school, so that I could have been spared the hell that I went through with Peter. My life would be so different now, I think. But that's in the past now. You're my friend, and I would like to keep that with you, no matter what." He looked a little taken aback. He had hoped that now that she was free, she would just fall into his arms liked he'd always imagined.
"Of course Alicia. We'll always be friends. What will you do about Eli Gold?"
"Eli and I will be having a talk shortly. Did you need anything else?" He shook his head and she returned to her office, silently fuming.
She tried to work. It was hard to concentrate with the feeling of betrayal weighing her down. Hadn't she suffered enough with Peter? What was it about the men in her life that made them unreliable? She wanted to scream her frustration out loud. As she wasn't in court, she gathered up various files she needed to look over and all the things she needed for her various motions and her laptop. She would work that evening. She had to sort out Eli or she was going to lose her mind.
She didn't bother to call ahead. She had a feeling he would be in his office. As he had a glass door, she could see that he was alone, and not attached to his telephone, so she didn't bother to stop at his secretary's desk, but stepped straight into his office. His secretary tried to stop her or warn him, but she was already there standing in front him.
Eli looked up into the eyes of Alicia. He could tell she was upset. He was sure she was upset with him. He studied her and saw that she was showing her emotions. She wasn't quite wearing them on her sleeve but she was acting more like what he suspected was the real Alicia.
"Alicia."
"Mr. Gold." Her tone was icy, and he felt the loss of something special when she didn't call him by his given name.
"What can I do for you?" He tried to give her a professional tone. He knew that if he kept things in that realm, she would be more inclined to respond in the same manner, at least he hoped she would. However the real Alicia could react quite differently.
"We need to talk about a voicemail you deleted." Her tone was still icy, and he could almost swear that the temperature of his office had dropped by at least five degrees since she'd entered the room.
"Ah, that." He looked down a considered how to justify his actions. He wondered if he actually could justify them to her. He didn't think so, but if given the chance, he would try at the very least.
"Yes, that. You had no right to delete my messages. Did you listen to it? Why am I asking, of course you did, or you wouldn't have had reason to delete it. Who were you protecting? Me or Peter, or yourself?" This was Alicia when she was angry, and felt like she could freely show her emotions. He liked the way her fury sparked in her eyes. He liked the way she seemed less in control of herself. This was the real her, not the good wife who had given her good housekeeping seal of approval on things during the campaign. He infinitely preferred this real person, to the cold statue that stood next to Peter during that fateful press conference.
"Yes I listened to it. I was protecting all of us, granted this was before we had our conversation. I didn't know how you really felt about Gardner, or how you really felt about Peter, so I was doing what I was hired to do, protect the campaign for Peter, protect you from more scandalous accusations than what was already floating around, and myself, by catching a potential issue and acting on it so as to neutralize the threat."
"You had no right to take the decision from my hands. It doesn't matter how I felt about either one of them. It was still my choice and you took that away from me. " Her had lost their spark of anger and her tone had slipped from icy to sad. He knew then that he'd betrayed her trust, even before he had it to betray. All he could do was try to make amends for his actions and hope that she understood his reasons why.
"I am sorry, Alicia. I never meant to hurt you, or betray your trust…" He trailed off, unsure what to say to her, and not for the first time either. She was sharp, and she had a way of knocking him off balance sometimes so gently he didn't notice until it was too late. Not this time though, this time she'd come at him in a full frontal assault. It was nice to see her vary her tactics. It made her a more interesting and less predictable opponent. Although very few people would ever call Alicia Florrick predictable.
Alicia studied the man she'd felt safe with not more than a day before. He was the same man in looks, but the added bit of information skewed her opinion of him. She had trusted him willingly, and he'd betrayed that trust. It hurt. She wouldn't deny that. It hadn't hurt as much as Peter's betrayal, but nothing ever would. He looked remorseful. He looked contrite, well as much as man like Eli Gold could look. He hadn't intended to cause harm but to protect. Something in her was already forgiving him. In all honesty, listening to Will's voicemail wouldn't have changed her mind. She still would have chosen Peter in that moment, because there were no other options at the time. She sighed turned away from Eli to stare out his windows. He had a wonderful view, one that she would have killed for in her younger days when she'd still been in law school.
Eli rose and stood next to her, taking in her reflection painted in pale, washed out colors on the glass. He could see she was wrestling with a decision, and that it concerned him. He let her work it out on her own. She would deliver his verdict and sentence in her good time. He could be patient, because she was worth being patient for. She turned to him abruptly, almost startling herself in the process.
"I will give you a second chance if you promise to not do anything of the sort again. You have to trust that I can and will make the right decisions. If I need input I have no problem asking for your opinion, but when it comes to the decision, the choices are mine to make. Are we clear?"
"Yes, of course. I have no reason to ever do such a thing anyway, unless of course you run for office yourself in some fashion, in which case I have learned my lesson and have been warned." She gave him a soft smirk, still not the full smile he wanted to see, but he would take what he could get, and shook her head in slight exasperation.
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." She was about to turn and leave but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
"Thank you for giving me a second chance, Alicia."
"Don't ever betray my trust again, Eli." He nodded and she was gone a moment later. Only the lingering scent of her subtle perfume hanging in the air, the warning in her eyes that stayed with him, and the tingle on his lips from where he had kissed her cheek to were left to remind him that she had been there in the first place.