A\N: This is the second chapter of Stolen moments and memories! I did the first chapter yesterday. I'm really liking writing this type of book. I think I excel at writing oneshots more than I do at multi-chaptered stories.
The second chapter is about ice cream, obviously. I'm just free-styling this chapter so I don't know anything. I'm just going with it because I can't think about anything right now. I hope you enjoy this chapter, Angels.
She stares at the bowl that holds the frozen green treat in front of her. Zach brought her a whole tube of the ice cream after he had dinner out with his friends to celebrate the Winter break. It was only the two of them in the apartment, Grace was staying at a friends house and she didn't care where Peter was, or what he was doing with who, as long as it didn't impact her or the kids.
The ice cream sits in front of her, slowly melting. She hasn't touched it. She can't eat the treat that she and HE shared on their couches in Georgetown, in their offices and in their apartments and in the hotel suites, all of which seem like another lifetime ago. She allows herself to relive a memory that happened in his apartment when she got sick and couldn't eat anything.
Flashback:
She's curled up on his couch, wrapped in a blanket, her throat hurting. She's sick and therefore miserable. Will left her alone with the TV remote and a kiss to her lips about a half hour ago, saying something about getting some supplies for her.
She's watching reruns of some cop show when his door opens and she hears Will. She's thankful that the kids are at Peter's this week.
She looks up from the TV and sees Will coming into the living room with a bag of supplies. "How are you feeling, Leesh?" He asks as he presses a kiss to her lips.
"Not good." She croaks with a pained whimper. She hears Will sigh and lean down to kiss her lips again before he opens the bag and pulls out several items:
Throat medicine
Several boxes of tea.
Throat candy.
A pack of energy drinks.
Mint chocolate ice cream, her favourite flavour of ice cream.
Her eyes light up at the sight of the ice cream and a smile breaks out onto her face as she sits up and reaches for the ice cream. Just as her hand wraps around the tub, her hand falls down, the ice cream has been moved away. She looks at Will with a frown, Will is smirking and holding the ice cream in his hand.
"Medicine before dessert, Leesh." He says, Alicia's frown turns into a pout as Will opens the medicine and holds the full measuring cup full of disgusting medicine. She moves away as it comes towards her.
"No!" She protests croakily, sounding a lot like Zach and Grace when they get sick and have to take medicine or like herself in college when she was in this exact position:
Sick, curled up on Will's couch with him forcing medicine down her throat after he took the day off from classes to take care of her.
"Alicia, you need this, then you can have ice cream." He says, it makes her smile because it was the same sentence her said in Georgetown. She just shakes her head, Will sighs before smirking and tickling her chin, making her giggle. Will uses her giggling to tip the medicine into her mouth and closes her mouth.
Their eyes meet. "Swallow it, Leesh then you can have ice cream." He says with a smile, she rolls her eyes and swallows the medicine in her mouth.
She gags as it goes down, the aftertaste just as horrible as it had been in college. A spoon and the opened ice cream are placed in to her hand and she takes a large bite of the frozen treat and moans as the taste of the ice cream overtakes the taste of the medicine and soothes her throat. When she looks at the coffee table it's been cleared away, all put away in the kitchen until it's needed.
An arm wraps around her as Will joins her on the couch, pulling her close to him. She offers him a bite of her ice cream which he accepts and kisses her lips, which tastes like coffee and now ice cream.
"Thank you taking care of me today." She says, Will only pulls her head down on his lap and starts petting her hair as he too watches the TV.
"Nothing else I'd rather be doing than taking care of my girl." He says.
I could get used to being his girl. She thinks with a smile.
By the time she's come out of her memory, the ice cream has melted completely, turning it into ice cream soup. She's glad they had that day she was sick, because he was completely different to Peter who only left her in bed and told Jackie to come look after Zach and Grace, when they were little and not in school yet, or pick them up from school when she got sick when they entered school, so she could sleep it off and he went to work, or to bang hookers, whichever he did that day when he wasn't home.
But HE was different: he didn't leave her alone, to sleep it off, he took the day off work and took care of her, and wanted her around. He gave her medicine and ice cream and cuddled on the couch with her and watched TV with her, and didn't do one piece of work, and he only texted Diane and Kalinda updates when they texted him first. Then at the end of the day, when she fell asleep on the couch, he carried her to bed and held her in his arms all night.
She isn't sure if she'll ever be able to eat this flavour of ice cream without thinking about how he took care of her when she got sick, but maybe that's okay.
Maybe she can find a new flavour of ice cream. One that they didn't share in college, on their couches in college, in their offices, in their apartments, in hotel rooms, or when they were sick.
Maybe she'll like the new flavour better than Mint chocolate chip.
Placing the melted treat that her son brought on her nightstand, Alicia allows sleep to claim her.
Creeping into his mothers darkened bedroom, Zach uses the flashlight on his phone to locate the ice cream bowl he brought to her three hours ago. He spots it on her nightstand. He allows himself a second to look at his sleeping mother:
His Mom has lost weight in the last few weeks, her eyes have thick, black circles underneath them, her eyes no longer sparkle and she's not left her bed in days.
Ever since her old boss, Will Gardner, died, he and Grace have been worried about her. They knew about their mothers relationship with her boss when she and their dad were separated and had known that they broke it off sometime after Grace had 'disappeared', something that his sister still blames herself for because if she hadn't gone and got baptised, maybe their Mom and Will wouldn't have ended it between them.
But this is different, the way she's acting and it scares him more than he lets on. He knows his Mom loved Will, more than his dad and that Will made her happy and that she started her own firm because she loved her boss, which in turn had created a war between both their firms, draining his Mom because it was hard fighting against the man you've loved for 20 years.
He sighs and grabs the untouched, melted ice cream bowl from her nightstand and leaves his mothers room, closing the door behind him, wondering if his Mom will ever be okay again after loosing Will Gardner.
A\N: Chapter 2 of Stolen moments and memories is complete just before midnight! I didn't plan on adding in Zach's short POV but I think it's important to showcase how worried the kids were about Alicia after Will died. I will be working on chapter 3 and have it published tomorrow, have a good night and enjoy this chapter, Angels.