Chapter Text
One moment Alicia was terrified and trying to duck before she got shot. The next, she’s bleeding out on the ground outside the courthouse, thinking of Will.
Was it fast for him? Did it hurt? It seems strangely appropriate she die the same way he did. She hopes Grace is right about there being an afterlife. And that she’ll find Will waiting there for her.
‘Took you long enough, Cavanaugh,’ she can almost hear him saying.
She wishes she could do it over again. Divorce Peter immediately. Be free to date Will openly. Introduce him to the kids instead of hiding him.
The kids… they’ll be okay. Both independent and living their own lives. She wishes she could hug them one more time.
Everything fades, and then she’s walking down a long hallway holding Peter’s hand. What the hell? She tries to tug away from him.
“Please, Alicia,” he asks. “Not now. Please.”
He’s younger. A lot younger. And he’s desperate; she recognizes the look in his eye. This moment. This memory. He’s about to make his public statement about his use of hookers. Because that’s a moment she wants to relive.
She narrows her eyes, but goes along silently. Alicia stands beside him at the podium as he mouths very well crafted nonsense. She knows better than to believe him. She bides her time, holds her facade as the perfect politician’s wife.
When they get behind closed doors, away from the reporters and sycophants, she turns to Peter and says, “I want a divorce.”
****
Will glares at the TV. At Peter, the smug asshole. The guy who got the girl, and then crushed her. How could anyone do that to Alicia? What he would give to go back in time and tell her he loved her, before Peter even came on the scene.
His eyes shift to Alicia, expecting to see stoicism or grief. He doesn’t expect what he actually sees. Determination and rage.
You had to know her to see it. For strangers, she would appear stoic. But he knew all the faces of Alicia Cavanaugh. This was Alicia about to shred apart the opposition. About to wipe the floor with some poor fool.
When Peter reaches for Alicia’s hand, she steps away. He quickly closes the distance and takes her hand, and to most it will just look like a momentary lack of coordination.
But, coupled with emotions in her eyes, it’s more than that. Can he dare to hope the fool she wipes the floor with is Peter?
He doesn’t fool himself. Alicia isn’t about to divorce the ass and suddenly declare undying love for Will Gardner. But he really hopes she takes her pound of flesh out of Peter. He hopes he gets to see it.
****
He doesn’t expect to run into Alicia in an elevator after a meeting several months later. When she sees him, tears fill her eyes. But then she gives him a blindingly beautiful smile.
“Will.” Her voice is soft. Affectionate.
He is completely unprepared for this. For the tears or the happiness. Alicia rarely cried, and almost never in front of anyone. As for the affection in her voice and smile… both of those he’s dreamt of. Never expected to get. He babbles something about being sorry about Peter’s crap.
She gives him a wry smile. “Not my problem anymore. I divorced him three months ago.”
He blinks at her. It’s one surprise after another with her. “What?
She raises her ringless left hand and wiggles her fingers. He can see the faintest of lines where her wedding ring used to sit.
“I hadn’t heard,” he says, mind racing. Alicia divorced Peter. He begins feeling a sense of anticipation, excitement. Like he gets when he knows he’s about to win a tough case, but a thousand times better.
“We’re keeping it quiet until after his next hearing,” she gives an elegant shrug.
“Wow,” he says. He never thought she’d do that. Wished for it. Both for her sake and selfishly for his own, to give him a chance. “We should catch up. There’s clearly a lot to talk about.”
She smiles at him, and it about knocks him off his feet. It’s the sweet, open smile of the girl he fell in love with in Georgetown. A smile he never thought he’d see again.
He smiles back at her and is completely sure he looks like a love struck idiot.
They wind up in the parking garage, though he meant to get off on a different floor. He just… couldn’t make himself walk away from her.
Alicia surprises him yet again when she reaches for his hand and tugs him closer. He follows her guidance. When she wraps her arms around him, his heart nearly jumps out of his chest. Hopefully she doesn’t notice how fast it’s beating.
He wraps his arms around her, cradling her against him as she rests her head on his shoulder.
“I missed you so much, Will,” she says. “I never should have let us grow so far apart.”
“It’s all right,” he soothes her, stroking her back.
“It’s not,” she says, pulling away from him. He’s stunned to see tears in her eyes again. “But we’re getting a second chance.”
He nods dumbly. She missed him? Alicia Cavanaugh missed him enough it brought tears to her eyes? In spite of himself, he can’t help but hope he has a chance. To woo her.
If all of that surprised him, her next move stuns him. She leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek, before turning away to go to her car.
“Alicia,” he calls out, not wanting to let her out of his sight. “Dinner? Tonight?”
She gets a thoughtful look on her face. “I can’t do dinner…”
Disappointment fills him, but then she continues speaking.
“But drinks after? Around 9?” she asks.
He’s got a shit eating grin on his face, he just knows it. “Sounds good,” he says.
She comes back to him and reaches her hand out, palm up.
Will tilts his head in question.
“Phone,” she says. “I’ll program my number in.”
He immediately fumbles for his phone and hands it to her. She inputs her number and then initiates a call to her phone. “There. Now we have each other’s numbers.”
His phone is warm from her hand when she gives it back to him. One more smile and she’s on her way.
Did that really happen? Alicia divorcing Peter, hugging him, crying over him, kissing him on the cheek? She missed him. He’d wondered, from time to time, if she ever thought of him. Pushed the thought away as pointless. Maybe she really had thought of him.
He glances down at his phone and sees she input herself as Alicia Cavanaugh. Somehow, that makes everything more real. She’s not Alicia Florrick anymore.
He’s going to see her for drinks tonight. Will smiles, hardly believing it.
****
She’d run into Will the way she had in the past. It had taken all of her self restraint not to burst into tears and grab onto him.
For so long he’d only been an imaginary voice in her head. One she told everything to, holding back nothing. The way the living version of him had so desperately wanted. She promises herself she’ll be open with him. It should be easy now she has practice.
Their conversation this time was completely different. She’s overwhelmed with giggles thinking of his stunned expression when she said she’d divorced Peter.
And then he kept talking with her instead of getting off the elevator at his floor. Maybe she should have kept her distance. But the temptation was just too much. She’d grieved him for over a decade. Sure, she’d had other relationships in that time, but none of them came close to his place in her heart.
So, she hugged him. And he held her. With his strong arms around her, and his scent filling the air, tears of relief nearly overwhelmed her then, but she kept it together. And then he asked her to dinner.
She really hadn’t been expecting that. The kids were expecting her home, and she didn’t think inviting him to dinner with them today was the best idea. But drinks, after? That she could do.
There was a very good chance she’d end up with his tongue down her throat tonight. And a 20% chance she’d end up in his bed. Which… was fast.
The real question was if it would prevent him from hiring her. Boss and employee dating was an issue. He might want to avoid that ethical dilemma altogether.
It’s worth it, she decides. And she suspects he’ll still try to get her hired at LG. Or SLG as it’s known at the moment.