But Still You're Shaken, Diane (gen), G
Title: But Still You're Shaken
Characters: Diane Lockart (mention of Eli, Alicia and Will)
Rating: G
Spoilers: up to 3x10
Disclaimer: Not mine! This all remains the property of the Kings, CBS et al. I am just playing and no profit is being made.
Prompt: TGW, Diane Lockhart, quiet night
Dedication: For the whirlwind of kickassery that is spyglass_ - with your excellent taste and general loveliness, it's a pleasure to write anything for you, Grace x
Diane pushes the front door closed and keys in the alarm code without thinking. She’s living on muscle memory and caffeine again, the days unnecessarily long and filled with things she can’t remember ever finding important. Wrangling Eli and soothing Will--she’s a wife and a mother and all the things she chose not to be--all in the name of being professional. Tomorrow it starts again: save Legal Aid, find a new political client, pick up the pieces of her partnership and fend off the State’s Attorney. (And a case; there’s always a new case.)
She thinks, for a moment, of Wendy Scott-Carr and her politely sneering comments about the corporate track. Diane looks at the perfectly decorated hallway, picked out in the warm glow of streetlamps and wonders what it would be like to have somewhere smaller, without the antique end table and the ornate mirror. Somehow, she thinks she would cope.
Diane kicks off her heels (she’d miss the Lous, she supposes) and eases her way along the hall in stockinged feet, mindful not to slip on the smooth floor. It’s only when she’s in the kitchen, pulling a half-finished bottle of white from the fridge, that she notices she hasn’t checked for any signs of an intruder. She shakes her head, and pours a very full glass of the unusually average Chardonnay (it must have been a gift--the label is not one she recognizes). She’s less vigilant these days, whether from exhaustion or the brief flirtation with guns that leave her thinking that yes, she could defend herself. A perfunctory glance around the kitchen shows that nothing is disturbed anyway, and so she takes herself off towards the stairs and the bed that so enticingly awaits.
It’s a matter of minutes to take her face off, and the requisite brushing of teeth. There’s something so young, so hopeful about that little routine--until she finishes it off by slipping into comfortable pajamas and rubbing absurdly expensive night cream into her face with aching hands. This is exhaustion, she knows, and a sixty hour week isn’t as easy to bounce back from these days. Perhaps she should have run off to Costa Rica when she had the chance; just like she should have ended up in the Senate or stayed home to bake cookies. She’s a walking pros versus cons list, and sometimes she thinks it might be nice not to see all the angles, not to have these dizzying options and decisions to make.
She feels uneasy about Alicia tonight, sparing a thought for the woman who'll most likely cry herself to sleep. Diane has never been comfortable with this star-crossed lovers undertone since Alicia joined the firm, but a small part of her wants the two of them to be happy. Given the choice between happiness (and this is Will, who has sat through innings longer than most of his relationships) and the security of the firm, there really isn't a contest.
If Diane were a different kind of person, a different kind of boss, she might send some kind of consolation message in the hope that it would smooth the fallout. There isn't much to worry about though, if there's one thing Alicia excels at it's dignified behavior in terrible circumstances. They'll all come to work in the morning, and read too many pages and drink too much coffee, all the while pretending that there's nothing to think about beyond work.
The pillows are welcoming when she finally rests her head. Diane checks her phone one more time, not sure whether to be sad or relieved that tonight has no late-night emergency to draw her back into the world. She punches the pillow by her head into shape and rolls over, counting the seconds between breaths until the mental lists stop adding items and the glare of the day’s images fade into the dusk beneath her eyelids.
Tomorrow will bring whatever it wants, and Diane will handle it with what others call grace and she calls sheer determination. The minutes are already slipping past, too many sacrificed to this lull between sleeping and waking, but she’s sure that the sleep will eventually come.
And it might be quiet here, like this, but at least now it’s peaceful.
Characters: Diane Lockart (mention of Eli, Alicia and Will)
Rating: G
Spoilers: up to 3x10
Disclaimer: Not mine! This all remains the property of the Kings, CBS et al. I am just playing and no profit is being made.
Prompt: TGW, Diane Lockhart, quiet night
Dedication: For the whirlwind of kickassery that is spyglass_ - with your excellent taste and general loveliness, it's a pleasure to write anything for you, Grace x
Diane pushes the front door closed and keys in the alarm code without thinking. She’s living on muscle memory and caffeine again, the days unnecessarily long and filled with things she can’t remember ever finding important. Wrangling Eli and soothing Will--she’s a wife and a mother and all the things she chose not to be--all in the name of being professional. Tomorrow it starts again: save Legal Aid, find a new political client, pick up the pieces of her partnership and fend off the State’s Attorney. (And a case; there’s always a new case.)
She thinks, for a moment, of Wendy Scott-Carr and her politely sneering comments about the corporate track. Diane looks at the perfectly decorated hallway, picked out in the warm glow of streetlamps and wonders what it would be like to have somewhere smaller, without the antique end table and the ornate mirror. Somehow, she thinks she would cope.
Diane kicks off her heels (she’d miss the Lous, she supposes) and eases her way along the hall in stockinged feet, mindful not to slip on the smooth floor. It’s only when she’s in the kitchen, pulling a half-finished bottle of white from the fridge, that she notices she hasn’t checked for any signs of an intruder. She shakes her head, and pours a very full glass of the unusually average Chardonnay (it must have been a gift--the label is not one she recognizes). She’s less vigilant these days, whether from exhaustion or the brief flirtation with guns that leave her thinking that yes, she could defend herself. A perfunctory glance around the kitchen shows that nothing is disturbed anyway, and so she takes herself off towards the stairs and the bed that so enticingly awaits.
It’s a matter of minutes to take her face off, and the requisite brushing of teeth. There’s something so young, so hopeful about that little routine--until she finishes it off by slipping into comfortable pajamas and rubbing absurdly expensive night cream into her face with aching hands. This is exhaustion, she knows, and a sixty hour week isn’t as easy to bounce back from these days. Perhaps she should have run off to Costa Rica when she had the chance; just like she should have ended up in the Senate or stayed home to bake cookies. She’s a walking pros versus cons list, and sometimes she thinks it might be nice not to see all the angles, not to have these dizzying options and decisions to make.
She feels uneasy about Alicia tonight, sparing a thought for the woman who'll most likely cry herself to sleep. Diane has never been comfortable with this star-crossed lovers undertone since Alicia joined the firm, but a small part of her wants the two of them to be happy. Given the choice between happiness (and this is Will, who has sat through innings longer than most of his relationships) and the security of the firm, there really isn't a contest.
If Diane were a different kind of person, a different kind of boss, she might send some kind of consolation message in the hope that it would smooth the fallout. There isn't much to worry about though, if there's one thing Alicia excels at it's dignified behavior in terrible circumstances. They'll all come to work in the morning, and read too many pages and drink too much coffee, all the while pretending that there's nothing to think about beyond work.
The pillows are welcoming when she finally rests her head. Diane checks her phone one more time, not sure whether to be sad or relieved that tonight has no late-night emergency to draw her back into the world. She punches the pillow by her head into shape and rolls over, counting the seconds between breaths until the mental lists stop adding items and the glare of the day’s images fade into the dusk beneath her eyelids.
Tomorrow will bring whatever it wants, and Diane will handle it with what others call grace and she calls sheer determination. The minutes are already slipping past, too many sacrificed to this lull between sleeping and waking, but she’s sure that the sleep will eventually come.
And it might be quiet here, like this, but at least now it’s peaceful.