fic: if you could only see, the wreck you've made of me (The Good Wife, Kalinda, Cary/Kalinda)
Title: if you could only see, the wreck you've made of me
Characters: Kalinda, Cary/Kalinda; mentions of Alicia
Rating: PG
Summary: She sits in a bar and thinks of what she's done. Or tries very hard not to think of what she's done.
Author's Note: I'm not really sure what this is, except I woke up this morning with a strong urge to write them. I own nothing here. Spoilers through season two.
The lonely always attract company, as if it cannot be helped, as if for some reason people are suddenly incapable of reading cues and personal vibes and body language.
Her dark glower and heavy gaze does enough to dispel anyone who thinks twice or gets too close. All except for him. But then he’s always favored playing with her fire.
--
She holds the low-ball in one hand, moving the liquid around the glass, the ice clinking against the side. She’s heard that clinking the ice will cause it to melt faster, dilute the alcohol quicker, but it only means she’ll just order another when she’s done with this one. Hand raised to her mouth, she swallows the rest in one long pull.
“Another,” she tells the bartender, and doesn’t watch as she refills it. She’s cute, the bartender, and another night she might appreciate the look in her eye.
A figure slides onto the chair next to hers, and she doesn’t have to turn to see who it is. She knows, and if she didn’t the pressed scarf and tan coat would give it away.
--
“Gin?” He asks, warm voice and easy smile on his face like always. “I thought you’d be here with tequila.”
She doesn’t answer as he orders a beer, the bartender trying to look at her for something.
Tequila is for breakthroughs and first cases and set numbers of months and greetings and night outs and girl talks and office gossip and hard won victories. Tequila is for soft eyes and bright teeth. Tequila is for friends.
“No,” she says and drains her glass again.
He eyes her, practiced ease and grace as he lifts the beer to his mouth. “You gonna slow down there? How many have you had?”
“Not enough.”
His nose twists along with his mouth. “You should have told her.”
She has always been careful with her words. Some would call her short and tight and curt, but if she speaks it is to the point and always with a purpose. She’s never had the patience for flattery or just talking without meaning.
He is the opposite, with grand statements and an easy way with language and words that comes from being the Ivy League graduate he is. But here, in this bar where they are the only two on the end with all the other people going about their cheerful business and ignoring them, he speaks only what needs to be said. Or what doesn’t need to be said because she doesn’t need him to tell her what she should have done.
Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.
“No, really?” And this she says with all her practiced sarcasm.
--
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
“For you to shut up and drink.”
--
The gin smells horrible as she lifts her glass once more to her mouth. Like a pine tree and college days of asking for something better than the cheap beer from the boys trying to impress her.
He’s not trying to match her drink for drink. He hasn’t even taken his coat off, only the scarf, but he has stopped trying to talk to her.
That at least, she’s grateful for.
--
He insists on getting her home.
“I can take care of myself,” she tells him.
“I know.”
And if his hand grips her elbow as they walk up to her apartment building to keep her steady, they say nothing about it.
--
“Kalinda,” he gives voice to her name, and in the low light his face looks boyish. “You have to talk to her.”
Kalinda turns her head to look him straight on. “I don’t have to do anything.” Like what she’d said to Will before.
Cary smiles, infuriating as if he knows something that she doesn’t. Leaning forward, invading her space as he does so naturally now, he presses a quick kiss to her lips. A second or two and then gone, fingers briefly sliding across her cheek and the jut of her jaw. “Talk to her. She’s angry, but she likes you. She’ll forgive you.”
“And you? Working for him now?” Words are her weapons, and she has to do nothing she doesn’t want to.
That smile again. “This isn’t about me. That’s my problem.”
And this one is his? But then, he’d always like it when she was happy.
Cary inclines his head. “Goodnight, Kalinda.”
--
She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to.
She wants to. She likes that she'd opened up and gained friends and more.
Cary. Alicia.
She wants to.