The "Plan B" Summer 2013 TGW Ficathon
The "Plan B" Summer 2013 TGW Ficathon has come to a close! Thank you to all who participated. This post will remain unlocked so that readers may continue to comment on posted fics. Also feel free to post links to belatedly filled prompts.
( Read more... )
My head-cannon says that this takes place in the world of sweetjamielee and lunchinanelevator’s Defended/See-Through. For those who haven’t read it, go now - you won’t be disappointed. For those who have, I hope this makes sense the way it does in my mind. To sweejamielee and lunchinanelevator...thanks for writing brilliant fics. I hope you don’t mind my piggy-backing :)
Cary watches Alicia knock on a freshly painted door frame with her knuckle; she looks at it, drops her hand as if the paint isn’t there. Maybe it isn’t. There seems to be a lot of that going around - things that are there, but not really there. He thinks of Kalinda. Watches Alicia standing at a distance and her voice carries - not like with Kalinda, hushed, sometimes silent conversations.
“Robyn, do you have a minute?”
One
Alicia doesn’t miss the secrecy that comes with Kalinda. Like a crossword puzzle with more blanks than filled in spaces - she’s elusive to the untrained eye, but solvable if you’re willing to tease through clues long enough.
And utterly exhausting.
Alicia tells herself this isn’t about honesty - that honest people don’t actually exist. Honesty is a selective choice and it only applies when people want it to apply. It’s on a relative scale and it shouldn’t be mistaken for an absolute. Almost everyone has something they’re willing to lie about - something they have lied about. She thinks of Will.
And Kalinda.
So it’s not about honesty. It’s about...transparency.
And Robyn is transparent - eager to please, eager to learn, easy to assimilate. You ask her a question and she answers it. You want something from her and she gives it. Simple. Uncomplicated.
She isn’t Kalinda, but then maybe that’s the point.
Robyn pops out of her desk, earnest and at the ready, “Of course, anything for you boss. What do you need?”
She says it with a smile and Alicia can’t bring herself to smile back, even though her bubbly enthusiasm reminds her a little of Grace. And of happier times. So she settles for neutrality. She feels Cary’s eyes, knows they need to talk, but she wants to keep Kalinda’s secrets a secret for a little while longer. She won’t let herself think about why.
She hands Robyn a slip of paper. “I need you to look into something for me. Be discreet. And...don’t let my husband know you’re looking.” She’s unsurprised to see Cary rise at that - she wasn’t attempting to conceal their conversation - but she needs a moment to gather herself. To prepare for the can of worms they might be opening; that she might be opening. She slips into the stairwell and breathes deep.
Reply
Cary doesn’t miss feeling like an outsider.
When Kalinda was around, he was always kept at a distance, pushed to the sidelines and never fully engaged. Like the glass walls at Lockhart Gardner - able to see, but not hear; observe, but never partake. He wasn’t the confidante or the friend or even the preferred help - for anyone. After Peter, after he was away from the firm and the friendship wasn’t a friendship anymore, he thought...maybe.
But it was never enough for him to get first billing - if anything, it only dropped him further down the list. The top of the list had always been reserved for Alicia.
So he feels vindicated that when Kalinda needs help, when she calls him first. It shouldn’t matter, under the circumstances. And for all he knows, he wasn’t actually her first call. But it somehow evens things out - makes him part of it, not outside of it.
He follows Alicia to the stairs and pauses for a moment, understanding that she needs the space. He wants to give it to her - another unexpected byproduct of Kalinda’s absence. Before they teamed up, before this, he knew they’d be great together, but he couldn’t have imagined something akin to friendship. Now he hopes he won’t have to go back to how things were before.
He pushes open the door and finds her standing against the wall, eyes closed. “Hey. You good?” When all she does is nod gently, he grabs her elbow and leads her down the stairs. She comes with only mild hesitation,“Where are we going?”
He can only shrug, but she refuses to look away.
“Lunch.” Unlike Alicia, he hasn’t forgotten how to smile - a lopsided, boyish grin that only emerges when situations require charm. It’s enough to get her to smirk and he wonders if Kalinda’s absence is a bad thing. He immediately feels bad that the thought crossed his mind.
Three
Alicia doesn’t miss the guilt, the guilt that surfaces every time she looks at Kalinda. Guilt for Will, whom she never would have slept with if it hadn’t been for Leela. Guilt for the unrelenting, inequitable anger she unleashed in the aftermath. And guilt for her own inability to separate the person Kalinda was from the person she is now. It’s easier to push it all away when they don’t have to see each other.
She stares at Cary across the table. His plate is nearly empty; her salad has hardly been touched. She waits for him to ask. She knows its coming.
“So...” She looks up and sighs.
“I asked Robyn to track down some information that might help us with Kalinda’s case. I think the relevant facts end with her time at the States Attorney’s office and begin with her introduction to Nick Savarese.” She hesitates only a moment before continuing. “ You know about Peter. I told Robyn not to let Peter know she was looking because... I don’t want to tip anyone off. Or hand over information that could potentially be useful.”
This is only a partial truth. She doesn’t want Leela’s story to come out unless it has to. She thinks Peter might know, but she can’t bring herself to ask, not even if it might help. It’s another thing for her to feel guilty about. So she tells herself it’s the guilt that’s making her feel this way, that she owes it to Kalinda to keep things to herself. She tells herself that it isn’t loyalty or friendship, because that isn’t really what they are anymore.
“What is it that you think Robyn will find?” Cary looks suspicious, like he knows she’s not flying completely blind. She pretends not to notice.
“Maybe nothing.” It won’t be nothing. “But we can’t rely on Kalinda to give us anything beyond facts and even then I don’t trust her to give us all the facts”.
“I could try to ask her.” If only she knew how to tell him that that isn’t how it would be. That Kalinda is stubborn enough to let herself drown, even with a life vest within reach. That even if she were willing to grab the life vest, Cary isn’t the one she’d reach for.
He knows this already, but the words would probably still sting. She bypasses the subject entirely.
“Let’s just see what Robyn finds out.”
Reply
He doesn’t miss the push and pull, the ebb and flow, the uncertainty that exists when you’re around Kalinda. Never knowing if her motive is genuine, but somehow wanting to help her anyway. It’s magnetic and repellent all at the same time - a circumstance that’s only easy to notice after you’ve been away for a while.
Sitting in court, he watches Alicia blindside her and it brings the push and pull back. Wanting to help her, but knowing that it isn’t really within his grasp. He realizes it the moment her expression changes, the moment genuine fear replaces manufactured fear and he catches Alicia’s gaze long enough to see the subtle and completely unrecognizable expression of anguish. He knows this is hurting her, probably more than she even realizes it herself. Definitely more than Kalinda realizes.
And for the first time he counts himself lucky. That for this, he’s on the outside. And no matter how much things have changed, he couldn’t possibly be inside of it.
And that little bit of knowledge allows him perspective. Perspective that’s going to help them win. Perspective that they need. He looks over at Alicia as she sits back down, at the shell of a person sitting on the stand, and tells himself that things are better this way.
He tells himself that missing her would only make things more complicated.
Five
She doesn’t miss the push and pull, the ebb and flow...the uncertainty that exists when you’re around Kalinda. Never knowing what’s real and what’s not. She’s magnetic and repellent all at the same time - something that’s only noticeable after you’ve been away for a while. Alicia’s subconscious yells, not true.
She stares at the judge, refusing to look at what’s happening on the stand. Refusing to acknowledge what she made happen. She needs to escape, but her own anguish cements her in place. Kalinda is broken, without the ability to defend herself. She could never leave.
So she pushes everything back and begins to write. The trial is almost over. There are hardly any notes to take, but she jots things down anyway as a distraction. Matan throws a couple of below the belt punches and she records which jury members react. Cary stands up to object and she keeps her eyes on the judge, gauging how well the objections are received. Cary delivers his close and she bullet points his areas of weakness.
Anything to keep from looking at Kalinda. Anything to keep from succumbing to the push and pull. The judge calls a recess while the jury deliberates and it’s all Alicia can do not to bowl Cary over as she heads for the door. She has to pull herself together. For Kalinda. For herself.
All she can think is I’m sorry.
Reply
He finds her outside the courthouse on the verge of tears. Not the kind of tears that start and stop with an angry word or a moment of levity. The kind of tears that are all-consuming and seemingly endless, flowing for hours on end without acknowledgement or regard for the lies you tell yourself. He can’t let the dam break.
He sits on the bench next to her and nudges her with his shoulder.
She doesn’t look at him, lost in remembering. She whispers, “That’s not Kalinda in there.”
He only nods. He has a theory on why it is he’s less affected by this than she is, but now isn’t really the time to voice it. She wouldn’t hear him anyway and even if she could, the effect would likely be counterproductive. Her eyes meet his and he suspects this is a make or break moment.
“We did that to her.” She says it with conviction. He knows she means it.
“No.” His ‘o’ is drawn out, like he isn’t sure where the word ends. He turns and faces her fully. “No. She did this to herself. She hides away from the life she used to have. She refuses to fully acknowledge the life she has now. That isn’t your fault and it isn’t mine.”
She stares back skeptically, unconvinced, even though she knows its true.
He doesn’t back down. “We didn’t have a choice. We can’t afford to lose.”
“Kalinda would say that we always have a choice.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. He knows that she’s thinking about another time.
“Yeah, well, I thought we already established that Kalinda isn’t in there. And if we want a chance at getting her back, we make the hard choices now and deal with the consequences later. We can’t fall apart and we can’t second-guess ourselves. You’re right that this is a choice, but it’s the only choice we could have made. And when we get Kalinda back, she’ll see that and respect us for it. She might even thank us for it.”
“If we get Kalinda back. If there’s even any Kalinda left when she gets out of there.” She looks panicked at the thought and once again he suspects he knows the less obvious reason, but for now he’s grateful that she appears to have swallowed her tears. He’s grateful that he won’t have to sit with Kalinda alone during the verdict..
“Oh come on, do you really doubt us? We’re a souped up version of Will and Diane? What could possible go wrong?” She smirks and almost nods, but the smile drops quickly. When she stands, he knows that their moment is over and it’s time to go back in. She pauses halfway to the door.
“I miss Kalinda.” From the look on her face, he thinks this is probably the first time she’s allowed herself to admit that.
“Yeah, me too.” They both know things would be easier if they didn’t.
Reply
2. This version of what happened KICKS ARSE (so much better than what the show gave us.)
3. I love your writing, I wish you wrote more.
Reply
Reply
Reply
-lunchinanelevator
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
This is really sharply written, too. I'm not a huge Cary fan, but I really like this: His ‘o’ is drawn out, like he isn’t sure where the word ends. It's pure Cary, and it totally sells the next few paragraphs, up until the end.
I'm with schwarmerei1, this is so much better than what the show gave us, and I love the idea of the BCCC (breakfast club communal canon).
Reply
Leave a comment