Fic: For I come without answers (TGW, Ensemble)
Title: For I come without answers
Author: empressearwig
Pairing/Fandom: Will/Alicia, Peter/Alicia, Ensemble; The Good Wife
Spoilers: Post 2x08, On Tap
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2743
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all for fun. This hasn't happened. Yet. Etc.
Summary: "Have either of them asked you yet?" Kalinda asks. Alicia doesn't pretend to be surprised by the question.
Author's Notes: Originally posted here. Written for lauriestein for Yuletide 2010. Title is from the Pablo Neruda poem "There is No Forgetting." Many thanks to torigates, summerstorm, and normative_jean for looking at various stages of this.
The night that it’s officially announced that Diane is leaving Lockhart/Gardner & Bond, Alicia meets Kalinda for drinks.
“Have either of them asked you yet?” Kalinda asks while they wait for the bartender.
Alicia doesn’t pretend to be surprised by the question. It was only a matter of time and she knows Kalinda is just the first person who will ask. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not sure either of them will.”
It’s not false modesty. Alicia can never tell if it’s going to be a day Diane will think she’s actually good at her job, more than just a pawn to be strategically deployed in the multi-dimensional chess game that is Chicago’s legal system. Derrick doesn’t like her, that Alicia is sure of. And Will -- well, Alicia doesn’t know where she stands with him these days. She hasn’t known since the night of Peter’s press conference.
Alicia doesn’t know what she would have done if she’d gotten that voicemail, but she will forever be angry that she didn’t get to make that decision for herself.
“They’ll both ask,” Kalinda says, and she looks like she wants to say more, but then the bartender is in front of them and Kalinda is ordering drinks for both of them. “Gin martini,” she says. “Two.” She gives Alicia the enigmatic smile that Alicia has come to know so well. “It’s a -“
“Lockhart/Gardner tradition?” Alicia finishes for her, letting her lips curve up into the smallest of smiles.
Kalinda shrugs her shoulders, just a little, and Alicia laughs.
She hopes that wherever she ends up, Kalinda is there by her side. Life would be a lot less interesting without her.
***
Diane asks Alicia first, calling Alicia into her office late on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s already half empty, cardboard packing boxes lining the glass walls.
She knocks on the door and Diane waves her inside.
“Thank you for coming,” Diane says. She gestures at one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Have a seat, please.”
Alicia sits, crossing her legs and folding her hands together in her lap. She resists the impulse to tie her fingers together into a knot. Visible signs of nervousness are a weakness. Peter taught her that, more years ago than she can remember. She learned the lesson well.
“I’m sure you know why I asked you to meet me,” Diane says with no preamble whatsoever.
Alicia shakes her head, a quick dismissal. “I didn’t want to assume,” she says, looking Diane straight in the eye. “Not these days.”
She doesn’t know what she expected Diane to say to that, but it certainly wasn’t Diane tipping her head back and letting out a full throated laugh. “This is why I like you, Alicia,” Diane says finally, once she’s regained her composure and become the austere senior partner once more. “You know too much to ever let yourself assume.”
“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” Alicia says, her politician’s wife mask falling farther into place with each word that she speaks.
“It’s excellent,” Diane says with the quick certainty that is her trademark. “In fact, it’s one of the most valuable things about you.”
“Well then, thank you,” Alicia says. She allows herself the briefest of smiles. “But this isn’t why you asked to see me.”
“No,” Diane says, shaking her head. She leans forward, just a little. “I want to offer you a position in the firm that I’m forming with David Lee.”
And there it is, Alicia thinks to herself. The end. Or the beginning. She doesn't know what she wants it to be.
“I’m sure that Will has made you an offer as well,” Diane continues, her eyes sharp on Alicia’s face.
Alicia returns the look evenly, refusing to give anything away. What Will hasn’t offered isn’t relevant to this conversation.
“I’m sure that you have some residual gratitude to Will for bringing you on board. And I know that you’re old friends,” Diane says, after only a moment’s hesitation. “But David and I would like you to strongly consider our offer. I hope you know how highly we both think of you.”
Alicia nods. Her mouth is dry. “How long do I have to decide?”
“Two weeks.”
Alicia nods again and stands. “Thank you, Diane. I promise that I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve made a decision.”
Diane stands too and holds out her hand. “Whatever you decide, it’s been a pleasure working with you.”
“Thank you,” Alicia says again, shaking her hand. “I feel the same.”
With that, she walks out of Diane’s office and down the stairs to her own, not even letting herself look across the hall to Will’s office. She doesn’t know what she’d find there. She’s not even sure she wants to know what she’d find there.
She closes her office door behind her and sinks into her chair. Two weeks isn’t very long, she thinks to herself. Not long enough to make this type of decision.
Her phone rings and she picks it up automatically. “Alicia Florrick,” she says, and she’s glad for the distraction, for the chance to worry about something else besides her future.
Even if she can already feel the time she has to decide slipping away.
***
Alicia talks it over with Peter that night, after Zach and Grace have gone to bed. They’re in the kitchen, both clutching mugs of coffee that have long since gone cold, whispering in hushed tones.
Peter thinks she should take it, that she shouldn’t wait for Will to even make an offer. She wishes she could believe that it’s not about the fact that Peter’s never liked Will, never wanted her to work for him at all, but she can’t. She remembers the past the three of them share too clearly.
She knows Peter remembers it too.
“If I wait for Will to make me an offer, I could use that to get a better one from Diane,” she points out, not for the first time. “Why shouldn’t I do that?”
Peter sighs, scrubs his hands over his face. When he moves them back, there’s a look of tired resignation on his face. “Alicia, I can’t tell you what to do. If I tried, well, you’d be within your rights to do the opposite to spite me. If you want to wait, if you want to work for Gardner, I can’t stop you.”
“No,” she says. “You can’t.”
He stares at her for a long moment, his eyes searching her face for something. When he finds whatever it is, he asks the question she’s dreaded for months. “Are you in love with him?”
Alicia looks away before she answers. “I don’t know.” Peter’s hand catches her chin and turns it back to face him. “I don’t know,” she repeats. It’s not a lie.
Peter nods, his eyes still fast on hers, apparently satisfied that’s all the answer he’s going to get or all the answer that he deserves. “Good night,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
He sets his mug of coffee down on the counter and walks out of the room. She watches him go.
It’s a long time before she goes to bed and a longer time before she falls asleep. In the morning, Peter acts like he never asked the question and she never answered.
Alicia lets him.
***
At work, nothing and everything has changed. Partners and associates alike file in and out of Will and Diane’s offices, leaving with either relief or abject misery on their faces. Alicia understands why; it’s still impossible to find a legal job in Chicago. She should be grateful that no matter what happens with Will, she has a job waiting for her if she chooses to accept.
She’s not as grateful as she should be.
When she sees Will in the hall or on the elevator, he avoids her eyes, making only the smallest of small talk. She doesn’t have the courage -- or maybe she doesn’t feel that she has the right -- to force the issue. She doesn’t want anything from Will that isn’t willingly given.
“Day four of Will and Diane’s divorce proceedings,” Kalinda says, slipping into Alicia’s office and making herself at home on the corner of the desk. “Still nothing?”
Alicia shakes her head, her mouth a thin line. She looks out into the hall and sees Michael Ross, the associate from finance, headed up the steps towards the partners offices. “No,” she says.
“You should talk to him,” Kalinda says, standing once more. “Let him know you’re interested.”
“No,” Alicia says. “I won’t do that.”
“Is keeping your pride really worth it?”
Kalinda’s question hangs in the air long after she’s left the room. Alicia doesn’t know the answer.
***
A week passes, and Alicia is done. Done waiting, done wondering, done letting everyone else make choices for her. On a cold February morning, she'd promised herself that she was done letting other people decide her future. She owes it to herself to keep that promise.
Once she's made her decision, she doesn't ask for a meeting or wait for an invitation, she just walks up the stairs to Diane's office and knocks on the door.
"Come in," Diane's voice calls out and Alicia opens the door, steps inside. "Alicia," Diane says with surprise. "I wasn't expecting you."
"No," Alicia agrees, looking around the once pristine office. It's barely a shell of itself now, the art stripped from the walls and the boxes gone. "You weren't."
"Does this mean you've made a decision?" Diane asks, her eyes intent on Alicia's face. "I hope you're going to say yes."
"It does," Alicia says, nodding her head once. She takes a deep breath, braces herself to actually say it aloud. Once she says it, it's real. She says it. "And the answer is yes."
She thinks she sees surprise on Diane's face, but it's gone in a second, like it was never there at all. "Yes?" Diane asks.
"Yes," Alicia says, nodding again. This decision, it feels right. It feels like something that's hers, something she earned, through hard work and her own talents. As grateful as she still is to Will for giving her a chance in the first place, she knows she didn't earn that chance. She earned this one. "I'm looking forward to the opportunity."
A wide smile spreads across Diane's face. "We're very glad to have you," she says, holding out her hand. "Welcome aboard."
Alicia shakes her hand and lets a smile cross her own face. This, right here, it's a new beginning.
But before there can be a beginning, there has to be an end. Alicia knows this, knows it better than anyone. So it's with that in mind that she excuses herself from Diane's office just a moment later.
She takes the five steps across the hall to knock on Will's door. It's time for the ending.
***
"Alicia," Will says when he opens the door. "This isn't really a good --"
She ignores him and steps around him, into the office itself. She takes a slow, deliberate look around the empty room. "I don't see anyone here."
Something in Will's jaw tightens, just a little. Someone that didn't know him wouldn't see it. Alicia knows him -- or she thought she did. "Fine," he says, voice clipped, shoulders tense. "What can I do for you?"
She pulls herself more tightly together, as if bracing for a blow. "I've accepted a job with Diane's new firm. I wanted to be the one to tell you."
"You did --" Will starts, before he catches himself and stops. He stares at her, a mix of confusion and anger on his face. "Why did you do that?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "You didn't ask. I had to do what was right for my family."
He laughs then, a hollow, bitter sounding laugh. "Your family? Of course you had to do what's right for your family."
"Yes," she says. "I did. And for me. I had to do what's right for me, too."
"You had to know I was going to ask you," he says, running his hands through his hair in frustration. It's a gesture she knows well, from years ago and from now. That never changed, even when the rest of him did. "Why didn't you wait? Or at least talk to me before you accepted Diane's offer?"
"I didn't know, actually," she says. "You haven't talked to me in months, Will. Why should I have thought you were going to offer me a job a second time?"
"You know why -- I couldn't -- don't go there," he grinds out, the anger mounting on his face again, and this time in his voice too. "You should have waited."
"Maybe I should have," she says. "I didn't."
The words hang between them, the silence in the room deafening. He stares at her and she stares at him, and though there's less than two feet between them, it feels more like two miles. He feels like he's so far away that there's no way she'll ever be able to reach him again.
He nods, just once. "Well then, I guess that's all there is to say. Good luck with your new position. When can I expect your resignation on my desk?"
"Will," she says, taking a step forward, reaching out to touch his arm. It's a mistake; he instantly backs away, pulls his arm out of her reach. He's never recoiled from her like that before. It stings more than she could ever have imagined it would. "Don't let it end like this."
He laughs again, that horrible, monstrous laugh from before. In all the years she's known him, this is the only time she's ever heard him laugh like that. She never wants to hear it again. "How did you want it to end?" he asks. "How did you picture this scene, Alicia? Tell me, I'm dying to know."
She doesn't have a ready answer to that, because she doesn't know. She'd never been able to imagine this scene, no matter how many times she tried. She thinks it's because he's not someone that she knows how to say goodbye to. "I didn't know," she says, silently begging him to understand what she means. To just know, the way he's known so many times before.
Of course he doesn't, he just stares at her in confusion. "Didn't know what?"
She braces herself again; if it falls, this will be the most painful blow of them all. "The night of Peter's press conference. How many voicemails did you leave me?"
He shakes his head, looks away. "I don't want to talk about that."
"Will," she says, her voice raw and pleading. He looks back. "Please."
"Two."
She nods and closes her eyes. She needed to hear him say it. When she opens them again, she says, "I only got one. I didn't know."
He shakes his head, denial written on his face. "What?" he asks. "How? I left you two messages, Alicia."
"I know," she says, nodding again. "The wiretaps, you were on them, and --"
"Why didn't you say something once you found out?" he demands.
"I was going to," she says, feeling herself grow angry for the first time, "but when I came to tell you, Tammy was here. And I didn't think I had the right any more."
He looks stung. She finds she doesn't much care.
"I should go," she says, turning to walk to the door. "I think we've said all that there is to say."
"Like hell," he says, slapping a hand on the door before she can open it.
She doesn't turn around. "Let me leave, Will."
He's barely touching her, yet she can feel him against her as much as if they were pressed up against one another. When he speaks, his breath is hot against her neck. "What would you have said?" he asks.
She shakes her head. "Don't make me answer that."
"Because I won't like the answer or because you don't want to admit the answer?"
She closes her eyes. "Because I don't know the answer."
It's not the answer either of them wants. That doesn't make it less true.
He backs away, and she slips out the door. In the morning, her resignation is on his desk.
***
A month later, Alicia settles behind her desk at Lockhart & Lee for the first time.
Author: empressearwig
Pairing/Fandom: Will/Alicia, Peter/Alicia, Ensemble; The Good Wife
Spoilers: Post 2x08, On Tap
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2743
Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is all for fun. This hasn't happened. Yet. Etc.
Summary: "Have either of them asked you yet?" Kalinda asks. Alicia doesn't pretend to be surprised by the question.
Author's Notes: Originally posted here. Written for lauriestein for Yuletide 2010. Title is from the Pablo Neruda poem "There is No Forgetting." Many thanks to torigates, summerstorm, and normative_jean for looking at various stages of this.
The night that it’s officially announced that Diane is leaving Lockhart/Gardner & Bond, Alicia meets Kalinda for drinks.
“Have either of them asked you yet?” Kalinda asks while they wait for the bartender.
Alicia doesn’t pretend to be surprised by the question. It was only a matter of time and she knows Kalinda is just the first person who will ask. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not sure either of them will.”
It’s not false modesty. Alicia can never tell if it’s going to be a day Diane will think she’s actually good at her job, more than just a pawn to be strategically deployed in the multi-dimensional chess game that is Chicago’s legal system. Derrick doesn’t like her, that Alicia is sure of. And Will -- well, Alicia doesn’t know where she stands with him these days. She hasn’t known since the night of Peter’s press conference.
Alicia doesn’t know what she would have done if she’d gotten that voicemail, but she will forever be angry that she didn’t get to make that decision for herself.
“They’ll both ask,” Kalinda says, and she looks like she wants to say more, but then the bartender is in front of them and Kalinda is ordering drinks for both of them. “Gin martini,” she says. “Two.” She gives Alicia the enigmatic smile that Alicia has come to know so well. “It’s a -“
“Lockhart/Gardner tradition?” Alicia finishes for her, letting her lips curve up into the smallest of smiles.
Kalinda shrugs her shoulders, just a little, and Alicia laughs.
She hopes that wherever she ends up, Kalinda is there by her side. Life would be a lot less interesting without her.
***
Diane asks Alicia first, calling Alicia into her office late on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s already half empty, cardboard packing boxes lining the glass walls.
She knocks on the door and Diane waves her inside.
“Thank you for coming,” Diane says. She gestures at one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Have a seat, please.”
Alicia sits, crossing her legs and folding her hands together in her lap. She resists the impulse to tie her fingers together into a knot. Visible signs of nervousness are a weakness. Peter taught her that, more years ago than she can remember. She learned the lesson well.
“I’m sure you know why I asked you to meet me,” Diane says with no preamble whatsoever.
Alicia shakes her head, a quick dismissal. “I didn’t want to assume,” she says, looking Diane straight in the eye. “Not these days.”
She doesn’t know what she expected Diane to say to that, but it certainly wasn’t Diane tipping her head back and letting out a full throated laugh. “This is why I like you, Alicia,” Diane says finally, once she’s regained her composure and become the austere senior partner once more. “You know too much to ever let yourself assume.”
“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” Alicia says, her politician’s wife mask falling farther into place with each word that she speaks.
“It’s excellent,” Diane says with the quick certainty that is her trademark. “In fact, it’s one of the most valuable things about you.”
“Well then, thank you,” Alicia says. She allows herself the briefest of smiles. “But this isn’t why you asked to see me.”
“No,” Diane says, shaking her head. She leans forward, just a little. “I want to offer you a position in the firm that I’m forming with David Lee.”
And there it is, Alicia thinks to herself. The end. Or the beginning. She doesn't know what she wants it to be.
“I’m sure that Will has made you an offer as well,” Diane continues, her eyes sharp on Alicia’s face.
Alicia returns the look evenly, refusing to give anything away. What Will hasn’t offered isn’t relevant to this conversation.
“I’m sure that you have some residual gratitude to Will for bringing you on board. And I know that you’re old friends,” Diane says, after only a moment’s hesitation. “But David and I would like you to strongly consider our offer. I hope you know how highly we both think of you.”
Alicia nods. Her mouth is dry. “How long do I have to decide?”
“Two weeks.”
Alicia nods again and stands. “Thank you, Diane. I promise that I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve made a decision.”
Diane stands too and holds out her hand. “Whatever you decide, it’s been a pleasure working with you.”
“Thank you,” Alicia says again, shaking her hand. “I feel the same.”
With that, she walks out of Diane’s office and down the stairs to her own, not even letting herself look across the hall to Will’s office. She doesn’t know what she’d find there. She’s not even sure she wants to know what she’d find there.
She closes her office door behind her and sinks into her chair. Two weeks isn’t very long, she thinks to herself. Not long enough to make this type of decision.
Her phone rings and she picks it up automatically. “Alicia Florrick,” she says, and she’s glad for the distraction, for the chance to worry about something else besides her future.
Even if she can already feel the time she has to decide slipping away.
***
Alicia talks it over with Peter that night, after Zach and Grace have gone to bed. They’re in the kitchen, both clutching mugs of coffee that have long since gone cold, whispering in hushed tones.
Peter thinks she should take it, that she shouldn’t wait for Will to even make an offer. She wishes she could believe that it’s not about the fact that Peter’s never liked Will, never wanted her to work for him at all, but she can’t. She remembers the past the three of them share too clearly.
She knows Peter remembers it too.
“If I wait for Will to make me an offer, I could use that to get a better one from Diane,” she points out, not for the first time. “Why shouldn’t I do that?”
Peter sighs, scrubs his hands over his face. When he moves them back, there’s a look of tired resignation on his face. “Alicia, I can’t tell you what to do. If I tried, well, you’d be within your rights to do the opposite to spite me. If you want to wait, if you want to work for Gardner, I can’t stop you.”
“No,” she says. “You can’t.”
He stares at her for a long moment, his eyes searching her face for something. When he finds whatever it is, he asks the question she’s dreaded for months. “Are you in love with him?”
Alicia looks away before she answers. “I don’t know.” Peter’s hand catches her chin and turns it back to face him. “I don’t know,” she repeats. It’s not a lie.
Peter nods, his eyes still fast on hers, apparently satisfied that’s all the answer he’s going to get or all the answer that he deserves. “Good night,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
He sets his mug of coffee down on the counter and walks out of the room. She watches him go.
It’s a long time before she goes to bed and a longer time before she falls asleep. In the morning, Peter acts like he never asked the question and she never answered.
Alicia lets him.
***
At work, nothing and everything has changed. Partners and associates alike file in and out of Will and Diane’s offices, leaving with either relief or abject misery on their faces. Alicia understands why; it’s still impossible to find a legal job in Chicago. She should be grateful that no matter what happens with Will, she has a job waiting for her if she chooses to accept.
She’s not as grateful as she should be.
When she sees Will in the hall or on the elevator, he avoids her eyes, making only the smallest of small talk. She doesn’t have the courage -- or maybe she doesn’t feel that she has the right -- to force the issue. She doesn’t want anything from Will that isn’t willingly given.
“Day four of Will and Diane’s divorce proceedings,” Kalinda says, slipping into Alicia’s office and making herself at home on the corner of the desk. “Still nothing?”
Alicia shakes her head, her mouth a thin line. She looks out into the hall and sees Michael Ross, the associate from finance, headed up the steps towards the partners offices. “No,” she says.
“You should talk to him,” Kalinda says, standing once more. “Let him know you’re interested.”
“No,” Alicia says. “I won’t do that.”
“Is keeping your pride really worth it?”
Kalinda’s question hangs in the air long after she’s left the room. Alicia doesn’t know the answer.
***
A week passes, and Alicia is done. Done waiting, done wondering, done letting everyone else make choices for her. On a cold February morning, she'd promised herself that she was done letting other people decide her future. She owes it to herself to keep that promise.
Once she's made her decision, she doesn't ask for a meeting or wait for an invitation, she just walks up the stairs to Diane's office and knocks on the door.
"Come in," Diane's voice calls out and Alicia opens the door, steps inside. "Alicia," Diane says with surprise. "I wasn't expecting you."
"No," Alicia agrees, looking around the once pristine office. It's barely a shell of itself now, the art stripped from the walls and the boxes gone. "You weren't."
"Does this mean you've made a decision?" Diane asks, her eyes intent on Alicia's face. "I hope you're going to say yes."
"It does," Alicia says, nodding her head once. She takes a deep breath, braces herself to actually say it aloud. Once she says it, it's real. She says it. "And the answer is yes."
She thinks she sees surprise on Diane's face, but it's gone in a second, like it was never there at all. "Yes?" Diane asks.
"Yes," Alicia says, nodding again. This decision, it feels right. It feels like something that's hers, something she earned, through hard work and her own talents. As grateful as she still is to Will for giving her a chance in the first place, she knows she didn't earn that chance. She earned this one. "I'm looking forward to the opportunity."
A wide smile spreads across Diane's face. "We're very glad to have you," she says, holding out her hand. "Welcome aboard."
Alicia shakes her hand and lets a smile cross her own face. This, right here, it's a new beginning.
But before there can be a beginning, there has to be an end. Alicia knows this, knows it better than anyone. So it's with that in mind that she excuses herself from Diane's office just a moment later.
She takes the five steps across the hall to knock on Will's door. It's time for the ending.
***
"Alicia," Will says when he opens the door. "This isn't really a good --"
She ignores him and steps around him, into the office itself. She takes a slow, deliberate look around the empty room. "I don't see anyone here."
Something in Will's jaw tightens, just a little. Someone that didn't know him wouldn't see it. Alicia knows him -- or she thought she did. "Fine," he says, voice clipped, shoulders tense. "What can I do for you?"
She pulls herself more tightly together, as if bracing for a blow. "I've accepted a job with Diane's new firm. I wanted to be the one to tell you."
"You did --" Will starts, before he catches himself and stops. He stares at her, a mix of confusion and anger on his face. "Why did you do that?"
She shrugs her shoulders. "You didn't ask. I had to do what was right for my family."
He laughs then, a hollow, bitter sounding laugh. "Your family? Of course you had to do what's right for your family."
"Yes," she says. "I did. And for me. I had to do what's right for me, too."
"You had to know I was going to ask you," he says, running his hands through his hair in frustration. It's a gesture she knows well, from years ago and from now. That never changed, even when the rest of him did. "Why didn't you wait? Or at least talk to me before you accepted Diane's offer?"
"I didn't know, actually," she says. "You haven't talked to me in months, Will. Why should I have thought you were going to offer me a job a second time?"
"You know why -- I couldn't -- don't go there," he grinds out, the anger mounting on his face again, and this time in his voice too. "You should have waited."
"Maybe I should have," she says. "I didn't."
The words hang between them, the silence in the room deafening. He stares at her and she stares at him, and though there's less than two feet between them, it feels more like two miles. He feels like he's so far away that there's no way she'll ever be able to reach him again.
He nods, just once. "Well then, I guess that's all there is to say. Good luck with your new position. When can I expect your resignation on my desk?"
"Will," she says, taking a step forward, reaching out to touch his arm. It's a mistake; he instantly backs away, pulls his arm out of her reach. He's never recoiled from her like that before. It stings more than she could ever have imagined it would. "Don't let it end like this."
He laughs again, that horrible, monstrous laugh from before. In all the years she's known him, this is the only time she's ever heard him laugh like that. She never wants to hear it again. "How did you want it to end?" he asks. "How did you picture this scene, Alicia? Tell me, I'm dying to know."
She doesn't have a ready answer to that, because she doesn't know. She'd never been able to imagine this scene, no matter how many times she tried. She thinks it's because he's not someone that she knows how to say goodbye to. "I didn't know," she says, silently begging him to understand what she means. To just know, the way he's known so many times before.
Of course he doesn't, he just stares at her in confusion. "Didn't know what?"
She braces herself again; if it falls, this will be the most painful blow of them all. "The night of Peter's press conference. How many voicemails did you leave me?"
He shakes his head, looks away. "I don't want to talk about that."
"Will," she says, her voice raw and pleading. He looks back. "Please."
"Two."
She nods and closes her eyes. She needed to hear him say it. When she opens them again, she says, "I only got one. I didn't know."
He shakes his head, denial written on his face. "What?" he asks. "How? I left you two messages, Alicia."
"I know," she says, nodding again. "The wiretaps, you were on them, and --"
"Why didn't you say something once you found out?" he demands.
"I was going to," she says, feeling herself grow angry for the first time, "but when I came to tell you, Tammy was here. And I didn't think I had the right any more."
He looks stung. She finds she doesn't much care.
"I should go," she says, turning to walk to the door. "I think we've said all that there is to say."
"Like hell," he says, slapping a hand on the door before she can open it.
She doesn't turn around. "Let me leave, Will."
He's barely touching her, yet she can feel him against her as much as if they were pressed up against one another. When he speaks, his breath is hot against her neck. "What would you have said?" he asks.
She shakes her head. "Don't make me answer that."
"Because I won't like the answer or because you don't want to admit the answer?"
She closes her eyes. "Because I don't know the answer."
It's not the answer either of them wants. That doesn't make it less true.
He backs away, and she slips out the door. In the morning, her resignation is on his desk.
***
A month later, Alicia settles behind her desk at Lockhart & Lee for the first time.