You Take What Is Yours (And I’ll Take Mine) -- A TGW fic
Title: You Take What Is Yours (And I’ll Take Mine)
Author: sweetjamielee
Fandom: The Good Wife
Pairing: Alicia/Kalinda
Word Count: approx. 5,000
Spoilers: through S2 finale
Genre: Romance, some angsty remembrance
Rating: M
Summary: In time, that hurt and doubt and fear get washed away. Otherwise known as The Shower Fic.
A/N: When canon began getting rather depressing for Alicia and Kalinda, upriserseven requested some nice, simple, non-angsty K/A smut. I started to oblige, and then the muse demanded I show how they got to the place of nice, simple, non-angsty smut. I officially fail at PWP.
Thanks to my beta threeguesses , who puts up with A LOT of my whining and is very reassuring and is my favourite with a U.
TWO IMPT. THINGS:
1. GUYS. TGW Summer Ficathon is debuting next week. Get your prompts ready.
2. Remember that thing where I talked about Kalicia on the radio a few weeks ago? IT HAPPENED AGAIN. I DID A FINALE POST-MORTEM WITH threeguesses . LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN right here.
--
It’s been a long week. Actually, a long month - well, year.
It’s been a long lifetime. And Alicia Florrick is trying to wash it all away.
There’s something renewing about it; the water and the steam and the warmth tranquilizing the tension from her system and helping her to not think so damn much.
Maybe she should be thinking more.
She hears a noise from somewhere out in the apartment; freezes. The kids are with Peter and she’s not expecting company. When she sees the dark form through the shower’s frosted sliding door, her heart slams in her chest. Her “hello?” goes unanswered, and there’s an instinctive war between identifying the intruder and protecting her own nakedness. In the end, she yanks the shower door open just a few inches to reveal her guest.
“Jesus. You scared me to death.” Alicia lets out the breath she’s been holding, and opens the door a bit further. Her forearms cross and cover her breasts, and it’s silly to hide after… But it takes some time to overcome the strangeness of talking to a fully-clothed person when you are naked.
“Sorry,” Kalinda conciliates, but her small smirk says that getting Alicia’s heart racing was perhaps exactly her intention. “You really should lock your front door while you’re… busy.”
Alicia thinks she did lock the front door, but even if she did, such things are no match for Kalinda Sharma. She tilts her head and examines the other woman, deciding to come out with the obvious. “I thought we decided to… take some time. So I can only conclude you came here just to give me a heart attack.”
Kalinda shrugs, gaze tracing up and down Alicia’s mostly-exposed body. “Figured one visit wouldn’t hurt. There’s beer out in the kitchen.” Her eyes finally meet Alicia’s. “I could leave, if you’d like.”
Alicia drops her arms; watches Kalinda’s pupils dilate. It makes her feel powerful, even when it’s Kalinda who’s doing the teasing. And God, they were supposed to not do this for awhile, they were supposed to take time to understand what it all meant. But…
The yes’s and no’s click back and forth like a metronome. The water runs, and Kalinda waits. She’s so coy, so cool, and the thing about it is that now, Alicia knows better, and she knows the chance Kalinda took by coming to her.
Alicia forgets about the shoulds.
“Get in here,” Alicia orders.
Kalinda’s slow, pleased smile tells her it’s the right answer.
(Five sessions in, the new therapist that Owen made her go to pointed out that she talked more about Kalinda than she did about Peter or Will, or the men she’d been going on casual dates with. Two sessions after that, he pointed out how sullen and quiet she’d become since the observation, refusing to even mention Kalinda’s name.
Alicia disliked therapy. Strongly.
The thing was, Peter had been mostly out of sight aside from communication about the kids, and she and Will - their one hour of ‘good timing’ had resolved more between them than she ever could have hoped. Where she’d worried there would be complication, awkwardness, mixed feelings - all there was, was relief and a sense of calm. Unfinished business, finally complete.
But Kalinda was just… there. Always. Being really very helpful, calm and cool when Alicia looked her way in a manner that used to infuriate her, but now just made her ache.
Except when Alicia turned from her, there was something she swore she saw on Kalinda’s face, out of the corner of her eye.
Session number nine, she argued with her therapist that there are some things you shouldn’t even try to forgive; got angry when he didn’t argue back. He told her, ‘I’m more interested in the wants, than the shoulds.’
She stalked out the second those fifty minutes were over.)
Alicia turns back to rinse out her hair while Kalinda undresses outside; raises her face to the spray and holds her breath until she can’t anymore and takes a step back. Her body hums with warmth and adrenaline, and she idly runs a soapy washcloth across it while she waits.
This is a thing they’ve never done together.
There’s so much they haven’t done before.
She hears the door open again and resists the urge to spin around. It would be easy to just fall into Kalinda, the way they always do; but Alicia is still a bit huffy over the scare, confused about the change of plans, and she wants to make Kalinda work a little for her affection. Still, a secret smile crosses her lips at the first touch of fingertips feathering over her hips. “Welcome,” Alicia tells her.
“Thanks for the invite.” Kalinda’s body molds to Alicia’s back, arms wrapping around her belly. Alicia can feel the hard points of Kalinda’s nipples pressing against her; she shivers lightly as a kiss is brushed to her shoulder.
“What have you accomplished so far?” Kalinda asks, conversational.
“Before I was… interrupted? Just washing my hair.”
Kalinda takes the washcloth from Alicia’s hand. “Hmm, got here just in time.”
“How do you figure?” she replies with a throaty chuckle.
“You still need to get clean. And I’m very thorough.” Kalinda drags the cloth across her skin, leaving a soapy trail in its wake.
Alicia has no doubt it’s true. There is nothing for a few moments but the sound of falling water and Alicia’s soft sighs as Kalinda washes her; it makes her eyes drift shut, a warmth unfurl in her belly.
She always did enjoy Kalinda’s attention to detail.
(It was the Thursday after session eleven when she went to Kalinda’s office with a purpose. Cases, business, always, but Alicia’d been feeling on pins and needles, and some memory chest had been pried open inside of her that she couldn’t seem to shut.
“My shrink says that I close myself off to aspects of my own experience,” Alicia told her.
It was always hard to tell whether Kalinda’s eyebrows conveyed surprise or confusion or amusement. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“That I talk myself out of feeling things, until those feelings overwhelm me and cause me to act… counterproductively.”
Confusion. Definitely. But Kalinda recovered well. A long pause, before she replied. “I hate shrinks.”
“Me too,” Alicia drew out. She sighed; focused on the large potted plant in the corner of the office. “Drink after work?”
The silence stretched for a disturbing amount of time, and if it were make it or break it they were a hair’s breadth from the latter. Then Kalinda nodded sharply.
Alicia wasn’t sure when dread and relief and excitement had all started to feel like the same damn thing.)
She’s never done well at not being curious; not even when Kalinda’s knowing hands and mouth are making it hard to think.
“So why did you come?” Alicia finally queries. Even before they’d agreed to time - drop-in’s weren’t part of whatever they are doing.
Kalinda pauses in tracing her tongue across the curve of Alicia’s throat, and everything she does feels like silk. “Wanted to see you.”
“Didn’t we see each other earlier at work?” Alicia challenges, surprising herself with her own ability to focus on words when Kalinda is running intrepid, slippery hands over her thighs.
Kalinda takes it all in stride. “Wanted to see see you.”
“I see.” Alicia stops pushing, accepting it says enough, Kalinda’s choice to be here. She looks down her body, watches in fascination as Kalinda’s fingers work. Alicia likes the contrast of their skin together; it reminds her of how different Kalinda is from her. If she thinks about those differences too much she gets unsettled, but when she lets herself go (she’s letting go right now) it feels exciting - like it did in the days when she watched with unbridled curiosity and delight as Kalinda worked her investigative magic in ways Alicia never would have considered or thought to approve of.
Those were the days when things were so innocent, when things between them were so uncomplicated. (Although she knows it was never really uncomplicated. For many, many reasons.) There is very little innocent about the way Kalinda’s fingers behave when they find their way between Alicia’s legs.
(From the beginning, Kalinda had pulled at her in a way that Alicia didn’t always understand.
She couldn’t say it, during therapy, but it wasn’t because she was being contrary. You can’t say things to others that you can’t even say to yourself. Alicia hadn’t even realized that Kalinda was her best friend, until the moment she felt it wrenched away from her heart like so many other false promises; it was clear, self-insight wasn’t her forte.
And there were things that hovered on her consciousness that she tried so hard to forget.
Like how it was by no means her first thought, after everything fell apart; but came later, unbidden, petty and possessive and jealous in a horribly backward way:
‘You’ll fuck my husband. You’ll fuck people, all kinds of people, because you ‘do that.’ But you never, not even once, tried to fuck me.’
Now, what the hell was she supposed to do with that.)
Kalinda moves the washcloth in tiny circles, the wet material rasping pleasantly over Alicia’s clit. A few moments of this and Alicia hears a soft whine; realizes it’s coming from her own throat. There’s the urge to turn around and face Kalinda, see the person who’s touching her, but she won’t disrupt this hypnotic rhythm.
Kalinda cups Alicia’s breast; captures an erect and straining nipple between her fingers. “Feeling cleaner?” she asks, squeezing softly, still circling, circling slowly between Alicia’s widened thighs with the other hand. “Or more dirty?”
The sound of her voice drives Alicia half-crazy. She reaches down, plucks the washcloth away and lets it drop to the tub; cups Kalinda’s hand and forces it to palm her fully. There is a gratifying sharp intake of breath from behind her, the satisfying feeling of warm, slick flesh against her own. “What does it feel like to you?”
Kalinda’s hands are tiny, and angle’s not quite right; still, when she slips a finger inside Alicia, strokes slowly, everything feels tight and full and Alicia’s knees buckle slightly. “It feels hot,” Kalinda breathes. “It feels really fucking hot.” Her thumb vibrates over Alicia’s clit while she fucks her steadily the best she can, and Kalinda knows Alicia’s body, learned it faster than anyone. It’s part of the reason she can’t stop this, couldn’t, even when she wanted to.
Them together like this after all that has happened might be strange and illogical and fucked up, but it feels so, so good in this moment that she can’t even…
(They went to a new bar; too many memories in the old ones, memories that confused Alicia by feeling like sentimental lies. This one was nearly empty.
Kalinda looked around, suspicious, while they waited for their drinks. “Did you bring me here to kill me?” she asked.
Alicia didn’t answer.
They sat silently side by side through two, three, four drinks, sharing space and studiously avoiding looking at one another. By the time Alicia’s words were lubricated enough to emerge, there was a dangerous hum in the air.
“Are you sorry?” she finally asked.
Kalinda didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she chuckled - actually chuckled - down at her shot glass.
A twinge of annoyance. “Kalinda…”
The other woman’s chin rose toward Alicia abruptly, and there was a flash in her eyes. “You have no fucking idea.”
Alicia didn’t flinch at the word or the intensity behind it; if anything, she found them gratifying. Still, it wasn’t as easy as ‘sorry,’ and both of them knew it.
“The thing is, if we try this… you have to be honest with me. Always. It can’t just be me saying things about myself, and you… not. If you can’t do it, tell me now because I don’t even want to set foot on that dead-end road.”
Maybe Alicia imagined the tremble to Kalinda’s hand as she took hold of shot number five. There was quiet for a good long while.
A small leak sprung from her dam of anger and frustration. “What, you just don’t want to?” Alicia lashed out. She squeezed at her own empty glass, wishing it full. “Because if you can’t do it, there’s no damn way that I…”
“I want to,” Kalinda interrupted her. Out of the corner of her eye, Alicia could see her face, and it was more expressive than she had willingly allowed Alicia to witness for months. “I just… don’t want to disappoint you.”
“Then don’t,” Alicia snapped, and she immediately felt bad. This was not a good start to… whatever. Not at all.
Chastised, Kalinda quieted for a moment. Took and let out an audible breath. Spoke very, very softly. “Also. I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.”
Alicia turned her head then to regard Kalinda fully, for the first time since they got here. Their faces were mirror reflections of an exhausted misery; fear of more thwarted hope. ‘We’re pathetic, the two of us,’ Alicia thought.
“Guess we’ll just have to try to trust each other,” she said, and was aware of how foolish and impossible it sounded, and God, why would they even try after everything that had happened. The bartender dutifully brought them more drinks. They both choked them with their grips.
Kalinda was the first to raise hers. “To honesty.”
Alicia looked skeptically to the glass, then to Kalinda’s face. There was a strange mixture of fear and determination.
They clinked them; took the shots.
Alicia had no idea what was supposed to come next.)
(“I think it’s positive that you were clear about your conditions and your needs,” her therapist told her. “It will lay the foundation for a more mutual and equal relationship.”
‘Shut up,’ she thought. But she just smiled and nodded.)
The precipice Kalinda brings her to always seems steeper and sharper than any other; Alicia’s intimidated by the fall, needs it anyway.
“Don’t stop,” she grinds out, knowing Kalinda won’t but some irrational part of her mind always convinces her anything that feels so sublime will ultimately be plucked away from her. The tickle of the now-lukewarm water rolling down her body, the teasing fingertips playing at her breast, the hot breath coming in small pants against her shoulder - yes, hot, really fucking hot, Kalinda is absolutely right.
“I like this part,” Kalinda whispers, speeding up right before everything shatters. Alicia’s hand has been still resting over Kalinda’s busy one, feeling, not guiding; but at the moment of impact Alicia loses it, has to reach out and catch herself palm-first on the shower wall. Kalinda anchors Alicia to her with her arm; for a few seconds becomes her support, her spine. She does it until the tremors pass - until Alicia finds her footing. The shower is filled with the sounds of harsh breathing and everything is so slippery wet - Kalinda’s fingers are still inside her like they belong there.
A soft, pleased chuckle from behind Alicia. “We might need to…” Kalinda begins, but Alicia doesn’t let her finish.
(Their first few attempts at spending time together were… not good at all. Uncomfortable. Neither of them knew what to talk about, what topics were on and off limits. They stuttered through whole hours barely looking at one another.
It surprised Alicia that Kalinda always showed. It surprised her that she showed, herself. Sometimes she felt downright foolish for it - was she so hurting for friends, that she had to force herself into these awkward encounters with the woman who had so thoroughly betrayed her?
But in between all of this were these moments. Like when Kalinda fumbled for a full five minutes over the account of her noisy upstairs neighbors (as if it were something deeply, deeply personal). Or when no elaboration followed, “I think Cary is feeling… neglected.” (“I’m sorry,” Kalinda said after Alicia’s expectant and confused eyes told her that normally there would be more to this story. “I’m really bad at this.” And it was the understatement of the year.) Alicia would shake her head, that these little things felt such a struggle, but…
In those moments, their eyes would meet across the space that separated them, and Alicia would see something other than the person who hurt her. Because when Kalinda wasn’t trying to be cool and hard, she was just something else entirely, and it was strange and foreign and dammit all to hell, endearing in a way Alicia couldn’t even comprehend.
She couldn’t pinpoint when it started to get a little better. When maybe she even started to look forward to the only-sometimes-successful attempts at reconnecting.
But it did. And she did.)
(Before-work coffee, and Alicia was telling Kalinda about her last date. And it was really a very funny story, he’d been all sweaty palms and Freudian slips, then Kalinda apparently decided it was time for more sharing.
“I sleep with women sometimes.” With zero prelude. Off Alicia’s eyebrows and suddenly slack, then tightened jaw, Kalinda added, “Not always.” She shifted as if her chair had become harder, more unforgiving.
“O-kay,” Alicia replied after a few beats, blinking, looking for eloquence. Therapy had not prepared her for this.
Kalinda was glancing everywhere but her. “That’s the kind of thing people like to know about each other, right? Friends. About… relationships.”
Alicia had a momentary loss for words. She was thinking, ‘you really are bad at this.’ She was thinking maybe it was too early to be completely okay with knowing anything about Kalinda and sex, together. But she was feeling just…
Kalinda was trying. She was trying so hard.
If Alicia didn’t say something, it might be an eternity before either of them attempted true emotional honesty again. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “I hope if you start to… date someone, that you feel comfortable talking to me about her. Or… him. If, you know… it’s not a woman.”
Kalinda did look at her then, sharp and skeptical, and Alicia realized how ridiculous was the thought of it ever being anything other than uncomfortable. Despite it, Kalinda nodded slowly.
“I’ll… try.” She took a breath; let it out. Corrected herself. “I will.”
Everything was so awkward. Everything was so strange.
Alicia smiled in spite of herself.)
(Once, Alicia had asked Kalinda if she were gay; Kalinda had asked her why it mattered, and it didn’t, it didn’t matter at all.
Except now, knowing… she was finding it hard to sleep at night.)
Alicia breaks free and turns; doesn’t waste a beat before driving Kalinda to the far shower wall (out of the spray, but the water’s getting cold now anyway, and they don’t need the pretense of it anymore). Kalinda sucks in a breath at the piercing cold of the tiles at her back, and she’s gloriously exposed. Alicia wants to touch her everywhere.
“So you just like to come molest poor, vulnerable women in their showers?” Alicia teases, still half-breathless from her orgasm. She trails a still-soapy finger down Kalinda’s body.
Kalinda tips an impish face up toward her. “A little, yeah.”
Brat.
Alicia hooks a finger under Kalinda’s defiant chin, nudges her legs apart with her knee; Kalinda immediately takes the hint, widening her stance and allowing Alicia’s thigh to slip between her own. Barefoot, Kalinda’s much shorter than her; leaning down to kiss her isn’t entirely comfortable but Alicia wants the flavor of her mouth - new and familiar at the same time, like a secret she’s always had on the tip of her tongue but only now allowed to pass her lips.
They kiss without finesse; Alicia’s was lost earlier to Kalinda’s fingers, and Kalinda’s is fading quickly as she rides hard against Alicia’s slick thigh and makes tiny noises in the back of her throat. There’s that sense of power again, heady and intoxicating.
Kalinda breaks the kiss with a gasp, buries her face against Alicia’s shoulder and wet hair. “Mmm. Oh God. Oh fuck.”
The water grows icy at Alicia’s back while Kalinda comes. Alicia’s never cared for cursing, but when Kalinda does it it’s the best kind of pornography, and this is more fun than she’s ever remembered sex being.
(In retrospect, it wasn't surprising that after Kalinda’s impromptu attempt at openness, the rest didn’t take very long. Truths had a way of spilling one after the other in quick succession, and with awareness came an inability to stop thinking about it.
A week later and Kalinda was picking her up, they were supposed to have dinner but before they left the apartment Alicia said her name, almost too quietly to hear, but Kalinda always did.
Alicia wanted to ask her why… why Peter, Donna, Cary, her little blonde P.I. friend, maybe even Blake, God knew who else… why them, and not her, never her. It had circled her mind, a carousal of morbid curiosity that wouldn’t let her off.
But she couldn’t, it was all too stupid and crazy and revealed too damn much. “Never mind, “ she said, shamed, but Kalinda was looking at her like she knew, like she knew exactly the things on Alicia’s mind, and what’s more her face held all the answers to those questions.
“Alicia,” she murmured. “I just…” She put her hand on Alicia’s arm, and why did she have to touch her?
Their eyes locked; refused to disengage for uncomfortable seconds. And Alicia tried to disengage. She sensed danger, reeled; instinctively tried to see the woman who fucked without feeling, who lied, because that woman she could turn away from.
But she couldn’t. All she could see was this Kalinda.
Kalinda leaned in; seemed to think better of it. Withdrew. She started, “Maybe we should…”
Alicia kissed her then, like jumping fast in a cold pool before you change your mind. For a frozen moment, nothing.
Then, everything.)
(She was still clutching Kalinda’s shoulders when they finally pulled apart. Kalinda looked dazed in a way Alicia had never seen, disbelieving. Her lipstick was worn off, and Alicia realized it was probably all over her own face.
“We can’t do that again,” Alicia said, even though it had been her own damn fault, and there was a traitorous wobble in her voice. “Not while…”
“I know,” Kalinda agreed faintly. Not while things were so uncertain. Not when they weren’t even sure if they could ever really be friends again, let alone…
But restraint was easier when there wasn’t tangible evidence of how Kalinda’s mouth would taste.)
(“Are you sure? Are you sure?” Kalinda asked nine days later, back in Alicia’s place and a tremble to her breast while Alicia fumbled ungracefully with the clasp of her bra.
Alicia didn’t say anything. She also didn’t stop.
Kalinda cried after that first time -- no noise, just silent tears. Seemed embarrassed; fucked Alicia again then, hard, as if to make up for it.)
(There was no way Alicia was telling her therapist about this.)
When it’s over they are both soaked and freezing and shivering, taxed legs trembling to hold them up. They brush their foreheads together, meet each other’s eyes; begin laughing at their own ridiculousness, the utter unbelievability of them like this. In these moments, it’s hard to remember why they ever thought they needed time.
Alicia feels silly (but not foolish). Kalinda’s breathless giggle is lovely to her, and right now she doesn’t care if they ever find their way to dry land again.
Laughing at all once seemed like an impossible thing, but laughing together is a small miracle.
“Come on,” Alicia whispers, disentangling their legs and gently prying Kalinda from where she’d melted to the wall. “Before we cause a flood.”
Kalinda smirks, puckish even in her satisfaction. “Earthquake instead?”
Alicia takes it as a challenge.
(It wasn’t as uncomfortable during the in-between times as Alicia would have thought. There was a rhythm to their conversations that they rediscovered; adjusted to make more mutual. Sometimes they parted with tentative and wistful smiles. Sometimes one of them lingered as if gravity had momentarily increased its pull - time pulsing like a question mark cursor. The answer to it was nearly always yes.
That part was easier not to talk about.
Kalinda was unexpectedly pliant after sex - her body took the shape of Alicia’s, her fingers tracing skin and stroking hair. There were times Alicia wanted to escape… it felt too honest. More honest, even, than the taste on her tongue as Kalinda came against it.
One night, after Alicia rolled over and away, long moments passed before she heard Kalinda’s soft voice from behind her.
“I never expected you.”
The silence hung with the weight of history. Alicia thought, ‘You would have run.’ She thought, ‘I would have, too.’
She glanced over her shoulder. “I know.”
Kalinda was studying the ceiling as if it had answers scrawled on it. “If I had…”
“…We wouldn’t be here,” Alicia finished. If she let Kalinda continue, she risked apologies; reminders of her shame. Their shame.
A hazarded glance over. “Do you want to be here?”
Alicia turned fully, contemplating Kalinda’s face in the dim light. Her ponytail lay sleek and shiny against the white pillowcase, she was tiny on the huge bed, and it made absolutely no sense for either of them to be here.
“I want to feel good again.” Alicia knew it wasn’t a real answer, but she wasn’t ready for the rest. She reached out, curled a hand around Kalinda’s wrist. “Make me feel good again.”
Kalinda did.)
They sit on Alicia’s bed in white robes with beer bottles in their hands; they never properly dried themselves and are soaking everything, but Alicia barely notices. The small tv in the corner is on; Alicia isn’t a fan of reality shows but she flips to one just to see Kalinda make faces at it.
“Is this what kids watch now?” Kalinda asks, balancing her bottle on one lovely, crossed leg. “Explains a lot.”
“Right, they should be spending their time engaging in more stimulating activities, like vandalizing the fountain at St. Jerome’s.”
Kalinda turns her head to where Alicia is reclining, propped against the pillows, and gives her a sly look.
It’s so comfortable it’s almost… not. They shouldn’t be easy. Strange, is the idea of contentment weighing heavily upon you. The mischief fades from Kalinda’s eyes, and then they’re both feeling it. They’ve both always felt it.
(They were out having dinner, and it was so much better now… Kalinda was so much better, could talk about mildly personal things without hesitating over them like they were deep, dark secrets. And she smiled, watched Alicia through the thick fringe of her eyelashes and God, she was practically flirting right here in public, and nothing, nothing made sense anymore.
Alicia hadn’t dated anyone in months. She didn’t even want to, and that scared her as much as anything.
“Stop it,” she told Kalinda, whose only offense was running a fingertip around the rim of her wine glass and making Alicia want to take that hand and kiss those fingertips very, very much. But really she was speaking to the intrusive little voice in her mind, one that sounded a little too much like her therapist, that accused her of avoiding - of using sex to escape the much more difficult task of rebuilding her and Kalinda’s friendship. Off Kalinda’s confused expression, she sighed. “What are we doing?”
Alicia half-expected a flip, ‘Eating dinner.’ But instead: “I thought you knew.”
“I don’t. I really, really don’t.”
Kalinda’s face, which was preternaturally lovely when she was relaxed, registered caution, and Alicia could almost hear it again - ‘I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.’
But instead Kalinda queried, “Should we… take some time?”, and sounded as if she was guessing at the right answer.
Alicia rubbed her temples, and the wants and the shoulds were all mixed up. “We… can try.” She found she hated the words as they left her lips. “We can try.”)
(It was session seventeen when she finally blurted it out.
“She and I… we sort of have… a thing.”
Her therapist looked utterly and completely unsurprised.)
“Alicia,” Kalinda starts. She gazes into the depths of her beer bottle, and she’s so, so pretty swathed in white cotton with her damp, loose hair. “Are we…?”
There were so many ways to end it… are they okay? Forgiven? Together? Absolutely crazy?
There’s so much Alicia doesn’t know anymore, even after all this time.
But there are some things she does.
“Good,” Alicia responds quietly. “We’re good.”
Kalinda glances sideways at her, gives a tentative smile, but is worrying the label off the bottle and there’s something else there. She says Alicia’s name again, soft, and it hangs between them.
“There are things about me that people don’t know. And I don’t know if I can… if you can…” She’s never sounded so hesitant. Alicia’s never felt so terrified.
Alicia had asked her for honesty. She somehow instinctively knows that whatever might pass the gates of Kalinda’s lips right now is the reason for everything… the reason for the person Kalinda is, the reason she has the name, the reason why she lives as she does and why, ultimately, she broke Alicia’s heart.
If she knows this, she knows everything. There’s no more just friends, or just sex. They will be… something else. Something more.
Everything.
The past two years roll through Alicia’s mind at rapid-fire pace. Tequila and “traditions” and covert smiles across the courtroom, betrayal and coldness and you slept with my husband, restless nights spent pushing this woman from her mind and hating her for her beauty, for just being able to do that, for being cold and stoic except when she’s not, except when her face tells Alicia too much and it makes her feel like her heart can’t hold any more.
She thinks of Kalinda’s tears after Alicia had first made her come. She thinks of Kalinda’s laugh, after she last did.
Alicia extends her hand; Kalinda takes it, eases into her and settles in the cradle of her body.
“Tell me,” Alicia murmurs.
Kalinda talks. And Alicia listens.
The shoulds wash away.
--
Author: sweetjamielee
Fandom: The Good Wife
Pairing: Alicia/Kalinda
Word Count: approx. 5,000
Spoilers: through S2 finale
Genre: Romance, some angsty remembrance
Rating: M
Summary: In time, that hurt and doubt and fear get washed away. Otherwise known as The Shower Fic.
A/N: When canon began getting rather depressing for Alicia and Kalinda, upriserseven requested some nice, simple, non-angsty K/A smut. I started to oblige, and then the muse demanded I show how they got to the place of nice, simple, non-angsty smut. I officially fail at PWP.
Thanks to my beta threeguesses , who puts up with A LOT of my whining and is very reassuring and is my favourite with a U.
TWO IMPT. THINGS:
1. GUYS. TGW Summer Ficathon is debuting next week. Get your prompts ready.
2. Remember that thing where I talked about Kalicia on the radio a few weeks ago? IT HAPPENED AGAIN. I DID A FINALE POST-MORTEM WITH threeguesses . LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN right here.
--
It’s been a long week. Actually, a long month - well, year.
It’s been a long lifetime. And Alicia Florrick is trying to wash it all away.
There’s something renewing about it; the water and the steam and the warmth tranquilizing the tension from her system and helping her to not think so damn much.
Maybe she should be thinking more.
She hears a noise from somewhere out in the apartment; freezes. The kids are with Peter and she’s not expecting company. When she sees the dark form through the shower’s frosted sliding door, her heart slams in her chest. Her “hello?” goes unanswered, and there’s an instinctive war between identifying the intruder and protecting her own nakedness. In the end, she yanks the shower door open just a few inches to reveal her guest.
“Jesus. You scared me to death.” Alicia lets out the breath she’s been holding, and opens the door a bit further. Her forearms cross and cover her breasts, and it’s silly to hide after… But it takes some time to overcome the strangeness of talking to a fully-clothed person when you are naked.
“Sorry,” Kalinda conciliates, but her small smirk says that getting Alicia’s heart racing was perhaps exactly her intention. “You really should lock your front door while you’re… busy.”
Alicia thinks she did lock the front door, but even if she did, such things are no match for Kalinda Sharma. She tilts her head and examines the other woman, deciding to come out with the obvious. “I thought we decided to… take some time. So I can only conclude you came here just to give me a heart attack.”
Kalinda shrugs, gaze tracing up and down Alicia’s mostly-exposed body. “Figured one visit wouldn’t hurt. There’s beer out in the kitchen.” Her eyes finally meet Alicia’s. “I could leave, if you’d like.”
Alicia drops her arms; watches Kalinda’s pupils dilate. It makes her feel powerful, even when it’s Kalinda who’s doing the teasing. And God, they were supposed to not do this for awhile, they were supposed to take time to understand what it all meant. But…
The yes’s and no’s click back and forth like a metronome. The water runs, and Kalinda waits. She’s so coy, so cool, and the thing about it is that now, Alicia knows better, and she knows the chance Kalinda took by coming to her.
Alicia forgets about the shoulds.
“Get in here,” Alicia orders.
Kalinda’s slow, pleased smile tells her it’s the right answer.
(Five sessions in, the new therapist that Owen made her go to pointed out that she talked more about Kalinda than she did about Peter or Will, or the men she’d been going on casual dates with. Two sessions after that, he pointed out how sullen and quiet she’d become since the observation, refusing to even mention Kalinda’s name.
Alicia disliked therapy. Strongly.
The thing was, Peter had been mostly out of sight aside from communication about the kids, and she and Will - their one hour of ‘good timing’ had resolved more between them than she ever could have hoped. Where she’d worried there would be complication, awkwardness, mixed feelings - all there was, was relief and a sense of calm. Unfinished business, finally complete.
But Kalinda was just… there. Always. Being really very helpful, calm and cool when Alicia looked her way in a manner that used to infuriate her, but now just made her ache.
Except when Alicia turned from her, there was something she swore she saw on Kalinda’s face, out of the corner of her eye.
Session number nine, she argued with her therapist that there are some things you shouldn’t even try to forgive; got angry when he didn’t argue back. He told her, ‘I’m more interested in the wants, than the shoulds.’
She stalked out the second those fifty minutes were over.)
Alicia turns back to rinse out her hair while Kalinda undresses outside; raises her face to the spray and holds her breath until she can’t anymore and takes a step back. Her body hums with warmth and adrenaline, and she idly runs a soapy washcloth across it while she waits.
This is a thing they’ve never done together.
There’s so much they haven’t done before.
She hears the door open again and resists the urge to spin around. It would be easy to just fall into Kalinda, the way they always do; but Alicia is still a bit huffy over the scare, confused about the change of plans, and she wants to make Kalinda work a little for her affection. Still, a secret smile crosses her lips at the first touch of fingertips feathering over her hips. “Welcome,” Alicia tells her.
“Thanks for the invite.” Kalinda’s body molds to Alicia’s back, arms wrapping around her belly. Alicia can feel the hard points of Kalinda’s nipples pressing against her; she shivers lightly as a kiss is brushed to her shoulder.
“What have you accomplished so far?” Kalinda asks, conversational.
“Before I was… interrupted? Just washing my hair.”
Kalinda takes the washcloth from Alicia’s hand. “Hmm, got here just in time.”
“How do you figure?” she replies with a throaty chuckle.
“You still need to get clean. And I’m very thorough.” Kalinda drags the cloth across her skin, leaving a soapy trail in its wake.
Alicia has no doubt it’s true. There is nothing for a few moments but the sound of falling water and Alicia’s soft sighs as Kalinda washes her; it makes her eyes drift shut, a warmth unfurl in her belly.
She always did enjoy Kalinda’s attention to detail.
(It was the Thursday after session eleven when she went to Kalinda’s office with a purpose. Cases, business, always, but Alicia’d been feeling on pins and needles, and some memory chest had been pried open inside of her that she couldn’t seem to shut.
“My shrink says that I close myself off to aspects of my own experience,” Alicia told her.
It was always hard to tell whether Kalinda’s eyebrows conveyed surprise or confusion or amusement. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“That I talk myself out of feeling things, until those feelings overwhelm me and cause me to act… counterproductively.”
Confusion. Definitely. But Kalinda recovered well. A long pause, before she replied. “I hate shrinks.”
“Me too,” Alicia drew out. She sighed; focused on the large potted plant in the corner of the office. “Drink after work?”
The silence stretched for a disturbing amount of time, and if it were make it or break it they were a hair’s breadth from the latter. Then Kalinda nodded sharply.
Alicia wasn’t sure when dread and relief and excitement had all started to feel like the same damn thing.)
She’s never done well at not being curious; not even when Kalinda’s knowing hands and mouth are making it hard to think.
“So why did you come?” Alicia finally queries. Even before they’d agreed to time - drop-in’s weren’t part of whatever they are doing.
Kalinda pauses in tracing her tongue across the curve of Alicia’s throat, and everything she does feels like silk. “Wanted to see you.”
“Didn’t we see each other earlier at work?” Alicia challenges, surprising herself with her own ability to focus on words when Kalinda is running intrepid, slippery hands over her thighs.
Kalinda takes it all in stride. “Wanted to see see you.”
“I see.” Alicia stops pushing, accepting it says enough, Kalinda’s choice to be here. She looks down her body, watches in fascination as Kalinda’s fingers work. Alicia likes the contrast of their skin together; it reminds her of how different Kalinda is from her. If she thinks about those differences too much she gets unsettled, but when she lets herself go (she’s letting go right now) it feels exciting - like it did in the days when she watched with unbridled curiosity and delight as Kalinda worked her investigative magic in ways Alicia never would have considered or thought to approve of.
Those were the days when things were so innocent, when things between them were so uncomplicated. (Although she knows it was never really uncomplicated. For many, many reasons.) There is very little innocent about the way Kalinda’s fingers behave when they find their way between Alicia’s legs.
(From the beginning, Kalinda had pulled at her in a way that Alicia didn’t always understand.
She couldn’t say it, during therapy, but it wasn’t because she was being contrary. You can’t say things to others that you can’t even say to yourself. Alicia hadn’t even realized that Kalinda was her best friend, until the moment she felt it wrenched away from her heart like so many other false promises; it was clear, self-insight wasn’t her forte.
And there were things that hovered on her consciousness that she tried so hard to forget.
Like how it was by no means her first thought, after everything fell apart; but came later, unbidden, petty and possessive and jealous in a horribly backward way:
‘You’ll fuck my husband. You’ll fuck people, all kinds of people, because you ‘do that.’ But you never, not even once, tried to fuck me.’
Now, what the hell was she supposed to do with that.)
Kalinda moves the washcloth in tiny circles, the wet material rasping pleasantly over Alicia’s clit. A few moments of this and Alicia hears a soft whine; realizes it’s coming from her own throat. There’s the urge to turn around and face Kalinda, see the person who’s touching her, but she won’t disrupt this hypnotic rhythm.
Kalinda cups Alicia’s breast; captures an erect and straining nipple between her fingers. “Feeling cleaner?” she asks, squeezing softly, still circling, circling slowly between Alicia’s widened thighs with the other hand. “Or more dirty?”
The sound of her voice drives Alicia half-crazy. She reaches down, plucks the washcloth away and lets it drop to the tub; cups Kalinda’s hand and forces it to palm her fully. There is a gratifying sharp intake of breath from behind her, the satisfying feeling of warm, slick flesh against her own. “What does it feel like to you?”
Kalinda’s hands are tiny, and angle’s not quite right; still, when she slips a finger inside Alicia, strokes slowly, everything feels tight and full and Alicia’s knees buckle slightly. “It feels hot,” Kalinda breathes. “It feels really fucking hot.” Her thumb vibrates over Alicia’s clit while she fucks her steadily the best she can, and Kalinda knows Alicia’s body, learned it faster than anyone. It’s part of the reason she can’t stop this, couldn’t, even when she wanted to.
Them together like this after all that has happened might be strange and illogical and fucked up, but it feels so, so good in this moment that she can’t even…
(They went to a new bar; too many memories in the old ones, memories that confused Alicia by feeling like sentimental lies. This one was nearly empty.
Kalinda looked around, suspicious, while they waited for their drinks. “Did you bring me here to kill me?” she asked.
Alicia didn’t answer.
They sat silently side by side through two, three, four drinks, sharing space and studiously avoiding looking at one another. By the time Alicia’s words were lubricated enough to emerge, there was a dangerous hum in the air.
“Are you sorry?” she finally asked.
Kalinda didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she chuckled - actually chuckled - down at her shot glass.
A twinge of annoyance. “Kalinda…”
The other woman’s chin rose toward Alicia abruptly, and there was a flash in her eyes. “You have no fucking idea.”
Alicia didn’t flinch at the word or the intensity behind it; if anything, she found them gratifying. Still, it wasn’t as easy as ‘sorry,’ and both of them knew it.
“The thing is, if we try this… you have to be honest with me. Always. It can’t just be me saying things about myself, and you… not. If you can’t do it, tell me now because I don’t even want to set foot on that dead-end road.”
Maybe Alicia imagined the tremble to Kalinda’s hand as she took hold of shot number five. There was quiet for a good long while.
A small leak sprung from her dam of anger and frustration. “What, you just don’t want to?” Alicia lashed out. She squeezed at her own empty glass, wishing it full. “Because if you can’t do it, there’s no damn way that I…”
“I want to,” Kalinda interrupted her. Out of the corner of her eye, Alicia could see her face, and it was more expressive than she had willingly allowed Alicia to witness for months. “I just… don’t want to disappoint you.”
“Then don’t,” Alicia snapped, and she immediately felt bad. This was not a good start to… whatever. Not at all.
Chastised, Kalinda quieted for a moment. Took and let out an audible breath. Spoke very, very softly. “Also. I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.”
Alicia turned her head then to regard Kalinda fully, for the first time since they got here. Their faces were mirror reflections of an exhausted misery; fear of more thwarted hope. ‘We’re pathetic, the two of us,’ Alicia thought.
“Guess we’ll just have to try to trust each other,” she said, and was aware of how foolish and impossible it sounded, and God, why would they even try after everything that had happened. The bartender dutifully brought them more drinks. They both choked them with their grips.
Kalinda was the first to raise hers. “To honesty.”
Alicia looked skeptically to the glass, then to Kalinda’s face. There was a strange mixture of fear and determination.
They clinked them; took the shots.
Alicia had no idea what was supposed to come next.)
(“I think it’s positive that you were clear about your conditions and your needs,” her therapist told her. “It will lay the foundation for a more mutual and equal relationship.”
‘Shut up,’ she thought. But she just smiled and nodded.)
The precipice Kalinda brings her to always seems steeper and sharper than any other; Alicia’s intimidated by the fall, needs it anyway.
“Don’t stop,” she grinds out, knowing Kalinda won’t but some irrational part of her mind always convinces her anything that feels so sublime will ultimately be plucked away from her. The tickle of the now-lukewarm water rolling down her body, the teasing fingertips playing at her breast, the hot breath coming in small pants against her shoulder - yes, hot, really fucking hot, Kalinda is absolutely right.
“I like this part,” Kalinda whispers, speeding up right before everything shatters. Alicia’s hand has been still resting over Kalinda’s busy one, feeling, not guiding; but at the moment of impact Alicia loses it, has to reach out and catch herself palm-first on the shower wall. Kalinda anchors Alicia to her with her arm; for a few seconds becomes her support, her spine. She does it until the tremors pass - until Alicia finds her footing. The shower is filled with the sounds of harsh breathing and everything is so slippery wet - Kalinda’s fingers are still inside her like they belong there.
A soft, pleased chuckle from behind Alicia. “We might need to…” Kalinda begins, but Alicia doesn’t let her finish.
(Their first few attempts at spending time together were… not good at all. Uncomfortable. Neither of them knew what to talk about, what topics were on and off limits. They stuttered through whole hours barely looking at one another.
It surprised Alicia that Kalinda always showed. It surprised her that she showed, herself. Sometimes she felt downright foolish for it - was she so hurting for friends, that she had to force herself into these awkward encounters with the woman who had so thoroughly betrayed her?
But in between all of this were these moments. Like when Kalinda fumbled for a full five minutes over the account of her noisy upstairs neighbors (as if it were something deeply, deeply personal). Or when no elaboration followed, “I think Cary is feeling… neglected.” (“I’m sorry,” Kalinda said after Alicia’s expectant and confused eyes told her that normally there would be more to this story. “I’m really bad at this.” And it was the understatement of the year.) Alicia would shake her head, that these little things felt such a struggle, but…
In those moments, their eyes would meet across the space that separated them, and Alicia would see something other than the person who hurt her. Because when Kalinda wasn’t trying to be cool and hard, she was just something else entirely, and it was strange and foreign and dammit all to hell, endearing in a way Alicia couldn’t even comprehend.
She couldn’t pinpoint when it started to get a little better. When maybe she even started to look forward to the only-sometimes-successful attempts at reconnecting.
But it did. And she did.)
(Before-work coffee, and Alicia was telling Kalinda about her last date. And it was really a very funny story, he’d been all sweaty palms and Freudian slips, then Kalinda apparently decided it was time for more sharing.
“I sleep with women sometimes.” With zero prelude. Off Alicia’s eyebrows and suddenly slack, then tightened jaw, Kalinda added, “Not always.” She shifted as if her chair had become harder, more unforgiving.
“O-kay,” Alicia replied after a few beats, blinking, looking for eloquence. Therapy had not prepared her for this.
Kalinda was glancing everywhere but her. “That’s the kind of thing people like to know about each other, right? Friends. About… relationships.”
Alicia had a momentary loss for words. She was thinking, ‘you really are bad at this.’ She was thinking maybe it was too early to be completely okay with knowing anything about Kalinda and sex, together. But she was feeling just…
Kalinda was trying. She was trying so hard.
If Alicia didn’t say something, it might be an eternity before either of them attempted true emotional honesty again. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “I hope if you start to… date someone, that you feel comfortable talking to me about her. Or… him. If, you know… it’s not a woman.”
Kalinda did look at her then, sharp and skeptical, and Alicia realized how ridiculous was the thought of it ever being anything other than uncomfortable. Despite it, Kalinda nodded slowly.
“I’ll… try.” She took a breath; let it out. Corrected herself. “I will.”
Everything was so awkward. Everything was so strange.
Alicia smiled in spite of herself.)
(Once, Alicia had asked Kalinda if she were gay; Kalinda had asked her why it mattered, and it didn’t, it didn’t matter at all.
Except now, knowing… she was finding it hard to sleep at night.)
Alicia breaks free and turns; doesn’t waste a beat before driving Kalinda to the far shower wall (out of the spray, but the water’s getting cold now anyway, and they don’t need the pretense of it anymore). Kalinda sucks in a breath at the piercing cold of the tiles at her back, and she’s gloriously exposed. Alicia wants to touch her everywhere.
“So you just like to come molest poor, vulnerable women in their showers?” Alicia teases, still half-breathless from her orgasm. She trails a still-soapy finger down Kalinda’s body.
Kalinda tips an impish face up toward her. “A little, yeah.”
Brat.
Alicia hooks a finger under Kalinda’s defiant chin, nudges her legs apart with her knee; Kalinda immediately takes the hint, widening her stance and allowing Alicia’s thigh to slip between her own. Barefoot, Kalinda’s much shorter than her; leaning down to kiss her isn’t entirely comfortable but Alicia wants the flavor of her mouth - new and familiar at the same time, like a secret she’s always had on the tip of her tongue but only now allowed to pass her lips.
They kiss without finesse; Alicia’s was lost earlier to Kalinda’s fingers, and Kalinda’s is fading quickly as she rides hard against Alicia’s slick thigh and makes tiny noises in the back of her throat. There’s that sense of power again, heady and intoxicating.
Kalinda breaks the kiss with a gasp, buries her face against Alicia’s shoulder and wet hair. “Mmm. Oh God. Oh fuck.”
The water grows icy at Alicia’s back while Kalinda comes. Alicia’s never cared for cursing, but when Kalinda does it it’s the best kind of pornography, and this is more fun than she’s ever remembered sex being.
(In retrospect, it wasn't surprising that after Kalinda’s impromptu attempt at openness, the rest didn’t take very long. Truths had a way of spilling one after the other in quick succession, and with awareness came an inability to stop thinking about it.
A week later and Kalinda was picking her up, they were supposed to have dinner but before they left the apartment Alicia said her name, almost too quietly to hear, but Kalinda always did.
Alicia wanted to ask her why… why Peter, Donna, Cary, her little blonde P.I. friend, maybe even Blake, God knew who else… why them, and not her, never her. It had circled her mind, a carousal of morbid curiosity that wouldn’t let her off.
But she couldn’t, it was all too stupid and crazy and revealed too damn much. “Never mind, “ she said, shamed, but Kalinda was looking at her like she knew, like she knew exactly the things on Alicia’s mind, and what’s more her face held all the answers to those questions.
“Alicia,” she murmured. “I just…” She put her hand on Alicia’s arm, and why did she have to touch her?
Their eyes locked; refused to disengage for uncomfortable seconds. And Alicia tried to disengage. She sensed danger, reeled; instinctively tried to see the woman who fucked without feeling, who lied, because that woman she could turn away from.
But she couldn’t. All she could see was this Kalinda.
Kalinda leaned in; seemed to think better of it. Withdrew. She started, “Maybe we should…”
Alicia kissed her then, like jumping fast in a cold pool before you change your mind. For a frozen moment, nothing.
Then, everything.)
(She was still clutching Kalinda’s shoulders when they finally pulled apart. Kalinda looked dazed in a way Alicia had never seen, disbelieving. Her lipstick was worn off, and Alicia realized it was probably all over her own face.
“We can’t do that again,” Alicia said, even though it had been her own damn fault, and there was a traitorous wobble in her voice. “Not while…”
“I know,” Kalinda agreed faintly. Not while things were so uncertain. Not when they weren’t even sure if they could ever really be friends again, let alone…
But restraint was easier when there wasn’t tangible evidence of how Kalinda’s mouth would taste.)
(“Are you sure? Are you sure?” Kalinda asked nine days later, back in Alicia’s place and a tremble to her breast while Alicia fumbled ungracefully with the clasp of her bra.
Alicia didn’t say anything. She also didn’t stop.
Kalinda cried after that first time -- no noise, just silent tears. Seemed embarrassed; fucked Alicia again then, hard, as if to make up for it.)
(There was no way Alicia was telling her therapist about this.)
When it’s over they are both soaked and freezing and shivering, taxed legs trembling to hold them up. They brush their foreheads together, meet each other’s eyes; begin laughing at their own ridiculousness, the utter unbelievability of them like this. In these moments, it’s hard to remember why they ever thought they needed time.
Alicia feels silly (but not foolish). Kalinda’s breathless giggle is lovely to her, and right now she doesn’t care if they ever find their way to dry land again.
Laughing at all once seemed like an impossible thing, but laughing together is a small miracle.
“Come on,” Alicia whispers, disentangling their legs and gently prying Kalinda from where she’d melted to the wall. “Before we cause a flood.”
Kalinda smirks, puckish even in her satisfaction. “Earthquake instead?”
Alicia takes it as a challenge.
(It wasn’t as uncomfortable during the in-between times as Alicia would have thought. There was a rhythm to their conversations that they rediscovered; adjusted to make more mutual. Sometimes they parted with tentative and wistful smiles. Sometimes one of them lingered as if gravity had momentarily increased its pull - time pulsing like a question mark cursor. The answer to it was nearly always yes.
That part was easier not to talk about.
Kalinda was unexpectedly pliant after sex - her body took the shape of Alicia’s, her fingers tracing skin and stroking hair. There were times Alicia wanted to escape… it felt too honest. More honest, even, than the taste on her tongue as Kalinda came against it.
One night, after Alicia rolled over and away, long moments passed before she heard Kalinda’s soft voice from behind her.
“I never expected you.”
The silence hung with the weight of history. Alicia thought, ‘You would have run.’ She thought, ‘I would have, too.’
She glanced over her shoulder. “I know.”
Kalinda was studying the ceiling as if it had answers scrawled on it. “If I had…”
“…We wouldn’t be here,” Alicia finished. If she let Kalinda continue, she risked apologies; reminders of her shame. Their shame.
A hazarded glance over. “Do you want to be here?”
Alicia turned fully, contemplating Kalinda’s face in the dim light. Her ponytail lay sleek and shiny against the white pillowcase, she was tiny on the huge bed, and it made absolutely no sense for either of them to be here.
“I want to feel good again.” Alicia knew it wasn’t a real answer, but she wasn’t ready for the rest. She reached out, curled a hand around Kalinda’s wrist. “Make me feel good again.”
Kalinda did.)
They sit on Alicia’s bed in white robes with beer bottles in their hands; they never properly dried themselves and are soaking everything, but Alicia barely notices. The small tv in the corner is on; Alicia isn’t a fan of reality shows but she flips to one just to see Kalinda make faces at it.
“Is this what kids watch now?” Kalinda asks, balancing her bottle on one lovely, crossed leg. “Explains a lot.”
“Right, they should be spending their time engaging in more stimulating activities, like vandalizing the fountain at St. Jerome’s.”
Kalinda turns her head to where Alicia is reclining, propped against the pillows, and gives her a sly look.
It’s so comfortable it’s almost… not. They shouldn’t be easy. Strange, is the idea of contentment weighing heavily upon you. The mischief fades from Kalinda’s eyes, and then they’re both feeling it. They’ve both always felt it.
(They were out having dinner, and it was so much better now… Kalinda was so much better, could talk about mildly personal things without hesitating over them like they were deep, dark secrets. And she smiled, watched Alicia through the thick fringe of her eyelashes and God, she was practically flirting right here in public, and nothing, nothing made sense anymore.
Alicia hadn’t dated anyone in months. She didn’t even want to, and that scared her as much as anything.
“Stop it,” she told Kalinda, whose only offense was running a fingertip around the rim of her wine glass and making Alicia want to take that hand and kiss those fingertips very, very much. But really she was speaking to the intrusive little voice in her mind, one that sounded a little too much like her therapist, that accused her of avoiding - of using sex to escape the much more difficult task of rebuilding her and Kalinda’s friendship. Off Kalinda’s confused expression, she sighed. “What are we doing?”
Alicia half-expected a flip, ‘Eating dinner.’ But instead: “I thought you knew.”
“I don’t. I really, really don’t.”
Kalinda’s face, which was preternaturally lovely when she was relaxed, registered caution, and Alicia could almost hear it again - ‘I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.’
But instead Kalinda queried, “Should we… take some time?”, and sounded as if she was guessing at the right answer.
Alicia rubbed her temples, and the wants and the shoulds were all mixed up. “We… can try.” She found she hated the words as they left her lips. “We can try.”)
(It was session seventeen when she finally blurted it out.
“She and I… we sort of have… a thing.”
Her therapist looked utterly and completely unsurprised.)
“Alicia,” Kalinda starts. She gazes into the depths of her beer bottle, and she’s so, so pretty swathed in white cotton with her damp, loose hair. “Are we…?”
There were so many ways to end it… are they okay? Forgiven? Together? Absolutely crazy?
There’s so much Alicia doesn’t know anymore, even after all this time.
But there are some things she does.
“Good,” Alicia responds quietly. “We’re good.”
Kalinda glances sideways at her, gives a tentative smile, but is worrying the label off the bottle and there’s something else there. She says Alicia’s name again, soft, and it hangs between them.
“There are things about me that people don’t know. And I don’t know if I can… if you can…” She’s never sounded so hesitant. Alicia’s never felt so terrified.
Alicia had asked her for honesty. She somehow instinctively knows that whatever might pass the gates of Kalinda’s lips right now is the reason for everything… the reason for the person Kalinda is, the reason she has the name, the reason why she lives as she does and why, ultimately, she broke Alicia’s heart.
If she knows this, she knows everything. There’s no more just friends, or just sex. They will be… something else. Something more.
Everything.
The past two years roll through Alicia’s mind at rapid-fire pace. Tequila and “traditions” and covert smiles across the courtroom, betrayal and coldness and you slept with my husband, restless nights spent pushing this woman from her mind and hating her for her beauty, for just being able to do that, for being cold and stoic except when she’s not, except when her face tells Alicia too much and it makes her feel like her heart can’t hold any more.
She thinks of Kalinda’s tears after Alicia had first made her come. She thinks of Kalinda’s laugh, after she last did.
Alicia extends her hand; Kalinda takes it, eases into her and settles in the cradle of her body.
“Tell me,” Alicia murmurs.
Kalinda talks. And Alicia listens.
The shoulds wash away.
--