A/N: Yes, I know. You were expecting something longer, but I said it was going to be 4/5 chapters and here we are with the sixth and final one. I hope you will enjoy it and thanks for sticking around until the end 3
The first time it happens to be in New York City.
Alicia had dropped the hint she would be there to meet a client and kept her word. Wisely enough she arranged the business meeting on a Friday, so she and Will can make good use of the entire weekend ahead of them.
Comes Friday night, her whole being melts and squeals both in anxiety and anticipation for what she has hopeful trust is a new beginning. Their boilerplate dinner goes exactly as it should; quick and loaded. They've already done far too much damage with words over the last weeks. Any talk about mergers or contracts of any kind is tacitly banned, drown in chilled Cabernet and smothered with persuading kisses. Reality is a thing they'll deal with when its time comes. And that time is definitely not now.
Now is for avid hands ripping off pieces of clothing in the dim moonlight of Alicia's hotel room; now is for exploring lips and tongues rubbing up pined-for skins, morbid curves and solid muscles. Their fingers retrace established paths that were - and will be - never forgotten; they run through the hair, titillate hidden spots and sensitive edges of their bodies. Alicia gasps, breathing harder when he fills her with all the passion he's capable of. The way he lingers inside of her, adjusting to her, it's a pleasantness she'll never weary of. Their breaths get uneven and louder, pulsing rhythmically with each thrust, until the climax steals and holds hostage their last sigh, leaving them consumed and appeased.
That night they refuse to let go of their physical connection. The comfort that each other's proximity provides is a reassurance they'll both be still there in the morning. Same bed. Same familiar scent of love, sex and bare skins. Same placid heartbeats and faint breaths.
In the peace of the morning after they can pretend this weekend is forever. With delicate kisses, Alicia wakens and tickles the man lying by her side. She watches him raise a smile, still in the half-sleep, and thinks that this is exactly how she'd love every day to begin. Her hands venture, from his cheek down his neck, slide down his chest and halt, holding and teasing with a wicked grin the evidence that her morning call was successful. His hands rise and move to brush her hips, the soft roundedness of her ass, then with firmness he lifts her on top of him. He makes a joke about being hungry and she teases him, offering herself as his very special breakfast.
/
The second time falls a week later in the coldest day of Chicago's winter, but in spite of what weather forecasts might have to say, it feels unusually warm.
Alicia decides to wait for Will at the airport. Because that's what a couple does, right? Bring down the time apart. Blended in with the crowd, she basks in the sight of people hugging and kissing, waving goodbye or leaving alone. It's something she never really took the time to do; just stop and stare.
She beams when a familiar figure comes into sight, and surprise pops on Will's face at the unforeseen cordial welcome. A lingering kiss, knees going weak, heads spinning. Her hands rest on his chest until the loudspeaker announces the next boarding and reminds her of their surroundings.
That night, as sleep is late and she lies awake in bed, she wonders where this is meant to go. If it's meant to go somewhere to begin with. It's one year of denial that got annihilated in one single night. Lying prone, her eyes commit to memory the pleasant view, until her gaze encounters his and she realizes he's awake as well. Her embarrassed smile is returned with a soft one, as his fingers move to delicately caress her arm. His mouth opens but fails to put into words whatever is crossing his mind. His eyelids look heavy, but the tenderness behind them tells her that whatever it is he's holding inside, it can't be bad. And if this is a foretaste of how this year – hopefully more - is going to look like, she considers that maybe it was worth eating a slice of humble pie and taking the first step. But when she thinks of the after… No. She doesn't want to think of it. She doesn't want to think of anything that isn't their now. She leans closer, places a delicate kiss on his nose, then cocoons herself against his warm skin. Her next thought remains unfinished, she drifts asleep before it can shape up.
/
The third time is the one she wants to forget and the one she probably never will.
The LG party was meant to celebrate the merger. But the only celebration she now remembers is their utter ineptitude to communicate.
For the days to come, her mind flashes bits of that night; the palpable tension, the taut interactions, the subtle jabbing from a couple of associates. The mudslinging machine seems to work without breaks among them. It was taken for granted they would give her a good run for her money, and likely not only in a metaphoric way. But this was a mean step beyond.
She remembers one too many glasses of champagne, she remembers Will storming into the elevator, followed closely by that guy. Robert? Richard? She should remember the name of Will's partner in New York, but no, it's one unnecessary detail that had to go. And he didn't make it to the elevator in time anyway. Apparently bad timing has another victim. And then… she can't say who started it, but everything that was meant not to be tackled suddenly came home to roost, thundering in the wait for a taxi. And it happened way too soon, neither of them capable to take the blame for something they couldn't understand yet. They had no idea what exactly they were to each other, to which extent people were allowed to know or to be kept in the dark. Because their months together the first time around had taught them that if clandestineness can sometimes be a double-edged sword, going out in the open – whether intentionally or compelled by the events - can be a triggered gun.
She remembers sitting the next day in her office, her old one, because the one thing she had known from the very beginning of this crazy journey back here was that she wanted to be back behind those glass walls that held so many memories and so much significance. Her absent gaze alighted on the growing pile of papers, her mind tried to figure out what she should do while realizing that this was exactly why she had left. Her plea for Cary to not say anything when he walked into her office was wordless but nonetheless very explicit. In the quietness of that late working night, her faint concentration is broken by a discreet presence walking in and by a bottle of cool beer landing on her desk. She smiles at Kalinda and accepts the offer.
/
At first she thought there wouldn't be a fourth time.
For the first bunch of days that followed the party, she consumed her sanity weighing the reasons of this failure, until eventually she put all the reasoning past her and plunged deep into her work.
But the two weeks of silence probably made them slowly cool off and get over the worst part of their argument, so when one Saturday morning her doorbell announces an unexpected visit, she is not completely unprepared. She lets him in without uttering a single word, only with the plea in her eyes that all this crazy mess is worth it. She sits and listens with outward calmness to his apologies and mentally jots down to do the same once his speech is over. She knows he's happy for her, but deep down inside it probably hurt him too for reasons she doesn't have a hard time guessing. If they want to make it work, there is a whole load of solidified issues to tear down first.
When the breaks within sentences become longer and longer, she knows he's laid all his cards on the table and now expects her to lay hers. It might not be her best hand but it's all she has, and somehow she makes it work. She's not used to them fighting and making up. All the previous times always ended in the same way; with her running the opposite direction, cursing herself, slapping her image in the mirror. Burning every possible bridge to the ground.
This time she has nowhere to run. Will is standing in her living room, in her apartment and he definitely looks in no hurry to leave. Words take heart and start to flow, incoherent at first, more daring as her thoughts seem to unravel, surfacing and finding their way out more easily. It's more straining than any keynote speech.
But the silence that falls again between them once she's done feels somewhat different. Frazzled to the marrow, but freed from that cloak of fear to see their house of cards collapse on them. A silence that neither of them dares to break for a long while. The only sound is the rustle of the couch creasing under Will's weight as he moves closer and holds her.
/
It's late spring and Chicago is a feast of stars and stripes by the time she braves the topic.
To say in the last few months they have complemented each other would probably be reductive. Like a well-oiled mechanism, they adjust to the beat of their back and forth, work to turn the distance from an enemy into a friend with all the means they are given. And there are times in which she thinks it's fun, even exciting. They sure know how to keep the stoke alive and burning hot, and to fuel the anticipation.
The days apart definitely make those spent together more intense with each week, but at the same time, they start to blaze fast and not suffice. The separations get tormented, sometimes painful in a physical way. The rumble of the plane taking off starts to deafen her heart, and the knot in her stomach getting tighter and tighter tells her that the time has come to change the rules. She fears a fall that would be too late to avoid anyway. She needs a certainty. And in a moment of resolution, she brings up his contract.
Come back. She doesn't word it but they both know her request is implied.
His silence lasts longer than her fortitude can take, his sigh sinks its teeth deep into her hopes. There are things I need to fix, first.
And she's not sure if it's good or bad, but for her own sanity, she wants to believe the first. Then fix them. She doesn't beg, or plead. It's a firm request.
I will.
And he does.
/
When the plane lands in a snow-clad Chicago, she smiles to herself. He hates the snow. And it could even turn into an avalanche that it wouldn't take away anything of the happiness brimming from his eyes as their looks meet in the airport's traffic. Her mind doesn't start the excruciating and unconscious countdown to the next plane leaving. This time he's here to stay.
That weekend they stay apart. She gives him time to settle back, waits impatiently, struggles to curb the tingling of happiness.
Comes Monday, her steps lead her through the LG hall, trailing the once accustomed path to his office. And he's there. With her coffee mug in her hands, ready to be sipped, she frames him from behind, as he's intent on setting some books in the bookcase. With slow, meticulous movements, he places them one by one, definitely unaware of his silent spectator. She tilts her head lightly to the left and smiles. In amusement, in gladness, in all the reasons that make the image in front of her right.
It's very early in the morning, most of the associates won't be here for another hour at least. She glances at Diane's office. Her camel coat is not yet hanging down her hat stand, a sign that she's not arrived yet. Noiselessly, she takes the few steps still separating her from Will's office and knocks gently on the jamb to warn him of her presence.
He halts, the last book still in his hands, then smiles.
"I wanted that seat but they told me it was reserved," she jokes, as she walks further inside and puts the mug on his desk.
And there was a time in which these words hurt both, a time when he would believe them, a time when probably she thought them, too. Only briefly.
His nod is amused, but she can already read in the slyness behind his gaze that the payback won't delay. She watches him setting the last book in its place, then moving closer to her. His features are tensed in a pretended gravity but the glint in his eyes betrays him. It's something that will never change. Like the subdued, restrained smile that illuminates her face as he stops, only inches away from her, that feeling of confidence and intimacy, of tacit understanding. "It's good to have you back," she whispers.
He's back where he belongs, in every possible way.
"It's good to be back," he agrees.
And there is some sort of déjà-vu in those words but she can't remember if they were already spoken in some previous life or if it's just her mind tricking her. Not that it matters.
His return is celebrated with clinging mugs toasting to their lives finally being exactly as they should.