Alicia sat on her bed with her head in her hands. She was tired. Tired of holding the strings of her life together as they cut into her hands, heart, and soul. Her family was what was important. She had to make sure they were what was together. Even worse, her seventeen year old daughter was the one sacrificing.

Grace was too young to see the situation as a grown up and though Zach was old enough to see it, he was too wrapped up in the situation himself to cognitively decipher where to put his emotions. He hated his father for hurting his mother, but he was still loyal.

It was Danni that was doing some sort of magical juggling act to keep everyone at bay. To keep Grace from bombarding Mom with questions, to keep Zach from going into some dark hole and never coming out, to keep Jackie from driving them all bat shit crazy and to be sure that Alicia was actually okay. After all, Peter was just her step father. She couldn't wrap her mind around why her strong, beautiful mother would stand there and let this sorry son of a bitch make her a laughing stock on national TV. Danni was the one she who had an out and stayed because she knew that was what family did.

As Danni walked in, she gave her mother a look that Alicia chose not to analyze. "Dad's not doing you any favors at the firm, you know. He respects you. That's why you got the job, not because of me, not because of anterior motives." Then she shrugged a bit. "Plus, he says that you have talent and that's not something many people have in your field."

Alicia took a deep breath and looked at her dark haired daughter. The rain had made that brown mop curl wildly and yet framed her face. She had most of her mother's characteristics but you could definitely see her father in that strong attitude, which was probably the reason she could pull off the messy hair look with a lopsided grin. Still, one thing that Danni really brought to the table that Alicia was eternally grateful for was her fierce protectiveness. Danni would fight for her siblings (and never called them half siblings) even if that meant fighting her step-grandmother (who did not hide the fact she did not Danni or her bastard child status).

Danni sat down next to her mother and rested her head on her shoulder. "Dad said you're doing well, and he wouldn't lie to me. I can tell when he lies."

"Good thing you're not a judge," Alicia quipped, but noticed her daughter was still dressed in her day clothes and hadn't pulled out a pair of comfortable pants or anything like she usually did when she got him. "You going to his place tonight?" Alicia asked opening her arms to her. "And is Grace still fighting with Jackie?"

"Oh yeah. And just so you know, if Jackie suggests Grace needs to watch her weight one more time, I'll start sneaking laxatives in her coffee so she can't talk to Grace when she's here. She'd be in the bathroom."

Alicia couldn't help but let out a small laugh, but Danni shifted a bit. "And no... I'm not going to Dad's... I invited him for dinner..."

Alicia pulled away and stared at her oldest daughter. "Danni-"

The girl stood and held up her hands in some sort of defense. "I invited him. He's my dad and you always said that Peter wouldn't like it if he came over for dinner. Well, he's not here. Instead his hooker is writing a memoir about their experience while Peter is working on his appeal." The girl stopped and looked at her mother. "I want my dad and you guys talk all the time now so don't act like it would be awkward."

Letting out a breath, Alicia rubbed her eyes. "Danni, it's not that I don't want us to have a nice dinner together, but I would like some sort of warning."

Danni stood up. "Well this is your warning. He couldn't come tonight because he had a client meeting, but I would like all of us to have a real dinner since I've never had my parents at the same dinner table as long as I can remember. That's what I ask, and I don't think that's too much. Zach and Grace will probably even go for it."

It really wasn't too much to ask. For a long time Danni asked almost weekly if Will could come over and have dinner, but Peter made it fairly obvious that he would be a step father to her but he did not want anything to do with Alicia's ex. Even when Will invited her over for dinner, because Danni had asked for dinner, just the three of them, Peter made it obvious once again that he didn't want Alicia to have much to do with Will either.

For the last fifteen years, it was Danni that suffered and though she didn't want to seem like she was benefitting from everyone else's pain, she had waited nine months to finally ask the question that had been on her mind for ages.

"I'll think about it, okay? Things are still-"

"Complicated," Danni finished with an understanding, yet disappointed, nod. "It's okay, Mom. Maybe we can all have pizza in Dad's office sometime."

As Danni walked out the door, Alicia felt terrible but it was just one more thing for her to put on her shoulders at the moment that she could barely carry. Still, she followed her daughter's steps to the door and watched her.

Grace was sitting on the sofa reading and Danni could see Zack on the computer in his room. There was always a weird need she felt to protect her younger siblings, Grace especially. Though they weren't really that far apart in age, Danni took her older sister role very seriously.

She looked at Zach. There was a time where they hated each other. He was a disgusting boy and until the last year or two they commonly see eye to eye. More recently however they started to see things much similarly. He somehow turned into a young man, and she was especially proud of how he was dealing with the situation with his father.

"Hey, Danni, can you help me?" Grace said suddenly pulling Danni out of her thought. Grace had suddenly appeared at the island in the kitchen as Danni opened the refrigerator to see what the options for dinner were. Their Mom probably didn't feel like cooking.

"What's up?" Danni asked turning around.

She placed the book. "MacBeth. You're better at this stuff than I am."

Danni fake glared at her sister. "You're good at it, you just want help because you're getting bored."

Alicia stood in her doorway and watched as Danni and Grace worked on her homework. There was no sign of the argument still on Danni's features. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head. Sometimes that girl was a bit too much like her mother. One day, that would break her.

Taking in a deep breath, she walked toward the kitchen. "Okay. How does waffles sound for dinner?"

The Good Wife

Will was sitting in his office, nose deep in a file, when he heard the dramatic sigh he recognized so well. There was something he found hilarious about the way his daughter announce her presence to him. It reminded him a little bit of a younger Alicia when she would come into his apartment at Georgetown. The dramatic sigh and leaning against the door like she had just been through something extremely exhausting.

"I'm ready," he said closing the file and opened the bag. She was in the private school uniform that had the school logo embroidered on the vest as she leaned against the door. She had long legs like her mother, but she was build tinier. She was a bit on the petite side. He just hated dealing with the boys, and he had a feeling she knew that a bit too well. "Let me hear it. What do you want, how much is it going to cost me, and is your mother going to kill me for it?"

Danni glanced behind her through the glass door as she moved deeper into his office. "So, if I killed someone, you can get me off right?"

Will let out a laugh before leaning toward his daughter with his elbows on his desk. "Depends on who and if you had enough reason."

"Well of course I'd have a reason, Dad. I'm not crazy," Danni said with a roll of her eyes only making Will laugh again. She tossed herself down on the couch and then looked at the couch as though it was guilty of something. "Think I could hire a hit man and have Peter killed in prison? I mean, I'd have to become an escort or something to pay for a good hit man, but I'm not against the idea at the moment."

Will sat back in his chair and thought about his daughter's words. "I think it bothers me a little that you'd become a sex for hire before you just asked me for the money."

"Well, if I asked you for the money you may try to take the credit for it too. I want the credit" she said with a small nod like she was really making the decision now. "'Danielle Gardner, charged with first degree murder of her step father after his dramatic sex scandal.'" She shivered and grinned. "Oh how I would love to be the journalist on that case."

"Instead you would be the person standing trial. At the moment we're looking for a deal to get death off the table. It sounds like you're planning a capital murder," Will said starting to feel it a little more serious in the conversation. "What's going on, kid?"

She sat up and rested her elbows on her knees. "If I killed the sorry bastard he wouldn't be able to keep hurting Mom."

Standing up, Will walked over to his daughter. She looked tired and the fact was he hated Peter as much as she did for what was happening to Alicia. More than that, he hated to see Danni pulling herself apart trying to make her mom feel better. It wasn't something that he could keep her from doing, it was just the way Danni was. It was the reason she would wake up extra early to make sure he got breakfast when she was staying with him and made him meals that he could freeze and reheat later. She was just a caretaker.

"You're mom's a big girl," he reminded his daughter. "She would hate to see you like this."

Danni sighed and fell into his shoulder. "It's good to see you, Dad," she muttered.

Will accepted her in his arms and kissed her dark curls as she rested against him. Tears were burning behind her eyes but she was too strong to cry. Another thing she got from her mother. She was a firm believer in the never let them see you cry thing.

"Will, I have-"

Alicia stopped. She and Will did a lot of tag team parenting with Danni, but she had never witnessed Will comforting Danni like that. Really, it wasn't common for Alicia to witness her oldest daughter being comforted. She was the comforter. She picked the pieces up and put them back together for everyone else. There were times that Alicia would wake up and find Danni in bed next to her and Alicia honestly wasn't sure if that was for Danni's benefit or her own.

Then she wanted to kick herself. There were just too many pieces to pick up in her home right then. Will was usually a pretty good rock anyway. He did a damn good job at Georgetown supporting her through mind numbing finals and he didn't run away when she found out she was pregnant.

Danni had immediately pulled away from her father at the sound of her mother voice and took a second to collect herself. Her back was to her mother for several seconds as Will studied her. It was amazing just how much she was like Alicia.

"Hey Mom," Danni said sounding like her usual self, not like the girl that was so close to tears seconds ago. "I was just making sure Dad would get me off for murder if I decided to kill someone anytime soon."

Alicia narrowed her eyes as a smile tugged at her lips. "Hmm. Remember that the words 'premeditation' gets thrown around in the courtroom."

"Exactly why I have you two. Aren't privileged kids suppose to do something that their parents spend thousands getting them off?" Danni asked picking her backpack up and moving behind her Dad's desk and kicking her feet up. Alicia one made the comment that it wasn't very lady like since she was wearing a skirt, but Danni had proudly raised the skirt to show the matching shorts she wore underneath. "There's one in every family and if I do it, maybe Zach and Grace won't. They could learn from my mistake-"

The chair decided to nearly tumble backward and she had to throw herself forward onto her Dad's desk to keep from making a mess of her dad's office.

Alicia laughed. "Smooth. And no. I really don't have time in my schedule to deal with a problem child."

"You could if it was billable hours," Danni sang, knowing the life of the lawyer way too well. She pulled out a large textbook and slapped it on his desk. "By the way, I'm helping Kalinda later and if I keep helping out with your investigator, I want a paycheck."

Alicia and Will both rolled their eyes as they left their daughter, and her attitude (which was a little too much like her father's), in his office. Alicia handed Will the file in her hands. "We're due in court in an hour and don't forget Danni's parent teacher conference is tonight too."

Will groaned. "I hate those things. It's the same thing every time. She's smart. She makes the grade, but she doesn't seem to put in all the effort. She has an attitude about her, but she's polite to the teacher."

"I still like her English teacher that said she had a true talent for writing but a 'sadistic sense of humor'," Alicia laughed just remember the slight discomfort on the woman's face.

"She got that from you," Will said also laughing.

They fell into a silence that had always been comfortable for them. They didn't have to speak. There was always this comfort and chemistry between them that drew them to each other when they were young. It made them fall in love, it made Danni and that was something both of them would never regret.

It took a lot of fighting to get Danni to stay in the private school when Grace and Zach switched to public school because Alicia couldn't afford it. She even turned down money from Will to pay for their tuition. The only reason they fought Danni on it so hard was because she was already a junior, in the top five percent of her class, and she needed to graduate from the school she started. It was important to both of them.

"So," Alicia said as they entered the elevator. "You should come to my place for dinner tonight."

So, I'm not really sure if I'll continue this. If you like it, I will, but I just wrote it on a sort of whim. Anyway, please review.