Chapter 8

"Mom? What was that all about?"

Alicia stared at her kids, both walking over and settling on the couch casually. Exhausted, she rubbed her temples with her fingers and told Grace to wait just a moment, needing to get away, even for just a second.

She walked over to the kitchen, took out a glass from the cabinet and turned on the water tap, despite the fact that she wasn't thirsty at all. As she watched the water slowly filling the glass, she mentally kicked herself for being so careless. How could she have not checked if her kids were home?

When her glass was full, and she had told herself numerous times to calm down as the damage was already done, she walked back to the couch, not at all looking forward to the conversation she was about to have.

And she definitely wasn't disappointed, since the second she felt her body making contact with the couch, her daughter started pounding her with questions.

"Mom? Please say something. What was all that about? I'm so confused..."

Alicia put her glass of water down and gazed from her daughter to her son. Under other circumstances, she would have grinned at how easily Zach mastered his poker face; she would have laughed, thinking how it was definitely genetic. Her daughter, however, was all bright-eyed and expectant. And that was why she sighed softly and asked the requisite question for this conversation.

"Grace," pausing, she turned some of her attention to Zach, " Zach, how much did you hear?"

Grace didn't answer, so with a glance at his sister, Zach cleared his throat.

"We heard you talking to grandma, and then with Uncle Owen."

Great, Alicia thought, so basically everything. Admittedly, it was stupid of her, but she had been clinging to the small strand of possibility that her kids hadn't heard as much as she feared.

"Zach, Grace, I'm so sorry. I –" She paused for a second, not knowing what to say. And suddenly she was reminded of how David Lee had laughed at her when she had gotten tongue-tied during their first deposition on opposite sides of the table. Shaking her head slightly, she bit her lip and continued.

"If you heard all of that, then you can probably put the pieces together." She swallowed before saying what she said next, and it hit her that if her kids knew her like Will Gardner did, right then would've been the time they realized she was going to lie.

"That's the whole story."

Alicia unclasped her fingers and risked a glance at her kids. Zach was looking a bit dubious, but he wasn't saying anything. And Grace, Grace just seemed confused, like she wanted to say something but at the same time, didn't. Finally, she opened her mouth and shrugged as if to show she didn't really care, though of course she did.

"Mom, I think…I just want to hear it from you."

"I don't know what to say, Grace. You already know everything there is to this story. There was one kiss between Will and I. It was a weak moment, and I'm really sorry, Grace, it definitely won't hap—"

"What about grandma? She talked to Will? What was that about?" Grace leaned forward and seemed intent on getting a satisfactory answer. But Alicia had no idea how to give her that, and that was why she scolded herself once again for not making sure if her kids were home when she called Veronica.

"You know how your grandmother is, Grace. She just –"

Alicia saw her daughter shake her head, and it was quite obvious that she was ignoring what her mother had just said and had instead, moved forward to a new question.

"But why, mom? WHY would grandma want to talk to Will? I don't get it."

Alicia fiddled with her hands and looked at her glass of water, still full. This was the question she had been dreading all along. How could she answer it truthfully without telling her daughter about the affair? She glanced at Zach, who, not entirely to her surprise, looked like he knew the answer to his sister's question.

Zach was smart, Alicia had always known that. And thus, she had probably accepted the fact that he had some suspicions about the true nature of her relationship with her ex-boss, however inaccurate or different from reality. She'd been relieved that he was mature enough to handle it and had always been quite sure that he'd keep his vague ideas to himself.

And right then, she was incredibly grateful when Zach suddenly sat straight and came to her rescue, saving her from that goddamn question.

"Mom, do you still love Dad?"

Alicia and Zach both knew this question was something Grace always loved to ask, and as expected, her daughter's attention immediately shifted from her previous question to this.

"Yes. Do you, Mom?"

"Well, Grace. You know Dad's done things to hurt me," Alicia paused, and refrained from rolling her eyes. This was her answer each and every time to that question and she couldn't help but wonder if her kids ever got tired of hearing it. It seemed that Zach had made peace with the fact that his parents weren't as loving to each other as they used to be, a few years ago. As for Grace though, Alicia couldn't be sure. Surely, she didn't buy it every single time, did she? It was hard for a mother to figure out exactly what was going on in her teenage daughter's head, thought Alicia.

But before Alicia could continue pondering, her daughter spoke again.

"That was so long ago though, Mom. Now he's Governor and…," she trailed off for a moment and shifted in her seat. "Can't you forgive him? I mean, it's just been such a long time and now things are better, aren't they? Dad hasn't done anything wrong recently, has he?"

Now, Alicia really looked at her daughter and visibly tensed. The answer to that last question would require a straight-out lie, no cleverly twisting around the truth like she did everyday as a lawyer.

So she sighed and as sincerely as she could, said, "No, Grace, he hasn't. It's just…," Quick, she told herself, a pretext.

"It's just that these wounds take time to heal, Grace."

Alicia almost frowned at herself. This was the lamest explanation she'd come up with for a while. She bit her lip, hoping Grace wouldn't sense her insecurity. As much as Alicia didn't want to be dishonest to her kids, she realized then that she would have to get a lot better at this.

She was so busy thinking about this that she didn't even see Zach raise his eyebrows ever so slightly at his mother's pathetic answer. And even if she did see, she would have dismissed it quickly. She couldn't know that Zach had formed an inkling of his own after this conversation, much less that he would do something to settle his mind from this inkling. Alicia Florrick had absolutely no idea that her son could see through her lies almost as well as Will Gardner could.

A/N: I'm so sorry for the late update! I know it's been almost a month since I last updated but I'm trying my best :) I'm moving from Beijing to Palo Alto (a town near San Francisco) so you could say that's been taking quite a lot of my time. I actually just arrived in Palo Alto a few hours ago, and I'm staying at a friend's house at the moment. There's a lot of stuff I have to do here so I can't promise anything either :(

Well anyway, I found the time to finish this chapter on the plane ride here and even though it might be kind of a boring filler chapter, I hope you enjoyed it! :)