FIC: Live alone, eat your cake [the good wife, kalinda(/alicia), will]
Title: Live alone, eat your cake
Word Count: 700+
Summary: Kalinda chooses.
AN: Written for the We ♥ The Good Wife February Ficathon (prompt: mightbefound, Kalinda/Alicia, all the very best of us string ourselves up for love).
The conflict waiver crumples with a satisfying crunch. Kalinda doesn’t even know she’s going to do it until she does, automatic and out of control. In that moment she hates Dana, hates Alicia and her crisp signature even more. The most surprising thing is the lack of paper cuts; the way Kalinda feels right now, there should be blood.
She’s halfway down the block before she realizes what Dana’s expression was, frozen and etched in the dim light of the bar: surprise. She hadn’t believed it would work, not really. Not until Kalinda walked out.
The night is cold and still. Kalinda’s laugh echoes across the empty sidewalk, jagged and caught in her throat.
(It isn’t Leela’s laugh. Kalinda doesn’t know when that happened.)
You have a tell, Blake’s voice purrs in her ear.
Kalinda stops laughing.
*
Her first instinct: give Will up.
She doesn’t have a plan. When she throws the file at Dana-she doesn’t have a plan. No matter what she tells herself later, no matter how many incriminating papers she’s culled. The house is burning, so Kalinda gets out.
(But. The house isn’t actually burning, and Kalinda knows that. Intellectually, later, Kalinda knows that. The waiver isn’t really actionable, too much money, too much effort, and Peter would never allow it. No matter what, Peter would never allow it.
Kalinda could make sure he didn’t. She knows how.)
So. It just feels like the house is burning.
Kalinda’s real first instinct: panic.
*
Will was the one to hire her.
The interview was tense. She’d done a background on him, and old trick she pulls out now and then when she needs a job fast. You have to be careful. You have to know how to keep it from sounding like blackmail.
(His grip on the baseball tightened at forty-five thousand. And Kalinda was careful-she said “borrowed”, but his knuckles still went white.)
Oddly enough, she'd managed to make him laugh after that. Unintentionally, of course ("And would you want to work for a person who borrows forty-five thousand?" / "Sure. I just wouldn't lend you my car.") but she'd still done it. He gave her the position on the spot, and Kalinda waited three weeks to see if they would fuck. They never did.
(She has a tone she uses just for him now, flatter and harder and quieter all at the same time. It sounds, sometimes, just a bit like Leela.)
“You’re my girl,” he said to her once, Blake still running around kneecapping people. He didn’t meant it. Blake was his point-man then, they had a history, and Will favoured him on cases. But Kalinda was getting nervous, enough to be noticeable, running scared with taunts of Leela following her down the hallways. It wasn’t about the job, but Will couldn’t have known that. So he tossed her a low-key case, one Blake had already expressed an interest in, right there in front of Diane and god and everyone. “Nah, Kalinda, you do it. You’re my girl.”
It was a gesture, Kalinda understands now. Like flowers, and exactly that meaningless.
Remembering that makes it both harder and easier to give him up.
*
She plans afterwards, when it comes out, when Will and Elsbeth start side-eyeing her inside the courthouse. She shrugs at Elsbeth, and takes Will with her up the hallway towards the doors.
“I fucked up,” she tells him. He blinks at the swear and not the sentiment, which is exactly what Kalinda intended. “But-" She squares her shoulders. "We can use it.”
(She would have told him earlier, honestly, except for how disgustingly revealing it all is. She’s tipped her hand, hugely, and now she just wants it all swept under the rug.)
Still: “It was Alicia,” she says. Will nods like that’s explanation enough.
*
Afterwards, they raid his private stash rather than drink the sickly-sweet champagne the paralegals are serving. His office feels more like a fishbowl than usual, dark inside with the lights and noise of the party all around. Kalinda’s heels sink into the carpet.
“You should call her,” Will says, apropos of nothing. “Let her know it’s all over.” The glass is warm from his palm when he passes it over.
“You should call her,” Kalinda fires back. It’s as close as they’ve ever had to a conversation about it, Alicia in her castle and both of them outside the battlements.
“No.” Will looks very serious. “It should be you.”
Later, he makes her dance with him. Kalinda lets him twirl her, just once, because he’s a little drunk and it’s his night. No one’s watching anyway. “That’s my girl,” he says when she haltingly stutters back around.
This time, Kalinda believes him.
Word Count: 700+
Summary: Kalinda chooses.
AN: Written for the We ♥ The Good Wife February Ficathon (prompt: mightbefound, Kalinda/Alicia, all the very best of us string ourselves up for love).
The conflict waiver crumples with a satisfying crunch. Kalinda doesn’t even know she’s going to do it until she does, automatic and out of control. In that moment she hates Dana, hates Alicia and her crisp signature even more. The most surprising thing is the lack of paper cuts; the way Kalinda feels right now, there should be blood.
She’s halfway down the block before she realizes what Dana’s expression was, frozen and etched in the dim light of the bar: surprise. She hadn’t believed it would work, not really. Not until Kalinda walked out.
The night is cold and still. Kalinda’s laugh echoes across the empty sidewalk, jagged and caught in her throat.
(It isn’t Leela’s laugh. Kalinda doesn’t know when that happened.)
You have a tell, Blake’s voice purrs in her ear.
Kalinda stops laughing.
*
Her first instinct: give Will up.
She doesn’t have a plan. When she throws the file at Dana-she doesn’t have a plan. No matter what she tells herself later, no matter how many incriminating papers she’s culled. The house is burning, so Kalinda gets out.
(But. The house isn’t actually burning, and Kalinda knows that. Intellectually, later, Kalinda knows that. The waiver isn’t really actionable, too much money, too much effort, and Peter would never allow it. No matter what, Peter would never allow it.
Kalinda could make sure he didn’t. She knows how.)
So. It just feels like the house is burning.
Kalinda’s real first instinct: panic.
*
Will was the one to hire her.
The interview was tense. She’d done a background on him, and old trick she pulls out now and then when she needs a job fast. You have to be careful. You have to know how to keep it from sounding like blackmail.
(His grip on the baseball tightened at forty-five thousand. And Kalinda was careful-she said “borrowed”, but his knuckles still went white.)
Oddly enough, she'd managed to make him laugh after that. Unintentionally, of course ("And would you want to work for a person who borrows forty-five thousand?" / "Sure. I just wouldn't lend you my car.") but she'd still done it. He gave her the position on the spot, and Kalinda waited three weeks to see if they would fuck. They never did.
(She has a tone she uses just for him now, flatter and harder and quieter all at the same time. It sounds, sometimes, just a bit like Leela.)
“You’re my girl,” he said to her once, Blake still running around kneecapping people. He didn’t meant it. Blake was his point-man then, they had a history, and Will favoured him on cases. But Kalinda was getting nervous, enough to be noticeable, running scared with taunts of Leela following her down the hallways. It wasn’t about the job, but Will couldn’t have known that. So he tossed her a low-key case, one Blake had already expressed an interest in, right there in front of Diane and god and everyone. “Nah, Kalinda, you do it. You’re my girl.”
It was a gesture, Kalinda understands now. Like flowers, and exactly that meaningless.
Remembering that makes it both harder and easier to give him up.
*
She plans afterwards, when it comes out, when Will and Elsbeth start side-eyeing her inside the courthouse. She shrugs at Elsbeth, and takes Will with her up the hallway towards the doors.
“I fucked up,” she tells him. He blinks at the swear and not the sentiment, which is exactly what Kalinda intended. “But-" She squares her shoulders. "We can use it.”
(She would have told him earlier, honestly, except for how disgustingly revealing it all is. She’s tipped her hand, hugely, and now she just wants it all swept under the rug.)
Still: “It was Alicia,” she says. Will nods like that’s explanation enough.
*
Afterwards, they raid his private stash rather than drink the sickly-sweet champagne the paralegals are serving. His office feels more like a fishbowl than usual, dark inside with the lights and noise of the party all around. Kalinda’s heels sink into the carpet.
“You should call her,” Will says, apropos of nothing. “Let her know it’s all over.” The glass is warm from his palm when he passes it over.
“You should call her,” Kalinda fires back. It’s as close as they’ve ever had to a conversation about it, Alicia in her castle and both of them outside the battlements.
“No.” Will looks very serious. “It should be you.”
Later, he makes her dance with him. Kalinda lets him twirl her, just once, because he’s a little drunk and it’s his night. No one’s watching anyway. “That’s my girl,” he says when she haltingly stutters back around.
This time, Kalinda believes him.