Chapter Eleven

Happy ever after, after all this time

Oh there's gonna be some ups and downs

but with you to wrap my arms around, I'm fine

Eight years later

Closing his front door behind him, Will takes a deep breath of the scent that's unmistakably home, dropping his suitcase to the floor as he reaches up to tug his tie loose. He's thumbing at the top buttons on his shirt when Grace appears from the living room, the beautiful smile on his twelve year old step-daughter's face when she spots him never failing to brighten up even the longest of days.

"Will," she grins happily, altering her course instantly to one that leads her straight to his arms. "I thought you weren't back 'til way later?"

"Caught an earlier flight," he murmurs, wrapping both arms around her tight. "Good to see you, trouble."

"I missed you," she tells him instantly, her voice muffled by his shirt as her arms press tightly around him, and he can't even bring himself to complain about the sharp corner of her latest novel that's currently pressing into his side. She turned into a little bookworm almost as soon as she learnt how to read, and he's always fascinated to watch her devour three books at the same time without even a hint of confusion.

"I missed you too," he tells her, ruffling her somewhat age-calmed calmed curls before resting his chin on the top of her head. He's not sure that he ever quite imagined this life for himself, but there's nothing better than coming home to his kids, whether it's after a normal day at the office or like today, an extended business trip.

"Daddy!"

He gets only a couple of seconds' warning before a bundle of over-excited three-year-old slams into his legs, her beautiful little face upturned in absolute delight. Loosening his arms around Grace, he leans down to pick up his daughter, settling her on his right hip before carefully hooking his free arm right back around Grace's shoulder to keep her close, having felt the tension that shivered through her body. Chuckling softly, he receives an enthusiastic kiss from his littlest as she babbles his name over and over before burrowing into his arms. Grace reaches out to rest a hand on her sister's back, grinning up at him as she speaks.

"Hey Millie, why don't you tell Daddy how much you missed him?" she murmurs softly. Amelia's little head pops up at her nickname, and she regards him with big, wide eyes that he swears will be his undoing for the rest of his life. Then, as she listens to her big sister, her little arms stretch out in a trick he's sure she learnt from her sister.

She's the spitting image of Grace in so many ways, right down to the shy persona she shows the rest of the world, that it would be uncanny if it weren't for the dark head of long, perfectly straight hair that's so uniquely and beautifully Amelia, and such a contrast to Grace's crazy curls at her sister's age.

"This much, Daddy!" she announces proudly, her little nose wrinkling as he kisses it. Her eyes go cross-eyed as she tries to follow him, and he can't help himself laughing.

"You know you used to do that when you were not much older than her?" he asks Grace when he realises she's noticed the same thing, laughing at the blush that sweeps across her cheeks. "It was just as adorable on you."

"Shut up," Grace mutters, nudging him with her elbow. He laughs a little harder, tightening his hold on her as Zach appears in the hall.

"You two get full credit for the fact that I have any clue how to handle this little one," he murmurs, smiling his greeting at Zach. "Sounds like you had a good game on Sunday, buddy. Sorry I missed it."

"It was awesome," Zach grins, even as something soft and yearning flashes through his eyes before he continues speaking. "Can you come this weekend? Coach reckons we'll do even better."

"Wouldn't miss it," he smiles, bouncing Millie gently in his arm as he lifts his hand from Grace's shoulder, gesturing Zach closer without letting either girl in his arms loose. He squeezes a hand at the back of Zach's neck when he gets close to his sister's side, the closest he can manage to a hug. "And I spoke to Diane earlier, cleared a family outing to Saturday's game if you two can handle a day out with me and your mom?" he continues, speaking to both his eldest. He gets twin, albeit slightly muted exclamations of joy, before Millie turns her face up to him, excitement flashing behind the tiredness in her eyes.

"Ball, Daddy?"

"Yeah, baby. You wanna go to the game?" he asks softly, already knowing the response he'll get. His little girl is already just as much of a baseball fan as he turned Zach and Grace into all those years ago.

"Game!" she shouts excitedly, bouncing in his arms as she proves his point.

"Mom's going to kill you," Zach notes astutely. "She was chilling out on the couch before you got back, now she'll be a nightmare to put to bed." His stepson isn't wrong on that point, and he chuckles his agreement. He already knows he'll be the one putting Millie to bed tonight though – it's one of the reasons he caught an earlier flight after all – and he can't bring himself to mind.

"Where is your Mom anyway?" he asks, settling Millie against him as he glances through to the living room. There's one more, very important person he needs to say hello to.

The one person who made all of this possible.

"She's right here," she says not a second later, her voice floating out from the kitchen as she walks into the hallway, clad in a pair of leggings teamed with a pale blue sweater that he knows is as soft as it looks falling off one shoulder. Even – and especially – after three children, she looks absolutely incredible to him. "Hey, stranger," she adds softly, her standard greeting when he's been away on business making her smile as she pads across the open space to him with a gentle smile.

"Hey yourself," he murmurs, grinning against her lips when she reaches up on her tiptoes over their daughter's heads to give him a kiss. It's sweet and quick and not at all the greeting he really wants to give his wife, but it'll do for now.

Plus, the warmth in her eyes suggests that he'll get a hell of a greeting later, if he's lucky.

"How about we let Will make it further into the house than the front door, guys?" she asks, waiting until they disengage from him before she hustles her eldest back into the living room, letting her hand trail over Millie's back as she turns back to him. "How was New York?" she asks softly, her hand lifting to his cheek as her thumb dusts underneath his eye. "Have you eaten?"

"New York was good," he murmurs, leaning in to kiss her again, lingering a little to feel her smile. "Ate on the plane, but wouldn't say no to a cold one."

"Coming up," she murmurs without hesitation, her fingers grazing his jaw as she pulls them away. "Mil, you want some milk baby?" she asks softly, dusting a kiss against their daughter's forehead when she nods sleepily, burrowing into Will's chest. "Zach was wrong about one thing," she murmurs softly, "this one'll be out like a light now that she's in Daddy's arms." With that, nudging him in the direction the kids took, she heads back through to the kitchen with a trail of her fingers over his shoulder, leaving him wondering all over again just how he got so lucky as Millie roots even deeper into his embrace.

He finds Zach and Grace sprawled over either end of the large sectional couch when he walks through, heads down in a video game and a book respectively as the TV plays quietly in the background. He chuckles to himself, dropping into the middle corner with Millie in his lap and feeling his daughter give him all her sleepy weight as he thinks back over quite how this became his life.

It hasn't been easy, the road to this beautiful life that they've created.

About a year after Alicia had re-appeared and, along with Zach and Grace, changed his life completely, Peter's conviction was overturned. Two months after the trial, her divorce from Peter was finalised.

Two months and one day after the trial, he finally discovered exactly what he had been missing out on ever since Georgetown, with her in his arms in her bed for an entire night. Somehow, it was even more special for waiting.

From that night on, the only times they spent the night apart in the next six months were when he spent three nights in DC on a case, and when Alicia spent a night in the emergency room with Zach, who was sporting a broken arm and a concussion. That night, Will spent in Alicia's bed without her, but with a tearful and confused Grace tucked into his body.

Six months on, he was moving in for real.

He asked her to marry him six years ago. Zach and Grace went with him to pick out the ring, and they were also there when he got down on one knee in the middle of their living room, bouncing excitedly on their little legs because they both knew what was coming.

He didn't just ask Alicia to marry him that night. He also asked Zach and Grace if he could be a part of the rest of their lives too.

It was the most perfect night of his life, but the six months that followed couldn't have been further from that. Newly re-elected as States Attorney having fought to re-gain his public image, Peter had turned the news of their engagement into the basis for a campaign to bring Will before a Grand Jury on charges of judicial bribery.

He still doesn't know exactly what it was that Alicia said to Peter behind closed doors that lead to him dropping the case before an indictment was handed down, but he does know that, as he faced the end of everything he had worked for before Alicia and the kids, he will owe his career to her and to whatever she said for the rest of his life. It still sits pretty damn high on the list of things that he will never be able to thank his wife enough for, topped only by his beautiful daughter and the two wonderful stepchildren he thinks of as his own.

He and Alicia got married two months later in a quiet ceremony. His family, hers, Diane and Kurt, Kalinda and Cary. Grace resplendent as flower girl, Zach in his grown up little suit standing next to him as his best man. Alicia looking the most beautiful he had ever seen her, stunning in an elegant ivory dress that contrasted starkly with her gleaming, dark hair. It's the look in her eyes that he remembers more than anything, though.

Five years ago, with offices due to open in New York and business exceeding his wildest expectations, Lockhart Gardner officially became Lockhart, Gardner and Gardner. It wasn't a surprise to anyone, not because they were married but because Alicia had proven herself as the only candidate for the job. Her success rate in court consistently rivalled both his and Diane's, and had been eclipsing her fellow partners since she stepped into the position.

Alicia and Diane have grown close over the years. He and Alicia were honoured to stand as witnesses at her wedding to Kurt a mere few months after their own, it was Diane who offered the named partnership to Alicia and it would later be Alicia who would ask Diane to be Amelia's godmother.

As two of the most important women in his life, he still to this day finds himself stopping short when he finds them sharing a glass of wine after a successful case. It's normally Alicia who spots him first in those situations, his wife holding a hand out to gesture him in with a gentle smile.

It took a year of house viewings after she became partner for them to finally exchange contracts on the perfect family home they had been searching for. He still remembers walking into this very room and standing rooted to the spot, Alicia's hand in his as the kids raced for the sprawling back yard, and realising that this house stood for everything he hadn't known he wanted and never thought he would get.

He and Alicia hadn't needed to exchange a single word before he turned to the realtor and told her they would take it.

Four months later he would thank the heavens that they did just that, as he sat on the edge of the bed in their brand new bedroom with his eyes trained on his wife. And as Alicia stood in the doorway of their master bath, holding the little white stick that would change his life yet again, he would realise that there was nowhere else he would have wanted to spend the two most terrifying minutes of his life.

She wasn't planned, and he didn't even know she was a she at the time, but as a tearful smile broke across his wife's face and she launched herself into his arms, he already knew that Amelia was the only thing missing from their lives.

Eight months later he found himself staring down at the tiny pink bundle of Amelia Grace Gardner in his arms while Alicia slept in the bed next to him, wondering how in the world he would ever keep something so perfect safe.

When the door was nudged open and he saw the faces of the children he'd already managed to have a hand in keeping safe for six years, he realised that he probably had a better head start than most new fathers. Alicia had stirred at the change in atmosphere, her body exhausted but her mind still on high alert, and Will remembers tipping his head towards their mother and encouraging Zach and Grace to move, the concern for their mother radiating off their young bodies far outweighing the eagerness he could see to meet their new sister.

As Zach and Grace raced towards their teenage years, Amelia wrapped him around her little finger with little more than her big, soulful eyes and her absolute joy every time she caught sight of him. And as she surged into her own toddler years on unsteady legs with his name on her lips, he found out that the best thing in the world was coming home at the end of a long day with his wife's hand in his to the sounds of a busy family home and a pajama clad toddler darting towards them.

Samantha had been replaced by Louise who had handed the reins over to Katie six months before Amelia was born, and their nanny was nothing short of a godsend as he and Alicia worked to balance their responsibilities at LGG with their absolute determination to miss out on as little of their family as possible.

At the same time, Peter had worked hard to put the scandal of almost ten years ago behind him and, more importantly, to regain his place in his children's lives. Having won his second term as Governor of Illinois and basing himself primarily in Springfield, he sees his children regularly and with the exception of the scandal that he tried to rain down on Will and on Lockhart Gardner in general almost six years ago, their relationship with Alicia's ex-husband has been relatively drama free.

Peter (or his secretary) remembers to send a gift for Amelia's birthday every year, and he and Will have learnt to be civil to one another when an event in the children's lives places them in the same room. Last he heard from the kids after a weekend with their father, Peter was seriously considering a presidential campaign, and Will still marvels at the fact that men in politics seem to have their sins forgiven, when he suspects the same may not be the case for women.

And although the kids have a good relationship with their father, he definitely won't deny getting a kick out of the standing date he and the kids have for the next available baseball game whenever Zach and Grace return from Springfield. It always reminds him of the morning after they first night they spent with their father again all those years ago, and he realises that he must find time to tell them that story, the next time it's just the three of them at a game.

All in all, life for the Gardner-Florrick family was pretty perfect.

That was, until the events of six months ago.

Six months ago, when he got shot in a courtroom on a Wednesday afternoon, trying to disarm his client before he could take any more innocent lives. It was without a doubt the most horrifying experience of his life, and he knows that he's lucky to be alive. He also knows that, despite his torturous recovery, he's lucky that all he really remembers is waking up in a hospital bed some fourteen hours later. Alicia is the one who has to live with the truly horrific memories of those fourteen hours that still give her nightmares even now. Zach and Grace are the ones who still hold on just a little bit too tight and a little bit too long when they get back from a weekend with their father in Springfield. Just like they did tonight, the first time he's been gone from them for more than a day since he returned home from hospital.

He's just grateful that if they're lucky, at two and a half when it happened, Millie won't remember a thing as she grows up.

Back at work for just six weeks after the bullet tore through his left shoulder and came dangerously close to ending his life, he's lived through a gruelling four months of recovery and rehab that's tested each and every one of them to their limits.

And he came so close to losing all of this.

A shiver slides through his body, and it's the feel of Alicia's fingers settling against the back of his neck, cool and familiar and comforting, that drags him back to the present.

His wife has incredible timing.

"Stop, now," she whispers quietly, her fingers scratching lightly into the hair at his nape as he tips his head back to look at her, standing behind the couch juggling a beer bottle and sippy cup in her free hand. Somehow, she always knows. He's lost count of the number of times she's drawn him out of his own thoughts over the last six months, comforted him when he jerks painfully awake in the middle of the night from yet another nightmare.

Of course, he's comforted her through her own fair share of those, but that's what marriage is about. Sickness and health. Good times and bad.

Sweet dreams and nightmares.

They've had their fair share of every extreme.

Pressing an upside down kiss to his lips, she hands over his beer before rounding the couch to settle into his good side, her fingers gently sweeping the hair away from Amelia's face before helping their daughter get a steady hold on her cup, their faces close together. "Oh it's good to have daddy back home, isn't it Mil?" she murmurs softly, her thumb stroking the little sleep flushed cheek as Amelia sucks her milk down in earnest, eyes wide and focused on her mother in total agreement.

His daughter is so very, very like Grace was in these moments, quiet and sincere and trusting, and as he glances over to find Grace herself watching them over the top of her book, he feels his mind race back through a thousand memories all over again.

The first baseball game he took them to, when Grace let him hold her for the first time. The first time she fell off her little bike without the training wheels, and went flying straight into his arms for comfort rather than her mother's. The night of Peter's re-election when he insisted his children be there and Alicia insisted right back that they wouldn't be there without her and she wouldn't be there without Will. Grace fell asleep in his arms before the votes were even counted.

Zach's seventh birthday, when Diane finally helped them fulfil his dream of a party at the aquarium, and he'd looked up at Will and Alicia like they were the best people in the world. The pride he felt the day Zach made his middle school baseball team, and the way that was eclipsed in a heartbeat the first game they won.

He came so close to losing a lifetime of those memories with Millie. So close to losing the memories that he knows are still to come with Grace and Zach.

"Will," Alicia murmurs softly, her fingers cool as they touch his jaw. "Hey," she adds quietly, rubbing her thumb against his lips for a moment before dropping her hand to rest gently on his shoulder.

"Hi," he breathes softly, turning his head so that he can brush his lips against her forehead. Her lips turn up into a gentle smile, and she curls her legs beneath her, knees nudging against his thigh as she settles.

"How was the flight?" she asks softly, reaching out to catch Millie's cup as it threatens to slip from her fingers before tilting her head back up to study him, concern gently etched over her features. He knows she's thinking back to the lengthy phone call they shared his first night in New York, as he lay in a strange bed waiting for the painkillers to kick in after the surprising discomfort of his flight.

She'd been exactly what he needed even halfway across the country, and he can't help himself leaning down to kiss her.

"Not as bad," he tells her softly, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Took some painkillers before I boarded which helped," he adds, flashing her what he hopes is a reassuring smile to support his words. His body is tight and aching, but there's none of the searing, unexpected agony that almost brought tears to his eyes two nights ago as he lay there wishing his wife was by his side.

He knows she felt just as helpless that night, too.

There's an all-knowing shine in her eyes as she studies him, suggesting that she knows more than he's letting on, but she just rests a hand on Millie's back and leans over to kiss his cheek before her lips settle close to his ear.

"Well why don't you take this one up to bed, and then maybe you'll get your choice," she murmurs softly, for his ears only. "Bath, shower or a rubdown." Two nights ago, she had spent the worst twenty minutes softly describing how she'd help if she was there, which involved those three ideas among a whole host of others, and even through the tears that had threatened he had found a smile crossing his lips. "Or," she whispers, catching his attention again, "whichever combination will help you get a better night's sleep."

"Two and three, as long as you're there for both," he answers instantly, feeling her soft laughter against his cheek. Just the thought is nothing less than heaven, and she already knows that it was part of what got him through the last two days without her there.

"You got it, babe," she murmurs back indulgently, pressing a kiss to her daughter's cheek as they notice that she's already asleep in his arms, before starting to move away. He curls a hand at the back of her neck before she can, guiding her lips to his and taking time to show her his gratitude without words.

Grace is grinning while Zach looks mildly disgusted when he lets her go, and he finds himself chuckling at the flush on Alicia's cheeks, leaning over to press a kiss to Grace's hair before standing up with Millie in his arms.

Turning in the doorway before he heads upstairs, he sees Grace curling up at her mother's side, book abandoned on the couch. Zach's game console lies abandoned at the other end of the couch, the TV remote in his hand as he settles closer to his mother and sister.

Pressing a kiss to Millie's forehead, he finds himself grinning as he heads upstairs, basking in the way his family have always been able to soothe him, even before he could really call them his family.

Life on the other side, on the inside of his amazing family?

It's all he'll ever need.

fin.

Author's Note: so this is the end of this magical little journey! It's a little bittersweet because I have absolutely loved writing this universe, but this was exactly where and how I always planned to end this story. It would be so easy to go on writing forever, there were so many stories to tell, and I did consider it. However, my life has gotten a whole lot busier than when I started the story and I just don't feel like I would be able to do the characters justice. So, they get the ending that I always planned for them, and I hope that you agree with me that it's the happy one they deserve! A massive thank you to everyone who's read and enjoyed and loved this world I had so much fun creating, and please do let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: as usual, they are not mine. I just borrowed them for this lovely little AU journey. I also borrowed some lyrics from 'When You Got A Good Thing' by Lady Antebellum for this particular chapter.