Uh. Yeah. I don't know where this came from. The title is from the Jenny Lewis song. Reviews are much appreciated. Especially because I'm not sure if I liked this one. So. Let me know.
It doesn't happen as easily or as smoothly as they both want it to.
The truth of it is that they've been apart for a lot longer than they were ever together, and it's not as simple as just falling back into the old pattern. They can't just pick up where they left off, and if Mac is going to be completely honest, those first few weeks after he proposes and she says yes are a little, well, awkward.
Not the physical part. The physical part is like muscle memory. It's like riding a bike, she thinks. They've always been good at sex, and that hasn't changed.
But everything else is hard. Harder than she thought it would be.
They're still trying to figure out how they fit, and while they are both terrified of failing (they can't, they can't), there are still massive problems that they need to work through.
The ring on her finger was not a magic solution. It was a huge step in the right direction, but a lot of hurt still simmers just beneath the surface on both sides, and they're caught up in the excitement of the engagement, and the stress of the Genoa trial, and it only hits weeks later, during a rare, quiet moment.
Mac's curled up on the couch under a blanket, reading a book, and Will's sitting at his dining room table skimming through various news source, when the doorbell buzzes.
This is not the same apartment Will had when they first dated. His old apartment was smaller and less modern (and sometimes she thinks less cold) than this new apartment is. Sometimes she misses his old place, the worn leather couch, the bookshelves crowded with old law books and paperbacks shoved haphazardly in the spaces in between. In some ways it's easier to be in this new place, starting all over again, it has no old memories seeping through the walls, she has no regrets attached to this place.
It was when they broke up that he started his meteoric rise to the top, and he traded in his old life, his old apartment, for this new shiny one. He's not the same person she dated all those years ago, and when she worries about this, she has to remind herself that she's not the same person she was either.
"Were you expecting anyone?" Mac asks. Will passes the couch and drops a kiss to the top of her head. It's so still so new and wonderful to be able to touch each other whenever they want to, that they both can't help themselves from time to time. Mac always had a pretty strict office policy when it came to public displays of affection, but she still finds her hand migrating towards Will's in meetings.
"No," Will answers, heading towards the intercom. Mac shrugs, and returns to her book. It's so rare that she gets to read for pleasure, and though there are a thousand things she should be doing, she took the opportunity to pull out a much loved and much abused copy of Persuasion while Will worked.
She's thoroughly engrossed when she hears Will step back into the living room, a strange look on his face.
"It's Nina Howard," he explains apologetically. "She has some of my things she wants to drop off that she just found. She's on her way up." Mac's not sure what she's supposed to say or do. They've never talked about Nina Howard. She got the impression that Nina meant more to him than his normal stream of flight attendants and cheerleaders, and she's not sure how she feels about that.
He loves her. She knows that with a certainty that she feels deep in her bones. There are few things that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, and she knows that Will loves her. His fumbling proposal confirmed it, but in the weeks since he slid that ring on her finger, he's done a thousand things to prove to her that he wasn't exaggerating when he told her that he would love her forever (A physical law of the universe, he said. Which is easily the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to her, and that's a pretty tough list because Will can be incredibly romantic when he chooses to be). It's not that she thinks that Will regrets being with her instead of Nina Howard, that's not it at all.
It's that, maybe, if Nina hadn't forced Will to go on the morning show (and what a fucking disaster that was), and maybe if Will hadn't had his epiphany and suddenly (and a little voice seems to always whisper maybe too suddenly in Mac's ear and she bats it away) forgave Mac and realized that neither one would be happy if they weren't together, maybe Will could have stayed with Nina. Maybe even been happy with Nina, or at least content. He would have never loved her like he loved Mac, but maybe he could have loved her a little bit, and maybe even, and this was the part that made Mac ache, he actually did love her a little.
The elevators slide open and Nina steps inside the apartment, and if Mac thought she might look awkward or embarrassed to be there, she was dead wrong. Nina looks for all the world like she belongs there, leaning up to give Will a kiss on the cheek as she hands him the box. Will looks stunned for only a moment before recovering, shifting the box and carrying it over to the coffee table.
"Hello, Mackenzie," Nina says.
"Hello, Nina," Mac answers, and she pastes a smile onto her face, because she'll be damned if she lets Nina Howard think that she's made her uncomfortable. "How are you?"
"Oh, you know, fine," Nina waves a hand. "I heard about the engagement, congratulations."
"Thanks," Mac replies and she can feel the ring on her finger, the weight of it balancing the world a little bit, and she reminds herself that Will loves her, her. For his part, Will looks mildly uncomfortable, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left, and finally dropping down onto the couch next to Mac, placing a hand on her blanketed knee.
"Thanks for dropping that stuff off, Nina," Will says. "Do you need me to walk you out?" And for once Mac is grateful for his bluntness, because Nina is still there, smiling a sickly sweet smile at the two of them, and Mac just wants her to leave so that she can go back to her book and they can go back to their quiet evening.
"No," Nina shoots a wry grin Mac's way. "I know my way." And then she saunters off, the sound of her heels clacking against the marble in the entry, and when the elevator slides shut behind her, Will lets out a huff of air, dropping his head back against the couch, and closing his eyes.
"That was…awful," Will sighs. But he doesn't apologize, and Mac's not sure if she thinks he should, or even if she wants him to, but the fact that he doesn't starts to make her a little angry.
"Kind of put a damper on the evening," Mac agrees, and Will slowly opens his eyes and glances at her.
"That's not my fault," his voice is defensive, and a little bit angry, and the harshness of it startles Mac slightly.
"I didn't say it was," she replies, keeping her voice calm.
"You implied it," he sits up, and Mac's not sure how this conversation got to where it did. She's retracing it in her mind, trying to figure out how she became the bad guy. "I didn't ask her to come and drop this shit off. It's not even shit that I care about."
"Will," Mac tries to be reasonable, but her patience is wearing thin. "I never said I was upset with you that Nina came here."
"But you're upset?"
"No, I'm, no," Mac shakes her head, but it's a lie. She is upset. But in this new relationship (and possibly in the old one too, which might have been part of the problem) she doesn't ever want to rock the boat. She lives her life half afraid that Will might wake up one day and decide that he doesn't forgive her after all. She won't survive that, she won't. It's self preservation that keeps her mouth shut.
"Mac," Will starts, and Mac leans forward to silence him with a kiss.
"It's fine, it is, it's fine, I'm not upset, honest, it's fine," she placates.
"I might have believed you if you hadn't repeated 'it's fine' three times," Will tells her, and then sighs, leaning forward and dropping his head into his hands. "We should talk about this." He doesn't sound too enthused, and the truth is that neither of them is very good at confronting problems. Mac lets out a sigh, and shifts closer to Will.
"Nina was different," she says.
"Yes," Will acknowledges, and Mac's head shoots up in surprise.
"Did you love her?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Will stands and crosses his arms over his chest.
"Why is that ridiculous?" Mac asks, she abandons her book and blanket on the couch. Will is taller than her, particularly without her heels on, but she doesn't like him towering over her right now. She wants to be on equal footing, or at least as equal as she can make it.
"Because I love you," Will answers.
"That doesn't mean you couldn't have been starting to fall in love with her," Mac argues.
"Yes, it does," Will's voice is firm. "I love you so much that there's not room for anything else. I love you so much that I can't imagine loving someone else. If I could have, I would have." And it hurts. It feels like he's hit her, and she gasps and staggers backwards, and to his credit, he knows he's said something wrong as soon as he said it, but he doesn't know how to take it back.
He's always been good at hurting her, and it's a habit that apparently won't be easily dropped now that they're back together. It's a skill that he's not proud of. He hates it. Hates how easily he can do it.
"I should go," Mac mutters. She's thisclose to crying, and she needs to leave. She may have been spending most of her time here, but she still has her own apartment. She still has her own space, and she needs to go before she says or does something she'll regret.
"Mac," his voice is pained, and she shakes her head.
"No, no, I have to go," and she's almost to the door when his hand on her arm stops her. "Will, please."
"I'm sorry, I didn't…I'm sorry," he stammers. "Please don't go."
"Will," she tries, but it's halfhearted, and she's suddenly sobbing, and he's pulling her into his arms.
"I didn't mean it like that," he sighs. "I just meant…I tried so hard and so long to get over you, and I couldn't. All I meant was that it might have made life easier if I could have. Not better though Mac, never better. This? You and me? This is as good as it fucking gets. But I was an angry asshole for a long time, and I couldn't see me ever forgiving you. So I was stuck, making myself unhappy, making you unhappy. I didn't love Nina. I didn't love anyone other than you. I'll never love anyone other than you." He's desperate to fix this. Fucking Nina Howard.
Mac doesn't say anything, and her sobs quiet down to hiccups after a few minutes of Will running his hand up and down her back.
"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I didn't…it was a cruel and thoughtless thing to say, and I sometimes…I wield words like weapons."
"Yes," Mac agrees, and he takes comfort in the fact that she's still pressed up against him, his sweater bunched in her fists and her face buried in his chest. Mac's not the only one who's afraid of fucking this second chance up.
He's not an idiot. Mac was right when she said that she may have hurt him, brutalized him, but she didn't do it purposefully.
All the awful things he's done to her since she reappeared? He knowingly did them to hurt her. He's such a goddamn prick. Brian Brenner. Not telling her what was on the voicemail. The ring. The list is long and brutal.
"I'm an asshole," he admits.
"Sometimes," she acknowledges, but she's calmer now, and he leads her over to the couch.
"This isn't," he breathes out. "This isn't easy."
"No," she says quietly. "Sometimes I feel like we're walking on egg shells, trying not to upset the other person. And that's not right, Will. It's not good. I hurt you. You hurt me back. We got back together very quickly and it's not…we never talked about some of the things we should have talked about." They settle down on the couch, and Will picks up her hand and twines their fingers together.
"You should know," he says. "That I'm in this for the long haul. Nothing you can say will make me want you any less." Mac nods, falling forward into his chest. He wraps an arm around her and kisses the top of her head.
"Where do we start?" She asks.
"Let's start from the beginning," he replies. It's going to be a long night. And he fights the urge to pour himself a stiff drink or light a cigarette. Instead he focuses on her, and lets her breathing calm him down.
"Okay," she nods. "Okay."
They're stubborn, and neither likes talking or confrontation, but this is important, too important, to not fight for. Mac recognizes they made mistakes, both of them, and if they're going to make this work, a ring and a declaration of love isn't going to be enough. She settles against Will and hears his voice rumble underneath her cheek, and she thinks this is progress.