A/N: I don't... know where this plot bunny came from, but it demanded to be written. I had hoped to have all of it written before I left to move back to school (which happens in T-minus six hours at this point) but real life intervened, so I'm posting it in halves. If move-in goes smoothly, I should have Part II finished in the next few days, along with Chapter Two of Paterfamilias. The title from this song is taken from the Civil Twilight song of the same name, which inspired this fic so you should all listen to it.

Thanks as always to Meg and Pippa for being my Red Team.

PART ONE: THESE ARE ONLY WALLS

On day three Jim finally brings her laptop along with him to the hospital. The doctors said you need to rest, he told her on days one and two despite her protests, as if being stuck in Landstuhl and thousands of miles away from the story wasn't upsetting enough.

The real pain—she thinks, or would think if she could get her thoughts to settle—is the slow burn of morphine through her veins, the conflagration catching the hard and careful layers she's cultivated these past few years. On day three she suspects that all of her is catching fire, her body lying still like kindling on her hospital bed. She needs to work, to distract herself before she thinks on anything too hard for too long.

There has to be something she can do, even from here, even though the whistleblower piece has to be trashed.

Another thing. Another failed thing, but at least she only hurt herself this time she thinks, ignoring the three strata of wrinkles in Jim's forehead, how nervously he sits in the chair next to the monitors clipped and taped to her.

But MacKenzie barely remembers the stabbing at all.

Opening her computer on the rolling table that she's gingerly maneuvered to rest over her lap, she swallows down against her pounding heart. Her laptop whirs to life after the longest rest she's given it in months, and she only has to re-type her password twice before her clumsy, medicated fingers get the keys right.

Immediately, she's barraged by a deluge of emails. Well-wishers, colleagues, higher ups at CNN, and the flat-out nosy. But only one causes a spike in her heart rate on the monitor.

Ignoring the flare of pain in her middle, she clicks on it.

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
6:51 AM on Oct. 18 2009

Mac—

I just wanted to say that I heard what happened, and I hope you're recovering well.

—Will

She's desperately underwhelmed and shakingly overwhelmed at all once. The time stamp is only from a few hours ago, the middle of the night in New York City she thinks, refusing to count backwards on her fingers to make sure. He must have debated for days to send this. Or not, she thinks again, more cautiously. He probably just doesn't care; he hasn't replied to any of her emails or voicemails, after all.

Swallowing hard again, she opens a reply:

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
8:58 AM on Oct. 18 2009

Thanks. I'm recovering as well as can be expected, with my injuries.

—Mac

She's skimming an email from someone she worked with at NBC when she's alerted to another new email.

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
9:06 AM on Oct. 18 2009

Glad to hear it. What exactly are your injuries? Whoever's running your end has kept the details locked up tight from the wires.

—Will

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
9:16 AM on Oct. 18 2009

Are you sure you want the gory details? And that would be James Harper, my AP, who's running our end. And Molly Thompson, my assistant, but I've made her head out to Stuttgart to get us something to work on in the meantime. Our cameraman Danny is holding down fort in Islamabad until I'm discharged.

—Mac

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
9:19 AM on Oct. 18 2009

When have I ever shirked away from the gory details?

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
9:37 PM on Oct. 18 2009

Well, Leno. (That's what the guy from Vanity Fair called you, right?) I've got a six inch nasty thing going up the left side of my stomach. By the time we landed in Landstuhl (I was initially stabilized at an international hospital in Islamabad, before the Marines we were with ordered a Medevac) I had developed a clotting problem and wound up losing about five feet of intestine. I'd have to ask Jim which one, but that breaks his "no worrying" policy for me so I'll have to ask you to forgive me for keeping you in the lurch.

I'm… okay? Pretty stoned. What I can remember is that the nice Navy surgeon has me on 10 mg of morphine every four hours. I'm more uncomfortable at the moment than anything else, although I've been assured that as soon as they start weaning me off the good drugs that I'll be in a lot of pain. Mum and Dad would be here, but the news gave Dad palpitations and his cardiologist wouldn't clear him to fly, which makes me feel extra-special terrible.

It's nice to hear from you. I miss you. (And Erin Andrews, seriously?)

Why haven't you replied to my emails, she almost writes. Almost apologizes again, almost tells him she still loves him. She may be out of her mind on opiates, but she knows not to go there unless Will brings it up. He hasn't answered her in years for a reason.

His reply takes a while, and she reminds herself it's the dead of night in Manhattan, and he's probably just gone to bed.

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
10:10 AM on Oct. 18 2009

I think Leno and I like being employed, for what it's worth. And I'm sorry to hear about your dad. I know you're probably both even more miserable that you should be right now. But I'm glad that you have someone with you, at least. Even though google is telling me that he isn't old enough to drive a car at night, and the other one you listed only exists on a blog.

You are more than forgiven for keeping me in the lurch. But Jesus fucking Christ, MacKenzie—five feet of intestine? I worry about 'd better be planning on staying in bed for a good long while, although if I know you you'll be dragging your team back into the thick of it as soon as you can get away with using a tripod as a crutch. Please don't tell the good doctor to take you off the good drugs too soon, crazy lady. I know you think sitting down can be a sign of weakness, but take it easy.

It's not because of the drugs (or not just because of the drugs) but her head is spinning. I worry about you, he wrote, hiding it between two ordinary sentences like he was saying nothing at all. Still, Mac thinks. There's no indication that he's read her emails at all. He just heard she was stabbed and dropped her a line, like the dozens of others.

One NBC executive had even joked she should give up her position as an embed and come back and do something with less of an occupational hazard for the best in the business. Emails, all from the same people who'd tried to convince her to stay in New York, stay in the country, at least. You're wasting your talent, he'd written to her two and a half years ago. Give me a call when you come home, I'll give you a job.

Back then she hadn't had the words to explain that Will McAvoy was the only anchor she'd ever want to EP for. It's an awful story, trite and cliché, but he was her first, after she'd clawed her way up and won her first Peabody and Charlie had taken notice of her. He's a little hard to handle, Charlie had told her, walking her through the bullpen shortly before broadcast. His current EP went home with a stomach virus after he didn't like the look of the final rundown, but Miss McHale, I think you can give Will a run for his money.

Brian had dumped her two weeks prior and she'd walked into the control room with a facade of self-confidence singularly propped up by adrenaline and the freshly-minted award in her new office and got Will to indict the House for refusing to consider overturning more of the Patriot Act.

And for two years, that was that.

Fingers hovering over the keys on her laptop, her thoughts collect and then scatter, collect and then scatter. She has no idea what to write to him, and sighs heavily when—

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
10:35 AM on Oct. 18 2009

Anyway, it's past 4 AM here so I should go to bed. Hang in there.

—and shuts her computer to try to nap before the surgeon is supposed to come by around lunch to check her stitches.

He doesn't sleep. It seems pointless to even try; he hasn't been able to sleep since the news alert that a CNN reporter had been attacked while covering a Shia protest came down the wire. By the time the identity of the reporter had been confirmed, along with the fact that the reporter would survive, he'd already opened the file in his email account he'd ordered a former assistant to funnel all of Mac's emails into.

He'd been too angry to read them, or maybe too afraid, if he's honest or just because of the indecent hour, and he deleted all of her text messages and voicemails on sight.

But then the hours between the wire reports on her condition grew, and fear had lit up his nerves, exposing them raw. What if MacKenzie was dead? Will didn't know what they were, except that they weren't done.

And if MacKenzie died over there…

He read the emails.

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
8:06 AM on July 18 2007

I'm only going to be in the country for eight more weeks, after that I'm travelling to Stuttgart where I'll be embedding with the 3rd Battalion 7th Marines. Not sure which platoon yet. But thus far I've been in contact with a Captain Noah Mason, who captains the Headquarter and Service Company. Apparently they're called the Electric Company…

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
11:48 PM on Aug. 21 2007

Please, Will. I'm leaving the country in a month for god knows how long. I'm… I don't know what I'm doing. You told me to leave the show or you would, so I left. I left ACN, I left Manhattan, I left domestic journalism. You won't have to hear about me. But please, I'm leaving for a warzone and I'm half terrified and I don't have a fucking clue what I'm getting myself into or why I'm doing it and just let me know that I'm doing the best thing for you. I love you, please believe me. Brian was two years ago and I was so incredibly stupid, and I should have known better. But I thought we were just dating, and then I fell in love with you…

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
3:08 AM on Sept. 12 2007

Our flight is in ninety minutes, and I'm sitting in the terminal with Jim and Molly and Danny, my team. I know you're asleep. Or you should be. I wanted to say, one last time on American soil, that I'm sorry and I love you…

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
12:25 AM on Nov. 12 2007

I think I thought I loved Brian. But I know I love you.

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
10:36 PM on Dec. 24 2007

My parents wanted me to come home for Christmas, but they're still asking about why we've broken up and I've told them it's my fault but they won't leave it at that. I'm in a hotel room in Kabul, and Molly's passed out next to me in bed.

I can't sleep. And the only English language channel is playing "It's a Wonderful Life" which I can't bring myself to stomach at the moment. I miss you so much it hurts. I don't think I knew I could be a good person until I met you. Or maybe I knew it, but was so narrow-mindedly focused on my career that it didn't matter. I met Brian so young, and we worked together, and it was convenient and I didn't realize until we starting dating that the reason why I couldn't breathe was because Brian was stepping on my neck. I mean, he dumped me at the Peabody Awards reception. How fucking stupid was I?

You were there. You were there and he hated that I was with you because you're more successful than him, richer than him, smarter than him, more handsome than him. But you're also a much better person than him by several nautical miles and you were perfect…

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
3:12 PM on Feb. 28 2008

I didn't tell you about Brian to break up with you. Before you… I'd never been in a relationship as serious as ours. I'd somehow gotten to thirty without having a meaningful relationship. What I had with Brian was a lot of bad sex and degradation that I mistook for maturity and some ironic sort of depth. And maybe there had been some genuine camaraderie between us, in the beginning, but I should have known by the time he dumped me for the last time that it was toxic. But I don't know. I think I wanted the upper hand. He had rejected me and I was hung up on it and you were there and I didn't think anyone could seriously like me.

But you did, and…

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
12:11 PM on June 2 2008

Well, it's been a year. I still love you, whatever that counts for. And I'm still writing, which is probably pathetic and definitely unwanted and I should stop. I hurt you, brutally. I know that. But I didn't do it intentionally. I would never hurt you intentionally, and I'm sorry.

I love you, Will. I hope you're doing well…

And he scrolls through them again, picking and choosing which ones to reread, not even planning to attempt going to bed at this point. Her most recent email is from two weeks ago, right before the escalation of the level of violence at the protests.

He doesn't know what he should feel.

All he knows is that he doesn't want to contemplate what it'd feel like if Mac was dead and not wasted off her ass in Germany, recovering, and whatever he's feeling made him unthinking enough to write her an email like there wasn't the Atlantic Ocean and twenty-nine months between them.

But now he knows that this is his MacKenzie. That she's been shot at and teargassed and stabbed across three different countries and that she still loves him.

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
5:16 AM on Oct 18 2009

Thanks. It was great to hear from you, Will.

He doesn't know what it makes him feel, but it gives him pause.

Her nap is cut short by the surgeon coming early to poke and prod her and leave her in more pain than when he first stepped into her hospital room. Jim heads out to grab her something edible for lunch and exhaustion tugs once again at her eyelids, dragging her into a medicated sleep.

She wakes hours later, and after Jim forces her to eat at least some of the sandwich he bought her and she, in return, forces him to go back to the hotel for a bit to get some work done, she reaches again for her laptop. Will, she imagines, is done with her. Despite his politeness (which was more than what she could expect from him, or was owed) he evaded her comments about missing him and about Erin Andrews. He's checked in, and now he's done, and seeing someone else.

(Even if she is a bit too young for him.)

But it's good to know that he'd care if she died.

CNN wants an incident report as soon as possible, so she should work on that—even though Jim and Molly said they would write something up she could attach her name to.

Outlook alerts her to a dozen or so new emails since she fell asleep, and at the top of the pile is:

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
4:48 PM on Oct. 18 2009

Yeah, so sleeping was a bust. How are you feeling? (That question is probably going to get annoying, I know.) I just got back from an affiliates breakfast. Charlie kept me from my multiple attempts to fling myself off the balcony of the executive dining room. Thankfully, Leno couldn't make it… okay, I'm clearly tired because that was terrible. (And now I'm imagining you telling me that I don't have to be tired to be terrible, because clearly you've read the article. And since you did read the article, the thing with Erin Andrews was a publicity stunt that ESPN wanted to make them seem more credible, and help her come back from the stalking thing. How dating makes you seem credible I have no idea, but it was good for ratings.)

People were talking about you. At least the ones who know anything about broadcast journalism were. You've caused quite a bit of excitement… I'd imagine there's quite a few headhunters trying to ply you with the luxuries of Manhattan right now and take advantage of your vulnerable state?

Keep me posted.

—Will

She has no idea what this means. Except that he wants her to keep emailing him. And that he wants her to know that he doesn't have a relationship with Erin Andrews. Hesitantly, she begins to type a response.

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
5:04 PM on Oct 18 2009

Ah, yes. I should have guessed it all came down to ratings. I was thinking that the Hugh Hefner look (Ms. Andrews is what? Sixteen years younger than you?) didn't quite mesh with the plaid button ups and Nordstrom's sweaters. And by the way, who's dressing you these days? Fire them, for the sake of your female audience, if you're really concerned about your viewers…

And never wear pinstripes on the air ever again. Thank you.

(Now you don't have to just imagine me taunting you. Although I promise a lot of this is the morphine talking. Writing. Whatever.)

And people can speculate all they'd like. My ass will be back in Islamabad as soon as I can stand upright and hold a microphone. I've got a story to finish. Although what story, at the moment I'm not so certain. The one we were chasing ended me up here, and CNN's called us off the chase for political reasons. And that is… more than I should probably be disclosing to you, from a work account.

Anyway, things are starting to hurt enough to make my eyes cross, which means the kind machine will beep shortly and I'll be high as a fucking kite for the next few hours. I do, however, promise to keep you posted. And how is Charlie? We've fallen out of contact since I've gone abroad.

—Mac

A few hours later, when her thoughts coalesce back into something somewhat cogent, she looks at the email she sent and cringes. Too forward, she chastises herself, too familiar. But his response is long, and considerate, and kind.

Too kind, really, because her eyes burn with tears and she turns her face to hide them from Jim, once again in residence in the recliner next to her bed.

She keeps him posted, warning when she and Jim and Molly return to Pakistan two weeks later that she might not be able to email him regularly.

I understand, he writes.

For the most part, their correspondence remains sporadic. In addition to reporting what CNN wants them to file on, they don't quite stop poking around, trying to dig up sources on the independent military contractors on the ground in Islamabad. But Mac finds she can no longer trust their sources, or herself, stumbling blind in the middle of the night through their small apartment in the diplomatic district, finding solace in the emails that Will sends her at odd hours.

But she needs to finish this story. They've been sitting on the whistleblower piece on the Blackwater presence in Pakistan for five months now. Even if she can't report it, she wants to finish it, if only so the way her stomach pulls and twinges and the way Molly's brash exterior is crumbling and the way Jim follows her doggedly through the streets—if only so it means something.

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
10:21 PM on Nov. 26 2009

You already won a Peabody this year. And an RFK. And like five other things that your Wikipedia page says you've won. Can't you call it quits so the rest of us don't look so bad? Please confirm that you still have to subtract on your fingers...

He sighs, unsure how to respond to her most recent reply. In the hospital she'd been lively, almost manic. But she's become more reserved, self-deprecating in a biting way she's never been before.

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
5:38 PM on Dec. 23 2009

I'm home. Well, my parent's townhouse in Belgravia. I have a room here, though, even if I've only slept here a handful of times. I miss the Alexandria house. My dad is doing well after his scare last month. The doctors have him resting. Mum and Dad have had to cancel a trip to Athens, but they're determined to be chipper about it. I am being deluged with relations, most of whom are fond of reminding me that they haven't seen me since I was at Cambridge. I've mostly been tossing Molly at them, hoping the uncouth American will keep them occupied… not that I've ever been considered particularly English by them, either.

Mum's made me go to bed early so I'm kind of just sitting up in my room, going bored out of my mind. I think I can feel grey matter dribbling out my ears. Are you at Liz's yet? Have your nieces and nephews properly accosted you?

He hasn't gone to his sister's for Christmas since the breakup. Mac had come along, the year before, had teased him in regards to Liz and Fiona telling her that she was the first girl he'd brought home in decades. Had been perfect, really, with his sister's kids fighting for a place on her lap and fended off the prying questions for them.

The year before had been at the Belgravia townhouse—which had been a recent purchase, at the time—with her parents, and they'd spent a week in the room where Mac is holed up now.

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
5:47 PM on Dec. 23 2009

Poor you, being forced to go to bed at a decent hour and sleep for more than four hours in one go. I distinctly remember that bed being comfortable, you know, so shouldn't you be appreciating it while it lasts? Whatever, I trust Scooter or whatever his name is will probably be guarding the door under your mother's orders, making sure you don't try to escape.

I'm not going to Liz's this year. Elliot Hirsch's wife had a baby a month ago so I'm handling the Christmas Eve show tomorrow and the show on the 26th so he can stay home with them. My asshole EP isn't overjoyed, so our new senior producer is stepping in… and will probably be replacing Adrian full time after the New Year. Don Keefer. I don't know if you know of him? He's a bit of an upstart in primetime.

When are you heading back to Islamabad?

—W

He hasn't told Charlie about any of this—just simply walked into work the Monday after Mac was stabbed and nodded placidly while Charlie updated him on her condition like nothing had changed at all. It's not that he doesn't want Charlie to know that he and MacKenzie are back in contact, it's that… he doesn't want Charlie to know that he and MacKenzie are back in contact. If Charlie knew, it'd be biweekly meetings on love and forgiveness, and it's not that he doesn't love MacKenzie—

Because he still does, and he's not certain if he ever stopped.

So he dried himself out until he was brittle and bitter and now he has Charlie and both his staff turnover rate and viewing audience are through the roof and he thought for a long time that it could keep him happy enough, be enough to keep him going. He'd been so angry at her for so long, his anger coming to a pointed rage the moment he calculated the odds that it was Mac who had been stabbed, that of course it was Mac—careless and inconsiderate MacKenzie—who had been stabbed, who could die en route to Germany and leave him short.

Because a small, niggling part of him still hates her for it, but he loves her.

Now this is what keeps him going. Waking up to emails, even if Mac only has the time to send them every couple of days, and sometimes they're only a couple of sentences and sometimes he just tracks her through the stories she files, because all she has the time and energy to send him is: Fuck me. And fuck you, for having a literal desk job.

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
6:18 PM on Dec. 23 2009

Well, I distinctly remember this bed being a lot more comfortable with you in it. I think I'm too used to sleeping on our shitty pull-out sofa at the apartment. And in cars. And on mats. And the ground. I don't know. I haven't been able to sleep since the Green Zone. I did catch up on my sleep in Germany, though, so I should be good for a year or two, I'll have you know.

Liz must be disappointed. Actually, her kids are probably more disappointed. You're their only wealthy relative, so you better have shipped their presents to get there in time for Christmas.

You've hired Don Keefer? I gave him his first summer internship, back when he was doing his undergrad at NYU, in '98. I caught up with him briefly when I was in Atlanta in '07. I remember him as very efficient. No-nonsense. Has an agenda, though, and plays hardball from what I've last heard about him. I remember him as a pretty good guy? A little directionless in his personal life, but aren't we all…

I think my mother intends to make me go to church tomorrow. The last time I went to church the incense put you to sleep and you drooled on my dress.

We're staying in London until January 2nd, then flying Stuttgart for a week to do some work at the UCC.

—M

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
6:39 PM on Dec. 23 2009

Yeah, well, you were the one who was so adamant about going to midnight mass with my family. How you managed to stay awake I'll never know, considering you weren't the one of us raised Catholic. And if I recall correctly, that wasn't the last time I drooled on you that Christmas… never been more thankful that Liz has too many kids to have a guest room. I don't remember much about the hotel where we stayed, except that that bed was pretty comfortable too.

Any bed with you in it, I've found, is more comfortable. But hey, you're the one who's chosen the life of sleeping on shitty mattresses and the ground.

—W

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
10:33 AM on Dec. 24 2009

Shit, Mac. I didn't mean it like that.

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
10:54 AM on Dec. 24 2009

Seriously, MacKenzie. I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't thinking. I just meant that you can come home any time you'd like, or choose to report from Stuttgart or Ramstein or any of those military German cities you kind of grew up in and literally no one would fault you for choosing to work from a place where you're not getting teargassed or stabbed and can sleep in a real bed. You've reported more real news in a day than I have in my entire career.

And, okay. We broke up—it'll be three years in June. We should be able to talk about it without hurting each other, I think. Or at least acknowledge that it happened.

To: wdmcavoy
From: mmchale
11:10 AM on Dec. 24 2009

Honestly, I'm impressed that it doesn't happen more often, considering what I did.

Impressed isn't the right word…

I can't think of the right word. You're too much of good person for "impressed."

To: mmchale
From: wdmcavoy
11:24 AM on Dec. 24 2009

I'm really not too much of a good person for "impressed," but I thank you anyway.

He should tell her, he thinks. That he's read all of her emails, and knows all of her arguments and feelings on the situation, but in a span of twelve hours he's already sent her from making quips about their time in bed together to being too nervous to choose her words so Will thinks he's probably already done enough to her first Christmas with her parents in years.

What they have between them is fragile—perhaps only in his mind, perhaps because he's too afraid to even start to consider that what he and Mac have is, in fact, too strong to be completely severed—and he shouldn't compromise it.

Charlie would call him a coward for it.

But then again, that's the exact reason why he hasn't told Charlie.

Thanks for reading! I've had a hellish week, so comments would be hella rad, but no pressure.