Yep. A prompt from Tumblr. The title's from Nina Simone this time, because she's the BEST.
They've been engaged for eight days, fourteen hours, and thirty three minutes, give or take, when they run into Nina Howard.
The ring is firmly on Mac's finger, and her hand is tangled with Will's as they push a cart through the grocery store three blocks from Will's apartment (no, their, apartment. Will asked her to move in on day three, to which she responded with an immediate yes, and to which Sloan remarked, "You two are trying to break every record in the book when it comes to how fast a relationship can move. You've been together three days and already you're engaged and cohabitating," and Mac replied, "Three days and eight years, more or less," which seemed to be enough to shut Sloan up).
Mac decided on day five, when she looked in the fridge and saw nothing but take-out containers and a frozen pizza in their refrigerator that they needed to go out and buy actual food.
"Green leafy things," she explains. "Maybe some fruit." It took three more days for things to die down enough at the office that they could actually leave for a little while between the final rundown meeting and the show to go get the food that Mac had insisted they should be eating.
In the produce section, as Will leans forward over the cart and Mac studies apples with the kind of intensity he thought she usually saved for the news, they hear a throat being cleared behind them, and turn to find Nina Howard.
"Isn't this cute and domestic?" Nina smirks.
"Hello Nina, how are you?" Mac asks politely. Will hasn't seen Nina since he broke up with her in the green room, and although he can admit that he treated both Mac and Nina poorly during that time, he could never bring himself to call Nina up and apologize for blindsiding her with their break-up. It was absolutely the right thing to do, but it was a pretty shitty way to do it.
"Nina," Will acknowledges.
"I heard a rumor about the two of you, guess it's true," Nina says. "Congratulations?"
"Thanks," Mac smiles.
"It's about time," Nina adds. "After all, you left her that voicemail, what? A year and a half ago?" Will sighs internally, reaching over and taking Mac's hand in his and giving it a squeeze.
"About that long, yeah," he concedes. "Listen Nina…" He doesn't want to do this here. Not in the middle of the grocery store, with Mac giving him a slightly confused look, but, to her credit, keeping her mouth shut. "I'm sorry about how things ended." And now he can feel Mac tense slightly, and they've never talked about Nina, not really. They haven't talked about much admittedly, but they've only been engaged for a little over a week. There hasn't been much time for talking, between the Genoa lawsuit and the fact that they had six years of not touching one another, not kissing one another, not making love to one another to make up for.
Nina seems surprised by his apology, and nods a couple of times.
"Let's be honest, I knew better," Nina admits. Out of the corner of his eye, Will can see Mac biting down on her lip, a sign that she's thinking hard. "After all, I heard that voicemail." And Mac looks like she's about to burst, and Will knows he only has a short window of time to get them out of there before things get worse and infinitely more complicated.
"Well, we better go, we have to get back for the show," he says, tugging on Mac's hand.
"It was good to see you," Mac says, her voice having lost some of it's politeness.
"You too, congratulations again," Nina says, and Will can tell that she knows that she's done some damage, and she's proud of it, proud of herself. She drifts away with a smirk, and Mac wheels on Will as soon as Nina's out of earshot.
"What in the world was on that voicemail?" She asks. That voicemail. That damn voicemail. Mac had pestered him about it for so long because she thought that it might be him admitting feelings that he still had for her (obviously that was true, seeing as there's a ring on her finger and every day for the past eight days he's suggested they just run off and elope as soon as humanly possible). But then Nina Howard admitted that all the voicemail said was that Will thought she had done a good job, and Mac knew that, he had told her that, and so Mac had wondered why he had been so secretive about it. She also felt like an idiot thinking that he might still love her when he so clearly had moved on, and she hated feeling like an idiot. Absolutely hated it.
"Not here," he mutters, and she throws a few apples in a bag and tosses it into the cart, and she speeds through the rest of the store so quickly that he almost has whiplash. They drop the groceries off at the apartment and are in the car heading back to the office when she asks again.
"What. Was. On. That. Voicemail?" He sighs, tilting his head back against the seat. "Because I thought I knew. I asked Nina about it."
"You did?" That part surprised him, and he turns to face her.
"I did," she confirms. "I called her to thank her for doing the right thing, and being a reasonable adult about the whole thing and she said she owed me one and I asked if I could cash in on that and if she remembered what was on the voicemail."
"What did she tell you?" He asks warily. He knows that there's no way that Nina told her what was actually on that voicemail. If she had, he would have known.
"She told me that you said I had done a great job with the broadcast that night," Mac answers. Her eyes narrow, and she gets the feeling that she's going to be sorry that she didn't seize the opportunity to throw an apple at Nina's head when she had the chance. "Was that not what you said?"
"Mac, we really don't have time to do this right now," he argues. His driver is pulling the car up in front of the building.
"Fine," she huffs. "But don't think I'm going to forget about it." As if. He knew better than that.
The minute he was off the air, he rushed to his office. He wasn't exactly avoiding her. He knew he couldn't. Not for long at least. They lived together now. He either dealt with this here, or he dealt with it at home. Either way they were going to have this conversation. He just needed a minute to gather his thoughts. And a cigarette. Desperately.
Nina had lied to her. That didn't come as a shock. She had been standing in his bathroom at the time. Maybe he would leave that part out when he explained it to MacKenzie.
"What did that damn voicemail say?" His office door comes flying open and his fiancée is standing there, her arms crossed and a determined look on her face.
"No more fucking around Billy."
"Sit," he instructs and she drops heavily into the chair across from him. "I did say you did a wonderful job that night. Spectacular was actually what I said." He pauses and looks thoughtful. "The first time I asked Nina out on a date she turned me down. She reminded me that she had heard the voicemail that I left you, and she had it memorized, Mac. Word for Word. She said that she couldn't date me because I was still in love with you. That's what the voicemail said. It said not to mention it if you didn't feel the same way, but that I loved you, still. I never stopped."
Mac freezes, a million thoughts rushing through her head, and the first one out of her mouth is, "She turned you down? You? She turned you down? Was she out of her mind?"
"I think she thought that it was a bad idea to date someone who was so clearly hung up on someone else," he explains, reaching for another cigarette.
"Those will kill you," Mac says distractedly, and then she stands, beginning to pace, her arms crossing over her chest again. "I could kill her. And you! Why didn't you just tell me? That was a year and a half ago, do you know how much time we wasted? Do you?" She slams both hands down on his desk and her ring hits the wood and makes a clicking sound.
"I'm sorry, I'm an idiot," he apologizes, stubbing out his cigarette and coming around to her.
"I can't believe you thought that I didn't feel the same way," she mutters as he pulls her to him. She gasps suddenly, pulling back. "Brian! That's why you brought Brian in!"
"I'm an idiot," he repeats.
"I can't believe she lied to me," Mac says. The most romantic voicemail of her life, and that damn Nina Howard got to hear it and not her. Figures.
"I can," Will replies and thinks that the fact that Mac is letting him pull her close to him is a good sign. "I'm so damn sorry. I know I wasted time. I should have just told you what was on there. It was your message, it belonged to you."
"I guess it all worked out," Mac buries her head in his sweater, and he wraps his arms around her and rests his cheek on the top of her head. "But we could have…if only…" She takes a shuddering breath and lets it back out.
"I hate that damn Nina Howard."
"Yeah," he chuckles.
"Let's go home," she suggests. "And you can make it up to me. I have several suggestions." She smiles a crooked smile at him, and he leans in and places a kiss on her lips.
"Deal," he agrees.
"And by the way, don't think we're done talking about Nina Howard," she warns as they leave his office, Will hitting the lights on the way out. "What were you thinking?"
Will pauses and flips the lights back on and grabs the pack of cigarettes from his desk. That is a conversation he's going to definitely need a cigarette for.