Title: She Changes From Day to Day

Fandom: The Newsroom

Pairing: Will/MacKenzie

Rating: K+

Summary: The night after Charlie's funeral, Will and Mac have their first opportunity to be alone with their news.

Notes: I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to help myself for a while. Once a baby becomes canon, my brain is a crowded place for other thoughts to live.

It's been a very long few days. Few weeks, few months. Few years, if he wants to get poetic, but all he wants right now is to sleep. They've just collapsed into bed about six minutes after getting home from the broadcast, too exhausted to do anything but change into pajamas and lazily brush their teeth.

Will just got out of jail and Charlie died and Mac's been promoted and…

"Oh, my God, you're pregnant," he says sleepily, reaching a hand under her (his, technically) T-shirt to rest against her still-flat belly.

"Welcome to Thursday," she lilts.

"I still have so many questions."

"Go for it." She props herself up on her elbows, touched when he scoots up to follow her, lifting up her shirt to her ribs and pressing a couple of reverent kisses to the place where, just inches below, their baby is growing.

"Do you have a doctor's appointment yet?"

"Monday morning, 8 AM. She squeezed me in."

"Will we get to hear the heartbeat?"

"She said they're going to do an ultrasound, so if the heartbeat is strong enough, yes."

"It will be," he says, like he's some kind of expert. "Of course our baby's going to be loud."

"Our baby," she whispers. It's the first moment all day they've had to be alone with this reality, and it is sinking in in the warmest way possible.

"Next question." He smiles into her skin. "Are you happy?"

"I'm so many things," she says, running her fingers through his hair. "I'm happy, I'm overwhelmed, I'm terrified – I'm quite proud of my old eggs and your ancient sperm. I'm nervous about what's going to happen when Pruit finds out. But, yes, I am very happy."

"Me, too."

She watches him for a moment or two, as he strokes his hands along her skin in absolute awe, before she swears, "Billy, you're going to be so good at this."

He can't meet her eyes when he asks, "Do you really think so?"

"Yes. This baby is going to be a very lucky little monster." He looks at her now, eyes soft and warm, overwhelmed with affection. "I feel like I am a very lucky little monster." He doesn't push her to expand, but he crawls up beside her now and lets her lean her head on his shoulder. "Women my age aren't supposed to get pregnant by accident."

"Other women your age aren't married to me."

"Yes, you're very pleased with yourself, aren't you?"

"Well, I do sort of feel like I've done my duty to the species. But mostly I just love you. I want to do this with you. I want to raise a family with you. It's been so long coming, MacKenzie. So long. And just finally … here it is."

"Here it is," she says with a watery grin. The day is settling in her heart, the mixture of sadness and joy and confusion. It's enough to make her well up in an instant, thinking about how different their life was even a week ago. Even sixteen hours ago.

He wipes the tears off her cheeks and kisses her, just as overwhelmed. A baby. A son, maybe. Or a daughter, with MacKenzie's sharp cheekbones and determined eyes. Both would be terrifying and wonderful in their own ways, full of opportunities to teach and guide and scar. He thinks he might prefer a daughter, someone he doesn't have to teach how to be a man, then wonders if that thought is cowardly.

He has seven months to figure it out. Also:

"Are we going to tell the baby it owes its existence to running out of condoms in a blackout?"

She nudges him with her shoulder like he's stupid. "No, we're going to tell the baby it owes its existence to Charlie Skinner."

He smiles again, that wistful look across his face that breaks her heart a little.

"I was thinking earlier about something Charlie said to me a long time ago – that having kids was worth the challenge, that maybe I wouldn't be terrible at it. Looking back on it, he'd probably already gone and hired you behind my back. He probably had this whole scheme" – he gestures to the two of them, the baby, the apartment – "planned out from the get-go. And now he's not here to see it pay off."

"Will, Charlie got to stand up for you at our wedding. He got to see you do three years of broadcasts we were all proud of. The baby would've just been the frosting on the cake." She touches his face, still so glad to be able to do that after 52 days of sleeping alone.

The under-construction apartment had felt like an adventure when they were here together, like roughing it, or as close to roughing it as the two of them would ever have to come. They'd eaten dinner on top of the coffee table and argued over backsplash tile and when all of that was over and there was no electricity to watch TV, they made love in the darkness. With Will sleeping beside her, breathing deep and loud, she didn't ever miss her nightlight.

Once he was gone, it just felt empty. Random furniture and empty walls and cold sheets. Sleepless, worry-filled nights and hating the backsplash tile he let her choose and eating alone. It's only now that she realizes she wasn't totally alone.

The baby.

"Oh, my God," he says, again surprised. "You're not going to be my EP anymore."

"Yeah, that one was news to me, too."

He moves his hands away from her and goes back to work mode. "What's the transition plan?"

"There is no transition. I'm starting Monday."

"I have to find a new EP in 72 hours?"

"No, I hired one for you."

"Who?"

"Jim," she says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Is that – do I still not have contractual approval over my EP?"

"Unfortunately, honey, you gave that up when you renegotiated. Why? Would you have done anything different?"

"I guess not."

"We can go through the motions of it looking like you make decisions, but you'd make my new job a lot easier if you just appreciate that I always do what's best for you," she teases. "Jim's going to be great."

"I'm going to hate it at first."

"I already warned him of that fact."

"I feel like I just broke in my current EP."

She laughs. "Yeah, you did a lot of molding me to your ways."

It's funny, as he looks back on the last three years – there was never really anything he could ultimately deny her. From the moment she held up that pad, he's been hers to shape and mold. And although he likes to grumble about it, he's more than happy to be at her mercy. Because she does know what she's doing. And frankly he likes the person he is now.

He feels like she's made him more patient, more approachable. She's softened his edges and sharpened his mind, made him slower to yell and quicker to compromise. And now she's making him somebody's father. If he does turn out to be a good dad, it'll be because of MacKenzie.

"So I know we have a busy few years ahead – but once you're settled and people forget I spent seven weeks in jail, let's get away from here for a while. Have an actual honeymoon before the baby comes."

"Nowadays they call that a babymoon."

"No, we're not calling it that. Saint Croix, the Maldives, Cabo – somewhere warm and quiet and far."

"I could get behind that plan."

"Bikinis…" he says, like it's an afterthought and not his primary motivation.

"Well, we'd better go sooner rather than later if you want to see any bikinis. I've heard these McAvoy babies are humongous – I have a feeling I'll be bigger than a house by Christmas."

"Do you have an official due date yet?"

"No, but … February. Sometime in February."

"God," he whispers, to no one in particular. "Everything is different than it was this morning."

"Yeah, but … we're gonna be OK. We're all going to be OK."

And for the first time in a long time, he really believes that.