Author's Notes: I swear I am working on finishing If It All Fell To Pieces, but when writer's block sets in you are grateful when any idea comes into your head, and this was the idea that presented itself. This takes places in December of 2011, so a few months after the season one finale. Starts out a little sad, but never fear there is some Christmas fluff in there. Merry early Christmas fellow Newsroom fans and thanks for reading!
He was fairly certain he had passed pleasantly buzzed about an hour ago and was making his way toward full-blown drunken stupor rather quickly. The yearly office Christmas party had a way of doing that to him.
Finding yourself alone and depressed for yet another yuletide season made the liquor cabinet in one's office look more and more appealing as the evening wore on. He had really thought this year would be different. Ever since August, he and Mackenzie had been working at it. Trying not to poke at each other's more vulnerable spots and even having the occasional dinner in his office at the end of the evening. That was why he was so sure they had an unspoken agreement…until tonight.
Obviously, their mental telepathy was a bit off these days. She had shown up looking ridiculously gorgeous with a man that had to be more than ten years her junior.
Oh, who the hell was he to talk? He had regularly been dating women young enough to be his daughters. Of course, that had mostly been an attempt to piss off Mackenzie. It had worked too… for a while. Now, here she was with some grinning idiot who looked like he'd just stepped off the pages of GQ for God's sake!
Where was that bottle of scotch that Charlie had given him when he really needed it? It had to be in here somewhere. He rustled through the cabinets behind his desk in search of the heavy glass bottle and some ice.
"Here you are!" her voice called out from his doorway, startling him into dropping the empty glass he was holding. It rolled around on the carpeted office floor until it came to rest underneath his desk. He followed its path.
"Will? What the hell are you doing under your desk?" she asked.
"Searching for my dignity. Seen it lately?" he asked sharply.
"What are you talking about?" she came around the back of his desk and lowered herself to her knees, trying to figure out what he was looking for.
That was, of course, the moment he chose to look up right into the tight corseted top of the dress she was wearing and was treated to a lovely view of her cleavage.
"You're killing me Mac" he whispered, trying to direct his gaze anywhere else.
"Excuse me?"
"Could you please get up off the floor?" he begged.
"I got down here to help you up. Give me your hand Will, you're trashed" she replied patiently.
He grabbed her hand and hoisted himself up and into his office chair. She stood and removed her heels and took a seat on the sofa near the window.
"Have you been by yourself in here the whole time getting drunk?" she asked without even directing her head toward him. She continued to stare out the window at the city below.
"Not the whole time. For the first half hour or so I was getting drunk while sitting at one of the associate producer's desks out there" he replied pointing in the general direction of the newsroom. He carefully lifted the bottle of scotch and began pouring another drink into the glass he had retrieved from the floor.
"I really don't think you need any more Will."
"And I really don't think it is your responsibility to tell me how much I should drink."
The staring contest began. She relented and turned away when he began sipping on the scotch.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked wearily.
"Doing what? Sitting alone in my office getting drunk? It seemed like a good idea when I started."
"I'm not sure it will seem like such a good idea tomorrow morning Will."
"Well, you don't have to worry about that any more, now do you?"
"What the hell is going on here Will? Are we back to battling each other with our words again? I really thought we were past all that" she dropped her head into her hands as she said this.
"I thought we were past draping ourselves around other people trying to get a rise out of each other" he snapped back.
"What the hell are you talking about?!"
She seemed truly shocked, he had to give her that much. She really had no clue what she was doing to him.
"That!" he shouted, pointing toward something out in the newsroom.
She got up and padded over toward the glass door of his office in stocking feet. She looked out at the gathering crowd of partygoers, completely clueless as to what he was talking about.
"What am I supposed to be looking at Will?" she asked, perplexed.
"The fucking catalogue model you walked in with Mackenzie!" he shouted.
He watched as she stood silently looking out at the office. Suddenly, her shoulders began to shake and he swore he could hear her giggling. Was she laughing at him?
"It's not funny Mackenzie. I thought we had an agreement?" he pouted. Still she hadn't stopped laughing. She made her way back toward the sofa and collapsed onto it, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other trying miserably to hide her smirking grin.
"It is hysterical William" she managed to get out around her laughter.
"Would you mind telling me what you find funny about this situation?" he asked, taking another sip of scotch.
"First, stop drinking that before I have to get Lonny to carry you out of here. Second, the man I brought here, if you want to refer to it that way, is Jim's brother. He's up from D.C. to visit and I offered to pick him up at Grand Central Station because ACN hired a car for me this afternoon when I had to speak on a panel at NYU. Good God Will, the man has to be nearly twelve years younger than I am and, as you so eloquently pointed out before, I thought we had an agreement."
"I am twelve years older than you Mackenzie. It's not that far-fetched" he replied softly.
"That's different. You and I are different" she told him certainly.
"How? How are we different Mac?"
"Because we love each other Will" she replied, looking him straight in the eyes, daring him to disagree. He didn't…he couldn't.
"Ok."
"So, an agreement huh? Tell me about this unspoken agreement we have Will."
He got up, a little unsteadily, and made his way over toward the couch to join her. She took the glass from his hand.
"I thought you knew I was trying. I thought you were waiting" he mumbled.
"I do know and I am waiting. Now, I think you've had enough, don't you?" she asked. She started sipping the drink instead.
"Trying to catch up with me?"
"Maybe. I think it will take a while though."
"Probably."
"What's wrong Will? You don't get this drunk in public."
"I'm not in public, I'm with you. And I don't know… I guess I thought Christmas would be different this year" he told her quietly.
"Different how?"
"I thought we would have figured it out by now Mac."
"Us?" she asked him.
"Yeah, us. We've had four months to get it the hell together and we haven't" he whispered glumly.
"We've had ten years to get it together and we haven't Will. Why did you think everything would be magically repaired in time for Christmas?"
"Isn't everything wonderful supposed to happen this time of year?" he asked a little drunkenly.
She looked at him in disbelief.
"That kind of thinking is what makes Christmas the single most popular day to commit suicide Will."
"Thanks for that cheery little bit of information Mackenzie."
"Well, I'm serious. You can't expect all the problems in your life to suddenly be repaired or removed by some tinsel and a bit of eggnog. It doesn't work that way. I think Christmas actually tends to magnify everything. If you're happy, then it's a terribly joyous occasion. If your life is a fucked up mess, then you feel like you're the only one out there not part of some Norman Rockwell painting."
"Given this a lot of thought, have you Mac?"
"No…yes…I don't know. Look Will, whatever the hell is going on between us lately was not going to be fixed by a holiday get-together. We need to start talking about it and figuring out what we both want. I don't suggest doing that with a full bottle of scotch in your hand though."
He looked down, unaware that he had carried the bottle with him.
"Charlie would disagree with that statement Mackenzie."
"Yes he would. And while I will take Charlie's advice on a lot of things in life, I will not take his advice on whether or not to get well and truly smashed at the office holiday party with your former significant other."
"Want to get well and truly smashed at home with your significant other?" he asked hopefully.
She remained silent for a few moments, as if giving his suggestion thorough examination.
"That sounds like the best offer I've had in a long time Will. Get your coat, I'll be right back."
Were they really doing this or had he just had way too much scotch? Maybe both, his mind told him. But don't argue with Mackenzie when she's in that stunning black dress and agreeing to go home with you.
She returned a few minutes later with her coat and purse and slipped back into her heels.
"I don't have to get Lonny to carry you do I?" she asked.
"No, Mackenzie" he replied shortly, but grabbed her arm to steady himself all the same.
They followed Lonny down to the car and tumbled into the back seat together.
"Just how many glasses of that am I going to have to consume to be anywhere near as drunk as you are right now Will?" she asked, looking pointedly at the bottle of scotch still clutched in his hand.
"That depends. Did you learn to hold your liquor any better while you were in Pakistan?"
"As a matter of fact, I did. I think some of the stuff that gets smuggled in from China could actually be used as some sort of varnish remover. Half the time, I didn't know what the hell I was drinking. Came in handy though after that stabbing…really helped kill the pain until an army medic arrived."
He grabbed the neck of the bottle a little bit tighter. Even as drunk as he was, that still hurt. Picturing Mackenzie alone and in pain in the middle of a warzone was the kind of shit that could make him want to get even drunker than he already was.
"Please don't say that Mackenzie" he whispered, leaning heavily against her.
"I'm sorry. It slipped out. That's another part of the problem Will. We've never talked about so many things. What's off limits these days? And can anything really be off limits if this is going to work?" she asked, wrapping her arm around him.
"I don't know Mac. I don't know."
They disentangled themselves once they reached Hudson Street and made their way, unsteadily, into the building.
He watched as she slipped off her heels once more and dropped her shoes, coat and purse into the chair by the fireplace. She flipped on the gas burner for the fire and sank into the sofa and he couldn't help himself. He followed her over there and stretched out along the lounge and put his head in her lap.
"Tired?" she asked him.
"No, just drunk" he responded.
"Have we passed sloppy drunk yet and moved onto brutally honest drunk? I believe that's how you first told me you loved me."
"I wasn't that drunk when I told you I loved you Mac…just drunk enough to not worry about whether you said it back."
"I did you know…say it back" she told him softly as she ran her fingers through his hair.
"No you didn't. Not for another month."
"I didn't say it while you were conscious for another month Will. I said it after you passed out that night though."
"Would have been nice to hear it while I was awake Mackenzie."
"I know. Maybe I didn't have enough to drink that night."
They both sat quietly for a while, lost in thought. She rubbed her fingers across his knuckles and felt a rather large scar that hadn't been there before.
"What's this?" she asked, holding up his hand.
"Cut the hell out of it on a broken glass the night you left" he told her. She sucked in a quick breath.
"I guess we are going for brutal honesty tonight, huh Will?"
"Might as well. What have we got left to lose Mac?"
She lifted his head from her lap and stood. She began to pull her pantyhose down her legs, wriggling a bit trying to get them off from underneath the tight dress she was wearing.
"What are you doing Mackenzie?" he asked, watching her struggle. She put her right leg up on the coffee table in front of the sofa and pointed to her knee. He leaned forward and tried to see what she was pointing out in the dim light of the room. He could just barely make out a scar and what appeared to have been a neat line of stitches once.
"What happened?" he asked, running his fingers over the scar he didn't remember being there.
"Went jogging the morning after we broke up and tripped coming up the staircase. Slammed my knee into the stairs…six stitches."
He stood up and pulled his dress shirt from his pants and began unbuttoning it. He pulled it aside to reveal a scar on the lower right portion of his stomach. She moved closer toward him and ran her hand over it. He sucked in his breath at her touch.
"Appendix?" she asked.
"Yeah. Can you believe that? I smoke and drink and eat complete crap and the first surgery I need in my life is an appendectomy at age forty-eight?"
She started snorting a little at that one. She had always been on him about his health…she was certain he was enjoying the fact that, so far, he was proving her wrong.
What the hell were they doing, he thought? Preparing each other for what they looked like now? That left one glaringly obvious scar that had yet to be revealed. He pulled off his tie and jacket and sat back down on the sofa. She remained standing, pulling her lower lip in between her teeth and looking at him uncertainly. He made no move…no gesture. Nope Mac, this one has to be your decision, he thought.
She reached behind her back and began unbuttoning her dress. She let it slide down her body and stood there in her bra and panties before him. He didn't know what to look at first. Of course, he couldn't help but take in her entire gorgeous body. He was, after all, human. But as he looked at her stomach he was struck dumb for just a second.
He reached forward and set his hand on her abdomen. It was once perfect and smooth and pale, but not anymore. There was a jagged line on her right side, just below her rib cage. He could see where they had stitched up the knife wound, but a smooth straight line ran along the center of her torso.
He looked up at her questioningly.
"I had to have exploratory surgery in Germany. I started bleeding again. Apparently, my liver had been nicked but nobody noticed that in Pakistan, they were too busy getting me stabilized and transported."
He stood up and removed his dress shirt and handed it to her. She put it on and wrapped it around herself.
He walked over to the bar and poured them both another drink. He sensed it was that kind of night. A night where truths were revealed and promises spoken and agreements reached and maybe they were ready, but maybe a little liquid courage couldn't hurt.
She was still standing in front of the fire, watching his every move. He handed her a drink and sat back down, grabbing her hand and pulling her down with him.
She leaned back against his now bare chest and watched the fire and sipped her drink.
"Could we please try to do better this time Mackenzie?" he whispered into her hair.
"You mean could I try not to fuck it up this time?" she asked.
"Yes…no…I don't know Mac. I'm sure I wasn't perfect before. I had been on my own since I was seventeen. I had never lived with a woman until you came along Mackenzie and I was forty-four for God's sake! We were both set in our ways and complete Type A workaholics. Looking back, I'm amazed we didn't kill each other. But I don't think either one of us will survive it if we blow it this time" he pulled her to him.
"Probably not" she whispered.
"Are you still afraid of this Mac?" he asked.
"No. Are you Will?"
"Only of screwing it up" he replied.
"Ok. Then let's not screw it up."
"Any suggestions on avoiding that one Ms. Executive Producer?"
He watched as she stood and made her way toward the kitchen.
"What the hell are you doing in there Mac?" he asked.
She returned with a notebook and a pen. "I am making lists. It's what I do Will…it calms me."
"Obsessive-compulsive much Mac?" he whispered jokingly.
"Hey, my lists keep our show running. Have faith, Will" she told him settling back into his arms and scribbling furiously.
"What exactly are we making lists of Mac? Are we making one of those flow charts of organizational responsibilities? Because if we really need that much help in the bedroom, something has fundamentally changed in our relationship."
"The bedroom was never our problem, Billy. It was outside the bedroom where we fucked it all up."
"True" he responded.
He looked over her shoulder at her nearly illegible scrawlings. He'd always thought someone who had attended elite private schools should have much better penmanship than she did. It was as if her brain worked so much faster than her hand could, that the two couldn't possibly be bothered to work together.
"Why are you writing lists about houndstooth robes?" he asked.
"It says household rules Will. I am drunk, tired and a little shellshocked. Give me a break on penmanship for one evening ok?" she said, exasperated.
"Sorry Kenz." She stopped writing. He was a little surprised himself… that the name had slipped out so easily. She had been back for nearly two years and he had never, in all that time, allowed the name to pass his lips.
She turned her head slightly and kissed his cheek, acknowledging the intimacy of that name. It might have said more about where they were tonight than sitting here together half naked.
He stopped her hand from writing. "Can we not do this tonight Mackenzie?" he asked, beginning to feel the full effects of the long day and several glasses of champagne and scotch.
"I just want to write a few things down before we go to bed" she assured him. He liked the sound of that…before we go to bed. It had been a long time since he was part of a 'we'.
He looked at her list and pulled her a little tighter to him. It read simply: we never lie, we never cheat, we never leave.
He reached down and grabbed the pen and paper and signed his name to it. He handed it back to her and watched as she signed her own just below his.
"Deal?" she asked. He took her hand and shook it.
"Deal" he replied.
They got up and trudged wearily to the bedroom together. He watched as she performed that brilliant maneuver all women have perfected over time…removing their bra from underneath a shirt without removing the shirt. He really loved to watch her do that.
She pulled back the covers and settled into bed and waited for him to rid himself of his dress pants. He got into bed and wrapped himself around her.
They were both too tired and too drunk to do much more than hold each other tonight, but for the first time in several years they weren't worried about tomorrow or the next day.
"Goodnight Kenz" he whispered into her shoulder.
"Goodnight Will. I love you. Did you hear me this time?" she asked.
"Yeah, I heard you Kenz. I love you too."
This was the Christmas he had in mind.
"See Mackenzie…everything wonderful does happen at Christmas time" he whispered into her ear, but she was already sound asleep.