Another Tumblr prompt. The title comes from the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes song "Child." Right-o.
When Mac wakes up the third day in a row and stumbles out of bed to the bathroom to throw up, she thinks something might be wrong. Will comes sleepily padding in after her, leaning down to rest a hand on her back and brush the hair out of her face when she rocks back onto her heels.
"You okay?" He asks, his voice a mix of exhaustion and concern, reaching over to wet a rag and handing it to her.
"Ugh," is her coherent response and he helps her to her feet. She brushes her teeth and crawls back into bed beside Will, and he tugs her close and as just as he's about to close his eyes again, she sits straight up.
"Shit," she mutters, reaching for her Blackberry and thumbing through to get to her calendar.
"What's the matter?" He questions, sitting up. She doesn't reply, but he can see her doing math on her fingers, her face becoming remarkably more concerned as she counts faster.
"Remember a couple of months ago when we went on that weekend away, and it was only afterwards that I realized that I had forgotten to take my pill all weekend?" She asks, and it's a credit to Will's intelligence that he understands right away what she's saying, his eyes widening.
"You think? I mean you might be…" his voice trails off as he looks down at her stomach and he tries to school his features to hide his mounting panic.
"I don't know," she says desperately. She bites her lip, the way that she does when she's about to cry, it's a face that he's familiar with, and it's one of his least favorite MacKenzie faces, mostly he becomes unglued when she cries.
"Let's not panic, okay? We'll take a test, that's what we'll do. We'll just take a test and go from there," Will tries to reassure her.
They've never talked about kids. Whether they want them, whether they don't. Mac's great with kids; he's watched her with her nieces and nephews and his own and they just love her. And he's always sort of thought of the kids in the newsroom (and they are kids. Most are young enough to be his kids, even though, fortunately, none of them are actually young enough to be MacKenzie's) as his and Mac's unruly, foul-mouthed children.
It's just a discussion that has never cropped up. He thinks it's probably because both of them assumed that neither wanted kids. Certainly if kids had been a priority in his life he would have gotten around to it sooner than now. He thinks the same about Mac, although he concedes that she's a good deal younger than him, but her career has always seemed more important to her than almost anything else (himself excluded, which makes him feel more complete and happier than he thought possible considering his reputation as a grumpy cynic).
So that's how Will finds himself calling in a favor from Jim of all people, asking for his complete discretion. Sloan's out. She's got too big of a mouth and would ask too many questions. Charlie will try to be happy about this, and Will's not sure if they're there yet, or if they ever will. Jim would walk through fire for Mac, and certainly can keep a secret.
"A pregnancy test?" Jim squeaks, and Will pinches his temples.
"Yes, Mac thinks she might be, and neither one of us can exactly go out and buy one," he says. The press will have a field day with a picture of Will or Mac buying a pregnancy test, and that's something he'd be just as happy to avoid, thank you very much. "I'll owe you big time, Jim."
"Sure, sure," Jim agrees quickly, and twenty minutes later he's buzzing him up and grabbing the small, brown bag from his hands and pressing a fifty into them.
"Keep the change, and please, please don't tell anyone about this," he begs, and Jim nods.
"Good luck," Jim says, disappearing back into the elevator and Will hurries back to the bedroom and thrusts the bag at Mac, who doesn't say a word, but turns and walks straight into the bathroom.
It's the longest three minutes of his life, sitting on the edge of the bed, Mac's hands tangled in his, and when the timer goes off, MacKenzie pales, before steeling herself and heading into the bathroom.
"I can't look," she says, and Will comes up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder and glancing down at the stick.
"It's negative," he breathes out, and Mac's legs are shaky with relief as she clutches his hand.
"I'm just sick!" She exclaims gleefully, and Will thinks this might be the happiest anyone has ever been to have a stomach virus. "Oh, don't kiss me. I don't want you catching what I have. Because it can be caught! Because it's not a baby. Oh thank God." She lets out a giddy laugh, and germs be damned, he presses a hard, long kiss to her lips.
"We've never talked about kids," he starts, and she nods. "I guess…I don't know, Mac, if you wanted them, or…you're good with kids. You're really good with kids, and you'd be a great mother, a really fantastic mother…" And she would, she would. And those kids would be damned lucky to have her. Being loved by MacKenzie, there's nothing like it in the world. "But I just…I never saw myself having kids, I guess." There's probably some underlying shit that he's never dealt with. Issues with his father and fears of turning into his father, but those are things he's been happy ignoring for the past fifty odd years, and he sees no need to try to deal with them now if he doesn't have to.
"I love our life, Will. And it's not that…kids are great, really, and I love my nieces and nephews, but I'm perfectly content with our life the way it is. I just never saw myself as a mother, and I don't really see a need to change that," she admits. "Does that make me selfish?"
"No," he assures her. "Not at all." She falls forward into his arms, and he wraps them tightly around her.
"So, we're decided then. No kids, just you and me?" Her voice is slightly muffled from where she's pressing her face into his t-shirt and she feels his voice rumble when he answers.
"Just you and me," he confirms. "I'd say let's practice not making a baby, but you still sort of smell like vomit. I mean that in the most loving way possible, of course."
"Of course," she answers dryly. "Ugh. I guess I do feel pretty terrible. I just chocked it up to extra stress at work." She had been exhausted and achy the past couple of days, and her stomach had hurt, but she hadn't had time really to eat except to grab something quickly as she stumbled from the door to their bed.
"I'm not sure how having the flu slipped your attention," he says in disbelief.
"My boss is a slave driver," she retorts with a smirk. He leans over and turns on the shower nice and hot for her.
"You should shower and then get back into bed and not leave it until at least tomorrow," he instructs.
"Will," she whines. "I'm sick. I hate being sick!" He hates when she's sick, only partly because he worries about her, but mostly because she's an awful patient.
"Could be worse," he tells her as she strips down to step into the steaming water. "You could be pregnant."