Disclaimer: I do not own these beautiful people/characters. If I did, there would have been a lot more kissing & shenanigans going on last season.
When Will MacAvoy saw Mackenzie McHale for the first time in 3 years, he saw red. She looked up and their eyes met and he was suddenly back to the first time he ever saw her. Well, the first part of her he ever saw at least, which was her legs, which had been crossed and a dainty looking foot in a red shoe was tapping impatiently. Will didn't know much about shoes. He knew enough to let someone else pick his out. And he didn't know much about colors, other than the basic 5 or 6...or however many there were. But he knew that the red that her shoes were seemed to match the red that her lips were perfectly. He noticed those things, when he wanted to.
Her lips had grinned- not smirked- they grinned as if they had a secret just for him, when he introduced himself clumsily afterwards. Then they smiled widely when she said yes to his request for dinner. Her lips smiled and it made her eyes squint and he decided that he liked red lips and red shoes very much if they made her legs look like that and made her eyes look at him like that. Very much indeed.
It seemed that red was quickly becoming his favorite color, and Mac was quickly becoming his favorite past time. On the second date she wore some sort of red lingerie thing he didn't know the name of. It was lace, at least he was pretty sure it was lace. But it was definitely red. A bright, sexy red that looked absolutely delicious against her pale skin. When his mouth covered the bright red lace on her breast it only looked a shade or two darker. It didn't stay on for long enough to get a good look though. That red was seared into his memories, and it was his favorite red.
Mac loved red. Apparently, it had been her favorite color since she was 6. Thats what she told him while they were painting his spare bedroom,at her request. She said it was warm, and happy, and it was the color of the roses her dad had always sent her on her birthday. The paint was a deep red and her cheeks were a pink red from the exertion. Soon enough his hair was the color of the paint, since Mac just couldn't resist the temptation. Shortly after that Mac was also the color of the paint, but her cheeks were even pinker from a different kind of exertion that they suddenly became preoccupied with. They finished the room much later than they had planned, and Mac decorated with other reds..and pinks. She said that his apartment needed a feminine touch.
She added that touch when she moved in. And suddenly there was red everywhere. In the kitchen when she cooked, in the bathroom on the mirror in that delicious red lipstick, in his- their- closet, with those shoes and others like them, and dresses and shirts and jackets and other womanly things that matched.
Then it was all gone.
She was crying, and talking but he couldn't hear what she was saying anymore. He didn't want to hear. Her face was red and blotchy, her red lipstick was smeared. Will actually saw a red haze at the edges of his vision. Quietly and controlled, he told her to get out. He didn't see her for three years after that. That was a red he desperately wanted to forget.
He followed her broadcasts from Islamabad. He saw her get stabbed, and the blood. He saw the blood, it seemed to be everywhere all of a sudden. It was bright red, and it soaked into her khaki top turning it a dark, ugly, brown. It was smeared on her hands, and on her face. Her very pale face, with very bright red streaks of her blood dried against it. That was the red that he couldn't forget, it was branded into his memory and often came alive at night when he was asleep.
He sent her roses while she was in the hospital. They were her favorite shade of red.
And now she was in front of him. There was no red anywhere anymore. She was wearing...green and black. How boring. It didn't remind him of her, of the Mackenzie she had been. Maybe almost dying made you change.
It almost made him sad. He was bored of black. He missed red.