Author's Notes: A little something I wrote a few months back in response to a 'three things' prompt. Bonus points to anyone who can figure out the three things. P.S.- It doesn't count if you were the one who gave them to me! Oh, and I have hit total writer's block on 50 Ways To Leave. I promise I'll still continue to try...thanks for the notes and requests for updates!
What the hell was that? Where was that soft whisper of a breeze coming from and why was it only brushing against his toes? Will lifted his head and blearily searched the room for the origin of said draft.
"Kenz?" he asked, not seeing her curled up form lying next to him.
"Down here" came the muffled voice from the end of the bed. He abruptly sat up and burst out laughing. All he could see of her were her toes peeking out from the covers next to his head and a tuft of brown hair near the bottom of the bed.
"What the hell are you doing?" She was staring intently at his feet and blowing the barest hint of a breath over them.
"Drying your nail polish" she replied, as if that made all the sense in the world.
"My what?!" he croaked, and stuck his feet further out from under the covers, whereupon he was greeted with a sight he never quite imagined. Purple glitter toe nail polish on his feet.
"Mackenzie, just how many drinks did you and Maggie have last night?"
"Enough" she replied forcefully, if slightly slurred. Oh Lord, she was still drunk!
"Coffee. You are going to need lots of coffee" he told her sagely, and carefully stood from the bed, walking on his heels, as he'd seen his wife do on many an occasion, and trying to find his boxer shorts without smudging his nail polish. Holy shit! Did he actually just shimmy across the room in deference to wet toe nail polish?! What the hell had happened to his life?!
Once he was certain that his pajama pants wouldn't be smeared with purple polish, he pulled them on and headed for the kitchen.
"Tell me you have caffeine" the voice behind him mumbled, and he nearly dropped the bag of coffee beans in his hands in shock.
"Maggie?!" he queried, turning to find the spiky haired associate producer in his kitchen.
"Have I been here all night?" she asked, running her hands through her hair in a vain attempt to tame the cowlicks. It wasn't working…not at all. In the last few months, her hair had grown a couple of inches, but it was still an odd, blondish-orange, chin-length version of Tim Curry's hair in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
"Uh…I was alone here when I went to bed. No clue when you two wandered in" he replied. Truth was, he had woken slightly when Mac stumbled into bed, but only long enough to pull her into his side and bury his face in her hair. He didn't sleep well anymore without a face full of lilac-scented chestnut locks.
"I didn't get to finish" Mackenzie mumbled as she wandered into the kitchen with an adorable pout on her face and her eyes fixed pointedly on his toes. Maggie looked down and laughed, pointing at his nine painted toes and one little pinky toe that had managed to escape Mackenzie's early morning art project.
"One word and you'll be looking for a new job" Will warned the young woman, then curled his toes in an attempt to hide them, and went in search of some socks.
Despite her drunken state, Will returned to the kitchen to find Mackenzie pouring a large mug of coffee for Maggie and watching, with concerned eyes, as Maggie scratched absent-mindedly at a mosquito bite on her right forearm and stared mutely out their kitchen window.
"Toast?" Will asked, directing the question more at Maggie than at his wife. The first few months of their engagement and marriage, Will had focused all his attention on Mackenzie. He was atoning for his sins. Soothing the wounds he had carelessly inflicted over the course of nearly two years of pokes and jabs, engagement ring pranks and Brian Brenner. Seeing that she finally slept through the night and stopped drowning her sorrows in red wine and Jameson's. It was only when his wife (and oh how he loved saying that word) finally showed signs of gaining a few pounds and shedding the perpetual bags under her eyes, that Will realized someone else was falling apart right in front of him…Maggie.
A few moments later, Maggie quietly munching on some toast from the corner of their living room sofa, Will turned to his wife and asked an unspoken question. Did she tell you anything last night?
Mackenzie shrugged her shoulders in an unspoken response. Not much…well, not much beyond what I already told you.
Will looked at her and raised an eyebrow. What do we do now?
She rolled her eyes back at him. How the hell am I supposed to know?
Will looked to the heavens. Oh please, as you keep reminding me, you know EVERYTHING.
She simply smiled. True. I called Jim. He's on his way.
"You think the kid can handle this?" Will finally spoke aloud. For two people who loved to argue and shout, they were also tremendously well versed in the silent conversation. Sloan called it their geek mind meld. Will liked to remind Sloan that she was the biggest geek at ACN…to which she had replied, "I know…I make geeks look good." He really couldn't argue.
"The kid, as you lovingly refer to him, has been shot at in three different time zones and taken a bullet in the ass. I think he can handle his girlfriend's mental health issues." She didn't like to mention that Jim had helped her handle quite a few PTSD breakdowns of her own. To bring up that subject only seemed to remind Will of all the times he hadn't been there for her and sent him spiraling into a new round of self flagellation.
Just then the elevator door opened and Jim tried to rush toward Maggie without showing his panic. Mac held out her hand, palm down, signaling him to slow down and remain calm. To his credit, Jim managed to pull himself together and look slightly more composed.
"You two have fun last night?" he asked, a bit too cheery and bright, but hell…he never claimed to be a good actor.
Maggie nodded and pulled her sleeves down over her arms. Mackenzie surreptitiously slid a business card into Jim's hand and turned away, pulling Will into the kitchen with her.
"What was that? And why are we hiding in our kitchen. This is our apartment, you know?" he asked, wondering what the hell they were supposed to do in here all morning?
"That was Habib's business card and we're giving them a few minutes alone" she replied simply.
"Can't they do that at their apartment?" he asked, exasperation clearly evident, but also mixed with love and concern.
"You're not fooling anyone Billy. We all know you're a teddy bear underneath that gruff exterior. He shrugged and turned away. She wrapped her arms around him from behind.
"I still think we should have called someone" he muttered.
"We did call someone. Habib and Jim. We called two someones. Give her a chance to work this out without being committed to an asylum Will…it was a cry for help, not an actual suicide attempt."
He wanted to ask how she could be so certain, but that thought just made him shiver and run his hands over the scars on Mackenzie's forearms. They were barely visible to the naked eye but to him, they were a dagger in the heart…a reminder. This is what you did to her.
"Stop it Will. We've had this conversation before."
And they had. They'd had it a million times over in the past eight months. She'd hurt him and he'd hurt her…but that was all in the past. They went to couple's counseling and they both went to their own versions of PTSD counseling. His to deal with years of childhood abuse and hers to deal with war zones, and Genoa, and learning how to stop feeling like she was responsible for everything and everyone all the fucking time.
"Ok" he responded lamely. He knew he'd always shoulder some of the blame for the scars on her heart and her belly, and her arms. No amount of therapy could undo that. But he tried not to let it ruin what they were rebuilding together.
"Ok" she whispered in his ear, and they both stood there, wrapped around each other, in the kitchen, for a very long time.
"We're going now. Thanks for everything guys" Jim's voice startled them both a few minutes later, when he popped his head into the kitchen.
"You sure you're both ready?" Mackenzie asked, forever the bullpen mother hen.
"We'll be fine Mac. Thanks" Jim grinned. He knew how much she had rooted for them…tried to push them together, not content to wait patiently and let them figure things out for themselves. Eventually they gave in, knowing it was inevitable. They didn't have quite what Will and Mac had, not yet, but they would someday. Maybe.
Mac watched Jim carefully pull Maggie along behind him into the elevator, delicately wrapping his hand around her wrist and tugging her against him.
"How many martinis did it take?" Will asked a few minutes later, and she knew just what he was asking. Maggie, despite her joy at her relatively new relationship with Jim, had been floundering these past few weeks. Trying desperately to act like everything was ok. Trying to pretend that she was just as happy as everyone else was. Genoa was over, Dantana was gone, and Will and Mac were married…everything was right with the world. So why couldn't she be happy? Mac knew the answer to that, she just needed Maggie to admit it.
"Three" she answered succinctly. Three martinis gulped down in quick succession was exactly what it took for Maggie to roll up her ever-present long sleeves (it was July in New York for God's sake! Did she think she was fooling anyone) and reveal a series of fine, delicate scratches along her arms. Not true cuts, but the marks of someone who was so overwhelmed with life, that a few good scratches seemed to numb the pain.
"I don't get it Mac. I thought she was doing better" he whispered.
"That's what she wanted everyone to think. That's what she wanted to convince herself of. But she never really got any counseling after Uganda, it was all bound to bubble up to the surface eventually" she replied, patting his cheek and pulling away to pour herself another cup of coffee.
"Is that what happened to you?" he asked, treading carefully. She was hungover and tired…never a good time to approach a touchy subject.
"I told you Will, it was different for me. I didn't even realize I was doing it. I'd have a bad day, or a bad few days, and somehow, before I knew it, I'd spent an hour sitting on the sofa picking at my nails until my fingers bled. Or I'd be sitting in a meeting in the conference room, my mind racing in a million different directions, and only later would I realize that I had been scratching at my wrists the whole time I was listening to Reese Lansing telling me my budget was too high. It was more of a nervous tic for me than it was any real sort of self-injurious behavior."
He knew all of this. Knew her explanation by heart. But he still couldn't stop believing that someday the story would change and the words would tumble from her lips. It was you. It was all your fault Will. You drove me to it. She had assured him a million different times and in a million different ways that it wasn't so…he just couldn't let himself believe it. Not yet anyway.
"Come on. Let's go back to bed" she urged, pulling him along behind her.
"You're not going to do my fingernails too, are you?" he asked, trying to sound happy and lighthearted. He knew happy wouldn't be too far away…it never was with her.
"Maybe" she replied impishly, pulling her cell phone out of the pocket of her robe and quickly snapping a picture of his toes.
"Hey!" he shouted indignantly.
"Sloan needs to see this!" she shouted gleefully, running toward the bedroom, away from his clutching hands.
"No she doesn't! Mackenzie!"