"Terry Smith is coming up with the Capitol Report from Washington. I'm Will McAvoy. Good night."
"And, we're out."
Mackenzie barely waited to hear the three words before she ripped her headset off and rushed to open the door to the studio. Will was just sitting there, looking at his hands like they had just spoken to him. The great Will McAvoy seemed confounded, just as an average person would when they are just handed earth-shattering news during a live newscast that millions of people were watching. The irony.
She just stood in the doorway and looked at him. She didn't know how she should approach him anymore. She had been by his side through some bad times and she had been a shoulder he could turn to during those long hours, but that was when he was in love with her, and she with him. She just didn't know how to do those things as a friend. Sure, she had had enough time to adjust to her new role in his life but she hadn't quite gotten the hang of it. Or maybe she just didn't want to.
"Will?"
At the sound of his name echoing in the studio, he looked up at her. His eyes were red around the edges and he just stared at her blankly, looking right through her and to a point that was probably even beyond the building. She had never seen him look so terrible, so vulnerable and she decided, then and there, that she had never been more in love with him.
She walked up slowly to his desk, never losing eye contact. Once close enough, she reached out and took both of his hands in hers. She realized she hadn't thought far enough before doing that, because she had no idea what to do next. Sure, she had been given news of the deaths of colleagues, fellow journalists and possibly close relatives but death had never hit so close to home. The devastation and the hollow feeling that she was now feeling, probably paled in comparison to the storm of emotions that must be going through the man in front of her. She wasn't sure if she was qualified enough to be his support. Her mind was telling her that she was unskilled in the ways of consoling people when it came to these things and it was clear to her that Will was hurting an immense amount. If it were possible to find someone immediately who would be much better at talking than she was, she probably would have opted for that option. But there was no one there but her. She couldn't help but think about how she was always ruining things.
"Let's go in your office."
That would at least give her some time to think more about the kinds of things she should be saying and give him some time to actually start thinking again.
"Why?"
Clearly, he hadn't started yet.
"The broadcast is over. You need to clear the studio and go home. So I'm taking you to your office."
He seemed to be coming to his senses a little bit. It was a wonder he even managed to finish the broadcast in coherent sentences. He managed to get out a feeble 'okay' and get up from his chair. She was still holding on to his right hand with her left as they walked out of the studio and into the newsroom. When Jim called out to Mac, she just gave him a look and he seemed to understand. He redirected all the staff members away from the two of them and told them all to head home once they were done with what they were doing. Mackenzie managed to bring the two of them into the office but had forgotten that she was supposed to have used that time to think of things she needed to say to Will.
"Will?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Will was standing still where she had left him once they got into the office. His two hands on his waist, he was looking at the ground and biting his lower lip, which usually meant that he was completely lost in thought or just plain lost. She wanted so desperately to be able to say something else other than asking him if he was okay but she couldn't come up with anything.
"I'm sorry…about what happened in there. That was…unprofessional. Should we re-record that for the West Coast?"
Before she knew it, she had already rushed to him and thrown her arms around him. She couldn't find the right words to express what she felt for him. She wanted to tell him that everything was going to be okay, and even if it wasn't going to be okay, she was going to try her hardest to make them be okay. She wanted to tell him that he shouldn't feel bad about not calling his father a little earlier. She wanted to reassure him that it had been a fight, in which both sides were in it to lose. She wanted to apologize for screwing everything up with the two of them and tell him that she somehow felt responsible for this too. But now was not the time for her to feel bad for herself again.
"I'm sorry."
She didn't know how long they stood that way before he responded and hugged her back. His arms coming around her and his big hands spreading out on her back, he held her the best he could without trembling. Before she proceeded to hold him tighter, she placed a kiss on his cheek and buried her head in his neck.
"He's dead, Mac."
"Yeah, he is."
They probably wouldn't have let go until their bodies were hurting from the strain, but a buzzing in Will's pants interrupted them. She watched him taking out the phone and saw a text from Nina Howard. It read, 'Be there in an hour?' Mackenzie felt something unhinge from her chest and plummet into her stomach. Something, somewhere in her body dropped like a sack of flour and she thought she was going to have trouble breathing. She felt Will tense, as if he also felt something in her body falling loose.
She tentatively and slowly withdrew her hands from him and decided that maybe now would be a good time to check if her shoes had any dirt on them. Normally, she probably would have thrown a fit. She definitely wanted to start hammering him with questions ranging from "Why" to "Why the fuck" but she decided that today, she was going to lose this fight.
"I…I would be lying if I said I meant to tell you..."
"It's okay, you…you don't have to explain anything."
Mac looked up at Will, who was now looking at her with worry in his eyes. She smiled bitterly and shook her head at the fact that somehow, she had made this about her again.
"You should go. Go home and be with… you know."
She smiled at him and walked around him to get to the door. He turned his body to watch her walk out of the office. She stopped, with her hand on the handle and looked back at him. He looked like he wanted to say something but he was either making a conscious decision to not say it or didn't know how to put it into words. Looking at the way the office lights fell across his features and the frown between his eyebrows, she smiled at him.
"It's not forever. Don't pay any more attention to what he said or thought about you just because you feel bad. He was an abusive drunk who had no idea what he was talking about. You're not a bad person, Will. And that's why there are people…like…like Charlie, like the staff and like… like me, who love you. Believe that."
She looked at him for a couple more seconds, trying to keep him from rushing home for just a little more. When she finally managed, she turned and walked out of his office and headed to her own. As soon as she was in hers, she slid down to the floor and put her head in her hands. She felt stupid to have assumed that there was no one else that could console him. That in tough times, she would be the only one that he would turn to. That if she willingly accepted all the punishments he gave her, she could atone for her sins. That if she waited long enough, he would, painfully slowly but surely, come back. But only then did she realize that she obviously still hadn't fully understood that he was trying to move on from her colossal mistake, and that perhaps, she would never be able to return to what she and Will had in the past. Perhaps, he would never be able to forgive her.
The realization hit her like a knife in the gut and she had to stifle her mouth to not make a loud cry. The perfect relationship with the perfect man was now actually in the past and she realized that it was going to stay there. She had broken something, something sacred and no matter how much she prayed and hoped that she could put it back together again, it wasn't going to work. And even if she somehow managed a miracle and put it back together, it already lost the utterly divine aura of it being something sacred and perfect. She and Will, were never going to be like the way they were before.
As the blood started to flow from the wound in her stomach, she started to shiver. And she remembered why she had left in the first place, a lifetime ago.