Author's Note: Gosh, you guys. Thanks for all the sunshine and roses for my first little piece of fan fiction (The Executive Dining Room) in over ten years. That piece was part of this, but the tone was all wrong. I just didn't have the heart to delete it. You can thank my best friend for reminding me that I have a little voice and it's okay to use it. I do owe him a Black Tea Gimlet from P. F. Chang's, however, for one of Will's lines. With that said...I don't own the Newsroom, hold no rights, etc.

"I'm not sure why I'm in the car." Nina said as Mr. Former New York City Detective shut the door behind her. Her head was buzzing with alcohol and the sheer presence of Will McAvoy.

"Bah." Will responded. "Don't over think it Nina. I'm not. We'll go back to my place and have a few drinks." When Mr. Former New York City Detective got in the driver's seat, Will patted the back of the seat. "Home, please."

"We're going to your place?" Her voice slipped up half an octave. "More drinks?"

"Nina, you're the gossip columnist. Is there any place in this city that you possibly could have gone where no one would know who you are? Who I am? Who would see the two of us and -"

She raised her hand as she cut him off. "You've made your point." She waited one half beat before she asked her next question. "Do you do this a lot?

"I go home every night."

"No," she chastised. "Do you take people - women to your apartment?"

"Do I have to say that we're off the record?" He said, casting a glance at her as the SUV they were in joined traffic.

"Will, we were off the record the minute I climbed in to this car with you."

He nodded. "No, actually I, uh, don't. I don't even have friends over." He glanced away and stared out the car window.

"Do you have any friends?" Nina asked, a smile playing at her voice.

"I have Charlie." He responded, looking back at her.

"Charlie's your boss."

There was a beat. "I don't have many friends. I have a hard time making friends, now more than ever. I have very few and the few I do have, I'm fiercely loyal to."

"Yeah," Nina sighed. "I understand that. But my loyalty is often mistaken for something else."

A few moments went by, something hanging in the air between them. When Will turned to truly look at her, she had taken the cue to look out her window. "Would you like to go swimming?"

"Excuse me?" She asked, turning back to him.

"Would. You. Like. To. Go. Swimming?"

"Uh." and she gave an uncomfortable laugh.

She was outside alone for a moment, in a state of awe. Nina's purse strap dangled from her hand and her three thousand dollar hand bag was gently scrapping the decorative concrete beneath her feet.

"You have your own pool." Nina said, looking at the tropical blue water that was calm and still from not being used.

"Sort of, I share it with three other tenants." Will casually said from behind her.

"Are you expecting any of them to join us?"

"No. The stockbroker guy and his wife are away and I just called the management to ensure private use tonight from the others. It's not a problem."

She turned to look at him and cocked her head slightly. "I didn't bring a swimsuit."

"I'll let you decide how to handle that while I get a few things." Will thumbed back towards the building. "Scotch okay? I have Oban Fourteen or -"

"That'll be fine." She smiled a gentle smile as he retreated back to his apartment.

He was carrying a tray with a few empty glasses, his ashtray with a joint and the bottle of scotch when he returned to the pool. He cast a glance around and Nina wasn't sitting on any of the furniture surrounding the pool. In fact, he was searching his surroundings so much, he didn't notice the purse he was about to kick with his now bare foot.

"Hey! Watch it! I happen to like that purse!"

Will glanced down at his feet and observed said handbag, sitting next to a neatly folded pile of clothes and a pair of high heeled shoes. Nina peered from the edge of the pool, fingers holding the edge, the rest of her body pressed against the pool wall, not to give anything away.

"Sorry." Will said, with a hint of clumsy to his voice. He didn't know much about women, but he knew that you never fucked with shoes and handbags. It took him a beat to register that she was in the pool.

She was in the pool naked.

It took his brain a moment to start functioning again. "Would you like a drink?" He asked her. She nodded as he eased himself to the ground. He poured her a drink and handed her the glass. She took a quick sip and Will chose to ignore the scrunched up face she made. Nina wasn't a regular scotch drinker. He noted this in his mind.

She set the glass down and pushed herself away from the wall, thrusting her back in the air, giving Will a glimpse as she started a lazy backstroke away. Her purpose was mostly to get her hair wet. She turned around and eased her way back to Will's side of the pool. "You really don't have any friends?" She asked.

"There are few people that have a lasting relationship with me." Will admitted, lost for a moment to the sky before returning to look at Nina.

"Not just romantic?" She asked.

"I grew up in a small town and I would guess to hazard that dictates my fate." He paused. "This is old news, Nina." He poured himself a drink and took a small swallow. "When you become an outcast, you either live up to it or try to run away from it. When I was a kid, I lived up to it. The minute I could, I caught a bus out of town, I ran away from it."

"Our childhoods don't sound that different." She said quietly, contemplating another drink.

"Did you smash a whiskey bottle over your father's head after he threatened to beat up your mother and sisters?" Will said rather flatly, almost like he was reading a menu.

"No." She said, a bit meek. The silence hung for a moment before he spoke again.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to bubble up."

"I can see why relationships are difficult for you if that's what you say to your first dates."

Will gave her a crooked smile. "You might be on to something."

Nina took the chance to push away from the edge and started swimming a few gentle laps in the pool. Will took the opportunity to relocate himself to a lounge chair and enjoy the joint he brought out with him.

She came back a few moments later to the edge that he was closest to. "Are you going to join me?" She asked her voice low.

Will took a drag from his joint and shook his head. "I can't swim."

"What?" She laughed in disbelief.

"I can't swim. That's why it was easy for me to secure the pool. Hardly ever ask to use it."

"Why would you -"

"It's a great location and it is reasonably close to the office."

"I live on the first floor of a brownstone." She responded

"You live only on the first floor?" He asked casually.

"I own the building, but it was split into apartments before I got it. I'm slowly reclaiming it. That was something I invested in after my parents died."

"Can I ask how?"

"They died from Carbon Monoxide poisoning in their own home. They went to sleep one night, never to wake up again." Nina pushed away from the wall again to enjoy a few more laps in the pool.

When she came back around, Will was a bit apologetic. "I didn't mean-"

"It's alright." She waved her hand at him. "They were my parents and I loved them very much, but we weren't exactly close."

Will nodded in understanding. "How did you become a gossip columnist, Nina?" He asked almost professionally.

"Am I being interviewed?" She asked, her voice indicating a slight amount of pleasure.

"Yeah, I'm going to ask the hard questions." He drug his feet off the lounge chair and planted them firmly on the ground, cradling his drink in his hands as he watched her in the pool.

"It wasn't a straight line, if that's what you're asking. I never dreamed that I would be a gossip columnist. I just wanted to write."

Will had a drink. "English Lit major?"

"How did you..."

"You said you wanted to write, I guessed." He paused. "But you're right, that's not a straight line."

"Celeb magazine hired me right out of college." While holding on to the edge of the pool, she stretched her legs out behind her, half floating on the water.

He scrunched his face up as he asked his next question. "That isn't answering the question."

"Millennium." She responded.

"I'm sorry, what?"

She sighed. "When I was in college my roommate and I had a blog about the television show Millennium. It got noticed."

Will put his drink down and gestured at her. "You had a blog in college about a television show and it got you a job."

"Well, they weren't called blogs back then, but, yeah, pretty much. The network that owned the show wanted to buy it. My roommate said okay. I said I wanted a job instead."

"So your roommate took the money and you took the job?"

"Yes." She nodded. "However the network really didn't have an entertainment news magazine under their belt at the time so they wrote me some glowing recommendation letters and bought me a new wardrobe and I landed a job at AWN under the Celeb magazine banner."

"Where's your roommate now?"

Nina giggled. "Uh, last time I knew, she was living three blocks from her childhood home and pregnant with her sixth child."

"Are you serious?" Will said. "That's quite the opposite of your life."

"You have no idea. No one would believe my life. I mean, how many people would take me seriously if I told them right now that I was swimming naked in the private pool of Will McAvoy, the face of the ACN network?"

"I'd believe you." He said, almost delighted.

"Well, I hope so, considering you're here. But you are smoking, so I can see how your memory might be fuzzy." She pushed away once again to swim a few more laps.

Will watched her, mesmerized. Yes, legs. He was all about the legs no matter what people thought he liked and the way she moved away from him was not going unnoticed by other parts of his body. When she came back, he asked.

"Does it bother you that I smoke?"

"Smoke weed or just smoking in general?"

"Both. Either." He responded.

"I have to admit it's a bit of a turn off for me. I don't like it, but not enough to dictate that you shouldn't."

He extinguished his joint. "We aim to please Miss Howard."

She smiled. "What about you? Didn't you have a 94% conviction rate of something like that working for the district attorney's office? Why be on television?"

He gestured around his face. "I'm told that I'm not hard on the eyes."

"I would have to agree with that."

"Plus, everything changed after 9/11, don't you think?" He paused. "I'm going to guess you weren't planning on the gossip column route for the rest of your life?"

"True. I wanted to move into serious media. I was pigeonholed, one or two lucky breaks and all of a sudden it was my thing. It was what I was known for and stories started coming to me. I work less now that I ever did in those early days. The money's nice."

"The money is nice." Will responded as she disappeared under the water again. He had a thought as she was under the water. When she came back up, he asked what was on his mind. "If the money's nice, why do you take it? Like from other people, to bury stories and such?"

She took a moment to compose her answer. "It wasn't always money, sometimes favors, tips. It's more of a barter and trade if you will."

"But you were going to take my money? You didn't think I had anything better to offer?"

"I never said that. Did you forget the context of why you were offering me money?" She laughed. "Then you took the moral high ground and basically told me to stick it."

He nodded as he thought back to their exchange. "Yeah, okay." He returned to his drink. "Did that upset you?"

"Eh," She said, her lips turned up for a second before relaxing. "A little bit. However it changed what I thought of you and reminded me of my place."

Will's eyes narrowed. "You have a place?"

She scoffed. "Of course I do. I trade in indiscretion. Other people's secrets and because of the nature of my work I skirt that moral line. Sure, sometimes I hear things I don't like. Sometimes I see things I don't like. Sometimes I even do things I don't like, but at the end of the day, who am I to judge. Honestly?"

"You could stand up for yourself. You should stand up for yourself." Will implored.

"I think it's a little too late for me. However, I don't mind helping those on the moral high ground every once in a while." Nina took the chance to work in a few more laps to break the conversation.

Will eased back into the lounge chair as she returned to him. When she came back around, he had another question for her. "Is any of my staff in trouble?"

"Excuse me?" She asked, bobbing out of the pool for a moment, crossing her arms on the pool's edge.

"Is any of my staff in trouble? I know that you're magazine is still listening to phone calls."

She snorted. "Nothing's been brought to my attention." Well, Wade Campbell keeps calling Mackenzie, but Nina figured she would keep that tidbit to herself.

"But you're still listening?" He said the annoyance in his voice evident.

"I'm not sure how to break this to you Will McAvoy, but you are a celebrity. There are people in this country that want to know where you eat, what you read and who you fuck."

"I see your point." He said, exasperated. He waited a beat before asking his next question. "Do you trust me?"

Nina arched her eyebrows. "I suppose."

"Tell me a deep dark secret and I'll tell you one of mine. A bond of trust to solidify whatever this-" he motions between the two of them "is."

Now she snorted. "I already know your deep dark secret. You're in love with Mackenzie."

"I was! But now -"

"Save it. Okay, give me a minute." She dove back under the water, longer this time, a few laps more than on her previous turns. When she came back around, he was sitting at the edge of the pool now, having fetched her glass so it was in front of them and topping off his own.

"You don't have to-" Will was ready to stop her.

"Brandon. His name was Brandon and one night on his way home, he wrapped his car around a tree."

"I'm sorry, what?" Will fumbled. This was not exactly what he expected to hear.

"We had been drinking, we had gotten into a fight and he left. He was driving drunk and was killed when he wrapped his car around a tree."

His voice was soft as he looked at her, her eyes brimming with tears. "How old was he Nina?"

"He was twenty-three. I was twenty-one." She took the drink and swallowed the contents in the glass, not trying to hide the look on her face before she dived back in for a few more laps. She was about done at this point, the combination of the laps and the drinks were starting to take their toll.

He removed himself from the edge of the pool and made his way back to the lounge chair.

When she finally emerged, Will took the chance to make her laugh. "I have a hard on for Roger Daltrey."

"I'm sorry?" she sputtered, somewhat confused.

"Every time I hear Roger Daltrey, I get a little - hey. It's a dome of silence!" Will stands up from the lounge chair to make point, waving his arms once he's on his feet.

"Don't you mean cone?" Nina asks from the edge of the pool. "That we are in a cone of silence?"

"Not just the phrase. We are literally in a cone, dome, whatever of silence. Scream whatever you like! The noise of the city protects you from down below and there's nothing but open - albeit polluted - air above." He paused. "Roger Daltrey gives me wood!"

She responds with her trademark stifled giggle. She decided to share something she knew he would enjoy hearing. "Reese Lansing is a fucktard!"

"Oh, come on Nina! Scream it!" Will says waving his arms to indicate that she should turn up the volume.

"REESE LANSING IS A FUCKTARD!" Not quite a laugh from her then, more of like the sound of a giggle gulp.

"I'D FUCK LEONA LANSING ON LIVE TELEVISION!" Will bellowed to the world, color rushing to his face.

Nina let out a true, unadulterated laugh, something that had been buried deep for a long time.

"There you go!" Will said, feeling pleased with himself. "Doesn't that feel great?"

After a moment, when she finished laughing, she responded. "I suppose it does." Nina lay back in the pool and resumed a gentle backstroke away from Will's edge of the pool.

When she looked up, she noticed he was gathering their things. "It's starting to rain. I'll bring you a towel."

A few minutes later, he was back with an oversized fluffy white pool towel as she climbed out of the pool. He was careful not to stare and she was careful not to be quite the showoff. "Can I borrow your shower?"

"Yes, of course. Come on in."