Mac was curled up in the corner of her sofa, wine glass in hand exhausted from the emotional roller coaster of the past week. Ever since they had found Will passed out on his bathroom floor, her life had been consumed with getting him back into his anchor's chair and feeling well enough to go on with the fight.

All those days and nights spent at his bedside, then the meeting with Leona and Reese and the long hours with the team, pulling together tonight's broadcast were finally catching up with her.

She had been living on pure adrenalin until this moment, when it all begins to hit her. She was alone. At the end of day she had no one to come home to, no one to share her day with. Wade was right. They didn't stand a chance. As much she hated the way he had used her, she also knew that her heart was never in it.

How could it be?

Her heart was with Will. Her body ached for Will. Her whole being craved him.

It was not logical. He had done everything to push her away. He never reached for her, and tonight when he could of kissed her, he just got frustrated and yelled at her instead.

One hug. She lived on the memory of that hug.

And yet she could feel him wanting her every time they were together. It was visceral. When Will was in the room, there was a current between them that was tangible to everyone around them. It was a kind of intimacy that was loving, and caring and possessive of each other. It meant that neither of them could move on, and nights like this, when she was so lonely for him, were torture.

Her Blackberry buzzed. It was Will. Her heart leapt.

" Hi, it's me"

" Hey"

"What are you doing?"

"Just sitting here, thinking."

"Drinking wine?"

"Yes…."

" I can't drink for awhile."

" I know."

"Mac?"

" Yes?"

" I have to process what you told me about Northwestern. I have to see Abe and talk some things through. But I wanted to tell you that I was proud of us tonight, the broadcast, and sorority girl, and coming back. I wanted to thank you. "

"Ok"

"And I wanted to tell you that I'm glad you didn't hear the message because it means

that we have still a chance. "

"We do?"

" Yes, we do."

"What do you want me to do Will?"

"Just give me a little more time. Ok?"

"Really?"

"Really."

"Good night McKenzie. Try to sleep"

"Ok I will. Good night to you too."

Will hung up the phone, laid back in bed and felt alone. Mackenzie sounded so down and depleted. One-word answers were not her style. She didn't berate him, or tease him. She didn't even ask him what the message had said. She sounded like she was giving up. He hoped she wasn't. Tomorrow he would tell Abe everything that had happened between Abe could help him act before it was too late.

"Good morning Will. Great to see you back here feeling better. I watched you last night. That was a good show. The metaphor of the American Taliban For Tea Party radicals was very powerful. How are you feeling?"

Will thought for a moment. He wasn't going play games with Abe. He needed to be honest.

" I'm pretty down. I mean it's good that I'm out of the hospital and getting stronger. I'm relieved to be back at the studio and to have the network brass behind me, letting me do the show our way again. I'm proud of what we're doing…" his voice trailed off.

"What about Mackenzie and you? How is that going?

"That's the issue. It's always the issue . I'm stuck and I can't get past it. I'm not mad at her any more. When I woke up in the hospital and she was there, I felt relieved. Even when she hit me with a magazine and called me names…. it was ok.I felt different. Could not put my finger on it. And then I realized that my anger towards her was gone. I've forgiven her and that part feels really good"

"That's great news Will. You've waited a long time to feel this way. So what is the problem? Why are you feeling down?"

"She said something to me when I was in the hospital. I mean I know she was kidding But maybe not….

"What did she say?"

" That I'm a burnt out shell of a man and that we're wasting time. The thing is, she's at least half right and I don't know how to fix it."

" So you've forgiven her and yet you can't act on it. Is that what you're saying?"

" I guess so. I tried to talk to her about the message…"

"Start from the beginning Will."

" Ok here it is. The night of the Bin Laden broadcast I was hosting a staff party at my apartment. We baked some hash brownies and I was high, never thinking I was going on the air. But then the White House called and I needed to be the one to break the story first. Mackenzie knew I was stoned out of my mind, but she let me go on anyway. She trusted me and I promised I wouldn't let her down. That night, when I got back to my apartment I called her and left a voice message. I said that I needed her to know that I never stopped loving her and I wanted to try again and if she didn't want to…to please not mention it or talk to me about it."

" What did she say?"

"That's the thing, she didn't."

" So she rejected you and you withdrew and went on punishing her."

"Yeah. "

"And so you hired her ex boyfriend to torture her and you over dozed on anti depressants and landed in the hospital."

" Yes. But then I found out when I was laid up, that she never got the message. Her phone was hacked and she just never got it ! "

" How did that make you feel? "

" Mad as hell that someone had screwed with our lives like that. It got me back to work, determined to fight those bastards."

" Is that all you felt?"

" No…. I felt relived like I was coming out of a bad dream and now we could go back to where we were."

"And where was that?"

" Well….me wanting to try again. Mackenzie has been bugging me to tell her what was in the message and I almost did last night. I started to tell her about the night at Northwestern when I was on that panel. I was telling her about how I saw a girl in the audience who looked like her, holding up signs. I wanted to tell her that my heart stopped when I thought I saw her, and how that made me realize how much I missed her. I hoped it was her "

" That sounds positive."

" You would think so. But then just as I was telling her this…..she opened up her note book and showed me the exact same signs that the girl in the audience had held up. It was her all along. It wasn't my mind playing tricks on me. It was her !"

"What did the signs say?"

" It's not, but it can be"

" Explain."

" She knew understood what I was feeling about America not being the greatest country in the world any longer, but how it can be again. She knew and she prompted me and that was all I needed. The rest just came pouring out of me and that speech set the whole thing in motion. Charlie heard it and he brought her back to turn our show around and bring out the old me, opinionated and principled and not afraid to speak the truth."

" That is quite a story Will. You and Mackenzie have had an unbroken bond. Even when you were angry and fighting, that was a bond too. Now you need to form a new bond that is based on love and kindness and being happy together. Are you ready to do that? "

" If I don't I'm going to lose her. I can feel it. I don't want to lose her. I don't want to be a "shell of a man " as she put it. I want to take care of her and make up for all the shit I've put her through since she came home. But why didn't she just tell me that it was her- fourteen months ago, when it happened? Why did she keep that a secret? Finding out last night was a huge shock."

"Maybe you weren't ready to hear it until now. Maybe she didn't want you to know that she was responsible for bringing you back to yourself. Look what's happened. You're back in therapy, you love doing the news again, your life is so much fuller and she's back by your side…waiting for you to take the lead. She didn't take credit for any of it. She just wants you to be the man she fell in love with who knew what he wanted and went after it. It's time Will. It's time to be that man."

Hearing those words brought a powerful wave of emotion over Will.

Mackenzie was waiting for him. She loved him and she was waiting for him to come to his senses and admit that he wanted her too.

"Our time is over. You're ready to do this."