"I've sent a car to pick you up, so kiss whoever it is goodbye and get your ass downstairs."
"What the fuck, Charlie?"
It was two fifteen in the morning, and Will was in the familiar company car, bound for nofuckingidea.
And Charlie's snide insinuation hadn't even been warranted—he'd been alone.
Will marshaled his indignation. He had a lot of respect for Charlie Skinner—boss, mentor, friend—but this was over the line, being imperiously summoned, no explanation, in the wee hours. This abused the usual boss-subordinate hierarchy. This was disrespectful—exploitive-insulting. Will understood his own value, and he simply couldn't countenance this. It was time for him and Charlie to have a real come-to-Jesus chat.
During Will's spate of righteous anger, the car pulled up curbside to New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Charlie had gotten him out of bed for this? Was he sick? What the hell was going on?
Picking his way past the usual milling mass of the hurting and the frightened, he wandered down a corridor until some woman in surgical scrubs redirected him to a smaller, curtained waiting area.
"Glad to see you were able to extricate yourself," Charlie said by way of greeting.
Sloan sat nearby, working her phone.
"I was alone," Will maintained, but curiosity had begun to dilute his pique. "What's this all about, Charlie?" He inclined his head to indicate Sloan. "Did everyone at work get invited to the ER for a fun-filled Friday night, or are you playing favorites with us?"
"MacKenzie—"
"She's here, too?" He looked for her in the room.
"No—I mean, yes, she's here." Charlie sighed and made a face, determined to start over again. "Sloan found Mac—she was—and there was an ambulance ride—some adverse reaction with medications—"
"Adverse? Adverse how?" Will pulled back involuntarily. He didn't know Mac took any prescriptive medicines; she had always seemed to regard anything more potent than aspirin as the devil's tool.
"—Well, there might have been too many—or the wrong ones, together—and perhaps some alcohol—"
Will frowned, trying to get his head around the image Charlie was painting. "Mac combined booze and pills? MacKenzie?" he shook his head. "I have a hard time believing—I mean, she's too smart to—" He stopped, the words simply not there and no will to chase after them. "But she's okay?"
"She's here." Charlie shrugged. "We're still waiting to find out."
Will spun to face Sloan. "What the fuck happened?"
"Slow down, Romeo," she batted back, in no mood for whatever 'tude he harbored at this time of the morning. "Mac and I had a few drinks after the show—it wasn't a drunk-fest. I mean, I had no way of knowing she was taking—and then, later, I got worried, so I called—"
"Worried? What made you worry?"
"She was down, you know—really down. Even more morose than usual. Anyway, I called later and couldn't get an answer. You know Mac—she'd pick up the phone no matter what. So it bothered me enough that I stopped by." Sloan brought her chin up and her tone became a touch more defiant. "It was the thing on Page Six, I'm sure of it. She saw it and it put her into some kind of funk." At the confused expressions of Charlie and Will she insisted, "Aw c'mon. You know what I'm talking about—"
"Haven't a clue! And I'm getting tired of having to drag every word out of you, Sloan."
"That photo of you—"
Charlie made a slashing motion. "We are not going to re-hash this here."
"Re-hash? I missed the original hashing, so if you don't mind, I'd like to get caught up. And for what it's worth, Page Six isn't on my daily reading list, so I don't know whatever it is you're referring to."
She held up her phone, the web page clearly displayed on the screen. "You and your girlfriend—"
"She's not my—"
"Whatever she is," Sloan hissed. "If you wanna be a little man-slut, fine—but can you at least try to keep a lid on your exploits to limit the collateral damage?"
"You're jumping to conclusions on very little evidence."
"Pictures, Will." She scrolled the images on the screen for effect.
"Circumstantial, Sloan. There's nothing between me and Nina Howard—that's—" He struggled to think of an explanation before finally deciding the better course was simply to stick with outright denial, "That's just some tabloid trash that I'm surprised either MacKenzie or you would pay any attention to. Besides, you're sure this has nothing to do with that prosecutor she was seeing?" It was instinctive, the hitting back, even though he knew the weakness of the argument as he made it.
In frustration, he turned back to Charlie.
"I asked you to meet us here, Will, because I thought that—possibly—you might find it within yourself to stop this death-by-a-thousand cuts that you seem determined to inflict—"
A voice interrupted. "McHale family?"
"Right here," Charlie flagged the doctor over. "You might say we're the work family—there's no family family nearby—"
The particulars didn't seem to matter to this tired doctor. "She's in Recovery, still sedated. We'll want to keep her for a day or two, for observation." He flipped a few pages on his iPad. "She was prescribed some fairly powerful MAOIs—" Seeing that they weren't following, he added, "psychotropics, anti-depressants. Those medications react badly with alcohol and that's probably what caused tonight's little episode."
"But there was blood—" Sloan pressed, enjoying Will's sharp intake of breath and shocked expression from the corner of her eye.
"Small laceration to the scalp, probably sustained when she fell. Those sorts of wounds can bleed a lot, but this one doesn't appear to be serious." The arm holding the tablet dropped back to his side and the doctor blinked behind his glasses. "In any event, there isn't much you can do for your friend right now, so it would probably be best if you went home for now and came back tomorrow—er, later this morning."
The three of them stood there, thinking, as the doctor withdrew and left them alone again.
"I didn't know she—" Will started before stopping. "I mean, when did she—"
"I predict we're going to find that all the clues have been in front of us for a long time, and we've simply been too slow—or reluctant—to put them together." Charlie looked at the wall clock and then to Will. "Did you tell the car to wait?" When the younger man shook his head, Charlie sighed. "Well, we can just share cab, then."
"Somebody should tell Jim," Will mentioned absently.
"I'll do it," Sloan volunteered without enthusiasm for the task.
oooo
Even alert, Mac looked tiny and lost in the hospital bed.
Sloan pushed her way in, hoping the attendant noise and bustle would give her time to think of what to say. It always helped to have a prop at such moments, she'd found, so she plopped the strategic stack of magazines on the bedside table.
"So you don't get bored."
Mac's voice was a hoarse whisper but firm despite that. "Haven't been awake long enough to be bored. But thanks."
"I wanted to bring coffee, but wasn't sure the prison guards would permit it. Also, I sorta thought perhaps Jell-O might be the only thing on the menu for a day or two."
Small nod in response.
"Mac—I'm so, so—if I had known, if I'd had any idea you were on meds—I mean, I would've never suggested getting drinks, let alone what we must have—"
"Don't worry—" Mac lifted a hand to shut down the apology.
Sloan interrupted the attempt. "Worry? Of course I'm going to worry! All those pills—anti-depressants—Mac, when did that happen? And why didn't you tell me?"
"Sloan—this is complicated—"
"Only if complicated refers to the number of meds in your bathroom cabinet. Tell me you haven't been doing this for all the time I've known you."
"I haven't." There followed a long pause while Mac appeared to struggle for the precise words she wanted to use. "There was time—right after my time over there—well, things weren't going so well and I saw doctors and clinicians," shrugging, "and things got prescribed. Sometimes I would take them, and sometimes I'd just—"
"Try to gut it out?" Sloan crossed her arms in front of her, trying to look stern and reprimanding. "So, you saw doctors, and they prescribed medicines, like antidepressants and sleep aids. How much are you taking, and why didn't you tell me, and, especially, when you knew there might be an interaction, why did you—"
"I got so I didn't need—so I stopped taking them. And I kind of forgot they were there until—"
"Until this week's Page Six story about Will and Nina Howard." When Mac failed to respond, Sloan filled the vacuum with more words. "That isn't your fault, Mac."
"That's on me, too," she insisted. "But even apart from that, let's tally things up. There's been a trail of screw-ups since I came back. The goat-rope over the Arizona HB 1070 and allowing Will to be humiliated on-air, which was entirely my fault in not better supervising these young producers. Then, I nearly got a young stringer killed in Tahir Square—"
When Sloan made as if to protest, Mac shook her head and continued.
"Having to drop the whole Operation Clarity investigation simply because we didn't adequately vet the source. The tabloid trash we've had to cover just for a chance at covering the RNC debates—which, by the way, we were never going to get anyway because of me." She took a deep breath and continued. "And that's not even considering the shambles of my personal life. Like Wade—who rates serious demerits in both the personal and professional columns. Brian and that exercise in professional mortification he authored—that's entirely at my door, because he wouldn't have written it with that level of vitriol without believing that I dumped him for—"
Will. Always the elephant in the room.
"So, you see, it's all on me. I probably even pushed him at her because of how shitty I've made everything at work."
"Absolutely not true," Sloan countered. She had held her silence, thinking that it was better that everything on Mac's mind be aired, but now she felt compelled to respond. "None of the events you cited in the newsroom are your fault—hell, sometimes things just happen. Like Fukushima," she huffed a bitter laugh. "Wade was an opportunistic heel and Brian is a jerk. The RNC made a stupid decision for a stupid reason and Will called them out on it, remember?"
"Anyway—it—last night—wasn't intentional, if that's what you're wondering." Mac's voice became halting but more deliberate, underscoring the sad reflection that had obviously gone into her verdict. "I mis-dosed and that, combined with the drinks and a mostly empty stomach—but the thing is, Sloan, after I realized what was happening, I wasn't really alarmed. Surprised—perhaps chagrinned—it just seemed like karma, you know. The last negligible step in a long series of fuck-ups."
Mac dropped her eyes and didn't respond. She tugged the thin hospital sheet a little higher. "I think—I think I've turned a corner, Sloan. I'm going to call my doctor—get back into some therapy—check out some other options—"
"As in, employment options?"
She ducked the question. "Things can't continue like this. I don't think I can bury my feelings when it comes to Will, so that means that producing this show will always be—"
"—Torture?"
"Problematic." She forced another smile. "Anyway, just something I'm thinking about. I need to talk to Charlie. I want him to know I'm not–unstable or anything—"
"Charlie knows that, Mac. In fact, I'm surprised he isn't here now."
"Called while I was still sleeping. Left word he'd be over later."
"Jim?"
"Just before you got here."
By omission, Sloan inferred that Will had not been by this morning, and it didn't seem worth bringing up his presence the night before. It would just hurt Mac to learn that the only reason Will had shown up was because Charlie had deliberately omitted the reason for the summons.
Even Charlie wasn't entirely sure where Will stood.
Needing something to change the trajectory of the conversation, she noted, "Nice flowers."
"Jim couldn't find a card." Mac huffed a short laugh. "Perhaps they were delivered to the wrong room."
"Well, keep them anyway. It's a pretty arrangement." Sloan fanned through the magazines she'd brought and pulled one to the top of the stack. "This month's Economist. While you're here, this would be a good time for you to get caught up on the Greek bond issue—"
"Sloan, there will never be a good time for me to read about Greek bonds." Mac was beginning to sound like herself again.
"I plan to devote seven minutes to it on Tuesday night."
"On News Night? Not while I live and breathe, Sloan."
Mission accomplished.
A/N: From a prompt by Lilacmermaid.