Author's Notes: First of all, let me apologize for my disappearance from the Newsroom fanfic scene, as both a writer and a reviewer. The last few months have been quite crazy, beginning with the adoption of a new puppy (lovingly named Kenzie, of course) and ending with an F4 tornado destroying my hometown (and my home) just two months ago. Now safely ensconced in my temporary housing, I can finally begin to write again. This is one I started some time ago, but just recently edited and polished. Many thanks to teanc09, LilacMermaid, Millie, and KatyCat for encouraging me to continue to write. Huge thanks to writingalone for listening to me whine about post-tornado clean-up and sending me clothing and household items. You guys rock! P.S.-Let's just assume that whole little Will/Mac engagement thing didn't take place for a moment here. I'm thrilled it happened, and I loved watching it, but what the heck is a writer supposed to do with happily ever after?! For the purposes of this story, we're going to assume most everything in season two, except for those last glorious few minutes, took place. Enough said. Read on…
The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
~50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Paul Simon
'Love your job and you'll never work a day in your life.' She remembered her father telling her that when she went to university. And, like so many other things he had told her, it proved to be useful and true. Her job had never been easy, or afforded her much down time, but it kept her mind occupied and her interest engaged. The news had never let her down…until now. But how do you leave the love of your life? Because, since it was clear she would never have Will, her job had become her lover and her spouse. It was the child she would never have and the grandbabies she would never rock.
But fucking Jerry Dantana had taken that from her too.
No, really, she couldn't blame him. Fuck that! Yes she could blame him! All her field experience and training had prepared her for cagey witnesses, and lying politicians, and double-speaking public relations people. It had never prepared her for willful disregard of journalistic ethics. It had never prepared her for…
"Mac?" Will asked as he popped his head into her office.
"Hmm?" she replied. Extra words were an effort these days. She needed every ounce of energy she had just to finish out the day and plot her exit. That's what she sat up at night doing. The lists were scattered about her apartment. It looked like a Xerox machine had exploded in her bedroom.
"You coming to the rundown? We're waiting for you."
"Jim can handle it. I have something I need to do" she answered, without looking up. She didn't know what he would see in her eyes anymore. Lies, guilt, fear, exhaustion? She couldn't risk it. So she stared down at the newspaper in front of her.
"What are you doing?" he pushed, as he came into the room, and stared down at the crown of her head.
"Reading." One word answers were good. One word answers were safe. Nobody ever went wrong with one word answers. Two word answers really fucking messed things up. Two word answers like Brian Brenner or Operation Genoa. She swore she would never use a two word answer again in her life.
"You're going to read The New York Times instead of coming to a rundown meeting?" he asked incredulously.
"Hmm" she mumbled. Nonsensical murmurs were even better than one word answers. She was starting to think actual words were superfluous. But she knew he was still staring at her. Could feel his gaze burning into her skull.
"Mac, what's going on?" he pleaded. He sat down in front of her desk and tried to see her eyes from underneath the curtain of hair that was shielding her face. She continued to skim her fingers over the newspaper and pretend to read. 'Go away. Go away.' She wished she could say it out loud, but it was a two word answer. Maybe 'leave' would be better.
"Are you okay?" he whispered across the expanse of her desk, and if it weren't so sweet, she would have burst out laughing. Am I okay? Are you fucking kidding me?
"Alright, not the best way to phrase that question" he conceded. She tilted her head in acknowledgement. None of them were okay right now. It really was a ridiculous question.
"Are you sleeping?" he asked, and she couldn't possibly answer that. The truth was that, no, she hadn't slept through the night in more than two weeks. Not since Genoa. Not since they had to retract the story. She couldn't tell him that though. He'd never let her produce. Wait? Maybe that's not such a bad idea.
"Are you sleeping?" she parroted back. When all else fails, deflect. That was her new motto.
"I have a tempurpedic mattress, one thousand thread count sheets, and a twenty year old bottle of scotch in my bedroom" he replied.
"Not an answer to my question Will. Not an answer to my question." Why did she repeat herself so much lately, she wondered? An effort to clarify her own muddled thinking? Because if Jerry fucking Dantana and Operation fucking Genoa could get by her, then her own brain could not be trusted. Of that she was sure.
She continued to stare down at her newspaper in the hope that Will would leave soon. She randomly drew another bright pink line across the inky page and watched as the newsprint mingled with the highlighter and became a jumbled line of pinky grey. It was mesmerizing the way the bold, imaginative words of Thomas Friedman blurred to become nothing more than a sickly blotch on the page. Even the best journalism was here today, gone tomorrow. She continued to slash bright pink lines across the page with gusto. The mindless joy it brought her was a comfort. Slash…slash…slash.
"Mac. Stop!" Will shouted, pulling the highlighter from her shaking hands.
"May I have that back please?" she asked, quietly and simply, as a small child would. She held her hand out, but when he didn't comply, she simply shrugged her shoulders and continued to run her fingers across the newspaper. It was more an attempt to calm herself than it was an actual reading aide at this point. Will backed away from her and she didn't even notice the movement. He quickly ran down the hall.
"Sloan!" Will barked into the economist's office a moment later.
"Yeah?" she responded, barely looking up from her keyboard.
"There's something wrong with Mac" he said quietly, both for Mackenzie's privacy and because he couldn't quite bring himself to say the words. Mackenzie McHale bounced back from anything. But not this, apparently. Not Jerry Dantana.
"Of course there is Will. There's something wrong with all of us. We let that asshole pull the wool over our eyes and we're better than that" Sloan grumbled. But Will still stood there. She looked at him and could see the worry etched into the lines on his face.
"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked, rising from her seat. Will motioned her toward Mac's office.
Mackenzie was making a sort of humming noise now. Just a constant, low rumble as her fingers ran back and forth across the pages of The Times. She wasn't taking in any of it, that much was clear, she never turned a page or stopped moving her fingers. Just smudged the ink around with her hand. It was like watching a child fingerpaint or pretend that they knew how to read.
"Kenz?" Sloan asked, moving slowly toward her friend.
"Hmm?" Mackenzie replied, barely changing the tone of her constant humming.
"What are you doing?" Sloan took a seat now, in front of the desk, and looked up at Will for a moment. He shrugged.
Finally Mackenzie gazed up at her and smiled slightly. But it was a cold, vacant stare, like she was looking right through everyone and everything in the room.
"When was the last time she slept?" Sloan asked, Will shrugged his shoulders again.
"I tried that question already. Didn't go so well" he admitted.
"Mackenzie!" Sloan shouted, simultaneously snapping her fingers in front of her friend's eyes.
"Hmm?" Mackenzie asked again, clearly not understanding anything that was being asked of her.
"You've got to get her out of here. She's barely conscious Will."
"Any ideas on how I do that Sloan? She's a grown woman. Wearing three inch heels. I don't want to get a stiletto to the groin if I try to pick her up" Will muttered. But he too knew that they couldn't let Mackenzie stay at the office like this. She was a walking zombie.
"Do you think she even realizes where she is?" Sloan turned toward Will. The sight of her friend was really fucking scaring her and she wished she'd never come in here. Will shrugged. Damn it! He was nearly as lost as Mackenzie was, but then, he'd depended on her for everything. He didn't know it, he probably liked to think he was his own man, but Mackenzie pulled his strings so delicately and with such conniving genius that he was never aware there were any strings at all.
"I've got an idea" Sloan whispered, crooking her finger toward him and leading him to his office.
"Put this on" she ordered, holding out an Armani suit, and Will had to wonder if she'd lost her mind too.
"It's three in the afternoon Sloan. I'm not on the air for five hours. I really don't enjoy sitting around in those things, you know?" he asked, because he wasn't sure she did know. Armani, Hugo Boss, Zegna…they all looked good, and he was aware that he wore them well, but he really preferred his jeans or corduroys and a tee-shirt.
"You know that, and I know that, but she doesn't seem to know much of anything right now. So put on the damn suit Will!" Sloan commanded, and fuck all if he didn't snap to attention and run for his bathroom. Sloan smirked. Adopting the tone Mackenzie used with him worked…apparently.
"Now what?" he asked, when he returned a few minutes later, suit and tie in place.
"Now we mess with her mind" Sloan grinned. It was sort of a manic, disturbed grin though, and it frightened Will. What the hell had Genoa done to all of them?
"Kenz? Time to go. You've been here way too late. Will's been waiting for you" Sloan cheerily told the E.P. as she entered her office again. Mackenzie looked up blankly and let her gaze fall on the two of them. She blinked several times, but looked down at the paper and folded it up. She grabbed some books and magazines, her notepad and her laptop, and threw everything into her bag as she nodded a half-hearted goodnight at them and slogged her way through the newsroom.
Will and Sloan stood there for a moment, staring at each other, amazed that their ruse had worked. Then Sloan snapped to attention and pushed him out the door.
"What are you waiting for?! Follow her. We can't let her wander the streets of New York like this!" she shouted.
"But what am I supposed to do now?" he asked, truly curious as to how he was supposed to convince Mackenzie it was nearly midnight. It was a sunny fall afternoon. Surely, the woman wasn't so oblivious to her surroundings that she would mindlessly wander home in the glaring sun, and believe she had actually just produced the evening news?!
"Just trust me. Go grab her before she gets on the elevator. I'll call for a car and have it waiting in the parking garage. If you never let her out the front doors she won't see that's it's the middle of the afternoon. Get her home Will. Get her to sleep" Sloan pleaded, because he might just be the only one who could do it.
"This way Kenz" he urged her onto the elevator, and miraculously, she followed. She stood, staring at the number display above the door, watching as they slowly moved closer to their destination. She seemed confused for just a moment, as the doors opened, and revealed the darkened bowels of the attached parking structure.
"I'm going to give you a ride home Kenz. Come on" he urged, and she seemed to stop for just a moment. He panicked. The last thing he needed right now was to have to physically haul Mackenzie into a car. Thankfully, she slipped into the black towncar with darkened windows that appeared just moments later. She was still eerily quiet.
"Mac?" he asked. She looked around. First at the interior of the car and then at him. She seemed to be on the verge of asking a question, but she simply leaned against the car door and let her head thump against the window. She closed her eyes. He thought she might have fallen asleep when he heard her begin to mumble the words to a Paul Simon song.
"She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain. I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again. I said, I appreciate that and would you please explain about the fifty ways."
It took him a moment, because her lips barely moved as she quietly sang the words, but he soon recognized the lyrics to 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. She laughed briefly as she started in on the more quirky and upbeat chorus.
"You just slip out the back, Jack. Make a new plan, Stan. You don't need to be coy, Roy. Just get yourself free. Hop on the bus Gus. You don't need to discuss much. Just drop off the key, Lee. And get yourself free."
Was that what she was doing? Plotting her escape? He'd assumed her lack of sleep and generally less than pleasant demeanor of late had to do with her shock over Genoa and her absolute and utter hatred of Jerry Dantana. He had no idea she still harbored guilt over it. That she truly felt like they'd all be better off without her. No one at ACN would be better off without her, least of all him.
She is nearly asleep, or maybe unconscious, by the time they reach her apartment and he has to carry her upstairs. His back and his knees will not be thanking him in the morning. He manages to get her inside, after fishing around in her purse for her keys, and nearly drops her on the bed. She makes only a small grunt in reply.
"Sorry" he whispers, pulling off her shoes and trying to clear some of the paperwork from her bed. Only, it's not paperwork. It's lists, and hastily scribbled notes, and page after page of apologies. To him, to Charlie, to ACN…to all of them. She's apologizing for letting them all down.
"Jesus, Mac" he whispers, pushing the hair back out of her face. She's burning up, he realizes, and goes into the bathroom to wet a washcloth and lay it across her forehead. He runs to the kitchen for a glass of water and some Tylenol and returns to her side, trying to pull her into a sitting position so she can take the pills.
"You've got to help me a little here Mac" he pleads, tugging at her dead weight.
"Sorry Billy. I'm so sorry" she begins to weep. And it's only hours later, as he's wrapped her in a blanket and rocked her to sleep whispering words of forgiveness and love, that she manages to calm and fall into a deep, hard sleep.
"What the fuck have we done to you Mac? What the fuck have I done to you?" And how do I fix it, he wondered sadly.
