A/N: Originally something like this was going to be in Holding On and Letting Go, but it never quite fit, tonally, or with how I had characterized Will and Mac's relationship by that point in the fic. So I suppose this is a different take on it. Warnings, of course, for past canonical child abuse. Post-ep for 2.05, News Night with Will McAvoy.
The title is a reference to St. Brigid of Kildare, the patroness of Ireland. She has her own cross (St. Brigid's cross) which good Irish folks (including my family) hang in their kitchens to ward off evil and fire. But beyond being the patroness of Ireland, St. Brigid is also the patron saint of children born to abusive fathers and abusive unions.
It takes a gentle touch to get him out of the chair at the end of the broadcast, where he's sitting stunned. Anything more and Mac worries that he'll startle, or detonate. And if he does it here, she knows it'll be worse for him, later on. He's far away—MacKenzie knows exactly where, even if she's only ever seen a picture of the white clapboard Nebraska farmhouse—his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths that last too long, so she takes his elbow as gently as possible and presses upwards until he stands, absently batting the receiver out of his ear.
He'll hold together, which makes her only more inclined to soften her touch, lighten her steps. Will can hold together through almost anything, which is why she doesn't take her eyes off him while she steers him out of the studio, even while bracing open doors and moving him around desks and the staff, thankfully, is apt enough to clear out of their way.
"We need to re-tape that, for the West Coast," he mumbles, jerking out of her grasp to turn around and back into the studio.
But is pliable when she gently takes his wrist, curls her shoulders in and ducks her head, makes herself smaller. "I've already told them to edit it, its fine."
Mimicry; she's seen Will do this hundreds of times. Fold himself in, make himself smaller, unassuming, non-threatening. And now she understands that he's undersold it all, everything that happened in the white clapboard farmhouse. Just like how he never told her about his medication until she found him on his bathroom floor, just like how he never told her about the voicemail, and starting dating Nina Howard when she pushed.
It makes sense now, MacKenzie thinks, with a sudden sort of clarity that threatens to knock her over.
(Of course he can't forgive her.)
She expects him to tell her to leave him alone, to quickly change out of the suit and scrub off the makeup and vanish from the newsroom, ignore her calls all weekend.
But she has to try.
If Will hasn't told her the truth then he certainly won't tell Nina, and she wonders if she should get Charlie because Will can't be alone right now, he can't suffer alone in this and she doesn't know if he'll allow himself to let her in, but she won't let him be alone.
He might not want her but he can't go through this alone, because she's terrified of what he'll do to himself if he does.
So she won't allow it.
But for whatever reason, his fingers clench and unclench and he licks his lips before nodding in agreement with her, movements stilted and oddly measured as if he's trying to race to the conclusion of some sort of mental equation, but doesn't quite understand all the steps in getting there. She knows the feeling, the whirling disorientation that comes with trauma and anxiety, and she follows him from the bullpen into his office, where his hands begin to shake.
"I have to call my sister," he mutters, eyes darting everywhere but her face, shrugging out of his suit jacket. "I have to call her back."
"Just take a minute," she says, slowly stepping closer when his hands shake too much to grasp the knot of the tie, when she sees him start to panic. He tries to rim his collar with his fingers, meeting his hands at the knot of Armani silk again and again, paling, and she makes herself small, tries not to get to close. "You're here, in New York. You can't help anyone in Nebraska right now. Just take a minute, Will."
Clenching and unclenching his fingers again, he whirls towards his bathroom. Stands in it with the lights off, eyes still darting, looking for somewhere to hide. When his posture crumples she follows him in, crossing her arms to keep herself from reaching out to touch him, forces herself just to watch the lines in his throat distend, watch his pulse beat against his neck, forces herself to stamp down on her own rising fear.
He scrubs a hand over his forehead, before shakily trying to pluck the buttons of his cuffs apart, shaking his head. "No, I have to—and Fiona, and Michael, I have to—they're—"
Voice constricted, he tries again to get his shirt open, his tie off.
Dammit.
"I know, I know."
Mac knows she doesn't do soothing well—knows that she's not good at this, knows that she's not good enough—but she steps towards him, hurriedly lifting one of his wrists to eye level and undoes the button on one sleeve, and then the other, letting them fall deadened to his side when she finishes, hands reaching for his tie.
"Here, let me. Okay?" she whispers, trying not to focus on how his fingers keeping clenching and unclenching, how his hands shake, his shoulders shake.
The man's dead and Will's still terrified.
Will's father is dead and Will needs his approval, craves the approval of a man that she knows, knows, was a loud, mean drunk, who didn't appreciate the son who graduated high school at sixteen and undergrad at nineteen, who played sport and brought home straight As and did everything well, everything perfectly, who went to law school and had a conviction rate of 94% even before DNA testing, who climbed the ladder at the RNC and is the face of a major news network, a man who is always struggling to be just better enough—
Will's father is dead. MacKenzie is fairly certain that Will's father was more than just a loud, mean drunk, because Will is trying very hard not to hyperventilate because now he will never get the approval of the man who, MacKenzie is fairly certain, taught Will to curl his shoulders in and make himself small, taught Will to protect their staff, protect her, without first processing the consequences.
John McAvoy taught her Will to get himself hurt, how to hit back harder, how to treat every lost twentysomething in his path like his little brother or sister, and then his son or daughter, as he got older and they didn't and he just kept trying to fill the hole, keep them safe.
(When he lets himself, that is. When Will lets himself have a family, when Will lets himself build the bones of relationships and indulge the capacity to care. Risk getting hurt, which Mac knows he can't do often, has to do in measured bounds, but does anyway, with their intrepid little family.
Often with his hands shoved in his pockets, posture awkward, but he does it.)
That he wasn't good enough. To be forever left seeking someone's validation. Reese Lansing, his "friends" from the RNC, Nina Howard, their viewers. But definitely not John's, who Will can't forgive. Won't forgive. Has absolutely every reason in the world to never forgive, if holding onto anger could only make him able to breathe, able to sleep, didn't weigh him down or send him to a therapist.
She knew that, before, she knew enough to think she understood, but in years since she's also seen Marines on their second and third tours, who flinched at debris in their periphery and swerved to the other side of the road to avoid plastic bags. Seen Pakistani children from ground zero of drone strikes and Pashtun men and women who cowered at the sight of US soldiers.
Of course Will couldn't tell her.
Eyes focused on the ceiling, he nods, breathing shallower than before. With practiced fingers, she smoothly unknots his tie and slides it out from around his neck and lets it fall to the floor without a thought to wardrobe, brushing out the wrinkles in his shirt.
"Better?" she asks, dropping her hands from his shoulders, not daring to lift her voice above a soft rasp.
Will doesn't answer, working the muscles in his jaw, pupils contracting. "My dad's dead," he chokes out, arms hanging tensely at his side, and she bites her lip hard. He shuts down. "The son of a bitch is dead."
"Yeah," she breathes.
He looks at her helplessly, clasping his hands in front of him, eyes looking at the doorway, at escape, and she moves out of the way in case he needs to get out.
"What do I do now?" His hands tighten into each other, and he backs away from her, screwing his eyes shut. "Jesus fucking Christ!"
His breathing, loud and harsh, echoes in the dark, tiny room. Kicking his tie out of the way and against the wall, she steps towards him again, hands held outwards. Half-hysterical, he backs himself against the sink, bending at the waist. In the small amount of light filtering in from his office, she watches his knuckles turn white, watches him breathe and then not, try to cling to the idea that he's not panicking, that he's fine, that this shouldn't, couldn't, affect him.
She can't just watch.
If he shoves her away, so be it.
"Hey—hey."
She's nowhere near strong enough to pry his hands apart, not normally and definitely not with adrenaline cascading through his bloodstream. So instead she skirts her hands as tenderly as she can down his arms, not pressing too hard over the fabric of his sleeves, not stopping anywhere. She doesn't want to pin him, not like she could.
(He only ever allows the illusion of it, if that.)
Shaking, he won't meet her eyes, even though she can see that they're open, and breathes through his mouth in the hope that it will help. Mac understands that the futile hope that he can breathe through this, not have to rely on anyone, is all that's keeping him upright.
(It kept her upright for years; she never meant to have this in common with Will.)
"Hey, look at me. You're okay. You're safe," she tells him, trying to allay the worry from her voice, trying not to let him think she believes he's falling apart. He still won't look at her. She knows where his eyes are though—she holds her hands, palms up, in front of his. "Will—take my hands," she orders him as kindly as possible. "Come on. I have a freakishly high pain threshold, I'll be fine. You won't hurt me."
Waiting for him to do something, anything, she hopes that's the right thing to say, knows what words are enough to make her feel small and useless and a burden to the ones she loves, knows that when she gets like this it's all she can do to keep herself focused on one thing and one thing only and get home and collapse into bed, hide in her sheets, and wait.
(It only takes someone telling her she's not at fault, someone being too nice, someone trusting too much.)
Should she ask him where his Xanax is?
(Mac thinks that would make it worse, those words from him, because he doesn't know about her Xanax or her Prozac or the beta blockers and won't ever know, because this is her fault and it's all she can do to keep herself focused on work and get home, to be a good producer to him and nothing else.
He keeps her in the dark, she knows, to protect himself.
Does she make it worse? Should she go get Charlie?)
On the exhale of a particularly harsh inhale, he works his fingers apart in fractions, skin parting like tearing paper. Hands trembling, he places his palms on top of hers, breathing again loosing from any semblance of control. She waits, and when he folds his fingers around hers she lets him, brushes her thumb over and over a knot of bone in his hand from when he broke it as a child.
At this angle, his entire face is bathed in shadow.
(How, she wonders. How did he really break his hand? Everything is once again cast into an uncertain light. An accident, he told her.
No wonder Will is always making excuses for himself.)
"That's it," she murmurs, staying as still as possible as his fingernails bite into the backs of her hands.
Closing his eyes again, he stoops to rest his forehead on her shoulder.
"Take a minute," she says softly, turning her head so her mouth isn't directly in his ear. Softly, as if he isn't heavy against her, as if this isn't awkward in three-inch heels. She can't let Will think himself a burden. He's not heavy. He's the love of her life. "Liz has her husband. Fi and Mike don't even know yet. You can take a minute. You're okay."
His inhales are lopsided, his breath hot through her silk blouse, and he seems fine with leaning on her for the time being.
For just a minute.
And then he'll shut her out again, harder. Lock the doors, seal the windows, close the shutters, hang a cross in the kitchen. Ward her out again, for as long as possible, until the house burns down again.
But Will needs her, now.
Well, needs someone, and she's here until he steadies, until he convinces himself that he doesn't need anyone again and can stand on his own.
Until he forces her out so that he stands alone.
Every breath echoes in the small darkened bathroom, and MacKenzie feels dread well in her chest. She dares to kiss his cheek, and whisper:
"You're okay."
And slowly he begins to calm.
Thanks for reading!