Not mine or else Will and Mac would be running into each other's arms at this point. Also my apologies if you're reading this because you've subscribed to me. I will finish all my other stories eventually I promise. I hope this will fix my writers block.

When page 6 breaks the scoop, Mac is holed up in her office blissfully unaware.

In fact, the only reason she finds out is because some intern (and once Mac remembers to breathe again she'll also remember the interns name) asks her if this means Will's going to need a plus one at the companies annual dinner gala next month. When Mac finally manages to swallow the knot forming in her throat to ask for clarification the article placed on her desk takes her breathe away.

Love is in the tabloids; ACN Anchor Will McAvoy and gossip columnist Nina Howard caught on date.

Suddenly Mac is broken hearted and dying inside and surely she's bleeding somewhere because nobody could be in this much pain and not have sliced skin to show for it. She can't think about anything except that this is her fault and she needs to get out of here and how did she fuck everything up so badly that once again her world is imploding?

She finds herself at Jerry's office telling him that she's come down with some sort of debilitating illness and he'll have to take over for tonight. She can't help but wish Jim were here because Jim was like a brother and he would listen to all her angst teenage heartache without judgement because he loved Maggie and he fucking knew how she was feeling. So she takes the taxi home and she can't remember much from the journey except hearing the words 'Will', 'Nina', and 'caught on date' on loop through her head like a horror movie.

The first thing she does when she arrives in her apartment is get out a spoon and ice cream but then she remembers that Will doesn't love her and she trades in the ice cream for tequila. She drinks shot after shot until the afternoon has arrived and she's so blind drunk she can't remember her own name let alone why she feels like something is tearing at her heart from the inside out.

Eventually she goes to take another swig only to find the tequila bottle empty so with nothing else but her misery to occupy her she scrolls through the messages from Will from the past few months. She has an unfortunate feeling she can't call him Billy anymore, and though it's a stupid pet name, she can't help missing it, miss teasing him with it just as she'd teased him for sleeping with someone as clearly crazy as Sloan's gun carrying friend.

She doesn't know what time it is when her phone starts ringing only that it's dark and not Will. She answers (because if anyone can help her at this point then she'll be eternally grateful) not surprised when it's Jim on the other side.

"I just heard Mac." There's a short pause where she can hear him sigh in sympathy. "Are you okay?"

"No but I'll get there. I think okay might exist at the bottom of my tequila bottle." If Jim hears the wobble in her voice then he's polite enough not to point it out, to not expose her to the fraud she is.

"So you're not going to… you know?"

"Quit? No Jim, I promise you I won't quit." And that's true because as pathetic as it is the only think Mackenzie can think of that is worse than seeing Will everyday is not seeing Will everyday. She can hear his sigh of relief and wishes she could feel anything close but she can't and the best she can do is help Jim not destroy his life. "Don't give up on Maggie Jim. You hear me? She loves you I know it, just be patient."

"Sure Mac." She hangs up with a promise of trying to sleep and as much as she knows it's useless and a uphill battle she never the less climbs into her sheets, hoping for the oblivion that is sleep may be found.

A few days later when the hang over from hell finally subsides she manages to find it within herself to go to work.

Then she sees Will sitting before her desk and tears fill her eyes and she must be a fucking masochist to think she was ready for this hell. Because that's what this is, it is her very own person perdition and what makes it worse is that it's all her fucking fault. She brushes away a tear with the back of her hand. The events of the past few days have made her an emotional wreck. Yesterday she even caught herself reading Sylvia Plath.

"Mac." He looks like he hasn't slept the last few day and it makes her heart break a little bit more because the last thing she ever wanted was for him to feel even a fraction of the heartache she's been experiencing the past few days. She has to avert her eyes though because her world is already collapsing in on her and if she gets lost in those beautiful blue eyes of his again she's not sure she'll be able to be found. She's not sure if she'll want to be.

"You need to leave my office right now William." She's still staring out her office window briefly entertaining the notion of jumping out of it because surely she couldn't anymore? Surely that's not physically possible? Because she still feels like falling in some dark abyss.

"Mac, I want to apologise. You never should have fou-"

"You need to stop Will." Because if he doesn't he might kill her. "You don't owe me anything. Not a thing."

"That's not tru-"

"I fucked up Billy! I fucked up five years ago." And doesn't she know it. She remembers years ago how she'd freaked out inside at just his simple, earnest I'm not interested in anyone else, because though she'd accepted that she had certain, special feelings about him, she didn't want to consider that he felt the same way, because then, by not telling him that she loved him and making things serious, she was just playing with his heart. She'd been too scared to tell him, too scared he might not feel the same way to even consider telling him, because she didn't want to get hurt again, or have her heart broken. Of course, now that it was over, she knows that he did try to tell her, a lot of times, a lot of ways, and that she's the one, this time, who got her own heart broken. And it is really broken because she can't even manage a smile for the man she loves. "This hurts Billy! Standing here, talking to you, it really fucking hurts. So, if you feel any care for me what so ever you'll just get out. So I can sit here and cry and try to live with the fact I not only broke your heart but that I broke my own."

It's only when he leaves that she allows herself to truly break down because she's heartbroken and alone and she really can't see anytime in the future when she'll be able to move on the way Will has. There is so much she wants (no fucking needs) to tell him. That when he's sitting next to her in a staff meeting or talking to her through an ear piece that she ever wants to do is stare at him, kiss him, make love to him, beg him to be with her or marry her or whatever it takes just so he'll say that he loves her, because that's all she wants, for him to look at her the way he use to and to once again tell her every single minute of every single day that he loves her as much as she loves him. Because she does and all she wants to do is scream it from a megaphone and swear to him that she'll never ever in a million years hurt him the same way again.

She won't though because she swore to herself that she'll finally do right by him and move on. Well, not move on because that im-fucking-possible but at the very least she'll allow him to move on. So instead she'll sit in her office getting hammered, because if he doesn't love you then why bother following Daylight Savings Time.

When her and Will's story breaks she's sitting in her office painfully aware.

To be continued…

Only, I can't promise when because we all know how lax I am at updating.

Please review though!