Chips Are Falling
They reached the door to her flat.
"—And you're home."
"Come in?"
Will shook his head. "Mac, you've been operating on all cylinders for weeks. You need some rest. And if I come in— you won't get it. Because I will want to make love to you." He gave a slight smile. "My honesty is undermining my baser desires."
She pushed the door open and took his hand.
He had never been in Mac's flat and he looked around with curiosity while she dropped her coat on a chair and turned to close and lock the door behind them. Nice view of Times Square. Comfortable clutter, books, papers. His eyes roved the dimly lit room and he saw a small framed photograph on a table next to the television, singular because it seemed to be the only piece of truly personal memorabilia in the room. He picked it up.
"Actually—" she began, "if I'd ever conceived the possibility of you coming by, I would have moved it. I wouldn't want to appear – maudlin."
He replaced the frame on the table. "I don't think it's maudlin." Then he reached for her hand. "Mac, really - it's been a long night. Nothing's going to change between us overnight, so why don't you let me kiss you goodnight and I'll call you in the morning. "
"Oh, no, Billy. I can't let you go. I'll be a terrible lover tonight, a horrid blend of desire and exhaustion, I'm afraid. But I really have to be with you. "
Abandoning any further feigned resistance, Will closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to hers.
The lovemaking was quiet but hurried, compromised by their mutual exhaustion and the need to prove this was no mere truce but the instrument of surrender for them both. Will had always been a considerate partner, but his attentions this night were largely in the service of his own desire, as if he sought to tame something wild and recently discovered within himself. When, finally, he gave her a lasting, gentle kiss and made to roll off her, she clutched at him.
"Please – just stay like this a few moments longer."
"I thought it might be getting uncomfortable—"
"You make me feel protected."
He dipped his head back into her neck and trailed soft kisses around the hollow of her throat. "MacKenzie," he murmured, "you've got protection, now – you've got a damned body man for the rest of your life –" He sighed. "But my knee and elbow are reaching their limits…"
"Oh, God! I'm sorry, I forgot!"
He fell into his pillow and pulled her to his side, her head resting on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her. "Maybe you'll still feel protected this way?"
She nodded.
"Everything's going to be okay, Mac," he said, meaning Genoa, Dantana's lawsuit, News Night –
Us.
"I want to believe that."
"You should. We're going to be okay, so everything else will be okay, too."
"I feel as though I've been in free fall for months – maybe years," she whispered. "Spinning in the air, nothing solid beneath me."
"The fall has stopped, Kenz. I've got you. " He shifted closer and kissed her hair.
MacKenzie woke first, a guilty hostage to natural circadian rhythms. It was morning, but still early, and the room was filled with the diffused light of the city's concrete-and-steel canyon. She lay there watching Will's chest rise and fall, thinking about all the breaths in a day – in a life.
In three missing years.
Well, the years themselves weren't missing. But they were like books with empty pages.
"Will?" she whispered, lightly touching his hair with her fingers. "Will?"
He opened a single eye. "Go back to sleep."
She laughed and it was music for him to hear. With an irresistible sleepy smile, he pulled her over to him. After a comfortable period of drowsing and languorous touching, she noticed the time and pushed up on one elbow.
"We've missed the first pitch."
"We're going to miss all the pitches for the next few days. I asked Charlie for the rest of the week. He's bringing Terry Smith up from Washington." He frowned. "I thought he'd bring Jane, but he insisted on Terry."
She gave a wry smile. "Damage control on Charlie's part. Jane would just finish what Dantana started, bringing ACN to its knees." Then she remembered. ""What am I doing, thinking about meetings? I was fired last night."
"You are so not fired—"
They lay there in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
"We need some time. We need to figure out what we're doing next."
"Are we hiding?" she asked, alluding to the embarrassing allegations contained in Dantana's petition, due to be filed that morning.
"Not hiding," he said after a few moments reflection. He rubbed his jaw. "It's hard for me to hide. Mine is the face on the billboard, on the side of the bus, in the glossy advert in the magazine at the checkout. This isn't what I signed up for, but it's part of the package." He sighed. "What I hate is that the rest of you are going to be pulled into this whirlpool with me. Elliott and Sloan – and they're still on-air this week. You and Jim, Maggie, Don – you probably have a few days of anonymity left, until the weeklies hit the newsstands on Friday. Then watch out for the paps on your doorstep."
"Coffee?" she greeted him as he came into the kitchen, smelling of soap, barefoot and wearing only jeans.
"Yeah, thanks." He took the mug from her. "We won't be in the papers yet," he said, gesturing to the Times and Daily News on the kitchen counter. "Maybe the afternoon editions."
"Well, I'll take my shower now," she said.
He grabbed his phone. "I'm gonna make some calls. Check in with Charlie. Ask Scott to send someone over with some… clothes for me."
He was using a knife to fish a bagel out of the toaster when she returned.
"Is that safe?"
"Just another of my talents. Toaster repair. Pettyfogger. The face and voice of the now-disgraced ACN News." He plated several bagels and put the jam and cream cheese on the counter.
"Did you reach Charlie?"
"I'll have to try again later. Millie said he's in a high level conference with Leona and Rebecca." He crossed his arms. "Hey, I've made some unilateral decisions, but they affect you, so we need to talk about them."
She put her mug down, unsure what to expect. "Go on."
"Mac, somebody said it in a movie, but once you've figured out who you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want to start the rest of your life immediately. That's me right now. I don't want to start a day without you near me. So, I want you to pack a bag and move in with me for the rest of the week. We'll figure out where we're going to live long term, but I need you with me right now. Every night, every morning."
She leaned against the kitchen counter and tilted her head with an expression of incredulity.
"Second, I want to marry you right away. I don't know what you want, you're going to have to tell me. Maybe you want a big affair, flowers and dresses and all that stuff – and we can do that, too, later, if you want. But I want to marry you right now, no waiting. Tomorrow, this week. Whenever we can make this happen.
"Third." He stepped toward her, his gaze steady. "I want to take you back to bed. I didn't do right by you last night." This last was offered with a shrug and a sheepish smile. "MacKenzie?" he said, noting her look of surprise. "Tell me what you're thinking."
"A little cognitive dissonance. We've gone from glacial melt to the speed of light in the space of one day." She moved to place her hand on his. "Everything you said is fine by me. I am relentlessly… shamelessly… helplessly in love with you, Will."
They kissed, with none of the tentativeness or self-consciousness of the night before. Her passion was fueled by the hunger of years of desire, the denial of that desire, and, somewhere, gratitude for a second chance. It felt so good, to be able to show him how much she loved him still, how much she had always loved him, how much she wanted to please him…
He grabbed her hands and tugged her back down the hall.
"Enjoy it now," he said with wry amusement. "Enjoy it while it's still illicit. You'll think it's a chore once we're married."
"Not on your life," she breathed.
They rolled on the bed, kissing and tugging off their clothes. He pulled her on top of him and they sought once-familiar rhythms. He spent minutes exploring her breasts with his eyes and fingers, cupping the contours, stroking her skin, watching her face for reaction. Then his hands slid slowly down her shoulders to her forearms, fanning over her hips and brushing back the sheet she had gathered around her waist. "What-?" His left hand found the purple pucker of a long scar across her stomach and right flank. "Aw, Jeeze—" he muttered, finally comprehending. His expression was full of grief.
MacKenzie had momentarily forgotten, had allowed herself to become untethered to the memory of the scar and how it could betray her. She hurried to press his hand flat against the seam in her flesh. "Don't look at that, Billy. We're not going to talk about this now." She took his hands in hers. "Please?"
He nodded and said nothing more about it, because that was what she wanted. He even managed a half-smile to defuse the moment. "You're beautiful, MacKenzie," he murmured reassuringly.
And strong…
MacKenzie 2.0. Then and now.
He found he was making the comparison in his mind. She had lost the girlish air, gained a personal gravitas. She moved with a more deliberate grace now. Her brown eyes had the same flash and sparkle as before, but also seemed to hold a new reticence. She seemed sadder, more vulnerable.
And yet, still so beautiful…
"Let me know when you're close—" he whispered, and when, minutes later, her eyes told him she was, he laced their fingers together. "I love you, MacKenzie." She uttered a small gasp, followed by a long sigh, and he squeezed her hands and hurried to catch up.
Later, his fingers kept tracing the pucker of the scar. Finally, she stilled them and clung to his hand on her belly.
"Reason says I should have died," she said quietly, looking at the ceiling. "I don't think I particularly tried to stay alive. Jim was the one who fought for me – sometimes, he fought with me in order to make me fight."
Will said nothing, his head propped on his other hand, watching her as she explained.
"I didn't go looking for injury but when it happened, I was at peace with it. It just seemed like something else I had miscalculated, other consequences I had failed to consider."
Like knives. And confessions. Sharp, deep, gliding in quickly and doing their worst damage on the exit.
She closed her eyes and the lashes seemed especially stark on her pale skin. "Military medicine being what it is, I have a lovely scar." She hesitated. "I don't mean that harshly. They saved my life, so I'm grateful. They just didn't have time to put the pieces back the same way. Should I see a plastic surgeon?"
"Does it make you self-conscious? When people see it?"
"Will, until today, no one has seen it. No one. You know I'm not one for beaches so I haven't been wearing a bikini and exposing my midriff." She paused. "If it upsets you – if you find it ugly or disturbing, I'll see someone about… minimizing it."
"Disturbing," he repeated. Yes, that kind of proximity to death is bound to be disturbing. A scar is a real, visceral reminder. "It is—I mean, I do find it disturbing, but only because it symbolizes how nearly I lost you. " He stroked her hair and stayed silent for minutes before he spoke again. "Keep the scar," he said. "It's a fucking medal. Your medal. You endured, you survived, you prevailed. But it's important, so don't take it away or minimize it in any way."
A few minutes after 3pm, the buzzer rang.
"That will be Scott's assistant, bringing me a clean shirt." Will skinnied into his jeans and went to catch the door, calling over his shoulder, "Pack a bag, Mac. We're shifting to my place."
She showered and changed, grabbing at essential hair products and toiletries and tossing them in the bag. She threw in casual clothes and something slightly nicer, in case she had to wear it to work on Monday.
Will came back in the room sporting a ball cap and sunglasses with a tag still dangling. "Evidently, Scott seemed to think I needed a disguise, too." He took them off, pulling at the tag on the glasses. "It's actually a good idea. Might want to tone down the recognition factor for the next few days." He slipped on the new dark blue T-shirt and stood before the mirror, eyeing his profile. "Maybe a mustache—"
"Maybe not!"
"Text from Charlie." Will held up his phone.
"What does he say?"
"Under siege here. Your troops performing magnificently. Even Reese has astonished us. Now take her back to bed."
"Charlie wrote that?"
"Guess my intentions were transparent." He shrugged. "Hurry up. We've got to get going."
At the curb, a familiar figure opened the back door of the black Escalade.
"Surprise," Will said.
"Lonny!" She gave him a quick hug before pulling back with a frown. "Does this mean Jerry fucking Dantana has put out a hit for us?"
Lonny gave a short laugh. "I guess Mrs. Lansing wanted to make sure the paparazzi didn't muss McAvoy's hair or anything. So I'm back on this assignment until things settle down a bit." He closed the door behind them and ran around to the driver's side.
Mac still wasn't sure if this development was something to worry about.
"I thought we'd have a better shot at keeping this low-key if we went to one of the boroughs," Lonny began.
"Good idea, Make it the easiest, traffic-wise."
Mac looked confused at their exchange. "Where are we going?"
"We have to show up in person to apply for the license. Then, there's a 24 hour cooling off period. In case you come to your senses and all."