A/N: I actually can't believe I've written something. It's been almost a full year. But I was inspired by Francesca's unfailing belief that I would one day write again. This one is for you, lovely lady.
There is nothing more humiliating than a blank word document.
Blank word documents and inky black keyboards – all those letters just begging to be typed.
Will leans back in his office chair and glares pitifully at the dimly lit screen of his computer, willing the words to appear before him. At least an introduction – even a dedication would do at this point.
Dedicated to Mackenzie, who threatened to lock me in the library unless I started writing this goddamn 'little' history of journalism even though it's a stupid topic that I'm not sure I actually agreed to – and perhaps that last bit won't go over well with his publishers.
He rests his fingers on the warm keyboard and sighs, glancing at the mug of tepid coffee that Mackenzie had snuck in to him over an hour ago. She'll be in bed by now, snoring gently and sleep warm to touch. It would be so easy to scale up the old wooden staircase that they've never bothered to repair (even after five years in the house and their steady resolve to fix it) and crawl under the sheets with her. Their bedroom smells perpetually of lavender and wood pine, and a few months ago while guest lecturing in Boston for a week Will had discovered he could no longer fall asleep without Mackenzie within arms reach. He'd spent four nights blinking wide-eyed at the ceiling, craving her touch and the soft snuffling noises she makes as she rolls from side to side and the deep smell of the woods that their house sits on the edge of. In the end he'd caught a 1am flight home a day early, just so he could slip into bed beside her the following morning, accepting her amused laughter and teasing in favor of blissful sleep.
He's traveling to LA in a few weeks and he's sorely tempted to make her come with him – he'll use the beach and a holiday as an excuse and she'll see through it because he's a goddamn open book nowadays and she's still as sharp as she was fifteen years ago, but it will be worth it for the restful nights and the way the sun glints off her hair. Once upon a time they'd struggled to read each other – pain blurring the lines of familiarity and love. Now even the dogs look at him pitifully when he tries to get something by her, but he finds he can't complain.
Toby, the first of their mutts, had been discovered cowering under the front porch one chilly fall evening not three months after they'd moved out of the city. He was a tiny shivering bundle of matted grey fur and smelt disgustingly of wet dog – for that's what he was. It was pouring outside and Mackenzie had made her breathless I-want-to-help-the-poor-little-thing noises and Will hadn't been able to argue with her. Five years later and Beetle (who came with her ridiculous name and thus has been affectionately known as Bee) has joined their small woodland gang. In the afternoons and on weekends Will takes the dogs up through the trails that wind through the woods and Mackenzie lazes on the back porch reading whatever she's managed to discover in the library.
It's chilly nearly all the time in the Adirondacks, but with her English blood Mackenzie has dreary weather and gloom soaked in her soul, and after what feels like a lifetime battling blasts of freezing air in New York City, the clear skies and crisp mornings in the mountains are a blessed respite. When the weather permits they grow vegetables in a small patch of dirt just beyond the back porch and Mackenzie has pots of herbs across the kitchen windowsill so that the room always smells of basil.
The aforementioned library is actually more of a study that Will and Mackenzie have stacked so high with piles of books that it's impossible to move around without knocking them over. Their Sunday morning arguments now include debates over who was responsible for the mess, but like the stairs, and the wall that's waiting to have photos hung on it, and the spare bathroom that needs painting - neither have ever been bothered to deal with it. When they first moved in they had such grand plans for the house, but now they're so comfortable in their surroundings that upsetting (or fixing) anything would feel like pulling a jenga block – too much might fall and crumble and they're happy with what they've built, and there's something intellectually delicious to the two of them about stumbling around the library and happening across an old history of Mesopotamia, or a Dostoevsky, or Mackenzie's childhood copy of Winnie the Pooh. One warmish spring evening Will had settled beside her on the back porch, sinking his fingers into the cool depths of her hair to scratch at the nape of her neck, and discovered her reading one of his old law journals. "It's fascinating," she'd mumbled around a groan, arching her neck back against his hand as he tugged at a strand of hair. "It's boring," he'd countered, brow creased in confusion – his wife, such a strange woman – before closing the book in her hands and stifling her complaints with his vastly more interesting mouth.
"Do you know where they went," Will mumbles now, eyeing Bee who sits in the corner of the library with her head resting on her front paws, eyes drowsy in the low artificial light coming off the computer. Will glances haphazardly around the mounds of books, trying to find the law journals in question. He's not felt the need to look through them in years, but he likes having them close by. They're a physical reminder of the first part of his adult life, a time when he was young and passionate and not so grumpy. Then he'd become a journalist and been slightly less young, just as passionate but more grumpy.
Now he was just tired.
"I'm getting old Bee," he grumbles, and the dog shifts her head on her paws but refuses to make a sound.
He likes to believe that Bee is on his side. Toby is so firmly attached to Mackenzie that Will has to physically wrestle the dog away sometimes, but Bee seems to accept all three of them with equal joy and disdain.
The house is eerily quiet as the dog considers him, and Will still isn't used to the lack of sirens. After so many years in New York he's come to expect the night to be filled with car horns and fire engines and shouts of abuse – but in the mountains the only sounds are that of the trees in the wind; the rustle of leaves and the lone shouts of birds. Sometimes he startles awake to Toby's scratchy paws on the wooden floorboards as he moves downstairs for water, or the patter of rain against the roof as storms roll in towards the mountains. He likes that he can hear Mackenzie's little moans and breaths as she sleeps, and that he doesn't have to try and ignore the bustle of the city just so he can hear himself think. The piano that sits in the front room downstairs sounds positively delightful now that it doesn't have to compete with the scream of New York City, and Will has even found Mackenzie plodding diligently away at the piano keys a few times. She had lessons as a small child and can remember the basics, but she much prefers dragging her husband to the instrument and settling in beside him, nestling her head into the warm crease of his neck and shoulders while the music flows around them.
In the library even the sounds of the woods are muffled; Will can barely make out anything other than the dim hum of his computer's fan and the endless blanket of nothingness that engulfs the night. Bee yawns and moves her paws against the carpet and Will sends her a droll look, like her actions have upset the quiet. Her responding stare says everything that Mackenzie would if she were here downstairs, not slumbering – namely, you should be typing. The room shouldn't be this quiet. Instead there should be the delightful pitter patter of your fingers on the keys.
"I don't think I'm going to get anything written tonight," Will sighs regretfully. It's nearing 1am and while he's pulled longer nights for far longer stretches of time in the past, not even the lingering threat of his publisher's disappointed gaze can convince him that heading upstairs to his wife's warm embrace isn't a good idea. A Little History of Journalism can wait to be written another night, perhaps when Mackenzie is out of town so that his bedroom isn't so enticing. Or on the nights that Sloan drives up from the city and the two of them sit around the fireplace with bottles of red and giggle until they can't keep their eyes open. On those nights Will's almost glad to escape with Bee into the depths of the library.
"Come on," he mutters to the dog, standing and groaning as his body disagrees. His joints groan along with him, popping into place as he leans over to save his work. He'll return to it in the light of day, perhaps convince Mackenzie to come with him to bounce ideas off. In the meantime he climbs the old stairs and settles into bed, curling an arm around a squirmy Mackenzie.
"Did you write?" she murmurs, voice hazy and half awake. She curls into his body like she's been waiting for him all night and Will squeezes her middle, burying his face in her lavender scented hair.
"A little bit," he tells her, already drifting off to sleep. She hums softly and pulls his arm tighter around her body.
Dedicated to Mackenzie, my wife.
They're the most important words in his life anyway.