The title is by Snow Patrol. I've had this unfinished on my computer since pretty much the day after the finale, and I figured I should just finish it and post it. Let me know what you think, and yeah.
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine.
The perfect words never crossed my mind,
'Cause there was nothing in there but you – Snow Patrol
It's quiet and still in his bedroom.
Mackenzie is fast asleep, curled up behind him, her face pressed into his back. He can feel her breath, warm and even, on his bare skin.
He can't sleep, but he's perfectly content just laying, Mackenzie's body there and solid behind him. She's been finally catching up on sleep, and he's afraid of waking her. She looked like the living dead there for a while, and the bags under her eyes are finally becoming less visible.
Things, professionally, are still not good. Jerry Dantana's suit is causing everyone headaches, and Mac still seems hell bent on taking all the responsibility for the Genoa mess, despite Will's constant reassurance that it's no more her fault than it is anyone else's.
Things, personally, are so good that Will is still trying to wrap his mind around it. Exhibit A: Mackenzie in his bed, where she's been every night since Election Night. Exhibit B: the large, sparkling diamond on her left hand and the fact that she said yes, yes, I'm saying yes when he asked her to marry him.
He botched the proposal. She deserved better, but she seemed content with what she got.
Later that first night, Election Night, when they were laying in bed, trying to catch their breath, a pile of tangled, boneless limbs, he said, "I was just lucky you were as exhausted as you were, otherwise you might have said no."
"There's absolutely no scenario that exists where I say no," Mackenzie replied, her fingers tracing a line up his bare chest, and he captured her fingers from their exploration, pressing a kiss to each of her fingertips.
"I could have done it so much better," Will insisted.
"I think it was pretty damn perfect," Mac told him, pressing a kiss to his jaw line.
"I was a babbling idiot," he shot back. He noticed the boxers he had discarded in haste when they had tumbled towards the bed, both exhausted as hell, but determined to fully enjoy their engagement night. Mac's button down shirt was a casualty of their impatience, and he made a mental note to buy her a new one.
"You were adorable," Mac grinned at him.
"I was supposed to be charming," he muttered. "I was supposed to sweep you off your feet."
"I was swept," Mac reassured him. "Honest. I was completely swept."
"Good," Will replied, running a hand through her hair and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "But I still could do better." Mac rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling, mostly because she couldn't seem to stop.
He's going to try to make that up to her, his bungled proposal, he just hasn't decided how to do that yet. When he mentioned that to her, a few days later, while they were standing bickering in the newsroom, her face broke open into a wide smile, her eyes dancing, and told him,
"Luckily for both of us, you have the rest of our lives to do so." And her laugh, God, he loves her laugh, it fills him up and leaves him warm, and he can't do anything but tug her into his arms, even in front of all their employees, and kiss her senseless.
They're not being very good about keeping the public affection to a minimum in the office. They used to have strict rules about it, Mac used to have strict rules about it.
"I don't want anyone questioning how I got my job," she had argued, and the thought that anyone could question Mac's brilliance and capabilities made Will's blood boil.
But now, now, he can't keep his hands off her, and she doesn't seem to mind. They attempt to limit it to small touches, a hand on a back, a squeeze on the arm as they pass, but sometimes he can't help himself. The staff has gotten pretty used to it, and there are hardly even catcalls and wolf whistles anymore. People just keep grinning at the two of them, their happiness apparent, and Will likes to grumble that it's just because he's getting lucky and that puts him in a better mood, but the truth is that he loves that his staff is happy for them.
Mac shifts in bed beside him, and he turns slightly so he can see her. She sleeps like the dead, all heavy limbs and deep breathing, and he takes the opportunity to just drink her in. The sight of her, asleep, in his bed, is new enough still that sometimes his breath catches in his throat and he has to just stop, stop, because it's everything he's ever wanted and he can't believe that it's real.
He closes his eyes, but still can't sleep. It's better than it was, having Mac in his bed again, but he's never been very good at shutting off his brain, and there's been too much upheaval to sleep well lately.
"You should really get some sleep," Mac's voice, drowsy, interrupts his thoughts, and he opens his eyes again and gathers her close.
"Maybe I was sleeping," he replies. "My eyes were closed."
"You weren't," she yawns.
"I didn't mean to wake you," he murmurs, pressing feather-light kisses into her hair.
"It's okay," she burrows even closer to him still, sliding her feet between his legs. "Who needs sleep anyway?" He chuckles lightly, and they lay quietly for a few moments, the sounds of the city far below them, wrapped up in each other and a tangle of blankets. Mac always starts out buried under piles of blankets, but ends up kicking them to the bottom during the night (with a "You're like a furnace, Billy" for good measure). He had forgotten that about her. There were so many things that he had, either consciously or subconsciously, forgotten that came rushing back, washing over him like deja vu.
He had forgotten the smell of her shampoo and how it made his whole bathroom smell like apples. He had forgotten how she made an entire pot of coffee for herself, drinking it cup by cup as she read over the paper in the morning, her legs curled underneath her and a look of concentration on her face. He had forgotten about the way she felt, wrapped around him, and the sound that she made when they made love, a cross between a sigh and a shout.
He's not sure how he managed to go this long without her back in his life; he's an idiot and self-destructive, and he still hates himself a little bit for how he treated her after she came back. She said something about his sleeping, dating, whatever it was, with Nina Howard making them even, but the truth is that it's been unbalanced for quite some time, and not in his favor. Probably since Brian Brenner's reappearance in the newsroom, and possibly even before that, when he bought the ring that now graces her finger in a petty attempt to get one up on her.
He thinks she might have fallen back asleep, but her finger begin tracing patterns on his skin, and she says in a dreamy voice,
"I still can't believe it sometimes." And he doesn't have to ask what she means, because he knows, he knows.
"You should go back to sleep," he says softly, and he feels her nod where her head is tucked into the crook of his neck. She's practically lying on top of him, but it's nice, and this, this, is what he fucking missed for six damn years. The sex, sure, sex with Mackenzie has always been mind blowing, but he missed late nights and early mornings curled up in his bed, the intimacy of it. He'd never done that with a woman before Mac, and he certainly never did it with a woman after her. She had spoiled him for others. Nina Howard had liked to drape herself over him at night, but he had always pulled away, pulled back, her on one side of the bed, him on the other.
"I like my space," he had said apologetically, but not really sorry at all. Nina had huffed, and he got the feeling that she didn't quite believe him, and he didn't quite care.
"I meant it when I said you should get some sleep too," Mac answers, and he can tell she's about to fall back asleep any second. "It's going to be a long day tomorrow." They're all long days lately, but he gets to come home with Mackenzie, and if Genoa made that happen then he can't bring himself to completely regret it.
"Okay," he says simply and a few minutes later her grip on him loosens and her breath evens, and he knows for sure this time that she's fallen back asleep.
He stays up a little longer, carding his fingers through her hair, until he finally closes his eyes, his arms full of Mackenzie, and falls asleep.