Where the hell was a hurricane or a congressional filibuster when you needed one? That was the only thought running through Will's mind as he rummaged through his desk drawers, organizing cell phone chargers and laptop power adaptors, and praying like hell for some sort of story to come through on the wires and give him something else to do, other than spend another lonely night in this office avoiding his empty apartment
"Fuck it" he said, and headed for Mackenzie's office to see if he could annoy her for a while. He had barely set foot in the room when she began speaking.
"You know Will…it occurred to me today, while I watched you limp and curse your way around the office, that you never told me why in the hell you agreed to run the New York City Marathon with me?" she said all of this without even looking up at him. She just seemed to know he was the one milling around her doorway.
Shit! Busted after six years of thinking she was none the wiser and now she decides to play detective? Damn this cold rainy day for making his knees ache!
"What are you talking about?" he asked, trying for nonchalance, and failing miserably judging from the look on her face.
"Exhibit A" she said, holding up a picture of the two of them together on race day. "Who, in their right mind, signs up for a marathon when they have arthritis in both knees?"
"You knew about that?" he asks, looking anywhere but into her eyes.
"Yeah, I knew about that Will. Your knees crack every morning when you get out of bed and you avoid stairs at all costs. I'm not an imbecile."
"But you let me train with you for months!" he shouted, suddenly angry that she had let the charade go on.
"Well, if you wanted to be an idiot for a few miles a day, who was I to stop you?"
"I was not being an idiot! I was being a man in love!" he sank into the chair in front of her desk and sulked.
"In love with the look of me in a sports bra and running shorts." She cocked her delicately arched eyebrow at him, daring him to disagree. He couldn't.
"I did love the look of you in a sports bra and running shorts. There was a reason I was always slower than you, and it wasn't just my knees" he said salaciously.
"I assumed there was an explanation for the fact that you were wearing baggy sweat pants in ninety degree weather" she said, fixing him in her gaze.
"Hey! I wore sweats so you couldn't see my knee braces. Besides, you barely gave me the time of day back then!"
"I gave you more than the time of day Will…I gave you a lovely view of my ass in running shorts every morning for a month!"
"Then you ignored me the rest of the day at work" he grumbled. They stared at each other across her desk.
"I wasn't ignoring you Will. I was trying to figure out what was going on in that head of yours. I'd just gotten out of one of the worst and most pointless relationships in the history of mankind and there you were trying to play whatever the hell kind of game you were trying to play with that ridiculous charade of a training program!"
"I wasn't playing a game! I thought it would be a good chance for us to get to know each other. You know, spend time together, just the two of us, for an hour or two every morning, doing something you liked. Excuse me for being so out of shape that I couldn't breathe, run and talk at the same time" he grumbled, remembering how horribly the plan had worked out at first. He had wanted to talk to her, be with her, and all he ended up doing was gasping for breath most of the time. And not in a good way.
Suddenly the whole thing seemed ridiculously ludicrous to Mackenzie. She couldn't help herself, she started laughing so hard that she nearly tumbled out of her chair. She got up and stood leaning against the front of her desk so she could be closer to him.
"What the hell were we doing Will?" she asked, her knees nearly touching his.
"Taking out sexual frustration one mile at a time?" he said sarcastically, reaching out and stroking his finger along her hand. She was so close now, and yet, still so far away.
"If you wanted to sleep with me you could have just said so. There was no need to sacrifice your knees for the cause." She reached out and hooked her finger through his. It was a delicate, tenuous connection…but it was there.
"Trust me, watching you run was not much of a sacrifice Mac."
They were both silent for a few minutes…lost in their memories. She pulled her hand away and he looked up.
"That's not all we were, right Will? It wasn't all just a series of lies to get each other into bed…was it?"
Will reached out and grabbed her hand. "Of course it wasn't."
"Then why were we lying to each other?" she asked.
"Why did my mother tell me the bird feeder I built in woodshop was the best thing she had ever seen? People tell white lies to make other people feel better…to make them happy."
Please Mac, let it go, he thought. Don't turn this into a conversation about lying, because we both know where that will lead. Shit! We were doing so well there for a few minutes.
"You could have just taken me to Le Cirque. That would have made me happy too. And saved us a lot of time and effort and sore muscles" she groaned.
They had both leaned away from each other now, crossing their arms protectively across their chests as if waiting for the next blow to come…the next word that would shatter the little bit of peace they had established. It had been like this for months now…mostly getting along, but then out of nowhere, a cross word or a jibe would suddenly appear and send them reeling again. Damn tabloid stories, and reporters, and greater fools, and marijuana, and garbled voicemail messages. They were all piled up between the two of them as if they were physical impediments keeping them from moving on and forgiving and forgetting and loving.
"Don't you like to run?" he asked, suddenly realizing that maybe he didn't know Mac as well as he thought he did…maybe he had never known her.
"Only when chased" she replied. "I prefer to take long walks through Central Park and come home and take bubble baths and watch old movies. I know I'm nearly fifteen years younger than you are Will, but I wasn't a fucking college student! There was no need to search so hard for something we would have in common. We probably had a million things in common already!"
He tilted his head and looked at her with doubt. "I'm a Republican…you're a Democrat" he announced, as if that explained every difference they had ever had.
"You say that like we're different species Will" she chuckled.
"I drink way too much coffee while you sip at Earl Gray tea" he replied, sitting back in his chair.
"And I like Flake bars and you like Reese's Peanut Butter cups! What the hell does any of this matter Will?!" She stood up, staring down at him like he was a fascinating specimen under a microscope.
"It matters because we were never on the same page in life Mac!" he stood too.
"Maybe not, but I think we were reading from the same book, most of the time" she said softly.
"In different languages" he muttered.
"No, just different dialects."
Will couldn't look at her anymore. This was all getting too serious and too close and…too much. How in the hell had a quick trip to Mackenzie's office to kill some time on a slow news day turned into a discussion of their past and their love and maybe their future?
"While this little trip down memory lane has been fun, but I really do need to get going. Lonny is waiting" he said, nodding toward the bodyguard seated just outside.
"Lonny is always waiting. It's his job" Mackenzie replied, not buying his excuse for a single second.
Will stood and tried to move toward the door. That was when he saw what he assumed had prompted all this. She had been rummaging through old boxes and files, and there on the top of a pile of loose paperwork was a handful of old pictures of the two of them.
"This looks familiar" he said, holding up a picture.
"Looks like a well-crafted lie to me" she mumbled, but smiled at the way she was practically sitting in his lap on the grass in Central Park, an ice pack on her supposedly sprained ankle.
"Damn it Mac! It wasn't all lies, ok?!" he shouted, slamming the photo back into the box.
"Ok, fine! It wasn't all lies! But it seems like maybe it started with a few white lies and ended with a huge, fucking disaster of a deceit!" she screamed, and then threw her hands over her mouth in shock. She hadn't meant to go there…she hadn't meant to bring Brian into this.
He stood there for a few moments, staring at her as if she had begun speaking Swahili suddenly, and he couldn't quite grasp the language barrier between them. Then he looked away, clenching his fists at his side, and began speaking in a low, dangerous tone.
"Wait. Just wait one second Mackenzie and let me see if I understand what you are trying to imply. Are you actually saying that me lying about wanting to run a marathon with you is somehow the equivalent of you cheating on me for months?! I know that can't possibly be what you are saying because even you aren't that clueless."
He began to turn away from her and head for the door. He had to get out. He wasn't prepared for this conversation. He wasn't sure he ever would be, but a rainy Monday night, stuck in their offices after a fifteen hour work day, was not the time nor place for it.
"No! Will wait! I'm not saying that! I'm not saying that at all" she reached out for his hand and he blanched. He knew it probably hurt her to see him grimace at her touch but he couldn't stop himself. He didn't leave though…he really was trying to give her, them, a chance.
"Shit!" she mumbled behind him. "Can I please go back to teasing you about watching my ass while I was jogging?" she asked desperately.
He didn't know what to say, so he just stared down at the photo in his hands for a minute.
"Do you want it?" she asked, and he had to turn to look at her to understand her meaning. Oh, the photo…she wanted to know if he wanted it. Truth be told, he loved it and he had one just like it at home, but it was painful to look at. It would be painful to look at until they were together like that again. Looking at their smiling faces and knowing that the people in that photograph had no idea of the shit storm that was to come…it just hurt.
"No" he handed it to her and tried not to see how wounded she probably looked.
"Damn it! I don't want it either Billy! For God's sake, this is like splitting up our belongings all over again. We can't keep punishing each other and ourselves. Just when we think we're having a good time, joking around about a 'safe' topic, we're suddenly right back to Brian all over again. That prick isn't worth it Will!"
"You know what isn't worth it? This…right now! This isn't worth it Mackenzie. How the hell do we keep doing this? Turning the most simple, inane conversations into battles?! And how the hell did you manage, in a ten minute conversation, to turn what I thought was a great relationship, into one based on lies and deceit?! It may not have ended well, but I sure as hell enjoyed the rest of it, so if you could please stop destroying my memories of the only two happy years of my life I'd really appreciate it."
She stood there in shock for a moment, then the tears ran down her cheeks. "They were really the only happy years of your life Billy?" she asked, more than a little heartbroken for him.
"Please don't cry Mac." He reached for her hand. They stood there awkwardly until he decided sitting next to her on the sofa might be a better location for a consoling hug, both because they would be more comfortable and because the sofa in her office was off in the back corner of the room, where they wouldn't be so visible to the curious eyes of the few remaining members of the nightly cleaning crew.
He pulled her into his side once they were seated and whispered into her hair. "This really can't be a surprise to you Mackenzie. I told you every day that we were together that I had never been happier. Did you think I was lying about that too?"
"I assumed it was an exaggeration. You know, one of those things you say in the early days of a relationship, when you find every little annoying trait of your significant other endearing and cute" she sniffled. "Besides, you lied to me about wanting to run a marathon."
She felt his chest rumble beneath her ear. He was laughing at her!
"Do not laugh at me Will McAvoy! What the hell is so funny anyway?"
"You lied to me about having a sprained ankle!" he replied.
"You knew I was faking?" she asked, smacking his chest for good measure.
"Of course I did Mackenzie. You are a terrible liar…most of the time" he whispered, but pulled her tighter against him so she would know that he wasn't trying to hurt her with that comment. He was just speaking the truth.
He had been thinking about it lately and, if he was honest with himself, he had known something was wrong. Those few months she'd been with Brian behind his back…he knew she wasn't happy. But he didn't want to admit it. He was so in love with her and so afraid of losing her that he hadn't been willing to broach the subject, for fear that it would be their undoing. In the end, it was anyway.
"I didn't want you to hurt your knees" she said softly.
"What?" he asked, confused.
"I faked the sprained ankle because I didn't want you to hurt your knees. Twenty-six miles Will? You would have been in agony" she whispered, playing with the button on his shirt.
"We're idiots…you know that?" he asked her.
"What?"
"We're idiots Mackenzie. I lie to you about wanting to run a marathon and you lie to me about twisting your ankle to protect me from running said marathon. We are idiots!" he laughed.
"Were they really the only happy years of your life?" she asked again.
"Yeah. No. Well, not anymore. The last year or so has been pretty good too. You know, when we're not dodging death threats or Reese Lansing, we've been having a pretty good time."
"No Will, I have not been having a good time!" she shouted, leaning away from him to try and gauge just how serious he was being.
"I'm tired of this Will. I'm tired of spending more than twelve hours a day locked in an argument with you, but never getting to make up! That used to be the best part of my day. Once we left the studio, everything was forgotten. Every disagreement or cross word uttered during commercial breaks was a distant memory. We used to make up every single fucking night William and I want it back!" she said, standing up and looming over him like a very angry, petulant child. He was sure she was going to stomp her foot any moment.
"Are you propositioning me for sex? Because if you think me asking you to go running was just a way to get you into bed you need to think really hard about what you just said." He looked up at her flushed face and mussed hair and had the sudden urge to kiss her senseless.
"I am abso-fucking-lutely serious about what I just said Will. I am propositioning you…in a way. We already spend three-quarters of our lives together in this office…now I want the rest. If that takes a little while, well, ok. Just reassure me that is where we're headed."
"Deal" he nodded, reaching out his hand to shake hers. She took it and pulled him up into a hug.
"And the only things you can lie to me about are whether you like my cooking and if my ass looks big in striped pants" she said into his ear.
"Agreed. I have never said you are a good cook and your ass looks perfect in everything." Then he got serious. "Your little white lies and sins of omission end now Mackenzie."
She nodded. "Deal" she said, pulling away to look him in the eyes.
"Was there anything else you wanted to tell me before we get to the making up portion of today's argument?" he asked. She seemed to think about that for a moment.
"You snore in the middle of the night, I hate it when you leave your socks on the floor and if you leave the toilet seat up and I fall into the toilet tonight I will hurt you Will" she said, relieved that all the little secrets she had kept from him over the years were out in the open. The little things you don't mention for fear of a fight.
"Ok, well turnabout is fair play Mac. You steal all the covers, get lipstick on my dress shirts, always leave wet towels on the floor and you suck at Sudoku…so please stop trying. It only ruins our breakfast."
Part of her wanted to smack the know-it-all smirk off his face but the other part of her, a much bigger part of her, just wanted to kiss him. But she didn't want to push him. So, without saying a word, she leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. He touched her face and turned it towards his lips. She pulled him in and kissed him like it was the first time, and maybe it was. Maybe it was the first time all over again for them, because this time there would be no lies and no doubt and no dishonesty.
Will didn't know how to react so he did what came naturally to him where Mackenzie was concerned. He crushed her to him and kissed her until they both couldn't breathe. Mac pulled away first, putting her hand over her mouth.
"Billy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…I don't want you to feel…" but he stopped her rambling.
"I thought we said no more lies? You wanted that just as much as I did." And she couldn't argue…so she didn't.
"What do we do now?" he asked.
"Run a triathlon?" she said sarcastically.
"Don't be a smart ass Mackenzie" he warned.
"I thought you loved my ass."
"You're right, wanna start jogging again?" he asked.
"No, I was thinking more of long walks on the beach" she reassured him.
"I love the way you think" he replied, grabbing her hand and leading them out of her office. "I knew there was a reason I hired you."
"Charlie hired me. You tried to fire me" she reminded him.
"Remind me to send him a bottle of scotch."