Charlie is in his office, staring at his computer screen, open to his email program. He easily receives thousands of emails a day. He has a system in place to deal with the majority of them. The bulk of them are alerts about certain topics outside of iNews. For example, he has an alert set for when anything about Will McAvoy shows up from outside media outlets. There are no messages there, haven't been roughly since his nuptials and honeymoon.

There are actually very few emails that come straight into his actual inbox and that is by design. Obviously so that he can give his full attention to those few emails that make it through the maze of filters and auto responses that he's crafted over the years. Today he's waiting, anxious, nay desperate for a new email. He would be one of the first to tell you that he's become spoiled by the innovation in communication, spoiled by the speed of responses. He would also be the first in line to tell you that this same innovation has spoiled the generation of newsmen (and newswomen) after him.

He's waiting impatiently now for a response to his latest email to Leona. She has had days in the past where she hasn't necessarily responded right away. Many of the emails they exchange require in-depth responses. Charlie remembers that he tried to talk to Will a few weeks ago about it, but looking back, he know that he did not get his point across to Will. Leona was usually very good about sending him an acknowledgement, either that she's researching the topic or planning a lengthy response later. Even those kinds of messages had faded recently and she devolved to single sentences and even in a few cases, single word responses.

He had been a little passive aggressive in his latest email diatribe about the Washington DC bureau, crafting his words so that she would have to respond with something more than a singular response. Yet there was nothing. It was creeping on six hours since he sent that email. Part of him was anxious for her response while another part chastised his longing because there was once upon a time that he had to wait days for a response from Leona.

It was feeding into his ever-growing and overwhelming fear that there was something deeply wrong. Charlie is fighting the urge to just fire off that email that simply says 'What the fuck, Leona?' He's trying to let his cooler head prevail and convince himself that it's nothing. Yet that line of thought is not working. There was only one other time in his life that his longing to hear from Leona was this acute. He's trying to push that memory down as much as possible because if he thinks about it too hard or too long, he will go insane and will undoubtedly bring the news division down with him if he spirals out of control.

Out of nowhere, Reese Lansing pops his head in the office. "Lunch on Monday still a go?"

It takes Charlie a moment to respond. "Of course it is Reese. Will Leona be joining us?" He hasn't actually seen Leona in six weeks, but six weeks ago, she was responding to the god damned emails.

"Nah," Reese responds, dismissive. "She's still at that spa upstate. She said she'd be back next week."

Yes, Charlie thought, well, that's what she said six weeks ago. "Have you heard from her today?" He's trying not to sound desperate and is fairly certain that Reese hasn't heard the longing in his voice. For as smart as Reese is, sometimes he blows over the subtleties and this would be one of the few times that Charlie would grateful if he did.

"No. But who are we kidding? She's probably getting baked and having a pedicure." Reese is out of the doorway fast enough to legitimately ignore Charlie's annoyed shout of his name.

Nancy had called him at about 3AM that night. She had woken up to find that he had not come home. To a degree she was not surprised and felt that she knew why, but she still called him anyway. For him not to come home during the week was not unexpected, it was strangely normal for them, but the weekends had always been different. For the last few weeks, she could tell that he was having difficulty with something, but she waited for him to be forthcoming. Nancy had learned a lifetime ago that if she just waited for Charlie to tell her, he would.

He made himself difficult to love and she knew the moment they met that he had done that by design. Because she was willing to wait him out he eventually told her everything. He was the only person he had ever told absolutely everything to. Rarely did she have to prod him or solicit an answer from him when he was troubled. This time though, it was different. His abstract sadness permeated even the simple things he did the last few weeks.

He picked up his desk phone on the first ring. "I'm sorry." These are the words that tumble out of his mouth.

"Don't be." Nancy has this sweet, smoky soft voice, feminine, not at all giggly girly. "What is it?"

"Do you know?" He asks her.

"I have a guess." She pauses a moment. "Leona?" She gives him a moment and she knows that his silence is consent. "I love you. I'll be home when it's over."

"I know." His voice was a whisper and then he hung up the phone.

Charlie didn't bother to go home Friday night, the next night or the following night.