Author's Note: Back again with another chapter…a bit shorter this time but I'm cranking out the chapters on this story and Reverse Spooning as fast as I can (and as fast as my beta can help me fix my mistakes…and believe me, there are usually lots of them at first). We're nearing the end of this story finally folks. Hang in there with me a bit longer. Oh, and did anyone see the news about the two new actors/characters added to The Newsroom for next season? Check out if you didn't. On with the story!
The next several days passed much the same. Will would stay at home with Mackenzie until around 2 in the afternoon. He would be in the office by 3 and would spend the next few hours until airtime helping everyone smooth out the last few wrinkles in stories.
This didn't stop the barrage of phone calls, texts and emails that were sent to both of them throughout the day. Several times Will had walked into his bedroom to find Mackenzie sitting up in bed sound asleep, her laptop perched precariously on a pillow nearby and a pile of paperwork surrounding her. Will tried to keep Mac's Blackberry from her, but even he had to admit defeat on that front. He had never realized just how many things the woman handled on a daily basis. He tried to take care of what he could but he realized how little he knew about the duties of an EP.
At the end of every day he would return to the apartment with a huge pile of paperwork Jim would give him for Mackenzie.
"I thought you were taking care of this while she's sick Jim?" Will asked the next day.
"Hey Will, I did as much of it as I could. This is just what I didn't get to. Oh, and Maggie needs to talk to her about that segment for next week on judicial appointments."
"Now? Maggie needs to talk to her about this now? Can Mackenzie get more than four hours of sleep for a few days without this place crumbling around us?" Will shouted.
Behind him, Maggie quietly tried to back away from the argument she had just walked in on. Unfortunately, she dropped the binders of research she had been holding.
"Sorry. I can just go over these on my own and call Mac later" she said trying to gather the mess around her and back out of the room quietly.
"No Maggie, come in. How much of that does Mac really need to see?" he asked her.
"Um, all of it?" Maggie replied uncertainly.
"I give up. You're both coming with me. You've got two hours tops, and that includes dinner being eaten while all this is going on. Mackenzie falls asleep and you're both out of there, understood?"
They both nodded at him and followed him to the elevators. They all made the short ride to Will's apartment in silence.
Will entered the apartment quietly in case she was asleep.
"Put all of your things on the counter over there and get something to drink. I'll find Mackenzie."
Jim and Maggie looked at each other and then at their surroundings. Not that they hadn't both been there before, but something about being there for a party with a group of people had made the place less intimidating. Waiting for their two bosses to emerge from the bedroom and share a quiet dinner with them was an entirely different scenario.
"Weird, huh?" Jim asked her.
"Beyond weird. Did you know she was staying here?" Maggie replied.
"Yeah, I was here a couple of days ago with some forms she needed to sign, and I saw them together while Mac was still in the hospital. Didn't seem like he was going to let her out of his sight anytime soon. I guess she still needed some help after her discharge from the hospital."
"Help? Is that what we're calling it now?" Maggie teased.
"Hey, it's none of our business. Leave it alone Maggie."
"Leave what alone Jim?" they both heard Mackenzie's gravelly voice behind them and watched as she padded over toward the sofa, Will following her like he expected her to fall at any minute. As she settled into the corner of the lounge Will tucked a blanket around her.
"Nothing, Mac. You look good. Feeling better?" Jim asked her as he took a seat in the same chair he had chosen the other day.
"I am. Now if only Will would let me do something more than fill out some paperwork in bed every night I might have a hope of catching up on what I can only assume is an avalanche of things piling up on my desk right now."
"Mac, what is it that you don't understand about a week off of work? I'm just trying to get you to follow doctor's orders. You were on a ventilator several days ago for Christ's sake, can you try to ease yourself back into work?" Will asked her. He collapsed down onto the sofa next to her and pinched the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb.
"I'm sorry, you're right" Mackenzie replied grasping his other hand. "I'm trying to rest, I am Will. Let's just have some dinner and get some work done and go to bed, ok?"
"Yeah, that sounds good" he whispered, almost forgetting their company.
"Oh, Jim and Maggie…we have leftover lasagna. Will that work for you guys? Or did you eat that for lunch Mac?" he asked her.
"Nope, it's still in there. I think I slept through lunch. I'm starving now though."
Jim and Maggie looked at each other feeling like they were trapped in some strange time-space continuum. Were these the same two people who nearly came to blows over everything the first few months they all worked together? What the hell?
They all worked through as much of Mackenzie's backlog of paperwork as they could as well as fleshing out some of the details for the story Maggie was trying to put together for next week. By midnight, Mac was quietly snoring away from her position in the corner of the sofa, leaned up against Will's shoulder.
"Uh guys, that's your cue to leave. Sorry, she's pretty much out for the count now. Jim, just leave whatever we didn't get to and I'll bring it in with me tomorrow if Mac gets a chance to look at it" he told them as he led them to the elevator.
Jim and Maggie rode down to the lobby in silence, until Maggie couldn't stand it anymore.
"They are so totally back together!" she exclaimed.
"That wasn't why we were here Maggie. And I'm sure Will and Mackenzie wouldn't appreciate being the subject of office gossip. Nobody needs to know where we were or who we were with tonight" he responded soberly.
Maggie looked suitably chastised. Jim just stared down at the paperwork in his hands until he too started to smirk.
"Yeah, totally back together" he mumbled and Maggie just smiled.
This situation became routine as Jim or Maggie would supply Will with the paperwork that needed to be dealt with immediately by Mackenzie. As the days passed she was able to do more and more work.
Of course, as Mackenzie got better and spent less and less of each day asleep, Will also found himself having to put her on speaker phone in the conference room as she inserted her opinion into the rundown.
Her constant phone calls began to become almost comical. When Will wouldn't answer his phone she would call Jim, who had now set his phone to play the Jaws theme song whenever she called.
In the middle of a meeting with Charlie, Will was studiously trying to ignore the vibrating of his cell phone, but just as it stopped they heard that distinctive cello music begin to ring from Jim's pocket.
"Hello Mackenzie. What? No, Will isn't ignoring your calls. I think he just left his cell phone in his office, let me get him for you."
Will gave Jim a dirty look and took the phone.
"Yes Mac? No, I'm not ignoring your calls. Yes, I told them you're idea about the new format. Mackenzie, I'm at the office and you're at home. Do you think you could let me actually work for a few minutes before I have to be on the air? I will bring you everything from today's meeting when I come home. Please go back to bed Mac, I'll see you later."
Will looked up to find Charlie and Jim grinning at him. "What?" he asked them.
"When does she come back?" Charlie inquired.
"Tomorrow, although if it were up to her she'd have been here days ago even if she had to be transported by ambulance. She's driving me insane Charlie! I barely get my tie off before she's showing me entire notebooks filled with suggestions for the next show and how we could have improved the last one. Do you know what it's like trying to fall asleep with your producer still reaming you out over the way the last broadcast ended?"
"I would think you already knew what that was like? She didn't do that when you were together before?" Charlie asked him, smiling.
"Yes she did it before. I just forgot what it was like ok? And we're not actually back together…yet."
"She used to do the same thing to me when we were embedded. I found ear plugs were quite useful. Either that or trying to move my cot as far away from her as possible, which is rather difficult in an army tent. But hey, I would think you'd have lots of places to move to in a penthouse" Jim pointed out.
"Hey, since when did my sleeping arrangements become everyone's business? You two should work for TMI" Will groused.
Will spent the next hour finishing his notes and getting dressed for the show. His cell phone was still ringing incessantly as he walked toward the studio, so he just handed it to Sloan.
"Try to distract her with a lecture on microeconomics. That might just give me enough time to actually finish a broadcast without being interrupted" he instructed her.
"Do I have to spend the whole time talking about microeconomics? Cause from what I hear Kenz has spent the last several days recuperating at your palatial abode. You know, the one I have never seen? I can go over there and keep her company if you want Will. She can give me a tour of the place…fill me in on the details of your ever-evolving relationship. You know…girl stuff!" Sloan chattered along as she followed him down the hall.
"Never mind Sloan" Will replied and grabbed the phone from her. He handed it to the next person he saw.
"Maggie…talk to your boss! And whatever you do, do not take that phone into the control room. She'll have you relaying her every command to the staff in about five minutes flat."
Maggie stared at the phone, dumbfounded. "What do I say to her when she wants me to go into the control room?" she asked Sloan.
"You just let me take care of that Maggie. Mackenzie and I understand each other. If she wants to have phone access to the control room, then she needs to fill me in on a few details about what the hell is going on with her and Will" Sloan replied and grabbed Will's cell phone from Maggie's hand.
"Oh man, Will is so going to kill me for that one" Maggie muttered as she headed toward the newsroom.
