Chapter 5: Life Raft Pt. II
Wow everyone! What an amazing lovely response to the first part of this chapter! Much appreciated! I think this is going to be the longest story I've ever posted...yet ;)
I'm aware that there seems to be a few technical problems going around right now in terms of email delivery and updates, so apologies on that front but sadly there's not really much we can do until it's fixed.
Previously...
Will wakes up still by Mackenzie's side.We meet Julie, Mac's lovely, but straight-talking nurse. Lonny takes Will to an emergency appointment with Habib set up by Charlie and he has to discuss his feelings about the last two days. While all this is going on, Jim is visiting Mackenzie as he starts to crumble.
"Because I am. He's a great guy, he's one of my team, he was clearly upset and he's -"
"Mac's right hand man?"
"And he has PTSD." Will added quietly, a strange tone given the slight feeling of deja vu that was creeping up his spine. Somehow he was saying it just as calmly as Charlie had the day before. Only then Will had reacted like Charlie had dropped a small atom bomb on him.
"I'm sorry?" Habib asked, clearly surprised himself, but not entirely sure what Will was talking about. Will had never really told him about Jim before.
OOOOO
Tears had started running down his face. He wasn't even entirely sure why, but he grasped Mac's hand tighter. If she had been awake she probably would have tutted at him for trying to crush her hand.
"God, I'm sorry for being such a mess. I just wish you were here, 'cause you understand. Or you would...if you were here. But when you wake up Will's going to need you and you're going to be busy, and I know he's more important, I just - God." He gently licked the tears that were clinging to the top of his upper lip and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I just keep seeing it Mac. All of them. Two days ago, and three years ago and five years ago, and all those times in between. They just keep flashing in front of my eyes and I can't tell anyone 'cause the others already think I've gone funny since you went down."
He fiddled with the manicured nail on her left index finger, noticing with some affection the tell tale signs of biting at the gradually evening out edge along the top from where she worried it between her teeth during broadcasts. Another rip of lightening across his brain.
He screwed his eyes tight shut and let his forehead fall lightly against his two hands that were clasping hers, his body canting towards the hospital bed, as if seeking protection.
"I just need you to wake up Mac. We all do. I just need you to be okay. I need to know that our luck has not run out."
OOOOO
"He has PTSD. So does Mackenzie. According to Charlie." The more he spoke about it the more hollow his voice became. It was like he was on autopilot.
"From the Middle East?" Habib asked. Will nodded, still trying to iron out the details himself, the attorney part of his mind constructing the scene of what must have happened in his mind, trying to piece together the case.
"He told me last night. I knew they were both there when Mackenzie was stabbed, but Charlie told me that before that Jim had been shot. I didn't know..."
"You never told me Mackenzie had been stabbed." Habib pressed gently, lowering his voice to an even more, knowing this was very shaky, fragile territory for Will.
"Didn't I?" Will had zoned out: he was giving zombie answers, the day Charlie had pushed a large measure of bourbon into his hand and told him to take a seat before he destabilised Will's sanity without warning was echoing dangerously between his ears.
"No, you didn't Will. Actually, you've never really mentioned Mackenzie's time away."
"I don't know much about it."
"You've never asked her?"
"i've never been able to." At least he was being honest. May as well keep going... "I was the reason she ran off to the Middle East...never felt it was my place to ask about it."
"More blame, Will?" Habib asked, in a tired voice that bordered on pity. His eyes were screaming it. Wasn't that against some secret, unspoken psychologist's rule? Never let your feelings show?
June 2009...
Charlie Skinner jumped as he heard the light knock on the glass door to office. He could see the reflection of his visitor in the window across from him and his heart sank. Even though he had invited the guest up here himself. Will was looking fairly normal as he stood behind the door. So he didn't know then.
Charlie briefly closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind to accommodate what he was about to do before standing up straight and as tall as he could make himself and beckoning over his shoulder for Will to come in.
"Drink?" He asked shortly, beads of sweat plastering parts of his shirt to cling to his back under his tweed jacket.
"Isn't it a little early? Even for you?" WIll smiled easily, flopping down into his preferred chair on the other side of Charlie's desk. He had always envied this desk. It was beautiful and sleek: modern in the gorgeous red wood of Charlie's office. He liked Charlie's office. It didn't feel like the cold intimidating interrogation room that his previous bosses' offices had been.
"So we're getting some great footage of the riots in Iran. Gonna be a great issue. That new intern - what's his name? Christopher, Christian, Christophe - you know, the German guy? He says that he has a friend based at the embassy there who can send us footage and some freelance interviews on the fly, so -"
"Here you go." Charlie said, really hoping that Will wasn't about to go off into the one of the occasional rants that he only seemed to get into when he and Charlie were alone. It was a side to Will that no one else got to see. These days, anyway. Not like it had been before. So much potential...
"Thanks. So, CNN are reporting -"
"Will, I need you to stop for a minute." Charlie sat heavily in his chair, relishing in the firm but soft cushioning that was providing enough support to his ageing spine that he could say this sitting up straight, but that didn't make him feel he was backed up against a wall.
A shadow flickered across the younger man's eyes as he caught Charlie's wary expression and the unmistakable sadness behind his eyes.
"What's up Charlie?" He asked, totally nonplussed about what could have his mentor so rattled.
Surveying him with no small degree of caution, Charlie pondered (for what must have been the hundredth time since he had gotten the phone call) how exactly he should break this news. It had been seven long, torturous hours ago. He still hadn't managed to come up with an easy way to put this.
Deciding to just bite the bullet, he took a sizeable gulp of Bourbon before starting to speak again.
"I got off the phone with Cal Jackson over at CNN about an hour ago." Will just looked even more confused.
He had only met Cal at a couple of dinners and charity events, oh and maybe at an awards show too, and twice at the correspondents dinner, but it had just been industry chat and gossip. He had no idea what this man could possibly have said that would a) make Charlie this anxious and b) have anything to do with him.
"It was the second time he called me today - the first time was just before five this morning."
What the hell?
"Protests in Iran probably won't be the only ones you hear about today, although they'll be the only ones you'll cover." Now he was just avoiding saying whatever it was, and Will knew that Charlie never did that. He was more of a 'screw the pretence and spit it out' kind of guy.
"Charlie, I don't understand. What're you -"
"There was a protest in Islamabad early yesterday evening - or just before five am our time. It got pretty rowdy and there were a few injuries amongst the protestors."
"What does any of this have to do with -"
"Mackenzie was there."
Charlie watched as the colour physically drained from Will's face until his skin looked sickly against his golden hair and deep blue jumper. His knuckles curled tighter around his glass of Scotch and his shoulders visibly tensed. There was an anguished fear reflected in his eyes and he knew he needed to tell the rest of the story quickly before Will had a panic attack or something. He raised his hand in as reassuring a gesture as he could manage at that moment and ploughed on.
"Someone apparently didn't like that she was a white, female, western journalist covering their protest and they stabbed her."
Will recoiled, wetness glistening in the corners of his eyes as the scene played out in his mind's eye.
"Charlie -" He managed to crack out, "She's not -" He looked uncertainly at the older man, unable to comprehend what he had meant to the second part of that sentence, let alone able to speak it.
"Please God tell me she's not -"
Charlie's heart broke. Two years and Will had barely mentioned Mackenzie's name. Now one small sentence from him and he was on the verge of a breakdown.
"They got her to a hospital and she was immediately taken into surgery. The call from Cal an hour ago was to say that she made it and they were keeping her in for a few days until they can transfer her to the military hospital near Landsthul. Apparently her senior producer says they're talking about sending her to London for a few weeks after that while she recovers."
Will had curled in on himself as soon as Charlie had said Mac would be okay. His forehead was pressed tight against the glass tumbler and Charlie wasn't sure that he had even heard anything after that.
"I uh - I didn't know whether you would have already known...her producer sent you an email apparently."
Will's eyes widened and and looked around as though he didn't know where Charlie was standing when he had said it. "I - I don't even - I don't think I've met -"
"No, you haven't. But he got hold of your email address and thought you should know. I'm telling you so that when you do check your emails you won't be, you know..." Charlie looked at him sadly. "I got one from him just after Cal had called me. He seems like a nice guy. A scared guy, right now. He sounded a bit shaky."
"Why are you telling me this?" Will asked hollowly.
"Honestly I am not sure." Charlie stated bluntly, his voice seemingly the low baseline that was keeping Will tuned into reality. "I just know I'm pretty torn up right now - though I doubt as much as the young guy who is sitting in a hospital right now starting to breathe normally after his boss has just survived a close shave with the Grim Reaper."
"Charlie -"
"What Will? You haven't mentioned her in two years and you're sitting here looking like the bottom just fell out of your life. I mean seriously Will - you let her run off to the Middle East two years ago and you've never even told me why, so I apologize if my head isn't quite screwed on right now. There's a lot of stuff floating around up there."
"AND YOU THINK I'M ANY DIFFERENT?"
"NO! God, Will, no, I can tell that you care. Obviously you do. I mean, I'm not going to pretend that I completely understand what's going on with you about Mackenzie, but yes, I can tell. Jeez Will, she's just - whatever she is to you she's like a daughter to me. I was tempted to introduce her to Jack or Harry after the two of you ended, I would have happily had her as family."
"So would I." Will muttered, but Charlie heard him.
"So why didn't you?" Charlie asked tiredly, finally looking at him again after his mini-rant. The younger man just looked back at him as though he had just been asked to take over from Atlas and have a shot at carrying that weight on his shoulders for a while.
"It's in the past Charlie - can we not just -"
"I'm sorry Will, whatever happened was obviously painful - for both of you - but right now I'm angry, and I'm upset, and I apologise for yelling at you, but at this moment in time I'm just particularly puzzled over what exactly could have been so bad that it made her run all the way to a war zone? I mean, you know, I feel for you but you're not the one lying in a foreign hospital right now after major surgery. And right now I'm not feeling so lenient towards letting you off with a vague answer."
A tear finally escaped Will's eye and Charlie felt his heart sink.
"I'm guessing you don't keep in touch with her?" Will snorted.
"Do you?" He asked skeptically.
"Yes." Will stared at him, amazed. Charlie wanted to hit him and knock some sense into that brilliant skull of his. Clearly he still had strong feelings for this woman, so why the hell was she half way around the world getting her guts ripped out?
Will was now looking confused and rather vulnerable. Scared, almost.
"Wh -"
"She hasn't told me anything about what happened." Charlie sighed wearily. Will looked relieved, although the lingering hurt was still there. "Not that I haven't asked...a few times. She either refuses or ignores me. But she asks about you. Every time. Every single time. And she mentioned that she still emails you."
The vulnerability returned to Will's face.
"You've never replied? Not even to tell her to stop?"
"I - I just can't Charlie, I can't talk to her."
"But you don't tell her to stop." He pointed out quietly. Will's eyes closed. "Because you don't want to encourage her or because you like that she's being persistent?"
He closely scrutinized Will's face for any indication as to which one was true, but Will's eyes were closed and he looked almost as though he was asleep, the drink still clutched loosely in his hand.
Frustration. That was the word that best described Charlie Skinner at that moment in time.
"She's okay?" He murmured eventually. Charlie sighed, conceding that he was not going to get anything else out of Will right now. He looked like he had aged about a decade in the last half hour.
"Yes. By all reports it seems like she's going to be fine. Cal and Jim have promised to keep me updated."
"Jim?" He asked distractedly.
"Her senior producer." Charlie supplied, straightening up and starting to sound a little more business like and pouring himself another measure of bourbon. "Now, drink your Bourbon and go home, I'll see you tomorrow."
That snapped Will out of his daze. "What about the show tonight?"
"I'm going to have Don put Elliot on." Charlie said firmly, and he quickly cut in again as he caught Will's annoyed expression. "I'm not going to believe you if you try and tell me that you'll be able to talk about protests in Iran tonight for thirty minutes and not have vivid flashes of Mackenzie whilst you're doing it, so go home, take the day, get your head straight and come in and do tomorrow's show as well as you always do, okay? I'm not going to put you on tonight at the risk of you losing it half-way through."
Will looked for a moment as though he was going to challenge him, but after a moment of thinking he just looked resigned, accepting his orders.
"What are you going to tell Don?"
"I'll just tell him you needed a personal day. In case you didn't know, you are actually entitled to them."
"He'll ask questions." Will replied in a resigned voice.
"He's not an idiot Will, he's a journalist. He reads the news so he's going to put two and two together, but this way he'll know you don't want to talk about it and he'll keep quiet. Now go on, get out of here."
Holding his gaze for only a second or two longer, Will nodded and downed his drink, giving a last quick glance as he placed the tumbler back on Charlie's desk.
He stopped again just as he was half-way out the door, however.
"Thank you, Charlie."
OOOOO
"Will?"
His head snapped up once more as he realized that Habib had been calling his name for the last minute or so.
"Sorry, what were you saying?"
"I was asking about how you felt about Mackenzie running off to the Middle East. You think that was your fault?"
"I - no I don't think it was my fault. She's Mackenzie - she's tenacious and independent and so damn head strong - I don't think that if she really wanted to do it anyone would have been able to stop her."
"But did she really want to do it?"
"Can we just stop, please? I seriously - I'm - I can't do this anymore. Today. I just -"
"I know this is taking a lot out of you." Habib said softly.
"Well thank you for being so understanding." Will quipped sarcastically.
"Will, judging on what I've seen so far today on top of what I've seen for the past couple of months whenever you've come for a session, I think I can say that it's clear you have unresolved issues here, and two days ago they exploded for you because time ran out - or it seemed like it was running out.
"You've been holding all these issues inside and burying your head in the sand, trying to push it out to arms length and put off dealing with it for as long as possible. Because there was never any time pressure to deal with them. You thought you'd have forever. And then you thought Mackenzie was going to die and all of that uncoiled. You thought you were out of time, but now you're not and you're struggling to get all of that under control again.
"I'm just saying that maybe you don't have to. Maybe this is a good opportunity to deal with that and make your life easier again once she wakes up. If you want my professional opinion then I'll tell you that psychologically it is not healthy."
Will pressed his face into his hands.
This was the downside to having a therapist. He actually (somehow) understood the weird spaghetti jumble of emotions that was Will's mind and emotions.
"Just listen to me for a second and tell me how crazy this sounds to you: A guy who gets cheated on by the love of his life feels personally responsible for said love then running away to a war zone where a two people he has never met injure the Love and her senior producer. Man then also feels responsible for these two people consequently being diagnosed with PTSD as a result of three years where he did not speak to, or interact with either of them in any way.
You're a lawyer Will. How would that go down in front a judge as a line of questioning against a suspect? That's a hell of a lot of blame for a man who is the innocent party here."
A small noise of frustration hissed out of Will's mouth as he still refused to look at Habib. He decided to just ignore the blatant logic in that last part.
"You want me to just tell her how I feel? Just because she's lying in a hospital bed."
"How do you feel?"
And there it was.
The simple, obvious, excruciating question that had been staring him blankly in the face for the last three years - hell, the last six years! The one question that was on the one hand the most painful, burning, prickly part of him that he had carried around every day since the awful night that Mackenzie had sat him down and explained that she had been sleeping with her ex-boyfriend for six months. Yet on the other hand, it had also been burning a different kind of fire in him since she had walked back into his life nearly three years ago and he couldn't walk away from that.
He may not be able to walk towards it right now, but he certainly couldn't turn away. Whether he liked it or not he had come to accept that this feeling was not going to go anywhere. It was like passing the point of no return. He had come to accept that somehow, someday he would face up to this issue and would hopefully enjoy the outcome. He just wasn't ready to do it yet.
Or he had not been. Now he did simply did not know.
He felt so torn, cheated almost, by fate that he felt he was being forced into making a decision. Though at the same time, there was a small pleading voice in the back of his head which begged him to just let go. It had been quietly knocking on the inside walls of his mind for months and months and in the last two days it seemed that it had finally gotten in.
And God was he tempted. It was not like he hadn't always wanted it, it was just that there was something especially persuasive about a peaceful, innocent Mackenzie sleeping alone in a hospital room (possibly because of him). He just wanted to hold her and protect her and take care of her and he wanted her to let him. There was just one blockade standing in the way of all that. Forgiveness. His problem with forgiving her.
"Okay Will, we're going to leave it there for today, but I want you to come back tomorrow. You're going to be under a lot of stress over the next couple of days and I think you need to talk about it or you're going to clam up. Like you're starting to do right now."
Will nodded numbly.
"Okay?"
"Yeah."
"I'm going to put you down for an hour's session ten okay. You won't miss anything for the show then, right?"
"That's fine. Thank you."
"You're welcome. Take easy today Will, okay."
Will stood up shakily and tried to pull himself together before he had to go outside and face Lonny. He felt so open and readable to everyone right now that it was actually draining him and was, he felt, only adding to his tiredness.
He felt a light hand on his shoulder as Jack herded him towards the door.
Lonny stood up as the door opened and the look on his face did nothing to improve Will's mood.
"What is it now?"
"Charlie called about fifteen minutes ago. The cops want to speak to you when we get to the studio."
Great. He had just had to go through an interrogation about the shooting and his relationship with Mackenzie, and now he was about to have to do it all over again.
"I'll see you tomorrow, okay Will?" Habib said from behind him. "Whatever the cops want we can talk about it then if you like. You managed to talk about it earlier and I believe you'll be fine repeating it to them now."
He really wished he had never woken up this morning. Why couldn't he have just spent his day sleeping quietly next to Mackenzie and pretending the rest of the world did not exist?
Charlie was waiting for them outside the elevators.
"How are you?"
"Oh yeah, just great. I've had a wonderful morning of self-examination and scrutiny, so I'm feeling dead chipper right now. 'Spiffing' as I believe they say in British satire."
"Did it help?" Charlie asked flatly.
"It was great until I got told I could leave for the day only to then be told I was just going to be taken to another place where the process would be repeated, only by people who are less friendly."
"We're lucky that they didn't come yesterday."
"Why didn't they?"
"They were interrogating the shooter." Charlie said quietly. Will spun around.
"They know who he is?" Will's eyes had gone wide and he pulled Charlie over to the side of the corridor, looking at him desperate for an answer.
"Yes they do." Charlie said in a low voice. "But I'll talk about it when you go put your stuff in your office."
This did not sound promising.
"Where are they?"
"They wanted to use the conference room but Jim thought it would freak everyone out so he put them in one of the empty offices upstairs."
"Where is Jim?"
"He took off for lunch about half an hour ago. He was the last one they questioned and he looked like he needed a break. Maggie's been keeping an eye on him since they came in this morning. She herded him in with coffee and some donuts or something. Think she's worried he's going to flatline if Mackenzie doesn't get a move on." Charlie looked slyly at him as they entered Will's office. "I still think you should talk to him."
"Im getting there." Will said shortly, before sliding his jacket off his shoulders and turning back to face his boss. "Now, what's going on with the shooter?"
Charlie's face slipped and a sudden look of guilt crossed his features. "You're not going to like it."
"Really? I'm not going to like the guy responsible for shooting Mackenzie? Wow, what an insight."
"It's the troll." No.
Will slumped onto the corner of his desk and put his hands in his face.
"They talked to Neal and Jim and Maggie and Don this morning. They asked them about the shooting first but they were also the ones who were originally there when that post was first made after the Mosque interview. They're going to put him away for a long time Will." Charlie said firmly, a steeled look in his eye.
"He was aiming for me?" Will asked, devastated.
"It wasn't your fault Will. This is all on him. There is absolutely nothing that you could have done. He's the only one responsible."
Will chuckled shallowly. "She yelled at me the day I asked Neal to change the website. She said we needed to talk about it."
"She had no problem with you making a new debate format. She had a problem with you being overworked and getting snappy with the audience and your staff. You know Mackenzie, she's all for making debates clearer and fairer."
This didn't seem to help. Will just sighed and looked like he was quite happy to stay right where he was.
"Come on, let's get this over with. They're going to ask you about the shooting, and then they're going to ask you about the death threats, and that's all. You can handle that. You can handle that for Mackenzie, and for your staff, and for you because it will be good for all of you. It will be incredibly helpful for Mackenzie when she wakes up to know that the guy who did this to her - to both of you and to all of us - is behind bars."
He watched the younger man for a few minutes before he silently got up and left the room.
Charlie'e eyes followed him as he ascended the staircase to the upper floors, only releasing the breath he had been holding once he saw the appropriate office door open and close again. Then he took up Will's previous position of sitting on the edge of the desk, thinking.
He had watched Will pretend for three years that he had moved on with his life after two years of perfect happiness with a woman he loved.
One morning he had come in to work to find a puffy-eyed Mackenzie sitting quietly in his office, resignation letter in hand. She had refused to give him a reason, just quietly said that she couldn't stay.
After she had left he had regularly kept in touch with her, always thrilled to hear from her, though saddened to see that her words seemed to have less of a spark in them, even if she had lost none of her journalistic passion. He had never admitted it to Will because the guy had seemed so cut up about whatever it was that had happened, but he missed Mackenzie too. No one who had worked for him since had come close to her. Although he had to hand it to this new team she and Will had grown: they really were a credit to them.
Passionate, strong, a real tough nut if ever he had met one, but also full of heart, crazy, funny, a little loose in the head but in the best way possible, and one of the most loyal and reliable friends he had. And then she had flown to the war-torn, extremely unsafe other side of the world. And he had worried. Constantly.
She was quite honest in her emails with him; had always seemed to find solace in someone who had experienced similar things to what she was going through. She didn't want to tell her dad that she had been driving past a Humvee which had exploded fifteen seconds later, but she could tell Charlie.
He had never known until she mistakenly sent that email what had really happened between them.
It was no secret to anyone around them that Mac and Will were like his grown-up, if unruly children, but like any parent there are times when as much as you love them and want to protect them, they make mistakes and they disappoint you. Finding out what Mackenzie had done had been that moment for him. It had torn him.
He had been angry at her for doing that to both of them - because what Will clearly had not realised was that he did not need to punish Mackenzie - she was doing that herself in one of the harshest ways imaginable. But he still loved both of them, and moreover he could see that they still loved each other.
Watching Mackenzie trip over herself trying to make it up to Will ever since she had returned had been almost as hard as reading those crazy emails she used to send. But not quite.
He really hoped that Will would come out of that meeting with his eyes opened. As undeniable as it was that the events of the last few days had been horrific and traumatising for everyone, Charlie had told Will that first night in the hospital room that misery and trauma might not be the strongest emotional memories that he took away from this tragedy. He still hoped that he would turn out to be correct.
Wow. Finishing this Two-parter feels like finishing a very long race. Very intimidated because the next chapter is equally as long, if not more. And it's barely started so I'm afraid I must ask once more for patience. No coursework now though, so hopefully things should go faster.
Next up we have more from Charlie/Will, Will/Jim and an appearance from the Lansings.
Again, thank you all, you amazing bunch! I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of this :) Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
x
