A/N: Again thank you SO MUCH for your really thoughtful reviews and your patience. I'm having a lot of fun with this story kind of writing itself but I now know for sure that there is this and then one more chapter before Will heads back to New York, ACN and everything that awaits him there. Thanks for sticking with Will and I as we make it through!

The glow of the lap top bathed the kitchen in an eery blue light. Will refreshed the Reuters website for the fifth time, unsurprised that it yielded nothing new.

He sighed and straightened up, stretching out his arm and wincing at the stiffness in his elbow. He hit refresh again, knowing he was just delaying the inevitable.

With a resigned sigh he rubbed his hands down his face and with his eyes still closed he pulled out his phone, turned it on, hit the call button and brought the device to his ear.

She answered on the first ring, "Well I guess midnight is a little better than 1 am. What's on your mind this evening?"

He paused, realizing he didn't actually have a decent reason to be calling his EP in the middle of the night. He flicked his eyes to the wire report on the computer screen, "Puerto Rico."

"Romney won the primary."

"I know. I'm looking at the wire reports." He confessed.

He swore he could hear her roll her eyes but he smiled to himself when she dutiful helped him maintain the pretense for the call, "It's not going to matter. We can do a campaign weekend recap in the C Block tomorrow if you'd like." She offered.

"Yeah..." He found himself struggling to imagine that in less than 24 hours he'd be back in New York and at the anchor desk.

"Do people on the staff know I'm gone? Or Why?" He mused outloud.

She let out a low, sad sigh, "Jim does. He asked about your moment at the end of Friday's broadcast but that's it."

He nodded thoughtfully, Jim was okay. "You didn't tell Sloan?"

"I haven't seen her. Did you want me to tell people?" Mackenzie asked.

"Nah, just curious." He brushed her off.

Mackenzie's voice softened, "Right...Is that all you called for or do you want to tell me about the message this morning?" She paused and when she didn't hear Will begin to speak she prodded. "How are things fucked up?"

He let out a long breath "Jesus, Mac. You have no idea. It's even worse than I thought when I texted." He scratched the back of his head and ran his hand down to his chin. "We're all so beyond screwed up."

He shook his head and breathed again, steeling himself, "It turns out that Mark is gay and has been in the closet his whole life because he was still scared of Dad and it turns out Lissie has been struggling with severe depression and possibly suicide attempts and then, and this is what I found out last night, Caroline is leaving Greg because it turns out that he's been abusing her and Jason...and I...I'm..."

He blew out a breath.

"You're what Will? You're what?" Mackenzie's voice in his ear grounded him to the present, keeping him from getting lost in his thoughts.

"I'm...I'm in New York and am completely unable to see any of this coming or do anything to help them." He stood and began to pace the room.

"Billy..."

"I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to deal with this Mac." He snapped, unable to articulate his complete frustration.

Mackenzie kept her tone level and sincere, "I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you Will. You're right, that's beyond fucked up. How is everyone else handling everything?"

He deflated and sank back into his chair; "I don't know. Everyone's putting up a good front at least. It was like a group session this morning with everyone confessing together; I think that it probably did help them all a bit."

"What about you?" pressed Mackenzie.

Will cracked his neck, "What about me?"

She shrugged, "What did you share at your little family group session?"

He returned his attention back to his computer, wanting to escape Mackenzie's questioning without hanging up the phone. "I didn't." He mumbled.

She didn't try to cover her sigh of frustration, "And why not? Why not take the opportunity to draw strength from your family, knowing you aren't alone in still struggling with what happened?

"Because it's supposed to just be me! ...I can't stand the thought of the rest of them...I was supposed to protect them and apparently did a half-assed job!...I mean...I can't...they shouldn't... and now I don't..." He pressed a hand to his eyes and swallowed before starting again in a more controlled tone. "All I'm left with is this; I know he quit drinking, I know he made amends with Mom but when you leave this much damage in your wake even all these years later doesn't that...I mean...fuck the tapes and fuck him. I feel like...shouldn't I be glad he's dead?"

He paused, anticipating Mac's disapproval, when none came he continued, "I've been thinking about it ever since found out. I mean, I hated the man and think I may have grown to even more in the past 24 hours. But damnit Mac! He is...was...my father, my Dad...I can't seem to get past the part of me that always imagined that one day I'd get him to join me at some game and we'd share a Coke and reconcile and apologize and he could just be my Dad. Now that he's gone I know that moment is never going to happen. Maybe it was always a daydream...but it wasn't impossible. So I don't know. I'm glad he's dead but I don't want to be glad, and part of me is angry at me for not just letting myself be glad about it and move on. Am I betraying the rest of them by not hating him completely? What kind of son am I that wants to be glad his father's dead?"

By the time he finished speaking his voice was hoarse with shame.

Mackenzie breathed quietly in to the phone. "You know that's okay, right Will?"

"Yeah..." he murmured.

"No, really Will..." She spoke with her familiar conviction, "Any rationale person would be completely understanding if you were completely happy with him being gone. And anyone with a father can also understand why you don't want to hate your Dad and why you're feeling conflicted. And I'm fairly certain that if you were to have this conversation with your siblings they probably have similar thoughts. I don't know if there is any other way for you to feel. You need to talk to them Billy, it will make you feel better."

He braced his elbows on his knees. "You're good at that."

"At what?" she questioned.

"Making me feel better." He replied honestly. Afraid of her reaction to his addmision and in an effort to lighten the impact he added, "If I keep calling you in the middle of the night and I can stop going to Habib."

"Oh I don't think that's a very good idea." she replied teasingly.

"No longer going to a therapist or calling you in the middle of the night? Because if it's the latter I can just be sure to change the time of my calls." He asked with a smirk.

"You know perfectly well what I meant." she snapped with lighthearted annoyance.

He leaned back in his chair and allowed a smile to ghost across his face. He closed his eyes and listened to her soft breathing on the other end of the line. Without much thought he voiced the question which had been plaguing him all weekend, "Why do I keep calling you Mac?"

"What do you mean?" She asked, genuinely confused. They had ceased in the recent months since he was with Nina but Will's late night calls were nothing new so she honestly did not understand the question.

Will patiently explained, "This weekend. I keep calling you. You and noone else. Why is that? I can't figure it out and so maybe you can. What's going on in my brain? Why am I calling you and ignoring the half dozen texts from Nina?"

McKenzie took in a sharp breath and said nothing. After nearly 30 seconds of silence Will dropped his head, realizing what he had done and what he was asking of her.

"Look, Mac..."

"No." She cut him off.

"Mac..." He tried again.

"Will. Stop. Just stop." He heard the tension in her voice. It was steady but he knew her well enough, could hear the tell tale hitch that she was an inch from breaking.

He sighed, silently berating himself.

"Look. Ok. Look, Will." Mackenzie fumbled, "You know I...Look, I'm glad you're calling me and I'm glad you're using me to help work out what you're going through and I will always be here for you Will. Absolutely always but don't...Do. Not. make me give you relationship advice. I can handle a lot of things but please, you can't expect me to do that."

He sighed and rubbed his fingers on his brow "Yeah. I'm sorry."

They were both quiet for a long time. When Mackenzie broke the silence her voice was timid and small, "I should probably go."

"Yeah." He took a breath "Mac...again, I'm sorry."

"It's okay Billy. I'll see you tomorrow." She assured with false cheer.

"Tomorrow." He agreed. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." He stayed on the line until he heard her hang up the call. He put the phone on the table and dropped his head to his hands.

"You're still up?"

Will picked up his head to see Mark in a t-shirt and boxers standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

"So are you apparently." He observed dryly.

"I was getting a glass of water. What are you doing?"

Will looked over his shoulder at the still on laptop. "Reading the news."

Mark nodded slowly and padded over to the table. "Who were you on the phone with?"

Will shrugged.

Mark tilted his head, "Mac?"

Will rolled his eyes, "Can we not?"

Mark sighed and folded his lanky frame into a chair, "Let me ask you something Will..."

Will leaned back in his chair, "Mark, I'm really not in the mood right now..."

Mark leaned forward, "No, just a minute Will. Let me ask this; If Caroline got back together with Greg how would you feel?"

Will sat straight, "Now wait a minute, you can't draw that comparison."

"Why not?" Mark sat back, "He hurt her. Mac hurt you."

Will leaned toward his brother, "Completely differently. There is no way you can take what that bunion of a man has done repeatedly and maliciously and equate it to an emotional and confused mistake that Mackenzie made 5 years ago and for which she's spent 5 years trying to pay penance."

Mark leveled Will with a steady gaze, "And how did you feel each time Mom tried to minimize or excuse Dad's actions?"

Will shook his head, "You have no idea how misplaced these comparisons are. You all really don't know the first thing about Mac and I."

Mark leaned back and brought his hand to his mouth as he regarded Will thoughtfully from across the table. Will matched his gaze until Mark let out a slow breath and dropped his arm, knocking on the table a few beats before he spoke, "You know Will, you've spent your entire life being our protector. You can't be surprised when we want to reverse the role and look out for you."

Will tilted his head, "Mark..."

Mark cut him off with a wave of his hand, "No Will, you're right, we really may not know the first thing about you and Mac but the truth is we don't know much about you at all because you've so cemented yourself in the role as our protector that you don't seem to realize that we've all grown up and are on equal footing now. You barely let us see anything about you that the rest of America can't gleam from your Wikipedia page."

Will looked at his hands, "What do you want from me?"

Mark shrugged, "Nothing Will. You've already given me more than any little brother could ask for but we can't help but worry when the rest of us lay it all out in the open this morning and you just shut down. We're all going through something here and if you keep it stuffed inside it's only going to end unwell. Maybe we're being overly worked up about Mac but maybe we're just projecting. We want to do for you what you've always done for us but you haven't given us any clue as to how. Hell, the only reason we even got confirmation about what really happened between you and Mackenzie is because Caroline was watching ACN morning! You don't talk to us Will. Dad's gone. We don't need protection from him anymore. We are, you me and the girls, we're all that's left of our family now. There's nothing left to be scared of but if you don't make a little effort...we're going to loose you more than we already have."

The two brothers sat in silence until Mark shook his head and stood, walking around the table and giving Will a squeeze on his shoulder before walking back to the kitchen.

"I'm pretty screwed up." Will spoke quietly, not looking up. Mark froze in the doorway. He pivoted where he stood but said nothing, waiting for Will to continue.

Will kept his eyes focused on his fingers picking at the table top, "I've got a crap self image and my confidence requires constant affirmation from people who I probably shouldn't care about and my insecurities mean more often than not I push away the people I should and do care about." He looked up to Mark who was looking back with a supportive and wholly unsurprised look on his face.

Will waved a hand in the air, "That's not really the problem, I mean, it is a problem obviously but I've been seeing a therapist for years for all that...but this weekend...The problem I can't seem to solve despite all the evidence, is that I can't decide if I loved Dad or hated him and if I hate or love the fact that he's gone."

Dropping eye contact with his brother Will stood, closing the laptop as he did. "I haven't slept a lot in the past few days. I'm going to head to bed." He kept his eyes averted as he passed Mark in the doorway.

"Will?" Mark said in a quiet voice. Will looked up.

Mark gave him a sad smile, "Me too."