Saturday, January 8, 2011

Mackenzie had invited Don over to her apartment Friday night after he was finished with the show. When News Night was finished, she wrapped up and quickly left, fortunately avoiding any awkward run in—especially with Sloan—and realized on the way home how nervous she was. She hadn't really seen him during the week and it gave her too much time to think about everything that could possibly go wrong. The beginning of the week had been rough with Sloan but since then, she had been able to successfully avoid her (she couldn't help but feel at one point that Sloan was avoiding her. Part of her was relieved, but part of her was more than a little hurt).

She quickly forgot all her worries when a knock at the door signaled Don finally arrived. If she thought they might talk a little she was wrong. They were quickly occupied, and she should have figured that, seeing as they hadn't seen each other outside of the office in five days.

Most Saturdays, Mackenzie still woke at her normal time but this time she was still asleep when her phone started to ring on the other side of the room. She groaned and covered her head with a blanket before admitting defeat. Don was slowly coming to reality, but was less concerned about Mac's ringing phone than she was. When she didn't make it to her own phone in time, she heard the sound of a foreign phone and Don shot out of the bed to search for it.

"Hello?" he answered when he put it to his ear. Mackenzie gripped her phone and watched Don before she tried to make any more calls.

"Okay. Yeah, I can be there soon," he spoke into the device before pulling it away. "Charlie's about to—"

Before he finished the sentence, her phone rang again and Mackenzie answered. She cursed quietly. "I hope this is a joke," her expression was quick to find frustration before she hung up the phone after announcing she would be there shortly.

They wasted no time getting ready and reluctantly decided to take the same cab. "It'll be too early for anyone to be there," Don reasoned and eventually Mac gave in and got into the same vehicle behind him.

Before they arrived at the building, Mac was looking through the crowd to see if she saw anyone. Don reached over, squeezed her hand, and she offered a smile. He leaned forward to kiss her softly before encouraging her out and onto the street where they quickly shed everything unrelated to the shitstorm they were about to walk into.

Both of them broke for Will's office, stepping through as Charlie spun around to greet them. He stared for a second while he gripped the magazine.

"That was awfully in sync. You guys ride together?" he joked before turning the glass of scotch upward and extending the magazine out as Mac snatched it from him. Don shifted behind her and sat down in a nearby chair.

"My night with Will McAvoy," she began.

"Sex, drugs, and guns," Charlie finished. Mac spun around. Her knuckles went white with anger as she gripped the magazine. Charlie stared for a moment longer before taking it from her and leaving his office. A few minutes later, he returned with Will.

"We need a whole team for this?"

"Don's a good advisor for damage control."

"When does it come out?" Will asked.

"It's out!" Charlie shouted.

Don tried to organize the story, asking Will questions that he easily answered but saw no harm in them. The conversation turned from simple frustration to a shouting match. Don glanced back at Mackenzie who was more focused on Will. He could see a shield of pain come across her expression and he was torn between wanting to comfort her and wondering how he could compete with her former boyfriend.

"Hang on. You'd never allow a non-compete clause in your contract. You can't stay off television for five minutes," Mac interrupted, her arms tightening across her chest at the new discovery.

"It got… put in," Will began stumbling over his words when he realized his trap.

"When?" she asked. Will stared at her, unresponsive. "When, Will?" she snapped.

"When I renegotiated my contract."

"To be able to fire me at the end of each week."

"Yeah."

Mackenzie's jaw tightened, her fingers clenching the fabric of her sweater, and she looked down. Don shifted in his seat but jerked the moment Mac made a move to leave the office. He remained in place even when Will followed her out and he had to remind himself he was on thin ice with whatever relationship he had with Mac.

"Jesus Christ! How much do you hate me?" he heard her shout before he leaned back and sighed, running his hand across his face. Charlie looked down at him but spun around to watch through the glass.

They both listened as Will and Mac shouted at each other in the bullpen and within a few moments, they were shouting at each other back in the office. Don sat there, uncomfortable and unable to do anything, while they tried to put back together the messed laid out in front of them.

It wasn't long before Maggie shot through the door, frantically stumbling over her words of a news break. The air of the entire office changed as all five of them left Will's office.

"What's going on?" Jim shouted from the other side of the office.

"All hands! There's been a shooting in Tucson and a congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, been shot in the head!"

Anything related to the TMI scandal was put on the backburner as everyone burst into the bullpen, picking up phones and dialing numbers, to find out whatever information they could while the painfully manipulative song, Fix You, played in the background.

Sloan was already having a day.

Her alarm went off late, her hair wouldn't do what she wanted it to, she was out of coffee at home and the line at Starbucks was out the door, and when she finally did get her cup of much needed coffee she spilled a good amount of it on the front of her cream colored sweater.

Yeah, the day already sucked and it hadn't even properly started yet.

So the last thing, the very last thing, she needed was to arrive at the AWM building to see Mac climbing out of a cab, her head tipped back in laughter, followed closely by Don who kept a hand on the small of Mac's back as he leaned in to pay the driver. Sloan was too far away to catch any of what they were saying, but once the cab drove away, Don wrapped an arm around Mac's shoulders, pulling her to him and pressing a sweet kiss to her temple.

It wasn't the behavior of a couple who had made a one-time drunken mistake. Those were the actions of a couple who were a couple.

"Shit," she mumbled as she blotted at her sweater and fought back the urge to cry. Part of her had been afraid that they were more than just fuck buddies, but another part of her had hoped, desperately hoped, that they were just fooling around.

Because what about Will? (And a smaller voice asked, what about her? Even though she knew that was ridiculous. Neither Don nor Mac knew about her awful, growing crush on Don.) He was going to be devastated when he found out about Don and Mac. Wade had been bad enough, although she was pretty sure that everyone knew that would never last.

Will, and Sloan admittedly, seem to operate under the impression that Mac would be waiting for him whenever he finally got over whatever it was that he had to get over in order to forgive her and trust her again. That when he figured it out, Mac would be waiting in the wings for him to sweep her off her feet. Wade hadn't even really changed that impression, because Mac never loved Wade, which was clear. She was trying to make it work, but that was only because Will wasn't giving her any sort of sign that he was near ready to try them again.

But Don, shit. If Mac was dating Don, if she was serious about Don, then for the first time Will might have actual competition.

Sloan waited enough time for the two of them to be safely upstairs before she walked into the lobby, jamming the button for the elevator and attempting to calm herself down.

The longer she thought about it, the more she moved from upset to angry. How could Don and Mac do this to Will? (And to her, a little voice said, and she pushed it away.) Will loved Mac, more than Don possibly could. (Or could Don love her as much as Will loved her? Was there something about Mac that Sloan didn't have that made intelligent, handsome men fall hard and fast for her?)

The elevator opened to their floor and she stepped off, feeling sorry for herself and feeling sorry for Will, and feeling bitter about feeling sad, and that anger began to build until she was finally seated at her desk in the quiet of her office, and she pulled up her email and shot off a message to Will asking if he wanted to have lunch later that day. Something had to be done about Mac and Don before it went any farther.

She figured there was no one who would be more invested in seeing that relationship fail than Will McAvoy. And she needed his help.

Sloan was pleasantly surprised that Will was around for lunch, albeit a late lunch, and once they were settled at a tiny little place that he claimed made the best burger in New York, she cleared her throat and decided to lay it all out for him. She thought about easing him into it, but instead it all came tumbling out of her mouth.

"I think Don and Mac are together and I think it might be serious." Will looked stunned, and Sloan wished for a moment that she had gone with her original plan of going slowly.

"What?"

"Don and Mac. I think they hooked up on New Year's Eve, but I think it was more than a hook up," Sloan said hurriedly. "And, just so that everything is out there, I also think that you should know that I have a pretty big, and increasingly distracting, crush on Don." Will leaned back in his seat and let out a long huff of air.

"Don and Mac?" His voice sounded strangled.

"Yes," Sloan nodded.

"What makes you…I mean…how do you know?" Will asked. Sloan began laying out her evidence, watching as Will's face became more and more crestfallen.

"I thought you should know," Sloan told him. "Partly because I didn't think you should be blindsided by it, and partly because I have the beginnings of a plan."

"A plan? For what?" Will asked, and a grin slid across Sloan's face.

"To break them up, of course."