a/n: we have reached the end amigos, but i promise an epilogue. i also promise it won't be the last fic i write for this ship. please feel free to send me any prompts! i'm open!

Chapter 10

"Hey Mac." Jim shyly stuck his head into her office. It was still relatively early and most of the staff wasn't there.

Mac looked up at him from the pile of paperwork on her desk. "Good morning!" She was much more chipper than usual, but then again, she had plenty to be happy about. "Whats that behind your back?"

Jim hesitantly walked into the office and revealed that he was holding on to a copy of US Weekly. Mac laughed at him. "Look I wanted to show you this before you saw it somewhere else…"

Mac's face fell as he handed her the magazine. It wasn't the cover story, but it was on there. Right underneath Ryan Gosling's dashing smile: "Will McAvoy's New/Old Flame! Details on page 8."

"Oh shit." Mac looked at it like it might bite her. "How did you…?"

"Lisa. Lisa reads all of these magazines religiously. This came this morning."

Mac opened to page eight with trepidation. There were three pictures. The first was of Will and Mac at the baseball game. It wasn't too telling. They were just enjoying the game, you could even see Lonny a few yards behind them.

The second was of Will putting her in a taxi in front of Amarone the other night. They were kissing. "Ugh." Mac groaned as her hand went to her hair, restlessly tangling it.

The third was of her, wearing her sunglasses and hat, leaving Will's apartment building…holding hands with Will.

"Couple Alert! After months of scandal at New Night, Will McAvoy has started seeing…you guessed it! MacKenzie McHale! His Executive Producer and the ex girlfriend who famously cheated on him! Sources confirm that the couple has been seen in various locations throughout Manhattan, making no effort to hide their affections for each other. We were unable to get a statement from McAvoy's agent."

"What the fuck?! No one asked for a statement! And why the hell is it their business anyway?" Mac stood up and threw the magazine on her desk.

"It isn't their business, Mac. We all know that." Jim tried to speak in soothing tones.

She was pacing back and forth behind her desk. "I need to call Will, but he's at the doctor's…"

"Its going to be fine. Its not slanderous, its just annoying."

Mac looked up at him. She really loved Jim, and he was right. This was definitely not the worst thing that could happen. That already happened when she cheated on Will with Brian and then told everyone in the world about it by accident. "So, Will and I are back together." She stated flatly.

Jim smiled at her, which she couldn't help but returning. "Congratulations. Thanks for sharing."

Mackenzie sat back down behind her desk looking relatively deflated. "Sorry I didn't tell you, but it hasn't been going on very long, and well, we were trying to avoid…this."

"Its okay, I totally understand."

"What should I do?" She asked.

"You guys need to report your relationship to HR, hopefully before anyone at ACN gets wind of this, and then what you do is really between you and Will."

Several staff members were filing into the office now. "Its going to be insane today, we have to get the rundown for tonight and Sunday's 9/11 special."

"I'll do everything I can to try to make it easier, but you have got to get Will and get to HR."

Mac let out a sigh. "Thanks Jim."

"Anytime."

…

Unfortunately, the day did not go nearly as well as planned. Will had a ton of meetings and Mac literally never laid eyes on him until he walked by her in the newsroom while she was going through extremely important details with the staff. He went straight to his office.

Mac tried to speed up her pace in order to catch him while he was alone but within a few minutes, Reese Lansing hurriedly walked through the newsroom and straight for Will's office. That's when the yelling began.

…

Will was having a relatively decent morning. He'd had a follow up appointment with his doctor, and it seemed that he was completely recovered from his stay at the hospital. Then he'd gotten a text from Mac asking what they were going to do on hiatus week.

He hadn't even thought about it until then. After Sunday they were off for a glorious seven days. Thoughts of a Caribbean vacation and Mac in a bathing suit instantly filled his head.

He tried to shake off those thoughts though, they had a ton of work to do today both for tonight's show, and for the show on Sunday. Since it was the tenth anniversary of 9/11 he had decided to let the team have off for most of the day. If they could get everything they needed to finished, then they could all spend that day mostly how they wanted to and then come in around six to work on the show.

He rushed through the newsroom only sparing a glance over to Mackenzie and went straight to his office to get working on the rundown. He had only just turned on his computer when the miniscule form of Reese Lansing burst through his office door.

"Thanks for knocking."

"What the FUCK is this?" He was holding something in his hand.

"I don't know," Will said calmly, "What the fuck is it?" The mocking tone was unintentional, but it came through strong.

Reese threw the US Weekly down on Will's desk. "Page eight."

Will knew wherever this conversation was going it was going to be ugly. He and Reese had once been friends, but with everything that had happened over the past eighteen months, they were now scornful enemies. He wasn't sorry either; Reese was a tool.

He obligingly turned to page eight while Reese stood there with his arms crossed. He wasn't surprised by what he saw, and he was only irritated because of the trouble it would cause. This wasn't the worst thing that had been written about him in the past year – or the past month for that matter.

"Look, Reese…" He started, but he wasn't able to get a word out.

"Did it not even occur to you how fucking bad this would look?"

Will stood up. "No, shockingly, that was not something that I was thinking about." He wasn't going to stand for this little prick talking about his relationship.

"I mean, you have been all over the tabloids this year. Its only been like four weeks since your name was in a national publication. Was that just too much for you? Couldn't stand not being in the spotlight?"

"Reese this has nothing to do with anything. Stop being intentionally dense." Will walked around from behind his desk. He refused to be bullied.

"How long has this been going on? Are you even serious here? Or are you just fucking her?"

Will crossed his arms and tried not to get overly angry. "What we are doing is none of your business."

"Actually it IS my business Will! This is a legal issue and a conflict of interest for your show. You didn't even go to HR. Since you clearly aren't serious about it…"

"We'll go to HR." Will cut him off. "That's not a problem. We will do it right now if it will get you to shut up."

…

At first Mackenzie tried to keep the staff's attention, despite the very loud and obvious yelling coming from Will's office. Their faces were clearly distraught and everyone kept looking over at the door and looking back at her as if she were supposed to do something.

She had absolutely no idea what to do.

"Mackenzie?" She looked towards the elevator bay and saw Charlie's figure emerge.

"Hi Charlie. Meeting dismissed." She said, but most of the staff hung around, or went off to their stations quietly, still listening to the yelling coming from Will's office.

"What the hell is going on in there? I heard Reese was screaming at his secretary and then left his office to come down here."

Mac leaned against a workstation desk and crossed her arms. "It appears that they are fighting."

Charlie merely raised his eyebrows at her.

…

"Going to HR isn't going to fix this problem. This is a liability for the show!" Reese yelled at him.

"Its not a liability for anyone. We did this before and we'll do it now! Our relationship has nothing to do with the quality of our work and don't pretend like you don't already know that!" Will had his hands on his waist and was desperately trying to stop them from hitting Reese square across his smirking jaw.

"I knew this was going to happen. The second she came back and the show totally changed…"

"IT CHANGED FOR THE BETTER!" Will fiercely yelled back.

"That's what YOU say! You're fucking escapades cost this company hundred of thousands of dollars!"

Will took a breath. "This isn't about that Reese. Don't try to displace you anger about 'other' things onto Mac and myself. Whatever happens between us is none of your business and there's nothing you can do, because we are going to do the right thing and go report the relationship to HR right now. I'm sorry we've been to busy to follow through on your bureaucratic bullshit!" He walked by him and pushed the door open forcefully.

…

The staff of the News Night had never been so quiet and Mac knew everyone was doing exactly what she was doing; trying to listen to every word of what was happening in Will's office. Unfortunately much of it was garbled, but the yelling was unmistakable, as were the words "Mackenzie" "HR" and "Changed."

Charlie put his hand on her elbow. "I'm going to go in there and…" but before he could finish his sentence Will had burst out of his office.

"Mac!" He yelled as he took long strides towards her. She turned to look at his flushed face and saw Reese appear form behind the door.

Everyone's eyes were on Reese when he opened his mouth and said, "You can go do whatever you want, but you know that it doesn't matter. Its only a matter of time before your slutty girlfriend cheats on you again and this whole show is DONE."

Will turned around as quickly as he had been walking towards Mackenzie. "That's it you little twat!"

Reese launched himself at Will faster than anyone would have expected, but Will having more experience in a fist fight managed to duck the first throw and deliver a left hook right to Reese's face. It wasn't enough though and Reese had punched Will in the stomach before anyone could move.

"Stop them!" Mackenzie yelled. She was immobilized by both fear and Charlie's hand on her arm.

Will had Reese in a headlock by the time Jim and Gary pulled them off of each other.

"It doesn't fucking matter Will, you know I'm right!" Reese yelled through his bleeding lip. Gary gave him a hard squeeze to remind him that he was pretty much helpless if he tried to fight him.

Jim was pulling Will away, "You fuck yourself, Reese."

"Both of you! Shut the hell up!" Charlie finally intervened, "Reese get out of here. Just go crawl back to your office."

Reese was still struggling when Gary let him go and gave him a domineering look. He glared at all of them, but saved his last look for Mac as he walked to the stairwell.

The newsroom seemed to be in slow motion as they heard the door slam. Jim let go of Will, who walked directly across the room, and in front of everyone, cupped Mac's face and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

Cheers and catcalls erupted from almost everyone watching, which only made them break apart to look at each other and laugh.

Will couldn't wipe the smile off of his face as he looked back at this group of people who he cared deeply about and was glad not to have to hide his affection for the one woman he had ever loved from them any longer.

"Guys, Mac and I have to go up to Human Resources. We'll be back in a bit."

With that he grabbed Mac's hand and led her towards the elevator bay. She willingly followed and couldn't help but glance back towards the staff and smiling broadly at them before they were out of sight.

Once the elevator arrives, mercifully empty, Will pressed her up against the wall and kissed her again. When they broke apart it was Mac that spoke, "You just hit Reese Lansing." She said with her arms wrapped tightly around Will's neck.

"Hey! He hit back." Was all he said before he kissed her again.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

"Never better," he smiled at her, "he's not going to do anything, there were 30 witnesses there who saw him throw the first punch."

"It was pretty hot the way you ducked it." She kissed him again.

"You liked that?" He said.

"Loved it, but don't make a habit out of defending my honor please."

Will looked at her seriously, "No one talks about my girlfriend that way."

She smiled and leaned in for one more kiss before the bell informed them that they had arrived at their designated floor.

Whatever was going to happen now, they couldn't control, but they knew one thing: they'd be facing it together.