In the Bleak Midwinter Ch. 9
"How was your day yesterday, after our meeting?"
Will sighed; generic shrink question. But he also desperately wanted answers and hopefully advice to help him sort the mess that was his mind out, so that he and Mackenzie could begin to work things out between them.
"It was – it was terrible, actually. I don't know what happened between then and my apartment, but Mac was just…cold, angry…I don't know how to describe it really. I have no idea what I've done."
Habib looked thoughtfully at him for a moment before shifting in his seat slightly. "How were things when she actually left? You said that you didn't really talk for the rest of the day."
"No, we didn't. Actually the only time we really spoke that evening was when she left. She started to walk out and then turned back and hugged me. She said 'thank you' and I said…I said that I didn't really know what she had to be thankful for. And then she left…that's all that happened."
"And how did you feel after she had gone?"
"Confused. I didn't know where we stood with each other."
"Okay." Habib leaned forward in his seat, and Will couldn't help the feeling of relief that ran through him as it became obvious the Habib knew something he didn't and was about to clear something up. "There's something you need to understand about this, Will. As far as Mackenzie is concerned, you are the one in control here. She's not going to push you or make you do anything you don't want to because she feels that she doesn't have the right to do that after what she did to you four years ago."
"Doesn't sound like Mackenzie." He joked, as he tried to take in this new point of view.
"Well…if you were feeling confused when she left, she'll have been feeling doubly confused, because she's waiting for you to take the lead here; and if you're confused, then she's lost. When she embraced you that was probably small part desperation and confusion, small part comfort."
"I don't know where you're going with this."
"I'd like you to tell me about the evening you and Mac shared during the storm in detail. Just run through it all, but I'd like to know exactly what happened."
Will had been afraid that he would ask this. He didn't really want to have to run through it all again with someone else listening; but he thought of Mac, and how she was the reason he was here in the first place. And if what the doctor said was true, and she was waiting for him to take the lead with their relationship, then he wanted to sort this out.
"Can I ask you something first?"
"Sure."
"Yesterday you asked who had the idea for the cocoa. Why?"
He thought that it was maybe a smile that had flashed across Habib's face for a second, but he couldn't be sure. Maybe he just blinked and his vision went weird for a second.
"Why do you ask Will? Seems a slightly strange thing for you to remember."
"It was a strange question." Habib laughed.
"Yes, to you I suppose it was." Now he was smiling at Will, and he was disarmed by it. Clearly this was a joke he just wasn't getting. Habib sighed and tilted his head slightly as he looked at will, almost like he was sizing him up. "I asked whose idea the cocoa was because it was something you said you used to do together."
"Right…" Will still didn't get it.
"Right. So if she had suggested it, then I would take that as a sign that she was comfortable around you, and was comfortable being in your flat alone with you - it would basically have been a very positive thing if you're looking to move your relationship forward." Will suddenly had the feeling he knew what was coming, and Habib smiled wryly as he saw the cogs turning behind Will's eyes, "But she didn't. You did. You were the one who was comfortable, and to whatever degree relaxed and happy about having her there, even if you might have been nervous at the time – it was your subconscious. It was your instinct, your autopilot…so it's still a positive thing, Will."
"Right." Will's throat had gone very dry, and he wasn't quite sure what else to say.
"I think you need to have a little more faith in yourself, and also a little more faith in Mackenzie. You're doing better at this than you think."
"I have a lot of faith in Mackenzie." He said quietly. He didn't know exactly why he was defending this when her infidelity was the root of this whole problem, but he just did. His subconscious again?
"Professionally, yes. Of course you do. Maybe even as friends – you know she has your back. But she hurt you where it hurts the most – she hurt your heart; and until you can believe that she won't do it again, then this problem is going to continue. So tell me about your evening, Will."
Will was still feeling very muddled as he tried to absorb all this new information, but even though he didn't have it all sorted out in his head yet, he knew that it was all positive. Somewhere, somehow in his brain, this was doing some good. He began.
It took maybe the better part of forty minutes to get through all of it. Habib tried not to interrupt, but here and there he would press for a detail or ask him to clarify a point. Will actually felt a little worn out by the end of it. Emotionally worn out, he supposed.
When he had finished, Habib stared at him for a few minutes – Will thought he was perhaps wondering where to start with it all…and truth be told, he was scared that Habib was going to start with the part where Will had acted like the stereotypical image of a violent, angry, wife-beating man who drinks too much scotch and thinks the world is against him because his life didn't turn out the way he wanted. So he decided to jump in first.
"Why can't I forgive her?"
Habib perked up at this question, clearly once again surprised by Will's question.
"Uh, well why do you think you can't forgive her?"
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking! It's not that I don't think she deserves it; because honestly, I think she does. I – she's put up with me from the moment she got back, she's the beating heart of this show, she has done nothing but apologise whenever it's come up and she wears it on her sleeve for everyone to see. I know she deserves to be forgiven…so I want to know why I can't do it."
Again there was silence for a moment as he finished talking, and he wouldn't admit it, but it was really starting to unnerve him. The younger man looked like he was thinking carefully about what he was about to say next.
"When you were telling me the part about how you grabbed hold of Mackenzie?" Will shut his eyes. Why was he bringing this up now? He nodded slowly. "Well, I think you already know where I'm going with this, but before I go any further Will, you are not your father. And a fight with Mackenzie doesn't prove otherwise, okay? Everyone gets angry, and although I'm not saying that the way you treated her was right, it was a heat of the moment thing and you clearly regret it deeply, and you've apologised to Mac and shown her how you feel about it.
"However, as much as you may not want to hear this, your father does come into it. You had a violent, abusive father who abandoned you and your family when you were very young. It's the worst kind of betrayal and it's the one thing you cannot forgive. Mackenzie went back to her boyfriend because she saw a chance to get unrejected; you weren't even part of the equation. But she realised that she wasn't in love with Brian and that she was in love with you, and she wanted to confess everything before you took the relationship any further. But the point is that you weren't rejected, you were betrayed. And that's why you can't forgive Mackenzie."
Will stared at him, horrified. He was actually feeling slightly nauseous. "I can't forgive Mackenzie…because of my father? Mackenzie's nothing like my father!"
"But she betrayed you. It's not what she's like it's what she did that matters."
"That doesn't make any sense. I love Mackenzie; I hated my father! Properly hated him. I never even had the whole son-wanting-to-impress-his-father thing, it was just hate, loathing! How can you be comparing Mackenzie to that?"
He didn't understand the small smile playing on Habib's face. "Say it again, Will."
"How can you be comparing Macken –"
"No, the first part." Will looked at him, confused.
"I don't –"
"What was the first part?"
"That doesn't make any sense…" Habib nodded at him to continue, and Will suddenly realised what he'd been saying. He gulped. "I love Mackenzie; I hated my father."
"Present tense." Habib said softly. "This is good Will. I know you're finding it hard to believe that this is why you're having trouble forgiving Mackenzie, but I've counselled couples and in my experience, love – real love, mind you – overcomes betrayal every time.
"If you're really still in love with her, you'll find a way to sort this out."
Mackenzie dragged herself miserably into work that morning. She had had to do the taxi ride of shame back to her apartment before coming into the office and she felt rough as sandpaper.
There had been wine and maybe some spirits, and then what was only describable as torturously bad sex.
It had felt so wrong and mediocre, and the complete opposite of passionate. But she hadn't had the energy to deal with the consequences of not pretending like she wanted to straighten things out between them. If you could really call last night "straightening things out"…it had been more like pretending as though their problems didn't exist and that they were just a normal couple.
All Mackenzie had been able to think about as Wade kissed her was Will. She couldn't be entirely sure that his name hadn't slipped out, but if it had – and she's fairly sure that Wade would have noticed – then he didn't hear her.
As a result of this, she's even more pissed off at Will than the day before. Not only does the guy treat her terribly yesterday, but now he's haunting her relationship with Wade Campbell. She couldn't tell Wade about staying with Will…and she couldn't stand the reason why. Because she was upset, of course. For all of five minutes she'd had exactly what she wanted, and then she – she – had been the one to call it quits and end it. And that was another thing: she was pissed off at him for being the reason that she had been kicking herself for the last two days. Scratch that, the last four years…it was just the last three days had been like slicing open a healing wound as opposed to something that she deserved.
Oh, and then there was the final kick in the teeth: that this hadn't been the first time she had been thinking of Will as another man kissed her. It had just made her want to cry. And more annoyingly still, she couldn't bring herself to regret kissing Will behind Wade's back nearly as much as she had used to regret kissing Brian. She didn't know whether to be happy about this because it was Will, or to hate herself more because it was Will…and it made her feel like she hadn't changed her ways; except this time she couldn't be sorry about it because the man she had cheated with was the man she was in love with.
"Mackenzie?" Gary had stuck his head round her door, wrenching her from her less than pleasant thoughts. He seemed to notice she wasn't looking happy because he frowned, but quickly took the hint from her facial expression that asking if she was okay would result in some form of pain. Thus, he instead continued with what he had been saying the minute before. "Sorry, but Charlie's aid was dropping stuff off and she said he wants you to join him for lunch.
"Um…now. He meant join him for lunch now."
She groaned, and ran her hands through her hair. Charlie was obviously onto them. Fuck!
He had been at the morning briefing and she had caught him looking concernedly between her and Will as she sniped at him every few minutes.
Knowing there was no way she'd be able to get out of it, she pulled herself up heavily from her seat and trudged over to the door and past Gary, heading for the lifts. Her only comforting thought was that Charlie had a lot of Bourbon in his office. It might make this a little easier.
OOOOO
"Ah, Mackenzie! Right on time. Food's going to be here any minute." He offered her one of his dazzling smiles, and she attempted to return it for all of a second before she gave up and her shoulders slumped as she fixed an exasperated look at the man in front of her.
"Charlie, what do you need?"
She felt as massive pang of guilt as the smile slid off his face faster than water runs off a cliff face. He sighed and rested his hands on the back of his chair, nodding pointedly at the seats in front of his desk. She silently answered his unspoken question and sank down into the one on the right.
He just stared hard at her for a minute, before slipping around the desk to take the seat next to her and pulled their chairs around so that they were facing each other.
"Mac sweetheart, right now I'm not your boss, I'm your friend. And Will's friend and I – I just want to see you guys happy again; whether that means you manage to kiss and make up or not."
She couldn't help it: she winced at the way he casually threw that out, and when she opened her eyes again she could see the grim expression on his face.
"I thought as much." She finally managed a smile ruefully, torn between bitterness and just wanting to cry and get this out of her system…for a while at least. "So the making up part didn't succeed, then?"
He smiled sadly at her, as she let out a bitter laugh and examined the nails on her right hand to avoid actually looking at him. "How on earth did you guess?" She asked sarcastically, "And I take it you're not the only one?"
"Oh I don't know…I think the betting pool took a knock after Wade showed up yesterday."
"Why on earth are you working at ACN? Hello and People are always looking for people with gossiping skills like yours."
"Well at least you didn't say TMI." He joked, leaning back in his seat.
"You're annoying me, but I'd never sink that low."
"What happened, Mackenzie?" He asked softly. With a shaky breath, she managed to raise her eyes to meet his again, and her heart cracked a little more at the genuine concern and worry that she found there. But she found it hard to speak, her voice once more clamming up as she had to work harder still to keep herself under control.
"It – Wade and I had argued, so Will offered to let me stay at his place during the storm –" She heard rather than saw Charlie's sigh of exasperation, "and then we argued, and then we talked and then – and then – well, actually now I don't know what happened, I thought we'd…well maybe not made up but we'd at least straightened a few things out, and then he just –"
A tear had finally escaped her tired, frustrated brain and she curled up in her chair, and bit her lip for a minute to stop herself from actually sobbing. "Look, I clearly misinterpreted whatever it was that went on, and that's my fault, I'm just…just pissed off at Will because I was an idiot. It's a coping mechanism, okay?"
He didn't say anything for a moment. "Well, were I your boss right now I'd be saying that it's not okay. It's affecting your work and your staff and you need to resolve it."
She glared at him, and he raised his hands placating her, "But…since I'm not, I'd agree that he needs his head seen to after the crap he's been putting you through since April – no matter what you did four years ago. You've completely turned this place around Mac; especially Will. However, you two just slinging punches back and forth at each other doesn't make any sense. You actually need to –"
"But that was what happened when – or at least that's what I thought had happened." Her voice had shot up an octave and she looked slightly mad, gesticulating with her hair messed up from where she had been running her hands through it. It alarmed him slightly. She was doing worse than he had thought. He decided to wait to let her finish what she was saying.
"Look Charlie, I've been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days and…I think I'm going to resign. I was an idiot to think that Will could ever forgive – or maybe even just move past our history. He has serious trust issues, and not without good reason…it's just best. I'm hurting him by being here, and you're right: we know it's affecting our work, and it's unfair on everyone else –"
"Did you hear nothing I just said about you turning this place around?" Charlie interrupted, heatedly.
"But at what cost?!" Mac suddenly leaped up from her seat, and paced in a small circle. "Look I've laid the foundations; you and Will, and Jim and the team know where you're going now, you don't need me –"
"Mackenzie McHale, believe me when I say there is no one in the world that Will McAvoy needs more than you!" Charlie stood too and snatched her wrists in a firm grip to make her face him. But he instantly caught the slight wince on her face. "Mac?"
She looked like a frightened rabbit, and quickly freed herself from his hold, and flustered, looked over at the door. "Look, Charlie, I'm just going to go back downstairs and work on –"
Charlie caught one of her wrists again as she turned towards the door, a hard, determined look on his face. He saw her pleading expression, but ignored it and gently pushed her shirt sleeve up.
Mackenzie couldn't remember seeing a darker look on his face. Fuck, why did he have to know them so well?
She closed the hand connected to the wrist he was holding around his own forearm and squeezed gently, looking imploringly at her friend. "He didn't do anything. Believe that. He was just holding on a little too tightly. We were both angry and neither of us – neither of us – noticed.
"Look, Charlie, I know you're trying to do what's best, but please understand me when I say you don't know everything about this. I promise, I am the very worst thing for Will. I'm a reminder of a horrible thing, and this isn't going to get any better. I'm sorry, but I'm giving you my two weeks' notice."
After pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek, she left the room and left him standing there stunned, finally at a complete loss as to what to do.
It seemed like this was now completely up to them. The only people who had a hope of fixing Will and Mackenzie were themselves.
Will strode out of his office a few hours later, having managed to survive the day's briefing with Mackenzie…though only by the skin of his teeth. It hadn't been pretty. To say Mackenzie's attitude towards him had been frosty was like saying that the arctic was "chilly".
He had come away from his meeting with Habib with his mind more at ease, and his heart lighter than it had been in a while, and he'd strode into the office feeling positive that he was at least going to try and make leeway with their situation today. But Mackenzie's attitude hadn't changed. Though he now believed that it was down to confusion he was responsible for, he couldn't help but be hurt by the way she was behaving towards him.
All he wanted to do was tell her how sorry he was, and that he was getting help, and wanted to – well, he wasn't quite sure about that yet, but he was getting there. But he had no idea how to approach her about this; particularly after he caught the sad, hurt look on her face at one moment during the briefing when she'd let her mask fall for a second as she fielded an admittedly stupid question from Martin.
He could see that she was tired and she was stressed, so he now decided that he was going to at least try today. His words might come out jumbled and inarticulate, but he had to try; for her sake as much as his own.
"Anyone know where Mackenzie is?" He asked to no one in particular.
"Oh she's upstairs having lunch with Charlie." Maggie piped up from beside his elbow. Will frowned down at her. He hadn't been aware that there was a meeting scheduled between the two of them.
"Did she say how long she'd be?"
Maggie shook her head, looking at him with a slightly concerned look on her face. He looked irked.
"Will…if you're worried about Mac and Wade…they won't last. He's way too sleazy for her, she just needs to realise it."
"Wade?" He asked distractedly. Maggie bit her lip – she had thought that this was the reason why Will and Mackenzie had been cooler than ice cubes with each other the last couple of days, but now she was wondering if she'd just gone and put her foot in it again. She was on Will's side here – Wade was terrible for Mackenzie (perhaps more than she knew) and yet she and Will were clearly made for each other.
"Yeah. She was looking pretty unhappy with him yesterday."
"Wade was here yesterday?" Will asked, a shocked look coming over his face. Maggie looked at him again, feeling more and more like there was a massive part of this story that she was missing, and that maybe – as usual – things would be better if she had just kept her mouth shut.
"Yeah…what's wrong? He's here all the time. Will? Are you okay? They are still together, right?"
There was a faraway look in Will's eyes, his gaze having left hers and shifted to some point just above the five flat-screens hanging on the wall over the studio. "I'd say so."
She didn't know what to make of this strange behaviour. "Actually," Maggie shifted uncomfortably, suddenly looking nervous and hesitant. Will immediately noticed and his focus snapped back to Maggie's face.
"What is it Maggie?" She still looked uncertain. "I promise you won't get in trouble here. This is about Mackenzie?"
She nodded slowly, her hands fidgeting. "Yes. I didn't know whether I should say anything to her – it's not really my business but…she's Mac, and well – she's Mac…"
"Tell her what?" Will pressed softly. His eyes were darting between Maggie's, concern now flooding his senses. As much as Maggie's words had felt like a punch to the gut, he needed to know what she knew about Mac.
"Look Will, it's just hear say –the grape vine, whatever – but…my friend from college works as an intern to another New York DA and she just –"
"What?"
"On a coffee break she overheard one of Wade's PA's dissing Mac. Saying that Wade is only using her – that he just likes the chance to be on TV." She had said all of this very fast, her hands tucked so far into her stomach that it almost looked like she was trying to force this word vomit out before she could change her mind.
She could see Will's face turn four shades of red in a matter of seconds after she finished speaking, and she started to fluster.
"Will, seriously – I have no proof! None at all. I just – it's just office gossip someone overheard –"
"You'd be surprised how close to accurate office gossip can be sometimes, Maggie." Will said it quietly whilst staring at the floor, but it meant that Maggie caught the dangerous glint in his eye. She was utterly taken aback and unsure whether to press him on it. She decided that he had just let it slip, probably not meaning for her to hear it. She gently touched his arm to get his attention once more.
"Will? I can't prove it – and I don't want to pass it on like this…but maybe you know someone who could…" She tilted her head, trying to get a reaction from him. "…you know? Quietly do some digging? I'd hate it if it was true and she didn't…"
She faded out again. Will's stare was so powerful that she balked, sure that she had finally gone too far; but a second later he had put his hand on her shoulder and given her a gentle shake.
"Thank you Maggie. You absolutely did the right thing."
With that, he strode purposefully to his office and shut the door firmly behind him.
This has all been in my head for so long, so I hope it all came out okay and not muddled from over-thought :p Thanks for being so patient you lot! You wonderful bunch! :D x
