A/N: And I continue to be ridiculously fast. Though I suspect the next chapter won't go up until next week now. What with the long weekend. Still, hope you enjoy this one.

Chapter 13

xxx

Will walked into Dr. Habib's office, the next week, a blank expression on his face and sat down without a word.

"Do I even need to say it?" Habib asked, not entirely surprised by this turn of events. He'd been expecting a few bumps and bruises after their last session.

Will shook his head. "This past week..." he sighed. "Well, Mac and I were having a few... issues."

Jack nodded. "What kind of issues?"

"Oh, all kinds," Will replied. "But basically?"

"Sure," Habib agreed, more than willing to cut to the chase.

"I kept feeling angry at her. Or actually snapping at her," Will admitted. It hadn't been his best week, but he swore he hadn't been able to help it. He'd known the way he was feeling wasn't her fault, that she didn't deserved it, and he'd promise himself he wouldn't take it out on her, but then, he'd see her and before he knew it he was being an ass. And then, because she wasn't completely spineless, Mac responded. And things eventually escalated until they were practically sniping across the newsroom, or even just in his office..

"Right," Habib said, waiting for Will to continue.

"It was like we were constantly at each other's throats," Will said softly. "All week."

"You were frustrated," Habib summarized. It was a typical response to acknowledging strong (and long-buried) feelings. And Will had been frustrated with the Mackenzie situation for quite some time.

Will sighed, and glanced downwards. "Pretty much."

"Because you realized you were in love with her?" Habib asked innocently.

Will looked up from his hands, unimpressed. "I imagine that was a definite contributor," he said dryly.

"Will..."

"Okay look," Will said quickly, cutting his psychiatrist off in his haste to defend himself. "I guess I... I didn't deal with it well. She was right there, but I didn't know what to do about it. I mean, there's still all this crap between us, but it's mixed up with the... love."

"I can see how that would be frustrating," Habib said sympathetically.

"Yep," Will agreed, starting to fidget slightly in his chair. "So for some reason, I thought I would use the, well anger, and take the opportunity to sort through some of the crap that happened five years ago."

"What?" Habib asked. Will had gone searching for a confrontation? Really? Jack had been expecting hiding out in his office, avoiding his EP (probably as part of some misguided attempt to stop causing her pain), not... this. He could only imagine how that conversation had gone.

"Well, I guess I thought it might help sort out some of the crap," Will explained a bit self-consciously. "Things were a bit uncomfortable, so I figured, why not? Couldn't get any worse."

"Theoretically not a bad plan, I guess," Habib admitted. It wouldn't have been, if they'd been in rational frames of minds.

Will shrugged. "It's also possible that I just wanted to yell at her."

Jack winced. He'd suspected as much. "Jesus."

"Pretty much," Will admitted.

xxx

Will was not having a good week. Everything just felt slightly off, just, just not right. Nothing was working, nothing was comfortable. He felt twitchy and irritable and just impatient.

When he'd arrived at work after his last appointment with Habib he'd been a bit gruff, a bit quiet, just trying to keep it together. Then a smiling Mackenzie in a crimson blouse and a skirt that did interesting things to her legs had dropped by his office to check in, and he'd overcompensated. He'd been downright curt with her. She'd been downright confused, but in the end had just breezed out with a shrug.

But then Will's curtness slid into irritation which slid into sarcasm which slid into something close to anger. The two of them went from bickering in the newsroom to pointed jabs in the rundown meetings to full-out arguments in his office. As his mood had deteriorated, so had hers. Will knew he needed to get it together and fast, because there was only so long they could go on like this, and he was beginning to see the edges of hurt creep back into the corners of Mac's eyes. But he didn't know how to fix it. He needed to talk to her, but he had no idea what to say.

Of course, the decision wasn't entirely in his hands.

Things finally came to a head on Friday's show. Will had managed not to thank the audience for "washing" the show, but it had been a near miss. And he had managed to mispronounce the names of no less than four different guests. Mac's voice got slightly more hysterical in his ear with each subsequent correction.

Needless to say, she hadn't been impressed with him afterwards (he wasn't the only one who'd been frustrated). She'd stormed into his office immediately following the broadcast, just spoiling for a fight.

And he'd been only too happy to oblige her.

The rest of the newsroom, obviously sensing what was coming, had exited en masse, rushing to the bar even more quickly than usual, anxious to be well out of the line of fire.

"Do you want to talk about where the fuck your head was tonight?" Mac demanded, stepping into the office and letting the door slam shut behind her. She knew it wasn't the most tactful way to start a meeting, but after almost a week of this crap, she was so far past tact it wasn't even funny. One day he was Will, her supportive, funny, slightly ornery Will, and the next he could barely stand to be in a room with her. If the plan was to give her a nervous breakdown by the end of the month, well, he was right on schedule.

Her tone alone would have gotten Will's back up, even if he could have answered her question. But he couldn't. Because he knew exactly where his head was, and the tangles inside it were all her goddamn fault. So he crossed his arms, leaned back in his desk chair, and went on the offensive himself. "Oh, I don't know Mac, maybe it was trying to give the news in spite of a voice nagging in my ear."

"Trying to give you accurate information so you could actually greet the people you were supposed to be interviewing correctly," she snapped back, her tone just as scathing.

Will dropped his arms and clenched his hands into fists, because he knew she was right. Not that he was about to admit it. She was wrong about so many other things after all. "Look, you may think that a trained monkey with good diction could do my job..."

Mac glared at him, annoyed at him for even going there. They both knew he knew her better than that. "Oh, don't even got here. I'm not one of those high and mighty producers who think their job is the only tough one and you know it."

"Coulda fooled me," Will drawled.

Mac advanced on him slowly. "And that's another thing, you've been downright unpleasant this whole week, Billy."

"Don't call me that," Will said quickly. He couldn't deal with hearing that nickname in her voice right now, angry or not.

The order stopped Mac in her tracks. "What?"

"I asked you not to call me that." He really couldn't deal with that today.

Mackenzie actually looked really hurt for a second and that made him feel even worse.

Then she steeled herself, telling herself that she didn't care. He was obviously going through something that he refused to share. Well, he wasn't going to take it out on her any more, her or her newsroom. That was the material point. "Fine!" she hissed. " You've been downright unpleasant all week, Will. Don't even try and deny it!" she said as he opened his mouth. "The way I see it, you've got two options. You can talk to me and we can sort this shit out, or you can go home and figure it out yourself over the weekend, but it's one or the other. Because I'm sick of you using the newsroom as your personal whipping boy!"

"Oh that's rich!" Will replied.

"What?" Mac demanded.

"You haven't exactly been Ms. Sunshine-and-light this week," he reminded her. It wasn't like he'd started all of the arguments this past week.

"Maybe because I've had to deal with a cranky bastard of a news anchor and my patience is wearing thin," Mac defended.

Will raised his eyebrows. "Oh, so you're saying this is my fault?"

"I'm not the one who couldn't pronounce the oh so difficult last name of Richardson earlier this evening," Mac reminded him.

Will shoved his desk chair backwards and jumped to his feet. "I speak for the better part of forty-five minutes, five nights a week. I think I'm allowed to get a little tongue-tied once every six months."

"This was four times today," Mackenzie practically taunted.

Will stared waving his arms around in frustration. "Well, someone call in the broadcast news police. Oh wait, that would probably just be you."

Mackenzie just stared at him, in pure frustration. "The hell, Will?"

The expression on her face reined him in, but just barely. And he reminded himself (for possibly the hundredth time in four days), that this wasn't really her fault, and it definitely wasn't fair. He sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just, there's stuff... I'm having a bad week. I'm trying to... there's stuff..." He shook his head. "I'll figure it out. Don't worry about it."

Mac let her anger deflate out of her. She took a tentative step towards him, reaching an arm out, and letting it fall against his desk when her nerve failed her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Will looked up, surprised by the offer, given the outcomes of all of their recent attempts at conversation. He made a face. "You sure you want to do that?"

"Yes," Mac assured him.

He stared at her helplessly. "Why?"

The question made Mackenzie irrationally angry again. "God damn it, Will. Because we're friends. Most of the time at least."

That hit a nerve. Will stepped out from behind his desk. "Do you honestly think we can ever really be friends, Mackenzie? All the time? After all that's happened."

She took a step back like she'd been punched. "You don't want to be friends?" she asked, her voice quivering.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I do. I just think it's complicated."

Mackenzie dropped her head to her chest, deflating completely. "Because of what I did."

"Partly," Will whispered, looking at the woman across from him in something close to despair.

"Mostly," Mac corrected under her breath.

That sliced through him like a knife to the heart, mostly because it wasn't even true. "Mac..."

But she just shook her head, pushing a lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. "No, Will. Let's call a spade a spade. That's exactly what you think."

"You seem very certain that it is," Will said slowly. And the funny thing was, he wasn't. Not anymore.

She looked up at him, her eyes sad. "Why would I think any different?"

He paused, not sure what to say. He remembered that final fight well. Devastating was an understatement. "Did you ever think about staying in New York?

"What?" Mac asked, confused by the apparent change in subject.

"Before, after Brian," Will clarified. "Instead of running off to the Middle East..."

"You told me to get the fuck out of your life!" Mac reminded him, her voice breaking. It'd been the worst few weeks of her life. She'd destroyed everything and then needed to go away and try to put at least some of her pieces back together.

"Not exactly..." Will murmured. He didn't remember every saying that.

"Almost exactly," Mac corrected. It'd been so close, the difference hadn't mattered.

Will swallowed. "I was slightly... nicer, wasn't I?"

"Not much," Mac admitted with a shrug, staring at the floor. "And anyway, when you were trying to be kind it only made me feel worse." It had been easier when he'd yelled. When he'd been defeated and hopeless, but gentle, that had been the worst. That was when she'd known it was really over.

"Fuck, Mac," Will breathed.

Mac's head snapped up. "You brought it up!"

"Yeah," Will agreed, feeling the frustration build in him all over again. "And the way things are going, you may as well answer. Did you ever think about staying?" He'd thought about that what if more than a few times over the years. What if she'd stayed? What if they'd confronted this thing between them, instead of just running as far apart as possible (Will knew he was as guilty of that as her, even if his running hadn't been geographical).

Had she thought about staying? Of course she had. But she hadn't seen the point. And it'd been so hard to see him and know that... "Would you have forgiven me, more quickly? Not that you've forgiven me now."

It killed him that he couldn't refute that statement (not quite). So he answered the first question. "I don't know."

Mac nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. She tried to joke. "Well, at least I got one hell of an experience out of it."

And a knife wound in the stomach, Will thought but didn't say, glancing at the mark her blouse was hiding.

"Yes, I thought about it," Mac said so softly he almost didn't hear her.

He nodded, not sure what to do with that answer now that he had it. So he stuck with the one thing he was sure of. "I'm glad you came back eventually, when you did."

"Better late than never?" Mac asked with an attempt at a smile.

"Something like that," Will murmured.

"But you still don't think we can ever be friends," Mac reminded him, trying to ignore her own cracking heart.

Friends? Will thought to himself. Probably not. Not the way he felt about her. But he didn't know how to explain that, didn't know how to...

Mac decided his pause was telling. That was it then. No more nights out at the theatre. No more friendly dinners. No more curling up on the corner of his couch when she was upset and didn't want to be alone. She tried to stifle a sob. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I can't even begin to tell you how..."

Will took a step towards her, frustrated with her for making that conclusion, and with himself for forcing it on her. "God damn it Mac!" he yelled. "I know I have to try forgive you; I am trying to forgive you, but you have to stop doing fucking penance!"

A pair of tears leaked out the corner of her eyes. "But I fucked it all up!" she burst out. "It was perfect..."

"It was never perfect!" Will interrupted forcefully.

That caught her attention. "What?"

"It couldn't have been!" Will growled. "If it had been, we wouldn't be here now!"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Will felt his brain literally stall. He felt like he'd inadvertently hit on something terribly important, but with everything swirling around his brain, he couldn't put his finger on what exactly that was.

Mac didn't seem to have been similarly affected, or maybe she was too caught up in patterns of old arguments.

"Right, and we're here now because I cheated on you and fucked everything up!" Mac yelled, advancing on him. She'd been willing to work on things, to try and move on. She'd thought he was too, but apparently not. Well, she wasn't taking all of the blame, not this time. "Because this is all on me, right? This is..."

But Will was getting sick of their patterns. Not when he finally felt like he'd figured out something fucking crucial. "Shut up," he said quietly but firmly as he strode to meet her.

Mac actually did stop, but only for a moment. "What?" she demanded furiously. "What did you say? Don't you dare tell me to..."

And with that, something in Will's mind snapped. With a groan of frustration and one last giant step, he grabbed her around the waist and dragged her against him before slamming his lips against hers.

After half a second of pure shock, Mac was kissing him back just as ferociously, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other hand tangled so deep in his hair, it was the next best thing to pulling.

Will couldn't think. In fact, he deliberately didn't want to. Anger and frustration and desire were swirling through him, fighting for control. He was happy to give it to them. Wrapping his free hand around the base of her neck, he eagerly battled Mackenzie for control of the kiss, counting each of her little moans as a victory.

Then somehow, from somewhere buried deep inside his brain, a small voice of reason managed to make itself heard from among his raging emotions. And Will realized that he was kissing Mackenzie. He was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, and very determinedly too. It was the first time he'd kissed Mac in five years. And though Will had absolutely no problem with the level of enthusiasm involved, the ferocity of it gave him pause. It was too close to anger. And he was so sick of everything between them being defined by anger lurking just below the surface.

So (and with more than a little regret), he tore his lips from hers, loosened his grip and pulled back, determined that she'd at least open her eyes and acknowledge him.

After a second, she did. Will ignored the flash of disappointment and confusion he saw plainly on her face, and ignored the loss he felt when she let her hands drop to her sides. Instead, he smiled at her before sliding his hand out of her hair to cup her cheek and lowering his head again. This time his kiss was gentler, sweeter, but no less intense (there was no way things between them could be anything but after all of this time).

He felt Mac gasp against his lips before softening against him. Will re-tightened his hold on her waist, holding her near. To his relief, he felt her arms tangle back around his shoulders, as she began to lazily explore his mouth with her own. And Will just let himself sink into her.

Mac felt like she was floating. She swore she'd literally gone weak in the knees the second his lips touched hers the second time. Her Will, her Billy. Thank god he had a grip around her waist, or she might have just slid to the ground. She'd wrapped her arms around him to hold herself up, hold herself close to him. She no longer had any confidence in her legs to do the job. Not that she cared. She stroked her hands along his shoulders, foolishly pleased that he was wearing a cashmere sweater, so soft, so warm against her skin.

She moaned her approval as she let her hands travel, and Will responded by lightly nipping his way along her bottom lip.

Then Mac didn't care about anything other than the fact that Will seemed to be intent on chasing the ability to think from her head. Smiling against his lips, she set about ensuring that she wasn't the only one having trouble remembering their own name.

Eventually, Will regretfully pulled back with some vague notion that maybe they should talk, drowning out Mac's disappointed sigh with one his own. Then he was confronted by her swollen lips and languorous eyes, and the sound of two people's too-loud breathing echoing between them. And he knew he'd never stood a chance. With a helpless half-smile, he leaned his forehead against hers, and slid his hand back into her hair. Forcing a moment's concentration, Will slid the elastic off from around her ponytail and tossed it absently in the corner of the room while Mac watched him incredulously. Then he buried his hands in the hair he'd just liberated, enjoying the feeling of its softness around his fingers, before kissing her again.

Mac almost laughed in delight. "Billy," she murmured.

Ironically, the sound of the nickname effectively drove all remaining thoughts of talk from Will's brain. Instead he began placing hot open-mouthed kisses against her mouth, her cheek, along her chin, to just below her ear until she was gasping. He remembered all too well what she liked.

He wasn't the only one who remembered. Mac slid a hand down to the small of his back, and began tracing patterns there before trailing her lips along the edge of his ear and getting a little more vocal, murmuring his name over and over again. The nickname that she'd oh thank god ignored his request not to call him by.

Will groaned before crushing her to him, burying his face against her neck, breathing her in. "Kenzie, oh Kenzie."

And then her arms were tightening around him even more, as she buried her face against his shoulder, trying to control her sudden trembling. She settled for nuzzling into him.

"Don't go," he whispered in spite of himself, brushing his lips along her pulse.

She shook her head frantically. She wasn't going anywhere. Not this time. Not ever again. Not this show. And not if there was even a chance he might want her. "No," she whispered back. "Never."

She felt him smile suddenly. "I'm stuck with you?" he asked.

Mac exhaled in relief. "Yes."

Will tilted his head to find her lips again. And it was Mac's turn to smile suddenly.

He pulled back, leaning his forehead against hers. "Want to get dinner?" he murmured, rubbing his hands up and down her arms.

Mac bit her lip and nodded. "I'll get my coat."

"Okay," he whispered.

He watched her slip out of his office, pleased when he saw her glance back at him with a self-conscious smile. Twice.

He almost laughed. Somehow his level of frustration was much, much lower than it'd been only an hour before.

xxx

"And then what happened?" Habib asked, still trying to catch up on recent events.

Will shrugged. "We went out to dinner," he said.

"And how was that?" Jack asked, noting the faraway look in the anchor's eyes.

"Quiet," Will murmured.

Jack frowned. "Quiet?"

"In a good way," Will was quick to explain. "I guess, after the week and all the... stuff, neither of us were really feeling up for a really heavy discussion. I certainly wasn't. I just wanted to sit with her and eat. We did talk a little, obviously, but it wasn't..." he trailed off. The conversation hadn't been heavy. Their dinner had been calm. For the first time all week, he'd been calm, with Mackenzie sitting across from him murmuring about how her vegetables were slightly over-cooked, her calf resting against his.

"You were sorting things out?" Jack suggested.

"I guess," Will agreed. "Anyway, I didn't really see her after that. Not over the weekend at least." He'd dropped her off at her apartment with one final kiss. He'd toyed with asking her to just come back to his place, and had seen that she'd very clearly been considering the same thing. But they'd parted by unspoken agreement. Both too afraid to push the limits of the new tentative peace for the moment, Will supposed.

Still, it hadn't been easy to drive away from her.

"What about Monday?" Habib was asking.

"Monday?" Will asked, shaking himself out of his memories. "Monday we did the show. Only this time without tearing out each other's throats. Monday was pretty normal." Okay, except for the part where he'd been walking down the hallway with Mackenzie and she'd suddenly shoved him into an unused editing bay and kissed him desperately. His back had hit the wall, her hands had been in his hair and her hips pressed against his. Will had dropped his hands to her waist and just succumbed, letting her hold him right where she wanted him. She was deceptively strong and fucking tactile and it was (and had always been) the sexiest combination he'd ever experienced.

And then, a few minutes later she was gone (like he'd been a fucking coffee break), ducking back out into the hallway while he was left in the edit bay wanting. Her sly smile across the table at the rundown meeting fifteen minutes later was a challenge he hadn't been able to resist. Will had never been more grateful for all the dark corners and cubby holes in a television studio. He'd found another one later in the evening to hide her in for a few minutes, and he hadn't let her out until she was sighing softly against him.

And he might have winked at her through the camera before the show started.

Will cleared his throat. "And then on Monday night, she and Sloan went out for drinks. I shudder to think what they were discussing."

Jack shrugged. "That's out of your control."

"Yeah."

"You really think that things are normal between you and Mackenzie?" Jack asked.

"Well, more normal than last week," Will replied.

"You really think that nothing has changed?" Jack pressed.

Will rolled his eyes. "Well of course something has changed!"

"And?"

"And I was thinking about this on the weekend," Will admitted.

Jack leaned back in his char. "Were you?"

"Yeah," Will replied.

"And what were your conclusions?" Jack asked curiously.

"Well, this forgiveness thing?" Will said.

"Yeah?"

"Complete crap," Will told his psychiatrist. "I mean, it's been years. Obviously forgiveness is important on some level, but you know what? I'm sick of it. I'm so god damn sick of being told that I need to forgive Mackenzie by people who don't know anything."

"You don't think you need to forgive Mackenzie?" Jack asked.

"I just need Mackenzie," Will snapped. "I want her. And you know what?"

"What?" Jack murmured, though he knew the question had been rhetorical.

"I'm going to go after her!" Will informed his psychiatrist. "None of this soul-searching or sitting alone in my apartment at night worrying. It's crap. As things stand, we obviously have no problems working together. Obviously, I have no problem spending time with her outside of work and even more obviously, I have no problem kissing her senseless. So you know what? I'm just going to pursue her and figure out the rest of it later. Because I'm sick of this shit. As far as I can tell, the biggest problem is going to be telling Mackenzie that I want... that I want us back."

Jack stared at the man across from him, trying to catch up. He took a breath. "How on earth is that the biggest obstacle?" he asked, still feeling a little discombobulated.

"Well how do I do it?" Will asked practically. "How do I telegraph the change? Ask her out to dinner? I do that pretty much once a week as it is!"

Well, Habib thought. That was the problem with effectively dating a woman for months before you were willing to admit it. "I'm sure you'll figure it out," he said. Then he smiled. "You seem to have figured everything else out."

"Thank you," Will said a bit warily. He wasn't going to be talked out of this. He actually felt pretty good about the decision, even if his nerves occasionally started jumping in his stomach.

"Although," Habib said casually. "With reference to the forgiveness thing."

Will felt himself get even more defensive. "Yes?"

Jack leaned forward. "Well, has it ever occurred to you that you've forgiven her already?"

S

xxx

TBC

A/N2: So, the bad news is that I think there's only one chapter left. Maybe two, but I think one. I would have given more advanced notice, but I didn't want to telegraph this chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews are appreciated. For example, through them I learn things like two chapters ago, there was a bet that Will and Mac wouldn't kiss for three chapters. I was amused, because I knew they were destined to lose that bet.