So much blood.
That was what she kept seeing whenever she closed her eyes. Blood drops forming a hideous trail to the bathroom, blood splattered on the floor and toilet, the crimson spots that matted the roll of tissue.
"They're on the way. Just a few minutes." Manny had reappeared in the doorway and simply hovered, wanting to appear comforting even as he probably felt nervous and awkward. "What can I do?"
Mac knelt on the cold tile floor beside Will, still unconscious, and used a wet washcloth to gently wipe at the smears of blood around his mouth. Given the physical realities of her now-early third trimester body, it was a not-inconsiderable exertion, and her back and shoulders ached as she hunched over him.
"Call downstairs—make sure they know how to find us—we don't want to lose any time—"
Will had remained unconscious for most of the ambulance ride, except for one moment when his eyes fluttered open and met hers, then rapidly turned away.
She felt a nudge against her shoulder and looked up. It was Charlie.
"They have him in a room now, so we can go up."
"How is—what did the doctor say?" Exhaustion and enervation had lulled her to sleep in the waiting room, and she'd missed the medical recap.
"The doctor said he'd passed all his exams with flying colors. Blood count, liver function test, and whatever else he said. There doesn't seem to be any further bleeding in the upper GI and his blood pressure is stable, so the treatment appears to be taking hold. If I know Will, he'll be up and terrorizing the hospital staff by mid-morning."
Charlie bent down to help her struggle out of the waiting room chair. Six months along and standing unassisted from deep seating had become a bit of a problem.
"You okay, kid?" He dipped his chin in concern and looked through shaggy brows at her. "You don't have to go if you don't want—"
"I'm okay, Charlie. I want to see him."
"Well, the doctor said he'd been mildly sedated for the EGD, whatever that is, and that he might still be kind of groggy when we see him. Also, that an overzealous EMT had tried to intubate him in the ambulance and—"
"I was there. I remember."
"Well, anyway, the upshot is that his throat is going to be pretty raw, so even if he does wake up, he's not going to be in a talking mood. That, plus he's still bound to have a hell of a headache from whatever he drank, not to mention the fall—"
She stopped. "Are you trying to prepare me for something, Charlie?"
"Sweet Jesus, I don't know what you two are to each other anymore, Mac—so, maybe yes, maybe I am trying to prepare you. But for nothing more than what I just said, what the doctor just told me, which is that he's going to be groggy and hurting."
She nodded and walked on. When she noticed that Charlie hadn't immediately followed, she turned. "Charlie?"
"You know, Mac—it's pretty normal to see people who are in love walking arm in arm or at least side by side. It's pretty abnormal to see lovers who walk all alone by choice."
"Your point?"
"My point is that whatever the fuck is between you and Will is screwing up both your lives. You're both—well, resolutely lonely, I guess I'd call it, and you seem to be living that way out of spite for the other."
"Spite, Charlie? I was the one who—who—" She couldn't say it. It brought back the blood again. "And last night I careened through Manhattan in an ambulance—" She dropped her voice as a hospital employee passed down the corridor. "Spite? I don't see anything spiteful in what I've done for him over the last 24 hours."
"You're behaving like he owes you something," Charlie responded in a patently know-it-all tone.
"Owes me?" she repeated, a bid for time to compose a response. Denial seemed the best ticket.
"Not at all. Will doesn't owe—I mean, there's nothing between us. Just air. We're colleagues, we have a professional relationship, that's all, and we're satisfied with that. Owes me," she repeated again, to impart a delicate flavor of incredulity that she hoped added to the believability.
With a small smile, Charlie shook his head. "Well, methinks thou doth protest too much, MacKenzie. But have it your way. Shall we?"
Taking her elbow, he steered her down the hallway and around the corner, where a heavy man looked uncomfortable in a small chair.
"You must be Smitty," he greeted the man, "no, don't get up. I'm Charlie Skinner of ACN and this is Ms. McHale." Charlie turned to Mac and added, "Lonny Church's relief man. He'll be here for the rest of the morning."
She offered a perfunctory smile as the introduction. Reassuring to know that someone was still on watch for the unconscious or doped-up Will.
In the room, a scrub-clad attendant busied herself with the infusion pump stand and an array of telemetric monitors. She looked up briefly at the interruption of new visitors, then quickly returned to signal tracing her wire leads.
Will's eyes were open. Lighting on Charlie, he made a shrug of self-deprecation.
"How're you feeling?" Charlie asked, knowing the question was inane, given the circumstances, but the only one that fit the moment.
Will made another shrug and twisted one side of his mouth into a wry smile.
Mac inched nearer to the bed rail, trying to gauge for herself Will's true status. At her approach, he suddenly averted his eyes. This time she thought she detected a touch of shame in his expression.
"Well," Charlie boomed in bogus bonhomie. "You're going to need to watch those little drinking sprees now that you're creeping upward in age. They can take a toll on a man. You probably should take the rest of the day off and rest up." His eyes twinkled, belying the deliberate understatement.
Will's annoyance was plain.
"We'll bring Jane up from D.C., so News Night'll be in good hands."
At this, Will rolled his eyes.
Now openly smirking, Charlie touched Mac's arm. "Since Murrow here is doing so much better than I thought, I'm going to go have another cup of that delicious waiting room coffee. Come down and find me when you're finished here and I'll give you a lift home."
With that, Charlie exited, shortly followed by the medical attendant. Alone with him for the first time, MacKenzie gripped the rail and looked anxious.
Will tried to offer another shrug, this one bigger but constrained by the IV line on one hand.
"Why did you do this?"
With an expression of mixed astonishment and indignation, he opened his mouth to respond but winced at the effort. Regrouping, he gestured to the pad and pen on the nightstand and she retrieved them for him.
Undeterred, she went on while he wrote.
"What is wrong with you? It's been two weeks since the article—you've been so morose, so obviously depressed—and now, this—"
Defiant, he held up his pad. Accident. Not deliberate. Not sad.
"Anti-depressants, Will," she countered. "I heard Lonny tell the doctor 135 milligrams a day of Effexor. Plus, the alcohol. You let that—that hatchet job magazine article do this to you. You got bad press. Not the first time. Not even the first time from my idiot ex-boyfriend."
Plainly wincing at her characterization of Brenner, he shook his head and began to scribble.
Brian was Knight of Mirrors—to bring me down, total fool—
Reading as he wrote, she snorted. "You're being delusional. Nobody's brought you down, least of all him. You've got to give up this Don Quixote fantasy—"
Eyes widened in exasperation, he pointed a finger at his chest, as if to say, Me?
"—And get back in your chair, because that red light will go on and you will—"
He held up the pad again.
Why did you come last night?
MacKenzie let her mouth open and close without sound coming out. Finally, she managed, "You have to stop letting it get to you, Will. The article. Brian. Whatever intrigues Leona is hatching on the 44th floor. You have to focus on—"
He pointed to the words he'd written. Why did you come last night?
"I—" she faltered and looked down. "You've been so down—everybody's noticed—I thought someone should check on you, make sure that—"
Why?
"I don't—someone needed to, and it just seemed that I was the only one who—"
He'd written another phrase. What changed?
"Nothing—nothing's changed." Even though her voice faltered a bit, she made sure to meet his eyes.
He stared at her for a long moment, visibly unsure, before swallowing and dropping the notepad. Shaking his head slightly, he gestured at her baby bump, then closed his eyes, exhausted by her evasions.
She felt dismissed.
"Get some sleep, Will. I'll be by later."
When he made no reaction, she eased out the door into the corridor.
He'd asked why she'd been the one to find him. The question took her by surprise. In having come to his apartment to check on his well-being, she had tipped her hand. Revealed that her concern had been personal, not professional.
Even voiceless, he had still managed to reproach her, his first and only acknowledgement of her situation. He had seemed to make clear his disdain—that this was just another example of her recklessness. That nothing had or ever would change.
Suddenly, she felt lightheaded and put out an arm to brace herself. The Blue North operative outside Will's door jumped up to assist, steadying her and steering her toward the chair he'd formerly occupied.
"You okay? Can I call someone?"
"I'm fine." She waved off the seat and just clung to his arm. "Just lost my balance there for an instant, but I'm okay now. Thank you."
Smitty frowned. "Are you sure? You seem kinda pale, and—"
"Really, I'm fine." She tried to smile warmly, dropping his arm. "Thank you again, but I really need to find Charlie Skinner."
He watched as she continued down the linoleum-tiled passageway.
oooo
Two days later, Charlie and MacKenzie were back in Will's hospital room. The patient seemed in better spirits and able to make hoarse replies to their attempts at conversation.
Finally, with a warning glance at Mac, Charlie cleared his throat.
"Mac tells me that Nina Howard claims to have a source that knows you were high during the bin Laden broadcast."
"Bluffing," Will croaked.
"No. She called this morning, wanted me to meet her outside Central Park. She's waiting for a second source."
Will looked from Charlie to Mac and back to Charlie, dropping his voice. "I didn't know that you knew I was high during the bin Laden broadcast."
"For what it's worth, I didn't, but that's a conversation for another day. If TMI goes to press with this, Leona will use it as grounds to fire you."
"Who's her source?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Well, the good news is," Will said, reaching for a glass of water, "I'm already disgraced, so I'm impervious to public shaming. I'm disgrace-proof."
"You've got a non-compete clause in your contract—" both Mac and Will averted their eyes as Charlie reminded him, "so your anchoring days are over if this gets out. Leona will insist."
"So why haven't they published? Does Nina want money to make it go away? I mean, it isn't as though she has journalistic scruples enough to wait for a second source confirmation." It was the longest string of words Will had uttered since they had returned. His voice was sounding a bit stronger.
"She didn't hint at money," Mac replied, trying to recapture an impression of Nina Howard's demeanor. "She seemed urgent, like it was time sensitive, but I took her more as a warning than a direct threat. I can't be certain but I think she was trying to trick me into confirming it for her."
Actually, Nina Howard had seemed equally malevolent on two fronts: the accusation about Will having been high on air, as well as a strong insinuation that either Wade or Will must be the father of MacKenzie's baby. Mac had rejected Nina's speculation on the latter as scornfully as she dared, not wanting to provoke additional scrutiny from the gossip queen. Let Nina occupy herself with bigger and more lucrative scandals, such as housewives of New Jersey or Nova Scotia or wherever.
Meanwhile, clustered around Will's hospital bed, Charlie and Will went silent, trying to assign motive to Nina Howard and figure out her next step.
"Mac." Will shifted uncomfortably. "The voicemail message that I left for you that night after I got home from the bin Laden broadcast—did you play it for anyone?"
"Message? I never got a message."
"Yes. Sure you did. It started, 'hey, listen, it's me, and I'm not just saying this because I'm high right now.'" He paused, dramatically, waiting for her to recall it. "Did anyone else hear that message?"
"I didn't get a message from you."
"Mac, there is no way that you don't remember what that message said—"
She made an exasperated huff. "It isn't that I've misremembering the content, Will—I never got that message. It wouldn't have been possible for me to play it for someone else because I never got it."
Charlie tumbled to the truth first. "That's why Nina has to wait for the second source—she can't reveal how she got the first—"
"There was no message so I'm not following this—"
"Mac, someone at TMI hacked your phone and deleted it." Charlie turned to face Will, seeing his own conclusion mirrored in Will's face. "Nina's first source was you."
"What else did the message say?" Mac insisted, suddenly feeling that she was missing the most vital part of the whole conversation. "You had already told me about being high—what did you call me that night to say?"
Will flipped back the covers on his bed. "I need to get back to work."
"You're still sick."
"What is illness to the body of our knight errant—Sancho, my armor, my sword—"
Charlie and Mac exchanged helpless looks.
"Which one of us is he talking to?"
Nurse Cooper entered, scowling. "I've got alarms going off at the nurse's station. What's going on here? Who pulled out the IV line?"
"She did," Will made an exaggerated motion to indicate MacKenzie. He took two more paces then stopped short, weaving a little. "Okay, I'm getting a little dizzy now."
"Get back in bed!"