"I'm your best friend, Kenzie, I demand to know what's going on."
"You demand to know?"
"Well… yeah."
Sloan and Mackenzie were sitting at a table in a quiet corner of Hang Chew's – Sloan was only on her second drink but Mac had to be on at least her fourth. She figured her best bet at finding out what was going on was through Semi-Drunk Mackenzie.
Mackenzie put her drink down on the table and started waving her arms about. "I already told you Sloan, nothing is going on."
"Stop fucking with me." Sloan had had enough of her bullshit.
"You're not very tactful, you know," said Mackenzie, slurring her words slightly. She should probably slow down before she made a fool of herself. "And hey! What about you!"
"What about me?" Sloan rolled her eyes. How had this become about her - again?
"You and – you and Don!"
Sloan grabbed one of the arms Mackenzie was waving around, "Would you keep it down! How do you even know about that?"
"I'm perceptive," Mac replied, a stupid grin on her face.
"Yeah well I may be tactless, but I know there's something going on with you and Will."
"There's always something going on with me and Will," Mackenzie reached for her drink again, waving her other hand around as if swatting flies.
"There's something more going on with you and Will," Jesus, though Mac, this woman is relentless.
"There's nothing more going on with me and Will. Nothing."
Sloan stilled for a moment, then her eyes got wide, and she got a giddy smile on her face – because she'd figured out something personal about someone that wasn't herself. "And that's the problem, isn't it?" she was grinning now. "You want there to be something going on between you and Will and there isn't!"
"Congratulations, Sloan, you've entered the world of social norms," she paused and took another sip, "Where things are shit."
"Why are things shit?" She'd come a long way in terms of knowing what was wrong with people without them saying anything, but this was a little out of her depth.
"Sloan," Mackenzie sighed, "I'm not the kind of drunk where I want to talk about my feelings. I'm the drunk where I want to get wasted and watch movies and cry and despair over my fucked up life."
"There's a difference?" Mac gave her a pointed look. Sloan quickly tried to recover, "Well, we could go back to your place and watch a movie – I could do that. Be that type of friend," she paused, not sure what to say, not sure if what she was saying was helping at all. "Umm… we'll watch Notting Hill! It's your favorite, right? I'm pretty sure you said it was your favorite movie that one time at that –"
"Yes," Mac whispered as tears started rolling down her cheeks, "It's my favorite."
Three Days Earlier
Jack Habib was a busy man. He was a busy man because not only did he have his own patients to see, but he had his father's as well. Jack Habib had been busy for two years.
He'd been especially busy lately because Will McAvoy had decided to start showing up for his appointments. Jack had cherished those Wednesday mornings. It was his time to catch up on his work – update his files and whatnot. Now those Wednesday mornings were filled with tales of Will's fucked up love life. Not that he was complaining – the man basically donated 100,000 dollars to his practice, and honestly, he enjoyed talking with Will. And Will's problems, though Will thought them complex and fraught with disaster, were actually fairly straightforward.
Sometimes Jack forgot he'd never met Mackenzie McHale. Because that's mostly what Will talked about. Mac. His past relationship with Mac. His current relationship with Mac. His non-feelings (that were actually very real feelings) about Mac. Jack wasn't kidding when he'd said he had needed to get a new filing cabinet.
It was 10:20 AM on a Wednesday morning and Will hadn't shown up for his appointment. He'd called approximately five minutes earlier to explain that he wouldn't be able to make it in and that his hour could be used for someone else who's "head was fucked up." Will's words. Nevertheless, it was too late for Jack to schedule someone new for that hour, so he'd planned on spending it catching up on work, when he saw the red light come on.
He opened up the door, surprised to see a woman standing on the other side. A woman who was not one of his patients. A very flustered-looking woman.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes," she huffed, clearly anxious. She started speaking very quickly, "I know that this probably breaks doctor-patient confidentiality, but I was hoping that we'd be able to work around it somehow, because you see, I can't seem to stop hurting Will, and so I was just hoping that you'd be able to help me out with what –"
Jack smiled, "You're Mackenzie."
She stopped, clearly embarrassed that she'd forgotten to introduce herself. "Yes," she smiled back, pretending to smack herself on the forehead. "I am."
"Why don't you come in," offered Jack, holding the door open for her.
"Oh, alright, yes, thank you," she wandered in, and sat down in Jack's chair. Jack was starting to see what Will was talking about. He took the patient's chair.
"I knew Will wasn't coming in this morning, and I figured he probably didn't call to cancel until it was too late to book someone else, so –"
"Mackenzie."
She looked up, as if she was surprised to see someone else there. "Yes. Sorry."
"It's alright. Why don't you start from the beginning. And slow down," Hell – Will was paying for this session anyway.
"Right. Yes. Well it started yesterday – did Will ever tell you about the voicemail?" Jack nodded. "Right, well he wouldn't tell me what it said, and as you know I never got it. I pestered him for about a day, but well…"
"You knew he wouldn't respond to that," supplied Jack.
Mac smiled, "Yes. But yesterday, Leona – the man who hacked my phone's mother and also the owner AWM – called me up to her office," Mackenzie gulped, looking almost terrified to continue.
"You heard the message," guessed Jack. She looked like she was about to cry, so Jack took that as a 'yes.' "And you want to know if what he said still stands."
Mackenzie let out a sharp laugh and a sniffle, "You're really good at this."
There was a pause, where Mac tried to figure out how to say what she really wanted to say.
"Just say it."
Shit. He is really good at this. "There's a ring."
"Yes."
"I saw the receipt in his trash. After he showed it to me, I mean. I came to his office looking for him, and I saw it – it was ripped in half but," she stopped and looked down at her hands. "he got it because he knew I'd find out about the offer, and he wanted to make me feel even worse."
Jesus Christ. Will had said he was going to return the ring. Even then he'd known that ring was for her. He hadn't sent his aide down to Tiffany – he'd gone himself. Jack was having an internal field day with this.
"Probably, yeah. But Mackenzie – that was before the voicemail, which is really why you're here."
She looked straight at him. "I just want to know if Will has said anything that might indicate that he still has feelings for me – you don't have to say anything… just… if he has, maybe nod your head?"
"Will has said a lot of things about you, Mackenzie. My advice for you is this – talk to him about the ring. He ripped up the receipt for a reason. Talk to him about it."
"That's your advice? Talk to him about it?"
"It is my professional opinion that you two don't talk – really talk - to each other nearly enough. Have a conversation with him. One where you two try not to scream at each other."
"You've been almost no help."
Jack smiled. That's what they all said.
TBC...
God I can't wait until season two. Reviews are lovely and make the world go round :)
