Author's Notes: I'm almost afraid to post this chapter, because I'm posting without my beta reading it first. I don't want to bog her down with too much of my writing and keep her from her own stories. So, hint hint to my beta…I must have the next chapter! You know which of your stories I'm talking about. Also, did anyone else see Jeff Daniel's twitter yesterday? It said "Trying on Will McAvoy's clothes today…#Ohhappyday." I know that doesn't mean we're getting a new episode any time soon, but it warmed my heart just to see it. Still don't own The Newsroom…just totally in love with it. Please enjoy my un-proofread work and hopefully it isn't rife with errors! On with the show.
The next morning Mackenzie awoke to find herself propped up against Will, who could not possibly be comfortable practically sitting up against the headboard of the bed. She tried to twist around to search for a clock but Will had locked his arms around her waist.
"Go back to sleep Mackenzie…it's still early" he whispered into her ear.
Had it not been for her shortness of breath and the fact that they were sandwiched together in a double bed, she could have sworn she had suddenly woken up in the past. How many mornings had she awoken to his voice telling her to go back to sleep? She leaned back into him and tried to believe that this was going to be part of her future too.
"Are you going to the office this morning?" she asked him, her voice still rough and hoarse from the pneumonia.
"Nope…now go back to sleep."
"Shouldn't you let someone know you won't be in until later?"
"Mackenzie, I have been sleeping sitting up for the better part of four days…either here or in your hospital room. Believe me when I say I am not getting out of this bed at six in the morning to leave a voicemail for someone as to my whereabouts. Besides, I talked to Charlie while you were being discharged. He knows I have no intention of leaving you alone here for fifteen hours a day while you still have trouble just getting to the bathroom and back without wheezing. I'll call in later and I'll be there for the show. Now stop being my producer for a while and just be my Mackenzie, ok?"
His Mackenzie. That sounded pretty damn good to her. She settled back into his arms and he pulled the blanket up over her. His hands had found their way under her t-shirt sometime during the night and were warm against her stomach. She stilled instantly when his fingers began to rub back and forth across the scar from her stabbing and the surgery that followed.
"It scared the hell out me when I heard about it Mac. I didn't know until a week later and by that time you were already in Germany. Part of me was ready to get on a plane the minute I knew where you were. I'm ashamed to admit a bigger part of me just couldn't do it." He dropped his head down onto her shoulder as he said this, as if it had actually hurt him to make that admission. Truth be told, it had hurt her to hear it…just a bit.
"Not for the reasons you think Mackenzie. Not because of my anger, although I sure as hell was still angry with you. But I didn't know how I would be any comfort to you then Mac. Anything said between us at that point would have been at best, awkward and at worst hostile. I didn't think you needed to deal with that."
"You're probably right. I was mostly high on morphine at the time anyway. Who knows what I would have said to you, Will."
He was still running his hands over the scar, almost as if he was trying to visualize it and add it to his memories of what her body looked like.
"Do you want to see it?" she asked him hesitantly.
"I do. But I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do Mac."
She pulled away from him and lifted her shirt. He sat up and looked at the place where his hands had just been. It wasn't horrible, but it could have been better. Her initial surgery had been done in an army trauma unit near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Their main goal had been to stop the bleeding and stabilize her for transport. Cosmetic concerns were not high on their list of priorities. As such, she had ended up with a rather raised and uneven scar that stretched across the right side of her torso just under her ribcage. At first it had bothered her, but as time went on she looked at it as part of her and the price of reporting the news.
She was slightly shocked when she felt him lean his head down and brush his lips against that scar.
"Don't do that again please" he whispered.
"Get stabbed? I wasn't really planning on it, Will."
"Don't scare me like that. Stabbings, pneumonia, leaving me. Just don't do any of that again, ok?"
"I'll do my best."
"But that's just it Mackenzie. You are not doing your best!" he shouted as he pulled away from her and sat up in bed. "You are not doing your best. Not at taking care of yourself anyway. The doctor told me you should have known all this already. You had a splenectomy Mac. You have a weakened immune system and you let yourself walk around that office for days with a fever and chest congestion that was so bad you could barely finish a sentence sometimes. I don't know if you're just stubborn or if you were actually trying to get sick!"
"I wasn't trying to get sick Will" she said as she pulled his hands back down into her lap.
"Well apparently you weren't trying too hard to avoid it either. You're not invincible. I know you like to think you are, but you aren't. Maybe you could try to let the rest of the staff ease your burden a little bit. You're the one who's always telling me how well you trained them all to do the news. Well let them do the damn news then Mackenzie!"
"Ok, I get it Will…I get it. This isn't exactly turning into a relaxing morning in bed, is it?" she turned away from him as she began to cough.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you Mac. I'm running on too little sleep and too much coffee over the past few days. I should probably get both of us something to eat and get you your meds."
He started to get up, but Mackenzie pulled him back down onto the bed.
"I swear Will, I didn't do this on purpose. And I will be more careful. You're right, I know that I need to take better care of myself, but the hours we keep and the need to get this show up and running and make it into something we can be proud of…that just got the better of me. I know I scared you and I'm sorry you had to go through that."
He pulled her to him and kissed her forehead.
"The show will never be more important than you Mackenzie. I'm sorry if you felt like that. I'm sure some of my actions when you first came back made you believe that anything less than perfection wasn't an option. But I don't ever want you to think that ratings, or elections or Leona's ability to fire me are more important than you are."
Before she even realized what she was doing, Mackenzie had put her hands on either side of his face and pulled him to her. She was tired of not being this close to him. Tired of pretending they didn't both want each other. She tried to pour all that frustration into kissing him.
"Ok, definitely not going into the office for a while" he whispered against her lips and pulled her down into his lap.
God, how she had missed this. He had always had this way of wrapping himself around her that made her wonder where she began and he ended. His arms had encircled her and pulled her flush against his chest. And that was when the phone rang.
"No, no, no! It's not even 7am for God's sake!" Will shouted in frustration as he unwillingly pulled away from Mackenzie's lips and rested his forehead against hers.
"You better get that before someone sends Lonny up here searching for you."
"What?!" he shouted into the phone. "I'm sure it's fine Jim. I can be in later this afternoon and look at it. Can't it wait? Fine…we'll see you soon."
"We are about to have company I take it?" Mackenzie asked him.
"Yeah, we are. I think Jim's willingness to serve as temporary EP and to do it without me being there most of the time as well is running thin. He wants to talk to me. Actually I think he assumes you're here and wants to run some ideas by both of us. So let's get you your meds and your breathing treatment before he gets here. And no overdoing it Mackenzie. Let the kid get your opinion on a few things and then back to bed ok?"
"Will you be coming with me? Back to bed that is?" she asked coyly. Of course, trying to look cute and sexy while wheezing and coughing was a bit difficult. Mackenzie was starting to realize she needed that breathing treatment fairly soon.
"That may be something that can be arranged. But not in that damn double bed. I think I spent most of the night trying not to fall off the edge of the mattress."
"Sorry about that Billy" she responded. Any further responses were quickly cut off by a series of wracking coughs.
"Yeah, that's my cue to get out of bed and get your medications ready. Stay here, I'll be right back."
A short while later Will returned to the guest bedroom bearing a tray filled with breakfast for the two of them. He sat in the chair in the corner of the room sipping his coffee and watching her eat.
"Finish it Mac. You probably lost a good five pounds you couldn't afford to lose in that hospital."
"I'm not a big breakfast eater Will, you know that. I'm doing my best. Hand me my pills would you?"
He got up and handed her the antibiotics and cough medication and then disappeared down the hallway. He returned a few minutes later with his laptop, some socks and a quilt.
"Feet please, Mackenzie" he commanded.
"Excuse me? Was that a request or an order?" she said, staring him down.
"It was a logical statement from a man who has known you for a decade. You have feet like ice Mac. And you're already sick, so humor me and put the damn socks on and take this quilt out to the couch with you while we wait for Jim to arrive."
She held her feet out to him and he slipped the thick woolen socks over them. She wrapped the quilt around her and followed him out to the living room.
Once seated on the couch, he settled the quilt over her and handed her the nebulizer.
"Don't even try to pretend you don't need to use that thing before Jim gets here. If I know you, you're going to try to spend the next hour or so lecturing him on everything he hasn't done over the past few days. You're not going to be able to do that if you're wheezing."
She tried to give him a dirty look, but it was difficult to look menacing while breathing medicated steam through a tube. She settled for a quirked eyebrow and an intimidating glare.
"Is that any way to show your appreciation for all my care and concern the last few days Mackenzie?" he asked her sarcastically, but clearly enjoying the return of her mischievous nature.
When Jim arrived twenty minutes later Will got up to show him over to the living room.
"You look a lot better than you did a few days ago Mac" Jim told her, sitting in a chair next to the sofa.
"Thank you I think. Did I look that bad?" she asked him as Will joined her on the couch.
"Well, I've seen you dirty and bleeding in the middle of an army hospital so I guess you have looked worse."
"Ok Jim, what do you have that's so urgent it couldn't wait a few more hours?"
They spent the next hour or two developing a loose framework for the next two shows. By the time Jim packed his things together and got ready to leave Mackenzie was already asleep again, curled into the corner of the sofa.
"Mackenzie, get up. Come on, you're going to have a stiff neck if you stay like that much longer" Will whispered to her, trying to nudge her awake.
"What? When did Jim leave?"
"Just a few minutes ago. Now come on and get settled in bed. If you actually intend to get some sleep it's going to be hard to do on this sofa."
She followed him down the hallway and was pleasantly surprised when they appeared to be heading to his bedroom.
He had already piled several pillows up on what used to be her side of the bed.
"Your head and neck still need to be elevated if you have any shot at being able to breathe."
He helped her into bed and pulled the covers over her.
"Get some rest, Mac."
"Where are you going?" she asked as he headed for the door.
"I just have to send a few more emails and then I'll be right back. Believe me, I intend to get a couple more hours of sleep before I head into the office."
She tried to relax into the pillows, but it was an odd sensation. Being back in this room…in this bed after five years. She found herself looking out at the New York skyline and marveling at how little it had changed, but how much her life had. And yet, through all those changes she still ended up back here. They still ended up here. Life was strange.
"Try not to hurt yourself there Mac" he said from the doorway, startling her with his return.
"What?"
"You looked like you were thinking pretty hard about something Mackenzie. I was waiting for smoke to start coming out of your ears." He walked over to the bed and eased himself under the covers.
"You're not funny you know?"
"I'm charming and affable. I have the focus group data to prove it."
"Charming and affable my ass" she mumbled. "Come here."
He leaned over toward her and pressed a kiss to her lips. What was meant to be a short, chaste kiss began to turn into more, but Will pulled away from her.
"I want you more than you know Mackenzie McHale. But you are still sick, and I have to be at work in a few hours. Unless I plan on thanking our audience for washing us again, I need some sleep and so do you."
"I know. I just…I miss you Will. I miss us. You know that right?" God, she felt like she was whining, but she was sick, damn it. She had the right to whine a little right now.
"I know Mac. I miss us too. We're getting there."
He had no idea just how much she was pinning her hopes on that.
