AN: Thank you all SO MUCH for your reviews and favorites and follows and all that! It means the world to me. I got up this morning and had a whole inbox full of happiness. I was vaguely planning on this just being a one-shot, but then I got the idea for this chapter and thought "What the hell!" I'm not sure when the rating goes up to M, but I dropped at least one F-bomb in this chapter (It is Will, after all), just so you know.

Bonus points to anybody who catches the West Wing reference in this chapter.

Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, Don would have gotten in A LOT more trouble for those flowers.

Taking Care of Mac

Chapter Two: Taking Care of Will

Will McAvoy felt like shit. He had tried to be a nice guy and it had back-fired and bit him on the ass. Mac (God, it always went back to Mac) had been sick. He'd taken her tea and food and a heated mattress pad. And what had she given him? Her goddamn cold!

He sneezed for the millionth time and blew his ever-so-tender nose. He had the remainder of the week off and was going to spend some well-deserved time golfing. He barely had the energy to get out of bed, let alone trudge eighteen holes with a bag of clubs slung over his shoulder (caddy's were for rookies).

See, this is what happened when you were nice to people.

Life was so much easier before Mac had come back. He had been an asshole and done lame "news" stories and slept with whomever he wished. Now he had fucking standards. Standards on the kinds of stories he covered and on the women he slept with. Although, more often than not lately, he ended up with some frilly drink thrown in his face and a lonely bed.

He was wallowing in that lonely bed right now, even, surrounded by wads of Kleenex, empty cough syrup bottles, and the morning's newspaper. Will vaguely wondered to himself how bourbon and cough syrup mixed. After the Northwestern debacle, he wasn't too keen to find out. He needed that orange juice that he left in his EP's fridge, damn it.

His doorbell rang.

Will had an idea of who was at his door. No doubt it was the same EP looking to reciprocate the taking care of the invalid. He threw the covers back and shuffled off to the door.

Sure enough, there was Mac, looking a hell of a lot better than she'd looked the last time he'd seen her.

She smiled hesitantly at him. "I heard you caught my cold."

He sneezed in response.

Mac looked vaguely guilty and said, "Sorry about that." Her eyes perked up a little. "I brought you some soup."

"Chicken noodle?"

"Of course."

He stepped back to allow her to enter.

"Are you going to make me drink that damn tea?"

She sent him a disgusted look. "Are you kidding? I remember the last time you drank it. You suddenly started spouting dramatics the likes of which I haven't seen since I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company do Hamlet."

Will was going to call her on her own over-dramatization, but she pulled out the biggest jug of orange juice he'd ever seen.

"No pulp," she said, making room in his fridge for it.

"Nobody likes pulp," he countered.

"I do."

"That's your inner-Brit showing."

"I'm American."

"It's genetic."

"Liking pulp in my orange juice is genetic?"

"Yes, probably passed down from Charles II and perfected by English royal family in-breeding. That's the only explanation for someone liking pulp in their orange juice."

Mac stopped. "I can't believe we've just had a whole conversation about this."

Will blinked. "Let's not tell anyone at the office about this."

"Yeah, I think that's wise." She smiled at him. "I've brought you something that will brighten up your day."

"Mac, if you tell me you've got a Catholic school girl uniform on under that," he gestured at her jeans and t-shirt, "I applaud the idea, but I'm not really in the state to—"

Mac rolled her eyes and handed him a section of the newspaper, folded to exhibit a headline that read "P.S. 221 in Lower Manhattan Receives Large Anonymous Donation." Will skimmed through the article and his smile got broader with each word he read. Apparently, the school was going to use the sudden boon to refurbish their library and update their computers. "I'm surprised he actually did it."

"Me too. I've had Jim watching for it, just in case, though." She poured him a glass of the fruit juice and nudged the bottle into his fridge. She handed him the glass, along with the chicken soup that she'd poured into a bowl.

He followed her to his couch and ate the first spoonful of soup. It felt like mana from heaven on his parched throat. All he could do was look at Mac gratefully as he devoured the rest of the concoction. It felt as though the soup and Mac rejuvenated him at the same time. He still felt awful, but he felt a tiny bit better than he had before she'd shown up.

He looked up and found her reclining against the back of the couch with her eyes drifting closed. "Mac?"

She blinked up at him. "I'm still not quite back to normal." She yawned.

Will put aside his empty bowl and leaned back into the corner of the couch. He opened his arms for her.

Mac hesitated until Will wiggled his fingers at her. As he folded his arms around her, she felt more comfortable than she had in weeks. OK, in years. Despite the fact that he was sick and had been lingering in his pajamas (the pajamas she'd bought for him, by the way), he still smelled wonderful. She had always teased him about Essence of Will and its calming effects on her. The intervening years hadn't changed that. She nestled in closer to him and lifted her feet off the floor.

Will laid his cheek against her hair. He had noticed during their hug after the "Rudy" incident that she hadn't changed her shampoo. How many women went that many years without changing their shampoo? Mac had always been a creature of habit. It was one of the things that had made him fall in love with her.

She mumbled something and he said, "You're going to have to repeat that one, Shakespeare."

Mac pinched his waist and said, "What was in the message?"

Will rolled his eyes and pinched her back. "You're a stubborn pain in my ass. That's what it said."

"Seriously, Will."

"Seriously? It said you're much better for aches than a heated mattress pad."

She smiled and closed her eyes again, hoping that Will would feel better in the morning.