When Mac woke the next morning, the sun was shining warmly on her face, and Will's chest was rising and falling in a slow and steady rhythm beneath her head. For the first time in years, Mac smiled before she even opened her eyes.
Lifting herself off of him with a litheness that few who knew her would have believed possible, Mac eased herself onto her side. Propping herself up on one elbow, Mac gazed down affectionately at Will, taking advantage of this rare opportunity to just watch him sleep.
Even when they were together before, Will had nearly always woken before Mac, spoiling her with breakfasts in bed, drawing her back to consciousness with long, slow kisses, or just stroking her hair until she woke, purring like a kitten. The few times that Mac managed to wake first, she found it almost physically impossible to take her eyes off of him, and so it was this morning.
When he was asleep, Will looked more like the little boy Mac wished she had known, the one who had been forced to grow up much too quickly, becoming the man his father should have been. Asleep, Will was softer, somehow, tousle-haired and vulnerable, and whenever she had the pleasure of catching him like this, all Mac wanted was to take him in her arms and defend him from the world, doing battle with anything and anyone who had ever hurt him.
Much too soon for Mac's liking, she saw that Will was beginning to stir. The regular rhythm of his breath suddenly shifted, and his hands snatched greedily at the air above his chest. A small frown settled on his face when they closed around nothing but thin air. When he finally cracked open one eye and saw Mac beaming down at him, however, Will's face broke into a lazy, contented smile.
Mac leaned over him, resting her forehead against his, her heart so full of love that it ached. "Good morning," she murmured, kissing Will on the cheek, before shifting a little down the bed, her face nestled in his neck. She pressed another kiss to Will's carotid, his pulse quivering against her lips.
"You're happy this morning," Will observed, his voice still gruff with sleep. He wrapped his arms back around her and stroked a gentle finger up and down her arm.
Mac hummed in agreement, hooking one leg loosely over Will's and trailing her heel slowly up his calf. "It's a good day," she said simply, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling more deeply against him. Everything was warm and comfortable and good, and she never, ever wanted to leave this bed.
"Want to play hooky with me?" Mac joked playfully.
"I wish I could," said Will. "But the mean lady at work would yell at me." He yelped when she pinched him, chuckling and twisting away from her.
"Time to get going, McAvoy," she smirked, sitting up. "The mean lady has work to do before the pitch meeting."
It was a good day, and the rest of April was littered with a great deal more good days just like it. That Saturday, they had dinner at Mac's place, and afterwards, they curled up together in her favourite armchair to watch a movie, her head resting on his shoulder.
After a while, Mac yawned. "I'm much too comfortable to let you move," she murmured sleepily, feigning nonchalance as her eyes fell shut. "You should probably just stay here tonight."
"You know you don't need to make up excuses to get me to stay," Will said, nudging her. She could almost hear the smirk in his voice, and it made her blush a little, being caught out so easily.
"I know," Mac replied, pulling his arms more snugly around her. It felt good, this teasing; it went some way to counter the little flash of nervousness she still felt every time she forced herself to make the first move.
Soon, Mac began to leave a t-shirt and a change of clothes at Will's place as well. They didn't spend every night together, or even most of them, but they both felt a little more at ease, knowing they had the option of not saying goodbye at the end of a long or difficult day.
It wasn't all sunshine and roses, however. Every once in a while, Mac's good mood would falter, and the returning rush of guilt was all the more painful, now that she was allowing herself, slowly, to become accustomed to its absence.
She was standing on his balcony one night, gazing out at the New York skyline while Will went to get them drinks. Mac was daydreaming, and she was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't hear the door sliding open, so when his arms came around her waist from behind, his fingers dipping under her shirt, Mac shrieked a little and shoved him away.
Almost at once, Mac's brain caught up to her body, and she reached for Will, pulling him back towards her, her hands bunching in the fabric of his shirt. "Sorry – sorry, you just startled me," she hurried, tripping over her words, her heart still racing uneasily.
Will covered her hands with his, excusing her without a second thought, but that didn't stop the lump of guilt from rising in the back of Mac's throat, growing larger and larger over the course of the evening. The two of them still had a good time over dinner, but this was not a night that Mac would spend in his bed, and she couldn't stop her mind from replaying the moment over and over for hours before she finally fell into a restless sleep.
But mostly, things were easy and free and good, and Mac was able to push her guilt back into the shadows where it belonged. She wanted to stop the clocks, wishing that things could stay exactly as they were for the rest of time.
The end of the month marked the first anniversary of News Night 2.0, and Mac had been badgering Will for weeks, telling him that they should really do something, the whole team, to celebrate. Will was reluctant – he got along fine with the staff now, liked most of them, even, but he was selfish when it came to his time alone with Mac, resenting anything that infringed upon it. At last, Mac wore him down and he relented, agreeing to host a party for the entire team at his apartment. He did so mostly because of the grin it put on Mac's face when he said yes, and because of the inexplicable delight she took in planning the whole thing. He watched with amusement as she spent the remainder of the week making arrangements for the food, the drinks, the decorations.
On the afternoon of the party, Mac came over early to help him set up. Will soon discovered that he was mostly expected to stay out of her way, which he was only too glad to do. The only task he was assigned was to call Jim and ask him to bring over his guitar, and this Will did as he watched Mac hang up more balloons than he had ever seen in one place before. Just as she was finishing up, the first of the guests began to arrive.
Will made a brief speech, congratulating them all on a very successful year, and then everyone splintered off into smaller groups, drinking and chatting and playing silly party games. Mac darted around the room, making sure everyone was having a good time, but the minute the guitars came out, she made a beeline for the spot on the couch beside Jim.
Mac curled her legs up beneath her, unable to stop an enormous grin from spreading from ear to ear. Usually self-conscious when it came to these things, she knew her face must be an open book to anyone who saw it right now, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She had been dreaming of this moment for months. Other than her parents, she loved these two men more than anyone else in the world, and she had been dying for the chance to see them bond over their shared love of music.
Neither of her boys were much for parties, and left to their own devices, they would have abandoned this one in a heartbeat, had she not orchestrated the one thing neither of them could refuse – the jam session to end all jam sessions. Exceptionally proud of herself for bringing it all about, Mac's heart was full to the point of overflowing, and she could have watched them all night, listening as they glided seamlessly from Jonathan Edwards and Gordon Lightfoot into Fleetwood Mac and Simon & Garfunkel, the crowd around them swelling ever larger.
There was one excruciating moment, when Jim attempted to impress Will with a cover of Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows. His motives were entirely innocent, but Mac ran through the lyrics in her head, and she felt them hit her like a kick to the chest. For a moment, she couldn't draw enough air into her lungs.
Will was evidently on this same wavelength, because Jim had barely begun before Will was sending him sharp looks of warning, but Jim's eyes were closed and he missed them all. Only when he was about to start the second verse did Jim lock eyes with Will at last, realizing too late what was coming next.
As usual, Will was able to save the day, segueing effortlessly into a Beatles song that soon had the whole group singing along. "Thank you," Mac mouthed with trembling lips, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Will nodded, offering her a reassuring smile, but it was still some time before Mac could breathe normally again, the searing pain in her chest gradually fading. Would this feeling ever go away?
As the group around them dispersed around the apartment once more, Will made Jim give up his spot on the couch, blaming it on his knee, an old high school injury. Will settled in beside Mac, closer than Jim had been sitting, and began to play the first slow chords of And So It Goes, one of her very favourite songs of all time. Their thighs were touching, the warmth of his leg a comforting anchor for her as she listened to this song for the first time since she had broken his heart. She nudged his knee with hers, letting him know that she knew that he was doing this, not to hurt her, but because he wanted to give the song back to her.
Still, it was a really good thing that Will had decided to give his voice a break and stopped singing, relying only on his talented fingers, because if he had sung those lyrics to her, with their painful new meaning, in front of all of these people, she really would have lost it. As it was, Mac was quite proud of herself for holding it together right until the very end, when the tears won out and spilled over onto her cheeks. Only Jim and Will were around to see them by this point, and she was saved from even this awkward conversation by the buzzing of her Blackberry. She swiped her wet cheeks impatiently as she checked her messages.
"Listen to this," she said, sniffing and steadying herself. "It's from Mike Tapley. I'm available. Call me. What do you suppose—"
But before either of them could answer, first Will's and then Jim's phones beeped too.
"I've got the same thing," Jim said.
Will nodded. "Me too."
Something was happening. Something big. None of them even needed to say it, nor did they need to discuss their next moves; they all simply sprang into action. As one, Will and Jim began to pack up their guitars, while Mac cast about for Charlie, who had been conspicuously scarce for much of the evening. She caught sight of him at last, stepping back inside from the balcony, glancing up at the clock. She made her way over to him.
"Any idea what this is about?" she asked him, showing him the message. She had no sooner finished asking the question when her phone beeped again, as did his.
"POTUS to address the country at 10:30 EST on matter of national security," he read. "What does yours say?"
"Get to work. It's from the White House." Without waiting for another word from Charlie, Mac turned to address the group. "Heads up, everybody," she said, shouting a little to make herself heard over the din. "We're going to work. The President is speaking in ninety minutes on a matter of national security. I want four people to a cab, let's go."
The next few minutes were an exercise of what a well-oiled machine the News Night team could be under Will and Mac's direction. Will phoned down to alert the doorman, Mac called ahead for Will's car, and within ten minutes, Will's apartment was cleared of all of its guests, each of them scrolling furiously through their list of contacts as they piled into the elevator. Will, Mac, Jim and Charlie were the last ones out, and they found the car waiting for them when they got downstairs.
"What do you think it is?" Jim asked, slamming the door shut behind them.
"Bin Laden," Will, Mac and Charlie all said at once.
"It's the only thing that makes sense," Mac elaborated. "If we were under attack, he couldn't have waited even thirty minutes to make the announcement, and just about anything else could have waited until the morning. It's got to be bin Laden."
The four of them spent the rest of the short ride to the studio phoning every White House, military and NATO contact they had ever had. Though they continued to brainstorm for other ideas between calls, the fact that none of their sources knew anything more than they did only strengthened their convictions: it had to be that the man behind the September eleventh terrorist attacks had been killed at last.
Jumping out of the car almost before it had come to a complete stop, Jim, Charlie and Will made their way straight for the conference room, where the rest of the team had already congregated. Mac, meanwhile, looked in on the studio and the control room.
"Let them know New York is running this," she warned Herb. She didn't trust their Washington anchor, Jane, as far as she could throw her.
"Quiet. Quiet!" Mac said, when she sailed into the chaos of the conference room a couple minutes later. "Let's get organized. There's no point in beating around the bush, we all think it's bin Laden, and we're ready if it is. But I'm not doing nothing, we're going to be prepared for anything. Will's already ruled out Gaddhafi. Besides Iran or North Korea, what else could it be?"
Will held up his phone. "Elliot's just heard that he's speaking from the East Room, so—"
"So it's definitely not bad news," Mac finished, nodding.
All of their other ideas effectively off the table, Mac gave the order to launch the drill they had been practicing for a year now. After updating bin Laden's obit package and all of their graphics, however, there was little they could do but wait, and keep calling their sources, keeping a vigilant eye on their phones and computers for any sign of an official confirmation. Will changed into his suit, going on the air just long enough to assure the viewers that it was not Libya or any kind of domestic attack, before throwing it back to Washington.
Mac spent the next hour fielding a myriad of calls, emails and tweets, her frustration mounting, because not one of them satisfied her enough to give Will the go-ahead. As if she didn't have enough to worry about tonight, every time she stepped into the control room, Mac was inundated by interruptions from Jane, demanding to be allowed to report every tweet they were receiving, but Mac held firm.
"I'm sorry, but you're going to have to keep vamping," she repeated, her voice unyielding. "This is double confirmation territory, and we don't even have one yet. We'll send you a package on past live addresses from the East Room, you can run that."
Jane protested vociferously, but her grumbling went unheard, as Mac swept from the control room without a backwards glance. She found Charlie and Will where she had left them, deep in conversation in the conference room.
"We're agreed we're still not going yet?" Will asked, as she shut the door behind her.
Mac nodded. "I trust my sources, and I'm absolutely sure what they're saying is true, but I don't know where they're getting their information."
Charlie nodded. "Agreed," he said. "We're going to get this one right. We'll go when the White House tells us it's reportable."
"Charlie, I do think you should tell them," Mac said, gesturing over her shoulder into the newsroom, the staff hard at work, all dressed up in their party clothes.
Charlie nodded. "That, I'd love to do," he said. They exited the conference room together, and Will got everyone's attention.
"We got him," Charlie said simply, and then held up a hand, waiting for the cheers and applause to die down before speaking again. "It's going to be a long night. Work fast, and work well, but every once in a while, I want you to take three seconds to notice where you are, and what you're doing. You're going to remember this night for the rest of your lives."
Mac nodded, a lump rising slowly in the back of her throat. For the first time that night, she turned off the focused journalist part of her brain, the part that was concerned with sources and graphics and sound levels, and just let herself absorb the enormity of this moment.
Will was standing only inches away from Mac, and she badly wanted to slip her arm through his, but she restrained herself, mindful of all the people surrounding them. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and moved over so that their arms were just touching, letting that be enough for now.
"Mac?" Jim called, interrupting her train of thought.
"Yeah?" she said, shaking her head to clear her thoughts.
"You'd better get back in there. Herb says Jane's giving them trouble again."
Mac cursed under her breath and dashed back to the control room. This time, Will followed hot on her heels.
"We're going!" insisted Jane, the instant Mac picked up the phone.
Will looked very much like he wanted to grab the phone from her and jump into the fray, but he didn't get the chance. "You. Are. Not," Mac almost growled, her patience with this woman having just about reached the end of its tether.
"I don't believe you people. You just want Washington to keep the audience warm for Will."
Unfortunately, these were exactly the wrong words for her to say. "We're waiting for the White House to tell us it's reportable," Mac said, a biting edge to her voice now. Jane didn't know it yet, but Mac was actually at her most dangerous when she wasn't screaming and flailing her arms. She was about to find out.
"We're not," Jane said flippantly, and she reached for her phone.
"Cut the feed from Washington," Mac commanded, without even turning her head, and the screen instantly went dark.
She glanced over at Will, who had been watching her all this time, pride and desire warring heatedly in his gleaming eyes. "Think she got the message yet?" Mac asked him, grinning a little.
"Give it a couple more seconds," Will suggested, and Mac agreed, a soft giggle escaping her lips.
When Jane's face finally reappeared on the screen, she was scowling, but Mac was in no mood for any more of her nonsense. "Move one inch in that direction again and you're blacked out for the night," she warned threateningly. "The decision to go will be made by the president of the news division, Charlie Skinner, and the announcement will be made by the face and voice of Atlantis Cable News, Will McAvoy," she barked, breathing hard as she slammed down the phone. "Keep an eye on her," she added sharply, flinging the door open and stepping back into the newsroom.
Mac had planned to return to the conference room to speak to Charlie once more, but before she knew what was happening, Will was steering her into his office.
"Will, what are you doing?" she protested. "We've got work to do."
"I'm just following Charlie's advice, we can take a minute," he said. Once the door was closed behind them, he grasped her by the shoulders, gazing deep into her eyes. "We got him, Mac. Can you believe it?"
Mac shook her head, her anger with Jane vanishing in an instant, and the lump in her throat returning with a vengeance. They leaned against the edge of his desk, standing side-by-side for a moment, and Mac laced her arm through Will's, as she had so badly wanted to do earlier, leaning her head on his shoulder.
"Are you thinking about where you were on 9/11?" Will asked quietly. "That's all I've been thinking about all night, being here that morning, the chaos of the newsroom a thousand times more chaotic than normal, because nobody had a clue what was going on, whether there was one hijacked plane out there, or four, or twenty. Having no idea how to put the tragedy into words for the viewers, when you couldn't even begin to comprehend it yourself."
Mac let Will's words trail off, weighing heavily in the air for a moment, before she shook her head. "I did think about that, of course," she said, her voice low. "But mostly I've been thinking about the guys we were embedded with, how they're going to feel when they hear the news."
Now that she was home, Mac didn't talk about her time overseas much, and it wasn't easy for her to bring it up now. She was immensely proud of the work that she and her team had done there, and they had met some truly incredible people, but she had also watched far too many of them lose their lives, victims of roadside bombs or attacks when they were out on patrol.
"How are they going to feel?" Will asked carefully, wrapping one arm around her and kissing her hair.
Mac shuddered a little, but Will squeezed her shoulder, letting her know without words that it was safe to feel everything she was feeling, and to open up to him if she wanted to. She reflected. "Proud, I think," she said, choking a little, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Like there's a bit more justice in the world tonight. But also regret, because we had to lose so many good people in the process, and even though this is a victory, it's not going to bring them back. Relief, because it means they didn't die in vain."
They fell silent after this, taking a moment to absorb it all. They nearly jumped out of their skins when Will's phone buzzed once more. They read the newest message together, their eyes locking for an instant, before running out the door.
"We're going!" shouted Mac, dashing back to the control room, setting off a new flurry of activity in her wake. Will slowed just long enough to show Charlie the message, but they both knew it was merely a formality, given the source.
OBL reportable. Knock 'em dead, just like we did – Joe Biden
Mac pulled herself together, making sure that the graphics and sound levels were all as they should be, but in the moment before Washington threw the coverage over to Will, she stepped back, taking a moment to notice the people around her. She watched as Jake pulled on an FDNY baseball cap and rose to his feet. One by one, every other member of the News Night team did the same.
"Do it for me, Will," she said, throatily.
She didn't need to give him or anyone else even one instruction after that. Will gave an introduction to the president's announcement that was heartfelt, almost poetic, and by the time they went live to the White House, the entire team had tears in their eyes.
As the President began to speak, Mac found Jim at the back of the control room. She slid an arm around him, the one other person who could begin to understand the confusion of emotions that she was feeling tonight.
Tired and proud and emotionally spent, Will and Mac met back up in his office after he signed off for the night, and he swept her into a tight hug, neither of them wanting to let go.
"I really want to kiss you right now," Will said, murmuring fervently into her hair.
Mac's heart skipped a beat. She pulled back from him, and Will began to curse himself for spoiling the moment, but he stopped himself when he saw her expression.
Mac looked up at him, biting her lower lip, a shy smile lighting up her face. It had been a good day, she decided, good enough that she could risk it, could take this chance. She nodded. She had just enough time to catch a glimpse of unbridled joy in his eyes before Will's hand had reached down to cup her cheek, pulling her lips up to meet his.
Mac had never forgotten what it was like to be kissed by Will, but there was nothing in the world that could have prepared her for the actual feeling of it happening again. His mouth was like a liquid flame, devouring hers, and the resulting flare that shot through her entire body felt like it had short-circuited her brain. It had been years – how had she survived so long without this?
Mac allowed the blaze to consume her for several minutes, pulling away just before the wildfire could surge entirely out of control. She buried her face in Will's shoulder, gasping desperately for air, their arms tightening around each other once more.
"Move in with me," Will urged, when he could speak, his heart racing in tandem with her own.
Mac was still breathing too heavily to respond, but Will could not mistake the way that her entire body froze in his arms, and he sighed heavily. "Come on, Mac," he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. "We're fine. What more needs to happen before you believe that we're going to be okay?"
"It's not – I just – Not yet, okay? That's exactly how far we made it last time and I'm sorry, believe me, I know you've been ridiculously patient with me, but I just—"
Will brought one finger up to cover her swollen lips, halting her rambling in an instant. "Not yet?" Will repeated, stressing her second word meaningfully.
Mac nodded, a tidal wave of relief washing over her as Will pulled her back into his arms. He understood her, even when her tongue was racing a mile a minute and her words didn't make sense to anyone else but him. More than that, he could see how hard she was trying, so she felt only the tiniest trace of guilt that she couldn't simply accept his offer without hesitation.
"But you're coming home with me tonight," Will said abruptly. "I'm not arguing with you on this."
Mac squeezed him tighter, smiling into his chest. "No argument here," she promised. "Come on, let's go."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Once again, thank you all so much for reading. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your reviews! I always loved receiving feedback and constructive criticism. I'd especially like to hear from you about this chapter, since it's quite different from the others. I've obviously kept significant passages from 5/1, but I've reworked it a lot as well, and played with the timeline a bit … I guess I see this as one way the night could have unfolded if Will hadn't been high. I hope you like it!
This was only supposed to be the first part of chapter five, but it ended up taking a lot longer to tell than I expected, and the rest of the chapter I had planned no longer makes sense here. But I'm still not sure about this ending…