Hey, guys!
So, school just started this week and I don't know how often I'll be able to update. I'm glad that you guys are enjoying it and I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see your thoughts on this little family! I have the next two days off so hopefully I can get some good writing done :) I am chleeshatana over on tumblr, and I am always looking for more Newsroom love, so shoot me a message!
Enjoy!
Will's father passed away 2 weeks before Sunny's 4th birthday. Sloan had to leave early to pick Sunny up from preschool; whatever illness she had been fighting all week had finally taken hold and she had refused to eat any lunch, spiking enough of a temperature to warrant a call to Sloan at work.
"Hows Sloan?" Will asked MacKenzie, sitting listlessly at the anchor desk, millions of emotions struggling against each other in his chest. MacKenzie rested the weight of her upper body on her hands as she spoke, unconcerned.
"She's fine. Sunny has a fever so I told her to bring her over to my place and I'd see them after the show. She's back in Don's rundown for tomorrow."
"Good."
The next few seconds happened quickly and heavily. Will told MacKenzie his father had died and just seconds later he was back on the air, speechless and lost.
Sloan watched, stunned, from MacKenzie's living room. Only the glow of her friend's massive flat screen lit up their space. Sunny lay lethargically in her arms, protesting sleep as long as she could. Her own small face turned up to stare at Sloan curiously.
"Will?" she questioned, eyebrows adorably scrunched in concern as she pointed towards the television. Her accent was solid but Sunny could speak, more or less correct, english for chunks of time now. When Will finally spoke, Sloan breathed a sigh of relief as Sunny wriggled to be put down. She sat at Sloan's feet and continued to stare at the television.
They watched the last 5 minutes of the broadcast in silence.
When MacKenzie entered Will's office he already looked ready to walk out the door, hair disheveled, like he had been running his hands through it. She stood, sturdy, blocking his path.
"Do you want to talk?" she asked softly. Will averted his gaze to the floor.
"Not particularly," he answered, tone unintentionally cold. MacKenzie bit her lip, tilting her head slightly.
"Is there anything I can do, Will?"
He met her gaze. What seemed like hours of silence passed between them, Will scanning his eyes across MacKenzie's face.
"You're going to see Sunny?"
"Yes."
"I'll come with you."
Had Sunny's little body not been so rundown she would have leapt out of Sloan's arms to meet MacKenzie at the door. This was, after all, out of the ordinary and totally exciting. Sloan didn't usually pick her up early from school and they rarely spent the night at MacKenzie's during the week. But, all she did was lift her head off of Sloan's chest, where, she had re-nestled herself after News Night had ended and remained comfortably for the last half hour. A grin caught the corners of her mouth when two of her very favorite people walked in to the living room, Sloan letting out a quick gasp when she saw Will.
"Hi, sicky-poo!" MacKenzie exclaimed excitedly, Sunny more than willing to be passed over. "Have you given her anything, Sloan, she's burning up!"
"Yes! God, 'Kenzie!" Sloan scolded back, motioning for Will to take the space on the couch she had just vacated.
MacKenzie sat next to him, cradling Sunny like a baby as the little girl craned her neck to look at Will.
"Um...well...we were watching the broadcast...," Sloan scrabbled with her words, sitting in an empty chair near the coffee table.
"Yeah," Will said softly. He didn't elaborate any further and he held his arms out to Sunny, who easily crawled in to them, resting her head underneath his chin as Will locked his arms tightly around her. Her little body was warm. She was breathing through her mouth, colors from the TV flickering light across her flushed cheeks, a hand traveling up to her hair to curl dark strands around her tiny fingers in a continued attempt to soothe herself. "When was the last time you gave her something?"
"Um...7:30? Maybe closer to 8...it was right before you went on the air."
MacKenzie stood up abruptly, pressed in to action. "I think I have a thermometer somewhere."
When she disappeared in to her bedroom, Sunny made a few murmurs of concern against Will's arm but otherwise remained still. Sloan didn't feel all together comfortable in the silence that lingered between her and Will, but as soon as she gathered enough courage to open her mouth to speak again, MacKenzie reappeared with a thermometer and a washcloth.
"Here, sicky," MacKenzie sang lightly, draping the washcloth across Sunny's forehead before reclaiming her spot next to Will, easing an arm out of the little girls shirt. She tried gently to work the thermometer under her arm but Sunny, expectedly, began screeching appallingly loud.
"Will…!" Sunny cried in indignation, looking to him for the help he wasn't giving her.
"Come on, buddy, we have to make sure you get better," Will tried reasoning, having to elevate his voice in order to contend with Sunny's shrieks of protest. Sunny shoved MacKenzie's hands away, mustering up a glare that only got her a sympathetic laugh in return.
"Sweetheart…,"
"NO, FOREVER, 'KENZIE!"
After combating an almost certain wave of laughter at Sunny's retort, Sloan stood up before the squabble between the three could get any worse. Another thing she never in her life imagined she'd see; Will and MacKenzie struggling with a cranky preschooler. She repositioned Sunny against her chest and sat back in her chair across from the two.
"I'll have to remember that one. You know…for the next time you tell me to do something I don't want to do."
Will grinned lazily at MacKenzie who sighed and smacked him half-heartedly on the arm. Sunny was murmuring quietly in Sloan's lap as she successfully anchored the thermometer underneath her arm, whispering to her in soft Japanese.
"No, mama, ouch," Sunny complained, tugging on Sloan's arm. "Ouch, mama."
"Shhh," Sloan whispered, MacKenzie scooting closer to the edge of the sofa.
"W-when did that start?" she stammered in surprise. In the last eight months they had heard Sunny use the word countless times but never like this. Never in reference to Sloan.
"This afternoon," Sloan said gently, her eyes remaining on Sunny as she held a hand still against her back. "When I picked her up from preschool."
When Sloan looked up to meet Will and MacKenzie's eyes, the TV glared off the lenses of her glasses. Wet tears she hoped neither of them saw were instantly given away in her voice.
"I don't know what to do," Sloan whispered despondently. Sunny was finally succumbing to sleep in her arms. Sloan's breath caught on the lump in her throat and her next words came out harsher than intended. "I'm not Sunny's mother."
It hurt to swallow and the sob that had laid trapped in her chest escaped as MacKenzie got up and took Sunny tenderly, making sure to dislodge the thermometer and get the reading before it reset. She cradled the little girl as Will got up and knelt next to his distraught friend just as MacKenzie had after those first trying hours a few months ago. Sloan readily grabbed the hand he offered her.
"My father passed away a couple of hours ago. It happened during the broadcast."
"Oh, Will...," Sloan began. Will's gaze hushed her wordlessly, his eyes driven, but harboring a softness Sloan wished the millions of people who watched him each night could see.
"Father is a relative term, Sloan. That man was never my father. You have shown Sunny more love in the last eight months of her life than my father ever showed me in the entirety of mine. She's trusting you, as she should. The two of you have been through enough. You have never prompted her to call you anything other than what she wanted to, and it is perfectly fine for you to own this."
Sloan sat still, slowly absorbing everything Will had said through the rush of tears that now shamelessly fogged up her glasses. She let go of Will's hand only to link her arms around his neck, holding him tightly.
"Thank you," she whispered messily against his shoulder. He patted her back before letting her go.
"Don't mention it, mom."
The next day Sunny, sore and cranky and totally noncompliant, was in the perfect state for a day filled with countless princess movies watched from the luxury of MacKenzie's sofa. It was a Friday, so Sloan spent the morning with her while Maggie eagerly accepted MacKenzie's offered afternoon off to spend the rest of the day with her while Sloan did her broadcasts.
"Maggie a princess...," Sunny said confidently during the second run through of Tangled, yawning as she patted Maggie's arm, sitting on the sofa next to her. When all Maggie did was blink at her, surprised, Sunny panicked slightly, defaulting to Japanese. "Ohime sama!" After calling Sloan and having Sunny repeat to her what she had said at least three times Maggie lit up excitedly.
"Can you believe she said that?" Maggie asked breathlessly, crushing a now giggly Sunny to her chest. Sloan smiled.
"She definitely has a lot to say lately."
There was a Mets game that would still be going on well after News Night ended and, throughout the course of commercial breaks and a handful of cut aways, MacKenzie was able to convince Will to come back to her place with her and Sloan, as well as Neal, Jim, and Don who she had invited earlier.
"It'll be fun!" MacKenzie argued at commercial break 2. "Besides, you get to hang out with your little buddy! Sunny, by the way." She didn't want to leave the door too wide open for comment, MacKenzie realized. Will growled.
"Fine, fine! Just because you had to go and bring Sunny in to it."
MacKenzie smiled.
"She'll be happy to see you."
Sunny, feeling much better after naps and cuddles all day long, fell in to a state of near euphoria to see everyone who had come to visit her that night, hopping between laps in her perfectly girly lollipop pajamas for a good 20 minutes before finally calming against Will's chest. Don had brought pizza and, the newsroom turned MacKenzie's living room, fell in to a vivacious chatter about everything. MacKenzie offered Sunny the crust off her pizza which she was happy to chew on as she listened to Will give her the play by play of the game, understanding none of it but thoroughly lulled by the sound of his voice.
The 7th inning stretch televised was usually a Ford commercial but, for whatever reason, the network didn't cut away to one and Sloan quickly threw out her arms in attempt to hush everyone.
"OH MY GOD! We are going to teach Sunny 'take me out to the ball game'!" she cried, eagerly stealing Sunny out of Will's lap. Sunny laughed in elation at Sloan's passion, the quiet rumble of laughter circling the living room.
"CHEESY!" Don horsed, all the while grinning just as broadly as everyone got to their feet.
They all sang once, spiritedly and completely off-key.
And, in the interest of keeping their tiny almost four-year-old honorary newsroom member happy, well in to the next commercial break.