Another one of the 52 days, this time it's Mac's turn – With many thanks to lilacmermaid for her support. :-)

Day 21

Three weeks. Three weeks already and no sign that Will would be released from prison soon.

Three weeks that Sloan had been sitting at the anchor desk and she had been in her ear instead of Will's.

Three weeks that she had been married but hadn't spent a single day or night with her husband. Only a few, much too short moments during visiting hours.

Three weeks in which she had gone home alone and faced their lonely apartment.
And now she was home again after another long Monday at work with another long week ahead of her where she probably wouldn't be able to see Willl.

This was different than in the past, harder, although the time spent without him was much shorter. She refused to think 'so far', but no, they couldn't and wouldn't keep Will in jail for months or even years...

When she hadn't seen Will for three years after their breakup Mac had mostly taken it as a well-deserved punishment and she had been longing for him every second of every day.

The first weeks away from him had been especially hard with everything that had happened being fresh on her mind and her thoughts had constantly revolved around Will and how she had fucked everything up.
After that it got a little bit easier, partly because of the work routines and especially the ever present danger of being in a warzone. She simply couldn't afford to always think about him if she wanted to survive, although sometimes she wasn't even sure if that was what she really wanted...
But in the end not receiving any replies to her e-mails she had written to Will had made it clear to her that she couldn't just hope and wait for his forgiveness. She had to try to build a life for herself, on her own.

She had seemed to manage fairly well on the surface, but she had never forgotten what could have been. And that it had all been her fault, so she had never allowed herself to complain.

Seeing Will again at Northwestern then only confirmed what she had known already anyway:
Three years without Will hadn't changed her feelings for him at all. She loved him and she knew that this would never go away.
So after a lot of internal arguing with herself she had accepted Charlie's job offer, knowing that working with Will wouldn't be easy, but at least she could be near him again and be part of his professional life. And she could try to turn him back into the newsman she knew he could be. Even if she hadn't been already certain of that before he would have proven it with his words that evening.

She had been right, Will had still been hurting and dealt out punishments like other people Halloween candy – or so it felt. If it hadn't been for the occasional glimmer of hope like the hug on Valentine's Day, the revealing stare at the pub during that song, a sweet remark here and there („Nobody in his right mind would risk losing you.") and the voicemail, which she knew had to have contained something very important, she might not have had the perseverance to stay at her job and to stay around him for that long.
But just being able to see and talk to him almost every day had been enough for then and she had almost never lost hope that it somehow could work out – up until right to the end when he had fired her and then it miraculously did anyhow.

The months following their engagement had been hell at work but privately mostly a bliss.
Since that night they had spent every possible moment together - fighting for their show, catching up on everything that had happened during their time apart, working through their problems which certainly hadn't just disappeared with the proposal and planning their future. Not to speak of indulging in lots of making out and fantastic sex.

But the sex wasn't even what she missed the most. She had spent years without and though she wished she didn't have to she also had no problem waiting until he got out. (But then... Oh yeah...!) What she missed was just being with him, talking to him, looking at him. Just being able to hold him, kiss him and have him close to her at night, to snuggle up. Just knowing that he was there.

She had put up pictures of him in every room, held the t-shirt he had worn last close at night and slept on his side of the bed – although one could hardly speak of sleeping. Most of the past three weeks she had been tossing and turning at night with only short interruptions of actual sleep and it was more than just beginning to show.
She had never needed much sleep but now she was even paler than normal with bags under her eyes and dark shadows around them. Not even her make-up could hide that completely and she knew that Will was worried about her.

Mac sighed. She was lying on the couch she had gotten out of storage the other day, along with some other pieces of furniture for the living room that she had finished renovating.
Her eyes gazed at the bottles of alcohol lined up on the kitchen counter she could see from here. She was longing for a drink to help her go to sleep and forget... No, that was the wrong word, she didn't want to forget about Will, she just wanted it to be easier...
But after she had spent the first few nights of Will's incarceration drowning her sorrows with alcohol – starting with her wedding night at Sloan's place - followed by the unavoidable hangover the next mornings, she had decided not to drink anymore until Will was home.

She well remembered the time before she came back to ACN when she had started drinking in the morning and spent most of her time in a bowling alley until Charlie had found her. She didn't dare think about what might had become of her if it hadn't been for him.
She knew she wasn't alone this time, having her friends and work, and she was more than thankful for it, but she didn't want to risk going down this road again. She wanted to hold on to the future that lay ahead of them instead.

Only yesterday Will had asked her where she would like to go on their honeymoon after he was released and they had spent almost her entire visit weighing the pros and cons of two weeks on a secluded tropical island, visiting Paris, Venice or Vienna or – that was Will's suggestion – renting a motorhome and driving to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Though she was fairly sure he had only thrown that in for the sake of the argument.

She missed arguing with him and even the fighting. It had always been a vital part of their relationship, a stimulus that only drove them to do better. And now that they finally had the possibility of make up sex again she had started to look forward to it even more.

During their long talks over the last months Will and she had realized that in the past one of their biggest problems had been the lack of communication between them. Not in regard of every day conversations and discussions at work but talking about their feelings and fears.
If she had told Will about Brian after he had contacted her again she maybe wouldn't have felt the need to still prove herself to her ex. And if Will had opened up to her after her return sooner; if they had talked about about his mixed up feelings and if he had told her about the content of the voicemail message earlier, they maybe wouldn't have wasted another eighteen months or even the whole three years.

So one of their most important promises to each other after their reconciliation had been that they would talk about everything with complete honesty; no secrets.
And this made the current situation hurt so much more because she just couldn't tell him about how she really felt inside about their forced separation. Not if she didn't want to make it even more difficult for him, which she most certainly did not, and she was quite sure that Will was in the same predicament.
But she had vowed to herself that they would catch up on all of this once he was back home. She would never let anything get in between them again and this situation was far too important for both of them to be downplayed or ignored.

And exactly that was what made it so much harder this time.
After such a long time they were finally both on the same page and wanted the same, wanted to be together without any reservations, but were forced to be apart by circumstances they couldn't control.

Well, technically speaking they did control it; they would only have to name the source. But Molly had been right – She would never ask Will to give it up.
She would however gladly switch roles and go to jail herself by revealing that she also knew who it was, but Will had made her promise to keep quiet and she would never betray him again.

She knew Reese had at least been partly right when he said that Will went to jail for her. To make her proud of him and, after he had learned that she had met the whistleblower herself, also to protect her. But she was certain that the man he was today would also have done it just to fight for one of the most important journalistic principles.
Whatever the reason: She was damn proud of him.

Past 2 a.m. already. This seemed to be another one of those restless nights.
She dreaded going into their lonely bedroom, but she knew that she needed to sleep. And she wanted to sleep because that would actually put her mind to rest for a few hours.
How she missed having Will next to her to cuddle up to, being safely in his arms and feeling his breath in her neck when spooned by him, wishing her a good night.

And then it suddenly hit her. She jumped up from the couch and ran into the future office, which for now was filled with boxes and other things which would later be moved into different rooms of the apartment.

She had been rummaging through several boxes when she finally found Will's CD collection.
Sometimes he would play the guitar and sing to her before going to bed and once he told her about this singer, whom many people had assured him he almost sounded alike. So he had gotten one of his albums but didn't really agree with this assessment, while Mac had thought he came pretty close.

She also liked the songs, and every time Will sang a romantic, very personal song the artist had written for his wife he replaced her name with 'Kenzie', which just made her heart melt every single time.

Will hadn't sung the song for her since they had been back together and she honestly hadn't even thought about it, but maybe it could help her now.

Finally she found the CD she was looking for and went back to the living room, where she put it into the player. She lay back on the couch and there was the voice... When she closed her eyes she could almost believe it was Will singing to her. People were right, there was an uncanny resemblance between their voices and she almost immediately felt herself relax.

Maybe she would finally get some sleep tonight.

Thanks for reading! :-)

„That song" is naturally „You are always on my mind" by Willie Nelson from season 2, episode 2 (The Genoa Tip)

The song where Will substitutes the name with Kenzie is the song „Kathy" which Jeff Daniels wrote for his wife. Naturally he is also the artist Will supposingly sounds alike... ;-)
Album: Jeff Daniels, „Live And Unplugged To Benefit The Purple Rose Theater"