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It was a well-established fact that of the two of them, Will was the parent more prone to melt downs.
Even Charlotte, all of five years old, was aware that her dad might not take her first day of kindergarten well.
“Mommy says that you’re going to lose your mind when I go to school,” Charlotte told him matter of factly as they ate their customary bowl of Lucky Charms together one late summer morning.
“I will not,” he scoffed. “You go to school already! I’ve been handling that quite successfully.” Charlotte slurped up her cereal and gave him a long, hard look.
“That was for babies, Daddy,” she reminded him, wrinkling her nose in distaste and looking so much like her mother that it temporarily stunned Will. “I’m going to kindergarten."
The staff had made bets as to how long it would take for Will to be able to leave Charlotte that day, ranging from 15 minutes to three hours to Gary, who threw his money on the table and declared,
"Oh come on, he's not going anywhere. He's going to sit in a tiny ass chair next to Charlie all damn day."
Will would sputter about how well he had handled other milestones of Charlotte's, to which someone (usually Mac if she was in earshot) would remind him of his behavior during Charlotte’s birth.
“I was fine,” he dismissed.
“You were a mess,” Mac corrected.
“I was cool as a cucumber,” Will fired back, to which MacKenzie would roll her eyes and shake her head.
She then would bring up the first time that Charlotte had a fever, Will running out to the pharmacy and buying every kind of children’s pain reliever he could find, and asking Mac so many times whether she thought they should take Charlie to the emergency room that Mac finally took the baby, carried her into the master bedroom, and locked the door (she had taken mercy on him an hour later, unlocking the door and finding Will on the couch, clutching a blanket of Charlotte's. Mac had dropped down next to him, handed him the baby, and pressed a kiss to his clenched jaw, "It's all right, Will. She's all right.")
As far as the staff, and his wife, were concerned, there was just no way that Will wouldn't freak out about Charlotte going kindergarten.
And, sure, there was historical evidence to support their hypothesis. But he still took great offense to the implication that when it came to his daughter, he was a giant ball of emotional nerves (just because it might be true, didn't mean they had to point it out.)
“Daddy,” Charlotte told him three days before the big first day of school, climbing onto his lap as he was reading on the couch. She took his face between her little hands. “Try not to cry when you drop me off, 'kay? You'll have Momma to play with at work, and we can play when I get home.” Charlotte was so serious, so sincere, that it took Will all he had not to laugh at her, and he buried his nose in her hair to hide his smile.
There was no talk of how Mac was going to take it. Everyone assumed she would be fine. She was the more level-headed parent. Mac would be in charge of the practicalities of kindergarten, getting Charlotte ready, while Will would be in charge of panicking that his baby was now not a baby any longer.
The morning of the big day had MacKenzie up early, making pancakes (Charlie's favorite) for her, while Will had the task of getting Charlotte up out of bed, teeth brushed, and uniform on. He eased open her bedroom door and found her already sitting up in bed.
“Morning Daddy!” She chirped, holding her arms out. Will crossed over and leaned down, as Charlotte wrapped her tiny arms and legs around him and tucked her head under his chin. His knees groaned as he straightened, but he knew time was limited on being able to carry her like this, carry her at all, and fuck his knees. They were bad before, they would be bad after, and carrying his daughter wasn't going to make that much of a difference.
“Morning pumpkin,” he brushed a kiss to the top of her head. “Momma's making breakfast.”
“Pancakes?” Charlotte's eyes lit up as she pulled back so she could look at him.
“Pancakes,” Will confirmed. Charlotte hummed happily, resting her head back down against his shoulder. He managed to get her dressed and her teeth brushed, and then Charlotte jumped off the stool in her bathroom and raced toward the kitchen, Will a step behind.
When he arrived in the kitchen, Charlotte was scrambling onto a chair, and Mac was sliding a plate of pancakes in front of her.
“Pancakes for my best girl,” Mac said, dropping a kiss to Charlotte's unruly curls. She seized the opportunity of Charlotte sitting somewhat still to gather the little girl's hair in a ponytail.
An hour later had all three McAvoys ready to go, Charlotte's tiny backpack slung over her shoulders and Mac taking about a thousand pictures in their front foyer.
“Mommy, we have to go,” Charlotte complained, rolling her eyes as she held onto Will's hand in front of their building.
“Okay, okay! Just one more,” and both Charlotte and Will groaned. “Fine. I'm done.” Mac held her hands up in surrender. And then she snapped one more.
“Mac,” her husband growled.
Will should have been clued in to the fact that Mac was not actually handling Charlie's first day as well as they had anticipated, but he was too busy trying to get them to the school on time to notice that her eyes were suspiciously wet. It wasn't until they had walked Charlotte to the classroom that Mac began to really fall apart.
“You okay?” Will asked in concern when he finally noticed that his wife had begun to softly cry.
“Yep,” Mac forced a smile and a nod. “Great!”
“Mommy?” Charlotte glanced up at her mother, but Mac managed a more genuine smile in her daughter's direction.
“I'm just so happy for you, darling,” Mac told her, squeezing her tiny hand. “You're going to have so much fun!”
“In order for her to have that fun,” Will said gently. “You have to let her go.”
“Right,” Mac nodded, but she found that she couldn't let go of Charlotte's hand.
“Mac,” Will started. Charlotte, to her credit, stood patiently, her hand tucked in Mac's, and waited for her mother to get her shit together.
“Don't be sad, Momma,” Charlotte piped up. “You love to go to work. And you'll have so much fun that the day will just fly by!” Will recognized Charlotte's speech as the same one that Mac had given her about going to kindergarten. He stifled a smile, which he was sure wouldn't be welcomed by either his wife or his daughter.
Charlotte scampered away, her ponytail flying behind her, and Will wrapped his arm around his wife who burst into tears and buried her face in his chest.
“I thought I would handle this better!” Mac whined. “I thought you were going to be the cry baby!”
“I did too,” Will admitted.
“She's just so big,” Mac cried. “When did that happen? How did that happen?”
“I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the time space continuum,” Will joked. One glare from his wife informed him that she was not ready for jokes yet. They stood for a moment longer, watching Charlotte settle into her classroom, before Will finally tugged Mac out of the classroom and out the door.
“Can we wait just a little while? To make sure she doesn't need us?” Mac asked as they climbed into the car.
“She's okay, Mac,” Will assured her. “She doesn't need us. And they'll call if she does.” Mac bit her lip, but finally acquiesced, and by the time they had made it back to the office, her sobs had been reduced to just sniffles.
When Will walked back into the newsroom, having left Mac in the elevator to continue her way to her own office, the staff glanced up in surprise.
“You're back, already? I was sure I had this thing locked up,” Gary complained when he saw them.
“I want to go on the record as saying that I was the relaxed parent,” Will announced, grinning gleefully. “So you can all go fuck yourselves.”