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i.
It was Sloan who went home with MacKenzie that first night.
“I’m the maid of honor,” she reminded everyone (having been promoted from mere bridesmaid by proximity, seeing as none of Mac’s sisters- or Will’s for that matter- lived anywhere near New York. It didn’t matter how Sloan had nabbed the role, all that mattered was that she had and she was taking it very seriously).
Jim had put up an argument, but Sloan had ignored him, leading Mac out of the courthouse past the hordes of cameras and reporters shouting Mac’s name and into the waiting car.
“No offense,” Mac had said when the door was shut tightly behind them and the driver pulled away from the curb. “But you are not the person I wanted to be spending this night with.”
“I know,” Sloan answered, her hand reaching out to give Mac’s a squeeze. She instructed the driver to stop at a liquor store on the way back to Will and Mac’s gutted apartment, and ran inside scooping up the best bottle of whiskey she could find and a couple of bottles of wine. Back inside the car, she unscrewed the lid to the bottle of whiskey and pressed it into Mac’s hands.
Mac raised an eyebrow, but didn’t argue, knocking back a long drink before passing it back to Sloan. They spend the relatively short car ride passing the bottle back and forth between them, and by the time they poured themselves into Will and Mac's unfinished apartment, the bottle was half gone and Mac's head was spinning.
"There's no where to sit," Mac pointed out, apologetically. "We haven't been able to decide on furniture." She paused, glancing around. "I suppose I could just pick out what I want. Will's not exactly in a position to argue with me about it." She crossed the nearly empty room, whiskey still in hand, dodging paint buckets and drop cloths, and plopped herself down where the fireplace was going to (eventually) go.
Sloan dropped down beside her, grabbing the bottle from her to take a drink.
"This really fucking sucks," Sloan sighed, tipping the bottle back.
Mac hummed an agreement, and it took Sloan longer than it should to realize that MacKenzie was crying, her shoulders hunched and her body trembling.
Sloan pulled her into her arms, and Mac hesitated for a second before collapsing against Sloan’s side, her breathing ragged.
"He's doing this for me," Mac choked out. "I think he might be doing this for me." And Sloan doesn’t respond, in part because she wasn’t sure what to say (she never had been very good at this sort of thing. Knowing what to say), and in part because she thought Mac might be right. Will probably was doing this for MacKenzie.
Sloan didn’t say a word, just held her as Mac wept. Held her until it seemed that Mac was all out of tears, and wondered when they'd ever catch a break.
ii.
Jim knew Mac well enough to know that she was holding on by a thread.
Charlie wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and gave her a gentle smile which Jim was half afraid would unravel her.
"Can I buy you a drink, kiddo?" Charlie asked, and Mac shook her head.
"I think I'd rather just go home," Mac replied, biting her lip. "Thank you, though. Don, you've got the show handled? Elliot's ready?"
"Yeah, Mac, don't worry about it," Don replied.
"I'll be back on Monday," Mac insisted.
"You sure I can't buy you a drink?" Charlie asked again, and Mac shook her head more emphatically that time.
"No, really, I'm not sure I'll be very good company, and I'd rather just go home," Mac was firm, and Charlie nodded, a frown forming (for the first time, Jim noticed. Charlie hadn't looked all that upset when they had taken Will away. He had looked proud. And Jim could understand that, but he had caught Mac's face as her new husband was handcuffed and lead away, and Jim couldn't quite find it in himself to be anything but worried for her).
"There's a huge crowd forming outside," Maggie reported.
"We'll get you out the back," Charlie reassured Mac.
"I'll take you home," Jim stepped forward. He could see the argument forming on the tip of Mac's tongue, so he quickly added, "I don't have to stay. Just let me make sure you get home okay."
“We can go through the back door, avoid the crowds,” Charlie announced, and flanked on one side by Jim and on the other by Charlie, Mac was lead through the building and out the back, hustled quickly into a car.
It was a quiet ride, Jim watched her stare out the window, but didn't say anything. It was only when they pulled in front of Mac and Will's building that she spoke up.
"You don't have to worry about me," she turned to face Jim. "I'll be fine."
"I know," he answered. "But I also don't think you should be alone tonight."
"Jim, like I said to Charlie, I'm not really going to be very good company," she tried.
"Okay. I don't need you to be," he shrugged.
"Jim."
"Mac." Her deep sigh signaled that he had won, and she climbed wearily out of the car, Jim only a step behind.
"I have no furniture," Mac said in the elevator. "No couch for you to crash on."
"I've slept in worse places," he replied, and that shut her up, because she knew that to be true. She had been the one sleeping next to him as the sky lit up and the ground shook. Her unfinished apartment was goddamn luxurious comparatively.
"I really am okay, Jim," Mac said as they stepped off the elevator.
"Humor me," he replied, and she unlocked her apartment door, disappeared back into her bedroom, and reappeared with a pillow, a blanket, and a pair of pajamas.
"These will be too big on you, you're shorter than Will," she said handing the bundle over. "The bathroom, such as it is, is back there." Mac pointed down the darkened hallway. Jim nodded and started back towards the bathroom when Mac's hand darted out and squeezed his. "And Jim? Thanks."
iii.
Don had told Mac not to worry about the show that night, and she had nodded distractedly, the show being the very last thing on her mind.
She had waved off everyone's offer to go home with her that night, including Sloan and Jim, and they all watched as Charlie shielded her from the press outside, put her in a car, and she drove away alone.
"I can't stand the thought of her alone tonight," Sloan said as they made their way back to the AWM building.
"She'll be okay," Don reassured her, but all the same, he kissed Sloan goodnight at the office, claimed a headache, got into a cab, and headed straight for Will and Mac's place.
He charmed the doorman into letting him up (he was pretty sure his ACN badge helped), and knocked on their door.
Mac answered on the third knock looking incredibly surprised to see him.
"Don?" He held up the six pack that he had picked up on his way and shook it gently.
"Thought you could use a drink and some company, in that order," he answered. She looked like she had been crying for some time, her eyes rimmed red, and he felt like she was having some sort of internal debate before she shrugged, moving aside to let him pass.
"Come on in," she said. "We have no chairs or couches. Or walls or much electricity for that matter."
“I figured you might not want to be alone,” Don explained, pulling out one of the beers and handing it over. Mac shrugged.
“I suppose I should get used to it,” she replied, taking a long drink and dropping herself down on the floor. Don sat down on the floor beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
“He’s going to be home in no time,” Don tried to be reassuring, but the look Mac gave him told him he hadn’t exactly succeeded.
“We’re in big trouble if it’s fallen to you to be the optimistic one,” Mac told him, nudging him with her shoulder. Don laughed lightly.
“Seriously, Mac, he can’t be in there forever,” Don reasoned. “And think of all the great reunion sex you’ll get to have when he’s out.” Mac choked on her beer out of shock, and then began to giggle, falling against Don as her body shook with laughter.
When she was finally able to catch her breath, she took Don’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Thanks, Don,” she rested her head against his shoulder. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to go get through this night. The thought of coming back here, alone, was rather unbearable.”
Don pressed a kiss to the side of her head, “We’re all here, Mac. You don’t have to be alone. Just say the word and one of us will be here.” She didn’t trust her voice, so she took a long drink and nodded instead.
iv.
“You aren’t going home alone,” Charlie said. “It’s your wedding night and you cannot spend it holed up in that deathtrap you and Will are currently calling home. Why you didn’t just wait to move in until it was finished is something I can’t understand, even as many times as Will has tried to explain it to me.”
“Currently, Will is calling prison home,” Mac reminded him. “And I’m not up for celebrating, Charlie, honestly. I’d rather just go home.”
“Nope,” Charlie shook his head and threw an arm around her shoulder. “You might not be in the mood to celebrate, and kiddo I get that, I do, but we have so much to celebrate.” Mac raised a suspicious eyebrow in his direction. “No, we do. Your marriage, Will’s commitment, finally, to being a serious journalist, and the selling of ACN. Although I’m not sure if that one requires drinking to celebrate or to forget that we are now owned by a pipsqueak of a man who believes that crowdsourcing news is the way of the future, and just thinking about it gets my blood boiling. Murrow is turning over in his grave and…”
“Charlie,” Mac interrupted. “Really, I’m just going to go home.”
"You're coming out for a nice dinner and drinks, non negotiable," Charlie insisted. "When Will gets out and finds out that I let his bride go home alone, there will be hell to pay."
"Charlie," Mac started, but she suddenly deflated. "One drink." Charlie knew it was a hollow victory, won because she was anxious and tired. But he nodded all the same, leading her out of the courthouse with a hand on the small of her back.
Her smile didn't quite reach her eyes as the gang gathered in Hang Chew's in a desperate attempt to cheer her up, and finally Charlie decided to throw in the towel and his heart broke when a relieved look washed over Mac's face.
"Let me make sure you get home okay," Charlie told her, bundling her into a cab. Mac was quiet the drive to her apartment, and before she climbed out, she reached over and placed a soft kiss on his cheek.
"Thank you, Charlie," she said, giving his hand a squeeze as she slid out of the car.
He sighed as the door shut behind her, knowing that he should have just let her go home in the first place, knowing that she came only to make him happy, came because she was worried about him as much as he was worried about her.
Goddamn it, he thought, when will they ever just win one?
v.
If it had been Maggie in Mac's shoes, she was certain that she wouldn't want everyone hanging around her, waiting for her to crack, so she wasn't surprised when MacKenzie declined all offers to go out for drinks.
"I don't really feel like celebrating," Mac waved away the offers. "But I'm okay, really, you guys go on ahead. Have a drink for me." She pasted a smile so painfully fake that it made Maggie's heart lurch, and Maggie watched as Jim and Mac had a low, heated argument about Mac going home alone.
"I'm fine," Mac insisted (Maggie was sure she was not, but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, so she kept her opinions to herself). Jim looked worried, deep grooves in his forehead, but Mac was insistent, and he finally sighed and conceded defeat.
They had to bundle Mac into a car idling by a back door, as the press was sprawled all over the sidewalk out front, and right before Mac slid into the privacy of the car, Maggie reached out a hand and tugged on Mac's fingers.
"We don't have to go to Hang Chew's, and we really don't have to talk," Maggie said. "But I don't think you should have to be alone." Mac hesitated for only a second, before giving the slightest of nods. Maggie caught Jim out of the corner of her eye; he looked as if he was going to argue, but then thought better of it. Maggie climbed into after Mac and the car pulled away from the curb.
"Jim would have tried too hard to make me feel better," Mac murmured. "I don't want to feel better. I want to wallow in self-pity. At least for tonight. It's my fucking wedding night." She pinched her nose with her fingers and closed her eyes.
"Fuck Lasenthal," Maggie said fiercely.
"I'll drink to that," Mac snorted.
"Okay, let's drink to that," Maggie answered. She instructed the driver to a hole in the wall bar, the kind no one would go looking for MacKenzie McHale in (McAvoy? Maggie wasn't sure what Mac planned to do about her name. She had heard a rumor that Mac was thinking of changing it, at least in her personal life. The leaking of this information was followed by Will strutting around the next few days, unbearably smug, so Maggie had a feeling that the rumors were true).
A quick shot followed by a stiff drink, and though Maggie had feared she was going to get a melancholy bride, Mac surprised her by rather pragmatic about the whole thing.
"It's temporary, right? He won't be in there forever," Mac said. "Don't get me wrong, this fucking sucks, but at least I know it has an end date, even if I don't know what that end date is."
The drinks came fast and went down faster. At three drinks in, Mac admitted to Maggie that she was relieved not to have to go to their half finished apartment alone, and five drinks in had her apologizing for all perceived wrongs she had committed against Maggie, the most important being Mac sending her to Uganda.
Maggie, equally drunk, patted Mac's face and repeated, "It wasn't your fault. It really wasn't," and Mac grabbed Maggie's hand and twined their fingers together, giving them a squeeze.
Six drinks in, the tears finally came, but not heaving sobs, just silent crying, as Mac twisted her new wedding ring around her finger.
"I hope he's okay in there," she whispered. "I keep thinking of him in that cell, all alone, and if I could I would have gone in with him, it wouldn't have mattered where we were as long as we could have gone together."
That was when Maggie closed their tab, pouring Mac into a car.
"He'll be home soon," Maggie reassured her, as Mac's head came to rest against Maggie's shoulders. She kept repeating it, carding her fingers through Mac's hair, her fingers snagging on knots, Mac's hair stiff with hairspray. "He'll be home soon."
Maybe if Maggie said it enough, it would happen.
vi.
Alone, on a thin, hard mattress, was not how Will had anticipated spending his wedding night.
He had not allowed himself to look back at his new wife as they lead him away. He had been half afraid that he would break, agreeing to name the source if only he could go back to MacKenzie.
The cell was small, and he wasn't sure that he agreed with the guard that he shouldn't bother getting comfortable. Will was almost positive he wouldn't be out Monday (or the Monday after, if he was being honest with himself about the situation. Not that he would admit that to MacKenzie- although she was a smart woman, he was sure she knew that too).
The cell was small, and lonely, and he wanted more than anything to be at his half gutted apartment, curled up around his bride.
It was hard, laying there, knowing that Mac was also spending her wedding night, to convince himself that this was worth it.