Chapter Text
It used to be that Charlie heard about the threats, and, in turn, used considerable diplomacy in relaying them to the relevant people.
Threats against Will were the most prevalent, of course, and if the threat needed to be taken seriously, Charlie would call Mac up to his office first, fill her in, and then bring Will up. Will almost always brushed away their concern, particularly before they were engaged. (But Charlie knew enough to know that even before that ring on her finger, Mac was one of the few people who Will actually listened to. He might outwardly dismiss her worry, but he would still alter his behavior to ease her mind.)
After they were engaged, Charlie was slightly more careful in the amount of details he would tell Mac, and Will knew, if his fiancée was already sitting in the room when he was called up to Charlie’s office, her mouth turned down into a worried frown, that it wasn’t going to be something he wanted to hear. Will would take it more seriously, the death threats, if only because he now had reason to want to stick around (and he was worried about Mac. She was always by his side, which was great, but also scared the ever living shit out of him).
But Charlie wasn’t there any longer. It was Mac sitting in the chair. It was Mac who was told about the letters, the phone calls, the death threats. It was Mac who finally realized that Charlie had told her the important details, but had left out so much that she didn’t need to hear. She didn’t need to know how they planned on murdering her husband. She didn’t need to know the amount of vitriol spewed in those letters; how the words dripped with hatred, and how the violence simmered just below the surface.
It made her want to tell Will to quit his job, stay home, stay safe; hole up in their apartment, tangled together, and never leave. And if that was unacceptable, if he wouldn’t do that, than she wanted to tell him to go back to reporting about the weather or the fucking squirrels on waterskies, or whatever the fuck he needed to do in order to keep himself whole and unharmed. Mac was terrified for him.
She became terrified, and then she became enraged. It would be a cold day in Hell before she let some lunatic with a grudge tell her how to live her life, tell her how to do the news.
She believed in what they were doing, and it was worth the risk- even if the thought of something happening to Will made her hands slick and her mouth dry.
But that was before.
Before someone sent a letter with a photograph tucked into its folded pages. A photograph of her baby girl with an x over her face (and it was the way the pen had made deep grooves into the photograph, as if someone had scratched out Charlotte's face with such a vehemence and purpose, that pushed Mac over the edge. Whoever had sent that had meant it).
"Ms. McHale," the head of security said in a gentle voice (had he ever had to use this voice with Charlie? She would have said no, but she was discovering that there was a lot that Charlie had shielded them from. There was a lot of unpleasantness to deal with in this job, more than she had thought before, but nothing, nothing, had come close to this.) "We should talk about maybe putting a security detail on Charlotte."
"A security detail?" Mac felt like she wanted to throw up. "She's an infant."
She wanted to go pick up Charlie from day care. Immediately. She wanted to pick her up and take her home and never leave.
And she wanted Will. She wanted his solid presence (even though she knew that he was going to hit the ceiling when he heard).
"I need to talk my husband," Mac insisted. "He needs to be a part of this conversation." With shaking fingers she dialed Will's number.
"Hello there, beautiful," Will greeted, and to Mac's horror, she burst into tears.
Will didn't know much past Mac's broken voice telling him to come to her office.
"Are you okay? Is Charlotte okay?" He asked, every hair on his body standing on end.
Mac let out a ragged sigh.
"We're...okay." Her answer did not exactly reassure him, and he practically sprinted to the elevators, jamming the button with his thumb.
Millie ushered him in when he got to Mac's office, and he was startled to see two large men standing in his wife's office. Mac was also standing, her gaze out the window and her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
"Mac?" Will asked, and she turned, her eyes rimmed red. She gestured to her desk, and he noticed an envelope.
"Mr. McAvoy," the one man started. "I'm Eric Connolly. I'm head of security for ACN."
"Jesus, what nutcase is threatening me now?" Will asked, starting to put the pieces together (there was something nagging at him, though. His wife was not prone to hysteria. She was just about the most level headed person he knew. This was unusual behavior for her.
But.
Her hormones were still all sorts of out of whack, so he supposed he could chalk it up to that. Still. It made something hard settle in his stomach.)
"It's not you," Mac said softly, and he whipped his head to face her, and then immediately turned back to Eric Connolly.
"She needs a detail," he told Eric, his voice firm. "She's the president of a huge news organization, for fuck's sake, she should have a security detail anyway. But she doesn't leave this building with a person on her."
"She is right here," his wife reminded him, her voice a little stronger this time. "And it's not me either." Will was confused. If it wasn't him, and it wasn't Mac...and it took a minute for the pieces to fall into place.
He felt sick, and unbalanced, as he reached for the envelope on Mac's desk.
It was Charlotte.
Someone had targeted his four month old daughter.
His legs felt shaky, and he looked up from the picture of Charlie to meet his wife's eye. The picture had been taken outside of their brownstone. Mac was carrying Charlotte out to the car, Charlotte facing out (that was how she wanted to be carried these days. Wanted to see what was going on. Alert and so damn smart already).
These lunatics had been outside of his goddamn home. They were within shouting distance of his daughter and wife.
"Is she okay? Charlie? Do we know if she's okay?" He asked, his voice panicked.
"I called the day care," Mac nodded. "After I hung up with you. She's fine."
For the moment, Will thought. For the moment she was fine. And he would do everything in his considerable power to keep it that way. He would throw himself in front of a bullet for her, without hesitation, it wasn't even a question. He would die for Charlotte. For Mac. As long as there was a breath in his body, he would do anything and everything to keep his family safe.
"We would like to put a small detail on Charlotte," Eric spoke up.
"It's credible? This threat?" Will swallows hard, trying to push the thoughts of something happening to his baby girl out of his head. Unwanted images kept springing up. Charlotte's tiny body, on the ground, eyes unseeing as Mac wept over her. Mac's body crumpled on top of Charlotte's, both unmoving.
"It is. From what we know the source of the threat is a militant pro-life group," Eric explained.
"They're pissed about that segment," Will said to Mac. "Fuck!"
It started with a segment on Thursday’s show discussing the Reproductive Health Non Discrimination Act. Will had gotten a little heated, to say the least, and had railed against Ted Cruz and the far right for trying to stop the passing of the bill.
Mac was waiting in his office after the show, the baby asleep in her carrier at Mac's feet, and she had kissed him soundly on the mouth and told him she was proud.
"I'm sure that'll get the evangelicals' panties in a twist," she had grinned at him.
Fuck. This was his fault. His big mouth. His impassioned defense of the RHNDA. He had brought this down on his family. He had sparked the ire of the fanatics, and he had done it willingly. He had suspected that there would be some fallout.
But it was supposed to be him.
It wasn't supposed to be his infant daughter. Will felt the anger well up inside of him. What kind of monsters threatened a baby?
He looked over at his wife. Her face was pale, her mouth drawn into a tight line. She had folded into herself, her arms wrapped around her middle.
I'm sorry, he thought. I didn't think they'd go after Charlotte. I never thought they'd go after Charlotte.
He wished it was just the two of them in the room, he wouldn't have hesitated tugging her into his arms, but he knew her well enough to know that at the moment she was as fragile as blown glass. If he tried to wrap his arms around her, she'd shatter (for fuck's sake, he might shatter. His baby girl. It was unthinkable).
"It doesn't matter why," Mac said, her voice soft. She met Will's eye. "We just need to keep her safe. We need to do whatever we need to do to keep her safe."
And he would. He would do whatever he needed to do. To keep Charlotte safe. To keep MacKenzie safe.
Whatever he needed to do.