Work Text:
The apocalypse, as it is, comes not with a bang or a whisper but with shuffling ranks of undead that slowly eradicate civilized life in the US.
Neal is smug about predicting the zombie apocalypse until he isn’t, which takes the two weeks between patient zero attacking a Mt. Sinai morgue attendant to the overwhelming majority of the News Night and Right Now staffers permanently encamped at AWM, building their own shanty town out of desktops and cubicle boards.
(Maggie's thankful it was her weekend to visit Jim in New York, because no one has heard anything from D.C. in weeks.)
To the surprise of absolutely no one Will and MacKenzie settle into the roles of Team Dad and Mom with little fuss, one or both holding court over everyone with baby Charlotte bundled up against their chest--Will reverts to Midwestern farm boy faster than anyone but Maggie anticipated, efficiently allocating supplies out and erecting lean-to shelters to afford people some form of stability and privacy.
Mac tackles the zombie apocalypse with the same ruthless efficiency that she once tackled broadcasts every evening, directing people and organizing supply raids out into the wilds of greater Manhattan all while managing Will’s greater neuroses and a two month old.
They’re still broadcasting a show every night--Pruitt hasn’t been heard from since DC bureau went silent--and Leona Lansing (with Mac) assumes control of ACN with little to no fanfare, incongruous in her cargo pants and men’s Armani dress shirt (one of Reese’s cast-offs, appropriated when zombie brains got splattered over her last pantsuit) with thousand dollar pearls around her neck.
(No one really wants to ask just how Leona managed to swing Pruitt doing the annual press tour in D.C. without any of the New York anchors, but there’s a lot of questions around the Lansings that nobody wants to look too closely into.
The fact that Leona had the AWM building pre-stocked in case of apocalyptic event is definitely one of them, and the mysterious helicopter that makes bi-weekly supply drops on the roof is another.
They definitely don’t ask where Leona got the weapons from.)
The facts, as they have them, of the zombie apocalypse are thus:
- Whatever virus causes the mutation and reanimation is fast acting and transmitted via infected bite, and the infected have roughly a twenty-four hour period before losing their minds.
- The zombies themselves move no faster than a vague shuffle but travel in large packs, attracted mostly to loud noises.
- Neal needs to stop making lists, goddamn it.
In the beginning, they’re a little bit less discriminating at who comes in to the AWM building seeking shelter, but after Mac has to kick an infected and raving Brian Brenner down the central elevator shaft the security bumps up a notch from “paranoid” to “war bunker”.
(It comes as no surprise that Brian would wheedle his way into the building knowing that he had already been bitten and was definitely infected, but it gives Will a perverse sort of satisfaction to watch Mac rear back and kick Brian through the open elevator doors like some vengeful Leonidas.
...They’re all almost 100% positive McAvoy baby number two was conceived after that particular argument--whatever the actual math runs out to, Mac ends up pregnant again remarkably fast.)
Life continues on in as normal a fashion as possible, which in theory means that the existing couples try to have some sort of privacy and modesty but in practice ends up with a lot more of people decidedly Not Listening to whatever’s happening behind Will’s closed office door.
Birth control depends mostly on access to drug stores they haven’t already raided for supplies and thusly falls to the laughably Catholic rhythm method of “pull out and pray” so it’s not news when Mac starts showing again around Charlotte’s half-birthday.
(Will sits them all down for a very serious Talk that falls apart as soon as it starts because Mac starts laughing before he gets through the first page of his carefully thought out speech.)
Modesty ceases to exist, what with Mac wandering around half the time in a sports bra and tank top and whatever pair of Will’s cargo shorts that fit McAvoy number two’s bump the best and Bath Sign Up lists and the general attitude of “what’s yours is everyone’s” that pervades the newsroom. Everyone borrows everyone else’s things and there are communal blankets that get shared across four different people at night when the building gets cold.
Charlotte spends most of her time either in Will’s arms or on Mac’s hip or slung in the Baby Bjorn they improvised on Will’s chest--”what? I wanted my hands free and she likes to look at things”--a blonde blue eyed mostly happy baby who has no concept of a life or parents not occupied with keeping zombies out of the building. It’s an unspoken rule that everyone in the building values Charlotte’s life and continued existence markedly higher than their own, Aunts and Uncles and a pseudo Grandma that would throw themselves to the walkers than watch anything hurt little Charlie.
Will has Rules about supply runs--who’s allowed to go out on them (and who isn’t, a list that begins and ends with MacKenzie) and when they can happen (noon to four, when the sun is generally at its highest and they’ll have the best visibility)--and spends afternoons the supply team is out sitting by the radio waiting for their callback.
“It’s cute, really,” Sloan explains after one such run, smirking at Will. “He sits there and glares at the poor thing like it’s personally offended him.”
The apocalypse brings out a lot of previously unknown or unused skills in people, some of which naturally lend themselves to always being picked for the supply team.
Maggie, to Jim’s eternal detriment, is the best shot aside from Mac with a rifle and ends up as spotter and sniper, riding in the back of Leona’s modified Escalade (jet black, armored to the hilt, with a specially modified sunroof Maggie can stand up and shoot from and a gleaming titanium cattle bar mounted on front) with the M4 she’s claimed as her own.
Tess possesses an uncanny knack for navigating them to the perfect storefront to loot and isn’t too bad of a shot herself, but prefers bats or field hockey sticks for mobility and “limitless reloads”.
Gary is frankly terrifying with a machete and serves as packhorse and runner, ferrying things from store to the car and checking up and down each block for any other potential loot spots.
Kendra rounds out the supply crew as the best driver (while admittedly not under what most would consider normal driving circumstances, she’s the fastest they have and best at running any pursuing walkers over), navigating the empty streets of New York like she’s driving in Fast and Furious whatever number they were up to before the country devolved into mass chaos.
Medical supplies and food go the fastest along with potable water, so the top of every supply list is always comprised at least of one of the three. They spend one memorable afternoon looting an Armani outlet (never in Maggie’s wildest dreams would she imagine fighting off slavering zombies dressed in Armani) and after Will points out that Charlie can’t keep going around wrapped in whoever’s shirt is the cleanest, a long trek out to the nearest Babies ‘R Us for as much baby clothing and cloth diapers as they can fit in the Escalade.
“We’re looting a Babies ‘R Us, what is my life,” Maggie groans, watching as Tess sorts through racks of baby clothing.
“Shut up and help me find a Giants onesie. I wanna make Will grumpy.”
Gary, arms full of clothing by their sides, glances around. “Y’know, all these onesies in my arms are seriously gonna inhibit my ability to machete a walker in the face. Just sayin’.”
(The look on Will’s face when Tess holds up Charlie dressed in a miniature Eli Manning jersey is well worth the sulking fit he throws for the rest of the evening.)
Supply runs themselves usually aren’t dangerous on their own, it’s the getting back into AWM with the stocked car that attracts waves of walkers, shuffling through the parking garage and snarling up the only safe route they have back into the building. It takes Mac and Jim blasting away with a shotgun apiece to clear the garage and create a cover for the four of them to load the supplies into the maintenance elevator (operated solely on generator power that they carefully conserve and only use for heavy loads).
While the walkers aren’t particularly intelligent in their own right, there are the intrepid (or persistent, whatever the metric is) ones who manage to figure out doors and stairs and make it all the way up to the newsroom--Mac appoints a night watch early on, a habit that found her in the Middle East and stuck on to all of their benefit now--where they either meet their end to Will’s fireman’s axe, Jim’s bat, or Leona’s flame red Louboutins (or Mac’s elevator shaft, for the Brians of the zombie world).
Life after the zombie apocalypse involves a lot of canned or boxed foods--dry cereal, oatmeal, canned food Leona’s mystery helicopter delivers by the pallet to the roof, rice or pasta if they can swing it on a supply run--and meals cooked by firepit out on the balcony, Mac and Jim presiding over mealtimes with an iron spoon and careful portion control by Will. Everyone is lean and as fit as they can be, ready to run and fight at a moment’s notice. Will loses the middle-aged paunch and then some, the wiry strength of his youth spent on a farm showing through the lean lines of his frame, and everyone knows he allots part of his normal food portion to either Charlotte or Mac every meal.
They take care of one another, one giant news family barricaded up in the last available refuge for most of them. Each day ends with a radio broadcast from Will to whoever still might be listening out there--reports of walker pack movement, any communication the helicopter leaves, what little information Neal and Sloan can compile from their brief forays onto what’s left of the Internet and whatever small comforts or tips Will chooses to finish with--a nightly tradition that lulls them to sleep, the quiet rumble of Will’s voice by the radio as he talks to thin air.
There are fun things, too. An afternoon spent on the roof with Charlie’s old golf clubs, making wagers on who could hit the most walkers with a golf ball (Will). The (slightly morbid) Kill Count board Neal tacked up after they cleared the AWM lobby of walkers, a tally sheet with each of their names in a column. Nights around the fire pit, telling stories about Before, jokes and songs and the press of someone else’s shoulder against theirs.
“Anyway, here’s Wonderwall,” is Jim’s standing exit each night, said with a bow and his guitar dangling down from his neck until Mac trips him into a seat. Will sings Beatles songs and what they can remember of some of the top 40’s hits, fingers plucking away at the strings while Charlie babbles and bounces along in Sloan’s lap. Mac reads aloud from Goodnight Moon and Harry Potter and The Secret Garden or one of the stacks of books “liberated” from Barnes and Noble, tucked into Will’s side with Charlie asleep against his chest.
The happiest moment of them all comes a week and a half before Charlie’s first birthday, when Mac’s swearing and Will’s quiet encouragement finally give way to a new sound: a healthy, screaming baby boy.
William Edward “Teddy” McAvoy enters the world ten days before his elder sister’s birthday and a month and a half before the first of his cousins--the start to their “crop of apoca-babies” as Tess and Tamara take to calling them--the spitting image of his father but with Mac’s eyes, born to a new and confusing world where helicopter supply drops and Mummy carrying a shotgun and a bottle were the norm.
It’s by no means is a perfect life, but it is a good one. They stay together, they move on, they survive.