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Like all things in MacKenzie McHale's life, it happened slowly and then all at once.
He was a big deal, but not as big of a deal as he would be when he slid a ring on her finger and breathed, "thank God."
He was, MacKenzie estimated, a medium sized deal. And she was his new EP.
He was fresh from ACN, used to doing things the way Charlie Skinner wanted, and was resistant to change.
That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that he had beautiful eyes. The first thing was annoying. The second was distracting. Both spelled trouble.
She was half afraid when he first started that he wouldn't take her seriously. She was young for an EP, and she knew his EP at ACN was a seasoned producer named Len. Mac respected the hell out of Len. She had met him a handful of times at different functions and had done her research on him. Mac knew that he had reported from Vietnam before going to Afghanistan in the 80's, and was made of the same stuff that Cronkite and Murrow had been. He was gruff and unpleasant and one hell of a news producer.
It had been the first thing out of Will's mouth when he met her.
“Boy, you're young.”
Mac wasn't even sure he had meant to say it. It might have just slipped out, but there it was. It hung in the air between the two of them before Mac pasted a smile on her face and launched into explaining her vision for the show as his eyes glazed over.
Boy, you're young.
And determined. And so fucking ready for this. And she wasn't about to let Will McAvoy ruin it.
He didn't always listen to her. He would start sentences with “Len would...” and “Charlie said...” and Mac got that, she really did, but Len and Charlie weren't her.
“With all due respect,” Mac took a deep breath and told herself that punching the anchor in the face before he went on the air was a Very. Bad. Idea. “You came to CNN for a reason.”
“Yeah, for the money,” Will shot back, and Mac was stunned momentarily by his honesty. “And for the chance to reach a bigger audience.”
“We don't need to reach a bigger audience,” Mac argued. “We need to do the news better for the audience we have.”
She was certain, though, that she could bring him round to her side. Mac prided herself on being a good judge of character, and though he was flawed and cared far too much about the numbers and about validation from the audience, Will was a good man. And despite his protestations to the contrary, he cared about the news. He was cut from the same cloth as Charlie Skinner. As his old EP Len. As Murrow and as Cronkite.
“You're a real pain in the ass,” Will would complain time and again to Mac, who would ignore him. But there was a smile tugging at the corners of his lips that softened the words, and Mac couldn't help but mirror his smile.
They were making progress. It was slow. But it was progress. And Mac was fighting for every inch Will was giving her.
Some days she would come home, drop her keys in a bowl by the door, and head immediately towards the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of wine and a glass.
Some days she didn't bother with the glass.
"Tell them you can't work with him," her sometimes boyfriend Brian would say. Most of the time she ignored him. She was doing that more and more often lately.
Mac found working with Will a challenge, and she always did like a challenge.
So they continued working together, cobbling together a show that they were both proud of. They clashed. Often. There were a number of heated exchanges, and on any given day one or the other would storm out of the conference room during a run down. Will's displeasure was loud, and MacKenzie made sure that hers was louder, and they both made more than one intern cry.
But it was getting better. He was using, “Charlie would have,” and “Len said,” far less often than he had when he first started, and Mac recognized that he was trying and she appreciated it.
Then, on month four, Will asked her out, stunning her into momentary silence.
"I thought you hated me!" Mac sputtered, and to her irritation, Will let out a laugh.
"Apparently not," he replied.
"Do you think it's a good idea? You and I going out and working together?" Mac asked, and Will shrugged, the grin never leaving his face.
"I think it's worth a shot."
Brian ghosted across her mind, but they were in a definite off phase. And the way Will was smiling at her made her stomach do things she wasn't sure she was quite comfortable with. And fuck, she was thirty now. She wanted more than what Brian was offering her. She was tired of his bullshit, of his pouting and ignoring her phone calls and texts for weeks and then turning up at her doorstep with a bashful smile and a half-assed apology.
"Oh," she muttered, "what the hell." She shot Will a crooked smile. "Sure. Let's go get drinks after the show."
It was, despite all the heartbreak that would follow, still the best decision she would ever make.
Replying to Brian's text three nights later would firmly go down in history as one of the worst decisions she would ever make.
It took Will exactly four more months to tell her he loved her. Mac blinked at him in surprise, and he blushed.
"You don't have to say it back," Will reassured, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze. "I know it's fast, I know that. Probably too fast, but fuck it. Life is short, MacKenzie, and I've wasted a lot of years not saying those words. And I don't need you to say it back to me. I just need you to know it."
Mac didn't say it back, but she did grab his face between her hands and press a searing kiss to his lips.
"I can't say it yet," she told him. "But that doesn't mean I never will.”
They tumbled into bed, tossing clothes on their way, Will's hands feverishly roaming her body, and Mac thought about Brian again, but he was pushed out by Will's mouth crashing against hers, and just Will, Will, Will filling her senses.
She called Brian the next morning and broke it off for good.
He showed up at her apartment later that night, but she closed the door on him and didn't speak to him again until he showed up in her newsroom years later.
When Will stayed over the next night, his body molded around hers, she turned to face him, tracing his nose with her fingertip and then pressed a light kiss to his cheek.
“I love you,” she told him, her voice low and sincere.
“You shouldn't feel like you...” he started, and she shushed him.
“I don't feel like I have to say it, I want to say it,” Mac argued, and Will's face split into a wide smile, and Mac couldn't help but kiss the smile off his face. He pulled back and kissed her bare shoulder blade.
“Then say it again,” he murmured into her warm skin.
“I love you,” she repeated. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”