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He always had referred to her as hurricane MacKenzie. She’d be a tornado if we named them in the same manner as hurricanes. She breezed in, destroyed everything in her path and then left as quickly as she appeared.
Being from Nebraska, Will was familiar with tornadoes.
Familiar with the debate of whether they should try to wake dad up from his drunken slumber when the sirens started blaring. Usually, they decided on not waking John up. Especially after he wailed on Will following a false alarm. Instead, the McAvoy kids, lead by Will, would hide in a corner of their basement with a flashlight and whatever book they could find and hope that their father would be blown away in the storm.
With MacKenzie, he welcomed the disaster.
And a disaster from the start, she was. It should have been a warning of things to come.
“Oh bloody hell,” She stares at Will’s now coffee soaked shoes, and sucks her bottom lip in before looking up at him. “I am so incredibly sorry! It’s my first day and I’m running late for a meeting.” She hesitates as the realization of who he is must come through, “With you actually. I’m MacKenzie McHale. I’m your new Executive Producer.” She tentatively holds her hand out to shake his as a nervous smile crosses her features but doesn’t meet her eyes.
He is gruff, and rightfully so he thinks; his shoes are covered in her latte. She’s younger than he had anticipated her being. Doe-eyed, and frantic, trying to fit too much into her day— “Let’s go to my office.”
“I truly am sorry,” she steps in line behind him and he walks a bit quicker than he normally would. In part due to the seeping wetness of his shoes, but also to prove a point to her that heels of that nature don’t make her look mature and able to do her job. Quite the opposite, in fact, they make her look incredibly— attractive is the first word to mind, and isn’t that the problem? No one will ever take her seriously if it looks like she’s trying to sleep her way up the ladder. Maybe she had. Maybe this is the reason he had a new EP. MacKenzie keeps pace with him, never teetering in the shoes, much to his dismay. And a frown settles into his face, his eyebrows knit together.
They step into his office, the desk directly in front of the doorway, and Will goes to sit down. MacKenzie continues to stand rather than sitting in one of the chairs slightly off to the side. “We need to change your office set up around,” she makes a couple of notes on a yellow legal pad.
“What?”
She points to the door, “Your last EP left because you’re an,” she looks down at the pad, “unbearable asshole who is incredibly difficult to work for.” She looks up and smiles, unfazed by the daggers he was sending her. “I know you’re not that, but that’s the image you’re sending to your staff. So, we will move the desk so that when they come in with information they aren’t immediately met with your scowl.” She frowns, “And stop that, would you? You’re going to wrinkle faster and it’s harder for me to sell an angry old man with bad opinions than just the bad opinions on their own.”
Will leans back in his chair, unsure of how he was losing this sparring match, “Bad opinions?”
“You’re a republican, it comes with the territory,” she smirks.
“Oh fuck, you’re a Brit! What would you know about American politics?”
“I appreciate that you did not refer to my woman-ness as a reason for not knowing politics, thank you. But, you would be mistaken— I am an American.”
“You know, the accent really sells that.”
“My father is a British diplomat— it doesn’t matter. I am more than qualified to have opinions on the current political disaster, and that’s not the discussion we are having.”
“Fine, you want me to move the desk?” Will folds his arms across his chest and raises an eyebrow.
“Yes, to that wall.” She points to the far side of the office where there was currently a couch. “The couch to this wall.” She answers before he has the time to ask the question.
She goes past the chairs just to the side of his desk and plops herself onto his couch. Her pencil skirt rises higher up on her thighs as she crosses her legs. And Will, being a man, can’t help but linger on her physical appearance longer than appropriate. “Make yourself at home?” Will tries to suppress his smirk.
“I own you now, pal o’mine. I will make myself at home wherever I damn well please.”
_____________________________
Daughter of a traveling diplomat. A British American who grew up in Greece, and Russia. A nomad. A runner. Will firing her gave her the opportunity to run again. To find a new place for her to wreak havoc. But, instead, her pulled the rug out from under her. And put a ring on her finger. Out of seemingly nowhere.
She spun the ring around her finger mulling over his words that he had fumbled over while making the most romantic gesture she could have ever imagined. Finding solitude in the moments following their announcement to the staff had been difficult, but as she sits and has a moment to herself— she’s terrified.
The ring was nothing more than a joke, a rejoinder. Will couldn’t possibly love her after her enormous blunder with Genoa. Why would he? It’s got to be a practical joke, like the second she walks out of her office the whole staff will laugh at her for believing that Will could have been serious.
But, then again, his reverent whisper thanking god that she said yes. That couldn’t have been faked? Will is good at many things but hiding his emotions is not one of them. He wears them all on his sleeve for all to see whether he wants to or not.
And behind her happy tears, and the nervously excited laughs over champagne and cigars, Mac is waiting for the curtain to be pulled back and the illusion to be ruined. They had never, really, been good at the emotions of being in a committed relationship. They could look back on the past with all the rose colored glasses they wanted to, but underneath it all— there was a reason Mac ran back to Brian. There were reasons Will took the meetings over a late night show out west. They romanticized it all now. And while she, without a doubt, still loves him and meant it when she said yes to marrying him, it doesn’t mean they suddenly know how to have an idealized relationship.
“The floor isn’t going to swallow you up if you stare at it for long enough,” Will enters with a smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes. He can tell that there’s something eating at her, and she knows it.
“I think—“ she stops for a moment knowing the ramifications of choosing this path, “I think I should give you the ring back.” She meets his eye for the first time since he walked into her office.
“Do you not like this one? I can get a different one, or…?” He takes a step towards her with an expression so soft, one that she’s only seen less than a handful of times. And it breaks her heart seeing him about to break right in front of her that tears sneak out of the corners of her eyes. “You meant give it back as in…” he doesn’t finish his sentence and she understands the desire to not say it aloud.
“Will, I— you and I, we…” she hastily wipes at her face, “You know this is crazy, right?”
“I meant it, Kenz, you own me. It’s a law of the universe— you said it the very first day I met you and it’s been true ever since.” He goes across the office and kneels despite the protesting in his left knee. He curls his hand around her chin, not hard, his fingers merely ghosting over her skin; his thumb running mindlessly over her bottom lip prying it out from her teeth. “You can make yourself at home. I’m not going to pull the rug out from you.” But you already did, she thinks to herself.
She laughs, but it sounds more like a gasp. The air strangled in her throat as she remembers the moment he pulls out the dark abyss of their past, “I spilt my latte on you that day.” Her laugh’s watery, as she wipes at the tears still running down her cheeks. She remembers being mortified that day, absolutely and utterly horrified at her first impression even if the clumsiness was true to character. “I,” she closes her eyes and shakes her head, “I can’t believe you remember that. I have tried hard to forget that moment.”
Will stands up because of the pressure on his knee she assumes, and sits on top of her desk pulling her to be situated between his legs. “Funny, because that was the moment I knew you and I were going to be great friends.”
“Friends? Billy, we were never friends in the past life.” MacKenzie says almost sadly.
Instead of getting offended or hotheaded over her response like she thought he might, Will smiled and continued, “I guess it has been some years, but, Mac, we were definitely friends prior to being together.”
Without knocking, MacKenzie burst into his office a week after she started being his EP. The show had just wrapped up, she had debriefed the senior staff while he went to his office to change. Being in at 10 had awarded him opportunities, but ending at 11 could be brutal some days. Mac seemed like she was still adjusting to it as the bags under her eyes had grown in a short amount of time.
“I told you a week ago that you needed to rearrange your office,” she goes to sit at his desk.
“Yeah I put in a work order and they haven’t come by yet,” he shrugs as he moves away from his office bathroom where he had just finished changing. He was hoping that she didn’t see right through the lie about a work order. Deflecting, he says, “Also, knocking seems to be beneath you, huh?”
“Told you, Billy boy, when you’re here you’re mine,” She meets his eye with a devious looking smirk, “Go out into the bullpen and walk back in.”
“What? Why?”
“Oh, just do it!” She rolled her eyes, but had a smile across her face. He was pretty sure she could ask him to start juggling fire and he would learn how to do it just to appease her.
Will walks out into the bullpen, hesitates for a moment noticing that everyone else had left for the evening. The smile creeps across his face without him even realizing it as he thinks about having some of her undivided attention. She handles it well, but as all of the staff practically worships the ground she walks on, MacKenzie is often pulled in fifteen directions at any given moment. So, to just have her, even for a moment, fully focused on him…
He stops that line of thinking and tries to put back on the gruff exterior. She was his equal here (or so he kept telling himself— she could be the boss of him, she is the boss of him really) and it would be inappropriate to ask any more than that. “Okay,” he pushes open the door to see her making her ‘serious’ face. Which makes him burst out laughing. “Mac, hon, listen I understand the point you are trying to make,” he starts laughing so hard that it interrupts his speech.
“Oh fine!” She stands up frustrated and throws her hands up. “Let’s just do this then.”
“Work order,” he tries again.
“Are you physically inept?”
He is taken aback at that. Didn’t he look better than that? He might not go to the gym as much as he used to, but he tried to remain in decent shape being single and on TV and all… “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. What is it? Weaker than you look? Bad back?” She cocks her head to the side, challenging him.
“I can assure you, Ms. McHale, that my back poses no issue to whatever activities—“
Mac cuts him off, but he notices the blush dust over her neck. It makes him pleased, strangely. “Okay, big boy, then let’s move the furniture.”
“Okay, so,” he stops and thinks about his left knee, “You call yourself an American. How good is your understanding of baseball?”
“Now see here, Billy, I—“ she starts off fiery, but burns out quickly, “None. I really have no understanding of any of your sports. Any sports really.”
“I was a collegiate pitcher. So you use your front leg to push off of,” Will demonstrates his pitching motion, “And I might have a less than cooperative left knee.”
She blinks at him and looks at the furniture around the room before going to grab one end of the couch, “You’ll live. Come here.”
They move the office around with relative ease, and settle down on the couch together just a half an hour later. Will sits on one end allowing her to choose how close she is comfortable sitting next to him. He holds back a smile when she sits close enough to him that she leans her head against him. “You should know baseball, Mac, if you’re going to claim to be American.” He jests, completely at relaxed in the moment.
“I have an American birth certificate, an American passport—“
“And a British accent, knowledge base, and education. I bet you think that the dumping of tea into the harbor was the most egregious thing the patriots could have done.”
She shifts to face him, “I think it was a waste of tea. Also, I went to an American grammar school. Here, in New York.”
“Elementary.” Will corrects.
“What?”
“It’s called Elementary school here,” he says with a smirk.
She looks at him solidly for a moment with her bottom lip tucked up between her teeth, before asking “Would you want to continue this over a drink?”
“We started dating practically that evening!” Mac counters, her mood lifting slightly at the memory and the facts that he remembers that moment as vividly as she did. She also remembered the text Brian sent her that evening. It was during one of their solidly off times, but then a year later and four messy months and that’s… that’s why the ring couldn’t stay on her finger.
“No! I didn’t take you out on a real date until a few months later,” Will takes her left hand in his and twiddles the band around her finger. “Listen, Kenzie, if you want to give the ring back…” he bows his head, and she can tell that he is really trying to maintain a strong front, “I have hurt you. I have been a thickheaded ass who is wholly undeserving of your love. So, if you want to give the ring back— call it a momentary lapse in judgment—“
Maggie knocks on the door and sticks her head inside, “Um, 2 minutes back.” She fumbles as she leaves.
“Will, I…” Mac trails off trying to find the words that accurately explain the way she is feeling. “I am afraid that this was too impulsive. You fired me earlier this evening! What if… what if it doesn’t work out? What if you realize tomorrow, a week from now, three months from now that you made a mistake. That you don’t trust me. That you aren’t actually in love with me. What then? Billy, you and I have had some rough patches before. We are pigheaded, stubborn asses that didn’t always get along.”
“You came back though,” Will said with a small smile, “You came back after I threw you out because you loved me. You loved the work we did together. I know that hasn’t changed, Mac. We have to go back— think about it. Don’t make a decision now. We still have an hour left on air.”
MacKenzie pushes her chair back and grabs his hand. He brushes a piece of hair out of her face, and tips her chin up.
“You’ve got to get on air,” she whispers, “I’d be a horrible EP if I was the reason you didn’t make it to your mark.”
“As long as you’re coming, too. I need you,” he hesitates, “in my ear.”
______
Will had decided that he was going to end things with her, MacKenzie. The show was going great, and they were getting along almost perfectly. And that, that was his issue— never had he been in a relationship that he would have considered serious. Opting to stay open, and casual, rather than whatever it was he was doing with MacKenzie.
MacKenzie, with her pretty blush that crept up her next when he was being particularly charming, was rapidly becoming his favorite part of everyday. Her British accent coming out stronger when she was tired or tipsy, and the way she murmurs Billy in his ear—
It had to end. Soon, he would find himself in danger, at risk, at a crossroads where he would have to figure out if it was worth going and taking shelter from Hurricane MacKenzie. And perhaps that was the reason she was a hurricane and not a tornado— he knew how to handle a tornado. Tunnel underground and wait for the storm to pass. Hurricanes forced you to seek out higher ground or it would suck you under.
(He was still trying to bail out water while hoping she kept the ring in her finger.)
Today’s the day, he told himself as he got dressed to take her out for a lunch. A lunch where he plans on telling her that she’s lovely, but that work was his first priority and—
He looks at his reflection in the mirror and curses the similarities he sees between him and his father. And, the fact that he knew where the bottle of Jameson was and how much was left and what it felt like burning down his throat as he decides that there couldn’t continue to be a Will and Mac.
His phone starts ringing from across his apartment where he had left it plugged in to charge. Cursing as he hits the corner of his dresser with an errant toe. He is moving too quickly. The anticipation of seeing her and making that choice. Out of what? Fear? It’s been a good thing. They’re a good thing.
“Mac,” he grimaces as he finally answers the phone knowing full well where his mind is at and all she knows is that they have a lunch date.
“Will!” She sounds like her phone is 10 feet away and she’s screaming. “My sister,” she starts but then must move too far from the phone for it to pick her voice up.
“Mac,” he sighs and he can hear her distant in the background. “Mac!”
“Sorry,” she picks up her phone, or so he assumes by the sudden closeness of her voice, “My sister is here. In DC. With no warning.”
Will takes a deep breath, “Which one Mac? There’s like 15 of you.”
“There’s 5 of us,” he can practically hear her rolling her eyes, “Hattie.”
“Hattie?” He repeats back as he is trying to figure out which one that is. MacKenzie is the oldest, the brother is the youngest…
“Harriet, Billy,” she admonishes, but he can tell she’s smiling.
“She’s closest in age to you?” Finding himself taking mental notes despite his original plans for the afternoon.
“Yes. And she’s here. I mean who does that? Show up unannounced? And I know we had plans for this afternoon, but now, I—“
“She can go out with us.” Will interrupts. And closes his eyes wondering if he made the right choice. It was impulsive, but maybe this was a sign from the universe. He could meet her family because maybe they were supposed to be together.
She’s silent for a moment, “Wait, Will?”
“I mean it, Kenz.” And he finds himself meaning it.
——————————
The show ends, unlike the rest of the evening, unremarkably. Obama has won again, and the rest of the country is sorting itself out. The staff is still hooting and hollering and whistling anytime Will and Mac are around.
“I’ll drive you home?” He whispers into her ear as they head towards her office.
She pauses for half a second wondering if it’s appropriate to make some quippy comment about the last time he was behind the wheel of a car, but reconsiders because of how unbelievably kind he had been since the ring had been slipped around her finger. Instead, because she assumes, it would be out of character to just agree without any sort of push back, “I’m in midtown, so it might just be easier—“
“I remember where you live, MacKenzie from Midtown. The night bird and I happen to be on a first-name basis,” he smiles and holds out his hand for her to take.
“Right, yes. I haven’t spoken to the nightbird in some time…” she trails off thinking about the reasons her and Will hadn’t had their late night phone call in sometime. First, it was Nina before he pulled his head out of his ass and then being at the office all night with Rebecca and her team or talking strategy with Will and Charlie or reassuring Jim and Maggie and Sloan and everyone else that it would all be okay.
“Mac,” he waves his hand in front of her face. “You’re a million miles away.”
“Nope. Not this time,” she grabs the few things she needed until the morning and turns to drag him along with her. __________________
Will has a ring. But not really. Not yet. He has a ring in mind. It sits in a jeweler’s window display that he passes by on Sunday morning while he’s on his walk to grab coffee, sandwiches and the Sunday paper. The ring isn’t sitting in their apartment yet, because, the main reason, he tells himself, the store isn’t open on Sunday. But, really, because the late night deal memo is still sitting in his locked desk drawer and he can’t propose to her until he admits to her that he has really considered it. And that would be the equivalent of setting their apartment on fire.
He stares at it longer than usual and makes the decision that he is going to buy it tomorrow on his lunch break.
It is that morning that she thinks Will is going to propose. She tells him about Brian.
——————————
Will gets out of the car and follows her into the lobby of her building. His hand is warm and steady at the small of her back, but not in a way that is overwhelming. Mac turns to face him at the elevators after hitting the call button and stares down at the floor. She lives in a nice enough building. Her apartment is clean enough, and he had lived with her for a year so he wouldn’t be surprised by the work papers spread out across her living room and bedroom. Or the pile of pillows stacked on the floor beside her bed. Or by the night light plugged in.
He wouldn’t be surprised by the stunning lack of food save for some greek yogurt and bananas. Or by the mass of empty wine bottles collecting dust while sitting on the floor by her trash can waiting to be taken out.
And even if he was surprised by any of it, he certainly wouldn’t say anything.
She looks up at him, his brow furrowed with a quiet anxiety and concern, and decides to let him come in. The elevator doors open a moment later and she pulls him inside. Wordlessly, Mac hits her floor button and settles into the juncture of the walls facing towards Will. He was nervous, she could tell. He never was very good at keeping his walls up around her outside of the office. Even since she came back— it was in the late night phone calls, drinks at the bar, those were the moments he let it slip just a little that there was a reason for her to continue to hope.
The elevator dings and opens at the 11th floor— just high enough to give her a decent view of the neighboring marquee sign. The yellow and orange lights seeping into her living room and bedroom. MacKenzie, never a fan of the dark, welcomed the intrusion and hardly ever fully closed the curtains.
Will walks in behind her and immediately notes the pile of shoes by the front door, and the TV in the living room left on to ACN, or so she assumes as the small smile slowly grows bigger and she can practically hear him admonishing her for those small details that had always irked him before. “Somethings just don’t change, huh Kenz?”
“But the important things could,” she says before tucking her bottom lip between her teeth and shifting from her right side to the left as she removes her heels and adds them to the pile. “I… I…”
“I simply meant that you never could figure out how to turn off the damn TV before you left before and it seems like that habit didn’t stay in DC.” He places his hands on her shoulders and for a moment she wants to back away and create space between them. The newness of being able to be in his space again after reminding herself not to get too close in fear that his cologne or tobacco smell that was all too familiar would make her swoon. And swooning made her just end up home alone with too much wine in her glass.
But he was here now.
“Will, I promise that I will never hurt you again,” she whispers near tears. And it’s mostly exhaustion. Mostly. Nearly. The other reasons being that he could wake up in the morning and realize what a terrible mistake he made. Or worse, they just don’t work no matter how hard they try. “Not intentionally. At least.”
He kisses her forehead before wrapping his arms around her and squeezing tight. Clearly, he wasn’t afraid of taking up her space like she was taking in his. “Mac, I will give you two options, and no matter what you decide, I promise I will not change my mind. I bought that ring for you. There is no one else I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“What are my options?” She takes a step back from him squinting her eyes at him in a way she hopes is curious and soft and not swamp creature like.
“Both options are limited to getting real sleep. As much as I find you to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, you’re in desperate need of sleep before anything else. Option one is that I stay the night here with you. Option two is that I go home and I come back in the morning with breakfast.”
————————————
The sheets were definitely not his. Definitely not. His sheets always smelt almost sterile, not quite hospital smelling, but certainly less… feminine… than the ones he currently found himself in.
And, it wasn’t that he was a terrible guy. But, he certainly was a leave shortly after whatever it was that brought him in was finished kind of guy. So, the moment was rare that he woke up in someone else’s sheets.
“Good morning,” a lilting, raspy voice says as her foot brushes against his calf.
Fuck. He knows exactly who it is and exactly how they got here and exactly why it was entirely inappropriate for them to have gone down this road.
He settles for a moment and hopes that she’d believe him if pretended to be asleep until she has to get up and then he can make his break. Except…
Except, it’s MacKenzie and he’ll have to go to work the same time as her. And, it’s MacKenzie, so she’ll know he’s lying. And, it’s MacKenzie and he’s not sure he wants to lie to her.
He rolls over and meets her eyes. Her eyelids half-closed from being barely roused from sleep. “Morning, Kenz,” he finds himself smiling despite the worry sinking into the pit of his stomach.
“It’s got to be early, my alarm hasn’t gone off yet,” she keeps the conversation on neutral ground and for that he’s thankful. It’s easier to talk about that than it would be to talk about that one too many drinks after a good night at work lead to her up against wall in an alleyway and his lips trailing down her neck. “Plenty of time to…” she trails off and frowns.
“I could make you breakfast?” He offers, in his mind, out of momentary panic and a penchant for egg mcmuffins.
“That would be wonderful if I had a single thing in the fridge… or the kitchen in general… which I do not.” She flops onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. He can’t help but watch her intently waiting to see her next move for some indication of what he should do next. She stays that way for longer than he is comfortable and the silence is slowly threatening him to make a move, but then, she speaks softly, “You already regret last night.” She turns just her head to look at him, “Don’t you?”
Will would think she’s just projecting her feelings, but something tells him that it’s not that. It’s that, four months into being EP, she knows his mannerisms a touch too well. “Regret isn’t the right word, but I do have concerns.”
“We work together?” She supplies.
“That,” he pauses. While a big thing that shouldn’t be ignored, at least in terms of company structure, they were on the same level and HR couldn’t throw an inappropriate workplace violation at them. The real issue is that he really likes her both in work and out. Throwing caution at the wind, “And, I quite like you.”
“At work?” Her brows knit together.
“Just you, Kenz. All the time. Anytime.” His voice laced with emotion he wouldn’t dare to acknowledge any other time.
“There’s a great bagel place just around the corner.”
If he were to look back, knowing now her tendency to run, perhaps he would have chosen another thing to say.
_______________________
“Stay.” She smiles slowly, carefully.
“You’re positive?” MacKenzie can hear the nervousness in his voice, and it’s in this moment she makes a decisive decision.
“Absolutely,” she closes the space between the two of them, curls her hand around his neck and pulls him down to meet her lips. But, he stops her.
“Are you in, MacKenzie. Really in? Because I’m not fucking around. I don’t want to—“
“I’m in.”
“Thank god.”