A/N: Written at Meg's (tumblr user superspies-and-apple-pie, aka my beta/writing body/sister-in-arms) behest, for her 23rd birthday. The pacing is probably a little weird, but she had a long list of things she wanted in included (which I'll post at the end), so just deal with that. This was also supposed to be short, but I think we all know that brevity and I rarely ever get along. The title is a line from Neko Case's Go Places, which is one of my top Will/Mac songs.

TW: Violence, and references to past abuse.

She changes her mind halfway to the lobby, after his repeated insistence that he was right, that what he did was moral, that it was right, just. No, she thinks. He's going to answer for this. He cooked raw footage, he's going to answer for it.

MacKenzie jabs her finger at the stop button on the elevator, barely giving pause to Jerry's exclamations before sending them back towards the 24th floor. She'll make him explain to the entire staff why they have to retract Genoa, send him in front of Will, and Charlie, and whoever wants him to explain, personally, why he doctored an interview with a three star Marine Corps general.

By the 20th floor Jerry is screaming at her.

It feels like the floor's coming out from under her, but Mac won't let him see her cry. She lets her temper fuel her anger until it's a building flame and her panic is swallowed under billows of dark smoke, and by the time the elevator opens out onto the News Night floor she's yelling right back.

"The shot clock! How did you think no one would figure it out eventually? How, Jerry?" He almost doesn't let her out of the elevator, but she pushes past him, pointing at him as she continues yelling. He hesitates for a moment, looking like he's going to let the doors close with him still on the inside, but she tilts her head, lips pursing, and he follows her out. "Tell me, please."

"It happened, Mac-"

"We can't prove that!" She takes a shuddering breath, pushing the panic back down, circling back towards him. "Do you understand what you've opened this company, all of us, everyone who works for this show-do you understand what kind of legal hell you've opened us to? We accused these people of war crimes!"

Jerry steps towards her, and somehow they both step towards the bullpen. "It happened—"

"Do you understand what you've done to our reputations?" And that's it, MacKenzie thinks, seeing her career in journalism end right before her, in Jerry Dantana. Her name, and Will's, and Charlie's. Done. News Night, over. And maybe the staff could be spared, if they resigned, but nothing is ever going to be put to rights over this. "Our names? No one who worked on this story will ever—"

"It was a risk!" Jerry shouts, turning red in the face.

"The fucking shot clock, Jerry!" Standing at the cusp of the entrance to the newsroom, Mac faintly recognizes that they've gained an audience, the staffers slowing to a standstill and openly staring at the display. "Oh my God, how did I not catch this before this went to air. How did I—"

She doesn't think Jerry has noticed, and she tries to get him to follow her to Will's office.

"We have other evidence! Sweeney—"

She pivots on her heel, pointing at him again. Her face is getting red, she can feel it, and she doesn't even care anymore, she's fucking terrified and she's fucking pissed. "The TBI! He's not a credible source, Jerry! He's your source. Just like Mike Tapley was your source. You gave us unreliable sources, and then you went and doctored goddamn raw footage, so don't you dare tell me-"

"Valenzeula-"

"Didn't say anything except confirm Sweeney!"

Jerry tries again, stalking into her personal space, making her take a step back. "Back. Up."

"The Munitions Manifest—"

"Doesn't actually say sarin. Stomtonovich said sarin," Mac seethes, gesturing wildly. "You cooked the footage so that Stomtonovich fucking said it was sarin. Without Stomtonovich it means nothing. Without Stomtonovich, it never would have gone to air."

His face flashes from angry to desperate to righteous in an instant. "Genoa happened!"

They've attracted quite a crowd. Taking another step back, Mac sweeps her hands out in front of her and tries to lower her voice, tries to regain an inch, just an inch, of her control over this situation. To calm down. "I'm sure it did, but I'm sure from the fact that the Department of Defense and the Pentagon is looking to charge us with espionage means that maybe they didn't use sarin." Carding her fingers through her hair, she tries once again to herd him into Will's office. "And if they did, we can't prove it anymore. No one-"

She spots Will standing with the door open to his office, quickly piecing everything together while the senior staff stands, in shock, in a group not far behind.

Pitch meeting. Benghazi. Right.

And then she looks back to Jerry.

"It happened, we have—"

No he cannot be doing this. He cannot be trying to defend himself, still, and Mac cannot believe the gall, and instead of away she takes a step forward, clenching her hands into fists, tears welling her eyes again, and God, no, just no, and it's happening, she feels the panic overtaking the anger and it's all fanning together and Jerry's just standing there, palms stretched out in front of him, like he's innocent.

"No one—"

"We went into Iraq because he had these things."

"No one—"

"We don't torture we don't use chemical weapons—"

"No one—"

There's a brief second where there's absolute silence, a vacuum of sound from the stunned staff as Jerry collects his last, before spitting the words out as quickly as he can. "I wouldn't have doctored footage for any other story and I wouldn't have done it unless I was sure!"

"Is ever going to believe us again!" she shouts, voice hoarse, barely holding it all back. "My god, man! You've ruined all of us!"

Jerry takes another two steps forward, and she takes one back, somewhat cognizant of Will pushing through the crowd to get to the two of them, Jim right behind him, out of the corner of her eye

She raises her hands in front of her, nearly over her face, pushing her shoulders back. "Back the hell up—"

"I was sure, Mac!" he yells, taking another step, and then another, until she's almost backed up against someone's empty desk.

She puts her hands on his chest, pushing him back. He's done. You're done. "That doesn't count for shit!"

"I was sure!"

He flicks the words out of his mouth to her feet, tight and unrepentant, grabbing her forearms and pushing them off his chest and not letting go, curling his fingers into the fine bones of her wrists.

And Mac understands—more than she actually experiences—understands that people are gasping and she's pretty sure Will is shouting like he's about to kill, and Jim, ever logical, has his cell phone out and is calling security because there's no point in trying to stop Will from murdering someone, the man used to play the offensive line. (What little MacKenzie knows about American football is that.)

But it's over in seconds when she jams the heel of one of her Christian Louboutin stilettos into Jerry's instep and swings a closed fist into his jaw the moment his grip slackens on her arms.

Jerry staggers away from Mac before falling flat on his ass, which is enough for Gary and Martin to let go of him. Although Will thinks that might also be that Don's gotten to Jerry and grabbed him under one arm and has started dragging him back to the wall. But either way, he nods at Jim's "security's on their way up," and gets to Mac's side just as she groans and tucks her hand in close to her middle, curling at the wait.

"Mac?"

"Oh, that was bad form," she mumbles, suddenly pale.

"Mac?" Wrapping an arm around her, Will pulls most of her weight against him, using his free hand to pull out the chair at the desk she's half-leaning on and then placing her in it. "MacKenzie?"

"We have to retract Genoa. All of it," she says on an exhale, cradling her right hand in her left arm. "Tonight." Another breath. "In… ninety minutes." He kneels down next to her, rubbing the flat of his palm in circles along her back. "You're shaking."

He… fuck. Yeah. He is. Um.

"Let me see your hand," he says, instead of responding, offering one of his own, upturned. Seeing something like realization gloss over MacKenzie's eyes (not pity, she doesn't pity, MacKenzie pity him, no matter how hard she may try to coddle him, at times) he looks away, gently taking her arm and laying her hand over his, careful not to force her fingers to splay or bend any way that they may be disinclined to at the moment.

"I panicked," she tries to explain, moaning quietly. "I hit him with my fingers instead of my knuckles." Wincing, she squirms a bit in the seat, and Will wraps his arm around her more securely, feeling almost relieved when she leans into him fully. "And I was aiming for his stupid nose. Not his goddamn jaw."

Whining softly, she tucks her head in against his neck. He delicately places her hand down onto her lap and wraps both arms around her, focusing on her breath on his skin, the expansion and compression of her abdomen with each inhale and exhale that he can feel under his hands, pushing himself into the present, out of the farmhouse in Nebraska and away from minutes ago, with Dantana's hands wrapped at Mac's wrists, holding her against a desk.

"It was a pretty impressive punch."

She laughs a little, a wet sound. Craning his neck, he sees her wipe her eyes with her uninjured hand. "Thanks."

A commotion erupts from the entrance of the bullpen, drawing their attention away from each other and back to the entirely surreal (Mac just punched Jerry. Jerry doctored the interview. Stomtonovich never said they used sarin. They have to retract Genoa. They falsely accused the US government of perpetrating war crimes. They're all fucking done for) going on around them.

"What the fuck is going down here?"

A crowd of shocked staffers parts, and Will can see Dantana still half-slumped against the wall, Don and Jim standing over him.

"Charlie," Mac murmurs, mostly steady, getting to her feet.

"He doctored the raw footage for the Stomtonovich interview," Will says, pointing a lazily indignant finger at Jerry, smiling almost reflexively at Charlie's look of horror. "Stomtonovich never said they used sarin. Mac caught it while looking over the footage, brought him up here to fire him, and jackass grabbed her so Mac punched him in the jaw."

"Wait, what." Charlie turns to look down at Jerry. "And he's still in the building?"

"Security's on their way," Will answers, gesturing to Jim and feeling Mac brush up against his arm.

"She pushed me first—"

"Oh fuck you!" Maggie yells, crossing her arms under her chest, face wrinkling in agitation.

Jerry staggers to his feet, holding his jaw and bracing himself against the wall with one hand. "I'm suing her for assault."

"Oh like hell you are," Will snaps, absently angling himself so he's between Jerry and Mac. "If nothing else, we're calling the cops and MacKenzie's filing a police report."

Neal steps forward at that, holding up his cell phone. "I have the whole thing on video. Jerry quite clearly backed Mac into a corner and she tried to push him away from her. It was only when he grabbed her that she hit him."

"The whole thing?"

"Yeah, and I have him admitting he cooked the tape." Neal pauses, fumbling with his BlackBerry for a second. "So he can't, you know, claim wrongful termination or anything."

Security finally shows up in the middle of Neal's further explanation of when exactly he started videoing, and at Jim's direction goes to Jerry. Will watches to make sure that Charlie takes over the situation before starting to lead Mac into her office as the chaos in the newsroom returns to it's normal, albeit significantly more manic, level.

"No, Will, the conference room. We need to talk about this." She digs her heels in, trying to direct him in the other direction, her hand tucked up against her sternum. "Genoa, Will. We have to figure out the retraction."

"It's going to be fine," he murmurs, following her when she changes direction, his fingers pinched into the back of her blouse.

She looks at him, distraught.

No, please don't do that—

He stops, cupping her elbows, making her look at him, waiting to speak until she does. "The story we reported on Sunday, Operation Genoa, was incorrect. While Operation Genoa did exist, the report that sarin was used in the extraction of three marine officers was fabricated, the interview with the anonymous United States Marine Corps General was edited to falsely portray him as claiming that sarin was used. The producer behind this unethical, morally reprehensible act was fired, and ACN makes its full apologies to the United States Marine Corps, the Pentagon, and the Department of Defense for not discovering the editing in the footage until after broadcast. The failure is ours, and we take full responsibility for what has happened. ACN is dedicated to—"

"Will, you know it's more serious than that," she whispers.

He sighs, turning his head to look at the senior staff settling into the conference room, frantically shuffling through reports, a few of them unable to sit down, just nervously moving from spot to spot. Don takes a seat in the back, steepling his fingers under his chin, eyes focused on some far-off point, deep in concentration while Jim stands at the head of the table, directing people to take a seat.

Unbidden, Dantana grabbing MacKenzie's arms replays in his mind. Working his jaw, Will tries to shake himself out of it. "We should have someone take you to the ER."

"Its fine, I'll take some ibuprofen—"

"Mac, look at your hand," he says, belatedly realizing that he's almost begging. But it's true. Her fourth knuckle is not supposed to look like that. "This isn't just a 'take some ibuprofen' kind of situation."

"It's," she looks down at her watch, "an hour and fifteen minutes until I have to put you on the air to retract Genoa. I'm not leaving."

"Mac—"

"I'm not leaving, Will," she tells him forcefully, taking a steadying breath before striding towards the conference room.

"Your knuckle is already the size of a golf ball, Mac," he argues, outpacing her to hold the door open for her to pass through. "Get Tess or Maggie to take you and Don can be in my ear, for Chrissake."

She turns on him, hair flurrying around her face, face bright with anger. "Will, if you are going to go on the air to retract Genoa, I am going to be in your ear while you do it. I am going to be there. Do you understand me?"

This is not—

His eyes flicker back and forth between her hand and her face, Dantana backing her into a corner and grabbing her playing again and again and again, and Gary and Martin grabbing him to keep him back, because they were right, he was gonna fucking total the bastard for touching her, and Don was the better choice, but his mind was rushing forward, replaying older memories—the silhouette of his father throwing his mother face down against the tabletop, the solid knock of skull against wood, feet scuffling over linoleum in fear—over what was happening and he can't get it to stop.

Panic rises up, and it must show on his face, because MacKenzie softens, and they both ignore the staff watching them linger in the doorway. "You know I won't leave now."

"Please, just-no." He pauses, licking his lips, pulling out his BlackBerry. "Compromise. I have an orthopedist on retainer. Please, go see him. He'll be quick, and you'll be in and out in less than an hour. Please."

Indecision flashes on her face, and she looks down at her watch again. "Where's his office?"

"West 38th and 5th," he answers, recognizing that his relief is evident in his voice.

MacKenzie sighs, looking up at him with a tiny half-smile that lingers on the corners of her lips.

"Okay. Okay, I'll go."

"Thank you."

Barely cognizant of it until well after it's done, he brings her injured hand to his mouth, and brushes an air-soft kiss over her knuckles.

In the end Don accompanies her in a company car complements of Reese Lansing, who has already called in the lawyers. Will's orthopedist is efficient and no-nonsense, and the intake takes no time at all, and she's shuffled into an exam room within thirty seconds of walking through the door, and it takes her about five minutes to realize this is all probably happening on Will's dime.

A nurse takes her for an x-ray, and twenty minutes after she walks through the door to the practice, Dr. Singh has confirmed a fracture in her fourth and fifth metacarpals. Dr. Singh is discrete, or has been warned to be, because all he does is smile kindly and tell her it must have been a hell of a swing before confirming that she'd like a waterproof cast. The fiberglass cast takes twenty minutes to dry, and by then the nurse has confirmed that this is indeed, being paid for by "Mr. McAvoy," in between discussing how Mac should keep her hand elevated above her shoulder as much as possible in the next 24 hours, to alternate with ibuprofen and naproxen, and if the swelling increases and the cast becomes uncomfortable, just to call.

"I already texted Will," Don says, frowning down at his phone. "Boxer's fracture. You said six to eight weeks, right?"

"Yeah."

Don sends the message and looks up at her, a bit wide-eyed. "This is fucking crazy."

Mac stares down at the white cast covering the last two fingers on her right hand, looping down and around her palm and over her thumb, encasing her forearm to four or five inches before her elbow.

"Yeah."

They'll have to ditch Benghazi, she thinks. Genoa will take up the entire A-block. She wants to report on their source in the State Department for Benghazi but… who would believe them? Should she even believe the source? No, she thinks, testing out what little mobility in her right hand she has left. She'll get Will through the retraction, and they'll report what everyone is else reporting. She'll get him through broadcast, go home, drink a very large glass of wine, and sleep until… she has to get up face the decimation of her career, their careers, and have to put Will on TV anyway, as if broadcasting with his face next to the ACN logo won't be an absolute joke by then.

"It's gonna be okay, Mac," Don tries to assure her in his quiet, unassuming way, an affect that is entirely opposite how most people know him, but hardly ever surprises MacKenzie. "Neal got the whole thing on tape. People are gonna know."

She bites her lip, looking out the window and down at her watch again. Twenty-five minutes to eight.

"I could have caught the shot clock earlier."

Don scoffs, but there's no mocking in it, or undermining of her anxiety, just an attempt at nonchalant reassurance. "How in the hell were you supposed to know to be on the lookout for a Senior Producer practicing journalistic malpractice to settle an idealistic vendetta?"

She shakes her head. "I just… if I had, thirty-six hours ago…"

"Well, you didn't," he says quietly. "And it's not your fault. Genoa is not your fault, and everybody, everybody, in that newsroom is gonna back me up on that."

Their greatest triumph had turned so quickly to humiliating defeat; vicious giants coming up to reveal themselves as windmills.

And Will had kissed her hand.

She doesn't want to think about what that means. Can't dare to hope that it means anything at all, not tonight, not with everything falling to shambles around them.

This is such a fucking mess.

She looks at her watch again. Twenty-three minutes to eight. The bullpen is half-descended into madness when they get back to the 24th floor fifteen minutes left until broadcast. Waving off concerned looks, she goes straight to Charlie, who's standing in the center of it all.

"Where are we?"

"Outside council is being called in," Charlie says, angling towards her while still observing the staff frantically reassembling the show and, Mac thinks, bracing for impact. "After the show, you're gonna have to give HR and legal a statement on what happened in the elevator, and as of right now Reese wants to sue Jerry for damages. We're not going on the air and naming him, of course, but-"

She thinks back to what Will said earlier. "While Operation Genoa did exist, the report that sarin was used in the extraction of three marine officers was fabricated, the interview with the anonymous United States Marine Corps General was edited to falsely portray him as claiming that sarin was used. The producer behind this unethical, morally reprehensible act was fired-"

"Yeah." Charlie answers, before a look that's similar to someone coming to their senses highlights his features and his hand comes to rest on her bicep. "You okay? I heard it was a hell of a hit."

"I'm fine." Not really, but she's holding on. She gives Charlie a small smile, and thinks he knows what she means. She looks around a bit, exhaling through her mouth. "How's everyone?" Biting her lip, she tucks her hand in closer to her middle. "How's Will?"

"Everyone's a little messed up, but doing their jobs, pulling together." They are. Their little family is leaning on each other, Mac can see, working in groups and not straying far from one another. "Will's out of hair and makeup. He's in his office going over his script."

"Thanks."

Trying to give him another small smile, she turns to head to Will's office.

"Hey."

She turns back to Charlie, who's looking at her, concerned. "You're okay? Not just your hand?"

Mac opens her mouth, prepared to just come out with a platitude, but reconsiders. "I will be." I think. Maybe. We have to get through this, first. She indicates her head towards Will's office. "I have to—"

"Yeah. Go."

She leans on Will's doorway instead of actually going in, unable to force herself another step towards him, feeling her failures weighing down her limbs around her wrists and ankles. She'd botched the Valenzuela interview, hadn't caught the shot clock, hadn't thought to ask Maggie about the Stomtonovich interview, had let Jerry take too much control, had trusted Jerry too much, hadn't been discerning enough.

She's let them all down.

She let Will down. Again.

Will looks up from the legal pad full of slanted black script that he's hastily editing, she lifts her cast-encased hand and laughs a little. "I'm good to go." Her smile falters when he stands, coming around to the front of his desk. "This feels surreal. Ready to go ruin our credibility?"

He waves it off, leaning back onto his desk, planting his hands at his sides. "After broadcast, I'll come with you for your statement to HR. And I really do think you should file a police report."

"Why?" she asks, furrowing her brows.

He looks at her like she's hopeless. "Because unless you have other legal representation—"

"Will, it's HR," she says with a sigh, rolling off the door jamb and taking a few steps into his office. She's not going down to the precinct, she's fine. She appreciates his concern, but she doesn't need him to be her lawyer.

He doesn't appear to agree. "I'm coming with you."

She barely restrains herself from rolling her eyes. He's freaked out, she reminds herself. If this will make him feel better. He's just trying to control something. MacKenzie forces herself to nod, looking down at her shoes. "Okay."

"You should file a police report."

She looks up, raising her eyebrows expectantly at him, scoffing when his expression transforms into one of determination. "Will, I went to the doctor, like you asked. We go on the air in ten," she looks down at her watch, again, for what feels like the hundredth time in the past hour and a half, "less than ten, now, I really should be in the Control Room—"

"Senior staff has everything covered," he assures her, replete with hand gestures.

She tunnels a hand through her hair, and realizes she has no idea how she's going to get it up into a ponytail tonight with her right hand still twinging and definitely not ready to grip anything soon. Taking another breath (if you can breathe through something, you can get through it, she reminds herself, old lessons, like the second Marine Captain she was embedded with showing her how to throw a punch, defend herself, dispensing wisdom as the war marched through them like undefended territory) she gives him a small nod, trying not to feel anything at the soft expression on his face.

"Let's just… worry about this after," she acquiesces.

Her hand is fine. She's fucked up about Genoa, and Jerry, but her hand is fine. And Will's seemingly fine about Genoa, and Jerry, but fucked up about her hand.

She can give him this.

"Fair."

"What did we decide to do about Benghazi?

"Shifting it back to the B and C blocks," he answers immediately.

She scuffs her shoe on the carpet, trying to ignore the throbbing in her hand. "If anyone's still watching by the B and C blocks."

"Hey," Will says gently. "I thought you didn't care about the viewers."

"I'm probably going to have to care, in the upcoming months. We're going to tank." She's conscious of the fact that her voice is tense, but she's determined not to lose it, not after she cried on his shoulder earlier, not that Mac is entirely certain that he noticed. "After tonight… our names, your name, this network's name, our reputations, our viewers, everyone out there needs jobs—"

"Mac."

"It's my fault." She gets the words out, straining them through her teeth, trying to get them to mean something to him. "I'm the EP. I put Genoa on the air."

"We already discussed this," Will retorts, matter of factly, as if this was a courtroom, as easily as he reassured her last night. Except this time, he pushes off from his desk, crossing the room to wrap his arms around her. "And, yeah, okay." He kisses her cheek, holding her close, and slowly her hands come to his waist. "We fucked up. We all did. But except for the things you did wrong, you did everything right, Mac. And then you punched Dantana, in the face, so I think you should know that everyone out there thinks you're their hero, not that they didn't before that. And I can't have you thinking that you have all the blame here. So please."

He pulls back, framing her face with his hands, and for a moment, just moment (she'd let herself have longer than a moment, a year ago, when she'd opened her folio and showed him the signs from Northwestern) she lets herself think that he's going to kiss her.

"We're going to go do the show and make a mockery of ourselves, you'll go give your statement, and then we'll go get completely wasted. But we're going to be okay." Absently, she thinks, one of his thumbs traces the line of her jaw. "Okay?"

"You'd think you were in charge or something," she says weakly, glad, in a shattering kind of way, that she only allowed herself a moment of hope. Anymore and it she thinks she might have fallen apart, with that on top of every other disappointment of tonight.

"MacKenzie," he admonishes. Lightly. And then, like he's expecting her to repeat the words back to him,"except for the things you did wrong, you did everything right."

"Okay. Okay." She has to smile, or at least tries to. His face, troubled and discerning, tells her that she hasn't quite succeeded. "Except for the things I did wrong, I did everything right," she says finally, feebly, and then clears her throat. "Now I really do have to to go the Control Room." And grabbing for some semblance of normalcy, she says, "and you have to get your ass in the chair."

Before stepping out of his arms and out of his office.

She can't stand another moment.

Mac's taking this harder than anyone else. Which makes sense, Will thinks, because Mac has a compulsive need to take 100% of the blame for everything. Accepts her failures easier than people should, he thinks. And he can't stand the thought of MacKenzie beating herself up over this, because like he said, they all had fucked up. It wasn't just her.

And, okay, Will figures, shuffling through his cards before starting to follow the path Mac had just taken out through the bullpen. He has more experience with this than she does, he was a prosecutor. And besides, any first year law student who's taken intro to contract law knows about institutional failures and how to parse blame.

But still, MacKenzie just is so… and it's not all her fault. Except for everything she did wrong, she did everything right.

The rest was…

Him.

He stops, five or six steps into the bullpen.

The rest was him.

Not answering her calls was him. Not reading her emails was him. The rotating door of dates was him. The stupid clause in his contract was him. The ring was him. Bringing Brian to News Night was him. Throwing it into her face, over and over again, was him. Skipping therapy for years was him. Every sarcastic, bitter remark was him.

And she's been waiting. Or at least, standing by.

Oh, MacKenzie.

He walks towards the studio with new resolve, pushing past the glass doors and then into the Control Room, almost grinning at her look of indignant surprise.

"What are you doing? We have two minutes—"

Ignoring her protests for him to get behind the anchor desk, he grabs her shoulders. "The rest was me. I love you."

"Wait, what—"

Sliding his hands up to cup her face, he kisses her, hard and quick, before turning and striding out of the Control Room to do the show, not turning around to catch her bewildered expression or to react to Don's amazed laughter.

The Genoa retraction is easily the most painful seven and a half minutes of his career, and Mac is more talkative in his ear than usual, going through details he knows she knows he remembers, and it isn't until the first break that she reacts to his, well, stunt, at all.

"Took you long enough," she murmurs.

He half-heartedly glares at the camera. "Really?"

She snorts. "I love you, too."

(It's more than enough to carry him through the rest of the broadcast.)

She's waiting for him after he signs off, leaning against the wall in the studio hallway, and he smirks at her before walking out into the bullpen with her. And he knows the staff knows—for an experienced team of investigative journalists, they're all very obvious about their staring and giggling-but honestly, Will doesn't give a fuck, dropping his arm across Mac's shoulders and hiding a kiss in her hair when she tucks herself against him like she used to.

Charlie's smiling stupidly at them when they get back to his office, but doesn't say anything.

"Are the lawyers upstairs?" Mac asks, and he frowns when he notices her, not for the first time since she's come back from the doctor's with a cast, lifting her hand and holding it against her chest.

"Does your hand hurt?"

"It's fine," she answers gently, wiggling her fingers as proof. "I took something. Anyway—"

"Up in the conference room," Charlie answers, still smiling. "They just need to know what happened in the elevator, it'll be quick."

"Hope so," Will mutters, flinching when Mac pinches his waist with her good hand. Sloan and Maggie catch them on their way out mentioning that the staff is heading down to Hang Chew's, and at Mac's pointed look he fishes out his wallet and hands Sloan a couple of hundreds, telling her that the first few rounds are on him. "We'll be there soon."

Sloan gives them the kind of look that says that they have a lot of explaining to do, so he just smiles at her, before sweeping Mac towards the elevator with Charlie in front of them both. And to Charlie's credit, it really doesn't take that long for HR to get Mac's versions of events. And since Jerry refused to give them a statement, there's no contest. And since he's a lawyer, he talks them around all the bullshit, and forty minutes later Mac is left-handedly trying to affix her signature to the bottom of a triplicate form waiving AWM of all liability for her injury, and they're out of there.

Mac gets a round of applause from a tipsy senior staff at their entrance, and soon they're ensconced on the one of the couches along the back wall, Mac comfortably squeezing between Jim and himself. Well, Mac is half on his lap, between Jim and himself, but he's not complaining. And instead of talking about the retraction, the staff is focused on retelling the story of Mac punching Jerry, inflating the details with each and every go of it.

(At some point, Jim steals a stash of different colored sharpies and highlighters from Tess' purse, pulls Mac's arm into his lap, and starts… well, illustrating her cast. The only explanation Will gets from either of them is a furtive, "tradition.")

"You know," Mac mutters, looking down at her cast, now covered in what appears to be a very crude MacKenzie riding a dragon, holding a sword. "In a few days, when my hand doesn't hurt, this is going to make a great weapon to hit people with."

"Stop moving," Jim exclaims, coloring in a burst of flames. "You're messing up my masterpiece."

She examines the art (Will uses that term loosely) now on her cast. "The Captain draws better than you."

"Well, the Captain isn't here," Jim answers, switching colors again.

Will thinks they might be referring to someone they were embedded with. Or at least, he hopes so. Although now he's worrying about what kind of injuries Mac sustained besides the ones that trickled back stateside a few weeks later through his various contacts in the foreign press. He takes another swallow of Jameson instead of voicing that question out loud.

Tess perks up at that, though. "Somebody said Captain?"

"Not Morgan," Tamara admonishes over the rim of her martini glass. "Calm down."

Mac's attention is still on her cast. "Why am I riding a dragon?"

"Khaleesi," Sloan, pressed into his other side, answers assuredly.

"Khaleesi of News Night," Jim mumbles, squinting at his work in the low light, surrounded as it is by various other signatures and doodles, since after two shots Mac had easily agreed to let the staffers loose with markers on something that would be on her body for six to eight weeks.

Neal laughs, and then corrects himself at the looks of others so instead is expression is solemn. "Blood of my blood."

"We're sworn to you," Jenna says, nodding.

Mac laughs, shaking her head. "How drunk are the lot of you?"

"Pretty drunk," Maggie answers, and Will does figure they had a solid hour of drinking before he and Mac even got there. "Does this make Will the Khal?"

"Isn't the Khal ranked above the Khaleesi?" Sloan asks.

"Yes," Neal replies.

"Then I think he's the one who follows Dany around with puppy dog eyes."

"Ser Jorah," Neal supplies, grinning.

"He's definitely shouted her name across the newsroom enough times," Tess laughs, scoffing at his resulting indignation. "It's true! You know it's true."

Okay, so he has. Once. Maybe twice. Three times at the most. No, but seriously, what the hell?

"Who the fuck are any of these people?"

"Don't worry about it," Mac says with a smile, before kissing his cheek, the entire senior staff laughing from their various fixed points around the low table in the middle.

And Will thinks, yeah, they're gonna make it through this. It's a strange, strange miracle.

He looks down at the one in his arms.

(But God help them all when the morning shows start in less than twelve hours.)

They stick around for another half an hour or so, until the staff looks like they're ready to get well and truly shitfaced, which no one wants to do in front of Mom and Dad, so they duck out, avoiding Sloan's (well, Will doesn't avoid he, he just makes a face back at her) knowing expression.

She can tell Will is trying to be a gentleman, trying to feel out if she just wants to go home, or if she wants him to go home with her, if she's tired, where she'd be most comfortable, he doesn't want to assume, or—

(His hand had been steadily creeping up her leg, his thumb rubbing circles into the inside of her thigh, for over an hour. Is he truly that dense, MacKenzie wonders? Or nervous?)

She decides to go easy on him, leaning up onto her tip toes and wrapping her arms around his neck in the middle of one of his backhanded questions about if he wanted him to come home with her, pressing her lips sweetly against his.

And then not so sweetly, running her tongue along his bottom lip.

(That's when he breaks his mouth from hers, stares down at her desperately, and flags down the first cab he sees. And she tells the driver her address, if only because in the morning she's going to need to shower and do her hair, and doing that a hand down is going to be hard enough already, without trying to factor in using whatever little Will keeps around hair product-wise.)

Thankfully, there's no one out and about on her floor to see Will, standing behind her with his hands on her hips, kissing her neck and driving her to distraction while she fumbles with her keys. Eventually he takes pity (on both of them, Mac thinks) and eases her keys out of her hands and unlocks her front door.

She doesn't waste any time in leading him back to her bedroom, her fingers clumsily plucking the buttons on his shirt open. Kissing her insistently, hands sliding into her hair, he backs her up against her bed once they're through the door.

MacKenzie loses her balance trying to kick off her high heels, landing on her ass on top of her duvet, taking the opportunity to rid Will of his belt and undo the front of his jeans while he bends, not frantically, but with a low level of intensity, trying to keep his mouth against hers. He lets her send his pants and boxers to the floor in one sweep before toeing off his shoes and, pushing her onto her back, crawls on top of her, working her out of her shirt and skirt. Throwing her blouse behind him, he follows the trajectory back, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses along her breastbone.

Her bra is gone next, and in the next moment his mouth is on her breasts, hands cupping and fingers circling her nipples.

Moaning raggedly, Mac finally manages to rid him of his button down, and rucks up the hem of his tee so she can smooth her hands over his back while Will continues to chart his way down her body. Slowly, torturously slowly, really, he slides his hands up her legs, fingers splaying over her thighs, playing her while his mouth kissed and licked and suckled towards the top of her pelvic bone.

He grins up at her over the plane of her body, a boyish grin she'd so fiercely missed these past six years, before curling his fingers into the waist of her panties and dragging them down her legs, letting her kick them off herself.

And just, god, she thinks a minute later, his thumbs spreading her wide, his mouth soft on her, tongue trailing slow circles from her entrance to her clit—she'd almost thought memory had exaggerated how good he is at giving head. He keeps it up, nothing teasing about how he brings her legs up over his shoulders, how his tongue laps slowly over her clit, how his lips close around it, bringing her closer and closer to orgasm.

Her whimpers slowly transforming into moans, MacKenzie sinks her good hand into his hair, nails dragging over the skin at the nape of his neck, making him shiver.

(This is surreal, too. Genoa falling to pieces and them finally falling together, it's fucked up but it feels right, and MacKenzie thinks this is the first time she's felt all right in years, and it's not just that he's in her bed, but just, god, the way he looked at her all evening, the little touches, and she doesn't even know what moved him to kissing her in the Control Room.)

"I love you," she cries a minute later, thighs tightening around his ears. Moving his hands from her hips to her knees, he parts her legs wide and redoubles his efforts, until she's shuddering, begging.

(I love you, because she can, because he loves her too, because holy shit does she, and the turnaround on today has been so fast that her head is spinning, even if morning is going to come and it's going to be a bitch.)

And he's not teasing, no, MacKenzie thinks, stomach muscles quivering. Not her Will.

One of her particularly loud moans is answered by one of his own.

She wants him inside of her.

Now.

"Please," she moans, trying to tug him up her body, but not trusting her broken hand to do it. "Will, I want—I want you—god dammit, come here now—"

She tightens her fingers in his hair when she feels him laughing.

"No, stop, I want—not yet—"

He relents, finally, and she guides him up her body until they're face-to-face and kissing again, and she can taste herself on him. Ripping his tee shirt over his head, she finally finishes undressing him.

"Better," she mumbles into his mouth, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth.

Will rolls them so that she's on top. Biting her lip, she sits up, bracing herself with a hand on his chest. "Still like to watch?" she asks breathlessly, rocking her hips so that she's rubbing herself along his erection.

He almost laughs at that (would, if it all didn't feel so strangely serious) reaching up to fill his hands with her breasts, rubbing his thumbs in circles around her budded nipples.

"You," he rasps, planting his feet to thrust up against her, once, twice, three times, until she lifts herself up onto her knees and reaches down to take him in hand, stroking his cock until she's satisfied, running the head of him through her wetness before at last, sinking down.

She starts slowly, reaching behind him to throw pillows off the bed until it's stripped down to a few for sleeping on, and he pushes back until he's half-reclined on them.

And then he can't stop touching her.

The past few days have a study in contrasts, highs and lows after one another in quick succession, and neither of them have had much sleep, which is how Will justifies the fact that this is going to be over fairly quickly; it's past midnight and he knows Mac will want to be one of the first people in the office to start dealing with the fallout.

And he wants to be there with her.

Her cries are high, torn from her throat, and MacKenzie's head falls forward when she picks up pace, the room filling with the sound of hips slapping together, the wet suction of sex, harsh breathes in rapid succession. She tries to brace herself on his shoulders, but her broken hand won't stand to support much weight. She keeps wincing, so Will gently pulls her down against him, and MacKenzie lays her forearms over his shoulders.

Leaning up, he captures her lips in a kiss, and then trails his hands down to her hips, urging her on. When she pulls away for air, she rests her forehead at his hairline, and he can feel her eyelashes fluttering, and all of her is trembling—from the muscles of her strong thighs to her the plane of her abdomen to arms.

Her lips brush against his cheek, and Mac arches her back and rotates her hips forward, an angle that makes him thrust up into her harder and makes her cry out loudly.

"Yeah?"

"Fuck, yes, that," she manages to get out, before grinding her hips down into his and moaning unabashedly. He wraps an arm around her lower back, holding her steady there, moving harder and faster, watching her face contort with pleasure. "Fuck. Fuck, I love you. Fuck. Fuck. I love you, I love you."

"I love you," he answers, lifting a hand to the back of her skull, tightening his fingers into her hair. "Come on. That's it. I love you."

She keeps eye contact with him, hazel eyes darkened, pupils blown wide, panting, close, so close, his beautiful MacKenzie—

Rolling them again, careful even now of her injury, he works a hand down between them, rubbing tight circles over her clit until she clenches down around him, legs wrapping around his waist, head thrown back (he tongues the line of her throat, distended muscles and carved veins, bared to him, and it lights up some primal instinct in him, the vulnerability in it all, but sex with MacKenzie has always been this, everything with MacKenzie has always been this), and screaming his name.

He follows, not far behind her.

Regaining his senses just enough, he collapses to her side, catching his breath with his nose pressed against her shoulder, pressing kisses against sweat-slick skin when he has breath to spare. Her hand, the one in the cast, skims over his back and the two fingers not encased in fiberglass trace mindless shapes on his shoulders.

"Don't fall asleep," she chides him.

He settles against her, turning his head to kiss the side of her breast, searing a love bite into her flesh when she squirms. "I won't."

When she finally does get up, he follows her into her bathroom, and into the shower, washing her hair for her while she cleans herself off, and then him. By the time they finally crawl under the covers, clean and dry, it's well past two in the morning, and Mac stares at her alarm clock balefully.

"I have absolutely no motivation to get up in the morning," she says before burrowing her face into his neck.

He chuckles. "I'm sure we'll think of something."

She falls asleep long before he does, and so he busies himself with reacquainting his hands with the scape of her curves, the smoothness of her skin, the angles of her elbows and knees, before spotting a permanent marker sitting on top of a legal pad on her nightstand.

Well, pretty much everyone had signed her cast before they left the bar.

Except him.

When the alarm goes off at seven, MacKenzie rolls over and tries to ignore it, until a large hand starts rubbing circles in her back, someone's weight dropping onto the mattress next to her.

"Wake up, hon."

She groans, thighs sore.

Something clicks back on in her brain, and she remembers-

Jerry doctoring the Stomtonovich interview: very, very bad. Will telling her that he loves her: very, very good. Having to face the fallout of Jerry's actions at work: very, very bad. Facing them with Will: well, not as bad.

"I'm awake," she mumbles, rolling so she's not face down in her pillow, blinking blearily up at him.

Will leaning down to kiss her good morning is almost enough to make her smile, which isn't an indictment of him, but very little is capable of making her smile before she has her coffee.

"Why are you dressed?" she demands.

He kisses the tip of her nose. "I'm gonna run back to my place to change, I'll meet you at the office as soon as possible."

"Oh. Okay," she says on the end of a yawn.

She should probably let Will do that.

"I made you coffee," he says, running a hand through adorably tousled hair, absently trying to get his cowlick to stay down. "And hope you take it the way you used to."

"I do," she says, smiling because he's being so unbearably sweet in the face of what's coming.

He leaves a few minutes after that, after kissing her again, and then once more when she tells him to just grab the spare set of apartment keys out of the dish on the table in her entryway, and Mac finally sits up, reaching for the mug of coffee (and the ibuprofen from her medicine cabinet, that lovely idiot) he'd left on her nightstand.

Holding it in both hands, she tests how much she can hold with her broken hand.

Which is when she notices it.

Tiny, in very familiar black print, on the inside of the wrist of the cast where only she'll see it.

Love you. –me.

It's the worst it's ever been, professionally, but MacKenzie gets out of bed able to face the day easier than she has in many, many years.

A/N #2: So what Meg wanted was:

1. Mac punching Jerry in the face.
2. Mac breaking her hand and needing a cast.
3. Jim drawing on her cast. (Dragon. Specifically a dragon.)
4. Will/Mac porn.

Thanks for reading!