Title: Spousal Privilege
Series: The Newsroom
Pairing: Will/Mackenzie
Rating: T
Summary: "I love you, Mrs. McAvoy. And I can't stand the thought of people believing lies about you." Will and MacKenzie's marriage faces criticism from the outside. One of them doesn't care, and the other cares too much. Guess who's who.

Although legally and professionally, she keeps McHale, she relishes being Mrs. McAvoy at home. She loves getting mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. William McAvoy. She loves the housewarming gift Don and Sloan bought them: a little ceramic placard that hangs beside the door that says The McAvoys. And she loves, more than anything else, when she's lying in bed beside her husband and he touches her face and says I love you, Mrs. McAvoy.

It's not easy. It's far from easy. They had so many issues to work out, and still do. It's only been six weeks since they got married in late February – they'd initially planned on a big wedding in July, but then kept pushing the date up and up and up and scaling the guest list back and back and back. It ended up being just them, her parents, a handful of friends, and a buddy of Will's who happened to be a judge. And a cake.

He has to remind himself to trust her, and she has to remember to turn off being his EP at home. It's awkward sometimes, and there are nights when Will sleeps in the guest room or MacKenzie threatens to go sleep at Sloan's. But what they always come back to is that this is it. This is the life they want for themselves, this is the partner they want, the marriage they want, and the family they want. Forever.

But tonight is one of those nights. They're both standing at opposite sides of the living room with their hands up. (Will knows she'd never hit him, but he appreciates that even when she wants to hit him, she doesn't really want to.)

"I'm saying let it go, Billy!"

"I can't just let it go. I can't live with it. We're issuing a statement tomorrow and that's that."

"No, that's not that. We're a team, and we make decisions together. You know I didn't marry you for goddamn spousal privilege, and I know you didn't marry me for spousal privilege, and that is that. Also, if I was going to marry someone out of professional loyalty, it probably would've been better to go with Don. To hell with Vanity Fair."

"It's not just Vanity Fair. Those quotes are going to get picked up everywhere. Unnamed AWM sources, Jesus fuck."

"I know why you're mad. I think it's sweet that you're mad. But you know that if we issue a statement, it's just going to make it worse."

"How can you even say that? How can you not want me to defend you, defend our entire marriage?"

"Of course I want you to defend me! Against Reese Lansing or people who would cause us physical harm or, I don't know, a bear or something. But this isn't worth it."

He takes a deep breath and takes in what she's said.

"I have a compromise," she suggests. "How about we go to the Matilda opening night on Thursday? We got invited, we can take the night off from the show, and I will walk the red carpet with you and do my best to make sure everyone knows I didn't marry you for any privilege other than the dirty ones."

"That—"

"If your publicist thinks it'd help, I'll fool around with you in the coat check closet and make sure we get caught."

"That might be overkill."

"I'm just saying, the option's on the table."

She's only kind of joking, he knows. "But you hate red carpet stuff."

"Yes, but I love you. And I love being your date when you're wearing a tux. And I like musicals." She drops her hands, the urge to shake him finally passing. "Not as much as some people in this family, but I've been wanting to see Matilda anyway."

He relents. "You're right."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" she teases.

"You're right."

"Wowwww," she laughs.

"Don't get used to it."

She pushes him gently onto the couch so she can climb into his lap. "I think I will."

The short pieces at the front of her hair have fallen out of her ponytail and he pushes them lovingly behind her ears. "I love you, Mrs. McAvoy. And I can't stand the thought of people believing lies about you."

"I don't care if they believe I'm an alien, Will. As long as you and I know that this is real. Getting married was fast and crazy, and my mother still thinks you must have gotten me pregnant, but it was right. It's for good."

"Yes, it is."

She smiles a shy, suggestive little smile at him, and toys with the top button on his shirt. "Would you like to take me to bed, Husband?"

"Well, yes, Wife, I believe I would."

On Thursday, they work all day on the rundown before turning it over to Jim for the 6:00. He's sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette while he waits for her to change in his bathroom.

"You about ready, hon? The car is waiting."

She opens the door to reveal a long black strapless dress. It's simple, but it hugs all of her curves and, holy shit, he married her. Her hair is up, showing off the length of her neck and the slope of her shoulders, and the idea that she agreed to be with him forever is stranger than ever.

His jaw drops, and she looks satisfied by his reaction.

"You look – wow."

"You look pretty wow yourself."

"Are you sure you want to see Matilda? Because we can go home. I'm okay with that."

"Come on, Billy. The car is waiting."

She pulls him by the hand into the newsroom, where they are met with more than a few whistles and cheers. Her face flushes, but he just tugs her hand into the crook of his arm and leads her proudly. When Neal passes and exhales a sweet but unprofessional, "Damnnnnn," Will claps the younger man on the shoulder.

"That's my wife." Neal's face pales for a second before Will smiles and finishes, "Isn't she something?"

The rest of the night is a disaster. They walk the carpet for pictures but don't stop for interviews, and the result is that a lot of rude questions are yelled at them from afar. She squeezes his hand to tell him to let it go, but he has trouble enjoying the night after Will you be invoking spousal privilege for the Genoa trial and is it just a coincidence that you married another key witness before potentially career-ending litigation?

"It's you and me, babe," she says into his ear. "It's real." But he keeps his jaw clenched the rest of the night. And it breaks her heart a little to sit beside him and feel like he doesn't totally believe her.

She voices this later when she's taking out her earrings and washing off her makeup. "Why won't you believe me when I say I don't care what the magazines print?"

"It doesn't matter how much I believe you! I care. I know you think that's a character flaw, and maybe it is, but I care what people say about my wife. Forgive me."

"We've been over this a million times. Can't it just be about how I married you because I've been in love with you for forever and I didn't want to waste any more time not being your wife? Do you remember how when we told our friends, they cheered? Do you remember that Charlie had stashed eight bottles of champagne in the kitchen, waiting for the day we got back together? You didn't see the smile on Jim's face when he popped one, but I did. That was real. How Elliot hugged you and—what did he say to you again?"

"He said, 'It's about damn time you locked that down.'"

"Are you sure it wasn't, 'Thank God, now you can dick around the prosecution because you can't be asked to testify against each other?'"

"Mac—"

She thinks about her father putting his hand on Will's shoulder at their wedding and saying, so earnestly, "Welcome to the family, son." Will's eyes had gone soft, and she'd felt so fulfilled in that moment. He'd proposed in a moment of haste but never, not once, had she second-guessed her yes, yes, I'm saying yes.

"I'm going to tell the truth in deposition. And at trial. I've got nothing about you that I need to hide."

"They're going to ask if we were sleeping together during Genoa."

"We weren't."

"They're going to suggest that we were, and that we were distracted by sex and that's why we failed. Or they'll suggest that we were distracted by not having sex and that's why we failed."

The room gets quiet for a second. "Wait, are you regretting this?"

"What? No!"

"Because it's starting to feel like you regret this."

He stutters for a second. "No. Absolutely not."

Her face falls. "You're not convincing me, Billy."

She sleeps in her clothes in the guest room after crying herself to sleep. And because he is confused and angry and still learning how to be a good husband, he lets her.

He sneaks out of the apartment before she wakes up to have an impromptu breakfast with Reese in the AWM executive dining room. It's early and there's no one else there, but the spread on the table is impressive nonetheless. Will is too nervous to eat, pushing potatoes around his plate listlessly. He's thinking about his wife downtown, how she's probably just getting up and wondering where he is. Or … not wondering where he is. He's not sure which would be worse.

"I want to know who gave that quote to Vanity Fair," he says. "It's important."

"Is it?"

"I've been going over and over it in my head. Why would an AWM employee want to cast a bad light on us, when this could wreck the whole company now? Don't you want to know?"

Reese takes a drink of coffee. "It's already been dealt with."

"What?"

"I identified the source of the quote earlier this week and handled the situation accordingly."

"You did." Will is surprised. He sets down his fork, then picks it back up – Reese is amused and seems pretty satisfied with himself.

"One day you'll learn that you're not always the smartest person in the room. Or the only one who gives a damn about loyalty."

"Who was it?"

Reese just cocks his head – it really hadn't been that difficult to figure out. It takes Will another ten seconds, before—

"Nina."

"—Is no longer an employee of AWM."

"Jesus."

"There are a fuckload of other lies in that article, Will. There's no reason to get worked up about this particular one. I mean, I get that it's about Mac, but—"

"No, you don't get it," he says, purely reacting. Then it's just word vomit after that, as Will spills all of his troubles out onto the breakfast table in front of Reese Lansing. "My marriage is like … what's that game with the little wood blocks?"

"Dominoes?"

"No, with the stacking, and the—" he mimes the gameplay like an idiot.

"Jenga?"

"Yes. My marriage is like that. We've got all the little blocks you need. We're not short on blocks. You move 'em around and stack the tower higher, and we're doing pretty okay so far. It wobbles, but it's strong. But sometimes, you pull out a block that you think is fine, like finding out Vanity Fair is going to write a piece about the Genoa trial, and the whole thing is suddenly about to crash down. I just couldn't live with myself if that happened. My entire life depends on keeping this wobbly tower up, and I'm just doing everything I goddamn can, Reese."

And as soon as the Reese is out of his mouth, he realizes whom he's just shared that with, and his eyes cloud with regret because seriously, this is supposed to be why he has a therapist. (Therapy – one of the critical, foundational Jenga blocks of their marriage.) Will looks more than a little shell-shocked, but Reese just smirks a little – not in a smirky way, in a friendly way – and says, "I think you're underestimating your wife."

He goes back to his coffee and lets Will think for a minute. "Maybe," he says. "How's it going with the Rockette?"

"We broke up a month ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Will says awkwardly. Oh, God, now this whole breakfast is even more awkward than it was, which is really saying something.

Reese pushes his plate away and gets up from the table, tossing his napkin down and shrugging. "I don't know you that well, but I think you and Mac have all the blocks. That doesn't happen for everyone. No matter what, you have all the blocks."

Will doesn't ask MacKenzie why she's late to work – it's too busy, and he knows he's really in no place, considering he left their apartment without saying good morning. She doesn't make too much eye contact during the first rundown, which makes him nervous. Normally, she's on her second cup of coffee by this meeting, and she'll look at him in a way that suggests exactly what she's remembering about the sex they had that morning. And then she'll smile at him in a way that suggests exactly how much she'd like to do that again.

And she does it all without anyone noticing.

Except now, in this moment, he's pretty sure people do notice, because Jim is giving him a what the fuck did you do? glare. Sloan is looking at him with concern on her face, too, like she knows MacKenzie isn't her normal self. And Will is a lot less worried about how they must not have been so covert with their flirting than he is about fixing it right fucking now.

But he just smiles reassuringly at Sloan and Jim, holding up his hands to try and say don't go there, it's fine. He's not confident about it being convincing.

Later, when he stops by her office, she's not there. He sits down in her chair to wait, which is a bad idea considering he shouldn't really be left alone with his thoughts right now.

Especially when he sees their marriage license and her birth certificate tucked under her keys on her desk. His whole body clenches, but his mind races through a series of hypotheticals. All of which end with, she was late for work because she went to file for divorce. Or an annulment. It's only been six weeks; they could probably get one if she wanted it badly enough.

He's staring at her signature scrawled on their marriage license when she walks in.

"Hey," she says, and he can't read her at all.

"Hey."

She moves closer to see what he's reading, and she smiles a little when she sees it. "That was quite a day, wasn't it?"

"Best day of my life," he says quietly. She's quiet, too, and when he looks up at her, he's about ready to start crying. "Please tell me you didn't do anything crazy today."

She's terrified by what he means by crazy. She doesn't think it was that crazy, but if he's ready to divorce her, then it was probably a stupid idea and an embarrassing one.

"I guess that depends."

"Mac—"

She bites her lip before admitting, "I went down to the social security office today and I filed the name change paperwork."

"You what?"

"In eight to ten business days, I'll officially be MacKenzie McHale McAvoy." She holds up her hands. "At least with the federal government – there's still a lot of New York paperwork to do—"

"You didn't—"

She barrels on. "It's a ridiculous name, honestly. The clerk looked at my sheet and asked if I was 100 percent sure, and I said yes, that I couldn't help who I fell in love with. And then she rolled her eyes at me."

"I thought—"

"I know, it probably would've made more sense to drop McHale instead of Morgan, but, I don't know, honey, I've been McHale all my life, I'm not ready to stop being a McHale entirely. And at work, I'm still going to be—"

"Mac!" he stands up and approaches her, putting his hands gently on her arms. "You're taking my name?"

For the first time today, she looks at him and sees how stressed he is. "I know, I'm sorry, I should have asked you first—"

"No! I thought—" He heaves a sigh, still grasping her arms, and now she's starting to worry.

"What?" she asks, almost tentative.

"I thought you'd filed for divorce."

And now she's just mad. She shakes away from him and starts waving her arms around. How could he ever even think – "You're an idiot."

"We fought, you were gone—"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're stuck with me. I stood there in front of a judge and I said till death do us part, and look, you moron, I signed my name to that piece of paper in your hand. I meant all of that. Did you not?"

He looks sheepish all of a sudden, caught in his own insecurity. "No, I did. I really did." And then she's just sad for him, alone with these stupid thoughts, too afraid to ask her a question with an easy answer.

"You've got to stop thinking we're fragile," she says, reaching out to him and putting her hands on his neck, her thumbs up against his ears. He looks so worried all the time, like if everything's not perfect, it's awful, and if it's awful, it's doomed. He thought she was going to divorce him? All she's wanted to do for days is lock him in their bedroom and do whatever it takes to convince him that they're okay.

"I know it was fast," she continues. "We went from zero to engaged in literally thirty seconds. But I knew what I was doing, and I knew who I was marrying. And, honey, we can survive whatever Vanity Fair decides is newsworthy. I'm not going to let you fall, and I know you won't let me fall, either."

"I won't, but—"

"But," she interrupts, "You have to have a little fucking faith in me, because some bullshit quote isn't nearly enough to trip me up. You don't have to go into overdrive because of a magazine."

"Okay."

"Got it?"

"You really think we can do this?"

She rolls her eyes again and brushes her thumb over his brow. She wishes she could soothe his crazy mind, would do anything to get him to trust them. In retrospect, it surprises Mac that he had gathered the courage to propose to her that night, considering how nervous he's been since then, like he thinks she's going to just slip through his fingers. He'd told the entire staff about the engagement within ten minutes of putting the ring on her finger, and she thinks now that he was trying to make it harder for her to take it back. As if she ever would have.

"One, it's too late to change our minds now. And two, of course I do." She gets that cocky little smile on her face, and she looks him square in the eye. "We're the McAvoys."

He laughs at this, and then wraps his arms around her so tightly, he worries she can't breathe. He loosens his grip just a hair's breadth, but she responds by tugging him closer, making up the difference and then some.

"At least we will be in eight to ten business days," she murmurs into his sweater.

"We are now," he says. "We are now."

He spreads one hand over her back and moves the other to her head, running his fingers through her hair, aware as ever that the whole of his happiness fits in the span of his arms now.

"All I ever wanted was you," he whispers.

"Well, you've got me."

"Nothing matters but you. The show, the audience, the trial – nothing matters if you're not happy."

"God, Will, I'm so happy," she says, pressing one hand to his heart. "These last few months – I never thought I'd ever be this happy again. The only thing that could make me happier is knowing that you're happy, too. That's why I went and did the paperwork – I thought it would make you happy."

"It does. I mean, you didn't have to do that for me, I would've loved you as McHale for the rest of your life anyway, but, yes, God, that makes me happy."

"Then let's just try that for a while, okay?"

"MacKenzie, I've been happy."

"Let's just be happy and nothing else. Not worried or stressed or waiting for the other shoe to drop." She looks at him knowingly, daring him to argue he hasn't been doing exactly that. "We're not getting divorced. Not today, not ever."

"I believe you."

"You hear me? Not ever."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Damn right, yes, ma'am."

He laughs and pulls her in for a kiss, a happy one. His hands clasp at her lower back, while hers stay at his face to play with his hair. He's just deepened it, sliding his tongue along her lower lip, when Jim pushes into the office in a hurry, a notebook clutched under his arm.

"I've got numbers on the EU finance — oh, God, I'm sorry."

"Sorry, Jim," she says, breaking their embrace with one last solid kiss and an affectionate pat to Will's cheek.

Jim scratches his head awkwardly. "No problem. We're all pretty used to it by now."

Will flushes, but MacKenzie just smiles – she's pretty used to it now, too.

"Is he bothering you?" Jim asks, trying to stand tall.

"Always," she says. "But I'm going to keep him anyway."