Chapter Text
Jack hated it.
When he first met Mac, he didn’t care. Mac was just a know it all kid who seemed like he thought he was better than everyone else because he was smart. Jack just had to survive sixty-four days, then he’d never have to see the kid again.
Something in those first sixty-four days changed though.
Jack learned how smart Mac actually was, and not just that he was a smartass. He learned Mac had attended MIT on full scholarship, so he was smart, but that he left because he thought he wasn’t doing enough, dumb. He knew random facts and could do complicated math in his head, but couldn’t always read the room or get when people were joking.
Jack learned Mac was just a lost kid, someone that was looking for something and would do anything he could to try to find it.
It was sometime before Mac saved his life when he triggered the bomb that he decided he was going to help, that he would stay and try to help Mac find whatever he was looking for, even if neither of the knew what it was.
When Jack reupped, he had a very specific contract written for it, with staying Mac’s watch being the only real clause he fought to have. They could make him do whatever; give him the worst job when off rotation, give him extra duty, but if it meant he would stick to Mac, he didn’t care what it would be.
In the months after, Jack learned so much more about him; his mother dying, his father running off, his grandfather dying, how he was treated in school, and his two years at MIT. He learned Mac really loved astrology and could read the stars, and how he burned down his garden shed. He found out how his past watches treated him and how he didn’t really make friends at other bases.
He pieced together that Mac didn’t have a plan for when he returned home, because he didn’t expect he would return home.
He was so young, still so full of life, and knowing Mac had accepted he might not be able to live it to the fullest broke his heart.
So Jack vowed to himself, that he would get Mac home so he’d be able to live a good life. And if Mac didn’t think he had a good life waiting for him back in the states, then Jack would give him one.
When they’d been pulled aside, told that they were being separated, Jack’s mind blanked out. That was the one thing, one thing, he repeated over and over while drawing up his contract. So of course he was going to fight it when someone told him he would be separated. He had favors, and he would use them for Mac if he needed to. But being told it was either separate for a week, or get sent home sent him for a loop.
Especially when Mac just accepted.
Even more so when Mac told him to not bother coming back.
Mac avoiding him was heartbreaking, because Jack knew he was hurting and needed comfort. Jack could see past him, past the soldier and to the scared and hurt child, and he would be damned if he left himself add to the hurt Mac was feeling.
Patrick and Joe were life savers; luring Mac into a tent so Jack could speak to him, to tell him that they were stuck together, that no matter how far they stretched, they would always fly back to each other.
Because Jack was his watch. Jack was his friend. Jack was the light Mac needed to follow when he was going through a dark time.
The day when they went separate ways, Jack’s personality switched. He wasn’t the fun loving guy a lot of the guys knew him for. He was DELTA. He was an elite soldier with a mission to get done. He went back to who he was before; the man who didn’t care who or what he was shooting at, the man who dreamt about death every night, the man who was headed down such a dark path that he couldn’t see anything in the darkness anymore.
But it was different, because he had a light that time. A fire that was constantly burning and let Jack see even the tiniest detail or mark for him to make it through the dark tunnel.
And it was Mac.
Mac, who shined so brightly, no matter the conditions he was in. Mac, who could’ve been doused with a bucket of water, or be rained on, or be stomped on, or have all this viable tinder taken from him, and his fire never go out. Mac, who had begun to light the way the first day they met, even if it took Jack a longer time to figure it out.
Mac had saved Jack from being lost on the dark path, and Jack had decided he wouldn’t let anyone try to put Mac’s fire out.
So he would be the perfect soldier, if it meant getting back to Mac quicker.
He followed the rules, did everything by the book day after day until he was told his specialized service wasn’t needed anymore.
When the day came when he hopped back onto the helicopter and headed back to base, he was a bundle of excited energy. To be back at base, back with Mac.
It was funny, in all honesty. A few months ago he didn’t even know Mac existed, let alone cared about what happened to him. Now he couldn’t imagine anything without Mac being at his side.
So when someone called for him and said he needed to get on a chopper headed for a hospital, he blanched.
There would’ve been no report for him to read, because he finished his assignment before Mac had time to finish his. He was given no information about the matter, no hint or clue as to what happened, so when he heard, he assumed the worst.
There’s been an incident. You’re headed to a hospital not far from where he was stationed.
Mac was hurt, badly enough that he required an actual hospital and not med tent. He couldn’t ever catch a break. It was the last day, just a few hours before he could return, but no. Mac’s life couldn’t have one easy day where nothing happened.
Jack wasn’t even fully in the chopper before it began to take off, something he wouldn’t complain about in that moment if it meant he got there quicker. But it still took too long until they touched down, Jack not waiting to be fully on the ground before hopping out.
There was someone waiting for him, someone he didn’t necessarily want to listen to. He just needed to know where Mac was, if he was even still alive.
He’s in surgery; ambushed after finishing a defuse; came out of nowhere and his current watch couldn’t get a clean shot until the second guy was on top of him.
There was a second man, same rank as Jack was, and could only assume he was the reason Mac was currently there.
I swear we cleared the area. There wasn’t even anywhere those guys could’ve come from unless it was a secret hiding spot. He told me he was just winded from being tackled; guy’s knee went into his chest and all, assumed it was some bruised, maybe broken ribs. I didn’t see the blood until we were back. Dalton I’m—
Jack didn’t hear anything else that was said, a blind rage taking hold. Not because they didn’t catch the guys when they first attempted to clear the place, but because the man in front of him didn’t think to give Mac a full check after being attacked.
Let him go Dalton.
There were hands on him, pulling his own from the uniform of the man in front of him.
The knife nicked his spleen. He’d been bleeding internally for about fifteen minutes before anyone saw anything, and another ten before he was able to get in to surgery. We’ve been told it was small, but because he was bleeding out internally for that long, he needed his blood pressure to get back up before they attempted anything. He’s been in there for an hour.
Jack felt sick. A mere hour and a half; the time Jack had been back at their base, Mac had been stabbed and admitted to a hospital. And Jack had no idea about it. While he was joking with the guys, Mac was fighting for his life.
He didn’t know the exact time, but it had been too long before someone gave them news.
He pulled through. The physical damage to the spleen was minimal, and because of how small it was, the surgeon had a difficult time repairing it. He’s lost a lot of blood and will be weak for some time when he wakes, but he should make a full recovery. Now, which one of you is Jack?
Jack stepped forward.
He woke up slightly, just for a moment when the surgery was finished. He said your name.
He wanted to cry at that. Mac asking for him in a drugged stupor. But it also filled him with an odd placed sense of happiness, knowing that Mac wanted to be back by his side as much as Jack wanted him back.
He waited for a nurse to guide him to Mac’s room, and the sight made him sick. Mac looked so small in the hospital bed, so much more pale on the white sheets and with the bandages on his torso; discoloration of bruises slowly making their way to the surface, an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, and an IV on his right side.
We’re not sure when he should wake up. He was extremely weak when he was brought in, but he’s out of the dark. Right now he just needs sleep and rest for his body to heal. You’re free to stay and go as you please. Let the nurses know if you need anything.
Jack didn’t leave the room. He stayed by Mac’s bedside, talking to him, asking him to wake up, because he didn’t know how he’d be able to go on if the last thing Mac saw was Jack’s back as he walked away from him.
Mac.
Come on bud.
You still got alotta fight left in ya.
Don’t do this to me.
Please come back to me.
It was the fourth day of sitting in Mac’s room when Jack finally heard something.
Jack?
His name, small and hardly louder than the beeping of the heart monitor, but he heard it. He heard Mac say it.
He heard Mac asked if he was okay, how he didn’t let up until Jack told him he was fine, how he called Jack a liar because he was sitting at arm’s length away from the bed.
But most of all, he heard Mac thank him. Thank him for keeping his promise of returning to his side, because that was apparently a rare thing Mac got to experience; someone coming back.
And it was horrible.
Horrible that Mac just naturally assumed that people would leave him and he’d be alone.
Jack wouldn’t just become another one of those people, not another name Mac would try to forget but be reminded of.
Jack would stay for him. Both in the army and whenever they went home.
After all, Jack told him he would always come back for him, but he would never have to come back if they didn’t split in the first place.
So Jack promised him he would always be by his side.
Because Mac deserved the world.
And Jack would make sure he got it.