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As Jack watched Mac walk out the door of Phoenix HQ, he couldn’t find the slightest bit of surprise inside himself. No matter what he’d told Mac on the way in, he’d known this was a real possibility since the moment he’d found out Mac had come into work early.
What he was going to do about it… well, he’d known that from the very beginning.
Still, things were a little more complicated now. He looked over at Riley, a question in his eyes, and he could see the understanding in hers as she gave him a small nod and tilted her head in the direction Mac had gone.
He squeezed her shoulder, a poor substitute for the hug they’d have to get in later, and turned to Bozer and Matty. There was no question in his eyes now – Riley was the one person who could have held him back – but Bozer and Matty both gave him the same nod Riley had. There wasn’t the slightest bit of surprise in either of their faces, and Jack realized that Matty had known this would happen since her discussion with Mac this morning. Hell, probably before that – Leanna didn’t make much sense as a replacement for Mac, but from everything Jack had heard she was a pretty good catch-all to compensate for both of them.
Which meant there was just one thing left to do.
Finally, Mac Sr. walked out of the conference room. He hesitated where he was a moment, looking lost, then gave a firm nod and started walking in the opposite direction Mac had gone. After he’d gone a few steps, Jack cleared his throat. “Sir? Just one more thing.”
Mac Sr. turned, the emotionless SuperAgent mask firmly back in place. “Yes, Agent Dalton?”
Jack stepped away from the rest of the group. “I figure I better turn in my resignation now, too, before you disappear down a hole again.”
Mac Sr’s brow lowered, and his gaze flickered to Matty before looking back at Jack. “You’re serious.”
“Yes, sir, I am.” He thought back to when he’d walked away from the CIA, burnout heavy on his shoulders and so close to a firing it made no difference. This… this felt so much cleaner. “Effective immediately.”
Mac Sr.’s glare sharpened. It was almost like the look Mac got when some device he’d built wasn’t doing something he wanted it to do, but Jack had never seen Mac direct that look at a person. “You know this will be the end of your career, right?” he said slowly, like he assumed Jack had some sort of brain deficiency. “I’ll make sure no other agency would even think about hiring you on.”
Jack nodded, not at all surprised by the comment. “I figured something like that.”
The look on Mac Sr.’s face turned to pure confusion. “You’ve been out on the front lines since you were 18,” he said. “This is your life.”
At that, Jack smiled. If he could call anything his life – other than, you know, his actual life – it would be the guy who he was about 30 seconds away from following. “With that big brain of yours, and all that information at your fingertips, it’s good to know you still don’t know everything.”
Then he turned and walked out of HQ.
000
“I’m sorry, Jack, but Mac must have turned off his phone this time,” Riley said, the vague outdoor sounds behind her proof that she’d left the building to have this discussion with him. “I can try to hunt down his car on the traffic cameras, but—”
“No.” Jack let his head drop back against the headrest, stomach sinking. Quitting the Phoenix Foundation without telling him was one thing, but deliberately disappearing afterward was something else entirely. “Thanks for trying.”
Riley sighed. “If you find him, let us know. I understand that he probably doesn’t want dear old dad knowing where he is, but we want to know he’s okay.”
“I will.” Jack ended the call, staring blankly through the glass in front of him. As much as he hated it, he couldn’t read this as anything other than Mac telling him to stay the hell away for a little while. This wasn’t like that intercontinental jaunt he’d gone on last year looking for his dad – that was Mac being terrible at asking for help, and Jack hadn’t felt at all guilty about following him out there to explain just how wrong he was.
This, though… as much as he hated the idea, Mac might see Jack as a symbol of all the behind-the-scenes manipulation his father had done. He’d tried to squash the thought when they’d been out on the mission – Mac Sr. might have gotten them assigned together, but he hadn’t had a damn thing to do with Jack’s feelings – but it was a hell of a thing to have dropped on your head like that. If Mac needed time to work through it on his own, Jack needed to give him that.
No matter how much it killed him.
Jack’s phone buzzed with a text alert, a welcome distraction from where his thoughts were going. He didn’t recognize the number, and the message itself was only three words long. “Almost like Texas.”
For most people, the words wouldn’t make any sense. They certainly wouldn’t carry any larger meaning, unless you were one of the two people who’d been in a particular spot when Jack had said them. Someplace far enough from security cameras that there was no way even Mac Sr. would have known what they meant.
Jack closed his eyes a moment, almost staggered by the rush of relief that hit him. Shooting Riley a quick text to let her know he’d found Mac, he turned off his own phone before he turned the ignition back on.
He had some driving to do.
000
Culpepper Ranch was located about an hour and a half outside of the Hollywood Hills, deep enough in farming country that the tourists didn’t go anywhere near it. They handled the riding out at one of the local resorts, with Mavis Culpepper’s two daughters running that portion of things, but the ranch itself was strictly private property.
Mac sat on the top ledge of the old wood fence, looking out at the scattering of trees where Jack had taken him riding more than once. He’d told Mac he’d met the 68-year-old Mavis playing poker, and though he’d lost a considerable amount of money to her they’d bonded over their shared accents. He’d gotten a lifetime invitation out to the ranch, which he’d said was worth a hell of a lot more than the money he’d lost, and he’d come out here whenever he got homesick for Texas.
Mac would always, always go with him. He didn’t have any particular interest in horses, but he’d let Jack teach him how to ride because he’d loved seeing Jack be so at home with them. He’d heard stories about the summers Jack spent working on a ranch, but seeing him on horseback was a different thing entirely. Besides, if there was a choice between being with Jack and not being with Jack, he usually chose to be with Jack.
Mac sighed. At least he could still be sure those choices had been his. Thanks to his dad, though, he now had to question every other decision he’d made since he was a kid to figure out whether it was actually him or his dad pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
And then, of course, he had to figure out what to do afterward. His job history for the last several years wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he could put on a resume, though Matty might still be willing to give him a fake recommendation from the cover company if he wanted to get a job at a real research facility of some kind. If he wanted a real career, though, he’d have to go back to school and finish his degree.
That was the big word, though, want. He had no idea what he really wanted right now, except to be as far away from his dad’s parody of emotional involvement as possible. That, and….
“You could have mentioned the whole quitting thing.”
Mac closed his eyes, chest tightening almost to the point of pain. He’d told himself he’d just sent the text to let Jack know he was alright, but this was what he’d really wanted. “I couldn’t have.” His voice was rough. “You’re the one person who could have talked me out of it.”
“I wouldn’t have, though.” There was no anger in Jack’s voice as he climbed up onto the fence, and something in Mac’s chest eased at the sound of it. “Not when I heard how serious you were.”
Mac opened his eyes, letting out a breath. “I’m sorry.” He turned to look at Jack. “How mad are Bozer and Riley?”
Jack shook his head. “Just worried about you.” He hesitated. “The text was a signal to come find you, right? Not just a cryptic version of ‘relax, I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere?’”
“Yeah,” Mac said softly, watching Jack’s face. This, at least, his dad couldn’t touch. James MacGyver may have been the one to first put he and Jack in each other’s paths, but only as part of some weird recruitment process. A test of how well they worked together, possibly only one of several potential partnerships his dad had auditioned over the years without Mac ever realizing it. Like Jack had said, their friendship had been all them.
For all Mac knew, Jack might not have even been his dad’s ideal choice. After Jack and he had both extended their tours so they could keep working together, however, he’d probably realized he had to work with what he’d been given.
He’d had to quit. But oh, he was going to miss working with Jack every day.
He swallowed. “I’m sorry you got sucked into my dad’s puppet master routine.”
Jack smiled a little. “I’m not. Yeah, he’s kind of a dick, but I got you out of the deal.”
Mac’s chest clenched again as he turned back to look at the scattered trees. “My grandpa knew,” he said quietly, trying to find the words to explain. “He gave my dad regular reports about me until he died.”
“Shit.” Jack’s voice was just as quiet. “I’m sorry.”
“He did what he thought was right.” He knew his dad had put Harry in an impossible situation, no matter how much the thought of his grandpa lying to him by omission hurt right now. “I found out just before you drove up out of the blue, and for about 30 seconds I was scared you were somehow involved, too.”
“Hey.” Jack sounded offended now.
“I know.” Mac closed his eyes again. “It’s not like you at all. But my dad was busy dismantling my whole life with a few casual comments, and you were the last rug he could have pulled out from under me.” His hands tightened on the railing. “It was like a nightmare come to life. And you being in on it was the worst possible thing I could imagine.”
And it would have made sense, in the dark part of his heart that had always whispered that he was the reason his father had left in the first place. It would have finally explained why Jack had stayed with him as long as he had.
“Never would have happened.” Jack’s voice was firm. “Even if I’d said yes long enough to get to you, I would have told you everything the minute we started becoming friends. Then we could have gone and kicked his ass together.”
Mac opened his eyes, smiling a little at the image. “Harder to do, now that he’s your boss.”
“Not anymore,” Jack said easily, then paused. “Though I suspect there’d be criminal charges, so we probably shouldn’t.”
Alarm shot through Mac before he’d even fully processed the words. “Wait.” He turned to Jack. “What happened?” If his dad had done it as some kind of retaliation….
Jack gave him an amused look. “I quit about five minutes after you did, give or take.”
Mac just stared at him, shocked. “Why?”
Jack gave him a patient look. “Because we’re partners. Where you go, I go.”
Guilt slammed into Mac like a tidal wave. “Jack, this is your career we’re talking about. I know how big you are on loyalty, but there’s almost no chance we could get another agency to hire us on. You can’t sabotage your entire career just because of my issues with my dad.”
He’d walked away from his career without blinking, yes, but this was different. And if he’d even imagined that Jack was going to immediately jump after him….
“One, thank you for calling it my career rather than my life.” Jack still looked so calm, like the only thing on the line was where they were going to order pizza for dinner. “Two, I’d like to remind you the only reason I’m still in this business in the first place is because of you.”
Mac froze. “What?”
Jack gave him a surprised look, like he was amazed Mac hadn’t already known this. “Remember back in Afghanistan, when I wouldn’t shut up about going back to Texas? I wasn’t talking about the local CIA office. As soon as I made it back onto Texas soil, I was going to be officially 100 percent retired from anything that involved shooting people.”
Mac didn’t have words for what his heart was doing right now. It was almost the reverse of his dad’s revelations, the sky opening up wide and blue above him instead of beneath his feet. “But you stayed.” He swallowed, throat tight. “For me.”
Jack nodded, like it was no big deal. “Only reason I took the job with the Phoenix Foundation in the first place was so we could keep working together. No reason for me to be there if you aren’t.”
Mac’s eyes stung, the tears that hadn’t been there for any of his father’s revelations suddenly threatening to show up. “What about Riley?”
Jack sighed, looking regretful for the first time since they’d started talking about this. “She gave me the okay.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s thinking about moving to be closer to Billy. She hasn’t said anything, but I recognize the look on her face.” He met Mac’s eyes, any sign of regret gone. “Some people are worth following anywhere.”
Mac’s chest was raw. This was clearly the week for life-changing revelations, but somehow this one seemed even more impossible to believe. He'd been prepared to spend the rest of his life with his feelings for Jack shoved down as deep as they could go, but the idea that Jack had followed him made him feel like he'd been cracked open. Too much was spilling out.
It made him want, even though he knew how dangerous that was.
He took a deep breath. “If you wanted to go back to Texas now, we could. Or… wherever else.” He wished desperately that he knew what to do with his hands. “I’m not exactly sure what I’m qualified to do for a living at the moment, but I do know that it’s definitely your turn to decide where we live for the next several years.”
Jack looked oddly touched, like Mac had just given him a present, but he shook his head. “Texas isn't big enough for you,” he said quietly, smiling a little. “You'd get bored.”
His hands tightened on his knees, wishing he had something to hold. Wishing he could hold Jack. “Not if you were there.”
Jack went so still it looked like he'd stopped breathing. After a few endless heartbeats, he exhaled. “We'll find someplace to lay low for a few weeks,” he said firmly, hopping off the fence. “Give you some time to figure out what you want.”
Mac stayed where he was, heart pounding. The smart thing to do would be to stay silent, wait until he'd had some time to think. Put this all away where it was safe. Where it couldn't hurt anyone.
Besides, what would be say? There were no words big enough to describe what Jack was to him, or if there were he wasn't good enough at this to know what they were. What did you say to the person who filled in so many of the broken places inside you just by being who they were? Who'd just told you that everything you'd always been so scared to lose had chosen you over and over again?
He swallowed. “I know what I want.”
Jack turned, eyes lighting up like stars. “Yeah?”
He could still brush it off, spin the comment into a dozen different directions that didn't have the chance to wreck the one thing in life he needed to keep. Jack kept choosing him, but maybe this was pushing it a step too far. He always ended up being too much for people.
Jack must have seen the panic in his eyes, because his own expression turned worried. “Mac, it's okay.” He came closer, laying a hand on Mac's. “You have all the time you need to figure this out. I'll make damn sure of it.”
The heat from Jack's hand burned in the best way, anchoring him like nothing else could. His racing heartbeat slowed as he stared down into Jack's eyes, the raw feeling in his chest easing into something more tender.
Suddenly, the way forward was as clear as the answer to a chemistry problem. “I know what I want,” he repeated, voice rough. “You.”
This time, Jack definitely stopped breathing. His hand tightened on Mac's, and there was a cracked-open look in his eyes that felt all too familiar. “Mac,” he managed, the word half question and half plea.
Mac still didn't have the words Jack deserved, but right now he didn't need them. He slid off the fence into the meager space between them, then curled a hand in the front of Jack's shirt and tugged him closer. Jack went easily, a slowly dawning hope and realization on his face that Mac could feel all the way down to his soul.
The kiss was feather-light, not much more than a gentle brush of lips, but it felt like a ray of light in a pitch-black room. They pulled back, staring at each other with something close to awe, then moved together again into a deeper, more lingering kiss. It was just as gentle, the equivalent of fingertips stroking over a cheek, but as his fingers curled in Jack’s shirt Mac felt like he’d finally come home after a lifetime away.
When they broke apart, Mac leaned his forehead against Jack's. If he could only be certain of one thing that had happened in the last 15 years, he was so glad it was this. “Like you said, some people are worth following anywhere.”
Jack’s eyes were wet. "Anyone ever tell you you're a crazy person?" he murmured.
Mac's heart felt lighter than he would have imagined possible an hour ago. "No crazier than you are."
Jack laughed at that, voice still thick with emotion. “No wonder we've always been so good together.”
Mac’s fingers tightened in Jack’s shirt. “And we're staying that way, right?”
Jack grinned. “Oh, there is no way in hell you’re getting rid of me now.”
Mac grinned back at him, leaning in for another kiss. “Good.”