Chapter Text
“Still no sign of Walters,” Jack reported over comms. “I’m startin’ to think she set us up.”
“Oh yeah? What tipped you off?” Mac asked. “Was it the fact that this building is completely abandoned or was it the armed bomb?”
Mac was busy with the bomb, doing his best to disarm it so they didn't all die. It had been discovered while they were searching the building for the woman they were supposed to be meeting to receive some kind of document from.
“All right, jeez. Someone’s cranky.”
“You would be too if you had to deal with this thing,” Mac said. The bomb was pretty complex, not something he couldn’t handle, but definitely something he’d be more comfortable with if he had a longer countdown left on the timer.
“If I took a stab at disarming that thing, we’d all just die,” Jack said.
Riley chose the opportunity to chime in. “And that’s why you’re the one with the gun, and Mac is the one currently crouched next to the explosives.”
“I could crouch next to explosives if I wanted to,” Jack said. Disarming them was a whole other animal, but Jack wasn’t going to say that. “‘Sides, you don’t get to talk when you get to chill in the van and watch Netflix.”
“You’re welcome for watching your guys’ backs through the security cameras, by the way,” Riley said.
“Oh yeah, empty hallways won’t watch themselves,” Jack said.
“And what are you doing Jack?” Riley returned.
“I’m doin’ what I was trained to,” Jack said from his place watching Mac.
“I didn’t realize you had to train to do nothing.”
Despite the harsh teasing, neither one of them put any real heat into their bantering. They argued for the sake of arguing. The noise helped Mac focus, they both knew that.
But Mac interrupted them with a huff. “I’m not going to be able to get this disarmed in time,” Mac said. “I’m going to contain it the best I can. Jack, you should go out to the van. I’ll meet you and Riley there when I’m done with this.”
“Uh, no,” Jack said, staying put. “I’ll leave when you leave.”
“Jack,” Mac warned.
“Nope, you go kaboom, I go kaboom. So you better get containing, because I don’t much want to go kaboom today.”
Mac rolled his eyes fondly and got to work. “You don’t have to go kaboom if you go back to the van,” he said.
“I’m good right here. Nice view. Definitely better than the one Ri’s got on her computer.”
“Don’t tempt me, Jack. I might just join you guys,” Riley joked.
“Don’t you even think about it,” Jack said.
Mac eyed the job he had done with the bomb. It was as best contained as he could get it with the supplies that were available. It would still be a big boom, but there wasn’t much else Mac could do about that.
He took solace in the fact that the building was abandoned and in the middle of nowhere. No one would get hurt, and the property damage wouldn’t make anyone other than the person that owned the property too upset. The security cameras, mostly in place to scare squatters off, would be destroyed, so no one would even know they had been there.
So much for getting that document, though. Matty was probably going to be pissed.
“That’s about as good as that’s going to get,” Mac said, eyeing the bomb one more time.
“Hey, and four minutes to spare, buddy, not bad,” Jack said. “I know you hate when you gotta let ‘em blow off, but I appreciate not having to run like a madman beforehand.”
“Yeah. Best if we don’t stick around, though,” Mac said.
“I hear ya.” The two headed for the exit of the building, moving swiftly but not panicked. They made it back to the van in a minute.
“We’re a safe distance away here, right?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, assuming my math is right,” Mac answered. “Why?”
“I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s safe to assume your math is right. I’m askin’ because I wanna see the fireworks show. Rather not feel it, though.”
“Yeah, we’re good here,” Mac said. Admittedly, Mac still thought explosions were cool, even after working with them for so long. Despite the number of explosions that had tried to kill him, he had just as many explosions to thank for saving his life. “Should be, what? About two minutes now?”
"That sounds right," Jack said.
"Uh, hold on. Guys?” Riley said, eyes on the computer screen. “It looks like there’s someone in there.”
Jack turned to her. “There’s no way, I cleared that palace myself.”
“Tell that to this,” Riley shrugged, pointing out where a figure could be made out among the staticy image from the cameras.
“That’s Walters,” Mac said, looking closer at the woman on the screen. “We weren’t set up,” Mac said, eyes widening in realization as he got out of the van.
Mac took off like a shot toward the building. The building with the armed bomb about to go off. “Shit. Mac!” Jack shouted, getting out of the van and taking off after him. “Mac, stop!”
"I have to get her out of there," Mac called behind him at Jack. "She doesn't know about the bomb."
Jack shouted for Mac to stop again, but Mac ignored him. Jack put on a burst of speed to catch up and threw his arms around Mac, physically stopping him from getting any closer to the building. Jack nearly took them both to the ground with the force, but they managed to stay upright.
"Jack, let go! Walters is in there, she doesn't know the place is about to blow, she has no idea!" Mac struggled to get away.
Jack strengthened his hold as Mac thrashed. He locked his hand around his opposite wrist and held on tight. "Mac, stop. Stop it now, man, listen to me, Mac."
"Jack--!" The rest of Mac's words were lost to the deafening blast.
The building blew.
Bright flames towered from the epicenter of the explosion. Mac and Jack, still far enough not to be injured by the blast, could feel the heat radiating from the explosion hot on their cheeks. Bits of building and glass rained from where they'd been blown up and a distinct stench filled the air. Charred ash and hot concrete.
The two staggered back a few steps, stumbling and nearly tripping.
Jack kept his hold even as Mac slumped, no longer fighting. He could feel Mac's quick breaths rise and fall against his chest.
"I'm sorry, buddy," Jack said over the ringing in his ears. "I'm so sorry, but you wouldn't have made it out in time."
The light of the flames reflected in shimmery blue eyes. There was no way Walters survived that, there was no way anyone could have survived that.
Mac was watching the building crumple and smolder in slow motion. It collapsed in on itself with the sheer amount of structural damage and ensured Walters would never make it out, even if the initial blast hadn't killed her.
“Jack.”
“I know, kid, I know. I’m sorry.” Jack's bear hug around Mac didn't let up, holding Mac upright. He wasn’t restraining him anymore-- the blond might have just fallen over if it weren't for Jack.
"She didn't set us up," Mac said, voice mournful and hollow-- the way it always got when they lost innocents and Jack knew there'd be damage control to do later. "She didn't know it was there."
"I hear you, man. There was nothing else you coulda done, you did everything you could," Jack reassured.
"Not everything." The hot waves coming from the blast began to cool, no longer stifling, but still warm. "I could have--"
"Don't, Mac," Jack interrupted that train of thought right there. "Don't do that to yourself, dude. If you'd ran in there, there'd be two bodies in that heap of rubble 'stead of one."
Mac's breathing hadn't slowed, Jack could still feel it much too fast against his chest. He didn't have to check to know that Mac's pulse was probably rabbiting along far too quickly as well.
"C'mon, kid," Jack said, holding Mac and moving them slowly toward the van. "Whoever set that bomb up in there might still be around here somewhere, we should go."
Mac didn't take his eyes off the building, but allowed himself to be led shakily back to the van. His legs were wobbly like Jell-O.
Jack didn't let him go until he had to, releasing Mac only when Jack found himself in the way of Mac getting into the van. With a squeeze of Mac’s shoulder, Jack took up the driver's seat.
Turning in his seat, Jack studied the two in the back of the van, varying shades of guilt on both their faces. Jack could see the worried looks Riley was subtly sending Mac. He could practically hear that little box in Mac’s mind getting shoved full of another death that wasn’t his fault as Mac attempted to compartmentalize what he would no doubt blame himself for.
"'Bout an hour back to the airstrip," Jack told the two. "Go on, buckle up and get comfy."
Riley slipped on her seatbelt and Jack waited the few extra moments it took Mac to register the instructions past all the loud thoughts in that head of his.
Definitely, there was damage control to be done.
---
“The death of Nancy Walters and loss of unspecified important documents is the fault of insufficient clearing of the meeting location,” were the words Jack used during his solo debriefing. And he would put the same on his official mission report.
“Are you saying that it was your fault, Dalton?” Matty asked.
“Yes, I am,” Jack answered confidently.
“Try not to sound so proud of yourself,” Matty said, voice serious. “I don’t know how to even begin to explain to you the consequences not retrieving that document is going to have for Phoenix.
“We lost an important leg up we were going to have on some major events that are estimated to occur sometime within the near future. That was our way of staying informed and staying one step ahead."
Jack merely nodded along, accepting the verbal tirade. If it spared the others the same ranting lecture, Jack would stand and take it for as long as he needed to.
"Now we're going to have to act reactively to this group's attacks instead of having the advantage of knowing what's being planned. I'm probably going to have to send your team out there to deal with the mess that we can't see coming. So I expect you not to complain that the intel for future missions is thin when you're the one that lost that document."
Jack tried hard not to grind his teeth. "We lost an innocent, too, Matty," Jack said. "That matter to you?"
"Of course it does," Matty shot back, not missing a beat. "You think I'm happy about that, or do you just like being yelled at?"
Against his instinct to shout and fire back a smart remark, Jack didn't answer her.
"I'm going to have to be the one to explain to these people how the hell Walters was killed on what was supposed to be a simple hand-off. Do you think I'm looking forward to that? That I'm looking forward to trying to explain that my agents aren't the ones that blew her up? That a bomb was just there?"
"It was," Jack couldn't help but cut in. With the security cameras destroyed, Jack didn't want there to be any chance for Matty to think that Mac had, by any stretch of the imagination, purposefully blown up the building with Walters inside it.
"Bombs don't just plant and arm themselves, Jack."
"I know that, Matilda," he returned with just as much attitude. "Walters had to be set up by the people that sent her. Other than them and us, no one else knew about that meeting."
"That's just speculation, without any concrete proof we can't do anything with that," Matty said. "Besides, that's not the issue here."
"So you don't care Walters was killed."
"Of course I care. But the big picture is going to have much larger ramifications than the death of one person, Jack. I'm talking about hundreds, maybe thousands of people, that will be put in unnecessary danger that we could have prevented by successfully retrieving that document."
Jack took a deep breath, held it for a few moments until he was sure he would shout, and let it loose slowly.
Matty stared Jack down, as if daring him to say something else. He didn't, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
Jack had told Matty that he made Mac leave the bomb there to blow; it was a half-truth, but would get her off Mac's back. He told her that he didn't clear the building well enough (not likely) and that Walters had strategically kept out of view of the cameras until it was too late. That was true enough, and got Riley off the hook for not seeing her sooner. He said he refused to let Mac go back in for her, which was true.
Since his recount, Matty had been talking him in circles for what seemed like ages. But now she was silent, watching him.
"Get out of my sight," Matty said, that being the softest her tone had been the whole conversation.
Jack gave her a curt nod and headed for the door, only to pause when she called his name. He looked at her expectantly.
"The security cameras may have been destroyed, but your comms were not."
Jack should have known she would be able to see right through him.
"I haven't listened to the feed yet," she said, "but you're awfully quiet. Whatever you think you're hiding or covering up for is on there."
Rubbing a hand over his face, Jack nodded. "Matty, look, I--"
She held up a hand, silencing him. "I'll deal with all three of you later. Go home. I can tell you're not that broken up about Walters, but I think I can guess who is."
"Yeah," Jack sighed.
"As your boss, what you did was stupid. We're going to be detrimentally set back with the loss of that document, and we'll likely be paying for that mistake for a long time to come. But as your friend," she said, "I'm glad you did your job."
It was clear she didn't mean his job as an agent. His job, first and foremost, was protecting his kids.
"I'd do it again," Jack said. “Hundred times over, I’d do it again to keep Mac alive.”
Matty nodded. “Then you’d better go. Your job’s not done yet.”