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Matty’s voice is comforting in its familiarity, her cadence warm with a touch of proud satisfaction, all the markers of a job well-done, but Mac finds himself struggling to keep track of their boss’ actual words. They keep flitting away from him like the little birds in the Indonesian jungle he’d seen last … night? The day before that?
While he is mulling over whether his lack of certainty in the matter should be a cause for concern, someone bumps his shoulder.
“Think it’s your turn, hoss.” Jack’s voice jerks him back into the present where four sets of eyes are watching him expectantly.
“Sorry.” He clears his throat. “What were you saying?”
“Everything alright, Blondie?” Despite the use of her favorite nickname, there is a hint of worry in Matty’s tone. “I know it’s been a long week. And believe me, I’d also rather be anywhere but here at 2 am on a Tuesday, but we have to make sure we deliver all relevant intel to the domestic authorities as soon as possible.”
“Of course.” Mac straightens. His vision gets hazy for a second before Matty comes back into focus. “Do you mind repeating the question?”
He can feel Jack’s eyes on him the whole time he recounts what he saw in the underground compound of the weapon-smuggling ring they’d been sent to investigate. He tries to ignore it while also trying to be as specific as possible in his report, fully aware that the Indonesian police rely on the details they dug up. Both tasks feel a lot harder than they normally would. His shirt sticks to his back uncomfortably and the dull pressure in his temples is starting to grow into a proper headache. When Matty nods and turns her gaze on Riley and Bozer, he can’t help but breathe a soft sigh of relief.
“You sure you’re good?”
Not soft enough, apparently.
“About as good as you are, I’d say”, he answers Jack from the corner of his mouth. “Considering we both slept a combined eight hours in the last three days.” And hiked through endless miles of rain forest, swam through a river and fought a dozen angry smugglers while living off power bars. But something tells him adding all these details will not exactly encourage his partner to get off his back.
“I slept on the plane. Ate the pretty decent chicken and rice thing they got going there. Didn’t see you do neither.”
Well. Not much arguing with that. So he goes for the truth. “I didn’t know if Riley and Bozer were safe yet.”
Their two friends had been posted in Jakarta to provide surveillance and scope out the network of the smuggling ring’s local and international business partners. The last thing he and Jack had heard from them before they lost touch was that the meeting Riley and Bozer went to with one of their contacts had gone sideways.
Jack hums. “Not gonna lie, they had me worried for a bit there. But my girl can handle herself in a fight and from what I heard, Bozer has taken his hand-to-hand-lessons to heart.”
Mac’s eyes wander over to their friends, still dressed in the Hawaiian shirt and flowy dress that fit their cover as harmless tourists on their honeymoon. The only outwards signs they were anything other than that were the shallow cut on Riley’s cheekbone and a slow-forming bruise on Bozer’s jaw.
They are fine, he tells himself for the hundredth time. They are safe. All of them.
But his muscles don’t seem to get the memo and no amount of subtle stretching can get the tension in his shoulders to ease.
“Alright, that’s all for now.” Matty gives them a smile that allows some of her own exhaustion to bleed through. “Get out of here. I don’t want to see anyone back here before you caught at least 12 hours of sleep, you hear me?”
“Yes Ma’ am”, Mac mumbles with the rest of them and bites back a yawn before shuffling out of the war room. The ever-present fluorescent lights in the corridor seem to burn straight into his brain.
“God, I need a shower”, Riley mumbles after taking a sniff of her dress. “And I’d kill for a burger. A pizza. Anything greasy, really.”
“Copy that.” Bozer nods vigorously. “I am starving here. What do y’all say we hit the drive through on our way home?”
Mac knows he should be hungry. But he passed that stage so long ago that right now the thought of food is only making him nauseous.
As if Jack could read his mind, his partner speaks up. “You kids go ahead, but I’m gonna head straight to bed.”
“I’m with Jack”, Mac says, maybe a little too quickly. His partner is making that face again, the one that tells him he’s about to ask questions Mac is too tired to answer.
But he doesn’t. He stays quiet as they head to the locker rooms to pick up their stuff and then towards the garage. Only after Bozer and Riley got into her car and they turn towards Jack’s GTO does he clear his throat.
“Sure we shouldn’t hit Medical? One of these bastards got you pretty good in the ribs there.”
His hands automatically rise to the bruise on his torso, the dull pain almost dismissable amongst his body’s various other complaints. “I have enough ice packs at home.”
“Just saying it might be worth getting checked out…”
“Like the cut on your leg, you mean?”
“You have disinfected that just fine. Even the medic on the plane said so.”
“And you checked my ribs. Nothing’s broken.” The words feel shaky. Just like his knees do. Fuck, he needs to go to bed.
“Suit yourself.” Jack continues towards the car and he turns to follow him. At least in theory. In reality, his vision swims again and this time it does not come back.
“Uhm, Jack…” His knees hit the ground hard and darkness swallows him whole.
***
Jack had a bad feeling about this since they stepped off the plane. He knows his partner can push through basically anything to get the mission done, the intel gathered, the people safe. He’s seen it time and again, witnessed Mac come up with improbable solutions to impossible situations freezing, concussed and slowly bleeding out. His partner is the most reliable person in any crisis and Jack wouldn’t trust anyone with his life the way he trusts this kid. But he also knows that once the crisis is over, he crashes. Hard.
With him zoning out during the debrief, the way he paled when he got up and squinted in the hallway, Jack knew he only had a limited window of time to get his partner home. And by the looks of it, he gravely miscalculated its length.
“Uhm, Jack…”
Something about Mac’s voice immediately rings all his alarm bells and he whirls around just in time to see him hit the floor. Cursing himself silently, Jack sprints the few feet separating them and sinks to his knees beside his unconscious partner. “You gotta stop doing this to me”, he mumbles while his fingers find the pulse under Mac’s jaw. Feels a part of himself relax at finding it strong and steady, if a bit fast.
Before he can move him into recovery position, Mac’s eyes already flutter open. “…Jack?”
“In the flesh, buddy.”
“What… happened? They get us? You hurt? Bozer’n Riley…” He tries to push himself up, but Jack stops him with a firm hand on his chest.
“Are safe. Some might argue safer than you are right now, on the floor of the Phoenix garage.”
Mac blinks, casts a look around. “Oh.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” Color floods his partner’s cheeks and he tries to shake Jack’s hand off. “I’m good now.”
But he is having none of it. “Sometimes I wonder if you actually know what this phrase means.” He shifts his hand from Mac’s chest to his shoulder and helps him sit up slowly. “Can I trust you to stay here for a couple seconds without trying anything funny?” He keeps his tone light but doesn’t hide the edge of worry beneath.
Mac swallows and nods. No witty comeback, no sarcastic eye-roll or question about his definition of the word “funny” in this particular situation. Not exactly a reassuring reaction. While mentally debating whether to actually call Medical and ask for assistance, he jogs the short distance to his car and returns with a bottle of water and one of the protein bars he keeps in his car for stakeouts, road trips and partners with low blood sugar.
Mac – surprisingly enough – has not moved at all. He accepts the water bottle and the bar but doesn’t open either.
“Mac…”
“I really am sorry.” He mumbles, eyes on the pavement. “Thought I would be fine until I get home.”
“Hey, now.” Jack waits until Mac meets his gaze. “Nobody likes calling you out on your bullshit more than me, buddy. I’m the first to sling around an ‘I told you so’, you know that.”He cracks a weak smile. Jack decides to count that as a win. “But that don’t mean shit can’t still happen sometimes. Despite our best intentions.”
Mac opens his mouth to respond but he isn’t quite done yet. “Could you have avoided this by sleeping on the plane or eating any of the things I pointed in your direction the last couple of hours? Probably.”
His partner nods contritely.
“But I get why you didn’t. I do.” Jack studies Mac’s face until he is sure the kid understands he’s serious. “And, hey, do I like picking your ass off concrete in the middle of the night? Hell no! But I’d do it anytime, you hear me?”
“Jack…”
“Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.” Mac’s voice has regained some of his strength as he answers. “Thank you.”
“No need.” Jack claps him on the shoulder and nods towards the water bottle. “I’d rather you start following my unfailing wisdom and start getting some of that into you.”
They sit on the pavement until half of the water is gone and Mac has started nibbling on the protein bar. Jack keeps up a steady stream of chatter while he watches the color return to the kid’s face. By the time he’s confident they can attempt standing up without incident, Jack’s sore muscles have frozen up from crouching and his own exhaustion makes him waver on his feet for a second.
Mac’s hands are at his elbow in an instant. “You good?”
He bites back his instinctive dismissive retort, considers it for a second. He’s dead tired, sore as fuck and in dire need of a shower and a hot meal. But his team is safe and his partner is with him and right now he can’t be bothered to care about anything else. “I’m good, hoss. And right about sick of this building. How about we finally go home?”
“Yeah.” Mac squeezes his arm before letting go and falling into step beside him. “Let’s go home.