AN: Obviously, heavy spoilers for 2.09, CD-ROM + Hoagie Foil. For my thoughts on the ep – please see the AN at the end of the December 2nd chapter of It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, or PM me, I don't want to double-post it!

Being a father, Jack knew, was hard.

(Teenage Riley…well, that'd been a challenge.)

But being a father to two grown-ups, who were brilliant and stubborn and hard-headed and determined to look after themselves and secret agents to boot, who were still lacking a little of the maturity and wisdom that one could only gain by living…that, Jack found, was even harder than dealing with 13-year-old Riley.

(Sure, Mac and Riley were more than capable. They could watch their own backs, but Jack knew they had blind-spots, just like anyone else. He also knew that they were mature beyond their years, having earned wisdom the hard way through everything they'd endured, but they were still young.)

(Still had plenty of living to do, plenty more life lessons to learn.)

HOSPITAL

(MAC REALLY SHOULD BE GIVEN A LOYALTY CARD TO THIS PLACE)

LA

'…Bought you a snack, brother, we gotta get some meat onto your bones, and hospital food ain't gonna cut it!'

Jack strode into the ward and dropped a hoagie onto Mac's tray table, which had a very unappetising hospital meal on it. Mac picked it up and raised his brows at his partner, rolling his eyes.

'Hilarious, Jack.'

He did, however, unwrap the hoagie and bite into it gratefully, as Jack sat down in the chair that Cage had vacated thirty minutes earlier.

'Cage here when you woke up?'

(She'd promised Jack she'd stay with Mac until he regained consciousness, as Jack had an errand to run – an Ellwood-related errand, not that Cage knew that, at least, he hoped she didn't, which might be futile, but Jack was pretty sure Cage was a really good secret-keeper.)

Mac nodded, swallowing his bite of hoagie.

'Yeah. She left about half an hour ago.'

There was a little something in Mac's eyes, on his face, that confirmed Jack's suspicions (which had started quite a while ago) that Mac's Nikki-issues were going to come to a head sometime soon.

(Jack briefly wondered when Mac had developed a thing for blondes who challenged him; Frankie challenged him, and so did Penny, albeit in somewhat different ways, but both were very brunette. Maybe something had happened over in the Sandbox, or maybe he was reading too much into it.)

Internally, he sighed, then pushed that thought aside.

Deal with one problem at a time.

Jack tapped the small square box on Mac's bedside table.

'This the film you found?'

Mac nodded, chewing his mouthful of hoagie slowly before swallowing.

'Yeah, Jill restored it for me.'

Jack stared at the box for a moment, then at his partner.

It had hurt, that Mac had snuck off and gone to his dad's old place without Jack.

They'd said there'd be no more lone-wolfing it. Jack was going to support him and help him and be there for him, he'd thought he'd made that clear.

Make no mistake, Jack knew why Mac had done it.

Mac didn't want to burden him or bother him (even if Jack insisted 'till the day he died that Mac wasn't a burden or a bother, never was, Jack doubted he could undo years of issues related to a childhood with precious few friends and plenty of bullies and his dad's abandonment of him). And Jack got that there was probably something in Mac that thought this was his fight, this was his mission.

It was personal.

It was his father.

And that, Jack thought, might be the rub. Mac had no problems asking Jill for help, but he hadn't asked Jack.

Mac had said in Hungary that there were some things you didn't want to talk to the closest thing to a father you had about.

Maybe there were also some things that you didn't want to bring the closest thing to a father you'd had in years along on, such as searching for your real dad.

(Honestly, Jack wasn't quite sure if that thought made him feel better or worse.)

'You gonna watch it, brother?'

Jack barely managed to suppress the son that threatened to slip out (had slipped out in in Bermuda after Hayes) and replace it with his more neutral, usual form of address.

Mac nodded, putting down the half-eaten hoagie.

'Yeah, once I get out of here.'

He gestured to the ward. Jack pointed at him, very firmly.

'No escaping to try and make that happen earlier, Mac.' He paused. 'And tell me what you find once you've watched it, okay? I meant it, every time, man, we're gonna find your old man, whatever it takes.'

Mac nodded, picking up the hoagie again.

'I promise I won't escape the hospital, Jack.' His expression turned more wry, reaching for levity, for lightness. 'I think they'd take away my loyalty card if I did that.' Jack gave a snort. 'And…I'll let you know.'

The older man looked into the eyes of the younger for a moment (Jack had, of course, noticed that Mac hadn't promised to tell him what he found on that film immediately, but had said that he would at some unspecified point in time), then he nodded in acceptance, a little sad and a little hurt, but also doing everything he could to respect the fact that Mac was an adult, and to have faith in the strength of their bond, and reminding himself that Mac had told him about the film and talked to him about it and that maybe, just maybe, Mac's behaviour wasn't intended as a slight, an offence, towards their relationship, towards Jack, but rather a sign that he treasured the bond they shared so, so much, that Jack meant that much to him.

(That Mac considered Jack to be the closest thing to a father he'd had in years. The closest thing to a father he currently had.)

(Besides, he was a bit of a hypocrite – he was breaking that implicit promise he'd made to Riley, after all; he wasn't sure if he had the moral authority to be lecturing Mac, since he did it out of what he thought was best for her, to protect her, to guard her, out of love, and Jack was quite sure Mac was doing the same to him.)

(Though, Jack thought, who wasn't a hypocrite?)

He checked the time, then got up and put a hand on Mac's shoulder.

'Much as I love you and your constant nerdiness, brother, I got another engagement.' It was Mac's turn to study him for a moment, and then the blonde sighed and gave a nod of acceptance much like Jack's earlier one. 'See you, brother.'

'See you, Jack.'

A LITTLE WHILE LATER…

JACK'S CAR

OUTSIDE A CERTAIN RESTAURANT

Jack put his head in his hands as the man with the gun left.

'Ellwood, what have you gotten yourself into?'

He shook his head and swore, several times, before turning his eyes back to Ellwood and Riley in the restaurant. Riley was laughing, genuinely.

Jack swallowed and looked away for a moment, pushing down that little bit of jealousy. Riley was a really good person. She'd endured a lot of hardship. She deserved the chance to build a relationship with her dad without him throwing a hissy fit. That'd be real immature of him, he was better than that, and Riley deserved better than that. So much better than that. Besides, Riley, Jack knew, for all those walls of cool sarcasm, had a big heart (honestly, everyone in their little improvised family did); there was plenty of love to go around.

But now, it wasn't just about letting Riley build a relationship with the man and him conducting a little surveillance on the sly.

That, Jack could handle. Eventually, the fact that he hadn't done as she asked and stayed out of her business would come to light, and Riley would be furious at him (probably rightly so), but he knew they could work past that.

Now…now there was the matter of exactly what Ellwood was caught up in.

Did he know what the 'think-tank' his daughter worked for really did? Did the people who wanted him dead know? Was there a threat to the Phoenix, to national security?

And more importantly (though Matty would throw him permanently in the doghouse for this), was whatever Ellwood mixed up in putting Riley in danger?

Jack sighed and rubbed his forehead, turning his eyes back to the father and daughter in the restaurant.

He didn't know what to do.

(Do his own digging into this mess that Ellwood had gotten himself into, obviously, but did he bring Riley into this? Or Mac? Or Bozer, when he got back from spy school? Or even Cage? Or, heck, Matty?)

Jack shook his head as Ellwood laughed at something Riley said, muttering to himself.

'No use wishing they came with manuals, Jack Dalton…this wouldn't even be in it if they did.'

AN: Most important question for me to ask – was I fair to everyone in this? I get why a lot of people are probably pissed with Mac and Riley, especially Mac, but I also can see why they're acting the way they are. I feel Jack would be able to as well, so I wanted to express that.

And yes, Jack's wondering about Mac's thing for blondes who challenge him is him channelling me a bit; I mean, Nikki, Katarina, Cindy and Cage are all blonde, and I'm pretty sure they're all blue-eyed as well. Even Frankie had blue eyes. Either Mac's subconscious is extremely determined to do his bit to preserve traits that are moving (slowly, relatively) towards extinction from the human population, or he really has a physical type as well as a personality type, or it's just a coincidence and I'm reading way too much into this…