Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

For those of you who recognize a few certain someones, they are being used with permission.

TOC – Tactical Operations Center. FAK – First Aid Kit. CAS Evac – Casualty evacuation. VHF and UHF – types of radio. SWAG – Scientific Wild Ass Guess. LZ – Landing Zone.

-M-

When he opened his eyes, Dalton was gone. Adams was sitting in his place.

Dalton was gone.

For some reason, he thought he should be happy about that. He was angry, he was furious, Jack had –

Had left. He'd left, to go do something, but the . . . the radio wasn't fixed. A quick flash, and he was back in Gardez, looking into Al's sweating face. Watching him walk away. They had too many calls to wait on the robot, and now they had too many calls to wait on the radio.

It was going to happen again.

It was going to happen again.

Mac rolled his head on his lumpy pillow, trying to get a look at the packs at his feet. It had to be in there.

"Hey, MacGyver, take it easy. He'll be back soon."

No, he wouldn't. "Radio," Mac managed, and then he realized how fast he was breathing. Hyperventilating. Pressure on his diaphragm was mimicking the sensation of having the wind knocked out of him.

Really well. Perfectly, actually.

"I got mine." Adams gestured at his ear. "You don't need it. We're good."

Wrong radio. But Mac reached up to his ear anyway, or tried to. There was a jacket over him, and when it shifted he realized he was freezing. The cave system was feeding them cooler air through the wall, probably close to sixty degrees Farenheit or so, but the opening being so close probably bumped it up into the seventies -

It felt way colder.

I'm in shock, Mac thought, and for some reason, it was familiar. He'd had that thought earlier.

"Hey dude, just stay still, alright?

If he'd lost enough blood to go into shock, he wasn't going to last much longer. Once he passed out, he was no good to Adams anymore. The private was going to get killed waiting for help that wasn't going to come, not fast enough.

The radio. He had to radio in their position, so someone would come for Adams.

The radio was broken.

Mac tried to push himself up, so he could see better. Pain swelled up from his abdomen, gnawing, so much of it that he didn't feel Adams touching him at all, not until he opened his eyes and saw the private was practically on top of him. He was talking, but Mac didn't pay him much attention.

There was something he had to do. Urgently. He felt himself gasping for air, but no matter how much he tried, he just couldn't catch his breath.

He couldn't catch his breath.

Mac opened his eyes, and Adams was gone.

He took a breath. Then another. There was pressure, he couldn't get the air deep enough. He knew it should scare him, but he was so tired. Dizzy. The dark was moving a little, as he watched shadows were sliding off to the left. He heard echoes. Voices.

Adams. Adams was still here.

That was . . . bad, he decided. That was bad. Adams should leave. Go somewhere safe.

It wasn't safe.

He wasn't safe.

The shadows on the wall slid away, and they let a soldier in. His face was covered in a beige scarf, only his eyes were visible. There was a rifle in his hands. He looked at Mac, his dark eyes glittering in the light, and then he stepped into the cavern.

Taliban.

Adams came in next. He wasn't holding his M4, and he looked worried. A mountain of an Afghan was behind him, he made the rifle he was wearing look like a toy. His face was also covered, this time in a rust colored scarf, and when he straightened, the fabric on top of his head brushed the ceiling of the cave.

They were captured.

The first man came to his side, pulling his scarf down, and Mac was vaguely surprised that he was clean-shaven. The dim white LED bulbs made his skin look pale.

"Hey there." His English was impeccable, light and easy. "You must be MacGyver."

Name, rank, birth date, serial number. That was all he was supposed to say. Mac glanced at Adams, standing off to the side as the enormous Afghan knelt to adjust the lantern.

Adams had told them his name?

"Relax, buddy, we're the good guys." The Taliban soldier crouched beside him fished underneath the scarf he was wearing, and came up with dog tags. US Army dog tags. He flashed him a toothy grin. His teeth were white and straight. "Jack Dalton sent us, he told us you got knocked around a little. I'm gonna check you over, that alright with you?"

Jack Dalton.

Jack.

Jack said he was coming back.

They just had to wait for Jack to come back.

But Jack wasn't coming back. Because – because –

The radio.

Someone pulled the jacket off him, and Mac slipped his right hand to his pocket, hunting for his swiss army knife. It wasn't much, but it –

His wrist was caught. "Easy there, pal. I just wanna get a look at ya is all."

"He's really out of it," Adams supplied from the wall. "Last twenty minutes or so."

Mac shot him a dirty look, and the Taliban soldier beside him suddenly grinned.

"Son, you're hearing us just fine, aren't you."

He didn't say anything, and suddenly the giant Afghan loomed overhead, holding the lantern. He'd made it bright again, too bright, Mac squinted and tried to roll away, but his right wrist was still in someone's grip. He tried to pull it free, but then his left hand was taken, and he realized with a jolt they were going to put him in restraints.

He could hear someone rifling through a pack. "So I hear you're from Cali," a different voice said.

Mac got his eyes open again, the light was on his right, now, and the huge Afghan was leaning over him, sitting somewhere above his head. Except he wasn't an Afghan. He was blond. His eyes were light, Mac couldn't see well enough to tell the color, and he reached an arm as thick as a stove pipe over Mac's chest. He felt his wrists being transferred to the man's hold.

"Dunno about you, but I could go for a double-double from In-N-Out right about now," the giant told him. Mac tried to get his hands free, but he might as well have been fighting cement. The man didn't pull them above his head, he just held them in one giant hand, right above his collarbone. He felt cold air hit his abdomen, and Mac tried to pick up his head.

"So what's the story with you? NorCal or SoCal?"

"Got a good hold of him?"

"Oh yeah," the giant confirmed.

Then all Mac felt was pain.

He shouted, maybe words, maybe not. Someone was talking about redwoods. There was dead weight on his legs, he was trapped, he was trapped, and he tried to arch his back, tried to get leverage. He felt a second blow.

Mac gasped, crying out, and then sucked in a breath. Then another. And for the first time he could remember, he felt it.

It felt like he could breathe again.

The pain subsided, enough that he could see, a little. The giant was making a face, then looked down at him, and the disgusted expression trailed off a little into surprise. "Dude. You should prolly pass out," he advised.

Mac stared up at him, then ineffectually tried to pull his wrists free. It was getting easier to breathe by the second, and the pain melted into strange but gentle warmth.

"That's a little better, right?" It was the other voice, and the first face swam back into view. "There you go, deep breaths. We're gonna put you on a stretcher and get you to a bird for evac. Nod if you understand me."

He understood. But he couldn't leave. Jack was coming back, he wouldn't know where they'd gone -

No. Jack wasn't. Jack said he would, but he wasn't. The solider was looking at him, clearly waiting for his response, and Mac glared at him.

"Private, gimme his socks, wouldja?" His voice was still friendly and light, and then he disappeared for a moment before coming back into view. He was smiling. "You are gonna fight us the whole damn way, aren't ya."

Detachedly, Mac felt his feet being manipulated, but try as he might, he couldn't seem to pull them away from whoever had them.

"Gotta move in three," a new voice said, and something about the cadence of the words was familiar. "He gonna be ready?"

"Yeah. He's a little combative, just gonna make sure he doesn't take a header over the side." There was a slight pause, and the soldier looked towards Mac's feet. "You don't need to tie those, private."

"Oh." Adams sounded a little embarrassed, and finally, whoever was playing with his feet seemed to stop.

Something was passed up his side, and then his olive drab socks came into view, and the giant took them. Despite the fact that he was manipulating the fabric, somehow Mac was utterly unable to get his wrists away from him, and he found them firmly bound almost effortlessly.

"Okay, kid, here we go," the first soldier told him, and then seemed to step over something on the floor. There was a little scuffling, and the giant released his hands. Mac didn't dare lay them down anywhere near his chest, lest the pain flare up, so he left them up near his chin, and the giant above him grabbed his uniform by the shoulders.

"Yeah, grab his legs. Up on three. One, two –"

He felt himself picked up, and the pain, which had melted into that comfortable warmth, spiked into white-hot sandpaper. He was put down almost immediately, but it took a few seconds to fade, and people seemed to be moving around him on both sides.

The first soldier was talking, he could always pick out the guy's smooth, soothing voice, and someone took his hands and pulled them to his waist. A strap tightened around his upper arms, and Mac picked up his head, trying to see what was happening. A second strap was tightened at his waist, pinning his lower arms.

They were green nylon straps. Adams was at his feet, securing a third, and the first soldier was doing something to the back of his hand.

"You're gonna feel a little pinch," the man said absently, not looking at his face. Sure enough, he did, and Mac let his head drop back to whatever they'd put him on.

A stretcher, his mind supplied. They'd said that. Take him to a helo. Away from the cave.

Jack wouldn't know where they were.

There were more voices, but he stopped paying attention. He could still breathe, and though hands and other things touched him, they didn't hurt him. He was jolted awake when the floor fell away, and his body folded into itself, forcing his shoulders to roll inward uncomfortably. He didn't have time to brace himself, the pain hit him all at once, and the jostling didn't stop, even when he moaned. By the time he got his eyes open, it felt a little like he was on top of an industrial dryer that was rattling across the floor, and a third soldier, with a scarf around his neck, came into view.

The man gave him a once-over, then raised an eyebrow. "Doc, your patient's lookin' at me."

"You noticed that," the first voice said dryly, somewhere above him, on his right. "He's a tough little SOB."

"Yeah, well, Wyatt said. He gonna stay quiet?"

"I don't wanna knock him out unless we have to."

The older soldier gave him another penetrating stare. Then he transferred it up to somewhere over Mac's left shoulder. "Private. What's your name?" The drawl was familiar, and oddly comforting.

"Adams, sir."

"Adams, match my guy's stride, try to give the kid a smooth ride. We get contact, you take your cue from the redwood up there." Mac heard the action on a rifle cycle through someone checking the chamber. "Move out."

It was the night sky he made out next, the stars weirdly dim. Mac kept waiting for his eyes to adjust, but they never did. Outside of the breathing of the men around him, and their boots on the rocks, he didn't hear much of anything. There were two at his head, but it seemed like only one at his feet, and he knew for a fact that field evac was supposed to be done by a four man team, but then he remembered the giant Afghan who wasn't an Afghan, and suddenly his feet being higher than the rest of him made sense.

The jostling hurt – particularly when they went up. He felt like he was going to slide right off the uncomfortable hammock he was bound to, but he tried not to make a sound. And he didn't understand why.

They were taking him away. He didn't know where. Adams was helping them. He didn't know why. They weren't Army medics. No patches. They weren't even in uniform, not really. He craned his head back and caught sight of the guy over his right shoulder. The scarf wasn't on his head anymore, but he was still wearing it there on his neck.

The guy looked down at him. "Almost there," he whispered, so softly Mac barely heard him. "Hang in there, pal."

They seemed to slip down more than descend a slope, rocks and sand hissing and crunching under them, and then someone cranked up the sound. It took him too long to recognize the rumble of a helicopter, and then they leveled off, and the breeze started blowing sand up his nostrils. Mac winced and turned his head a little, but the noise and the wind got worse, louder and louder. It was overwhelming, and Mac shouted back.

There was suddenly light, impossibly bright, and Mac turned away from it, or tried to. He felt the man at his feet step up something relatively high, and then the men in the back raised him up level, and he opened his eyes to see bright green lights.

"Got him," someone called, and then his body settled onto something hard. His shoulders could finally roll back, and he felt relief as some of the pressure faded. He pried his eyes open again, and found himself in the green-bathed cabin of a Blackhawk. Someone in a bona fide US Army medic uniform came to his side, wearing a very bright green headlamp mounted on his combat helmet, and Mac watched the beam spotlight a bag of fluid getting unattached from something – someone – above him, and transferred to a pole.

"Grab Wyatt's jacket!" someone called, and the person above his right shoulder came to his right side, unstrapping him from the stretcher.

"Looks like this is adios, kiddo," he said, and then he gently peeled off the extra uniform jacket that Mac hadn't even realized was still lying on top of him. "Guess ol' Jack wants this back. Cold really starts bugging ya when you get to be his age."

"I heard that!" a familiar voice yelled, and the soldier flashed him a smile and disappeared out the right loading door. It was only empty a second; another figure entered the green lights, and Mac blinked up into a wide Jack Dalton grin.

"Hey bud." He made quick work of getting his vest off, and started putting the jacket on. "These fine flyboys are gonna take you back to Kabul, getcha patched up."

As soon as the jacket was zipped, Jack was slipping the vest back on. Mac blinked, unable to figure out why he would be doing that if they were being evaced.

His overwatch correctly interpreted his confusion. "Gotta go get Boone and Serrano. I'll be back by the time you wake up, kid." There was a hand on his shoulder, that Mac barely felt, and then Jack was gone, and the right loading door was being pulled shut.

The medic leaned in close to his left ear. "Specialist, I'm gonna start you something for the pain. It's gonna make you a little drowsy, okay?"

After that, Mac was only aware of flashes. Pain. Lights. Deafening sound. He was always being moved, being touched. It always hurt. No one would leave him alone. He was nauseous, all he wanted was just a little peace and quiet. Darkness. Silence.

He just wanted to sleep.

But something kept picking at him, forcing him to open his eyes, time and time again. Sudden noises. Faces covered in blue cloth. Lights moving sickeningly overhead. Someone put a mask on his face, hard and uncomfortable, and he tasted onions.

It took him a while to realize he was awake, and MacGyver pried his eyes open once more.

And for once, it was quiet. Cool. Dark.

He slowly picked out the ceiling tiles above him. There was a curtain on his right, hanging from chains on a metal track, and he followed it idly around the ceiling in a horseshoe, to the other side of the bed. Something large and dark was there, and Mac turned his head a little, listening to a pillow crinkle as he did so.

Sprawled in a chair near the side of the bed was a crusty, filthy Jack Dalton. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his chin was almost touching them. He was dead to the world.

Mac studied him for a moment, eyes on any pattern in the camo that could have been blood, but it all seemed to kind of blur together.

Someone touched his hand.

Mac jerked awake. The lighting was brighter. A nurse in scrubs held out her blue-gloved hands in a placating manner, and Mac stared at her for a second before he slowly relaxed back against the mattress. The pain barely registered.

"Good afternoon, specialist," she greeted him. "Do you know where you are?"

Mac glanced around. The curtain was gone. He was in a room, now, with another bed on his left. It was occupied, a sleeping Latino guy with very neatly trimmed hair that almost screamed Marine.

There was no chair. And no Jack Dalton.

Then his brain caught up. "Afternoon?" It was raspy, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "What time is it?"

"A little after fourteen hundred." She was watching him closely. "How do you feel?"

He glanced down at himself, not surprised to find the usual hospital gown, this time tied in the front. He unthinkingly went to pull it open, to see the damage, and a little twinge in his right elbow reminded him that he was attached to an IV. "Uh . . . fine," he said, a little lamely, picking at the gown with his left hand instead.

"Any pain? Nausea? Lightheadedness?"

"No . . ." Actually, he felt kind of numb. Mac twitched his feet, just to be sure they worked, and outside of feeling like they'd been lying in the same position for the last twelve hours, they seemed fine.

"Do you need anything right this moment?"

He swallowed, kind of expecting himself to be thirsty, but he found he wasn't. "Uh, no. I think."

He almost missed her bright smile. "As soon as the doctor's through rounding, I'll have him come speak with you. I wasn't on shift last night, but I understand you had a few visitors."

Mac blinked at her. Then it hit him all at once.

"My – my team, were they brought here too? Lieutenant Linda Smiley, Specialist Arush Ramarao, uh . . . Higgins – Trent Higgins, he's a pilot, broken leg –"

"Whoa," she said, but it sounded good-natured, and she pulled a pad of paper out of a pocket. "We're pretty much at capacity right now, if you tell me which unit-"

"EOD. We were part of Sweeper."

The information didn't seem to mean anything to her. She jotted it down, then folded the little notepad back into her pocket. "I'll see what I can find out."

"Thank you," he said, and he meant it.

The nervous little pit in his stomach gradually grew over the next hour. Though many people passed by in the hallway – more in uniform than not – no one stopped at his room. The bruising over his solar plexus was absolutely spectacular. He really needed to get day to day photos of it to send to Bozer, for makeup reference. He wouldn't have believed it was real if it wasn't under his own skin.

While the deep reds had darkened into purples and blues, the very edges were starting to turn ever so slightly yellow. It hurt like hell to touch, and there were seven stitches right over the darkest part. But breathing was easy, and unless he intentionally did something to irritate it, like move at all, the terrible gnawing pain was simply gone.

One of his machines started beeping, and a male orderly appeared in due course and punched a few buttons. He gave Mac a nod, but didn't stop to chat, so MacGyver left him to it. He eventually came back with a small bag of something yellowish, attached a few lines, and the next time Mac opened his eyes, it was darker again.

Things had changed. The overhead lights were off, but the light attached to his headboard was on. A little table was hovering above his waist, containing a plastic tray with the kind of sad greyish beige cover recognizable the world over. He didn't really smell anything, so he figured whatever it was had been there a while.

And there was a person, seated on his right side.

Mac turned his head a little, and found his overwatch staring right at him.

Jack didn't say anything, but eventually he turned his right arm over, glancing at the inside of his wrist. Most of the guys Mac knew wore their watches backwards, with the faces on the inside of their forearms instead of the outside. It was an easier motion to look at the watch, and you tended to bang your arms into stuff a lot and break a lot of watch faces on a military base.

"I remember bein' able to sleep like that," Jack murmured, almost fondly. "Not that I had much opportunity. Get it while you can."

There was something ever so slightly . . . off . . . about his tone, and Mac let the quip about his age go, looking up the IV tree. Sure enough, the little bag of yellow stuff was bone dry.

"I had a little help," he rasped, and then he swallowed with a shallow cough. One of the things on his tray table was an ugly plastic maroon cup with a bendy straw sticking out of it, and he helped himself to the water. After a few swallows, his stomach gave him a slight little warning tremor, and he immediately stopped and set it back down.

"How's the . . . the rest of Sweeper?"

If the question surprised Jack, he didn't show it. "'Bout the same as you. Ramallama's gonna be suckin' soup through a straw for a while, but he'll be fine. Smiley's runnin' around somewhere, she's pissed the sling is navy blue instead of green. She stopped by a few hours ago but you were out." He waved a hand in the general direction of the hallway. "The nugget got a plate and some screws, don't know if he's up and about yet."

Mac took a slow, deliberate breath, and waited for the little knot of anxiety to loosen.

They were fine. Even the lieutenant. They had all been treated, and they were going to be fine.

But that pit in his stomach stayed staunchly right where it was.

"I wasn't here when your doc stopped by. Nurse says you still got all your original parts and pieces, they're just gonna hang onto ya for a couple days and make sure that mess does what it's s'pposed to." Jack nodded at the general direction of the tray table, but Mac understood it was supposed to be his chest.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

Jack shrugged. "Nurse said you were askin' earlier. She's off shift now, gave me the gist. Kinda cute."

Normal banter. Normal tone. Nothing threatening, nothing demanding.

But still, ever so slightly off.

Mac looked back at the tray on the table, but he was pretty sure he didn't want anything in it. He picked up the cup, for lack of anything else to do with his hands, and his overwatch made a little noise, and reached down to the floor beside him.

"We're at Camp Eggers, not sure anyone told ya. So not my usual box-kicker." Jack came up with two containers of paperclips, a bag of rubber bands, and a couple books. "Got a line on a portable DVD player, but not sure you can stay awake through a movie just yet."

Mac stared at the items Jack unpacked from his knapsack, not quite sure what to do, and Jack settled back into the chair, tucking his backpack out of the way. "I mean, I get cheesy romance novels prolly ain't your thing, but beggars can't be choosers."

Mac picked up the top book, with the words 'Princess Bride' in large white text. Even if the title hadn't given it away, on the cover a woman in red and white medieval dress was being led through a murky forest by a black-suited pirate carrying a rapier.

"I've never read this," he heard himself say.

"Imagine that," Jack responded dryly.

Mac glanced over at the other bed, but the Latino Marine was nowhere to be seen.

"That guy got cut loose about an hour ago. Enjoy the private room, man. This place was hoppin' a few days ago."

Mac blinked. "A few days ago . . .?"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Dude, it's Thursday."

Sweeper had gone out to eval the bridge Monday morning.

Mac set the book back down on the table, and picked up the box of paperclips. "How'd . . . the rest of the op go?"

Jack's voice was perfectly steady. "Trainin' camp's been neutralized. Took us a minute, and I'm sure a few of 'em are still runnin' around loose in the mountains, but they sure as hell won't be taking pot shots at Army birds for a while." He readjusted himself in his chair, getting comfortable. "Serrano and Boone are headed home Saturday. Smiley's gonna push for a Silver Star for the captain. I sent my recommendation along with hers. So did you, by the way, if anybody asks."

Mac digested that. A Silver Star was awarded for singular acts of valor or heroism during engagement with enemy forces.

And he would have written and signed that recommendation, if he'd been awake. Having seen the damage to the Blackhawk up close, he knew the pilot's actions in the first five seconds after impact were the only reason any of them crawled out of that wreckage.

Even though the captain himself had not.

The knot in his stomach tightened a little, and Mac opened the box of paperclips.

"Listen, Mac –"

"Thanks, for this," he broke in, holding up a paperclip. "I appreciate it. But I'm kinda tired. Do you mind . . .?"

Jack's smile was wry. "The guy who just slept for three days is tired?"

Mac gave a little shrug. "Unconscious is not the same thing as asleep."

"I didn't say it was." The wry smile was still in place. "You need me back here for anything?"

It hit him like a sucker punch, but Mac couldn't quite figure out why. He'd just thrown the other man out of his room, of course he was going to ask if –

"Nah. Thanks though," Mac's mouth said, without any sort of input from his brain. "We're out of rotation, I'm sure they've got you on modified duty. And Eggers is a couple hours from the FOB . . ."

"Yeah, that they do," the man drawled agreeably, addressing only the first part of Mac's excuse. They stared at one another a second, and then Jack clapped his hands on his knees and stood. "Well, dude, sleep well, feel better and all that jazz. I'll see ya when you get back to the FOB."

And then Jack scooped up his backpack and walked away. He eased the door mostly closed, to block out some of the hall noise on his way out.

The knot tightened further.

-M-

The next few days seriously challenged Mac's faith in Einstein's theory of special relativity. He was most certainly not an accelerating observer. He was barely even a moving one. And despite the fact that the camp infirmary was absolutely not operating in a vacuum, Mac would have sworn that everything, including light, was moving both faster and slower than it should have been.

He would lose time. Despite his anxiety and boredom, his body was quite capable of ignoring the adrenaline in favor of the painkillers. And Mac hadn't realized just how much of his comfort was due to them until they were gone, and he woke to more than just a shadow of the peculiarly biting pain. Mac chalked it up to the nerve cluster that had been thoroughly abused, which was something he'd never experienced before, and made him feel just a little bad for whacking Smitty right at the exact same spot when he came around a corner unexpectedly in the Tombs back at MIT.

He managed to miss Smiley a second time; a nurse woke him to prep him for a CT scan and he saw the lieutenant's back disappearing out the door. The only part of the sling he could see was a white shoulder strap. The doctor came in later and spoke to him. No permanent damage. Two weeks of PT, four weeks light duty. Not enough to get him sent home.

They had him up and walking the morning after he talked with Jack. The catheter being removed was a very strange experience, and not one that he was interested in repeating. His legs still didn't feel quite right, a little too weak to really trust, and the few opportunities he had to wander the hospital were always short and supervised. He glanced into all the rooms he passed, but didn't see any familiar faces.

Mac was more than ready to leave when, on the fourth morning he could clearly remember, the nurse from the first day breezed in with his discharge papers.

"Just sign here," she said with a smile, shifting his breakfast tray over slightly to make room on the little tray table.

He did so, noting that the form was in more than triplicate, and wondering exactly what he'd actually just agreed to. Probably absolving the United States military for any future complications that might arise from his injury.

Not for the first time since everything had happened, Mac wondered if his experience was anything even remotely like Harry's. And not for the first time since everything had happened, he wished fiercely that his grandfather was around, so that he could ask him.

Ask him what the hell he was supposed to do.

Knowing his grandpa like he did, he was sure there was a single sentence that would untangle all of this for him. No one knows how long they have. All you need is what's out there, and what's in here. All those smarts come at a price.

You love people for their flaws.

The first time he and Boze had gotten into it, really gotten into it, Harry had found him underneath the treehouse, trying to figure out how to split it up equitably in such a way that he and Bozer got time equivalent to the amount of work they'd put in, and their specific uses for the space, but didn't have to see each other. Harry had listened attentively while Mac walked through the logic, the facts of who had done what and his assertion that what he was planning was fair to both parties.

And at the end of it, Harry had asked him two simple questions.

"Did you tell him how he made you feel? And did you ask him how you made him feel?"

At first the questions hadn't made any sense. Clearly Bozer didn't care how he'd made Mac feel, or he wouldn't have said what he'd said. And knowing exactly what he'd said and done, he could easily infer how Bozer ought to be feeling.

But Harry didn't want to hear another word about it until Mac had the answers to both those questions. The pit in his stomach hadn't gone away until he'd pulled together his courage – really his anger, and his fear of disappointing his grandfather – and confronted Boze.

And found out just how wrong both of them had been.

The intervening time not talking to each other had allowed him to construct a story in his head, one that wasn't reflective of reality. He'd said some terrible things to Boze because he'd believed something that wasn't actually true. And Mac had a sinking feeling he'd done exactly the same thing now.

Two hundred and seven days.

That was how long Jack Dalton had been his cover. Over seven months. He trusted the guy with his life, pretty much every day.

He hadn't been in that cockpit with Jack and the pilot. He hadn't been on that ridge with Jack and Adams.

And even knowing all of that, knowing that he didn't have all the facts, he couldn't shake the feeling in his gut. It was fear, he knew – he was afraid of how Jack was going to react to him. And how he was going to react to Jack.

He was afraid he was right. That he and Jack were going to have that talk, and he was going to find out exactly what had happened in that cockpit, and on that ridge, and the story that he'd told himself would end up being true. He was afraid he'd spent the last two hundred and three days believing something that wasn't reflective of reality.

And he was afraid of what would happen after that.

Which was, frankly, ridiculous, he pointed out to himself as he slowly pulled on his uniform. He'd just been in a helicopter crash, hunted by what had turned out to be almost a hundred enemy soldiers, very nearly had his aorta torn open – which would have been a death sentence if it had happened in the United States, let alone out in a desert with zero medical assistance – and he regularly walked up to and poked at things that might explode.

So what about walking up to and poking at Jack Dalton scared him so much? If they were done, they were done. They'd spent their first forty days working together without liking each other, what was another hundred?

He was handed a bag containing more little orange pill bottles than Mac was really comfortable with, but a glance at the inventory revealed they were all in very small quantities, that would eventually dwindle down to a standard, non-prescription dose of ibuprofen. Just enough to get him through the PT. The nurse had no orders for him, other than a confirmation that transport from Camp Eggers to the FOB had been arranged, and he was permitted to walk out of the facility under his own power, rather than sitting in a wheelchair. He'd been on the second floor of the facility, and as he stepped out of the elevator and took in the lobby, he saw why.

He could take the steps if the elevator broke. The men down here could not.

There were operations going on in different parts of Afghanistan every day, so it was hard to say how many of the men he saw on crutches or on wheels had been part of whatever op had been spun up to get them out. He felt guilty as he walked across the severely lit space, past people who wouldn't, who couldn't even after they were healed up and discharged, and only his desire to see Higgins made him look those men in the eye.

None of them seemed to have any blame or anger towards him, and somehow it made MacGyver feel worse.

And there was no sign of their co-pilot as Mac's ever so odd-feeling legs carried him out into the blinding sunlight.

Camp Eggers was in Kabul proper, in the embassy district, and there were two MPs just outside the door. They took him in, including his temporary ID badge and the hospital bracelet that was still on his wrist - if only because he couldn't find his swiss army knife. Mac was hoping beyond hope it had been recovered with his gear. He squinted at the two men, trying to adjust to the sunlight, and then the older guy gestured towards a Humvee that was parked towards the end of the horseshoe-shaped drive.

"There's your ride, son."

He didn't have much with him, just the uniform on his back and the bag of drugs and personal effects, so Mac knocked on the window to warn the driver he was there, and then pulled open the door and tossed the bag at the foot of the passenger side before he carefully hauled himself in.

Mac was watching his handholds and trying to move reasonably quickly without aggravating his abdomen, but even the hasty glance he shot towards the driver was unnecessary. Mac recognized him just by the shape of the body sitting in that driver's seat.

He took a careful breath, letting himself get settled a second before he reached over and closed the door. This was a good opportunity, he told himself firmly, gingerly reaching across his chest for the seatbelt. This was one of the hummers that was outfitted for city driving, meaning it was older, didn't have as much power, and wasn't armored. The cabin was a little quieter.

They could talk. A couple hours to the FOB, say whatever needed to be said, and that would be the end of it.

Jack waited until he was all strapped in. "Ready to hit the road?"

"Let's do it," he replied, in the same friendly and empty tone.

"You been to Kabul proper?" Jack asked conversationally, waiting for the gate to open before easing the hummer into traffic.

Mac admitted he had not, not since arriving at Kabul International when he was first deployed. Jack was the quintessential tour guide, pointing out the various embassies and other official buildings of note. Mac listened politely, comparing the flags flying with Jack's assertions, and found that they were all quite correct.

Jack offered to stop and pick up anything Mac might need, water, a bio break. Mac politely declined, and after twenty or so minutes they were headed down the main thoroughfare, that would take them out of the city and into the desert.

Mac unzipped his uniform shirt, and then he realized that without his helmet, it was going to be harder to conk out against the window.

"So, what's the verdict?"

Mac glanced over, but Jack was eyes on the road, one elbow wedged against the door. His eye protection was on, and Mac found himself wishing he had the same shield. "Verdict?"

"Yeah." A careless gesture in his general direction. "You gonna live?"

Right. Jack hadn't gotten any updates. "Couple weeks of PT, then a month of light duty. Should be back in rotation after that."

"Good to hear," Jack said, and then the cabin settled into silence.

Mac stared out the windshield a moment, then smiled despite himself. "You didn't need to come pick me up, Jack."

"Dude, afraid you're wrong about that." Jack reached into his uniform and came up with orders, which he handed over. "We're still doing the post-op debriefings. Seems the ol' colonel wanted me out of his hair this morning."

Mac accepted the paper and opened it, though it didn't really matter, and sure enough, Dalton had been ordered to be his transport.

Which was probably just a convenience. If they'd had enough personnel injured during the op, it wasn't like there were going to be that many Pfcs wandering around twiddling their thumbs. And whatever temporarily duties they'd assigned Jack, it was probably too soon to have him deployed on more spook stuff.

"Oh. And before I forget –" Dalton reached into his uniform again, rooting around more deeply in the interior pocket, and came up with a familiar shape in deep red.

Mac blinked at him, but Jack didn't act like it was any big thing. He simply held the tool out.

"Woulda given it to you a couple days back, but I figured the second you got bored you'd take apart the bed and that pretty blonde would've been too pissed to give you her number."

Mac accepted the multitool, turning it over in his hands a moment. "You're probably right."

"You remember me takin' it away?"

Exact same tone.

"Yeah. I do," was all Mac said. The swiss army knife felt warm in his fingers.

If you ever feel alone, or like you got a problem you can't solve, take it out of your pocket. Look at it. And remember it's got a tool for every situation. With it, you can do just about anything.

"I didn't know you still had it. I thought maybe it made it back into my pack." As a rule, Mac didn't believe in 'signs from above' or any of the rest of that nonsense, but somehow it was always easier to hear his grandfather's wisdom when he was holding it.

"Nah, man. That was your grandpa's, wasn't it?" Jack glanced at Mac's hands. "Figured it was safer with me."

Mac opened up the multi-tool, selected the scissors, and made quick work of removing the hospital band.

"Harry gave this to me the day after my tenth birthday." He folded the tool back together, looking at each blade, measuring the thickness of the metal in comparison to the blades above and below it. Each one exactly strong enough for its intended purpose, nothing extra, nothing short.

"Look, Mac, we don't gotta talk about this right now if you don't wanna."

There was no tool for this. People, for all that their systems ran like machines, were not something he could simply take apart and reassemble. The knife had gotten him through some things that he frankly had no business surviving. Harry had been right; it had been good to him.

But it hadn't brought his father back. It hadn't helped him patch things up with Bozer. And it wasn't going to help him fix this.

"I think we do, Jack." Mac tucked the tool into his pocket, where it belonged, and put his eyes back on the road.

His cover was quiet a moment, then blew out a sigh. "Okay, then let me go first. I've had a few more days to think this through than you have, and I only got one thing I gotta say."

Mac inclined his head. "Shoot."

For a moment, there was only the road noise, the large tires loud on the actual pavement of a real highway. It could have been any highway, could have been stateside if he wasn't looking at the license plates of the vehicles around them. He wondered if Jack thought he'd chosen that word specifically, rather than merely selecting a commonly used figurative colloquialism, giving permission for someone to begin.

He wondered if Jack was right.

"I'm sorry."

Mac was unprepared for that, and he found himself looking at Jack quite without meaning to. Jack still had only one hand on the wheel, the other lying along the windowsill, and was looking right at him. As soon as he had his eyes, Jack slowly nodded.

"I didn't have your back, bud. I wasn't there the way you needed me t'be."

Mac felt his brow furrow, despite his attempt to keep his expression smooth. "I'm pretty sure you did exactly what you were trained to do," he said carefully.

His cover grinned, and Mac was almost certain if the sunglasses weren't there, he'd see it wasn't touching Jack's eyes. "I ain't talkin' about the T-men. I'm talkin' about you."

Mac took a measured breath. "Then maybe we should start with my reminding you that I'm not a child."

"No you are not," Jack agreed. "And I'm beginning to think you never got to be one."

The logical path of the conversation he'd plotted out in his head disintegrated in his mental fingers, and MacGyver glared at him. "You know what? This was a bad idea. Let's just both agree to disagree and call it good enough."

"We could do that," his cover allowed, glancing at the side-view mirror as he changed lanes. "You just tell me one thing, hoss, and I'll let it go. You tell me what day it was when you decided I was a monster."

Mac struggled to find his footing. Of course this was his fault. Of course it was. The idealistic intellectual versus the cynical realist soldier. "That's a little melodramatic, don't you think?"

"Nope." There wasn't a trace of amusement on Jack's visible face. "You think I coerced a dyin' man into blowing his own head off because that was just a hair more convenient for me. And that I blew up a busload of school kids not ten minutes later. I don't know what you boys call that in La-la Land, but where I come from, that's what we call the devil himself." Jack resettled his fingers around the wheel, and Mac heard it creak.

"Now you tell me what it was I said or did that'd make you believe that, and I won't say another word about it."

No. He was not going to argue about straw men or tilt at windmills. "That's your word, not mine."

"That ain't an answer, pal."

"What do you want from me?" He swallowed back the volume with effort. "You made me a murderer, Jack. Rationalize it all you want to, but I set those charges, and there are kids – actual kids – who'll never get to go back home."

Jack was quiet a moment, and Mac saw a muscle tighten along his jaw. "Then maybe we should start by my reminding you that ya volunteered to join the Army and come to a war zone."

"At least I can tell the difference between an enemy combatant and a child!"

Dalton chuckled, low in his throat. "There we go. Was that so hard?"

Mac shook his head incredulously. Jack really thought he'd played him? "You know what? I wasn't on that ridge. I didn't see what you saw. But I damn well know that I would have found another way."

"Oh, do you now?" The drawl was back. "Lemme guess. You woulda taken an M4 apart, turned it into a trumpet, and played the fuckin' Afghan National Anthem, and everyone woulda just let bygones be bygones and went on their way."

"Ohhhh," Mac murmured sarcastically, as he caught on. "This is about the gun."

"No, it damn well is not about the gun!" Jack ripped off his eye protection, and Mac was stunned to see tears in the man's eyes. "Dude, I been nut to butt with you for two hundred and seven days, and you think I can't tell the damn difference between an enemy combatant and a civilian?! You don't think I tried to find a way to get us outta that fuckin' mess without killin' every damn person I saw?!" He snapped his jaw shut, then turned back to the road, shaking his head.

"Cuz if that's what you believe, brother . . . then I don't think I can be your overwatch."

I agree.

The words were on his tongue. It was the only logical resolution that this conversation could come to. There was a fundamental difference in the way they approached the work, and it wasn't because something was broken. It was the way they were wired. One to violence and one to science.

Which did not explain why Jack was crying.

Or why the pit in his stomach felt ten times larger. And that it had nothing to do with the jostling from the hummer.

Mac took a deliberate breath. " . . . I've never seen you target a non-combatant," he said slowly. "Even when you had cause." A fleeting memory, the woman who'd been hurrying towards him in Shinia. The three young men that had hassled him in Khost. The dozens of times large groups had passed by him while he was working, and any one of them could have been carrying a weapon.

Never once had Jack pulled the trigger when he didn't have to. And though he'd only done it half a dozen times in the two hundred and seven days they'd been working together, every shot had been investigated and cleared.

Jack was right. He had demonstrated, repeatedly and consistently, that he didn't shoot unless a life was in immediate danger. Even under pressure.

So why . . . why did he think that Jack would have –

He didn't. It wasn't about Jack's ability to discern friend from foe. It was about the fact that the gun Jack had used was him. It was his explosive.

"I didn't get to decide," Mac said aloud, softly. "I set explosives for one purpose and you chose to use them for another."

For a long moment, both of them were silent. When Jack finally spoke, his voice was thick. "That's the first time that's happened, isn't it. Something you took part in led to someone dyin'."

No. It wasn't. All he had to do was say a couple words to Al. It would have taken less than five minutes to get the robot up and working, and the Ghost's bomb would have blow the TALON to hell, instead of a man who was about to go stateside to see the birth of his daughter. If he'd just insisted they follow protocol, if he'd just checked the robot during the last stop, when it stalled those few seconds, and he'd known, he'd known the damn thing was gonna come off the track again -

"No," is all Mac managed.

Jack waited, but he had nothing else to offer the man.

"Angus, I'm sorry. I tried to find another way. If they'd'a just been after the bird, we could have blown it and run, but that ain't how it went down."

Knowing what they knew now, Mac reluctantly had to agree. If the helo had been blown before anyone came over the ridge, they would have caught up long before he and Smiley could have laid traps on the land bridge. They would have been captured, and once the search for them started in earnest, they very likely would have been killed.

"You feel like I used ya?"

That, at least, he could answer. "No." Jack hadn't told him to demo the bird – that was SOP. And in hindsight, the lieutenant –

Smiley must have known. Maybe not about the child soldiers, but certainly that the helo would be used to take out soft targets. Then again, he'd known the charges they set on the land bridge would be used to take out soft targets.

The difference was, he thought he was laying charges to take out soft targets who had made their own decision to be there.

"Look, dude, you gotta give me more than yes and no."

His immediate thought was, no, I don't. I don't owe you anything. And that response was so terribly, horribly selfish that Mac actually closed his eyes to banish it. He owed Jack his life. Six times now, at least. Sure, he'd repaid the favor probably that many times, but he wasn't actually counting, because –

Because he didn't need to count. This wasn't about who had put in more work on the treehouse. It wasn't about who needed to use the space.

He trusted Jack. And now this.

The inevitable end of this conversation was the agreement that they needed to go their separate ways. This was never going to work. Not long term.

"You knew that I'd never make that decision, and you took it away from me."

His words rang heavy in the cabin, and in his peripheral vision, he saw Jack scrub his eyes.

"Yeah, man. You're right. And that is one of the things that I fuckin' love about you."

For a split second, he didn't think he'd heard that right, and a glance at Jack showed he was smiling – all the way to his eyes – even though he was still crying.

"Oh yeah, dude. I can give you freakin' impossible odds and nothin' but the uniform on your back, and you can see nine different ways to get around it. It's like magic." He glanced at him for a moment before putting his eyes back on the road. "And ninety-nine out of a hundred times, you are on the money, son. But when it comes to that one, that little ol' one, you're wrong. You ain't never gonna make the decision you have to. And I can't take someone into combat that I can't trust to survive it."

And there it was again. That pesky word.

Trust.

"Don't take it the wrong way, man. I know you're not suicidal." Jack shook his head, like he couldn't believe his own foolishness. "When I first metcha, I thought it must be arrogance, you bein' so young – and dude, just don't, I know ya know how to blow your own nose." The knife hand came out, pre-emptively stalling him from bristling at the constant reminder that he was just a hair under twenty. "But now, buddy, now I get it."

Mac gave him a sideways look. "There's always another way, Jack. Always."

Jack hesitated. "Mac, you were wrecked. I dunno if you remember, bud, but you were in a world a hurt. The lieutenant tried to calm you down, just like she woulda her own son. And not once did you call out for your mom. You acted like Smiley wasn't even there."

His gut tightened, and Mac tried very hard not to change his expression.

"I ain't gonna pry, but I got a feelin' somebody let you down, and they left ya to fend for yourself. Military parents, maybe just absentee parents, latch key kid, orphan, happens all the time." He somehow made it sound like it wasn't a judgement. "That's why you know just about everythin' about everythin'. And why you're doing every damn thing you can to avoid bein' in a position where you gotta rely on anybody for anythin'."

This time his mouth moved without him. "Really? So that's why I wired explosives and counted on Smiley to place the detonators without blowing us up. Or gave my back to you when we were out in the field. Thanks for clearing that up."

Jack gave a short, irritated huff. "I know you trust people to do their jobs, Mac. I'm talking about trustin' other people with you."

Mac rolled his eyes to hide the fact the pit in his stomach had widened into a gaping hole. "What does that even mean?"

"That!" Two fingers stabbed in his direction. "Dammit, Angus, every time I get anywhere close to gettin' you to open up, the sirens go off and Fort MacGyver goes into lockdown. The guys asked me what the hell I did to ya, and I hadda tell 'em Uncle Sam issued you in this condition."

The second topic was easier to address than the first. "Those guys in the non-uniform headgear . . . they were your old Delta unit, weren't they."

Jack's jaw set, and Mac knew it was because of the deflection – not his most subtle. The sniper didn't call him on it.

"Hell yes they are. You really think I'd trust anybody else with ya?" Then he growled. "What the fuck do you think I mean when I say I got your back? Mac, listen to me. I trust you with my life, brother. And there ain't many men I can say that about. When you wave off a shot, I trust ya, because I know that ginormous brain of yours is twenty steps ahead of me. But you're not givin' me that same trust, not where it counts. Not in here." He thumped his chest. "And I don't know how to make you understand you can. That ain't fair, dude."

And that wasn't fair. He did trust Jack. With his life. Every time they went out in the field. And more than that. Which was why –

Which was why it was better to call it off now.

Before he got attached.

Before he lost Jack.

Mac took a deep breath, and stared out the passenger window.

This isn't going to work.

But it could.

We are so impossibly different.

Impossible is not a scientific term.

"I'll never use that gun," he said, into the quiet. Because that was what it came down to.

He heard the other man's hand slide down the steering wheel. "Yeah, I don't think anybody's gonna use that gun ever again."

Mac couldn't help it. He snorted. "I could reassemble it with factory parts –"

"Nah. I get it. You said it yourself, you didn't come here to kill." There was a long pause. "Is that why . . . why you don't trust me? Because that's what I do? You think I'll turn on you?"

. . . no.

He knew that wasn't the case. A Delta operator was weeping openly in front of him, cut to the bone because a nineteen year old yelled at him for doing what he thought had to be done.

No. Far worse than yell. Jack had listened to a pilot ask him for a gun because there wasn't enough morphine in that kit to take away his pain. Jack had done everything he could – and having seen Jack in action, that was a lot – and still made a decision to kill everyone in that ravine. One that he hadn't taken lightly. And a nineteen year old that he trusted had told him point blank that he thought Jack hadn't given a damn about either one. That what he'd done was tantamount to murder.

When Jack had been staring at that bullet in the cave, turning it over and over in his fingers, it wasn't because he wanted to use it, or because holding it made him feel better.

Mac had spent nearly every waking moment with that guy for over two hundred days, and he knew in his heart that Jack Wyatt Dalton was a good man. That was the story that was accurate.

"I do trust you," he said softly, and then he made a concerted effort to strengthen his voice. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm . . . I'm a little out of practice."

Jack didn't say anything, eyes still on the road, and Mac got the feeling he was expected to elaborate. "I, uh, I don't usually get along with jocks. We don't have much in common, and . . . well, you're wrong."

He saw Jack's eyebrows rise. "You outta practice with trustin', or apologizin'? You ain't doing either too well."

And Mac found himself smiling.

"Another one of my many character flaws," he admitted. "I shouldn't have said those things to you. I know you didn't make those decisions lightly. But I . . . I do let my guard down with you, Jack. Way more than I ever thought I could. You're the first person since . . . well, I guess since Boze. You made some hard calls, and I flinched. I'm sorry."

Jack didn't respond immediately, but Mac couldn't think of anything else to say, and the cabin settled back into silence. They'd probably gone twenty miles before Jack shifted in his seat.

"I get the feelin' you got your reasons."

Mac hesitated. "I do," he said. "But you're right, it's not fair, and you don't deserve it."

Dalton looked at him, with dry eyes this time, and gave him a nod. And just like that, the pit was –

Was gone.

Jack replaced his shades and accelerated. Now that they'd come to some kind of agreement – or at least some kind of peace – there was no need for the easy pace he'd set. "So what now?"

What now indeed. Mac looked out the window for inspiration, but traffic was starting to thin out, and the man in the Volkswagon beside them was not interested in looking at the soldiers in the vehicle that could drive over his.

"I'm always going to look for another way."

"Yeah, I know you are," Jack replied, then sighed. "And I am always going to make that one in a hundred decision to bail your ass out, whether you agree or not. And that pass I gave you was a one-time only, by the way. You pull this stunt again, I will kick your skinny ass from one end of the FOB to the other."

Mac felt himself smirk. "You'll try."

Jack glanced his way a little, and MacGyver could imagine the look he was getting. "Oh, we're gonna start back at the beginning, huh?"

Back at the beginning. When Jack was just an opinionated, loud mouth knuckle-dragger.

And he was just a scrawny, blond-haired know-it-all.

"And speakin' of, I know something you don't, doctor."

Mac politely raised his eyebrows, and Jack nodded. "Yeah. Turns out, fentanyl woulda been totally safe to give you. It's a vasoline whatever, but it wouldn't'a made your bleed any worse."

"I think you mean vasodilator. And really?" Mac filed that away under things that he needed to look up the next time he had internet access.

"Yeah, really. Jesus, you are one mean little snake when you ain't feelin' your best, you know that?"

Mac wasn't particularly proud of those moments. "Well, you show weakness around jocks . . ."

"Yeah, okay, that's fair," Jack allowed. "Well then, sounds to me like we need to set a few ground rules."

MacGyver raised an eyebrow. "Because that worked so well the last time . . ."

"Maybe not rules," Jack allowed with a little smile. "Maybe guidelines."

"Guidelines," Mac repeated flatly.

"Yeah. Like, we don't go tryin' to run the other off when we think the odds are too bad. We walk into a fight together, we walk out together."

Mac's first instinct was to disagree. If they were ever in a fight that Mac knew wasn't going to end well, he was going to do everything he damn well could to make sure Jack got out of it alive. But then he realized that worked both ways, and Jack wasn't exactly a moron, so with very few exceptions, they'd simply be working against the other's attempts to save them. And possibly spending valuable time fighting with one another when they could be working together to even the odds.

"Okay. As long as you give me a chance to solve the problem without killing anyone."

"Done," Jack agreed. "And the next time you get laid up, I won't leave you in the dark. And I will always have some kinda toy or whatever to keep you occupied."

Mac gave him a long look. "Really?"

Jack glanced at him, sunglasses firmly in place. "Dude, I left you alone for like, forty minutes, and you dismantled an M9 down to component parts."

"Actually, that was even dumber than you think," Mac said with a shake of his head. "There are some incredibly powerful springs in the trigger mechanism, I'm lucky I didn't lose an eye."

"Maybe we should make that flat-up a rule . . ."

Somehow rules didn't seem like the way to go. "Maybe we should just trust each other," Mac suggested quietly.

Jack looked at him – really looked at him. "You sure about that? It'd mean actually lettin' someone else take on some of the important stuff. It wouldn't all be ridin' on your shoulders anymore."

The radio. Adams. Things he wouldn't have been so adamant about if he hadn't been down a few pints of blood and almost out of his mind with pain. But still, Jack had a point. He'd done more to keep them alive, those twenty or so hours, than Mac had. And he would have kept doing it, even in the radio hadn't worked. He would have done everything he could to keep them alive, even if it meant never walking off that mountain himself.

And even when he'd left, he hadn't. He'd sent three Delta operators to save his life and get him and Adams to safety. He said he'd be there when Mac woke up, and he had been.

It was going to take him a while, to be able to surrender those life and death decision to someone else. But the big ones, the important ones – they were going to be safe with Jack.

"I know." He was quiet a moment. "I can't say I'll be awesome at it, but I'll try."

Jack was nodding slowly. "That's all I can ask out of ya, bud." For a long time, the only sounds were the tires on the pavement. "I'm serious about the toys, though. Dude. You're a menace."

Mac made a scoffing sound, and dropped his right hand back to his pocket, where his grandfather's swiss army knife was tucked safe and sound.

When he pulled it out, he could hear Harry's voice. It was part of the tool. Jack had carried it, and that made him part of it too.

And Harry was right. With them, Mac could do just about anything.

-M-

FIN

-M-

So this is not where I thought this would go when I started it. It was supposed to be a nice, simple premise, the first time Jack learned how to deal with an injured Mac. But of course it's not that easy. Turns out that first included a bunch of other firsts.

The first time Jack learns that Mac doesn't just not like guns – he's not going to use one. Like, ever. Period.

The first major fight they have after they become friends.

The first time Jack realizes just how deep Mac's fear of relying on others really runs.

The first time Mac truly grasps what Jack means when he says that he's got Mac's back.

And, the first time I am not entirely sure that I got them in character.

Many thanks to Gib and MarenMary93, who allowed me to play with their little soldier man toys, albeit very inexplicitly. ;) And BookNeed007, let me know what you think, and whether I hit the nail on the head for you or you had a little something else in mind.