A few minutes with the right one is better than a lifetime with the wrong one.
Jack couldn't be more right.
Mac understood that sentiment perfectly.
He didn't have a lifetime with his mom. No, he lost her when he was five, and genius or not, he's not even got five years' worth of memories with her.
But he remembers the smell of her perfume, and the taste of her wonderful apple pie (Bozer makes a mean apple pie, but it's just not the same), and her smile, and her arms around him…and maybe it wasn't quite enough, not really, not nearly (he wishes, he knows, really – multiverse theory has always made sense to him – that in another life, he had a full lifetime with her, years and years and years), but it was better than what many others had, those five years of love (even if he couldn't remember them all).
He didn't have a lifetime with his grandfather either. Not his lifetime, anyway. (Though, he smiles wryly, they did pack a lifetime of adventures and fun into those years they'd had, perhaps.)
But there were camping trips and stories of diners and drive-ins (his grandfather had been pretty popular with the ladies back in his day; he's shown his friends – his family- a photo of his grandfather in his youth, and they all say that he got his grandfather's looks) and life lessons (oh, so, so many life lessons and words of wisdom) and forgiveness of all the incidents involving the police (even the small nuclear meltdown), and maybe, just maybe, even if he wishes that his grandfather could have lived forever (impossible as it was), at the very least, he'd had those years. (More, much more, than a few minutes, with the right one, right?)
He had a massive (bigger than Darlene Martin) crush on a girl (a lab partner and a friend, a dear friend) in college. He was half in love with her by graduation. Obviously, he didn't get a lifetime with her, either. (Stopped emailing her – broke a promise, and he hasn't broken one since – when Pena died. That grief, that anger, that darkness, changed him forever, and not just because he thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he hadn't stopped replying, she'd have become his girl, when he got home from that first deployment and finally told her, and who knows how his life would have turned out then?)
But he remembers going down the rabbit hole of advanced chemistry concepts together, he remembers eating pizza with her in the workshop next to his solar car, he remembers laughing and joking and teasing and being poked in the chest by this fierce, kind little teenage girl, he remembers her fondness for his pancake-making toaster and her love for pie and eating sandwiches for dinner on the lawn and ending up chatting till midnight during the summer, when most students had gone home and they were taking summer courses so they could graduate early.
They say you never forget your first love (and he doesn't know if she was; he loves Penny, has for years, but not in that way, at least not anymore, and he's not really sure if he ever did love Penny in that way, honestly, not that that means she's not important to him, not in the slightest – his loved ones, all of his loved ones, no matter in what way he loves them, mean the world to him, after all), and he's got a near-perfect memory, so even though he's long, long moved on (he did love Nikki, truly, madly, deeply, probably still does), he thinks he'll always have a little place in his heart for her (Jack seems to show that's possible; maybe Sarah will always be Jack's right one, but he plainly, clearly loved Diane – and maybe still does, just a little- too).
He got more than a few minutes with her (he got two years), with the girl who might have been the right one, in another life, and that was better than he, skinny and shy and sitting at home watching a live shuttle launch on TV on Prom night, could ever have possibly dreamed of (and a dark little voice in his head, one that he doesn't want to hear, whispers, might be better than anything you'll ever get – there are no white picket fence endings for secret agents, the voice insists - he cuts it off there, drowns it out with other thoughts – he never has a shortage of those).
He's not sure if he'll ever get more than minutes (stolen moments, stolen nights, here and there, maybe a weekend at the cabin one day) with Nikki. Certainly, he knows, that lifetime that he dreamed about, hoped for, before Italy, before everything that's passed between them now, that lifetime with the woman he thought really was the right one, might well be beyond reach now.
Their lives will always get in the way.
And he doesn't know if she's the right one, he's not so sure anymore, not like he used to be. He loves her, still, trusts her, still, but…he doesn't really know. (She put millions of lives at risk and lied to him, maybe she had to, maybe she had faith in him, oh, so much faith, but…) He'll never get her out from under his skin- he couldn't, not truly (he still feels a little guilty about Cindy, even if two dates and a few kisses are no promise, he knows), even when he thought she was a traitor, after all.
It's not going to be a lifetime with the wrong one, it's going to be a few minutes, here and there, with a woman who might be the right one (would have been, maybe, in another life), and he figures that's close enough.
Mac looks outside, towards the fire pit, where Bozer's showing Riley how to grill burgers properly (Bozer's showing off a bit for her and making her laugh, too, and Riley's got that soft little smile on her face, the one that makes Mac want to tease her, and also makes him want to rejoice- because Bozer's a great guy, the best, and Riley's family now too, and of course he wants them to be happy – and God, he knows how hard it is to find love, with their lives being what they are), and Jack is drinking beer and shaking his head and probably saying that she was supposed to be off-limits.
He grabs the ketchup and the mustard that he came inside for, and starts making his way back outside, towards the people who've become his family, the people whom he loves so, so much.
The right ones.
A few minutes with the right ones was better than a lifetime with the wrong ones, but a lifetime with the right ones?
That was the best, of course.
No doubt about that.
He would do everything in his power, anything, to make sure that they got a lifetime together.
I promise.
AN: The talk of love with Mac, Jack and Bishop + Mac's introspective face after he puts Bishop in the car + writing One Flap of a Butterfly's Wings = this. Thoughts, please? *does best puppy-Mac impersonation* Please?