Author's Note: Oh, the things we do for the people we love. If anyone had told me a month ago that I'd be watching MacGyver for said loved one, I'd have suggested a psych eval for all of us. So, naturally, here I am, fic in hand. I don't know that I have a feel for the characters yet, but again, the things we do for people we love don't always make sense.

Like with all my fic, this is rated T/PG-13 for military grade language (lots of F-bombs dropping from the skies, people), and Gen because I don't write anything else. I'm only about three-quarters through season one, so spoilers are only through, say, 1X15. Any bastardized quotes/lyrics belong to the people you recognize them being from. MacGyver and his people belong to all the pertinent people there, like Lee David Zlotoff and Peter M. Lenkov. You know who they are.

As always, comments are adored and appreciated, but if you're even internet-shy like me, your eyes alone are a treasure to me. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy! Six

With a Deck of Fifty-One
by ThatGirlSix

He that will have a perfect brother must resign himself to remaining brotherless. — An Italian Proverb

The door clicked softly behind Jack with a sort of finality he didn't think he could be affected by anymore. Out in the field, sure, a door shutting could be the difference between making it home in time for dinner at Chez MacBozer or a wish he hadn't had that godforsaken MRE as a last meal. But here at home, his home, within the relatively safe concrete and weaponized confines of Phoenix's walls, that shut door felt … gross. Wrong. Like the way people take fairy tales and twist around the endings into something less than Ever After these days wrong.

But then, in his heart, how could what he was about to do be wrong? Protecting his family, protecting his boy? That could never be wrong. Even if he had to hurt a friend to do it. They could deal with the Ever After blowout twist ending later.

With any luck, this little chat would go right and never have to happen again. Bozer could take the hit this once. All would be forgiven, and they could set on the path to uncocking this whole clusterfuck over a fire with the biggest, bloodiest steaks any man ever saw and a six pack of the best brew Jack's government salary could buy. Forgiven, shmorgiven. Dust the paws off and move on. Besides, that look of steel Bozer leveled at Jack's entrance said he was hardened enough for them both right now that this may not come off as more than a glancing blow anyway. Any other time, Jack would be proud of the guy and his big brass ones.

This time? Not so much. Not when Bozer didn't even know what he was raging his little heart out about. See, he could rant all he wanted about Murdoc and his mind games, or Mac not telling him about Murdoc, or Mac doing his job and not telling him about, well, anything about his job. That was fine. But if Bozer thought that was the problem here, well now, Jack had a little bit of wisdom to lay on him. When he was done, if Bozer still wanted to breathe enough fire on everything and everyone to burn the village down, well … Jack would do what he had to then, wouldn't he?

Because when you got down into the nitty gritty of it, Wilt Bozer was fucking up Jack Dalton's family. Never fuck with a man's family.

Cheerful enough and whistling an old favorite, Flowers on the Wall — which, yes, he realized was probably inappropriate to the situation but damn if it didn't tickle his funny bone in the name of Bozer's boredom anyway — Jack sauntered across the room without so much as a greeting or asking for an invitation. Bozer didn't offer one. The kid paced the back half of the room while Jack calmly dropped into a chair, propped his boots up on the table, waffled his fingers over his stomach, and watched. Bozer gave him a dirty look that would've prompted Grandma Dalton to wash a mouth out, but Jack kept on watching with a slightly amused whistle.

If this fired-up kid thought he had anything on Jack's ability to sit stiff as a board for hours on end and never lose his concentration watching anything, well … Bozer not knowing a damn thing about a damn thing was why he was there, wasn't it?

Back and forth like a ping-pong ball, Bozer skimmed the room from wall to wall, pressing his palms flat against the wall and pushing off like a marathon swimmer, turning on his heel in a dance move he probably saw as a lot cooler and classier in his head than it actually looked. Three, four times he got to the right side wall before he finally stopped in front of Jack, still keeping the table between them. It probably wasn't a conscious move on the kid's part, but it was a good idea all the same.

Firing the first shot, Bozer placed his hands on the back of his chair and leaned across it. "You can't take a hint? Go away, Jackass."

Jack settled further into his own chair, making a show of shifting his butt to get comfortable for the long haul, but he raised his eyebrows a little in challenge. "Cheesy puns are my job, but nice try."

"Yeah? And what exactly is your job, Jack?"

Aww. There was nothing cuter than a little husky pup trying out his bark for the first time and thinking he could scare the big dogs away, but it was an effort. Jack would give it at least four points. Instead of answering the question, though, he asked one of his own. "You've had plenty time to get acquainted; how do you like the room?"

"It's a suite at the freakin' Hilton," Bozer snapped. With a shove off the back of the chair, he resumed his pacing. The palm on the wall became a fist that would have to be looked at later, and the smooth move to turn became jerkier. His arms got flappy, too, all Come at me and I'm wide open. "Yeah, I got all the amenities here, man. Let me show you around to the jacuzzi and wet bar. I feel like I been treated like a goddamn king."

"Yeah, Patty takes pride in the fact you could eat off her interrogation room floors. You should see the lab." Jack smirked, but he didn't push it any further. He'd get back to it later, once he'd started to make his point. If there was one thing he'd learned from his grandma over the years, it was how to make someone come to understanding their own stupid when he had to. It wouldn't be tied up in a neat little bow like Mac could do it, if he were so inclined to put Bozer in a bow, but it would do the trick. He hoped.

"The grand tour of the hallway was spectacular. I never seen nothin' like it. I bet you treat all your — what did that dragon lady call me? 'Security threat'? — I bet all security threats get this red carpet treatment, huh?"

"Only the ones we call friends. The rest have a private entrance direct to the dungeon where Patty keeps her real toys." The dramatic shiver was a show to try to loosen Bozer up, maybe get a laugh, but from the slight flinch and added scrunch to his shoulders, Jack's idea of a joke was a big ol' backfire. Good. He could work with that, too.

"I'll bet. It's a five star palace you guys got here. I feel right at home, you know, if a home took Spartan to a whole new neutral palate level."

Jack adjusted his ass in his seat and stretched out with clasped fingers palms out to distract his facial muscles from smiling. While beating friends over the head with olive branches quite like this had never been a position he'd been put in — this wasn't intended to be an interrogation, thank you — he'd been in enough interrogations to know that he had too many tells. He didn't have a great poker face when it came to controlling a smile that said when he had been handed exactly what he wanted, and right now? Bozer had given him an opening big enough for a three car garage.

"Welcome to the casa, buddy. I get your frustration here, I do. You've only seen four walls and a hallway, but that's what this is, you know — home. That couch in the War Room? Man, the naps I have managed on that thing … Mm-mmm. Now, most people, they'd probably think it's more like work. It looks like work. The analysts and techs we got all over here, they probably think it's just work. But for our team? For Mac and me and Riley? This is the only place in the entire world where we get to be ourselves. No secrets, no having to make sure no one's eavesdropping or that we don't talk about something we can't talk about in case someone walks in when we aren't looking. The only place in the world we don't have to pretend that inside joke about one thing or another has nothing to do with people trying to kill us. Like, if you were in on it, you'd love this one. One word: Cairo."

"That conference trip you guys took that you got so drunk it was practically an international Mardi Gras incident and Mac had to bail you out of an Egyptian jail, yeah, I've heard."

"Close enough, in that Mac was there, and Egypt was there — no jail, though — which is to say you have no fucking clue because we can't talk about it around you or anyone else who matters to us."

Bozer hummed, but he didn't bother with the words when his rolled eyes worked just fine. Jack got the gist anyway. I know something you don't know.

"Yeah, that's the tune, but," Jack said pointedly, "Here, in this house, say 'Cairo' and you'll get anyone who was around for it telling you they still can't believe Mac fixed our way out of that one. By all accounts, we should've been shipped home like so many beady necklaces in about as tiny a-pieces. People whisper about that one to anybody new, too, because it's our house, man. It's the story that tells the analysts just what they're in for if they sign up for our support. Don't get me wrong; I love what your house is all about. Mac has …. That house is a different kind of safety for us, Boze, you gotta know that. We get all the things home is supposed to be about: family and friends, good food, good chat, a flick or marathon thrown in for the hell of it. You have no idea how invaluable that has been to Mac — to both of us. You've been part of our team, man, even if you didn't know it. You've been an invaluable part of this team."

"Just not valuable enough to deserve not being lied to on a daily basis. In my own house."

Bozer's gaze went to the back wall after that, and Jack didn't try to reclaim it. He had to admit, sure, it was hard to look good ol' Boze in the eyes right now. It was damn intense, maybe even more than Jack had anticipated, but he could maybe use that blank wall to his advantage. If he wanted to paint the right picture here, that wall could be better than some movie shrink's pendulum crystal or watch. Jack could make the kid see whatever he wanted on that white canvas, and he knew just the thing.

"You know, before there was a Bozer in my world, when it was just me and Mac and way too much sand, he yapped about you all the time. I felt like I knew you before I ever got him home to you. He talked about Harry some, and your folks, too, but not like he did about you. One of the first things he planned to do when he got home was bring you out to LA with us. Whatever he had to do to help you get started on that movie-making dream you had, he was gonna do it. He didn't know what he wanted to be when we got outta there, so he was gonna make sure you got to be what you wanted instead. You've been there longer than I was able to, and I'll be forever grateful to you for that. He's who he is because of you and what you did for him. Don't think I don't know that. I know, because he'd told me in a million different ways. So, when I finally met you that day, damn, dude …. "

Bozer didn't turn around, because that blank wall was exactly as fascinating as Jack wanted it to be, but he could hear the kid's smile. "You hugged me at the baggage carousel. I thought you were gonna break my ribs."

"Well, like I said, I knew you. You were Mac's. That made you mine."

"As long as it didn't involve keeping your secrets, right?"

"You don't know it yet, but you know a lot more than you think you do. You know all the best parts. You know Mac."

"I think it's pretty clear I don't know shit from Sherlock."

Clenching a fist hidden by his hip — this was a battle he would only fight with words, no matter how much his muscles itched to do what he'd trained them to do, to protect Mac — Jack bit back, "Bullshit. Tell me something … What did Harry call him?"

Bozer turned back around at that, confused and clearly thinking Jack's detour was nine kinds of crazy. "What?"

"He was a kid. He didn't walk around calling himself 'Mac'. No little kid goes on naming themselves on their last name. They don't think in terms of cool like that. I doubt your teachers let him get by with using a nickname like that either. Teachers are all stuffy and shit. Mine were. They'll give in on names like 'Billy' for 'William' or 'Bobby' or 'Sammy', but they aren't gonna take a name like 'Angus' and let the kid do whatever he wants with it, even if it'll save them some embarrassment during roll call. Harry didn't give it to him. Mac had to build that name like a Jenga tower any bully could pull out from under him with one twist of phrase. Building a name like that is like building a reputation as the jock or the class clown. Somebody had to make him 'Mac'."

"He was kinda small when we were in middle school. He hunched a lot, too, when his dad left. He didn't want anyone to see him, but that only made it worse. I couldn't stand seeing Angus flinch when … It doesn't matter."

"Kids gave him shit. He was a wounded animal waiting for the bigger ones to hunt him down, and they did."

"They did."

"And you — you, Wilt Bozer — gave him a new name, one that made him a pal, a cool ol' dude you could hang out with instead of a weird little book nerd with the even weirder name — except Angus Young. He kicks ass. But schoolboy shorts and a badass guitar solo aren't what most people picture when they hear a name like Angus. I know I didn't. I gave our boy shit like you wouldn't believe over his name when I first got hold of him."

"It wasn't anything he hadn't heard before."

"He told you that?"

"He didn't have to. Everybody does it. Not that he told me anything about you or over there. Apparently, Mac's stories only go one way."

Jack sighed, running his hand down his face to give himself a moment to count backwards from ten in the pig latin version of Russian Mac had taught him so it would take longer. This vicious circle was digging down to be a bit more vicious than he'd thought it would be. Bozer being deliberately ugly and pretending not to know anything out of spite was understandable only to a point. At some juncture coming up real soon, the kid was gonna have to come right on what he was doing before he did something he couldn't repair. It would break his heart, but Mac had a way of compartmentalizing the things that hurt him most, putting them away in a mental lock box never to be opened again without the magic key of way too much booze or a particularly close call with Death's scythe. If Bozer kept this up, he'd find himself compartmentalized right out of a friendship that had spanned decades, leaving only Jack to clean up the pieces later.

There had to be another in around here somewhere. He just had to find it without pushing so hard that Bozer was reminded too much of why he was there and what he didn't know. If Jack had to throw himself under the Temper Tantrum Express, so be it. "Oh, I don't know. I was pretty vicious those first few days until we came to an understanding about just what we had to do for each other. He didn't tell you anything about the sandbox at all?"

"You mean about you?"

"Any of it."

"Mac didn't want anybody making a big deal about it. Harry's example had been to not talk about the war, like people thanking him for his service made him uncomfortable, so Mac followed. I didn't even know he'd enlisted until I got a call from MEPS the night before he left for basic. I was lucky to get his APO when he deployed."

"What do you think he was doing?"

"What is all this? A game of Who Knows Mac Best? Because I think the other night made it pretty clear I'm gonna lose the point spread on that one."

"I'm serious. Now quit being so defensive and answer the damn question."

"He was a tech. What more was — "

"What kind of tech? We have lots of 'em in the army."

"Tech," Bozer sputtered, eyes bulged and giving Jack the impression he thought Jack was all kinds of stupid to not know that, which you didn't have to have taken a single interrogation class to know was anyone's response to having to admit they didn't know a thing. Jack almost felt sorry for him. "The kind you leave MIT for. What the hell, Jack?"

"EOD tech, Boze. Explosive Ordnance. As in bombs. Mac was over there to put his big brain to use dismantling bombs. Rinky-dink baby ones meant to take out a car or two, honkin' humongous ass ones meant to take out half a block, usually a block with a police training facility or an outdoor market on it. All day, every day, clipping wires and moving all them itty bitty pieces around to try to keep ordinary, innocent people from being afraid to go buy a damn blanket for their kids to keep 'em warm at night."

"He … Mac said 'tech'." Bozer got a little ashy, his sputter getting weaker there for a second, like the kid who has one last shot to stand up to the bully who has fifty pounds and six inches on him and knows damn well he hasn't got a prayer. "That was his word. He said he was a tech. Sometimes he'd add 'specialist' on there, but that's a rank. Even I know that. Specialist. Rank. You — He didn't — Harry — He never talks about it."

Jack didn't say anything, even if it meant leaving Bozer hanging out there like his grandma's sheets on the line in summer. Let him flap about in the breeze for a few. It might not be the kindest thing to do, but what Bozer was doing to Mac right now, that wasn't all that kind either. Right now, Mac was out there with a broken heart, and that wasn't kind at all.

"In case you were wondering, you don't either, Jackass. Do you know that? I never hear either you guys talk about it around me. It's like you weren't anywhere for a coupla years, just poof! off the planet. It's like everything else. Apparently none of you think I can take it."

"We didn't tell you because that's a kindness you do for the people you love when you're over there. Even if you tell them the kind of details they might get on the news, you don't tell more than that. You keep your nightmares to yourself, keep your head down, and you do what you do so the people you love don't have to go to bed with nightmares of their own. Watch enough wives put their men on planes without knowing for sure they'll come home, man, you'll do anything to make their hearts lighter."

"Sounds like more lies to protect yourself, if you ask me."

"If that's what you want to think." Dropping his chin, Jack narrowed his eyes. "You're gonna sit there and tell me you've never lied to anybody when you thought you were doing right by them?"

"Not over something that's gonna get somebody's ass capped without them even knowing why. Can't imagine why, but I kinda see that as a good, moral line right there. But yeah, sure, I've lied, like that I was running back to the store for milk instead of to get some blackberry brandy to put Mac to sleep after one of his — when I thought he needed to get some sleep after Nikki. Innocent fibs, not …" He winged his arms out at the room again. "This."

"After one his nightmares," Jack supplied kindly. It was a quick dose of ice water to refresh him on the fact this kid was a friend, not an enemy, even if it felt like he wasn't sure which side of the line Bozer should be counted on right now. He scratched at whiskers he'd neglected since this whole thing went sideways to give himself time to gentle his tone. "Oh, kid, you aren't hiding anything from me on that one. I have some real sheet-rippers myself. It's one of the reasons I don't usually have a woman waking up next to me most mornings. It's kinda hard to explain when you throw yourself over her in the middle of the night because every shadow moving on the wall says you're about to get mortared in your own bedroom."

A flash of something twisted on Bozer's face then, a guilt tempering the anger for the first time, like he remembered for half a second that he was talking to a friend he (once?) cared about. He crossed his arms over his chest and pressed his back against the wall, crossing his ankles and trying to look like he had some control over any of the conversation. Easy-peasy, totally relaxed, he said evenly enough, "You never did answer my question."

"Which one was that?"

"Your job?"

"Same as it was over there: I watch our boy's back."

A little less sympathetic, Bozer's mouth rippled in an Are you really gonna do this? glower.

"You want details. Fine, I get that. Let me put it this way: you've seen how Mac gets in his head when he's working on his little projects around the house, right? He doesn't see a thing going on around him. It's all about whatever shiny little trinket he's got between his grubby, mechanic-y fingers."

Bozer unsheathed a hand from where his arms crossed over his chest long enough for an As you were wave.

"Yeah, but see, terrorists don't like guys like Mac coming along and tearing apart all their mischief before it has a chance to mischief, if you get me, and as much I'd like them to, they don't try to stop him with nothing but their big boy words. Somebody had to make sure Mac had time to do his thing without all those pesky interruptions."

Jack waited patiently for Bozer to figure out what he was saying. He tried not to think about all the various and sundry SNAFUs this little trip down Amnesia Lane brought up, flashing through his mind like a kid on a bike landing newspapers at every front porch with a thick smack that sounded too much like one of those mortars he'd mentioned.

Like that close call when they'd rushed it on the rumor the Brits had had steaks brought in on resupply — the Brits and Germans had the best mess, which always seemed to hit right when the Americans were down to MREs and powdered everything — and Jack caught the sun flare off the lens of the rifle scope up in that window a block away half a second too late. If the sonofabitch had been a better shot or if Jack hadn't managed to make up for the time deficit, that half inch between armor-piercing bullet and Mac's melon would've meant a government issue pine box for the ride home.

Or like that time Jack had spent too many hours — he'd been told it was only eighty-six, but it had felt so much longer on his lungs — waiting on a rescue that had problems of its own getting there, enough that their CO said he didn't know who had been tortured more in the wait, Jack or MacGyver.

Or there was that lovely day that left a good hunk of Jack's calf muscle, a shred of Mac's sanity, and that goofy E4, whatshisname — Gonzalez — his shredded head on the wall of some hospital Red Horse was half way done constructing while Mac had been trying to make sure the trinket the Taliban had left those guys didn't bring the whole fucking thing down.

Make no mistake: Jack Dalton would be sleeping with the light on tonight, if he even slept at all.

But he wouldn't tell Bozer that.

Because that wasn't what you told the people you loved. And despite how all this was going down, he loved that goofy movie geek. A whole lot. Enough to be putting himself through this when he could've just stayed the hell out of it for all their sakes, anyway.

J. Geils was a freaking prophet, man. Love stinks.

"Mac came home in one piece. My conscience is clear," Jack said instead. Because.

"But he doesn't always come home in one piece, does he," Bozer sneered, not asked.

"By all means, dude, don't hold back or anything."

Okay, so this was not going the way Jack meant it to. Not yet. But it would. Because that's what Jack did — protect his best friend's back, no matter how he had to manipulate a situation to get what he wanted — and he hadn't failed yet. Well, except Nikki, but the jury was still out on all that, according to Mac. Jack wasn't so sure. With Bozer, though, he was sure. The licks were painful, but he'd come around. He loved Mac too much not to, right?

Right?

Bozer ground his teeth like he could chew nails to nubs purely on the strength of his anger.

Shit.

Time for a different tactic.

"You know, I asked you a question when I — "

"You've asked a lotta questions, but — "

"Kid, you're a good pal, but my patience is starting to run thin here." Jack kicked the chair from under Bozer's side of the table, the invitation implicit and best not ignored. "The grown up is talking right now. What is it with you kids the last coupla days, hmm? You're so damn sure you know all the answers, that ol' Jack couldn't possibly know what he's talking about. You think you know what I was gonna ask? Go ahead." Jack curled his hand behind the shell of his ear, pushing it out to catch any possible sound Bozer could choke out. "What's that? Nothing?"

Smart ass that he was, but a little more cautious of Jack's physical reach, Bozer took the chair and flipped it around to straddle, still keeping as much metal between him and Jack as possible. "You asked me if I liked the room."

"It's snazzy, right? Patty — you know, boss lady out there, Director Thornton? — she tried to keep Mac locked up in this room about an hour before Murdoc came to see you. She had them pull out every table, chair, lamp, screw, you name it out of here, all because she knew Mac could find a way to use it to get himself out. My pal Tiny on the other side of this door, he's here because Mac found the one flaw in Thornton's thinking and went into the damn ceiling and wall to get himself out. Tiny's out there because Mac made this door useless until he has a few minutes to fiddle it back to shape for the rest of us mere mortals."

"Your point?"

"I'm sure your imagination is running wild these days with Bond fantasies — "

"Oh, please, Bond," Bozer snapped, but it wasn't without a little flush to his cheeks that said, oh yeah, he and his movie-soaked brain had churned out a full hundred page script based on exactly that. Which is why it shouldn't have surprised Jack at all when he dared, "I have two words for you, Jackass: John. McClane. If you're lucky."

Jack had to clench his teeth good and hard — some of that gum he usually kept in his TAC vest pockets for whenever Mac so much as thought about needing some would be nice about now — but he didn't retaliate in kind. He couldn't be hurting anywhere near as bad as Mac, but he had to admit Bozer's heat was taking a toll on all of them.

All the more reason to stay on mission and set this kid's head straight before the fallout was unbearable.

"I admit it, my man John McClane ain't got nothin' on our Mac. You saw what he could do with a wine bottle and a broom handle. What do you think he could do if we just let his hippy-dippy peacenik mind out there in the world? How many people could he save just by being himself?"

"I wouldn't know."

That brought Jack's boots down hard on the floor, his posture unconsciously expanding his frame, as if by sheer desire to protect his people he could be big enough to block any of this bad mojo from getting out the door to hurt them. To shield Mac. He pushed himself out of the chair to do a little pacing of his own before he did something stupid. Pig latin Russian wasn't working anymore. He even felt his arms start to flap a little as he pointed back at Bozer for the first time.

"Bullshit, you don't know. You were watching that little showdown at the junkyard. You may not give a hot damn about me right now — which, you're ticked so great, whatever — but if Mac doesn't have my back out there, I'm dead, and so is that beautiful girl somewhere in the building who is the closest thing I will probably ever come to having a kid — who, need I remind you, you were perfectly happy to gawk at up until five seconds ago. If Mac doesn't do his thing, I'm burying my boss this week. If my CO back in the sandbox doesn't give me a scrawny ass bomb nerd with a goofy name to look after, neither of us ever comes home in the first place."

"He shouldn't have been there in the first place!"

As if that was Jack's fault.

Truth be told, he'd had that thought so many times he couldn't remember all of his counter-arguments out of it. Shit, nineteen was a stupid age. He'd been nineteen, too, and he'd signed that same dotted line in triplicate, but he hadn't had Mac's brain to sign away. If he had, maybe he would've been able to talk himself out of this life long before Mac would've followed him into it. But eventually logic kicked in, and he'd remember that Mac had made the boneheaded decision all on his own long before there'd been a Jack in his line of sight. The nightmare that Mac could've found his way to Afghanistan without him there to keep him alive had just drawn it's number as Jack's top sheet ripper for the night. Damn.

"No … no, he shouldn't. But he was."

"Yes, he was. And then he was here. And what's that, Cairo? Maybe Dubai? You guys been to Dubai? I hear Timbuktu is balmy this time of year. Of course he was there. Probably all kinds of places I can't pronounce. And then he was everywhere else but at the house with a psycho killer pointing a gun at my damn head. He's always somewhere. You're always somewhere."

That three car garage Bozer had opened up for Jack earlier? It just opened up to hold an entire fleet.

"Lucky for you," Jack said. "Lucky for the world. And isn't that somethin'?"

Bozer huffed, but all of his fight seemed to go out with it. Whatever else this conversation was going to be, Bozer was tired. Done. Finito. Finally.

"I told you, Bozer, I like you. You're a good guy, and you kept Mac sane through what I'm sure was hell for a kid like him. Our boy's got a big heart, but if I know anything, it's that the bigger a heart, the more of it there is to break. He wouldn't be who he was when he got to me if it weren't for you holding that heart in your hands and keeping it together." There was half a second where Bozer's hackles seemed to rise again, ready to bark how he wouldn't be where he was right now if Jack hadn't gotten to Mac, but Jack cut him off with a sharp jut of his chin. "I'm not done. Jack's talkin' now, kid, and you're gonna listen. I didn't survive that sandpit because of anything I did. I know it. It's flat out luck every time I go over there. Odds go through the roof the more times you go over there. I didn't expect to make it home at all that last time. But Mac, man, he gave me a reason to. And I got you to thank for that as much as him. Don't think I don't know that."

Jack had never seen Bozer's expressions, or so many of them, whiplash across his face so fast. It almost made him want to stop and let things go from there, but … But.

"That also means you know exactly how to hurt him, and let's not pretend you aren't doing everything you can right now to hurt him."

"I — "

"Don't. Now, I ain't blaming you much. You're all fired up, man, I get it. But don't act like you don't know exactly what you're doing to him. And as long as you keep pulling this shit, screwing with his head with all your snark and smart ass, his head's gonna be here in this room instead of out there with me where I need him. That kind of distraction is gonna get him hurt or worse. I've seen what you hurting does to him. Don't think I couldn't have busted your head for telling him all about that little car crash and broken arm of yours when we were over there. Until he saw you two days later on that computer, I couldn't keep his head in the game for nothing. I didn't have enough ammunition on me for all the things he missed. We ended up pulling him out the field just to make that damn call."

Jack took a deep breath, hissing that particular memory out through his clenched teeth. He had to. The hurt he'd put on Bozer would require a side trip to medical if he didn't. While Bozer might like to see more of the building if he did that, it wouldn't be the grand tour the kid wanted, and angry as Jack was, he hoped they'd find a better reason for the tour one day and didn't want to spoil the future surprise.

Dropping his voice to a much more calm level than he felt, Jack said plainly, "Nobody knows how to hurt us more than the people we love. You are hurting him in ways you don't even know. It stops now."

Neither of them broke what was shaping up to be a knock down drag out staring contest when a soft knock on the door was the only hint they got that they were about to be interrupted.

"Jack," was all Riley said when she popped her head around the door. It was loaded and ugly, which had Jack clenching a fist. He couldn't quite tell if it was a show for Bozer's sake or his own, but she had something to say with all of one word.

"War room?" he asked, taking a chance it wasn't his own butt in trouble with her this time. He swiveled around to find Riley quite obviously trying not to look straight to Bozer.

"War room." Riley blinked hard, her lips pressed into a thin line, even more serious. Lovely. She spared a glance to Bozer and a half circle wave at him, but she didn't say anything else before dropping back behind the door.

"That's my cue, man." Jack studied Bozer's face for any kind of reaction, but all he got was the same old same old. Truth be told, Jack had already done everything he could do. "Look, Boze, I don't know what Patty's got for us. I don't know if we're back on the road or how long we're on the road for or what. There's a whole lotta in-the-air going on right now."

He could say something dire, make Bozer remember that gut-wrenching feeling when Mac had said goodbye before deploying all those years ago. Jack'd seen it with his own sister when he'd left, that awful sick of not wanting to leave anything unsaid in the face of the unknown, but even then, he wasn't sure he understood. As she'd so lovingly told him once, as much as she couldn't know what it was like for him, he'd never understand what it was like to be the one left behind, to have to have the strength to let go without knowing if there would be a reunion down the road. On the other hand, Jack wanted to remember, too, that he liked Bozer, that he believed everything he'd just said, that he trusted Bozer with Mac's heart. It was time to show the guy he had that trust.

"Cool your heels, man. Be as ticked off as you want. Just remember something for me while you're licking your wounds?"

"What's that?"

"We're in this clusterfuck because he loved you too much to let you go, even though every bit of common sense — and, yes, regulation and protocol — that gets drilled into guys like us tells us the only way to keep the people we love safe is to let them go. The only thing besides his granddaddy's knife that he held onto from who he was before was you. You just think about that for me before you say anything else to him."

It was up to Bozer now — whatever Patty and her hoity-toity upper echelon pals decided what to do with him — how he wanted to leave things. Jack just had to hope the kid made the right decision. He'd had to put Mac back together enough times this year because of people he loved.

"I'll see what I can do about getting you a decent dinner before we bug out. We've got a guy down in the lab who makes these chorizos and chimichurri you wouldn't believe that might actually meet your sky-high standards."

"Whatever."

"Did you hurt your hand when you blamed the wall?"

"I realize I'm a wimpy little civilian to you people, but I can hit a wall and not — "

"I'll send somebody up from medical. Mac and I haven't given them enough to do lately. They're bored." Jack realized all too late that that probably wasn't the best way he could leave the conversation and winced with a breath sloppily sucked in between his teeth. "Yikes. Yeah, sorry. Look — Don't worry about anything. Just get your head squared away. We'll talk about it when we get back."

"I guess that means I'm still not getting out of here, even though I was a good boy and endured your little interrogation?"

Damn.

"Kid, if you think that was an interrogation, rather than an olive branch, I don't even know what. Just … Mac's gonna handle this however you want him to. I think you know that. I hope I don't have to remind you that that's a pretty big responsibility. Having a friend like him, man …. " Jack shook his head. If Bozer couldn't figure it out, then maybe it was best he break Mac's heart and be done with it. "As much as he'd like to, people with a lot more power than him aren't gonna let him wait forever for you to come right on this. Just remember who it is you're throwing away if you keep this act up. See ya later, Boze."

Jack swiped his card and had the door half closed before Bozer jerked him up short by calling his name. He clapped his hand on the edge of the door and turned around so he could get a good hard look at the kid.

"Make sure you both come home, okay?"

"You got it." Jack almost left it there, almost, but he couldn't help thinking he needed to be sure Bozer understood this little chat was, in fact, an olive branch. "And Boze?"

"Yeah?"

"For what it's worth, you were never a fool. Innocent, yes, and untouched by some of the ugliest things Man has figured out how to do to each other, yes, but never a fool. If you feel we lied to you, I understand that, but we never thought of it as lying. Protecting that one piece of innocence we had left in our little world was all it ever was. After everything we saw and still see, coming home to you is a blessing, man. You're nobody's fool."

The door clicked shut softly behind him.

"How fun was that?" Tiny asked after Jack hit him with a drive-by arm clap.

"A tad short of my last AC/DC concert," Jack said, chipper enough. There was no reason Tiny needed to know Jack never made it to the concert because he'd been, in of all places, Cairo when that tour blew through town. The reviews had been good, from what he'd read. "Say, do me a favor and get the kid something to eat? Maybe talk to him for a few minutes before you lock him up again? He needs a distraction."

"But Director Thornton wouldn't — "

"Don't worry about the boss lady. This is coming from me."

"You got it, sir."

"Movies. He loves movies. Action movies. And food. But it has to be good food, not some drive through slop, you hear me? If he could find a way to be both Spielberg and that crazy chef on tv who swears all the time, he'd do that."

"So RED and Pink's?"

"Perfect! Make it happen. Put it on my expense account."

Jack walked away from Tiny backwards, double pointing at him until he came to the T in the hallway. Turning on his heel in a move not dissimilar to Bozer's, he fell into step with Riley and Mac on their way to the War Room themselves. Riley tried to shake him off, but Mac raised his eyebrows at him, clearly asking if he was okay. So much for keeping their little chat a secret.

"You okay, man?"

"Somebody should get Bozer a deck of cards or something."

"He hates cards," Mac said, his voice soft, distracted. Sad. "There was this song when we were in elementary school, Flowers on the Wall, that drove him nuts. His dad used to sing it all the time to annoy his mom on family game night. She'd end up flashing a deck of cards all over the living room at him, you know, Fifty-Two Card Pick Up, only half the time they couldn't find all the cards. It was one of those jokes between husband and wife we knew we were doomed to never understand. But then we had a dance at school, and Marcy Poynter asked him out, kissed him, and broke up with him all in the course of that one song. He swore off the song and cards forever."

Jack's heart clenched tightly with regret so that he backhanded Mac's chest. "Now you tell me."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. I'm already over it. He'll get over it."

Even more mopey for the lack of understanding what either of his best friends were thinking, Mac muttered a simple, "Okay."

"Wait and see, brother. Thornton will huff and puff, but the house'll still be standing when the smoke clears. Boze'll be just fine."

"Yeah, but why's Thornton gotta go all DEFCON 1?" Riley asked, leading the way around the next corner.

Jack wasn't lying when he defended their boss along the way to whatever job Thornton had culled to keep Mac busy. Riley was a different case. Sure, he'd been a little manipulative in bringing her in, having his own reasons besides Nikki's encryption to want to get Riley out of that hell she was locked in, but it had been practical, too. But Bozer … Practical usually had very little to do with what the heart needed. He hadn't been lying when he told Bozer the truth of it all, either. That guy had been part of their team from the beginning, even if he didn't know it right now. They wouldn't be so thrown right now if he hadn't.

As he looked up at the board, Jack couldn't help feeling grateful Patty had at least found an easy snatch and grab for their first job out after all this. None of them had their hearts in it when they stepped foot in that bank. They definitely didn't when the bank manager outed them.

When he saw the bullet holes flowering the embassy walls like so much DIY wallpaper, Jack didn't feel like humming anymore.

Like he'd thought more than once the last few years, he hoped like hell Bozer was having more fun than they were. If nothing else, Jack felt secure in the knowledge one member of the team was home safe, whether the kid liked it or not. It was amazing the kind of safety a few lies could buy a guy, even when the person he lied to most was himself.

(June 2018)