Hi there! I know it's been a long time since I've written anything for this fandom, but hopefully I'm back on track! I decided I would start posting my one shots individually instead of adding to my fic Collection of OneShots. Mostly I just wanted a slight change and this felt like the thing to do, even though it doesn't change much the way I present my stories.
I hope you guys like it and I'd be the happiest girl alive if you stop by and leave a comment. Remember that I am always open to suggestions, ideas and requests. I may not always write them all, but I try to do my best.
Anyway, on with the show!
Summary: when a mission turns sideways, Mac is left with a choice that will bring back almost repressed memories from his past and that'll shake the team to its core after the mission is completed.
I know: crappy summary, but I don't want to give too much away.
WARNINGS: (SPOILERS) violence and foul language, angst, whump and mentions of suicide. There's a bunch of medical stuff I didn't bother to actually research so I kind of went with my rudimentary knowledge of the subject. If what I describe is actually possible, great. If not, I don't think anyone will mind much. It's all for the sake of fan-fiction right? Also, the mission wasn't exactly too elaborated, I just needed the scenario to bring up the real subject of the oneshot, so cut me some slack and keep your minds open.
And, of course, enjoy!
MCGMCGMCGMCGMCGMCGMCGMCGMCGMCG
That mission screwed everything up.
When they had been briefed about a government agent working undercover for a mafia boss getting discovered and killed, they'd all been willing to hop on the jet to Boston and take the man down once and for all. The last check in of the killed agent with his handler had been to confirm he'd managed to gather enough evidence to put him away. Their job was to retrieve the evidence and bring it back safely so the authorities could then proceed to arrest and dismantle said mafia ring.
It should've been simple. It shouldn't have ended with anyone in the hospital under the risk of psychological permanent trauma.
It was Jack's fault. He'd let those bastards take a hold of Riley and then making Mac do what he did. He failed both of them and he wasn't sure how any of them would come back from it, specially Mac. He'd just never truly understand Mac's aversion to using guns, not ever, not until that day, when it had all gone to hell.
...
Jack, Mac and Riley had touched down in Boston around 9am that morning with instructions to retrieve the evidence agent Porter had managed to compile on one Giovanni Ferro, head of a ruthless mafia family who'd been operating on the city for about a decade now.
Unfortunately agent Porter had been discovered before he could hid the information in a more secure location and so the small item had fallen into the hands of the very own crime boss he'd been trying to incriminate. No matter the danger, that meant infiltrating the man's home and that put the Phoenix team about to walk into the wolf's den.
Despite the malfunctioning comms, being discovered too early on, the subsequent fight against Giovanni Ferro's personal security and the mess they were making out of everything as Mac used his improvising to help them stay alive and find the flash drive, they had done it. They'd find the small device on the man's private studio where he had kept it stashed after taking it off the agent's dead body. But that was as far as their luck had gotten them.
Riley, who'd stayed outside in the van providing backup and the getaway vehicle, had been discovered and the two Phoenix agents had been forced to surrender their weapons when they saw two huge security guards who must've been making rounds outside the perimeter half carry and half drag a dazed Riley between them. She had a quickly darkening bruise around one eye that she couldn't quite open completely and the men's grip on the arms made her wince with every step. Mac and Jack had then been cornered and the older man was snarling something fierce.
"You touch one more hair on her and you're as good as dead"
"Ah, trying to be a gentleman, am I right?" Giovanni mocked him before stepping closer to Riley and lifting her head by her chin. She looked defiantly up at him before he let her go and approached the other two prisoners "you broke into my home to try and get a hold of this" he said, dangling the flash drive in one hand "and you don't expect me to take some retaliation?" he tsked. This man was really starting to grate on Jack's nerves. Then he continued to piss Jack off when the guy turned his attention to Mac, regarding him with a curious look "as I understand, I have you to thank for my new interior decoration" he said before slamming his fist into the young agent's stomach with surprising speed and strength. Mac gasped and doubled over, dropping to one knee and clutching his arm over his middle. Jack would've gone to him in an instant, in fact he took an automatic step towards his partner, but there were just too many guns trained on them and he couldn't risk it. Not yet.
The man grabbed a fistful of Mac's hair and yanked his head up to look at him, accentuating the strain on Mac's breathing. Mac wanted nothing more than to react and fight back, but one look at Riley had him standing down and evaluate the situation to find a possible way out.
"Who sent you?" the man asked right in his face "And while we're at it, who sent the Other one? The one who made the flash drive. I didn't have enough time to ask him before I made him put a bullet in his own head" Mac remained silent.
There was no way he'd disclose any sensitive information. But what he did show was his surprise. The report they'd read had said the cause of dead had been, in fact, a bullet to the head but there had been no mention about it being self-inflicted. What was that about? Had agent Porter killed himself after being discovered so he wouldn't face the crime boss' wrath?
"Oh yeah, that's right" the man continued talking, not missing the surprise written and the three agent's face. He released Mac's hair and stood up to explain. Mac slowly got up on his feet too "I gave the man a choice. Either he killed himself or he faced a long torturous and agonizing dead at the hands of my men. So what's it gonna be? Are you going to tell me who you work for? What do you think?" he asked and Jack couldn't help himself.
"I think you sure like the sound of your own voice too damn much" he said, trying to keep Giovanni's attention on himself and off the kids. The other man just smiled.
"Like a said. Ever the gentleman" and again, in a surprising display of speed, he whirled around to smack Mac across the face. He immediately followed the punch with a knee to the blond's already sore stomach and Mac ended up crashing to the ground and gasping for breath.
"Mac!" Riley began to struggle against her captors but their grip was just too strong.
"You son of a bitch!" Jack snarled but he was head butted from behind when he tried to launch himself at Giovanni. He fell on his knees and braced his hands on the floor.
"Now, is anybody gonna answer my question or are things gonna have to get ugly?" he walked over to Mac, who was still breathing heavily on the floor, making Jack tense up all over again "what about you, genius? You haven't said much of anything at all" Mac wiped his bleeding lip before answering back.
"Screw you" he said and braced himself for another attack. Except it didn't come.
"Well. I guess you leave me no other choice" Giovanni instructed his men to bring the prisoners into another room, one dark almost bare square room usually destined for interrogation and more persuasive methods of questioning. The place was sound proof.
Mac and Jack exchanged a worried glance and they didn't need to say anything out loud to know what they were thinking. They couldn't afford to be brought into that room.
So they struck.
While everyone thought Mac was too hurt and Jack was too wary of the guns trained on them to fight back, that's when they moved. They knew each other so well that there was no hesitation, no confusion, as to who would take on who. Jack would handle the guys at their back, Mac would handle the ones in front and they'd get to Riley together. Except sometimes they forgot that Riley had been training nonstop since joining the Phoenix too, and although her skills didn't compare to years and years of army plus agency training and experience, she was quick to get a read on the situation and lash out as well, just when everyone thought she was too dazed to move much.
She managed to free herself from one of the men holding her, the guy now sporting a broken nose, and was on his way to get rid of the second. Jack was faring as well as one would expect from the ex Delta. He had managed to get rid of the guys behind them and now was making his way over to Riley, to help her get free from her second douchebag.
"Riley, call Matty! Let her know what's going on. Tell her to send Boston PD over!" and then he ran off to help Mac. The kid was faring well, even though moving obviously hurt his abused ribs.
"Need a hand?" he said as he punched the lights out of one guy and then shook his hand with a grimace of pain. That was one hard jaw. Mac laughed.
"Do you need a hand?"
"Shut up"
Now there were only two men left to take care of, Giovanni himself and another one of his... Wait a minute, where was Giovanni? Two shots rang out.
"Enough!" came the angry shout from somewhere to their right. When they turned to see Giovanni holding a gun to Riley's face, Jack immediately took a step forward, but that was his mistake.
The first two shots had been a warning, they'd gone to the roof instead of their bodies. The third one was not. Jack let out a small cry as his leg gave out beneath him and he fell, clutching his thigh and already feeling the blood seeping through his fingers.
"You son of a..." he started to insult the man again, but the other one was having none of it.
"Uh, uh, uh. You want her to live, you show some respect" and Jack had to swallow the rest of his words.
When he saw Jack fall, Mac had rushed to his partner but there wasn't much he could do to help him. The partners looked at each other worried, concern over the situation evident only to themselves as they read each other's expression. They focused back on Riley.
If looks could kill, Giovanni Ferro would've been six feet under by now. Riley was fulminating him and internally cursing his ass six days to sunday, but at least she'd managed to get in contact with Matty before the guy had crept up on her. She definitely needed to level up her training.
"You better think about what you're doing man" Mac began to talk, rising carefully to his feet from his hunched position beside Jack and put his hands up in a gest of surrender "there's still three of us and only one of you"
"Yet I have the gun, and the pretty one" Jack was trying to reach one of the fallen guard's guns, but moving was hell on his leg and he didn't want the man to become too itchy on the trigger. Riley was too close.
"Alright. What do you want?" Mac asked, his demeanor calm and collected. He needed to bring the situation back to a manageable level of danger and stall for enough time for Matty to work her magic, assuming Riley had managed to reach her.
"How about you start by learning some respect? You send an undercover agent to betray my trust, you break into my house, you destroy it on your way in and you still intend to get the upper hand and bring me in? Things don't work like that in this city boy. Your agent learned that lesson the hard way and you're about to do the same" Giovanni took a step closer to Riley and wrapped his arm around her neck, tightening his hold to make sure she didn't have enough room to fight back. He pressed the gun to her temple.
"Hey!" Jack yelled.
"You hurt her and you die" Mac snarled fiercely "you only have one bullet left in your mag. You use it on her, you got no more for us. We take you down and I can guarantee you won't survive" he was damn right, Jack thought, because there was just no freaking way he'd let that man live with the way he was threatening his girl. His mind was starting to feel woozy though, but his determination helped him stay focused. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that the bullet may have nicked an artery, given the amount of blood pooling on the floor beneath him, but he couldn't be bothered to worry about that now, not when there was a man holding a gun to Riley's head. His mind wandered back to the conversation when he heard Mac's confused words.
"What?" the blond had asked, to which Giovanni repeated his request.
"Pick up that gun" he insisted, pointing to one of the fallen guards.
"Why?" Mac asked reluctantly, not liking the surprising turn of events.
"You said it yourself. I only have one bullet left so I need a way to take care of the two of you" Mac frowned, trying to come up with a way out of the situation. Maybe he could distract the man enough for Riley to make a move and get away from him, maybe there was a way to incapacitate all of them until help arrived, although that wouldn't work for Jack in his condition and there was no way to know if the first responders to the scene were on their side, they might be reinforcements for the bad guy "NOW!" the man snarled, digging his gun painfully on Riley's head, making her wince. Mac was taking too much time.
"Alright, alright" he complied and picked up the heavy object, carrying it as if it was a nuclear weapon instead of just a gun. To him though, it was. He heard his partner calling to him in warning, maybe asking him to throw him the gun so Jack could actually use it like it was supposed to be used. There was no time for that. The moment he did, Giovanni would just pull the trigger and Riley would be as good as dead. What was he supposed to do? "What now?"
"I don't care much about your friend over there. He's not looking so well after all" Giovanni said, and he was right. Mac could see Jack making every effort to stay as focused as he could be, but his frame was swaying slightly, and his skin was paper white. The wound on his thigh just wouldn't stop bleeding and Mac knew he didn't have much time. An unwanted memory of Cairo made its way to the surface but he dismissed it quickly. He couldn't deny the situation was starting to feel like Cairo, but he couldn't afford to dwell on that "…you though. I need a way to get rid of you"
"What?" this time, it was Riley who spoke up "you're not making any sense" the guy then put his mouth to Riley's ear but he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
"I may have some use for you beyond coloring this walls red. Your friend did enough damage in here to cost me some money. Maybe I can use you to get it back" Jack may have been fading fast, but he didn't miss the meaning behind those words and let out a few curse words of his own. In the meantime, Mac kept thinking about how to create a distraction. He didn't have enough time though "Talk time is over!" Giovanni said, getting tired of being holed up in a situation like that "I gave the last guy a choice, now it's only fair I give you one too. Either you pull the trigger on yourself, or she dies right here, right now"
Mac froze. The temperature in the room dropped a thousand degrees and both Jack and Riley gasped.
"You can't do that!" Jack yelled.
"You're insane" Riley spat.
Mac remained silent, eyes locked on the gun he was currently holding in his right hand, his heart racing a mile a minute and his mind frozen on only one thought: not again. Not again, not again, not again...
"It's your choice now" the other man added and Mac looked up to see the conviction behind his words. The man meant what he said. He would kill Riley if he didn't do this.
"Mac..." Jack called when he saw the younger agent glance back down to the weapon in his hands. He couldn't possibly be considering it, right? "Mac!" Mac looked at him next, then at Riley. He knew he couldn't let Riley die, this wasn't even much of a choice. It was all a matter of being strong enough to do it.
"Mac don't you dare!" Riley said from his right, while Jack kept calling him from his left.
"Tic toc Mac" Giovanni mocked, making him want to throw up. The other man cocked his gun to emphasize his comment and Mac took a step backwards, as if trying to hide from what he'd already decided he would do. He wouldn't let Riley die.
"How do I know you won't kill her if I do?" his voice was small, unsure. It broke Jack's heart.
"You don't" Giovanni replied.
"I have to know!" his voice broke at the end and he cleared his throat, although there was no way to hide the fear in his words "If I do this, you have to let her go"
"Mac you ca-" Giovanni cut off Riley's protest.
"Like I said, I have other plans for her" Mac's hand started to shake now.
He could hear grunting from the floor where Jack was trying to make his way over to him, dragging his bleeding leg behind him. Riley kept calling his name while using every foul language she knew to insult the crime boss but Mac had to shut it all down. He looked at the gun.
Not again, not again, not again... The thought kept playing like a loop inside his brain, providing a terrifying background noise that made it hard for him to focus much on what his friends were saying, probably trying to talk him down from what Giovanni was making him do.
One particular cry from Jack brought his attention back to the moment though, and he locked eyes with the older man whose face was pale and sweaty but whose eyes had somehow managed to regain the grasp of their surroundings.
"Mac listen to me. You can think of another way out of this, you always do. Improvise man!" but there was nothing else to try. Riley was gonna die.
"I'm sorry..." he whispered, his voice wavery and uncertain.
"Think of something!" Jack begged.
"Mac, please! You can't do this" Riley said but then turned as much as she could to Giovanni "you can't do this. Please, don't do this" she was willing to beg if it meant saving Mac's life "I'll go with you if you want. They won't follow, they can't. You let them live and I'll go with you" Jack wanted to cry the moment he heard those words coming out of Riley's mouth. He was pretty sure his heart was about to burst out of his chest. If things narrowed down to being either Mac or Riley dying that day, he wasn't sure he'd be able to survive after that, gunshot wound or not.
When he saw Mac raise his arm, he panicked.
"Mac don't! Please buddy, don't do this to me. Mac!" and he could see the anguish on his young friend, his brother. He was terrified. Jack couldn't think of any other time when he'd seen the kid as scared as he was now. Mac looked at him again.
"I ha-have to" he whispered, apparently incapable of talking any louder. He finally managed to put the gun to his temple, his hand shaking so bad maybe he wouldn't even have to pull the trigger at all, he'd shake the gun into discharging.
Tears were running freely on Riley's face and Jack's own weren't far behind. He guessed the crime boss lived up to the reputation of the mafia killing in brutal and creative ways. Making their enemies shoot themselves was the upmost psychological torture he could apply on someone before they died, and he was doing it to Mac now. Jack reached the kid's leg and tried to cling to it to help himself stand up, take the gun away from him, but Mac shook him off and took a step back.
"I'll do it" he said, somehow keeping the shaking out of his voice, although the underlying fear remained "and you let her live"
"I will"
Mac couldn't bring himself to regret his decision. It meant Riley would get to live, hopefully. He just wished he didn't have to do it in front of his friends, in front of Jack, and burden them with that image for the rest of however long they would live, even if it was just a few more minutes, judging by the amount of blood outside his partner's body and Riley's uncertain future.
"Jack" he called, his normally grave voice now high pitched and wavy. He wasn't sure what he was calling his partner for, but he couldn't help himself "Jack..." the other man had tears in his eyes.
"Mac..."
Mac pulled the trigger.
"NO!" both Jack and Riley yelled in unison.
Mac hadn't been sure what it would feel like to shoot himself in the head, but at least he'd expected it to be over instantly. He hadn't expected to still feel the shaking of his hand or hear the voices of his friends.
"Mac! Mac!"
"Mac! Angus!"
Mac opened his eyes and saw Jack, Riley and Giovanni exactly in the same position they'd been before he'd closed his eyes. Giovanni was watching him surprised and furious at the same time. Riley was sobbing heartbreakingly in his grasp and Jack was gasping for breath on the floor next to him. He also realized he wasn't dead.
The gun had jammed.
The freaking gun had fucking jammed!
Mac gasped and took an unsteady step back, letting his arm fall almost bonelessly down. For an instant, he was about to let the heavy object drop from his cold fingers when he remembered what had happened last time and tightened his grip painfully on it. He let his back rest against the wall, his eyes wide and staring at everything and nothing at all.
Not one minute later, the first stun grenade was thrown inside and everyone who remained standing crashed to the ground disoriented. Uniformed men started to fill the house, their bodies covered in TAC gear and neither Phoenix agent could care less if they were the Boston police, or another Phoenix team or the freaking SAWT. Giovanni was apprehended and Riley, once she was able to stand, made her way directly to Mac to make sure he was, in fact, still alive.
"You okay?" she asked once she reached him and the look in his face frightened her. She could feel him shaking under her hands, which were grasping his shoulders strongly and she noticed he still had a deadly grip on the gun. She slid her hand over his "you can drop the gun now Mac. It's okay" all she managed to do was bring his attention to her, his eyes slowly focusing so she kept coaching him into releasing the weapon "give me the gun Mac" Mac looked down at their hands and then back at her. He was slowly coming back to himself and he let out a shaky breath as the muscles of his hand relaxed and he let go of the gun, which Riley immediately took and placed behind her.
"Mac! Riley!" Jack's voice was weak but desperate. He hadn't been able to move and coming back from the stunning of the grenade was harder on him given his current state.
"We're okay" Riley answered back, watching as their rescuers went around the place securing every unconscious man.
"Is Mac okay? Is he alive?" the fear in his voice made Riley wince.
"He's alive Jack. He's fine" she said, her voice choking at the end. Jack let out a sob of relief before slumping unconscious the rest of the way to the ground.
…
The ride to the hospital passed in a blur for Mac. He'd fallen into a silence Riley didn't quite know how to ger him out of. Once Matty had cleared them with the police and they were transported to the nearest hospital so Jack's leg could be taken care of, Mac's focus had become helping his partner and staying out of the way. He pushed every other thought out of his mind to deal with later, or never at all if he could help it.
Jack ended up needing surgery to repair the bullet wound which had indeed nicked an artery on its way in. It hadn't been a great tear, but since it went untreated for that long, the blood loss had been considerable. They stayed in the hospital over night to replenish Jack's blood count with him only waking up the next morning.
Mac hadn't slept a wink. So far, he'd spent 24 hours awake and somehow he didn't see himself calming down enough to actually fall asleep. The adrenalin in his body wouldn't allow it, even though he should've crashed hours ago when the danger had passed. He just wasn't coming down from the adrenalin high. He was fidgety and nervous even though his mind was blank. It was the strangest of combinations.
Once on the jet back to the Phoenix, the next day, Jack was sprawled on the side couch, his leg elevated over some pillows and Riley tending to him like he was a dying man. He was fine! He wanted to yell, but understood the need to make sure, he felt it all the time with Mac.
Mac, who had pulled a trigger on himself to safe his baby girl. Dear God, how was the kid even gonna start compartmentalizing that?
Said blond genius was currently sitting on the other end of the plane, staring intently at the bright sky and clearly avoiding talking to anybody else. Jack knew until they were somewhere more private, he wouldn't be able to approach the subject with his partner, if the other man let him even do it at all.
…
Back home and later than night, Mac was staring at the ceiling of his room, his minds working overtime, preventing him from falling asleep.
He'd rejected Jack's and Riley's offer to come over to the house to decompress, watch a movie and have some beers. Despite Jack's insistence, he'd been adamant about it. It was alright, Mac thought, Jack needed the rest to heal up his leg, he didn't need to be watching over him when all he'd gotten out of the confrontation was a couple of bruises.
He'd shut down Bozer as well. His best friend had cooked dinner and was waiting excitedly to hear their most recent adventure. Mac blew him off saying he was tired and was going right to bed.
But he couldn't sleep. No matter how tired he knew he was, his body just wouldn't shut down. It was trimming with a nervous energy he didn't know what to do with and it was killing him.
Somewhere around midnight, when the walls of his room started to feel oppressive, he got up from the bed and went to the living room, turning on the TV. He'd checked his phone, which he'd silenced, and noticed a few missed calls from Jack. Mac just turned the phone off and left it on the table. Maybe if he distracted his mind with some meaningless tv he'd be able to fall asleep. He'd take sleeping on the couch over this restlessness any day.
It didn't work. 10 minutes into the program and all he wanted was to swing at the TV and send it crashing down from its place. What he did, in fact, do was hurl the remote towards the screen with a frustrated yell, disregarding any caution that he might wake Bozer up. His mind was buzzing and he started to feel cold, like, really cold.
He got up from the couch and started to pace. The feeling was getting almost unbearable and all he wanted was to crawl out of his skin.
It didn't take long for Bozer to emerge.
"What was that?" he asked, appearing at the end of the hall, surprised at Mac's sudden bout of anger. When he received no answer, he took a step towards his friend "what's going on Mac?"
"I don't know Boze, but it won't stop" the blond answered in a whine, on a rare display of honesty at not feeling at a 100%, which contributed to make Bozer's worry grow.
"What do you mean?" Bozer's voice was thick with sleep but he was waking up by the second, staring at his friend's distress.
"Everything. Too much. Won't stop" he wasn't making a lot of sense. Bozer startled when Mac picked up an object and threw it at the wall "Fuck!" he yelled and then wrapped his arms around himself, hunching slightly. He was scratching the skin on his forearms like he meant to peal the skin off, and soon long red marks started to make an appearance.
"Mac...?" Bozer was at a loss. Was Mac having a flashback? Was he having a panic attack? Was he injured and in pain? He walked over to him wanting to provide comfort, but the blond flinched and took a step back.
"No, don't! It won't stop!" Mac felt like he was being tortured. His nerves were on fire, his skin was crawling, and his mind wouldn't stop sending signals to his body that he was in danger and he needed to do something. His brain was short-circuiting and he was spiraling down. He sat down on the floor, back against the wall, and continued to breath heavily. His eyes were screwed shut and he wouldn't stop shaking. With an animal growl, he rammed his elbow back against the wall, relishing in the pain it brought which also provided an outlet for the frustration his body kept bleeding off. He did it again, and again and again, each time whimpering with the pain but unable to stop. Bozer tried to stop him.
"What are you doing? Stop that!" Bozer knelt in front of Mac, taking a hold of his arm, only for Mac to shout out again in surprise, or fear, and start pushing him away. When Bozer received a right hook, he walked out of his friend's personal space so he wouldn't upset him anymore.
Mac then closed his eyes and started banging his head slightly back against the wall, muttering words to himself that Bozer could only half understand.
"What did I do, what did it do, what did I do..."
Bozer's next move was to call Jack.
He'd heard from Riley bits and pieces of the messy operation that had landed Jack in a hospital in Boston, since his roommate hadn't been exactly sharing, so he was aware of what Mac had done when he thought it was the only way to save Riley's life. He guessed he'd underestimated the repercussions it would have on their friend. They all did.
Bozer would've liked to be able to help Mac on his own. Jack was home nursing a pretty painful bullet wound after all, but he also knew that if Mac was so lost in on himself, the only person qualified enough to approach without being hurt was him.
"Jack?" he asked, unable to mask the fear in his own voice while he watched Mac ram his fist down on the floor time and again.
"What's wrong?" came Jack's sleepy voice over the phone. Bozer felt bad for waking the other man up when all he needed was rest but he didn't know what else to do.
"It's Mac. He doesn't feel well. I don't know how to explain" he could here grunting on the other end of the line, letting him know Jack was getting up from bed.
"Well, explain better! He hurt?" he demanded.
"Not that I can see. But he might hurt himself if he doesn't calm down. What should I do?"
"I'm on my way" Jack stated.
"Wait, how are you gonna get here? You can't drive!" Bozer hadn't accounted for Jack's orders not to operate heavy machinery until that moment.
"I'll manage" Jack growled and hung up.
Bozer was left alone with Mac again and he decided to talk to the blond to try and distract him. He didn't think getting close to him now was wise.
"Mac, you're home, you're okay" he didn't know exactly what to say because he didn't know what was wrong.
Mac felt like he couldn't escape himself and that everything both inside and outside his body was a danger to him. Bozer's presence, as reassuring as it was trying to be, felt threatening. His surroundings felt foreign and his body was working against him. His heart was hammering painfully in his chest and he couldn't catch his breath. His mind though, specially his mind, for every minute that had remained empty right after the moment he'd pulled the trigger, was now assaulting him with memories of his past, along with the image of himself holding a gun to his head barely 48 hours ago. It's like he couldn't decide which memory to focus on and so he was reliving both. Somewhere in the back of his mind he suspected he was having a panic attack, but he'd had those before, when he came back from the sandbox, and they'd never felt as strong as the one he was having now.
When he heard the front door slam closed, he jumped and opened his eyes to regard the new threat, and he saw a blurry Jack stumbling over to him with his crutches. Despite knowing that Jack always meant safety, he couldn't help but feel even more vulnerable at the sight of his friend. He pulled the trigger in front of Jack. He tried to kill himself in front of him. He didn't want, didn't deserve, to be comforted by him.
When Jack saw Mac huddled on the floor, distress evident on his position and eyes holding so much anguish, he felt his heart stutter. When he saw his partner start crying at his presence, he could swear his heart broke in a million pieces.
"Mac, what's wrong?" he asked, kneeling awkwardly in front of him and laying his injured leg stretched on the floor. He had left his crutches aside, focusing all his attention on the young man. But Mac, instead of going to him for comfort, started to crawl away.
"No, no, no, no. please, go away" the blond muttered. He brought his hands up, as if guarding himself from Jack, almost like he was expecting to get hit or hurt somehow. Jack wouldn't be deterred by it. He put a hand on his shoulder.
"No" Jack denied. He wasn't about to leave his friend to suffer through whatever he was suffering through.
"I did it. I'm sorry" Jack was pretty certain Mac was talking about the gun "how could I do something like that?"
"You did it to save Riley man" but Mac shook his head.
"I wanted to go. I wanted to be gone so he'd be back" what? That didn't make much sense. He was about to ask Mac what he meant when the younger man finally gave up on getting away from him and thrust his hand up blindly, looking for something to hold on to. Jack was quick to provide him with his hand but just when he thought he'd make a break through, Mac startled him by letting out a yell and clinging to him for dear life. Jack tucked him in protectively "help me Jack. I can't... It won't stop!" he pressed his head further into the older man's chest and screamed a full unadulterated scream, making both Jack and Bozer jump and look at each other.
"Mac you have to tell me what's wrong, how to help you" Jack pleaded.
"You left! You left me!" he replied instead, now trying to dislodge himself from Jack's grip but finding it hard when the other man tightened his hold. He started pounding on Jack's chest.
Jack wasn't understanding anything. Mac's behavior was so erratic that for the first time ever, he didn't know how to handle him. First he'd tried to get away from him, then he latched on as his life depended on it and now he was pounding Jack and accusing him of leaving. Had he had a nightmare? Was he still trapped in it?
"Mac, stop. You need to stop!" he caught a hold of the flailing arms, crossing them in front of his chest. His leg was aching with the effort of keeping the blond under control, and he greeted his teeth.
When he felt his arms being restricted, Mac finally lost it. The feeling of wanting to crawl out of his body intensified by a hundred so he screamed again. Jack was getting desperate. He turned to Bozer.
"Call Matty. Get her to send someone from medical over" he instructed and Bozer's eyes widened. Were things really that bad? He looked down at his wailing friend. Yes, they were.
It didn't take any convincing or time at all for Matty to send a Phoenix medical team and within minutes, the house was a blur of movement. Jack had managed to maintain his hold on Mac, the younger man having switched back to holding into Jack, but he hadn't calmed down much. Every few seconds he would grunt or even yell, sob and cry as if he was being tortured and he wasn't very forthcoming with his words. He kept repeating he needed Jack's help but then accused him of leaving. All in all, he was completely out of it.
"How long has he been like this?" the medic asked.
"He was feeling restless around midnight but he's been kind of hysterical for the better part of half an hour" the man dropped down next to Jack and took a hold of Mac's wrist to start a physical examination. The foreign touch sent Mac into a renewed bout of panic. He trashed and tried to get away from everyone, including Jack again, and his breathing picked up its pace. He was full on hyperventilating now, gasping for breath, apparently not able to get any oxygen in.
"Mac, come on! You need to calm down" but the younger man was oblivious. The medic put a hand on Jack's arm.
"He's too hysterical. I can't evaluate him like this" like Jack couldn't see that for himself.
"Oh yeah? And what do you suggest we do?" he snarled
"Jack" Bozer called his attention back to their friend, who was starting to bang his elbow back into the wall again, but when Jack went to take a hold of it and prevent it, Mac started to really fight him back. He started kicking and screaming and asking everyone to leave him alone. He wouldn't stop. Jack heard the medic team talking amongst themselves, but he was only half listening. He picked up on what they had been saying when the doctor knelt back down again, syringe in hand and asked him to hold Mac still. Just what the hell did they think he was doing?
Between the two doctors, Bozer and Jack, they managed to trap Mac on the floor, Jack having to lay almost on top of him, while the rest pried one of his arms away from his body to inject him with a sedative.
"No! NO!" he protested, still fighting like his life was at risk and Jack hated himself for doing this to his best friend. Mac's body was rigid with tension but ever so slowly it started to uncoil and the strength fled his body to leave him sprawled on the floor.
Mac could feel himself floating away, his body stopped responding him and his vision went fuzzy, darkening around the edges. He recognized Jack's face hovering above him and he did everything he could to hold on to himself.
"No" he whispered, voice rough with medication "I don't wanna die. Jack, I don't... I don' wanna...die..." Jack watched Mac's eyes finally close and he closed his own, still clinging to his friend's now unconscious body as if protecting him from the rest of the world. He sat up and picked Mac's upper body from the floor to rest it against his own. By the time he found his voice, he was almost snarling.
"What the hell happened?" he asked, looking intently at Bozer.
"I don't know man! I heard a crash and I woke up and he was all fidgety and nervous" the medics were getting a portable gurney ready so they could bring Mac to medical, but Jack was like a wounded wolf taking care of his cub. He wouldn't let anyone approach him until he knew what was wrong.
"But why!?" he asked in a yell. He'd never, ever, seen Mac like this before and it was making him feel completely out of sorts "did he have a nightmare?" this time, it was the medic who answered.
"You should calm down Agent Dalton, we don't need another panic attack right now"
"That was no panic attack doc. That was a complete mental breakdown. I've never seen him like that. Never!" Jack answered back.
"I understand, so why don't we get him settled on the transport back to Phoenix so we can assess Agent MacGyver's condition?" Bozer stepped closer and bravely or stupidly put a hand on Jack's shoulder.
"Come on man. You can fill them in on what went down on the mission. Maybe that'll help figure out what happened"
Every instinct in his body screamed at him to take Mac back to his apartment and care for his friend alone, but Mac's pale and sweaty complexion finally made him release his hold on the younger man. Mac needed medical attention right now and that came before his need to just be there for him.
Quickly but effectively, the medical personnel had Mac loaded into the vehicle, Jack stubbornly by the gurney's side, crutches forgotten on the living room floor. Bozer got dressed too and made his own way to the Phoenix.
...
Everyone had made the same mistake.
They'd believed Mac when he'd brushed them all off, saying he was fine and tired and all he wanted to do was sleep. As it turned down, he hadn't slept for the previous 48 hours and his outbreak (that's what they were calling it now) was probably a direct result of that.
"For now, I can explain what was physically wrong with Mac" the head doctor of medical, who somehow always managed to be on shift, told them when he was done examining Mac. Matty had rushed over to the Phoenix, as well as Riley, to find out what had happened that night "I think, for the first time ever, he was very forthcoming with his answers, so I could put the picture together" it had been several hours since the outburst and Mac had woken up from the sedation slowly. They'd all feared he'd head right back into a panic, but he'd been actually pretty compliant and calm "he confirmed he'd gone without sleeping, eating or drinking anything for over two days, since the start of the mission. So it's actually a wonder he didn't crash sooner. His blood pressure was dangerously over the top, the oxygen stats less than ideal, he was bordering on hypoglycemic and dehydrated. Top that with the strain of a difficult mission and you get yourselves an outbreak just like the one he had" he doctor finished.
"But he'll be okay, right? There's no serious damage" Jack was the first to express his doubts. He wasn't reassured when the doctor took a deep breath and sighed.
"Physically, he'll recuperate. His sympathetic central nervous system had been locked on active mode for too long. That's the part of the brain that activates all instinctual responses when there're dangerous stimuli around us, you could say it's the place of the brain where the fight or flight answers are stored. It activates to help you survive: makes the blood pump faster so you're stronger and faster, inhibits other non-essential body systems, like the digestive one, to concentrate on the ones that will actually save your life. The sympathetic system isn't supposed to be active for too long after the stressful situation, that's when the parasympathetic system comes into play, to help you get down from the adrenalin high. I guess that's what you could call the adrenalin crash. Mac's parasympathetic system never turned on, so he was locked in fight or flight mode for way too long, which became unhealthy and dangerous in itself" the doctor finished explaining.
"How could we not see that?" Riley asked, biting her thumb.
"Knowing Mac like I do, he was very good at hiding what he was feeling until he just couldn't anymore" the doctor said and everyone had to agree. All in all, with some rest Mac should be back to normal in no time, but there was something still nagging at Jack.
"When he was in the middle of it, he was talking but wasn't making much sense. It was like he was talking about two different things: what happened on the mission and whatever else he'd meant by some of what he said. What was that about?"
"I said I was able to tell you what had physically happened to him, but my advice is he sees a psychiatrist when the effects of the sedative finally wear off" at hearing those words, everyone's hopeful thought of a quick recovery went crashing down. Matty spoke up for the first time.
"What are you saying exactly?" she demanded to know. Having one of her agents mentally compromised wasn't something to be considered lightly.
"Traumatic experiences tend to have repercussions, I think you would all agree" the man explained. Given their line of work, they could all understand, some more than others, what the doctor was actually saying "attempting against one's life is always a cause of concern, no matter the circumstances that led to the act. Whether the choice was voluntary or forced, like in this case, it's bound to create some pretty strong case of PTSD. I'm recommending Mac to be placed off the field until he's cleared by a psychological team" he directed his last words to Matty, who was the one who could bench Mac as needed and he received a nod.
"Everything he needs, he'll get" she stated and then walked with the man farther from the room Mac had been placed in, so they could keep talking.
Jack had paled gradually with the doctor's explanation of what Mac could be facing mentally. How had it gotten this bad? And how had he not seen it?
The mission should've been simple. It shouldn't have ended with anyone in the hospital under the risk of psychological permanent trauma.
It was Jack's fault. He'd let that bastard take a hold of Riley and then making Mac do what he did. And then he'd been too preoccupied with his own pain to pay much attention to his suffering partner.
He ran a hand up and down his face. He needed to put his act together if he wanted to be there for Mac now, help him come back from this. He locked eyes with both Riley and Bozer, the three of them having fallen silent after the information they'd just received.
Still in silence, Bozer and Riley encouraged Jack to walk into Mac's room. They'd give the partners some time alone because they knew that was standard operating procedure when it came to dealing with an injured Mac, no matter the nature of the pain.
Jack hopped his way inside and closed the door gently behind him.
"Hey bud" he greeted when he saw Mac's eyes open at his entrance and then prepared to offer the support he knew his friend needed, even if Mac wasn't ready to admit he did.
To be continued….
Honestly, I meant this to be just a oneshot, but the little idea I had in my mind became this monster of a plot where I haven't even begun to mention Mac's previous aversions to guns. Although, does anyone wanna try and guess what it could be all about?
I already know what will happen on the next chapter, but it's just too late and I'm too tired to keep writing now. I have to get up bright and early tomorrow, so I decided to break the story here and make it a twoshot.
Next chapter should be up soon. I'd love to hear what you guys think of the story so far. I know I tend to get all cheesy and dramatic when I'm writing emotional whump, but I hope that's something you guys dig instead of not… let me know!