Spoilers for "Means to an End," and for rumors about upcoming tidbits in Mac's personal life.
He can't breathe.
It's the one overwhelming feeling Mac Taylor can't shake even though it's completely illogical. He drove; he's walking and talking; he's conscious. Clearly oxygen is coming in and out of his lungs, fueling his system, but it doesn't feel that way at all. There are thick bands squeezing his chest and it pains him every time he makes a choice to try to draw air in.
He can't breathe.
"Mac... Curtis is... dead."
Her voice is broken, filled with hurt and fear as it reaches out through the phone, and he can tell the pain isn't just emotional. She sounds semiconscious, her tone a ghost of what he's used to, and Mac's hand tightens around the cell in his hand as if he can grip it enough to somehow pull himself to her.
"Jo, where are you?"
"Witness... Amanda Tanner. She had... her apartment."
It sends him racing through the lab and out to his truck, a call to the precinct giving him the address, a silent curse raging inside of him, waiting for a moment later to release his anger at Sinclair, who denied Mac's request to put a detail on Curtis after the bastard's little "maybe you killed Allie" head game. Something in Mac's gut screamed that danger was looming as he'd watched the rapist's smug dismissal of Jo, and now...
Now he can't breathe.
He sees her first as he drives up, her stubbornness on full display as she forces the paramedics to help her walk out of the apartment building instead of being carried even though she's clearly woozy. It would make him smile except that her face is so bloodied.
She pushes him away, tells him to check on Amanda. And he does because he knows Jo will try to get up herself and do it if he doesn't. So he makes his way up to the apartment, sees that Amanda is sitting up, though still groggy, trying to get her bearings as another set of paramedics check her over.
He waits, sees the bullets on the floor, the shattered glass, and what's left of John Curtis.
Amanda asks if Jo's okay, and Mac turns to her, smiles, says Detective Danville is awake, being treated downstairs. The young woman seems to rally at that, relieved that her rescue didn't come at too high a cost, and when Mac sees her level a hateful glare toward Curtis' body, he understands all too well what's behind it.
He gets her settled, warm and out of public view as much as possible in one of their cars, and tells her to keep the ice pack on her head. And then he heads back to Jo because he did what she asked and now he needs to be back with her, just there, seeing with his own eyes that she really made it out of that room.
He doesn't need her to recount the story to tell him what happened. He can piece it together from the way the crime scene played out. And Mac has no doubt that had Jo been two seconds later getting that bullet into the chamber of her gun, this story has a different ending.
A chill runs through him, and he reaches for the blanket on the gurney because he can't imagine how cold she must be sitting there in the open ambulance, her jackets splayed around her on the floor, if he feels like ice is rushing through him.
Jo finds him as he walks up, lets out a deep breath as he moves closer. He hears her say thank you as he settles the blanket around her shoulders, and as he sits down beside her, his hand anchors itself on her arm, holding the fabric in place a good excuse to not let go.
She's tense, eyes wandering, and Mac isn't sure what to do. He can't find his voice to say anything reassuring, the bands squeezing his chest too tightly for words, and she seems lost to him in the moment, her attention pulled somewhere he can't go because all he can do is watch her and watch John Curtis' body be carried away. All he can do is think about those two seconds and what he nearly lost today.
And then Jo takes a breath, a deep, long breath, and then she moves into him, her head coming to his shoulder, body pressed to his chest.
His hand tightens on her arm, pulls her closer.
And finally his lungs fill without pain.
He rides in the ambulance with her, stands by while they do a C.T. to make sure her concussion doesn't require hospitalization, and then drives her home. He doesn't wait to be invited up, just climbs out of the car and wraps his arm around her again and takes her upstairs.
He stays all night because she needs watching, and Ellie is a little freaked out, and Mac tells Jo it's so her daughter can get a good night's sleep. She accepts that and then falls asleep in his arms, and Mac stays awake all night watching the slow rhythm of her breath moving in an out, each beat of air a gift to him.
He thinks maybe this will be the day. Maybe now he'll find the courage to take the next step, to tell her how he felt when he heard her voice on the phone, so wounded and calling his name.
But he doesn't make any vows or promises. He just stays focused on the fact that she's here, alive... breathing.
She can't breathe.
The thought makes her shake her head at herself because clearly she is breathing. But every breath feels like a hot poker is pushing into her heart, and she just wants it to stop. And yet Jo knows it won't, can't, not anytime soon, especially if she's going to stand in the hall and watch him pull on his coat and get ready to go out.
Out on a date... with someone else.
"Jo, I'm not setting up an online profile for anything."
"Why not? It'd be fun. Isn't there anyone from the old days... high school or the Marines, that you've lost touch with and would like to find?"
The whole thing a distraction, an attempt to keep them off the topic of them and talking about anything else. Because after John Curtis, after Mac offered himself over to her as a touchstone, everything she had been trying so hard to hold at bay came rushing forward, tearing at her to try to get out.
She loves him. But she can't have him. Because she saw too much that day, even as he was holding her together. Jo saw the "what if" in his eyes, saw the pain of it rifle through him and take root in his gut as he saw the scene that would've been if she hadn't gotten off another shot.
Seconds. She lived by seconds. And Mac knew it, even as he came to her, arms open to comfort her. And she saw it in him, saw what it would cost him if he were instead pulling back a sheet to identify her body.
She can't do it, can't ask him to lay himself open voluntarily for that kind of destruction. Because while there might never be another John Curtis, there will be others willing to kill to save themselves. And she knows they all make a choice on this job not to dwell on that, to think about the "what if." But the what if was too close this time, too real, and Jo loves him... loves him too much to talk him into risking that when he's just managed to put the past behind him and really start to live his life again.
Normal. He needs someone who doesn't spend all day in the same darkness he does. She wants that for him, for his time away from this place to be filled with light and laughter and reasons for him to go home at night.
She loves him. So she stands there, unable to breathe, as he pulls on his coat and heads out to dinner with the normal woman who knows him from before... who won't burden him with the nightmares where she doesn't get to the bullet in time... or the guilt over Frank Waters, who she wishes so much she could've saved... or with the sadness of Serena Matthews' eyes, because even though she's free now, John Curtis blew her entire life apart, and his death doesn't change that.
"You headed home soon?"
She lost track of him, and now Mac is standing in front of her, smiling, happy. She smiles back because she can't breathe, and smiling is somehow easier.
"Soon," she lies. Ellie is out of town visiting her grandmother, Tyler's having dinner with Russ. There's nothing to get home to but her nightmares and guilt and the fight to get past them.
"Third date, huh? You gonna make your move?"
Flack is leaving a meeting with Danny for an upcoming court case, and he sees Mac, levels the tease. Mac shakes his head, ignoring it mostly, but Jo feels her ribs ache against the urge to ask him not to go.
"Have a good night," she manages, smile rising and falling to cover the enormous effort it takes to pull in enough air to say anything.
And then she walks away, down the hall and toward her office. Because if she stays, her chest might explode.
She can't breathe... and she can't ask him not to go.
"It's not that it hasn't been fun, Mac. It has. It's just... you must feel it, don't you, what she means to you? Because it's so obvious, at least to me."
The air rushes from his lungs at the words, and Mac feels his body beg him to stop whatever is happening to make it this hard to draw in a breath.
He didn't expect this, didn't think his whole life would be pulled out into the open by this woman sitting across from him, but there it is... "The way you talk about her... someone would have to be deaf not to realize how much you love her."
She's laid him out bare. He loves... he loves Jo Danville. He knows that... has known it. But she pulled away from him after John Curtis... put up a wall between them, and so he let her go, let her have the distance she needed.
It leaves him gasping sometimes, the way she looks now... like she's afraid to get too close to him. But what's she afraid of? He can't find the answer to that.
And then the pushes... the online profile, the teasing about the first date... her hands pushing steadily at his back, moving him further away from her.
He has to hold his breath sometimes to keep from reaching out as she walks away, letting his fingers grip her arm, pull her back, keep his voice from asking her why.
And yet here he is, exposed... and he wants so badly to stop waiting, to reach out and pull her back and ask the question.
So Mac thanks his date because really, she's the one sending him back where he belongs. He thanks her and says good-bye and then he heads out to the street, to his truck, to the drive toward the one place where he knows he wants to be.
She answers the door after his first knock, and the look on her face gives him a gift... relief. She's relieved that he's there and not still out on the date. But she pushes it away quickly, just like she pushes him, smoothly, without drawing his attention to it. But all of Mac's attention is focused on Jo now, and he sees it.
"I thought you had plans."
"I did. And now I'm here."
She nods, closes the door, invites him further inside.
"Is everything okay?"
"You tell me."
His chest aches. It aches with the need to get an answer now that he's here, now that he's finally asking the question. And then he sees her try to breathe, fighting to pull in air. And suddenly Mac knows.
"You almost died."
She stares at him, silent, then she nods.
"I almost died."
"And you think that means you can't be with me."
Jo shudders, turns away from him.
"I don't know what you mean."
But she does. Mac is sure of it now. So he walks over and gives in to the desires he's pushed down for months. He reaches out, takes her arm, turns Jo toward him.
"Why are you pushing me away?"
The words leave his lips and a monumental weight follows after, lets his shoulders rise fully on his next intake of air.
"Mac, I don't..."
He steps into her, backing her into the wall of her living room. The pain is starting to dissipate, and he can't undo what he's done. Nothing to do but move forward.
"I almost lost you."
She looks at him with broken eyes, and Mac brings his hand up, draws it down Jo's cheek as her back presses deeper into the wall.
"I almost lost you, and you think that means if we say it out loud and I lose you, that it'll destroy me."
She closes her eyes, and her hands come to his chest, try still to push him away.
"Mac, please..."
"It might. I can't promise you that I can survive losing you. But I know this is killing me, Jo. It's killing us."
Jo shakes her head, opens her eyes. He sees her fighting to find the strength to push him away, fighting for the courage to believe him.
So he leans in and kisses her, his lips demanding and relentless. Jo's arms come around his neck, and Mac leans into her, and the kiss goes on until they have no choice but to break apart.
His lungs demand to be filled, and he draws in a deep breath. Then he hears Jo do the same, sees the relief on her face as she surrenders to what they are.
He leans into her, pulling her close, and feels her breathing against him, senses the change in the world around them as their bodies find a sync with one another, relaxing into the new thing that is Mac and Jo.
And there's no pain. No pain anywhere at all.