Fly-By-Night Flight School
"Jack!" Mac shouted over the sound of gunfire and shouting.
"Yeah," came the tight reply.
"Try again!"
No response.
"Jack! Start the damned car!"
This time the key turned and the engine turned over. Mac ducked as a bullet glanced off the fender. He dropped the hood and swung himself around the open door of the car, sliding into the passenger seat, swearing when he felt a bullet actually tear his shirt sleeve, but breathing a sigh of relief when he realized that's all he did.
Jack floored the gas pedal and got them out of the garage. Between laying down cover fire and trying to help Mac get the car running, Mac was expecting an overwhelmed annoyed Jack. What he got instead was one who drove in determined silence toward their exfil coordinates. When Mac turned around from making sure they hadn't been pursued, he'd almost processed how quiet Jack was being. The realization that the driver's seat was wet with blood and some was sprayed on the broken driver's side window.
"Jack!" Mac practically shouted again.
Jack glanced his way for a split second. "I'm alright, kid."
"You're pretty obviously not! Where are you hit? Pull over, let me drive." Mac spoke everything in one breath.
"We're only a few miles from exfil, bud. I'd rather not move more than I have to."
"Bringing me back to 'where are you hit'?" Mac frowned, shifting in his seat to try to get a look at Jack, in case his partner clammed up. That was what Jack did when he was hurt; he either got quiet and stoic or he got pissed off and loud.
Jack shook his head and then flinched slightly at the movement. So, he'd settled on quiet then.
"Jack," Mac said with a warning note in his voice. "Don't do that. You'd never let me get away with it. You're bleeding like a stuck pig."
"Shoulder," Jack bit out. "Think my collarbone is busted, too."
Jack made the turn for the last street before the airport, where the smallish Phoenix exfil crew had been able to land under the guise of being a courier service, with obvious pain.
Then he practically screamed "Son of a bitch!" and in a maneuver Mac was sure was more instinct than training, Jack braked, twisted the wheel and somehow managed to get the car headed back the way they were going and accelerated with reckless but effective movements.
Mac, shaking his head to clear it after it bounced of something, he wasn't sure what) in the spinning of the car, realized two things. The seat belt he was wearing wasn't worth a damn, and the bad guys had cut them off from the road to the airport.
Jack was doing his best to make their route unpredictable and speedy while they came up with a plan, which Mac was half working on. He had out his phone.
"Riley!" he said with relief when she answered. "Not now. They took our comms," he said tersely when his initial brush off of a demand for information resulted in more questions. "We got cut off from exfil and Jack's been hit," he said over both Riley and Matty suddenly both on the line and demanding information. "I don't need an interrogation, I need options," he barked, altogether shorter with them than either was accustomed to.
Jack glanced to the side. He knew that voice. It had been a while. Last time he thought he'd heard it heard it was back in their more uniform inclined days in a place much farther from home. It was Mac's no bullshit, I'm in charge and I don't give a good goddamn what your rank is because my partner is in real trouble voice.
"Copy," he said, reverting to radio lingo without even realizing he was doing it. "Left ahead."
Jack made the turn, glancing in the mirror and feeling a small sense of relief that he didn't think any of the crew that was chasing them had managed to keep up.
"Pull over," Mac's tone said he wasn't taking no for an answer, and frankly Jack hurt too much to argue.
Mac was out of the car and around to the driver's side before Jack had it properly stopped. He helped Jack out of the car and into the back seat immediately behind him, to avoid having to move him too much. Without preface or permission, Mac tore away the sleeve of Jack's t-shirt to get a better look at his partner's shoulder. "Shit," he mumbled.
'What?" Jack asked, more out of habit than because he wanted to know.
"No exit," was all Mac said as he took off the flannel shirt he was wearing followed by his belt. He started folding the shirt into a makeshift bandage.
"We can deal with me later, kid. We best get a move on," Jack said quietly, although he wasn't sure if he was really worried they might get caught up with or was just dreading how badly he knew it would hurt when Mac cinched that bandage around the wound.
"Shut up Jack." Mac was frowning as he tried to figure out a way to get some pressure on the bullet wound without also hurting Jack more because of the definitely definitely broken collar bone. There was no good way, but it needed pressure, sooner rather than later.
His eyes searched Jack's for a few seconds. "I'm sorry, Big Guy. This is gonna ..."
"Yeah," Jack said, holding his breath.
To Jack's credit he managed not to scream, or punch his partner, which Mac had been more than half-prepared for. He was pretty sure Jack had greyed out for a minute, but now he was taking steadying breaths and prying his eyes back open. "Jack?"
"I'm good," he lied to his partner with a reasonably convincing wry smile.
Mac shook his head. Yeah, right. "Riley said there's a private airfield close by, couple of hangars with small planes. If we can make it that far and ... borrow ... one."
Jack barked out a short sharp laugh, then drew in a hissing breath. "How far to the next exfil location?"
"By air, about 30 minutes, by air, east, northeast. You think you can make it if I get us inside?"
"I got a choice?"
"Not unless you want to go back and see if those drug dealers have gotten friendlier."
Jack nodded, his eyes narrow. "Let's go."
Mac climbed into the driver's seat and drove with singular determination through the back streets to the outskirts of town to the small airfield.
When they got there, it was still early enough in the day that there weren't many people around. There were six small hangars lined up three to a side of the runway, which was at least paved. Given how far out they were, Mac had been worried this was going to be one of those dirt track places populated with those psychotically small ultralights retired pilots with a real cowboy streak built in their spare time that looked about as sky worthy for human use as the glider he and Bozer had built out of PVC pipe and garbage bags when they were ten. And that had earned Boze a broken arm and Mac the sharp side of everyone's tongue. As though it was all his fault, he thought sullenly, nearly twenty years later, as a momentary welcome distraction from his present circumstances. The condition of the buildings said they were likely at least the property of people with some real means, which meant maybe they were at least in decent repair.
Mac swallowed hard as he pulled around behind the closest building. He wasn't doing all that good a job of reassuring himself because his inner voice, which never really knew when to shut up, announced that all that might be true, but based on the size of the buildings all they were going to find was really small planes, maybe not the bullshit glider ones he'd been worried about, but still the ones where it was impossible to forget you were flying.
He looked around, pretty sure he'd picked a good spot. There was no sign of life at this hangar or the next nearest one. He got out and opened the rear door to check on Jack. His eyes were closed but Mac knew he was still conscious because they were more scrunched shut. "Hanging in there, Jack?"
"Mmmhmm," he forced himself to answer. He thought if he opened his mouth he was probably going to throw up and he needed a minute to get on top of the feeling. He could hear the tension in Mac's voice already and didn't want to add to his worry.
"I'll be right back. Don't get up," Mac ordered, as though Jack had the intention or ability to stand up on his own at the moment.
His confidence that Jack was okay enough to pull a Mac-level stubborn dumbass move almost made Jack smile in spite of the pain he was in and the rolling it was causing in his guts. He forced himself to open his eyes and nod at his partner.
It took Mac longer than he liked to get past the security system and locks on the door at the rear of the hangar, but as soon as he got it open, he rushed back to the car for Jack. "We're in. Let's get you home, buddy."
Jack was having serious doubts about his ability to make it from the car to the door at the moment, say nothing about fly whatever was in the building, but he didn't say so. Talking was just a bad idea. They were almost inside when Jack's determination was overcome by his shoulder being jostled when he stepped on an uneven bit of ground and he was sick, which in itself compounded the pain. He thought for a minute he might pass out, but a few deep breaths got him upright and inside. Then, almost against his will, his face split into a grin. "Hell, yeah."
"It's a good one?" Mac asked hoping Jacks admiration was based on knowing what a fine aircraft they were about to steal and not that it was a crazy stupid dangerous experimental thing to fly, the story of which would help him pick up women.
"Real good," Jack said. "'Bout a half a million bucks of good."
"Holy shit," Mac breathed. "I know Phoenix is already dealing with Air Traffic Control, but I hope the hell Matty's already figuring out how to smooth over borrowing this with the owner."
"I'll treat her real good. No worries, kid." Jack leaned against the craft. "Can you get the bifold door open and I'll pre-flight?"
"Need help getting in?" Mac asked stepping closer and opening the door ... hatch ... portal to hell, whatever you wanted to call it. Jesus, this thing was small.
Jack shook his head and waved Mac off. Mac made sure Jack got himself into the pilot's seat safely before he moved off to open the main hangar door. When he got back, Jack had everything all fired up and ready to go, but was sitting with his eyes closed. This time Mac was less sure that he was conscious. "Um ... Jack?"
"Yeah, bud," Jack answered prying his eyes open again.
"You sure you can do this? I can get Matty back and tell her we need another plan."
"I got this, kid," Jack assured him. "Thirty minutes or so more, I can do."
Mac looked longingly at the couple of seats back away from the cockpit. He was sure this flight was going to remind him he was actually in the air a lot more than a commercial one or the Phoenix jet ever did and when he had to fly like that, like small craft or a helicopter, he liked to position himself as far away from the windows as seemed reasonable, or have something to do to distract himself if he could. He could cope with his fear of heights, could force himself to do things that seemed impossible when he had to, but, it was nice to retreat comfortably into denial every once in a while. He knew he didn't have that luxury right now. Jack might need his help. He sat in the co-pilots seat. "What can I do?"
Jack appreciated what the kid was doing, but he thought he had this covered. "I got this, Mac." He maneuvered them out of the hangar and on to the runway. Early was good, he thought. No complications out here this early. As he eased the nose up
Mac shifted slightly next to him. "I'd say relax and enjoy the flight, but ..."
"Shut up, Jack," Mac half smiled at Jack's gently teasing tone. It was reassuring that he was up to teasing actually, otherwise it might have pissed him off.
Jack started to chuckle, then gasped and dropped his bad arm back to his side. "Ah hell." He squeezed his eyes shut and the plane dipped and veered dangerously.
"Jack!" Mac shouted, both in worry for his partner, and instant searing panic at the motion of the aircraft.
"Mac, I need you to grab the yoke on your side and pull back until I tell ya to stop," Jack said, his voice taut.
"The what, now?" Mac asked with a hint of panic.
"The steering wheel," Jack answered levelly, doing his best to steady the craft one-handed. Jack hated even asking him for help. Mac, who hated not knowing things, had been avoiding learning to fly anything, for a very long time.
Mac did as Jack asked him, feeling his heartrate slow as the plane stabilized back into it's former steady climb.
"Okay," Jack breathed, "Now, tell me where we're goin' so I can …" Jack puffed out a short breath. "Gimme a second."
Mac dialed his phone and got Riley on speaker. She gave brief directions followed by a very concerned sounding, "How are you doing, Jack?" She paused at the sound of her own voice, and then added as a defense, "I mean, Matty wants to know how serious the medical team should be when you land."
Mac answered, "Pretty damned serious," with a snap. Jack was getting paler by the second, his breathing more shallow and rapid.
"I've had worse, Ri," Jack said, but his voice sounded as pale as he was.
"Okay," she answered sounding dubious.
After she ended the call, Jack spoke again. "Mac, I need you to take the yoke again. Just hang on and try to keep the wings level for me, bud."
Mac didn't hesitate, just did as Jack asked. He found if he focused on the wings, on the instruments in front of him that told him how level the aircraft was, he could pretty easily ignore how far below the ground was. It was actually kind of an empowering feeling. If he wasn't so worried about Jack he might sort of like it. He thought about saying so, about saying that maybe it was time to take Jack up on the flight lessons he'd been offering for years, when Jack turned aside and threw up on the deck.
"Ah, son of a bitch, I just puked in some poor bastard's best baby. Very expensive best baby," Jack said to deflect attention from the fact that he was feeling worse than before, like a lot worse.
"I wasn't gonna point it out, but you're already bleeding all over his or her very expensive best baby anyway."
Jack had to give him an appreciative chuckle. Kid was doing alright. And he didn't look near as terrified as Jack expected him to. His eyes were only about twice their usual size, he thought, but wisely kept to himself. "Good point. I think I'm gonna leave you at the wheel for now, kid, if you're okay."
"Whatever you need, Jack. Um … but … What do I do?"
Mac licked his lips nervously, hoping Jack would say 'Just keep it level and I'll take over the second you need to do anything else,' but knowing from how he looked that he might need to do just a little more than that for a while. And hey, they were already about ten minutes in. Ri had said about a half hour. He could keep his shit together for twenty minutes of anything. Hell, he'd hung off the landing gear of a plane disabling its hydraulics for about a hundred years once.
"It's really easy, kid. You must've figures out by now that it has to be if I'm good at it, right?" Jack teased to ease Mac's tension. Mac didn't answer. He needed information. Information was the quickest way to get that ginormous brain of his out of any kind of panic mode. "All you really gotta know about steering this thing is pull back to climb, which you already got knocked." Mac flashed him a quick nervous grin. "You turn just like you'd expect to go right or left, and you push forward to descend, like for landing."
Mac through him a wide-eyed almost glare. "What?!"
"I'm just givin' you the lowdown. Nobody expects anybody to land a plane their first time out, bud. I just need to rest this a little. Hurts like hell."
Mac was immediately apologetic. "I know, man. I'm sorry." He was studying the panel. Most of the instruments made sense and were pretty intuitive, at least for him. "Hey, you know, this is actually kind of cool, flying this thing. I mean it would be if it didn't smell like blood and puke anyway. That's generally considered bad form when the instructor distracts their student like that, you know."
"Sorry 'bout that, kid." He leaned a little forward and looked at a few things, then reached for the radio.
Mac just listened carefully to everything Jack said to the tower, and almost smiled when another, very familiar voice butted into the conversation. "Don't you dare wreck that plane, Dalton. I've got the owner convinced you two are federal drug enforcement and it was absolutely critical, but she has promised to personally hunt you down if the seats are so much as wrinkled. She said it has sentimental value since she got it in the divorce so if it gets so much as it's feelings hurt I'm going to be paying her big-time bucks."
"Copy, that, Director," Jack drawled, in a passable imitation of his usual self. "Not so much as a wrinkle." He released the button. "Or a gallon of blood or puke either," he rolled his eyes at Mac, who grinned in return.
Jack gave him a little nod. "That right there," he pointed with his chin. "Is the airport. I'm gonna take back over and bring her in. You did real good, kid."
Mac gratefully relinquished control, although he felt a real sense of accomplishment that he'd taken on something that he'd let his fear keep him from for such a long time.
"Any chance I can talk you into a real lesson some time when I'm not heaving my guts and actually looking forward to somebody stabbing me with pain meds?"
Mac thought about it. "Maybe, yeah."
"Good man," Jack said with real approval in his voice. Then, when he used both hands to apply pressure to the yoke to start decreasing their altitude he yelped in pain and slumped in his seat.
The plane immediately began a sharp dive.
Mac knew he yelled something incoherent and fear-stricken, but what he also knew was what to do. He shoved Jack back into his seat quickly, careful not to do so near his wounded shoulder, and grabbed the yoke, pulling it up sharply and stopping the dive. He didn't manage that before he caught the view of the ground before the steeply pointed nose and it made his heart triphammer in his chest, but he did somehow manage not to squeeze his eyes shut.
"Jack?" he said, glancing away from what he was doing, and with the turn of his head, his hand moved involuntarily and the left wing dipped. "Shit!" he gasped. He leveled it off quickly, then looked at Jack. "Shit, shit, shit!" he exclaimed. Jack's bandage had been dislodged and he was bleeding freely again. He could see his partner's chest rising and falling, but holy hell, there was so much blood. Of course, it always looks like so much, like all of it. He forced himself to take a breath and did what he'd seen Jack do before. He picked up the radio and thumbed the button. "Mayday, mayday, this is … Well, shit, I don't know the call sign, but Matty you still there?"
"MacGyver? Where's Dalton?"
"Out cold. And bleeding like … It looks like the Hunger Games in this cockpit. So … Mayday." He was grateful for how calm he sounded. He wanted to throw up. A lot.
A very reassuring voice came over the radio then, "Have you ever flown before, son?"
"No, sir."
"Alright. Well, you're doin' just fine so far, kid. And your pilot already started slowing you down so that's one less thing to worry about. You get to do the easy part, bud." Mac felt weirdly better than whoever this guy was sounded a little like Jack. "You're gonna just ease down on the wheel in your hands now and pull back on the throttle until your slowed down to about seventy knots. Got it?"
"Copy."
Mac focused on accomplishing that, while keeping the airport and the runway he'd heard the tower directing Jack to a few minutes ago in sight. He was once again grateful for the early hour and the relatively rural nature of where they were, but wondered what that would mean for getting Jack help as quickly as he was going to need it.
"You sure you've never done this, son? You're lining right up like a pro."
"What now?" His voice was starting to sound thin. The closer they got to the ground, the great his sense of how high they had been and still were became. He could feel himself breathing too fast, and tried to slow it down, but his body was no longer really cooperating.
"You need to deploy your landing gear. Look for a handle off to your … Well, you got it. Good job."
"And?" Mac asked in a voice that sounded much too young as the ground seemed to be rushing up to meet them.
"You're gonna flare … that means pull up slightly on the stick just before you touchdown so the main gear hit first. And then you'll fly the nosewheel to the ground."
"What?!" This was as bad as when Jack tried to talk to him about flying and used all his stupid pilot jargon. No … this was much worse. Because they were definitely going to die.
"Just push the stick forward until the front touches down."
He somehow managed it, realizing how tight he was holding on because with the very hard touchdown he gripped even tighter and his knuckled popped painfully. "I'm going too fast," he panted.
The calm voice came over the radio again. "Pull the throttles all the way back, kid, you're gonna be fine."
Mac did and started to feel a little more in control, and was relieved to be back on the ground. Even if he died right now, he wouldn't die falling. That wasn't much, but it wasn't nothing.
"Still not stopping," he exclaimed into the radio half as a question, half as another plea for help.
"You feel those pedals down by your feet? Brakes are right at the top. Ease right down on those."
Mac did but the plane started veering off the runway. "Help!" he yelped in a panic, not even into the radio, just into space, because he couldn't quite help it.
Help came over the radio anyway. "You just lightly step on the rudder pedals to steer yourself back to centerline, kid. You got this."
Somehow, Mac managed it, over the thudding of his heart, over his ragged breath, and over his conviction that the hard landing must have done more irreparable harm to Jack. As soon as the plane came to a stop, he was out of his seatbelt, checking on Jack, who thankfully still had a pulse, was still breathing.
When the emergency services people got there, Mac got out of the way, disappearing behind the plane to throw up like he'd wanted to do for quite a while and then sink down onto the pavement to let his legs stop shaking. He stayed there trying to get his heart and breathing to just do what they normally did with varying degrees of success, until they loaded his unconscious partner into the waiting ambulance.
Someone made the apparently boneheaded suggestion that Mac sit down a minute and let someone look him over, too. He just snapped, "I'm going with him," and climbed into the back of the ambulance without asking or waiting for permission giving a glare that no one quite dared argue with.
0-0-0
When Jack woke up, surprised to find himself in a hospital room, rather than in the cockpit of their borrowed plane, he saw Mac asleep in the chair next to him in a wrinkled t-shirt looking like he needed a shower, a shave, and about three pots of coffee if the circles under his eyes were any indication.
Despite feeling like refried hell himself and being bandaged up like a mummy on one side, he couldn't help a grin spreading over his face. He reasoned that part of that was probably whatever good drugs were dripping into his system through the ubiquitous IV that kept his shoulder from singing an aria of pain, but most of it, was that Mac was sitting here, that he'd conked out and the kid had pulled another MacGyver miracle and gotten them out alive.
Then he noted the bandage in the crook of the kid's arm and wondered if he'd gotten himself hurt pulling of that fabulous rescue and if he ought to be in a bed himself, but was being his usual stubborn dumbass genius self. Jack reached out with his good hand and brushed Mac's arm. "Hey, kid."
Mac sucked in his breath, running a hand over his face and through his hair, eyes coming open like they were a little reluctant to do it. "Hey, Jack. How you feeling?"
"Like I got shot, stole a plane, and left you hanging. How about you? What happened?" Jack indicated the bandage.
Mac smiled and shook his head, looking a little embarrassed to have been caught. He got his flannel off the back of the chair and slipped it on. "They didn't have your type." He shrugged.
"Ah, Mac. You have the world's crappiest veins." Jack made a sympathetic face. They'd both done that before for the other, but they also both knew what it cost the other.
Mac shook his head again, decided on teasing to get that hangdog look off his partner's face. "Yeah, I do. And they stuck me like four time. But you didn't die. So there's that."
"Thanks, kid." Again, Mac shrugged, looking at the floor for a minute. "So I'm guessing Santa's elves didn't show up alongside and bring that plane in after I checked out on you. You landed the plane, huh?"
"Yeah. Damn thing mighta got it's feelings hurt a little, but I guess I didn't crash it, so Matty can't be too pissed at me."
"You'll probably never let me give you a real lesson now."
Mac shrugged again with a small smile. "I don't know, Jack. I was scared as hell. And landing was awful. I never even realized how deep my fear of heights goes until that ground was rushing up at us and I had to keep it from killing us both, but up until you passed out, it was kind of nice to feel in control up there."
Jack grinned. "Yeah. Exactly." He was thoughtful for a minute. "Bein' up there always makes me feel close to my dad. He always said if I ever had a kid I outta teach him to fly too…" Jack just trailed off for a moment. "I wish you coulda met him, Mac. I think you guys woulda really hit it off."
"Yeah?"
"He wasn't much of a scholar or anything, but he had a Shakespeare quote in his plane."
Mac figured being heavily medicated might be responsible for the slightly misty look Jack had in his eyes, but getting to pass on a little piece of his dad, not just information, but the skill to take to the sky and any affection for it was likely more responsible. "What was it?"
"My soul is in the sky."
"Midsummer Night's Dream. You're right, Jack. I think I probably would have liked your dad."
Jack swallowed hard. "Once we've both recovered from our suffering from this little outing, maybe we could think about going up together for another lesson then?"
Mac nodded. Fear didn't really get you anywhere. If he'd let his fear take over on that plane, he and Jack would both be dead. Then he grinned at Jack, hoping to lighten things up. "I've got a quote for in your plane, Jack, when you finally really get one of your own."
"Is it Shakespeare?"
"Hell no. You're not a Shakespeare guy." Jack smiled and nodded. "It's Douglas Adams. It goes for both of us which if you're gonna teach me, you know, works out pretty well."
"Okay," Jack said, now sounding a little dubious.
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Jack chuckled quietly at first, a small laugh bubbled out, then it got a little more powerful, then it took over until tears were squeezing out the corners of his eyes and the sight had Mac cracking up, too. "Ah, hell, kid, that's perfect. We've been doin' that since we met."