Jack looked up from his take out when Mac came back through the door. Uh oh, the kid does not look happy.
Other than Jack and a mountain of take out, Thornton's office was empty. Mac tossed a folder onto her desk and flopped gracelessly down in on of her leather chairs puffing out an irritated sigh. Pretty sure he already knew the answer, Jack shoveled in some more lo mein with his chopsticks, put his feet up on another chair, and asked casually, "How'd it go, kid?"
"Fine," he said, sounding less than a hundred percent genuine. He reached for the fried rice and a set of chopsticks. "Where's everybody else?"
"You mean where's Nikki," Jack grinned.
A sliver of a smile flashed before his face resumed its slightly disgruntled lines. "I'm actually more interested in talking to Thornton at the moment. If I'm gonna get bounced anyway I'd rather take off now and go have a beer."
"Bounced? You okay, kid? You told me you were okay," Jack said, unable to keep a slight accusation out of his voice.
Mac sighed. "I'm fine, Jack. Ribs are just bruised. Hell, most of me is a little bruised," he admitted. But it's nothing an ice pack and a couple Tylenol won't take care of." Jack's head tilted in an inquisitive expression. "Foster was on duty."
Jack grinned a little. "He holler at you, too?"
Mac smirked and shook his head. "Recommended modified duty for four to six weeks though," he grumped.
"For bruised ribs?" Jack asked, slightly incredulous. He kept to himself that he thought Mac would have had the same reaction to the unpopular doctor even if his ribs had been busted wide open and that bruised ribs, in his experience anyway, hurt nearly as much as broken ones. "That seems kind of …"
"Ridiculous," Mac finished for him. "Same shit as when my shoulder was healing a couple months ago. If Doc Anderson hadn't been on duty when I applied for clearance I'd probably still be in freaking physical therapy for that!" He sighed again. "Foster just has it out for me."
"At least he didn't yell at you like the new chick," Jack commiserated.
"On balance I'll take bossy new nurses who like to yell over the asshole that can wreck my life for months at a time by sticking me on desk duty."
"Who's wrecking your life?" Thornton asked as she breezed back into the room.
Mac looked around hopefully. No Nikki. Huh. And she overheard some of our conversation. Great. "No one, hopefully, ma'am." Mac got up, careful to keep his movements easy and fluid. He picked up the folder from her desk and handed it directly to her. How to put this diplomatically … "I'm concerned that Dr. Foster's … um … over abundance of caution … could cause some difficulties for the upcoming mission you mentioned earlier."
A half smile he was learning to recognize as genuinely amused quirked up the corners of her lips. "Over abundance of caution? Let's see."
Mac made himself sit back down. He thought it looked more confident (mostly because if he was sitting he wouldn't do that shifting from one foot to the other thing that Penny said always gave him away when he was 'fudging the truth'). Thornton opened the folder and read over the paper form that Foster still insisted on using even though she'd told him repeatedly she preferred these things be communicated electronically for experience sake. She raised her eyes to surreptitiously look at her youngest agent.
Mac was valiantly trying not to fidget, although he was screwing and unscrewing the cap to his water bottle restlessly. His posture of almost too straight, his shoulders too square. His jaw was tight and he had yet to return the smile she'd offered him. Tense and defensive and trying hard not to be either. For once she was grateful Don Foster hadn't acknowledged it was the 21st century and filed this visit summary in their computer system.
She put the folder down and sat behind her desk. "You think four to six weeks of restrictions is too cautious?"
Mac swallowed but nodded. "Yes, ma'am, I do. I'm fine."
She leaned back, gracefully crossing her legs. "Despite the fact that bruised ribs take that amount of time to heal?"
A line formed across his forehead and Mac sat forward. Someone less trained wouldn't have heard the increase in volume but Jack did. Because he knew Mac. So did Thornton. Because she was just that good. "But they're not dangerous even now. That's just how long they take to not hurt."
He paused, realizing he was nearly off the edge on his seat. He sat back, only looking about a third as on edge as he was. He felt strongly that he shouldn't be this irritated, but that didn't help him get on top of the feeling. He'd tried to have a reasonable discussion with the doctor when his xrays came back clean, but Foster had done the unforgivable. He'd snapped, "If you're going to be careless and get injured, be prepared to deal with the consequences like an adult. Or get better at hiding it." Nothing like directly quoting your dad at you from one of your least stellar pre-adolescent moments to make you feel like a goddamned kid who still needed to prove themselves.
He took a deep breath. "No one ever promises this job was going to be comfortable, Director Thornton. And," here he tipped her his best charming smile. "At this point in my life I'm pretty comfortable with uncomfortable." She didn't respond. "I just want to work, ma'am. Being a little sore isn't going to get in my way."
Finally, Jack contributed his own two cents. "He more than held his own at the end of that op, Patty.
Four of us were totally pinned down and he's the one who got us clear. Kid hadn't even had an aspirin after hours of gettin' whaled on by Carlisle's Brute Squad and he saved our asses. Benchin' him for that on the word of Don Foster would be downright dumb."
Mac flashed him a grateful smile but didn't say anything else, just eyed the boss a little warily. "Fortunately for you I am both more reasonable than Don and more lenient with my field-ready standards than the boss." Mac practically held his breath waiting for her to finish. "And fortunately he still doesn't know how to use the new e-record keeping system, so this report isn't finalized. I'll have him amend it to reflect recommendations to maximize your effectiveness in the field rather than keeping you out of it. His assistant won't file it without my signature anyway."
Mac's shoulders sagged with relief. After dealing with being benched with his shoulder a few months ago, he thought he might go crazy sitting behind a desk again so soon. He also thought if work was going to remind him of the unpleasant parts of his childhood he'd rather go back to fixing cars. "Thank you, Director Thornton. I appreciate that."
She typed something into her laptop at lightning speed. Then she returned her attention to Mac and Jack. "So, what do you know about biological weapons?"
Jack groaned, "Ah, Hell."
Mac grinned, game for just about anything.
"Not much, ma'am. But I'm very interested in learning."