As they drove toward the border, Mac noticed that Jack had become uncharacteristically quiet again. He was surprised because the young doctor who had joined them for this mission was clearly nervous, bordering on upset, and Jack was usually the first guy anywhere to jump in to try to make someone feel better. In fact, Jack was usually good at knowing a person needed it, even if they were doing everything they could to hide it.

Once Mac drew out what really motivated Alejandra to help them, he and Jack shared a look. They'd worked with a lot of people temporarily while in the field, and sometimes it didn't totally suck. This was someone who they could understand, relate to, and see as a full member of the team while they were thrown together by circumstance.

She was much more calm than they would have expected when the border was more intense than they might have wished. She even threw them both a half smile when Jack asked Mac to name a time they'd been lucky and she saw their expressions when Mac answered "Madagascar."

There was definitely a story there. She suspected these guys had some really interesting stories, and the ones where they weren't lucky were probably the more interesting. Which was apparently a good thing, since Mac couldn't give Jack a second occasion.

Getting hauled out of the truck and having the whole thing searched didn't do much to bolster Jack's confidence that they were ever going to come close to a lucky mission again and he was getting very close to needing to punch someone again when they took his gun. Of course, they'd slammed him up against the fence and practically wrestled it away from him. But then again, he had said some very unkind things about the guards' mothers, not to mention anything else offensive that he could think of that might piss them off.

Mac was marginally happier than his partner, especially since the guards hadn't decided to just give Jack the beat down he was practically begging for by mouthing off the way he had (like he always did, as though he was determined to see Mac get as many grey hairs as he had worrying about Jack's mouth getting him – or both of them – killed), and he got his Swiss Army knife back. But even though he didn't feel like the stop was the end of the world yet, he didn't feel great about it either.

The only thing keeping Jack from tackling the guy walking away with his current favorite gun was Mac's slightly teasing plea to wait on 'Hulking out'. Jack envied Mac's ability to tamp down his emotions and not fly off the handle. More often than not, Mac had to step in and cool Jack off. The cool calm with which Alejandra was trying to negotiate with the border patrol was instructive, too.

If a civilian could keep her cool in this situation, so could he.

For a minute.

Probably.

Then when they lost the heart to the border guards, Dr. Rosa never missed a beat. The three of them stole the nearest available vehicle under the cover of Mac's improvised tear gas and sped off in pursuit of her country's best hope at an independent future.

0-0-0

Mac wasn't pleased when Matty responded to his call by immediately calling him because his tone had already given away that things were going off the rails. It's not like it happened that often. Okay, it happened kind of a lot, but c'mon, they always figured it out. She didn't need to sound so damned skeptical before he'd even read her in.

He was glad that Jack could joke and accuse Matty of making bad puns too, but all he could do himself was swallow hard and start trying to sort through the available information, because while Matty might think his tone was pretty transparent, her tone had already told him that they were on their own.

Jack had to smile when Mac just explained his decision making to Dr. Rosa a minute later. That summed Mac up perfectly. "Oh, I wasn't sure. We just needed to make a decision, so I made one."

Jack wondered if Mac had always been like that, decisive without any real hesitation. He thought maybe it came from EOD training; whether you cut the wrong wire or time ran out, you were just as dead, so maybe it was better to take the risk.

But somehow, Jack didn't think so. He thought maybe Mac had grown up ready to screw up and hope he could fix it later rather than waste time or opportunity on indecision. Dr. Rosa seemed to appreciate the ability. Medicine was often like that, too.

Of course, a moment later, neither she or Jack thought much of the impulsive side of that decisiveness when, without warning, Mac smashed out the SUV's windshield. And even though it accomplished his objective, they'd followed the wrong truck.

But they knew they couldn't be daunted by momentary failure. They all rushed back to the SUV to get back on the road, hoping Matty was working her satellite magic, as Jack liked to call it, to point them in the right direction.

Fortunately, she was able to get them on the right track pretty easily and inform them that Riley and Cage were in their new location and successfully infiltrating it. Unfortunately, when they caught up to the vehicle they could only stop it by crashing into it. And in addition to some unwelcome bumps and bruises of their own, it was clear very quickly that the heart Leon was depending on might not make it into Quito to save his life.