So this chapter is both long and extremely late. Whoops on both counts? I'm not super happy with it either, but what's to be helped. Thank you thank you for continuing to read this fic, and I hope nobody thought I'd forgotten about it.
(warning: references to and aftermath of abuse)
In the end, Jack tells Bozer first. He does so mainly so that, when Bozer goes to tell Mac that Jack needs to speak to him, he'll have something to tell Riley to keep them both in his room while this conversation happens. It works, and Mac walks out into the living room alone, looking like he knows something terrible is about to happen.
Jack is expecting a bigger, more dramatic reaction from Mac when he gets the news, dismayed yelling or running out of the house and away somewhere, but that isn't what happens. Mac doesn't detonate. He disintegrates. He folds in and shrinks, and it's all Jack can do to refrain from pulling Mac into his arms, holding him tightly where that sudden, visible vulnerability and exhaustion, that pain, can't be weaponized.
"Mac, buddy," Jack starts carefully, only to be interrupted by a question that stops him short.
"What if I don't press charges?" Mac's voice is small and flat, but there's something slightly desperate in his eyes. He's hunched in over himself, shoulders curved and exhausted, and there's a sick hope in the question he repeats now, elaborates and in doing so tears the wound in Jack's chest open wider. "If I drop the charges and he's released, nobody has to interview me about anything, right? If I don't press charges, it'll- It'll end here."
Even as he says it, Jack gets the feeling that Mac knows it isn't true. His heart aches all the harder for the kid, trying to end something they both know is far from over, wouldn't be over even if they never spoke of it again. Even if they never talked about it, if it was dropped never to be mentioned again, the wounds left in Mac run far too deep. Even if his face was fully healed right now, his lip sealed and wrists untouched, unmarked, there would still be scars, deep trenches of hurt, warped and throbbing.
"They're not your charges to press or drop," Jack says, keeping his words frank and honest despite the continued gentle down-pitch of his voice. Mac has to know this now, before it's upon them, and beating around the bush will only prolong it. Never mind that Mac wouldn't appreciate the impression he was being coddled. "The Agency is primarily looking into a breach of security, an intel leak they didn't authorize. I won't lie to you, they're gonna ask about the other stuff too, about the…" About the abuse. "About what he did. But their charges are between the Agency and James, not… Not about what he did to you."
"So there's…" A tremor runs through Mac's voice, interrupting the sentence. He stops, purses his lips briefly, and tries again. "There's nothing I can do to- I have to go."
Jack nods. Mac takes in and lets out a deep breath, shoulders hitching hard up and down. On the exhale, he tilts forward, head falling heavily into his hands. His shoulders hitch again, and Jack reaches out to comfort him, but before he can make contact, Mac has stood abruptly. He rounds the couch and Jack is alarmed for a moment that he may just be about to leave. He doesn't. Instead, he turns when he reaches the end of the couch, pacing back along its length. One of his hands goes to cover his mouth, but comes away quickly, shaking, when the move obviously causes him pain.
There's nothing Jack would like more than to stop there, to allow Mac space to process and come to terms with what has to happen, but he can't. There's still more that needs to come out in order for Mac to have a clear, full picture of the upcoming events. Jack stands as well, walking around the couch to lean against the wall near where Mac is pacing, frenetic energy rolling off him in uneasy waves.
Jack stands there, still while Mac paces, and explains in a soft, steady voice exactly what has to happen and why, that it has to be tomorrow, that they'll look like they have something to hide if they postpone. Everything Matty said to convince him, Jack repeats now, because he knows she's right, and hoping Mac will see it too.
It doesn't take long to figure out there's very clearly something Mac wants to say that he isn't saying, that he's choking down silent every time he looks at Jack and then quickly away. He's done it several times, more as the explanation has wound down, until Jack can't take it any more and asks.
"What is it, Mac, what's on your mind?" Probably a thousand things, who knows how much of which he's able to talk about, genius, Jack thinks acidly, though he keeps his face encouraging and non-judgemental as he waits for a response.
For a moment, it even looks like Mac might answer. He doesn't, though, gaze now fixed firmly on the far wall. Hazarding a guess, given the subject matter of their conversation, Jack takes a risk and makes an offer.
"I can go with you, if you want. For the interview. You don't have to go alone."
This draws his attention, snaps blue eyes over to him for long enough to see something flicker through them, before Mac looks away again, this time to the floor. His mouth is pressed into a thin line, which has to be hurting his split lip, though he doesn't betray so if it is.
"Mac, do you want me to come with you?" Repeating it works the way Jack had hoped it would, and this time Mac says something.
"Yeah, but- Jack, I can't keep doing this," is what he says, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or any sense at all really, but it's something, and Jack can work with something.
"Doing what?" he asks. His eyes narrow, and dread creeps into his mind, curling around the edges of his thoughts. "What'd he say to you, Mac? What'd he tell you you were doing?"
"That I-" Mac won't look at him again, and that's the worst part of all of it. The avoidance, like he's scared of what he'll see if he meets Jack's eyes. "This is stupid."
"I promise you it's not," Jack counters, as calmly as he can manage. "Tell you what, why don't you just find whatever it was he said to you that's got you thinking I can't come with you for that interview when you want me to, and just say it back to me. Don't bother with context or anything, just give me what he said and we'll go from there."
Mac's head drifts from side to side, and his cheeks burn with shame when he mutters the answer, too quiet under his breath for Jack to make it out at all.
"I can't hear you, kid, you're gonna have to speak up just a little."
"He said, 'What is he that he's gonna deal with it forever?' He asked how long I thought you were going to put up with me being so reliant on you when we weren't even family, called it 'needy and unbecoming'. That's what he said." It's barely louder, but it's audible this time, and hearing that hits worse than any of the handful of times Jack has been shot.
"Well that's just…" In order to control the tremor that runs through the words, Jack stops talking, looking away and gathering his composure before he goes on. "That's just nine kinds of absolute horse-shit. That man clearly doesn't know the first thing about me if he thinks for a second I'd ever get tired of taking care of you, that being here for whatever you need me for is some kind of chore. You're my partner, Mac, and more than that, you're my boy. Daltons don't turn their backs on family, and that's exactly what we are. You and me and Bozer and Riley and Matty. We're family and of course you rely on family. That's what you're supposed to do."
They're words Jack doesn't say out loud often, for the embarrassment he knows they cause Mac, the way he never knows what to do with his hands when words like 'family' and 'love' are placed in them, but he needs to say them now. 'What is he that he's gonna deal with it forever?' Jack wishes he'd been there when those words were said, had the opportunity to tell James to his face, he's my kid, you son of a bitch, more mine than he's ever been yours, that's what the hell I am. He'll settle for making sure that Mac understands that, though.
"Mac?" Jack says after a while of no response, of Mac staring resolutely at the floor while his whole body shakes with the rigidity with which he holds himself. "You understand me, don't you? You get what I'm saying?"
Mac nods wordlessly, then moves faster than Jack can process, knocking into Jack's chest with a force that would've sent him backwards if it weren't for the wall behind him. The arms around his waist are wound tight enough to hurt, not that he cares one bit about it. Mac is trying to talk, but all that's coming out is small gasps of air, the faint shape of words, and eventually he gives up, pressing his face to the front of Jack's shirt and holding on. Jack takes a moment to respond, to close his own arms around the overwhelmed boy and return the hug.
"I know," Jack says, without specifying what it is he knows. They both understand, and he doesn't think he could get it into words if he tried. "I know, kid." He lifts a hand from Mac's shoulder to smooth it over his hair, touch light and mindful of the surely still aching spot where his head had been bounced off the wall of his father's living room. "I've got you."
It's not too long before Mac pulls away, hands rubbing furiously at cheeks that Jack can see aren't damp. There are no tears, not on his face or left on his palms, and Mac seems as confused by this as Jack does, observing it.
"I need…" Mac clears his throat and shakes his head. "I need a minute." His steps, when he walks away, are impressively steady. Jack can't tell if his hands are shaking, balled into fists and shoved into jean pockets, but he can see the marks beginning to darken in bracelets around them, and that's enough.
It's hard, but Jack manages to give it a few minutes before following. He allows Mac the space he clearly needs, but won't take a risk on giving him enough that it starts to feel like abandonment, getting up eventually and walking out back as well. Mac is sitting on a porch chair, hands knotted tightly together, elbows braced on his thighs. He's staring out through the slats of the railing at the city, the distant smoke-haze that hung over all of Southern California, the place Jack used to think he knew almost as well as Texas. That is, until they found out who was there, who'd been somewhere in that city all along.
It's that man himself that Mac speaks of, when his voice breaks the heavy quiet of the back porch.
"He's there. At the Foundation. He's gonna be there when we go in for the interview tomorrow, isn't he?"
When Jack turns to the side, Mac is looking at him, gaze turned from the city to his partner. He frowns and tries to sound neutral when he says, "Not in the room, no, but he's at HQ in holding."
"Am I… Am I going to see him?"
"Do you need to?" The question seems to bring Mac up short. He blinks, confusion blatant when he answers with another question of his own.
"You'd let me do that? See him, talk to him?"
Hell no. Hell absolutely fucking no, not on your life, son. The thought occurs to Jack immediately and forcefully, but he bites his tongue, keeps all words in his head. He can't speak until he can figure out how to do so without hurting Mac. Mac who is looking at him, waiting for an answer, and terrified of what that answer will be.
There are two scenarios Jack can imagine Mac is likely afraid of right now, judging by the emotions playing faintly across his face. Wary hope switches almost indistinguishably out with resigned betrayal. On the one hand, the question of if Jack is going to be like James, take his autonomy away, leave him backed into a corner and controlled, even if it's out of a sincere desire to keep him safe. On the other hand, the equally if not more terrible question of if Jack might be just fine with Mac being in the same room as his abuser, barely a day after physically pulling the man off him. Jack is left with the knowledge that neither is true, but knowing he has to go about his response carefully or Mac, in his current state, is liable to mistakenly conclude the worst.
"It's not about me letting you," Jack says, voice gentle and as calm as possible.
Explaining this sort of thing, having to teach Mac, slowly and carefully, piece by piece over the span of years, what it's like to be cared for without ulterior motive, it hurts. It hurts even more now that there's been such a severe setback, since James took a wrecking ball to the leaps and bounds of progress Jack had thought they were making, landing him explaining this so many times over today.
"The choice is yours. If you need to see him, if you've got something you have to say to him that'll help you find closure, then I'm sure not gonna stop you." Jack pauses when Mac looks away, patiently waiting for him to look back before continuing. He needs Mac's full attention for this part. "If that's what you need, I'll walk you over and wait outside until you're done. I'll go in with you if you want. I won't like it, I'm not gonna lie, the idea of him having even the slightest opportunity to hurt you again makes me sick, but it's not a question of 'let' you, Mac. It's not up to me, and it shouldn't be."
Mac is looking at him with an odd expression, one Jack is fairly used to seeing in circumstances like this one, times when he or Bozer or Riley try to explain to him 'this is what family is, this is what love is supposed to look like'. There's amazement and bemusement, somehow combined into the sense that what Jack is saying is both revelatory and too good to be true, a rosy presentation of something that can never actually be quite as kind and compassionate as Jack is making it sound.
The look seems to say 'there's no way this won't come back on me, no matter what I decide'. He's braced for the choice to be taken away from him, for the reactions he'll see if he tries to make it anyway, condemnation if he tries to go see James, condemnation if he decides not to go see James. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, all the while Jack tries to tell him he's damned neither way, absolving him of a nonexistent crime before he's even committed it.
"Whatever you decide," Jack insists, driving the point home, "I'll be here. You go, I'll be here. You don't go, I'll be here. Like I told you inside, kid, whatever you need, I'm here. I'm on your side no matter what, there's not a choice here you could make that'd see me mad at you, that'd see me walk away."
Mac tries to speak but can't quite get the words out. He gets up and walks over to the railing, leaning forward against it, and when he looks back at Jack his eyes are bright and glassy. They flicker back over to the city and he tries to speak again, but his voice cracks on the first syllable of whatever word he'd been about to say. A frustrated whine escapes Mac's throat and he shakes his head roughly. It's clear he's upset with himself, likely for being upset, and Jack can't bear to just stand there and do nothing. So he gets up and crosses the space separating them with a few short steps. He makes no direct reference to Mac's uneven breathing, doesn't push him to speak before he's ready to, just lifts an arm and holds it out. Mac tilts to the side, leaning over to close the last few inches separating them.
It's there, with Jack's arm heavy and solid around his shoulders, without the burden of looking him in the eye or worrying what his face looks like, that Mac makes his decision.
"I don't want to see him," he says, in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Okay," Jack murmurs over his head. He's unspeakably relieved, though he certainly isn't about to tell Mac that. Something anxious and afraid has eased the hold its claws have in his gut. "That's okay, kid. You don't have to. You don't ever have to see him again."
Mac nods, the movement knocking his chin into Jack's shoulder, and he tightens his grip on the boy a fraction in response. It's not a full-on embrace, not how Jack had held him earlier, twice over, after cleaning up his face and again when Mac had asked him to stay for the interview. It's a hug that won't quite admit to being one, Mac turned in and leaning against Jack without letting himself cling the way he had before.
It's as if he thinks there's some quota he's filled, a limit to the number of times he's allowed to need to be held, even under these circumstances. Of course, that's absolute bullshit, if you ask Jack, but he understands, so he doesn't make an issue of it. He's pushed Mac enough today, walked him through enough difficult things. This one he'll let sit for the moment.
He stands there braced against the porch rail, arm wrapped around Mac's shoulders and holding him in the half-hug Mac thinks is all he's allowed to ask for. His young partner is leaning against him hard enough that Jack is pretty sure if he were to move abruptly, Mac would fall. Jack doesn't talk, for once, just stands on Mac's porch, running a hand up and down the kid's upper arm, and thanking Riley and Bozer in the back of his mind for the privacy they've given this whole series of conversations.
Tomorrow, things are going to get hard again. Jack knows this. But he also knows that he's not going anywhere, and the rest of the team isn't going anywhere either. None of it is fair, none of it is just, and Jack hates the Agency more than he thinks he's hated anything in a long time, but that's a reality they'll face tomorrow.
Tonight, he'll comfort his kid as well as he can, and they'll all reach for whatever normal they're able to find.
Tomorrow comes too quickly. Jack doesn't go home, and neither does Riley. He leaves Mac to get ready alone to speak to the other two for a moment. His advice to them is to head to Riley's find something to do for the day, something to focus on that isn't James and the Agency and bruises. They seem reluctant, but willing to take his advice, and he's glad that this at least won't be a fight today.
When he and Mac leave for the Foundation, they take Mac's car. Mac doesn't ask to drive outright, but it's enough that he's sending Jack's car anxious looks every couple of seconds. It's enough that Jack knows for a fact James never let Mac drive anywhere, always picked him up and left him without a way to get home on his own. So he directs them towards Mac's car without a word about it and pretends he doesn't see the raw gratefulness in the kid's face when he notices where they're headed.
The drive is silent for a few minutes, until Mac breaks it. He speaks quietly, in a subdued voice nothing like the way he usually talks, though the words aren't shaking. It's impressive, given their content, the man they're in reference to.
"My dad's gonna be there somewhere. At the Foundation." Mac doesn't look at Jack, doesn't let his eyes flicker off the road for a moment.
"Yeah," Jack says, the same as he'd responded the night before when Mac had asked the same question.
"And you're gonna go talk to him, before the Agency takes custody." That time it isn't a question. Mac isn't asking if Jack is planning to have words with James - he already knows. Jack confirms it anyway.
"Yes, I am." He keeps an eye on the kid when he says it. Something flickers across Mac's face at the affirmation. Something anxious and scared. "I'm not gonna start nothing with him," he reassures, looking to the window and silently adding though I'd sure as shit like to. "He just needs to be told in very clear terms that no way in hell is he ever coming near anyone in this family again. As long as that's what you want, of course."
When he adds that last part, he glances over again in time to catch the tiny, embarrassed smile that flickers across Mac's face when he nods.
"Yeah," Mac says quietly. "That's what I want."
That combined with their conversation at the house, the relative catharsis reached and the fact that Mac had actually admitted he wanted Jack there with him for the interview, it had Jack feeling not really good, or relaxed, about what they're about to walk into, but certainly less core-deep worried about just how badly this was going to go. Mac seemed to have found his way to some kind of solid ground. He's driving with steady hands and clear eyes, and Jack is worried, but not as worried as he could be.
He should've known there was yet another shoe left to drop.