Jack was waiting in the hallway when Mac came out of the interrogation room carrying the manila folder he went in with, but with a few important additions. "You okay, buddy?"

Mac just started walking and Jack followed. "Did you see all of that?"

"Didn't take my eyes off you guys until thirty seconds ago when you got up."

"Then what do you think?"

"That you're probably pretty damned far from okay. But I know you don't like it when I make assumptions about your feelings."

Mac glanced at him and actually gave him half a smile. "He does listen. Miracles might actually be real."

Jack elbowed him. "'Course miracles are real. I keep sayin' so. And hey, we're alive, so they must be, right?"

Mac pushed the button for the elevator. "I'll concede the need for further data collection before rejecting your hypothesis."

"Do you think the key she gave you is real? The list of programs?"

They stepped onto the elevator.

"Maybe. She's just so …" Mac took a deep breath that was just a hair away from being a shudder. "Detached from reality. It could be real, or it could have been her way of prolonging the interview … Did you see her face when I walked in the door?"

Jack nodded and put a hand on Mac's shoulder, pleased when he realized he'd unthinkingly patted the left one and Mac didn't flinch away. Good to know he was finally as pain free as he'd been claiming to be for weeks. "I did. And it gave me the heebeejeebies somethin' awful. It was …"

"Hunger," Mac said plainly. "Need. Obsession. I never … she was always so … I guess in retrospect, not normal, but she was …" Mac floundered around his mind for a word and couldn't come up with one.

"Sexy?" Jack supplied as they got off the elevator. "Because I never noticed you getting much past the fact that a gorgeous leggy blonde thought you were cute."

Mac flushed. "I guess I didn't look too deep into our relationship."

Then he almost laughed. He didn't know why he was embarrassed. It's not like Nikki was the only woman who'd ever entered into his life … that way. Okay, pretty close. But still. He pictured her eyes when he walked into the room and everything put a cold sinking in the pit of his stomach left him.

Then he went on. "All that stuff about how the Organization values her, that she has money stashed all over, that they could break her out … the 'let's run away from all this' stuff … how I had to let her protect me … and then, as I was leaving." Mac stopped as though he never intended to go on, like he hadn't just stopped talking in the middle of a sentence.

Now they were standing outside Matty's office. "Mac?"

Mac shook his head, opening the door. "Later," he mumbled quietly.

Matty was sitting behind her desk, with Riley on the other side, both of them looking almost overly busy at their computers when they walked through the door. Mac put the folder down on Matty's desk and cleared his throat. "I, uh, I got the code key, and a list of programs and basic specs from her. I don't know how valid they are. After resisting teams for months, I didn't even have to work for it. It was … unsettling."

Finally Matty looked up. "I imagine it was. I observed remotely." Mac's eyes dropped for a second but then met hers again. "Riley will get to work on this now."

Riley got up and grabbed the folder, not quite meeting Mac's eyes, but she put her hand on his arm, gave it a gentle squeeze, before sitting back down and looking at the folder's contents with silent intensity.

"Good. Do you want Jack and I to oversee Nikki's transfer back to …"

"No. But I appreciate your willingness to do this today. I know seeing her was not easy. Why don't you and Jack go home. I'm not saying you can't come back in tomorrow," she hurried to add when Mac looked almost stricken. "Just take the afternoon to relax. You know there's no focusing right now."

Mac nodded, with a small, forced, smile. "Probably true."

"And I'm not trying to make today any worse for you, but I'm reassigning a security detail to you again. So if you think you have a tail on the way home, you do. Dark Blue Suburban, California plates. Okay?"

He nodded. Jack was eyeing him with growing alarm, but Matty got Jack's attention by saying, "I know you're staying there most of the time anyway, Jack, but I want you to plan on being there on a semi-permanent basis, as personal security. Not a sham on paper this time, but for real. I'll send briefing materials to your tablet later. Understood?"

"You know my priority mission, Matilda. Nice to have it on paper all official like." He glanced at Mac. Mac gave him another small smile.

"Any arguments, Mac?" Matty asked, almost sounding like a dare, but softening it with her concerned expression.

He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. "No ma'am."

"Alright. Good. Get out of here. We'll see you in the morning. If there are any developments from this new intel you acquired, I will call."

"Thanks," he nodded.

Then he just turned and left, knowing Jack would follow. They headed for the parking garage at Mac's self-selected very purposeful pace, but neither of them said anything. Jack could only imagine what Nikki had said to Mac on his way out to trigger this kind of reaction. Mac, needing to feel normal again now that his sling wasn't a Matty-enforced requirement, had been driving in everyday. Jack was texting Bozer that he and Mac weren't going to be there at closing time and asking if he could get a ride. Bozer texted back that he was planning on staying at Beth's anyway. She'd gotten a kitten and they wanted to imprint on it together. Jack just rolled his eyes. "Hey, bud," he said casually. "Want me to drive?"

Mac got his keys out of his jacket pocket and tossed them to Jack. "You're the bodyguard, man."

"You okay with that?" Jack asked, cautious. Similar arrangements had gone badly, emotionally anyway, in the past.

Mac nodded as he got in the Jeep. "I actually am. Tonight anyway."

Jack started the car, glancing at his partner as he pulled the door shut. Not even knowing where to begin unpacking the expression on Mac's face, Jack decided on his frequent loosen-Mac-up tactic of saying something ridiculous. "What the hell did she say to you between you getting up and me meeting you in the hall? She claim to be like psychically pregnant with your alien mind baby or somethin'?"

Mac sighed, but gave Jack an affectionate glance, appreciating what he was trying to do. "She said that if I didn't leave with her, go to the Organization with her and join them, they're going to kill me. That it's already in motion."

"Jesus."

"And she's crazy, Jack. If I ever doubted it, well … you saw. But she didn't look crazy when she said that. She didn't sound crazy either. It was like that time in Somalia when we thought we'd gotten Sadiq away from that warlord without tipping anyone and then she pulled up the satellite of the airport and she looked up, so afraid … she was so sure …"

"We were gonna die."

"Yeah."