Fortunately or unfortunately the mission the Delta team had gone out on stretched longer than they'd anticipated and by the time Jack returned a couple of days later, Mac had gone back to work at the base further north, albeit on restricted duty. Jack found him sitting at a desk frowning, typing one handed on an ancient desk top. He sat with one leg bouncing up and down and the hand that was held to his chest by a secure sling playing with a paperclip, probably from the papers that were scattered around in front of him. "Hey there, Hollywood. Did you stage another daring escape?"

Mac looked up surprised and after a second a grin brightened his whole face. "Jack!" Then he took in the sling that bound Jack's right arm and his face clouded with a look of concern. "What happened?"

Jack moved to the chair next to the desk and Mac could see that he was still limping although the man was clearly doing his best to hide it. He eased himself down into his seat, supporting himself with his good arm as he did so. "Got my dumb ass shot again." Mac's eyes widened and Jack just grinned, wanting to ease the kid's worry. "Twice in one week. Punchy says if I keep it up he's gonna just paint a target on all my clothes."

Mac narrowed his eyes at the older man. Jack could kid all he wanted, but a bullet wound, even a graze, was no laughing matter when it came to complications and infections. Statistically, anyway. "You okay?"

"Hell, boy, if all it took to keep me down was a little ole ding on the elbow, I'da used this pretty face to be model instead of the world's biggest badass." Mac grinned, in spite of his concern and shook his head. Jack's face turned more serious. "What about you? When I left, the doc said probably ten more days before you'd get back to base."

Mac shrugged, winced as a result, and shrugged again, quite unable to help making the gesture even though it hurt like hell. He didn't quite look at Jack when he answered, "I got discharged early." He quickly added, "I'm only allowed to do paperwork at the moment and it sucks, but it's a helluva lot better than being poked and prodded and kept in bed!"

Jack gazed at the young man with a frustrated inexplicable affection. He was starting to understand the way his own dad had looked at him the last time he'd been home when they'd had that godawful fight. He wished like hell he had the guts to call the bastard and tell him so, too, but he just didn't. Not yet. Instead he decided to focus on Mac. "What I heard when I showed up at the hospital was you were a pain in the ass and meds don't work the way they're supposed to on you. More or less, you annoyed them into letting you leave instead of staying and healing up like we agreed when I said I'd help you keep your ass out of trouble. Sound about right?"

Mac looked away quickly and swallowed hard, then gave Jack a steady glare. "No!" His eyes flicked away again. "I mean … I didn't mean to …" Mac ventured another glance at Jack's face, expecting disapproval, but saw only amusement.

Jack grinned at him so the kid would know he wasn't really angry. "I'm just givin' you shit, kid."

"How's Ricky doing?" Mac asked partially out of a desire to get the attention off himself, but mostly from genuine concern, disappointed that he couldn't visit his younger friend, but not so much that he'd been interested in occupying the bed next to him one second longer than he needed to.

Jack was thoughtful. "He's okay. Pneumonia is clearing up. I'd feel worse that he got it from being treated like a goldfish at a county fair if we hadn't gotten the guy who took off and brought him in for some enhanced interrogation of his own."

Mac's eyes flashed. "You went back out there? And when you say interrogation, you mean treating him like they treated us! You know that just encourages them and …"

"It doesn't encourage anything. It gets us information," Jack interrupted Mac's diatribe. "Were you inclined to tell them what they wanted to know when they asked nicely?"

Mac answered hotly. "They didn't give me a chance to …"

Jack held up a hand. "You and I both know you're too stubborn to just do what anybody wants you to do, or I'd have found you right back in that bed in Bagram so I could give you this." Jack fished in his back pocket with his good hand and withdrew, much to Mac's surprise, his Swiss Army knife. It was unmistakably his; all the faded markings and scratches were as familiar to him as his own reflection.

Mac snatched it up, elated. "Jack! Thank you! Where did you ..?"

"In the cave," Jack interrupted. "On the ground not two feet from where I found you. Zahir must've dropped it. I cleaned it up. There was blood all over it; mostly on the long blade and the corkscrew." He gave Mac a hard look and saw the way the kid's breathing had picked up.

He didn't own up to it being his blood, didn't confirm that he'd been tortured with the knife that meant so much to him. "Thanks for bringing it back to me," was Mac's almost whispered reply as he slipped it into his pocket. "You could've just mailed this. There's been a lot of ground to air activity this week. What made you risk a flight up here?"

Jack was looking him over carefully. The kid still definitely belonged in a hospital, or at least confined to barracks on sick call, but Jack wasn't in charge of him at the moment. Might as well find out if the kid was amenable to the new arrangement. "Well, yeah, sure. I coulda mailed it. If I didn't have business here." Mac tilted his head in a question, not wanting to interrupt. "I got six months left in the hitch I agreed to. I'm kind on loan from my real gig at CIA." Mac's eyes went just a little wide. "I used to do this full time all the time, back in the day. Like way back. When you were born way back." Jack smiled. "I was a Desert Storm guy once upon a time. And I was doing some training for Delta when they asked me back for a short job. Just kind got sucked in and made a deal for a big bonus." He paused. "See, I know I told ya, me and my old man, we don't talk." Mac gave a little nod, a shadow passing over his face as he thought about his own paternal demons. "But he's kinda sick and my mom is about at the end of her rope because it's not all covered by the VA and whatever. I just wanted to help. Even if he won't talk to me."

"I'm sorry," Mac said quietly, although for what he couldn't have put words to.

"Anyhow, I got a few months left on my deal and I was talkin' to your higher ups a little. You and Pickles are just the most recent in a long line of our guys getting taken prisoner lately. And the Terrys seem to have a real hard-on for EOD guys." Mac just nodded, trying not to narrow his eyes against the pain. He'd been at this desk about five hours now and, sling or no sling, all the sitting was starting to get to his bad shoulder. "And our guy, Alfred … Well, he went on leave a couple months ago; and he and his wife have been tryin' to have a baby for years. Anyway, they hit the jackpot while he was home. He just found out and resigned his commission."

"Oh." Mac said. "Wow. That's great. I mean, not for your team, but … A kid? Good for them."

"So anyhow, I got me a hole in my squad. Since the work is dangerous, someone might, if they were encouraged to do so, see that assignment as disciplinary. And my boss tells me you got a CO who'd like to get you outta Dodge for a few months while people forget you got a penchant for disobeying orders." Mac was frowning, but Jack thought he had it figured out anyway, so he finished bluntly, "I'm here to offer you a job with my team for a little bit."

Mac's face lit up. "Really?!"

Jack made himself look serious, even though he wanted to grin like a kid who's found out it's pizza day in the cafeteria. "Yeah. Whadaya think? Wanna be our bomb guy?"

"I … Yeah … I mean … Yes, sir." Mac half stood even though he didn't know what Jack needed him to do next. Then he seemed to realize it. "Um, do I need to pack up, or ...?"

Jack gave him a somewhat reluctant smile. "Yeah, ya do. For a trip back to Bagram. We operate out of there as a home base … and I'm sorry to tell you kid, but if you want to roll out with my team, even if it's just as a loaner, you're gonna need legit medical clearance, not just them passing you off so someone else can put up with you. Our usual doc is pretty well versed in dealing with stubborn."

The frown and eye roll Mac gave him would become familiar expressions in the years to come.

0-0-0

"I did not roll my eyes at you," Mac chuckled.

Jack grinned back, "You definitely did. And if you'd had two arms to use at the time you'd've been doing pushups for it until you collapsed. I don't take that kind of sass from subordinates, as a rule."

"Good thing we're equals now then," Mac teased and gave a deep roll of his eyes. He was rewarded with a genuine laugh from Jack, which he thought was good. Jack was looking at him with more than his usual amount of worry, and Mac knew why, he just didn't want to talk about it at the moment, so he decided to keep talking so he was in control of the conversation. "Hey, I don't suppose you know where my clothes are?"

This time Jack rolled his eyes. "You don't need to bother about gettin' dressed at the moment, Mac …"

"No, that's not what I meant." Although that had sort of been exactly what he'd meant, he wasn't going to admit it. Jack was hovering on the cusp of using his disapproving eyebrows. "We were talking about it so ... I was just wondering about my knife. It's kind of an antique so I just wanted to put it somewhere safe. It was in my jeans."

Jack looked truly regretful. "I'm sorry, bud, I think the CDC people incinerated all the stuff we came in wearing as a precaution."

"Crap." Mac frowned. "I've had that thing since I was six. And whenever I've lost it, it's always come back."

Jack grinned knowingly. "It's your good luck charm."

Mac smirked, trying to wipe the dejected expression he could feel off his face. "There's no such thing as luck, Jack."

"We'll see," Jack said quietly as a fully suited-up nurse came in through the curtain to get updated blood samples for the lab and did her best to start an argument with Mac through her authoritarian demeanor.

Eventually he'd just cooperated to get rid of her, a decision Jack approved of, especially since it was generally his approach to dealing with medical types at all. Give 'em what they want and they'll go the hell away. More out of boredom than anything else, Jack took a nap, half expecting to be woken up by getting hit with a pillow and yelled at for snoring too loudly. What actually woke him up was Mac's surprised, but very pleased exclamation, "Steve! What are you doing here?"

Jack peeled his eyes open to see the tall man, who was not dressed in a protective suit but rather plain green scrubs, brushing aside the plastic curtain and securing it behind the door he had pushed all the way open. "Matty thought it might be helpful to have a team member that speaks the language deal with the infectious disease folks. She also thought you guys would appreciate me stepping in on your cases and managing your care."

"How're Lanney and the baby?" Jack asked, smiling.

"Good. Really good. Zeb's such a pleasant little fella, already sleeping through the night more or less. I was thinking it was time to get back to work anyway. Then Matty called."

Mac's eyes had already zeroed in on the bags their medic was carrying; their duffle bags as well as clear plastic ones which clearly contained their personal belongings that had been removed when they'd been admitted. So their stuff hadn't been incinerated. He reached out his good hand for his. It was not immediately turned over to him and he gave an elaborate frown. "Steve, c'mon."

Mac got a very knowing look in return. "That's Dr. Rodgers to you at the moment, Agent MacGyver." He did put the bags down at the foot of Mac's bed, and the young man immediately started digging through the plastic one, only partially paying attention now. "You guys are officially in the clear from that canister, fortunately. I did manage to save most of your belongings and Riley brought over the rest of your stuff from the van. But … And I want to be clear … you're not just hopping out of bed and taking off for midtown to go after Murdoc. I need to sign your discharge papers and I'm not just …"

Mac only heard part of what he said, mostly because he was grinning at having located his Swiss Army knife. He hadn't lost it. Which was good; he might need it soon. "So the old subway line he's holed up in is in midtown?"

Jack chuckled. "It's a losing battle, Steve. You've told him where the bad guy is. Either give him his clothes or knock his ass out. My boy just found his good luck charm. All bets are off. If you don't discharge him, you and I both know he'll find a way out and be in that subway tunnel in an hour anyway."

Mac rolled his eyes at Jack; then he raised his eyebrows at Steve. "Forty-five minutes. Tops."

Steve gave a long suffering sigh. He didn't think Matty was going to be very pleased. "Fine. But I'd like to not get fired. I'm checking you both over first."

Mac was already picking at the tape on the back of his hand. "No, first you're getting rid of this IV."

Jack chuckled and grabbed his bags from Steve. Mac needed to finish this case. Jack would worry about getting the kid to take it easy and heal up from his most recent injuries, physical and emotional, when he got him home. "Do like the man says, buddy. It's easier in the long run." He headed into the bathroom. "Besides, once we catch Captain Creepy and get him back to Phoenix's holding facility, you can confine Mac to the infirmary for a couple of days to recover."

Mac glared at his retreating form and called, "That's not even funny Jack!"