A/N -Hey guys, a couple people have wondered how Mel and Mac might weather some of the more complicated aspects of their relationship, especially when Mac reverts to type about all things medical. I think our boy has come a long way, but then again I say that about myself, and it took me tearing cartilage in my chest and not being able to roll over without wanting to scream to go to the doctor for the cough I've had for three weeks, so maybe we are who we are. Anyhow, I've played with that a little here. ~ J
Mel was stretched out on the couch watching Mac and Fred with amusement. While Jack and Sarah had dessert in the small kitchen, Mac had offered to occupy Fred so they could enjoy some grown-up time. What Mel discovered was that he wanted to test out the contraption he'd built as baby entertainment and needed Fred to do so. In some ways, it resembled other floor toys she had seen. Mel had had quite a number of nieces and nephews back east so she had at least shopped her way through Babies R Us a few times, even if she hadn't done so very thoughtfully. In other ways, she thought this toy was far more clever. It was all the red, black, and white that research showed small babies could most easily see, but instead of simplistic little rattles or mirrors all of the toys suspended from the arch over the soft mat Fred was currently lying on interacted with each other; they all produced some sort of cause and effect result. If you pulled the zebra the little bear moved up; if you squeezed the skunk, the squirrel made noise. Fred was enthralled. Off to the sides were mirrors and more little items to engage little hands and encourage a child to try to roll over. Mac was sitting cross legged on the floor next to her, grinning like an eight-year-old.
He glanced up at Mel. "I really think she likes it."
Mel nodded with a smile. "She certainly does. At first, I thought it was too complicated for a baby, but it doesn't seem to be slowing her down any."
Mac reached out and untangled Fred's fingers from the little ribbon headband she was wearing on her mostly bald head so she could grab the zebra she was after again. "We're born with most of our basic wiring available to us," he said. "One of the problems I see with how kids are taught is we feel like we have to load them down with all kinds of information, all kind of input, before we teach them critical thinking. That's crazy. If all we have is information we might as well be encyclopedias in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to read. If we teach the brain to see relationships, to make decisions, then the information becomes a tool, the way it should be. I think critical thinking starts a lot younger than people give it credit. I know mine did."
Mel was nodding slowly. Fred clearly already had worked out some of the cause and effect stuff on this little contraption. When she squeezed the skunk, she was looking at the squirrel, anticipating the sound and she was only a couple of months old. And she liked the mirrors, because she was already trying to roll onto her side. "I think you may be on to something," Mel replied. "Think maybe you've come up with a new think tank side project?"
Mac nodded. "Maybe; yeah."
He was half wondering to himself if Mel or Jack would think it was rude if he worked in his notebook while they all watched the new Avengers movie later. They'd rented it for after Sarah and Fred went home because Jack wanted to get good and tired out before he went to bed; Mel wound up invited to come watch after revealing her Captain America ankle tattoo to Jack when he showed off the Iron Man one he'd gotten over a bullet scar on his shoulder. Sarah called from the kitchen, "Hey, Mac, can I steal my kid back so I can go put her to bed or are you still doing market research?"
"Be right there, Sarah!" he called. He shifted position and scooped up a protesting Fred. As he got to his feet, he gasped in obvious pain. "Aaahhh. Shit," he mumbled, shifting Fred a little and schooling his expression back to pleasant and smooth.
Mel got to her feet. "Are you okay?"
"Fine."
He turned and quickly headed into the kitchen with Fred. Instead of following them, Mel picked up little odds and ends around the living room. A couple of minutes later, Sarah, carrying a baby seat with Fred in tow, stuck her head in, "'Night, Mel. Take care of our boys."
Mel smiled, "I'll try. But you know how they are."
Mac came back in just as Sarah left, knelt stiffly down on the floor, and started folding up the baby toy prototype. He didn't look up. "I think Jack's already started the popcorn. You could put the DVD in and cue up the movie if you want."
She just stood there for a minute, deciding what to do. Nope. She just couldn't let it slide. If he hurt enough to swear, a guy who could look you square in the eye while you were picking glass out of his hands and tell you he was okay, then it would be irresponsible not to at least ask again. "You sure you're alright?"
From the side, she could still see the deep roll of his eyes. "I told you I'm fine," he said; he was just a little terse. He took a breath. "Really," he softened his tone a little.
He got to his feet again and she heard the catch in his breath distinctly again. "Mac, don't be ridiculous. What's wrong?"
He turned and faced her, and his expression was almost neutral, but he couldn't keep the flash of annoyance out of his eyes. "Don't do that."
She took a step toward him. "Do what?"
"Use your nurse tone on me in my own living room." Now the flash was in his voice, too.
Thinking maybe a joke would lighten things back up, she said, "You said I could convince you to let me take a look."
He narrowed his eyes in response, but tried joking back to close the subject. "Yeah, well … We didn't play cards."
"Mac," she began again, not willing to let it close.
He cut her off. "I said I'm fine." Her eyes widened at his sharp tone, but he went on, his voice clipped, and bordering on angry. "I'm just going to go about my business. You? Stay for the movie. Go home. Eat popcorn. Call for take-out. Do whatever you want tonight. Except forget that I'm not your patient right now."
"I …" She'd almost thought of something to say when Jack came in with a large metal bowl full of popcorn.
"Hey! Avengers assemble!" Jack called out. "You guys ready to watch this flick or what?"
He flopped onto their couch, immediately putting his feet up onto the coffee table and putting the popcorn down on the middle cushion.
Mac wasn't really looking at either one of them. "Um … actually … Why don't you guys go ahead without me?" He hurried on before Jack could ask questions. "I didn't really sleep all that well last night. I'm kind of beat. G'night, you two."
Before they could even respond, Mac had headed down the hall, turned into his bedroom, and softly closed his door. Mel sat down next to Jack with a sigh puffed out through her cheeks. Jack put down the remote.
"A'ight. What's goin' on?"
She sighed again, but looked at him, her grey eyes somewhere between sad and a little annoyed. "I screwed up, Big Brother."
"How so?"
Mel briefly explained what happened. Jack's face got what she thought of as his worry line, or more accurately, his Mac-line, across the forehead. "I knew I hurt him more than he was saying." He looked in her eyes again. "It was a really bad dream. I woke up on top of him, kind of had him pinned under all the blankets, sort of must have slammed him into the floor. I knew him admitting to hitting his head was too damned easy."
She bit her lip. "Yeah. But he's like that. And we both know it. I guess that's not the point though. I crossed a line."
"Didja, now?" Jack asked, cocking an eyebrow.
She swallowed hard. "Mac certainly seems to think so. And he's right, I guess. I'm here tonight, just hanging out and …"
"So, you aren't supposed to take care of the people you hold near and dear the best way you know how just because you're not at work?"
"I …"
"He didn't forget his training getting me out of Russia, even though to here him tell it I was a giant angry toddler. And, I'll tell ya, I don't suddenly forget all that advanced first aid and field medicine I got trained in just 'cause he don't like it and just 'cause I'm his best friend when he need me, either. The training don't go away because I love the stubborn dumbass. Kinda the opposite. And if I didn't have that training, I'd still try to take care of the fool when he was hurt or sick for the same reason."
She gave him a small smile. "That's fine for you, I suppose. You've known him for, what did you say at Christmas, seven or eight years?" Jack nodded. "I've only known you guys for a couple of years … and let's face it, he's only been able to stand the sight of me for about six months … and … I should probably just go home."
Jack nodded and shook his head, sort of at the same time, all while giving her a knowing sort of smirk. "Yeah, you could. You could do that. But, I'll warn you now, if you do … He's always going to expect you to back off. Whether it's as his girlfriend …" he paused at the slight widening of her eyes. "Or whatever it is you are to each other. Or when I drag his grumpy ass into Medical and you're his nurse, or God forbid, when we're in the field and you're the medic on the spot. We know how that ends, right?"
She smirked back. "I don't back down on my own turf, Jack Dalton."
"Don't I know it?" he grinned. "So, you decide how you wanna handle it. I'm not here to tell you what to do. Just, I know Mac. If I were you, I'd at least go try and talk to him. I'll hold the movie for a few … If you want?"
She thought about it for a minute. Then she nodded, puffing out a long breath. "You're right. But I think I might be able to handle it without really pissing him off."
0-0-0
When there was a tap on his door, he was expecting Jack, so he just called, "Come in," not even looking up from the miniature robot he was building on the chest at the foot of his bed.
She sat down on the edge of his bed, facing his back. "Hey."
He glanced back over his shoulder, and his face immediately colored. "Hey."
"I didn't mean to drive you out of your own living room, Mac."
"You didn't," he mumbled.
"Mmmm. Jack's holding the movie. He said he didn't think you really seemed all that tired, but he's still hurting some, so I said I'd come ask you if you'd changed your mind."
Mac shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe." He half turned. He had been sitting here feeling bad for snapping at her, but also feeling pretty justified in what he'd said. Now, he mostly felt confused . He didn't like it one bit.
Mel shifted and pulled out a deck of cards. She started shuffling. He smirked and shook his head, but he turned the rest of the way and criss-crossed his legs, leaning his elbows on them. "So, you want to play cards, after all. Okay. I accept. What's the game?"
"I thought we'd make it easy. Let's just play War. Sound good?"
"Sure. But I get to deal. Jack has soured me on other people dealing. When there's a bet at stake, he cheats."
"You don't trust me?" She feigned offense.
"At the moment, I'm kind of irritated with you, which feels like the same thing," he said honestly and he did bite his lip when he saw the slight hurt in her eyes, but he couldn't feel bad about being honest. He'd promised himself not all that long ago, really, that he would always both expect and give a potential partner honesty, even if it was painful. Nikki had taught him too much about the pain of deception.
"Okay," she agreed quietly, handing him the cards.
Mac began shuffling them expertly and Mel busied herself looking around his room, studying his developing ecosystem in a tank that the Bozer's had gotten him for Christmas that he'd had moved to their temporary apartment so someone else didn't have to keep going over and taking care of it. "I don't think I've told you much about my family," she said.
"Not much, I guess," Mac agreed, starting to divide the deck.
"I'm the only girl in a family of seven kids."
"Wow. Big family."
"Yeah. Irish Catholic. New York. Older parents."
He was just about done dealing their twenty-six cards each.
"Where in New York?" Mac asked, distracted from his earlier irritation with her by his simple desire to know her better.
"Park Slope. It's in Manhattan. Not the swanky part, but not the crappy part either. Just kind of in the middle. Like me. I was the girl in the middle. Three boys on either side. And they were all really physical guys."
"Yeah?" The game play was going back and forth smoothly with a fairly even split between what he took and what Mel took.
"Hockey, football, baseball, track and field. Fighting in the schoolyard. You name it."
"Did you do any of that stuff?"
She shrugged. "I played some field hockey. I wasn't that into it. I was a science nerd."
He nodded. "Yeah, I ran track and cross country, but I never really gave a damn about it."
She smiled her understanding. "War," she said. The exchange was over fairly quickly and she won the first small battle.
"Damn it," he grumbled, but he was smiling now.
"So, when I tell you I've been patching people up since long before that pinning ceremony that officially made me a nurse, you have to know that it goes back to my old neighborhood and my crazy brothers and their friends. To before I really remember it starting."
He frowned at her. "So?"
She bit her lip, thinking about it. "I've just always kind of been a care giver. Someone fell down on the playground, I'd be there before the teacher, picking them up, dusting them off … You know? I bet it was like that for you, too." He frowned like he wasn't sure what she meant. "Like, weren't you always building things, or taking things apart and putting them together in new ways? Stuff like that?"
He snickered a little. "Yeah, I drove everybody crazy. Even Boze used to yell at me sometimes." He met her eyes. "Can't change who you are I guess."
"No, you can't. So, I know I'm gonna piss you off sometimes. Just, I hope you know I don't mean it … like work all the time. I … it's …"
"It's what?"
Her face had gotten very red for some reason.
"It's how I love," she said very bluntly.
He felt his face get a little red, too.
"Oh."
"War."
"Huh?"
"War."
They looked at each other and laughed. They went back and forth for a minute. Finally, he tossed his cards all down on the pile. "I think you win."
"Really?" she asked, not quite believing her ears.
"Yeah," he nodded. He scooped up the cards and had them neatly put back into a deck in a few seconds and set them on the nightstand. "Look, I don't want Jack to feel any worse than he already does, but he nailed me in the side where I'm still healing pretty hard a couple of times last night. It wasn't even bothering me that much until I picked up Fred." She was studying his face like it was a work of art now. "It's really okay ... And I don't know why I didn't just tell you that in the living room."
"Because you 'get funny about that stuff sometimes'. That's what Jack says."
"Yeah, I do, I guess. I'd love to tell you that'll change, but it probably won't at this point in my life. And I guess you know why." He looked away, then back again.
"I do." She reached out and brushed the back of his hand with her fingertips. "I think I'd really like to kiss you right now, but …"
He shook his head, "Please don't. My lip is throbbing," he admitted.
"What about your cheek?"
"My cheek feels fine," he smiled.
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on his cheek, under his black eye. Then she bit her lip. "Okay, now I might make you mad again, but hear me out." He narrowed his eyes again, but gave a nod. "I'm not trying to be your nurse, I promise. But I am a nurse. And you were hurt pretty badly in Russia."
"So?" he asked, already sounding a little cantankerous again.
"It would make me feel a lot better, sleep a lot better, if you let me take a look. You did say I won at cards," she hurried to add.
"So, this is about making you feel better now?"
"Maybe a little," she admitted. "But it's also about me wanting you to genuinely not be hurt and taking care of it entirely for yourself."
"What if I say no? Are you still going to stay and watch the movie?"
"Probably," she grinned at him.
"Just to show me what a spoiled brat I was being before."
"Basically."
"Fine; Jesus," he huffed.
0-0-0
When they joined Jack in the living room a few minutes later, Jack just raised his eyebrows at both of them. "Of course, you ate all the popcorn," Mac groused.
"I can make some more," Jack offered. "It's early yet."
"I'm just kidding, Jack. You're still supposed to be resting, man. If we're hungry later …"
"I'll go make some for everybody," Mel interrupted. She arranged a Bunch of pillows and Mac propped himself up against them, throwing her a smile.
He hesitated. "Hey, Mel, while you're in the kitchen, would you get me a couple of Advil, please?"
"Ice pack, too?" she asked, leaving the strong suggestion out of her tone.
He glanced at Jack and then back at Mel. "Do you really think I need …" he trailed off at her expression. "Yes, please."
Already knowing the answer, Jack asked, "What's that all about?"
Mac chewed his lip for a minute. "I guess I maybe hit the floor a little harder than I thought last night. I'm a little bruised is all," he hurried to assure Jack, who hadn't quite been able to keep the guilt from his face like he'd sworn to himself he would. "Mel said ice would probably help. She's right, of course. I just hadn't thought of it."
More accurately, he'd been too stubborn to admit the bruising to begin with, but that was neither here nor there, Jack thought. The point was they'd found a way to both be themselves and let the other stay themselves and they were still speaking. That wasn't much, but it wasn't nothing either.
Jack hit play. "Better hurry up, Melody! You're gonna miss the opening chase scene!"
Mac just shook his head.