soooooooo here it is. i think we've all been waiting for this one, which y'know, only makes me that much more nervous about posting it. as a heads up, this chapter is... an intense one.
thirty, wow. never thought i'd get THIS far! chapter title from sleeping at last's song atlas: eight.
enjoy! [runs and hides]
Senator Roger Delaney has got to be both one of the luckiest and the unluckiest men Mac has ever had occasion to peripherally cross paths with. This is the second time in his brief tenure in office that one of the world's deadliest and most wanted criminals has set crosshairs on him, but it's also the second time that - with any degree of luck and skill - Mac and his team will foil the attempt before it can so much as singe the lapel of the Senator's jacket.
Once again, Charlie is filling them in on what they're headed for while they're in the car, though this time he's on speakerphone rather than sitting in the seat next to Mac's. His slightly tinny, vaguely electronically distorted voice fills the air of the car, briefing them in a rush as they speed towards the scene. He goes over the Senator and the event - the kickoff of his re-election campaign, as he rounds the corner headed towards the end of his first six year term in office. Overall he seems like an odd target, a well-liked politician slated to win his campaign in a landslide despite one or two challengers popping up who didn't hold any particularly controversial stances for the makeup of his constituent base.
Best theory they have in the moment is that the original contract may have been related to his personal life in some way, or maybe someone wanting to make a big statement by ordering the death of a young, popular politician in the early stages of a promising career. This second attempt on Delaney's life, though, that one's a lot easier to figure out. The Ghost does not seem like the kind of man who leaves things unfinished.
"Who first called it in?" The question comes from Jack in the driver's seat, eyes focused on the road but speaking loudly enough that Charlie will be able to hear him from the speaker in Mac's phone, held aloft between them.
A sigh like static crackles over the call. "We don't know. It was anonymous, direct to the LAPD bomb squad office. Mentioned the Ghost by name, and then when they asked who he was, the man hung up. They tracked the phone, it was a payphone with no surveillance, there's no prints, the whole thing's kind of a dead end."
With a glance over his shoulder, Mac makes eye contact with Riley, whose twisted grimace reflects the same discomfort he feels at this information. It's unnerving to say the least, but there's nothing to be done about it now. There's a much more pressing issue presently demanding their attention.
When they arrive at the cross street intersection Charlie directed them to, it's pandemonium. People are running this way and that, security and first responders attempting to control crowds of event attendees that seem to range between confused, irritated, and panicked. Charlie flags them down and says something to a uniformed officer standing at the cordon blocking off the street, prompting her to let them through. Mac flashes the woman a quick smile and nods at her as they pass, then turns his focus to Charlie.
He fills them in on the scant developments since they'd hung up as they approach the area where the device was reported, a city-issue garbage can between a pair of benches. Matty is on her way now, apparently, and James has also been notified, a fact that Mac tries to forget as soon as he learns it. The bomb is in view now, a perimeter marked off within the larger area preventing even the majority of emergency personnel restricted from approaching. Charlie is giving him the specifics they've been able to note about the device when Mac notices that Jack isn't paying attention at all, looking in the opposite direction.
In the space between when he noticed this and the irritated snap that's forming in his mouth making it out into the world, Mac stops, swallowing it down, because now he's noticed something else, something beyond Jack's seeming disregard for the very dangerous situation they're in. There's an odd look on Jack's face, a calculating frown sitting on his forehead, brows furrowed down over narrowed eyes. He's scanning, looking for something. Jack isn't not paying attention - he's just paying attention to something else.
"What's going on, Jack?" Mac asks, and beside him, both Charlie and Riley fall silent. They must see the same thing Mac does, because they don't start talking again, waiting for the same answer he is.
"There's two of them," is Jack's completely meaningless response. His eyes flick to the side and he must notice the look of complete mystification replicated in triplicate across Mac, Riley, and Charlie's faces. "The mobile LAPD unit is parked back there with the ambulance and a couple squad cars, right? There's another one. At the end of the street there, see?" He points now, towards a dark blue cube van parked indeed at the end of the street, LAPD painted on the side in blocky yellow. It's true, Jack is right. They'd passed one on their way in that was identical to the one they're looking at now.
Almost identical.
At the moment it clicks for Mac, it seems to do so as well for the man standing outside it, LAPD cap pulled low over his forehead and sunglasses blocking a good portion of his face. The man sees Jack pointing, notes their attention towards him, and turns around, flinging open the back doors of the mobile command center - or what had looked like a mobile command center.
Jack has taken off running before he's gotten the words out, floating over his shoulder when he shouts, "It's him, he's there! That's him!"
"Go," Charlie tells Mac, shoving at his shoulder, propelling him after Jack. "I have this one, go, go!"
With Riley on his heels, Mac follows after Jack as fast as he can. He's fast enough to get there just as the Ghost disappears out the other side of the van and Jack hops up into it, ready to follow him. The sound Mac hears is faint but unmistakable, and he hasn't even consciously processed it before he's skidded to a halt, pursuing the Ghost forgotten in favor of the order that rips out of him, a desperate shout, "Jack, stop!"
The world slows and narrows down to moments and the space between them, to Mac's heart pounding against his ribcage and the echoing click of a mechanism locking into place, reverberating around inside Mac's skull from the moment Jack's foot presses the plate down and activates what lies beneath it. There's another bomb. The Ghost planted another bomb, disguised as an LAPD mobile command unit car, able to move its way to the center of a crisis without drawing suspicion, and now Jack is standing on it. Jack's boot, planted on that plate, holding its place, is the only thing preventing it from detonating.
"Don't move," Mac says. He knows he's talking too loud, if he can hear his own voice over the rush in his head. "Don't move, don't move."
Blessedly, mercifully, Jack doesn't move. His eyes sweep over Charlie and Riley and then land on Mac.
"Am I gonna die here?" he asks, and Mac's heart gives a sharp, screaming pulse. Grief rolls over him so fast and so heavy that it takes his breath away. In the seconds between the question was asked and when he comes up with the air for an answer, Mac lives through Jack's funeral a hundred times over.
"You will if you move," Mac tells him truthfully, lungs full of splintering fiberglass. He can't bear to look at Jack, at the fear and horror dawning over the face of the man he's become to see as an unshakable pillar of calm and strength, but neither can he look away. It's not as if Jack can look away from this - why should Mac have that luxury? So he looks Jack right in the eye and says, "If you move, the detonator will activate and the bomb will go off."
Slowly, jerkily, Jack nods. His cheeks are reddened and Mac can see that there's a slight tremor in his hands. The sight nearly makes him lose his breath again.
"I'm gonna," Mac says, unable to stand it any longer and looking away, "I have to- I have to find the explosives, figure out what we're dealing with." He moves back a step then forces himself to look back, to make eye contact with Jack once more and repeat the first thing he thought of to say when he'd first seen the pressure plate, the wire visible under it. "Don't move."
Rounding the side of the box truck feels like cowardice disguised as proactive problem solving, but Mac doesn't let himself think about that too hard. He feels with unsteady hands around every possible corner, searching for whatever that trip wire is attached to, and tries to ignore the way his breathing is speeding up by the moment. The sound of the crowd pushed back past the caution tape is a dull, pulsing roar in his ears, and his breaths come in quick, sharp little pants, pained and shallow. Mac can feel himself losing his composure and he stops for a moment, hunched over bent knees, trying to force himself to calm down enough to do what he has to do. To save Jack's life.
It's hard, when he can hear them talking back there, hear the breaking in Jack's voice and the questions Riley is now asking him about fantasy football. She's trying to keep him calm, keep him from panicking even as Mac hunches over around the corner doing that very thing, because if Jack panics, then he's going to die.
The truth of his situation follows moments after. If Mac panics, Jack is also going to die.
"Mac." The voice that catches his attention is firm and just loud enough to break through the haze of this thought running on a circular track through his brain. "Mac, look at me."
Forcing himself to straighten up and turn around enough to look at Charlie is a feat of strength and will Mac wouldn't have guessed he still had at that moment. His friend is standing there with a grim but determined look on his face, giving off the air that Mac himself should be projecting right now, were he able to keep his act together long enough to save his partner's life.
"Charlie, what if I can't do this?" The words come out barely above a whisper. Mac's hand goes out, bracing himself against the side of the truck. "What if I screw up, and he- and Jack- I can't-"
"Hey." The command is direct and accompanied by Charlie's hand, gripping Mac's forearm, the one extended out towards the truck. "You have to cut it out, Mac, you can't afford to even think like that right now. Think about Al. What did Al say?"
Al doesn't like James. It's obvious to Mac every time the two men are in the same room, the tight set to Al's jaw and the overly polite tone to his voice when he speaks. Mac can't honestly say he blames his partner for this, he knows his father can be abrasive, especially when you haven't already spent years dealing with him, and Mac has a tendency to bring out the worst in James.
That's what happened today. It's hard for Mac to even recall how it started, the minor disagreement that escalated to James's swift exit, punctuated by shouting and a slammed door. The pinched look of disapproval had lingered on Al's face for a while after he left, while Mac just stood there in the center of the room, staring blankly at the closed door. They'd been in the middle of going over notes from an exercise they'd gone through the day before when James showed up, down on the sub-floor Al did most of Mac's training from.
Moving on after that is difficult. Mac can't concentrate, his hands won't stay still, he keeps losing track of what step he's on. They're going over bombs again today, and Mac has the detonator in his hands, diffusing it. Or, trying to, anyway. He fumbles at the last second, and there's a loud click.
"Bomb just went off," Al says from where he's leaned against a table, watching. "You're dead now, Mac."
"We'll restart it." Mac bends down to the floor, picking up the tools and pieces he'd already dismantled and discarded. "I'll reset the dummy device, we'll do it again. I'll get it right this time, I've just gotta-"
"No, that's enough for today, I think."
Al drives him home, and they're silent until they reach Mac and Bozer's house.
"Hey," Al says, just as Mac's about to get out of the car. "Hang on, I want to talk to you for a minute."
Mac does as he's told. Tries not to let the prickles of anxious adrenaline sparking from his spine and across his shoulders, all the way down to his fingertips, make any change to the look on his face.
"What happened today," Al says, in a voice that is firm but not harsh, "cannot happen in the field."
"I know." Mac looks straight forward out the windshield of the car. His fingers dig into his pants, one leg jittering slightly on the car floor. "I'm sorry."
"No, I don't need you to be sorry. I need you to listen. One of the most important things you're ever going to learn is this. Remember what I said about the bomb?"
"The bomb doesn't have feelings about me."
"Exactly. And that goes for everything else too, you know. In the field. When you're doing what we do here, Mac, you have to find a way to turn it all off. When you've got a job like that in front of you, you have to figure out how to stop being a person. In that moment, you don't have a spouse, you don't have children, you don't have siblings or friends. You don't have parents. It's just the task in front of you."
Mac nods silently, slowly absorbing what Al is saying, trying to process it. He's thrown off all over again when Al continues, saying pointedly, "When you have something like defusing a bomb, or any of the other life or death moments you're going to run into, Mac, the Director? Your father? He doesn't exist. Nothing he's ever done or said exists. It's you and the detonator, and that's all."
Again, Mac nods. He speaks too, this time, saying with a steadiness he's proud of, "Okay." For a moment he thinks they're done, his hand hovering over the doorhandle, until Al's voice stops him once more.
"There's a catch, though. You could end up thinking, and a lot of people are going to try and tell you this is true, that you have to be that way all the time. That the best thing you can do is shut yourself down, turn yourself into a robot or a shadow or something like that. They're wrong. That's just as dangerous. Hold onto your humanity as hard as you can, kid, just know when to put it away somewhere safe. And never forget to take it back out again."
"The bomb doesn't have feelings about me," Mac says out loud, and Charlie nods.
"Exactly. Now, can you do this?" The offer is unspoken behind the question, that Charlie will take over if Mac needs him to.
And for just a second, Mac considers it. Quicker than anything, though, that second passes, and he nods firmly. "I can do this," he says, and doesn't even think about whether he meant it or not. He has to. There's no other option.
"There he is," Charlie says approvingly, nodding. "I'm gonna get back to our other one, okay? There's no remote trigger receiver I can see, but it's still live."
"Go," Mac tells him, voice strong. When he takes his hand off the side of the truck, it's steady and still. "I can handle this."
And he does. Mac locates the explosives, and the strength and volatility of them are filed safely away as factual information, diverted from the part of his brain shut in a lockbox, screaming stories of what compounds like this do to human bodies when ignited under them. He identifies where they're rigged to, one detonator under the pressure plate and another in the wall. The wall has to go first, or they'll trigger it when they defuse the pressure plate. Information orders itself into neat rows in his mind, and Mac's eyes flick back and forth through thin air, following it as it all clicks into place. He knows what he has to do.
Finishing his hurried explanation to Riley, Jack, Charlie, and Matty, who's just arrived, Mac turns to go, to sprint off and gather what he's going to need to make this work. They must have left shortly after one another, because he runs into none other than the Director himself as he ducks under the cordon tape, leaving the immediate scene towards a hotdog cart he remembers noticing on the way in. Mac stops and stares openly for a moment, then firmly clamps down on anything that comes bubbling up and turns away.
"Angus," James starts, voice sharp and disapproving, and Mac doesn't waste a second. He ignores his father completely, continuing single-mindedly on his goal. Nothing exists right now except for that bomb.
It comes together piece by piece, fitting into a perfectly cut puzzle that is, from an objective standpoint, beautiful. Everything clicks exactly the way it's supposed to, and all that's left is to twist the contraption he's made and pull away the bolt in the wall holding the detonator's connection together. Mac's hands are on it, about to start twisting, when Jack's stops him.
"It's not your fault," he says, and Mac goes still, risking a glance up. Jack smiles at him, the look on his face wide open and full of agonizingly tender affection. The words hold the same, gentle and kind. Forgiving. "No matter what happens, Mac, none of this was ever your fault. And I don't regret a minute of it. I don't regret you, kid, okay? Don't matter what happens."
Mac can't breathe, and he almost feels it all slam back, everything he's shut so carefully down to be anything other than a panicking wreck on the ground. There cannot be room for that to happen, though, so he grits his teeth, looks at Jack for one long moment, and starts twisting. Slowly, impossibly slowly, it all falls into place and by the time it's over, Mac has lost time. His memory goes blank, and then it's over, the bolt is on the ground, and Jack's knee is bending, about to lift his foot off the plate.
Barely in time, Mac shouts for him to stop, lurching forward, almost falling onto the step into the back of the truck. He grabs for his Swiss Army knife, barely able to feel his own fingers at that point, and pulls out the scissors. The wire protruding from beneath the pressure plate is muted green, coated in deceptively innocuous plastic, a dormant viper ready to strike at any moment.
There's the quiet, anticlimactic snip of the scissors, the wire is clipped through, and just like that, it's over.
The breath rushes out of Mac's lungs so loudly Jack can somehow hear it over the sound of his own thundering heartbeat. The bomb is defused. He's not going to die today.
The street lurches into chaos and Mac is swept backwards, stumbling easily away without an ounce of resistance. His eyes are wide and shocked in his ash-pale face where Jack catches a glimpse of him. The crowd bears him away before Jack can say anything, before anything but a moment of eye contact can pass between them, and then he's gone.
Relief is a powerful drug. Jack barely comprehends the next few minutes. He feels it in fits and bursts, the way Riley hugs him like it would've been devastating to lose him, the quick exchange he has with Matty asking if anyone has eyes on Mac. They don't, and he's looking around distractedly, when the Director catches his attention. The look on James MacGyver's face is almost bored as he gestures over towards the far side of the street. Mac is sitting there on the curb, Charlie next to him, and Jack's chest throbs.
"Have you talked to him?" he asks, and he could've sworn it was either a trick of the light or James actually rolled his eyes.
"His work here is done, he's free to go."
"His work here is…" Jack trails off, hoping he's just heard wrong. This isn't the case, and before he can say anything potentially dangerous to his continued employment as Mac's partner, James is brushing past him.
"Yes, his work is done, now if you'll excuse me, I need to have a word with the Senator. Never hurts to have a man like that owe you one, Dalton, which you'd know if you had a political bone in your body."
It's not the jab at Jack's management skills or lack thereof that gets to him. It's the fact that, while Mac's job here might be done, Mac's father's job certainly isn't. And while James walks off to score points with a potential powerful ally, his son sits within eyesight, obviously moments from having a breakdown. Well, Jack thinks, if James isn't going to step up, one of them ought to.
"Go, get him," Matty says, and Jack looks down, surprised. He'd almost forgotten she was there until she spoke. It's obvious from her face that she's as disgusted with James's comment as Jack himself is, though the look fades as she turns her attention away, nodding towards Mac. "Take him home."
By the time Jack pulls up outside of Mac's house, the sun is hanging low on the horizon. The day still has that hazy, trembling feel that he supposes the clinical term for is probably 'shock', and he blinks out the window, squinting at the blue, blue sky. There are no clouds today. He doesn't know why this is holding his focus when Mac is in the passenger's seat next to him, so tightly wound he's worried the kid might snap at any moment. Maybe that's exactly why.
Of all of it, the entire nightmare of an afternoon, there's one thing that Jack keeps coming back to, seeing every time he closes his eyes even just long enough to blink. Mac's face as the crowd of DXS and local emergency personnel swept him back and away, pale and stricken. Jack's never seen him look like that. The closest he's ever come before now was back in Minnesota, in that blanched white landscape when Mac seemed to think for just a breath of a moment that Jack had caught a bullet.
Some combination of this thought, the mental image of Mac's wide blue eyes, and residual generalized panic left over from the part where he almost got blown sky-high has him getting out of the car when Mac does, elbowing the door shut behind him. It sounds like a gunshot, or an explosion, metal on metal when the frame connects and latches, and Jack manages to reign in a flinch. Mac doesn't, or is unsuccessful in doing so. His head jerks to the side just slightly, away from the car, eyes snapping shut.
After a few moments of a quiet that is too still and too lifeless, Mac straightens up and turns away, towards the house down the drive. Jack watches him for a moment, then turns back towards the car, pulling the door open and just lifting his foot to step back into the car when something stops him. A voice. Mac's said his name, and Jack starts to look over at him, to ask what's wrong. Before he can get farther than looking back over his shoulder, an impact rocks him forward, forcing him to take a step towards the car to avoid losing his balance.
It's like Jack's brain goes on lag, seconds passing molasses-slow until he processes what's happened. There are now arms wrapped tightly around his waist, a face pressed between his shoulder blades. He can feel the rapid breathing of the person clutching him so desperately, hear their small whooping gasps, and it sinks in. Mac is hugging him. Mac is hugging him and, judging by that feeling, those sounds, he's crying.
Jack stands there, stunned, trying to figure out what to do. He hardly wants to breathe for the fear he'll spook Mac, scare him off and put an abrupt end to this breakthrough he's been waiting months for. But there's only so much he can take before he shifts, lightly pulling to dislodge Mac's grip so he can turn around.
"Sorry," Mac is saying as Jack is finally able to turn around. He's trying to back away, movements clumsy and disorganized, hands coming up to his own face as they pull swiftly away from Jack, as fast as if he'd been burned. It's like he's trying to force himself to calm down and stop crying, but it's too late. His face gleams wet in the gold light of the setting sun and his eyes are red. "Sorry, I- Sorry-" The words are breathless and small, beyond ashamed and it's very clear what Mac thinks is happening. He thinks he's finally taken an impossible step forward, only to be swiftly rejected when he got there, and Jack can't find the words to tell him it isn't true.
So he doesn't try. Instead he reaches out, taking ahold of Mac's raised forearm, his hitching shoulder, and gently tugs. Mac's apologies are interrupted by a sudden sob, shaking his head and scrubbing his hands at his face.
Just let me hold you, Jack thinks and doesn't say, his own eyes stinging fiercely. He doesn't release his grip on Mac, instead applies fractionally more directional force, refusing to let Mac take another step backwards, away from what he's finally ready to admit he needs. Please, kid, for once just let me hold you.
It's slow and stumbling, but it's not hard to pull him. He doesn't put up any kind of resistance. By the time Jack is able to close his own arms around his partner, he's mercifully stopped trying to say he's sorry, apologies lost to wordless, grieving cries. Jack squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep, steadying breath, tucking Mac close against his chest and hugging him hard. The body in his arms shudders and shakes, his shirt where Mac's face is pressed against it growing hot and damp. Jack's hand runs over Mac's heaving upper back, feels the way he's still so rigidly tense, like if he relaxes even a fraction he'll fall and never get back up again.
"It's okay," Jack says, just loud enough to be heard over the sound of Mac's broken weeping. "I've got you. It's okay."
That's what does it. Mac's arms start pushing at him, pulling away just far enough to get them back around Jack. His fingers dig into the fabric of Jack's shirt, sure to leave wrinkles in the shape of two grasping fists. The strength goes out of him in an instant and any restraint left in Mac collapses as his body slumps forward, all his weight now against Jack's chest. The moment he gives in is accompanied by the worst sound Jack has ever heard, a raw, keening wail from somewhere deep in Mac's throat, muffled in Jack's collarbone.
"I've got you," Jack says again, his own voice wet and cracked. There's a headache beginning to build at the base of his skull and he feels close to breaking down and crying himself. He cups the back of Mac's head, fingers woven through bright blond hair, and tells him once more, "I've got you, kid." It's a promise and a praise, an encouragement for the massive vulnerability Mac is displaying now, the danger he surely believes he's putting himself in by allowing Jack to not only see him break down like this, but to hold him as he does.
They're there in the driveway together, Mac shaking to pieces in Jack's arms, Jack with his cheek pressed to the top of Mac's head talking nonsense to him in a low tone, for a long time. It's long enough that eventually Jack lowers them both to sit down on the pavement next to the car. He takes care not to push Mac away even a fraction in doing so, keeping him as close as possible, though for whose benefit he couldn't entirely say. Eventually Mac seems to run out of energy, violent sobs petered out into trembling breaths, bonelessly limp against Jack's chest. Still, Jack doesn't let go. He's not moving until Mac does, he's already decided, doesn't matter if this continues for a minute or an hour.
Jack never had children. The thought wanders idly through his mind as he watches the dying sun shine through the branches of the tree down the street. He doesn't know what it's like to have a son. He'd imagine, though, this is what it feels like to hold yours while he shatters. With this thought comes the realization, quiet and anticlimactic, that he would die, literally physically die right here and now, if it meant Mac would never hurt like this again. Jack lets this sit in his mind for a moment, palm splayed over Mac's back, feeling him breathe with the rise and fall of the ribcage under his palm.
This moment isn't going to last forever. Soon enough, Mac will sit up and move away, Jack will pull them both off the ground, and they'll go inside. For now, though, Jack has a lot of lost time to make up for.
