please forgive me for any practical or medical ridiculousness in this chapter, it is bound to exist, as i did minimal research and i'm basically here for a good time tbh. which means, naturally, mac and jack are about to have a bad time. enjoy, guys!

(chapter title from the mountain goats song 'absolute lithops effect')

(chapter warnings: description of serious injury, field medicine, adverse reaction to medication. brief use of needles.)


Jack can't breathe. His heart is thundering in his throat and he can't breathe around thick, relentless, choking fear, a kind of fear he's never felt before - just as he was starting to think he'd learned all the types of fear there were in the world, with this partnership. This is not the first time someone has hurt Mac on a mission. This is, however, the first time someone has taken him. One second they'd been about to head to the exfil point to rendezvous with their extraction team, and the next Jack was catching his last glimpse of Mac's wide, startled eyes, moments before the bag was pulled over his head and the van's doors closed around him. And just like that, he's gone.

The call from the exfil team comes just at the moment that Jack, running as fast as he can down the street, loses sight of the van. He talks over the man on the other end immediately when he accepts the call, voice too loud and too fast as he tells exfil team Sierra November's second in command, Vincent Stone, what's happened. Vincent tells him they're on their way, the call ends, and before Jack has hardly had time to process what's happening, he and three of the four members of Sierra November are scouring the city for any sign of Mac.

(And if exfil isn't technically supposed to assist field agents on missions, Jack isn't going to be the one to point it out. Besides, the mission was over before that van pulled up so, if anyone felt like splitting hairs about it, technically the abduction had taken place during exfiltration.)

It's only been an hour, but Jack feels like he's losing his mind. He can't shake the image of Mac's face, too surprised to be scared yet, then hidden by the hood. Riley's on the SAT-phone from their mission base, safe away from the action on this one, Jack's driving as fast as he can towards the last ping from Mac's cell, while the exfil team has left one person with the plane and sent the other three out to help. It's not a big city, but it feels massive to Jack now, when somewhere down those unfamiliar streets, there's a young man he is responsible for, having god knows what done to him god knows where.

This isn't supposed to happen. Jack is supposed to be better than this, and it's one thing for there to be a firefight or an ambush, something they can fight their way out of, something he can put himself in front of Mac doing to shield him from the worst of it, but now he's just… He's just gone. Jack can't protect him, doesn't even know what Mac needs protecting from right now, if someone is beating him, interrogating him, if he might be face-down in an alley somewhere, a bullet in his brilliant head.

But that's a path down which Jack cannot allow himself to go, because if he does, he really will panic, and panic isn't going to find Mac. Panic isn't going to get him home in one piece. So Jack grits his teeth and swings the car around another corner, towards the location Riley had pinged him to.

Mac isn't there. Jack sweeps the building and heads back out to his car, heart thudding so hard he can feel it in his chest, his throat, his hands around the steering wheel. Though he knows it's not true, that if there hadn't been enough time for Jack to draw his weapon there certainly wouldn't have been time for Mac to defend himself, there's a part of Jack that has to wonder if this is his fault. If maybe, if he hadn't talked Mac out of carrying that gun he'd obviously hated so much, then there might have been a chance that the abduction would have been unsuccessful. Jack's been doing this for long enough that he knows it isn't true as sure as he knows the color of the sky and the feel of the grass at his father's grave, but he's a different man now than he's been for the majority of the last decade-odd of his career. There's something new in him, something irrational and frightened, jumpy and prone to worst-case scenarios, and it's that part that's screaming at him now, you did this, you practically handed your boy to them defenseless and disarmed.

'You've got me,' he had said, down there in the shooting range, used as evidence that the gun Mac carried like it was a death sentence could be cast away and left behind. Fat lot of good having Jack had done Mac just now. It had still happened. He's still gone.

Jack is never afforded the chance to make up for this grievous failure. He gets the call while he's in the car, one of the exfil agents helping him search alerting him that they have Mac, he's alive, and they're barrelling towards the original meeting location as fast as possible. Routing himself swiftly in the same direction, Jack doesn't even have to ask before the answer to his question is provided in the rushed, strained voice of Thomas King, Sierra November's most junior operative. Thomas tells him that he and his partner, they hadn't even really found Mac themselves - Mac had found them, having broke himself out of the warehouse his captors had taken him to and made an instant beeline for where he knew they were supposed to meet Sierra for take-off.

Before Jack can demand that Thomas put Mac on the phone, the call is ended, and Jack is left to drive alone to the location of their transport plane. He updates Riley on the way and tries to sound as reassuring as possible while also not betraying exactly how little he knows about Mac's condition. The rest of the drive passes in a blur, and Jack leaves the car where he parks it, door hanging open as he runs for the plane.

An hour and a half. In all, the entire nightmare lasts a crisp ninety minutes, less than the run time of most Hollywood movies, but to Jack, it felt like days. Well, no, that's not entirely right. To Jack, it's not over yet, not completely. Because they may have Mac with them again, the small military transport plane may be streaking across the sky under the guidance of Sierra's second in command, but something is still very, very wrong.

With concerned suspicion, Jack watches Mac. He's huddled by the far wall of the interior bay of the transport plane, wedged between two seats. They'd all strapped in for takeoff, but as soon as it was safe, Mac had been up and out of the seat, moving unnaturally. With the chaos and the rush and then takeoff, Jack hasn't been able to get a good look at him yet, and neither has Sierra's team lead, the person arguably the most comprehensively medically trained on this plane right now. Exfil teams all go through rigorous medical training, by necessity, and Jack happens to know that this particular team lead, Lucia Sosa, has been through more than most. They exchange a glance, and Jack is up, heading over towards his partner.

"Mac?" he says, in an unsuccessful bid to get his attention. There's no response, Mac remaining pressed against the rigging rope stretched out over the wall. He's turned sharply towards it, facing away from Jack, like he's guarding the far side of his body. Jack steps closer, slowly closing the space separating them, and says again, louder, "Mac?"

The moment Jack gets close enough to hear, over the sound of the plane's engines, the absolutely gutting noises escaping Mac's shallowly heaving chest, everything about what they thought had happened, the miraculously clean getaway they thought they'd made, crumbles to dust. The reality crashes into him he as Mac's hand shoots out and grabs onto the side of his jacket, fingers curling white-knuckled over leather while his knees almost give out under him. Jack tries to help, to catch him and shift him over to the seats, but Mac lets out a frantic, wordless noise, pulling his left side as far away from Jack's reaching grip as possible, while maintaining the hold now keeping him upright.

"Lucia!" Jack's voice rises to a near yell as he calls for Sierra November's team lead. That panic he'd felt earlier, the fear that had risen high in his lungs and trying to claw its way straight out of him, is back, beginning to build up once more. "Get over here, he's hurt."

Hurt might be understating things. It's obvious, now that Jack is close enough, hands hovering over his partner's body, unsure if there's anywhere it's safe to touch him, that Mac is in so much pain he can't speak. His eyes are narrowed so far they're nearly closed, breathing in thin whistling gasps through clenched teeth. There's no blood Jack can see, at least until he looks down at the hand still holding onto his jacket like Mac's going to collapse without that anchor point. There's a circle around his wrist, reddened, purpling marks pressed harshly into his skin as deep bruising is beginning to form, interspersed with a few places where the damage has broken through, blood smeared up his forearm where it had previously been hidden by his sleeve.

When Jack leans over to try and get a look at his left side, where the damage is obviously concentrated judging by Mac's body language, he gets the same response as when he'd tried to catch the kid, Mac jerking back and making a panicked, formless sound. If it had been a word, it might have been 'don't'.

"Okay, okay," Jack tries to soothe, risking taking ahold of the arm still reached out and holding onto him, supporting Mac by the bicep and shoulder. This seems to be acceptable, as no further distress is indicated, and Jack says a second time, more urgently, "Lucia, please!"

"What's going on?" Lucia asks as she approaches, plastic snaps sounding as she opens what's presumably a highly well-stocked first-aid kit.

"Was he like this in the car?" Jack snaps without looking over his shoulder, bypassing her question with one of his own. He can't tear his eyes off his partner, still trying to assess what the hell could possibly be wrong with him. There's a flash of silver from where his left arm is blocked by his body, shielded between Mac's torso and the wall of the plane, and the math starts doing itself in Jack's head. The damage to his right wrist, the fact that the pain seems to be concentrated around his left arm, the silver. Handcuffs. There's still a pair of handcuffs, hanging off Mac's blocked wrist.

"No," Lucia says, her own voice clipped and intent, seeming to take no umbrage at his tone. "Thomas said he seemed rattled and out of breath but mostly okay. But adrenaline could've blocked the worst of it until now, he could've hid it or not even noticed himself. Agent MacGyver, can you hear me? I need to look at your arm, can you-"

"No!"

It's the first coherent sound Mac has made since the plane took off, one half-crazed word in response to Lucia reaching out for him, towards his injured arm. The look on his face reminds Jack of an animal caught in a trap, wounded, out of its mind with pain and fear. It doesn't escape Jack's notice that, when Mac had tried to scramble away this time, he'd ended up further behind Jack, now squeezed as far as possible between Jack and the nearest seat. With this shift, Jack is now between him and Lucia, who Mac may not even have the presence of mind to recognize right now. With the dramatically increased proximity, Jack can feel the tension in his body, the way Mac is shaking, trembling from head to toe.

"It's okay," Jack tells him, feels the woeful inadequacy of the words even as they leave his mouth. "It's Lucia Sosa, exfil Sierra November's lead, remember? We know her. We can trust her. She's gotta take a look at your arm there, buddy, we don't know how bad you're hurt."

"I ca-" It's an attempt at actual speech, cut off midway by a quick gasp of breath, Mac closing his eyes hard and gritting his teeth to ride out the wave of agony that's overtaken him, short-circuiting anything else. When it passes, he tries again, knuckles pressed into Jack's side where he's still holding on, "Can't- Ca-an't- Jack, I-"

It's almost as helpless a feeling to stand here watching this, unable to do anything about it, unable to even see what there needs to be something done about, as it had been during those ninety minutes Mac had been missing. Now, Jack does look, glancing over to Lucia, searching for any kind of guidance on what to do next, because he's found himself out of options.

"What are you doing?" he asks, when he sees her knelt down on the floor, kit open on the seat in front of her. She's rifling through a set of little glass bottles, syringe in its sterile packaging already set out.

"Painkiller, heavy duty. Nobody but you is going to get close enough to touch him, and I don't think it's your medical skills you want evaluating your partner right now, am I correct on that?" When Jack nods, Lucia does too. "So we're going to have to medicate him beforehand if we want to do anything about this, and we're going to have to, if we don't want to risk permanent damage. I can't even assess him like this. Do you understand?" Another nod from him, and she tells him, "Good. Now try and make sure he does. I'm not coming at an even semi-conscious trained field agent with a needle if he doesn't know what's going on."

Seeing her point, Jack turns his attention back to Mac and attempts to explain what needs to happen. It's clear that Mac is at least somewhat processing what he's saying, and when he gets to the words 'pain medication', he shakes his head so harshly that shaggy blond hair brushes Jack's cheek.

"No, I can, c'n-"

"Mac we have to, Lucia has to check out your arm, we need to know how bad it is."

Mac shakes his head again, and Jack is about to keep arguing when he starts talking, actually talking in real words it's obviously taking everything out of him to speak.

"Only- Only hurts-" The sentence is coming in short, cut-off bursts, forced out on panting breaths, mostly air and not a lot of sound. Jack does his best not to interrupt, to give Mac the space he needs to get out whatever he's trying to say in the choppy, barely comprehensible speech that's all the pain has left him with. "Be-Because I can't- Cal-lm- Down."

Okay, he must be really out of his mind, because that doesn't make a lick of sense at all, and nothing else follows it.

"What are you saying, Mac?" Jack asks, hating drawing this out any longer than necessary, but knowing at the same time that he's not going to drug Mac by force, not when there's the option of talking him around to the idea.

"It only- H-hurts-" Mac tries again, a little stronger this time. The agony, pulsing through him in waves, must be at an ebb, because he's able to get it out with more clarity and fewer pauses. "'Cause I'm pa… I'm panicking. 'F I calm- Calm down, it'll-" A longer pause, deep breaths in through Mac's nose, out through gritted teeth, accompanied by a faint, suppressed keen. "It'll be better. Jus' gotta, gotta calm down."

Now that Jack understands, and it is maybe the biggest crock of horse-shit he has ever heard in his life. He's got a pretty damn good idea who he has to thank for it, too, but right now fantasies of breaking James MacGyver's arm and telling him it'll feel better if he just calms down while denying him pain medication have to take a backseat to caring for Mac. He wants to yell, to get angry, to say 'hell no it doesn't hurt because you're panicking, it hurts because someone hurt you, because your arm is all messed up and your body's full of nerves that are supposed to tell you when something is wrong and no amount of calm down is gonna change that'. But that's not going to help, in fact yelling at Mac is maybe the worst thing he could do at present, so Jack tries a different tactic.

"You're a science whiz, right?" The question takes Mac by surprise, Jack can see that it does, and he tilts his head to the side. He's breathing more heavily again, and Jack would bet the agony is rebuilding, leaving him with a very short window to get his point across before Mac is going to be too out of it to talk to again. "So you know some stuff about nerves and receptors and brains and whatever. So you know that's bullshit. We'll talk about the bullshit later, don't think for a second we won't, kid, but right now, please, please just listen to the part of you that knows that's junk science and let Lucia help you."

There's a long, stiff silence broken only by the plane's engines whirring and Mac's labored, damp breathing. His eyes, looking searchingly at Jack, are hooded and fogged as things most definitely creep worse and worse, and finally, finally he nods.

"You're good to go," Jack tells Lucia, who is, when he looks over, fiddling with some kind of touch-screen tablet. "Can you play with that later, we've got-"

"To run the drug I'm about to inject your partner with through our system against his DXS medical personnel file so we can be sure it's not going to kill him, Agent Dalton." Her voice is cool and calm, completely focused on selecting something on the screen, then scrolling through the next option, down a list of names to pick FIELD AGENT - MACGYVER, A. out of it. The device thinks for a second, then throws up a grey box, fading out the rest of the screen. The text is big enough Jack can read it, CLEARED FOR USE. With the system's go-ahead, Lucia makes quick work of administering the drugs she's assembled, three in all.

With each prick of the needle, Mac momentarily loses what amount of control he's been able to retain over his reactions, and he flinches, muted whines escaping through tightly pursed lips. Once she's done, Lucia backs away, allowing Mac to essentially hide from the rest of them behind Jack while they wait for the medications to take effect. Jack keeps his hold on Mac's good arm with one hand, reaching out with the other to clasp the back of his neck. His grip is firm, hopefully applying enough pressure to help Mac feel grounded and safe but not trapped.

Soon, but not nearly soon enough for Jack's liking, the noises Mac has been unable to hold in, muted humming and muffled whimpers he's too hurt to snuff out, quiet and fade. Jack feels the stranglehold on his own heart and lungs fade with it, easing somewhat as some of the rigid tension melts from Mac's body. The painkillers are taking effect. Thank God, Jack thinks, at last able to help Mac to sit down, sitting beside him to support him as Lucia begins her exam. Thank God, thank God.

The verdict could be much worse, but it isn't good. Mac's left shoulder is dislocated, and so is his wrist, the handcuffs digging into swollen skin, bruised and torn under the unforgiving metal. It makes Jack feel sick, nearly whites out his vision with anger, but he forces himself to look anyway. This is what he's supposed to protect Mac from, and it's not like Mac was afforded the opportunity to look away. Why should Jack be allowed to? So he watches, jaw clenched so tight the muscle aches, holding Mac steady as Lucia gets about treating the injuries to the best of her ability. He's barely conscious at this point, and Jack is quietly grateful for this. Even when the cuffs are finally unlocked and pulled gingerly away from his damaged wrist, Mac doesn't really react.

The point at which Mac's shoulder is relocated under Lucia's careful handywork, braced with his back against Jack's chest and Jack's arms around him holding him still, and his only reaction is a barely half-hearted jerk against the hold and a high-pitched whine, is where Jack starts getting worried. He helps shift Mac forward as Lucia straps his arm to his chest, then allowing him to slump back against the older agent, mumbling something inaudible and pained sounding under his breath. It's a different kind of incoherency than before, and Jack knows pain medication can set people out of sorts, but something about this feels off.

"Lucia," Jack says over where Mac's head has fallen to rest against his collarbone. The feeling of Mac's weight completely resting in his arms, head low and heavy against his chest, it sparks a furnace in him, protective and fierce. It's the second time he's been afforded this privilege, been allowed to hold Mac like he's wanted to a hundred times over, but this feels different than it had on the pavement of the driveway outside the house. This time, it feels far less like something Mac has decided to do, to permit.

"What are you seeing, Jack?" the woman asks him, shrewd senses honed by years leading one of the best exfil teams in the business allowing her to pinpoint immediately that he's noticed something wrong.

"Something's not right," he tells her, gesturing with his chin down at the still, spaced out form in his arms. "This isn't right, did you sedate him?"

Frowning, Lucia resumes the seat on the opposite side of Mac, reaching out to tap his cheek and get his attention. Mac's eyes roam around the room, landing on her for a moment, he mumbles something else, and he's gone again. Gone where, Jack doesn't know.

"No," Lucia says shortly, sounding as unnerved as Jack feels, "I didn't. The meds I gave him are strong but not this strong." Her voice raises as she directs her words to Mac, saying, "Agent MacGyver, I need you to look at me, can you do that?"

This time, Mac tries to sit up, and about topples forward out of his seat, halted only by the twin sharp reflexes of Jack and Lucia, guiding him back into Jack's careful hold.

"Patti?" It's the first word Mac's said since given the drugs that's been halfway understandable, and then he does something really alarming. He giggles. Mac honest to God giggles, and says, voice hazy and disoriented, "Nah, 's not Patti. M' dad fired her when he fired… He fired eve-r-r-r-ybody. Hi, Patti, y' not here."

If it weren't so unsettling, Jack would probably find it funny. But it is unsettling, quickly approaching frightening, because Mac is always so in control, so keenly aware of himself and his surroundings, and this shouldn't be happening. Jack can tell his suspicions were correct, that this reaction isn't right, from the look on Lucia's face. She returns to the kit and rummages around until she finds a pen light, coming back over to check Mac's eyes for something. Then she glances over her shoulder.

"Thomas," she says to her teammate, "I need you to pull up Agent MacGyver's DXS medical file in the system for me, please. Now."

The young man does as he's told, tapping around on the tablet looking at something, presumably Mac's file.

"What's going on?" Jack asks. He hates being left out of the loop under the best of circumstances, and having his partner half-conscious and out of his mind in his arms is far, far from the best of circumstances.

"I'm trying to figure that out," Lucia tells him then turns back and asks, "Thomas, can you read me the allergy and sensitivity section, please?"

"No, I can't. I mean I literally can't, boss, it's blank." There's a tense pause as Thomas scrolls, finger flicking across the screen. "The whole thing, it's blank. Got his name, Angus MacGyver, and a date of birth, but there's nothing else in here, we literally don't even have his blood type."

There's a ringing in Jack's ears, and Lucia swears quietly. She returns her attention to Mac, asks him a series of questions as she checks his pulse and gets a temperature read, working efficiently around Jack's hold on him without drawing attention to it. Her questions, when they get answers at all, don't elicit anything understandable from Mac, and eventually she sits back in her seat, looking tired and worried.

"I'm almost positive that he's having an adverse reaction to the medication," Lucia tells Jack, calmly and professionally. "It's not anaphylactic, his airway seems clear, and he doesn't seem to be in any danger, but he's obviously got some kind of allergy or at least a sensitivity to what we've given him. We'll get him straight to medical when we get back to base, but in the meantime, I don't want to try and give him anything else. I can't think of what could counteract this, but even if there was something we could try, I don't want to risk it given the issue with his file." Something changes in her face then, her expression hardening and her voice taking on an odd edge. "The issue with his file, which I'm sure you'll be getting to the bottom of and addressing before it can cause any more problems."

Mac shifts, mumbling something unintelligible, and Jack's grip on him tightens fractionally. He nods once, mouth set in a grim line, and tells her, "Yeah. I sure will be." Because something like that, it can't be an accident. And while Jack doesn't think James would deliberately place his son's life in danger for the hell of it, he's also not sure the man would be above endangering it for what he convinced himself was a good reason. The question is what kind of reason would be good enough for James to scrub his son's medical file, leaving them without vital information necessary to ensure his safety.

Since Mac was too out of it, first with pain and then thanks to the adverse reaction to the drugs, they weren't able to get any answers out of him as to what actually happened to injure him so badly. They get the footage from Riley, back home, hacked out of a surveillance camera left behind by whatever company still owned the disused warehouse. Jack is nearly sick watching it, the moment that Mac, mid-escape and still cuffed, is nearly caught, rough hands sending him down and over a low ledge and onto the ground below. It's a miracle he'd avoided bouncing his head off the concrete floor - it would've meant a concussion at the very least, if not a cracked skull - but his shoulder had consequently taken the brunt of the impact. There's no sound attached to the video, but Jack can see it when Mac screams.

Unable to stand it any longer, he closes out of the video and hands the tablet it was played on back to Matty. She accepts it without a word, and they both look at the door to medical, the one behind which Mac is currently being x-rayed, just in case either of the dislocations came with any broken bones. Riley's sitting down on a bench by the wall, unwilling to force herself to watch the footage again. Jack can't say he blames her. He scrubs a hand over his face and tries not to sigh too audibly.

"The Director's ordered his assistant to take Mac to a safe-house when he's cleared by medical." Just when Jack was thinking this day couldn't possibly get worse, Matty says that.

"What?" he asks, hoping he's just heard wrong. Of course, he's got no such luck.

"Says with the reaction to the pain meds he's in no condition to lie to his roommate and it's too much a risk he'll blow his cover. So he told Warren to take Mac to a safe-house as soon as he's cleared, and send someone in to check on him every couple hours."

Matty's barely finished her sentence before Jack is shaking his head, responding, "Screw that, absolutely not. Kid's coming home with me, no way in hell I'm letting that man throw him in some random-ass empty safe-house alone when he got kidnapped, battered, and is now off his ass on painkillers he can't tolerate. He needs to be somewhere actually safe, with someone who will take care of him, and so I'll be taking him home and I'd like to see someone try and stop me." He has to admit the idea of a safe-house is just barely preferable to the idea of sending Mac home with James himself, but just barely. Either way, it's not happening.

"I know." Matty's got one eyebrow raised at him, and if it had been less of a godawful day from start to finish, Jack might've felt embarrassed for the strength of his reaction. "That's why I told Warren I'd take care of it myself. Soon as medical releases him, you're good to take him home."

With that firmly understood, Jack feels the fight drain out of him. He's suddenly and brutally exhausted, walking a few short steps to sit down next to Riley. It's a sign of exactly how hard she's silently taking this too that, when he does, she shifts closer, pressing slightly into his side. Matty stays standing, but moves to the opposite side of the hallway, leaning back into the wall and folding her arms. They're alone there, the three of them, and it's noticing this that prompts Jack to speak, in a low, serious voice.

"Someone wiped his file." When Matty narrows her eyes at him and Riley stiffens next to him, Jack elaborates. "It's why he had the reaction. Exfil runs medications against DXS personnel files before they give anybody anything in the field. They checked what they gave him, it came up all clear, but after he started acting weird, we checked, and his medical file is completely empty. Apparently not even his blood type is on there. I think the Director cleared his file, and I have no idea why."

"We'll add it to the list of things the Director does that we can't find a reason for," Riley says, angry but in a muted, tired kind of way.

"We'll get to the bottom of it all. Soon. I know we will," Matty tells them, the only one of the three of them who seems sure of that. Jack can't tell if it's because she is, or because she's gotten so good at her leadership poker face that not even he can see through it. Maybe, right now, he doesn't want to know. So, instead, he accepts it at face value, and hopes she's right.

Compared to how he'd been on the plane, when Mac is released into Jack's care, he's doing much better. He's no longer giggling at random, and he doesn't require a wheelchair to get him to Jack's car, which is an improvement, but things are far from normal. There's a spaced out look on his face, and he leans on Jack to stay upright, swaying as Jack buckles him into his seat.

"Goin' home?" Mac asks when Jack steps away, ready to close the door. He pauses, looks at the unfocused gaze Mac has locked on him, and nods.

"Yeah, buddy," he says softly, giving in to an impulse and reaching out to adjust the seatbelt over Mac's good shoulder for no reason other than to have an excuse to touch him again, gentle and protective. "I'm gonna take you home."

It's a long, slow process, but eventually Jack gets them both back to his own apartment, and Mac changed into borrowed clothes. Jack's hardly taller than Mac by an inch or two, but he's much broader, and he looks a little ridiculous in the big green hoodie Jack manages to get on him, one arm pulled through a sleeve with the other, still strapped to his chest, zipped into the body of the sweatshirt. The Dallas Stars logo on the front stretches oddly across the misshapen terrain of Mac's braced and bandaged arm under it, and Jack shakes his head fondly at the sight.

They're on Jack's couch together, the television playing quietly in the background. It's something low-key and non-stressful, far from the usual action movies he tends to favor. An episode of Northern Exposure, the show Jack had referenced back in January when they'd first arrived in Duluth, Minnesota, lights the room as Mac drifts farther and farther from consciousness. He's stopped talking completely by now, laid out on his side with his legs bent to allow Jack room to sit at the other end. His eyes are almost closed, good arm hanging down towards the floor and a pillow bunched up under his head.

Before the second episode is over, Mac is out cold. Jack turns the TV off with a click of the remote, and the room shutters into silence, lit only by a lamp in the far corner. He moves slowly and tries not to make noise as he gets up and walks to a hall closet, pulling out a blanket. It's thick and heavy, and Jack shakes it out, draping it over Mac and adjusting it around his body, smoothing down creases and tucking in the corners. With this goal complete, Jack stills and just looks at him for a long moment, studying his partner's (his kid's whispers a corner of his brain that's been getting louder and harder to ignore) sleeping face.

"Things are going to turn out okay for you," Jack says, voice barely above a whisper. There's a pain in his chest, dull and hot, pulsing with his heartbeat. He can't quite figure out what it is or why it's there, though he suspects it's something to do with the person wearing his hoodie over a badly injured arm, asleep on his couch. The hockey team logo rises and falls with Mac's even, steady breaths, and his face is smooth, expressionless and at peace. Reaching down, hip propped against the arm rest, Jack brushes an errant lock of hair away from Mac's forehead. Tries to ignore the sharp flare in that indescribable pain. "I'm going to make sure of it."