The Kitchen, Downtown Los Angeles
Present Day
1900 hrs
Matty
She'd requested a table toward the back of the restaurant, away from the floor-to-ceiling front windows. They were near enough to the actual kitchen she could see flames from the grill and hear the line cooks calling to each other in various languages—none of them English. The interior of the restaurant was very industrial-chic in design: high, exposed ceilings and duct work, steel pillars, and large, welded metal chandeliers. Aside from the front windows, facing the busy thoroughfare of 9th street, the rest of the building was constructed with stone walls and cinder blocks.
The designer had wisely partitioned the layout of the warehouse-like space so that half-walls broke up the flow and cut down on the echo of voices. As Matty waited for her team at a long, rectangular table, she appreciated the noise-canceling effect of the architecture. She'd purposefully arrived early, ensuring there would be space for them and ordered champagne for the table.
Bozer and Leanna were first to arrive, dressed for a night out. Both looked suitably impressed by this particular 'mission' and sat where Matty indicated with broad grins on their faces. She ignored their inquiries and simply encouraged them to decide what to eat.
Mac was next; he arrived alone, which surprised Matty.
He had apparently also gotten the memo that this was a nicer occasion as he wore dark jeans rather than his usual cargo pants, and his navy-blue, long-sleeved dress shirt had been recently ironed. He looked no more rested than he'd appeared that morning, but he was moving easier. Apparently, someone had convinced him to take the pain meds. He sat next to Matty, facing out toward the restaurant, eyes on the other patrons.
There was a simmering tension about him.
She watched as his fingers worried the edge of the table cloth, adjusted the utensils at his place setting until everything was symmetrical, and sipped his water, smiling tightly at Bozer and Leanna. She watched Bozer frown at his friend, but let the moment pass rather than press the issue here. When she couldn't take it any longer, she slid two paperclips over toward Mac.
He looked at her with surprise.
"Just, do your thing, Blondie," she muttered, a small smile ghosting her lips. "You're about as anxious as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs."
At that, Mac barked a surprised laugh, picking up the paperclips. "You've been hanging around Jack too long," he grinned.
She smiled back, and saw the tension begin to ease the minute his hands were busy. Bozer's enthusiastic greeting of Riley and Jack alerted her to their arrival. Jack apologized for running late and tugged on the edges of his slim-cut leather jacket, adjusting the cuffs over his white shirt before he pulled out Riley's chair for her.
With a slightly exasperated sigh, Riley explained that she had a little last-minute job to do for their collective boss.
"He had me run an algorithm on the video from the new TAC vests," Riley explained as she sat next to Leanna, their black dresses almost identical, apart from Riley's capped sleeves. "I'm not sure what he was looking for, but he wanted the results sent directly to his personal secured server."
Matty narrowed her eyes; she suspected she knew what Oversight was after, but she didn't want to go into it now. Jack dropped into the chair on the other side of her, across from Mac, and grinned at the younger man.
"You are seriously like a damn Boy Scout," Jack teased, nodded toward the paperclips. "Always prepared."
Mac grinned. "I left the Boy Scouts," he reminded Jack, "and for your information, Matty brought these."
"Did she, now?" Jack whipped his cloth napkin from the table and snapped it in the air before dropping across his lap. "And here I thought you hated that bowl of paperclips, Matilda?"
"We reserve the right to be smarter today than we were yesterday, Jack," Matty gave him a look. "And I realized it's much smarter to give Baby Einstein here something to occupy himself with when he's bored…unless I want to end up with a dinner table that can transform into a semi-truck."
Bozer and Riley laughed, while Leanna tilted her head questioningly. "You could do that?"
Mac lifted a shoulder, a half-grin exposing his dimple. "Well, maybe not a semi-truck, but I could turn it into a go-cart pretty easily."
Jack chuckled, then looked over at Matty. "Okay, boss-lady. You going to tell us what gives?"
"Yeah, gotta admit, I'm curious," Bozer chimed in. "Especially since we usually all meet over at Mac's place when we get together."
"Exactly," Matty nodded. "This time, I wanted to bring this team together away from the office, away from our usual hide-aways, and show you all some appreciation."
Riley and Mac exchanged a surprised look while Jack leaned forward on his elbows, his expression serious. "What's going on, Matty? You resigning?"
Matty chuckled. "No, Jack. I'm here until Oversight boots me out."
Mac's face closed at the mention of his father and he sat back, fingers reshaping the paperclips.
Matty looked around the table. "You all have done amazing work," she started.
The younger agents looked at each other, questions and uncertainty in their expressions, but Jack never took his eyes off Matty. She caught his soft, appreciative smile and rested her gaze on him for a moment.
"When I first took over the role of Director, I wasn't sure what I'd been given."
Glancing around the table, she continued, "I had a seasoned, pain-in-the-ass soldier," she let her lips quirk into a smile to soften the teasing tone, "a genius that wouldn't know a process and procedures rule book if I hit him with it, a brilliant hacker, and a would-be movie director who hadn't even heard of spy school."
She watched them glance at each other.
"You were a bunch of misfits who discovered you belong to each other. You've came together as a team, you gathered other misfits to you," she nodded at Leanna, "and you stepped up. You've…made a family."
Jack folded his hands in a tent above his plate, nodding as he glanced down, then across at Mac before shifting his eyes back toward Matty.
"Recently, this family has dealt with some…tough blows," she let her eyes roam the table, thinking Jill should have been there, guilt gnawing at her a bit more because she was not, "and some pretty big losses. And loss is never easy."
"I've been in this business a long time," she glanced at Jack with a soft smile. "I've seen some of the best agents…and some of the worst. I've had friends die on my watch, and I've seen others move on to build families and follow new paths."
She saw the waiters bring the champagne to the far end of the table, Riley and Bozer looking up to acknowledge them, and then went on.
"We've been through some tests lately," she said, glancing at Mac. The young agent was listening, she could tell, but hadn't looked at her since she began talking. He was staring intently at the paperclips in his hands, his fingers constantly moving. "And we're going to be tested more—that's just life. But I think we've shown that when we come together…when we act as a true team…there's nothing we can't overcome."
As if to punctuate her sentence, one of the waiters popped the cork from a bottle of champagne. At the sound, Mac jumped, flinching so violently his hand bounced against his place setting and knocked over his water glass. Matty looked over at the blond agent in surprise, her heart constricting at the stark fear that cut across his expression for a moment.
"Whoa, bud," Jack teased, picking up the water glass and dropping his napkin on the spill. "No need to empty your glass, pretty sure they've got extras."
Mac blinked, swallowing, and looked around the table where the rest of the team was staring at him with a mixture of surprise and concern.
"Sorry," he muttered, nodding at the waiter to continue pouring the drinks. He looked quickly over at Matty, his expression once more schooled to neutral. "I'm sorry, Matty."
"It's okay," Matty said softly, smiling gently at him. "I think we could all use that drink right about now."
"You can say that again," Riley chimed in, smiling at Mac.
The team raised their glasses toward the middle of the table.
"To the best damn spies this country has ever not seen," Jack toasted, a grin on his face, his eyes on Mac.
"Cheers!" The team clinked glasses together and drank.
"So, wait. The mission tonight is…dinner?" Bozer asked as he opened his menu.
Matty raised an eyebrow at him. "You always were a quick one," she teased.
"Nicely done, Matty," Jack said quietly, his dark eyes warm and sincere.
Matty smiled at him. "We need a break, don't you think?"
"I do," Jack nodded, glancing over at Mac, a frown slipping across his features, before he smoothed it out and looked back at her. "I do indeed."
Matty glanced over at Mac and saw that the blond had set the paperclips next to his plate when he picked up his menu. The source of Jack's frown was clear when she saw the shape Mac's fingers had formed: the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. She was pretty sure the Phoenix psych department would have a field day with the young agent.
"What kind of steak do they have in this place?" Jack exclaimed, opening his menu and making a show of reading off the entrees.
The team seemed to relax into the familiar process of selecting and ordering. Even Mac seemed back to his typical, light-hearted self, joining Riley and Leanna in teasing Bozer about his latest music acquisition. Jack chatted with Matty—their history fodder for humor as well as caution. Mid-way through their meal, the chef came out from the kitchen to check on their satisfaction.
Matty looked up at the young face and smiled politely, but before she could compliment the meal, she heard an exclamation from Mac.
"Flynn?"
The young chef looked up and surprise cut across his face. "MacGyver?"
Jack's head shot up and he glanced from Mac to the man standing next to Matty. "Holy shit! If it isn't Specialist Henry Flynn himself!"
The chef's face broke out into a broad smile and he grabbed Mac up in a hard hug as Mac gained his feet, then moved around to do the same to Jack, the other man's grip dislodging the chef's hat.
"What are the odds, huh?" Flynn laughed, blue eyes sparkling, jet-black curls sticking up hap-hazardly from where the chef's hat had kept them tamed. Matty thought he looked only a few years older than Mac. "How are you guys?"
"We're good, bud!" Jack said, his hand still on Flynn's shoulder. He handed the hat back to Flynn. "What are you, head waiter?"
"Bus boy," Flynn joked.
Mac stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes taking in the young chef as though he couldn't believe he was real. "This is your place?"
Flynn nodded. "Opened last month. All my Mama's recipes."
"Your Mama knew what she was doing," Bozer spoke up. "The food is amazing."
Riley and Leanna nodded enthusiastically.
"Flynn, meet our team," Jack said, sweeping his arm to include the table. "Guys, meet Henry Flynn, best damn cook in the US Army."
Flynn nodded to the table. "So, team of…what?"
Jack glanced over at Mac. "We, uh…work at a think tank," he explained.
"A think tank?" Flynn laughed. He jerked a thumb toward Mac. "Okay, this one I buy, but what do they have you doing? Security?"
"Funny," Jack gave Flynn a light punch to the shoulder.
Flynn looked over at Mac. "Guess he meant what he said, huh?"
Mac smiled, his eyes briefly finding Jack's. "Guess so."
"What did you say, Jack?" Riley asked.
Jack shrugged, rubbing the back of his head. "Oh, you know. The usual big damn hero stuff."
"Nah, this guy," Flynn clapped a hand Jack's shoulder, "is the real deal. He said he wasn't going to let MacGyver out of his sight." He looked at Mac. "What was it, about a month before your tour was up?"
"Forty-two days," Mac replied, his voice going tight again.
Matty shot him a worried look before turning her attention back toward Flynn.
"Not that he was counting," Flynn grinned at the table. "Anyway, a bunch of us were caught in a Charlie Foxtrot if there ever was one, and these two appear like superheroes. Mac basically saves our asses with, like, a toothpick—"
"Paperclip," Mac interrupted, his face coloring as he glanced back at the table. "It was a paperclip."
"Whatever, man, you were incredible. And Dalton, here, just doesn't know when to quit. He kept Mac alive long enough, we all got out of there," Flynn shook his head, remembering.
"Well, not all of us," Mac amended.
Sobering, Flynn nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Man…I never thought I'd see you guys again."
"Hell, I never thought you'd be a chef at some swanky L.A. restaurant, there, Cookie," Jack grinned.
Flynn smiled at him, his eyes shining a bit with sudden emotion. "I'm glad you made it home," he looked over at Mac, "and I'm glad you're still working together. You two made a pretty kick-ass team."
"That's the truth," Jack smiled at Mac. The blond clearly tried to echo the expression, but his mouth was tight. He nodded instead.
"I gotta get back to it," Flynn said, tugging the chef's hat back into place, "but if you guys need anything you just ask. And, hey, dessert is on me."
"Thank you, Henry," Matty said, smiling at him.
As Flynn walked away, Mac and Jack sat back down, staring at each other.
"What do you know about that," Jack breathed in wonder. "Henry Fucking Flynn."
"I wasn't sure he made it out," Mac said softly. "I mean, he was…." His voice tapered, and his gaze drifted to the paperclip shape he'd set next to his plate.
"Shoot, kid," Jack pulled his head back. "It's not like you were in much better shape."
"Are paperclips standard-issue for EOD Techs?" Bozer teased.
"You'd think so, the way this one always found a way to use them," Jack replied. Matty shot her eyes over to Mac and saw the younger agent was staring sightlessly at his plate. Jack continued, "Between those and that little knife of his, Uncle Sam should re-evaluate their EOD supply list. He might've been the slowest bomb tech on the planet, but he dismantled something like…500 ordnances."
"So, what happened with Flynn?" Leanna asked.
Matty saw Riley and Bozer shoot her twin looks, and she pressed her lips closed, wincing her apology. When Mac didn't reply, Jack frowned, ducking his head to try to catch the younger man's eye.
"Mac?"
Mac lifted his head, staring with a groggy sort of confusion across the table at his partner. Matty noticed the blue of his eyes seemed to stand about a bit—like neon against blood-shot white.
"Hey, bud. Where'd you go just then?" Jack asked.
"I, uh…," Mac blinked, shaking his head slightly, then glanced down the table. "I'll be right back," he said, standing. "Restroom."
He moved away from the table before anyone could react.
Jack exhaled slowly, dropping his head into the hammock of his hands. "What are the fucking odds?"
Matty rested a hand on his forearm. "What is it?"
Jack swallowed, lifting his head and straightening up. "It was…," he glanced at Matty, then looked down the table at Bozer who frowned in response. "It was the Kandahar rescue," he said and Matty watched as Bozer drew his chin up, closing his eyes in realization. "And Flynn was being kind when he called it a clusterfuck."
"Kandahar, as in…," Matty let her voice fade, dropping her chin as she started at Jack.
"Yeah," Jack nodded. "Same time as that…flashback."
Bozer leaned his elbows on the table. "Mac used to get these nightmares," he said softly, his eyes going to Jack as though making sure it was okay that he revealed this information, "when he got back. Sometimes they'd get so bad, he'd come in and sleep on the floor in my room. He never talked about them, until this one time when he said it was about Kandahar."
"Flynn wouldn't remember it the same way Mac and I do," Jack said, rubbing the back of his head. "He was unconscious for a lot of it."
Matty ran her fingers along the edge of the table, her eyes drifting once more to the paperclip next to Mac's plate.
"Did he ever…y'know," Leanna shrugged, looking for the right words, "get help? When you guys got home?"
Jack shook his head, but Matty spoke up. "It's not how Mac does things," she said quietly. "He never really learned how to ask for help—he's always just had to figure out how to survive his life on his own."
"Matty, you talk like you've known him as long as I have," Bozer commented, bringing his chin up in question.
"In a way," Matty gave Bozer a small smile, "I have."
"I should go check on him," Jack said, pushing his chair back and preparing to stand up.
But in that moment, the world turned inside out. The floor seemed to jolt, as if a freight train had run full-tilt into the restaurant, and then the whole room began to shake.
"Oh, my god," Matty breathed. "It's an earthquake."
"Holy shit—Matty, get under the table!" Jack ordered, grabbing her from her chair before she had a chance to follow his instructions and pulling her up against him as he took cover beneath the heavy-duty table.
Struggling to turn her head as Jack shielded her, Matty saw that Bozer had his arms around both Leanna and Riley; they were crowded under the table as well. The Earth continued to shake, sending Jack sideways more than once, forcing him to catch his balance while not crushing her.
The noise within the restaurant was chaotic.
Matty could hear crashing, shattering, and what sounded like small explosions. People screamed, sirens wailed, and the Earth shook. She began to feel nauseous from the movement. It felt like hours, but in reality could have only been minutes, when the shaking began to subside to a tremble then stop entirely.
With unsteady hands, Matty pushed her hair from her face, pressing gently against Jack's arm until he released her. Irrationally, she found herself thinking that she was glad she'd chosen to wear pants rather than the skirt she'd had lying out; the debris beneath her knees pressed painfully into her skin. She looked over to where Riley, Leanna, and Bozer looked up in shock from where the Earth had tossed them, all of them breathing hard. Riley had a cut on her forehead, but otherwise they looked intact.
"Everybody okay?" Jack asked, his breath coming in shocked gasps.
The three younger agents nodded shakily.
"Matty?"
"I'm good," she nodded, reassuring Jack.
"Okay," Jack said, his voice low and steady. "It's going to be a mess out there by the sound of it," his eyes traced all four of them evenly. "Be careful when you climb out from under the table. We'll have to see who we can help. Got it?"
"Got it," Bozer replied.
"Jack—what about Mac?" Riley asked anxiously.
"Mac's okay," Jack replied with confidence. "He'll find us. You guys ready?"
They all nodded and then slowly climbed out from beneath the table. Matty gaped at the utter destruction around her. Walls had collapsed into themselves, creating a kind of barricade between their section of the restaurant and the rest of the building. The ornate, welded chandelier she'd noticed earlier was on the ground, sections having broken off. Pieces of the ceiling ductwork had fallen, and plaster and stone were scattered among the broken plates, glasses, and food.
People were moving around in shock, some bleeding, others covered in dust and plaster, but for the most part everyone seemed to be at least mobile. Leanna and Riley stepped forward shakily, broken plates and glasses crunching beneath their heels. Bozer was sliding his jacket around Leanna's bare shoulders; Riley had her arms wrapped around her middle, dark eyes staring around her with shock.
Matty took a slow breath. They were her responsibility. She had to keep them safe. How in the hell—
"Oh, shit," Matty heard Bozer swear and she turned to find where he was looking.
The kitchen behind them was in shambles. She could see through the serving pass-through that the big oven was tipped over as though it had partially fallen into the Earth. Flames shot up at irregular intervals from the grill and they could hear shouting from the kitchen staff.
Matty took a breath. "Leanna, head to the front and see if there is a way out. Bozer, go to the kitchen and assess the damage—get anyone in there to come this way. Riley, take the left, Jack, take the right. Triage people, start getting them organized according to age and injury."
Her team nodded in unison and without another word moved to do as she ordered. Matty stepped toward an older couple who had been sitting at a table near them. The man was setting a chair upright for his wife to sink into; the woman's hands were shaking from shock, but she seemed otherwise unharmed.
"Are you both okay?" Matty asked the older gentlemen.
He nodded, but a burst of flame from the kitchen had him flinching in startled surprise. Matty turned quickly at a shout from Bozer and saw that he was motioning several kitchen workers—their white uniforms singed and smudged with soot—through the doorway. She was about to call him away from the kitchen entrance when he shouted something that had her blood running cold.
"Mac!"
Matty felt her breath catch. Mac must have run into the burning kitchen when she was ordering the team to help; she hadn't seen him since he left their table. She instinctively moved toward Bozer, but before she could get two steps, Jack blasted past her and was skidding to a stop as another burst of flame shot through the kitchen pass-through.
"Jack, don't—" Matty started to call, but stopped when she saw Henry Flynn stumble toward the doorway from the interior of the burning kitchen.
Jack launched forward, catching the former Army Specialist as his knees gave way.
"Get…get them back," Flynn coughed as he clung to Jack, his face red and soot-smudged, chef's hat gone and hair askew. "Get them all back!"
Jack looked up at Bozer who moved immediately toward what was left of the restaurant's interior, waving his hands and ordering everyone away from the kitchen.
"Flynn?" Jack pulled the young man to his feet, holding him steady.
"Qu-quake broke the g-gas line," Flynn coughed. "Whole thing's gonna blow!"
"Where's Mac?" Jack asked, looking over Flynn's shoulder.
"He's in there," Flynn shot a frantic look back toward the kitchen. "Can't get to the gas shut-off. Said he had a way to stop the explosion. Block the valve. Told me to get everyone back."
Jack pulled Flynn toward him, away from the door, then looked over his shoulder for help. Riley stood close and reached for Flynn, pulling the young chef's arm over her shoulder and helping him to where Bozer and Leanna had sequestered the rest of the patrons behind a couple of the heavy dining tables.
"Jack, no!" Matty shouted as Jack turned back toward the kitchen.
The look on his face told her all she needed to know: he wasn't in a mood to listen to reason. She hurried toward him, knowing in her gut that the only way she was going to keep Jack from heading into the kitchen after Mac was if he was trying to keep her safe.
"Dammit, Matty," Jack growled, waving a hand in her direction. "Get back!"
"Not without you!"
"Everybody clear?" Mac shouted the question from the interior of the burning kitchen.
Uttering another curse, Jack turned, nodding at Matty as they ran back to the safety of the table barricade.
"We're clear—now get your ass out here!" Jack shouted back.
"He said he had to create a…a vacuum with an alternate explosion," Flynn said, coughing into the crook of his arm. "Or…something like that."
"Of fucking course he did," Jack growled. "Mac!"
But before anyone else could move, a low boom echoed through the remains of the restaurant, the building shook once more. Several people screamed in automatic reaction, and then several more screamed when flames shot up one last time before blowing themselves out, leaving nothing but smoke and silence in their wake.
Jack was the first one to step out from behind the barricade, Bozer on his heels.
"Mac!" Jack shouted, heading toward the darkened kitchen door with long strides. "Mac!"
Matty felt her heart clench as she watched the kitchen entryway, waiting, breath held. Before Jack reached the doorway, Mac's lanky frame slumped against the opening. Blood painted one side of his face, his right sleeve was ripped and shiny with blood, but he was standing. He braced himself with one hand against the door frame, his blue eyes bright as he looked across the space toward Jack.
Jack halted, his shoulders bowing with relief. "Jesus, kid, don't do that to—"
He never finished his sentence.
As though someone cut his strings, Mac crumpled, his knees hitting the ground seconds before he pitched forward. Jack uttered a low cry of denial and slid toward his partner like a batter stealing home, catching Mac before his head smacked the ground. Bozer dropped to the ground next to them, his hands hovering over Mac's body, clearly at a loss.
"Jack?" Matty called, her voice strangled with fear.
She felt rooted to the spot. The dozen people behind her didn't matter. The destruction around her didn't matter. The muted sound of sirens didn't matter. In this moment, all that mattered were the next words Jack Dalton would say.
Jack shifted his grip on Mac so that he could turn the slim blond over in his arms. After a tense moment, Matty saw his shoulders sag once more.
"He's breathin'," Jack reported, anxiety accentuating his drawl. "He's still breathin'."
Matty closed the distance between the make-shift barricade and her agents. Mac was lying lax in Jack's lap, his head canted back across Jack's arm, his legs sprawled before them. The blood she'd seen when he'd stumbled out of the smoky kitchen matted his hair to one side of his head and coated one eye, lashes tented from the gore. His right arm looked shredded; Jack had laid it carefully across the younger man's chest.
"Oh, Blondie," she breathed.
"We gotta get him help, Matty," Bozer entreated.
"We will," Matty assured him, anxiety turning her voice brittle. "Jack, what's the damage?"
A shard of something metallic about the size of her hand protruded from the muscle at the top of Mac's shoulder, and as Jack eased the young agent to the ground Matty could see debris in his blood-soaked hair as well. Between them, Bozer and Jack removed Mac's mangled, long-sleeved shirt, carefully rolling him to the side to check his back. Matty winced when Jack pulled up the younger man's T-shirt to reveal that the darkened bruise on his sternum was now joined by shallow cuts and bruising on his right side. The worst of the damage seemed to be sustained on his right arm and his head.
"Jesus, the kid's one big bruise," Jack said, taking Mac's mangled arm into a gentle hold. "I gotta get this bleeding stopped."
"You're going to have to remove that piece of metal first," Matty told him, grabbing two of the cloth napkins from the floor.
"Boze, help me," Jack entreated. "Get what's left of this T-shirt out of the way."
Without hesitating, Bozer dug into the front pocket of Mac's jeans and pulled out his Swiss Army knife. With a quiet efficiency that surprised Matty, he pulled out a blade, sliced the shirt up the front and along the back, and pulled it off Mac, avoiding the metal that punctured the meat of Mac's shoulder. Then, he folded the knife and slid it back in Mac's pocket. It all took less than a minute.
"You…just gonna, like…yank it out?" Bozer asked, his voice trembling. "What if you rip and artery or something?"
"The artery's down here," Jack replied, gesturing to Mac's clavicle, "and if we don't get it out, I can't bandage it and if I can't bandage it—"
"Okay, I get it," Bozer nodded quickly, and Matty grimaced as she watched Bozer's eyes skim over Mac's battered chest.
Jack gently pressed the napkins Matty handed him against Mac's shoulder, one shaking hand going to grip the edge of the metal. Exhaling slowly to steady himself, Jack pulled up sharply, the metal giving way as Mac cried out with pain, his legs kicking out weakly in protest.
"Easy, bud," Jack soothed, though Mac wasn't quite conscious.
Matty watched as Jack pressed the napkins against the wound, his hands sliding along the torn skin of Mac's bicep. The napkins were soon saturated, so Jack tossed them to the side. Grimacing, Jack tore a section of Mac's long-sleeved shirt free and wrapped it around his shoulder to his bicep. Matty could see almost immediately that it wasn't going to be enough—the blood was already soaking through.
"Here," Bozer said, pulling his belt free. "Try a tourniquet."
"That's tricky," Jack told him, taking the belt. "Wound's in a bad position…and we gotta make sure we loosen it every few minutes so that we don't kill the blood flow, or he could lose this arm."
Bozer blanched. Matty pulled her scarf free and handed it to Jack who took it without looking and added it to the bandage. Jack shook his head, eyes skimming down the length of Mac's body.
"Some people collect stamps," Jack muttered, eyes drifting over the scar from the bullet wound that was a reminder of Nikki's betrayal. "This kid collects scars."
"What about the head wound?" she asked.
Jack's fingers gently palpated Mac's scalp, pulling pieces of metal and glass free from Mac's blond hair. Matty saw his frown of worry deepen.
"It's bad, Matty."
Those three words triggered something inside her, a switch that typically never needed to be flipped. She was Matilda Webber, the Hun, devoid of the burden that came with emotion and consistently in control. But something about this team—something about this one lonely, young agent—stirred an almost maternal instinct in a heart she'd worked for years to turn to stone.
When Matty had first taken the role of Director at the Phoenix Foundation, she'd lectured Mac on his tendency to improvise not simply because he rebelled against the norm, but because the possibility of his dying utterly terrified her. He'd saved so many lives—including hers—since that time, she knew the madness behind his methods was the good kind of crazy.
And she was damned if she was going to lose him now. Steeling her resolve, Matty looked up, eyes searching for Leanna. As though feeling the pull of her boss's gaze, Leanna made her way out of the crowd of people and came forward.
"What the status on a way out of here?" Matty asked her.
"The entrance is blocked," Leanna regretfully reported. "I can't even see the road."
Matty looked at Henry Flynn—no longer leaning on Riley but still looking pale and shaky. "Is there a back door accessible from this area?"
Flynn started to nod, then halted, shooting his eyes first to Mac then to the darkened kitchen. "It's through the kitchen," he said, "but…there was a big hole in the floor. That's where the gas leak was and—"
Matty held up a hand. "It's okay, I get it. Bozer?" The young man looked up, eyes shiny with worry. "I need you to check out the kitchen."
"I'll go with you," Leanna said, evidently seeing Bozer was struggling.
"Good—see if the back door is reachable and see if you can find any first aid supplies," Matty ordered. She looked back to where the patrons behind the barricade were now all staring at her. "Is anyone here a doctor or EMT?"
The silence of their responses practically echoed through the destruction.
"Is anyone else injured?" Matty continued.
"Flynn might have a concussion," Riley reported. "Definitely smoke inhalation."
"I'm okay," Flynn protested. "Mac got me out of there before it got too bad."
"Anyone else?" Matty eyed the cut on Riley's forehead, but the hacker just shook her head.
"My wife has a heart condition," reported the elderly gentleman Matty had approached earlier. "But she has her pills with her."
"I'm eight months pregnant," reported a timid voice.
Matty inwardly sighed. That's just what they needed. "Are you in any pain or discomfort?"
Riley eased a young Asian woman forward, bracing her arm. She was dressed in a hostess uniform, and evidently alone. She shook her head in response to Matty's question. Out of the corner of her eyes, Matty saw Jack shrug out of his jacket and cover Mac's bare chest, before collecting him back up into his lap, getting him off the debris-covered floor as much as he could.
"Okay," she said, raising her voice so the people in the back could hear, "until we figure out how we're getting out of here, this is what we're going to do—"
"Wait." A voice cut through the crowd and Matty narrowed her eyes, finding the source of the voice. A middle-aged, balding man in an expensive-looking business suit stepped forward, staring at her with shrewd, gray eyes. "I don't remember anyone deciding you were in charge."
Matty registered Riley and Jack looking at him sharply, fire in their eyes. "You're correct, Mister…."
"DeAngelo."
"Mr. DeAngelo," Matty stepped forward. "And if you are qualified to handle post-disaster survival, I'm sure we all welcome the input." Her eyes narrowed, and she felt her jaw tighten. "But one of my team was nearly killed saving our collective asses, so if you don't mind, I am going to make a few suggestions of my own."
DeAngelo brought his chin up, darting a look over to where Jack was holding Mac against him. "All I saw was him nearly blowing us all to hell."
"Sir," Flynn spoke up before Matty could figure out a way to throat-punch a man who was three-foot taller than her. "I was in there—and I can promise you, we were all screwed until Mac stopped this place from blowing sky-high."
"Matty!" Bozer's voice cut across the room.
Matty turned to see Leanna approaching Jack with a large, red box marked with a white cross, Bozer right behind her.
"The back door is blocked," Bozer reported. "Looks like the foundation cracked in the quake and the oven blocked it. Leanna and I tried to move it, but—"
"Oh my God, you mean we're trapped?" A woman exclaimed, moving forward to stand next to DeAngelo.
"We're going to die in here," another voice chimed in. "I gotta get back to my kids!"
"Son of a bitch—I told you we should have just used Grub Hub!"
"I can't get a cell signal—why aren't they even trying to get in to us?"
"No one knows we're in here—"
"Everyone SHUT UP!" Riley's shout cut through the cacophony of panic that had started to turn the air thick.
Matty blinked in surprise, watching as the petite hacker stood in the middle of the room, her arms out to each side like a ref in a boxing match, her eyes on fire.
"Okay, that's better," Riley continued quietly when the voices ceased. "Now, everyone who has an actual, feasible idea for how we deal with this situation, go stand by my boss. Everyone else, sit down."
Flynn limped forward, joined by DeAngelo. Everyone else found a chair or bench and sat down. Someone handed the pregnant woman a rolled-up coat for her back. Everyone stared at Matty.
She took a breath and looked over her shoulder to where Leanna and Jack were using the bandages in the first aid kit to try and better wrap Mac's still-bleeding arm. Beyond the cry of pain when they pulled the metal from his shoulder, the young agent hadn't yet shown signs of waking. Matty's worry was ratcheting up. She wanted to help him but needed to get people focused on rescue, first.
"We need to get some kind of sign that we're trapped in here," Matty began. "If no one can get a cell signal, then that means trying to signal some other way."
"We need to get people who can climb to safety near the entrance," DeAngelo argued.
Matty shook her head, trying to quiet her temper. "We don't want lots of people near those walls until we know how sturdy the structure is."
"Look, lady, just because your friend is hurt doesn't mean—"
DeAngelo's tirade was cut short as an aftershock cut through the Earth, sending more ceiling duct work and plaster plummeting to the ground. Matty instinctively ducked and saw that Riley had curled around the pregnant woman. The tremor lasted about thirty seconds, but when it was over, the stress of the situation had reduced several of the patrons to tears and DeAngelo decided to sit down.
Matty took a slow breath. "Okay, people, we're Californians. We live on a fault line. We can handle this."
"Maybe we could use the table cloths like a flag," offered the pregnant woman. "If we can get it close enough to the entrance."
Matty smiled. "That's brilliant! What's your name?"
"Kira."
Jack's voice filtered through Matty's attempts to organize the stressed-out patrons.
"Hey, bud," Jack was saying softly. "C'mon, that's it. Open those baby blues."
Matty looked at Riley. "You got this?"
"I'm all over it," Riley shot an anxious look toward Jack, then joined Kira in gathering up the table cloths.
"Flynn," Matty turned to the young chef, noting his glassy eyes. "You sure you're okay?"
He nodded, swallowing, his gaze darting repeatedly back to where Jack was bent over Mac's sprawled form. "This is the second time he's saved my life," he said softly. "I just…I mean, how do you pay a guy back for that?"
"How about you do what Mac would be doing?" Matty suggested.
Flynn scoffed. "No one on the planet can do what Mac does."
Matty smiled. "I meant, calming the people down, keeping them safe. Can you do that? Maybe get them all situated so that everyone has something to keep them busy?"
Flynn nodded rapidly. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
A trembling voice cut a swath of pain across Matty's heart and brought Riley's head around sharply.
"Jack?"
"Hey, there you are," Jack replied, and Matty could see his hands bracing either side of Mac's head. He must have eased Mac off his lap when the younger agent began to stir. "Good to see you, kid."
Matty moved to stand next to Jack, peering over his shoulder at Mac's face. The young agent's eyes were blinking sluggishly, the blue irises standing out in stark contrast to the blood that painted his skin. He lifted an uncoordinated hand, dislodging the jacket that was covering him, looking as though he was reaching for Jack. The older man grasped his partner's hand instinctively, keeping his other at the juncture of Mac's jawline and neck, bracing him.
"The…the RPG," Mac muttered, his brows knitting over the bridge of his nose.
"It's okay, kiddo," Jack said softly, the tightness in his voice causing Matty's breath to catch. "No RPG. You're home. You're back, we're back."
He's in the hurt locker, Matty.
"Heard it," Mac protested. "From the roof…the…the other roof."
Matty curled her hands into fists at her sides, trying desperately to keep her expression neutral. Jack pulled his hand gently away from Mac's loose grip and carded his fingers carefully through Mac's hair, avoiding the deep gash that Matty could still see on the right side of the blonde's scalp.
"No RPG this time, kid," Jack said, keeping his voice low and even. "Earthquake."
At this Mac's eyes tracked over to meet Jack's and Matty could see how blown his pupils were, black eating almost all the blue. Definitely a concussion, definitely bad. He blinked at Jack as though trying to bring the older man into focus.
"You okay?" Mac murmured.
Jack sniffed, his smile tremulous. "Yeah, I'm okay."
Mac frowned. "Something's not…okay."
"You're pretty banged up, bud," Jack told him, and Matty looked across the small expanse of the room to see all eyes were pinned to her two agents. "Do you remember the earthquake?"
"Um…," Mac slowly licked his lips, like he was just learning the action. His words were sluggish, slow, drawn out as though the weight of them felt foreign in his mouth. "I…uh, I remember the…the fire…, and...," he gasped, the end of it breaking off into a low groan. "Flynn! Jack—"
"Hey, Flynn's okay, kid," Jack reassured him, glancing across the room and drawing the young chef forward with his gaze. "He's okay, you got him out."
"On the…the helo?" Mac asked, his words slurring, memory obviously skipping between past and present.
"Not this time, bud," Jack said. He looked up at Flynn as the young man knelt on the other side of Mac, near Bozer. "You got him clear of the fire before the gas line blew. Remember?"
"Hey, Mac," Flynn said softly, and Matty saw his eyes dart over the blood-stained bandages on Mac's arm to the blood-crusted hair, then back to his eyes. "You aiming for a free dinner or something, man?"
Mac's eyes tracked slowly over toward Flynn's voice, his gaze narrowing on the young man. "Fire," he said softly. "There was…was a…."
"Yeah, you hauled my ass out of the fire," Flynn nodded, clearing his throat.
Mac swallowed hard, nodding gingerly. "I remember."
"Think you could move, bud?" Jack said. "Pretty sure there's a more comfortable place to hang out than the floor."
"Why…why're we still…here?" Mac asked, his tone slightly spacey.
"We're kinda stuck," Flynn told him, moving in sync with Jack to ease an arm beneath Mac's knees as Jack slid an arm behind Mac's head and shoulders. "The walls turned this place into a cave."
Matty gestured to Bozer to clear off one of the cushioned bench seats nearby and Leanna helped to clear a path of tables and chairs, setting the first aid kit on top of one of the tables. Jack nodded to Flynn and the two men lifted Mac, wincing in unison as Mac cried out from the movement, Jack's leather jacket sliding free. They stood and moved quickly, laying Mac on the bench so that his mangled right arm was facing outward and easier to rebandage.
"Fuck," Mac breathed, and Matty bit the inside of her lip, remembering the same pain-filled, breathless tone surrounding that word right after he'd taken a bullet to his TAC vest. The pain seemed to clear his head a bit because the next thing she heard him say was, "No…cell signal?"
Jack didn't bother telling him to rest; he was clearly ready to jump on anything that resembled a more-typical Mac. "I think the quake must've knocked out the towers—or the stone walls are blocking us or something."
Mac's breath rasped heavily in the quiet, a slight keening sound as he exhaled.
"Mac?" Jack thumb stroked Mac's blood-stained cheekbone.
"H-hurts…t-to breathe," Mac confessed.
Matty couldn't help but think of the severely bruised sternum from the gunshot wound; getting caught in an explosion wasn't helping matters.
"Help…help m-me up," Mac entreated, tugging weakly at Jack's arm.
"Okay, okay, easy," Jack told him. "Let me do all the work."
Jack eased Mac upright, leaning the young agent back against the padded bench and resting his left shoulder against Jack's chest. Mac's head lolled toward Jack's shoulder, but his breathing seemed to ease a bit. In this light, however, his wounds looked horrendous. The bruise on his sternum blossomed out across his pectorals like a sunburst, the gauze bandage wasn't enough to hide the damage to his right arm, and the blood painting his face made him look like a character from a Stephen King movie.
Matty wasn't sure how he was conscious, let alone talking.
"How about we get this around you," Jack said softly, taking his jacket from where Flynn had picked it up and sliding it behind Mac's back, and helping him slide his left arm through the sleeve. The leather seemed to engulf Mac's narrow torso. "Too skinny for your own good," Jack muttered, trying to ease the jacket around Mac's wounded shoulder.
"Ah, God…my…my arm…," Mac gasped, biting through a groan as he blinked heavy-lidded eyes, leaning against Jack's chest. Jack let the jacket drop, hanging down Mac's back, covering only one half of his chest.
Jack looked over at Leanna. "Is there anything for pain in that kit?"
"There's acetaminophen," Leanna told him almost apologetically, "but nothing stronger."
"Shit, that's like spitting on a forest fire, way that arm looks," DeAngelo grumbled.
Jack shot the business man a venomous look. "Let me have it," he said to Leanna, "and see if you can find some water."
Leanna moved quickly and soon Jack was helping Mac swallow the pain meds. "Easy, kiddo," Jack soothed as Mac coughed slightly with the first swallow. "There you go."
"Lemme…lemme have your phone," Mac breathed, closing his eyes against the pain.
Jack eased Mac to a more comfortable angle, wincing as he saw fresh blood on the bandages. "You're just not happy until you're breaking my phone, are you?"
"The qu-quake probably over-overloaded the bandwidth," Mac said, his head dropping back to rest against the bench seat as Jack reached into his back pocket for his phone. "Too…too many people trying to call…." His eyes rolled closed and his lips pressed flat as an obvious wave of pain crashed into him.
"Mac?" Riley called, stepping forward in worry.
Jack lifted Mac's left hand and folded his fingers around the cell phone. "Here you go, kid," Jack said, pulling Mac's attention forward once more. "What else you need?"
"M-my knife," Mac gasped, moving his right arm carefully, his hand shaking. "And…um, gum…gum wrapper."
"What the hell's he think he can do?" DeAngelo asked no one in particular.
Matty ignored the man's protest but frowned when his voice was joined by another concerned patron.
"He really should be resting; head wounds are nothing to mess around with."
"We should be getting him some water," another person offered. "We all need water—anyone know where we can get water?"
"He really doesn't look good," a fourth voice chimed in.
While they were talking, Jack had fished Mac's Swiss Army knife from his jeans pocket and was unfolding one of the attachments.
"Don't listen to 'em, bud," Jack spoke up over the slowly rising tide of concern, his eyes on Mac, one hand resting gently on the young agent's shoulder, the other steadying the phone in Mac's weak grip. "You've saved more lives than anyone in this room." He glanced over at the others, his eyes missing no one. "You just do your thing."
"T-take…take the casing off," Mac instructed, lines of pain folding his expression. He grunted, trying to steady his right hand with his left, but Matty could see the shoulder wound had bled through the latest bandage Jack had applied. "N-need to get to wh-where the…the s-sim card is."
Matty watched as Jack became Mac's hands, following the blonde's stuttered instructions without question or complaint.
"Okay, done. Now what?" Jack asked. "Shit, that's right. You need a gum wrapper. Um…." He patted his shirt pockets with one hand, glancing first toward Matty, then across the room to Bozer.
"Here," Flynn stepped forward, a silver stick of gum in his outstretched hand. "All I got's Wrigley Spearmint, though."
Mac actually huffed a small laugh. "S'okay," he said, taking the wrapper in his trembling hand and starting to fold it.
It was a torturous few minutes, watching Mac painstakingly fold the wrapper and insert it into the phone. Finally, Mac nodded and told Jack to turn the phone on. The group collectively flinched when a squelch of static came over the speaker before the unmistakable sound of a rescue worker's radio.
"Did you just hack 911?" Riley asked, incredulous.
Jack looked at his phone. "You just turned my smartphone into a walkie-talkie, didn't you?"
"All ph-phones connect to 911…no…no matter if they have…have service," Mac managed, his head dropping back to rest against the booth, his words slowing and slurring together. "Just had to connect…to…to that circuit." His eyes widened slightly, rolling as though he couldn't focus on any one thing, and he slowly cradled the wounded right arm with a trembling left. "C-call for…for help, Jack."
"Mac?" Jack was on one knee, leaning over his partner. The walkie-talkie smart phone was hanging loosely from his grip. Riley darted close to collect it before it hit the ground as Jack reached for Mac's slumping form. "Hey, kid, talk to me."
"'m hurt…hurting," Mac gasped. "Feel…feel like…like glass…."
Mac's slurred voice suddenly tapered to nothing and Matty watched with barely concealed horror as the young man's blue eyes rolled back into his head. He went alarmingly limp before his body suddenly stiffened and he began to seize, harsh breaths puffing out through parted lips.
"Mac!"
"Lay him on his side," came a heavily-accented voice from the crowd of concerned onlookers.
Matty turned to see one of the kitchen workers Bozer had ushered into the main room stepping forward, pulling off his white jacket as he did so. Jack obeyed, easing Mac to his left side so that his wounded arm was upright. The kitchen worker folded his white jacket and slid it under Mac's head as the harsh jerks and flinches stopped.
"What happened? What was that?" Jack asked, kneeling next to Mac, one hand on his back, the other against his chest.
"He has a traumatic brain injury, by the look of this wound," the kitchen worker stated. "Seizures are not uncommon with severe concussions."
Jack looked over at the other man in surprise. "Who the hell are you?"
"I was about to ask the same thing," Matty chimed in, stepping forward.
She eyed the dark-skinned man critically. He had scars on either side of his mouth reminiscent of a Glasgow smile, and his black hair was cut short enough to expose additional scars along his scalp. But his brown eyes were filled with concern.
"How do you know how to handle a TBI?"
"I was an Army medic," the man replied.
"And yet you said nothing when I asked if there was a doctor here," Matty pointed out, setting her hands on her hips.
The man looked between Matty and Jack, then let his eyes rest on Mac's now-supine form. "It was not your Army," he clarified.
Matty looked at Flynn, who shrugged in response. "I needed kitchen workers…and I didn't ask a lot of questions," he replied.
"Okay, Mr. Medic," Jack replied. "Now that you're finally here, can you help him?"
"I may be able to," the man replied. "Let me look at your kit."
"What about the phone?" DeAngelo pointed out. Matty barely kept herself from growling at him. "I mean…the kid went to all that trouble…shouldn't we use it?"
"I got this, Matty," Riley told her, staring daggers at DeAngelo.
Riley headed toward what had once been the front of the restaurant, the sound of her heels clicking on the stone floor fading as she disappeared from view. For a moment, Matty felt at a loss. After everything she'd been through in her life—growing up facing down all those who saw her stature as a disability, to acting as a CIA Operative, to Director at the Phoenix Foundation—a natural disaster should be nothing.
So…why were her hands shaking? And why could she feel tears of panic burning the backs of her eyes?
He's in the hurt locker, Matty. And I…I gotta help him.
She could do this. She did this every day. She turned to Flynn.
"Divide people up," she ordered, her voice clipped and professional. "Figure out if we can get any food, water, use table cloths as blankets…that kind of thing."
"You think we'll have to be here long?" Flynn asked.
"I have no idea," Matty sighed, rubbing at the slowly building headache between her eyes. "We could get out of here in five minutes or five hours. We need to be prepared for both."
Flynn nodded, swallowing hard as he looked over to where the former Medic was looking through the first aid kit. Bozer hovered closer than the man's shadow, chewing his lip apart in his worry.
"Bozer," Matty called. "Help Flynn."
"But, Mac—"
Matty looked at Leanna.
"C'mon, babe," Leanna cajoled, tucking her hand under Bozer's bicep. "You won't be far away."
With her team busy, Matty climbed up on the bench near Mac's head and gently ran her fingers through his tangled, blond hair.
"What should we call you?" Matty asked the Medic, wondering if the man would give them his actual name.
"My name is Ben-Aryeh Harim," he glanced at Matty, "but you may call me Ben."
Israeli, Matty realized. That explained the reticence to reveal himself earlier.
"Ben," Matty nodded. "Can you help him?"
Mac lay sprawled on the bench seat, his breath rasping roughly through parted lips. Jack's leather jacket covered one arm and part of his chest and hung from the bench beneath his right side. Ben gently palpated Mac's head, wincing at the visible laceration running along Mac's hairline. He opened each of Mac's eyes, shining the flashlight from his cell phone in one, then the other. Carefully, he lifted away the edge of the jacket, hissing at the bruising he saw there.
"This bruising appears to be percussion trauma, which would make sense given the TBI, but…," he frowned, tilting Mac's head to the side. "I would have expected the damage to be to the back of his head if the blast damaged his chest in this way."
"That's not from today," Jack reported, from where he knelt next to the bench, his voice tangled with emotion. "He took a bullet to the vest yesterday."
Matty heard someone gasp and another whistle low, but she couldn't tell if the person was dismayed or impressed. Ben simply nodded and began to unwind the saturated bandage at Mac's shoulder.
"His wounds are grave," Ben stated, unbuckling the belt holding the bandages in place. "We need to get him out of here as soon as possible."
"Yeah, tell us something we don't know, Hoss," Jack muttered, not moving from his kneeling perch.
Ben muttered something in Hebrew as he pulled the bandages from Mac's shoulder with a wet-sounding squelch.
"There is still metal in the wounds," he said, his expression serious. "Do we have any clean water? A small bottle would do."
Matty looked around the room.
"Well, I mean," Flynn gestured at the table where they'd gathered the remaining water glasses. "There's this."
Ben shook his head. "There is too much possibility of bacteria," he replied, glancing at the first aid kit. "Hand me the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, if you would."
Jack stood and grabbed the bottle. Ben rubbed his top lip, looking from Mac's wound to the first aid kit, then around the room.
"I need a ketchup bottle," Ben said, as he reached out for the bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
"You need a what now?" Jack asked, pulling the brown bottle of peroxide back out of the Medic's reach.
Ben sighed. "We need to flush out the wound. To do that, I need something that will create force or pressure, like a squeeze bottle."
Jack looked over at Matty. "I think Mac's brain is contagious," he muttered, before shooting a look to the people gathering food from dinner plate left-overs. "Flynn!"
"Here," Flynn called back.
"You got a ketchup bottle you can somehow wash out for me?" Jack shouted, adding quickly, "And don't ask me why."
"I can do you one better," Flynn called back. "Kira, can you have someone get one of the empty bottles from under that bench you're sitting on?"
Kira nodded and stood, waiting patiently as DeAngelo raised the seat to reveal a secret storage, then grabbed an empty ketchup bottle from within. Flynn shrugged off Jack's curious look.
"Kitchen's not that big," Flynn replied. "I had to get creative."
"Toss that here," Jack waved at DeAngelo, catching the bottle as it was lobbed his way. Jack emptied the bottle of hydrogen peroxide into the ketchup bottle and screwed the lid back on, tight.
"This will be very painful," Ben told them. "It is usually done with sterile water, but lacking that, we are going to…improvise. You know this word?" Ben asked, eyes darting between Jack and Matty.
"Uh, yeah," Jack replied. "We're familiar."
"Using hydrogen peroxide in this way is not really advisable—there is a chance it could ultimately delay healing. But leaving the metal in there will build bacteria and cause infection…and worse, we won't be able to stop the bleeding."
"We're trusting you, Ben," Matty told him. "And…Mac is pretty much the Prince of Improvisation, so he'd trust you, too."
Ben nodded, swallowing anxiously. "Someone will need to hold him," he said, squaring his shoulders as though he was preparing for battle. "And have a clean…towel, or napkin or…whatever we can find, to help clear the blood away."
"Jack," Matty called, sliding down from the bench. "Sit here."
Jack took her seat, carefully pulling Mac's head and shoulders onto his lap, one arm resting on Mac's bruised chest, the other on the crown of Mac's head. Mac's blood-stained face was tilted toward Matty and the open room, his lips slightly parted, lines of pain between his brows. He looked so young in that moment, Matty wanted to both cry and punch someone for what was about to happen to him.
"Matty!" Riley's voice echoed slightly as she hurried back from where she'd been pressed against the blocked entrance to the restaurant.
"Did you get through?"
"What did they say?"
"Are they coming in to get us?"
Riley was bombarded with worried tones and anxious faces, the sheer volume of fear pulling her up short and sending her dark eyes darting around the room until she found Matty. Anchoring on her boss, Riley made her way forward, Jack's jury-rigged cell phone held carefully in her grip.
"I got through," she reported. "Took a bit for them to believe I wasn't pulling some prank," her mouth twisted into a frustrated frown. "They kept telling me they were dealing with an actual emergency."
"Huh," Jack huffed. "Welcome to the party, pal."
"But once I convinced them I was legit," Riley continued, "they found our tablecloth flag—thanks for that, Kira," Riley shot Kira a grin. "So…the good news is that they know where we are and that we need help."
"What's the bad news?" DeAngelo asked, warily.
Riley grimaced. "It's going to take them a few hours to get us out safely."
"Son of a bitch," Jack muttered, rubbing the top of his head.
"Were you able to ask them for any supplies?" Matty asked, calmly, though her heart was fluttering with anxiety like a panicked bird in a cage. "Water, bandages…?"
Riley nodded. "I asked for water, food, and medical supplies. They are trying to find a place they can send anything in to us without dislodging the debris. Once they find it, they'll radio me." She waggled the phone.
"So, what do we do until then?" Kira asked.
"We wait, I guess," Riley sighed, looking with worried eyes toward where Ben and Jack surrounded Mac.
"Flynn," Matty called, "keep it up."
Flynn nodded to her.
"Riley," Matty said softly. "We are going to need to keep these people calm. Especially after Ben does what I think he's going to do."
"What do you…?"
"Pain is a troubling sound," Ben said, matching Matty's tone. "And when trapped somewhere they cannot escape from the sound, people are apt to react…poorly."
Riley nodded, swallowing hard. She sank down to a chair next to Matty.
"Are you ready?" Ben looked at Jack.
Matty felt Riley's hand slip into hers and she squeezed the young hacker's fingers in support.
"I got him," Jack replied, nodding at the Medic.
Ben nodded back, then held Mac's arm steady as he began to squeeze the hydrogen peroxide against the puncture wound and the deep slice that ran along Mac's bicep. The result was instantaneous.
A sound of agony was ripped from Mac's throat, a wordless scream that tore at Matty's heart. His neck arched as he pressed his head against Jack's legs, trying to pull away from the pain. Riley's fingers tightened on hers and Matty's eyes burned as she watched Jack try to soothe his young partner.
"Easy, kid, you're okay…just breathe."
"No…stop…ahhh!" Mac was sobbing, his eyes screwed shut as his body shook, and still Ben continued to flush out the wound as best he could. "Jack…JACK!" Mac rasped, left arm flailing weakly, pleading for his partner to protected him from this onslaught of torture. "Nnnrrghhh…please…please…Jack!"
Matty could see tears coursing down Jack's face as he caught Mac's left hand and tried to keep his friend from bucking his wounded body away from the care he needed.
"I'm here, kid," Jack said softly, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm here, I'm right here."
Finally, Ben dropped the squeeze bottle and Mac slumped a bit against the bench, his breath choking and hitching. Jack wiped tears from his own face with the back of his hand before returning it to the top of Mac's head.
"I am finished," Ben said, taking the clean napkins he'd found and wiping away the blood that coursed down Mac's arm from the wound. Matty saw that a puddle of blood and fluid had gathered on the floor beneath the bench. "But I cannot tell if I've gotten all of the metal from the wound."
"Fuck sakes," breathed a voice from behind Matty. She looked over her shoulder to see DeAngelo standing off to the side, looking pale and shaky. "Give the kid a goddamn break. Metal or no metal, what's it matter?"
"If we do not get the metal out," Ben explained patiently, "we may not be able to stop the bleeding. And even if we are, he may develop a fever."
"Do we have anything else to clean out the wound?" Matty asked, dismayed to hear the tremble of her voice.
"All we have are bandages and antibiotic ointment," Ben reported. "Like our friend there said earlier, it is like spitting on a forest fire."
"Do what you can for him, please, Ben," Matty entreated. "He's…," she had to pause and clear her throat. "He's very important to us."
Ben nodded and began to wrap the gauze bandages around Mac's shoulder and arm, the young agent's desperate gasps for air becoming tight and thin. Jack continued to stroke Mac's hair from his face, nonsensical words spilling unceasingly from his lips in an effort to soothe his partner. When Mac's breath stuttered to a stop for a few seconds too long, Jack looked up at Ben.
"He ain't breathin' right, man," Jack said, tears in his voice and on his face. "What do we do?"
Ben's dark brows pulled tight across the bridge of his nose. "It may be the previous wound was exacerbated by the blast," he said. "Can you prop him up against you? The change in position seemed to help him before."
Jack was in action before Ben finished speaking. He turned sideways, sliding backwards until he rested against one of the broken pieces of wall that now bisected the cushioned bench. With one leg outstretched and the other braced on the floor, Jack gently pulled Mac toward him so that the young agent's back was against Jack's front, Mac's head canted back against Jack's shoulder, the jacket tucked up around him.
Matty couldn't seem to pull her eyes from the bright red of Mac's blood soaking into the white of Jack's dress shirt. It was as if she were watching both bleed out before her eyes. And part of her knew that—metaphorical or not—if they weren't able to save Mac, they would lose Jack, too.
Within seconds, Mac's breathing began to ease until it was a regular tempo; the rough edge of pain was still present, but he was no longer struggling just to pull air in. Matty watched as both Jack and Mac seemed to visibly relax in this position, Jack keeping one hand on Mac's head and the other bracing his left side.
It had been a long time since Matty had seen one of her agents this wounded, and it hurt. It really hurt. She turned to Riley.
"I need you to try to get through to Oversight," she said. "Do you think you can?"
Riley blinked in surprise, then frowned at the phone in her hand. "I'm not even sure how Mac got this to work," she confessed. "But…maybe I could have one of the cops I was talking to get him?"
Matty nodded. "He needs to know how bad Mac is," she said. "Maybe he can make things move a bit faster."
Riley gave Matty a single nod, then headed toward where she and Kira had shoved the table cloth through a crack in the collapsed walls.
"Jack…," Mac's exhausted, wrecked voice drew everyone's attention.
"I'm right here, kid," Jack reassured him, his hand trembling as he pushed Mac's hair from his sweaty face.
"'s the helo get…getting here…soon?" Mac asked, turning his face toward the pressure of Jack's hand.
Matty winced at the pain that swam across Jack's features.
He's in the hurt locker, Matty. And I…I gotta help him.
"Yeah, kid. It'll be here, soon."
"We…get everyone…out?" Mac hadn't opened his eyes, but Matty saw him reach for Jack's arm as though knowing right where the man would be.
"Everyone's out," Jack told him. "You did real good, kid."
"'kay," Mac sighed, his body seeming to sink a bit as it went lax, his arm sliding down to rest near his narrow hips.
Jack scrambled pressing his fingers under Mac's jaw until he found what he was looking for. "Man, it's weak, but it's there."
"He has lost a lot of blood," Ben said, regretfully. "He needs fluids."
"How the hell you gonna do that?" DeAngelo commented. "Kid's barely alive as it is—not like he's gonna be up for downing a few bottles of water."
"Okay, look, pal—" Jack started.
"Mr. DeAngelo," Flynn broke in, gesturing toward a group of restaurant patrons he'd tasked with organizing the food and water. He'd removed his white chef's jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his black dress shirt, exposing the edges of a tattoo on his left forearm. "How about you pull up a piece of floor? Take a load off."
"I'm good, thanks." DeAngelo waved Flynn off.
Flynn took a step forward, his shoulders squared, and Matty suddenly saw a soldier where before had stood a young, untested chef.
"Mr. DeAngelo," Flynn repeated. "I want you to sit down, sir."
"I don't give a fuck what you want—"
"Mr. DeAngelo!" Flynn barked, making even Matty jump. "Sit. Down. Sir."
DeAngelo stepped away from Flynn, eyes wide, then sat down with his back to the wall. Matty narrowed her eyes at the business man, watching as he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a thin, gold lighter from the interior pocket of his suit jacket, lighting a smoke and exhaling upwards. Flynn turned back to the other patrons just as Riley came back into the room, her face sweaty, expression grim.
"They are going to send water and bandages down through the break in the ceiling," Riley reported, pointing to a small hole off in the corner.
"Can you ask them for a few IV bags of saline with a 14-gauge catheter?" Ben specified.
"And can we get word out to our kids?"
"How about food, are they going to send food?"
Riley walked away while questions were still being tossed her way, presumably to ask for the saline. Matty looked back over at Jack and Mac. The younger man's face was frighteningly pale, the older man's face lined with tension and fear. Mac was shivering slightly, unconsciously pressing closer to Jack's body as if in search of heat—or comfort.
Jack, though…there was something in his expression that scared her. He didn't seem to be tracking with the worried activity that had surrounded Riley's return. Sweat that had gathered on his forehead and temples ran unchecked into his eyes, and the hand that wasn't pushing Mac's hair from his face was visibly trembling.
She took a slow breath and approached him.
"He's still here, Jack," she reminded him. "You're doing everything you can."
"I can't lose him, Matty," Jack sniffed. He looked up at her and the utter devastation she saw in his eyes almost took her breath away. She'd seen that look two other times on this man's face—when their final mission as CIA operatives went south, and when Murdoc kidnapped Mac. "I can't."
"You're not going to lose him," Matty promised, willing the words to be true as she sent them out into the universe. She stepped closer, putting her hand on Jack's to still its trembling. Something in her heart slipped sideways when he wrapped his large fingers around hers and held on tight. "We just got him back," she gave him a half smile. "We've got too much for him to do."
She watched Ben check Mac's pulse, then frowned as Mac's shivering increased.
"Is he having another seizure?"
Ben shook his head. "It is shock." He glanced around the room. "We must keep him warm."
"Here!" said Kira from where she was collecting the table cloths. "Use these."
Ben accepted the table cloths gratefully, then propped Mac's booted feet up on a broken piece of chair as he covered him from bandaged shoulder to ankle, using Jack's body to anchor the make-shift blankets. Mac groaned, his head turning weakly against Jack's shoulder. Even unconscious, Matty could see that he was in pain.
"Bozer!" Riley called suddenly. "Leanna. Over here!"
Matty looked around as her two agents followed the sound of Riley's voice. Minutes later, the three came back with a flat of bottled water, which Bozer and Leanna helped distribute among the patrons sitting in different groups around the small room. Riley headed straight to Ben with her armload.
"Two bags of saline with 14-gauge catheters," she reported. "Bandages and ibuprofen. And I've got an actual walkie-talkie," she grinned.
"Better than nothing," Jack muttered.
Ben nodded in agreement, pulling Mac's left arm from beneath the table cloth and starting an IV in the back of his hand so as not to dislodge the jacket helping to keep Mac warm. He propped a piece of broken chandelier up to hang the IV bag above their heads.
Matty gripped Riley's hand. "Thank you," she smiled. "Did you manage to reach Oversight?"
Riley rolled her eyes. "We got a message to him, but who knows if he'll do anything about it."
"At least you got the message out."
"Hey, so…," DeAngelo called out, leaning against a wall across the small room from where Mac lay against Jack, wringing a bottle of water between his hands. "What did you mean that this kid had saved more lives than anyone in this room? You don't actually know who's in this room," he pointed out. "I mean, you didn't even know Ben, there, was a Medic. I bet he's saved a life or two."
Ben looked down at his hands, a sad smile on his face. "In an abundance of counselors there is safety," he said softly.
Matty saw Jack tilt his head at that, but he kept quiet.
"Look," DeAngelo continued, sipping his lukewarm water. "I fully admit to being your basic L.A. schmuck. Any life I saved was because someone took my car keys away, you know what I'm saying?"
"Unfortunately," Riley muttered.
"But…I mean, who else we got here? Firefighters? Cops?"
"I am a Marine," came a soft voice from the back of the room.
"Semper Fi," Jack called out, lifting his chin.
"You?" the voice called in return.
Matty could see the voice was from a young Hispanic man with close-cropped, dark hair. He sat with his arms wrapped around bent knees, a young African American girl leaning against him. They'd clearly been on a date, both dressed in nicer clothes.
"Delta," Jack replied.
"Damn," the young Marine whistled low. "You're bad ass, man. What about your boy, there?"
"EOD," Jack told him, carding a hand through Mac's hair.
"Well, hell," the Marine exhaled, looking over at DeAngelo. "He's right, dude. That guy…doing what he did? He probably saved a hundred guys every week."
"I'm just saying, I'm sure he's great and all, but he's just a guy," DeAngelo defended himself. "No better or worse than you or me."
Jack huffed a tired laugh. "He'd be the first to agree with you," he replied. "And then he'd build some amazing contraption using…refrigerator coils, paperclips, and a soup can that would end up saving your life."
"What?" DeAngelo shook his head. "You're talking crazy."
"He's not, though," Bozer spoke up. "I've seen him do it."
Riley raised her hand. "Same."
"Mr. DeAngelo," Flynn spoke up suddenly, straddling a backwards-turned chair and holding a bottle of water by the neck as though it had personally insulted him. "Let me ask you this…what were you doing in 2011?"
DeAngelo blinked in confusion. "Hell, I don't know. That was, like…seven years ago, man."
"I remember exactly what I was doing," Flynn stated. "I was in Kandahar, with those guys," he pointed toward Jack and Mac, "trying to keep the Taliban under some kind of control."
"Yes, well, we get it: you all are old war buddies—"
"Nah, it wasn't war," Flynn shook his head. "It was worse."
Matty watched as his eyes slid from DeAngelo's face and landed somewhere in the middle distance, lost in his memories. It was a look she'd seen at home on both Mac and Jack's faces much too often.
"It was…this dizzying, constant fear. Never knowing if you were going to walk down the street and get blown up by an IED. Or if the kid playing soccer with his friends on the corner was rigged with a bomb that could kill you at a moment's notice. Or if your buddy was coming back to barracks when he's sent out on patrol."
Thankfully, DeAngelo was quiet. Flynn sighed.
"Y'know, given enough time, water can cut through a mountain. It just…erodes away the hardest substance on Earth by a constant, repetitive motion. Flowing against it, over and over and over until the rock simply starts to disappear." Flynn's voice had taken on a steady, almost droning quality, his hands tightening around the water bottle. "And sometimes, the rock has to…move," Flynn said, looking up, his eyes resting on where Mac lay against Jack for a moment before drifting back to the floor. "It can't stand against the steady beat of the water and it just gets carried away by the current."
Matty listened to Flynn, her eyes on Mac.
"That's what Afghanistan did," Flynn revealed. "It wasn't heroic, though there were certainly heroes there. It wasn't patriotic; it wasn't honorable. It was water on rock, wearing us all down until we came home, and we weren't the same shape we were when we left."
"Damn, Flynn," Jack broke in, tears in his voice once more. "Couldn't have said it better, man."
"Oorah," agreed the young Marine.
Matty felt a slight shifting beneath her feet, not enough to shake the walls loose, but enough to make her feel queasy. She met Riley's eyes, then looked toward Bozer and Leanna. They'd all felt it, too, but no one said anything as the rest of the people in the room seemed to be too tired or too traumatized to react to a little aftershock.
Riley's walkie-talkie squelched, and she jumped up, heading toward where she got the best reception.
"How's he doing, Jack?" Matty asked quietly.
Jack was helping Ben wrap gauze around Mac's head in an attempt to keep the deep laceration from getting more debris into it, should another aftershock hit.
"No better," Jack intoned. "But…maybe not worse?" He seemed to be pleading with Ben to agree.
"Unfortunately, I believe he is developing a fever," Ben revealed, dejectedly. He pressed the backs of his fingers against Mac's cheek. "We won't be able to do much but keep him hydrated and try to keep the wounds from bleeding more…and maybe they are able to get to us soon."
"Soonest is six hours," Riley reported, returning to the room, weariness in every line of her being. The chorus of regret and denial was like a wave of sound impacting her. "I'm sorry, but they have to figure out how to remove one wall without another falling down on us."
"It's like ultimate Jenga," Bozer commented from where he and Leanna were slumped against the wall near DeAngelo. "Only when you lose, you lose."
"Can Mac last six hours?" Jack asked Ben.
Ben swallowed, checking the IV bag. "We will make sure he does," he replied.
Matty looked around at the weary, dejected faces. "Why don't we all try to get some rest," she suggested. "There's not much we can do until they figure out the best way to move some walls."
"If Mac were awake, he'd have already figured it out," Bozer grumbled.
DeAngelo scoffed.
"I'm dead serious, man," Bozer argued. "His brain just doesn't work like the rest of us. I've known the guy since we were ten and some of the things he's been able to create using common objects just lying around are insane."
"Saw him build a welder using jumper cables, a generator, and a couple of quarters," Jack reported.
"Fixed my radiator using egg whites," Riley said. She gave them a half-smile. "I'm still trying to get that smell out of my car."
"How about a laser microphone from a CD player and a solar light photocell?" Matty remembered with a grin, thinking of the blonde's ingenious way to communicate with them when he and Jack had been trapped inside his rigged-to-explode house.
"Don't forget the lightning battery thing," Jack reminded them. "Kid literally caught lightning in a glass jar to charge up a Sat phone and get us rescued."
Ben blinked. "Do you mean he built a Leyden jar?"
"Whatever it's called, it was damn impressive," Jack lifted a shoulder, his face softening with smile.
Matty watched as Jack carded his fingers through Mac's hair, his other arm wrapped carefully around Mac's torso, offering him any warmth he could. His hand wasn't trembling any longer, but she felt that the man was holding on by a very thin thread.
"Okay, he's smart, sure," DeAngelo shrugged. "But he still managed to get himself half blown up. All I'm saying."
"He got half blown up making sure we didn't all blow up, you jackass," Flynn practically growled. "He saved you."
DeAngelo just shook his head, looking away.
"Hey, Flynn," Bozer spoke up, clearly needing to keep himself distracted. "What were you talking about earlier—the last time you saw these guys?"
Flynn looked over at Jack. "That's really more your story than mine," he said.
"Hell," Jack shook his head. "It's Mac's story, but he'd never tell it."
"How about you tell it for him," Matty suggested, sitting down on the ground and leaning against the bench near Jack's leg.
He needed something to ground him, she knew. And since his mind kept sliding back to that time anyway—in part due to Mac's confused questions when he was semi-coherent—maybe talking about it was the best way to keep him present. Until they had Mac back with them.
"It might help me understand better how to help him when we get out of here, too."
Jack glanced around the room, eyes finally resting on Riley. "You sure? It's not exactly a pretty story."
"I'd like to know, Jack," Riley confessed. "Mac's always so closed off about so many things. I mean, I feel like I know him, but sometimes there's this…wall around him, y'know? It'd be good to know how we could be better friends to him."
Jack looked at the cluster of restaurant patrons grouped together at the back of the small room. "You all feel free to go to sleep," he told them. He rested a hand on the crown of Mac's bandaged head once more. "This is really only going to mean something to the ones who know this kid."
"Tell your story," the elderly gentleman entreated. "Perhaps we all would like to know that kid."
Jack nodded, dropping his eyes to stare at nothing. Or, Matty suspected, to stare at something none of them could see.
"Well, like Mac said earlier, it was forty-two days until his tour was up…and I'd re-upped to be right there with him. His EOD unit had been temporarily reassigned to Kandahar until another unit could be called up…."