Ow.

Mac hurt … everywhere. He pried his eyes open to find the vehicle mostly dark. He was hanging in the safety harness, so he was definitely upside down.

Shit.

Okay, he was sore, and he thought maybe he'd been unconscious for a minute, but compared to what happened on Christmas, he felt ready to hop up and run a 5K. But only compared to Christmas.

"Jack," he said, fuzzy enough that he wasn't sure if he was calling out hoping for his friend to answer, or reminding himself he needed to go looking for him.

There was no answer, so it was definitely the latter. He could hear gunfire and shouting, but it wasn't close. Maybe the other guys got missed. He hoped so fervently and he patted his vest, looking for his flashlight. The headlights were on, but they weren't helping much with the interior, just shining off over a flatish rocky plain, with the mountains a blank black wall in the distance. Mac realized that meant the vehicle was not only flipped, but facing the direction they'd come from.

He clicked on his light and shined it around the vehicle. No Jack.

"Jack!" he called out again, loudly this time, pretty sure if the man was close by … and conscious … he'd hear him. Another pop, pop, pop of semi automatic gunfire startled him, and it was closer. Jack wasn't answering, a fight was going on, and shit had blown up all over the place. Mac felt the tendrils of panic start to wrap themselves around his chest and throat. "Keep it together, Mac," he mumbled out loud to himself.

He tried to undo the harness. Something was broken or stuck though because it wouldn't release. He took a deep breath and felt the pockets of his vest again. When his fingers touched his Swiss Army knife, he felt himself relax a little. As he cut himself free from the harness, he told himself over and over that Jack was alive, that there's no way that man would let go of stubborn long enough to die while Mac still needed an Overwatch.

Mac thumped down onto the roof of the vehicle and just laid there for a minute. Ow, he thought again. His left arm was sticky and damp, so he knew he was bleeding, but he guessed it wasn't badly. He wasn't a fan of how cloudy his thoughts felt, but his helmet was still on so he figured that was the same simple fatigue that had caused him to doze off before.

The gun fire was still happening in sporadic bursts but it was further away. He closed his eyes for a few seconds breathing deeply, just trying to shake off the sort of slow moving sludge in his brain. Radio … Okay, yeah. Thanks, brain.

After talking with their base Mac realized that helmet or no, he must've rapped his head on something because he only half remembered the call. He did know that reinforcements and a dustoff were on their way and there were definitely other guys still alive because the other vehicles had both called in. The voice assured him they'd be there soon since they were coming by air. Mac and the other guys were still well outside the wire and a ground rescue would take too long with so many hostiles in the area.

He sat there for a minute trying to gather his thoughts and retrace his mental steps so he could remember what he'd been doing before the radio had occurred to him.

He thought he heard a low moaning sound, but when he stopped moving again to listen, he didn't hear anything. "Jack?" he called again.

"Mmmm."

"Jack!" Mac practically shouted and started scrambling for the door. He tried to open it, but it didn't budge. Must've gotten damaged in the blast, or when it rolled. Or both. The window was cracked, about as far as was ever wise whether they needed to move some air or not, but not open. Mac tried to roll it down. No luck. Damnit. That door must be screwed.

He finally remembered the tactical pen in his vest. To most people the words sounded like something the military made up to make a writing implement sound more badass, but in this case the item actually was pretty badass. It was meant for situations just like this one.

When the reinforced body and tip broke the glass after slamming it into the middle of the window several times, Mac took a grateful breath of the cool night air. "Jack?" he said again, more softly than before since there was nothing between him and hearing an answer anymore.

"Mac?" The questioning reply was so quiet he almost missed it. Almost. He moved careful in the direction of Jack's voice. He didn't dare turn on his flashlight. He could see the beams of several others in the distance, but didn't know if it was there guys or the bad guys. That was not a question he wanted to have answered the hard way.

He ran into Jack before he saw him. Fortunately it was just with his outstretched hands. Jack groaned. "Sorry, sorry Jack. How bad?"

"Flashlight?"

"I don't think …"

"Flashlight." Okay, that was an order then.

"I'd say 'your funeral', but they'll probably kill us both, so …"

"Button it, Carl's Junior," Jack bit out. "Listen for a second."

Jack was right. Those were all American voices. And the gunfire had stopped. Light discipline was not an issue. Mac got his flashlight out and flicked it on.

"Oh, Jack. Jesus."

He was sure he was a lovely shade of green all of a sudden. He knew plenty about the human body but … yeah, no, there was a reason he sucked at biology. Give me the complex math of advanced applied physics over a Petrie dish any day, he thought.

Trying to sound like he was just making an observation, but sounding more like he was going to throw up, he said, "I … I think it's bent wrong."

Jack picked his head up and looked at his leg. "It's not bent wrong, just you know kinda iffy. More worried about the restame. Feel like Indiana Jones if, ya know, he didn't outrun that big ole rock."

Mac looked him over, trying to ignore the fact that touching Jack just about anywhere made the man gasp. He couldn't bring himself to investigate the leg injury too much. Now he could see it wasn't bent wrong, just massively swollen. "Head's bleeding but not much. Nothing else that's obvious. Except … your pain." Jack didn't contradict him about being in pain. Well, that wasn't great. "What happened?"

"Got thrown when I was gettin' out I think. Help me up."

"Like Hell! Stay down," Mac barked when jack started to struggle to get upright.

"Somebody needs a refresher in who gives orders to who, there, Carl's Junior. I'm alright, more or less. We're gonna have to find the other guys and …"

"Dustoff's on its way. Pretty sure I can hear a couple birds incoming right now. So stay put. You might have internal injuries."

Mac put the flashlight on the ground so he'd have his hands free but still be able to see. He was thinking he should crawl back inside the wrecked humvee for their tactical first aid kit since he'd packed it and knew it had splinting materials. The individual kits in their vests wouldn't be worth a damn for Jack's leg.

Jack moved to sit up again. "I'm fine, really kid," he replied, his voice tight with poorly concealed pain.

Mac put a hand in the middle of his chest. "Knock it off. You know better."

"You're bleedin' too," Jack observed, pointing to the blood drying on Mac's arm.

"Yeah, I know, Got my bell rung pretty good, too, even with the helmet. Think I maybe have a slight concussion."

Jack frowned. "You do realize you just owned up to being hurt, right? Like you never do that. You were fulla shrapnel after that RPG in …"

"Yeah, whatever. I figured you were looking for a fight so I'd help you up. You're staying on the ground until a medic says move or I will do what you did at Christmas."

"You can't carry me, genius. I'm twice your size."

Mac snorted. "Hardly. Besides I'll just cannibalize the truck and build something to help me. Pulley system of something," he said absently, listen intently to the approaching helicopters, deciding how close they were.

"For real now, Mac, let's go find the other guys so we can get out of here before the bad guys come back."

Mac still didn't move the hand in the middle of Jack's chest. "No. Don't be stupid."

Jack hated it when Mac implied he might be less than smart. He knew it was something the kid only ever did if he was scared or mad, because he knew Mac didn't believe any such thing. But it still pissed him off. He swatted Mac's arm away and Mac sucked in his breath. He'd definitely done something unfortunate to that arm. Jack hadn't used much force and it hurt quite a bit.

"Ow, damnit. Jackass," he said. But, to Jack's satisfaction, he backed up. "Suit yourself, but when you die from internal bleeding I'm not coming to your memorial. Just saying."

Jack rolled his eyes and pushed himself up to sitting. "See, I'm alright," he asserted.

"Sure," Mac said, climbing painfully to his feet, and moving to get behind Jack.

"You finally gonna be of some use and help me up insteada just fussin' at me."

"No. But if you're dumb enough to try to get up, I'm gonna catch you when you fall on your ass."

Jack rolled his eyes and moved to get up. The second he tried to put weight on his injured leg, there was a strangled cry, his body went limp, and Mac was right there to ease an unconscious Jack Dalton onto the ground. He sighed and sat down next to him, finally peeling off his sweaty helmet.

In another minute or two, the medevac arrived. Reynolds finally jogged over to see how they were. He'd known they were alive from the radio chatter, but also that it was unlikely they were unhurt. He filled Mac in briefly on engaging the group that had hit them, and on the condition of the rest of the guys.

Mac was expecting Jack and the others who were really injured to be taken to one of the base hospitals since it seemed likely the bullet wounds and Jack's leg were going to need more than the tent at the FOB. As it turned out, someone had made the call to transport all of them, just in case.

He supposed that was a good idea, given the circumstances. As they lifted into the air, Mac's eyes stayed on Jack, who was still out cold, but that could have been pain management at that point, for a few minutes. Finally, suspected concussion or not, he needed to close his eyes.

One of the guys next to him asked, "Didn't you guys get blowed up back around Christmas, too?"

Mac didn't open his eyes. "Yeah, another Groundhog Day out there, man."

Missions that went south the same way over and over were often referred to that way, and Mac knew the other man would get it. What he didn't say was how weirdly similar everything had been to the day that had very nearly gotten him killed. He also didn't say that he'd much rather have been the one hurt again. He was terrible at being hurt or sick and he knew it. But Jack … he was going to be miserable.

Mac sighed and found himself unusually inclined to join his partner in quoting a sequel. "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice," he murmured.

"Huh?" the man next to him asked… he thought it was Kendrick but didn't open his eyes to check.

"Nothing," he replied, leaning his head against the fuselage and almost immediately dozing off.