AN: Sorry for such a long wait. I went home for Thanksgiving break and I didn't realize that I wouldn't have time to write the entire time, but things should get back to normal now. I hope you enjoy, and please leave a review :)

Being helpless was probably the worst feeling in the world. Jack could clearly see that Mac was in a world of pain, and there was nothing he could do to help him. The kid was shaking so hard that Jack had to hold him to make sure he didn't fall out of the tree. He was whimpering a little bit, and even softly moaning at times because of the pain. The whole time, he kept his eyes squeezed shut.

Once all the men chasing them were finally out of view, Jack softly said, "you gotta tell me what's goin' on, bud. What's wrong?"

"My head, behind my eyes," Mac replied, his voice breaking. Jack could see a tear falling out from behind closed lids. "It hurts so bad, Jack," he whimpered.

"It's gonna be okay," Jack lied. He didn't know what was happening at all. The only thing he knew was that his kid was in agony and there was nothing he could do to help him. Jack carefully maneuvered Mac into his arms and held him as he shook with pain. Mac cries grew a bit louder, which was so unlike him that Jack froze for a second. "Shhhh, I've got you, but we gotta stay quiet," he pled with Mac. They needed to be sure that they were in the clear before making any noise that might draw the men towards them.

"I'm gonna go blind," Mac said, crying out again in pain. "No, please, please, no, no," he said. Jack didn't know if Mac was talking to him, or God, or whoever, but it broke his heart nonetheless. Mac's cries grew even louder, and Jack started panicking. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't do anything to make whatever was going on with Mac to stop, but they couldn't alert the weapons dealers to where they were.

"I know it hurts, buddy, but we have to be quiet," he said, trying to let his voice be a calming force for the kid. That usually worked, but it didn't now. Mac groaned again, and Jack, with tears in his own eyes, quickly covered Mac's mouth with his hand to muffle his cries as the kid began to scream. He held Mac tightly next to him as he began to thrash in pain. He let the tears fall when his kid screamed into his hand in pain. Jack felt Mac's tears on his hand and on his shirt, and just held on as tightly as he could, praying he could keep them both in the tree without alerting anyone to their presence.

After the longest minute of Jack's life, Mac very suddenly stopped screaming and thrashing. Jack would've thought that he had passed out - and he almost wished that he had, since at least that would give him a reprieve from the pain - if it hadn't been for the fact that he was still crying. Mac slowly untangled himself from Jack and sat up on his own, his hands clutching the tree to keep himself steady. His eyes were still squeezed tight, and his breath was coming in short gasps. Mac was visibly trying to calm himself by trying to take deep breaths, and eventually succeeded, but he was still shaking. He finally opened his eyes, then quickly put his hand up to his mouth to muffle the sound that came out, the sound that was nearly a wail.

"Mac, what's going on?" Jack asked. He was so confused. It didn't seem like Mac was in pain anymore, but he was crying just as hard as he had been earlier, and was shaking just the same.

"Jack, I can't- I can't see," he stuttered. "I'm blind, I can't see, I can't see I can't see I can't see!"

"You gotta calm down, bud, we can't let them find you," Jack said, even though he was panicking just as much as Mac. He pulled the kid against him in an attempt to help him calm down. Mac flinched at first, but then melted into Jack. He clutched him like a lifeline, holding on so hard that it hurt a bit, but Jack wasn't about to push him away. Mac sobbed into Jack's shoulder, his cries muffled. Jack didn't bother to wipe away his own tears, since after all, Mac couldn't see them.

What were they going to do? They were thirty feet up in a tree, hiding from dangerous chemical weapons dealers, with no exfil, no comms with Phoenix, and Mac was blind. The kid couldn't smell either but that one didn't matter quite as much. It was getting Cairo bad. What was Jack supposed to do?

Once Mac had quieted, Jack finally asked, "what did they do to you?" They must have done something when they'd caught the kid. There was no other possible explanation as to why Mac was losing his senses.

"They injected me with some drug, then I woke up in that room. I think they wanted to watch the progression of the drug, since it's still in development," Mac replied, his voice completely monotone, and barely more than a whisper. He was still laying against Jack, and made no move to get up. The kid sounded completely exhausted, and he had every right to be. Mac kept taking deep breaths, as if he were trying to keep more tears at bay. He had to be so scared.

"I'm gonna get you home, and you're gonna be okay. I swear on my life that I am going to find an antidote or die trying, okay?" Jack said, wrapping his arms around the kid just a little bit more tightly. He would not let this destroy the boy.

"You can't promise that," Mac replied, his voice breaking. "Everyone else in that room was dead, and once I lose everything else I'll be dead too." He pressed his head further into Jack's shoulder, and held on to the man with all he had.

"You know me, Mac. You go kaboom, I go kaboom, remember? No matter what happens, I am never leaving you," Jack said. He could feel Mac about to protest, so he just held onto him tighter.

He couldn't think about the possibility of this being nonreversable, or even worse, the drug killing Mac before they were able to get help. He just couldn't think about it, because if he did, he would freak out, and he couldn't do that right now. Mac needed him to be strong, he needed him to be steady, and he would be neither if he were freaking out about all the maybes. But, now that they were officially on a time table, they had to stop hiding and be proactive. Mac didn't have the luxury of time to wait out the men chasing them. If they could just get to where exfil would have been, they would probably have enough signal to call for help. That meant it was time to get down from the tree. This was going to be interesting.

Mac didn't know if he had ever felt so helpless in his life, and that was saying something, because he often got in such precarious situations that there didn't seem to be a way out, but this was different. He couldn't freaking see, and he didn't know if he ever would again. And now that he knew what the drug was doing to him, he knew it was only a matter of time until he lost his hearing. Would he lose taste and touch too? Mac didn't want to think about it, but he couldn't stop himself. He couldn't see the tactical advantage of making the enemy lose their sense of taste, so hopefully that wouldn't happen, and assuming they didn't plan on just outright killing everyone they ever dosed with this drug, losing the sense of touch would just make prisoners too difficult to handle, so hopefully that would also be off the table.

From a tactical standpoint, Mac could see the use of a drug that took away the senses of smell, sight, and hearing. In some kind of warfare situation, however unethical it would be, a drug that very quickly took away those senses would make it impossible for any enemies to fight back. Despite it all, Mac almost laughed. Clearly they still had a long way to go until the drug would be ready for use. He didn't know if dying was supposed to happen, but he couldn't help but hope it wasn't, not just because he didn't like death, but because maybe if it wasn't supposed to happen, then the version he had been injected with would be advanced enough that he wouldn't die. Mac knew he put up a good front most of the time, at least when he was around people that weren't Jack, but he was scared. He didn't want to die.

"Hey bud," Jack said, breaking his dark thoughts. "I think we should get a move on now."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Mac muttered in reply, but he still made no move to sit up. All he wanted to do was sleep, because maybe when he woke up, this will all have been a terrible nightmare, and he wouldn't really be blind and slowly dying. But when Jack finally removed his arms from around him, Mac couldn't stop himself from gasping and clutching Jack even harder. He was up way too high in a tree and he couldn't see and Jack was keeping him steady and if he didn't have Jack right there then he didn't know where he was and-

"Hey, hey, hey, it's okay," Jack said in that voice he used on skittish horses back in Texas. Damn, Mac wished he were there instead of here. But, just like it worked on the horses, it worked on him too. Jack had the uncanny ability to always help him calm down and put him at ease. "I'm gonna help you every step of the way here. Our first order of business is getting down this tree. Now the only way we're gonna be able to do that is if you climb onto my back, then I bring both of us down."

"Jack, no-"

"You have a better idea, genius?" Jack teased. "If you can't see, you're not gonna be able to climb down yourself. As long as you stay perfectly still, then I am plenty strong enough to get us both down."

As much as Mac hated the idea, he knew that Jack was right. He couldn't think of any way to get down by himself, and for the short amount of time he would be on Jack's back, he knew the man was strong enough to do it. You didn't become an Army Delta without being seriously ripped, and Jack took his workout regimen very seriously.

"Okay," Mac finally replied. He started to move his hands around Jack's shoulders, but he didn't really know what he was doing. How was he supposed to get onto Jack's back while he was stuck up a tree if he couldn't see anything?

"Bud, stop," Jack said with a chuckle. Mac stopped immediately, and could feel his face heating up. "You relax, and let me help you." Mac wasn't exactly in a position to refuse his help, and they both knew it. But, soon enough, after some awkward maneuvering - Mac was actually kind of glad that he couldn't see, because that would have made it even more awkward - he had both his arms and legs wrapped as tightly around Jack as he could manage. He could feel Jack awkwardly getting them down the tree, and once again Mac was glad he couldn't see, because that meant he couldn't see how high up they were.

It took a lot longer than it had taken to get up, but finally, they were at the bottom, and Jack was telling Mac to hop off. Mac did so, but he didn't take his hand off Jack's shoulder. He was afraid that if he did, then he would lose him.

"Thanks, Jack," he muttered. If it hadn't been for Jack, he never would've been able to get down. He could feel Jack's shoulders moving up and down with heavy breaths under his hand. The man would need to rest a minute.

"It's no problem, kid," Jack replied, surprising Mac by putting his hand on top of Mac's. He only showed his surprise with a small flinch, and quickly recovered. Jack took a hold of Mac's hand and moved it to his upper arm. "You grip this sleeve with all you've got, okay?" Mac nodded. "I'll tell you everything in our path. I will not let you fall. I'm gonna get you home, okay, bud?" He nodded again. "Alright," Jack continued with a sigh. "Let's get going."