The videodisc system sits in Mac's workshop now, along with a dusty engine prototype and various other bric-a-brac from his broken dreams. He tells himself he's just too busy to go down there, these days. It's a comforting sort of lie.

One he needs to hear. He's starved for his niece, given up his beloved jeep and a good chunk of what's left of his self-respect, along with any chance of leaving with Jack, and now his sweet, stolen Tuesdays have gone too. Of course he'd do it all, just the same, but... Jack's taken him at his word, started drinking at the Wingman Bar again. Only fair, really.

Someday, his clever niece is going to get out of this town. Maybe to study for that chemistry degree he never had. He hopes she never looks back.

Though Mac's starting to think he'll just go crazy, when Becky leaves.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Unc, could you start the popcorn popper?"

"Sure thing." It's a good cheap snack, fun and easy to spice in plenty of different ways. They make it pretty often.

So Mac doesn't catch on to what she's really up to, until he finishes and brings the hot bowl over to their sofa (with butter, not margarine- he could always tell the difference when Jack was making it). Finds her blowing dust off his movie collection.

"What'd you lug that back up here for?"

"Cos I wanted to watch a movie," Becky says. "What else?"

At least it isn't Tuesday.

The doorbell rings, faintly; Mac hurries down, wondering who'd be here this time of night. He closes the shop early on Saturdays, so he and Becky can have some relaxation for once in their lives.

A perishing November wind blows through the door. Along with- "Jack? Uh, hi."

"Wanna help me carry this?" Jack shoves a paper bag into his hands, filled with plastic utensils and soda (he's keeping a tight grip on the one with all the food in it.) "Becky called me. Said she fancied some Chinese food."

"Ah." It's one of Jack's odder duties as cab driver, driving out to pick up takeout from other towns (it's not worth anyone's else's time to deliver to Mission City; there just isn't enough call for anything besides pizza.) "Give me a minute, I'll raid the tip jar and pay you back."

"Lighten up, willya? You don't get to be the only person who does nice things for your niece. Unless you put some kind of moratorium on that, in which case, I'd have to say that was pretty dumb."

"It's not about doing her a favour. You're trying to do me one." Dammit, his pride might be in shreds but he's clinging on to what there is of it.

"So go lock yourself in your room and don't eat any. Becky and I are gonna-" Jack pauses, weighs his next sentence carefully. "Put one of your movies in the player, sit down on the sofa, and watch it. Actually, literally, watch a film. That all right by you?"

"If that's what she wants to do, sure."

Mac's rather tempted to go ahead with that hide-in-the-bedroom idea, but when they do finally get up the stairs, he has to put down the soda, and get some ice- and before he entirely knows what's happening, Becky's pulled him over to the sofa and Jack's jammed himself on the other end, so that he's stuck sandwiched between the two of them.

With a hot bowl of popcorn on his lap. While his mind's simultaneously racing and trying not to think about how awkward this is, the prospect of a cosy rest and some greasy takeout is sounding more and more attractive. Maybe he should just settle in and enjoy this.

"Who wants to pick?" Becky asks. "I'm having a little trouble deciding, honestly."

Mac endeavors not to look at Jack. "Not a Western."

"They're all Westerns," Jack says. "No, wait. You had one-"

"Sunset Boulevard!" Becky announces, pulling it out of the stack. "There we go."

Oh, great. A psychosexual film noir about people endlessly reliving their more optimistic past, that's not going to be unsettlingly close to home at all. (Sheesh, even Ellen's moved on.)

Still, at least it's one movie he and Jack never did get around to watching...

"Are you going to want to do this every Saturday?" he asks his niece.

"I think so," Becky says, comfortably snuggling up against him. "Hey, it'll be something for Jack to do besides get drunk alone in his trailer."

"What? When? I know you're a bit more than a social drinker-"

"But at least I've had the sense not to drink alone?" Jack shrugs. "It was Tuesday night, I was bored."

For the first time since Becky's arrival, Mac finds himself fretting about somebody besides her. "Please don't do that."

"Make me promise," Jack says, a glint in his eye.

"Okay," Mac says, flippant and careless. "Promise me you won't, okay? Only I guess I've got used to having you 'round."

"Done. Does that mean I'm invited next Saturday?" Jack asks quietly, as Becky pops the movie in.

"Let's see how this one goes, first."

And finally the movie's on, so thankfully that conversation comes to an end. Though it bothers him all the way through, that somehow his niece has heard a piece of gossip about Jack before he did.

Maybe he ought to have been paying more attention.

No. Of course he should have.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"I see you stuck around for some of Unc's pancakes," Becky says, the next morning.

"He does 'em better than I do," Jack says lazily, watching a very content Mac flip another onto the syrup-soaked stack. "Fact is, he can cook just about anything better than me. Though I can make mediocre French toast, if you wanna-"

"Absolutely not!"

"He means, no thanks," Becky says politely. "Also, that he'd probably be just as happy if you never said 'French toast' to him ever again."

"Sheesh! I was only offering..."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Of course, things aren't quite the same as before.

It takes Jack a while to realise, with a certain bemusement, that his Saturdays have ended up in a sort of domestic routine. Mac picks up a lot of movies that aren't Westerns for them to watch (though they eventually get around to those again, as Becky turns out to share her uncle's sincere taste for the genre). She's always round, wryly commenting on the films and fetching quilts and generally making the whole thing a lot more homey. Her knack for interesting flavours of popcorn is a change from his all-junk-food-all-the-time style, that's for sure.

Of course, he's still to be found at the Wingman Bar half the nights in the week, but- this kind of domestic adventure, he thinks he can live with. Because it isn't judgemental; it isn't like the rest of Mission City, trying to live up to a perfect innocuous photograph in an aspirational magazine. It's just the three of them, making a safe space for themselves against the odds. Having a damned good try at being happy, despite all the reasons they shouldn't be.

And it's so much easier for them to avoid suspicion this way. The takeout deliveries are self-explanatory (he firmly refuses to let Mac pay for them, ever), and he can sneak home the next day without anybody being the wiser.

After all. Sunday mornings, everybody else in Mission City is at church.