AN: This will make absolutely no sense if you haven't read The Path Not Taken, I'm afraid. It's a day early because I'm stuck in the lab until late (about 9 pm) tonight, waiting for my bacteria to grow, and am sick of moving around little arrows on Powerpoint to make diagrams of operons!

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

As Mac and Alex walked out of the war room after debrief, Alex's phone chimed and he pulled it out, rolled his eyes affectionately, and started typing out a reply.

Mac glanced over at him, a brow quirked slightly in question.

'Dinner plans?'

Alex nodded.

'At Nick's favourite steakhouse. It's a place at the foot of Hills, great food, nice but not fancy.'

That rang a bell.

And coincidences were statistically inevitable, and Nick and Jack did share an improbable number of character traits…

'Does the owner have a strange obsession with Bruce Willis?' Alex stared at him for a second and muttered something about how this was absurdly improbable. Mac smiled and shook his head (Bozer insisted that he was an improbability magnet, which was completely impossible, but Mac did have to admit that a lot of highly improbable things did happen in his life). 'I owe Jack a steak dinner…'

Alex smiled, completely genuinely.

'Combined family dinner?' His expression turned more wry, teasing. 'Are you sure you want Nick and Jack at the same table?'

Mac's expression, too, shifted to something wry and teasing.

'Maybe they'll just talk at each other and we can eat in peace.'

Alex snorted.

'Pigs will fly first.'

'Well, just let me go home and pick up my pig-carrying drone…'

A few minutes later, Mac and Alex both put their phones back in their pockets, Mac speaking as he pulled out a paperclip, which started to take the shape of a T-bone steak.

'It'll be a good family dinner.'

Alex nodded in agreement, pausing as the two of them walked past the lab, just outside the door. There was a soft look in his eyes, even though he was smirking.

'Well, family dinner with a plus one.' Then, he turned to Mac, his smirk widening, expression pointed. 'Or two. There's always room for a couple more in the family. And Nick does say that Lil' Miss Morgan and Lil' Doc get along very well…'

Mac rolled his eyes, though there wasn't much heat in the gesture. For covert operatives, Phoenix agents were ridiculous gossips.

(Though, a little voice in his head pointed out, Nick had been there the night he'd met Beth, and he had been an uncharacteristically good patient for her, for a variety of reasons, up to and including the fact that he had a known weakness for beautiful, intelligent, spirited women like her…Mac told the voice to be quiet.)

Still, as Alex opened the door to the lab, Mac headed off towards the infirmary.

Poor Beth had dealt with Jack (grumpy, stuck-in-the-infirmary Jack) for hours and hours and seen his butt; she deserved a steak dinner since she wasn't getting hazard pay, and she was a friend and good company.

Alex pointed at him as the lab doors swished open.

'Remember my lessons, little brother!'

Mac rolled his eyes again.

I'm quite sure I'm terrible at flirting.

But, as Bozer's always telling me, you do you, bro.

Besides, the point's moot. I'm not flirting with her anyway.

Beth was kneeling on the floor of the infirmary, packing an assortment of trail mix and strawberry-flavoured, yoghurt-topped cereal bars into the medical kits that Phoenix agents were sent out with.

(Trail mix had topped the poll of what Phoenix agents wanted added to the med-kits. Strawberry-flavoured, yoghurt-topped cereal bars were the current runaway leader of the current poll regarding favourite cereal bar flavours, which was written on a whiteboard by the door of the infirmary in Beth's neat handwriting.)

She looked up at Mac, a little surprised (happily surprised, a not-so-quiet voice in his brain noted), when he walked in.

'I heard Jack's claiming that steak dinner tonight.'

News travelled very fast around the Phoenix.

Also, Jack, his phone in hand, had just limped past him, heading towards the locker room to get changed, waggling his eyebrows at Mac.

Mac smiled, crossed his arms, and leaned casually against the wall.

'He's pretty fond of instant gratification. Sometimes, Jack's just an overgrown kid.' Beth gave a snort of laughter, nodding wryly in agreement. 'And he owes you a steak dinner, so how about I buy you one tonight on his behalf?' He paused, as Beth's expression grew hesitant. 'Jill's coming.'

Hopefully, that'd put her at ease, since then she wouldn't feel like she was being a tenth wheel, since the two teams were essentially like two families.

However, she still looked very hesitant, until Dr Farnham, the Phoenix's oldest doctor, grandfatherly, but in a stern way, looked up from where he was inputting some numbers (they looked like blood pressure readings, from what Mac could see) into his tablet, and spoke encouragingly, as soft and gentle as Mac had ever seen him.

(He was, it'd turned out, the best friend of forty years of a Dr Chris Garcia, who'd mentored Beth during her time with MSF in Syria, which was how she'd wound up on the Phoenix's radar in the first place.)

'Go on, Beth. Have some fun.'

She looked up at the older doctor for a moment, seemingly thinking, then nodded and smiled, turning to Mac.

'It does really sound like fun.' He grinned. He couldn't help it. She was really good company, after all. 'When and where?'

JACK AND NICK'S FAVOURITE STEAKHOUSE

LA

'…And it was just ever-so-slightly pink on the inside, man, just a little bit pink!'

Jack reached out and clapped a hand on Nick's shoulder, commiserating.

'I'm sorry, brother. I'm sorry. And sorry for that poor cow, whose sacrifice was all in vain…'

(They were both in firm agreeance that a perfectly cooked steak should be practically mooing.)

Sitting on the other side of the table, across from Nick and Jack, Matty and Rowena conversed quietly, their heads close together, knowing little smiles on their faces.

Meanwhile, on Matty's other side, Bozer and May were exchanging makeup tips across the table, while Riley and Carter, seated next to Bozer and May respectively, were discussing a new program she'd written the week before, to get rid of the flaw in the Phoenix's security system that allowed it to be disabled with a cleverly-placed gum wrapper once and for all.

On Carter's other side, Alex leaned back in his chair, grinning very much like a man who'd impressed an attractive woman, telling Jill, who was sitting next to him, a story that was making her laugh, her cheeks pink.

Beth was sitting opposite Jill, observing the cheerful chaos around her, an amused, soft, even fond smile on her face, but sipping her water and looking very much like she felt out of place, even a little uncomfortable.

Mac, who was sitting opposite Alex and next to her, really, really didn't like that, so reached out and picked up the bread basket, offering her one of the wonderfully-soft dinner rolls.

'Read any good papers recently?'

The uncomfortable look disappeared, as he'd drawn her into what he'd noticed was a comfort zone of hers (being doctor-y was one, science was another).

(Some people might think it was weird. He didn't. Science was where he felt most comfortable, most confident, after all.)

Beth smiled a little wider, and reached out and took a roll, pulled it apart and buttered it lightly, before setting it down on her plate and seemingly forgetting about it.

'There was a very interesting one on new titanium alloys for medical implants that I came across the other day, I think you'll like it, I'll send you the DOI…'

Nick and Jack glanced down the other end of the table, where Jill was attempting to solve Alex's seven-by-seven Rubik's cube (and doing a really good job of it, too, as far as they could tell, and if that very impressed look on Alex's face as he watched was anything to go by), while Mac and Beth had their heads bent over a diagram scrawled on a paper napkin and seemed to be talking about prosthetic hands, a la Luke Skywalker's.

The two older men then exchanged very mischievous smirks.

Mac, Beth, Alex and Jill, who were all very distracted, didn't notice.

Bozer, Riley, Carter and May didn't notice either, as Carter and May were locked in a discussion ('That college boy ain't got nothing on me!' 'Oh, you wish Carter H. Justin, you wish!'), while Riley and Bozer exchanged a glance that clearly said oh, God, the UST, so much UST…

(Carter and May were almost as bad as Agents Tommy and Lisa from Thom E. Gemcity's Deep Six series.)

However, Rowena and Matty, being Rowena and Matty, didn't miss those smirks.

They, too, exchanged a glance, keen to nip this in the bud.

(Jack and Nick would, of course, attempt to encourage their pseudo-surrogate sons' romantic endeavours.)

(Their encouragement, while it had the very best of intentions, was also not really wanted.)

(And, they thought, probably not necessary anyway.)

Rowena leaned over and whispered in Nick's ear, an eyebrow elegantly arched.

'If you don't want to sleep in the guest room tonight…'

He raised his hands.

'No plans, I swear, Ro!'

Matty simply shot Jack a look.

He gulped and saluted quickly.

'Heard you loud and clear, ma'am.'

AN: I promise this will eventually stop being a receptacle for fluff, I do have more serious episode tags planned…

Still, I like writing fluff. Hopefully you guys like reading it?