Mac sort of wished that the doc had done all her examining and bandaging while he'd still been drugged, because he only kind of remembered most of that. He was trying to just suck it up and deal with it, like he normally would, but it was taking every ounce of personal control he'd ever cultivated not to flinch the second anyone got into his space, say nothing about touched him.

Except Jack. Mac was back to himself enough that he wasn't about to let his partner sit next to him on the exam table now. But he was glad that he stayed. Jack was hovering and being obsessively supportive. Mac just kept giving him reassuring smiles that said he appreciated his presence.

And he did appreciate that Jack kept the rest of the team at bay until the doctor was mostly done with all her fussing, satisfied that he was as okay as he insisted he was. He at least had his shirt buttoned when everyone else came streaming in to the large exam and assessment room.

Dr. P obligingly got out of the way so Bozer and Riley could hug Mac, both being almost overly gentle. Cage hung back, eyes ranging over him in a way that made him vaguely uncomfortable, but it seemed to be motivated by genuine concern for a team member, so he was trying not to take it personally that it made him feel a little like a lab specimen.

Matty surprised him. While the doctor re-cleaned, thoroughly examined, and then bandaged the mess Murdoc had made of his arm, she stepped close, putting a reassuring hand on his for a second when he swayed a little, still a bit tired and dizzy.

She said almost gently, "We're running tox screens on your blood right now, Mac." She let go and stepped back so the doctor could finish and get out of Mac's hair a little. "We should know what Murdoc dosed you with soon."

Mac had some ideas about that now that his brain was working, so he shared them. Dr. P gave him a knowing smile as she moved off to update his chart over at her computer. Mac managed to smile back a little. Nothing like getting around to the same conclusion as the doctor without them saying anything. She seemed to appreciate that he was an informed patient, even if he didn't like being a patient at all. And he liked that she didn't condescend to him. He swore that was half of why he hated doctors.

The protective look in Jack's eyes when he made it very clear that he didn't give a damn what Murdoc had given Mac so long as Mac was safe now and he got to break the killer into itty bitty pieces made Mac feel like he was going to start crying like a kid if he didn't look away. So, given the choice, he found somewhere else to look.

Then everyone started sort of talking at once about how to find Murdoc. Mac's head got fuzzy again for a minute. Things were trying to come back to him, but whatever the drug was, and he was pretty sure he was correct about its origin, it clearly interfered with memory.

That, and he didn't really want to remember. He knew it would help them find Murdoc, but … He swallowed against the taste of bile rising in his throat. Just thinking about remembering, not even actually doing it, made him feel like being sick.

Then Bozer said 'car' and the honking horns blared loudly in his ears out of the recent past.

"Cars," he mumbled, blinking away the fog that still wanted to return. "There was definitely more than one car."

Jack gave him another pained look, another wrinkled brow that said if he didn't watch his step he was going to get a crushing hug, and bruises all over his torso be damned. But Jack was also desperate to find Murdoc, to keep this from happening again, so he started asking the usual questions. Then Bozer and it seemed everyone else joined in. Mac's head began throbbing, though whether with actual pain or with crowding memories, he was never sure.

What he really wanted was some time alone with his partner to talk this through. That's what they always did, no matter the mission in front of them. And right now, he needed the familiar. He also wanted to go someplace that wasn't Medical to think, although he didn't think Dr. P was going to let him walk until the tox panel came back. As long as everyone cleared out so he and Jack could do their thing, he thought he could cope with that for a while.

Then Cage told everyone to leave. He felt one of his eyebrows go up. Did she just tell the boss to leave? Wait … Did she just tell Jack to leave? Because that was about as likely to happen as Santa Claus turning out to be real and coming by and explaining himself and that whole no new chemistry set when he was twelve thing to Mac this Christmas. Then she brought up the Loftus and Palmer paper and Mac could feel his skeptical face coming on. Psychology? Now? Seriously?

He glanced at Jack who was looking at Cage like if he had a flame thrower she'd already be ash and he gave Mac his 'this chick is loco' look. Then she continued to explain the experiment and did roll his eyes a little, but he was careful that only Jack saw him. Then Jack gave him a small smile when his eyes begged the question, "Am I this irritating when I explain things?" and Jack's returned, "Well, sure, kid, but when you do it, I at least know you're not full of shit."

Although, Mac had to admit, despite the fact that as far as he was concerned psychology was the softest of the soft sciences, the paper she was referencing had yielded some interesting memory techniques he was familiar with. Sense memories were tied directly into the limbic system so it made sense that it was good for triggering more perfect recall.

Mac knew all too well that sense memory was the thing, for he or Jack or anyone they knew who'd served in combat, was the thing could send them right back there mentally, even if it was only for a minute.

Then she said definitively that she wanted only Mac and Riley in the room. Jack looked to Mac for confirmation that he was okay with that. Mac reluctantly gave him a small nod. He didn't really want Jack to go, but he recognized why Cage would want him to leave if she believed this would work. If he really remembered his captivity he was bound to get uncomfortable. The minute he showed the slightest sign of discomfort right now, Jack would step in and stop it if he could.

Jack looked the question at him again, just for confirmation, to make sure Mac didn't feel pressured into this. Mac swallowed hard. He did feel pressured, but he also remembered the dream, and he looked at Jack's concerned pinched expression, that he currently felt a little undeserving of, and gave him another nod.

Jack agreed to go, but Mac didn't miss the slightly warning look he gave Cage, not to mention the raised 'take care of our boy' eyebrows he gave Riley. Then he made sure Mac knew he wasn't going very far. "I'm not taking my eyes off you!"

Mac smiled slightly, suddenly remembering an entirely ridiculous conversation about a very unnecessary guard dog. He shook his head. How the hell did he wind up with a friend like Jack? He'd been pushing the man away when things got really real for years and Jack just hung in there, every time. Mac rubbed his sore arm and tried to force himself to make eye contact with Cage as Riley went over to her computer to scribe his observations.

When Cage started doubling down on her explanation of what she wanted to do, as though he was unfamiliar, simply because it wasn't his area (he did read things other than STEM related journals – she could ask anyone), he just decided to cut it off with the assertion that he'd learned the technique in the Army.

It was true and expeditious. He wanted this over with. And he thought he was ready. Until she told him to close his eyes. Then he felt like he wanted to be sick again. He glanced toward where Jack had gone, then back at Cage. The only way out was through. Right?

He tried to force himself to relax. When he found that was impossible, he just consciously lowered his shoulders with a long breath like he was actually relaxing, talking himself into lowering his eyelids. He shivered. Nothing came to him as relevant. He threw up his hands and just started.

Clearly Cage didn't like where he was going, or she sensed his tension, because she reached out what he was sure she meant to be a reassuring hand and put it on the back of his neck, getting incredibly close to him. First, he flinched and pulled away a little; when she didn't move her hand away, attempting to ground him he was sure, he couldn't help but shift uncomfortably again.

She was trying to help, trying to talk him through it, but until she was no longer touching him, no longer in his space, he couldn't go on. He'd had enough of someone not respecting his boundaries to last him a lifetime. Maybe if he just kept talking, he could get what they needed and get out of here.

He swallowed hard, feeling suddenly more like crying than not crying. He tightened his jaw until the feeling passed, and began again, trying to do what Cage was asking him to do. He could hear Riley start to type in the background. Remembering that she was here with him made him feel better, more able to continue.

Once he started, he found himself almost truly back in the room. His head swam and spun. The smells came back first, then the sounds, then the feelings. The stabbing pain in his arm was almost real again and he unconsciously put his hand over the bandage there now. And suddenly Murdoc was there, in his face. Just like he had been in that room. Like he had been in that dream.

Mac gasped and his eyes flew open. He looked around the room to assure himself that it was real. It was vaguely disconcerting to be glad to be in Medical, to find the environment here reassuring and even comforting.

When Cage said, "It's really normal. It lets you know the game is working," Mac glared up at her though the tousled hair hanging in his face.

Then she just started right back in on him, despite the naked fear he knew was in his eyes. He'd wondered about her story a little from time to time since Matty had brought her in, but now, as she just kept coming at him, despite how close to falling apart he felt and obviously was, that she was a trained interrogator was painfully obvious.

He was starting to sweat. His head was starting to pound. His muscles, all of them, were getting so tight, he was afraid he was going to start trembling. And he wasn't going to do that in front of her. He felt almost like she wanted him to. Like hell he would. He took a deep breath, tried stretching his neck and shoulders to forestall the oncoming storm of a headache, and closed his eyes again, almost defiantly.

As he got to the memories of escaping, it became a little easier to go on, despite the fear he remembered vividly of the time. He thought he'd been more afraid running than he had been in that chair. The chair had been bad. The idea of going back once he'd gotten loose had been suffocating.

Water moving with him. That might give them directionality. That was good. Then sounds started coming back to him again. The tunnel had been difficult to hear in. Echoing, trickling water, sloshing shoes. Speaking of, his socks were still damp. That grounded him a little more. He tried to get back to the sounds.

Sound was one of the first things he'd learned about from his father, in terms of physics. And he'd been fascinated. Light … light was cool, but sound, even if you were blind you could experience those waves, because you could feel them. That blew his mind when he was seven.

When the origin of the second sound came to him, he felt himself truly relax for the first time since everyone had come into the room. Now this was just an equation. And equations were what he did for fun.

When he started explaining it, Cage got the deer in the headlights look so common to so many people around him when he started talking math. He would almost have felt bad if he wasn't still more than half convinced that she would have been equally pleased to see him lose his shit as get the information. Interrogators could be weird. She was more than happy to just let him do his thing when he asked if she minded skipping the explanation.

He did throw Riley an apologetic glance, because he knew as well as she did that she was more than up to what he was doing and if he just threw out the numbers to her and gave her a minute, she could probably work it out just as quickly on the computer. Well, maybe that was a stretch, but it wasn't entirely outside her wheel house. He knew she didn't mind though when she gave him a wry almost smirk and just said, "Go nuts."

Once he started working the problem, figuring out the wave propagation, triangulating locations, he felt like himself, really like himself. He flashed Jack and the rest of the team a quick smile as he started writing on the glass. Jack's expression started to relax as he watched Mac work. Some of the hunted, haunted look started to come out of those eyes. He looked steadier.

Then, almost right after the whole team was back in the room, Mac pinpointed the likely location. He looked up at Jack, actually grinning. "We can go get the bastard."

Jack grinned back. "We sure will, bud. I'll give you a call just as soon as …"

"I'm going with you. I'm obviously going with you," Mac said, his expression hardening and growing immediately stubborn.

Matty started to argue with him, called the doctor over to help her argue with him, but Jack knew what this was about. Mac needed control. And he needed to be part of bringing in Murdoc. So that's what he would have.

"Guys, guys, we're just gonna have to waive protocol a little, or you're gonna have to put a big ole rush on that tox screen so you can clear him for real, Dr. P. … Mac has to go."

"Oh, really, Dalton?" Matty asked, raising both of her eyebrows about into her hairline.

"I'm obviously leading Tactical on this little shindig," Jack said with a note of almost chilling anticipation. Then he tossed a grin around the room, eyes settling on Mac. "And I already told this skinny genius I'm never letting him out of my sight again."

Mac grinned. "He did say that, Matty. I guess it's just something we're all gonna have to accept."

"C'mon, kid," Jack said, just slinging an arm around his partner and leading him out of Medical before anyone could say anything else. "Let's go gear up."

As they walked off down the hall, the rest of the team heard Mac ask, "When I was kind of out of it before, did you threaten me with a bathroom guard dog?"

"Not a threat at all," Jack laughed. "I promised you one, bud."