Mac's brow wrinkled and his head tilted in a familiar expression that said very clearly, "You can't be serious," although no words actually left his mouth. He stepped more fully into the house, looking around. The place was trashed, cushions on the floor, drawers open, papers scattered. Finally he found his voice, "I don't think you get to be the one asking questions right now."

She stopped sifting through his belongings and stood, "Don't I? I've been trying to reach you for over a month!"

He shook his head almost like he needed to clear it. "Yeah, my phone got … trashed. I had to get a new one."

She brushed her hair out of her face. "You didn't think to text me your new number?" His frown drew into deeper lines. "I mean, we've been texting again quite a bit. Or at least we had been …"

"I don't owe you an explanation, Nikki." The words were out of his mouth before he'd really thought about them and he felt a little bad when he saw her flinch, but it felt honest. He couldn't count on her honesty, but he could always give it to her.

She took a few steps toward him, but when he unconsciously dropped one foot back in the beginnings of a fighting stance she stopped. Her face was flushed with emotion, her hair disheveled by what appeared to have been a frantic search of his house. She looked beautiful. She saw that thought register in his eyes and took one more cautious step forward. "Mac … I've been worried. You blew me off the last time I saw you. Then you didn't return my calls or my texts. I thought if you wanted to just end things, a guy like you would've at least had the decency to say so …"

Mac brushed past her and into his living room, picking up the copy of Popular Mechanics nearest his feet and tossing it back onto the coffee table. "So you thought to yourself, 'This guy doesn't want to talk to me so I'll go fix that by breaking into his home and trashing his stuff'?"

"No … I showed up last week to just try to make you talk to me and Bozer said you weren't here and then he got all weird … well, you know, more weird … He got not-like-Bozer. And he wouldn't tell me anything else and he looked like he wanted to be sick! Like he was scared, Mac!"

Mac's eyes narrowed. Everything with Nikki was always so dramatic. He'd loved that about her three years ago when they'd started dating, but now, with a little time and distance, it struck him as not a particularly healthy way for things to be. Jack had been dropping subtle hints about that almost since it had begun. Honestly, so had Bozer. He'd been telling himself that they were jealous, but who was he kidding? Nikki was the one always subtly pointing out their shortcomings, always saying little things to make him question their relationships. "So you hacked our security system and searched my house? To catch Bozer in a lie? To try to find me? What?"

She gave him her widest most innocent looking eyes, pursed her lips in a way he had always found appealing. "I don't know. I guess I needed to find out if you were okay."

So much for his quiet night alone to just process things. In a familiar mental maneuver, he opened another door in his mind and started shoving this incident down into the dark where most of his experiences related to Nikki since Lake Como had gone. It was starting to give him a headache already. Mac gave a frustrated sigh and started picking up the other magazines that were scattered on the floor, more so he wouldn't have to look at her hurt expression. "Of course I'm okay. I'm always okay."

She stepped up next to him. "I'm sorry I did this. I'll clean it up."

Mac turned to her and gave her a hard look in the eyes. She wasn't sorry she'd done it. He was pretty sure she was sorry she'd gotten caught. "I'd rather you didn't. Why don't you just go Nikki? If I want to talk to you, I'll give you a call."

That felt a little mean since the fact that he hadn't spared her a thought after losing his old phone clearly cut her. But he didn't take it back. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder and when he moved to pull away, her fingers tightened to keep him from leaving, and she was surprised by his hiss of pain and the stumbling step backward he took.

"Mac! Are you ..?"

He sat down hard on his coffee table, narrowing his eyes, other hand holding the spot high on his arm. "I'm fine. Just barely got the last of my stitches out. Still sore. Really sore."

"What happened? I …"

"Bullet wounds take time to heal." He didn't remind her that it had taken four months after Lake Como to really feel like himself again, but he could see that he didn't have to.

"Mac, I'm so sorry, I …"

The hand that was holding the throbbing spot on his arm strayed away to massage his temple. "Nikki, I can't do this right now."

"Do what?"

"Us … This … Whatever it is you want from me, I don't have it to give." He sounded cold, distant; not the Mac she was used to.

"At least let me clean up this mess I made. You're hurt."

Mac shook his head, stood, and walked with long sure strides over to the door and opened it. "Nikki … please just go."

She came over to the doorway and stood in front of him for a minute. "Mac, I need to talk to you. There are things I need to tell you about …"

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Like I said, when I want to hear them, I have your number."

Her eyes flared with a spark of something he didn't much like the look of and she squared her shoulders and strode out the door. He was about to close it when she snapped, "I'll be in touch, Mac."

Great. I'm sure that'll be fun.

Instead of responding he just swung the door the rest of the way closed. He cast a defeated glance around the living room and kitchen. This was a total disaster area. No way he could relax until it was cleaned up. He started by putting things back into drawers and closing them and the cupboards. By the time he finished that, his shoulder was an absolute symphony of misery. He decided to have a long hot shower, change into some sweats, and then deal with the rest of the mess, maybe while catching up on whatever Bozer had DVR'd for him while he was away. As he stood under the spray, all of the things he'd been stuffing away into the corners of his mind all wanted to crowd each other out for his attention and his headache upped its game.

He pulled on his sweats and one of Jack's Dallas Cowboy t-shirts that he'd appropriated when it was forgotten after a weekend here recovering from a rough mission. It was much too big and extremely soft, much softer than it appeared. Mac grinned to himself when he thought it was sort of a perfect metaphor for Jack. He padded across the floor in his socks, reluctantly taking a prescription bottle out of his leather jacket. He frowned at it for a minute. His head hurt, his shoulder hurt, but … He put it down on the counter, deciding that the pain relief really wasn't worth the nightmares that those sorts of medications always seemed to let in, not when he was alone in the house anyway. He didn't want to feel any of that. Physical pain was much easier to deal with.

Mac looked around again and just couldn't face the idea of picking up the mess at the moment. He was just too tired. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, swallowed a couple of clearly inadequate to the task ibuprofen and went out onto the deck. He stood looking out at the city for a long time, feeling almost completely numb. Slowly he realized that his shirt felt damp. Is it raining? He looked up and then felt the warm tears that had just leaked from the corners of his eyes slide down his face. Oh. He sunk down onto the floorboards, listening to all the voices of memories he didn't want to have shouting to be heard over each other. After a while he nodded, like he was agreeing with someone's wise suggestion, pulled out his phone, and tapped a number.

"Hey Jack. Did I wake you? Can you come over?"