"Mac, buddy, you with me?" Jack asked, jostling Mac's arm gently, squinting at the view down into the valley from where they were that Mac was staring at with an almost dreamy expression on his face.
Mac blinked and glanced to the side. He grinned, and it looked entirely genuine despite his just-starting-to-fade bruises. "Yeah, sorry. I know I should be figuring out what to do next. Just, this is pretty cool."
"What is, bud?" Jack prompted, glad that their little hike past the lighthouse and some pretty neat wreckage from historic plan crashes that this place was apparently known for because of the frequent dense fog and irregular cliffs had gotten Mac to lose the barely concealed look of a rabbit being chased by a fox.
It was a look Murdoc seemed able to engender by the mere mention of his name. Jack was going to consider it a legitimate personal affront from the universe if he didn't get to bust a cap in that guy at some point in the very near future.
"Sorry," Mac repeated. "This is Argyll though. It's where …"
"Where your name came from," Jack finished for him, remembering what Mac had said about his name last … no, three nights ago now. "That is pretty cool."
"I've just always been curious what it'd be like here. I was hoping to maybe take a vacation to find out," he shook his head and chuckled softly. "But since Madagascar was definitely a fluke …"
"Yeah … How you feelin' now that we're off the boat? I mean we've walked about forever, but …"
"We've walked five-ever at least." Jack grinned. That was a phrase Riley had made up during one particularly arduous surveillance that had struck them both as funny. He gave Jack a small smile. "I'm okay." Then he gave Jack a long look, noticing again where he'd bled into the jumpsuit, but it seemed to be dry now. "How about you?"
Jack shrugged. "Better once we get the hell outta Dodge and get back home where we know Captain Coocoo for Cocoa Puffs isn't just lurking nearby."
Mac nodded, sighing. "Yeah." He looked off into the near distance at the town they could see from the hilltop. "Not much further now."
"And we can just call Matty and go home and …"
"Um … yeah." Mac started off down the hill and Jack got the distinct impression that it was to avoid looking at him again.
"Mac," he said with a tone that was a combination or a warning and a plea. "We are calling Matty as soon as we get to town, right?"
"Um … Well, we could," he replied, picking up his pace a little. "We totally could do that. Sure. And we could totally get all the chewed out, and probably ordered indefinitely to Medical because we have no idea what happened or where we've been, and we could put up with not going back into the field until Matty's done her whole complete investigation of the incident thing she likes to do when a team can't just answer her every question during a debrief … We could do that."
Jack puffed out a long breath through inflated cheeks, wincing a little as he remembered the cut inside his mouth that was his best indication someone had connected with his cheekbone with their fist repeatedly. "But that's not what we're gonna do, is it?"
Mac glanced over his shoulder, flashing a quick grin. Jack didn't want to just go in either. He'd been suggesting it, being agreeable about it, because they were both banged up and felt like hell, and he always got special levels of helicopter parent worried if Murdoc was involved. But it wasn't because he wanted to. Jack hated leaving things undone probably worse than Mac did.
"I mean … I was thinking we could maybe try to figure out what happened first … Matty's still gonna be a nightmare, but if we come in with an explanation, maybe even a bad guy or two …" His voice went up at the end, inviting Jack to finish.
"She's only gonna be a pain in the ass, not go full Matty the Hun."
"Exactly." Mac nodded. Then he almost stumbled on the damp earth and Jack caught him by the arm, almost wiping both of them out. "Thanks, man," he said closing his eyes for a second to clear his head. Every once in while one of them would get all kinds of dizzy, so whatever they'd been doped with hadn't worn off yet. The started moving toward the town again, a little more slowly this time.
"Soooo … Whatdaya wanna do? Try to get ahold of Ri?"
Mac shook his head. "Nah. Matty'll be looking for that. I guarantee. And we're more likely to get somewhere going at this quietly than Phoenix is swooping in with a full, intimidating investigation team."
"What're we gonna do without Phoenix resources, Mac … And I swear if you say improvise, I'm gonna cuff you one."
Mac laughed, a genuine one, not forced for Jack's benefit. "You know me way too well, pal." He thought for a minute. "We have resources though. Just not official ones."
"Are you talkin about hitting up our very own version of the Lone Gunmen, Scully?" Jack asked with a light of realization brightening his features.
"Bet your ass I am, Mulder."
"Dude, when you drop a nerdy reference I actually get, I swear it makes my heart so damned happy."
"And since that thing's getting pretty old, I should try to make it happy more often."
"Very funny," Jack mock-glared at Mac's back.
"Let's double time it, Jack. We need a phone. And I need a nap while we're waiting for our back-up."
They increased their pace again, pleased to have a sort of a plan, and that it didn't involve getting yelled at all the way to California by one pissed off Matilda Webber.