Jack had thought Mac was just talking when he said he needed a nap. But, the minute they got into their small double room at the tiny bed and breakfast on the edge of Campbeltown Mac had shed his jacket and too-small shoes. He'd sat on the edge of the bed to make the requisite phone calls, using a memorized credit card number not tied to Phoenix.

After he'd finished those brief conversations, he glanced at Jack, who was sitting on the other bed, doing his best to keep the word 'helicopter' from being brought up. Mac waved the stolen wallet at his partner. "You want to go grab some actual clothes? There's not much here, but I did notice a few shops listed on the Chamber of Commerce thing at the desk. There's enough cash here for pants and a t-shirt so you don't have to wear a blood stained uniform until the team gets here."

Jack took it, frowning. "What are you gonna do? Don't you want to get some shoes that actually fit?"

Mac shrugged. "Not enough money for that, I don't think. Not after I paid up front for the room. Go see what you can find. I'm just gonna rack out here for a minute."

He stretched out on the bed with what could almost be described as a contented sigh but had too much of a groan in it to quite get there. He closed his eyes and draped an arm over them. A minute passed. Then several more.

"Quit staring at me, Jack," he said with a half-smile. He waited another minute. "Look, dude. We're both beat. Either go get some clean clothes or take a nap. Or go for a walk. I don't care. We've got hours before anyone is going to be in a position to help and …"

"You make me nervous when you own up to being tired or hurt or whatever, and," Jack began, an edge in his voice.

Mac uncovered his eyes and levered himself back into a sitting position with careful fluid ease. "And this involves Murdoc so you're afraid to leave me alone." His eyes searched Jack's for a minute. "That about cover it?"

Jack didn't see much point in denying it.

"Yeah, pretty much." He paused. They'd danced around the topic a fair amount. "Mac you have no idea the stuff that went through my head when I showed up after Paris and you were gone. Then, the bastard shot you … which strikes me as something he did just to test your reaction … Now this?" He paused again, Mac was nodding, but he was also smiling a little. 'What are you grinning at?"

Jack sounded almost pissed off. Mac figured he should head him off before he got into surrogate parent helicopter rant mode.

"Jack, think about it. If Murdoc had any idea where we were, would there have been any waking up, regardless of how less than ideal the conditions were?"

Jack's frown just deepened. "He let you wake up when he nabbed you back home," Jack replied, the warning growing in his voice.

"Yeah, restrained and drugged and right where he wanted me." Mac paused, this time frowning himself a little bit. "I'm not completely convinced he didn't let me escape either, after everything that went down afterward. Hell, I'm not even sure he didn't shoot Cage to get us out of the house so The Ghost could do his thing. I mean, he has been recruiting assassins."

"You realize you are not makin' me feel better right now."

Both Jack's eyebrows climbed to comical heights.

Mac ran a hand through his hair and found the nervous gesture felt pretty good on his aching head. "I actually kinda just made myself feel worse." The dry chuckle that followed didn't sound overly genuine to Jack. "We have to assume he's not right on top of us though. Go get some clean clothes for yourself, maybe grab us some takeout. I'm gonna lock the door behind you and close my eyes for a little bit."

Jack nodded. He supposed it made sense. This uniform made him awfully conspicuous. "You want me to ask the nice lady at the desk if they've got a first aid kit with some headache stuff in it before I go?"

Mac shook his head, lying back down again, this time on his side to feel the cool pillow against his face. "Pretty sure we haven't metabolized whatever we were dosed with. Not a good idea to take anything else, I think."

He closed his eyes in an effort to end the current conversation. He needed a break from thinking.

Jack stood. "Alright, kid. I won't be gone long." Mac nodded without opening his eyes again. "I'll lock up," he added. Mac nodded again, determined not to leave an opening for more talking. "Street smelled real good when we were comin' up it. I'll find us some dinner … And there's a distillery across town so I'm bettin' …" Jack baited him to respond.

He smiled a little when Mac finally cracked an eye open and spoke.

"Not adding anything to our systems applies to booze too, Jack."

"Just makin' sure you're still on your game, kid."

"Mmmm," was the tired reply.

Jack headed out, determined to be back in less than a half hour with clothes and food.

0-0-0

"Mac … hey, buddy. C'mon, wake up, man." Jack shook Mac's arm just a little less gently than he had been.

Mac's eyes felt glued together, but he pried them open anyway. "Was' up?" he asked, still half asleep.

"The Gunmen have landed. They're taking a cab from the airport now. Wanna go meet them in the pub?"

The thought of smelling steak and kidney pie … or what was the Scottish equivalent for that? Probably mutton … sheep tasted like sweatsocks no matter how you prepared it and he didn't give a good goddamn what his first name meant or where it came from at the moment … turned his stomach.

"How about some place that doesn't serve food?" he groaned, pushing himself up to sitting and realizing as he got his eyes all the way open that it was now full dark. "Damn, how long did I sleep?"

Jack shrugged. "About four hours." He smiled when Mac's eyes widened a little at the revelation. "You look better," he observed.

"So do you," Mac grinned. Jack had somehow managed to find black jeans and a black t-shirt that fit him decently. That had to feel better, being back in uniform, so to speak.

"Feel a little naked without my gun, but mostly I feel a million times better being dressed like me."

Mac grimaced as he got up to go splash some water on his face. "Let's agree to never say the word naked again … And I'm glad you feel better. I might feel halfway decent if I had some clothes that looked like mine, too," he mused, from just inside the bathroom door as he turned on the water.

"You mean you're not already comfortable? But you always dress like an old man," Jack teased.

Silence.

"You can quit flipping me off from the other room, dude."

Mac walked back in with no alterations in his hand gesture. "Better?"

"Much," Jack deadpanned. "We gonna go meet the guys, or what?" He half smiled when he saw Mac eyeing the too small shoes he'd stolen like they were a cliff he had to scale. "Feet hurt?"

Mac nodded. "Along with the rest of me."

Jack produced a pair of socks and some very broken in looking sneakers and handed them to his partner. "Second hand shop right around the corner. Everything I'm wearing, plus what I got for you and we're out about 6£."

"Thanks, man," Mac said with genuine gratitude.

Jack couldn't leave him hanging any more. From the other side of his bed he picked up the neatly folded light blue jeans and bright blue henley. "Including these."

Mac suddenly looked a lot less beat up and miserable just from the real smile that graced his face for a moment. "Jack Dalton, you are a genuine American hero." He left the room to change and when he got back looked much more like himself. "So the guys want to meet us at the pub?"

Jack nodded. "Thought you weren't up to it."

"I am now," Mac grinned. "I feel like a human being for the first time since we woke up and I'm actually kind of hungry."

They headed downstairs and then out to the pub next door, grabbing one of the booths. Jack was half pleased and half horrified when Mac ordered a string of things that Jack had actually never heard of, along with a beer, and a fair amount of flirting, that included his impromptu cover story about genealogical research, with their fair-haired server.

Jack ordered a burger and a water, with polite reserve.

When she stepped away from the Jack raised his eyebrows.

Mac just shrugged. "I told you dude, I've always wanted to visit here. I'm not letting getting roofied in a bar in Ireland ruin my first trip to Scotland."

Jack chuckled. That level of adaptability was so uniquely Mac that he couldn't really do anything else. "Fair enough. Got a game plan bouncing around that ginormous noggin? Cuz I'm still just tryin to shake the cobwebs off."

"I've got the start of one," Mac replied, waiting to go on as Wynnie, their server, deposited their drinks in front of them. Jack did not miss the wink she gave Mac when she put down his beer, nor did he miss that a card with her phone number went down with it and Mac quickly slipped it into the stolen wallet with an almost blushing smile up at her.

As the young woman walked away, Jack smirked at his partner. "Well, maybe you can tell me about it now that you're done trying to secure a future of blond Scottish babies."

Mac laughed outright at that. "It's just a phone number, Jack. Besides, man, she hit on me."

"You remember what happened the last time a pretty girl hit on you?"

Jack was teasing, but Mac frowned for a second. "No, that's actually the problem, right?"

Now Jack frowned as well. "What do you think they gave us?"

Mac shrugged. "Could have been a lot of things. Or, given how much we don't remember over the course of days, we might not even be feeling the effects of whatever they gave us in the bar. Concussion could do it, depending on where the blow was struck, or electroshock …" He paused. "Speculation isn't really helping, huh?" Jack shook his head. Mac sighed. "I'm starting to think it could be more injury related. I really looked over all my bruising and the nicks and cuts …" Jack widened his eyes a little as Mac owned up to the extent he'd been knocked around. "It honestly looks like secondary blast injuries."

"Like as in a bomb?"

Mac nodded slowly. "Doesn't mean we weren't drugged more … but I think maybe we got blown up, too. But just a little blown up," he hurried to add when Jack looked like helicopter parent mode was imminent.

"What are you thinkin' we need to do once the guys get here?"

Mac was thoughtful, taking a sip of his beer and tasting it carefully. Yep, just beer as far as he could tell. "Well, I'm hoping we can get street cams or satellite imagery of the inn around the time we were knocked out." He ran a hand through his hair, noticing that this time it didn't highlight the headache quite so much, so he was going to give himself points for feeling better. "I don't have much yet beyond that. We need some context before we can get anywhere." He thought about it for a minute. "Or I do anyway."

"You think that trick Cage used on you after we got you back last fall would help us at all or …"

"No." Mac realized that sounded very abrupt and he hadn't meant it like that. "I mean, it's a good idea, Jack. But I told you, I'm familiar with the principles from EOD training and … I've tried it. That's actually what I started out doing when I laid down before." He took a longer drink of his beer, made a little face, and reached for the water glass Wynnie had also brought him. "I get as far as hearing Saoirse say Murdoc paid them and I remember sitting up … Then we woke up … You know."

"But I don't," said the leggy redhead with shocking crimson lipstick who had come up beside him and practically slithered into the booth next to him, her purple leather leggings making a distinct slippery sound against the leather of the booth. "Other than the fact that someone stole you money and your papers and left you stark naked practically in exile."

Mac grinned and slid the rest of his beer toward her. "Jack and I have agreed to no longer use the word naked."

She downed what was left of his beer in one long drink and plunked it down on the table with a pointed look at the server currently staring daggers at her from several tables away.

Mac leaned over for the one armed hug that was absolutely necessary at this point in their association. "How've you been, Viz?"

"Rich," she replied with a smirk.

"The white hat game really pays that well?" Jack asked from across the table, eyeing the door, wondering where the other two people they were expecting might be, but not wanting to ask.

"Usually," she replied archly, with a raise of one perfectly shaped eyebrow that said she wasn't above wearing a darker shaded bit of haberdashery if the purse was fat enough. "So, what happened? You boys get burned?" she asked, leaning forward with keen interest.

Wynnie came up to the table just then with her order pad and pen ready, her demeanor much more business like than it had been previously. "Evening," she nodded almost formally at their new companion. "The lady with you, Angus?" she inquired with polite indifference.

Mac smiled his warmest, friendliest smile. "I told you Wynnie, it's just Mac. And the lady …"

Viz interrupted, "Is much more inclined to company such as you yourself could provide, Miss. But I've a sense I'd be wasting ink to offer you my number. So instead, I'll offer you a lovely tip if you bring the table a bottle of that twenty two year old Glen Alba I saw when I came in. And I'll offer you the spirit lifting information that your new friend Angus here," she smiled at his flushing face wickedly, "does seem to prefer blondes."

Wynnie flashed a slight flushing smile of her own. "Right away, Miss. Anything to eat?"

"Food is for the weak," she said with a throaty laugh. "You can call me Invisigoth, rather than Miss. Or Viz, if you like. Keep ice in my glass this evening and I'll make you happy you did."

Wynnie hurried off to fill Viz's order. Jack shook his head. "You have to flirt, dontcha? Even when you already know it's not gonna get you anywhere."

She winked at him. "I'll even flirt with you sometimes, Jack, just so you have the illusion you've got a prayer."

He laughed. Finally, he couldn't wait for the answer to reveal itself. "Where's the rest of the crew?"

"Casing the joint," Mac answered for her, tipping his chin toward the front window, where Jack just caught a glimpse of the tall dark figure ducking past, and then at the bar, where a short broad-shouldered man, was chatting with the bartender while also taking in the whole place. His back was to them, but there was no mistaking his stance or, now that he was alerted to it, his smooth velvet voice as it drifted through the bar over the other conversation.

As though he felt Mac's eyes on him, he man at the bar turned, gave a double raise of his eyebrows and strode over to their table. Mac elbowed Viz out of the way and she shifted over to Jack's side of the table as Mac got to his feet, wrapping the man in a tight embrace.

"How ya doin', Mac?" the man who was about Mac's age, maybe a little younger, and bore a distinct resemblance to the deliberate vixen sharing a seat with Jack, asked as he released Mac, getting a good look at him for the first time in the dim pub. "Other than recently blown up?" he added with a head shake.

Mac shook his head and slid back into the booth. "You think so too, huh? Guess that confirms it, Jack."

Jack nodded, "If Eggsy think so, it's probably a lock that's what happened." He absently scratched at his chest. "That ought to make it easier to find out what …"

"What I want to know is how we wound up in that room in Ireland with none of our stuff, Jack."

Mac was frowning again, looking around the bar, a slightly hunted look in his eyes. Mac had mentioned how Jack had a default setting when Murdoc was involved, but Mac had drifted into his, too.

"Why don't you take what I say that seriously, Jack?" Viz asked with a pout. "I was born first. By five years."

"You're a hell of a hacker, Viz, but being the big sister of Mac's first first battle buddy, only goes so far. Being that battle buddy on the other hand …"

"Battle buddy?" the pretty blond server asked as she returned, setting down a full bottle of whisky and a glass of ice in front of Viz. "You're a soldier the, Angus?"

Mac decided not to correct her about his name a second time, but also weighed if how pretty she was outweighed how much he disliked his given name being used after he'd asked someone not to.

"Used to be," he replied. "This is Miles Benedict. We served together a long time ago," he added to cover anything she might have overheard approaching their table.

"It's a pleasure, Miles," she said with a smile that told Mac he neededn't worry about what she called him, because she'd already moved on. "Bring you another beer?"

"Please," he said with a smile. He moved to sit down next to Mac while watching her walk back toward the bar and stumbled slightly.

"You okay, Eggs?" Mac asked as Miles regained his balance and slid into the booth.

Miles shrugged. "Yeah; new piece," he said, wrapping his knuckles against his prosthetic leg with a solid thud.

"Bother as much as it always did?" he asked with a frown that said he remembered how his friend wound up with it.

"Nah. This is a good one. Not as good as my running leg, but it attracts a lot less attention. Just need new callouses, I guess."

Mac nodded, then smoothly moved on, knowing that Miles was always willing to set Mac's mind at rest about his old injury since Mac had been there when it happened, but that he also preferred not to talk about it in front of others if he could help it. "Where's Elliot gotten to?"

VIz looked around the bar, squinting for a moment. "Elsewhere. If I had to guess, I'd say he's breaking into your room to do a sweep."

Jack grimaced. "I prefer to think of myself as the spookiest spy in the room but Elliot is legitimately creepy good."

"Don't you forget it, Dalton," said a silky voice from behind the high backed booth.

"Hey, Elliot," Jack said evenly, without glancing behind him. "Find anything?"

"No, but that doesn't mean I'm done looking," came the reply. The voice it belonged to already fading away into the crowd in the pub.

The stunning redhead across from him spun the laptop she'd been clicking away on toward Mac. "Check this out."

A street cam showed the two women Mac and Jack had met at the pub pushing a particularly heavy laundry cart up the street. Mac squinted at the stills as Viz advanced them manually. She watched his face carefully as the cart and the women were replaced by an empty sidewalk followed by the back of a tall man in a long coat striding toward the inn.

"Recognize anyone?" she asked carefully. Mac's jaw clenched. "MacGyver," she prompted, advancing the images another 40 frames. "Mac!"

"Yeah, Emily?" he asked absently, lapsing into the name he'd met her by when Eggs had been hurt and he'd been the one who'd called home, not wanting Miles family to hear about his heroism from official channels.

"Is that your guy?" she asked, knowing the answer from his resulting pallor when the figure reemerged facing the street cam.

"Yeah," Mac said quietly.

Jack raised a quizzical eyebrow, knowing what Mac was seeing but also hoping maybe the kid's not-so-latent distress from his fall encounter with the man was clouding his judgement.

"It's Murdoc," Mac finished, spinning the laptop back toward Jack.

"I really hate this guy," Jack said with deadly heat.