Mac bolted upright in bed, momentarily panicked and gasping. It took him a few moments to realize where he was. He wasn't used to his room in the LA house yet, and he'd grown so accustomed to living in a terrible chaotic mess that Bozer's obsessive cleaning of everything, including Mac's space, was still a little disorienting. Military-grade neatness and organization had stopped being a habit almost the minute he'd gotten off the plane a year and a half ago.
As his heart slowed and his breathing evened out, he glanced up, pleased to find his bedroom door still closed. Either he hadn't made a lot of noise as the result of this most recent dream, or Bozer was working. Mac couldn't remember which, and Mr. Lind kept changing Bozer's schedule anyway. Not that his friend had much else to do. He'd bounced from his film classes after a couple of weeks, saying they were stifling his creativity.
Mac kicked back the covers and rose to go take a shower, deciding that his nightmare had left him too sweaty to even enjoy a cup of coffee before he got cleaned up and changed. His head was pounding in too regular a rhythm to contemplate going for a run.
If he managed to get rid of the headache and go later, he'd just have to shower again. Like a lot of other LA residents, he took conserving water very seriously. But he wasn't worried about the double shower day, because his response to the summer water shortage was to construct a vapor condenser out on the back deck that fed into an extra tank on the side of the house. Bozer thought it was great. Mac was a moisture farmer, just like Luke in the beginning of Star Wars. Mac snickered at that as he stepped under the spray. He could always count on Boze, even when he wasn't around, to chase away the darkness that liked to make its home inside his head.
Hot water beating on his shoulders started to push away the worst of the headache that he knew was the result of restless, fractured sleep. He leaned against the wall of the shower. He was glad the Bozer that cheered him up this morning was a memory and not the real thing.
When he woke Bozer with a shout or muffled scream from his sleep, Bozer got next level freaked out and protective. Boze hated that Mac had seen combat. It scared the guy to death, actually. Mac did his best not to remind his best friend of the reason he hadn't been around for a while.
He danced around the subject partially because he hated to see Bozer upset, and partially because he had no interest in talking about it himself. Especially since Boze just wouldn't drop the subject of Mac needing to consider therapy or at least see somebody to get medication to help him sleep. The last thing Mac wanted was more rack time. The dreams were too freaking awful to want more of them.
At least he knew what triggered the most recent bout of them. The two guys he'd seen in the parking lot when he picked Bozer up from his movie club meeting at the mall had looked so much like the men he'd found out later were called Aarash and Tajj that for a moment he'd been right back in Balkh Province, searching desperately for the rest of his squad.
He was so sure it was them, he'd he'd gotten out of his new Jeep (the product of trading in his grandfather's truck and some of the life insurance money he'd inherited) and tried following them. He lost them after a few minutes in the crush of people exiting the movie theater. He was still waiting for Boze so he ran a couple of laps around the mall just to get the adrenaline dump and frustration down to manageable.
When he'd gone in to the food court to grab a lemonade after he talked himself down, he'd run into a couple of guys who resembled them, but not so much that he'd ever have mistaken them for the same people. He'd given a nervous sort of laugh under his breath. Some days it was easier to live with what he'd seen while he was deployed than others.
Now, Mac shook his head, turning off the shower and grabbing a towel. He wished he could say that was the first time such a thing had happened, but similar things had come up every time he'd been in LA. It hadn't happened up north so much. The dreams had, but never the surety that he'd seen one of the members of the Mazari lurking in some public place.
He wondered vaguely if it was the dry heat here in Los Angeles that reminded him enough of that place to trigger what had to be flashbacks. It had happened twice in the month and half since he'd moved here, into his grandfather's old house. That was kind of a lot, he told himself. It'll get better, he thought stubbornly. A lot of people who serve struggle with this stuff.
He was just shrugging into his old MIT t-shirt when he heard the boisterous call of the morning bagel delivery. "Mac! Hey buddy! You up yet?"
That's right, it's Saturday. Not working outside the house was starting to make the days blend into each other. He just didn't seem to be able to make himself go get some boring job; nor was he really able to think too much about what he might do to get a job that wouldn't be boring. He was just sort of in limbo.
"Mac!" came a louder shout.
Remind me why I gave him a key again, Mac grumbled to himself. "I'll be right out!" he called back loud enough to be heard through his door. He paused long enough to make his bed, a habit Bozer insisted would improve his sleep and how he felt about his day and then headed out to greet Jack and the inevitable giant bag of breakfast that was part of Jack's ongoing fatten-Mac-up campaign that was thus far both relentless and unsuccessful.
When he stepped up to the island in the kitchen where Jack was unpacking both bagels and donuts he grinned broadly at Jack's surprised expression. "Morning, Jack."
"You finally got a haircut!" Jack exclaimed with both surprise and clear approval.
Mac shook his head, grabbing them a couple of coffee mugs out of the dish drainer and fixing them both a coffee. "Yeah, well when you started singing that godawful George Thorogood song at the top of your lungs in The Burger Barn the other night, I thought maybe I should do something to spare myself future pain and suffering."
Jack laughed. "You know George Thorogood, but not Metallica when I sing it in the car?"
"I know that one because I looked it up, Jack. And what you were doing in the car was not singing," Mac teased, inspecting the current breakfast offerings Jack was spreading out on a couple of large plates.
"I will have you know I am the karaoke champion in …"
"Four states. So you keep saying, big guy," Mac chuckled, glancing back and forth between a poppy seed bagel and a Boston creme donut. He took the bagel and just started eating it with nothing on it. The carbs would be good. His head was starting to feel better and he wanted to do at least ten miles. He seemed to sleep better if he ran. He'd discovered the Hollywood Hills were a great place to think. "I'm pretty sure karaoke doesn't work that way, you know."
Jack sat down with his coffee and put his feet up in the next nearest chair, taking a huge bite out of a cream cheese loaded everything bagel. "Well, what would you know about karaoke anyway, kid? They don't let people your age into bars, do they? Aren't you young folks supposed to be in school or at the mall flirting with pretty girls or something."
Jack thought that had been pretty subtle. Just mention their were things people Mac's age could do that were healthy and normal, while teasing him just a little. But Mac's face pulled into an immediate frown. When he spoke it was with a distinct clipped hardness. "Don't start, Jack."
Okay. The kid had another rough night. He was only that kind of touchy if it had been bad. Not that Mac ever confided in him about it, but Bozer had taken to informing Jack behind Mac's back. Bozer knew they'd served together and knew Jack had experiencing dealing reintegrating into civilian life. He just kept hoping that if Jack knew what was going on he could figure out some way to be helpful to Mac. Jack was around him enough again that he was back to being able to read him pretty well, too.
"Don't start what, bud?" Jack asked gently, keeping his voice friendly and low.
Mac blinked a couple of times, like the question surprised him. That was another concerning sign. Not much surprised the wunderkind (ha, he thought, I remembered the right word) and not much caught him off guard. He was clearly disconcerted that he'd read Jack's teasing as prodding, even if that was how Jack meant it. He was off his game enough that Jack's little bit of verbal misdirection was enough to slow him down. "About school and stuff, Jack," he answered, his voice less strident this time. "I have money from my grandfather. I can just take some time to figure stuff out, so that's what I want to do. I feel like you and Boze have been on my case a lot, I guess. I didn't mean to snap at you."
Jack shrugged and got up for more food, this time a huge glazed cruller. "It's alright kid, I was only teasin'," he lied. "But I can see why you might be a little defensive."
He sat back down and put his feet up again, taking in Mac's raised eyebrow. The kid wasn't going to offer anything. Jack stayed quiet for a minute, an interrogation technique that, at this point anyway, seemed to work well on Mac. After another few seconds passed, Mac asked, totally defensively, "Why would I be defensive about anything?"
Jack took another unconcerned bite and chewed it before answering. "Well, Boze and I have been kinda worried about you I guess. And since you don't wanna talk about what's goin' on with ya, maybe we've been trying too hard to get you talkin'."
Mac shook his head, setting aside the bagel that only had about three bites taken out of it. "Nothing is going on with me, Jack. That's why I get annoyed with you guys. There's nothing going on. I'm fine. Everything is totally fine, and you guys are just determined to see problems where there aren't any!"
Jack finished his donut and licked his fingers. There was desperation behind that denial. Maybe he could actually get the kid talking this morning. Best to make it look like this was the most casual social situation in the world and to pretend that Jack didn't feel exactly like Mac looked back when they'd met if he was disarming an IED he'd never seen the likes of before.
"Okay, bud. If you say so … But," his eyebrows climbed, sort of asking permission to go on and Mac sort of scowled at him, but didn't tell him to shut up, which he had the last couple of times they'd gotten this close to a real conversation about what had Mac on the ragged edge of scrawny and sleep-deprived. "I can tell you're off your feed, kid. Any of your friends who saw you get on the plane home from Afghanistan would think you were sick these days."
"Jack, I'm not," Mac began, but Jack interrupted.
"I didn't say that's what was happening." He paused, letting his eyes settle on Mac's. "But you know that even though you're running yourself into the ground everyday, it's not like it's improved your physical condition. Mostly because, to hear Boze tell it, you eat about enough to keep a kindergartner alive, but not a twenty-three year old guy trying to be an athlete."
Mac shrugged. He couldn't deny what Jack was saying. Not while making eye contact anyway. Most of his clothes were too big. And he knew it. It's not like he set out not to eat, or to over train. Just … running was the one thing that sometimes helped him sleep without dreaming. He just had to push himself to the point of exhaustion to make it happen. He couldn't say any of that though. He thought about it, but it stuck in his throat. Instead, he just said quietly, "I do eat."
As if to prove his point, he picked the bagel back up and took a bite out of it, chewing it with deliberation. It tasted like sand at the moment, but he managed to swallow the bite with a swig of coffee.
"At least on the weekends," Jack said with a good-natured eyebrow raise. "But, Mac, can I ask you something … and you can tell me to mind my own business if you want to …"
"What?" Mac asked, afraid he knew exactly what Jack was going to ask. And as he blinked and saw those guys from the mall behind his eyelids again, he wasn't sure he could just lie or brush off the question this morning. He hadn't slept in three days and this nightmare … the fire … the screams … the pain - and since when did you feel pain in a dream, huh? - It was starting to be more than he could take, more than he could carry.
Jack put his feet on the floor and leaned toward Mac, resting his arms on his thighs, clasping his hands, and looking up into Mac's face. He spoke with a tone that Mac found weirdly comforting given the context he'd become accustomed to hearing it in. It was the same tone Jack would use in the field to question him about what he needed for disarming IEDs or when he needed to give him information over comms that would keep them both alive. "How've you been sleeping, bud?"
Mac had already put down the bagel again, so he just wiped the crumbs from his fingers off on his jeans and then ran his hands over his face and through hair that was so much shorter he felt nearly naked, despite the fact that it was still nowhere near as short as he used to have to keep it for work. He'd liked the hair to hide behind. If it was still that long, he thought resentfully, Jack wouldn't have noticed the circles under his eyes or how drawn his cheeks had gotten just lately.
He pulled in a long breath, which he'd meant to let go as a long suffering sort of sigh, right before he put Jack off about having the discussion about his flashbacks (they're just flashbacks, Mac, nothing more, you've got to let this go and drop the paranoia, damn it), But when he released the air it came out raggedly and he found he really needed to tell someone. And of all the someones he could tell, Jack was the only one who might understand, who might not just think he was crazy.
He couldn't look directly at Jack when he answered though. "Not worth a damn." He thought Jack might say something, jump in with a lecture about how he should have said something, or maybe about how he should have listened to Bozer who'd been hounding him to see a doctor about his sleep, but he didn't. Jack just gave him a little nod that said, 'go on'. "The dreams have been bad for a while. And they just keep getting worse."
He stopped then. Jack finally spoke. "That happens to a lot of us when we come home, bud. Usually it gets better." He stopped, considering whether or not to offer a suggestion. Mac's blue eyes were too shiny and stretched wide. The kid needed something. "Of course, usually it gets better because there're people who are trained to help us work through it, kid." Mac nodded slowly, not in agreement, but in acknowledgement that he was aware of the option. "A friend of mine runs a group for vets dealing with this stuff. I could introduce you," he offered.
Mac shook his head. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but couldn't quite articulate what he was thinking yet.
Jack tried again. "Or … And I'm just throwing out options if you want 'em kid … I could introduce you to my friend Sissy."
Mac cracked a smile at that. "Your massage therapist?"
Jack chuckled. He forgot that he'd mentioned Dr. Miller before. "Well, I maybe said that once or twice when I didn't want to mention the just 'therapist' part … You have gotten kinda snarky about psychology a few times on me, bud."
"Psychology is a soft science," Mac said, and Jack was heartened to hear how totally like his old self Mac sounded at that moment.
Jack gave him a fond smile. "Good thing, too, since people are mostly soft."
Mac shook his head. That wasn't what he needed either. He wasn't sure exactly what he needed until he opened his mouth and blurted. "I don't want to go to therapy, Jack. I want to find …"
Then he stopped. This just sounded so crazy, but he knew what was really eating him wasn't the nightmares, wasn't the times he'd convinced himself he'd seen something when he knew he hadn't. He was sure, as certain as he was about the force of gravity, that the men he had seen around LA weren't just similar in appearance to people he'd seen in Afghanistan, but were the same men, or at least close relatives. He swallowed hard. Saying it out loud felt like standing on the edge of a cliff and losing your balance.
Jack prompted, "What do you need to find, bud?"
Finally Mac looked him in the eye again. "Jack, I think the Mazari are operating here in the States. I need to find them and stop them before they do anything like up near Kunduz here."
Jack sat back, looking Mac over. He was trying to decide if the kid was having a nervous breakdown or if he really knew what he was saying. Given his and Bozer's concerns over the last month, he considered either equally possible. He did knew that one of the first pieces of action Mac had seen in-country had been a fringe group of terrorists attacking an aid station near the border with Kunduz and leading up to the attack, the group had abducted a squad of guys on patrol and held them for five days.
Mac had managed to evade capture, but he'd survived on his own, injured and hunted on the outskirts of town, and somehow finally managed to spring his buddies and call in support. That was when his friend Miles had gotten his permanent ticket home.
The kid never talked about it and the only reason Jack knew was when he'd been assigned to be Mac's overwatch as part of his CIA cover (a convenient one since Jack had served fresh out of high school back in the day), he'd seen the kid's unredacted file.
That was all probably enough to have the souvenir of PTSD all on its own, even if it hadn't been followed up with Albert Pena's death and Mac's return home to watch his grandfather die (apparently just like his mother, according to Bozer, although Mac never talked about that either, never talked about why his father wasn't around, never talked about much of anything other than nerdy stuff that had nothing to do with his feelings).
But Mac didn't look like a guy suffering from any kind of breakdown, no matter how understandable one would have been. And he didn't look like a guy struggling to piece together the differences between reality and dreams, and suffering from his inability to do so. He just looked like a guy who was suffering. Damned if he was going to stand by and just watch that.
Instead of saying anything that Mac was expecting, like 'that's crazy' or 'you just need to get some sleep' or 'how about seeing the doctor Bozer wants to take you to', Jack just nodded slowly.
"Alright, kid. Tell me about it."