Mac sighed a little resentfully as he stepped out of the air conditioned building and into the sweltering parking lot. Jack's condition for helping him look into his conviction that the Mazari were operating on American soil had been that Mac at least meet his therapist. He'd done it because he needed Jack's help not because he thought therapy was actually right for him.

Then Dr. (please call me Sissy) Miller had somehow managed to get him to start talking. He managed not to just unload about his certainty that something bad was happening in LA. But he'd copped to the nightmares, the insomnia, the occasional flashbacks. He'd even told her a little about his mother's death, something he never, repeat never, talked about.

She'd just asked him a casual question about the rest of his family when the clock chimed the hour, signaling the end of the 'just go meet her' entire session Jack had oh so helpfully scheduled for him. Mac had been on his feet with his hand on the doorknob before the sound finished traveling through the air. She'd flashed a gentle smile and rose to shake his hand again, a gesture he was far too polite to just ignore to get out of there. She offered him her card and invited him to call.

He took it, said thank you, of course, and left, jamming the card into one of the pockets of his jacket and almost instinctively closing his fist around it, crumpling it up. When he got to the building's lobby, he took it out to throw it away. He looked at the little wad of paper for a minute, then just put it back into his pocket.

When Mac found his Jeep in the large crowded parking lot, he smirked and shook his head. He was unsurprised to find Jack just leaning against the driver's side door, arms folded, and doing a piss poor job of looking unconcerned.

"I thought we agreed you weren't going to check up on me this afternoon," Mac said, his expression conveying that he'd never believed Jack's assertion anyway. Jack was a check-up-on-you kind of guy. Half their unit would joke and call Jack 'Dad' and he was worse with Mac than anyone by the time Mac left.

Jack chuckled, unfolding his arms and spreading his hands. "This is me we're talkin about, kid." He stretched out a hand. "Gimme your keys. I'll drive you home."

Mac frowned. "Where's your car?"

Jack repeated his gimme gesture. "Already at your place. Boze dropped me off here on his way to work."

Mac huffed with irritation, but gave up his keys and went around to the passenger side. He sort of wanted to argue but he didn't really feel like focusing through rush hour traffic after his meeting with Sissy.

"So not only did you break your 'give Mac some space while he does the thing you're making him do' promise, you and Bozer are conspiring against me now?" It was said with a fair amount of humor, but there was a tinge if true annoyance there too.

Jack just climbed in, closed the door, and started the car. "How about we're conspiring for you?" Jack asked with his best almost apologetic eyebrow raise.

Mac just shook his head, buckled his seatbelt, and folded his arms across his chest. He could tell Jack kept glancing at him but Mac just turned stubbornly toward the window and tried to immerse himself in the scenery. LA was still more or less new to him and the more he observed it and stored information about it, the more comfortable he would be there.

After a few minutes of Jack fiddling with the radio before settling on the same metal station he always did when he was driving, Mac grumbled, "Do we seriously have to listen to this ode to the 80s hair band crap again?"

Mac didn't usually complain about the music. Jack figured he was being grouchy because he was a little raw from his first encounter with Sissy. That woman had an uncanny ability to get people to open up. Instead of saying any such thing, Jack turned up the radio a little.

"In my family we got a rule, kid. And it don't matter whose car it is. Driver picks the music."

Mac was at least facing in his direction now. "So I get no say in what's blaring in my face?"

Jack gave him a big grin. "Nope. Second part of the rule says shotgun shuts their cakehole. You wanna pick the music, you gotta drive."

Mac rolled his eyes. "I was planning on it until you showed up and carjacked me."

Jack laughed at Mac's little play on words. Mac almost never even cracked a smile when Jack made a bad pun or a lame joke. Mac's forays into word humor were few and far between but they were always pretty good. Jack didn't want to break it to the kid but for as much as he groaned about Jack's puns, the older man had the suspicion that someday there might just be a bunch of little Anguses running around devastated by a certain blond genius's dad joke game.

"That's probably fair in this case," Jack laughed, relinquishing the controls. "Put on whatever you want."

Mac's lips quirked up on one side. It was almost a smile. He scanned back and forth through some stations he'd gotten to like through listening on the long drives he took in the surrounding mountains. After a few more minutes, he turned the radio off.

He was back to looking out the window, Jack saw when he glanced over. He decided it was time to risk a direct question. "You okay there, bud?"

Mac nodded, then he glanced at Jack. "Yeah. Headache."

Jack reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small bottle of Advil, then passed it to Mac. Mac smirked. "You know you're getting old when you just carry around pain relievers."

Jack did his most over the top mock-offended face. "I will have you know that I am such a prime physical specimen I destroyed the entire rest of the team's times when he did the charity obstacle race last month and most of the other security guys are a lot closer to your age than mine." Mac cocked an eyebrow and looked between Jack and the bottle. "I brought those for you. First time I ever sat down with Sissy I found myself just unloading. About a lot of stuff. Cried until I puked."

"That's … " Mac trailed off for a second, and frowned a little. "I didn't," was all he said.

"No, of course you didn't. You bottled all your stuff up and gave yourself a headache."

He didn't add 'as usual'.

He didn't have to.

For a change Mac didn't argue, he just sighed and dry swallowed several pills. "Yeah."

Jack knew Mac didn't want to talk about it at all, so he decided to go at things indirectly. "Whadja think of that self cleaning aquarium set up Sissy has in the waiting room? First time I saw it, I thought of you."

Mac cracked a smile. "It's pretty cool. I'm pretty sure I could make a couple of adjustments to it to get it to work better as a planter though. Some of her herbs look like they're getting over watered."

Jack chuckled just a little. "Well I guess if you're using that big brain to think of how to fix up her aquarium, you didn't hate her."

Mac shook his head a little at Jack's not so subtly implied question. "I didn't hate her … I liked her … I mean, I guess. She's … sneaky."

Jack laughed out loud at that. "You mean like you're just sitting there minding your own business and she asks you what you think of her new throw pillows and you're suddenly telling her about breaking your nana's lamp when you were seven and blaming it on the dog?"

Mac snorted with a surprised laugh. He could picture little Jack Dalton almost exactly in that moment. "Yeah … kinda like that."

"But she always just makes whatever you're saying seem like it's totally okay," Jack said thoughtfully.

Mac shrugged. "She's very non-judgemental," he offered neutrally.

Jack glanced at him again. "You think you might go back?"

Mac had known Jack wouldn't be able to resist asking for long. "No … I … I don't know, Jack ... Maybe," he finally allowed.

'Maybe' was better than he thought he'd get out of the kid. "Alright. Good."

They rode along in silence for a little while. Finally, hoping maybe it would get Mac talking again, instead of just staring out the window rubbing his temples, Jack spoke, just as they made the turn on the the road that would take them into Mac's parking area. "You kept up your end of the bargain, kid. So I'll help you look into this whole Mazari thing."

Mac's face brightened a little as he turned back toward Jack. "Yeah?" The question came out almost like he wasn't sure Jack would keep his end of the arrangement. Mac often did that. Even though Jack had shown him time and again that he could count on him and that Jack Dalton always kept his word, Mac seemed to genuinely struggle to trust that idea. Someday, Jack would figure out why.

"'Course I will, bud. I told you if you started takin' care of yourself, I'd help you take care of business. You make a good start by seeing Sissy today, so I'll make a start doing some digging."

Mac frowned. He didn't care for the phrase 'make a start' much. That seemed like the sort of thing Jack would say to start subtly changing the deal; like he was going to have to barter for Jack's help by meeting his and Bozer's unreasonable demands about his physical and mental condition. He took a deep breath and he said so, only sounding about half as resentful as he felt about it.

Jack pulled the Jeep into Mac's parking area, put it in park, and turned in his seat to face the younger man. "Mac, look, I said I'll help you and I will. I would've helped you even if you hadn't gone to see Sissy today, because that's what friends do, man."

He paused at the look of almost furious betrayal that flitted across Mac's face at the revelation that he'd left his house and done something he hated the mere idea of for no reason.

Jack smiled softly. "The other thing friends do is make sure each other is okay, right? We did that pretty well over on the old goat farm, so I can't think of a good reason that we wouldn't now that we're practically neighbors."

Mac's eyes were searching Jack's face and Jack could feel that the kid was looking for some flaw in what Jack was saying, some indication that it was anything but genuine, and his body language had gotten more guarded, his arms wrapping around himself again, hands almost clasping his elbows. "Okay?" Mac finally answered, but it both sounded and felt more like a question. What it really meant was, what's this gonna cost me?

Jack gave him a look, familiar and foreign at the same time. Mac had gotten used to it in Afghanistan, but no one had looked at him with the same expression, or the same kindness in at least six months. The concern, not to mention the insight, made Mac squirm a little. "I'm not setting any conditions on my help, Mac. I need you to know that." He locked eyes with Mac until the kid nodded. "But …"

Oh, here we go, said Mac's eyeroll.

"But if you want to go after those guys …"

Mac frowned sharply. "What do you mean if I want to go after them? How do you ..?"

Jack sighed. "This is about Zwickey and O'Neill, right? Those guys who never made it out when the cavalry arrived?"

"How the hell do you know about ..?"

"Your file says you had a real hard time letting that go. The whole time you were at the base hospital after the good guys swept you up, you insisted those guys must still be alive and if they weren't somebody ought to pay for that fact. You brought it up to your CO more than once, after they turned you loose, too."

Mac's eyes were a little wide and he was staring at his hands again. "You've seen my service records?"

Jack shrugged. "Mighta had a peek before I metcha."

"God damn it. I knew you weren't just some grunt with a gun … What the hell were you really doing there, Jack?"

To take the heat off, Jack winked. "I could tell ya, but I'd have ta kill ya."

Jack had said almost exactly the same thing to Mac on at least one occasion in Afghanistan when Jack seemed … out of character for just a guy on overwatch. Mac sighed. "So say I do want to 'go after those guys' as you put it, what's that have to do with whether or not I object to you and Bozer motherhenning me to death?"

This was actually the perfect opening, so Jack took it. "Eighteen months ago, I woulda gone up against the whole zombie apocalypse with you, kid, and I'd have been sure you could hold your own."

Mac nodded, agreeing that of course he could hold his own in a zombie apocalypse. In face, if you found yourself in one, Mac was pretty sure he was the guy you'd want to have around. Before Mac could make a comment to that effect, Jack went on.

"But a lot's happened since then. And you've dropped a ton of weight, lost a lot of muscle, and you look a lot less like the cocky, level-headed kid I met back on the wrong side of Hell. You look exhausted, and like you're about one bad night away from just fallin' apart."

"I'm fine!"

"Yeah, Bozer tells me you've been sayin' that a lot. And I've heard you say it a few times. Thing is I don't think even you believe it, or you wouldn't have let me talk you into seeing Sissy today, even if you thought you could get something outta me by doin' it."

Mac's whole face was a frown at the moment, but he didn't say anything for a whole minute. Then he grumbled, "So what is it you want from me?"

"Mac, buddy, I don't want anything from you. I want you to take care of yourself and get back to being the guy who I'd take with me to the United States of Zombieland. Because … that's the guy you really wanna be anyway. So what I sort of am hoping for is you to want something from yourself." Jack wouldn't have thought it was possible, but Mac's frown deepened more. "For example, like wanting to eat decent meals since you live with about the world's best cook. And maybe start comin' to the gym with me a couple days a week. You could try to get some rest once in a while instead of staying up all night obsessing about this stuff with the Mazari, and even if you have a real bad dream you could just turn the light on and try to go back to sleep that way … Or you know, if that doesn't work, you could see the doc Bozer …"

"I'm not doing that, Jack. I'm not taking sleeping pills," His tone was sharp, but not angry.

"Alright, maybe that's a bridge too far at the moment, but how about that other stuff?" Jack raised a single eyebrow and smiled, an expression that always made whatever he was saying seem more reasonable.

Finally, Mac's expression relaxed a fraction of a centimeter. "Dinner, sleep, kicking your ass all over the gym? I guess I could see my way clear to agree to a little of that."

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. "Good man!" Mac grinned against his own will at the easy pleased affection he heard in Jack's voice. "How about we go inside and have dinner, grab a beer or two, and then maybe you head off to dreamland as a sign of good faith?"

"Dinner sure, but there's some research I've been doing about the history and movements of the Mazari that I really want to show …"

"Bud, slow your roll." The frown was back in a flash. "I'm sure your research is good, kid, but I can get us all kinds of intel on those bastards if you give me the weekend. I'll dig up everything the DOD knows about 'em and thensome."

"I thought you work at a think tank."

Jack grinned again. "Yeah, well, I know a guy."

Mac chuckled in spite of himself, but he was serious again a spare second later. "Alright, big guy, but just because you can use some of your freaky spook I could tell you but I'd have to kill you connections to get good information for us, that doesn't mean we shouldn't comb through what I've already found."

Jack gave him a very knowing look. "We will, bud. But do you and me both a favor and give it a rest for a couple days. Eat, sleep, take care of yourself a little. I got a long weekend," Jack said untruthfully.

Patty had laid on the pressure to make an offer to Mac and he'd told her he needed more time. She'd said, 'Fine, do what you need to. I'll call you if another mission requires your attention.' Weird, but Jack wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth at this point.

"Monday I'll introduce you to the company gym, because I can bring a guest any time I want. You'll like it. Since it is a think tank you're bound to meet some other skinny nerds who want to just go burn too many calories running around in the sunshine." Mac smiled a little at that. "And then we'll meet my friend who can pull together that intel I mentioned."

"Jack, I …"

"Look, if we're gonna do this …" Jack squeezed Mac's shoulder. "I need my partner back, bud."

Mac met his eye then and nodded slowly. Strangely, he knew exactly what Jack meant. "Okay. Yeah. It's a deal."