"Mac … Mac, buddy, you okay? C'mon, kid, talk to me."

Mac could hear Jack. It wasn't easy over the sound of blood rushing in his ears, but he could hear him. Jack was being kind of loud. All Mac knew at the moment was that he couldn't deal with loud, couldn't deal with talking even if it was quiet, and if he didn't get outside and breathe some fresh air he was going to pass out.

As it was, as he stumbled out onto the deck, some of Jack's words penetrated. They amounted to hey, kid, why don't you sit down, tell me what's going on, etc. etc. …

Mac leaned against the porch railing, images of the moments before the rocket propelled grenade had hit their truck, then the stink of the explosion, the pain, blood, the noise … screaming, shouting.

Mac leaned over the railing and was sick. It was a completely involuntary action and he was grateful his backyard just looked out on trees and not more neighbors. He knew he sunk down onto the floorboards, knew he rested his forehead against the lower railing because he just couldn't stand to hold it up at the moment, knew one of his hands was gripping that railing for dear life, but he couldn't catch his breath. Reality seemed to fall away.

He was nineteen, wounded, terrified, and pursued. He was back there. Completely. Then he pulled in a few ragged breaths that felt like choking on smoke, and the smells of …

He slowly became aware of Jack's hand on his shoulder, of the older man sitting next to him on the boards of the deck. Next he could hear Jack's voice, lower and quieter than it usually was, not unlike he remembered it from right before Christmas the year they'd met, waiting for evac and trying to distract him from how roughed up he was while also keeping him from freaking out from the sheer amount of blood that had been all over him.

His brow creased, the second memory of getting about blown to Hell should have made the earlier memory worse, but it didn't. It reminded him that it was all over. Because he'd gotten out. Both times. The second time had just been easier. Jack had been on overwatch when it happened and had the bad guys tagged and the dustoff on its way almost before Mac had processed that he'd been hurt.

He became aware of Jack holding out a water bottle and he took it, suddenly overcome with a thirst he'd only ever known if Afghanistan. He'd grown up in California, and the heat, even up north, could be downright oppressive. And he'd always been active, even as a kid, running insane distances in even the hottest weather, just as a way to manage his own restlessness. But never had he known thirst from it quite like even an uneventful day in that place had inspired. He thought maybe it was the shit everyone called moon dust that coated virtually everything there.

He tipped up the water bottle and started draining it. Jack said something, and Mac just held up his hand to silence him. He wasn't quite processing Jack's words, but he knew the gist of the tone - slow down, take it easy. But he couldn't, not at the moment.

When the water bottle was empty he finally managed to meet Jack's eyes. "I'm alright."

He started to climb to his feet. Jack's hand on his shoulder stopped him briefly. "Whoa, man, slow down, take it easy, bud."

Mac almost smiled at that. He'd been right. Even when he wasn't really hearing Jack he'd been hearing him, after a fashion. "I'm fine, Jack. It was just a surprise, seeing him. I … I'm okay though."

Mac shook off Jack's hand and finished getting to his his feet, striding inside to hide just how damned shaky his legs felt at the moment. He was leaning into the fridge to get out another bottle of water when Jack joined him, moving slowly and watching him carefully like he was an animal Jack was intent on taming that he had a sneaking suspicion would bolt at any sudden moves.

"Want one?" he asked, pleased at how level his voice sounded now.

"I'm all set, Mac, but thanks," Jack answered carefully.

Mac gave him an elaborate eye roll, that he didn't want to acknowledge pained his now pounding head. "Jack, don't start doing that thing."

"What thing?" Jack asked innocently.

"That I'm your overwatch thing you do. I'm good. It was a shock." Mac was going to totally brush off his reaction, but he found he needed to sit for a minute to do it.

He pulled a stool up to the counter where he'd left the beer and take out a few minutes ago and cracked one open as he took a deliberately casual seat. This time when he held out a bottle of what he was having, Jack took it, opening his as well and sitting down on the nearest stool while still trying not to crowd Mac. Jack didn't say anything, just kept looking at him in that way that he had that Mac always seemed to interpret as him needing to explain something, and which he seemed to always do, even when he didn't particularly feel like explaining.

"That's O'Neill, um Ron, his first name was. We called him Tallahassee … Not because he was from Florida … Zombieland just came out when he got to the base and he sorta looked like Woody Harrelson so … new crew, new nickname … You know how that is."

"I do," Jack nodded. "Gotta admit your old unit's nickname for ya was a lot nicer than the one I saddled you with at the FOB, kid. Still kinda sorry about that."

Mac managed a smile. "Angus has resulted in a lot worse things than somebody thinking it was a stupid hamburger name, pal. I did attend middle school once upon a time."

"High school couldn't have been much fun either," Jack said, prodding Mac gently to keep talking in any way about his past in the less tense tone he was using now.

"Ah, man, by the time I got to highschool, kids had much better things to give me shit about than my parent's weird taste in names."

"Like what?"

"Like nothing I'm gonna talk about, that's what," Mac said with another small smile, but a flush was creeping into his cheeks. He welcomed it.

Even the worst bullying he'd experienced as a kid felt so much easier, so much more normal than what he'd been thinking about when he'd seen O'Neill's face in that picture, older, certainly, in a way that Mac's just wasn't, but then Tallahassee had been a Sargeant back then, older than him anyway.

O'Neill had been assumed KIA just like four of the other guys in their eight man patrol. Mac had insisted he wasn't, insisted he'd seen him on the Mazari compound when the cavalry had arrived, but no one had listened. And now the guy was in LA, with at least one other familiar face from that compound - not a friendly one - and wearing a cocky smirk in the picture of him accepting a suitcase from another man, whose face wasn't visible in the picture.

Mac found he could keep his voice level while he spoke about it now. "So that guy is supposed to be dead. And he's supposed to be one of us. And there he is alive and with somebody who isn't one of the good guys, because I recognize him, too. I didn't know his name though and …" He trailed off. He was rambling. "It was like seeing a ghost. But I'm good now, Jack, honestly."

"You sure?" Jack asked with real concern.

"Yeah. What does your friend have to say about all this?"

0-0-0-0

"Here, you look like you need another one," Jay, one of the other techs, said as he passed Mac a cup of coffee from the break room.

"Thanks, man," Mac said, taking the cup gratefully.

"Too much fun, or not enough?" The lanky lab geek asked, with a hint of jealousy that was entirely good natured. Mac was by far the best looking, most athletic guy that worked in this corner of Applied Sciences, the rest of the crew having a much more intellectual aspect.

They assumed when Mac came in wrecked it was because he'd partied the night before. Mac didn't bother disabusing them of that notion. Jay, however, had also gotten to know Mac a little in the last week or so, and his military service had come up.

Jay's older brother was a Marine. He knew the look, so he figured Mac's dark circles just as likely had an unpleasant cause as a pleasant one, With his current lunch partner looking as rough around the edges as he did, he figured he should at least ask, at least give him the chance to talk if he wanted.

Mac took a very necessary swig of his fourth large coffee of the day and rolled his eyes a little. He liked Jay, liked all of his co-workers here to be honest, but he sort of regretted letting his history with Jack and the Army slip over lunch last week when Jack was out because Jay had definitely taken that as a friendship cue and Mac wasn't quite ready for more than casual acquaintances.

Mac put on his best joking grin, although he could see from Jay's expression that it was probably a little wan. He wasn't about to tell the man that he hadn't slept in two days; the nightmares had been epic when he'd dozed off. The incident with the Mazari, Pena's death, getting blown all to Hell after he'd met Jack, hell even his mother's death, then his grandfather's.

If he wasn't going to admit it to Jack or Bozer, he sure as Hell wasn't going to tell the guy he only ate lunch with about every third day and had only known for about a month. Still, he stuck to the first answer that popped into his head at Jay's casual question. "Little of both."

Jay nodded like he had any idea what that meant. "Been there," he said to have something to say. He wasn't all that great at small talk, and clearly Mac was worse. On days where he looked like it was exam week in year five of an engineering program anyway.

Mac was sitting at their work area's one computer, working on a report about what he'd done to repair a backpack GPS and what he needed to outfit the other fifteen units the organization had at the ready for security and other various teams that actually got to leave the building. Jay headed back over toward the lab table where he'd been setting up a materials test for a new fire resistant suit their division was working on. "Hey, when I finish this run through, you wanna go grab some lunch?"

Mac glanced up from where he'd already returned to staring at the screen again. "I don't know, Jay. I'm not … I had a big breakfast," he finished untruthfully.

Jay glanced at the clock. "It's getting kind of late. Aren't you supposed to meet Dalton down there?" he asked, not looking at Mac and being careful to keep his tone from even approaching the teasing he'd heard some of the other techs let Mac in for. He'd gotten crap about his big brother being protective when he was younger and he hadn't appreciated it. Mac couldn't help it if the guy who'd decided to appoint himself big brother status wasn't biological.

Mac shrugged. "I'll text him," Mac said, turning his full attention back to his work. Jay got the distinct impression that all subjects were closed then.

He headed back over to the lab table to start the test he had set up with the new material and one of the bunsen burners Mac had juiced up for the purpose of materials testing. The standard units got decently hot. Mac's version was a crazy almost white flame. It was a pretty ingenious mix of engineering a new valve for the unit and mixing a combination of gases. "Hey, Mac!" he called out, donning his safety goggles. "You might want to relocate to the computer lab. This is gonna stink to high heaven … And that's if I don't set off the sprinklers."

"Mmmm," Mac acknowledged vaguely. "I'm good."

Jay shook his head and put the material into the crucible over the ring stand and turned up the heat. His nose wrinkled after only a few minutes. He turned up the hood fan, hoping the god awful burnt rubber smell wouldn't permeate the whole floor. The computer people who shared this level gave the lab staff endless crap about how often they stunk everything up. He heard a noise from behind him, something like a cough, but he was focused on observing his experiment.

Suddenly, the small piece of material started sparking and then burst into flames, billowing smoke that Jay was sure would be talked of for weeks. As he calmly turned off the gas valve and grabbed the fire extinguisher he heard a clattering noise, but didn't turn. He was intent on putting out the fire before the suppression system kicked on. When he finally turned, Mac's chair was overturned and his companion was gone.

He cleaned up the mess slowly and methodically. He had the lab back in order about fifteen minutes later, including righting Mac's chair. He'd just pushed it in at the work station when Mac came back through the door. He looked pale, his expression was pinched, and his hair was damp around the edges, probably from splashing water on his face.

"Smell get to you?" Jay asked in sympathy. It was a terrible stench, but he'd run the last three rounds of tests over the previous two months, so he was almost used to it by now.

Mac ran a hand through his hair. "Um … yeah. I guess I wasn't feeling all the great anyway, but … um … that put it over the top … What's the procedure for leaving early? Like I didn't even read the policy about sick time. I literally never use that kind of thing."

"You do look pretty green." Jay tipped his chin at the door. "Just get out of here, man. I'm the senior tech. I'll take care of the details for you."

"Thanks, man," Mac said quietly, already out the door. The speed with which he was leaving told Jay that the guy really wasn't feeling well at all. Before setting up the next test, he wiped down all the communal surfaces with disinfectant. Better safe than sorry, he thought.

Caught up in what he was doing, Jay never noticed the lunch hour come and go. He'd just put out the fire from the latest sample when a familiar drawl broke into his field of concentration. "Where you hidin' Mac there, Harkins?"

Jay put down the fire extinguisher and took off his safety goggles. "Not hiding him anywhere, Mr. Dalton. He went home sick."

"Mac?" Jack asked with disbelief. "He never uses sick time. Barely willing to miss the job when it was an order."
Jay noted with amusement the crease in Jack's brow that said sick time was something he thought Mac should have used before but never had.

"Yeah, well, he didn't look so hot, then I stunk up the lab. He took off …" Jay glanced at the clock, "About a half hour or so ago I guess. He was in a real hurry to get out of here by then. Probably caught the stomach thing that's been going around Accounting." Jay shrugged, and turned back toward his work, since Jack had already taken off down the hall, fishing out his phone.

Mac didn't answer. In fact, the speed it went to voicemail said Mac had turned his phone off.

Jack felt a strange nagging feeling building in his chest that he didn't know what to do with. He was not a guy who got emotional like that over something like a friend blowing him off for lunch. He freely admitted to caring for Mac, called him brother completely unironically, meant it completely, but he didn't normally feel this sort of protective surge of emotions when it came to his former bomb nerd.

The last time he remembered feeling anything like this, he'd discovered his younger sister was being bullied at school by the one guy Jack had always been afraid to go toe to toe with. He'd done it, gone toe to toe with the guy, scared him too apparently. That had been the first time he'd ever really lost his temper and, as Mac liked to put it 'Hulked out'.

He felt a little like that now. Which was silly. Dude went home sick. So what? Except for a sixth sense that Mac didn't believe in, one that had kept him alive more than once, told him that something more than the stomach flu was going on. And he didn't like it one bit. He shot a text to Thornton and headed for the parking garage for his car.

By the time he got out of the parking lot, he found himself driving more aggressively than the situation probably called for and at a speed that put him in serious danger of drawing attention from law enforcement.

Fortunately, it didn't take him long to find where that skinny bomb nerd had gotten to.

In a pulloff, only about ten minutes from Mac's house, Jack saw Mac's distinctive orange Jeep, all alone in the rest area. Without signalling, Jack pulled in and broke hard, throwing his car into park and getting out, half convinced he'd find his partner slumped behind the wheel, covered in blood, the way he had been the week before that first Christmas in Afghanistan.

Instead the Jeep was empty, except for Mac's phone on the passenger seat.

"Mac!" Jack called loudly. "Yo, Mac!"

Nothing.

He looked apprehensively toward the trees. It would be so like Mac to get sick and then decide a freaking ten mile hike in the woods was just the goddamned thing he needed to sort himself out. Jack huffed a frustrated sigh, more because he felt like he should be frustrated instead of freaked out than because he felt it. He tried one last time. "Mac!"

When he was answered with quiet he cursed under his breath and prepared to go looking on the hiking trail the really began a short distance from the road. He was almost to the tree line when he heard the almost panicked gasp.

Jack spun around, lightning quick.

Mac was sitting on the ground in the shade on the passenger side of his Jeep, leaning against the side of the vehicle. His arms were wrapped around his knees, which were pulled tightly to his chest. His head was resting on his knees, hair a tousled mess. Jack felt his stomach drop a little when he realized Mac was rocking ever so slightly.

"Mac?" he said tentatively. Mac flinched but didn't lift his head.

Jack's immediate impulse was to run over to the kid and shake him a little, but he forced himself to slow down and approach quietly, carefully. "Mac, buddy, it's me. It's Jack." He didn't know why he felt the need to reassure the younger man of that, but he did. Mac hugged his own legs harder, but didn't flinch this time.

Jack took that as a positive sign and sat down on the ground next to him, a few feet away. He winced a little when he heard just how ragged and strained Mac's breathing sounded. He suspected if he'd shown up a few minutes earlier he'd have caught the kid in a full-blown panic attack at the lips turning blue from not breathing properly stage. Jack vaguely wondered if the kid had gotten it under control through that ridiculous but often useful stubborn streak of his, or if he'd made himself pass out and that's what had leveled things off.

"You hear me, kid? It's Jack."

"Mmmmm," finally came through Mac's arms.

"Whatcha doin' out here, man?" Jack asked after a few more minutes passed.

"Mmmmmnnnnnn."

"Was that an I don't know, or are you turning into a mosquito?" Jack asked, managing to put some familiar teasing into his tone, despite just how weird and, let's face it, scary, it was to see 'Mr. Butter Wouldn't Melt In His Mouth while defusing a bomb big enough to blow up a whole village' basically a puddle on the ground.

He was rewarded with a sniff that might have been a chuckle. Then after another minute, Mac lifted his head, but not enough for Jack to see his face. "Can't turn into a mosquito. I barely like rare steak."

Jack edged closer to Mac. "Good. Ya had me worried for a minute." He paused, then carefully reached out and put a hand on Mac's shoulder. He was pleased Mac didn't pull away, in fact, Mac actually leaned into his touch just a fraction. "You okay?"

This time Mac lifted his head enough so Jack could see his face was puffy and tear stained. He saw Jack noticing and flushed, but didn't drop his head. He blinked a few times and then shook his head. "Not even a little. But I will be. Give me a few minutes."

Jack nodded as Mac put his head back down. "You wanna tell me what happened, bud?"

"No … I … Maybe … I remembered some things … I couldn't stop … I," his breath hitched again. "I had to get away from that smell."

Jack nodded slowly, remembering the burnt rubber and sort of chemical smell he'd noticed in the lab. Honestly, smelled like another day at the office to Jack, because, although Mac didn't know it, Jack still found himself around stuff that blew up a lot. Burnt tires, explosives, were very distinctive smells. Jack was thoughtful for a minute. "I've had that happen. Smells bringing back stuff."

Mac sniffled a little but lifted his head again and said, "Sense memory is very powerful."

"Yeah, just a smell can take you right back to your childhood." Mac mumbled some agreement. "Or a war zone."

"Yeah. I … Jack, I …"

"What is it, kid?"

"I've spent the last … damn, going on two years now, trying to forget Afghanistan ever happened, and definitely the part O'Neill was caught up in. I feel like the Mazari have been after me since '09, man."

"That's right … they chased you some."

"Yeah," Mac said with almost no color in his voice at all. Then he added quietly. "They had a good reason."

Jack decided to deal with that statement later. "You still feel like they're after you sometimes, don'tcha?"

Mac nodded. "I guess seeing that picture the other night made me feel like they kind of are, brought it all back up. I think I'm okay now, Jack." Mac started to get up off the ground. "I could probably go back to work, honestly."

"Oh, no ya don't, kid. I'm gonna follow you back to your place and we're gonna eat that lunch you ditched me on, and maybe talk a little more … If you can."

Mac nodded slowly. That was Jack's Don't Argue With Your Overwatch tone. It was easier to go along with it. "Alright, I guess."

He was climbing into his Jeep when Jack couldn't resist asking anymore, "You said they had good reasons for going after you … Other than you just walking away from their ambush."

"Yeah," Mac said, pulling the door closed, turning the Jeep on, and speaking out his open window. "I mean, I kind of blew up their first safe house. I … I never reported it … but …"

"But what, kid?"

Mac put the Jeep in gear. "But they grabbed me along with the rest of the guys at that checkpoint. I just didn't hang around for long."

"Son of a bitch," Jack growled under his breath as he climbed into his own car to follow Mac home. This was a story he needed to hear, whether or not Mac was ready to tell it. Then he had some more bad news to break to the kid. Probably worse than the O'Neill picture had been, but … what would come would come.

Jack was back on overwatch.