When Mac returned home with an armload full of groceries, he could tell Boze had gotten called in to the restaurant by the ancient Waylon Jennings blasting out of the speakers out on the porch. He could further tell that Jack had come over for his recommended daily swim by the splashing he could just barely hear over the music.

Mac put down the grocery bags and pulled the laptop controlling the music over to him and made a not so subtle switch at the end of the current song. Hey, he had to let Jack know he was home somehow, right?

He started putting things away, grinning from ear to ear in anticipation of Jack's reaction. He'd just gotten a six pack out of the bag when the song ended and whatever Taylor Swift song Bozer had been listening to blared to life out on the deck.

Jack stood dripping in the doorway less than a minute later which Mac took to be a good sign relative to his mobility. In the couple of months since Mac had rejected DXSs job offer, he'd spent a lot of time helping Jack with rehabbing his back and shoulder. He was finally starting to move with the easy almost swagger Mac had first encountered in Afghanistan.

"What the blue hell is that noise?" he gripped, striding in and popping open a beer, heedless of the puddles he was leaving in his wake.

Mac couldn't help laughing. Jack looked so legitimately indignant. "Something Boze listens to just about every morning."

"Do you listen to this crap?"

"Sometimes," Mac shrugged, stashing the rest of the beer in the fridge with the other groceries. "She's cute."

"Yeah, but, Mac … the music, brother. The music."

Mac laughed again and switched the playlist over to one they could agree on, a mix of old school punk, rock, and Johnny Cash. Then he lowered the volume to actual conversational levels. "How's the …" Mac gestured vaguely in Jack's general direction.

Jack grinned. "Saw the ortho-Whoeverthehell today and he said a buncha Mac type words … anyhow, Doc Anderson translated for me and looks like I don't need another surgery. Everything looks real good."

Mac beamed, suddenly feeling the knots of residual guilt over his friend's injury loosen. "That's fantastic, Jack!"

Jack craned his neck trying to look at his back. "Is it still gross?" he asked, turning so Mac could see.

Mac made a face. "I'm not gonna lie. That's a hell of a scar, pal. But it's not gross." He smirked. "You could always get a tattoo over it."

Jack spun and punched him solidly on the arm. Twice. "I am not gettin' a tramp stamp, you little shit."

Mac rubbed his bicep and glared at Jack. Then he cracked up. "You sure? Cuz a little butterfly or maybe a dolphin …"

"That's it, kid. You are goin' in that pool."

At that Jack lunged toward where Mac had started to put the kitchen island between them.

"Purple's really your color!" Mac called as he easily outran Jack.

Jack didn't think Mac had much of a head start but the kid vanished. Jack also definitely wasn't back in running shape anyway, nor should he pick up a hundred sixty pound guy and throw him anywhere, even the pool right outside. But, a little more PT and the doc thought he'd be almost as good as new.

Jack nearly jumped out of his skin when a towel was draped over his shoulders from behind. He turned and Mac was just standing there grinning at him. "Where the hell did you come from?" He demanded, wrapping the towel around himself.

"I went out to start the grill while I was avoiding being thrown into the pool by a guy that particular stunt would probably put in the hospital," he said innocently.

"How? You got some kinda Bruce Wayne Bat cave escape route I oughtta know about?" Jack said, looking around.

Mac looked very serious for a minute. "I know I told you I went to Mission City High, pal, but I lied." Jack gave him a funny look. "I actually went to Hogwarts."

Mac gave him a very big grin and stepped around him and opened the fridge. "I figured Boze wouldn't be home based on all the overtime he's been doing lately. You want burgers or dogs for dinner, man? Cause those are the limit of my culinary skills."

Jack was toweling off his hair and answered with a muffled, "Somethin' wrong with both?"

Mac chuckled. "Not if you're hungry, pal. Go get dressed. I'll get dinner on."

When Jack came back out of the spare room, which was actually more of a workshop with a futon in it that Mac would heave projects off of onto the floor if Jack needed a place to crash for more than the night or two their hard old sofa would keep a guest, Mac was listening to something very cheerful on the speakers, and humming along while he finished making dinner.

"What's got you so chipper?" Jack asked with a grin as they loaded up their plates to take out to the back deck.

Mac shrugged. "I don't know, man. You're really feeling better … Boze seems to like this job at the burger joint a lot and has a girl he seems to actual know how to talk to so he's happy … I mean, Boze and girlfriends … he gets a little intense … but so far this one doesn't seem to mind. My part-time gig is a lot of fun …"

"You like restoring cars with that old cuss?" Jack asked.

Mac nodded. "I really do. Don is a nice old man and he has like a million odds and ends there in the garage that he lets me dig through. It's fun."

He'd introduced Mac to an old friend of Jack Senior's who did general maintenance, engine repair, and a little restoration on the side, when Mac had been stymied by a problem with his the classic motorcycle he'd inherited from his grandfather. They'd hit it off talking about classic cars and the benefits of equipment you didn't need the computer banks at NASA to work in. He'd offered Mac some side work. Mac had been doing that for fifteen or twenty hours a week, increasing the time as his leg healed up.

They settled into the Adirondack chairs and started wolfing down what they'd jammed onto their plates; two hot dogs and a burger each, chips, and pickles. Mac was halfway through his burger, sort of full-mouth answering Jack's questions about the job at Ainsely's Auto Repair when he reached down beside the chair and swore. "We forgot the beer," he observed.

He put his plate down and jogged into the house, bounding back out about two minutes later with four of them. He grinned at Jack. "One with dinner, one for dessert."

Jack took one and opened it. He tipped it in Mac's general direction. "Watchin' you run around here this afternoon … Leg finally really feels better, huh?"

Mac, chewing an obscene hunk of burger, just nodded. Then once he swallowed it with a swig of beer, he elaborated. "Yeah, it's good. I think I can start running again, maybe getting back to working out a little more seriously again. I wouldn't have figured I'd miss the weights and stuff, but I do."

"Look man, I know I've been kind of a pain in the ass about it, and I know you won't go in to X-Com and let Anderson look at it, but … Have you thought about hitting up Don for some health insurance or … I dunno … going to the clinic at the hospital that patched up up to begin with? Just to, ya know, maybe get a professional opinion on it? Before you … I don't know … decide to try to qualify for the Boston Marathon or something."

Mac smiled at the return of Overwatch tone. "Nah, I'm all set." He laughed at the look Jack gave him. "I don't mean that a professional opinion wouldn't be good. I got one. I was talking to Miles the other night on the phone. Just letting him know how things were. We hadn't talked in a while and he left a couple messages … I'd hate for him to sic another sniper on me," Mac teased. "Anyway a friend of his just moved here and he's a doctor … well sort of …"

"Sort of a doctor?" Jack asked with what he felt was appropriate skepticism.

Mac laughed. "Well, I mean Elliot's a doctor … just usually his patients are already beyond his help." He laughed harder at Jack's expression. "He's a medical examiner, Jack."

"Dude! That's gotta be bad juju or somethin'!"

"Be that as it may, he's willing to help out a friend of a friend in exchange for some consulting on some equipment of his. And I actually like the guy alright."

Jack smiled slightly. Leave it to Mac to improvise himself a doctor. "That's good, Mac."

He tried to keep the sort of approving tone both Mac and Boze would occasionally call him out for that made him sound like somebody's wise old grandpa, but he was only partially successful. When he'd first seen Mac up outside that cabin all those months ago, he thought the kid had utterly forgotten how to take care of himself. Well, not so much forgotten as that he didn't seem to think he was worth taking care of.

Now here he was making decisions based on what he thought would make him happy, taking time for himself, eating like a normal person, actually seeking medical care instead of just compartmentalizing pain. Jack knew he'd more or less adopted Mac as his little brother by the time they'd known each other three months … and there was their whole Wookie Life Debt to consider too. So nothing was probably going to convince Jack that Mac didn't need a certain amount of protecting, even if it was only from himself. But, Jack felt better about the kid's future than he had since they met.

"So, hey, um, when's your doc think you can get back to your usual routine? Since things are healing well?" Mac asked in what Jack found to be an almost overly casual voice.

Jack's Head tilted back a little and he eyed Mac with a speculative look. "Oh, it'll be another couple of months before I'm really back at it I guess." He watched Mac's face almost fall before the blond carefully schooled his features. The disappointment still showed in his eyes though. Kid couldn't ever quite keep his feelings out of his eyes. "But I'm ready to start the light stuff on my own away from the PT."

Mac grinned. "That's awesome, man. I'm glad your really finally healing up and feeling better!"

The comment was genuine, and Jack knew Mac had kind of been torturing himself over the warehouse incident and the fact that Jack had been hurt, but there was something else, too. Mac was grinning too much for it to be only that. "Me, too, kid."

When Jack didn't say more, Mac fidgeted just a little. "So, do you, uh, still want a gym buddy?" Jack raised an eyebrow and Mac hurried to add, "Thornton called a couple days ago and wanted me to come in and review and sign the final statement and report of … you know, the whole thing … before it goes to her boss."

"And you went?" Jack asked, surprised.

Mac shrugged. "I mean, yeah. After work today. I've looked around the web and I can't find even rumors of DXS. I'm not pissing off the lady who runs operations for anybody that powerful. Besides, I'm not mad about anything. I just don't want to do a job that requires violence. I already figured out I didn't like that in the Army, man."

"How'd that go?" Jack asked, just taking another sip of beer like he wasn't planning on chewing Thornton a new one for calling the kid in. He didn't need to review anything. He was a civilian and he gave his statement. That was enough.

"Good. Fine. I mean, I'm sort of glad that I went." He shrugged again. "I mean, Harkins and I have still been hanging out after work some. And she wanted me to know I was still welcome at X-com, that people have friends in and out for lunch and stuff like that all the time. She mentioned it was actually stranger if I always refused the invitation than if I came in once in a while … I know Jay doesn't know the real deal and he loves being a tech there. I don't want to blow that for him."

Jack's jaw muscles flexed momentarily, but Mac didn't notice. "Well, that's real neighborly of her," he said, mostly without the irritation he was feeling.

"Yeah. And she said I'd still be welcome to come with you to the gym like I had been before … once you were up to it."

There was something a little different about the tone there. "I thought you were putting a gym in your garage once your leg really felt better."

Another shrug. Jack shook his head a little bit. Now they were skirting whatever was up. Mac took a sip of his beer. "I was just thinking it would be nice to get back at it before I lose all the progress I made, you know? Feels good to be back in decent shape. And I haven't exactly just sat on my ass the last couple months, but …" He flushed a little bit. "I like how I look when I'm really working out … And I like how people respond, I guess."

There is was. "People? Or person?"

Mac truly blushed this time. "Okay, so maybe kind of … person." Then he grinned. "You remember that blonde you said was making eyes at me in the gym that time …"

"Nancy?"

"Nikki," Mac corrected. "Nikki Carpenter." Both Jack's eyebrows went up in a sort of amused way so Mac went on. "Thornton stepped out of her office to deal with something from her boss while I was reading things over … And Nikki came in to drop off some folder full of whatever and … she introduced herself, asked me why she hadn't seen me around in a while …"

There was absolutely no mistaking how pleased and slightly smug Mac was about revealing that particular fact. "And you are just slightly interested in opportunities to run into her."

Mac grinned. "Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't be? First of all she's gorgeous. And today we were just chatting for a couple of minutes while I was waiting for Thornton to come back. She went to MIT, too, only she, um, graduated and …"

"When?" Jack asked, curious. He knew she must be older than Mac because he knew from Ross that she'd worked there for a few years. Ross didn't like her, thought she spent too much time kissing the bosses' asses. It made Jack a little wary of her on Mac's behalf.

"A few years ago," Mac said without much interest in Nikki's age, only that she'd wanted to talk with him and that she was bright, beautiful, and interested.

He didn't have a lot in the way of confidence with women. He'd thought about that a little after flirting with the nurse in the infirmary got him his way more than once. Like maybe he should have at least a little more confidence. That was all that kept him from going completely dry mouthed when Nikki struck up a conversation.

"And she's been offered jobs by just about everybody, because she's a legitimate computer genius. But she felt like she could help the most people … well, she said at X-Com, but I kind of got the vibe that she knows who she really works for."

Jack nodded. He knew she did. She'd been the analyst in the field for a couple of missions with Jack's friend Ross. Of course he didn't say so, but it was tempting. He didn't think it was a great idea for Mac, who was now totally a civilian, but who had nearly been pulled into the life before rejecting it, to hook up with a woman who was up to her eyeballs in it. But that wasn't really up to him.

"She sounds real interesting, kid."

"Yeah, she is."

Jack liked Mac's expression at the moment. He looked … hopeful. Not just about a pretty girl, Jack realized, but in general. He thought maybe that's the first time he'd ever seen Mac look that way. Nasty bunch of injuries for both of them aside, he supposed he had to be grateful for Mac's experience at DXS if this was what came from it.

He also realized Mac hadn't brought up the incident at the warehouse, other than how they were recovering from it, in weeks. And he looked well rested; neither Mac openly, nor Boze behind his back, reported the terrible sorts of nightmares that had troubled him for a while. He gave the kid a grin. "I might be convinced to hit the gym Monday. They don't have a pool so I'm gonna keep hitting you up for yours, but there's some stuff I should probably try, so I can at least tell the doc if I'm not there yet. I'll getcha a guest pass again."

Mac beamed. "Thanks Jack!" Then he stuffed the last of his overloaded hotdog into his mouth, and got up while still chewing it. "You want some more?" he asked around the bite.

"I'm good, kid, but you go for it."

Yeah, Jack thought, maybe things were looking up.