Mac startled awake at the cool rush of air and sharp familiar voice. His brain felt like it was wrapped in gauze or packed in cotton. Then he realized there was someone watching him. When he saw the expression that belonged to the eyes in question, it woke him up in a hurry.

He looked up into the face of fury itself. Good Ole Jack had taken a vacation and been replaced by one seriously pissed off Delta Dalton. Shit.

"What the hell are you doin' here? I know Elliot took steps to keep your ass in that bed. What'd ya do, pull a Houdini to get by 'im?"

The words themselves were almost what you'd expect from good natured teasing, but the tone was harsh, livid. Jack was clenching and unclenching his fists. Mac couldn't see him doing it in the low light, but he knew the slight almost squeak of the leather of Jack's wrist cuff.

"Jack, I can explain," Mac said, sounding entirely reasonable. Reasonable was the only way to go when Jack was ready to Hulk out. He'd just lay out his thinking as calmly as possible and he was sure Jack would understand. Then he sat up and had to bite back a cry of pain.

Through clenched teeth of his own, Jack said, "Go ahead. Explain."

Mac edged his way out of the transport, moving more carefully. He was amazed no one had seen him sooner. He'd meant to hide himself better, to make a plan while they were in their way. He'd planned to reveal his presence as soon as they were out of reasonable range of just booting him out of the truck. But he'd gotten so sleepy, his limbs had felt so heavy, he'd laid down to collect himself, and the next thing he knew he was getting this burning dead-eye stare from Jack.

He figured he could tag the blame for his nap squarely on Dr. Mathers. He thought maybe he was not speaking to Elliot right now. Jack. had known about it though; he'd definitely known. He was probably a co-conspirator. And he had to talk to Jack. Wanting to make his case at eye level, or at least close to it, Mac prepared to get out and on his feet.

He shifted to ease himself onto the ground and accidentally let his bad arm take the weight. The stabbing pain in his shoulder took his breath away and he almost let his legs go out from under him as his vision swam.

He was pretty sure he would've wiped out, but Jack grabbed his elbow and eased him down on the bumper of the truck. His hands were gentle but his voice hadn't lost any of its tight anger.

"Yeah, kid, explain how you thought gettin outta bed was a good idea, shape you're in. How stealing clothes from somebody who's twice your size was a good idea. How great it feels to cram those scraped up feet of yours into boots…" Jack glanced at Mac's feet, " two sizes too small. Bet that feels awesome where you stepped on that glass, huh, kid?"

Mac was waking up more fully and regaining his wits a bit. "Jack, it's fine. I need …"

Jack's words bulldozed right over his. "About a week in a hospital? Good; we're agreed. I'll get Grady to take one of these trucks and drive your ass back to base and Elliot can get you home, just like we talked about."

"No, Jack … Look, Zwickey is …"

Mac went on to explain how he'd seen Zwickey and what had transpired. The kid clearly didn't recall telling him this back at base. To be fair, he'd been pretty medicated and he had a concussion. Jack realized suddenly that those things may have factored into this particular bad decision. It cooled his anger, made him listen more carefully.

Jack heard two things in Mac's protests and explanations. One was sheer stubbornness. Mac had gotten an idea in his head and he'd by god hang onto it until somebody beat it out of him. That Jack was used to. But the other was a sort of desperation. That he'd never encountered in Mac before. Not once. Not like this.

"You told me about Zwickey already, kid." His voice had softened a little. Mac took the opening.

"I've told people before. For years. And he's still here, still being …"

Mac stopped. He had to. Being on the verge of saying what he knew the other man's life had been like for the last five years put what Mac had been through over the last week or so on a brief upsetting loop in his head. He blinked hard, swallowed, then met Jack's eyes again.

"I need to see this through," he said firmly, finally finishing his thought from before. "I need to make sure he really gets home. I shouldn't have let them shut me up five years ago and I can't let you shut me up now."

Jack's eyes flashed at that. "I'm not tryin' to shut you up, I'm tryin' to do my job, and I can't do that if I'm worried about you gettin' your skinny ass killed." That re-made up his mind. "Grady!" he called out to the most junior member of the team, "Our asset here needs a ride back to base!"

Mac stood, forcing himself not to waiver, and squared his shoulders, letting one foot drop back in an unmistakable 'I'm ready for anything you might throw at me' posture. "You can hit me if you want, if it'll make you feel better, but nobody is driving me anywhere unless Zwickey is sharing the transport."

For a split second Mac really did think Jack was going to hit him. An image of himself, a weird third person movie perspective, tied to a chair with coarse ropes, and O'Neil's brother-in-law Zahir standing over him, fist clenched around an iron weight, flitted through his brain.

Afterward, he was never sure but, he thought he might have flinched, and Jack just threw his hands up in the air and stomped away several steps. "God damnit, Mac!"

"Jack, I …"

Jack spun back around and he still looked pretty pissed off, but he also looked pained, almost scared. The expression closed Mac's mouth abruptly. Jack stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Have a seat."

The other guys in the group busied themselves with other things, all necessary for their mission, but it was also pretty clearly to give the two of them some semblance of privacy.

Mac hesitated. Jack sat down on the rear bumper and looked up expectantly, no longer looking quite so angry, but it was clearly an effort. "What're you waitin' for, Carl's Junior, an engraved invitation?"

Uh Oh, that was definitely the come listen to the wisdom of your Overwatch tone.

Mac glanced around warily, feeling like maybe he was being lured in by a seemingly friendly gesture so he was easier to yell at or make miserable some other way. Stop it, Jack isn't like that, he snapped at himself, and took a step. He was when you met him, a voice that was as insidious as it was familiar spoke up quietly from the back of his mind.

Screw you, Mac thought at the voice. You don't get to live in my head. You stopped getting to have an opinion when I was ten. He knows me. He isn't like that. He's not you.

Mac took another step, sucking in his breath quietly through his teeth as he lowered himself back down onto the bumper next to Jack. The nap in the back of the truck had stiffened him up and he hurt all over. Or they'd been giving him pain meds they hadn't mentioned anymore than Elliot mentioned he was planning to knock him out and they'd had time to wear off. Either way, Mac was currently hyper aware of every every cubic centimeter of his body.

"I'm fine," he asserted in response to the raised eyebrow his quiet hiss of pain had earned. The eyebrow climbed higher. "Alright, fine. I hurt like hell, especially my damned foot and stupid shoulder, and I'm tired and still thirsty and hungry, and I'm all sweaty and I don't know if it was just hot back here with the gear or if I've got a fever."

Jack smirked. "You do realize you just stole my line, right?"

Mac shook his head. "None of that matters, Jack." He turned to face Jack more fully. "Because these guys have spent the last five years doing to Zwickey what I only had to go through for a week."

"Eleven days," Jack interrupted. "They grabbed you just about eleven days and about sixteen hours before we got you out of there. I'd just call it twelve, but I know you and numbers."

To Mac it sounded like an accusation. "I didn't get grabbed on purpose! I was at DXS trying to help!"

Jack put a hand on Mac's shoulder, "I know, kid. I know you were. And I know that's what you want to do now. But this isn't what you do. It's what I do. You shouldn't have come to DXS to save my ass and you sure as shit got no business out here. I don't honestly know what, other than maybe some Save the World Boy Scout gene, convinced you either time was a good idea but …"

"I don't just leave people hanging!" Mac said hotly. "If someone expects me to be there for them, I am."

Jack studied him for a minute. The scrutiny gave Mac the inexplicable urge to squirm like he was a kid caught doing something he shouldn't have been. Finally Jack spoke. "Yeah. Okay. Me too, kid. But you can't just bust in with us. You're in no kind of shape for it and you wouldn't know what the hell you were doing anyway. We'll clear the houses and if we find your guy," Jack paused and handed Mac a radio out of one of the pockets on his vest, "I'll call you as soon as it's safe and you can walk him to the trucks yourself. But while this raid happens, you and Grady stay here with the gear and guard our transport. Okay?"

Mac didn't like it, but he figured it was actually more than he should have expected to get out of Jack right now. He had planned on having the whole trip to talk Jack into letting him participate in this raid. If Jack had really pushed about Grady taking him back, he really couldn't have done much about it. He'd put on a good show, but he felt like if someone actually hit him, he'd probably go right out cold. Staying on his feet was an effort as it was. After a minute he nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

Jack reached down for his ankle holster. "I'm gonna leave this with you just in case," he said, using his sternest don't argue with me voice as he tried to pass Mac the compact automatic he kept as a backup piece.

Mac raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "We've been over this, Jack. Besides I'm all set." He fished his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket with a grin.

Jack's own eyebrows climbed. "Elliot gave that back to you?"

Mac's grin expanded. "Not exactly. He showed it to me, said you guys found it at DXS after I got nabbed, and said he'd give it to me back in the States if I behaved myself."

"And?"

"And I aim to misbehave," Mac quoted a favorite show of Jack's with a smirk. When Jack's face became a question, Mac shrugged. "Penny tried to get me to do theater with her a bunch in high school, but I hated talking in front of crowds, so I learned magic, like juggling, card tricks, and all that. Pickpocketing came with the magic course I mail ordered. I'm good at it."

Jack sighed, but it was with a repressed chuckle. "Of course you are." Jack paused. He knew this was a hot button for Mac and someday he'd find out why, but for now, he decided not to push. "Do me a favor though, and take the gun. Use it to knock somebody out if you hafta, build a bomb, melt it down and make a new knife, I don't care. I'll feel better if you have it."

Mac hesitated, looked almost like he would capitulate, then just shook his head again and put on a teasing smile Jack could see flash white in the dimness. "Nah, I wouldn't want you to think I was under the impression you couldn't handle the firearms end of things."

Jack looked like he wanted to clobber him. He could tell even in the mostly dark. But Jack let out one of his loudest, most put upon sighs, and reholstered his weapon. "Stubborn little shit."

"So I've been downgraded from world's greatest magician escape artist, huh?"

Jack made a sound that might have been an actual growl. There was a long pause. "Grady, you good?"

"Yessir," came a drawl very similar to Jack's from around the other side of the vehicle.

Jack stepped closer to Mac, uncomfortably close even, purposely impinging on his personal space. "How 'bout you, Houdini?" He emphasized the apparent new nickname. "You good?"

Mac sighed. Jack jumped on the lack of immediate reply.

"You damn well better be. You better keep your ass right here by these vehicles unless I tell you to move. You sit right here."

He started walking away toward the group of other guys doing last minute checks of each other's gear. He called back over his shoulder, "Stay!"

"Woof," Mac retorted, but kept it quiet so Jack wouldn't hear it. He was saying something to Grady anyway, so Mac probably didn't have much to worry about.

He felt like he sat on that bumper in the dark forever. And part of him felt like Jack had left him here, bereft of light or purpose, just so he'd get to notice exactly how beat up he felt, so he'd notice the burning pull just breathing caused in his injured shoulder. Objectively he knew blaming Jack for what his brain was doing to him was ridiculous, but it still didn't stop that feeling.

At the first sounds of gunfire coming from the short distance away from the trucks, Mac was on his feet. He taken about three steps before a hand caught the loose sleeve of his pilfered ACUs. "Hold on there, sir. Dalton said you hafta stay here."

Mac shook his sleeve loose from Grady's grasp. "Contrary to his beliefs and apparently yours, he not in charge of me. But he is a friend. I can't just sit here knowing he might need help. Besides what do you care?" he asked.

Grady positioned himself between Mac and the direction he'd tried to head. "I think I like bein' on his good side, sir."

"What do you know about his bad side?" Mac challenged, now trying to decide if he could get around Grady, due to the sound of a grenade going off.

Grady adjusted his position, regarding Mac with an expression Mac couldn't quite read. "Dalton said if I ever wanted to have kids, I'd keep the blond kid alive. So that's my mission, sir. Keep you alive. My fiancé wouldn't appreciate me pissing of your bodyguard."

Mac's eyes narrowed. "He's not my bodyguard."

"Have you told him that, sir?"

Mac sighed and sat back down.

An explosion ripped through the dark.

The sounds of action stopped and the world went eerily quiet

Grady stepped away with his radio.

Mac heard, "Casualty report?" Then, a moment later. "Fatalities?"

At that, Mac took off at a run in the direction of the small group of houses at the base Of a steep hill. If Grady called to him he didn't hear it. His only thought was that if anything had happened to Jack, he'd never forgive himself.