Mac cleared his throat, not quite sure what to say, but what found its way out of his mouth was, "Jack's alive?"

His voice cracked ever so slightly, but neither Reacher nor Neagley reacted to it. Riley, on the other hand, twined her fingers through his.

There was a beat before Reacher answered. "That's where the evidence is pointing, yes."

Riley gasped softly, but didn't say anything.

Mac decided he'd ask to see the evidence and get them to explain their thinking later. "And you're here looking for something that does what, exactly?"

"Who's the girl?" Neagley asked, tipping her chin at Riley, as though that was the key to getting an answer.

"I'm Riley Davis. I've known Jack since I was ten."

Neagley looked at Reacher, then as though he nodded, (but if he did, it was too subtle for Mac to catch), Neagley sat on the back of Jack's couch and returned her attention to Mac. "We think your Overwatch was collecting evidence of something big. Like Multi-agency big."

Mac frowned as he took in the absolutely trashed apartment more fully now that he didn't think he was about to get shot or ragdolled like Loki having run afoul of the Hulk. "And you think that evidence is here?"

"We think the way to get that evidence is here." Reacher shifted subtly, sort of toward the door. Mac noticed it and shifted himself, too. Then Reacher said, "Dalton is too smart to have had it on him."

Is. Mac felt his breath pick up again at the idea Jack was alive, but they still hadn't really given him any indication of why they thought so or how finding what they were looking for had anything to do with that. They were tight lipped even compared to Mac.

Now you see how freakin' annoying it is when you clam up on me, Imaginary Jack's voice piped up.

Annoying was the word. "Look, if Jack's alive and has information that's as dangerous as this sounds, I don't want to keep having to treat this conversation as an interrogation. Jack's been my partner for the past twelve years. Since it looks to me like the Special Investigators are still running around together, you've got to understand loyalty."

Neagley just looked at Reacher and Reacher looked at Mac like he was taking his measure, but didn't speak immediately.

Riley pulled her fingers free from Mac's because he'd tensed all over to the point where it hurt to hold his hand. He didn't even seem to notice she'd released him. He just stood practically staring holes through Reacher's eyes.

She asked softly, "Special Investigators?"

When neither Neagley or Reacher answered, Mac did, but he didn't take his eyes off Reacher. "The Special Investigators were Army. The 110th. They were MP's, but not just your run of the mill, go pick up some dumbass who's gone AWOL because he just found out his girlfriend's pregnant kind. From what Jack said, they handled things like we handle. Often using extra-judicial means, too."

Riley's brow furrowed. "You're using the past tense."

Mac nodded. "The 110th got disbanded. Disobeying direct orders, according to Jack."

Riley shifted uncomfortably. "That doesn't sound great."

Mac looked between Reacher and Neagley, then glanced at Riley. "Apparently it was the same kind of direct orders you know Jack or I would disobey and still go get the job done."

"Oh," Riley frowned at the two people across from her. "If you're not here for the Army, what're you even doing here looking for Jack or his evidence or whatever?"

Reacher seemed to make a decision then. "Why don't we find some place that doesn't have a target on it to talk this through?"

"Target?"

Reacher looked around the disheveled room. "It looked like we were the first to toss the place, but more will come. I guarantee it."

Mac didn't want to move until he had more. "Look, Reacher, if Jack needs my help, I need to know it and I need to know it now."

Reacher tipped him a smirk. "You haven't changed much."

Riley turned to Mac. "Wait, you know him?"

Mac shook his head, eyes narrowed. "No, I don't. I know Jack brushed up against the 110th a couple times on Delta missions. And I heard that Delta tried to recruit Reacher." He gave the large man across from him a hard look. "I don't know you, so why–"

"I know you." He smirked. "Hell, half the Army knew about Dalton's bull in a china shop EOD tech who couldn't seem to do anything but run headfirst at any dangerous situation he found. And you sure as Hell ran up against the 110th, but you didn't know it."

Riley expected Mac to blush at that, to get embarrassed, but he didn't. Mac's whole face became the sort of thoughtful frown Riley knew meant he was doing some complex calculation in his head. Then he nodded, sure he had reached the correct conclusion. "When all the confiscated ordinance went missing in the Sherdawaza mountains, and I went looking for the reason."

"And your Overwatch had to scramble to keep you from getting pinched." Reacher half smiled then. "When he told you it was taken care of, it was. And if you'd believed him, the two of you wouldn't have wound up repelling down half the Sherdawaza mountain to get back to Kabul."

See, kid. You listen to Ole Jack and you get to keep your feet on the ground more often.

Mac had to smile to himself a little then. You don't get to dispense wisdom when you're imaginary, Big Guy. But if you're still out there for real, I'm gonna find you and I might kick your ass for putting me through this. What he said out loud was, "Okay, if you've had my back when I didn't even know it, I'm gonna trust you not to put a knife in it now. If you want someplace without a target … Private or public?"

Reacher didn't hesitate, "Private, if that's an option."

"Since you know Jack's address, would I be incorrect in assuming you know mine?"

Neagley looked at him in a very evaluative way. "You think like a PI."

Reacher said, "He thinks like an operative. A good one." Then he nodded to Mac. "We were going to go through it the next time you weren't home."

Mac shook his head. "You know when you go through a live and actually living there guy's house who does what I do for a living, he's bound to notice."

Reacher might have shrugged, but it was hard to tell because his gestures were very subtle. "I wasn't worried about it."

Mac smirked. He had a feeling Reacher didn't worry about much of anything, especially based on what Jack had told him about the 110th. "Alright then. We'll meet you there."

Reacher shook his head. "Just you."

"Wait a minute," Riley said, stepping forward. "This involves me, too. Jack is practically my dad!"

Another head shake. "You're a civilian."

"I work for Phoenix, too!"

Neagley was the one to shake her head this time. "Tech support. And you're too close to this."

"I am not just tech support! And Mac is probably closer to Jack than anyone."

Mac glanced at her. She was looking to him to defend her involvement. And he couldn't. They were right. Riley was always game to support a mission, but most of the time when it got real out there, he had to admit, Jack's initial objections had been right. She'd gotten in trouble, or gotten them in trouble, multiple times.

She hadn't been dealing well with Jack's death, and she didn't seem to be doing much better with the news he might be alive. Compartmentalizing was not one of her skills. To the point where Mac thought she hated him doing it more than anyone who pointed out the habit.

So instead of being the one to hurt her feelings, he just didn't say anything.

Fortunately for him, Reacher didn't seem overly interested in protecting anyone's feelings. "Dalton and MacGyver have been partners for over a decade, Ms. Davis."

"My point exactly! Mac and Jack are like brothers most of the time and—"

"Because they served together."

"Mac!" she demanded, not trying to hide that she was hurt that he hadn't said anything.

Mac's posture hadn't changed much from the almost-at-attention one he'd adopted when realizing who the big guy tossing Jack's apartment was. Right now he was glad, because his status as a soldier and an operative seemed to be the key to Reacher and his partner to trust him and let him in to what they were doing. "He's right, Ri. Jack and I wouldn't be who we are, or as effective together as we are, if we hadn't met and formed our friendship the way we did. It just is. I don't know how to explain it. I've never known how to explain it."

Reacher's chin dipped in a nod and Neagley sort of smiled. Reacher said, "You don't have to."

Riley looked downright furious with all of them. "You didn't let me finish. Jack is practically Mac's dad, too. When we were coming back from Zagreb Mac lost his shit the minute he didn't think anyone was awake to hear him."

Mac knew that revealing what she'd heard on the jet was coming from a place of hurt, that she expected it to get a reaction from him. But he kept his reaction off his face.

From Reacher's slight change in expression, Mac thought maybe he hadn't been entirely successful in tucking those feelings away, but Reacher's response told him he'd done right by staying quiet.

"Maybe that's true. But MacGyver isn't the one who pointed out an emotional connection when asking to be involved in what we're doing."

It wasn't just that Reacher and Neagley had a point. If what Jack was involved in was bad enough for him to fake his own death, or to allow an accident to have them presume him dead, it wasn't anything Mac wanted any of his friends involved in, any confusing feelings about the status of their relationship aside. And he'd flat out told Mac in the letter he'd left for him to look out for Riley. That he knew she wasn't okay. But that he knew even if Mac was hurting, he was okay, or that he could at least function, in a way Jack didn't believe Riley could.

Mac put a hand on her arm and said as kindly as he could, "Riley, this is one of those times where the thing I do that drives you crazy is the thing that could keep me alive if it's anything like it sounds. I can feel things later, when it's over. You can't. You've never been able to."

Riley shook his hand off her arm and her mouth dropped open and she looked at Mac with hurt, and a definite hint of betrayal.

"I'm sorry." He meant it. He felt bad. Because she's stuck her neck out for him, more than once.

Riley took a breath, held it for a long moment, then just said, "Fine." She turned, opened the door, and walked out.

Mac scrubbed his hands over his face.

He'd definitely just hit a big pause button on whatever was brewing between the two of them. Maybe even a full stop. But the reality was that if Jack was in trouble, he had to help. He had to at least try. That Wookie Life Debt definitely went both ways at this point.

Reacher raised an eyebrow. "You good, MacGyver?"

Mac gave him a little smirk, one he didn't wear frequently anymore, but which had originally found its place on his face in a dusty hellhole before he and Jack had quite managed to become friends, while trust was still building between them.

"Just Mac," he said in exactly the same way Reacher had responded to him before.

"Okay, Mac," Reacher said, returning Mac's tone from earlier, too. "You good?"

Mac caught Neagley's half-grin at the two of them as she went out the door.

He nodded at Reacher, just a single dip of his chin that came from the same place as the smirk. "I'm supposed to look out for her. In this situation, this is looking out for her. And she's pissed off. But my promise to Jack is more important than anything that might have been stirred up because we thought we lost him."

"Good," he said and headed out the door, too. "I better go give your friend Dalton's gun back, or she won't be speaking to either of us."

Mac looked around the apartment one last time. He just needed a minute to think, to assure himself he'd been right in not just trusting Reacher and Neagley, but in excluding Riley from whatever this was. His eyes landed on that god-awful Telly Savalas painting.

Who loves ya, baby? sounded in his ear so perfectly that Mac was half convinced Jack was standing next to him.

Mac went over to it, took it down off the wall, and carried it out with him. If someone else showed up to toss the place and anything happened to it, Jack would never forgive him.