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Chapter Text

Some encounters, as bumpy as they started and as full of prejudice as they were, could forge relationships for life and make you find what you didn't know you were looking for. It was these relationships that filled gaps in one's life, the existence of which one only felt at the time of that very encounter, when the pain they caused flared up to the forefront of one's consciousness. It was these encounters that forged a bond for eternity and were a lifeline to hold on to when the storms of life had a firm grip on you.

Mac didn’t foresee any of it when he jumped out of the chopper that was supposed to drop him off at the base where he was assigned to a new team, and his heavy boots hit the hot desert sand of said base camp in some God forbidden corner of the Sandbox, which probably wasn’t even registered on any of the official maps they were working with. No one was expecting him and he didn't know where to report either. He had the name of the commanding Chief, but that was it. None of the tents looked official enough as if a Chief of Command would have set up his office there. But then again, the circumstances of his assignment were rather dodgy. He had been told that his skills were needed for another team. Nobody had told him who and where. He didn’t even know what for. It all smelled like a secret operation of a special unit, but that was only a guess.

He shielded his eyes from the burning desert sun with his hand and squinted into the direction with an assortment of tents. Not knowing any better alternative but with courageous steps, he strode towards the biggest tent, assuming that the Chief could be found here.

Mac’s way was blocked by a broad-shouldered man with blond, shaggy hair and grim face. With his arms crossed over his chest and an expression that screamed ‘don’t mess with me’ he looked Mac up and down before he asked him where he wanted to go.

“I want to report to the Commanding Officer, Sir,” he replied, not budging an inch when the demeanour of the man in front of him grew broader and more aggressive.

“And you are?” Deacon asked, not sure what to make of the kid in front of him.

“Angus MacGyver, Sir, Specialist Angus MacGyver.” This elicited a gurgled laughter from Deacon because the army seriously has had to become fucking crazy if they now took in children to become specialists.

“Specialist for what?” he therefore asked critically, because seriously, sending children to war that was what the warlords in Congo and Uganda did, this was what Taliban did, but all he knew the United States of America hadn’t sunken that low in their desperation as to resolve to a children army. Mac was very aware of Deacon’s reservations and very familiar with it too, because this guy wasn’t the first one who saw Mac and considered him a greenhorn without experience in life or war, freshly jumped from Mama’s lap to play adventure in the army.

“EOD, Sir. I’m disarming bombs and as far as I’m informed, this camp asked for an EOD Specialist, so here I am,” Mac replied unchallenged. Deacon gave him credit for that, because the kid has had to have guts to stand there with the self-confidence of a CO. Hence, Deacon nodded and led the way to the Commanding Officer who thought that this was nothing but a prank, when Deacon introduced Mac as the EOD specialist they had requested. Without even a word said to the EOD specialist, Dalton grabbed the phone.

“This must be a fucking joke!” he barked into the phone, “I requested an EOD specialist, preferably the best you have and you’re sending me a kid?”

“You asked for the best man we have and we sent you the best. Take him or go kaboom,” was all answer Jack received before he dropped the phone and then turned his attention back to the blond teenager who stood in his tent and was all indifferent to the scene that had played in front of him, because yes, it hadn’t been the first time. Mac was convinced it wouldn’t be the last. The first three times had annoyed him, irritated even. Now, he had gotten used to it like he had gotten used to search his boots for hidden scorpions or other insects before he put them on. It was just another routine he had to put with.

Jack eyed the kid carefully and then exchanged looks with Deacon who helplessly shrugged his shoulders. Who was he to tell whether they were pranked or not? Jack stepped forward. The kid was skinny. Too long hair, definitely. If the army tolerated this haircut, then maybe the man on the other end of the line hadn’t lied. Jack was very familiar with the tolerance policies: the more valuable you were for Uncle Sam, the more tolerance you received. Nobody had an interest in putting off a valuable asset. Still, the kid looked like he hadn’t even learnt how to shave. There wasn’t even a hint of the first beard fuzz.

Jack circled Mac like a predator circled its prey before it jumped at its throat. Irritatingly the kid remained unimpressed by Jack’s demeanour. It was so obvious that the kid had an issue with hierarchies and authorities. Mac, if asked, would whole-heartedly admit to it. In the field, he was the one who had to decide whether he could disarm an IED or not. He had to decide life or death, Eden or Hell. There was no room for letting others take over who barely understood a glimpse of what he did all day. So, seriously, no he didn’t tolerate hierarchies and authorities. He put up with them. 

“A fucking kid,” Jack then muttered under his breath, “Uganda, Iran, Syria, yes everywhere children soldiers, but in our own ranks?” It was this moment in which Mac pointed out that no, he was no kid anymore because he was certainly over eighteen by now. He wasn’t responsible for his looks, thank you.

“Under the law of the United States of America, are you allowed to drink?” Jack then huffed.

“No, Sir.”

“See, still a kid.” With this statement, Mac was dismissed to find himself an unoccupied bunk and to return later for the briefing. They would have to get out before dawn the next morning. Deacon cast his boss a look that was somewhere between bemusement and scolding. Jack caught it and understood. There was no room for antipathy and quarrels. Their operations were not only high secret but also highly dangerous. They demanded the highest level of commitment from each team member, not only for the country but for the team itself. Trust was the basis. Without it, nothing worked and every operation was deemed a death sentence without it. This was also true in relation to newcomers and rookies. It was clear to everyone involved that it was a masterpiece of interpersonal skills to create in only twenty-four hours what had taken years to grow within a team and had been harvested as the fruit of trust. It took time, experience and then or other hell bent operation to make a newcomer part of the team. All this in only twenty-four hours was impossible. But, somehow, they had to make it happen. They had no other choice.

However, the ground on which this trust was supposed to grow had to be destroyed first when Jack saw the greenhorn fiddling with his rifle. He blew his top when anger made his pulse speed up a 100 miles per second. He marched straight up to the boy sitting on his bunk, snatched the rifle out of his hand and shouted: "What on earth are you doing? Are you trying to kill me?"

"Nope, you would have done it yourself with that bent barrel," the kid deadpanned Jack, totally indifferent to the older man’s anger about the encounter. This got Jack’s pulse speed up only more. He threw his rifle on the bed, grabbed the kid by the collar of his t-shirt and pulled him forcefully up to look him straight into the face before he told him through gritted teeth: “Rule number one: never touch Jack Dalton’s stuff, got it?”

“So, you prefer shooting yourself?” Mac asked him smugly and yes, Jack wished he could kill that damn kid right then and there. His grip around Mac’s collar tightened. Mac was very aware that he wasn’t diffusing but rather escalating the situation, but he had also learnt that he had to mark his territory to make his point clear if he didn’t want to be pushed around by the other Neanderthals that considered themselves as elite soldiers, but possessed the brain power of a guppy. Jack looked right through this act and had declared it his very own personal mission to put the kid in his place which was under his command, silent and without snarky comments.

“Now you listen to me and listen carefully you little smart-arse. This is my camp, my troop and my responsibility. The only reason you're here is because the Taliban have paved the area with explosives in such a way that our friend Fitzy can't keep up. You're here to prevent us from going kaboom and that's the sole reason you are here for. Got it? So, leave everything else alone and do your job.” Mac huffed.

“What good is it to a loud-mouthed knuckle-dragger like you that I save you from being blown up by a booby-trap if you shoot yourself at the next best opportunity, huh? Ever thought about what would happen to your troop, your camp and your responsibility, then?” It was this which broke the camel’s back. Jack saw red, because this kid seriously questioned his authority, his rank. He couldn’t let this one slide if he didn’t want to cause a mutiny. He had to put the kid in its place, fast.

Jack let go off Mac’s collar with one hand, drew this one hand back as far as he could and with unknown speed it propelled forward. His fist connected with a cheekbone. The cracking sound could be heard in the tent on the other side of the camp. Mac’s head snapped back with the sheer force with which Jack had punched him. He bit his lip at the moment of the impact. The world swirled around him, making him dizzy. He saw bright white stars dance in front of his eyes. He blinked a couple of times to clear his vision. When he tasted the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, he spit out and then slowly turned his head back to see that fucking arsehole of Dalton straight into the face. There was no remorse visible in the older man’s eyes. There was not the least bit of fear or respect to be seen in those cold blue eyes that already had taken in the surroundings, cataloguing everything that was within the blond’s reach and putting a tack on it with what it could be used for.

Mac’s cheek throbbed like hell and the stinging sensation told him that the guy has had enough force in his punch to make the skin split. He felt a small droplet of blood roll down his cheek. Mac had really thought he had left this sort of bullying behind when he had left high school at the age of fifteen. Well, nobody had ever told him that forty-plus-years-olds were smarter than sixteen-years-old. Mac decided that the world sucked. He pushed the longing for a peaceful place for himself, where he belonged to and could live his life back, into the small box that he treasured in his mind for the quiet moments of solitude. Instead, he raised the defence-walls even higher. Jack saw the corner of the boy’s mouth curl to a one-sided smirk, before he told Jack: “Are you done marking your territory and can we now start being the professionals that we are?”

That was too much for Jack’s nerves that suffered a serious case of irritation. He prepared for the next punch, which Mac foresaw. Thus, he ducked away when the arm was once more propelled towards him. He ducked under the arm with one step positioned himself behind Dalton who reacted immediately, turned around to get his hands on the kid, but directly walked into a fist. Mac’s knuckles rattled when they met the cheekbone. He couldn’t suppress the wince that escaped his lips, because seriously, it damn well hurt like hell. Jack, sobered quickly. He grabbed Mac by his shoulders, slammed him against the frame of the bunk bed and then onto the floor. The impact drove all air out of Mac who only in time rolled to the side when Jack was about to punch him in the face again. A well-aimed kick at the ankles and Jack lost his balance while Mac got a chance to get back onto his feet. With a swift move, Jack hauled himself back onto his feet either. He grabbed the skinny kid around his chest, ready to throw his bones back to the ground where he belonged to, but Mac made use of the momentum and his weight and slammed his body into Jack’s, sending them both down, where their fist fight was supposed to go on until one of the stubborn morons was ready to give up, if not Deacon and Worthy had entered the tent to see what the commotion was about and then separated the two brawlers. Jack fought Deacon’s tight grip around his chest until he saw with satisfaction that the blond kid was still down, catching his breath and spitting blood.

“What the fuck, Jack! We’re supposed to work together with him, not to kill him,” Deacon yelled at Jack whose nerves slowly calmed down. He dusted off his trousers and his shirt before he replied to his comrade: “Then he better doesn’t mess with our stuff,” and then he marched off, followed by Deacon who cast Worthy, who stayed with the newcomer, a concerned look. No, they couldn’t use any of these discords.

“Well, that cheek of yours looks nasty. We should make sure that the bone’s not broken. The Chief does know how to throw a good punch,” Worthy told Mac who by now had caught his breath and was sitting down, still a little too dizzy.

“Nothing’s broken, nothing to worry about,” Mac told and then got up followed by Worthy who had kneeled down next to him. He watched the kid closely. He didn’t sway, held himself rather steady on his feet after the beating he had just received.

“Well, do you come to have a medical degree as well?” Worthy asked sarcastically.

“Nope, but had a broken cheekbone. Doesn’t feel like it,” Mac said and with this left a puzzled Worthy standing in the middle of the tent. Mac had no intention to bond closer than necessary with any of these guys. It was of no use anyway. A life’s lesson which he had learnt earlier than he probably was supposed to was that nobody ever stuck around. At some point everybody left, either voluntarily like his father when they had better things to do or involuntarily by death like his mother or grandpa, comrades and friends. That was why he was all by himself when he received his high school diploma and then went to Cambridge Massachusetts, hoping to start over again.

When Mac joined the team for briefing, the story of the fight between him and Dalton had already been around the whole camp. They looked at him and the bruise that was forming on his cheek. Fitzy handed him wordlessly an icepack which Mac took, because damn that thing hurt. Jack eyed that kid. He had guts, he had to give him that. He didn't cry. He didn't run crying to mummy like a little girl. Jack was aware that he had crossed a line here and if the boy wanted to, he could get Jack into serious trouble by telling on him. But the boy had no interest in that. What for? That would only push someone into a misfortune, the extent of which Mac could not measure beforehand. He wouldn't gain anything from it. Revenge was not something worth striving for.

They sat together while Jack explained his team what they would do the next two days. Tomorrow they would have to search the aera for IEDs and preferably disarm them. The day after they would move further into the country to find and destroy the Taliban nest. Nothing new, apart from the fact that they very likely would find more IEDs than they fancied.

“Everybody understood what his or her task is?” Jack asked around and everybody nodded, “Alright, any concerns you want to let me know about before we start tomorrow?” he then asked his team. The team knew the sincerity that was behind this question. Still, nobody had any concerns.

Jacks stopped Mac who was about to call it a night and nurse his still throbbing cheek. Jack met well-guarded eyes when he asked Mac whether he had any concerns.

“No, Sir. I would’ve expressed my concerns if there were any,” Mac told Jack and then marched past him. Jack sighed, because seriously, working together with this kid could be a tough piece of work for his nerves and patience.

Chapter Text

They were all beyond exhaustion when they returned to the camp the next day. Then Taliban, so they assumed, had tried to surround them with IEDs. Fitzy and Mac had been busy, crawling on their bellies over the hot desert sand to diffuse one IED after the other. Turned out that sending the kid was no prank. He not even knew how to disarm the IEDs. He also knew very well how to spot them. Even from the far distance the kid noticed unnatural patterns in the sand. He even detected a pattern in the way the IEDs were laid out and thus saved their arses in a way that Jack didn’t feel comfortable to admit. He still didn’t warm up to the boy, who approached an explosive nonchalant as if it was nothing but a toy. It made Jack’s skin crawl, because he didn’t understand that this composure was only an instrument to keep the nerves calm to avoid mistakes as consequence of overhasty actions. Mac knew that one second more spent thinking before acting could save your life. He had been caught in enough blast-radiuses to learn it. The last time, it had been his instructor, Alfred Peña, whom he had to watch going up in flames and nope, it hadn’t been easy for him.

Thinking of Alfred Peña still wasn’t easy for Mac. He felt a sting somewhere in his chest that would then become tight and block his airways until Mac had managed to put his memories of Alfred Peña and the circumstances of his death in a box that he shoved in a far, but very dark corner of his mind. Alfred Peña had become something close of a friend for Mac and friends was what one needed out here. Everybody needed someone who watched your back and made sure you didn’t fuck up. Mac had lost that special person – his overwatch. Ever since that fateful explosion, people looked strangely at Mac. Objectively, nothing of what had happened had been Mac’s fault. His instructor had stepped on a booby-trap while Mac was outside, repairing their bomb-robot that once again had gotten a dent too many. Mac had wanted to be the one entering the building, but Peña had said ‘no’. It should have been Mac, leaving his life in the flames, but Peña had prevented it. Mac was all too aware of the unfairness of this development, because Peña had a wife and a daughter. He left behind a widow and a half-orphan. It was this unfairness that had also taken hold of some of his comrades in his base who pronounced that it should have been Mac not Alfred. Mac, because he had nothing else to lose. Mac, because he left nobody behind. Mac, because he was not really popular. Mac, of whom they all thought they could do without. All, but the superiors that was, because these guys saw the skillset and knew that they needed it. From a human point of view, it was not a pity if he gave his life. But from a strategic perspective, it would be a bitter loss. Mac knew all about this thinking. He had heard them whisper behind his back. Others had the guts to stand up and spit it into his face. He couldn’t even take it them amiss, because he felt the same. It should have been him and everybody could have gone on with his or her life, because Mac’s death would not have affected anyone.

However, the incident with Alfred Peña wasn’t what had gotten Jack furious after he had thumbed through the file that he had requested from the base they had sent Mac from. It was a little worrisome, indeed. But Jack took in an objective perspective and knew there had been nothing the kid could have done. According to the reports, the kid had done what his instructor had told him. Jack was a little taken aback to learn that the kid was indeed capable of following commands. Question was, why he didn’t follow Jack’s. Mac had disobeyed Jack’s commands to stay put and wait several times that day, simply because there had a) been no time to waste and b) there had been no immediate threat. Watching the kid march off into the open desert had triggered an itch in Jack’s index fingers which he usually only felt when he saw insurgents. Yes, he would have loved to shoot the kid on the spot when he marched off, for the third time disobeying Jack’s command and ignoring Jack’s curses and order to stop. The only thing that kept Jack from pulling the trigger was that he didn’t fancy facing the consequences for breaking one of the Army’s precious pets. That never went well. Jack could tell from experience. He once had managed to blow-up an autonomous driving tank. His chief back then would have loved to condemn Jack to vacuuming the desert for the rest of his life. However, reading that the kid was perfectly capable of doing what he was told, Jack asked himself what he had to do to make the kid follow his orders.

What was not clear from the file was that Alfred Peña had met Mac at eye level. He had always taken Mac seriously. He had never expressed his fascination with what was going on in the boy's head. That had suited Mac anyway, who didn't understand what people found so fascinating about someone who simply learned a little faster than the others. But Alfred Peña had respected Mac's way of thinking and approaching things. He had realised early on that this was what made the boy an exceptionally good bomb expert. Alfred had also quickly realised that the gift of improvisation was not born out of necessity and poor preparation. It was more an expression of an extremely quick adaptability. If things didn't go as planned and Mac was there, there was nothing to worry about. He would already know how to save the day. Bottom line, he let Mac do it and sprinkled in his advice and experience where there was room for improvement to make sure the boy survived his tour.

Mac had appreciated that Alfred Peña gave him the room he needed to develop and that he tolerated Mac’s way of thinking and approaching things. It more often than not had caused tensions and arguments. Mac’s parents had fought about whether it was right to allow a child to learn on its own. It had caused arguments between his parents and teachers, because was a child to carry out experiments on its own to learn how the world worked and what kept it in its axis? It had caused a continuous tension between him and his professors at the MIT, because Mac received the sought results. Unfortunately, he had a tendency to ignore the instructions given.

Also, this wasn’t written in the file that Jack had requested. What was, was the fact that the kid had graduated summa cum laude from the MIT. Jack himself had never engaged in anything that came close to an academic career, but he was not stupid. The kid has had a bright future in front of him. He could have done everything from becoming a renowned scientist to founding his own tech company. Anything would have been possible, while the army was the last resort. Only few enlisted who had better options to choose from. Either you wanted to go to the army or you had to go to the army, but you never enlisted when you had better options to choose from of which the kid has had plenty. This smelled like a bad scam to Jack. Whatever this was, someone must have obviously been thinking that Jack was stupid enough to not fall for the trick. But they didn’t count on Jack Dalton’s instincts.

When he saw Mac walking past his tent, he stepped out and stopped him harshly. Mac instinctively took a step back. Dalton’s grim face was screaming murder. Mac racked his brains what he had done to earn such a harsh reaction from the Chief, but his mind came up blank.

“Tell me, Carls Jr., what do I have to do so you listen to what I say and follow my commands?”

“Maybe thinking about your commands before giving them and don’t call me Carls Jr. got it?” Mac snapped. He was tired and not in the mood to get into another fight with this Dalton guy. He better should have piped down to achieve that, because Jack didn’t like the backtalk that he received.

“Listen carefully, kid. I call you whatever name I like to and with a hamburger name like yours, Carls Jr. is only a fair choice to make. And secondly, I don’t know what you’re up to and frankly, I don’t care. But be aware of this: this place is not a playground for spoilt rich kids who want to play army to make mummy and daddy proud and to have a few shiny medals to show off when you and your illustrious friends gather at some dinner party with canapes and champagne, comprende?” Mac looked bewildered at Jack who was satisfied for himself to for once have the kid shut up after an argument while Mac had no idea what this man was talking about. He had been called a lot of things. Spoilt rich kid was none of it. He didn’t even understand where the guy in front of him got that idea from, not that he cared very much. What he did care about, however, was that this man put into question the sincerity of his actions. That got him beyond irritated. Hence, he made a step forward, his and Jack’s boots nearly touching. Then through gritted teeth he pressed: “If I had wanted to play army, I would have chosen the organisation of birthday parties as profession and not the one of disarming real-life-ticking bombs somewhere at the goddamned end of the world.” Jack saw the anger blazing in the kid’s eyes. It was a serious fire. One that told him that he had hit a very sensitive nerve. It didn’t tell him whether he was right or not. But knowing that the kid didn’t like his sincerity put into question was a valuable information he pocketed in his mind while he watched the kid stride off towards his tent.

Deacon approached Jack from behind. He had the file from Angus MacGyver in his hand. He also had listened to the argument. He wasn’t happy with how the atmosphere between his Chief and the new kid developed. This could become a serious problem. Everybody knew that. Someone had to stop and cool down. Since Jack was the older and hence the supposedly wiser one of the two, Deacon counted on him to put an end to this argument.

“Jack, stop it and leave the kid be,” he told Jack who huffed a frustrated sigh. It was amazing how with his nice looks, his blond hair and blue eyes, the kid managed to drag all on his side. But that wasn’t true. In fact, nobody of the team was eager to choose a side, because they were supposed to be a team and hence not supposed to choose.

Deacon followed Jack inside his tent. He handed Jack the file back. There was a second page. The Army had been suspicious, too, when someone like Mac had shown a wish to enlist. They were not as stupid as one might think they were. They had done a background check on the kid. Unfortunately, Jack hadn’t made it to this second page when he had argued with Mac.

“Damn it, Jack. You should read the whole file and not judge just from the first page,” Deacon slammed the file on Jack’s desk and went on: “This kid won’t make anyone proud. He’s an expandable human resource.” Jack stopped his furious pacing and turned to face Deacon.

“What do you want to tell me, Deacon?” he asked the man in front of him, who shook his head at the cluelessness of his Chief.

“Nobody will shed a tear when the kid’s sent home in a box. That’s what I try to tell you,” Deacon said. Jack cast a glance over the second page in the file. There it stood. Mother deceased when the kid was five. Father left when he was ten. He was untraceable. The grandpa who then had gotten custody, died when the kid was fifteen. Since then, Mac was all alone and on his own. This in itself was dangerous but by a whole different dimension. Jack and Deacon knew that, too.

Pseudo-Freudians would say that Mac joined the army, because he wanted to belong somewhere. He wanted to be part of a group. Mac wasn’t sure whether this was right or not. Maybe it was, since he had never really belonged. Maybe it wasn’t, because he had stopped to care. Still the others claimed that he wanted to compensate for his loneliness by being celebrated as a hero. This, Mac could with all certainty deny. He didn’t seek fame nor honour, didn’t want to be a hero. A few voices said that this was some sort of post-adolescent rebellion. After he had graduated from the MIT there had been high expectations. Expectations which Mac didn’t want to meet. That was insofar correct as Mac never really fancied an academic career. Working in labs, thinking about all this theoretical stuff had never been his favourite way of spending his time. He had to get his hands on things and work on them. He had to see how the world functioned. He wanted to make the world a better place. He could have joined an NGO for that and build wells in remote villages in third world countries. Other of his peers had done that. Mac had never really given it a thought when he had enlisted. It just had felt like the right step. His grandpa had been in the army. He had told him that his – Mac’s – father had been, too. It felt natural to follow into these footsteps. He had wanted to help. He had wanted to put his skills to use. Enlisting had seemed like the right thing to do.

Maybe it had been a mistake, a wrong decision. Maybe not. He certainly wouldn’t consider this as the best time of his life. He was still hoping to have this period of his life in front of him. He dreamt of it as a time where he finally had a few real friends that he would frequently meet and go out with or do whatever. Camping would be nice. BBQs with a few beers sounded like a good time, too. He really would like to have a girlfriend at some point. A real one, not one that considered him rather as her little brother than an actual lover. He was miles away from that. But he allowed himself to dream once in a while.

He stared at the ceiling of the tent. His heartfelt wish could be easily summed up with one word: belong. All he wanted was to have a safe place where he belonged to and where they accepted and maybe even a little bit appreciated him for what he was. He didn’t need anything else. The thought that he could be lonely for the rest of his life, scared him. The idea of dying alone without anyone who really cared, was terrifying. So maybe, this was the reason why he joined the army. If he died, he wouldn’t be alone and he would die for a good cause. There would be people who knew that he had deceased and that meant that there were people who knew that he had actually existed. It didn’t make the prospects of dying any more comforting, but it took away some of the pain that went with being alone. So maybe, yes. Maybe it was his loneliness that had forced him to enlist.

But this was nothing but speculation, because seriously, when he had enlisted, he hadn’t even thought much about it. He had done it. Full stop. And there he stopped his thoughts. He collected them carefully and put them back in a box. He had to have a clear mind for the next day. He couldn’t afford being distracted by some sort of sentimentality that somehow was not only irrational but also useless. Life was as it was. Unfair or not. He had to take what he got and make what he could with it. This was what he did and what he had ever done, whether it was his job or life in general.

Chapter Text

Five days later, they were on their way to a mountain range. They had received intel of a groups of of insurgents hiding there and preparing a larger attack on some base. The goal was: find them and stop whatever they were planning. That was as much information as Mac got. He was part of the team, but didn’t belong to the inner circle for which the sensitive information wasn’t shared with him. He was fine with it as long as he had a purpose and didn’t waste his time. And well, as long as he could do his job without anyone telling him how to do it. Mac sat in the front of the Humvee. After he had proven his abilities the days before, Jack had decided that having someone observant like that in his car at the head of the convoy, was the best choice he could make. The kid, a pain in the arse at best of times, was reliable. His instincts were invaluable. It was as if he felt the IEDs before anyone could see them. For Mac, it wasn’t instinct. He only saw changes in the patterns around him. There were tracks in the desert sand that couldn’t be explained by nature but only by human beings. And then it was easy to conclude who had been there why, because nobody wanted to be outside in this area if he or she could be somewhere else. So, yes for Mac it was only a matter of rational thinking to detect the IEDs.

“So, tell me, how do you do it?” Jack then asked curiously, because he wanted to get behind the secret of the kid’s skills. Mac shrugged, because he was not in the mood for explaining himself, but Jack wouldn’t let go of it, because he thought that everyone had a right of access to this secret. It could make everybody’s life so much easier. Mac soon realised that Jack wouldn’t let go off this topic out of whichever reason that Mac didn’t really care about and hence he tried to explain it to Jack: “I see tracks in the sand. But no desert snakes live in this area and it is also not known for caravans to pass by. Hence, the track must be caused by a human, and what could any reasonable human want in this god-forgotten area than doing mischief?” Mac asked Jack. Jack had to admit that the kid had a point, but he also couldn’t deny that the answer struck a wrong nerve with him, because it sounded as simple that he could hardly believe that nobody else had come to this idea and made it useful.

“You’re kidding me, aren’t you Carls Jr.?” he asked. Mac rolled his eyes with sincere annoyance, because a) he hated that nickname that Jack had invented for him and b) he hated if people questioned his approach, especially when it had proven to be the right one.

Jack noticed the annoyance radiate from the boy sitting next to him and thought that it was a good thing, because it meant that the boy wasn’t too sure about his place in the team which had to give him reason to pipe down once in a while. Jack couldn’t have been any more wrong in his opinion when Mac suddenly snapped: “One, stop calling me Carls Jr.. Two, if you don’t agree with my approach feel free to pull me out of this assignment.” He was really pissed of right now, because what else was he supposed to do? He did his job and he did it fairly good, but it still wasn’t enough to grant him a place among the rest of them. He was tired of having to fight day in and day out for his right to exist as if he were a pariah, a second-class human being who could be pushed around like a mangy street dog who wasn't even worth the dirt under their boots. Okay, maybe his mind was spiralling out at that moment and had a tendency for exaggeration when his annoyance had reached the boiling level. But still. No matter how hard he tried, he never was part of anyone or anything. His skills were. They happily accepted them.

Deacon, for example, hadn’t been shy about asking whether Mac could repair his radio after he had watched Mac repairing their Humvee with nothing more but some tinfoil and chewing gum. Jack had gotten a fit when he had seen the kid fumbling with the parts of the Humvee’s engine. He had yelled at Mac what the fuck he was thinking he did and that this was a job for a proper mechanic and not a game, because this Humvee was important equipment. Its efficiency could decide over their lives.

“Then go and ask your proper mechanic why he couldn’t repair the fucking car while I needed just five minutes,” Mac had snapped and wanted to walk past Jack who had stopped him by pressing his hand hard against Mac’s chest.

“Listen carefully, punk. I told you once, this here is no playground. Everybody is assigned to his or her job for a reason and I expect you to focus on your job and keep out of everyone’s else’s business, got it?” That had hit a wrong nerve, but this time in Mac who had hissed through gritted teeth: “Sorry that I don't want to make my life dependent on the others’ incompetence.” This snarky comment had made something snap inside of Jack what could have been heard through the whole base which was why Fitzy luckily in time grabbed and took hold of Jack’s arm before his fist could once more meet the scrawny burger-named kid’s face.

“God damn it, Jack! Control yourself!” Fitzy had barked which also attracted the other members of their team as well as onlookers. Mac had made use of the commotion and disappeared in the growing crowd while the rest looked puzzled at Jack who had fought himself out of Fitzy’s grip. After a short consultation with their mechanic, initiated by Fitzy, they indeed had to find out that the mechanic hadn’t found out why the Humvee’s engine had sputtered like it had and that he was in fact grateful for Mac having found the problem and found an interim solution which gave the mechanic the time needed to request the necessary spare parts.

After he had considerably cooled off, Jack had wanted to apologise to the kid in the mess tent, but he hadn’t spotted him in the rows. Mac had been there, but he had ducked his head and focused on an article he had started reading the evening before. He had perfected the arts of becoming invisible. He could blend in so that you thought he was part of the tent instead of the group of soldiers wolfing down their dinner. Mac was perfectly fine with it, because he didn’t fancy company during his meals. He didn’t appreciate conversations that bored him out of his skull or kept him from eating. Maybe this lack of interest in his comrades proved his arrogance, but Mac couldn’t care any less. This arrogance shielded him from broken promises and hurt feelings, because nobody would ever get close enough for it.

However, Deacon had sought Mac’s help with his radio, because he loved his music. The radio had been a reliable companion and soul-soother during his tour. It had helped him keeping his mind of and relax. That it didn’t work properly now had been a bad sign and hence he had asked Mac whether he could repair it. Deacon hadn’t counted on Mac agreeing to repair that old thing, especially not after the run-down Dalton had given him for ‘messing’ with the Humvee while all the kid had done was repairing it. Given, it could have been prevented if the kid had asked for permission first instead of acting on his own accord, but Deacon shared Fitzy’s opinion that there had been no reason for going like a bull at the gate on the kid for just helping them out.

With this on his mind and his radio in his hands, Deacon stood in the entrance of the tent where Mac had found an unoccupied bunk to sleep on. Mac had been astonished at how shy a broad-shouldered man like Deacon could appear, nearly like a school boy asking for a cookie. Mac should have told him to fuck off and repair the thing on his own, but that wasn’t in Mac’s nature. If someone needed and asked for his help, he couldn’t turn him or her down no matter how strong the urge to do just that. Even when it meant that he would be the one who got fucked over again, he would lend his helping hand, because this was how it had always been: give me what I want, but don’t expect anything in return especially not that I remember your name once we meet again. His help was seldomly worth enough to stop them making fun of him. Mac was worth his skills but not enough to stand up for.

With a heavy sigh, but without any words, Mac had reached for the radio and went to work. It hadn’t been a tricky job. Within minutes Mac had detected the problem and fixed it. Deacon had watched in awe how natural the kid in front of him unscrewed the screws of the radio, gave the inside a onceover and then with targeted moves fixed whatever had gotten lose. The radio sounded as if it had never been broken. Deacon had been truly grateful for Mac’s help, because that little radio was his life-saver. Thus, he couldn’t deny that he felt a little offended when Mac had snapped at him two days later: “Only because I repaired your damn radio, it doesn’t mean that you have to be nice to me now.”

It had happened after Deacon had offered his help to clean and bandage the cuts Mac had sustained on his fingers during the day. One IED had been a real bitch with all sharp edges and so on. When Mac had grabbed it, he had cut the fingertips of his right hand. Since there had been no option to avoid touching the damn thing, he had cut them over and over again until he had managed to disarm the IED and thoroughly slice his fingertips in that process. Using gloves as protection hadn’t been an option, because Mac had to feel what he did and gloves dulled the feeling that he needed. The disadvantage was that his fingertips had hurt really bad, stinging and burning and pulsating. It had irritated Mac to no end. The disinfectant that he had to pour over his fingers to keep the cuts from developing infections hadn’t helped much with the pain. It had made it only worse. Mac had felt the tears sting in his eyes as a reaction to the heavy stinging pain. He had bit his lips, drew blood, to concentrate on something else, because crying over a few cuts in his fingertips was not going to happen. Deacon had watched Mac’s agony. He had felt with him. Everybody whoever managed to cut his fingertip with a sheet of paper could relate to the pain the kid had to feel. He simply had wanted to help, but Mac didn’t understand it and didn’t want it. Hence, Deacon had turned around and left. They would have to have a talk once the kid had managed to take care of the cuts, because something about his behaviour was strange and Deacon wanted to get to the bottom of it.

Jack, who watched the kid boiling with annoyance now, knew about all this. It was his job as Chief to know these things. Everybody of his team confirmed that the kid did an extraordinary job and that he helped where ever he could. Jack also got to hear that the kid didn’t accept any help himself. He frequently pushed away his comrades and rejected any friendly gesture. He proved to be self-reliant to an extent that made him unfit for being part of a team. Team that not only meant helping, but also being helped. If it didn’t work the other way around either, it meant a risk, because someone who preferred drowning over asking for help not only meant one team member lost. This attitude could easily damage the moral among the team members. The worst case scenario, however, was that in a crucial situation the attention could be drawn to the one who was drowning although he was already a goner. So, yes, Jack had to do something about it. More than one reason spoke for it and it definitely had nothing to do with Deacon who had tried to talk to him about it. Yes, it had been Deacon who had pointed out to Jack that the kid had some seriously conflicting issues that had to be addressed if they wanted to become one team with him, too. And that they had to become was out of question. They had to, if they wanted to survive.

“So, you want to leave this team?” Jack asked unchallenged by Mac’s comment, trying to provoke an honest reaction that allowed him to assess what was going on with the scrawny burger-named kid, because watching him work and interact with others, Jack couldn’t deny that Deacon probably had a point when he said that the kid had some issues.

“Not if you stop questioning my approach and how I do things and calling me stupid nicknames,” Mac snapped back, although Jack’s question had been positioned in a calm, nearly peace offering manner. Jack understood that the kid was constantly in a defensive mode which had to be tiring. This sort of backtalk, however, made Jack furious. The kid’s behaviour oozed disrespect and if there was one thing Jack hated the most then it was disrespectfulness to the team and himself. Hence, without taking the eyes off the road and hiding the irritation that was about to surge inside of him, Jack countered: “I told you once. I’m the Chief and I call you whatever name I think is appropriate and unless you chuck the behaviour of yours, it’ll be Carls Jr. Second, since it is my job to make sure you all come out of this hell alive, it is my very job to question your way of working when I get the feeling that it is some kind of bogus, got it? Because if it was as easy as you want to make me believe, then tell me why you’re still out here crawling on your belly through the desert instead of living the nice life of an instructor, huh?” Sure, Jack didn’t buy any of the shit the kid was telling him.

“Because the higher ranks are occupied by morons like you,” Mac spat. He was seriously pissed off by now. He didn’t know what had brought on this conversation, but he surely would bring it to an end. He didn’t even know what he was answering for. He hadn’t done anything wrong in the past couple of days, had done what had been expected. He was used by people making up any sort of problems only to get rid of him. His individual way of solving problems, his improvisation had always been a good one to find when he had served his time and turned to a nuisance one had to put up with, because sending him home or preferably into the desert was not possible due to his valuable skillset. Unfortunately, it took a few days to assign him to new teams. Forms and administrative procedures and all that jazz prevented them from pushing him around like a pinball. This very assignment, however, wasn’t over yet and Mac had a hard time understanding why Jack was provoking his transfer.

Jack, who felt pissed off himself, gripped the steering-wheel tight before he slammed the brakes. Mac’s body was forcefully propelled forward, only the seatbelt preventing his head from meeting the dashboard. Jack turned to face the kid who had to regain his composure back. He had no clue what had brought on this reaction, but he was confident that he would find out rather sooner than later. The radio crackled with Deacon’s voice asking what was going on in the car. Jack placated him. He told him that he had to study the map and then consider whether they should change their track. It was all made up. Jack didn’t believe that Deacon would buy a word of it, but it was enough to tell him not to worry and to stay out of his – Jack’s – business.

“I get it, punk. We are all supposed to feel honoured that you offer your skills to simpletons like us. But I advise you, stop this act of yours if you don’t want to walk the rest of the way,” Jack hissed. He was beyond frustration right now. He didn’t understand why. There was something about the kid that got under his skin. It made it all prickly and itchy. He hated it. The kid got too close to him for his liking. The worst thing was, that the kid made him start to care. This was not a bad thing per se, because caring for his soldiers was his job, but this kid made him care beyond the simple solider relationship, because just like Deacon he felt the need to get to the bottom of things. He wanted to know what made the kid behave the way he did. He shouldn’t care about these things as long as the kid was a well-functional soldier. But he did. The worst part of this was that Jack, although not knowing what went on, wanted to help to overcome. So, part of the frustration that he felt and tried to let out on the kid was actually dedicated to himself and his ill-felt need to help.

Jack was shaken out of his thoughts when he heard the door of the car was slammed shut. Mac really had enough of this shit and walking through the desert was definitely better than having to sit together with this idiot in a four-wheeled tin. He didn’t care about the attention the fight between Jack and him had drawn up on the two soldiers that sat in the back of the vehicle. At least, they had the decency to keep their mouths shut, Jack thought to himself when he got out of the Humvee, too, to follow the stubborn scrawny burger-named kid. Fitzy and Deacon watched the scene from their vehicle and without much of a choice, exited their car as well to follow the other two soldiers through an area in which it was definitely not safe to leave the safety of an armour-cased vehicle. Tacitly Deacon and Fitzy agreed that Fitzy would take care of Jack’s temper and Deacon would take over their youngest team member.

Jack felt Fitzy’s hand on his shoulder and stopped, realising that marching unprotected through the desert like an angry bull was not the smartest idea he had gotten during the past couple of minutes. He turned around to face the other man who asked straight away what all this hassle was about. Jack gave him the short story of the conversation he has had with Mac. He spiced it with snarky comments on the kid’s arrogance. Fitzy shook his head, because he understood that Jack had gotten it all wrong.

“He told me, Jack,” Fitzy then started to tell Jack, “The kid told me how he’s doing it. It surely sounds simple, but it’s not. I don’t know what insects, animals, whatever lives in which area leaving whatsoever pattern in the sand. I don’t know all of the routs the caravans take and I need to think hard about what pattern the wind will leave if it blows from the west after it had been blowing from the north the first couple of hours of the day. You understand? It is simple, but at the same time it’s not. But it does make a lot of sense.” Jack ‘humphed’ at Fitzy’s explanation, because he didn’t need the feeling of a bad conscience on his shoulders right now. His gaze went over to Deacon who talked to Mac.

“Damn it, Mac, I know Jack can be difficult at best times, but he’s not a bad guy and he’s fair. Just don’t rile him up more than necessary. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you really need to reconsider the attitude of yours. None of us means any harm to you,” Deacon told Mac who clenched and unclenched his jaw, because he really didn’t need this kind of pep talk. Deacon realised that his words weren’t perceived as what they were. He could nearly see them ricochet from the wall that the kid had built around himself. Thus, to get his message to the receiver, he grabbed Mac by his shoulders and repeated it: “Mac, none of us is interested on getting on your nerves or annoying you, so maybe could give us the benefit of the doubt and stop behaving like we would jump at your throat any second.” Deacon felt the muscles tense up under his touch. The boy was nearly trembling with tension. Mac had a hard time to fight his urge to give Deacon a piece of his mind. Mac didn’t care about this ‘we are all friends’ talk. He didn’t believe it anyway. Nobody was friends with him. Wilt had been the best proof for that. They had been like brothers. Living in each other pockets day in and day out. Mac had even lived with Wilt’s family for a short while. Mac had always thought that they were inseparable, but he had been wrong. Everybody could be separated from Mac. The question was only when? When were they fed up enough to turn around and leave? For once Mac has had a different opinion and that was enough for Wilt to break off their friendship forever.

So, no Mac didn’t care whether they wanted to annoy him or get on his nerves. That was their business. Mac only had to decide whether he would let them. He wouldn’t and hence he had to keep these people at an arm’s length.

“What did they do to you kid that made you like this?” Deacon asked when he gave up his attempt to make the kid understand.

Chapter Text

The Humvee was filled with a heavy silence that had taken over after Mac and Jack had returned to the vehicle. Both men were deeply sunken in their thought. Jack had to think about Fitzy’s words and that he probably went a little over board. Mac thought about Deacon’s words. He was confused by them, because they implied that Deacon had been thinking about Mac and Mac’s behaviour which made Mac feel uncomfortable and in a very bad way. Whatever reason Deacon has had, he had to be careful, Mac concluded and then focused back on the streets and the desert that surrounded them.

He looked out of the corner of his eye. In the distance, coming from the mountains, something flashed. Very quickly, then it was gone again. Still Mac urged Jack: “Stop the car.” But Jack didn’t stop immediately and Mac repeated his request with more vehemence: “Jack, stop the car!” But it was too late. What Mac had seen was the reflection of the sun on a telescope. The telescope of a bazooka that fired directly into the caravan. It hit the tail of the car Mac and Jack sat in. The blast was strong enough to lift the tail and topple it over. The vehicle landed on the roof with an abrupt thud. Mac had a tight grip on the door handle while they were tossed around like beans in a tin. Jack had a tight grip around the steering-wheel to keep from being tossed around in the car. He still hit his head heavily when the vehicle landed harshly on its roof. He didn’t even notice that his vision blackened out, before he lost consciousness.

They were under heavy fire, but although Mac didn’t share Jack’s fate, his brain needed some time to reboot after being sloshed so violently in the confinements of Mac’s skull. The urgency of the situation occurred once the scent of gasoline hit Mac’s nose. He shot his eyes open. It only took him a split-second to realise that this smell paired with flying bullets was no good at all. He had to get out of the vehicle. He shook Jack’s arm to wake him, but he was still unconscious. A trail of blood dripping down his forehead was enough for Mac to know that he wouldn’t wake the older man in the next seconds. It was on him to act. He tried to unbuckle from the seatbelt but soon had to realise that it was somehow fix. With some efforts and in a rather contorted movement, he managed to pull his Swiss Army Knife out of the pocket of his cargo pants. From then it was a simple task to free himself from the seatbelt.

With a heavy thud he landed on the roof of the car. He flinched when a bullet hit the vehicle quite close to his head. He had not much time left until one of these bullets would hit the leakage of the vehicles tank. He smashed the window with his elbow and then climbed out of the car while bullets flew through the air like a bunch of mosquitos hunting for his blood. Ducking and in the shadows of the car, he ran around to help Jack. He had just reached the driver’s side when another bullet hit the frame of the vehicle’s door. Instinctively he ducked away, but recovered quickly. Smashing also this window open, he didn’t waste any time with unbuckling Jack, but cut through the belt with his knife. Carefully, he then slung his arms around Jack’s torso, pulled him out of the car and to the side facing away from the insurgent’s firing bullets. He was well aware that the car was only a sorry excuse of a safe place, but he had to do with it until he found something better and taken care of the two soldiers in the backseats of the flipped car.

Like it was a well-practices routine, Mac managed to get all out of the car, but he didn’t find a safe place. His heart was pounding hard against his chest, his pulse racing while he thought about what he could do. His eyes scanned his surroundings, but there was nothing but sand and more sand. No place to hide and nothing he could use to build a secure shelter with. His hands started shaking, which was never a good sign. He was losing it, he knew it.

It was Deacon who saw Mac standing there without anything in his hands to defend himself. He fired into the direction of the insurgents while he limped towards Mac to cover him and the other three under fire until they had reached the safety of the intact vehicle. When he had reached the young man, his leg that had caught a bullet to the thigh was throbbing heavily.

“What do we have got?” Deacon asked, not taking away his eyes from the horizon.

“Three unconscious, Sir,” Mac replied and knelt down to rouse Jack. He understood why Deacon was there, but he also couldn’t carry three people at a time and the steady stream of blood leaking from the bullet wound on Deacon’s leg was enough for Mac to know that Deacon couldn’t do the back and forth needed. Hence, Mac needed a second pair of hands and by the looks of it, Jack was the one who got away lighter than the other two. Shit, Mac didn’t even know their names. How fucking pathetic was that? Mac thought, while he checked Jack’s pulse and breathing which both appeared normal. Mac slapped Jack’s face to wake him up, but he didn’t even move an eyelid. Not knowing any better, Mac rubbed his knuckles over Jack’s sternum. That got him a reaction. First it was a small groan to express his annoyance about the unpleasant feeling. Then, with the growing awareness of regaining consciousness, Jack noticed the ringing in his ears from the explosion blast. Then he became aware of the pounding headache as if someone knocked with an ice axe from inside his skull against his forehead determined to break the skull open. Jack wasn’t sure whether he would be grateful if whoever hammered against his skull succeeded. There was a certain pressure building, as if something was pressed down against his skull.

“Damn Jack, wake up from your nap!” Deacon yelled, because he was getting antsy. He couldn’t tell how much longer he could give them enough cover. He had seen movements from afar. The insurgents were on their way and ready to slaughter them if they didn’t manage to get going soon. Deacon’s voice helped. Jack’s eyes opened, but his vision was blurry as if he was looking through water. He had to blink several times. It wasn’t perfect, but better at least. When he got a clearer vision, he saw the blond kid kneeling in front of him, looking expectingly at him. Then he smelled the gasoline. He heard the gun fire and the crackling of flames. It all came back in a wave and he jumped to his feet, because immediately he knew about the danger of the situation in which they were caught in. Getting back on his feet was a challenge. Once upright, a heavy wave of dizziness hit him. His stomach flipflopped. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, causing the laceration on his forehead to sting. He lost his balance, toppled over and lost his stomach contents. Mac saw that Jack was about to faceplant. He stepped at Jack’s side, grabbed him by his arm and prevented him to hit the ground. Jack felt a steadying hand and then a stable arm supporting him while he broke out into violent retching that seemed to go on forever.

“Hurry up guys, we have to make a run for it!” Deacon yelled. Jack nodded only now realising that it wasn’t Deacon who had stopped him from falling but the scrawny kid who mysteriously was stronger than his appearance let you suggest. He filed away that thought for later. Mac was already on his knees to assess the other two’s state. His face turned pale. His fingers didn’t find a pulse. He didn’t feel the stream of air that came with breathing out. Their chests didn’t move, like at all. They couldn’t. Jack saw it immediately. Two tiny holes. Bullets hat hit their targets.

“C’mon kid, we need to go,” Jack said and dragged Mac back onto his feet while Deacon gave them fire cover so they could reach the safety of the second vehicle. Mac not having realised what Jack had seen wanted to protest, but his ‘But’ was strangled by Jack’s forceful pull on his upper-arm.

“They’re dead, kid. Nothing you can do about it,” Jack told him matter-of-factly because these weren’t the first dead he had seen and he was confident that it wouldn’t be the last ones. Mac had seen comrades die as well, but something about the situation threatened to overwhelm him. Maybe it was still the shock of being ambushed. Maybe it was the forceful vehemence with which the insurgents tried to kill them. He couldn’t tell. Jack didn’t notice it. He had no time for that. They had to get out of this hell. And with this on his mind, Jack jumped into the driver seat of the second car, followed by Deacon, who pushed Mac into the back with Worthy and Fitzy jumping in as well.

They didn’t know where they were when the car came suddenly to a halt. They were far away from their base. That was protocol. If they ambush you, don’t lead them to your base, but far away. Jack suspected that the insurgents knew that was well, because after a couple of klicks they had stopped following them. Jack looked out. The sun was setting. It soon would be dark. They needed to find shelter somewhere. He looked around into exhausted faces. His skull was still pounding and his head felt like it was about to crack, but he didn’t have time to think about that. He had a team to take care of.

“So, we need to find shelter somewhere, preferably covered. Any ideas?” Jack asked, turning around and looking everybody into the face. Mac looked around and spotted another mountain range not far away. But before he got a chance to say something, another hail of bullets hit their vehicle. Deacon leant out of the window to respond the fire, but it was Worthy who told them to get out of the fucking tin, because he saw the bazooka glistening in the sun for the second time of the day. They scrambled out of the car just in time before it, too, went up in flames.

They stood there, injured in the middle of nowhere and in the dire need for a cover. The bullets had stopped flying. The insurgents probably knew that the soldiers wouldn’t make it out of this. At least not alive, so they left their still but not for long living corps burn in the hot dessert sun to prepare a nice meal for the scavengers.

“Maybe we can find shelter there,” Mac pointed into the direction of the mountain range, panting heavily as the adrenaline that flowed through his veins sped up his pulse and breathing.

“We’ll be safe from the weather and we can overlook the area,” Mac told the rest of the team.

“Or we’ll run into the arms of another group of baddies,” Worthy strew in critically, cradling his arm against his chest. The pain was drawn all over his face.

“Yeah, but I think we already knew that they were there when they were,” Mac pointed out. Jack had to admit that the points the kid was making were all valid and hence it was decided that they dragged their battered and shot-at bodies to the caves. With a sort of sled Mac had build from tarpaulin that didn’t get burnt in the fire, they helped Deacon and Fitzy both who had caught a bullet to the leg, up. Jack’s head was killing him when they arrived in the cave. He collapsed to the ground where he lost his stomach contents again. He didn’t need to have a medical degree to know that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. The pressure that he felt was increasing. He wished someone would crack his skull if only to relieve the pressure that he felt, but he didn’t let on how he felt. He had to get the others taken care of first.

Turned out that having someone like Mac around came quite handy. In a jiffy, Mac had made a fire for them to sit around. Then he tended to the injuries. It was obvious to Jack that the kid did have some experience with field medicine. He was glad, because one thing less he had to think about for which he leant against the stone of the cave to relax a little. Just a little while, because he knew he could. Somehow, he was sure that the burger-named kid knew what he was doing. He also knew that the kid was looking out for them. He could have made a run for it. But he had stayed with him and the other two, God may show mercy to their souls, determined to rescue them. It didn’t mean that he trusted the kid more, though. A hero complex combined with a hidden death wish was a lethal mixture not only for the one person who carried these features in him or her, but also for those who had to work with this special person. Unnecessary risks. They had to avoid these at all costs if they wanted to survive their tour.

Mac didn’t notice that Jack was scrutinising him closely while he splinted Worthy’s broken arm. Mac suspected that the collarbone was affected as well for which he immobilised the arm in front of Worthy’s chest. Worthy’s arm felt like it was about to fall off, but the splint and Mac’s care helped. With well-practiced moves, Mac was done. It wasn’t the first time he splinted an arm or a limb for that matter. He had learnt that far before he joined the army, even before he finished high school. It had been one of the rare trips he and his father had done before his father went AWOL. It was a ‘camping’ trip just without the amenities of a tent or a camping stove or tinned food and alike. They had been far away from civilisation, but Mac still remembered that he had enjoyed it. No other people meant pure nature and of course animals and what kid doesn’t like seeing a bear or a badger or beaver or whatever? Mac had been totally excited, but in his excitement, he hadn’t been watchful enough. He had slipped, fallen of a small little cliff and onto his arm that broke in that process. Mac still remembered the pain and the shock he had felt. Setting the arm had been an ordeal, but Mac still remembered that it had felt better afterwards, especially when his father had taken him into his arms to soothe him and to take the pain away. They had been sitting there, in the middle of nowhere, his father whispering soothing words into his ears and Mac had felt safe, for the first time in a while he had felt protected and safe.

Mac shook his head to forget about these sentimental memories. This was not the right point of time to dwell on them. Worthy, however, wasn’t unimpressed by Mac’s skills.

“Where did you learn it?” he has asked. Mac shrugged his shoulders.

“Boy scouts,” he replied, leaving out the fact that he had been excluded from the boy scouts after only three months, because he had his own means of solving problems which might or might not have caused the one or other explosion or ruined an excursion because Mac had found a short cut. Mac still remembered how afraid he was that his father might be angry with him. His father hadn’t been. The contrary even. He had grinned at Mac and told him that he was proud of Mac, because he had understood that thinking out of the box got you to solve every problem. It had been the good times. Some rare moments of peace. Again Mac shook his head, not understanding where this flood of memories had so suddenly come from.

When he was finished with taking care of Worthy’s arm, he went over to Fitzy. He had caught a bullet to his calf. Luckily it was a through and through. Unluckily it had caused some proper muscle damage for which Fitzy couldn’t walk. Mac cleaned the wound as good as the first aid kit allowed him to and bandaged it.

Deacon’s bullet wound was a little trickier. The bullet was still in the leg, meaning that an infection was very likely. Added to that, the wound hadn’t stopped bleeding and the colour of the blood suggested that the bullet might or might not have nicked something it wasn’t supposed to nick. No, Mac wasn’t happy with what he had to do. But it had to be done and he needed help. He looked over to Jack who seemed to be dozing. Mac walked over to him and cleared his throat to get the older man’s attention. Jack opened one eye and saw the scrawny kid standing in front of him. Mac explained silently what he had to do.

“And? Then do it,” Jack said, puzzled about the fact that the kid seemingly had come to him to ask permission, but he was mistaken.

“I would, but…I need some help. This is going to hurt, like…really and someone has to make sure that…,” Jack understood. They had to make sure that Deacon wouldn’t run or lash out. Jack got up. He was swaying and needed some time to regain his balance. Mac also noticed that Jack was listing to one side. This was odd, because apart from the laceration on his forehead he didn’t seem to have any further injuries. But a bump to the head could have severe consequences. Mac knew that too. He would have to take care of that after he had helped Deacon.

Jack explained his team mate what the problem was. Deacon didn’t look convinced at the fact that this scrawny blond kid not only planned to retrieve the bullet from his leg, but also to cauterise the wound.

“Does he know what he’s doing?” he asked sceptically, looking back and forth from Jack and Mac. Mac sighed. He shed the jacked of his BDU and rolled up the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal a big, bulky scar on his upper-arm. Jack hissed in sympathy when he saw it.

“Ouch, what happened?” Deacon asked curiously. Mac didn’t like talking personall stuff, but also knew that he could make use of it as distraction while he knelt down and started to inspect Deacon’s leg and cut off the pant leg.

“Got shot,” was all Mac said. Jack looked through Mac’s plan of deviation tactics and played along when he asked: “By whom?” Mac shrugged and started disinfecting the wound on Deacon’s leg.

“Dunno, guess it was one of my unit. But they never found out who and why,” Mac answered honestly. Jack’s and Deacon’s jaw dropped. Deacon didn’t even notice when Mac started to heat up a pair of tweezers that he had found in the first aid kit. The instrument was thin and long enough to reach the bullet with it. He heated it up in the flame of the fire and then poured a generous amount of alcohol over it. Jack looked at Mac. Their eyes locked. Jack nodded and positioned himself behind Deacon while Mac started to dig for the bullet. Deacon screamed of pain when he felt the tweezers slide into his wound and poking and digging around. His stomach revolted. Mac had just in time fished the bullet out of the wound when Deacon turned to his side and vomited. This, unfortunately, wasn’t even the worst part of the procedure. They all knew it. Deacon breathed hard to brace himself. Jack needed some time to get over the dizziness that hit him again. Mac looked worried at the blood seeping out of the wound.

“So…some guy of your unit shot at you? How does that come?” Deacon then asked to get over the pain in his violently throbbing leg.

“Accident?” Mac couldn’t tell. He had been busy disarming an IED when he had felt something bite into the flesh of his upper-arm. Then he had heard the gun fire. His overwatch had simply failed to tell him that they were under attack. He probably had failed to see the danger come towards them in first place and had only reacted when it had already been nearly too late. Another team had come to their rescue and one of them had thought it was good idea to shoot at the IED Mac was busy disarming. He had thought to use the explosion as distraction. One EOD less wouldn’t harm them. That much the guy had thought. Fortunately, he was really bad at aiming and hence didn’t hit the IED. Unfortunately, he had hit Mac’s upper-arm which had bled some good. Two days away from their base and knowing that deliberately accepting the death of an EOD specialist wouldn’t go down well with their superiors, they had decided to help Mac and keep him alive. Hence, they had removed the bullet and cauterised the wound. The case had never really been investigated.

“Fuck!” Deacon screamed. Jack wasn’t sure whether it was because of the pain when Mac lit up the gun powder he had carefully distributed of the wound, or because of fact that an attack of one of their own was cowardly covered-up. Jack watched the kid carefully who once more disinfected the wound and bandaged it. Mac knew that he had done all he could but that it was far away from the medical assistance the others needed. The risks of infections were still high. They had to find a way out if they wanted to survive, that was for sure.

When everything was done that Mac could do, he went back to the fire. Deacon, Worthy and Fitzy had fallen asleep. This was good. They needed to preserve their energy. Jack followed the kid. He had seen the shadow that had crossed Mac’s face when he had realised how little he could do to help which made his efforts appear worthless. Mac didn’t like this feeling of helplessness. He was trained to help and to succeed. Failure was just not really an option. On unsteady legs, Jack approached the kid from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. Mac instinctively flinched. Jack took his hand away.

“You did good, kid,” he told Mac when the younger man turned around to face him. Mac only shrugged his shoulders, because he didn’t feel Jack’s words. Jack felt Mac scrutinising him. Mac had heard the slur in Jack’s voice. The ‘d’ in ‘good’ had nearly been inaudible. Mac took his Swiss Army Knife out of his pockets and with the flash light shone into Jack’s eyes. He turned his head away at the onslaught of way too bright light for his way too sensitive headache. Mac stepped closer and this time shone the flash light in each eyes separately. He heaved a sigh. Exactly what he had feared.

“What?” Jack asked.

“You’re having a really bad headache, right?” Mac asked him. Jack nodded. “I…your speech is slurred. When you walk, you list to one side and your pupils don’t react equally. I fear that the there’s a sort of haematoma building, constantly increasing the pressure on your brain,” Mac told Jack matter-of-factly, because seriously, they didn’t have the time to bullshit around here. Jack nodded. He had feared as much when he had realised that the pressure in his head had gotten worse and the coordination of his limbs somehow had become a difficult task.

“Can…can you do something about it?” Jack asked hesitantly.

“Nothing, I fancy doing. I…think the best thing you can do is rest now, hoping that it won’t get any worse,” Mac admitted.

“But…what if it gets worse? Is…what can you do?” Mac understood that Jack needed to know now, for which he replied: “Uh…drilling a hole into your skull would be the only way to decrease the pressure, but…the risks are super high and…it’s really ultima ratio and as I’ve said, I don’t fancy doing it.”

Chapter Text

Mac had climbed back to the remains of their Humvee. He had to get them help. They would not get far with the car itself. It was a wreck, though. But by a miracle the battery and the radio were still intact. Mac has had to work with less in the past to get into contact with a base and ask for help. Thus, he was confident that he could get them out of their mess.

He leant over the hood of the car. A buzzing sound came towards him and flew sharply past his right ear. It was a bullet and not a mosquito that had somehow strayed into the desert. Mac noticed this when the bullet hit the rock face and stone splinters broke off. One hit him in the face where it left a nasty stinging scratch. Mac soon had to realise that this one bullet wasn’t a stray bullet, but belonged to a hail of bullets that was fired his direction from seemingly all sides. He ducked and sought cover between the vehicle and the rock. He shielded his face with his arms from flying rock splinters that instead bit deep into the flesh of his arms. He frantically looked around to find a way out, but it felt like he was caught. No matter which direction he took, he would be absolutely unprotected and an easy target. He also knew that waiting until the gun fire died down was no option, too. They would come and grab him. He had to get out and into the safety, but more importantly he had to lead whomever was shooting away from their cave.

His eyes went to the car. He could use it to produce a hell lot of smoke that would offer him cover. It wouldn’t be enough to lead them on a false trail. Unless, of course, he would manage to run and sidestep them like a rabbit. His eyes went longingly back to the car, because he was sure that he could forget about the battery and the radio once he had left it to the insurgents. Well, one had to make sacrifices. All he could hope for was that the others were smart enough to lie low and not fire away their hide out.

They were all exhausted and in pain, but they weren’t deaf for which they heard the gun fire. Jack, whose headache was getting worse and worse, stumbled to the entrance of the cave to get a look of what went on down there. His heart sank when he saw the blond kid crouch behind their abandoned vehicle to cover from the bullets. The insurgents had found them, well at least Mac. Jack rubbed a tired hand over his face. He had to do something, help the kid, but his vision was blurry and he was seeing double. He was of no use, would probably make matters only worse. He looked around the cave. The others weren’t better off. Deacon limped towards him, having noticed the commotion as well.

“We have to help the kid,” Deacon said, phrasing just what Jack had initially thought, but he shook his head, regretting the movement as it only worsened his headache.

“We would give up our cover. Look at us, we would hand ourselves to them and without means to defend ourselves. That’s suicide,” Jack replied. This was suicide anyway, Deacon thought, because if they lost the kid, their prospects of rescue would shrink to nill. He didn’t need to tell Jack that. With nothing left to do, but securing their cover they watched how the kid made a run for it under hail of bullets and the smoke of a now burning Humvee the insurgents had set on fire with three bullets to its tank.

Mac wasn’t to be seen until late at night. It was pitch dark in the cave. Only the small fire Mac had gotten going offered a little light. Their shadows danced on the cave walls looking like moving cave paintings. It was quiet. Silent. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Only the sound of their breathing could be heard if one listened closely. They had learnt to vanish and that was what they did. Vanish. Vanish to save their lives or those precious minutes or hours that were left of it, because nobody had the energy to indulge in the illusion of a rescue at this stage. Hope was gone if it had ever existed.

Apart from his headache, Jack couldn’t stop worrying. Only Deacon could stop him from running and searching for the kid by blocking the entrance of the cave. But they all were realistic. If the kid didn’t make it, they stood no chance to survive this. Nobody of them was capable of getting help. Deacon and Fitzy couldn’t walk. Worthy’s arm was a mess and Jack’s condition was deteriorating fast. They needed Mac. But Mac didn’t come. They gave up hope that the kid had survived the attack. It was sad, really sad, because a kid this age with these skills wasn’t supposed to die in a shithole like this. He wasn’t even supposed to be here in first place. He was supposed to go to college and get a fancy job in a fancy firm with beanbags, free food and fitness courses during lunch break. But this here? Definitely not. It was a waste of talent. It was a waste of everything letting the kid die in a place like this under circumstances one didn’t even wish his worst enemy to die under. But times had changed. Their country needed people and took people without assessing whether they could do more good for the country if they stayed at home at a safe place without pistol carrying analphabets who had never touched a book but prayed for what they had been taught to pray for. It was a shame. It was sad. This was not okay, but there was nothing they could do about it. After all the kid was a solider just like they were. He had known the risks. It didn’t make his probable death any easier to bear.

But they wouldn’t have to worry long about it. Deacon counted the bullets in his pistol. One for each of them. They wouldn’t have to suffer through starvation, dehydration, fevers and infections. They could put an end to it whenever they thought it was best to go. This, this was okay. They had chosen this, because there was nothing else left for them to do. They weren’t good at nothing but killing and hurting people. That was what they seemed to be born for. This realisation made it easier to accept death in turn as the price for their gift. They were told to be elites. Uncle Sam’s most important assets. But that was what they were. An asset.

There was nothing human about them. Not now after what they had done, after they had dived deep into blood, covering their body and soul with atrocities, human mankind seemed incapable of. But they were. They weren’t human anymore. The years serving in the sandbox had taken that privilege away from them which was the reason why nobody of them wanted to return home, because home meant human and human was what they had lost during their tour, if they had ever possessed it, that was. But that was okay. They knew what they had gotten themselves into. They had had a purpose and died for it. That was honourable and honour was all they could strive for, because salvation was out of reach. They would meet again in hell and hell was coming closer with long, fast strides. Worthy developed a fever. Fitzy’s leg looked awful. Jack was more unconscious than conscious. When he was, he was slurring his words like a drunk. His mimic was distorted, because the one half of the face looked like it was paralysed. Deacon had to think about his uncle who had died from a stroke. He had looked like that before. Only the stroke had been faster than the pressure increasing in Jack’s head that was slowly smashing his brains.

They didn’t think about rescue when they heard silent steps walking towards the entrance of the cave. Deacon got up ready to fight off whoever had made his way to their hideout. He took the gun that was still loaded and silently limped towards the entrance, hiding in the shadows to take advantage of an ambush. He had the gun ready. Yes, he would die, but he wouldn’t die without a fight. He owed it to his team, to his Chief ad to himself. If he died, he died with the gun in his hand, barrel smoking and with the enemy at least severely enough injured so that they could fight on in hell. He was ready when a slim shadow entered the cave. Mac was tired. He had been running around the area the whole day. He only wanted a few seconds to lie down and stretch his limbs that were heavy. No such luck, he thought when he felt the cold metal of a barrel being pressed against his temple. Instinctively he froze. Deacon still couldn’t see whom he was facing and hence he growled: “Turn your face to the light.” And Mac as he was told, relieved to hear Deacon’s voice, because he was sure that the older man was annoyed by him, but was decent enough not to shoot him. Deacon was relieved that it was the kid. He looked a little sun burnt around the nose, dust covered his face, but he looked intact. Deacon lowed his gun and with the other arm pulled Mac to a hug. He was simply glad to know that they hadn’t lost this one soul.

“Glad you made it,” he said while he held the stiff body a little longer in his one-armed embrace of which Mac didn’t know what to think of, let alone how to react. He was glad when Deacon let go again, but he didn’t let go, because he placed a hand between the kid’s shoulder blades and guided him towards the fire, where Mac was finally allowed to sit down and rest his legs. The warmth of the fire felt like a mother’s embrace in that very moment, because the nights were ice cold in the desert with no clouds covering the sky and preventing the heat from escaping. Mac felt his muscles slowly relax. He saw a canteen with water appear in front of his face.

Worthy had noticed what had gone on. He couldn’t hide his relief that there was still some hope left. He was ready to die if needed, but he would take every chance that promised to prolong that destiny whenever it was within reach. Mac happily took the canteen and took a first tentative sip. The water felt like cool silk against his dry and sore throat. He took a few more sips, relishing the soothing effect. It took Mac a while to realise that he was back and in safety for now. His mind needed some time to get back to him, because it was still on the run from the insurgents that nearly had caught him. But only nearly. He had found a small crevice where he had squeezed himself into and became invisible. He had waited for the sun to set so he could return under the cover of the night. He had been running from the insurgents like a maniac. Like a rabbit jumping left and right, jumping up and down the steep rocks like a mountain goat. He had run, even when the sound of gunfire had died down. He had run on even when he was alone as far as he could see. He had run on even when he knew that there was nobody following him.

Now he had found his way back. It had been a long one. But he was back and he had brought gifts, but when his glance landed on the very pale, chalky complexion of an unconscious Jack, he realised whom he had left behind and the condition they were in. He jumped up and walked over to the older man lying curled together by the fire. He kneeled down and felt for a pulse which was slow and a little fluttery. Mac tried to wake Jack up, but Deacon told him that he wouldn’t have any success. Jack was drifting in and out of consciousness. Mac shook his head. He knew that this development was really bad. He opened Jack’s eyelids and with the light on his Swiss Army Knife shone into his eyes. One pupil reacted. The other one didn’t. Deacon then explained to him the symptoms that Jack had developed while Mac was away. Mac knew that they didn’t have much time if the wanted to rescue their chief.

“Shit,” was all Mac could hiss. He knew that he had to make a decision, a decision that he didn’t want to make. He sat back on his heels. Fitzy approached him, asking what he was thinking about, because he could hear the cogs in Mac’s head grinding.

“Fitzy, shut up and give the kid a break,” Deacon threw in and guided Mac back to sit down by the fire, where Worthy handed him the canteen of water back. It was then that Mac realised that Worthy wasn’t well. He could see the fever blazing in the other man’s eyes. The same applied to Fitzy who had his leg propped up on a little rock to relieve the pressure that built in the calf. Mac knew that the wound very likely was infected. He put the canteen down. They had to ration their supplies and leave what they had to those who needed it more, Mac decided. He then looked Deacon up and down. He looked okay, but the leg was nothing one could use to walk on.

“I’m okay, kid. Just rest a minute or two and then we can think about a plan,” he reassured Mac as if he could read his mind. Well, he could, because Mac didn’t have a poker face. No, it was an open book to all who looked closely enough. The thing was, only few people had done that in the past. Only few people had made the effort to look closely and whether he – Mac – was alright, for which he frowned at Deacon’s reaction which left Deacon puzzled, because he didn’t know what he had done or said to gain such a reaction. Nobody ever had told Mac to sit and rest when there were other urgent matters to tend to. Mac knew that usually everything was urgent, everything but he himself and his needs for which Mac didn’t really take much notice of his own body starting to shake with exhaustion that came with running through the desert and for your life for a whole day. But he took Deacon’s gift with much appreciation and leant his head back against the cold stone wall, closed his eyes and shut his mind off. Deacon and Worthy set down next to him, either on one side, worried that their young comrade was worse off than he appeared.

Fitzy, who sat a little further away understood what was going on. They were closing in on him to keep the scrawny burger-named kid with the courage of ten Deltas from falling apart and this not only because he was their only rescue, but because he deserved it. After all, this was not the place for a kid like him to be. If Jack had been lucid, he would have done the same. He would have talked to the kid, told him lengthy but senseless stories only to put a troubled mind at ease. It was Worthy’s turn to do that now, just like Jack had done for them a countless number of times to keep them from losing hope and the will to survive.

So, Worthy started telling them about his family who had a past in slavery, but didn’t take it amiss anymore. They had made peace with this very sensitive part of their history and moved on. Worthy told Mac how proud he was of his father, who once had told him that it was time to step out of the shadows of slavery and to take the life and fortune in ‘your own hands’, Worthy quoted his old man.

“Don’t let them tell you what you’re allowed to do and what not. It’s your decision and you take what you want. Don’t accept what they give to you,” Worthy quoted his father. It was obvious to Mac how important these words were for the man who told him his story, but it made him thoughtful as well, because where did they live those statements had become necessary for so many groups of society? It made him feel bad for belonging to the so called white upper-middle class, because who was he to tell whether his relatives in the past had not given reason for these statements? He couldn’t, because he didn’t know his relatives, because he had been too young to ask questions when they had still been around and they had gone when he had started to ask those questions. In fact, Worthy’s story reminded him of the fact that he didn’t know much about himself. And yes, it sometimes felt like he didn’t know who he was. He was missing his own identity. His grandfather had never talked much about things. He had been old already. Didn’t want to be reminded of the hard times, whatever those had been. He didn’t know where his mother came from, who her parents had been, what they had done. He only knew bits and pieces about his father, who had never talked much or given any sort of insights in his ethics. He had left him out. Mac had always stood outside his door. He had never really been allowed in. Only sometimes the door had been opened a crack, so that a few truths managed to get through to him. But it had never been all the truths that managed to get through that crack and they had always left him with more questions than he had originally asked.

So, the question ‘who was Angus MacGyver’ was still unanswered. Mac didn’t think that it would ever be. He had to improvise on this front as well, but that was okay even though it felt bad, like he was playing a role, masking up a past that actually didn’t exist. It felt wrong. It felt like he was wrong. And Deacon noticed the sad shadow passing over Mac’s face and gestured Worthy to just stop. They weren’t good at this, not as good as Jack was. But they couldn’t rely on their Chief at this very moment.

“Hey Mac, did they hit?” it was Fitzy who sat on the other side who got their attention. Mac shook his head to dust off the cobwebs of his past that had started to build in his head. He looked over to the man who looked like he should rather be concerned about his own state instead of Mac’s. He shook his head, but Fitzy nodded towards Mac’s arm. The sleeve of his BDU had a stain. A brownish-rusty one. Worthy saw it. Deacon, too. Mac, who only realised now that his forearm was in fact stinging, rolled up the sleeve that had holes in it, to reveal the damage. There were several smaller cuts from rock-splinters that had bit into his forearm, but that wasn't what had caused the stain. It was a graze. Probably from a bullet, but it could have been caused during his flight through the hills as well. Mac couldn’t really tell. It wasn’t bad either, because the wound had stopped bleeding so, nothing to worry about. But he didn’t get a chance to say this, when Worthy handed Deacon some of the first aid supplies which they had managed to rescue from the flames.

Deacon firmly took Mac’s arm and inspected the wound. It wasn’t as bad. He disinfected it. Considering that his hands were big and strong, his treatment was very careful, almost gentle. Mac frowned again, tried to take his arm back, because he could do this alone. He didn’t need help, but Deacon didn’t have any of it, while Worthy wondered where his aversion to being taken care of came from. Mac could tell it very easily. Nobody ever had after his mother had died and she died when he was five, so he didn’t get much time to get used to these kinds of care. His father never had slapped a band aid on a scraped knee. Only this one time in the woods, he had taken care of Mac’s broken arm, but that had been before things had gotten worse and worse between them. Mac’s grandfather had taken care of scrapes, but never with the care of a worried parent, but with the attitude of a man who was fulfilling his duties. Mac had soon learnt how to take care of himself.

It annoyed him that this care was now taken out of his hands. He ripped his arm out of Deacon’s hand and wrapped the bandage around his arm himself. Thank you very much, but I do know how to take care of myself was screaming from his eyes. Deacon let it uncommented. It was Worthy who said: “Hey, don’t be rude. Nothing bad about someone helping you out.” Mac shrugged his shoulders, because he had learnt that the opposite was right. If someone helped you, he expected something in return. Worthy and Deacon exchanged looks. They understood that there was something hidden from them. Deacon, who knew the kid’s file, could only assume that there was a treasure of hurt buried deeply out of reach. Such a past left nobody unscathed and who knew what else the kid has had to endure? It wasn’t easy. But it also wasn’t the right time to dwell on such things, because they had to find a way out, find rescue.

Mac looked at his arm and back at Jack. Time was running out. He knew that. He made a decision. He had to act, take responsibility, regardless of his conscience. He would take care of it later. Maybe he was lucky and things turned out to his benefit. If not, what would it matter? He had fucked up his life badly enough. Another mistake, another life lost, what did it matter, when the list of failure was long enough to be wrapped around the equator? At some point you simply had to accept failure. He would once this here was over.

“I think I can get us some help,” Mac then said hesitantly, because he didn’t want to get the hopes up too high in case he failed. Deacon listened when Mac told them that he remembered a base being in this area about ten klicks away which were rather twenty-eight, but he didn’t tell them that, because the only way they could get help was when he managed to make his way from their hideout to this said base through the desert heat and through the enemy’s territory. The prospects weren’t great but neither was sitting here and wait for death which they all agreed upon.

“But…would it be enough for him?” Worthy asked hesitantly gesturing towards Jack’s form that was slowly awakening to consciousness without really understanding where he was because of the skull splitting headache caused by the increasing pressure. Mac sighed, because this was another decision which was to be made, because given the state the Chief was in there was no certainty that he would make it through the hours it would take Mac to reach the base and get help. He thought that he would rather not survive until then if not helped in anyway.

“Then do it,” Worthy told Mac after he had told them what he had told Jack.

“But…I’m not a medic, couldn’t be any further away. I’ve only read about it,” he told them about the risks. He could do some real damage if he made a mistake here, one Jack wouldn’t recover from, but Deacon told Mac: “Listen, Mac, you said it yourself. Jack doesn’t have the time to wait for help. I’ve worked a very long time with this stubborn mule to know that he wouldn’t let any chance slide to get out of this alive. He wouldn’t want us to shed an opportunity because of risks or cowardice. So, if we have to choose between certain death and the slimmest of all chances for survival, then we choose the latter.”

Mac thought carefully about it. Rationally, Deacon was right. There was no point in letting an opportunity slide if the prospects weren’t great anyway, but Mac wanted to minimise the risks as much as possible for which he decided to act only shortly before he would leave to get help.

“Are you sure you can make it to the base? Ten klicks through the desert are not a fun run,” Fitzy asked from his spot.

“I can make it. Believe me, if I know one thing then it is how to run for my life,” he told them and after the incident of the day, nobody doubted that. It was settled then. Mac would start at the crack of dawn, but not before he had tried to help Jack for which he got up to build what he would need: a drill. Worthy wasn’t happy when he watched Mac taking apart his gun and a rifle. Suddenly he could relate to Jack’s reaction when he had found the kid messing with his rifle. It hurt to watch such a beauty being mistreated. For Mac, it didn’t matter. It was a welcome distraction. His nerves were calm to the outside, but he was fluttery inside, too scared of having made the wrong decision and too confused about the roots of this feeling, because who was this Dalton to him that he was worried about this man? Who was Worthy to him that he felt the need to get him help? Who was this Fitzy guy to him that he wanted him to survive with both his legs attached? And who was Deacon that his words mattered to Mac? Nobody had ever mattered to him like he had never mattered. Well, someone would call him a liar, because whom was he kidding? To him anyone was more important than he himself and that was okay. However, nobody had ever caused him to feel. And he felt. He felt for those guys and he felt like he belonged although they were nothing but strangers thrown together to a group because of military orders and not supposed to grow attached to each other, because they were here for a purpose to serve and give their life as necessary. There was no place for sentimental feelings that settled down in the pit of Mac’s stomach.

Mac jumped up to his feet and started pacing up and down to shake off the emotions that were whirling through him. He was growing too attached. That had never been good. Growing attached meant pain, pain that came when you were expelled, left alone. He had lived through it. He made a decision and the others decided to turn their back, just like Wilt had done. Mac had thought of them being inseparable, because they had grown up together for some time even under the same roof. Long enough it had felt like being brothers regardless of the differences. Mac had grown attached. He had learnt to feel home.

He had lost it when he had enlisted. Bozer had yelled at him whether he was stupid or just a fuck up or both. He couldn’t understand. He didn’t want his friend, his brother wasting his future, his life for a stupid war that made no sense and helped anyone but the war industry. He didn’t want his friend to waste himself for something like this. But when he realised that his words didn’t get through, he had told Mac to choose. It was either the army or Wilt, but he couldn’t have both of it. Never had Bozer thought that he would have to put his friend, his brother in front of such a choice. Never had he thought that his friend, his brother would choose a senseless war over him. To his own surprise, Mac had done just that, because he had to get away without knowing from what. It could have been the expectations or his miserable life as a whole. He didn’t know and didn’t care.

What he did care about was the radio silence, because his friend, his brother, went through with his threat and hence, every letter, every email remained unanswered and after a few fruitless attempts to explain himself and ask for absolution, Mac had given up. He couldn’t waste his energy for something that wasn’t going to happen. It had hurt. A lot. It still did. He missed Wilt, his friend, his brother. There had been plenty of disasters after which Mac had wished for Wilt’s encouraging words, for him being at his side to assure him that he would be alright. This was a very selfish desire. Mac knew that, but it was a strong one. He groaned when he felt the sadness of a broken heart mixing up with his feelings for this strange Delta team, making his heart heavy.

Then, Mac stopped in his tracks, took a steadying breath and went back to the fire. This was all bullshit. He had to get at least a little bit of rest and for this, Deacon watched how the slim frame of a kid he could tell was living through a hell nobody of them knew it even existed, curl down on a spot to rest his mind, because sleep definitely wouldn’t come, not until he had rescued them. But that would be soon. Mac was determined to get them out of this, alive. There was no other option. He had to do it and he would.

Chapter Text

Jack’s condition worsened overnight. Mac had regularly checked on him and then decided that he had to act now or never. Jack was oblivious to what was decided over his head or rather about his head. To say that Mac was terrified was the understatement of the century, because he was about to drill a hole into someone else’s head. This was none of his simple traps or tricks. This was a serious surgery he was about to proceed with and he wished that he hadn’t to do it. But Deacon was right. This was at least a little bit of hope.

“You have to hold him. He might be unconscious now, but he might still be receptive to pain and this here is going to hurt,” Mac told Deacon and Fitzy who were in a world of pain but themselves, but ready to do whatever was needed to rescue their Chief. Fitzy held Jack’s head between his hands while Deacon held his legs down. Worthy tried to fix Jack’s hand with one arm slung around his torso and the leg pressing hard against Jack’s other arm. No, Mac wasn’t happy about what he had to do. He took a few steadying breaths and then looked down on the man that was lying on the rocky floor of the cave. Mac had to forget about it. He had to forget about the fact that he was a human being. He had to get his feelings under control as in not feeling anything. It was the emotions that hurt you, could kill you. He had learnt that lesson the hard way. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.

His face went to those who were sitting there, waiting for him to start his work. There was not the flicker of doubt crossing their faces. They believed in him and that somehow made the situation so much worse. People that believed in him meant that there were people who trusted him and trust was a fragile thing, easily to break and difficult to repair once it got broken. But trust was the glue that kept people together. Mac wanted to have this glue to someone himself, but this desire caused additional pressure he couldn’t afford to feel at the very moment. Because this was the future, while he had to concentrate on the here and now, what was in front of him. Thinking about what came after would only kill him.

“Focus on what can kill you now,” Mac muttered the mantra of his former supervisor. He took another breath and then went to work. He felt the vibration in his arm when the drill went to work on the skull. Jack let out a grunt when he felt something, but that was it. He felt the drill pierce through his skin. He felt it slowly gnawing its way through his skull. If he had been capable of it, he would have screamed. But he couldn’t. His brain couldn’t fire any commands to his limbs. The grunt of discomfort was all he could do to release the pain that was building. Mac’s hand was all still like he had learnt it. Looking at his hands, nobody would ever see how scared he was. Nobody would ever see the nervousness on his hands. There were other signs surely, but nobody would ever see those on his hands.

Slowly, he drilled and drilled. He was hyper-focused. He knew he had to be careful. The soon the skull would give in, he had to pull the drill out if he didn’t want to cause any damage to the brain, if he hadn’t done so by now that was. And then, he couldn’t tell, but he felt it. The bone becoming thinner and thinner under the drill. The very second in which he was through, he pulled the drill out. Jack let out a sigh. Nobody knew whether it was of relief because the procedure was over or because the pressure in his head started to subside.

Fitzy handed him a small tube that they had found among their first aid supplies. Mac used it as drain.

When he was done, the sun was already a good way up. He had to hurry if he wanted to make use of the lingering morning chilliness. He jumped to his feet, instructed Worthy on what he had to do and then was about to climb out of the cave without any further hesitation or as much of a word to the other guys who looked a little confused at his sudden hectic. Mac didn’t want to waste any precious minute. If he wanted Jack to survive, he had to get to the base as soon as possible.

“Do you know which direction to go?” Deacon asked him, Mac nodded. Of course, he knew it. His father had taught him, a lot. It had been very important that he learnt, a lot. So, he knew how to navigate his way by the position of the sun or the stars. It came in handy that he remembered the map that he had seen before they had started with their mission. This had actually been the reason why he remembered the base in first place. He hadn’t told the rest of team about this. What for? But he saw Deacon’s expression and knew that he was a little unsure as to whether this was the right decision. After all they were sending a youngster through the desert and Deacon wasn’t sure whether the kid would get lost somewhere and then die of a heatstroke. Then again, the kid had been running around the area escaping their insurgents. Added, what did it matter? Better die trying than dying like a coward.

“You obviously know what you’re doing and we don’t have much time now, but you’ll tell me your trick once we’re out of this hellhole, got it?” Deacon demanded. Mac nodded. He was already out of the cave, when Worthy stopped him and handed him his bandana.

“Here, cover your head with it,” he told Mac who wrapped the piece of texture around his head to protect it from the sun and to keep the sweat out of his eyes. With a last nod, he left the cave and then got going.

He didn’t start slow as he usually would have. He wanted to make use of the chilly morning as much as possible, to get as far as he could. He looked at the position of the sun and then knew his direction.

One foot after the other and he ran. He ran through the dusty desert with the sun beating down on him like the bullies at his school, relentlessly showing no mercy. But Mac had asked for it. The harder the way, the more it hurt, the bigger the gain. The pain was what made you deserve reaching your goal. It was pain that told him that he was doing enough. Doing things the easy way was never an option, because doing it the easy way meant not putting enough effort into it, lacking behind. So, he welcomed the pain in his calves. He enjoyed the burning in his lungs. He felt the exhaustion spreading through him and he ran a little faster only to make the pain worse. If it hurt, it was okay, then he was doing good.

His father once had asked him ‘was it difficult?’ and Mac had answered that it hadn’t been. The test had been pretty easy. He skipped another class, got more AP classes got college level tests, so that he had to make an effort, because only then he would thrive to his whole potential. He had to learn just like the others so they tortured him with more tests and assignments that were beyond his level. Until today Mac didn’t know whether his father had done all this only to push him to thrive to his best or whether the aim was to humiliate him. His father had wanted to see him fail, that was what Mac assumed, this was what he wanted to believe, because this idea would be in line with a father’s behaviour. This assumption fit into the picture of a man, who left his son on his tenth birthday. Mac didn’t dare thinking that there was an actual reason of care behind, because that would mean that his father had been a good guy which would make the fact that he had abandoned him on his tenth birthday even painfuller. Thinking that his father didn’t like him made it easier to bear, because it allowed Mac to outright hate his father for what he had done. The idea that there had been a good reason for the decision to leave him behind would only confuse him. Hence, he never indulged in the idea of a father who made decisions to the benefit of his son.

And Mac ran on. He deserved the pain of the sun that was seething his skin. It was noon. The heat was reaching its peak. He was sweating like hell. His head pounded in the rhythm of his pulse. His mouth was dry. It felt like sand paper. His lips were chapped. He drove with his tongue over them, but it was of no use. There wasn’t much water in him and the little that he had, he was sweating out. He didn’t have a canteen with him. He had left the supplies with the others who needed them more than he did. After all, it was only about eleven more klicks. He could make it. He was sure. He had managed more than half of the way by now. He was getting closer. And there was no unfriendly fire which probably was because the insurgents had decided that the long suffering of dehydration was enough of a punishment for invading their territory. Mac didn’t care. He was glad that there was one problem less to take care of.

And Mac ran, ignoring the flashes he saw. His vision grew dark around the edges every now and then, but he ignored that, too. He tripped. He stumbled. Nearly lost his balance, but caught himself before his body could fall into the unforgiving hot desert sand. He could make it. He only had to ignore his bodily needs and ignoring his needs, he was a pro in. He hardly knew what his needs were until his body told him loud and clear that it needed food or sleep or water, because otherwise it would shut down. He didn’t know what he needed. Hence, he thought of himself has someone who didn’t need anything else but a purpose aka a job. Nothing else. He was never allowed to need more.

When his mother had been sick, he hadn’t been allowed to be sad, because this could have worried his mother who was supposed to concentrate on herself and on getting better for which Mac had to be brave and suck it up. Hence, Mac had become an unchallenged sunny boy who never shed a tear, never irritated anyone with teary eyes, anger tantrums or fears of monsters that might or might not have lived under his bed. This, however, didn’t mean that he wasn’t sad at times, hadn’t cried and screamed of frustration and that he had never feared the monsters living in his closet. He simply had never told anyone and tried to deal with it himself. It had not always worked out very well. His mother had been good in reading his mind for which she had taken him in her arms to comfort him, although he had told her that he was alright. Mac still remembered the disapproving looks his father had cast him then.

His father had never shown the same ability his mother had possessed, but that was okay, because his father had seldomly be there anyway. Mac learnt that if he was hungry, he had to go to the kitchen and fix himself something to eat. If he was sad, he had to find himself some comfort and when he was hurt, he had to slap a band aid on the scratch. He didn’t like it at all, this self-reliance. Every pseudo-psychologist would probably conclude that this was the reason for Mac’s insatiable urge to help others. Mac didn’t know and frankly he didn’t care. There was a reason why he never talked to anyone about this stuff. He didn’t need someone dissecting his emotional life.

And Mac ran on and on. His head felt like it was boiling. His body was craving for shadow and coldness. It would have to wait, just like Mac had to. His father had always been so busy. Whenever Mac has had a question, he had to wait until his father was done with whatever he had been occupied with. Often enough, Mac’s question had been forgotten about and the boy had to find the answer himself.

His grandpa had just not been fit enough for the needs of a ten years old. How had he been supposed to chase after balls and kites? His knees had hurt, the new hip not as perfect as the surgeon had told him that it was and his heart was getting weaker and with it the fondness he had once felt for the boy who was his only grandson. Mac gave him credit for trying anyway, because it surely wasn’t nice when someone else dumped his kid on your threshold and that was practically what had happened.

Things had felt a little bit different while living together with Wilt and his family. He hadn’t been a burden then. He had belonged. But the time he had gotten to spend with them had been too short as if it could have triggered a change of old habits. And then he had been at the MIT. He was supposed to perform from then on. Nothing else counted when you were a so-called genius.

And Mac ran. It was past noon. His legs were heavy. He had trouble lifting his feet of the ground, but he didn’t stop. He had to focus and that was what he did. He focused on his steps. One foot after the other. His breathing was going fast. The hot air felt like burning his nostrils and lungs. He felt something coppery slip down his throat. A nosebleed. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand to get his suspicion confirmed. He picked up the pace. He had to reach the base. His own limits came closer. He had to reach the base before he reached them.

He stared at the horizon. At first, he thought that his mind was playing tricks with him, that his brain had finally overheated and that he was seeing things, a Fata Morgana. There on the horizon appeared the outlines of tents, barracks. He thought that he was hearing the blades of choppers. He shook his head. By now he had lost is sense for time and distance. He didn’t know whether he was still too far away or already close enough. But the latter was the case. The outlines came closer with every step he took. And a surge of hope went through him like a tsunami for which he picked up the pace even further, nearly sprinting the last klicks to what looked like the base.

The first reaction was hostile. They pointed their rifles at him when he reached the base. Of course, they did. He could be a terrorist, a living bomb, whatever. Mac didn’t care, because when he stopped, he dropped to his fours, trying to catch his breath. His body trembled like a leave in the icy Canadian winter wind. Droplets of blood dropped down on the back of his hands while he stood like that in the sand and waited for the soldiers to check his identity. His voice had been hoarse, nearly inaudible when they had asked his name, his rank, his base and registration number. He had given it all to them. They didn’t even have a bottle of water for him who felt like he was burning from inside. The bandana did nothing to keep the sweat from dripping down his face into his eyes and down the tip of his nose, splashing on the dry sand he was still kneeling on when eventually a CO made an appearance to confirm Mac’s identity. They hauled Mac to his feet and then led him to the base, where he finally got the much-needed bottle of water and a second one when he had drained the first in one go.

“I hear your team went missing. Are there any other survivors?” the CO asked matter-of-factly while the water that Mac had downed so hastily sloshed uneasily in his stomach, but Mac wouldn’t give it away. Instead, he told the CO about the insurgents and that they now needed a medevac to get the few that had survived out of the cave they had found shelter in.

For Mac, it took an eternity until he had told the CO the facts and they finally got two choppers going, one with Mac inside, because they needed someone to show them whereto. His body was trembling with exhaustion. His head pounded fiercely as if his brains pressed against the skull from all sides in an act of escape. Mac shut his eyes. The sun was definitely too bright. The two bottles of water definitely hadn’t been enough, but his stomach warned him that he should not take in anything else if he didn’t want the water to make a reappearance. For this, he had to endure the feeling of hotness rushing through his veins, while he started to shiver from cold when the wind of the chopper lifting in and flying through the air hit his dry skin. Mac could only hope that he was coming down with something. He didn’t need a cold or worse the flu on top of this. He blamed the lingering exhaustion from the run for the symptoms that took hold oy his body. Once more; Mac wiped his nose with the back of his hand. It was still bleeding, his pulse thundering away. He felt so awfully cold and tired, but he had to go on. He was needed, because he was the only one who knew where to go.

“Specialist MacGyver, answer my damn question!” the pilot screamed at him when Mac had zoned out without even noticing it. He was seeing stars. His vision was blurry and somehow narrowed in. His stomach flip-flopped up and down, but Mac knew that hurling into the chopper was not going to make a good impression. Instead, he shook his pulsating head and told the pilot where to go. It was only a matter of minutes until they had reached their destination and as if in autopilot, Mac jumped out of the chopper, accompanying the rescue team.

Worthy was the first one who heard the rotor blades of the chopper cutting through the air.

“He made it,” he said to Deacon and Fitzy who were monitoring their Chief who was still out of it, but not yet dead and all three were confident that it wouldn’t happen, because there was help on the way and it came with full determination. A medical rescue team accompanied by a blond kid who informed them accurately on what they were faced with for which their first attention was drawn to Jack. The wound was inspected. The limp body was loaded onto a stretcher, IV’s set, monitors attached and then he was whisked away. The same was done with Deacon and Fitzy, both by now too exhausted and in too much pain as if they could have limped out of that damn cave. Their pride might get the one or other dent, but that was okay. Worthy and Mac left the cave walking side by side. Worthy had a hand between Mac’s shoulder blades to make sure he had the necessary contact to the young man when he told him: “You made it, kid. You saved our arses.” He meant it, but Mac didn’t take it when he said: “Let’s not get our hopes up too high. You’re all out of the cave, but not out of the woods.” And Worthy understood, because they still didn’t know whether Jack would make it or not.

The way back to the base was silent. Mac had his head leant back against the seat. He felt dizzy. The blood was rushing loudly in his ears. His skin felt like it was too tight, like a t-shirt that was two sizes too small. The nosebleed had stopped, though. The water was still sloshing up and down in Mac’s stomach. He would have to wait to take care of that special business, but that was okay. He was okay. He hoped the others would be, too. He watched how they were helped out of the chopper and immediately brought to the infirmary. Mac was content that Jack would be sent to the next hospital they could find. He needed more care than the medical tents could provide or were willing to provide unless they had a battlefield situation which they did not.

Mac was the last one to jump out of the chopper on wobbly legs. All others were gone. All others were taken care of and that was okay. He was okay. Aimlessly he staggered towards a tent where crates were piled up on each other. He used the privacy of that corner to get rid of the water that was getting too uncomfortable in his stomach. He had to hold onto the fixation of the tent to not lose his balance while he heaved up the water. His body was shaking violently by now and instead of heat, he felt cold. So awfully cold. His nose started bleeding again. Great, he thought because he was sure that he should make an appearance in the infirmary as well if the nosebleed didn’t stop. He couldn’t get himself doing so. After some dry retching, he straightened up again. He world around him tilted awfully. He held onto a crate when he took a few more tentative steps, before he decided to leave it be. He slid down the body of crates. His legs no longer would carry his weight. He leant back and closed his eyes. Suddenly it not only became dark, but also very silent.

Worthy was the first one who stepped out of the infirmary with a freshly casted arm and something to lower his fever. A few days rest and a few weeks desk duty, but then he would be as good as new. The bones were all set. His forearm and collarbone had been broken. It was a hell of an experience, but he was glad that there was no surgery required. He was on his way to find their youngest member on the team to thank him properly and to talk to him. Worthy was driven by the urge to find out how the young man was doing. He hadn’t appeared very peachy when they had walked out of the cave.

Worthy looked around, thinking about where the kid might have gone, when his eyes fell onto a form that sat limply on the dusty ground.

“Shit,” he muttered and sprinted over to the kid, kneeling down in the dirt to get a better look. His hopes that the kid had only fallen asleep were destroyed when he tried to rouse him by slapping his cheeks. Mac’s eyes fluttered but didn’t open. He was covered in cold sweat and the heat that radiated from his body was overly worrying. Instinctively Worthy felt for a pulse that he felt jackhammering against his fingers. He didn’t need a medical degree to conclude that the kid wasn’t good. He also didn’t need to be a mastermind to conclude that he needed help.

“Help!” Worthy therefore yelled, “I need help!” It took several minutes for him to get someone’s attention and a few more until some medical staff came to assess the situation. Heat stroke, dehydration and what else. The run through the desert. Of course, the run through the desert Worthy thought. He wanted to facepalm himself in frustration, because he knew the story about marathon. He stood there and watched how the kid was ungently loaded onto a stretcher and then shipped into one of the infirmary tents with medics shouting commands to get the body to cool down.

Worthy didn’t know then that this was the last time he got to see the kid that had rescued their lives.

Chapter Text

Jack woke up to a hell of a headache. He turned his head to look straight into Deacon’s grim face. The team had taken turns keeping vigil. It hadn’t been a question of life and death anymore. Thanks to the kid a close call remained what it had been, a close call. But Jack had taken his sweet time to regain consciousness. The team had become suspicious and hence had decided not to leave their Chief out of sight. No one was allowed to plan mischief without the rest of them.

Jack groaned when he became aware of his surroundings and perhaps because of skull-splitting headache. He felt the scratchy sheets that were stiff from too much starch, the antiseptic smell and the buzzing and buzzling. Hospital. Great, he thought and squinted against the light that felt too much for his head.

“You finally back with us, Dalton?” Deacon asked. Jack wanted to answer, but his voice had not yet caught up on his new state of awareness and got stuck in his throat. However, the grunting noise he made was enough proof for Deacon for Jack’s wakefulness. Without waiting for a question, because Deacon knew that it would come, he told Jack the story that had landed him here: “We were attacked. Your car got hit. Bumped your head pretty badly. We found shelter in a cave. The kid managed to get back to this back and use help.” Jack nodded, but he wasn’t really processing the information. The movement, however, was a bad idea given that he was still suffering from a headache of all headache. In truth, Jack had never been as hungover as to experience such a pain level that seemed to have wrapped tightly around his skull, squeezing with every beat of his pulse. Jack raised his hand to feel for his head, but stopped in his tracks. What he found was a patch where the hair had been shaven off. The drainage was still in there. He felt the tube stick out of his head. Afraid to damage something he wasn’t supposed to even touch, he pulled his hand away and looked at it. It felt surreal, laying there with a tube in his head and Deacon looking at him as if he still wasn’t sure whether Jack was really back with them.

“You nearly died, Dalton. That was no fun,” Deacon told him. It was a habit. A familiar one. They not only kept vigil to make sure that nobody of them made a run for it in the delusion that they would end up in paradise instead of hell. No, they sat there to make sure that the other one knew exactly of the dimension of what had happened, to become grateful and humble for yet another handful of days they were granted a respite. And Jack understood that it had been a very close call this time, because Deacon’s voice didn’t carry any of its usual harshness.

“How?” Jack wanted to asked, but his tongue felt too heavy. It didn’t move to pronounce the question. Deacon read his mind anyway.

“The kid. He got us out and rescued your life. He had to drill a hole in your head before he ran a half-marathon through the fucking desert. Stubborn son of a bitch fooled my, telling me it was mere ten klick when it in reality were nearly thirty,” he told his Chief who didn’t remember the conversation he has had with the kid about his condition. He had forgotten how the kid had taken care of the other wounds. He had forgotten how the kid had tried to rescue those for which every rescue had been too late and he had been unconscious when Mac had set off to get help. It was Deacon who briefly gave him the facts while the shadow that was already clouding his face darkened even further. Jack snorted, because he should have known that this level of concern wasn’t meant for him. They had been through too much shit by now that he deserved it. He was astonished, though, how the blond scrawny burger-named kid had weaseled its way into Deacon’s heart. Jack huffed. Deacon, who didn’t even like puppies had a soft spot and didn’t even bother hiding it.

“Where’s the kid now?” Jack asked. Deacon shook his head and told Jack to rest of what had happened. He cut it short, though. Jack needed to rest. But Jack didn’t let Deacon fool him. There was more, something else that concerned his team mate. Hence, he was full alert now, because if Deacon hid something from him, it meant that Jack wasn’t yet supposed to blow his head. He wanted to tell Deacon to finally spill the beans, but Deacon pushed a straw through Jack’s mouth and told him to take a few sips to smoothen his throat. Jack did as he was told. The cold liquid against his raw throat felt heavenly and he took a few more sips before Deacon placed the plastic cup back onto the small stand next to Jack’s bed.

“So, don’t distract me. Where’s the hero of the day?” Jack asked again.

“They gave him some fluids, some electrolytes, slapped a band aid on his arm and sent him back to his base. Something about a thousand IEDs whatever. They needed him,” Deacon told Jack through gritted teeth, because this fact still made him want to smash something or someone, because the kid hadn’t been fit for duty. Even Deacon understood that disarming IEDs was dangerous. The kid hadn’t been in the shape to carry such a responsibility on his shoulders.

Mac had been beyond exhausted after his half-marathon through the burning desert and nights without sufficient sleep. He had been out cold, severely dehydrated, suffering a heat stroke that had caused his body temperature to rise significantly when Worthy had found him. He should have stayed in infirmary for a couple of days at least until his temperature had been back to normal and his fluids and electrolytes in balance again. They had wrapped Mac in wet towels with icepacks stuffed under his neck, between his armpits and, to Deacon’s horror, in his groin, too. Deacon could only hope that the kid had been still out of it when they had iced his cojones, because that surely was not much fun. A shudder ran through Deacon only thinking about it.

The thing was, Mac’s condition hadn’t been a life-threatening. His blood pressure had been a little funky, but nothing they couldn’t get under control at the base. A few days rest and he would have been good as new. Limited to desk duty for a week or two. He wasn’t granted these few days of rest. He was ordered back to his base the second he had been capable of standing on his own two unsteady feet. It had been one day when the order came. The CO had marched in, given his command, turned around and left. The IVs of which the kid surely had needed a few more, were ripped out of his arm and he was sent off to the next convoy that headed back to the base where he was stationed at. Mac had felt like shit. His legs still weak like those of a new born fawn. The skin on his lips and in his face chapped, looking like potato peel. Being vertical had sent a spell of dizziness over him and he had nearly collapsed again. He didn’t let it on. It was pure stubbornness that had kept him on his two legs. Deacon wished the kid has let go, fucked of his pride and faceplanted on the floor of the infirmary to make the proof that everyone needed. The kid had been in no state to do his job, but they didn’t care. The kid was an asset. A precious one. An asset one couldn’t wait for until it was fully recovered because the country was drowning under IEDs threatening the life of civilians and soldiers alike. Deacon understood, but at the same time he didn’t. The kid had done good. Better than good. He had rescued their lives. He deserved a medal on his chest and a few days leave as reward. Hell, pure decency would have called for the boy to be given a breather after his heroic deed. No such luck. Within seconds the kid had been ready to go. No questions asked. This didn’t sit right with Deacon and he doubted that the kid would any time soon receive the appropriate reward for what he had done. Others would have been celebrated as heroes. Heck, they had been celebrated heroes for less efforts. Not so in the kid’s case. No pat on the back, no honorific words or at least a few days off to reward him for his deeds. Just another assignment and back to work. No acknowledgment, no appreciation. The kid certainly didn’t deserve to be treated like he was an instrument.

However, what hurt the most was the fact that the kid hadn’t seemed to care. He allowed them to treat him like that as if it was the most normal way to behave. He had jumped off the bed he had been supposed to lie in for a few more days, pulled on his BDU, tied his boots and then exited the infirmary. He had asked about Jack’s condition before he left, said his short goodbyes and then he was off to never been seen again.

“They ain’t treating him good, Jack,” Deacon said, anger flaring up in the pit of his stomach, because there was nothing he could do. He was nothing but a cog in this big machinery.

Jack understood Deacon and it got him angry, too. They all knew that the army was no holiday camp. They chewed you like gum and spit you out when you lost your flavour, but this was beyond worrisome, because sending out a solider who was not at his A-game was not only a risk for this specific soldier, but also for all others he was assigned to and who he was supposed to save. No, Jack didn’t like it when people lost the right to be human the second when they got handed their dog-tags and got squeezed into a scratchy BDU and it was this what Deacon was counting on when he went on with his mission.

“You should get him assigned to us, Dalton. He’s good. We could use someone like him,” Deacon said whether out of some rational reasoning or whether it was sentimentality, because he could hardly bear knowing how the kid was treated in his unit, he didn’t care. He wanted the kid in their team. He had the skills. Skills they needed. He needed to be protected. Protected from others, but also from himself, because that he had a very distorted self-imagine was so obvious that it was really funny how hard the kid tried to appear like he was fine. Jack shook his head, but winced when the movement intensified his headache.

“No, Deacon. He’s a kid and Delta is a suicide mission, you know that,” and Jack wouldn’t send a young soul that had so much more to give into a certain death. This wouldn’t be fair to him. Mac deserved a future after his time here in Afghanistan was up. Because Deacon was right. The kid didn’t deserve being treated like he was, but that would only stop when he left the army behind and ran far into the opposite direction. He couldn’t do anything better for him when he was assigned to his team. He would probably end up being unfair just like the rest of them, because he also would have to make unfair decision. This was simply the other side of the medal. He didn’t like they way people were treated, but the circumstances didn’t allow for something else. You came here, you had to perform, you didn’t perform you got sent out again. That was a simple rule. They were protecting thousands, millions of people. They couldn’t take into consideration the needs of one single soldier. As hard as it was, this was the truth and it wouldn’t change when the kid was assigned to a new unit.

“Jack, the kid’s a lost soul like we are. He has nothing else to lose,” Deacon pointed out and Jack had to agree with him, because he had read the file and gotten some information together. There was indeed nobody waiting for a certain Angus MacGyver to return home. There was nobody who prayed for him at nights. There was nobody who wrote him letters or emails. There was nobody who hoped he would come back in one piece with all limbs attached to the right places. But still. Jack believed that the kid had a future. A future that Mac didn’t want, because it was a very lonely one and he had decided for himself that being alone in a group was better to handle than being alone alone. It was difficult to explain, but as long as he was a soldier, he could pretend to belong and pretending was better than nothing, because this way he could trick his heart and tell it that he was alright and that there were people who cared, while in fact nobody did care and all he was to the group he pretended to belong to was a valuable asset. Deacon saw Jack’s doubts flashing across his face.

“Jack, c’mon, the kid’s great and…maybe if he’s with us, he finds something he might have to lose and then leaves this insanity behind,” Deacon told Jack, “We can’t rescue ourselves, but maybe we get a chance to rescue him.” It was a hope. But Jack didn’t let it count. The Deltas were no playground and no care station for puppies gone astray. They had to function just like the rest of them. The army was an engine and they had to work in sync. This only worked if everybody put his own needs on the backburner. Deacon shook his head at the thick-headedness of his chief, because it was out of place. He had served longer in the army than Jack. He knew the difference between a necessary order and a parasitic one, those which only aimed at exhausting you before it was too late, because you died or decided to go home.

But Jack had his own opinion on this, but nobody would let Jack’s words count. Worthy talked to Jack, too. It was Worthy, who made him change his mind when he said: “Jack, he saved your damn life. If he hadn’t been as courageous and drilled that fucking hole through your way too thick skull. If he hadn’t run a half-marathon through the desert, you would be dead by now. We all would. Deacon had already counted the bullets and believe me death wouldn’t have been nice to neither of us,” Worthy told Jack.

“Ah, hell, Worthy. What do you want me to do?” Jack had snapped.

“Just don’t be an arsehole,” Worthy had snapped back.

And Jack had thought which wasn’t as easy with the headache of his. He had thought and realised that this kid was very reliable, had nerves made of steel and indeed possessed skills they could use very good. What was strange was how all his other team members, Worthy, Fitzy and Deacon had grown attached to the scrawny burger-named kid. They never reacted so strongly for a new team mate before. Usually, they had been very critical and glad when the person had left after realising that Delta was another league, the real dangerous one. They had never grown fond of someone like they grew for this kid. Hell, they reacted like little girls when they saw a bunch of puppies. What the heck had the kid done to his team, he asked himself.

Taking in an objective point of view, nothing spoke against taking the kid to their team. The contrary even. But everything inside of him was screaming against such a decision. This here was not the place for a kid like Mac, a kid, who was reduced to his skill and had learnt that he meant nothing to anyone without them. Jack wanted him to learn the contrary, because he wouldn’t as long as he stayed in the army. What Jack didn’t understand was that Mac didn’t want to learn it differently, simply because he didn’t know that it could be different which was actually wrong, because Milton and Lauretta Bozer had taught him just that during the short while he had been staying with them. His friend Wilt had proven it when he stood up for Mac even when everybody else at school thought that Mac was the scrawny, strange kid that somehow didn’t fit in and thus didn’t belong. Although of these experiences, Mac had never learnt that he could deserve something different. Maybe he was stupid. More likely was that he avoided these lessons to protect his emotional resilience which threatened to crumble under the realisation that he was a human being and was allowed so much more but had been denied it, because nobody had ever acknowledged his right to be loved and taken care of. That had been fine with Mac, because Milton and Lauretta had had a hard time making Mac accept their parental care which he had at some point, but rather reluctantly which everybody had noticed only too well. Nobody could tell whether Mac had been or was impolite. The contrary even. It was this politeness, though, which showed how much he kept others at a distance. He didn’t appreciate it if someone got too close for which he felt very content with the military, jovial banter that allowed you to talk without an actual meaning behind it.

Jack didn’t know any of it. He didn’t know that there might be people who actually cared, while Mac thought that with his decision to enlist, he had destroyed it all. Jack could hardly understand how a kid like Mac could make his peace with the life of a soldier. No, talking about understanding was using the wrong term. Jack didn’t want to accept it. He still had trouble to understand what a young man with these capabilities did in the army. It was dodgy and he saw a risk. This was what he told himself to ignore the screams inside of him that wanted to make him kidnap the kid and stuff him in the next best Boeing C-17 that was on its way back stateside. And this was why the kid was a risk. Jack feared to lose his focus over him, because he wanted that this kid survived this hell and went back home alive and with all his limbs attached to the right places. The kid meant danger, because the whole team soon had seen more in him than the asset that he was supposed to be. The thing was, the kid had started with it. He had seen more in them when he had risked his life for a bunch of strangers who hadn’t been overly friendly to him. He had seen more in them when he had offered his expertise and hence had rescued their bacon while they hadn’t even realised that it had been at risk. He had been trustworthy and loyal from the beginning although they had done nothing to earn his trust. Usually, this was a process that took a couple of months. Mac had skipped this time of ‘getting to know each other’ and decided that they were worth it, because they were. In his books everybody was worth it, apart from himself that was, because he had never been worth it. And it was Jack’s desire to teach him differently that made this scrawny burger-named kid a risk.

But why was he the only one seeing it, while the rest of his team clearly felt the same about Mac? Why did they think it was worth taking it? Could the other three be so wrong? Was he the only one who saw clearly or was he the one being blind? Well, whatever it was, it certainly was his team versus him which he didn’t appreciate very much. He cursed the kid. He had driven a wedge between Jack and his other team mates.

“What do you see that I don’t?” Jack asked Deacon when he still was struggling to make up his mind while he thought that probably they all saw the same only came to different conclusions. Because while Jack thought of Mac being a risk for them, the others decided that it was worth taking it. For once, they wished to rescue a life instead of destroying it. They owed it to themselves to be able to say ‘at least, we’ve rescued one of us’. They wanted to be heroes, but not those who got medals pinned to their chest for killing. They wanted to be hidden heroes, who had made something right what a long time ago had gone wrong.

“Sincerity, loyalty, bravery. What else do you need me to list to convince you that this is the only right decision, for us and him?” Deacon asked him back.

Chapter Text

Getting someone on the phone so he could talk to someone about Angus MacGyver was a pain. It was impossible to get hold of the responsible superior. At some point, Jack got the strange feeling that this was on purpose. He was promised calls that he never received. He got names he was supposed to talk to who weren’t the slightest responsible. They were hiding their precious treasure from Jack which in itself was already worrisome, because it confirmed Deacon’s suspicion ‘they ain’t treating him right’.

His boots hit the hard ground of the base Angus MacGyver was stationed at. Being fed up of being put off, Jack had decided for an announced impromptu visit to find someone he could talk to and to find this precious treasure, to claim it for his team. They were Delta, an elite unit and hence entitled the best of the best and Jack was adamant to claim what was his and the best decision for his team.

He walked through the dusty barracks. The base was busy. People were running around, screaming commands, choppers were lifting up in the air. Looked like a major operation was going on, Jack concluded. But it didn’t stop him from his mission. Since every base was built the same, it didn’t take Jack long to spot the tent that he needed to go. He didn’t go in immediately, because it was already occupied. Jack for this found himself a spot in the shadows where he decided to wait for his turn. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the words that reached his ears caught his attention and who was Jack that he could dodge sonic waves?

“In four hours, there’s a Transall flying back to Rammstein. A medivac. I asked them they have room for one more and would be willing to fly him out,” Jack heard a concerned voice. The speed with which the words were spoken indicated that this was a matter of urgency.

“You did what?” Jack heard an obviously pissed off CO yell, “You clearly overstepped your competences here, Robinson.”

“I saved time, Sir,” there was a defiant stubbornness that Jack only knew too well. He had practiced it himself whenever he had to realise that his superior had earned his epaulettes not with smart bravery, but with arse licking. Hell, Jack hated these fights, because more often than not one lost these fights against the hierarchies that were so often blind for the obvious and hid behind rules and administrative procedures to avoid difficult decisions only so they could blame the outcome on someone else. The ‘system of responsibility evasion’ is how Worthy had once called it. Jack had to agree with him. This was a rotten system, but a system you could get along with as long as you knew your way and Jack had quickly learnt to find his way.

“An US soldier in a German Transall flown to a German base to be treated in a German military hospital. Robinson, I don’t have to tell you how much paperwork this will require. Four hours won’t be enough to get it done,” so many words to say ‘no’. When would the COs learn that a conversation would be over sooner when they just said ‘no’, instead of hiding behind dodgy excuses and lame apologies? They would never, because ‘no’ meant making a decision and taking responsibility, for which it was seldomly chosen as an answer. ‘Yes’ and ‘no’ were reserved for the very clear cases of which you seldomly had one at hand.

“The Germans have signalled that, due to the urgency of the matter, they could turn a blind eye, as long as the paperwork is completed afterwards,” now it was nearly a pleading tone. Jack hissed, because pleading and begging was never a good position to take when you were hard-arse negotiating with your CO. It made you vulnerable. It made you weak. It proved the rank: you were supposed to follow orders and not think about them.

“Only because the Germans are very lenient when it comes to their administrative procedure, doesn’t mean that we are as well. These rules exist for a reason and bending them could cause disruption to our system,” a fucked-up system which was not supposed to be fucked-up any further, Jack thought to himself. He felt sorry for the guy on the receiving end of the COs ‘no’ and was all the more impressed when he listened on only to hear that this was a guy who was very persistent and wouldn’t let this ‘no’ count.

“Damn it, he’ll die if we don’t get him out of here!” At these words Jack flinched. Their system was even more rotten than he had thought if even decisions over life and death depended on the rules. A cold shiver ran down his spine. Now, he agreed with Deacon that they had to get the kid out of here, because seriously, this was too harsh.

“He’ll die anyway or what makes you think that Specialist MacGyver would survive the flight to good old Europe?” the CO screamed. Jack’s jaw dropped while his mind went blank.

“But at least he would get a chance!” the Robinson guy yelled back.

“Specialist MacGyver should have thought earlier about the consequences when he overlooked the IED!” the blame game had begun.

“He couldn’t see it. You know it as well as I do,” Robinson hissed. Jack who had sobered up by now was about to step out of the shadows and intervene when an anger driven Charlie Robinson bumped into him with a force that made Jack stumble back. He nearly lost his balance, but held onto the arm of the now angrily glaring Robinson who really had more important things to do than to be hold off by a stranger who had gotten in his way. He brushed Jack’s hand off his arm and was about to march away, but Jack stopped him anyway, because he himself was on a mission now and as it seemed both men’s mission concerned the same young man.

“Specialist Angus MacGyver was injured in action?” Jack asked the man in front of him. With the hand that he had tightly wrapped around the other man’s arm he felt Robinson vibrate with tension that was caused by the frustration of the unfairness for which none of the men had an explanation. One could blame it on the system. One could even blame it on the rules that were applied, on administrative procedures. But at the end, it was always another human being who had to make the decision whether rules were to be applied in the specific case at hand of whether there was room for manoeuvre. The decision was seldomly fair, because you had nothing to measure it on. Had there been a similar case in which another decision had been made? If yes, why? Or were all cases treated the same? It was this uncertainty and the doubtlessness that there very likely were cases in which rules could be bent, just not in this very specific one, which made the situation and the decision so hard to bear.

“Yes,” was the short-clipped answer Robinson had to offer. He wanted to get away, but Jack stopped him. The curiosity rose inside of him and he asked Jack how he got to know Specialist MacGyver to which Jack replied that the kid had been assigned to his unit for a few days and that he – Angus MacGyver - had rescued the team from an unfortunate fate.

“Can you tell me, what happened?” Jack asked. It was the sincerity of the concern that glazed the other man’s eyes which persuaded Charlie from spilling the beans.

Mac got blown up. It was as simple as that. There had been an IED hidden beneath another one. The second he had dismantled the first one, the second one had gone off without a warning. The kid had stood no chance. The kid shouldn’t have been on duty in first place. The days after the day of the 1,000 IEDs had been hell. They got called out to a new location in a five-minute frequency not even having the chance to finish one job before two others were assigned to them. Mac had been drained beyond exhaustion. They didn’t have the time to think about sleep or food, had luck if they managed to get down enough water. Mac had taken power naps during their drive from location to location to regain some energy, but it hadn’t enough. The kid had needed some leave very badly. Charlie had let his superior know that Specialist Angus MacGyver wasn’t fit for action. He had even filled and signed a form that stated that his partner was in no condition to fulfil his duty. The form got lost somewhere on the way to his superior. Charlie was convinced that nothing of this would have happened if they had given Mac a break. Mac had super well-trained instincts. He would have noticed that something was off with the IED, but he had been too tired and only wanted to get it over with so that he could either head to the next location or preferable back to base to catch some sleep. So, yes probably it had been Mac’s mistake. He had lost his focus. He hadn’t been concentrated enough, had let his guard down. He simply hadn’t seen the other IED that went off the second in which he had disarmed the other one. His attention had been clouded by exhaustion.

The blast had sent him flying through the air like a ragdoll. It had pushed the air out of his lungs and the lack of oxygen had made him lose consciousness while still flying through the air. He didn’t feel it when his body harshly thudded to the ground, breaking his ribs in that process. Charlie had to watch helplessly how his partner was thrown through the air with a fireball rolling after him, threatening to swallow what was left of Mac, but luckily not being fast enough to get a bite. He flinched when he heard the ribs snap. It had been a loud, ugly sound, so violent and yet inevitable.

Charlie had slung his rifle over his shoulder and ran to his partner who lay face in the dirt on the hard, dusty ground, still and unmoving. Charlie had feared that Mac had been dead then, but feeling for the pulse had revealed that he was still alive, but only barely. The pulse was weak and thready. The chest was hardly moving at all with the breaths the unconscious body took in. Laboured. Raspy. Charlie instantly knew that it was bad. It became apparent when he saw the blood that was dripping out of Mac’s nose and mouth. He had tried to wake his partner, but he didn’t respond and then, to his horror, Charlie saw a puddle of warm blood forming beneath his unconscious partner’s torso. He had stepped back, too afraid to break the fragile body under the hot desert sun with a simple touch of his.

“His body, his chest…it’s full of shrapnel, but the infirmary is not equipped to remove it. He’s slowly, but surly bleeding out if not the fever from the infection kills him first,” Charlie said, because they could treat a punctured lung but not perform surgery on an opened chest to remove the pieces of shrapnel that were causing internal bleedings as they pierced through Mac’s organs like toothpicks. Jack saw the shadow cross Charlie’s face when he remembered how he had called for help that had taken forever to come. He hadn’t dared to move the body, too afraid that he might cause more damage than do any good. He had to keep his fists from punching someone when the field medics arrive and turned Mac harshly on his back. Luckily, the young man had been too out of it to notice anything. Their faces showed no mercy when the went to work, but the subtle shaking of a head ‘this is a goner’ hadn’t remained hidden from Charlie.

There had been barely something like life left inside of Mac. He had been ashen pale. His BDU drenched in blood. The loss of volume had made it difficult to find a vein for which they had to pull off his boots and used his ankles to administer the necessary fluids, squeezing the bags so it would get in quicker, while another medic started to insert a drainage to drain the blood out of Mac’s lungs that was pooling in them because one of the numerous ribs that had gotten broken had pierced his lung. The whistle of air leaving the confinement of the chest, Charlie would never forget this sound. He had watched mesmerised how the blood slowly dripped out of the chest. It was paradox. The kid had been losing too much blood already. He needed it inside him and yet, they drained it out of him to save his life. The oxygen mask that was placed over the young man’s nose and mouth didn’t fog up. The kid was barely breathing and the medics decided to intubate there and then. Charlie had watched them lifting Mac onto a stretcher. Not the slightest moan had escaped his lips when he was loaded onto a stretcher and into a chopper. The medics’ work was efficient, but heartless. Charlie had wanted to ride with them, to provide his partner comfort, support, but he was denied this wish. He had to bring the Humvee back to base, collected another specialist and head out again to make the goddamned area a safer place for the rest of them.

“Can you bring me to him?” Jack asked Charlie. He was beyond worried right now. Deacon had been right. Deacon had been right and it had taken Jack so damn long to acknowledge it and to react. Fury arose inside of him, because he felt like he was to blame for this. If he only had done something earlier, tried to get the kid out of this hell of a base. He should have been alerted when Mac had told him about the cause of the bullet wound on his upper-arm. This in itself should have been enough for him to intervene, but at least to investigate. Hell, he should have taken notice when his entire team stood up for the kid they barely knew but who radiated such reliability and loyalty that one could almost think he was naive, if one didn't know any better. Jack balled his hands into fists. His finger nails dug painfully in his palms. He deserved the pain. It was nothing compared to the agony the kid went through.

When they reached the infirmary, Charlie led him straight to Mac, ignoring the doctors and nurses who requested to know who the other man was who obviously didn’t belong to their unit. Jack’s eyes widened in horror when he saw Mac lying on a cot. His torso was wrapped up in bandages, but the blood had already soaked through. There were big crimson blotches dotting it. Fuelled by this horrific sight, Jack ran over to the kid’s side. He cupped the clammy cheek with his hand and tried to get the kid’s attention, but with not much of success. The eyes opened to slits. He could not even see the blue of the irises, but Mac didn’t recognise him or where he was. He was too out of it to notice what was going on around him. Jack took in the sight of the ashen pale skin that was covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat that had the blond hair plastered against the forehead. The breaths were laboured. The kid was fighting hard for each ounce of air. There were IVs still in each of his ankles. One to refill the fluids and another to one to pump some blood into the nearly dried out blood vessels. It looked like the MASH you get to see when you saw movies about the second world war or Vietnam. And here Jack had truly believed that they had left those days behind. Mac’s eyes closed. Jack brushed a hand through the sweaty hair. The kid was burning up. Charlie was right. The kid would either bleed out or die from an infection. Jack steeled himself against the heartbreak that was announcing its arrival. He had no time for that. He had to do something. Act now and react later, because he didn’t want to have answer to his team when the kid died and Jack had not at least tried to prevent that from happening.

“Can you help him?” Charlie asked hesitantly. Jack heard the least hope mixed in that voice that only seconds ago had yelled at an CO. He looked at Mac. The kid had saved his life. The kid had saved the life of Deacon, Fitzy and Worthy. He had done it and not expected anything in return. There was simply no other option. Jack knew what he had to do, because he hadn’t put it into words yet, but he was grateful. He was so damn grateful for what the kid had done. He was grateful that he and his team had gotten another chance. What the kid had done has had such a deep impact that Jack, Deacon, Fitzy and Worthy had decided to end their tour once their time was up. Mac had given them back their lives and this was their gifted horse. They wouldn’t put it into question. They kid had given them another chance, enabled them to take in a different perspective, because maybe they weren’t as lost as they thought they were. The kid had shown them that they were still worth something, worth being rescued which had reminded them all of what they had and had left behind when they had left home to fight a war at the seemingly end of the world. Jack had his family in Texas. A family that wrote him letters and loved him, although they knew of what he had done, knew that he had blood on his hands. They loved him anyway and made sure he knew that. Worthy had a girlfriend stateside who wanted him back home, because she might be a tiny little bit pregnant and she wanted their child to grow up with his or her father. Deacon actually had a college degree in economics and had loved the work with numbers. He wanted to try to get a decent office job and return to what once had been his passion: building businesses. Fitzy just wanted to get out of the hellhole and start from new, maybe an own restaurant. Deacon already had some ideas and Fitzy was a good cook and somehow it was settled that they would set it up together.

So yes, this scrawny burger-named kid had provided them with a new perspective, because he had rescued them. And looking at him and seeing what he missed: family, girlfriend, friends, had made them appreciate what they had back at home so much more. Because they had something, while he seemed to have nothing and no one at all. They weren’t lost, while nobody was out there looking for the kid. They had considered themselves as dregs of society, because of the atrocities they had committed. But at the end, there was still someone or something waiting for them when they returned home, considering them as the men, fathers, friends and brothers they were. This was worth it coming home alive, with all limbs attached at the right places. And Jack truly believed that the kid had this, too. He only needed someone to help him change his perspective. Jack had come to be this someone. Maybe not alone, maybe with the help of the rest of the team, but that had been the mission that he had come here for in first place. He wouldn’t accept its failure. Mac hadn’t accepted hopelessness of their situation when he had run off through the desert to get help. Jack owed it to him to do it alike.

The first thing he did was stopping a doctor and inquiring about the kid’s condition which wasn’t good. He was not stable enough for an air transport to Rammstein, but he needed medical assistance ASAP, because the infection was taking its toll, the bleeding had to be stopped, but for all this, they had to perform a surgery that required the chest to be fully opened like in case of an open-heart surgery. They simply weren’t equipped for such a major surgery which was even more complicated due to the fact that the kid had nearly broken all of his ribs due to the blast and the hard landing.

“So, the hospital in Kabul is the best option he has,” Jack concluded. The doctor confirmed, but interjected as well that for this a) they needed the permission to transfer the patient and b) whether the hospital in Kabul was better equipped was very questionable. Jack listened, but knew he could solve a) and b). He went out of the infirmary tent, leaving a silent Charlie Robinson behind. Jack had to make a few phone calls.

Charlie stayed with Mac. Someone had to make sure that the kid didn’t slip away while they tried to save his scrawny arse. Hence, Charlie sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs, squeezing a cloth out, before wiping it over Mac’s forehead and face to cool it off. The fever had gone up. Mac was delirious. His head would every now and then turn hectically left and right. He mumbled something, but the voice was weak and hoarse. Charlie could only make out a few bits and pieces like ‘mom’, ‘dad’ and ‘I’m sorry’. Charlie, who knew the one or other piece of Mac’s past, because they had been working so closely together that they nearly had lived in each other pockets, gritted his teeth to compose himself. He wanted to cry. He wanted to shed all his tears for a young man who had to go through such an agony. As if living through a childhood that lacked of parental love and care of all sorts wasn’t hard enough, he now had to endure reliving it. It wasn’t fair. Nothing of this was fair. And Charlie disobeyed orders when he stayed with Mac instead of going out, disarming IEDs. Charlie stayed when the nurse changed the bandages. The smell of infection lingered in the air and Charlie asked her straight away: “How can you do this? I mean, he’s suffering, but you do nothing about it.” The nurse shrugged, having become indifferent to words that were intended to hurt. She simply stated that they had the soldier on morphine already, but that they couldn’t increase the dose if they didn’t want him to die, which was kind of ironic, because Mac was dying. They could at least make it a peaceful affair instead of torturing him like this. But this was not on the nurse to decide, sorry.

Charlie dabbed Mac’s arms with the wet cloths to cool him down when he suddenly heard commotion surging through the tent. He heard the CO yell: “You cannot do this! This is my unit. Specialist MacGyver is my soldier. You have no right to march in here and take what you want!” It was the same CO who had told Charlie that they couldn’t help Mac. Jack, followed by Deacon, Worthy, Fitzy and a handful of medics, stopped in his tracks.

“Yes, I can and I will. I have it even written and signed,” Jack told the CO, produced an official looking document out of his cargo pants and slapped it hard against the CO’s chest. Yes, Jack had pulled some strings, but being the Chief of an elite unit earned you some privileges and favours. Jack had made use of it and got the kid assigned to his team in record time. Now, he was the one making decision and his decision was to get the kid to the Kabul hospital.

The medical team Jack had brought with him swiftly exchanged the most important facts, before they got Mac ready for transport, eliciting moans of pain that escaped the kid’s lips when the medics lifted him onto a stretcher that was then rolled out of the tent, flanked by Deacon and Fitzy who walked besides the feverish, unconscious body with Jack leading the way and Worthy making sure that nobody who meant trouble followed them.

Mac didn’t notice much of what went on around him. He felt movement, but couldn’t tell whether he was moving or his surroundings and frankly, he didn’t care because he felt like he was lying on a soft cloud. Everything was dulled out, the noises, the smells, the sensations. His brain somehow realised that there was something, but it couldn’t conclude what it was or whether it was real. When he tried to open his eyes, because curiosity was still in him, he saw blurry shadows which were Deacon and Jack leaning over him while they were flying him out in a chopper to the hospital in Kabul. Mac’s blood pressure was dropping rapidly. They tried to replenish the volume by squeezing saline and blood into him, but it was of not much help. Jack realised that the kid had to be bleeding badly and since the bandages around his torso were soaked, but not yet drenched in his own blood, Jack assumed some bad internal bleeding the cause for it. Not an unusual cause of death after having gone kaboom. Worrisome nevertheless. Jack cupped Mac’s cheek. It was hot to the touch. Jack felt him slipping away. It made him feel helpless, useless even, because he had come with a mission to make a change, to help and now he had to watch how his mission failed and the scrawny burger-named kid, who didn’t even had the pleasure of his first legal beer, was paying the price for it. It felt so damn unfair.

“It’s not your fault, Jack,” Deacon said, reading his Chief’s mind. Rationally, Jack knew that he was right. He didn’t feel it, though while he sat there next to his life saver. He took Mac’s hand that was ice cold and lay lax in his. It was so fragile compared to Jack’s rough, calloused hand, dedicated even. Slim fingers that were covered in fine lines of scars, just like the back of the hand where the lines were accompanied by scarred dots and blotches. Never had Jack seen so many scars on one hand. He wondered where they came from and whether he would ever get to listen to the stories that lay behind them. He suspected some childhood mischief. He didn’t think about a parent who used to punish his son the old-fashioned way: extend your hands to receive the punishment which was either whip lashes with an old-fashioned ruler or a cane. Whatever had been considered as the right instrument, it had left bruises and cuts that had never been properly treated and hence several of those had gotten infected which had left the scars on Mac’s hand. This was the reason why Mac didn’t like other people taking his hands, for which he would have pulled his hand out of Jack’s if he had been conscious, but he wasn’t.

Or was he? He wasn’t really out of it, not as much as he wished he was. There was an agony inside of him that made him wish that his mother was there to take the pain away which he couldn’t actually feel but of which he knew that it was there. The wish for his mother to come, to wrap him in her arms and to tell him that everything would be alright, had not been as strong as it was now, which meant it hadn’t been that intense since he was ten and had accepted that he wasn’t lovable enough for his father to stick around. He wanted to call for her, maybe she came when he asked her pretty please. That she wasn’t there anymore, couldn’t come, not even she wanted to, this fact wasn’t present in his clouded mind. He tried to pronounce the word that he felt so strongly in his heart, but the letters wouldn’t roll over his tongue. He tried anyway, because all he wanted was his dead mother. He had wanted her for so long. He was sure that now was the time that he deserved for her come. He had been a good boy. He had obeyed, never defied. Had done as good as he could and exceeded expectations. He surely deserved his mother now who, so he was told, had left because he had been too much trouble.

She had been sick and weak. She had needed her energy for herself, but Mac had been too needy, had needed too much attention. He hadn’t been a good boy. She had died, because he had been ruthless with his needs and questions and his mother didn’t have the heart to say no to whatever he had needed. She had put him over her own health. She had cared for him, provided love although she had needed to get it from him. This, so he had been told, had been the reason why she had died too soon. This truth had burnt itself into Mac’s soul. He had never questioned it. He had never argued against it. He had never tried to persuade himself from it being wrong. Even though he knew that his mother had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, taking the blame felt right, because it meant there was actually someone to blame. It was this blame that nobody got to see when they saw James MacGyver, a widow but a committed father whom they had to cut some slack, because he had lost his wife.

Jack watched Mac’s attempts to pronounce something. It gave hope, because it meant that there was fight and life inside the young man, but he couldn’t understand what the young man wanted to say. He leant over Mac’s lips to get to hear it better, but he heard nothing. He clutched the kid’s face in both his hands. And then he heard a hushed whisper, nearly inaudible, but heartbreakingly enough that it had the force to shatter Jack himself.

“’m sorry mom,” was what Jack could make out of the half mumbled and half slurred words, because Mac hoped that if his mother knew that he didn’t want to be the burden that he had been and that he regretted his neediness and that, if she heard the sincerity behind his words, that then she would come and wrap him in her arms. For Jack, however, this was pending between depressing and horrific. That a dying soldier dedicated his last words to the person he has had the strongest emotional connection wasn’t new to him. He had heard the names of wives, lovers, friends and mothers, fathers and sisters while he had kept vigil at the deathbed. Never had he heard someone apologize.

“They ain’t treating him good,” Deacon, who had heard just what Jack had to listen to and had a hard time to process it, repeated what he had said.

Chapter Text

They had ambushed the hospital in Kabul. They hadn’t announced their arrival hence the medical staff didn’t know that they soon would be faced with a seriously, maybe even lethally, injured US soldier. The group of soldiers had nearly stormed the ER when they had stormed in with a deathly pale patient on their gurney. Jack had barked orders and requested to speak to the doctor on duty. Orderlies had tried to stop them when they entered a vacant examination cubicle where the medics that had accompanied Jack to the base and now to the hospital lifted the blond soldiers from the gurney onto the examination table, eliciting a soft groan from the unconscious body that was not as unconscious as it seemed. No matter how small the sound, it alerted Jack, who jumped back to the kid’s side to check on him, anyway. He took Mac’s hand again. The physical contact grounded Mac. He felt it, felt that there was someone holding on to him although he couldn’t tell who it was. It annoyed him though, because he felt the need to leave but some imaginary hands held him back and he didn’t have the fight in him to fend off whoever was currently holding on to him. Jack noticed that the kid’s breath was going too fast by now, as if he had been running a marathon. It was a result of Mac’s mind trying to escape. Time was running out. Mac didn’t feel it. There was a certain calmness rising. It approached him, wrapped around him like a soothing blanket. But Jack, who understood what was going on, wouldn’t have any of it. He pulled at this blanket, pulled it away from its prey, while talking to Mac.

“Hey kid, don’t you dare making a run for it, understood? I’ll follow you in whatever hell you’ll land yourself in and I’ll kick your scrawny arse back to the here and now and believe me, that won’t be much fun. You’ll wish you’d be dead then,” Jack threatened him. These were familiar words to all of them, because they had spoken or been subjected to those or similar ones themselves the one or other time. These were words that spoke of utter helplessness while disapproving the plain facts. Delusion coupled with false hopes. So valuable, though, that they had their very own right to exist in that very ER, in that tiny cubicle that was only protected by a curtain running around it that offered none privacy at all and made the fight for life an event, visible for everyone who was interested.

Worthy looked around only to notice that apart from them, nobody was interested. The fight for life and death had become an absolute term in the lives of the people whom they were supposed to protect from terrorists and rads. Their eyes were dull towards death. It was nothing out of the ordinary. The contrary. It had become so awfully ordinary that a woman crying over the corpse of her husband or son didn’t call for any attention. Nobody accused you, if you didn’t cry because there were any tears left. The tears of the country had dried out a long time ago and now, its grief was a desert itself. It was strange. It was cruel, how used the people here had become to a life changing circumstance. And yet, Jack and his team hadn’t reached that level of indifference yet, although they had held dying comrades in their arms, had watched civilians go up in flames and children die from diseases which were a long time eradicated at home. Their grief was still blooming and they wanted to deprive it of any further fertile ground, in the hope that it would eventually wither away.

The whole team gathered around the examination table, building a human-wall to keep death away from the wounded and the soul from escaping. Their bodies built a shield that wouldn’t let anything in nor out. Mac had no chance to escape.

With horror, they stared at the fight that took place in front of them. Mac, as weak as he was, writhed in pain like a pathetic worm when the pain that he was in, became more and more present due to the subsiding effects of the pain meds. His groans and small screams spared all dignity as they reflected utter misery. Jack closed his eyes, took a breath. When he opened again, he was still faced with the painful truth of a young man dying far away from home in a foreign country. It tore at Jack’s heart strings, because this was not how it was supposed to end. The hero, their hero, was falling apart in front of them. Riddled with shrapnel, he was left to decay. It was ironic to watch their plan crumble under the sheer force of war. Indeed, they had had a plan. They had wanted to make a change. Just like Mac had done for them, they had wanted to offer him a new perspective. They had wanted to do something good. This plan wasn’t supposed to turn to a tragedy.

Their circle that closed in on Mac, to form tight barriers against any sort of escape, was disturbed by hurried footsteps. Jack stepped out of the circle, but he didn’t leave any room for Mac to escape, because the remaining friends moved closer together, sealing the gap that Jack temporarily had left.

“What the hell is going on here?” a man wearing a white coat and glasses on his nose exclaimed in fluent, but heavily accented English when he stepped inside the cubicle. He looked young, but worn out. He wore a stethoscope around his neck and his whole demeanour told Jack that this was the man he had been looking for: a doctor. However, the doctor wasn’t very pleased about the intruders that stood in his clinic and who didn’t have an ounce of decency to introduce themselves to him. These guys, obviously US soldiers hadn’t even asked for permission when they had stormed his clinic and claimed that cubicle for them. This act had an imperialistic taste and when there was one thing the doctor had come to hate than it was one sovereign disregard another one. But Jack was prepared. He had met this reaction more often than not and admittedly he could relate to it. How would he react when he was in the doctor’s position, facing some foreigners that claimed his territory as if it was theirs?

“Our friend needs your help,” Jack replied immediately and then realised his impolite manners. He introduced himself and his team before he gave away the identity of the patient and the circumstances that had forced them to enter the ER as harshly as they had done it, unannounced and with a wounded soldier who was in an obvious critical condition. Fortunately, of the oath the doctor had given when receiving his license to practice, his conscience did not allow him to dwell long on the how and why. He told Jack that he needed to assess the patient. The circle once more opened, absorbing the doctor in its middle, with Jack reclaiming his former spot to close the circle tight again. The doctor stepped to the young man that was bleeding heavily from wounds in his torso. He was delirious. It felt like he could feel the heat radiating from the body only by standing next to the young man. It didn’t need him much to tell that it was no good.

“Your friend is in a critical condition,” he therefore told the men who had all their eyes fixed on him, but that was okay. He had gotten used to the stares that swung between hopeful and hopeless. He didn’t notice the accompanying pressure anymore as it had become such a matter of course. It didn’t get to him anymore, not like it had when he had been fresh out of med school.

“But you can help him, right?” Jack asked hesitantly. The doctor’s face didn’t look very optimistic, but they didn’t have the time for long discussions. Jack himself saw that it was time to act. The kid’s life was hanging by a thin thread that threatened to tear any second.

“Not much, I’m sorry. We’re not equipped for treating such injuries. We were looted again and again. We have just the bare necessities to treat superficial injuries,” the doctor explained apologetically. He felt it. Every soul that got killed through war was one too many. Such a young soul made it even worse, because in the doctor’s eyes the young ones were the hope for a better life, because they had lived through the war and had time and opportunity to make a change. They had a reason to make a change after experiencing the hardship they were forced to go through. In fact, all the doctor’s hopes rested on the young ones, whether it was the locals or foreign soldiers, journalists or medics. He didn’t care as long as they bore the capability for change.

“What do you need?” Jack asked, looking at Deacon and Worthy who knew what this was about. They would pull available strings and even some more if need be. Whatever was necessary, knowing well that even if they did all in their power, it would feel like their personal failure should the kid not make it.

The doctor frowned and only answered when Jack asked him again. He listed medications, equipment, material while going through the treatment of the wounds he was faced with, taking into consideration risks and complications. There were a lot of risks and a lot of possible complications. The list was very long.

“That’s all?” Jack asked critically, though, and added when he met the doctor’s puzzled face, “I assume you need further supplies, bandages, medicine, whatever. I mean, my friend’s not the only patient around here.” It was an offer. It was a trade. The doctor understood. Gratefulness written openly on his face, he scurried away and came back with a list of further supplies that would get him through the next few months and allow the treatment of some more serious injuries and diseases as well.

Jack, Deacon, Worthy and Fitzy read through the list. Jack knew some of the things he could get from an US base. They always carried extra supplies. It would be easy to get a hand on those. A favour here a favour there. That was not crucial at all. However, a few other things were difficult, especially the surgical instruments. They had to assess the black market for that. Money was not the problem. Being identified as US Soldier was. But Jack was willing to take the risk. Mac had risked his life for them without an ounce of hesitation. It was on them to return that loyalty.

“I can do it. I speak their language fluently. They won’t realise that I’m an American,” Worthy offered to take over the purchases from the black market. He was right. He had easier access to the locals than all the rest of them together. He easily blended into the crowd, not only speaking their verbal language, but also their body language. He mimicked their posture, appearing like a local who moved around the streets and markets as if he knew the way like his own home.

Deacon and Fitzy offered to take care of the rest of the list, which left Jack to keep vigil. He watched the others leave the ER eager to accomplish their task. He turned around. The cubicle was now busy with action. Nurses who undressed the kid, unwrapped the bandages and started cleaning the wounds. A doctor called orders which Jack wouldn’t have understood if they had been spoken in English. He turned his gaze away when the bandages were tossed away and the toros was exposed to the sight. The doctor hissed in sympathy when he saw the gaping, oozing wounds, and said something that sounded worryingly like a prayer.

The doctor did what he could at this stage. They cleaned the wounds that already offered this sweet smell of infection. They settled the still unconscious body in one the beds lining up the walls a big hall. No privacy here either. Jack followed and got awfully reminded of the sixties. No fancy medical equipment got attached to the pale body, no heart-monitor, no pulse-oximeter. An oxygen mask and a few IVs were all the hospital had to offer and Jack asked himself once again whether he had made the wrong call. The doctor looked as concerned as Jack felt.

“You know, this is not the first soldier I am treating here, but he’s the first who has so much company with him. Usually, they get dropped off here and the rest hurries back to their duty. Don’t you have anything better to do than sit and wait?” the doctor spoke bluntly, but what he said was true. Usually, the didn’t take the time, didn’t have it to sit with one of them when being injured. This was a privilege, a privilege you got when you served in an elite unit. It was a privilege Jack simply took, because he could never forgive himself if he left the kid alone.

When the doctor didn’t receive an answer, but curiosity won the better over him, he asked Jack who the young soldier was to him when he put up with all this trouble. It was a question simply asked, but not as simply answered. Jack didn’t know. Neither could Mac answer this question if he had been conscious. Jack thought a little longer about it. It could be pity for the young blond soldier who had nobody but himself. It might have been pity at first that had made him tolerate the antics of the young man who had a tendency to disobedience. But something had replaced that feeling. Unfortunately, it had only set in after the kid had been sent on another mission and after Deacon and Worthy had been nagging Jack about taking the kid into their unit. They had made Jack think about a courageous loyal young soldier who had saved their lives. Jack couldn’t deny it. He wanted to get to know this young man, find out what had driven him to such a heroism which had been far from understood. Nobody would have blamed the scrawny burger-named kid if he had left them behind to save his bacon.

But Mac hadn’t done it for himself. In fact, if Mac had been on his own, he might not have made the efforts of the half-marathon, because what would it have been good for? Prolonging his misery? Granted, people would consider this as suicidal tendencies, but that was wrong. Mac would never cross a busy street on purpose or swallow too many pills, drink himself to the oblivions. Never intentionally at least. However, he could accept fate and lacked the tendency to change the irreversible. He did not try to change created facts. He looked them in the eye and accepted them. Everything else was in vain, a waste of energy and brought nothing but pain and sorrow.

“He has a life to live and I want him to do just that, live a life. His life,” Jack then simply told the doctor, who frowned confused, before taking a seat next to Jack, because he was intrigued by whatever strange bond was developing between the dying man and the older man, who seemed so determined to keep the kid alive.

“But if he has a life to live, why did he join the army then? I mean, in the states you don’t have a compulsory military service. You don’t fight a war in your own country. So why do you enlist if you have better things to do with your life?” the doctor asked. Jack shrugged his shoulders. He had thought about this very question on and on. He didn’t have an answer to why a kid like Angus MacGyver enlisted instead of heading for the bright future that had lain in front of him.

Mac didn’t know the answer either. Even he could only guess on the grounds of his past. Maybe people were right, because he was a lonely soul and since nobody would miss him, why not giving his life for the safety of others? Sometimes, though, Mac had gotten the impression that he had been fed up with the bubble he had been living in. Everything had been prefect. He had reached everything with an ease, without many efforts. He could have carried on with that easy life in which things came just easily to him. It hadn’t felt right anymore. It didn’t feel right, because it was the total opposite of the rest of his life. It had felt like he had been longing for the hardship that had imprinted his childhood until he had gone off to the MIT. His life was in absolute imbalance. It was either miserable or absolutely successful. But what was missing was the constant that kept him grounded, prevented him from undue flights of fancy and kept him from falling into the abyss. How many times had Mac been awarded and received academic honours that he did not appreciate? For what? For what were these awards worth anything? He could boast about them. Build a career. But it couldn't fill the aching, gaping hole in his life. No matter how many academic titles he collected, it would never give him a family or anything close enough. He would still always be alone.

In the end, he had chosen a life that was miserable across the board, because this way he didn't have to ask himself what he had done to deserve it. He deserved nothing and he could gain this clarity through his service in the army. He had needed this clarity to arrive at his centre, to settle down. It was certainly not fulfilling, but he had found an inner peace. His life suddenly made sense. Mac had never mattered before so it was alright that he didn’t matter now, for which he didn’t mind this being his final call. He had done his deed.

“What’s wrong with your country?” the doctor asked Jack looking at the young man, because only now he realised just how young the patient was that was fighting for his life in a hospital in Kabul. Added to that, Jack had made the mistake of pouring his heart out, telling the doctor about the young man who had nobody who was waiting for him at home.

“I mean,” the doctor went on explaining his question, “You’re living in a rich country. You miss nothing. You live in peace and still. Your young ones are as miserable to seek their luck in a war which is not even theirs.” It was a good question, but one Jack couldn’t answer, because at the end they all had their smaller or bigger problems.

Life wasn’t as easy. For nobody of them. Mac wished he had ever found out what his father’s problem had been. His father had always said when Mac had done something wrong, that he was a – the - problem. Mac had believed it for a while. But at some point, he had realised that it didn’t make sense. His father surely wouldn’t have put up with him for such a long time if he really had been a problem, right? And then he remembered those nice afternoons they had spent together in the park. It had been autumn, the year after his mother had died. His father had wanted to teach him something about aerodynamics. For this, the had built kites. Together they had sat at the kitchen table and built kites of different size and shape and with different weights. The day after, they wanted to try them out and his father would then explain him why the one kite flew better than the other one. He would cheer Mac on to run faster to get the kite up in the sky and he would catch Mac when he ran too fast and tripped over his own little feet, preventing him from falling. This memory caused a warm feeling which turned cold when he then remembered that his father had left. No, this afternoon and his father then abandoning him didn’t create a clear picture, but a contorted one that didn’t make any sense at all and left Mac only more confused.

What remained after the realisation that Mac could have hardly been the only problem, was the sting caused by the idea that he wasn’t worth enough for his father solving these problems so he could stick around. Instead, Mac got dumped with his grandfather who had been too old to raise a child, but too good-natured to turn down the ‘offer’ when child services had knocked on his door with a snotty nosed ten years old in tow, telling him that the father was gone and now someone had to take care of the boy. They had preferred the upbringing with a relative instead of foster care because a) the system was overburdened and b) they didn’t know how to do justice to a kid like Mac.

Harry had said ‘yes, of course’, had ushered Mac inside, set up a room for him and had tried. He had tried. Mac had tried, too. He had stayed out of Harry’s hair, took care of his own business, took over household chores, whatever was needed to let Harry stay and being allowed to stay. It had taken Harry five years. After that, he had been too tired. He had been suffering from a heart condition already before Mac had moved in with him. The doctor had been concerned about the strain the upbringing of a kid would put on Harry from the very beginning. Once again, Mac had been left with the thought that he had been the reason for a death, although he had tried to make it different this time, not like when his mother had been sick and he had needed her and asked for her comfort and care. It had been Harry who had wanted his grandson to have a good childhood and for this had put up with more than Mac had asked him for. Maybe Mac should have turned Harry’s offers of camping trips, assistance with his science projects and homework down. Maybe, if Harry has had the opportunity to sit in his armchair more often, he would have lived longer. Mac didn’t know. He would never find out.

Jack watched Mac and saw that the young man’s condition was in decline. He dabbed the forehead with a wet cloth. Mac was slipping away. Jack asked himself whether maybe he should stop holding on to him. Perhaps he was only prolonging a suffering. Strangely, Mac wouldn’t consider his own state as suffering. He had come to accept it. However, if it ended now, it would be okay. He would be okay. Had always been. But Jack wouldn’t. A life not lived was not yet supposed to end and thus, instead of leaving Mac like so many before him had done, Jack stuck around, holding on to the scrawny burger-named kid.

“Kid, don’t try anything funny. It’s not worth it,” Jack warned the kid, threats being the only phrases that came over his lips, because he was not yet ready to beg. And Mac although unconscious felt this solid presence of Jack’s which got him confused. He had only felt it once and thought he would never feel it again, after Bozer had terminated their friendship.

Bozer and his parents had been there after Harry had passed away. Without many words said, they had taken Mac in, opened their home and hearts for him, and although Mac had stayed only a short while with them, they had left a strong impression on Mac. Those few weeks before he had left for the MIT had been the most carefree weeks in his life. It had been nice having someone asking you whether you have been sleeping alright or how your day has been. He had felt precious when he had answered that he was fine, but was still met with concerned eyes, because nobody really believed him. Not after what he had been through. He had felt overly valuable when they had told him that he didn’t have to hid, but could tell them – Milton and Lauretta – when he didn’t feel good. Anytime, whenever he needed them. He never did, but the mere idea that he could do just that and nobody would see him as nuisance had felt good. He had never in fact felt as light-hearted as back then, when someone took care that he ate breakfast, prepared dinner for him and even did his laundry so that he only had to put everything back into his closet. Mac felt truly grateful for this time, for having been allowed to make this experience. It never occurred to him that this might have been some sort of standard which he had been supposed to experience at home as well. He probably had, when his mom had been still alive, but he had been too young to remember that. Harry had been too sick and Mac had wanted to help his grandpa around the house as much as he could. That was why he knew how to do the dishes and the laundry, how to make scrambled eggs and spaghetti for dinner and what he should take care of to have in the fridge.

Mac had already done household chores when his father had been still around. He had to prepare his breakfast for himself, because his father had never been around when Mac had gotten ready for school. Since his father had never liked any sort of disorder, Mac also had learnt from early on how to tidy up the mess he made. Make sure that nobody notices your very own existence had become a mantra, because if his father hadn’t been aware of him, his father hadn’t any reason for complaints or rants. It had been peaceful then and Mac had gotten enough time to focus on his projects. However, God forbade that Mac forgot to clean up once in a while. Bozer had asked him how he had gotten that bruise or this scrape. It had been the time when it was established that Angus MacGyver was a klutz who used to trip over his own feet.

When Mac had packed his bags to go to Boston, Lauretta and Milton had told him that he could come back and stay with them whenever he felt like it, whenever he wanted to come home. Because this was what they considered themselves and their house as. His home. Anytime. He had never taken them up on their offer. It had been time for him to stand on his own two feet and live a life of his own. It had felt right. It had been about time. By then, Mac had been convinced that he was supposed to live the life of an adult. So, he went to the MIT with a lot of wits, with a smartness people would envy him for, but without any sort of emotional resilience that would allow him to live through the crisis of adolescence paired with the disasters of college life. He sometimes wished he had taken the offer and returned to what could have been the closest thing to a home that he ever had. Maybe if he had, the fight that stood between him Bozer now would never have happened. Mac was certain that it wouldn’t, because then Mac would have gotten a chance to learn that also he had something to lose and that hence, joining the army was a really bad idea and that it was better to stick to the saver choice.

“You are not alone kid. I promise, I’ll stick around and help you back onto the horse called life until you’re sitting safely in the saddle. Wookie life debt and so on. You saved my life, I’ll save yours. Promise,” Jack told the kid who was burning up by now, but the hand that he held in his was worryingly cold. He squeezed it. Mac felt it, the calloused warm skin against his cold. The warmth provided a strange kind of comfort. Mac was reluctant to let go of it. He relished it. It was what kept him from turning to the darkness that was slowly but steadily enclosing him.

It was already late at night when Deacon, Worthy and Fitzy returned with trucks bringing the supplies they had gathered. Nobody asked where these things came from or how they had been able to organise them in such a short time. Nobody would ever ask them, because they flew under the radar most of the time. Only a handful of people knew what they were doing. The mission files were redacted beyond recognition, not haven their names were disclosed in most of them. These missions were seldomly official. They knew too much as if it was worth pissing them off with bureaucracy. So, nobody looked too closely when the sacked in some money here and there, got a few contacts they better didn’t have and used the short route to reach their destination or called in favours nobody dared turning down.

“If you put up with all this trouble, the kid really must mean something to you,” the doctor said when he watched how US soldiers unloaded the supplies from the truck and then helped the hospital staff to store it safely and hopefully out of reach of the terrorists. The doctor was beyond grateful when he saw that the soldiers had kept their word and not only focused on their own. It was a grand gesture that threatened to force the tears into his eyes, because it meant that they weren’t forgotten. Not yet, at least. No matter the ruthlessness of the violence that surrounded them, there was always humanity withstanding the odds like a fragile flower in the desert withstood the heat and drought.

Jack turned to the doctor and then asked him: “So, now where you’ve got everything, can you help my friend?” Jack knew very well that it was a close call now. The kid was barely holding onto the thread of life that Jack had become.

“I cannot promise you anything. His prognosis by now is not good, but I will try my best. You kept your promise and I’ll keep mine,” with this said, Mac was prepared for a surgery that included plating his ribs before digging out the shrapnel from his chest. Otherwise, the risk of the broken ribs doing more damage was too high. Jack shrugged. He understood. No, not really. He didn't, but he had to trust the man in the white coat, because he didn’t understand a thing.

“We did what we could,” Deacon said. All four of them gathered in the waiting area, not willing to go and fulfilling any duties until the kid had turned the corner.

“Now it’s on the kid to put in some hard work,” Worthy said.

Chapter Text

Deacon read from a book for him. “Hero”, David Bowie’s biography. The kid surely was too young to know Bowie’s brilliance which was an educational gap that needed to be closed. Besides, before the Chief would start about Metallica, ACDC and whatever, he had to make sure to introduce the kid to the real arts of rock music before he wasted his ears to the simple rhythm of trash metal without even knowing the background story of this music. Jack had been surprised to find out that Deacon not only listened to music, but lived it. He played the guitar when nobody was around. Why he hid his talent was unknown, because he played it quite well, but playing the guitar was something for the lonely, private moments when home seemed too far away. Playing the guitar, he did when the longing became too big as if he could deal with it and then he withdrew and played a few riffs until his head was back in its centre. Having something like this to rely on when time became especially ugly, was invaluable. Mac then tended to repair whatever had gotten damaged at the very base he was stationed at. He repaired everything. From a truck, to a radio over to some kitchen appliances from the mess tent, he repaired everything only to get his mind off. He had done this, used it ever since as a tool to not having to think about things that hurt. He could run away from them when he simply repaired a radio or a bike, a TV remote. His head would have to focus on something else instead of the turmoil that he felt inside. Mac was smart enough to know that the pain wouldn’t go away, but he wouldn’t feel it, because it would withdraw into the background, becoming white noise. That was sufficient for his purposes. That was okay. He would never be pain free, but also that was okay, because there would always be people who would have to go though hard times. Why not him, too?

Deacon brushed the sweaty bangs out of the kid’s face. The fever was still taking its toll and everyday could now be the day when his body called it quits. Enduring these fevers for such a long time was impossible. They had removed worst of the shrapnel, but the infection was persistent. The opened and cleaned the wounds over and over again. The antibiotics were administered through an IV that was placed beneath the kid’s collarbone that looked so awfully poky, because with the fever the meat melted away from his bones. Deacon worried that they had been too late. He wanted to keep the kid, hold on to him, but he didn’t know how. The kid so obviously hadn’t believed the team spirit when he had been conscious. How was he supposed to believe it now where he was constantly unconscious? He took his hand when he noticed the movements of the head. A tossing and turning, but so subtly that it was barely noticeable. But Deacon noticed. He understood.

Since after the surgery, Mac had started to suffer from fever dreams which weren’t the nice ones. It wasn’t dreams about the Bozers or his mother, but dreams when his father had lost his temper and yelled at him to be fucking more careful when he was fixing himself something to eat, because a broken plate needed to be replaced and these things cost money for which he – Mac’s Dad – had to work hard for. Mac got lucky when the money to replace whatever he had managed to break - a plate or mug being the smaller items, the shed being the worst Mac had ever managed to ruin - was taken from his pocket money. Often his father yelled and would send him to his room for an indefinite time. He wasn’t allowed out until his father had said so. Sometimes, Mac spent a few days in his room without food or any contact to a person. It had been okay, though, because being send to his room was better than enduring his father’s anger fits.

But after the shed incident, Mac didn’t get send to his room. He didn’t receive a beating either and his pocket money stayed untouched. His father had simply left. Maybe it had been his punishment, because the shed incident had really been a disaster. He hadn’t meant to burn it down. He had tipped a can with turpentine of which he hadn’t even know that it had been in his shed. Mac had been lucky that he didn’t get injured in that incident. The shed had been a goner, though. His father had been really angry then, like ape shit crazy angry and he had yelled at Mac and had slapped his face a couple of times, not interested in the apologies that Mac had offered him and then, his father had said nothing anymore and went inside the house. Mac had stayed behind, because he hadn’t been sure whether he had been allowed inside, but he had opted for not and thus had sat down on the lawn until the sun had sat and it had become dark. His father didn’t switch on the lights in the house that night. When Mac went inside, through the huge glass door into the living room, he had to switch on the lights. His father had been nowhere. He had been gone as Mac had realised when the shoes that always had stood beside the door were gone and the closets in his father’s bedroom empty. It had been his tenth birthday and he only had wanted to play a little with the gifts his grandpa had given him.

Mac hadn’t said a word about it and nobody had noticed a thing during the first few days, because Mac had been a very self-reliant ten years old. In fact, it had only been noticed once a teacher had wanted to talk to Mac’s Dad about his grades and the idea of letting him skip yet another class, because the boy surely had to be bored out of his skull. They had to do justice to his skills. Hence, they had given Mac a letter that he was supposed to give to his father, but since his father had been gone and Mac didn’t know where he went, there was no way he could forward this letter to his Dad. Hence, the request remained unanswered which had been a strange thing in itself, because whenever it had been about his son’s education, James MacGyver had proven to be the most caring parent on earth. The principle had tried calling James MacGyver, but without much success. The teacher had then asked whether he had given his father the letter. A very shy looking Mac had only shrugged his shoulders. But then the teacher had asked him whether his father knew that they had tried reaching him. Mac had shrugged again. Two days later, social services had knocked on the door and found out that the father had been gone for a while now. They had taken Mac with them and then sent him to his grandpa.

Nobody ever asked why Mac hadn’t said anything about it to his friend or his grandpa. Nobody had really cared about it after the problem that Mac had become had been solved even if it was only for a short while. The permanent solution was leaving him alone which had proven to be the best thing Mac could do for the people around him. Don’t be a bother. He would have probably died from embarrassment if he had been lucid enough to tell how much of a bother he had become to Jack and his team, a bunch of strangers whom he barely knew and who had nothing to do with him.

Deacon saw the blond head tossing and turning. He took the cold cloth again and wiped the kid’s face. They tried to cool him down. The ice packs were back. Even in his groin. Deacon shuddered. He had thought that this treatment was by all means inappropriate until the doctor had explained to him what the consequences could be if the heat stayed down there for too long. This had even Deacon convinced that this, no matter how uncomfortable, was the right means to take.

“No change?” It was Jack’s voice that echoed from behind. Deacon shook his head without acknowledging his Chief’s presence.

“Did we make the wrong call?” Jack asked Deacon. No, they didn’t because the kid surely would be dead by now if they hadn’t done anything. That he was not yet out of the woods couldn’t be accounted to them. Deacon put the book aside and looked at his Chief who had taken the seat on the other side of the bed. They had drawn the curtain around the small cubicle to give them at least the idea of privacy and to shield the other patients from approaching death. They didn’t want them losing hope while watching one of them losing the fight they were all fighting for survival. Jack took Mac’s hand in his again. He had never before considered himself as the caring, sentimental type and now here he sat, keeping vigil of a young man he barely knew, but with a character that had gotten under Jack’s skin for which the older man still had no explanation to.

“I’m going home, Jack,” Deacon then told his Chief. Jack looked up and into his friend’s eyes.

“When my time’s up,” Deacon went on, “I won’t re-up. The army, isn’t the place it once had been. There had been times when no life was supposed to go to waste. This has changed. Now it’s paperwork deciding over life and death. That’s not what I’ve signed up for when I joined,” Deacon told Jack. The kid had gotten them all thinking. Jack’s mind had been down the very same road.

“And, if we’re honest, we all have something to lose, even when we consider ourselves lost souls. We have people waiting for us,” it was Fitzy’s voice who joined them with Worthy in tow. They all had begun thinking and had realised that they weren’t alone. Deacon had a wife at home and his own. So had Worthy whose wife was expecting their first child. Yes, they had done horrific things that they had to learn to live with, but they had people waiting at home for them, giving them a reason to learn just that. And Jack nodded, because he might not have a wife yet, but he had his family. His mother and his siblings who had been writing him letters and tried to call him whenever the time permitted. They were concerned about him, overly worried at times. Jack had to get home to them, because they had worried enough. And he wanted to get back home. He wanted to feel his mother’s embrace and the pat on the back from his siblings. He was craving the home-made food, the clear morning air at the ranch, the hard work that made the dinner in the evening even more enjoyable. He wanted to go home, because he had a home to go to. Yes, Jack had something to lose and yes, his family would probably never understand what he had been doing here in the Sandbox, because he wasn’t allowed to tell them in first place, but he also knew that his family would never judge him for what he had done, because he had done it to serve and protect his country. His mother said a prayer for him every evening. The church on Sunday prayed for those who protected them abroad. There were people thinking of him and who were willing to offer forgiveness. It was on him to take and accept it – to forgive himself. His gaze went back to the young man in the bed. His movements had stilled and subtly, Jack’s fingers brushed over the pulse point on the kid’s wrist. The pulse was still thundering away.

“You’re right. We got lucky and we shouldn’t jinx it,” Jack said.

Jack took the night shift. Deacon, Worthy and Fitzy had to prepare for a new mission. How they managed to keep Jack out of it for so long was a miracle and Jack knew that it wouldn’t last long. Soon he would have to get back to his own duties.

“You have something to return to, too,” Jack told the unconscious body, “I’m sure there is something maybe even someone. Maybe there is someone waiting for you who only now realised how much you mean to him or her, now that you’re so far away,” Jack said, because he didn’t want to believe that the kid was all alone. He didn’t know how right he was, because there was still Bozer who beat himself up for how things had ended up between him and his best friend and brother. It was pride, though, that kept him from giving in and writing a letter. Mac’s decision had felt like betrayal, especially when Mac had asked Bozer what he had left to stay for. This statement had hurt Bozer, because he had thought that he and his family surely counted as something worth staying for. Hearing so bluntly that they didn’t, had caused a hurt rip through him that he only once had felt when Josh had been taken away from him and his family. Bozer had never taken the time to think about where Mac’s inconsiderate statement stemmed from. He had never understood that Mac didn’t allow himself the luxury to consider the Bozers as his home or family. Too much had gotten broken until Mac had been allowed to experience family life. The shards had made the vision blurry and hence, Mac hadn’t been able to detect the sincerity that had been behind their gestures.

Bozer knew now that he should have helped Mac see instead of turning around in a fit of pique without asking why his friend thought that there was nobody worth staying for. He regretted his reaction, but also lacked the courage to reach out and take it back. He was afraid that Mac wouldn’t appreciate his offers very much. He was too afraid of being turned down. He was a coward while Mac didn’t understand what he might have done wrong. It never occurred to him that his absence could actually hurt someone. There was a long learning process ahead of him, but one which he could only start if Bozer reached out again, because Mac surely wouldn’t, assuming that Bozer was probably glad that Mac was out of his hair.

Jack didn’t let go of the hand during the whole night. When he fell asleep, he woke up whenever the small, skinny hand in his started twitching. He would then watch the features of the kid cringe, because it was yet another nightmare that hunted him. It was his dying mother that was now more and more often after him. He had been there when she had closed her eyes forever. He had watched her body going lax when she had exhaled her last breath. He had heard the strange gurgling sounds a body makes when all air leaves and everything relaxes forever. A nurse had grabbed him and carried him out of the room, because a toddler wasn’t supposed to watch the process of death, but it had been too late. He had seen enough.

“Hey, whatever it is that’s hunting you, it’s not real, it’s not here,” Jack told the kid to calm him. His words, although not discernible as such but as the noise that they were reached Mac, who was slowly surfacing from the depth he had been caught in. He had waited for the dark to close in on him, but when it didn’t come, he had decided to go back. He wasn’t known for being indecisive. He had chosen the darkness, but the darkness hadn’t chosen him. He didn’t fancy staying somewhere in between where he was forced to relive all the pain. He didn’t want that. And maybe he got a chance to create himself a few nice moments after all. There was this tiny little wish inside of him to not end his life as pathetic as it was. It seemed like he had a real chance to realise this wish, because he felt the presence of someone holding on to him and although he couldn’t tell who it was, there was a sort of sincerity behind it which he had only experienced once before. This sincerity seemed to be worth to stick around a little while longer.

The fever broke during that night, but Mac didn’t regain consciousness. His body was too weak. He had lost too much blood. There was still shrapnel in his body which the doctor had been too afraid of removing, because it was too close to the heart. One wrong movement and it could pierce through the sensitive organ. He was simply not equipped for such a procedure. But he knew back in the United States, they could. He had learnt there, studied, received his medical degree and had returned home although he could have provided for a better life there. He could have brought his family with him, but he had wanted to return. He had been too homesick. The idea of hearing English in the streets instead of Dari and Pashto had been intimidating. Already during his time as student, he had been missing the typical smells of the Afghan kitchen. The colours, too. Because no matter what was said, Afghanistan was in its heart a colourful country. He had heard stories about the happier times and knew that this was what they were thriving for. He wanted to help this process, wanted his home back and thus he had returned, because he had wanted to make a change fully accepting that maybe he would never live to enjoy the fruits of his efforts. But his children would, his grandchildren, too. This was what it was worth it. They experienced setbacks, but two steps forwards one step back. He hadn’t given up hope. They deserved so much more and it was time that they took it.

“Looks like there’s still some fight left in your friend,” he told Jack when he made his round and checked on the critical patient. He was careful though. This could easily be only one last stand before the kid let out his last breath.

“Then let’s hope that he has the will to win this fight,” Jack replied, not letting go of the hand that was still in his.

Jack didn’t leave Mac’s side during the next forty-eight hours. His friends offered to take over, but he wouldn’t take them up on their offer. This here had become his responsibility. The fever didn’t rise any further. It slowly went down. Little by little. The nightmares subsided. The body became still and Jack feared that after all those positive signs, the body gave out, but it didn’t. Mac settled in what could probably be considered as some restful sleep, without having woken up for a second, but that was okay. He didn’t have to be awake, because Jack was there and Jack would make sure that the kid was safe.

Mac was slowly surfacing again. He felt wiped out, drained, exhausted and he was in pain which strangely didn’t bother him too much, because the pain didn’t manage to make it to the foreground of his mind. This was strange. What was more worrisome was the heaviness of his body that pressed him into the worn-out mattress with its spring poking into Mac’s back. He tried to shift, but even thinking about it meant too much efforts. He tried to tense up his muscles for the process, but it was then when the pain flashed through him like lightning. He heard a groan of which he didn’t know that he had let it slip. His chest felt so awfully tight. It was then that he realised that he had trouble moving his chest, something heavy was sitting on it. He couldn’t get in enough air because he couldn’t expand his chest.

Jack’s attention was focused on the young man that clearly now tried to come back to them – to the living. He leant over him when he heard him groan in pain. These pitiful sounds increased when Mac struggled to get in a proper, deep breath, but felt that his chest was somehow blocked.

“Mac, don’t worry, you’re okay or…well you will be,” Jack told the young man who was obviously struggling with something. It took Jack a while to understand that the kid thought that he couldn’t breathe. It took him an extra minute to ask for the doctor to come and check on Mac. Jack hovered over him, not sure whether and if where to touch him. The whole chest was covered in bandages, there were IVs in both his arms and he looked so fucking fragile. But there was no one apart from Jack and he noticed a panic attack when he saw one and the kid suffered a full-blown panic attack.

“Mac,…just calm down. You can breathe just fine…you only need to be careful,” Jack told the young man, but the words didn’t sink in, they couldn’t because they didn’t reach him, because he was caught in a haze consisting of exhaustion, confusion and pain. His head still hadn’t connected all dots to sum up that he was in a hospital. He didn’t remember that he had gone kaboom a few days ago. His mind simply hadn’t caught up with his body which ended him in a panic attack.

The doctor rushed to the agitated patient. It was good that he was finally waking up from the feverish stupor he had been in during the last few days. Which wasn’t was his agitation because it threatened to do more damage than good. It could cause the shrapnel that was still left inside of Mac to move and cause some severe, unrepairable damage. Thus, everything the doctor could do was calm the patient down. He injected a combination of pain meds and sedatives in the one IV.

Jack watched the fight leaving the kid, but he wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to be glad or angry, because the kid had been on his way back to consciousness and now, he was made unconscious again. It tore him apart to watch how the body grew slowly limp. However, in a split second of a calmness induced lucidity, the heaviness of his eyelids left and Mac managed to open his eyes a little. It was this second in which Jack chose to look into the pale face. It was the first time in days that he got to see a glimpse of the blue orbs that were hidden beneath the heavy eyelids that slowly drooped when the medication given hit Mac’s system. Still, it made hope blossom inside of Jack.

“You’ll be alright, kid. Just hang on a little longer,” he told the young man, brushing his hand through the blond hair that was definitely too long for the military style but which even Jack wouldn’t have the courage of letting it ordered being cut off. Somehow, Jack could tell that the kid wouldn’t take such an order well and with this thought on his mind, he watched how Mac slowly and gently slipped back into a restful sleep.

It was clear that Mac had turned the corner for now. The long-term effects, especially with regards to the shrapnel that was still inside him, couldn’t be assessed at this stage, but the likelihood that he would return home alive on his own feet with all his limbs attached to all the right places had grown considerably.

In that night, Deacon came by. He was no less relieved than Jack to find out that their young friend was on the mend, but he bore bad news anyway. It was time to part. They had a new operation to take care of and it needed Jack’s skills and experience.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving him alone here,” Jack told Deacon who could relate to the feeling. It felt like they were abandoning the kid, leaving him to fend for himself while he was still too weak to do so. He needed someone in his corner and Jack didn’t like the idea of leaving it although he had known that one day he would have.

“I know, but he’s not alone. We might be gone for a few days, maybe weeks, however long this bitch of a mission takes us to accomplish, but we will be back. Jack, we won’t disappear in thin air, but stay. Don’t forget, we still have to help him finding a life worth living,” Deacon told Jack and Jack believed the older man’s words. They would be back and help the kid back into the saddle called life.

Chapter Text

Jack was one of the last soldiers to embark the Boeing that was supposed to bring them stateside. First came the critically injured soldiers, then the soldiers with physical impairments and then those, who could stand and walk on their own two feet but still were considered too ill as to be sent home classified as sound. Home, Jack thought. It had been an eternity since he had seen his family, the ranch, the great state of Texas the last time. With this longing that he hadn’t felt for a while now, his gaze went around the cabin of the plane. He caught a glimpse of a familiar blond head. Jack knew that the kid had been honourably discharged. The doctor in the Kabul hospital had kept his promise. He had saved the kid’s life, but what he couldn’t achieve was an entire recovery which had been obvious after the first surgery. There was still shrapnel lodged in Mac’s chest. Ironically too close to his heart that it threatened to break it whenever Mac moved too harshly. Even the transport back to the states bore a health risk for him. The change of pressure for example could cause the shrapnel to move for which Mac was closely monitored during the flight, a fact that annoyed him to no end. With a well-practiced move his hand that had started to fumble with the electrodes of the equipment attached him. It was slapped away. A nurse in uniform sat next to him tasked with checking on him and his vitals. Nobody had an interest in a soldier or former soldier dying on his way back home. There could be no worse image campaign then the headlines such an encounter would attract.

Jack wanted to go over to Mac, ask him how he was, exchange a few words, maybe an address, but he was shoved past the aisles until he had reached the seat that was assigned to him so he didn’t get a chance. He sat down on the seat by the window and made himself comfortable when Worthy sat down next to him. Deacon and Fitzy had already been flown out two days ago. Worthy and Jack were the last of their crew to return home. Their last mission had only confirmed their desire to end their army career. It had been enduring and rough. Nobody of them had been too enthusiastic about the new opp, not how they used to be. They all had agreed that it had been Mac’s fate that had made them realise that in fact they were missing more than they dared to admit.

“It’s about time that we get our sorry arses back home,” Worthy said when he slumped down next to Jack. Jack agreed.

“The kid’s here as well,” Jack told Worthy who nodded knowingly.

“Looks still rough, but that’s probably what peppered with shrapnel does to you,” Worthy replied.

During their flight Jack sought another opportunity to talk to Mac, but every time he walked past the respective aisle, Mac was asleep and Jack didn’t dare waking him up. Mac was still awfully tired. After he had nearly regained consciousness the one day before Jack had to leave, he had been constantly sleeping for a week and a half. His recovery had become a torturous process since then and this not only because his body was weaker than it had ever been which got him frustrated to a whole new level, because he hated being uselessly bound to the bed.

Mac’s memory of what had happened between when he got blown up and woke to a nearly lucid state was rather foggy. He hadn’t noticed much during his delirious state. He couldn’t tell how he had made it to the hospital in Kabul when the location of his assignment had been in the opposite direction and quite some distance away. He didn’t know that Jack had been there. He had been too out of it to notice that there had been someone constantly by his side. He probably would have died of embarrassment if he had known. Nobody had kept vigil at his bedside probably since his mother had passed away. He was considered old enough to manage on his own. But then again, he had probably never been that sick.

At the age of twelve, he has had a bad case of an appendicitis. His appendix could have burst, so the doctor had told him when he had woken up after surgery and after the fever had gone down. It had been meant as scolding, because he hadn’t told anyone about the stabbing pain or the feeling of unwellness. Nobody had noticed that he was constantly sick and threw up after nearly every meal. The doctor had told him that he should have noticed the fever. Mac hadn’t. Anyway, he had collapsed. Mac couldn’t tell whether it had been at school or at home. He had been rushed to the hospital, undergone emergency surgery and woken up two days later during the night in a hospital bed he hadn’t had an idea of how he had ended up there. His eyes had roamed the roomed. He had been alone. Harry had been too old and too weak by then for keeping vigil. He had come by during the day, sat with him a few hours. Harry had told Mac that he was too old for Harry to stay with him during the night an all day. ‘He was a big boy’, Harry had said, because if someone underwent surgery and got his appendix removed you were all grown-up. Harry had tried to make it sound like big think, like entering senior high or moving out for college. At the end, it had only been a sorry attempt of an excuse for why his grandpa couldn’t stay longer with him. His grandpa hadn’t had the heart to talk so openly about his condition to his grandson, who knew more about it than Harry had ever assumed. He simply wanted to spare his grandson the heartache the fear of losing another family member in the near future caused you to feel. Mac had been looking right through him and had decided it was okay if Harry didn’t stay with him like the parents of the other kids that were in the same ward like he was, some of which had even been older than he had been. It was alright. Afterall, it had never been his grandfather’s fault that he had nobody who wanted to stick with him. Mac understood his grandpa and had known no to have too high expectations. It would have been unfair.

The exhaustion from the last couple of months caught up with Jack during the flight and he fell asleep like most of them. The excitement of finally going home was big, but the exhaustion was bigger. He was hunted by strange dreams, though. He dreamt of being alone while he was surrounded by a vast number of people without anyone recognising him. He tried to talk to them, to get their attention, but they wouldn’t respond or react. It was a disturbing dream. Jack couldn’t tell what it was supposed to mean. Was there a subconscious dread? Was he actually scared or at least insecure of returning home? He could hardly believe that. Whatever it was, it was intense. He had never felt this hollow in his chest before. Jack turned his head to look around the aisles where former soldiers were either sleeping or silently talking to each other. His eyes once more fell on the blond, sleeping head and he asked himself whether this hollow feeling was how someone like Mac felt.

And Mac, if he would answer such a question honestly, would say ‘yes’. He experienced this hollow feeling, especially when the loneliness became as oppressing that it threatened to crush him. But that didn’t happen very often anymore. It had been worse when he had been younger. He had felt it when his mother had died, his father ran off or his grandpa passed away. These had been the moments in which he had really feared that he would fall apart if not someone stepped in to catch all his falling pieces. He never broke apart like this. Until today he wasn’t sure whether those hands that had been around back then managed to catch his pieces or whether it at the end hadn’t been as dramatic as he had felt it was.

If Jack would have asked Mac whether he felt this void, he surely would have remembered the winter of his first year at MIT. Flu season. In his juvenile arrogance, Mac had rejected the offer of a flu shot thinking that it either wouldn’t hit him or if that it surely wouldn’t be as bad. He has had the flu as kid and it had been tolerable. However, during that year a really nasty bug went around and befell the few friends that he had. He had witnessed how their parents or siblings had come by taking home their sick child or brother or making sure that he or she was alright and got everything that was needed.

Nobody had come when he got a really bad case of flu. He had sported a fever hovering over 104°for several days. He had managed somehow. He had wished that someone would come, taking care of him like they had taken care of his friends. But there simply was nobody and at the end, there hadn’t been much one could have done about the flu, besides of taking paracetamol and drinking plenty anyway. Someone by his side thus wouldn’t have made a very big difference from a strictly medical point of view. This, Mac had told himself to overcome the oppressive feeling of loneliness and it had worked out. It had never come to his mind that he could have called the Bozers and that Lauretta and Milton might have reacted just like his friends’ parents. He never found out, because he had never called them when he didn’t feel well, because it wasn’t right bothering other people with his issues. It had hardly been acceptable when he had dumped his mess on his parents or his grandpa. It would have been far from being acceptable doing the same to strangers. The sincerity when Lauretta and Milton had taken him in and together with Wilt had made him a part of their family had never reached him. He never did get the message that stood behind these gestures: you belong to us. For this, he could hardly understand that it was less the fact that he was ‘wasting his future and talent’, as Wilt had put it, when he enlisted that had caused the break between the two friends. It had been the worry for his wellbeing, his life that had forced a reaction out of Wilt that he had never intended. It didn’t mean what Mac perceived that it did. But then again, how had Mac been supposed to understand this message? Because the Bozers always had shown their love and interest by grand gestures, but they had never really put it into words. Nobody had ever told Mac ‘I love you’. Nobody had ever told him ‘ you matter to us’. It probably shouldn’t have been necessary, as one should assume that the gestures had spoken for themselves, but not for Mac. The Bozers were closely connected to the community and the church. Somehow, Mac had assumed that this was the reason for taking him in, that they saw it as their social obligation – as an act of charity. This assumption couldn’t be any further away from the truth, because the Bozers had felt that Mac was part of their family, even before Harry had died. Mac had spent so much time at their home that it had felt strange coming home in the afternoon and not meeting him in the den or Bozer’s room or the garden of wherever the two boys had set up their camp after school.

It had hurt them when he had left for the MIT and the correspondence became scarce. They had hoped for hearing from him more regularly, but all they got was what their son Wilt told them what Mac had written in an email to him or a text. Sometimes Mac had even called Wilt, but never them. When he had left for the army without saying goodbye, it had hurt even more. They were constantly worried about him now. But worst of all was that they didn’t know why. Why had Mac left them like that? They thought that they didn’t mean as much to him as he did to them.

For Mac, it wasn’t about whether the Bozers meant something to him. They did. A lot. They had done some much for him without asking for anything in return. He was beyond grateful for that. He simply didn’t want to burden them. And if he was honest with himself, not thinking about them was also a way of self-preservation. Already at MIT thinking about them had triggered a feeling of homesickness. Mac didn’t appreciate this feeling very much, because he couldn’t identify it as homesickness, because from his point of view he had no home anymore. Hence, he was confused about his feelings, the all-consuming sadness that he still felt when he thought about them and the time that he was allowed to spend in their home. Hence, Mac had learnt to avoid thinking about the Bozers.

Of course, all this, Mac would have never told Jack if he had asked him whether this hollow feeling was what he felt when he was by himself. This was his fate and nobody was supposed to be bothered by it. And Jack turned his head away to the front. It was only a few hours left until their arrival.

The landing was a harsh affair, but Jack had gotten used to those harsh landings of a heavy plane on relentless tarmac. He was shaken awake like most of the other former soldiers as well. A collective sigh of relief went through the cabin, because they were home. Finally, they made it home and they were all in one piece and healthy. Disembarking was a tedious thing. First, they had to disembark the injured and sick. Then they needed to unload the heavy goods and then at some point the rest of them were allowed to leave the tin called plane.

The first breath back in the United States felt refreshing. It was warm, but it was a gentle warmth and not the violent desert heat. There was humidity in the air that made it seem gentle, nearly soothing. The air smelled of tarmac and kerosine. It didn’t matter, because for once it didn’t smell like hot sand and burned rubber. Both, Mac and Jack inhaled deeply. Finally, they were home or at least much closer to what they considered as their place to live.

Jack watched his comrades being welcomed by family and friends. Worthy fell into the arms of his now very obviously pregnant wife who didn’t want to let go of her husband who had been away for too long and the determination that she would never let him go again was written all over her face. But she smiled this one big smile that said ‘finally, we made it’. It felt good watching Worthy being welcomed in the loving arms of his family.

And there were others, showering the former soldiers in a warm welcome. Nobody was waiting for Jack which was okay. He had asked his family to wait for him until he had found his way to Texas, because he feared that he could have been overwhelmed otherwise. Well, he also knew that now he had to expect an overwhelming welcome home BBQ with his family including all siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins he could think of. It would be huge. He wouldn’t like all the attention very much, but his mother took her joy from organising this party and hence he let her have it her way. It was okay.

He watched a certain blond march through the crowd. Nobody was waiting for him. Nobody welcomed him home. Well, he shouldn’t have expected it differently, should he? And Jack watched him, watched him how he followed the nurse that had accompanied him during his trip. He watched him, until he disappeared out of his sight. Mac was guided to one last check-up before the army would finally cut him loose and before he was free to go wherever he wanted to. Seeing his former comrades being welcomed back by their family and friends strangely did nothing to him. He had thought he would feel disappointed and sad, because nobody would wait for him, but nothing of this happened. It was just like every other day in his life. It was okay.

Jack was dragged out of his thoughts about Mac when a heavy hand patted his shoulder. It was a former CO of his, who welcomed him back and handed him back the keys to his beloved GTO which Jack had given him to keep it safe until he returned home. Jack felt the familiar weight in his palm. Those keys in his hands to the car that he and his Dad had once together overhauled, this was home. With a big fat grin on his face, Jack walked to his beloved beauty made of steel and chrome while Mac sat on an examination table with his legs dangling in the air, nervous to get out of the facility and finally back to his house.

They listened to his heart and lungs, took his blood pressure. Lungs were okay, heart sounded good as well and the little low blood pressure, well it had been a long flight. All in all, the doctor was satisfied enough to send Mac back home with strict orders to see a physician to discuss the next steps of his treatment, because the shrapnel that was still lodged in his chest was a continuous risk. It had to be removed. Mac said ‘yes’ and nodded, feeling a little Tony-Stark like with the shrapnel that threatened to pierce his heart should he dare to jostle around the wrong way. Mac put over his shirt, civil cloths, while thinking that he probably should be more worried about his condition than he actually was. Thinking about his time spent in the desert, there had been assignments of which he should have been more concerned than he had been. For example, the one when they had been trapped in that cave and he ran through the middle of the desert without any instrument for navigation apart from the sun, without any water or whatsoever.

He thought back to Jack, Deacon, Worthy and Fitzy. His chest clenched a little tighter than usually. He hoped they were well, hoped that maybe they had found their way back home to their families. He wished that he had gotten a chance to spend some more time with those guys, because no matter of the short time and of what had happened, they had somehow gotten under his skin – Lauretta would phrase it ‘grown to his heart’. It was a silly idea for which he shook his head to get it out of there. He barely got to know these guys who had probably been grateful for his act, but aside from that had been glad that he was gone and out of their hair like everybody else was. He blamed the feeling of being finally home for the sentimentality that befell him liken a parasite. This, which meant Jack, Deacon, Fitzy, Worthy, had been part of his former life which was now over. It was time to move on and open a new chapter, with new faces and challenges.

His thoughts went back to Wilt. He should probably call him, make the first step to repair what his decision had destroyed. Maybe he was willing to give him a second chance. Maybe he wasn’t because whenever had Mac gotten a second chance? He had always been glad when given one chance at all. But he missed his friend, his stories about the new movie plots, his attempts of filming. Mac wanted to know whether his former friend had made it to film school. He wanted to know about his projects. He wished the old times back. Another sentimentality that was contrary to his plan of opening a new chapter in his life. He shook his head again. He should stop this. People had been nice to him, but that didn’t mean that people wanted to stick around. Bozer, that was all his fault. He had positioned his decision to join the army over their friendship so he wasn’t even supposed to wish that his friend would suddenly come back. He had ended this friendship and he had to live with the consequences.

This was what Mac told himself while he walked to the next bus station, with his duffle bag lung over his shoulder, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with sneaker instead of a BDU with heavy boots. It felt strange. It felt light. One burden less to carry, he thought when he got a ticket for a greyhound bus that would take him to L.A., California the last place he had been living before he had enlisted.

His attention was drawn to the roaring sound of a car. He saw a black GTO pass by. Jack saw Mac too late. The blond boy was already boarding the bus to wherever it was supposed to take him. He slammed the brakes at the next best opportunity, but it was too late. The doors of the bus closed. It drove off. A sadness took hold of Jack at the idea that the kid travelled alone through the country, probably injured, to an empty home where nobody expected nor waited for him.

Chapter Text

Jack drove through the streets of a quiet neighbourhood. It was nearly idyllic with all the small front yards framed in luxurious green, white picket fences and children’s bikes lying on the lawn. It was a good, tranquil neighbourhood, which was good. The tour had been rough and quietness helped to deal with the events they had to process after serving their time in the sandbox.

Jack drove up to a smaller, wooden house which looked a little out of place and rather as if it belonged into the woods than a fancy L.A. neighbourhood. It didn’t really fit in to the row of neatly build houses with their white fronts, but it had a style. It looked rough, but welcoming at once, like the occupant had put a lot of efforts into maintaining it. Efforts and care – love even, Jack thought. The house looked like whoever lived there, loved it and considered it his home. This was good, too. Veterans needed a touchpoint. They needed a place to put down roots, to get a foothold to keep from being drowned in the whirlwind of change that surrounded you when you returned, because civil life was different and in fact, it didn’t come back easy when you’ve been living the life of a soldier in the middle of a war zone for a while. Making decisions and if it only was about what you wanted for breakfast could then become a challenge and not everybody tackled it with bravado. Jack did, thanks to his family who kept him on his toes. He had no idea, however, how it was for someone who had no family left.

Jack cut off the engine, but remained sitting for a while. He was unsure whether his decision to come here had been right. He didn’t even know why he had driven all the way from Texas to California L.A. It had been some sort of impulse. An itch he had to scratch. A need that asked to be satisfied, although he could hardly point out where this need stemmed from. Heck, he hardly knew that kid and only spent a little bit of time with him. And still, this kid had saved his life. This kid had made sure that he – Jack – survived the attack from the insurgents, risking his own life during that process. The latter being something, which according to Deacon had seemed to never have occurred to the kid or if it had, it hadn’t mattered when he had made his decisions. Jack was sure, if Deacon had known about the real distance between the cave and the base, he would have stopped the kid from his stupid idea, but Mac hadn’t told anyone, deliberately made it seem as if there had been no risk in it for him. Until today, Jack hadn’t decided whether this had been heroic or simply stupid. In fact, though, without the kid, nobody would have made it out of that cave alive. So, maybe it was better if he didn’t look too close into the details.

And then there was this other thing, besides saving their lives for real and this was what Jack was really, truly grateful for. The kid had saved their lives also in another way, by making them reconsider and ending their tour, returning to their family and picking up a life as long as it was still there to be picked up. He had achieved all this without any words wasted on these topics. It had been his simple presence and his actions. Nothing else.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Jack Dalton?” Jack muttered to himself under his own breath when he got out of the car and walked up the driveway to the door. He could be living his happy life with his family in Texas now. Take care of the business of the ranch, live among his own. Instead, he had driven all the way up to California, a state that seemed too young for an old soul like Jack. It was too fancy, too modern, too hip, too busy and all that jazz. No, Jack definitely didn’t belong here. But he had some business to take care of and thus with a courageous gesture, he rang the doorbell and waited for the occupant of that small house to open the door for him.

At the sound of the doorbell ringing, Mac rose slowly from his couch. His muscles were stiff and the rest of his body sore. He didn’t have the slightest intention of opening that damned door, because it meant too much of an effort to walk there and especially because he had no idea who the person on the other side could be. He hadn’t talked to anyone since he had returned for which it was very unlikely that any of his former so-called friends would be ringing that damned door bell. Well, ‘any of his friends’ meant his only friend who didn’t know that Mac had returned to the states. Mac had taken several attempts of calling him, but never had the necessary courage doing so. He had been too afraid that now where he was back, Bozer wouldn’t change his mind and tell him to fuck off. It would be a very understandable reaction to how Mac had behaved. It would hurt, though, and to evade this pain, Mac just didn’t call his former friend. Bozer had probably forgotten about him anyway.

But somehow, Mac thought it would be impolite being at home and not opening the door to whoever was there waiting for him. Thus, Mac got up and slowly proceeded to open the door. To say that Jack was shocked by the pale appearance with the dark shadows under his eyes that opened the door, was an understatement. To say that Mac was surprised seeing Jack standing on the threshold to his home was an understatement as well. Both men stared at each other like none of them could believe what he saw. Jack was the first one who regained his composure and found the first words.

“Hey Mac,” he said shyly which stood in strong contrast to the loud-mouthed Chief that Mac had met in the sandbox.

“Jack? What are you doing here?” Mac asked puzzled. Of all people he had expected to stay in front of his door, Jack Dalton was none of them. Insecurity exploded inside of him, taking hold of every fibre in his body. He took a step back as if he needed to get some safe distance between him and Jack, as if Jack could jump at him every second like a burglar. Jack standing on his threshold felt like that. If felt like a burglary. It was. Someone, who wasn’t supposed to be there, was intruding his private space which felt like a threat to Mac. Jack saw how Mac stepped back, identified this reaction as a defensive act. To counter act, he relaxed his posture a little more. He didn’t mean any threat and he wanted to conceive this message.

“I was around and thought it’ll be nice to stop by and dunno…,” Jack tried to explain himself while he still couldn’t answer the question why he was there himself. The thing was that he couldn’t get the boy out of his head that arrived back at the states from one of the worst jobs one could find in hell and on earth and entered a bus to bring him home. It had been some sort of heart-breaking and Jack needed to make sure that the kid was alright, needed to make sure that there was someone taking care of him. But his guts turned with the bad premonition that it wasn’t the case, that there was actually no one, because the kid looked rough, like he hadn’t slept in days.

Mac stepped aside to let Jack inside. He was still confused, felt insecure about the situation. How was he supposed to react? Jack followed Mac inside where Mac stepped behind a kitchen counter and asked whether he would like something to drink or something to eat? Jack agreed to a mug of coffee and then followed Mac into the den where they sat down on a well-worn old leather couch. Jack let his gaze wander around. There was a huge glass door which led outside on a deck from where one could overlook the city. Jack would have loved to go outside and see the view, but Mac didn’t come to offer it to him. He was all tensed up, fidgeting with his hands. He had no idea what Jack could possibly want from him. There was an awkwardness creeping up that conquered the whole space. Jack felt it as well when they sat there without anyone saying a word. What to say? Jack subtly took a breath, when he realised that Mac wouldn’t come forward with anything since he was as clueless as he had never been before.

“So, how are you doing?” Jack asked, leaning back into the cushions of the couch. His gaze wandered once more around the house where his eyes landed on a mantlepiece of a fireplace where a picture frame laid on its face, the picture being turned away, secure from nosy looks from surprise visitors.

“Okay. How about you?” Mac replied stiffly. The kid’s insecurity was screaming at Jack who had not the slightest idea of how to defuse it. What he certainly knew, though, was that the kid was lying.

“I’m good, just a little worried about you,” Jack then spilled the beans. Mac’s facial expression changed from insecure into a ‘what the fuck?’ expression when his jaw dropped, because he was totally unprepared for this. Jack coming by to say hello was strange in itself. Mac might have believed him if he had said that he wanted to say hello to a friend and just wanted to have a chat. Worried, however, was something that was so far away from Mac’s mind that it could hardly reach it. Mac shot up to get even more distance between him and his surprise visitor. When he leant forward to get up, Jack got a glimpse of a white adhesive bandage that was taped over the kid’s sternum. The hiss that escaped Mac’s lips as a result of the movement that caused some tearing in his ribs that wasn’t very comfortable didn’t remain unnoticed by Jack as well. However, he gave Mac the space that he needed to regain his composure. It didn’t take too long and Mac stood with his back turned to the mantlepiece, the arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Jack. His eyes told Jack that he better handed over the reasons for his visit if he didn’t want to be thrown out which was no option since that would ruin his chances of making sure that the kid was actually alright.

“Did they cut you open again?” Jack asked, choosing a more confrontative way now. Mac tilted his head. He had so no clue what Jack was talking about. Jack saw the frowned forehead. No, Mac knew very well what Jack was talking about. The thing was, did he just insinuate that he knew about what had happened? About the Kabul hospital? Jack confirmed just that when he asked Mac whether the white adhesive bandage on his chest meant that they finally got to remove the remaining shrapnel from his chest that the doctor in Kabul couldn’t dig out because it had been too close to his heart and hence too risky of a procedure to take in a hospital that was equipped with the most necessary but nothing else. Mac’s eyes widened, looking at Jack like a deer caught in the headlights of a van in those fateful seconds before the van would actually crash into it. Jack’s words actually felt like the impact of such crash and Mac felt awfully like the deer.

“How…do you know about it?” Mac asked, afraid of the conclusion his mind might draw upon the ‘why was Jack there?’. Jack leant back and then told Mac about how he had found out about Mac and what had happened then. He told him about how devastated Charlie Robinson had been when his EOD nerd had been heavily, nearly lethally – no reason to beat around the bush on this fact – injured. Jack told Mac that the COs didn’t want to fly him out or get him to at least the Kabul hospital. That much, Mac knew by now. He had listened to rumours once he had been released from the hospital and sent back to the base where he had been told to settle back in the infirmary since his body hadn’t healed enough to at least allow desk duty. While he had been lying uselessly in a bed in infirmary, he had listened to the rumours that had gone around. He had always wondered who had been the one making the decision to send him to a real hospital to save his life. Mac had been sure, whoever it had been, must have dangerously pissed off a number of higher-ups. Unfortunately, Mac’s mind hadn’t come up with a name who would put up with that hassle only for him. Nobody had ever let the name Jack Dalton slip.

Finding out about the identity of his life saver felt like a hard punch to his gut. Mac’s leg grew unsteady at the realisation that he owed his life to Jack. To not faceplant in his own den, Mac returned to the couch and set down next to Jack who eyed him carefully. His report had sent the kid reeling, but Jack couldn’t tell why. Was it because of the fact that people would have let Mac die, because he had been nothing but a tool that had served its time but had become useless? No, Mac, if asked, could definitely rule that one out, because he didn’t expect anything else from the people around him. He had gotten used to being reduced to his skills without anyone caring about the person behind. No, what was disturbing was that someone had deliberately put up with something that could only be described as a serious degree of trouble only to save Mac from the consequences of a bad mistake he had made. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel wrong. In fact, Mac didn’t know how he felt and because Jack noticed this confusion, he didn’t tell Mac that he and his team had kept vigil by his bedside until they could be sure that he wouldn’t slip away from them. Jack was certain that the boy who was looking with those blue eyes, which resembled troubled waters, at him would not handle such news well.

“You saved my life, then,” Mac concluded with a subdued voice that made Jack’s heart cringe because it sounded so awfully insecure, nearly as if Mac asked himself whether something like that could really be true.

“You saved my and the others’ life, too. That was the least I could do,” Jack told Mac, because, somehow, he had the impression that a ‘tit for tat’ would be easier on the kid’s mind than the simple truth which was that Jack had been incapable of letting the kid die in that hellhole. He would never have forgiven himself, if he had turned his back. The kid deserved so much better than he acknowledged for himself. It hurt Jack. The kid was supposed to start a happy life from which he so obviously was still lightyears away, because Mac didn’t see it. For him, everything that had happened: the explosion, the broken friendship with Wilt, his family leaving him. It all happened for a reason which ultimately led back to Mac as its cause for which it was only right if he bore the consequences. This contorted way of thinking made it so difficult to reach the human that was hidden beneath the skills that always sought and stood in the spotlight. This was something Mac felt comfortable about. The rest, he preferred to ignore.

“Uh…thank you,” Mac stammered, still unsure how to react.

“That goes without saying, Mac,” Jack said, but his words weren’t understood. He accepted it for now and repeated his question about the surgery and shrapnel. He was devastated to find out that Mac indeed has undergone surgery to get the remaining shrapnel removed, but that one piece was still lodged in his chest, because the surgeon hadn’t felt confident removing it. Mac was now living with a ticking timebomb in his chest, because one wrong move during his sleep or one incautious step could push the shrapnel into the wrong direction. Mac felt considerable indifferent about it. Jack gasped and did so again when he found out that said surgery was only four days ago. Mac more or less had left the hospital against medical advice.

“For a genius, you’re quite stupid,” Jack mumbled, fighting the urge to drag the kid by his ears back to the hospital where he would get the needed rest and care. Mac only shrugged his shoulders.

“Believe me, I can sleep and rest much better here than in a busy hospital,” he replied and Jack had to admit that the kid had a point.

“Right, so rest it is for you,” Jack said, got up from the couch and in a swift move lifted Mac’s legs upon the couch for which he was rewarded with a bewildered look, because Mac hadn’t seen that one coming and hence was about to fight Jack’s behaviour that so painfully reminded Mac of the Bozers who also had always made sure that Mac rested when he had been sick or fallen from a tree or whatever, even before he had moved in with them. Thinking about the Bozers was never easy, because it reminded him of the precious treasure that he had lost when he had decided to enlist. A decision, which his friend Wilt back then had described as egomaniac. Jack saw the fight well up in the kid, but with a clipped ‘hush’ and a matching gesture with his hands, all anticipated protests died down on instant.

“So, do you need anything? Did you have breakfast already? Or do you want lunch? Because it’s already past one and maybe you’re hungry. Anything I can get you?” Jack turned on his mother-henning mode, the one that he had inherited from his mother and the one that always kicked in when one of his siblings, parents or friends was unwell out of whatever reasons for which Jack usually didn’t care about, because of his tunnel vision like focus on making the respective person well again. This treatment was a little unsettling for Mac, but it wasn’t new. Lauretta had perfected a similar streak and whenever she had found out that Mac had been under the weather without telling her, especially when he had been off to the MIT, her shoulders had sagged with a sort of disappointment that Mac couldn’t understand.

For the Bozers, his self-reliance and independence felt like a breach of trust, because he did not seem to trust them to be able to take care of him. Lauretta had once asked Mac whether he could understand that he meant as much to them as Wilt did, as much as Josh meant to them, but Mac had shaken his head. No, he couldn’t understand. He had never given her a reason, but he didn’t need to because with his background, it had been obvious. And this inability to understand and accept that people could truly love and care about him had always stood in his way. It made things worse, because it inhibited him from understanding Wilt’s arguments and the reason for their fight which kept Mac from making the first step to rebuild their friendship and brotherhood. This lack of understanding also made him wary of Jack’s true intentions when he went to the kitchen to fetch Mac something to drink and eat. Jack was aghast when opened the fridge to meet a nearly empty space. A few bottles of water and beer, a few eggs and a perishing cucumber was all he found there. But the meagre contents of the fridge were outweighed by a vast assortment of leaflets for home delivery services.

“Thai, Chinese or Mexican? What are you in the mood for?” Jack asked, but Mac told him to pick whatever he liked.

“So, you don’t mind me keeping so some company?” Jack asked hesitantly, because he had trouble discerning what was politeness and what was truly meant, but when Mac shook his head with the corners of his mouth turning into an all so subtle smile, he pushed away these doubts and ordered Chinese.

Chapter Text

Jack strolled through the house. It was way too early for being up, but he couldn’t sleep any longer although the bed he had been offered was really comfy. After Mac had asked Jack how long the elder man would stay in L.A. and where, Jack had spilled the beans that the trip had been a rather spontaneous decision and that he neither knew how long nor where to stay. While Mac had no answer for the first question, he could solve the latter. He offered Jack to stay in one of the spare bedrooms as long as he wanted to. Mac wouldn’t mind. It was meant like that. Jack saw it. It was in t

he kid’s nature. Someone needed help, Mac would only too happily jump in and provide it. Jack’s glance fell back on the picture lying seemingly discarded on the mantlepiece. As casually as possible or as if someone was watching him, he walked over and took the frame into his hands. What he saw stunned him a little. Two teenagers one Afro-American with bright eyes and big grin, and one white, blond with blue eyes named Angus MacGyver looked back at him. Each had his arm wrapped around the other’s shoulder. They looked so genuinely happy that it filled Jack’s heart with joy only watching it. The picture had been taken during Mac’s and Wilt’s summer vacation, one that Mac had spent with the Bozers because Harry had been looking forward to some peace and quiet time. Only later Mac had found out that Harry had been admitted to the hospital because of his heart condition. Usually, Mac would have been able to look through the scam, but that special time he hadn’t because he had been too happy and looking forward to the summer trip of six weeks in a log cabin in the woods with his then favourite people, even though Mac wasn’t able to say this out loud. It had been what he had felt back then. This particular feeling had been mutual, but Mac had never been able to indulge in the thought that people could feel about him like that.

It had been great six weeks. In retrospect, Mac would label them as the best six weeks of his life. He had never felt as carefree as he had back then. There had been no time schedule to follow. They got up when they thought of having slept enough which was in Mac’s case painfully early anyway. Wilt rather preferred to sleep in, but that was okay with Mac, because he made use of the time to stroll around the woods, go swimming or making plans for the day which Mac and Wilt would spent together. They were glued together at the hips during those six weeks. Lauretta had let the kids have it their way, but was happy when they allowed the ‘rents to join their fun. They went hiking or canoeing together. Lauretta, who had never thought of herself as a camping slash adventure person, had enjoyed the time too, because since the kids occupied themselves, she had time for herself and Milton as well. It had been really a nice summer without drama or catastrophes. It had been the summer before Harry died and Mac left the Bozer family to fend for himself. Until today, Laureatta thought that maybe she should have put stronger restraints on the fifteen-years-old, forcing him to stay with them a little longer instead of letting him leave. Wilt had always felt a little abandoned by his friend who would call and text him once in a while. Mac even invited Bozer over. Wilts parents even allowed him to visit his friend all on his own. It had been a great experience, but when the visit was over, Wilt had wished his friend would have come home with him. Milton and Lauretta inwardly had hoped for the same.

But this was a story, Jack couldn’t see. What he could see were two friends that had been like brothers. Jack put the frame back. The wheels in his mind were turning, because he still didn’t know what to make of this picture and the information it had given him. Maybe the kid after all wasn’t as lonely as they had all assumed. Maybe there was someone who actually cared. Strange was, however, that Mac had never mentioned this other kid in any conversation. It was odd that he had never sent an email to this kid or written a letter. Jack filed this piece of information away as something he had to further investigate on.

He walked on through the house and stepped out onto the deck. The sky was a deep dark blue, nearly black, but already lightened up with the approaching morning sun. He took in a breath of fresh air. The view from this spot was amazing, like he could see the whole city from a bird’s view. All the lights and the moving traffic which didn’t really die down even during these ungodly hours. He leant forward on his forearms which he folded over the railing. The view was what it was – beautiful and the kid was lucky to own a place like this.

After a while, Jack turned around, leaning his back against the railing looking inside. He had only switched on a dim light. He didn’t want to wake the only other occupant that was sleeping in his bed that was hidden by only half-drawn curtains over large windows that led out onto the deck. Jack looked inside the window and saw the kid lying curled together on his side. Jack wasn’t sure whether this was such an optimal position if they had opened your rib cage which was supposed to grow together again, but since the kid didn’t seem to mind, it probably was okay. Jack’s eyes fell on the well-worn quilt that was draped over the sheets to provide a little more warmth. It was green and blue and looked like it had been and still was loved. Ellen MacGyver had started sewing this piece of patchwork when she had been pregnant with Mac. After that it continuously grew with him. When she knew she would not see her son grow up, she had made the quilt to its full size during her sickness. Her son should always have something to comfort him even after her death.

Mac used this quilt a lot lately, seeking the comfort it provided. Its weight grounded him during the night when his mind became the most dreadful place. It wasn’t the memories from the fatal explosion or Alfred Peña’s death that would hunt him then. Not that these memories weren’t bad enough. They managed to keep Mac awake, but they didn’t hurt as much as those others. It was the most distant memories that tormented him. It was memories from times in which his heart hadn’t been hard enough. In those memories, Mac got to relive the time after his mother’s death and when his father had lost his temper really badly, because Mac had been too clumsy or slow or whatever. It hadn’t started directly after his mother had died. It rather had been a gradual development. Mac’s father had always been a person who had perfected the art of containing himself. He had lost that ability a little more from day to day after Ellen MacGyver’s death. He had started yelling at Mac whenever he had done something wrong in his father’s eyes. Stupid, useless, worthless were a few words that had managed to pierce deeply in this young heart that had never really recovered from those stabs. Then his father had started to send Mac to his room for punishment. Not always, only when it had been appropriate. Mac had never minded those days in seclusion. Getting used to an empty stomach had been easy, because since his mother’s death Mac never has had developed much of an appetite and rather had to be forced to eat anyway. What had been bad was not seeing Wilt during that time. He never explicitly told him about what went on at home or how much he missed his mothers, because Mac feared that his friend would take it to heart and make it his job to make it better, make Mac feel better. This hadn’t seemed right for which Mac stayed mute about his feelings. But he had let Wilt know when he was sad or angry or hurt. He didn’t have to put it in words, though, which had made being with Wilt so easy. Mac has had his means to express himself. Wilt had read him. He always knew how to cheer or back Mac up. It didn’t matter then that he didn’t have the background facts.

That had changed when they became older. Wilt then had more often asked whether everything was alright at home or whether his father was again on a business trip. Bozer had then come by more frequently and more frequently without letting Mac know in advance that he would come by. Mac had never asked Bozer about this changed behaviour, but suspected that it had to do with the bruised eye that Mac hadn’t been able to hide from Wilt and had not been very convincing about how he had sustained it. It had been about two years after his mother’s death when his father’s hand slipped for the first time, leaving a red hand-shaped mark on his cheek which usually had faded the next day. But then, Mac had done something really stupid like taking his father’s car apart, because he wanted to see how the engine worked. Wilt had asked him how he had sustained the bruise. He had told Wilt that he had slipped, fell and hit the coffee table with his head. Wilt hadn’t been convinced and then had made it a habit to look out for Mac, more than he had done by then anyway.

It was these memories which held Mac in a tight grip recently, but wouldn’t let him wake up like the explosion that killed his instructor would. Mac would jack-knife into a sitting position, gasping for air, sweating profusely when those nightmares reached their peak. Mac was never able to fall back asleep after these nightmares which made his pulse beat fast and his heart thunder hard in his chest, something which according to the docs he had to avoid. However, these nightmares never hurt as much as these others from which he never awoke in the middle of the night. Instead, they left Mac in the morning with an unsettling feeling in his chest and the wish to curl up under his blankets to hide away from the world, a wish he more often than not complied with lately.

Jack didn’t have a good look through the windows, but he saw a body that was tossing and turning instead of sleeping restfully. He didn’t think about boundaries when he walked back inside and towards the bedroom he had been watching from the deck. He made sure that his steps were soft, but not silent. He didn’t want to frighten the other occupant of the house, didn’t want to appear like a threat. When he reached the door of said bedroom, he opened it and found confirmed what he had seen and hoped had simply been a reflection generating a wrong impression. He took one tentative step inside the room. He felt like an intruder. The more he felt like that when he saw the blond kid, wrapped up in tangled sheets and the quilt. Mac looked so much younger, rather like the kid Jack had accustomed to call him and not like the man he had seen fighting for survival, for their survival. Too young, Jack’s mind screamed over and over again. Probably it was this young appearance that made Jack forget about private space and the feeling of intrusion when he walked self-confidently towards the bed.

Mac didn’t notice his presence, because his subconsciousness was too occupied dealing with Mac’s father who was yelling at him, because Mac had ruined his trousers, again. He had tried to jump up the curb with his bike. He didn’t achieve his goal of safely landing his bike on two wheels on the pavement. Instead, his front wheel hit the curb and propelled Mac over the handlebar. Mac’s landing had been lucky, but his trousers took the brunt of it and sustained holes at the knees and thighs where Mac had scratched over the pavement. Mac’s Dad had been very angry, because he expected Mac to be more careful with the cloths his father gave him, because they didn’t grow on trees, but had to be paid for with money his father had to work hard for. Mac had promised his father that it wouldn’t happen again and that he would repair the trousers. He could sew up the holes or sew a patch on it. His father didn’t believe him. Instead, he yelled at Mac that he should stop making promises he wouldn’t keep, because they both knew that Mac was an inattentive, inconsiderate klutz. At the next best occasion, he would ruin something again. “Just like you’ve ruined my life,” his father had yelled and to emphasise his point had slapped Mac’s cheek hard. It not only left a red, hand shaped mark, but a bruise. Mac had been able to convince his friend Wilt that the bruise was sustained during his accident with his bike. Scrapes on both his knees sufficed as evidence. It had been enough to soothe Wilt’s worries. It wasn’t enough to heal the trauma the encounter had caused and that was forever imprinted in Mac’s mind and scarring his heart.

Jack put a gentle hand on Mac’s shoulder, squeezed it. Mac felt the touch through the thin fabric of the shirt he wore, but his nightmarish mind mixed it up with his father’s slap that stung so awfully, hurting his whole body. Mac startled awake, jumping up into a sitting position with wide eyes roaming fearfully through his bedroom. Only until after a few seconds have passed he concluded that he was safe at home in his own bed. His heart hammered hard against his chest. He took a few steadying breaths to slow it down.

“You alright?” he heard Jack’s voice coming from the right. He was startled again, because the voice come unexpected. Jack pulled his hand away when he realised that he had caught the kid off guard and took a step back. Eyes displaying a mixture of panic and confusion landed on him. Mac’s brain stuttered until it caught up with what went on and realised who stood in his room. Jack saw the tension drain from Mac’s body that also slowly understood that there was no threat. Exhausted from his dream, Mac slumped back onto the pillows, covering his face with one hand, because damn was this an embarrassing situation. Jack stood in his bedroom looking obviously worried. It felt so wrong. But not for Jack, who took a few steps forward to stand next to the bed. Yes, he was worried, but he didn’t perceive it as something wrong. The contrary even. Only Mac didn’t acknowledge it.

“You alright, hoss? That looked like a pretty bad nightmare,” Jack asked debating whether sitting down on the bed to be on eye-level with the kid meant overstepping boundaries. He didn’t intend on intruding anyone’s personal space, but the kid seemed to have way too much of that for his liking. There was no one in his personal space and an empty personal space felt wrong. After what the kid had gone through, the sandbox, the explosion and especially after another surgery with doctors breaking his whole rib cage, there were supposed to be a number of people hovering. Nobody was meant to be alone. Hence, Jack threw all doubts over board and sat down on the mattress where Mac shifted a little away to get is privacy back.

“Sandbox?” Jack asked Mac who hadn’t answered Jack’s first question. He wasn’t sure whether answering a seemingly rhetoric question was appropriate. This second question, thought, he would have to respond to which he did was an indifferent shoulder-shrug which Jack interpreted correctly as a ‘don’t wanna talk about it’. Jack accepted it for now, but not without initiating another physical contact by placing his hand on Mac’s thigh that was hidden under the blankets. It tensed up under the unexpected touch, but relaxed when the warmth seeped through the muscles. Jack didn’t mean a threat. Jack had saved his life. Jack was maybe a friend. Mac was taken aback when that idea popped up in his mind. Friend. How did he come to think of Jack as a friend? Because Jack was there. Jack seemed to care, to genuinely care. This left Mac puzzled. He didn’t know what he did to deserve this.

“Alright, don’t wanna talk about it. That’s okay,” Jack said. The kid was a mystery and he would love to get a glimpse inside the scrawny kid’s head.

“Let’s get back to bed and get some shuteye. You need to rest and heal,” Jack added and got up, but not without giving the kid’s leg a gentle squeeze of reassurance. He had reached the door when a soft “Thank you,” spoken with such a deeply felt sincerity, stopped him in his tracks. He turned around and looked over to Mac who once more looked so much younger than the twenty-something that he really was.

“Nothing to thank me for. I’m glad to be of help,” Jack replied, “And now go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.” Jack gently closed the door and walked back to bed himself. Mac listened to the soft steps and the quiet squeaking of the wooded boards. It felt comforting. Not being alone felt comforting. With this on his mind, he snuggled back under the covers and fell back into a fitful sleep without any nightmares.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Jack woke up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. The sunbeams filtering through the curtains in front of the window indicated that it was rather late in the morning than early. After he had gone back to bed, he had for the first time slept peacefully without strange dreams. In fact, he felt well rested for the first time since he had returned stateside. He stretched his limbs cat like before he got up and planted his feet on the floor that was nicely warmed up by the sun. The warmth spread through his feet and his veins into his legs. It was a relaxing awakening and he felt well-rested, something he hadn’t experienced for a while not even on the ranch after he had returned. It was strange that he experienced it here so far away from everything he had loved and had been happy to have it back again. He had been restless at home. Jack couldn’t tell why. He shook his head to get rid of these cobwebs in his head, got up, stretched his back and padded out of the bedroom, following the smell of the coffee to the kitchen. He watched the kid with blond tussled hair tinkering in the kitchen. Jack had to admit, coming here had been strange at first, but it had healed the restlessness. Being here felt right, righter than he had felt in Texas.

Back at the ranch his mind had been circling around the blond scrawny burger-named kid. He had been worried about him after he had seen him all alone entering the bus that had brought him home. Jack’s soul needed to be convinced that there was someone taking care of the kid before it was ready to rest. The thing was, there was nobody. No, that wasn’t true. There was someone. Jack was there, but wished that there had been someone in the meantime. Well, whatever there was or wasn’t, Jack would get to the bottom of it, but not before he has had a decent cup of coffee.

Mac raised the mug with the steaming brew to his lips when a “Are you even allowed to drink coffee?” spoken from Jack drew his attention away from his ‘breakfast’ and to the speaking person who leant against the kitchen counter, eyeing him like a hawk. With a sigh, Mac lowered the mug and replied curtly: “Decaf”, because really, it wasn’t fair, but better than nothing.

“But the good stuff’s there for you,” Mac added and hinted to the coffeemaker where a can with real coffee stood. Mac didn’t have the heart to let Jack, who had put up with a lot since he had arrived and for arriving at all, suffer through the ordeal Mac had to undergo. He leant back against the kitchen counter, feeling its edge press against the small of his back, while he watched Jack helping himself to some coffee. No need to bother the kid, who looked a little worse for wear. After a sip and some confident silence, Jack continued with his inquisition: “Shouldn’t you be resting, like lying in bed and such?” he asked critically, because the kid surely was pale and Mac had to admit that moving with his sternum being cut in two halves that hadn’t found the decency to grow back together yet, wasn’t much fun.

“Breakfast does not make itself,” Mac replied although he wished to move as little as possible.

“Yeah, first of all that’s the reason why staying in the hospital for the time recommended by the docs wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, given that they do have nice personnel that’s taking care of stuff like breakfast, lunch and…,” Jack started, but Mac cut in: “an absolute lack of privacy,” to which Jack had to agree that the kid had a point.

“Okay, point taken, but second of all that’s the reason why asking for help is sometimes a really good idea,” Jack added which earned him something like a death glare, if puppies were actually capable of that. Mac tilted his head and thought hard about what Jack was implying. Okay, maybe Mac was a very proud guy who had a tendency to drown before asking for help, but that was courtesy to the circumstances, because there was no one he could ask for help, had never been.

Well, that was not entirely true. When the Bozers had still been part of his life, there certainly had been people he could have asked for help if it hadn’t been for his need for independency that told him to take care of himself and solve his problems on his own. But when Wilt had been still around, there had always been a good chance that someone would find out that he might need help and offer it instead of him having to ask for it. Mac would still refuse it, but the Bozers had a tendency to impose their help on him which in retrospect hadn’t been such a bad streak. If Mac was honest with himself, without the Bozers he would have drowned rather sooner than later.

Mac had to think back to the time when Harry had passed away. He had not known all the work involved in the death of a person. Forms had to be filled out, the estate had to be sorted and a funeral had to be organised, which involved informing people which in turn required him to identify who had to be informed. Mac has had no idea who he had to inform. On top of that, as a minor, he couldn't sign anything legally binding. At this point, another ‘construction site’ was opened up: who was to take responsibility for him after Harry’s death? Mac had been a minor. When all this had threatened to grow over his head, Lauretta and Milton stepped in, after Bozer had found Mac a trembling, tears-streaked misery, huddled in a dark corner of the school’s library after he had tried to go on as if nothing had happened, but had failed miserably at it. School, forms, chores, people, child services that bugged him. It had been too much at some point for Mac to handle. He hadn’t known where to start and where to end. It all had seemed like an insurmountable pile of work. After Wilt had told his parents that Mac was not good and needed help, they had jumped in. They had helped him to organise the funeral, gone with him to the funeral home, searched Harry's phone book with him to see who needed to be informed. It turned out that there were not many. They had helped Mac when it came to finding out what Harry had planned to do with his estate, which had been pretty easy, because he had left everything to Mac as his only living relative. And last but not least, Milton and Lauretta had also dealt with child services, after they had found out about a teenager living alone without an adult as legal guardian and that wanted to place Mac in a foster home. And then on the day of the funeral, they had stood by his side and close by when at the end of the ceremony he had stood there, listen to condolences he didn’t care about and shaken hands of people he hadn’t seen before. Milton had placed a steady hand on his back, between his shoulder blades when everything he wanted was to run away from it all. It had been Lauretta who had folded her arms around him when everything had been over. She had pecked the top of his head like he had seen her do it with Wilt and Josh so many times.

One month later they had accompanied him to the courthouse when the judge decided that Mac was mature enough to be emancipated. A decision both, Milton and Lauretta, had regretted. They didn’t share the judge’s opinion, because Mac had still been a child who had needed protection and care. They had been more than willing to take Mac in. They had talked to the people from child services that they would take over guardianship for Mac. These people had listened dutifully to their concerns about Mac’s plans to become emancipated. These people had even made notes and assured Milton and Lauretta that they were taking their offer into consideration. One of these people has had the audacity to raise their hopes by expressing her agreement with the Bozers that it was indeed better for the child to remain in its familiar environment and with people it already knew and trusted. But still. An emancipated kid was one kid less in the system and hence, one kid less to take care of, because foster care – no matter how invested and reliable the parents concerned – always meant monitoring visits and forms to be filled. And since the kid did wish to be emancipated as well, there spoke nothing against it. It hadn’t kept the Bozers from imposing their care on Mac anyway.

Jack saw Mac thinking about something. Thinking about the Bozers always sent a sharp stab through Mac’s heart because it reminded him of how much he missed them. A sadness rushed over Mac’s face which didn’t remain unnoticed by Jack.

“Well, whatever,” he then broke the silence that had covered the two men in the kitchen, “I’m there now and I can help, so why don’t you lie down somewhere and let me take care of breakfast? Because I do see the coffee, but no food and you look like you could use the one or other decent meal,” Jack said and was about to shove Mac out of the kitchen, but Mac, stubborn as a mule, dug his heels into the ground. He was really grateful for Jack’s visit, but he was intruding Mac’s personal space which the latter didn’t very much appreciate. He still felt the pinch of embarrassment which sat in this morning after Mac had remembered the night before and Jack standing in his bedroom, because Mac has had a nightmare. Jack comforting him like he was still a five years-old was just not supposed to happen. Mac was old enough to take care of himself, even when he had nightmares. And for this he gave in to the need to stop Jack from whatever he had planned.

“Jack, you came here for a visit. You are a guest. So, if someone is supposed to prepare the breakfast then it’s me and you’re supposed to sit down and enjoy some peace and quiet time,” Mac replied. Jack heaved a sigh, stemmed his hands onto the kitchen counter and leant forward to get a really good look into the kid’s eyes to make sure the scrawny burger-named kid got the message Jack had prepared for him.

“Mac, listen man, I came here as a friend and friends help each other,” he tried it, but his attempt was harshly disregarded, when Mac said: “But I don’t need your help.” It felt like a slap in the face. It was ungrateful, Mac knew that, too, but he couldn’t change who he was, which meant that he didn’t like letting people enter his personal space.

“You sure about that?” Jack asked critically. He understood Mac’s reaction as what it was: rejection. Jack didn’t comprehend what caused this attitude, but he had become familiar with it in the sandbox. Deacon had made that observation as well and concluded that the kid was in the dire need of some well-meant help on that front. Mac realised that Jack wasn’t going to give up his attempt that easily. He also felt sorry for snapping at the older man.

“Jack, I’m fine,” Mac said softly to diffuse Jack’s worries, but Jack wasn’t easily fooled.

“I beg to differ. Mac, you nearly died in the sandbox and judging from what you told me, you’re still not out of the woods. You might not be in the immediate threat of dying, but you are still endangered by this shrapnel in your chest. So, please let me help you, okay?” Jack proved to Mac that he was looking right through to him, who was tired and only shrugged his shoulders, before he walked out of the kitchen towards the deck. When he passed the den, his eyes landed on the mantlepiece. The picture that he had put down face first, looked at him with a Wilt Bozer grinning happily at him. He stopped in his tracks and looked back to Jack, who was busy preparing breakfast with the few remaining eggs that he had found in the fridge. Mac’s stomach twisted, but not because of the smell that came from the kitchen, but because the position of the picture told him that Jack had been snooping around. Mac didn’t fancy that at all. Jack felt Mac’s eyes on him and stopped what he was doing to look back at the kid that stood by the mantlepiece. His eyes fell on the picture and he hissed. He had been a little bit too inattentive the night before.

“Sorry, I couldn’t sleep last night and went around. Didn’t mean to snoop around,” Jack said, lifting his arms in a ‘no harm meant’ gesture. Mac sighed and was ready to let it go, but Jack couldn’t shut his mouth and asked: “Who is it, on the picture? The one boy is obviously you, but the other guy?” Mac tilted his head. He wasn’t inclined to talk about this – to talk about Wilt. This was really very personal.

“No one important,” Mac for this said, turned around in an attempt to leave for the deck, but Jack didn’t buy his curt answers. He also wasn’t in the mood for playing this kind of game, because he was here to help. He wouldn’t let a stubborn teenage tantrum – because how else to call Mac’s ‘push away reaction’? – stop him from it.

Helping a blind man see, this was what Deacon had told him, who was the first one who suspected that Mac didn’t even know that he was in the need of help. And in fact, Mac didn’t know that. He didn’t understand that his degree of independence and self-reliance fit the description of antisocial. But Jack saw it, saw that Mac had started to live the life of a hermit, or some sort of a hermit’s life. It was unhealthy, destructive. Destructive. This was the part that made Jack most angry about the kid’s behaviour. If he at least took care of himself, made sure that his wellbeing was a priority, but he didn’t. The first sign had been when they hadn’t given him the time to recover from his marathon through the desert. Mac has had the right to heal first before he was sent back to active duty. In fact, the superiors had breached the rules when they had sent him back out to disarm IEDs. He had not only been a risk for himself, but for his comrades and the civilians which he was supposed to save.

Mac had known that. One night, when he felt beyond exhausted and had thought that he couldn’t go on any longer, he had accepted the form Charlie had handed him. It was a form to file a complaint and one to request some time off duty. Mac’s brain had told him to fill in the blanks and get his body the rest that he had needed. Mac’s temperature had still been elevated then. He still had suffered from headaches, which he didn’t get under control, because staying thoroughly hydrated while being on tour through the desert was never easy. Added to that, the BDU scratching over his sun burnt skin had caused an ugly rash that Mac only got to cool for a few hours at night when he was allowed to get some sleep. Charlie had talked to Mac. He had been very close to report it to the higher-ups himself. But it would have been an irreversible breach of trust. Mac simply didn’t take it well, if people acter over his head, made decision for him. He had been taking care of his own business for far too long as if he could discern true concern from intrusion. For this, Mac had been brooding over these forms with a pen in his hand. But then a thought had crossed his mind and he had lowered the pen and discarded the forms. Because, what was he worth if he couldn’t do his job anymore? All he was worth was the job he was doing. His value was determined by his skills. If he couldn’t put them to use, he was worth nothing.

It had always been like that. His father, when he had been around, had always seemed so sad when Mac got bad grades. He still remembered how difficult his first years in primary school had been. After everybody had thought that he was smart, with his parents arguing over what would be the right sort of education, it turned out that he wasn’t. He hadn’t even been average. He still remembered his father, sitting at his desk, hunched over an essay that Mac hadn’t been able to writ to his teacher’s satisfaction, with his hands gripping the sides of his head tightly. His father’s face had been scrunched up with disappointment and sadness. How could they possibly have been so awfully mistaken about their son’s intelligence? Then, turning his gaze away from the D, his father had read the essay. Mac had watched his facial features relax. The hands had left their place from the head, with one being put on the desk and the other one gripping his father’s chin. His posture had straightened up. He then had looked at Mac. It had been this essay that had been the cause through which his father had taken matter in his own hands and gave the proof that his son was underchallenged not overtaxed. When Mac’s father has read the letter which informed him about his son’s IQ, he had taken Mac into his arms, embraced him tightly. It had been relief about the fact that he hadn’t been mistaken, that the discussions he has had with his precious wife before her death hadn’t been of no use but had had a solid reason. He had pecked Mac on the forehead and then repeated his embrace. Mac had felt loved then, really and truly loved. His whole chest had been filled with this feeling. It had only been repeated a few times after that, but the occasions had been rare. Thinking back, it usually had happened when Mac had given his father something to be proud of: a science fair won, skipping two classes, being kicked out from the boy scouts because he had his own head.

“Doesn’t look unimportant to me,” Jack challenged Mac’s answer. He watched Mac clenching and unclenching his jaw, because he didn’t want to talk to Jack about Bozer. He was afraid that Jack would agree with Wilt’s opinion and tell Mac that he had behaved like an arse and shouldn’t be surprised that he had lost his one and only friend. He was afraid that Jack would turn around and leave again, forgetting about the ‘friend thing’ that he had been talking about only a few minutes before. Added to that, Mac was afraid that Jack would detect the reason for why he was all on his own: because he was who he was.

“C’mon Mac,” Jack went on when he realised that he wouldn’t get an answer from the kid, “talk to me. I’m here to help with whatever you need help with,” Jack offered, but Mac wasn’t ready to take it.

“Don’t waste your time over this,” Mac said and turned around. It was the sad tone in his voice and the depressing heaviness that sagged Mac’s shoulders which got Jack’s head to explode over the answer that had been spoken with so much dismay for his own self.

“Damn it Mac,” he therefore nearly yelled, “I didn’t save your fucking life only for you to wither away in loneliness and depression. You’re wasting your fucking life when you hole up in your home like this. You have to stop this, go out, meet people, get back into touch with friends.”

“But I don’t have any fucking friends, Jack!” Mac now yelled back to make Jack shut up, but he wouldn’t.

“Then make friends! You owe it to me, to us, after we saved your scrawny arse! We didn’t do it so you can throw your life away like it was worth nothing!” Jack now yelled himself, having lost all patience that he shown for the kid until now.

“I didn’t ask you to!” Mac yelled back. This put a sudden halt to the fight. Jack sobered up immediately from his stupor of rage. He looked dumbfounded at Mac. He had always has had the suspicion that the kid had some sort of death wish, but having it confirmed like that felt like a well-aimed, very forceful punch to the gut. Jack had to fight hard against the urge to topple over. He looked at Mac. Their eyes locked. It was the first time that Jack saw a flash of the bottom that he had wanted to get to. There was so much rough pain on the surface that he felt helpless. He had no idea how he was supposed to take away so much pain.

“Mac, you cannot seriously mean this,” he whispered, hoping for Mac telling him that it had been a statement made in the heat of the argument. He never received that confirmation, because it was meant as it had been said.

Since Mac had returned, he had lost his purpose. He had been fine with the loneliness. He had never had many friends, had learnt early to live without family. He had been able to live a life on his own, because he has had a purpose. Through this purpose there had been people around. The professors at the MIT had been awfully interested in his projects and ideas, had promoted him, helped filing patents, and encouraged new projects. They had bathed in his success, which he hadn’t taken them amiss, because they had deserved if after they had invested their time in him. In the army his superiors had asked his opinion, had talked about planned missions in the mess tent. His comrades had talked to him while he had repaired their radios, their equipment. They might not have cared much about Mac, but that had been okay. Mac hadn’t been as lonely as he had been when he had returned, because there had been no one. He had come home to an empty home. When he had opened the door, stale air, dust and silence had greeted him. His phone hadn’t rung the first three weeks. And when it then did, it had only because of his medical condition. Nobody had called asking him whether he was alright, because nobody knew that he had returned. Nearly no one had known that he had been gone in first place.

“Mac, kid, don’t tell me that you’re truly all alone in this world. Tell me, who’s this guy on the picture?” Jack pleaded with Mac, because he had to keep his heart from breaking apart. He felt the tears prick in the corner of his eyes. The reality threatened to overwhelm him.

Chapter Text

Jack walked up yet another driveway. A driveway in Mission City. It was yet again another door Jack didn’t comprehend how he ended up in standing in front of it. He felt insecure, truly insecure. Jack’s heart felt heavy, because he was afraid that he might not be able to help Mac with this one. He could make sure that the kid rested and took it slow to lower the risk that the shrapnel would pierce through his heart. Whether he could mend a broken relationship between former best friends, he didn’t know.

The day before, Mac had told Jack about the fight between him and Wilt Bozer. Mac had confirmed that Wilt had been his closest friend. He had even been more than just a friend, rather a brother. The day on which Mac had enlisted, he had gone to Wilt who had been busy waiting tables in the burger shop he had been working at to finance the tuition fees for his film school. Mac had expected Wilt being worried about the news that Mac was about to tell him, that Wilt wouldn’t be thrilled hearing that his best friend would leave the country to fight a war in a faraway country. He had waited patiently until Wilt’s shift was over. They had walked along the road towards a pier to their favourite bistro which served French foods. Wilt loved it. He never stopped praising the quality of the ingredients, the innovative combination of them and the flavour explosion he experienced. Mac liked the food very much, but didn’t develop the same enthusiasm like his friend.

They had sat down on a small table, enjoying the last warmth of the sun. The summer had been nearly over so it was a gentle warmth they bathed in. Wilt had chosen their dinner for the evening and had started telling Mac about this new movie plot that he was developing. He had been so cheerful and so enthusiastic about it. Mac’s heart had grown heavier with each passing second with which it became increasingly uneasy for Mac to broach the topic. Their starter was served. Wilt relished the good taste of the pate. Mac had liked it as well.

After their main course, Wilt always insisted they treated themselves when they went to the bistro for which they usually ordered three courses, Wilt eyed Mac and had asked how Mac was. He had asked him directly about his plans after he was finally free, no more studying, no more classes, no teachers. Mac had gulped down the lump that had formed in his throat and burned his heart. Wilt and his parents had had all kind of plans for Mac, from becoming a mad scientist to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs. The Bozers had no doubt that Mac has had a bright future, with a fast-track career ahead of him including fame, money and the love of his life. They had believed in it, had wished that their youngest family member would finally get the carefree life he had been denied during his childhood and adolescence. Life had to make up for all the wrong it had done.

Wilt had watched his friend shift uncomfortably from side to side on his seat, a sure sign that there was some sort of confession to come. He leant back in his seat with his hands placed in his lap, knowing well that he had to take in an open, welcoming posture if he wanted to help his friend to open up. The silence that settled between them, because Wilt wanted to give Mac the space he needed, felt oppressing to Mac. He wished he could jump up and leave. Just like his Dad had done. But Mac was no coward, had never been. Added to that, he owed it to Wilt who had stood up for him ever since junior high when he had punched Donnie Sandoz after that guy had Mac locked up in a way too small locker. Wilt and Mac had been inseparable ever since. Bozer had protected Mac and Mac had invented adventures for Bozer that had filled their childhood with a lot of fun and too many stories as if they could ever be finished telling them. Now, Mac had to tell him and decided that it was better to get it over with before dessert. For this he had taken a deep breath and then in one long, fast sentence without stopping once to catch his breath, he had told Wilt that he had enlisted and that in a few weeks would be sent to Virginia for basic training and then shipped off to Afghanistan to serve his country.

“Are you nuts?” Wilt had asked Mac dumfounded, because this had been so far away from being a well thought through decision from his point of view, it was so not Mac, that he had no other means expressing his confusion than by this. Unfortunately, though, Mac had confirmed that he was nuts and indeed had enlisted.

“Fuck Mac!” Wilt had screamed and jumped up from his seat before yelling at Mac, “What the fuck had gotten in to you?” Mac remained seated and shrugged his shoulder. He couldn’t answer Wilt’s question. Wilt with all the worst-case scenarios running through his head like a bad movie in which Mac was dying all sorts of gruesome deaths, got awfully worked up and had lost all rationality when he had asked Mac: “Did you ever think about us? Mom and Dad, me? I mean, do you actually consider what your decision means to us?” Wilt doubted that and he was right, because Mac hadn’t thought that it would mean anything to them. How could he possibly think differently? Because he had spent so much time with the Bozers during which they had used every single opportunity to let him know just how much part of their family he was. They had opened their hearts for him, but he had never made the step over the threshold to enter it.

“What is this?” Wilt had then yelled when Mac had sat there without one word coming over his lips, because he was convinced that he deserved every single insult that Wilt threw at his head.

“Is this some sort of ‘abandoned child complex’?” Wilt hadn’t been thinking about the words that so automatically came over his lips. He didn’t even see Mac, who ever since had been thinking about whether this accusation was true or not, flinch.

“Know what? You are such a fucking, selfish arsehole,” Wilt had then said with an ice-cold voice that had sent chills down Mac’s spine. He had turned around and left. It was then that Mac’s brain went back into a functioning mode. He jumped up and ran after Wilt. He had called after him, asked him to stop, but Wilt didn’t stop. He had been done with his former friend. Former friend, because Mac so carelessly threw his future and life away. He so obviously didn’t care about them. They didn’t mean shit to him, because otherwise, and Wilt had been convinced of that, Mac would have made a different decision, a safe one. It had hurt. It had hurt so fucking much and Wilt had wanted Mac to feel just how it hurt when someone who meant so much to you, someone you loved like he was your brother, told you straight to your face that you meant nothing to him. He couldn’t fathom the idea that nothing could be further away from the truth, because the Bozers meant the world to Mac. Only he could neither express it nor understand that it was mutual. Mac finally had caught up to Wilt and stopped him. The second in which Wilt had felt Mac’s hand on his shoulder, he spun around to face Mac. The anger was glaring back at Mac, pierced through him like a dozen daggers.

“What do you want, Mac?” Wilt had snapped at him.

“Nothing, I…I only want you to understand that I’m doing this, because it feels right. This decision. I want to help people, Boze,” Mac had tried to explain himself, but Wilt hadn’t wanted to hear any of it. It had been nothing but a sad excuse, because if he had wanted to help people, Mac could’ve joined an NGO and help children getting a thorough education somewhere where schools were a privilege. But the army? He would be fighting a war of which Wilt hadn’t been sure whether it was theirs or someone else’s war. Mac was about to risk his health, his life. This had been a grave decision and Wilt had expected Mac to consult them first, talk to them instead of making facts which he later presented them as an inevitable decision. He had taken their chance to convince him otherwise from them.

“Know what Mac?”, Wilt had suddenly felt so calm and collected, but also cold-hearted, because he had to get rid of the tearing sensation that ripped through his chest, “Know what? All this shit is nothing, but a lie. You don’t care about us, about Mom and Dad. You only care about yourself, but know what? That’s okay. Go wherever you want to. I don’t care. Do what you think is right, but please don’t come running if your decision turns out as brain-cracked as it is. I'm done with you, Angus MacGyver.” These had been Wilt’s last words. Mac had never talked to him afterwards, neither written a letter nor texted him. It had been over then and Mac didn’t have the courage to change Wilt’s mind, because Wilt had been right. Mac believed every single word which Wilt had said.

With one last deep breath, Jack rang the doorbell, ignoring the oppressing sadness that was threatening to take control over him ever since Mac had told him about how he and his best friend had ended up. He waited patiently and was rewarded when he heard footsteps and then the door was opened. Deep brown eyes looked at him. Her face was stern at the sight of a stranger standing on her threshold and Jack understood her gesture when she crossed her arms over her chest and asked briskly who he was and what he wanted.

“My name’s Jack Dalton and…uh…I’m …a friend of Angus MacGyver,” he told the woman, Lauretta, in front of him. Her gesture changed. Her formerly curt expression turned into a wide-eyed worried one.

“Angus? Oh my God, is he alright?” she asked him, her arms now unfolded but restrained by her willpower that kept her from shaking the answer out of Jack. Jack didn’t have the heart to tell her about Mac’s condition straight away.

“He’s fine. I…I’m here to help to…I dunno, but maybe to clarify a misunderstanding,” he answered instead. Lauretta nodded. She immediately understood what this visit was going to be about. She stepped aside and with one arm reaching out to Jack, she ushered him inside, keen to know what he had to say.

Lauretta and Milton had never really found out why Mac had disappeared just like that. Wilt had told them that he had enlisted and would be deployed to Afghanistan. They had been worried sick ever since. They had tried to contact him, but Mac had never taken any of their calls, too afraid to have to face the music that he had ordered. The argument with Wilt had left him somewhat shellshocked. It had frightened him. He had become afraid of Milton’s and Lauretta’s reaction, because he couldn’t fathom that they might not react angry, but maybe more understandingly.

Worried, but understanding. Life had loaded so much baggage on his shoulders, he was bound to break under it the one way or the other. Joining the army wasn’t safe, but it could have been so much worse. Of course, Milton and Lauretta would have tried to talk him out of it, but while knowing well that it was futile. When Mac had made up his mind once, it was difficult to make him change it. It had been the same when Mac had decided to go to the MIT. They had offered all kinds of option from joining community college to an internship in one of the tech firms in the vicinity. Nothing had convinced Mac and hence he had walked off to Massachusetts.

Jack summarised what Mac had told him. He explained her that Mac and Wilt had had a fight and that because of this, Mac had lacked the courage to get in touch. Lauretta and Milton who sat opposite Jack on the couch, with Milton nursing a cup of coffee in his hands, while Lauretta couldn’t stop fidgeting. Her heart grew heavy, because of course Mac would take this fight to heart and wouldn’t be able to reach out again.

“But does he want to see us? Get into contact again?” Milton asked hesitantly, because Angus had always been an enigma to them. No matter what they had tried, he had kept them at arm’s length, making it impossible to read him. They had tried hard, but Angus had never let them as close as to incapable them to understand his motives.

“He didn’t explicitly say that, but it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t take the radio silence well. He misses you like he misses Wilt,” Jack explained to them with his own cup of coffee in his hands. He was still not sure whether what he was doing was right. Mac hadn’t given his permission. Could well be that Jack’s decision to go over his head would piss him off some good. Jack decided to deal with that later. One problem at a time was his motto.

“I don’t understand where he got this habit from,” Milton muttered under his breath. Given, the last few years with James MacGyver had been difficult the least. But James had not always been like that. Even Angus had to admit that there had been times when James MacGyver had been a real father even after Ellen’s death. Milton very well remembered a BBQ they had one weekend. It had been shortly after Wilt and Angus had become friends. Milton and Lauretta had wanted to get to know Wilt’s new friend’s parents. They had been cautious when they heard that there was only a father left, but after witnessing James MacGyver interact with his son and their son, they had no doubts that the boy was taken care of. It had been one of those days on which James had been in a good mood. With a few kitchen supplies and cleaning utensils he had filled the afternoon with all sorts of tricks for the kids who couldn’t stop being amazed at all the bubbles and the foam that James MacGyver had so magically produced. Lauretta still remembered how patiently he had explained the kids the mechanics that were working behind the tricks. Angus had sat on his lap and Wilt opposite him on the lawn on which James had been sitting, too. On eye-level with the kids and so engrossed in playing with them that it had been a shock to find out later how much he had changed before he had abandoned his son. It had been this impression they had gotten that had made them turn a blind eye to the occasional bruises that Angus had sported and told them that they had been from accidents, the number of stories he had been telling resulting in the common, but false assumption, that Mac was just a klutz. She looked over to her husband, because whom were they fooling. Of course, they knew how Mac came to pick up such a habit. They had just hoped that he wouldn’t live it, at least not when they were concerned.

“Well, now that we know what happened, we need to do something about it,” Lauretta said. She was ready to jump into action, to do whatever was needed, but Milton stopped her.

“I think, most importantly Angus and Wilt have to take a chance and talk this through,” Milton said.

And that was why Wilt stood in front of a house he hadn’t been ever since Mac had decided to join the army. He wasn’t sure what he was doing there or to be more precise why it had to be him who had to make the first step. After all, it had been Mac who had caused the fall out with a decision that Wilt still thought of as unforgivable. But his parents had talked to him, told him that for him it was easier to make the first step, because he hadn’t been abandoned as often as Mac had. To Wilt, this argument felt like Mac got a pass for everything because of his past. As if the ‘I had a bad childhood’ argument served as a justification for all wrong-doings. At the end, Wilt had given in. He didn’t want to be the one to be blamed if they figured out that there was no relationship left to mend.

Mac was astonished to find his friend standing in front of him after he had opened the door thinking that it was Jack who had pretended to go for a run while he had been looking for Wilt and told him to go back to his friend to talk things through. He might or might not have been super friendly. At the end, what counted was the result and Jack’s delta death glare had been convincing enough.

“Boze?” Mac asked, because this probably was only some kind of bad joke, right?

“Yeah, it’s me,” Bozer replied, eyeing his friend who looked a little worse for wear, since Mac was still recovering from the last surgery. His body had a hard time healing although Mac did nothing but rest. He wasn’t capable of anything anyway, because he felt constantly drained.

“Didn’t know one could make friends in the army,” Bozer said disregardful. Mac, who understood that this meant that Jack was behind Bozer’s visit shrugged his shoulders and replied: “Neither did I.” He stepped aside to let Bozer in. Wilt hesitated, but then made the first step over the threshold. Not too long ago that had been his home, too. Bozer was surprised to see that nothing had changed since he had left. He walked to the den and looked out onto the deck. Then he turned around again to look at Mac who had followed him tentatively.

“Jack said you got injured.” It was statement not a question. Again, Mac shrugged. He started to feel really uncomfortable. He knew that he didn’t react correctly, but how else was he supposed to react? He was missing a manual that told him how to behave properly in such a situation. Bozer interpreted this non-reaction somehow wrong and huffed. He was sure by now that coming there had been a really bad mistake. There was nothing left between him and Mac to say and though, his feet were glued to the floor. No matter how much he willed them to move, move away, he couldn’t because it was his friend, his brother who stood there ghostlike, looking lost as ever. Wilt wished for the emotional detachment that he had never managed to gain after he and Mac had parted on rather unfriendly terms. Mac might not feel the way he did for Mac, but that didn’t make his feeling for Mac go away.

“You didn’t say anything. Could’ve asked for help,” Bozer then said. Mac staying mute was unnerving.

Those dark-drown eyes shot demandingly in Mac’s direction and all Mac could do was cast his eyes down to focus his feet instead of the disappointed look on his friend’s face. He felt Bozer’s expecting eyes on him, waiting for him to say something, anything. Mac tried hard to avoid the conversation but the eyes on him were burning his skin as if they tried to look through all those crumbled layers Mac had wrapped around himself to protect his core. And all Bozer wanted was to just look at that core, he wanted to see inside his friend. He wanted the truth. True feelings, because he had to admit: he had never believed any of the words he had thrown at Mac. He had never believed that Mac’s decision, no matter how thoughtless it had been, had been triggered by egoistic motives. That simply wasn’t Mac. But Mac was twisted. All his mindset was focused on the opposite direction of his wellbeing. Bozer more than once had phrased the concern that Mac probably wasn’t even capable to consider his own wellbeing. An idea that truly hurt, because they – which meant Lauretta, Milton and Wilt – had tried hard to change this. With their love they had hoped to make Mac understand that he mattered. It had never gotten through to him. It somehow had been too late for that. But whatever it was that currently stood between him and his best friend, Wilt wanted answers and hence he waited until the silence between the two young men grew unbearably oppressive and left Mac with no other option than to reply something – anything.

“You said I shouldn’t come running when my idea turned out to be wrong,” Mac simply said. This statement carried so many truths in it that Wilt was overwhelmed. Enlisting had been wrong. Mac had believed Bozer when he said that their friendship was over. Mac was hurting to a degree Bozer could hardly grasp. Mac, although of the grown-up he was by now, was still the little abandoned boy who kept everyone at a distance so he wouldn’t get hurt again.

Mac watched Bozer. He watched the furrows emerging on his friend’s forehead and waited for a reaction which took a while to come. He cast his eyes back down again, not able to look Bozer in the eyes. He felt his pulse racing under the skin of his wrist. Knowing well that this was no good for him, he took a few steadying breaths, which did nothing to calm his fried nerves. Bozer watched his friend. He was growing paler, but Bozer didn’t know why and how, since Mac had been so awfully pale already.

“Mac,” Bozer started to talk, but stopped. Instead, he made a step forward to close the gap between him and his friend, but Mac instinctively took a step back. Bozer’s shoulders slumped. There was obviously more to work through than he had anticipated.

Mac’s heart started hammering hard against his chest. His friend was there and he was developing a panic attack. This was beyond pathetic, but his body acted on its own accord and no matter how much Mac thought that this was only Bozer and nothing to be worried about, his body panicked. Bozer realised that his friend, his brother was spiralling, although he couldn’t tell why. Neither could Mac. He wanted to say something, tell Bozer not to worry, but he couldn’t. Suddenly a sharp pain went through his chest like a pang. It stabbed. It pinched. It was searing, all consuming pain that went through his chest. He toppled over, directly into Bozer’s arms who watched his friend gasping for air like a fish. But no oxygen seemed to enter his lungs. The pain was so bad, Mac didn’t want to move his chest.

“Mac?” Bozer asked and then carefully helped his friend, lowering him down to the floor when his legs gave in, because the pain was so bad. Bozer had no idea what he was supposed to do. He couldn’t judge the situation. He had seen something like this only once before and that was when his aunt had suffered from a heart attack, but Mac surely was too young for that. When Mac was safely lying on the floor, still gasping for air, Bozer had no clue what to do next. His brain wasn’t functioning. But Jack, who had entered the den the second the pain had exploded inside of Mac, remained cool-headed. He had a good idea of what he was watching and hence didn’t hesitate a second when he called an ambulance and then pushed Bozer out of the way to get assess to Mac whose lips started to turn blue. Jack checked for the pulse it was there, but growing weak. Fast. Oxygen first, Jack then decided and started rescue breaths hoping that the medics would arrive in time so he won’t have to decide whether chest compression was a good idea in such a situation or not.

“What’s…what’s wrong with him?” Bozer whispered.

“I fear the shrapnel moved,” Jack replied curtly in between breaths.

Chapter Text

A swoosh and a hiss. A swoosh and a hiss. It was the same rhythm he had been listening to for hours now. Keeping vigil again. And again it was this scrawny burger-named kid that was so stubbornly incapable of taking care of himself that Jack wanted to smack him. He watched the machine breath for the kid, because he couldn’t anymore. An obstructive tube stuck out of his mouth. It looked uncomfortable and Jack could tell that having something like that shoved down your throat was no fun. Well, whom wanted he to fool? He knew from experience.

His suspicion had been right. The shrapnel had moved and pierced the heart. What had caused it to move, nobody could tell. Maybe the kid had made a wrong move. Maybe his heart had been pumping too hard, too fast due to the excitement that was linked to Bozer’s surprise visit. Maybe it had just happened, because it could happen. Jack worried that his self-righteous involvement in an affair that wasn’t his business might have something to do with it, but nobody could tell. After all, it probably would have happened anyway.

He stroked with his thumb over the back of the lax and cold hand that he held still in his. They had performed an emergency surgery and oh wonder, oh wonder, what had been too risky and near impossible at first, had been possible now. They had removed the shrapnel and tried to repair the heart. Jack assumed that the doctors had taken the risk because it had been touch and go for a while and the risk of dying because they did nothing equalled the risk of dying because they tried. It had been a major heart surgery. The kid was still not out of the woods. It was still touch and go, the life hanging on a thin thread that could tear any second. The doctors were glad that the kid had made it through the first twenty-four hours, but he could tell from the look on their faces that they considered the kid as a goner. Jack prayed that the kid would prove them all wrong like he had done so many times already. Jack was convinced if someone was capable of that, then it was the kid.

The Bozers were at home or rather at Mac’s home, trying to get some rest. They had been worried sick. Lauretta had fought the doctor who had wanted to tell her that she couldn’t see Mac, since she was no relative. She hadn’t been gentle. Pointing out that there was no family or relatives left, she had asked the doctor whether he wanted a young man with Mac’s background going through an ordeal like this all by himself. Would the doctor abandon a kid like Mac in such a situation? Would he want to be held responsible for whatever further damage this did to the kid? No, the doctor didn’t want to be hold responsible for the damage this could cause and had granted Milton and Lauretta access. Wilt had stayed behind. He couldn’t bear seeing his friend like that. He had watched the paramedics intubate his friend. It had been such a rough treatment. He would have nightmares for sure. Jack didn’t blame him. He was too young. He had to live a few more years until he had made enough gruesome experiences to handle emergencies like these.

Jack was caught by surprise when he heard Wilt’s voice ask him: “Will I lose him?” He stepped inside. His body language screamed insecurity.

“I don’t know, but what I know is that he won’t give up easily. He’s a fighter,” Jack told Bozer trying to display as much self-confidence as he possible could in a situation where nothing was confident. Bozer nodded, stepped further inside and took a seat on the chair opposite Jack, taking Mac’s other hand into his. He was so damn fucking afraid that this was the last time he got to see his friend, his brother. He was afraid that he never got to tell him that he hadn’t meant what he had said back then, that he had only been hurt and worried and that because of this unhealthy emotional cocktail he had been saying words he knew he could never take back, but of which he knew that he had never felt them. He simply wanted Angus, his friend and brother back. It was as simple as that, but then again nothing was simple, because for this wish to become true, Mac had to recover from a shrapnel that had been buried in the tissue of his heart and somehow Bozer still couldn’t make himself believe that someone could ever recover from something like that.

“I don’t want to lose him,” Bozer then told Jack whom he didn’t know but who was there, by Mac’s side. Jack had proven to be a reliable friend to Mac. That had to count something for which Wilt didn’t hesitate when he opened up.

“I…was just so pissed off when he told me that he would join the army. I said things, I didn’t mean,” he told Jack. Jack nodded. He could relate to the remorse that Bozer felt. He has had a bad fight with his father, too. He had said things, he nearly has had no chance to take back again, because when he got the message that his father was dying, he had been knee deep in a top-secret mission. He nearly hadn’t made it home in time. Only nearly. He had gotten a chance. He had apologised. Told his father that he hadn’t meant it and at the end, he had gotten a chance to mend. This was, what Jack still considered as one of the greatest gifts that he had ever gotten. He couldn’t imagine how he had been supposed to live his life if he hadn’t gotten a chance to get what had been standing between him and his father out of the way. So, he was very familiar with the despair that Wilt felt. It was yet another prayer that he sent up to heaven, because Wilt was too young to live with a burden like that.

Jack noticed that Bozer expected him to say something. He looked up and at Mac’s friend and said: “Mac has to learn and understand that people do worry about him, too and he has to learn not to always expect the worst from people.” And Jack meant it. Bozer nodded in affirmation.

“True, but…together we will get him there, right?” Bozer said and Jack was a little puzzled, having missed the point when he had become part of a ‘we’, but he didn’t have the heart to let Bozer know about his doubts regarding the ‘we’ and simply nodded. Probably, he was suffering the same sickness the scrawny burger-named kid suffered from and couldn’t fathom the idea of being part of ‘we’. Who was he to tell?

With this out of the way, Bozer and Jack kept vigil. Mac didn’t notice any of it. He was dead to the world around him. No, not yet dead, but at the brink. His heart had trouble beating with the wound in its muscle. It stumbled every now and then sending the monitors Mac was attached to into alarming mode, screaming and blinking. Every time it happened Bozer’s own heart stood still. Jack would close his eyes and mutter a ‘not yet, kid’ or a ‘it’s way too early’. Both men would look up with relief when the monitors had stopped flashing signals and the noise had died down to the usual level.

Mac made it through the night and the second twenty-four hours, but his body remained weak. He was still on the brink.

Lauretta’s heart broke at the sight of Mac being so fragile and helpless. She ignored the tube and the machine that breathed for him when she leant over to peck his forehead like she had done so many times when Wilt had been sick, like she had liked to do when Angus had been ill, but he would seldomly let her. She placed her hand on his chest, carefully so she wouldn’t disturb the chest tubes that were there to drain the undesired blood out of the yet again broken chest. It was a scary sight, how the tubes snaked from the chest like tentacles over the side of the bed where they were attached to a bag that collected the undesired liquids. Lauretta pulled the sheet up a little higher to hide them. No need for Angus to worry once he woke up. She then sat down on the one chair next to Mac’s bed and waited.

When she and Milton were there, Jack and Wilt got to get a break. Jack had been debating whether to let Deacon, Worthy and Fitzy know. He decided to inform them once this ordeal was over and Mac had survived. That he wouldn’t, was no option and Jack didn’t take it into consideration.

Lauretta hummed a soft tune while she thumbed through her magazine. She could hardly concentrate on any of the articles. Her eyes would always wander back to the unconscious form lying motionless in the hospital bed. He looked so small. She was reminded of the child that had lived so shortly under their roof, the boy they had spent a wonderful summer with. She couldn’t stop wondering what they had done wrong, because surely, they had otherwise she couldn’t explain why Angus was still so convinced of not mattering at all, not being loved.

“Maybe we should have told him more often that we love him,” she then said to her husband who looked up from the newspapers that he pretended to be reading, but on which he could hardly concentrate on, because he couldn’t turn his eyes away from the boy in the hospital bed. He was too afraid that one missed second would allow Mac to leave them behind, mourning his loss.

“Maybe, but if the heart is closed, how to get the message through?” he asked his wife. It had been similar to what Deacon had once asked Jack when they had been talking and wondering why Mac didn’t make any effort to become part of their team. He had told Jack that one couldn’t make friends if one wasn’t receptive for friendship.

Mac made it through the third twenty-four hours. His heart slowly found its rhythm. The doctors’ optimism grew while Mac moved further away from the brink, inch for inch. It probably was his time to leave. He had done his deeds. It wouldn’t be a shame if he went now, but something kept him. There was something or rather someones namely the Bozers, Wilt and Jack holding onto him so he wouldn’t slip away and jump over the edge. He didn’t realise that while he lay unconscious in the hospital bed with his heart recovering from the shrapnel. He only knew that he was moving away from the brink. And Jack kept vigil, with his hand wrapped around Mac’s as if this physical contact was what bound Mac to earth and kept him from falling over the edge he was standing at, staring down into an abyss that would distress everyone else, but not Mac who remained scaringly calm at the prospects of falling.

“You know, bud,” Jack started talking silently when Bozer had fallen asleep in the chair opposite. Soft snores telling Jack that he was out like a light, not noticing what went on in the small room.

“I don’t know where you get this idea from,” Jack went on, dissecting and analysing Mac’s behaviour, drawing conclusion from past actions and things that had been done or not done to Mac. Jack admittedly was also heavily relying on Deacon’s observations, because it had been him wo had opened up his mind and heart for the kid before Jack had even come to see the good soul that hid behind snarky comments and a know-it-all-attitude that made you want to strangle the kid in the most inappropriate times.

“You behave like you are all on your own, like you don’t matter,” Jack went on with his thumb rubbing gentle circles over the back of Mac’s hand, “But there are people to whom you matter quite a lot. I meant, yes you had a fight, but that’s what family does. Family quarrels, family fights. But that’s okay and by no means does it mean that you are not wanted. The contrary even,” Jack told the unconscious form who so obviously had no clue about family dynamics. Well, good that Jack was there. He was part of a really big family and had gotten more experience in big family than anyone else. He was convinced of that. Growing up with a bunch of sisters, a stubborn father, quarrely brothers and a mother with the serenity of a saint, there was nothing about family Jack didn’t know to tell one or two stories about.

It was the fourth twenty-four hours when Mac was far enough away from the brink to feel what went on around him. Instinctively, he tried to draw in a breath only to find that he couldn’t. Something was holding his chest or blocking his airways or both. Strangely, he didn’t choke though. There was enough oxygen. He felt it being pumped inside of him. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but he lacked the energy to fight it or to even find out what was happening to him. Jack watched the tiniest of all fights welling up and then subsiding from Mac when Mac’s breath hitched a little, but then evened out with the rhythm of the vent again. Jack placed a hand on Mac’s chest to calm the younger man down, but there was no need for it. Mac had sunken back into the blackness where he was hidden from his surroundings. The small escape to the sensory world had wiped him out. However, no matter how small, this was an improvement which increased the doctors’ optimism even further. Mac was about to come around again. His body had regained some of its strength that allowed it to wake up from the comatose state it had been caught in.

Lauretta and Milton watched Mac’s attempts to get back to them on the fifth twenty-four hours. Again, Mac’s breath hitched when he realised the he wasn’t breathing. This time, however, he didn’t relax back into unconsciousness, because he felt something in his mouth. He wanted to shut it, but found that he couldn’t. The sensation then went down his throat and he felt that there was something which wasn’t supposed to be there and he also felt how this something pumped the oxygen in his chest. Not able to tell that he was in a hospital and that what he felt was actually what had kept him alive for the last few days, he panicked and tried to fight whatever was stuck in his throat. Lauretta and Milton looked up when they heard the choking sounds coming from Mac. Milton pressed the call button to get the medical staff’s attention while Lauretta leant over Mac, cupping his cheek while soothing him: “It’s okay, Angus. Don’t fight it. It’s uncomfortable, I can imagine, but it helps you,” she told him with soft, warm words that Mac didn’t understand because it blurred together to a hum and melted into a sensory puddle when he felt Lauretta’s soft hand on his cheek, felt the warmth spread across it. The doctor assessed the situation, but decided that Mac was still too weak and that it was better to wait before extubating the patient. Instead, a mild sedative was administered that sent Mac back into the peaceful unconsciousness. Milton and Lauretta were disappointed, but waited patiently. It couldn’t be much longer now

It was during the night of the sixth twenty-four hours. Jack was alone. Wilt had been too tired. Emotionally and physically drained, Jack had sent him home to rest while he kept an eye on Mac who during the day hadn’t given them any signs that he was about to wake up. The doctors had started losing hope again, declaring the signs from the previous days as some sort of last rebellion before the body finally gave up. Well, it had to be expected. The trauma to the heart and hence to the body had been too major as if the body could recover from such an onslaught. The truth had been too hard for the Bozers to bear. Milton had remained calm, but Lauretta and Wilt hadn’t been able to hold back the tears at the prospects of losing Angus for good, while Jack declared the doctors’ opinion as bullshit. He had seen Mac fight in the hospital in Kabul. Declared for dead before his time, Mac had proven them all wrong. It was this straw that Jack clung to while he sat with Mac. He was incapable of taking his eyes away from his young charge. He felt antsy like he hadn’t the nights before. Something was different, as if he sensed that during this night something was about to change.

“Don’t you dare making a beeline for it,” Jack told Mac, “I promised you in Kabul and the same promise applies here, should you die, I’ll drag your scrawny arse back only to kick it to hell and back,” Jack threatened him. Mac heard him, but couldn’t make out the words. But he felt the strong hand that was wrapped around his, although he couldn’t tell that it was actually a hand. He felt the physical contact. And again, he felt the tube that was shoved down his throat and prevented him from closing his mouth and breathing on his own. His breath hitched. That got Jack’s attention. Mac fought the vent, wanted to breath on his own, but he couldn’t. His hands griped for purchase to fight the agony, but all they got were the scratchy hospital sheets. It did nothing to help with the panic nor to get whatever was shoved down his throat out. In a fruitless attempt to free himself from the contraption that he felt he was caught in, his hands shot up and wrapped around the tube, but his wrists were caught by another set of hands. Jack watched with horror how the panic built up inside of Mac and how he tried to rip the tube out. In time, his hands shot forward to catch the thin wrists.

“Hey, stop that, okay? Mac, you’re safe and I’m sure we can get rid of the breathing tube, once the doctors are here, okay?” Jack told Mac. It was the first time the young man registered Jack’s voice as Jack’s. He frowned and then opened his eyes, not having realised that he had shut them close during his fight with the vent. Once, the blue orbs settled on Jack and seeing that he was there, Mac’s body relaxed a little and he let Jack guid his hands back down on the mattress. But Jack didn’t let go off Mac’s hands until the doctor came and decided that it was time to extubate Mac. It was an unpleasant, slimy procedure. Jack helped the nurse cleaning Mac up from the mucus, while Mac’s brain slowly recognised his surroundings as the ICU of a hospital. His eyes roamed through the room, took in all the machines and tubes. He shuddered when he saw the chest tube. This must be really bad, he concluded and then his eyes went back to Jack, who for the second time of his life felt a relief of an immensity he hadn’t thought he would experience again after he had been sure that Mac would survive the explosion that he had been caught in the sandbox. Then Mac’s eyes wandered around the room again and landed on the large window through which the nurse could watch him and his condition. Then his eyes landed back on Jack and Jack read the question that was read in them: ‘why are you here’.

“Someone has to make sure you don’t make a run for it. You’re stuck with us. Whether you like it or not,” Jack told Mac who had trouble understanding what the ‘we’ meant, but he had another question which he tried to press out of his aching throat. It came out in a hoarse, raspy whisper: “Wh’t ‘ppned?” Jack took a breath and leant back in his chair. Mac was finally on the mend and no doctor could convince him otherwise. Jack told Mac about the shrapnel that had pierced his heart and that he nearly hadn’t made it. Jack watched how Mac took in the information but remained scaringly indifferent about it.

“Listen Mac, you have to stop this. All this grey hair here? That’s all because of you,” Jack told him mockingly.

“Been grey…before,” Mac whispered, but Jack shook his head, pointing out that he hadn’t been grey until he had met this scrawny burger-named kid, but Mac didn’t hear much of Jack’s ranting. He fell back asleep. He was capable of breathing on his own, but his body was still drained and needed some time to rest. Jack accepted it.

They kept Mac two more days in ICU where Lauretta couldn’t stop fussing over Angus, who slept most of the time and hence didn’t notice any of it. Though, he was a little confused when he saw Lauretta and Milton and then even Wilt sitting by his side, having watched him sleeping. None of them offered him an answer to his unpronounced question, because it was understood that they were there. Lauretta would peck his forehead whenever she saw his eyelids droop before he drifted back to sleep. Mac noticed the gesture, but it didn’t make sense to him. He didn’t feel it when she brushed the bangs out of his face.

Wilt was there, too. Mac didn’t have the energy to ask him what he was doing there or whether they had managed to settle their argument. Mac’s memory was a little bit patchy. He remembered Wilt standing in his den, but then things were a blurry mess of pain and contorted pictures that Mac couldn’t put into order to get the full story. That was okay for Wilt who was glad that his friend was awake for a couple of minutes of the day. Mac didn’t talk much, but Wilt did. He told him about his classes and the promotion he had gotten. He was also employee of the year which had gotten him some further benefits. Mac listened. That was all his body was capable of. This, and asking himself the question what had happened that suddenly Wilt and the Bozers were back in his life.

“No worries, kid. Once you’re better, we’ll talk this through. I think, it’s time to put into words the one or other thing,” Milton said, but it didn’t sound like a threat. These words were spoken with a gentleness that warned Mac about the seriousness of what was yet to come, but it didn’t deter him, because Milton conveyed the message that this was nothing Mac had to be too worried about.

Jack didn’t leave his position at Mac’s side, not even when it was clear that Mac would recover and was transferred to the normal ward. Mac was still weak like a kitten, but every day he was awake for a few minutes longer. When Jack was confident that Mac could stay awake for a solid half an hour, he decided that it was time to move to the more serious conversations. Someone had to make the kid see what was directly in front of him without doubting it or putting it into question.

“You know Mac,” Jack said and Mac realised that there was a lecture about to come, “These people, Lauretta, Milton and Wilt, they not only care about you. They love you. I mean, I’ve seen it. They’ve been there the whole time, not letting you alone,” Jack told Mac who only now realised how much time the Bozers had spent slashed wasted to stay with him.

“Mac, the thing is,” Jack then took Mac’s hand in his, “The thing is that you have to believe it and let them. Allow them to love you, Mac. It’ll be all a little bit easier then,” Jack told Mac.

Chapter Text

Mac was still recovering, but he was recovering at home which was a big plus. Ever since he had woken up in hospital with Jack, Lauretta, Milton and Wilt by his side, he had been quiet. His mind and heart needed some time to wrap around the fact that contrary to his believes he wasn’t alone. Mac had been thinking a lot about Jack’s words. Slowly it dawned to him that his perspective was a little askew.

The Bozers wouldn’t leave his side. Bozer had decided to move back in with his bestie and somehow, Jack found himself making himself more comfortable in the spare bedroom Mac had offered him to stay in as long as he wanted to until Jack started asking himself why he should return to Texas? His family was there. He could drive or fly down to Texas and visit them whenever he wanted. He could call them every day. He had a job waiting for him at the ranch. He could easily get a job here in L.A. Heck, he had even been contacted by the one or the other alphabet agency. There were interesting vacancies for him, which called for him more than the work at the ranch. But more importantly, his friends were here. Yes, plural. Friends. Wilt Bozer had become a friend while they took care of Mac together. Worthy and Deacon were living not too far away. One and a half hours drive.

And then there was Mac. Jack couldn’t tell why, but he couldn’t get himself walking out of the door with a ‘goodbye’ and ‘see you soon’. The fact that Mac would happily accept such a decision without showing any sort of disappointment but only understanding, made such a decision not easier. In fact, it made it harder. Jack considered himself as strangely attached. Who had thought that he would feel this sort of bond between him and the scrawny burger-named kid who had shaken up Jack’s life by being a pain in the arse? Jack hadn’t. But Deacon had been right. Mac had shown them that there was more to live for and that they weren’t the lost, condemned souls they had considered themselves as. Jack had been grateful for this realisation, but it wasn’t gratefulness that kept him glued to Mac’s side. It was something, Jack had to explore a little further, because it went beyond friendship.

He watched Mac who was talking silently to Wilt, Lauretta and Milton. Wilt had apologised big style to Mac for his reaction, but Mac didn’t want to hear any of it, because he still thought that Wilt’s understanding of the meaning of Mac’s decision hadn’t been all too wrong. He had admitted that when he had made his decision, he hadn’t thought about what such a decision would mean to the Bozers. So, Wilt had been right when he had accused Mac for not thinking about them when making such a grave decision. He hadn’t thought that it would concern them the least. Or rather, he didn’t want it to concern them, because they weren’t supposed to be concerned about him as they hadn’t been supposed to take him in after Harry had died. They weren’t his family. It wasn’t their job to give Mac one. If Mac wanted family, he had to find one himself. Which remained unsaid was that he was too blind to see what was in front of him. Because if he did, he might not have said that it was his job to find one, but rather to accept the one that was already there.

Lauretta had been taken aback by this amount of honesty. Milton hadn’t, because he was the first one who understood where Mac came from. They hadn’t done not enough. They had done more than that, which was important for Mac to emphasise as much as possible. They simply hadn’t gotten through to him. Mac’s past had by then wrapped around him like a tight Teflon shield. Acts of love and care simply ricocheted, but didn’t reach Mac’s heart. He had learnt that he was responsible for himself. He had never come to fully understand the concept of parental love, Milton concluded. He didn’t blame him. How was he supposed to know that parents didn’t ask for anything in return and that family was no matter of blood and DNA, when your own family didn’t have the decency to stick around long enough or put sufficiently efforts into raising you to make you understand?

“I didn’t want to bother you more than necessary,” Mac told Lauretta when she asked why the heck he had left when there hadn’t been any need to, because whether he had started at the MIT one year earlier or later wouldn’t have made a difference. But for Mac it had, because it had been time for him to take responsibility for his own life. His mother, his father, his grandpa and then the Bozers. He had been depending and freeloading on too many people by the age of fifteen as if his conscience would have allowed him to stay only one day longer than strictly necessary. After all, he had been emancipated by then. He was supposed to, expected to get a grip and make a living on his own and he had been only all too eager to fulfil this expectation, because it promised him protection from hurt and pain that came when you had to part from what you considered a family. Mac had been living way too often through this process of separation as if he possibly could have endured it again. He had needed to put a stop to it. He had done so.

His answer met three sad faces and one that he couldn’t see because it pretended to be busy and not to be eavesdropping. It had been the confirmation what the Bozers had suspected but had been too afraid to phrase, because it was the evidence that they hadn’t managed to build the bond to Mac that was needed to get their message through to a closed heart. In fact, watching Jack and Mac interact, Lauretta was a little envious of the older man, because he so easily seemed to have gotten a connection to Mac that she was still working so hard to get. But Mac also couldn’t tell why it was easier with Jack than with the Bozers. Maybe it was, because Jack had been a stranger from the very beginning. A stranger who has had no need to gain any favours to Mac and hence make himself popular in the younger man’s point of view. The Bozers, however, Mac knew since he had been a child. They had known about his mother’s death and knew all about his sob story of being abandoned by his father and then being alone after his grandpa had deceased. Their perspective surely was biased. Lauretta had been a member of the local council working her way up to the municipality. Milton had been a police officer. Somehow, taking Mac in seemed to be an obligation that was posed on them by social expectations, because if you worked in these jobs people expected you to be kind.

“But how, Mac?” Wilt has asked, “What did you think we could possibly want apart of you as part of our family?” Mac shrugged. Asked directly like this, the answer to the question seemed too out of reach and Mac’s assumption somehow stupid, because he couldn’t give Wilt an answer. But it didn’t make him understand the other why: “But…why do you want me as part of your family? I mean…we’re not related, nothing. It…doesn’t make sense,” Mac mumbled. Jack, who sat a little further away to give the four some privacy for their conversation, flinched. His eyes went outside to the deck where the four sat around the fire pit. He watched Lauretta shift closer to Mac, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and drawing him closer to her until his face was buried in the crook of her neck.

“It does make so much sense, Mac, because we love you. And for this, we don’t need a reason or a rationale,” she told Mac.

“And one day, you’ll understand it,” Jack mumbled to himself, in his thoughts asking the Bozers for their patience, because it had taken years for those thick walls to build around the heart. It would take a while to break them in, especially after those years serving in the army, Jack thought, because those bastards had made use of Mac’s idea that he was only worth his skills and probably that had manifested the idea that he was only worth being loved and cared for when he could give something back in return. It was a hard piece of work they were looking at. But Mac was young and not everything lost, yet.

He gave the four a few more minutes before he joined them on the deck, breaking the silence that had developed after the heavy talk. All four looked a little exhausted. Jack understood only too well. His and Mac’s eyes met and he thought to see some sort of gratefulness in the younger man’s gaze, which he did, because without Jack, Mac never would have had the courage to get back in touch with Wilt or his parents. He would simply have thought nobody would notice his absence anyway, let alone of missing him. It felt strange to experience that it was the opposite. Mac racked his brains how he could have been so wrong about it all, but then again decided that it probably would take a while for him to figure out where his thoughts had taken a wrong turn that had forced him to take a perspective that didn’t reflect the reality. But he had time.

Jack was the last one to go to bed in the evening. Mac was still not back to his full one-hundred percent. The surgery had really wiped him out and the doctors had warned him more than once to take it slow, that after such a major surgery, he couldn’t expect to be back on his feet within only a couple of weeks. They had told him that it would more likely take half a year if not more for him to be back to his old self. It annoyed Mac to no end, but his body was very determined to claim the rest it was entitled to. So, Mac usually went to bed early in the evening although he wouldn’t find any proper sleep. But lying felt less exhaustive than sitting or standing or walking.

He had started reading again, something he hadn’t done a lot of since he had been shipped off to Afghanistan and somehow, he had found that he had missed a lot of new books, journals and articles. There was a lot to catch up with. Added to that, just like that he had to start job hunting. He couldn’t stay at home forever. It would drive him crazy. But applying for a job meant that he had to be up to date on new processes, theories and findings. It was scary how much had happened during those three years, Mac thought while flipping through an article he was reading.

Jack walked to Mac’s bedroom and when he saw the light shining through the slit between the closed door and the floor, he gently opened the door to peek inside. He saw Mac sitting up and reading and hence, he considered it safe to enter the room and make sure his young charge was alright. Mac looked up from his reading when he heard Jack enter his bedroom. He walked over to the young man and sat down on the edge of the bed. The white adhesive bandage that covered Mac’s sternum became visible through the lose neck of the old, worn-out t-shirt Mac wore to sleep in.

“Just checking whether you okay. Do you need anything?” Jack asked. Mac shook his head and then replied: “No and you don’t need to check on me every evening before you head to bed yourself.” Because no matter how much he trusted Jack and the bond that was growing between the two of them, he still felt a little uneasy about all the attention the older man spent on Mac.

“Yeah, I know, but I want to. Besides, I have to take every action preventing you from giving me any more grey hair,” Jack said teasingly to take Mac’s concern away.

“You’ve been grey when I first met you. Might be, because you’re getting old,” Mac teased back and Jack huffed in mock-annoyance.

“Don’t make me older than I actually am,” he said raising his index finger as a warning. It had become their usual banter. A banter that only the two of them really understood, because it served as instrument to convey the concern and love they couldn’t express in words or explicit gestures. It was the language of two men, one who couldn’t put what he desired in words and was too afraid of being confronted with it and the other man having fully understood and respecting the need for distance.

Jack patted Mac’s thigh before he got up and left. When he had reached the door, he turned around and said: “I watched you and the Bozers today. I think they understand. So, take your time. Only keep an open mind and open heart,” Jack advised him and Mac would take this advice very seriously when three months later a man around his fifties stood on Mac’s threshold: greyish blond hair, blue eyes, a familiar face that had become all so foreign. A stranger Mac had once known and who now asked for entry and a chance to explain himself.

Jack got a chance to watch the scene unfold. He didn’t have to be a master mind to know who the stranger was and he could read his kid well enough to understand what the stiff shoulders and the clenched jaw meant. Mac felt overwhelmed and caught off guard at the same time which in an automatism let his guard raise up high around him. He was insecure, because he couldn’t tell whether he wanted to let the man in or wanted to tell him to fuck off and stay out of his life. It was a thunderous storm of emotions that threatened to tear him apart.

Jack noticed Mac’s uneasiness and walked up behind Mac. He put a strong hand on Mac’s shoulder, grounding the younger man. He eyed the man who stood on the threshold to Mac’s home, while his presence helped Mac to find the footing that he had feared he might have lost. The spiral that he had seen himself in, didn’t come. Instead, he felt Jack’s support, because Jack would always have his back and never let him fend on his own.

“Who is this fine man, Mac?” Jack asked and eyed the man closely. He looked uncomfortable and insecure. Intimidated by Jack’s presence, he took a step back, while Jack felt how the tension left Mac’s shoulder. Mac looked at the man. He could send him away now and make a cut or he could let him in and listen to what he had to say. He could make a cut afterwards if he still felt the need to. Or he could start a new chapter in his life with this man as part of it when he felt that it was what he wanted. Since it was in Mac’s hands to decide and since weighing his options told him that he couldn’t lose much, he made a decision.

“Jack, meet my Dad,” Mac said to Jack. The pieces of the puzzle finally clicked into place and they let the man in, giving him a chance to say what he came for to say. It wasn’t easy for Mac. The contrary even, but he knew that he didn’t have to do this alone. He had Jack and the Bozers so whatever happened from here, whatever his father had to say, Mac wouldn’t have to deal with this alone and this realisation was what enabled Mac to step aside and let his father in to have a long conversation. Nobody knew where this would lead to, whether it would lead somewhere at all, but that was okay. Mac had a family he could rely on. He didn’t need anything more.