Chapter Text
Jack made coffee. Mac was honestly expecting him to break out the alcohol instead, he was impressed that Jack had a coffee machine at all.
The machine gurgled away, Mac braced his elbows on his knees as he sat on the couch and painstakingly worked on regaining his composure, Jack tapped a slightly frenetic rhythm on the counter.
“You were scared when you saw me, grabbed me and got us into cover.” Mac spoke up after a while. His voice was slightly rough so he cleared his throat before continuing. “People are after you?”
“Let’s just say I’m a pretty popular person right now.” Jack returned wryly.
“Let’s not ‘just say’ anything.” Mac returned, a little flatly. “Don’t leave me in the dark, Jack.”
A pause, the drumming stopped, and then Jack rounded the couch so Mac and him were face-to-face. His expression was earnest and consternated. “I’m not, Mac, I promise. It’s just… a long story.”
Mac didn’t know exactly how to reply to that, so he just stayed silent. Then the coffeepot beeped. Mac made a small gesture towards it with his head. Jack ducked back behind the couch.
“How… how’re the others?” Jack asked, painfully hesitant but it was clear how much the need to ask the question was burning him up. Mac could hear him pouring coffee into cups.
Mac gnawed on the corner of his lip. Really badly, was the truth, but saying it would cut Jack deep. Mac liked being honest, but he didn’t like hurting his best friend. There was no purpose to it either, neither of them could go back in time, and having how much Jack had accidentally hurt those closest to him thrown in his face wouldn’t undo any of the harm.
“Getting by.” Mac said, slightly evasive. “Riley’s enjoying the use of your car.”
Jack groaned at that. He came back around the couch and handed Mac a mug of coffee before perching on the edge of the coffee table with his own mug cradled in his hands. He looked vulnerable and sad, shoulders curled in and his expression full of guilty concern. Mac felt like Jack was trying to look right into him, as if Mac’s face and posture were somehow a roadmap to what the past few months had been in Jack’s absence. Mac resisted the urge to fiddle with his mug. He didn’t think Jack would like where that particular roadmap lead, and he hated to be read anyways.
“What happened with Kovak?” Mac finally asked.
“What didn’t happen with Kovak.” Jack sighed. “It felt like he was an infestation sometimes, roots going everywhere. He had goons all over, and the more I became a problem for Kovak, the more they became a problem for me. I just kept one foot in front of the other, trusting no one, and just trying to take out Kovak. Thought that’d be it, you know, just kill the motherfucker and finally go back home. The end.”
“Then you realized it wouldn’t be.”
“Yeah.” Jack set the coffee down next to him, Mac didn’t think he’d taken a single sip. “They’d just keep coming after me. He’s a vindictive bastard, and he has a lot of very loyal people. I’d have a whole army after me, from within the government, criminal organizations, various mercenaries… they wouldn’t stop till I was dead, and honestly I doubt it woulda taken them too long. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
“So you figured you’d fake your death and drop off the face of the earth? Just keep your head down forever?” Mac closed his eyes briefly. “Jack you’d never be able to come back home. Was that really so much better of an option than pulling out and taking refuge back at Phoenix?”
“I’m… I was working on it. Christ, Mac, I wasn’t gonna just never see you guys again. I just had to break it down into bite sized pieces, eliminate the big players one by one until it was safe enough to resurface. Figured Cairo was the last place anyone would look for me, Phoenix or bad guys.”
“You were still going to get yourself killed.” Mac put his own mug down, equally untouched, and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I mean, really, Jack? All those times you’ve chewed me out for going solo, and then you pull this?”
“I couldn’t drag you guys into this.” Jack insisted, his voice getting more fervent the longer he talked. “I’m the one who decided to go back after Kovak, after I failed to get the job done before I ever met you. I got myself into this mess, and it’s up to me to clean it up.”
Mac didn’t say anything in return for a long while. Jack didn’t speak either. Outside there was the hubbub of voices and vehicles, distant and sequestered away. The air was warm and an old air conditioner was humming away, closer. Mac had the burning urge to tear it apart and put it back together better, to get rid of the intermittent quiet bang, to make it blow refreshingly cold air instead of it being tepid and useless. He needed to rip something apart. He needed to fix something.
“You remember that message you sent me, after I took off to the other side of the world when I found out my dad was Oversight?” Mac asked abruptly.
Jack’s brows knit at the shift in topic, but he took it in stride. “Which one?”
“The last one. The one where you told me you understood why I left, but you wished I’d taken you with me.” Mac’s voice wore thin over the last few words, and he swallowed hard to rein in his emotions. He was sick of crying, sick of feeling useless and fragile.
Jack conjured up a weak smile. “Didn’t know you’d watched that one, hoss.”
“You remember when you told me that my problems were your problems?”
“Mac…” Jack’s smile faded.
“Or.” Mac clenched his jaw before managing to continue, something accusatory sinking into his voice. “‘You don’t get to do anything stupid on your own’, does that one ring a bell?”
“I couldn’t forgive myself if I dragged you guys into this shit show and got one of you killed, alright Mac? I just couldn’t.” Jack burst out, raw and frustrated.
“And you think I could?” Mac’s voice trembled, an indignant sort of anger bubbling up in his chest. “You think I felt any better letting you go off alone and get yourself killed?”
Jack’s face crumpled, he looked like he was on the verge of tears. He reached out a hand to touch Mac’s arm. Either conciliatory or apologetic, maybe it didn’t matter which one it was.
Mac didn’t like hurting his best friend, but he liked losing him less. He stood up abruptly, moving just out of Jack’s reach.
“I’m in Cairo now too.” The ire faded, into something tired and a little cool. “You can’t get rid of me, Jack, we’re fixing this together.”
Jack swallowed hard. His eyes danced across Mac’s face. A roadmap he couldn’t follow.
“Ok.” Jack acquiesced, voice soft. “You got it, hoss.”