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Mac’s phone buzzes and his blinks awake. His phone brightly proclaims that it’s three in the morning and Mac blearily wonders what someone needs at this too early hour.
He thumbs his phone open and stares at the text preview. The number is one he doesn’t recognize. Part of him wonders if it’s spam, someone trying to contact him about his car’s extended warranty again. But for some reason, Mac feels compelled to open it.
There’s a photo of Jack taken from inside Jack’s bedroom from last night, just down the hall from Mac’s bedroom. Mac recognizes the stupid baby yoda pajama pants he was wearing. There are coordinates and a time, and beneath a threat.
“Come alone or he dies.”
His phone vibrates again and there’s another photo, and then another, and another, and another. All photos from places like the grocery store, the deck, that stupid froyo shop that Jack frequents while Mac is out running.
“Who is this?” Mac types out.
For several minutes there’s nothing, and Mac’s heart races. He considers waking Jack, calling Matty, asking Riley to do her computer magic. But until Mac knows what and who he’s dealing with, he can’t risk it.
Finally, his phone buzzes. There’s no words, just a single grainy photo of Mac’s old CO, Alfred Peña. Mac stares at the photo for nearly a minute before clicking off the screen to his phone.
Quietly, he changes into work clothes and grabs a few things that he’ll need — his SAK, a multitool, a burner phone, and a package of blockers. Whatever happens, Mac knows that he needs to be prepared. He can’t let Jack die like Peña, and he can’t get himself killed either, not with their soul bond, not if he wants Jack to survive this.
It’s been five years since Peña died, a month since Mac found that damn laptop with a video of the whole thing. Part of him wanted to pretend that it was a coincidence, that it didn’t mean anything — not about him, not about Jack — but the time for wishful thinking is over. The Ghost has stalked him since his days in the Army and it’s high time to put an end to it.
Jack wakes, the sun warm on his face, and he stretches. Like most mornings, and afternoons, and evenings, his back, shoulders, and hips crack and pop as he moves around. He yawns and blinks, his head fuzzy. After he’s had a moment to come to, Jack realizes that the house is oddly silent. Mac’s an early riser and while he can’t cook to save his own hide, he can at least brew a semi-tolerable pot of coffee. But Jack can’t smell anything either.
Jack rolls out of bed and tests his soul bond with Mac as he heads for the living room, and stops dead. There’s nothing. It’s not the nothing nothing that Mac described when he was electrocuted. No, this is the nothing Jack remembers from when Mac took the blockers on his way to rescue Jack up in Canada.
There’s zero reason for Mac to be on blockers. None at all. Jack scrambles back into his room and snatches his phone from the bedside table. Mac’s phone goes straight to voicemail and Jack can’t help the growled, “Dammit!” that bursts out of him.
The next person he calls only lets their phone ring twice before picking up.
“What the hell do you want on a Saturday morning at 7:57 am, Jack Dalton?” Matty snaps, clearly only pretending to be angry.
Jack ignores her jest. “Mac’s not here and he’s taken blockers. His phone goes straight to voicemail. Something is wrong, Matty. I can feel it.”
Matty’s tone changes, her voice all mettle. “Agents will be at your house to get you in fifteen minutes. I’ve got calls to make in the meantime. Dalton, search the house and find every piece of relevant information that you can. We’re gonna need everything we can get to bring him home safe.”
Mac checks his phone one last time to make sure that he’s at the right place and makes his way down the sidewalk towards the Federal Building in downtown LA. Mac’s not sure where he anticipated being led, maybe an old, abandoned warehouse or maybe just an empty parking lot, but a government building was decidedly not on the list.
It’s not quite four, and although LA is never truly quiet, the streets are mostly empty. It’s such a contrast to the regular hustle and bustle that Mac feels dangerously exposed alone on the sidewalk. But he figures that if the Ghost wanted him dead, he’d have done it the easy way. With such easy access to Jack, it would’ve been a two-for-one deal; no need to go to all this effort. So despite the anxiety, Mac presses on with the hope that maybe he’ll be able to end this problem once and for all.
As he turns from the main sidewalk and heads toward the door, the burner phone in his pocket chimes. There’s only one number in this phone — the Ghost’s — and Mac pauses to check the notification. There’s no instructions, just a seven digit number, and Mac realizes that it must be the security code to the front door of the building.
Inside, the hallways are empty, only a few security lights on to illuminate the corridors. Cameras are everywhere, though, and Mac hopes that those will provide some level of security or evidence, even if it takes several hours for Riley to find them. Hopefully, though, everything will be over by then.
His phone chimes again. This time it’s directions through the building, and Mac sets off to find out why he’s here.
Jack paces the length of the War Room like a lion caged. There’s only the barest wisp of Mac’s bond that he can make out and it’s providing absolutely nothing useful. He tried meditating for about thirty seconds before he went out of his mind with anxiety and had to get up again to pace.
It’s been nearly two hours and Riley’s got nothing. Mac scrubbed his phone down to factory settings before he left and then tossed it in a jar of saltwater. It’s toast. Burnt toast. Riley just looked at it and shook her head.
She’s been trying to get into Mac’s messages since they got set up, but there’s some virus in the system that keeps corrupting data. There’s no way to know why Mac left, but clearly it was something on his phone, something that he didn’t want anyone to find.
“Woah, hey, I’ve got a hit from the LAPD CCTV system for Mac’s plates,” Riley says all of the sudden. “He’s downtown, just north of Skid Row.”
Jack can think of a thousand things in Skid Row that aren’t good, but none of them make sense. “What about his face on CCTV? Do you have anything there?” he presses.
“Easy, Jack. I’m working on it. The computer will read car tags without help from me but facial rec, especially if Mac is trying to avoid being seen, is gonna take me a little bit longer. But now that I can narrow down the search radius…”
Riley trails off, her acrylic nails clicking away on her keyboard a million miles an hour.
The idea that somehow Mac would be able to end this, to stop the man who killed Peña, to keep both himself and Jack safe… Mac realizes it was a naive idea at best. At worst, far more people than just him and Jack are going to die, and unless Mac sorts something out, it’ll be Mac who bears the blame.
This bomb was clearly engineered just for Mac. The redundancies are so complex that Mac would need a week just to sort out the electrical systems, and there’s enough PETN here to level the whole block. This setup was never intended to get Mac to a meet up. It’s a way to eliminate him and frame him at the same time.
As Mac works to disarm the bomb, Mac is hyperaware of the phone in his pocket. A call to warn Matty or Jack or just someone upstairs would be so quick, but Mac can see the cameras and there’s no dead spots. There’s nowhere he can text or call without it being seen on a monitor somewhere far away. Mac keeps his head down, creating a schematic in his head as he works.
He knows that his only hope is that Riley can find him fast enough.
Jack straps on his thigh holster a tad tighter than is particularly warranted and checks his gun one last time before holstering it. The second dose of blockers that Mac took is in full swing now, and Jack feels a little sick to his stomach, like the way his belly feels hollow after a bad bout of food poisoning. With their bond almost silent, Jack feels empty and cold, like he’s here but not really here . He’s felt it before, when Mac rescued him, but so much of that was lost to the pain and fear of being tortured. Now, though, there’s nothing stopping him from knowing just how awful it truly is.
He rides in the back of the van with the TAC teams and listens over the comms as Matty coordinates between the FBI, LAPD, Homeland Security, the staties, and the US Marshals, whose office is just down the block from the Federal Building. She’s trying to explain why her team suddenly needs to infiltrate a federal office without actually saying, “Because I think there’s a problem but I have no idea what it is yet.” Of course her resistance to being entirely forthcoming doesn’t land well, and the conference call rapidly degenerates into a dick measuring contest between bureaus while Matty grows increasingly angry.
Jack’s so focused on the absolute shitshow of a phone call that he nearly jumps when his phone rings. It’s not a number he recognizes and he silences the ringer. Now’s not the time for someone to try to help him get his nonexistent student loans forgiven.
Immediately, the phone rings again.
Jack’s annoyed now and he answers it, if only so that he can yell at some unsuspecting person in a call center.
“Jack, you have to call everyone off.”
He damn near drops the phone. “Mac? What the hell is going on?”
“I can’t explain but if you don’t call everyone off right now a whole lot of people are going to die and there’s not really anything I can do about it. You have to trust me,” Mac pleads.
Jack wants to argue, he wants to demand answers to about fifteen different questions, but he settles on one. “You can’t tell me anything can you?”
“No, Jack. I can’t. You just have to trust me.”
Jack nods to himself. “I do, Mac. I do trust you. I gotta call Matty.”
“Make it quick,” Mac says and hangs up.
It didn’t take a call to Ms. Cleo to predict the outcome of his phone call to Matty. She’s pissed, frustrated, and even though she doesn’t let on, she’s worried. Not just worried about downtown LA, although that is an obvious concern, but worried about Mac, about what could have gotten him into this situation. But despite it all, she takes Jack at his word, and does what she can. After another minute, the TAC van pulls over and parks, awaiting further orders. Jack wishes he knew what and when those were gonna come.
For as much as Jack wishes he was with Riley right now, just so he could see her figure out all this crap in real time, he’s glad to be with the TAC team when they finally get orders to get the Ghost. Mac never would answer the burner phone again, but once Riley had the number it was only a matter of time before she found out what this guy had for breakfast.
Now they’re headed north, just outside of Bakersfield, to some little off the grid bunker. Riley says the Ghost is running the show from there, and Jack’s just fine with that. Rural and urban infil both have their pros and cons, but at least there’s no bystanders out here in the middle of nowhere.
And as far as ops go, this guy, besides the approximately seven thousand booby traps, isn’t all that hard to take out. Breach from the front and back at the same time, and somebody drops him with a single shot, not even enough time for him to click any of those fancy little buttons on his laptop.
Once the house is clear, Jack lifts the headset from the Ghost’s body and puts it on.
“Mac, can you hear me?” Jack tries, not entirely sure how the device is being used.
He looks at the computer, too nervous to press any buttons, and instead takes off the headset and digs around in their dead guy’s pockets for his phone. There, on the recent call list, is Mac’s burner number. Jack punches it and waits for Mac to answer.
“I bypassed the red circuit and I’m working on green,” Mac reports as he answers the phone.
“Stand down, Mac,” Jack says. “We got him.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line and Jack panics. “Mac? Hey, buddy you alright? You with me?”
Jack can hear his rushed breath. “Yeah,” Mac finally answers. “I hear you. Call Matty, have her evac in a three block radius, just to be safe. The bomb still has to be disarmed but at least now there’s no count down and I can get help.”
Jack sighs and sags down onto a nearby chair. “You can have all the help you need.”
“See if you can get the Ghost’s computer to Riley. If there’s plans for the bomb on it, this’ll go a lot easier,” Mac instructs. Jack can hear the exhaustion in his voice. It’s not yet noon but it feels like it’s been ten times that long, and Jack knows that Mac’s been working nonstop.
Jack gets up to go outside, letting the team secure everything while he touches base with his bonded partner. “Want me to bring you some Thai when I get back into town?” Jack asks.
“That would be amazing,” Mac replies, and Jack thinks he can hear the smile in Mac’s voice.
One of the other agents on scene, someone who came in a car, not the TAC van, offers Jack a ride back to LA. No one asks about why Jack needs to go back right now , and not a single one of them begrudges it.
The bomb has been disarmed and disposed of, preliminary reports have been filed, and finally they’re on their way home. It’s been over twelve hours since the last round of blockers wore off, but Mac still feels like their bond is fragile like it hasn’t been since the first few weeks after they bonded. But with all the hubbub, Mac has barely had a chance to lay a hand on Jack, much less to just rest with him. The bond buzzes uncomfortably under his skin.
The living room is dark but even before Mac flips the switch, he sees the mess left behind by the agents that searched their house just this morning. Furniture is moved, stacks of paper rifled through, things moved off tables and walls. The whole thing makes home feel a little less comforting.
Mac ignores the mess because it’s a problem for tomorrow, and makes his way to the sofa.
“That as far as you’re going tonight?” Jack asks, as though Mac might elect to sleep on the sofa instead of in a real bed.
“No. I was thinking of watching a movie, actually,” he answers as he unties his boots and slips them off.
A moment later, Jack joins him with a pair of beers and hands one over. “Alright, what’re you thinking?”
Mac opens his beer with the opener that he screwed to the end table last year and takes a long pull before answering. “I don’t think I really care that much tonight. You pick.”
Jack must not be feeling like thinking either because he just pushes the play button on the DVD player and sits back down.
“Do you even know what’s in the DVD player, Jack?” Mac asks.
“Nope, but it’s what we’re gonna watch.”
Mac nods. They’re clearly both on the same page about this. The movie is the background to the end of their day, but the relaxation isn’t gonna come from watching Police Academy 3 again. With unspoken agreement, they shift closer to one another, the skin of their arms touching. Within moments, the feeling of his skin being too small for his body begins to dissipate and Mac relaxes back into the sofa, his eyes slipping closed.
Finally, he allows the guilt and the fear that he’s been hiding behind his shielding to seep out across the bond. Beside him, Jack inhales sharply and then Jack’s gripping Mac’s forearm.
“Mac,” Jack rasps, his voice already raw. “It’s not your fault.”
Mac swallows. “Feels like it.”
A rush of emotions comes at Mac like a flash flood — fear, grief, gratitude, love, forgiveness. Mac knows that this is what Jack’s been holding back all day. Some of the emotions, like fear and grief, are more muted, weakened as other, newer emotions have begun to take their place. So Mac knows, without a doubt, that Jack’s not mad, just relieved, and while that’s a relief of its own, Mac is still aching from having taken the blockers and shut out Jack entirely. It was like carving out a piece of his soul and Mac felt so painfully alone in the world. The pain of that still sits sharp in Mac’s chest, maybe even sharper for having it relieved. Jack just pulls him close and holds him tight, waiting with him until it passes.
Even before the movie ends, Mac is ready to sleep, and he can tell Jack feels the same way. By unspoken agreement, they turn off the TV and make their way to Jack’s room. Mac’s bed is a queen, plenty big for the both of them, but Jack has a king because “everything is bigger in Texas and I like having room to roam around.” Mac thinks Jack’s ridiculous with his giant bed since it takes up most of his room, but nights like this, when their bond feels so raw that they can’t bear to be separated even by a single wall, it’s the only place Mac can stand to be.
They get ready for bed quietly — Mac knows that anything that needs to be said between them right now can best be said without words — and then climb into bed. There’s no need to cuddle like a married couple, they’re bonded friends, not lovers, but the closeness and warmth is like a soothing balm. Within minutes, Jack is snoring and despite it sounding sort of like a chainsaw, it doesn’t bother Mac one bit. He closes his eyes, listens to the sound of home, and rests.