7tfw your outside pov characters get too inside so you have to take another step back outside by bringing in someone else entirely. thanks to my friend thistle for the prompt that originally sparked this fic!
as a note: i am no medical professional nor do i play one on tv. i have done my best but the medical information in this chapter is unlikely to be... textbook accurate.
sierra november verse, you may recognize some of the exfil characters from my previous exfil fics. enjoy!
One of the first things they teach you as a newly recruited member of a DXS exfil team is the call out categorization system. It's pretty simple - retrievals are sorted into one of three types: hot, flat, and cold. Hot calls mean all hands on deck and guns at the ready, flat calls could fall either way, and cold calls are the more relaxed, get in and pick up your agents then get out variety. Of course, any exfil assignment can change on a moment's notice depending on which way the wind blows and how cooperative your assigned agents feel like being, in the 'not asking for extra trouble, sense, but the call system is never the less important in preparing for what to expect.
This time, it's supposed to be a cold call.
Newly minted exfil team Victor Quebec, a recently put together unit composed of two former military, one FBI agent, and an air-sea search and rescue pilot, are on the coldest cold call they've been assigned to in their admittedly short tenure with DXS. It's so cold, in fact, that there's a scheduled pickup time, which isn't necessarily the case with all or even most assignments. There'll be a window you have to be ready during, but it's not extremely frequent that you'll have a specific departure time like this is an American Airlines flight full of regular people on a regular day.
It even looks like they'll be getting out of here ahead of schedule. Victor Quebec team lead Olivia Powell is driving a backwoods road in the countryside towards the location of the blinking red dot on her GPS. The dot represents the location of her assigned pickup, what's likely to be three very bored agents waiting at the side of the road. Field Agents MacGyver and Dalton and their technical analyst Agent Carpenter must have gotten tired of sitting around waiting if they've signalled for pickup rather than holding out for the scheduled time. Olivia shudders to think of what happened to their van that they need someone to come get them rather than just driving it - she's heard, well, stories about them, MacGyver in particular.
"Never been to Italy before," the device containing the GPS map says, crackling to life with the voice of her teammate Arturo, left behind with their small plane. No reason to drag all four of them out when they're essentially doing a glorified daycare pickup run, Olivia figured, leaving Arturo and Naomi at the rural airstrip and taking only their fourth, Asai, with her.
"Well," she tells him, "can't say any of us are gonna see much of it now, given it's dark out and all." He chuckles and the speaker goes silent once more, leaving Olivia to focus on the scenery around her.
Despite what she said, Lake Como really is beautiful, even at night. The body of water itself glitters as they round a curve in the road, like a near-black jewel set into the deep green countryside. Above them the sky sparkles too, a bright moon floating in a lattice frame of stars, more clearly visible than you'd ever get in their part of California. The beauty, though, vanishes as soon as Olivia pulls around the last corner before where the pick-up signal had come from, the one bearing Carpenter's terminal signature.
What she finds is not three bored agents playing eye-spy. For starters, there's only two of them, and nothing about what's going on here seems like a game.
Throwing the car into park, she immediately hits the button on their communication center re-establishing the link with the half of their team waiting back at the airstrip. "Arturo, this is Olivia, get every piece of medical equipment we have on stand-by and plot us a course to the nearest hospital. Now."
"What's going on? Why?"
"Because," she spares just enough time to spit out, flinging the door open as she says it, "this cold call just went hot. Agent down." With that, she ends the connection and jumps out, boots hitting gravel at the same time the chill of the night air hits the exposed skin of her now-flushed face.
Asai had already left the car by the time Olivia finished updating their team, and she returns just as quickly, stepping back around the vehicle before her team lead can approach the scene of the incident. Olivia frowns, unease striking deep in her gut, because they're new, they're all new, but they should all know better than to walk away from the kind of situation she saw through the windshield.
"Why aren't you already four steps into emergency first-aid?" she asks her junior operative, barely regretting the snap in her voice.
"Because, Boss, he won't let me," Asai tells her, and as Olivia finds the wherewithal to ask what she means by 'won't let me', she's already walking back around the car. Following her out into the open of the grass by the street is the moment Olivia gets her first actual look at what's happening on this dark stretch of isolated road.
Though she's never met either of them before in her life, she recognizes them both from the exfil briefing that had included truncated versions of their personnel jackets. Agent Jack Dalton, former Delta, former CIA, one of the most highly respected people in the entire organization, is kneeling on the ground, and Agent Angus MacGyver, DXS golden boy and human Rube Goldberg machine, is slumped unconscious in his partner's arms. It's immediately clear that the only thing keeping MacGyver in any way upright is the way he's propped against Dalton's torso, his head of dripping wet blond hair lolled back against Dalton's collarbone, legs splayed out in front of him with all the grace of a dropped Raggedy Ann doll.
It's a scene that tells an unclear story of definite catastrophe. Both of them are completely drenched, and the crushed grass out behind them indicates the lake is to blame for this. There's blood absolutely everywhere, seeming to be concentrated around the high left of MacGyver's chest, the wound responsible hidden by the press of Dalton's hand. The conscious agent has his partner in something of a bear hug from behind, MacGyver's lax arms gathered and crossed over his stomach where one of Dalton's holds them there, his other hand attempting to stem the flow of blood.
The worst part is their faces. MacGyver's is completely expressionless, though even this is difficult to make out, shadowed as he is by the body of the man holding him, and Dalton's is lined with pain and panic in equal measure, thrown into sharp relief by bright moonlight. His eyes are wide and darting between Olivia and her teammate like he's not sure what he's seeing, and everything about his body language radiates a threat.
Asai is now trying to talk him down off whatever ledge he's teetering on, and it isn't working. Olivia remembers as she watches this, watches the hands outstretched and open, palms up and as nonthreatening as possible, that while her own pre-DXS training had come from Air Force pararescue, Asai had been FBI at one point. She'd likely been trained in de-escalation and negotiation in Quantico, relying on that experience now, but from the looks of things, MacGyver might not have that kind of time.
"Agent Dalton, we are your exfil team, and we're here to get you out," Asai is saying, steady and placating. "My name is Asai Kohana, and behind me is my team lead Olivia Powell. We are with exfil Victor Quebec, and we're here to help."
"I've don't know you." It's the first time Olivia hears Dalton's voice, words ground out through gritted teeth, suspicious and warning them off. It's an odd response, that's for sure, and what someone from Whiskey Juliet had told her flashes through Olivia's mind.
Rule 1: Don't expect any of the agents to remember your name.
"We're exfil," Asai explains again, adding with a hint of self-deprecating humor, "you're not supposed to know us."
"No, see, I know they have a rule about it, the exfil folks, and I'm not as good with the names as Mac is-" Now his voice shivers over the name, gone unsteady and high in a way that makes Olivia's heart skip, "-but I know you. I know you, but I don't know you at all."
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and the reason why becomes clear a moment later, as does the reason for the way he seems generally off-kilter, handling the situation with nowhere near the calm and assuredness Olivia would expect from a field agent, even one with a seriously injured partner. There's some sound in the trees by the lake, and when Dalton turns sharply to look at it, she gets a glimpse of the back of his head. There's a wound there and it looks bad, really bad. She guesses he was probably unconscious for at least a short amount of time, and is definitely concussed now. He's concussed, his partner is bleeding out in his arms, and this situation only gets worse if it's not contained, and fast.
As Asai continues to try and convince Dalton that they are who they say they are and that he needs to let them get close enough to try do something for MacGyver's injury, Olivia's mind whirs, trying to look for a solution. A way out, like she was trained. They're exfil. The way out is their entire job.
"Dalton, your partner needs help. I can see he needs help." Asai makes a gesture towards MacGyver, and this is a mistake, because the jolt of panic in Dalton when she does so is immediate and clearly visible.
The moment Asai makes a move any closer to him, Dalton's grip on MacGyver goes notably tighter, and he gathers the young man up closer to himself, like he can shelter his hurt friend from further harm just by holding him securely enough. Another pulse of blood leaks out over the fingers of the hand pressed to the front of MacGyver's chest, near his shoulder. Nearly the entire front of his shirt, which had once been some light color Olivia can't make out, is saturated a dark burgundy red. It's a lot of blood. It's far, far too much blood.
"Liv," Asai hisses, having taken a big step back at Dalton's reaction and frozen there, hands still out but lowered somewhere. "Liv, what do I do? He needs help now but Dalton isn't going to let me near enough to-"
Her words, low enough that Dalton can't make them out through his concussion-addled awareness of his surroundings, are cut off when MacGyver makes a sound. It's something like a cough or a gasp, though he's still obviously unconscious, chest heaving in one big motion before settling again.
"Liv, Boss, his breathing." There's a note of panic in Asai's voice now, the calm facade of a tactician vanished in the face of the situation. "You can hear that right?"
Olivia can, indeed, hear it. There's an odd, wet, whistling sound in the way MacGyver is breathing now, and she knows Dalton hears it too. How could he not, with MacGyver held so close, his back pressed against Dalton's chest, head just below his chin. He's getting more agitated now, letting go of the limp forearm he'd been clutching to rub the hand not stemming the bleeding briskly over MacGyver's sternum, muttering something next to his ear, something Olivia couldn't make heads or tails of if she tried.
"He's not armed."
Though she knows it's likely just Asai spitballing any possible idea out loud at this point, Olivia still feels the need to shoot that one down verbally, asking her, "Do you want to find out what he's capable of doing unarmed if you try to take his partner away from him right now? We can't approach, not when he's got a head injury and thinks we're gonna hurt either of them. You know how these guys get."
"I know, I know, I just- Of course this happens on our first run with them." Now Asai really is thinking out loud, stream of consciousness jittering through the air as they both try and find a solution while time slips through their fingers like the blood dripping over Dalton's. "Why couldn't it be Park and Katz? We've had them twice, two missions we've ran exfil on, and it was both them, if it was Park and Katz…"
This thought of Asai's, rueful and slightly bitter, sparks a thought of Olivia's own, and she cuts off the aimless babbling with an order to keep talking to Dalton, do her best to keep him calm, while Olivia runs back to make a phone call.
"A phone call? Who could you possibly-"
"Trust me," Olivia says, cutting her off again. "Keep talking." She's already dialing as she walks back towards the car, phone held up to her ear as she waits for the DXS exfil on-call office phone to pick up. Someone answers mercifully quickly, and she says, "This is Victor Quebec team lead Olivia Powell," then rattles off the day's verification code, issued to all exfil teams dispatched into the field.
"Alright Team Lead Powell, you're verified. What do you need?"
"Please tell me you can get me someone from Sierra November. Right now."
When Olivia walks back over to where Asai is still talking to Dalton - and not making much progress, if any - she holds her phone up and clicks the icon switching it into speaker mode.
"I understand why you don't believe me," she tells him, and he looks at her sharply, this being the first time she's spoken instead of Asai. The movement seems to destabilize him further and he sways for a moment, nearly sending both himself and MacGyver toppling over into the grass before finding his balance once more. "Why would you? We've never met before. But I've got somebody on the phone that you know pretty well, if the frequency of his team's name coming up with yours is anything to go by. So you don't have to trust us, but why don't you try listening to him?"
There's a breathless moment where Olivia almost wonders if the connection has been lost, and then a new voice joins them, audio crisp and clear as a man speaks from halfway across the world, straight up into the air between her and Dalton.
"Jack, it's Thomas King. What's going on? Olivia said Mac was pretty hurt, is he okay?" Thomas sounds worried even over the phone but it's unmistakably him, and Olivia is silently grateful she'd upgraded her phone in the last month.
"Thomas?" Dalton is frowning at the phone, confused but nowhere near as hostile as he'd been when speaking to Asai earlier.
"Yeah, man, it's me. You need to let them help Mac okay? These people are exfil too, just like me and Sierra. They're here to help."
It's pretty clear that Dalton doesn't believe it, and Olivia feels her heart sink. MacGyver chooses this moment to let out another cough-gasp, and Dalton says something to him, looking up abruptly at another sound from the trees. Olivia takes that moment to pull the phone back up to her ear, switching speaker off.
"King, it's Powell," she says, low and fast. "Listen, he's concussed, he's scared out of his mind, and you need to try harder. I don't even know if he really believes it's you, so I need you to try harder, or we're never gonna be able to save that kid." She then extends the phone out again, switching speaker back on and holding her breath.
"Okay," Thomas says through the phone, and his voice is enough to pull Dalton's attention back to it. "Okay, Jack, listen, do you remember the cave? You remember that, right? Mac and I ended up on one side of this rock wall and you were on the other, and he just kept tapping. He kept tapping with that Swiss Army knife he carries, and it took me a while to figure it out, but it was morse code. He was telling you he was there, asking you to hang on. Right?"
The look on Dalton's face has changed as Thomas has been talking, something in him going clear in a way he hasn't been since they showed up. He looks so relieved for a moment that Olivia thinks he might be about to pass out.
"Thomas," he says, voice stronger than it has been since they arrived, "who the hell are these people? Mac's shot, he needs help and they just- do you know them? They say they're exfil but I don't know them. We don't know them."
"This is your help." Even through the speaker, some six and a half thousand miles away, Olivia can hear it. Thomas is relieved too. "This is Olivia and Asai, I know you guys remember exfil, but they're new. They're new, it's why you don't know them, but I promise they are who they say they are and they can be trusted. They'd never have been able to use this number if they couldn't prove it. Please let them help him. I'll stay on the line the whole time, okay? I promise."
Dalton is looking at the phone, and then over it at Olivia and Asai, and back to the phone again, darting from focus to focus in a loop until it settles. His grip on MacGyver is terrified and fiercely protective when, still looking Olivia straight in the eye, he agrees. When they're finally allowed over, close enough to help get MacGyver laid out in the grass to assess the injury, Dalton tells them about Carpenter, who Olivia is ashamed to say she'd nearly forgotten about in the immediacy of the situation at hand.
Evidently, their other teammate, Carpenter, had been gone when he'd woken up on the road. Dalton couldn't find her, thought maybe she'd gone over into the lake as well but wasn't quite sure, and MacGyver would've died if left there. He kept looking around while trying to figure out what to do, their van gone as well when he'd tried to get to it, but nothing. No trace of her.
Olivia sends Asai to see if she can find Carpenter while she herself focuses on performing as much field medicine as she can with the supplies on hand. There's no sign of Carpenter anywhere, and Olivia thinks to herself, not daring to breathe a word of it out loud, that they're going to have to send someone back for the body when they get these two out. The likelihood that the woman is alive, at this point, is regrettably slim.
It's a quick and messy patch job they do on MacGyver there at the scene, but it has to be. Their transport is less than twenty minutes out, and the vented chest seal Olivia dug out of the top of the line kit in their car should keep his lung from completely collapsing for as long as possible. It all just needs to hold until they can reach the airstrip, until they can get him to a supplemental blood supply and further equipment.
In the car on the way, they let Dalton keep holding MacGyver, because Olivia figures it's helping to keep him calm and besides, that's a fight she doesn't think she'd win. There's no persuading him to let Asai check him out while Olivia drives, either, and since he seems at least decently coherent now, they're letting it go for the moment. As long as his neurological condition doesn't seem to be deteriorating, and he retains knowledge of who they are, there's nothing they can do for him immediately anyway.
Italy is a mercifully small country, and getting MacGyver to a hospital is a much quicker journey than it would have been from most rural parts of the United States. Olivia keeps on watch, doesn't stand her team down until Director Thornton herself arrives. The woman's got a grim look on her face when she shakes each of their hands individually, and tells them they've done a good job. It gets even more grim when she confirms what Olivia had guessed back by the lake - their assignment has now changed, and they are to head back to the scene of the nightmare they've just spirited Dalton and MacGyver away from.
On their way out of the building, Olivia pretends she doesn't see the photo Asai takes of the hospital's address. In the car en route back towards Lake Como, she continues to pretend she doesn't see the message Asai sends to Thomas King.
If you want to get technical about it, they are very much not supposed to be here right now.
Rather than dispatch an entirely new exfil team to do a sweep for Nikki Carpenter - or, more realistically, Nikki Carpenter's body - Thornton has re-deployed the original exfil team, which makes sense. Thomas has been on a call like that before, and he still dreams about it. Leaving an agent behind tears at you, even if you're sure there's no other option that won't result in further loss of life, even if you know you're going back for them eventually.
Sierra November found their agent - miraculously, improbably, unexpectedly - still alive. Something tells him that Victor Quebec isn't going to have that kind of luck with Carpenter. Even Meredith has been subdued about it, though she'd never had a good feeling about Nikki. Seems the bad vibe hadn't lasted beyond the womans' probable death, and Thomas knows his teammate well enough to see the shades of guilt under her impassive expression.
Scheduled off rotation for that day, the beginning of a guaranteed week without call outs, Sierra is definitely not supposed to be here. Asai Kohana of Quebec had sent him a message though, and what else was Thomas supposed to do with that, with the address of an Italian hospital and the memory of Jack Dalton's voice on the phone, how disoriented and afraid he'd sounded?
So here he is, walking in the front door of the building with the rest of his team at his back, in a country he neither lives in nor has been dispatched to, in order to see an agent he's not been assigned to retrieve. Except, Thomas thinks, that's not entirely correct. He shakes his head slightly as if to dispel the thought, another rising swiftly in its place.
The rules are simple and clear, at least the ones that don't appear in the manuals. Rule 1: Don't expect any of the agents to remember your name, and don't take it personally when they don't. Because they won't. Rule 2: Don't get attached.
Thomas can almost imagine the crunch under his boots like pieces of broken glass as he walks over the pulverized bits of whatever remained of Rule 2, one none of them had much success following to begin with. Thomas and the rest of his team, they're not here to see an agent. They're here to see a friend. A friend who's just had major surgery to remove a bullet from his chest, surgery he had been far from guaranteed to live through.
There was a question, for a while there, of whether this would turn into an exfil run after all. If maybe they would have to be the ones to escort Mac's casket home to California, whatever cracked shell was left of Jack along with it. Thankfully, Mac has proved just as tough as he's always been, though, which means Thomas still doesn't have to find out what Jack Dalton would look like on the day Mac died - a question he would like to go the rest of his life without being able to answer.
It's Meredith who gets them directions to the room. Ever their polyglot, she somehow pulls Italian out of her rolodex of languages, speaking to the nurse's desk with fluid ease. Thomas is quietly impressed as they walk down the hall towards the provided number, though their particular brand of sibling rivalry means he wouldn't dream of voicing it out loud. He's heard her speak Russian, Korean, and Hebrew, but never Italian before, and one day he figures she's either got to run out of languages or he's got to run out of surprise when this keeps happening.
The thought process is a smoke and mirrors distraction from the reality of what they're here for that evaporates as soon as the room comes into view, and Lucia opens the door.
Jack is on his feet in an instant. The hinges have barely creaked before he's out of his chair and walking towards them, a look Thomas has never wanted to be on the receiving end of thundering across his face. He moves swiftly enough and comes close enough that their view is blocked completely, unable to even see Mac with him standing in the way. Thomas remembers immediately what had happened with Olivia, how Jack wouldn't let them anywhere near Mac when she and Asai found them there at the side of the road.
Despite everything in him telling him this is probably a dangerous move, Thomas steps around Vincent and fully into the room, putting himself directly in Jack's line of sight.
"It's us," he says gently, forcing himself to put on a faint smile. "Hey, Jack. It's Thomas, got the rest of Sierra here with me. It's just us, it's okay."
There's just a moment of sustained suspicion and threat before Jack's vision clears and he seems to recognize them. An apology crosses his face in a wince, but there is no regret or embarrassment left behind it as he puts names and memories to the faces, and steps back and to the side. Thomas isn't surprised. Of course there wouldn't be. No matter how irrational the reaction ended up being, he can't see any circumstance in which Jack would find regret or any kind of shame in that strongest instinct in him, the one to put himself between Mac and danger at all costs.
Now that they've got a good look at him, it's clear that the reports from Quebec hadn't been exaggerated in the slightest. Mac is in bad shape. He's lost to the world at the moment, laid out on his back in a hospital bed with the top half elevated to take pressure off his lungs. His face, expressionless and still in a drugged sleep, is shades too pale, sickly ashen with blood loss. Beneath the light, sage green blanket rises the bulky shape of thick bandaging covering the site of the surgery that had removed the bullet from his chest.
From behind Thomas the rest of Sierra filters in. Meredith folds herself into a chair on the opposite side of the hospital bed from where Jack has resumed his post, watching them with curious, slightly confused eyes. Lucia and Vincent stay back by the wall behind Meredith, shoulder-to-shoulder and speaking to each other in an inaudibly quiet exchange. Only after everyone else is settled does Thomas find it in him to walk forward himself.
As he approaches the bed, he sees something shift in Jack's posture. The man leans forward in his chair, shoulders squaring and muscle in his jaw flexing as he grits his teeth. Thomas looks at him and raises his fingers in a silent, placating message. He stands there, still, making steady eye contact until Jack relaxes again, nodding slightly.
Reaching into his pocket, Thomas pulls out a small container the size of a matchbox. It rattles as he turns it around in his hands then sets it on the small tray table to the side of the bed.
"Paperclips," Jack says in an odd voice, and Thomas nods.
"Figured he might want 'em when he wakes up to make some of his shapes out of. Probably gonna be bored the second he opens his eyes." Hand going back into his pocket and fishing around, Thomas withdraws a small handful of misshapen strips of metal that had once been paperclips. He sets them next to the box, a series of little glinting statues set in a row. "Tried a few myself on the way over, but they didn't really turn out. Thought he'd get a kick out of 'em though."
A short huff of a laugh echoes Thomas's, though something about it sounds strange, almost strangled. He frowns, glancing over. Jack's lips are pursed in a tight line and his eyes are bright, like he might be about to cry. His chest gives a short, shallow heave and then he shifts, leaning to the side and reaching into his own pocket.
When he rises from the chair and reaches over Mac's unconscious form, Jack's hand is shaking. He sets the small piece of metal down next to Thomas's creations on the little table and sits back down, trembling fingers landing on Mac's head. The neatly folded and unmistakable shape of a bird cuts a comical image next to Thomas's vague impressionist suggestions of what might have at one point been intended to be hearts or spirals or clouds.
Over the course of the next several minutes, Thomas watches Jack's attention flit from Mac to he and his team, lingering on the members of Sierra longer each time. The question writes itself out over Jack's face long before he actually asks it.
"Did you find Nikki?" The words are stiff and well-controlled, and Thomas wonders how bad Jack's head injury actually is that he's asking them this. Maybe he can't remember which exfil team it had been that picked he and Mac up, which is a thought that's concerning enough that Thomas almost considers ducking out to get a nurse.
Lucia doesn't seem to be experiencing the same confusion. She answers right away, telling Jack, "No, we weren't the team on the call. The people who were your exfil, they've gone back and they'll let us know if they find anything, but nothing so far."
It dawns on Thomas as she talks that Jack didn't think they were the original exfil team who'd been redeployed to handle the search for Nikki. He thinks they were sent here to aid the search, and have come by the hospital to update him on their progress. Not to see Mac. Not to see him.
"So then why are you…" Jack's voice fades out to nothing as it dawns on him. Maybe it's the concussion, or just how this whole nightmare has ripped him raw, but Thomas can see the moment it happens on his face, when he puts together that it was no one's orders that sent them there. They came because they wanted to, and they're staying because they want to, and as he thinks this over, Jack looks away from them, back down to Mac. His hand moves over Mac's head, thumb brushing blond hair back from his temple.
Though he looks completely beat, exhausted and not too far from collapsing and ending up in a bed himself, nobody tries to talk Jack into leaving. Thomas thinks that you learn pretty early on with exfil how to conserve your energy not tackling lost causes. 'Pick your battles' is practically Lucia's motto. She isn't picking this one and the team follows her lead, letting Jack's vigil continue unquestioned and unchallenged.
Minutes trickle away long and slow while Mac breathes and breathes and doesn't wake. He looks young like this, Thomas thinks with an odd nausea, young and small and easy to hurt. Far from the firecracker that crashed into his life on that first mission pickup and left the whole world seeming brighter and more alive in his wake. Looking up slightly from one field agent to the other, Thomas studies Jack for a moment too.
Jack's expression, hardly ever moving his eyes off his partner, is drained and wounded. Hunted. Like he's replaying the day in slow motion and it aches to see him like this. It aches to see them both like this. Thomas wants to look away, doesn't want to face it any longer, but he can't. Not when this is what they came for, isn't it? To be here when they couldn't before, to prove to Mac and Jack both that someone is watching. Someone is there and isn't going to look away.
When it comes, it takes Thomas completely by surprise. The 'thank you.'
Head snapping up from where he'd been twisting another paperclip around in his hands, bending and straightening the metal until it wears and becomes more malleable, Thomas frowns at Jack. He doesn't say anything, the rest of Sierra remaining silent as well, and Jack clears his throat, repeating himself.
"Thank you. For coming. For being here." He hasn't looked at them as he spoke, eyes still cast down towards Mac.
Jack's been touching him in one way or another the whole time, and now is no different. Thomas is struck by the tenderness he sees in Jack's hands, hands with knuckles he's seen bruised and bloodied at the end of missions more often than he's seen them whole. Knuckles that no lift from where he'd been adjusting the blanket draped over Mac to run briefly down his cheek in thoughtless, gentle affection.
"It's always been just…" Jack shakes his head, trying again after a long moment's pause. "Nobody else really, before, just me and…" He doesn't manage to finish it, but Thomas knows what's coming even before Vincent's low rumble completes the sentence.
"No one else shows up. It's always just you and him, when he lands here."
Though he doesn't see it, Thomas feels Meredith's hand latch onto his jacket, fingers curling into fabric at the small of his back. She doesn't say anything and neither does he, but he leans back just enough to press into the contact.
"Yeah," Jack agrees, voice hoarse. "Nikki doesn't- didn't- and anyway, Patti was here, but she had to leave, of course she did, but… I'm just real glad you're here, is all." He looks up now, tearing his eyes away from his partner long enough to focus on each of the four of them individually, the look on his face so intensely sincere that Thomas can hardly stand it. "So thank you. You didn't have to come, and I'm glad you did."
"Of course we did," says Lucia, firmly. Thomas is glad she's answered for them all, because he can't seem to find the words himself.
Silence falls back over the room, interrupted only by the soft electronic sounds emitted by the machines monitoring Mac. Thomas leans back in the chair he's pulled over from the far wall, tension making his shoulders ache. The grip Meredith has on his jacket has shifted from the back to the collar, her fingers cold but warming against the skin of his neck. It's an odd move, but he doesn't point it out or question it, for the same reason no one sees fit to draw attention to the way Jack still hasn't lost contact with Mac, hand now curled around his wrist at the pulse point.
When his phone vibrates in his pocket, Thomas pulls it out, checking the readout and seeing the contact name KOHANA (QUEBEC) flash on the screen. It's a text from Asai, asking how everything is going there. He taps out a quick message back to her, telling her that Mac is going to be okay and that Jack seems with it now. He doesn't ask about the search for Nikki Carpenter. If there was news, she'd have led with that.
A moment later, another text comes through. I don't know what happened, how it could have gone so bad. It was supposed to be an easy retrieval.
Looking up and around the hospital room, the distinctive chemical smell stinging the inside of his nose, Thomas flashes through a dozen easy retrievals that ended in some way like this one. No small amount of them had involved Mac and Jack. He's strapped Jack's badly broken leg into a temporary splint with his own hands, clamped fingers down over a wound spilling a river of blood down the side of Mac's neck.
Sighing, Thomas flexes his hands to rid himself of the sensation, focusing back down on the phone. His eyes flit over the screen to Mac on the bed and back down to the blank text, cursor blinking at him. Easy retrieval, he thinks, shaking his head.
New rule, Thomas texts back to her. Rule 3: There are no easy retrievals.
