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Jack being there was both better and worse for Mac’s mentality.
On the one hand, Jack was there. The constant that had been Mac’s life for the last year, that made him feel like he was worth the effort, the one that had told Mac on several occasions that he was worth it. Two months Jack had been back in his home, back with his family and doing everything in his power to make Mac feel more than welcomed. Being stateside had started the process, Julia was also doing wonders, and Jack being there solidified Mac’s mentality going up and had him in a genuinely happier place.
On the other hand, Jack was there, at home, laughing and sharing old stories with his mother, stories about people in town, family members. In the mornings when he was up just a little later, he heard them laughing in the kitchen, or when he was coming back from working on something in the barn, he heard their laughter from outside. The two months Julia spent with him, making him feel welcomed, had vanished.
He felt like he was intruding. That was Jack’s home, not his.
Mac didn’t know when it started, but he was avoiding the both of them, telling himself it was for the better. He started heading out to the barn to work on things directly after breakfast, and not returning until dinner, and then immediately heading to his room after. Pretty soon it was skipping breakfast all together and in the barn before the other two were even up, leading to Jack confronting him on more than one occasion with a container of food.
“I know ya like workin and yer brain ain’t ever quiet, but ya need fuel so ya don’t crash.”
“What’d I tell ya last time?”
“Y’know, mama’s startin to think it’s somethin with her cookin, but I’ve been tellin her yer eatin it all up when I bring it.”
“Mac, what’s goin on?” Jack had set himself on a chair in the barn, eyes glancing over everything Mac had been working on. “A full week you’ve been out here before breakfast and you don’t come back until dinner, then yer hold up in yer room for the rest of the night. Is somethin wrong?”
Mac stopped what he was working on and looked at Jack, brow raised and a short crooked smile on his face. “No… should there be? I know I’ve been out here a lot but there’s just so much stuff to work on.”
He couldn’t let Jack know, couldn’t ruin the time he and his mother spent together.
“I get that, but you’ve been a little— distant. Even mama’s been sayin it, that when it was just you two, you’d spend most of the day out here but you wouldn’t miss meals. Is it me? Did I do somethin that makes you wanna avoid me?”
“No! God no! Neither you or your mom did anything!” Of course not. It was him that was the problem. “It’s just me getting ideas in my head of how to fix or improve things out here. It’s— if I don’t do it right when it pops into my head then I forget it, and it doesn’t help if I wrote it down either. It I don’t get it done in that moment, then it’s gone. I haven’t been meaning to skip out on breakfast, but I’ve just been on a role lately.”
Jack looked around, noting all the dismantled tools everywhere. “I mean I can’t see it, but if that’s what ya say.”
“I’m not actively trying to miss meals, but you know how I get when I have my mind set on something.”
“Yeah, I do.” Jack snorted slightly and got up, placing the meal on his chair. “You eat that, and I’m gonna go tell mama to put her nerves at rest, and that yer gonna join us for lunch, alright?”
“Alright.”
Truth of the matter was, Mac hadn’t had an appetite whenever Jack brought him food, but force himself to eat it since Julia had gone through the trouble each time. And he couldn’t exactly tell Jack that he was trying to avoid them, not for anything they did or didn’t do, but— for the fact that he didn’t belong there. He couldn’t get it out of his head that he was intruding on their family time, their reunion time. Jack had been gone for years, and he wasn’t even the first person Julia saw.
It didn’t matter how much they told him, how much they tried to solidify it in his head, that he was welcomed there. His brain wouldn’t accept that someone would welcome him into their home expecting nothing in return.
It was different with the Bozers. Somehow, it was different. Mac was a child then, someone who needed watching and adult supervision, who couldn’t reach the top shelf even if he stood on a chair. Loretta had asked if he wanted to stay, and he did and was excited about it, but she also delegated chores between him and Bozer; set boundaries and rules he had to follow.
All of it was fine, because Mac was a child then, but currently, he was an adult, and somehow it had all changed.
He sighed, taking the food from the chair and sitting in its place, looking around at the mess before him. He was glad Jack didn’t ask what he was planning, because in reality, he had no real clue. He’d only fixed a handful of things out of the dozens he had to choose, all the rest being dismantled and broke down for parts. A good chunk of them because Mac threw them to the ground in a fit.
His head hurt.
He opened the food and slowly started picking at it. He had no appetite, but wasn’t going to let it go to waste, not after Julia went through the trouble of making it for him.
***
Mac headed back to the house when it hit lunch, barely finishing breakfast an hour earlier. He felt sick.
He was a bit surprised to see Jack in the kitchen preparing the food, Julia nowhere in sight.
“Well, look what the wind blew in.” Jack smiled. “It’s like I haven’t seen ya all week.”
“You saw me earlier.” Mac rolled his eyes and began to wash his food container in the sink. “Where’s your mom?”
“Change of plans; just gonna be me and you for lunch and dinner. Mama’s apparently had a girl’s night planned with her friends for a while and it was today. She’s lookin forward to braggin bout us to all her friends.”
“Oh.”
“So I’m gonna be in charge of keepin you fed for the rest of the day. Ain’t as good as mama, but I know my way round the kitchen. Not gonna have anythin fancy, really just throwin a bunch of leftovers together for a quick and dirty soup.”
The thought of more food made his stomach roll.
“I don’t suppose I could veto this for later, can I?”
“Hey now, don’t knock it until you try it. Just cuz you’ve never seen me cook before doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doin.”
“No, I mean— I’m all for it, but I just feel a bit sick.”
“Yer workin too hard.” Jack stopped what he was doing, actually turning to Mac, frowning slightly. “You do look a little pale. Workin in that old barn, might’ve got a bug, literally. Ticks ain’t common but I know at least a dozen people get bit every year.”
“I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been bit by anything, just… I just haven’t felt right for a little while. It didn’t come on suddenly.”
“You know, just cuz we’re outta the sandbox doesn’t mean you stop tellin me when ya think somethin’s wrong.” He wiped his hands on a towel, throwing it over his shoulder. “Why don’t you go take a rest for a bit? This stuff ain’t gonna be done for a little while, and usually tastes better after it sits for a second. I’ll come get ya when it’s ready.”
Mac shouldn’t have been surprised at Jack knowing exactly what he needed. He somehow expected Jack to forget in the two months they were apart. Nevertheless, he did head up to his room to lay down for a while, hopefully to lessen the headache that seemed never ending.
He had shut the curtains, hoping to get the room completely dark, but the midday sun had been shining through both the top and the bottom. It was that moment he regretted not ever picking up blackout curtains, but he had an extra pillow that could be placed over his head if it got truly bad. It wouldn’t help the nausea though. The only thing he could do for that was lay still and try not to smell what Jack was cooking.
He hadn’t had a migraine in a decent amount of time, and was hoping he could stop that one before it began. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be that lucky; with everything that had been going on with him, he’d really neglected to take care of himself. His head had been a constant pain that Mac assumed he just needed sleep to deal with, but Jack confronting him seemed to be the breaking point.
His migraine meds were in the cabinet in the bathroom, and at that current point in time he couldn’t bring himself to get them because every slight movement went a wave of nausea through him. He just laid prone on his back with a pillow over his face, hoping to just ride it out before it did fully turn into a migraine.
The two quick knocks on his door startled him. He didn’t know how long it had been or if he as actually able to fall asleep, but knew it wasn’t long enough, and he wasn’t fast enough to stop it before it began.
“Soup’s on.” Jack’s voice wasn’t loud in the least, but it felt like a hammer in Mac’s head. “You awake?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t know if Jack even heard him. With the pillow and how softly he spoke, it was a mystery if he even said the word out loud in the first place.
He felt every vibration of Jack’s steps at he walked in the room, and it took a lot to not let out a groan when he sat on the edge of the bed, shifting Mac’s own body slightly.
“Hey, what’s goin on?” Jack’s voice was even softer, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
“Migraine.”
Mac didn’t hear if Jack replied or not but felt his weight leave the bed. He didn’t know what he was expecting really. There wasn’t anything Jack could actually do for him besides leave him to wallow until it passed.
But then there was the thoughts of Jack leaving, or more so Mac himself leaving so Jack could get back to his regular life with his mother. He knew thinking about that wasn’t helping with the pounding in his head, but it wasn’t like he could just stop. He felt like an inconvenience, more in that moment than any other. Jack had opened up his home and Mac had gone and gotten sick, causing an even bigger inconvenience in Jack now having to take care of him.
The weight on the bed returned, Jack’s voice low but loud enough for Mac to hear.
“Got yer meds if you think you can stomach them, if not, I also got one of the auto-injectors.”
It wasn’t until a few seconds passed that Mac realized Jack was waiting for an answer. He moved the pillow from his face, grimacing at the light both from the curtains and peeking in from the slightly opened door. “Injector.”
“Alright, arm or leg?”
“I can do it.”
“You can barely keep yer eyes open right now. I got you, don’t worry.”
Mac huffed out a sigh. “Arm.”
“Alright. Slight pinch.”
He didn’t flinch as the needle punctured his skin.
“Okay, one more thing before I let you enter dreamland.” He once again left the bed, and Mac heard his door open then shut with a small click. There was shuffling and rustling before he spoke again. “It ain’t the best, but it should do for now.”
He opened his eyes to see the light was dimmed even further, practically nonexistent at the moment.
“Threw a blanket over the opening at the top and stuffed one on the sill. Think this is gonna be the best I can do, besides runnin out to get some actual blackout curtains. Even then, I think it’d still work better with these two things in place.”
Mac let the pillow fall back over his eyes. “Thanks.”
“I’ll come see ya a little later. So you just try and get some rest, okay? Don’t think it should be too hard. I know how yer meds knock you out, especially the basic instant ones.” Jack placed his hand on Mac’s arm and gave it a gentle squeeze before once again leaving Mac’s bedside.
***
He knew something was wrong. In the time Jack had been home, everything seemed fine, better since Mac was there. But then something happened, something Jack was ashamed he didn’t notice sooner.
It was a habit he’d seen before when they were both still deployed, something Mac did when he had a lot on his mind. He was isolating himself, but Jack didn’t understand why. No one was waiting for an answer to something, or a detailed report on how and why the outing went wrong, his friends weren’t dying around him.
And yet—
Mac was isolating himself, and whatever the reason, was so bad that he’d gotten a migraine from it.
Jack knew how to deal with them separately; his care on migraines significantly better because Mac could be in a dark, quiet place until it eventually subsided. Back when Mac isolated himself on the base, Jack would just find him and sit in on whatever he was doing, sometimes speaking sometimes not, but Mac had always cracked and told him what was wrong.
He couldn’t do that now. Because Mac needed both simultaneously and that just wasn’t going to happen.
He looked through the cupboards for some tupperware and spooned in the soup. Mac hadn’t had an appetite for the past week, skipping breakfast and lunch, then more or less pushing around the food on his plate at dinner, or having half portions, but he hoped he’d be able to stomach a little bit. If Mac didn’t eat the breakfast that was brought to him, then Jack would’ve insisted on him eating what he could to go with his medication, because Jack knew what would happen if Mac had it on an empty stomach.
Still, he blamed himself for not seeing the bigger picture, not seeing that something was obviously wrong with Mac on a deeper sense than physical. He didn’t want to smother him though, didn’t want to corner him like he had to when they were deployed to make him say what was wrong. Out in the sandbox, if Mac’s head was anywhere except focused on what was in front of him then there was a very real possibility he would die. On the farm though, Mac was allowed to live— to let his mind wander. There was no danger there, no constant threat of anything to worry about, so Jack didn’t feel the need to corner him about what was happening.
He wait a few hours before checking on Mac. He didn’t bother knocking, instead slowly and quietly opening the door, making sure the light on the hall was off as he did. The pillow that once laid over Mac’s head was being hugged to his chest, and a blanket barely covering Mac at all. But he was asleep, long deep breaths going in and out seconds apart. Jack didn’t think he ever really saw Mac sleep that hard, not that he ever had the chance. Everyone turned into a lite sleeper when bunking with a dozen other guys. Even if Mac had managed to fall into a deeper sleep sometimes, a change in any of his surroundings always woke him.
The day had slowly turned to night, and Mac hadn’t woken at all, nor had he moved from the initial position every time Jack checked. He had half a mind to wake him and make him eat something, but knew it would only do more harm than good. He remembered a particularly bad time in the sandbox, when Mac had ignored all the signs and Jack hadn’t been keen enough to catch on what was happening. Three days Mac had battled with the symptoms and pain of the migraine before he couldn’t take it anymore and wound up collapsing while in the field. It had apparently so debilitating that he could barely walk, and Jack had panicked when seeing him go down, thinking he missed an enemy and Mac was currently dying.
Upon seeing Mac wasn’t actively bleeding out and having got him in the Humvee, he had to stop from yelling at him. While Mac didn’t tell Jack his ailments, Jack also hadn’t noticed at all, even with how severe they were. Mac had been out of the field for three days after that, two which were him being confined to med so Doc could keep an eye on him, and nearly all that time was him sleeping.
When the day had fully turned into night is when Julia finally returned, happy to tell Jack about what she and her friends had been up to all day, yet frowning when she noticed Jack was alone in the living room.
“So it’s not just my cooking that keeps him away. Is he up in his room again?”
“Yeah, been up there since lunch.” Jack sighed, hand going through his hair. “Not that he even ate anythin, he’s got a migraine— bad one. I didn’t even notice him hurtin at all.”
“Not that you could’ve; he’s been in that barn every day keepin himself busy.”
“I shoulda seen it mama. He buries himself in work whenever he’s hurtin and I didn’t see it. Even when I brought him breakfast, I couldn’t tell that anythin was wrong— even with how the barn looks right now.”
“I may not know him as well as you, but this is all still new to him, and the same could be said for you. You’re getting used to your old life, he’s getting used to his new one. It’s not your fault that you didn’t notice.” She squeezed his shoulder. “The best we can do is take care of him and make him as comfortable as possible. Did you check on him at all?”
Jack nodded. “Just a bit ago before you got on. He hasn’t so much as moved since I checked earlier.”
“Your Aunt Shellie used to get real nasty migraines when she was younger. Grandpa used to have to call the school to have her excused because she couldn’t so much as move. Right now, all Mac needs to do is lay in the dark and try to sleep it off. Maybe try to get him to eat somethin in the morning though. His body can’t work on healing itself if he doesn’t have energy for it.”
“I know, I just wish he’d told me bout it, or at least taken his meds. Ain’t like he’s got anythin to worry bout doin so he’s free to let the meds knock him out.”
“Now I’m sure you know better than I do that he likes keepin busy, but maybe the things in the barn aren’t enough anymore. You know— he asked about paying rent again just last week when you went out. Poor boy still feels like he needs to earn his keep. I know it’s most likely not something that will come up in conversation, but I can’t help but wonder what happened to put him in that mind set. And this isn’t me askin you to tell me if you know. It’s not your place to tell his personal life.”
“I know mama.” Jack huffed. “This is all still new to him— I’ll talk to him when he’s feelin better, try to get it through his head that he doesn’t need to prove himself for anythin, but…”
“It’s learned behavior and it’s goin to take some time for him to unlearn it.” Julia said. “Good thing you’re a pretty good teacher when it comes to things like that.”
***
Not having to get up with the sun was something Jack was getting used to, but there were still days when he couldn’t break that habit. That day was one where he was happy to get up just after sunrise, mainly because he was worried that, in his crippling state, Mac still would’ve gotten himself up and to the old barn to do whatever it was he was doing.
Thankfully, when checked, Mac was still curled in a ball on his bed, though still unmoved from the position he was in the previous day. He didn’t want to wake him, but having his meds, even from the auto-injector, wasn’t good on an empty stomach, and Mac hadn’t eaten for nearly a full day. At that moment, the outcome would be either he was able to eat a bit and go back to sleep, or eat a bit and vomit it up minutes later.
Jack had gone down stairs to and made an easy, nearly bland breakfast that Mac’s stomach could handle, and a little soup from lunch if he was actually feeling up to it before heading up and entering his room. He placed the food on Mac’s desk before stirring him.
“Mac.” He sat on the side of the bed, his hand going to Mac’s shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze and shake. “Need ya to wake up for me, bud.”
There was a sharp inhale, Jack knowing he’d just woken Mac from a deep sleep. The light shining from the sides of the curtains illuminated the room just enough so it wouldn’t hurt for Mac to open his eyes.
He shifted, turning towards Jack with his eyes barely open. “Jack?”
“Hey, how’re ya feelin?”
“Tired.”
“I bet. You’ve been out since lunch yesterday. How’s yer head doin? No worse?”
“No. It’s— okay right now.”
“How bout yer appetite? I brought ya a little soup from yesterday and some oatmeal. I know it ain’t yer strong suit when yer like this, but ya need to eat to get better.”
Mac moved more, shifting to his back before pushing himself into a sitting position. “I can eat a little I think.”
Jack retrieved both bowls. “Which you wanna go for first?”
“Soup.”
He handed Mac the bowl, happy to see him not recoil at the smell. There’d been too many times in the sandbox where he pushed the meals away because of how they made his stomach roll.
“This is good.”
“I’m glad ya like it; quick and simple to make that even someone with yer cookin ability wouldn’t be able to mess it up. Not as good as mama’s though. She never told me her secret ingredient.”
Jack watched Mac tense and hesitate the next bite at that remark. It wasn’t just him having a migraine that seemed to be the source of the problem.
“Ya know… mama feels a bit bad that she didn’t have the right curtains for ya. Said somethin bout runnin to the store to pick some up for you.”
That cause him to stop eating, melancholy settling over him. “She doesn’t need to. I can get them myself.”
“You can’t even open yer eyes all the way right now, even with how dark it is.” Jack kept his tone quiet and good natured, but could feel a guilt radiating off Mac. “What’s goin on Mac?”
Mac looked at the bowl in his hands, the lingering smell in the room and taste in his mouth was working wonders in making him feel sick. “I should go home.”
Jack frowned slightly at that. “To Cali?”
“I— think I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“Hey hey, what makes you say that?”
Mac merely shrugged, eyes specifically not looking towards Jack at all.
“Did we do anythin to make you feel like you’ve worn out yet welcome? That we don’t want you here? If you heard or saw somethin that you thought indicated—”
“You two look so happy with each other.” Macs voice was quiet and shaky. “You’re both laughing and smiling with each other at every interaction… and I’m intruding on it.”
“Mac—”
“And I’m just— here. I’m not contributing to anything. Your mom refuses to let me pay rent, and there’s no chores to get done. I haven’t even been able to use anything that’s in the barn because I can’t focus. I’m just— I’m taking up space.”
There was something in Jack that broke at Mac’s statement. Jack knew Mac had self-esteem issues, he just didn’t know how bad they were, and those four words out it into perspective.
“Look at me.” Jack’s tone was commanding yet gentle. “Mac, look at me.” Slowly, Mac brought his eyes to meet Jack’s, and when Jack saw shame in them, he wanted to punch someone. “I swear to you, on my daddy’s grave, that we want you here. You’re not taking up space. You’re not being a freeloader. You’re not intruding on our lifestyle. Those times me and mama are laughin and smilin is because we’re talkin bout you. I’ve been tellin mama bout us in the sandbox and all the crazy things you did, like when we had a pass and it was my first time seein you drunk, then she goes on and tells me how you went for a ride on the ATV and came back all sorts of dirty and muddy but refused to tell her what happened. We’re laughin and havin a good time because of you, not despite of.” He let the air hang open for a moment, letting Mac wrap his head around the information. “If you want to go back home, I ain’t gonna stop you. Yer not trapped here. But if you think you have to leave, yer wrong. Anythin that makes you think you have to leave is wrong, because yer family. You don’t gotta do anythin you don’t want. And if you do want to go home, you tell me when because I’m goin with.”
Mac let his head fall again so he was staring at the bowl, hands shaking ever so slightly as he spoke. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Then don’t.” The words were so simple; so easy for Jack to tell Mac to stay on the ranch. He just needed Mac to believe him. “Mama wants you here, I want you here. It’s honestly pretty boring on the regular, but you vein here fixes that, and I know how you love to fix things.” An echo of a snort passed Jack’s ear. “Look, mama ain’t gonna let you pay rent. That’s just outta the question. If you feel like yer slackin or freeloadin, yer not, but we can talk with mama to get you some regular jobs that need to be done, alright? Just simple things round the house. No big problem areas or anything that’ll take up more than an hour of yer time, okay?”
Mac nodded. “Okay.”
“Alright. Now you feelin up to finishin that soup or you wanna try some oatmeal?”
***
“Alright, I know it’s not much, but we really don’t have much to do around the house. Even right now during our off season. Once we get a bit busier, we can teach you the basics of the ranch and have you work over there if you’d like. For right now, you’re in charge of the dishes; breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’m not picky, I don’t mind when they get done, just as long as there’s a clean sink at the end of the night, I’m happy.”
Julia smiled at the look on Mac’s face, one that said he had purpose again, but it also made her sad to see, and that it took that long for something to be said. She couldn’t see Mac’s inner turmoil that she herself had unintentionally caused. Keeping Mac busy with whatever was in the old barn was good, but according to Jack when they talked about it, it didn’t really have any meaning. Not that fixing up the old tractor wouldn’t mean anything, but in Mac’s mind, it was all sort of pointless; not having any reprimands, no yelling, no threats on doing better— Mac had no sense of urgency to do anything, so he must have figured Julia didn’t really want him there.
It broke her heart to think Mac’s brain was wired that way, that if he wasn’t useful or had a purpose then he was worthless. She wanted to talk to him, try to help him out of that mindset that had plagued him for so long, but Mac hadn’t raked to her, hadn’t brought up the subject. It’s not like she herself would bring it up. There was a reason he didn’t want to speak of it, and she wasn’t going to trudge up any old memories that were best forgotten.
“Is that acceptable until there’s more routine things for you to take on?”
“Yes.” Mac beamed.
“There are exceptions to it though, and I’d feel better if you followed and acknowledged them; if you’re sick, or injured, or somehow incapacitated, you are not to do them. Your only job then is to get better. Understand?”
She watched as Mac undoubtedly opened his mouth to protest, only to shut it and sigh before nodding. “Yes.”
“Alright then. You do a good job and you can take out the trash as well.”
With that, Jack elbowed Mac with a smile and the two of them went back of stairs, no doubt in Jack trying to tuck Mac in again to make sure he was completely alright from his migraine, demanding he sleep for one more day before trying to do anything.
Julia smiled at the thought. She knew Jack would make a good big brother, as seen by how he interacted with all his younger cousins and friends from school. She figured herself blessed to see that Jack had also made a wonderful father.
That was her home. It was Jack’s home. And now it was Mac’s home as well. She would do anything and everything in her power to try and help Mac, because now she understood what Jack had told her when they were still deployed.
Mac needed a family, and not even the devil himself would stop Julia Dalton from making that happen.