Wunderkind

Christmas Special-Tweezers

*This is another all original episode...it was intended to be a SHORT Christmas special and ended up being the length of a regular episode.

Mention of past suicide of minor character*

LOS ANGELES

A LONG WAY FROM HOME

Christmas in the Dalton family has never once been held on Christmas in Jack's living memory. The Dalton clan is flung over approximately six states, one U.S. territory, and for a while, (in Jack's case) foreign countries. Everyone celebrates with their local family for Christmas, and then converges on the ranch two days before New Years' Eve.

That's the first thing that makes Dalton Family Christmas a little different from other people's. The second is that in pretty much any family picture taken at one of these little shindigs, you can be sure you'll look at it five years later and wonder who the heck that random person was in the back corner. Or sitting on the fireplace mantel. Or hugging Uncle Joey. Because the Dalton family has a habit of inviting anyone they've met over the course of the past few months who they know doesn't have family to go home to for the holidays.

For five years now Riley's been a fixture of those Christmas photos. And now Jack's planning on adding a few more to the mix. Sam's already said she's game to come; she claims she's got no family back in Australia to go see. Jack may not be a Jedi mind reader like her, but the look in her eyes says that's a big fat pile of cow pies. But he's not gonna ask. People in this profession keep their personal lives a secret for a reason.

Now he's on his way to invite Mac and his roommate. After last week he's more than a little worried about how that's gonna go over. Mac hasn't seemed like himself the past few days. WHich is understandable, given that his best friend was kidnapped, Mac was blackmailed into breaking the law, and he was totally convinced he was going to be arrested and sent back to prison again. But Jack's also got the feeling things with Bozer aren't that great.

People don't understand what it means that we lie to them. They look at it as a betrayal. But really, it's to save them, to protect them. Jack comes from a military family, he knows they understands that. But Boze is a civilian. He doesn't have anyone in his family who had a job they couldn't share. And to make things even worse, the one person who did have a secret, Mac, let him in on it.

That has to sting. The only equivalent to that, that Jack can think of, would be if his old war buddy Steve suddenly revealed that there was a whole other side to his life that he hadn't told Jack about for months. Steve's always calls me when something changes in his life. Sure, he can't always give details, but at least Jack knows when that idiot goes off and takes another hare-brained risk. Jack is well aware that even though Steve has left the SEALs, he still has a job where he puts his life on the line every day. He knows that someday he could get a call from one of the Five-0 team telling him that the worst has happened. It would be devastating, but it wouldn't be an absolute shock.

But if Jack had had to call Boze and tell him Mac was gone, that boy would have been absolutely stunned and confused. He thought Mac had a nice safe job at a think tank, and now he has to come to terms with the fact that the only way his best friend is staying out of prison is by risking his life all over the world.

He's more nervous when he knocks on the door than when he picked up his high school prom date and when he walked into the recruiting center in town combined. Everything between the team and Bozer and Mac is hanging by threads that the wrong move could snap.

Mac answers, and when he sees who it is he seems shocked and a little taken aback. "Hi Jack."

"Hi kid."