Of Backseats, Belts, Blood, and Bandanas

Chapter 1

Riley, talk to me," Jack called, straining to get a clear visual on his two kids through the rear-view mirror as he maneuvered through the bumper-to-bumper traffic of rush hour in downtown LA. "How we lookin' back there?"

"I'm fine, Jack," Mac insisted, voice tight with pain as he pressed harder on the wadded up flannel shirt he was using to stop the blood from leaking out of the stab wound on his side. "Keep driving."

"Bleedin' out in the backseat isn't exactly my definition of fine, hoss," Jack grumbled, frown lines deepening. "Pretty sure it ain't anyone's. And I didn't ask you, I was asking Riley, who is in a better position to judge these things seein' as how she ain't dyin' on me."

"Nobody's dying," Riley cut in, amending.

"I'm fine," Mac tried again. "And Ri's hurt too."

"Hey, a twisted ankle is nowhere close to a stab wound," Riley switched teams, back on Jack's side, the two of them against Mac. "I really am fine."

"I saw that fall, you hit the ground hard," Mac let his head drop to the cool glass of his window. "You gotta get it checked out."

"I will," She promised, a gentle hand coming to rest on his arm, thumb sweeping soothingly at the bare skin beneath the hem of his t-shirt sleeve, muscles tight with pain and the exertion of keeping pressure on his injury. "But you're taking priority right now. Let us worry about you first, okay?"

The car came to a complete stop, traffic backed up behind a red light that Jack could barely see, almost a half-mile ahead of them. He risked turning around, peering over the seat of the rented SUV as best he could without taking his foot off the brake. "Ri, sit-rep?"

"I'm... I don't know Jack!" She quickly slipped a hair tie off her wrist and pulled back handfuls of curls into a messy ponytail. "I'm not exactly an expert on this kind of thing. He's awake and reasonably coherent and hasn't bled through that shirt yet. All things considered? I think he's as good as can be expected. I don't know what else to tell you."

"The he in question is right here," Mac interrupted them with a sigh, struggling to sit up straighter in his seat to prove that he was alright. "And he's..."

"If you say you're fine one more time, kid, it might just be the last thing you do," Jack warned, sending him a glare over the back of the seat that was interrupted by a horn blaring from somewhere behind them. Turning back around, Jack saw the empty space that had opened up, just a few car-lengths, but enough for the line of drivers, who were apparently all in as big of a hurry as Jack himself was, to grow impatient. He slammed both hands against the steering wheel in frustration as he crawled the car forward a few paces. "I don't know why Patty felt the need to make us come back to Phoenix instead of hightailing it to the closest hospital anyway."

"Because we're operating on American soil," Mac explained, not for the first time since he and Riley had dove into the back of the car Jack had slid to a halt and peeled out of the gravel driveway before the door was even closed behind them. "Which is risky enough without this one being practically in our own back yard."

"And going to the closest hospital would have only cut half an hour off our drive," Riley cut in. "And coming in with a stab wound would have raised a ton of questions."

"I hear ya, I hear ya," Jack muttered, searching for an opening in a faster-moving lane and ending up even more frustrated than he was in their original position. "But he might not have an extra half hour."