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After the Sharktopus nonsense, Mac decides she's going to rest for a few days. She has a severely sprained ankle that really limits her ability to walk and sand is out of the question unless she wants to just make it worse. While it's frustrating to her, she doesn't mind being in the house for a few days and spending some time just reading books and keeping her own company, which she doesn't particularly mind.

She does, however, miss Jackson and hopes he'll be by to check on her and her stupid injury. She hears a knock at her cottage door and calls out so she doesn't have to get up.

"It's open! I'm in bed." Bed is the most comfortable place to lay around with books, after all, and Mac pushes her reading glasses up on her nose and squints at the tiny print.

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"If you need me to tell me that there's nothing wrong with your body then I ain't be doin' this right," he says, reaching out to brush his fingers against her hip. "And it has been kinda active, hasn't it?"

"It has. I think my body is enjoying the time off. Not that it isn't wonderful, it is," Mac insists. "Just, it's nice to not have to worry about looking my best for a few days."

He leans down to unlace his boots before he stretches out next to her, flipping through the magazines in her hand. "What are you so worried about me seein'?"

"It's sex, isn't it? I'm supposed to be ridiculously attractive all the time," Mac says, trying in vain to concentrate on an article about congressional redistricting. It's easier to have this conversation if it looks like she's doing something else.

"Sexy underwear, all that. That's not me all the time. I have wobbly bits and a scar and I'm just a normal woman."

"And there was me thinking I'd inadvertantly fucked a goddess the other night." He rolls his eyes. "I know what you are, Mac. I see you. You see me runnin'?"

"No, I guess not," Mac says, looking up and giving him a little smile. "Do you want to know what I'm doing right now? I'm reading up on six months of election news back home. It doesn't even matter here, really, but I'm researching for my job. I want to put together a package on congressional districts to present to the Council here because we have discreet populations that aren't accurately represented in a popular vote. Why am I doing it? Because that's who I am. I never stop working."

"Even here?" he says, marveling a little. "I was quite happy with my life before Reid drafted me in. I coulda lived out my years doin' nothing but when I was doin' already."

"It's the difference between a job and a calling," Mac decides. She slides her glasses off and hooks them in the neck of her top before looking at him.

"Is it just sex and the occasional orthopedic visit?"

"I don't know if I've ever been called to anything. Sort of just...fell from thing to thing my whole life. I liked the Pinks better than the Army, at least." He looks at her for a long moment, head tilted. "I'm not sure I understand the question, darlin'."

"This thing," Mac says, motioning between them. "Is it just sex or are you interested in the things I have to say when I'm not fucking you? I don't want to bore you with my personal life if that's not the arrangement we have."

"I'm still here, ain't I?" he says, still lying there on the bed, looking up at her. "And, shit, we've both got our clothes on, so I figure I must be interested in listening to you talk."

"I'm not very good at this," Mac warns him. "Men tend to use me for sex, it's a thing. I don't mind it, since I apparently keep going back for more, but I'm not very good at being friends outside of it. I'm sort of self-conscious. I'm sure you noticed."

"You're hiding it very well," says Jackson, flipping through the magazine in his hands. "What are you looking for, here, Mac? What do you want me to say?"

"I'm...just that you care about my well-being outside of whether or not I'm tied up and being fucked, is all," Mac says. "I'm not trying to get serious on you or anything I just have never done this before. The whole...kinky thing."

The way she talks about it makes him smile and he shakes his head. "You're worried because of what I've been doin' to you - you think it means I don't...what? That I don't give a shit the rest of the time?"

"Yes?" Mac says, wondering if that means she's just shot herself in the foot. "I mean I like what we do I just...I like talking and kissing and other things too and I don't know if that's allowed or anything."

He doesn't say anything in response to that. Instead, he shifts position on the bed, sitting up and then leaning in, pressing a light kiss against the corner of her mouth.

"It's allowed," he says. "If you want it."

"I do want it," Mac assures him. "Provided you do, of course, which you apparently do, since you just did that?"

"Woman, you're exhausting," he says, rolling his eyes, though he's still close enough to kiss. "What do I need to do to emphatically prove it to you?"

"You could possibly kiss me again?" Mac asks, a hopeful look on her face that's just this side of stupid. She's never been very good at relationships but this seems to be going all right for right now.

He's rolling his eyes a little when he leans in, kissing her again, properly this time. Square on the mouth, deeper, wetter. One hand comes to rest against her hip.

It's a very good kiss and that pleases her, enough that she's regretting she really can't get up to anything interesting with a bum foot.

"Oh, wow, you are very good at kissing. Is there anything you can't do?"

He grins at her, tongue touching his bottom lip.

"I'm bad at mathematics," he says, settling back down close to her. "And I cannot darn socks for anythin' in this world."

"I count on my fingers and I can't sew," Mac says, giggling a little. "So I can't help you with either of those things. So sorry."

"I'm sure we'll muddle through, darlin'," he says, pretty sure, now, that there's going to be something to muddle through, after all.