As far as Jack could tell, Mac hadn't left the family cabin in over a week.

He couldn't verify that with true certainty. This was a small town, and he didn't want the kid to catch wind of his presence until he was sure that seeing him was going to be better than leaving him alone. Jack fervently wished that Mac hadn't talked his grandfather into coming out here to live out his last days.

It made recon a real bitch. The house in LA would have been ideal, from Jack's perspective. Busy neighborhood, good surveillance vantage points. But even the old homestead in Mission City would have been better than the cabin.

The practically nonexistent town he was staying in that was about a half hour from Lost Coast was still a twenty minute drive to the cabin itself. And Mac didn't seem to come into town any more that he had to just to survive.

It had taken CIA less than no time to snap Jack back up the minute Mac had received his hardship discharge to head back to the states and help his grandfather set his affairs in order and care for him during his illness. Jack's original assignment had been in the bag months before he "re-upped" but he just couldn't bring himself to leave that kid there in that mess without an overwatch Jack trusted, which meant he needed to be the kid's overwatch.

But, despite how very busy he'd been over the last year and a half, Jack had kept close tabs on MacGyver. As close as he could given both their situations anyway. His new job gave him a little more flexibility.

Last time he'd checked in on the kid it had almost looked like Gramps might pull through. But first Chechnya happened, then DXS got in touch. Jack had been busy, but Mac's welfare had stayed in the back of his mind. He kept telling himself he'd look back in on Mac at some point. Then Miles called him.

Mac wasn't himself, the kid's former bunkmate from his earliest Army days said. Mac had helped him out of a tight spot a few months ago, but it had been radio silence since. Mac hanging out all alone in the middle of nowhere, not talking to anybody was bad. Miles asked Jack, pleaded with him was probably more accurate to try. Miles would have died in Afghanistan if Mac hadn't been there the day the IED blew their transport. If Mac wouldn't talk to Miles, maybe he would talk to Jack, the young man reasoned.

Jack had called, but he'd just gone to voicemail.

More than once.

Fortunately an opportunity to go check on good ole Carl's Junior had presented itself shortly thereafter.

He'd only been with the firm a few months, but he'd already made enough of a name for himself that his casual mention of Mac in response to his boss Patricia Thornton's questions about his assignment with the Army for CIA had gotten her curious. Curious enough that she'd done some digging on Jack's former assignment.

She came to him a day later saying it could be lucky for the whole intelligence community that Jack had been assigned to protect Mac as part of his cover investigating illegal weapons trade by one of the officers on that particular base. Angus MacGyver, she said, was an intriguing individual. She wanted Jack to arrange a meeting. Patricia had been very clear. He didn't know her well enough to push the boundaries of her expectations too much yet. He only had a week.

Of course, she was interested in talking to Mac. Anyone in her line of work who'd seen his service record or his academic records would be. Jack still wasn't sure he should make the offer. So he was taking a measured approach. If measured approaches included hanging out in the woods near the cabin in a deer stand (which Jack would have bet his trigger finger had belonged to Mac's grandfather and which Jack was absolutely positive the kid was unaware of because he would have no interest either being up in the tree or shooting at anything), with binoculars.

Mac had been keeping to himself, staying indoors, as far as Jack could tell. He hadn't managed to get a good look at the kid yet. Mac had gone out for a run early (like zero dark thirty early) in baggy sweats and an oversized hoodie with the hood up but there was something about his appearance that Jack didn't like.

When Mac left about a half hour ago, dressed in much the same fashion, only wearing his grandfather's leather jacket over the sweats and a tuc pulled down over his head so far Jack could barely make out the kid's eyes, Jack was sorely tempted to go get a look inside the house.

He'd poked around the property a little, looking in the few windows where the shades weren't drawn first. The bedroom was one of those. Jack frowned for a full five minutes at that. The room was a wreck. Mac was a very neat person, very orderly, or at least he had been. But now, laundry all over the floor, stacks of clean laundry on top of the dresser instead of put away, and it didn't look like the bed had been changed or made since … ever.

That was very telling.

He looked in the garage on his way by. That at least was as he expected it; tools arranged with all the precision of instruments in an operating room, and nearly as clean. There was some sort of contraption that involved a half taken apart leaf blower and a chainsaw on the work table. But it was covered in dust. Hmmm … Jack didn't like that any more than he liked the messy bedroom.

Jack considered going inside for a look around again, but something told him not to. He was just resituating himself in the tree stand when Mac pulled back into his small parking area. Jack picked up his binoculars again. Mac just got out with a large paper bag. It was from the local hardware store if the printing on it was accurate. Jack had sort of been hoping for groceries, but no such luck.

As Mac unlocked his door, he glanced over his shoulder toward the woods, frowning for a moment. Then he just went inside, casting one more glance in that direction before shutting the door. Jack smiled to himself. Mac's instincts were still good, obviously. He felt watched.

It was probably time to either make contact or get the hell out of Dodge.

Jack had just about made up his mind to go get his rental car from the abandoned camp by the lake about a half hour's walk through the woods and pull up like he'd just showed up for a surprise visit, when the door opened again. Mac came out this time in attire much more like that which Jack was used to seeing him in when they'd met up a few times right after Mac had left the Army, jeans, a faded t-shirt, hiking boots. But Jesus the kid had gotten skinny, Jack thought, mildly horrified by just how thin Mac looked. He'd probably dropped twenty pounds since he left Afghanistan. He was pale too, like he'd spent about as much time inside every other week as he had the few days Jack had been … observing him.

And he clearly hadn't hit up a barbershop since the last time Jack had seen him. Mac was always prone to push the regs a little with the length of his hair, and when they'd met that had been easy to do since they were in an area and working at jobs that came with some different expectations, but now it fell over his shoulders. Didn't look terribly well taken care of either.

Jack took a deep breath.

It was good that Mac's buddy had called him, good that he came.

Then Jack felt his stomach drop as Mac made a beeline for the trees.

Right where Jack had perched himself.

Well, shit.

He hadn't even managed to start climbing down when Mac was at the base of the tree. He looked even less like he was doing great up close. Probably because instead of looking his full twenty-three years that included being a professional bomb tech in the US military who'd driven Humvees and two and a half ton supply trucks and on one notable emergency occasion a tank, he looked like he might not have been able to apply for his learner's permit yet.

Then he looked up and his hair fell back off his face and he smirked. He just looked like Mac again at that moment. "Hey, Jack. Wanna come inside? It's supposed to rain like hell this afternoon."

"Um … Hey, Mac … I … Um …Sorry to surprise you like this … Um …"

"Surprise? You've been creeping around for like three days now."

Jack started to climb down. Staying up here and calling down just made his feeling of being busted worse. "You knew I was here?" he asked sheepishly.

"Of course I did."

"How in the hell ..?"

"I have game cameras set up on a feed into Gramps' desktop. There's a lot of cool wildlife that comes around. And apparently it's a great place to spot a sneaky sniper."

Jack dropped down onto the ground next to Mac. "I'm sorry, kid … I just …"

For the first time, Mac's annoyance bled into his expression. "What the hell are you doing here, Jack, especially spying on me?"

Jack swallowed hard. He didn't want to talk about DXS yet, but he also wanted to be honest, because Mac was a guy who could smell a lie from fifty yards. "Eggs called me."

Mac's eyes widened and his voice rose just a little. "What for?" he asked sharply.

Jack's expression hardened a little. "What do you think, there, Angus? You dropped off the map for a month here and apparently you were with Eggs doing I probably don't want to know what given the crowd he's been running with and then you come back and you don't return the guy's calls." Jack's arms folded across his chest, a gesture Mac knew mean Jack was in lecture mode and unlikely to stop even if he said anything. "Then you don't return mine! What are your friends supposed to think, Mac?"

Mac gave him a very superior look. "That I've been busy and …"

"Busy? Doing what?" Jack's voice rose a little bit now. "Not finding a job, or going back to school like you said you were gonna when you got discharged, and definitely not cleaning your house … or eating." Jack's eyebrows climbed and Mac recognized Jack's most protective expression hiding behind irritation.

In spite of his irritation with Jack's lurking and he and Miles Benedict conspiring behind Mac's back, Mac laughed. He couldn't help himself. "I eat, Jack. And I clean my house. I've just been busy lately so it hasn't been a priority."

Jack raised his eyebrows and looked down at Mac. It was his 'calling bullshit' expression. "Mac … Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like hell. You've lost what … twenty, twenty-five pounds?"

Mac just shrugged. "I just look skinny to you because you're used to me on mandatory PT. Left to my own devices, I mostly like to just run. So maybe I've lost a little muscle mass, a little weight, but …"

Jack cleared his throat and Mac stopped. He knew it was more than a little.

"Okay, maybe slightly more than a little … but like I said … I've been busy."

Jack nodded like he was just accepting what Mac was saying rather than getting more worried about the kid isolating himself up here in the middle of nowhere and living like he was still shut in because he had to be to care for a dying man. "Okay, kid. What have you been busy with?"

Mac grinned and for a split second Jack saw the expression he'd learned meant good things were about to happen and he didn't need luck because he had Mac for a partner.

"Come inside. I'll show you."