A/N: This takes place sometime between seasons three and four.

Pete Thornton looked up as MacGyver entered his office. "Just the man I wanted to see," he said. "I need you to go to Wisconsin. The Phoenix Foundation has interest in a project at aeronautics. It so happens that you know the woman heading up the project."

"I'm not sure I have any friends working on a project at an aeronautics firm in Wisconsin…" Mac said.

"Her name is Grania Randal," Pete told him.

"I haven't seen her since we graduated from high school," MacGyver told him.

"I thought she might be more likely to talk about a contract if she saw a familiar face. An old friend for instance."

"An old boyfriend," MacGyver corrected. "We dated for a while. When she left town after graduation, no one heard from her again."

"Did the two of you part on bad terms?" Pete asked in confusion.

"No. She wanted to make sure her family couldn't find her after she moved away. They were extremely abusive towards her."

"I see. That explains it."

"Explains what?"

Pete took a little time to come up with his answer. "It explains why you didn't know she had your child."

Later on, in Wisconsin

MacGyver and Grania stood looking at each other.

"I'll just leave you two alone," Pete said. For some reason, he'd thought that they might have wanted to wait to talk.

"You're mad," Grania said after Pete left the room. "I don't really blame you."

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say. I figured out already that your reasons had to do with your family," MacGyver told her.

"So… you're not mad at me?"

"No. I think I'm more mad at myself. I never bothered to try to find you after graduation because you told me not to."

"I was afraid of them. What I went through because of them, I didn't want that for my child. If they knew, they would have wanted to control and abuse her the same way they did me."

"I remember what you were like. Hiding something like a baby is something I would have expected. The thing is, you didn't need to worry. Your dad went was arrested less than a month after graduation. He died in prison a year later. Your mom drank herself to death."

"What about my brothers?"

"No one knows. I'm not sure if anyone cares."

"Then they're still out there somewhere?" Grania asked.

"Maybe."

"I hope they're dead. They were just as bad as our parents."

Pete sat in the secretary's office, waiting to be let back into Grania's office, when a teenage girl came in and went straight for the door.

"Arianell, your mother is working," the secretary said.

"I don't care," the girl said. "I'm going in. I need to talk to my mom." She went into the office before the secretary could stop her.

MacGyver and Grania both looked as the girl came into the room. Arianell paused, not sure what to make of the man standing in her mother's office.

The secretary went to explain that Arianell wouldn't listen to her, but Grania waved her off. The secretary closed the door as she left. Apparently, Arianell was going to be involved in the conversation now…

Grania looked at MacGyver. "Mac, this is our daughter."