Author's Note: Tag for Season 1, Episode 7, "Can Opener." None of MacGyver's characters are mine; I intend no copyright infringement. This story is solely for entertainment of myself as the writer and (I hope) you as the reader.
oOo
Jack walks into Mac's room in Phoenix Medical. He's in a good mood: Mac has finally been cleared by the docs to leave after a day and a half of observation. His partner is supposed to rest at home for the next few days, and Jack and Riley both plan to watch him for any signs of bronchitis, the side effect most likely to result from his nitrogen poisoning at the hands of El Noche. But the docs say that Mac's lungs sound clear so far, so he's probably off the hook.
As the door swings closed, Mac looks up at him from the bed and grins. "Brought my clothes?"
Jack grins back, lifting and waggling the gym bag he's brought with him. Ever since Mac left Medical one time without doctor permission—but he had saved the mission by doing that, damnit—it's been SOP for the nurses to confiscate and keep his clothes until he's released. They hide them, and they won't tell Mac—or Jack!—where they're kept. The nurses don't figure that lacking underwear and trousers will keep Mac in bed if he really decides not to be there—and Jack's pretty sure that Mac could make pants out of the sheets or the plastic sheaths of electrical cords or something else in the room if he couldn't find scrubs nearby to lift. But the nurses do hope that having to hunt for trousers or make them would slow Mac down long enough for someone to notice that he's on his way out the door.
Not that Mac would want to put back on today what he was brought in wearing—the orange pants and shirt of his prison uniform from Bishop Correctional. So Jack's done the right thing that good partners do and picked up some clothes from Mac's house. He'll be taking Mac home, where Bozer is cooking up a good dinner for them, and Riley's going to join them. Jack hasn't asked Thornton to come; neither he nor Riley is all that happy with how this mission went down, and it was her call. Coming up with an explanation for Bozer this time has been complicated enough.
Jack tosses the bag onto the bed; Mac catches it, a little stiffly, and swings his bare legs around to the floor as he unzips it. He starts to root around inside and pulls out his clothes. Jack strolls over to the window to look out; it's only right and natural to give Mac some privacy as he pulls on his jeans. After a couple of minutes of rustling noises, he hears a small gasp and can't help turning around to check on his partner. Mac has his jeans on, but not his shirt: he's gotten the hospital gown off but the shirt is a henley so Mac has to pull it over his head, and apparently in his current battered condition he's finding that difficult. His face is flushed—kind of embarrassed Jack heard him probably, though Jack knows quite well what it's like to have hurting muscles catch.
"Sorry, I should've brought you a button-up," Jack says, regretting he hadn't thought of this while at Mac's house to pick up the clothes. But he hadn't seen just how battered Mac is until this moment, hadn't thought to match clothes to injuries.
Sure, he'd seen the healing bruise on Mac's right cheek and his slightly swollen nose, souvenirs from Vincent Heath, the jumbo-sized inmate Mac got on the wrong side of in order to get close to El Noche. But Jack hadn't seen what was going on under that hospital gown till now.
Now that it's off, he can see two nearly black, fist-sized bruises on Mac's abdomen; one is right on Mac's solar plexus, and man, that one must have knocked Mac pretty much off his feet. There's another just above his belly button. Jack knows from the debriefing Thornton insisted on when they got back yesterday, right there in Mac's room in Medical, that the first one came from El Noche's men and the second from El Noche himself, to force Mac to breathe from that nitrogen mask.
Jack can see a few more bruises, not as bad, on Mac's lower rib cage and his right side and chest, some of them probably from being knocked around in the trunk of that car, others from scuffles at the prison. And of course the big dark marks around both Mac's wrists are visible too, where he was bound with tape to that chair where Jack found him. Black bruises have formed there from when Mac was straining against the nitrogen mask, plus some raw skin from when Jack had to jerk the tape off after rescuing him, to get Mac out of that chair. It had taken a fair amount of the hair on Mac's forearms with it. That means long sleeves for a while. At least Jack had thought of that when he grabbed the shirt.
Jack steps to the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets, not sure what to do, and gets a glimpse of another big black mark on Mac's back, a vicious one with big scabs where he'd bled enough for Jack to find traces of it there in the forest outside the prison. It's right over Mac's right kidney, where Mac got hit with a rifle stock by one of El Noche's minions. The docs had been worried about that one, making sure Mac wasn't pissing red before they'd let him go home.
Bruises aren't bullet holes, so Jack'll take them any day over worse injuries. But they hurt plenty, as Jack knows from personal experience, especially the deep and dark ones over sensitive places. Both he and Mac have had plenty of bruises over the years; seems like hardly a mission comes and goes without one or both of them wearing some, usually minor.
These are pretty major this time, though.
"Lemme give you a hand with that," he says, stepping in front of Mac and picking up the shirt. "Now you let me do the work," he adds as he pulls it over Mac's head, the blond hair peeking out the neck hole until Jack pulls it further down so that Mac's face emerges, looking up at him with a rueful but amused smile as the shirt hangs around his neck like a scarf. But Mac's docile for once, letting Jack maneuver the shirt and his arms so that he has to move his sore ribs as little as possible.
Shirt in place and bruises hidden, Mac slides his sockless feet into the loafers Jack brought then cautiously stands up, collecting himself once he's on his feet. Then he nods.
"Ready to blow this popsicle stand?" Jack asks.
"Yeah. I am so ready to be home," Mac answers fervently.
Jack leads the way, opening the door to the room for Mac to go through. Mac walks with a careful, controlled gait, not his usual free, casual style. That's the only sign of the injuries the shirt hides. Jack doesn't offer to help, knowing Mac would brush him off now.
But what he sees in his mind as he watches his friend go through the door is not the bruises from the bad guys that he cataloged earlier in his head, and which he knows are causing most of the discomfort his partner is in. Instead, he thinks of the broad dark red bruise on the right side of Mac's upper chest.
It's not the worst of the bruises Mac is wearing, not in terms of seriousness or discomfort. But it's the worst one in Jack's mind, because Jack knows that's the one that he put there, slamming Mac into the wall three times, hard, when searching and handcuffing him after his fight with Vincent Heath in the exercise yard. He remembers the gasps and grunts from Mac as he did it, the dazed look on his partner's face afterwards as he'd hauled Mac across the yard by the scruff of his neck, apologizing under his breath and hoping Mac could hear. He'd hurt Mac for real. Not badly, but he'd had to. Roughing him up was to protect Mac's cover, to protect him from other inmates and guards. That's Jack's job, to protect Mac, and he'll do anything to do that.
Apparently including hurting him mildly if the situation calls for it, to prevent him from getting hurt worse.
Jack gets the irony. And he knows Mac is a tough guy—nearly as tough as Jack himself—and able to handle himself in a fight and on rough missions.
But it sits hard with Jack, nonetheless, as he follows Mac down the hallway of Medical, that any part of that stiffness and pain Mac is feeling and has to recover from is on him. He won't mention it, and he knows Mac won't—knows that Mac isn't even thinking about it in that long list of bruises he's wearing. Jack doesn't need to ask forgiveness because Mac genuinely won't get why he's asking, won't see anything that needs forgiving. All Mac will see is that Jack was doing his job and protecting him.
But Jack knows he did hurt Mac. So he vows that next time he'll somehow find another way.
He'd rather not carry that kind of bruise on his own soul.