Hi folks- This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction. I figured this would be a good forum for developing my narrative writing skills. With that said, critical feedback is welcome both for technical problems that you see throughout and/or just overall flow to the story line. I tried to be true to what I think the 'Macgyver Reboot' world to be like according to the series, but I didn't dig too deep with any research or anything so be gentle in that regard.
In this post S2E10 follow-up, I wanted to delve a little deeper into how various members of the team try to keep one another balanced out after having to cope with so many run ins with high stake/high pressure events. People handle stress differently and I wanted to humanize Mac's reaction to some of the most recent events.
Anyway...feel free to let me know where you think I can improve. I enjoy reading other stories in this forum very much. You all are an inspiration!
Level Ground
::Macgyver::
He was tired.
Somehow the flickering of the city beyond his back deck was oppressive tonight. All of his own lights were off and the air felt cool and heavy. When had the sun gone down? How long had he been standing just outside his back door watching….nothing? His mind felt thick and his thoughts so unclear that life in LA below him could blink out all together and he wouldn't even notice.
He was just so tired.
Mac had always hoped for a time that he could come home after a failed assignment, pull in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and shuffle off the weight of all his past decisions. Deep down though, he knew that that time would never come. His mind just wasn't capable of coping in such a way despite the constant stress of the job. Instead it played and replayed every action, every word, every idea over and over and over seemingly determined to tear itself apart with the 'what ifs'.
Tonight he needed some sort of relief, any relief, but he couldn't think of a single damn thing to do.
Instead, all he could hear was an all-consuming silence. Not the calm quiet of introspection, but the harsh cutting silence of something lost. The silence of water finally shorting out a microphone 9,000 miles away. The silence in the War Room as he sat there alone some 30 minutes later. The silence of the hallway shortly after as onlookers watched him leave, not making eye contact with or acknowledging anyone along the way.
His world was suddenly and painfully cast into a feeling of isolation and it was just so quiet. His chest felt empty as he drove himself home, barely registering that he was even doing so.
That was where he found himself now, standing on his back porch in the dark not quite sure of the order of events that had brought him to his current state.
Drowning is such a quiet death on the part of an observer. This in deep contrast to the panicked internal screaming of the one actually drowning. Lungs screaming, mind screaming, an ache to be alive despite the all-consuming absence of oxygen.
Zoey must have felt so afraid and so alone. Mac's own heart ached for her. If only the radio batteries had sparked the detonator as planned, if only the ice hadn't forced a slow buckling squeeze against the side of the ship causing all the icy water of an ocean to breach the hull, if only he had more time to think. If only... if only... if only.
She had done everything right. She had been steady, composed, and had followed every direction to the letter only to have her successes crippled by the uncontrollable and unforgivable force of nature. It was all so unfair and cruel.
Was it fate, or was it something he had missed?
In this moment, all he could see was the image of her struggling as the last few inches of the ships compartment filled. The memory of the ensuing silence triggered the image to repeat yet again.
His heart was pumping well beyond a normal pace and he vaguely registered that his breathing was shallow and fast, but he couldn't bring himself to focus on the here and now. All he could focus on was Zoey's death playing over and over in his minds eye.
She was a mirror image of himself in nearly every way. In the short period of time they had known one another, he felt as if he had found one of his kin. Such a rare thing it was for him, sharing a likeness with another person. It made one feel as if there was place for you in the ageless clockwork of time. Like there was a purpose for being the way he was.
While the discovery of such a likeness brought a thrill to Mac earlier on that day, the death of Zoey mere hours ago now just shone a blinding light on the acute pain of his aloneness. It had always been there, but the feeling managed to stay buried beneath the surface of his subconscious. Now it was fully exposed and raw.
His body and mind felt like an over powered light bulb whose filament was about to snap and burn out in one final flare. His failure was unbearable.
Mac could feel himself approach some sort of final breaking point. As if he could perceive himself perceiving, he watched himself from a distance.
He watched as his fist clench around a tumbler of water he hadn't even realized he had poured. He watched as he took two steps towards one of the large bay windows where he could face his own reflection staring back, silhouetted by the city lights behind him in the night.
What came next he felt powerless, or perhaps just apathetic to stop.
In a paradoxical state of pent up energy and emptiness, he swung the tumbler with all his strength directly at his reflection's form and straight through to the other side.
The explosion of glass was deafening.