Jack's Collection

by AZGirl

Jack found the first one when he had only 61 days left until he went home to Texas. Pre-series; Army days.

Spoilers: The flashbacks in episode 2.12 Mac + Jack.

A/N: Even though a couple of minor references to The Lottery are included, this story is slightly AU to it.

.

ooooooo

"I can bend paper clips into the shapes of small animals." ~~~~~ Al Yankovic.

ooooooo

Jack found the first one when he had only 61 days left until he went home to Texas.

Entering the mess, he scanned the crowd for the kid, but didn't see him. It was the third day in a row that he'd missed Carl's Jr. at breakfast time, and couldn't really recall the kid ever being in the mess when he was. He hadn't gotten along well with some of his past EOD techs, but they'd made it a point to have one meal a day together in order to maintain a good working rapport. So far, MacGyver had shown excellent evasive skills by avoiding him whenever they weren't out in the field or asleep in the same barracks.

If they couldn't manage to somewhat get along, then that put them both at risk due to lack of trust. He knew it was selfish, but if he wanted to survive his last days in this hellhole, they needed to get along better or at least didn't treat each other as if they were strangers. They needed to interact more outside of missions, find some sort of common ground. Jack was beginning to think getting the kid to agree to that would be like trying to milk a bull.

Feeling annoyed, he went through the chow line barely paying attention to what food was put on his tray. Jack saw some of his friends sitting at a nearby table, but wasn't really in the mood for company, so he bypassed them for a table towards the back of the mess. It was ironic and hypocritical and whatever else of him to sit alone, but he didn't care. He didn't want to ruin anyone else's breakfasts with his bad mood.

He put his tray down, but noticed it sounded different – not like the typical sound of a tray hitting a table. He lifted it up and saw there was a piece of oddly-shaped metal. Picking it up with his other hand, he set his breakfast tray back on the table and sat down.

Dropping the piece of metal onto the table, Jack grabbed his fork and began eating his meal, trying not to think about annoying bomb nerds. When he looked at the shape again after a few bites of food, Jack couldn't figure out what it was at first, but when he rotated it slightly, he definitely recognized it. It was a rifle, and not just any rifle, but a decent replica of his sniper rifle. About the only thing missing was the trigger, though he could see how tough it would've been to add in such a tiny detail.

It was a cool little whatsit – model? sculpture? – and he wondered how it had gotten there and who had been the one to make the doodad. Considering the timing of finding the thing, since he hadn't seen one of these things before, his first guess was that it might be one of the boots from the newest batch of soldiers to have been assigned to base. There was no way to tell for sure who made the thingy; it was just as possible whoever had been making them hadn't yet been careless enough to leave one behind until now.

Jack continued to eat his breakfast, occasionally making the mini rifle spin around and around as he contemplated what to do about his latest bomb nerd. His eyes strayed to his watch at one point, and he cursed because he was almost due to meet up with the kid in Command and get the day's mission parameters.

Grabbing his tray as he stood, Jack briefly contemplated leaving the little metal rifle for the next person to find or throwing it out with the trash. Whoever had made it didn't care enough to come back for it, despite the fact it had obviously taken a fair amount of work to shape the metal just right. It seemed a shame to simply throw it out, so in the end, he decided to keep it, quickly shoving it into one of his many pockets. Besides, who better to keep a mini metal whatsit of a sniper rifle than him?

With everything that happened that day, Jack completely forgot about the doohickey until he had to do some laundry. He grinned when he found it again, and put it in the envelope he kept the few photos he had with him of his family.

ooooooo

After he found the first one, Jack seemed to find the little metal sculptures fairly regularly.

In his mind, it certainly gave weight to his theory it was one of the newbies that had recently been assigned to base, and not someone who'd been there for a while. Half-heartedly, he kept an eye out for the soldier who might be making the thingamajigs of anything and everything from simple geometric shapes to complex ones of things like a fairly decent replica of a Humvee, but he'd not seen anyone actively working on them. He was still a bit miffed with himself that he'd been so slow on the uptake to realize that the whatchamacallits were being made from paperclips.

One day, he hadn't really been looking for it, but he spotted one of a palm tree sticking out of the sand trunk-side up. Plucking it from its sandy grave, Jack briefly considered keeping it, but thought it would be funnier if he planted it in the sand right side up. So he did so while pretending to tie his boot, and ended up getting a weird look from a corporal that passed by while he laughed as he stood back up again.

An unexpected find, probably the sixth or seventh overall, had been the model of a stereotypical UFO, something he'd love to see up close and personal someday. At first, he wondered about the inspiration, but then he remembered the meteor that had streaked across the sky several nights prior and couldn't help but smile. Whoever was making these doohickeys had somewhat of a sense of humor. After finding the UFO, Jack decided he really wanted to know who was making these little whatchamacallits, because he had a feeling they would get along great.

It wasn't long until he came up with another theory: the base's resident artiste was someone in admin, since they had easy access to the supply of paperclips. He knew that theory was a little weak, given how fairly ubiquitous paperclips were even on a military base, and his gut was telling him it was wrong.

Some of the ones he found were not at all helpful in narrowing down who the sculptor was, like the shamrock he found the morning after St. Patrick's Day. Others, like the surfboard or the flip flop, he felt were clues to the person's identity.

It wasn't until he realized there was a pattern to where he was finding the thingamabobs that Jack felt like he was starting to zero in on his prey. Besides the mess, he found most of the sculptures near Command or in and around his barracks. And it was just his barracks; he made sure to check around the others, garnering some looks of suspicion from other units along the way due to long-standing, low-key prank wars.

Jack didn't know why, but when he found one of the doodads – a jet plane – at the foot of one of the bunks in his barracks, he was absolutely certain the artiste was one of his bunkmates. He was very aware that some other soldier could have found a thingamabob and dropped it, but his Spidey senses were telling him that wasn't the case. His prey didn't know it yet, but it was now cornered, and it wouldn't be long until he figured out which guy was making the paperclip thingies.

ooooooo

Two days later, Jack was annoyed that he still hadn't found the culprit. Part of his brain was working on the mystery while he was on overwatch for Carl's Jr., who had found an IED and was working to disarm it.

Suddenly, Mac stands and starts patting and digging into his various pockets as if he was looking for something.

"What's goin' on, MacGyver?" he asked as he scanned the immediate area for threats.

Briefly, Mac looked up, he expression slightly panicked as he continued to rout around in his pockets. When the answer came, it wasn't directly aimed towards him. "I need, uh…need…"

That did not sound good. Was the bomb armed and about to blow?

"Take a breath, kid. Is the IED active? What do you need?"

For once, the EOD tech did what he was told and took a breath. "I need a piece of metal"—MacGyver reaches into a smaller pocket on his vest—"something thin to bridge— Ha! Gotcha!"

At first Jack couldn't tell what MacGyver had in his hand, so he used the scope on his rifle to zoom in on it. He has about two seconds to see that it is a paperclip, before his EOD tech starts to reshape the thing as he bends back down to continue working on the IED.

For a brief moment, his brain sort of comes to a halt. Huh, he thinks before forcing himself to refocus on his task.

Realizing the kid hadn't answered the most important question, he asks, "Kid, answer me! Is that thing active?"

Jack is sure it's only seconds before the younger man answers him, but in the moment it seemed like a month had gone by.

"Uh, sorry. No, it's not." Mac stands and faces his direction. "I just needed the metal to help disable it."

ooooooo

During the drive back to the FOB*, Jack realizes he's being uncharacteristically quiet. More than once, out of the corner of his eye, he's seen MacGyver try to surreptitiously check on him. Jack knows the bomb nerd wants to say something, see if he's alright. However, given the lack of any meaningful camaraderie to date, MacGyver seems hesitant to actually say anything about it. Jack recognizes his current mood is probably not helping, or is in any way inviting of such conversation, but he takes it as a win that the kid even wanted to try.

His mind keeps flashing back to the paperclip Mac had dug out of one of his pockets. From the way the kid was searching, it was as if he was expecting to find one, so he's pretty certain he now knows who the paperclip artist is.

And ain't he an idiot for not realizing that fact two days ago? It's not as if there had been that many options in his barracks. Of the 15 other men he bunked with, only five of them were newbies to the base. He knew it had to be one of those guys, but for some reason, Jack had yet to zero in on MacGyver as the culprit. He'd never seen the guy with a paperclip before today – not that they spent much time together off duty.

Seeing that paperclip in his bomb tech's hand had made it all come together in his mind. Because he'd yet to see the kid work on one of those thingamajigs, he still didn't have any definitive proof, but his gut was telling him he was right. He was just a bit angry with himself for not figuring it out sooner. It was if the constantly shifting desert sand all around him was dulling his skills in that regard.

It was bugging him that he didn't really have any proof besides his gut that MacGyver was the one making those paperclip shapes. In the grand scheme of things, did it really matter who was making them? Every grunt had their own ways of coping with the stress of the job; perhaps this was just the kid's way of dealing. He couldn't help it though; the thrill of the hunt had always been one of the best parts of his job regardless of which government agency he represented.

He didn't want to make the dude think he had to stop making those whatsits, but Jack did want to know if he was right about MacGyver being the one doing it. All he wanted was confirmation; was that so bad? Perhaps he could put his apparently rusty skills at interrogation to use.

"Do you normally disable bombs with paperclips?" Jack asked. He then had to keep himself from wincing due to how out of the blue his question was after his uncharacteristic silence. Calling his interrogation skills "rusty" was obviously being generous.

MacGyver startled a little and coughed. "Uh, no? Not normally, I guess."—the kid adjusted the chin strap on his helmet—"Not every IED is the same, so I sometimes need something that's not a part of my standard gear. Kind of like with your sat phone and the gum wrapper several days ago."

"Gotcha. So…all you EOD guys carry paperclips and other junk with their gear just in case?"

"I don't know about other EOD techs, but I do. It's helped me out of a jam once or twice. Like today."

"Hmm…" he said, thinking MacGyver's words were basically confirmation the kid was the paperclip artist.

Mac shifted in his seat, and was obviously uncomfortable with the line of questioning. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why the sudden interest?"

"Can't a guy be curious?"

"A guy can, but—" MacGyver suddenly broke off, shifted so that his elbow was resting on the car door and his chin propped up by his fist before turning to look out the window. "Yeah, sure. Anyone can be curious."

Jack knew what the kid had been about to say, and wanted to call him on it, but decided he wouldn't. MacGyver was right. He hadn't shown much interest in the younger man's job, other than to ask how much longer it would take for him to be done just like he had with every other bomb nerd he'd ever protected. They still barely knew each other, still lacked the amount of trust needed to survive out in the field if things went pear-shaped, and this conversation only made that more evident.

"So glad I have your permission."

Mac's head turned towards him so fast Jack thought he heard the kid's neck crack. "That's—that's not what I meant."

"Relax, man. I was just yankin' your chain."

Despite being looked at like he had two heads for trying to joke with the kid, Jack decided it was now or never with attempting to build more trust between them.

"Here's the thing, MacGyver. We may not like each other all that much, but we do have to work together, trust each other. One of my previous bomb nerds… We didn't get along either, but we made a point to share one meal a day, usually breakfast. It helped a lot. What do you think?"

MacGyver was silent long enough for him to see the FOB in the distance. Finally, the kid says, "What does it matter if we get along? I trust you to watch my six when we're out in the field."

Alright, well… Jack hadn't been expecting that comment. "It's not like I want to be your best friend or anything, but we do need to work better together, be more in sync, or I'm afraid something bad is going to happen to one or both of us."

"I thought nothing was going to keep you getting on that plane in 43 days?"

In his opinion, the kid keeping track of how many days he had left before going home was not the best sign.

"Well, I'd have a much better chance of making that plane if I wasn't dead because we keep antagonizing each other. Maybe that'd stop if you weren't avoiding me so much, man."

That comment definitely got the EOD dude's attention. "I'm not avoiding you."

"Oh, really... Well, then, how come I almost never see you in the mess? How come I barely see you in our barracks?"

"I just— I don't…"—Mac blew a frustrated breath out his mouth—"That's none of your business."

"It is, if I order you to tell me." Jack regretted the words the moment he said them. What was it he just said about antagonizing? He may be the kid's superior officer, but Jack wasn't really an orders kind of guy except out in the field.

Before he could take back what he'd said or apologize, MacGyver says, "Fine. How about breakfast tomorrow morning?"

Damn it! He hadn't wanted to practically blackmail the younger man, but it seems as if that's what he'd just accidentally done.

"0700 work for ya?"

"Yes, sir."

Jack had started the drive back to base uncharacteristically quiet, and it had ended the same way. He may have gotten what he wanted – figuring out the paperclip artist and having breakfast with his EOD tech – but Jack felt like he'd lost more than he'd gained.

ooooooo

There is a certain amount of tension between them over the next several days which hadn't existed since the first day they'd met. The kid does show up to breakfast that next morning, but they barely speak. Jack tries for conversation, but MacGyver rebuffs him every single time. He's aware the younger man knows $20 words, but Jack can easily make change for a dollar with the nickel-and-dime, single-syllable words he gets out of MacGyver during that first breakfast.

Later that same day, Jack finds several paperclips which have been shaped into animals. He knows the pig, monkey head, shark, and crab are all a result of their current situation, so he tries not to let them, or what they imply, get to him. At first, he intends to throw them all away out of spite, but he ends up keeping the shark, putting it with the rifle he'd found in the mess. It's the coolest looking one, but that's not why he keeps it. He keeps it as a reminder of how badly he handled things between him and his EOD tech.

After a couple of hours, Jack decides to go back for the monkey-head sculpture. He couldn't stop thinking of how it reminded him of his and Angus's first meeting and the kid's knuckle-dragger comment. He looks, but the other paperclip animals are gone. Did someone else find them and either keep or trash the thingamajigs, or did MacGyver actually come back for them for a change? There was no way to know, and for some odd reason he couldn't help but be a bit disappointed.

ooooooo

MacGyver doesn't show up every morning for breakfast, but the younger man shows up often enough that Jack doesn't get on his case about it. He's not sure these breakfasts together are helping very much, if at all.

The kid seems perfectly willing to work with him, but not get to know him beyond the basics. From a certain point of view, it makes a lot sense. His hitch up in just over a month, why would the kid want to get to know him when he's just going to leave and they never talk again?

And then, with 32 days left in his hitch, MacGyver goes off alone. He manages to save the idiot boy's life, and Jack gains some insight to why MacGyver is the way he is.

The next morning, he finds a trophy-shaped doohickey next to his left boot. He grins, and looks for his bomb nerd, but the kid has already left the barracks. As he stores it away with the two other paperclip doodads, Jack realizes he now practically has a collection of the little things. Then he wonders if MacGyver knows that he knows about the paperclip whatsits.

ooooooo

Not long after his EOD tech had saved him from the IED he'd "carefully" triggered when he'd only had two weeks left in his hitch, Jack found an odd trio of paperclip whatchamacallits: a caveman-type club, a flame, and a circular shape with the vague outline of a long-haired man in the center.

He was puzzled by the odd trio, certain they were a message of some kind, meant to be considered together rather than individually. Pocketing all three, he tried to figure out the significance of the symbols chosen.

It's only when he's passing by another barracks, and hears a certain Beatles song**, that he realizes what the three whatsits mean. When the realization hits, he almost stumbles over his own feet…and then he starts laughing. The way that kid's brain worked was amazing and weird, but he couldn't help being thankful for it nonetheless.

Jack had asked MacGyver…

"Don't you know a lost cause when you see one?"***

"No, I don't. One of my many character flaws. This is how it works: You watch my back, I watch yours."

He'd originally thought the paperclips had been a message meant for him, but now he thinks the kid may have been using them to work through what had almost happened in that abandoned building. MacGyver wasn't calling him a lost cause with those thingies, but rather the situation and what he'd said, had inspired the younger man to use those particular shapes. Still, he can't help but think it funny that the trio of shapes had ended up representing St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

Jack was really starting to like the kid; it was too bad he was going home in 12 days.

ooooooo

As the number of days he had left in the Army wound down to zero, Jack notices an uptick in the number of paperclip doodads he finds.

Many of them were geometric shapes, but a greater number were half-formed and abandoned unfinished. Up until then, the paperclips were as originally manufactured or bent into some specific shape. There were some geometric models he had no clue how the younger man had got the paperclips to do that, and they were neat and all, but he didn't keep any of them.

Ever since he'd found the trophy-shaped whatsit, the two of them were getting along much better, and he even thought of the dude as a friend. His bomb nerd had started to open up and talk about his life, though not in a great amount of detail. It was a good start, and Jack had learned all about Bozer, the kid's best friend since the 5th grade.

Yet, as the number of abstract shapes increased, the less MacGyver talked about his life, leaving Jack filling in the silence more than ever while they were out in the field.

His gut was telling him something was bothering MacGyver, but the younger man wasn't really talking to him about anything other than the weather, the food, or their missions.

ooooooo

The night before he was to go home, Jack finally caught the kid with a paperclip in hand when they weren't in the field.

Several of his friends, his bomb tech included, were throwing a low-key impromptu going away "party" for him. It wasn't a traditional party in his mind largely because they were playing cards and eating homemade cookies one of the guys had stashed away for just such an occasion, but it was the thought that counted.

MacGyver had stayed out on the fringes of the gathering. At one point, Jack did a visual check on the kid and found that the dude had a paperclip in his hand. He thought he was about to be a witness to MacGyver making one of those paperclip doohickeys, but all the younger man did was fidget with the darn thing. The kid flipped it end on end ceaselessly without looking, and was likely unaware he was doing it.

The next time he looked for the kid, MacGyver was gone. He kept an eye out, but no paperclip or paperclip doodad had been left behind.

ooooooo

The next morning, MacGyver interrupted his packing to shake his hand and wish him luck stateside. Jack offered to keep in touch, giving the kid the email an address he used to stay in contact with old Army buddies, but his now-former bomb nerd looked like he didn't believe there would be any follow through from Jack. It was yet another thing that made him wonder about the kid's life before the Army.

He'd barely stepped foot onto his transport home when he gets the overwhelming feeling he needs to stay, and not only stay, but make sure he stays partnered with MacGyver until the kid goes home. The times he's ignored this type of feeling, things have gone well beyond pear-shaped and people have died, so he couldn't ignore it this time, no matter how much he wanted to go home. Even though his family was going to be extremely irritated with him, including calling him a bunch of words not appropriate for mixed company, Jack knows what he has to do.

When he goes to Command in order to sign up for another tour, Jack is surprised his condition to keep working with MacGyver was not only taken under consideration, but allowed. Normally, the higher ups didn't appreciate someone of his rank making such a demand, and he was pretty shocked they actually made it happen. Given how much bureaucracy was involved with the armed forces, Jack was even more shocked with how fast his superior officers had made his request happen. If he didn't know better, he'd think they already had the paperwork waiting for just such a contingency.

ooooooo

As he approached the Humvee where he'd been told MacGyver was waiting for his new cover, Jack had finally, finally witnessed the kid transforming a paperclip into a new shape.

From his vantage point, it looked like an arrowhead. He was about to confront his favorite bomb nerd about it, when MacGyver was contacted about heading out into the field. Apparently, news had yet to filter down that he had signed on for another tour, partnering with the kid exclusively.

When he surprised MacGyver, the younger man had dropped the arrowhead doohickey, and Jack made a mental note to swipe it for his small, yet growing, collection. It would be a great reminder of his decision to stay and protect the kid. He decided to wait until later that night before confronting MacGyver about his paperclip-shaping hobby and catching him in the act.

Just their luck, they'd run into an IED which had already been activated and had less than three minutes before detonation. Unable to find a good perch from which to maintain overwatch, Jack had remained close by and had been keeping his head on a swivel, checking for enemy combatants which would love to take out a bomb guy.

From the way MacGyver had been staring intently at the bomb, Jack knew it was a fairly complicated one which might need one of the kid's more unusual approaches to disarming it. Sure enough, the kid started digging into his pockets for something or other, only to start cursing a few moments later.

"What's wrong?"

MacGyver starts checking pockets he's already looked through as he says, "I thought I had another one, but…"

"Another one what?!"

"Paperclip!"

"Oh, is that all."

MacGyver's incredulous expression was priceless despite knowing the clock was rapidly counting down. "Yes, that's all if you don't want to be blown into tiny pieces!"

"No worries, kid. I got you covered."

Jack fished the arrowhead-shaped paperclip out of his pocket, and held it up for Carl's Jr. to see.

"How—?"

"Bomb now; Q & A later. Sound good?"

"Right." MacGyver snatched the paperclip from his hand and started immediately reshaping it.

With a little help from a couple of things from the non-regulation part of his kit, a small stick he'd found on the ground, that little red knife – and of course the paperclip – MacGyver was able to disarm the IED in time. It was with seventeen seconds to spare, but who was counting.

It's only when they're heading back towards the Humvee that Jack realizes what happened today was the reason behind his gut telling him to stay. Without his preoccupation with the paperclip shapes, his growing collection of them, and wanting to keep the one Mac had dropped, the kid might not have been able to disarm the bomb. Lives could've been lost, including MacGyver's, if there had been a new overwatch who didn't have the faintest clue how to deal with a bomb nerd like the younger man.

ooooooo

They had dinner together in the mess, which was constantly interrupted by people wanting to know why the hell he had signed up for another tour instead of going home. No one got a straight answer, and what answers Jack did give became increasingly outrageous.

At one point, when he'd said that he'd stayed because he was on a mission to improve the food in the mess, MacGyver rolled his eyes and headed out, his tray only half-finished.

When Jack finally made it to his barracks, he went straight to his new bunk intent on getting his toiletry kit and heading to the showers to clean the day's grime off. He grinned, thinking back to earlier in the day when he'd "suggested" a private second class might be happier moving to his old bunk, so Jack could have the bunk under MacGyver's. The private had looked vaguely frightened of him, which made him feel good he still had it in the menacing department. Since he'd met his bomb nerd, he'd failed at using the same tactic with the kid enough times to make him wonder if he'd been losing his touch. Apparently not; it was just MacGyver being stubborn.

Jack waits to tell Angus about the switch until they arrive back at the FOB. He thought the kid would be pleased; instead MacGyver seemed almost the exact opposite. MacGyver had rolled his eyes, and muttered something sarcastic about Jack's snoring, which he graciously ignored as the kid walked away from their vehicle. He wasn't sure, but Jack thought he caught a glimpse of what the younger man really thought about the change – he'd seen a slight, pleased smile on MacGyver's face.

When he got back from the showers, Jack found a smaller, more detailed version of the arrowhead he'd seen MacGyver make earlier in the day. He grinned, huffed a laugh, and put the arrowhead away with the rest of his collection of paperclip doohickeys.

Jack decided that the arrowhead was proof enough that MacGyver knew that he knew the identity of the paperclip artiste.

ooooooo

They never do discuss MacGyver's penchant for reshaping paperclips into other things – even when the kid starts doing it right in front of him.

The first time his bomb nerd pulls out a paperclip and starts reshaping it where someone – mainly him – can easily see, they have just barely left base for the day's mission.

Jack is happy at first that the kid seems willing to trust him with something that is so personal. But then Jack gets a brief look at MacGyver's expression; it's so focused on the paperclip and the task of bending it into something new, it's like the kid isn't really in the vehicle with him, like he doesn't realize what he's really doing.

He'd felt something was off when MacGyver hadn't shown up for breakfast. Since he'd re-upped, they had been getting along better than ever, having breakfast almost every morning. This morning, the kid hadn't shown up in the mess. It happened rarely, and usually MacGyver gave him a heads up about the no-show, but not this time. Jack had managed to shrug it off – until now.

It wasn't long until MacGyver had finished bending the paperclip to his will – a tulip. The kid barely finishes it before starting on another shape and then another – all of them flowers, including daisies and roses. Jack wondered just how many paperclips the younger man had with him this go around. Normally, it seemed his EOD tech only had two or three with him at all times, but today there were more than he could easily count given that he was driving.

If he were honest with himself, he'd admit the hyper focus was a bit disturbing, and it worried him. He believes reshaping paperclips is some kind of coping mechanism for MacGyver, that it could also be a way for the younger man to order his thoughts, but the frenzy he's currently seeing doesn't seem to be helping much, if at all.

Jack decides he needs to bring MacGyver out of whatever place the kid's mind had retreated to in making all the flower thingamajigs.

He tries calling MacGyver's name, increasing in volume each time he's ignored.

Finally, he practically yells, "Angus!"

The younger man startles, almost dropping the current paperclip doodad – another daisy – and looking as if he'd forgotten where he was or what he was soon supposed to be doing. This was not a good headspace for his bomb nerd to be in if they both wanted to live out the day. He definitely had to get MacGyver back to the here and now – pronto.

"Wha—?"—MacGyver clears his throat—"What's wrong?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Jack says, making sure to keep his voice even.

"What do you mean?"

"Playing dumb? We both know otherwise."

Mac stares out the windshield in front of him for a long moment before saying, "Nothing's wrong."

Jack laughs, and shakes his head in disbelief at the kid's audacity in trying to pretend everything was alright. He eyes the road ahead, looking for possible inbound threats. Finding none, he then reaches out to grab one of the daisies that are balanced on top of the kid's leg. He holds it up, raises an eyebrow, and then tosses it back towards MacGyver, hoping he got his point across.

MacGyver picked the daisy up, holding it lightly in the center by his thumb and forefinger, and uses his other hand to make it spin around. He does this for long enough that Jack doesn't think he'll get a straight answer.

Finally, his bomb nerd sighs and lowers his hands. "Today is my mom's birthday."

"Sorry you couldn't celebrate with her today, bud," Jack said, easily recalling what it's like to miss your family. "Is that why you missed breakfast? Because you called her?"

The kid starts to gather up the paperclip whatchamacallits he'd made, stuffing all but one of the daisies into his pockets.

As he was gathering the doohickeys up, MacGyver said, "She… She, uh, died when I was five."

"Oh, man, sorry to hear that."—He gestures towards the remaining daisy—"Is that why you've been—?"

"Uh, yeah."—The kid clears his throat—"Yeah. She loved flowers; had a garden full of them," MacGyver said, going back to fidgeting with the daisy. After a minute, he sighs again. "It's just… I realized today that this year makes it 15 years since she passed away. I've lived almost 75% of my life without her."

Jack didn't know how to respond, because he knows exactly what it's like to count the days, months, and years since his dad had passed. Frankly, he's surprised the kid has been so willing to share this much of his personal life with him in one go. He has questions; so many questions, but he can't bring himself to exploit MacGyver's sudden openness. Plus, he thinks, if he does ask any questions, the younger man's walls would likely go right back up.

Instead, Jack attempts to get the kid out of the negative headspace he's still in. "Fifteen years…"

"Yeah."

"So… That means you're twenty, right?" He chuckles. "Because you haven't said, and I may be an idiot compared to you, but I can add."

MacGyver huffs out a laugh, his expression clearly saying Jack was crazy. "Two things, Jack: A, you're not an idiot, and B, yes, I'm twenty."

Jack smiled. "I said 'compared to you', but thanks for that, kid."

"Mac."

"What?"

"You can call me Mac."

"Are you sure you don't want to be called Carl's Jr.?"—Jack grins—"I think it suits ya better."

"No, but I appreciate you asking."—the kid chuckles—"I prefer Mac. It's what my friends call me."

"Okay then, Mac," Jack drawls. "I know you have a lot on your mind, but do you think you can keep on mission today? I can call in if—"

"No, I'm good now," Mac said, holding out a fist. "Thanks, man."

Jack bumps fists with the kid and says, "Any time, Mac."

When they get to their destination, Jack notices a paperclip daisy is lying on the seat Mac had just vacated. Even though he has a sneaky suspicion Mac left the thingamabob for him on purpose, he quickly snatches it up and puts it in his pocket.

Despite it being a girly flower, the daisy becomes his new favorite doodad of his growing collection. In his mind it symbolizes the day Mac finally starts to trust him, not with his life, because the kid already trusted him with that every day, but with his memories and innermost thoughts.

ooooooo

Time passes and Jack's collection of paperclip thingies slowly grows. So does his friendship with Mac, who becomes one of his best friends.

The paperclip thing is more or less out in the open between them, though it's never really acknowledged unless Mac is in his hyper-focused mode and turning out a new shape every other minute or so.

They continue on as a team and have their good missions and their bad ones. And then there are the downright scary ones. Regardless of the mission or the outcome, there are the ubiquitous paperclips doodads. At first, he'd kept the whatsits that were cool or funny, but after he found out who the artist was and became friends with Mac, the ones Jack keeps are those which are symbolic of key events in their friendship and partnership.

There are the X's and O's Mac made for the tic-tac-toe game they played over and over the long hours they were stuck hiding from the enemy in a cave that end up symbolizing the first time he thinks he's going to fail in his duty to protect his bomb nerd. For Christmas that year, he finds a miniature version of the outline of the great state of Texas with a lone star suspended roughly in the middle lying on his pillow. On the anniversary of his father's death, despite him not really wanting any company, Mac somehow manages to put a doodad shaped like a pair of Air Force wings in his path for him to find.

The list goes on, and his collection continues to grow one by one.

But there is one thing neither of them thought to take into account when he signed up for another tour.

ooooooo

When Jack had signed up for another tour, Mac had less than a year to go in his hitch. Neither of them really thought about what that would mean until much later, and then he sort of forgot about it. Until one day Mac inadvertently reminds him.

Over a period of a few days, Jack notices a major uptick in the number of paperclip whatsits he finds. When he sees how many of them have been unfinished and abandoned, he is reminded of when he had only a matter of days before he goes home. He curses when he realizes the implications.

Mac was going home, and he wasn't going with him. Mac was going home, and probably thinks he doesn't care.

He finds Mac by basically following a trail of mangled paperclips.

"Nine days left," Jack said as he sat down next to his friend.

Mac is trying to turn a paperclip into something, but Jack can't quite tell what it's supposed to be – a bird, a plane, Superman?

With a growl of frustration, Mac throws the unfinished thingamajig away. "Yeah."

"You still got that email address I gave you last year?"

His friend dug another paperclip out of his pocket as he nodded, not looking at him.

"Great, because I expect an email letting me you got home okay. And I want you to promise to keep in touch."—Jack bumped his shoulder against Mac's—"I may be stuck here a bit longer, but I'm still your overwatch, and more importantly, I'm still your friend. Got me?"

"Yeah, I got you," Mac said, with a faint smile on his face.

The kid has finally finishing reshaping a paperclip into something recognizable – an envelope – and hands it to him.

ooooooo

On Mac's last day, Jack realizes he is really going to miss his scrawny, know-it-all bomb nerd. He's fought and shed blood next to many other soldiers and agents, but somehow this kid has managed to worm his way into his heart and become a brother to him. Not simply a brother-in-arms, but a brother of the heart. He's knows Mac well enough to know that the younger man isn't quite ready to hear those words out loud, so gives the kid a hug instead. He doesn't realize how hard he was squeezing until Mac wheezed and said he needed to breathe.

As he lets go, Jack feels something being slipped into his pocket. Mac has a light touch for someone who hasn't been trained, but Jack's years as a CIA agent had honed the ability to recognize when he was being pickpocketed. He has a feeling he knows what the kid gave him, but he doesn't let on he's aware of it.

He's not ready to say goodbye, but he does it anyway. As he watches Mac walk away, he promises himself he will keep in touch with the kid. From what he's surmised as well as learned about the younger man, Jack can't bear the thought of being another person who leaves Mac behind, and has no intentions of letting his brother fade from his life.

In fact, a plan starts to form in his head about where he might go to live after he gets out. It might be nice to be closer to where his dad was buried, so he could visit more often. And if that puts him in the same general area as one Angus MacGyver, then it's just a happy coincidence.

As he's walking back to his barracks, Jack reaches into his pocket and pulls out the paperclip doohickey Mac gave him.

He laughs out loud when he realizes that it's a hamburger.

Tracing its lines with his finger, he thinks it's a great reminder of the day they met, and now it's a reminder of their last day together in the sandbox.

It's a great addition to his collection, and becomes his new favorite.

When he sees MacGyver again, he hopes to add more paperclip doodads to his collection.

ooooooo

The end.

ooooooo

Story notes:

* FOB a.k.a Forward Operating Base

** The Beatle's song I refer to is "Hey Jude."

*** Quotes taken from episode 2.12 Mac + Jack; Written by Craig O'Neill, David Slack, and Peter Lenkov.

ooooooo

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A/N: My apologies for anything inaccurate regarding the military. BTW, depending on how they're counted, there are 25-29 different paperclip shapes mentioned in the story.

Many thanks to Celticgal1041 for proofing. All remaining mistakes are my fault.

Thanks for reading!