A/N: As always I don't own this. A huge thanks to everybody who took a second to leave a review or to follow this story. It was much appreciated! Also a shout out to Snowecat for taking the time to look this over!
Chapter 2
Jack found Mac sitting in the men's locker rooms just staring off into space, the blood from the forehead cut dried down his face in a grisly fashion. "Hey Mac." Jack tried to rouse him, but Mac continued to stare straight ahead.
"We need to go get that cut looked at. If someone came in right now, they would think you were an extra on 'The Walking Dead' instead of a highly trained agent."
"I messed up." Mac's voice came out as a mere whisper. "I almost got Riley killed, I couldn't get the bomb together, my eyes wouldn't focus or something, and …." He trailed off. "I know you both have to be mad at me right now." Mac still hadn't moved, so Jack joined him on the bench that served as seating, and placed his left arm over MacGyver's shoulders.
"We're not mad at you, but we are both concerned about whatever's going on with you. You and I are about to head to Medical, and get you examined head to toe. Maybe you just need a powerbar, and a pair of glasses. We've had mission after mission here lately." A thought struck Jack, "I'll tell you what, I'm going to ask Boss Lady to take us off the roster for a few weeks, so we can sort out whatever is going on with you. Is that ok?"
Mac nodded, and finally made eye contact with Jack. He really did look like an extra on The Walking Dead with all that blood. "I'm sorry." He muttered.
"Hey, don't be sorry; let's go see what Medical has to tell us." With that Jack hauled Mac up and they started towards Medical.
Mac was still quiet enough to worry Jack, but he went willingly enough, which worried Jack even more. Usually he had to threaten Mac to get him to voluntarily walk into Medical. When they arrived the team's favorite nurse was hunched over something on the front desk. Hearing them walk in he looked up; Jack saw his expression go from 'how are you doing' to 'holy crap, that's bad' in point two seconds flat.
"If you want to head back to exam three, I'll go get Dr. Feltman." With that Justin scurried off. Mac and Jack made their way to the exam room, with Jack ordering Mac to get on the exam table. Then they sat there in silence, Jack tried to think of something to get Mac out of his thoughts, but everything sounded dumb even to him. Thankfully Dr. Feltman came in quickly.
"Oh my, Justin did say you had quite the laceration. How did this one happen?" Jack liked Feltman's technique; he liked to get the patient talking, and then would do all the poking and prodding. Sure enough he held true to form and was examining the cut when Justin came in with a try full of supplies.
Dr. Feltman stepped back so he could look MacGyver in the face as he told him the treatment plan, "So I'm going to have Justin put a few shots of lidocaine in to deaden it up, and while we wait for that to get nice and numb, he'll clean off some of that gore. I'm thinking it's going to need about eight or so stitches. I'm also going to recommend you do a small course of antibiotics to make sure that infection doesn't set in. "
Mac started shaking his head, "I don't want to take antibiotics unless absolutely necessary, there was a study done on the effectiveness…"
Dr. Feltman held up his hands to cut Mac off, "You don't have to tell me, just keep some antibiotic cream on it then ok?" Mac nodded.
"Hey Mac, while they are getting that done, why don't you tell them about the other problems you've been having." Jack prompted. He knew if he didn't nudge Mac in the right direction, his young charge most likely wouldn't say anything at all. Mac's shoulders visibly dropped in defeat and Jack's heart broke all the more.
So while Justin numbed the area and cleaned Mac's face off, Mac told the doctor what all had been going on. "So I've noticed in the past few weeks that I've been really thirsty, getting headaches, sometimes my vision gets blurry, and lately my hand trembles sometimes."
Dr. Feltman thought about the symptoms for a minute, "Have you been eating regularly."
Jack had to stifle a laugh, and it was worth it to see the glare that Mac tried to send his way. "Not really, I sometimes forget to eat."
Dr. Feltman nodded, "And also didn't you have the rhinovirus recently." Mac nodded. "I think if you eat more regularly scheduled meals that would help tremendously, but to be on the safe side we'll give you a thorough check-up. Do you want me to do a blood draw and run a CBC?"
Mac thought for a second, "Not right now."
Dr. Feltman nodded, "All right, so one full check up, and a stitch up job coming right up." That finally got Mac to smile, and Jack hoped they were on the right track. Jack decided to distract himself with his phone and got lost in a game that he was playing until Mac physically hit him in the arm. Jack looked up puzzled. "You're done already?"
Mac smiled, which was a vast improvement over his previous demeanor. "Yes and Dr. Feltman said I was perfectly healthy, except for this nice laceration. He recommended I get some more rest and to eat three square meals a day and see how I feel in a week. I uh..." Mac suddenly looked hesitant. "I texted Matty and asked her to let me do lab work for the next week until I'm feeling better. I don't want a repeat of today or worse."
Jack smiled up at his friend, "I'm proud of you. Now, let's go get us some grub!"
Three days later
Jack and Bozer were standing beside Riley at her computer in the operations center. "So why are you up here Bozer? I know Jack's trying to duck doing paperwork, but what's your excuse?"
Bozer sighed, and tried to find a seat to sit down in, but most of the chairs were occupied with techs working at their own computer stations. "It's Mac. He's just bumming me out. He is so mopey and slow. I thought since Doc gave him a clean bill of heath things would go back to normal, but they haven't and he is just moping all over the place. I couldn't stand it, and decided to come here and …"
Riley arched an eyebrow, "And what Bozer?"
Bozer shrugged. Riley grabbed her pen and a pad of paper from her work station. "Let's go over the symptoms that Mac has been showing. I noticed that his vision seems to do something, and that his hands will tremble." She jotted those two symptoms down.
Jack jumped in next, "He is drinking all the time."
Bozer added, "He also has to pee all the time. Seriously we can't get through anything on Netflix anymore without me having to pause it several times."
Riley thought for a minute, "Is it me or does he seem skinner? " Both men agreed so Riley jotted it down also.
"He has also been taking naps." Bozer added. "I've caught him out on the deck passed out several times lately."
Riley added tired to her list. "So I've got that he has vision problems, trembling hands, thirsty all the time, pees a lot, lost weight, and is tired often."
"I don't mean to interrupt, but I think I know what the problem is." Came a voice from behind Riley. It was Rose Ayers, the tech who worked beside Riley when she was in the ops center. Riley pushed her chair back so that Rose could pull hers forward to join the others.
"Were ya'll talking about Agent MacGyver?" The three of them nodded their heads in tandem. "From the symptoms that you just described it sounds like he might have diabetes."
"Diabetes?!" Bozer exclaimed. "I thought that was something that only fat old people got?"
Rose chuckled, "Well my brother was diagnosed at seven, so no it's not. There are actually two different types and only one is associated with weight gain."
"So you think that Mac might be a diabetic?" Jack asked rolling the idea around in his head. "How would you check for that?"
"Truthfully, I'm not sure. But checking his blood glucose level would be a good starting point." Rose informed them.
Jack frowned, "It that something that the docs can do here?"
Rose laughed, "Sorry, yes. You can check your blood anywhere with a glucose meter; they're quite small and available at most drugstores."
Jack nodded and turned to leave. He then turned back around, "Thank you."
Rose shook her head, "No problem, if ya'll need any more information just let me know." She then shoved back to her desk while Jack left to go drag Mac down to Medical to see if they had found the problem.
He found Mac still in the lab; he was sitting in front of the computer, but didn't seem to be paying any attention to what was on the screen. Jack walked over, placed his hand on Mac's shoulder, "Come on."
Mac looked at him quizzically, "Where are we going?"
Jack took a step back, and motioned for Mac to follow him. Mac reluctantly stood up, took off his lab coat, hung it up, and followed Jack out of the lab. He seemed to sense that something was up once they got on the elevator. Upon exiting the level that Medical was located on Jack grasped Mac's upper arm and steered him into the area.
Mac didn't try to pull away, but he wasn't going willingly at that point, "Come on Jack. We've been here once already, the Doc said that as long as I get adequate sleep, and eat regularly I should be fine."
Jack didn't slow down. "But you haven't and now I think I might know why." Pushing through the doors Jack greeted the nurse staffing the admittance desk. "Hey Sabine, is three open?"
Jack didn't really give her a chance to answer, so she called after him, "Go right in. I'll page Dr. Feltman." Jack marched Mac right to the same exam table he had been in several days ago. Mac obediently hopped up on the table.
"So are you going to give me a clue as to why you kidnapped and force marched me in here?"
Jack could detect only a tiny bit of Mac's usual biting wit, mostly the kid just seemed tired, and that concerned Jack the most. Thankfully Dr. Feltman chose that time to enter, so Jack wouldn't have to answer Mac, and give the boy time to freak himself out.
"So what can I do for the two of you guys today? I didn't usually see you this close together." Dr. Feltman stood shifting his gaze between Mac and Jack not knowing which one instigated the visit.
"Can you check his..." Jack trailed off trying to remember what Rose had called it. His snapped his fingers, "His blood glucose levels?"
Dr. Feltman frowned at Jack, "Why should I need to?"
Jack sighed, why people couldn't just do what he asked, "Humor me please."
Dr. Feltman looked at MacGyver who just shrugged. "OK, why not. Give me a second to grab a kit." He exited the room.
Mac turned to Jack, "What is going on?"
Jack didn't say anything he just stared back. Then Doc was back with a small black case, and unzipped it. First he handed Mac a alcohol pad, "Could please clean off a finger for me to prick." Mac took the wipe and did as instructed. Meanwhile the doctor pulled a small object from a cylinder, "This is a test strip, I'm going to poke your finger with this." He held up another object that the thin and long. "Lancet and after inserting the test trip into the meter here, I'll touch the blood and in five seconds it will tell me what your sugar is."
Jack frowned, "I thought we were testing his blood glucose level?"
Mac chuckled, "Glucose and sugar is the same thing."
"Ok." The doc drew blood and touched the end of Mac's finger to the test strip, and in five seconds they had the reading, "586." Jack read out loud. "Is that good or bad?"
Dr. Feltman whipped the rest of the blood off the tip of Mac's finger tip. "It's most concerning. I would expect a reading to be between 80 and 120 if he's eaten in the last few hours. So for it to be that high is not good at all."
Mac looked shell shocked, "Does this mean that I am a Diabetic?"
Dr. Feltman sighed, "We will need more testing to determine that, but most likely yes. What I'm going to do is refer you over to the hospital. I'll call them and let them know that you will be coming over. They will do the extra testing to let you know definitively whether or not it's diabetes, and which type it is."
"There's more than one type!" Jack yelped. "It is like with cancer the worse it is the higher the stage."
"No. There are only two types, and which type determines the treatment plan. Save the rest of your questions for the doctors at the hospital, they will know more about it than I do ok?" Jack and Mac both nodded. "I'm assuming that Jack is going to drive you over?" They both looked at Jack who nodded. "If you want to get going, I'll call over there and let them know."
This time there was no leading Mac, he just followed Jack like an overgrown puppy, and far too soon they pulled into the hospital's parking lot.