AN: I'm very nervous about this one...*ducks for cover*

JULY 2017

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

'Jack, my office, please. It'll just be a few minutes.'

The team had just returned from a mission, thankfully unharmed, but exhausted. Jack motioned for Mac and Riley to head off without him; he'd meet them at Mac's later, and followed Thornton into her office.

'I've found the Foundation a doctor.'

Jack looked confused.

'We needed one?'

She sighed.

'The alphabet agencies and military are getting sick of us using their medical personnel. I don't blame them. We do seem to require a lot of medical care.'

Jack nodded.

'They coming on missions with us? 'Cause Riley's coming along real well, you've been doing a good job with her, but she's not quite a trained agent, and I don't know if we can handle someone else without crack combat skills…'

'No missions. On-site here or ex-fil as necessary. On call for video or verbal consults.'

She handed him a file.

There was a photo of a young woman, brown hair and eyes, doctor's coat. Pretty, even attractive if she wasn't fifteen years too young for his tastes.

Then he read the name.

Dr Beth Taylor, M.D. Twenty-five.

Otherwise known to him, Riley and Bozer (and Thornton, she was the best spy in the business), as Mac's chemistry lab partner from MIT and college crush.

'Patty…' There was a note of warning in his tone.

'Best fit for the job, Jack.'

Pre-med at MIT, medical school at Northwestern, Emergency Medicine residency in Detroit. Her hospital had been on the edge of the last blast zone from their mission in Detroit a month before. She'd helped triage afterwards for sixteen hours.

Jack put down the file and crossed his arms.

'Lots of people with those qualifications.'

Thornton interlaced her fingers, resting her hands on her desk.

'Over forty people were recommended by my contacts. Of those, twenty-eight passed all the background and psych profile checks.' Jack raised an eyebrow. For over forty recommended by Thornton's contacts, twenty-eight passing wasn't all that many. 'Yes, we're being even more thorough now, for obvious reasons. Of those, only five were under forty years of age, had no partner, children or any other dependents and weren't well-known among medical professionals or active in the research community. Of those five, only one had the patience and stubbornness needed to deal with our tricky patients, as well as a strong moral compass and a decent dose of idealism.'

'They all passed the psych profile, Patty.'

She pursed her lips.

'Nikki passed psych evals too. I decided to add another test.'

'Strong moral compass, decent dose of idealism? Sounds like someone we know.'

'It does.'

Jack glanced out the window.

'Hard to find someone with Mac's moral compass.'

'Hard to find someone with yours, too, Jack.'

He glanced at the file again.

'So it wasn't her…connection…to Mac that led you to pick her?'

Thornton's face, like any good spy's, didn't give anything away.

'Didn't hurt.'

Jack raised an eyebrow at her.

'Playing yenta? How very unprofessional of you.'

Thornton caught him with her deadly stare.

'Think of it as insurance. You know as well as I do that if Nikki hadn't wanted him alive, MacGyver would most likely be dead now. It wouldn't do to lose one of my best agents.'

Jack returned her gaze, nodded, and then slowly smiled.

'And maybe having a pretty, clever old flame for a doctor might induce Mac to not run the other way when he hears the word infirmary.'

'Off the record, it can't hurt.'

'Riley, Jack, this is Dr Taylor, Dr Taylor, this is Riley Davis and Jack Dalton. Riley is our team's field analyst, Jack is…'

'The muscle of the operation!'

Smiling, Beth shook Riley's hand, and then Jack's.

'Please, call me Beth.'

Riley smiled at the new doctor, before turning to Jack, eyebrow cocked.

He whispered in her ear.

'Yeah, it's her. I'll explain later.'

At that moment, Bozer burst into the briefing room and did a double-take.

'Bro, you're gonna wanna see this!'

'I'm coming, Bozer, did you really have to run half the way here? We're not late.'

He strode into the room a moment later.

And stood there dumbfounded.

To be fair, Beth wasn't any better.

Mac looked at all his teammates in turn, eyes lingering on Thornton the longest, but it was Beth who recovered her powers of speech first.

She waved awkwardly at Bozer.

'Hi, Bozer.' She turned to Mac. 'Angus MacGyver. I never expected…well, you did join the Army…'

Mac turned on his heel and walked out.

Jack sat down next to Mac in in the empty breakroom.

The younger man was playing with the bowl of paperclips.

'Thornton didn't do it because of you.' He smirked slightly. 'Well, actually, she kind of did, because you're the one who always needs medical attention-'

'-Like you're any better.'

Well, at least he'd gotten a reaction and a slight smile out of the blonde, even if it was at his expense.

'She really didn't pick Beth because you had a thing for her in college, Mac.'

'Really? Because despite the fact that my love life is none of your business, none of you seem to be able to stay out of it!'

'Okay, maybe me, Bozer and Riley have pushed a little too far. But Thornton, brother? She's all professionalism. And it was all her work. Getting a team doctor, picking Beth. All her.' Jack paused. 'There were a lot of things we needed in a team doctor. Lots of criteria. She was the best fit for the job, not taking into account your history. I could ask Thornton to let you see the files…'

Mac picked up a handful of paperclips and let them fall back into the bowl, watching them in contemplation.

'No, I believe you.' He paused. 'I'm sorry. I overreacted. I should have trusted you guys.'

Jack clapped him on the shoulder.

'It's okay, brother. It's not as if we were completely free from ulterior motives…figured a pretty doctor might make you more inclined to seek medical care when necessary.'

Mac shook his head and smiled.

'Well, it sure beats being dragged there by your ugly mug.'

Jack looked affronted.

'Hey! I'll have you know, this mug is very popular with the ladies!'

His partner just shook his head.

'Keep thinking that, old man, keep thinking that.'

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

'It was more than a thing, actually. I was half in love with her by the time we graduated.' Mac paused. 'Promised to write…well, email each other when I enlisted…' He took a deep breath. 'But then I stopped. After Pena.'

Jack nodded in sympathy.

'It's a normal reaction, Mac.'

'Wasn't in a good place, and…didn't want her to see the horrors of war, I guess.'

Jack patted his shoulder.

'Always the noble gentleman.'

'She kept sending emails, for a while. I never replied. She stopped eventually. We lost touch.'

'And next thing you know, she's your co-worker?'

Mac ran a hand through his hair.

'Don't you dare tell anyone else this, Jack…but I did look her up. When Nikki was on the loose…I got worried she'd go after anyone who was ever important to me. I kept an eye on everyone I thought could be a target- my dad, Penny, Pena's wife and daughter, Beth…'

'Did Nikki know about her?'

Mac shrugged.

'Figured she might. There's a digital trail, photos. Nikki was at MIT the same time Beth and I were, though we never knew each other. Might have mentioned her once or twice over the years.' At the look on Jack's face, he continued. 'Hey, even I know not to mention an old crush to your current girlfriend.'

They sat quietly for a moment, before Jack spoke up.

'So you're telling me that you went all radio silence on an ex-lab partner on whom you had a very much requited crush-'

'-Don't know about that.' It sounded more like a token protest than a truly-held belief.

'Oh, seeing that little scene back there? Bozer's stories? What you just told me? It was definitely requited, brother. And then next thing you know it, she's your doctor. With access to lots of pointy things and the ability to use them on you.'

Mac winced.

'Yeah, pretty much.'

Jack patted him on the shoulder.

'She's quite little, I reckon you can take her, brother.'

Mac shook his head.

Shakespeare wrote: 'And though she be but little, she is fierce.'

And it might be fiction, but it is definitely true.

At least in this case.

Mac slipped into the newly-constructed doctor's office in the infirmary.

'Beth? I'm sorry…I just assumed that they-'

'-hired me because we have a history and you trusted me?'

Well, her way of putting it is probably better. It's a very grown-up way of saying it.

The past was a long time ago, after all.

We're adults now.

He sat down opposite her at her desk.

'I still do trust you.'

She smiled at him.

'Thornton assured me that it wasn't because of our history. I believe her. There aren't many emergency doctors who would give it all up, move halfway across the country and take up a top-secret job pretending to patch up think tank staff. You know, prescribe blood pressure and diabetes meds, prevent caffeine overdoses….'

He chuckled.

'Yeah, I know.'

Beth looked down for a moment, then back up at him.

'I can see why it wouldn't hurt, though. You trusting me. She told me what your last analyst did. Betrayal like that's got to hurt.'

Mac shook his head, and pulled out the paperclip he'd taken from the breakroom.

'Oh, she didn't tell you the worse part. She's my ex-girlfriend.'

'Oh, ouch. I'm sorry, Mac.' She paused for a moment. 'You know, I once dated a guy who insisted that the periodic table was wrong, because lithium can't be lighter than oxygen.' He winced in sympathy. 'Yeah, not the same scale of betrayal, but I kind of know the feeling.'

He gave a snort of laughter.

'Pretty black humour, but thanks.'

'You don't become an emergency doctor without developing a somewhat dark and inappropriate sense of humour.'

'Don't become a secret agent without one either.'

They sat in not-uncomfortable silence for a little while.

Then they both spoke at once.

'You know, of all the things I thought you'd end up being, I never quite considered the love child of James Bond and Q.'

'You're not still mad at me for stopping writing, are you?'

Another silence.

She broke it.

'I was a little mad, at first. You did promise you'd write, and that we'd keep in touch, and I always thought that Angus MacGyver didn't break his promises. But I knew what you were doing over there, knew you'd seen some terrible things…and I figured it must have been something bad happening, something really bad, that stopped you from writing.'

He swallowed.

'Yeah, it was my CO, the guy who trained me, Pena, being killed.'

'I'm sorry, Mac.'

'It was a long time ago.'

'Doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt.' She paused. 'And I still believe that you don't break your promises. Just like I know you've got the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met, a stubborn streak a mile wide, an iron-clad set of morals and a ludicrous sense of responsibility to boot. And that you're going to be a terrible patient and that you've never met a problem you couldn't solve with your Swiss Army knife and a stick of gum.'

'And a couple of paperclips.'

She laughed.

'Can't forget the paperclips.'

He handed her a little wire stethoscope.

'Thanks, Beth.'

She smiled and placed it on her desk, right next to the real thing.

'Just telling it like it is.'

He hesitated for a moment.

'Would you like to come to mine and Bozer's place? I've rigged up a hot tub using a kiddie pool and a vacuum cleaner, and it's a pretty cool piece of engineering if I say so myself.'

Beth grinned.

'Oh, that, I've got to see!' Her eyes narrowed. 'Did you electrocute yourself making it?'

'Err…not badly?'

'Oh, I totally see why you guys needed me.'

There are advantages and disadvantages to having your co-workers be your friends and family.

One of the disadvantages is what happened today.

A misunderstanding.

But I trust them, and I know them.

Sure, they might tease me half to death, but they're also professionals who will do the right thing, the best thing, the necessary thing.

I do trust them to do that, just like they trust me to.

That doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy them inevitably poking their noses into my business from now on, though.

AN: I am aware I have just done something very, very unpopular. *crosses fingers that being mad at me is even the tiniest bit like being mad at Mac- like being mad at a puppy!* I know a lot of people don't like original characters, and would prefer that I either didn't have anyone that we haven't already seen on the show at all or re-purposed a character from the old show. This story has just seized me, for some reason. Like actually seized me. I've written almost 20,000 words in about three days. That's a record for me, especially since I hadn't written in over a year. And weirdly enough, I'm actually really satisfied with what I wrote. I'm a bit of a weird person (as you can probably guess) and tend to find writing relationships difficult, so I've surprised myself with what I've managed to produce and I do want to share.

While I have written more about their relationship, I promise that I tried to make sure I didn't do that at the expense of the canon characters and their tight-knit relationships.

Yes, I know, I'm probably veering into Mary-Sue territory here. My only defence is the following: given how exceptional the Phoenix Foundation team is, I didn't find it easy to create someone who would fit into their world and team, particularly when I was also trying to create a partner (of the romantic variety, not the Jack variety) for Mac, who is especially exceptional. I tried to characterize Beth as being perfectly normal for their world, which is honestly not normal in our world at all.

Unfortunately, I'm a sucker for schmoop and romance, and I just really want Mac to be the absolute happiest he can be (he deserves it!) and his whole conversation with Jack in 1.09 about lying to a future girlfriend/wife/children really made me sad…yeah, sucker for schmoop.

Also, virtual cookies to anyone who can guess why Beth's name is what it is.