AN: This won't make much sense if you haven't read 4.03, Bad/Worse in The Measure of Our Lives, so please go read that first!


BETH'S RESIDENCE

LA


'…he did warn me not to leave you alone with my toaster.'

Dr Taylor walked back into her kitchen after putting her basket of laundry away to find Mac deep in the innards of her toaster, which had probably made its last slice of toast.

(She'd told him to call her Beth, but his mind kept supplying 'Dr Taylor', since he'd been calling her that for months.)

He rubbed the back of his neck and gave a sheepish smile, Swiss Army knife in his other hand.

'Sorry, I need the heating elements…'

He and his dad were building her a home security system. The very best they could come up with.

Yeah, I know, who had a questionable home security system at his own place until recently?

In my defence, A, Desi's rubbing off on me. B, I admit I've got a bit of a disregard for my own safety, but that definitely doesn't extend to others. C, we owe her, and D – two words: Elliot Mason.

Dr Taylor (Beth) shook her head with a wry, exasperated smile, slipping past him to print 'toaster' neatly on one of the many to-do lists that were attached to the fridge with magnets.

Mac made a noise of triumph as he extracted the last heating coil, and looked up and shot Beth a wry grin.

'You, uh, might want to add vacuum cleaner to the list.'

She immediately glanced over at the tiny hallway in her apartment, where clanking noises were emanating. His dad had been rummaging for something useful in her hall closet.

'He's rendering my vacuum cleaner unfit for purpose, isn't he?'

That was said in a tone of very exasperated, long-suffering affection, with a matching smile and head-shake, before she turned to print 'vacuum cleaner' on the list under 'toaster.'

Mac, meanwhile, blinked once or twice.

It was odd, seeing exasperated affection like that being directed at his father.

(It must have been years and years and years, at least with a witness, anyway.)

(His mother surely had looked at his dad like that. Heck, maybe Jonah Walsh had, once upon a time, a lifetime ago. He had a sneaking suspicion Matty might, from time-to-time, but never where Mac could see.)

As she turned back, quite suddenly, on an impulse drilled into him by his grandfather, Mac looked her right in the eye and spoke.

'Thank you.' He paused, as she blinked, brow furrowing slightly in question. 'For…for what you did for my dad.' He swallowed, guilt welling up in him again, anger on its heels, which he leashed tightly. 'You paid a high price for it.'

She raised a shoulder a little awkwardly, but smiled back at him, ducking her head.

'You're welcome, both of you.' She paused, looking distinctly more awkward. 'And I think if anyone understands that doing the right thing sometimes comes at a high cost…it'd be you and Jim.'

In response to that, Mac could only nod.

'Yeah…'

His dad's voice called out from the hallway.

'Angus, have you got those heating elements? I've extracted the field coil and the fans…'

Beth gave an exasperated, long-suffering, yet affectionate sigh, talking half to herself.

'There really is no hope of saving my vacuum cleaner…' Then, she tilted her head to the left, brow furrowing in question. 'Exactly what are you building with the heating elements, the field coil and the fans? Some kind of magnet-activated makeshift heat gun?


ONE TOASTER, ONE VACUUM CLEANER, FOUR PAPERCLIPS, A TURKEY BASTER, TWO BATTERIES, SIX EGGS AND A DOZEN BOBBY PINS LATER


As Mac finished patching the drywall, double-checking the colour-matching with the paint, his dad wiped the grease off his hands with the aid of some of Beth's hand lotion (it had a light, green-tea-and-cucumber scent that would surely be utterly unobjectionable to the vast majority of people, and she had a lot of it, since doctors washed their hands so frequently), and gave the young woman a rather wry smile.

'On account of the appliances, lunch is my treat.' He gestured with his head to the east. 'There's a diner nearby that does an excellent apple pie…'

That made Beth's face light up; she grinned like a child on Christmas morning.

'Well, you know I'll never say no to pie…'

She looked a little sheepish, and ducked into her bedroom to grab her purse and shoes.

That made Jim smile, oddly soft and fond. Mac just glanced at his father, a question on his face, and his dad shrugged, that smile widening a touch.

'She has an irrational love for pie.' He paused, the smile growing a touch wry, rueful. 'Pun unintended.'

Mac blinked twice as he followed the other two out the door, shaking his head a little.

He knew his dad wasn't heartless, of course he wasn't (he'd loved his mother so much that after she'd passed, he had failed to cope, after all), and he knew that his father had changed (or was trying to change), since they'd started rebuilding their relationship, even more since he'd been diagnosed…but it was still a little jarring.


If Mac had thought that the fond little smile and the possibly-unintentional pun were jarring, what was even weirder (and made the imaginary Jack in his mind start insisting that he'd woken up in the Upside Down, the Twilight Zone or a bizarro universe of some sort) was his dad actually hugging Beth goodbye when they dropped her back off at her place.

In fact, it was so weird that his dad (not the most socially aware person on the planet, to say the least) noticed his reaction as they walked back to his Jeep, arching an eyebrow at his son, tone dry.

'There's no need to be jealous, Angus.'

Mac arched an eyebrow back at him.

'I'm not jealous.' He shrugged. 'I'm just…wondering.' He paused, marshalling his thoughts into order. 'Until very recently, she was a civilian who didn't know the real you. But you're also…you're really friends. Good friends.'

Jim nodded as they got into the car, silent for a moment, before, instead of sticking the key in the ignition, he turned to look his son solidly in the eye.

'My diagnosis forced me to re-evaluate my priorities, Angus.' He paused again, regret and guilt crossing his face. 'As a result, I've been trying to be a better man, a better father, a better friend. I…I've hurt you too many times, I've hurt Matilda, and by extension, those who care about you.' Jack, Bozer, Riley. Desi, Leanna, dozens of other Phoenix employees. Jill. Mac's dad swallowed. 'She didn't know me before, she didn't know who I used to be…'

It was practically confessional. For his father, that was a lot.

Mac nodded, voice full of understanding, even sympathy.

'Just who you're trying to become.'


My grandfather always told me that every single day, we should strive to become better.

Better at physics, better at basketball, better at knot-tying, better at our jobs, or just better people.

The last one was always the most important, he emphasised.

I've come to realize that my dad's always going to be a shadow genius. He's always going to be pulling strings in the background.

And honestly, this probably isn't the last time that'll bring us into conflict.

He's him. I'm me.

Simple as that.

But I genuinely believe that he's trying to become a better man.

And that's something I respect.

That's something I believe in.


AN: Mac and Jim's relationship is so complicated…I hope you guys like the way I depict it! 'He did warn me not to leave you alone with my toaster' is one of my all-time favourites of Beth's lines, for some reason…which means it's probably going to become some kind of running joke…