AN: This is the shortest episode to date, I think (I believe it's a couple of hundred words shorter than 2.02, Knitting Needle), but it's also quite pivotal in terms of the overall plot and character development of this 'season'. I hope you enjoy it!


PHOENIX JET

SOMEWHERE OVER KANSAS


'…You ever consider trying to start something up with Frankie? I mean, she's smart, she's gorgeous, she's got plenty of sass, she kinda knows what you really do for a living, and you guys had some pretty serious flirt going on…'

Mac, who was curled up in his seat under a blanket and trying to get some sleep, opened his eyes and looked balefully at his partner.

They were on their way home from a 3 day mission, just the two of them, during which they'd had no more than 10 hours sleep total. He was very tired and really just wanted to get some shut-eye, but he'd foolishly forgotten how chatty Jack could be when sleep-deprived…and how interested his partner was in his (non-existent) love life.

He stared at the older man for a moment, and Jack stared back at him just as stubbornly, so Mac sighed and sat up a little straighter.

'No.' He hoped against all logic and experience that that'd be the end of the matter, but of course, it wasn't, because Jack just shot him a look, and with another, rather long-suffering sigh, Mac continued. 'A, we weren't flirting. B, she's out of my league.' Jack shot him another look, one that showed he clearly disagreed with Mac on both matters, and the blonde just rolled his eyes. He didn't think Jack fully appreciated exactly how brilliant Frankie was, or how their relationship quite worked, how special it was to have someone on the exact same wavelength, even at MIT; it was probably one of those things that you had to be like them to understand perfectly. He paused for a moment, voice and expression turning more serious. 'C, she met someone at a conference.' Jack opened his mouth as if to say something, but Mac cut him off before he could. 'I'm fine, Jack. Not heartbroken. I'm happy for her. He's a great guy. Felix Max Planck just received a professorship at Harvard; he's only 34, which makes him the youngest Genetics professor there, and his work is really fascinating and very well-done-'

Jack held up his hands in supplication.

'Okay, okay, I get it, Frankie's got a really smart and successful new boyfriend.' Jack made a face. 'He has a really weird name.'

Mac gave a snort of laughter.

'He's German, Jack, and his parents have the same sense of humour as Frankie's parents.'

Jack made a face again (he really didn't get it – this was probably some kind of science joke), and honestly, at the moment at least, he really didn't care, focused on his partner's reaction to Frankie's new relationship as he was.

There wasn't jealousy in Mac's voice, there really wasn't, he sounded genuinely happy for the new couple, genuinely happy that Frankie had found someone. No, the note in his partner's voice was more some kind of sad wistfulness, a longing of sorts, something that was only confirmed as he kept speaking, voice soft and a little sad and definitely full of that wistfulness.

'And…and finally…Frankie's always going to be special…but I let her go years ago, Jack.' Mac looked up at the older man for a moment, then back down again, pulling a paperclip out of his pocket as he did so and beginning to unwind it. 'I picked a path that led me away from MIT and her and our other friends, away from that life.' Mac shrugged as a forked path took shape in his hands. 'Look…maybe, just maybe, if I'd stayed…we might have been something. Maybe.' He glanced up at Jack for a moment, then stared at the fork in the road again. 'But I made a choice…and that choice changed me and the entire course of my life.' He looked up at Jack again, meeting his eyes. 'I don't think we'd fit together now.'

Jack looked into the younger man's eyes for a long moment. Mac was not only very, very smart, he could often be very, very wise, too, something Jack thought he might have gained because of all the hardship he'd experienced, all he'd seen and suffered through in his short life. It was a sobering, rather sad thought, so Jack deliberately put on a smile, and shook his head.

'When'd you get so wise, brother?'

After a moment of the two of them staring at each other, a silent conversation of sorts, full of shared sadness and sympathy and a couple of regrets passing between them, Mac smirked back at him.

'Always have been, you just haven't noticed.'

Jack shook his head in mock-hurt, as Mac looked more serious again, meeting his eyes again.

'I don't regret it, Jack. I do regret losing touch with Frankie and Smitty and the others…but I don't regret the choice I made.'

Slowly, Jack smiled back at him, that soft affection in his eyes that was so unexpected from a tough, ex-Delta Force commando, ex-CIA agent of Jack's stature, yet seemed so at home on his face just the same. He tossed another blanket at the blonde.

'Get some shut-eye, Mac.'

The younger man shook his head, exasperated affection clear on his face and in his voice.

'That's what I was doing, before you interrupted!'


PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA


'We're buried under, we've made a lot of progress with the international intel, but new leads keep popping up…' Matty, looking more stressed than they'd ever seen her before, was on the screen. 'And then, a couple of days ago, this popped up.' The screen split, one half now taken up by a photo of a very pretty woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, with dark hair cut into a stylish bob, tortoiseshell glasses and eyeliner that made Riley a little jealous, as awesome as her own eyeliner skills were. 'This is Vivian Ho, NSA analyst out of Seattle. She's hot on the trail of a mole in her office, who's turned out to be an Organization mole, and they've caught on to her.' Matty looked down from the screen at Mac and Jack. 'I can't spare anyone, so you two are going to protect her and help her find the mole; once you get an ID and proof, I've got a couple of people in NSA Internal Affairs I trust who can take it from there, but till then, we're keeping this compartmentalized.'

Mac and Jack glanced at each other, then at Riley and Bozer, then at Thornton and Matty, Mac shifting uncomfortably a little, Jack looking at the Phoenix's Director with an expression that was a question all on its own.

Call me paranoid…but this wouldn't be the first time The Organization's tried to trick us.

Wouldn't be the first time they had an analyst pretend to be on our side.

Thornton met their eyes after a moment, a look that none of them could place on her face; an open, honest sort of look, but nigh-impossible to read despite that. There was just too much in it; too many emotions to get a hold on any single one.

'I trust her. Absolutely.'

A suspicion began to grow in Mac's mind, as he glanced back up at the photo of Vivian Ho on the screen.

The team all nodded, trusting their boss's judgement, and Matty continued.

'Vivian's been briefed on The Organization, and she's at a safe house an hour and a half outside of Seattle and on alert.' Matty looked over at Thornton. 'And I need to commandeer Riley and Bozer too; we're neck-deep in money trails.'

Bozer grinned and cracked his knuckles as Riley nodded with a little smirk. Thornton quirked an eyebrow at their response, and addressed Matty.

'Consider them willingly commandeered.'

Matty smiled, and then her expression immediately turned solemn as they heard Sarah call out from off-screen.

'Gotta go. Bozer, Riley, you've got a conference with Lil in twenty.'

Matty's half of the screen went dark, leaving only the picture of Vivian on screen. Thornton reached out, tapping the glass in a particular pattern, causing it to become frosted, and, they all knew, top-secret mode to be activated.

Their boss glanced up at the photo of the young woman on the screen, then Bozer, Riley, Jack and Mac in turn, and spoke softly, almost a little hesitantly.

'Vivian…Viv is my niece.'

Well, I was right.

She rubbed her left arm for a moment, looking down briefly, then meeting their eyes again. When she spoke, there was an imploring, pleading tone to her voice, full of worry and need, as she held Mac's gaze, then Jack's for a long moment, as open and vulnerable as she'd been that night at Mac and Bozer's after Tahoe.

'Keep her safe. Please.'

Jack reached out and clasped her shoulder, and for once, she didn't shoot him a look in response.

'Will do, Patty. Will do.' Jack squeezed her shoulder gently, voice softening and glancing at Mac. 'Always protect family, right, brother?'

Mac just nodded, and Thornton gave a small smile, which Jack answered with a slightly wider one, as Riley leaned over and whispered something into Bozer's ear.

Then, their boss reached over and deactivated top-secret mode, the glass growing clear again as she started their mission briefing proper.

'A week and a half ago, she became aware of some suspicious transmissions…'


SAFE HOUSE

SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE SEATTLE


Mac reached out and rang the doorbell, then knocked on the door, a ten-second gap between the two actions as instructed.

Then, a minute later, as instructed, Jack leaned forward and spoke.

'You people with hearts have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful.'

I might be reading far too much into this…but I do wonder if Thornton picked that particular phrase for a reason, even if I think she's wrong.

She's no Tin Man, even if I think, sometimes, she wants everyone to think she is.

Or maybe she's just a Wizard of Oz fan.

There was a clicking sound, and when Mac tried the doorknob, the door opened. He and Jack stepped inside, into a narrow corridor…to find Vivian holding a gun that she clearly knew how to use on them.

With a glance at one another (they hadn't been warned about this…), Mac and Jack slowly put their hands up.

Not as if we can blame her for paranoia.

She indicated Jack with a little nod of her head.

'My aunt's favourite chocolate?'

'Belgian, dark, soft centred, preferably hazelnut-containing.'

Mac shot his partner an incredulous look (in all honesty, he hadn't even known that Patricia liked chocolate, though, he supposed, most people did, and she did seem to enjoy Bozer's hot chocolate…but then again, everybody loved Bozer's hot chocolate), and Jack just shrugged.

'Known her for years, man, and hey, I'm in the spy game and all.'

Turning away from Jack, Vivian turned her attention to Mac instead.

'87th element of the Periodic Table?'

'Francium.'

Viv nodded, and lowered her gun, smiling at the partners as she held out a hand for Jack, then Mac, to shake.

'Well, you passed. Just.' Both Mac and Jack shook their heads with a little smile at her joke. 'Nice to meet you, Jack, MacGyver.'

It didn't surprise them that she knew what they preferred to be called, just like it wasn't surprising that she knew enough about them to test their identities. Thornton had briefed her, after all, and they were family; they imagined that her aunt would have provided Vivian with all the information she could possibly need.

Jack grinned.

'You got good tradecraft, Vivian.'

She grinned back at the older man.

'First, call me Viv. Please.' She made a face as if to emphasise that. 'Secondly, like there was any way Aunt Patricia and Grandmother would have let me go into the family business without proper training.' Mac and Jack exchanged a look at the family business comment that involved raised eyebrows, as Viv pointed down the corridor. 'There's a room for the two of you on the left, dump your stuff, and then keep heading down the hall; I've set up in the breakfast nook.'

When she finished speaking, she started walking down the corridor, presumably heading for said breakfast nook.

As she went, Jack glanced over at his partner, intending to make some kind of comment about starting to see the resemblance between Viv and her aunt. (They certainly didn't look much alike, at least at first – Viv was wearing a tied-off flannel over a tank top, fashionably ripped skinny jeans and what Bozer would describe as very cool kicks – nor did they act alike – Viv seemed casual and sassy while Patricia was serious and business-like, but Jack was starting to see a resemblance, probably because he did know about their relationship – Viv had the same tall, slender build, being perhaps only an inch or so shorter than Mac, and had that same elegant posture and way of moving and gave orders with the expectation that they'd be obeyed.)

The comment died on his lips as he noticed the blonde watching the analyst's departing back with an interest that Jack hadn't seen in his partner's eyes for far too long.

Instead, Jack grinned with a hint of a smirk, before shaking his head as a realization dawned.

Mac really did have dreadful luck with women.

It was great that he was finally showing some interest, some attraction, to a woman again, but this woman?

Their scary boss's niece?

Really?

Well, Patty was rather fond of him.


'…this lady's got all sorts of electronic stuff on her credit card purchases, might be making, I dunno, signal jammers or bugs or keystroke trackers…'

Mac looked at the laptop screen in front of Jack, and pursed his lips in thought.

'Well, yeah, she could be, but there's at least thirty-two things she could be doing with that stuff, including several DIY home improvement projects or helping her kids-' Mac indicated his own laptop screen, where he had that NSA employee's file on hand; she had two middle-school-aged children. '-with a science fair project.'

Viv knew that the mole was in her NSA office, unfortunately, she had no idea who the mole was.

(Fortunately, once she'd gotten a hint that there was a mole in her office, she'd concealed the work that she'd been doing from all her colleagues and convinced them all that she was off on vacation to Portland, Oregon, an excuse that had held until, it seemed, a couple of days ago, when the mole had caught on.)

She'd been going through everything she could get her hands on about her colleagues (which was a terrifyingly-large amount of information), slowly eliminating people from her suspect pool and picking out particularly suspicious individuals.

'...Jones has just booked a vacation to Antigua and Barbuda.' Viv reached out and put a pin by one of her co-worker's names on the corkboard that she'd put up on the wall above the breakfast nook. 'Martinez is exchanging messages in some kind of code on Words With Friends with a guy in Sweden…'

Jack and Mac glanced over at Viv's laptop screen.

'I don't reckon she's the mole, unless flirting in Klingon's The Organization's latest code.'

Viv and Mac both blinked, and glanced at each other, then at Jack, eyebrows quirked and incredulous expressions on their faces.

'You know Klingon?'

'You know how one flirts in Klingon?'

Jack shrugged.

'I dated a girl in college who was really into Star Trek.'

Mac snorted, rolling his eyes, and Viv shook her head with a chuckle, as they all returned to going through the files in front of them.

'…This guy, Shaw, has been making a lot of trips to an auto shop that's forty miles from his house and twenty-nine miles from your office.' Mac's brow furrowed. 'And most of these purchases aren't making a lot of sense. They're not charging him enough; a functioning carburettor's worth at least three times as much as he paid, and there's no way a new custom paint job could be that cheap.' He reached out and put a pin next to the man's name, then muttered to himself under his breath. 'Seriously? I couldn't even build a fuel injector myself for that price.'

Jack glanced up at his partner, an amused grin on his face as Mac groused.

'Maybe that's why he's driving so far out of his way; he's getting a good deal.' Jack held up his hands in supplication as Mac shot him a look. 'Or maybe he's blackmailing the auto shop owner or something.' Mac raised an eyebrow (Jack, he maintained, watched far too many crime dramas), but as he dug further into said auto shop owner, huffed out a little sigh. 'You're not wrong.' Said auto shop owner apparently had suspected gang ties, making him a pretty ripe target for blackmail if one had proof of said ties.

Jack smirked.

'Louder, brother? Can't hear you.'

Mac just glared at him in response and Jack's smirk grew wider.

Viv elegantly quirked an amused eyebrow at the two of them, as she reached up to put another pin by another name.

'Cheng's husband is accusing her of having an affair because she's coming home at all hours of night and disappearing all the time.' Viv shrugged. 'She might be having an affair, she might be doing some top-secret compartmentalized work, or she might be the mole.' She rolled her eyes. 'And that just about sums up our whole problem.'

Mac and Jack glanced at each other, then at her, with a sigh.

Unfortunately, that was the problem.

They had a pretty long list of suspects, who were all doing suspicious things.

The problem was that these suspicious things all had other explanations that had nothing to do with being an Organization mole.

You can't finish a puzzle if you're missing a piece or two.

That's our problem right now.

We don't have all the information we need, despite the frankly somewhat-concerning amount of information that we have.

We need to find those missing pieces, or we're not going to catch the mole.

Unfortunately, I haven't got an idea.

Yet.

I'll keep working on it.


An hour later and no closer to finding the mole, Viv looked up from her laptop, face grim.

'Jack, MacGyver, we've got incoming.'

She indicated her laptop screen to the two Phoenix agents, which showed an intruder alert in the backyard, and quickly called up the security cameras. Some had obviously been disabled, which also explained how the intruders had gotten into the backyard without setting off any of the other alarms (clearly, they'd come prepared). The screen showed that there were at least three men.

There was a loud crashing noise and some swearing and yelling as one of the traps that Mac had set up went off.

The blonde gave a satisfied little smirk as Jack and Viv pulled out their firearms, Jack signalling to the young woman to take up a position behind the half-wall separating the breakfast nook from the formal dining area, which had the door leading to the backyard in it. She did as told, moving into position with that same dangerous grace that her aunt had.

Mac slipped into the kitchen and grabbed a frying pan and two cans of soda as Jack took up his own position.

Silent and ready, the three of them watched and waited.

It was only seconds later that the door burst open.


Ten minutes later, Mac and Jack hauled the last of the four attackers into one of the safe house's bedrooms (they all knew that one should always keep suspects separate if possible, but they didn't have the resources to be able to guard four different rooms; they'd have to take a chance here), securing his hands and ankles with some of the duct tape that Mac always carried in his go-bag.

Viv was already back in the breakfast nook, re-organizing the papers and pins that had been displaced by the short fight.

(It really had been a short fight; while all four guys looked tough and had done a pretty good job disabling the security system, they clearly weren't trained fighters.)

Checking that their four prisoners were secure and closing the door behind him, Jack turned to the two younger people.

'Reckon we need to move?'

Mac shook his head immediately, as did Viv a moment later.

'It's harder to defend ourselves on the road than here, Jack.' Mac gestured with his head towards Viv. 'Besides, whoever sent those guys, A, underestimated Viv, and B, doesn't know we're here.'

Jack nodded, rubbing his chin in thought, as Viv spoke.

'And those guys weren't sent by The Organization; the mole sent them.' She got up and started pacing. 'The Organization's ruthless, if they know their mole's about to be caught, they'll cut them loose if they haven't got a further use for them. That fits the profile, and that fits what Matty's team has seen so far. They're also precise.' She gestured to the closed bedroom door that Jack was leaning against. 'And that was far from precise.'

Mac and Jack both nodded in agreement, then Jack gestured with his head at the makeshift jail cell they'd created.

'Well, I'll give those guys a few minutes to stew and soften up. I'm gonna go check out their car, see what I can find.' He smirked at the two of them. 'Don't do anything I wouldn't do.'

As Jack headed out the back door, he winked at Mac and waggled his eyebrows, who shook his head and vowed to pull a prank on Jack at the next opportunity, as Viv quirked an eyebrow at the older man's departing back. She and Mac exchanged a glance, Mac shrugging a little awkwardly, his ears pink under his hair.

'Jack's…Jack.'

Viv's eyebrow rose a little further, her expression growing very wry.

'I can see that.'

They stared at each other for a short, somewhat awkward moment, before Viv returned to her laptop as Mac picked up the kicked-in door and pulled out his Swiss Army knife.

He had repairs to make.


Twenty minutes later, Jack was deep in interrogation (both Mac and Viv knew how important it was to not interrupt at this point unless it was absolutely essential – if they had to communicate with Jack, a text message to his phone, which was obviously set to vibrate, was the best way), and Viv was deep in unencrypting the burner phone that had been all that Jack had found in the car.

Or, she was deep in trying to unencrypt the burner phone.

The phone was encrypted with a program developed for US covert ops by NSA analysts that was designed to wipe the phone entirely upon any attempt to breach the encryption in any way, shape or form. The only way to unencrypt it was to input a series of specific codes.

It was designed so that not even the NSA's very best could crack it; there was simply no way she (or anyone else) could do it in the short time available to them (the mole, they all knew, was liable to do everything they could to disappear once they knew that their attempt to take her out had failed, and as much as it pained an NSA analyst like Viv to say it, people in this day and age could still disappear if they knew what they were doing…and an NSA employee certainly did). Viv glanced at the bedroom door, behind which Jack was hard at work. Their best shot was for Jack to get the codes. She pulled out her own phone and shot off a quick text message to the former CIA agent, knowing that he would get the message.

At least they now knew for sure that the men had been sent by the mole. Only someone in the NSA could get hold of this technology. And, she realized, the mole must have a fairly high security clearance, and a certain skill-set and certain access credentials to be able to get hold of this burner without raising too many red flags.

That narrowed down their suspect pool.

Viv leaned forward and removed a couple of the pins from next to the names of a couple of her co-workers. Then, she looked over at Mac, who was still fixing the door in the dining room, watching him as he worked for a moment. She let herself enjoy the view for another moment, before getting up and heading to the kitchen. There was nothing more she could do until Jack got the codes, and she'd had precious little rest of late; now was a good time for a break…and maybe for a little socializing.

As Viv grabbed a can of soda from the fridge, Mac sat back on his haunches with a noise of satisfaction, the door finally repaired. He put away his Swiss Army knife and picked up the remnants of the saucepan lid that he'd disassembled for its parts and stood, as Viv walked towards him, popping open her soda as she did so.

'You know, MacGyver, you've got some serious moves. That thing with the frying pan? Now that was inspired.' She took a sip from her soda can as she got closer, a definite swing in her hips and a little smirk on her face. 'When this is all over, maybe you and I should get together, spar and teach each other a few tricks.' The smirk widened somewhat. 'It'll be a mutually very beneficial experience.'

Mac froze like the proverbial deer-in-headlights.

There was a definite flirty undercurrent to her tone, of that he was very, very sure. One of the few good things to come out of that terrible evening in Tahoe was that he was now a little less oblivious than he'd been before.

That swing in her hips and that little smirk on her face made his heart rate quicken ever-so-slightly; though whether for good or bad reasons, he couldn't quite tell (once upon a time, this physiological response to these stimuli was very much a positive thing, more recently, it'd been very much a negative thing, and now, he wasn't sure). That swing and that smirk also brought to fore the ghost of feelings he hadn't really felt for a long time now, a reminder of how he used to feel about these particular stimuli, perhaps, or maybe some impulse ingrained into him by thousands and thousands of years of evolution.

Mac firmly, albeit near-unconsciously, pushed away the association these stimuli had with a particular woman; something that pleased him very much that he was able to do, but simultaneously annoyed him as that association was still there.

Part of him, just a small part, smaller than in Cleveland, definitely, still wanted to run, still wanted to start digging himself and get Riley to do so too, to make sure that Thornton's niece could definitely, definitely be trusted.

Part of him was very flattered. Viv was, after all, very beautiful, and very clever, and witty and sassy to boot. A very little part of him wanted to flirt back, as best as he could flirt anyway (in another life, he briefly thought, he probably would have).

But most of him was frantically trying to work out how to deflect her attentions without offending her or explaining why (for some reason that he probably didn't want to think too much about, telling Viv about Nikki felt a lot harder than telling Aaron about his ex-girlfriend), and the rest of him was telling off that bit, because hadn't he been thinking, just so recently, that it'd be nice to meet someone and not have to lie to her about what he did for a living?

The end result of all of these conflicting thoughts and desires and arguments with himself was, apparently, being completely frozen.

Yeah, I know, I am really, really hopeless with women.

Viv paused, all flirtatiousness falling away, examining him with that same inscrutable look on her face that he so often saw on Thornton's face.

After what felt to Mac like a very awkward eternity (but, he noted, objectively couldn't be; they were both still alive and appeared no older, after all), she spoke.

'You've been burnt before. Badly.' There was a note of sympathy in her voice, and he looked down as she considered a moment longer. 'You were in love with Nikki Carpenter.'

That was spoken very resolutely, very certainly, as if she was saying today is Tuesday, as if she knew it for the fact it was.

Mac looked up at her instantly, letting go of the paperclip that he was just about to pull out from his pocket, shocked and relieved and the tiniest bit wary all at once.

'Did Thornton-'

Viv shook her head firmly.

'No, she didn't tell me.' She put down her soda on the dining table next to her, as if she'd lost all desire to drink it. 'I only found out about Nikki Carpenter and the Chrysalis Incident and The Organization forty hours ago.'

He stared into her eyes for a beat.

'You mean, you didn't know-'

Viv nodded slowly.

'No. I didn't know that she was set up or put in prison.'

Mac looked desperately curious, but managed to stop himself from asking; there'd been something that he was quite sure was hurt in her voice when she'd said that. At least, that's what he was pretty sure it was; in many ways, he thought, Viv was much like her aunt: hard to read.

Viv snorted at his expression and rolled her eyes in amusement, as she sat down on the edge of the dining table. Then, her face softened a little, growing more serious, and her voice was quiet when she spoke again, staring at the newly-repaired door.

'We were estranged. Had been for three years. We've had our differences, still do.' She paused for a moment and swallowed, glancing over at Mac before looking away again. 'A few months ago, she reached out. We started talking again…but you know her.' She gave a wry snort. 'No way she'd share classified information unless I had a need to know, and she doesn't share much of the unclassified stuff either.' Viv sounded definitely hurt now, clearly and openly. 'Took until she had to share the Chrysalis Incident with me for her to even hint what had happened to her.' Viv glanced at him for a moment, then back into the distance for a beat, before looking over at him again. 'And just to make it absolutely clear, she didn't give any hints about your relationship with Nikki Carpenter.' She smirked a little. 'I joined those dots myself; a family gift, I guess.'

Mac gave a small snort of laughter, then, after pausing for a moment, spoke, voice gentle, compelled to tell her something that he felt was very, very important she knew.

He was very sure that Patricia would forgive him; this was need-to-know for Viv.

'You know, she worried about you.' Viv looked up at him, eyes meeting his, and Mac just gave a little nod and a small smile. 'I've never, ever heard her so worried as when she asked me and Jack to keep you safe.'

Viv gave another snort, but there was a softness in her eyes that made her look much younger, a softness and a depth and something that he could only describe as hope that belied her next words.

'Aunt Patricia knows I can look after myself, though help is appreciated.' She hesitated a moment, then got off the table and held out a fist to him in the universal fist-bump gesture with a little smile. 'You're pretty awesome, MacGyver. Friends?'

There was nothing expectant, no flirtatiousness in her tone or her expression, something that he found relieved him greatly, as flattering as it'd been.

He reached out and bumped his fist to hers with a smile.

'Friends.' Viv's smile widened, and he continued. 'Call me Mac.'

Viv's smile widened a little more, then turned into a teasing little grin as she picked up her soda again.

'You know, it's kinda a shame. It'd have been nice to bring home a guy that Aunt Patricia actually approved of.' Mac could do nothing but stare at her for a moment and she rolled her eyes in response, shaking her head. 'I'm joking, Mac. Even Aunt Patricia's got a sense of humour.'

Blinking twice, he shook his head with a chuckle (it wasn't so much Viv's joke that had shocked him so, but more the idea of Thornton or even Patricia having a strong opinion about her niece's boyfriends – he was getting mental images that brought to mind Meet the Parents).

'Yeah, you try convincing Jack of that.'


Fifteen minutes later, Jack emerged, triumphantly holding up a piece of paper.

'Dalton does it again!'

Shaking his head, Mac slapped Jack's arm lightly as the older man handed Viv the piece of paper. The analyst glanced up at him.

'You sure these are the right codes, Jack?'

Jack nodded.

'Yeah, I'm sure. We've got four common-and-garden gang members in there; ain't no match for me.' Jack's expression turned even more serious. 'And they said that they did all this 'cause the guy who gave them that phone owns their leader; he's got something real incriminating on him, been holding it over his head for ages. Claim they don't know his name, but he's middle-aged, always wears a suit and is starting to go a bit bald.'

Jack's tone suggested that he already had a very good idea of who the mole was, something that Viv and Mac shared.

Gang members? A gang leader being blackmailed?

That sounded very, very familiar.

Viv's co-worker Shaw had been frequenting an auto parts store far out of his way, and had been making some odd purchases (good excuses for visiting the shop) for very low prices. Suspiciously low prices.

He also, according to Viv and his employee photo, wore a suit daily and was going bald.

To be fair, I guess even those ridiculous crime dramas on TV have to get it right occasionally.

I might owe Jack a beer.

It appeared that Shaw had discovered proof that the auto shop owner didn't just have gang ties, but was actually the leader of a local gang, and had been using that to his advantage ever since.

Mac nodded, then raised an eyebrow at his partner, a ghost of a smirk on his face.

'What deal did you promise them? Is Thornton going to be mad at you?'

The only way Jack could make sure that they'd tell him the truth was by putting something in it for them.

In this case, removing the threat that is Shaw, and probably promising them more lenient sentencing for their various crimes, all in exchange for their full cooperation, of course.

Thornton hates having to deal with getting those through.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck.

'We need to stop and pick up some soft-centred, hazelnut-containing, dark Belgian chocolates on the way home?'

Mac raised an eyebrow, as Viv laughed, shaking her head as she inputted the codes into the burner.

A moment later, she made a noise of triumph, and reached out and fist-bumped Jack absent-mindedly, scrolling through the phone.

They needed more proof that the mole was indeed Shaw, and this phone was their best bet at finding it.

After a moment of scrolling, Viv smiled as she brought up a voice-mail, and started it playing.

A heavily-distorted male voice, a disguised voice, started speaking, ordering the gang members to break into the safe house and take out Viv by any means necessary and giving them instructions on how to disable the cameras and alarms and the like.

Mac and Jack exchanged a glance (they'd need to tie this back to Shaw; at the moment, it could be anyone, technically), as Viv gave a little smirk and plugged the phone into her laptop, then brought up a couple of programs.

Jack leaned closer to Mac as the two of them watched Viv's decryption process.

'You get any of this computer voodoo, brother?'

Mac shot Jack a baleful, long-suffering look.

'This is not voodoo, Jack, there is no such thing as voodoo.' Mac huffed out a breath as his partner opened his mouth, doubtlessly to protest. 'What happened in New Orleans last month does not count.'

Jack just crossed his arms, shaking his head at the younger man.

'One day, brother, one day…'

Mac rolled his eyes and let out a very long-suffering sigh, as Viv raised an eyebrow at the two of them.

'If you're done…'

Jack and Mac spoke simultaneously.

'We're done.'

'This ain't over, brother. I'm gonna get you to believe.'

Viv just shook her head as she pressed the play button on the newly-undistorted voicemail, starting up a voice comparison program as she did so.

They listened to the voicemail again, and all grinned when it came up a 97% match for Shaw.

Another mole had been found.

Jack pulled out his phone.

'Time to give Matty and Patty the good news.' He glanced over at the room in which the four gangsters were still locked and gave a little half-shrug and paled somewhat. 'And the not-so-good news.'

Viv and Mac just exchanged a wry smile.

Jack Dalton is a very brave man.

One of the bravest men I've ever known, maybe even the bravest, and I've known a lot of very, very brave people.

He is, however, scared of two women, one of whom is literally half his size.

In all honesty, I don't blame him in the slightest.


PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA


'…Shaw's been brought in by my contacts; Sarah and I are heading out to do the interrogation as soon as this debrief is done.' Matty offered them all a smile, then turned to Viv. 'Clearly, I need more hands on deck…'

There was a clear invitation in her tone, and Viv simply smiled in response.

'I'm in, as long as you can make it happen without me getting fired.' The smile turned into a wry little smirk. 'And as long as I don't have to do any swabbing of said deck.'

Matty gave a little smirk in response.

'Oh, we're gonna get along just fine.' She turned a little more serious, but the smirk was still firmly in place. 'And the whole getting fired thing won't be a problem; I've just got to make a call.'

Thornton glanced between Matty and Viv, and gave a small nod, a gesture of approval, before she turned to Jack, a look on her face.

Jack gulped and muttered wish me luck to Mac, who just shook his head and reached for the paperclip bowl, then walked over to his boss and Matty to discuss the deal he'd made with the captured gangsters.

Bozer, with a smirk on his face, and Riley, with no small amount of interest, turned to Viv, as Mac toyed with a paperclip, lost in thought.

'So I heard from Lil, who heard from a little birdie on the NSA Listening Post #27 Panthers, who heard from someone at Listening Post #34, who heard from someone at the Seattle office, that you're really, really awesome at DDR.' Bozer pointed to himself. 'So, as the Phoenix's undisputed DDR champ, I gotta challenge you to a DDR battle.'

Riley elbowed Bozer in the arm, none too gently.

'Hey, I beat you best of three last week!'

Bozer pointed at her, shaking his head.

'Yeah, but I won best of five!'

Riley put her hands on her hips, shifting her weight over to her left leg.

'We agreed it was best of three!'

Bozer scoffed, incredulous.

'No, we did not!'

It was Riley's turn to look incredulous.

'Yeah, we did! After we went and got those lemon curd donuts, remember?'

Viv just watched the two of them, an eyebrow raised in amusement, before cutting in when it became clear that Bozer and Riley probably weren't going to stop bickering on their own any time soon.

'Well, I am going to be in LA for the foreseeable future…we'll find the time.' She smirked at Bozer. 'You're on.' The smirk grew wider. 'I look forward to kicking your ass.'

Bozer, too, smirked, holding out a hand for Viv to shake, to seal the deal.

'Oh, you only say that 'cause you haven't seen my skills.'

Viv quirked an eyebrow at him, in a look that was vaguely reminiscent of Thornton.

'And you only say that 'cause you haven't seen mine.'

Riley also smirked, pulling out her phone and sending out a group text.

It was time to get a betting pool going.


After Matty hung up after debrief finished, Thornton turned to Mac, Jack, Riley and Bozer, a hint of a smile on her face.

'Go home, get some rest.'

Bozer immediately started telling Riley and the still-lost-in-thought Mac about this awesome top-secret burger sauce he'd been working on (he was hoping to kill two birds with one stone – impress Riley with his bad-ass cooking skills, and pull his best friend out of the rabbit hole his brain sometimes was), while Jack looked over at the three of them, shook his head fondly, then turned back to Thornton and saluted, even clicking his heels together.

'Yes, ma'am!'

Thornton simply raised an eyebrow slightly at him as he walked out the door, tapping the glass to activate top-secret mode as he did so, leaving her alone with her niece in the war room.


The two women stared at each other for a stretched-out, awkward moment.

There were so many things that they should say, had to say, maybe, so many things to talk about, apologies, explanations…but neither of them really knew where to start.

Then, much to Viv's surprise, her aunt's expression softened, worry and relief and affection, maybe even love, appearing in her eyes, and the Phoenix's Director closed the distance between them, reaching out and hugging her tightly, in a way that she hadn't for a long, long time.

Maybe hadn't ever.

Once the initial shock passed, Viv smiled as she hugged the older woman back just as tightly.

They did say that actions spoke louder than words.


MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE

LA


Mac smiled as he leaned back on his headboard, stretching out a little more over his bed, his phone held to his ear.

'…Yeah, work's been good, Dad…'

'…No, I haven't started the robot apocalypse…'

'…Really? The fishing's been that good lately?' Mac chuckled as his dad relayed the result of his latest fishing day, then paused for a moment, his voice and expression growing softer, more hesitant. 'Dad, can…can I ask you something…more personal?' A soft little smile grew on his face as his father replied, before his face turned a little more serious again, as he reached out to grab an old, slightly-faded photo in an aged, slightly-wonky, colourful frame that looked like it'd been made by a child from his nightstand. He brushed a thumb over the smiling young woman in a wedding dress in the picture as he spoke. 'How…how'd you know that Mom was the right one?'


Timing is very, very important.

In fact, some people say that timing is everything.

I'm not convinced that that's true, but it's certainly an important factor in just about everything.

Now, my grandfather used to tell me that finding the right one isn't just about meeting the right person.

Timing, he said, was real important.

Finding the right one is all about meeting the right person at the right time under the right circumstances, according to my grandfather.

I think I'm going to add an appendix of sorts to that.

I think that, maybe, the characteristics of the hypothetical right one for you might change a bit over time, as a product of your experiences.

Once bitten, twice shy and all.

The thing is, that's a lot of conditions that have to be met for you to find the right one.

Yet people do find the right one.

People fall in love and stay in love every single day.

Even, unlikely as it is, people in my line of work.

I'm quite sure that I'm seeing it happen right before my eyes, even if they're still dancing around each other.

I didn't get invited to play DDR and get lemon curd donuts last week, after all.

I still think that me finding the right one is an unlikely event. I'm still seeing the writing on the wall.

But…Professor V always did say that impossible isn't a scientific term, and Jack and Bozer always say I can make the impossible happen, as oxymoronic and clearly empirically untrue as that is…


Mac smiled as he said his goodbyes to his dad and hung up, leaning over to put his parents' wedding photo back onto his bedside table.


There's always hope.


AN: Mac's recovery from what Nikki did to him is progressing nicely, is it not? (I hope you guys find it believable!) I know he's a bit contrary with Viv in this one, but I feel that reflects his current contrary state with respect to being ready for a prospective relationship. He's getting there, but he's not quite there yet. His voiceover at the end is meant to tie in with the voiceover from the last episode, 2.06, Maple Syrup and reflect Mac's generally optimistic, never-give-up nature in all aspects of his life.

What did you guys think about this episode? I know there's not much action (sorry, action fans!), but yay or nay to the (kind-of) exploration of Patricia's family and backstory?

Frankie's boyfriend's name is a joke/meta joke to match her name. Frankie's full name is Rosalind Franklin Mallory. Rosalind Franklin is the person who took the X-Ray crystallograph of DNA that was essential to determining its double-helix structure, and contributed rather significantly to that determination. Max Planck is a very famous German physicist.

Next episode: 2.08, Rubik's Cube. A big mission in Taiwan leads to Mac, Jack, Riley and Bozer teaming up with fellow Phoenix agents Nick Edwards, Rowena Ho, May Torres, Carter Justin and Alex Lucas…who have some interesting parallels to our favourite agents.