"Don't be such a baby," Mel snorted as she placed her thumbs on either side of her reluctant patient's nose.

"I'm beginning to understand why you have a reputation around Phoenix, Ms. Sullivan."

Mel didn't respond with anything other than her intended action. There was a crunching popping noise and the man let out a gasp that bordered on a shout, and she was already walking away, dropping her gloves into a nearby trashcan as Butler put his head between his knees trying not to throw up or pass out. She turned and gave him a glare even though he wasn't looking up. "And I'm beginning to understand why everyone in Oversight always has their heads so firmly up their asses. You're in charge of them." Then she gave Milton a nod. "You can secure him for transport now; he's probably done bleeding for the moment." She paused, looking around at everyone, noticing Jack was out on the deck talking on the phone, presumably with Matty. Then she seemed to remember something. "You," she pointed at Mac who was flipping through some papers from on top of the microwave, but glanced up when she spoke; her tone rarely invited further conversation. She tilted her head in a commanding gesture. "Outside."

Mac looked to Milton who was in charge of processing the scene, eyes practically begging to be told there was something he needed to be doing, but was met with a sympathetic shrug. Determined not to get into an argument in front of Butler (Mac thought briefly how much easier it was to think of him that way and wondered what Sissy would say to his newfound tool for compartmentalizing), Mac docilely followed Mel out into the bright afternoon sun. When they were a few steps away from the door, Mac gave her a grin. "I've always thought you were kind of sadistic, but I've never really appreciated that it might have some advantages until today. Have you thought about working with Interrogation?"

Mac's affable expression was a little forced, but she, like Jack, approved of how Mac was valiantly trying to cope with all of this like a professional. She hadn't known how much history Mac had on this case and when shed been briefed in felt herself developing a slight soft spot for the blond and his team. Although to be fair, she'd always had a little one. She gave him a slight smile, which he didn't quite seem to know how to take. Then she couldn't resist a wink. "He didn't use the safety word."

Mac felt himself flush, though whether it was because she clearly knew what the agents said about her talent for dominating everyone or the innuendo of it he couldn't have said, but he couldn't resist asking, "Which is?"

Her nose twitched with a little wrinkle he'd never noticed was sort of cute before. Usually he was too worried about what she might be about to inflict on him to think of her as anything like cute. She increased his estimation of her further when she deadpanned, "Flugelhorn."

"I'll file that away for future reference," he chuckled. Then he sighed. "Thanks for sorting him out. I shouldn't have hit him. It was unprofessional as hell."

"You're welcome. And everyone who knows who he is wanted to hit him. But we're all glad you got to." She held out her hand expectantly. "Now, let's sort you out before we get a move on."

His brow creased in feigned confusion. "I'm already sorted. Catharsis is good for lots of things."

Damned if he wasn't just as charming as always, especially when he planned on trying to get his own way. She responded to the charm with her typical business-like approach. "Don't play dumb with me. Let's see your hand, Mac."

Almost involuntarily he glanced down at his skinned knuckles. "It's fine."

She shook her head. "You've come into Medical with a dislocated shoulder and said exactly the same thing in exactly the same tone."

He was about to protest the veracity of her statement when they were joined by Jack. "You have," he chuckled. "I was there."

Mel elbowed Jack with an amused roll of her eyes. "Like you're any better, Dalton. Reference your last flu shot, ya wimp." She raised her eyebrows at Mac. "I've already established a willingness to sit on and/or dope either one of you unconscious to make sure you get the care you need. You guys give me a hard time, but I care about you … and I know what I'm doing."

Almost against his will, one edge of Mac's lips quirked up. "You are good. Nobody would say you aren't. You're just a little mean. And kind of gleeful about it."

"I think anyone who can get either of you to stay put long enough to get put back together is entitled to a little glee." She smiled at both of them then. "And I'm allowed to be amused that two spies, both of whom can think of at least twenty ways to kill me at any given moment and do the deed without breaking a sweat, turn into eight-year-olds the minute they see a set of scrubs. It's a little satisfying to tease you when you've made a bunch of extra work for me." Now she looked at them both seriously, her innate compassion more apparent than she normally let it be. "I'll hassle you in Medical, mostly because you're already halfway to okay just by being there. But I won't do anything other than be the best medic I can out here in the field. Okay?"

Mac contemplated her for a long moment before he gave her a short nod and just held his hand out for her inspection. Her first action was to take a spray can from her bag and apply its contents to Mac's bloody knuckles. His breath hissed between his teeth. "Damn," he said wincing.

"Antiseptic. Human mouths are filthy and you cut yourself on the man's teeth, pretty clearly."

He nodded, unable to help smirking a little again. Took me long enough, did it? That punch was pretty quick though. Once the spray started drying she pressed various points on his hand until he pulled away, giving her a distinctly dirty look. "Flugelhorn. Jeez."

She smiled. "I don't think anything is broken. Just bruised; but you should probably let Steve or whomever take an x-ray when we get back in."

Just then, Milton came out of the house with Butler in handcuffs, reinforced by a zip tie. The team wasn't taking chances this time. Mac glanced at her, wanting to follow, and she gave him a nod indicating that she was done torturing him for the moment. Jack lingered for a minute to check in.

"You and I both know I'm the knuckles in this outfit. And he hit him hard. Nothing's broken, for sure?" he asked.

Mel's eyes followed him. "Nothing in his hand, I don't think. But look at his face."

Jack did. Up close Mac was doing one hell of a job at treating this like another day at the office, but when you got a little distance and the kid's personal charisma was less of a factor in how you perceived him, any idiot could see that he was a whisker away from falling apart. Jack nudged Mel to move out with the rest of the team. As they caught up and he got a better look at his partner Jack sighed. "Yeah, he's gonna feel this break later."

0-0-0

Jack gave his partner a sideways glance for perhaps the tenth time in an hour. Mac was leaned back in the chair, practically glaring at the one way glass, sipping a coffee, and occasionally rubbing at an ache in his forehead with an absent gesture that spoke more of irritation than of pain. For the third time in as many minutes, Mac sighed heavily.

Jack leaned toward him, keeping his voice low, as dictated by protocol when observing an interrogation, and said, "Don't enjoy the smell bullshit, bud?"

Mac darted a look at Jack, then returned his gaze to the man across from them through the glass, and shrugged. "After all this time, Jack, I wonder if him saying the sky was blue would sound like the truth."

Jack put a hand on Mac's shoulder and was gratified when his friend managed to look him in the eye without his gaze immediately darting away toward the interrogation room. "I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, bud, but I don't like the feel of what he's telling Matty either."

Mac nodded. "It's sort of like looking into a mirror while holding one facing that mirror. It's just stories that disappear into stories." He signed again. "'I was an NSA agent that let myself get recruited by the Organization to bring them down but then when I was ready I realized they had some good points'? What the hell, man? I'm sorry, but I just don't buy someone trying to serve that many masters and really believing they are good enough to untangle a web that complicated even if what they believe is true. Which doesn't seem likely. That's hubris on a scale I can't even contemplate."

He silenced Jack's reply with a gesture as they both heard Matty say, "What about Miss Carpenter's involvement?"

The man gave a small indifferent shrug. "Based on the evidence we had I thought she was clean. All the contacts I'd cultivated at CIA as Butler seemed convinced she was one of theirs as well. When she told the ops team in DC that she was Organization I was surprised. I've rarely been that wrong about someone's allegiances before."

Matty frowned. "Since you were working with DXS as Marc Butler at the time of the incident in Lake Como, were you aware of Ms. Carpenter's extralegal agency manipulation?"

He shrugged again. "It seemed like a legitimate CIA operation. Of course, as I said, the entire intelligence community is so polluted at this point, it's almost impossible to know. And I was on the outs with the Organization at that time and needed to establish myself with them again under the new Butler identity since my alias before that had been 'killed' in the field to extract an agent that wanted out."

"And her involvement with Thornton? Thornton's role with the Organization?" Matty pressed.

"Patricia was clean. Well, she was obviously loyal to me, but she was also loyal to DXS since she helped to build it. She still felt like she owed me though and wanted to help me bring down the Organization."

"Why?"

"I saved her life once when she was young, helped her establish herself in the intelligence community before things went to hell for me. She tried to help me by protecting your agent as much as she could, more often than not from himself, and when that failed she just threw resources at him until he was as safe as he could be. A life for a life, you see." He glanced at the glass and then back at Matty. "She was trying to help me set up some dummy accounts when Carpenter decided to use her. Patricia was working with me to firm up my Butler identity so I could get back in with the Organization and find out what was going on with their global initiative to acquire bio weapons." He sniffed with irritation. "Carpenter found some of the files and decided to try to get back in Phoenix's good graces. From what I've been able to gather since that was unauthorized by the Organization, it was all about trying to mend fences with …" He paused, swallowing hard and glancing toward the glass again. "Agent MacGyver."

Matty flipped through the file in front of her quietly for a minute. "That nearly worked. Why would she do it, based on your information?"

"She's obsessed, dangerous. Not unlike another Organization employee who's had access to your agent's file for a very long time. I'm afraid I have to take responsibility for how long they've been focused on him. I should have left sooner before anyone had made the connection. I thought if I disappeared, broke all contact, they might leave him alone. Turns out they were still trying to use him against me, up to trying to recruit him via Ms. Carpenter."

Jack was staring at the side of Mac's face, taking in minute changes in his expression. Butler had made numerous references to leaving his family for their own safety. Mac seemed more interested in the details that were being revealed about Murdoc than in his own family drama slowly unfolding.

"So Murdoc has been working for the Organization for a long time then?"

Butler nodded. "Since I first encountered them. He was a very young man at the time, going by the name Dan Connors, though who can say if that was his real name. He was terrifying even then. Fascinated by pain and fear. Since for whatever reasons, medical or psychological, I don't know, he can't feel either. And the more tenacious his subject is in the face of either of those things, the more fascinated he becomes. It's no wonder he's been focused on Angus for so long now. The boy has always been reckless with his own safety and comfort for the benefit of others. I left to try to keep this life from touching him and it seems I drove him right into it."

This was the first time the man had let any real emotion creep into his voice when speaking about Mac, carefully referring to him as Agent MacGyver or 'your agent'. When the man passed a slightly trembling hand over eyes that were rapidly blackening from the break to his nose, Mac got to his feet and headed out the door toward his office. Jack was interested to hear what else Butler might now about Murdoc or Nikki that could help his partner, but decided following Mac was a better way to execute the priority mission of keeping Mac whole and in one piece. Just this time it was a less physically demanding mission was all. What he found down the hall, instead of a Mac finally overcome by emotion and facing the demons of his abandonment was a focused agent talking earnestly with Todd and Riley about another name tied to Murdoc.

Mac leaned against the wall, stuffing his hands in his pockets, wincing slightly at the scrape on his sore knuckles, and taking that hand back out. "And we know his kid's name is Connor. It's not much of a connection, but if Butler is telling the truth about an early alias for Murdoc, even a little connection might be important in figuring out who he really is, which might tell us something about where to look for him."

Todd was nodding when Jack joined them. "I'll reach out to some people, see if Dan Connors trips anybody's memory."

Riley agreed. "I'll be in my office seeing if I can find anything on it, too. Maybe cross referencing that weird medical condition with the name will give us something."

"Thanks," Mac said to both of them as they left, and then he turned to Jack. "Bored with hearing the same circuitous story, too?"

Jack frowned at him, concern evident in his expression and voice. "Well, it wasn't all boring if we got a name."

Mac nodded in apparent agreement, but then shrugged. "Might be nothing. Guy can't seem to tell the truth for lying, as the saying goes … That is the Granma Dalton saying, right?"

Jack chuckled. "She used to say it about my dad all the time. That man did have a gift for storytelling to try to keep himself out of trouble."

Mac headed toward the elevator and Jack followed, wondering what his partner would do next, since they hadn't been dismissed for the day by the boss yet. Mac tossed him a grin, the strain under it only just visible to Jack's trained eye. "How'd that work out for him?"

Jack grinned back, hoping his looked at genuine as Mac's. "Usually not so hot. But he always had good people around him to bail him out. He was a terrible liar, but a good friend, I guess."

Mac sighed, thinking he would give about anything to have a dad who was a good man and a bad liar. No such luck though it seemed. Instead of dwelling on it, which his subconscious well telling him was a terrible idea, he nudged Jack affectionately. "Guess you inherited something from him other than being a halfway decent stick jockey."

"And my classic movie star good looks," he grinned more genuinely, and struck a pose.

Mac chuckled as the elevator doors opened. "You wish, big guy."

Jack was looking around at the floor they were on with something very near true surprise.

"Mac, whatcha doin'?"

"Going to Medical to get my hand x-rayed."

"On purpose?"

"Yeah, Mel said I should," he said matter-of-factly.

Jack wondered if this sudden impulse to take care of himself properly came from being told that Thornton and his father hadn't believed he could do it, but he didn't say so; instead he teased, "But nobody ordered you to?"

Then Mac made Jack feel a little better by rolling his eyes. "Steve texted me about twenty minutes ago and said I could come down when I wanted to take a break or he could have Matty remind me when she finishes up." He had to laugh as he said, "Bastard. Now he and Mel are going to conspire against us."

Jack paused at the doors of the infirmary and made his face extremely serious. "You know what, I think it might be time to retire."

Mac laughed again, easing Jack's concern for him a little further. "Nah, man, we'll be alright. I know the safety word now."

Jack patted him on the shoulder thinking that Mac had come an awfully long way; maybe he was just relieved to have some resolution around his dad and he was coping as well as he appeared to be. Sissy had worked stranger miracles in her career, and Mac was certainly unique. "Hey, while you step into the torture chamber, I'm going to get us some take-out. Whatcha want?"

Mac shrugged indifferently, his self-assured expression crumpling for a split second before he fixed it firmly back in place. Then he subtly let Jack know how not alright he was with one quiet phrase. "I'm not hungry, Jack."

Well, shit.