It turned out that Beth was right.
Her parents had listened intently to the whole tale, and (quite hilariously) kicked themselves for not working out that he was a cursed dog.
Lord Michael had made a passable (but only just) attempt at being a stern, threatening father, but honestly seemed very happy that Mac had saved the Kingdom, was alive and was back.
(He and his wife gave him a room in the castle and told him that Jack and Bozer could stay there with him if needed. Lord Michael also loaned him the use of his workshop with a wry lament that he didn't get to put it to as much use as he wanted to anyway.)
Lady Caitlyn, however, accompanied him to the chamber assigned to him, and stopped just outside the door and eyed him with a very stern look on her face, crossing her arms, tilting her chin up a little.
(He now knew where Beth got it from.)
'Do not see or use my daughter as her title, or toy with her feelings, MacGyver.' It was a warning and a threat. Then, her expression softened, a little smile appearing on her face, tilting her head to the right. 'Though I suspect you won't be facing my wrath.'
Mac held her gaze, spoke seriously.
'I won't, my lady. I promise.' He paused. 'I'm going to help her with her plans for the Houses, and after Kastrati last week, I am going to insist on continuing to escort her to her shift every day, and back again, but of course I won't object if you insist on a chaperone-'
Caitlyn shook her head, her little smile widening.
'I know that won't be necessary.'
Angus MacGyver was an honourable man, one of those people who just exuded goodness.
And he and her daughter needed some privacy to work things out, to let their connection grow and take shape, whether that shape wound up being platonic or romantic.
(She suspected the latter.)
(She knew her husband was already looking forward to having an Engineer for a son-in-law, and the next thing on her to-do list was to talk to him about not jumping too far ahead.)
Meanwhile, Bozer wandered through town rather aimlessly, coming across a tavern in the middle of the breakfast rush.
There was a slim woman with skin lighter than his but darker than Mac's or Jack's with curly dark hair taking orders, her back to Bozer.
A man who was probably still a little drunk from the night before slurred something that was probably meant to be flirtatious at her, then reached out and managed to grab her apron string. Quickly, she slapped his hand away, hard, so that it thwacked him in his own face, whirled around and shot him a look that said seriously?
His friends burst into raucous laughter, and one of them (who appeared to be more sober than the others) dropped an extra couple of dollars on the table and shot her a look that was apologetic, amused and appreciative, though not in a flirtatious or creepy way at all.
Bozer, however, hadn't paid any attention to the by-play, because when she'd whirled around, he'd gotten a look at her face.
She was amazingly beautiful, and also familiar.
He knew that face. He'd dreamed about her, that night at The Cage Witch's.
He'd found her.
And she was really hot, awesome and badass.
And like it did so often in the presence of a really hot, awesome and badass woman, his brain kinda shut down and his mouth took over.
He sat there, tongue hanging out and staring.
'Marry me and have my babies.'
That afternoon, at lunchtime, an excited Bozer dragged Jack through town, yipping that he'd found her.
'…I get it, Boze, I get it, it's great, but couldn't you have let me finish my lunch first?'
'Mac says dogs only need to eat twice a day at most.'
Jack continued to grumble.
'Well, I ain't a dog and I was hungry!'
Bozer, however, managed to tune out the rest of Jack's grumbling as they'd arrived at the tavern.
The woman was standing in the doorway of the tavern, arguing with a man wearing a stained shirt and smirking at her in a sleazy way.
He reached out and grabbed her wrist when she tried to walk away, and she rolled her eyes, stamping hard on his foot, then twisted her arm to break his grip, before kneeing him in the groin. As he staggered, she firmly closed the tavern door.
Bozer's brain went off fishing again.
At least, it did until Jack turned to him, looking every bit as intimidating as Bozer had ever seen.
'That's her?' Bozer just nodded, a very bad feeling building inside him. 'Her name's Riley Davis.'
Bozer gulped.
Jack's surrogate daughter. Heck, Jack had probably taught her that trick she'd just used.
Uh, oh.
Jack, carrying a bucket full of water in his mouth, followed Diane, who was carrying two buckets, into her cottage.
She set down both buckets, and then removed the lid from her water barrel, before tipping first one, then the other bucket of water into it.
Jack was waiting with the third bucket and passed it to her as best as he could when she was done with the second, and Diane gave a little smile as she took it.
Jack then grabbed the other two buckets by their handles, opening his mouth very wide to get both handles in, and ran back out towards the well.
Diane's smile widened a little and she shook her head with fond exasperation.
In Castle Lafayette's jewel of a library, Mac and Beth stood at a very large table, neglecting the two chairs that remained at it.
(They'd moved the others out of the way.)
There was a large blackboard on wheels at the head of the table, and a huge roll of butcher's paper spread out over it, with a schematic of the existing Houses of Healing and the planned extension set out on it.
Both of them had a pencil in hand. Mac tapped his pencil on the edge of the table, while Beth sketched something out on a notepad.
When she was finished, she held up the sketch.
'…These are the kettles we use for sterilizing instruments. Ideally, I'd like to pipe hot water into them and have a fire going underneath to keep it boiling, but then we'd need to get substantial volumes of water through a single pipe, unless we're going to fill this entire wall…' She reached out and tapped a wall on the schematic. '…with pipes.'
Mac pursed his lips, taking the notebook and studying it for a moment, before studying the schematic and muttering under his breath. Then, he got up and started drawing a schematic on the left side of the blackboard, adding some maths on the right as he wrote.
Beth walked closer and studied his work as he wrote, tilting her head to the left, brow furrowing. Realization hit her, just as Mac nodded in satisfaction halfway through the schematic and maths, now quite sure that this was a workable solution, a little smile on his face with a bit of a smirk in it.
'Not necessarily…'
Riley walked home from the tavern, exhausted after a long day of honest hard work.
She'd worked twelve hours, from 6 in the morning to 6 at night, serving the breakfast rush, the lunch rush and the start of the dinner rush.
Her work at the tavern wasn't easy, and she had to deal with some creeps and assholes (thankfully, her mom had a keen eye for assholes with one unfortunate blind-spot when it came to choosing a man for herself and had taught her how to spot one across a crowded room…and Jack had taught her some tricks) and she came home tired and sweaty and smelling of beer, but her bosses were a nice married couple who treated their hired help well, her regulars tipped well and she made pretty good money.
The money was enough for her to rent a very small cottage (or, more accurately, half of a converted cottage) for herself. It was just two small rooms – a living/dining/cooking/sleeping space and a tiny bathroom, but it was all hers, a space of her own.
(It was very important for Riley, to have her own space, as much as she loved her mother and as close as they were. To have independence, and the chance to prove that she could do it and make it on her own.)
(Her mother's job as a seamstress for Lady Lafayette paid more than Riley's as a tavern waitress. Her mother wasn't wealthy by any means, but she could support herself and afford some little luxuries.)
(She also had free healthcare, childcare – not that she needed it – and got lunch at the castle canteen every day. A small percentage of her wages were set aside for her in a special account at the bank for her retirement. Lord and Lady Lafayette looked after their staff.)
(Diane had a nicer home than Riley and would have been happy to let her stay with her, but she'd chosen to move out.)
(She could also have apprenticed to her mother as a seamstress, but frankly, Riley was pretty bad at sewing.)
(So, she'd struck out on her own. Tavern girl wasn't exactly her dream job, but it was a job, and an honest one too.)
(Riley had briefly dabbled in thievery. That had, to say the least, not been a good time in her life.)
She was about halfway home when a black Labrador bounded up next to her. He grinned up at her, running in circles, chasing his own tail, and she raised an eyebrow at him.
In response, he just dropped to the ground, tongue lolling out ridiculously, and rolled over, then grinned at her again.
Riley gave a snort as he sprang up and kept running in front of her, occasionally circling around to follow his own tail again.
Still, when she walked through her front door, the Labrador having sketched out some kind of weird doggy bow outside, there was a little smile on her face, and she didn't feel quite so tired.
On Jack's fourth night in her home, Diane looked a little melancholy.
She seemed happy and content and satisfied with her life now, Jack had noted, which in turn made him happy, but everyone had their down days.
He glanced at the calendar on the wall, and got an explanation, or at least, half of one.
Diane had always been a little melancholy on this date, though she had never fully explained why. It had something to do with her no-good ex-husband, but she'd always left it at that. Jack hadn't pushed.
Now, with the benefit of hindsight and more than a decade of wisdom, he wondered if he should have, at least a little, since it'd stayed with her for so long.
He had a surprisingly-strong urge to do that pushing now.
He shook himself a little, reminding himself that the whole being-a-dog thing made that kinda impossible, and that he'd lost (or thrown away) the right to do so years ago.
(The pang of regret was also surprisingly strong.)
Instead, Jack gave a whine of sympathy, and got up from his nice comfy spot by the fire, trotted over to her, and nudged her insistently with his nose, until Diane stopped staring into the middle distance, and looked down at him, shaking her head with fond exasperation.
She put down her mug of tea so that she could scratch behind his ears with one hand while rubbing the side of his neck with the other, and Jack grinned up at her, before rolling over to present his belly for rubbing.
Diane shook her head again, her knowing little smile on her face.
'You don't like being ignored, do you, boy?'
In Michael's workshop, Mac and Beth were coating identical pieces of metal pipes with a clay mixture, ensuring that the layers were of varying thicknesses.
(They were doing some experiments on what insulation would be needed and how much – as they'd determined that insulation would be needed – to keep the water flowing through the hot water pipes hot on its journey from the boilers to the tap.)
Beth looked up as she finished packing clay around a portion of pipe and at the slightly-battered clock with a large face that hung on one of the walls.
'Mac?' He looked up from where he was lining the already-clay-coated pipes up in the optimal way at the optimal spot between the furnace and the windows, so they'd dry as fast as possible. Beth smiled wryly, and held up her clay-covered hands, gesturing with her head towards the clock. 'We really should get cleaned up for dinner.'
His brow furrowed.
'We've still got half an hour.'
In response, Beth just gestured at herself (she had clay all over her hands and forearms, clay stains on her dress – an old one that she kept for situations like this – and there was a stray streak or two on her face), then at his head, her smile still wry and a little bit sheepish.
'You have clay in your hair.'
Riley just shook her head and rolled her eyes in a way that was very exasperated and long-suffering, yet affectionate, as the ridiculous (but also really cute, and surprisingly funny and smart) Labrador ran after the stick again, his tongue hanging out.
He brought it back to her, clearly demanding she throw it again, and after raising her brows at him and snorting, she obliged.
(It was kind of hard to say no to eyes like that.)
It'd been three days since the dog had followed her home (and, she admitted to herself, cheered her up and brightened her day), and since then, he'd been there every morning when she left for work and followed her home every day, running circles around her with that silly grin or demanding that she throw a stick for him all the way to or from work or insisting that she gave him a belly rub or an ear-scratch.
He was clearly a bit nuts, and a little annoying, but he'd really grown on her. She actually looked forward to seeing him at the start and end of every day.
Riley tossed the stick again.
On Jack's last day stuck as a dog, Mac, Jack and Bozer were in the laundry courtyard of the castle at midday, while the washerwomen were at lunch and after all the actual washing had been done for the day.
Bozer was paddling around in a tub of warm water (with soap and flea powder added), while Mac was sitting on a bench, Jack stretched out beside him.
Mac was eating a hearty sandwich, and he rolled his eyes when Jack whined up at him, loudly and repeatedly, his meaning very clear.
(Jack really didn't accept the fact that most human food was not so great for dogs, and that he only needed to eat once or twice a day.)
Still, Mac pulled a slice of roast beef out of his sandwich and gave it to the Knight.
Then, he took a bite, chewed and swallowed, before speaking.
'You know, I actually miss your near-constant complaining and long-winded, pointless and typically irrelevant anecdotes.' He paused, a teasing smirk appearing on his face as Jack tried to decide whether he should be mock-offended, genuinely touched and flattered or launch into a lecture as to why his anecdotes were always relevant, Mac just didn't appreciate the subtlety. 'It's like white noise, helps me think.'
Bozer gave an arf from the tub that sounded oddly like nice one, bro!
Jack, meanwhile, had decided on outraged and mostly mock-offended.
Mac just shook his head, that little smirk still on his face, before he finished off his sandwich and the smirk shifted into a heartfelt smile.
'In all seriousness, guys, it's gonna be great to have you guys back as, well, you.'
(It'd also let him get to the bottom of as to why Jack kept shooting Bozer looks, ones that made him look like the stereotype of his breed.)
(He was pretty sure he was missing something obvious.)
It's probably right in front of my eyes, isn't it?
In my defence – A, you always miss something, and it's usually what's right in front of you, as my grandfather used to say. B, I will be the first to admit that I am not good with this sort of thing.
I am really terrible at charades, after all.
AN: We finally get to meet grown-up Riley! I hope you guys like my adaptation of her backstory, and Bozer being a goofball!
Teaser for next chapter: '…this is ridiculous and improbable and how is this my life?'
In other news – tomorrow, I start my PhD! This means a lot less time for me to write, but I will keep up with it as a stress relief, and simply because I enjoy it. It also means that updates will shift from being in the morning, Australian time, to being in the evening, about ten or eleven hours later.