AN: I managed to do this in one week and am so proud of myself for it! (I didn't grow any bacteria this week, so that's probably why I had the time/energy…)


I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me.

Please have snow and mistletoe, and presents on the tree…


PRIVATE AIRSTRIP

SOMEWHERE IN LA

FIVE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS


'…I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me!'

Jack flung his arms out dramatically as he sang loudly and with much gusto. Mac and Riley, walking beside him with their go-bags slung over their shoulders, just exchanged a very exasperated (it was really more annoyed) glance.

Of course we're glad to be home after a week away.

And of course we're glad that it's looking highly likely that we're going to be home for Christmas.

Thing is, it's a long flight from Ulaanbaatar to LA, and Jack's been singing Christmas carols the whole way.

And he's no Sinatra or Buble, trust me.

Just then, Mac's phone beeped, or rather, tinkled some jingle bells (he'd changed the text tone to help them all get into the holiday season mood), and he pulled it out to find that he had a text from Bozer.

His phone chimed again as he was holding it.

Make that two texts from Bozer.

Actually, three.

No, four.


Like just about everyone on this planet who celebrates Christmas, I would be very upset if it were ruined.

Or, as Bozer just put it, stolen by the Grinch. Which I suppose is the same thing, in the end.

Still, I think Boze is overreacting.

A tinsel shortage is hardly disastrous.

Besides, it's easily fixed.

I know for a fact we've got two jumbo rolls of aluminium foil at home.


PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

FOUR DAYS TILL SANTA DAY!


'That all you got, man?'

Jack lowered his boxing gloves a little as he and Bozer, sweaty and breathing hard (though nowhere near as hard as Bozer used to breathe when they sparred back when he was a really newbie agent), circled one another in the ring.

Bozer just smirked right back at him over his gloves.

'Oh, you can't handle the whole B-O-Z-E-R!'


'…With this update, we've improved the encryption of all our communications…'

In the war room, Riley updated Matty on the latest patch she and several Phoenix white-hats had put together for their cybersecurity systems.

(It was a priority for the Phoenix, given the whole fiasco with Horn, Murdoc, The Organization and Jonah Walsh.)

The Phoenix's Director of Operations nodded approvingly as Riley pointed something out on the screen.


Mac and Beth exchanged a glance as the lab doors swished open and in strode Alex, who was sporting a rather substantial suntan, as well as brown hair dye.

Jill looked up from the mass spectrometer, and first grinned, soft and broad, before putting a hand on her hip and cocking it, raising an eyebrow, though the softness and the joy in her eyes didn't disappear.

'You're late.'

Alex just grinned at her, something similarly soft and happy in his eyes, and put up his hands.

'Sorry, honey, traffic was murder.'

Beth leaned over to press 'run' on the sequence that she, Mac and Jill had decided was optimal for their samples, while Mac picked up the Esky sitting on the table containing the remainder of the samples that hadn't been put into the mass spec, and quietly, the two of them slipped out of the lab to give the couple some privacy.

After all, the Edwards team had been in Tuvalu for the last two weeks.


The floor was shaking.

It was only slightly, at first, but Bozer was sure the floor was shaking. He could feel it, since he was flat on his back on the mat.

He said as much to Jack, who looked concerned.

'I didn't punch you that hard, brother…'

He trailed off as the vibrations grew stronger.

Much stronger.


It started with the sample vials in the mass spec vibrating.

Then, seconds later, the mass spec itself started vibrating…as did everything else in the lab, the heavy lab benches included.

As the power cut out, Alex and Jill stumbled, unbalanced (to be fair, they'd been very distracted when the tremors started…), before he caught his balance and leaned against the wall, pulling her against him to steady her.

(The Phoenix was extremely, extremely well-built, with all the latest in design and technology. It'd been found in extremely-thorough computer simulations to be able to withstand up to a 9.0 on the Richter scale.)

He gave a wry little smirk.

'I'm not that good at making the Earth move…'

Despite the situation, Jill slapped him lightly across the chest for that.


As the earthquake finally came to an end, Mac and Beth stared at one another from the opposite walls of the darkened, stopped elevator.

(They'd instinctively grabbed on to the railings the moment it had jerked to a very sudden stop.)

He couldn't see very well because of the aforementioned darkness, but Mac was positive that there was something fearful in her eyes. Fearful in a way that was much darker, much more lived and experienced, than what'd been in there (briefly, thankfully) when they'd taken off in Alaska.

He really, really, really didn't like that look in her eyes, so smiled reassuringly.

'The genny'll kick in in a minute or two; we serviced it three weeks ago, it was in perfect working order.' He and a couple of Phoenix techs with engineering backgrounds had indeed serviced the generator. It was cheaper than hiring someone to do it and didn't have the whole risk-of-blowing-their-cover problem. He pointed at the ceiling, at the trapdoor in the elevator's ceiling. 'And if it doesn't, we can get out that way; if you sit on my shoulders, you'll be able to reach the catch easily.' His brow crinkled in thought. 'Though, prising open the doors will be harder; they're rated to withstand a small nuclear explosion…'

That made Beth give a wry, teasing little smile.

'Which we know, empirically, isn't beyond you.' His story about accidentally burning down Mission City High's football stadium had simultaneously horrified and intrigued her. She'd been very curious as to how he'd managed to cause a small nuclear meltdown in the first place. He gave a chuckle at that, smile morphing into a sheepish little smirk, and nodded, as she continued, tilting her head to the left slightly. 'Did Jack insist when the Phoenix was built?'

Jack tended to take John McClane's heroics as a bit of a blueprint.

'Yeah, loudly, repeatedly and obnoxiously.' He paused, looking, somehow, both sheepish and smug. 'Though they were reinforced last year after an incident in an Azerbaijani casino; talked Matty into doing it…'


The power was still out when Matty, looking remarkably unshaken, picked herself up off the floor and brushed herself off, then turned to Riley, who had managed to keep her rig safely balanced on her lap, and spoke.

'Riley, send out a Phoenix-wide email and start coordinating with emergency services…'

The lights flickered back on.


SIX BLOCKS FROM THE PHOENIX

SOMEWHERE IN LA


'…Over there, please.'

Max the surgical nurse pointed to a corner of the large tent that the Phoenix medical staff had set up as a triage centre, and the firefighter nodded, helping the woman with her arm in a makeshift sling who was leaning heavily on him over to the indicated spot.

'…Beth, we've got suspected internal bleeding…'

Meanwhile, Anita, who'd just assessed a semi-conscious young man in a very rumpled, very dirty business suit, was briefing a very serious-looking Beth, just as Alex and Cal from Cartography entered the tent, carrying a couple of ventilators, which they proceeded to connect to a generator.


In another, smaller tent also provided by the Phoenix, Riley and Jill sat in front of their laptops, coordinating emergency services.

Almost all traffic cameras, CCTV cameras and ATM cameras in the city were down, but they'd launched several Phoenix drones to cover the local area.

'…Infrared's showing life signs at the corner of Regent and Keystone…'

'…Be careful, structural integrity appears questionable…'

Meanwhile, Matty was on the phone to…well, they actually had no idea and probably weren't going to find out anytime soon.

'…Of course, I understand that the politics is difficult, but we have people here who are dying, injured and have lost everything. Put your big boy pants on and man up!'


Underneath an awning that'd been set up in a local park, Bozer handed out water bottles and cereal bars to the dusty, shell-shocked or crying or hysterical people who were flocking to the area.

(It'd been designated a gathering point to reunite people with their loved ones and allow a survey to be taken as to exactly who was still missing.)

(Still trapped, perhaps or…Bozer shook his head. He didn't want to think about that.)

He offered a smile to a girl in her early teens who appeared to be alone, gesturing towards the tables at the centre of the room, where a couple of Phoenix analysts were working with local police to take down lists of names.


'…Got it!'

Mac wiggled his hand out from where he'd been placing a lightly-modified jack underneath a section of collapsed wall and shot his dad a thumbs up, standing up.

James MacGyver nodded, and started turning a large wheel, which moved two other wheels, which slowly raised the couple of jacks that Mac had placed under the wall to lift it vertically, as well as pulling it upright via the ice-pick-like thing embedded in it with an attached rope.

Mac jogged over to give his dad a hand with the wheel (it was heavy in itself, plus there was friction and the weight of the collapsed wall to account for), keeping both eyes on the slowly-rising wall.

A couple of minutes later, the wall was upright and lifted, and a couple of dust-covered people limped out from behind it. The MacGyvers held the wheel in place, holding up the wall, as first responders swarmed into the newly-exposed space.

A moment later, one of the firefighters emerged, carrying a middle-aged man with a badly-injured leg in a fireman's carry, followed by several of his colleagues supporting other limping office workers, and then a pair of paramedics carrying a stretcher with an unconscious woman on it.


Half-standing, bent over, in the crawl space underneath what had once been a childcare, Jack gently picked up a sobbing little girl of about three or four from the ruins of the floor. She quickly burrowed her head into his shoulder, and he rubbed her back soothingly.

'Shh, shh…it's okay, sweetie. You're safe now, I got you…'

He made his way over to the opening they'd drilled into the space, and gently disentangled the girl's hands from his shirt, lifting her up and passing her to the waiting policeman.


'MacGyver?'

A firefighter that Mac vaguely recognized from earlier, when he and his dad had lifted the wall, called out to him as he handed off the last of the kids who'd been trapped in their damaged school bus to a paramedic.

(It was a little tricky; the five- or six-year-old boy had burrowed his head into the crook of Mac's neck when the school bus had caught fire – a fallen power line had ignited the gas leaking from the bus – mere seconds after Mac had pulled him out of it.)

Mac nodded, and the firefighter held out his hand, even though his expression remained grim.

'Gabriel Marquez, Battalion 17, Station 106.' He pointed to a building across the road, which had questionable structural integrity to say the least. It was half-collapsed. 'We've got at least four people still trapped in there, but we can't work out how to get 'em out…'

He trailed off, and Mac just nodded, managing a little smile.

'Lead the way.'

Gabriel managed to smile back at him as he continued.

'All four are conscious, but two of 'em report what might be spinal injuries, we don't want to move them without a doctor looking over 'em first…'

Beth, who was well within earshot and had just finished checking over the last of the kids saved from the school bus (the girl was unhurt, save a couple of bruises, and just in shock), stood and re-shouldered her first-aid kit, walking over to the two men.

Mac shot her a look of concern (if being stuck in an elevator scared her more than flying, being in a small space under a collapsed building would be her worst nightmare, surely), but she just raised her chin, something fiercely determined in her eyes and held out a hand to Gabriel.

'Dr Beth Taylor, ER physician.' That fierce determination in her eyes grew a little stronger, which made Mac give a small smile, despite the situation. 'I'm small, relatively light and have experience working in unstable structures...'

Gabriel nodded, and motioned for the two Phoenix employees to follow him.

'…It looks like only the east side of the building gave way…'


On one of the laptop screens displaying feeds from the Phoenix drones, Matty spotted something that could be trouble.

Several figures, a couple wielding baseball bats, sneaking around a section of downtown that'd been largely evacuated.

She turned around to address the others in the temporary headquarters.

'We've got some looters.'

Jack, who'd been talking to a couple of the Phoenix techs piloting the drones (they had some blank spots that needed covering), and James MacGyver, who'd just walked in with a couple of police officers, deep in discussion, both looked up and spoke at the same time, Jack cracking his knuckles.

'I'll go have a nice chat with 'em, Matty. Hand out some knuckle sandwiches...'

'I'll deal with these ones, we may need to consider setting up patrols…'

They both trailed off, glancing at each other for a moment. Matty arched an eyebrow at the two of them.

Now was not the time for the two of them to get into a pissing contest.

James finally spoke with a great deal of finality, leaving absolutely no room for argument.

'Dalton and I will deal with them.'

He turned and swept out of the tent, leaving Jack to follow him.

The former CIA agent rolled his eyes and gestured to Matty, as if to say, seriously, who does this guy think he is?

Matty just arched her eyebrow a little further (he's the big boss, Dalton, remember?), and Jack jogged off after James with another eye-roll.


Bozer was just walking back towards the evacuation centre in the park with Cal from Cartography, leading a dozen evacuees from an office building four blocks away, when he heard something that sounded an awful lot like crying coming from a ruined café.

(It was really, really badly destroyed. Pretty much just a pile of large chunks of rubble. It surely had to have been one of the first buildings cleared, but he was positive that he'd heard crying – pitiful, high-pitched and weak, but crying nonetheless – coming from it.)

He motioned to Cal to continue leading the evacuees, and he himself headed towards the rubble of the café.


Bozer hauled a chunk of brick wall out of the way, listening carefully. He was positive, certain, now that he was hearing crying.

He paused and listened carefully for a beat, trying to pin down exactly where it was coming from, and headed further into the building, towards the left. He crouched down and hauled a couple more pieces of debris out of the way, revealing a table that was miraculously still standing, with several chairs surrounding it.

Bozer pulled a couple of the chairs out of the way, to reveal a baby wrapped in a blue blanket, still in his car seat and with his little face scrunched up, wailing.

(It appeared that this little boy was both very lucky and very unlucky. The table and the chairs – which appeared to have been shaken towards the table during the quake due to a very slight dip in the floor – had formed a protective cage around him, but he'd also not been found earlier because of it.)

The Phoenix agent reached out and picked up the baby, cradling him close to his chest.

'Hey, it's okay, little guy, I'll look after you. We'll find your mama and your papa…' Bozer trailed off as he noticed the large bloodstain on the floor next to the table. He swallowed and gently rocked the baby as he picked his way out of the collapsed café. '…I'll look after you, you're gonna be okay, kiddo…'


'Riley, we need your help!' Riley was taking a five minute break from coordinating emergency services, sipping water and chewing on a cereal bar, when Bozer rushed into the HQ tent…cradling a baby to his chest. 'I don't know where his parents are!'

She put up her hands.

'Hey, just 'cause I'm a woman does not mean I automatically know how to take care of a baby!'

Bozer hefted his precious bundle up a little, and the boy burbled happily and raised a hand to touch Bozer's moustache. Bozer raised a hand as best as he could, as if to say, I'm not saying you do! Riley couldn't help but give a little smile as the baby's fingers somehow managed to catch some of the hairs and give a sharp tug, making Bozer wince slightly, and sat down in front of her laptop again. She typed a message to Jill, who was on the other side of the tent, headphones with a microphone attached firmly on and focused on her laptop, causing the blonde woman to look up. She caught side of Riley, Bozer and the baby, and her eyes widened, then she waved and made an adorable face at the baby boy, before pulling off her headphones briefly and calling out to Riley.

'I've got this.'

Riley smiled at her as Jill returned to coordinating the first responders and volunteers, and then pulled up a new window on her laptop and turned to Bozer, who'd finally managed to disentangle the baby's fingers from his facial hair.

'Where'd you find him?'


Mac smiled as Gabriel and a couple of his colleagues helped three of the formerly-trapped office workers towards the exit that he (with their help) had created, the fourth worker being carried out by another two firefighters on a backboard.

(Beth had diagnosed him with a suspected spinal injury and broken ribs, so he had to be moved very carefully.)

He glanced down at the doctor, who was crouching on the floor, packing up her medical kit. She smiled back up at him, and stood.

She was about to shoulder her bag when the Earth started moving under their feet again, the vibrations growing stronger and stronger.

Acting on instinct, Mac grabbed her by the waist and threw both of them to the ground, rolling them under a conveniently-placed desk.

Around them, chunks of ceiling started to fall.


Objectively, Mac estimated that the aftershock had lasted about a minute.

However, it felt like an eternity.

About two seconds after the Earth stilled again, he realized he was probably crushing Beth with his weight, and got up onto his hands and knees, his back brushing up against the desk.

He stared down at her, and she stared up at him, for a long, silent moment, both of them breathing hard, adrenaline still coursing through them.

Yeah, this is probably one of those moments.

You know, the ones from movies or TV shows. Or romance novels.

It didn't crackle with electricity or feel like a raging fire like how the romance novels described, though.

It was warm, but a comfortable, steady warmth that reminded Mac of a campfire. Or a nice fire for marshmallow-toasting in his fire-pit.

It was a pleasant sensation. A very pleasant sensation.

(He had probably reached the point where he had to admit to himself that he liked her. Really liked her.)

(He was reasonably certain that she liked him too, even if sometimes, she confusingly seemed to be trying to keep some distance.)

(Everyone else certainly seemed to think so.)

The moment was broken by Gabriel's voice, calling out to them, muffled by what they now realized was a brand-new wall of rubble between them and the exit.

Or, at least, what had been the exit.

'MacGyver? Dr Taylor?'

Mac turned his head and called back.

'We're okay, Gabriel!' He paused. 'Are you? And can you guys still get out?'

'Yeah, we're all fine. There's a couple of bits of rubble in the way, but it's clear.' His voice grew less clear, quieter, for a moment as he directed a couple of his fellow firefighters to start moving the rescued office workers out. 'The rest of the crew will get 'em out, I'll start clearing the rubble to get to you two-'

Mac had been scanning the rubble divider as best as he could, and shook his head and cut Gabriel off.

'No, don't!' He was pretty sure the pile of rubble was now holding up the ceiling and preventing it from collapsing onto them. 'The ceiling will collapse. Get everyone out of here, and then get a structural engineer and several heavy-duty jacks.'

Gabriel was quiet for a moment, before he responded.

'Alright, on it, MacGyver.' He paused again. 'Be careful, stay safe.'

Mac glanced down at Beth, who was taking slow, steady breaths, looking every bit the calm, unflappable ER doctor, very much in her doctor's headspace, before turning his head again to call out to the firefighter.

'We will.'

He listened to the sounds of Gabriel and the other firefighters evacuating the office workers for a moment, studying the rubble wall at the same time, trying to work out how a gap could be safely opened up in it.

His calculations were interrupted by Beth's voice and her tugging at his sleeve.

'Mac.' He looked down at her, to find that she'd shifted underneath him, closer towards the side further from the rubble wall. There was a look of concentration on her face. 'Did you hear that?'

He hadn't, but he listened carefully as the noises on the other side of the rubble divider faded away.

And there it was.

Shallow, rapid and laboured breathing. And was that a moan of pain?

Mac and Beth exchanged a glance, then both of them moved quickly, getting up from under the table, Mac pulling the flashlight from his belt to light the way and Beth picking up her medical kit.

They made their way quickly towards the source of the laboured breathing, stepping over the rubble and debris all over the floor.

At the very, very back of the space, half-concealed behind a large filing cabinet, they found a man who looked to be in his thirties, with extremely pale, clammy skin, breathing quickly and shallowly. Beth immediately knelt beside him, pulled out her stethoscope and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the beginnings of severe bruising on his torso.

Meanwhile, Mac propped the flashlight up on the filing cabinet with a stapler and a stack of paper so she could see, and began moving furniture to provide them with some protection in case of another aftershock.

Three minutes later, Beth looked up, her expression very grim. Concerned.

'He's got severe hemothorax.'

Mac glanced between the very pale man who was drowning in his own blood and the rubble blocking their way out.

'I'll see if I can work out a way out-'

Beth shook her head and cut him off.

'You said yourself the ceiling will most likely cave in, and he's not going to survive long enough for us to get him out of here.' She pulled a pair of gloves out of her bag, put them on, then took out a vial of local anaesthetic and a syringe. 'Mac, I need a peristaltic pump and an open flame. Can you do it?'

As Beth injected the man with the anaesthetic, Mac glanced around, his brain going to a million miles a minute, coming up with ideas, discarding some instantly, and keeping others around for more evaluation. He got up and seized a clock from someone's desk and started taking it apart as one of the ideas, half-formed, crystallized out of the mess in his mind.

'Coming right up.'


As Mac, wearing gloves that'd been rubbed with antiseptic, put the finishing touches on the peristaltic pump and passed the end of the tube (re-purposed garden hose – fortunately, they were trapped in the offices of a landscaping/garden care company of some kind) through the open flame he'd jury-rigged using a jacked-up pair of lighters and some paperclips, Beth rubbed her gloved hands with more antiseptic, then rubbed antiseptic on the man's chest, in the area of his fifth and sixth ribs. Then, she sprayed antiseptic over her scalpel, passed it through the flame, took a deep breath, and made an incision.


Half an hour later, a very relieved look passed over Beth's face, and she gave a small smile, lifting her stethoscope off the still-unconscious man's chest. Mac looked up from where he was rigging together a homing beacon of sorts, in case Gabriel couldn't locate them again, as she spoke, discarding the gloves she was wearing and tossing them onto a pile where they joined the lightly-bloodied ones that Mac had been wearing and the much bloodier ones that she'd worn while performing the emergency thoracostomy.

'As far as I can tell without a CT scan, the bleeding has stopped; the cauterization was successful. He's stable.'

Mac let out the breath he'd been holding and smiled back at her.

'You were amazing.'

Her cheeks flushed a little at the praise, and she ducked her head slightly.

'That's just what I was trained to do…' She gestured towards the peristaltic pump system, complete with an underwater seal to prevent the drained blood and fluids from flowing back up into the man's chest cavity, that he'd put together from the stuff lying around the office. '…And so were you.'


As James drove his Jeep down the road, around abandoned vehicles, fallen trees and debris (Jack had deferred and let him drive – it was his car, and he was Jack's boss, and it turned out the guy was a far better driver than his son), Jack, leaning back in the passenger's seat, his hands cradling the back of his head, feet up on the dash, glanced over at him and spoke, faux-casually.

'Your boy sees the good in everyone and cares way more than he should. His pain tolerance's also crazy-high.' He paused, glancing over at James, who seemed just as cool and unflappable as he'd been all day. Was as a default, in Jack's experience. 'But you keep hurting him…well, we all know he ain't dumb, and he's gonna realize if he's looking for something that ain't there. He's as human as the rest of us, no matter what it might look like sometimes…so he's gonna break eventually.'

There were many, many things unspoken in there. Accusations.

(Mac would break eventually. And it'd be Jack there to pick up the pieces, not James MacGyver. Not Mac's own father.)

Jack really didn't even know what to think about James.

The man was an asshole.

He was, as Mac had put it, emotionally distant and supremely convinced of his own intellectual superiority.

That had not really changed in the last few months, despite whatever progress (and sometimes, such as after that fishing trip that Mac didn't really talk about, lack of progress) he and his son had made in that time.

But he was still Mac's dad. He only had one.

And clearly, his dad had meant something to him, even after being abandoned by him for years, or Mac wouldn't have spent so long, so much effort, obsessing over finding him.

And clearly, now that he'd found him, now that at least some of his deception (Jack doubted that he'd ever reveal all his secrets, not by a long shot) was out in the open, clearly, he still meant something to Mac.

As terribly as his father had treated him, part of Mac was still that little boy who idolized his dad, and he still wanted to try and rebuild their relationship.

Even if, half the time, Jack was convinced James was working to do the opposite.

Finally, after a long silence, James turned to the other man.

'You don't do subtle, do you, Dalton?'

Jack just grinned at him.

'Middle name's Wyatt, not subtle.'

For a moment, Jack swore that a toned-down but eerily-similar version of Mac's you're-being-ridiculous, Jack look passed across his face, before it was gone and replaced by a much more serious expression.

'Angus is my son.' He paused. 'I've always done what I thought was best for him.'

Jack snorted, rather derisively.

'Yeah, and look where that's got you.' He crossed his arms, taking his feet off the dash and planting them in the footwell, shooting James a look. 'I know you don't wanna hear this, but you ain't always right, Mac-Daddy. In fact, from where I'm standing, you've been wrong when it really mattered.' Jack paused, let that sink in, as James MacGyver pulled the Jeep over half a block from where the looters had been last sighted and put it into park. Still, despite not having to focus on the road, he didn't turn to look at Jack, which made a little thread of rather irrational anger worm its way to the forefront of his brain. Jack pushed it away. 'And he's my partner. My job description is literally to watch his back. Protect him. From whatever or whoever might hurt him. Capische?'

At that, James finally did turn to look at Jack.

'You're threatening your boss?'

Jack waved a hand, with nonchalance that did not fool James in the slightest, especially given the serious tone of his voice.

'Nah, I wouldn't do that. I'm threatening the guy who might hurt my partner.'

Graciously, Jack left off the even more.

James stared at him for a moment, then gave a little nod and opened the car door, stepping out and beginning to examine the local area for any signs of the looters, effectively putting an end to the conversation.

Jack couldn't be sure (and wouldn't be convinced until he saw cold, hard evidence – Mac had been kinda right when he'd dramatically quit on the grounds of not being able to trust the man), but that little nod kinda felt like an understanding. A promise of sorts.


It didn't take very long for the two of them to find the gang of teens, even with the interruption of the aftershock.

After all, they were used to dealing with real, hardened criminals, not wannabes.

Though, that wasn't to say that they weren't bad guys.

After all, Jack thought, only bad guys would steal from others at a time like this.

Still, they were clearly amateurs.

They didn't even notice Jack and James come up behind them as they eagerly tossed the contents of a jewellery store into pillowcases.

With a glance at James, Jack cleared his throat, causing the teenagers to turn around quickly. James spoke.

'Put it back, boys.'

One or two of the boys hesitated, as if considering, but one of them, the one who clearly considered himself the leader, snorted and crossed his arms.

'Or what? Two old guys are gonna make us?'

His words galvanised the rest of the gang, who all broke into laughter as they kept shovelling jewellery into their pillowcases.

Jack and James exchanged a glance.

'Did he call us old, brother?'

'That is what I heard.'

Jack cracked his knuckles, while James reached out for the pillowcase held by the nearest boy.

'Let me put that back.'

The boy snorted.

'You wish, old man!'

He lunged forward, intending to punch him, but James stepped out of the way easily and tugged the boy's arm to cause his momentum to make him fall onto his face.

That made several of the boy's companions make angry noises, and the boys' leader lunged at Jack, who simply stepped out of the way, then punched the guy in the jaw, causing him to drop to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Everyone was still for a moment, and then, the remaining boys looked at each other, then at Jack and James, then, slowly, put their hands up.


It smelled terrible.

In a corner of the HQ tent, Bozer stared down at the baby lying on the table in front of him on a blanket that someone had found for him.

(A couple of bottles, some formula, diapers and wet-wipes, as well as a couple of spare onesies, had somehow been scrounged up for the boy, from goodness-knows-where.)

Baby Doe smiled gummily up at his temporary caretaker, kicked his legs and then started crying, apparently uncomfortable.

Bozer didn't blame him.

The…stuff…in his diaper, if it felt even half as bad as it stunk, would be really, really uncomfortable to have there.

(Apparently, his bowels hadn't liked the aftershock.)

Bozer was not a coward.

He'd proven that, time and time again.

Still, he looked hopefully over at Riley and Jill, who were typing on their laptops ten feet away.

'Are you sure you can't give me a hand?'

'Nope.'

'Sorry, Bozer.'

'We're busy coordinating the relief effort.'

'And looking for Baby Doe's mommy and daddy.' At that moment, Alex walked in and smiled and waved at his girlfriend…who smirked, a little sheepishly and very mischievously. That smirk usually meant he was in trouble. Usually, it was the good kind of trouble. However, given the smell and the baby in Bozer's care…he was pretty sure this wasn't one of those occasions. Jill made eye contact with him, and gestured towards Bozer, then put a hand on her hip. 'But I'm sure Alex can help you out…'

He shook his head, shooting her a teasing look (he'd get her back for this later), and strode over to Bozer, who shrugged helplessly and apologetically at him as they examined Baby Doe.

'It can't be rocket science…'

Alex picked up one of the clean diapers, pulling off the packaging and examining the tabs.

'Rocket science is easy, anyway.'


FIFTEEN MINUTES AND HALF A BOX OF WET-WIPES LATER


Alex and Bozer sank down into chairs on both side of the makeshift change-table, both decidedly smellier, exhausted and having seen things they had never wanted to see.

However, at least Baby Doe was finally into a clean diaper.

The baby boy burbled happily at them…then crinkled his nose as a very unpleasant smell filled the air again.

Alex and Bozer groaned.


Beth glanced around at the cracked walls, the lumps of rubble, the collapsed columns. She shifted uncomfortably, then turned her attention to staring at the drainage system attached to her patient, then to watching the rise and fall of his chest, reaching out absent-mindedly to check his pulse.

There was more of that deeply-seated, primal fear in her eyes from when they'd been stuck in the elevator earlier, Mac noted.

He also noted that despite that, this time, it seemed to be held more in check. He was completely certain that the unconscious hemothorax patient in her care was the reason for that.

Every single person at the Phoenix is dedicated to our jobs. Very, very dedicated.

And we're all capable of putting our own fears aside and stepping up when we need to.

Case in point – we have a germophobic, paranoid biological and chemical weapons expert.

Voice gentle, he spoke, as she pulled back from checking her patient's pulse, gesturing around them.

'Brings back bad memories? Or the stuff of nightmares?'

Somewhere between their experience in the elevator and now, the why she disliked being stuck in small spaces had clicked into place, even if it hadn't been consciously realized until he spoke.

Beth swallowed, staring at the wall, into the distance. Into the past, into her memories, before speaking, voice small, sad.

'The thing about double-taps is that they're not clear or predictable. There's no set amount of time to wait or some kind of protocol or…well, sometimes they wait for hours…or they wait until the first responders or the mourners or the neighbours show up.' She swallowed. 'Sometimes, we couldn't wait to help.' Seemingly without thinking about it, she brought her knees up, wrapped her arms around her legs, which made her look very, very young. 'There was a family living in a single room of what used to be a very expensive house. A compound, really. Mom, dad, three kids, grandma.' She swallowed again, still lost in the past. 'Grandma and two of the kids had died in the first strike. By the time I got there, I couldn't do anything for Dad and the third child…but the shock had caused the mother to go into labour at 7 ½ months.' She hadn't been able to move the woman far; between her grief and the contractions, she couldn't really walk, and she'd been taller and heavier than Beth. The best she'd been able to do at the time was shift them into the sturdiest-looking corner of the room and move what little furniture there was to hopefully (probably overly-optimistically) shield them. '…Fifteen minutes later, the second strike hit.' She raised a hand, touching her forehead, near her hairline, unconsciously. Mac understood the gesture; there was no physical scar, as far as he could tell, but that didn't mean there were no scars. Then, she seemed to snap out of it, looking apologetic, a little uncomfortable, even, perhaps, a touch ashamed. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…it's not appropriate, I'm not meant to...'

She trailed off awkwardly.

The pieces all clicked into place in Mac's mind at that instant.

Why she seemed to be trying to keep some kind of distance (not particularly well at all, which he supposed was probably because she was warm and kind and friendly by nature, and because she was human – the lives they lived were so isolating in so many ways, they either grew close to one another, became friends, even family, or they had to choose to be alone, and he didn't think she could manage to choose to be alone) finally crystallized in his mind, clear and fully formed and finally making sense.

(He'd thought she was shy, didn't want to impose, things he completely understood, having also grown up a child genius who'd skipped two grades and won too many science fairs by the time he turned sixteen.)

(He'd gone out of his way to try and communicate to her that that was absolutely not the case.)

(Now, he didn't think it was that. At least, not just that.)

He looked up at her, sought out her eyes.

'We're trapped under a building four days before Christmas and it's 11 pm, Beth…' He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, as he attempted to marshal his thoughts into something that made more sense. 'We live pretty unique, high-stress, dangerous and isolating lives. Special lives.' He paused, watching her face as she nodded in agreement with him, looking a little lost in thought, like she already knew where he was going. 'I know you swore an Oath, and I know that's really important to you. But…the circumstances that you swore it under, swore it assuming? They don't apply. So…'

He trailed off, letting her make that last conclusion.

He really, really didn't want her to be lonely. Loneliness was horrifically painful. He'd been lucky to not have felt it much in his life, but there'd been a couple of years, after his mom, before Bozer, when he'd felt it acutely.

She was silent for a moment, thinking about it, before, at last, she gave a little nod, then a bigger, more certain one, looking up at him, into his eyes.

'You're…you're very right.' She gave a wry little smile. 'As you pretty much always are.' Her expression grew softer, more serious again. 'I…I think I knew all of that, but it's just a lot harder to actually execute it…and it really does help to hear it from someone else.' She had years of training, of some kind of mental conditioning, to re-work. A new culture to grow used to. A new life to learn to live, in some ways. 'Thanks, Mac.'

He smiled back at her.

'You're welcome.' Then, he paused for a moment, before speaking, voice gentle, soft, a touch hesitant. 'Did…did the mom and baby live?'

She nodded, the smile on her face growing softer, and sadder, more wistful, at the same time.

'Yes. It was a girl.'

'Is there a little girl in Syria named Bethany now?'

She shot him a look, and Mac gave a sheepish little shrug.

A couple once tried to name their poor son after me. I talked them out of it, thankfully.

'They're in Jordan now, as far as I know. And her name is Malaika.'

Mac scrunched up his face a little in thought.

(His Arabic was decent, but mostly limited to the vocabulary that an EOD tech or a secret agent would have cause to know.)

'Plural form of Malak, angel?'

She nodded, reaching out nearly-automatically to check her patient's pulse again. It remained steady, and Mac's simultaneous quick inspection of the makeshift chest drainage system showed that it was still working as it should. Then, when they'd finished their respective tasks, there was silence for a moment, before Beth spoke, hugging her knees to her chest again, voice soft.

'People think I was crazy for going over.'

She didn't, however, sound like she regretted it. Not one bit.

And though she be but little, she is fierce.

And strong.

Much stronger than she looks.

'People thought I was crazy for dropping out of MIT.'

Beth stared at him for a moment, as if he'd said that the moon was made of cheese and he could prove it. She blinked twice, then spoke, still rather disbelieving.

'You dropped out?'

(His Army medical records, which she had access to, started when he was eighteen. He knew she knew that he'd finished high school at sixteen; it'd come up in conversation once or twice and she had an excellent memory. Then again, she probably didn't think that finishing college in two years was insane, even at MIT, with summer courses and winter intensives and the possibility of doing college classes in high school. She'd done pre-med in three, but after a couple of college-reminiscing sessions in the lab with Jill and Bozer and Riley or around the fire-pit, he was pretty sure class timetabling and the admittedly sensible advice that being an 18-year-old medical student was not a good idea were responsible for her not finishing earlier.)

'Yup.'

She tilted her head to the left a little.

'Why?' She looked sheepish, cheeks pinking a little. 'Sorry, you don't have to, I mean, it's very personal…'

He shot her a pointed look, which made her smile sheepishly for a different reason.

'I got a call from my grandfather; we wound up talking about an old Army buddy of his, and…it made me realize that while I was sitting at MIT solving theoretical problems, soldiers out there were facing real problems, ones that I could solve…'


James and Jack, after delivering the looting teens to the police and making their statements, strode back into the HQ tent, to find Matty pacing and talking into her phone.

'…Thank you very much, I'm sure the people of LA will be extremely grateful and make it known at the next election…'

Matty's words were perfectly polite and diplomatic…but her tone matched that terrifying little smile-smirk of hers.

The one that spelled trouble for Jack.

The one that told James he was in for a long, long argument and the potential (extremely clever and devious) disobedience of his orders afterwards anyway.

(In short, trouble.)

The two men exchanged a glance with a surprisingly large amount of solidarity in it.

Matty hung up and turned to the two of them.

'Good, you're back. Mac and Beth are stuck under a collapsed building.'

Matty the Hun did not mince words.

Jack groaned, throwing his hands up dramatically and throwing his head back just as dramatically.

'I can't leave you unsupervised, can I, brother? Why me?'

James glanced over at him, dry humour, even amusement, clear on his face, in his voice, much to Jack's surprise (and Matty's, even – she was well aware that James had a sense of humour, she simply hadn't seen much of it, even with all the years they'd known each other).

'If you think that's bad, you should see what he did to my tool shed when he was eight, after I left him alone for half an hour.'


'…No, no, don't chew on that, it's not tasty, it's yucky, buttons are yucky!' An exhausted Bozer (it was well past midnight, and he was pretty much alone on baby duty – Alex had run off to fix a broken-down ambulance) did his best to untangle Baby Doe's fingers from his shirt buttons. The kid seemed determined to eat the purple bits of plastic. His attempts ended in failure, so he just lifted the baby up, putting his head over his shoulder…which made the boy tangle his fingers into Bozer's hair instead. 'Oh, no…don't eat that either, it's not gonna taste good…'

Jill and Riley, the former coordinating search and rescue, the latter still searching for Baby Doe's parents (so far, she'd worked out that his mom had been with him at the café, and had a photo of her, but it seemed that the quake had knocked her unconscious – she'd assumedly been taken to hospital when the café had been evacuated, but Riley hadn't managed to determine which hospital yet), glanced at one another, Jill suppressing giggles, Riley laughter.


'One, two, three…lift!'

Mac and Gabriel lifted the still-unconscious man, who was thankfully still breathing steadily and normally, onto a stretcher, while a second firefighter lifted up Mac's improvised chest drainage device and Beth supervised.

They carried the stretcher and the makeshift medical equipment over to the man-sized gap that'd been cleared in the rubble wall. Mac passed the stretcher through to Jack and a couple of policemen, before the fireman carrying the peristaltic pump and tubing passed that device, with strict instructions, over to another firefighter, before stepping through the hole himself, followed by Gabriel, Beth and Mac.


Mac stepped down from the slightly-raised ledge that led out and down to the street, taking a deep breath of fresh air. Gabriel and Jack were already loading the injured man into an ambulance, still attached to the clock-and-garden-hose-based improvised chest drainage device.

He smiled, and held out a hand to help Beth down off the ledge (she was a little too short to step down easily like he and the others had done), which made her shake her head with fond exasperation.

Still, she took his hand and jumped down, and the two of them stood there for a moment, savouring being out in the open, in fresh air and (relative) light (generator-powered floodlights were everywhere, making it unnaturally bright, even though it was the middle of the night).

That moment of quiet, of comfort, of respite, was broken by voices calling out, coming from opposite directions.

'Fire! We've got a fire!'

'…He's alive! We need a doctor!'

With the briefest of glances at each other, Mac ran left and Beth ran right.

They say there's no rest for the wicked.

There's no rest for the good, either. Not on a night like this.


HUNTINGTON HOSPITAL

PASADENA


Riley, Jill and Bozer stood just outside a glass-walled hospital room, watching unobtrusively as a man of about thirty cradled his son (no longer Baby Doe, but Martin Wells) in his arms, sitting on the very edge of his wife's hospital bed.

Mrs Wells' head was heavily bandaged and she looked very weak and pale in her hospital bed, but they were assured that she'd recover.

They all gave a little chuckle, Bozer's far more wry, as little Martin reached up and attempted to steal his dad's glasses.

'I'm really gonna miss the little guy.'

Jill looked rather sceptically at him. Bozer looked more tired than she'd ever seen him (which was saying a lot), and still smelled a bit like a combination of baby poo and vomit.

But Riley, despite giving a snort and shaking her head with exasperated affection, reached out and put her arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a side-hug for a moment.

'You did a good job with him.'


MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE

CHRISTMAS DAY

(AT LONG LAST)


Chuckling, Mac pocketed his phone and walked out of his front door, partly down his driveway to where Beth had parked her car.

Apparently, she didn't have enough hands to carry everything she'd brought over…which, he realized when he got there, was two large bags of presents (despite the fact that he hadn't invited her to Christmas until after he'd put out that fire on the night of the earthquake, a massive oversight on his part; he'd been waiting until the infirmary schedule was released to see if she was going to her parents' place in West Lafayette for Christmas and really should have just asked, and the day it was released, there was the whole potential diplomatic disaster in Mongolia he'd had to go avert – he suspected that with her rather obsessive tendency to be prepared, she probably purchased an assortment of 'last minute Christmas gifts' every year, probably in October) and a very big box that smelled strongly of gingerbread.

She was also wearing a green-and-white striped shirt, a skirt with a pattern of candy canes and holly printed on it, reindeer antlers and a broad smile and looked adorable.

He took the two bags of presents as she picked up the gingerbread box, and as they walked towards the house, he grinned over at her.

'I like the antlers.'

'Thanks!' She gave mock-pout. 'It's too warm in LA to wear my oh chemistree, oh chemistree ugly Christmas sweater.'

He laughed.

'That's something I want to see.'

'I'll see if I can dig up a photo for you…' They stepped into the house and she caught sight of the slivery tinsel, which didn't look quite like ordinary tinsel, decorating the walls. She stared at it for just a beat, before she realized why that was the case, and gave a little chuckle, then smiled up at Mac as they headed towards the Christmas tree to deposit her presents. 'I like your aluminium-foil tinsel.'


Fifteen minutes later, Mac, Jack, Matty and Beth were sitting around the fire-pit, all sipping egg-nog, made according to Bozer's top-secret recipe.

'…So I walk into the living room, and guess who'd committed a little B&E?'

Jack gestured towards Mac, who rolled his eyes.

'You'd given me a key six months beforehand. I used that key! Ergo, not B&E!'

As Mac and Jack kept bickering and Matty sat there, sipping her egg-nog with a bit of amusement and much fond exasperation in her eyes, like a very tolerant and very long-suffering mother, Beth suddenly spoke.

'You really don't believe in professional distance, do you?' Immediately after speaking, her cheeks flushed and she raised a hand to her mouth. 'I'm so sorry, I really did not mean to say that out-loud…'

The three more hardened Phoenix employees glanced at each other for a moment, before Mac spoke for them all.

'If we did, we'd be really lonely and suffer from a myriad of associated health concerns.'

Matty continued, seeking out Beth's eyes, her expression probably the softest, most caring, that the younger woman had ever seen directed at her from her boss.

'We work better with people we care about.'

Jack reached out, put a hand on her shoulder.

'And love happens, kiddo. Family happens.'

Beth looked them all in the eyes for a moment, before returning to sipping her egg-nog.

Mac noted that she seemed lost in thought…but also, somehow, steadier, more certain, than she'd been after their conversation under that building a couple of days ago.

That made him smile into his egg-nog.


'Oh, look, mistletoe.'

Jack looked up at the ceiling, to where Diane was pointing.

Sure enough, there was a sprig of mistletoe above them, connected to a mini-drone that Mac had put together, after being persuaded (read: annoyed and nagged) by Penny, Bozer and Riley.

It was supposed to fly around randomly, but Jack was certain that it didn't.

(It seemed to be following him and Diane around, which certainly explained Riley's rather out-of-character enthusiasm for the mistletoe-drone in the first place.)

He shook his head, but grinned and leaned closer to his girlfriend anyway.

'Well, you know how I feel 'bout traditions…'

He leaned forward a little bit more, and she met him in the middle and he kissed her.


In the kitchen, Penny put the finishing touches on an extremely ornate gingerbread house, while next to her, Matty stirred her special Christmas punch. On the other side of the kitchen, Bozer carefully arranged slices of kiwifruit on a meringue topped with whipped cream.

(It was a dessert called a pavlova that was apparently an Australian Christmas classic.)

(Cage had sent the recipe for the pavlova – which she'd called a 'pav' – along with a Christmas card.)

His phone beeped and he frantically rushed out onto the deck to check on his pastrami, which was being cooked in Mac's modified grill.

(Riley was supervising it to make sure it didn't catch fire, but Bozer had declared that despite her improving cooking skills and 'general awesomeness', she wasn't ready for pastrami-cooking duties yet.)

(She didn't mind being stuck on the deck; it gave her a chance to play with the snow made by Mac's snowmaker and send funny pictures of it to Billy.)


In the living room, Mac set out his presents under the tree. He'd just put down the last one (a set of custom controllers for Riley's PS4), when the doorbell rang.

He got up and opened the door, to find his dad standing on the other side, looking a touch awkward and with a bag of presents in hand.

'Merry Christmas, Angus.'

Mac smiled and stepped aside to let him in, gesturing towards the Christmas tree.

'Merry Christmas, Dad.'

James MacGyver smiled back at his son, in that soft way that Mac had missed so much for so many years, and wordlessly made his way over to the tree and unpacked his bag of simply but precisely wrapped (in brown butcher paper with red and green twine) presents, putting the presents under the tree.

All except the very last one, which he handed directly to Mac.

It was rectangular, hard and heavy.

Mac looked up and gave a wry smile.

'It's not a college-level book on how to build my own computer, is it?'

His dad gave a snort that was almost a laugh.

'You enjoyed building that and it gave you a far better understanding of how a computer works than taking apart the one that Harry bought you. But no.' He gestured to the parcel in Mac's hands. 'Open it and see.'

Mac pulled out his Swiss Army knife and cut the twine, then pulled off the sticky tape, then removed the paper to reveal two books, the covers faded and a little worn.

The first book was a very old, leather-bound volume comparing Newtonian and Non-Newtonian physics which looked familiar to him, even though he couldn't quite place it.

On autopilot (or perhaps driven by some old, mostly-faded memory), Mac opened the front cover, to find a short note in his dad's handwriting.

For Ellen. Love, James.

He looked up at his dad, saw that wistfulness and sadness and deep love and deeper regret that happy memories of his mother brought up in him in his eyes.

The two MacGyvers shared that moment for a beat, before Mac turned to the second book.

It was thinner, hardcover, but not leather-bound. There was a picture of a yellow-brick road and an impressive emerald city on it.

The Wizard of Oz. An old edition, too.

Carefully, Mac opened the front cover, to find another inscription in his father's writing inside.

For my Good Witch. With love, your Tinman.

Mac looked up at his father, seeing that same wistfulness and sadness and love and regret, along with something else he couldn't quite place.

He offered no explanation for the inscription that Mac didn't really understand, and he knew he'd get none, but Mac knew nonetheless from that look on his dad's face that this book had meant a lot.

Maybe meant everything.

He smiled at his dad, then got up and walked over to his bedroom, carefully placing the books on one of his bookshelves.

(These felt personal, like they should be just between the two of them, for now.)

'Thanks, Dad.'

James smiled back at him, then looked out onto the deck, where everyone else had gathered, sipping egg-nog or Matty's punch that really packed a punch or eating snacks lovingly prepared by Bozer.

'You've built yourself a good family, Angus.'

Mac's smile widened.

'I know.'


Bozer took a bite of one of the Jack gingerbread cookies that Beth had made, taking off its left arm, and Jack flailed, staring at his own left arm as if it'd disappeared.

'Noooooo!' He glared at Bozer and picked up a Bozer cookie, biting off its right leg, leading to Bozer dramatically freaking out.

Riley, Penny, Matty and Diane exchanged a very long-suffering, yet also very amused and fond glance across the fire, before Riley shrugged, smirked mischievously and picked up a Jack gingerbread cookie, raised it, making sure to make eye contact with the older man…and bit off the head.

Meanwhile, Beth studied the Riley cookie she was holding.

'In hindsight, I really should have considered the implications, and allusions to voodoo, more…'

Mac, sitting next to her, picked up one of the Mac gingerbread cookies and shrugged.

'Hindsight is 20/20.' He studied the cookie. It looked rather unnervingly like him, even if he said so himself, down to sporting a brown leather jacket and with just the suggestion of a bright-red Swiss Army knife sticking out of his olive-green chinos. 'And you did a really good job.'

With another shrug (voodoo wasn't real, after all), he took a big bite.


There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and carolling out in the snow.

There'll be scary ghost stories, and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

There'll be much mistltoeing, and hearts will be glowing when loved ones are near.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!


AN: And that's all, folks! Rest assured, they had a very, very Merry Christmas!

This might just be my favourite episode so far! I had a lot of fun writing this, and it was actually one of the very first episodes planned (D.I. Why? was the first one planned, followed by a couple of the later eps, then this one.). Mac and Beth being stuck in the elevator is a reference to the famous Tiva scene from NCIS, while Bozer looking after a baby is reference to Flashlight – hopefully, you guys don't mind that I used an earthquake again! I hope you guys think that Jack and James' interactions were in-character, as well as that scene with Mac and his dad at the end. The Wizard of Oz book and the inscription in it is a reference to a headcanon of mine regarding James and Ellen (which someday, I hope to turn into a story) which largely comes from the idea of the Tin-Man not having a heart but being capable of love, even if he doesn't think so, and my headcanon that Ellen had the 'magical' ability to bring out the better man in James. The lyrics at the start (and the song that Jack is singing) is I'll be Home for Christmas, and the one at the end is It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

There is an episode tag for Detours for this ep, which I will post on Tuesday or Wednesday. Here's the summary:

Houdini, tag to 3.11, Aluminium Foil to Tinsel. Ever since a certain mission in an Azerbaijani casino, the Phoenix's elevator doors have been rated to withstand a small nuclear blast. Naturally, Mac just has to work out how to escape a Phoenix elevator, and enlists Beth to help out.

And here's the press release for the next episode:

3.12, Crayons to Candle. The Phoenix finally gets a lead on Murdoc…and Cassian. Mac faces a no-win scenario, Cassian faces a truth no eight-year-old should have to face, and Murdoc forces the team to face the fact that one of their own is hiding something.

Yup…the drama begins! Who is hiding something? And why? *cackles evilly and runs away*