The next morning, when Jack recovered his senses, after experiencing what had to be one of the weirdest things in his life (which was saying something, considering how many years he'd known Mac and how much time he spent with the Engineer), Diane was just stepping out of her bedroom, yawning and holding a mug of water in her hand.
When she saw him in the exact spot the dog she'd befriended and adopted (or, more accurately, had befriended and adopted her) over the last week had been when she went to sleep, her eyes widened, and she dropped the mug.
It shattered on the floor, and seemed to shake her out of her shock.
'What-? How-? Jack Dalton?'
There was a lot in her voice. Shock, surprise. A little embarrassment. A thread of anger. Definitely hurt. And something else that Jack couldn't quite pin down.
He held up his hands in a gesture that was hopefully placating, and gave a little grin, though his eyes were serious, even sorry. And a little angry with himself, a touch regretful, even wistful, perhaps.
'It's a long story, Diane.'
He suppressed the rather shameful urge he had to just get up and run, walk out the door, just like he had years ago.
He'd messed it up so badly last time, and it'd taken longer than he wanted to admit for those wounds to heal over. The scars still ached a little from time to time, and had much more and more frequently, he admitted, ever since that night of dreams-that-were-memories in The Cage Witch's cottage.
Diane pinned him with her stare, second only to Matty in terms of sheer scariness.
'I think you owe me this long story, Jack Dalton.'
He swallowed, and nodded, then started to speak.
'Me, the Engineer Angus MacGyver - great kid, big brain, bigger heart, no sense of self-preservation and probably weirdest guy you'll ever meet – and his best friend from when they were in short pants, Wilt Bozer – how he wound up with us is actually a really long story, and it ain't really relevant – got sent on a quest to stop the big-bad, that evil wizard Murdoc…'
'…and she said if I spent seven nights on your hearth, I'd be good ol' me again.' Jack shrugged and drained his cup of coffee. 'You know the rest of the tale.'
He looked over at the woman sitting on the opposite side of the small table, a little hesitantly and finding himself far more worried about her reaction than he should be. Diane eyed him for a moment, her gaze seemingly going straight through him and to his soul, before she drained her coffee cup too, and set it down.
'I need something stronger.'
Never mind that it was just after sunrise.
A dog had changed into a man on her hearth.
And the man happened to be the one who'd courted her years ago, had been the best man she'd ever had in her life by a country mile, had been the closest thing her daughter had ever had to a father, and who'd walked out on them, walked out of their lives, after defending them from her bastard of an ex-husband.
And even after he'd left them, even after all these years, she now realized that Jack Dalton still had a little place in her heart.
Jack nodded in strong agreement, and pointed at her.
'Best idea I've heard all day.' He gestured at the door. 'I'll get the first round.'
In the mid-morning lull between breakfast and lunch, Riley opened her mother's front door and walked inside.
(Her mother's neighbour's son – a boy of nine – had showed up at her tavern, with a message from her mother and a request to come to her home as soon as possible.)
She stopped just inside and stared at the tableau in front of her.
Her mother was sitting at the table and nibbling on a slice of apple, the rest of the apple on a plate with a knife in front of her.
That was not unusual or strange, and far from something that could make Riley stop and stare.
The thing that was making her stop and stare was the man sitting in the other chair at the table, a half-eaten apple in his hand, chewing with his mouth slightly open in a way that had disgusted and annoyed her and still did.
Riley had not seen Jack Dalton since that fateful night years ago at their old house in the capital.
Diane took one look at her daughter, and something gentle and affectionate and a little sad crossed her face, before she got up and walked over to Riley as Jack waved with a sheepish grin.
'It turns out that the dog I took in wasn't really a dog.'
Riley was utterly lost for words.
'Mom…'
Her mother just got that gentle, affectionate, slightly sad look again, and reached out and took Riley's hand and squeezed gently. Jack respectfully looked away, taking another loud bite of his apple and humming to himself as he ate.
Riley chanced a glance at him, then looked back at her mother, who shrugged. Riley read shock and anger and hurt in her mother's eyes, but also something softer, either hope or wistfulness; which one it was, Riley couldn't decide.
(She doubted her mother could either.)
Jack's apparently magical return had stirred up a hornet's nest of emotions in her, too.
Anger, deeper and stronger than her mother's. Hurt, which might well go deeper than Diane's too.
And anger at herself, too.
Anger that his return and that grin and stupid chewing had stirred up some kind of tug of affection. Anger that those wounds still ached a little, even after all these years and all her efforts to stitch them closed.
Anger that when she'd seen him sitting there, part of her had just wanted to throw her arms around him, bury her head in his chest and be hugged back like a little girl. Like a daughter.
Riley glanced once more at Jack, who had gotten down to the core of his apple and was really obviously watching the mother and daughter and pretending not to, before glancing back at her mother, looking into her eyes, which were full of understanding and acceptance.
'I…I have to get back to the tavern, help prep for lunch rush…'
Diane just nodded, and leaned forward to kiss her daughter's forehead.
'I'll see you later, baby girl.'
Riley gave a little smile at her mom, and hurried off.
At the table, Jack drooped noticeably.
After a long shift and an emotionally exhausting day, Riley trudged home, and as she always did, came across the silly Black Labrador.
Today, he'd acquired a bright purple ball, slightly battered, from somewhere, and was sitting there in her path with it in his mouth, looking hopefully at her, a doggy grin on his face.
Despite her terrible day, Riley found herself holding her hand out for the ball anyway, shaking her head in a way that was long-suffering and fond.
'You'll just annoy me all the way home if I don't, won't you, boy?'
When they reached her door, Riley was feeling much better.
She was still not convinced that there wasn't something a little off with this dog's brain, but he had a really good heart in there.
She paused at the door, and called out to him from where he was waiting at the gate to her very tiny front yard, muttering to herself.
'You can't possibly be cursed too…' Aside from Jack, there were rumours going around about Lady Bethany's champion, the lean Golden Retriever that had escorted her around town every day for a week, then disappeared. Some said that he'd died heroically defending her from bandits on the edge of town, or, more often, from Ralph Kastrati and his friends. Some said that the dog was actually the Engineer MacGyver (who was very blonde and leanly built and accompanied the Lady about town, escorting her to and from work daily, ever since the dog had disappeared) under a curse. 'Come in, boy. You can stay with me.'
Riley tossed the ball in her hands into her home (she'd tried to give it back, but the dog had put it back in her hand and grinned, like he intended it to be a gift).
With another doggy grin, the Labrador bounded inside.
As Mac worked on a modified boiler for the Houses of Healing in Michael's workshop, he heard footsteps (they were already very familiar, not that he was going to admit that out-loud), and looked up to find Beth standing in the doorway, wearing a simple green gown (she had the day off) and framed by the rising sun, her braid hanging over one shoulder.
(It was a very nice image to start one's day with.)
Mac smiled, suddenly very aware of the grease stains on his hands and the streak he could feel on his cheek and the fact that he was wearing what had to be a really uncoordinated outfit.
(He'd grabbed the first shirt and pair of trousers he could find and literally gotten dressed in the dark.)
(He'd been hit by an idea at 5:30 in the morning and had just had to make a start on it.)
He'd just raised a hand (still holding a wrench) and was about to wish her good morning, when his stomach growled.
Loudly.
Twice.
Beth put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at him.
'You haven't eaten anything yet, have you, Mac?'
He gave a sheepish little grin. His stomach then chose that moment to growl again, even louder.
Beth's eyes narrowed further, and she strode into the workshop and jabbed at the air in front of his chest.
'You know that's not good for you!' She held her hand out, with something fierce and determined in her eyes and the tilt of her chin. A very loud and insistent voice in his head told him to do what she told him to do. Obediently, Mac handed the wrench over, and Beth set it down on a workbench. 'We're getting you some food, now.'
And that was how Mac wound up sitting in a tavern close to the castle at 6:30 in the morning in a grease-stained shirt, sharing a platter of breakfast foods with the future Lady Lafayette.
It was also, unbeknownst to them, the start of the rumour that they were getting married.
(Or, at least the first one.)
(The tavern-keepers' daughter, a sweet girl of six with a two blonde pigtails, had asked her mother whether Lady Beth – much beloved by the ordinary citizens of Lafayette, and especially the children of Lafayette Town – was getting married to the really nice Engineer Mac, who, her friends who lived at the orphanage said, had fixed the leaky ceiling and the plumbing problems and done something to the stove which meant they didn't have to wait so long for breakfast every morning anymore.)
(She hadn't been very subtle, being six, but Mac and Beth, engrossed in a conversation that had started with their plans for the boilers and somehow digressed to Mac's fifteenth attempt to build a self-pulling plough at the age of fourteen, did not notice.)
(Neither facts escaped the notice of several other tavern patrons, mostly castle employees or carpenters and masons and a couple of blacksmiths newly hired to extend the Houses of Healing and expected for their first briefing in two hours. Nor did they escape the girl's mother, who just smiled at her daughter, something knowing in her eyes.)
(The girl had taken that as a yes, and told all of her friends.)
The morning after his seventh night, Bozer shook himself a little as that extremely weird sensation passed, got up and dusted himself off, straightening his shirt collar, before grinning at Riley, who was just sitting up in bed.
'Good morning, my lady!'
Her eyes widened and she appeared much more awake very quickly. She blinked twice, as if to make sure she wasn't seeing things, as Bozer kept grinning at her in his most charming, slightly arrogant way (because that's what the ladies liked, apparently), then swore. Loudly. Repeatedly.
'…another one? Seriously?'
Bozer's expression turned sympathetic. Riley had had quite a shock to her system.
'How about I make you breakfast, honeybun?'
Her eyes turned stormy, and she got up and pointed at the door.
'Get out!'
Five minutes later, Bozer was standing outside the firmly closed and locked front door, pleading.
'Please, Riley, I can explain-'
She was muttering to herself and he could hear the sound of pacing.
'…this is ridiculous and improbable and how is this my life?'
He knocked again.
'Go away!'
Bozer sighed.
Well, that was a really clear statement of intent. She clearly didn't want him to stay.
Thus, he trudged off to go find Mac and tell him the 'good' news.
Even if it didn't seem quite so good anymore.
AN: And the plot thickens and moves along! I hope you don't think Riley is reacting unreasonably – I think it's pretty reasonable to react to a guy whom you've never met suddenly appearing on your hearth when you thought he was a dog, after having had the shock she had with Jack! We'll get a better look into her head in the next chapter.
Teaser for next chapter: 'He's my father.'
So, I just watched the promo for the next episode, and I have a fan theory that could either be reasonably expected (but frankly, in my honest opinion, disappointing if not well-handled), or absolutely nuts (and potentially give us some really good character development…as well as a lot of drama). Now, although I don't think the promo is all that shippy at all (it's more…Desi is a badass and intimidates everyone else, and she has same-but-different priorities to Jack), if you watch it through 'shippy' goggles, I think you could read it as her being a love interest for Mac (which I'm not so sure how to feel about – on one hand, the poor fellow deserves all the happiness, especially after Nasha, on the other hand, I'm not happy about replacing a bromance with a romance and am not so fond of the love/hate dynamic)…or some kind of potential for Desi/James MacGyver? (Yes, I'm basing that solely off the fact that she could possibly be better acquainted with James than they all think and the fact that they meet her under 'surprising' circumstances – which might just be Mac getting out of the shower, which is frankly not very interesting.) Tell me I'm mad? (To be honest, I think the second one has a lot more potential for development and interest – James is a bit of an ass, but something that would humanize him and give him more dimension as a character – and show he's moving on from Ellen and her death/is dealing properly with his grief – I think would really add to his character more than having a girlfriend would add to Mac's. Also, Mac trying to deal with having a 'stepmum' would be interesting and give rise to lots of the funny/silly/absurd scenarios that the show has such fun with.)
