AN: Warning on this ep – Murdoc is a truly horrible human being. My Murdoc, due to the events of 3.12, Crayons to Candle, is probably even more horrible than canon!Murdoc. Thus, this is a bit of a darker ep than usual – warnings for more violence/threats of violence than usual, torture and threats of torture (predominantly psychological) and implied, hypothetical, non-explicit sexual assault/rape (which does not happen). But, I promise, at the end of the day, this is a MacGyver fic, and it's my MacGyver fic too; there's silliness, humour, absurdity, a bit of fluff, light-in-the-darkness and the good guys ultimately win, of course!
Thoughts on 3.09, Specimen 234 + PAPR + Outbreak, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.
LOCAL ZOO
DETROIT
'…Oh, no, man, you don't wanna do that, trust me, it ain't gonna be tasty…'
Jack, Mac and Riley could only watch helplessly as the lion (with a tranquillizer dart sticking out of its hindquarters, thanks to Jack) approached the USB stick (with the files that they really, really needed on it) nailed to a large, juicy steak.
(It was a really, really, really long story. These bad guys were creative, they'd give them that.)
The lion scarfed down the steak, USB stick and all.
(Jack couldn't really blame the animal. It looked like a damn good steak, even if he preferred his with a bit more of a char. Just a bit.)
(Not like Mac, who ate his steak medium-rare like an uncultured savage.)
(The irony was lost on Jack.)
Then, the beast fell unconscious, as the tranquilizer finally took effect. All three Phoenix agents groaned, and Jack turned to his partner.
'Okay, brother, what's your big plan to get that drive out of him?'
Mac sighed, a very wry, sardonic little smile appearing on his face after a moment.
'You're not going to like it.' He paused. 'It involves laxatives. Lots and lots of laxatives.'
Riley made a face, as did Jack.
'…Yeah, I don't like it.'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…You cannot be serious, bro! There is no way that there are forty-seven legal uses for body bags, bleach, a shovel, disposable gloves, an area rug and a car with a large boot!'
Mac gave a smirk that was half-smug and half-sheepish.
'Well, the forty-seven uses are not illegal, but I'm not sure how legal twenty-three of them would be…'
Jill and Riley exchanged a glance as Bozer spluttered and started going on about the last time Mac had said that.
(They weren't sure if that was actually the last time Mac had said that, but it had ended with Mission City High's football stadium destroyed and Mac and Bozer nearly getting expelled and almost getting arrested.)
The four of them were in the lab, doing nothing in particular as they tinkered with various think-tank-y projects.
They were keeping Mac busy, because it'd become abundantly clear since Murdoc's escape and The Ghost Incident of a week and a half ago that he could not be allowed to get lost down the rabbit hole in his mind right now.
(Beth had been helping, of course, but this was her day off, and she was doing some much-needed grocery shopping, according to the most recent chain of texts she'd exchanged with Mac.)
As Riley reminded Bozer to breathe, the lab doors swooshed open and Matty entered.
Her expression was grave.
Even worried.
The Pandora's Box in Mac's brain started rattling and jumping, as the dark, scary thoughts inside fought hard (or rather, harder than usual) to escape.
'…Six minutes ago, Beth set off her distress signal here…'
Matty pointed at the screen, which showed a map of the area around the closest supermarket to Beth's apartment.
Bozer, Riley, Jack and Jill exchanged a glance. Mac, meanwhile, kept re-shaping paperclips.
All Phoenix employees carried a distress-signal-emitting device built into their car key fob for day-to-day life. They were rarely used (their covers were pretty solid), but they were considered necessary.
Matty continued, a clear note of worry in her voice.
(At least, clear for Matty the Hun, anyway.)
'…and we can't reach her.' Mac tossed the paperclips (oddly, shaped like a box or chest and an Ancient-Greek-style jar) onto the coffee table and made for the door. Matty crossed her arms. 'Where are you going, Blondie?'
Mac turned back, something set and determined, but also full of anger and worry and guilt and fear in his eyes (that same expression he'd had last week, when the Penas had been put in danger by The Ghost).
'It's him.' He gestured to the other inhabitants of the room. 'We all know it's him.' He pointed at the screen. 'So I am going to-'
Matty put her hands on her hips.
'No, you are not, Mac.' He looked belligerent, and her expression and posture softened a little. 'Gonzales is only a couple of minutes away; he lives nearby.' The Phoenix tac-team leader was rostered off that day too. 'And if it is Murdoc, you know we won't find anything at the scene. He's going to contact you when he's ready.'
Reluctantly, Mac removed his hand from the door handle.
Matty was right.
That didn't mean he had to like it.
He started pacing around the war room.
Wordlessly, Jill picked up the paperclip bowl and passed it to Riley, who passed it to Bozer, who passed it to Jack, who reached out and put a hand on Mac's shoulder and squeezed gently, before offering him some paperclips.
As those thoughts from his Pandora's box swirled around his mind (all the attempts by Jack, Bozer, Riley, Jill and even Matty to distract him from them had failed, though he was grateful for the effort), Mac's phone chimed, and simultaneously terrified (for obvious reasons) and relieved (because he could do something, now) he opened the text from the unknown number.
It's a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know…
He pressed a couple of buttons, sending the text onto the big screen. Everyone else stared at it, and Mac spoke, his voice clipped.
Angry.
(And underneath all that, full of guilt and torment and worry.)
'It's from a song popular during WWI. Beth's maternal grandmother is from Tipperary county in Ireland.'
(She'd asked him once about the origins of his unusual surname. The conversation had snowballed.)
Jack reached out and squeezed his shoulder again.
A few minutes later, a video call request appeared on Mac's phone, which had been cloned over to the big screen by Riley.
He answered, and Murdoc's face appeared. The assassin seemed to be standing in a warehouse of sorts, and was smiling smugly.
Mac really, really wanted to punch that smile off his face. He forced himself to relax and uncurl his fists.
'What do you want, Murdoc?'
The assassin smiled wider, clearly knowing he'd gotten to Mac, and the camera panned out, revealing that Murdoc was standing next to Beth, who looked completely, utterly terrified.
Her wrists were chained above her head (though thankfully she seemed able to stand without straining her shoulders) and there was a gag stuffed in her mouth.
(Mac really, really, really wanted to punch him.)
(If he were honest…he wanted to do more than punch him. A lot more.)
The assassin smiled even wider, the smile twisting into something that seemed friendly, but was a little…off.
'I really want to compliment you on your taste in women, Angus. She really is very beautiful…really reminds me of dear, departed Nadia…' Murdoc ran a finger down Beth's cheek, in a mockery of a lover's touch. Mac's fists clenched. The doctor, chained and gagged and terrified, even if she was clearly trying very hard to not let it show, tried to pull away, but couldn't. Murdoc turned away from her, looking back at the camera. At Mac. 'Then again, I guess we shouldn't be surprised, should we, Angus? We do have so much in common, after all…' He stepped behind Beth, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder. She flinched, visibly, and kept looking at them, instead of at Murdoc, as if she was trying to forget he was there. Murdoc chuckled darkly, and straightened up, stroking her cheek again. Beth made a noise that sounded like a frightened, disturbed whimper through her gag, looking simultaneously like she was kicking herself for letting it out. 'You have no idea, dear, how much you remind me of my sweet little Cookie…' Murdoc turned back to Mac. '…which really gets me thinking, Angus. It really does. You turned my son against me, so I'm going to need another little one to take over the family business…' He smiled in a way that was clearly a taunt or a threat, something very cruel in it. '…I could do a lot worse than starting with brains and beauty…'
Jill looked like she might be sick. Riley was glaring daggers at Murdoc. Matty looked like she planned to eviscerate him. A character based heavily on Murdoc was definitely going to die gruesomely, slowly and painfully in Bozer's next movie. Jack looked like he planned to shoot him through the eyes.
And none of them had ever seen Mac this angry.
(He was digging his nails into his palms in an effort to try and keep some control of himself.)
'If you hurt her, if you touch her, Murdoc, I will-'
Murdoc rolled his eyes, waving a hand in way that was deliberately blasé.
'Yeah, yeah, lock me in a concrete box…' He opened and closed his hands like puppet mouths. '…yada, yada, yada, same old, same old…'
Mac looked him dead in the eye.
'I was thinking more, put you six feet under, Murdoc.'
He meant it.
In that moment, he really, really meant it.
They could all tell. On-screen, Beth's eyes widened.
Murdoc turned to her, still smiling in that horrifying way of his.
'What a romantic declaration; he really does love you!'
'What do you want, Murdoc?'
Every single word out of Mac's mouth was full of anger (it overshadowed everything else) and very, very clipped.
The assassin, however, made a disapproving noise.
'So impatient, Angus!' He turned to Beth. 'Are you sure you want a man who doesn't like taking his time?' To her great credit, Beth glared at him with an awful lot of vehemence, looking away from the camera, away from them, for the first time. Murdoc then turned to Mac again. 'It's very, very hard to do any shopping when you're on the lam, so I need you to pick up a few things for me.' Murdoc grinned disturbingly. 'Don't worry, I've made it into a nice, fun little game, a scavenger hunt, if you will.' He stroked a hand along Beth's ponytail. 'I've even organized a prize!' His expression grew dark, serious, as he sought out Mac's anger-filled gaze. 'But no cheating, Angus. You do this all alone, or…' There was the distinctive noise of a tactical knife's blade being exposed. A second later, the blade came into view, Murdoc holding it to Beth's throat, just resting it there so it didn't even leave a mark, let alone draw blood. '…something might just happen to your little prize.' The horrifying grin returned. 'I'll send your first clue along in half an hour.'
The screen went black.
There was a deafening silence in the war room for a beat, before Mac reached for the paperclip bowl.
But instead of picking up a paperclip or two, he knocked the whole bowl off the table with far too much force.
The glass bowl hit the opposite wall and shattered, scattering paperclips everywhere.
Mac stood with his back to the rest of the war room's inhabitants, breathing hard, shoulders visibly shifting up and down with each breath.
Then, he turned back to them, some kind of laser-sharp focus (obsessive focus) in his eyes as he glanced at Riley.
'Play it again.'
She raised her hands off her keyboard.
'Mac, I don't think that's-'
'Play it again!' He took a deep breath, then another, trying to reel in his temper. 'Trust me. Please. Play it again on double-speed.'
After a moment, Riley typed for a second, and then the video of their call with Murdoc started playing again, on double-speed.
Mac, meanwhile, watched Beth's face as she looked at them, blinking occasionally, very, very intently, and started scribbling on one of the glass walls of the war room with the lipstick he'd just stolen from Riley's bag.
It was a series of dots and dashes, which Jack quickly translated.
'Freight train horn. Ten minutes ago.' Mac nodded, not smiling, but looking, at least for a moment, a little lighter, a little relieved, a little less angry. Beth had blinked them a message in Morse code. She'd had the foresight and the calm and courage needed to keep her head on straight enough to send them that message. Jack smiled. The Phoenix did not hire shrinking violets. 'That's your girl, son. That's your girl.'
Riley and Jill glanced at one another, then both started typing on the laptops resting on their laps, trying to use that information to start working out a location. They put up a search radius around Beth's supermarket, based on how far Murdoc could have travelled with her between her distress signal going off and Murdoc's call, before using the freight train information to narrow it further.
Mac's phone rang, and he immediately picked it up off the coffee table, glancing at the caller ID.
His dad.
Or was it Oversight?
His question was answered when the man spoke.
'You are not to leave the Phoenix, Angus.' Oversight. 'As talented a doctor as Dr Taylor is, there are plenty in this country. You, on the other hand, are 50% of the individuals with your skill-set.'
Mac looked just as furious as he had at Murdoc.
Far too many times in his life, he'd been powerless to save someone he'd cared about, had had to watch them die.
His mother.
Al.
Zoe.
(Not to mention the near-misses. Jack, twice. Bozer. Riley. Cage. Rachel and Annabelle.)
One time would have been far too many in his mind, and he was not going to let it happen again.
His dad walked into the room, his phone still held to his ear. Mac glared at his father.
Besides, Beth had welcomed them (welcomed him) into her home in the middle of the night, cared for him above and beyond what her job and her oaths required of her, and he was really going to just let Murdoc…
The glare grew more intense, angrier.
(If looks could kill, Jack thought, James would be deader than the dodo and Mac would be beating himself up for patricide.)
But before Mac could articulate any of the very unflattering and extremely furious opinions of his father floating in his mind, James MacGyver hung up his phone, and started tapping the glass to turn on top-secret mode.
Then, he looked at them all briefly (pressing home the point that this did not leave this room), and turned to his son.
He looked…apologetic.
More than a little angry. More than a little worried.
(And more than a little guilty.)
'Angus, if I could have saved your mother…' Nothing would have stood in his way. Not Oversight, not orders, not the vows he'd made to his country. 'What can I do to help?'
That raw fury faded from Mac's eyes, to be replaced by annoyance (his dad had, of course, had to check all of the Oversight boxes first…), which was quickly replaced by something more tactical, more focused.
Five minutes later, they'd come up with a plan.
None of them were convinced that Murdoc gave a damn about the items he was going to make Mac get him.
Murdoc just wanted to make Mac suffer.
(He'd made his goals clear. He wanted to kill Mac, after making him suffer as much as he could.)
He was luring him to a final confrontation.
Their own personal Reichenbach.
Mac would do Murdoc's scavenger hunt, follow his instructions, seemingly all alone.
(He'd insisted, and no-one was inclined to argue with him. None of them trusted Murdoc any further than they could kick him, but they had to ensure they didn't give him a reason to hurt Beth.)
Jack and James would follow him from a safe distance, remaining undetected by the assassin.
And Matty, Riley, Bozer and Jill would help out as best as they could from the Phoenix, helping Mac with the clues and signalling him covertly through traffic lights and the like, as well as trying to determine where Murdoc was holding the doctor.
(They had several overlapping circles on the screen, but there were a lot of warehouses in those areas.)
With a last glance at the lipstick on the wall and the shattered paperclip bowl, Mac adjusted his leather jacket, and walked out of the war room.
Jack nudged his partner with an elbow as he, James and Mac prepared in the Phoenix armoury.
(It held a lot more than weapons.)
'See, brother, even the big-bad thinks you should've asked her out by now!'
(He worried that his partner was too far gone for bickering and bantering with him as they always did, and that was a very, very bad sign…but he had to try.)
Mac just gestured vaguely.
'This is why I haven't, Jack.'
That was what had been locked in that Pandora's box.
This very situation was why, even though it'd been closer to seven months than six since Christmas, they hadn't been on a date.
Because of the target it'd paint on her back.
Lois Lane, MJ Watson, Pepper Potts, Gwen Stacey…bad things happened to superhero girlfriends, as Dr Popovich had pointed out to his father.
(He made no claim to being a superhero of any sort, but the analogy still held.)
He knew that simply because they were friends, simply because he cared about her, she already had a target on her back.
Everyone else he loved did too, and he'd made his peace with that as best as he could (he couldn't stop caring, and didn't think he'd be able to live without them – he'd survive, he wouldn't live – nor would they let him pull away for their protection), simply vowed to protect them as best as he could, defend them with everything he had, including his own life.
But with the way that society venerated romantic love, if anyone were astute enough to notice what they already had between them…the target on her back might be a little bigger.
But he knew that the day she became his girlfriend (and while he wouldn't be texting Murdoc about it, he wouldn't insist that they keep it a secret, wouldn't hide her like some dirty little secret – because she absolutely wasn't, it wasn't fair to her or to either of them and their relationship, and they were both terrible liars anyway), it'd be magnitudes worse.
No matter what he'd told himself or anyone who asked, all the excuses he'd spouted…in the end, in the back of his mind, locked in that rattling box, this was why he'd been dragging his feet.
Jack and his father just exchanged a glance. One that was full of meaning and understanding and a silent conversation all on its own.
His father spoke, seemingly making an effort to not sound didactic or condescending, though his voice was very firm. Nearly stern.
'When we get her back, safe and sound, Angus, you have to leave the choice to her. She knows the dangers, son.'
Jack picked up the train of thought.
'And trying to stay away from her just to keep her safe is gonna do nothing but hurt you both. Trust me, son. I know.'
There were many reasons why he'd left Diane and Riley all those years ago.
He'd been scared of what he was coming to mean to Riley, scared of being a father.
He'd been scared of their reaction to the violence he'd treated Elwood with.
And he'd been scared of the target he'd painted on their backs.
Mac looked at both of them, his father and his Obi-Wan Kenobi, for a long moment, before he nodded, a little hesitantly, but a nod nonetheless, and then pushed away those thoughts.
He had to focus.
Rescue Beth.
Deal with Murdoc.
Everything else, he'd deal with later.
In the war room, Matty turned to Jill and Riley, as Bozer kept his eye on his BFF as he strolled through downtown, messenger bag slung over his torso.
'Find everything you can on Nadia.'
Riley and Jill exchanged a glance, then nodded.
A SHOPPING STRIP
LA
Mac walked calmly down the street, away from the little grocery store where he'd stolen two pints of sour cream, which were now in his messenger bag.
(Murdoc had ordered him to do it.)
(The other items in his bag were a block of manchego cheese, a packet of corn tortillas and a mini panini press.)
(Murdoc wanted Mexican, apparently.)
(It only confirmed that the assassin was simply making him wait, forcing him to go through this ludicrous ruse, all the while knowing that the woman he cared more about than he was willing to admit – which given how much he'd admitted, at least to himself, was a lot – was Murdoc's prisoner.)
Jack and James, in an extremely ordinary-looking silver sedan, slowly drove towards the grocery store that was now down two pints of sour cream.
Mac had been running around doing Murdoc's bidding for an hour and a half now, and there were no signs that they'd been detected by the psychopath.
They exchanged a glance.
And thank God that was the case, they both thought, both from experience.
(Jack knew Mac. James was self-aware enough – despite what his son sometimes thought – to know most of his own faults. The Dr Popovich Incident had made it abundantly clear to him that going it alone down the rabbit hole was dangerous.)
(Mac had pulled him back, forced him to let him and Jack keep pace.)
(It was his turn to do the same for his son now.)
Three cans of kidney beans later, Mac's phone rang.
It was a video call request, from the number Murdoc had been using.
His heart sank.
He felt like a black hole was creating a bottomless pit in his stomach.
He answered, and it only got worse.
Murdoc and Beth were on the screen. Mac's arch-nemesis had the tac-knife out again, and was holding it to her throat with his right hand, pulling her head back roughly by her hair to expose her neck with his left.
He'd taken off the gag.
(So Mac could hear her scream, that sadistic gleam in Murdoc's eyes told him.)
'I'm so disappointed…I did warn you, no cheating, Angus…'
Slowly, Murdoc slid the knife down her throat, using just enough pressure to break the skin enough to draw out a thin trickle of blood.
It wasn't a serious injury at all. When it healed, it wouldn't even leave a mark.
Beth suppressed her natural urge to flinch or cry out, fortunately, even as she closed her eyes due to the (mostly psychological) pain. She'd held herself together admirably earlier, and seemed just as calm now. Mac was sure she was drawing on her medical training, the compartmentalising she'd mastered, to do that.
But it was a horrifying sight for him to behold nonetheless.
Just as Murdoc had intended.
He kept cutting, through the top of her shirt, only stopping after he'd cut through the first three inches of her soft, striped top.
Then, Murdoc pressed the point of the knife to the exposed skin there, drawing just a little more blood.
'Ditch Daddy and Dalton, MacGyver.' He smirked darkly, removing the knife and letting Mac see the gleam of blood on the tip. 'Or else.'
He hung up.
Mac swallowed.
Then, he pulled out his phone, opened it up, and removed a few choice parts. He threw those parts into a trash can, then wired the innards back together again in a slightly different way, and closed his phone up.
After that, he crouched down as if tying his shoelace, and removed the tracker from the Phoenix armoury he'd attached to his left shoe.
Then, he reached behind himself and pulled off the one on the inside of the bottom back hem of his jacket, the one that his father had placed, thinking that Mac wouldn't notice it.
He dumped both into the next trash can he encountered and kept walking as his phone chimed with another text from Murdoc.
Jack and James did a double-take, then glanced at each other with concern, when Mac's phone signal dropped out and, according to his tracker, he stopped moving.
James tapped his phone in a set pattern, activating the back-up tracker, which was apparently in the same spot as the other tracker.
Jack raised an eyebrow at him. James looked unapologetic.
'You know Angus.'
He tapped a couple more things on his phone, bringing up a Google StreetView image of the area around the trackers.
A trash can was very prominent in the shot.
Jack cursed.
'Damn it, son!' He raised a hand to his ear, tapping his earpiece. 'Riles, we've lost him…'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…I can't get into Mac's phone, he's locked us out.'
Bozer looked very confused.
'Wait, my man Mac managed to build some kind of firewall you can't get through?'
Riley shook her head.
'Nope.' That would simply never happen. Mac wasn't that technologically literate (at least in the normal way – get him talking about the construction of Google Glasses or e-waste and its problems and he could go on for ages) compared to most people his age, having spent too much time taking his computer and phone apart when he was young instead of learning to use them. 'He made some hardware modifications.' Riley typed for a moment. 'But we got this off it just before he disconnected…'
Murdoc and Beth appeared on the screen, the doctor with a tac-knife to her neck, Murdoc speaking.
Jill gave a horrified gasp. Bozer swallowed as the video finished playing.
'Well, no wonder he ditched his back-up…'
UNKNOWN LOCATION
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Mac stood in front of the warehouse. It was within one of the search radii that Jill and Riley had established (he'd memorized them earlier), and he was confident that he'd correctly interpreted Murdoc's last cryptic message.
The door was also locked with a particularly, unusually secure lock, so that was another good clue.
Mac carefully inspected the lock, trying to determine if it was booby-trapped or not.
When it appeared to be nothing more than a lock (albeit a complicated one), he pulled a paperclip out of his pocket and re-shaped it, before getting to work picking the lock.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Jill and Bozer exchanged a glance as they tracked Mac through LA, knowing they were at least a couple of steps behind.
(They'd just seen him steal a cheese grater.)
(This game that Murdoc was playing was sadistic and cruel and also, admittedly, very creative and absurd.)
(That might just sum up Murdoc, full stop.)
(Jill vividly remembered reading the autopsy report for one of the government agents assigned to Cassian when he'd been in protective custody who'd been killed by a pencil sharpener.)
Meanwhile, Riley kept digging through the web, learning everything she could about Cassian's mysterious mother Nadia.
UNKNOWN LOCATION
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Mac pulled the doors open and looked into the warehouse.
There was no sign of Murdoc or Beth in his field of view, but the warehouse was huge, with two mezzanines, and the door was located at the very end, cut into one of the 'long' walls, so he could probably only see about a sixth of it from where he was.
He almost stepped inside, but thought better of it at the last moment, and instead pulled a can of beans out of his messenger bag and tossed it inside.
Gunfire erupted, and he quickly pin-pointed the location of the gun. It was clearly rigged up to fire automatically when it sensed something in a certain range.
(Murdoc really liked this type of rig.)
It was attached to one of the rafters, and appeared to be quite secure and sturdily put together. He couldn't put together some kind of lasso system, or try to break it with a strategically-thrown can of beans.
He pursed his lips, and looked around him. His eyes were caught by a drainpipe on the outside wall of the warehouse and a nearby dumpster.
An idea rapidly crystallizing out of the mass of thoughts in his brain, Mac headed for the dumpster and pushed it under the drainpipe. Then, he climbed up on the dumpster and started shimmying up the drainpipe, before leaning over and opening a window. He climbed through the window and moved carefully along the rafters until he reached the one with the gun rig, then made his way along that to the rig and cut some wires to disable the automatic firing system.
A message flashed up on the screen.
10 points to Gryffindor, Angus!
He gave a very small, very grim smile (it could hardly be called one) at the little victory, and for good measure, disassembled Murdoc's gun.
Then, he made his way back along the rafters, climbed out of the window and back down the drainpipe, leapt off the dumpster, and walked into the warehouse.
Mac was halfway up the set of stairs when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Later, he would have no idea exactly how he'd worked this out.
(Jack would have called it a sixth sense. He didn't think it was that – he didn't believe in six senses, only five – but perhaps it was a finely-honed instinct, born from the fact that his brain processed far more than he was consciously aware of.)
Still, however the means, he stopped.
Very carefully, Mac grabbed a container of sour cream from his messenger bag and dolloped some onto the three steps directly in front of him (he couldn't reach any higher while keeping all his weight on the step he was currently on) with his Swiss Army knife. Then, he pulled out his handkerchief and spread the sour cream around, wiping off the grease that coated the stairs.
The removal of the grease that he now saw had been painted on revealed that several modifications had been made to those stairs, with the end result being that they were now structurally unsound, and would have given way under his weight, sending him falling from two stories up.
Mac pursed his lips.
He needed to find another way up to the top mezzanine.
He turned around and headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Maybe he could do something with the pallets that were lying around downstairs…
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Jill and Bozer exchanged a high-five.
'Got it!'
They'd tracked Mac to a warehouse inside one of Jill and Riley's original search radii.
Matty gave a grim smile and spoke into her phone.
'Jack, Jim, we're sending you a location now.'
NOW-KNOWN LOCATION
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Mac vaulted over the mezzanine railing, and was greeted by a very disturbing sight.
A grinning Murdoc was showing Beth (gagged again, with her hands still chained above her head, identical shackles around her ankles, a smear of blood down her throat, between her collarbones and halfway down her sternum) some photos on his phone that clearly weren't of kittens.
'…and she looked so happy, and in that moment, I knew. I'd found my moment, the one I'd been waiting for, so I took the pillow from under her head and snuffed out her life as my son's began.' Murdoc grinned wider, turned to the terrified-but-still-fighting-to-not-show-it young woman. 'Beautifully poetic, almost Shakespearian, don't you think?'
Murdoc then looked very deliberately over at Mac.
Mac started unpacking his messenger bag, dropping the contents to the mezzanine floor with far more force than necessary.
'I've got your grocery order, Murdoc. Let her go.'
Murdoc made a disapproving clucking noise as he stared at the cheese grater, block of manchego, mini panini press, two cans of beans, avocado, pack of tortillas, two limes, bundle of cilantro and pint of sour cream.
'You're short a can of beans and a pint of sour cream.'
Mac rolled his eyes.
'Like you care. You obviously didn't intend for us to sit around and eat quesadillas together, Murdoc.'
Murdoc made another disapproving noise.
'So many assumptions, there, Angus! Breaking bread together is a time-honoured tradition. And quesadillas are delicious, don't you think, dear?'
He addressed that last question to Beth, running his tac-knife along her cheek, lightly enough that he didn't leave a mark, let alone draw blood. She managed to hold still, and then Murdoc flicked the knife. Her eyes widened in fear, in a flinch of sorts, but he'd done nothing but cut through the gag, which Beth spit out with extreme prejudice, glaring at the assassin all the while.
However, he'd turned his attention away from her and to Mac, staring at the blonde with an intense gaze full of dark, burning anger and an even darker obsession, though he spoke conversationally, as if he and Mac were talking about the weather, or quesadillas. He gestured at Beth with a sideways jerk of his head, tapping his holstered gun.
'I want to hear her scream when I finally, finally put one through that brain of yours…after extracting every last drop of pain, of course…'
Mac and Murdoc stared at one another for a long, long moment, both moving lightly on their feet, ready to pounce, both with anger and fury and obsession in their eyes (righteous in one's, dark and sadistic in the other's).
For now, it was reasonably controlled, tightly leashed.
Then, at the exact same time, they lunged at one another.
Murdoc punched Mac, whom he had pinned to the railing, hard in the face, just as Mac kneed the assassin even harder in the stomach, causing Murdoc to recoil enough he could fling him off, before pressing the brief advantage he'd generated by grabbing the railing with both hands, jumping up and kicking the off-balance assassin hard enough that he was forced to stagger into the opposite railing.
Murdoc's eyes burned with fury as he recovered, and he pulled out his tac-knife, just as Mac seized the cheese grater from the floor.
Mac, bleeding slightly from a nick to the forearm, finally managed to catch Murdoc's knife with the cheese grater at the right angle in the right position, and pushed back hard at an upwards angle and twisted the grater, forcing the knife out of Murdoc's grip, and flinging it, along with the cheese grater, over the railing and down four stories to the warehouse floor.
Murdoc's eyes narrowed, and he head-butted Mac, sending him reeling.
On his back on the floor, Mac scrabbled for Murdoc's gun, in a holster on his thigh, at the same time using his own legs to fend him off and try and throw him off balance.
He didn't manage to grab the gun, but did manage to kick him hard enough in the side of the knee to get an involuntary yowl of pain from Murdoc and unbalance the assassin, giving Mac the chance to get up off the ground, grabbing a can of beans as he did.
Murdoc, his head ringing thanks to an expertly-thrown can of beans, pointed his gun and pulled the trigger.
Mac, somehow, managed to dodge out of the way by diving to the floor and to the right, grabbing the last can of beans off the floor.
As he did calculations in his head to work out exactly how he needed to throw this can of beans, he blocked out the sudden, burning pain in his left calf and the sensation of blood trickling down towards his ankle.
Mac had his nemesis, twice-stunned by cans of kidney beans, pinned to the back wall of the warehouse, Murdoc's toes barely skimming the floor, his weight held up by Mac's hands on his throat.
His grip tightened, as a maelstrom of thoughts (dark thoughts, said a voice in his head that was drowned out quickly) swirled through his mind.
It was like he was nothing but a spectator as Murdoc's face grew increasingly red and he gasped, futilely, for breath.
He hardly felt it as his hands tightened further.
(Later, he'd look back and feel like it was someone else's hands, like he hadn't had control over them at all.)
He heard nothing but his blood roaring in his ears.
At least until something broke through.
Beth's voice, pleading and desperate and accompanied by the rattle of chains as she struggled against her bonds.
'…Mac, stop it, please! Don't do this to yourself…please, Mac…'
The dark maelstrom of thoughts were drowned out by others, suddenly.
His hands felt like his own again.
He could distinctly feel Murdoc's throat between them.
There was a brief moment (no more than a couple of microseconds, surely) of acute, sheer horror.
What was he doing?
Then, he thwacked Murdoc's head hard against the wall, knocking him out, letting him drop to the floor, before pulling out his belt and using it to cuff the man's hands. (He restrained his first instinct, which was to go free Beth and get her out of here; Murdoc was too dangerous to turn his back to.) He crouched down, and used his shoelaces to tightly and firmly tie the psychopath's ankles together.
Once Murdoc was secured and all the weapons (or potential weapons) Mac could find had been tossed down to the warehouse floor four stories below, he got up and hurried over to Beth, immediately reaching up with a paperclip in hand to pick the locks on the shackles on her wrists.
'I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…'
He couldn't quite manage to look her in the eye.
(He didn't need to look at the shackles to pick them open, but he did anyway.)
Beth waited for him to glance down at her, then locked eyes with him, tilting her chin up slightly, something fiercely protective in her eyes, like she was determined to protect him from himself, from the dark, horrifying, depressing thoughts in his mind.
'You have nothing to apologize for, Mac. Nothing.' She paused, voice growing a touch shakier, but not truly weaker, still full of strength. 'And I'm…I'm going to be alright.'
He finished freeing her wrists, and ran his hands along her arms, rubbing gently to try and help her circulation along.
(Her arms must have gone very numb by now.)
Then, utterly unbidden and completely unwanted, the memory of what he'd done with his hands (the sensation of Murdoc's throat being squeezed in them – the life being squeezed out of him) just minutes ago came to mind, and he recoiled, letting go of her arms.
He couldn't touch her, not with what he'd just done…
That same fiercely protective look in her eyes, Beth reached out with still rather stiff, pale fingers, wrapping them around his forearm, practically forcing him to make eye contact with her.
She squeezed his arm as best as she could, before letting go and pointing at the ground.
'Sit.'
She said it in her listen-to-me-or-else doctor's voice, with just as much authority and strength in it as usual, back safe at the Phoenix, in the infirmary.
It was so unexpected that he made a face of confusion.
'What?'
Beth gestured to his left calf, which was still bleeding.
'You have a bullet graze that is really more of a gouge. It needs binding to staunch the bleeding, and you can unpick these…' She gestured at the shackles around her ankles, hands clearly far less stiff and numb. '…while I deal with it.'
He had completely forgotten about the bullet graze.
Now that she mentioned it, it did hurt.
(That was an understatement.)
Mac sat down, as did Beth, the two of them facing each other so they could do their respective tasks at the same time.
Beth held out a hand.
'I need to borrow your Swiss Army knife, please.'
He handed it over, working the locks on the shackles with a paperclip. She used the scissors to cut a long strip from her ruined shirt to use as a makeshift bandage, then started wrapping it tightly around his leg.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…Almost nine years ago, Nadia Topalov, the twenty-nine year old only daughter of a Bulgarian Mafia boss was found smothered to death in a private Swiss chalet, along with a local nurse who'd been shot execution-style.'
Riley and Jill briefed Bozer and Matty on everything they'd found on Cassian's mother.
'The murders were never solved.' Murdoc was, of course, far too good to be caught by local police. 'It was assumed that it was mafia infighting gone wrong.'
Riley and Jill exchanged a look, before the former continued.
'But what's interesting is that Nadia wasn't involved in her father's business.' She tapped the screen and a certificate awarding Nadia Topalov a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Heidelberg in Germany appeared. 'She cut ties with him, became a doctor and worked in a Bulgarian hospital. One of her father's enemies paid Murdoc to kill her, because he never stopped caring about her.'
Jill tapped the screen and Nadia's bank account records appeared.
'He sent her a generous monthly allowance.' She paused. 'Nadia used it to buy essential equipment and supplies for her hospital.'
Bozer and Matty exchanged a glance.
It was pretty easy to draw comparisons. See similarities.
(Matty had hoped that Murdoc was lying, just messing with Mac, getting into his head.)
(But she knew that the best lies always had a grain of truth at the centre.)
(She just wasn't expecting that grain to be so large.)
Riley and Jill caught that look, and shared one of their own, before Riley tapped the screen.
A photo of a very pretty young woman with light brown hair and big brown eyes and a sweet, happy smile, wearing scrubs, appeared.
She had a distinct resemblance to someone that they knew very well.
Bozer's eyes widened and he looked horrified and disturbed.
'Oh my God…' He glanced at Matty. 'Do…do we have to tell them?'
(He asked as if he already knew the answer, but really, really didn't like it.)
This, coupled with what Murdoc had said earlier in that slimy video-call that made Bozer feel unclean having just watched it, was really, really disturbing him.
He couldn't imagine how badly it'd bother Mac and Beth.
Matty just nodded, looking not-unperturbed herself.
'They need to know.'
NOW-KNOWN LOCATION
SOMEWHERE IN LA
James and Jack, both holding their weapons at the ready, ran up the stairs (James had come up with a work-around for the three structurally-unsound ones) just as Beth finished bandaging Mac's calf. James immediately went to secure Murdoc, while Jack hurried over to Mac's side as the blonde tossed the shackles that'd been around her ankles away as far as he could with extreme prejudice.
Maybe that was the trigger, the assurance that she was definitely safe now.
Maybe it was the fact that Mac no longer had any pressing need for medical care (his various bruises and scrapes and the nick on his forearm could wait). He didn't need her to be a doctor any longer.
Maybe she'd simply reached the limit of her strength of will.
Maybe it was a combination of the three.
But whatever the cause, at that moment, Beth burst into deep, wracking sobs.
Mac immediately scooted over to her, shrugging off his leather jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders, as Jack crouched down beside her.
With a glance at his partner's bandaged calf, followed by a significant look at the younger man, the Texan gently scooped her up, cradling her to his chest and speaking gently, softly, reassuringly.
'Shh…it's okay, kiddo. It's okay. You're safe now, we've got you, Jack's got you…let's get you out of here…'
He started walking over to the stairs, Mac walking behind them with a slight limp.
The blonde made eye contact with his father when he reached the top of the stairs. The older man just nodded once, before gesturing with his head towards Murdoc, then at Jack, who was carrying Beth down the stairs.
'I'll take care of him. Go, son.'
He left the she needs you more unsaid.
After a few milliseconds of the MacGyvers just looking one another in the eye, a silent conversation, a silent understanding, passing between them, Mac just gave a little nod back, and hurried down the stairs as fast as he could.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
In the infirmary, Jack, Bozer, Riley and Mac sat around Beth's hospital bed.
(She was being treated for shock. Mac was also under treatment, but refused to stay in his own bed – despite Dr Farnham's orders and Beth's – and had compromised by sitting still with his injured leg up on another chair.)
(He was also holding Beth's hand, which Jack and Bozer were under strict unspoken orders from Matty not to mention – she'd glared at them before she, Jill and James had headed off to deal with the fallout that Murdoc had generated.)
Riley, a rather grim, unhappy expression on her face, like she wished she didn't have to do this, turned her laptop around.
'This is Cassian's mother, Nadia.'
Mac and Beth stared at the information on the screen – Nadia's medical school certificate, the police report of her death, her father's identity…and the photo of her in her scrubs.
Jack spoke up as soon as he saw Nadia's photo.
'Riles, are you sure this ain't another one of Murdoc's creepy mind-games?'
Riley nodded.
'Jill and I triple-checked.'
Bozer didn't think he'd ever seen his BFF so horrified, so utterly, totally disturbed and sickened.
Still, because he was Mac, he immediately glanced over at Beth with concern.
She looked very nauseous.
With his free hand, Mac grabbed the sick bag on the 'nightstand' next to her bed, and handed it to her, and a moment later, she let go of his hand and retched into the bag.
Mac grabbed a bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade that Dr Farnham had left next to the sick bag, opened it and handed it to her to sip when she finished emptying her stomach. He tied off the bag, put it back on the nightstand, and started rubbing her back.
(Bozer looked like he really, really wanted to say something. Riley kicked him in the shin before he could.)
After a quarter of the bottle of Gatorade, Beth took a deep breath and spoke, her voice initially very shaky, growing stronger slowly.
'It's statistically inevitable that coincidences occur. This is probably not the most improbable of coincidences, I mean, statistically, brown is the most common of all hair and eye colours, there are millions of medical professionals and I'm sure if you looked at all the people that Murdoc has killed, only a reasonably small percentage would actually fall in love with anyone, so…'
She gave a helpless little shrug.
This really wasn't something that could be explained away.
It was just one of those uncanny, improbable coincidences.
And Murdoc, being Murdoc, had taken it, weaponised it. Made it creepy and disturbing and horrifying and haunting.
MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE
LA
That night, after debrief, Mac, Beth, Jack, Riley, Matty and James sat around the fire-pit, all sipping tomato soup.
(Jill had been invited over, of course, but she'd declined to go and snuggle with her boyfriend for a dose of oxytocin instead.)
(Alex had shown up to pick her up from work with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and Indian takeout.)
Bozer, wearing his Kiss the Cook apron, walked out onto the deck with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches, which he passed to Riley. The hacker took one, then passed it along to Jack, who took one and took a massive bite out of it, before passing it to Mac. The blonde took one absent-mindedly and glanced at Beth next to him. She was staring into the fire and cradling her half-drunk soup in her hands. He passed the plate of sandwiches over her to Matty on her other side, then split the sandwich in half, nudged her gently and handed her half of the grilled cheese, waggling it encouragingly.
(The young doctor looked much better now than she had in that warehouse in her cut, bloodied shirt with a smear of blood down her throat and chest, or in a hospital bed at the Phoenix, nauseous and creeped out to all end, now that she'd had a shower and had some more colour in her cheeks, had bandages over the cut and was wearing the yoga pants and T-shirt she kept in her Phoenix locker for working out in the gym, with one of Mac's flannels over the top.)
(Still, she was unsurprisingly still dealing with the fallout of her really terrible day.)
Bozer gratefully took the half-sandwich that Riley offered him when he picked up the empty plate and headed back towards the kitchen, devouring it in three bites, earning a look of disgust from the young woman, which he ignored as he bustled back inside.
He had a whole casserole dish of luxuriously rich and comforting mac'n'cheese to take out of the oven.
Practically as soon as they were done eating, Matty and James got up to leave.
They had a lot of work to do.
(Murdoc was Murdoc, after all.)
Before they left, though, Matty made a point to catch Beth when she left the bathroom and headed back out to the deck.
'You did a great job, Doc. You're strong.'
That made Beth give a little smile (Matty didn't give praise lightly, that was for sure), and her boss held out her arms for a hug. Beth crouched down, smile widening a little, and Matty hugged her, patting her back gently.
Meanwhile, Mac and his father unloaded their armfuls of dirty dishes in the kitchen. When the dishwasher was full and running, James turned to his son.
He gestured with his head, rather subtly, towards Matty and Beth in the living room, before speaking, obviously making an effort to not sound condescending.
'Remember what I said, Angus.'
Mac glanced over at the two women as well, who were now talking and smiling about something, their heads close together.
Then, he looked back at his father and nodded, before holding out a hand to him. His dad took it, and they clasped hands as Mac took a half-step closer to his father, patting him on the back, an action repeated by the older MacGyver.
It wasn't quite a hug, but it was more than a handshake.
Progress.
Beth smiled up at Bozer as he passed her a mug of his super-special, secret-recipe hot chocolate (made with that block of 70% dark Belgian chocolate he'd been saving for a rainy day). He smiled back at her, then passed a mug to Jack and one to Riley, before sitting down next to the hacker and taking a long draught of his own mug of hot chocolate.
Wordlessly, Mac started passing out s'mores.
(He'd made a whole stack, mostly to keep his hands busy.)
An hour later, Beth was fast asleep on the deck, curled up underneath Mac's leather jacket, her shoes off and placed neatly by her ankles.
Mac adjusted his jacket slightly to cover her more optimally when she curled up a little more tightly, apparently cold, ignoring Jack and Bozer's waggling eyebrows.
A few minutes later, Bozer and Riley headed up to the attic to grab the air mattress that Bozer and Mac had bought years and years ago (by unspoken agreement, she, Jack and Beth were staying the night at Mac and Bozer's), and Jack was very carefully picking Beth up, trying not to wake her.
(She really needed the sleep, after the ordeal of her day.)
She stirred a little when he shifted her, but seemed to realize, even asleep, that she was in safe hands, so settled back into a deep sleep.
Jack made for the living room, intending to put her on the couch, but Mac opened the French doors that led from the deck to his bedroom instead, walking over to his bed and pulling back the covers.
That made Jack smile, soft and fond and gentle, as he turned around, walked into Mac's room and set her down carefully on his bed.
Mac pulled the covers up over her in a way that could only be described as tender, before walking outside, grabbing Beth's shoes, and placing them by his bed.
Jack smiled a little wider, walking back out onto the deck and into the kitchen to grab a pair of beers from the fridge.
When he turned back around, two opened beers in his hands, his partner was sitting by the fire-pit again, facing the French doors that led to his bedroom (which were now closed) but seemingly trying not to stare at them.
(Or, more accurately, trying not to try and stare through them.)
Jack sighed internally.
He was a little worried about his partner.
One of Mac's worst fears had come true today.
(Heck, one of the worst fears of any covert operative had come true today.)
(Not to mention, it'd only been a week and a half since The Ghost had targeted the Penas for the exact same reason as Murdoc had taken Beth today – to hurt Mac. To get to him.)
(In Mac's mind – because of him.)
He wouldn't lie, he was a little concerned that Mac might decide to reject one of the best things that'd ever happened to him, simply because of that.
A little smile, hopeful and soft and fond all at once, came to his face as a voice in his brain pointed out to him that Beth was very stubborn, very patient and had an uncanny knack of making Mac listen to her and see reason.
(She could keep him – and just about any other Phoenix agent; most of them were terrible patients – in the infirmary and cooperating, after all.)
They'd be alright.
(And hey, if they weren't, he could get the gang together and they'd stage an intervention.)
(Or just lock them in the evidence locker together; it took Mac ages to break out of that.)
MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON
(REALLY, REALLY MAXIMUM SECURITY)
LOCATION: CLASSIFIED
Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, Murdoc lay back on his small prison bed, a grin on his face.
He closed his eyes and laughed, a haunting, horrifying sound, losing himself in memories.
That night in Moscow, how their bullets had struck the mark at the exact same time, how resplendent she'd looked in her black Kevlar body armour…
The bottle of vodka they'd shared after they'd agreed to share the fee for the hit…
What had happened afterwards, one thing leading to another…
How utterly beautiful she'd looked covered in blood after skinning a man alive, that satisfaction, that grin on his Cookie's face…
And the moment she'd handed him their son, half him, half her…
(How Cassian had turned out to be so good and sweet when his parents shared a singular passion for homicide, he had no idea.)
(In fact, considering what his Cookie was like, even ignoring her homicidal tendencies, the fact that Cassian was anything near nice was astounding.)
Murdoc laughed again.
And MacGyver and his little sweetheart and their friends had no idea.
Oh, there was a cursory resemblance of sorts between Amber and the young doctor.
Slim build, brown eyes, brown-ish hair, though Amber's had more, well, amber in it…but he doubted MacGyver would ever see it.
Amber had something, a fire, a darkness, a passion that Angus' sweet little thing was the antithesis of…
But it had been so, so much fun, messing with them…
Thinking about how utterly disturbed and bothered and creeped out they'd been, would have been when they 'verified' his words as the 'truth', was going to keep him toasty-warm at night.
He grinned.
AN: This was another one of the very early eps planned out (the four-ep arc of SecDef to Grandpa, Past to Future, Heart Medication to Bomb and Mac to Murdoc was kinda all put together to lead to this as a climax, thematically), and I really hope you guys liked it. Poor Mac, and all of his friends/family as a result, live very dramatic lives! Originally, Nadia was supposed to actually be Cassian's mother (though the real Nadia bore no resemblance to Beth and wasn't exactly a stellar human being herself – think the 'Francesca Moretti' persona that Cage had in the Azerbaijani casino episode), but I decided to scrap that and bring in Amber when Murdoc + MacGyver + Murdoc aired.
When I initially planned this out months ago, I did debate about how angry I should make Mac at Murdoc (which got a lot easier to decide since he has since threatened to kill him in canon for similar reasons as in this story), and, especially, at his father. There are definitely still a lot of things left unsaid between them, but I hope you guys found that depiction to make sense.
There is an episode tag for Detours for this ep (the very first episode tag I planned out!). It should be up on Tuesday. Here's the summary:
Oxytocin, tag to 3.21, Mac to Murdoc. The night after her kidnapping, Mac and Beth take care of each other, share some comfort and make a promise or two. 'I will defend you with everything I have.' 'I am not a woman who chooses easy or safe.'
And here's the press release for the next episode, which is the season finale!
3.22, End to Beginning. Mac and Beth's first date is interrupted by a bomb threat. Murdoc might be behind bars again, but he didn't go quietly. Mac and Jack must deal with the assassin's nasty surprises. Meanwhile, Bozer tries to help his BFF up his romance game.
Thoughts on 3.09, Specimen 234 + PAPR + Outbreak: This was a very classic ep in the sense that it used a lot of what I think a lot of fans think make the show great – Mac and Jack's bromance and banter, with Bozer added into the mix, an absurd/silly opening gambit, several skits/silly things happening (choosing what to get for lunch, Leanna cleaning the fridge and Jack's reaction, Mac's prank at the end, the running zombie apocalypse thing), lots of Mr MacGyver's science class, and something really sweet and heartfelt in the B-plot with Billy and Riley. I enjoyed it a lot, but also don't think it was incredibly memorable or 'special' if that makes sense? (I feel that 3.07, Scavengers + Hard Drive + Dragonfly was a better example of this type of ep, in all honesty.) Don't get me wrong – it was a great ep, and a nice 'palate cleanser' after the high drama of the last ep.
Other MacGyver news – George Eads is leaving! :( Honestly, this could be a death knell for the show if they don't handle it really, really well – particularly since Jack has these really close, paternal relationships with Mac and Riley; he can't just up and leave them. I really, really hope that he doesn't leave the Phoenix in a fit of pique after fighting with Mac or something...
However, I'm going to hope they can come up with a way to handle it well (after all, I thought the show would never recover after the Thornton-is-Chrysalis-and-Nikki-is-good mess, and they did). My personal favourite is Jack-is-injured-in-a-career-ending-way-saving-Mac's-life-and-must-retire-leading-to-him-renewing-his-relationship-with-Diane, which, while removing him from the day-to-day of the show, allows Jack to be mentioned frequently, maintains his relationship with the family off-screen and leaves the door open for George Eads to guest star (which given his reason for leaving, he might be open to).
With Jack leaving, they're also going to need a replacement!Jack. I will be very angry if they try to instantly replicate the bromance with a stranger, but think there's some good potential there. My money is on Ethan being replacement Jack – his established relationship with Matty would bring him into the family instantly by proxy. More left-field candidates would be Charlie Robinson (good established bromance – of a slightly different sort - with Mac, I wouldn't be upset if they got into bromancy-banter instantly) and James MacGyver (though how they'd explain away him being in the field all the time, I don't know). Even more left-field candidates would be Billy Colton (Matty offers him a job, he leaves the Coltons for Riley) and Samantha Cage (finally recovered from her injuries, Cage actually does come home from visiting her sister). An extremely left-field candidate would be Caleb Worthy from Jack's old Delta team (he's younger than the others, I think, and is established as being very skilled and very brave, having integrity and honour, being trusted by Mac and Co. and needs a job?).