When Mac started to come to again, he kept his eyes shut, wanting desperately to go back to the dream he was all but certain his rescue was. He could feel something soft beneath him, and his arms were down at his sides, but that meant nothing; he'd woken up in similar positions before. He wasn't safe. He couldn't be. The last thing he was sure he remembered, Asmara had found out about the Phoenix Foundation and had firmly concluded that he was, in fact, an agent. What were the odds that Jack had just so happened to find him right after that? Or that Asmara would just leave him—hooked up to a bomb or not—when they both knew he wasn't going to last much longer? No. He'd just dreamt his rescue. It wasn't as if it was the first time he'd done so, nor was it the first time it had felt so real. On the contrary; he'd had similar dreams every night since he and Jack got separated. He'd dreamt finding Jack again, dreamt seeing Riley, Bozer, and Cage. It wasn't real. As much as he wanted it to be true, his mind was convinced that it was wishful thinking.
But, then, where was he? Listening, he could hear a heart monitor beeping steadily with his pulse. So he was getting some kind of medical treatment. That made sense; as much as he mentally couldn't last much longer, he was scraping the bottom of the barrel physically, too. This wouldn't be the first time Asmara got him help just so he could keep hurting him.
He tried not to let the tension in his body be too obvious when heard someone enter the room, coming much closer to him than he would have liked and stopping beside whatever it was he was laying on. He felt them touch his right arm. Whatever they were doing, they were giving him his chance. Acting on pure instinct and desperation, knowing that if he didn't get away now, he likely never would, he sprang into action, grabbing the hand in one lightning motion and twisting it. The person it was attached to—a young woman wearing dark blue scrubs, her brown hair pulled back in a bun—yelped, trying to free herself from the hold. Seeing her instead of one of Asmara's men gave the traumatized agent pause, but he didn't recognize her, either, so he stood his ground.
"Where am I?" the agent demanded with a growl, barely able to focus on the young woman's face and not recognizing the room he was in. "And how the hell do I get out of here?"
"Agent MacGyver, you're in the Phoenix Foundation medical center," the young woman gasped, not moving from the lock position but much more shocked than hurt.
"Like hell I am," Mac scoffed, keeping his voice low so his captors wouldn't hear him. Now that Asmara knew who he worked for, he couldn't trust those words anymore. The fact that someone told him he was at the Phoenix meant nothing anymore. "Now tell me how to get out of here."
"Mac!" the dazed young agent hardly had time to process the voice before a hand grabbed his wrist—much more gently than he would have expected—and forced him to let go of the young woman's hand. Immediately, instinctively, Mac started to fight, trying to get away, to get out. He punched and kicked and clawed at his perceived attacker, desperation fueling each blow, terror making his heart race.
"Mac, stop it!" the voice was firm but soothing as the newcomer grabbed both of Mac's forearms, easily able to gain the upper hand and block his weakened hits. Some part of the wounded agent recognized the voice immediately, but he didn't stop fighting, the recognition not quite registering. "Stop! It's Jack! Calm down! Mac, it's me!"
It took a few seconds for Jack's words to find their purchase, but when they did, Mac stopped fighting, breathing hard as he tried to focus on his friend's face. When he spoke, his voice trembled, afraid that this, too, was all either a dream or a hallucination.
"Jack?"
"Yeah, buddy," Jack's face was full of concern as, behind him, the young nurse waited patiently, rubbing her sore wrist and taking a few deep breaths to calm herself. "It's me. You're at the Phoenix. It's over; you're safe."
"The convention center...It wasn't a dream...?" Mac felt tears well up in his eyes, hope starting to fill him up.
"No," Jack shook his head, slowly releasing his grip on Mac's arms. "All of that was real. You're home. You're safe. Take a breath, brother; you're okay."
Mac let out a shuddering breath, slowly relaxing in his bed, no longer fighting the sedatives in his system. He turned his head, coughing that deep, wet cough again before turning back to Jack and the nurse. He studied his partner for a moment, blinking his vision as clear as it could get, and shifted his gaze to the nurse.
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, guilt on his face. "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay," the nurse smiled, her expression kind and understanding. "It honestly didn't even hurt; you just startled me, is all. Besides, you didn't recognize me."
"No," Mac agreed. "I didn't...And I'm sorry about that, too."
"No, no, don't be," the nurse laughed slightly, stepping closer to him. "We haven't met before; there's no reason you should recognize me. I'm Taryn; I started two weeks ago."
"Mac," the young agent introduced himself. "It's nice to meet you. And again...I'm so sorry..."
"Don't worry about it," Taryn gave a warm smile. "Is there anything I can get you?"
Mac shook his head, barely able to keep his eyes open now that his mind recognized that he was finally somewhere safe.
"Okay," the young woman sighed quietly. "I'll let the doctor know you're awake."
With this, Taryn left the room, leaving Mac alone with his partner. Jack grabbed a chair from against the wall and pulled it closer to the side of his friend's hospital bed, slowly lowering himself into it.
"How're you feeling?" the former Delta asked, watching Mac's heart rate slowly return to normal levels.
"Tired," Mac replied honestly, but he wasn't all that interested in talking about himself. "What happened after I passed out?"
"Kyser and the medical team came down for you," Jack explained. "We got you back here, and they started checking—"
"I meant what happened besides what happened to me," Mac clarified, wanting more than anything to hear that Asmara had been caught, a boulder still settled in his stomach as he tried to clear up his memory of his time alone with the terrorist. There was something he had to remember, something so incredibly important...
"Cage started interrogating Abel," the older man told him slowly, not wanting to stress him out too much. "So far she hasn't got anywhere, but it's barely been a day, so I'm not worried about it. Victoria—who goes by Katherine, now—and her family are getting ready to go into hiding until we find Asmara. Bozer got released by medical, which, by the way, that makes Riley and Matty the only ones who are uninjured from our team; we have taken a serious beating. Speaking of Matty, she'll probably be joining us soon with Cage; they're going to want to talk to you. They won't debrief you until tomorrow at least, but they need to know a couple things right now."
"I know," Mac nodded, his expression grim. A few moments later, a three man parade came into his room, Doctor Emerson leading the charge, Matty following him, and Cage taking up the rear. All three smiled upon seeing their colleague awake.
"Good morning, Agent MacGyver," Emerson greeted him. "How're you feeling?"
"Ah...alive, which is cool," Mac offered a weak smile, and his friends laughed. "So, what's the verdict on me?"
"You are going to be here for a while," Emerson told him bluntly. "Multiple concussions, six cracked ribs...I don't think I have to tell you that your left wrist is broken, but your right wrist also has a hairline fracture; we'll put casts on after those gashes heal a bit. Your jaw was fractured, too, but amazingly, your skull is intact, so that's good. We took care of your shoulder and removed the bullet from your hip, stitched up your leg...You've got an infection, and you're right on the edge of pneumonia, so we've got you on some pretty strong antibiotics in addition to the morphine. We have an oral surgeon coming in to take a look at your teeth, see if they can be saved. But in spite of all that, you, Mr. MacGyver, are looking at a full recovery. You'll have a long road of rehab, but you're going to be just fine."
"Good to hear," Mac said gratefully before he turned his head to cough again, his shoulders heaving with the effort.
"And your coughs sound productive, so that's good," Emerson noted, stepping towards him. Jack stood up and stepped out of the way so he could have better access to his patient. "I'll make this quick, I promise; follow my finger."
Just like they had been when Kyser gave him the same test, Mac's eye movements were slow and jerky, and Emerson made a note on his chart before taking out a penlight and shining it in each of Mac's eyes, recording their reactivity to the light. As he went about giving his patient a cursory check-up, Matty took the opportunity to talk to him, only pausing when Emerson listened to Mac's lungs and heart.
"I'll save the formal debrief until you're feeling a little better," she told him. "But are you up for talking to us informally right now?"
"Don't have a whole lot of choice, do I?" Mac scoffed. "Unless you already found Asmara."
"Not yet," Matty sighed. "That's what we're hoping you can help us with."
"I mean...I'll try, but...my memory isn't great," Mac admitted helplessly. "And I didn't overhear anything; they spoke Portuguese the whole time."
"That's fine," his boss assured him. "Anything you can give us is going to help."
The wounded agent hesitated as Emerson finished up his examination before nodding in agreement, trying to prepare himself to face his memories and knowing that no preparation was going to be enough.
"How's your vision?" Emerson's voice jolted him from his thoughts.
"Ah...better," Mac reported. "Yeah, now there's only two of you, one of you is mostly in focus, and neither one of you is floating, so that's cool."
Jack gave a little snort of laughter, and both Emerson and Mac gave him a small smile before turning back to each other.
"Good. Well, then, I'll check back in with you soon," the doctor promised. "Feel free to press the call button if you need anything."
"Thanks, Doc," Mac gave a weak smile. Emerson returned the grin, then left the room.
"Jack," Matty turned to the former Delta, who was standing a few feet from Mac's side, his arms folded tightly over his chest. "Could you give us a minute?"
It wasn't a request, and Jack knew it, but still, he shifted his eyes back to Mac, still not willing to leave unless he was okay with it. The exhausted younger man gave a nod and a smile, grateful for and almost amused by how protective his partner was being.
"I'll be right outside," he promised, waiting for Mac's acknowledgement before leaving, closing the door behind him.
"Alright," Matty let out a sigh, turning to face her long-missing agent and grabbing a seat as Cage mimicked her. "Walk us through it. Let's start where Dalton left off; in Nevada."
Mac nodded, his jaw twitching slightly, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before he swallowed hard and began.
"I didn't know what was going on," he admitted slowly, not looking at either one of them. "My ears were ringing, my head was pounding, and...I realized that they took Jack upstairs, but it didn't register why that happened. I didn't notice that I was moving. I was in and out of consciousness. I came to for a few minutes with Tomlinson, but even then, I didn't really know what was happening. I didn't fully wake up until I was in that building I called you from. Asmara...he said that he'd killed..." his voice wavered for a moment, and he cleared his throat before he continued, "He said that I piqued his interest, and he wanted to know who I was and who I worked for."
"Did you tell him?"
Mac's eyes darted to his boss at her question, and he immediately regretted the quick movement, letting his eyelids fall for a moment as he tried to settle his stomach and soothe his aching head. After a few moments, his eyes opened again, and he looked at Matty with a range of emotions on his face. Matty gave a shrug.
"It's nothing against you, Mac," she said gently. She glanced at the corner of the room in front of him and to his left, and when he looked, he could just make out a camera near the ceiling. His jaw twitched as he looked back at his boss, but Matty's expression was full of sympathy and understanding. "But I do know what happened when you woke up here. Taryn used your full last name and the name of the building, and you were not fazed. Only reason that wouldn't be enough for you to realize that you were safe is if Asmara knew both of those things."
Mac hesitated a moment before he shifted his gaze away from her, shaking his head and reaching up with his right hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.
"I didn't tell him anything," he stated firmly at last. "I stuck to my cover story, altered to fit what Asmara already knew. I told him I was a civilian, that I worked at a think tank—I didn't say which one—and that Jack accompanied me when my work took me somewhere that someone higher up deemed unsafe. But by the time we left that building, he knew I worked for Phoenix, knew I was an agent, even as I denied it."
"How?" Matty's voice was still anything but accusing, but Mac's stomach still clenched.
"He's a smart son of a bitch," Mac scoffed. "He found Phoenix by looking up all the think tanks in Los Angeles, then looked for the one that stuck out to him as a cover. My calling you instead of the cops was what sealed the deal on the agent thing, but he suspected before that. I wasn't playing a civilian contractor, acting like a civilian would act, before that point; I was just trying to help Jack."
"Okay," Matty accepted his explanation. "Now, about that phone call...can you walk me through what happened during that and leading up to it?"
Mac hesitated, sifting through the fog of his mind. "They'd move me back and forth between the room I woke up in and..." he trailed off, quickly steering his thoughts away from that second room and everything that happened to him in there. "Anyway, the day I called you, Abel—that's Jack's nickname for one of the guys who tortured us, by the way; the pair of them were Cain and Abel—he woke me up, started to cut my hands free of the cot they had me on, but Asmara came in and stopped him. He, ah...he said that he...he found Victoria, so he was giving me the day off. I'd spotted a nail on the floor the first day, so I waited until my guard left and grabbed it, then waited until he fell asleep, and used it to get out of the zip ties. I'm sure you can figure out what happened after that."
"Tell us about the room," Cage prompted.
"There's not much to tell," Mac shrugged, still not looking at them, his growing frustration becoming evident on his face. "It was dark. On the table on the left hand wall, there was a mountain of explosives and other bomb-making materials. On the table in the middle, I saw a laptop, but it was locked. There was a cell phone plugged into it and charging, and it was unlocked, so I called you guys. I couldn't tell what the papers on the table were at first. I could barely see straight. I don't...I don't know how to help, guys; obviously, everything that happened before that phone call isn't exactly helpful, and after I got caught...there's so much I don't remember. At least, not clearly enough to be useful."
"Mac," Cage's voice made him blink and turn to her. "You're getting frustrated."
"Because I'm not helping," Mac confirmed, his sore jaw setting. "And I can't help."
"You're not letting yourself focus," his colleague countered. "I understand that this isn't something you want to relive, but we need to find Asmara."
"I know," Mac growled irritably. "Cage, I'm not avoiding my memories," even he wasn't sure he was telling the truth on that one, "it's just that they don't exist. They used my head as a punching bag; things are more than a little fuzzy."
"Mac," Matty's tone lost some of its gentleness, and he shifted his blue-eyed gaze to her. "Take a breath. We need you calm right now, okay? Let's start with something easy. You remember the convention center?"
Mac nodded mutely, his hands tightening ever-so-slightly.
"Good," Director Webber nodded. "Think about the bomb. Did anything about it stand out to you?"
"You mean, besides the fact that it used me as one of its parts?" Mac scoffed. Matty fixed him with a look, and he held up a hand in surrender. "Right, sorry...um...It was sophisticated. Way more sophisticated than I thought it would be. It utilized two types of explosives: the RDX I saw in the room I called from and..." his brow started to furrow in thought, "some other type of, um...of liquid explosive in the...barrels that the charges were on—Do you have a picture of it, actually?"
"Yeah," Cage nodded, pulling out her phone and bringing up the images taken at the crime scene, handing it to her colleague. Mac had to blink a couple times to bring the image into focus. Seeing the device again, however unclearly, one of the broken connections in the tortured agent's mind clicked back together, and he frowned.
"This isn't right," he muttered, flicking through the photos.
"What isn't right?" Cage pressed gently, not wanting to lose the lead.
"It...It's a huge bomb, and it definitely would have brought part of the convention center down, but...it's not big enough," Mac struggled to articulate what the problem was, his thoughts trying to catch up with his memory as he shook his head. After a moment, he looked over at them, frowning.
"Okay, so, turns out, I know a couple things," he sighed. "First of all, Abel is extremely well-educated, and knew not only how to construct a bomb using four different trigger methods, but also how to mix liquid explosives—and, now that I'm thinking about it, enough anatomy to know how to do what he did to me without killing me. Second, there were way more explosives in that room than were in the actual bomb."
"How much more?" Matty asked gravely.
"I saw...at least three times this much RDX in that room," Mac shook his head, handing Cage her phone back.
"Okay," Matty nodded, hiding how her stomach flipped over inside of her. "I've gotta go take care of that now, start putting alerts out to the other agencies so they can all be on the lookout, but Mac, I need you to keep talking to Cage."
"There's nothing else for me to—" Mac began rather irritably only for Matty to cut him off.
"I think we've already established that you know much more than you think you do," she gave him a stern look, and he fell silent, his jaw twitching slightly. "Work it out, Blondie; we need all the help we can get. According to you, there's at least one more bomb out there."
The young agent's expression became almost sad, dread settling in his chest, and he gave a resigned nod, his heart starting to beat just a bit faster. Matty offered him a sympathetic smile, squeezing his right hand gently before leaving the room. Mac caught a glimpse of his partner waiting for him, and smiled slightly, the sight calming him a bit. When the door closed again, Cage settled her eyes on him.
"Mac," her voice was ever gentle, and Mac dropped his gaze to the blanket covering the lower half of his body. "Mac, I know what you went through was awful, and I don't want to make you relive it, but we need to know as much as you do. I know you want to do something to catch him. Can you let me help you?"
Her question was met with hesitation. Yes, of course, he wanted—even needed—to help put Asmara away, but...more than anything else at that moment, he didn't want to recall what happened to him. He didn't want to put himself back in that room or back in that van. It was the first time in a very long time that he felt truly helpless, alone, without hope for rescue. Never in his adult life had he experienced that feeling. Not in Cairo—he'd had Jack, even then. Not even when Murdoc snatched him from his home—not only was he ever-confident, in spite of what Murdoc said, that Jack would have found him, but he was also able to save himself. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he'd lost faith in there. In himself, in the Phoenix...even in Riley and Jack. He really, truly believed that he was going to die, alone, at the mercy of that psychopath. He didn't want to feel that again.
But if he refused, if he let himself stay in his nice little bubble where he didn't have to think about Asmara or Abel or what they did to him, innocent people could get hurt. And even more than he believed he psychologically could not bear to relive what happened, he couldn't let that happen. So, the wounded agent took a deep, pain-filled breath, and nodded. Cage responded with a kind smile and dipped her head slightly.
"Okay," she sighed. "Tell me what happened after Asmara found you calling Matty."
Mac swallowed hard, his jaw twitching. He took a moment to gather his thoughts before he spoke.
"After he hung up, he woke up Abel, called him into that room..." he recalled slowly, clenching and unclenching his fists. "They talked for a minute...couldn't tell what they were saying...Abel kicked me in the shoulder...they talked again for a couple more minutes, and then Abel took me to...to the room they'd torture me in, and just beat the living hell out of me. No questions. No breaks. He was just trying to hurt me. And he was good at it."
He got quiet for a minute, remembering how viciously his torturer had attacked him, hitting every previous injury and creating several new ones even in the relatively short amount of time he had. Abel had sliced, punched, kicked, burned, tased, and suffocated him mercilessly, with no end in sight. It was the first time he was actually happy to see Asmara; it was only when he returned that Abel stopped. Eventually, he cleared his throat.
"I don't know how long it lasted, but at some point, Asmara came back, said something to him, made him stop," Mac explained, trying not to dwell on those memories. "They took me outside, left me by the side of the building while they finished packing up. I was barely conscious by then. Wasn't too long before they came and grabbed me, took me to the van..."
"Describe the van to me," Cage interrupted, her voice even and soothing.
Mac hesitated, closing his eyes as he tried to remember.
"Some kind of work van," he muttered after a moment. "Not...entirely positive what color it was; it was too dark to tell. Might have been gray, or a lighter shade of blue...maybe even white and really dirty; I don't know. There was some kind of a...a logo on the side."
"Could you tell what it was?" Cage asked, already guessing the answer.
"No," Mac shook his head. "Even if it wasn't dark, I couldn't see straight. It...it was a word though; a word and a picture. No, picture first, and then the word. The logo was...two shades of green...red, and...maybe yellow. Or white. Or both." He opened his eyes, "I'm sorry; I didn't get a great look at it."
"That's okay," she assured him. "That was helpful. It's at least something to go on. Keep going; what happened next?"
"They put me in the van," Mac shifted in his bed, clearly uncomfortable. "Tied my hands to a metal loop in the floor...They interrogated me the whole drive..."
"Okay, Mac, stop," Cage hit the pause button on his memories. "I want you to think about that drive. Not about what they did, not about what you felt, not about what you said, just about what you saw and heard. What did Asmara say to you when you got inside the van?"
This one, he did remember, in spite of his concussions.
"That he'd been being nice to me," he replied dully. "That I should have been more grateful. I almost wanted to laugh."
"What else?"
Mac frowned. There'd been more to that conversation; he knew there had been. That feeling of desperation, of fear, flared up in his chest again. Asmara had said something. Something so important. Something about what he was planning, something that...something that tipped his hand. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't get it. It was...God, it was maddening.
"Mac," Cage's voice was twinged in concern, seeing his heart rate increase. "Mac, what is it?"
"I can't...I can't remember," he grumbled in frustration. "There was something he said..."
"Hey," her voice drew his eyes to her, "it's okay. We can come back to it. There's no sense in you spending hours trying to remember something when you could be actually remembering something else that's just as helpful. Can you tell me what you saw?"
Mac scowled, but not at her, frustrated with himself for not remembering. Eventually, he nodded in reluctant agreement, his blue eyes falling shut as he forced himself to picture the inside of the van. Asmara was on his right, sitting down, watching him, asking him questions. Abel was...well, moving all around him. He flinched and jumped involuntarily, trying to block them out, but it was nearly impossible.
"There were no windows," he began finally. "I couldn't see outside. I could...barely hear the traffic around us. Neither one of them was wearing anything telling, but..."
He trailed off, frowning slightly.
"What?" Cage prompted after a few moments of silence.
"Asmara has something on the seat beside him," Mac grumbled. "It...it slid into me when we accelerated once..."
"What was it?"
"It...it was a book," Mac told her, opening his eyes to look at her. "Pride and Prejudice."
Cage blinked at him, just as confused as he was. "Did he have it before then?"
"I never saw him with it," he gave a helpless shrug before his eyes grew distant again. His lips parted slightly, as if he were going to say something, but he paused again, blinking slowly before speaking. "When it hit the floor of the van...it sounded wrong. It sounded...almost metallic. Hollow. It clanged instead of thudded. And when he picked it up, it rattled...and my blood, it...it dripped off the pages; they didn't soak any of it up."
"It was a fake book?" Cage guessed.
"Had to be," Mac shrugged. His colleague nodded thoughtfully, then texted something to Jack that prompted him to open the door and lean in.
"Right now?" He frowned.
"Yes, right now," Cage turned in her chair to glare at him.
Jack looked over at Mac, his frown deepening when he saw how uncomfortable he looked, but his partner forced a smile and nodded at him.
"Fine," the former Delta grunted. "I'll be right back."
He closed the door, and Mac and Cage were once again alone. Studying him, seeing how he kept clenching and unclenching his hands, twitching his jaw, and shifting his position, Cage could tell that he was nearing the end of his rope, and they'd have to try again later. But first...
"Mac," she got his attention again, and he looked up at her, his blue eyes shining. "Can you tell me what happened after you arrived in Los Angeles?"
Here, Mac flinched as though he'd been struck. His heart started beating steadily faster as fear sparked in his eyes. It took several seconds for him to speak, and when he did, his voice trembled.
"Nothing helpful," he told her firmly. "When I wasn't in the van, I was blindfolded, and they were speaking Portuguese."
Cage opened her mouth to speak, well aware that he was lying or at least not telling the whole truth, but she thought better of it, instead giving him a tight-lipped smile.
"Okay," she allowed, standing up. "Get some rest, Mac; we can try again later."
Mac nodded in agreement, not meeting her eyes, and Cage squeezed his good shoulder gently before she finally left him alone. It wasn't long before the morphine and exhaustion succeeded at pulling the young man back into unconsciousness.
I know, I know; there was a distinct lack of action in this one. I'm sorry about that; they can't all be thrillers. Action's not over yet, though; don't worry. I hope you all enjoyed! I'm sorry for the wait. I should have the next chapter out much faster than this one. Until next time!