"That girl is so stubborn!" Mac told Jack Dalton two days later. "I have to sit in front of her for two hours before she'll take her medication. After that, I have to make sure she swallowed it."
"You should open a home for wayward kids," Jack teased, assuming Elodie was just a foster child. "'MacGyver's Home for Teens.'"
"It's not funny, Jack. All sorts of promises had to be made just to get her to agree to even take any medications. I'm starting to feel like I'm a nurse."
"'Nurse MacGyver's Home for Teens," Jack said.
"I'm not kidding, Jack. Every sharp object was removed from the house yesterday, just so that she could be here. I'm living with two very stubborn teenage girls, one of whom just happens to be the daughter of two maniacs!"
"What?" Jack asked in confusion.
"Apparently, Murdoc has a very active sex life," Mac said. "You weren't paying too much attention earlier, were you?"
Jack made a face, his mustache moving upward as he did so. "He had the nerve to reproduce?"
"Obviously, he did!"
"Aren't those girls being awfully quiet?" Jack asked, noticing how silent it had become.
Mac looked into the room the girls were in. They were quietly discussing something. "You better not be talking about boys, Arianell," he said. "I'm not ready for that."
"What if I'm talking about boys?" Elodie asked.
Mac scowled. He didn't like that idea either. "They're talking about boys," Mac grumbled as he turned back to Jack.
Elodie thought of the baby at night. Her brother, Michael. She'd left only partly because she was angry. She'd also left to protect him. When Ivy's voice began to urge her to kill him, she ran. Hitched rides as far as she could. Finally, she tried to jump off a bridge after the voices became too much. But someone stopped her. Was that good or bad? If the medication he urged her to take was supposed to work, then why was she still hearing voices? What if she didn't really have the condition she'd been told she had. Sure, MacGyver had told her it could take a while to really be effective but still... Maybe she could do some research...?
She scratched at one arm, just enough to bleed. She needed to feel the pain. Was that a bad thing? People sure acted like that sort of thing was bad.
Mac had heard Elodie moving around, so he'd gotten up to see what she was up to. He had to be ready to stop her from doing anything stupid. She stood at the edge of the marina, seeming completely unaware that she was being watched. Suddenly, she began to tip forward.
Mac rushed over and grabbed one arm. She didn't respond at all, which worried him. As he brought her inside, he noticed an odd cast to her eyes. She'd been sleep walking. As he thought of what to do about the situation, he noticed a scratch on one arm and dried blood under a fingernail on the opposite arm.