"You really should sit down, Angus."
Mac made another circle to the room, but came to a stop at the makeshift lab table across from his father. "What have you found?"
James continued to peer into the microscope "That your baking soda and cornstarch styptic is probably a temporary solution at best."
Mac glared at the vague answer.
"No kidding. It looked like about a half gallon leaked out while I was getting supplies."
"Do me a favor?"
"Yeah?"
"Measure out fifteen milliliters of water."
Mac frowned but used a small graduated cylinder to do as he was asked. "And?"
"Dump it right here."
"What are you—"
"Humor me." James switched out the slide on the scope.
Mac did. "And?" he repeated.
"Looks like a lot, doesn't it?"
"I guess."
"And you're not even worried about the water."
Mac bit his tongue to keep from snapping at his father. "Cute," he said with thinly checked temper.
"I'm trying to make you feel better."
"You're doing a bang up job, Dad," Mac snapped. Then he looked at how much of the table's surface was covered by the tablespoon of water. "You know what, you make a really good point," he conceded.
"Learned that trick from Dr. Beckett when you were a baby. Six PhDs between your mom and I and you'd have thought neither of us had even passed high school biology the first time you got sick. I think the doc found that kind of funny, actually, but he was very helpful."
Mac either treasured or rebelled at stories of the MacGyvers as a happy family. Right now, his feelings were an uncomfortable swirling combination of both.
"I'll concede he's not in immediate danger of hypovolemic shock. But it's right around the corner." His father didn't look up. "So, I'm going to do the thing you hate and repeat myself: what have you found?"
Oversight shook his head. "His red blood cells are … liquifying."
Mac chewed his lip hard until he tasted his own blood. "And how close to complete is the version of KX7 they gave him?"
Another headshake. "It's impossible to say."
"What part do you think is collapsing the cell membrane?"
He finally lifted his head. "Best guess? The excessive tocopherol they added to slow the cellular oxidation caused by the oxandralone."
Mac nodded slowly. "That could do it … What if they've been overthinking this?"
"What do you mean?"
"What if they've been so concerned with going big that they've overshot the mark and created unnecessary side effects when if they slowed down, they could have had exactly what they wanted."
"What made you pursue this line of thinking?"
"Captain America."
"Pardon me?"
Mac's face heated faintly.
"It's just … Jack is always calling KX7 super soldier serum. And it got me thinking…"
"Go on."
"Well, … in the comic books, the issue with replicating the original formula was that the more they souped up their attempts at it, the greater the side effects."
"I'm not sure that your penchant for obsessing over comic books when you can't sleep is going to be any more helpful in this situation than it was when you were ten."
"A lot of great scientific ideas have come from fiction. Look at the warp drive!"
James smiled, though he didn't look up from his microscope. "We're not exactly at system hopping at the moment, Angus."
"But the physics is figured out! A warp engine is just an engineering problem now!"
"Seems to me that, at least with regard to the Enterprise, the warp engine has always been an Engineering problem."
Mac was almost startled into a laugh. It was so rare that his father even attempted humor. "You know what I mean."
James shook his head firmly. "Angus, we can't do this. Even if it were possible to do so."
"We have to do this! It's Jack!" Mac all but shouted. He winced at the pain in his throat, but pressed on. "And once he's okay, we'll do what we did the last time and burn this all to the ground."
James looked at him intently for a full minute. "Angus, no."
Mac was exhausted, hurting, and, if he was 100% honest, pretty much scared shitless Jack was going to die horribly, and that none of them were getting away from Walsh and Murdoc. His temper flared. "You're doing it."
"Angus, I'm not."
"If you don't, I will."
"We—"
"This isn't a discussion." This time Mac winced at the shades of James MacGyver he heard in his own voice. "If you won't do it, and I have to, it'll take me longer. Jack doesn't have the time for you to suddenly try to find some moral high ground all of a sudden. You got close in the original development before the program shut down. Don't pretend you didn't."
James closed his eyes. "How do you know that?"
"You think I didn't go digging into the KX files from DXS after the last time?"
He opened his eyes. "You checked out and took off to Africa after the last time," he snapped.
Mac gave him a tight smile. "There's getting out from under your thumb, and there's going completely off grid. I only did one of those." He took a step closer to his father, his eyes hardening. "And if how things shook out on the mission you dragged me back for didn't tell you that I'll choose my partner every time, I'll tell you now. Jack goes home from this shit show your God complex brought to our door. Period."
James swallowed hard. "Alright. I'll try."
In his head, Mac immediately heard Jack's terrible Yoda impression. "Do or do not. There is no try." What he said aloud was, "Good."
"You're getting very hoarse again, son. And you look like you're in pain."
Mac almost snapped a terse reply, but instead just got the viscous lidocaine from his pocket, gargled with a capful of it and spat into the sink on the far wall. His spit was vaguely pink again.
In a perfect world, he'd be home resting on his couch, sucking down popsicles and watching Die Hard with his friends. In a perfect world, his father's concern and apology for how he'd behaved before Mac's surgery would be another softening of the tension between them.
In a perfect world, Jack would be eating the ice cream he supposedly bought for Mac and bugging him to remember his meds.
But, the world was far from perfect. A fact Mac was all too familiar with.
He carefully drank some water from the sink from his cupped hands. Dehydration was not something he could afford. It tasted metallic. He wasn't sure if it was the nasty old pipes here, or his blood. He sighed.
"Angus?" his father ventured tentatively.
Mac turned.
"I found phytonadione in an injectable preparation."
He frowned at his father. "Vitamin K?"
"It could slow Dalton's bleeding to buy us some time."
Mac's shoulders relaxed, just a little. "Okay, yeah. That might work."
His father set the vial and a syringe on the corner of the lab table. "You go take care of that. I'm going to go back through the formula to see what I can walk back so we can test your theory."
Mac walked back over and picked up what he needed. He banged on the door to be escorted back to Jack's cell. One of the goons opened it, a gun already leveled at Mac's chest. Mac ignored him. He stopped in the doorway and looked back over his shoulder at his father. "Thank you."
James gave a curt nod. "You were right. I started this fire. But we're going to put it out for good this time."
0-0-0
In a room close by, standing in front of a monitor, Jonah Walsh laughed. "I'll be damned."
Murdoc smiled slyly. "I told you it would work."
"I never woulda figured that Boy Scout to play ball no matter what we used for leverage."
"Yes, well, I've been watching dear Angus for years now. He's not going to risk losing Papa Bear if he can help it."
"I don't think Jimmy ever gave a shit about that kid."
"Don't be a fool."
"You mean Dalton?"
"Of course I do. He's been part of Angus's family in a way I don't think Big Mac, as you call him, ever has." Murdoc chuckled thinly. "Although, our friendly neighborhood Boy Wonder would probably sacrifice to save your former partner as well. That's just who he is. He just wouldn't make KX7 for his father. That's why we needed Jackie Boy. He's tenacious in his love for his friends."
"You admire that kid."
"Of course I do. He's the only mark who's ever survived me." His lips split in a shark-like grin. "It's going to make the thrilling conclusion to our little joint venture all the more satisfying."