A/N (2/18/05): Oh, yeah, by the way. The me in this story is married to mini-Jack. Just fyi. It's not even really important to the story, but it's part of my Stargate stories, which I should really get typed and posted, so since this one is just Stargate-me going into MacGyver-reality, well….

Ever have one of those days when you think God hates you and wants you to die? Me, I tend to have them all the time. It seems that every time I try to take a vacation, events begin to conspire against me. Everybody needs my help. I thought for sure this time that I'd escaped all that. I mean, MacGyver could handle anything that came up, right?

Wrong.

I stepped through Omalya's Gate into an exact replica of the SGC. Or rather, it was the SGC, just in another reality. I had to go through Omalya because that wonderful planet is what allows me to jump realities without using a quantum mirror. It had something to do with a naked singularity. I tried discussing it with Carter once, but Jack told us to shut up before our brains exploded.

I half-expected to run into an iris at the other end. Then I'd have a permanent vacation. Probably someplace very warm, but hey, I liked warm. It was better than Antarctica, which is where I'd ended up the first time I dialed home from Omalya with the idea that I deserved a little break. But this SGC didn't have an iris.

"I told you people to get an iris!" I said to the airmen who were pointing their guns at me. Oh, but the Stargate only went to Abydos. I'd told them it went elsewhere, told them that I'd been elsewhere through it, but they'd decided to argue about it and I'd been in a hurry to get home. MacGyver had interrupted me in the middle of trying to track down Anubis. Damn that lord of the dead, anyways. He was almost worse than Murdoc when it came to coming back from the dead. This time, though, I was pretty sure I'd trapped him for good.

"Put your guns down, men," said General Whatshisface. Sendoy or some such thing. I never was too good at remembering names. "Welcome back, Miss O'Neill."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I said. "I'm looking for MacGyver. Any idea where he's staying these days?"

From the SGC I took a plane to California, then went straight to MacGyver's apartment. "Hey Macky-boy!" I yelled, banging on the door. "Open up!" There was no response. Okay, so he wasn't home.

I was not going to be thwarted. I still had my pocketknife in my boot. They hadn't found it when I ran my boots through airport security. I took it out and picked the lock. Wonderful little trick I'd learned way back when I was sixteen and had perfected in Military Intelligence.

As I let myself inside, the phone began to ring. Wonderful. I ran to answer it. "Hello. MacGyver residence. If you're a thief, this is not a good time. This apartment is currently protected by a security system, namely, me. Who may I ask is calling?"

"Uh, this is Pete Thornton of the Phoenix Foundation. Who are you?"

Oh, hi, Pete. I know you but you don't know me. "MacGyver's imaginary friend. You can call me Lightning." Lightning was my nickname, starting back in tenth grade, when I was fourteen. I hadn't used it very much since starting West Point, but I'd still respond to it, and at the moment I didn't feel like giving my real name. So far I hadn't met the me from this reality, and frankly, I didn't want to.

There was a pause, as Pete mulled that over. "Is MacGyver there?"

"Nope."

"Where is he?"

"No idea."

"Do you know when he'll be back?"

"Nope."

"Well, if you see him, tell him I have an assignment for him."

Ah, the wonders of not being from this reality. If it had been my reality, I might have gotten stuck with the job. Just like I got stuck with preventing a war between the US and Russia when my evil twin was stirring up trouble.

Curious, I asked, "What sort of assignment?"

"That's—"

"—classified, of course," I interrupted smoothly. "Don't worry. MacGyver gave me clearance when I helped him track down Murdoc." Oh, God, I should not have said that. Now he was going to ask me—

"That was you? Great! Maybe you could give MacGyver a hand on this job."

Oh, no. No no no no no. I am not going to help you track down some spies in another country, or decode something, or—just no. "Yeah, sure," I heard myself say. No! This is supposed to be a vacation! "But you still haven't told me what it is."

"We've identified one of HIT's operatives. We think Murdoc may have trained him. He certainly has Murdoc's style."

"Damn Murdoc, anyway. He refuses to die, and then when he does die he manages to reach out from the grave and cause even more problems. You've got to admire him, though. He'd have made a great replacement for Nai'óbí."

"Nai'óbí?"

"Nevermind." I had a feeling that it wasn't a good idea to try to explain Nai'óbí to Pete. Pet assassins probably wouldn't go over too well with him. And the whole reading the mind thing, well, he wasn't too likely to believe that.

Reading the mind? you ask. Yeah, well, that's difficult to explain. The short version of it is, I can read minds. As in telepathy. Not all minds; only some minds. Only people from Omalya. It has to do with that naked singularity again. Luckily, Nai'óbí just so happened to be from Omalya.

I hung up.

"MacGyver!"

MacGyver stopped dead in the doorway and stared at me. "Oh, good, it's you." He resumed motion.

Well, of course it was me. Who else would it be? Murdoc? He was dead. For good.

"What are you doing in my apartment?"

"I'm trying to take a vacation," I replied. "Guess how long that lasted." I didn't even wait for him to respond before I continued. "Less than a day. I walk in the door and Pete Thornton calls to give you an assignment, and before I know it I'm recruited." MacGyver looked like he was about to ask what the assignment was, so I said, "We're supposed to be tracking some assassin. Murdoc's apprentice or some such thing."

"How did you get into my apartment?"

Oh. So that's what he'd wanted to ask. "I picked the lock, of course. Like my pocketknife?" I showed it to him.

He took in the blue, the sparkles, and the word Goddess, and gave me one of those incredulous looks I get so very often. "Goddess?"

"It's a quaint conceit, I'll admit. But the knife is useful, now that I've sharpened it. It used to be the dullest knife I'd seen in my life. But now it's good. It took out that psycho assassin dude who was trying to kill me. And it picked your lock."

"Somehow it just doesn't go with the image I'd formed of you. Weren't you wearing fatigues last time I saw you?"

"Don't remember. So, MacGyver, you got any ideas on tracking this guy?"

"If he's anything like Murdoc, he'll probably come after me, in order to prove he's better than his teacher."

"Of course he will. The question is when."

"You sound like you have a plan."

Of course I had a plan. It just wasn't a very good plan. "Maybe. I was hoping you had a better one."

"What's your plan?"

"I spy on HIT to find out when this guy is going to come after you." There were more details, but they would take a while to explain.

"That's the plan?"

"Elegant in its complexity. Hopefully I'll manage to get enough info to take out HIT once and for all. That way maybe next time I come here looking for a day off I might actually get to take a break."

"You sure you can handle it?"

"Nope," I said cheerfully. "That's why I was hoping you could come up with something better."