Disclaimer: this is all a figment of my imagination, with certain key aspects supplied by older and richer people than myself.

Reviewers: thanks again!

Re: assorted minor characters. Basically Sam Malloy is Mac's son, Pete Thornton is Mac's friend and boss, Michael Thornton is Pete's son. Oh, and Jon Murphy is of course mini-Jack ('Fragile Balance'). There are a few MacGyver FAQ's floating around with more detail, but I can't figure out how to include the URL without making the text go weird... sorry!

P.S. Does anyone have a vaccination against plot bunnies?


Mac paced around the living room. It had just hit him that there was something very wrong about this Jon Murphy kid, despite the extremely detailed information about him, and as far as he could tell his cousin Jack was involved. In his experience, if something was too good to be true it probably wasn't.

"What are you saying, Mac?" Pete pressed, not liking what he was hearing.

"I'm saying that this makes no sense, whichever way I look at it! If Jon Murphy is the nephew of Jack O'Neill, he's got to be the child of one of Jack's siblings, right?"

"Right," Mike confirmed. "Unless Jack got married and he was his wife's nephew."

"Yeh, but then he wouldn't look anything like me, should he? We wouldn't be blood relations."

"Ah."

"Exactly."

Pete interrupted them. "So from the sound of your voice I'd say that… Jack didn't have any siblings?"

"Bingo – we were both only children, born two months apart. I was probably nine when I last saw him," Mac snorted ruefully. "You'd have thought we'd be friends at least, but our moms had an old feud going that carried through to the pair of us. Even Harry didn't want much to do with the O'Neills – didn't like his dad for some reason. We never gave each other a chance. Let's leave it at that."

"So it's been what, nearly 50 years! Give the guy a break, Mac." Pete was incredulous – his friend was normally a fair-minded person, never one to judge a book by its cover. Obviously some wounds hadn't healed. "Maybe this'd be a good time to patch up your mothers' feud."

Mac pondered the issue, knowing that Pete was right – but unwilling to accept it. "He's career military, Pete. Somehow I think that means we have very different views on a few fundamental issues, don't you?"

MacGyver's attitude toward guns and violence was legendary: he had no tolerance for either, even when caught in a dangerous situation. He'd been drafted to serve with a bomb disposal team when he was 18, and making up an explosive on the fly was his speciality, while the things he could do with a Swiss Army knife and a roll of duct tape were too numerous to list – but guns? They were a complete no-no.

"Where does this leave us then?" Mike asked, worried about what this might mean for the Phoenix Foundation.

This was something that Mac didn't really want to think about, but talking to his cousin would be the quickest way to a solution. Suppressing a tide of childish resentment, he came to a decision. Pete was right. "Well this file does list Jack as the co-owner of Jon's cabin. Whoever he is, Jack must know him. Now we can either spend a few days digging, or we can ask the kid to play ball. Jack too. I'll… I'll talk to him if I have to. After I've spoken with Jon."

A silence fell on the room. None of them were used to Mac being so openly biased against what was a logical course of action, though it said something that he was willing to go ahead with it anyway.

"Ok, so first thing is to start tracking down Jack's phone number – work, home, anything. I'll ring Katie and get her going on that, and while we're waiting we can have a chat with young Mr Murphy. Is that ok by you guys?" Michael announced. "We can be as discreet as we need to be, and given the likeness I don't think anyone would object if we corner the kid for a while."

"Uh – someone want to bring me up to speed?" A new voice asked.

Mac turned and saw his son coming in from the garden. "Sam! So what do you make of him?"

The younger man perched on the edge of a coffee table and drew a long breath. What could he really report, after all?

"Jon Murphy, or whatever his name is, is pretty switched on for a kid of 20," he began, choosing his words carefully. "Dad, you always taught me to go with my gut – and my gut says that he's just as wary as we are. He didn't exactly back away from questions, in fact he asked about you before I could say anything –"

"Really?" Mac exclaimed, surprised. "What did he say?"

"Just 'so I hear I look like your dad', or something like that. I couldn't do much other than confirm it, but that was about all – we started talking about what I do for a living, his plans with the Air Force, that sort of thing." Sam shrugged noncommittally. "Like I said, he didn't back away from answering anything, but he wasn't exactly over-enthusiastic."

"Did he mention anything about an uncle?" Pete asked softly. "A General O'Neill?"

Sam span round on the table to face Pete, his dad's most trusted friend. "Yeh, yeh he did. Not by name though, just as an uncle who'd told him all about the Air Force – and nothing too, by the sound of it. Classified."

"Special operations," Mac guessed from the window, observing Jon and Lucy by the bbq. The kid did look a little too aware of his surroundings. "Jack grew up in a similar environment to me – the whole outdoorsy, living off the land type thing. It's not a giant leap of the imagination by any means."

"You know him!" Sam couldn't believe it. "How? Why didn't you say before?"

"I just found out, but Jack O'Neill is my mom's sister's kid."

"So Jon could be a cousin of sorts?"

"Heh… could, but isn't." Mac answered dryly, then ran through the problem of no siblings yet a co-owned Minnesotan cabin.

Sam saw the implications immediately. "The details fit, and there must be something to prove it otherwise the kid wouldn't be in the Air Force too – it'd be too obvious – but how, and why?"

"That's what we need to find out!" Mike chimed in, closing his phone. "Katie will get back to me as soon as she can, but her initial search shows that General J. J. O'Neill is definitely on the non-reflective side of the Air Force. Lotsa medals, but the details are as sketchy as hell."

"Sweet," Sam mumbled. "So I guess you want to meet Jon, huh Dad?"

"You betcha."


Jon knew the exact moment when the feeling in his middle coalesced into a solid ball of lead.

He'd been turning a new set of burgers (having rescued Sam's damn-near burnt offerings and sending them to the buffet via Cassidy-Air), Lucy hugging his middle and whispering random notes about the people around them in his ear, when an all-too familiar voice drifted across the garden.

Geez… he thought, dread washing through him. If that isn't Jack, and I know it isn't because he wouldn't come within 100 miles of me, that has to be my brand new older me. As if one wasn't enough…

"Mac!"

Lucy fairly yelled in his ear before letting him loose and running off to greet the cousin he never wanted to see again. It wasn't anything to do with the idiotic (and occasionally dangerous) pranks they pulled on each other as kids, just the mere revelation that Mac had grown up to look far too much like… Jack. Himself. Either or. It made no difference.

Behind him he could hear Lucy dragging the man in question closer to the bbq, but an older voice with them suggested that they weren't alone. Someone with worse knee problems than he was doomed to inherit? Maybe, but his feet were glued to the ground as he concentrated on the grill – it might be childish, but he really didn't want to do this, not in the slightest.

"Jon! Meet Mac! You look soooo like him – it's unbelievable!" Lucy grabbed him round the waist and tried to turn him round, but he resisted just a moment longer. "Jon?"

"One second! That's all I ask!" He protested, trying to sound light-hearted. "I don't want to be known as the man of charcoal…"

"I'll relieve you, Jon," Sam interrupted smoothly, deftly plucking the bbq tools from his hand.

"Wha-! Uh…" Crap. Foiled again. "Fine, but just watch those sausages – they might flare."

It was obviously a case of unfair odds, many against one, but Jon wasn't John Wayne – he wasn't going to escape this time. The inevitable could not be avoided.

Putting on a brave face, he span round and wondered how like Jack this guy would look. Not much, and all might still be well – too much, and…

"Holy Hannah!"

It was a phrase borrowed from the love of his life, one Colonel Samantha Carter, but that's what she would have said if she was here – Jon was sure of it. The likeness was so great that it wasn't even funny.

The shock was mutual, with both Jon and Mac staring at each other with mouths agape. Pete wasn't much better, having known MacGyver when he was younger; not this young to be sure, but before this lad must have been born. Lucy stood by with a smirk on her face, while Michael frowned.

When it became clear that neither 'twin' knew what to say, Pete stepped in with a diplomatic introduction for all the new arrivals. "So, you must be the Jon Murphy we've all heard about. My name is Pete Thornton, this is my son Michael, you know Sam already of course, and this impolite statue is MacGyver."

Jon shook himself and broke the eye contact that locked he and Mac together. "Uh, sure – hi everyone. I, uh, I mean hell, Lucy said there was a likeness but this is freaky!"

"You can say that again…" Michael muttered, earning himself a glare from Sam.

Suddenly impatient with the aggressive pussyfooting going on around here, Jon fixed Mac with a look. They studied each other for moment before the younger man decided that if these people were suspicious, he needed to find out why – sooner rather than later. Time to watch for reactions.

"Y'know, you and my uncle Jack could use each other as shaving mirrors."

In the seconds after that comment, Jon knew that someone had already done some research – and that Mac, Pete and Michael all knew about it. All three of them visibly flinched, which could have been expected in Mac – but only Mac – especially to this degree. They had made the link to Jack, and they'd found the gaping hole.

MacGyver stood still and said nothing for the moment, thinking that Jon Murphy had probably learned more in the last few seconds than the three Phoenix men had put together from the details in his file. Pete and Mike, as well as Lucy, were all looking at him – waiting for a response.

"Jack, eh? That wouldn't be Jack O'Neill would it?" he ventured, wanting to see if the kid would stick to his 'cover'.

"That'll be the one," Jon nodded, his mouth twisted with indecision. He didn't like being here by himself, without back up, with four potential hostiles around him. Not that they were likely to kill or kidnap him in such a public arena, but he also didn't like having Lucy – who was oblivious to all this – so close to the brewing situation. "Jack wound up in the Air Force too, a General in fact. How 'bout you?"

His training and experience should, he hoped, be able to glean whether MacGyver was telling the truth on this one – if he answered at all. What made his cousin so suspicious? Some party this was turning out to be…

"Trouble shooter," Mac replied, sticking to the truth. If this kid was a plant of some kind, he would have done some research – that and Lucy would object or fill in gaps if she thought he wasn't being entirely honest. "I work for the Phoenix Foundation – have you heard of it?"

"Ah…" Jon breathed – things made a bit more sense now. "The research institute, right?" The SGC had actually used their translation services a few times while Daniel had been ascended, and they'd even tried filtering the odd 'technological breakthrough' into the open air via Phoenix's R&D section, but rumours surrounding Phoenix's operational branch were a dime a dozen.

"Do you all work there?"

"Yeah!" Lucy bounced in, feeling happy that a link between her father figure and her boyfriend had been found, but not so happy about the continuing tension in this area. "Pete used to be Director of Operations, but that's Mac's job now. That trip where you met Mom was one of the last times they let you out in the open, wasn't it?"

"That's right," Pete answered wryly, since it had been around that time that his glaucoma had become too serious to work around – at least in an Ops context. "And my blood pressure's almost back to normal."

"And what do you do, Michael," Jon asked pointedly. It couldn't be operations, whatever that meant in a non-governmental organisation.

Michael Thornton leaned closer, annoyed. He could see that there needed to be a confrontation here, one way or another, and he felt like this kid was playing them all while an innocent girl watched without a clue. "I'm head of internal security." Ironic, since he'd once breached it himself.

It was at that moment that Sam hopped back from the barbeque to announce that the meat was ready, though his face quite blatantly said 'did I miss anything?'

Jon snorted. "Keep your shirt on, Malloy. The party hasn't really started yet."

Lucy's eyes narrowed. There was definitely something more going on here.

MacGyver, on the other hand, shot a look at the younger kid and made a decision. He wasn't a confrontational man by nature, but this boil needed to be lanced. In private.

"Jon. Why don't we help the girls out here by collecting a few glasses and bottles from the gazebo?"

The young man glanced up the lawn to the suggested spot while Mac watched him weigh the options. No one would bother them in there, and cleaning up was a legitimate excuse to leave Lucy and the others behind… plus they could talk in there, alone, while retaining a good view of other partygoers.

"Sure," Jon nodded after a moment, though playing barman wasn't his idea of fun. "Maybe you could help Pete find a comfortable place to eat, ok Luce? We'll be back in a few minutes – I don't fancy fighting that queue for food just yet."

"Ok…"

Michael and Sam protested, but Pete voiced his agreement after a moment's thought. "Kids, give me a hand up will ya – there's a burger with my name on it down there."

A nod from Mac confirmed the arrangement, and after a reassuring clap on Sam's shoulder the suspiciously identical pair were alone.

Jon turned to his cousin, all smiles, and decided to start the negotiations with a bang – it was what he was known for, after all.

"So, what do you want to know, Angus?"

Mac's jaw dropped, while Jon trudged up the gentle slope to the gazebo.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone…" his voice drifted back.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Mac hurried after him and caught the younger man at the entrance. By mutual yet unspoken agreement they began to clear glasses, conversing in low voices interspersed with the clinking of bottles.

"So you do know Jack?" Mac asked, after a moment's thought. Best to start on solid ground, even if he had had little to do with the O'Neills for years.

Jon blew a playful note on a beer bottle. "Oh yeh, I know Jack. I know Jack extremely well."

"How's he doing?"

"Like I'd know? We don't talk much."

"And you fit in where, exactly?"

There was a quiet snort of laughter at that question. "If I told you I'd have to kill you."

"Nothing like a little melodrama, eh?"

"When the moon's right, sure – but trust me, the only reason I'm talking to you is because looking this much like Jack is a bad thing," Jon explained tightly. "For both of us."

"And if you told me why, you'd have to kill me?" Mac followed the thought through.

Jon clicked his fingers in confirmation. "You always were a smart kid! Uh, at least that's what Jack told me." He fumbled a little and decided to change tack. "Look, I'm guessing that if you and your buds felt it necessary to run some kind of check on me – which you clearly have judging by their reactions earlier – and if it took you less than an hour to do so, you've got your fingers into a few too many pies as well. Am I right?"

The older man stood back a little, urging his body to relax. It was hard, because his adrenal glands were working overtime, and his heart rate was damned high for a Saturday afternoon. "Maybe."

"Maybe! What kind of ops does Phoenix run? The covert, illegal kind?"

"No!"

"Then what, Angus? What's gotten you so worried?"

Mac's eyes narrowed. This was the second time Jon had called him by his first name, and both instances were obvious attempts to bait him. "You really are a lot like Jack, you know that?"

Jon's breath caught involuntarily. The man had hit the nail on the head, though he was damned if he was going to tell him why – at least not yet. "Uh, whaddaya mean by that?"

"I mean you like laying traps and playing with fire," Mac muttered, trying to figure out what to do. He was fighting a battle on two fronts here: on the one hand trying to talk to a mystery kid who knew a little too much for comfort; on the other trying to silence his years-old antagonism toward Jack, which seemed to be targeting Jon as a substitute. "That and you seem pretty good at making enemies."

"Touché – but given the fact that we're having this conversation, I'd guess that's a family trait," Jon observed quietly. "Am I right?"

Mac took a long, deep breath and considered this Jon Murphy kid in front of him. He was sharp, too sharp to not know the implications of what he was saying. He also had Jack's habit of being tactless on purpose, though he wasn't revelling in the responses he got; it was more of a tool for breaking the ice. With a ten-tonne sledgehammer.

"Look, I'm not going to trust you until I know what the hell is going on here – and if I don't trust you, things could get awkward," the Phoenix Foundation's Director of Operations stated unkindly, biting his tongue too late.

Jon shrugged. "I already have a job, and they won't sack me in a million years. I could even deal with not finishing grad school, if you want to be that petty."

"Petty? You've admitted that you're a dangerous person to know, and yet you're having a relationship with an innocent girl!" Mac answered, his voice dangerous. Messing with kids was a cardinal sin in his books, even if another kid did the messing. It had been like that since he was a kid himself… when other kids like Jack had teased him for being a pacifist with his head in the clouds.

It was Jon's turn to flare, and the light in his eyes told Mac that he meant every word – and could follow them through. "I didn't drag Lucy into anything, and we're barely counted as a steady couple. I do care about her though, as a friend as well as a girlfriend, and if anyone hurt her I'd – well I guess I'd come down on them about as hard as you would on anyone who hurt her mom."

Stalemate. Neither one of them wanted to give way, and both carried secrets that could damage each other, but they didn't trust easily. They didn't trust easily, but they were afraid that someone would get hurt if they didn't.

Then Jon's cell phone rang.

It was a classic ringtone, the music that always seemed to hang around Darth Vader during the Star Wars movies (which Jon had finally watched, though as far as he knew Jack had not). It reminded him of his place in the universe: getting rid of snake-headed aliens.

"You gonna get that?" Mac asked eventually, sensing that Jon wouldn't pick up otherwise.

"Nope. They can leave a message," he replied flatly. "Plus I need to make a call myself."

"You do?" the other man inclined his head questioningly as the phone beeped its notification of a missed call.

Jon nodded. "Let's call Jack, shall we?"

"He really does know who you are?"

"Does a bear shit in the woods?"

"I'll take that as a yes."