Hey babes! Back with a new piece for this series for you all. Got a bit stuck on this one for a while, but I finally figured things out, so now I'm sharing it with you. This one was a very fun idea to put together, so I hope you all like it.
Enjoy!
Since the day her oldest daughter was born, Riley's known that Ellie would be a miniature version of Mac. With the way her eyes would always dart curiously around every room she was in and the way her little hands were always grasping at anything that came even remotely close to her, Riley knew that Ellie had inherited Mac's brain. And along with inheriting Mac's brain, Ellie also inherited much of Mac's personality and heart. Because Ellie's a good kid; she always does what she's asked to do, helps out people who need it without prompting, always tells the truth, the whole nine yards. So Riley never worried that she'd get called into the principal's office for her daughter getting into fistfights or causing trouble in class.
Of course, that doesn't mean Riley never worried whenever Ellie would go outside to play, the eldest of the three MacGyver children always needing to explore everything and test all her limits. Which always leads to broken bones and scraped knees that just causes Riley's mom-brain to rapidly go into overprotective mode every single time.
But as much as she worries about her daughter's safety on a daily basis, she loves that Ellie takes after Mac in so many ways. Especially her developing love for science and engineering. She always had a feeling it would end up that way, given that from a very young age Ellie would want to be with Mac whenever he was working on some new contraption. She just never could have foreseen that it would lead to them being called into the principal's office halfway through the school year when Ellie's in the sixth grade. Although, there's a smaller part of her that's surprised it took this long.
She's on her way out to the car to head to the elementary school to pick up Cassie, Wyatt, and Dion when she gets the phone call. Naturally, she's on high alert when she sees the number for the middle school on the screen, immediately worried that something has happened to her daughter. "Hello?"
"Hi, is this Mrs. MacGyver?"
"It is. May I ask who I'm speaking with?"
"This is Principal Daniels, from John Burroughs Middle School. I'm calling about your daughter, Ellen."
Her heart rate instantly picks up. "Is she okay?" she asks, shifting on her feet and her hand tightening around her car keys. "Did something happen?"
"Your daughter is perfectly fine. But there was an...incident today in the science lab. I'm going to need to speak with you and your husband in person as soon as possible."
Riley lets out a breath, quickly glancing at the time on her phone. She'll have to see if her mom or Jack can pick up the kids. "Uh, yeah," she says into her phone, "we can be there in about fifteen minutes."
"Great, thank you. I'll see you then."
Ending the call, Riley turns around and moves back inside the house, already pulling up her messages to send a text to her mom. "Mac?" she calls out as she moves through the house in search of her husband, tapping quickly on the screen of her phone. "Babe!"
He appears around the corner a second later, his brows furrowed slightly. "Hey, you weren't gone very long."
She sighs. "Ellie's principal just called. Apparently, there was an incident in the science lab today."
Mac's eyes go wide. "Is she okay?"
"He said that she wasn't hurt, but that he wants to see us as soon as possible. So I told him we were on our way."
Mac nods. "Okay. Did you—"
"My mom already agreed to get the kids."
"Good." He lets out a breath. "Well, let's go, then."
Riley turns on her heel and marches back out the door, knowing that Mac is right behind her. She makes a beeline for the car and climbs into the driver's seat, starting up the vehicle and then buckling herself in as Mac climbs into the passenger seat.
The drive to the school is silent, not even the radio is on to fill the space. She's too antsy and worried right now and knows that the music would just make her irrationally upset. All she can think about is her daughter, and what kind of "incident" she was involved in that would cause the Principal to call her and Mac.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Mac fiddling with some of the paperclips she keeps in the car for moments just like this. She doesn't know exactly what he's thinking, despite what some people might think, but she has a fairly good idea of what might be running through his head. She has no doubt that he's concerned about their daughter too.
By the time she pulls up to the school and finds a parking space, Riley's mind has already run through every feasible possibility she can think of about why she's been called to speak with her daughter's principal. And none of them are sitting right with her.
Climbing out of the car, she waits a moment for Mac to join her, and then they're making their way toward the front doors of the school. As soon as she steps inside the building, Riley heads straight for where she remembers the front office is located, leaning against the counter when she reaches it.
She smiles politely the best she can at the woman on the other side. "Hi. We're here to see Principal Daniels."
"Mr. and Mrs. MacGyver."
Turning toward the voice, Riley moves toward the older man. "Principal Daniels, hi. And please, just call me Riley. This is my husband, Mac," she says, gesturing behind her. "Is Ellen okay?"
Principal Daniels nods. "Yes. As I told you on the phone, she is perfectly fine. If you come with me to my office, we can discuss what happened."
Blindly reaching out for Mac's hand, Riley holds on tightly when she finds it, following the Principal down the hall. She knows the principal said that Ellie wasn't hurt, but until she sees for herself that her daughter is physically unharmed, she's in maximum worried mom mode.
Finally reaching the office, Riley lets out a breath of relief when she sees her daughter, perfectly unharmed, sitting in one of the chairs against the wall. She lets go of Mac's hand to kneel in front of her daughter, cupping her cheeks and brushing her curls back. "Hey, baby girl. Are you okay?"
Ellie nods. "Yeah. I'm okay."
Riley gives her daughter a small smile and then stands up, turning around to face the principal and letting out a breath. "Okay. Now that I'm done worrying for the time being, what exactly is it that you wanted to see us about?"
Principal Daniels silently gestures to the two chairs in front of his desk, moving behind to sit in his own chair.
Riley shares a quick look with Mac and then they settle themselves into the chairs. She's not sure what to expect, so she does her best to prepare herself for whatever is about to be said.
Principal Daniels leans back in his chair and takes a deep breath. "Well, I'll cut right to the chase. Ellen caused an explosion in the science lab today. Outside of class time."
Riley's eyes go wide, slowly drifting over to her daughter. "You what?"
"It wasn't even that big!" Ellen shouts, sitting up quickly in her chair. "And no one got hurt. No one was even in there. It was just me."
"How big was the explosion?"
Riley turns a narrowed gaze on her husband. "Not the point here, Mac."
He holds his hands up. "Sorry." He turns to the principal. "Do you have a list of what chemicals she used?"
Principal Daniels digs around his desk. "I believe her teacher made that list for me and it should be…ah!" He holds up a sheet of notebook paper. "Here it is."
Riley shifts a little in her seat while Mac looks over the list of chemicals, waiting for whatever conclusion he's come to. She knows he'll be able to figure out how serious the incident was based on whatever's on the paper.
"Okay, well, individually, none of these will do any serious damage," he says, setting the paper down. "But mixed together...yeah, that'll cause a bit of an explosion."
Riley raises a brow at her husband. "How big of an explosion is 'a bit'?"
"That depends on how much of each chemical she used."
Riley turns back to her daughter and raises a brow. "Well?"
Ellen shrugs. "I don't know. I kinda just...poured."
Riley lets out a heavy breath, rubbing a hand against her forehead. "So what are we looking at here, Mr. Daniels?"
"Well, given that this is Ellen's first instance doing something like this, we're letting her off with a warning and three days of lunch detention starting on Monday."
Riley nods. "Okay. Is there anything else you need from us?"
Principal Daniels shakes his head. "No, that's everything. Although, if you wouldn't mind explaining to her the danger of what she did. Her teacher and I both already have, but I'm sure a third time couldn't hurt."
"Of course," Riley says. "We'll make sure she knows." She slowly stands from the chair and lets out a breath, offering the man in front of her a polite smile. "Thank you." She takes a step away and looks at her daughter, waving her toward the office door. "Come on, let's go." She lets Ellie walk out first and then follows her into the hallway. She's vaguely aware of Mac speaking to the principal, but she's only focused on leading her daughter out of the school and to the car.
"Mom? Are you mad at me?"
Riley sighs heavily and turns to face her daughter, giving her a soft smile. "No, baby, I'm not mad at you. I was just really worried when your Principal called and said you were involved in an incident in the science lab."
"But he told you I wasn't hurt."
Riley laughs quietly. "I'm your mom, Ellie, I'm always going to worry about you. Even if someone tells me not to."
Footsteps behind her on the pavement has Riley turning around, and she smiles softly at her husband finally joining them. "Anything specific I should know about from your talk with the principal?"
Mac shakes his head. "Not really. I was just asking if there were any damages done that we'd need to pay for. He said there wasn't any property damage." His eyes shift to their daughter. "You're extremely lucky nothing was damaged."
"I know," Ellie replies. "I'm sorry about the explosion. I just wanted to try it. Connor said that—"
"Connor was involved in this?" Riley questions, and then lets out a heavy breath. "Of course he was."
Ellie shrugs. "He's my best friend."
Riley closes her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. She opens her eyes again and looks at her daughter, shifting a little on her feet. "Start from the beginning."
"Uh, Riles, don't you think it might be better to do this when we're at home and not standing in the middle of the school parking lot?"
She glances at her husband, then lets her eyes drift over to where other cars are starting to pull into the lot since school is almost out. She nods. "Yeah, I guess so."
The car ride home is quiet, just like the drive to the school had been. Mac has control of the wheel this time, Riley's mind somewhat calmer about the situation, but still a little wired with the knowledge of what her eldest did. She really shouldn't be surprised, though. Ellie is very much her father's daughter.
When they finally reach the house, Riley sends a quick text to her mom, letting her know that they're home and she can bring the other kids by whenever she has the chance. She's just hoping that it'll be a little while until that happens so that she and Mac can get to the bottom of Ellie's "incident".
Once they're inside with the front door closed, Riley clocks the exact second that Ellie starts moving in the direction of her bedroom, trying to be as quiet as possible. She just sighs, not at all surprised.
"Ellen Grace, get back over here. We're not done talking about what happened at your school." She stands by the front door with Mac right next to her, waiting and watching as Ellie slowly turns around and then trudges across the floor to the living room. They follow behind their daughter, sharing a quick look of understanding as they go.
She stops in front of the couch as Ellie falls down onto it, her backpack dropping to the floor, and then shuffles back to sit down on the edge of the coffee table. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Mac sitting in one of the chairs nearby, but she keeps her attention focused on her daughter. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her thighs, and dips her head enough to look into her daughter's eyes. "Now, do you want to start from the beginning?"
Ellie looks up and lets out a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping. "Fine. We had an assembly but I didn't want to go to my next class because we were just gonna be watching a movie. And that's soooo boring when we could actually be learning something."
Riley casts a sideways glance at her husband, an amused smile tugging at the corner of her lips. She can see a matching look on his face, and she wouldn't be surprised if he felt the same exact way when he was Ellie's age. She turns back to her daughter and nods. "Okay. We'll circle back around to you skipping class. What happened?"
Peering around the corner, Ellie steps out when she doesn't see any teachers or other staff members lingering around after the assembly ended. She knows there are cameras posted throughout the hallways, but she also knows that the principal doesn't just sit in his office all day watching the cameras. So there's less of a chance of her getting caught and sent back to class.
Quick footsteps sound behind her, and then another body is right next to her, easily matching her step for step through the hall. "Ellie, we should be in class."
"But we're just watching a movie," Ellie tells her best friend, fiddling with one of the many paperclips she keeps with her at all times, something she knows she picked up from her dad. "I don't like doing that when we could be learning something."
"So then ask the teacher if you can do some extra work in the library or something. You know how I feel about skipping class."
Ellie stops short when she realizes they've reached the science wing of the building, her head tilting as her eyes drift across the various classrooms and labs. "When do you think we'll get to use the science lab?" she asks after a quiet moment.
Connor sighs. "Way to change the subject," he grumbles under his breath. "And I don't know," he says, hiking his backpack up a little higher on his back. "I don't think sixth graders get to use it that much."
Ellie frowns. "Well, that sucks. I wanna make stuff explode."
"Even if we do use the lab, we probably won't make stuff explode. We don't even know if the stuff they have in there would explode."
She turns to her friend with a grin. "There's only one way to find out, right?"
Connor's eyes go wide a split second later. "What? Ellie, no. We can't. We could get in trouble."
She shrugs. "Only if we get caught."
"Which is exactly what will happen. There are security cameras."
Ellie rolls her eyes. "Oh, come on, Connor. My Uncle Bozer said that he and my dad used to break into their school all the time to do science experiments. We're not breaking into any buildings. Just going into a classroom outside of class time and being proactive with our learning."
"Our learning? No, Ellie. You're not dragging me into this."
"You already know you're gonna come with me," she tells him as she starts making her way toward the lab door.
"Only so I can make sure you don't do anything more than you claim you're gonna do."
She can hear Connor's footsteps behind her but doesn't look as she gets closer to the door. She smiles when she finds it unlocked, pulling the door open and stepping inside. Everything about the lab is so pristine, despite it being in a middle school, and she immediately wants to get her hands on everything and see what all of it does. Some of the equipment she recognizes because she's seen her dad use it before, and has even helped him on occasion. But some of it she's unfamiliar with.
Glancing around the room, she smiles in victory when she sees the cabinet by the teacher's desk that contains all the chemicals that she knows are used for various experiments throughout the school year. She's across the floor in an instant, using the paperclip she'd been fiddling with earlier to pick the lock on the cabinet. Her dad makes it look a lot easier than it is. But she manages to do it, and then she has the cabinet open, all the bottles and vials of chemicals staring back at her, practically begging her to use them.
"Ellie, I really don't have a good feeling about this."
She glances over her shoulder at her friend. "Everything will be fine, Connor. You trust me, right?"
Connor lets out a heavy breath. "Despite my anxiety telling me not to? Yeah."
A grin takes over her face. "Then go watch the door while I figure out what to use." She turns back to the cabinet, her eyes roaming over the labels, her brain already trying to figure out which ones will work together. But then she realizes that she doesn't actually know which ones mixed together will cause what kind of reaction.
She lets out a breath. "Well, science is all about trial and error, right?"
Riley's eyes are wide as she listens to her daughter finish explaining what happened at the school. Her brain is still processing, of course. She also makes a mental note to have a talk with Bozer about the types of childhood stories he shares with her kids.
"So then I kind of just grabbed stuff and started mixing. Then it sort of...exploded. Connor freaked out so I told him to run, and then Principal Daniels and Mr. Garrison showed up right after."
Riley sits up straight, closing her eyes and rubbing her hand over her forehead. "So what you're telling us is that Connor did not actually egg you on like you led us to believe earlier and that you instigated this whole thing."
"Umm...yes?"
There's some shuffling behind her and then she can feel Mac's presence right next to her as he sits down on the coffee table. She opens her eyes and looks at him, watching as his brain is most likely running a mile a minute after hearing Ellie's explanation.
"Ellie, I need you to listen carefully, okay?" Mac speaks up, reaching out to gently grab one of their daughter's hands in both of his. "I love that you love to learn, it makes me so happy. Because I loved learning when I was your age, and I still do. But when you're at school, you can't break into the science lab and do your own stuff."
"Technically I didn't break in because the door was already open."
"That's not the point," Riley says back. "You were still in there without supervision. And you broke into the chemicals cabinet. With a paperclip." She narrows her eyes at her husband. "We're going to have a talk later about you teaching our kids how to pick locks."
Mac's eyes go wide. "Riles, it's strictly for emergencies. And I've only taught Ellie how to do it. The other two have zero interest in learning that."
She narrows her eyes further, not entirely upset with him because it is a good skill to know, but she can't say that right now when they're trying to discipline their daughter for doing that exact thing. Thankfully, he seems to understand the silent message and turns back to Ellie. So she does the same. "Look, baby, we understand that you want to learn. And just like your dad said, we love that. But you can't do that kind of stuff on your own at your school. It's really dangerous."
"But dad did it all the time."
Mac nods. "That's right, I did. And I was very lucky that I never got seriously hurt, and that I never injured anyone either. And I also didn't have an adult whose mind worked the way mine did, to help me with all the experiments and projects that I wanted to do and make sure I did it all safely. But you, Ellen Grace, you've got me," he says with a smile.
She knows she should be focused on her daughter right now, on figuring out the best way to discipline the pre-teen, but she gets distracted by her husband for a moment. She loves watching him with their children, even in moments like this, because there is so much love and affection on his face whenever he looks at their kids, and it never fails to make her heart swell.
"And that," Mac's voice pulls her out of her head, "is why whenver you want to try something new that's been buzzing around in your head, I want you to come to me. And I'll help you. That way I know you're being safe and there won't be any risk of property damage."
Riley snorts at that, which then turns into full-on laughter when Mac shoots her a look. "I'm sorry, babe. But did you seriously just claim that there won't be a risk of property damage if you help Ellie with experiments? Because I can tell you right now that the two of you doing experiments together will cause more of a risk than just one of you." She smiles softly, resting a hand on his shoulder and rubbing gently as she turns her attention back to their daughter. "The point here, Ellie, is that there are to be no more unsupervised, spontaneous science experiments while you're at school, okay? You're very lucky that you got off with just a warning and lunch detention."
Ellie sighs. "I know. Are you going to call Connor's parents? Because he didn't do anything, so he shouldn't get in trouble."
Riley smiles at the concern her daughter has for her best friend. "I'm sure the school has already contacted his parents, baby. There are security cameras in the hallways so they definitely know he was there with you. Now go get started on whatever homework you've got, we'll come and get you when it's time for dinner."
"Okay." Ellie stands from the couch, bringing her backpack with her, and then shuffles across the floor. She stops for a moment to kiss Riley's cheek and then Mac's, then continues her way through the house toward her bedroom.
Standing briefly from the coffee table, Riley turns and falls down onto the couch, letting out a heavy breath as her eyes drift over to her husband. "That girl is getting more and more like you every day."
Mac chuckles, moving from the coffee table to sit next to her on the couch. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Because I can't tell."
Riley smiles as she automatically leans into his side, his arm coming up around her shoulders. "Both." She lets out a breath as she snuggles deeper into his side. "What are we thinking for punishment?"
"Do we really need to think of one?" Mac asks her. "We've never had to discipline her like this before so I'm at a bit of a loss. She's already going to have detention at school which I can guarantee she's going to be so bored out of her mind during. Also, she seemed pretty upset with the notion of Connor being in trouble simply for being there. I think that might be punishment enough for her."
Riley tilts her head back to look at her husband, smiling. "My two loves and their big hearts. I hope she never loses that."
Mac smiles softly back at her, leaning down for a quick kiss as he pulls her closer. "Me too. Though I could do without the constant worrying whenever she most likely still tries to do an experiment on her own."
Riley just lets out a laugh as she settles herself back against him, gently patting his chest. "Now you know what I've been going through since the day we met. But you'll get used to it, I promise."
So? What did you think? Let me know in a review down below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Make sure you check out the 'savemacgyver' website for all the ways you can contribute to the efforts to save our show.
Until next time,
Jellybean96 out!
