i am... so sorry for the length of this chapter lskdjfslf. thank you for your continued support, i hope you enjoy the chapter!
(title from bastille's song 'the silence')
For the fifth time in the last three hours, Mac wonders why, exactly, they still insist on conducting ops in the months of November to February in places where temperatures went below forty degrees. He's spent the better part of the day well into the afternoon circling in a wide perimeter around the cabin where Dr. Libby Parker is holed up, hiding from what appeared to be harm, help, and her own shadow. Not that Mac blames the woman - she's an engineer not a combatant, and there's hardly a thing in the world scarier than knowing you're being hunted, pursued by people you can't see, who outnumber and outgun you by leaps and bounds. But it certainly does make his job more complicated that he can't just walk up to the door, or call her on her cellphone to tell her help has arrived.
So he trudges around, keeping his distance, and peers through binoculars at the cabin. It belonged to a friend of Dr. Parker's, a friend who'd died in a 'mysterious accident' not a week earlier. She'd bolted here after her car was blown up, and luckily for them, hadn't had time to get it wired with external cameras. As far as Mac can tell, the security the building had come with was pretty minimal, offering little to no difficulty. It's what hadn't been there when Dr. Parker made her panicked dash out of the city that's going to be the issue. Dr. Parker's friend must have been an odd duck, given Mac can see what he thinks is probably a half-dozen bear traps hidden in the long-ish grass, as well as some odd glinting that he can swear is tripwires, triggers for who knows what kind of defense mechanisms. It's going to be a challenge getting up to the house, cameras and traditional security or no.
Mac pulls his jacket tighter around himself, gritting his teeth against a shiver, and continues trudging through the last three-hundred or so feet of shin-high grasses at the crest of the hill towards the car parked in the treeline. As he approaches, Jack gets out of the front seat and comes to meet him.
"Make a decision yet?" Jack asks, and Mac nods.
"North-East side," he says, gesturing towards the side of the cabin facing to the left of them. "There's no windows over there, and if we keep an eye on thermals and she's in the other end of the house, she won't see us coming. Especially if we wait until nightfall." Mac shakes his head and looks away, back towards the fogged city. Hesitation sticks the words in his throat, but he clears it and forces them out anyway. This is Jack. He's going to at least listen before he dismisses Mac's concerns. "This doesn't feel right. Sneaking up on her like this."
"I know," Jack agrees, and Mac isn't as surprised by the response as he was expecting to be. "Hopefully, Riley'll get through to her, and we might be able to get her to come out on her own. Or at least let us get close enough to show her we're not gonna hurt her or anything. I don't know it'll work, not with how paranoid she is at this point, but we're gonna try."
Now that Mac's initial assessment of the perimeter has been thoroughly conducted, and the best line of approach identified in case they don't manage to get through to Dr. Parker, there's not much left that he and Jack can do. Not while Riley is still working to get through the better-than-average firewalls to remote-access the engineer's computer. In the meantime, while they wait, Mac and Jack take turns keeping watch on the cabin and the surroundings, in case Dr. Parker leaves or the people she's so afraid of decide to drop in for a surprise visit. While one of them does a circuit of the established perimeter, the other sits in the car with Riley, where, even without the engine running, it's at least sheltered from the added chill of the wind.
Jack's just returning from his latest circuit around the building, and Mac gets out, hopping from foot to foot next to the car in an effort to keep warm. It's started to get dark outside already, morning turned to afternoon turned to evening, and the coat he's wearing just doesn't feel adequate to the amount of time he's had to spend outside in the cold today.
"All's quiet on the Western front," Jack tells him, reaching the car. "And the Eastern, and the Southern, and Northern too. All's quiet on all the fronts. How's things here?"
"She's making progress," Mac says, indicating Riley, who is slumped against the door in the backseat of the car, legs flung up sideways onto the seat with her laptop balanced on her knees. "Says it won't be too much longer now, and she'll be in."
He doesn't leave for a perimeter check right away, and neither does Jack move to enter the car and shield himself from the cold. They stand together outside, near the hood of the car, looking out towards the cabin. Though the lights of the city have sparkled on one by one, shining distantly through a fog that's only grown heavier as the sun sank lower in the sky, there's no glow coming from any of the windows in the cabin. It doesn't seem like Dr. Parker has turned any of the lights on, though Mac can't guess she's likely sleeping.
They stand together in quiet, Mac eventually leaning back against the car's bonnet, half sitting on the hood. Jack follows suit, copying his recline, and he shifts closer, so they're standing shoulder to shoulder, arms lightly touching, then pressed together when Mac doesn't move. It's cold and miserable outside, but something makes Mac want to stay here, leaning against the car, feeling warmth radiating off Jack's body and a calm quiet between them. He's nearly shivering, a tremor running through him every now and then, and eventually, Jack shifts. He leans to the side away from Mac, leaving Mac wondering if he's about to leave, their odd moment broken because just like every other day of his life, he can't keep still.
That isn't what happens, though, the purpose of his movement becoming clear when Jack pulls his hand out of his pocket and reaches around Mac to rub bracingly at his far shoulder. The friction and the arm around his back wards away the worst of the cold, and Mac feels a sudden lump rise in his throat, looking questioningly at Jack.
"You're froze half to death out here," his partner grumbles, looking away but not moving his arm, keeping it wrapped around him.
Mac tries to say something in response, something snarky or dismissive, but he can't speak around the tightness in his chest, the feeling of someone's arm around him. People outside of the bubble of safety of his and Bozer's house, they don't touch him like this, don't sling a casual arm around his back to protect him from something as harmless as the elements.
"We should head in the car for a minute, give you some time to warm up before we've gotta head on down and talk to the good doctor." Jack leans back away, giving Mac the few inches of space he'd lost back. The sudden absence of the touch leaves Mac feeling unexpectedly bereft, like there's nothing he wants in this moment more than for Jack to put his arm back where it had been. He feels cold and lonely though Jack is still right there with him, and maybe it's this that prompts him to say what he says next.
"Hey." It's a sudden outburst of a word, the confluence of both the nerve and the opportunity meeting in perfect harmony. Mac needs to take the chance before he loses his nerve and talks himself out of it.
"What's on your mind?" Jack asks when a few moments pass and Mac doesn't elaborate.
Again, Mac catapults out the words before he can go back on it. He doesn't want to talk about this, but he owes it to Jack, who has been so kind to him, who has kept him safe on missions and tries to protect him even from stupid stuff like the cold. Jack, who has no way of knowing what he's getting himself into. Jack doesn't know what he put his foot in, when he decided to metaphorically step between Mac and his father over something as inconsequential as James yelling at him for fidgeting.
"What you, uh. What you said to m-" Mac catches himself a fraction of a moment before he says 'my dad', James' voice echoing in his mind, I'm not you father right now, Angus. "The Director. At the office. After he was, y'know."
"Yellin' at you for no good reason and generally being a hypercritical ass?"
Mac about chokes on his own breath. It's a blunt and slightly humored statement, but underneath it, Jack is angry. The small glimpse of his anger should make Mac want to run. There's an angry man next to him who is bigger, older, and stronger than him, and Mac… isn't scared. He doesn't want to run, because he's angry, but he isn't angry at Mac and somehow that makes all the difference. So instead he goes on, explaining himself.
"I don't want you to think I don't appreciate what you tried to do. Because I do. Appreciate it." Mac shifts slightly against the car, a breeze causing him to shiver, hard. "Thank you, for trying. But you shouldn't do it again."
"I shouldn't," Jack repeats flatly, and Mac nods.
Instead of looking at his partner's face as he tries to find a way to explain this, he's looking down at his hands now, fingers chilled and restless. Mac wishes he had something to do with his hands. Another paperclip, maybe, like the one Jack had inexplicably handed to him on the plane.
"No, he's just…" Mac trails off, frustrated. It's impossible to explain his father to someone who doesn't understand, and Jack just can't seem to wrap his mind around James. James is complicated, and difficult, and it's too easy to make things with him sound like something they aren't. "It's too risky for you to argue with him about things like that, Jack, he has a thing about respect."
"That's rich, given the way he talks to you and all."
"Jack!" The frustration rises, coming out in the snap in Mac's voice, and to his credit, Jack falls silent. "You shouldn't challenge him like that again. It's gonna- It could land you in trouble, and I know how juvenile that sounds, but I'm serious. You don't want to be in hot water with him, he already kind of doesn't like you, and I don't-" I don't want him to get rid of you. I don't want you to go. "You shouldn't do it again."
"I'm sorry," Jack says after a long moment. "I can't promise that. It's my job to keep you safe, and that means I'm not just gonna stand there and let somebody hurt you right in front of me."
Mac feels a cold shoot down his spine that has nothing to do with the wind. He swallows hard and manages to get out, "He didn't hurt me. He told me to stop fidgeting, he didn't hurt me."
"I saw your face, kid. He hurt you." Jack's voice is quiet and kind and for a moment, just a moment, Mac hates him for it.
He hates him for it because that gentle, insistent tone almost breaks him. Mac is suddenly struck by the damnable urge to turn and press his face into Jack's shoulder, tuck himself under Jack's arm and let the warmth of an arm holding him close and the voice speaking to him so kindly chase away this awful, bone-deep cold. And just for that instant, Mac almost gives in and acts on it.
The instant passes and Mac snaps out of it. He stands abruptly, gritting his teeth and stalking away several paces, putting distance between himself and Jack in the hope that maybe that will kill the stupid urge to hide his face in the man's shoulder even though he isn't quite sure what he'd be hiding from. It's stupid, and childish, and it's not Jack's problem.
"He didn't hurt me," Mac repeats, a fraction too loud, his heart pounding. His fingernails dig into his palms and he shakes his head. He doesn't need to be taken care of, he doesn't need Jack to comfort or protect him, and if he felt hurt he has only himself to blame. He only ever has himself to blame. "Just- Don't antagonize him. Please."
Jack looks like he's about to say something else, but thinks better of it. It's a good thing he does, because Mac doesn't know how much more of this conversation he can take, the whole thing having gone completely off the rails almost from the jump. Instead of saying whatever it was he was going to say, Jack just nods, and that's the end of it.
Or. Not quite the end of it.
"Are you okay?"
The question knocks Mac even further off kilter and he can't help the snap in his voice when he responds, "Of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be okay?"
Before Jack can give any kind of answer, the door of the car pops open and Riley's voice interrupts.
"Guys, I'm in. We've got her."
There is absolutely no not-scary way to hack into someone's network and remote-access the desktop of their computer because you have literally no better way to communicate with them. That said, in hindsight, Riley thinks she probably could've found a better lead than, 'Don't panic, we're the good guys.' In her defense, she'd been one of the 'good guys' for maybe a month and she's still new at this sort of thing.
Now she's just got to wait for Dr. Parker to return to the computer from whatever she's doing, and notice the word processing document Riley has opened to communicate with her. With any luck, she'll be able to type out a half-decent explanation for what's going on before that happens.
Jack and Mac re-enter the car as she's midway through her second sentence. Jack drops into the driver's seat while Mac edges into the second row with her. Something about him seems off, and she shoots a suspicious glance over at Jack like he might have something to do with why. Riley shifts to the side to allow him some space, but stretches a leg out to surreptitiously knock their shins together. He responds by pressing his leg back against hers. She can feel the cold seeping in through her jeans, and he's shaking. Just a little, but she can feel it.
"You establish contact?" Jack asks, and Riley shoots him a look over the back of the seat. She almost glares at him and says something snappy in response, but reigns it in when she looks to the side and sees Mac's expression. He shakes his head just the slightest fraction, pushing his leg a little harder against hers for a moment. The message is pretty clear, quelling the protective instinct to lash out at Jack.
Not his fault.
"I've got into her system," Riley says, refocusing on her screen. "I'm remote accessing her desktop, and I'm typing into a word processing file to try and get her to stay calm and believe we're not here to hurt her. Don't know what kind of good it's going to do, but I'm doing my best."
"Good work," Jack tells her.
The praise sounds proud, and she can't help the small spark of warmth in her chest, any more than she could help the instinctive anger when she'd thought he'd done something to upset Mac. Her emotions have been all over the place when it comes to him, since they'd abruptly crashed back into each other's lives, but as weeks wear on, she's finding them to be more positive than not. Riley doesn't know that she's necessarily happy about that, but at least for the moment, that's a problem for Riley-In-The-Future. Riley-Right-Now has to figure out how to draft a message to an already freaked out engineer and convince her not to blow them to kingdom come when they arrive to help her.
who are you
The sentence comes with a surprising lack of capslock or exclamation points. Riley's actually pretty impressed. That's not how she'd be typing if she returned to her computer and found a document she hadn't started herself was communicating with her.
"She's talking," Riley announces, a thrill of excitement running through her. "I've got her, she's communicating with me."
They go back and forth for a while, Riley and Dr. Parker. The conversation doesn't get very far, with Riley attempting to convince the woman that they were American agents here to get her out of Hungary before whoever wanted her dead actually got here to kill her, and Dr. Parker half-convinced Riley is one of them. Eventually, they come to a tenuous agreement, wherein Riley and her team will send exactly one person down to the cabin, and Dr. Parker will hold off on shooting them dead on the spot until they've at least reached the door.
"Well alright, wish me luck, I guess," Jack says immediately when Riley relays this information, moving to get out of the car.
"Hang on a second," Riley interrupts before he can actually exit the vehicle. He stops and looks back at her, obviously confused as to what the problem could possibly be at this point. "Shouldn't we talk about this for a minute?"
"Talk about what?"
"Who's gonna go down there."
Jack looks at her like she's lost her mind, but Mac is on the same page immediately. This happens often, and is a key piece of how quickly and strongly Riley has come to like him.
"It should be me," Mac says, and Jack is already shaking his head before he's hardly said it. "I should be the one we send down there."
"Now hang on a minute, if someone's gonna walk into a creepy cabin with a gun probably pointed at the other side of the door, it's gonna be me, no question."
Of the three of them, Riley has to admit that does most closely resemble his job description, though a small zing of adrenaline zips through her chest at the thought of him doing exactly that. But, despite this, there's more to consider at the moment than who is technically in charge of what roles on this team. She does computers, Jack keeps them all safe, and Mac does… everything else. And this is one of those times when the most dangerous task is part of 'everything else'.
"Riley's not field trained yet," says Mac, obviously opting to begin with the part they all already agree on.
(Though, Riley does file that 'yet' away to ask him about later, because she'd been of the impression the Director had shut down the idea of field training her from minute one. It's interesting, to say the least.)
"And just…" Mac pauses, like he's searching for a good way to put what he's about to say next. "This is a Canadian civilian engineer who is afraid for her life. She's not a threat, she's just scared, because she thinks there's a good chance we may actually be the people she's been hiding from. And if we're sending one of us out there, I mean. Look at us, out of you and me, Jack, which one of us would you see and assume was someone sent to kill you?"
He's got a really good point. Riley almost laughs, actually, looking between the two of them and contemplating this. Mac looks like a barista working his way through a philosophy degree, whereas Jack… Well. Jack doesn't look like a bathroom tile salesman, she'll leave it at that. And she can see from the look on Jack's face, illuminated through the dark by the dome light inside the car, that though he stubbornly doesn't want to concede the point, but he does understand what Mac is talking about.
"Let me go," Mac insists, when Jack doesn't immediately shut the idea down. "I can get through the precautions she's set up, I've been studying them all day. If she was just going to shoot me on sight, she wouldn't have talked to Riley at all."
Jack doesn't want to let him go. Riley can see it on his face, and she's sure Mac can too. Despite this, however, he eventually nods.
They get out of the car together, and Riley stays inside. She watches through the window at the faintly lit interaction she can see but not quite hear. They're talking about something, Jack insistently repeating himself at Mac, while Mac nods and shakes his head and nods again. He's doing something Riley doesn't understand, until she sees the object he straightens up with in his hands, moonlight glinting off the barrel. The gun that sits strapped to Mac's hip is in his hands now, and he's handing it to Jack, who tries to push it back at him, only to have Mac grow more insistent. He's not taking his gun, and Riley understands it, but she can tell Jack is uncomfortable with it. He's still uncomfortable when Mac sets off down the hill, and Jack stays standing there outside the car, watching him go with his arms tightly folded and shoulders tensed.
Eventually, he gets back into the car, and for a few long moments, he and Riley sit there silently together.
"He's gonna be fine," she finds herself saying, not entirely sure why she's saying it. "I think we got through to her pretty well, and he's smart. He can protect himself."
The fact that Jack doesn't snap at her that he already knows this, thanks, indicates that he's a lot more worried than he's letting on. He's watching out the windshield as Mac's silhouette grows smaller and fainter the farther he gets from the car, and the gun in his hands that doesn't belong to him turns over and over.
"He's gonna be fine," Riley repeats, and tries to believe it.
The fog has grown thicker now that it's night, and it's actually a very good thing for Mac that it did. As he walks slowly towards the darkened cabin, Mac shines a small flashlight sideways near the ground. The beam of light catches on the condensation hanging in the air, illuminating the tiny droplets of water, and when one of the trip-wires Dr. Parker set up crosses his path, it shines clearly amid the soft haze of the mist. He steps high and careful over them, eyes fixed on the ground to watch as well for the bear traps he saw from a distance.
It's a painstaking and nerve-wracking journey from the car to the front porch. Mac is hyper-aware of the fact that he's alone and unarmed, and if Dr. Parker decides to go back on her word to Riley and shoot him on sight, there's nothing he's going to be able to do to stop her. He can hit the dirt, sure, and he's deliberately approaching from the side of the building that has no windows from which she could see him coming, but that's far from enough to guarantee he'll reach his destiny safely.
When he eventually does, a mere few feet from the porch, a voice sounds through the heavy, rough wood of the door, shouting, "Stop!"
Mac obeys the order immediately, freezing where he stands and holding his hands up by his head, palms out towards her.
"Dr. Parker," he calls back. "My name is Angus MacGyver. I'm unarmed, I'm alone, and I'm here to help you."
"Put your hands on your head and turn around," the woman tells him, and though her voice is still muffled, he can hear how scared she is.
With his heart pounding hard in his chest, Mac does as he's told, lacing his fingers behind his head. Behind him, the door creaks open, and he closes his eyes hard for a moment. If she's going to shoot him, she's going to do it now. She doesn't. Footsteps groan across the porch, and then she's in front of him, hair a wild mess around her face, dark circles beneath her wide eyes making it very clear exactly how long it's been since she's slept.
"You don't look like any kind of government agent," Dr. Parker tells him, and Mac snorts a relieved laugh.
"Do I look like an assassin, either?" he asks, and her posture relaxes just a fraction. The moment the tension in her shoulder breaks, it's only a matter of moments before the release of the fear that's surely kept her upright the last few days loses its grip. Dr. Parker stumbles and nearly falls, Mac lunging forward to catch her by the elbow before she can hit the dirt.
"My team is just up the hill," Mac tells her. "We'll go up together, and we'll head to where my agency will pick us up, and then we can take you home. You're going to be safe, I promise, Dr. Parker." She stares at him long and hard before speaking, her voice as unsteady as her legs seem under her.
"It's Libby, Agent MacGyver. People who show up to rescue me get to call me Libby."
"Alright, Libby. Only if you agree to call me Mac, okay?"
They turn and head up the hill together. Despite the success of their mission, Mac can't help but feel his phone, burning a hole in his pocket. He can't forget the part of their orders that had applied only to him, the words James had pulled him aside and said before they'd boarded the plane. After all, they hadn't come here to get Dr. Parker- Libby, just because she'd asked the American consulate for help. The name James had spoken echoes around Mac's brain, the man they had solid intel that Libby had come into contact with at some point during her stint in Hungary.
Jonah Walsh.
