Full Summary: A character study exploring what teamwork means to each Phoenix member, and how that meaning changes over time as they find each other and become not just a team, but a family. Each chapter is a different character and though the order came to me in a dream, it should follow a logical chronology with the show.

Author's Note: Hello, thanks for clicking on my story! The idea for this came out of my fascination with Mac and Jack's relationship, which is why it starts with them, and then, as I thought about it more, the other members of the team found their place in the story, too, and I thought, why not? So here it is, a character study of the Phoenix team about what it means to be a team.

Disclaimer: I borrowed quite a bit of the dialogue from the show, but only borrowed - these are not mine, I do not claim them as mine, full cred to the writers of the show. Everything else is mine, though, so yeah. Gotta love fanfiction. Anyway, usual disclaimers apply: borrowed words aren't mine, I'm not making money off of this, respect to the writers of the show for their words, etc.

MAC

"…and then check the color of the stick against this chart to determine what your mystery chemical, or chemical compound, is. Any questions?" the teacher, Mr. Gibson, asked from behind the enormous lab table set up at the front of the classroom. "Right then, off you go. Remember your lab safety gear!" he tried to add as the noise level in the room went from 1 to about 12 as students started chattering, scraping their chairs back, shuffling papers, tossing notebooks carelessly onto lab tables.

"Come on, nerd, do your weird science shit. I need a B in this class this year or coach said he'd call my parents," Danny Waterson said, smacking Mac's shoulder with his notebook as he walked over to their lab station and plopped heavily into one of the stools.

"You know, you could help out and actually learn something," Mac replied. "Then you could not only get good lab grades, but good grades on the tests, too."

"I said I need a B, not a lecture from you," Danny sneered. "Can you get to work already."

Mac sighed, pulling his lab safety goggles down over his eyes and getting to work setting up the titration lab they were doing that day. He glanced to his other side, where Chloe Summers sat, staring into space.

"Hey, Chloe, so I know science isn't your thing but –" Mac tried.

"Look, Mac, I'm sorry, but I'm with Danny on this one," she said, snapping out of her daze in record time. "If I don't pass this semester, my dad's gonna take my phone and ground me." Her eyes shifted subtly. "You're so good at this science stuff, Mac. I'm sure if I did it, we'd get the wrong answer. Why don't you just do it? You're so smart."

Mac sighed. Chloe Summers was the prettiest girl in school. He knew she was only trying to flatter him so he'd do what she wanted - all the schoolwork for her so she didn't have to. Besides, everyone knew she had her sights set on dating whoever was named captain of the football team this year; there was no way she cared about someone as low down the school's social chain as Angus MacGyver, science nerd.

So Mac got to work, alone. He set up the lab, ran the chemicals, and recorded the results in the packet Mr. Gibson had handed out as they entered the classroom that day.

About five minutes before the bell signaling the end of the period rang, Mr. Gibson called out a warning and the chaos in the room increased again as students rushed to finish halfway-completed labs while others tried to put things back where they had been found and others tried to pack their bags in order to make the speediest exit from the classroom possible.

Having completed the lab five minutes before the warning, Mac took the time to look over the results, nodding and murmuring to himself. Satisfied, he flipped the packet back to the first page and put his name at the top in neat, block letters. He paused, the tip of his pencil hovering over the line on the page, and glanced up at the other two members of his lab group. Danny was turned around, talking to another member of the football team from another lab group and ignoring him completely. Chloe was texting on her phone, chewing a stick of gum, also ignoring him completely.

With a sigh, Mac shoved the paper first at Chloe, who raised a perfectly shaped brow at him. He handed her his pencil and pointed to the lines for their names on the sheet without a word. She scribbled her name and returned to her screen. He had to tap Danny on the shoulder a couple times to get his attention, then flinched when he angrily turned around and snapped "What?" at him. Mac just handed him the pencil. "Names," he said.

Danny scribbled his barely-legible name on the third line and shoved the paper and pencil at Mac, then turned back to his conversation.

Mac held the packet and studied the names at the top of the page. Three names for work completed by only one of them. He wondered what exactly the lesson was here – that people were antisocial? That the lowest-ranking member of the social hierarchy was always doomed to carry the weight of labor? That high school sucked?

The bell rang. He supposed it was all three at once as the kids around him seemed to suddenly disappear in a mad rush to escape to the social market that was the school hallways. Mac shouldered his bag and made his way to the front of the room.

"Mr. MacGyver, thank you," Mr. Gibson said, accepting the packet Mac held out to him. "I look forward to reading this." From anyone else, to anyone else, it would sound sarcastic. But Mac loved chemistry and his reports were thorough and engaged – something Mr. Gibson appreciated compared to the rest of his students, who either didn't grasp the basics or didn't care enough to put in any effort.

"My pleasure, Mr. Gibson," Mac replied, and left to make his way to his next class. At least in shop class, everyone did their own work at their own stations.

"Did you just take out four guys with two bullets?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah, I'm tryna conserve ammo. Now, we need to get on the same page, kid, and I mean right now. That is, if you want to keep breathing. Next time you wait for me to take my position before you go scampering off like that, you hear me?" He'd never heard Jack sound so angry - not even when he'd tried to fix the scope on his rifle without his permission at their fateful first meeting.

"I, uh, didn't think you were coming with me. Thanks."

"Yeah, well, you're welcome," Jack spat. "Now hurry up and disarm that damn thing."

Mac knelt back down next to the cooking pot with wires sticking out and a timer on top and got to work doing just that. But even as his hands got to work, his mind was a million miles away. All his life, being in a group meant being left to do the work himself and slapping other people's names on after his. Sure, he'd been frustrated that Jack hadn't wanted to let him keep searching for the reported IED, but that hadn't been the only reason he walked away.

In truth, Mac had thought this was just another time where a group member was leaving him with the work. Jack wanted to return to base, but Mac knew there was an IED in the village; he just hadn't found it yet. The assignment was to find the IED and disarm it, and that's what Mac was gonna do before he would even consider leaving.

As Mac's fingers deftly traced the wires and found the right one to cut to disarm the IED, he wondered if it was possible to be part of a team that actually functioned the way Merriam-Webster suggested it did – with all members of said group doing their part to achieve a common goal.