A/N: This is it y'all, last chapter! Thank you ever so much for all the kind words and kudos they mean more than you will ever know, and it often encourages me to write more stories. I love hearing from you about what you did/didn't enjoy. I hope you have enjoyed this little tale as much as I have. Just like last time, if you see any glaring medical omissions please let me know! Huge thanks to Axxonly for the beta, and as always I don't own MacGyver. Without further ado, here's Mac's POV

Mac's first brush with consciousness was brief. Hearing came back first, he could hear familiar voices, the beep of a cardiac monitor, and the usual hospital noises. 'Guess I'm in a hospital' he thought before drifting off.

The next time he was able to open his eyes. It was dark in the room, so Mac figured that it was night. He felt so tired, and his whole body hurt. He could feel a warm pressure on his hand. Moving only his eyes, he saw a lot of hair, so it must be Riley. His eyes slid shut before he could explore any more.

Third time was the charm. He could hear Jack's voice droning on about something. Then he stopped, "Hey Mac, you waking up?" Mac tried to open his eyes. "Come on, open those baby blues for me." Mac finally succeeded in opening his eyes. "There you are slugger!" Jack crowed. He turned his head addressing somebody behind him, "I told you he would wake up today." Jack sounded like a proud papa. "Take it easy Bud, you've been pretty sick."

Mac didn't need Jack to tell him that. All he had done was open his eyes and he felt utterly exhausted. He could feel sleep pulling at him again, but he wanted to know what was going on. Frowning he tried to ask what happened, but all that came out was a breathy moan. Jack was there with the usual hospital water container. "Here, take a drink." He lowered it to Mac's mouth and just the act of swallowing put him back asleep.

When he woke up next he could tell more time had passed, and now Bozer was sitting beside him talking to someone out of Mac's eyesight. "So, picture this, I'm standing on the roof with just my tighty whiteys on and Mac's on the ground trying to tell me…." Bozer trailed off, moving to where Mac could see him better. "You waking up again?" Jack told me that you woke up before, but you were asleep before I got back in here."

Riley moved up to the other side of the bed, with an unreadable look on her face. "Hey Mac, glad to see you awake. I was beginning to think that Jack was pulling our legs about you being awake before." She stopped, just standing there awkwardly.

Bozer took over, "Jack is going to be really pissed that you woke up again without him here."

"Sorry." Mac breathed out.

Both Riley and Bozer started grinning. "How are you feeling?" Riley asked tentatively.

Mac took a deep breath, "Hit…by… a truck." Then he slipped back asleep.

The next time he awoke it was to a nurse checking his vitals. When he realized that Mac's eyes were open the nurse talked to him. "I heard that you had woken up a couple of times today. It's about twenty three hundred, and your friends Riley and Jack are sleeping here with you. Would you like a drink?"

"Please." Mac said quietly. He felt a little more with it this time.

The nurse signed off of his charting, and held the water cup up for Mac. "Easy, just a few small sips." Mac obeyed, and it felt wonderful going down his throat. "Get some more sleep, and we'll get you some answers in the morning ok?" Mac nodded, and was soon drifting back to sleep, this time because he wanted to.

Mac awoke in the morning to the sound of a tray clattering and Jack talking loudly, "Oh is this for me? You shouldn't have."

"No, this is for Agent MacGyver, if you want your own food then trot down to the mess and get it." Came an unknown female voice, then the sound of Riley giggling.

"She sure has your number." Riley said still laughing.

"Laugh it up. Once Mac wakes up, I'm sure he'll share." Jack said.

"I'm not sharing." Mac said, his voice sounding much stronger than it had earlier.

"Well hey there Sleeping Beauty. It's nice to see those eyes open for once." Jack said with a grin as he came to stand by Mac's bed.

Riley came up next to him, "Glad to see you're awake."

"Are you awake, awake Hombre?" Jack asked. "Cause you've been awake." Jack used air quotes around awake. "Before."

That brought a small chuckle out of Mac. "I think I'm fully awake." He blinked for a few minutes. "I feel like I've been hit by a tractor trailer though."

"Yeah, massive blood loss will do that to a person. You feel like sitting up?" Jack was using the controls to sit Mac up even before he had a chance to answer.

"Massive blood loss?" Mac knew he felt weak, tired, and his neck and side hurt like he'd been shot, again. But he didn't remember how he had actually gotten to the hospital.

Riley took a seat at the end of Mac's bed. "What do you remember?"

Mac frowned trying to think back, but the drugs in his system were making his head fuzzy, plus he was pretty sure his stomach was trying to eat itself. So he just shook his head, at least he tried to, turned out that moving his neck was a really bad idea. When he was able to breathe normally again Jack was staring at him all concerned like.

"Alright Hoss, let's get some food in ya. Let you have another nap, and after the nurse pokes at you, we can play story time." While it sounded like a suggestion Mac knew it was anything but.

"Ok." Jack rolled the food tray over and uncovered the plate. It was a standard breakfast tray with scrambled eggs, toast, some sort of fruit, a couple pieces of burnt bacon, and a yogurt. Jack reached for the yogurt putting the spoon in it before handing it to Mac.

"You need help with it?" Jack asked kindly.

Mac shot him his best glare. "I think I can manage."

Jack shot him a look right back. "You forget that I know what it's like to be in that hospital bed. There is no shame in asking for help. Plus, you look like an angry hedgehog, which is adorable."

But Mac's stubbornness prevailed. He took the yogurt from Jack, and although his hands trembled he was able to feed himself. After half the yogurt was gone Mac's eyes began to droop, and the spoon started to dangle, the simple task of eating wore him out. Jack gently took the cup and spoon out of his hand and dimmed the lights, while Riley let the bed down a little bit so Mac could rest easier.

Mac awoke when the lunch tray came rattling in. Bozer, Riley and Jack were all gathered back in his room. Bozer grabbed the tray, while Jack set the bed up. Mac surveyed the tray, and decided that starting with the Jello seemed like a good idea. His shaking wasn't so bad, and he felt like he had a tiny bit more energy. After his first bite he looked at his friends, "So you promised to tell me what happened." Riley perched on the foot of his bed, while Jack sat in a recliner situated next to it, and Bozer stood up against the wall. Seconds passed and when all three just kept on looking at each other, Mac asked exasperated, "Will someone tell me what happened?"

"Ok Roomie…" Bozer started;

But Jack talked over him, "So while on the mission you took two rounds. One to the side, the other as you know in the neck." Jack paused his voice getting shaky.

Riley took over, "There was so much blood. I thought…"

"I thought you were dead, Angus." Jack breathed out, closing his eyes. Then he shook it off. "Thanks to our girl Riley here, we were able to stop some of the bleeding, and got you here." Jack paused again. Riley and Bozer remained quiet. "Your heart stopped because you didn't have enough blood circulating in that big brain of yours; turns out that the carotid artery was nicked by the bullet, then your kidneys decided to rebel because they didn't like being without blood either. The doctors thought that you might.…" Jack trailed off his voice overcome by emotion.

"They thought you might have brain damage, but they don't know you, now do they?" Bozer said trying to lift the mood.

Riley picked up the conversation thread, "After all that you got an infection in the wound on your side. Your temp got pretty high. Scared us even more. You've been out for a couple of days. They weren't sure if it was due to the concussion, blood loss, infection or what."

Jack picked the conversation back up, "But you showed them who's the boss, and are on the right track."

Once they had started talking Mac had lost all interest in his food, he couldn't believe that he had been through all that, and couldn't remember any of it. "Thanks for taking care of me guys." His touching comment was marred by a loud yawn.

Jack grinned at him, his eyes bright, "You take another nap, I'll keep Bozer from eating all the good stuff on here."

Mac did his best to nod, but his eyes were already half closed.

"Agent MacGyver?" the sound was accompanied with a slight shaking. Mac woke up to find a woman in a doctor's coat at the foot of his bed, and a nurse standing beside him already logging his vitals. The only other person in the room was Jack who was sitting in a recliner by his bed. "How are you feeling today?"

"Better." When he didn't elaborate he heard Jack stifle a laugh. But the doctor didn't look amused.

"Just better?" The doctor asked archly.

Mac thought for a second, well she didn't have a base line of how he felt before, so therefore better was the answer he was going with. "Yes."

She looked miffed. "Has anybody gone over what you have been through?"

"Yes, ma'am." He motioned at Jack, "They filled me in."

"As you know everything that happened to you was serious on its own, but altogether you are still in a very serious condition."

"I do."

The doctor sighed and shook her head in agitation, "I'll come visit later, get some rest Agent MacGyver." She threw over her shoulder as she left.

The nurse standing beside him shook his head. "She doesn't have the best bedside manner, but she really is a great doctor. I don't know if you remember my name, but I'm Nurse Tommy. So, on a scale of one to ten how would you rate your pain right now?"

Mac gave it some thought, "Probably a five or so." He turned to Jack, "And before you say anything it's a general kind of hurting, and I can still feel the last round of pain meds." Jack nodded at Mac's answer.

Tommy nodded and made a note, "So since you're staying awake for longer periods of time, we'll start getting you ready for discharge." Tommy must have seen Mac's eyes light up. "Not to go home, but transferred back to your agency's medical facility. What we want to see before then is for you to be able to go to the bathroom on your own, for you to be downgraded to a peripheral IV, and to make sure that your kidney function is back to normal. So I think we are probably looking at a couple more days. Do you have any questions?"

Jack raised his hand. Mac gave him a look that he hoped conveyed, 'really Jack'.

"He gets tired at the drop of a hat. Is there anything we can do?"

Smiling Tommy nodded "Ok, so lethargy is quite common after losing a large amount of blood. The best thing to help regain your energy levels is to eat iron rich foods, and take iron supplements. Patients have told me that it's what helped them the most."

Mac nodded, "that makes sense. You see the iron in people's blood…"

Jack interrupted him, "I don't need a lecture, Professor, I just need to know what to do." Jack shrugged, "or what to tell Bozer to do."

Tommy laughed, "If there is anything else you gentlemen need just hit the red button, I'll be back in about…" He looked at his watch. "An hour, to remove the catheter and get you up and walking. So you might want to get a nap in, before all the fun begins."

Mac nodded, closing his already drooping eyes, this lethargy crap sucked, he thought, as he drifted off to sleep.

One week later

Mac was sitting out by the fire pit wrapped in a blanket. Ever since he left the hospital he had such a hard time staying warm. Jack liked to joke it was because he had no padding to insulate him. To which Mac always tried to explain that it didn't work like that before Jack would stick his fingers in his ears and start humming. He had finally been released from Phoenix medical several hours ago, and had been instructed to take it easy while Jack and Bozer fixed some food. Riley came out and sat beside him, handing him a drink that looked like chocolate milk.

He took it with a puzzled look on his face. "What is this?"

Riley grinned, "So on the plane ride home while you were napping, Jack and Bozer were googling 'how to get iron levels up', and Jack read that Milo had helped some people. So Jack called Sam and she shipped some right over. She sends her love and wishes you a speedy recovery."

"Thanks." Mac tepidly took a drink. It wasn't too bad, malty and chocolaty, but not something he could see himself drinking a lot of.

After another sip he set the glass down. "So what are the culinary geniuses cooking up in there?"

"I think Jack's working on some sort of chili, and I think Bozer's working on hummus or something with chickpeas." Riley answered.

Mac simply cocked his eyebrow.

"Jack has a list of iron rich foods. I think they're seeing how many they can make in one go." Riley chuckled and added, "In cast iron cookware."

"They keep going like this, and my iron will be through the roof!" Mac commented taking another sip of the Milo.

"Listen Mac, I feel so guilty, my head wasn't where it should have been for that mission. We were exposed..."

Mac cut her off. "I still don't remember much about what happened." He touched his head where the fading bruise could be seen. "But what I do know is that even if Jack was in there with us, it still might have happened just like it did, or even worse ok?" He looked at her with sincerity. "Jack told me that if it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't be alive. So I should be thanking you for saving my life."

Riley looked down and huskily said, "You're welcome Mac. Just never do that again!"

"You better listen to her Blondie!" Matty's voice was the only thing that announced her presence. "We don't need any more close calls for any of our agents."

"Food's ready! Come and get it!" Bozer hollered up the steps. Mac started to stand up, his wound on his side pulling at the stitches. "But not you Mac! Jack's bringing your plate."

Once everybody had eaten their fill of Jack's 'iron clad chili' that had even been cooked in a cast iron Dutch oven that had been sent all the way from Texas by a very worried Mama Dalton. Matty stood up to make a toast. "Here's to making it back alive, and beating the odds once again!"

Everybody but Mac raised their beers, and Mac raised his glass of Milo. "Cheers!"

"And I'm going to be looking into getting some sort of body cams! I'm tired of having to ask for sit-reps in the middle of a dangerous situation." Matty said after taking her drink.

"Are you sure that's a good idea Matty?" Jack asked. "Won't that show everything that you do? Like eat pizza, use the bathroom, and Mac's wouldn't even last a full mission before he started taking it apart to use for parts!" Jack lit up. "On second thought go ahead and get them, then maybe my phone would be safe for once!"

"Naw man," Riley drawled. "Mac would still need to use your phone." She grinned and winked at Mac.

The debate raged on, but Mac set back content to watch them bicker relishing the warmth that was seeping into his bones. It was good to be home.

A/N2: Liked it? Found some problems? Let me know!
And as my tradition of shameless pimping my next story, it will be the third in my Teacher AU (but is it really AU not that Mac is a professor? LOL), where Jack sees Mac's house for the first time (I swear I will get them in a classroom sometime in the near future, just gotta get them through college next)