"You did it for love, didn't you?"
Mike Forrester's last article has caused a firestorm of controversy. National headlines, people fascinated and outraged and titillated, Mission City undergoing a nine days humiliation.
For once, the Establishment's listening (is it only as a distraction, from the the ever-more-obvious Beltway corruption?) Studies on solitary confinement, and a Congressional panel, and a pardon for Mike (what's left of her given up to her grieving parents, who move quickly and don't leave word). In six months, the FCI will close. Only the auxiliary establishment for local criminals to be kept up.
You've ripped the heart out of this town. During the worst recession in years, we're about to be thrown into that turmoil with no defense, but- it was because you loved Mike, wasn't it?
Insane of him to do it, but she'll always forgive him too much love. Just the same way she can forgive him Jack Dalton.
"You sent the article to her editor, because you hated what they'd done to her."
"I'd have done it whether I knew Mike or not," Mac returns. "Because it was the right thing to do."
"We'll lose the coffee order. And Mission City's never going to recover, not in a hundred years."
"We let this happen. Collectively. Good riddance."
And her world simply falls apart. Because she'd only love him more, for love; but this isn't love. This is cold, cruel justice, the kind that sweeps away without caring that it tears a community apart. Not kind. Not nice. Her own sweetheart Mac, when push comes to shove, turns out to be someone she never knew at all.
It takes a long time for her to gather her courage. It takes years, and the death of his sweet mother, and the forcing of endless petty quarrels, and a bankruptcy, before she can bring herself to do it.
But this is the night Ellen MacGyver decides to leave.