okay, so it's been a couple months, and I'm no further along finishing that Ashton-and-Becky story.

So we're just skipping on to the next part. February of Becky's senior year, and a rewrite of a certain episode...

His life being what it is, Mac's reaction to getting caught in a bear trap is one of stoical resignation. Maybe it hurts like blue blazes; but at some level he was expecting this.

"Everything was just going too well," he growls, struggling to release the springs. "Jack sober, and Becky almost a graduate, and a paid vacation for me- of course something had to happen! Something always happens!"

The anger's a tool, as much as his knife. If he goads himself with it, pushes as hard as he can- there. His foot's free. Mac strips off the boot, fast as he can stand (dammit, he'll have to break in a new pair now, and good ones aren't cheap). Examines the wound beneath. Fearful amount of blood, god knows about the tendon…anyone in their right mind would have this seen to by a doctor. But that means medical bills, treatments that he can't afford. And for that matter, he's miles from anywhere. Just getting out of the woods is going to be his first problem.

Nobody's around to hear. He starts cursing freely, while rummaging in his rucksack for the first-aid kit. Disinfectant and bandages before he does anything else-

"Young man! Such language!"

"You try getting caught in a bear trap," Mac splutters. His catastrophic idiocy is about par for the course, but this is just getting weird. "Am I seeing double?"

"No, no, we really are sisters," one of the ladies says. "I'm Faith."

"And I'm Hope….oh, you poor man. I think he's fainted."

"Oh goodness. Oh my goodness, whatever now?"

"We'll just have to bring him back to the house, won't we? Now look, if I go get that little red wagon, and you can start bandaging him up…"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Blue walls. Blue fixings. Blue bedspread. Everything in this room's blue except his shirt, and they've wrapped a blue shawl around that.

"We call it the daisy room," Hope had said cheerily.

Maybe he's not thinking straight yet.

"So I was doin' some wolf tracking," Mac explains, watching Faith fuss about his dressings. She seems competent enough at it, for a wonder. "For a place called the Phoenix Foundation. They do a lot of endangered animals stuff."

"Now, isn't that nice! A fellow animal lover, how marvellous."

That stings. "How's it look? Am I going to be lame or anything?"

"Oh, no, don't you worry about it a bit! I'm a trained nurse. But you will have to stay in bed for quite a while…two weeks, or even three."

"Three weeks? I can't stay here, I have a shop I need to get back to." One he's almost recalling with affection. Could be the colour scheme, but something here is unsettling him. "Besides, I- well, I'm grateful, but I can't afford to pay you anything."

"Oh, that's all right," Hope promises. "Maybe we're just a couple of old ladies, but I'm sure we can manage house-room and a few bowls of soup for an invalid."

"But my shop- and Becky will be worrying about me. Have you got a telephone?"

Faith shakes her head. "Hope and I don't hold with the darned things. You'd have to walk down to Ideal Corners, and that's all of twenty miles."

"Walk? You don't have a car?"

"Don't hold with those, either. Once a month a lady from the church comes by, so we can get to town- and doesn't she complain about what the undergrowth does to her truck!"

If he's really lucky, Jack will take over running the shop once Becky's finished school vacation. The place'll be in shambles by the time he gets home.

Then again…Phoenix sure won't pay him now, leaving the job half finished. And free medical care is a heck of a reason to stay.

"I'd hate to be any trouble."

"Oh, you won't be!" the sisters exclaim in unison.

Maybe it's the spontaneous kindness that's weirding him out.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"So. You fill the vacuum cleaner with water like so, glug glug glug- of course, on Halloween I'll be using tomato sauce. To look like blood."

"Why did I have to say it?" Becky asks, moving well out of the way. "What made me think that encouraging you to build anything would be a good idea?"

"You were bored," Jack says succinctly. "Anyway, I'm really getting into this! I've reversed the engine, so instead of sucking in dust, it'll splurt out liquid- and then who's gonna win Mission City's spookiest house competition, huh?"

He points the hose at the makeshift cardboard target he's set up, and flicks the on switch with considerable drama. The vacuum cleaner gives a sad little moan. A trickle of water falls out of the end, and stops.

"…okay, maybe I need to go back to the drawing board."

"Jack, what made you think this could possibly work?"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Next time Mac wakes up, he's handcuffed to the bedstead.

"We really thought that you were just a poor unfortunate hiker," Faith says. "But then you said Phoenix Foundation…and of course, our guilty consciences. What else were we to do?"

At first he's speechless out of shock, then out of policy. She can't be meaning to leave it at that.

(Part of his mind, the quiet Mission City native who thought that settling down with Ellen was a good idea, is refusing to believe this can even be happening.)

"I suppose you know all about us now…so of course we can't let you leave. But then, you did bring it on yourself. And we'll look after you so nicely! It's been ever so long since we had anyone to stay."

Hope enters with a heavily-laden dinner tray. The promised soup, and rolls and mushroom casserole, and a whole plate of peanut butter cookies. Under any other circumstance it'd look great.

"Now, if you'll promise to be good, I'll take off one of the handcuffs and you may have a spoon. But only if you promise."

It's on the tip of his tongue to refuse her, but- "Dishwasher."

"What was that?" Hope asks, leaning forward.

Loading the dishwasher, while a sardonic Englishman had been dipping biscotti into a cup of Darjeeling. Now, drugged food may be an entertaining concept for the movies, but under almost any circumstances your captors would get better results with a hypodermic. If they're bothering at all, it'll be for the sheer intimidation value…and as I expect you're aware, intimidation is rather easier to resist when you aren't starving.

Murdoc's got some weird interests in life. "Sorry, never mind. I promise."

Faith smiles at him and lets him have the spoon. Cream of mushroom soup, it's actually pretty tasty.

"We had such a long debate, while you were sleeping," Hope says. "I thought at first we might want to just put you away quietly. Bury you in the garden, perhaps."

"Hope," Faith says rebukingly, as at a sister's mild faux pas.

"But Faith convinced me that it might be nice to have someone else about the house again. To cook blueberry pies for, and play cards with. I do hope you like bridge."

"Um. Are you talking about keeping me here forever?"

"Not forever," Faith says. "Twenty years, perhaps. Thirty. We're a long-lived family, you know."

They can't possibly be serious. Can they?

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"What if I tried rejiggering one of the coffee machines? That expresso pump's pretty powerful-"

"Jack. Don't even think about it." They're both edgy tonight; Mac had promised to be back the Friday before school started. Now it's Saturday, and still no sign; Becky bites a thread off and starts working in magenta. "Do you think we should call search and rescue? I don't like this."

"So he's slacking a little bit," Jack says, carelessly tossing a coffee mug from hand to hand. "He's on vacation, you gotta let the man breathe."

"It's not a vacation. It's contract work for the Phoenix Foundation."

"Which is a great reason not to call in the troops, or we'll have his employers thinking he's a disaster. C'mon, you know he can take care of himself."

"Yeah, but wolf tracking…maybe he should have taken a gun. He said he didn't need one and I agreed, but now I'm wondering."

"You know the stats on wolf fatalities. Probably stands a better chance of being run over by my taxi, whenever he does get back to civilisation."

"What a rotten sense of humour you've got," Becky mutters, unsmiling. "I've got the route he was going to take, I could try following it. Course, it does mean skipping school."

"Well, don't look at me. Somebody's gotta keep the shop running, and you know you can't do that part. People'll talk."

"I didn't even have to ask. Thanks," Becky says gratefully. "I dunno how your taxi business manages."

"Eh. Not even worrying about it these days," Jack says. "Here's the real problem, though. Suppose Mac gets back the day after you leave, and I have to explain why I let you charge off after him? You'll end up in a wacky loop-de-loop chasing after each other."

"I should have made a plan. This is what happens when I don't make plans." She tosses the embroidery aside. "But you know what? I've sent in all my college applications already."

"So?"

"So, school doesn't actually matter at this point…"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"It's like this," Faith explains. "We have a million dollars in a cookie jar in the kitchen."

"Drug money," Hope says, clicking her tongue. "We used to keep a boarding house closer to town. Then this gang came along and murdered one of our boarders."

"A nice old man, even if he was cooking the books for them. He left us all the money in his will, and I must say, I thought we thoroughly deserved it."

"So we sold the house and moved up to our hunting cabin, just in case someone should come asking nosy questions. After all, we didn't know whether the police might want us to give the money back. Or the gang."

"Now that just wouldn't be any fun at all," Hope says. "Besides, we want to set up an animal protection fund. For the gray wolf."

"I think the government's doing a pretty adequate job at that," Mac says weakly.

"Well, you can't be too careful. So there it all is. What else can we do, except keep you?"

For a moment, as he's finishing the delicately-spiced rice pudding, Mac allows himself to actually think about this crazy proposition. He's had a wretchedly hard life, after all. Constantly fretting about money. Anxiously trying not to offend customers. Crisis after crisis after crisis.

But now that a miracle's arrived, offering a way out...he was actually enjoying himself at some level, wasn't he? Fighting his way through life. Mission City isn't much of a place, but it's still way better than being cuffed to a bed for the rest of his life.

Besides, there's always Becky to think of.

"This gang. Did anybody ever mention Ralph Jerico?"

"Funny you should say that," Faith says. "Do you know, our boarder was his accountant. But what's that got to do with it?"

"Because I hate the guy's guts. He stole my wife away, she's Ellen Jerico now."

Murdoc again. The more truth you can get into your lies, the better. Emotionally as well as factually.

"And I know he's been trying to get a big drug-running operation off the ground, but he blackmailed me to keep quiet about it. If anything, I'd love to give him a poke in the eye for you two."

Faith gives him a curious look. "That doesn't sound like anything an official Phoenix Foundation agent would say."

"What's Phoenix got to do with it? I'm only doing the wolf tracking project for them."

"Oh dear," Hope says, blushing. "What an awful misunderstanding...our sister works for them, you see. In the espionage branch, you can see how we'd think the worst."

Huh.

This must be one weird think tank.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Becky isn't happy.

There's her uncle's path, which is clear enough. He wasn't going out of his way to disguise it, after all; every so often, she sees sap bleeding from the trees he's used as knife-throwing targets. Partly to mark a trail, partly just to keep his hand in.

She touches the revolver at her waist, heavy and uncomfortable. Jack had insisted.

"You're a young woman, getting into who knows what kind of trouble. Better safe than sorry."

"But you think that he's fine. And that I'm overreacting."

"Sure, but- can't be too careful, right?"

Maybe he had a point. Because there's someone else on this trail- several someones- and they're sticking to her uncle's trail so closely that they have to be following him. She can't imagine what for, but she doesn't like this all.

Here, in the clearing- there's blood on the leaves. Stale, dried blood, and a few desultory ants still crawling over a bear trap.

Not allowing herself to think about what this might mean, she follows the solitary trail out. As quietly and invisibly as she can, until she reaches a house.

Three men, trying to get through a window. She catches a glimpse of something red and shaggy hitting the foremost one in the face; he screams, falls backwards onto the other two.

"My eyes!"

"What the hell was that?" one of them asks.

"He smells like paprika now," the other says, sniffing. "A lot of paprika."

Gotta be her uncle in there. Who else would have thought up a dodge like that?

"Two old ladies and a guy with a broken leg? How the hell aren't we inside this house yet?"

They've hurt him. They've hurt her Mac.

Becky steps out into the open. "Hands up!"

"You can't shoot all of us," one of them says, whipping out his own gun. "Not before we shoot you."

"Yeah? So which one of you is feeling lucky?" she asks, gesturing. "Cos even if you do shoot me, I could definitely hit one of you- and paprika over there can't even open his eyes, let alone handle his gun right now."

There's a moan of agreement to that last comment.

"She's sure not a cop, anyway...and I'm not getting paid enough to deal with crazy teenagers on top of everything else. This thing's been a bust from start to finish."

The first one sighs in agreement. They drop their guns.

"Uncle Mac!" Becky shouts. "Everything okay in there?"

"Yeah!"

He limps out, using what looks like a broken hat rack for a crutch. Two little old ladies scurry past him and start handcuffing the criminals.

Becky moves in close, hugs her uncle in relief while he looks at her in amazement.

"You really held a gun on them?"

"Why not? I took all the bullets out first thing."

The henchmen collectively groan.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Two hundred thousand apiece? And we'll fend off whoever comes after you, be it feds or the drug runners."

"A hundred thousand, and that's our final offer," Hope says, handing around another round of hot blueberry pie. "It is our money, you know."

"Everybody," Mac intervens. "I don't think we have as much as we thought we did. There's a bundle of a hundred and twenty thousand or so that's alright, but the rest of it...I think the inks look wrong."

One of the henchmen grabs a pile, examines it and nods in disgust. "Yeah, it figures. That'd be the money earmarked for Jerico. The rest was meant to go for payroll. To think we were supposed to be putting our lives at risk for fakes...but say, you recognised the funny money awfully quick. Sure you're not in the business?"

"I've got a friend who's taught me a few things," Mac says slyly.

"A hundred and twenty thousand, six of us, so that's twenty thousand dollars for each of us. Could be worse."

"Ten thousand," Faith says sternly. "We have the gray wolf to think of, you know."

The henchmen look at each other. "Not much of a salary…"

"But it's better than working for Jerico, that's for sure."

"All the pie we can eat?"

"Every day," Hope promises.

"Done."

"And we'll give you enough of a share to make sure that leg's looked after properly," Faith says to Mac. "I insist."

"If I had...five thousand, six hundred and sixty dollars on top of that, that'd be perfect. I could really use my jeep back. And a little left over, to take my favourite niece out for a lobster dinner."

"Of course," Hope agrees. "But remember, no telling this Nikki Carpenter that you know the Phoenix Foundation has...other proclivities. She might start wondering where you'd heard it."

"Promise."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"You know very well I object to drinking out of a bone china cup," Murdoc says at the shop the next day. "I-"

"You get what you get and you'll like it," Mac says, very cocky.

Amazing difference, since the first time he'd met the man.

Quite soon, the assassin reflects to himself. Quite soon indeed.