Disclaimer – Own nothing.
To TerriJ - Thank you so much for your review! I'm glad you like it! I don't think anyone does like James and unless the writers make it a priority to fix his and Mac's relationship and he stops being so arrogant, no one will. Thanks, I enjoy writing Mac! Hope you like this chapter!
To Jellybean1210 – Thank you so much for your review! Yeah, I could see Cage maybe making a guest appearance. Glad you liked how I wrote her! Hope you like this chapter!
To Long Live Brucas – Thank you so much for your review! Yeah, Mac's still going to be going through a bit more before I'm going to be nice to him. And no, Cage is not going to be profiling the team at all. Hope you like this chapter!
To Guest – Thank you so much for your review! So glad you liked it, and am glad you understand why I put Cage in the story. I agree, they did force her character into the show. Don't worry, she won't be much in the foreground too much. I hope you like this chapter!
To Maren1978 – Thank you so much for your review! I agree, I don't really like her much either, but I'm glad you liked the chapter. Hope you like this chapter as well!
Enjoy!
If there was one thing Jack Dalton hated, it was standing around doing nothing while someone he cared about what had been kidnapped and was probably being tortured. For normal people with normal jobs, they were lucky. The odds of them having to go through anything like that were extremely slim. Unfortunately, Jack was not one of those people because his job wasn't a normal one, at all. His job was to go on dangerous missions with Mac to protect his country and protect his partner as they did so, but now, his partner, his brother had been kidnapped and was going through who knows what and there wasn't anything Jack could do about it.
Those who could do something about it were trying their best to find the missing, former, agent. Matty and Cage had gone to interrogate the gang members that had been with Jonah Walsh before they had been captured when Mac, Oversight, and Jack attacked and destroyed Walsh's lab. They were hoping that the gang members might know something.
Bozer was with Leanna, trying to go over everything that happened in the last week to see if he could recall anything happening that was out of the ordinary. A stranger hanging around, something like that. Riley was going over all the security footage from around Mac and Bozer's house again. Even though she hadn't found anything the first few times, she decided to try again, but with a few programs to narrow down possible vehicles.
Oversight was at the main computer in the war room where Jack also was. Ever since Cage helped them all realize that id Walsh was again going to try and recreate his drug, he had been going through all his old notes to find out what his former partner would need and start searching places that sell the ingredients and equipment and hopefully find a commonality between them. Everyone had something to do except for Jack, and it was driving him nuts. It was one of the few times in his life, Jack wished he had the same skill sets that everyone else on team had so he could be more useful, instead of just pacing around the room and asking his boss if he had found something.
"Found anything yet?" Jack asked, turning around to face his partner's father again.
"In the last ten seconds since you asked me, no." Oversight answered, keeping his eyes on the screen.
"Well, hurry up." Jack said for what was probably the 50th time in the last ten minutes, causing James to finally look up at him in frustration and annoyance.
"You know Jack? It took me years to find Walsh before, it's going to take some time for me to find him again." James informed him. Jack immediately turned around to face his boss.
"Mac doesn't have time, sir." Jack added the last part sarcastically, but James didn't care about that, at least, not at the moment. What he did care about though, was that fact that Jack seemed to be under the impression that he didn't care about his own son.
"You think I don't know that?" The father questioned with a shocked and furious tone.
"You sure are acting like it." Jack snapped. Before his boss could respond in any way, the sniper added bitterly, "A lot of things can happen in a short amount of time, even as short as a few days, or even a few years. And most definitely in a few years, like your own kid growing up. But then again, you probably don't even care about that."
James stopped tapping the computer keys when he heard Jack say that. So far, the sniper hadn't really confronted him about that yet, and he still somewhat wasn't. James knew that Jack was trying to get him mad enough so that he would actually start the confrontation, that he had a lot of anger, frustration, and fear that he needed to get out. But Oversight also knew that Jack was most likely serious about what he just said.
As far as he knew, Mac hadn't told Jack about what the head of the Phoenix Foundation told him, so it was completely possible for Jack to still think of what James did as abandonment. On the other hand, James also knew it was possible for both his son and his son's partner to not believe him when he said he left for Mac's protection. Either way though, James was not going to get upset with Jack, wasn't going to start a fight that Jack clearly wanted him to start. That wouldn't do anyone any good and would only distract them from finding Angus. And there was no way James was going to let anyone or anything get in the way of finding his son.
2016MACGYVER2016
After he received the swiss army knife, Mac had kept it with him always. He loved it, treasured it, even though the one he had now was given to him by Jack and not his grandfather. Yet at this moment, Mac hated it, despised it. He never thought that would be possible, but apparently, he was wrong.
Over the last few hours, Walsh had been using the small blade to cut the blonde, not deep enough to cause any lasting damage, besides maybe a few scars, but enough to bleed, and hurt. Walsh would stop every now and then, leave the room for a few minutes to do who knows what, and Mac would enjoy those few, abuse-free moments, but he always came back and continued right where he left off. Mac wasn't sure if there was any part of his body that wasn't bleeding now. Not to mention, when his captor wasn't using the blonde's own tool against him, he went right back to punching him.
"I got to admit baby MacGyver, you're a lot stronger than you look. I would've thought you'd be begging for me to stop by now." Walsh confessed as he stopped his abuse on his prisoner, "Guess that whole 'never judge a book by its cover' isn't just talking about books."
Mac didn't say anything, wasn't sure if he even could. A few of Walsh's punches landed in his jaw, and it was now throbbing painfully. While he never had dislocated or broken his jaw before, he imagined that this was how it feels. So, he stayed quiet while Walsh pulled an old, wooden stool from the corner of the room that Mac hadn't noticed until now, and dragged it until it was in front of the blonde.
"You know what I don't get?" Walsh continued as he sat down on the stool, "Is why you seem to be so loyal to your Pops. I mean, he abandoned you when you were only ten years old. Never showed up again, never contacted you, not even when your Grandpa passed. And all this time, he was right under your nose and didn't even bother to let you know about it. I know that had to hurt."
"You know what I don't get? Why you just up and left him and became a criminal." Mac finally spoke up, not wanting the criminal to see how much his words were getting to him.
"You mean your Daddy still hasn't told you that story?" Walsh actually seemed surprised that his former partner hadn't filled his son in on what happened between them. When Mac shook his head, Walsh gave him a small grin.
"Well little MacGyver, you're not the only person your old man has hurt, believe it or not." Walsh revealed.
"How did he hurt you?" Mac asked, thinking that maybe if he could keep Walsh talking, not only would it give him a nice break from being beaten and cut, he might figure out a way to get free, or find some sort of weakness in his captor. Walsh was all too happy to tell him what James MacGyver did.
"It was a few years after we joined DXS, or as you now call it, the Phoenix Foundation. It was going great, until we got news of a robbery going down at a bank, the same bank Veronica Davis, my fiancée worked." The older man paused, then looked up at Mac as he asked, "You're Daddy never told you I was engaged, did he?"
"Didn't think so." Walsh mumbled to himself when Mac shook his head before he continued telling the story, "I begged James, begged Jones, the director of DXS at the time to let me go in, that I could get Ronnie, and all the other hostages out safely, but I was deemed unfit since she was my fiancée, they said I was 'too close' to the mission. But your Daddy, he came up with a plan, one that didn't include me. You know what happened?" Mac didn't have time to answer before Walsh continued.
"I saw one of the guards going to fire at us and the police officers outside, so I shot him first. Then everything went to h*ll. When we finally either killed or captured the robbers, I went inside to find that Ronnie, and two others were dead. They were caught in the crossfire." Walsh then lowered his head, but even with that, and his two swollen eyes, Mac could clearly see the pain in his captor's eyes and hear the pain in his voice.
"I was off for two months after that, but when I went back to work, I was put on the desk duty. They said that I showed myself to be unreliable since I was ordered to get out of the way but I engaged the criminals instead. Jones refused to even hear me out since there was no proof that one of the robbers was going to shoot at us. I went to your Daddy, to get him to listen, but you know what your Daddy did?" Walsh then questioned, raising his head to look his prisoner in the eyes again.
When Mac slowly shook his head again, Walsh learned forward and said, "Nothing, he did nothing. He said he had always known I was a loose canon and that if I had just trusted him, that Ronnie and the other two bank workers would still be alive, that it was a miracle no one else got hurt or killed."
"So that night, I packed my bag and left, and I never looked back." Walsh finished the story, leaning back a little carefully as the stool didn't have a back and he obviously didn't want to fall backwards onto the floor.
"You know, a lot of people get money, protection, and safety outside of the law. The law only restrains people, keeps them from doing what needs to be done. You and your Daddy might think the law protects people, but in reality, the only thing it actually does is protect the lawbreakers, especially if they are smart lawbreakers. So that's where I went." Walsh started again when Mac kept his mouth shut.
"You're a smart kid blondie. Maybe even smarter than you're Daddy. You could be a really good criminal. Question is, are you smart enough to realize the same truth you're Daddy and people like him completely ignore and deny? Trust me when I tell you this, it's better on the other side of the law." Walsh then questioned, leaning forward again. At that, Mac again raised his gaze up to meet his captor's.
"No, no it's not. And if you truly think that being a criminal is a good thing, then you're the dumb one." Mac finally spoke up, his voice leaving no room for argument. Walsh stared at him for a few seconds, before nodding in acceptance and standing up off the stool. He then pushed it back up against the wall, still completely silent, though it was only for a moment.
"That's a shame that you think that. For you I mean, because that means, I now get to use this." Walsh finally responded as he turned around to look at Mac, revealing a large syringe in his hand. Before the former agent could even process it, the older man's arm shot forward, stabbed the needle into his prisoner's neck and pushed down on the plunger as Mac screamed.
AN – I know, the whole, 'he got the person I loved killed' is a reason that's used a lot, but from what I've seen of Jonah Walsh and James MacGyver, I totally think it's far more realistic then just him getting selfish. Besides, you guys can't deny that it's a classic. Next chapter will hopefully be up in a week.
