Okay, so… Thank y'all so much for the comments! Sure means a lot to me!

"How is it feeling?"

Alex glared back up at him as if to say 'my knee is a hot mess right now, how do you think it feels?'.

"Okay, okay…" Jack nodded as he placed two now padded chair legs on either side of Alex's leg. "I kinda need your opinion here, should I try to straighten it? Or should I just secure it the way it is now?"

Alex propped himself up on his elbows, giving himself the chance to get a better look at the leg.

"How loose is it?" Alex finally asked, pointing a finger towards his knee.

"You want me to check?" Jack asked placing his hands a few inches away from Alex's leg.

Alex nodded, "Go ahead… If there's no resistance at all, we might as well set it straight, if it feels like it's tugging at something, I think we better keep it at that odd angle…."

Jack placed one hand under Alex's ankle and one under his calf, then he carefully lifted the leg. He tried to ignore it when Alex stifled a scream as the joint acted like Jell-O, tried to ignore it because it hurt deep down in his soul.

Jack swallowed hard before he gave Alex his opinion on the state of the leg. "I don't think… I think…"

"There is nothing left keeping the knee stable." Alex croaked out, squeezing his eyes shut. "We should really take a look at it…"

Jack nodded and provided a knife from his belt, then he cut open the fabric hiding Alexander's knee.

"Ummm… That doesn't look healthy…" Jack commented as he took in the sight of the younger man's knee.

"I could have told you that without even looking at it…" Alex said, fighting off tears.

"Yeah, but… What I mean is, umm… Your kneecap is vacationing somewhere further north…"

"Crap…"

"Crap, indeed…" Jack agreed. "Well, at least your leg is a lot straighter now…"

"Great." Alex muttered, without any enthusiasm.

Jack nodded and started wrapping Alex's leg and the legs of the chair with strips of sports-tape.

"Sorry, buddy…" Jack mumbled as Alex sounded his discomfort, "I'm so sorry, bud…"

MACGYVERxLAB

"What's up with you?" Riley asked as she stepped into her kitchen. Mac was standing by the sink, forcefully cleaning his coffee-mug.

"Nothing…" Mac answered, attempting to keep his tone light and cheery.

"Oh, cause it seems to me like you're avoiding us…"

"I'm not…" Mac almost bit back.

"And you seem a bit grumpy…"

"My ankle is acting up, sue me…"

"Mac, I know you well enough to know that this is all about something far different than your ankle…"

Mac sat the mug down hard on the counter, and turned around on his good heel.

"Then what?!"

Riley's expression softened, and she stepped closer.

"Do you like me?"

"Of course I like you, what are you talking about?"

"No, I mean… Do you LIKE ME, like me?"

Mac blushed, and his eyes fell to the floor.

"I KNEW IT!" Riley cheered triumphantly. "Why didn't you say so?"

"Because…" Mac lifted his right arm to rub the back of his neck, he was still looking at the floor. "Because you dated Bozer for a few months… And even though that's a good while ago…"

"You'd feel like you were betraying him?"

Mac nodded. "And now you've obviously got your sights set on Kim…"

"NO! SHE HASN'T!" came from the living room.

"What?" Mac set his eyes on Riley.

"Kim agreed to play you… Because I had a suspicion…"

"You had a suspicion?"

Riley nodded and stepped even closer.

"A suspicion about what exactly?"

"About you liking me, you know… More than a friend…"

Mac blushed again, but this time he kept his eyes on Riley.

"So, you wanna be more than friends? Or do you want to continue this thing you've got going? You know… Sneaking glances at me, helping me out with things I don't need help with…"

Mac chuckled nervously, she had him cornered. Both literally and metaphorically.

"Because I know what I want, but I need you to say it too…" Riley added.

"But Bozer?"

"Bozer has started to ask me when he gets to be the best man at your wedding. I guess he's over me…" Riley shrugged. "So, is it a yes or a no?"

Mac grinned and pushed himself off the counter he was leaning on, he took the four limping steps he had to make to get over to Riley and placed his hands on top of her shoulders. When she smiled, he let his hands trail down her arms.

"It's a yes…" Mac smiled.

MACGYVERxLAB

"Is that good enough?" Jack asked, eyeing his handiwork.

"Best we can do with what we have…" Alex shrugged, also studying Jack's work.

"Look, obviously, you should be on a stretcher. You should be carried outta here…" Jack started, his eyes still locked on the makeshift splint, "But the situation we're in kinda makes that impossible…"

Alex nodded.

"And getting that dictator out of here too… Will be a pain in the ass if I have to concentrate on helping you. And leaving him here alone for the time it takes to get you to the extraction point…"

"That's a non-starter…"

Jack nodded in agreement.

"We could use him, when he wakes up…"

"How?"

"Use him as support…"

"He'll probably just try to run off on you…"

"When he wakes up, get him over here. Handcuff him to me…"

"Why? What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know yet… Scare him straight?"

"And how are a 24 year old supposed to scare a 24 year old supposed to scare an old man?"

"I have something in mind…" Alex shrugged, "Just roll with it…"

MACGYVERxLAB

"You can't do this!" the dictator growled, struggling against Jack's hold as he was lead towards Alex.

"Oh, we can… And we will."

"The court of human rights will hear about this!"

"Oh, you say so…" Jack grinned, rough handling the dictator as he lead him towards Alex on the floor. "A little fun fact for you… The World Court of Human Rights agreed to send us, and our orders were dead or alive…"

"You can't do this to me!"

Jack ignored the dictator and directed his question to Alex. "Which side do you want him on?"

Alex looked up at Jack, casting a brief glance at the older man's left shoulder. "Maybe it's best for the both of us if I have him to my right…"

"Okay, so his left hand to your right then?"

Alex nodded, and Jack shoved the dictator down on the floor next to Alex and cuffed them together.

MACGYVERxLAB

"Okay, so… My leg is kinda messed up. Kinda feels like the Chernobyl of knee injuries…" Alex started, staring hard at the dictator, "So I'm gonna give you the opportunity to act like a decent human being for once, and help me…"

"Now why would I do that? What's in it for me?"

"Let's say you get to keep all of your teeth, how about that?" Alex stared coldly at the dictator.

"How are you going to do that? You're already hurt!"

"I've been doing martial arts since before I was five…" Alex said calmly, "How do you think I'm going to knock out a few of your teeth?"

"I'll have you know I'm an expert martial artist too…" the dictator threw back.

Alex looked the man up and down, "I don't think so…"

"Yes I am!"

"No. You're not…"

The dictator drew his right arm back and prepared to punch Alex in the face, but Alex caught his fist in midair.

"Told you you wasn't…" Alex grinned. "Now you've messed up, you know that?"

"What? You've got my fist in your hand, that's all you've got!"

"Oh, yeah… Well…" Alex shrugged, "You see, now I can break your arm with minimal effort… I can actually do it in like five different ways, just by twisting or bending my arm…"

Alex stared at the dictator with an expressionless look. The dictator had the same smug expression he had had all along.

"I could bend your hand up this way. I'd probably give you a hairline fracture, maybe mess up your wrist a little bit. By my estimates, you would have to have a cast for 3-4 weeks. No big deal, just hurts a bit…" Alex explained with ice in his voice, and saw a glister of fear behind the dictator's eyes.

"Or I could bend your wrist far to the outer or inner side of your arm, I don't really think I would fracture anything. But take it from me, ruptured ligaments and sinews are no fun either… Takes a hell of a time to heal after surgery, and you never know if it will be strong enough to trust." Alex smirked, pushing the dictator's fist sideways, causing the man to flinch.

"Or, my personal favorite... Well… At least when it comes to breaking arms…" Alex smiled and changed his grip enough to twist the dictator's arm, "This one will give you a spiral fracture. Common in domestic abuse and child abuse, I hate people who do such things to innocent people. But let's face it, you're not innocent. Therefore I will enjoy delivering whatever pain I can give you. I only have to twist my upper body a bit and then your ulna and radius will go crack…"

The dictator tried to twist out of Alex's iron grip, but got nowhere.

"No, no-no…" Alex grinned, "I told you to behave like a good little dictator… Now, back to the spiral fracture thingy… The time spent in a cast after that varies from 4 to 12 weeks. And trust me… That's a long ass time to have an itchy ca…"

Alex was cut off when the dictator tried to jam his free hand (the one handcuffed to Alex) into Alex's knee. He almost made it too, but misjudged the length of the handcuff chain and Alex's general strength.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!" Alex growled, drawing his handcuffed hand close to his chest. "That stunt right there, that just cost you a lot of pain."

Just as he finished speaking, Alex clubbed his forearm into the dictator's face. Something cracked under his forearm and blood exploded out of the dictator's mouth and nose immediately.

"OW!" the dictator complained and spat a few teeth.

"Oh, don't worry… I won't do that again, if you behave. If you don't behave, well… You've still got a few teeth left…"

Okay, that was real fear he saw behind the dictator's eyes. That was good.

"Now, are you going to behave?"

The dictator nodded.

"Attaboy… Now I'm going to release your fist, and you're going to act nicely. Or else…" Alex smiled and wrapped his right arm around the dictator's neck. "Jack, I think we're ready here…"

Okay, so…
Because I feel like it's been forever since I posted anything (it's not… It's only a few days, but hey, in me-time it's like forever…), I figured you would rather have this chapter now, than an even longer chapter tomorrow or the day after that…