Nutcase alert! (Let's see what happens now?)
Jack cleared his throat before speaking to steady his voice. He was going to have to figure out how to handle this poor woman safely if possible, but most importantly without any harm coming to Mac; his priority always being the kid's safety.
"Joanne" Jack said and waited.
The woman looked at Jack, almost surprised he was there, like she had forgotten she was not alone.
"Joanne" Jack repeated when the woman remained silent; "I understand you are mad at me, upset with me, so why don't you and I just discuss this as adults and you let the boy go; he has nothing to do with what happened"
Mac glared at Jack, there was no way in hell he was living his friend with her.
Jack saw Mac's look when he asked that Joanne let him go, he knew his friend was not happy that Jack was asking to be the one in danger, so Mac could be OK, he did not care, his one and only priority was Mac's safety, and he would do and say whatever he had to ensure Mac was OK.
Joanne finally reacted to Jack by taking the butt of her gun and hitting Mac with it on the side of his head. Mac's head dropped but he didn't lose consciousness, Jack stood from the chair swearing and ready to tackle her but froze when he saw what the woman was holding in her other hand, a grenade.
"Son of a bitch!" Jack swore when Joanne hit Mac with the butt of her gun causing the boy's temple to bleed; he could tell Mac had not lost consciousness, but not by much. Jack sprung up from his sitting position, cuffs or no cuffs, women or not, ready to tackle the nutcase and see to his boy, but he suddenly realized she was holding a grenade in her other hand and froze.
"You don't think I came here without a few toys now did you James?" the woman spat, glaring at Jack. "You always told me one should be prepared for anything didn't you James?
Jack caught movement on his peripheral vision, Mac was holding a hand to his now throbbing temple, moaning softly, obviously trying to focus and process what had just happened.
"Mac, kiddo, you OK son?" Jack asked, still not moving.
Mac was sitting there one minute, trying to figure out how to get them out of this mess, the next he was literally seeing stars, his head throbbing more than it already was with the damn headache he was sporting since earlier, the world spinning sickly around him. He heard Jack ask him if he was OK?
"J-a-ck.." Mac blinked a few times, helping his vision clear, he shook his head to answer Jack, which was a mistake because that caused the pain level to increase 10-fold and invited his stomach to the party; he turned his head to the side and puked.
"Mac!" Jack yelled anxiously, still not moving though since Joanne still had a grenade in one hand and a gun pointed at the boy's head again, in the other. He heard Mac moan and then the boy started to throw up on the floor, obviously the blow to the head either caused a concussion, or aggravated Mac's per-existing migraine; either way Jack was both furious and concerned.
"Sit down James!" the woman commanded, "Or I will just blow us all up and be done with It, but not before shooting your precious boy in the head so you can watch him die"
Jack's heart fell. He walked backwards towards the chair he had previously occupied and sat down, looking at Joanne with the fire of fury in his eyes.
"Mac, how you are doing bud" He asked the blonde softly.
"Been better" Mac's response scared Jack too, normally the boy's response to anyone asking after his welfare was a canned "I'm fine"; so, for Mac to admit he was not "OK" sent shivers of worry down Jack's spine. He needed to do something to get them out of this mess, and he needed to do it now.
Mac closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch's cushions once the nausea abated. He took a deep breath and then opened them enough to look at Joanne before speaking.
"Joanne why are you doing this?" "Ashley would not have wanted you to hurt anyone, to hurt yourself. "Ashley was a little angel, a sweet, kind soul"
The woman glared at the blonde. "Shut up! just shut up! you don't get to talk about her anymore than your sorry ass father does, you hear me! Neither of you has any right to even say her name!" "You all kept on living your lives after she died like nothing had happened; like she never existed, never mattered; all the while I had to bury my baby, my life ended with hers and none of you gave a damn!"
Mac frowned; "We all cared Joanne, we all loved Ashl—um—her, she was my sister; when she died my world stopped; My father was devastated; I watched him break down and cry for the first time in my life"
"Devastated? Joanne laughed, "James, you? Devastated?" she said mockingly glaring at Jack, "you were never devastated by anything James, you always were and always have been a self-centered selfish son of a bitch who did not care about anyone other than yourself"
"You want to know how your father handled her death Angus?" the woman turned to Mac who nodded slowly, "he disappeared, I never saw or heard from him again after her funeral" She turned to Jack, "you never came back James, you never helped ME, you were never there for me, for Ashley, for anyone, the only one you cared about was you and you know it!" Joanne was now yelling full-out, this distracted her enough to where Mac saw his chance and bolted towards her, grabbing the gun from her as they both fell backwards…
Jack saw Mac pounce at Joanne, everything happened quickly but also like in slow motion. Mac sprung from the couch and tackled Joanne, grabbing for the gun in one swift move. Joanne and Mac fell back towards the floor. The grenade that she was holding slipped from her hand, ring less, Jack yelled Mac's name as he too sprung from his own seat, flying over the coffee table and landing on top of the MacGyver/Joanne heap on the floor, then a shot was heard, and time reset itself back to normal speed.
Mac rolled off of Joanne and onto his back, panting, Jack grabbed the grenade that had rolled under the couch luckily not far from the ring which he was able to grab and reinsert before it went off; he tossed the grenade onto the far end of the couch opposite them (He would deal with it later), then turned his attention back onto the woman who laid unconscious under him, the gun had dropped from her now still hand; he grabbed that as well, secured it and placed it in his belt behind him breathing heavily; he turned to the boy and said; "damn Mac, no offense boy, but your family is crazier than mine" The hair on the back of Jack's head stood on its end when he heard no response; he looked to the side where the boy laid, unmoving, laying in what Jack now realized was a pool of blood.
"Damn it!" Jack swore, "Mac!"….