*Awkward grin* Hi guysssss... Sorry for that cliffhanger? Is that what I'm supposed to say? XD ;)

Okay, so in this chapter there's a time-jump to right after the explosion, just so that no one wonders what happened. It just sort of gave a nice seque to the next section, I thought.

I don't own these lovely characters except my OCs.

MacGyver didn't remember much about the ride to the hospital, and when they got there, the nurses gave him something that completely knocked him out.

Jack and Riley looked in on their unconscious friend, watching as the doctors removed bits of shrapnel from the blond's body; thankfully, the doctors assured the two Americans that nothing vital had been hit. While they were removing the metal and stitching up their patient, one of the nurses also brought over gauze pads and placed them on Mac's eyes, securing them there in place with medical tape. That nurse walked out the door and was immediately accosted by an answer-hungry Jack.

"How is he? How long before he wakes up? What's going on with his eyes? Is it permanent? How long-"

"Please," the nurse said, holding up her hand to stem the flow of questions. "Your friend is fine, especially considering what he just went through. He should wake up in a few hours, and in regards to his eyes, we can't tell for how long he'll be blind, but we think that it's temporary, and he should gain his sight back soon."

"Wait, wait, wait," Jack interrupted. "You think it's temporary?"

"This injury is actually not as uncommon as you might think. Those who get caught in the blast wave of a bomb often receive wounds to the back of their heads, and while the side effects vary, temporary blindness is one of the more common ones. The severity is yet to be determined; we'll need to run some tests on him, but for now I think it is safe to say that your friend should regain his vision, we are just not sure when."

That didn't make Jack any less frazzled, but when he opened his mouth to pepper the nurse with more questions, Riley put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, giving the nurse a chance to get away to help her other patients.

"Jack, I know you're freaked out. I am too," Riley admitted. "But bothering the doctors and nurses isn't gonna make Mac better any faster, and it just makes them annoyed at you."

"I am not annoying!" Jack insisted. Riley raised her eyebrow at the older man, and Jack amended his statement. "Okay, I'm not that annoying." When Riley's expression still didn't change, Jack threw his hands in the air. "Fine, I am that annoying, is that what you wanna hear?"

"Pretty much," Riley replied with a smirk. "Listen, Mac's in good hands. Why don't we go get some food and see how Atar and Aadela are doing?"

"Thanks Ri, but I'm gonna stay here; y'know, wait until Mac wakes up so he's not alone."

Riley wanted to tell Jack to come on, to insist that he leave, but the hacker knew better than to try that, so she decided to compromise. "Fine, I'll go get us some food, and then if Mac hasn't woken up by the time we finish eating, we go see Atar and Aadela."

Jack mulled that option over for a minute, then finally nodded. "Fine. But only for a few minutes."

Riley agreed and went off to find them some food while Jack just stared through the window at his friend.

Mac's injuries hadn't needed any type of surgery, just removing the shrapnel and stitching the wounds up, and they were able to do that in the room that Mac was staying in. That meant Jack was able to stand outside while they worked and be as close to his friend as was permitted. Depending on who you asked, he was either a very annoying watcher, or they hadn't talked to him yet.

It took about fifteen minutes for Riley to come back with the promised food, but when she did come back, she found Jack in the exact position she had left him in: his arms folded across his chest, one hand rubbing his chin as if he were thinking as he stared into the room with his friend.

"Hey," she greeted as she handed Jack the food.

"Hey," the older man replied, finally breaking his gaze away from Mac to focus on Riley.

"Any changes?"

"Not really. They removed the last of the shrapnel and finished stitching up the last wound a few minutes ago, but he still hasn't woken up."

Riley looked at the older man, taking in the scratches that Jack had on his own face and arms. He'd been further away from the building when it had exploded, but he'd still been caught in the blast wave, and he was the one who'd gotten into the rubble to remove the debris and everything from Mac and Atar, scratching himself up in the process. The doctors had tried insisting that he get his wounds looked at, but he waved them off, insisting that he'd had worse, and that he just wanted to stay where he was to make sure Mac didn't wake up alone.

The last nurse began to come out of the room, but Jack stopped him before he could leave. "Hey, when's the kid supposed to wake up?"

The nurse looked back in the room he'd just exited. "Well, I would say any time now. You can wait in there if you want," he added. Jack nodded in appreciation, and while the nurse walked away, Jack and Riley slipped into the room.

They weren't in the nicest hospital in the country, but it had been the closest, and everything was clean, which was really all that Jack cared about. The older man grabbed one of the old plastic chairs sitting in a corner and brought it over for Riley to sit on. She accepted the seat, and Jack found another chair for himself.

They had been sitting there for a little less than ten minutes when the monitors attached to Mac began to change in their patterns, and the blond started moving his head around.

"Hey man," Jack said, uncrossing his leg and getting up in one smooth motion. "You're good, you're safe."

"What...what happened?" MacGyver asked. "Why can't I see?" The blond brought his hands up to feel his eyes. His fingers encountered the gauze pads and he started to pull them off, but Jack grabbed his hands.

"Whoa, leave those on there," he said. "What do you remember?"

"I remember the bomb going off, Jack. I don't have amnesia, I just can't see."

"No need to take that tone," Jack chastised lightly. Mac looked slightly repentant, and Jack continued. "The doctors say you sustained some sort of injury to the back of your head, and it's caused temporary blindness."

MacGyver was silent for several moments after that announcement. Jack wondered if the kid was okay, but then Mac spoke again, though it wasn't what Jack was expecting to hear. "What about Atar and Aadela?"

Jack looked at Riley, slightly surprised. She shrugged, and the young woman answered the question. "We were gonna go see them next, but from what we've heard, they're good. Atar is a little banged up, but the doctors say he's gonna be just fine," Riley explained. Honestly, Mac wondering about the others actually seemed normal to Riley, for several reasons. One, because Angus MacGyver was always looking out for others before himself. Two, because Riley knew from experience that sometimes when you get bad news you just needed to change the topic, and have your own little freak-out, whether internal or external, when you were alone.

"Ah, Mr. MacGyver, you're awake," a nurse said as she came into the room. She looked at Jack and Riley, then said, "We need to take him to do a few tests to see how extensive the damage is. You're welcome to wait here, or you can-"

"You can go visit Aadela and Atar," Mac interjected. "Go see how they're doing and if you can do anything to help at all."

"That is definitely an option," the nurse confirmed, giving Mac an amused look.

"Only you, Angus MacGyver, would insist that we check on someone else to make sure they're okay when you're the one seriously hurt," Jack said, though Mac's insistence that they check on the others definitely didn't come as a surprise to him or Riley.

"Atar was the reason we came here," Mac reminded his friend as the nurse began wheeling Mac's bed out of the room. "I just want to know he's safe."

"Hey, how long are these tests gonna take?" Jack asked.

"The tests themselves should take thirty minutes, and then it'll take probably another two or so hours before we get the results back. We'll bring him back to his room once we've run all the tests, and then we'll come show you his results when they come out."

"Guys, go see the others," Mac insisted as he was wheeled down the hall. The other American agents stared at each other, Riley raising her eyebrows at Jack when she saw that he wanted to argue.

"He's going to be fine," Riley said, pulling the older man down the hallway to go visit the two other people they'd come to the hospital with.

0-0-0

After the Explosion

"Get down!" Riley yelled, pulling the Afghan woman down below the jeep with her. It wasn't a moment too soon, either. Literally five seconds after Riley barricaded the two of them behind the vehicle, the building exploded and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. A rather large piece of concrete hit the jeep and rocked it slightly, but almost miraculously, nothing came over the side to hit the two women.

Aadela only waited for about thirty seconds after the explosion before hopping to her feet and running around the side of the jeep. Riley was quick to follow, and she was about to stop the woman, but seeing the wreckage of the building made her heart skip a few beats, and she instead joined Aadela as the Afghan woman sprinted towards the building.

When they were about a hundred yards away from the building, Riley saw a figure get up from the ground, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Jack," she called out as they got closer. Jack heard his name called out and turned around, waiting for the women to make it to him.

"Do you know where-"

"Haven't seen them," Riley cut in. "They were coming out a door on the other side though. I know the way." She took off again, the other two following behind her as she led them to the side of the building Atar and MacGyver had been exiting on. When they finally rounded the building, they all stopped dead in their tracks for a moment as they observed the scene in front of them.

Wreckage was strewn everywhere, from large pieces of brick to structural beams, and neither of the men they were searching for was in sight.

"Come on," Jack said, his voice tight. "They're in here somewhere."

They searched and searched until finally Aadela let out a shout, and the other two hurried to where she was standing. There, buried under the rubble were MacGyver and Atar, both of them unconscious.

From what they could see, Atar had bruises on his face and a small trickle of blood coming from his forehead. The young man's arm was also bent at an awkward angle, and Jack knew immediately that it was broken.

MacGyver's shirt was torn in several different places, and in each place it was torn, there were nasty-looking cuts that were bleeding, but other than that, Jack couldn't see anything physically wrong with his friend.

"Riley, call for help," Jack instructed as he got down and began carefully removing any loose rubble that he could. Thankfully, neither of the men were pinned down by anything, so Jack felt fairly comfortable getting the debris off his friend and the teenager.

After she made the call, Riley came over and began helping Jack and Aadela remove as much debris as she could. "Help is on the way," she assured them. "It took a minute to find someone who spoke English, but they said that help will be here in five minutes or less. They heard the explosion and were already sending people to check it out, but now they're sending ambulances as well."

"Hold on guys," Jack muttered. "We're almost home-free."

Suddenly, MacGyver began shifting and moaning, and Jack looked down at him. "Hey Mac, I'm here," he said, the relief apparent in his voice.

0-0-0

Present Time

Jack and Riley stopped just outside the room Atar was in, listening as they heard Aadela and her nephew speaking Arabic inside. The two Americans didn't want to interrupt the moment the aunt and nephew were having, but it was almost like Aadela sensed their presence, because a few moments later, she opened the door.

"Jack, Riley," she greeted with a smile. "Come in," she invited, stepping back and gesturing for the Phoenix agents to come inside. Jack studied the young man as they walked in; as he'd suspected, the kid had broken his arm, but thankfully it wasn't too serious a break, no surgery required. There was a butterfly bandage covering the cut on Atar's forehead, and while the bruises were even more prominent on his face, the teenager still managed a smile.

"Hey kid," Jack greeted Atar after giving Aadela a short hug. "How ya feelin'?"

"I am alright," Atar replied.

"He has an uh...injury on his brain?" Aadela explained, searching for the word.

"A concussion?"

"Yes, that is it," Aadela confirmed. "The doctors also say he will probably experience hearing loss, though they don't think it will be a bad amount. But the doctors say besides that and his broken arm, his wounds are minor. A few cuts and bruises from the bomb, and a few bruised ribs, but he is going to be fine. How is MacGyver?"

"He's...he's been better," Jack explained. Aadela had been there when MacGyver had announced that he couldn't see, back at the bomb site, but she had been with her nephew since they'd reached the hospital, and she hadn't been caught up on the blond's condition.

"The doctors said that his blindness is temporary, and that it's actually a fairly common side effect of getting hit in the head as hard as he did," Riley explained. "He had some shrapnel that they had to get out and then stitch closed. Right now he's being taken down to have a few tests run to see how much damage the back of his head took."

Aadela looked down at her hands, and her face morphed into an expression that Jack was all too familiar with. "Hey now," he said firmly. "None of this was your fault. Mac wouldn't do anything different if he had to do it again, besides maybe get out of the building a little sooner. There was no way he was going to leave you two alone with this happening, so you can just stop that sort of thinking right now." Jack felt like he was having deja vu, since he had just had this conversation with MacGyver a little less than fifteen hours ago.

Aadela looked like she was going to respond, but a nurse walked in and said that she needed to take Atar's vitals, so Jack and Riley stepped out of the room, promising Aadela that they'd come back soon. The two of them shut the door behind them, then Jack turned to Riley.

"I'm gonna go uh, find uh…the bathroom."

"You're going to go see if Mac's done with his testing because you're scared to leave him alone for more than five minutes?" Riley interpreted. Jack looked a little indignant, but he finally gave in.

"I just get a feelin' that somethin' ain't right," he said. "When was the last time my gut was wrong?"

Riley immediately had an answer in her head. "Last week, you were convinced that the burrito on the bus was a mini bomb."

"No one just leaves a perfectly good burrito alone on a bus," Jack muttered grumpily. "Okay, let's change the wording. When have my gut instincts about Mac been wrong?"

That gave Riley pause; usually when Jack had a gut feeling that concerned his partner, or any of the team for that matter, it was usually right. "Okay," she finally gave in. "I don't think they're gonna let you in though."

"As long as I can see the kid's fine, I'm good," Jack promised. With that, the two of them walked down the hallway, trying to find their way to the MRI testing center. All the signs were in Arabic though, so they had to stop and ask a passing nurse for directions. Finally, they knew where they were going, and they headed off in the direction the nurse had pointed them in.

0-0-0

MacGyver was wheeled into a testing room, and when the pulled the bed to a stop, one of the nurses helped him off his bed and onto the table that would be inserted into the MRI machine. Once he was settled down, the doctors gently began velcroing the blond's wrists and ankles to the table.

"Don't worry," one of them assured him. "This is just to minimize movement; the test will only take a few minutes, and then we'll get you out of there."

MacGyver nodded in agreement, and after a few more seconds they'd finished securing him to the table. The mechanisms in the bed whirred to life, and Mac felt the table he was on begin to move backwards, into what he figured was the actual machine.

"Okay, just sit tight Mr. MacGyver, we'll get this started in just a few minutes," the doctor assured him before the American was left alone in silence.

The blond sat there inside the machine for what he thought was more than a few minutes, still weirded out by the fact that he couldn't see anything, though he was doing his best to try and not let that freak him out. After a few more minutes of waiting, Mac began to wonder what was taking so long.

"Everything okay?" he called out, wishing again for the thousandth time that he could see. There was no answer, but since Mac had already been put into the machine, and he had no idea of his surroundings, he figured it was better to stay put. Still, something didn't set right in the blond's gut, and he wished his hands or feet were free so that he could try and feel around for a way out of the machine. After a few more seconds of waiting though, he heard the platform he was on begin to move, so he stilled.

As it was brought out of the MRI machine, Mac tilted his head, trying to hear anything the doctors were saying. He knew they hadn't run any tests, and it made the American wonder if there was something wrong with the machine. However, when the table stopped moving, Mac realized that he couldn't hear anyone talking. The uneasy feeling got even stronger, and Mac began to pull at his restraints slightly.

"Is something wrong?" Mac asked, waiting for someone to come over and undo the straps holding him down. He wasn't released though, even after Mac felt someone's presence above his head. He started to ask if someone could undo his restraints, but the person above him interrupted. It wasn't a doctor though, and they weren't talking about his MRI.

"How poetic," a familiar voice above Mac's bed drawled. MacGyver immediately jerked, trying to move away from the voice that he immediately recognized, but his hands and legs were still velcroed to the table he was on. Trying to calm his racing thoughts, MacGyver wondered what had happened to the nurses and doctors, but Habib continued talking as he watched the American struggle against his restraints. "You take one of my eyes, I take your sight completely. There is a certain air of justice in this, I think."

MacGyver would have responded, but it was at that moment that Habib lowered both of his hands, covering Mac's nose and mouth, and the blond suddenly found it extremely difficult to breathe.

*Hides* So does this mean I wasn't really sorry for the last cliffie, because I knew I was going to do it again? :D