Author's Note: Just a quick, funny thing, I'm writing this in Word before I upload it, and I have this little animated paperclip at the top of my screen, and the irony just hit me. Those of ya'll who are MacGyver fans will get what I'm talking about. : )

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The sun streaming through his window was enough to wake him. Jack had never been big on sleep, and he was by habit an early riser. Years of being in the military will do that to you. He sat up and passed a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes a little to remove the remaining deposit of sleep. He looked out by the bedside table hoping to see a clock so he would know what time it was, but what he saw made him smile. It was a picture, or to be honest, two. There was one of himself, and one of Mac's grandfather, Harry, and although he wasn't technically either of their grandfathers, they both considered him one. Their family history was a little bit sad, but they had both found a way around it. When they were born, their mom died in childbirth, she was the only one who knew who the father was but he had run away shortly after finding out she was pregnant.

The MacGyver family had happened upon them, and adopted Mac. They had wanted to adopt Jack as well, but for some reason he never knew, they couldn't. He had, not too long after, been sent as a foster child to the O'Neill family, who were just one of many flaws in the whole system: they had only taken him for the money that came with him for childcare. His 'dad' was abusive, especially when he got drunk, but his 'mom' wasn't a bad person. She didn't treat him awfully, she just didn't stand up for him, which he now knew was because she was scared of her husband.

Growing up, he knew that they weren't his blood family; he had known he had a twin brother, Mac. Every year, when school was out he'd convince the O'Neill's to let him leave for Minnesota for the summer, so they would be rid of him. Those were his favorite times growing up, when he could visit Mac. Harry had taught them how to fish, play hockey, ice skate and a whole bunch of things about the wilderness and life in general. He had stayed with the O'Neill's, not like he had a choice, long enough that he eventually took their name, and while he was eight years old, they finally had a child of their own. A little girl, and by affiliation: his little sister. He had sworn that she would not be treated the way he had, and he made it his mission to protect her from her father's wrath. One of many failures.

He shook his head to clear his mind from its current train of thought. It was not something pleasant, and he didn't want to dwell on the pain of the past while he should be looking out for possible dangers of the future. The clock stated that it was six-thirty, too early for MacGyver to be up. Jack, though, was hungry and in need of a good cup of coffee. Man, he hadn't eaten since…damn, last morning.

He threw the sheets back and climbed out of bed, careful not to aggravate his injured side. He could go get it stitched up properly once this whole mess was cleared up. He couldn't risk Mac taking him to the hospital; too many questions that he didn't want to have to answer. His bare feet were quiet against the cool wooden steps and when he reached the bottom, he stretched a little bit to loosen up his muscles that had been in a constant state of tenseness for the past few days. He walked silently to the kitchen, careful not to wake Mac, and looked for some coffee until he remembered something: Mac didn't drink coffee. But that didn't stop him from his search; he knew that Mac was too gracious of a host to not have some for his guests even if he didn't drink it himself. It was another thing they shared, for he did that as well for his team. Daniel liked a certain special Starbucks blend of coffee while Jack was fine settling for the damn instant crap, but he still kept some in his kitchen for the not so odd occasion when he spent the night, and Carter liked diet soda, so he kept some in his fridge just for her when he was fine with beer. It was something you did when you were that close with your friends.

He finally found a percolator in the back of one of the lower cabinets along with a small packet of coffee grounds. 'There we go, problem solved.' It wasn't long before he had made himself a cup full of the steaming beverage. He headed over to the table and moved a chair so he could look out the window while still being able to keep an eye on Mac. He took a sip and could feel the heat sliding down his throat to settle in his stomach, warming him from the inside out.

It had been a spontaneous decision to come out here, but one made of necessity. There was no way he could have ignored such an obvious threat to MacGyver's life. He knew that he was practically AWOL, hell he was definitely AWOL, but it didn't matter to him. What mattered was the safety of the only family he had left, and that was more important than his career in the military. He took another long sip from his mug, before he noticed the design of it.

It was navy blue and had an Air Force logo on it. He snorted from amusement. He hadn't known that Mac had it; of course what new mug they had just bought that week never was the center of any of their conversations. He realized that Mac must have really missed him and bought it as a reminder of him. Then the look of amusement he had on his face softened into one of melancholy. He put the cup down and stared at Mac, wondering what could have been if he had decided early on that his brother was more significant to him than being in black ops. In retrospect, he knew that he would have changed it in an instant, he would have much preferred having a normal relationship with his brother, who was like his other half, than suffer the pain and torment of his secretive missions; but hindsight was 20:20.

His stomach growled, interrupting his sad musings. He wandered over to the fridge, no longer wishing to dwell on could-a, would-a, should-a's, and peered in, hoping to spot something other than yogurt that he could make for breakfast. Specifically, he had a craving for something hearty like bacon and eggs, but he knew Mac wouldn't have bacon, but he did have eggs. 'That's a start. Maybe I can make an omelet,' he decided, and pulled out all the necessary ingredients. Despite what his team thought, he was an excellent cook; he just didn't like many people to know.

A short while later, the smell of something wonderful cooking woke Mac up. But he was momentarily confused, he never was that good at waking up, who was cooking? This was his house wasn't it? His curiosity got the best of him as he decided that there was no way he was going to go back to sleep now that he had a problem to solve. He peeked his head just high enough to see over the couch to see who was cooking in his kitchen.

Jack had seen the movement from the other side of the room and smiled at the image of Mac looking pretty much like he did when he was a young kid. He was always slow in the morning, unlike Jack, and took a little while to wake up.

"Morning Mac! I made ya breakfast," he greeted with a smile that grew into a grin as he saw a look of confusion spread across his brother's face.

"Jack? What are you doing here?" then all the memories of the other day came rushing back to him, effectively waking him up. He straightened quickly and jumped off the couch, rushing to the stove where Jack was currently making an omelet. "Are you okay? How'd you sleep? Is your side still hurting you? I can give you another pain med-"

"Mac! Enough! I'm fine. I've had much worse before, it's already well on its way to being healed." Mac looked skeptical at the 'almost healed' bit, but he did know that he had had much worse, and was still alive, so he conceded,

"Okay…but take a Tylenol, it must be aching a little bit," a sort pause, "So, breakfast huh?"

"Fine, yeah, omelets. You didn't have any bacon," Mac snorted at that. Of course he didn't have bacon; he was a vegetarian. Jack slid the breakfast onto a plate and handed it to Mac, "Voila! Breakfast is served," he said in a horribly fake French accent, "I already ate, so I'll go take that Tylenol now."

"What, you're running away after giving me food? What did you do?" He picked up the plate and held it at eye level, mockingly searching for any conspicuous signs of poison.

"Noooooothing," he tossed over his shoulder in a voice laced with fake innocence, already heading upstairs.

"Yeahsureyabetcha," Mac grumbled to himself as he took a bite. By the time Jack returned downstairs, he had finished his morning meal, and started cleaning up the kitchen. He filled the sink with warm soapy water and was about to begin the dishes when Jack shooed him out of the way.

"Mac, I made the mess, I clean it up."

"Jack, don't give me that, you're my guest, besides, you're injured."

"Will you stop it with that, I'm fine! You fixed me up last night, it's the least I could do. Why don't you go upstairs and get dressed while I finish down here. When you're done, I'll go up and change into whatever clothes you've left over. Then we need to talk about what's going on."

After a moment's hesitation, he conceded,

"Alright bro, I'll be right back. You sure you're okay though?" Mac wanted to be sure before he left, though he was only going upstairs. What could possibly go wrong in the little time it took to get dressed? Jack fixed Mac with a look that plainly said, 'quite asking me if I'm fine, for crying out loud!' With that, MacGyver retreated.

Jack let out a sigh of aggravation and turned around, emerging his hands in the soapy water, already beginning his task. He was placing a glass that he had just finished washing in a drip-dry rack when he noticed movement at the door. He turned his head and crouched low, just in case the newcomer was a threat. He wished he had his gun with him right then, but he had left it upstairs on the bureau. 'Shit. That was really smart O'Neill, you should have known better!' The door opened, and someone walked in. The footsteps didn't sound right, they weren't the soft cautious sound someone made when they were trying to sneak around, they were heavy, unguarded steps, which confused him.

"Mac? Ya down here?" He definitely didn't sound like an assassin, more like one of Mac's friends. Jack knew he couldn't stay hiding for long; sooner or later he was going to spot him. 'Oh well,' he decided, he could be Mac. His hair was different, but he could just say he got a haircut. He stood up to greet the guy,

"Hey…" His mind worked quickly to supply the name to face he was seeing, The man in front of him was on the sort side, chubby, and had an almost completely bald head, "Pete. What brings you by?"

"Mac? What were ya doing on the floor? And, whoa! What'd ya do to your hair?"

"Oh uh, I dropped a dishrag. My hair? I got a haircut." That was easy.

"Finally! But now you look old…er" Jack scowled at that. He wasn't that old! He was just gray because Daniel was always scaring the shit out of him. "Anyway, I came to pick up my stuff I left here last night, we could also discuss the case now because it was too late by the time I left the Foundation. I left a message on the machine." Jack's eyes wandered to the answering machine and, for the first time, noticed that indeed, the little red light was blinking.

"Oh-"

"Hey Jack, I put out some clothes for you on the bed that you could wear. Oh, don't leave your gun lying around, you know how I feel about those things!" Both Pete and Jack turned towards the stairs where Mac was descending. Jack stood sputtering like a guppy, not knowing what to do. The situation had just past the point of no return and he knew it.

"MacGyver," Pete was pointing at the second person he thought was Mac, completely confused. He then turned and pointed at Jack, Mac # 1, to make sure his mind was playing tricks on him, but there really was two MacGyvers, "and…MacGyver?" Just then, Mac looked up, realizing that they had company. He stood staring at Pete who was shocked speechless after his initial reaction. He unwittingly was sharing the same expression as his twin older brother. The two look-alikes then turned towards each other at the same time, trying to seek advice from the other. Neither knew what to do.

"Oh crap!"