When Gibbs got home that evening, he slipped quietly into the living room. There was evidence that MacGyver had woken up and moved around a little… Gibbs' trained eye could tell that his collection of old Western VHS tapes had been gone through. He wondered which one Mac had watched… or slept through, judging from the new indentations on the couch cushions. MacGyver had also gotten himself some food; there was a distinct and pleasing aroma of garlic and roasted pine nut hovering through the kitchen. A sticky note on the fridge informed him that there were leftovers, and he was welcomed to help himself. When Gibbs tugged the fridge open, he chuckled to himself as he saw all of the plastic containers full of food. Mac had slipped out to the market on the corner and had done some shopping. With his insistence on healthy food, he'd have starved to death in Gibbs' home otherwise.
Gibbs headed to his closet to change, and when he passed the guest room, he heard MacGyver's gentle breathing through the door. Figuring Mac would sleep through the night, Gibbs made the decision to spend some time in the basement.
Hours later, Gibbs was in the midst of plaining a piece of wood when he heard the stairs creak. He looked up, jerking his head in an invitation for MacGyver to join him in the basement. Gibbs almost offered MacGyver a shot from the bottle of Bourbon he kept on the shelf, but he remembered at the last second that Mac never touched the stuff… except to use it as a fuel for one of his harebrained homemade bombs.
"You eat anything?" MacGyver asked, dragging himself down the stairs and dropping his weight on a sawhorse beside the work bench.
"Not hungry," Gibbs said with a shake of his head. "Smells good, though."
Mac offered a tired smile. "Your kitchen is sorely lacking in the basic utensils."
"I don't own a garlic press, if that's what you're getting at."
"You do now… kinda," Mac amended with a shrug. "That is, if you don't need that ball peen hammer with the cracked handle or slip joint pliers with the stripped teeth that you had lying around…?"
"The ones in the bucket at the bottom of the stairs?" Gibbs asked. When MacGyver nodded sheepishly, Gibbs chuckled. 'Good. Those were going to get thrown out."
"They have a new lease on life now," Mac admitted. "If you ever plan on cooking with garlic again…Hey, it could happen!" He grinned at the 'yeah, right!' look Gibbs gave him.
"Feeling better?" Gibbs wanted to know. As Mac nodded unconvincingly, Gibbs turned back to the wood in his vice grips and ran a hand over it. "The team did a little digging today."
"Find anything useful?"
"Yup." Gibbs picked up a square of sand paper and whisked it over the surface of the wood, gently blowing the fine dust away to check his progress.
Mac looked like he was again losing his battle against sleep. "Where is Salazar hiding?"
"We found a lot of places he wasn't," Gibbs admitted. "But that's not all that got them curious." He waited until MacGyver had dragged his eyelids open again to stare at him expectantly. "They were curious about you."
"Doesn't surprise me," Mac admitted. "I show up looking like a crazy murderer, and suddenly their boss is acting like I'm his long-lost brother? I'd be curious too!" He waited to see if Gibbs was going to elaborate, finally prompting him when the silence had gone on longer than Mac had patience for. "And they found…?"
"Your Phoenix Foundation employee file."
Mac sat upright, suddenly painfully awake. "They did what? How? I designed that software myself! It would take someone…" Realization brought his eyebrows up. "Someone like McGee to crack it," he finished softly.
Gibbs fixed him with a stare. "I still trust you, Mac. But what is it you're not telling me?"
"If McGee found my file, you already know. Hi, I'd like to introduce myself; I'm the Director of Field Operations for the Phoenix Foundation," Mac grumbled with irritation.
Shaking his head, Gibbs dusted his hands off and reached for another piece of wood. "Why did you think you needed to 'forget to mention' that?"
"Because I don't feel like a Director for the Phoenix Foundation. I never have. Pete was and always will be the Director… I'll never fill those shoes."
"The Foundation's still a powerful organization," Gibbs prodded.
Mac's sigh was sad. "Because I still run things the way Pete would have. For the most part," he amended softly, glancing down at the floor. At Gibbs' questioning glance, he shrugged without looking up. "For instance, I spend a bit more time out in the field than I should at this stage of the game. I shouldn't be here now, except I had to do this for Jack."
"You'd go nuts stuck behind a desk," Gibbs agreed.
"You're right about that. I have an Assistant Director who keeps the lid on the place while I'm out. Sam does a fantastic job, a better one than I ever could, but he's not Pete either."
Gibbs waited a moment to see if MacGyver was going to volunteer more information. When it was obvious he wasn't, Gibbs fixed him with a mild version of a 'Gibbs Glare'. "You want to tell me how you know so much about my team, having just met them?"
Mac looked Gibbs in the eye. "Yes."
A few long, awkward seconds passed. "Well?"
Mac shrugged. "I want to, but I can't."
Gibbs snorted.
"Really. It's a National Security issue. This one is so big it could shut the Phoenix Foundation down completely if it leaked. I'm not letting that happen. Not gonna win this argument, Gunny."
Gibbs couldn't stop the muscle twitch in the middle of his back, where he'd caught the bullet that had prompted MacGyver to come to his rescue all those years ago.
Flashback, 1988, Somewhere in the South American Jungle:
*How did you know I was here?* Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs had gasped, barely able to focus on his rescuer.
*I'd love to tell you, but I can't; National Security and all that,* MacGyver said with apology. *Hold still now… I've got to get this bullet out.*
Gibbs had tried to hold steady, but MacGyver's quick fingers were not quick enough, and Gibbs had to grit his teeth until they felt like they would crack to keep from crying out.
*I hear them… They're heading this way!* MacGyver had hissed.
*Take the kids,* Gibbs had managed to get out. *Don't worry about me. Just tell my wife and daughter that I love…"
*Tell 'em yourself!* Mac retorted, hoisting the injured man over his shoulder and sliding through the underbrush. *I'm not letting that happen. Not gonna win this argument, Gunny!*
MacGyver's quiet voice broke into Gibbs' memories. "You of all people have to understand 'classified'. How many secrets have you had to keep? How many have you chosen to keep?"
Images flashed before Gibbs' eyes… he'd kept the secret of Shannon and Kelly from his team for nearly a decade. He'd been a part of missions that even he didn't fully understand. He'd done things for the so-called 'greater good' that he wasn't particularly proud of, and skirted rules that were just plain 'red tape'. He'd kept information about team members under wraps so they could better do their jobs.
"When you travel as much as I do and meet as many people as I do, you put together a lot of puzzle pieces. Sometimes you run into people, they remind you of someone, and you discover you have mutual acquaintances." He held firm under Gibbs' long, darkening gaze. "I can't tell you who or when I ran into someone we both know… but it was sure good to hear how you were doing. And then, as irony would have it, our paths cross."
The silence stretched on so long the crickets started chirping outside the basement window, and two neighborhood cats could be heard fighting down the street.
"I don't like it any more than you do, Gibbs."
The Senior Field Agent scowled as he again picked up his tools, but for all that MacGyver's silence frustrated him, he knew his old friend was right. There were some secrets that had to be kept. He had a sneaking suspicion, because he'd seen the 'I miss Ziva' look on Tony's face as the younger man had read through Mac's file. He wondered briefly who was more jealous of the time MacGyver had gotten to spend with her; himself or Tony. He was so careful never to let his feelings show, but he had a special place in his gruff old heart for her too. With everything they'd been through…
With a cold, electric tingle dancing across his skin, Gibbs realized that he had been staring at the spot on the basement floor where Ziva had killed her own half-brother to save Gibbs' life… and the tingle grew sharper as he realized Mac was watching him stare at that particular spot of concrete. He flicked his gaze to MacGyver's face, hoping to catch some kind of expression indicating he knew what had happened there, but MacGyver was doing a pretty good impression of a marble statue at the moment.