The morning's hike had been a silent, strained affair. Gibbs had never been the greatest conversationalist, even on a good day. MacGyver enjoyed the peace of the forest too much to shatter it with small talk. Bishop was too furious with both of them to be able to speak at all. MacGyver had taken advantage of the 'mad energy' to pick up the pace of their travels, and they'd made up quite a bit of time. However, it was obvious that Bishop was beginning to tire. Although she had learned a lot the day before, she was still new at this. She was also sore from the previous day's effort and tired from a night of poor sleep. She was starting to stagger and bounce off of things again, forcing MacGyver to slow down.

"Be careful...there are a lot of loose branches here," Mac called back as he skimmed nimbly over a tangle of dead wood. "And a pretty sharp drop over there," he added, looking over the short cliff to their right.

Bishop knew the warning was for her... Gibbs was so adept at traveling through this cursed terrain that he barely left a footprint. She was getting really sick of the forest. Really a lot... She tried to put her feet exactly where she'd seen MacGyver step, but his legs were longer. She twisted her body, hiking one leg up in the air as she tried to locate the most stable place to land it. She could feel her planted foot sinking into the mucky loam, which shifted her balance. Her hip crashed against a branch, and she gasped as the whole pile shifted. A sharp pain in her ankle and a wet heaviness on her knee told her that she was pinned. "Mac, help!"

He and Gibbs were at her side in seconds. Gibbs caught another branch as it attempted to slide, keeping that added weight off of her.

"We're going to need to block this somehow," Mac mumbled, dropping to his knees as he contemplated the snarl of wood. "Otherwise, it's going to keep tightening up, and we'll never get her out."

Gibbs grunted as another branch broke free and slid into him. "This didn't look this dangerous when we started walking into it. What happened?"

Mac shook his head. "Dunno. It's weird."

"Weird?" Bishop had to ask, trying not to panic as two forked branches, each facing in opposite directions, closed in around her ankle. "I'm about to have my foot amputated, and you think this is weird?"

"If I had the time to argue… I still wouldn't," he informed her, his gaze flicking up to her, enough strength behind his dark eyes to silence her. He stood, backing slowly away from the pile until he found his backpack. Without taking his eyes off of the pile, he dug around inside, finally pulling out a length of rope. "Need to find an anchor," he muttered, looping the rope around the closest tree branch. When it was set, he used it to gently pull the heavier of the wood pieces away from her.

"Bishop, pick your foot up when the pressure eases," Gibbs ordered, keeping sharp watch on the moving wood.

The second she felt the release of pressure, Bishop jerked her foot up. Her boot had created quite a suction in the mud, requiring more effort than she expected to free it. She redoubled her efforts, and when her foot finally did break free, she overcompensated and found herself flailing in open air.

"Watch it, watch it, watch... Oh, great!" Mac hollered as the rope snapped, sending Gibbs and Bishop flying over the edge of the short cliff. He ducked under a flying branch, scrambled backwards to avoid another, then crab-crawled to the edge to take stock. He saw a safe place to slide down, so without waiting for the dust to clear, he started a controlled descent.

He found Gibbs first. The Special Agent was scratched and bruised, but Mac could tell by the way he was moving that he wasn't too badly hurt. "Bishop?" he called, catching sight of her pink jacket under a sizable pile of debris.

A pained moan was the only response. Without speaking, Gibbs made his way over and started helping Mac dig her out. Branch after branch were thrown aside, and while they were both desperate to reach her, they knew that one wrong move could cause more to fall on top of her.

"That's... a lot of blood," Mac whispered as they pulled another small log off of her.

"Head wounds bleed," Gibbs returned shortly, and although he tried to keep his expression stoic, Mac could tell he was deeply worried.

"Bishop, can you hear me?" Mac called, making sure his tone was smooth and soothing. If she was conscious, she was probably in shock. She was going to be hurting pretty badly, and he didn't want her thrashing around and making her injuries worse. He moved yet another leafy branch, and was able to see her face. Her eyes were closed and her skin was pasty, but she was breathing.

The last of the debris was cleared away, and Mac grunted in surprise as Gibbs pushed him aside to reach his fallen agent. Gibbs checked her out, relief flooding his face when her pulse and breathing were strong. "She's got a bad cut on her head, but I think it's superficial," he said.

"Why don't you let me take over," Mac suggested. "I had to sit through yet another First Aid class for the Phoenix Foundation, and this time, I actually learned a few new tricks. What I really need from you is hot water to clean her up with."

Grateful to have something to do that he was good at but completely unwilling to show it, Gibbs darted off to start a fire. Something close to panic showed in his eyes when he was back at MacGyver's side in seconds. "My matches… they're gone!"

Mac rifled through his pockets, unable to find his own. "Uh-oh… Wait! Go through my bag. Get the 9-volt battery and that steel wool. Touch the steel wool to the contacts on the battery. Use the toilet paper to catch the sparks!"

Gibbs was once again gone, and while Mac listened with half an ear to his progress, he turned back to the injured woman before him.

"Easy, Ellie," Mac encouraged as her eyelids fluttered. He used his bandana to wipe the blood away from her face, and the amount worried him. He knew that head wounds bled like crazy; he'd had enough of them in his lifetime, but this one looked ugly. It would need stitches. While Mac was a resourceful person, a suture needle was not something easily produced. Fortunately, he had another idea that wouldn't involve a needle at all. He just needed to get the wound cleaned up.

"Water's hot," Gibbs said, coming up behind him.

"That was fast," Mac complimented. He couldn't help a brief chuckle as Gibbs shot him a look that clearly asked if Mac thought he was going to waste any time. "Help me carry her to the fire," Mac said, reaching down to slide his hands under her shoulders.

"Err..." Gibbs grunted with hesitation. "Might have a problem there."

Mac paused to look him over, and realized that Gibbs hid pain better than anyone he'd ever known. He had a pretty bad cut on his left arm above the elbow that had soaked the sleeve all the way down to the cuff. "Great..." He looked around for something to use to tie up as a make-shift tourniquet, but Gibbs waved him off. "Yeah, you're upright and moving, and she's not. Let's get her taken care of first," Mac agreed.

Gibbs was able to lift with his right arm, and between the two of them, they managed to half-drag Bishop closer to the fire. With Gibbs' help to regulate the water temp, Mac cleaned Bishop's head wound. "I'm going to start working on this, but it's still bleeding. What I need is for you to keep a steady stream of water going on this, so I can see what I'm doing," Mac said.

"We're gonna run out of water," Gibbs warned.

Mac looked at the supply in the pail Gibbs had hung on a makeshift tripod over their hastily constructed fire. "Yeah, you're right. We have two options. One, I stay here and try to close this wound while you head to the stream that's a quarter mile away from us to get water. Two, you stay here and hold something over her wound to try to clot it while I run to the stream and get water. Option three... hang on a second...?"

"You can rig something to catch the water pouring out of that rock over there?" Gibbs guessed as MacGyver noticed a thick trickle seeping from a crack in one of the boulders. "Three's got my vote."

"If you guys had to go and get hurt on me, I'm glad you decided to do it here," Mac groused, passing over the wad of dressing he'd been using to put pressure on Bishop's head. "If you can, hold that with your bad arm and use what water's left to get yourself cleaned up. We don't need you getting infected either."

Rigging up tubing was easy once Mac did a quick inventory of their supplies on hand. Bishop had packed trail mix that came in 2x6" bags, so he cut them in half long-ways and taped all of the edges together with the duct tape in his back pocket. There was enough plastic to run an aqueduct right from the source of the water to the coffee mug from Gibbs' kit. It took only a few moments for the mug to fill, but to put enough water in the pail over the fire took more time than Mac was comfortable spending.

"Gibbs, I'll take over with her; I need you to run this," he said, gesturing to the apparatus before him. Gibbs obligingly took over, leaving Mac to return to his patient.

He again cleaned the wound and all of the surrounding hair. "It's a good thing you haven't had a haircut in a while," he muttered as he separated strands on both sides of the cut. His dexterous fingers started weaving the strands into a tight braid that pulled the edges of the cut together and held them. Bishop moaned and tried to squirm away, but Mac put a wrestling hold on her that kept her steady. He accepted a cup of warm water from Gibbs to rinse away the seepage, and he had to admit he was impressed with the finished product. "It won't win any styling contests, but she's not going to bleed to death any time soon," Mac muttered, laying Bishop back down. "Speaking of bleeding, let's take a look at that arm."

Gibbs had used his knife to cut away the ripped sleeve, and he'd already cleaned it once. "It's not that bad," he tried to insist.

Mac wasn't having any of it. "It's ragged and deep. You did a good job cleaning it, but we've got to close it somehow."

"Hair's not long enough to braid?"

"I'd be worried if it was," Mac shot back, standing and moving to the pile of junk that Gibbs had dumped out of his bag. "Put pressure on it for now. I've got an idea."

Gibbs clenched his teeth as he slapped another dressing from the First Aid kit on the cut. "I'd be worried if you didn't," he returned, attempting a smile.

MacGyver paused in clambering up a neighboring pine tree. Something in his old friend's voice didn't sound right. "You feeling light-headed there, Gibbs? Might want to sit down for a little while." A thrill of concern went through MacGyver's gut when Gibbs obligingly went down beside the fire. He had to be hurting a lot to follow that kind of direction so well. Trying not to let his worry distract him, Mac found what he was looking for... a broken branch with thick, gummy resin seeping out. Scraping the thick substance with the shard of glass he'd picked up earlier, MacGyver gathered enough for his purposes, and slid out of the tree. "Get over here, Gibbs… Let me seal that cut."

"What are you…?" Gibbs demanded as Mac starting spreading the resin over his injury.

"Believe me, this works! The pine resin has natural anti-bacterial properties, it'll seal this wound better than stitches, and it's not a dressing that's going to move or need to be changed before we get out of the woods."

"You learn this from your first aid class?"

Shaking his head, Mac smiled with fond remembrance. "Nope… I was privileged to help out a Native American community. I got banged up a little trying to recover their stolen property. One of the elders patched me up with pine resin. Between that and the herbal tea they fed me, I bounced back quicker than I expected."

Bishop's moan interrupted them, and Mac left Gibbs' side to go check on her. She was starting to come around, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain.

"Easy, Ellie," he soothed, catching her hand as she tried to bring it up to her head. "No, you'd better leave that alone. It's going to hurt like crazy for a while, but you've got to trust me… you're going to be fine."

She looked so bewildered and lost with her lower lip trembling and her eyes silvered with tears that Mac sat down beside her and pulled her up against him. Her whole body was trembling with shock as he rubbed her back. "…hurts…" she whimpered, pulling her left arm across her body to cradle her wrist in her lap.

With his arm still around her shoulder, he pulled her tighter against his chest and leaned in to take a look. She winced as his fingers gently probed the small bones of her wrist, and her whole arm twitched as he found the sore spot.

"It's the radius, not the wrist," Mac reported in relief. "Still gonna hurt, but it's not as traumatic or delicate an injury as if you'd broken your wrist." She didn't seem to have heard, so Mac went back to rubbing her back as he lost himself in thought.

"I can see the wheels turning," Gibbs commented after a moment. "What clever idea are you cooking up now?"

"She'll need a cast on that, to keep it from getting worse. I think she broke the bone; more of an impact fracture or a crack, but it's still gonna hurt."

"And you have an idea," Gibbs asserted. While it was a definite statement Gibbs had made, there was still a lot of hope buried in it.

"Of course," Mac said with a grin, his smile broadening as relief made Gibbs' next breath deeper. "I need you to come over here and hold her. I'll get the sleeping bags and cover you both up. You lost enough blood that I'm worried about you getting shocky, so the warmth will do you good too. Don't argue!" he interrupted himself as Gibbs tried to protest. "Just shut up and listen to me for once, Gunny. We've been in tough scrapes before, and you know what I'm capable of."

Gibbs rolled his eyes, but was silent as he dragged himself over to take MacGyver's place holding Bishop upright. He even condescended to help wrap the sleeping bag around himself and his other agent.

Mac threw extra wood on their fire, adding some green pine branches in. While the fire got really smoky, it also burned even hotter. Returning to the pile of stuff emptied from his backpack, he rooted through until he found the steel wire and the PVC pipe. The pipe went on a flat rock, balanced on the edge of the fire, while MacGyver hunted up a smooth stone roughly the size of his fist.

When the PVC pipe was just about hot enough to melt, Mac braced it between a few other rocks he'd assembled, then brought out the steel wire, using it to saw through the softened plastic. The smooth stone was used to push the pliable plastic into the negative image of Bishop's wrist. He waited until the plastic was cooler before carrying it over to his patient and seeing if his improvised cast would fit.

"You're something else," Gibbs informed him as the cast fit with laser-like precision.

"Amazing what a little 'tree hugging' can do… And you mocked me!" Mac grinned back. "How're you holding up?"

Gibbs examined the pine sap bandage on his arm, and nodded. "Arm's still attached."

'Well, that's a good thing." Mac strapped the make-shift cast into place using the steel wire he'd cut it with and a tie-string from one of the backpacks. "She's gonna need a doctor," Mac said slowly. "Means we have to call off the hunt and radio for help."

Gibbs scowled, but nodded. "Hate giving up."

"I don't choose to look at it as 'giving up'. I prefer to think of it as 'readdressing our options,'" MacGyver shrugged, tugging the satellite phone out of his pack and holding it up. "Do you want to do the honors?"

The look Gibbs gave him would have frozen the water boiling in the pot.

"I'll take that as a 'no'…" Mac said, rolling his eyes as he dialed the phone.

"We're a day and a half into the woods; you got a plan?"

MacGyver was examining his cell phone, where a saved screenshot from the satellite he'd moved the day before glowed on the screen. He compared it to the map he'd tugged from a pocket. "Our next job is finding a clearing large enough for a helicopter to get to us."

Gibbs stared at him in disbelief. "You were gonna get your helicopter ride in somehow, weren't you?" As Mac's only response was an oh-so-innocent smile, Gibbs heaved a sigh. "Nothing around here big enough to land in," Gibbs commented.

Mac's smile was growing roguish. "I didn't say, 'land'… I said, 'get to us.' There's a difference. If the chopper lowers one of those basket doo-dads, they can get us out in two or three lifts."

"You set this up in advance, didn't you?"

Mac gave his old friend a searching look. "Gibbs, it's me; MacGyver. Mr. 'Always Prepared for Everything'?"

Gibbs only slitted his eyes.

Mac broke the tripod down, saving the water and killing the fire with dirt. Once he was certain the fire was completely out, he went about packing up their supplies. "I'll make you a deal, Gibbs," he started, gnawing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. "You carry the backpacks…"

"What?"

"…and I'll carry Bishop. She's in no shape to walk, and you sure can't lift her."

Gibbs huffed. "You're no younger than I am, Mac!"

MacGyver mimed taking an arrow to the heart. "Gibbs, I'm hurt… truly! I meant because both of my arms are working, while you seem to be down one for the moment…" He gave that a moment to sink in, and when he read Gibbs' expression and figured out how far he could push his old buddy, he started in again. "You know, while it's true in a certain sense that I'm chronologically close to you, I think physically I'm in better shape."

Gibbs threw him a hard look. "Oh, really?"

"You know I'm a stickler about my diet, for one thing. I've never been married, for another; I can tell what your many adventures have done to you…"

Gibbs was just about to retort, but a moan from the form huddled under his arm made him break off.

"Boys… Please!" Bishop pleaded, "Let me die in peace!"

Mac stopped laughing long enough to check her injury. "You're not going to die, Ellie."

"Can I get a second opinion?"

Gibbs pushed himself away from her and lumbered to his feet. "You're not going to die," he seconded, grinning at her desolated expression.

She tried to stand, but her legs weren't too steady. Gibbs was closer, and she found herself hanging on to him for dear life as the world spun around her.

"Ow, Bishop! Cut that out!" Gibbs complained.

Mac was at their side in a second, and he gently pried the young woman free. "I've gotcha," he reassured her. He patted her shoulder as she dug the fingers of her good hand into the fabric of his jacket. "Easy now. Deep breaths."

"You sure…?" she wheezed, pressing the uninjured side of her head into his stomach as her own heaved.

He winced at the pressure and at the thought of wearing the squirrel stew she'd eaten last. "Am I sure about what?" he asked in confusion.

"You sure I'm not gonna die?"

"I won't let you," Gibbs intoned. Although his tone was brusque, he was trying to hide his paternal and concerned amusement.

"You might not have a choice," she fired back, sick and hurt enough not to care if he got mad.

"Thank you so much for putting me right in the middle of this little domestic dispute," Mac groused, prying Ellie's forehead out of his navel. "You're not going to die, but you do need medical attention. You might have gotten a concussion, and you're going to need to get that wound properly cleaned out. C'mon, Ellie… It's time to get moving."

She gasped in surprise and vertigo as he swept her up into his arms and held her as easily as if she had been a child. "What?"

"Put your arm around my neck, but be careful of the… Oww!" he grunted as the PVC pipe strapped to her wrist clunked against the back of his skull. "Seriously, Ellie, watch that thing!"

"She might not be the only one with a concussion," Gibbs noticed as Mac swayed and blinked. "You okay?"

"Note to self; send new 'Deep Woods Adventurer' Patch Initiates with a younger field agent for their first adventure in MacGyver-Land," Mac grunted, squinting tightly until the ringing stopped in his ears. "Maybe I am getting too old for this…"

"No longer invincible?" Gibbs needled, but there was an undercurrent of commiseration in his voice that cut the teasing. He too was feeling his age more frequently. Hearing that MacGyver's adventures were starting to catch up with him made Gibbs feel positively ancient.

Mac caught the pensive expression on his old friend's face, and he changed the subject. "I think I hear rotor blades. C'mon. You have the bags, Gibbs?" Mac led the way, balancing Ellie in his arms and feeling carefully with each step, since he couldn't see his feet. Gibbs trudged after them, all of their gear slung over his good arm.