AN: This will not make any sense unless you've read the latest chapter of The Path Not Taken. It picks up four days after that ends, but deals with events and revelations from that chapter.
BETH'S RESIDENCE
LA
Four days after he'd made that mental note to reinforce her coffee table, Mac and Beth sat on the floor of her living room, the coffee table upended in front of them. As Beth held a metal bracket he'd made that very morning from scraps he'd had lying around in place, Mac screwed it to the table using the slightly odd-looking drill he'd brought with him.
(He'd gotten it for a steal at a garage sale, since it didn't actually work. He'd since fixed it, but his fix had made it look a bit like a steampunk laser gun, according to Bozer.)
(Mac had no idea what a steampunk laser gun was supposed to look like, but took his best friend's word for it.)
Then, they sat back on their haunches. Mac put down his drill and shook the bottom of the table with considerable force.
He made a satisfied noise.
'There. It should, in theory, hold…' His face scrunched up a little in concentration. '…a six-month old baby elephant, but I wouldn't recommend testing that.'
Beth giggled.
A six-month-old baby elephant would weigh about 570 pounds.
(Which was likely far more weight than her coffee table would ever be expected to hold.)
(A year ago, she'd have said it would never have to hold that much.)
(Then she'd met Mac.)
'I don't think that'll be an issue; I'm not in the habit of inviting juvenile pachyderms over for dinner.'
'Well, if you ever do have one around…'
'I will make sure to invite you. And keep it off the coffee table.'
Together, they righted the coffee table, and Mac put his drill and random bits-and-bobs he'd brought over that he'd thought might be useful back in his bag, before turning to her again.
'I owe you a story.'
He didn't need to specify what story.
After all, four days (or rather, nights) ago, he, his dad and Jack had shown up on her doorstep, his father bleeding out.
She'd finally learned that his dad was not a scientist and an inventor who worked for DARPA, but instead Oversight.
Their Oversight.
(That had been quite the shock. She'd looked a little bit like she wanted the Earth to swallow her whole, but also rather unrepentant. It'd been an interesting expression.)
That made everything she knew about him and his dad (his dad leaving when he was ten, their radio silence and estrangement for eighteen years, the recent reunion and the fact that they were working on rebuilding their relationship, but it didn't always go well) far more complicated.
Made it clear that there was more of a story there.
Beth reached out and put a hand on his forearm.
'You don't have to tell me, I mean, it's clearly not…well, it's not exactly pleasant memories for you, and I've got the gist of it, I think…'
He gave a little smile, eyes meeting hers.
'I want you to know.'
She smiled back, and patted his arm gently, before getting up.
'I'll make us some hot chocolate.'
JAMES MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE
LA
James, after checking the peephole, opened his front door to find Beth standing on the other side, with fierce, protective anger in her eyes.
He took a step back, letting her into his home.
This was not a conversation he wanted to have on his doorstep.
She tilted her chin up and took a deep breath.
'Mac told me the whole story.'
That protective anger in her eyes only seemed to get stronger. There was a touch of a threat behind it.
James raised his brows.
'I'm your boss.'
Beth nodded.
'And that's why I'm at your house when we're both off-duty, Jim.' She paused. 'You're the father of someone that I care about very much, who has hurt him terribly. And…and I think that sometimes, you still do hurt him. I know your job is hard; you have to make hard decisions, and there are secrets you have to keep from Mac, but…' She narrowed her eyes at him, standing up very straight. It was surprisingly threatening. Maybe Angus' feelings weren't the only reason why he listened to her. 'If you ever really hurt him again, like you did when he was a kid…you will find yourself subjected to every single uncomfortable and/or unpleasant medical examination I can think of.'
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, before James nodded, very seriously.
'I will do everything I can to avoid hurting Angus again.'
That was the best promise he could give her.
With what seemed to be an internal sigh, Beth nodded in response and acceptance.
Then, her expression shifted into something that was very much 'medical professional'.
'We also need to discuss the fact that you left before I gave you medical clearance.' She narrowed her eyes at him again. 'I assume that you are well aware of the dangers of infection and sepsis, the recovery time required for hypovolemia, and the consequences of compromised healing?'
James sighed.
'I'm sure Angus told you, I had an extremely important meeting to attend.' He paused. 'A doctor's note would not have gotten me out of it.'
Her eyes narrowed yet again. This time, her ire didn't seem to be directed at him, but instead at who he was sure she was thinking of as Oversight's Oversight.
'That's unacceptable.'
From the look on her face, he knew she was going to talk to Matilda.
He actually felt sorry for the powers-that-be.
(They had no idea what was about to hit them.)
Then, she started herding him towards his living room by sheer force of will. James looked down at her as he nonetheless obediently walked into said room.
(She didn't leave him much choice.)
'What are you doing?'
(He did know what she was doing. He was just…surprised.)
Beth pointed at the couch, and he sat, as she put down her bag and explained, as if it was the most obvious, matter-of-fact thing in the world, with an awful lot of exasperation in her voice.
(He probably had Angus to blame for a good deal of that exasperation.)
'I need to check your wound to ensure that there are no signs of infection and that it's healing properly.' She paused, looking up at him with that narrow-eyed look once again. 'And that you haven't torn any of your stitches.' She pulled some sterile dressings out of her bag. 'Shirt off, please…'
Twenty minutes and a couple of Dora the Explorer Band-Aids over a fresh dressing on his abdomen later, James walked into his bedroom, and pressed firmly on several particular books, in a particular order. There was a popping noise, and then he removed a few books, setting them aside, and opened a secret compartment built into his wall.
He pulled out a well-worn, leather-bound photo album, and with a soft smile, opened it to a random page.
Both leaves showed photos of Ellen.
The one on the left was a photo of her in a little coffee shop on their honeymoon in Paris. The one on the right had her sitting on their couch at home, eight months pregnant with Angus, looking every bit as beautiful as she had in a pretty dress in Paris, and eating a giant bowl of rocky road ice-cream.
(She'd craved that incessantly when she was pregnant. It was also Angus' favourite ice-cream flavour. He really needed to see if the literature showed any causation regarding that.)
(She had tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to destroy that photo. She'd hated it, claiming that she looked like a beached whale. He strongly, strongly disagreed with that. It was simply objectively untrue.)
(The so-called 'miracle of life' that'd given them their son was the closest thing to an actual miracle he'd ever seen.)
James smiled a little wider.
'You'd have really liked her, Ellen.' His smile grew more wry, though no less affectionate, loving. A touch wistful. 'Angus and I would have been in so much trouble…'
His memory of her just smiled that little smile of hers at him, knowing and teasing and full of love.
And you'd have loved every minute of it.
AN: One day, I really, really have to get around to writing that fic in which Ellen is alive and she and Beth do indeed get along like a house on fire…and the MacGyver men are absolutely screwed but are perfectly happy about it.
(I'll probably wind up putting it in to the Christmas fic I'm planning…)
I hope you guys liked this; it was actually the second episode tag planned out (after one still to come…). Please don't ask me why Beth and Mac are talking about elephants as dinner guests at the start; I have no idea aside from the fact that they simply insisted I write it that way!