AN: I have four exams in the next two weeks (15th, 18th, 19th and 20th of June). That's the bad news. The good news is that after these four exams, only one more exam and I am done with exams FOREVER!

INFIRMARY

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

Mac, wearing a hospital gown (he'd have to stop by his locker to grab the spare change of clothes he kept in there on his way home), reached out to put his hand on the door handle, only to be interrupted by a voice.

A woman's voice.

'Get back into bed, Agent MacGyver.' It was a very firm voice, simultaneously admonishing him for doing something that he wasn't supposed to be doing and warning him off not doing what he was supposed to be doing, which was lying in bed. He turned around, surprised. (He was very, very rarely caught. He'd escaped no fewer than eight different hospitals or medical centres on multiple occasions without any issues, though, admittedly, he'd never attempted to escape the Phoenix infirmary before.) The speaker was a young, pretty woman in a doctor's coat with light brown hair pulled and pinned back into a neat ponytail. She was narrowing her brown eyes at him, arms crossed. His surprise obviously showed on his face, because her expression grew wry for a moment. 'Your reputation precedes you.'

He couldn't help but give a sheepish little smirk at that, before he opened his mouth to protest weakly (not that he really could, since she had caught him in the middle of an escape attempt…), but she tilted her chin up, something fierce in the expression, in her eyes, and pointed at his recently-vacated hospital bed.

Mac sighed, shoulders slumping, even as he trudged back to his bed, voice plaintive.

(It was almost 11 PM. He was exhausted. He'd spent the last five days in Malawi, and he really, really, really wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed.)

(Besides, doctor-patient privilege.)

'I just want to go home, Dr Taylor.'

(He knew her name – Dr Bethany H. Taylor – and several key facts about her – she was 27, had finished high school at 16, like he had, did pre-med at Purdue in three years, followed by medical school at Northwestern, an ER residency in Detroit and a year in Syria with MSF, before being hired by the Phoenix just a couple of weeks ago.)

(Due to the numerous security breaches they'd had in the last year or so, someone – namely Matty – had talked the people in charge – read James MacGyver – into upgrading the Phoenix's infirmary from an infirmary to essentially a hospital, including two operating theatres. As such, they'd hired several new doctors, with ER and/or trauma surgery training.)

(Fact sheets on each new hire had been sent out to all of the agents, in the hope that this would make them more likely to trust – and thus listen to – the medical staff.)

(In Mac's opinion, that had helped. As did the fact that Matty had assured them all that she'd personally vetted – and interrogated – each and every new hire.)

(Honestly, Mac thought, the fact that she'd made it through said interrogation without having run the other way from Matty and the Phoenix or fallen apart meant that Dr Taylor had to be made of much sterner stuff than she looked – she was petite and sweet-faced, looking more youthful than she actually was.)

Her expression grew sympathetic, though no less firm.

'You have bruised kidneys, took a knock to the head, and have too many contusions to count, including what is becoming a rather impressive shiner. I'm sorry, but I cannot let you go home; you need to stay overnight for observation, Agent MacGyver.' He was back in his bed now, and she pulled an alcohol wipe from her coat pocket to reinsert his IV. He looked away as she inserted it, not wanting to see it go in, and barely felt the needle slip back into his vein. She had really good technique. He glanced back over, to find that his IV had been securely re-attached and taped in place, then an X of Dora the Explorer Band Aids had been put over it. He raised an eyebrow in question, and she gave another wry little smile. 'Punishment for your escape attempt.' She narrowed her eyes at him again. 'Try that again, and the consequences will be even worse.' He was pretty sure that would just be more Dora the Explorer Band Aids. Which, she was right, was even worse. He sighed but nodded, and after she checked his monitors and made a note on his chart, she looked back up at him, expression softening again. 'Try and sleep. It'll at least pass the time.'

He toyed with the edge of his blanket.

'I…I can't sleep.'

'Would you like a sedative?' She said that as if she already knew the answer, and he shook his head immediately. She nodded, definitely having anticipated that. 'I can bring you something to read, after I check on Agent Connors and Agent Edwards.'

He offered her a little smile in thanks, and she bustled away to check on the former in the partly curtained-off 'room' next to Mac's (Connors was recovering from a nasty bout of heatstroke and dehydration after a mission to Western Sahara involving him being tortured by terrorists through water deprivation – she helped him drink some Gatorade, gently reassuring him that there was plenty more where that came from and emphasising that there were several bottles of water and Gatorade on his nightstand), then the latter (a former Navy SEAL with a dislocated shoulder who was already snoring away – Mac could hear it clearly, despite the fact that he was on the other side of the infirmary).

About ten minutes later, Dr Taylor came back into Mac's 'room', bearing a large stack of magazines. They were mostly issues of New Scientist, with a few of The Economist mixed in.

He smiled, completely genuinely, as she held them out to him, raising a brow in question. She offered a smile in return, a little more amused, maybe even the tiniest bit gently teasing, perhaps. More the sort of smile he thought she might smile off-duty, compared to that warm, caring, but still professional smile she'd had earlier.

'Your reputation really does precede you.' She narrowed her eyes at him yet again as he took the magazines. 'No escaping.'

'Thanks.' He held up the first of the magazines. 'And I promise, Doc.'

As she nodded, seemingly satisfied, and walked back towards her office, presumably to take a nap before checking on her patients in a couple of hours, Mac firmly pushed away the various half-formed escape ideas that were coalescing in his brain.

Maybe it was the fact that he thought it pertinent to stay on the good side of a doctor whom he'd be seeing regularly, unlike the various doctors at the various hospitals he'd been in over his career. Maybe it was the fact that she was clearly hard-working and very dedicated to her job and her patients and their wellbeing, and being a terrible patient was an awful way of repaying her for that. Maybe it was the fact that he really, really didn't want to wind up covered in Dora the Explorer Band Aids (it was supremely undignified for a grown man who was a covert operative for the US government). Maybe it was the fact that, despite the fact that she was small and seemed kind and sweet, there was definitely something fierce in the way she'd narrowed her eyes at him, tilted her chin.

But no matter the reason, his gut told him that he really, really wanted to stay on her good side.

MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE

LA

The next morning, Mac opened his front door and stepped inside his house, to find Jack sitting in the armchair and Riley stretched out on the couch, while Bozer and Leanna giggled at a private joke, their heads close together as his roommate stirred something delicious-smelling on the stove.

Jack made a tut, tut noise (a very exaggerated tut, tut noise) and tapped an imaginary watch on his wrist.

'You're back late, young man.' He threw his hands out rather exasperatedly. 'Seriously, we were expecting you at like, 10 last night!' The older man looked very put-out. 'I even had a lecture all ready for you, with one of my best stories in it too!'

Mac rolled his eyes as he hung his coat up by the door on the polar bear/coat hook.

'Let me guess, the Karachi story, which, A, has nothing to do with listening to medical professionals, and B, I've heard fifteen times.'

Riley nodded, the look on her face suggesting that she'd been subjected to it in his place. Mac shot her a look of sympathy, as Jack pointed at the blonde.

'And that's why I keep telling you it, 'cause you still haven't gotten the point, brother!' Mac and Riley exchanged a startlingly-similar look of great exasperation, which Bozer, if he'd noticed (he was currently very distracted by Leanna and the breakfast stew he was making), would totally have taken as proof that Mac and Riley really were pseudo-siblings, since Jack was their pseudo-dad. Jack threw his hands up. 'Seriously, man, what kept you? You know Phoenix security like the back of your hand!'

(And, it went without staying, he'd of course try to escape.)

(Mac hated being stuck in a hospital or an infirmary. Hated.)

(The medics attached to their unit in The Sandbox had gotten migraines because of him. Jack had known that Mac was completely, utterly broken-hearted when he hadn't tried to escape the hospital when Nikki had 'died'. After he'd survived VX gas exposure and had stabbed himself in the leg, Mac had still left the hospital 24 hours earlier than the doctors thought wise, and when Murdoc had shot him, Jack had only managed to prevent his partner's inevitable break-out by staying with him and taking him home early, assuring the medical staff that he'd make sure the younger man took it easy).

Mac just gave a little shrug.

'We have excellent doctors who take their job very seriously.'

Riley, Jack and Bozer (who'd just turned his attention to the others as he plated up the stew, while Leanna made toast) exchanged a glance.

They were well used to Mac being cryptic and mysterious and a little evasive.

(It was frequently annoying, but it was just the way he was. Sometimes, it was because Mac had yet to fully process properly and work out how he felt about something or hadn't actually come up with an idea yet, and so he wasn't trying to be evasive, sometimes it was because he was a generally private person, sometimes it was because he was trying to protect them or not be a burden or a hassle. Or some combination of the above.)

(Meeting James MacGyver had kind of put that all into perspective. Compared to his dad, Mac was practically an over-sharer.)

And, as always, it piqued their interest.

Bozer called out to his best friend after he and Leanna finished plating up breakfast.

'Well, least you're back just in time for breakfast, bro!'

Mac looked a bit sheepish and awkward.

'Uh, sorry, Boze, but I already ate.' He shrugged again. 'Doc insisted on making sure I could keep food down before she'd discharge me.'

(He'd eaten with Agent Connors and Agent Edwards. The former SEAL liked weird flavour combinations – like strawberry jam and cheese on bread – like Jack. Poor Agent Connors had had to be gently cut off from eating watermelon by Dr Taylor.)

Jack and Bozer exchanged another glance, incredulous. Very incredulous.

Riley looked incredulous for just a moment, before something knowing crossed her face, and she made eye contact with Leanna (who had a very similar look on her face), before both women glanced at Jack and Bozer. Leanna gave an indulgent smile and a fondly exasperated head-shake at the two of them (they still looked like Mac had grown two heads), while Riley rolled her eyes, though the gesture was, somehow, no less fond.

Mac, however, missed the whole exchange, because he'd turned his back to the others and started pulling the half of a broken record player, the box of spare Lego and one of the many rolls of duct-tape he had lying around the house from a set of shelves in his living room.

(The magazines Dr Taylor had given him – plus, funnily enough, the Dora the Explorer Band Aids she'd punished him with – had been very inspiring.)

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

Matty's expression was particularly serious as Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley all filed into the war room. She wasted no time in tapping the screen to start their mission briefing, as Mac picked up his customary paperclip and absent-mindedly began to unwind it.

'The CIA has credible intel that a rogue element of the North Korean intelligence services is intending to assassinate a senior South Korean diplomat at the upcoming peace talks.' An image of a Korean man of about sixty, with near-grey hair and a serious expression, appeared on the screen, the caption under his image naming him as Minister Chung, along with a map of Singapore. 'Obviously, their intention is to bring Korean Peninsula relations to a new low.'

Jack shook his head.

'Someone always loses when peace is achieved.'

Mac glanced at his partner, shaking his head, the paperclip in his hands rapidly taking the shape of the Korean Peninsula, notably missing a border between North and South.

'No, everyone wins.' He gave a little nod at the screen as he tossed the paperclip down on the table. 'But some people can't see it. Or won't see it.'

The other four in the room all nodded in agreement, and Matty continued their briefing.

'We can't let the rogue North Koreans succeed, but the US can't be seen to be interfering.' Any sign of meddling or anything even slightly underhand could jeopardize the talks. That was why the CIA had called the Phoenix. Matty looked them all squarely, seriously in the eye. 'If you're caught, you'll be disavowed. There'll be nothing we can do for you.'

Mac and Jack both nodded, about as nonchalantly as someone could about being disavowed. Riley, too, gave a serious little nod, and then they all glanced at Bozer, who was clearly having a bit of a flashback to his very first overseas mission.

(It'd been a terrible mission for a first overseas mission.)

But, he straightened his spine a little and nodded firmly. Decisively.

Matty gave a little nod of acknowledgement and tapped the screen again.

'Unfortunately, the CIA's intel is pretty sparse on details.' Given the huge number of question marks and repetitions of the word 'unknown' on the intel sheet on the screen, that was obvious. Apparently, the CIA had no idea how many assassins, exactly who they were or what means they intended to use to kill the diplomat. 'We're doing our own digging, but you'll be flying pretty blind.'

Jack reached out and clapped a hand on Mac's shoulder.

'Well, we do do our best work on the fly, Matty.'

Riley and Bozer exchanged a look behind Jack's back (we was probably a little too generous – the improvisation was generally mostly Mac), while the blonde just gave a slightly sheepish little smirk, as if saying, well, it is true.

Matty raised an eyebrow at them, in a way that they all knew was fond, before continuing.

'You're wheels up in forty...'

A VERY NICE HOTEL

(THIS JOB DOES HAVE ITS PERKS)

SINGAPORE

As Mac and Jack sat in the hotel restaurant, pretending to enjoy a leisurely breakfast while they kept a close eye on Minister Chung and his attaches, Jack looked over his coffee cup very pointedly at his partner, clearing his throat repeatedly until Mac finally put down the magazine he was pretending to read (he'd inserted a small piece of reflective foil insulation he'd 'borrowed' from a roll piled up near a building site they'd passed yesterday to serve as a mirror so he could see more angles) and looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

'Want me to throw together some cough drops?'

(He'd meant it a as a joke, but now that he thought about it, a hotel breakfast buffet was pretty far from slim pickings in terms of throat-soothers...)

'Nah, I'm all good, brother.' Jack pointed at him. 'But are you all good? Seriously, man, have you been replaced by aliens or something?'

(In Jack's mind, even though he'd meant it mostly as a joke, that was a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why his partner had suddenly become a not-terrible patient.)

(If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth and all…besides, Jack was a believer.)

Mac's eyebrow rose further.

'Turquoise platypus fedora.'

That was said without any inflection whatsoever, and Mac immediately returned to 'reading' his magazine. Jack made a face (maybe his partner really had been replaced by aliens, Mac was weird, but this was seriously weird even for him…), as Bozer's voice rang out over their earpieces.

'Well, he's definitely not been replaced by aliens, Jack. That's our alien-replacement-slash-hijacking password.'

Riley's voice rang out next.

'You and Mac have an alien-replacement-slash-hijacking password?'

She sounded half-incredulous and half-well-of-course-you-do.

Bozer replied, sounding a bit sheepish, even defensive.

'We were in the 9th grade when we came up with it!'

'And you remember it?'

'Hey, hey, Ri, don't knock it, it's a great idea! We should all set one up-'

'The worst thing is, I know you're not kidding.'

'Well, Miss Non-Believer, now we know who to blame when the aliens hijack one of us and take over the world!'

Mac, eyes scanning the room through his makeshift mirror as he pretended to read an analysis of the current political situation in Malaysia, tuned out Jack, Bozer and Riley's bickering with a very long-suffering internal sigh.

(He wasn't looking forward to when Jack and Bozer worked out that the Doc who'd treated Mac was Dr Taylor.)

(They'd make a mountain out of a molehill, just because she was his age and attractive.)

(It was, a quiet but very persistent voice in his head said, a molehill and not nothing, because, well, she was his age and attractive.)

(He was no Jack, not by a long shot, but like any man who swung that way, he could definitely appreciate an attractive woman.)

(And it'd been a long time.)

(And he was self-aware enough to know that he probably had a bit of a weakness for attractive women and would be a little more inclined to listen to one.)

(But he was absolutely not mentioning it. Definitely not.)

(He was barely admitting it to himself.)

'Brother, hurry up!'

Mac looked briefly away from the mobile DART mass spectrometer he had in his left hand (his right hand was holding a business card that'd had a few drops of soju carefully extracted from a beautifully gift-wrapped bottle dripped on it in the sample chamber using the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife) and at his partner.

He got why Jack was a little antsy (this was the secure storeroom arranged by the hotel in conjunction with Minister Chung's security detail for any gifts the man was given – and there were quite a few; there was an air of optimism regarding the talks – so they were definitely not meant to be in here, and there was only so long that the distraction they'd arranged with Riley's help would last), but there was only so fast all the gifts could be tested.

'Both I and the mass spec are going as fast as possible, Jack.' The mass spectrometer beeped and Mac looked back down at the screen, expression growing serious. He gestured at the bottle, which was supposedly a gift from a few Korean War veterans, according to the card. Mac would bet a lot of money right now that it was definitely not from Korean War veterans…at least, not from Canadian ones like the card claimed. 'It's poisoned with tetrodotoxin. It's an extremely powerful neurotoxin isolated from various organs of the blowfish.'

Jack let out a low whistle.

'Yeah, that stuff's nasty. Causes death within, what, 22 hours?'

Mac stared at his partner for a brief moment, surprised that Jack even knew enough about tetrodotoxin to have an idea of how long it took to kill (even if he was wrong), before speaking.

(It wasn't that he thought Jack was stupid – he was well aware that Jack was far from it – it was just that science was not his forte. It was part of the reason why the two of them worked so well together; they had complementary skill-sets.)

'Generally, it's closer to between 4 and 6.'

'Really? Guess you really shouldn't trust what you see on TV…' At Mac's slightly-quirked eyebrow, Jack explained. 'There's an episode of The Simpsons, Homer eats a blowfish and he reckons he's gonna die, so tries to finish this bucket list, it's got a title like one of them Dr Seuss books…' Jack looked horrified as a realization dawned on him. '…And I think it aired before you were born.'

Mac gave a teasing little smirk, as Bozer's voice rang out over their comms.

'Bro, you and the old man better get out of there, or you'll have incoming in, like, five.'

Jack looked up at the looped security camera in the corner, shooting Bozer and Riley a glare (he was not old!), as Mac seized the bottle of soju and carefully opened the door a crack.

'Boze, Riley, can you find out who left a bottle of soju for the Minister? The label says it's from Canadian Korean War vets…'

'…Are you sure the soju's poisoned?' Mac, sitting on the edge of the bed, nodded with great certainty. Bozer gestured to Riley's laptop screen. 'Well, I guess that means the North Koreans start training their spies really, really young?'

There were two teenage Asian girls who couldn't be any older than fifteen on the screen, talking to one of the hotel's receptionists and handing over the bottle of soju. According to Riley's lip-reading program, one of the girls said that they were delivering it on behalf of her grandfather.

Jack shook his head, plopping onto the bed next to the blonde.

'Nah, North Korean spies like to trick civilians into doing their dirty work for 'em. We gotta track down those girls and see what they know.'

It probably wouldn't be much, but it was better than nothing.

Riley nodded, fingernails beginning to clack on her keyboard again.

'On it.'

Mac and Jack got up, to resume keeping an eye on Minister Chung, and Bozer pulled on a pair of gloves and grabbed the bottle of soju.

'Maybe I'll be able to pull something useful off this.'

He wasn't Jill, but he did know some forensics tricks.

HAWKER CENTRE

SINGAPORE

Bozer and Riley walked into the hawker centre, moving with a purpose. They made their way over to the table where their intended targets, who were giggling, surrounded by shopping bags, eating chicken rice and drinking bubble tea, sat.

Without a word, the two Phoenix agents sat down opposite the teen girls, expressions serious, both pinning the girls with a look.

The two girls exchanged a glance, panicked, and one of them got up a little, as if to run.

Bozer leaned a little closer to her.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'

The girl swallowed and sat back down, glancing at her friend.

Riley pulled out her phone and pulled up an image of the bottle of soju, showing the girls, before flicking over to the photo of the girls handing the bottle over.

'Five hours ago, you delivered this bottle of soju addressed to Minister Chung.' She paused. 'It contained a deadly poison.' The girls' eyes widened and they looked terrified. Riley's expression softened a little. (She and Bozer had flipped a coin to see who would be bad-cop and who would be good-cop.) 'You're not in trouble. But we need you to tell us who told you to deliver that bottle.'

The two girls exchanged another glance, before one of them spoke, words coming out of her in a rush.

'We had no idea it was poisoned! He told us it was an inside joke with the Minister!'

'He said that his dad and the Minister were, like, old friends or something!'

Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance.

They'd both made their share of bad decisions and errors of judgement as teens, but this was really bad.

The girls seemed to pick up where their thoughts were heading.

'Hey, when a really hot guy gives you 500 bucks to make a delivery, you don't ask questions!'

Riley face-palmed internally. Bozer spoke.

'Can you describe this really hot guy?'

'He looks like Yesung from Super Junior!'

The two teen girls exchanged a starry-eyed look. Bozer and Riley exchanged another glance, and the hacker pulled out her laptop and pulled up a photo of this Yesung, loading it onto her digital 'sketch' program.

She turned the screen around so the girls could see.

'Exactly like Yesung, or do you remember any differences?'

'…Yeah, the girls don't know much. Some apparently really hot guy who looks like a K-Pop star bribed them. Riley's sending you our composite of him now…' An I-have-an-idea expression appeared on Bozer's face. 'Speaking of bribery, bro…did the Doc bribe you?'

Riley, looking at her laptop, which was running a facial recognition program using the composite photo based on Yesung and every single camera feed in Singapore she could get into (which was an awful lot of feeds), rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Bozer had both managed to hit the nail on the head and miss it completely.

SUPPOSEDLY SECURE PARKING STRUCTURE

SINGAPORE

Jack, taking cover behind a sedan, clocked the North Korean agent he'd dragged with him (who happened to be the really pretty boy described by the teenage girls) hard in the jaw, then head-butted him, sending him crumpling to the ground, then ducked out briefly from behind cover to return fire at the North Korean providing cover for the others. He got the man in the right shoulder, causing him to drop his weapon, stopping the steady stream of bullets, then shot the man's colleague, who was diving for the dropped gun, in the knee. He appeared to get an idea, and called out to his partner, who was busily disarming a bomb attached to the underside of a car that was parked three cars away from the Minister's.

'Brother, was the Doc really-'

He didn't get to finish his sentence, because Mac's voice, slightly muffled by the fact that he was under a car, rang out.

'Not. The. Time!'

Jack fired off another shot, hitting the phone that the North Korean agent whom he'd shot in the shoulder had in his hand.

'Hey, I can multitask!'

A car with no plates came screeching up (clearly, Jack had been a little too late in destroying the agent's phone), and the two North Korean agents who were conscious jumped up as best as they could, diving into the car, as Jack ran out from behind cover and fired off several more shots, just missing the tires of the car as it screeched away, breaking every traffic rule in the book.

Jack swore, just as his partner heaved himself out from under the car, expression grim, having deduced what had happened from what he'd heard.

'Bomb's neutralized.'

Jack stalked over to the unconscious pretty-boy North Korean agent, who was just beginning to stir, and picked him up by the collar, as Mac got up.

'Alright, Yesong-'

'Yesung. The K-Pop star's name is Yesung.'

The man just smirked.

'You lose, Americans.'

He began to convulse, foaming at the mouth, and Jack dropped him. Mac rushed over, as the man emitted a death-rattle and grew still. The blonde brought his fingers to the North Korean's carotid, and glanced up at Jack and shook his head, expression grim. Mac rolled up the man's left sleeve, and carefully pulled off his watch, to reveal a puncture wound, still bleeding slightly, and a thin needle sticking out from the back of the watch.

Jack and Mac stared at the dead man's wrist for a moment, then glanced at each other, the older man speaking.

'I am so glad we don't take the whole no-talking-if-captured thing so seriously.'

Ten minutes later, Bozer and Riley, in a van that Jill had obtained for them at very short notice (it was mostly legally acquired…) containing all of their equipment, pulled up, to find Mac and Jack bent over the dead North Korean, the blonde with the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife in hand, carefully pulling some fibres off the man's shirt.

Bozer jumped out of the van's driver seat, handing his best friend the DART mass spectrometer, before reaching into the back and grabbing the kit that they used to test for GSR, blood, explosive residue and the like, while Riley hopped out of the passenger seat, her rig at the ready.

Thanks to science, there's more than one way to interrogate someone.

Might not be as glamourous as hacking someone's brain, and the answers might not be so simple to interpret, and I know I'm biased, but that's pretty awesome, right?

Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance.

They'd managed to partially reconstruct what was most likely the K-Pop star lookalike's movements over the last few hours using the trace evidence from his clothes and a statistical triangulation program that Riley had written.

From that, they'd managed to extrapolate what his co-workers' future (or, more likely, now current) movements and plans were.

But still, it was extrapolation.

What was statistically likely.

Bozer verbalized what they were all thinking.

'It's a long shot.'

Jack, who was inspecting the magazine of his gun, clicked it back into place.

'It's the best shot we've got.'

TWENTY MINUTES LATER

ROOFTOP WITH A HALF-DECENT LINE OF SIGHT TO A FANCY RESTAURANT

(ONE THAT MINISTER CHUNG HAS A BOOKING FOR IN TEN MINUTES)

SINGAPORE

Jack and Mac, pinned behind the partially-open door to the roof by enemy fire, exchanged a glance.

'Brother…'

'Working on it!' Mac chanced a very, very quick glance through the half-open door, then pressed a finger to his earpiece. 'Riley, what are the rooftop dimensions? And how thick is the floor?'

'Fifteen by eighteen by twelve, and two feet of solid concrete, Mac.'

He pursed his lips in thought, brow furrowing a little, and muttered something that sounded mostly like math to Jack under his breath.

'You're not gonna do that thing you did in that hazard in Turkey?'

Mac started running back down the stairs, explaining briefly to his partner as he ran.

(He was trying not to do the whole I-haven't-figured-it-out-yet-but-it'll-come-to-me, running-off-to-start-a-half-formed-plan-without-explaining thing, as best as he could.)

(It was really, really annoying when his dad did it.)

'A, it was a hisar. B, no.' Jack couldn't see his face, since he was running down the stairs after Mac, but he could hear the slightly-sheepish smirk in the younger man's voice. 'But…uh, you probably won't like this one either.'

(Jack had complained endlessly about the paperwork that Mac blowing out the floor of the hisar and a whole section of a Turkish dam had given him, and how Mac was turning his hair prematurely grey, with all the scares the younger man kept giving him.)

(Mac understood it for what it really meant.)

(You're a weird, crazy mad scientist who drives me nuts, but you're my weird-crazy-mad-scientist-who-drives-me-nuts and I love you, man.)

As they assembled the specialized gun they'd smuggled into Singapore in pieces on the rooftop (their line of sight wasn't ideal, but the special, explosive bullets they had should ensure that they got the job done…even if there would be a lot of collateral), the three remaining North Korean operatives, two still bleeding from field-dressed wounds, looked down as a tennis ball rolled out onto the roof, stopping at their feet. Another tennis ball appeared, barely a second after the first, and then another, just as quickly, and the uninjured man strode over to the closest ball and nudged it with his foot.

Or, at least, he was about to, when the ball exploded with a huge bang, releasing a gas that stung at their eyes like chilli.

As Minister Chung's bodyguards escorted their boss into the restaurant, alert as always, they heard the bang in the distance, and instantly, two tackled the Minister into the ground, covering him with their own bodies, while the other two pulled out their weapons, already aiming towards the building sort-of across the road from the corner of the restaurant, where they'd pin-pointed the sound as originating from.

The moment Mac's makeshift chilli-oil-based flash-bang-tear-gas grenades detonated, Mac and Jack rushed onto the roof, both wearing very strange-looking sunglasses. The sunglasses had pieces of cut-up rubber gloves taped to them, and the mutilated gloves were stuck to their faces with Band Aids to form a seal, and the Phoenix agents were both wearing rags over their noses and mouths, too.

Quick as a flash, Mac used his momentum from running onto the rooftop to his advantage and shoved one of the North Koreans, who was already stumbling, stunned by the grenade and with his eyes screwed shut, with his hip and shoulder, before pushing his advantage by bracing his hands on the conveniently-placed railing and kicking the man in the stomach with both feet towards his partner. After shooting the North Korean operative whose knee he'd wounded earlier through the calf of his other leg, sending him dropping to his knees (or, rather, one knee and one foot), Jack punched the badly winded man that Mac sent his way squarely in the jaw, causing him to drop like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Mac, meanwhile, dove for the modified sniper rifle that was already mounted on a stand, and rapidly inspected it and disassembled it just enough to neutralize it. Then, taking advantage of what he had, Mac swung the rifle at the enemy operative who was on his knees, while Jack took one step forward and roundhouse-kicked the gun out of the third North Korean's left hand (he'd been shooting with his right hand earlier, which was why Jack had shot him in the right shoulder earlier, but clearly, he was either ambidextrous or had trained enough to be able to shoot with either hand), then stepped in, grabbed the man's jarred wrist none-too-gently, pulled him in and head-butted him, knocking him out.

Mac, who was already searching the two already-unconscious North Koreans to remove any suicide devices like the one that their colleague had had, looked up at Jack as the last of the smoke and gas cleared, pulling down his improvised gas mask.

'A head-butt, really?'

Jack began to haul the unconscious man at his feet towards the other two, though not before removing the man's watch carefully.

'Hey, don't knock the head-butt, man! It's a classic, and you can't deny it's effective!

'Remind me to explain to you the consequences of repeated head trauma. I'm pretty sure there's a documentary centring on the NFL on the topic…' The blonde's expression grew more wry, teasing. Bringing in some of that levity that'd gotten them through so many horrific situations remarkably mentally healthy, something which they all deserved credit for (or, perhaps, the combination of them deserved credit for). 'Though, maybe it's too late for you. Sure would explain those rambling stories that go nowhere and the terrible analogies and maybe even the puns…'

Jack muttered something under his breath about young whippersnappers who had no respect for their elders or the wisdom of their elders.

Mac just smirked a little wider.

Right now, you might be wondering if I'm going to quote Jack to Bozer and Riley verbatim later.

My answer: what kind of question is that?

'…I've just sent in an anonymous email with everything we've got to the relevant Singaporean authorities. I've attached your coordinates. Mac, Jack, you ready for me to call in for ex-fil yet?'

Riley's voice rang out over their comms as Mac and Jack put the finishing touches on the extremely secure restraints (the North Koreans were clearly extremely well-trained, and they needed them to be there and non-threatening when the authorities showed up) that Mac had designed (on the fly, using assorted shoelaces, belts and a couple of paperclips, as well as assorted bits and bobs cannibalized from the North Koreans' sniper rifle).

'Uh…' Mac spoke, thinking out loud. '…I need some adhesive.'

'Want me to go find some gum, brother?'

The blonde shook his head.

'It's banned here.'

Jack looked shocked at first, then a slow smirk spread across his face.

'Oh, welcome to your second-worst nightmare…'

(Obviously, a place that banned paperclips would be Mac's worst nightmare.)

Mac looked down towards the street (pushing the rush of fear that that produced in his brain firmly aside and into a locked box in his mind), eyes catching on the signs advertising a hawker centre a third of a block away.

He handed the belt buckle and bolt carrier he was holding to his partner, then ran towards the stairs, taking them two at a time.

'I'll be back in ten, I need to buy some sticky rice!'

Jack, drawing his gun, as the first of the North Koreans began to weakly stir, shouted after his partner.

'I know you got a real fast metabolism and you're practically young enough to be a growing boy and all, but now is not the time for dinner, man!'

Mac, already two stories down (though he could still hear Jack clearly – Jack was many things, but a quiet talker was not one of them), rolled his eyes in a way that could only be described as fondly exasperated.

Fifteen minutes later, the now-barely-conscious North Koreans securely cuffed to the roof railing by their wrists and their ankles, their field dressings checked and fixed up as needed, Mac and Jack made their way down the stairs as Riley texted them the directions to their ex-fil site.

Jack was eagerly digging into the leftover sticky rice, and talking with his mouth full.

'…This is real good grub, man. Real good.' He held the box out to Mac. 'Want some?'

Mac, unfortunately, happened to get a good look at the masticated rice in the older man's mouth, which was not very good for the appetite.

'Singapore is a world-famous foodie destination.' He held up a hand. 'And, uh, no thanks, I'm good.'

PHOENIX JET

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN

ON-ROUTE TO LA

'Is one of the new Docs really scary?'

'Or does Doc do a really good impression of your grandpa's I'm-disappointed-in-you voice?'

Jack and Bozer glanced between one another, still speculating as to why Mac had suddenly become a not-terrible patient (he couldn't tell them now wasn't the time now, since their mission was done and all), then at the blonde, who was shaping a paperclip into a stick of gum.

(Riley, meanwhile, rolled her eyes at the scene as she texted Billy.)

(Why were most men so stupid reasonably frequently?)

Mac tossed down the stick-of-gum paperclip and began to shape another paperclip into an ECG line.

Despite her small size and sweet, adorable appearance, I have no doubt that Dr Taylor can be scary when she wants to be.

Look, my boss is Matty Webber, known as Matty the Hun behind her back, and she's four feet tall and one of the most terrifying people I've ever met. Of course I don't correlate size with scariness.

Besides, correlation is not causation.

And I'm self-aware enough and man enough to admit that my being a terrible patient is extremely annoying and potentially even stressful for the medical personnel who have to deal with me.

I know I've got my share of bad habits, and recent events have really driven that home for me.

Nothing like seeing your worst traits in someone else to motivate you to work on self-improvement.

I'm never going to be one for plans or not making things up on the fly. I'm probably always going to be a terrible patient. And let's face it, at this point, I've probably got no hope of changing my habit of improving or fixing things without their owner's permission. Or, for that matter, commandeering things without permission when I get caught up in an idea.

In my defence, most of the time it's to protect people, save lives, save the world, that sort of thing.

And most of the time, I do remember to apologize afterwards, when possible anyway. Eventually.

…Yeah, at least I admit I've got my flaws?

Anyway, back to the point. I probably won't manage to break these habits.

But I can try.

And I really should.

Outwardly, Mac shrugged, addressing Jack and Bozer as he finished his paperclip ECG line.

'We have excellent doctors who take their jobs very seriously. It's very rude to make their lives harder.' His expression grew more wry. 'Also, pissing off someone who has, A, ready and regular access to both me and very sharp objects, and B, the ability to use them expertly on me, is not a good idea.'

Jack and Bozer studied Mac for a moment, then glanced at each other, then shrugged, seemingly accepting that explanation.

(Riley was thankfully distracted from the overwhelming urge to face-palm by Billy's reply.)

'Well, brother, you are full of good ideas. Well, except for that time in Karachi, and Cairo, and Tehran was a bit iffy, and that time in Bosnia with the plane, and we can't forget that time you channelled that kids' movie…'

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

The war room was already occupied when Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley walked in.

'…An average of 2.34 Phoenix agent suffers non-accidental poisoning every month.'

Dr Taylor indicated something on the tablet that Matty was holding as she spoke.

'We really should keep this list of antidotes to common poisons on hand.' The speaker, a tall, muscular black man with very close-cropped hair (they all recognized him as Wilson, a former Pararescue turned Phoenix agent and field medic), gestured to Dr Taylor and the freckled, red-haired man in a lab coat who was wringing his hands repeatedly next to him (Ritchie, the Phoenix's agoraphobic, germophobic biological and chemical weapons expert). 'Doc and I triaged Ritchie's list, we think we've balanced cost and practicality with keeping our agents safe from any potential toxin.'

Matty finished reading something on her tablet, before she looked up at Dr Taylor, Wilson and Ritchie. Dr Taylor, meanwhile, had looked up as soon as the newly-returned agents had walked in, and looked them up and down, inspecting them for injury.

Mac gave a wry little grin and held his hands up.

'No need for Band Aids, Doc. For either reason.'

She gave a little smile in return, as Jack and Bozer exchanged a glance, realization finally dawning on their faces.

Riley stifled a snort (their expressions were hilariously similar) and leaned closer to Bozer and Jack, muttering for their ears only.

'Took you long enough.'

(It was obvious. Mac had a serious weakness for really intelligent, beautiful women with plenty of spirit. She could think of one reason, and only one reason, why Mac would suddenly become a good patient.)

DIANE DAVIS' RESIDENCE

LA

Jack grinned, the expression soft, as Diane opened the door. He leaned over to kiss her cheek, and she smiled, sweet and slow, with a touch of something knowing in there, as if she could see right through him, into his soul, into the emotions swirling around there.

(Jack Dalton was no novice with women, not at all. He was no novice with this woman either…but somehow, he felt a little bit like he was a teenager picking up his Prom date again.)

(Maybe it was the weight of this. The importance.)

(Not just the importance, the weight, that came from the fact that they both knew, given their history, given how important Riley was to Jack, that there was no way that this slowly-growing thing between them could be anything but serious. Anything but a genuine attempt at being each other's right ones.)

(But some other sense of importance…something that made Jack feel like it was Destiny or Fate or God or one of those things that Mac didn't believe in but Jack was convinced had to be influencing their lives that they'd found each other again, that this spark, this connection between them had been renewed…or, perhaps, had never quite died in the first place.)

He held out the slightly-untidily wrapped parcel in his hands.

(He wasn't good at wrapping presents – not like Bozer or Mac, but he hadn't wanted to ask them for help.)

(This, he felt, was something that he had to do himself.)

Diane smiled, something fond and exasperated and a little teasing and knowing in her gaze as she looked at the present, before unwrapping it, to reveal a beautiful silk scarf with a batik pattern.

'I saw it and thought of you.'

(He really had. The scarf, in a shop window, had caught his gaze as he and Mac had headed to the ex-fil coordinates, and Jack had made a quick unscheduled stop.)

Diane's smile widened a little, as she draped the scarf around her neck. Coincidentally, it matched excellently with the navy-blue blouse she was wearing. Then, she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek, right next to the corner of his mouth.

'Thank you, Jack.'

He smiled, soft and sweet and slow and a tiny bit smug, before exaggeratedly offering her his arm to lead her towards where he'd parked downstairs.

(His mama had raised him to be a proper southern gentleman.)

(Whether she'd succeeded…well, sometimes, that was up for debate.)

(But now wasn't one of those times.)

'Your Shelby Cobra...'

Diane smiled a little wider (and a little more knowingly – she was well aware what this car meant to Jack) as they came up to Jack's car.

Jack gave a smirk that was really far softer, far more affectionate, far tenderer, than one would expect a smirk to be.

'Gotta take my best girl out in my best car.'

AN: Did you guys like the team working behind the scenes for peace on the Korean Peninsula? Or Jack and Diane's progressing relationship? How about Dr Taylor, and Jack and Bozer's ridiculous quest? (I hope you guys like how she was introduced; if you've read Every End is a Beginning, this is a very different introduction, I feel, but Mac's attitude towards attractive women is very, very different in this universe!) I know that in canon, there's nothing to indicate that Mac is a terrible patient, but when I first started writing MacGyver fics, it seemed to be something that everyone accepted as a headcanon, and it's persisted in my brain! My personal favourite scene in this episode is probably Bozer and Riley interrogating the teen girls, and I had the most fun writing yearning-to-face-palm!Riley!

DART stands for direct analysis in real time. It's a mass spectrometry technique that allows analysis without sample prep (which is seriously amazing, as someone who's done her share of mass spec sample prep!), just off things like business cards or clothing or really any surface (instead of having to extract the sample and dissolve it etc.). I don't think that mobile DART mass spectrometers actually exist, but let's pretend they do in this universe (maybe Mac invented them!)! Mac's alien hijacking password is a Phineas and Ferb reference (I headcanon that Mac and Bozer have a bit of a soft spot for the show, for obvious reasons). Wilson, Ritchie, Agent Edwards and Agent Connors are characters from my Every End is a Beginning AU, and Singapore really does ban chewing gum (apparently it's only available on prescription there – for example, nicotine gum for quitting smoking). Yesung is a member of the K-Pop boyband Super Junior; some of my classmates from high school were massive fans!

Here's the 'press release' for the next episode:

3.04, Lollipops to Sleeping Gas. Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley team up with Leanna to protect a US Senator who stands for everything Mac opposes. Leanna puts the mission above everything else, causing tension between her and Bozer.

Anyone who has read any recent fics of mine probably knows which way this is going to go…and yes, as the summary hints, I'm going to get a little bit political in the next episode. Without giving (too many) spoilers, I am trying very hard to not preach on a soapbox or anything like that, or to denigrate anyone's political beliefs. I am trying to make a somewhat-political (but not partisan, if that makes sense) point (partly because I want to challenge myself, and partly because I've wanted to write a story in which Mac is in this situation and is very Mac about it for a long time), which I think is a 'noble, idealistic, western-liberal-democratic' sort of point, which I think shouldn't be terribly divisive among you guys, given the nature of the show…