AN: Sorry that this took two weeks, it's been a tough couple of weeks for me. I had exams (ugh…), including one that is officially the most difficult exam I've ever done in my life. In my three and a half years at university, it's the only exam I've failed to finish. (Luckily, it seems that no-one else did either…but there's definitely going to be some worrying until results come out!)

THE LAB

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

(HEY, THEY DO HAVE TO KEEP UP THEIR COVER)

(AND EVEN THE SPY GAME HAS SLOW DAYS)

'Boze, can you pass me those screws? Uh…no, not those ones, the bronze ones, thanks.'

Bozer, on the other side of Sparky (who was lying prone on the table and fretting about Mac accidentally frying his circuits…again), shook his head as his BFF dived right back into the modification he was doing to the robot's shoulder joints.

On the other side of the lab, Riley and Jill were filming Beth (she preferred that over the formality of Dr Taylor) as she demonstrated the correct usage of butterfly bandages on a chunk of pork. The two computer experts were discussing something that the rest of them didn't really understand as they tried to work out the best way to update Sparky's code so he could actually carry out the actions that Beth was expertly demonstrating.

The 'young 'uns' as Jack had accidentally called them (Mac, Bozer and Riley had totally given it to him and planned to give him even more later for that) were upgrading Sparky, increasing his skill-set to include (for now) reasonably basic diagnostic, triage and first aid abilities.

'You almost done there, bro? 'Cause I'm done over here.'

'Almost, Boze, just got a couple more wires to…'

Mac trailed off, losing himself in whatever he was doing again, and Bozer shook his head fondly again, as Sparky spoke up.

'Is MacGyver about to fry my circuits again?'

Mac shot the AI a look.

(It was only once. It'd only been some of his circuits. Sparky had been mostly fine. He was a robot and couldn't feel pain anyway. Heck, Mac had even apologized. Twice. And oiled all of Sparky's joints.)

(Clearly, Sparky was never going to let him forget it.)

(He'd picked up a few things from Jack on their road trip.)

Bozer chuckled.

'He better not.' He pointed at his eyes with two fingers, then at Mac. 'I'm watching you, bro.'

Mac shook his head and rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, and returned to finishing off the modification to Sparky's shoulder…taking extra care to not fry any circuits.

(He also smiled to himself in satisfaction.)

(He'd proposed starting this project to spend even more time with his best friend, in an attempt to comfort him after his break-up.)

(Along with the standard movie marathons, table tennis, ice-cream and mini-golf, of course.)

(He'd brought Riley into it, of course. She was family, and they needed her skill-set. And Jill's skill-set was useful too – she had a different way of looking at things than Riley – and besides, the forensic analyst was good people, good company and a friend. They needed a doctor's expertise too, and Beth was also good people, good company and becoming a friend to them all.)

He straightened up.

'All good, Sparky.'

Mac shifted over a bit so that he could work on the robot's hands next. They needed a serious dexterity upgrade if he was going to be able to match Beth's suturing.

Sparky glanced over at Mac, saw what he was doing and turned back to Bozer, looking…honestly, unimpressed.

(Which was really impressive since he didn't actually have a face that was capable of any movement…)

'I suppose suffering through this will decrease my likelihood of being usurped by that interloper…'

Bozer and Mac exchanged a glance.

'Sparky, we've told you this, like, a million times.'

'Your skill-sets did not overlap. You were never going to be replaced.'

'And Dalton's Nightmare got blown to bits, so it's all moot anyway, man!'

Sparky actually huffed.

'You have only repeated these reassurances twenty-three times.'

Bozer shot the robot a look, then his best friend one for good measure.

'He gets this from you, bro.'

Mac just gave an apologetic, sheepish little shrug.

…Honestly, he probably does.

They worked on in relative quiet. Bozer helped Mac with the finicky, minute changes to Sparky's hand articulation system (Bozer's hands were just as steady as his BFF's, due to the very fine detail work he did all the time on his prostheses). Riley and Jill exchanged a high-five as they finished writing a particularly tricky sequence of code, while Beth finished demonstrating butterfly bandaging and moved on to suturing a long gash in another lump of pork.

Mac pursed his lips as he and Bozer reached a point in the (rather flexible) blueprints in his head, then turned a little and called out to the other side of the room.

'Beth, can you help us out for a moment? We need another pair of steady hands.' Riley paused the recording, and Beth put down her needle and thread carefully, pulled off her gloves and sterilized her hands with the alcohol-based hand wash on the bench next to her. She walked over to them, and Mac shot her a quick smile. 'Can you just hold these together for a bit, while I attach this…Boze, move the wire in your right hand to the left about an eighth of an inch…'

Thirty minutes later, Mac and Beth walked towards the break room, having been 'volunteered' to do the coffee run by the others.

(Riley had nudged Jill reasonably discreetly under the table, and the two women had said that they were working on a very important and very tricky part of the code and absolutely could not stop for a moment or they'd lose their focus, while Bozer had muttered something about a promise to Sparky regarding an 'aesthetic improvement' which the AI had been about to protest, but Bozer had turned him off before he could.)

(Sure, Mac had been the one to suggest asking Beth to help out, but they were reading far too much into that.)

(They needed the help of a doctor. Beth was the logical choice. She had a great interest in science, a knowledge of engineering far better than a layperson's – her dad was an engineer, and she'd grown up around them, even if she claimed that she wasn't much of one herself, just a fan of good engineering - and was nice and friendly and, being the youngest of the Phoenix's medical staff, about the same age as Mac, Bozer, Riley and Jill.)

(And she'd mentioned, the last time Mac was stuck in the infirmary, that she'd like to meet Sparky when she'd gotten him talking about the AI – she'd been distracting him from the really awful sting of disinfectant wipes on a not-terribly-deep-but-debris-filled graze on his arm, and Sparky seemed to be the first thing that'd come to her mind – and he probably owed her for being such a terrible patient. And for that incident last week.)

(He really wanted to stay on her good side.)

'If we can do this, Sparky's going to be able to save so many lives, help so many people when we can't.'

Mac nodded in agreement.

'Assist in hospitals, care for the elderly and the disabled in their own homes, assist with search-and-rescue and triage after earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis…'

Puerto Rico could definitely have done with an army of Sparkies (or, rather, what he'd be – Mac was very determined to make their plans a reality) after Maria.

(And probably still could, and would for a long time. He'd talk to Matty about it when they succeeded; Mac reckoned that he might be able to convince Jack that Carlos could be trusted to keep the AIs in line – he'd been a Green Beret, after all.)

Mac looked down and over at her as he trailed off, and found that there was a look in her eyes that he instantly recognized.

It was the look he'd seen in the eyes of medical staff and aid workers all through Afghanistan and Iraq, and it was a look that he was never, ever going to forget.

It was a look that he thought he could, fundamentally, understand.

It wasn't all too dissimilar from the look he'd seen in the eyes of quite a few of his fellow soldiers, had seen in Jack's eyes and Pena's eyes and Charlie's and in the mirror.

'After airstrikes, when you're anticipating the double-tap, knowing that there are people out there who need your help, but not being able to go help them…he could.' She fell silent, lost in a memory, the haunting sort of memory that one could never, ever forget. Even if, sometimes, one really, really wanted to. Mac shot her a sympathetic look (or, perhaps more accurately, an empathetic look), which earned him a small, grateful smile in response, before Beth shook her head, apologetically, a little awkwardly, even, perhaps, slightly uncomfortably. 'Sorry.'

He was about to tell her that she had absolutely nothing to apologize for (she really didn't, and he also really couldn't judge anyone for a bit of social awkwardness), when his phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out.

War room. Stat, Blondie.

'Duty calls?' There was a wry little smile on her face. Mac nodded, and Beth gestured to the break room door with her head. 'I can handle the coffee run.'

Mac was already walking off (backwards), when his phone buzzed again.

Tell Doc not to bother with coffee for Riley and Bozer.

Mac stared incredulously at the nearest security camera, and called out to Beth.

'Uh, Matty says that you don't need to get Riley or Bozer one…'

Beth looked surprised (she wasn't quite used to Matty yet…though Mac wondered if Matty would ever stop surprising them) and a tiny bit disturbed and scared, but nodded.

'Tell her thanks?'

He nodded, and she opened the break room door and stepped inside.

Mac turned around, just as his phone buzzed in his hand yet again.

And you are LATE, lover boy.

Mac threw his hands up incredulously (Matty too, really?), but started jogging towards the war room anyway.

Mac walked into the war room and stopped in his tracks just inside the door.

It turned out that there was more than one meaning behind Matty's swapping out of one of her usual nicknames for him.

Jack almost walked straight into him, which almost caused Riley and Bozer to walk into him.

'Seriously, man, I know you get lost in that head of yours sometimes, but you gotta stay aware of your…'

Jack trailed off as he noticed the war room's two occupants and shot his partner a look of sympathy, which he didn't notice, because he was too busy staring at the two women sitting on the couch.

'Hi, Mac.'

Allie smiled, a hint of a smirk in her expression.

Nikki, at the same moment, waggled her fingers at her ex-boyfriend, a definite smirk in her smile.

'Surprise.'

Mac seemed to finally find his voice, and waved rather awkwardly.

'Uh…hello, Nikki. Hello, Allie.'

The three of them all stared at each other for a long moment that had to come straight out of one of Bozer's movie scripts, as the realization that they both knew Mac very well dawned on Nikki and Allie…and a most interesting look passed between them, before they both raised an eyebrow at Mac in a way that was comically and also terrifyingly similar, before shooting each other a look again.

Jack was positive that as brave a man as Mac was, he blanched. Visibly. He reached out and clapped a hand on the younger man's shoulder.

'It was nice knowing you, brother.'

Bozer, meanwhile, was muttering under his breath about how he couldn't have written it better for the drama and the shock value, until there was a thwack followed by a high-pitched yelp from him, as Riley socked him in the arm, none too gently.

At that moment, Matty, trailed by Andi, taking notes on her tablet, strode into the room.

'…Get Bill from the CIA on the line, leave him there for twenty minutes, it'll soften him up.' She made her way to the large screen on the wall and tapped it, looking at the war room's other occupants and blatantly ignoring the awkward, uncomfortable and slightly tense mood in the air. 'Well, since no introductions are required today, let's get started.' A picture of Allie's lab appeared on-screen. 'Two days ago, there was a break-in at the CIA's Office of Special Projects. Several highly classified prototypes were stolen, and the prime suspect is The Organization. Given our previous experience with The Organization, your technological proficiency…' Matty indicated Mac, Riley and Bozer, but pointedly not Jack. '…and successful teamwork in the past, the CIA has actually suggested that you four work with Agent Carpenter and Miss Winthrop to recover the stolen devices and arrest those responsible…'

The walk from the war room to the lab was only a total of 120 yards, including three flights of stairs.

It had never felt so long in Mac's life.

Including when he had to get his best friend, who'd been stabbed and had been a genuine risk of bleeding out, from said lab to the war room.

'…They managed to breach the security system…'

Nikki said that quite pointedly, deliberately not looking at Allie, who just shot the blonde woman a dirty look and crossed her arms.

'Given that they've been on the CIA's radar for over two years, I'm very surprised we weren't warned…'

Bozer, walking in front of Nikki and Allie with Riley, mouthed burn! Riley shot him a look, then rolled her eyes as Mac's ex-girlfriends (she supposed that Allie counted, even if their relationship had apparently lasted about three days, given how Mac had felt about her) continued to trade barely-veiled barbs.

Meanwhile, an uncomfortable Mac himself brought up the rear of the group with Jack, the older man with a fistful of the back of Mac's leather jacket in hand (unnecessarily, Mac was insisting, by shooting his partner a look, while Jack shot him a look back that clearly showed that he thought it was very necessary – Mac was extremely, extremely good at getting himself out of sticky situations, he wasn't taking any chances, not when his partner seemed to be contemplating setting off the Phoenix's security system with a cleverly-placed gum wrapper – again – to force an evacuation).

He reached into his pocket to pull out the stick of gum that he had stashed in there. Jack saw what he was doing and just held out a hand, very insistently.

'You owe me, man.'

Jack looked as stubborn as he ever did. And Mac did feel that he kind-of owed his partner (last week, they'd had to go for a dip in some sewage to prevent the Panamanian ambassador from being blown up, which had ruined Jack's new boots, which he'd just gotten broken in right – he and Jack also really owed poor Beth; Mac hoped that she at least got hazard pay for having to deal with two bickering field agents who positively reeked of sewage)…so he handed over the stick of gum with just an eye-roll.

Jack promptly put the whole thing in his mouth, wrapper included, chewed and swallowed.

Apparently, he really wasn't taking any chances.

Remember when I dramatically quit my job a couple months' back and then almost-as-dramatically changed my mind?

You know, for the first time in eight weeks, I'm seriously wishing I hadn't done the latter.

Well, not seriously…but…

I really shouldn't have handed over that stick of gum.

The lab was buzzing with activity.

Jill and Bozer were running samples through the mass spec. (Mac's BFF was carefully preparing the samples, autopipette in his right hand, while Jill was seated in front of the computer, analysing the results.) Riley was doing computer forensics, while Jack and Mac sifted through the pile of physical evidence that Nikki and Allie had brought with them.

Nikki was on her laptop, next to Riley, also doing computer forensics, as Allie went through all the bags of evidence with Mac and Jack.

At that moment, Allie was detailing some of the modifications that'd been made to B.R.U.N.O.

'…we've changed to a titanium alloy, and increased the efficiency of the energy conversions by optimizing the surface area using an algorithm I developed, plus we've also optimized the distribution of occupied interstitial sites.'

Mac, who was examining a metal thingamajig that nobody except he and Allie seemed to recognize with the magnifying glass from his Swiss Army knife, looked far less uncomfortable.

(Science was Mac's wheelhouse, his comfort zone. Jack was convinced that Mac could not be uncomfortable while talking about science. It was just impossible.)

'Using directed synthesis?'

Allie nodded, and was about to, presumably, start discussing this directed synthesis with Mac, when Nikki reached out and grabbed a plastic evidence bag containing a set of handcuffs and tossed them at her ex-boyfriend with a smirk.

'Put them aside for later? For old times' sake?'

Mac stared at the handcuffs, then at his ex, for a moment, before putting them in Jack's pile of evidence as if they were made of TATP.

(If not for the fact that his partner was really, really, really uncomfortable, Jack would have laughed out loud for ages at the expression on his face.)

(Jack was positive that Mac's ears were burning under his hair, which was something that Jack was pretty sure hadn't happened in response to Nikki being…Nikki…since the first couple months of their romantic relationship.)

(After that, Mac had gotten comfortable with it, very comfortable with it, and Jack had spent a lot of time wishing that there was such thing as brain bleach and nagging Mac to invent it.)

(To be fair to Nikki, Jack did actually get why she'd had to go with extremely aggressive, can't-be-misinterpreted flirting. Without it, Jack doubted that Mac would've gotten it through his thick skull that this very beautiful, very intelligent, very confident woman was actually interested in him.)

(Meanwhile, Allie shot Nikki a look. Nikki just smirked back, and Riley rolled her eyes again.)

Mac fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment, a paperclip practically appearing in his hands, before he caught the look that passed between Nikki and Allie, seemed to gulp, and spoke, his voice unnaturally high and just-plain-unnatural sounding.

'Uh…oh, I just, um, remembered. I forgot to, uh, reassemble the panini maker in the break room…I better go do that, or there'll be another HR complaint, and that'd be…bad. Really bad. Matty will be furious. And she's terrifying.'

The bravest man Jack had ever met, who had decided to run towards a bomb to help out his new partner, rather than do the sensible thing and run away, turned tail and practically ran out of the lab.

Jack and Bozer's eyes met across the room, and they had a silent conversation, coming to a silent agreement. Jack gave a little nod and stepped out of the room.

He found Mac in the men's bathroom.

(Presumably, he thought that was the one place he could escape the not-ghosts of girlfriends past.)

(Jack wasn't so sure about that; he had some memories he'd really, really rather forget from a mission to Sardinia three years back.)

His partner had his hands braced on one of the sinks, head down, staring at the drain.

Jack sighed internally.

Being a (pseudo)-dad was hard. Really hard.

Then, he cajoled a teasing little smirk onto his face, and jogged Mac gently with his elbow.

'I get it, you're not used to having ladies competing over you, but panini maker, seriously, brother?'

(To be fair, Mac had actually forgotten to reassemble the panini maker two weeks ago. Cal from Cartography was probably never going to forgive him.)

Mac emitted a snort and shook his head. Jack counted that as a win, and his expression turned serious, concerned.

'You gonna be okay, son?'

Mac looked up, meeting the gaze of his partner's reflection, discerning what Jack was really asking.

He was silent for a long moment, before nodding.

'I'm not going to fall for either of them again, Jack.'

'You sure?' Jack held up his hands. 'Sorry, gotta ask.'

Mac nodded resolutely.

'Very, very sure.' He stared at their reflections in the mirror for a beat. 'I'll always care, but…' He glanced over at Jack. 'I…I've already gotten closure.' Jack shot him a look. Mac looked the tiniest bit sheepish, though he raised his hands off the sink in a come on gesture. 'It's called a private life for a reason!'

(There were some things he didn't tell Jack, of course.)

(Mac estimated that 90% of those things were things that his partner absolutely did not want to know.)

ONE AND A HALF YEARS AGO

A DINER

(NOT THAT DINER)

(BUT THIS ONE DOES DO A REALLY GOOD PEACH COBBLER)

LA

Nikki smiled as she walked into the diner and recognized a very familiar head of blonde hair. Mac had two cups of coffee in front of him and was doing something involving two emptied sugar packets and a paperclip. She strode over to his booth, her smile shifting into something a bit more of a smirk.

'Is this seat taken?'

Mac put down whatever he was making a little more suddenly than she'd have expected as she started to sit down.

She'd startled him.

Nikki's heart sank, and she leaned back into the booth instead of forward to kiss him in greeting.

Mac, looking awkward and not quite able to make eye contact with her, seemingly very much wanting to pick up his two-sugar-packets-and-paperclip and continue fiddling with them, but refraining, nudged her cup of coffee towards her, and if only to try and break the tension a little, Nikki took a sip.

(Two low-calorie sweeteners – the empty packets were on the saucer - and a caramel-flavoured creamer. Exactly how she liked her coffee, because of course Mac would never, ever forget her coffee order.)

She put down the cup. Mac had lost his battle to stop playing with the mutilated sugar packets and unwound paperclip, but he did manage to look up and meet her eyes.

'I…I meant it. That night at the hotel. After at the Phoenix.' He swallowed, gaze boring into hers for a moment. 'I really, really did…but…' His hands stilled and he looked heartbreakingly apologetic (and just plain heartbroken, which did the little guilty spot in her brain absolutely no favours whatsoever). 'I can't do this. I can't.' His voice wavered a little with emotion, but at the same time, he also sounded resolute. Certain. 'I'm sorry, Nikki.'

Nikki let her eyes close for a moment, swallowing, as her heart broke.

'It's…it's okay, Mac. It's my fault. I…I made my bed, I have to lie in it.' She pasted a little smirk on her face, falling back into bravado and sass and sex appeal, as easily and as comfortably as her favourite little black dress and matching heels (into that safe, confident, comfortable spot, where she was sure and powerful). 'At least we got a last hurrah.'

Mac managed a little smile of his own, which didn't reach his eyes.

'Yeah.' Oh, he regretted it, she realized. He hadn't the morning after, not even with Jack's ragging on him, but he did now, now that he'd worked out which way was up and which way was down again and everything wasn't quite so raw. That knife in her heart (which she knew she'd put there, not him) twisted a little, and he got up, dropping some cash on the table. 'Uh…good luck with your, uh, work and I…I hope you're happy, Nikki.' It could have been a dig, those words. They really, really weren't though. He meant it, he really did, because of course, he did. 'Uh…see you around?'

'See you, Mac.'

After one last awkward beat, during which Mac seemed to try to work out if he should say anything else or do anything else, he left her there, sitting in the diner, staring at their coffee cups.

Nikki prided herself on being able to control her emotions, mask them…but she apparently looked melancholy enough that the maternal-looking waitress walked up to her.

'You look like you could do with a nice big serve of cobbler, dearie. Want me to write one up for you? Maybe with an extra scoop of ice-cream on the side?'

Nikki, after a moment, nodded, and reached out for the cash that Mac had left, thinking to use it to pay for cobbler and coffee and a tip, adding her own as needed.

It wasn't needed.

He'd left enough for two coffees and a serve of peach cobbler with extra ice-cream plus a generous tip, because, she thought with a pang, he was Angus MacGyver.

SIX MONTHS AGO

THE LAST KORMAN CHALLENGE

(THE LAST ONE EVER)

(IT'S BAD OPTICS TO NAME A CLASSIFIED GOVERNMENT COMPETITION AFTER A GUY WHO TRIED TO ATTACK THE PENTAGON)

(THEY'LL COME UP WITH A NEW NAME)

(NO, BOZER, THEY ARE NOT NAMING IT AFTER MAC)

VIRGINIA

As they walked back towards the CIA and Phoenix's tents after being checked over by medics and a lengthy debrief, Allie glanced over at Mac, and tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear, with a bit more confidence than she felt, spoke.

'Do…do you want to grab coffee? Or maybe we could do dinner?'

Mac stopped in his tracks, looking rather like he kind of wished that the Phoenix's entry (why it was called Dalton's Nightmare, Allie had no clue) hadn't been blown up and was instead going haywire, so he could be busy dealing with that instead.

'Umm…uh…I'm really, uh, flattered, Allie…but, uh, thanks but no thanks?' He looked very uncomfortable, and also genuinely apologetic, worried for her feelings. 'I'm sorry, since…you know, earlier, you said you…' Mac trailed off, seemingly kicking himself internally for being awkward. 'I care, but…I don't…not anymore.'

Allie nodded, disappointed and sad and a little uncomfortable and very much kicking herself internally too.

(If she had just been able to resist that temptation to just take one peek at those schematics…)

'It's okay, I get it.' She snorted wryly, a touch bitterly. 'Mom always said that my competitive streak would get me into trouble one day.'

Mac rubbed the back of his neck, still rather awkwardly.

'It is a big streak.'

'Oh, be glad we never went up against each other at a science fair…'

MEN'S BATHROOM

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

Jack reached out and put a hand on his partner's shoulder, a wry little smile on his face.

'The whole faked-her-death-then-faked-being-evil-then-giving-you-whiplash-with-the-whole-is-she-good-or-evil-thing would do a real number on your feelings, once you got your bearings again. Same with the whole spent-years-thinking-she-pretended-to-like-you-to-cheat thing.'

Mac gave a rather sardonic snort.

'Oh, yeah.'

He'd developed feelings for Allie remarkably quickly (which, he supposed, could be attributed to that special something about the Korman Challenge, those few days spent around people who were just like you, who understood, but knowing it'd come to an end all too fast, and something about her, and the fact that that he'd been twenty-one at the time), but he also knew that they were gone now. Had realized that (though he hadn't known it at the time, not having the spare brainpower to process it then) in the middle of that frantic chase after B.R.U.N.O.

And there'd always been something about Nikki, something that gave her the power to, as Jack put it, turn his brain to mush with a deliberate touch or a swing of her hips or a little smirk.

But, for some reason, that something was gone now.

She couldn't do it anymore.

(Which made him feel very relieved. Finally, finally, he'd gotten her out from under his skin.)

(He didn't hate Nikki. Far from it. He doubted he could. He hadn't even really managed to when he thought she was evil and had tried to kill him and his family.)

(He definitely still cared.)

(But he also couldn't go back to what had been, to what they'd been, before.)

(And so, he was so, so glad that he'd gotten her out of his system.)

(Because, otherwise, he knew, he'd never be able to truly move on.)

(And that wasn't fair. Not to any woman he might try to date in future – or had, in the intervening year and a half – nor to himself.)

Yes, that is pretty much exactly what I said to Jack regarding Sarah a few months' back.

And I'm self-aware enough to know that Jack and I, while we give each other pretty decent advice, are terrible at taking our own advice.

Really, really terrible.

Especially when it comes to women.

But this is one instance, if I can say so myself, in which I think I've bucked the trend.

LAB

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

A couple of minutes after Mac's (feeble) excuse and (temporary) running-away, after Bozer and Jill walked into another room off the lab to use some of the instruments kept there, Riley crossed her arms and turned to Nikki and Allie, both of whom were silently working on their own laptops.

(Allie was attempting to hack into the computer systems on some of her devices. Nikki was doing a more thorough sweep of the CIA's networks. Riley was trawling the dark web for signs of Organization activity.)

She pinned both of them with a look.

'Both of you are successful, capable, intelligent women. So start acting it and stop acting like middle schoolers squabbling over a boy!'

(It was driving her crazy. And it was frustrating and honestly made her want to be sick.)

Allie looked chastised, almost ashamed.

Nikki didn't, but Riley wasn't all too convinced that ashamed was an adjective that could ever be used to describe her anyway. She did, however, draw in a long breath and nod, meeting Riley's eyes, acknowledging that she was right.

Then, the two of them glanced at once another, Allie offering a slightly awkward, almost sheepish smile, Nikki's smoother, though Riley felt it was still genuine. They made eye contact for a moment, before nodding, and returning to their work.

The air felt clearer.

Riley gave a sigh of relief internally.

(Never mind Mac, she was going to explode or something if she had to keep putting up with it.)

(Though, she was pretty sure Mac would have an aneurysm first.)

(If she wasn't living this situation, she was pretty sure she'd find it hilarious.)

(She just knew Bozer would turn this into a movie script.)

(Half of them were based on Mac's life.)

(She kept telling him that it'd be better suited to a TV show.)

'Based on these purchasing records…'

'…the trace evidence…'

'…CIA surveillance…'

'…and the metadata on these posts, CX-242…' All of the CIA's Office of Special Projects' projects had alpha-numeric code names in that format. B.R.U.N.O was special, since it'd been a Korman Challenge project, and all Korman Challenge entries had more crowd-pleasing names. '…is or was at this suspected Organization safehouse.'

Riley pointed to the address on the screen, and the photo of the nondescript house in suburbia in Torrance.

Jack rubbed his hands together.

'Well, we better go take a look-see, eh?'

He glanced at his partner as he said that. Mac, leaning against the lab bench and fiddling with a paperclip, nodded, and after a moment's hesitation (as if he was wondering if he was stirring the hornets' nest, but had also realized that he had to do it), looked over at Nikki.

'Nikki, you should come with us.' He looked over at Allie, looking more than a touch awkward and uncomfortable. 'Allie, Riley, Bozer, Jill, you guys keep digging here.'

They all nodded seriously, as professional as they all ever were, even Nikki and Allie.

Mac, Jack, Riley and Bozer all noted, let out an almost-indiscernible sigh of relief. Jack smiled at Riley, giving her a two-fingered salute as he, Mac and Nikki filed out of the lab, while Bozer shot the hacker an overly-enthusiastic double-thumbs up.

Riley shook her head with a smile at their antics and turned back to her work.

Then, an idea hit her.

'Allie, can you send me a copy of your satellite uplink code for HY-232?'

SUSPECTED ORGANIZATION SAFEHOUSE

(WELL…NOT SO SUSPECTED ANYMORE, GIVEN WHAT THEY'VE FOUND)

LA

'Clear!'

'Clear!'

'Clear. They're gone, and they're not coming back.'

Nikki and Jack tucked their guns back into their holsters as they and Mac finished clearing the house. There was absolutely nobody there.

The blonde woman strode back into the kitchen, where there were thoroughly destroyed computers (or more accurately, computer remains) scattered about the benchtops.

'And they cleaned up after themselves before they left.'

'Cleaned up after themselves.'

Mac pointed at Nikki, his I-have-an-idea face appearing, and then started muttering to himself and jogged out the front door. Jack and Nikki exchanged a glance, very reminiscent of one they'd shared frequently in the past.

(Exasperation. Fond exasperation, but lots of exasperation.)

Mac reappeared about twenty seconds later, a trash bag over his shoulder.

'Brother, you got it all mixed up, you're supposed to take the trash out, not bring it in…'

Mac rolled his eyes and shot his partner a look, and Nikki couldn't help but let a little smile come to her face, even as something tugged painfully on her heartstrings.

(Mac and Jack hadn't changed. She really didn't think they ever would.)

(She hoped they didn't.)

He tipped the bag of trash all over the kitchen floor, and crouched down and pulled out his Swiss Army knife, beginning to sift through it.

He made a noise of triumph when he tipped out a Shake Shack bag to find a grease-stained burger box and three fries.

Ten minutes later, as Mac, in the kitchen, kept doing…something (he'd just stuck his head in the oven and was muttering about surface area, ambient air temperature and the estimated heat transfer coefficient of the average Shackburger), Jack strode into the living room, where Nikki was attempting to get something, anything, off the thoroughly destroyed hard drives.

(She hadn't had any success yet, and probably wouldn't, but she had to try.)

He crossed his arms, leaning against the wall, until Nikki looked up at him, an eyebrow raised.

'Are you going to say something, or do you just like watching?'

Jack stared at her for a long moment, as if he was weighing her up, judging her. Nikki fought and beat the urge to shift uncomfortably in her seat.

'You broke his heart, not once, not twice, but three times. Then you came waltzing back and picked up right where you left off.' Nikki bit back the urge to retort back that Mac had been happy to pick up where they'd left off too…because that wasn't quite true. She'd had her bearings that night at the hotel, had never really lost them during her time in the cold. He…he'd been a little lost. More than a little lost, honestly. 'He's got you out of his system for good this time…you better not be trying to get back in.'

'Not pulling your punches, are you, Jack?'

He ignored her attempt at levity, even if it came out with more bitterness in there than she'd intended, and replied just as seriously as when he'd first spoken.

'Not when it comes to my boy.'

Nikki couldn't help but glance at Mac as he, oblivious and caught up in the science of Shake Shack and garbage analysis, continued rooting through the trash, and made a noise of triumph as he found a decaying apple core.

She had her regrets.

Of course she had her regrets.

What she'd done to Mac (and what she'd done to Jack – once upon a time, they'd been family) was one of them.

But at the same time…she also couldn't regret doing her job. She'd been approached because the CIA had known that she could do what she'd done (Mac never could have, for sure, not the way she had – maybe he could have faked his death, if he felt it was really, really necessary, but not for three months, and definitely not then let his family think he'd betrayed them, not if he could see their pain, their heartbreak).

She did, sometimes, wonder what would've been if she'd never done it, or if there'd never been the need. In some universe with no Organization, no Chrysalis…but it was pointless to think of those things.

Nikki considered herself reasonably pragmatic by nature; take what you could get, what pleasure and happiness you could, when you could.

She looked back up and over at Jack.

'I know I really, really hurt him. And I was wrong to come back as if nothing had happened between us at all.' She paused, and when she continued, her voice was softer, confessional, even. 'I…I hoped it could be like that.' She shrugged, something bitter in the gesture. 'Maybe I deluded myself into thinking it could be.'

Jack studied her for a long, long moment, and she seemed to pass muster, because he nodded.

'Guess…guess Mac made that delusion pretty darn easy, too.'

Nikki couldn't do anything but nod, and they stared at each other for a long moment, before they both nodded, reaching a silent understanding.

With one more nod, Jack headed back into the kitchen, calling out to Mac.

'You done playing with trash, man? Hey, you better remember to wash your hands…'

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

As Jill helped Riley out with something computer-y (computers were really not Bozer's thing), Bozer and Allie sat opposite one another on the other side of the lab, Bozer scanning traffic cameras in the vicinity of the Organization safehouse, Allie still trying to get access to the computer that ran one of the stolen devices through the backdoor that Riley had suggested.

When he finished one feed, as another feed loaded, Bozer looked up and over at Allie, who, after a few seconds, looked up at him, an eyebrow raised.

Bozer spoke.

'You know, I had no idea about you or you and Mac's…thing until this year's Challenge. He never mentioned you, 'cause you broke his heart, and made him feel like an idiot.' He paused, as Allie just gave an uncomfortable, regretful little nod. 'And he was young and inexperienced and that really, really hurt.'

Allie swallowed.

(Mac had been, as Bozer pointed out, very young then, and not very experienced with the fairer sex at all, even if he was a very quick learner.)

(But she had been too. Not to the same degree, but still. Allie was four years his senior, true, but she'd also been two years younger than her classmates for most of her education and was a somewhat-socially-awkward, over-competitive engineering nerd.)

(Still, in the end, she'd been the one to do him wrong, all justifications and explanations aside.)

(She'd been phenomenally stupid when she'd let her competitiveness get the better of her. Her mother always had said that it'd get her in trouble one day. It turned out to be more than one day.)

She looked up at Bozer.

'I know. And I'm sorry. Really, really sorry.'

Bozer smiled, small and genuine and understanding, even.

(He had no guile, just like Mac.)

Then, it disappeared, and he shot her a pointed look, doing his best to look threatening.

'You better not do it again, or…I know kung-fu. Sort of. Kinda.'

Allie suppressed her impulse to raise a sceptical eyebrow at that, and to snort, and just nodded slowly, before growing serious.

'I'm…I'm not going to.' She paused, not wanting to mention what had transpired between her and Mac after the Challenge (he might have shared it with Bozer, he might not have – on one hand, Bozer was his best friend, on the other hand, Mac really liked his privacy and seemed to really not like sharing relationship-related stuff, and she didn't want to talk about it either), but wanting to communicate to him that, despite the…interactions…between her and Nikki earlier, he had nothing to worry about regarding a repeat of her and Mac's…thing. 'Look, Mac's really likeable, and he's pretty special…but we live on opposite sides of the country, he has a really bad habit of stealing from my toolbox and I work with, literally, twelve attractive, brilliant men within five years of my age.' That made Bozer smile rather widely, relaxing, and Allie smiled too, and pointed at Jill and Riley, who were blatantly not-listening-but-definitely-listening to the conversation. 'Seriously, that's the only thing I don't hate about the gender imbalance in STEM.'

Jill laughed and nodded in agreement, while Riley gave a snort and shook her head with a smile. The blonde woman spoke.

'We have a lot of eye candy at the Phoenix, if you get a moment to look.' Bozer and Riley stared at her in shock for a moment. They remembered when she was shy and would only call Riley 'Miss Davis'. Jill gave a slightly-sheepish half-shrug, her cheeks pinking a bit. 'What? We techs have slow days, and it's true! We work with an improbably high number of highly attractive people! Have you seen Agent Lucas in a tux?'

'…Cross-referencing and triangulating the signals from Allie's prototypes…' She'd finally managed to get through that backdoor, and she and Riley had used that to trigger the other devices to emit a just-detectable, rarely-utilized-frequency signal. '…and Mac's Shake Shack science...' On Jill's laptop screen with Jack and Nikki, Mac gave a slightly-sheepish, slightly-smug smirk. Riley's fingernails clacked rapidly on her keyboard as she ran one of her custom algorithms. 'Got an address, sending it to you now.'

It appeared that The Organization had, after splitting up the devices to make them harder to track, brought them all back together again, after they were sure the trail had gone cold.

Mac pulled out his phone and took a look at the address, then thought for a moment, before nodding.

'We can be there in ten.'

Allie turned to Bozer and Jill, sceptical.

'In LA traffic?'

Bozer and Jill just exchanged a glance, shrugging, Bozer speaking.

'It's one of my bro's superpowers.'

Mac, still on the screen via Nikki's phone, though only his back was visible, as the three of them were heading out towards the car already, protested.

'It's not a superpower, Boze, it's just math!'

Jack clapped a hand on his partner's shoulder.

'You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to, man.'

Riley shook her head with very exasperated fondness, and steered the conversation back towards business.

'I'm sending a Phoenix tac team, they'll be there in thirty…'

NONDESCRIPT WAREHOUSE

(TOO NONDESCRIPT…)

LA

Mac, Jack and Nikki, at a safe distance and concealed behind two stacked pallets of bathroom tile, scouted out The Organization's warehouse.

'No camera blindspots at any of the entrances or exits…'

'Alarms and fancy locks on all the first and second floor windows…' Jack gave a little smirk and jogged Mac with his elbow. 'Guess you won't be repeating that overcoming the force of gravity trick.'

Mac gave a little head-shake, a wry and somewhat exasperated smile on his face, as Nikki pursed her lips in thought.

'I could hack into their CCTV, loop the cameras, but that won't buy us enough time.' They'd counted at least fifteen of The Organization's armed foot soldiers. She gave a little smirk. 'We're good, but we're not that good.'

Even with a Phoenix tac team, who'd be there in fifteen minutes, they were outnumbered and out-gunned.

'So, how're we gonna get in?'

Jack mostly addressed that to Mac, who had his thinking face on. After a moment, it disappeared and was replaced by his I-have-an-idea face.

'I'm going to walk in the front door.'

With that, he hurried back over towards the car they'd taken from the Phoenix motor pool, opened the hood, pulled out his Swiss Army knife, made a few cuts and tore something out.

Meanwhile, Jack and Nikki exchanged another one of those very exasperated, annoyed and long-suffering looks, before Jack realized exactly what Mac had just done to the car, and threw his hands up.

'Seriously, man? You know the motor pool guys are still pissed about last week!'

(That car had been written off, because it absolutely reeked of sewage – the smell had gotten well and truly into the upholstery - and was missing about a quarter of an engine, plus its GPS and radio.)

(Somehow, Mac had managed to rig the car to work well enough to return them to the Phoenix, despite missing a quarter of an engine, but it wasn't as if his quick-and-dirty pseudo-repair job would hold long-term.)

(He had saved the Panamanian ambassador from being blown up, but Jack got the feeling that the motor pool guys probably wouldn't forgive Mac for ages. Or possibly never, if he kept pulling stunts like what he'd just done.)

(He'd moved on to ripping the radio out of the car's interior. Again.)

Nikki shot Jack a sympathetic look, a wry smirk on her face nonetheless.

'I do not miss those expense reports.'

Mac ignored them, now well and truly lost in his crazy, on-the-fly inventing and talking to Allie on his phone.

'Allie, check my math. If I've got a magnetron at 400 MHz, that should be able to talk to CX-428's radio…'

Nikki counted to thirty in her head as Mac approached the warehouse's front door, then executed a short code on her laptop. On the other side of the building, Jack, too, counted to thirty in his head, before aiming the weird hairdryer-like thing that Mac had cobbled together at one of the security cameras.

Seconds after Nikki had finished executing the code, the Phoenix tac team pulled up, and the leader, Gonzales, jogged over to her. With a nod in greeting (Gonzales had been with the Phoenix when it was the DXS, had been for years), she began briefing him on the plan that they'd concocted.

(It was more of a plan than Mac usually had.)

(She'd always been the one who was good at plans.)

(Someone had to be.)

MEANWHILE…

'…Yeah, you guys aren't cabinetmakers, are you? My girlfriend's not going to be happy, she wanted me to text her a picture of those turquoise shakers that she chose, she's having second thoughts. I did tell her that turquoise was a…well, interesting colour.' Mac turned rather conversationally to the Organization foot soldier who was searching him (not very effectively at all), despite the fact that he was surrounded by men with guns pointed at him and had his hands cuffed behind his back. 'She made me sleep on the couch. It has terrible lumbar support.'

I know I'm rambling. I also know that I kind of sound like Jack.

We spend too much time together.

Way too much time.

A thin, short man with grey hair in a lab coat who looked to be about sixty suddenly strode into the cavernous space from an office-like alcove off to the side.

He looked furious.

'Do you imbeciles know who that man is?' He had a vague Eastern European accent. All the men surrounding Mac straightened a little, drawing themselves to attention. Several winced slightly, clearly scared of this man, who simply turned to Mac and smiled a very sinister smile. 'Hello, Mr MacGyver. It's a pleasure to meet you at last.'

'Yeah, can't say the same, I'm afraid…?'

The man put a hand over his heart, as if mortified.

'Oh, where are my manners? I am Dr Ivanov.'

At that moment, the man searching Mac finally found the small device (very, very small device) he'd hidden in the back of his left boot. He held it up, confused, and Dr Ivanov's expression darkened.

He clearly recognized it for what it was.

Or, perhaps not exactly what it was, but what it might do, what Mac's intentions had been.

'You imbeciles!' He turned to Mac, fire and fury and rage and something dark, sadistic, in his eyes that the Phoenix agent really, really didn't like. 'You will pay for that!'

Mac finally reached two thousand and fifty in the count that he'd been keeping in his head, and smirked as his sharp ears picked up some familiar sounds.

'No, I won't.'

At that moment, Jack and Gonzales, followed by Nikki and the rest of the Phoenix tac team, burst into the warehouse.

A moment later, several of The Organization foot soldiers were down, having been surprised and overcome, and Mac had dived under a handy nearby table and was working on picking the cuffs on his wrists with a paperclip-lockpick he'd stashed in his shirt cuff.

'Nikki!'

As she was frantically trying to stop the automatic delete-and-wipe program that Dr Ivanov (whom she'd been chasing for months, but the man was slippery as an eel) had activated on the warehouse's computer system the moment they'd burst in, Nikki found herself tackled to the ground, a body (a very familiar body) over her.

A few seconds later, a bullet went over her and Mac's heads, striking the computer instead. A few seconds after that, Dr Ivanov cried out and swore as his gun was literally shot out of his hands, before Gonzales tackled him and cuffed him, none too gently.

Mac rolled off his ex-girlfriend, and turned his head to face her, both of them still breathing hard, adrenaline pumping.

'You alright?'

Nikki bit back the flirty comment that immediately came to mind (it was an automatic response for her, and old habits died hard), and nodded instead.

(It didn't feel right, not anymore.)

'Yeah, thanks.'

He smiled, jumped to his feet, and offered her a hand up. Nikki groaned as she saw the computer with a bullet hole through it.

'I just managed to stop his wipe!'

PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS

SOMEWHERE IN LA

'Well, I've got days of interrogations to make a start on.'

Nikki, Allie, Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley, Jill and Matty variously stood and sat around the war room after debrief, as the blonde CIA agent spoke.

Allie held up the locked (in three ways) carry-on suitcase by her side.

'And I've got to get these back to my lab.'

There was a moment of semi-awkward silence, before, surprisingly, Riley reached out a hand to Allie, and the two women clasped hands for a moment, before they both simultaneously pulled each other into a hug.

Mac and Nikki glanced at each other, as Riley let go of Allie and Bozer reached out to hug the CIA engineer in farewell, and after a moment, Nikki reached up and wrapped her arms around him in a way that wasn't quite familiar.

(It was, if it were possible, a different kind of hug than the ones they'd used to share.)

'Thanks, Mac.'

He smiled over her shoulder.

'Anytime.'

After a beat, they let go of each other, and Mac leaned down a little to hug Allie, while Nikki found herself in front of Jack. The older man stared at her for a long moment, something a tiny bit sad, maybe even a tiny bit wistful, in his eyes, before he smiled that Jack Dalton smile and held up his arms.

'For old times' sake?'

Nikki smiled back and hugged him.

(Jack gave really, really great hugs.)

(For a long time, she'd thought she'd had her last.)

After Nikki and Allie left, Matty turned to Mac and Jack and pointed very firmly at them.

'You two, get your butts down to the infirmary, you're due for your physicals.'

(The Phoenix Foundation mandated that all employees had a physical every six months.)

The partners groaned. Jack attempted to appeal to their boss, slinging an arm around Mac's shoulders.

'Come on, Matty, our boy's had a day. Can't we just reschedule?' Matty simply raised an eyebrow at Jack. 'Come on!'

Matty's eyebrow rose higher, and Jack just emitted a sigh of defeat.

Matty had earned her nickname for a reason.

When Mac and Jack reached the infirmary, Beth was standing in front of a curtained-off area expectantly, her stethoscope around her neck. She smiled in greeting.

'Hello, Mac, hello, Jack. Who's going first?'

Both field agents smiled at the doctor (Jack hid a smirk when he noticed that his partner brightened on finding out that she was going to be conducting their physicals – he'd put a hundred bucks on the fact that Matty had deliberately arranged for Beth to do Mac's physical, if only because he was somewhat more inclined to listen to her than other medical professionals), before clenching their right fists over their left hands and turning to one another and counting to three.

Jack had rock. Mac had scissors.

The blonde groaned, as Jack pointed at him with a smug smirk.

'He is.'

There was a very amused smile on Beth's face, and she seemed to be holding back a chuckle, as Mac sat down on one of the two beds in the curtained-off area. The doctor addressed him, gesturing with her head towards Jack.

'Do you want him to stay or go?'

Mac gave a mischievous, teasing smile as Beth tightened the blood pressure monitor's cuff around his right arm.

'He can stay; his incessant and usually pointless and/or irrelevant rambling is oddly soothing.'

Jack crossed his arms grumpily as he plopped himself down on the other bed.

'It is not pointless or irrelevant! You just don't appreciate the subtle lessons I'm trying to teach you, man!'

'Last week, you spent half an hour telling me about this chimichanga you ate when you were sixteen while we were driving back to the Phoenix!'

'I was trying to take our minds off the whole stinking-like-a-sewer-literally problem we had!' Jack pointed at the younger man. 'Besides, it was the best thing I'd ever eaten at that point in my life!'

As Beth, having removed the blood pressure cuff, finished noting down his blood pressure, Mac turned to her and gestured towards Jack, his expression very much see what I have to put up with?

She gave a little chuckle, then held up her stethoscope, glancing very quickly, eyes evaluative, at Mac's chest.

'Undo the first three buttons, please, Mac.' He did as she asked, and she stepped forward to listen to his heart and lungs. 'Deep breath in…and out.'

Over Beth's head, Jack waggled his eyebrows, smirked and then winked. Mac shot him a look, but was summarily ignored.

'Be extra gentle with him, Doc, not that he ain't super-tough and all, but he's had a rough day.' Mac shot him another look and was ignored yet again. Jack's smirk just widened. 'Not one, but two of his exes showed up.'

Beth removed the stethoscope, done with her observations, and noted them down on her tablet, before looking up and shooting Mac a sympathetic look.

'Oh, ouch. I'm sorry.'

'Jack's exaggerating, it really wasn't that bad.'

Jack crossed his arms.

'Oh, really, Mr-Go-Hide-in-the-Bathroom?'

'I was not hiding!'

As Mac and Jack continued to bicker, Beth put on a pair of gloves and grabbed two already-labelled vials. She showed Mac the vials, before rolling up his sleeve, tying the tourniquet and finding a vein, sterilizing the site and then carefully inserting the needle as gently as she could.

Mac didn't even notice it go in.

Beth smiled as he looked down and blinked twice in surprise that she'd already finished taking the first vial.

Mac and Jack's legendary bickering (it really was legendary – she'd heard stories about it from other Phoenix employees before she'd even met them) was really amusing.

It was also very helpful.

She was quite sure she wouldn't have to break out the Dora the Explorer Band-Aids this time.

AN: This is probably the first time I've written a sympathetic depiction of Nikki (at least, I hope she came across as somewhat sympathetic…), in all of my time writing MacGyver fanfic. I hope you guys don't think I made Mac suffer too much! This episode was one of the very first ones that I planned out for this story; I've been wanting a proper end/closure to the Mac/Nikki and Organization storylines for ages, but I've accepted that Flashlight and Cigar Cutter, respectively, will be the best we get (presumably for casting reasons – but as a fanfic author, I'm not restricted by things like guest star availability and costs!). I've also really, really wanted Jack and Nikki to have that conversation they had in the safehouse for ages, and it seemed natural to bring Allie in too (to tie up her storyline with Mac, and so that Bozer can have a similar chat to her, and for the humour of making poor Mac suffer!). Hopefully, you guys think I did a good job! (I had a lot of fun writing this episode; especially the stuff with improving Sparky at the start, the Panamanian ambassador/sewage incident, the expense reports and Mac and Jack's physicals at the end – honestly, the show itself puts out so much absurd, near-crack stuff, which means at we can get away with it in our fanfic, which I absolutely love!)

In other news – I've realized that there are quite a lot of scenes I want to include in this story, but feel that I can't, because they don't fit the tones I'm going for at certain times, or will slow the pace too much or just don't quite fit (I have much more sympathy for the show's writers – it's so easy to criticize, so hard to create!). So, I'm starting a companion piece titled Detours, which will consist of 'episode tags'. The first one is for this episode and is titled Turnabout.

Here's the summary: Riley, Bozer and Mac (well, mostly Bozer) celebrate their success at Parent Trap-ping Jack and Diane, and Mac gives Jack a little payback. Turnabout is fair play.

That'll be up mid-week, probably Wednesday.

And here's the press release for the next episode:

3.06, Dawn to Dusk. Dawn walks into the Phoenix, claiming that she has intel on another major counterfeiting operation, but can the team trust her again? Meanwhile, Jack, Diane and Elwood find themselves in an awkward situation.