AN: Thoughts on 3.07, Scavengers + Hard Drive + Dragonfly, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.
JACK'S CAR
(THEY'RE BREAKING AT LEAST THREE TRAFFIC LAWS)
LA
'…Ri, what's the nearest hospital?'
Jack spoke in the direction of his phone, which was resting in the centre console, glancing into the back seat via his rear-view mirror, where Mac was helping his father apply pressure to the wound in his abdomen. The elder MacGyver was starting to look weak and pale; the blood loss was clearly affecting him, and from Mac's worried look and continual application of pressure, the wound was not going to stop bleeding on its own.
Hence, hospital.
James MacGyver, however, had other ideas.
'Do not take me to a hospital, Dalton.' He was very much Oversight as he spoke. 'I have a cover to maintain.'
Jack made a frustrated noise (he got why Mac couldn't stand the man sometimes, he really did – he couldn't stand him either, sometimes).
'Fine. Phoenix, then. Ri, quickest route?'
'I'm not going to the Phoenix either. Again, cover.'
The vast majority of Phoenix employees had no idea who Oversight was. He intended to keep it that way.
Mac made a noise that was equal parts frustration and worry, gesturing with his head towards the bloody hole in his dad's abdomen.
'You need medical attention.'
'I have an extensive medical kit at my house; you can stitch me up.'
He could. Mac did know how to do sutures; it'd been part of emergency first-aid training when he'd started working at the then-DXS, and he was pretty good at them, being good with his hands.
His dad wouldn't die and would recover, but…it was far from ideal.
His healing might be compromised or slowed.
Hell, maybe the blade hadn't missed all his organs like they thought. Neither of them were medical professionals, after all.
Mac made an executive decision.
'Jack, make a left at the next set of lights.'
Mac's father shot him a look. Mac looked back just as stubbornly at him.
'We were going to have to tell her eventually.' Even his dad wouldn't have a decent reply to that, Mac was sure, because it was objectively true. His mother's memory would haunt them both if they never came clean, and/or it'd all blow up in their faces one day. At this point, it was really a matter of kinetics, not thermodynamics, after all. He pulled out his phone with one bloodied hand, and pulled up a rather-frequently used phone number and dialled. 'Hi, Beth…sorry to wake you, but…we need your help.'
BETH'S RESIDENCE
LA
Mac, Jack and James, the latter supported by the former duo, made their way up to the third floor of the apartment building.
(Thankfully, her building had an elevator.)
Mac led them to the apartment labelled 3C, and knocked on the door. After a few seconds and what sounded like someone checking the peephole (the agents in them approved, and both Jack and James shot Mac a look – he really should have checked that time), the door opened, revealing Beth standing on the other side.
She was wearing purple plaid pyjama pants and a T-shirt that said, I make horrible science puns, but only periodically. Her hair was still messy from sleep, but pulled back into a ponytail and out of the way.
(Mac told the voice in his head that said she was adorable – which was true, about as objectively as such a thing could be – to shut up, as now was not the time.)
Beth pointed to her kitchen table, which was covered in plastic tablecloths and had the largest first aid kit any of them had ever seen sitting on one of the chairs.
'Put him on the kitchen table, please.' She looked up at Mac as he and Jack helped James onto the table. 'Have you got an estimated volume for the blood loss?'
'Approximately 1.5 L.'
Beth nodded, already sterilizing her hands with an alcohol solution and pulling on sterile surgical gloves. She grabbed a pair of scissors from her kit and cut open his shirt to examine the wound, addressing James after a minute.
'I'll close the wound, and you'll need a saline IV and possibly a transfusion. What's your blood type?'
'AB negative.'
Beth gave a small smile, finding light in the darkness in the way that they all did.
'Well, that gives us a lot of options; I'm B negative.' Jack was a universal donor, and Mac and his dad had the same blood type. She glanced over at Mac and gestured with her head towards James as she prepped stitching equipment. 'Mac, help him keep pressure on that while I set up.'
He did as told, and gave a wry smile.
'Do I need to send Jack out for coconuts?'
Beth, too, smiled, half-wry, half-fond.
'Not unless any of you are having a particular craving for them.' She gestured with her head towards her medical kit as she prepared a syringe, filling it with a clear liquid. 'I have saline solution.' She raised the full syringe into James' field of view. 'It's local anaesthetic. I'll give you a sedative in a moment, but I don't have the capability to do general anaesthesia here, so it will hurt more than it should.'
James just nodded as she injected it into him.
'You're doing the best you can with what you have.' He respected that greatly. 'Thank you, Doc.'
Jack, reduced to a spectator, just raised an eyebrow.
'You're really prepared, Lil' Doc.'
Beth didn't look up from preparing the sedative.
'Phoenix contingency plans.' They had several in case of breach of HQ. Most involved taking back HQ using agents' homes as bases. 'Support staff have everything we'd need to run the Phoenix for, conservatively, a week stashed at home.'
Jack grinned and pointed to her with his thumb.
'We couldn't save the world without you guys, Doc.'
We really, really couldn't.
An hour later, James was lying on the couch, waking up from sedation with a saline IV in his arm, the bag held up using a makeshift pole Mac had made using Beth's broom, a coat hanger, a colander, a couple of dumbbells and a lot of duct-tape.
Beth's kitchen table had been cleared of the bloody plastic covering and sterilized, and her first aid kit re-packed, although it still sat on one of the kitchen chairs. The doctor herself emerged from her room, having changed into clean clothes (a T-shirt with gravity just brings me down on it and navy-blue flannel pants with white polka dots) and busied herself checking James' vitals as he shook off the last of the sedation.
'How long was I out?'
Beth removed the blood pressure cuff of the small, mobile monitor she kept at home from his arm, then picked up her stethoscope as she replied.
'An hour, give or take five minutes.'
Satisfied with his vitals, she then glanced between the three men who'd shown up at her home at 12:30 AM, one of them bleeding out, before turning to James, who was essentially fully awake now.
'You're a scientist and an inventor in the same way Mac is a think-tank engineer.' It was far more of a statement than a question. She sighed, annoyance and exasperation and an awful lot of resignation in the sound, and gestured vaguely around at the three of them, indicating the whole situation. 'How much of the backstory to this am I allowed to know?'
Mac sighed himself, shot his father a very significant look, and helped himself to the box of bobby pins (large) and the box of paperclips (only small, sadly) that Beth had put on her coffee table while they'd waited for James to wake up. Then, he caught her eye and gestured to his dad, a very wry smile on his face.
'Beth, meet Oversight.'
Her eyes grew very wide.
53 HOURS EARLIER
MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE
(MACGYVER THE YOUNGER, JUST TO BE CLEAR)
LA
Mac's doorbell rang.
He got up off the couch, where he was watching YouTube videos while doing an experiment using the crate of tennis balls Bozer had purchased for some movie project four years ago that he'd found in the attic while looking for something else.
(Bozer was at Riley's for a video game night with Jill and Alex.)
Mac checked the peephole, and sighed when he saw who was on the other side, before opening the door, expression stony.
'Dad.'
'Hello, Angus.' He gestured with the hand that wasn't holding his go-bag. 'Can I come in?' Mac sighed again, and stepped aside to let his father in. The older MacGyver stepped inside, then stood there, a little uncomfortable for a moment, before he spoke, a touch hesitantly. 'I'm sorry about lunch last week.'
Mac sighed again internally.
Why did it always feel like too little, too late, with his dad?
They hadn't spoken since he'd vanished a week ago and said he'd contact Mac when he got back.
'What do you want, Dad?'
'I can't just pay you a visit?'
'On a day with no emotional significance, without any notice, at 9 PM at night with your go-bag when we haven't spoken for a week? No.'
James sighed.
(Angus had always been a little too smart for his own good.)
He gestured towards the couch.
'You'd better sit down.'
'Dr Stanislas Popovich…'
Mac looked up from the file as he finished reading. The military biochemist had been involved in very shady government work in the Soviet Union, before seeing the writing on the wall, escaping and establishing a criminal empire in Europe, preying on the vulnerable, including by using them for highly unethical experiments. His father had been chasing this man for thirty-three years, practically his entire career. He'd caught him a few times, but Dr Popovich always managed to escape.
He reminded Mac a little too much of someone else for his peace of mind.
James was staring at the file very intently, something full of anger and fury, ice-cold yet burning-hot, in his eyes.
Something that Mac had only seen in his father's eyes once.
When he'd held a gun to Jonah Walsh's head.
That was also not great for Mac's peace of mind.
'He paid Walsh to kill your mom. I've been searching for him ever since I got that out of Walsh. A couple of months ago, I finally got a decent lead.'
His dad's latest obsession. The one that'd led to him dropping everything, disappearing on him, giving vague answers and honestly lame excuses.
The one that he'd claimed Mac didn't need to know about.
He did his best to swallow that righteous anger that surged within him.
(She was his mom. He did deserve to know, and he needed to know.)
Now wasn't the time. If they wanted to catch Dr Popovich, they needed to act now. Mac gestured to the file.
'He's in Suriname?'
His father nodded.
'In a highly secure compound in an isolated area on the edge of the Amazon.' He paused, and to his credit, looked somewhat uncomfortable, even contrite. 'I realized I couldn't get him on my own, so…'
Mac took a deep breath, tamping down that anger again. It wouldn't help bring his mother's killer to justice. He nodded.
'Let me grab my go-bag and call Jack.' His dad crossed his arms at that, and Mac just stared him down. 'Highly secure compound in an isolated area on the edge of the Amazon and an extremely dangerous target who has a history of evading you. We need a team.'
James MacGyver raised an eyebrow.
'And Jack counts as a team?'
'He's one of the best in the business and has saved my life more times than I can count. You, me and him counts as a team.'
James sighed.
'Fine. Tell him to hurry and meet us at the airstrip.'
THE MIDDLE OF THE JUNGLE
(WHERE THERE ARE LOTS OF MOSQUITOS)
(AT LEAST OUR BOYS ARE UP TO DATE ON THEIR VACCINATIONS?)
SURINAME
'…seriously, I get you guys are eccentric and all, I respect that, I mean, you do you, man, as Boze says, but why can't you go for normal father-son bonding activities every now and then? Ball games? Going to Vegas and becoming millionaires? Fishing trips?'
Mac and James, walking a little way ahead of Jack, exchanged a glance, Mac's very long-suffering, his father's he's always like this, isn't he?
(They had listened to Jack grumbling and complaining in the way that only Jack could for the last three hours as they hiked towards Dr Popovich's compound.)
Then, the two of them looked back at Jack, before glancing at the stream they were following.
'Well, if you want to go fishing…'
'…we could do with some breakfast.'
DR POPOVICH'S COMPOUND
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
SURINAME
The three of them, hidden behind a heavily-tree-covered ridge, stared down at the compound using binoculars.
There were regular guard patrols, and these guys were clearly pros. They weren't slack in the slightest. No significant weaknesses or blind-spots to exploit.
There were bars, locks and alarms on all the ground- and first-floor windows.
'Ground approach is out.'
'And we can't do a rooftop approach.'
They'd be spotted before they got onto the roof. Dr Popovich had had the jungle cleared completely for thirty feet in every direction around the house. There'd be no exploiting a nearby tree and some kind of improvised hang-gliders or flying fox.
Jack rubbed the back of his neck.
'Which leaves coming in from underground?'
The MacGyvers nodded, exchanging a glance, the younger speaking.
'There has to be a secret escape tunnel.'
Something flitted across James' face. An unpleasant memory, then a very wry smile.
'There will be. He likes those.'
Mac crawled away from the ridge, then sprung up and started looking around, then grabbed a large stick, tapped it experimentally on the ground and listened carefully to the sound it made.
'Well, we'd better find the end. It'd open up well clear of the compound…'
Jack's brow furrowed, and he held up a hand.
'Wait a minute, won't the other end be, you know, secured or booby-trapped or something?' The MacGyvers just looked at him. James had an eyebrow raised. 'Ah, right…forgot who I was talking to for a sec there…'
They emerged from the tunnel in a storage closet, and quickly left that room, finding themselves in an opulent corridor.
Keeping an eye out for guards, Jack and James both with their weapons in hand, they continued along it, coming across three bedrooms, a study, a ballroom (Why, Jack thought? Was Dr Popovich holding parties for baddies? Or was it just to add to the 'ambience' of his OTT bad guy villa?).
All of them, while furnished in a way that was overly opulent for any of their tastes, were completely empty.
Jack grumbled as they kept sneaking through the villa.
'Seriously, this is why all the big-bads keep building these evil McMansions on steroids, brother! So we have to spend ages trying to even find 'em!'
Mac rolled his eyes, even as his gut gave him a very bad feeling. James finished picking the lock to another door and opened it to reveal a laboratory.
He and Mac exchanged a glance, then James stepped into the room carefully, as if expecting a trap.
(All the beakers and flasks and bottles of mostly-clear liquids and bottles and boxes with labels that he wasn't even sure were in English gave Jack the heebie-jeebies, but neither MacGyver seemed bothered by them.)
Nothing happened.
The room was empty.
Nothing was out of place for a lab set-up, except for a wooden table at the very end of the room.
The table had a chess set on it, the pieces set up in a very deliberate position that Mac and James both instantly recognized for what it was.
James spoke, taking a step forward.
'Checkmate.'
He picked up the card on the table that read checkmate, James on it.
An alarm started to blare.
Moments later, they heard shouting in Dutch and the unmistakeable sound of boots on the marble floors.
Jack said the obvious.
'It's a trap!'
Mac didn't even pause as he grabbed a selection of chemicals off a shelf.
'I knew I had a bad feeling about this.'
James just sighed as he grabbed a heap of conical flasks and passed them off to his son.
Yeah, we probably like Star Wars too much.
In our defence, it's Star Wars.
Twenty minutes later, all the guards were down for the count or weakly stirring. Jack patrolled the room, pointing his gun at any one of them who dared to twitch too much, while Mac secured all of their hands with zip-ties he'd pulled from somewhere (where, Jack wasn't exactly sure – his partner had a handy knack for finding useful things just about everywhere).
Meanwhile, James was walking around the room, picking things up, muttering to himself, and generally acting like Mac when he got all obsessed and moody about something.
Mac and Jack exchanged a glance, Jack gesturing with his head towards his partner's father in a way that was really not subtle. They had a silent conversation in significant looks and gestures and raised brows for a minute.
Then, Mac sighed internally, but got up and walked over to his father.
'Dad.' The older MacGyver turned to face him. 'We should get Matty, Riley and Boze in on this.' He gestured to the room at large. 'We know he's not here. But we don't know where to go next. They have the skill-set to help us work that out.' He paused. 'We'll find him faster with their help.'
James stared at Mac for a long moment, looking rather like he knew Mac was right but didn't like the fact.
Then, he gave a single nod and pulled out his phone.
PHOENIX JET
ISOLATED AIRSTRIP
SURINAME
Mac, Jack and James all sat around the monitors in the 'Batcave' while they waited for Riley's elimination algorithm to finish running.
None of the three occupants of the war room seemed terribly happy at the fact that they'd run off on a mission (a deeply personal mission) without telling them.
Though, Mac did get to enjoy watching his father squirm (or at least, as close as he would ever get to squirming – James MacGyver did not squirm) as Matty shot him her surely-patented Matty-the-Hun look.
He and Jack exchanged a glance.
Jack just seemed glad that it wasn't directed mostly at him, for once.
Mac gave a little smile, despite the situation.
To be honest, I don't blame him.
Matty is as terrifying as she is short-statured.
Maybe even more so.
'I found him.' Riley tapped something on her keyboard, and the screen of the jet's computer split, half showing her, half showing an address. An LA address. 'As best as I can tell, he left Suriname a few days ago and came here. Seemed prearranged.'
James cursed, that cold fury returning to his eyes.
'He's taunting me.'
He got up with enough force to shake his chair slightly and headed towards the cockpit to tell the pilot they were going back to LA.
Mac and Jack just exchanged a glance full of concern.
(Mac remembered the last time he'd seen that look in his father's eyes.)
(Jack understood the frankly poor track record MacGyvers had with obsession. He also was well aware that if he'd thought obsessed Mac was bad, James was many times worse.)
(Even in the midst of obsession, Mac wouldn't abandon his ten-year-old son.)
(And Jack knew how much James' obsession had hurt his partner.)
DR POPOVICH'S HIDEOUT
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…Hello, James. It has been a very long time.'
The world behind James faded out into something muted as the guard he'd been fighting dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. The sounds of Mac and Jack fighting with Dr Popovich's other guards in the background grew insignificant as the man he'd chased on and off for thirty-three years walked into the room, right in front of him, smiling in that horrible way of his.
'Twelve years, two months, six days.'
The biochemist looked older than James remembered, his hair completely white now. He was in his sixties now, but moved with the ease and grace of a trained operative at least ten years his junior, doubtlessly in part to his highly-ethically-questionably-designed formulas.
Dr Popovich made a disapproving noise.
'So long, James. I have missed you, you know.'
James snorted.
'Yeah, I can't say the same.' They were circling each other now, probing, waiting for the right moment to strike, the way they always had. 'I was busy with higher priorities.' A flash of that cold fury, tightly leashed, appeared in his eyes. 'Though I see now that my priorities needed reorganizing.'
Dr Popovich smirked, something very cold and cruel in his eyes.
'Ah, yes, that aflatoxin derivative. Some of my best work, even if I say so myself. And your lovely wife did make such a wonderful test subject…'
That did it.
The leash on that cold fury frayed.
James found his advantage and went for it, kicking at the side of Dr Popovich's left knee, which he seemed to be favouring slightly.
Dr Popovich, meanwhile, went straight for his kidneys.
James cried out in pain as Dr Popovich pushed the tactical knife into his abdomen. He'd only managed to force the man's arm away to the side and down and get himself slightly out of the way to prevent it from being deadly.
(It was a lot, but it wasn't quite enough.)
Unnervingly in synch, Mac and Jack reacted. The blonde shoved the guard he was fighting with just enough force in just the right place to make the man lose his balance, as Jack took out another guard with a head-butt that made the guard's head rebound hard against the wall. With just a millisecond to aim, the former CIA agent then shot the guard Mac had been fighting, and Mac quickly grabbed the man's gun from his slackening hands, discharged the magazine and lobbed the gun and magazine at the back of Dr Popovich's head with great accuracy and precision and plenty of force.
It stunned the rogue biochemist for a few seconds, giving James an advantage to push.
Thirty-five minutes later, Dr Popovich was cuffed and being taken away by FBI agents that Matty had sent, to be put into an extremely secure concrete box, and Jack, Mac and James, the former two supporting the latter, Mac applying pressure to the wound in his father's abdomen, were walking away.
THE PRESENT
BETH'S RESIDENCE
LA
'…I'm so sorry, for your mom, and your wife…'
As she spoke, Beth carefully topped up the mugs of warm, cinnamon-and-nutmeg-spiced milk in Mac and Jack's mugs (they were sitting at her kitchen table, Jack chowing down on a single-serve box of homemade lasagne from her freezer, Mac moving his serve of chicken casserole around in the box), before filling up James' (he was sitting in her armchair nibbling on toast with a little bit of butter, as she was in the middle of making up the couch as a bed, having tried and failed to convince him to sleep in her bed – her apartment only had the one bedroom).
(She'd already expressed her condolences for Ellen's passing months and months ago, when Mac had invited her over to help with their attempt to reproduce her apple pie recipe, but she felt that this revelation required more condolences.)
Mac looked up from where he was shaping his casserole into the Greek letter phi and managed a little smile at her.
'Thanks, Beth.'
She smiled a little smile back, putting the now-empty saucepan back on the stove, then returned to her task.
The three men watched in mild amazement and silence for a while as she produced four spare pillows (with pillowcases), five extra blankets and a sleeping bag from her apartment, which a real estate agent would describe as cosy.
'You'd all be more comfortable in clean clothes, but I'm afraid I don't have anything that'll fit any of you…'
'Nothing left behind by an ex-boyfriend or two?'
To Beth's credit, her cheeks flushed only a tiny bit at Jack's words, his waggling eyebrows and the way he was smirking at Mac (who was rolling his eyes), probably because she was mostly in doctor-mode.
'After three moves in two years?' Beth pointed at the linen closet. 'Towels are in the closet over there, and help yourselves to anything in the fridge, freezer or pantry.' She gestured to Mac, then with her head at James (who'd finished his toast and was looking very tired) and the couch. Mac put down his spoon, and helped her shift his father over to the couch. Beth tucked two blankets around him, before looking very firmly at the older man. 'I'll be up in two hours to check on you…' She narrowed her eyes at him. 'I have a sneaking suspicion that being a terrible patient is hereditary in this case, so I am warning you, do not attempt to escape.' Then, she turned to Mac and Jack. 'Shower and eat.' She punctuated the last word by jabbing her finger at Mac's chest and narrowing her eyes at him. She then seemed to realize something and turned back to James, expression softening back into what the team thought of as her doctor-y look, caring but professional. 'Actually, if you think you require one, I could give you sponge bath; you'd be more comfortable…' Mac made a face, and Beth seemed to sense that without having to look at him, because she turned around to face him and spoke, with a simple shrug and reassuring matter-of-factness with a touch of something lighter and teasing in her voice. 'He doesn't have anything that I haven't seen many times before.'
James shook his head decisively, making a bit of a face himself.
'I'm fine, thank you, Doc.'
(Things were complicated enough with him and Angus. They didn't need any extra weird. Even if she was a doctor and didn't find it weird, he found it weird. Given the look on Angus' face, he also found it very weird.)
Mac raised his hands placatingly as Beth appeared to go through a mental checklist to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything.
'I will take a shower and eat. I promise, Beth.'
That got him a smile, and she nodded and walked over to her bedroom.
'Good night, gentlemen.' She looked over at James on the couch. 'Wake me if you feel any dizziness or light-headedness, or if the wound begins to feel hot or itchy, or if your pain worsens. Otherwise, I'll be up in two hours to check on you.'
That was said with a tone that indicated she very much expected him to be there in two hours.
Then, she closed the door.
After a minute, James turned to his son, and spoke wryly at a volume little louder than a whisper.
'You have no reason to be scared of her. Do you really think she could follow through on any of her threats?'
(Beth was, above all, a doctor. She had a near-obsession with upholding the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva and all the other ethical codes of her profession.)
Mac just sat down on a kitchen chair, toying with something he'd made from paperclips and bobby pins.
(To be fair, he hadn't actually witnessed Beth's terrifying wrath, but he simply knew it must be terrifying. He'd seen that fierceness, that protectiveness - including protecting people from themselves - in her.)
(Most memorably the time she'd threatened to deal with Oversight.)
'I have no doubt she'll revoke my infirmary paperclip privileges if I misbehave.'
James rolled his eyes.
He perfectly understood and appreciated the utility of the paperclip, but his son's frankly emotional attachment to them was somewhat baffling.
Jack grinned in a way that was nearly a smirk, walking over to Beth's kitchen.
'Ain't nothing wrong with a man wanting to stay on his woman's good side…' He turned around from where he was rummaging in Beth's freezer for another container labelled 'lasagne'. '…which reminds me, brother, she ain't actually your woman yet, 'cause you haven't gotten your act together…' His whole face lit up in realization in a way that was almost comical, and he pointed at Mac as if to say, good one, man. '…I get what game you're playing; you don't wanna give her any more leverage; 'cause now, you lose paperclips, once you two get it together, you won't get any if-'
Mac looked faintly nauseated and somewhat panicked and spoke a little too loudly.
(He couldn't exactly be blamed. This wasn't a topic that one wanted to talk to their father and surrogate-father-figure – the Obi-Wan Kenobi to one's Luke Skywalker – about at the best of times, let alone in one's…love interest's apartment.)
'We are not having this conversation!' He glanced over at Beth's bedroom door, but there was nothing to indicate that she'd heard them. Beth had an uncanny ability to sleep pretty much anywhere at any time and through quite a lot. It was probably very important for her health, considering her job. 'Jack, I'm guessing you'd rather eat first?'
Jack nodded, making a noise of triumph as he found not one, but two boxes of lasagne, carrying them over to the microwave.
Mac walked over to the linen closet and grabbed the first towel he could reach, a comfortably soft and fluffy purple one.
(It was a very organized linen closet. One shelf held large towels, another small ones along with pillowcases, a third held spare sheets and a fourth must previously have had the blankets on it.)
(They were also all in complimentary colours and seemed to have been purchased in sets. There was a blue set, a striped blue-and-brown set, a purple set, a green set and a grey set.)
He noted that the linen closet smelled more strongly of the cucumber and green tea scent of Beth's hand lotion than the rest of the apartment, throughout which the scent very, very lightly permeated.
(It was a subtle scent to begin with, the kind that never really bothered you and took a while to notice. She probably used it because it would be highly unlikely to bother her patients.)
(Mac had absolutely noticed and could probably pick it out from an entire perfume store by now.)
(He was not admitting that. To anyone. Ever.)
(He hadn't realized how appealing 2-nonenal was until he'd met her.)
(And he was probably irrationally fond of the scent by now. He found it very soothing.)
The logical conclusion was that she used laundry detergent that also had that scent.
(Mac wasn't sure you could buy that, even if you could buy some really weird stuff on the internet nowadays. She might mix the scent and add it to her laundry herself.)
He walked into the bathroom, and glanced at the products in the shower caddy.
Apparently, Beth synchronized the scents of not only her hand lotion and laundry detergent, but also her body wash, shampoo, conditioner and hand soap.
Well, she does like her order and organization.
And I'm certainly not complaining.
As they heard the water turn on, Jack swallowed his mouthful of lasagne (it was almost as good as Bozer's), and turned to James, who was drifting on the couch but was clearly still awake.
(It seemed he shared Mac's tendency towards insomnia from time to time.)
'You didn't tell her the whole story…'
James looked him right back in the eye.
'Some of it is between the three of us, Jack.'
He didn't use Dalton.
He asked him as a man, perhaps even a friend, not as his subordinate.
Jack could respect that.
THREE HOURS AGO
DR POPOVICH'S HIDEOUT
LA
As they circled one another again, both breathing hard, both with several scrapes and bruises, weapons having been kicked or flung away, Dr Popovich smirked at James.
'You are an intelligent man, James. Did you ever wonder, with all the time you spent away from home, if your Ellen ever…how do I put this delicately? Ever sought out companionship from another gentleman?'
Oh, he was not going there.
It was, of course, blatantly untrue, but it hit him in his soft underbelly and…
Dr Popovich continued, knowing he'd struck a blow.
'…Walsh was close to the both of you, and he never secreted himself away in the labs after hours…'
He lost control of that fury completely, and without thinking tactically, without using his higher brain functions at all, James rushed at the man.
It was a near-fatal mistake.
James had Dr Popovich pinned to the wall with his forearm, the shorter, older man's feet off the ground, his air supply being slowly cut off.
James was also holding a gun to the rogue biochemist's head.
Mac and Jack, who'd dispatched all the guards just as he'd managed to pin the villain, watched. Mac spoke, concern and a little fear in his voice.
'Dad…what are you doing?'
James didn't even look away from Dr Popovich, his voice full of ice-cold, yet burning-hot fury. Rage.
Vengeance.
'What I've been planning to do for months. What I should have done one of the many times I've had the chance over the years.'
He pressed the muzzle of the gun a little harder into the villain's temple, his voice almost daring Mac and Jack to intervene, to try and stop him.
(He was so far gone into anger, into vengeance…in that moment, Mac felt that it was a true stranger before him, not the father he was coming to know again.)
Jack took a step back, a largely symbolic act.
'I get it, man. And I don't have a dog in this fight.'
He spoke as if the second statement were far more important that the first. Mac glanced at his partner, saw the conflicted look in his eyes, but also his conviction.
Jack's moral compass and his didn't always align.
They were always pretty close, but never perfect.
They'd come to an equilibrium, an understanding, a long time ago, and they respected what the other believed, even if they didn't always agree.
Still, he'd hoped for an ally.
'Mom wouldn't have wanted-'
'You don't know what she would have wanted! You can't know!' There was an awful lot of pain and guilt in those words, along with that fury. 'You were five when he killed her, Angus. You can't have many memories of her, because he took the chance for you to grow up with her away from you!'
His fingers tightened on the trigger. Mac took a quick deep breath and spoke again, firmly pushing down the voice in his head that told him to just let his dad do it.
Get vengeance for his mother.
And for five-year-old him, crying on Halloween, watching the other kids trick-or-treating, struggling to understand the fact that he was now a half-orphan, and would never, ever get to hide from the world (already confusing and cruel to a five-year-old far too smart and far too strange) in his mother's vanilla-scented arms.
'It's true. I don't have many memories of her. But everything I remember, everything I've ever been told about Mom makes me sure that you killing him in cold blood, in her name, is not what she would have wanted, Dad.' Mac took a deep breath, his voice softening, growing a touch more confessional. 'And…and it's not something that I want my dad to do for me, either.'
James took a deep breath.
And then, slowly, he lowered the gun, pressing on Dr Popovich's windpipe with a little more force instead, until the biochemist fell unconscious.
He released his grip, letting him fall hard to the floor, and shoved the gun back in his holster.
Then, he turned to Mac, who let out a breath he'd been holding in relief. The MacGyvers stared at one another for a moment, a silent conversation passing between them, before James gave a nod.
THE PRESENT DAY
BETH'S RESIDENCE
LA
Mac, his hair damp (and slightly cucumber- and green-tea-scented), pulled a box labelled 'tomato soup' out of the microwave. He grabbed a spoon from Beth's cutlery drawer and walked over to the couch to hand it to his dad, before heading back into the kitchen to heat up a box labelled 'butter chicken'.
Mac then sat down in the armchair opposite his father, nudging Jack's abandoned Tupperware containers out of the way (Jack was in the shower) to put his own food down on the coffee table.
They ate in silence for a while, before James broke it.
'She's a good cook.'
Mac gave a little smile as he swallowed his mouthful of excellent butter chicken.
'Beth is a chemist's daughter, with a knack for chemistry herself.'
James smiled wryly.
'You'd be surprised; the correlation between chemistry ability and cooking ability is not as strong as you'd think, Angus.'
They fell silent again for a while, before James broke it again, voice a touch hesitant.
'We have a conversation we never quite got to finish, son…'
44 HOURS EARLIER
PHOENIX JET
SOMEWHERE OVER THE CARIBBEAN
ON-ROUTE TO SURINAME
'Son-'
Mac cut his father, who'd been trying to talk to him whenever Jack was in the bathroom or in the cockpit talking to the pilot for the entire flight, off by raising his copy of New Scientist pointedly.
James MacGyver refused to give up.
(It was a family trait.)
'I know you're upset at me-'
Mac put down his magazine with entirely too much force and crossed his arms.
'I'm not upset, I'm angry.' James made a gesture with his right hand as if to say, I can see that. 'We agreed to start again. We agreed to work on building trust and building a relationship. We keep taking two steps forwards, only to have you pull something like this!'
He gestured with great frustration at his father, who sighed.
'If this is about Gabby, my hands were tied…'
Mac leaned forward, a challenge in his brow, in his posture.
'Then untie them. Work around it. Matty does it all the time.'
'It's not that simple, son.'
The younger MacGyver made a noise of frustration, slumped back into his seat and ran a hand through his hair, before looking at his father again.
'That isn't even the big problem. It's this obsession.' He gestured vaguely at the plane in general. 'Your obsession with finding who ordered the hit on Mom, which you claimed I didn't need to know about!'
His dad's gaze slid away from his, to the window.
'We clean up our own messes.'
Mac stubbornly waited for his father to look back at him before he continued.
'But family always helps you out!' He paused, took a deep breath and tried to let go of some of that anger. It really wasn't helping the situation. 'Look, Dad, I get that it's a rabbit hole.' He'd been down enough of them to know. He got the tendency from his father in the first place. 'But going down it alone is not a good idea.'
James considered for a long, long moment, but before he could say anything, Jack came back into the cabin, rubbing his hands together with a grin.
'We're nearly there, fellas! The fasten seatbelt sign's coming on; we're going in for landing.'
THE PRESENT
BETH'S RESIDENCE
LA
'You're turning the tables, Angus.' He gave a wry smile. 'You hate it when I get didactic on you...' Mac shot his father a look. James just smiled a little wider, before his face turned serious and he nodded. 'You're probably right, son.' He paused, looking down. 'I spent years and years down a rabbit hole…' He looked up at Mac. '…leaving everyone behind. I…I made some…questionable decisions, in hindsight.'
Mac held back his snort and instead just nodded, very much in agreement with that.
Then, he sought out his father's eyes and spoke, trying very hard not to sound condescending or too didactic. This was an olive branch; it should sound like one.
'Next time, let us in enough and…I or Matty or maybe Jack can pull you back or make sure that you let us keep pace.' He paused. 'My family does that for me.'
James nodded, slowly, but in a way that seemed like a promise he genuinely intended to keep.
They finished their food in a far more comfortable silence. Mac got up and put the Tupperware containers and spoons in the sink; he'd wash them in the morning.
As he walked back over to the living area, his dad gestured with his head towards Beth's bedroom door as he settled himself into a comfortable position for sleeping.
'Don't let her go without a fight, son. And do everything you can do keep her safe from your enemies.' He turned to him, with something sad and wistful and regretful and guilty in his eyes. 'Don't make my mistakes, Angus.'
Mac had no idea if his father had earned the right to say things like this to him yet.
(Things that a real, true father would tell his son.)
It made him prickle a little with annoyance.
His dad did turn everything into a teaching opportunity.
But in the end, it was all true.
And this was one lesson he couldn't begrudge his dad, not after what he'd seen in the last two days, not with that bitter experience in his father's voice…
FOUR HOURS AGO
DR POPOVICH'S HIDEOUT
LA
Dr Popovich laughed as he was forced to retreat as James came at him, his back hitting the wall.
'You are doing a dismal job of protecting your son…' Behind them, Mac gave a grunt of pain as one of the villain's guards landed a solid blow to his solar plexus. '…and you failed at protecting your wife.' He laughed again as James pinned him to the wall, making a sound that was almost a growl. That only made the biochemist speak louder, ensuring that James (or anyone else in the room) could not miss his words. 'But that should not have surprised you, James, what with all those superheroes you Americans so adore. All the danger Lois Lane and Mary-Jane Watson and Gwen Stacey and Pepper Potts were in, all the suffering inflicted upon them, all because of their men…'
Two last thumps of guards dropping to the ground and Jack's cry of triumph vaguely registered in James' mind.
Only vaguely.
His blood was roaring through his ears.
He pressed his forearm harder into Dr Popovich's throat.
He raised the gun he'd managed to retrieve to the man's forehead.
THE PRESENT
BETH'S RESIDENCE
LA
And then, it hit me.
Sitting on the floor, leaning against the coffee table and toying with a couple of paperclips and three of Beth's bobby pins as his dad slept, Mac realized something.
He was self-aware enough to know that he had a type.
(In his opinion, everyone did.)
(He'd met Sarah and Dawn and Diane. Jack, at the very least, definitely had a type too.)
Not long after he'd learned the truth about his dad, Beth, who was very much his type, had started working at the Phoenix.
He had no doubt that she'd been hired because of her abilities, and her strength and courage and moral compass.
But there were a lot of doctors out there who fit the bill.
Why her, specifically?
Coincidences were statistically inevitable.
This did not feel like one.
He glanced over at his father, fast asleep and looking far more peaceful and innocent than Mac had seen him as for more than eighteen years.
It was really kind of creepy and disturbing.
Then again, he had known that his dad and boundaries didn't really go all that well together.
(He'd steered the course of Mac's life without him knowing for at least a decade, probably longer.)
And they do say, never look a gift horse in the mouth.
He glanced over at Jack, snoring loudly in the armchair.
His dad had ensured that they were partnered together in Afghanistan.
But that was all he'd done.
Their connection, their friendship, their bond, that was all them. All real, and no less meaningful or special because of that meddling.
It was the same for him and Beth.
His dad had almost-certainly arranged for them to meet.
But everything else was all them.
A little while later, Beth's bedroom door opened, and the doctor stepped out, shaking her head affectionately at the snoring Jack, offering Mac a smile, and then crouching down beside the couch, next to James' head, being very careful not to touch him or to loom.
(Mac doubted she'd be very good at looming. Beth was barely 5'2'', was rather slightly built, had a sweet-looking face and didn't even look her twenty-eight years.)
'Umm…Oversight, sir? Mr MacGyver? Wake up; I need to check your stitches and take your blood pressure…'
He cracked his eyes open, a little blearily.
'You should call me Jim when we're off-duty, all things considered.'
As Beth shifted his blankets out of the way to get a look at his stitches (his shirt had gone into a plastic bag for disposal in the Phoenix's medical waste along with the plastic that'd covered her dining table), Mac's father shot him a significant look.
Mac groaned internally.
For obvious reasons, I have never had to deal with a parent taking an interest in my love life before.
I have a feeling it's just as bad as movies and television show it to be.
Actually, given my dad's issues with boundaries…it's probably going to be worse.
Still, you know, it's probably worth the trade-off…
He's back in my life.
And he's taking an interest in it in a way that a father should.
With James drifting off comfortably again, Beth turned her attention to Mac, who was still sitting with his back against the coffee table, putting her hands on her hips.
'Have you slept in the last fifty-seven hours, Mac?'
'I got a few hours on the jet, on the way there and back.' He paused. 'I…I can't.'
She sighed, exasperated and long-suffering and concerned all at once.
'Would you like something to help you sleep?' She said it as if she already knew the answer, and just nodded when he shook his head. Her expression softened, sympathy clear. 'It's been a very tough fifty-seven hours for you, exceptionally tough, I think.' He just nodded, and her expression grew sterner. 'Just don't make a habit of this.'
He gave a little smile and nodded.
'I'll try my best not to, I promise. Sleep deprivation is not fun.'
She gave a snort of laughter.
'To say the least.' Beth got up and grabbed a spare blanket, folding it in half lengthwise, before spreading it out on the floor beside the coffee table. Then, she grabbed the sleeping bag and took it out of the bag, setting it out over the blanket. 'You should lie down, even if you can't sleep.'
She set a pillow at the head of the sleeping bag, and patted it rather insistently, looking just as insistently over at him.
Obediently, Mac went and lay down in the sleeping bag.
Seemingly satisfied, Beth got up and went back into her room, before returning again a moment later holding a cushion with a very fluffy sheep cover on it.
She handed Pythagoras to him, looking far less doctor-y than she had earlier. He smiled and took the overly fluffy (in his opinion) sheep, setting it down next to him.
'Goodnight, Mac.'
'Night, Beth.'
He must have drifted off, because the next thing he knew, he was clutching Pythagoras and his dad was looking at him from the couch with a raised eyebrow.
He put down the stuffed sheep, feeling a bit like he was eight and had been caught with his hand in his dad's toolbox.
'His name's Pythagoras. He's Beth's.'
His dad's eyebrow rose higher. Still, he let the matter drop, working himself into a sitting position, silent for a moment before speaking, very seriously, in a way that seemed open, honest.
'I have a lot to work around, Angus. Including things that I can't tell you about.' He paused. 'You trust that Matilda has your back, even when she has to make the tough calls. Trust me to do the same.'
Mac swallowed, looking his dad right in the eye.
'One day, I hope to.'
His dad nodded in acceptance, even as something a little hurt flickered across his face, followed closely by guilt and regret.
'Anything I can do to accelerate the process?'
'Read me in, be upfront whenever you can.'
Matty always was. It helped in the cases when she couldn't be upfront, when she couldn't read them in.
James nodded again, in a way that seemed like a promise, before checking his phone.
He sighed, and sat up properly with a groan, flinging off his blankets, being careful not to tear his stitches.
Mac's heart sank.
'You have to go.'
His father nodded, pocketing the script for antibiotics and high-strength painkillers Beth had written for him that was sitting on the coffee table.
'I have to attend a meeting, regarding Dr Popovich.' He paused, seemingly sorting through what he could and could not tell Mac. 'It's at a…distant classified location. I need to leave now if I'm going to get there on time.' He paused again. 'That's all I can say, son.'
His father was on his feet now, making his way over to the door to put his boots back on.
It still stung Mac, but it wasn't as bad as him just upping and leaving.
'We'll get lunch when you get back?'
James smiled.
'I'll see you at the diner.'
It sounded like a promise.
Mac smiled back.
Jack woke up at 5:30 in the morning with a crick in his neck (he was getting far too old for sleeping in armchairs, even in comfy ones like Beth's) to his partner sitting on the floor with his legs in a sleeping bag, absent-mindedly drawing some kind of pattern in the wool of an exceedingly fluffy sheep-shaped cushion-cover that Jack had been teasing him about for months.
He also woke to find that James was gone.
He sat up straighter, then stretched, yawned and got up to grab a glass of water, pouring one for Mac, too.
He walked over and handed it to the blonde, who gave a nod of thanks.
'Your old man left?'
Mac nodded.
'He has a meeting regarding Dr Popovich to attend. In a distant classified location.'
His voice was matter-of-fact, mostly. Rather resigned. Still a touch hurt and angry.
Jack squeezed his shoulder and sat down on the coffee table (which wobbled a little under his weight; Mac made a note to reinforce it for Beth…somehow…sometime soon). He studied Mac's face for a moment, before speaking.
'He told you where and why he was going. Kinda.' Mac nodded. 'Two steps forward, eh, son?'
Mac nodded again, looking cautiously optimistic as he sipped his water, before replying.
'Maybe…maybe three.'
Jack smiled, squeezing his shoulder again.
'As long as you're heading forwards. My old man used to say that was all that mattered.'
Mac gave a little smile.
'I think I'd have liked him. And not just because of the ham radio.'
Jack chuckled.
'As long as you kept your hands off it. He was real territorial over that thing…'
'Eh, then we might have had a problem…'
They do say that step one of trying to fix your bad habits is admitting you have a problem.
Trust me, I know I have a problem.
It's the later steps that I'm having trouble with.
An hour later, as Mac mixed pancake batter in the kitchen (they'd shown up at her place in the middle of the night to ask for her help, then imposed on her hospitality and eaten her food while she'd gone above and beyond to look after them; the least he could do was make her a good breakfast), Beth opened her bedroom door, wearing a navy-blue robe with white polka dots over her pyjamas. She took in the empty couch and the fact that the bathroom door was open, and rubbed her temple with her right hand and sighed.
It was a very long-suffering, exasperated sound.
She also muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, why are all covert operatives terrible patients?
(Mac had a feeling that his dad was going to get a very long lecture/scolding– up to and including the dangers of sepsis and low blood volume and the statistics on compromised healing – the next time Beth got hold of him.)
(He might even get covered in Dora the Explorer Band-Aids.)
(He made a mental note to make sure he was there for that.)
Then, she lowered her hand and narrowed her eyes at Mac and Jack, clearly not happy with them for letting James leave without telling her.
Jack held up his hands.
'Hey, I was fast asleep, Doc, and if you think our boy's sneaky, you should see Big Mac!'
Mac shot his partner a look as he turned on the stove.
We're partners.
He's supposed to have my back, not throw me under the bus.
Jack looked back at him in a way that clearly said, every man for himself!
Mac shook his head with fond exasperation, while Beth tried very hard to not let her amusement show as she continued to narrow her eyes at him, and mostly succeeded.
The blonde sighed.
'He…he had go.' He paused. 'He always does.'
It was less bitter than he thought it'd come out.
Maybe that little bit of reaching, that little bit of effort, by his father was enough. Or as close to enough as he'd ever get, perhaps.
Still, there was enough in there to make Beth's expression soften as Mac ladled out batter for the first pancake. The doctor crossed the living room, joining him in the kitchen.
'I'm sorry, Mac.' She reached out and patted his forearm. 'Is there anything I can do make it better?'
He gave a little smile.
'You're either doing it or have already done it.'
That made her smile back, and she squeezed his arm gently, before turning to start a pot of coffee.
Then, coffee pot in hand, a realization hit her.
'One of my neighbours is going to find himself missing a change of clothes, isn't he?'
There was an awful lot of exasperation and long-suffering resignation and a touch of fondness in there.
Mac and Jack exchanged a glance as the blonde flipped the first pancake (in that fancy way that Jack had never quite managed to master), both chuckling.
'Yup.'
'The, uh, bad habit of, um, borrowing things without asking seems to be hereditary.' Mac grabbed a plate, put the pancake on it, and drizzled it with the maple syrup he'd found in her pantry, then seized a fork and held it and the plate out to her. 'Pancake?'
Pancakes, according to Bozer, make everything better.
He's not wrong.
AN: Given how long she's going to be stuck with the MacGyvers now, Beth is going to need a lot of pancakes. And will be doing a lot of affectionately-exasperated sighing. And will need to replenish her supply of embarrassing Band-Aids frequently. I saw so much potential for humour (mostly of the embarrass-Mac sort) in this ep, with Mac, Jack, James and Beth all in her apartment (Jack loves to embarrass Mac, and remember how James was like with Nasha in Improvise?), but wound up having to rein it in; this ep is really supposed to be serious (as serious as MacGyver gets, anyway) and important to Mac and James' relationship. It was, actually, the second episode planned out (after D. ?) in this 'season'. I really hoped you guys liked it; it's probably my favourite ep that I've written in this story so far!
There will be an episode tag in Detours for this ep. Here's the summary:
Spitfire, tag to 3.19, Past to Future. Beth confronts James. Threats are made and an accord is reached. 'You'd have really liked her, Ellen. Angus and I would have been in so much trouble…'
And here's the press release for the next episode:
3.20, Heart Medication to Bomb. When The Ghost returns, Mac and Charlie team up again to stop him. But is the bombmaker on a new mission, or is he wrapping up unfinished business? Meanwhile, James MacGyver has news for the team.
Thoughts on 3.07, Scavengers + Hard Drive + Dragonfly: Oh, what an episode! I really liked this one – it had pretty much all the little things in it that make the show what I love! Riley bonding with Abina was great (I loved Tristin Mays' little smiles!), as was her telling Matty she had to make it happen. Mac being so protective of the scavenger kids, the ep being partly a PSA about e-waste and the scavengers, the team debating whether to look at Dragonfly or not (with Bozer starting it mostly out of curiosity rather than thinking Matty's up to something, and he and Jack and their crazy conspiracies) but deciding to leave it be out of their love and respect and trust for Matty (I think it hammered home a good point here about Matty and her relationship with the team, in contrast to, say, James – they are willing to not watch Dragonfly because she always has their backs, because Matty tells them the truth and reads them in when she can, so she's built up capital and trust with them), everyone getting to be their kind of badass - those were also great. I also loved the tiny little details – Mac and Jack's quick handshake-high-five hybrid as the smoke cleared, Mac and Bozer running out of junk, the little thing about the popcorn button, Bozer telling Mac he sounds like his dad, Jack calling Riley Furiosa…
And the big reveal – Matty has a secret husband! I found that to be a pretty big twist, honestly. My money halfway through the ep when the Senator and Matty were exchanging veiled threats was on 'Matty has a secret son' or 'Matty is protecting Mac, again' (because everything in this show seems to ultimately have to do with Mac, which I suppose makes sense as he is the titular character), but it was a great twist and a better option, story-telling wise, I think, than my theories. I'm so glad that it wasn't a 'bad' secret; Matty's part of the family now, to a point that Thornton wasn't, and I would be so incensed if they made her evil too! I expect at some point, the show will revisit this – my money is on the team must rescue Ethan. Though I will gripe about the fact that no-one on this show seems to be allowed a happy, stable, reasonably low drama relationship (I mean, Billy/Riley seems to be the least dramatic so far, but I have a sneaking suspicion they're building towards something there…). Then again, they're TV show characters, so it shouldn't be surprising…