AN: Thoughts on 3.10, Matty + Ethan + Fidelity, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.
MACGYVER'S FAVOURITE BOWLING ALLEY
(YOU'RE SURPRISED OUR BOY HAS A FAVOURITE?)
(REALLY?)
(WAIT 'TILL YOU HEAR ABOUT HIS BOWLING ALGORITHM)
LA
'…That's the fifth time you've achieved ten strikes in a single game of bowling? The fifth?' Beth whirled around, which made her skirt swish around her calves. (It was navy-blue with a border of old-fashioned milkshakes – the kind with whipped cream and a cherry on top – at the bottom, and was adorable.) She stared at Mac for a moment, with just a touch of disbelief on her face (the kind you had when you witnessed something highly improbable – and impressive – with your own two eyes), before smiling and shaking her head a little, looking impressed. 'You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were an alien or a superhuman.'
Mac smirked, tucking his hands into the pockets of his favourite leather jacket for a moment.
(His grandfather had always insisted that a gentleman dressed like the best version of himself for a date with a lady.)
(Mac had hence resisted all attempts by Bozer to force him into a tux. Apparently, he looked really good in a tux.)
(It clashed horribly with the grease under his nails.)
'I could be.'
That made her snort and raise an eyebrow at him.
'With the exact same physiology as a normal human?'
With a smile, he held up his hands in defeat.
'You've got me there.'
MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE
LA
Riley parked her car halfway up the driveway, raising an eyebrow at Bozer, who was planting a large rosebush with several red roses on it in the middle of his and Mac's front yard.
(Bozer had a bit of trouble with not crossing boundaries.)
(Riley got that he was happy that Mac and Beth had finally gotten their act together. They all were. None of them were still completely sure what had passed between them the night of her kidnapping – despite Jack and Bozer's attempts to find out – but she'd somehow managed to convince Mac that what they could have together was worth the risk to her safety.)
(In hindsight, how could they possibly have doubted that Beth would eventually persuade him and hence started planning out the intervention?)
(She could persuade Mac to stay in the infirmary and behave, after all.)
(Though, Riley got the sense that Jack and Bozer were a little sad that they didn't get the chance to lock them in the evidence locker together.)
(The rosebush, now that she thought about it, was probably a product of Bozer being really happy that Mac and Beth had actually gotten together…and needing to channel his enthusiasm and energy for the evidence locker plan somewhere else.)
She got out of her car, and crossed her arms, calling out to him.
'Seriously, Boze? Seriously?'
Bozer finished patting down the soil and picked up a watering can, gesturing to the rosebush.
'I'm just trying to help my BFF up his romance game economically! Do you know how much roses cost nowadays, Riley?'
To be fair, he had a point about the cost of roses.
To some eyes, he also had a point about Mac's romance game.
(It was, like many things about him, more than a touch weird and nerdy and dorky with too much science in it.)
(Still, Beth obviously really liked him – and presumably his romance game – that way.)
(She was very curious and excited about Mac's bowling algorithm, according to the group chat that she, Riley and Jill shared.)
(Riley really liked a good algorithm, but even she thought that a bowling one was a touch too far…)
(Bozer claimed that that was only because she'd never bowled against Mac, who was apparently inhumanly good at it.)
Jack poked his head out of the front door, and Riley raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing to Bozer with her head, as if to say, you let him do this?
(Jack's grasp of boundaries was better than Bozer's. Marginally.)
(To be fair, he tended more towards overprotective, rather than Bozer's inappropriate-and-slightly-creepy.)
(Seriously, in Riley's mind, she and her mom and probably Jill were the only people with a normal sense of boundaries in this crazy little family.)
(Bozer was Bozer, and Jack was Jack. Cassian was a kid, so he was allowed to be a little too curious and a little tactless. Matty knew everything, although she was at least discreet and unobtrusive. When Mac went into mad-scientist or Mr-MacGyver's-science-class mode, everything from manners to boundaries to minor laws like those against petty theft left his mind. In doctor-mode, Beth said some things that were really, really boundary-crossing outside of context, like the couple of times she'd ordered Mac and Jack to take all of their clothes off, immediately, after they'd gone for a dip in sewage or had a run-in with poison oak.)
(Jill was a probably because, sometimes, she got a little too lost in science, too.)
Jack just shrugged, tossing some more peanuts into his mouth from the bag in his hands that he'd pinched from Mac and Bozer's pantry.
'Eh, you know how Mac's all like, mi casa su casa.' As usual, Jack's Spanish was awful. 'Your mom likes roses.'
Riley face-palmed internally.
How had this become her life?
MACGYVER'S FAVOURITE BOWLING ALLEY
LA
Hand-in-hand, Mac and Beth walked out of the bowling alley, deep in conversation, as they headed towards a nearby soul food restaurant that made great chess pie.
'…you blew something up? You?'
Mac's tone was teasingly disbelieving.
Beth looked rather sheepish.
'Well, it was behind blast shields in my dad's workshop, and it was only a small explosion…'
He gave a teasing little smirk.
'An explosion's an explosion, no matter how big or small.'
She shook her head fondly, before narrowing her eyes at him and poking him in the bicep.
'Did your grandfather say that to a combination of you, the police and Mission City High after you burnt down the football stadium with a small nuclear meltdown?'
He could only nod sheepishly.
At that moment, his phone rang, and with a quick apologetic glance at Beth and a sinking feeling in his stomach, he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the caller ID.
Matty.
He glanced over at her again, distinctly more apologetic.
Beth looked very disappointed, but just squeezed his hand in a reassuring, understanding gesture as he answered his phone on speaker.
(Matty definitely knew what she was interrupting.)
(At this point, Mac was 60% certain that the entire Phoenix knew.)
'Sorry to interrupt, Baby Einstein, Lil' Doc, but Mac, we need you here ASAP. We've got credible intel that someone plans to detonate a bomb in LA, today.'
She didn't need to say that they were worried it might be The Ghost.
He'd dropped off the radar entirely again, but given that it appeared he was just as obsessed with Mac as Murdoc was, any bomb threats that could possibly have anything to do with Mac had to be considered as being his work.
Beth squeezed his hand again, then changed direction and started walking towards where he'd parked, tugging him after her for a moment as he tried to work out what he should do.
(He'd picked her up, just as his grandfather had taught him, not early and not late either.)
(It seemed very rude to send your new girlfriend home on the bus in the middle of your first date because you had to go to work urgently, so his brain had concluded that he should really call her an Uber and pay for it after getting Riley to vet the driver as quickly and as thoroughly as she could, but apparently, Beth had other ideas.)
(He used 'girlfriend' because at this point, that was what she definitely was. They both knew – and acknowledged - that this had already crossed the line into 'serious' and 'long-term'. This was a very, very belated first date, after all.)
'I'll come to the Phoenix with you; I can get a lift from someone there, or just wait until you're done.' She walked faster, smiling wryly. 'After all, you've got to get there ASAP…' She glanced over at him, smile shifting a little into something that he recognized easily. A smile that meant she was finding light in the darkness. '…Matty's wrath is even more terrifying than mine!'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Mac parked his Jeep in the Phoenix parking lot, turning to Beth as he pulled his keys out of the ignition.
'I'm really, really sorry about this…'
She just gave a little smile with a touch of fond exasperation in it, turning a bit in her seat and reaching out to take his hand.
'This is a part of life, for both of us. I hope it never happens, but one day, there could be a medical emergency, and I'll be the one who has to go into work urgently in the middle of something.' She smiled a little wider, squeezing his hand. 'We can pick up where we left off when you get back.' She said it like it was a promise. She got it, she really did. Understood and accepted that sometimes, she'd have to come second, their relationship would have to come second, and that that was no slight on her, didn't mean he didn't care about her like he should. Beth squeezed his hand again, letting herself look worried for a moment. 'Be careful.'
He nodded seriously in a way that also felt like a promise, and then, after one last squeeze, she let go of his hand, slipping into a far more professional headspace, and they walked into the Phoenix side-by-side, though not touching.
She headed towards the infirmary, though not before giving him one last look and little smile that was very much Beth, not Lil' Doc, something affectionate and proud and worried all at once in there.
Mac smiled back and waved, before putting his own game face on as he headed for the war room.
'…Union Station?'
Riley and Matty both nodded in response to Jack, as he and Mac studied the map in front of them, marked with the Phoenix's analysis of the intel regarding the bomb's location.
Mac pursed his lips, hands toying with a paperclip as he thought.
'It's a flashy, high-value target.'
The Ghost seemed to have given up on (or escalated beyond) subtle when it came to Mac.
Trying to blow someone up at his own house, while blowing up half of downtown LA at the same time, or setting up a huge, complex bomb at a military base as a diversion while kidnapping said guy's mentor's widow and daughter to blow them up was about as far from subtle as you could get.
It did seem to fit the profile.
Mac tossed a ghost-shaped paperclip onto the coffee table.
Later, after the briefing was over and Mac and Jack had headed towards Union Station, Bozer and Riley sat down on the war room couch as Matty ducked out to make some phone calls.
The two of them pulled out their laptops and opened them to start digging, to try and find out who was behind this bomb.
(After all, they couldn't just assume it was The Ghost with only circumstantial – at best – evidence.)
Riley happened to glance over at Bozer's screen as he opened his laptop up, and her eyes were immediately caught by the page that was open in his web browser.
Bozer was booking a trip to Paris for two.
A romantic trip to Paris.
(At least, a stereotypically romantic trip.)
He was already on the payment page, and had apparently 'borrowed' Mac's credit card details.
Riley raised an eyebrow at him, and spoke very firmly. Sternly.
She pointed at his laptop screen.
'Bozer, that is crossing a lot of boundaries, is really inappropriate and is also kinda illegal.'
(Riley said 'kinda' because she was pretty sure Mac had given Bozer his credit card details at some point in the past.)
(He was pretty lax about money and would happily pay for all of their 'family dinners' at restaurants if they let him, always happy to share with his friends-who-were-family, despite his grousing about Jack eating all his Honey Nut Cheerios.)
(He didn't have a mortgage, had gone to college on a free ride scholarship and was paid a lot of hazard pay.)
(Besides, Mac had worked out all sorts of clever ways to reduce his bills, never paid full price for any kind of household appliance and rarely had to take his car to the mechanic or pay for a plumber or an electrician.)
(Riley was also pretty sure that he had a few patents that generated decent royalties, but wasn't going to go snooping.)
Bozer, to his credit, blinked twice and seemed to realize exactly what he was doing, looking chastised.
Without a word, he closed the window firmly.
Then, he glanced over at Riley.
'Can we pretend that didn't happen?'
She stared back at him for a moment, expression still stern, arms still crossed, before her expression softened.
Bozer was a great BFF, really.
He loved Mac with all his heart and just wanted him to be happy.
That was why he crossed all these lines.
(His heart was in the right place. He just needed to use his brain a little more and restrain his natural, slightly-inappropriate-and-creepy tendencies.)
(Riley was pretty sure that Mac's crazy roommate/BFF/tenant would have scared Cindy off, as good as that duck l'orange had been, and as oddly impressive as Bozer's foil origami was.)
(Thankfully, Beth was used to Bozer, and understood his somewhat peculiar love language. And liked weird. And was already a lot more attached to Mac than Cindy had been.)
'Bozer, the best way that you can be a good bro and help Mac and Beth's relationship along is just to leave them be and give them some privacy to work it out.'
Bozer let out a little sigh, then nodded in agreement.
'Thanks, Riley.' He paused and looked a bit sheepish. 'I needed that kick up the butt, didn't I?' She nodded, as if to say, no kidding, and Bozer continued, thinking out-loud.'I'll go invest in some really good earplugs instead…'
Riley made a face.
'Yeah…I don't want to think about that.' She paused, her tone growing more teasing. 'And seriously? Paris? You do remember that Beth is terrified of flying and that that's where Mac's parents went on their honeymoon, right?'
(She was pretty sure James MacGyver had chosen Paris as it was the most 'objectively' romantic destination in the world.)
Mac had a thing about not being like his father.
Bozer made a face.
'Yeah, I really did not think this through…'
PHOENIX CAR
ON-ROUTE TO UNION STATION
LA
'…Gotta say, brother, the timing of this one sucks.'
As he stopped a red light, Jack glanced pointedly over at his partner.
Mac rolled his eyes.
Jack was fishing, obviously.
(He was also trying to get Mac's mind off The Ghost, trying to keep him from running down the rabbit hole too quickly for anyone to follow.)
(Mac appreciated that, he really did, but would have far preferred another topic…)
He settled for a neutral reply, though he had a feeling that trying not to feed the beast was hopeless.
(This beast ate everything.)
'Yes, yes it does.'
Jack glanced at him again. Mac remained stubbornly silent.
They remained that way for another thirty seconds and a change of lights, before Jack finally cracked.
'Come on, brother, you gotta give me something!'
Mac just raised an eyebrow and snorted.
'Since when have I been one to kiss and tell?' Jack glanced quickly over at him, smirking with raised eyebrows. Mac sighed. That'd been a poor choice of words, or a very unfortunate Freudian slip, though there was not any kissing (at least, not the sort of kissing that Jack would count – he didn't think Jack would consider the palm or cheek counting). 'Metaphorically.'
Jack would have pouted if he wasn't a grown man and a deadly covert operative with years of experience.
(As it was, he almost did.)
He had known far more about what Mac and Nikki got up to in their private time than he had wanted to.
(He was scarred for life.)
But that was because Nikki was Nikki (confident and flirty and seductive, pretty shameless and definitely not shy, and with the unique gift of being able to turn Mac's brain to mush – so that he forgot to lock the door to the van or his house or consider the fact that the gym or his living room or his kitchen or back deck probably weren't the best place for…well, you know).
On the bright side, this time, Jack didn't think he was going to need brain bleach.
(And if it did become needed, he had a feeling that if anyone could make brain bleach, it'd be Mac and Beth working together.)
UNION STATION
LA
'…Yeah, that intel was definitely good…' Jack glanced between his phone, on which he was updating Matty, Riley and Bozer, and his partner, who was crouching on the ground and inspecting the bomb they'd located in a janitor's closet in Union Station. 'Brother, how's that looking?'
Mac didn't glance up from the bomb, but sounded relieved when he spoke.
'I don't think it's The Ghost.' He gestured at the IED. 'Construction's pretty shoddy.'
The Ghost liked to hide bombs with other bombs, including more rudimentary ones, but Mac was quite sure that the bombmaker's ego would not allow him to construct something like this, which looked like the work of someone who was, at best, only a part-time demo-man.
(Besides, The Ghost would want him to know it was him. It was personal between them.)
He got to work disarming it, as Jack grabbed the walkie-talkie they were using to communicate with local police.
'…continue the evac, but my partner's got it…'
Just after Mac cut the wire that'd neutralise the explosive, the mobile phone attached to the bomb that served as the detonator crackled to life.
Murdoc's face appeared on the screen.
He grinned in that disturbing way of his.
'Hello, Angus. What? Surprised?' Murdoc was back in prison, after all. This had to be a pre-recorded message. Murdoc made a disapproving noise. 'Planning, MacGyver, planning! It's important, you know.'
The disturbing grin changed into a no-less-disturbing smirk, and then the screen went black.
Jack glanced at his partner immediately, not bothering to hide his concern.
That angry, worried, fearful, guilty look was back on Mac's face.
Jack took solace in the fact that the underlying obsession wasn't quite so bad this time.
(Murdoc was behind bars, a voice in Mac's head reminded him. There was only so much that even Murdoc could do from there.)
(A memory flashed across his mind – Beth standing in front of him in his kitchen in the middle of the night after her kidnapping, her hands cupping his face, locking eyes with him.)
('I have my eyes wide open, and I understand what I'm seeing. I chose to train in emergency medicine. I went to Syria with MSF. I became support personnel for covert operatives. I am not a woman who chooses easy or safe.')
(She'd said it like it was a promise, an oath, a vow.)
(That…that memory helped too.)
Mac grabbed Jack's phone without asking and spoke into it.
'Has Beth gotten a lift home, or is she still at the Phoenix?'
It was Bozer's voice that answered.
'She's still here, bro.'
Mac looked like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and nodded.
'Tell her not to leave. And stay there, all of you.' He didn't need to specify who the all was. Beth, Bozer, Riley, Matty, Jill and his father were 'family' in Mac's book, so had bigger targets on their backs than everyone else currently at the Phoenix. They all knew that. 'And Cassian and Diane-'
Jack cut him off, putting a reassuring hand on Mac's shoulder.
'Cassian's got an appointment with Dr Lau right now; they'll be at the Phoenix, brother.' Jack sounded like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, too. 'Matty-'
Their boss's voice sounded out from Jack's phone.
'I'll tell them to stay and that you owe her a pint of dulce de leche ice-cream.'
The expression on Mac's face shifted again, growing more focused, as Jack put his own game face on.
'Okay, obviously, Murdoc couldn't have planted this himself…' He'd been in prison for the last eight days, and had been busy for a minimum, by Mac's estimates, of two days beforehand planning Beth's kidnapping and executing it. '…so he has an accomplice or, more likely, accomplices on the outside…'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
'…We're looking for a band of mercs known as The Cobra Brothers.' Riley looked up from her laptop and at Mac and Jack on the war room screen. 'There's six of them, and they're all ex-Special Forces from several countries. They'll do pretty much anything for money.'
Bozer continued, looking his BFF in the eye, something sad and sorry and worried in his own gaze.
'Murdoc paid them to leave a nasty surprise or two for you if he didn't make a check-in call at a certain time.'
Mac just nodded grimly, his mind clearly racing at a million miles a minute. Jack didn't even have to glance at his partner to know that, and just spoke, addressing Riley and Bozer.
'You got a location on 'em?'
Riley and Bozer nodded, the hacker speaking.
'Sending it to your phone now.'
In the background, it appeared that Mac was already hot-wiring a car in the Union Station carpark.
Matty pulled out her phone and texted a contact at LAPD, plus Oversight.
(There was no way she was going to let Mac get arrested for grand theft auto, not today.)
SERVICE ENTRANCE OF A BUSY SHOPPING CENTRE
(PRO TIP: NO-ONE QUESTIONS GUYS IN COVERALLS WHO LOOK LIKE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING)
(REMEMBER: WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY)
LA
'…sorry to crash the party, boys, but we're gonna need you to stop what you're doing and put those down…'
Jack, his gun in hand, looked down from inside the drop ceiling at the six Cobra Brothers. Three were busy setting up what looked like a system for dispersing poison gas or some kind of virus (hopefully not the zombie-apocalypse-starting type) into the centre's HVAC system. The other three were standing guard with carefully-concealed weapons.
The three guard mercs wasted no time, pulling out small firearms and aiming at Jack, who shot immediately as they moved their arms, taking one in the shoulder and another in the knee.
Meanwhile, there was a loud clattering sound as Mac, on the other side of The Cobra Brothers, pulled another drop ceiling panel aside and dropped a DIY smoke bomb into the corridor.
Then, there was a very loud thump as the blonde dropped down from the ceiling, using himself as a projectile and landing on top of the third guard.
Jack busied himself dealing with the three remaining Cobra Brothers, whooping as he took one out, just as Mac took down another with the canister his DIY smoke bomb had been in and a well-placed kick to the knee on his way to securing the gas/virus disperser.
A few minutes later, all the Cobra Brothers were secured, as was the device they were setting up (a chlorine gas dispersal system, it turned out).
Jack held the leader, securely cuffed around the ankles and the wrists, with all of his weapons removed, by the collar, his most intimidating face on.
'Any other nasty little surprises you set up for Murdoc?'
The leader, a man about Jack's age with a wicked-looking facial scar, just smirked.
'You really think I'm going to talk?'
Jack tightened his hand on the man's collar, but was interrupted by Mac before he could speak.
'He doesn't need to talk, Jack.' The blonde was holding a pair of thick hairs up in the tweezers of his Swiss Army knife. He appeared to have pulled them from an unconscious Cobra Brother's boots. 'Elephant hairs. We've got to get to the zoo.'
With that, Mac took off running for the nearest exit.
THREE HOURS LATER
BEAUTY SALON
JUST OFF RODEO DRIVE
LA
Jack was tired, grumpy and showing it in typical Jack Dalton fashion.
'…seriously, brother, we stink of elephant poo…' There'd been another bomb at LA Zoo, which Mac had made short work of. '...and we look like Oompa Loompas!' Murdoc had left one of his infamous gun rigs for The Cobra Brothers to set up just off Rodeo Drive. Mac and Jack had taken it out, but for some reason, Mac had decided that they were going to do it using, among other things, fake tan. 'Can't we take five…' He rubbed his partially-orange arm. The smear of fake tan refused to budge. The Phoenix's nerds had better have invented something that could get rid of this stuff. '…or ten to clean up? There's nothing here!'
Mac had been searching frantically through the beauty salon for the last fifteen minutes.
A crowd had started to gather.
(Jack thought he recognized a few faces from one of those gossip magazines.)
(He'd been really bored while waiting for his turn at the dentist.)
The blonde ignored him, not quite seeming to notice the crowd.
Jack sighed internally, then, knowing that he probably couldn't help Mac with his search (exactly what the parameters were, Jack had no clue, since Mac was now playing with trash and a bottle of nail polish), got to work on crowd control instead.
'Hey, folks, move along, move along, there's nothing to see here…'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
Bozer and Riley looked up as the war room door opened, and Jill entered, looking very determined with her laptop under her arm and a large cup of coffee in her hand.
(She'd been running support for the Edwards team for the last fifteen hours. They were now safely on the jet on their way home from Mexico.)
She gave them a small smile as she walked over to the spare armchair.
'I heard you need a hand?'
Bozer and Riley definitely needed a hand.
Mac was not convinced (and frankly, neither were they or Matty or Jack, no matter how much Jack was grousing) that Murdoc's nasty surprises numbered only four.
(The Cobra Brothers had had a week, after all.)
However, they were stuck.
Matty was currently working her magic, but they needed to keep working the digital-and-money-trails angle too.
Bozer and Riley smiled back at Jill, Bozer reaching out to bump his fist to hers as she opened up her laptop and started typing as Riley started filling her in.
Matty walked into the interrogation room where the leader of The Cobra Brothers was chained to the table.
The man actually snorted, laughed, as she walked in.
Matty took that anger inside her and channelled it into something productive.
She strode up to the chair opposite him and sat down, crossing her hands on the table, speaking with false civility, the underlying threat in her voice obvious.
'Hello. I've got some questions I need you to answer.'
The Cobra Brother leaned back in his seat.
'I wouldn't talk to your attack dog; why would I talk to you?'
Matty leaned forward, her terrifying Matty-the-Hun expression on her face.
'Because I'm the big, scary dog here.'
As she, Jill and Bozer typed away, chasing down any and every potential lead or scrap of intel, Riley's brow furrowed as she scrolled through a line of code that was in a program used by Murdoc and The Cobra Brothers to communicate, and for Murdoc to wire them money, without detection.
It bothered her, far more than it should have.
For more than the reason why she was digging through this code line-by-line.
(The sophistication of the encryption on the money transfer and communications and the fact that it did not match any other known code - and thus could have been stolen - told them that Murdoc was probably working with someone else, a real pro black-hat.)
(They didn't think Murdoc was that good with computers, and there were no records that any of The Cobra Brothers had this level of skill either.)
But she couldn't quite place why it was niggling her.
Riley put it aside, let it run in the back of her mind, as she kept trying to track down this black-hat.
SANTA MONICA PIER
LA
In the dark, Jack lay on the evacuated pier, holding on to his partner's ankles as Mac hung off the side with a fishing rod in hand, trying to unhook a key part of yet another explosive that'd been planted under the pier by The Cobra Brothers.
They were up to five bombs, two averted gas attacks and one of Murdoc's gun rigs.
It'd been a really long day that was stretching into the night with no sign of ending anytime soon.
Mac was (at least to Jack) obviously getting further and further down the rabbit hole in his mind, answers growing more and more curt, that obsession in his eyes burning brighter.
Jack, in turn, grew more and more concerned.
As they sat in the car, bomb neutralized and having updated the team back at the Phoenix with everything that they (mostly Mac) had found at the pier, Jack pulled a few cereal bars out of the med-kit and very firmly held one out to his partner.
'You know I'll tattle to Beth if you don't eat a thing, brother…and take it from someone with a lot more experience with the ladies; you don't wanna get on her bad side, especially not for something silly, and especially not now! You gotta savour the honeymoon stage, man, before she starts organizing your fridge and covering your couch with throw pillows!'
Mac managed a weak snort that was probably meant to be a laugh and an eye-roll as he unwrapped his cereal bar.
'A, whether you tattle or not, Beth would find out, so your threat is ineffectual.' He still wasn't quite sure how she did it, but she always knew when he hadn't slept or eaten. 'And B, you know, I'd kept myself fed and alive for twenty-seven years before we met.'
To be fair, Boze deserves a lot of credit for the former, and Jack deserves some too. And Charlie. And Al.
I'm self-aware enough to know that sometimes I forget about things like eating if I'm caught up in something.
As for the latter…well, he's far from the only one, but Jack gets a lot of credit for that, too.
But I'm making a rhetorical point here.
Jack unwrapped his own cereal bar, raising it to Mac in a weird toast of sorts.
'And here's hoping she'll do it for twice as long.'
Jack was firmly of the opinion that being reminded of the good things in life, the very good things in life, was an excellent method of pulling Mac back from the edge of the abyss, hauling him out of the rabbit hole.
It worked for just about everyone else, after all.
Mac was special, real special, but he was still just a man.
Sometimes, some people (including Mac) needed reminding of the fact, and Jack was always happy to help.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
It finally, finally hit Riley sometime around 9 pm at night as they dug into a late dinner of gyros that Alex had dropped off before he'd headed home after spending the last four days in Mexico.
She finally realized why that line of code was bothering her.
She'd seen that exact line (with all the little variations that made up each hacker's unique 'signature') before.
In fact, it'd only been a little more than a week ago.
Aggressively finishing the last bite of her gyro and ignoring her fries, Riley reached for her laptop and started typing at a ferocious pace.
Together, in the Phoenix breakroom, Diane, Beth and Cassian finished reading the very last chapter of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Cassian let out a massive yawn as they did, which made both women smile fondly. Diane tugged the covers on the makeshift bed Beth had put together on the breakroom couch a little higher.
'We'll start Prisoner of Azkaban tomorrow.' Cassian pouted, and Diane's look grew more firm. He sighed dramatically, but nodded obediently and lay down, burrowing into the covers. After a couple of seconds, he seemed to remember something, and sat up again, turning to Beth. 'Thank you for reading with me, and for the bed.' Beth smiled back at him, ruffling his hair fondly, before rearranging it back to how he liked it. 'And I really like your skirt!'
Beth's smile widened.
'Thanks!' She rearranged the covers slightly for him as he lay back down again. 'Goodnight, Cassian.'
She got up to give Cassian and his surrogate mother a moment of privacy, and Diane ducked her head to press a kiss to the boy's forehead. He smiled sleepily up at her in response as she started to sing a lullaby softly.
(At eight, he was a pretty big boy, but it'd been a tough couple of weeks for the poor kid, resilient as he was.)
(And a mother's lullaby was always comforting, no matter how old one was.)
'…hush, my darling, don't fear, my darling, the lion sleeps tonight…'
Riley stared at the multiple overlapping windows open in front of her, before pressing a couple more keys to send them to the big screen.
The appearance of the documents made Bozer and Jill, the former instructing the latter on how to make the world's best gyro sauce (a mix – in a very specific ratio – of the various sauces that came with gyros) while they ate, as well as Beth (who was making a paperclip chain while sitting cross-legged on the floor, lower body completely covered by her milkshake skirt) and Diane and Matty, who were talking in hushed voices in the corner, all look up at the screen.
As they processed the information, Beth looked visibly relieved.
Matty glanced at Riley and Jill (who looked shocked and seemed to be kicking herself at the same time – Riley didn't blame her, she felt much the same) and gave a nod that was a clear order.
Jill stuffed the last handful of her fries into her mouth, looking a bit like a chipmunk, and started typing, just as Riley returned to her laptop.
Nadia Topolov was a real person, and she had been murdered by Murdoc in a Swiss chalet by smothering nearly nine years ago.
And she was the daughter of a Bulgarian Mafia boss and her death had been a result of Mafia infighting.
But Nadia was not the paragon of virtue they'd thought she was.
Nadia Topolov had never studied medicine, nor had she rejected the family business.
In fact, she'd been right in the thick of it.
There were two other key pieces of information.
One, she looked nothing like Beth.
(Tall, blonde and blue-eyed with a statuesque, icy beauty was a long way from short, brunette, brown-eyed and sweet-looking.)
Two, she had not recently given birth, nor had she ever been pregnant.
Bozer voiced the obvious once he'd dislodged the mouthful of fry that'd gotten stuck in his oesophagus with some help from Beth.
'Then who's Cassian's mom?'
Riley paused in her typing, looked at the others in the room, and gave a helpless shrug, hating the fact that she had to do that as she did it.
She had no idea.
All of her digging had come up blank.
There wasn't even a tiny, little hint of a clue that might lead them to Cassian's real mother.
It was Matty who spoke up.
'We will keep trying to find out…' The way she said that, glancing at Diane as she did, made it seem as if it was mostly addressed to her. Cassian was full of questions, including about his biological family. Questions that were hard to answer, and not just because his father was a homicide-obsessed psychopath. Sometimes, it wasn't a matter of not wanting to tell him the truth (though they always did tell him, even if it was a somewhat sanitised, gory-and-disturbing-details-removed version – it'd been agreed upon as very important), it was that they didn't know the answers. '…but right now, it isn't a priority. We have to find Murdoc's computer expert.'
ALL-NIGHT TRUCKSTOP DINER
OFF THE SAN DIEGO FREEWAY
OUTSKIRTS OF LA
Jack got out of the bathroom to find his partner with his phone out on the table, sipping at his cup of coffee and looking like someone had taken a tonne off his shoulders.
(The obsession in his eyes seemed a little less intense, too.)
The Texan smiled as he sat back down, gesturing to Mac's phone.
'Good news, brother?'
The blonde nodded.
'Yeah. Matty, Riley, Jill and Boze's findings support that bomb having been the last of Murdoc's surprises.' Mac had disarmed a bomb just beside the San Diego Freeway that'd have caused, at best, mass traffic chaos (and at worst, killed innocent commuters with a well-timed explosion followed by consequent car crashes) about an hour ago. 'And…' He picked up his two discarded sugar packets and started methodically folding them. '…he faked the stuff with Nadia. She had no medical training, bore no physical resemblance to Beth and could not have been Cassian's mother.' He gestured to his phone. 'They're chasing down the hacker he hired to lay the false trail now.'
Jack nodded.
That could take a while.
He assumed someone who could fool Riley and Jill, even after they'd triple-checked, was going to be really good at hiding their tracks, but he had faith in them.
He reached out and clasped Mac's forearm.
'I'm real glad your arch-nemesis with the crazy, creepy obsession with you ain't also crazy-creepy-obsessed with your girl 'cause she looks like his dead baby mama.'
Mac gave a little smile at that, even as he arched an eyebrow at the phrasing.
'Me too, Jack.'
The older man made a face, looking horrified.
'I…I sound a little like Boze, don't I?' He raised a hand to his face, feeling around as if expecting his features to have changed to match Mac's best friend's. 'I'm spending so much time with him I'm turning into him!'
Mac sighed internally in a very fondly exasperatedly way, shaking his head.
There are so many flaws in Jack's logic that I don't even know where to start.
Still, as ridiculous as it sounds, I'm pretty sure that Jack's often amusing, though also exasperating, frequently flawed logic is part of the reason why I'm still a reasonably mentally healthy and entirely functional human being, so…
Mac pointed at his partner.
'Watch what you say; that's my best friend you're talking about…'
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
As one, Riley and Jill looked up from their laptops, looks of triumph on their faces. The blonde woman spoke.
'Murdoc's hired hacker's handle is Janus_the_Great, real name Joseph Creek.'
Riley continued, glancing over at Matty.
'I'm sending his address to Mac, Jack and Gonzales.'
Gonzales's tac-team was on standby in the garage, ready to go at a moment's notice.
Matty nodded, pulling out her phone to make a couple of calls.
'Good work.'
JOSEPH CREEK'S BUILDING
LA
'…seriously, brother, hate to have to say it, but you really gotta lay off Boze's cooking!'
Jack whisper-yelled at Mac, who was standing on his shoulders in order to disable the key part of Creek's security system (which he was sure had been given some upgrades recently, judging from the marks on the stucco near it).
The blonde rolled his eyes (Jack was always complaining about his skinny butt, after all), as he waved the device that looked a bit like a credit card scanner that he'd built a couple of minutes ago at the security system, before dropping the device a little too close to Jack's head for his comfort ('Hey, watch it, man!'), taking out his Swiss Army knife and getting to work prising the security system's core apart and cutting a few choice wires.
Thirty seconds later, Mac raised his hand to his earpiece.
'Gonzales, you're good to go.'
Jack made a (loud) sound of relief and unceremoniously dropped Mac to the ground.
(Not too hard, of course, but hard enough to make a point.)
The blonde got up off the ground, refusing to rub his stinging backside for the sake of his dignity, and shot his partner a look.
Mac and Jack took the stairs two at a time and at a run in order to catch up to Gonzales and his team just as they got into position outside Creek's front door.
Gonzales counted down silently on his fingers, and then, on his signal, one of his men kicked down the door.
Creek's eyes darted from the heavily-armed and clearly professional tac-team in front of him to his desk drawer.
Gonzales spoke, a clear warning in his tone.
'I wouldn't do that if I were you, son.'
Slowly, Creek put his hands up.
(Clearly, he might be dangerous in cyberspace, but in reality?)
(Definitely not.)
One of Gonzales's men quickly moved to cuff him and search him for weapons as the others all kept their guns trained on him.
Twenty minutes later, Riley and Jill, both carrying backpacks with their rigs and equipment on their backs, arrived at Creek's apartment.
They waved at Jack and Mac and Gonzales, who were video-calling Matty back at the Phoenix on Mac's phone, then headed straight for Creek's 'lair' (he called it that, apparently, according to the sign on the door) and started getting into his computer systems.
Riley and Jill exchanged a horrified, worried glance.
This chain of nasty surprises via The Cobra Brothers was not the only contingency plan Murdoc had prepared.
Far from it.
Riley pulled out her phone and called Matty, glancing with concern at Mac in the living room.
(He was rummaging through Creek's things, bickering with Jack.)
'Boss? We have a problem.'
Matty's face grew graver and graver as Jill and Riley explained what they'd found.
'Can you disable, destroy or disrupt them?'
Riley and Jill both nodded confidently.
None of the other plans were anywhere near triggering.
One, for example, appeared to be triggered by Christmas 2019.
(Of course, Murdoc was a Grinch.)
Riley spoke up.
'We might need some real-world help…'
There would likely be arrests that had to be made and the like.
Matty nodded.
'That won't be a problem.'
A lot of people owed her favours.
And a lot of people owed Jim favours.
PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS
SOMEWHERE IN LA
As Mac and Jack walked through the Phoenix carpark, heading back to HQ for debrief (Riley and Jill were on their way back too, but were at least ten minutes behind), Jack continued to glance concernedly at his partner, as he had been doing whenever he could while they'd driven back.
Mac had that angry, fearful, worried, guilty and obsessed look back in his eyes.
He'd had it ever since Riley and Jill had told them all about Murdoc's other would-be nasty surprises.
Jack didn't like that look one bit.
It made him worry for the younger man who was the closest thing Jack would ever have to a son.
So, he blocked Mac's path when the blonde reached for the door handle that led into the Phoenix Foundation proper.
Mac sighed, expression shifting into something that clearly said, are we really doing this now?
Jack nodded, something in his eyes clearly saying back, yeah, son, we are.
The older man reached out and put a hand on the younger's shoulder.
'You got him good last week, brother. We stopped his back-up this time, and took out all the back-up to the back-up.' He paused, and gestured between them, and then to the Phoenix as a whole. 'We can take him.'
The we was very important.
(Mac was not alone. He was never, ever alone, hadn't been even when Murdoc had forced him to go alone.)
He had his whole family behind him, plus the Phoenix Foundation, and his many, many friends.
(Jack had no doubt that if asked for some reason or the other, a huge range of people from Charlie Robinson and Carlos to Smitty and Frankie and Mac's engineering buddies from MIT to Penny Parker and Mr Ericson to SecDef would come and help Mac in any way they could.)
(He might have been a bullied, lonely child with only four friends in the whole world – including his science teacher and his grandfather – but Mac had a knack of winning people over and making friends.)
Jack looked him dead in the eye for a long, long moment.
As long as it took to sink in.
After that long, long moment, Mac nodded, letting go of that anger and fear and worry and guilt and obsession as best as he could.
He knew that obsession and going down the rabbit hole, especially alone, would destroy him if he let it, turn him into someone he didn't want to be.
So he couldn't let it happen.
He was fortunate enough that he had friends, a family, who would help, wouldn't let him become that man, not without the fight of their lives.
Mac gave a small smile and reached out and clasped Jack's shoulder in return for a moment.
Jack smiled back at him, nodded, then squeezed his shoulder one last time before stepping aside so they could walk into HQ.
After debrief and a thorough shower (they no longer stunk, but were still somewhat more orange than usual in certain spots), Mac and Jack walked into the Phoenix breakroom.
The sight that greeted them hit Mac like a punch to the gut, albeit in a very positive way.
Cassian was sitting at the breakroom kitchenette's peninsula, nibbling on apple slices as he excitedly explained a drawing (it was Harry Potter-themed; he'd apparently sorted them all into Hogwarts houses) to Diane, who was listening intently with a soft, fond, proud little smile that she often directed at Riley. Beth was standing behind the counter, smiling affectionately and sweetly too, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She was still wearing the navy-blue wrap blouse she'd been wearing on their date, and since she was standing at the end of the peninsula, he could see the edge of her milkshake skirt peeking out too. She carefully cut the sandwich into two triangular halves when she was done, then nudged the plate towards Cassian. When he noticed (it took a subtle head movement from Diane), the boy beamed at the doctor, who beamed back at him.
Suddenly, Mac realized he'd somehow stopped walking and was standing in the breakroom doorway staring at the tableau before him.
Jack's voice sounded out next to him, partly teasing, partly affectionate and partly wise. Mac turned to his partner, seeing a matching expression on his face.
'Does funny things to a man's heart.'
I can't disagree with that.
Mac just nodded, turning back to the scene before them. Cassian was now happily eating his sandwich, while Beth was taking more slices of whole-wheat bread out of the bag on the counter and setting them on plates. She looked over at him and Jack, a smile full of affection and relief on her face.
(There was a bit of amusement in it too, when her eyes caught on the orange patch on Jack's forearm or Mac's neck.)
Then, she gestured at the slices of bread in front of her, expression shifting a bit more towards Lil' Doc.
'Would you like grape or strawberry jelly on your PB&Js?'
Apparently, the fact that they were having PB&Js was non-negotiable.
Mac smiled, wider and fonder than the question or even the fact that his girlfriend was making him (and his partner) sandwiches should cause.
(He couldn't help it, and he didn't care anyway.)
'Strawberry, please, Beth.'
Jack rubbed his hands together.
'Porque no los dos?'
Beth smiled a little wider, and shook her head in a way that made them both think she'd probably anticipated their answers as she got to work putting the sandwiches together.
(Jack's fondness for eating weird things in sandwiches, as well as disgustingly old sandwiches, was well known.)
(Mac had gone on a very long rant about the evils of artificial grape flavouring a couple months back.)
As she spread peanut butter liberally on the bread, Mac and Jack finished making their way over to the kitchenette.
Jack wrapped an arm around Diane's waist and leaned over to kiss her cheek affectionately, before starting to try and persuade Cassian that the only way to eat a PB&J was with both grape and strawberry jelly.
(The boy made a disgusted face up at Jack in response.)
Mac, meanwhile, grabbed the strawberry jelly jar and opened it, passing it to Beth, who gave him a grateful little smile in return and started spreading it on the sandwiches.
MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE
LA
As Bozer and Beth cooked dinner, giving Cassian a couple of lessons along the way, and Riley and Diane set the table, while Jack took a shower using Mac's all-purpose-stain-removing-shower-gel to get rid of the remaining fake tan, there was a knock on Mac's front door. He excused himself from his conversation with Matty and went and opened it, after checking the peephole, to reveal his father standing on the other side.
He moved aside to let James MacGyver in with a smile of welcome, and his dad smiled back.
'All of the individuals involved in Murdoc's contingency plans have been arrested.' He and Matty had had to call in a few favours, which he knew Angus was well aware of and was likely partly responsible for his warm welcome. 'I called in a few other favours, and there are now at least two guards that I personally trust with my life rostered onto every shift at his prison. I've also personally swept his cell for bugs, transmitting devices and all other electronics. It was clean, Angus.' He paused, hesitated for a moment, before continuing. 'If you'd like another pair of hands and another brain to help with your security system upgrade…' It was inevitable, after this, that his son would upgrade everyone's security systems yet again. '…well, you have my number.'
Mac's smile widened a little, and after a moment's hesitation, he held up his arms and reached out and hugged his dad.
It was stiff and more than a little awkward and didn't last very long, but it was the first hug they'd shared in more than eighteen years.
It was progress.
James was smiling too when they let go, that soft, real smile that was still rare from him.
(But not as rare as it used to be.)
'…come on, everyone, I got dark chocolate, marshmallows, graham crackers, butterscotch chips, pretzels, peanut butter cups…' Bozer's arms were absolutely, utterly full of delicious junk foods. He gestured with his head towards the deck and the waiting fire in the fire-pit. 'Let's make some gourmet s'mores!' With an air of faux-casualness that fooled absolutely nobody, Bozer addressed his best friend. 'Bro, could you grab that blowtorch you tricked out last year?' He then glanced at Beth. 'Can you supervise and make sure he doesn't hurt himself? You know, fire, burns…bad.'
Riley took that moment to shoo Bozer out the door along with everyone else. Jack looked like he was going to make a comment, given the smirk on his face, but Diane shot him a look and tugged him outside.
Left standing in the kitchen, Mac and Beth glanced at one another. After a moment, she spoke.
'You know, I used to expect secret agents to be subtle…' Her smile turned wry, teasing, and fond. '…then I met you guys.'
Mac nodded, just as wryly and affectionately.
'Yeah, they're never subtle and like any family, we're far too interested in and invested in each other's business.'
'Is that why there's suddenly a red rosebush in your front yard?'
Mac nodded a little apologetically.
'Yup. Boze, uh, struggles a little with boundaries.' He paused. 'Especially when it comes to my love life.'
That was said with great affection, but an awful lot of exasperation.
Beth smiled, and replied, with nearly as much exasperated affection in her voice, reaching out to tuck her hand into his.
'He loves you and wants you to be happy.' She was very used to Bozer and his ways by now, and knew that his heart was firmly in the right place. Besides, everyone else would remind him about boundaries. 'And for future reference, I much prefer yellow roses.'
Mac gave a little chuckle and nodded.
'Duly noted.' He paused, and glanced between the busybodies on the deck (Jack and Bozer appeared to be glancing back inside regularly, while Riley occasionally kicked Bozer in the shin, and Matty and Diane shot Jack looks) and her, a rather strange expression growing on his face. It was somewhere between smug smirk and besotted grin and shy smile. 'It does seem a shame to waste the fact we've got a moment's privacy…'
Beth smiled back up at him, somehow sweet and seductive and shy at the same time.
(It might be strange, but it was very her.)
'Well, I did say we'd pick up where we left off, but I wouldn't mind skipping forward a little…'
That smile-smirk-grin widening, Mac tugged her back a few feet further so that they were out of view of the peanut gallery, and then tucked two fingers under her chin to tilt her face up and leaned down a little to kiss her.
When they finally broke apart (oxygen was essential), Beth looked rather like the Earth had shifted a couple of feet underneath her.
(He probably did too, if how he felt was any indication.)
She blinked twice up at him and spoke.
'I think I have to revisit that superhuman hypothesis. How are you good at everything except charades and Pictionary?' Her eyes widened as her cheeks flushed further, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as a rush of smug male pride shot through him. 'That was really not meant to be out-loud…'
He chuckled and smiled affectionately, and leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead.
'I'm not much of a dancer or a singer either.'
That made her giggle, her cheeks still pink, and he leaned down to kiss her again.
Waste not, want not.
I do like to make the best of whatever I have, after all.
She went up on her toes and met him halfway.
Later, the whole family sat out on the deck, eating gourmet s'mores.
Cassian tossed marshmallows into Jack's mouth, both of them laughing like five-year-olds. Diane smiled indulgently and fondly at her boys, and thumped Jack on the back when it seemed that a marshmallow went down the wrong way.
On Diane's other side, Bozer regaled Riley with his ultimate s'mores recipe (it had everything on it) and she gamely took a bite when he handed her the finished product.
Her eyes widened and she made a very happy noise, swallowing, before taking another large bite with gusto, then another, which made Bozer grin proudly.
Meanwhile, James and Matty watched the whole scene, something soft and fond and utterly honest and unguarded in both of their eyes. Matty nudged her boss and long-time friend, then looked at him as if to say, I told you so. His smile just widened ever-so-slightly in response as he nodded wryly.
At that moment, Mac finished roasting a marshmallow perfectly according to his marshmallow-toasting algorithm, and without seemingly thinking about it at all, placed it on the graham cracker than Beth held. She placed a piece of dark chocolate and a second graham cracker on top, squashed them together and then waited for sufficient heat to transfer from the marshmallow to the chocolate to start the melting process, before offering Mac a bite.
(Bozer snapped a photo to go with his and Jack's future Best Men speech.)
(Riley elbowed him in the side.)
(Neither Mac nor Beth noticed, or seemed to be paying any attention to anyone else for that matter.)
(At least, not until Jack made a loud choking noise.)
(Another marshmallow had gone down the wrong way.)
Don't worry, Jack did not choke on any confectionary.
And in Boze's defence, I don't see why I can't have two Best Men.
AN: *exhales a very long breath* And that's all, folks! I really, really hope you guys enjoyed this ride, and THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for staying on it, and for all of your favourites/follows/subscriptions/reviews/comments. This has been even more of a labour of love than Every End is a Beginning was, with how difficult and exhausting my Honours year was. As a result, I'm even prouder of this story, especially since I think this is a better story and that I've improved my pacing – each chapter in this story is roughly the same length (between 8000 and 10,000 words), whereas in Every End is a Beginning, I think the longest was 16,000 and the shortest in the 6000s.
I do intend to eventually revisit this 'verse with a fic that mostly based on/centres around the romantic relationships established in this story and tells some tales that I've hinted at – like Mac's parents'.
However, my next project will be a Christmas fic called My True Love Gave to Me! Here's the summary:
JPL engineer Mac attempts to woo his neighbour by doing the 12 Days of Christmas, MacGyver-style. Meanwhile, Jack and Diane discuss all the reasons why they shouldn't get back together, Riley tries to cheer up Bozer so this Christmas doesn't wind up Last Christmas, and James MacGyver must find his way back to Mission City and his wife Ellen.
It's a fluffy, rom-com-type fic with lots of Team-as-Family, set in an AU with no Phoenix/DXS/precursors thereof, but is also very similar to canon, in the sense that the team have found each other and become family. As you can probably tell, it's based on four famous Christmas songs. It's mostly a Mac/Beth fic, with some Jack/Diane and James/Ellen, and a smidgen of (hopefully not creepy/entitled) Bozer/Riley. I hope to have it start posting on the 14th, with a chapter a day until Christmas.
Thoughts on 3.10, Matty + Ethan + Fidelity: I have a new favourite ep of the season, and my heart is broken. I really loved that one, especially the little conversations between Matty, Mac and Jack, and the flashback sequences telling Matty and Ethan's story. Those were all such beautifully touching moments, and I really loved the 'Ethan loves disco' element (it's those absurd little things that make this show fun, and they riffed off it really well to establish his character and his and Matty's relationship). I also really liked how they handled Ethan and Matty's relationship/situation (this may be an unpopular opinion?) – as Jack said, Ethan lived a different life for eight years, became a different person for eight years, and he did make it clear that it was the birth of his child that changed him from playing a role to being someone else (a good reason, methinks). The element of 'Matty talked him into taking the assignment' twisted the knife in my gut, but it was really nicely handled, and it makes her understanding, well, even more understandable. I think it came across as the two of them having been separated by the sacrifices they made for their country and for innocent people, which is tragically sad, but also means that neither of them are really to blame…My only gripe with the ep is that I feel that it should have been called 'Matty + Ethan + Sacrifices' (the team sacrifices their Christmas, Matty and Ethan hide their relationship so they can continue to serve, Mac chooses to save the janitor, Ethan outs himself to save Mac and the janitor, Matty thinks that Mac made the right choice, Matty convinces Ethan to take Dragonfly because he's better than anyone else they might send and they delay starting a family because of that, Matty and Ethan sacrificed their relationship in the end to take down S-Company). Honestly, I feel that better reflects Matty and Ethan's relationship's end than 'fidelity'.
Last week, I thought that Ethan would be Jack's replacement. Now – I'm not so sure. On one hand, the 'Ethan loves disco and is cool and sassy under pressure' and 'Ethan outs himself to save Mac and the janitor' elements made me think that they could be setting that up. On the other hand, with Matty letting him go and telling him to return to his family makes me think that trying to write him back in is too hard and won't happen. I suppose that either something happens to remove Ethan's family from the picture (they could kill them off, which is horrifically cruel, or Dina could leave him?), or his family has to move to the US (where they must live under new identities), and Ethan takes the job as Mac's partner on Matty's request after Jack's departure/retirement? (Which probably would have to lead to some really complicated moments and storylines that would make 'fidelity' very important…I mean, it's absolutely clear that Ethan and Matty are mature and respectful adults regarding their relationship, but it's also absolutely clear that they still have feelings for each other, so…)