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“Please don’t go again,” Jack pleads. “You know I worry.”He ought to be satisfied, MacGyver knows that much. He ought to be happy here in Texas, enjoying the love of his life and regular visits from his beloved niece. Even the occasional questionable smuggling job to spice it up. It’s the perfect happy ending, so why can’t he be happy?(For a month, or two, or three, he’ll manage. Drowsing in contentment, nothing wanting. Knowing he’d be crazy to put this goodness at risk again. Then he’ll start waking up at night, craving another hit of unpredictability. Notice himself working harder at his knife practice, staying out longer on his running routine. Ready for another delectably impossible challenge that needs all his wit and fortitude. It’s a standing joke that their phone never rings twice; he’s always that keen to grab it.)“At least not alone. If you have to keep taking these jobs, let me come too.”“Jack, I love you, but…it isn’t something I want you around for. You’re not built for it. You aren’t trained.”“Murdoc taught you well enough, didn’t he?”“That was different- no, it was. He could see where I was broken like he was, he just had to mold me into shape. You haven’t got it.” “Hey. I had a criminal record way before you jumped on the bandwagon,” Jack says, a touch of irrepressible humour breaking through his concern. One of the umpteen things that MacGyver loves about his partner, that had helped keep them both sane through years of small-town living. That curiously innocent amusement with life, above and despite all reason. Maybe Jack would retain it, even with blood on his hands; but MacGyver doesn’t intend to put that to the test. “I need to have someone to come back to,” he says, hoping that’ll be enough. Jack looks less than impressed, but the telephone rings. Just once. “Is this Jack Dalton’s number?”“Ellen?”“Mac?” He has no idea what the correct response is to hearing one’s ex-wife asking for the new boyfriend, though his gut reaction is mild jealousy. Jack’s his, dammit. Always.“I was hoping to get in touch with you- it’s Harry. He’s been kidnapped. They left a ransom note on the bed.”The professional in him takes over, shoving aside the side points (what the hell, are she and Harry living together? where have they been? can he get her to stop calling him Mac?) “What do they want?”“You. They want you to go to somewhere called the Phoenix Foundation. I don’t know why.”“Figures. I’ll get him back for you. Don’t ask questions.”“Can I help?”“For the love of- look, where are you?”“Los Angeles. We had tickets to see the Kings tonight, Harry was so excited about going to see Wayne Gretzky.”He can’t help himself. “Nice. Uh…okay, here’s what you do. Don’t call the police, just get yourself down to Western Tech. Tell Becky it’s magnitude six, got that?”“Magnitude- six?”“We have a joke going about the Richter scale, she’ll understand. If you’re still free they probably don’t care about you, but it’s just as well to be on the safe side. Don’t take any stupid risks. And don’t worry.”“Thank you,” she says. Softly, but with relaxed confidence. Not abject terror like he was expecting. Apparently he’s not the only one to have witnessed a few sea changes since Mission City.He signals Jack, runs Ellen through a few more points. By the time he hangs up and gets outside with his game bag, the plane’s already warmed up. “Welcome to Dalton Airways! Bound for points unknown, even to the captain.”“It’s Phoenix. They’ve fixed up a trap for me with Harry as bait, I’ve gotta go rescue him.”“Oh, did it have to be them? You know how I hate landing at LAX.”“Cheer up, you can actually help out with the job this time. I’m gonna need somebody to nursemaid my ex-wife while I’m busy.”Jack makes a face at him. “Thanks a lot.”***************“The obvious explanation is that Cindy hates both of us,” Nikki says. “Cindy hates everyone,” Murdoc says, sipping at his mint infusion (he hasn’t enjoyed a cup of tea since Arizona, and coffee is right out). “But she’s at least notionally interested in our continued existence and utility as agents. Unless this is her way of informing us that we’re now dispensable, would we please save her the trouble by killing each other on the way out?”Nikki glares again at the paper bearing their next assignment. Phoenix liaisons for one Victoria James, infiltrator extraordinaire, with some rather extraordinary notions as to how to go about security testing. “Bloody freelancers- you know, I’d have thought that the intelligence business was one field that couldn’t be outsourced. What the hell is she going to turn up that we couldn’t handle in-house?”He can think of so many delightfully sarcastic rejoiners, but the matter of their survival unfortunately must take precedence. “Perhaps she simply means to implement Pete Thornton’s original plan. Take me out, and he gets to be a Phoenix agent. And I have been satisfactorily neutralised.”“Neutralised? Not until I’ve emptied a revolver into you.”“Well, perhaps that’s what Cindy is expecting him to do.”“That’s not what I’m worried about. I wouldn't be surprised if you two were plotting this all along, to take down Phoenix.”“You seem to be under a very mistaken impression,” Murdoc says, dry as can be, “that I have the slightest notion what’s going on beneath MacGyver’s thick skull. I assure you, I haven’t.”Which is, for once, only the simple truth. After putting his life and reputation on the line out of a thoroughly misguided affection, what is he to make of someone who had the bare-faced audacity to reject that sacrifice? Who went right back into intelligence work at the first available opportunity?Love. Still. (And he’s less than pleased by how thoroughly Nikki appreciates the point.) Love, and a certain self-disgust that he hadn’t seen the obvious coming, after hooking the man on the Great Game- but MacGyver is always going to be his blind spot. “Of course, if we’re very lucky,” Nikki says thoughtfully, “MacGyver will just shoot Cindy. That’ll solve our problems at one fell swoop.”“My dear Nikki, whatever makes you think the man’s capable of being so helpful?”
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"She's a good kid," Ellen says quietly, as Becky waves them goodbye and dashes off to class. They settle down in a couple of the lawn chairs that dot the campus. California sunshine, every bit as good as advertised (not as hot as Texas, though. Boo.) "I wish I'd been there to look after her."Jack snorts. It'd been so much easier to forgive and forget the woman when she wasn't actually present. "The divorce wasn't Mac's idea, as I recall.""No, it was mine...and a good thing I did, too. Or neither of us would ever have worked up the nerve to leave Mission City- he was the only thing keeping me there, you know. As soon as he eloped, I started packing my bags.""I'm not really all that interested in your self-justifications.""Is it that bad for him?" Ellen asks softly. "Does he not love Jacques after all?""Uh..." It's been a while since he's even thought of the (assassin, murderer)- guy. "There was a pretty messy breakup. He's staying with me now."She looks at him. Simply looks."And I'm keeping him, so don't even think about any reconciliation weeping-and-making-up. We have a little place in Texas. And my plane, we get along.""Good for you. Harry and I are up in Alaska-""Same cabin?" If she's going to force small talk on him, he might as well enjoy it. Her eyes are dark with amusement (dammit, she and Mac really did rub off on each other over the years). "None of your business."That's...lurid. Harry Jackson's gotta have, what, a good forty years on her? "Cradle-snatching much?"She ignores him. "Originally, I was just trying to fix up a plan for Mac's future. With Becky leaving, somebody had to get him out of there...I wrote to Harry a few Christmases ago. Told him that he ought to get in touch with his grandson again, give Mac something to do besides living vicariously through his niece's college letters. He didn't listen. But he did keep up the correspondence.""Did he ever give you any reasons? For not going to his daughter's funeral or anything?" Jack asks, hoping to sound more curious than concerned. (He'd come in to Mac's life not long after Harry had left it; there's a superstitious tickle at the back of his head that's always wondered whether, offered the choice, Mac might have willingly ditched him to get his beloved grandpa back. Though these days, the answer's probably no.)"None he was willing to share with me. But...well, he's not getting any younger, and he has two teams of sled dogs to look after up there. Once Mac was gone, I could leave with a clear conscience."Jack grunts. "He likes to be called MacGyver these days, you know. Don't ask me why he's so dammed particular about it, but he is.""Names matter more than you'd think. I'm certainly not going by Jerico any more."She's smiling- irrepressibly smug and self-confident, which is just differently annoying than the helplessly fragile female he remembers- and Jack finds himself wanting to puncture it, counterproductive as that would be. He doesn't want to share Mac, but it irks him at some level that she isn't even thinking about it.
I wanted you to beg me to give Mac back. So I could tell you no.
He forces his mind back to a piece of kindness- to an assassin who had more basic human decency than he does, right now- and tells himself to put a lid on it. Bygones are bygones. And with Mac cheerfully plugging away at his international assassinations, that leaves it on him to be the civilised one. "Anyway, it's probably just as well you missed it," Jack says abruptly. "That first summer Becky showed up, he was having more than enough trouble keeping the shop going.""That's what I meant. It was ridiculous of him to think he could run the cafe without any hired help. I always insisted that we keep a high school student to work Saturdays and nights, at the very least.""He couldn't have afforded that.""But if I'd been there, I could have taken half the work. It's so ironic that I left just before I could have made myself useful for once, it might have saved our marriage. Besides, I'm a much better shot than he is. That's what Becky and I were talking about, just now...would you believe she was thanking me? For teaching her how to butcher a deer." She chuckles. "Mac going out with a borrowed gun. That still sounds like complete lunacy."Way too close to the bone. "MacGyver.""Sorry.""Didn't you hate guns? I seem to remember you made quite the fuss about it in high school.""Only because MacGyver did," Ellen says wryly. "Besides, hunting was something my father had taught me how to do, and at that point I was angry at anything and everything involved with him. It took a long time to forgive- not him. Myself, for liking anything that he even passingly enjoyed...that's why I never came to any of your movie nights. He always did love a Western."Jack tenses, at the mockery simmering beneath her blase statement. "We didn't cheat on you, you know. He wouldn't let me.""Maybe I wanted you to. Maybe I pushed, and pushed, and hoped I could make him leave me instead of having to do it myself- but his basic morality got in the way. It always will."He knows full well that she isn't deliberately goading him, at least not on that score, that the rush of anger he's feeling right now is Mac's fault if it's anybody's, but- this time he snaps. "But you're still feeling guilty over not being there for Becky, huh?""She ought to have had someone motherly to look after her," Ellen says soberly. "God knows, I needed that.""And you've got this picture in your head of what, you baking hot apple pies and Mac smiling at you while Becky comes home from school? All your issues magically clearing themselves up because she's in the picture? I don't see it. What I see is two angry people staying together out of obligation, when all the love ran out long ago, and one very miserable kid stuck in the middle. Who’d probably get to hurting so bad for some real affection that she runs out and finds it in the arms of the first high school student she sees who'll smile back at her-"He's finally cracked her cool. "That would never have happened! I'd have made sure that she never made the same mistake-""Ah ha," Jack says, grinning widely now. "A red-letter day. Ellen Stuart finally admits that her marriage was a mistake.""Which one?" she snaps. Raising her palm, as if to strike him. Hours of Mac's patient training take over; Jack finds himself exaggerating his instinctive reaction, flinching backwards piteously.
Protection, Jack. The kind of people I hang out with, you might need to look unthreatening some time...besides, it's good cover for your own opening move.
Not that he's going to hit her. No way is he giving her that satisfaction. She lowers her hand, shoves it in her coat pocket. "And Mac said for you to look after me? I do believe I'd rather have Becky.""So would I," Jack says, with feeling.
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“I’m not impressed,” Victoria says, studying the surveillance monitors with a distinctly jaundiced eye. “That’s three people who’ve walked past him on their way out, and not one of them has noticed he isn’t the person who’s supposed to be there.”“Those were all regular staffers,” Nikki says, though she’s sounding a little irked. “The people who think that Phoenix is really just a charitable think tank. We rely on their sincerity to give the rest of us cover.”Murdoc just smirks. Leans back and puts his feet on the table; he doesn’t want there to be any doubt who he’s rooting for here. The three of them are in Phoenix’s backup security centre, usually left unmanned this time of night. Which had been Victoria’s first complaint: that nobody was here, to see if someone began their infiltration by breaking into the main security centre and incapacitating everyone before they could throw the alarms. As, for instance, MacGyver has just done. “I expected him to kill them,” Nikki comments. “Knock-out darts and duck tape? It’s still a Minnesota farm boy at heart, isn’t it.”“He,” Murdoc says, deliberately dragging out the pronoun, “was a barista. I recognise that your intellect might have some trouble with the notion, but there are some tiny differences between the two.”“Is it that vital a distinction? Come now,” she adds, seeing him choke off a response. “If we’re going to be fighting him soon, I’d appreciate more background than ‘your insane ex who stupidly decided to go professional’”.If he gives away anything about MacGyver, the knowledge might be used against the man one of these days. And he’s not having that. “As I understood Victoria’s very helpful briefing, the idea was that we wouldn’t be needed to do anything. Unless along the way, MacGyver acquired something so significant, so vital, that we couldn’t afford to let the man escape afterwards.”“You’ve lost that bet already,” Victoria says. “Not that I care, but he’s been in your computer systems for a good quarter hour. I thought he’d be moving on to find his grandfather by now, but evidently he’s a cool customer.““He can’t get into anything from the reception computer,” Nikki says. “Anything vital, at least. Maybe the inventory file, if he wants to know how many paper clips Phoenix has.”“Meeting schedules,” Murdoc observes, burying anxiety beneath well-honed indifference. “The most confidential names are encoded, of course, but there’s undoubtedly some middling sorts whose presence in LA would still interest certain parties. Floor maps of the building. And that inventory file must feature a few questionable items.”“I see someone woke up on the cynical side of bed today.”“Well, what of it? If Phoenix security insists on mistrusting my expertise, just because I tried to kill the odd dozen of them once upon a time…I still haven’t asked you,” he adds to Victoria. “Why pick him to do this, out of all the people in the business?”“I had my reasons. Ellen Stuart’s file gave us an easy kidnapping target- I wonder how many recruits and blackmails you people have managed, that way? Turning over information from the do-gooder part of the business, to your worse half?”“Don’t ask me about the morality of it,” Murdoc murmurs. “I just work here.”Nikki’s fuming. “So it had nothing to do with the man stopping your assassination in Kuwait, did it?” “Somewhat,” Victoria says smoothly. “He wanted credit for the kill himself, you see. A remarkably unpopular sheik, having two assassins put on his tail at the same time...yes, I’m rather hoping you’ll find occasion to shoot him. It’ll make my next job that much easier.”“We’re not here to do your dirty work!”“Nikki. Nikki, my darling,” Murdoc says, taking her by the hand. “You remember Cindy’s orders. I do believe that’s exactly what she intends us to do tonight. At least, during that part of the evening while we’re still on company time...”His fingertips rest lightly against her own, in a gently teasing advance that does so little while promising so much. She automatically falls into the suggested role, raises his hand to her lips for a kiss not quite chaste. A performance for Victoria’s benefit; for hers, as well. She hasn’t worked with Murdoc for months without learning his tastes in romance (these days: none). Also his idea of what constitutes a warning. She hates Murdoc like nobody else on earth; and one of these days, she is going to kill him. He knows that. There’ll be no sneaking up on her like he’d done to Pete Thornton. But making the man shoot his own lover for a loyalty test is going beyond the pale. “Moonlighting fans, eh?” Victoria says without interest. “Cut the romance and get back to work. He’s just hacked into your alert system to cut out the outside lines, I think you ought to watch this.”MacGyver shuts off the computer, tips his cap at one more charmingly deluded secretary from the fourth floor. Watches her go out the door with a smile- and then throws the emergency switch, the one that puts the whole building on lockdown. Heads for the elevator. He'd left a piece of paper directly under the camera, before he went.
I've done my part to make sure no innocents get hurt in the crossfire. You’d better do the same by Harry, or there’ll be hell to pay.
“Isn’t that nice,” Victoria says, angling the monitor towards the pinioned prisoner in the corner. “Your grandson’s so thoughtful, isn’t he?”“Oh, that’s right,” Murdoc says. “You know, I really had rather forgotten you were here?” Harry Jackson can’t say anything, what with the quantity of duck tape over his mouth; but he can certainly deliver a glare.
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Eggnog.
I really haven’t got time right now to be thinking about eggnog- I’m in a hostile environment, someone’s bound to start shooting at me soon, I ought to concentrate on the mission. There’s time pressure, too; I’m determined to get Harry out of here before that hockey game starts. Wonder if the kidnappers figured that into their calculations.
But it’s like an earworm, playing away underneath while I tear my way through Phoenix. Been all of thirty years since I had my first sip. Grandma Celia was always drinks maestro- obviously, it was her coffee shop- and she swore up and down that eggnog wasn’t any good unless it had alcohol in it. As in, enough alcohol to break a half dozen or so breathalysers. Of course Mom and Dad told me I couldn’t try it until I was older; I remember Allison choking over her first taste of the stuff, valiantly trying to pretend she liked it.
Harry didn’t believe in forbidden fruit, though; and one Christmas, he gave me a wink and switched our mugs. Heaven in a glass. Rich and decadent like nobody’s business, made me feel amazing- for the first twenty minutes, before I went straight to sleep and missed all of Christmas Eve. Mom wasn’t too happy about that.
Took me years to fix up the formula for perfect non-alcoholic eggnog; but then, I did have a coffee shop and a lot of time on my hands. So that’s the first thing I’m doing for him, soon as we’re back in Texas. Maybe it’s May and not exactly seasonal, but- better late than never, right?
************“I think the original mistake was having a computerised database for recordings of Phoenix staff, in a building that uses voice-print identification.” Murdoc says, watching as MacGyver turns on his tape recorder in front of yet another useless door. “No, wait, that would be the third mistake. Our second mistake was having a key-card maker in the security office.”“It should have been the most secure place to put it,” Nikki offers. Not with much enthusiasm; she’d always thought that the Phoenix Foundation were just that little bit sharper and more competent than poky, penny-pinching Washington. It’s disturbing to see how they aren’t. “And we have to have the database. When we need one of those recordings in a hurry for law enforcement or alphabet agency soup, we need it then and there.”“I prefer good old-fashioned guards, myself. Do you know what the advantage of guards is? Sometimes they’re intelligent enough to call for help.”“What about retinal scanners? Not fingerprints, those are easily faked-” “And you don’t even need a dripping hand,” Murdoc remarks. “Only the eyeball.”“Don’t be stupid. You’d have a devil of a time trying to maneuver an eyeball to a retinal scanner without squishing it.““All right, I’ll concede the point. You’d want the whole head.”“You are indeed on edge,” Nikki mutters, as they watch MacGyver venture ever closer to his doom. Hapless Harry has been rolled into the office next door; Victoria is in waiting, for what she’d described as a necessary post-mission interview. Murdoc had been surprisingly acquiescent. “Giving up as easily as that- what was the first mistake?”“The first mistake was having a publicly accessible security office.”“But that’s the point of the thing! To keep an eye on the public.”“So have multiple offices with multiple functions! They shouldn’t have included the key-card machine in there, at the very least.” He cuts in the audio circuit for the camera, waves her silent. “They have to be able to make them on the spot, for the general public…” She trails off. Their assassin’s reached his target. Tears the tape off, quick as he can. “Bud?” The old man coughs, rubs at his mouth. “That stung. Thought you’d never get here.”“Nice to see you too, Harry.”Funny how she'd expected something different- but no, MacGyver still has that surprisingly mellow voice, relaxed and laidback. It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for, Nikki reminds herself. “I’ve made sure Ellen’s safe- d’you think you can walk? If we hurry we should be able to make your hockey game.”“Don’t worry about that, MacGyver. You’ll be dead before they start playing the national anthem.” Victoria strolls out, with easy indifference, “Susan- no, Victoria, wasn’t it? Thought I recognised the style. So did you put this up to Phoenix, or was it the other way around?”“Let’s call it a little of both,” Victoria says. “This is going to be a test. May the best killer win.”It’s not much of a fight; they’re about the same age and both in good training, but one of them has years of experience and one...doesn’t. And he looks it, too. Nikki casts an amused glance over at Murdoc, as MacGyver stumbles backwards, barely out of range from an incoming roundhouse. “I thought you said you’d trained him.”“Imagine how much worse he was when I started. Just imagine it.”“Impossible. Any less capable, and he’d be knocking himself out with his own punch- what is that wrist-shake he keeps doing? It’s ridiculous.”Murdoc’s rapt devotion looks very nearly human. “I confess, I always found that rather endearing.”“Are you worrying?” The man’s just trying to save face now- literally, Victoria has a nasty habit of chin-kicking. Her balletic movements are increasingly elegant and refined, with nice humiliating grace, while he gasps for air and lets her kick a gun out of his hand. “Not yet,” Murdoc says. “Not while she’s still amusing herself. Afterwards- does this look like a fair fight? Isn’t this the sort of thing that you joined Phoenix to prevent, not to carry out? And he only came here to save his grandfather.”“Never switch loyalties mid-mission. It’s bad form.”“Like his,” Murdoc says, drawing his own weapon slowly enough that she can see what he’s intending. He puts his hand on the connecting doorknob. She doesn’t move to join him; but she does nod in acceptance. With great charm and style, Victoria throws herself towards MacGyver- and past him, and through a window that shatters in her wake. Judging by the length of the consequent scream, the fall is a lengthy one. “Uh,” MacGyver says, nonplussed. “Seriously. Is that the best you people can do?”Harry nods. “I’ve heard of sheer dumb luck, but that just takes the biscuit.”“I thought something like that would happen,” Murdoc says, as he enters. “A grandstand ploy too far- I’ve been guilty of the same, on occasion. Though I do at least take pains to fend off lethal consequences.”“Who’s this?” Harry asks. “You two know each other?”“You could say that,” MacGyver says. He’s got an awfully sweet way of blushing. Nikki’s starting to regret not having recruited the guy herself.
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“Bud, I appreciate this,” Harry says. “I really do. But right now, Ellen and I have a hockey game to attend.”Ellen feels a little surge of sympathy, seeing Mac look longingly at the tickets- but, well, she’s not giving hers up any more than Harry is. “That is really not fair,” Becky murmurs to him. “Though it’s always nice to see you. Maybe we can go out for Chinese or something.”“At least there’s someone in the family I can rely on,” he tells her, with affection. “Where on earth did Jack go?”“I don’t know. He said it was going to be a surprise-”“Chatting with scalpers,” Jack says, coming at them so fast he goes skidding to a halt. “Two front row seats! Half price, since the game’s about to start. Not bad, huh?”“Knew there was a reason I loved you,” MacGyver says, and kisses him with unabashed enthusiasm. Becky giggles; Ellen purses her lips, shakes her head in amusement; Harry watches in stolid silence. He breaks off suddenly. “Only two tickets? But-”“I’ve got business,” Jack says, jerking his thumb behind him. “He promised not to kill me today, so I think I’m all right. You and Becky go have a real good time and enjoy yourselves.”MacGyver looks over, at Murdoc waiting in the shadows. “You don't want me to come, or anything?”“Not today,” Murdoc calls. “A conversation, that’s all. You owe me a favour, after getting you out of the Phoenix Foundation with no questions asked.”“I coulda done that much myself,” MacGyver mutters. “Jack, I’m not going to enjoy this if I’m worrying about you.”“If you won’t take my bare word on the matter, we’ll have to escalate to blackmail,” Murdoc says. “I need to talk to him, and it might as well be now- so go off and enjoy this misbegotten sport of yours, or I’ll give your extended family all the lurid details of that time in Paris. Not the first time. The second time.”“You wouldn’t!”“I would,” Murdoc assures him. MacGyver sighs. “Only if you’re sure, Jack. Only if you’re really sure.”“I’m sure.”“Well, then...you two better be back here when the game’s over.”He spends longer than is strictly necessary watching the two of them leave, until Becky tugs him by the arm. “C’mon, Unc. Game’s starting soon, we have to find our seats.”“Probably not far from ours,” Harry says. “I have to say, when those Phoenix flunkies bait a trap, they bait it real well. Don’t think anything less would have brought Ellen and I to LA.”“Sure. They had enough sense to put you in one, didn’t they...I was gonna ask. How’d they pull it off, anyway?”“I reckon they doctored a magazine I subscribe to. A quiz about famous moments in hockey, I knew I’d got all the answers right, but you could have knocked me over with a feather when I opened the prize letter. Guess it really was too good to be true.”“Reader’s Digest,” Ellen says. “He loves reading the quotes page.”“Ellen Stuart!” Harry says, looking not a little sheepish. “I wasn’t going to tell ‘em that!”“She never was strong on people skills,” MacGyver says. “I remember her saying once, she liked small towns because it meant fewer people to deal with.”“Anderson hardly even qualifies as a town,” Ellen says. “Five hundred inhabitants, and I can go weeks at a time without having to talk to any of them. Can’t wait to get back there.”“But it’s so cold up there, isn’t it?” Becky points out. “Alaska, sheesh. I’ll take LA any day.”“No smog.” “No blizzards.”“No crime.”“No museums!”“If you two keep up like that,” MacGyver says. “Me n’ Harry might just have to go and sit by ourselves.”“What a great idea,” Becky says, grabbing the tickets and swapping them round. “Have fun, you two!”Harry blinks, as the two women vanish. “Bud, do you get the idea that they pulled a fast one on us?”“Yup. Probably so that we can get on with our conversation? There’s a lot I want to ask you.”“Not now. We’ve got a game of hockey to go see.”It’s MacGyver’s turn to look a trifle uncertain. “Yes, but- thirty years? You sure have your priorities in order?”“With Wayne Gretsky on the ice? Mmm-hmm.”“Okay. Point.”****************Murdoc’s car is about the last thing that Jack would have expected a secret agent to drive: an antiquated Chevy pick-up, painted peanut-butter brown. It looks kinda goofy. “Harry used to have a truck like this. We spent a rainy Sunday digging through Mac’s family snaps once, he seemed to really like it.”“Which is the only reason I own this monstrosity, ” Murdoc says, as they clamber inside. “I regularly sweep it for bugs. We can have a conversation in relative safety.”“Fire away,” Jack says coyly. “I considered making that literal,” Murdoc says, as he puts the key in the ignition. Doesn’t make a move to start it up, though. “Murdering you, so I could have MacGyver all to myself.”“You are talking about past tense, right? Not present?”“Past tense. I’ve done my homework with considerable thoroughness...He loves you, you love him, and your death would cause him more misery than I’m willing to put him through. Even to have him back.”“Thought about making it look like an accident?”“Assassin or no, do you seriously think I’d be insane enough to slaughter you in front of him? Ask for his hand over your cooling corpse? Of course it was going to look like an accident. Don’t doubt that I have the capacity to pull it off...but I’d have to carry that knowledge, every time he turned to me for comfort. Every time. It would turn poisonous in short order.”“You could try moving on,” Jack suggests. “Ordinary people manage somehow.”“I have been murdering people for a living since the age of fourteen,” Murdoc remarks, very casually. “He is the best thing that has ever entered my life- he’s the only good thing that I’ve ever had. I’ve spent the last several months coming to the conclusion that not only am I incapable of moving on, I don’t even wish to do so. I’ll spend the rest of my life pining for him. So be it.”Damned fucking empathy, Jack thinks. Damn it. Because Murdoc’s not looking at him, and he can’t read the man’s expression; but he knows exactly how this feels. Knows what it’s like to hurt, and hurt, and go on hurting, longing for any scrap of affection, so hungry for Mac’s love that even looking on while he’s with someone else is still a joy to be held close, on long lonely nights. “If you don’t want me dead, and you don’t want to give him up, what do you want?”“A month,” Murdoc says. Pleads, really. “Arizona was too abrupt- I want him to myself this time, heart and soul and not thinking of you at all. Memories I can console myself, afterwards- and then you can have him back for good. I know he won’t let me keep him.”“Okay. So you’ve laid out what you want. Now let’s talk about what I want.”It’s different, not having to bluff his way for a change. He holds all the cards and Murdoc knows it. “Are you the only person who knows I killed Pete Thornton?”Murdoc introduces a certain confusion into his voice. “Yes. I wasn’t going to complicate the story needlessly- as far as Phoenix knows, I killed Pete to save MacGyver’s life. It’s a closed case, except where Nikki Carpenter’s concerned, and I went to no little trouble convincing her I’d done it. Which may very well contribute to my untimely demise, one of these days- but how does MacGyver not know? Didn’t you tell him?”“He was stuck under a pile of sandbags and couldn’t see a thing, remember?” Jack says, unable to resist a chuckle before he goes sober. “See, I lucked out. I’d killed Pete in the hopes of proving myself to him. To show that if this was the path he was going down, I’d still do anything to follow him- but he’s said since, that’s not what he wants from me. He needs to go on thinking that I’m his nice sane connection back to reality, with our cosy Texas house and pancake brunch on Sundays. So that’s what he’s going to get.”Murdoc nods. “I’m hardly going to pass judgement on murder for the wrong reasons. You can trust in my silence. What else did you want?”“He needs looking after. I don’t know how he’s getting through these things alive, and it scares me stiff every time, thinking he’ll die out there. Without me.”“He’s rather more competent than you’d think. Besides, I have trained him.”“Okay, but if he had-” Jack swallows. “If he had you backing him up, or the other way around if you’d rather, there’s that much better a chance he’ll come back to me in one piece. You can do that for him, I can’t, and I would feel a lot happier about his stupid missions if there was an actual professional involved.”There’s a dawning hope in Murdoc’s voice. “You want me to become MacGyver’s partner in crime?”“I know you won’t stop at anything to make sure he gets back alive. We agree about that, at least.”“I wouldn’t be so sure about this, were I you,” Murdoc says, sly and subtle again. “Camping trips in Siberia. Escapades in Monte Carlo. Alive, yes, but how do you know he’ll always come back to you?”“He already did,” Jack points out. “But it’s way past time we trained Mac out of thinking faithfulness means only one person- because I might love him to hell and back, but I’m not built to be a one partner man. And it’ll make my nights alone in Texas a lot easier, if I can have the occasional bedwarmer without feeling like I’m doing it behind Mac’s back.” “You have MacGyver, what more do you want? What kind of shallow, unappreciative-” Jack waits, very patient, through the next several minutes of diatribes. Murdoc’s usual eloquence seems to have deserted him, but he manages a few surprising turns of phrase. “Done now? Got it all out of your system?” he asks pleasantly afterwards. “Trust me, you haven’t thought of one name I haven’t already called myself- but look, we’re talking about reality here. You’re not going to stop killing people, I’m not going to stop fucking people, so what we need to work around is how to do it and not hurt Mac in the process. If I’ve given him permission to cuddle you close in gay Paree or whatever, he can’t really object if I have a few flings on the side.”“And you have no problem with this image.”“Of course I have a problem with it. I’d rather have Mac all to myself. But with my tastes, that’s just be hypocritical. And that’s a vice I really can’t stand. Just don’t fuck him on Tuesdays, okay? Tuesdays are mine.”“There are some people,” Murdoc remarks, “who would be slobberingly appreciative of you at this point. Thanking you on bent knee for giving them another lease on life. I’m coming very near to regret that I’m not one of them.”“Thank god you aren’t. Can’t stand slobber...there’s one more thing,” Jack adds. “We need to think about how we’re gonna sell this to him. I mean, it won’t do to explain that we’ve arranged a cold-blooded compromise strictly for his benefit, you know he doesn’t think like that.”“True.”“Whereas if he thinks it’s a hot-blooded one-” Jack pulls a flask out of his coat pocket, shakes it. “Almost full. That should be enough to get convincingly drunk on, I think.”“Stuff and nonsense,” Murdoc says. “You’d never persuade him that I’d drink that voluntarily. No, if we’re playing it like this we need a dinner reservation at one of the best restaurants in LA, several bottles of champagne, and a five-star hotel to decamp to afterwards.”“That’s a way better plan than mine,” Jack says admiringly. “I’m beginning to see why he liked hanging out with you.”“I am still asking myself that question about you,” Murdoc says. Jack leans towards him. “Irresistible charm. Good sense of humour. Remarkable talent for egg juggling- not that I’m any good at it, but it’s worthy of remark.“Bosh. He’s been seduced by professionals; this man is nowhere near that class. But if that’s the only, paltry price to have his lover back…and besides, there must be something here to interest MacGyver so. He’ll put the best face he can on this, and be grateful. A sound, sensible resolution. Curiously, it's about the last sensible thought he has that night. **************“They did what?” Becky asks the next day. The phone connection isn’t the best, and her uncle seems to be having an awful lot of trouble explaining himself.“They went off and got drunk at a restaurant without me, and booked a penthouse suite together, and I missed the whole thing because Harry kept me up all night talking about his sled dogs! Becky, what is wrong with my life?”“Almost everything,” Becky says sagely. “Except all the people in it who love you.”“You’re right about that part. I wouldn’t have even minded, only...Harry’s talking about everything and anything except what I want to know. It's no end frustrating.”“Aren’t you planning to fly them to Texas, afterwards? Maybe he’ll loosen up on the ranch.”“I hope so. Sheesh, Becky, I’m sorry. I never realised how exasperating it was to be around someone who you want to have a conversation with, and he just refuses to go near the subject.”“Does that mean you’ll start telling me stuff now? About- your work?”There’s a long sigh. “If you think you’re ready, sweetheart. If you’re sure you want to hear me talking about it.”“I’m sure.”If she’s going to be in the Great Game- and she wants to be- she'll have to start somewhere.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Try it,” MacGyver says, handing him the glass. “Just try it.
Harry does. It’s perfect. Exactly the same drink that Celia used to make, all those years ago. Creamy, thick as a milkshake, with a hefty dollop of the good stuff. “This is fine eggnog, Bud. Just fine.” (His grandson’s asked to be called MacGyver, and sometimes Harry remembers to say it. Just not always.)They're alone; the other inhabitants of the Texas house have gone off somewhere, to give them some space. “I suppose I can’t put off that talk with you any longer, can I?”“C’mon, I deserve some answers.” MacGyver opens the living room curtains wide, towards the seaside view. “Thirty years, Harry?”“I had to take that job in Alaska. You know that.”“I needed you more! You have no idea how much.”“You say that,” Harry says, sipping at his drink. “Your mother and I thought it was more important that there be food on the table, and some money to put aside- who do you think paid for Allison’s college education? I was only sorry I couldn’t manage it for both of you.”“But no letters, or anything...I wired you when Mom died. You didn’t even come home for the funeral.” Harry holds the glass out for a refill. “Now, that was because she’d strictly forbidden me to.”“She- what? Why?”He’s trembling. Harry deems it wiser to go over and refill the glass himself. “First few years, it was just too damned difficult- I was working sixteen hour days, freezing my fanny off, and there wasn’t any regular post service where I was anyway. Got another job later, a little easier, but I was never much hand at writing letters. By then I figured I’d be coming home for good soon. Take over running the cafe, give you a kick up the backside and tell you to get out of Mission City already.” He takes another appreciative sniff. “This liquor must be makin’ me chatty. I promised your mother I wouldn’t tell you any of this.”“She’s dead,” MacGyver says, “and has been for a long time. I need to know what happened.”“Well, then. One day I get a letter from your mother. Craziest thing I ever read. Asking me to come home, right away, and do whatever it took to keep you tied to her apron strings. This was in ‘73, you understand.”“Oh.” He exhales a long, slow breath. “That.”“She said you’d changed. Gone dark and withdrawn, started looking down on the town. Started thinking you were better than they were.”“Maybe I did. Maybe I was right.”“Said she didn’t know what you were capable of, any more, but that if you could do a thing like that to your own kith and kin, who knows what you’d do to outsiders. Her notion was to keep you cooped up in Mission City for the rest of your life. Sort of contain the damage, stop you hurting anybody else.”“They were torturing people,” MacGyver whispers. “What was I supposed to do, ignore it?”“Now I’d have said yes,” Harry says. “I would have then, at least. After spending ten years working like a slave for your family, you get a sort of tunnel vision about anybody hurting them. I couldn’t imagine why you’d done it...but I’ll say this much in my defense, even then I didn’t agree with her plans. I wrote back, told her that right or wrong, you deserved your fair shot at life. She told me that if that was the way I felt about it, I might as well just stay in Alaska.” “She was right. She was absolutely right- oh, god, I should have listened to her. I should have kept my promise.”“What promise?”“I thought it was the drugs, when she was dying. When she made me swear to stay, I thought- no, I didn’t. I knew it was her.”“Bud. Come and have a drink.” “It’s nonalcoholic,” MacGyver says savagely. “You’re not drunk, you just thought you were. That’s the sort of deception I do all the time these days, tricking people and lying and sometimes murdering them- you see? She had my number all along, I should have stayed in Mission City. At least then I couldn’t have hurt anybody else!”Jack comes in at a run, at the raised voices. Grabs MacGyver by the arm, while the latter struggles with the patio door. “Mac, don’t! You’re not thinking straight-”“When have I ever?” he growls, and knocks Jack out with one neat punch. Doesn’t even stop to check his wrist afterwards.Numbed, Harry struggles to his feet; but he’s only just made it to the door by the time MacGyver’s in the water. Swimming out with wild, erratic strokes, uncaring whether he floats or sinks, or how much water he inhales- Somebody, that Murdoc fella, splashes into the water after him. Grabs Bud, neatly clonks him on the head in turn. Starts dragging him back up to the house. “You want any help with that?” Harry calls. “Perhaps some toweling? And a blanket or so, I shouldn’t think there’d be any serious consequences. Physical, at least,” Murdoc says briskly. “Point to Dalton, I suppose. He thought this wouldn’t end well.”“He’s on the floor in there. Unconscious.”“Then perhaps you’d be so good as to go have a look at him? I’ve work to do.”This isn’t quite the relaxing seaside trip he was promised. Damned good thing Ellen had the sense to fly straight back to Alaska. He wishes he’d done the same. ************Sunlight, warm against his cheek. The rest of him is covered with a soft chequered blanket, the one he and Jack use for picnics. There’s something he has to deal with, and he’ll remember it in a few moments but he’s clinging on to this comfort. Blanking his mind from the thing that wants to crawl inside it, the thing he’ll never be able to get away from-
oh, god.
He bolts upright, or tries; there’s a few loose twists of duck tape about him. Improvised though the bonds are, they’ll take him a little while to get through. “Hello,” Murdoc says. “Want to talk about it?”“You did this to me! If you’d never come along, if you hadn’t seduced me, I’d have stayed in Mission City and I wouldn’t have hurt anyone!”“That’s true,” he agrees, very milquetoast. “So that makes it my guilt then, doesn’t it?”“Of course not! It’s my guilt, those deaths- every last one!”“In that case, you may be wanting this,” Murdoc says, holding out a knife. One of the long throwing knives, gussied up to look like a regular kitchen implement. (Inside the house, Jack Dalton looks on; and prays that Murdoc knows what he’s doing.)“Yes. Please. Make it quick.” “In a little while. But you’ll answer a few questions first.”He holds the blade temptingly close, leans in. Like one of their lovemaking sessions, half roleplay and half training, and MacGyver remembers his task in this one very well. Spill out nonsense, babble out free associations. Try to please the interrogator, so as to stay alive as long as possible.
But I don’t want to stay alive!
“How did you rationalise the deaths, the first time? While you were with me?”“I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t care, I was so grateful to you. I- trusted you. Not to ask me to go after anyone who didn’t deserve it.”Murdoc considers the assassination he’d had lined up for that Christmas- a completely amoral affair, designed to break in MacGyver for good; and allows himself a moment of cold relief that he hadn’t utterly broken the man instead. “So you’re prepared to accept the concept of acceptable death. And that I’m capable of determining what one is.”“I- guess so, yes. But stop trying to rationalise this! That’s not what this is about!”“Hush,” Murdoc says, drawing the knife along his lover’s collarbone, ever so lightly. “Calm down.”He times the cut to the millisecond, precisely when MacGyver’s stopped expecting it; watches brown eyes flicker from emotional misery to actual physical pain. Nothing like the fear of death to make people appreciate life. “You don’t really want to die,” he says, holding the knife up so the blood splashes theatrically off it. “I’ve seen men welcome it, but you want to live. You want to grab all the life you were cheated of for so long, travelling and inventing new chemical compounds and coming back here in between for languorous rests. And as you say, you trust me to make the right decisions.”“I shouldn’t,” MacGyver says quietly. “I’m not a good person.”“Darling. If you’re going to make that your criteria for who gets to live, there’s an entire planet out there you’ll have to go slaughter first. Even I would say that’s a trifle extreme.”MacGyver makes a sound at that. The start of a laugh that’s trying very hard not to be one. From there, it’s all downhill work. ************“Strictly speaking, this was your fault,” Jack says the next day. “He wouldn’t have had anything to have an emotional breakdown about, if it wasn’t for you.”“Strictly speaking,” Murdoc says, “I have to understand it that you two wouldn’t have this rather charming house if it wasn’t for me. Or that plane out there. Besides, just think of how matters would have gone if I hadn’t been here.” Jack shudders. “Guess you have a point there. I’d never have nerved myself up to do that, even if I’d thought of it. Thank- thank you.”“It wasn’t on your account I did it.”“Not even a little bit?” Jack asks, with his most roguish smile. “No.”“If you’re gonna stick around, the answer’s going to be yes one of these days. Just sayin’.”“Hey.” MacGyver pokes his head in from the kitchen. “Grub’s up. Fried fish, still alive an hour ago.”“And how many did you catch?” Jack inquires. “I’ll have one of those.”“None, actually,” he confesses. “Guess Harry’s still got a trick or two up his sleeve that I don’t.”“It’s called patience!” Harry yells. “But I save that for the fish, so get in here already!”“I wonder what that man makes of his grandson’s rather eccentric lifestyle,” Murdoc comments. “I think,” Jack says wryly, “he’s doing his best to ignore the whole thing.”************
Dear Ellen,
can’t say I like writing letters more n’ I ever do, but it’ll be another week before I’m out of this place. Bud insists on my taking a few days to get to know my great-granddaughter; Dalton’s flying Becky in tomorrow. (I’m taking commercial back to Alaska. Nothing wrong with the plane, but I can’t say as I trust the pilot.)
Now I am looking forward to seeing her; she seems to have got all the good sense out of two generations worth of the family. Bud certainly hasn’t any; but then, you know that part. Though you were right, I should have done this years back...guess I thought he wouldn’t want to see me. Turns out it’s more the other way around; I can’t get a moment to myself, with his trying to show me his inventions, or blowing something up in his chemistry lab, or just yappin’ away and scaring off the fish. And when he’s off-duty, the other two take over. That Murdoc character sends a chill down my spine. He went right ahead and twisted my arm when I said I wasn’t sure if I’d be coming back for Christmas. Twisted it good and hard. Can’t advise you to take them up on the invitation, but you have one if you want it. And Bud does make a good eggnog.
But I will be that glad to get back to some peace and quiet….