I'm back! I lost touch with my MacGyver side for a minute, but hopefully I'm back in sync now XD Just as a warning, it's probably gonna be a little rough.

Let me know what you guys think!

I don't own the characters.

Mac's phone rang, interrupting the blond's workout. He paused and looked down at the screen, sighing when he saw Jack's contact picture show up. He wondered what Jack's argument to get him back to the Phoenix would be today. He took out his earphones, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and after letting it ring a few more times, he finally accepted the call.

"Hey Jack."

"Hey, Mac, got a quick question for ya."

Jack's voice was slightly higher-pitched, a tone Mac had come to associate with his partner being stressed, or trying to prove that everything was alright when everything was in fact not alright.

"What's going on, Jack?"

"Hypothetically, if I were trying to create a reachy-stick thing with something on the end to snip the wires of a bomb, how would I stop my hand from shaking in order to cut the right wire? Also, how would I find out what wire I'd need to cut?"

Mac's eyes just about bugged out of his head as he listened to his partner describe the scenario. "Jack, there's no way that would work, even if I could help you figure out which wire to cut!" He thought things over for a split second, but quickly made up his mind. "Where are you? I'm coming."

"Nah Mac, it's fine, you don't gotta do that," Jack insisted. Mac rolled his eyes.

"Just tell me where you're at."

Jack rattled off an address, and MacGyver was in his jeep taking off moments later.

0-0-0

Mac pulled up to the address Jack had given him. From the outside of the unit, it didn't look all that threatening, but Mac knew that with bombs, looks were almost always misleading. He crept up carefully and, after examining the door to make sure there were no trip wires, he carefully lifted the door up.

The scene inside was not what he was expecting. Jack was sitting on a box just staring at him. There was no one else around, and Mac walked inside slowly.

"...What's going on?" he asked, though he had a pretty good idea he knew exactly what was going on. He gave his friend a deadpan stare. "There's no bomb, is there?"

Jack held up his hands. "To be fair, I did say it was hypothetical."

The blond glared at Jack. "What was so important you had to trick me into coming here?"

"Mac, I know finding out about your dad was hard, but you're staying up all hours of the night, you're not getting any sleep, and while you did do that before, it's reached a whole new level of unhealthy," the older man stated. Mac sighed.

"Bozer told you?"

"He's worried about you, man," Jack said. "We all are. I know how you can get when you put your mind to something, but now, it's like your mind's trying to focus on anything except your dad, only your dad is all you can think about. I just wanted to talk."

Mac opened his mouth to respond, but his phone began ringing. The blond seriously thought about discontinuing his phone service with how much it had been ringing recently. He looked down and saw the same unknown number that had been calling him for six days and declined the call, not even bothering to let it ring anymore. He knew it was Oversight, and there was nothing that Mac wanted to say to that man at the moment. Nothing that wouldn't end with a physical alteration, anyway.

"You were saying?" Mac asked as he slipped the phone back into his pocket, folding his arms as he waited for Jack to speak.

"Look man, I can't even imagine what you're going through right now. I can't. But you can't shut yourself away from the rest of the world. Your friends still need you."

MacGyver was about to respond, but once again was interrupted as the sound of a car driving over the gravel by the storage units. Mac and Jack both looked over and saw a car that they immediately recognized as Oversight's. Mac looked back at Jack, who held up his hands.

"I swear, I didn't have anything to do with this," Jack promised. Mac's eyes narrowed as he turned back to face his father as the man stepped out of the car.

"Angus, we need to talk," James said as he walked inside the storage unit.

"I don't think there's much else needed to say," Mac countered.

"You can't just quit, Angus. The world needs you."

"You know," Mac said, pretending to look like he was in deep thought. "Take those two sentences and apply them to your situation. Doesn't really feel good when someone you depended on up and leaves, does it?"

"Is that what this is about?" James asked in frustration. "You're trying to get me to see how it feels? Isn't that a little childish?"

"That's not the reason I'm doing this," Mac argued. "I don't trust you, and I have to trust the people I work with. It's as simple as that."

"Angus, I-"

"Stop calling me that," Mac said, doing his best not to snap. "No one calls me that, especially not you."

"What else am I supposed to call you?" James asked, folding his arms. "That's your name, isn't it? You don't expect me to start calling you 'Mac,' do you?"

"How about you just stop calling me?" MacGyver suggested. "You've done a great job of that for the past fifteen years, why stop now?"

"Because now you know the truth, Angus," James insisted, ignoring the glare from his son for calling him by his first name. MacGyver ground his teeth together, and Jack decided to step in.

"Sir, it might be best if you leave," he suggested.

"Agent Dalton," James said as Jack stepped forward. "Stand down. This has nothing to do with you."

"'Fraid you're wrong, sir. Mac's problems are my problems."

"That's an order, Agent."

"Not anymore, sir," Jack replied. "Effective immediately, I'm resigning from the Phoenix Foundation."

Mac's and James' eyes both widened, and Mac turned to his friend. "Jack, what are you doing?"

"I … I thought it was pretty obvious, wasn't it?" Jack asked, looking at the two of them. Mac rolled his eyes and reached out, grabbing Jack's shirt. Without another word to James, Mac pulled his friend to the back of the storage unit and lowered his voice as he stared at his partner incredulously.

"You can't quit," he insisted.

"Why not? That's exactly what you did," Jack reminded him. Mac rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"Jack," he began slowly. "I made my decision. You love the Phoenix-"

"You loved it too!"

"Maybe, but I can't work under him," Mac shot back, pointing at James, who was still standing in the entrance of the storage unit.

"And I can't work without you," Jack stated simply, crossing his arms. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. You don't get to do anything stupid without me, and that includes quitting your job."

"What happened? You've been working just fine without me."

"We can't do it without you man," Jack said.

Mac stopped him, holding up his hand. "Don't tell me that you failed missions without me. I know you're all perfectly capable of handling things on your own."

"You're right, we can," Jack agreed. "But things aren't the same anymore, dude."

"You guys can learn to work without me."

"Maybe, but that doesn't mean we want to."

A word in there caught Mac's attention. "We?" he clarified. "Who's we? What about Bozer and Riley?" Mac asked. "Don't tell me they're quitting too?"

"For the moment, not yet," Jack assured him. "Though I'm not sure how much longer they'll stay."

"Jack, you weren't just my protection, you're theirs as well!" Mac reminded his friend. "You can't leave them high and dry just because you want to keep a promise with me."

Jack was about to reply, but there was a shout, and Mac and Jack whirled around and saw men running towards the storage unit. James had already pulled out his weapon and was firing at their attackers from behind the wall.

Mac and Jack hurried to the side of the structure as well. The blond was looking around for things he could use to help them, but before he could actually build anything, the men reached them, and the agents were forced into hand-to-hand combat. Mac thought the man closest to him looked familiar, but before he could figure out from where, something was whipped out from behind the man's back and sprayed into Mac's eyes. The blond heard Jack shout and throw himself into the fray.

The stinging, burning pain let Mac know that he'd just been maced, and his hands immediately flew up to his eyes and covered them. He tried to resist the urge to rub, but that wasn't really his top priority at the moment. As he let out a cry of surprise and pain, the same man smashed into the blond, bowling him over backwards and smashing him into the storage unit wall.

Mac's face was sweaty, and his nose started to run as his body tried to fight against the stinging pepper spray. He tried to get back into the fight, but the mace was making it rather difficult for him to concentrate, and soon one of the men had him in a chokehold.

Mac bucked and kicked as he felt himself being dragged across the unit towards the exit, towards the vehicles. Jerking his elbow back did minimal damage to the man holding him, and Mac wondered how the small mountain of a man had even fit into the storage unit in the first place. His eyes were still burning, but he tried to open them anyway to see if he could grab anything to help him. When his eyes finally agreed to open, they were watery and teary, and it was hard to make out anything detailed, but he did see Jack fighting his own three thugs.

Knowing that he didn't have much more choice if he wanted to get away, Mac let go of the arm crushing his trachea and reached his hand up, trying to claw his attacker's face. His hands found one of the man's ears, and he started yanking on it.

With a shout of pain, the man indeed released Mac, but before the blond could move away and find something to counter attack with, two large hands grabbed either side of his neck and began applying pressure.

Immediately, Mac felt lightheaded, and started seeing black dots dancing in front of his vision. Dimly, instinctively, he realized that his external carotid arteries were being targeted. He tried to pry the man's fingers off again, but soon the black dots expanded and covered the rest of his vision, and he dropped to his knees. He thought he heard Jack yelling his name, but the blond couldn't do anything as he was finally forced into unconsciousness.

Okay, thoughts? This won't be a super long story I don't think, but I did want to start posting this finally. Let me know what you think!