Hi readers,

This story takes place somewhere in season 2; after Cage left, but before the finale.

I've been writing, rewriting, deleting, changing and correcting this for weeks now and was close to dumping the whole thing countless times already, but I can't get it out of my head. The story idea keeps begging me to write it and won't leave me alone! No matter how hard I tried to convince it to go and find a more skilled writer than I am, I couldn't get rid of it! Therefore, I finally gave in, just to shut it up! ;-)

I think this is about as good as it's gonna get now, so I'm finally posting it. I hope you like it.

Unlike the characters and everything else you might recognize, all mistakes are mine!

Summary:

A terrible accident – a Jeep, smashed almost beyond recognition – not the slightest trace of a certain blond agent… Eventually, the team have to face the fact that they might have lost their friend forever.

BETWEEN HOPE AND DESPAIR

Chapter 1

Location: An almost deserted and peaceful coastal road north of L.A., at the crack of dawn

MacGyver was in a very good mood. After the last few missions, the team had been granted a couple of days off from work. Jack was out of commission anyway, because he was suffering from a bad concussion and wouldn't be cleared by medical for several days, and Mac was out of rotation as well, as he usually wasn't sent on missions without Jack. Besides, he had some cuts and bruised ribs of his own to heal from. Nothing as bad as Jack's head, just a stitched up cut in his side and his ribs were bothering him. He intended to enjoy those precious days the best he could and his vacation plans didn't include any kind of physically strenuous activities, and there wasn't anything that could be done about bruised ribs anyway. Mac had decided to drive up north and visit a science fair. As long as nobody bumped into him too hard in the crowd, he'd be just fine.

Mac had felt bad about leaving his injured partner behind, but Jack had assured him countless times that he didn't need him to stay and watch him sleeping off is sore head. When Mac had argued, Jack had almost literally thrown him out of his apartment and ordered him to enjoy his free time. Finally, Mac had given in.

Riley and Bozer both wanted to catch up on sleep, too. They hadn't been in the field over the last week, but had supported Mac and Jack remotely on their mission and hadn't gotten a good night's sleep for a week either.

Mac wasn't feeling tired at all, although he knew he should. He was fully awake in this early morning hour and felt like he was buzzing with energy. The blond scientist was looking forward to the event a lot! A local polytechnic, which was heavily into Artificial Intelligence, was presenting some of their research and Mac was exited that he would, unexpectedly, get a chance to see it and to talk shop with the experts there a little. He was humming along to the radio in his Jeep, enjoying the drive along the curvy road with the spectacular view onto the Pacific Ocean. He had purposefully chosen the scenic coastal road to his destination over the faster but much more boring Interstate and was greatly rewarded: The sun was just rising, painting the Californian sky in all imaginable shades of red, orange, yellow, purple and pink. He hadn't seen another vehicle for at least ten miles. He was driving at a relaxed speed, already in full vacation mode. Every turn of the road provided him with a new and more beautiful picture than the last one and he was taking it all in as much as he could.

Naturally, he should have known that it was too perfect to last. He just wasn't destined for a vacation without any incidents or catastrophes. However, when he drove along the scenic road, he just felt at peace with himself and the universe. Nothing was going to go wrong today!

Yeah… Right!

Right in the middle of a particularly sharp double-curve, Mac suddenly heard a loud bang from the direction of his left front tire and his Jeep was violently thrown to the left. Instinctively, he gripped the steering wheel tight, desperately trying to keep the skidding car on the narrow road. He groaned loudly. So much for a few days of vacation without anything bad happening! The tires lost traction on the loose gravel that was covering the road and the Jeep slid sideways, completely out of control, towards the barrier separating the road from the roundabout 60-feet-drop into the ocean below.

His brain was doing the math without his consent. Mac knew he was going to hit the guardrail with enough force to knock it flat and there wasn't anything he could do to prevent it. He could only hold the steering wheel steady and pray that the barrier would hold. He squeezed his eyes shut, gripped the wheel with white-knuckled hands and braced himself for the impact. The driver's side of the Jeep slammed into the railing with a deafening crash. The seat belt kept Mac in his seat, but couldn't save him from hitting his head painfully at the car's side, but that was nothing compared to the screaming pain in his already abused ribcage. He felt the railing give way and no matter how much he tried not to, he couldn't help panicking. There was nothing now between him and maybe the two things he was most afraid of in his life: Dying in a fall and dying alone! He sat there, helpless, frozen in his seat, unable to move or make a sound, awaiting the inevitable…

About the densest piece of jungle this small and politically unstable country has to offer... Which country? Uuhm, I could tell you, but… Well, we both don't want that!

Jack Dalton was running as fast as his legs could carry him through this almost impassable brushwood. His exhausted and aching body was drenched in sweat and he was panting on air that was so hot and humid, it almost gave him the sensation of drowning. In hot water that is. His lungs were craving for oxygen, which they didn't seem to be able to extract from the air around him. But he couldn't stop running! He wouldn't!

The thicket was dense and slowed him down on every step. He stumbled through the tangled underwood, tripped over roots and bit back curses, whenever a root or creeper tripped him or his feet slipped in one of the countless muddy puddles. The only thing that kept him going was the possibility to take the shortcut right through the forest, in order to reach the rebel's trek and get his partner out of their grasp, before they arrived in their camp with him. Mac had been captured while they were spying on them. Their cover had been blown, they had gotten separated and Mac had been snatched, not without putting up one hell of a fight and sustaining a badly bleeding knife-wound to the side before being overpowered. Jack knew that the kid's chances of getting out of there alive would be nearing zero, as soon as he was taken to their heavily guarded headquarters. Jack was on his own; backup was more than four hours away. As Mac was already hurt badly, and this group of dissidents wasn't at all known for showing mercy to spies, the young Phoenix agent certainly didn't have that long!

Suddenly, Jack jumped at the sound of a single gunshot from the direction of the camp. Icy chills ran up and down his spine, as he crossed the last few hundred feet to the edge of the forest. When he reached the clearing where headquarters were located, he lowered himself to the ground behind some bushes and looked around. Several armed men were coming from behind of one of the barracks and entering it, rifles casually hanging over their shoulders, chatting and laughing. Jack's heart dropped. He recognized those men as part of the group that had taken Mac, who was nowhere to be seen. Was he -?

This mission was just about to officially outgrow Cairo!

The older agent surrounded the clearing, to get to the backside of the barracks, where the men had come from, dreading what he was about to find. Careful to stay in the cover of the plants around the clearing, he spotted the footprints the men's heavy boots had left behind in the muddy ground. They led him to a group of bushes and low ferns, where he crouched down to investigate.

What he saw when he pushed the plants apart made his heart turn into a big lump of ice. Something was sticking out of a low mount of dry leaves and branches and he immediately recognized it as one of Mac's boots! He felt his breath catch in his chest, as he hastily uncovered first his friend's legs and then the rest of his body. He lay face down between ferns, hands tied behind his back, unmoving. There was a lot of sticky red in the blond hair. With trembling fingers, Jack felt for a pulse in the kid's neck, but in vain! There was none!

"Nononononoooo! Come on, pal, you can't do that to me!" he hissed through gritted teeth, while he pulled his tactical knife out of his boot and cut through the zip-tie binding Mac's wrists in one swift motion. He quickly turned him over onto his back in order to perform CPR. However, when he saw the small hole right between his partner's half-closed eyes, he let out a strangled cry and just slumped onto the ground by his side, where the cry turned into heart-wrenching sobs. "God, NO!" he hiccupped, his trembling fingers gently brushing blond hair strands out of the kid's white face. "I'm so sorry, brother!"

He had failed to watch his young partner's back and as a result, Angus MacGyver was now dead! He'd been executed without mercy, and without the slightest chance of pulling one of his ingenious tricks, and then dumped in the woods like a sack of garbage and carelessly covered by some plants. His best friend was gone because of his failure and Jack honestly didn't give a damn what happened to himself now. It didn't matter anymore. He knew his boy was beyond help, but he wouldn't leave him alone! Never again!

The only thing the broken man could think of was to take as many of those assholes with him, when they found and killed him, too. He dragged himself to a seated position; legs folded under him, and cradled Mac's head in his lap. His right hand gripped his gun tightly as he sat there, unable, and not even trying, to stop the sobs that were wracking his body, or the tears that were streaming down his cheeks. Nevertheless, he was watching his surroundings closely. He couldn't stand looking at his friend's dead body any longer.

When they came, a minute later or a week, who knew or even cared, his gun-hand was quite steady, every round taking out an opponent with, literally, deadly precision. His years' worth of hard training had taken over, but he was hopelessly out-gunned and all too soon he was stopped by several bullets ripping through his chest. Jack felt like a car hit him, when he was thrown backwards, his gun falling from his limp hand. See you on the other side, buddy! That was his last conscious thought, before his vision clouded, his ears rushed and he hole-heartedly welcomed the all-consuming darkness that swept him away…

Jack awoke with his face pressed into a very wet pillow.

Location: Back at the coastal road, not quite as peaceful anymore

When, after an eternity, the Jeep came to a halt, Mac sat frozen for almost a full minute, not daring to move a muscle or even breathe deeply. He carefully cracked open an eye squinted through the windows. He immediately regretted it, because a downward glance told him, that the force of the crash must have flattened the barrier and his side of the car was apparently hanging over the abyss…

He finally allowed himself a small sigh of relief, when the vehicle didn't tilt and didn't tumble down the cliff with him in it. He slowly loosened his white-knuckled grip on the wheel, unbuckled his seatbelt and, ever so slowly, shifted his weight towards the passenger's side, away from the deadly drop to his left. As much as he craved to get out of the car rather sooner than later, he avoided any sudden moves. Climbing over to the passenger's side inch by inch sent waves of pain through his body, when every single bruise made itself known. His muscles didn't agree with the strain at all. Under some groaning and swearing, MacGyver made it to the passenger's seat and through the door onto the wonderfully solid ground of the road. He stumbled a couple of steps away from his car and took a moment to catch his breath and to process the fact that he was still alive. God, I hate heights!

He definitely wasn't meant for vacationing!

He looked at his beloved Jeep sadly. It was half hanging over the cliff, and by the looks of it, the bent-down guardrail was the only thing that prevented it from falling. Mac was certain that he would be able to fix the damages, but here and now, the vehicle wasn't going anywhere under its own steam. He would definitely need the help of a tow-truck or something to recover it safely. While his mind was working on a way to get to his phone (which was stored in the pouch of the driver's door), without jostling the car, he heard another car approach from the same direction he had come from.

He barely had time to turn around, when the car was already there. Mac had to watch helplessly, as the van misjudged the curve and the skidding rear-end touched his Jeep, tipping it easily over the edge. He screamed in horror, frustration and pain, when he suddenly had to throw himself out of the way and landed on his injured side. The air was knocked out of him. He was lying on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, just trying to breathe through the pain and the shock of the narrow miss, which took a while, as every breath itself was agony on his ribs. He heard someone's footsteps approaching him and tried to pull himself together.

"I'm okay" he mumbled between pained pants, "Just give me a minute..."

MacGyver had expected a lot of things to happen in this situation. Preferably, someone would make sure he was okay and maybe let him borrow their cell phone and let him call for help. Someone panicking, not knowing what to do, wouldn't be out of the ordinary as well, even someone fleeing the scene. What he absolutely didn't expect at all, was...

"Get up!" a commanding male voice ordered.

What now?

He groaned, forcing his eyes open... And looked up the barrel of a gun!

Great! Just great!

"What - Who're - What's goin' on?" he stammered, caught totally off-guard. Instead of an answer, the gun was being cocked.

"Get up! I'm not asking again!" threatened the voice. The gun was steadily pointing at his head. Mac swallowed hard and complied, shooting a death-glare at the man. What choice did he have? Keeping both hands in sight of the masked man, he scrambled to his feet, wincing in pain, his mind swirling. Vacation... To hell!

"In the car!"

Hands raised to chest-level, he walked over to the open side door of the dirty-white van. Just as he had reluctantly climbed into it and was about to turn around to face his attacker, arms like steel cramps grabbed him from behind. One hand was under his chin, forcing his head up, the other one pressed a damp cloth over his nose and mouth. Mac instantly recognized the smell of chloroform and instinctively held his breath. He struggled against the hold more and more weakly, acting as if he was slowly losing consciousness. However, he couldn't entirely avoid breathing in some of the vapor. Blackness was wavering around the edges of his vision, when he let himself limply fall onto the van's floor, hitting it harder than he'd planned. His attacker didn't bother catching him to spare him the hard impact. Despite his attempts not to breathe in the sickly-sweet smelling stuff, he must have passed out for a minute or two. When he felt the van starting to move and opened his eyes again, he was tightly bound at his wrists, knees and ankles, gagged with a strip of duct tape over his mouth and had some dark fabric over his head, effectively blinding him. Someone was well prepared for his abduction and his mind was going haywire trying to figure out who it might be. He was halfway certain that he'd never heard the masked man's voice before, so that didn't give him any clue. Instead, he tried to keep track of where they were going, but had to give up on that, too, after about 10 minutes. All he could to now was wait.

Not exactly what I had in mind for my vacation…

Location: Not quite sure where yet

Jack slowly became aware of his pounding head. That was a headache straight from hell! Someone was working on his skull with a pick-ax - or a sledgehammer, more like. Damn, and he had been so sure that all pain would be gone when he was dead. With a loud groan, he pried his eyes open and saw... nothing. Wherever he was, it was pitch-black there. Or his eyes weren't working, he couldn't figure out which, with his head in this state. His eyes closed again and he tried to let his other senses explore the place instead.

His ears seemed to be working fine, if you didn't count the faint but obnoxious beeping in the background, but he couldn't pick up anything in particular. It was mostly quiet, with an occasional car passing by in the distance. If he thought about it... it sounded exactly like his own bedroom at nighttime. But that certainly couldn't be and the throbbing in his head kept him from following this line of thought any further. Instead, he concentrated on the surface he was lying on. It was smooth, soft, a little damp and felt very familiar. Warm. And safe. Like... home? But... Another thought occurred to him in the middle of pondering on that.

"M'c?" he croaked hoarsely, almost certain that his young friend would be there as well. But there was no reply and he felt no other presence in the room. He just called it a "room" by the lack of a more accurate term. Anyway, wherever he was, Mac seemed to have gone somewhere else. He sighed inwardly.

A fresh wave of pain assaulted his head and he forced himself to breathe slowly and deliberately through his mouth to manage it. Every heartbeat was pure torture in his skull and it took a while, but eventually, the pain subsided. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then it hit him! Hey, wait a minute! Breathing...? … Heartbeats? Pain? What the –? I'm dead, for heaven's sake!

The last wave of pain had left his head a fair bit clearer, his thoughts now trickling a little faster through his aching brain. He wasn't a 100 % sure of anything yet, but he was sufficiently certain by now, that breathing and a heartbeat were usually considered signs of life. Dead guys didn't have either, right? And they certainly weren't supposed to feel pain, were they? So, maybe, he wasn't dead after all?

One by one, he decided on a couple of facts, which were a) he wasn't dead, and b) the flat, soft and familiar surface beneath him must indeed be his own bed. That led to c) that last mission gone sideways like that was nothing but one hell of a nightmare! And the most important fact was d) MacGyver was alive, too! Jack almost cried again, this time in relief!

Jack remembered everything now: Bits and pieces of his dream were real. They had indeed infiltrated that group of rebels in the jungle, Mac had been injured with a knife and taken prisoner, but the cut was shallow and he had successfully pulled another one of his miraculous escapes. They had gathered valuable intel on a planned assassination of several high-ranked government members, and the back-up hadn't been hours away, but had just been waiting out of sight for their signal to take the whole group in.

Although he had sorted that out by now, the nightmare still bothered him. He was no stranger to such dreams, especially after demanding missions with narrow escapes, but this one had been exceptionally disturbing. It had felt so real! He still couldn't quite cope with the fact that he had truly believed that he and Mac had died.

But they hadn't. Mac's cut had required a couple of stitches and would soon become a nice addition to his already quite impressive collection of scars, but it was expected to heal just fine. The same went for his bruised ribs. They'd be making any physical activity quite painful for a while, though.

Jack had gotten himself a severe concussion. He couldn't remember what he'd been hit with, but he insisted that it was at least the size and weight of your average cruise ship. Well, deep down he knew that was stretching the truth a little bit, but as long as his head felt the way it did, he was gonna snap at everybody who tried to play it down.

Speaking of his head... it was still killing him! Besides that, other aftereffects of the blow to his head made themselves known now. His mouth felt, as if a small furry animal had died in there, three days ago. The same could be said about his stomach, except there was something wriggly in there, too, which seemed to be very alive. Cold sweat was covering his body and the bed-sheets were all twisted up, due to his turning and tossing. He checked the clock: It showed 6:31. He groaned in disgust and rolled out of bed to shuffle over to the bathroom. Jack barely made it to the toilet, before he had to give in to the irresistible urge to empty his stomach. He rinsed his mouth and splashed cold water on his face and neck. When the rinsing wasn't enough to get the disgusting taste out of his mouth, he also brushed his teeth very thoroughly. He looked in the mirror and took a step back, startled by the worn and bruised face that stared back at him. Who're you and what're you doin' in my bathroom? Looking at his face in the mirror made him question the entire "being alive"-thing again...

Concussions really sucked! And this one was enough to knock three grown men off their feet, at least!

The short trip to the facilities had left him exhausted and shaky. He felt exactly as bad as he looked! He dragged himself back into bed and was asleep within the minute, only to be woken by his doorbell an hour later.

Location: Right in front of Jack's apartment

Matty Webber climbed the stairs with a heart full of dread and sorrow. She really hated what she was about to do, but she had to. She hadn't even taken the time to truly process for herself what she'd just been told and found out herself. She couldn't afford such thoughts now. She was the one who had to keep it together, stay focused and keep a cool head under all circumstances. She always had to be the calm center of the hurricane, when hell broke loose around her. No matter how hard it was, she had to distance herself from her feelings, stay in control and always see the bigger picture, when the shit hit the fan. And she was good at that! It was one of her many skills that made her such a brilliant director.

Considering the shape her injured agent was currently in, she would have preferred to spare him the bad news until he was feeling better, but that wasn't an option, of course. He had to know! By no means could they keep that from Jack for a day or even more! She almost wished she'd insisted that he stayed in medical the day before, though she assumed that the opportunity to maybe sedate him a little would be way too tempting… Anything to postpone the moment when the full impact of what had happened crashed down on him. However, she couldn't do that. It would only make it worse for Jack in the long run, if that was even possible…

The Director of Operations of Phoenix sighed heavily, then squared her small shoulders and reached up to Jack's doorbell, to wake the poor man from his desperately needed rest.

To be continued...

You made it through the first chapter. Congratulations! ;) Are you in for the ride?

Chapter 2 is mostly written and I have a more or less vague idea where I want to go with this story. I hope it'll work out. If everything goes well, I will have the next chapter ready for posting soon, if you want it…

Please tell me what you think and if I should better stick to my other hobbies. ;-)

One more remark: As you might have noticed, I'm shamelessly inventing locations. I had pictures of the Highway 1 in my head, when I wrote about the coastal road, and adjusted it to the needs of my story. It would be very kind of you if you let me get away with it, for the sake of my story… ;) I'm going to take more liberties with Californian settings in further chapters. I hope you don't mind. After all, I am located roughly an 11-hour-flight away and my short visit to the area was nearly 25 years ago… Yeah, that's right! I am that old! ;-)

Thanks in advance for your understanding!