Chapter Text
Chapter 1
MacGyver parked his Jeep in the driveway in front of his family home and slipped out of the front seat as he flung the door open, pocketing his keys into his Jeans. He realized he’d almost forgotten something–and quickly leaned back into the vehicle to grab the little gift he’d gotten for Betty that had been resting on the passenger seat. He just couldn’t forget that.
When he walked up to the front door and stepped inside, he found Betty sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV–and he froze, taken aback by her appearance as he took the sight of her in, unblinking.
She immediately glanced up at him when she heard him enter–and she saw the way he was staring at her. Blushing slightly and looking a little self-conscious, she picked up the remote control and shut off the television, then stood to greet her husband. “Well, I don’t look that bad, do I? I mean, I know the chemotherapy has made me pale but I don’t think I look like a vampire or anything.”
“No–you look fine,” Mac reassured her as he recovered from his surprise, forcing a smile that quickly warmed into a genuine one. “I’m just not used to seeing you as a red-head.”
Betty chuckled a little as she twirled the ends of a few long strands around her fingers. “Since I don’t have any hair at all right now, I just thought I’d try a different color. You knew I was gonna go wig-shopping today.”
“Yeah, but…” Mac hesitated, fumbling a little over his words.
As if reading his mind, Betty finished his unspoken thought for him. “You’re used to seeing me as a blonde.”
“I like you and your natural hair-color,” he admitted, even as he came over and gave her a tender peck on the cheek. “But we know it’ll grow back eventually–and in the meantime,” he gently brushed some of her bangs out of her eyes, “I’ll still take you with any hair color.”
“Does that mean you wouldn’t like me if I stayed bald?”
“I’d still like you if you were bald,” he confirmed as he cupped her face with his hands.
Betty eyed him carefully, giving him that look when she felt playful and she was pretending to be offended when she really wasn’t. “Oh come on, you sound like you’re trying to handle this question in the same way most men handle the ‘does my butt look big’ question.”
Mac sighed, only half-feigning his exasperation. “And what is it that you women want, exactly,” he asked mildly, “when you don’t want the truth but don’t want to be lied to, either? Besides,” he stared deeply into her eyes, completely serious now, “you know that I love you, not your hair.”
“Plus you know that you’ll have both me and my hair again, eventually, if that is part of the package deal you like about me.”
“Well… would it make you feel better if I decided to shave my head?” Mac grimaced, hoping she wouldn’t try to take him up on that.
Betty laughed. “No… if you took it all off, what would I have left when I want to do this?” She reached up and began running her fingers through his hair. “Though it certainly wouldn’t hurt you any if you decided to get a little trim or something,” she amended, tugging gently on some of the long hair in the back. “You let this grow out any more and you’ll rival how I like to keep my hair once it grows back!”
“Can we stop talking about hair now, please?” Mac asked as he gently took her hands–and subtly placed the little gift he’d bought for her in one of them.
She gasped softly when she saw the pretty, sparkling pendant in her palm. “Oh, you shouldn’t have–that looks like a real crystal!”
“Well, I figured you already had your fill of flowers from absolutely everyone during your recent hospital stay,” Mac pointed out. “I wanted to give you something different–and nicer–as a welcome home present.”
“Assuming I don’t just end up in the hospital again,” Betty sighed, even as she lifted her wig-hair to let Mac put the necklace around her neck and fasten it. “You know I’m not out of the woods yet–but thank you so much, this is wonderful.” She gave him a peck on the lips.
“You’re going to get better,” Mac told her as he slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. “You heard the doctor today–he was more optimistic than before, and they said with a couple more chemo treatments–”
“Then why is it that I’ve been hospitalized the last couple of times I’ve gone back for chemo treatments?” Betty wondered aloud, discouraged. “It’s like they can’t make up their minds if I’m making improvements or not.”
“It didn’t help that they got some of their patient data records mixed up–a charge nurse who’d been working a triple shift got some of the details and paperwork of two other cancer patients input wrong,” Mac reminded her. “I think part of it is that they’re still trying to get their facts straightened out and, since your primary doctor came down with the flu after he initially examined you–”
“I know, someone else has been having to examine me and they’re still trying to figure out what’s what,” Betty sighed. “But at least they keep discharging me and letting me come home. So, like you said, it can’t be that bad.”
Mac caressed her cheek with his fingers, taking in the sight of her with the pretty new necklace on her neck–she still was as pretty as a portrait in his mind. Then he pulled her closer and held her against him as she rested her head against his shoulder. “We’re gonna get through this,” he promised softly into her ear.
“I know,” she whispered back.
After a few moments, after the two of them had moved to sit next to each other on the couch, Betty finally asked the question that she knew she needed to ask, but she had been avoiding. “Have you heard anything from Michelle?”
“No.” Somehow, there were a lot of things packed into that one monosyllable. Perplexion, a bit upset, and particularly… hurt and disappointment.
“She did come see me three days ago when I had to stay in the hospital overnight.”
“She did?” MacGyver looked at her, surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
“It was when you had to leave for a little while when you got that message from Jack–you know, when he got stranded somewhere because of that flat tire and managed to get ahold of you through a payphone he hiked to or something.”
“Yeah,” Mac replied a bit ruefully, “and he also asked me to bring him a pair of shoes because he managed to ruin his by walking through a stinky swamp.” He forced his thoughts away from that, returning to the matter at hand–more importantly, Michelle. “So… how did it go? What happened?”
Betty sighed. “I don’t know. She sat beside me for about half an hour I think, but she just seemed… distant somehow, like she wasn’t all there.”
“Did she seem okay?”
“Oh I wasn’t trying to suggest she was under the influence or anything like that,” Betty reassured him. “But it was the same as the last few times I’ve seen her… when I have seen her on occasion. She just had this strange look in her eye whenever she looked at me, and she even asked me a question I thought was… strange.”
“What was the question?”
Betty bit her lower lip briefly, clearly a bit troubled by it. “She asked me if… you and I really love each other.”
Mac said nothing for a long moment, unsure what to make of it himself. In fact, he was rather taken aback by it. What in the world could have possibly brought that on? As far as he was aware–even before he and Betty got married–they had done nothing but protect Michelle and do their best to be there for her… and during her primary growing up years, Mac had even made it a point to take time off from Phoenix to attend every birthday party, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter that he could spend with his family, along with some other days. If anything, Pete was particularly understanding, considering how much regret he still had over how he’d never been there for his own son Michael that much while he was growing up.
It had only been within the last three years or so that Mac had, occasionally, picked up the slack once again at Phoenix and started being away on missions more often again–but part of that was because Michelle had been getting older and seemed to want some space as well, her world had become more about her friends and pursuing what she wanted to do with her life, and Betty had even gotten a part time job as an assistant cook at a nursing home.
Besides, Betty and Mac had agreed in private that they could afford to ‘back off’ for the most part in certain areas–within reason–since it wasn’t like they had to worry about Quinn anymore.
Of course… ever since Betty had been diagnosed with cancer about a month ago, she’d chosen to let the job go and not work anymore until her health was better. MacGyver had also taken time off from Phoenix for now, which… just made both of them more aware at how strangely distant their own daughter had become, for some reason, in recent weeks.
“It’s that new guy she’s dating,” Betty sighed, breaking the silence that had fallen between them at last.
“How do you know? We haven’t even met the guy,” MacGyver pointed out.
“Call it a mother’s intuition,” Betty sighed. “It just seems like our daughter has changed somehow ever since she started dating him.”
“We always knew that Michelle would change as she got older,” Mac said. Frankly, the first time Michelle had told him that she didn’t want him or Betty to go with her the movies anymore ever since she turned fourteen did hurt initially, but… both of them understood that she was just going to the mall with friends after school at that time, or sometimes going out with a boy. Teenagers needed their space and didn’t need parents to cramp their style–and over the years, even as MIchelle turned fifteen… then sixteen… and then seventeen… she seldom did anything to violate her parents’ trust or the terms of her curfew.
Now that she was eighteen–and had more or less demanded it, especially since she had graduated highschool and was working on figuring out where she wanted to go to college–they had allowed her to move into her own small apartment near the Phoenix Foundation’s primary headquarters, particularly since she had landed a parttime job as Pete Thorton’s assistant secretary.
But Mac did have to admit that he had a gnawing feeling deep in his gut like… Michelle had been different somehow in recent weeks. Both he and Betty had attended her highschool graduation ceremony along with all the other parents of the students at her school… yet she had behaved aloof afterward and barely spoke to either of them when they tried to approach her… she had brushed them off when they tried to tell her how proud of her they were, when they tried to congratulate her.
Even when they managed to get word to Michelle through Pete at the Phoenix Foundation about Betty’s cancer diagnosis, it had been a little while before Michelle even deigned to come visit her own mother at the hospital.
Why all of the distance and aloofness all of a sudden? And why in the world would Michelle start asking questions about whether or not her own parents truly loved each other? What was going on, and… did this have something to do with this mysterious man she was currently dating?
The part of MacGyver’s brain that loved puzzles was already starting to work on overdrive on this one… although this was hardly a ‘fun’ puzzle. There weren’t many pieces to even begin to try and… piece together yet, and the more he tried to think about it, the more the potential implications left him concerned.
Who is the man? Is he doing something to our daughter?
Even though MacGyver had… more or less given his word that he would give his daughter whatever space she wanted and needed as a young adult lady now, it seemed like this might be one of those times for him to start… at least subtly ‘snooping’ into her affairs just a tad.
Besides… in a way, she was always going to be his baby girl. His protective instincts would always kick in if he felt she might be in some kind of trouble… or if something bad might be going on.