[MacsChick]

Mac finally gets the help he needs, but is it too late?

Jungle Paradise Part Six
Rated: PG
Through the haze of MacGyver’s mind, he saw a blurry shape standing over him, speaking to him in some garbled nonsense he couldn’t understand. He tried to communicate, but something covered his mouth. Weakly, he tried to remove it, but the blurry shape grabbed his hand and pushed it away, speaking in more gibberish. Gradually, the undefined form began to resemble a person, but it was no one he had ever seen before. He was still talking, but now no sounds came out—only his lips moved, silently. MacGyver struggled to understand, but he couldn’t, feeling like he was floating, numb and disconnected from his body. Unable to remain awake or aware, his eyes slid closed and he disappeared into oblivion, complete blackness swallowing him.

“He was awake just now! Did you see that?” Jack asked, shouting over the loudness of the helicopter’s blades as they rotated.

Chris had radioed for an emergency medical helicopter to pick them up and fly them to the nearest hospital, informing them that they had a critical patient. MacGyver was on a stretcher now, an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth, his condition growing more serious by the minute.

“Yes, but did you also notice how dull his eyes were? How he didn’t understand me or recognize anything? He still has a high fever, Mr. Dalton. God knows how damaged his organs are. We have to get him to the hospital fast, or he may never recover.”

Jack gripped MacGyver’s arm tightly during the entire flight, hoping he would live. Even though the heat of his skin was almost unbearable, he wouldn’t let go. He watched him, looking for any other signs of movement, but MacGyver’s body was completely inert and unresponsive. Only the appearance of fog around the oxygen mask indicated he was still breathing, although his breaths were shallow, his chest barely rising and falling. More tears escaped Jack’s eyes as he held him, stroking his arm.

“Please don’t die, Mac,” he said. “Who else am I going to convince to bail me out of all the trouble I get into, huh?” He laughed slightly through his sobs.

The helicopter made its descent, and the rush or activity swirling around it caught Jack up in a whirlwind of confusion as doctors and nurses shouted over the engine of the helicopter and quickly grabbed MacGyver’s stretcher. They asked Jack questions, some of which he couldn’t hear and some he didn’t have any answer to. While he looked around frantically, caught up in the frenetic pace of the emergency, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning to look, he saw Chris Dunn, a sympathetic expression on his face.

“Unfortunately, I have to get back to the village,” he said. “Please let me know as soon as you can how MacGyver is doing. You can contact me through Pete Thornton. He knows all the proper communication channels.”

“Thank you,” Jack said.

Chris nodded. “At least now he has a chance,” he said, looking at the pale body on the stretcher. “Don’t give up on him. He needs you.”

“I won’t,” Jack said, managing a small smile through his tears and anguish. “You can count on that.”

The two men shook hands again, and Jack stepped back as Chris closed the door to the helicopter as it powered up again, its blades spinning at an increasingly rapid rate until it began to lift off the helipad on the hospital roof, kicking up dust in a gust of air. Jack watched it momentarily as it continued to lift into the air, growing smaller as it reached the sky, holding up his arm to protect his face from the fine, sharp particles of dust blown by the blades and propulsion of the craft. He knew he would forever be grateful to that man for what he did, saving MacGyver’s life when it almost seemed he was out of options. He didn’t stay long, noticing that the doctors and nurses were hurrying inside, running with MacGyver’s stretcher. He ran after them, finding it difficult to keep their pace but he was determined not to lose them, keeping MacGyver’s stretcher in his sight, focusing on it as his motivation not to lose them. He followed them, pushing himself to go as fast as possible, never pumping his legs so hard before in his life, gulping for air and feeling as if his heart was about to explode. Still, he ignored his own physical discomfort, telling himself that he had to keep up with them no matter what, even if he collapsed in a heart attack. He managed to catch up with them just as they burst through two swinging double doors that led down a long, winding corridor towards the ICU. That was when one of the nurses stopped him.

“Sir, we have to attend to your friend before you can visit him,” she said, placing a firm hand on Jack’s palpitating, sweating chest.

“But…but…” Jack gasped, barely able to speak he was panting so heavily from his exertion.

“We’ll let you know when you can see him,” the nurse said. “Now please…wait outside.”

She turned and ran after the others before Jack could muster enough lung power to protest again, leaving him standing there, feeling helpless, locked out of his friend’s crisis for the first time and condemned to the uncertainty and anxiety of the dreaded hospital waiting room.

***

Pete Thornton was furious with Jack Dalton, but he tried not to let it show as he entered the hospital and inquired about MacGyver’s current situation at the nurse’s station. When he heard about what had happened from a communication from one of his other field men, Chris Dunn, he didn’t hesitate to take the fastest mode of transportation to the hospital. He saw Jack sitting in the waiting room, staring blankly, his face looking worn from exhaustion, shock, and sadness. His pitiable appearance softened Pete’s attitude toward him slightly, but he was still angry with him as he approached him.

“Pete,” Jack said, looking up at him, his eyes red-rimmed with tiredness.

“Jack,” Pete said, clearing his throat and sitting down beside him, his mouth a tight line.

The two hardly acknowledged each other beyond their forced greeting, each of them staring ahead, working their minds with their own private, separate thoughts. Although he never showed it, Jack Dalton had always been a little intimidated by Pete’s gruff manner. He seemed like a stern, disapproving patriarch, treating Jack and MacGyver as if they were his children. MacGyver was his favorite son, while he was the disobedient, wayward son, the black sheep Pete preferred not to deal with if he could avoid it. Now, they were brought together by a tragedy, and neither of them knew what to say to each other. A long, awkward silence filled the waiting room for what seemed like hours before either of them spoke again.

“I thought MacGyver told me he was just going over to your hangar to fix your plane,” Pete said, looking at Jack, his eyes hard. “How the hell did this happen?”

Normally, Jack would have tried to concoct the perfect lie and attempt to conceal his twitching eye that always betrayed him, but this time he had no strength or cunning left to manufacture any story but the truth.

“He was just going to fix my plane,” he said quietly. “But then I wanted him to come with me to look for treasure in the Amazon.”

“So you took him against his will and manipulated him, just as you always do!” Pete said, raising his voice and alerting the attention of several attendants nearby. He looked up at them briefly and then lowered his voice. “Jack, didn’t you ever stop to consider that this might happen someday? That you might get MacGyver into a situation where he can’t help you and you can’t help him?”

Jack shrugged, sinking into his chair, wishing he could vanish from the world at that moment rather than face the wrath of Pete Thornton. “I dunno,” he said. “I guess I never thought about it before.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Pete said, “and you want to know why? Because all you ever think about is yourself and your greedy needs. You don’t care about the consequences.”

“I’m sorry, Pete, really I am,” Jack said, fighting back more tears. “Don’t you think I feel terrible about this too? Look, how was I to know that MacGyver would get sick? He’s usually so healthy he glows. I didn’t know a mosquito would bite him. I couldn’t control that. He travels around the world all the time, and I’ve never seen him get sick from it before. Anyway, I thought he was usually prepared for those kinds of things, you know, with vaccines and medicines and stuff.”

“He usually is,” Pete said, “but he was on vacation. He didn’t expect to go anywhere except down the street to see you, and you put his life in danger instead!”

“So what are you saying? That you’ve never endangered his life before? Come on, Pete, don’t give me that. You send him on dangerous missions all the time where at any point he could get killed. How is that any different?”

Pete’s eyes flared with rage. “That’s not a fair comparison!” He said. “He goes because I ask him to, and he accepts. I don’t force him to. He knows the risks. He could say no to any of my assignments at any time, but he chooses not to. With you, it’s completely different. You don’t give him a choice. You play with his emotions and his vulnerabilities, knowing he won’t say no to you if you sell it just right so it appeals to his sense of morality and common decency. Jack, you use him for your own purposes by toying with what he values just so you can make a profit. That’s nothing like what I do. At least I’m honest with him.”

“All right, so I’m scum, I get it.”

“Jack, I don’t mean it like that.”

“You’re saying I’m not a good friend to MacGyver.”

Pete sighed. “I don’t know what kind of friend you are,” he said. “I do know that you have to start taking some responsibility for your actions. If you really want to be a good friend to MacGyver, start treating him like a human being—with respect—instead of treating him like some instrument that can help you out of a jam and help you make some financial gain. Mosquito bite or not, he wouldn’t be here right now if you had only been straight with him.”

A doctor interrupted them, looking at both of them with the trained earnestness that effectively combined the right amount of clinical detachment necessary to remain professional yet just enough compassion to show that she cared.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m Dr. Garrison. Are you here for the patient named MacGyver?”

“Yes we are,” Pete said, standing. “How is he?”

Dr. Garrison sighed. “He seized again once we admitted him to the ICU, and then his heart stopped. We had to defibrillate, but he’s stable now. Unfortunately, he’s lapsed into a coma.”

Pete closed his eyes. Not again.

“We’ve been working to regulate his body temperature and we’re also monitoring his organs and their functions, since severe malaria can cause renal failure. So far, he’s responding to treatment, but it’s too early to tell the rate and success of his recovery.” She looked down at the floor. “It won’t be an easy process,” she said. “He has a long way to go to fight this. If we had caught it earlier, he might have had a better chance of surviving. Even now, in the best intensive care he could receive, I’m afraid the fatality rate for severe malaria, especially malaria that has not been treated immediately like his, is still 20%.”

“He’ll survive,” Pete said, his voice strong even though he didn’t feel that way. “He always pulls through, no matter what.”

Dr. Garrison nodded to show her support, even though she was uncertain.

“Can we see him?” Jack asked, also standing.

“Of course,” Dr. Garrison said.

She led them to the ICU, where MacGyver lay motionless, connected to so many machines and lines that it was hard to see him at first. Pete suppressed a surprised gasp when he saw this, thinking it looked worse than the last time MacGyver was in a coma, but when he got close to him by his bedside, he looked peaceful in his unconsciousness, the pain and distress of the illness absent from his face. He was still pale and fragile looking, though. Heartbroken, both he and Jack held him, Pete gently clasping his hand and Jack touching his arm. He still felt warm, but not as alarmingly warm as he had been before.

“I’ll leave you two alone with him for awhile,” Dr. Garrison said, offering a slight smile of encouragement. “Talk to him. Let him know you’re here for him. He might be able to hear you, and he needs comforting words at this time.”

“Thanks Doc,” Jack said as she left. He looked down at MacGyver. “I still can’t believe this happened to him. It just seemed so unlikely, you know?”

“Well, it did happen,” Pete said, rubbing MacGyver’s hand softly with his own. “You heard what the doctor said. If he had been given treatment sooner, it wouldn’t have been half as serious as it is now.”

“Look, I know it’s my fault,” Jack said. “You don’t have to rub it in, Pete.”

Pete glared at him. “Why couldn’t you just leave MacGyver alone for once?” He asked. “That’s all I want to know. Why do you always have to drag him along with you? You rely entirely too much on him to do your dirty work for you. If I were Mac, I would have left you behind a long time ago.”

A tear rolled down Jack’s cheek as he looked at MacGyver. Feelings of his own worthlessness crept up on him again, Pete’s bitter, angry words reinforcing them.

“You’re right,” he said. “Maybe Mac would be better without me in his life. Then again, I could say the same thing about you.”

Taking one last moment to look at and comfort MacGyver, Jack turned and left the room, leaving him with Pete, complete silence, and an absence of any pleasant words that the doctor had told them would comfort him while he was trapped in the darkness of his coma.

To be continued…

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