Phoenix Field Agent
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Joined: 11 Jan 2006
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Season: season 3
Episode:Passages
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Black leather
House: House boat
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Mac gets better, but is it over yet? Read on...
Speechless Part Ten
Rated: PG
Eight Days Later…
MacGyver bolted upright in bed and released a terrified, agonized scream. His screams carried down the hall to the ears of Dr. Bartlett and some of her staff who had just finished with another patient that evening.
“That sounded like it came from your newest patient’s room,” a nurse said.
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Dr. Bartlett said. “He’s deaf, blind, and mute.”
They heard the screams again, and this time they knew they originated from MacGyver’s room. Rushing down the hall towards the room, they yanked the door open, finding him sitting up in bed, his wide, frightened eyes darting frantically around the room, searching. Dr. Bartlett couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked as if sight had returned to those eyes and he was struggling to make sense of his surroundings, lost and bewildered. Combined with the vocalizations he had just made, she knew something unusual was happening to her new patient, something impossible and unbelievable.
“Call Mr. Thornton and Mrs. Carpenter and have them come down here as soon as possible,” she said. “Tell them something is happening to MacGyver that they must see for themselves.”
***
All of MacGyver’s senses returned to him abruptly, overwhelming and flooding him with information, making him almost unable to handle the overload of sensations he now felt after they had been shut down for such a prolonged period, the world around him a confusing, chaotic jumble as he struggled to regain his bearings. The lights in the room were too harsh, intense, and bright, piercing and painful to his sensitive eyes. Squinting and blinking rapidly, trying to adjust his vision, all he could see were several blurry, amorphous forms surrounding him, auras and trails of light surrounding them as if they were psychedelic hallucinations. They spoke to him, their voices too loud, hammering and pounding heavily against his eardrums. He screwed his eyes tightly shut and held his hands to his ears, trying to block out the unbearable noise and the brightness that assaulted him.
“MacGyver, can you hear me?” One of the voices asked him, sounding low, deep, and distorted like a recording being played back on a device running out of battery power. Still, he realized he could hear it. Not only that, but he could understand it as well.
Slowly opening his eyes, his vision continuing to adjust, focus, and improve, the fuzzy blobs of glowing light soon became more sharply defined, and he noticed that they were actually people. Nikki, Pete, and some woman he had never seen before were standing in front of him, staring at him expectantly. He was in a strange room that looked nothing like the hospital room he last remembered being in, the place looking more like a normal bedroom with furnishings. Working his mouth, he struggled to speak, his mind filled with questions he needed answers to, wondering if now that he could hear and understand them if he could once again also speak and be understood. He knew he had to try. Continuing to move his mouth, he felt his tongue slacken, his tight throat loosen.
“P-Pete,” he managed to say, his voice barely audible, a faint whisper.
He noticed their astonished, incredulous, and stunned expressions.
“Did you hear that? He spoke!” Pete said, laughing tearfully. “He spoke, and I could understand him!”
“Not only that, but he could hear us!” Nikki said.
“It appears he can see us as well,” Dr. Bartlett said. “This is extraordinary! It’s as if he has come out of whatever stupor he was in, his senses fully restored to him! It…it shouldn’t be happening, but it is! This is…just incredible! Unbelievable! I’m going to have to run more tests on him of course, but it almost looks as if he is going to make a full recovery!”
“Mac, you’ve come back to us! I knew you would eventually! I knew you would beat it and break through!” Pete said.
Both he and Nikki fell into his arms, embracing him tightly. He returned their embrace, squeezing them. He could feel their bodies shudder against him in sobs and laughter.
“Where…where…d-dream?” He asked, tripping and stuttering over his words, trying to carefully enunciate them, practicing his speech skills, hoping he hadn’t forgotten how.
Pete and Nikki released him, looking at him, glad to see light and recognition return to his eyes.
“No Mac, this isn’t a dream,” Pete said, clutching his shoulders, a broad, beaming, and joyous smile on his face. “You’ve really come back to us. You can speak. You can hear and see us. We can understand you and you can understand us. We can communicate again!”
MacGyver’s eyes wandered around the room again, a puzzled frown on his face. “Don’t…remember…” he said.
“He undoubtedly has many questions since he has been lost to us for so long,” Dr. Bartlett said, still amazed by the miraculous transformation her patient had undergone. “We’re going to have to try to take this slowly, since he will be confused and overwhelmed for awhile.” She gently took his hand. “Listen to me, MacGyver,” she said. “Do you know where you are?”
“N-no,” MacGyver said.
Nikki and Pete looked at her, concerned.
“That’s understandable,” she said. “Let’s try to remain calm about this. Remember, a step at a time so we can try to make sense of what has happened to him.” She returned to MacGyver. “What is the last thing you do remember?”
“Gave…M-Morse code message to N-Nikki…”
“That was the only way he could communicate with us before his condition worsened and he ended up here,” Pete said.
“N-Nucci…safe?”
Pete and Nikki looked at each other sadly, dreading how they would tell him. Dr. Bartlett looked at him, confused by his reference to the recently deceased world leader. Deciding to ignore it, she returned to her basic line of questions and explanations designed to reorient MacGyver to the world around him.
“This is a center for the severely handicapped, MacGyver,” she said. “You were brought here eight days ago, blind, deaf, mute, and unable to comprehend either us or the world around you. My name is Dr. Bartlett, and I was assigned to your care. We thought your condition was permanent until today when you proved otherwise.” She smiled at him.
“Thank God it wasn’t, after all,” Nikki said, taking his hand and squeezing it, looking up at him with moist eyes. “You’ve really come back to us, haven’t you, MacGyver?”
MacGyver looked down at her hand. He vaguely remembered feeling someone taking hold of his hand, being lost in the darkness, unsure of where he was.
“I…was scared,” he said. “I…remember…something…”
“What is it?” Pete asked.
Tears came to MacGyver’s eyes and he trembled. “I…I thought I was back…being tortured again,” he said. “I…couldn’t see, couldn’t talk…he was hurting me…I couldn’t d-do anything…no one…no help…lost…dying…”
Dr. Bartlett looked at Pete and Nikki. “That must have been his only frame of reference, the only way his mind could relate and understand what was happening to him,” she said. “He was, after all, according to the report I received from Dr. Ladd, bound, blindfolded, and gagged during his ordeal, so his mind most likely would equate his blindness and muteness to being restricted in such a manner in his past.”
“I was so scared…” MacGyver said. “I couldn’t get out of it, no matter how hard I tried. I just couldn’t…I was so helpless. I…I thought…no one was coming for me, and I was back there…” he collapsed into heavier sobs.
Pete and Nikki held him.
“Oh Mac, you weren’t back there, I promise,” Nikki said. “El Diablo is never going to hurt you again. You’re safe from him.”
“I can’t imagine,” Pete said. “It must have been like one long nightmare for him to be in that state.” He released MacGyver and looked at him again. “But it’s over now. You’re back. It’s all right now. No one was hurting you, I assure you. While you were deaf, blind, and mute, Dr. Bartlett was making sure you were well looked after, that nothing would happen to you, that you would once again somehow learn to perceive the world around you and not have to exist in that horrific time in the past. We care about you, Mac. We wanted what was best for you at the time. You should know that we would never leave you in that defenseless state. You were safe that whole time, and loved. Nothing will change that, no matter what happens to you. We love you.”
MacGyver looked at his friends, smiling through his tears. “I k-know that,” he said. “T-thanks for not giving up on me.”
They embraced him again. “We never would,” Nikki said. “You know that.”
Dr. Bartlett found herself moved to tears as well as she watched the remarkable tableau that displayed itself before her, still unable to explain how it was possible but glad that a man with so much potential and energy had been restored to his full senses, wishing that something as magical could happen to her other patients, that they could also have sight restored to their eyes and hearing to their ears. She also found herself wishing her brother’s condition could have been as easily reversed, and she felt, along with joy and relief, a feeling of envy for their fortune as well. MacGyver had come back somehow, mysteriously, but most of her patients and her brother never could. She had some successes with the others, but as improved as they became, they could never surpass the unaccountable progress MacGyver had made with little assistance from her. For the rest of her life, she knew she would struggle with the questions of how he came to recover as he did, yet she knew she would never find the answers.
“I’ll leave you alone for awhile,” she said, suppressing her tears. “You obviously have a lot to catch up on. Let me know if you need anything.”
“We will. Thanks Doctor,” Pete said.
“Really, thank you for everything, for taking such good care of him and seeing him through this,” Nikki said. “I know the outcome would not have been as good had we not sought your care for him.”
All Dr. Bartlett could do was nod, overcome with emotion. After she left the room, she leaned heavily against the door, sobbing, trying to collect herself.
***
“The drug must have…lost its potency,” MacGyver said. “I can’t believe I was gone…eight days?”
“Yes, eight days,” Pete said.
“We thought we’d lost you,” Nikki said, stroking his arm.
“I thought…I was lost,” MacGyver said, smiling.
“How does it feel to be back?” Pete asked.
“Incredible…I feel normal…such freedom…”
“Well you should. You were basically a prisoner, unable to communicate, locked away from us.”
MacGyver stared at them, puzzlement and confusion still in his eyes. While Pete and Nikki were relieved that he could see them again and could understand his world without impairment, they also found it disconcerting. His eyes demanded answers from them, answers they wanted to continue to withhold after he had already been through so much, not wishing to upset him further. In some ways, it had been easier when he was blind, deaf, and mute, unaware of what had happened to Prime Minister Nucci. They could discuss the tragedy freely around him without worrying that he would overhear them, the news broadcast of his death played in his room while he had no idea what was happening. Now, he was fully alert, making it more difficult for them. They didn’t want to lie to him. He had the right to know, but all his efforts despite the restrictions the drug placed on him had been futile. They knew it would devastate him, that he would blame himself, and they weren’t sure how to prepare for that reaction after everything else he had already been through. He seemed to notice the awkward silence, gathering his bed sheets in his hands and twisting them nervously, glancing around the room, still trying to get used to being able to fully use his senses again, to realize that he had never been harmed despite the nightmares that played in his confused mind during that time of blindness and deafness.
“You never…answered my question,” he said, still speaking slowly and deliberately as if afraid his speech would be robbed from him again.
“What question?” Pete asked, glancing uncertainly at Nikki, both of them knowing what he meant.
“Prime Minister Nucci. Did my message work? Is he…all right?”
“All right, we’ll tell you,” Nikki said. “It would be unfair to you not to. You’ve been gone from us for so long, and so much has happened since then…”
“MacGyver, your message did work. Nucci survived his press conference,” Pete said, his will and his voice a little stronger and less shaky than Nikki’s at that moment. “We changed his venue without telling anyone. Nikki did an impressive job. She had a fake press corps at the location where he was going to give his speech, but we had the media switch coverage to his new location, surprising everyone, including the assassins, no doubt. He never spoke into that microphone. In fact, we have it at the Phoenix lab. A team of specialists is studying it, trying to discover the source of its advanced technology so that maybe we can learn something from this secret organization and be better prepared next time.”
“That’s great, but you’re…not telling me something. I can tell. I see it in your faces. You don’t seem relieved. Something happened to him anyway, didn’t it?” MacGyver asked. “Come on, tell me.”
“Yes it did,” Nikki said. “As he was leaving California, he suffered a massive heart attack. MacGyver, there is no easy way of telling you this. He’s dead, despite our best efforts.”
“I tried…so hard,” he said. “I-I thought…”
“I know, Mac,” Nikki said. “We all did. But it wasn’t your fault. You did save him from the microphone. You did help me increase security. He was safe in our hands, but as soon as he left…there was nothing any of us could have done. You have to know that. We tried. We did the best we could. Your message was received and understood. They tried to block that message from being transmitted, but you found a way anyway. Even though Nucci still died, you have to know that you did the best that you could given the circumstances.”
“He’s still dead,” MacGyver said. “I couldn’t save him. He never had a chance.”
“None of us could save him,” Nikki said. “None of us could anticipate their next move. That organization is ruthless and will stop at nothing to achieve their goals of destruction.”
“We think that the heart attack was manufactured, just as mine was,” Pete said. “The Italian government is conducting a post-mortem examination on Nucci, but I doubt they will find a trace of the substance that killed him, just as they will never find anything conclusive on what caused you to lose your speech and other faculties. You did seem to fall into that state of deafness, blindness, and muteness just as Nucci died, so there has to be a connection. That wanted you out of the way until they made sure he was dead. Only then did the drug seem to slowly loosen its grip on you. MacGyver, there really was nothing any of us could do. I don’t blame you or Nikki. We all did our best. They want to discredit us, but that isn’t going to happen.”
“Pete, we have to stop them,” MacGyver said. “This can’t keep happening. We can’t have more deaths.”
“I know, but at least we have the microphone. We’re working on it. Maybe we will find something, some effective weapon against them, you never know. We just have to keep trying, just as you did. You didn’t give up, and you came back to us.”
More tears welled up in MacGyver’s eyes. “I just wish I would have known…I…” his voice broke as a memory returned to him, a memory of news of his mother’s death, received too late for him to act on it. “I wish I could have done more,” he said, embracing them, sobbing.
“There was nothing more you could do,” Nikki soothed, “nothing more any of us could do.”
“Look, I know Nucci’s death is not the outcome any of us would have desired, but you did come back to us, Mac. You’re aware again, and you can talk to us. We thought you were gone as well, but you’re not. You’re back, and that’s what’s really important, here, that you’ve returned to us,” Pete said.
MacGyver sighed deeply, his face buried between their shoulders. “It really is great to be back,” he said. “I thought you’d gone. I thought you left me. God, I missed you.”
“I know, Mac,” Nikki said. “We missed you, too.”
To be continued…
 "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
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