I realize Mac probably would have gone to prison for this, but I just wrote a "Mac in prison" story and I wasn't interested in writing another. I decided to try this approach instead, although I'm not sure how realistic it would be. Oh, well. I hope you enjoy it!
Exile Part Five
Rated: PG
The emergency room doctors in the intensive care unit managed to stabilize Pete after performing delicate surgery on him to remove the bullet and suture the wound, but his situation was still grim, and he was barely clinging to life. The bullet had narrowly missed his heart and caused serious damage, still threatening his life. They had to closely monitor his condition and constantly check his life support systems and vital signs to keep him stable and make sure that no further complications would arise. Once visitation was allowed, MacGyver never left his side, keeping vigil over his still body, lying prostrate across it and sobbing uncontrollably, inconsolable. Nikki found him in that position when she came to visit, and she found it utterly heartbreaking to see, knowing how influential Pete had been in his life, and now that life was in a precarious position where it might not recover. Trying not to disturb him in his grief as he wept, she sat down quietly beside him, gently rubbing his trembling back, attempting to soothe and comfort him in his time of distress.
“I’m glad they released you from jail, and reduced your sentence to time served,” she said softly. “The Foundation was never going to press charges against you, anyway. We all know this wasn’t your fault, that it was a tragic accident. Toxicology reports indicate that you were acting under the influence of several powerful barbiturates that cause temporary memory loss, often used during anesthesia to help a patient forget painful surgeries. Sometimes they’re also used in date rape situations, causing the victim to forget the sexual violation the morning afterwards. So you see, you were suffering from the effects of chemically induced amnesia. Whoever did this to you used your memory loss to take advantage of you and try to convince you to kill Pete, but you would never do it of your own volition. We know this. Our official report that we released to the police states that it was an accident. We can vouch for you and your character. You’re not to blame in this situation. You were unaware of your actions.” She looked at Pete’s body lying on the hospital bed, smiling sadly and sympathetically at him, gently stroking his arm, careful to avoid bumping into and disturbing his I.V. lines. His usually robust, portly frame looked small, withered, and fragile, bandaged and surrounded by life support machines, his skin unnaturally pallid, as white as the starched linens covering him. Tears filled her eyes. “Aw Mac, I’m sorry,” she said, releasing a choked sob. “God, I’m so sorry. This should never have happened, to any of us.”
She attempted to embrace him, but he wrenched violently away from her, angrily pushing away from his chair, knocking it over in a loud crash, turning to face the corner of the room, pounding his fists against it in anguish, never feeling more powerless and guilty in his life, wishing he could revisit the past and change what happened, wishing there was a drug that could make him forget the gory sight of Pete covered in blood. He couldn’t understand why The Phoenix Foundation took the position they did, why they chose to defend him and cover for him after what he’d done, and he didn’t welcome the special treatment he’d received. He knew that he deserved to serve a lengthy prison term for attempted murder. After all, anyone else in his position would have faced jail time, but not him. It didn’t seem just, and it didn’t seem fair to Pete, lying near death on a hospital bed.
“Won’t you talk to me?” Nikki asked. “Please, Mac. I want to help you.”
MacGyver sighed but remained silent otherwise, still facing the corner of the room, burying his face in it as if he could disappear and blend into the drywall, fading into nothingness, escaping into complete, numbed oblivion where he would no longer feel the unbearable pain.
“Don’t withdraw like this. Pete needs you to be strong for him. He will pull through this, you have to believe that. The doctors tell me he’s doing exceptionally well, given the circumstances. When he does regain consciousness, don’t you want him to see you, to know that you’re here to lend support?” Nikki hated holding a one-way conversation, but she continued anyway, wondering if MacGyver was listening to her at all, or if he was still lost in his own inner world of torment. “He’ll forgive you, I know he will,” she said. “He knows as much as we do that you aren’t to blame.”
Too exhausted to argue, MacGyver nevertheless disagreed with her. Drugged or not, he had still pulled the trigger, still shot his best friend. It didn’t excuse him from culpability. If he recovered, Pete might be able to forgive him, but he knew he could never forgive himself.
The steady rhythm of the life support machines attached to Pete ceased, replaced with a shrill, monotone squeal, a sound both MacGyver and Nikki dreaded and knew all to well from unfortunate past experience.
“Oh my God,” Nikki muttered. She ran towards the door and poked her head out into the hallway. “We need a doctor in here immediately!” She shouted.
Several nurses and a doctor rushed into the room, checking Pete’s nonexistent pulse and beginning their frantic efforts to restore it, hoping to once again stabilize him.
“When did this start?” One of the doctors asked Nikki.
“Just…now,” she said, staring at Pete’s lifeless body in stunned disbelief. “Oh, my God…”
“Code blue ICU room five! Code blue!” An announcement blared over the hospital’s public address system, sending more hospital staff into the room.
“He’s crashing,” the doctor said. “We have to work fast! Now!”
Nikki and MacGyver stared in horror, having to be forcibly removed by several orderlies in order to make more room for the doctors to perform their lifesaving work, unable to move on their own. The door closed on them, and all they could do was watch helplessly through the small window in the door as doctors and nurses continued to swarm around Pete’s body, reminding MacGyver of vultures swooping in to devour carrion.
“He was doing fine,” Nikki said, sobbing. “I swear I thought he was going to be okay…”
MacGyver continued to watch the commotion in silence, knowing better, knowing he was witnessing the end of his friend’s life. Regardless of what anyone said, it was his fault. Only he had pulled the trigger, only he was responsible. No one else. He felt Nikki’s hand on his shoulder.
“He will make it, MacGyver,” she said. “I know it. This is only a minor setback. He’ll live again. I know it. I’m confident. Don’t give up hope. Have faith. He will survive this yet.”
MacGyver looked briefly down at her, then back at the chaos in Pete’s room, listening to the shrill whine of the heart monitor continuing to drone ceaselessly. Maybe Nikki could cling to false hope in desperation, but he couldn’t. He knew it was hopeless now. Pete was dying. If the police and the district attorney of the state of California refused to prosecute him for his reprehensible crime, then perhaps he could inflict the proper punishment on himself, doing what ancient regimes used to do to their undesirables and criminals. He would banish himself to the farthest, most remote and secluded reaches of the barren wilderness, subsisting on what only nature could provide him, becoming a fugitive from his previous life, isolating himself from the world, forcing himself into self-imposed exile. It was what he deserved for killing Pete, to live a harsh, ascetic existence of hard labor, punishing his body as well as his mind, living in solitary confinement, speaking to no one, living alone with his tormented, haunted thoughts and memories, left to suffer alone, relying only on himself for his survival and miserable existence in a hostile, unforgiving land. His rash decision would have sounded irrational and perhaps insane to most reasonable people, but he no longer considered himself one of those, the killing of Pete by his own hand he believed allowing him an excuse to lose his grip on reality. Without any further thought or deliberation, he bolted impetuously away from Pete’s hospital room and down the corridor.
“MacGyver, where are you going?” Nikki shouted after him. “Come back!”
MacGyver kept running until the sounds of Pete’s coded heart monitor and Nikki’s pleading shouts faded, and he decided that he would keep running and not stop until he was as far removed from humanity as possible, where no one would ever be able to find him.
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
Thanks MacsChick for providing the explanation for MacGyver being out of jail. It serves right and I agree that "repeating" the jail scene from the previous story was sort of redundant. 
