All In The Past – Part Seven

It was almost four in the morning by the time Mac arrived home, unlocking the apartment door leading from his garage and dropping his keys on the coffee table as he passed by on his way to get a glass of juice from the refrigerator.

He knew he ought to be more exhausted than he felt, but an evening of chatting with Terry had somehow energized him. After their initial awkward reunion they had talked non-stop for hours, catching up on all the news and events in their lives over the past nine years. It was amazing how comfortable the conversation had quickly become between them. As easy going, fluent and open as it had always been. And Mac had fast recalled how much he had missed that over the years.

In fact, there were a lot of things he had missed about Terry, some of which were the reason he had come home at such an ungodly hour of the night. Terry had invited him to sleep on her couch, but they both knew what might happen if he had stayed, and, by implicit agreement, they also knew it would be too soon. They needed to take this slow, whatever “this” was going to become.

So Terry had loaned Mac her Jeep, claiming she still had little use for vehicles around town and she had no need to travel further for several days. Mac gratefully accepted the offer, cabs were almost impossible to obtain at that time of night, especially out on that isolated shoreline along the coast. He had finally parked Terry’s dust and mud spattered vehicle in the garage behind his own and now needed to get a couple of hours sleep if he was ever going to manage to get to work at an acceptable hour.

The light came on as MacGyver opened the fridge and grabbed a carton of juice, leaving the appliance door ajar so he could see to get a glass from the cupboard.

“Dad?” A voice came from the living room, startling Mac even as he recognised the source and wondered what Sam was doing there at that time of night. “S’that you?”

“Yeah, Sam.” Mac poked his head around the door to peer into the shadows of the living room at the same time as reaching for the kitchen light switch. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” Sam replied.

Mac heard movement as Sam rolled off the couch where he’d apparently been laying and met his father halfway to the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“I was worried,” he explained, “After I left Pete’s I got to wondering whether I’d done the right thing in dumping you on Terry’s doorstep. I thought you might be mad at me for dropping you in it and meddling with things. I figured I’d better come here and face the music!” Sam rubbed palms over his tired face, “What time is it?”

“About 4am,” Mac replied, studying his son.

“How’d you get home?”

“Terry loaned me her Jeep.”

“Oh!” Sam smiled knowingly, “Guess you got on okay then!”

“It wasn’t like that,” Mac said defensively. Then he paused, a slow smile of his own brightening his features, clearly visible in the light from the kitchen, as he remembered his main motive for not sleeping on Terry’s couch. “Actually, come to think of it, yes it was,” he murmured, placing a hand on Sam’s shoulder, “Thanks Sam. I think I may owe you big time for this one.”

“So it went okay then?”

“Yeah, it did,” Mac admitted softly.

“You really loved her, didn’t you?” Sam watched his father’s smile and saw the look in his eyes, “You still do!”

Mac pondered for a moment, examining his own startling emotions which had come to the fore that night, then he nodded slowly, “Yeah, I think I do.”

“And how does Terry feel?” Sam held up a hand, “No, wait, I already know how she feels! I think I knew from the moment I turned up on her doorstep the other day and told her who I was. Her eyes lit up with such a look of love……,” he trailed off, smiling at the memory of her expression, the sound of her laughter and the look in her eyes, those incredible eyes. It had been an extraordinary afternoon. “She’s got the sort of eyes you could lose yourself in,” he added shyly.

“I know,” Mac agreed. “It’s kind of hard to get something like that out of your head in nine years. And she’s hardly changed at all, except that she’s so much happier and relaxed now than she was when she left.”

“That’s why you came home, isn’t it?”

Mac nodded, “I’m not going to do anything to mess up her life again.”

“But you are going to see her again?”

“Of course!” Mac grinned, “But we’re going to take it slow, real slow. We’ll see where it leads us and maybe this time we’ll both end up in the same place at the same time.”

“I hope so,” Sam said. He met his father’s gaze, “When Pete told me he thought you two were perfect together, I figured he was exaggerating, but now I’ve met Terry, I think he’s right!”

“So you’d approve if your old man started going out with her then?”

Sam grinned widely. “You betcha!” he assured his father emphatically, adding with a snort, “You can name your first born after me!”

“Hmm, I think you’d have to talk to Terry about that one!” Mac laughed in return. He tousled his son’s sleep mussed brown hair, “Come on, I need to get some sleep or I’ll be useless at work in the morning!”

“Don’t like to worry you Dad, but it is morning. And you’ll be fine at work, so long as you think of Terry and what might happen when you see her again in the evening!”

“What makes you think I’ll be seeing her in the evening?”

“Well you are, aren’t you?” Sam grinned smugly.

“Well…….yeah!” Mac smiled widely at the thought, shoved his son towards the sofa and headed into the bedroom, thinking of a tall slender woman with sun streaked hair and stunning green brown eyes. This night, at least, he was confident that the nightmares would be replaced by much sweeter dreams.

~~~fin~~~