A day off for me means more story for you!
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Memories of Life and Death Part Five
Rated: PG
Through the haze in MacGyver’s mind, he saw a shape emerging. As it grew clearer, he couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
“Harry?” He asked weakly.
The similarities of the man standing over him and his grandfather were so remarkable that it took a moment for MacGyver to understand where he was and what had happened to him. Soon, the appearance of the man morphed into someone younger, someone he had never seen before. He began to realize that he had either been dreaming or hallucinating from his dazed, drugged state, drifting between reality and fantasy, floating through the numbness and weightlessness of painkillers. Harry once again vanished out of his life. He struggled to understand the identity of the strange man standing over him, trying to get a close look at him to see if he recognized him. His right eye was nearly swollen shut from the blows he had received, and trying to open it further only made him groan in pain.
The man smiled at him. “Actually, it’s Officer Riley,” he said, showing his badge from beneath his street clothes. “But, you can call me Jeff.”
Sudden panic surged in MacGyver’s mind. Either he was in some kind of trouble from the dog fight, or they had reported him as a runaway. Either way, he knew his mother would soon find him. He didn’t want that to happen, not when he hadn’t come close to finding Harry yet.
“You’re a cop?” He asked.
“Undercover,” Jeff said. “I had been following that dog fighting ring for quite some time.”
For the first time, MacGyver realized how puffy and sore his lips felt, a split evident in the skin, dried blood cracking every time he spoke. He moved them, trying to say something else.
“You’re not in trouble, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jeff said. “In fact, your actions are to be commended. You managed to break up a dog fight. You saved one of the animal’s lives.”
“The…the one I held…”
Jeff shook his head sadly. “That dog didn’t make it, I’m afraid,” he said.
MacGyver closed his eyes. It seemed like everything he touched was destroyed, either dying or leaving him. When he opened his eyes again, it moved Officer Jeff Riley to see how heartbroken his dark eyes looked, especially in the pitiful condition he was in, bruised and beaten.
“The other dog did make it, though, I’m happy to report,” he said, offering another pleasant smile, “and so will you. Although, the Doc says that you have several fractures and some stitches to recover from over time. I’m sure your mother will be very proud of you for stopping the fight, but I don’t think she’ll be too happy that you ran away.”
“How…did you know?” MacGyver asked, the panicked feeling inside him rising.
“Kid, your mother reported you missing,” Jeff said. “Even though you’re pretty banged up, we recognized you from the descriptions on the police bulletins.”
MacGyver stirred and tried to move, but dull pain combined with the dizzying effects of the painkillers made it difficult. He moaned, thinking about how he could have avoided this whole thing had he called her sooner. Now, despite his note explaining everything to her, she had been upset enough to worry for him and report him missing. She could be a very understanding mother, but he knew she would be furious with him once she caught up with him. All his good intentions would be lost on her. All she would see was a disobedient son who deliberately set out to worry her, upsetting her already fragile and unsettled nerves. The condition he was in would only make her more hysterical.
“Does she…know where I am?” He asked.
“Of course she does,” Jeff said. “She rushed out to a flight from Minneapolis as soon as she heard. She’ll be here in a few hours.” Jeff paused and sighed, looking sympathetically at the beaten boy in the hospital bed. “Kid, why would you do this to her? Why run away?”
“It’s…complicated,” MacGyver said, fighting to remain awake, the drugs making him drowsy.
“Well, you can tell me about it,” Jeff said. “I’m someone you can talk to. I won’t judge you. I just want to know what a smart, nice-looking kid such as you has to run away from.”
“I didn’t…exactly plan on running away,” MacGyver said. “I just…wanted to find my grandpa.”
Jeff shrugged. “Why?” He asked.
MacGyver blinked slowly, trying to stay awake but also trying not to irritate the swollen side of his face. “My dad and grandma died when I was ten,” he said sleepily. “My mom and grandpa were the only people left to take care of me. Then, Harry—my grandfather—split, just a few…months ago. He didn’t say goodbye or tell us where he was going. He just…left us…”
MacGyver’s tired voice faded, and for a moment Jeff thought he had fallen asleep. Then, he opened his mournful dark eyes again, staring directly at the policeman.
“I had to find him,” he said. “Not for me, but for my mother. She’s…been having a hard time since my dad and grandma died. I just…didn’t want to see her suffer from another loss, especially one I could try to…prevent.”
Jeff was amazed by what he was hearing from the teenaged boy. Not many young men would have the maturity and wisdom to see things that way. “I admire what you tried to do,” he said. “You’re a brave kid, but running away from your mother when she needs you won’t solve anything—it will only make matters worse. I know, and not just from my police experience, either. My dad left my family when I was five. I was a lot like you—angry, determined to find him and bring him back to his responsibilities. But I had to learn to be there for my mother when he couldn’t.”
MacGyver thought he understood what Jeff was trying to tell him, but another part of him didn’t want to surrender his search for Harry. Moaning in pain and trying to move again, he managed to sit up in bed, though he was overcome with dizziness and nausea, blackness edging around the corners of his eyes, threatening to overtake him. He gasped for breath and tightly gripped the sides of the bed, trying to regain his bearings.
“I…have to go…” he said. “Have to…find him…can’t give up…”
“Kid, what are you doing?” Jeff asked. “You should rest.”
Ignoring him, MacGyver pushed hard against the bed, using it as a support to help him stand. He barely got out of bed when he felt faint and began collapsing to the floor. Jeff rushed over to his side and caught him before he caused his broken body any further damage. He helped him back into bed, and MacGyver slumped into bed, falling asleep. Relieved, Jeff checked him, making sure he was comfortable and hadn’t twisted any of his cracked bones. MacGyver lay there peacefully, only a slight frown still on his face. Jeff lightly touched his shoulder.
“You’re a stubborn kid, you know that?” He asked.
As if in response, MacGyver’s eyebrows twitched and he moaned. Jeff smiled slightly, sitting in a chair near the boy’s hospital bed, watching him and waiting until his mother arrived.
***
MacGyver heard the distressed tones of a woman’s voice. He tried to ignore them, keeping his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.
“Son, don’t do that,” Ellen said, her voice trembling with tears as she looked at his battered body in shock, surprised by how bruised, torn, and crumpled he looked, his face almost unrecognizable, swollen on the right side, half of him swathed in bandages. “You’ve been trying to get away with that trick since you were a baby.” She laughed slightly, and then sighed. “I know you’re awake. Talk to me, please.”
Realizing that what he thought to be a realistic simulation of sleep could never fool a mother, MacGyver opened his eyes to face what he had been dreading. Just as he imagined, his mother’s eyes were red from crying, and her sorrowful expression only worked to increase the guilt he felt.
“Oh God,” she said, gently stroking the uninjured side of his face. “What did they do to you? The policeman told me what happened, that you were beaten trying to break up a dog fight, but I never imagined you would look like this.”
“That…bad, huh?” MacGyver asked, attempting a smile, even though it hurt his cracked lips and swollen face.
Ellen frowned. “This is nothing to joke about,” she said. “Do you know what I went through, hearing that you were in the hospital? I told you not to do this…now look what’s happened to you.”
“I…had to do it to…find Harry.”
Ellen smiled slightly. “Wandering across the country was never going to help you find him,” she said. “He’s gone, Son. Nobody knows where.”
“But I…want him back,” MacGyver said.
Ellen sighed. “So do I,” she said, “but we’ll make it without him. You’re strong, but so am I. I know it doesn’t seem that way to you because of the grief I still feel for your father and my mother, but I’m still here, still alive. We’ll make it without him. You have to believe that.”
“I’m sorry,” MacGyver whispered painfully, squirming in bed and wincing. “I never meant…”
Ellen gently squeezed his unbroken hand to calm him and distract him from the pain he was feeling. “I know you didn’t,” she said. “You only thought you were doing the right thing to help me, but now it’s time to come home.”
MacGyver was relieved that it was over, in a way. His mother had basically given him the permission he needed to feel all right about Harry’s abandonment. He realized his mother didn’t need protection from her emotions; that she was doing better than he had given her credit for all those years.
“It was…stupid of me…” he said, the medication wearing off and more sharp pain returning to him, reminding him of how beaten he was.
“Shh,” Ellen said, stroking his chestnut hair. “It wasn’t stupid. Actually, it was a pretty clever idea, but not all clever ideas succeed. You just have to do the best you can. That’s all you can ever do.”
The nurse came in with more pain medication for MacGyver, and Ellen was relieved. It was almost unbearable for her to watch her son suffer so painfully. She remembered him coming home a few times from school with a black eye from a fight or from hockey practice, but she had never seen him as badly injured as he was now, even when he was in traction for broken arms.
The nurse left, and slowly MacGyver began to relax again, a dreamy haze enveloping him, reminding him of when he got high with Moonflower. He still wasn’t ready to tell his mother that shameful moment. Knowing he had been involved in a dog fight in a seedy bar in Los Angeles was probably enough for her to stomach as it was. As he once again pondered the right time to tell her of his misadventures, unconsciousness beckoned him, welcoming him soothingly.
Ellen watched as her son’s dark eyes began to close. She sat near him and began humming, something she had done to comfort him any time he was ill. MacGyver smiled faintly as he listened, her soft, pleasant voice sending him into oblivion.
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
and 
for you. 
