I was having another "off" day today when I wrote this--some days are like that for me when I write. Yesterday, I was at the pinnacle of my creativity, and today that has somewhat waned. I hope it's readable again, that's all I'm trying to say.

Waking the Dead Part Eight
Rated: R

Two weeks later…

Pete’s light sleep near MacGyver’s bedside was disrupted by a slight movement that he saw out of the corner of his half-closed eye.

“MacGyver?” He asked.

Sitting fully upright, he watched him, waiting to see the movement again. Minutes later, MacGyver began making jerky, twitching motions that were similar to convulsions, his fingers curling and cramping, his face pinched with pain instead of expressionless as it had been. His movements became more violent as he thrashed around on the bed, and his eyes shot open, staring wildly. He coughed and gasped deeply, choking and rasping, desperately sucking in air. The readings on the EEG increased, the needle moving sharply, creating dramatic, jagged lines, revealing his internal state of panic and confusion.

“It’s all right, MacGyver, it’s all right…I’m here,” Pete said, holding him, relieved to feel a live, animated body in his arms as he writhed, releasing his powerful, athletic energy that had for days been pent-up and unused. “Doctor! Come in here quickly! MacGyver’s awake!”

Dr. Carr ran into the room, immediately examining his patient. MacGyver was still gasping. He sat up but nearly fell back onto the bed, dizziness overwhelming him.

“Easy Mac, take it easy,” Dr. Carr said, holding him steady as he trembled. “Just let it happen. Let the poison break itself down. Try to take deep breaths for me, okay? Stay calm.”

MacGyver nodded, doing the best he could to regain control over his breathing, his lungs aching. Dr. Carr turned on the heart monitor. Instead of shrieking eerily as it had days earlier, it produced a stable beat. He smiled at the results he saw.

“His pulse is normal, as is his blood pressure,” he said, disbelief in his voice, still finding the phenomenon of a patient returning from what was basically clinical death to health and life again astonishing. “I’m going to have to run more tests and monitor his progress, of course, but it looks like he’s on his way to recovery.”

“Oh, thank God,” Pete said, smiling. Days earlier, he was beginning to lose hope that MacGyver would ever revive.

Stunned, MacGyver watched the heart monitor as it recorded his heartbeat, the electronic display creating a constant, unchanging line of peaks and valleys. Smiling, he placed his hand over his chest, feeling it throb for himself. He closed his eyes and swayed, a tear rolling down his cheek as he listened to it. It was perhaps the most pleasant, welcoming sound he had ever heard. Opening his eyes again, he reached for Pete’s hand and clutched it tightly, pulling it towards his chest and placing it over his heart. He looked at Pete with his moist eyes and smiled even broader, nodding.

“That’s right…you’re going to be fine now,” Pete said, smiling and placing his other hand on MacGyver’s cheek, feeling soft, warm human flesh again instead of icy rigidity. The two men fell into an embrace, MacGyver sobbing quietly. Pete released him and looked into those deep, soulful brown eyes, glad to see life in them once more, glad that MacGyver was looking at him, acknowledging him, responsive. “How are you feeling?”

MacGyver opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again, remembering what Murdoc said about the poison, how it kept the vocal chords paralyzed for awhile longer. He made a gesture that looked like he was writing.

“What? What is this?” Pete asked.

“I think he must not be able to speak again,” Dr. Carr said.

MacGyver looked at him pleadingly and nodded.

“I’ll get a pen and some paper,” Pete said.

When he returned, MacGyver began scribbling frantically, releasing all his thoughts on the page, thoughts that he had been unable to communicate for so long and was desperate to have someone hear him. When he was finished, he handed it to Pete, and he read it.

Murdoc did this to me, it said.

Pete’s face fell. All his suspicions proved to be true. He looked up at MacGyver. “Oh, no,” he said. “How? Where did he get the poison? I mean, this isn’t something that you could easily make.”

MacGyver pointed at the note, urging Pete to keep reading.

It was designed by H.I.T. scientists as a super toxin to use in assassinations. Murdoc used it on me to test it.

“Well, it works…unfortunately,” Pete said, sighing. He showed the note to Dr. Carr.

“We’re working as hard as we can to uncover the properties of the toxin,” he said. “It’s been slow, however—too slow for my liking. But we’ll get there. We’ll just have to keep testing it.”

“Yeah,” Pete said, looking at MacGyver with sympathy, having difficulty imagining all the tumult his friend had been through under the paralyzing grip of the poison not once but twice. “Until then, we’d better warn our international allies that there is a potentially dangerous poison about to be unleashed on them and suggest that they monitor brain activity on anyone they suspect could have been injected with it.”

“That’s the only way they could determine if the victim is alive,” Dr. Carr said, glancing at the EEG readout of MacGyver’s brain activity. He was still connected to it, the needles moving steadily. “I only hope it won’t come to that, that somehow we can contain it before we have an international incident on our hands. How difficult will it be to find this Murdoc?”

Pete and MacGyver exchanged doubtful looks. “It won’t be easy, I’m afraid,” Pete said. “Murdoc is notorious for vanishing into the shadows, without a trace. He’s even managed to elude death several times, even when it appeared there was no chance of surviving.” He clasped MacGyver’s hand. “I’ve increased security around MacGyver’s room here at the hospital, but beyond that, I’m out of ideas.” He looked at MacGyver, and he shook his head, showing he was unsure of what to do next, either.

“Well, I’ll keep studying the toxin. Maybe we’ll get a breakthrough. Until then, I’ll keep checking on MacGyver’s recovery and make sure that there is no permanent damage to his body. He was, after all, in stasis for two weeks this time instead of a day.”

MacGyver’s eyes widened and he looked at Pete. Two weeks?

“I’m afraid so, Mac,” Pete said. “We were beginning to wonder if you would ever come out of it this time.”

Murdoc hadn’t been exaggerating when he said the poison was strong enough to stop the major body functions for days. Anyone injected with it would have indeed appeared dead long enough to have been buried alive. The horror of his ordeal returned with a vengeance to his mind as he realized he would have suffered longer in the coffin than he initially thought, unable to move for days, left to wonder when he would be released and slowly die from a lack of oxygen to his starved lungs, waiting for it, uncertain about when the moment would happen, half hoping it would end sooner rather than later, the poison teasing him, not allowing him to know the exact moment it stopped working. He was fortunate and grateful that Pete managed to find him before that happened. Still wondering how Pete was able to rescue him when he couldn’t have possibly known his location, MacGyver frowned and wrote on his paper again, handing it to Pete when he was finished.

How did you know where I was?

“A woman hiking in the woods spotted Murdoc…burying you,” Pete said, closing his eyes, not wanting to relive the disturbing image of MacGyver lying motionless in the coffin, not wanting to know what he would have done if he had been too late. “She notified the police, and we took over from there, knowing it had to be somehow connected with your disappearance.”

A sideways grin spread on MacGyver’s face. He wrote again.

So, we were lucky, I guess, his new note said.

Pete laughed slightly, patting MacGyver on the arm. “Yes, we were, thank God,” he said.

MacGyver’s expression turned serious, almost sad. He wrote.

I’m sorry.

“For what, Mac?”

I shouldn’t have left the safe house. What if you hadn’t been able to find me? I would never have been able to forgive myself if I knew that I made you suffer.
Pete smiled slightly and hugged MacGyver again, stroking his back, feeling him quiver slightly, shifting his weight and breathing, all normal activities for a living body, activities he was glad he could once again ascribe to MacGyver. He had forgotten how vital his friend was, almost unable to remain still. For once, he didn’t want him to be. He had seen MacGyver so alarmingly still for so long that he never wanted to see him in that condition again. “Forget about it,” he said. “It’s over now. Things worked out, and you’re here…you’re alive.”

When he released from the hug, MacGyver wrote another note.

Thanks, Pete.

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

“Now that he’s mobile again, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before he can speak again as well,” Dr. Carr said. “We’ll just have to wait and see. It could take longer this time just because of the increased dosage.”

MacGyver nodded in agreement.

“I’m going to go check on the progress of our research into the toxin, but I’ll return shortly,” Dr. Carr said, looking at MacGyver. “Is there anything you need?”

MacGyver smiled. He wrote a single word on his paper and handed it to him.

Hungry.

Dr. Carr laughed slightly. “I can understand. You’ve been suspended for days. Your body is probably regaining all its normal responses. I’ll see what I can find for you,” he said. “We might have to go easy for awhile on food, just to see what your body can handle after such a long time without anything in your stomach.”

The strange yet familiar and painful tingling sensation surged in MacGyver’s legs, urging him to move to ease it. He struggled to stand, getting out of bed. Almost instantly, he stumbled, nearly falling to the floor, his legs weak.

“Mac, what are you doing?” Pete asked, reaching out and trying to catch him.

Dr. Carr helped him back up, placing him back in bed, admonishing him with a stern glare.

Frustrated, MacGyver wrote another note.

I have to move, it said. I can’t take it anymore! I’m tired of being bedridden!

“I know you are, MacGyver. Believe me, I understand how difficult it must be for you. You’ve been a prisoner inside your body, and now that you have your freedom again, you want to use it. But we’re going to have to take this slowly. This isn’t like last time—in fact, it’s much more severe. I don’t know how your body is going to react after such a long period of inactivity, especially for your organs. Your coordination is going to take some time to return, as well. We have to be cautious, that’s all.”

Murdoc had said the poison would release him without harm, and so far that seemed true, but he knew he couldn’t trust him. Anything could happen. Still, he didn’t want to accept it. Pouting, he wrote another note, directing it towards Pete.

Pete…

Pete couldn’t help but laugh to himself. MacGyver was back to his stubborn, sometimes childlike self.

“No complaining,” he said. “You heard the doctor. We’re just going to take this easily. I’m glad to have you back, MacGyver…you can’t imagine…but I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

MacGyver sighed and sunk back into bed, knowing they were right to be careful and that they cared about him, but it didn’t make staying in bed any easier when he was tired of lying down and knew he could now move and had an alternative.

Okay…he scribbled on his pad.

“Good. I’m glad to have that cleared up,” Dr. Carr said, a teasing grin on his face. “I’ll return soon.”

After he left, Pete took his seat again beside MacGyver, who was staring up intently at him, his eyes stormy, intense, and filled with emotion. Pete didn’t need to read a note to know what his friend was feeling. Their bonds were strong enough that Pete had learned to recognize and understand every meaningful look MacGyver could give, never seeing anyone so expressive with his eyes. He was the only person Pete knew who could say more with a nonverbal glance than he could with words. Sometimes, it was a little unsettling. Pete could tell he was relieved, but still sulky over not being allowed to move around more. He could also tell that MacGyver didn’t want him to leave, begging him to stay with those eyes. He reached up and took Pete’s hand, squeezing it.

“Don’t worry, Mac, I’m not going to leave you,” he said. “I know you’re bored and frustrated, wishing there was more you could do. I’m not sure if listening to my voice for the fifteenth day on end will help alleviate any of that, though. You’re probably pretty tired of hearing me. I’ve talked myself almost hoarse the past few days, knowing you could hear me. I just wanted to reassure you, but now I don’t know how much more help I can provide.”

MacGyver shook his head. I could never grow tired of you, Pete, he wrote. Please stay. I can’t think of better company.

Pete was touched when he read the note, smiling and feeling tears moisten his eyes. He tried to blink them away. “All right, I guess that settles it, then,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

MacGyver smiled at him and winked.

***

Despite the increased security surrounding MacGyver, the intruder had managed to breach it. He mingled with the others, moving among them, his presence undetected. He had been nearby when they found MacGyver’s body, filled with rage and disbelief. He didn’t know how they could possibly know where he was buried—he did such a thorough job of…covering it up, as it were. Someone must have seen him. That was the only explanation. If he wasn’t so consumed with his desire to finish what he had started with MacGyver, he would have tried to find who it was and deal with them, but that person was of minor importance in comparison to MacGyver. Once again, luck had been on MacGyver’s side, allowing him to miraculously survive and escape. It wouldn’t be like that for long. He could wait again—patiently. Just when it seemed MacGyver would be released from the hospital and declared healthy, he would strike again.

To be continued…

*sigh*

Quite the rollercoaster story, here, M'Chic-a-dee! Give me time now to catch my breath!

I will. I have to go back to my busy work schedule tomorrow (no President's Day off for me, I'm afraid ).

Love it!