Well folks, this has been one long saga to write! Wow! This is my longest story yet!
I sure enjoyed every moment of it, though, and I'm glad you have, too. As usual, I'm sorry it has ended
, but never fear--I have another story I hope to start posting sometime this weekend!
One final note on this story--it was my intention to have this story more from Nikki's point of view of MacGyver's suffering, whereas the first story was about Pete's point of view. I hope I succeeded in doing just that.
When He Wakes…
Part Fourteen (Conclusion)
Rated: R
Gradually, MacGyver did make progress, his condition improving. He was transferred back to the Spartan quarters where he was first housed, and then he at last was declared sane again and discharged. It had been a monumental struggle for him to cling to his sanity for awhile, his grip tenuous at best, but he finally overcame the powerful effects of the drug and defeated it. Pete also recovered after a difficult struggle and was released from the hospital. Nikki could never be sure how the drugs failed to fulfill their purpose, but she was glad they did. She didn’t even want to question it, simply relieved to have both men restored to the way they had been before.
They met at MacGyver’s house boat on a dreary, rainy afternoon, embracing each other for a lengthy period of time, overcome with emotion. While they were overjoyed, the reunion for the most part remained subdued. MacGyver brewed coffee for Pete and Nikki, and tea for himself. They sat around his living room, discussing topics in general, enjoying each other’s company once again, returning to normalcy and listening to the light rain as it fell, pattering on the roof. A flash of lightning sliced through the room, briefly illuminating everything in its harsh, bright, hot, white light. MacGyver barely touched his tea, exploring his house boat, touching his mementos lovingly, trying to reacquaint himself with his home after years of being chained, both physically and mentally.
“How does it feel to be home?” Pete asked him.
MacGyver looked at them and smiled one of his broad, charming smiles, something that used to be so easy, natural, and characteristic of him but had been lacking for the past few years. It was refreshing for them to see its return. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. That joyful, beaming smile communicated everything they needed to know. He looked healthy and relaxed instead of pale, gaunt, and withdrawn as he had been, languishing in his mental illness. As he continued to wander around his home, cherishing his renewed freedom, Pete turned back to Nikki.
“So this…Brandon, or whoever he is…he claims that there are more like him?” Pete asked her quietly. He stared at his coffee for a long time before sipping on it, remembering the near fatal sip he had taken and having to remind himself that this version of his favorite caffeinated beverage was untainted.
“Yes,” she said, sighing, not wanting to mention it but knowing they couldn’t avoid it. “Either he’s lying and there are only a select few, or…”
Both were silent for a moment, considering the implications. Thunder rumbled, causing the houseboat to shudder, magnifying the dread and foreboding they felt.
“We’re going to find them,” Pete said at last, his voice firm and his eyes hard. “They may be elusive, but we’ll find them. After all, you succeeded in apprehending one of them.”
“Well, I don’t know how much I contributed,” Nikki said, looking away from him shyly.
“More than you know,” Pete said. “He’s a valuable resource. Through him, we can learn more about this secret organization he worked for.”
Nikki shook her head. “He’s not talking, except to boast and gloat,” she said.
“Maybe in time he can be convinced to speak.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It’s the only chance we have, and he’s our only link into that underground world. It might be a protracted struggle, but it’s worth a try. Otherwise…” His words hung heavy in the musty air of the houseboat, lingering, clinging to everything like the dust covering everything from neglect and MacGyver’s lack of interest in housekeeping.
“I know,” Nikki said, swallowing a mouthful of coffee in a hard, tight gulp. “We can’t afford or allow that to happen. It’s a frightening thought.”
The rain began to fall harder in driving, torrential sheets, pelting and bombarding the roof. MacGyver opened his sliding glass doors and stepped out onto his deck, pushing his face out into it, getting drenched. Pete and Nikki exchanged concerned glances, wondering about his sanity and if was slowly unraveling once again. Both of them got up and approached the area where he stood, remaining inside, trying their best not to get soaked as well as a few stray, heavy drops trickled inside.
“MacGyver, what are you doing?” Pete asked, shouting above the noise the rainfall was making, almost drowning out his words completely as it splattered against the wood.
“Feeling the rain, Pete,” MacGyver said, also raising his voice above the roar of the falling water. “Feeling the rain…”
As they watched him, they noticed his eyes were closed and that he had a blissful, serene expression on his face, enjoying the feel of the icy cold drops as they splashed and rolled down his skin as if they were purifying and cleansing him. He was breathing deeply, inhaling the rich, salty, sweet fragrance the rain left in the ocean air. Both Pete and Nikki began to calm themselves, realizing that he was enjoying himself, deriving a simple pleasure from nature, something that he had been unable to do for so long, locked away in stuffy, claustrophobic rooms. Neither of them wanted to interrupt or disturb him. He looked so peaceful and they wanted him to have the peace that had been denied to him for so long. Still, it was growing dark, the constant pummeling on the roof and drops that glistened in the light of the living room becoming the only evidence that it was raining outside.
“Come in for a minute, Mac,” Pete said at last. “I want to say goodnight.”
“You’re leaving so soon?” Nikki asked.
“Yeah, I’m afraid I have to,” Pete said. “The doctor doesn’t want me to overexert myself too much yet. I’m still in recovery.”
MacGyver reentered the room, smiling like a gleeful child, embracing Pete tightly and burying his wet face in Pete’s shoulder, water dripping from his hair onto Pete’s shirt, dampening it. It reminded Pete of when he held him after finding him sobbing in the shower, although this time the mood was much more celebratory. When they finally released each other, MacGyver looked at the dark, wet spots on Pete’s shirt.
“I’m sorry I got you wet,” he said.
Pete smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going out in that mess in a minute, anyway,” he said. He turned to Nikki and embraced her next.
“Goodnight Pete,” she said, choking back tears, squeezing him tightly. “Drive carefully.”
Pete looked at both of them and smiled. “I love you both, you know,” he said, winking at them. He turned towards the front door and left.
***
After Pete left, Nikki remained behind, although MacGyver seemed unaware of her presence, grabbing a dry shirt from the crumpled heap of clothes in his laundry hamper at the foot of his spiral staircase and changing out of his wet shirt, tossing it aside. For that one brief moment the flesh on his torso was exposed, Nikki saw the scars from the nightmarish torture she had read about in vivid detail, raised, uneven, jagged stripes interrupting the smoothness of his skin, his entire back tattooed in a thick mesh of them. She hadn’t wanted to look, but she couldn’t avoid it, drawn to them the way an onlooker was drawn to a horrific accident, mesmerized by tragedy, death, and destruction. The wrinkled shirt he had chosen slipped over them, the deep creases in the shirt seeming to match the creases on his badly damaged skin instead of covering them, matching and fitting against them like a glove. After seeing them, Nikki didn’t think she could ever forget it, her sympathy for MacGyver increasing along with her astonishment that he had survived it at all. He next grabbed an equally rumpled towel and rubbed his hair vigorously to dry it, at last turning to look at her, a smile on his face. It was as if he hadn’t noticed that she saw the jagged irregularities on his skin, or perhaps he didn’t care, almost as if he was daring her to stare at them, encouraging her, refusing to hide them in shame any longer.
“Shouldn’t you be getting home?” He asked. “It’s late and it’s still raining pretty hard. The roads could be treacherous.” Finished with the towel, he slung it over the ropes that served as the railing on the staircase.
“I…I’d like to stay here for awhile…with you…I mean, if that’s all right,” Nikki said, feeling awkward after seeing his scars, her inner turmoil and conflicting feelings about him once again surfacing. She didn’t know if she felt the way she did for him because of all she had helped him through, or because she genuinely cared about him despite all the anguish he had endured.
A shy side smile crept across MacGyver’s face. “Sure,” he said. “If you want to. Let’s sit down.”
The sat beside each other on his sofa, listening to the rain as it continued to fall. They were silent, each struggling to say something. MacGyver was an inventive man, but as he sat next to Nikki, feeling uncomfortable and uncertain, he couldn’t invent any subject to talk about that he felt was worth carrying a decent conversation, everything seeming so insignificant and inadequate after all they had suffered together. Also searching for something to say, Nikki’s eyes wandered around the rustic surroundings of his houseboat until they at last settled on another scar on his abdomen made visible by the corner of his shirt being pushed up, this scar neater, longer, and straighter than the others, looking fresher and pinker, almost like the skin on a newborn, its innocence contrasting sharply with the brutal, violent, angry, evil, and gnarled marks from his torture.
“Is…is that from your torture?” She asked, wincing, almost wishing she hadn’t asked, unsure of what his reaction would be, feeling she was being too intrusive into his private world of pain.
MacGyver looked down at the scar she was referring to. Recognizing it, he smiled as if he were looking at the face of an old friend, relieved to see it facing him for once instead of his torture scars. Whenever he struggled to look at his nude reflection in the mirror, he always returned to that familiar, friendly scar, reminding him of a less traumatic time.
“No, that’s from my appendectomy,” he said, touching it gently, probing it with his fingers.
“You had appendicitis?” Nikki asked, surprised that a man so healthy could fall victim to such an illness.
MacGyver shrugged. “Sure, it’s pretty common after all,” he said. “Anyway, after everything that’s happened to me, I can look at it with a certain fondness. It also reminds me of why I’m glad I know Pete, and that he’s still around. If he hadn’t been so insistent about taking me to the hospital that night, I might not be here…”
The tender lining of his stomach was roiling and churning, feeling as if it was being twisted and wrenched, millions of small knife blades cutting and slicing at him internally. He retched and retched, his trembling, weakened body clutching the cool porcelain of his toilet, sweat beading on his forehead. His skin felt as if it was on fire, waves of heat burning throughout his body while he alternately shivered.
“Come on, Mac. Let me take you to the hospital,” Pete said, watching him in deep concern.
MacGyver pressed his sweaty forehead against the hard, unforgiving surface of the toilet, refusing to look at his friend, embarrassed that he saw him vomit repeatedly. “No,” he groaned miserably. “It’s just…a stomach flu…I’ll…be fine—
His words were cut short as he gagged and retched again.
“No, I don’t think it’s stomach flu,” Pete said, crouching down beside him, feeling his clammy, hot forehead. “You’re burning up. You have a fever.”
“So?” MacGyver asked weakly.
“You said there was pain, right?”
“All over…my stomach…my side...feels like…anchor…pulling my guts down…I feel sick…really sick…pressure…”
“Oh God. It’s much more serious than I thought.”
“What?” MacGyver groaned.
“I think you might have appendicitis.”
“Don’t be ridiculous…” MacGyver said, waving him away with a limp hand without looking at him.
“This is a serious condition, Mac. If you don’t get it treated and surgically removed, your life could be in danger.”
“I don’t…care…not going…”
“Don’t you want to feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Well then stop being so damn stubborn and let me take you to the hospital!” Pete shouted angrily.
MacGyver turned to look at him, his eyes glazed with pain. “Wow…you really…mean it, don’t you?” He asked, wincing and clutching at his side as more intense, hot spasms of pain raced up it.
“Of course I do,” Pete said, still indignant. “Do you think I’m going to let you die from stubbornness and stupidity?”
MacGyver managed a slight smile.
“I mean, I don’t understand you sometimes. I honestly don’t,” Pete said. “You’d rather suffer than get relief. Even if it isn’t appendicitis, wouldn’t you still want the doctors at the hospital to help you feel better? Wouldn’t you want the reassurance that you will be fine, rather than simply guessing that you will, not knowing if you really will or not? It isn’t even—
“I’ll go.”
“What did you say?”
MacGyver closed his eyes and smiled through his pain again. “You can stop making your case. I’ll go,” he said.
“Well thank God, what a relief! It’s about time,” Pete said. “Here, let me help you up…” “I can’t tell you how many times he’s helped me, using common sense and better judgment when mine seemed to abandon me. If he hadn’t been there that night to go over a new assignment with me, he might not have seen me as sick as I was and I might have died from what he called stubbornness and stupidity,” MacGyver said, grinning. His expression then turned pensive. “I owe him a lot,” he said. “If he had died from that heart attack…”
“I know,” Nikki said, unconsciously taking his hand and squeezing it. He didn’t seem to notice. She looked up at him. “Are you glad?”
“Huh?” MacGyver asked, looking at her.
“Are you glad you’re alive?”
MacGyver sighed. “You know, at times I wasn’t so sure,” he said. “After everything I’ve been through…I wanted to die. You know that. When I was back in El Diablo’s hell, I wanted to desperately. But now…”
“I understand,” Nikki said, remembering how back in the psychiatric hospital she had told him about his strong will to live. She glanced at her watch. “I didn’t realize how late it was,” she said, standing. “I should…get going. You need rest. After all, this is your first night back in your own house, and you probably want to settle in, get comfortable—
MacGyver reached out and grabbed her hand. “I want you to stay,” he said.
Nikki paused, looking at him in surprise. His eyes were earnest and full of deep feeling instead of the dark voids that stared at her while he was in the mental hospital, at times not knowing who she was or not even seeing her. She couldn’t hide behind them any longer as he was now fully aware of her, and he wanted her near him again more than anything. She didn’t know if she could ever be as close to him again as she had been during his mental illness, feeling it was a special case, the one instance where she was permitted to touch him more than she usually did, the barriers that separated them removed. Now that he was sane, they had once again been raised.
“No, I couldn’t do that,” she said, and you know why.
It would break our unwritten code that keeps us separate from each other. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“You won’t impose,” MacGyver said. “Anyway…as you said…it’s late. It’s still raining pretty hard out there. You can have my bed. I’ll take the couch.”
She could tell he was trying to keep it respectable, that he wasn’t implying anything by asking her to spend the night, maintaining a chaste distance as if they were brother and sister or merely male and female friends, as rare an occurrence as that was. Still, she detected something more in his invitation, a longing that revealed how lonely, vulnerable, and afraid he was and how much he didn’t want to spend his first night home by himself, still worried about the ghosts that might come in the night to once again haunt and torment him, needing a steadying presence that Pete usually filled but was not available to fill that night. She hesitated, not wanting to show him how much she wanted to accept his offer, how much she wanted to be near him as well.
“All right,” she said flatly. “I’ll stay.”
***
Nikki was awakened during the night by MacGyver’s terrified screams. Rushing down the stairs, she found him thrashing around in the throes of another nightmare.
“MacGyver!” She shouted, trying to bring him out of it, unsure if she should approach him or try to physically awaken him, afraid he might accidentally strike her in his sleep. “MacGyver, wake up!”
He continued to cry out and roll around on the sofa, and Nikki felt helpless watching him. “MacGyver, can you hear me? It’s going to be okay! Come on, please wake up!” She shouted.
The violence of his motions eventually caused him to fall off the edge of the sofa, crashing to the floor. He awoke with a start, his eyes wide and frightened, frantically searching the houseboat for signs of familiarity, gasping and sobbing, looking completely lost. Immediately, Nikki rushed to his side, grabbing his shoulders and gently shaking him.
“It’s okay…It’s okay…” she said in soothing tones, cupping her hand around his warm, sweaty face, smoothing back his matted hair. She embraced him. “It’s okay MacGyver. I’m here.”
“N-Nikki…” he murmured, releasing a deep sigh, his breath stirring strands of her hair.
“That’s right, it’s me. You’re going to be all right now. It was just a nightmare.”
She could hold him, unlike that one time when she came to visit him at the psychiatric hospital and he snapped at her, baring his teeth and growling, cowering in the corner of the padded room like a mistrustful, abused animal, knowing only cruelty and mistreatment, kindness and compassion unknown to him. Perro. That word was used repeatedly in the account she had read of his torture. Dog. El Diablo and his men had treated him worse than a dog, as if he was worthless. The only value he had was contributing to their perverse amusement, the only reason he was barely kept alive.
“Oh MacGyver,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…”
“Nikki…”
They held each other for a long time, Nikki allowing him time to regain his bearings, listening to him as he breathed softly.
“I love you,” MacGyver said suddenly, breaking the silence.
“I know you do,” Nikki said. “I love you, too.”
“No,” MacGyver said, pulling away from her and looking into her eyes, the darkness of the room in the shade of night making his eyes look even darker and fiercer. “You don’t understand. Not the way you think…”
Nikki smiled slightly. “I know that, too,” she said.
“But…but we can’t, can we? We’re both too independent…”
Nikki kissed him—a long, slow, sensual kiss that at last expressed all the buried passion they felt for one another, their lips hot and responsive. When they released each other MacGyver stared at her, lust as well as some bewilderment in his eyes.
“We’ll see what happens,” Nikki said. “It doesn’t matter right now.”
She kissed him again, and MacGyver closed his eyes, drinking in her taste with delight, never wanting it to end. He didn’t know if it was a dream or not, but from then on, it was the only dream he wanted to have.
The End
"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
MacGyver & Nikki!! 
Ghostdoll, I can't wait until I can see the sketches you made for this story--I hope your scanner can be mended soon! Don't worry about your "suggestions" influencing my work in any way. I've been wanting to write a story about Mac and Nikki in a relationship for so long, but nothing I thought of seemed appropriate until this story. I don't know whether I will continue another story further developing their relationship or not, but I might maybe sometime in the future--again, when the subject matter surrounding the story seems to allow for it. As Kyrian said, this story leaves it open for more stories that could serve as sequels to this one. You never know. 
. Poor Mac 
, she can give him all the TLC he needs. 
