I hope the ending to this story does not seem too abrupt or rushed. If I have any faults, that's one of them--I tend to hurry stories along sometimes. Writers should never apologize for their work before presenting it, but I guess I just didn't feel that this was one of my strongest efforts. I just hope it concludes satisfactorily for my readers. I'm actually more excited about my next story, involving Mac, Pete, and the scientist from Kill Zone!
I'll be posting that later on this weekend. For now, enjoy the ending to this one and see if I have been too harsh and critical of my own work
Programmed Part Seven
Rated: R (Conclusion)
He heard festive music and the flirtatious laughter of women, but while their mood was celebratory and jubilant, he could not participate. He was lost to the world, forgotten and neglected, forced into isolation, dying slowly of starvation and infection, in constant agony and misery. No one would listen to his whimpers and pleas for help, his mouth covered with the gag. No one cared or was even aware he barely eked out a meager existence in that filthy pit, suffering from the severe brutality of the torment that had been inflicted on him. They ignored him, enjoying their party and thriving in life while he slowly withered and died. Their laughter taunted and mocked him cruelly, deriving pleasure from his pain, sounding wicked and unpleasant, some of them harsh, shrill cackles. El Diablo’s deep, bellowing laughter mingled with the other laughs until it sounded like a chorus of the damned in hell, demons and devils shrieking with delight over a sinner’s eternal punishment. He could hear their feet shuffle and scrape against the ground above him as they danced on his grave in blatant disregard and disrespect. They were glad he was down there. They wanted him to suffer, to die a slow, painful death.
Even though his eyes were covered by a blindfold, his mind, made delirious from a lack of food and high fever from infection, began to envision the dancers in their garish, colorful costumes. Pete and Nikki appeared in similar attire, joining the revelers, their grins ugly and vicious. Like the others in the crowd, they ignored him, turning their backs on him, leaving him to die. He tried to cry out to them, to beg them for help, for rescue, but they denied him, and the gag prevented him. They were going to discard him, just as the others had… “NO! Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! Please! Don’t leave me!” MacGyver screamed, abruptly bolting upright in bed.
“Shh! It’s all right!” Nikki said, awakened by his cries and his violent thrashing around.
“Don’t leave…don’t leave me...don’t leave…”
“It’s okay,” Nikki said, stroking his matted hair and sweaty face. “MacGyver, look at me! It’s all right now! I’m here…”
MacGyver’s terrified, lost eyes wildly searched the darkened bedroom, struggling to reorient himself to his present surroundings, panting heavily. At last, his eyes settled on her. Releasing a soft, relieved moan, he embraced her tightly. She could hear his heart hammering rapidly in his chest and feel his warm, sweaty body tremble as she pressed him against her.
“It’s all right now,” she said soothingly. “I’m here. It’s over.”
Releasing him, she held his face in her hands and looked into the sorrowful depths of his dark, haunted eyes. She kissed him, once again pressing him against her.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered between kisses. “Don’t leave me…”
“It’s all right, Mac, I won’t leave you,” Nikki said.
They held each other for a long time, listening to each other’s breathing. Once it seemed that MacGyver was calm enough, Nikki shifted her position so that she was now behind him, gently tracing her fingers over his numerous scars and gently kissing them. Sighing, she embraced him from behind, pressing against his strong, sturdy back, restored to what it had been, the horrendous scars that marked it the only evidence that remained that he had ever been weak and close to death, a beaten and broken man. She wrapped her hands around his broad shoulders and closed her eyes, feeling him shudder with terror over the nightly memories that assaulted him in his restless sleep, his breathing still irregular and rapid.
It had been several weeks since he was released from Dr. Ladd’s care, successfully de-programmed after a long, challenging struggle and declared sane, safe enough to re-enter society and his regular, routine life again, no longer posing a threat to anyone close to him. They were allowed to be intimate again, but their pleasure was always interrupted by the vivid, shocking reminders of what had been done to him in the brutal past, his trauma still deep and present. MacGyver’s breathing slowed, and he remained still and silent. Nikki continued to listen to his breathing and also began to relax again, feeling she could fall asleep that way, her naked body pressed against his, clutching his bare shoulders, never feeling more comfortable in her life. With him, she felt she was home, that she belonged with him. She would endure whatever she needed to with him, and they would both be stronger and survive because they relied on each other to soothe and heal their emotional wounds. This was the MacGyver she knew, the MacGyver she remembered. The frightening, dangerous man who had tried to strangle her was gone, replaced with the strong yet vulnerable man he was, the man she wanted to be with and take care of the rest of her life.
“You wouldn’t leave me, would you?” MacGyver asked quietly, shattering the silence.
Nikki opened her eyes. “Of course not,” she said, surprised by how needy he sounded. “Why would you ever think that?”
“After everything that’s happened…I don’t remember most of it, but the evidence was there. I saw it. I tried to kill you…I tried to kill Pete…”
Nikki shook her head. “No, you didn’t,” she said. “Whoever programmed you did. Mac, you have to know that you would never be capable of something like that on your own. That’s not who you are.”
“I came so close…what if the program had succeeded?”
“It didn’t.”
MacGyver sighed, and Nikki felt his body move against hers. “Still, if it had…I don’t know what I would have done,” he said. “Everyone who has ever been close to me has died and abandoned me. Both of you are all I have. If you had left me too…” his voice broke, and Nikki almost thought she could hear him suppress a sob. “I thought you would never find me. When I was being tortured by El Diablo, I thought I would die alone and never see either of you again. I thought you left me, too. I thought you’d gone. I thought you had given me up for dead.”
“I know that,” Nikki said, wiping away a tear.
“I wasn’t angry. I didn’t blame you. I had just simply lost all hope of rescue or survival. If the program had succeeded and I had killed you, then you would have left me—not to die, but to live alone in my grief and the anguish of what I had done.”
“Well, it’s over now, and we’re here for you, no matter what you need,” Nikki said, gently stroking his scarred back. She kissed the scars again.
MacGyver closed his eyes, enjoying the comforting feeling her soft, supple lips and warm breath on his skin.
“Is it over? Sometimes I wonder…what will they try next?” He asked.
“I don’t know. Brandon’s dead, though, a victim of his own poison. At least one of them has been eliminated as a potential threat. Of course, what’s disturbing about that is we don’t know how many of them are left.”
“They keep dividing us, trying to destroy us from within. They’ve failed so far, but next time they could succeed.”
“I know,” Nikki said, rubbing and massaging his back, feeling the rough ridges of the scars against her palms. “But you know something? I don’t think they will. They underestimate you. All their drugs and poisons can alter you, limit you, and influence you, but they can’t rob you of who you are. Your mind and your will are stronger and more powerful than anything they could do to you, and they usually prevail.”
“Dr. Ladd told me the same thing after I had been tortured,” MacGyver said. “You don’t know how difficult it was, battling for my soul…I thought I was lost forever.”
“But you fought back, and you weren’t lost, just as you aren’t now. Pete and I haven’t left you, Mac, but you should also know that your mind hasn’t left you, either. That’s why you overcame whatever force was controlling you. That’s why you weren’t able to act on the mission and kill us.”
“If I had…”
“Stop thinking that way. We don’t blame you for what happened, and even if the worst had, you should know that we would forgive you and know that you weren’t responsible, just as you weren’t responsible for Mike’s death or your parents’ deaths.”
MacGyver’s body grew rigid against hers, and she knew she had touched upon a sensitive subject, but she felt she needed to help him by telling the truth.
“Some things are beyond your control,” she said. “I’m sure you recognize that by now. Still, you learn from those experiences and realize that even in this chaotic world where so little feels as if it makes any sense that there is some order and reason behind things. Brandon’s organization wanted to make you into a killer. They didn’t realize that it went against your nature, against everything you believe in so deeply that they couldn’t change that by simply using a drug. They came close, but they don’t know who you are. They might have their background research on you, but reports on paper do not always accurately reflect the man you are. You’re more complex than that. Even when you held me at gunpoint, you hesitated about pulling the trigger. I could sense it. You’re not a killer, Mac, and they could never make you into one. You have to believe that, especially now that it’s over and Pete and I are still alive, still here to support you. We haven’t left you, haven’t turned our backs on you. We never could.”
MacGyver was quiet for a long time, seeming to contemplate what she had said. The only sounds Nikki heard were the creaking of the houseboat as it rocked and swayed from the gentle motion of the water beneath, and their breathing. She closed her eyes again, leaning against his naked body.
“Will you stay with me again tomorrow night?” He asked finally.
“Of course I will,” Nikki said, holding him closer to her. “I won’t leave you.”
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
