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The knock on the front door brings Kathleen Dalton’s head up. Her hands are currently buried in the dough of the bread she’s making for tomorrow’s dinner. Sunday dinner is the most important meal in the Dalton house and Kathleen always has a loaf of bread with it. It had been Wyatt’s favorite thing to have on Sunday afternoon.
There comes a second knock. This one is more hesitant than the first one. Kathleen strains her body towards the hallway leading to the front entryway. “Coming!”
The older lady quickly rinses her hands off and unties the messy apron around her waist. She sets it tenderly on the counter, memories springing to life as she pauses for a moment to admire the worn sunflower print. Wyatt had brought her a bouquet of sunflowers for their first date. They never failed to remind her of him.
Pulling herself away from the memories that she could get lost in, Kathleen moves swiftly through the hallways. She can make out a figure through the frosted glass on the six panel front door. Not wanting to leave anyone waiting for long, she opens the door with an apology on the tip of her tongue.
She can’t get the words out. Not in the face of the young man in front of him. Despite the buzzed haircut and the watery blue eyes, she knows who this is. What he’s done. How could she ever forget.
“I think it’d be best if you go home, hon.” Kathleen has to harden herself against the widening of those aching blue eyes.
“Wait. You know who I am.” The young man’s voice is weak and horribly hopeful.
“I do.” Kathleen steps back into the house, moving to close the door. “I don’t know why you thought to come here. He’s not here.”
“Please wait.” The young man reaches for the door but a wince of pain stops him. Kathleen catches the muffle groan of pain as the young man folds back in on himself. He raises his head to look at her. “Please wait. I don’t- This is really hard for me too. I just- You have to give me just a moment please. That's all I need.”
Kathleen can barely hear his next sentence.
“Then I’ll go.”
It’s what she wants. She wants him to go. He hurt someone she loves. Worse than hurt. She doesn’t owe him any time, any moment. But she can’t look at him and not pity him. Look at him and notice the uneven cut of his hair and the red puckered skin of a surgical scar. Look at him and not see the bruises on his neck his wrists his cheeks. She couldn’t look at him and not feel a desire to help this young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
A sigh escapes her. “Let’s sit down.” Then she steps towards him. Her keen eyes don’t miss the flinch as she wraps around an arm his shoulders and leads him into the house. She steers him to the sofa and gently pushes him onto it. “Let me get you a glass of water, hun.”
She doesn’t miss his whispered thank you as she walks away.
“What in tarnation are you doing, Kathleen Anne?” She whispers the question to herself as she pulls a glass out of the cupboard. “What are you thinking?”
She knows what she’s thinking. She knows it's the same thing that she’s done for years. But in the past she’s had someone else to turn to. She had Wyatt, her darling and supportive husband of forty-three years, to help her with the lost ones she brought home. It’s a characteristic of the Usher family. Her own mother had always been bringing home different people from different situations with the intention of helping them.
It was a Dalton quality to stay forever by the side of your loved ones. It’s a quality Kathleen claimed as her own when she married Jack Wyatt Dalton. Her son had inherited both qualities.
She brings the glass half full of water back to the young man in the living room. He has his arms wrapped around his stomach and is hunched over. He doesn’t notice when she holds out the glass for him to take. He’s too busy breathing harshly out his mouth.
“Are you gonna be okay, hon?” Kathleen places the glass on the coffee table and takes a seat in the armchair next to the sofa.
“Yeah.”
Kathleen doesn’t miss the pain in his voice. “Can I get you anything for the pain?”
“No thank you.” The young man lifts his head. “I took something before I got here. Hopefully it should kick in soon.”
“You’re lookin’ pretty beat right now.” Kathleen doesn’t know what else to say.
“Car crash.” The young man’s gaze holds hers. “Was able to stay in the hospital just long enough to be mobile. It’s- It’s a really long story.”
It’s a story Kathleen wants to hear. But she holds her tongue. She can’t be friends with this young man. Not after the hurt he had caused. “What did you come here for?”
The young man winces. “I was hoping- I mean, you recognized me.”
“I did.”
“What’s my name?”
Kathleen blinks at the question. Then she studies him. Was he messing with her? Playing some sort of wicked game to get back into her family’s good graces? “Excuse me?”
The young man’s voice is trembling. “You recognized me. When I look in the mirror I don’t recognize myself. Please. I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember?” Horror is creeping into the older woman’s voice.
The young man shakes his head and then groans in pain. “I can’t really remember anything right now. Almost everything is a blur when I try to remember. The doctor said that with my brain swelling, there might be some retrograde amnesia after the surgery. But then I couldn’t remember anything. Not even my name.”
“Oh, Mac.” Kathleen whispers.
He flinches bodily at the name. “Is that…?”
Kathleen nods. “When he talked about you, he always called you Mac.”
He had a name now.
Logically, he had known that he had a name. A name that someone had given him at birth. A name that meant something to someone. Proof that he meant something to someone. Proof that he existed. Proof that he was worth something.
It’s been three weeks since he woke up in that hospital bed. Since the doctor walked in and explained that there’d been a crash and that’s why his body was in agony. Since he looked up at the man and asked him what his name was and why he felt like there was someone supposed to be with him. It’s been three weeks and he’s spent them alone.
Dissociative amnesia. Typically caused by a traumatic event. He’d thought that the car hitting him and pinning him against a building had been traumatic enough. Then the officer that came to his door next told him that he had no identification found on him. The police speculated that based on the state of his clothing and the bruises that shouldn’t have come from the car that maybe he had been robbed or was coming from something worse.
He had just wished that he remembered. He doesn’t remember the car hitting him. He doesn’t remember what had happened before the car. Doesn’t remember where he’s from or who he belongs to. He feels like a ship lost at sea. Not a map or an anchor to help him.
Even the stars are lost in the clouds that fog his brain.
He knows for some strange reason that the stars could lead him home. He knows the periodic table of elements like it’s his own name. He knows that he gets cold easily and is used to the heat. The Texas sun that had beat down on him felt familiar. When he watched a movie that he couldn’t remember the name of, the friendship on the screen made him want to cry.
I used to live here, you know.
You’re gonna die here, you know.
It was like a part of him was missing. He was finding traces of it all over the place. Just out of reach and yet so close to grasping. Gunshots, even when the volume of the screen in his room had been on low, made him flinch. He longed for something in his fingers but he couldn’t figure out what. Sometimes he felt as though someone should be watching his back.
The doctor had hoped that he would be able to stay long enough for his memory to return. But it was a small town and the hospital was in financial trouble. He had no way of paying his bills. Once he was well enough to leave, he had to go.
While he was signing his release forms, guilt clinging to his shoulders as he realized just how much he owed these people, a young nurse had slipped up beside him. Had handed him a piece of notebook paper. Had told him that there had been an envelope in his back pocket when he was brought in. Had told him that it was too covered in blood to get much off it. Had told him that he had managed to get an address off of it.
The address had led him here and here is where he learned his name.
His name.
Mac.
It’s not much. Two consonants and a vowel. But it's enough for him. He has a name and therefore he must have someone. He can’t be as alone in the world as he feels.
He had thought his name was Carl. Often in his dreams he could hear someone calling him that. Wondered if his father’s name was Carl because there was always a Junior after it. He had thought his name was Hollywood until one of the nurses told him that was a place. He still doesn’t understand why he can still feel a hand on his shoulder and a laugh in his ear and the name Hollywood in the air.
But this woman knows him. Has called him by his name despite not wanting to look at him too much. He saw the hurt and anger in her eyes when she opened the front door. He wanted to plead with her for a second chance even though he doesn’t understand what he did with the first one. He doesn’t understand why this all feels familiar.
The woman, the anger, the pain in his chest. Familiar. The heat, the room, the guilt on his shoulders. Familiar. It was all familiar. When the woman in front of him looks at him, with disappointment and hurt in her gaze, he knows he deserves it. He knows that this has happened before. He’s failed before and this woman before him is just the latest person he’s disappointed.
He may not remember much but as he sits on the worn sofa in a room that he knows he knows and yet doesn’t know, he remembers the feeling of disappointment. He remembers the grief of a child and of a teenager and of an adult.
Someone somewhere calls him by a different name.
Someone somewhere calls him a disappointment.
He may not remember much but he knows he will never forget this.
“Mac?”
He swallows as sob(one of many that he’s been fighting). “How do you know me?”
The woman studies him again. He knew when she was studying him earlier. He knows now. He knows that her familiar brown eyes are looking over him. Measuring him. Finding him wanting. He wishes that she would tell him what he did. Why he deserves the anger the hurt the disappointment in her eyes. He knows that he deserves them but he feels like he’s on trial for something he can’t remember doing.
He can’t plead innocent when he knows that he’s not.
He just wishes that he knew how(and why) he had hurt her.
“You knew my son.”
“Your son. Is he- Is he alive?” He breathes. “Did I hurt him?”
“He’s alive.” The woman sighs again. “You hurt him.”
Someone somewhere calls him a disappointment.
Someone closer calls him an abuser.
He hurt him. He can think of a thousand ways that he could hurt someone. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t want to ask.
“I can’t remember.” Is what escapes him.
The woman is silent.
He feels his control slipping as the pain in his ribs in his head in his chest swells. “I can’t remember. I don’t remember hurting your son. I wish I could. So I could apologize because being hurt means pain and I’m hurt too and he doesn’t deserve that.”
Are there people who love him in the world? Or is he hurt because he hurts other people? He knows he doesn’t believe in karma or the supernatural but it makes sense to him. He’s alone because he deserves to be.
“You’re not lying to me.” This isn’t a question. This is a fact. This is something the woman now believes as true as she studies him again.
Had she thought he was trying to trick her? What kind of person is he that she would think that of him?
“I’m not.” He whispers. “I’m sorry. I should go. You’ve given me more than enough and I’ll leave you alone now.”
I’ll stop hurting you as much as I can.
He forces his trembling body up. The officer who had picked him up from the hospital had given him a booked plane ticket and enough cash for an Uber here. Just someone else that he owed. He doesn’t know where he’ll go now but he knows he can’t stay here. He knows that he’ll only cause more pain.
He’s tired of pain.
He makes it two steps before his vision is spotted with darkness. He hears someone calling to him. His knees go weak. A door opens somewhere. He doesn’t even register the flair of pain that overcomes his body as his knees hit the wooden floor and his body pitches forward.
He doesn’t feel the warm hands that catch him.
Kathleen can’t get her heart to stop pounding.
Her back aches because of her seat on the wooden steps leading to the second floor but she can’t bring herself to move. She can’t stop picturing the young man’s body falling forward. She can’t stop seeing the fear on her son’s face as he catches him.
Jack Wyatt Dalton Jr. wasn’t due home for four more days. He had told her a week ago that an old friend had called him and asked for some help. He would be back in ten days is what he told her. He should have missed their visitor.
Instead he walked into his home and caught the very man who had hurt him so badly. He had dropped everything(his duffle, his phone, his hat) to catch the young man that had once meant so much to him. Kathleen doesn’t know what to make of it.
She had thought that Jack hated the young man. She had thought that he would never see him again. She had thought that Jack stopped caring about the young man.
But she had seen his fear. His concern. She had seen the way his gaze had flown over the young man in his arms. She had seen the way his gaze lingered on every bruise and every fresh scar. She couldn’t have missed the tremble in her son’s fingers as he touched the buzzed blond hair.
She could never have missed the grief on his face.
Jack had taken the young man upstairs. She knows that he took him to his own room. It’s the Dalton loyalty kicking in. The Usher’s habit of being unable to refuse a person who’s hurting. Jack wouldn’t be coming down until he had cataloged every hurt and soothed every pain.
Kathleen herself is torn. It wasn’t too long ago that Jack came home from LA. It wasn’t too long ago that she held him as he cried over the loss of a friendship that he didn’t want to give up. He never spoke much of what had happened between the pair but she’d gathered enough to have an understanding. The young man upstairs had used her son and then thrown him out. Took advantage of his giving heart and then kicked him out of his life.
How is Jack ignoring that? Kathleen is normally a forgiving person but she’s seen the hurt and grief in her son’s eyes for the past five months. Her son who had taken care of strays and loved his family with a fierceness that left her breathless. Her son who had left after a world shattering argument with the man who loved him most and who had stayed away til it was almost too late for reconciliation. She doesn’t know what happened to Jack during his time in the military. He doesn’t say and she doesn’t ask.
“Ma?”
Kathleen looks up and over her shoulder. Jack is standing at the top of the stairs. She smiles at him as he makes his way down to her. “Hiya, Jack-love.”
He sits next to her.
“How is he?”
Jack sighs. “Hurt. Real bad.”
“He said something about a car crash.”
“Add in broke ribs, the surgical scar on his head where they must have cut him open, and the bruises that cover him head to toe.” Jack puts his head in his hands. “There is a fading handprint on the back of his neck, Ma. That’s not from a car crash.”
Kathleen leans against her son. “What are ya gonna do with him?”
“Do with him?” Jack looks at her with a frown on his face. “What'dya mean? I’m gonna make sure he heals.”
“So he’s staying?”
“Did you think I’d kick him out?” Jack scoffs. “Ma, it’s Mac. I couldn’t kick him out if you paid me to. It’s Mac.”
It is the only explanation he offers up. It doesn’t satisfy Kathleen but she doesn’t press. She’s never met the young man before today but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know anything about him. “He said he doesn’t remember his name.”
Jack shakes his head. “What happened to him? He looks like he went through Hell.”
Kathleen doesn’t remind him that that’s where he’s been for the past five months without the young blond. “Are you sure that he should stay here? I could ask CJ and Darla from church if they could keep him-”
“He’s not a stray to pass around, Ma.” Jack’s voice is hard. “It’s Mac and I’m the only one that’s gonna take care of him.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Jack-love.” Kathleen whispers.
“Mac might have hurt me before, Ma, but he’s here now and that means something. The kid’s lost too many people and I’m not gonna be one of them. He pushed me away and ya it hurt. Hurt like hell. But it’s Mac.” Jack shrugs. “I owe the kid my life a hundred times over and I woulda never left ‘im if he hadn’t of wanted it.”
Kathleen presses a kiss to her son’s temple. “Don’t blame a mother for wanting to keep her babies safe, Jack. I love you.”
“Love you too, Ma.”
Kathleen winces as her bones groan as she stands. “I’ve gotta finish the bread for tomorrow. Holler if you need anything.”
Jack is at his side as he sleeps.
It’s a familiar spot but it’s the first time Jack’s kept watch at Mac’s bedside in his childhood bedroom. They’ve been a lotta places together but never here. Not strangers but not friends. The argument that forced Jack to leave Mac in LA never made sense to him and it still doesn’t five months later.
“This is what happens when I leave you alone, hoss.” Jack touches the buzzed hair again, wincing at the unfamiliar feeling under his fingertips. “You get hurt and I’m not there to help. But I’m here now.”
Mac sleeps on.
“I’m here now, hoss.” Jack stokes the hair again, wishing the long blond strands back. Then he pulls his phone out of his back pocket. It only takes him a moment to find the right number.
“Jack?”
“Hey, Boze.” Jack smiles at the familiar voice of his friend. “It’s been a while.”
“I’ll say it has.” Jack can picture the smile on Bozer’s face. “How’ve you been, man? You back in Texas? Why’d it take you so long to call me?”
“You coulda called me first, Boze.” Jack falls back onto the paths of this friendship with ease. He’d only stepped off the path. He hadn't lost it completely like he’d feared. “And ya I’m back in Texas. Been helping my Ma with the ranch.”
“Bet she’s loving having you home.” Bozer pauses. “Are you calling about Mac?”
“Will you be offended if I say yes, Boze?”
“Nah, Jack. I’ve actually been hoping you’d call about him.”
“What do you mean?”
Bozer sighs. “He’s been different since you left. Not himself. I actually haven’t seen him in like over a month.”
Jack’s eyes fly to the bruised and hurting kid in his bed. “Really?”
“Yeah, Jack. It's strange. He moved out like a month after you left. Said that he was staying with that guy you introduced him to. He claimed that he needed a break from his grandpa’s house.”
Dread pools in Jack’s gut. “Did you see him after he moved out? Talk to him?”
“Off and on. I’ve known Mac for most of his life but I’ve never known him to act like this.” Bozer’s voice trembles at the end of the sentence. “I miss him.”
Jack doesn’t know what to say. Months(weeks, days, hours) have passed since he’s last spoken to Mac. He doesn’t know how to comfort Bozer. He knows that he’s the cause of all this. He and his need to help had ruined this.
When Jack and Mac had returned Stateside after being discharged from the army, things had seemed great. He and Mac had gotten an offer to work as government agents at a government funded agency undercover as a think tank. They had been going through the training together. They were working together as partners. They were a great team.
But Jack had to ruin it. He had gotten so fed up with Mac. Gotten annoyed that the kid wouldn’t admit that his father had treated him terribly as a kid. Mac had played off every story with a casual shrug that looked way too practiced. It was like the kid had brainwashed himself into believing that James Macgyver had actually cared for him like every other parent in the world.
Jack knows that there are good parents out there. His ma and pops were some of the good ones. James Macgyver wasn’t. He was verbally and physically abusive to Mac and the kid refused to see it.
So Jack did what he would always regret. He searched for the man who had walked out on Mac. Used some of the favors owed to him and found the man’s grave. He was two years too late to give James the broken nose he deserved. But his partner Jonah Walsh was alive and well and living an hour away from Mac.
Jack introduced them, hoping that Walsh’s input would help Mac see the truth about his father. And it hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped.
Mac groans and Jack runs a finger over the bridge of his nose. Bozer has hung up while Jack was lost in his own head. Jack vows to call him back after he talks with Mac. After he gets the truth from Mac.
The five months he’s spent away from the kid have given him a lot of time to think. To work through some of the things that Mac had said that night. They still don’t make sense to him but he thinks he understands them a little bit more.
Something had happened to Mac. Something probably with Walsh. And Mac blamed Jack. That’s why he sent him away with a shaking hand and tears in his eyes. Jack had been too angry, too hurt, too upset to notice it before. It was stupid of him. The kid who had clung to their friendship in the desert wouldn’t change overnight. Jack had missed something and now Mac was paying the price.
Jack rubs his face and wishes Mac would wake up. Would tell him what led him to this. He wants to know if Mac still blames him. Jack doesn’t care if he does. He just wants to know the truth.
He wants Mac to wake up.
He wants to know if this kid whose life he values above his own will give him another chance.
Even if he doesn’t deserve it.
There is a stranger sitting next to him.
But he can’t help feeling as though it’s okay. That he’s still safe despite not knowing the name of the older man next to him. This is someone he should remember and he’s gonna be okay with him by his side.
“Mornin’, hoss.”
He wants to cry at the familiar accent. This is the voice in his dream. The one who calls him Carl Jr. with so much affection that sometimes he will wake with tears on his cheeks. Is this someone who loves him? Does he know how much hurt he’s caused? “Hi.”
“You’re not lookin’ too pretty, brother.” The strange smiles softly. “Someone gotcha real good.”
“I’m told it was a car.” He pushes up on his elbow, wincing at the pain in his chest. “Though I don’t remember it.”
“Ma mentioned the whole not rememberin’ thing.”
He tenses.
“What’s wrong, hoss? Something hurting?” The stranger leans forward.
This is the woman’s son? This is who he had hurt so badly? He drops back down on his back, welcoming the pain. This stranger is treating him too nicely. Talking to him like there is no hurt between them. He doesn’t deserve kindness.
He can’t stop the tears from stinging his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Mac.”
He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry.” One of the sobs he was fighting with earlier escapes. “I don’t even know what I did but your mom said I hurt you and I don’t know what I did to hurt you but I’m sorry and I understand why you hate me because it’s what I deserve and-”
The older man curses and leans forward. “Hold it right there, Angus Macgyver. I accept your apology. It’s all forgiven.”
He shakes his head again and groans in pain. “It shouldn’t be.”
“Well tough because it is.” The stranger places both hands on his face and angles his head so he’s looking up at the older man. “You don’t remember?”
He clenches his fists. “No. I remember little things but everything’s still pretty foggy.”
“What little things?”
“You used to call me Carl Jr.” He whispers. “But I don’t know why. And I know I’m safe with you. I remember us covered in sand. I know I hurt you but I can’t remember how.”
“Your name is Angus Macgyver. You’ve gone by Mac since grade school. Your best friend’s named Wilt but he goes by Bozer. You and I met in Afghanistan. You were the slowest EOD I ever had the privilege of providing overwatch for.” The older man is searching his face. “We got out about a year ago. You live in your grandpa’s old house and have a firepit on your deck. You-”
“Your name is Jack.” He breathes, afraid to be wrong.
“Yeah.” The stranger- Jack clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m Jack.”
“I think I’ve missed you.” He whispers.
Jack pulls him against his chest. The older man is cradling him gently, mindful of the aches in his body. He feels his own fingers getting tangled in the older man’s shirt.
“I’ve missed you too, hoss.”
He relaxes completely into Jack’s embrace. It’s as if his body is saying this is safe this is what you’ve been looking for this is where you belong. He couldn’t have fought it if he tried. This Jack is someone who loves him. He knows that without a doubt.
“What happened, Mac? Do you remember anything that’s happened in the last five months?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “I wish I did. I only know what the doctors and the police told me.”
He tells all that to Jack. It’s told into Jack’s chest and muffled by the familiar fabric of the older man’s shirt. It’s told amid the promises and the I don’t remembers and the fingers providing constant pressure on the back of his neck. Jack takes it all in stride and tells him more about his life. Tells him stories that he’s sure the older man has told before. He soaks it all in, wishing that he remembered it all.
And months down the road, he does.
It starts slowly. Bits and pieces return to him with every day that passes and Jack is there to provide a steady stream of reassurances. Jack affirms what he can of the memories that return to him. The doctor Jack took him to told him to watch out for things that his mind makes up to compensate for the holes in his memory. When Jack can’t confirm a story, a detail, or a name, they call up Bozer and ask him.
Until one day he wakes and realizes that the dream he’s been having for the past week isn’t a dream. He remembers the house he moved out of and the house he moved into. He remembers the news of his father’s grave and the first meeting of his father’s partner.
He remembers the offer and the horror that his own partner didn’t want him around anymore. He remembers the sneer on his father’s partner’s face and how the man swore that Jack introduced them because the man was looking for a new partner to work with.
He remembers being hurt and confused. He remembers the fight with Jack. He remembers wishing that Jack would have told him himself. He remembers wishing that Jack would have stayed.
He remembers being unable to stay in his grandfather’s house and being reminded of what he is to people(disappointment disappointment disappointment). He remembers moving in with his father’s partner til he can find a different place. He never wanted to know more about his father’s life. Had Jack really wanted to get rid of him that badly?
When he tells Jack what he remembers, the older man swears that it wasn’t what he thought. That he never wanted to get rid of him. That he only left because he was stupid enough not to realize that leaving wasn’t really what he wanted.
He doesn’t ever tell Jack about the days before the crash. He doesn’t tell him about how Walsh had looked at him and had lingered. He didn’t tell him about how he refused and was kicked out with nothing but the clothes he was wearing. That’s why there was no identification on him. He had only the envelope from Kathleen Dalton in his back pocket.
It had been his only way to find Jack.
When he remembers, he is able to pay for his medical care. He’s able to find the doctor and the nurse and the police officer that helped him and thank them. He’s able to apologize to Kathleen. He’s able to apologize to Bozer. Jack refused to let him apologize again.
He’s glad now to remember. To have a name. To know that there is someone who he belongs to. His body heals and his mind is following. The job they left behind promises to wait until they are ready.
Once he’s healed enough, Jack takes him on horseback around the ranch. He smiles the whole time, content to let Jack show off his home. Content to let Jack eye him carefully. Content to let Jack take care of him for a while.
Mac’s glad he got a second chance.
-