Blood and Water
Madeline Perkins has been working at Oceanside Memorial Hospital for 37 years, but she's never seen a family quite like Angus MacGyver's.
She's just clocked in for the day when they bring him in, a lanky blond thing with bandages wrapped around a worryingly large amount of his body. His eyes are closed but they're moving rapidly as he struggles in his sleep, fighting an invisible foe and the hospital staff at the same time. Madeline watches as he's put into one of her rooms, watches as Dr. Silverman—Matthew to his patients, Matt to his co-workers and his friends—injects something into his IV, watches his body go still. Madeline has never met this young man before but in that instant, seeing him lying so quiet, she knows he's the type of person who never stops moving.
Her first thought is that he must be a soldier. Her second is that he's far too young for that.
When Madeline does her rounds, she dawdles a bit in the young man's room—he looks so lonely, lying there in that bed—and wonders what happened to him. She reads his chart—his name is Angus MacGyver, and he was in a two-car accident that resulted in a fire—and marvels at his brief medical history. He's 28 years old but Madeline was right, he was a soldier. Now he works at a think tank in Los Angeles with no listed address. His file is surprisingly empty, and his military record is mostly redacted, but he has an emergency contact and Madeline wonders if anyone has called.
Her question is answered by the man who strides into the room, his face paling five or so shades at the sight of the young blond man lying prone in the hospital bed.
This is his father, Madeline thinks immediately, it must be. The way he looks at that young man, the way he collapses into the cold plastic seat beside his bed and reaches for his hand like it's a lifeline, the way his eyes can't stop cataloging the damage, it's all signs Madeline has seen a million times before. A caring father, seeing his son in pain.
Madeline slips out of the room without a word, giving the man some time alone with his son.
When she returns to Angus MacGyver's room half an hour later, there's a young woman, a few years older than the patient at the most, standing beside the bed opposite Angus's father. She strikes Madeline as an older sister, despite the apparent differences in race between her and Angus—that same familiar worry in her eyes, the way she pushes the sleeping young man's hair out of his face and tucks it behind his ear. Adopted, perhaps, or even a particularly close family friend?
Madeline slips into the room and goes about her business, taking care not to listen to the conversation the father and the sister are having. When she makes to leave, the young woman's hand shoots out, staying Madeline's motion.
"Is he in pain?" She asks with tears in her eyes, her voice and her hands shaking in time with one another.
"No, I can't imagine he is," Madeline says soothingly, smiling sympathetically at the pair. "I'll fetch Dr. Silverman and have him check on Angus."
"Mac." The father corrects automatically. "He goes by Mac."
"Mac, then." Madeline amends, exiting the room without another word. She glances back over her shoulder once, watching as the father pulls the young woman into an embrace. He's undoubtedly her father, as well, the same way that she's Angus– Mac's sister.
When Madeline makes her next rounds, she's unsurprised to find Mac's two guests still present in his room, but she isn't expecting a third occupant. A young African American man is standing at the foot of the bed, staring with stricken horror at the condition of the still-unconscious blond—Dr. Silverman sedated him heavily, citing a possible head injury and his body's need to heal. The young man looks older than Mac and his sister, and his relationship doesn't appear to be quite the same, either. He's standing more distantly than the other two, for one thing, and the fear in his eyes doesn't appear to be quite as potent—born less from a familial love and more from that of a close friend.
A very close friend, Madeline surmises as the young man ducks his head and shudders. A best friend, one of many years. One that is practically a brother, but not in the same way as an actual member of the family would be. A relationship that isn't forced but nurtured.
Madeline continues on her way with a smile on her face—Mac is turning out to have quite the family.
On her last trip to Mac's room before the end of her shift, Madeline is surprised to see that only Mac's father remains of the trio. He isn't alone, however, accompanied instead by a short woman who is standing stiffly on one of the plastic chairs, looking down at the unconscious blond with a fury in her eyes that causes Madeline pause. As she approaches the room, she picks up on the end of the woman's sentence, directed at the father rather than the son.
"...and he'll regret ever doing this to us, Jack." The woman finishes, her eyes never leaving Mac's. The father—Jack—nods slowly, rubbing light circles in the back of Mac's right hand—one of the single pieces of his skin left untouched by the fire—as he considers the woman's words.
"Mac will be okay, Matty, you know that, right?" Jack asks softly, and to Madeline's surprise, the fury melts from the woman's eyes as she lowers herself carefully to the ground, rounding the bed and pulling Jack into a tight hug.
The mother, Madeline decides with a soft smile, turning away from the room. The last member of Mac's little family.
For two weeks, Mac recovers in that same room, and every time Madeline sees him he has at least one member of his family by his side. Jack—Dalton, not MacGyver, a fact which surprised Madeline—never leaves, not even at night, sleeping in the cold plastic chair until Madeline brings him a cot, and then falling asleep in the chair most of the time anyway, his hand still holding on to Mac's. The young woman—Riley— often visits, usually with a laptop in her hands and a worried expression on her face as she speaks quietly to Mac—who woke up on the third day with a concussion but no sign of more severe brain damage. The other young man—Bozer, he introduced himself as one day when he ran into Madeline in the cafeteria and recognized her as one of Mac's nurses—comes daily, always with a smile on his face that quickly spreads to the ordinarily sullen Mac. Madeline doesn't see the woman very often, but she's still a familiar presence by the time Mac is discharged. She's no-nonsense when she speaks to Madeline or Dr. Silverman—or any of the staff, really—but whenever she talks to Mac or Jack, her tone softens and her entire demeanor changes. She acts a lot like a businesswoman, Madeline thinks, when she's not around them. But when she is, she becomes a mother.
A father, a mother, a sister, a brother. All four are present the day Mac is discharged from the hospital with pink skin and bandages that only cover half of his body rather than all of it.
Madeline watches them leave and shakes her head, smiling. She knows now that none of the members of Mac's little group are indeed related, but that doesn't mean her initial thoughts weren't true. A family doesn't have to be blood to be a real family.
And Madeline has never seen a more real family than that of Angus MacGyver.