Cold. Pain-hurts everywhere, breathing...agony. MacGyver opens his eyes. His face is pressed on gravel, he can feel cuts and scrapes, and worse...He blinked. It's dark, night. He slowly pushes himself to sit. He looked down. He's wearing a dirty white T-shirt, has blood on it and is torn in several places, his skin under the tears is ripped, red, swollen. Mac blinks. Everything is blurry, hurts to think. Mac feels his hair is dirty, matted, major pain across his scalp. He touches the spot and almost doubles over with pain. His hand comes away covered with blood. He squints down. Red, raw gnawed flesh circles each wrist. Restraints he had fought against.

He looks down. He's wearing some sort of light blue pajama bottoms, also covered in splotches of blood. These do not all match his torn flesh under. So, he has someone else's blood on him. He is barefoot, raw circles around his ankles. His feet are raw. Mac looks around him. It takes a minute for the blurriness to fade. He's on a dark road, single lane tarred with woods on either side. He feels himself start to shiver. Low hanging fog sways across the woods and road, seems to be swirling around him.

It takes a few painful tries, but finally, Mac manages to stay standing. Dizziness, nausea. He lifts the T-shirt, his chest has many different layers of bruises. The oldest look about two days old. Mac dropped his shirt and tried to suck in a breath. It feels like he is breathing through broken glass. He looks up, he can't see the night sky because he is standing under a dim street lamp. He blinks seeing an intermittent light along the length of the road.

Mac tries to think. The last thing he remembers was driving home from Phoenix. 13. Mac frowns. The number blares through his head lit up like a flashing neon light. It was important, a matter of life and death, and he had to...Mac frowned. He had no idea, but there was something about the number. Something he had to do...Mac closes his eyes against a stabbing steel band that seems to stab deep into his scalp. Something he has to undo. He'd been forced to...Mac moves his jaw. It too was swollen, bruised but he doesn't think broken. Whatever happened, it hadn't been fun, or healthy. He sums up mentally.

Mac decides one way is just as good as another and starts walking. His feet scream in protest. He walks on the rough tar. Even though he can't see any, he is almost sure he was leaving a trail of bloody footprints. He crosses his arms across his chest feeling the cold, damp night wrap around him like a hand of ice. Before long, he is shivering teeth chattering. The fog hypnotizes him, or maybe he was drugged. Mac winces feeling his head again. He doesn't think the bumps were serious enough to cause amnesia. Contrary to what TV show, it actually took quite a wallop to cause amnesia. His mouth is dry, it tastes like cotton...and blood. He can feel several open areas around his teeth. Probably punched, he guesses. So someone had worked him over for at least two days. He looks at his arms and frowns. As he suspected several needle marks are apparent in both inner elbows. He hugs himself, shivering from more than cold. What had happened to him? Who had done...all this? Had he escaped? What did they make him do? What did 13 mean?

Mac feels himself drift into a mental fog. He keeps walking but does not know for how long. He comes back to himself as he hits the tar road. Mac closes his eyes, gasping in a breath. He wants to lie down, to close his eyes, to sleep...He feels his eyes closing when the sense of impending danger slams into him. He grits his teeth and sways up to his feet again. He has to stop something from happening...undo something he'd done. Something...13.

Mac blinks realizing that the road ahead of him has no trees off to the left, and there is a building. Mac feels a tiny trickle of hope. He zombie-walks toward it. It is a deserted gas station. Graffiti and broken windows give the dark, building a menacing feeling. The canopy above has panels broken out and the pumps have been removed leaving behind only a metal skeleton. Mac blinks at it. The street lamp above the garage is missing a bulb, but the one across the street gives the place in a dim glow. The dark shadows seem to move like ghosts silently writhing in the fog.

Mac closes his eyes and manages a dry swallow. He forces his legs forward. Perhaps he can find something useful, like where he is for starters. The inside of the building is full of dusty boxes and mice. Mac frowns. The bathrooms are empty, holes in the floor and one rusty wall of a stall leaning off the wall in the woman's room. Mac avoids looking at himself in the broken mirror. He has to focus and it is getting harder to do every second.

As he shuffles back to the front of the building he stops and smiles. A pay phone hangs from wires inside a broken booth across the dark parking lot. Mac winces as he steps through the low metal opening left by broken glass. He feels the side of his T-shirt tear as he rubs against a spear of glass. Mac hisses, feeling the sting then warmth of blood. He straightens and blinks his eyes trying to focus on the wires. He glances up. The street lights are lit along the road in front of him, the phone should still have power. If he...Mac frowns realizing he didn't have his Swiss army knife. He has no idea where it was. Mac sighs feeling a sense of regret.

It is true that he has an entire drawer of them, keeping his stock well cared for and up to date, but anytime he lost one, he felt like he'd had to put down a puppy. And the latest one he carried, he'd had since Hawaii, it had a flashlight which would be very helpful. Mac manages a small sigh. He lifts one of the pieces of glass wincing as it cuts into his hand. He files it away with the rest of his multitude of pains and focuses on the wires. It takes him longer than normal, and he is covered in sweat from having to hold the phone up while he connects broken wires. He lifts his leg leaning the phone against it and lifts the receiver. Mac almost cries when he hears the dial tone buzz.

With his hand shaking, he dials a number he knows better than his own. Everything was spinning after an eternity Jack answers.

"Yeah?" Mac breathes out and almost drops the phone.

"J..k…" He wheezes. He clears his throat and repeats it again. His voice is hoarse, sore. From screaming? "Jack." He finally manages.

"MAC! Thank God! Where are you?" Mac sucks in air, swaying.

"Dunno...hurt…" He manages.

"Ok, ok, bud. Riley's tracking you now. I've been going crazy looking for you…" Mac tries to focus, but everything is getting fuzzy. "...Mac? Mac? You still there, buddy?"

"Uhmm." Mac murmurs. He leans his forehead against the metal frame of the booth. "Jack, hurry...can't…" He feels the phone fall out of his hands and the stabbing pain of glass in his knees, then nothing.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

"Mac? MAC!" Jack almost screamed into the phone. He whirled to Riley. "Please tell me you got that?" Riley nodded as she typed into the computer. She smiled.

"Got it! He's in Oregon." Jack glanced at Matty.

"Go, take a Blackhawk." She said as she hurried to Riley's side. By the time she looked up again, Jack was gone. Bozer was almost knocked over by the man ran from the room. Holding the coffees he'd fetched, Bozer looked over at Riley hope in his eyes. Riley smiled, relief in her eyes.

"We found him, Boze. We found him."

Jack growled, he knew the pilot was pushing the Blackhawk to its limits, but it still wasn't fast enough. He looked down at the growing tree cover below them.

"Five minutes out." The pilot radioed him. Jack nodded and focused on an intermittent line of street lights. Through the trees, they looked like they were twinkling as the Blackhawk zipped past. The helicopter hovered, the pilot frowning. He glanced over at Jack about to say something when he saw the dangerous glint in the man's eyes. The pilot nodded. It was not going to be an easy landing, he barely had enough room, but he would make it happen. The helicopter kicked up a thick cloud of dirt as it thumped in the middle of the parking lot of the abandoned gas station. Jack was hunched over and bailing out before the engine cycled off.

Jack blinked grit out of his eye and coughed searching. He saw the dark silhouette he would recognize anywhere and ran almost as fast as his heart thudded. He pulled out a flashlight and knelt in the bed of broken glass looking over his partner. Jack's jaw clenched. He didn't like what he saw, at all. The kid was pale and bloody. His slack face was more black and blue than flesh toned, his hair was matted with blood. Jack winced at Mac's raw feet, glass shards poking out.

"Mac?" He whispered softly. He reached out to take a pulse. Before he touched Mac, the kid jerked awake and skittered back curling into a defensive ball, his arms raised over him. "Hey, hey, easy kid. It's me." Jack said setting the flashlight on the ground beside him. Mac peeped through his arms at Jack. Jack could see confusion and outright terror. His heart broke and anger thrummed through him.

"J..K?" Mac's weak voice was dry and hoarse as if sandpaper had been sawed through his vocal cords. Jack forced his alarm off his face. He slowly crept closer. Mac lowered his arms. Jack could see his shivering and the wide circles of black that filled his eyes. Drugged.

"Yeah, buddy. Let's get you out of here." Mac nodded but didn't move staring at Jack as if he wasn't sure he was real. Jack smiled and reached out putting his hand on Mac's arm. Jack winced taking in how cold the skin was, how thin the arm was, the shaking and worst of all, the restraint marks on his wrist. Mac stared down at the hand a long second, before lunging and awkwardly wrapping his arms in a death grip around Jack's shoulders. Jack returned the embrace just as fiercely. Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The last two days of his life had easily been the worst of his life.

He felt Mac's arms slip as he slumped against Jack. Jack looked down and saw Mac fighting to keep his eyes open. Jack frowned. He winced as he worked Mac out of the broken booth. He knew he'd given his partner a few more cuts, but he also knew there wasn't anything he could do about it. Once free of the glass, Jack grunted and lifted Mac. Jack frowned. It was obvious Mac hadn't been fed over the past two days. Jack slid into the back of the helicopter and laid Mac out on the seat.

The movement roused Mac, he reached out and clung to Jack's arm, his nails digging in. His breathing came faster, his eyes wide.

"Easy, easy. I'm not going anywhere." Jack glanced at the pilot who handed him a first aid kit. Jack closed the door to the aircraft and scooted next to Mac. He opened the kit and frowned, hardly knowing where to start. Jack shook his head, cumulatively it was a lot, but Jack didn't think anyone wound counted as life threatening. He pulled out the small square aluminum packet and unwrapped the full-size silver blanket. Working around Mac's grip on him, he wrapped the kid up. It was a lightweight blanket, but it reflected 100% of the body heat back to its wearer.

Jack rearranged Mac so he was leaning against Jack. The pilot handed him a bottle of water. Jack popped the top one-handed. Mac's eyes were sinking closed, but he kept rousing himself, eyes roving constantly. Jack pulled him closer feeling the kids heart thud against his chest.

"Hey, here drink this." He said softly. Mac looked at him blankly. Jack leaned in offering to hold the bottle. Mac shied away, then slowly searched Jack's face before accepting a drink. He tried to suck the water down in one gulp.

"Easy, easy, slow down." Mac was beyond hearing. Jack winced as he forcefully pulled away from the bottle. Mac blinked looking at Jack frowning. Jack was relieved to see his partner wasn't shivering anymore. Mac's body tensed and his heart rate tripled when the helicopter lifted off. Jack pulled Mac closer and ran his hand up and down the kid's back. Mac leaned in, his head tucked under Jack's chin.

"13…" Mac slurred.

"Shhhh." Jack soothed.

"They made me...something bad's gonna happen…" Mac said. Jack could feel the younger man's body start to relax. "13…" Mac went limp. Jack took a deep breath, feeling his rage dilute with a different kind of anxiety. What had they made Mac do? Immediately a number of really bad things drifted through Jack's head. He looked down at the darkness outside. And what did they have to do to make the kid do anything?

"We'll figure it out." He said softly, leaning his cheek against the top of Mac's head. Jack honestly didn't know if he had said it to Mac or himself.