A/N: I've been a fan of the new MacGyver show for a while now, but this is my first fic for the fandom. I've often found myself disappointed by the missed opportunities for hurt/comfort, so this is my attempt to rectify that a little. Enjoy!

Four days had passed since Murdoc put a bullet in Mac's shoulder. Three days had passed since Jack brought Mac home from the hospital to a warm reception from their friends. Two days had passed since Murdoc kidnapped his son and disappeared into the wind. One day had passed since Jack went to work without his partner. Almost an hour had passed since Mac's last phone call to try to "help." Which meant that any minute now…

Jack reached for his phone on the first ring, shaking his head.

"You know, paid time off is something most people appreciate," he told his partner without preamble. "It's like a free vacation."

"Yeah, getting shot has been a real party," came Mac's dry answer. "How's the case going?"

"Oh, you know, I actually just found something I thought you might be interested in. Oh, here it is: it's a note from your doctor saying that you were shot and need to rest."

"Very funny. I wasn't shot in the head, Jack; my brain still works fine. I can help from here."

Jack rolled his eyes.

"Listen, I know this may be hard for you to believe, but the rest of us are actually pretty good at our jobs. We can get by without you for a couple days."

"Oh, so you found Murdoc and his kidnapped child? That's impressive."

Pulling his phone away from his ear, Jack scowled at the device. Realizing the futility of that, he raised it again.

"We're working on it," he said.

"Has he killed anyone besides the assassin teacher yet?"

The reminder made Jack check his computer screen with a grimace. He'd been reading the report on the grisly murder when Mac called. Murdoc seemed to have taken his time with the poor SOB.

"Not that we know of," Jack said. "Now, will you please - please, for me, as your partner - act like a normal human being and go back to enjoying your week of freedom so that I can get back to wading through this psycho's body trail?"

There was a little more grumbling, but Mac hung up with a reluctant promise not to try sneaking into Phoenix the next day.

Jack ended up working late that night. Despite his assurances to Mac, they weren't making much progress with the Murdoc case. To make matters worse, the body of another assassin had turned up, mutilated and abandoned in a no-tell motel a couple miles outside the city.

There would be more. Jack had gotten a better glimpse into that whackjob's head than he'd ever wanted to, and it'd been enough to convince him of that. Murdoc may have seemed calm and steady, but the guy had a vindictive streak a mile wide, and he didn't seem like the type to make empty threats. He'd keep killing the people who'd wronged him until he got caught or killed, or he finished.

Jack went out to the crime scene himself with Bozer, and by mutual, unspoken agreement, they returned to Phoenix and stayed there. It was long after the end of the business day, but Jack couldn't forget Murdoc's weird obsession with Mac. He wouldn't feel comfortable about his partner's safety until the assassin was back behind bars. Or, preferably, under six feet of dirt.

Despite their efforts though, the night didn't turn out to be very fruitful. The following day was little better, and by the end of it, Jack knew he needed a break.

It required no thought at all to set a course for Mac's house, rather than his own apartment. It was only when he was almost there, when he was finally switching out of work mode, that it occurred to him he hadn't heard from Mac all day. Not even a snarky comment or a poorly disguised attempt to get involved in the Murdoc investigation.

Jack frowned as he turned onto the sloping street that led to Mac's house. Something didn't feel right about that. Mac hated being left out of shit, and he'd been a near-constant pain in the ass since his injury. It was one of the ways Jack had known he was doing okay.

The harsh lessons of experience sent a sick feeling of unease creeping through Jack's gut. He'd thought home was the safest place for Mac to be, but how many times had he been attacked there? Jack should never have left him alone there for so long.

But Jack also had a long history of worrying over nothing. There was as good a chance that Mac had just been resting per Jack's request, and refraining from the constant check-ins out of consideration for his partner.

Even as he convinced himself he was overreacting, Jack still couldn't help but take the last half mile to the house a little faster than he should have.

Mac's car was still there, but that didn't necessarily mean much. The car had been there when Mac was kidnapped from his own home, and when they'd both been locked in the house with a giant bomb rigged to blow them to hell.

Despite his best efforts, Jack was really working himself up now. He ran to the house and let himself in, not bothering to knock.

"Mac?" he called, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice so as to avoid earning himself undue mockery later. "You there, buddy?"

He didn't get an answer, but as he stepped further into the house, he saw why.

Hands braced on his thighs, Jack bent over and let out a long, heavy breath. He shook his head, chiding himself.

Mac was lying on his couch, bundled in blankets up to his chin and sound asleep.

"You're gonna give yourself a heart attack, Dalton," Jack muttered to himself, backing out of the living room and heading for the kitchen instead.

Mac, Riley, Bozer - hell, even Matty accused him of being too much of a worrywart. They teased him about it, told him he needed to ease up before he gave himself more grey hairs.

That was easy for them to say. None of them, bless their young, bright-eyed souls, had seen the kinds of things he had. They'd never suffered the kinds of losses he had, never been burdened with the kind of guilt that could crush a person. Mac perhaps understood the best, but even his perspective was a little filtered, existed on a smaller scale.

Not that Jack would've wanted it any other way. He would give anything to shield his teammates, his family, from the kinds of burdens he carried, even if it meant enduring their teasing.

As his heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm, Jack dug around in the fridge, rooting out a can of beer and a container of dip. After extracting a bag of pretzels from the pantry, he returned to the living room and flopped down into an armchair. He settled in, planning on staying until Mac woke up and kicked him out, or he had to go back to work, whichever came first.

He was in the middle of using his newly-issued replacement phone to check on his fantasy football team when he shot a casual glance at Mac.

That was when he realized just how many blankets Mac had managed to gather around himself. The kid looked like a burrito. Which had been funny at first, but it was now dawning on Jack that he himself was sitting comfortably in a t-shirt, the ambient temperature of the room hovering somewhere in the mid-seventies.

Setting aside his snacks, Jack got to his feet and approached the couch, drawing closer to peer down at his friend. His stomach dropped.

Mac's cheeks were flushed an unnatural pink, but the rest of his face was sallow and ashen, coated in a visible sheen of sweat. Jack reached out, and could feel the heat radiating from Mac's body before he'd even made contact.

Jack was no doctor, but he knew this wasn't normal.

"Mac?" he called, peeling back three layers of blankets and cupping his hand behind Mac's neck. "Rise and shine, buddy. Can you hear me?"

When he got no response, he gave his partner a light shake.

"Mac!"

The combination got a result this time, such as it was. Mac's eyelids fluttered, and he let out a moan, turning his head away from Jack in an instinctive attempt to avoid the noise. The reaction didn't give Jack any sense of relief. Not when it told him just how out of it his partner really was.

"Hey, come on now," Jack coaxed. "I know you like the sound of my voice, don't even try to deny it. Look at me Mac, come on."

He still had a hand at Mac's neck, and he could feel the racing flutter of a pulse that was far faster than it should've been. Mac groaned again, trying to curl deeper into the couch, away from Jack. His breathing was audible, a rapid, rasping sound Jack should've heard earlier.

Gut curdling with a nasty suspicion now, Jack reached for the hem of Mac's MIT t-shirt, pulling it up to expose his torso. He let out a low hiss, and then a few words he'd learned in Delta for good measure.

The area around Mac's wound was an angry, inflamed red. The bandage over the wound was stained pinkish yellow, and Jack recognized the distinctive smell of infection. He swore again and reached for Mac's face, cupping it in his hands and turning it towards him.

"Mac!" he yelled now, tapping sharply on his cheek. "I'm not playing around here; open your eyes and look at me, man."

Fear made his voice sharp, and cloudy blue eyes blinked open at last to look at him. They didn't make Jack feel any better. There was no recognition in them, no spark of the life and intelligence that usually lit them.

"Whassuh..." Mac groaned, his voice a mumbling slur. He tried to squirm away from Jack's grip with zero success. "Sl-ppp."

"No, you're not going back to sleep. You hear me, Mac? Keep your eyes open."

But Mac didn't listen.

Bozer saw the distinctive flashing lights of the ambulance before anything else. He gave them a look of passing curiosity as he drove closer, wondering if one of the neighbors had suffered a heart attack or something. Most of his and Mac's neighbors were older, and it wouldn't have been the first time. If that were the case, he'd have to be sure to make something for the family.

But as he drew closer, he saw that the lights belonged to an ambulance parked in his own driveway. And he knew.

"Mac."

Bozer damn near forgot to put the car in park before scrambling from it and running towards the house. A thousand different thoughts raced through his head during the short trip. Had Mac been attacked again? Had Murdoc returned for him?

He reached the door just as it was swinging open. He backpedaled, arms flailing, just managing to get out of the way of someone in a crisp uniform backing out onto the front step, pulling-

"Mac!" Bozer said again, louder and more urgently.

His best, oldest friend was lying motionless on the stretcher, a fogged oxygen mask over his ghostly face, his eyes closed and sunken. Bozer reached for him on instinct, but he was already gone, the EMT and paramedic rushing him to the waiting ambulance.

A half-second later, another familiar figure followed them out the door.

"Jack! What happened? What's wrong with Mac?"

Evidently unwilling to stop, Jack grabbed Bozer by the arm and towed him after Mac and the ambulance crew.

"Did you talk to him today?" Jack demanded, rather than answering the questions.

"What?" Bozer's shocked, alarmed brain couldn't make sense of the question fast enough for Jack, and the older agent tightened his grip, shaking him.

"Did you talk to Mac today?" he repeated, more forcefully now as Mac's stretcher was loaded into the back of the ambulance. "Did you check in with him at all?"

"I texted him this morning, but nothing since then. Jack, you're scaring me. What happened to Mac?"

Seeming to realize what he was doing, Jack relinquished his grip on Bozer's arm and took a step away from him, reaching for the bridge of his nose instead.

"He's sick, Boze," he said, voice quieter now, but pained. "His wound, it got infected."

"Oh. Man."

Bozer stood on the balls of his feet, as if it would allow him to see through the tinted windows in the back doors of the ambulance. He didn't know too much about medicine, being a bit squeamish around blood. His near-fatal stabbing had given him some painful exposure though. He remembered the doctors and nurses checking his wound every once in a while, to make sure it was still healing properly, with no infection. But he didn't see how an infected gunshot wound would lead to Mac being unconscious and loaded into the back of an ambulance.

"He was fine this morning," Bozer said, a bit numb.

"Being able to text doesn't mean fine," Jack said. He probably didn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but Bozer flinched nonetheless.

Jack headed for the side of the door of the ambulance, climbing inside. Bozer went to follow, but then stopped. He told himself it was because he didn't want to crowd the ambulance crew, but truthfully, he didn't think he could stand seeing Mac like that again.

So he was still standing there a minute later, when the ambulance rumbled into motion, its lights still flashing and its sirens starting to wail. He was still standing there, watching as his best friend was carried away from him to an uncertain future.

A/N: Hope you like it so far! I'm afraid it's gonna get worse before it gets better...