My first successful flashfic for the MacGyver Flashfic writing challenge :D (ao3 link) (using alternate prompts) @rosies-writealong hiii
There's things you lose as a kid that you can't get back. Mac searches a box in his garage for one of those things. Jack tries to help.
“Hey, Riley wanted to let you know that’s she’s gonna be late… whoa, whatcha got there?”
Mac startled at Jack’s booming voice in a way that seemed a little ‘hand in the cookie jar’-esque. Jack was good at recognizing that particular look, and his curiosity was immediately piqued.
However when he made his way through the disaster zone that was Mac’s garage, he found that the box Mac had been curled over was far from exciting. It was full of old binders and albums, all some kind of nondescript.
Mac blew out a breath, grabbing the cardboard box top and moving to put it back on. “Ok. We need to tell Bozer so he knows he should push back when he starts the roast…”
“Yeah, talked to him already.” Jack dismissed, not at all interested in that convo anymore. He pulled out a binder before Mac could close the box and flipped it open.
“Jack…” Mac sighed irritably, but didn’t move to snatch it away.
It was full of old photos, the first one Jack focused on was one of a little blond kid — maybe only four, but there was something about his impish smile that seemed familiar.
“Oh my god, is this you?” Jack grinned.
Mac groaned softly. “Yeah, can you put that back now?”
“Oh absolutely not.” Jack flipped a laminated page. Baby Mac in a bathtub full of bubbles, rubber duck evidently placed on his head by someone, scowling at the camera with the same thoughtful problem-solving expression he still used — minus the pouting. Jack cooed. “Ohhh, my heart can’t take this.”
Mac’s patience snapped and he grabbed for the binder. Expecting this, Jack rocked backwards, holding the book well over his head and tilting it to keep looking from flat on his back on the ground. Mac’s hand braced on Jack’s chest as he tried to crawl over Jack to reach for the book. Jack got a foot up on Mac’s chest to hold him back. Jack kept flipping through the book before frowning with disappointment. “Aww, the whole back half is empty…”
In the back of Jack’s head the timeline belatedly clicked together. Four year old Mac, then… oh.
Jack let his bracing leg drop back down to the ground and Mac snatched the book away. Mac didn’t really look at him, just frowned down at the book as he closed it with a snap.
“I’m trying to find a photo.” Mac confessed with a certain guardedness, dropping the binder back into the box. “But I don’t… I’m starting to think I don’t have it.”
Jack picked out a different binder from the box, slowly, and after Mac didn’t comment he flipped it open with more reverence than before. Baby Mac, probably just a few months old, sleeping on his dad’s chest. “What’re you looking for?”
Mac didn’t respond immediately. Jack kept looking at photos. Most seemed to be just of Mac, or Mac with his dad.
“Y’know, on average the earliest conscious memory a person has tends to be at about three or four years. The inability to remember before that point is called infantile amnesia.” Mac started talking rather than answering Jack’s question. He had the same brisk, casual tone he usually had when explaining something educational. “It’s not just before the age of three either, there’s this… this period where memories are all fragmented. Five… six, that’s where autobiographical memory seems to stabilize. That’s when you start really being able to remember stuff properly.”
Jack didn’t pipe up, even when Mac left a long pause, he just played with the corner of the album page where the laminated sheets were starting to peel apart. On it Mac proudly presented a cricket in his cupped hands with a gleam in his eyes. A woman’s hand descended from off-camera to gently hold his wrist — maybe to make sure his next course of action wasn’t to stick the insect in his mouth. Jack felt something like a lump in his throat that he tried to ignore. Mac’s rambling voice picking up his train of thought again didn’t help.
“It’s like… you knew it at the time, obviously, when you’re three or whatever, you have it. You have all those memories, of yesterday and the week before and the year before. You have that memory of… of things. Then you get old enough, and your brain changes, and you just… can’t retrieve it anymore. Isn’t that infuriating?”
Jack looked up at Mac and closed the book gently. “What’re you looking for, hoss?”
Mac was quiet. His gaze drifted away from Jack and back down at the box. He rocked on his heels restlessly. “My dad didn’t take many photos, y’know. I was just… I was just hoping there would be one where she wasn’t behind the camera.”
Mac blinked rapidly, then his face twisted into a reactionary scowl and he straightened up to standing. Jack followed him up, leaving the album behind.
“It’s not fair.” Mac finally said, every word a harsh staccato. “Right? It’s not fair that I get so… so little of her.”
“It’s not.” Jack agreed softly.
Mac’s lips thinned. He stared at the garage door like he was trying to burn a hole in them, or like he was trying to find something far beyond them. Jack shifted a half step closer so they were only a few inches apart, perpendicular, but stayed quiet.
Mac’s jaw worked, his brows furrowed, his lips pressed hard back against his teeth, a muscle in his cheek jumped. Jack waited.
Then something gave out. Mac’s eyes slipped shut, his brow relaxed minutely, his jaw slackened. The corners of his mouth twisted slightly but sharply down. His shoulders dropped. Something heavy crashing over his features, like he’d finally let it drop.
Jack wasn’t sure if he audibly went ‘c’mere’ under his breath, or if he just thought it. Either way Mac turned into him, closing the sparse inch or so between them, and Jack’s arms were ready.
