Author's Note:

This story and its sequels were inspired by the many blind people I've known. How might things have turned out differently if MacGyver, rather than Pete, had lost his vision? These stories take place in a universe where the events portrayed in the two made-for-TV movies never happened. I'm eager to hear what everyone thinks, so please be specific in your critiques!

Disclaimer:

The TV show MacGyver and its characters are the property of Henry Winkler/John Rich Productions. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Mission City, Minnesota—May, 1994

I couldn't believe it. It was just a burned-out shell against the moon, but after two years the building was still standing. You'd think someone would have torn it down and rebuilt it after all that time, or at least cleared off the land to be reused. But no. It still sat there, like an old ship waiting for the scrap yard.

I pulled my bike off the pavement and kicked the stand down. Then I sat in silence, leaning against my saddle and looking at the shell from across the lawn, trying not to let my memories take over. It was a battle I knew I'd never win.

"Just think what it'll be like to see Daddy Dearest running to your rescue…" Positioning an instant camera to catch the explosion, Murdoc laughed. "…and right into my trap. Tell me, Sam—one photographer to another—beautiful shot, don't you think?"

Murdoc had no idea what he was saying then, or how right he'd be. He couldn't. No one so inhuman could know how many times a day those words would haunt me or how many times I'd relive that photograph in my dreams. Two years on, Murdoc still had control of me.

"Sam? Where are you, Sam?" Dad's voice came echoing from outside the warehouse.

"Dad! In the back! I'm somewhere in the back, but be careful! It's a trap!"

Dad got as far as the doorway, then stopped to assess the situation. "I see that."

"What is it? I can only see the thing at my feet."

"Fishing wire across the doorway, attached to the trigger of a flamethrower over the doorframe. I can duck under it to avoid pulling the trigger, but the floor on the other side is land-mined. The only way to get to you is to cut the tripwires one at a time. Sit tight."

"Like I have a choice?"

Time to make my own pictures. I lifted my camera and framed a shot of the old building, scorch marks licking halfway up the exterior walls and illuminated by the backdrop of moonlight. The building was hollow from the inside but the structure was still sound, skeleton-like. I clicked a single shot—sometimes one shot is all you have to get a thing right—then left my bike and walked up to the building.

I prodded the iron door open, and stepping inside was like watching a home movie in reverse. The fire's effects were the same inside, scorch marks still etched onto the walls and the wooden floor was gone, leaving just the steel support beams underneath. Those were the ones Dad had to follow me across on his hands and knees to get away from the fire in the back room.

"Oh yeah. I forgot about that." Dad dropped onto all fours, feeling ahead for the beam. "There's a way out of everything, Sam. I'm just not too steady on my feet right now, so I think I'm better off down here. You go first and keep talking so I can follow you."

"Dad, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It seems like I'm always getting you into messes. I never meant for you to get hurt…"

"They're just eyes, Sam; I'd be hurt a lot worse if Murdoc had killed you. Stop worrying; I'll be fine. Right now, I just need you to walk ahead of me and start talking—describe what I'm feeling—and I'll follow your voice. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, sure." I had to do it: I was the one who got him into this fix and now he couldn't see, so I had to get him out. As simple as that. Come on, Sam, focus. "Okay, straight ahead. The beam looks just wide enough for your knees…"

Swallowing back a mouthful of guilt and bile from that night, I framed a shot of the support beams from the doorway, looking across the open warehouse floor toward the far door. The shutter snapped. One chance, one shot.

The next thing I knew, I was standing face-to-face with the steel door leading into the back room. It was still shut.

With one push, it swung open to reveal what was left of the room where it all happened. Everything was gone. The wooden floor had burned away, along with the wooden chair where I'd been tied and the ropes Murdoc had tied me with. The flamethrowers and landmines had all been collected as evidence, at least what was left of them after all the landmines exploded in the fire. Even Murdoc's camera was gone.

"What's wrong, Dad? You made it in here; we're home free. Right?" His silence was answer enough. "Why can't you disarm the trigger?"

"I can. It's figuring out how to disarm all the booby-traps leading up to it in the right sequence that's going to take some time. He must be getting tired of missing me. He's gone to a lot of trouble to make sure he gets it right this time."

"Don't let him get it right, Dad—"

"I won't. Just let me think."

Murdoc hadn't gone, of course, just withdrawn to a safe distance. His voice came from the radio across the room: "Sorry, MacGyver, but I'm tired of letting you think. Look up. In three seconds, the bottle of phosphorous over your son's head is going to tip, and when it does all the water will drain out…and I believe we all know what will happen after that. As you always say—Ka-boom. So I'm afraid I can only give you three seconds to decide what it's going to be. Three seconds—"

Dad crouched to get a better look at the trigger. "Sam, when I tell you, jump left as far clear as you can."

"Over you?"

"—two seconds—"

"Exactly. There are no landmines to the left."

"Okay."

"—one second—"

"Now!"

I jumped sideways and toppled him over with me. We landed in a heap facing away from the chair, just as a splash of liquid prompted me to roll over and look back. Fire had erupted out of the jug as the phosphorous hit air. Flames licked up the rope holding the jug, dropping the whole thing onto the chair.

Dad was on his feet and rubbing at his eyes. "We have to go."

I scrambled onto my feet after him. "What's wrong, Dad?"

"The trigger was booby-trapped; I got something in my eyes—I can't see. Take my arm and get me to the door."

"What do you mean you can't see?"

"We have to get out before his whole room goes up. I saw the floor was wet; I think he doused it in gas." He grabbed onto me by the shoulder and pointed toward the door, practically shoving. "Go."

I ran, dragging him with me. Thank goodness it was a small room. On the other side of the door, I stopped and pulled the steel door closed just as the whole floor erupted in flames. "Okay, we're out." I sank back against the door to think and closed my eyes for a minute. "You can't see anything?"

"They're burning pretty bad. I've got 'em shut."

"Earlier he said something about liquid fire. Is that what he meant?"

"Probably. I didn't smell anything and I think it was clear—probably sodium hydroxide or something like it. It's all right. I just have to get to water and wash my eyes out. Which way?"

I opened my eyes, and that was when I saw the empty space where the floor should have been. The only way out was to walk the support beams like balance beams. "There isn't a way out. The floor's gone."

"Oh yeah. I forgot about that."

Standing on the metal beam in the doorway, I lifted my camera and framed one last shot: the room as it was now, from the doorway looking toward where I was sitting when it all started. There was nothing left.

"Life's too short to carry around guilt, Sam."

I spun around, grabbing the doorjamb to keep from pitching over the side. "What are you doing here?"

Dad stood at the entrance, a dark silhouette against the midnight sky. All I could see were his white t-shirt and white cane, and to a lesser degree his gray hair. The tip of his cane slid over each side of the beam to check its width, then pulled back to find exactly where the beam started, and he stepped onto it. "I left the planning committee when everybody quit working and started drinking." We'd driven into town so he could help organize his 25-year high school class reunion, and apparently he'd only spent a few hours at it before he left to chase me down. "It's Mother's Day. I thought I might find you here."

"What does Mom have to do with this place?"

"You miss her."

"Yeah, sure, but what's that got to do with this place? She was never here."

"No, but if she hadn't died, you wouldn't have gone chasing Chung. And if you hadn't been chasing him, you wouldn't have met me. And if you hadn't met me, maybe none of this would've happened. Is that it?"

Why did he always have to be so perceptive? I swallowed a mouthful of stomach acid. "I thought that maybe if I came back and tried to reframe what happened, the guilt would go away."

"And has it?"

"No, it's just getting worse. If I hadn't called for you—"

"But you did. Don't waste time playing the what-if game with the past; there's no way you can win."

My legs needed to rest. Careful to stay balanced, I sat on the beam and let my feet dangle over the side, facing him. "I knew Murdoc had laid a trap for you—I didn't know exactly what kind, but I knew it was something—and I called you anyway. It's my fault you got hurt."

"It's no one's fault, Sam. It just is." Slowly, halfway across the room, he squatted to hold onto either side of the beam while he let his legs slide over either side, straddling it and balancing his cane along the beam in front of him. "The fact is, we both did what came naturally. You don't blame nature."

"No? You may not have known I was sick, but I did. I was dying anyway, Dad. Why care whether it happened here or in a hospital, then or a few months down the road? Was it really worth you being blind for the rest of your life just so I could have a few extra months?"

"It was to me. It still is."

"Why?"

"Sam, like you pointed out when we first ran into Murdoc, we all die sometime. My point is that people shouldn't cause it." He shrugged. "Besides that, I wasn't ready for you to go yet."

"Will you ever be?"

"When your body gives out and there's nothing more doctors can do—as much as anyone can ever be ready, yeah, I'll be able to let go. But not until then. Not until I know it's nature taking it's course."

I hadn't realized it before, but I'd been looking at that night from my own point of view. It really shouldn't matter to me how I went out—dying is dying, right?—so I'd been blaming myself for being too scared to let it happen then, if my dying would've spared Dad's eyes. But that was selfish. Losing me to Murdoc would've done the same thing to Dad that losing Mom to Colonel Chung had done to me. It would've eaten him alive. "Yeah, I see your point."

"So no more guilt?"

I just wished it could be that easy. Really, what more was there to feel guilty about? He didn't regret what happened, so why should I? "I know it doesn't make any sense and I shouldn't, but…I can't help it. I still feel bad for what happened."

"What did you come here tonight to find?"

I hoped that coming back and taking new pictures would prove that life had moved on, but all it did was remind me of my own guilt and how long I'd been living with it. "Progress." That was what I really needed to see: that not only had time moved on, but that things had changed for the better.

Slowly, balancing, Dad drew himself back onto his feet, cane in hand, and started moving closer again. "What kind of progress?" Two years of backpacking, stream fishing from rock to rock, and mountain climbing had paid off. Walking a support beam was no harder now than it was that night, when he had to have crossed the beams once to get to me in the back room. He would always be cautious because we were twelve feet off the ground and he was still afraid of heights, but at least he was back to moving on two feet.

Maybe that was the picture I'd needed all along. I stood up to face him, holding the doorjamb to keep my balance while I aimed the camera. "My flash is gonna go off, Dad. I want one more picture."

"Of what?"

"Of what I came here to find."

He laughed and stopped in mid-stride on the beam, cane hanging diagonal in front of his body. "All right, I'm ready for it."

I framed this shot more carefully: him centered against the backdrop of the building's open doorway and the moonlight behind him. The flash erupted, the shuttered clicked, and for a minute I froze until my eyes readjusted to the darkness. Then I let the camera down around my neck. "Thanks. I'm done."

He walked the last quarter of the beam without saying anything until he reached the doorjamb, where he stopped and reached out his free hand to find my shoulder. "Better?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Dad."

He nodded. "Glad I could help. Now, I want you to do something for me."

"Sure. What's that?"

"Be honest."

Dad always expected me to be honest, so if he felt it important enough to remind me, he probably thought there was a good chance I'd try to lie. That wasn't a good sign. "Okay."

"Is guilt the reason you've stayed with me these last couple of years?"

It was a good thing he made me promise to tell the truth. The trouble with my dad is, he's really good at reading people and knowing the truth, but I just might've tried lying anyway. As it was, I lived up to my word. "At first, partly."

He nodded, as if deep down he'd always known that.

"That first night, when you were in the hospital and visiting hours ended, I came pretty close to running. One time I actually got all the way out to the edge of town. But then, like you say, the guilt started and I was sitting there on my bike at the stoplight and…That's when the fear started. A guy came up behind me in his car and I couldn't see his face, and it occurred to me that it could be Murdoc. That Murdoc could be anywhere, that he could come back. For a long time after that, I never could decide whether I was staying because I felt guilty or just because I was too afraid to be on my own."

"Oh, Sam—"

"Wait. That was at first, before you got help and started getting your life back together. Once I saw that you were gonna be okay, the guilt…It didn't go away, but I guess I pushed it down to where I didn't feel like I had to stay. I mean, I knew you'd make it alone if I left to do my own thing, and I knew you didn't expect me to stay."

"Then why did you? The fear still?"

"No. The fear…Same thing, I guess. It never goes away entirely, but I manage it. Like you and being up high—it's always with you, but you work around it. So, no, I'm not here because of guilt or because of fear. They just came here with me."

He nodded. "Then why are you here?"

"The same reason I left with you in the first place: I want to be with my dad. It just feels right. I don't know how else to explain it."

"You don't have to explain it. I understand. But you promise that's all?"

"That and…I guess I've just been alone too long. I'd rather be near someone; so, until I get married, I'm afraid you're stuck with me."

He laughed and motioned back over his shoulder, toward the door. "Married, huh? Well, I guarantee you won't meet many ladies out this way. We should go."

"Yeah, you're right. But first—Tell me something?"

"Sure."

"We know why I came out here tonight, but I still don't understand why you're here. We drive all the way to Minnesota from Los Angeles just so you can help plan your reunion, and here you leave the first meeting practically as soon as it starts. Why?"

He shrugged, then turned around next to me in the doorjamb and headed back along the support beam, letting me follow him this time. "I guess because, right now, the present means more to me than the past."