Mission #23: Macthology
MacGyver is an interesting fandom. 25% of the stories on FFnet feature one person's Sue, another 25% are another person's drabbles. It's a small fandom and those odds reduce the chances of coming across a Sue even more. Still there were a few.
A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum were founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts taken from Macthology by Courtney Sloan. This mission was chronicled by IndeMaat
-oOo-
"I'm starting to take a liking to MacGyver fandom," Allison said. "Never a dull moment. Lots of variety in missions."
"Be careful what you wish for," Steve warned.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
"There you have it already."
"I thought saying 'like' would throw the Ironic Overpowers off." Allison tried to relax her muscles. The beep from the console still made her jump to attention.
"You do understand the ironic part of Ironic Overpowers, don't you?"
"I just got a renewed appreciation for them," Allison replied. "What have we got?"
"A Sue for a change. MacGyver's adopted daughter."
"Let me guess: raising a daughter didn't change his lifestyle much."
"No, not much. It seems to have changed his personality though."
"That's Sues for you. Let's go in."
-oOo-
Inside the story the two agents found themselves in what looked most like a hangar. From the ceiling hung a film screen and text was rolling up on it.
"What's this?" Allison asked. "This is like reading the Words, but a little easier on the eyes."
Steve shrugged. "I've never seen it before. At least not on a mission. I've seen it in movies where they quickly wanted to establish the backstory."
"Perhaps that's what's going on here too." Allison sat down on one of the fold out chairs that stood in front of the screen. "Might as well make the most of it."
Steve sat down next to her.
The text on the screen told of MacGyver's older brother who married young and died four-and-a-half years later leaving behind a wife and daughter. The wife, indicated as selfish and shallow, didn't like having a child and rather lived in France. She pendeled the both of them between New York and Paris until she received a marriage proposal from a French national. The man did not think her daughter was part of the package deal and the wife thought of a place to dump her daughter. That's when she called MacGyver. To the right of the agents a spotlight lit up and showed Mac sitting on his couch with a phone to his ear.
When Mac heard that Yvette wanted him to take Amy he refused. No, he said. His work put anyone closely tied to him at risk, he said.
"No, he'd say: she's your kid, Yvette, not some pet you try to find a good home for when the boyfriend turns out to be allergic to cat hair," Allison prompted.
"If you don't take her, she goes to a foster home," said Yvette.
"Again, kids are not pets. Kids don't go to foster homes because their parents don't want to take care of them."
"No, they get send to boarding schools."
"Yes, whatever happened to boarding schools?"
"This Marcel probably doesn't want to pay for that."
"Why did he propose marriage to a woman with a child if he did not want that child? Does he think kids are pets too?"
"I don't know, but it would explain why the two of them are a good match."
He would have loved to have Amy for a daughter, but he realized that his work could put her in real danger. But what choice was Yvette giving him?
"If MacGyver had had a kid -- he'd known about," Allison quickly added after a look from Steve. "He would have gone and looked for a less dangerous job. That simple. MacGyver is not his job."
"Agreed. Mac is the kind of person that would act in the best interest of his kid. Even if he loves his job and his apartment, for the sake of the kid he would quit them both. He'd find another job and move to a safe neighbourhood with good schools."
"Provide a stable environment for the kid."
"Exactly."
"You're sure you want to do this. Abandon your child. For God's sake, Yvette, you're her mother."
She snapped back, "Don't you get on your high horse with me, Mac. I don't need a lecture from anyone, least of all from you. Will you take her or won't you?"
"What's here gripe with Mac? What's he done that doesn't make him entitled to lecture her on responsibility?"
"I don't know." Allison looked over the Words. "Doesn't say. Perhaps it's because he has never settled down and taken responsibility for a family?"
"And yet, she wants to leave her kid with him. Priceless."
Mac finally agreed to take care of the Sue-daughter if the mother gave up her parental rights. The mother quickly agreed.
The spotlight extinguished. The agents turned their attention back to the screen where the text had started rolling again. They were stunned to find that the whole adoption procedure took less than a week. That Friday Mac met Yvette and the Sue at the airport, they went to court to sign the papers and then Mac had gained a daughter.
"Seriously, I think it took more time to get my granny's car signed over in my name."
"Well, kids aren't cars either."
Amy and her stepfather were a good pair. MacGyver's lifestyle was not really changed by his new family man status, but he tried to be with Amy as much as possible.
"Wrong!" both agents shouted at the screen.
Allison mimicked throwing some popcorn at the screen. "Hey, is this whole mission us just sitting here and talking through the text? 'Cause that's going to get kind of dull."
"Careful of the Ironic Overpowers."
"They already got me once today. I don't think-" Allison slapped a hand over her mouth. She gave Steve a shocked look. "I've done it, haven't I? I've challenged them."
"I'm afraid you have."
"I'm sorry." Allison grinned apologetically.
"Well, we'll just have to make the most of a bad situation." Steve patted his partner on the shoulder. She nodded in reply.
The text on the screen said that the Sue had a serious crush on an actor her own age, to the point where she was all but stalking him, and that her best friend in school was a boy, with a serious crush on her, who had shown her around on the first day in school.
Steve chuckled. "That job usually befalls the class dork. So I guess our Sue at least isn't very popular in school."
"I'm guessing you missed a spot." Allison turned Steve's head to the Words that described the Sue's position in school.
Amy did well at school, being pretty and athletic and smart. She made friends easily, and was quickly elected captain of the cheerleading squad. She ran track in the spring besides, and made good grades.
"Oh hell. She's smart and popular and friends with the class dork and a cheerleader and an athlete. Does it say anywhere that she has superhealing abilities and a boyfriend who can fly?"
Allison frowned at her partner. "What? You think she's not special enough the way she is?"
Steve stuck out his tongue. "I hate her more than all the cheerleaders and jocks in my old school put together."
"High school trauma? Were you the class dork?"
"No, I'd like to think myself a little above that in the high school pecking order. I got to be a lot above that when I picked up archery." Steve padded the case that held his crossbow lovingly.
The third, and most unusual relationship was that Amy (unwillingly) had with Murdoc. Murdoc was in love with the daughter of his worst enemy. He had first seen her while plotting his attempt to kill MacGyver in 1987.
"What?!" Allison screamed. Her bottom lip quivered. "Murdoc is not a cradle robber. How old was she in '87? Thirteen, fourteen? Even if she had been an adult I doubt she would have been his type. He seemed to have taken quite a fancy to Penny Parker and she's nothing like Penny."
Steve opened his mouth to add something, but was cut off by Allison ranting on.
"He would use her, but not because he wants to get into a teenager's panties. He'd use her to get to MacGyver. He'd probably hate her by association."
The text stopped rolling on the screen. The last line announced the episode Halloween Knights. The screen moved up. The agents watched it go and then got up from their seats.
"I guess now is when the action starts."
Around them the marina started taking shape. The Sue passed Allison and Steve without taking much notice.
Her gym bag was over her left shoulder, and it slid forward, cramming against her as she unlocked the door and reached for the mail at the same time. There was a pile of mail on the kitchen counter from yesterday: the cleaning lady had brought it in. Amy glanced through the magazines and letters, opened the door without looking up again, and walked into the boathouse.
"I couldn't see from this angle, but did she just grab the mail from the kitchen counter from the door?"
"That's what it looked like. It seems our Sue has special powers. I knew it."
"And she's not the only one." Allison nodded to the Words.
Murdoc materialized in the closet.
Murdoc grabbed the Sue, but she managed to take him off balance. They both fell to the floor. The Sue made a somersault to get away from him. Murdoc grabbed her leg and pulled her towards him. To Murdoc's surprise she did not scream, but she kept kicking him. He managed to hold her down with his knee and tie her up at the same time.
Then Murdoc finished what he had come to do, which was pack up all Mac's belongings. To the Sue's surprise -- and that off the PPC agents who were standing right outside the houseboat -- he even moved the couch on his own. The last thing the took with him was the Sue wrapped up in a blanket.
Outside the PPC agents got the scare of their lives when out of nowhere a voice boomed: "Wilt Bozer?" The agents hit the deck and covered their heads.
Murdoc waved at the neighbour, shoved the Sue in the cab of the moving van and drove off.
"What was that?" Allison propped herself up and looked at the Words.
"It- it sounded like an author's note in the middle of the text."
"I guess you're right. That must have been it. I've heard about these, but I've never actually experienced one. They're not nice." Allison scrambled up.
Steve followed her example. "The author probably didn't know which brother it was that lived next to Mac. Can't really blame her. Half the time the Internet is wrong about it too."
"It's Milt, isn't it? MacGyver's never actually met the other one has he?"
"He must have; he dreamed about him once."
"Maybe he'd heard the name and just tacked it on a face in his dream."
"Possible." Steve shrugged. "Ours is not to question canon. Ours is to question the fanfic that tries to rip off the canon."
Unlike in the (canon) episode, Milt Bozer was not physically assaulting his engine thus prompting Mac for a talk when he was on his way to his houseboat. He was puzzled by the Sue's car in the parking lot while at the same time the locked door indicated that she was absent. He looked through he door and saw his living room was stripped of its furniture.
Mac pieced things together as he ran around the house. By the time he found the (name of the hangar? What clued him off? I don't have this episode,) which seemed to confirm Jack's involvement, he was sure this was a Halloween prank, or one of Jack's schemes.
The agents hit the deck again as another author's note boomed through the air. They recovered a little quicker this time.
"Maybe you shouldn't write about it if you don't know all the details," Allison bit at some point above her.
"And it's not that hard to make up," Steve added. He rubbed his knee. His second contact with the deck had been a little bit unfortunate. "At least not in this case. Mac thinks Jack has stolen all his furniture again. So he goes to the air strip where Jack usually hangs out to confront him and get his stuff back."
"This explains though why the Sue recognizes Murdoc, but wasn't surprised he had dressed himself to look like Jack Dalton from a passing glance."
"Here Murdoc did not look like Jack. He didn't have his moustache and he still had his scar."
"Exactly. The author forgot about two key details of the episode. Thus making it impossible for the Sue to take note of the obvious."
-oOo-
The agents took a portal to join Mac at the hangar. His stuff was spread around a truck inside the hangar. Mac looked around for clues, but found nothing.
'That's not like Murdoc at all."
"The Sue's making him sloppy."
At the (funeral home/tomb/check on this,) he fell through the trap door after staring at the small Jack O'Lantern flickering eerily in the casket. He landed hard in the cage underneath.
The agents fell on the floor right next to him. Puzzled they looked around.
"How did we get from the hangar to here?"
"Same way Mac did."
"MacGyver's supposed to follow a bunch of clues to get to the funeral home. Not just jump from one place to the next. Particularly not without so much as a scene break. I hurt my ankle. We should get danger money for this job."
Steve raised his eyebrows at the speed at which Allison rattled of these comments.
Mac demanded to know where the Sue was and Murdoc pulled her from a closet. That's where the scene ended and the scenery changed back to its original empty hangar lay-out. The voice-over informed the agents that this was where the Sue's significant role in the story ended, but that more might be written if the author ever got hold of the episode.
"No, author, that's where you're wrong," Allison shouted back in the direction the voice had come from. "Placing a third person in the scene is going to change the dialogue between MacGyver and Murdoc. It is now going to be more of a 'your daughter for my sister' kind of conversation, where before Murdoc could play on MacGyver's sympathy. I doubt that is going to work much after he has kidnapped MacGyver's daughter."
The screen rolled down again and announced the episode Stricktly Business.
"For some reason the Sue just wants to wriggle herself into the Murdoc episodes."
Allison grimaced. "Let there not be any mistake who's trying to get inside whose panties."
The marina formed itself around the two agents again. They saw Mac and the Sue enter the houseboat. The scene in Mac's living room started out as it had in the episode, but soon changed when Murdoc caught sight of the Sue.
"And helLO, Amy, dear, how are you?" A clicking bang came from under the table. Amy, nerves on edge, reacted, but not fast enough, and the dart hit her in the neck. Murdoc had aimed for her middle.
"I don't think that either Murdoc's aim is that off or her reflexes that quick," Steve said. "How fast do you think that dart travelled? And it only had to travel a dozen or so feet. Less even. It could have done that in less than a second."
Allison looked at her partner. "You're talking to the wrong girl. I'm not a mathematical genius."
Mac grabbed the Sue who passed out. He yelled at Murdoc to find out what he had done.
"Calm down, MacGyver, it's only a tranquilizer," Murdoc said, a little contemptuously.
Murdoc told him the Sue would wake up fine in the morning and Mac placed her on the couch. Then he returned to Murdoc to continue the conversation they had in canon. The voice-over -- startling the agents again -- announced to only record instances of conversation that were actually different from the episode.
"When is this Sue going to realize that a third in the room brings different dynamic to the conversation? MacGyver is not going to react the same way to Murdoc with an unconscious Sue on the sofa."
"He might. If the Suefluence only works while she is conscious."
Allison frowned at her partner. "Interesting theory, but I think empirical research has already proven it to be false."
Mac rushed past the two agents with the Sue in his arms. He took her to ER and then had a hell of a time getting her back.
"I guess he didn't take Murdoc's word for it that she'd be fine," Steve said.
"I wonder why. I mean, Murdoc is a man of his word. If he says he's going to kill you he will, or die trying."
In the morning the Sue woke up with a buzz in her head and Mac told her what had happened. The Sue asked what they were going to do and Mac replied he didn't know. That's when the voice-over spoke up again.
(In another story of mine, one I am still completing, a similar situation arose. MacGyver chose to take the obvious route: to leave Amy with bodyguards and try to take care of Murdoc by himself, away from her and other people. This did not work out too well, as Murdoc took this personally, as a challenge. He killed all five guards in cold blood, just to show that if he wanted Amy, he could have her. Of course, Mac and Amy came out all right in the end, but this explains why Mac isn't going for this seemingly more sensible option this time.)
"Yes, because MacGyver has that kind of foresight." Allison rolled her eyes.
"Uh, no. I think she means a story that is supposed to happen before this one."
"Huh, this one starts even before the Sue is born. How can a story with the two of them be put before this one?"
"I guess it's supposed to be inserted somewhere in this story."
"Amy, the way I see it we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. If you would feel safer with guards, I'll get them--," (it had hurt him to say that, she knew. She thought of Lee's (one of the guards Murdoc killed that other time) face, of how he had looked as he died, and shivered, closing her eyes.)
"Author, if you have to leave readers notes like that, you're doing it wrong," Allison shouted towards the voice-over.
"Yeah, either write the story, or some narrative to summarize the story. Do not, under any circumstances, address the reader directly."
"Readers should only be addressed via the narrative."
"If you can't do it via the narrative something is wrong in the story."
"I already said that."
"It deserves repeating."
The Sue convinced Mac to take her with her. Mac agreed.
"Time to take a portal to that mountain where Murdoc confronts Mac."
Allison nodded in response.
-oOo-
The agents stepped back into the scene right when Murdoc was about to fire a portable rocket launcher at Mac and the Sue. Allison and Steve dove out of the way. The projectile whizzed past them and hit the car full on.
Mac and the Sue got out of the car in time. The Sue was hit in the head by the car door and the exploding car knocked her over the guardrail. Mac hit his face against the door frame as the car exploded. He stumbled over the guardrail and down the embankment.
The agents looked up.
"Note how the Sue got injured in similar fashion as MacGyver," Allison said.
"I think that's pushing it."
Making use of the Sue's unconscious state the agents stepped over the guardrail and skidded down the bank.
Murdoc found the Sue and checked her for injuries. The agents gave him puzzled looks and tried to figure out what the was doing. Asking him was for obvious reasons out of the question. And Allison complained again that such things should be explained in the narrative. Murdoc began to tie up the Sue and suddenly the two agents were jolted to the entrance of the old mine. Allison fell to her knees; Steve managed to stay on his feet with a little help from a beam holding up the ceiling of the mine.
"We discussed scene breaks already, didn't we?" Allison got up and dusted herself off. She went through her pockets and pulled the Fic Location Follower out of one of them. "There, it had set itself to random. We should be all right now." She switched the FLF to manual and returned it to her pocket.
Murdoc, with the Sue over his shoulder, reached the mine. He noticed Mac had left some blood on the sign by the entrance. He went into the mine, but left the Sue slumped outside. She regained consciousness and Steve and Allison quickly stepped into the mine and out of her line of sight. They heard the Sue throw up. Murdoc came back out of the mine to drag the Sue into it. He tied her to a support beam. He told her he'd be out, but that she shouldn't make too much of a fuss or the cave would collapse on top of her.
When he went out so did the lights. There wasn't even daylight coming into the mine from the entrance. Steve pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and found that didn't work either.
"I had just replaced the batteries in this thing. How can it be dead already?"
Allison suggested him to look in the distance where the Words dimly lit up in the dark.
Her heavy head bobbed and all the light went out of the world.
"Of course now the fic decides to take metaphor literally," Steve grumbled.
"I thought badfic always took metaphor literally."
"I suppose you are right."
The voice-over announced it was skipping ahead a large chunk of the episode.
"Which is not interesting because the Sue is not in it," Allison added.
Murdoc pushed the camp lady in front of him into the mine.
"She has a name, you know," Steve said. "I forgot what it was for a moment, but I'm sure she had one."
"Walker, Suzanne Walker," Allison supplied.
Murdoc set to work on his trap. The voice-over announced another skipping ahead and the lights went back on. Blinking against the sudden brightness the agents looked at each other.
"I believe the lights went on in the mine when Mac reached it in the episode," Steve said.
"And because it's implied that what isn't mentioned happens the same as in the episode the lights are turned back on." Allison smiled. "You've got to love how canon keeps trying to override badfic."
"And my flashlight is working again too." Steve flashed it at his partner. He quickly turned it off and into his pocket when her smile started to turn upside down.
Mac having gotten past Murdoc's trap tried to stop the fuse Murdoc had started as well. His action, however, caused another fuse to get started, followed by a small explosion which blew away the support from a small platform. The Sue rolled off the platform into Mac's instinctively held out arms.
Her clothes were ripped through and she was absolutely covered with blood. Murdoc had slashed her in several places on each limb, on her back, and on her torso.
"If Murdoc was in love with this girl I doubt that's the way he would show it."
"Well, he is a psychopath."
"I'm sure there's a large spectrum of psychopaths ranging from mad geniuses who set up complex traps for their prey, to madmen who slash up their lovers. Murdoc more likely belongs to the former category than the latter."
Catching the Sue and seeing a sign with his name on it brought back Mac's memory. Murdoc stepped back into the scene. He and Mac got involved in a fist-fight and though Mac kept looking at the Sue the fight went as well for him as it did in canon, better as Suzanne Walker didn't need to kick in. Murdoc eventually went down the elevator shaft and Mac fell to his knees by the side of the Sue. He told the woman to go back to camp and bring the police to the mine.
She was still shaking like a leaf and did not see a way out.
"Go, quick!" he said, without sympathy, to the woman, helping her through and watching her stumble out into the day.
"Very unlike Mac. He'd be sympathetic to a woman that has just been through her kind of ordeal, and understanding that she can't think on her feet yet."
"We already had out of character behaviour. Just check your notes."
"I didn't take notes. I thought you took notes."
"I didn't take notes either. I think we should talk some time about our distribution of tasks."
"Yah. Let's deal with the matter at hand first."
Mac took off his shirt and started making bandages out of his undershirt. Allison and Steve stepped out of the shadows.
"Is she conscious?"
No response. The agents looked at each other.
"I guess she isn't."
"That means we'll have to go to hospital to charge her." Steve pulled the remote activator from his shirt pocket.
-oOo-
She woke up with a jerk, much later. Her eyes flew open and her mind screamed, "Murdoc!" She lunged upright in the hospital bed.
The agents stood on either side of her bed and grinned at her.
"Nice to see you're finally up."
"Who are you?"
"Allison Carter, Steve Holmes. We're here to charge you today. We're Protectors of the Plot Continuum."
"Protectors of the- What's that?"
"What it says on the tin really: we protect the plot continuum. And you've been screwing with the plot continuum so you and we need to have a little chat."
"She means we have to charge you."
"What?" The Sue looked from one to the other.
"I love it when they spent most of their time tied up or unconscious. That means they don't have enough personality in them to argue with us." Allison grinned. She cleared her throat before she started charging. "Amanda Courtney Branson, Amy for short. First off, could you explain why despite your mother being a francophile there is not one bit about your name that is French?"
The Sue frowned at Allison.
"I guess that's a no. Never mind. Amy, we charge you with being a Mary Sue. You are the uncanonical niece and adopted daughter of a canon character. You shoe horn your way into MacGyver's life and instantly change his character. If Mac were to take full-time responsibility for a minor he would change his job. At the very least to something that was closer to home, and definitely something that was less likely to get him killed."
"We charge you with writing yourself into two episodes, but not carrying it through past the point where you are in the scenes. We charge you with ignoring the fact that an additional person in the scene changes the dynamic that is present. Particularly, if that additional person is supposed to be the daughter of one of the other people and she is unconscious or tied up."
"Yeah, and MacGyver changing his job would probably still mean that Murdoc would come after him. As long as the 1980 events from Partners happened, Murdoc has a grudge." Allison nodded. "We charge you with giving Murdoc the power of materialization, and we charge you with making him fall in love with you. That's just ..." Allison shook her head in disgust. "And he didn't show it very much, did he?"
"He's a psychopath. He doesn't know how to show love," the Sue finally burst out.
Steve made a buzzing sound. "Psychopaths don't fall in love. They fall into obsession. You said he fell in love. You raised an expectation in us. We want you to show us how his love or obsession for you worked."
"By making me part of his traps for MacGyver?"
"No, that's not it. You were part of the traps because you just happened to stumble into the place when he was busy setting a trap for MacGyver. Murdoc's obsession is with MacGyver, not with you."
The Sue started to pout.
"Further we charge you with bad use of scene breaks and using author's notes instead of narrative to explain time skips. That's it, I think. Allison?"
"Uh, we charge you with calling MacGyver's houseboat a boathouse. The former is a boat that is a house, the latter a house for a boat. I'm sure there was more, but can't remember for the moment. You're lucky neither of us wrote down the charges, they could have been more sever. Amy, you've been charged. Do you understand these charges?"
"No, and I think it's ridiculous that you are charging me." The Sue started to look around the bed for the panic button.
"Ridiculous to you, highly necessary to us. See, we have to charge you before we can sentence you to death."
"What?" The Sue looked at Allison in shock.
Steve raised his crossbow and shot an arrow through the Sue's head at close range. He let out a sigh of satisfaction.
"Right. That's done. And we can get back to the office just in time for our next mission."
Steve frowned at her. "Are you testing the Ironic Overpowers."
"Ssh. Don't want them to catch on."
-oOo-
A/N: Adding an OC to canon scenes is a rather common occurrence in fanfiction. What is important to remember is that an additional person in a scene changes the dynamic. Murdoc and MacGyver would have a very different talk if Murdoc had just threatened the life of Mac's daughter, or anyone for that matter. I'm not saying it can't be done. But to do it right, the OC will have to have more of an impact on the scene than a dress-up dummy would have.
Author's notes in the middle of text are bad form. Only you and your beta reader should see these little notes. The rest of us should not be made aware there is actually an author behind a story.