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[appalachianapologies]

y’all i love you all so much but when i said “essay” i seriously meant it 😂😭 you have absolutely no obligation to read this because it is SO long but if you do, i’d love to hear your thoughts lmao. uhhhhhh i apologize in advance

So basically Mac dies in 5x15 (can we get an F in the chat)- when he flatlines they can’t get him back and so rip Mac you will be missed. Except then he “wakes” up in the forest right as he gets shot in the leg in 3x13. Because there’s something currently trying to murder him, Mac puts the whole “what happened” thing on the backburner and ends up fighting off what’s his face like he did in canon. Riley and Boze find him and much to Mac’s surprise, act the same way they did when this happened earlier.

But he’s in a lot of pain so mac is like “ok well surely i must be hallucinating or I’m just having weird lucid dreams because my brain is being starved of oxygen” and plus he has a bullet in his leg so he kind of has other pressing matters. Anyway riley and boze bring him back to the phoenix in the same way that they did the first time and mac’s kind of getting weirded out, and then before he goes into surgery he spots jack and mac is like “!!!!!!”

He starts being like “you can’t go after kovacs, you can’t do this, you have to stay,” etc. Much like Mac, Jack doesn’t have a lot of time to focus on this because Mac still has a bullet in his leg and his hand is all burned so he just kind of waves it off and tries to comfort mac before surgery.

After, though, Jack is like “how did u know, how do you even know about kovacs in the first place?” And Mac, realizing that he absolutely cannot tell anyone that he thinks he’s just gone back in time and has already lived these days, makes up a quick lie that he was suspicious bc of how jack was acting so he looked into it and how he’s sorry and should’ve asked, but Jack accepts that as the truth (bc like why wouldn’t he?). Mac basically spends the entirety of his recovery trying to convince jack to stay without giving too much away like the fact that Kovacs is in fact dead and it’s Anya Vitez who’s parading around as him.

Luckily Jack decides to stay and mac is like “yay :)” and he thinks that maybe this is good, whatever the hell happened to him that put him back two years. Because Jack is going to stay with the team and thus hopefully stay alive, Mac decides to not push the whole “I think I time traveled” thing, and just decides to settle into this world/timeline/whatever. 

He still does some weird things like ask Riley to find Desiree Nguyen but not tell anybody, and give Bozer some oddly specific advice for Leanna, stuff like that. He knows what’s going to happen to Charlie soon, so Mac immediately tries to contact him and tries to remember as much as he can about the initial explosion that got Charlie taken in the first place. With the Phoenix resources he looks up as much as he can about Eliot Mason and tries to predict what he’ll do if he isn’t able to grab Charlie.

Mac sees this as a second chance, as the ability to fix everything that went wrong the first time. Mac is like “holy shit I can literally save people” and he totally can but there are. Hmm. consequences. 

A few months later around the Murdoc + Helman + Hit episode (where mac knows suspiciously a lot about where Helman could be hiding) Mac starts to get these headaches. They’re like not quite migraines—don’t have the same symptoms like halos and stuff—but they feel much much worse than just normal headaches. Mac chalks them up to stress bc he’s been trying to save all of the people that he couldn’t, all while keeping an eye out on what’s happening with Desi bc he doesn’t know what’s going ot happen in the timeline if she never comes to the Phoenix.

But then one night Mac’s chest starts feeling really tight, like really really tight, to the point where he can’t really breathe. He assumes it’s a panic attack or something except for the fact that he’s just… not panicking? Right before Mac decides to metaphorically bite the bullet and call Jack for help, it stops, so Mac’s like “uhhhhh ok surely this will be fine” and then never mentions it to anyone at all.

Mac manages to save Charlie and thus the Phoenix (it’s a tad bit more complicated than that but this is so long already-), but a few days later when they go to work Riley gathers them all in the war room and is like “someone got into all of our servers and other important things™” which the US government quickly learns about, and shuts down the phoenix. Mac freaks out bc he thought he stopped that from happening, so he doesn’t know what to do, especially because this time around Jack is still here and it looks like he’s about to raise hell when he hears that the Phoenix has been shut down.

Now that no one has jobs, Jack thinks about joining the task force to find Kovacs (bc it still exists, Jack just isn’t running it) and in desperation to make sure he doesn’t leave, Mac tells Jack that Kovacs isn’t actually alive, it isn’t actually him, it’s someone else. Understandably Jack is like “???? bestie you need to explain yourself because this does not make any sense and also how tf would you know that?”

Mac lies and tells Jack that he’s been trying to help find Kovacs as well because he knows how important it is to Jack that he does so, and that he’s used Riley for help but don’t ask her about it because she doesn’t like to talk about it from the things she’s seen… Mac gets further and further into this lie but he doesn’t care if it means that Jack stays with them.

At some point during this weird time where the Phoenix doesn’t exist and everyone is trying to find their footing as civilians, Mac asks Jack if he thinks his dd is truly listening in when he talks to his grave and jack is like “for the sake of myself, yeah, i think so” and mac is like “ok ok. Interesting. Wondering for no particular reason.” which then reminds him about James so he’s like “oh shit” and calls his dad and tells him to go to the doctor because cancer.

Mac starts to get the weird headaches and chest tightness/pain again, but still keeps it from everyone because it always eventually goes away, and he’s pretty sure it’s a symptom of him… time traveling? So no one can know about it anyway.

In the end, Russ Taylor finds them once more, wanting to turn over a new leaf in his life and wants to do so by buying the phoenix and having them do missions to save the world. Jack is like “hell no” and punches Russ and then Russ punches back and then they lowkey highkey get in a fight and mac is awkwardly trying to pull them apart and being like “uhhhhhh what if this is good?” and is trying to be super normal about this. 

Back… before… Mac always wondered how Jack would react to Russ buying the Phoenix but now that he actually is here it’s far worse than Mac thought. But there’s not much time to think about that because Mac knows what’s coming next, knows what’s going to happen within the year, and that’s the appearance of his Aunt and Codex and everything. Mac throws all of his free-time into trying to find Codex by himself and also trying to make it look like random chance that he did that.

He decides that he’s going to be the one to reach out to find his aunt and it’s not the smartest idea but it’s what he’s got, okay. All the while Mac is trying to remember all of the missions that he’s gone on before and tries to remember how they went and how he can improve on them. Much to Mac’s surprise, Matty and Russ both agree that bc not enough agents came back after Russ bought the Phoenix out, they need more agents and mac is like “desi nguyen” and jack immediately turns and is like “how the FUCK do you know that name” and mac just has to be like :) don’t worry about it

Mac realizes the best way to take down Codex is to do something similar from last time, pretend to be a double, triple agent, but the only person he tells the truth to is Jack. This results in Jack (instead of James) being the one that’s taken to the weird Codex building headquarters thing, and then mac freaks the fuck out because this is where James died, so if things go the same here this means that this is where Jack dies instead.

But then weird things start happening. Eliot Mason for some reason works with Codex now, he’s the one who’s fashioned a bomb for the dam. Mac doesn’t know what’s happening and doesn’t know how much of his original timeline is going to hold up. He’s been relying on knowing what’s going to happen for so so long at this point that Mac feels really really bad living “normally” aka living and not knowing what the future holds.

The headaches and chest pain become more frequent and Mac knows that he’s going to have to tell someone about this soon, but it’s getting harder and harder for him to remember what happens in the future. He feels lost because of this new Codex and doesn’t really know what’s going to happen next and that is Scary!!! Okay it’s scary he’s known what’s going to happen for the past year but now things are getting muddled in his mind and everything is Not Good Not. Good.

So when asked if he wants to take the mystery drug (how do they get there in this timeline? Idk man that’s a problem for future Vi and right now present Vi is just having fun) to remember Mac is like “hell yeah dude!” and jack is like “maybe don’t??? Take an experimental drug???” but mac is so desperate to remember the things from the original timeline that he takes it anyway.

It does help (shows mac what’s coming in the future) but there’s something about it that just doesn’t feel quite right, but Mac can’t put his finger on it. Meanwhile Desi starts working on the team more and more, and with Leanna still here thanks to Mac meddling with Bozer’s love life half a year ago, the team is big enough that they sometimes get split up on missions, but right now everyone is working toward Codex.

The dam happens but in a strangely different fashion. Leland dies but Mac manages to save aunt Gwen. Jack is with him in this universe and ends up breaking his leg (rather than Russ, but also from a whole different reason in the first place) and mac feels the Guilt. This increases when Gwen is immediately hauled off and sent to a blacksite and mac is told under no circumstances is he allowed to go visit her even though as an agent he technically should be allowed to.

The headaches become debilitating enough that Mac begins to tell everyone that his migraines are back even though he knows that they’re not migraines, but he just has to say something and migraines are pretty damn believable because of the pain.

The timeline has been changed and fucked with so much that Mac can’t really predict the upcoming missions anymore. He never got the chance to become close with Desi so she’s still closed off and doesn’t do much with the team. Mac lets an inside joke slip out by accident and seeing her confused and slightly uncomfortable face rather than the smile that he’s used to hurts. It hurts okay. 

But Mac tells himself that it’s all worth it, that things are better this way. But it’s kind of hard to remember why? Like he doesn’t really have a good memory on why things are better in this timeline. Can’t remember too well about what things were like before. All he knows is that Bozer and Leanna are together and happy and Jack is alive and things are good things are good Things Are Good. Sometimes it feels like Mac is watching all of this through a window and sometimes he can’t really breathe but things!! Are good!!!

Realizing that his memories of his other life are fading, Mac gets a notebook and starts to religiously write down everything that he can, but they’re just so muddled and faded that the memories don’t even make sense anymore. 

Matty’s CIA friend and everyone in that building start showing symptoms of strokes and showing aggression and Mac is like “this is SO familiar” kind of like deja vu but can’t for the life of him remember why this happened and how this mission ended. He goes through that building with Jack and they start showing symptoms as well and Mac knows he knows that he’s gone through this before but he  can’t remember what the answer was to it.

It’s frightening but he still hasn’t told anyone about his weird experience and time traveling so he continues to just keep everything in.

Mac and Jack end up getting sent out on a mission during a protest and Mac kind of feels like he’s been here before but not quite, and suddenly according to Riley who’s back home in the Phoenix Labs has announced that mac and jack have inhaled some sort of tracking device and mac blurts out “nanobots” before he really knows why and he doesn’t even know what nanobots are himself? But he’s pretty sure that that’s the problem.

By the time they get back home and sent to Phoenix Med for many blood draws, Mac spends a long time looking at his hands and Jack’s like “what’s up hoss?” and mac kind of gives him a curious look and is like “i don’t really know. I just feel like my hands are important” He doesn’t have anything to back this up though, so Mac just shrugs it off and figures that he’s just worried because he relies on his hands so much for his missions.

Every night he rereads what he had written in his notebook, desperately trying to remember this past life that he doesn’t really understand. When he started the notebook he didn’t write down how he got into this life/timeline in the first place, but Mac knows that he used to know the answer to it. He just. He can’t remember. It’s driving him mad but Mac can’t fucking remember what it was that sent him here.

The nanobots (they’ve taken a liking to the name for the robots that mac blurted out a few weeks ago) start causing symptoms in Mac and Jack, and eventually Mac confesses to the Phoenix doc that he’s been getting headaches and tightness in his chest, but he’s a bad patient and lies and says that it’s only started since inhaling the nanobots. The doc tries as he might, but they can’t figure out why mac has these symptoms.

The finger tingling and later numbness begins and mac is like “huh this is so weird” and literally cannot remember that this exact same thing had happened to him before. His old life just doesn’t really exist in his head anymore. Mac knows that it must’ve at some point because he has this notebook full of memories of missions that went differently, but it’s not like he actually remembers it, he just has to trust his past self who wrote it down.

Mac and jack go under the control of the nanobots and are forced to fight each other and jack is like “just like griggs” and mac is like “ahaha yeah. Just like griggs… right. Yes. of course. Griggs.” he remembers griggs and he remembers the missions that followed and that one where he ended up getting shot in the forest and mac thinks about it and is like “why does that mission feel so weird” meanwhile Phoenix med is trying everything to get these nanobots out of Mac and Jack.

The eventually decide to starve the bots (and mac and jack) of oxygen and everyone knows it’s a risk but everyone decides it’s worth it but mac just. He won’t. And the thing is, he doesn’t even know why?? There’s just something in his head that screams NO DONT DO THAT when he thinks about getting in that chamber. It’s like he’s physically unable to move closer to them and finally tells everyone that he just can’t. It’s not safe and jack shouldn’t do it either. Everyone is like “we’re out of choices, it’s the only way” but Mac stands his ground. 

There is. Hmm. there is a lot more that happens post canon but this is unironically 2.8k words already so i’m going to call it here 😭 I promise i don’t have a problem i swear i have a normal amount of thoughts about this show

Who wants to read an essay about the strangest MacGyver fic idea I've had yet