Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I was 16 when I got my first car. It wasn’t much to look at, but then again, neither was I at 16. My hair was too short, I had a new pimple every other week, and the Army hadn’t seen fit to give me most of my muscles yet to go along with my latest growth spurt. I had a great time putting that car back together and turning it into something that would actually drive from home to the drive-in 20 miles away in the next town over. I had an even better time once it was finished, and Allison Sheridan agreed to get into it with me. 

I had known Allison since the second grade when her dad moved them into town for work. She was 'Ally' then when she joined Mrs. Laramie’s second grade class and my hockey team. But she hadn’t talked to me much since she had traded out her skates for makeup, a training bra, and the name 'Allison.' That had been years ago though. I suspected she had ditched that training bra a long time ago for something a little more relevant to her... well, her situation. 

I don’t mean to be crass or anything, but since it’s just you and me, Allison Sheridan had turned into a knockout—a tall set of curves from her plump pink cheeks and curled blonde hair to the hems of her bell-bottom jeans. I guess since things had turned out so well for her, I couldn’t hold it against her for dropping off the hockey team even if she was the best right-wing to my center I’d ever had before or since. 

“Hey, this looks pretty good, MacGyver,” Allison told me, her smile sparkling and blue eyes dancing. She found me in the parking lot at school and she did a lap around my old, red Chevy Nova, dragging her fingers across some patchwork I’d done on some rusted out spots. I still needed to prime and paint the patch work, but fortunately for her fingertips, I’d sanded those patches smooth.  

“Still a work in progress,” I told her, following her around the rear of the car and back up to the passenger side. “Not unlike myself.” 

Allison laughed. She had always had a nice laugh even when we were kids chasing each other around the pond, but now that her laugh was coming out of a woman’s body instead of a little girl’s, I noticed that it did some different things to me than it used to. 

“I mean it,” she persisted, turning to lean against the passenger door and flashing that smile at me. “It looks really great.” 

“Runs too,” I added, rubbing a proud hand across the roof of my car. I mirrored her smile and leaned sideways against the back door beside her so I could still see her. 

“Care to prove it?” she asked with a teasing eyebrow. 

Now, Ally and I had always had a little thing for dares when we were kids. That Summer before she played her last hockey season, she dared me to sneak down to old man McGinny's pond for a swim around midnight. I got in a heap of trouble for that one when Mom found out. But Ally had never chickened out on a dare, and I wasn’t going to either back then. This wasn’t exactly a proper dare, but with the way my heart was pounding while she waited for an answer, it sure felt like one. 

“Anytime, anyplace. You name it, Sniper,” I responded with a nod to our old days. Allison was a crack shot, always picking off the corners of the net. She had put the goalies around here through some rough days with her slap shot, but they were better for it which was unfortunate for me since I was still trying to score against them. 

“I haven’t been called that in a long time, MacGyver,” she informed me with crossed arms and a smile. 

“Still true?” I asked. 

“Hard to say. I’m a little rusty.” 

“I have it on good authority that old man McGinny’s pond still freezes over if you need some practice.” 

“But who’s going to pass me the puck?” she teased, her invitation by implication obvious. 

“Anytime, anyplace.” Playing hockey wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do most with Allison anymore, but then again, it was awfully fun to watch her move. 

“Friday.” 

“See, I know I said ‘anytime,’ but, ya see, it’s September.” 

“No, Friday. Prove it to me that she runs,” Allison clarified, turning toward me and running her fingers down the cracks between the doors we were leaning against. “Unless you need more time to make good on that claim.”  

That added challenge raised my blood pressure, but it didn’t worry me. The old car would run today if all she wanted was her proof, but something about her asking for Friday felt a little more dangerous than going for a spin right now. 

“Okay,” I answered, hopefully sounding more confident than I felt. “Friday.” 

“Pick me up at seven,” she told me. 

“Sure. Same place?” I asked.  

“Yep.” 

“You still need to climb down the tree to sneak out?” I asked, remembering when I had picked her up for our late night swim. 

“Not quite. Daddy lets me use the door these days as long as I’m coming in by midnight instead of going out,” she smiled at me again, and there was something about it that made me smile too. Allison turned to leave, and she caught my eyes wandering when she turned back quickly. “And MacGyver, do me a favor. If you’re going to check me out, just remember that I can see you in the side-view mirror.” 

I cleared my throat, and I’m sure I was probably blushing at being caught. But Allison didn’t actually seem to mind all that much. 

My Chevy Nova did, in fact, run just fine on Friday night all the way to Allison’s house where she climbed into the passenger seat in her short brown skirt and her tall brown boots. Her hair had fewer curls in it that night than I usually saw on her, flowing easily in waves around the shoulders of her dark blue blouse. Coincidentally, I wore blue too. I don’t know if we were both thinking of our old navy blue hockey sweaters when we were picking out our clothes, but either way, there we were—a matched set. Her eyes looked darker too somehow, maybe from the blue of her shirt, or maybe she had done something different with her makeup. 

Window dressing aside, Allison Sheridan was one of the prettiest girls I’d ever seen. I’d seen her pinked cheeks racing around the pond for years before she had started using powder to make them pink. I liked both of those girls just fine. 

We went for a long walk before the movie started all the way from the back row to the concession stand for a jumbo sized box of Junior Mints and a Coke big enough to swim in. On the way back to the car, Allison slipped her hand into mine. I nearly spilled our drink from the shock of it, but I recovered my footing easily enough to keep from making a fool of myself. 

I’d been around girls plenty. A town the size of mine didn’t have a lot of options for classmates so we were all mixed and matched in every period, every home room, and every lunch table. A fella could get kind of tired of the same 30 boys all day, so adding some girls into the mix just made sense. But the girls I saw at the lunch table didn’t hold my hand. 

Allison didn’t seem to mind holding my hand since she was tying her fingers in a comfortable knot with mine. She also didn’t usually eat at my lunch table, so I wondered if maybe this wasn’t so new to her. Maybe the girls at her lunch table did a little more hand-holding and a little less talking about chemistry homework. Either way, it felt nice. Warm. Soft. 

We were about halfway through ‘Speedway’ when I heard Allison sigh from across the seat and wrap her arms around herself. She hadn’t held my hand again since we got back to the car. I was kind of wishing she had, and I wondered if she did too. 

“You okay?” I asked, and she looked over with a little smile that lacked all of the sparkle of the one I’d seen when I picked her up earlier that night. 

“Fine. Chilly,” she answered, turning her eyes back to the screen. 

“Oh,” luckily, I had prepared for this. Stretching over the high-backed bench seat and bashing my hip on the steering wheel in the process, I snagged a blanket that I had brought. “Here,” I offered, spreading it out for her and tucking it around her shoulders.  

“Thanks.”  

Allison did look thankful, if a little confused when she looked up at me where I sat now a little closer to her than I had before.  

“You betcha,” I answered, and for some reason, I didn’t feel much like moving back to my side of the car, so I didn’t. 

Allison didn’t seem to mind either because she leaned her shoulder against mine. She may have been chilly, but I wasn’t really feeling it. I was warm all over, especially where her arm was brushing against mine. I swallowed down a bundle of nerves, and draped my arm behind Allison, pulling her closer against my side. It’s not something I normally would have tried, but she did hold my hand earlier. 

Again, it didn’t seem like she minded. Allison sighed again, but this one sounded very different than the earlier sigh. Warm fingers wrapped around mine where they danced precariously atop her shoulder and pulled my arm more snugly around her. That one move had me asking myself all sorts of questions, but mostly, I was asking myself the question I'd first asked when she walked up to me in the parking lot at school and started admiring my hardly admirable first car. 

“Allison,” I asked, my voice cracking a bit. “Is this a date?” 

She didn’t look at me, but I was looking at her. All of that pretty girl self-assuredness I’d seen since we reconnected earlier this week seemed to have vanished, and it was replaced by eyes that wouldn’t meet mine and a lip the was quivering just a little. 

“Do you want it to be?” she asked, and I saw her fingers that weren't holding mine fidgeting in her lap under the blanket. 

“Yeah, sure. If you do.” 

A third sigh, nothing like the other two slipped past her pink lips. This one sounded relieved, as if maybe she had been wondering the same thing. 

"I do," she answered, finally looking up at me, and in one look, all of the years that we hadn't really talked didn't seem to exist anymore. She was just Ally, lining herself up to take a pass from me or climbing down the oak tree outside of her bedroom window. We had a heck of a good time together when we were kids. Then something changed, but I never knew what it was. Sure, we had grown up. She had started doing more girl things, and I was still doing boy things while she was busy turning into a woman. But she was still Ally, and I was still Mac. 

Swallowing down all of those questions, I turned my eyes back toward the screen, and she did too. I couldn’t tell you what happened to Elvis in that movie, and I’d wager that Allison couldn’t either. But I could tell you that nothing had ever felt nicer than her thumb tracing the lines on the palm of my hand. Nothing except maybe the tickle of her soft hair against my jaw. My beard hadn’t come in all the way at 16, but I had enough that I needed to shave every couple of days. I had enough that I could feel her hair getting caught on my stubble, and nothing had ever made me feel more like a man than that. 

I know I said I’d had a lot more fun in the back seat of a car before, but truth be told, I had an awful lot of fun in the front seat of the car that first night. There were plenty of other nights after that first one with Allison, but I think that first one was probably my favorite. 

Chapter Text

Allison and I skipped the movies the next weekend, and instead we went to old man McGinny’s pond again. I hadn’t been back there since that night we went swimming together, but in Minnesota, swimming isn’t something you really want to do on a September evening especially after dark. So, we kicked off our shoes, rolled up our pant legs, sat at the end of the dock, and we did our best to catch up on everything we had missed in the last five years.  

Her dad was still working at the mill, and her mom still ran the local library. Her little sister wasn’t a pest anymore, and Allison was pretty sure she was going to be an actress on Broadway with a side gig teaching Kindergarten. It was all good information, but it wasn’t what I really wanted to know since we had reconnected last week. It had been bugging me ever since, and it seemed like something we should talk about. So, I cleared my throat quietly, skimming my thumb over the back of her hand that rested in mine, and I asked while she looked on from her seat next to me on the dock.  

“Allison, why did we... well, back then... why did we stop being friends?” I asked, and Allison’s blue eyes shifted nervously before she looked away. “I get that you didn’t want to play hockey anymore, but we just quit talking. It’s like you wanted to be someone else, and I don’t get that.”  

Silently, Allison withdrew her hand from mine and hugged her arms around her middle. Her bare toes dragged through water, sloshing gently below us, and spraying my leg with a few wayward droplets. The crickets chirped on, but she didn’t say a word. I was beginning to think she wasn’t going to. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up, but I had missed her. And now that she seemed to be back in my life, I didn’t want to take a chance on missing her again if I could help it, so it seemed important to know. But maybe she wasn’t comfortable talking about it just yet.  

“Never mind,” I added, letting her off the hook. “Let’s talk about something else. Hey, I saw you got the part you wanted in the play. Do you think—”  

“Christy Caulfield,” she blurted, and she pinned me with nervous but determined eyes.  

“What about her?” Christy and I had been lab partners in seventh grade science. She was pretty good at it too, but I hadn’t talked to Christy much since the seventh grade either. Allison shrugged dismissively and wrapped her denim jacket more tightly around her, dragging her toes through the water again.  

“You liked her,” Allison stated plainly.  

“Of course, I liked her. She was nice.”  

“And smart,” Allison added, looking up at me for a moment with a rueful grin.  

“Sure, she was.”  

“And you’re smart,” she continued, and that was the moment that I learned that women were confusing.  

“Well, that’s a matter of opinion, but—”  

“You’re smart, MacGyver. You don’t have to be shy about it with me.”  

“Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right. I still don’t understand why any of that should be a problem.”  

“I’m not smart like you,” she told me before she looked away and confessed the next part. “I’m not smart like Christy.”  

“Allison,” I tugged gently at her sleeve trying to get her to look at me. “That’s not true. You—”  

“It is true,” she pinned me with that determined glare again. “I’m smart at other things, maybe, but not the way you are. I sing better than you, and I used to be able to outshoot you. I don’t think I could anymore.”  

“So, you thought that I didn’t like you anymore. Is that it?”  

“No, not exactly. I thought you liked me just fine,” Allison shrugged, her long curls rolling across her shoulders with the motion. “But I didn’t think you liked me the way you liked Christy.”  

“What do you mean ‘the way I liked Christy’?”  

“I mean, you liked her. And I understand now. It makes sense now, but I... well, I liked you.” 

Disbelief at everything Allison had said was all I could feel. Christy and I hadn’t really even been friends, not in that way that Ally and I were. I wasn’t one of those boys that didn’t like girls, but at eleven years old, I was way more interested in my chemistry set and hockey than I was in Christy Caulfield.   

“If you liked me, why did you ignore me? I asked you to come to our games still after you quit, but... you never came anymore. It was like you just turned into this girl that I didn’t know anymore.”  

“You didn’t seem to like ‘hockey Ally’ very much so I thought you might like ‘theater club Ally’ or some other Ally that wasn’t always sweaty and out of breath.”  

“I liked you plenty, Allison.”  

“You liked me, maybe. But you didn’t notice me.”  

Allison sat for a long time, picking at the hem of her jacket, and from what I could see of her in the moonlight, she looked very much like I had hurt her back then without even knowing it.  

“What does that mean?”  

“You didn’t notice that we weren’t kids anymore, Mac. You didn’t notice that I wasn’t a kid.”  

I had, in fact, noticed that Ally was growing up, but this didn’t exactly seem like the right time to mention her training bra. She was still withdrawn. I could tell she was uncomfortable with the conversation, but I missed having her hand in mine. I scooted her way just to be closer so that I could at least feel her warmth against my arm. After this conversation, I wasn’t sure she would want to hold my hand again anyway.  

“Is that why you’re ‘Allison’ now? You didn’t want to be a kid anymore?”  

She shrugged again and looked my way, thrilling me to see a faint smile on her lips.   

“It was worth a shot,” she answered, and just on the off chance that it would keep her smiling, I grinned at her. She didn’t disappoint me. She never had, except for when she had started eating lunch at someone else’s table every day. Come to think of it, Christy Caulfield had started eating at our table right before Ally vanished from my life.  

Lifting my hand from the dock, I reached out my palm to her and waited just a second before she smiled wider and settled her hand back in mine, and that was one worry answered. I guess I hadn’t screwed things up too badly tonight, and I hadn’t gotten over the thrill of it yet—thinking that Allison wanted to hold my hand. In some ways, maybe I never did get over it.  

“I missed you, Ally,” I said with a squeeze to her fingers, and catching my mistake too late. “Sorry. Allison.”  

“’Ally’ is okay. Since it’s you,” she offered, and leaned her head onto my shoulder with a shiver.  

“Cold?” I asked, but I didn’t wait for an answer. I just slipped my arm around her shoulders, replacing one hand with another in hers atop her knee. She leaned into me even more, accepting the offered warmth.  

“Not really,” she answered with her face turned up toward mine, and my stomach was doing somersaults. The one and only Allison Sheridan was looking up at me like she wanted me to kiss her, and I had no idea what to do about that. I guess I thought about it too long because she sighed and looked back out over the pond, but I knew that if I didn’t do something about it, I would have been thinking about what might have been for a very long time.  

I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have a plan. But sometimes, a good plan can just get in the way. Swallowing tightly and tilting my head, I planted what I hoped was an inviting kiss on Allison’s cheek. Her slightly pink skin was warm and softer than I had imagined, and her face inclined faintly toward me. Subtly, I licked my lips and hoped that I hadn’t mistaken what she wanted.  

She turned toward me, her blue eyes shining from the moonlight on her face, and I was sure there was nothing subtle about the way I was looking at her. Sure, I was nervous. You would have been too if you’d never kissed a girl before, and then you had to kiss the prettiest girl you’d ever known with no practice. But really, I guess I didn’t want the first one to be with anyone else.  

Ally’s eyes flicked downward toward my lips, and I was just sure she could hear my heart trying to beat out of my chest. Her face turned up, waiting in invitation, and all that I needed to do was just... I just needed to do it. I leaned down, swallowing hard and pressed my lips to hers. I didn’t quite line things up perfectly, but her pink lips, supple and soft, kissed me back anyway. I knew nothing had ever tasted so sweet. Maybe nothing would ever again, but I had to catch my breath, so I pulled back.   

To my relief, Ally didn’t look horrified or disappointed. In fact, she looked pleased and even a little shy which wasn’t a trait I normally associated with Allison. She smiled a half smile at me and squeezed lightly at my hand that was still in hers. Ally may have been the prettiest girl I’d ever known, but there was something else. She was also the nicest girl I’d ever known, and she was definitely the girl I’d had the most fun with even if you didn’t count the hockey.  

“I could, umm,” I started, taking a few breaths to try to get blood flowing back to my brain. “I could probably do that better if you wanted to try again.”  

“Me too,” she answered, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. “I could do better, I mean.” I didn’t think Ally had anything she needed to improve, but that sounded like a ‘yes’ to me, so I didn’t question her.  

I leaned in again, brushing her lips with mine. Hitting my target perfectly this time and watching her eyes flutter closed at first contact, I kissed her, and then I kissed her again. Two kisses turned to three. Four kisses turned to her hands on my shoulders and my hand abandoned by her, palm down on her denim-covered knee. Five kisses turned to shortness of breath and trying to pull air in through my lips between kisses. Breathing between kisses turned into a sixth kiss that had her top lip slipping between mine, and all of the sudden, I didn’t need to breathe anymore. I just needed to kiss Ally.  

She seemed to agree because she was twisting, turning her body toward me to try to get closer, and for some reason, I thought if I pulled her knee toward me it would help. Maybe it did help, but mostly it just reminded me that my hand was squeezing Ally’s knee. It probably wouldn’t come as a surprise since I hadn’t kissed a girl that I also hadn’t had much experience with a girl’s knee before. I was pretty sure that there would never be a more perfect knee than Allison Sheridan’s, and at that very moment, I really wasn’t interested in finding out.  

“MacGyver,” she whispered out against my lips, and I swallowed my own name. On pure instinct, I swiped the tip of my tongue over her bottom lip. Ally scrunched her fingers into fists in the front of my shirt and sighed deep in her chest, so I did it again. Only, this time, Ally let her sigh escape through her open mouth, and I coaxed it out with my tongue slipping between her lips.   

Ally ran her fingers up my neck and into my hair while she sucked lightly at my tongue. I buried my own fingers deep in her blonde hair at the back of her head, and now I understood. Now I understood why so many of the guys were late for practice in the morning after a date. Who wanted to go home to bed when the alternative was kissing someone who tasted as sweet and soft as Ally? I sure didn’t.  

Slowly and much too soon, our eagerness cooled. Mine, because I realized I wasn’t sure what to do next. Of course, there were plenty things I wanted to do, but that didn’t mean that I should do them. At least, not on our second date. With soft kisses that felt more indulgent than experimental now, Ally brushed her fingers through my hair, smoothing it down where she had ruffled it into wild tufts. I rested my forehead against hers, and her gentle hands smoothed down my shirt now. I had made a bit of a mess of her too, so I did my best to brush her hair smooth, but it was probably a hopeless case. With a smile, she pulled back, detangling her own hair with her fingers and kissing me one more time before turning back out toward the pond.  

“You’re, uhhh,” I mumbled like a fool. “You’re really good at that.”  

“Am I?” she asked, turning her face toward me, her eyes widened in surprise. “I never... I mean, I’ve gone out with a couple of boys, but I never...”  

“Me neither,” I confessed, but it seemed more like a promise now than something to be embarrassed about. I reached for her, pleased with myself at how easily she gave me her hand. A soft smile spread across her lips, and she nuzzled into my shoulder which started me smiling too. I liked the way she seemed to trust me even with all of the missing years between the end of that dock and the last time we had been there.  

“I’m glad it was with you,” she spoke low and broken, and my chest ached at her words. I reached across her, hugging her head against my shoulder and kissing her hair in thanks.  

“Me too,” I returned the sentiment.  

“Not Christy Caulfield?” she asked, pulling back and looking up at me.  

“Not Christy Caulfield,” I assured her with a grin. “Ally, I never liked Christy the way you think. Not how I like you.”  

“Oh?” she asked, flipping her hair back over her shoulder and morphing back into the beautiful, confident Allison that I had watched from afar for the past 5 years. “And, uh, how exactly do you like me, MacGyver?”  

Her curious, playful eyes lingered on mine, and I realized I was lucky. I was lucky because it was her, so answering her question didn’t make me nervous. It just made me happy because it was so obvious that it made her happy.  

“I mean, I like you. Like a lot.”  

Ally hid her blush from me and bumped my shoulder with hers, so I pulled her in with an arm around her and a smile I didn’t want to hide from her. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I was getting used to that feeling.  

“I like you too. Always have.”  

“Sorry I made you feel unimportant or... I don’t know.”  

“You didn’t really. I think maybe I just wanted something that you weren’t ready for.”  

“I was eleven. What exactly did you have in mind?”  

Ally giggled and stretched her face up to mine. I think she meant to kiss my cheek, but it landed on my jaw instead which sent shivers down my neck and up to the crown of my head.  

“Maybe we just forget about back then, huh?” she suggested, apparently unaffected by the way she had just kissed me. “We’re here now. That’s what should matter.”  

“Yeah, okay,” I agreed, shaking off the euphoria. “Just, before we do that, did I mention that I missed you?”  

“You did,” she smiled. It seemed like she hadn’t really stopped smiling since last week. “I’ve missed you too.”  

“Let’s not do that anymore, huh? Whadda ya say?” I suggested. Five years was too long to go in life without Ally.  

“I like that idea. You always did have good ideas.”  

“Hey Ally?” I asked, waiting for her smile to turn my way again. “I dare you to go out with me again next Saturday.”  

“Well, how can I refuse? Since it’s a dare.”  

“Well, you could,” I grinned at her. “But then I’d have to tell the entire school that you’re a chicken.”  

“In your dreams, MacGyver. Pick me up at seven.”