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Chapter Text

Postcode Envy

Chapter 1—Diamonds

June 6 th , 2009

Mac looked up briefly then once again buried her nose in her Kindle. However, the story really wasn't interesting her today. She sighed deeply and set it down beside her. It was too frakking hot to read, or well, breathe. A sticky-ass June day and she was at Settler's Park only a few rows behind third base watching her baby brother, Ryan, play baseball. The teams were comprised of a bunch of neighborhood kids, solidly '02'ers in nature, probably nurture too, with their scrappiness and cursing inability to tolerate losing.

Ryan's stance seemed to be improving, far as Mac could tell with her limited baseball expertise. He shuffled a little, opening his legs, adjusting his grip on the aluminum bat.

While Ryan was a gifted athlete, Mac completely lacked coordination. Walking seemed to take her full concentration, so forget about texting while walking, that was a recipe for injury right there. That was the perfect lead in to a philosophical thought session on the mystery of genes, but she knew the true reason Ryan had coordination and she did not-he was the blood related offspring of the athletically inclined Mackenzies, she was biologically a Sinclair, library-dwellers to the extreme.

The secret of her birth was one she'd discovered four years ago, and she kept waiting for it to get easier. The thought was slowly creeping up on her that it would never get easier. It was the same basic concept as when she realized her first boyfriend was a rapist and mass murderer, it was just a wound that never fully quit hurting, she'd learned to tuck it away in a secret room of her soul-a panic room—and only bring it out for examination on those tortuously rare occasions when she felt strong enough to not crack and break under the mass.

Mac looked up at the sound of Ryan's bat connecting with the ball.

Biological or not, he was her brother and she loved him. Her eyes followed as he took off toward first base, the ball found the gap, so he continued his journey. He was safely at second by the time the ball reached the infield. The next kid up at bat was Ryan's friend, a short, stocky kid with a shock of unruly, red hair named Zane. She'd known him practically his entire life.

The ball connected with Zane's swing of the bat and Ryan rounded third base then headed for home.

Mac clapped and whistled, his one-person pep-squad team, which was irony in its very nature being that she was pretty sure she didn't have the peppy gene either. Was that a Mackenzie stronghold, too? What the hell did she get from Sinclair biology, genealogy, and any other applicable -ology?

Apathy, perhaps? Her tendency toward the gray shade of the law? Check and check! Her techno-whiz, hacker chops certainly had to come from a Sinclair branch. Okay, maybe Hallmark didn't write cutesy cards touting her particular traits, but at least she wasn't a pep squad clone, like her "other half" Madison.

She picked up the Kindle once again, hoping to jam the circuits of her brain to oblivion. It was an exercise in futility.

Mac was well-aware that the dumpster-diving her mood was taking stemmed more from the calendar than anything else, including alignment of the stars or the phase of the moon. It wasn't really the sticky ass heat, baking her innards, that was making her so maudlin.

Three years ago today she was walking down the aisle at her graduation from Neptune High, accepting her diploma. Exactly thirteen hours later, she was huddled naked, under a shower curtain, in a room at the Neptune Grand.

Happy Anniversary!

Adding to Mac's convergence of bad moods was the unexpected detour she took on her way to the park.

************Earlier that same morning****************

She had spent the previous two anniversaries in bed, burrowed under her covers, pretending to be sick. It was a cover story, and her mom knew that, but she never minded playing along. The whole family played along, no one had forgotten those first few weeks after Cassidy jumped, after she'd been discovered by Veronica and Logan-huddled in their hotel room alone, naked, shivering, terrified.

Right after it had happened, she'd drown herself in her bed covers, only surfacing to eat the meals her mom force-fed her. She would have gladly spent the entire summer in that numb, catatonic state, except two weeks later her mom had forcefully dragged her out from her bed cocoon and deposited her on a shrink's couch.

This year, however, she was determined to not let Cassidy win. She'd reclaim this day.

That's how Mac ended up starting her day chatting with Dave who managed her favorite, non-big box computer store, the Comp-U-Stop in downtown Neptune.. It was in a run-down storefront, most of the neighbors were boarded up, but they had low prices and she loved talking with the staff, a bunch of Microsoft groupies. She enjoyed hotly defending the merits of OS-X over the sheep follower, herd inducing Windows brands.

Mac had happened to glace out the window mid-argument about the slow, but steady rise in Apple usage when her thought train derailed. It was the flash of long, straight black hair on a girl walking by that severed her concentration. The girl in question had on short shorts, and a tight, red tee shirt, and appeared to be laughing at something her friend had said.

That girl was Lauren Sinclair.

Tossing back a mumbly excuse over her shoulder, Mac left the computer store-her hideout, her comfort zone-and turned left, the direction Lauren had gone in. She saw the girls up about 100 yards ahead of her, walking fast and giggling loudly. They were heartbreakingly normal teenage girls.

Doing some mental calculations, Mac figured Lauren was fifteen, on the cusp of sixteen. She did frequent Google searches on her, and also kept alerts on her files at school. Until Madison's birthday party four years ago she hadn't even known she had a sister, now Lauren couldn't even order shoes online without Mac knowing about it. It would seem creepy, stalkerish even , if anyone else knew about her e-sleuthing, but to her it was a little way she could keep a protective eye on her sister—a stranger she felt more connected to than anyone else in her life.

Mac kept her distance, instinctively stopping as though she was window shopping the one time Lauren looked back to sneak a peek. Mac wasn't sure if she'd heard a specific noise or was just generally trying to be aware of her surroundings, but she was careful to tread quieter after that.

The girls stopped at the corner, looked around as though trying to get their bearings and ended up turning right. Mac stopped again, mentally counting to 50 to keep more distance, then continued on. She made it to the corner just in time to see Lauren and her friend opening a door before they were swallowed up and out of her viewing range.

Mac picked up her pace and stopped, hesitantly, in front of the door she'd just seen Lauren enter.

Java the Hut.

Taking a deep breath, Mac casually strode into the place she spent a lot of time hanging out at when she was Lauren's age. In fact, she still came here a lot to get her soy chai latte fix. It felt like a connection to Lauren, that they went to the same stores and restaurants. Maybe their paths crossed more than she realized? It was a stretch, Mac knew that she was assigning way too much meaning to things, but she wouldn't have anything to cling to otherwise.

Getting in line behind Lauren's friend, Mac soon discovered the girl was named Brittany. She listened as the two of them talked and teased each other. Lauren liked the new lifeguard at the Neptune Country Club. He had black curly hair and his name was Kyle. They were planning on dropping by to see him later in the afternoon since Lauren was off work that day. Brittany responded to that by saying "To be qualified as an actual job, the position had to be paid." She noticed that they never mentioned the where or what of Lauren's volunteer "job."

Mac listened, hanging on every word her sister—her real biological sister—said, pretending Lauren was talking to her, telling her about this boy she had a crush on named Kyle with the tight black Speedos and six pack abs. She'd bitch about her job, and they'd plot revenge on gossipy coworkers as they sipped their matching soy chai lattes at the corner table. The two of them would catch up on each other's lives, like normal sisters did.

"I can help the next person in line. Miss, Miss." The skinny boy with glasses shouted from behind the counter, interrupting Mac's ruminations.

She noticed Lauren looking over at her from the other side of the long counter where she was waiting to get her drink. They exchanged a smile, but even though Mac searched hopefully for a sign of recognition she could tell Lauren didn't really remember their meeting four and a half years ago. Why would she?

"Venti Soy Chai Latte, please," Mac said to the impatient barista wannabe who was biting back a sigh and drumming the fingers of his right hand on the counter.

"Four ninety-five," he replied only stopping his finger tapping long enough to accept the proffered five-dollar bill from Mac's outstretched hand.

"Keep the change, for your gracious service," Mac snarked. She blushed when she realized Lauren was laughing at the exchange. Stepping down to the other end of the counter to wait for her own drink she maneuvered herself next to Lauren, who gave her another smile.

"Carmel Mocha," announced the girl tasked with making the drinks. She placed the take-out cup on the counter and Brittany grabbed it before heading off to a table by the window.

"They have the best drinks here, so much better than those chains that are on every other street corner in every city," Lauren said, smiling. "What did you order?"

"Chai Latte with soy milk, what about you?"

"Chai Latte, with skim milk. Small world."

Small DNA, Mac thought but did not say. Instead, she just made a joke about life in Southern California. It felt meaningful, that just like her little daydream, Lauren really did drink the same thing as her. They must have had some things in common, some deeper seeded philosophies on top of preferring spiced tea to coffee drinks.

She was blood connected to this stranger standing beside her, waiting for almost carbon copies of the same drink.

Lauren's skinny chai was ready and the shared moment was over all too soon for Mac's liking. She said good-bye, then took her tea and headed off to the table by the window to join her friend and finish talking about Kyle and plotting ways Brittany could sharpen her wingman…wingwoman…skills.

About a minute later the overly chipper barista called her name, interrupting her attempts at spying in on Lauren's latest plan to get to know Kyle in a hopefully more Biblical sense. Mac gave her coffee maker a half-smile and reluctantly accepted the drink. She briefly considered getting a table close to Lauren and continuing her intel-gathering on the sister she did not know; however, she quickly vetoed that instrument of self-mutilation.

Mac took a sip of the scalding drink as she snaked her way through the small coffee shop and out the door. Once she was back outside in the sunshine and heat, she stopped briefly by the window as though deciding which way to go, but really, she was taking in one last, quick look at Lauren. She lowered her head as Lauren looked up just then, spotting her. Mac turned the other direction, retracing her steps to the car she'd parked-crookedly-a block and a half away.

She slipped into the driver's seat of her beloved Beetle, deciding not to finish her computer shopping, that purchase could wait for another day. Stowing the drink, she hadn't really wanted, in the first place, in the cup holder, Mac twisted slightly so she could retrieve her cell phone from the over-sized pocket of her fading khaki cargo shorts.

One missed call.

Mac put her phone on speaker and listened to the rambling voicemail of her mom prattling on about Ryan, who was playing ball at Settler's Park and her plans to go shopping. She put on her seatbelt and started the car. After hitting delete on the message, she redialed her mom's number from where it was stored in the memory setting.

It rang and rang as Mac merged into the light mid-morning downtown Neptune traffic. She sighed and pushed the end button as her mom's own outgoing voicemail message started.

Well, she'd managed to dodge the shopping bullet for today at least, so she considered that a small victory.

Her mom had some type of mojo on her; no one else had the power to get her into one of those monuments of capitalistic greed and wanton consumerism (AKA the Mall). Today, of all frakking days, she needed-physically needed-the endless prattle of Natalie Mackenzie, whose chipper voice was a balm, Aloe Vera for her soul. However, her mom was most likely ensnared in a tiny cubicle like dressing room right now, getting talked into buying pretty pink dresses that would just end up being shoved in the back of the master closet that her dad kept adding space to. Between the closet additions and the extra shelf-space in her own childhood bedroom Mac had always thought, in an alternate reality, Sam Mackenzie would probably have made a damn good contractor; he was certainly gifted in the woodworking arts.

Sam and Natalie Mackenzie, two people she loved most in the world, but didn't truly belong to. She supposed that's what drew her to Cassidy, and vice versa. They shared that gnawing, biting belief that they were cast into familial roles that didn't really belong to them. It was a fucked-up way to feel, and it proved to be an unstable connector upon which to build a relationship.

She was really celebrating dysfunction today. There must have been something in the air.

Remembering her mom's comment that Ryan was playing ball today at the nearby neighborhood park, Mac steered her car in the direction of Settler's Park, three blocks north of Colony Place, the street she grew up on. It was only 3.75 miles northeast of Shady Springs Court, where the Sinclairs' had their palatial estate. Mac knew the route by sense memory, she knew the distance by heart—her car could probably drive there on auto pilot, she had gone by there so many times in the four years since Veronica discovered the truth about her birth.

Despite being less than four miles apart, Colony Place and Shady Springs Court were in different zip codes, the lower middle class '02'er and the upper echelon '09'er. They were worlds apart in only a few miles.

Mac parallel parked on the street in front of the park's entrance. Grabbing her black messenger bag from the passenger seat, she shut and locked the door and then walked down the steep hill to the vast field housing the baseball diamond.

On the way to the bleachers, she passed a tall Oak tree. She glanced up at it, admiring its fortitude. Randomly, she thought of Dick and his "thinking tree." He'd declined to mention its location, but said once in awhile he'd pack up his bag, fill up a water bottle with Vodka, and spend a day of solitude. The confession was made during one of the rare periods she liked to call his "fifteen minutes of humanity." They would make an occasional appearance, more often when it was just the two of them. They would speak of Cassidy without ever mentioning him by name.

When she reached the bleachers behind home plate, she saw they were sparsely filled with spectators, giving her a lot of real estate to choose from. Mac sat down on the roughhewn bench in the fifth row behind third base. She was at the far end of the row, several feet past where the tall chain link safety fence ended. Getting hit by a ball was about the furthest thing from her mind, too many other topics were busy vying for attention. She unceremoniously set down her bag beside her and began riffling through it. She extricated her Kindle from its murky depth and turned it on.

******back to the present time*********

She was only five paragraphs into the chapter she was reading of the Westing Game. It was a book she'd read roughly 107 times before, it was an old standby, usually she could get lost within that world, but today, well it just wasn't doing its frakking escapist job. She sighed deeply and set the eReader down on top of the bag. She just couldn't get her thoughts quieted down enough to read; even though it was a book she loved. Maybe it was that the book reminded her too much of Lauren and the relationship they did not have. How the hell could you have a relationship with someone who wasn't even aware of your blood link? Their stilted small talk chatter at the coffee shop this morning underscored that point perfectly.

Mac was beginning to think that maybe the world would have been better off had she just stayed in bed that morning-or at least she would have been better off sleeping through this day, and probably every other June 6th until the end of time, too.

She had been staring down at her lap since reading hadn't proven to be the distraction she'd hoped it would be. Hearing someone yelling her brother's name, she glanced up to see her brother at bat for the second time today. On this turn he made contact with the bat on the first try. She tracked the trajectory of the ball until it was just a speck. Excitedly, Ryan ran, passing all the bases and heading home.

Mac smiled really big and gave a wolf's whistle. Pride caressed her words as she yelled out "Way to go Mackenzie!"

The ball was tossed back into play, but Ryan had by then claimed his home run. Mac kept her eyes on the action because Zane was next in the rotation. She always liked that little kid, though really, he and Ryan were growing up before her eyes, they would be sophomores at Neptune High in September. They were no longer little kids.

Zane was quickly struck out. After calling out an encouraging "good try," Mac was about to go back to her broody ruminating when a flash of unruly light blonde hair caught her eye. She caught herself before she could shout out Dick Casablancas' name, thinking there would be no way he'd be caught in a '02'er stronghold outside of perhaps Dog Beach.

Just at that second, he looked up, as though he could sense her thoughts and she had affirmation, it was definitely Logan Echolls' BFF.

Veronica—who had transferred to Stanford two years ago—had always called Logan Neptune High's Obligatory Psychotic Jackass, but truth be told there was a time, not that long ago, when Mac thought Dick fit that description pretty well himself. They'd grown closer though, during their sophomore and junior years at Hearst, although, honestly it was probably more likely that she learned how to ignore his stupid innuendos and focus more on the occasionally intelligent observations he made between the That's What She Said comments and the boob jokes. She actually enjoyed hanging out with him when he was in the middle of one of his "fifteen minutes of humanity" periods. Friends might not be a good description of what they were, but they had started to hang out together more often. He would "let" her annihilate him in Halo and Assassin's Creed.

Their acquaintanceship—pseudo-friendship—had sprouted from their shared desire to pick up the pieces of shrapnel Veronica's departure from Hearst had left in Logan's life. Going on almost two years since Veronica stole away in the middle of the night—destination new college, new drama-free life—Logan was finally outwardly healed from his Ronnie-ectomy. Internally, however, Mac and Dick both had their doubts; they were certain there was still some bruising and bleeding just under the surface.

As painful as this day was for her, and it was certainly aching right now, Mac knew Dick was hurting way worse than she was. His smirk, which was coming more into focus as he walked closer to the bleachers, belied what she knew was a scabbed over wound that reopened and bled every June.

As Mac looked into his eyes, still too far away to see the blue that always reminded her of the Neptune sky, Dick's expression suddenly changed, erasing his trademarked smirk. He was waving his arms over his head like a referee and his panicked scream that sounded like her name just reached her ears when she saw a flash of white coming towards her then everything went dark.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 2—Thinking-Trees

Dick's POV-June 6 th , 2009

The summer Dick was twelve and Cassidy was eleven, his younger brother learned yet another way to take revenge on his tormentor. Where Dick was obvious with his torture, Cassidy tended toward the more subtle, more psychological acts to get back at Dick for real, and imagined, slights.

Roughly three, sometimes four times a week, Dick would wake up to a wet bed. The bedwetting episodes, as Big Dick called them, began to get concerning. His dad wanted to get him in front of the Casablancas family shrink, for documentation purposes more than any real parental concern; he wanted to use it as more fodder for his arsenal of complaints against Betina's mothering skills. He and his team of lawyers spun it for his own benefit—it was her indiscretions more than his that were scarring their progeny.

The episodes went on for almost a month, until one night Dick found himself wide awake after an unsettling dream about a little league game and menacing masked umpires. A glance at the clock revealed it was almost 3:30 AM. Suddenly the door to his bedroom creaked open.

He squinted his eyes shut and pretended to be fast asleep. He heard soft shuffles as the interloper tried to be soundless. He listened for the tell-tale creak of the loose floorboard by his bed. That sound never came, telling him whomever had sneaked into his room knew where to tread and where not to.

The intruder lifted his hand, and Dick instinctively let it flop as though he were truly deep in REM sleep. He felt his hand being submerged in a small bucket of warm water. Dick responded by sitting up in one smooth motion, reaching his other hand out and dumping the bucket on his prankster.

"Surprise," he said his voice calm, though he was raging in the inside. He turned on the light to watch the warm water meant for him raining down on Cassidy, instead. "The game is up, Beav." He popped the p in the word up.

Cassidy's eyes narrowed for an instant, his hatred of that nickname broadcast clearly on his face. No sign of remorse, only sizzling, poorly controlled anger at being caught. Then that brief glimpse of his usually tightly controlled outer emotions was over, replaced by his default smirk.

In exchange for not narcing on him to Big Dick, Cassidy agreed to be his Cinderella for the rest of the summer, not that it was any different than things usually were. Dick always seemed to be the puppet master, from the outside looking in, at least. Cassidy's 'shows of dominance' were more behind the scenes, psychological, like the bed wetting "prank."

For some reason, that memory came back to haunt Dick as he drove to Settler's Park, which was located deep in '02 territory—a foreign country almost, which was what he was going for today. He'd always scrutinized his memory bank for little hints, clues to the mindset of his murderous baby brother. The only question was, did he do it to get himself off the hook or put himself on the hook? It seemed to depend on the day…

That was a fitting memory jolt being that it was exactly three years, to the day, since Cassidy jumped off the roof of the Neptune Grand Hotel. This was shaping up to be one of those days he put himself back on the hook for the evil deeds his brother committed. He knew there was something off about Cass—he had always known that, but it was something he could overlook, ignore, and make it go away, until that was no longer an option.

Cassidy was too smart for this world. Most days Dick thought perhaps he was lucky being the dumb brother.

Dick knew Settler's Park was close to Mac's house, but he didn't think he'd see anyone he knew. Or rather, he really hoped he didn't see anyone he knew. He had to admit though, Mac would be more fitting company than anyone else he could think of. However, she had also self-diagnosed herself allergic to nature, so minus a cold snap in Hell, he doubted very much they'd be crossing paths today. It was a day they both usually went underground for, anyway. Dick knew he didn't have to go it alone. Logan would have come along had he asked, but he never did.

He just couldn't.

It was tough to be around Logan on June 6th, he didn't blame Logan, not really. But, well, shit! How could he face Logan on this day of all days knowing he was one of the last people to see his baby brother—his screwed up baby brother—alive? There was also the Veronica connection; he knew how his own flesh and blood had scarred the Pixie Spy in countless ways. It hurt too bad to be around other people, and be slapped in the face by his own tenuous connection to their pain as well. Everything hurt on this day though. Why not? He deserved it, after all he was a King Midas—he turned everything he touched to fucking stone. He played no small part in turning Cassidy psycho. He wasn't ignoring Woody Goodman's role in casting Cassidy as a murdering teenager, of course, but he was the one who tormented him from babyhood. He seeded the whole damn thing.

It was only 11 AM, and this hot, sticky day was already proving to be long.

He liked to be around normalcy, especially on this day of all days. He parallel parked his truck, squeezing in behind a bright green convertible, the exact shade of his vomit the last time he was in TJ, partying it up, which happened to just be last week.

The puke green car looked a lot like Mac's, but he couldn't imagine she'd willingly spend her time outside in the heat. Again, she had that whole anti-nature thing going on, minus her save the Whales; don't eat anything with a face mentality, of course.

He grabbed his faded blue backpack, and flung it over his shoulder. There was a tall tree, a stately oak tree that had, centuries ago, set up home in the center of the park. He made his way over there, annoyed as he weaved and dodged his way around groups of bored suburban moms trying to herd their rambunctious toddlers towards the playground.

He finally reached his destination—his thinking tree.

Mac, his new pseudo-friend—a label she was fond of—was the only one he'd told about the existence of his thinking tree. Even she did not know its top-secret location though. Nope, he kept that intel classified.

Flopping down at the base of the massive tree, he was shaded by the leafy umbrella from the probing rays of the mid-day sun. Dick dug through his bag and removed a water bottle that was actually filled with vodka.

His Neptune High days had imparted a lot of valuable lessons, like what a good hiding place plastic water bottles made for clear liquors like vodka and gin—though vodka made a better choice because it didn't smell like a pine forest, and cheating off of Mac was always a safe bet, though they'd had exactly five classes together the entire four years and one of them—gym—he didn't need to cheat off of anyone, especially Ghostworld.

His walk down memory lane—sometimes he wished it was amnesia lane—was rudely interrupted by a loud thwack of a ball connecting with an aluminum bat and happy shrieks. How dare anyone be happy today? It was a personal affront. Though he knew it was a risk he was undertaking by going to a park, where gaggles of happy kids liked to congregate during the hell-hot Neptune summers. However, this particular off-the-beaten '09'er path park was also home to his thinking tree, so he risked happy park dwellers to sit under the tree's shade and drink and well, think.

Dick looked off to his left and saw that there was a game going on in the baseball field. It didn't seem to be a professionally organized though, probably just a group of high school kids enjoying their first full week of summer vacation, when it seemed to yawn out towards infinity, before the boredom set in, infecting their lives and those around them.

Like a bruise he couldn't stop pressing, Dick found himself watching the baseball game and inevitably wondering how many things would have been different if Cassidy had never been bat boy for the Sharks. Maybe that was bullshit, it probably was, but the thing was, there wasn't a time machine that could give him a definitive answer on that.

Without prompting, his mind automatically rewound back to the time machine talk he had with Mac a couple of weeks ago as he "let" her kill him during one of their frequent gaming marathons. He'd had a hard time, that night, keeping from kissing her. He was fairly certain she felt something too, mainly because every time he'd been about to lean in and nip those full red lips she would suddenly get up to grab something—a beer or switch out the game they were playing, and she was spanking him at, or to grab a new bag of vegan-friendly munchies he always seemed to keep in the bar area of the suite at the Grand, where he still lived with Logan.

He was getting awfully vegan-friendly these days.

When the subject of time machines first came up, he made a joke about wanting to go back in time and battle tigers with a team of gladiators. The pensive expression on Mac's face had slipped, replaced by a frown. He got the distinct impression he'd disappointed her somehow, like maybe he wasn't paying attention to the script she'd created in that too big brain of hers. Maybe she was trying to broach a serious conversation with him. Dick admittedly had suspected what she'd been trying to say, and it wasn't an area he wanted to tread in yet. Honestly, it wasn't an area he ever truly wanted to explore. Out loud, at least, and definitely not without the aid of his thinking tree and a vodka-ized water bottle.

He couldn't read Mac as clearly as he could the other vapid chicks he used to bed on a weekly basis. The realization struck him again that somewhere during the past year or so he'd found he preferred the element of surprise that came with the whole Mac package. She was a challenge in the best kind of way and though he'd been born to expect silver plated service, it was really not what it seemed to be on the surface. The best reward was when it was earned through hard work rather than just given via nothing more than an accident of birth.

Dick took a big pull from his incognito bottle of vodka, sighed, and leaned his head back against the giant oak. It had weathered so many storms, and yet was still anchored firmly to the Earth, not ready to give up living. Shutting down that thought train before it lead inevitably to Cassidy and the brutally self-inflicted way he died, Dick took yet another drink from his bottle. It wasn't doing its duty. That was an impossible feat, at least on today of all days.

Tired of being in his own head, he decided to take a walk around the vast park instead. Dick picked up the bottle cap he'd placed beside him on the ground, and tightly closed it. He then threw the bottle into his backpack, zipping it up and carelessly throwing it over one shoulder. The thinking-tree was doing its job quite well; he couldn't stop brooding about Cassidy—poor, messed up kid unable to face down the horrors that happened to him, because he was too vulnerable to protect himself. It was his own damn fault his baby brother was too scarred internally to confide in him. He'd done fuck –all to sabotage any hopes of a close brotherly relationship. It would have been easy of course to cast more than a little blame (there was plenty of that to go around) on Big Dick, but then this was an "on the hook" kind of day.

He wished for something, anything really, to take his mind off the calendar, to take his mind off his brother's death, his culpability in the whole tragedy.

Almost as though he were on auto-pilot, Dick found himself wandering closer to the baseball game. He thought he heard a voice shouting the name Mackenzie, but he was too far away to be certain. Then, after another 50 feet of progress, he noticed a dark haired girl sitting on the fifth row of bleachers.

Mac.

Just then, as though she felt his eyes on her, she took her nose out of her eReader and set it down. She had streaks of Mahogany artfully applied to her chin length hair, a departure from the fire engine shade she was partial to in high school. She just kept getting hotter and hotter.

She looked up just then and turned her head in his direction as if she'd tuned into his thought frequencies or some sci-fi crap like that. She seemed to notice him, based on the expression that stole over her face. The tell-tale smirk was just for him, it was an expression she wore well.

He matched her smirk and took it up a notch. Game, set, match!

His own smirk was short lived though when he noticed a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. It was the baseball heading straight towards Mac. The kid up at bat had misjudged the pitch, and ended up hitting it into the stands.

Dick screamed out her name, the terror rising up and wrapping itself around the word, so much meaning packed in her too short nickname.

He held his hands up in the air, a referee motion; as though he thought he might actually be able to stop the ball mid-trajectory. He had a lot of thoughts flashing through his mind all in the span of the mere seconds it took for the ball to collide with the side of Mac's head with violent force. He wished he could stop time just long enough to alter the course of the ball. He wished he had been sitting there with her, and could have caught the ball with his bare hand. Even if it had broken his hand in the process, it would be a price he'd have paid without hesitation. He would have paid any price to have a do-over at that moment, anything at all to have prevented it from happening in the first place. He didn't take the time to evaluate where these thoughts were stemming from, it didn't matter.

In horror, Dick watched Mac fall backward, colliding with the bench behind her from the violent force of the impact. Then she hunched into herself, limp, unconscious.

This was not what he meant when he had wished for something, anything, to take his mind off Cassidy. He wouldn't have wished that on anyone, but especially not Mac. She'd endured too much pain in this life, a major chunk of it from the hands' of his own flesh and blood.

Still screaming her name, Dick ran towards the bleachers. A crowd had gathered around her, though no one seemed to know what to do. The game apparently stopped mid-play at the realization that a spectator had been hurt.

His frantic shouts of Mac mixed in with equally terror filled screams of Cindy. He presumed it was her brother. Raphael? Ryan. Yeah, Ryan, he was sure the kid was named Ryan; they'd met briefly when he came to visit his sister at Hearst College the previous semester. Some short, stocky redheaded kid was right on Ryan's heels.

The three of them converged on the scene at the same time, but Dick pushed in ahead, parting the crowd around her. He didn't care at that moment in time whether the now-crying baseball player was her family or not. His entire focus was on Mac.

Some well-meaning bystander—who was obviously short on brains—had laid Mac out on the bench, before he'd been close enough to stop them. Even he knew you shouldn't move an unconscious victim unless they were in imminent danger, like about to get crushed by a train, or some such shit as that. She wasn't moving, and her eyes were shut.

Did she even have a chance to process what was about to happen before the ball struck? He hoped not. One of the most haunting images seared in his brain concerning the brutal, but self-inflicted, way his brother died was the idea of the primal horror he'd had to experience as he'd been about to meet pavement. The idea of Mac—through no fault of her own—feeling even something slightly akin to that terror made him nauseous.

Dick knelt down beside her, sandwiching his tall, lanky frame in the narrow aisle space of the rickety bleachers. He didn't notice the wooden splinters slicing into him as he gently checked the side of her neck for her pulse.

Dick could see that she was breathing, though it seemed shallow to his untrained ears. He watched the rise and fall of her chest. The pulse, though he had no freaking clue what the desired rate of speed was, seemed a bit sluggish. The closest he came to being a doctor was his prized Freelance Gynecologist tee-shirt he often wore, he definitely wasn't versed in the Hippocratic Oath, but he dug down deep and tried to access any medical training he had from a summer course back in high school that 'trophy bimbo stepmom number 3' (the one that preceded Kendall) made him take so that he wouldn't drown during surfing and interrupt one of her personal training-sex-sessions. He wasn't recalling much right now. There was a lot of yelling call 9-1-1's and feeling up a stuffed doll named Annie, none of that seemed like it would be very relevant in this situation.

The bench shifted and bowed under his feet, as Mac's brother knelt down beside him, so he, too, was stationed next to Mac. The kid reached out and gently stroked her forehead before Dick could stop him. He was afraid the gentle, soothing, gesture would cause her more pain, though the kid made a concentrated effort to avoid the point of impact, which was closer to her temple. It was definitely starting to swell, but not nearly as much as he would have expected from the speed the ball was traveling.

Unfortunately, there wasn't any flicker of response from Mac. As much as he hated the idea of her being in any more pain than she already had to be in, he also hoped that maybe the pain would bring her out of this scary, unconscious state.

The red headed kid trailing Mac's brother had located her black messenger bag that had fallen off the bench in the melee, and was rifling through it. Dick glared at him, but before he could say anything, the kid triumphantly held up her phone, most likely as an explanation as to why he had been snooping in her bag to begin with. He dialed 9-1-1.

As he disconnected the call, the kid announced that the ambulance was on its way, then he dropped Mac's phone back into her bag. He distantly heard Mac's brother call the redhead kid Zane, but his focus wasn't really on anything other than Mac. He grabbed one of her hands that had been folded on top of her chest, as though she were posed. It was to keep her arms from dropping through the spaces between the aisle and bench seats of the aging, weather-worn bleachers. He gripped her slack hand and held it gently in one palm while stroking it with the other hand.

After probably a minute, though it could have been a lot less or a lot more than that, he watched her eyes flutter open. She ripped her hand away from his grip. She glanced around, having no clue where she was, disoriented. He could tell she was about to sit up, so he quickly shut that operation down. He laid his right arm across her chest, a blocking move. She was too confused and weak to fight him off.

She groaned in response.

"No you don't, Mac-a-doodle," he leaned over and whispered in her ear. "Stay down."

She licked her lips and tried to say something. He watched what looked like panic—or a close cousin to it—overtake her.

He had to believe it was a good sign that she was conscious at least. Relief broke through him, flooding his synapses. "Your ride to the hospital is on its way. They'll get you all fixed up." He hadn't been able to be there for his brother; now at least he got the chance with Mac. He took her hand back.

A look to replace the panic passed over her face, something he couldn't quite label, it was brief though, and then the blank look of confusion settled over her features once again. It didn't look at home on her face.

The skinny kid smiled real big when he saw that Mac was awake. "Sis! Hang tight. You'll be okay." He wiped a tear quickly from his eye before it fell, as though he didn't want anyone to see him upset, his friends/teammates presumably.

She murmured something but it wasn't really clear. She tried to grab the kid's hand, but couldn't focus well enough to do even that simple gesture. He grabbed at her other hand, the one Dick wasn't holding.

The siren from the ambulance drew closer.

In mere moments the bedlam of everyone loudly gathered around Mac, trying to figure out what to do, had been transformed into a subdued tableau as the paramedics expertly came up on the scene and got to work treating the patient. One uniformed worker kept the rest of the crowd back while the other three focused all resources on the patient.

Ryan fired out answers to the barrage of questions that were shot his way from one of the paramedics. She had long brown hair, big boobs and buck teeth. Dick found himself honing in on her teeth—with maybe a couple small peaks at the boobs, they were in close proximity to his face after all; it was easier than watching strangers poke and prod the too-still girl on the bench. This girl wasn't the one he knew, the oh-so-very alive Mac with her bossy ways, quick wit and seamless way of schooling him so covertly he found that he looked forward to debating things with her.

In matter of minutes they were loading her on the stretcher, and parting the crowd as they transported her to the waiting ambulance, parked on the grass before the steep hill began its descent.

Dick trailed behind, watching Ryan running to keep up. At the bay of the ambulance, he was fighting with big boobs and buck teeth about riding in the back with his sister. There was a dejected expression on the kid's face.

The doors slammed shut, with an echo and the ambulance pulled away with Mac, sirens blaring.

He guided Ryan towards his big yellow quad cab truck—Mac called it his Banana mobile—and they made their way to Neptune Memorial. His worried tangle of thoughts was interrupted by Ryan's phone call to his mom. He heard the kid brokenly explaining "Cindy" was hurt, maybe badly, and he was heading to the hospital with some dude she knew from school. Her worried mom's voice filled up the truck, wrapping itself around him. For once, Dick found himself happy, instead of jealous, that she had a caring mom at least. He figured with all she was going through, she needed someone to take care of her that wasn't a self-involved bitch like Betina. Even to himself, he couldn't call her his mom anymore. She'd divorced that right when she couldn't be bothered to come to Cass's funeral.

The scenery blurred by as Dick sped through the streets of Neptune, now stone sober, the affects of his vodka-ized "water" long having worn off in the adrenaline soaked events of Mac's accident.

He figured he probably broke speed records, less than six minutes later they had parked in the emergency lot.

As Dick and Ryan raced through the automatic double doors leading to the artificially lit up Emergency Room, the thought that perhaps Mac hadn't even made to the hospital in time made him draw to a sudden stop. The desire to remain ignorant ran strong in him. Ryan, on the other hand, hadn't noticed a thing. He was too intent on getting to his sister.

Taking a deep breath, Dick once again made his way towards the admissions desk. He hung back and let Ryan take point on it.

After being given the run around, they were instructed to sit down and wait for a status update on Mac's condition.

The wait seemed interminable, but the idea of being anywhere else didn't even occur to him.

… TBC

Chapter Text

Chapter 3—Bloodstains

*****Neptune High School, Football field 2004*****

Flashes of objects, a mental montage of images bombarded Mac's senses, overloading her misfiring circuits. The smell of freshly mown grass mingled with the metallic tang of blood. Pristine white converse sneakers were encircling her—walling around her prone body. Mac was drowning in the sensory overload and the pain that threatened to envelop and choke her. She didn't know why she was on the ground; she didn't know what preceded the hard landing that put her in this situation to begin with. She felt like she'd been dropped into the middle of a scene, the action going on around her while she struggled to find the script everyone else knew by heart. It was a surreal feeling; she thought maybe that was how a newborn baby felt as they left the womb—the only world they ever knew, only to be dropped into a cold new existence.

Mac had a lot of questions in that brief atom of time, but no answers.

She could hear snatches of whispered conversation from the crowd gathered around her, though she couldn't focus on the words being said.

Her reverie was interrupted by someone parting the sea of pep squad clones, with their matching yellow and green spirit outfits; the newcomer knelt beside her, whispering softly that she'd be okay as he gently, tenderly, rolled her over on her side.

She saw her caretaker remove his gray tee-shirt so he could press it—hard—against her bleeding head. She moaned from the agony of that necessary gesture. He leaned down, his longish blond hair brushing against her cheek as he apologized for hurting her. He didn't lessen the pressure though.

She heard the far-off sound of one of the pep clones retching, probably from the sight of her blood soaking the shirt.

Feeling like she just needed to get away, as though everything was pressing down on her, Mac started to get up, but it took more energy than she had in reserve. Apparently that was the wrong move because her vision started going gray around the edges, the sea of clones and her mystery caretaker all blurred together until the inky blackness swallowed her whole.

.

***Present time—June 6 th , 2009, Settler's Park***

Mac's eyes blinked open, and then she quickly shut them again. The strong Neptune summer sun was shining directly in her eyes. Heaving a shallow breath, which was all she evidently was capable of, she attempted to open her eyes again despite the bright glow in her eyes. She was lying down flat on her back.

Two extremely worried faces were peering down at her, a little closer in her personal space than she'd like. One was her brother, she knew that instantly. Ry…Ryan, yeah, that was his name.

The other face, a shaggy-haired blond, was very familiar, too, but she couldn't place his name, not even just the first letter of his name. It was a frightening feeling. She had no clue where she was, or why she was on her back.

She needed to sit up, she couldn't stay here, and that thought was more coherent and insistent than anything else right now. She was vaguely aware of pain, but it was at a distance, being held back by unseen forces. Mac started to push forward, her body so heavy, but she was starting to make progress, though the further forward she propelled herself, the closer the pain got to breaking the barrier. Her progress was quickly impeded by an arm.

She groaned.

"No you don't, Mac-a-doodle," the guy leaned over, closer to her head, and whispered in her ear. "Stay down."

The guy, who she obviously knew—but had no recollection of his name—was holding her back. She had no energy to fight him so she lay back down reluctantly. She was definitely the beta at this moment, weakened and injured. She knew something bad had happened.

Mac licked her lips and then tried to say something more than just a primal moan. What though? She wasn't entirely sure. What's your am I, was on the tip of her tongue to say, which wasn't right. She didn't know the right way to phrase what she wanted to say though. However, that ended up being a moot point when nothing came out at all, except maybe what could be classified as a croak. Her eyes widened and she looked around frantically.

"Your ride to the hospital is on its way. They'll get you all fixed up," the guy continued, trying to reassure her.

His plan was unsuccessful.

He grabbed one of her hands that had been positioned—posed—on her chest.

Despite the basic knowledge that she needed help, badly, something in that sentence was taunting her. She was stacking up the questions, but falling short on the answers.

A strangled sound made her turn to look, or at least attempt, to at the second guy—her brother. He smiled. "Sis! Hang tight. You'll be okay." She saw him wiping an eye, trying to be covert about it. The fact that Ryan, her big, tough baby brother, was crying did nothing to allay her fears. In fact, it multiplied them.

She murmured something—or tried to—but again it wasn't very clear to her, or probably anyone else. She attempted to grab Ryan's hand, but lacked the necessary focus to get that task done. He grabbed at her free hand, the one the other guy wasn't holding tightly in his sweaty grip.

Then things got busy as a bunch of Strangers, in identical navy blue uniforms, were leaning over her, poking and prodding.

The hands tethering her to consciousness were ripped away and everything went dark once again.

***Neptune Memorial Hospital 2004***

Mac opened her eyes. A bright fluorescent light was shining down on her, she quickly clinched them shut again. Alarm at the unfamiliar flashes she saw, in that brief glimpse, had her opening them again, much slower this time. The light hurt her head, which was aching fiercely.

A three alarm hangover perhaps?

It didn't really seem like one of those, she'd had a few of those in her day—not many, she hardly lived the party lifestyle, but being in college she didn't live under a rock either. A hangover didn't adequately explain the unfamiliar location she'd awakened in either. She definitely wasn't in the habit of drunken "slumber parties" with members of the male species. It was too sterile and white-washed to be a Hearst College dorm room.

No, this was definitely not a party-induced headache.

"Oh, good, you're awake," A red-headed woman in blue scrubs said, peering down at her. "How are you feeling, sweetie? You're at Neptune Memorial." Her cool hand smoothed out the big gauze bandage she'd carefully applied to Mac's forehead. She pressed down along the edges, while artfully avoiding making contact with ground zero. "Your mom just got here."

"Um," Mac began, making a move as though she wanted to get up, but the nurse pushed her back down.

"You need to just lie still, you've got a bit of a concussion," the nurse gently admonished. "You fell during cheerleading practice. You were the top of the pyramid. I don't think many people realize how many cheerleaders we see come through the ER."

Cheerleading? Mac's hand automatically went up to her head, making contact with the bandage. She then smoothed back an errant strand of hair that had fallen in her face.

It felt…odd. It seemed to be longer than the chin length bob she had been wearing the past two years. To double check she grasped a chunk and traced its length with her fingers, it stopped at her shoulders. The first icy tinge of fear wrapped around her. Trying to keep the trepidation from her voice, she asked for a mirror. Her left-ruled brain needed the confirmation, though she hoped her theorem would be disproved.

"You've got four stitches there, and a big bump," the nurse replied, to set the scene as she grabbed a hand-held mirror out of the second drawer of her supply cart. She placed it in Mac's outstretched hand.

Taking a deep breath, Mac looked in the mirror and swallowed her gasp. Her hair was indeed sweeping her shoulders and three prominent chunks of purple were highlighting the otherwise black strands. The stark white bandage covered the doctor's handiwork.

"Our plastic surgeon, Dr. Pence, did the stitches and he says there won't be any scarring. He's out there now talking with your mom; she should be in here shortly," the nurse continued, in a reassuring tone.

She closed her eyes briefly, trying unsuccessfully to blink back the tears that unexpectedly populated her eyes at the mere mention of her mom. She needed the comfort that only Natalie could provide; she was in pain right now, as well as confused and scared. The only cure she needed at the moment was a hug, a lavender scented mom-hug. Lavender Field was the name of the perfume Natalie wore; it was her signature scent and the very definition of homecoming.

The door swung open, on cue, and her eyes tracked over to the doorway. The woman framed in it had long black hair, and was in jeans and a gray DKNY branded tee-shirt, but on her it didn't look casual.

Mac gasped again, this time out loud. Her heart skipped a beat out of pure adrenaline-overloaded fear. She brushed away the tears that leaked out of her eyes as she tried to find a rational explanation for first, why she had long hair and second, why it was Ellen, and not Natalie, standing there oozing motherly concern.

Maybe…Hell, she had nothing.

Ellen Sinclair—her bio-mom—a future-version of herself; she knew whose genes were dominant in this equation.

The nurse left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Oh Madison, darling, you poor thing. Your dad is still stuck at a board meeting, but he'll be leaving work as soon as possible." She strode over to the large table dominating the private room, and perched on the edge by Mac's head. She hesitantly reached a hand out, and smoothed back her hair, avoiding touching the injury. "Does it hurt?"

Wait! What? Back the tape…Madison? Did she just get called Madison? Did she lose some of her hearing, too? Mac reached up and pulled on an ear lobe. She didn't say anything for a long moment; sure shock had rendered her speechless. There was a first time for everything. She wondered what the hell kind of b-rated movie she just pitched head first into.

Literally!

Ellen just looked at her expectantly. She cocked her head and opened her mouth again, probably to repeat the question.

Mac muttered finally, "I have a little bit of a headache, but not too bad. I think they numbed the cut pretty good before stitching me up." There was another pause, but brief this time. "Um mom," she put in as an afterthought. There was a bit of a question in her voice, but Ellen didn't seem to notice.

She once again shut her eyes, both against a fresh wave of pain and also in the vain hope that it was just an injury-induced hallucination and she'd open her eyes to see Natalie Mackenzies' sympathetic green eyes staring back instead of Ellen's eerily, identical blue eyes. She wished, fervently, to be wrapped in that lavender scented embrace.

No such luck—Ellen hadn't winked out of existence.

This damn rabbit hole kept getting curiouser and curiouser.

"I know I pushed you into the pep squad, because team activities look so good on college applications, but maybe it's…" Ellen began, then her voice trailed off, and a look of what Mac could only label as mother's guilt flashed on her face. She squeezed her hand gently with one hand, as she continued to stroke Mac's head with the other. Taking a deep breath, she then continued, "It's too much for you on top of the computer classes you teach at the senior center. I know I get pushy sometimes, but I only want the best life possible for my girls, unfortunately you got my coordination, kiddo."

It was obvious that while the universe was righting its cosmic wrongs, her bio mom was in the waiting room mentally beating herself up. Mac wanted to speak up and say she didn't belong in this life, she'd served her sentence and moved on, but—honestly—a little voice inside reminded her she belonged here, in this life, more than her original life. She was hurting, and didn't think she had the spare energy reserved to explain what she didn't understand to begin with.

It was a very existential moment.

Why the hell didn't Martha Stewart run an etiquette website for people thrust into a new, strange, unfamiliar world? She designed websites, maybe that could be her next project. There was apparently a market for a service such as that—she wasn't the only one living a do-over existence, was she?

The pain was really bearing down on her, hell; her brain was hurting from the collision of several sci-fi concepts made into her current reality. Her mom never understood her love of that genre, of course that was a part of the why and how she found out about the switch to begin with. She and her parents seemed to be from separate planets, alternate realities. That disconnect, the chasm, had been apparent to her from a very young age.

What if she had never been in the bathroom—the girl's bathroom, first floor, across from the reception desk in front of Principal Clemmons' office junior year, when Veronica was conducting a clandestine meeting with a "client" about the secret life of her mother back in the early 80's. She never would have conceived of the "get dirt" website, and definitely would never have had the brass balls—iron vagina—to ask Veronica to spy on her parents' financial transactions. She'd be living her original life in blissful ignorance, still nagged by the inner voice bitching about how she didn't fit in with the camping, great-outdoors loving Mackenzies.

It was that thought train, that she'd hitched a ride on, that was making her brain hurt, helped along, of course, by the head injury she'd just sustained.

She wondered what year of high school she'd crashed, but was afraid of the ramifications of asking. How long would she be stuck in this warp of time? Would it really be "stuck"? Madison had piles of money, oodles of opportunities handed to her on a silver plate, after all.

Maybe taking her birth right as a Sinclair wouldn't be a bad thing. Then again, these were the people that raised the prototype Madison Sinclair—soul sucking bitch of epic proportion in her unbiased opinion—so maybe this was a disaster in the making.

Regardless of which scenario would play out, she was stuck in this alternate life for who the hell knew how long. She had a lot of time to dwell on her strange new normal as the staff, of the place that had made the monumental mistake of switching her and the bitch queen in the first place, insisted on chaining her to bed #5 in the overcrowded emergency room under the guise of observation.

Her mom moved to a chair across the room to give the staff space for round two of poking and prodding.

******The Sinclair's house******

Just over two hours later Mac/Madison was released from Neptune Memorial. Her mom had been given a list of symptoms associated with head injuries and concussions to watch out for, and also instructions on wound care. It was determined that while concussions were concerning, there wouldn't be any serious ramifications to her health. She just needed to take it easy for a couple of days.

Ellen—'mom2' she started thinking of her as, because just plain mom seemed disloyal to Natalie, the woman who had raised her in real life—kept up a steady stream of chatter on the ride home. She apologized, for probably the tenth time, for her father being tied up in that darn meeting, promising he'd definitely be home for dinner though.

Mac didn't say much, she was tired and aching. The thought of meeting her bio dad for her first conscious time was kind of nerve-wracking though, especially since she was the only one who knew it was the first time. She did not even know his first name. She smiled wryly at that thought as she studied the route they traced from the hospital through the not-as-familiar streets comprising the heart of '09'er territory. Until they drew near Shady Springs Court, that was. She knew that neighborhood quite well. 'mom2' pulled her Volvo SUV into one of the bays of the three car garage and killed the motor. She came around to the passenger side door and gently helped Mac out of the car. She guided her up the five stairs that led into the house. They tracked through the mud room (though she suspected that was a misnomer, by all appearances mud was probably a foreign concept to this house) out into the kitchen, then the family room beyond.

Mac was gently escorted over to the large, beige, L-Shaped sofa dominating the center of the large room. As she lay down, her mom ('mom2') lovingly tucked a hand-knit, gray and black throw over her, explaining the contractor was up in her room working on expanding her built-in desk that was being overrun by her complex web of computers. Then she grabbed one of the three remotes neatly lined up on the large marble topped coffee table in front of the couch, turning on the flat screen TV hung over the stone fireplace dominating an entire wall, and toggled her way through to the recorded show listing of the TiVo.

Expertly making her desired selection, she then queued it up and slammed the remote on the table, probably louder than she meant to. It landed next to an open Sudoku book with one of the puzzles partially opened and a pen lying on top of it—otherwise there wasn't anything else cluttering up the dust free surface. It was a stark contrast to the Mackenzies' coffee table where most of the time there wasn't a square inch of space to be found.

"Sorry baby, you don't need loud noises right now." She shrugged sheepishly. "I put on an episode of The Simple Life; I know it's one of your guilty pleasures. I'm going to check on Lauren, and then see what Lucille made for our dinner." She bent over and gently kissed the top of Mac's head. "I'll bring you a tray. Just rest up, dear."

The frisson of pain that flared up at the mention of Lauren's name had nothing to do with her head, well not much at least.

As she ruminated about the strange wrinkle in time that had allowed her to crash Madison's life, the show droned on in the background. It wasn't one she particularly enjoyed, though she had caught bits and pieces from time to time as it had been her mom,Natalie's, favorite show back when she was in high school—originally.

On screen, rich, spoiled Airhead 1 was trying to con rich, spoiled Airhead 2 into cleaning out the pig sty, but neither of them had the foresight to close the gate and as they debated who should do what, the pigs made their escape.

Airhead 1, a tall, skinny blonde with a whiny voice, reminded Mac of someone she knew a long time ago but really couldn't stand, the name escaped her at the moment, and she doubted that was merely a casualty of her recent head injury. She had thought the high school days were firmly in the rearview mirror. She needed her head examined, and not because of the prominent bump that was starting to throb and ache as the numbing shot wore off.

It occurred to her that headaches and whiny airheads that looked too much like Neptune High classmates she'd rather forget in the first place were not a good combination. Extending her arm out, Mac made contact with the remote from its perching place on the coffee table. She turned off the unreality show, and started flipping through the channels. A brief glance at the time and date stamp on the guide channel proved her theory from the hospital, that she'd gone back to 2004 was correct—it was November 12th, 2004. Seeing that Star Trek: Enterprise was about to start, she landed on that channel.

On the large TV in front of her, she watched as the bay doors opened and Captain Archer strode in. He was about to get into an onscreen verbal pissing match with the female Vulcan, Lt. Commander T'Pol , when her viewing was interrupted by a squeal and a loud thud as something hit the table beside her. She didn't bother investigating the thud, there was no time really.

"Madi! You're back, you're okay. Lucy didn't tell me much; just that mom was at the hospital with you. How do you feel?"

A girl, with long black hair, ran into the room and launched herself on top of Mac. She turned her head toward the high back of the couch so the girl—Lauren—wouldn't see her tear up. She wiped away the evidence, her emotions were all over the place anyway, but this added a whole level to what was already a tenuous grip to begin with.

Once the tears were gone, she turned back around to face the little sister who didn't seem eager to sever the embrace, either. She looked exactly the same as she did the first time they ever met, the first time she'd known she had a blood sister out there, being raised less than four miles apart from each other.

"I'm okay, really," she assured her.

"What happened?"

"I fell at practice, and hit my head. I have four tiny stitches."

Lauren wrinkled her nose—her cute nose, the little button one that looked so much like the one Mac saw in the mirror reflecting back at her.

"Does it hurt?" Lauren asked softly, as though the answer was important to her. She got off of Mac, and scooted over, so she was sitting on the couch at her feet.

"A little," she admitted. Lauren looked upset at the thought of her, Madi, in pain so she rushed on to reassure her, "not too bad. It looks worse than it feels." Slowly, creakily, she sat up so she could see her little sister's face better. She closed her eyes for a second against the crescendo of pain that reverberated at the additional movement, placing her hand on her stomach, as though to stop the rise of nausea. Evidently, she spoke too soon, at that moment it hurt worse than it looked.

"Promise?"

"I promise!" Mac said as soon as she could talk again without feeling like she'd throw up from the pain. It was a necessary lie.

If she were trying to have that conversation with Ryan, especially at that age, 11 or 12, Mac surmised, he'd be prying the bandage off so he could see her "gross" stitches. He'd be trying to touch them too, more science experiment than concern for her comfort. It wasn't that Ryan didn't love her, he did, it's just that he was an active, curious boy at that age—and his current age, too.

The comparisons and contrasts were apparent already.

For about five minutes, both girls just quietly sat there watching the action on the screen. It was a typical family scene on a typical Friday night, Mac thought, except for the fact that there was nothing typical at all about this situation.

Finally, Lauren broke the comfortable silence that sat between them.

"It's my fault, you know," she said, impressively matter-of-fact about her whole statement of guilt.

"What's your fault?"

"Your accident," Lauren wouldn't look her in the eye when she said that.

"You pushed me off the human pyramid at cheerleading practice today?" Mac mockingly asked. She grimaced as she said the word cheerleading, like it was acidic tasting, like a lemon.

"No, silly, I was here finishing my science homework."

Mac flashed her sister a blank look.

"This morning, you know, when I…Oh you know, you were there," her tone was exasperated.

No, I don't know, I wasn't here this morning, Mac thought, but of course knew she couldn't say it aloud. Neptune Memorial would be reserving a bed in her name in the psych ward. "That may be true, but I still need you to fill in some gaps in the story." She pointed to the bandage on her head as a plausible explanation.

Like all of the gaps!

"I love being in the same family, and you had every right to be mad that I was in your room. I should have asked for the book instead of taking it."

"Book?"

"The Westing Game," Lauren reminded her. She gestured to the table and Mac saw it sitting there, lying slightly askew. That must have been the thud she'd heard earlier.

"It's a great book, one of my favorites. What do you want it for, class?"

"Well, after break we're going to start reading it for English. I guess I just wanted to see why you liked it so much, maybe get a jump on things."

That was definitely not a statement that ever would have passed Ryan's lips.

"Did you think I wouldn't lend it to you?" Mac asked.

Lauren shook her head. She reached around Mac and grabbed the book off the table. "You weren't receptive to the idea this morning."

"Well, I am now," Mac assured her.

"I won't lose it. The last book of yours I lost was a long time ago, at least a year ago," she continued her barrage of arguments as to why she deserved a second chance despite Mac's ready agreement. "I'll even inscribe it, so I won't forget who it really belongs to."

She leaned forward to grab the pen sitting on the coffee table. Opening the cover, she hastily scrawled:

Live long & prosper! Get better soon. Love, Lauren

She handed the book over to Mac with a flourish.

Mac read it and grinned. "Nice quote. I didn't know you were old-school in your Trekkie ways."

"Dad's influence," she said, trying to do the accompanying Vulcan sign and falling flat.

Mac reached over and adjusted her fingers so there was a prominent space between the middle and ring fingers on her right hand, and then she did her own salute.

"Thanks, Madi," Lauren said grinning.

The verbal reminder of her new name and accompanying life made her earlier bout of nausea flicker again. It also erased the pleasure she felt at their brief bit of sisterly-Star Trek bonding.

That was the cue 'mom2' took to come back into the room with a tray of dinner. It held a big bowl of homemade vegetable soup—meatless, her mom rushed to assure her—and a glass of ice water. At least she was a veg head in this existence too.

Her mom briefly set the tray on the table so she could help Mac lie back down. Once that was accomplished she tucked two thick, throw pillows under her to prop her up into a proper eating position. She then carefully positioned the wicker tray over Mac, taking care not to spill any of the soup. Once that task was finished, she nudged her younger daughter down a little bit so she could be sandwiched on the big couch between both her girls. She placed Mac's feet on her lap.

As Mac began to tuck into the soup—out of politeness more than appetite—she felt like an animal on display as her mom and sister didn't bother to pretend that they weren't studying her as she ate. 'Mom2' still wore the requisite sad eyes that were a part of having a child who was recently injured. Lauren was harder to read, but Mac had to assume that their Star Trek bonding moment only partly assuaged the guilt she still had from a fight that Mac hadn't actually been privy to anyway.

Suddenly, mid-bite, the sound of a masculine throat being cleared startled Mac, and she ended up spilling the contents of her soup spoon on the tray below. 'mom2' was positioned on the couch so that she was facing the doorway, where the sound had originated.

"Oh, Sam, I almost forgot about you, working diligently on Madison's room. Are you finished or should I expect you back tomorrow morning?" Ellen/'Mom2' sounded startled.

Mac was facing the opposite direction, but at the mention of the name Sam she did a double take. She didn't turn around though, that is, not until she heard his familiar-sounding, low voiced response.

"I finished the built-in desk expansion, complete with a bookcase on the far corner. Now there's plenty more room for all those works of staggering genius," Sam explained. The last bit about staggering genius was said in a teasing voice. Then he paused, formulating what to say next.

Mac always liked that about her dad, he was methodical in the way he expressed himself. She used to think her halting speech habits came from his side of the family, now she wondered if it wasn't more of a nurture thing over Mackenzie nature.

"It actually was very straightforward, followed my blueprints exactly, no surprises," Sam continued. "I did have a little issue with finding the trusses though, so I lost some time earlier in the afternoon, but it's all finished now. Nat is going to be mad that I'm a little late; there was some trouble with Cindy today, evidently. I'm sure I'll get all the details soon." A grimace crossed his face briefly, but it faded quickly.

Mac/Madison watched the guy she grew up calling dad talk to her mom—bio mom, 'mom2'—as though their lives were only casually linked. She searched for some sign of recognition. The feeling she got when he said "Cindy" and not in reference to her was so alien, she wasn't sure there was a word invented for it.

At last his eyes did lock on her, but absent was the usual expression of adoration he reserved for his "precious little girl." He did seem a little wistful though, but she quickly dismissed that as wishful thinking, her old habit of over-analyzing, it was bleeding into this existence as well.

"Madison, you're a junior at Neptune, as well. Right?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, her eyes drifting to the chandelier in the hall behind where he was standing. To an outside observer it would appear as though she were looking at him.

"Do you know my daughter Cindy?"

"Not really, not very well. It's a big school," she lied. Her eyes never left the hanging crystal teardrops of the fancy light fixture behind him.

"Oh, yes, I can see that," he replied, before turning his attention back to Mrs. Sinclair and the money she owed him for the new bookcases and shelves.

Mac didn't really pay attention to the rest of the transaction between Sam and 'mom2'. At long last the door shut, and he was on his way back home to a Cindy that was not her.

Her headache drilled deeper as her past life, and this strange new existence she'd been mysteriously thrown into, collided.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 4—Luxe

***November 2004***

Mac’s weekend was pretty much ruled by the business of recovering from her cheerleading accident and trying to make some kind of sense out of the cosmic worm hole that had sucked her in.

On Saturday, she opened her eyes hoping the whole screwy mess had been sorted out and she would wake up in her old—wrong family—life, the one that was familiar and comfortable.

The first thing she saw was purple washed walls, a stark colored contrast to the cool white walls of her cluttered room on Colony Place.

Nope, evidently she was still playing the role of Madison Sinclair, down to the pink fuzzy pajamas she was wearing, with little black and white kittens on them. She blocked the next logical thought though (the one about it not actually being a role but a way of life), not wanting to strain her injured, still recuperating brain.

The bed in the purple lair was big enough to qualify for its own zip code, but despite that it didn’t even take up a quarter of the available real estate. She could put the entire upstairs of the house on Colony Place in her bedroom/bathroom “suite” here and have leftover room to walk, or run laps, if she did that. Did she do that in this mixed up life?

She had yet to meet her bio dad for the first time. She’d gone to bed shortly after Sam had left to go home to that other Cindy and to Ryan and Natalie with her lavender scented hugs. There was a lot that was screwy with that whole thought process.

Technically, she supposed, she had already met her bio dad, but it was long ago and she obviously didn’t carry any memory of that brief meeting because the next day she’d been put into the waiting arms of the Mackenzies and taken home to Colony Place. That meeting didn’t really count in the grand scheme of things. How the hell did you act when meeting someone for the first time and they thought they’d known you your entire life?

How the frak could she recover from a concussion with these thoughts circling the drain of her brain? She wished fervently for a confidant, one that wouldn’t grab a straight jacket and strap her down to a table in the psych ward. She came up short on names. Veronica? Maybe.

Were they even friends in this existence?

Not wanting to stare too long at the foreign purple walls, Mac slowly got out of the very comfortable bed with its matching Egyptian Cotton sheets, which being she was in a ‘09’er domain now she estimated they carried a thread count of 1,500 or something equally luxe like that.

She was carefully making her way out of the bedroom and into the long, bright hallway, which lead to the winding staircase, when she saw her dad—‘Dad2’—exiting what was presumably the master suite three doors up from her room.

He caught up to her, giving her a gentle hug, then drew back to look at her, his eyes focusing on the bandage on her forehead. Softly he ghosted the edges, then shifted her over so he could walk with her, and support her, if need be, on their way downstairs. It was a fatherly gesture, but more reserved than Sam would have been, with his teasing ways to cover up his very real parental fears.

“Madison, kiddo, sorry I didn’t make it to the hospital in time last night. The board just would not agree on, well, on just about anything…” his voice trailed off.

They made their way carefully down the stairs, Mac closest to the railing. Her grip tightened, making her knuckles white. She still wasn’t used to be called Madi/Madison, and was fairly certain she never would be. She studied ‘Dad2’ as they walked. He was tall, probably close to 6 feet, and had the same dark hair his wife and daughters had, but his was thinning on top, and graying along the sides. Unlike Sam, this dad was thin; he showed no signs of the middle-aged spread.

“That’s okay, dad,” she assured him, again her voice did that default questioning thing. She was still testing, tasting that word out with this new family.

She stepped off the last stair, on to the (expensive) red and gold Persian rug covering the wood floors extending throughout the entire first floor. ‘Dad2’ moved his hand down to the small of her back, still guiding her.

“I did peak in on you after I got home, you were fast asleep,” he elaborated.

“Yeah, a concussion will really take it out of a girl,” she quipped.

He chuckled fondly, and moved his hand up so he could tweak her hair, staying clear of the point of injury.

They made their way into the family room, her dad depositing her on the same big sofa she spent most of her first night as a Sinclair on until ‘Mom2’ had insisted she go to bed.

Lauren was once again parked on the couch in the same spot, like she had it on reserve. She was in a pair of striped pajamas though, a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal perched on her lap. Scooby Doo was playing on the television.

The titular character, however, was more interested in lobbying for a Scooby Snack than finding out the true identity of the Marsh Monster terrifying the small town they were stranded in. She was so involved in her show and breakfast she spared only a brief sideways glance at Mac.

Mac stretched out, easing her still aching head on a stack of throw pillows. The cut was stinging, too. ‘Dad2’ placed the blanket hanging over the back of the couch on top of Mac and whispered that he’d be right back with a bowl of oatmeal.

As she waited for her breakfast she watched Lauren smiling at Scooby’s antics. She’d always liked this cartoon, too, with Velma being her favorite human character, and Scooby her favorite non-human character, of course. She remembered how Ryan used to call her Velma when she was launching into, what he called, one of her “geek-a-fied lectures.” A pang went through her as she thought about her brother and if she’d ever go back to the world where they were siblings despite the lack of blood connection.

Lauren’s bark of laughter cut into those ruminations, bringing her back into this reality. She wondered exactly how many Saturday morning cartoon sessions with this sibling, the one she was blood connected to, she had missed.

‘Dad2’ came back into the room with the wicker tray holding a big bowl of steaming oatmeal and bottle of Agave syrup, exactly how she took it at home. There was also a big mug of coffee, a small bottle of water, and the bottle of prescription painkillers from the hospital. He settled it down over Mac, and then kissed her forehead.

“Thanks dad,”

“You’re welcome, Madi. I’ll be right back with my own breakfast, and we’ll all have a picnic in front of Scooby. Don’t tell your mom,” he replied, winking conspiratorially.

He turned back towards the kitchen, saying something to whomever was working in there, Mac presumed it was the maid, Lucille, or Lucy as Lauren called her.

Mac immediately took two pills from the bottle, swallowing them down gratefully with the water. She hoped they would kick in soon.

The show faded to commercial and Lauren leaned forward to put her now-empty cereal bowl on the table in front of her. Then she turned to Mac.

“You feeling any better today?” she asked.

“Much,” Mac lied, not wanting to dash the hopeful expression on Lauren’s face. She waited a beat then inquired about why eating in the family room was to be kept from ‘Mom2’.

Lauren looked at her in disbelief for a moment then shrugged. “Mom is anal about this couch, actually any and all couches. You are only allowed to eat in here because you’re injured and mom feels guilty, and two, because you’re eating on a tray.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mac covered. “I thought it was just because I’m almost 17, practically an adult.” It was a strange sentence to say being that she was actually 21. Again she felt like an extra who was just asked to cover the starring role in an unfamiliar play.

Cue the soundtrack to the Twilight Zone.

“Well, dad’s an adult, too,” Lauren started to say, and then smiled impishly as she added, “adult-ish. He’s not allowed to eat in here either, like ever.”

Mac raised her eyebrow, but swallowed the snark that rose up. She covertly looked for the velvet rope around the couch cordoning it off. You couldn’t get a more anti-Mackenzie philosophy—in that world, couches were for sitting, eating, entertaining, mess happened and it could always be cleaned up. Casa de Mackenzie was not a museum, like the Sinclair palace evidently was.

“What about you? You’re eating in here, too, and I don’t see you using a tray.”

“Mom is out right now, and dad is unlikely to narc on me, especially since he’s now just as culpable. Plus, I’m a rebel like that.”

Mac smiled at that, she didn’t see Lauren as particularly rebellious. “Aren’t you 10? Isn’t that a little young to be a rebel?”

A flash of hurt crossed Lauren’s face; it was quick, but definitely there.

“I’m 11, almost 12. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah…” Mac said softly, her voice trailing off. Lauren was only about a year older than Ryan. She wanted to touch her bandage again, but thought maybe she was hiding too much behind that, though it was plausible and it would have hurt Lauren less. She did pretty much have Lauren’s life history—the black and white, computer screen version, at least—committed to memory. However, the back and forth, past and present merge was complicating matters a bit more than Mac’s injured brain could process. Maybe she was right to lay some blame on the head wound.

“You usually cover your rebelliousness pretty well,” Lauren relented.

Mac looked confused, she didn’t think she was particularly rebellious, but she did grab a chunk of her hair.

“Yes, that’s part of it,” Lauren acquiesced. “Then, there was that time…”

Her voice trailed off though when their dad came back with his own bowl of Lucky Charms and big mug of coffee which was evidently heavy on the cream, light on coffee, which was eerily similar to how she usually preferred her coffee, in the old dimension at least. Genes!

“So, what did I miss?”

“Scooby just ate some Scooby snacks,” Mac summarized what she believed to be the main point of the episode.

“They’re hot on the trail of the swamp monster, but when you gotta eat, you…” Lauren started.

“Gotta eat,” their dad (‘Dad2’) finished.

Mac looked down at her hands in her lap. Seeing her bio dad and bio sister together, their easy, jokey way reminded her for only the zillionth time, give or take, that though she belonged here, she didn’t really belong here either. It was as simple as that; it was as complicated as that.

Her pity-party was brought to an abrupt halt when she noticed a streak of purple on her hand. She furrowed her brow, trying to think about where it could have come from. Then she remembered running her hand through her hair just before ‘Dad2’ came back into the room. It was weird; she’d always used a more permanent dye, at least in her old life. She absently rubbed her marked hand on her fuzzy pajama bottoms; it faded the splash of color, but didn’t make it disappear altogether. She suspected perhaps her individuality was just a part time occupation in this life.

The Scooby-Doo marathon continued as the three Sinclairs ate their breakfast and laughed at the goofy cartoon dog’s antics. After awhile ‘Dad2’ decided that the rule-bending had gone on long enough, so he gathered up the evidence to hand over to Lucille. It was obvious to Mac who ruled this roost. The balance of power laid at Natalie’s feet, too, in the Mackenzie house, but in a much more subtle way than it appeared to be in this house.

Eventually the pain pills and the remnants of the concussion caught up to her, and she drifted off to sleep as Scooby Doo once again lobbied for a treat. She had a strange Technicolor dream where she was Velma and Veronica was Daphne, and a dog that looked a lot like Backup played Scooby’s role. They were trying to find a wrinkle in time, but she woke up before any headway was made. It was unsettling.

She found herself still on the couch, with the blanket from last night draped over her. ‘Mom2’ was sitting in a chair working on a cross-stitch.

Scooby-Doo was evidently over, because she recognized The Breakfast Club. The channel ‘Mom2’ had selected was in the middle of a John Hughes retrospective.

Her head was back to its default achy stage.

On screen, the token misfit, known as the Basket Case, was receiving her required make-over—because hell how could the boy like her otherwise?—Mac just watched, trying not to move her head too much, in hopes that would make the pain more manageable.

‘Mom2’ looked up from her craft project and saw Mac was awake.

“Hi, sweetie, I’m glad to see you’re awake now. I got back from my shift at the food pantry and you were fast asleep. That’s good; you need all the sleep you can get now. Your dad and Lauren are running their Saturday errands. I think he was depressed when you got too old to want to join him, so he’s pretty happy Lauren is taking over that tradition now.”

She found herself feeling guilty for something that wasn’t really her fault—not in her real life, at any rate.

“Oh, and before I forget, Dick called.”

“Dick?”

“Casablancas,” ‘Mom2’ clarified, evidently thinking she was confused as to which Dick had called, rather than her real question, which was why?

Mac was fairly certain he was the only Dick in the entire school, and in high school, at least, he was pretty aptly named, too. He certainly wasn’t the only dick at Neptune High, but he was the only dick named Dick. She’d always wondered if he’d perhaps felt the unconscious pull to live up to his nickname or maybe that was what made him dick-like to begin with. Looking up she caught the brief flash of worry on her mom’s face, it was short lived.

“Are you hungry?”

“Oh. A little I guess,” Mac said. She became aware of hunger pangs starting to build. Breakfast must have been hours ago, which made her wonder how long she had been asleep.

“Can I make you a sandwich or some soup?”

“You?”

“Yes, me. Lucille is off on Saturday afternoons and Wednesday nights, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, I never remember her schedule, I barely remember my own. Soup sounds good, thanks.”

“No problem, sweetie. We still have some of the veggie stew leftover from last night. I’ll warm some up.”

“What about you?”

“I already ate. Besides we don’t usually eat on the couch, as you well know. I’ll sit with you though.”

As ‘Mom2’ left the room to warm up her lunch, Mac slowly sat up, inching slowly hoping it would keep the pain from ratcheting up too much, it was one of those things that sounded good on paper but didn’t work in reality. She clinched her eyes against the pain, trying to focus in on the ending of the movie where the Brain, Brian says in voice over “…but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions…”

As Simple Minds played the theme song and the credits rolled, ‘Mom2’ came in with the white wicker tray laden down with a big bowl of the soup, a couple of rolls, the bottle of pills and a bottle of designer spring water. The sharp pain caused by moving, had receded a bit. Now it was back to that steady ache that was her new, hopefully temporary, default setting nowadays. ‘Mom2’ placed the tray over her lap, and then got to work opening the pill and water bottles, before going back to the chair she’d previously occupied.

Mac had a painkiller appetizer before tucking into the still steaming soup.

‘Mom2’ went back to her cross stitch while Mac ate and watched the opening credits of the next John Hughes movie, Sixteen Candles.

She had just finished her lunch and was just staring at the screen, watching Sam getting kicked out of her own room by one of her grandparents, when the phone rang. She saw her mom reach for it and answer it, instead of checking caller id, which Mac was certain they had to have in the Sinclair abode.

“Hello,” ‘Mom2’ replied. She waited a beat while the voice on the other end said something.

“Oh, yes, Dick…I did tell her, dear…” ‘mom2’ replied again, still addressing the caller. Then she turned her focus to Mac. “Madi, sweetie…” she began.

Mac started to shake her head, but pain put a quick halt to that bad idea, and she waved her hands back and forth in front of her face, in an X criss-crossing type motion.

Her mom (‘Mom2’) got the message. “Dick, I’m sorry, but she just fell back asleep…I know, you’re right, she is napping a lot, but she has a concussion…I promise, I’ll tell her you called. Bye dear.”

She firmly hung up the phone, and then looked back at Mac again. “Madi, sweetie, did you two have a fight?”

“Not that I can remember,” Mac said honestly. “I just don’t feel like talking to him now.” Or ever, she added to herself. High school edition of Dick Casablancas was one do-over she wasn’t interested in. However, there seemed to be some type of relationship there, the reunion would probably be inevitable but she’d push it off as long as possible. She was just barely beginning to like Dick in her old, Mac existence. Make that, tolerate. They had been building a pseudo-friendship lately, especially when his fifteen minutes of humanity made their appearance, which had been happening with more frequency lately, she admitted reluctantly.

The rest of Saturday afternoon into the evening passed in much the same way. She would have periods of wakefulness where she would watch bits and pieces of John Hughes movies in between the pain pills, which would then make her very sleepy, so she’d go back to napping. However, in spite of the increased sleepiness, the pills also kept the pain down to a very tolerable background ache, so she gladly paid that price.

The rotation of baby-sitters varied, but the pattern was firmly established.

After a dinner of some kind of mushroom casserole, her dad escorted her upstairs to her bedroom.

He helped her into the large bed, and snugly covered her up with the purple sparkles duvet and gave her a kiss on her forehead, once again not getting close to her injury. On his way out the door, he turned off the light and whispered that he loved her. It was reminiscent of her younger days, and how her own dad, well, Sam, the dad that raised her, would tuck her in.

Was there a Universal script parents used?

Once again it occurred to her that she didn’t know the name of her own dad, this dad, bio dad. She drifted off to sleep with that thought circling around her thoughts.

When Mac woke up around 10:30 AM Sunday, she didn’t entertain the same hope of magically reappearing in her old, non-Madison/Madi life. There was no jolt when she opened her eyes and saw the, now familiar, purple walls.

Mac eventually mustered the energy to make the longish trek downstairs to the family room, though she was still wearing those same fuzzy pink kitten pj’s, she didn’t feel the need to change those.

She was surprised ‘Mom2’s’ precious couch didn’t retain her butt impression. Once again a breakfast of oatmeal, coffee, and pain pills was brought to her, this time by a lady she assumed was Lucille. She was an older lady, probably north of 55, with curly black hair with silver starting to weave in there as well, with brown eyes and crow’s feet which bespoke of a life full of smiles and humor.

“Just the way you like it, doll,” she said as she nestled it on Mac’s lap. “Your parents and Lauren are at church now. They didn’t want to wake you.”

“Thanks, Lucille.”

“You’re welcome, Doll. Ring if you need me.”

At Mac’s blank expression, she pointed to the small bell that was on the edge of the tray. She hadn’t seen that earlier.

“Oh, sure, um thanks.”

It was still an odd thought having someone paid to wait on her, at least on a regular, full-time basis. However, the funny thing was that it wasn’t even near the top of her ever-growing weird list.

She took more pain pills and drifted off to sleep about thirty minutes later. Her Sunday was evidently shaping up to be a repeat of Saturday.

When she woke up, Mac saw Lauren sitting on the far end of the couch, watching more cartoons, this time the classic Tom & Jerry.

“Hey,” she croaked out.

“Madi, you’re up! You sleep more than Fritz.”

“Fritz?”

“Um, your cat, remember? Well, the family cat, but he likes you more than the rest of us.”

“Where is he now?” Mac asked.

“Who knows? He goes into hiding quite a bit.”

They had a cat. She didn’t remember seeing the furry Sinclair around, though she hadn’t been anywhere in the massive house other than her bedroom and the couch and back again. There was still a lot of territory left to explore, and lots of choice places for a cat to nap.

*****//****//*****//*****//*****//*****

By late Sunday afternoon, however, after one more nap cycle she was feeling a bit better, and found enough of an energy peak to wander around her “new” home.

Her parents had a golf game/business meeting at the frou-frou Neptune Country Club and Lauren had a play-date at her friend’s house across the street. Though she got yelled at for daring to call it a play-date; after all, twelve year olds don’t “play.”

Her mission was two-fold, find the MIA cat, Fritz, and discover the first name of ‘Dad2.’ Although, she was hoping to find out more than just those two details about her new existence, after all, she couldn’t hide behind the head injury forever. Could she?

Lucille was the only other one at the house, and she was back in her private bedroom suite off the mud room. Dinner was simmering on the stove.

She started with the two rooms she’d already seen the first time she visited the Sinclair estate, the library and dining room flanking the Spanish tiled entry way. Mac just circled the massive dining table with seating for twelve plus the four extra chairs strategically placed in each corner of the room waiting to be called up for a sixteen person dinner party. She didn’t think the Mackenzies even knew that many people, let alone would entertain them for dinner, but of course they didn’t have kitchen staff to do the dirty work for them. Being chairman of the board for whatever company probably meant the Sinclairs did a lot of entertaining of clients and other important business types.

She didn’t see much of interest in the dining room, except ‘Mom2’ had an extensive collection of china in her massive curio cabinet. There was also a collection of Hummel figurines, which Mac didn’t know much about Antiques outside of occasionally watching of Antique Roadshow, but she knew they were probably worth a small fortune. Outside of the investment potential, she didn’t see the appeal of the little porcelain figures.

The only other thing of note in there was the huge wine rack, it was probably four feet high and four feet in length and, by conservative estimate, must have held over fifty bottles of wine. She pulled a couple bottles out, but hadn’t heard of most of the brands. She wondered if this was the entire collection, or if they had a wine cellar on premises, too. Mac suspected that their collection didn’t include any of the green Gallo jugs of Chardonnay that Natalie was always buying.

Next on the tour was the library which also housed a large oak desk that most likely belonged to Mr. Sinclair, ‘Dad2.’ It sat at the far end of the long, narrow room, opposite of the stone fireplace with two upholstered chairs in front of it for a cozy reading nook.

Mac’s mind flashed back, briefly, to the first time she’d even known of Lauren’s existence. It was in this very room, five years ago—the original 2004—that they first met. The hardest thing she had ever done in her life was make small talk with Lauren without giving away the fact that they were blood sisters. She relied on acting chops she hadn’t even known she’d possessed.

A startled mewing sound brought her out of her reverie.

Curled up on one of the chairs by the fireplace, the one Lauren had occupied that fateful night in fact, was a short haired black and white cat. Mac suspected the furry Sinclair—Fritz—was well-aware of Ellen’s stance against messing up furniture and was probably counting on not getting busted.

“It’s okay Fritzy, I won’t tattle on you,” she cooed, slowly coming towards the cat, who now was intently tracking Mac’s every move. “Your secret is safe with me.”

She reached down to pet him and suddenly drew back her hand when he hissed. The fur was bristled and he got up on all four legs holding himself corpse stiff, his back arched.

Mac backed away still cooing softly. “It’s okay; I don’t get this whole situation either. We’ll try our introduction later.”

The cat ran from the room as she headed toward the desk. She sat down in the black leather roller executive chair and opened the center drawer first. It was mainly filled with pens, hi-lighters, a lifetime supply of neon colored sticky pads, a ball of rubber bands (probably Lauren’s handiwork), a chain of paper clips, and other assorted office bric-a-brac. The only thing of interest there was a key she found tucked into an envelope and folded over. She removed it from its hiding place and set to work finding out if any of the six remaining drawers on the desk were locked.

She opened the top left one; it didn’t have much there, just a few empty file folders and a note pad. The middle left drawer had a stapler, which she was amused to see had a sticky pad on the bottom of it with all his important passwords. She grinned and shook her head. Would that generation ever learn? Maybe her hacker tendencies came from Mama Sinclair’s branch of the family tree.

The bottom left-hand drawer was unlocked, but it did contain a bunch of files organized by dates that really didn’t mean much to her. She looked in a couple of them, but they mainly seemed to be related to the company he ran, which turned out to be named Sinclair Enterprises. She had never heard of them before, the company bearing the last name that should have been hers by birth and not just some cosmic accident.

The right-hand set of drawers yielded much more interesting results. The first two of those drawers again didn’t contain much of interest, but the bottom file drawer, on the other hand, was locked.

Eureka, Mac thought as she tried the key. It worked.

The first couple hanging file folders contained tax and financial information for Sinclair Enterprises, things that evidently were not for public knowledge. She briefly skimmed that info, not finding much of personal interest, except that the company seemed sound, and was worth nearly 75 million, which was a huge number even for her math-oriented brain. There were an awful lot of zero’s there.

However, it was the next folder that intrigued her the most. It was labeled Settlement.

Interesting! She had assumed the baby switch had never occurred in this alternative existence. Mac placed the file up on the desk and opened it up. It was a stapled document containing the foreign—to her—language of legalese.

Skimming it over, she saw her name listed as a plaintiff and the name of Robert Allen Sinclair, ‘Dad2’s’ name. It was dated 1992 and was for one million dollars; however there was no mention of Neptune Memorial Hospital. She was just in the middle of turning the page, however, to see if she could find out more about the origins of this suit when she heard a rumbling sound off in the distance.

It sounded like the whir of a garage door, but being that this house was so much larger than she was used to, sound had further to travel. She quickly shoved things back, hopefully in a close approximation to where they belonged.

Mac was just exiting the library when her parents walked into the hall.

“Hey, sweetie, feeling better?” ‘Mom2’ asked, with concern.

“Much,” Mac assured her. “Just decided to read a bit,” she blushed as she said it, mentally chiding herself for not grabbing a book off the shelf to complete the cover story. She hoped she hid the evidence well-enough. She just needed to find more private time to continue the sleuthing, there were mysteries left to solve in this world.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 5— The Waiting Game

Dick's POV—June 6 th , 2009

The minutes were ticking by and Dick was still sitting in a hard-ass, uncomfortable, stained, green chair starring at the same fucking institutional white walls of the Neptune Memorial ER. Not really the place he'd expected to spend the 3rd anniversary of his brother's death.

But hey, why the hell not! Maybe it was fitting…

Mac, or "Cindy" as the worried people around him kept calling her, was in room number 5 being frantically worked on, poked, prodded and generally assaulted all in the hope of saving her life.

So far, other than himself of course, the only people awaiting word on "Cindy Mackenzie" were her brother, and her mom. Mrs. Mac must have broke her own speed records because she'd come running (literally) into the tight spaced waiting room—it was closer to the size of a closet—less than five minutes after he and Ryan.

He had watched her grab her younger child and squeeze him so tight he expected to see steam leaking out his ears. He kept expecting to see Ryan deflate. He wondered if maybe he should avert his eyes from the reunion, but was unable to stop himself from watching. So, that's what families that love each other look like. Yeah, he was a little short on functional role models these days.

Finally, she let go of her death grip on Ryan, and turned her tear-blurry, blood-shot eyes his way. "So, you're "the dude" who goes to school with Cindy that brought Ryan to the ER? Thank you." She was directly quoting the call she'd received from her son as they were on their way to the hospital, trailing the ambulance, complete with air quotes and everything.

"You're welcome," he replied back…to the floor, where his scuffed white shoe was tracing lines on the antiseptic-smelling, so bright-it-was-shiny linoleum.

"Ryan, and, um dude, I'll get your real name later, stay here. I'm going to find out what's going on." Mrs. Mac said. She pressed Ryan down into one of the threadbare green upholstered chairs lining one of the stark white walls of the under decorated waiting room.

There was one chair separating him and Ryan.

He watched Mac's mom, tall, blonde and basically the anti-Mac, make her way slowly toward the main desk. It was probably no more than 15 feet away, but with her shuffling walk, it seemed as though the distance could've been measured in miles.

He watched her finally reach her destination and hesitate for a moment—or three—before looking skyward, as though she were praying, then she faced the charge nurse and said something to get her attention.

As he watched her mom, Dick realized he had no clue if Mac was religious or not. Somehow he didn't think she was much of a church go'er, but that didn't really mean anything about her religious views. He wondered about her thoughts on death—did she believe in the concept of Heaven and/or Hell? Okay, yeah it was a pretty macabre topic, especially for what she was currently being put through right now, but then again it was a good theme considering what calendar day it was, the environment was certainly right for this kind of thought circuit. If you couldn't wax philosophic and existential and shit here of all places, where the frak could you?!

He couldn't hear much of the conversation. A glance over at Ryan told him that he was trying to listen in, too, and he didn't seem to be any more successful in the spying arts, either. Dick turned his attention back to Mrs. Mac. She wasn't speaking loudly but she was pointing and gesturing quite a bit.

"Do you think Cindy will be okay?" Ryan's shaky voice cut into Dick's eavesdropping.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say yes. He wanted to say yes, for Ryan, for himself, for Mac, for everyone in the whole stupid world, but he couldn't get that simple 3-letter word out. He didn't want, nor did he need platitudes after Cass had died, he didn't need lies like your brother is in Heaven now, he knew that was one place Cassidy would not be spending his eternity. Even with his limited knowledge, Dick was certain that no one with the laundry list of crimes his baby bro committed would be earning wings, a halo, a golden harp, and peace loving doves, shit like that. Nope, there wasn't air conditioning in Cassidy's new eternal address. It wasn't exactly a comforting thought, but he wasn't entirely sure he deserved comforting thoughts, not about this at least. Comforting thoughts didn't magically put humpty dumpty back on that big brick wall. False hope just made the inevitable fall that much harder in the long run.

He settled for being honest with the little dude.

"I hope so, Ryan, I really hope so. I think the fact that she got here quickly is a good sign, but it's out of our hands now."

Mid-reassurance Mrs. Mac came back, slumping down in the empty seat between them. He swore he smelled flowers, he figured it was probably some kind of perfume or something older women liked to practically bathe in. It was actually a fresh, clean fragrance though, not cloying at all.

"The team of doctors is working on her now. We need to just sit tight, and they'll come to us with a report very soon," she said without preamble. She grabbed her son's hand. "Tight. I don't even know what sitting tight actually means. Sit tight, as opposed to what, sit loose?"

Dick watched Ryan wince at his mom's grip. Maybe that's where Mackie got her scrappiness.

"A team?" Dick asked.

"That's what they said, a team of doctors. Honestly, I don't know whether it worries me more, or worries me less, that they have several people working hard at keeping her…" Mrs. Mac stopped, and swallowed. She took her hand back from Ryan and proceeded to bury her head in her hands. She didn't cry though. Dick thought maybe she'd cried herself out on the way over. He hadn't ever believed anyone could cry so much and so hard that they wouldn't have any tears left. It seemed like something they made up for chick flicks, a fictional concept kind of like that giant bunny who hops around delivering baskets of candy without sampling the goods and pooping everywhere! Then Cassidy died, and he cried himself out of tears plenty of times, more than he wanted to quantify really. It also could have been that she didn't want to cry around Ryan, which was equally plausible.

"Your name," she said suddenly, taking her face out of her hands. She turned towards Dick. "I know it's not 'the dude who goes to school with Cindy.'"

"It's Dick," he said. He'd considered telling her Richard, but it wasn't a cotillion, he didn't have to go all formal. "You can stick to 'the dude,' though, if you want."

"No, Dick is fine. I'm Cindy's mom, by the way. I'm sure you figured that out on your own. You can call me Nat. It's nice to meet her friends, but this was not how I ever thought…" Her voice trailed off again. It was doing that a lot.

"Ditto," Dick confessed.

She studied him a minute and he knew the exact second she figured out who he was. It was a quick shift of pity, from self-pity and fear for her daughter, to pity for him, of her knowledge of what today was. It was brief, that soft-mom look he wasn't used to being on the receiving end of, but he knew he didn't imagine it.

"You're Dick Casablancas, right? Cindy's mentioned you a few times; she worries about Logan, since Veronica left. She gets lonely; she's never really had but a couple close friends." She waited a beat, and then continued. "Unlike me, I always had a bunch of friends growing up. I went to Pan, in next town over. Though while I had a quantity of friends, well, Cin has quality friends, which truthfully I suspect might be the better plan." Reaching over, Nat grabbed Dick's hand and squeezed it. "This is just a crap day for you, isn't it?"

He nodded once, and looked down at her hand, still holding his but didn't make a move to snatch it away. They probably both needed that connection now.

She didn't make him feel like the brother of a murderer, instead she treated him like someone who had lost someone close to him, nothing more or less than that. It was nice; he didn't get that from very many people. Sometimes he wasn't sure he deserved that.

It was definitely still an on the hook kind of day.

Nat's eyes filled with tears; apparently she was still cooking up an endless supply. Dick could see that she was realizing-for probably the three hundredth time-that the possibility of losing her daughter was there, it wasn't a gray hypothetical concept but rather a three-dimensional entity.

After Mac's mom sat down, he watched the endless parade of both injured people waiting for their turn in the exam room and also those other suckers like him, nervously awaiting progress reports on family members. He watched them make that same slow shuffle walk of doom over to the main desk. He made a guessing game out of who got good news and who was still stuck in the same type of purgatory he and the Mackenzie's were. There wasn't much skill involved in that game though, he could usually figure which category the relatives fit into by how they walked back to their seats, if they repeated the same slow step it usually meant they were retreating with bad news or worse maybe, no news.

During a brief lull in the wave of concerned relatives and victims of bad luck accidents, Dick tracked the movements of a big, muscular guy probably in his thirties with a purple satin uniform jacket with just the letters SE in silver embroidered on the back. They were weaved together forming some kind of company logo. It seemed familiar but he couldn't remember where he'd seen the logo before, maybe through his dad's business dealings. Dick continued to watch as the man approached the desk, saying something to the charge nurse, who replied back in what seemed like a flirty manner. Then she pointed in the vague direction of the double doors leading to the exam rooms beyond. Dick assumed he was a workman of some sort, perhaps a delivery guy.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Mrs. Mac look up at the clock on the wall. His eyes tracked that direction, too; it was coming up on 1:30 PM.

This waiting game seemed to be dragging on and on…

"Where the hell is your dad?" Nat muttered to her son upon seeing how many minutes and seconds had already ticked by.

"On his way, I'm sure." Ryan didn't sound sure though.

Just then Mac's dad walked through the main entrance of the ER, at the exact same time a guy dressed in blue scrub "pajamas," as Dick always thought of them as, approached from the bowels of the ER.

The guy in scrubs stood there for a second, scanning the crowd. "Family of Cindy Mackenzie," he called out in a booming voice, obviously well-versed at that part of his job description.

Mac's dad practically ran across the rest of the wide room to join her mom. He grabbed her hand squeezing it as he pulled her up from the chair where she had been sitting. He gulped, and then called out in a loud voice, "That's us."

Dick was close enough to hear Mr. Mac's slight wheezing as he struggled to catch his breath, both from the exertion of getting there and the fear of what he was about to hear.

The doctor came up to their group. Dick stood up, as did Ryan.

"I'm Dr. Grimm, one of the neurologists assigned to your, um daughter's, case." He said the word daughter as a question.

Dick hoped the name wasn't a sign of doom.

Mac's mom nodded in the affirmative, and then he continued. "We're still running tests, so I don't have much to report right now. She was unconscious when they brought her in, and that status hasn't changed. Head injuries are always concerning; however, some locations carry better outcomes than others." Dr Grimm paused, and blinked.

It was only a matter of seconds before he continued speaking, but felt much longer than that to Dick.

"Your daughter, ah Cindy," he paused again to look at the chart briefly, and then back again at her family. "She was hit on the side of her head, near the temple. A little further to the left, well, I wouldn't have any hope for you, at all."

Dick dropped his head. He heard Nat's strangled sound, somewhere between a groan and a sob, but he didn't (couldn't) look at her. Mac's dad gasped, as well, or at least he assumed the deeper masculine sound was from her dad rather than brother. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the ground; suddenly he found that shiny, over polished floor fascinating, especially the checker board pattern it made.

He couldn't look at anyone else's pain, it was a full-time job just dealing with his own.

"However, like I said, the center of the impact is worrisome, her outcome is far from guaranteed, but it is definitely not a hopeless case. At this point, at least. We are running more tests, so we'll know more in a couple of hours, but I'm confident she has a fighting chance. Is she a fighter?"

"Yes," everyone said in unison, Dick included. He might not have played a big role in her life until the past year and a half or so, but even he knew the answer to that question.

"Good, that's a very hopeful sign. Also, she's young, that's another positive thing. All we know is bleeding was detected on a scan, so we're going to investigate, gather more details. The more you know about your enemy, the easier time you have coming up with a battle plan." The doctor looked at Ryan when he said the last bit, as though sharing some gaming tips with him. "I'm going to get back there. We're admitting her to the ICU, but first we need to run more scans. You can go to the third floor, where the ICU is located, there's a waiting area there as well. Or you can go get some lunch first in the cafeteria, and then go wait there. I can have you paged, if necessary. I don't have a timeframe, but I like to be very thorough. Anyway, be warned, this will be a very long day and night for you all."

"When can we see her?" Sam asked in a broken sounding voice, barely above a whisper.

"She can have one visitor at a time when she's settled in a bed in the ICU. Immediate family only, and only those twelve years and older are permitted," Dr. Grimm said, sounding as though he were reading off of a script.

Dick saw Ryan scowl at the implication that he was still a child.

The doctor shook hands with all four of them, then he turned around and was once again swallowed up by the inner sanctum of the busy emergency room.

Dick chanced a glance back up at Mac's family. He watched her mom collapse into her dad's arms, and then they scooted over to include Ryan. He took a step back, to give them room to be a family, support each other, but also because he felt out of place.

Logan. He realized Logan didn't know what was going on and the desire to share this gnawing, biting fear of every unknown fucking variable boiled over in him. They could be outsiders together in this purgatory.

He turned around, and reached under the chair he'd just vacated (the one that still retained his butt impression) to grab his backpack he'd carelessly tossed there when he and Ryan first got to the emergency room. He dug around the detritus, first touching his vodka-ized water bottle, mentally, cataloging its location for later, before making contact with his phone. Pulling it out, he scrolled through the contacts until he found Logan's preset.

He was about to place the call when Mac's mom called out to him. The Mackenzie group hug had ended.

"Dick, we're all going to grab a quick lunch, then hang out in the 3rd floor waiting area. Please feel free to join us."

"Thanks, Mrs. Mac," he broke off at her mock glare. "Um, Nat. Thanks Nat. I thought I'd call Logan, and then I'll meet you at the cafeteria."

"Sounds good, hon. Tell Logan to get down here, Cindy needs all the well-wishers she can get," her voice caught, and a tear trailed down Nat's cheek but she pushed on. "The cafeteria is in the other wing, opposite the main reception area. I think. I usually make it a policy to avoid this place when I can." Dick saw a knowing glance pass between Sam and Natalie.

"I'll find it."

The Mackenzie's waved and then made their way out into the main part of the sprawling hospital complex.

Dick selected Logan's preset on his cell and listened to it ring. When he was about to give up and hang up before the voice mail could kick on, Logan finally answered.

"What?"

"Nice phone manners, dude. I should send you to Martha Stewart Finishing School."

"I was napping."

"Oh, a sex dream about the girl in your Chem class, say no more, I get it, dude. I saw her rack." Dick said. "I'd let you get back to it, but I actually kind of have a reason for calling."

"Oh, shit, man. Today! I know what today is, I didn't forget, I just, I'm not fully awake, or I wasn't at least. Name a place and I'll meet you there," Logan said, his words bunching together.

"No, this isn't about Cassidy. I'm okay," Dick began.

Logan made a guttural sound of disbelief when Dick assured him he was okay.

"Well, yeah, today sucks, with the whole Cassidy thing" Dick amended, "but I have bad news, that's wholly unrelated to what today is."

"Out with it, you're scaring me."

"Mac is in the hospital. She was hit in the head with a baseball at the park today," Dick paused, the emotions of the day catching up to him. He suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. He sucked in a deep breath that probably translated loud and clear over the phone. "It's bad, Logan, maybe real bad. Nobody knows shit right now. I saw it. We were both at the park, we didn't come together, but anyway, I was coming over to see her and…" His voice trailed off, he was pretty sure he couldn't complete that sentence.

Logan cut in. "Neptune Memorial?"

"Yes."

"Where are you?" Logan asked.

"I'm meeting her parents in the cafeteria, and then we'll be in the 3rd floor ICU waiting room."

There was an intake of breath at the mention of the ICU, then Logan said softly, "I'll meet you on the 3rd floor, and Dick, she'll be okay."

"You don't know that."

"No, I don't, but I have a very strong feeling about it."

After saying goodbye, Dick disconnected the call. He slung the backpack over one shoulder, and then turned around, winding his way through the labyrinth of hallways until he found the cafeteria. The lack of aesthetic from the emergency room continued on into the cafeteria, too. However, the decorator did try for a little color boost there with the brightly painted green walls which clashed with the gray utilitarian tile floors. However, the only clientele hospital cafeterias attracted were harried hospital staff on their lunch breaks and concerned friends and relatives of admitted patients, neither group tended to care that much about ambiance.

He spotted Mac's family at a table on the far side, by the bank of windows. He waved back at Nat, who had evidently been looking for him. Then he went through the food line, nothing looked particularly good, but he decided to chance the meatloaf special. Mac would have been making fun of him for that food choice, making faces and sharing stats about food poisoning that no one wanted to listen to while eating, or any other time really.

He tried hard not to think about what she was going through right now, all the tests they were running on her. How many shots she was getting, though at least she was unconscious, unaware of what was happening to her.

Grabbing a can of Mountain Dew, Dick took his tray over to the cashier and paid for the meal he didn't really want in the first place.

Weaving around the tables in the expansive room, Dick trekked his way to the Mackenzie's table. He plopped his tray down in front of the chair they left open for him, strategically located between Sam and Ryan, across from Nat. He faced the window, but there wasn't much of a view. It looked out into the parking lot, but away from the hustle of the main entrance.

Dick noticed Mac's dad had selected the meatloaf special, too, while Ryan and his mom both had some kind of stir fry, Mac was obviously the only non-meat eater in the family. No one talked much during the meal.

He suspected everyone was trying to make some kind of sense of what the doctor had just told them, but he couldn't begin to sort any of it into anything logical. It wasn't that he didn't understand the medical stuff, of course he did, and it wasn't like the doctor used big words or shit like that. Dick knew people thought he was the dumb brother; it was easier to live down to that than to live up to being the smart one. Mac was starting to see through the façade though, he was sure of it.

He noticed every thought he had lately centered on Mac, he had no clue when that had started. Maybe it was just born out of the fear he had for her right now, that icy fucking hand that wouldn't quit choking the life out of his heart. The gestation period had started the second the baseball headed right toward her. He figured that was something he'd be seeing in his dreams for many nights to come.

He was brought out of his reverie though when Ryan started rehashing things for his parents.

"I don't know," he was saying. "I just heard someone yelling her name, and then another person screamed that someone in the stands was hurt. I ran off the field, and saw that the person injured was Cindy. It was horrible, dad. She woke up briefly, but I don't know, it was just…"

"Weird," Dick cut in. "She was confused, she couldn't really talk. I saw the whole thing as it happened. I'm so sorry I let it happen." He willed himself not to cry like a baby around Mac's parents.

"What does that mean?" Nat inquired, cocking her head. "Let it happen? I don't know how you could have stopped it."

"Well, I wish I could have."

"Me, too, hon, but it was just an accident, a senseless thing. Blaming yourself is pointless. If I understand things correctly, you were on the other side of the stands, nowhere near her. If you are going to blame yourself for Cindy getting hurt, why don't you take blame for Global Warming, too?"

"Why the hell not?"

She reached over and grabbed his hand and gave it another gentle squeeze.

It occurred to Dick that Nat was spending a lot of time trying to make him feel better when she probably needed comforting more than anyone else. He returned the squeeze. Nat smiled warmly, but all he wanted in that moment was for Mac to be the one smiling at him, with that one dimple of hers showing prominently.

No one became a member of the clean plate club that meal, but Nat more than anyone had left most of her lunch untouched. He and Ryan gathered up all the trays and dirty dishes, depositing them in the trash cans and proper receptacles.

By the time they made it to the third floor waiting room Logan was already there.

He was sitting in a chair—the ones in this waiting room were blue, and much newer, and nicer than the ones downstairs—looking at a back issue of Yachting Monthly. Sensing their presence or perhaps hearing their subdued conversation, Logan looked up over his magazine and his eyes locked with Dick's. He carelessly tossed the magazine in the chair beside him and stood up.

Dick went over to Logan and was about to shake his hand when he was pulled into a hug. He admitted to himself just then how much he needed his best friend at that particular moment in time. Usually it hurt too much to be around Logan on June 6th, to be reminded that Logan was one of the last people to see Cass alive, but now, this day had gotten so much bigger in scope.

"I'm so glad to see you, man," Dick whispered.

"Mac's my friend, too," Logan replied back, breaking the embrace. He turned his focus on Mac's family who had gathered around him, too.

"Thanks for coming, Logan ," Nat said, giving him a hug, as well. "We need to fill this place up with Cindy's friends, let her know she's got people who care about her, who need her around."

Logan severed the embrace first, and then stepped back a little. He took a deep breath, as though to prepare himself for something. Dick was surprised at what came out of his mouth next, though he shouldn't have been, it was inevitable.

"Veronica. Has anyone called her up at Stanford to let her know about Mac?" Logan asked. He clinched his eyes shut, as though in pain.

"No! I didn't even think about it. I haven't really called anyone outside of Sam," Nat confessed, flustered. "She does need to know though. I have her number, but it's probably at home."

Before sinking into one of the nearby bank of chairs, Nat reached over and lightly brushed off the front of Dick's shirt; he watched as wood shavings rained down on the blue carpet below. He hadn't noticed them before; it was probably a leftover souvenir from the falling-down bleachers when he'd leaned over to tend to Mac before the paramedics arrived on scene.

Sam took the seat beside his wife. They held hands as the fear and anguish of the day caught up to them.

"It's in Cindy's phone," Ryan offered. "Oh, but I think I left her bag in Dick's car."

"You did," Dick affirmed. "I could run out and get it."

"Don't bother," Logan started.

"It's no trouble. Believe me, staying out of trouble with the Pixie Spy and the business end of her taser is no trouble at all."

"No, I mean I have her number in my phone," Logan quietly confessed.

"Oh," Dick said flatly. Translation: Of course you do, dude!

Logan retrieved his phone from a pocket of his khaki cargo shorts, and looked at it briefly before scrolling through the contacts looking for Veronica's number. Dick suspected he probably still had her cell number memorized but didn't want to reveal that secret.

Dick reached out to grab the phone, after how she ripped Logan's heart out and stepped on it two years ago, the least he could do was make the call for him now. However, Logan shook his head and stepped back, out of reach. .

There was silence at first, and then he heard Logan say softly, "Yes Veronica, it's really me." He waited a beat, then replied back, "I'm doing okay, how about you?" Logan ran the hand not gripping the phone through his hair as he listened to ex-girlfriend rambling on. At the next pause in conversation, he replied in with a sigh, "Neptune never changes, how is the weather in Stanford?"

Dick tapped his foot and rolled his eyes, impatient with the small talk. They could talk about the rain all they wanted later, right now the only thing that mattered was that a girl they all cared about was fighting for her life. He shot Logan a death glare, hoping to get the conversation moving along.

"Actually, I am calling for a reason," Logan finally said, rolling his eyes back at Dick. "Yeah, I know." Logan let out a bitter laugh at something Veronica said. "I'm just going to rip the band-aid off. Mac was hurt today; she was hit by a baseball." He winced at whatever Veronica was saying. "No, and we don't know much right now." Logan's shoulders drooped, and Dick watched him turn around, seeking a little privacy in the public venue. "I suspect she'll be here awhile. Are you coming, um home?" He cleared his throat.

Dick could hear the rise and fall of Veronica's voice but not what she was saying. He could feel her panic from across the miles though. It was the same underlying current everyone else was experiencing.

Logan finally said his good-byes and hung up. He turned around and faced Dick, announcing, "Well, Veronica is on her way. She'll be here tonight, tomorrow at the latest."

Dick reached out and gave Logan a pat on the shoulder. "You okay?"

"Sure," Logan blew out a breath. "I have to be. This isn't about us; it's about her friendship with Mac."

Dick didn't contradict, but he was pretty sure his face broadcasted exactly what he thought about that statement. He took the empty seat on Nat's other side with Logan plopping down beside him. Ryan sat down next to his dad, and they all settled in to wait for the results of the current battery of tests, and for more drama to blow in from the North.

The endless waiting game continued.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 6—Driving Cadillac's in her dreams

During her freshman year at Hearst College, Mac would occasionally wake up in the dark, pre-dawn hours panicked at the thought that she'd forgotten to study for a Trig test for Mr. Myers, or turn in an English paper to Mrs. Murphy. Then, as her heartbeat slowly ticked back down to normal range, she'd realize high school was over, she was in college now. Of course that would cause another panic attack trying to remember if she was up on all her college course work, too, but the fear was less intense by then.

So, when Mac woke up, sweat raining down her face, in that space between Sunday night and Monday morning, she hoped her fears that she was ill-prepared for a test or perhaps a term paper were unfounded. Then, the strange space-time continuum existence she'd been dwelling in the past couple days caught up to her and instead of her heart-beat slowing down, it felt like it increased ten-fold. She was mere hours away from going back to Neptune High. That was one redux she'd never wanted.

She'd lobbied hard during their Sunday dinner—which was evidently a sacred Sinclair tradition—to get one more day of rest, but her mom ('Mom2') put the kibosh on that plan. 'Dad2' wasn't any help in that department, either, he seemed to live by the motto 'happy wife, happy home.' Their argument, and by their it was actually 'Mom2's' argument, was that the doctor only ordered a couple days of rest, and that's exactly what she got. She admitted defeat when 'Mom2' brought her A game—the first law of physics, bodies at rest vs bodies in motion, it was important for her healing that she fall into the motion side of things now.

Science was one master Mac always bowed down to.

After her early-morning/late-night freak out, she managed to fall back to sleep pretty quickly, catching another four hours until the shrill beeping of the alarm clock invaded her dreams of a time-traveling kitten that looked a lot like Fritz. She punched the off button, resisting the urge to send the offending alarm flying. She didn't like mornings in normal circumstances, and obviously the whole concept of reliving her high school days wasn't even in the same zip code as normal.

With a feeling of dread, Mac very reluctantly got out of bed, and walked slowly to the massive walk-in closet at the opposite end of her bedroom. She looked around the vast space that she hadn't really explored yet because a major chunk of her time was spent resting, recovering and trying to make some kind of sense of this new normal, but by now she was starting to accept that was an impossible feat.

There were a lot of pink and purple shirts, skirts, dresses and pants. It was a relief to see some less-colorful options sprinkled around as well. She selected a pair of black cotton pants; but as a concession she did pair it with a shimmery purple shirt and black ballet flats. She brought her school outfit in the bathroom with her and prepared to take a quick shower.

First though, Mac took off the white gauze bandage covering her stitches, and studied it in the mirror. It was the first time she'd really had a chance to study it, 'Mom2' had been playing nursemaid the whole weekend, changing her bandage, dotting ointment on, and generally keeping her on a tight pain pill schedule. The cut was tiny; there were only four stitches, she was happy to see it wasn't nearly as Frankenstein looking as she'd feared, though it was a little red and puffy around the edges. Her discharge instructions had said she could remove the bandage and shower after forty-eight hours. In preparation she took off the pink fuzzy kitten pajamas that had been her weekend uniform, and turned on the water.

She was expecting the water to take awhile to heat up, like it did at the Mackenzie's house, but it was instantly hot. Looking around, Mac also noticed that there were four nozzles all strategically placed in different heights and locations of the Grecian tiled shower. Her entire closet growing up could easily fit in the shower stall with room to spare. The water beating down on her sore, stiff body felt fantastic. She adjusted her position slightly so one of the jets aimed for the small of her back, and angled her head so only her hair got wet, but not her cut. Idly, she wondered how many gallons the water heater handled.

Maybe she could hide in here all day? It would be an appalling waste of water, but perhaps a better alternative than reliving a time she had never labeled as her glory days.

As appealing as wasting time was, she knew she had to suck it up and get moving. Mac grabbed the expensive bottle of designer shampoo and lathered up. The water rained purple as the remains of her temporary dye washed out.

The hot water was showing no signs of running low when Mac reluctantly dragged ass out of the blissful shower and started the process of getting ready for school.

After putting on her clothes, Mac dried her hair with the hair dryer she found in one of the drawers. After it was fully dry she grabbed the tube of purple hair dye she'd found on her dryer quest. She painted on three prominent chunks of purple with the supplied wand; while it was drying she turned her focus to applying a thin layer of make-up. She was always a fan of the natural look in real life, so she saw no reason to change that philosophy for this one. There wasn't a rule that '09'ers had to apply their make up with a garden trowel, was there?

Before heading downstairs, she took one last glance in the mirror to make sure the cut was obscured by her hair, it was.

When she reached the kitchen, there was a bowl of vegan-friendly cereal and the jug of soy milk already waiting for her on the table located in the connected sunroom.

As she was attempting to eat her breakfast over the lump in her throat, it occurred to her that once she got to school she had no idea where she needed to be. She banged her hand hard on the table. Frak!

Lucille looked up sharply from the island where she was stirring some kind of batter.

"Sorry," Mac muttered contritely.

"Is everything alright, doll?"She asked, in her lilting voice.

"Yeah," she replied back, unconvincingly. "My head hurts and I feel like I'm forgetting something. I feel like I'm not ready to get back into my real life," she bit back the ironic smile that wanted to burst out. It was closer to honest than most of the other things that had come out of her mouth the past 48 hours, not that anyone but her could recognize the truth in that innocuous sentence.

"Oh, is that all?" Lucille replied, with gentle humor. "I can't help with the second part, but I can help with the headache." She stood on her tip-toes and grabbed a bottle of Ibuprofen from the cabinet above the sink. She brought the bottle and a small glass of water over to Mac, and set it down next to her cereal bowl.

"Thanks," Mac replied, gratefully palming two orange pills. Unfortunately, now that she was being unceremoniously shoved back into her new real-world, the good drugs from the weekend were no longer an option; after all, she didn't want to be a zombie for school. She mentally snickered at that image.

Mac managed to force down a few more spoonfuls of cereal. A glance at the clock on the opposite wall let her know that it was time to stop stalling.

On her way out the door, 'Mom2' kissed her good-bye, and then handed her a $20 bill, explaining it was for lunch. She'd forgot all about the little '09'er habit of ordering take-out, because the thought of plebian cafeteria food like the '02'ers ingested was enough to make them purge. Back in high school (the first time) the most she ever got from her mom was $5, but mostly she brown bagged it due to the lunch line's limited selection of vegan options. Her favorite part of bringing her lunch to school was the bag of homemade melt-in-your mouth vegan cinnamon spiced cookies that Natalie always seemed to have on hand.

Mac had her hand on the handle of the door that led to the garage when 'Mom2' hollered at her to grab one of the jackets on the hooks that lined the wall of the mud room. Biting her lip, but nodding, Mac reached over and grabbed the first coat she saw that seemed to be at least roughly her size. It was a purple satin jacket with the initials SE weaved together in silver embroidery, it seemed a bit too much like a bowling jacket for her taste, but she assumed it might have been related to the family business because she vaguely recalled seeing a similar logo in her fact-finding mission the previous evening. There were actually several identical coats on the rack, of varying sizes—everyone in the family seemed to own at least two of them.

She also saw two backpacks by the door hanging from another hook. She took an educated guess that bright pink backpack was Lauren's, while the purple one was hers. The set of keys in the front pocket lent further evidence that her assumption was probably correct.

She was going on purple overload.

Throwing one more wave at 'Mom2', she took a deep breath opened the door and went down the three steps that lead into the attached garage. She tried not to feel like she was going to an execution—hers. The third bay housed a bright red Cadillac CTS, it looked brand new. It was a definite upgrade from her first car, or even her second car, the much beloved Beetle convertible.

She got in the car and took a quick glance around the interior, trying to get familiar with the landscape. She felt like an imposter, like at any second she'd be arrested for committing fraud, which was absurd because that was a full 180 degrees from the actual truth—that she was the one who was meant to be Madison Sinclair version 1.0.

Mac raised the garage door and started the car. She slowly and carefully backed out of the long driveway, onto Shady Springs Ct.

Less than ten minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of Neptune High School. She suddenly felt body-slammed by a wicked case of déjà vu. However, the feeling faded quickly when she meandered around the driveway headed toward Parking Lot B, where the '09'ers tended to park. It was adjacent to lot A, the unofficial '02'er designation, where she used to park back in her real high school days. Rumor had it; there were more security cameras mounted in lot B than lot A. However, the main perk of B was that it was a lot closer to the back entrance.

She was right behind a car that looked achingly familiar. It was going slowly, already pushed beyond its limits as soon as the key was put in the ignition. The car in question was a cream colored 1970s relic that lost the classic moniker due to the fact it barely ran. Here she was driving a sporty Cadillac while the car she'd had when she first learned to drive was now being driven by someone that was not her.

Mac turned her blinker on and made the turn into lot B while the new Cindy continued straight, towards lot A, her designated area. It caused a push-pull deep inside, relief that she was no longer driving that death-trap, but it was still strange having no associations to that piece of antiquated automotive engineering.

Finding a spot in the center of the vast lot, Mac parked. She felt like a stranger in a strange land and figured why the hell not enjoy some of the '09'er perks while she could. She had to admit she loved the way the luxurious, fully-loaded Caddy handled the curves on the way over. She had a sudden longing to take off, play hooky and drive along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) to see how that bad boy handled those curves along the twisty cliffs that carved out the coast.

With faux-bravado Mac grabbed her backpack and exited the car, using the key fob to lock it. As she traversed the short distance to the back entrance of Neptune High, Mac searched the lot for familiar faces.

One of the first things to catch her eye was a big yellow X-terra SUV—it was hard to miss. Its owner, Logan Echolls, was nowhere to be seen though. The second thing to catch her eye was the yellow Jeep parked next to Logan's SUV. She also knew exactly which rich asshole owned that ride as well—the guy whose calls she'd been dodging all weekend. Less than ten minutes into a day that didn't bear repeating anyway, she didn't think she was prepared to deal with the high school version of Dick Casablancas, not yet at any rate. Or, perhaps, ever.

The guy in question was leaning into his Jeep, presumably to grab his backpack. Mac walked by quickly, holding her breath, hoping he wouldn't spot her. She managed to make it into the building without anyone calling her name—Madison, that is. It was still hard to think of herself by that name, here or in any dimension really. She gritted her teeth as she crossed the threshold and lied to herself, saying it probably wouldn't be nearly as bad going back to high school as she feared.

Bullshit, she thought, even she didn't believe her own propaganda.

As soon as entered the white washed hallway of the high school she realized the first wrinkle in the whole plan—she didn't have the faintest idea where her homeroom was, nor any of her other classes. Then there was the locker issue. Yup, lots of flaws in this plan! She dodged classmates as she headed to the reception desk by the principal's office.

When she got there she saw the back of some tall, lanky guy bending over the open file cabinet drawer, taking something out, or maybe putting something else in.

Mac cleared her throat, and without even turning around the guy called out "Just a sec, then I'll be right with you."

She recognized the voice right away, with its perfect blend of snark and humor, though he wasn't being either of those things at the moment. She had always liked the timbre of his voice. They'd grown closer since Veronica left for Stanford; she'd actually poached several of Vee's leftovers.

"Thanks Wallace," she replied automatically. He slammed the drawer he'd been rifling though, and then turned around to look at her, surprised that she knew his name, evidently.

"Um, okay. So how can I help you, girl in my English Class?" He didn't seem to know her real name.

"I misplaced my schedule," she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"That's not really something that tends to be necessary by November, or, you know, after two days," Wallace replied, raising his eyebrow. He was now leaning over the counter, tapping his fingers. "I can help you with seventh period though, Mrs. Murphy's American Lit class."

"Okay, well, now I just need to know the preceding six classes," she said, leaning it as though imparting a secret to him. "Some things are a little fuzzy since…Well, since my accident," She pointed to the cut on her head.

His eye's followed her finger and his gaze lingered on the cut. His eyes got wide. "Okay, I can print another copy for you. Do you need anything else?"

"Perhaps my locker combo? Thank you."

"No problem. I heard a cheerleader went down on Friday. I didn't know you were the cheerleader in question." Wallace replied. He went over to the computer terminal at the end of the counter, and asked her name, since he seemed to have been under the impression it was 'girl in my English class'. She told him and watched as he typed in a couple commands to retrieve the required information.

"I'm gossip for the rumor mill these days, huh? Yes, I'm guilty as charged. However, we prefer pep squad to cheerleader."

"See, you don't strike me as Pep Squad material," Wallace said as he focused in on her purple streaks. The printer made a whirring sound.

"Tell that to my mom, evidently the Ivy League likes a little pep in their students, it makes them well-rounded, besides I'm a pep-squader with a deep soul." Mac said, smirking.

"I thought that was an oxy-moron."

"Are you calling me a moron?" Mac teasingly asked. It felt normal joking with Wallace. She needed normal.

"Touché," Wallace said, smiling back, showing his even, white teeth. He walked back over to the printer to retrieve the schedule and locker information, and handed it to Mac. "There you go, Madison."

"Thanks."

"No problem. I'm here sixth period, Monday through Friday if you need anything else. That's my usual shift; I guess you'd call it, though this is hardly a paying gig. Anyway, I'm just here now to finish up some filing for Ms. James."

"She must really trust you," Mac said. She knew Wallace made a lot of unsanctioned copies from student files during their high school years in a Watson to Veronica's Sherlock type of capacity.

"She was unable to find anyone else to dump her work onto," he corrected.

Just then the warning bell rang, putting an abrupt end to Mac's reconnection with Wallace.

They waved, and headed off in different directions.

A glance at her schedule showed that Mrs. Murphy was her homeroom teacher as well as 7th period American Lit. Mac was kind of curious why it wasn't an AP class; there was a broad mix of AP and regular track classes on her schedule, maybe to give a boost to her grades in this dimension? Well, with the Sinclair net worth she wouldn't have had to bust her tail to be a scholarship kid-that had to take a load off.

She had just entered Mrs. Murphy's classroom when the final bell rang. She grabbed the first empty seat she saw, and slumped down. Who did she usually talk to? What did they talk about?

As those thoughts swirled through her head, she studied the other students in her homeroom and tried to listen in to their rumblings of conversation. Snatches here and there reached her ears. What really made her sit up and concentrate though was some guy, she didn't remember at all, talking with this kid named Adam who always reminded her of Fivel in An American Tail. They were swapping bragging rights on their test scores, but it was the score itself that caught her attention. She didn't think it was academic bragging. She hoped not, at least.

"69, dude, so beat that," the first guy said.

"63, so suck it," rodent boy replied back.

The only situation where a 63 beat a 69 that she could think of was the Purity Test, which was, bar none, her finest hour in her Mac life. It was the turning point where she realized that she had the ability to elevate her economic status by using her God given talents, it was a confidence builder to be sure. So what if her God given talents erred a bit on the gray side of things, sometimes the ends—a new car—justified the means.

"The purity test?" she was asking incredulously before she could stop herself. She felt her cheeks heat up. What possible motivation or need would she have had to circulate the Purity Test as a'09'er?

"Yes, that's right. It was sent to our email accounts last week," mouse boy responded. "What rock do you call home these days?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, weakly. "I remember it now."

"What did you get, Madison?" Some guy in the back row yelled out, she thought his name was Kevin Powell.

"I didn't take it," she said, shaking her head. She didn't need to, of course.

"I don't believe that for a nanosecond," a girl who Mac unfortunately remembered quite well, Pam, hollered from the back, where she was sitting next to Kevin. "Everyone took it."

Internally she groaned, maybe a little externally too, but Pam was one person she was looking forward to avoiding for life. As a '09'er, she honestly believed she was above rules set forth for everyone else, she deemed everyone else her inferior in every way.

"I bet she's just covering because she got a 39," a girl with long blonde hair sitting next to Pam hypothesized in a whiny voice. It was the girl who looked like rich airhead number 1 on "The Simple Life," it was eerie, they could be twins.

Pam laughed and leaned over the aisle to lightly punch the Airhead-doppelgänger on the arm. "Good one, Cait."

"I don't need a stupid test to tell me what percentage good girl I am, and what percentage wild woman," she retorted.

"Yep, definitely at 39," Pam reiterated.

"Like I said, I didn't take it," Mac repeated through gritted teeth. "If you don't believe me, why don't you buy my results?"

"You never did give us the address of your rock," Fivel's human counterpart called out. "The link to the storefront where you could buy other peoples' results was shut down ten hours after it went up."

"Hey, give her a break, she got hurt last week," some guy called out as he shut the door to the classroom.

Mac glanced over at her defender, and saw the newcomer in question was Dick Casablancas of all frakking people. She gave him a weak smile, and then turned her attention to her nails to avoid the probing gaze he was giving her. She was thankful to see that the chairs surrounding her were all taken.

"How nice of you to join us, Mr. Casablancas, there's a chair in the front row with your name on it," Mrs. Murphy said, and then pointed to a seat directly in front of her desk.

He smirked and flopped down in the chair the teacher pointed to, stretching his legs in front of him and crossing his arms. "We meet again. I can't help noticing how you invent these reasons to keep me close, I, for one, am flattered, I like a woman with experience, but see my girlfriend is the jealous type." It was just his patented brand of Casablancas cockiness. He turned around to look at her as he said it, though the statement was directed towards the teacher. What really pissed her off was the look of heat he flashed her when he said the last bit, and how his undressing her with his eyes expression made her tingle in places she didn't fucking want to tingle. It must just have been emotional inter-dimensional transference when she was dropped into this life, what else could it be? She definitely wasn't interested in Dick in her real life.

They were just pseudo friends who could occasionally have real conversations, ones that actually had substance. It didn't go beyond that, Mac was certain of that fact.

Mrs. Murphy started launching into the business of the day, including reading some boring memo straight from Principal Clemmons' desk; she made a point of mentioning that he was newly appointed to that position. Mac vaguely remembered the events that lead up to the leadership change from back in the day. She wasn't one to be sent to the principal's office so it didn't affect her all that much either way, save for occasionally fixing his computer, and going to AlternaProm with Butters, Mr. Clemmons' son.

Next, the teacher queued up the television for the school-wide announcements. Meg Manning was one of the anchors. Mac tried to hide the tears that blurred her vision. She wasn't close to Meg, but still, she was a sweet person that didn't deserve to die so young, though really who did deserve it? Sometime when her thoughts ran along that track one name came to mind, other times she didn't even think that person deserved death.

Meg looked so alive—well, because she was in this plane of existence—reading off the audition dates for the fall musical. Her co-anchor covered sports scores and other Pirate going ons.

Five minutes later the bell rang and Mac quickly made her way out the door. She heard someone behind her calling out her name, but she tossed a vague wave over her shoulder and quickened her pace as she headed down the west corridor to her first period class.

Her first three periods were in the same classroom—it was a computer sciences class everyone had nicknamed Future Hackers of America. That now familiar feeling of déjà vu stole over her again, this was the same class she had in the original 2004. Her love and respect for computers and the power they gave her was so embedded in her soul that it wasn't a shock that it would travel on her from one dimension to the other. For someone who felt largely powerless in her day-to-day life, it was nice to have one domain to rule over—life might not be her bitch, but computers certainly were.

She liked Mr. Matthews, he was in his late 20's and not yet totally-jaded by governmental regulations dictating how he ran his classroom. He had geeky good looks with wavy brown hair just beginning to creep backwards, and he wore black framed glasses, lending him a professorial air that was at odds with his laid-back, jokey ways of explaining hard concepts without dumbing anything down.

He had always seemed so much older the first time around; of course she was so much younger then, too.

She was one of three girls in the class of fifteen. It was funny but with all the rapport she'd built up with these people, she hadn't thought about most of them in years. Her silvery lining thought that this was one facet of her new life that didn't require a script was quickly shattered though when Mr. Matthews asked her how the second report chronicling her teaching gig at the Senior Center was coming along. She vaguely remembered 'Mom2' mentioning something about those classes in the ER after the accident Friday, but since it didn't make sense to her at the time she had shoved it out of her mind. "Um, fine."

"Great. I want to see it on my desk Thursday by the end of the day."

The class around her started grumbling. Mr. Matthew's held up his hand like a traffic cop, everyone quit complaining. "I'm giving Madison a one day extension because of her injury; I figure she lost a day or two this weekend while she recovered."

"Thank you," Mac replied, feeling her cheeks heat up. She looked down at her desk, as she heard her classmates mutter about Pirate Points and the whole '09'er red carpet treatment bullshit. It wasn't anything different than what used to come out of her mouth when she saw the 'Richy Riches' getting treated white-gloved, while her corner of Neptune was given the picked-over crumbs. However, now, she was on the opposite side of the economic divide.

Everyone quickly got over the one little bit of inequity though, and the three hour class went by quickly. One of the best perks though, was that it was three blissful hours of not having to see Dick.

Soon enough though, the bell rang and it was time for fourth period.

AP Physics with Mr. Humphrey, she'd had Mr. Orr the first time around. She ignored the first half of the lecture on String Theory 101, but when the topic of dimensions came up she sat up and listened hard. However, by the time lunch came around she still didn't have an answer, concrete—or even theoretical—that would bring her that much closer to her old Mac-life.

She pushed through the crush of students in the hallway. Mac was just passing by the administration desk when a blonde woman sitting on one of the chairs set up near-by as a make-shift reception area caught her eye.

It was her mom, 'Mom1,' the one who raised her. She could have sworn she could smell lavender, that spicy sweet scent that clung to her mom. Natalie didn't look happy, anger evident in her expression and the tight set of her shoulders. Her legs were crossed.

Mac made her way to the support column just to the right of the offices, and leaned against it. She reached back to remove her backpack, retrieving her cell from its murky depths, and slung the pack back onto her shoulder. Mac held the phone up as though she were checking a text but not high enough to obscure her view. The crowd had thinned out, most people were now either in the cafeteria grabbing a meal or just taking their seat for their fifth period class.

Mr. Clemmons opened the door to his office, a tall blond girl standing beside him.

"Cindy," Mac heard him say sternly; "Sit back down in your chair. I'm going to bring your mom back inside. We are far from done here." Then he addressed her mom. "Mrs. Mackenzie, will you please join us?"

Mrs. Mackenzie—that's exactly who she was to Mac in this dimension; yet she could never just think of the woman who raised her, loved her, who held her during those blurry, catatonic post-Cassidy, post-Neptune Grand days, who always knew how to make her laugh and when to just let her cry it out—as Mrs. Mackenzie. Those arms that were supposed to comfort her were comforting Madison these days.

Natalie nodded and rose; she made her way inside the inner sanctum. The firm shutting of the door put an end to Mac's spying. If only she'd planted one of Veronica's bugs in that room!

Mentally, Mac plotted out a lunch strategy, skipping wasn't going to be an option being that her stomach was already stepping up its growling that had started near the end of her computer class. She figured she could grab a side salad from the cafeteria and find a spot near the stadium, as far from the quad as geographically possible. An open text book would scare people away from making small talk with her—hopefully. She didn't want to be around anyone else. She had always wanted to know what walking in Madison Sinclair's $550 Manolo Blahnik's would be like, but she'd never examined the fine print, the one that said the cost was losing ties to the Mackenzies. She'd never stopped to truly grasp the idea of Madison wearing her scuffy black Doc Martens, which she'd got on sale, a year ago, for $19.99, either. There was a give and take for both of them.

Shoulders hunched in, feeling dejected and wishing for an invisibility cloak; Mac weaved her way over to the cafeteria to grab a salad and a Coke. She paid for her purchases, and then pushed open the double doors leading out into the Quad.

Mac stepped into the sunshine and blinked several times before sneezing as she looked up into the sun. Her eyes adjusted to the bright sun and she continued on her way. She passed a table of '09'ers, their usual spot, and she bit her bottom lip in hopes it would stop the snark that threatened to escape.

Of course right when she looked up it was into Dick's eyes.

He was holding court, surrounded by Meg Manning, the guy she was with at the time…Carter?, and Pam, the bitch queen. Everyone seemed to be comparing Purity Test scores. He stopped mid joke about Snow White getting a 'higher' (read: lower) score than Meg's boyfriend, and smiled at her. It was quick, but there was no doubt to whom it was intended for. She nodded, though really it was an acknowledgment rather than a greeting. She kept going, ignoring Pam's loud stage whisper about who pissed in Madison's Wheaties.

Mac made her way to the grassy knoll next to the football stadium.

Unceremoniously dumping her backpack on the grass, Mac flopped down beside it. She made quick work of her salad, enjoying the slight breeze that periodically kicked up. This was a great spot for an impromptu picnic, she had discovered it her senior year of high school when Cassidy had briefly broken things off. The field was her version of a thinking tree, she supposed. After finishing her meager lunch, Mac laid the empty bowl and soda can off to the side, and scooted over so she was lying down. She tucked the bag under her head as a pillow. Looking up at the blue sky, she watched the wispy clouds morph into shapes as they meandered by.

A shadow, thrown across her face, intruded upon her conscious attempts to block out any thoughts of lavender fields and cinnamon spiced cookies as a cure for all ills. She groaned internally, dragging her eyes reluctantly to the left, seeing that the shadow maker was indeed who she feared it was. She was certain her lack of enthusiasm was broadcast clearly across her face, but couldn't find the strength to care about her breech of manners. She crossed her arms over her chest, though whether as a shield or more of an impatient gesture she wasn't entirely sure, probably an equal measure of both.

"Whatcha doing?" he finally asked with schooled casualness, running a hand over his rumpled blond hair.

"Enjoying some solitude."

"Mind if I join you?"

"Yes," Mac replied automatically. She felt bad though, for a nanosecond at least, at the flash of hurt that flitted across Dick's face until he quickly shut down his vulnerability. "I'm not feeling very well right now, my head hurts." It wasn't a lie.

"I'm sure it does, that's a pretty nasty looking cut. Okay, well, see you in Mrs. Murphy's class then," he said, shrugging. "Feel better," he said as an afterthought, because it usually was with him. He turned around and left.

As she followed him with her eyes, Mac tried to talk herself into believing she was just imagining the dejected look on his face, that it was just projection from the present, she wasn't entirely sure how successful she was in selling that idea to herself though.

Figuring it was probably getting close to 6th period anyway; she laid there for about five more minutes and then, giving up the idea of much-needed reflection time, sat up again. Mac gathered her belongings and the trash from her picnic.

After throwing away her dishes in the trashcan by the back entrance, she went back into the school. She'd passed the quad again, and couldn't help noticing Dick hadn't rejoined his friends at the table, but she didn't wonder about his whereabouts beyond that. Pam, who was still in the same seat, shot her a questioning look, more like a glare really, but she kept on going. She never cared about what Pam thought of her back then, why would she start now?

Mac went back into the cavernous building and headed towards her locker in the east hallway. She passed the front reception area and noticed Wallace at the desk in deep conversation with Ms. James. She hoped he got the scoop on "Cindy," she just couldn't imagine a scenario where Madison—by any name—would have the skills involved in rewriting code to set up shop selling the test results, even if that enterprise got shut down quickly.

However, just as she was about to engage, or more like interrogate, Wallace for intel, the bell rang. Fortunately, they had seventh period together, and bonus, he'd make a good Dick buffer, too. Happy with that silver lining, Mac made her way to Trig.

Math was definitely an area she had a lot of confidence in, so it was an hour Mac had been looking forward to. She had been called upon several times, and each time she'd easily been able to come up with the correct answer. She liked numbers and formulas, the utter predictability of them, whenever you paired X with Y, you always got Z, no exception, and nothing unexpected would come along to muck things up. That was the same reason she liked computers better than most people—they, like numbers, didn't disappoint you, they never left you huddled naked in a hotel room terrified, completely alone and vulnerable. There wasn't much she felt she could count on this world, numbers –including those of binary variety, made the short list.

All that math predictability euphoria died a quick death at the sound of the bell ringing.

It was time for seventh period, her last class, and then she'd be able to say she survived her first day of her junior year in high school—for the second time!

It wasn't a long walk to Mrs. Murphy's classroom, and Mac was one of the first people to arrive. She selected a desk in the middle of the 3rd row, thinking it would fill up quickly, most likely before Dick had time to show up and plop his too good looking, surfer physique into the chair next to her.

Wallace came in next, and took the chair on her right. Mac smiled at him and said a quick prayer to the gossip Gods, hoping she'd get a juicy story soon about her other self. He was right in the middle of explaining the little bit of info he'd gleaned both from Clemmons' incident reports for "Cindy's" file and from talking with Ms. James.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Kevin Powell, from homeroom, plopped down on her other side. She didn't care who sat there, as long as it wasn't a certain blonde surfer—though being Southern California, that in and of itself was hardly in short supply.

Wallace was still explaining the sordid details of "Cindy's" part in the Purity Test leakage scandal, as it had trickled down to him at least. She'd taken on an accomplice to compensate for the code skills she lacked; she had her own talents however that she had played up to her advantage. The leer on Wallace's face made it clear that "Cindy's" programming was on a more carnal nature than numeric.

Curiosity claimed her, however, so she broke down and asked who the well-compensated accomplice was.

"Some computer geek from France, that used to work for the district," Kevin interjected quickly, before Wallace could reply. He didn't try to hide his eavesdropping.

"Use to work?" Mac asked. In her old life, she'd always liked Renny DeMouy, and by liked she meant he had a nice ass, broad shoulders and sexy smile which she enjoyed watching as much as she liked getting paid to play with computers—it was a 50/50 operation.

"They fired his ass, probably sent him back to Paris," again, it was Kevin who interjected.

The whole thing sounded hinky to her, Remy was hardly the criminal mastermind type, though he was easily manipulated by the fairer sex, and "Cindy" excelled in oral persuasion. However, before she could come up with some theories on the how's and why's of this dimension's purity test scandal, she felt hot breath on her neck. She whipped her head around as fast as the dull throbbing souvenir from her concussion would allow, and glared at the heavy breather.

It was Dick, naturally. He'd sat behind her and was leaning as close to her as the attached table arm would allow. He was unfazed.

"It's called personal space, Dick," she snapped, hitting the k hard.

"You didn't seem to mind me in your personal space last weekend," he said under his breath.

"I don't recall that," she said, truthfully. "Besides, I mind it now."

"Generally it takes more than a concussion to forget about me," he responded with an air of overconfidence.

Mac made sure he could see her eye roll before she chanced a glance over at Wallace who had taken his beaten up copy of Catcher in the Rye out of his bag and was busy pretending he wasn't eavesdropping on their conversation.

She was so happy when Mrs. Murphy came through the door just then and breezed to the front of the room. She proceeded to write out the Catcher in the Rye in big caps on the top of the white board, and then she wrote out the word theme and waited for everyone to start listing them. When the influx of volunteers never happened, Mrs. Murphy started recruiting victims including Mac. She volunteered "alienation" as an overriding theme. It was one thing in there that she always related to, being raised in the wrong family, not really finding that connection. The bitch of it was that this new life wasn't making her feel like she fit in either. It was still early in this mixed up universe, she reminded herself.

Phoniness and loneliness were also mentioned as concepts within the book worth exploring. Despite some of the people in her class trying to drag it down, Mac was happy to see that the time still went by quickly. Dick apparently enjoyed stirring up their teacher; he turned in an A+ caliber performance on that. Whenever he was asked about Holden Caulfield, Dick kept making Garden State allusions instead. Mac was surprised when the bell rang and Dick still hadn't gotten sent out of class; she would have suspected bribery, but she'd not seen money changing hands the entire class time.

Mac hurriedly packed up her books, and tried to make it out the door before the big blonde surfer dude who didn't seem to get the hint that she wasn't ready to deal with him, in this universe at least. He made acting dumb an art form, however, Mac knew it was just an act. In high school—originally—she had actually bought into that persona, but the past two years had proven there was a lot more buried not quite as deep as she'd expected. Mac also had to admit she was not ready to face how Dick had treated his brother.

She had just made it to the threshold when she felt a hand squeeze her arm, firmly but not painfully. She slowly turned her head around and huffed out a breath when she saw Dick was the hand's owner. "What?" she snapped out, thinking the ruder she was the faster he'd calculate that X and Y equaled she needed some space—every guy's least favorite phrase.

"I was just going to say good-bye, have a good night." Dick wore his best injured-party expression. He kept his hand on her arm, gently nudging her on.

"Good night."

He stopped in the middle of the hall and just looked at her, it was probably only fifteen seconds of appraisal but felt deeper than that. "Look, Madi, I know you're still pissed, you can carry a grudge like no one else. The way I see it, though, is even you can't carry a grudge forever," Dick said, his cocky façade coating his words.

"Yeah, just keep on thinking that," Mac said. She matched his self-assured tone. She was about to turn on her heels and head the other direction when she saw a ghost. The bile rose and snaked around her stomach as she watched the very much alive Cassidy coming up to his older brother, wearing his signature smirky smile.

"Hey bro," Dick said in greeting. "How was Chem? Still gene slicing the perfect bionic woman? Cause we all know science is the only way you'll get a chick to bang you."

"Gene splicing, dorkwad," Cassidy automatically corrected. "That's just the first in a long line of what's wrong in that sentence."

While the Casablancas brothers teased and prodded each other in the middle of the hallway, Mac felt planted to the spot. She wanted to move, needed to move actually, but her feet felt heavy, matching her thoughts pound for pound. In retrospect, she should have been prepared to see ghosts of people now long dead, she chastised herself. Meg was only one of several Neptune High classmates gone but not gone from this plane of existence—that should have warned her there'd be more ghosts to cross her path. However, in the dank recesses of her mind, Mac knew that she'd never be prepared to see Cassidy, now that she knew what he did, what he was capable of in any reality.

The only real question left in the desolate desert of her mind, all other thoughts were sucked out at the first glimpse of Cassidy, was did knowing the potential path and fates of so many classmates obligate her to try to change the course of things? Could that be why the cosmic rewind button had been tripped? Would she really be able to change things? Probably not, but she knew she had to try, but it could wait for a time when her stomach wasn't losing the war it was engaged in with nausea and the remains of her meager lunch.

Cassidy had, by then, seen her and called out a cool greeting her way before getting back to his girl-bot discussion with Dick. Mac gave the briefest of waves in his direction before clamping a hand over her mouth and heading towards the bathroom. She barely registered Dick calling her name as she sidestepped groups of people still congregating in the hallways before leaving school grounds for the day. She kept her fast paced sprint down the hall and into the girl's rest room across from Mr. C's desk in the office area.

Sweat was starting to bead across her forehead as she ran into the bathroom, pushing past two girls, in too much of a hurry to look at them. She burst into the first stall, lifted the lid and just made it in time to empty her stomach. Cassidy's name ran an endless loop through her mind, as she knelt down in front of the toilet and threw up. She kept memories of graduation night, being naked and alone, put on lock down though.

After she was finished, Mac flushed the toilet, and stood up on shaky legs. She ran the back of her hand across her mouth, hoping to hide the evidence. From the other side of the stall door, Mac heard one of the girls softly saying they had what they needed and to check back in three days, then there was a reply she couldn't really make out and the sound of the door opening and shutting.

Thinking the coast was now clear; Mac left the privacy of her stall. She saw she'd miscalculated when she saw a short blond at the sink washing her hands. She recognized the style of the hair, the determined set of the shoulders—Veronica. She had obviously just finished making another business transaction in her "office."

The sick feeling was still lingering despite the release, and seeing Veronica standing there in her innocence, not yet knowing who was responsible for the big, bold, black line the rape caused in her life, made Mac's eyes tear up. She blinked them back and stood next to her friend at the sink and turned on the tap. She bent her head down, hoping to stay off the radar of the great Veronica Mars. That was just a fantasy.

"Are you okay? Uh, d'uh. Of course you're not," Veronica back-pedaled.

"I'm fine, well, not fine, but better now," Mac said. She looked up and their eyes met in the mirror.

"Do you need anything? Water, perhaps?" Veronica asked. Mac wasn't surprised, her friend had a soft side that was ingrained, life had done its best to beat that out of her but it was still riding piggy back on her recombinant DNA.

"Thanks, I'm okay. I'll grab a soda for the road." She turned off the tap and shook her dripping hands over the sink.

"Look, this is obviously not my business," Veronica started, "but…Anyways, I just wanted to offer my services. I think you're very brave going it alone."

Mac looked at her for a long minute, and then cocked her head. Suddenly it struck her what she was referring to. She gave a sharp, surprised bark of laughter.

"I'm not doing anything alone."

"Oh, well, good, I just, well…Dick is your boyfriend, right?" She turned to her left and grabbed two paper towels from the dispenser, keeping one and handing Mac the other one.

Mac smiled her thanks and then just shrugged. Hell if she knew the dating status between her and Dick.

"I just assumed…"

"I know what you assumed, but it's not true. I'm not pregnant. I guess I was fighting some kind of germ off. "

Veronica replied back "okay," so softly Mac wasn't sure at first she'd said anything. Was that the first thing that sprung to mind when a '09'er was leaning over a toilet puking, especially a'09'er dating Dick. She could understand that thought pattern, but fortunately Veronica wasn't a gossip in any form, that was how rumors got started. Honestly though, this might be one situation where someone thinking she was pregnant was a better story than the actual truth—she got overwhelmed by seeing her dead, psycho, murdering, rapist ex-boyfriend still alive and interacting with his drunken, grieving brother—who was neither drunk nor grieving at the moment either.

Together they walked out of the bathroom, stopping just briefly at the soda machine near the entrance to the west wing so Mac could grab a Coke to settle her stomach.

They headed toward the back exit to where the student parking areas were located. Conversation was full of stops and starts, the tentative views of two people getting to know each other better, she assumed they knew each other in passing from pep squad, but it seemed they obviously weren't close in this life. The fact was, it was just nice reconnecting with Veronica, who she hardly saw anymore in any dimension.

They parted ways at the entrance to parking lot B, Mac heading to the Cadillac while Veronica went off towards lot A and her rusting black Le Baron.

She'd survived her first day back at Neptune High—somewhat, at least.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 7—Call me Queen Bee

Mac's second day at Neptune high started off a lot like her first day. She was just beginning to think she was stuck in her own personal hell of a Groundhog Day, doomed to repeat the same shit storm of high school angst, the exact story she lived the first time but this time with more money and the same basic characters albeit cast into slightly different roles.

At lunch time she grabbed a salad and a can of Coke from the cafeteria and exited the building through the doors leading out into the quad. She was cutting through the tables, on her way to the same grassy knoll she hid out in the previous day.

"Madison, over here," she heard as she walked by. "Why don't you join us?"

Looking around, her eyes' focused on Wallace and Veronica sitting at a table straddling the economic divide—it was the same table they'd all inhabited the previous incarnation.

Embracing her new friend and constant companion, déjà vu, Mac plopped her lunch down and sat down across from Wallace and next to Veronica. "Hey, guys."

They both returned the greeting.

"You look like you feel better today," Veronica added, referring to the previous day when she heard Mac vomiting in the bathroom.

"I am. I think it was just a souvenir from the concussion, no big deal," Mac covered in a dismissive tone.

Veronica just nodded and then changed the subject. "So, where were you off to? You're like a woman on a mission." Veronica inquired. She took a potato chip from the snack-sized bag in front of her.

"Hiding?" Wallace hypothesized. He removed his sandwich from the plastic baggie and laid it out in front of him.

"Something like that," Mac affirmed. "Though hiding is such an ugly word, I prefer questing for some solitude."

"Does that mean Dick got your usual '09'er table in the divorce?" Veronica asked. She ate the last chip from the container and put it back into the blue reusable lunch bag in front of her.

Mac laughed but just shrugged instead of commenting. All evidence had pointed to the fact this version of herself and Dick were definitely dating, or had some type of relationship beyond pseudo friendship, but she still didn't know her Facebook status with Dick. Maybe it was on her MySpace page? They MySpaced back then, right? She opened her soda can and took a big sip.

"Well, we're glad you decided to trade your solitude for wasting the hour with us," Wallace said, then took the first bite of his ham and swiss sandwich.

Then he and Veronica circled back to their earlier conversation. They were filling in the blanks on the Purity test scandal.

"Yes, scandal," Wallace reiterated. "That's the official name for it, handed down by the board of education, according to Mr. Clemmons."

"Scandal makes it sound so ugly," Mac defended. It wasn't a scandal when she did it; it was just a public service to her fellow student—and her car fund, too. This watered down Cindy didn't do it right, evidently. First, you don't delegate something of a delicate nature like this to anyone else; people talk even if money (or blow jobs) were exchanged. There were still gaps in the case, far as Mac could tell but her curiosity would be hard to explain. She was never one to really care about gossip, oh she heard it, but it was never something she catalogued for personal use, in particular all the stories that revolved around Veronica.

"So, part of your job as clerical aid is Mr. Clemmons' sounding board?"

"Hey, he likes me, what can I say? I'm a polite, upstanding citizen, that's a direct quote," Wallace said, sticking his tongue out at Veronica. She returned the favor, wadding up her napkin and throwing at him.

"I know you, remember?"

"Okay, I'll amend that, around Mr. Clemmons I'm nothing if not a polite, upstanding member of the Neptune High student body."

"And when you're not at school you have the innate ability to piss off the wrong people," Veronica added, smiling triumphantly at Wallace. Mac remembered that Veronica and Wallace had first become friends when she untaped him from the flag pole after he'd narc'ed on the PCH'ers after they stole beer from the Sac & Pack convenience store while he was on duty.

"Yup!" he agreed. "It's talent."

"Or a dual personality, I'm not sure which," Veronica retorted, tapping a finger on her chin as though in deep thought. Then she reached into her lunch bag, grabbing the butterscotch pudding cup and a spoon. She opened the container and took a big bite.

"Dual personality, definitely," Wallace agreed over another bite of his sandwich. "Guess which of my personalities likes you?"

"Both of them," Veronica retorted confidently.

Mac ate her salad as she listened to the easy back and forth between Veronica and Wallace.

Truthfully she was surprised at how easy they'd "adopted" her in this dimension, with the whole '09'er status hanging over her. Maybe it only existed in her mind. There was a divide in Neptune, that was a solid fact, but maybe she didn't wear a red neon sign. Of course, for a card-carrying member of the have-not's club, Veronica had been—once upon a time—very comfortable in the posh country club lifestyle of the town's plentiful haves, maybe that allowed her to overlook that new status in this alternate life style.

After yesterday's run in with Cassidy, Mac softened a little bit on her desire to stay away from Dick. For one thing she had the distinction of being the only one who knew how close he was lingering on the cliff of losing his entire family. He had a toe over the edge and didn't have a clue he was about to fall over. It was not knowledge she liked having—she felt like a time-warped version of Atlas, the weight of two different dimensions firmly on her bony shoulders.

The gray edges of a not yet fully formed plan were starting to take shape in her mind; maybe she could save Cassidy and therefore her classmates. She assumed that the damage had already been done to Veronica—though she didn't know if the circumstances had changed dimension to dimension or not, however. That was a realization that hurt badly, she could only hope that this Madison—herself—had played no role in things. She wanted to believe there wasn't a dimension that existed where she'd be a party to hurting her friend so deeply, accidently or otherwise. Regardless, she just hoped she could get help for Cassidy. If she could get through to Dick, that is.

There were a whole lot of hypotheticals in that pseudo plan.

In homeroom, earlier that morning, she had thawed out her cold shoulder treatment of Dick, so it was merely a lukewarm shoulder. However, it was his turn to barely acknowledge her. She had no right to be upset with his avoidance techniques after all the ducking she'd done to him, but it stung a little sharper than she'd have thought—more than she wanted it to, if she were honest with herself.

They'd exchange a brief nod as he'd come through the door just after final bell, and then he did a quick check in on how she was feeling- Presumably he had noticed her quick sprint to the bathroom after seventh period the previous day. Then once the obligatory status check was done, he went back to pretending she wasn't there.

He took the seat Mrs. Murphy had evidently had on reserve special for him and made another cocky joke about her having a thing for him. It definitely lent a whole first-day-in-an-infinite-loop air to things. When homeroom was over they both walked to their first class in close proximity, she was just a few feet in front of him but he didn't even attempt to engage her.

It was…weird.

Now at lunch he was holding court at his usual table—in this life, and the old one, too—saying something that had Logan laughing loudly. It was undoubtedly inappropriate. A side-eyed glance at Veronica proved what Mac had suspected, she was trying to be covert in her tracking of Logan's movements. If they were following the same timeline in this dimension, there was chemistry apparent between Veronica and her favorite obligatory psychotic jackass, but nothing had yet been done to resolve it—or kick it up several notches.

She and Dick had made eye contact periodically, but other than the brief eye-meets he didn't give any indication that he was aware of her presence. She wished she had a hardcopy of his rule book. She took a bite of her salad and let her mind loop around to his parting shot the day before, his cock-sure affirmation about her not carrying a grudge forever. She wasn't sure the what or why of the grudge, it happened before the soul-exchange, but he evidently seemed to think if he backed off a bit she'd step forward.

Asshole.

"Did you get chapters twenty through twenty-three read in Catcher in the Rye?" Wallace was asking.

At Mac's blank stare in his direction, Wallace snapped his fingers in her face and repeated the question.

"Yes," she lied. She hadn't actually read them but being her second favorite book of all-time it was fresh enough she could engage in an intelligent conversation about the motivation and drives of Holden Caulfield. "You?"

"Yes, because books about over-privileged white boys whining about phony people is how I like to spend my time off the court."

"I would have thought the desire to get an A and not have your mom ground you for not applying yourself might be motivation enough for you to spend precious off-court time reading about whiny rich white boys." Veronica countered. "And you," she continued now looking in Mac's direction, "stop eye-fucking Dick. You know, while we're on the whole topic of over-privileged white boys."

"Eye-fucking?" Mac raised her brow.

"I'm sorry, that was indelicate. Stop eye-fornicating."

"Much better, you are a lady after all," Wallace said dryly.

"That's right. You know what they say, Veronica Mars is a…" she paused so her friends could fill in the blanks.

"Lady," Wallace said at the same time Mac replied "marshmallow."

Veronica gave Wallace thumbs up, and then just shook her head at Mac, giving her a rueful look. "I've never been called that in my life, it's like you don't even know me."

"Sorry, I must be thinking of life in another dimension," Mac snarked with an ironic smile. She shrugged, wishing she could remove the teasing tone from her voice as she said it, but again the idea of being strapped down on a table while they studied her brain for future generations lacked a certain appeal. "Although, you know, there's a first for everything."

"True. Maybe we can spread that rumor, I can be kind of gooey, like a marshmallow," Veronica conceded.

"Stop it," Wallace said holding his hand out in front of him like a traffic cop. "Now I'm craving S'mores."

"S'mores? What do you know about those, Fennell?"

"I was a Boy scout back in Chicago," Wallace insisted. He looked over at Veronica's disbelieving expression, "What? It's true."

"I hear ya, Wallace. S'mores, with vegan marshmallows, are my favorite part of camping, probably the only part I like really."

"Camping?" Veronica echoed. She arched a brow in surprise. "You camp? I somehow don't picture you and your family roughing it."

Mac realized her mistake and back peddled a bit.

"By camping, I mean in a roadside motel, that's the definition of camping, right?"

"Text book," Wallace informed, the gleam in his eye explaining that there was an in-joke buried in there somewhere. "If you're from the oh-nines, that is. Us common folk, we prefer our hundred dollar tents with duct tape covering the holes."

"Tents? Duct tape? P'shaw, that's for sissies, the Mars family sleeps under the stars."

"When did you ever do that?"

"Um, second grade, backyard, back when we had a yard to call our own," Veronica clarified; Mac could see the yearning in her expression, hear the wistful tone behind her friend's jokey words. She longed to put her arm around her, maybe squeeze her hand, but it wouldn't be easy to explain away that intimacy which popped up in a longtime friendship, of having been there during that tumultuous time in Veronica's life. The camping remark had just proven to her why she needed to be on guard at all times in this life.

Despite Veronica's earlier accusation about her exchanging eye-fornicating glances with Dick, Mac noticed that he seemed to go out of his way to not look at her, or rather not get caught doing it. She'd glance up periodically from whatever discussion she was actively participating in with Veronica and Wallace, and notice Dick tracking her movements, their eyes would meet for the briefest of time, and then he'd look away first. If she said she understood him any better in the real world though it would be a lie, she didn't understand him in any dimension.

All too soon the bell rang signaling the end to the jokey, easy conversation with Wallace and Veronica. Mac gathered up her trash, threw it out in the proper receptacles and headed off to her Trig class.

She had just settled into a chair in the first row, center, and dug out her textbook in preparation of listening to Mr. Meyer's spend a full hour discussing Lissajous curves verses Spirographs, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She whipped around. The tapper was a guy she thought only looked vaguely familiar.

"You're back! I didn't know if you'd be here today or still at home recovering. You look good, Madi. Sorry I didn't call over the weekend, we were still at the cabin. Dick text me Friday night to tell me what happened, but I didn't get it until we were on our way back home. Spotty cell reception in the Sierra's," the lanky guy with longish, curly dark hair said in an embarrassed rush. "You know how it is."

No, not really, she thought but didn't voice. Instead she automatically replied, "it's okay..." Her voice trailed at the end as she realized she didn't have a name to use.

The nickname implied they were closer than just two people in the same math class. She didn't have any idea who her friends were in this realm, so it occurred to her this might be someone she hung out with, maybe someone who was friends with her and Dick. Those damn '09'er cliques, they seemed to be an inbred (so to speak) bunch.

The guy, her friend Mac supposed, quizzed her a little bit more about her cheerleading accident, and razzed her a bit more about that lifestyle choice as well. It was strange hearing the intimacy, for lack of a better word, in his tone, and still not know his name.

That mystery was solved five minutes into class though when Mr. Meyers took attendance and the guy-in-question raised his hand in response to the name Jackson Douglas. She wondered when and how she and Jackson became friends.

When math was over her new old friend Jackson walked her to her next class, as his was right across the hall from her English class. He told her a couple stories about his trip and she found herself laughing quite a bit. Most pages of her new script were confusing, but this was actually one place where she seemed to know her expected lines instinctively. They parted in front of Mrs. Murphy's door, Jackson promising to call that night after her class.

Mac walked in and saw that Dick hadn't arrived yet. She hadn't seen him since lunch time when they both spent most of the time sneaking glances at each other and not get called out.

It was game they both lost, or it was a game they both won. Mac really wasn't sure which.

By the time he arrived, less than a minute prior to the bell, there were two seats left; one next to Mac and another on the opposite end of the classroom. She watched as he gave her a brief smile and nod in acknowledgement—which was more than she had gotten at lunch—and then took the seat on the other side.

Instead of listening to Mrs. Murphy further delve into the themes of alienation in Catcher in the Rye, Mac tried to make sense of the fact that Dick was barely aware of her today, whereas the day before he was her shadow. Had he perhaps had his own pod person experience? She didn't want to waste all that thinking time on Dick, of all people, but his 180 degree turnaround was odd even for him, and he pretty much redefined the word odd on a normal day.

At long last, the final bell rang signaling the end of the school day. Mac didn't stick around long enough for Dick to ignore her again. For one thing she didn't want another run in with Cassidy, but she also had to get home to get ready for the class she taught at the Senior Center. Jackson had inadvertently reminded her of that gig. It was weird imagining herself teaching, but she supposed it was well-placed within her skill set.

The class went smoothly. Once Mac was up there talking about the one subject she knew in, out, and upside down she forgot about the strange time loop she'd been sucked into. She forgot about Dick and their probable relationship, she forgot about the mysteries of this new life and the pain of her old one. She got lost into the black and white absolutism of binary code, basic command functionality. Though most of her students were older than her Grandma Franklin they seemed to enjoy learning about computers and weren't shy about asking questions, though most of the questions were pretty much identical except for the way in which they were asked. Mac was surprised to find out she wasn't annoyed by that in the least, she actually spent the entire hour and fifteen minutes of class time without rolling her eyes once, she suspected that might have been a record.

Back at home—well, the Sinclair's—(would it ever feel like home?) she sat at one of the computers at the newly expanded desk 'Dad1' had been contracted to build and started outlining her paper for her Future Hackers of America class. She didn't have a large sample size to build from, but she was able to draw out a couple topics she'd covered in class, she was confident she'd be able to come up with enough to fill the five page report (double spaced) that Mr. Matthews wanted in less than forty-eight hours.

True to his word, Jackson called to check in. They chatted for a couple minutes before Mac begged off. No one else called or text her though. She tried to convince herself it was just habit that had her checking the dead-air radio silence cell phone, nothing more than that.

****/*****

The next morning, Mac was just tucking into a bowl of the organic vegan cereal Lucille always had waiting for her on the table in the breakfast nook, when 'Mom2'/Ellen came over, holding a cup of coffee. She laid a kiss on Mac's head, and then plopped down in the chair across from her.

"Morning Madi. How'd you sleep, dear?"

"Good," Mac said, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. "Thanks."

"I made an appointment for you at 2:00 with Dr. Stephenson to remove your stitches. I thought I'd drop you off at school this morning, then maybe I could pick you up after fourth period and we could go to the club for lunch. Does that work? You don't have a test or anything in the afternoon, do you?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Well, if you do we can get it excused," Ellen said dismissively, taking a sip of her coffee.

Mac made a face and lightly brushed the tender area around her cut. "Can't we just leave them in until they fall out? Isn't it going to hurt?" She took one last bite of her cereal and pushed it away, slightly nauseated at the idea of getting them removed, especially at the idea of being in more pain.

"No, and no," she said confidently. "It's much worse getting stitches than having them removed, dear."

"I don't remember it hurting when I got them," Mac smirked.

"Imagine that. You were unconscious when they brought you in. Dick said you were conscious for a little bit right after the accident, and then passed out again until after they stitched you up in the ER."

"Dick?"

"Remember, I told you he called a few times over the weekend. He mentioned that to me in passing," Ellen explained. Then she paused, took a deep breath, and then said tentatively, "is there something you want to talk about? Maybe over a veggie melt…" She reached across the glass topped table to pat her hand reassuringly.

"No, nothing to talk about, though a veggie melt does sound good."

"Excellent! I'll write a note and when you're done with breakfast I'll drop you off. I'm excited, Madi, we haven't had a mother/daughter day in ages." She gave Mac another pat and then took her hand back.

Ellen dropped her off in front of the main entrance. Mac remembered freshman year when she got into a fight with a girl on the bus through no fault of her own; she didn't throw the first punch, but she sure as hell threw the last one.

Her mom—Natalie—took her to school every day for a month; convinced the bus was a dangerous place. Finally, Sam ('Dad1') put his big, size 12, foot down and insisted Mac go back to riding the bus, Mackenzie's weren't going to let some punk ass chicken shit girl keep her from riding the bus. Her dad rarely cussed so that had made an impression on her as she heard them arguing in the kitchen, thinking she couldn't hear them over the din of the TV. She'd heard every word. Usually her mom (Natalie) was the final decision maker, but in that instance Sam won the round, and the war, too. The very next day she was back on the bus, and the girl who threw the first punch stayed far away from her.

Mac wasn't entirely sure why that memory came back to her, but ever since the previous Friday things from her Mac-life, little memories she hadn't thought of in ages, would come back to her in flashes. She supposed that was side-effect of this cosmic re-do.

She entered the building and went straight to her locker before heading to Mrs. Murphy's for homeroom. Surprisingly, Dick was already there, standing in front of Kevin Powell's desk, recapping some greatly exaggerated adventure from the night before. His eyes tracked her as she headed for a desk in the back.

Mac took a seat, and then grabbed her purple backpack and dug through it until her hand connected with her battered copy of Catcher in the Rye. She pulled it out and flipped to chapter 24. As she skimmed it to refresh her memory about Holden's conversation and coffee with Mr. Antolini she would periodically raise her gaze over the book to scan the room. Again, courting denial as usual, Mac told herself she was just staying aware of her surroundings, a good habit regardless of the situation. Dick had just plopped down in the empty seat next to Kevin.

Then homeroom commenced. Three days into her junior year redux, and seeing Meg Manning giving the morning announcements on the internal closed caption TV wasn't getting any easier. Mac was fairly certain she'd never get used to it, and if she did maybe that wouldn't be a good sign, as though maybe fate were setting things up for her to go "riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall," to quote JD Salinger.

At last the bell rang and Mac headed out of homeroom and into the herd of students heading towards their first period. Dick had stayed behind talking with Kevin and the friend of rodent boy, for some reason Mac hadn't bothered with trying to ascertain. She was almost at the door to her computer science—aka Future Hackers of America class—when she heard her name being called. She turned around and saw Dick.

"Yeah?"

"Nice greeting, Madi," Dick snarked. "Your lessons at the Martha Stewart Finishing School are really paying off."

"Sorry," Mac muttered automatically, though she didn't feel as contrite as the situation probably warranted.

"I was just wondering if you were still digging into that grudge, and obviously the answer is that you are. Look, Mad, I know you're pissed, I fucked up, I do that. It's my thing, and what the hell, without that you'd have nothing to bitch about, so you should be thanking me."

He smirked at the glare the last bit earned him.

"Let's meet after seventh," he continued. "Maybe we can make up in the supply closet." He gave her a mocking leer, which was an expression she was certain she'd never seen combined before, but he pulled it off in an impressive way. He maneuvered to his left just before Mac's fist could meet the upper part of his arm, so she was left hitting the empty air.

It was on the tip of her tongue to give him a new address to try (hell) but he must have Jedi Mind Tricked her because instead she found herself weakly agreeing to meet, but not for the making up part, she had the wherewithal to remember to add. Maybe it would be a good thing, she could find out what was behind his hot-cold-then lukewarm yo-yo act. What part of his pea-sized brain thought that was a good plan?

Triumphantly, Dick smiled then turned on his heel and walked the other direction, presumably to go to the bathroom since his class was just a couple doors down from hers.

Mac was about to enter her Computer Science class when she remember the one little flaw in that plan.

"Shit, Dr. Stevenson," Mac muttered. She wasn't aware she'd said it aloud though until she noticed the strange glances directed her way. She blushed, and then mentally shrugged it off. She'd probably see him later anyway.

That never happened; neither did her intent to text him. She'd be about to whip out her cell from the murky depths of her bag when the teacher would call on her or something else equally distracting would waylay her.

Mac wasn't surprised in the least when, at noon exactly; her mom was at the office waiting for her. Ellen had an air of punctuality about her.

They exchanged a kiss on the cheek. Ellen was affectionate, but she lacked Natalie's natural exuberance.

On the way to the club Mac filled her in on her day thus far, carefully leaving out all mentions of Dick.

When they arrived at the club, and entered the massive foyer, Mac surveyed the place as covertly as possible. It was as though she was trying to memorize the space, so careful was her perusal. She noticed the light colored wood floors and the green and beige area rugs placed strategically near all doorways, the big rose colored velvet sofas, ornate glass topped coffee tables and the big crystal tear drop light fixture above. The far wall was dominated by a large gray stone fireplace, giving it more of a living room feel.

Mac supposed the "Richie riches" liked to dine in environments which felt like an extension of their McMansions rather than places with chipped Formica and the worn down linoleum of the Neptune Diner where she usually went with Natalie for after-shopping fortification and energy replenishment. In fact, she'd been there so much they'd even put a vegan black bean burger on the menu, special for her.

After being greeted warmly by name, the perky brunette hostess showed them to a table overlooking the first tee. The vast green of the course sloped down from there. Mac watched as an overweight guy in all pink made his first swing of the club, she was too far away to tell where it went, but it looked to her like it veered too far to the right. It seemed to land in a bank of trees.

"…being limited in their vegetarian offerings, I'm sure you're getting your usual veggie melt. Right, dear?" Ellen was saying as she looked over the menu she had likely memorized anyway. There was a pair of half-moon reading glasses perched on her nose.

A few minutes later their waitress came by with the 2 glasses of iced tea Ellen had requested when they first sat down, and to take their food order. She was a certified member of the perky club, too—obviously a prerequisite for employment here.

Mac took a sip of her tea; fortunately it wasn't the sweet variety Natalie drank by the gallon. She watched Ellen take a sip at the same time she did, mirror images of each other, and then they both opened their mouth to say something simultaneously. "Jinx," they both said, again at the same time.

Ellen cleared her throat and tried again. "Is everything okay with you, Madi? I mean," she sighed, "really. I don't want them to kick you out of the teen club or anything, but dear, you can talk to me if something is bothering you."

Mac just cocked her head. Did she smell different or something? Did she just steal a page from the cat's playbook by sensing that she wasn't the same Madi they raised? That somehow, some way, a substitution had been made mid-game?

"You just have been quieter than usual the past few days, and I mean beyond just the fact your head hurts and the pain pills make you sleepy. In fact, I noticed you were more subdued since before your accident," Ellen went on to clarify, she clinched her eyes shut briefly when she said the word accident, as though blinking back the memories that stirred up.

"I'm fine," Mac began automatically, but then the arrival of food interrupted her reassurances.

The perky California blonde waitress placed her veggie and soy cheese melt sandwich in front of her, and then handed off Ellen's own chicken and avocado melt. Conversation reached a lull as they ate their sandwiches and polished off the fries (from a dedicated fryer—Mac checked). However, the talking commenced again after they both had full bellies.

As though unpausing a tape recorder, she seemed to remember the exact spot where the conversation had last stalled. Dick's name came up again despite Mac insisting he had nothing to do with her "strange" behavior the past several days. Ellen didn't believe her, as evidenced by the raised eyebrow and head shake.

She sighed in resignation. "So how is Dick holding up these days?"

Mac cocked her head in confusion and furrowed her brow. That wasn't a question that was asked in 2004, back when Cassidy was the Beav, his tag-along too-smart baby brother. Dick was just the happy-go-lucky asshole and purveyor of boob jokes and sarcastic one-liners.

"I saw Betina out on the courts on Friday, before your, ah…tumble. That woman, she's the most frigid…creature I've ever met. I couldn't imagine looking to her for comfort; I've met statues more nurturing than her." Ellen said.

Mac noticed the hesitation before she said creature, and could tell her prim and proper bio-mom wanted so badly to use the word bitch but bit it back at the last minute. Having met Betina herself, back in the original 2004, Mac agreed totally with that assessment of her personality. It was weird, she felt bad for Cass and his obvious mom issues, and they both had that in common though the specifics of those "mom issues" were quite different. However, Dick dipped in that same gene pool and she never thought a damn thing about how it might have affected him, too. She just never had much of a reason back then to give any thought to him other than a vague reflection on what an ass he was as he called her "Ghostworld," and made fun of her dork-relationship with the "Beav". She would study the hopeful look which would make a quick flash appearance when Dick spoke to Cassidy, and then quickly fade to hurt at his cutting jokes.

"She's preparing to leave town again, which is that woman's MO. So, I know that has to be eating at Dick, just, ah, keep that in mind. I'm not saying let him treat you badly, but just keep in mind his parents keep jerking those boys around, involving them in mind games aimed to hurt each other," 'Mom2' warned. There was empathy in her voice. She looked around the mostly empty room as though making sure none of Betina's minions and admirers were around to hear her disparage their ice queen.

The waitress came by to drop the bill, and Ellen signed it, adding a sizeable tip to the amount that would be charged to their club account.

The wait at Dr. Stevenson's office was only five minutes, but Mac's stomach was knotted up in fear of what she was sure was going to be a painful procedure.

"Madison Sinclair," the nurse, in a Scooby Doo scrub top and black framed glasses, said from the doorway.

Mac reluctantly stood up, feeling like she was off to an execution—hers. She slowly made her way over to her escort to the exam room. 'Mom2' gathered her purse and followed.

She was taken to a nurse's station and her vitals were taken before they were shown to room 5. The nurse said the doctor would be there shortly, and then firmly shut the door behind her. To Mac it sounded like the final clank of an iron door being shut, locking her into a prison cell. Not that she'd ever been in jail—that was more Veronica's area of expertise than hers, but she still had the Alcatraz daydream running through her mind.

A knock sounded on the door and Dr. Stevenson entered the room. He was tall, in excess of six feet from what Mac could tell, with a lanky build and just beginning to thin, dark blond hair. The same nurse that took her vitals was trailing him; she was carrying a supply basket with her.

While the nurse had Mac lie on the table as she set to work cleaning the cut, she heard her mom ('Mom2') and the doctor chatting. She didn't hear everything that was said, but it sounded like they were talking shop. The one thing she did hear was Dr. Stevenson asking her mom to tell her dad to send Ed in, whoever the hell he was, to recalibrate their X-Ray machine.

"Ouch," Mac muttered, she automatically tried to sit up but was stopped by the nurse's hand. Her spying was interrupted by a flash of pain as the nurse squirted some betadine solution on the cut to further clean it.

The stinging quickly subsided. Now clean, the doctor came over and using some instrument, Mac couldn't even see, made quick work of removing the stitches. Other than a slight tug, it was painless. After putting a couple adhesive strips over the still tender wound, Mac was done. She was instructed to remove the strips in five days, and the appointment was finished.

*******/*********/******

That night her parents had a business dinner to attend at Poseidon's Bistro, the four star restaurant in the Neptune Grand.

Lauren had gone to bed shortly after they'd had the vegan eggplant casserole Lucille had set out for their dinner. Mac was a little disappointed, she'd hoped to spend more time with her sister, but Lauren wasn't feeling well so she understood. She also had to finish the paper for her so-called Future Hackers of America class about her teaching experiences. She'd gotten a decent start the previous night, so it wasn't looking to be a major undertaking.

Mac went up about an hour after dinner was done to check on Lauren. She was fast asleep, spread out on her bed, black hair fanning the pillow. Mac listened briefly to her soft snuffling, a noise somewhere trapped between a deep breath and soft snoring. No matter what else happened in this new life, at least she had Lauren. Softly backing out of the room so she wouldn't wake her sister, Mac detoured to her own room to grab her laptop.

After lugging it downstairs, she deposited it on the coffee table in the family room. Before going upstairs to check on Lauren, Mac had thought she'd seen Fritz back in the library, stretched out on his back, snoozing by the fireplace that wasn't even burning. She stopped by the pantry off the mud room and grabbed a small carton of Cat's Pride cat treats—Tuna flavored. Gross, but she figured Fritz would be pleased. He'd been largely avoiding her since their little run in Sunday. She certainly wasn't above trying to bribe him to get into his good graces again.

With the treat box firmly in tow, Mac slowly and carefully trekked her way over to the library. She peaked in and saw Fritzy hadn't even moved one paw since she had caught a quick glimpse of him on her way upstairs to see her sister.

Quietly she made her way towards him. Right before she reached her destination though, he rolled over so he was no longer belly up, but didn't run off. She shook the carton as though telling him she came in peace. He craned his little cat head forward as though in invitation. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Mac shook a couple into her palm and while assailing her nose, she handed the treats out to the cat.

She tried to tamp down her impatience as the cat slowly moved closer to her hand to examine the situation. He finally deigned to take one tuna bite off her palm and was just about to daintily nibble the other one when a loud knock at the door, followed by a peal of the doorbell caused the cat to run the other direction. There went all the progress she'd made in getting Fritz to like her.

Mac slowly walked to the front hall. She looked through one of the curtains lining the narrow windows that flanked both sides of the front door. She couldn't see much about the person on the other side of the door, except a broad male chest in a green shirt. It was a familiar looking, ripply muscled chest. She put the curtain back into position and getting up on her tip-toes she flexed up so she could see out the peek-hole. She got a better view of her gentleman caller—the familiar, muscled up chest and shaggy blonde hair belonged to Dick Casablancas.

Biting back a groan, she opened the door, and pasted on a faux-smile. "Dick, I don't recall issuing you an engraved invite, or you know an invitation of any kind." She gritted her teeth.

"Well, I thought we had plans after school, I waited, you were a no-show, so I thought I'd bring this party to you," Dick explained, pushing by her, not waiting to be invited inside.

"I don't recall saying 'come in,'" Mac replied, shutting the door behind him anyway. She leaned up against it. She wasn't about to usher him into the inner sanctum, that would encourage lingering. She still had the report to finish up.

"Well, being I'm not a vampire, though I do bite upon request," he leered, "I don't need to be invited in to enter. It's not like I haven't been here before, Madi." He stood right in front of her.

"That doesn't mean you had a blanket invite."

"Oh, I've heard plenty of blanket-invites come outta your mouth," Dick rejoined, adding emphasis to the word blanket, making his wordplay obvious. Subtlety wasn't in his nature.

Mac rolled her eyes; it seemed to be her default setting whenever he was around. "So, the point of you dropping by is…? I know you weren't just in the neighborhood."

"Well, being I live in the neighborhood, I was actually just in the neighborhood. You're right though; my point for this little excursion is to explain myself since you seem so hell bent on making me miserable, Madi."

"I'm not the one being a stalker one day, and acting like a complete stranger the next, Dick." Mac hit the "k" hard, practically spitting it out.

"No, you were the one being cold and frigid the entire time, nothing but consistent there. I fucked up, but I don't want to just leave it to linger between us. We're so not done, Madi." Dick's tone got a little plaintive at the end.

"Don't I get a say in that?"

Dick laughed; it had a harsh bite to it. "Depends on what you have to say. So, where were you this afternoon? You were a no-show in class. I figured you were ditching class…Ditching me."

"Appointment to get my stitches removed. I forgot about it this morning, until mom came by to get me before lunch."

"Oh," Dick said. His face got soft for a moment, concerned. "You okay?" He leaned in a little closer to where Mac was still leaning against the door. He smoothed back a strand of her hair, so he could get a better look at the cut.

"It didn't hurt. Evidently, I'll live."

"You only, basically, scared the shit out of me Friday, Mad. I was coming by to watch you practice, and um, talk to you about Thursday, and I saw you falling head first off the pyramid. I couldn't unsee that, believe I've tried."

"You were there?"

"Your blood is still on my favorite tee shirt. Marie has washed it five times so far, there's still a brown stain in the middle of where it says 'Master Debater,'" Dick said. "I kind of like it," he added as an afterthought.

She vaguely remembered someone leaning over her, speaking softly in a reassuring tone, but she'd been so scared in that freeze-frame moment in time that she hadn't known who her nurse was. She hadn't known anything in that space except that she was on the ground, in an unfamiliar place, knowing nothing but the pain that threatened to overtake her. She'd soon blacked out, only to wake up again in the hospital once again inhabiting her seventeen year old body.

"You're welcome, glad I could help improve the aesthetic of your shirt, always happy to help." Mac went with snark, yet another of her factory default settings, "Anything for a friend."

"Friend?" Dick said, his tone indicating that he took umbrage to that word choice.

"Well, yeah."

"So, we took a step back then?" Dick asked. He backed up a little, his movements accentuating his words. "Look, I do love you, I just got freaked when you said it first, and well, yeah then Friday happened. That actually might be what convinced me I might love you, too."

Mac's eyes got wide, her heart dropped. She didn't know what the tension that popped up between her and Dick in this bizzaro world was, but she hadn't seen the neon sign saying they'd been in a serious relationship. "Love!?" she couldn't keep the incredulous tone from snaking around the word.

"You don't love me then?" Dick's expression reminded her of child finding out for the first time that there wasn't really an Easter bunny, fantasies shattering, cold hard reality setting in.

She felt guilty, like she was leading him on, which was an unfair accusation to cast upon herself. She decided to go with honestly, to a degree.

"Look Dick, I'm not the same person I was then," he had no clue the truth in that sentence.

He didn't look convinced, however.

"Obviously, we both have things to work through, if you freaked at a tiny four letter word," she pushed on.

"Not that tiny," he argued.

"Let's just rewind to before that conversation, and see what happens."

"Take it slow? Will you still suck me off, at least?" Dick looked lost, like a tourist without a map.

Mac just glared at him.

"I'll return the favor, of course," he said to sweeten the deal a little bit. Dick sighed, and then bit his bottom lip. He kicked the edge of the rug he was standing on. "Alright," he said at long last. "If it keeps us together, I'll let you define us. It's not any different than it always is with us."

"What does that mean?"

"It means exactly what I said it did, Madi. We always follow your lead."

"You don't want to follow me this time?"

"No, that's not what I said," Dick said irritably. "You have a cute ass; I'd follow that ass almost anywhere. I just wanted it on record, you've never been the beta in our relationship—you're one alpha chick, the Queen Bee. However, I have one more thing for you to think about as you try to decide how to classify me, because I know you've got to catalog every-fucking-thing."

Instead of making a verbal argument though, his topic for her consideration was more demonstrative in nature.

Dick moved in toward Mac, who hadn't moved from her spot up against the door. He placed his hand gently under her chin to guide her head up just a bit, then happy with that angle, he moved his hand so it cupped her butt, and he leaned his head down, their lips meeting.

Mac's left-ruled brain called out to push him away, but her hands refused that request. Instead, she drew him closer, opening her mouth to his probing tongue. One hand went north, tangling his hair, pushing him deeper into her, the other went south, cupping his surfer butt. His tongue explored the terrain, while his hands found her breasts. A moan built up and leaked out at his touch. She arched her head back against the door. It had been too achingly long since she'd been kissed, even longer since she'd been kissed that deeply. That tingly feeling was back, and it was vibrating stronger than it had on Monday when she responded to his heat filled look in Mrs. Murphy's homeroom. She'd dismissed that as just emotional transference from being thrust into this new world, but this, this was something else entirely. What though, she didn't have a clue, but in this atom of time it didn't matter.

Dick drew back suddenly and Mac felt bereft. "What the hell?" she bit out.

"It occurred to me that mommy and daddy Sinclair might not enjoy catching me playing tonsil hockey in their hallway."

Mac was confused and it showed on her face.

"Garage door," Dick explained, pointing in the general direction of the mud room. It was only in that moment she heard the low far-off mechanical rumble.

Dick took an index finger, tracing her kiss-swollen lips and gently moved her over so he could leave the same way he'd come. He said good-bye, and left. Mac shut the door, and then leaned against it. Her lips were still reliving the kiss.

… TBC

Chapter Text

Chapter 8—Girlfriend in a Coma

Dick's POV

June 6 th , 2009—Neptune Memorial Hospital, 3 rd floor ICU waiting room.

The newer, nicer blue chairs of this waiting room weren't any softer on Dick's butt, at least not after waiting two hours for another, hopefully more detailed, update on Mac's condition. Fortunately, though, this time he had Logan there to keep him company. It softened things, a little bit at least.

Mrs. Mac was getting restless, but leaving the area wasn't an option in her mind—or his either. No, he was in this for the long haul, the hell of it was that he didn't have a frakking clue how long, well long was going be!

Dick watched her frequently get up to pace, or to inquire at the nurses' station, or to go over to the large bank of windows on the far wall that overlooked the roof of the Emergency Room wing below. Sam seemed content to follow in his wife's footsteps, as though he couldn't bear for her to be out of his sight. Ryan was pretending to be interested in an old copy of Wired magazine. A title he was no doubt familiar with being that he was the younger sibling of a computer hacker. Mac had probably subscribed to that magazine since her elementary days; Dick figured while he was reading Ranger Rick she had probably taught herself C++.

Logan nudged him out of his reverie.

"What dude?"

"I'm going to get some more coffee. Want anything?"

"Sure. A Venti, black of their strongest shit. Thanks." He stopped himself from ordering a Venti soy chai latte, as well. It was Mac's go-to order, and one he'd placed on her behalf more than a few times. The wrongness of being here, drinking a cup of coffee while she was there, not enjoying anything, swept over him.

"Venti, black, shit, got it," Logan repeated. "No problem." He worked his way down the row, getting Mac's family's drink orders as well.

Dick estimated that it was his third trip to the lobby coffee kiosk, but it kept Logan busy and he, himself, heavily caffeinated—so, win-win. Whatever the hell got them through today was all that mattered. Pacing worked for Mrs. Mac, reading dumb magazines helped Ryan, getting coffee was Logan's mission, Dick, on the other hand, still hadn't found anything to keep himself focused. He tried a little of everything, but his brain was so overloaded he felt like a toddler that couldn't decide which toy to play with. He supposed some people (Mac!) might say he was toddler-esque on "normal" days, and today was certainly anything but that. The three gallons of coffee in a span of one hundred twenty minutes probably wasn't helping his cause either.

Last they'd heard, Mac was being settled into a room in the ICU, then the team of doctors would review her test results, agree on a plan of action, and only then would they update the family again.

How the fuck long did that take?

Mrs. Mac was now wearing a blue plastic ID bracelet on her left wrist. It was part of a new program Neptune Memorial's ICU had implemented that appointed one family member as "point person," they had 24 hour visiting privileges, meaning they had the right to come and go outside of visiting hours, and were even able to spend the night in the patient's room. Mrs. Mac—Nat!—had elected herself before anyone else in her family had the chance.

Mrs. Mac, it still felt weird calling her Nat, was restless waiting for her turn to see her baby. He figured that was probably why she was wearing down the carpet in the waiting area.

No one had been allowed in yet, including her, which just made things worse in Dick's mind. He tried to picture what she'd look like after enduring all the poking and prodding the last several hours. He figured tubes and shit would be sticking out of her in all kinds of weird places.

Imagining things always made it worse somehow.

After Cassidy jumped, he'd had a lot of images that seared inside him, ripping, tearing and scarring. Paramedics had scooped Cass's body into a black body bag and no one outside those members of the death squad had ever seen the highly damaged remains of his brother. Dick just didn't see how the reality could have been worse than the soupy, pulpy aftereffect he couldn't scrub out of the dark recesses of his twisty imaginings. Alcohol wasn't a powerful enough cleaning agent for that job.

The scent of fresh coffee wafted over to him as Logan came back with a cardboard tray filled with takeout cups.

He sent an eviction notice to those images in his head of Mac on a bed a few thousand feet away from him, connected to tubes—he much preferred remembering her the way she was that morning, before the accident even happened. The sun catching her highlights, her standard issue smirk she wore just for him, and that very brief flicker of happiness that seeing him would induce, until, of course, she had the chance to shut that operation down.

Yeah, he totally noticed.

Dick grabbed the hot coffee from Logan's outstretched hand, taking care to grab it on the paper sleeve so the heat wouldn't seep into his finger tips. He murmured his thanks and took a big sip. It burned the roof of his mouth, but he barely paid attention. As he drank it, the caffeine percolated through his body. The act itself of drinking the coffee gave him a way to occupy his hands, something to do in this empty space of waiting, this purgatory they were all dwelling in.

Mrs. Mac—Nat's—phone seemed to be straining under the weight of all the call volume of well-wishers just now hearing about Mac's accident. The majority were extended family members who cared, but had to do so from a distance. Dick had overheard Nat talking to Keith Mars—Veronica's dad. He was a good dude, though he knew Keith (he'd always think of as Sheriff Mars) and Logan hadn't always been the best of friends. That was a common side-effect of dating someone's daughter.

There was one strange call that had especially caught his attention. It had come through approximately fifteen minutes after they'd moved into this new waiting area, Nat had listened to whatever the mystery caller was saying, and then muttered to hang on, she had to find a more secluded spot. Dick watched as Mr. Mac leaned in closer to his wife so he could hear both sides of the conversation, too. That wasn't actually the part he thought was odd, it was more the hyper aware way Mr. and Mrs. Mac kept sneaking looks at Ryan as they sat on the uncomfy chairs listening to the mystery caller.

Finally Nat got up, phone in hand, Mr. Mac trailing behind her like a really bad stalker. Dick watched them retreat around the corner, out of viewing range. They came back about five minutes later, Nat wiping her eyes with the hand that wasn't clutching her husband's. They sat back down in the same chairs. Ryan looked up briefly from his magazine and asked his mom who that was she'd been talking to. She muttered something about Aunt Linda or whatever, but she refused to look at Ryan when she said that.

The thing about that exchange that terrified Dick was what if the Mac's knew more about "Cindy's" condition than they were letting on.

Logan was still handing out the cups of coffee from his last run downstairs. Dick watched him hand off an extra big cup to Nat, who was back to standing by the window, looking down on the roof. She smiled at him and accepted it gratefully, walking back to the bank of chairs. She leaned over Sam to see what magazine had Ryan occupied—another back issue of Wired.

Dick continued to drink his coffee and watch the people around him, not just their group of purgatory dwellers but the old woman across the room knitting, or the man three seats away from their group dressed like a banker in his gray suit and horn rimmed glasses, clutching his cell phone like a lifeline.

He didn't even try to figure out why they were spending this hellish hot Tuesday in the stifling air conditioned room, it was obviously for the same underlying reason he and the Mackenzies were, someone they cared for was too close on that precipice between living and dying. Mac would've been sympathetically listening to other peoples' tales of woe, sharing hers, too. For someone who embraced the misanthropic label like a badge, Mac spent an awful lot of time showing how much she cared about others'.

A doctor, dressed in a similar set of blue scrub "pajamas" as the one in the ER, walked into the waiting area, lingering at the doorway. All conversation stalled out, everyone looking up at him as if following cue cards.

"Family of Cindy Mackenzie," the guy said in a loud, deep voice that seemed at war with his lanky build. He was a different member of Mac's team of doctors. He saw the family and friends of other ICU patients visibly deflate, they would be lingering longer in their states of doubt.

"That's," Mr. Mac started to say, then cleared his throat before continuing, "um us. I'm her dad." He stood up, clutching Nat's hand, pulling her to her feet in one swift movement. They seemed to move in tandem over to the doctor, Ryan just behind them.

Dick got up out of his chair forcing his feet to obey the order his brain (his Motherboard as Mac would call it ) handed down. Logan got up to join their group, too. They all congregated by the doctor, who was still framed in the doorway.

"I'm Dr. Pence, another member of your daughter's team. My specialty is trauma and plastic surgery. I'm just going to speak freely, if that's okay."

Nat nodded, but the doctor ploughed through not really stopping for anyone to say anything.

"She regained consciousness briefly, but she's unconscious once again. The scans show two areas of bleeding. One is from the primary spot of impact; her skull is also fractured in the location that the baseball struck her. The secondary area is on the opposite side of her brain. This isn't unusual; her brain was bounced around quite a bit in the aftermath of the impact."

"Fractured," Nat echoed. It was gasp of a thing.

It was a scary thing to think about, a broken head, and a bleeding brain.

"It's a closed fracture though; it's a very serious injury of course, but not as bad as it could've been. Our goal, the next few days, is to stop the bleeding. Surgery may be one option, but. Honestly, I'd like to take a 'wait and see' approach."

"So, you're going to sit there as my daughter wastes away?" It was Sam. Dick saw the anger residing on his face, heard it in the way he bit those words out. "Twiddle your thumbs maybe? Play Sudoku in the break room, and just hope she gets better?"

"Sam!" Mrs. Mac, Nat, said sharply, full of censure. Dick watched her jab her husband in his big belly with her sharp, bony elbow. She didn't appear to be holding back. He winced at the contact, but wouldn't back down. "This is the guy who is taking care of our daughter."

Dick agreed with Mrs. Mac, it didn't seem like a great plan to piss the doctor off. The guy didn't seem pissed though; evidently he was used to angry families, undoubtedly an occupational hazard in his line of work.

"No, nothing like that, I assure you. We will be putting her in a sleep state for the next several days, and we have already started giving her a course of Mannitol, a drug that can often decrease the pressure on her brain. We'll be giving her that via IV for the next several days."

"A coma?" Ryan asked, echoing Dick's own thoughts exactly. "Is that what you mean by a 'sleep state'?"

"Yes, we'll be putting Cindy in a medically induced coma, to assure she remains unconscious. We'll be repeating the scans periodically, monitoring the progress very carefully. We will know in probably 72 hours if this will be successful. In the meantime, there is one other thing to keep in mind…" The doctor's voice trailed off.

Sam took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but Nat beat him to it. "What's that?"

"The next 24 hours are critical. I've seen people in her age group with much more severe injuries make a full recovery, but it's important that you are prepared for all contingencies."

"Cindy could die?" Ryan asked, or maybe just flatly replied, Dick wasn't really sure what all his tone carried. Nat let go of her hand-breaking grip on Mr. Mac and drew her son into her arms, hugging him fiercely. Dick had no clue if she was giving or taking comfort, he rather suspected it was both in equal measure. She whispered something in Ryan's ear.

Neither Dick nor Logan said anything during the whole exchange, though he knew the conversation was now seared into the recesses of his memory. It was enough that he was allowed to listen in. He didn't think Mrs. Mac would want to repeat any part of that conversation, especially not any more than the 500 times she would have to anyway for the requisite daughter-in-a-coma phone chain. Her phone would probably spontaneously combust!

"The other doctor said something about being able to see her," Mr. Mac was saying.

"Yes, she can have visitors. Like I mentioned, Cindy isn't conscious right now, but studies have shown that coma patients have some base awareness of their surroundings. Talk to her like she's awake, talk to her like you expect a response. Visits have to be limited though, no more than ten minutes, and only one person at a time." Dr. Pence explained. Then, seeing Mrs. Mac's bracelet, he directed the last bit to her, he continued. "You can come and go outside of visiting hours, and a nurse can bring you a blanket if you want to sleep in the chair by her bed."

"Can I see her now?" Mrs. Mac/Nat asked immediately.

"I'll have a nurse come get you; it'll be about ten minutes."

"Thanks Dr. Pence," Nat replied, her tone flat, her eyes wet.

Those ten minutes turned into thirty and Mac's mom was still waiting.

She looked terrified when the nurse finally came to escort her back to the bowels of the ICU. It was about to get real for her, real quick. Dick saw her gripping Mr. Mac's arm like he was the only one who could prevent her from drowning. Her big green eyes were still shiny with those unshed tears. Maybe she didn't want to be crying in front of Mac, just in case…Or maybe she thought once she started they wouldn't stop. He was a little too intimately acquainted with that concept.

Dick watched her follow the nurse through the obstacle course of blue chairs lining the waiting room, and then out into the hall of the ICU until they disappeared.

Logan was still occasionally sipping from his now-cold coffee, the fingers gripping the cup tapping out a rhythm—he was trying to send up an SOS.

"This is a fucking waste of time," Ryan yelled, after his mom had been gone less than four minutes. He threw the Wired magazine down, Dick half-expected to see him stomp on it. It had all the markings of what could end up being an impressive temper tantrum.

Mr. Mac turned to his son, pulled him in and hugged him. No censure for his language or anything, instead he seemed to whisper his agreement.

Dick admitted to himself that he agreed with the kid, he was feeling pretty damn useless himself. He was sorely lacking in the medical degree department. His dad had always been the type to go do something, anything, fill every second of awake time rather than sit idly by, after all there was always a big freaking sea of victims to cheat, savings accounts to drain, marks to con, his time meant someone else's hard-earned money. Dick wasn't his dad—by design—but the desire to do something, any-fucking-thing was ingrained. He didn't linger in bed in the morning, not when he could be out on the waves. This sitting here in hell, doing nothing while Mac was chained down by wires, tubes doing who knew what, engaged in the fight of her life—literally—it was pulling at him.

The wait to go in to see her daughter was about five times longer than the actual visit itself. Just over ten minutes later, yes, Dick was counting down to the second; Mrs. Mac came back into the waiting room, deflated, shoulders down, not looking up at anyone. She walked straight to her son, who stood up; he seemed convinced his mom was the bearer of the worst news ever. She engaged him in a fierce, bone crunching hug; Dick was straining to hear the tell-tale cracking sound.

Evidently Mr. Mac shared the same thought his son did, because he went over to his remaining family, and very gently put his big hand under his wife's chin and lifted it up so he could take in the tear trails lining her face like wrinkles.

"She's…stable," Nat managed to get out between the sobs that overtook her once again. Dick revised his earlier theory about her crying herself out. They were replenished by now. "That was not…that girl in there can't be my…baby." Her sentenced ended on a wail.

Her husband pulled her into his big chest, and Ryan hovered patting his mom's back tentatively. Dick was watching from his chair, his ass numb from just sitting the whole day long.

A sharp elbow to the ribs brought him out of his voyeuristic state. Logan was the owner of the bony, pointy elbow.

"What the hell, dude? I'm going to have that thing dulled," Dick hissed in his ear. "Cut that bony thing clean off."

"Let's just give them some time alone, get coffee or something." Logan ignored the threat.

"I've already had enough to stay awake for a week, man. We can go to the cafeteria or something instead, get some dinner we won't eat."

Logan nodded in agreement, and they both turned to leave when Mrs. Mac's voice stopped them, it was still tenuous but was stronger than it had been. "You guys want to see her?"

Dick stopped immediately and whirled around; he figured his face gave all his thoughts away for free. "Sure," he tried to sound casual, but wasn't feeling that way at all. The need to just touch her was overwhelming his circuits. He clearly remembered the 'immediate family only' clause, but who was he to argue, if Mrs. Mac wanted to take on the Nurse Ratchets of Neptune Memorial then that was her prerogative. He was seeing lots of flashes of Mac in her mom, or vice versa really. Her looks, however, must have been a really recessive gene—Mr. Wu would've been proud of him for remembering that term—but the personality, yup, Mac had a lot of her mom in her.

"Okay, why don't you guys grab something to eat while Sam is in there, and then, when you guys get back, I'll sneak all you back there. Logan, Dick, would you guys mind taking Ryan with you?"

Ryan's protest died before it was born once he saw his mom's expression, evidently you didn't argue with Mrs. Mac—her daughter was a proud beneficiary of that trait, too.

"Come on, let's go sample the five star cuisine of the Neptune Café, It takes me back to the blush of my youth, rubber chicken fried steak with limp green beans—good eats," Logan snarked as he rubbed his belly as though in anticipation of the institutional meal.

As they walked out of the waiting room, Dick took a quick peek over his shoulder as Sam and Nat continued their embrace. Then, she pulled away, saying something to her husband in the process. He turned back around and jogged a little to catch up to Ryan and Logan who were almost at the elevator bank by then. Ryan jabbed the down button.

Nobody said much as they made their way to the café. Dick grabbed a tray and made his side and dessert selections, before stopping at the stir fry station. After choosing his ingredients, he waited for the guy behind the counter to make it in a giant wok. When done, it was nested on a bed of Jasmine rice then handed across the station to his outstretched hand. It smelled delicious, though Dick knew he'd end up wasting more than half of it.

His stomach was this hardened rock of a place now, didn't think he'd be able to squeeze much in the way of food in there. It started getting all gravelly from the second the baseball connected with Mac's head, and only progressed as the interminable waiting period climbed higher and higher. He squinched his eyes shut too many times to count that day, he kept seeing the accident over and over again, his own personal hell of a Groundhog Day. He wished, fervently, he could unsee the whole chain of events; sadly it didn't work that way.

Dick turned around and saw both of his dinner companions waiting in the hot entrée section of the massive cafeteria. Logan selected the meatloaf platter. Ryan had found a sandwich. They all made their way through the line, paying and, by tacit agreement, they selected a table at the back by the bank of windows looking over the parking lot.

The first few minutes, after they sat down, were spent in silence as they picked at their chosen meals, then once they started talking, conversation was a stilted affair full of starts and stops and empty words. Finally, though after what was most likely only ten minutes but felt simultaneously shorter and longer than that, Logan brought up the time he hooked Mac into doing his business class homework for him freshman year at Hearst.

He made several pointed digs at Dick while still keeping the focus mainly on Mac.

Dick smiled as he listened, a real one, and only his second genuine one of the day, the first one of course being when he'd spotted Mac on the bleachers right before her accident. There was a common denominator there—Mac.

He traveled back in time to the day Logan was recapping. He'd wanted to stay and lend his "posterior expertise" to the website—grade my ass dot net—but Mac had made it clear, his business acumen was not appreciated. He'd ended that evening at a party, talking to a washed-up has-been of a rock star who had reached the level of man-whoredom he could only dream of.

Ryan was laughing at Logan's characterization of his sister and her computer wizardry.

Dick was grateful that Logan skipped the whole Max subscript to that tale. He'd never liked that dweeby punk, but it took a long time to realize his simmering dislike was more green-tinged than anything else.

Max and Mac's relationship had been on the brink of implosion sophomore year when she had finally started tolerating being around Dick for more than five minute increments. Veronica had run off to Stanford by then, entertaining unrealistic fantasies of living a normal life after her Neptunian upbringing.

Next, Ryan launched into a couple stories about Mac when she was in high school, in particular the time she got into a fight on the bus. Some bitch named Hadley something—Dick couldn't even remember her—had been picking on Mac the whole year, and finally sick of it, she had tried to call her bluff. The plan had backfired, though, and she'd ended up with a black eye out of the deal, and a new nickname, Scrappy Doo, after she hit Hadley back even harder, almost breaking her nose in the process.

"Scrappy Doo is the perfect name for your sister," Dick remarked. "I've been on the receiving end of more than a few of her punches. She hits hard, for a chick. In fact, I've got a couple bruises from her."

"I think she likes it better than her other Scooby-Doo inspired nickname," Ryan explained. "We use to watch Scooby Doo together, when I was younger, so I started calling her Velma when she would launch into one of her geek-i-fied lectures."

They all laughed at the accuracy of that new name and launched into more Mac stories, especially ones that supported that nickname. Logan shared Mac's link to the Purity test, which was news to both Dick and Ryan. The senior Mackenzie's had never known the entire story behind their daughter's new ride; they'd believed she'd saved up for it teaching senior citizens how to turn on a computer. Listening to Logan outline how she'd managed to bilk classmates for her car fund (himself included), Dick had to admit he was impressed. He'd always known she smart—much more than he was, but that took it to another level entirely, something more akin to cleverness. Logan and Mac had evidently grown closer than he'd suspected, because Logan explained she'd narc'ed on herself about the purity test. If she had been anyone else though, Dick would have assumed she'd been after the street-cred.

The clock on the far wall caught Dick's eye, the visiting hour window was quickly reaching its endpoint. He pointed out the time and everyone got up to throw out the remains of their picked-over meals.

Quietness stole over the group once again as they rode back up to the 3rd floor. The knowledge that he'd soon be seeing Mac, and she would be too fucking still, smacked him upside the head. He'd be off thinking of something else entirely, then the image of Mac smirking would pop in his mind, and the baseball came out of thin air to erase it.

What if she was never the same again? What if she was…never again…He couldn't even think about the word, let alone the not-so-abstract concept behind it. After Cass died, it had ceased being abstract.

He was giving himself mental whiplash—laughing, joking, being painfully normal then suddenly the winds shifted, and reality slipped its noose around him, strangling him back into this new kind of surreal reality. This was a moment his vodka-ized water bottle was born for.

Mr. Mac was in the waiting room when they got back. He hefted his bulk out of the chair to stand up when they strode over to him.

"Nat is in there now," Sam started, his voice cracking under the strain. "Look, Cindy is unconscious, and there's a big, white gauze bandage around her head, and she's hooked to monitors and an I.V. So just be prepared. This is just a temporary state. My girl is a fighter." The last bit cost him a lot to say, it was obvious.

Mr. Mac herded them back out of the waiting room and out into the sterile, institutionalized hallway. They walked in the opposite direction of the bank of elevators, towards the set of double doors at the end of the hall. The sign above proclaimed ICU in big bold letters. Dick watched him push through with authority. They all followed, no one saying much, just the occasional squeak of their rubber soled shoes on the over-washed gray floors.

Things came alive when they pushed open the doors and arrived on the other side. High pitched beeps from monitors and machines working triple time to keep their patient in the land of the living, nurses and doctors barking out orders to each other at the big center desk, crying from emotionally-drained family members who sneaked into the hall to get away from the people who inspired their tears to begin with.

Mr. Mac led them straight to room 305; Mac's new home for the foreseeable future.

They lingered at the door, Dick peeking in, sneaking glances—the entire front wall was glass so it was easier to fully monitor things. Mr. Mac went over to his wife, whispered something to her and then pointed towards the doorway. Dick saw her get up, making a brief stop-over by the bed and leaned in to kiss Mac's cheek.

Mrs. Mac gave them all a weak smile and bullet-pointed the same stuff her husband had already covered.

Ryan went in first. Dick and Logan, by unspoken agreement—maybe it was mind-meld shit—walked further down the ICU wing so Ryan could have some one-on-one time with his sister.

Dick could feel one of the nurses tracking his movements. He knew he had a nice ass, but somehow didn't think that was the inspiration for this CIA spy mission, it was more of the distrust variety. Damn college kids and their party-harty ways, they might throw a raver in the middle of the hospital! He caught her eye and grinned, watching her tentatively smile back before picking up a file in front of her and suddenly finding it engrossing. Ha, busted!

By the time Logan and Dick circled back to Mac's room, Ryan was already back in the hall chatting with his parents. Mr. Mac waved and indicated he was going back to the waiting room, taking his son with him. Mrs. Mac was just about to say something when the same nurse who had been tracking Dick's movement with suspicion came up to them.

"I'm sorry, but we have a strict policy here of family only," she said, in what seemed like a whiny tone to Dick.

Mrs. Mac opened her mouth to say something in reply—a lie or to argue, Dick wasn't sure which—when a second nurse came up to their group. He hadn't noticed her before, but assumed she had probably been hiding somewhere behind the center desk. She had short cropped black hair with thick platinum highlights, and a quick smile. Something about her put Dick at ease, she almost seemed like an older version of Mac really, somewhat in looks but mostly in her underlying attitude.

"Thanks Marie, I've got this. I already told Cindy's family the rules of the floor. I'll be sure to go over them again though."

"Oh, okay, Tara, I just wanted to make sure you dotted all the "I's"."

"I did, the "T's" are taken care of, too."

The cool nurse—Tara—waited until Nurse Ratchet (Marie) was out of ear shot, then she said, "Policy is for suckers. I don't give a crap who you let in to see Cindy, I figure the more fans she has, the better. I've read all the studies, but more important, I've been working here too long, I've seen it all. For the sake of policy though, just tell me you're the freaking Duggar family and these are all your kids." She used her hands as she spoke, including air quotes when she made the joke about the big-ass reality show family.

"That's right, I have a lot of kids," Mrs. Mac rejoined, playing along. She, too, used air quotes.

"Good, that's settled, I don't need birth certificates. I am a strict enforcer of the five to ten minutes at a time rule, however. I guess I do follow some policies of my employer. I'm also a firm believer in positive thinking only. I love my patients, but I want them here with me for as short of a period as possible. I want them to move on to a private room on another floor, then leave this place forever, leading a happy, healthy life. I have seen a positive attitude work miracles, so save your dark thoughts for the waiting room. Happy shiny stuff only around my patient, got it?"

Yeah, Dick totally liked Nurse Tara, and the more she opened her mouth the more she reminded him of Mac, that quiet rebel bit that pulled something deep inside him.

After the nurse went back to her station to continue to keep an eye on Mac's vitals and presumably run interference with nurse Ratchet should the situation warrant it, Dick nominated himself as her next visitor. Mrs. Mac gave him a pat on the shoulder, and told him she'd keep an eye on the time for him.

He took a deep breath, walked through the threshold of room 305, telling himself he could do this, it wouldn't be that bad, and then he totally froze.

ET. She looked like ET. Mac, his Mac, looked like ET. That was his first thought, and second, and third, wholly-inappropriate, but yeah, it's what went through his mind as he took in the tubes going in and out of her, the I.V. stuck in her right hand, the one electrode they were able to stick on her heavily bandaged and turbaned head. E fucking T—that movie alien from before he was even born. His dad made him and Cassidy watch it when he was maybe all of 6, Cass was barely 5. Big Dick had started "man lessons" on his sensitive younger son practically from the cradle. Truthfully, the cuddly alien freaked the crap out of Dick, but he knew how to hide that fact, Cass did not and that's why he'd worn the red bull's eye on his back from the womb.

He took another breath, counted to ten, then pasted on a smile, because that's what Casablancas' always did. He walked over to Mac's bed, staying on the side with fewer wires. He picked up her non-IV pierced hand and held it.

"Hey, Mac-a-doodle, it's me, Dick. You've got to beat this thing. Stay and fight here, Scrappy Doo. I totally stole that nickname from your brother, by the way. Nice little dude. I really like your family. I'd suggest a trade, but I think you probably want to keep them. I see where you get your 'tude—that's Mrs. Mac all the way." He closed his eyes as he just kept up a running commentary, seeing her like she was this morning, before…yeah, just before. "Logan is out there, I see him pacing the hall. He's a bobcat, that one. He's not so patiently waiting to see you. Yes, I poached another nickname. Oh, Ronnie is on her way down from Stanford. I didn't think we'd ever get Neptune's Prodigal daughter back here again. You have some serious mojo there, Mac. Oh, and I totally used prodigal correctly. It's your influence, and my word of the day calendar, too."

The room was cold; Dick could feel goose bumps rising on his arms. With the hand not tethered to Mac, he took the blanket loosely covering her and tugged it up further over her. He wasn't sure how sensitive she'd be to temperature in her current state, but he didn't like the idea of her being cold. He hoped, and not for the first time, that she was oblivious to the pain of her injuries.

A couple minutes and several inane comments and silly jokes later, Mrs. Mac knocked on the window to let him know time was up. He said goodbye and leaned down to kiss her cheek. Not really the first kiss he'd been dreaming about for—well, longer than he would admit to—but then this wasn't the venue he'd imagined either.

Logan went in next, but he was there for all of three minutes. Dick could just picture him telling her all about the conversation with Ronnie. He didn't need to be a fly on that wall to know what topics of one-sided conversation went on during his visit—make that topic, singular.

One phone call was all it had taken for his BFF to topple head-first back into his Veronica-addiction. He could only guess what tomorrow would bring, when they'd be in the same room.

With that all wrapped up, they went back out to the waiting room where Mrs. Mac talked them into going home for the night. She tapped into her mom-magic, making a case for them needing a good night's sleep because if they were sick themselves they wouldn't be able to visit Mac and she needed their support right now. He kind of thought she needed to follow her own advice, but he knew fuck-all about the proper way to talk to a mom, so he just nodded and said his good-byes to everyone.

Out in the parking lot, Logan suggested they just take his car back to the Grand, leaving Dick's in the hospital parking lot. Soul-weary and exhausted, Dick didn't try to argue, plus the hospital lot hardly seemed like a high crime area.

Fifteen minutes later, he dragged himself, geriatric-style, into the suite, letting the door slam behind him. He made his way to his bedroom, slammed that door as well, and gave into the emotions of the day.

At one point, Logan knocked on his door to check on him. He managed to hit the pause button just long enough to mutter he was okay, thanks, go away. Logan hesitated a little bit, before leaving. Dick could tell from his roommate's footfall. That was the beauty in their friendship, the innate ability they both shared to read the other one, they knew when to heed what was said, and when not to. Right now, Dick couldn't face the idea of being around anyone else. He cried for himself, for Mac, most of all for Cassidy, and what was what could have been, and what would never be. The tears fell faster and harder when he realized there was a chance Mac could lose her fight, too.

When the tears had dried up, he grabbed his backpack, digging around until he found the vodka-ized water bottle. He made quick work of it. It did its duty—finally—and he fell into a deep sleep.

He woke up to the sun invading the small crack in his curtains and a pick-ax of a hangover headache burrowing itself deep into the recesses of his head. He'd mentally whine about the pain, but it didn't take long for images of Mac getting hit by a baseball to flash through his memory bank. It put things in enough perspective that he barely gave his own throbby ache another thought. He creakily got out of bed and slowly trekked his way into the en-suite bathroom to palm a handful of Advil.

Once his headache eased itself out, Dick grabbed the first shirt and shorts he saw, not really caring what he wore, just eager to get back to the hospital and spend another day in purgatory. The doctor's vaguely worded warning echoing in his head, that the first 24 hours were critical, she hung on a precipice.

It was now June 7th, but this day wasn't going to be any better than yesterday. Usually he had a sense of relief, the awareness of having survived the horror of Cassidy's death all over again, and it carried over, bleeding into the next day and somehow ended up being a comfort he could cling to, but he lost that ability the second the ball connected with Mac's head.

When he went out into the living room Logan was already up and ready for the day. He had a fresh pot of coffee on the table, and was laughing at the episode of Phineas & Ferb on TV. They exchanged mumbled greetings and Logan pointed to the coffee. Dick grabbed the other cup Logan had put out and poured himself a cup of the sludgy brew. It was pretty much liquid mud, but it was caffeinated liquid mud so he didn't really care.

After choking down the entire cup they left the room and headed back to Logan's Xterra, the same banana yellow SUV monstrosity that he'd had since his Neptune High days.

As they headed toward the hospital Dick started singing softly "Girlfriend in a Coma…I know, I know it's serious…Girlfriend in a coma…I know, I know it's really serious."

Risking a quick glance at Dick instead of the road, Logan gave him the side eye. "What the hell?"

"It's called singing."

"Oh, thanks for the explanation. I didn't actually know what to call that abomination, I'd say of a good song, but that's emo shit if I ever heard it."

"It's The Smiths."

"Again, I say, emo shit."

"They didn't have the term emo back then," Dick corrected.

"Okay, pre-emo, emo-shit."

Honestly, what Logan so eloquently called 'emo-shit' got him through the worst period of his life. He'd never even liked the Smiths until one day about a month Cassidy died. He was dial surfing and found some kind of New Wave 80s punk station, How Soon is Now was on. The raw emotion of it sucked him in, especially the line "I'm the son and the heir of nothing in particular." He could have written that line, his family was the inspiration for it.

"I also find your use of the term 'girlfriend' significant," Logan was saying. Again, he sneaked a quick glance at Dick, presumably to gage his reaction. Then he pulled his eyes back on the road ahead.

"Once again, dude, since you are obviously hard-of-hearing, it's a SONG," Dick said, his voice rising at the end. "I didn't write the lyrics."

"But you could have," Logan said reflectively.

"Mac and I are friends, real friends, true friends from my perspective, pseudo if you ask her, but the common denominator is we are friends. She's a girl, yes, so only in the sense we're friends and she's a girl would the term girl friend be accurate."

"So, you noticed, huh?"

"That Mac has boobs? Yes, I might have noticed something to that effect," Dick said dryly. In fact, her boobs—and the rest of her, too—had been starring in his favorite fantasies for the past several months, maybe longer even. Fuck Logan for reading into him!

Dick glanced at the clock on the dash as they turned into the driveway of Neptune Memorial, winding their way to the back parking lot by the main entrance of the massive complex.

Though, truthfully, his stomach was starting to rumble a bit, Dick was in a hurry to get an update on Mac's condition, so they decided to get breakfast at the café afterwards.

They punched the button for the third floor and waited for the elevator doors to open. Dick tapped his foot; his life was a study in waiting these days. At last, the double doors opened with an accompanying ding. They walked in, selected the button for the 3rd floor and just as the doors were closing, a loud female voice called out to them.

"Hold the elevator, please," she said. Dick suspected he knew the owner of that voice, one look at Logan's nervous twist of a smile confirmed his suspicion was correct. Ronnie. He hadn't heard her voice for two years now, but it had burned itself into his memories, though the singe wasn't nearly as penetrating for him as it was for Logan. Naturally!

Logan quickly punched the door open button and the opening got wider. Veronica stepped on, with Wallace on her heels.

She expressed her thanks and then looked up from the ground that she had been studying. There had been a small smile pulling at her lips, but it quickly faded as she looked up into Logan's familiar hazel brown and green flecked eyes.

Everyone mumbled a greeting, short but polite.

Dick noticed a big, white paper bag in her hands, while Wallace was laden down with a big tray of coffee. It smelled much better than the cup O' mud he had earlier that morning. He focused his gaze on the cups, Wallace tracked where his gaze had landed and gave him a look of censure. All that went unnoticed by Logan and Veronica though, who apparently had forgotten there was anyone else on the elevator.

"Travelling with an entourage these days, I see Ronnie," Dick said, mainly to break up the quiet that had infected the small space after their brief greetings.

"Wallace? No, he's my bodyguard," Veronica corrected.

"Mac and I are tight," Wallace said, but he didn't quite contradict Veronica either. "I was shocked when Vee called me in tears to tell me what had happened."

The elevator came to an abrupt stop and the doors yawned open. They walked out of the cramped elevator, following the gray hallway until they arrived at the waiting area.

Mrs. Mac was back in the waiting room, all alone. Her blond hair was tousled, in a bed head kind of way, she usually had every strand artfully arranged. There were faint circles under her eyes, and she was rolling her head around as though to get the kinks out of her neck. The high backed chair next to Mac's bed was probably not conducive for a good night's sleep.

She took one look at Veronica and quickly rose from her chair. Veronica quickly handed off the white bag to Wallace, who was standing right beside her and then met Mrs. Mac halfway. She bent down and fiercely hugged her daughter's best friend. "Veronica, hon, thank you so much for coming. It means the world to all of us."

"Don't thank me," Veronica could barely get the words out. "I couldn't be so far away and, with this whole not knowing…" Her voice wavered.

"Well, anyway, we all know Cindy's a fighter," Mrs. Mac continued. She cleared her throat and then pulled away from Veronica briefly, wiping the tear that had just escaped from the corner of her eye. Then she turned her focus to Wallace, greeting and giving him a brief side hug, avoiding squashing their breakfast, before pulling away.

"That she is," Veronica agreed. "So I brought breakfast. Dad did, actually." She gestured over to Wallace who then held the white bag up, Vanna White/Wheel of Fortune style, before placing the bag on the table so everyone could help themselves. He put the big tray of takeout cups of coffee down beside them.

"Aw, that was kind of him. Please be sure to tell him we appreciate it, hon."

Dick's stomach rumbled again and this time he decided to heed its call. He stuck his hand in the bag and pulled out a chocolate-iced cake donut.

"Thanks," he said over the big bite he'd just taken. Waiting until he was done chewing, Dick turned to Veronica and snarked, "donuts from a cop, how original."

"Good point, it is kind of cliché, and I'd hate for you to have to suffer along with the rest of us commoners," Veronica retorted. She took the donut from Dick's hand that was poised in front of his mouth so he could pop the rest of it in.

"Hey," he protested.

"Bad Dick, no donut," Veronica defended, while everyone else laughed.

He wrested back the rest of the donut and popped it in his mouth. Since Mr. Mac and Ryan were resting up back at their house, there was enough coffee from the stash Wallace and Veronica brought for everyone to have a cup.

As the five of them worked through the bag of donuts and drank their coffee, Mrs. Mac briefly recapped Mac's condition, bringing everyone up to speed. When she got to the bit about the coma, Veronica let out a gasp. Logan's head jerked up and his concerned eyes sought Veronica.

Dick mentally shook his head. He just knew the next few days were going to be interminable, spanning years in merely days.

… TBC

Chapter Text

Chapter 9—On Tiny Gossamer Wings

Mac was thinking about butterflies when a sudden, jarring, jerk and the sound of metal scraping metal brutally brought her out of her ruminations.

She hadn't been thinking of butterflies in a concrete aren't they beautiful kind of way, instead she was thinking of them in more abstract theoretical terms. Mr. Humphrey, her physics teacher, had started lecturing on the Chaos theory, also known as the more poetic butterfly effect, which, to nut-shell it, was the belief that one little minute thing could disrupt the harmonious balance of the universe. Basically a ripple of butterfly wings could cause a hurricane a half-world away. The Earth was such a delicate balance, that one little thing out of alignment could knock everything off kilter. It seemed like a lot of weight to lie upon tiny gossamer wings, but the core of the theory intrigued her.

Mac couldn't help drawing parallels between those theorems and her strange new existence.

It was going on two weeks now since she'd landed back in her junior year of high school and she still had no clue how long she'd be stranded on this new/old plane of existence.

In the immediate aftermath, Mac looked up in shock to see that she'd T-boned a big tank of a cream colored car, a relic from the late 70s. It barely had a dent, her Cadillac, on the other hand didn't fare as well. It had crumpled in, right at the point of impact. Her head hadn't fared very well either. She felt the start of a vicious migraine building; she'd been getting those with more frequency since she'd received the concussion that had landed her back in time to begin with. She knew the signs by now.

Mac was also intimately familiar with the car she'd just smashed—it was the one she'd driven originally, only this time the screaming, snarling driver was one Madison Sinclair, known now as Cindy Mackenzie. She was actually glad, in this dimension, that Madison, who had been cast into her old life, went as Cindy rather than her own nickname, and identity really, Mac. That would have made things worse, somehow.

Her headache buried itself even deeper. The line was blurred though, was the aching head just merely a souvenir from this new accident, or was the incessant screaming and theatrics of Cindy making things worse. She was certain it was an equation of both factors in nearly equal measure.

Cindy had gotten out of her car, and was now walking around to the driver's side of Mac's car yelling and ranting the whole way about not watching where she's going, right-of-way's, yielding, and stupid '09'ers buying their driver's licenses instead of earning them.

Through the haze of pain from her pounding head, and Cindy yelling, Mac was having trouble concentrating on anything, but she became vaguely aware of the horn honking of the line of cars behind her, classmates eager to leave school grounds and begin their Thanksgiving break.

Soon people started getting out of their cars, embracing the fact that they weren't going to be able to leave anytime soon. The drive was too narrow for most of the SUVs, trucks, and other student owned vehicles to safely pass the accident scene. The crowd was a mix of curious onlookers, concerned friends and acquaintances, and a few people who seemed to take malicious joy in other people's misfortune.

Mac saw her door open. She looked up to see Dick's concerned face peering down at her. Things had been awkward between them since the kiss a week ago. The avoidance phase of their stalemate had ended, but she was still actively thinking up ways to avoid being alone with him. She suspected he had a vague idea of her plan, the way he smirked as he would propose one date idea after another, giving tell to the fact he knew he'd be going down without that blaze of glory.

He reached in and helped pull her up and out of her car after she had assured and reassured him several times that she was okay. She clenched her eyes shut to ride out the tremor of pain that shot through her not yet fully recovered brain.

"What?" Dick barked.

"Nothing, just a little headache, no big deal."

"Actually, it is a big deal if you're still recovering from a concussion to begin with," Dick corrected. "Stay here, I'll be right back."

Then he turned his focus to Jackson who had been hovering on the perimeter, too, standing with an entire little '09'er collective who were busy watching the show. "Watch Madi, make sure she doesn't collapse, or shit," he ordered.

Jackson nodded.

"You don't have to babysit me, I'm fine."

"I know you are, it wasn't anything more than a tap, but just sit here anyway," he guided her to the steep blacktop curb that divided the bank of grass outlining the perimeter of Neptune High and the entrance road. "You know, just in case."

"Are you afraid of Dick?" Mac teased, a twinkle in her eye, despite the pounding in her head.

"A little," Jackson confessed with a smirk. "So, what the hell happened?"

"Butterflies," Mac said.

"What?" He was confused.

"I don't know what happened," Mac said honestly. "One second the space in front of me was clear, I'd just turned onto the main drive from lot B, there was this big gap between me and the next car in front of me, then next thing I know I'd hit a car that, apparently, appeared out of nowhere."

"A car owned by that skank Cindy," Jackson clarified. "So, what do butterflies have to do with anything? Did a giant one fly in front of you and cause you to crash?" He hypothesized.

"I was thinking of butterflies. It's not important, just one of those random things you think about until life crashes into you, literally." Mac said in what she hoped was a dismissive tone. She looked up, scanning the area looking for a flash of shaggy blonde hair.

Dick was by Cindy's car speaking quietly, but obviously heatedly, based on the anger she saw bleeding through his actions. He pointed a finger at her; he leaned inwards a little menacingly. She couldn't hear what he was saying until he yelled the last bit.

"Okay, Cindy, fine, call the cops. I think Balboa's Finest should be involved. Even those inbred idiots should know enough of the law to back up what I've been telling you."

Cindy raised her voice to match Dick's. It was just as whiny as she'd always remembered. "She's the one that hit me."

"That's only because you pulled out in front of her."

Some girl with shoulder length, mousy, brown hair and glasses came up to them, stepping in between Dick and Cindy, as though providing body guard services. The look she shot Dick was full of censure.

"Who is the newcomer?" Mac whispered to Jackson.

"Hadley Klein, I think. Some white trash bitch that shadows Cindy around," he explained.

Oh yeah, Klein, that was the last name that had been tugging at Mac's memory. Hadley Klein was the one she'd fought freshman year, on the bus, for calling her trailer trash. Her mom, Nat, had always said all bullies were just insecure little kids projecting their own issues onto the people they bullied, but she had always thought that was Dr. Phil psycho-babble. Maybe there was a bit of truth to that, after all.

Watching the three of them continue to go at it, Mac half-expected a fight to erupt, but the arrival of Mr. McCormick—Corndick as everyone called him—the Neptune High security guard, put a halt to any possible violence.

At his summons, Mac got up off the curb and walked over the group. Cindy was pointing to the damage on her antiquated tank, glorified scratch that it was, while Dick was still cutting in and correcting every other thing she said. Corndick—a stupid '09'er moniker that just stuck for some reason—was obviously getting pissed, no one was paying any heed to what he was saying. Mac tried to interject a few times. Cindy and Hadley kept honing on the bare fact that Mac was the one that hit her car and ignoring the fact that it was only because she'd pulled out in front of her in the first place.

Finally, bargaining for some kind of stalemate from both sides, Corndick was able to get to the job he truly shined at, directing traffic, which when talking about student drivers, wasn't an easy job. It took Tetris mastery really, angling the cars through the narrow driveway, avoiding the damaged cars.

Mac watched as the crowd slowly dissipated. Since the show was over, and there obviously wasn't going to be a fight erupting, everyone was eager to get home and enjoy the well-earned long weekend.

About five minutes later, a Balboa County Sheriff car pulled up to the now practically empty lot.

Deputy Sacks got out of the car, obligatory government-issued notebook in hand, with his on the case demeanor shining through. Mac had always liked Sacks, he was on the force for the 'right' reasons, because he truly wanted to serve and protect, making him a minority in the rankings of Balboa County's Finest. At least in the real world he had never really been the type to be "bought and paid for", she hoped that was still the case. Though a little voice inside reminded her she was the one in this scenario with the deeper pockets, a fact that still wasn't second nature to her. She couldn't help wondering if it ever would be…She truly hoped not.

Yet again, Mac insisted that there weren't any cars in front of her until suddenly she merged with Cindy's bumper. Dick collaborated with her story, though honestly she didn't know if he really was a witness, or if he just said he was. Cindy upped her protests, adding eyelash batting and pouty lips to the equation, hoping to really sell things, but the gestures fell flat with her audience.

Next, Deputy Sacks did his due diligence with this investigative work, whipping out a ruler and a piece of graphing paper to chart the scene by hand. Mac watched him work, a little surprised by his old school ways, it seemed like a waste of energy to her, but a lot was personally riding on his result, so she bit her lower lip as she studied his technique.

The big investigation ended with the best possible scenario, in Mac's viewpoint at least. Cindy, however,was less pleased with the ruling. After Deputy Sacks had left the scene, Dick lingered on the scene with Mac, and Jackson, they were congregating by the Caddy. Cindy and her shadow, Haley, on the other hand, were by Cindy's car.

"No fair, that bitch and her family ruin everything. It's always been that way," Cindy was wailing.

Mac didn't try to peel her eyes away from the image of Hadley comforting her pissed off, nearly-hysterical friend. She was dramatically gesturing with the hand holding the ticket for failure to yield.

Mac didn't know what she could've meant by the comment about her family ruining everything, but she didn't really want to waste anymore time on anything Cindy said. The only thing that really mattered was that nobody was hurt and neither car was seriously affected. The only real collateral damage, of whatever the hell that "staged accident", was her still achy head and a small dent in the new Caddy. Cindy's car was fine, Mac would have said no worse for the wear, but there was a lot of wear on that car way before the "scratch" happened.

After squeezing out her parting shot, Cindy and her token bestie piled into the ancient marvel of automotive know-how and drove off very slowly as though convinced the car would spontaneously combust if driven over 25 MPH. Truthfully, Mac suspected that was a distinct possibility.

Dick drove Mac's Caddy home with his minion, Jackson Douglas, following them in his prized yellow jeep. She launched a litany of complaints the entire drive, to which he first countered them, and then later began to ignore when she started recycling most of her arguments in an infinite loop.

"So, how are you going to hide the evidence?" Dick asked as he pulled into the Sinclair's driveway. He pressed the button on the garage opener, tracking it as it began to slowly rise u[.

The blue Honda Civic Ellen provided for the maid's use—namely to do grocery shopping in—was parked under the basket ball hoop on the opposite end of the drive. Dick had barely avoided hitting it as he angled the car into the courtyard style garage.

"Evidence?" Mac asked, biting her lip as he pulled his gaze back in her direction.

"Uh, the dent, you know, from your accident, which is the only reason I'm driving your crappy piece of American automotive engineering." The garage was otherwise empty. He turned off the engine.

"Crappy American engineering!?" Mac asked incredulously, while simultaneously wondering why she was bothering to defend the Cadillac which was hopefully just a loaner of sorts anyway while she temporarily dwelled in this plane. She wanted her Beetle back! "Isn't that yellow monstrosity hovering on my driveway, probably dripping oil, an example of American engineering, as well?"

"Yes," Dick admitted, "but not of the crappy variety. Jeeps are awesome, and it's certified leak free."

"Certified? Certified by whom?"

"By me," Dick said cockily, like he was automotive savant.

"I think you mean certifiable," Mac corrected with a smirk.

He matched her smirk, and then upped the ante.

They stayed in the car talking for a couple minutes. He'd declined her offer to come in. It seemed to Mac that this was actually the least weird things had been between the two of them since their kiss exactly one week ago, not that she was counting or anything. They talked mainly about people they knew, shared classes, surface stuff, nothing of real consequence, but it was a start, or perhaps in this dimension, a re-start.

After one more brief check in on her headache—still there—he made move to get out of the car, placing his hand on the door handle. Then he shifted a bit, leaning in slightly and Mac expected another kiss, but it never came. Did he change his mind or had she just misinterpreted things? They said good-bye.

Mac got out of the car, but then paused on the steps leading to the house to watch as Dick made quick strides towards his still idling Jeep. As Mac pressed the button to close the garage door, she watched Jackson slid over to the passenger side as Dick gracefully hopped into the driver's side through the window. It was an art he had perfected.

The door closed with a resounding thud, ending the show. Mac sighed, and briefly touched her temple, then entered the house. The smell of freshly baked cookies greeted her. She made her way to the kitchen, where Lucille was diligently kneading some dough, no doubt preparing for tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast.

Mac smiled when she saw Lauren sitting at the table with a half-full glass of milk and a plate of mostly cookie crumbs in front of her.

"Hey, Lauren, hello Lucille," she greeted.

The housekeeper looked up from the dough, and jerked her head in the direction of the stove behind her where a big baking tray of cookies was cooling; Lauren's sampling hadn't even put a dent into it. "Help yourself, doll. They're from a new recipe I found for vegan cinna-melts."

Mac gulped, willing herself not to cry. Finally she croaked out a weak "Thanks," and plated up a few cookies. A wave of homesickness once again broke over her, it was an emotion she was becoming intimately acquainted with these days. Cinna-melts were the exact cookies her mom always put in her lunchbox growing up.

Apparently she didn't do a very good job of hiding the evidence of the nose-dive her mood had taken because, as she took her snack to the table, Lauren studied her face for a long moment before inquiring what was wrong.

"Nothing, and everything all at once," Mac admitted. "Plus, I might have got into a slight fender bender on my way home."

"Mom will kill you," Lauren said not-very-reassuringly.

"Are you alright, Madi?" Lucille gasped and put aside the dough she was still working on.

"I'm fine," she huffed a breath, and then continued, "some bit…" stopping herself just in time to render Lucille's preemptive look of censure unnecessary. "Some bad driver pulled out in front of me, and then tried to act like it was my fault. Dick backed me up to the cops."

Lauren made kissing noises at that last comment. Mac bit her lip to keep back the genuine smile pushing through. She lived for these real-live sisterly bonding moments. It was confusing though, because while mostly she longed for her Mackenzie life back, there was pleasure in the moment, too, those simple times spent with Lauren where it felt like they'd always been sisters, and they always would be. However, to go back to her old life meant giving up Lauren and these little moments.

She forced an older sisterly-stern expression on her face.

"Mom really is going to kill you," Lauren reiterated. "Can I have your room? It's bigger than mine."

Mac wondered how she could know that for sure; it seemed to her that when you were talking rooms the size of the ones populating the Sinclair's McMansion then a difference of like 10 square feet didn't make that much of a difference at all. The degree of big-ness didn't really matter—big, after all, was still big.

She worked her way through the plate of cookies, chatting with Lauren about school, Scooby Doo villains and just the minutiae of junior high life in general. It was eerily similar from the after-school snack sessions she shared with Ryan the first time around, minus the hovering maid frantically preparing a feast for the next day, however. Mac was focused on Lauren's description of her favorite class when her attention was suddenly diverted.

"Madison Grace, what the hell happened to your car?"

Startled, Mac looked up to see Ellen glowering in the doorway, waves of anger all but shimmering off of her.

"Fender bender, mom," Mac said, cringing slightly at the meek tone her voice took on. The headache she'd had since she first rammed into Madison made its presence known once again; it had just started to recede into the background.

"Looks like a fender crusher to me," Ellen corrected. "That's more than a mere tap."

"Cindy pulled out in front of me; there was nothing I could do to avoid her."

"Cindy?" The questioning tone in Ellen's voice was faint, but there. She strode into the room, stopping to grab a cookie from the tray before joining her daughters at the kitchen table. Mac watched her mom take a bite of the crunchy cookie and, yet, somehow, manage not to rain crumbs everywhere.

"Cindy Mackenzie." Just saying her name in regards to someone else was surreal, she felt like she was speaking in second person. Where was Rod Serling when she needed his voice over talents?

Ellen finished chewing and swallowing the cookie before pursing her lip. Mac could see the anger leaving her face. "None of those bloody people can drive evidently." It was just a mutter.

"What does that mean?" Mac tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. She didn't like Ellen's insinuation, labeling the Mackenzie's that way.

"Nothing, dear," Ellen's tone was dismissive, as she popped the rest of the cookie in her mouth.

She wasn't convinced, but before she could question Ellen further, conversation had moved to other more pressing topics like plans for the annual Sinclair feast.

*******/*******/*******/*******/*******

Mac woke up the next day hot and heavy with the knowledge that it was her first holiday as a Sinclair, and Thanksgiving no less. Fortunately her headache from the day before was gone; she didn't have anything slowing down her processors.

Things in the Mackenzie household on Thanksgiving were always chaotic. No matter what her intent was, her day always seemed to begin before 8AM as the kitchen noise rose up to her second floor bedroom. Natalie was not a yeller, but her voice seemed to take on a frantic edge to it that crept higher on the acoustic scale on times of stress like preparing holiday dinners. Her mom didn't buy "extravagances" like Tofurky, but she did make a point to make vegan versions of every other classic dish.

Things were still quiet in the Sinclair house; however, the kitchen was so far removed from the bedroom wing that it was possible that there was a marching band practicing in the breakfast nook and Mac wouldn't hear even one note from the French horn section.

Her philosophical dissection of butterflies once again circled around her thoughts as she started to shake the sleep that was still clinging to the recesses of her mind. The powerful effect of what even the most miniscule change to conditions could cause had been demonstrated time and again by various experiments. However, they were mainly laboratory conditions, the field she was talking about was vaster, and, at the risk of being dramatic, it involved her very existence. Even if she could figure out a way to exact changes in this reality, would it actually bleed into her original "future" life? She just needed to mull it over a little while longer.

Reluctantly, Mac got out of her warm nest of blankets, the 1,500 thread count cotton sheets, and the cloud-like mattress that already contoured perfectly to her body. The bed was definitely one luxe that hadn't taken long to get acclimated to in this new lifestyle.

She went into the massive closet, quickly grabbing a pair of jeans and a tee shirt from the acres of clothes bunched in there. After slipping them on, Mac finger combed her hair so she'd be presentable at least.

When she entered the kitchen she'd expected to see chaos; debris from potato peelings, a trail of gravy splatter on the stove, a garbage can overflowing with burnt rolls. Instead Lucille was humming along to the radio, which was tuned to an Oldies station. She was peeling sweet potatoes, but she was doing it in the sink, and everything was neatly piled together.

They exchanged greetings and Lucille interrupted her work flow just long enough to indicate to Mac that her breakfast was waiting for her at the table. A box of her usual vegan cereal was perched beside an empty bowl and a carton of soy milk. Murmuring a thank you, she set to work pouring a cup of coffee, before settling down to eat.

"So, where is everyone?" Mac asked, over a big bite of cereal.

"Lauren is still sleeping, your mom is out getting a few last minute items, and your dad is taking his traditional pre-turkey run."

"Traditional?" Mac asked, and then mentally kicked herself.

"His theory is exercise before you eat primes your metabolism."

"That's ridiculous. It sounds plausible, but there's no science to truly back that up."

"I know, you tell him that every year," Lucille said with an indulgent smile. She didn't appear to think it seemed strange for Mac to not remember all their little Sinclair traditions.

Lucille went back to her task at hand while Mac focused again on eating her breakfast.

The meow coming from the door fractured her attention again. Fritz entered the room, no doubt following his nose. They'd been bonding lately; he even came up to her occasionally for a pat. After doing his due diligence in making sure the floor by the food prep area was completely clean, Fritz made a quick detour over to Mac. She sneaked him a couple of pieces of cereal to make it worth his while, and he purred his appreciation.

After breakfast, Mac offered her assistance and food prep skills in the kitchen only to get, politely, shoo'ed out. Refilling her coffee cup first, Mac went into the adjoining family room and found an episode of The Family Guy, a show Dick was always trying to sell her on. She sipped on her coffee carefully, not wanting to spill a drop on the precious couch 'Mom2' was so protective of.

As the morning made its creeping progress towards the afternoon, activities in the kitchen picked up, and Mac turned off the marathon of baby Stewie and his usual brand of sarcastic rejoinders to join in the madness. Sinclair madness wasn't a bleep on the Mackenzie Richter scale, however.

The entire family was pitching in. Most of the meal was already either fully finished and just cooling on the counter, or was languishing in the hot oven. Despite the fact that it was less than an hour until all the guests arrived for the biggest meal of the year, Ellen's demeanor was calm. She was not muttering about time getting away, or how they'd have to move because this would be an epic disaster, like Natalie always did. Obviously having live-in help took a lot of stressors off a person.

"I have one more dish to prepare, and then I think everything is set, dears," Lucille finally announced, politely waving them out of her domain. She made the appropriate accompanying hand gestures. "Go relax before the guests arrive. The table has been set since last night, the food is almost finished cooking, and dinner will be on the table twenty minutes after the last guest arrives."

"Thank you, Lucille. As always, I do not know what we'd do without you," Ellen said gratefully.

"Starve," Lauren joked, then laughed as her mom tickled her. She skipped out of the room.

Mac smiled when she turned around briefly on her way out the door and saw the housekeeper taking out a box with a Tofurky roast in it. Her plate had always seemed bare without the traditional representation of a Thanksgiving feast, but, of course she wouldn't nor couldn't violate her moral code on any day—veganism didn't take a holiday. Now, however, she could have a balanced plate, and not violate her dietary lifestyle either. The vegan roast wasn't even a splurge in this family; it wouldn't even put a hairline crack in the Sinclair's food budget.

After getting kicked out of the kitchen, they all settled down in the library. 'Dad2' started a fire, and Fritz proceeded to plop himself in front of it. Ellen opened a bottle of red wine, pouring herself and her husband a generous amount. It made a cozy holiday scene. They talked about the guest list, it was shaping up to be a smaller than the usual grouping, according to Ellen.

"Who is on the guest list this year?" Mac asked, though she knew none of the names would mean a thing to her.

Ellen swallowed the sip of wine she'd just taken then, using her fingers' started listing them. "Aunt Alice and Uncle Bill, Ed, Grandma Cole, and…"

Just then the doorbell rang and Lauren hopped up to get it.

"Well, looks like the party will be beginning a little early," Ellen continued, abandoning her earlier thread of conversation.

"Come in," Mac heard Lauren say from the entry way.

"Thanks, Lauren," was the reply.

Mac knew that voice, Dick Casablancas.

"What's he doing here?" She hissed at her mom. "You didn't tell me Dick was coming."

"Keep your tone down, dear. I was about to," Ellen corrected. She got up off the settee and reached out a hand to pull Mac up, too. She walked out the door to greet her guests, always the gracious hostess. Mac followed suit.

"Hope you don't mind that I brought…" Dick was saying.

Mac turned the corner and locked eyes with Cassidy just as Dick finished his sentence. She felt the blood pooling in her face as, once again, thoughts of butterflies flitted through her mind.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 10—Not Yet Lost All Our Graces

"Not at all, sweetie," Ellen was saying to Dick. "I'm glad you brought your brother. I hate the thought of you boys spending this day all alone, eating cold pizza." She then switched her focus to Dick's brother. "I'm Ellen, by the way. I'm happy that you're joining us."

"Actually, cold Chinese was on the menu for today," he corrected. "I'm Cassidy. You have a lovely home, Mrs. Sinclair." He extended out his hand, which Ellen shook, then he handed her the bottle of wine he'd evidently been hiding behind his back.

"Again, call me Ellen, and this is Robert. You both know my daughters, Madison, and Lauren, I believe. Thank you so much for the wine. This is a wonderful varietal."

It was a Bordeaux according to the label Mac took a peek at, obviously taken directly from the Casablancas' family collection. It probably set Big Dick back close to a hundred dollars and she was sure it wouldn't even be missed.

A chill overtook her as her eyes had locked onto Cassidy's. She swore she could see the evil inside him this time around.

Mac had been thinking a lot the past couple of days about the butterfly effect, also known as the chaos theory. It was something her Physics teacher, Mr. Humphrey, had been lecturing about before Thanksgiving break started, and it wouldn't stop circling around her head. The basic tenet was one small ripple of butterfly wings could cause catastrophic changes in weather patterns on the other side of the world. That part seemed a little simplistic really to her mind, but still Mac had wondered how, if at all, it could ripple into her strange predicament. The human embodiment of a big part of what she'd love to change in her own past was now standing in the hall giving her bio-mom a bottle of expensive, stolen wine.

Once the obligatory greetings and salutations were out of the way, Mac regained the powers of speech the shock of seeing Cassidy in her home had stolen from her.

She remembered the conversation she and her mom had had the previous week about Betina Casablancas leaving town yet again, giving zero thought, as always, to her boys.

"Hey," Mac said quietly, finding her manners. "Welcome to my humble home for the traditional Thanksgiving breaking of bread. The Tofurky is in the oven."

"We actually have a real turkey and also a ham for the more carnivorous eaters among us," 'Dad2' assured his guests.

"Gotta eat enough to earn that jog, huh, dad?" Lauren teased.

"Et tu, Brute?"

"English, please."

"That's Latin, where English gets its roots," 'Dad2' explained to his younger daughter. "You sound like your sister, giving me crap for my traditional pre-dinner exercise routine."

"She just recognizes truth, that's all," Mac stepped in on Lauren's behalf.

"Studies have actually shown that exercising on an empty stomach before you eat is a good way to prevent those extra pounds," 'Dad2' continued.

"Let's not rehash the traditional Sinclair family post- verses pre- meal exercise debate," Ellen said. "I know our guests don't want to listen to this topic bandied about the entire day."

"Who are we to mess with tradition, Mrs. S…err, Ellen," Dick said, grinning at her.

Mac gritted her teeth at Dick's show of charm towards her mom. She bore in even harder at her mom's return smile, she suspected by the end of the day she wouldn't have any teeth left, they would be ground down to her gums.

Ellen herded them all into the formal living room, down the hall and to the right. There were more seating options for the guests in there. Other than peeking in once or twice in her quest to get acclimated to her new surroundings, this was Mac's first official time in the room as a denizen of the Sinclair abode, rather than just a guest, or party-crasher.

She plopped into one of the matching flower-print chairs running perpendicular to the large white sofa and matching loveseat. Dick eased his lanky frame into the other chair. She watched Cassidy settle on the far end of the couch, sitting timidly on the edge, seeming out of place in the whole scheme of things. Then she looked down at her hands folded on her lap. She couldn't really bear to look him in the eye, yet he'd placed himself in her viewing range.

It was ridiculous, she knew it, but it felt like he'd come back from the grave to antagonize her. He seemed to be mocking her for caring about him, for having thought she loved a guy she didn't truly know, a guy capable of raping her best friend and killing countless classmates, a guy who stole her clothes and left her terrified, huddling in a hotel room. Maybe she deserved to be mocked for being so naïve.

Lauren was sitting between Cassidy and her mom.

She heard her parents try to involve Cassidy in conversation about school, and grades, very parental topics of conversation. Dick then took the opportunity to talk to Lauren, mainly teasing her about potential boyfriends. As her little sister blushed and Cassidy causally chatted with 'Mom2', hiding his psychotic tendencies, a skill he had perfected, Mac sat there longing for dinner to be over before it had even began. Fortunately the doorbell rang just then, putting a momentary pause on the pre-meal chatter.

"Madison, will you get the door?" Ellen delegated.

"Sure mom," she agreed, getting up off the chair, glad to get away, even if it was just a temporary reprieve.

As she went down the long entry hall to the front door she mentally called upon acting chops she wasn't sure she actually possessed to improv her way through the meet-and-greet of guests she had never actually met before.

Fortunately, the old woman standing on the other side of the door was an easy guess. She let out a whoop of excitement and squeezed Mac in a bone-crushing hug, or rather what would have been bone-crushing had the lady been fifteen years younger, now it was merely bone-bruising.

"Madison Grace, I've missed you darling. Give your grandma a kiss."

Mac extracted herself just enough from the iron-grip hug to give her grandma a kiss on the cheek. She smelled like lavender, and she felt instantly at ease with the woman. It was the same perfume her mom—Nat—wore and that gave her some comfort.

After being granted her freedom from the bruising hug, the grandma pulled back slightly to inspect her. She apparently passed.

"You look beautiful, dear. I hear school is going really well for you and Lauren, I can't wait to hear all about it." She linked arms with Mac as they walked back to the living room.

Ellen met them at the doorway and enthusiastically hugged and kissed her mom before guiding her to the couch, placing her on Cassidy's other side.

'Dad 2' got the next two rounds of arrivals, his second in command at Sinclair Enterprises, who was a big guy named Ed, and Aunt Alice and Uncle Bill. Mac listened in as introductions were made to Dick and Cassidy, mentally taking notes for her own edification. Based on the fact that Lauren jumped up to greet Ed even more enthusiastically than Grandma Cole, Mac assumed that he was an honorary Sinclair.

Just as Mac was mentally preparing what to say to an aunt and uncle she didn't even know, they embraced her and started talking about two girls named Tara and Maggie, who were evidently sisters. She assumed they had to be her cousins. Evidently one had just started a new high-powered job in town, but Mac didn't catch any specifics. The other one was in Virginia on a farm or something like that. Mac was just relieved to have something to focus on other than the fact that her dead, murdering, rapist ex was sitting in her living room. Not surprisingly her headache chose to drill in once again.

As everyone reconfigured the seating arrangements to accommodate the growing group, Ellen walked around playing hostess, taking drink orders. Growing up her mom (Nat) was never even seen until every last dish found a home on the dining room table, host duties were taken over by Sam, who loved playing honorary bartender. One year he jokingly passed around a hat for tips, which got him in trouble with the boss, but underscored to Mac what a loveable goof her dad could be. She was fairly certain this dad—though he had a fun side, too—would never think to joke about money. It was a sacrosanct subject in the Sinclair household, not to mention he appeared to have a healthier fear of his boss than Sam did of his.

At Ellen's gentle verbal nudging, 'Dad2' got up to get a platter of appetizers to go with the beverages his wife was handing out. When he came back in, he had a large silver platter overflowing with an assortment of meatless Hors d'oeuvres in one hand, and a stack of small China plates in the other. Mac was pleased to see Lucille hadn't lumped the veg head and meat dishes together in one big, indistinguishable mass, doing so only cancelled out the benefit of providing both meat and meatless options.

The second the tray hit the table Dick was out of his chair, grabbing two plates and filling them to capacity. He handed one to Mac with a flourish, then sat back down to tuck into his own food.

"Thanks," she replied.

"You are welcome, enjoy the wheatgrass and sprouts. Bunnies would be jealous."

"Well, good thing there aren't any rabbits here," Mac said, "though I might have to share with Fritz."

Right on cue, the cat ambled in to further investigate the situation, letting out a meow. Ellen started to get up though and he quickly made his exit. Evidently, he knew his presence wasn't allowed in this room, either.

"I had a pet rabbit once," Dick began. Then he briefly looked up at Cass sitting across the way.

Mac looked up and saw the cold way Cassidy appraised his brother, eyes narrowed, and something akin to fear fluttered across Dick's face. Or maybe it was repulsion. Before she could properly examine and label it though he'd shut down operations and stuffed a mushroom popper in his mouth.

"They fuck like bunnies," he said through a mouthful of food. At least, the word sounded like fuck, though it was hard to tell for certain as he chewed his mushroom.

Ellen interrupted her family gossip session with her mom, sister and brother-in-law to look over at Dick.

He had the wherewithal to look sheepish.

Uh oh, caught out by the manner police, Mac thought snarkily. Though she wasn't sure if it was more that he talked with his mouth full of food, or the casual way he dropped the f-bomb, it was probably a mish-mash of both factors.

She was just weighing topics of conversation to somewhat diffuse the tension that had started simmering between the brothers, when she looked up and saw Cassidy engaging Lauren in a debate on white versus dark turkey meat. She had to take a deep breath; it wasn't cleansing enough to wash away the desire to launch herself between them screaming 'no, stay away from that murdering psycho.' She put a hand to her temple.

"Headache back again, Mad?" Dick leaned over and whispered in her ear. It tickled a little.

"Sort of," she admitted.

"Sort of? You either have one, or you don't, no need to half…butt it, no need to half-butt it," he caught himself, obviously not wanting to offend his hostess again.

"I do have a headache," she said more firmly this time. She just needed this dinner to be over, and it hadn't yet begun. "It's a full-on headache, no half-butt about it."

Finally, Lucille stuck her head into the living room announcing everything was ready and waiting for them in the dining room.

Saved by the dinner bell.

Mac's relief died a quick death though when she saw the fancy little placeholders arranged artfully on top of each plate. The name was written in calligraphy. There was one setting though that noticeably lacked a tag, and the fact that it had been squeezed in between a more narrow spacing gave tell to the fact it was an 'after the fact addition'. Obviously, that was meant to be Cassidy's seat. Her heart sank when she realized he'd been squeezed in between her and Lauren. Dick was on Mac's other side.

"Would you two rather sit together?" she asked Dick, trying and failing to keep the hopeful tone out of her voice.

Ellen stopped her hostess duty of guiding the guests towards their seat to raise her eyebrow at Mac.

"No, it's okay, your mom obviously has a plan," Dick said. He must have been back to this campaign to charm Ellen into favor once again.

"Brown eyes aren't a good look on you," Mac whispered in his ear. "Suck up!"

"You know I have blue eyes, like the Neptune sky, isn't that what you always say?"

"Yes, for now, but you're so full of sh-"

"Poop," Dick interjected before she could finish the sentence. "Cuss words are illegal in '09'er dining rooms, it's against the Neptune charter."

"So are clichés," Mac added. "But my point still stands about you being a butt-kisser," she smirked at him.

As soon as everyone sat down at the table Lucille started the parade of food. She watched as the big platter of Tofurky was set in front of her. Unfortunately the Turkey was placed next to the vegan roast, which meant the scents of both intermingled, merging with her headache and the Cassidy-induced nausea that hadn't yet fully abated. Mac didn't want to seem ungrateful for the special effort Lucille went through for her—though it was probably a scenario repeated every year in this realm—but she really didn't know how she'd be able to choke down much food right now.

As each non-meat containing dish was passed her way Mac took a kid-sized scoop, arranging her plate so it looked like she was taking more than she really was. She did end up spearing a bigger portion of the Tofurky though, out of obligation. She did notice though that Cassidy took a piece, too, but he rested it on top of the strips of ham taking up most of his plate's real estate, cancelling it all out.

Once everyone had filled their plates, a quick prayer was said. She assumed it was some traditional Episcopal prayer, one she wasn't familiar with, but she muttered along quietly banking on the fact no one was listening to her verbal stumbling. She'd been in a church maybe seven times in the past ten years, and a third of those times were for weddings or funerals. Her mom (Nat) went occasionally, but she'd been successfully bailing on her since she was eleven.

She tracked her gaze to Cassidy as she was muttering along with the prayer. She was surprised his eyes weren't glowing red and his head wasn't spinning.

The serious business of eating began as soon as 'Amen' was said.

Though her stomach was now this hardened rock of a place, Mac managed to pick her way through her meal, eating just enough to satisfy the watchful eyes' of Ellen, who was sitting across from her at the massive so-called Farm Table. There was nothing about the spread that said rustic or down on the old homestead to Mac, though. Conversation was filtering around her, but it was happening mainly in fits and starts, no one saying anything beyond remarking how delicious everything was, or proper stuffing technique.

The longer conversation stayed at bay, the longer Mac figured she could avoid talking to her neighbors, and when that was no longer effective and the social portion of the holiday dinner picked up she would try stuffing her mouth full of food, getting as much down into that gravel pit of a stomach as she could.

There, she had a plan, and even a plan B, she could do this—she could get through the Thanksgiving dinner from hell in this dimension, and honestly, probably every other dimension in time, too. She wasn't entirely sure she 100% believed her own pep talk, but it made her feel marginally better.

Mac was thankful when Lauren suggested that everyone go around the room round-robin style and say one or two things they were thankful for.

Lauren kicked things off. "I'm thankful for sisters with hard heads and a big collection of books."

Mac couldn't help the grin that broke through at that comment, and she gave Lauren a big thumbs up sign, too.

The parade of thankfulness moved counter clockwise around the table, so Mac was near the end. It gave her time to think of a reply. A list of things she was not thankful for was easier to dictate at this point—sitting next to her murderous, rapist ex, and worse, knowing he was in touching distance of her sister. The Tofurky sat there like a boulder in her stomach.

She half-listened as her grandma, aunt and uncle listed even more people she'd never heard of. When it was her mom's turn, she said the typical motherly-type thing about being blessed to have her family and friends and how thankful she was for their health. Mac noticed the lingering gaze 'Mom2' gave her at that last part. She appeared to zero in on the still-healing cut on her head.

'Dad2' echoed basically the same thing, but added a family business that was growing and fiscally healthy to his list. It seemed like a typical '09'er thought. Mac saw Lauren stick her tongue out at Ed when he said 'bosses who made delicious Thanksgiving dinners.'

"See, I'm not the only suck up here," Dick leaned over to whisper in her ear. He was well on his way to being a member of the clean plate club. The only real challenge to his earning membership was the pile of soggy broccoli that didn't seem to have lost any of its bulk. "That's a smart man, staying on the good side of the boss."

"Are you taking notes? Cause it looked like you could use some lessons on staying on the boss' good side."

He tapped his head, "it's all on file up here. I have a brain like a computer."

Mac was startled when Cassidy leaned over and added "it's more like an abacus." She hadn't realized he'd been listening in. She gave a weak grin, trying not to remember a time, not that terribly long ago, when she would have laughed deeply, amused by his quick wit. Things now were tainted by a sepia tinge.

Lauren leaned over and pointed to Dick.

When he saw Lauren's signal that it was his turn he cleared his throat and said "Cute girlfriends with maids who cooked really good dinners." He punctuated that statement by rubbing his belly.

Ellen mock-glared at him and everyone laughed.

Next up was Mac.

"I'm thankful for little sisters who have great taste in cartoons and know their Vulcan signs," Mac said. She clapped when Lauren did a perfect hand gesture, keeping the requisite space between her middle and ring fingers. She had obviously been practicing since that first night Mac landed in the Sinclair house.

"Sinclairs' are so weird," Dick teased, again leaning over to whisper in her ear presumably so he wouldn't offend any other member of the Sinclair clan.

"As opposed to the Casablancas' who are studies in normalcy?!" Mac almost choked on her words. That was obviously not true.

"Yup, at least according to our family crest." Dick said, with mock pride.

Lauren cleared her throat and pointed to Cassidy. "We'll end with you."

"I'm thankful for fake meat and pirates."

Mac was certain she went pale at that comment. At the surface, it seemed innocent enough to everyone else, but not her, not when she added in the layers from Mac-life. The rocks in her stomach churned, swirling around mixing with the little amount of food she'd managed to get down. It was surprising that everything was staying down. That could change at any time, she remembered the first time she saw him in this realm, how utterly unprepared she was to face him again.

Conversation drifted around to politics which, judging by the loud groan and exaggerated hands-over-the-ears gesture Lauren made, was yet another Sinclair tradition. Not surprisingly Mac discovered that they were quite conservative on most economical and social issues. Cassidy took the verbal reigns in matters of local fiscal responsibility of Balboa County.

Mac tried to stifle her yawn of boredom. It was not just that she didn't agree with the political agenda of the other people at the table, but she also thought it wasn't an appropriate holiday dinner talk to her way of thinking. Of course the Mackenzie's turkey day chat rating the best NASCAR race tracks—Bristol, according to her dad, where ever the hell that was—wasn't any more stimulating than the pro-incorporation debate currently going on around her.

About an hour after they'd all sat down to eat, though it felt roughly twice that long, Lucille came back to start clearing away the remains of the gourmet meal. It was impressive to Mac how much everyone had managed to eat, with the exception of herself. She was pleased with her skills in meal time subterfuge though, everything had been arranged on her plate so artfully it looked as though much more of it was gone than actually was. Or so she thought.

Dick took his fork and started helping himself to her leftovers. She noticed he studiously avoided the Tofurkey. He grinned at her what the hell look.

"You're not eating it," Dick defended himself. "There are starving children and shit." The cuss word was said softly. Mac grinned as she saw him giving 'Mom2' a side glance, making sure she wasn't listening to curse word rebellion.

"Not very hungry," Mac said. "So have at it. I don't really see how eating my dinner is an altruistic gesture though."

"It's symbolic, really, waste is wrong," he said triumphantly.

"Symbolic?" Mac raised her eyebrow.

"What? I listen to Mrs. Murphy."

"I guess it's hard to avoid since you sit in the front ass-kiss row."

"Can I help that she has a crush on me?" Dick asked with a leer.

"Are you trying to make me jealous?"

"Is it working?"

"Nope!" she exclaimed with a smirk, popping the p.

He snapped his fingers in an 'oh darn' gesture.

Lucille came into the room with a big plate of the vegan cinnamon melts she'd made the previous day. The smell of the cookies made Mac's stomach growl, thus contradicting her earlier cover story about not being hungry. It was a selective hunger—there was always room for cookies.

The maid placed the platter in between Mac and Dick.

"Thanks, Lucille."

"You're welcome, doll," she said, smiling warmly.

"Did you eat yet?"

"I had a little plate in the kitchen while you were eating out here," Lucille assured her.

"At least join us for dessert," Mac insisted. She didn't think the banishment was fair when it was Lucille who did all the work.

Ellen looked over at her daughter just then, a look of surprise on her face, and maybe censure, though Mac couldn't entirely identify it. She didn't rescind the invitation her daughter just extended though, that would have been a breach of manners she'd never commit.

"Oh, I couldn't," Lucille started to protest.

At Mac's pleading look, Lauren got in on the begging, too.

"Double teamed, loves? I can't argue with both you girls," Lucille said, then sighed as though in defeat. She held up both hands in mock-surrender. "Let me finish bringing in the desserts, and get some coffee brewing and then I'll sit with you."

Mac caught the look her mom and aunt exchanged. She wondered briefly what they had been chatting about. Except for the round robin about thankfulness that Lauren had instigated, it seemed like this family was more segregated than the Mackenzies were in group settings. There wasn't any shouting from one end of the table to the other, and no one interrupted or talked over each other.

Her gaze traveled around the table, landing on Cassidy, who was learning over to continue to whisper in Lauren's ear. She felt her eyes' narrowing into slits, and her nails bit into her palms. Though it was not 'Mom2's' fault she mentally cursed her for inviting Dick in the first place. It wasn't fair really because she was glad Dick was there, but why the hell didn't he bring a green bean casserole along instead of his murdering little brother? After dessert was finished she'd have to think of a way to separate her sister from Cass. Dick would just have to deal with a chaperone; she could chalk it down to a 1950s throwback.

Her plotting was interrupted by Lucille returning, laden down with a tray full of pumpkin, apple and cherry pies. She saw Dick's gaze follow the pumpkin pie. She grabbed another cookie and watched the pie feeding frenzy ensue. Lauren took a sliver of each kind and still grabbed a few cookies for herself. 'Dad2' brought one of the spare chairs up to the table for Lucille to sit on; he squeezed it between himself and Ed.

It didn't take long before the only trace of the pies that remained was bits of crust that had crumbled off. The vegan cookies didn't have the devoted followers that the pies did, but Mac did her part in thinning that herd. Dick evidently didn't find two pieces of pie filling enough so he grabbed a few cookies, too. On his fifth cookie grab though, Mac slapped his hand away. He reached down and launched his own counter attack for that move, tickling her under the arm closest to him.

She giggled and scooted away. A little voice tucked away wondered when she'd become a giggly teen girl. Again. Though she was pretty confident she had never been the giggly type, she was generous with her hearty guffaws but not giggles.

Ellen looked over and tried to look stern, but it soon morphed into a soft smile. She gave them all permission to leave the table at that point.

Mac recognized the look in Dick's eye as the four of them entered the family room; he was going to pair Cass and Lauren up and get rid of them all in the name of getting some privacy with his girlfriend.. She quickly jumped in with the idea of a sibling versus sibling Halo smack down to get him off track. She really sold it by proposing a side bet. Dick happily agreed.

The Sinclairs' and Casablancas' were pretty evenly matched for most of the first round. By the second, though, the Sinclairs' started pulling slightly ahead. Mac was beginning to think they'd win and then Dick decided to be more proactive.

Mac had the controller in hand and was hunched forward, her gaze firmly on the intended onscreen target, she was about to engage a missile when a pillow was thrown at her. It hit her on the arm—her firing arm, dislodging the aim just enough that she missed.

"Son of a bitch, you asshole," slipped from her mouth as she saw her avatar get taken down.

"Oops, sorry," Dick said in a tone that was anything but apologetic. "What does this mean, Beav?"

Even in her annoyance, Mac couldn't help but notice the anger that flashed in Cassidy's hazel eyes. Dick, however, seemed oblivious to the fact his baby brother hated that nickname.

Through gritted teeth, Cass said that the Casablancas brothers had won fair and square. Mac and Lauren both protested that "fact."

Dick and Cassidy didn't stay long after the game they'd won, with less than honest means, was over. Cassidy went back into the dining room to thank his hostess, while Mac walked Dick to the front door. Lauren stayed in the family room to turn the game off and take the opportunity to hijack the remote to watch a rerun of The Simple Life.

He maneuvered their positions so her back was pressed against the door in a pose reminiscent of the kiss from the previous week and was leaning forward about to brush her lips with his when Cassidy came back into the room. One of them pulled away, Mac thought it was probably her.

He spoke quietly, Mac watched his lips moving and tried not to imagine them back on her lips. It wasn't an easy task. "I expect you to pay up on your bet," Dick was saying. She tracked his tongue as he licked his lips.

"Don't let me interrupt," Cassidy said loudly as though he thought they might not have noticed his presence.

"No worries there," Dick said dismissively to his brother. "How about you pay up next Friday, say 8 O'clock?"

"I'm busy," Mac said snapping her fingers.

"Good, it's settled. 8 O'clock. I'd say tomorrow but Betina is sending a plane to pick us up for a weekend trip in Aspen, or Vail, or where-the-hell ever."

"Mom," Cassidy corrected.

"Betina." Dick asserted.

So that was where that had started. Mac had noticed in her Mac-life that Dick never called his mom 'mom,' she was always Betina.

"Skiing, that sounds like a hardship." Mac intoned.

"But someone's gotta do it," Dick said grinning. "I'll see you Monday in homeroom. Then, next Friday night I own you, per terms of our agreement. No weaseling out, a bet is a bet."

"Except, you know, when the bettor cheats, then the bet is null and void."

"Cheat is such an ugly word. I might have taken the edge I was given."

"Given?" Mac's voice screeched. "Try taken."

"Eh, given, taken, whatever. It's all semantics."

"That means connotation," Cassidy told Dick, apparently thinking his brother didn't know the meaning of the word he'd just used.

"Thanks, dipshit; it was last Tuesday's word of the day." Dick didn't seem appreciative of the vocab lesson and his accompanying finger gesture further sold his displeasure.

"Mrs. Murphy would give you a gold star," Mac defended. "It was in context and everything." She was annoyed, and it was undoubtedly broadcast on her face. She was not blessed in the poker face department, which was okay, overall, except in the rare occasions she wanted to play poker.

Dick signaled Cassidy, and then after nudging Mac gently away from the door they called out one last round of good-byes and thank yous and left.

As soon as the door was shut, separating her from the Casablancas brothers, Mac gave into the swirl of emotions she'd been fighting on and off the whole day. She didn't try to stop the tears that ran down her cheeks, but she did bite her to keep the sob down. She put her elbow on the door and leaned forward, forming a shield of sorts so she could gather herself before anyone from the next room caught her crying jag. She took three deep breaths in a row and then dragged a hand over her eyes, wiping the tears away.

Hoping she was composed enough for the job, Mac stuck her head into the dining room to say goodnight to the guests who were still too full to move. She plead headache and no one protested. She kissed her parents and the grandmother, she didn't really know, goodnight then headed to her room.

Once back in that sanctuary, Mac again allowed herself the luxury of crying, soaking the Egyptian cotton pillowcase in the process.

Sleep slowly enfolded over her, crowding out thoughts of Thanksgiving dinners in other dimensions with murderous exes. It was a welcome escape.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 11—The Comatose Don’t Dance & Tell

Dick’s POV

June 7^th, 2009

Dick found a new hobby on day two of his waiting room camp out—watching the Logan/Veronica dance begin again. It was like watching a tennis game, or maybe hockey. The back and forth action—in verbal form of barbs and jabs—went back and forth, punctuated by stilted small talk and more about the fucking weather pattern of Palo Alto.

The Technicolor sharpness of Logan and Veronica’s snipes had dulled a bit though in the two years since she’d left Neptune and the sadness that had incited their reunion further grayed the edges. Still, he gave them points for giving it the old college try anyway.

A crick was forming in his neck, though the fact he was still sitting in those hard-assed blue chairs in the ICU waiting room wasn’t helping the cause.

The only thing missing was a wooden post to etch the two “I’s” in Roman Numerals to truly capture day two of his sentence. True, he was prisoner of choice; he wasn’t going any-fucking-where until Mac was awake and telling him where he could go. Hell was her preferred destination where he was concerned; however, the twinkle in her blue eyes and the adorable dimple that showed when she gifted him with her signature half-smile took the sting out of her words.

Star date Captain’s Log that would be a fitting marker for the passage of time, one that Mac would, no doubt, appreciate. Cassidy would’ve been able to tutor him on the finer points of nerdism and Star Date tracking, however, if Cassidy had been around to provide those services things in this reality would be very different. There wouldn’t be room in her life for two Casablancas brothers, he was certain of that. Fuck! Dick shut down that thought train really quick, shoving it into the station and throwing the key away.

Dick reached into the bag of donuts on the side table next to him. He’d stationed himself strategically. Nat, he’d noticed, was still nibbling on her first, a lot more lady-like than her daughter. Though he imagined the lack of appetite was more stress induced than concern for her waistline.

He took a big bite of donut, letting the sugary goodness rain down on the floor below.

“Are you planning on saving any for the rest of us?”

Ronnie’s voice cut into his ruminations. He finished chewing before explaining “It’s a free country, the bag is right there; I’m not the donut guard. No one else is eating them. As Mac says waste is wrong.” Dick rejoined. Then, to prove his point, he stuffed the rest of it in his mouth.

The smirk Veronica was wearing went soft at the mention of her friend. “She did say that,” she affirmed, her voice low and husky. Her eyes got wide as she mentally rewound the tape on what she just said. “Does,” she amended, looking around as though she were afraid that Mrs. Mac might hear her show of pessimism. “She does say that a lot.”

Dick watched Logan reach over and pat Veronica on her back reassuringly. He also noticed her barely visible flinch and didn’t try to hold back his sigh.

“Where’s a remote control for life when you need it?” Dick bit out. “I’ve watched reruns of this show and I’d like to see some original programming.” The only one who seemed to be paying attention though was Wallace who didn’t try to hide his annoyance. “Oh come on, you can’t tell me you aren’t thinking the exact same thing.”

Wallace scowled and rolled his eyes, but, to Dick’s way of thinking, it wasn’t denial, per se. Veronica, evidently, heard him after all because she let her middle finger do the speaking for her.

Dick drained the rest of his coffee and set the empty cup next to the bag of donuts on the table. He looked over to see if Ronnie was still guard-dogging the bag. Her focus was back on Logan. Wallace was now engaged in conversation with Mrs. Mac. No one was paying any attention to him.

Not enthralled with his front row seat to Logan and Veronica’s flirting and feeling the need to just get up and move, Dick decided to pay a visit to the lobby coffee kiosk. He took everyone’s drink orders and then mentally filed them away.

Downstairs, after ordering and paying for the large order, Dick was standing there just waiting for the barista to make the drinks. A couple minutes later he thought he heard his name and turned around to see Sam and Ryan heading towards him. He waved in acknowledgment.

Sam whispered something in his son’s ear then headed to the lobby gift shop while Ryan joined him at the cart.

“Hi,” Dick greeted him briefly. “Did you or Mr. Mac want anything?”

Ryan muttered something about black coffee and hot chocolate, and then repeated the order louder to the male barista with a punk ‘80’s hairstyle. Dick dug into his wallet for a few bucks to pay for those beverages, too.

As they stood there waiting together in companionable silence, Dick found himself studying Ryan, he was a skinny boy version of his mom really, with no trace of Mac except the twin smirks they both tended to wear. Upon closer inspection though, he noticed bruising around the kid’s eye. Dick did a double take. “Geez, what the hell is with that shiner, Mike Tyson?”

“I went to talk to the guy that hit the ball into the stands.”

“Talk?” Dick asked incredulously. “So, how did that conversation go for you?”

“I think the answer to that one is pretty obvious.”

“No shit! I think you just wanted to steal your sister’s nickname.”

“What?”

“Scrappy Doo,” Dick grinned. “I always liked that little dog-dude almost as much as his Uncle Scooby.”

“What about Daphne?” Ryan asked.

“She’s hot, honestly though, Velma is starting to grow on me even more,” Dick confessed.

Ryan just snickered, like Dick was revealing some deep dark secret, instead of just talking about which members of the Scooby gang were hot.

Mac would be making fun of them, for sure, for comparing the sexy factor of cartoon characters. Some people had no imagination.

“So, was your dad mad?” Dick asked, a couple minutes later.

“Not really. He gave me a mini-lecture, but it was half-assed, at best.”

“What about your mom?”

“She won’t notice,” Ryan said it softly, it sounded kind of sad. “Mom is a bit distracted now.”

“Bullshit. Mrs. Mac will notice right away. I bet you.”

“Yeah?” That had his attention.

“Yeah, name your terms.”

“$500.”

“You have $500 sitting around in your piggy bank?” Dick knew he’d be in deep trouble with Mackie if she ever found out he’d extorted that much money from her brother. He was certain extortion would be the right term, too.

“No, but you do,” Ryan said.

“What if you lose? The first rule of gambling is to never, ever wager more than you can afford to lose.”

“Okay, well if we’re talking rules, the number one rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. So the fuck what?”

The kid had a mouth on him, yet another reason he liked him, but he corrected him anyway, that whole do as I say shit. “Frak.”

Ryan just smirked at him, but didn’t backtrack. “If I lose, then I’ll give you my X-Men #1.”

“Where the hell did you get that?”

“I have my sources.” It was said smugly.

“Mac,” Dick said. It wasn’t a question. The interesting part of that story would be how she got the money to pay for it. Something creative and borderline illegal, Dick was sure. He’d not forgotten Logan’s revelation, at the dinner the previous night, that she’d been the one who sold the purity test online. Fuck, it was only last night! It felt eons longer than that. He figured that was how time ran in purgatory.

“It’s old, kind of beat up. Cindy keeps it in her room. I’m sure it’s worth about $500,” Ryan explained, in the spirit of self-disclosure. “Maybe even a little bit more than that.”

Terms of the wager were interrupted, however, by the Adam Ant look-a-like barista unceremoniously announcing their order and not being very congenial as he placed the carry-all containers filled with take-away cups of hot coffee and Ryan’s cocoa on the counter. Dick grabbed one of the carriers, while Ryan took the other one. They headed toward the bank of elevators.

Mr. Mac came out of the gift shop, empty-handed except for a small plastic bag. For a big man, he proved he could move fast. It didn’t take him long to catch up to them.

“A gift for the Mrs.,” Mr. Mac explained, showing them a blinged-out black satin sleep mask, with fake-ass red and green “jewels” all over. Dick couldn’t look directly at the thing, it was blinding.

“I don’t know how she’s getting any sleep in that…” Mr. Mac paused, and took a deep breath before continuing, “depressing hospital room. I’m going to get her to go home for a couple hours this afternoon.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you, dad,” Ryan said. “It’s not going to end well for you. She’ll go all mama bear on you.”

Dick reached over and punched the button for the 3^rd floor. With a ding, the doors opened right away.

Back in the waiting room, Dick set down the carrier he was holding, removing his own cup of strong black coffee. He let Ryan earn his keep passing out everyone else’s drinks. Scanning the room, he noticed the pixy spy was noticeably absent. Dick took a seat in the same chair he’d staked out since Mac had become a resident of the ICU. He felt like he owned it now, squatters rights and all that shit.

“Ronnie defect again?”

From his vantage point across the aisle, Dick watched Wallace sit up straight and glare at him. He bit back a grin, obviously he’d hit a nerve. Good thing her bodyguard wasn’t packing heat, at this rate he’d be occupying a bed next to Mackie within the day. Wallace’s lack of the warm and fuzzies for him was mostly due to his known Logan association more than anything else. Personally, he and Ronnie’s shadow didn’t have any issues, of their own at least.

“Visiting hours just started, so Nat brought her back to see Mac,” Wallace explained. Jackass was said under his breath, but Dick heard it perfectly.

This time he didn’t bite back the grin.”I’m pretty sure that will be inscribed on my tombstone.”

“I’ll pay for it myself,” Logan said, joining the conversation. His pinched expression broadcasting that he wasn’t a fan of Dick’s question either.

“What? It’s a legit concern. She’s got a history of leaving town in the middle of the night.”

Ryan staked out the same chair he’d poached the day before, grabbed yet another issue of Wired and sipped on his hot chocolate, seeming to tune out his sister’s friends. Dick watched as Mr. Mac left the waiting room, taking his coffee and one for Mrs. Mac, too.

Logan just sat there tapping that SOS again on his coffee cup, with a lost, beaten puppy expression on his face, not even fighting against the current as he fell deeper and deeper down the Veronica shaped rabbit hole. There was no saving him now; the dude was a goner, had been since he and Ronnie locked eyes in the elevator that morning.

The sudden longing for Mac’s company caught him by surprise. He just wanted to be around someone else who was intimately acquainted with the mutual combustion that was left smoldering when those two inevitably got back together. They could cuddle together in a foxhole as the shrapnel rained down.

Dick swore he could tell the exact second Veronica walked back into the room by the 10 degree temperature drop. It wasn’t in an ice queen type of way, but more in the way that she vampired energy out of a room, leaving only shell behind. She seemed to have aged in the fifteen minutes or so since he’d left for the coffee run. She had circles under her eyes, mascara tracks down her cheeks; her posture drooped, like a slow leak.

Logan looked up, took in her expression, and wordlessly handed his coffee cup over to Dick to put on the side table. He stood up, and made his way around the rows of chairs to get to Veronica. She had stopped mid-trek and was wiping a tear that had leaked out of the side of her eye. Dick didn’t avert his eyes or anything as Logan wrapped his arms around her, and she flooded his shirt from her crying. He could hear the rise and fall of Logan’s voice as he talked into her hair, but he didn’t know what was said. He could imagine it though.

It wasn’t a romantic hug, but that’s what made it that way, that intimacy of comforting.

It didn’t take long to see the inevitable shift come over Veronica, it came in stages. First she held herself a little higher, less hunched inward. Then she sniffed and removed one arm from around Logan so she could wipe an eye. Finally, she pulled away. It looked like Logan deflated at that point, it was contagious.

Veronica noticed Dick watching as she walked back to the bank of chairs their group had taken over. “What?” She inquired, her tone sharp. She sat down two seats away from Dick, Logan sat between them.

There’s a wide assortment of supply closets to choose from was on the tip of Dick’s tongue. It begged for release, that snarky banter that defined them. He didn’t say it. Instead, he asked “How’s she holding up?” It was soft, timid, not a natural state for him.

“Not good,” Veronica said. She took a deep breath, perhaps to plan out what to say next. “I’m not used to seeing her still and with tubes sticking out everywhere, she looks like…like…Hell, I don’t know what.”

“My first thought when I saw her was that she looked E.T.” Dick confessed, surprised he was telling her that. “All those wires in weird places, it was scary.”

She looked over at him, not exactly agreeing but not arguing either. Then she just shrugged one shoulder. Anytime she didn’t get her taser out he considered that a win.

Wallace had his phone out and was playing on it--probably Words with Friends or some time-suck like that. He stared intently at the screen, and then started typing really fast.

“Hey, Vee,” Wallace asked a few minutes later. He looked up as he said it. “Did anyone call Parker?”

“Parker?” Veronica asked in a confused tone as though she didn’t recognize the name.

“Parker? I hardly know her,” came out of his mouth before he could stop it, not that he really wanted to though. Habit.

Ignoring Dick, Veronica admitted that as far as she knew no one had called Parker yet.

“I just got a text from Piz; it was an invite to Portland. He and Parker are renting a place together for the summer while they both have internships.”

“So he wrangled up some of that Oregon Mountain man charm of his and got her back to Brigadoon,” Veronica quipped. “Do you want me to call Parker and tell her what’s going on?” It was obvious by her facial expression that this chore may be ranked above dental surgery, but well below being strapped to an ant hill naked.

Dick could tell by the relieved expression on Wallace’s face that he was only too happy to give her that job. “That would be great, Superfly. Thanks. I’ll get her cell number from Piz.”

As Wallace wrote Piz back, Dick listened to Logan filling Veronica in on the gaps of the whole Piz/Parker relationship thing. She was evidently less in the loop than he’d thought, but then again Mackie was not exactly a hard-core gossip chick. She was more the fly under the radar type.

Evidently, from what Logan was explaining, Piz and Parker had formed a Ronnie-survivors group, of the informal sort, sophomore year, after she’d left Hearst, Neptune and them in the rear view mirror. Their sponsor/ pseudo-friendship morphed, like they had a tendency to do, and they started making out and shit. Then the sponsor with benefits thing grew into love and now some summertime shacking up. Dick was certain the end result would be Piz in the baby carriage.

When Wallace had secured the digits, he passed it along to Veronica. She took a deep breath and then started dialing the phone. Her fingers were crossed, probably hoping to get Parker’s voicemail. That wish didn’t come true.

“Hi Parker, it’s Veronica,” she said, her nose wrinkling. She tapped the fingers of the hand not holding her cell against the arm of the chair. “It has been awhile,” she agreed to whatever Parker had said. “Right.” She continued to tap the fingers. “Well, actually Mac is the reason for my call.”

Veronica squinched her eyes shut, presumably in preparation of the news she was about to share. Logan grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“We’re at Neptune Memorial right now; she’s in a coma after a baseball hit her yesterday morning.” It was said in one big mass of a run-on sentence. Dick wasn’t certain she took any breaths between words.

Parker’s shriek and crying transmitted the miles clearly.

With one more person added to the ever-growing list of long distance well-wishers, Veronica quickly ended the call.

“Well, another day ruined,” Veronica muttered when she had enough reign on her own emotions.

“You do know how to spread the sunshine, Mars.” Dick agreed.

“I don’t see you joining the phone tree, Casablancas,” she retorted.

“Everybody I know who would actually, you know, give a shit, is already here showing they give a shit,” Dick explained slowly, like talking to a child, despite the liberal use of less than child-appropriate language.

Veronica just harrumphed, but her already grief- softened look got even softer, so it was just a little firmer than a melty puddle of goo. He saw the exact second Veronica put two and two together and came up with the anniversary of Cassidy’s death.

Being besties with Mac, and with her own part in the tragic affair of course, she had to have some awareness of the calendar, but the accident crowded things out for everyone so there was precious, little real estate for those older events that still curdled around the edges but were still raw in the center.

Logan was gently prodding Veronica for more details when the older Macs came back into the room. There was a foreign look to Mrs. Mac; it seemed to hold a little hope. Before Dick could think positive though—a concept he himself wasn’t acquainted with these days—she started speaking.

“They’re running some tests now; it has been exactly 24 hours since the accident. She’s had three courses of the drugs so far, the hope is that the swelling has gone down, at least a little bit since the baseline test in the ER. She’s nowhere near ready to be awakened, but…”

“It’s a good,” Sam started to take over the status update, but he choked up.

“It’s a good test to see if it will be the miracle my baby,” Nat continued. She looked over at her husband when she said baby. He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Our baby,” she corrected, “needs to come back to all of us.”

The older Macs flopped down in two empty chairs by Wallace, across the narrow aisle from where everyone else was sitting.

Dick had all but forgotten his bet with Ryan when Mrs. Mac loudly exclaimed, “Ryan, what the hell is that around your eye?”

“Um, a bruise?” It was said like a question.

“How did it get there?”

“By a fist,” Ryan replied, impressively matter-of-fact.

“Who did the fist belong to?”

“Roger.”

“Why did Roger’s fist connect with your eye?”

Mr. Mac was no help in the interrogation, though Dick was certain he was privy to more details than Mrs. Mac was getting. She was sounding more and more pissed with each question she asked.

“My fist connected with Roger’s nose.”

“First?”

“Yes.”

“Ryan Samuel Mackenzie, we raised you better than that.”

“No, you raised me to fight for the ones I love, and also for those that don’t have a voice. Cindy fits both of those categories now.” Ryan gripped the arm rests tightly, white knuckled.

Mrs. Mac “got it” just then. Dick watched her jaw drop; he’d have thought it was hinged on there. “So, Roger was the guy who…?” She finally asked, letting her voice trail off at the end.

“Yup,” Ryan confirmed.

She just sagged, all anger blown out along with her deep sigh.

“So, little dude,” Dick asked since the Macs had resolved that bit of conflict, and he was the obvious victor, “is this a bad time to remind you of our little bet?”

“Tomorrow,” Ryan said, making a slicing motion against his throat.

Dick read his signal clearly and nodded.

Quietness spread out through the group for a couple minutes. Ryan went back to his Wired magazine binge, Dick figured, at this point, the little dude could probably start his own tech company by now, especially if Mackie’s dominant hacker gene was recessive in him. Or something like that, how the hell was he supposed to retain all that science shit. The kid was flipping pages so fast; Dick was surprised they didn’t rip. Logan had picked up his cup of now-cold coffee and was in the process of shredding the paper sleeve that was supposed to protect the drinker from finger burns. Veronica was fiddling with her phone, it was dizzying watching her flip it every-which-fucking-way. He wanted to grab it out of her hands, but he valued his own limbs too much to attempt that.

Suddenly he heard a low grumbly noise, and he wasn’t the only one. It broke the frakking sound barrier.

“What the hell was that? Are you giving birth to an alien baby? Sounds like something is about rip through your stomach,” Logan teased.

“I’m a little hungry,” Veronica admitted.

“Your stomach is still a black hole, I see,” Dick teased. “Some things never change.”

It was coming up on noon and the donuts and coffee weren’t the most filling of breakfast foods. They all decided to go to the cafeteria on the first floor except for the Mac’s, who weren’t really hungry. Mrs. Mac almost fell asleep a couple times; Dick figured Sam would force her out the door to go home for a nap. He felt sorry for the dude, by his calculations it wouldn’t end pretty.

All five of them, including Ryan, picked up their personal belongings and made their way to the elevator. They punched the down button and waited.

After about a minute, they heard a ding and the doors yawned open. Before they had a chance to board, a teenage girl with long black hair and blue scrubs got out. She looked vaguely familiar to Dick, but he couldn’t place her name. The scrubs kind of threw him, hell; maybe she was a female, Neptunian Doogie Howser, teen doctor brainiac type.

He wasn’t the only one that thought that girl looked familiar, he recognized Ronnie’s intent PI stare. She seemed to be coming up with some convoluted conclusion to some case that probably existed only in her mind anyway. He wondered where she kept her spy glass these days, maybe in her imaginary trench coat. He watched her track, and catalog, the girl’s movements as she walked quickly down the hallway towards the ICU.

They piled into the elevator car. It was a short ride to the first floor.

Once at the cafeteria the group separated to make their food selections and pay. With all that minutiae out of the way, they reconvened at the same table, by the window, they’d sat at the day before. They might as well have it reserved.

Veronica and Logan were already sitting side by side by the time Dick came back with a chicken stir fry on his tray. He slammed it down hard; to make sure they knew he was there. Did their tunnel vision allow them to even notice outsiders?

“I’m Dick; I’ll be your chaperone. Please keep your hands where I can see them at all times,” he snarked as he sat down.

“Don’t get comfortable, we’re putting you at the kiddy table over there.” Veronica rejoined, pointing to an empty table across the way. “You and Ryan can talk video games while the adults have a serious conversation.”

“Cute,” Dick smirked.

“Yes, she is,” Logan agreed.

“Don’t get me started on you, dude,” Dick began.

“No worries there, I wouldn’t dream of it” Wallace said, as he put his tray on the table and pulled up a chair. He’d chosen chicken parmesan, which Dick thought smelled even better than it looked. “You brought your taser, right Vee? Then we can make sure Dick doesn’t get started—ever.”

“Sadly, no, it’s against hospital policy, something about no weapons,” Veronica snapped her fingers in an oh darn gesture.

“Plus the charge could interfere with life-saving equipment.” Dick helpfully supplied. It sounded right, too bad Mackie wasn’t there to back him up, or more likely knock his suggestion down.

Ryan was the last to join them at the table. He was the only one still in his teens, and his tray proved that he was still growing. There were two big sub sandwiches, a plate of fries, some chips, an apple, and a brownie. His appetite had definitely rebounded.

Dick smirked and then pointed at the shiny red apple. “Trying to keep doctors away?” He flinched mentally, not a good time or place to say that. Mackie always joked that he had a terminal case of Foot in Mouth disease.

“That’s the plan, but it’s failing miserably,” Ryan tossed back.

“They want you and me to sit over there at the kid’s table,” Dick recapped. “By they I mean Veronica.”

“Actually, I changed my mind,” she said. “You can stay Ryan. I’ll change the rules so it’s by mental age, not chronological.”

“Does Stanford offer a major in making up rules as you go along?”

“Not yet, they’re having trouble laying the groundwork for the field studies. What about Douchebaggery? Is that on the curriculum now at Hearst? You’d graduate summa cum laude.”

“Going for my Doctorate,” Dick said with faux-pride. He watched with fascination as she tucked into her double cheeseburger and fries. Logan once again proved his honorary girl status by eating a salad, granted it was a big entrée salad with lots of meat, but still, it had the primary fault of being green.

Conversation rambled in fits and starts, between bites of food. Logan tried to get Veronica to open up about Stanford, but she kept bringing it back around to Mac. On one level he understood that, she was the underlying current as to why they were all here in the first place, but he also needed to focus on something that wasn’t the all-in fucking dread and worry that had been stalking him for the past 24 hours. He had to admit, Ronnie-sparring was a decent distraction. He wouldn’t give her kudos for that though. She didn’t need more encouraging, not that Logan got that effing-memo. He never would.

Maybe Wallace got tired of Dick and Veronica sniping, or maybe he was feeling conversationally left out, whatever his motive, he started in on a story about a project Mac had assisted him with the previous semester, and how pissy she got at the grade he ended up with.

“The next day, I went to class, the prof handed back the report part of the assignment and magically my C+ had morphed into an A- overnight.”

They all laughed.

“How did Mac get roped into that in the first place?” Veronica inquired.

“I asked her,” Wallace said, simply. “We’re friends.”

She seemed confused.

“I told you that. We hang out together and everything,” Wallace continued. “I always liked Mac, you know that, we got to be buddies through you, but then our link moved, and instead of going separate ways, we actually started hanging out more. She’s a great person to have on your side.”

“The world didn’t stop just because you left,” Logan added. His tone was soft, gentle, despite the potential for harshness those words held. “We all moved on and became friends, real friends.”

“Even Dick?”

“Especially Dick,” Logan started to say.

“I guess I didn’t think Neptune would be the exact same way I left it, but I don’t know, it seems
like everything changes.”

“It does, Ronnie,” Dick said. “Is that so bad?”

“Yes. No. Maybe? Can I get back to you?” Veronica said. Then, she was quiet for a couple of long moments. “Depends on the changes, I guess. Look, I, I’ll be here for a few days, maybe longer. It depends, on…” She paused and swallowed hard, “yeah, depends on a couple of points.”

No one needed a memo to get what she meant there.

Since everyone was done with the business eating, and only crumbs were being pushed around their plates at that point, the group set to work clearing off the table and throwing their garbage out. They made the now very familiar trek back to the elevators. It was starting to be a regular routine, and not of the good variety, either.

With almost equal parts dread and hope, he wondered if the results of Mac’s latest batch of tests were back yet. He’d spent the parts of lunch that he wasn’t bickering with Veronica trying to push all thoughts of Mackie being poked, prodded and generally tortured with the intent of curing her out of his head. It was mostly an exercise in futility.

They had just stepped out of the elevator onto the drab, utilitarian hallway of the 3^rd floor when Dick happened to look over towards the ICU door. He had been thinking of Mac. Shocker!

Mrs. Mac was conferring, outside the double doors of the unit, with a man in a white coat, the doctor he assumed, a woman Dick recognized as the nurse and the same teen girl he’d seen earlier that day.

He was a little surprised when Mrs. Mac spotted them and waved them over. He assumed it was mainly Ryan she was summoning. However, she didn’t seem to care when the entire group went over.

She gave the doctor a brief bio of the newcomers—friends and younger brother of Cindy. Short, to the point.

His status update was not nearly as brief. Bottom line was the improvement her scans showed was minimal, but it didn’t mean things were hopeless. The doctor was very quick to point out there was still a lot of things going for Cindy.

Dick remembered one of his brainless, bimbo, trophy stepmom’s used to yammer on about positive thinking and visualization, new-agey shit like that. He put less than zero faith in it, but in case there was something to it after all, he pictured her big, swollen brain shrinking.

The doctor spoke another couple of minutes recapping the test and explaining other options. Finally he excused himself, leaving just Mrs. Mac, the nurse and the teen Doogie Howser.

He half listened as the nurse, Tara, mentioned in passing that she was permanently assigned to Mac as long as was necessary, at least for 2^nd shift. Mrs. Mac seemed to like having one main nurse who was with Mac as long as needed.

“Well, Tara, Lauren, thank you for staying with me while I talked to Dr. Pence again. It helps having people around who know what’s going on.”

The girl who Mrs. Mac called Lauren spoke first. “I’m just a volunteer; I don’t know anything about the procedures. I’m happy to join you though.” She laughed gently.

It was then he realized why she looked familiar—she was Lauren Sinclair, Madison’s younger sister. She was older looking than the last time he’d seen her. Go figure! Dick had always been surprised by how different the Sinclair sisters were, in looks and personality—night and day shit, literally Lauren always had been the anti-bitch of the pair.

After one last round of ‘thank you’, the group headed back to the waiting room and those hard-ass chairs that still carried their butt impressions.

 –TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 12—Islands

Captain's Log star date 58372.7

Mac woke up on the Saturday after Thanksgiving heavy with the awareness she was now three weeks into this strange, new dimension that was a fun house mirror version of her old life—distorted and backwards.

Three weeks was almost a month, and she had no clue how long she would continue to live in this limbo land.

At least she'd survived her first Sinclair holiday—barely—but still, she chalked that down to a win!

It probably would have been a good day if her mom had not invited Dick Casablancas. Actually, that wasn't a fair statement. There was a part of her that was glad he was there with her, though of course he was ignorant of the circumstances of her new normal but, still, "uncomplicated" Dick was a good person to be around when your life was a study in complexity. He made her laugh, in this dimension, and her "real" one, too.

No, things only turned to shit when he darkened the Sinclair doorstep with Cassidy in tow. She'd cried herself to sleep that night, reliving the nightmarish events of graduation night, which was the last night Cass was alive. Seeing him very much alive and talking to her baby sister, in this reality, made her stomach churn with nausea and fear. She had to fight the urge to drop Lauren in a decontamination shower—on second thought, make that a decon bath-to keep him from infecting her innocent sister, like his madness had done to her.

The internal war being waged deep inside was the anger and pain from what he did to her, and Veronica, vs. her desire for a re-do, a new chance to save her classmates. She was no closer to deciding on a course of action. She didn't even know if anything she did in this life would ripple its way into her original dimension. Maybe the whole idea that she could affect change was just cosmic bullshit, the whole universe gut laughing over her stupidity.

It probably was.

The question remained, however, did she try anyway?

If she decided to go for it, the bitch of it was she needed to plough through the mental scars Cassidy left her and make an effort to connect with him in this time period. A friend, if there was one thing that lost boy needed it was a friend.

Reluctantly, Mac extracted herself from the warm nest of blankets. Yesterday she'd been able to beg off the traditional post-Thanksgiving shopping binge known as Black Friday by claiming a migraine, she wouldn't be able to lay low today though, she knew. No, that would've earned her a one-way pass back to Dr. Stephenson.

She threw on a pair of designer jeans from the back of the massive closet, where she'd thrown them the night before, and then grabbed a purple tee shirt from one of the built in shelves. There was a maelstrom of clothes strewn everywhere, as was common the day before Lucille's self-proclaimed laundry day.

Next stop was the bathroom. She ran the brush through her long hair, giving it a few half-hearted licks. It was still jolting to look in the mirror and see the same long hair she'd had back in her first high school days. It was time to reapply some purple streaks, too, after Ellen had made her wash out the temporary dye before the big Thanksgiving feast. It was a shift from what she was used to, the part time freedom of self-expression allowed in the Sinclair household. Natalie, on the other hand, never seemed to object to her rotational rainbow of colored streaks that defined her high school self.

Fully dressed, Mac headed downstairs.

She followed the sound of the TV and found Lauren on the couch in the family room eating a bowl of cereal while watching Scooby Doo.

"Busted," she murmured into her sister's ear as she came up behind her and gently tapped her shoulder. Lauren jumped and a droplet of milk splashed up and landed on her fuzzy pajamas.

"Madi!" her tone indignant. "You almost got me grounded until prom."

"Sorry," Mac said, however the laughter in her tone was at odds with her words. She came around to the front of the couch and eased herself sown, next to her sister. This time no milk droplets plotted an escape.

Lauren's glare deepened.

"Grounded until prom? I wasn't aware they had a seventh grade prom," Mac continued.

"No, I meant high school prom. Spilling anything on this couch is a serious crime," she explained.

"If you're so afraid of the wrath of mom, why do I keep finding you violating the rule?"

"One, it's stupid, two, I'm not afraid per se, I just would rather escape spending my glory days in this jailhouse."

"Glory days? You're eleven."

"Almost twelve."

"Whatever," Mac said dismissively. "Where is mom?"

"Returning half the things she bought yesterday at all those sales. My feet still hurt, by the way." Lauren had a slight whine in her voice. She propped her feet up on the coffee table in front of her to really sell it.

"You could have stayed home with me," Mac reminded her.

"Now you tell me," she grumped. "No, I thought you'd be going so I promised to go as well, then you backed out and I didn't want to upset mom by doing that, too."

She closed her eyes at that, hoping to block the inevitable guilt from coming to the surface. That plan utterly failed.

"I have a couple errands to run," Mac said, a few minutes later. "How about I make my defection up to you by taking you with me?"

"How does that make anything up to me?" Lauren enquired. "Besides, my feet hurt, remember."

"I'll buy you a hot chocolate at Java," Mac replied to the second comment, ignoring the first statement.

"Sold," Lauren said. She looked happy at the prospect of spending time with her older sister despite the initial token protest.

They got rid of all evidence of Lauren's breakfast rebellion. As they prepared to leave, Mac grabbed a handful of leftover cinna-melt cookies and poured some coffee into a to-go cup.

Taking her now battle-scarred car, they headed towards downtown Neptune.

Mac found a space in front of Comp-U-Stop, and locked up, and then she and Lauren headed in.

The door chimed their arrival.

"Hi Dave," Mac automatically greeted the lanky, bespectacled guy of indeterminate age working behind the register.

He smiled at her, but she could tell he had no clue who she was. She obviously wasn't a regular here like she was in her Mac-life.

Damnit, she mentally berated herself, habit got her every time. She needed to make some kind of cheat sheet to keep track of who she knew in what existence, and for those overlapping cases, what role she played in each life. As surreal as her life was these days, it was still a comfort to collide both of her lives together whenever possible.

Lauren wandered over to the book wall, while Mac started looking at the storage devices and expansion packs.

"Let me know if I can help you find something," Dave said a couple minutes later. He didn't leave his perch behind the counter. Mac knew he wasn't being unfriendly; he was just really shy around people he didn't know. It was a surreal kind of realization because, in her Mac life, they got along great despite his contempt for all things Apple. She decided to have a little fun with that insider piece of knowledge.

"Is this it? You don't have any more wireless cards, or dongles, specifically for Mac's? Maybe I should go to Computer Mart." Mac replied, and then bit her lip to keep from laughing. She didn't dare turn around and look at him. She could just picture him trying, and failing, to keep himself from rolling his eyes.

The truth was, even with Comp-U-Stop's bare bones selection of Apple MacIntosh ("Mac") accessories, she much preferred this little ramshackle mom-pop type of computer store to the big box, sterile, mass-appeal of Computer Mart. Sam had instilled in her an appreciation for independent stores and restaurants. It had taken years before Mac realized that his support for local business was driven primarily by his own short lived experience as a small business owner. He'd started, and sub-sequentially lost, Fun Time Motors when Mac was very young. It was still a big part of his life, since after losing the company; the new owners still retained him as a salesman.

"That's a great idea, if you enjoy paying a 75% mark up, and maybe you'll get one additional brand to choose from, also with high mark ups," Dave said. "If you have money to burn, then I highly recommend Computer Mart." He didn't hide his distaste or his sarcasm—a language Mac both spoke and respected.

She smirked, but not in his sightline. She knew him well-enough to know he was getting pissed yet trying hard not show she'd hit his "hot button" issue. After all, pissing off customers wasn't a good business practice.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Lauren still looking in the books section; she had a book in each hand and was studying them both carefully like she couldn't decide which one to select.

Mac came up behind her to take a peek at the titles she was considering. One was a detailed history of computers, and the other was basically a hacking for Dummies type book.

"You can't go wrong with either book," Mac said.

"I was just going to say the opposite—I can't go right with either title," Lauren turned around, saying it with a straight face. Mac assumed she had to be joking though; they were both wonderful additions to any library.

Ignoring that last line, Mac went back to choosing what she needed to keep her network of computers running at optimum speed. She paid for her purchases and made nice with Dave again. It seemed to be a successful mission based on the friendly ribbing he gave her about the OS-X operating system as he took her money. Mac countered by defending its simplicity.

With a better wireless card and more RAM checked off her to do list, Mac and Lauren left the Comp-U-Stop. Instead of going to the car, they turned left and headed toward Java the Hut. It was simpler to walk the two blocks than to drive and then find another parking spot.

It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining brightly, and despite being late November it was shaping up to be a warm day.

Mac looked over at her sister, walking beside her through the streets of downtown Neptune. Being a Saturday, and a holiday weekend to boot, the streets were not exactly bustling. She watched as Lauren peeked curiously into the store fronts as they passed.

A smile pushed to the surface as she remembered all the fantasies she'd had through the years of just spending time with Lauren. The day dreams were never elaborate, just little snippets of day-to-day life, only now she was living it, instead of just dreaming about it. It was a pinch me kind of moment for Mac.

They paused at the stop sign and turned right onto Main Street.

Mac held the door open and followed Lauren inside Java the Hut. The popular Neptune coffee shop held a lot of caffeinated memories for her. Back in high school Veronica had worked there on nights and weekends. It had become habit for Mac to visit her during her shift. It was during one of those visits that she'd first discovered soy chai lattes, which were still to this day her drink-of-choice.

They joined the short line of people waiting for their own coffee fix-jittery, fidgety people.

"Hot chocolate?" Mac enquired.

"That's my go-to," Lauren said.

"You have a go-to beverage choice?" Mac couldn't leave the skepticism out of her voice.

"Yep," Lauren affirmed, but didn't volunteer any more info than that.

However, when it was their turn Mac ordered a Venti soy chai latte for herself and had been just about ready to get Lauren's hot chocolate when she changed it last minute to another soy chai latte.

"What happened to your go-to drink?" Mac asked in a teasing voice as they stood off to the side while the barista made their drinks.

"Just broadening my beverage choices, I guess. Mom says it's good to try new things, plus if you like it, I'm sure I will. What is it, some frou-frou coffee thing, right?"

Mac laughed and ruffled her sister's hair. "You're funny. It's spiced tea and milk, no coffee."

Lauren made a face at the description of the thing she was about to drink, and Mac's laugh deepened.

"Is it too late to change my…" she started to ask, when the counter guy announced Mac's name and put both drinks down.

"Yes, it's too late," Mac said, unnecessarily at that point. She grabbed both cups and led them to an available table by the window. "Just try it. If you don't like it, I'll finish yours and buy you a hot chocolate."

They sat down across from each other.

"Okay," Lauren conceded, pinching her nose with one hand and picking her cup up with her other hand. Tentatively she put the cup to her lips. She blew on it, and then took a small sip. She made a face at first, then tried another sip, and kept on drinking it.

"So?"

"It's alright."

"Just alright?"

"Yup."

Evidently, being a typical 'tweener', Lauren wasn't going to be lavish in her praise of chai Lattes, but the way she kept drinking it rendered that unnecessary anyway. Her actions did the talking for her.

Mac started asking Lauren about her classes, her friends, and what she wanted to be when she grew up. She was surprised to learn that her favorite teacher from Elementary school, Mrs. Winters, was currently a Science teacher in the Junior High, and was Lauren's favorite teacher, too. Mac also heard a lot about Brittany, a girl who had recently moved to Neptune from Ohio. As for dreams and ambitions, Lauren confessed she wanted to be a doctor or maybe a surgeon and 'cut people open and stuff.'

As she sipped her chai latte and listened to the excitement in Lauren's voice as she outlined her day by day activities, Mac studied her, trying to memorize every detail and nuance as though she could burn it to her memory.

It was Technicolor, it was real, and she wasn't ready for their 'sister bonding' day to end.

Lauren had moved on to a long story that explained how Brittany earned her newly-appointed BFF status, something to do with locating Pip, the missing class hamster. Mac wasn't clear on all the details, but Brittany sounded a little like a pint-sized Veronica with fewer trust issues. She wondered if Lauren would end up being the Watson to Brittany's Sherlock. History did have a lot of funny habits.

Just then, Mac's focus was diverted for a second by the ping of an incoming text. She was going to ignore it, but Lauren insisted she check. So at her sister's urging, she rifled through her small Coach clutch bag until she found her phone buried in the bottom. She flicked through the menu until she came to the message envelope. She read it and felt her face heat up, and evidently she smiled, too.

Dick: What color undies are you wearing?

As Lauren teased her about her grin and then started making kissing noises, Mac ignored her and sent a reply back to Dick's text.

Madi: I'm wearing a new kind of underwear, they're invisible. No lines.

Before she could even finish calculating how long it would take Dick to text her back, it pinged again.

Dick: Be right there.

She smiled again, probably an even bigger one this time. Of course, that wasn't possible, Dick was in Tahiti, or Bora-Bora ,or Turks and Caicos, some tropical rich-person Mecca, surfing and drinking Tequila shots, and probably getting even tanner than before.

Madi: I'm not at home.

He was quick with the trigger finger then, too.

Dick: Hot date?

Madi: Yup—a hot date with three hot guys. Jealous?

There was a longer pause between messages; Lauren continued to make kissy noises.

"So, what about you?" Mac asked her sister. "Any boyfriends?" She tried to be covert about checking the screen for another message from Dick. She failed miserably at it based on the smirk Lauren gave her before replying.

"Boys have cooties," she laughed. It was a deep throaty sound and was quickly becoming one of Mac's favorites. Then it died out, and her tone got serious. "There is one boy, he's okay. His name is Kyle. I think Brittany likes him though. I don't know."

"Did she tell you that?" Mac asked. She looked down at her phone, yet again, still nothing.

"Well, no," Lauren admitted, "but she keeps changing the subject when I try to talk about him."

"Ask her. You don't want to violate the friend code, but maybe you guys can come to an agreement if you talk about it. You don't want to pass up any chances with Kyle, either."

"How do you know?"

"I'm wise beyond my years," Mac replied, not biting back an ironic smile. The truth was oozing itself around that sentence.

Just then another ping emanated from her phone. Mac retrieved it and frowned slightly.

"Not Dick," Lauren stated rather than asked.

"Nope," Mac affirmed, but then one side of her lips quirked up into a half-smile as she read the message.

Jackson: Just say no to drugs evidently applies to the sanctity of my own room, too. Moms suck.

She wrote back:

Madi: You don't want to compare mom issues with me. What the hell did you do?

Jackson: I just smoked up one time. I think the maid is out to get me, tattling on me. Mom was majorly mad. It's my fucking room. Let's just say I won't be going to your party, or you know, see the light of day in years.

Madi: What?! Party?! I'm not having a party.

Her birthday was coming up in a few weeks, but no one had mentioned anything to her about a party. She remembered from her original high school days the infamous Sinclair bacchanalias to celebrate the birth of the 'Bitch Queen Bee' herself. She'd even crashed one that first year after learning the truth. Was that what Jackson was referring to? Oh hell no! She'd have to put the kibosh on that plan.

Jackson: Um, nothing. Never mind. My mistake. But the punishment doesn't fit my crime. I'll never see life on the outside again.

Mac smiled at his backpedaling.

Madi: Aw poor baby, stuck in your room with only your gaming system and computers for company. What inhumane imprisonment.

Her sarcasm was lost in the text, however.

Jackson: I know, right? What I need is leverage.

Madi: Leverage? Like blackmail?

Jackson: Yes, leverage, not blackmail though, such an ugly term.

Madi: I may know someone that can help you. We'll talk in class Monday. I've got to go now.

Jackson: Thanks, Mad, you're a lifesaver. Bye.

Madi: No prob! Over & out…

"Sorry L," Mac said as she put her phone back into her clutch. As she did that, she realized she'd never heard back from Dick. He must have gotten distracted, a common state for him, she reminded herself wryly.

"I don't mind. We haven't spent time like this in years, you're always so busy," Lauren said. She didn't look bothered by that, just resigned.

Mac felt guilty in a way that didn't make sense. She was only borrowing this life for the short-term, but she felt protective of this girl sitting across from her. She'd felt that way since the night she had crashed Madison's party.

The thought of having her own fete was Twilight Zone weird. Of course, that was a zone she'd been dwelling in for month now anyway, The thought of being the Sinclair in question for the annual "Fall rite of passage," Madison Sinclair's birthday party didn't exactly make her feel like doing a happy dance. She suspected Dick was a big part of the plans to keep that tradition alive this year. She'd have to work on that...

After finishing the remains of their drinks, Mac and Lauren threw out their trash and headed back to the car a block and a half away.

It wasn't until later that night that Mac heard back from Dick. She'd just got done having dinner and was up in her room to grab her Physics book when habit had her checking her phone.

She picked it up from its usual perching place by her bedside table and scrolled through the menu.

There was one missed message:

Dick: Sorry babe, got Beavered. Not as much fun as it sounds. He's off the ledge about something. Betina got him to shut the fuck up somehow. Aw, family. See ya Monday. No weaseling out of our date Friday—I own your cute ass fair square. Over & Out…

Mac fired off a quick reply even though it had been sent to her over an hour prior. She was a little more concerned than she cared to admit about his cryptic message, but she tamped it down.

Madi: Nothing fair or square about that bet, and you know it Casablancas. Don't overdose on family time. See your scrawny ass on Monday. Over & out…

***************Monday Morning, Neptune High********************

Mac found a parking spot in the '09'er lot—B—and slid Lucille's Honda into a space near the front. The Caddy was going to the shop to get the dent fixed.

She had just walked through the back entrance of Neptune High when Jackson accosted her.

"Dude, you need to help me. Who is this person you said you knew that could give me leverage on the 'rents?"

"Okay, first, I'm a dudette, not a dude," Mac corrected, smiling. "Second, my friend, Veronica works for her dad, he's a PI. They have access to data bases it would take me forever to, um, access." She always tried to be careful to whom she revealed the extent of her computer skills to, especially in this uncertain existence.

"Veronica, as in Veronica Mars?"

"That would the Veronica in question, yes." Mac said dryly.

"Since when did the two of you become friends?"

"Recently, but it's like we've always been friends. Look, join us at lunch and I'll make the introductions."

"Thanks, Mad. I owe you one."

"You owe me several, Jackson, and I will collect," Mac replied, lightly punching him on the arm.

After saying their good-byes, they went in opposite directions to their respective homerooms.

Dick was already there, half-asleep at his desk. He seemed to wake up a little when he saw Mac enter though.

"Too much partying?" Mac inquired as she flopped down at the desk beside him.

"Too much family time, apparently I OD'ed on it after all," Dick replied, sitting up.

The bell rang just then and Mrs. Murphy got the school day underway.

At lunch, Jackson found Mac sitting with Veronica and Wallace at their usual table out in the quad. He plopped down next to Mac.

"So, I hear you can dig up dirt on parents," he said to Veronica, getting down to business. He reached into his lunch bag and retrieved a turkey wrap out of it and took a big bite.

"What, no greetings and salutations?" Mac teased. She pushed the remains of her salad away, now full. They'd been sitting there eating and talking for about fifteen minutes before Jackson had joined them.

"Top of the morning to you all," Jackson backtracked, as soon as he finished swallowing the bite of his sandwich. "Now, can you help me Mars?"

"It's afternoon, actually."

"Top of the afternoon to you all," Jackson said. "Now, can you help?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Find leverage on my parents. They're very strict. I was smoking up in my room over break and they grounded me for two months."

"At least you're still walking," Wallace added. "Apparently you haven't spent time in my mom's house."

Jackson ignored that. "I can pay."

Veronica perked up at that. "Suddenly my schedule has cracked wide open. Are you sure you can handle what I uncover?"

"Just find me some proof that they aren't as perfect as they act like. I can handle the truth," Jackson said confidently. He continued to work on his sandwich as they worked out the terms of the arrangement.

Veronica asked Jackson to meet her in her office—first floor girl's bathroom—the following day before lunch. Then he got up to throw out his garbage before joining Dick's table for the rest of the lunch hour.

Mac brought up her Thanksgiving dinner from hell, leaving out the bigger bullet points of her meal of course. They all compared and contrasted their weekend until the bell rang.

Wallace went off in one direction, while Veronica and Mac walked off in the opposite one.

"You know, you could make a lot of money selling parental secrets," Mac suggested. "Charge double the fee that Jackson is paying."

"That's the friend of a friend rate, not everyone qualifies for that one anyway," Veronica said.

"I could buy the domain name; we can call it 'Dirt on Parents' or something more clever than that. We wouldn't have any overhead that way." Veronica shot her down once, however, maybe in this life they could make a go of it.

"Tempting, but I'm not sure I have enough time for school, helping dad, and everything else in my life as it is. I don't think I could handle anything more."

"Oh, yeah, I see that." Mac couldn't keep the disappointment from bleeding through though. Nope, no lucrative side business in this dimension either. Also, she'd hoped Veronica would look into the settlement terms she'd found in her bio dad's drawer the other day. She'd finally carved out some more snooping time the previous day, but had discovered the paperwork had been relocated and there hadn't been enough to time to scout out other locations.

"You okay? Is there something on your mind?" Veronica asked.

She always could read Mac perfectly, there never had been hiding things from her, why should things in this life be any different?

"Well, there's just one thing," Mac began. She paused for a moment, maybe some secrets followed her life to life, dimension to dimension.

"What?"

Mac took a deep breath. "Um, I found something weird the other day in one of my dad's desk drawers, a really big settlement, but I couldn't find the rest of the paperwork. I was hoping, maybe, you could look into it?"

"Sure. Text me your details tonight and I'll look it up when I'm working Jackson's case, too."

"Thank you." Mac suddenly felt relieved. "I can pay you."

"No, keep your money; consider it a referral bonus for sending Jackson my way."

"Thanks pal."

They came to a fork in the hallway, and parted. Mac headed to her math class, hoping she made the right decision. If there's one thing she'd learned from her Mac life, it was that some secrets could never be unlearned.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 13—Cracked the Code

It was Tuesday night and Mac was collapsed on the couch in the family room, absolutely exhausted. She'd just got back from teaching the computer class for gray heads at the Senior Center. It was a requirement for her computer science block class—or rather Future Hackers of America. She loved teaching; her students, though several times her own age, were eager to learn and never failed to make her laugh.

Lauren was beside her on the couch catching up on cartoons that had been Tivo'ed earlier in the week.

Their dad was working late, and 'Mom2' had some charity board meeting or whatever, Mac had only half-listened as Ellen had tried to give her a precise itinerary of every member of the family.

Mac had her eyes closed, listening to Velma outline the clues that the Scooby gang had uncovered. She was brought back to reality by Lucile coming into the room and calling her name.

Startled, Mac opened her eyes and sat up. "What?" she croaked.

"You have a visitor, doll. Why don't you all go to your room and I'll be up with a tray of snacks," Lucille replied.

Dick was the first name that came to Mac's mind, but that mental question was answered before it was fully formed. Obviously, her bedroom wouldn't be an option if it was Dick. Then she remembered her conversation with Veronica, earlier in the day, about needing a little extra digging time. She'd hoped to have a report for her by that evening—apparently she made that deadline. Jackson had already received the dirt on his parents at lunch; he'd happily forked over the money to Veronica upon learning of his dad's own history of recreational usage. The elder Douglas was revealed to be both an Eagles fan from back in the day, as well as a not-so-savvy businessman, as he'd been caught making a deal with an undercover officer at the concert. Jackson had been thrilled with his own business dealings with Veronica and had promised to give her some positive PR. Mac was pretty sure her friend was already mentally spending the cold hard cash that was sure to trickle in.

"Thanks Lucille," Mac said. She reminded her sister it was almost bedtime, and then got up to follow the maid out to the foyer. She hadn't even heard the doorbell ring, though that wasn't shocking, noise didn't transmit as well in the Sinclair house as it did in Casa de Mackenzie. Of course, having an extra 8,500 square feet to work with did affect the acoustics.

Veronica was standing by the door, looking slightly uncomfortable, but her eyes were tracking every square foot of the vast space, not missing a thing.

"Welcome to my home, be it ever so humble," Mac deadpanned, walking into the room.

Veronica looked up startled for a second, and then she shook it off. "Hi, Madison."

"You seem surprised to see me here."

"No, that's not it," Veronica opened her mouth to explain. "I mean, I knew your '09'er status, obviously, but, um, you know I don't know what I was going to say." She seemed a little evasive to Mac.

"I just don't have that shiny '09'er sheen," Mac supplied. "Right?"

Veronica smiled, "something like that. I'm not sure I'd have said it like that, but okay, that works."

"I believe you have some intel for me? Let's go up to my room," Mac said.

"That's correct, I did find out a few things that you may be interested in. Lead the way," Veronica invited. "I'm not sure I can find my way around your casa, otherwise. I left my GPS unit at home."

They went upstairs, and then wound their way around the long hallway to Mac's room. She watched Veronica study this environment, too. She walked around the bedroom, pausing in her tour every so often to pick up a knick-knack, or a book, or to study something closer.

Mac sat down on the bed, and hoped Veronica would take the hint too. She was getting dizzy watching Veronica move so much in such a short time and geographic space.

"It must be something big for you to come by in person," Mac said. She bit the bottom of her lip and tried not to go back mentally in time to the first time her bestie had worked a case for her. Though the what of that case had blindsided her, she'd always had known deep down she didn't fit in with the Mackenzies. Whatever the result of this PI dig ended up being, she had two certainties, one, it wouldn't be as big as a baby switch, and two, it didn't involve the Mackenzies.

By the time Veronica finished outlining what she had learned, Mac discovered only one of her certainties was correct.

"Insurance payout?" Mac clarified.

"Yes, Neptune Insurance LLC awarded your dad, Robert Allan Sinclair, a half-million dollars for a car accident that took place June 6th, 1991. You were badly injured, too. The policy holders are listed as Sam and Natalie Mackenzie." Veronica paused for a second. "Mackenzie. Don't they have a daughter in our grade, Sandy or something?"

"Cindy," Mac corrected, robotically. She was in utter shock. Was there one universe, dimension, or reality— whatever the frak the proper nomenclature was— where the Mackenzies and the Sinclairs were not intertwined?! Was there any existence where the Mackenzies weren't on the bottom layer of Fate's epic shit storm? Every plane seemed to lead to the Sinclairs prospering and the Mackenzies floundering.

It wasn't fucking fair.

In the back of her muddied mind, Veronica's mention of her own injuries from the accident registered. "What happened to me?" Mac asked softly, putting a slight emphasis on "me."

"You were in a coma for a week, I think. There were two suits that came of your accident, a civil one lodged against the driver, Sam, that was ultimately settled and another civil one against SafeKidz car seat manufacture, this one for one million dollars."

She'd never heard of the SafeKidz brand before, they probably shut down after losing a big judgment. Well, it was starting to be clear where the Sinclairs got the seed money for Sinclair Enterprises, and probably the desire to go into the healing arts, as well, or benefit financially from it, at the very least.

"I don't get it," Mac said thoughtfully, "Sam built all the shelves in this room, and my new computer desk, as well." She gestured to her right where her high tech assemblage of computers was housed. "Why destroy the man's life, and then hire him as a laborer? Why blame him, punish him and then later bring him into your house to do your bidding? Did they decide to make him staff; is he working off karma or something?" Mac knew she was fired up, and it seemed displaced, but she couldn't help it. She was incensed about the whole situation.

She didn't get the rules in this strange dimension that she'd landed in. Of course, who the hell was she kidding? She didn't get the rules of her—so called—real life, either.

"Destroy his life? Sam was the one driving the car that almost killed you and your dad. The judgment and the cases sound legit to me, Madison. I mean, this is a litigious world we live in, lots of stupid cases, like criminals who break into someone's house and break their leg in the line of duty then sue the homeowner, dumbass shit like that. It makes me glad I'm not a lawyer. This lawsuit, however, there was some logic behind it."

"Logic?"

"Yes, logic," Veronica confirmed. "I'm sure your parents wanted to prevent a faulty car seat from hurting anyone else's child."

"Okay, the corporation with deep pockets, yeah, I can kind of buy that," Mac admitted, lightly emphasizing the kind of. "Why destroy a man with a family who made one small mistake."

"Madison," Veronica sounded a little indignant, as evidenced by her shriek. "He fell asleep at the wheel, in the middle of the day. You were in a coma, your dad, well, I couldn't get much info from his medical records, but he was banged up pretty badly, too." She stopped her pacing, and headed back towards the bed where Mac was still sitting, her legs crossed.

Veronica paused in front of her friend. "Why does it seem like your allegiance isn't with your family?" Her head was tilted, that patented Veronica-look that was present in every dimension.

I have 100% allegiance to my family—my real "fake" family, at least. Mac couldn't, or wouldn't, voice those thoughts though. She wanted to, the urge to confess pressed down on her, squeezing itself into every corner of her soul. "I just see all sides of the equation, that's all," she said, instead. "What about Madison? Was she with her dad? Did she get hurt, too?"

Mac didn't even realize her slip, at first, until she saw the slight look of confusion on Veronica's face get deeper.

"Yes, you were in a coma, remember?" She said at last, as a reminder, though a slight rebuke stained her words.

"No, I was three," Mac said, though she knew that wasn't what Veronica was really saying.

"I meant that I already told you about your injuries."

"I remember. Sorry, slip of the tongue. I meant, was Cindy injured, too?" Mac sat on her hands to avoid the urge to make air quotes.

"I don't think she was even in the car. Sam was heading home from working a double shift at the chicken processing factory outside of town."

"Chicken factory?" Mac couldn't keep her disgust under wraps.

"Chicken," Veronica affirmed. "Everything tastes like chicken, except, you know, when it tastes like bacon."

"Shut up, you're not helping." Mac felt like she was starting to go a little green.

"You vegans," Veronica started to say.

Right on cue, there was a knock on the door. At Mac's "come in" command, the door opened and Lucille walked in laden with a tray of snacks, despite the late hour. Mac was happy to see they were all of the veggie persuasion; the smell of meat was one thing she didn't think she could handle at that point.

After briefly greeting the girls, Lucille set the tray down on top of one of the twin, custom-built bookcases flanking the computer station on the west wall. She said her good-byes and left the room.

Veronica happily took three vegetable spring rolls and a couple mushroom caps.

Mac smirked, something's never changed.

"What? I'm a growing girl." Veronica said, raising an eyebrow, as though daring her friend to say anything. She took a healthy bite of one of the spring rolls and shut her eyes briefly, and smiled, evidently Lucille's cooking skills met with her approval.

Mac took her friend's lead and grabbed another roll off the platter.

Veronica stayed another twenty minutes, long enough to work through the snacks.

Once the case particulars were out of the way, Neptune High gossip prevailed. Boy talk was inevitable. Despite the fact both girls loathed the girly label, the desire to hash and rehash the male of the species was still a rider on the second X chromosome.

Mac let her inevitable smirk make an appearance the fourth time, in three minutes, that Veronica worked Logan into their girl chat. That was another thing that was consistent with her friend in every universe and alternate wrinkle of time—that invisible tether that linked those two star-crossed kids together. Truthfully, deep down, she'd never really embraced the idea of soul-mates until she'd become friends with Vee, then having a first row seat to the Logan/Veronica dynamic, she reluctantly, but resolutely, switched teams, admitting there might be something to that over-romanticized notion after all.

After wrapping up their visit, Mac walked Veronica out.

"You really need to think about having signs with arrows installed in the hallway," Veronica teased as they were going down the stairs.

"We're having them polished, the diamond crusting was lacking proper luster, they should be back on the walls by next week," Mac volleyed back. "I know you've been in grander houses than mine. The Kane mansion makes this one look like a shack."

"Ah, yes, the Kane palace," Veronica said. "I wondered when you'd bring them up. I always had escorts to and from the inner sanctum, that way, after I left, Mrs. Reigning Ice Queen herself could make sure all sterling silver could be accounted for." The tone was snarky; however, Mac thought there was a bottom layer of sadness and wistfulness lurking beneath. The loss of Lily was even fresher in this lifetime.

They said their good-byes and made plans to meet up for lunch at the usual time and place the next day. Mac firmly shut and locked the door before going back to the family room.

Lauren was in the exact same spot she'd been when Veronica had arrived an hour before. The only thing different was the episode of Scooby Doo playing.

"What did I miss?" Mac asked flopping down beside her sister on the couch. She put her legs on the table in front of her, crossing them at the ankles. From the way Lauren traced that movement, and then looked back into her face with a big grin, Mac could tell it was another furniture no-no. That knowledge changed nothing.

"The Scooby gang have discovered that Fred's dad was not who he always thought he was."

Mac knew that episode well, it was one she'd not shockingly found the most relatable to her own reality. She didn't share that factoid though. "Oh yeah, I remember that one. It's a good episode. I think it's a certain person's bedtime now, though."

"Good night, sis. Sleep tight. Do you want me to tuck you in?" Lauren quipped.

Mac grinned. "Nice try, kiddo, I was talking about the only member of the under 12 set in this room."

They joked around a little more, then at the next commercial Lauren stopped the episode, kissed Mac goodnight and went upstairs without argument. It was in sharp contrast to the obligatory bedtime-battles she always endured when she drew the short-straw and had to watch Ryan for a few hours. It was the short straw, indeed.

Having already completed her homework before her evening teaching gig, Mac picked up the Sudoku book still on the coffee table, and was in the middle of a particularly challenging puzzle when Ellen arrived home.

"Lauren in bed already, sweetie?"

Mac looked up, startled. "Oh mom, I didn't hear you come in."

"Sorry I scared you, Madi." She was framed in the doorway.

"That's okay, I was just thinking. Or trying not to, I guess. Yes, Lauren went to bed about an hour ago."

"On her own volition?" Ellen didn't hide her shock. She came around the couch and sat down next to Mac.

"I wouldn't go that far, but there was surprisingly little bloodshed involved."

"Well, a little bloodshed is okay, as long as it comes out of the couch upholstery," Ellen said, her inflection making it clear she was joking. There was a self-effacing expression on her bio-mom's face that made it clear she knew her own strict furniture etiquette tendencies. Admitting was the first step, as they said, but Mac suspected changing that policy wasn't on Ellen's agenda.

"So, how was your meeting, or golf game, knitting circle?"

"Knitting circle, huh? I had to give up my knitting club actually. Couldn't handle that amount of excitement in my life. It was a committee meeting for Caring Hearts, the volunteer organization that works at Neptune Memorial," Ellen explained. "It was frustrating, I felt like I was just talking in circles. Hopefully your evening was more productive than mine."

"It was interesting. Veronica came by today."

"Veronica?"

"Veronica Mars, her dad owns Mars Investigations. She and I are friends now. Anyway, we were considering going into business together, a service-oriented organization to explore the hidden lives of caretakers and guardians. I was beta testing software for her, and to put the site to its paces she entered some of my data." Mac paused for a second. It was more of an embellishment rather than a lie, she justified to herself. She kept her eye line focused at a point just over Ellen's head; it only looked like she was making eye contact.

She expected a look of skepticism like her mom always gave her whenever she mentioned doing a 'project' for Veronica. Natalie liked her friend, but she always seemed to think there had to be more to the story, which was usually the case. Ellen seemed to take that tale at face value though. Maybe she hadn't learned all her daughter's tells yet or she was better at subterfuge in this life, or had been caught in fewer embellishments.

"Oh?" Ellen said. She raised her eyebrow, but didn't seem to be bracing for bad news. She obviously wasn't afraid of anything Mac could have dug up.

"What happened on June 6, 1991?"

"I almost lost you," the words sounded simple, the tone did not. The 'you' ended in a wail of anguish, of a mother's remembered pain, the kind that lingered on indefinitely, a frozen moment. Ellen didn't cry.

"How?"

"You and your friend didn't find out the particulars?"

"I guess I want to hear it from you."

"You've heard it before."

"The Cliff Notes edited and sanitized version, sure, but what about that hardworking guy who built my shelves before Thanksgiving? Is he our indentured serf?" At least she assumed she'd been served a spit-shined catalog of events through the years.

"Sam Mackenzie is the guy who almost took you away from me. He was driving home from work. It was just lightly raining," Ellen closed her eyes, no doubt picturing the scene again. "I wasn't with you and your dad, I was taking a nap. You'd not been feeling good, so I was up with you several times the night before. You guys were just running a couple of errands."

Then, taking a deep shuddering breath, she continued, speaking quietly. "So many things combined that day to go terribly wrong. For years, I was convinced it wouldn't have happened if I had been with you two, that I alone could have saved you." She crossed one knee over the other, then took a perfectly manicured hand and dug her nails into her leg, as though she could anchor herself into the here and now instead of the hell of that long ago day. "I had a vicious case of mommy-guilt, it was almost terminal. The driver of the other car, and the manufacturer of the car seat that almost killed you, became an easy way out of the guilt that wrapped itself around me until I choked." She bit back a sob. "You were in a coma for a week, so still and quiet."

That was a hard concept for Mac to comprehend—a coma, even if it happened years ago, before she was trapped in this life.

"I'm still trying to understand why the guy you blamed for the accident now does carpentry work for us. Restitution?"

"No, dear, nothing like that. As time went on and you were fully recovered, it became easier to see that it was just a tragic accident and Sam was just a family man overextending himself, trying to provide for his wife and child. The settlement we received from his insurance took a toll on his finances, and, well, offering him jobs around here have been a win-win for us all. He's done great work for us through the years."

"You destroy a guy's life, and then build it up again?" Mac asked. She could tell it pissed 'Mom2' off, but she didn't care. It was a little like playing God to her way of thinking.

"Our family was destroyed for awhile, too, Madi. Having a grievously injured child is stressful, and expensive. The lawsuits—both of them—weren't greed, dear, but necessity. Your father was working long hours at a dead-end job. He had blueprints for a prototype medical device, our MRI flagship product, in fact." Ellen said, proudly. "Your father's company has saved countless lives, a lot of good has come from the monies we were awarded." She paused again. "You have to know if I could go back in time and make it so the accident never happened in the first place…" she waited another beat, "I would."

They wrapped up the conversation quickly, Mac suddenly eager to be alone to process things.

It was a lot to take in. The thought that there was some invisible link that intertwined both families together circled Mac's brain yet again, it had to be some type of Gossamer thread. 'Cindy's' reaction to things at the accident scene the night before Thanksgiving made more sense to her now. Mac could definitely see that, from Madison's-er 'Cindy's'-point-of-view, it would appear that the Sinclairs mess everything up. She wasn't suddenly developing sympathy for her nemesis (shudder!) but it give her another perspective.

As the week progressed, and began it's descent towards the weekend, homework proved to be a good distraction for Mac.

She'd never admit it to anyone, herself especially, but she was enjoying Dick's daily 'reminders' about their plans for the weekend, though she still maintained it was not a fair fight. However, in his book a win was still a win, false-pretenses or not, their plans were very much on.

*********Sinclair house; Mac's room Friday night************

Mac slipped on a purple satin blouse and paired it with a black knee-length skirt. The purple highlights were back in her hair, and the shirt and hair color matched perfectly. Behind her was a small hill of discarded clothing including an obligatory black dress, a red pleather mini and a flowing purple sundress, which wasn't really weather appropriate anyway. She wanted to look good but in a way that didn't look like she was putting too much effort into things either.

A glance at the bedside clock told her she was running out of prep time.

She detoured into her adjoining bathroom and grabbed the makeup case from the basket on her counter. She set to work applying a light layer of eye shadow and brushing on a coat of mascara, lastly she put on a little lip gloss. She mentally chastised herself for puckering her lips in the mirror, as though she were mentally anticipating kissing Dick. She was, naturally, planning for that likely contingency. She'd kissed him before and hell, it was an addicting thing, but still, that was all physical, mentally she felt getting attached to anyone in this, hopefully short-term, realm was not a good idea.

However, this dimensional Dick was softer, he still had a healthy stockpile of jackassery of course, but there were more gentle undertones to him, as well. A gentler high school Dick, back in the original 2004, Mac would have said no such animal existed. In this sphere, though, she was dating the elder Casablancas brother, not the tagalong Beaver, and he seemed capable of 'fifteen minutes' of humanity during their one on one time, at least.

Her reverie, and new favorite game of old vs new life, was interrupted by a quick knock at the door. The knockee didn't wait for an invite though, they just walked in.

"Madi, your date is here," Lauren called from the bed, where she'd flopped down. She once again made kissing noises.

"Thanks," Mac replied, walking back out to the bedroom. She took a deep breath, and then looked around one last time to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything. She grabbed her clutch purse from her backpack, and then ushered Lauren out, shutting the door behind.

As they went downstairs together, Lauren started loudly singing the playground song Madi and Dick sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, Mac was just pleased to hear that in this version it was Dick in the baby carriage, and not her. Lauren wasn't a good singer, either. Mac tried to scold her sister but was laughing too hard to be very convincing.

She located Dick in the living room, with 'Mom2' keeping him company, and by keeping company it was actually closer in relation to an interrogation about the when and where of their evening plans. Mac put the kibosh on the line of questioning before he was asked to produce proof of insurance. The piece of family history she'd learned earlier in the week was probably at least partially responsible for the overprotective vibe her mom was giving off.

"Madison, you look beautiful, sweetheart," Ellen said rising off the couch.

"Thanks mom," Mac said as her eyes focused on Dick. He had also stood up upon her grand entrance. It was obvious by his expression that he thought she cleaned up quite nicely, too.

"What she said," Dick echoed.

"I was hoping for something more original," Mac teased. She was fairly certain this was the first, and only time, he uttered that phrase without making a sexual innuendo.

"Hubba hubba?"

"I like the sentiment, but again, something more original."

"And this is my cue. I'll leave you two crazy kids to start your date. Have fun, be safe. Dick, have her home at a decent hour, please. I love you, Madison," Ellen said, giving Dick a brief hug, and then kissing her daughter as she left the room.

They mumbled their good-byes.

Mac noticed the quick now you see it, now you don't, wistful look flit across his face as 'Mom2' hugged him. She averted her eyes.

"So, where are we going?"

"I drive, you go with the flow. I own that hot ass for the night, remember? If I recall correctly this little wager was your idea," Dick said, his default snarky tone peaking through once again.

He crossed over to the doorway where she was still hovering, and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek.

Squashing down her disappointment at the peck, Mac reminded him that he only won because he cheated.

"So, we're going to rehash this tired debate, huh?"

"It would only be tired if it wasn't factual," Mac returned.

Keeping his hand on the small of her back, they walked out her front door to the driveway. Dick helped her climb up and into his yellow jeep.

As she got settled, Mac appraised Dick's ensemble. He saw her lingering glance and smirked.

"I know, the kid looks good, right? I have a bod like Marky-Mark and the entire Funky Bunch."

"Did you see my eye roll?" Mac asked, making a point of backing up the question with a visual aid. He was wearing a green tee shirt under a black suit jacket and a pair of khakis. Mac could tell it was one of his signature innuendo tees, but she could only make out elan neco. "What shirt are you wearing?"

"It's one of those hobby tee-shirts. I enjoy giving exams in my free time," Dick joked, as he started the car, but before putting it into reverse, he shifted in his seat and pulled back on both sides of his sport coat to reveal Freelance Gynecologist. "I can work you in for one after dinner, but before phase two."

"We must not be going anywhere fancy then," Mac surmised.

"Hey, I have a jacket on, a formal one at that," he justified as he turned around to make sure the path was clear before putting the car in reverse and gunning it down the steep drive. "You really do look hot, though, Mad. You'll be the best looking babe at the Landlubber Grille." He chanced a brief look at her and grinned.

Mac tried to cover her disappointment; she really wasn't in the mood for a meal on Neptune's own replica pirate ship dining experience. It was the setting for too many Mackenzie family birthday celebrations and of course her pre-Alterna Prom dinner with Butters. "Oh. Land ahoy, Matey."

"Is it National Talk Like A Pirate day?" Dick inquired. "That would be appropriate."

"No, we missed that by a couple of months. It's September 19th, I believe." Mac corrected.

"You would know that," he said, but there was an undercurrent of what Mac suspected might be classed as reverence. It definitely wasn't mocking; like it probably would've been had anyone else said it.

"Let's not forget about your contribution, too. Not everyone knows that's actually a real thing to begin with."

"Hey, I'm all for anything that encourages you to wear an eye patch and put a giant bird on your shoulder."

"Sure, it's all fun and games until the bird poops all over you," Mac reminded him.

"True, that could put a damper on things; maybe they need to invent some kind of shit shield, a shoulder protector of some sort," Dick suggested.

"You're quite the entrepreneur-in-training."

"Gotta have a back-up plan if my plans to surf the world don't work out," he said.

"A lofty ambition," Mac snarked. She looked out the window, it had admittedly been a long time since she'd eaten on the pirate ship restaurant, but she was fairly certain they weren't going the right direction.

A few minutes later, her theorem was proven correct. Dick pulled his jeep into the parking lot of the Neptune Grand.

"Did you get lost?"

"Change of plans. You're too dressed up for a pirate ship there, Me Hartey."

"Well, you certainly know this place well," Mac acquiesced as Dick opened her door and helped her down. Of course she was referring to the fact that, in her old Mac-life, he was currently living there, but to her the Grand and Dick were linked together.

"Not really. They don't rent by the hour," he leered.

"You would know," Mac retorted. Dick, in any dimension, would be purveyor of that knowledge.

Poseidon's Bistro was located off the opulent marble and crystal lobby of the first-class hotel. Dick gave his name to the flirty hostess and they were promptly taken to a table tucked away in the back.

Mac perused the menu. In this world she was probably a regular, but in reality this was her first time setting foot in the four-star rated restaurant. She noted that there were several vegan dishes to choose from. Normally, she was lucky to have two options, which of course made the decision making process quick, but it was an isolating feeling deep down.

"This is nice, but seriously Dick, you know I'd be fine with that Pirate place."

"You? Ms. High maintenance? I gotta roll out that red carpet." Dick scoffed, and then grinned. "I know, babe, but those pirates aren't good with the green stuff. I guess you could have nibbled on a lettuce leaf and a couple stalks of celery."

"Yummy. Well, at least I'd be keeping my girlish figure," Mac said with a smirk.

Instead of replying, he just lowered his gaze so it tracked and traced her plunging neckline. She waved her hand in front of his face, and he looked back up and into her other eyes, as he gave her thumbs up.

"My bod has your vote of approval, my life is complete," Mac deadpanned.

Just then the waiter came by to take their order, clearing his throat and trying to hide his smile, which only succeeded in giving tell to the fact that he'd overhead the last bit of their conversation. She felt the flush overtake her face, and Dick's grin grew bigger—it was an intimate, in-joke expression.

Dick ordered the sea bass with Meyer lemon butter and Mac finally decided on roasted acorn squash stuffed with a wild rice and mushroom pilaf. After complimenting their choices, the waiter ambled away to put it into the system.

"You can cross it off your wish list," Dick said a couple minutes later, seemingly out of nowhere.

Confused, Mac cocked her head, in Vee's patented fashion.

"My approval," he reminded her. "One of your life's greatest desires, remember?"

"Nope, I don't remember that being on my bucket list at all."

"Bucket list?" Dick asked, as though he'd never heard the term before.

"A bucket list is basically a list of things you want to do before you die. Honestly, though, I don't like the concept of squeezing so much life in the limited space of time before you die. Know what I mean?"

"Not really," he admitted.

"I want to think of life as this big, empty canvas that stretches out, you don't honestly know when your time is up, or almost up, so you should fill the space up with things that make you smile. " Mac clarified. "Everyone should have a continuous storehouse of things they want to accomplish throughout their life, something to make their life fuller-a100 things to do type of list."

"You are so weird," Dick started. She could feel the corners of her mouth drooping. She put a hand over her stomach. People were always telling her some iteration of that, and yet she still wasn't used to the sharp prick of pain it caused.

"I mean you don't think the way other chicks do, it's not a bad thing, and actually it's a good thing really. I mean we're both loaded, there's that, but I like that you're not one of those snobby, stuck up bitches that seemed to have been hatched from Betina." Dick backpedaled; he seemed to know he'd inadvertently hurt her feelings.

"Oh," she said quietly, still not totally mollified, but the sting was duller now.

"What's on your bucket list, or 100 things to do, what-the-fuck-ever you call it, list?" He asked, changing the subject.

"Number 37 is to yell 'I'm the Queen of the World,' from the top of the Eiffel Tower, safely behind the protective mesh, though," she explained. "Number 19 is to go to the Four Corners and do a yoga-crab walk like contortion so I'm physically in four places, or states really, in one moment of time."

"You've never crossed off 37? You were just in Paris six months ago," he reminded her.

"Um, yes, but we didn't go to the top of the tower, too Gauche" She covered quickly.

"So, for that other item on your list, what are the four states?" Dick asked.

"Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico," she rattled off immediately. "Didn't you pay attention in Geography?"

"Hell no," Dick said, answering her question. He was quiet for a few seconds, a faraway look in his eyes, at last he announced "That would be an awesome place to play Twister, preferably naked Twister. I bet it's never been done in four places at one time. Okay, that's number three on my list."

"Three? What happened to numbers one and two? Plus, you can't steal my ideas; make up your own list."

"Starting with number one is so gauche," he teased. "May I remind you that you don't own this list; where's your trademark or patents? Don't have good ideas, and I won't steal them," he punctuated that remark with a smirk.

"I can't help it that I have a brilliant mind," Mac quipped with a smirk of her own, using air quotes. "Good ideas are the only kind of ideas I'm capable of."

Dick opened his mouth for some kind of retort, no doubt of the sarcastic persuasion, when he was interrupted by the arrival of their meals.

Mac marveled at how fast time went when they were together. They were into their second hour, and yet it seemed like he'd just picked her up minutes ago. They were past the awkward, early stages of a relationship in this realm, yet other than a 'pseudo' friendship in her real life, she didn't have any type of relationship with Dick, but that was not how it felt to her in that moment of time.

Shaking off that line of thinking, Mac eagerly took a bite of her stuffed squash. She let out a moan as the tang of the squash, earthiness of the mushroom and the sweet-tartness of the dried cherry married together in her mouth.

"Hold that thought for later," Dick said with a wink, before tucking into his own meal.

They happily attended to the serious business of eating, letting the conversation drift along in fits and starts between bites. Mac didn't think she was imagining the way Dick was tracking her movements with his eyes though, like she was a code he couldn't stop attempting to crack.

Over dessert, Dick finally shared with her phase two of the evening's plans. She was happy to see the vegan offerings extended into the dessert category, too.

"The SpongeBob movie!? Are we in the third grade?" Mac was surprised that she didn't choke on the big bite of vegan coconut spice cake she'd just bit into.

"What? He's hilarious." Dick took a sip of his black coffee, which was playing the role of his dessert.

"He's a talking sponge that lives in a pineapple under the ocean," she argued. "There's nothing funny or redeeming about that premise."

"Okay, what's your grand suggestion then?" Dick asked, following the question up by sticking his tongue out at Mac. He took another drink of his coffee.

"Well, I have to admit SpongeBob is at your maturity level," Mac rejoined, returning the gesture as well. "So I can see how it might appeal to you. As for my more adult suggestion, though, how about Aeon Flux?"

"Aeon Flux?" Dick repeated as though he'd never heard of the movie before. His next comment proved that theory right. "Is that some piece of shit Italian art film?"

"An art film?" Mac fought the urge to clear the wax out of her ears, who the hell thought Aeon Flux was one of those Independent films. Well, apparently Dick!

She took another big bite of her cake and thought back to when she saw Aeon Flux in the theaters. Maybe it hadn't been in 2004 after all. She went with her dad, she remembered that. Veronica was busy that particular evening, maybe she'd had plans with Logan. Well, that wouldn't help much with building a timeline, they had the on again/off again thing down to an art form. If it was 2005 or 2006 then she'd have to excuse Dick for not being familiar with the movie, but she still wasn't sure if she could extend the olive branch for calling it an art film, and that went double for labeling art films as 'pieces of shit.'

In her ruminations she'd missed some of the other suggestions Dick had proposed.

"Wait, go back. What was the last one you mentioned?"

"National Treasure," Dick repeated.

She caught herself before she said that she loved that movie, instead she said "oh that one sounded good. Let's see it."

After Dick paid for their meal, they headed, in his Jeep, towards the mall. The Neptune Fifteen Theater was in an outlying building on the mall proper.

Originally Dick had mentioned doing a Halo rematch at his house, but Mac had found an earlier showing of the movie so they decided to shelf the game rematch for the following week. She knew she had to start interacting with Cass more if she had any hope of befriending him in this dimension. She was grateful for one more reprieve though.

They chose seats in the back row, middle. Mac watched the seats filling up quickly. There was a parade of familiar looking classmates, no one she was close to though. Evidently going to the movies was a popular pastime for teenagers even in alternate dimensions, as well.

They were both still so full from dinner, neither of them even wanted to think about a trip to the concession stand.

At last, the lights dimmed and the parade of previews began. She felt a sweaty hand grabbing hers.

"What, no fake yawn turn hug maneuver?" Mac snarked.

"Patience, Grasshopper, you're not quite ready for my A material," Dick whispered back.

"If that's your A material, that doesn't bode well for the rest of your material," she retorted.

An older lady with curly gray hair turned around. With the din of the theater, Mac could barely make out the scowl on her face, but it was enough of a context clue for her to get the message. Dick scowled back, and there was a soft "humph" sound as the lady swiveled back towards the front.

Once the movie started, however, Dick did put his arm around her shoulders, he did skip the fake yawn routine.

Random lines and bits of dialogue, various plot points, and even jokes started coming back to Mac. She'd forgotten how much she liked the actor who played Ian Howe, the big bad. He was ruggedly handsome, and she liked all his roles from bloody rulers of fantasy lands, to greedy treasure hunters. She thought he'd probably be a good spy character, too.

"Delicious jams and jellies?" Mac muttered, along to the movie screen. She also really liked Ben's partner, Riley, she was a big fan of sidekick characters, too. His comeback to Ben's line about the preservation room had always amused her.

"How the hell did you know that line?" Dick asked.

She hadn't thought he'd heard her muttering along with the characters.

"Lucky guess, or maybe I saw it in the previews."

After that little slip though, Mac tried to be more careful with her insider knowledge of the movie that was supposed to have just hit the theaters earlier that day. There just wasn't a rational explanation; even Dick would be suspicious of a sudden 'psychic gift.'

Once the movie was over, they made their way back to the jeep. Dick helped Mac get in and get settled, ignoring her litany of complaints.

On the way back to the Sinclair house, they rehashed the movie. Dick did squeeze in a tiny dig about her "lucky guess" on some of the lines. Maybe she was wrong in thinking anything would make him suspicious! Besides, trying to sell newfound psychic traits would seem more plausible than her current reality.

They pulled into the steep driveway of the Sinclair house, and Dick put it in park before killing the motor.

Talk started out on innocuous topics, but then meandered to school and mutual friends. He was so easy to talk to on those one-on-one occasions. She had no idea how long the conversation would have continued if the front porch lights hadn't have gone on. It was definitely a sign, though more subtle than Sam would have been capable of. He wasn't nearly the gun enthusiast, however, that he acted like he was around her 'gentleman callers.'

Even though there wasn't any gun toting parental types nearby, Mac still knew it was time to say good-bye. She was about to do just that when his lips fell on top of hers. Only it wasn't a jarring fall, but a soft, gentle descent. She opened her mouth to let his probing tongue in. They leaned towards each other, Mac wasn't aware of the console pressing into her breast, not when Dick was busy stroking the other one. She arched into his hand, a moan rumbling through, from the back of throat. He tasted faintly of the mint he'd eaten after dinner.

Finally, she pulled away, reluctantly, realizing she'd reached the now or never part. The attraction they felt for each other—despite all her attempts to rationalize it away—was too real, and omnipresent, and leaving now was her only option before things progressed and she discovered whether or not 'dad2' was a gun fan.

Mac thanked him, and then slowly got out of the Jeep. He waved and then pulled out of the driveway with a flourish. She watched him go south on Shady Spring Court until the taillights disappeared. There was no denying—to herself, at least—that she was attracted to him.

Maybe this could be her litmus test, if they could make it work here; maybe it would work out in her real life, too. She didn't know where that thought came from, but it felt right in a way few things had been feeling lately.

She walked into the house closing the door behind her. She'd survived her first date with Dick-in any dimension.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 14—Lather, Rinse, Repeat

"So, how did you do it, Dad? How did you get mom to take a break?" Ryan tossed aside the issue of Wired he'd been "reading" for hours, and leaned forward to get a better view of Mr. Mac. "Did you threaten her?"

Less than ten minutes after Mrs. Mac returned to the waiting room after her talk with Dr. Pence, nurse Tara and Lauren Sinclair about the disappointing results of the latest batch of poking and prodding exams, she was once again leaving. Before she was out the door though, she stopped, turned around and gave Mr. Mac a long laundry list of instructions for every scenario that could arise in her two hour absence.

"Did you bribe her?" Dick submitted his own guess.

"No, guys, something more effective," Sam answered. "I used her own mom logic against her."

"Oh, devilish, I like it Mr. Mac…Er, Sam," Dick said giving him a 'thumbs up.'

"Well, there you go, your life is complete, you've got Dick's stamp of approval," Veronica threw out there. The phrase 'bucket list' hung heavy, but wasn't uttered, not here, not in purgatory's holding place.

"I told her that if she didn't start taking better care of herself, she wouldn't be able to take care of Cindy when she woke up."

Dick could hear all of Sam's fears and wishes wrapped up tightly in the word when.

"That actually worked?" Ryan asked his dad, tone full of awe. He was probably filing the information away for future usage. It was always valuable to note those vulnerable parental areas for future exploitation. He'd found several areas to use against Big Dick, and it had served him well through the years. Cassidy, unfortunately, had never had the knack he did in that area. The only knack Cass had was to find himself in the sight picture of all their dad's own insecurities and areas of self-loathing.

"She's going home to shower and take a brief cat nap, I'd call that a victory."

"I wouldn't display your checkered flag quite yet," Logan said pointing towards the door.

Evidently Mrs. Mac had made it as far as the elevator before turning around. She was walking with a purpose towards her son and husband. "I've got a second wind," she said by way of explanation. "There's plenty of time to go home once Cindy is awake."

"Nat, honey, we've been over this. It's when she's awake she'll need you the most, but right now you need to take care of yourself, too," Sam said, gently but firmly. He got up from his seat to meet her halfway. He stopped in front of her and put an arm on one of her shoulders, the other tenderly moved her chin up so his brown eyes looked into her green ones.

"I can't do it, Sam; I just can't leave her here. She can hear me, I know it. She can hear us. I feel like I, er, all of us, we're her…" Mrs. Mac's voice trailed off and she stepped back just enough so her husband was no longer touching her.

Mr. Mac tried to prompt his wife to complete her thought, but she just shook her head and clammed up. Finally, he tried one last track. "Look, how about the rest of us pinch hit for you?"

"Pinch hit?"

"It's baseball talk for a substitute batter," Ryan explained to his mom, no longer content with being regulated to the dugout. He wanted a turn at bat, too.

"I know that, hon. I meant how does that relate to me leaving Cindy alone," Mrs. Mac clarified.

"I'll sit with her while you're gone," Veronica volunteered, breaking her silence. She had just been sitting there quietly, not wanting to get involved.

"Me, too," Dick added.

"I called first dibs," Veronica said.

"Dibs?" Dick asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You heard me, Casablancas."

"I just didn't know we were back at Neptune High," he quipped back. "Actually, make that elementary school."

"Um, okay," Mrs. Mac caved. "Remember, make your visits short. Just talk to her like you expect her to answer. I just can't stop thinking if we don't keep this up she'll…" Her voice trailed off again and she shuttered operations down. Whatever it was that kept circling through her mind, Dick could tell it wasn't anything she felt able to say out loud. He wasn't a stranger to that kind of thinking. "Veronica, Dick, you both can have a turn. Wallace, you, too, hon. I'll talk to Tara before I leave, make sure she has my cell number."

"She has your number, Nat," Mr. Mac said patiently as he leaned in and kissed his wife's cheek. Then he gently, but firmly, turned her around and nudged her towards the door. "We can handle things for a couple of hours. You need to get away from these same four walls, and Cindy's depressing room."

She opened her mouth one last time as though to make another argument against going, then shut it and shook her head. "Alright," she capitulated at last. Mrs. Mac waved to the group at large, and then Dick watched her retreating figure.

Mrs. Mac hadn't even been gone five minutes before Veronica got up to see Mac. She shook off Logan's offer to go with her, but he got up anyway, trailing her at least as far as the elevators.

Dick was happy when Logan came back several minutes later, laden down with a tray full of coffee. By now he had to have had everyone's coffee orders memorized.

"Thanks, coffee bitch," he said, carefully taking his cup from Logan's outstretched hand.

"Coffee bitch?"

"You heard me, Echolls. That's your new title; it's been decided in your absence. We took a vote," Dick said, gesturing to Wallace. He blew into the tiny opening in the lid, and then took a sip of the strong, hot brew.

Wallace didn't say anything; he just shook his head, and then went back to reading one of the Wired magazines Ryan had recently discarded. Dick wondered if he lost his powers of speech when Ronnie wasn't around. Maybe she had a remote control?

Mr. Mac was grateful to get his own cup from Logan. Dick made a mental note at how cheap it was to buy extra "brownie points" from Mac's dad.

Veronica came back to the waiting room well outside the outer limits of the time frame given to them by the ICU staff. She swiped her eyes with one hand and eagerly grabbed her own cup of now-tepid coffee from Logan with her other hand before sinking into the same chair she'd been occupying off and on the entire long-ass day.

She took a sip of her latte, or mocha or what-the-hell-ever froufrou drink Logan had bought. As she drank, Dick could feel her eyes on him.

"What?" He finally asked.

"I'm just wondering why you're here."

"Well, twenty-three years ago my mom released an egg, my dad's sperm fertilized it, and nine months later I was born. Really, Ronnie, you and I went to the same school, I know you had to have taken sex ed."

"No, jackass, while I thank you kindly for that visual of your parents having sex, and now will be promptly bleaching my eye balls, what I was asking is why are you still here at the hospital? Don't you have better things to do than spend two days waiting for someone you're not really close with to wake up from a coma?"

"No," Dick said. He didn't see the need to explain to anyone what he was doing there. He shouldn't have been surprised that the pixie spy wasn't going to let it go that easy though. He continued to drink his coffee.

She did accept his answer, however, only for about thirty seconds.

"Is it because you watched the accident?" Veronica spoke softly; she shuddered as she said it, as though trying to picture the whole nightmarish scene.

"Partially."

"I can't imagine what that would've been like to see," she replied. Dick was pretty sure her tone could only be classified as sympathetic. He had an urge to write down the date of this historic event.

"Awful," he said, though it didn't really need to be said.

"Can you speak in more than one word sentences?"

"Nope." Dick said as he sported a grin. The years hadn't dulled the joy he got from bugging Ronnie. It was good to have hobbies.

The fact remained that she wouldn't understand how he felt about Mac. Hell, he didn't fully understand it either, but she was the one person that got him and he had more fun with her and their pseudo friendship than he did with practically anyone else, other than possibly Logan (who he could safely say he never wanted to kiss). Blech!

"It was beyond awful. I was close enough to watch the ball coming right towards Mac's head, too far away to do anything about it. But Mars, that's not even why I'm here, or if it is, it's just a small fraction, of why. You have a gift of running away and fucking people up in the process," Dick clarified, he kind of liked Veronica's idea of eyeball bleach. He could have used that to get the memory of Mac being hurt out of his own mind. He didn't have the words really to express how shattering watching that was.

"What is your problem, man?" Wallace shouted, evidently regaining his powers of speech, and adding more credence to Dick's theorem about Ronnie secretly holding a remote control that powered him on and off.

Logan was siding with Ronnie's minion and glaring at him too, but he pushed on.

"No guys, she asked, I'm answering," Dick continued. "Truth hurts. Mac missed you a lot, Logan was fucking bleeding inside and, well, we all started spending time together. You were making a new life, and I get it, kind of. Things change, Mac and I are good friends, and she lets me beat her at Halo, though she might not quite use the F-word."

"Fuck buddies?" Veronica asked tentatively, her face looking as though she bit into a lemon, her lips puckered in distaste.

"Friends. Get your mind outta the bedroom, Mars."

"I call foul," Logan cut in; evidently he was capable of speech now, too. "You beat Mac maybe one time at Halo3. Every other time it was her handing you back your ass. You are the sorest fucking loser, too, all that whining and shit."

"Five times, I've won five times, and each time she won it was only because I played the gentleman card."

"Gentleman?" Veronica asked incredulously.

Everyone scoffed in unison at that notion.

"Yes, Mars, I am nothing but a gentleman. I let her win, her ego needed it."

This time everyone shared an eye-roll.

"You wouldn't know a gentleman if he came up to you and slapped you on the face."

"I know enough to know a true gentleman wouldn't be slapping me around to begin with, Ronnie."

"I said gentleman, Dick, not a saint."

"Well, thanks for the education, but I believe it's my turn to visit Mackie-Oh," Dick announced, suddenly tired of sparring with Veronica. He took one last sip of his coffee, wrinkling his nose slightly as he swallowed the last dregs of the cold, strong brew, and then set the cup down on the table with a satisfying thud.

He got up and walked through the waiting room, to the institutional hallway. As he opened the double doors to the inner sanctum of the ICU he was once again greeted with the cacophony of lifesaving machines beeping and buzzing, the hushed tones of people conferring, and the occasional moan coming from patient rooms. The smell of antiseptic and decay walled itself around him causing him to cough.

Nurse Ratchet looked up from her station just then, but didn't say anything. Dick kept walking with a purpose to room 305.

He walked in and came to a sudden stop. Mac's nurse-clone, Tara, was checking the leads and monitor next to her head. He was about to back up and step out when she looked over at him.

"Hey, I'm almost done here, and then Cindy is all yours. She's looking better today."

"How can you tell?" Dick asked, and suddenly wished he'd reigned in his verbal diarrhea before it had spewed out.

The nurse just gently laughed though, not offended. "She's not as pale."

"She's always a little pale," Dick said. "I like that contrast, the dark hair and pale skin. You don't see that much around here."

"So how long have you been dating?"

"We're not," Dick quickly said. Yet, he thought, but was afraid to say out loud. He was pretty certain that Mac didn't like him that way, hell, he himself was only starting to figure out he might have deeper feelings for her than he'd suspected pre-accident, and if he said it out loud it would probably jinx things. He wondered if maybe it would be possible to plant that thought in her mind. Would that be creepy? What if he did mention that her to her, out loud, after Tara left?

"Oh, I just assumed you two were dating," Tara said.

"She's just a friend," Dick lied, because she wasn't just anything. "She's a pretty cool chick, never afraid to be anything but herself." The second part of his rambling explanation was all truth.

"Well, she's lucky to have you as a friend," she said, reaching over to grab a bag off the bedside table. "I just have to give her another dose of Mannatol, that's the drug we're hoping will decrease the swelling, and then I'll make my exit. Just tell her about your day, how much you enjoy spending time with her. It helps; I promise you, it helps a lot."

Dick watched the nurse hang the livesaving (hopefully!) drug on the hook of the I.V. pole and attach the tubing to the needle in Mac's hand. She then gently touched Mac's cheek, one of the few places on her face and head that wasn't covered by thick bandaging, and leaned in to whisper something like I'll check on you later, sweetie.

The nurse said goodbye to Dick and left the room. He took the chair by her bed and scooted it closer. Before saying anything to Mac, he just looked around the room, taking it all in. The lights had been dimmed; just enough for the caretakers to see what they were doing and easily check the monitors, but all the harshness of the obligatory institutional lighting had been softened.

Mrs. Mac had an overnight bag up against the far wall, it was open and a cardigan sweater and a pair of sweat pants were oozing out. She'd also placed her new blinged out sleeping mask on top of it.

Mac was still covered by the thin blanket he'd pulled up over her chest yesterday and her arms were on top of the cover lying slack and unmoving. Gently he grasped the hand closest to him, it was the one untethered, and gave it a quick squeeze.

In the movies, she'd squeeze his hand back, then wake up, and they'd kiss. This wasn't the movies, however, and there was no answering squeeze. He still was holding out hope she'd wake up soon and maybe, eventually, there would be a kiss.

"So, Mac-Attack, how's it hanging? Are they treating you okay in this establishment?" Dick mentally cringed at the crap spewing from his mouth, but they kept drilling the need to talk to her like she'd respond. He laughed out loud though thinking about how if she was awake now, she'd tell him to shut up, and explain that since she's a girl nothing was actually hanging.

"You are missing quite the show out in the waiting room. I was thinking that soap operas got it wrong; the real drama potential is in a waiting area, not the patient rooms. Think about it, Days of our Neptune Memorial. Ta da, it has showbiz potential all over it. Our star couple is reuniting out there. Not sure what all the Pixie Spy told you just now, but she blew in from the north and landed back in Logan's every waking thought and all his wet dreams at night, too, I suspect. Not that I really think of the dude's wet dreams, mind you, but we all know how that show ends. Been there, done that." He was lightly stroked the top of her too-still hand with his other hand.

"Your room needs some more personal décor, I think flowers are outlawed in the ICU, but you need a teddy bear in here I think. One with those personalized shirts with some inspirational get well message and shit on it. Though I do like your mom's new sleep mask your dad bought her. It adds some pizzazz. That's our secret though, that that word ever passed my lips. Pizzazz! It would shoot my street cred all to shit and stuff. Okay, this is where you wake up just to tell me how lacking I am in that area, anyway."

He could picture that scenario clearly in his mind. Variations of that image played on an endless loop in his brain as he kept up the chatter. That positive visualization and crap, trophy bimbo stepmom #3, or was it 4, whatever, anyway she would have been so proud.

"You have such a great family, such a great life here. I was thinking, and yes, to answer your unspoken question, I do do that from time to time, that maybe it should have been me here. You know? I think there was a mix up. I mean it makes more sense karmic-ally if I were here and you were out there in the waiting room. You have a lobby full of people worried as hell, me, I'd have you and Logan. That's it. Maybe a couple Pi Sigs would drop by, tap a keg in my honor. It is what it is. I know what you call me, your pseudo-friend. I get it, I totally do, but I also know if it was me in the coma, and shit, you would be right here by my bedside. So, we can stick with your label, but know I see through you. You like me; you really like me, despite my jackassery. You are like the only chick who tries to get to my doughy center." He sighed, then gave an ironic bark of laughter. "There goes my man card. At least I can trust you to keep it secret."

"It's been over fifteen minutes; let's give her a break now. You can come back later."

The other voice penetrated his monologue, and Dick jumped a little, before lifting his head up to see the nurse framed in the doorway.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Tara continued.

"No big. Our girl here and I were having a nice chat."

"Good, that's good. She needs a break now, though. Healing is tough work. She's doing more right now just laying there, than you would be if you ran a marathon right now."

"I'd collapse on mile 4," Dick grinned.

"Really? Buff guy like you?" She didn't sound as though she were flirting; it was more of an observation.

"I surf."

"Okay, what your "friend" is doing right now to heal after her accident is expending more energy than if you were surfing right now." Tara used air quotes when saying the word friend. She was still just standing there. "She's pretty amazing, such a fighter, but all fighters need a break. Come on, I'll walk you out of the unit."

"Oh, an escort?" Dick asked. He let go of her hand, and rose up from the chair.

"We here at Neptune Memorial really roll out the red carpet." Tara motioned him forward.

"Alright, Mack-a-lac, I'll be back, but I'm being temporarily kicked out right now. Come back to us! Please. There's an entire waiting room full of people who love you," Dick said softly, speaking close to where her ear would be, if it wasn't turbaned by gauze. "People who need you, including me, I'm definitely on that list." He pressed a kiss on her cheek again, and then walked over to the nurse, throwing one more lingering look at Mac as he left.

The scene in the waiting room looked much like it had been when he'd left twenty minutes before. A glance at the wall clock proved his favorite rebel nurse had let him linger a little longer in Mac's room than she normally sanctioned.

Logan was whispering something in Ronnie's ear, it almost seemed like she was blushing. The only thing Dick knew for sure was he didn't want to know what that was all about.

"Hey," Wallace said looking up and into Dick's eyes.

He looked around to make sure Ronnie's shadow wasn't talking to anyone else. He squashed the urge to point to himself. "Hi." He muttered back.

"Any, um, changes in Mac?"

"No, nothing," Dick said, dejectedly. "I mean of course they're keeping her drugged on purpose, I realize that, but it just felt like there would be some kind of sign, like she'd squeeze my hand, or get up and tell me to go to hell, but it's just this dead silence, and it's so not Mac." He blew out a sigh. "It's wrong; this whole thing is cosmic bullshit."

"I get that man. No one is arguing with you on that point. Mac is such a great person, she doesn't deserve this."

"No, she doesn't deserve this; no one does, but no one deserves it less than Mac. Hey, do you want another turn to see her?"

"Yeah, I do" Wallace said.

Mr. Mac looked over at them at that point. He'd been meditating or some shit like that, looking up at the tiled ceiling, as his son was napping on his shoulder, snoring with his mouth open. The kid was probably drooling. Dick looked close, yep, there was a defined wet spot on Mr. Mac's faded gray Neptune High sweat shirt. He remembered Mrs. Mac saying something the other day—hell, it was only yesterday—about going to Pan, the two senior Macs from two high school rivals, yet they made their own love story. Who you were in high school didn't define who you ended up becoming. Dick knew that firsthand, but the extra confirmation was nice.

"Go ahead, son," Mr. Mac directed that to Wallace, speaking softly so he wouldn't disturb Ryan. The kid in question let out a particularly loud snuffling sound, but otherwise didn't stir.

With that invitation, Wallace murmured that he'd be back and then headed off towards the hallway and presumably the bowels of the ICU.

Dick dared to interrupt Logan and Veronica's whispered conversation to ask for Logan's cell. His was still in his truck; at least he presumed that's where it was, or maybe it was still in his room, it hadn't seemed like a priority at the time. As long as the Macs had some sort of way to reach him—phone, email, pony express, carrier pigeon, whatever—that was the only thing that mattered to his way of thinking.

"Who are you calling? Chip? Trying to track down a party for this weekend?" Logan asked, but he handed the phone to his friend anyway.

Dick shook his head, but didn't deign to reply to that. He took one of the chairs across the narrow aisle so he was directly in front of Ryan, and scrolled through the menu to the camera setting. He took a couple photos of Mac's sleeping baby brother. He thought he caught a brief glimpse of a smile playing on Mr. Mac's face before turning his head away from the cell.

When the photo shoot was done he emailed the photo to his own cell. Ryan slept right through it.

"I thought Mac, er Cindy, would appreciate a little pictorial retrospective of what her family and friends were doing while she took her long nap."

"That's a sweet gesture," Mr. Mac said.

"In a twisted kind of way," Veronica couldn't help adding, but it still had the undertones of a compliment.

Wallace was back within the ten minute window, and had barely settled back into the same chair he'd been occupying for the better part of the day when Mrs. Mac came back. Ryan had just woke up, and he blinked his eyes a few times as though he'd thought his mom was an apparition.

Mrs. Mac walked by him on the way to her husband and son. Dick was sure his nose wrinkled involuntarily as she went by, the smell of smoke clung to her clothes and hair. It was like she'd found a corner bar and hung out there the entire time.

Mr. Mac hugged her close for all of ten seconds before pulling back. "Oh hell, Nat, you smell like a damn ashtray."

"It was just one cigarette, Sam."

Her husband wasn't buying that for a millisecond.

"Okay, well, three cigarettes," she admitted. "The stress is killing me."

"If smoking doesn't do it first," her husband muttered, but it wasn't that quiet because Dick heard it perfectly. Then he spoke louder, "it was hell getting you to quit the first time. In fact, if you didn't end up pregnant with Ryan I think you'd still be smoking."

"It was a stressful time then, Sam, just like now. I'll quit again, but right now, don't lecture me, okay?" Pleading clung to the words.

"Okay, I won't lecture right now," Sam finally relented. "I'll wait until Cindy is awake, and then she can join us in lobbying for you to quit, again." He laid extra emphasis on the word again, giving it more mass.

Once Mrs. Mac's quitting schedule was firmed up the subject was dropped in its entirety and time ticked by slowly.

Dick was just thinking about food when his reverie was interrupted by Veronica's excited exclamation.

"Dad!"

"Hey, Pumpkin," the former-sheriff Mars said as he walked through the waiting area, carrying a big aluminum foil tray. He also had a white plastic bag draped over one arm. "Hello Mackenzie family. I thought I'd drop by some dinner."

"Oh, Mr. Mars, you've done so much already, the donuts, lending us your daughter, thank you so much," Natalie said, her voice thick. She coughed softly and blinked her eyes briefly.

"It's Keith, and it's no problem. You have so many other things to focus on now, plus I know a certain person in this group who will make sure no food goes to waste."

All eyes trained on Veronica, and she smirked as she patted her belly, which induced a smattering of laughter.

Wallace met Keith halfway and relieved him of the tray.

"Thanks, Wallace."

"No problem, Mr. Mars."

They took the carry-out to one of the side tables, and then grabbed another one across the room, that wasn't being utilized, before removing the lid to expose a steaming pan of lasagna. Mrs. Mac joined the guys, unpacking the contents of the bag to reveal plates, utensils and lots of napkins and wet naps. The plates and napkins had the words Mama Leone's printed on it.

Everyone served themselves buffet style. The chairs had been rearranged so the entire group was circled around the tables. It was their own little party, there was still a pall hanging over them, but it was like they'd all set aside the fear and grief that had become their hopefully temporary default setting, and was making conscious efforts to eat and laugh.

"Seriously, Keith, thank you so much for this. I'd wanted to try Mama Leones since they'd opened in, what, February, I guess?" Mrs. Mac said again, between bites of lasagna. This was the most Dick had seen her put away.

"Oh, yeah, this is pretty good, dad. Why didn't you get Luigi's though?"

"They closed last year, Veronica. Didn't I tell you?"

"No, I don't think you did. I'd have remembered such big news like that."

"I'm pretty sure it had something to do with losing their best customer, there, Superfly."

Instead of replying though, Veronica just grabbed a napkin and wadded it up.

"Hey," Wallace exclaimed as the napkin ball flew into his chest, landing in his lasagna, though there wasn't very much left of what had been a large square to start with.

"You know, I think it's worth pointing out that there's about to be a food fight erupting and I'm completely innocent." Dick interjected.

"I think that means its end of days," Logan theorized.

"In other words, the apocalypse is starting," Veronica clarified.

Dick reached one hand over to Ryan, who was sitting next to him, and placed his hand over the kid's eyes as he expressed his lack-of-gratitude with the middle finger of this other hand. Ryan quickly shook his hand off though.

"And order to the universe is now restored," Logan retorted.

"A party? Did my invitation get lost?" A new voice interjected.

Dick jerked his head up and saw a woman who looked vaguely familiar walking towards them, a big tray of food in her arms, too.

"Mom," Wallace exclaimed. "I didn't know you were coming." He got up to hug his mom and grabbed the container from her.

"I thought you all might be hungry, so I made my pot-luck go-to, Nacho Bake casserole. It can feed an entire boy scout troop, right Wallace?"

He made a face at his mom's reminder of his scouting days.

"Obviously Keith thought the same thing I did. Well, I can take this home, and reheat it for tomorrow." She tried to grab it back from her son.

Mrs. Mac opened her mouth to say something, but it was lost over Keith's next comment.

"Don't go, Alicia. Have some lasagna first." He got up to grab a chair and squeezed it in next to his own.

"Thanks, Keith." She smiled softly, almost shyly, as she sank into the chair.

Dick vaguely remembered hearing they used date a long time ago. He would've thought he was imaging a rekindling until he witnessed the look being shared between Wallace and Ronnie. Even Logan got in on the non-verbal exchange, raising his eyebrow and nodding his head towards the whispered conversation of the two former lovers.

Mr. Mac got up and dished out a generous slice of the lasagna, pressing the plate into Alicia's hand. She pulled her attention to him long enough to smile and thank him.

They worked through the food logistics, eventually deciding to hand the nacho bake off to Nurse Tara to put in the visitor fridge in the break room. Mrs. Mac had been told of its existence her first night during, what she now termed as, orientation.

Eventually Wallace's mom and Veronica's dad said their goodbyes, and hugged the Mac's in support, before leaving the hospital together. Dick's reunion sex jokes didn't seem to be appreciated, though for some reason Logan got by with the pony and bunk bed suggestions, not that he expected it to be any other way.

The rest of the party broke up when the clock indicated it was 9 PM. Day two was fast coming to a close. After saying their good-byes to the Mackenzies, they all piled into the elevator. Dick mused to himself how it felt like days instead of hours since he and Logan had bumped into Wallace and Ronnie in the elevator that morning. They'd go home, and then tomorrow would be a repeat of today.

In the words made famous by shampoo bottles everywhere: lather, rinse, repeat.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 15—Tigers on a Gold Leash

****December 11, 2004***

Stardate 58411.2

Mac woke up with a big lump sitting on top of her feet. She lifted her head just enough to take a small peek at the source of the added weight. Fritz, the family cat, was snoozing, using her as his pillow. He was making a soft snuffling sound, not quite a snore, but he was deep in REM sleep. She wondered what images were floating through his mind; she suspected tuna, cat treats and his favorite fishing pole toy were heavy contenders.

She shifted slightly, not much, but it was enough to wake the cat, who lifted his head so he could flash her a dirty look, or as dirty of a look as a cat was capable of.

"Sorry Fritzy," Mac cooed. "I guess I don't make a very good pillow. Well, looks like we're both awake now." A peek at the clock beside her bed said it was a little after 10. The blackout blinds in her room did a great job of keeping errant rays of sunlight from infiltrating the darkness.

Between the firm mattress, soft cotton sheets and the dark room, she certainly slept better and deeper in this dimension.

She sat up and stretched.

Fritz hadn't tried to lie back down yet, he was observing her. It felt as though he were trying to file this memory away for permanent storage.

"So, I had another date with Dick last night," Mac began as she started gently stroking Fritz's head. She heard the low rumble of purring. "Dick, as in Dick Casablancas, of all people in the world I could be dating. This, however, is where the story gets a little weird. You ready to hear something no one else knows?"

He stilled for a minute, it got silent as though he pressed pause on his purring mechanism, and then he let out a mew in reply.

"I'll take that as a yes," Mac continued, smiling softly at him. "I mean it, this is a secret. I come from the future." She deepened her voice as she made that confession, speaking as though she were doing Voice Over work for a movie. Even without that bit of flare, however, the words sounded strange being spoken out loud. "2009, to be specific, I am not really a Sinclair in that dimension, yet, somehow that is exactly what I am, a Sinclair, by blood."

The purring started back up again—a show of solidarity perhaps.

"I was born a Sinclair in my "other" life, yet raised Mackenzie. That should be a plot for a badly scripted TV movie, but it's also my life. The funny thing is when you consider I've been caught up in a time warp and living a new life in another dimension, well, the baby switch gothic secret seems almost normal, in comparison. Oh, and now I'm confessing the secrets of my birth to a cat."

Fritz let out another Meow.

"Okay, okay," Mac laughed. "You're a very good listener, even if you are a cat." He sat up then, still facing her, and put a paw on her arm.

"Or maybe you're a good listener because you are a cat. Oh well, either way you seem to be enjoying my story. Do you want me to continue?" The cat in question started purring again. "Well, who am I to argue. It's like life granted me a do-over, except maybe this is more like a re-do."

It felt nice to verbally unburden herself—out loud—and of course, she'd made the safe choice. Her audience was non-judgmental; there was no underlying threat of straightjackets and tranquilizers. Dick played a more starring role in her retelling than she'd suspected he had in her regular Mac life.

As nice as it was to share those secrets that had been pressing on her with Fritzy she did long for a person she could talk to, as well. Veronica was her sounding board in real life, but they were just building connections in this dimension. Again, she had that overriding fear of being presented with an insane asylum get-away if the story fell into the wrong hands. She fancied herself pretty accepting in general, but she knew had it not been happening directly to her she'd not have believed in cosmic worm holes and alternate universes either.

Enjoying this kind of thing on TV or in movies didn't mean it was something fun to experience in reality. Though there were aspects she had to admit were interesting there was a lot about her regular life she missed, even if she had more economic opportunities now.

Evidently, the Sinclairs had some kind of law about spending Winter break stateside, 'Mom2' had been excitedly planning a trip to some tropical-paradise, rich person island, they were supposed to leave a couple days before Christmas. She wasn't sure if it was the same Richie rich place Dick had to been over Thanksgiving or not, the name of the place kept going in one ear and out the other. She supposed, much like the Mackenzie biannual rites of torture—AKA camping—she never really knew where they were going until they got to their final destination. She was willing to bet though that traveling Mackenzie-style and traveling Sinclair-style were two very different beasts entirely.

Fritz let out a big yawn, then got up and stretched before jumping off her bed and squeezing out of the small opening of her door into the hallway.

"I guess our chat is over," Mac grumbled out loud to the retreating cat.

At that point, she got out of bed, too, and got dressed before going downstairs and starting the day.

She was quickly recruited to run errands with 'Dad2' and Lauren.

It was mid-afternoon before she finally had a little time to relax. However, she hadn't been home very long before the ping of an incoming text came through, interrupting the John Hughes movie binge she'd been enjoying with her sister.

The subject of The Breakfast Club had come up in conversation as their dad dragged them from one end of Neptune to the other, and she'd discovered Lauren had never really seen the movie in its entirety. It was a travesty to her way of thinking, so she was in the process of rectifying that when Dick interrupted.

Mac stretched forward and picked up her phone from its perching place on the coffee table. It was her Pavlov-ian response in every dimension—every ring or ping her cell emitted had to be responded to, or she'd get twitchy.

Dick: I'm bored.

Biting back a laugh, she typed a reply:

Madison: So? How is that my problem?

Dick: You're my woman...my problems ARE your problems.

Madison: *Eye roll (since you can't see me rolling my eyes)
She really was being honest, that truly was her reaction to his text.

Dick: Hey now, I'd be rushing to your aid if roles were reversed…

Madison: I do NOT even want to know what "helpful" suggestions you'd come up with.

Dick: They involve a lot more showing, than telling…First, you take vegan whipped cream

Madison: I'm blocking the rest of your text, Lauren is on the couch beside me.

Dick: Once again, I'm seriously misunderstood; I was talking about making soy ice cream sundaes, topped with vegan whipping cream! Get your mind outta the bedroom Sinclair! What time will you be over?

Madison: Be over?

Dick: I'm bored; you rush over to my house to amuse me. The sundae bar wasn't enticement enough?

Madison: Nope! I'm staying right here, you're a big boy.

Dick: You still remember ! ! Not that I thought you could forget…

Madison: ?

Dick: How big of a boy I actually am…

Madison: See transcript of comment above

Dick: It's burned in your memory, I get it. See you in an hour…

Madison: I never said I was coming

Dick: That's what she said…See you in an hour…Over and out!

Madison: I never said I'd come.
Mac repeated. There was no answering ping, not that she really expected one. She was certain he'd cockily turned off the cell, confident in that Casablancas charm he always touted.

She was immune to it, she lied to herself. It was a harmless 'white' lie.

She truly was resolved to not head over to Dick's house, but Lauren convinced her otherwise.

It wasn't a hard sell.

They shelved the rest of the John Hughes film-a-thon for a later date, and Lauren went across the street to visit her friend while Mac changed into another pair of jeans. As she brushed her hair she told herself she didn't care how she looked, it wasn't a date or anything, this time, at least.

On the walk over—driving was silly being that the Casablancas house (Mc Mansion) was in the same plat, and two streets over—Mac tried to mentally download Dick's 2004 bio, at least from her original junior year at Neptune. It was not an easy task, though, being that saying she was on the fringes of Dick's life then was overstating their relationship. She wondered where Kendall and her plasticized, over-aerobic-sized assets fit into things at this snapshot of time. Being that perfect eyesight only happened when it came to historical events, Mac thought about what an ass she'd always thought Dick was (it was, of course, a well-earned rep) and how with his screwed up role models it was hard to imagine any other scenario. Of course, dysfunction was the rule, maybe even law in Neptune.

Dick's house was white-washed stucco in the Spanish Mission style, rising up three stories and set behind a tall wrought-iron gate. Pyramid schemes had a high profit margin for their orchestrators', of course in this moment of time everyone believed Big Dick to be all on the up and up. No one believed that more than his own namesake. The sprawling mansion made the White House look like a carriage house. In fact, the Sinclair house looked like a vacation cabin compared to this place.

Mac rang the doorbell and a woman with big, barely concealed breasts in a low cut, short skirted French Maid's uniform let her in. She wondered if the uni was real or if senior Dick had a play date of his own.

Perhaps the trophy Mrs. was away?

Her suspicions were put to rest though when the maid showed her back to the inner sanctum of the Casablancas' palace, with the required dash of polite detachment of hired help. Dick peeled his eyes from the game at the announcement of Mac's-Miss Sinclair's-arrival. He smiled real big.

"Not bad, Madi," he said cockily. "An hour ten."

"This means nothing," she rushed in to assure him, knock him down a peg. "I was bored, too." She plopped down next to where Dick was spread out on the massive, black leather sofa. It dominated a good-sized chunk of space in the cavernous game room. On the far wall was a fireplace with a wooden beamed mantle overhead, above that a 70" flat screen TV was bolted onto the stone. The title Halo2 was frozen onscreen, queued up and ready for play.

"Weren't you the one always saying that was what homework was for?"

"Eh, I already finished it all yesterday."

"Of course you did." He said it with a knowing-air.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're a nerd."

"Hey," she replied, in an insulted tone.

"Evidently, I like nerds. I'm surrounded by both nerds and geeks on a daily basis," Dick retorted, pointing to the doorway. Mac followed his pointer finger to see Cassidy striding in, as though following a cue from a script.

"Well, it's better than being surrounded by airheads," Cassidy volleyed back. "I play the winner." He looked her over, then added as an afterthought, "Hi Madison." He took a seat next to her, sitting in close proximity despite the vast amount of real estate still available.

"Hey Cassidy," Mac said, forcing the casual greeting from her mouth. She was pleased that she was better able to keep her nausea at bay these days, encountering him in this life was getting less jolting, it would never seem natural or easy though. She scooted closer to Dick and therefore further from Cassidy.

Dick leaned his lanky body forward to grab the controllers, handing one to Mac and keeping one for himself. She watched his long, lean fingers scroll through the set up with the speed of an expert gamer, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Halo, huh?" she nodded at the screen.

"Would you rather play something else?"

"How about Assassin's Creed?"

The last time Mac had played that game was with Dick back in 2009, but the screwy timeline she was dwelling in now left her utterly clueless when trying to figure out how long ago that would have been.

Time moved with an underwater murkiness here.

Dick looked confused. "What?"

"Assassin's Creed," Mac repeated. "Secret societies, Knights of Templar, a historical quest. None of that triggers your memory?"

"Nope, never heard of it," Dick said, then looked at Cassidy for backup. He just shrugged. "It does sound good though. Is it some obscure art game?" He smirked.

Yep, she definitely needed to create a Venn diagram; she couldn't keep track of the pop culture entries on the two different timelines. Maybe she was already at Hearst when Assassin's Creed came out. "Ha, ha, very funny," Mac said dryly. "Oh, well, never mind that idea. Halo is fine."

"This one just came out earlier this month," Dick explained. "I've been wanting to find someone else I could take down, other than the Beav." He looked sideways at his brother as he said that, and easily evaded the incoming fist. Mac ducked to avoid becoming collateral damage, this time, from the Casablancas' brothers' war.

The opening credits for Halo 2 played.

Dick chose the multiplayer option, and he and Mac went up against each other. She was happy to discover her gaming skills weren't rusty, and despite the surreal, sepia-colored undertones her thoughts were taking, she managed to move through the various levels with speed and accuracy.

It was something she could focus on, it followed a predictable outcome, which was a nice change of pace from how her life had been going lately. She welcomed the brief atom of time she had to fully concentrate on something outside the fact she was mere inches from a rapist and murderer, it gave her that rare chance to temporarily forget that she had fallen into another dimension, she was just borrowing a life that had never belonged to her in the first place, despite the fact it was supposed to.

Supposed to being the operative words and it was merely by an accident of birth. Accidents ruled her life, and it was a powerless feeling.

Mac and Dick matched each other move for move, anticipating and predicting each others' moves. It reminded her of her 'old' life and she wanted to press pause and freeze frame this moment forever.

Then things shifted, and their dynamic changed. One brief second of distraction and Dick seized the opportunity to get the kill shot in. He let out a whoop of celebration and held up two fingers of his right hand like a "V." Mac knew he wasn't giving her a 'peace sign,' instead it was his reminder to her that she'd fallen in defeat twice now. She didn't let that bother her though, she was secure in the knowledge that she was the victor far more often in the original dimension.

Dick left Cassidy to reset the game, while he got up to hunt down some snacks in the kitchen. Mac took that to mean hunt down the maid to rope her into 'wrangling them up some grub,' a direct quote.

She offered to help, but was quickly and resolutely rebuffed. At Dick's retreating back she hollered at him to not forget that she was vegan.

Cassidy scoffed, and Mac reluctantly pulled her gaze to him. She'd been looking down at the floor, at the screen, at the throw pillow that had fallen to the ground, anywhere but Cassidy.

"Your dietary needs have been committed to memory, everybody here has been cross-trained on your care and feeding," he replied, answering her unspoken question.

She let her raised eyebrow do the speaking for her.

The urge to run pressed in on her, but then she thought about Meg, very much alive here and dead for several years in her 'real' life. The lost boy sitting beside her needed a friend and she still wanted to run away from him screaming. She was not completely sold on the fact that she could change things in her real life by changing the course of history here, but it wasn't in her nature not to try at least.

Mac hadn't been able to reach him when they were dating, so she wasn't sure if just friendship now would be enough. Maybe the better solution would be to stage an intervention; maybe if she billed it a party Dick would be more agreeable. It was something to mull over for later, at least.

Dick came back into the room just then with a tray holding three bowls of ice cream with whipped cream.

"The sundae bar I promised you," Dick grinned triumphantly. "Soy ice cream and vegan crap cream," he added before Mac could say anything.

Mac devoured her dessert as Cassidy annihilated his older brother.

It was creeping on towards dinner time when she finally made her exit. Dick kissed her and offered to drive her home but she fended off the offer several times. She was so glad to have that time to herself; it gave the tears a chance to flow freely.

*******Neptune High School quad, Friday afternoon********

Two thoughts converged on Mac as she sat across from the bickering Veronica and Wallace, she'd been in this 'distorted view life' for over a month now, and once it occurred to her that it was her birthday—it was an odd concept anyway because which year really counted, 17 or 22? Did turning 22 in this life even bleed into the other dimension?

Dick was at his usual table. She had a perfect view of him though, and suspected it was by design. He kept making faces at her every time their eyes met, making it hard to hone in on whether it was Veronica or Wallace that would get the top bunk when their parents' got married. Evidently, their parents were dating and the situation had gone from "eww" inducing to the 'sibling talk' stage.

If the winner of that pseudo-fight was determined by who was the loudest, Veronica would the winner in that match up by far.

A movement on the other side of the courtyard caught her eye. There were four people—three women and a guy, all dressed in black—setting up folding chairs and arranging their instruments. It looked as though the stage was being set for a chamber concert. The token guy of the group had a cello; the other instruments were a viola, and two violins. At some sort of internal cue the musicians started playing 'Birthday' by the Beatles.

Mac was certain she was blushing as the feeling crept over her that the victim of the serenade was herself. Victim was exactly what it felt like, too. She hated being the star attraction of these kinds of displays. Looking around, it didn't appear as though there were any other viable candidates for victim status, so she had to figure she was the one the message was aimed for.

Veronica, suddenly noticing the free show, stopped mid comment about girls deserving the top bunk. "How would you like to be the recipient of that level of parental directed torture and abuse?" she asked, but it seemed more rhetorical in nature.

"I think you should direct that question to Madison," Wallace declared.

Veronica looked confused, while Mac looked down at the table, suddenly fascinated by the graffiti scratched into the peeling paint of the yellow outdoor table.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

"Translate," Wallace ordered.

"It's French for what the hell?"

"Kill me now. Please," Mac beseeched.

"Oh?" Veronica raised her brow. Then she apparently did some mental math. "Oh! Happy Birthday! Your parents must really love you to go through all that to serenade their baby,' she continued, doing damage control.

"Thanks," Mac muttered, and then she looked back up at Veronica. "Of course, if they really loved me, they'd have got the real Beatles."

"Guess it was short notice," Veronica teased. "Any plans for this momentous occasion?"

"I think I know the answer to that," Wallace interjected. He bent down to rummage through his brown backpack at his feet. "Voilà," he said triumphantly holding up an orange piece of wrinkled and torn paper. It looked faded and weathered. He placed it on the table between him and Mac, smoothing out the ripples as best as he could.

"Helping to clean up the litter?" Veronica inquired.

Mac skimmed it, and felt her jaw opening wider as she read on. "No frakking way," she said at last, her voice going up at least an octave.

Somehow, in the time it took her to read the contents of the paper, Dick had managed to leave his lunch table. Mac extended her gaze across the perimeter, but didn't see the familiar blonde mop of hair.

"Where did you find it?" Veronica asked as she leaned forward to get a better glimpse of the paper.

In big, bold black letters it proclaimed that it was once again time to celebrate Madi Sinclair's 17th year on this Earth.

Wallace pointed to the old wooden pole off to the edge of the courtyard; it was the community bulletin board.

Mac could feel the beginning of a migraine building, she rubbed her left temple with one hand, and stabbed the offending piece of paper with the pointer finger of her other hand. "No party, no frakking way."

"I take it you're not planning a party in your own honor," Wallace said.

"Nope, not me," Mac snapped. "I have a suspect in mind though. I'll give you one guess. Here's a hint, it starts with Dick, and ends in Casablancas."

"You really think this party is Dick's doing?" Veronica seemed perplexed.

"Yup," she asserted, popping the p, a sure sign of annoyance in any life. "Who else could it be?"

A few times, earlier in the week, people had come up to her mentioning they'd see her Friday night, or asking what was on tap, that type of thing. She didn't think much about it though; it hadn't made sense so she ignored it. Now, though, she realized she was the last one to the get the memo. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, except after her first 'real' date with Dick they'd already debated the party idea. She had made it abundantly clear—she'd thought at least—that despite being "tradition," being "expected," there would be no Sinclair bacchanalia, hell was not in a deep freeze.

"I got nothing," Wallace said, opening his palms and turning them upwards, and then he shrugged.

Just then the bell rang. Dick dodged Mac for the rest of the day until last period, when they had Mrs. Murphy's class together. Even then he tried to avoid her, but she finally cornered him after the final bell had rung.

She launched into him for organizing a party without her input, or blessing.

"You frakking entitled '09'er asshats," she sputtered out.

"Doesn't that make you an asshat by association?" Dick asked reasonably, which only further pissed Mac off. "By virtue of being a '09'er you, too, must be an asshat. It's just simple logic, Madi-oh!" He flashed her a triumphant look, proud that he spoke her language.

After a few more threats of bodily harm, she finally got his assurances that he'd undo the damage. At her pressing, he promised to spread the word that it had been cancelled. She believed him once Corny was recruited to help in that cause; he had gossip down to an art.

***That night, Sinclair house***

Dick had invited himself over to play video games after her parents had gone down to San Diego for a romantic dinner and a stay at a Bed & Breakfast they apparently frequented. Somehow Logan had been roped into coming along as well. Mac was just relieved that Cassidy wasn't tagging along, evidently he'd had some kind of prior commitment. It was exhausting work tamping down the grief, anger, and guilt cocktail Cass always stirred up.

The fact that the Sinclairs left the girls to their own devices, seemed to be an explicit show of trust. As they prepared to leave, 'Mom2' and 'Dad2' promised that they'd be celebrating her birthday as a family the next night, the importance of the date was not unnoticed. 'Dad2' also made it a point to tell her, as he placed one hand on the door to the garage, that she wasn't to have a party, the message was diluted though by his exaggerated wink. Her protest that she didn't want to have a party anyway died at the slam of the door.

Dick had only been at her house for about ten minutes when the guests started trickling in one by one. Soon the steady trickle grew in volume, until finally there was a big crush of classmates spreading out and infecting the entire first floor of the sprawling house. Lauren hid out in the library, however Mac made a point to let her know she had free reign of the place, though she really couldn't blame her from burrowing underground. The urge to do that herself was pressing down hard.

Mac was convinced that as the guest tally climbed, her blood pressure was increasing, too.

She pushed her way through the people littering the hall and bleeding into the living room, looking for the creator of the madness. She found him in the kitchen filling a red Solo cup with beer from the keg one of his '09'er buddies was "kind" enough to bring to her unsanctioned party.

"Asshat," Mac called out when she saw him. "I should have known, even in this life, you would still be an ass." It slipped out; she didn't try to recall it.

He stopped mid-pour to look at her; if she didn't know he was incapable of that expression she would have sworn he looked sheepish. He didn't say anything though.

"What happened to your promise to cancel the party?"

"I tried, babe, it's not my fault that Corny utterly failed in his duty."

"Not your fault!?" Mac sputtered.

"That's what I said," Dick repeated. All traces of faux-sheepishness gone from his face, replaced with defiance. "I don't see why you're making a big deal of it, babe. It's just a party. You had one last year, and the year before, why fuck with tradition? Lucy will clean up tomorrow way before the parentals come home."

"I told you no. It's about respect, Dick," Mac started, her voice rising. She saw people starting to leave the room in spite of the fact it housed the keg, sundry other bottles of alcohol, and a couple bags of chips some scavengers had procured from the panty. "It doesn't matter that we always did things a certain way, there's no law that says we can't change history up a bit, play in a different sandbox." Her voice rose up.

She headed towards him, her posture menacing; at least she hoped that was the air she was emitting.

Dick waited a beat, like he wanted to make sure she had spoke her piece, and then he took the cup he'd been filling up and shoved it in her face. "Here, you need this much worse than I do." He muttered the much. "You aren't making any sense tonight; if I didn't know better I'd swear you were drunk. Maybe the beer will help." Then he proceeded to take another cup and fill it up, replacing the beer he'd sacrificed for the greater good (his).

One of the few remaining stragglers grabbed a cup and nudged them away from the keg, so he could fill it up with his own liquid courage. After that task was complete, the guy headed towards the door, making long strides like he couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Her house was full of strangers now; she allowed herself a moment of silence to fully appreciate that irony.

The guy in question paused in the doorway, took a sip of his beer, and then, addressing Dick, said "I have a little free advice for you, buy a leash for your tiger." He left before Dick could say anything or Mac could throw something at his retreating back.

The scathing retort on her lips died a quick death though as Logan entered, towing Veronica behind him. They were holding hands and it seemed to Mac that she was watching yet another incarnation of their star-crossed relationship being born.

"It's a cathouse around here," Logan snarked. "I brought the bobcat, you have the tiger." He oofed as a particularly powerful roundhouse punch landed on his stomach. The smirk didn't flicker though.

"My claws are currently out and just itching to tear into something, be forewarned. So I'd not say another word if I were you," Mac glared at Dick, and then changed her voice to something much more welcoming to greet Veronica. "Hey V, glad you could make it. I now know a grand total of 3 people here at this big gathering to celebrate my birth."

"Five," Veronica corrected. "Wallace is here scamming on Jane, I think. I can't keep up with his conquests, and Jackson, I think, was roped into being wingman since I was kidnapped by that guy there," she aimed her head at Logan, who just smirked.

"Retract the claws," Dick instructed, and then it was his time to flinch when Mac ripped out a page from her friend's book and enacted her own form of retribution on his arm. A drop from his full cup of beer splashed up and he called "party foul."

"Cat napped, there bobcat," Logan corrected Veronica's phrasing. "And feel free to use those claws on me, anytime."

"Ewww," Mac made a face, and directed it to Logan. "As for you, Vee, I need details, and lots of alcohol, definitely NOT in that order."

Dick pointed to the beer he'd just given her; she was still white-knuckle gripping the sweaty cup.

"Something stronger," she said. Dick still stood there. "Well, go get it. This party is your fault, what happens here is your fault, so to atone you are my bitch." She flicked her hand in a fetch it now gesture.

"Tiger," Dick intoned, and then growled, but he swiveled and went over to the counter by the sink where the bottles of stronger stuff were displayed. His buddy laughed and made a whipping sound.

He handed Mac a vodka tonic and followed it up with a mock-salute, "Your beverage, mademoiselle. Is there anything else I may do to service you?" He followed that question up with a leer.

"Now it's my turn to be grossed out," Veronica stepped in.

"You can go mingle with your guests; I'm stealing the only person in this room I am not pissed at for a little girly chat."

"Talk about needing alcohol, and lots of it," Veronica muttered.

Mac watched Veronica as she said that so that was why she noticed a brief flash of pain take root. It didn't make a long appearance though, Veronica excelled in the art of compartmentalizing her emotions, and it's what made her a great detective and lawyer-to-be.

She mentally flinched at the realization that perhaps her friend's past in this wormhole life did mirror at least parts of the real dimension. It was a sobering thought, worse though was the prickly feeling that maybe in this time period she had been responsible for setting things in motion. That had never occurred to her before, but when it did it felt like a fist in her stomach.

Mac took a big drink of the vodka tonic, with its three parts vodka to one part tonic ratio. It burned going down, her penance.

"I don't know why I'm being blamed for this shin-dig," Logan was grumping.

"Guilt by association, dude, it's the chick's creed. They live by that shit, besides listening to girly chats sounds like inhumane punishment to me."

Veronica poured herself a gin with a much larger tonic ratio than Mac's drink, and then pulled her friend over to the table in the breakfast nook. She shot Logan a dismissive look, but didn't say anything until the guys not-so-reluctantly took their cue to leave.

"Okay, you got me all to yourself now. Feel free to start the girly inquisition now," Veronica invited.

"You. Logan. Go."

"You suck at this girl talk thing, just so you know," she grumped.

"So do you, Vee. Now, stop stalling, and start talking."

Veronica took her at her word and launched into a rambling, at least by her standards, explanation of her storied history with Logan, the Lily years, as well as the past several months after Lily died. A pall seemed to take over, making it hard for Mac to breath. Talk of loss, death and grief were a big reason why, but it was also the resurrection of her earlier thought about Shelly Pomeroy's party.

Mac couldn't take the free ride on the guilt train any longer; she had to know if she had to buy a ticket, or could hop off those particular rails.

Taking a deep breath and a fortifying sip of her mostly vodka, vodka tonic, Mac tentatively, haltingly steered conversation to last year, in particular some of the "social events" that earned coveted spots in the Neptune party lore, which naturally encompassed both Shelley's party and "her" own birthday fete. Vee's face broadcasted how welcome that thought was. Mac felt a tiny frisson of self-hatred overtake her for her part in causing more pain in Veronica's life, but no matter how indirectly it might be, it was a haunting thought that she could have been the precipitator in Veronica's rape, and part of Cassidy's depravity. She ran a finger around the rim of her cup, just to preoccupy her hands.

Veronica confessed she wasn't much into the whole '09'er party scene, and Mac knew that didn't even really scratch the surface. As for whether or not she, as Madi, had been to Shelly's party the previous year, it didn't turn out to be a question with an easy answer. Veronica admitted there were big gaps in her memory bank of that night; she was looking down at the table as she said it. Mac balled her hands into fists, driving her short nails into the palms of her hand, grounding her into the moment and then, unballing one hand, she shyly reached out to squeeze Veronica's hand, who flashed her a wan smile in return.

"I knew this '09'er party would be a good re-introduction to the ways of your people," Veronica said, sounding lighter.

Mac wondered how much was forced, but she played along. "That's right; I will be your guide and translator as you navigate the strange world of 'my people." She had to believe Veronica's innate trust in her was a good sign that this Madison wasn't anything like Madison 1.0 in the real world. "So, I don't think it's safe to leave our guys to their own devices." She threw a pointed look at Vee as she accented our.

"They might be auctioning off the silver."

"Don't they have their own silver?"

"Yes, but where's the fun in that? What kind of rich person are you?"

"The bad kind, evidently," Mac said, smiling wryly. "I'm just not a natural, I guess."

"I knew there was a reason I liked you."

They got up and headed out into the hall. People were congregated everywhere, spreading out onto the furniture, standing in the hall, cliquing off into segregated groups. They squeezed between, weaved around, and pushed through the yawning crowd, keeping their eyes out for Dick and Logan. None of the party revelers seemed the least bit interested in the "birthday girl," they were too busy drinking and flirting.

Something's never changed.

Further proving that the truths in that adage, the guys were finally located, they were in the family room, playing Aliens Vs Predator: Extinction.

"Bullshit. You cheat," Dick was screeching at Logan.

"Sore. Loser," Logan said, speaking slowly and enunciating carefully.

His point was proven when Dick slammed down the controller, as it hit the marble coffee table it echoed.

"Aw, does someone need a time out or maybe his bah-bah?" Mac asked, playing up the baby voice.

"No, someone just needs to put his big boy pants on and pay up," Logan explained.

"Pay up?" Veronica raised her brow. She flopped down next Logan on the expansive couch; she cozied up close to him though.

"Just a friendly wager among friends."

"Asshole." It was followed up by a finger gesture, too.

"See, friendly," Logan reiterated.

"Yeah, yeah, you're besties." Mac said, "As much as I'm enjoying your he-man video game wagering, I have a certain baby sister I'm supposed to be watching. So, if you'll excuse me, I need to track her down. Let's see, I think I left her in the library…"

"Some sitter you are Madi. Lauren was here with us for awhile. She lent her expertise to Logan, the cheat, and then went up to bed about forty minutes ago," Dick assured her.

"You're just jealous 'cause all the ladies like me better," Logan said with exaggerated swagger.

"Well, not all the ladies," Dick corrected. He reached out and pulled Mac onto his lap.

A laugh escaped. She dismissed it as an involuntary reaction. "Well, right in this moment, that's not entirely true. Logan's not the one that hosted a party in my honor that I said I never wanted to begin with."

"This again?" Dick groaned.

"Yes, again."

The rehashing didn't last long though, all the anger had leaked out of Mac, and though she didn't care about the rest of the party-goers, she was having fun with her little grouping. They continued to play games, challenging one another, the age-old boys vs girls and couple vs newer couple were the main team configurations. The guys denied making any more bets, but Mac was skeptical on that, she witnessed a lot of whispered conversing. Use of Dick as the drink bitch was extended out to both Logan and Veronica too, so they all conspired to keep him running, between games at least.

Occasionally people would wander in and stay awhile. Dick and Logan both seemed friendly with most of the attendees, but once again Mac felt overlooked. In this case, though, she didn't really mind.

As the night wore on, and Dick continued to make Veronica more of his patented 3 gin to 1 part of tonic rationed beverages, the closer Logan and Veronica grew. Space wise, at least, and beyond that, Mac suspected. She found that just as entertaining to watch as Dick losing (yet again) to another round of Halo, since he'd long grown tired of Aliens VS Predator.

As she was watching the Logan/Veronica show, front stage center, Dick was doing some space invading of his own, in between pouting and shows of sore loser-ship, of course. Mac's spy focus was severed when she became aware of Dick's hand on her breast and his tongue in her ear. It was a nice diversion, not that she was ready to admit that in Swahili, let alone English.

Half-heartedly, Mac gave Dick a weak shove.

"Not here, in public view," Mac hissed in his ear.

"This is hardly what I'd define as public. Besides, I'm pretty sure zombies could dance the polka in front of us, and Logan and Ronnie wouldn't even notice." He still drew back slightly though, but his hand remained on her breast, which Mac wasn't complaining about.

"Do zombies even dance, let alone dance a polka? I'm pretty sure in their zoned out, brainless state the ability to learn a dance more complicated than the robot would be beyond their skill set. Unless, and this is an important caveat, a zombie ate the brains of a dancer, then maybe the cells would retain some sort of memory perhaps. You think?" Mac proposed, excited in her zombie theory.

Dick gaped at her a second, and then shook his head. "Whatever you say, Velma, Zombie-ology is more your expertise than mine."

"Velma? You sound just like Ryan! That's his pet name for me when I'm being geekified." She clinched her eyes for a moment, caught up in thoughts of Ryan. She missed the little pest more than she ever thought possible. The time with Lauren that she got in this dimension was a dream come true, but at this moment the trade off that it came from seemed pretty steep of a price. "Besides, you were the one that mentioned zombies."

"I try to work zombies into every conversation at least once; I generally leave exes out though. Bad form."

"Exes?"

"I'm assuming Ryan is an ex-boyfriend, though I rather like that name, it's a solid, manly name."

Busted! Mac thought. His name had just slipped out, and she wasn't sure how to wiggle out of that gaffe, so she went with the time tested method used by women everywhere, she pled amnesia. "Ryan? No, I don't know anyone named Ryan. I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything at all about a Ryan. I think Dick is the perfect name for you, by the way." She winked as she made the disparaging comment about his fitting moniker.

"Back atcha, babe. Madi is perfect for you, too, since you get mad all the time."

"Just at you, Dick," she hit the "k" hard.

"Oh come on, you're having fun."

"Not the point," Mac argued.

"It's exactly the point. You needed a party, babe. Hell, I needed a party. Plus, those two needed the right excuse to get together." Dick nodded his head towards Logan and Veronica who had dropped all pretense of fighting their attraction and were doing some exploring of their own. Mac quickly turned away, wanting to give her, normally private, friend some space.

"So this was an altruistic move on your part to help your bestie find true love?"

"True lust, but yep, it was my good deed for the year, and the next one, too."

"I'll start filling out paperwork for your purple star," Mac snarked.

"Besides, you've pretty much neutered my party-hardy ways," Dick added.

"I can think of no version of Dick Casablancas that wasn't able to walk in a straight line and find a party," Mac let the irony bleed through.

"Ah yes, the inverted Isosceles party theorem," Dick intoned in a faux-academia voice.

"There is no planet, known or unknown, where that makes sense, both as a theorem name and as a bridge you're trying to sell me."

"Go with the flow, Sinclair. Do you know how many epic parties I've sacrificed to watch chick flicks with you?"

"I do NOT watch chick flicks," Mac said indignantly.

"We skipped Shelly Pomeroy's party last year to watch Gremlins, and eat Bon-Bons because your auntie was in town, or something made up like that," Dick said.

Mac felt a frisson of satisfaction at the contact of her palm and his face. It deepened at his girly shriek.

"Hey, ouch, dude!"

"Now who's the girl? Oh, and how the frak could you label Gremlins as a chick flick?"

"D'uh, there's like kissing and love and shit."

Mac mentally counted to ten, and took a deep breath, preparing herself to school him. Hiding in that blaspheme though was the much needed reassurance she needed that whatever did happen at Shelly's party, and something still did, she was sure of it, at least had nothing to do with this Madison because she was at home watching Gremlins, and, well, she'd ignore the rest of his implications.

"Get a room," came a grumbled reply from further down the couch.

Embarrassed, Mac automatically scooted away from Dick, only about an inch but enough to miss his body heat. They weren't doing anything but sparring, their default state in every dimension, regardless of relationship status. There was something intimate about that.

"I could say the same for you guys, dude," Dick volleyed back. "Though I have dibs on Madi's room."

"Dibs, Dick, really? Are we back in junior high?" Veronica asked. She, too, made a hard k sound.

"Nope. No way, no how, this is a sex free house," Mac put the kibosh on that idea. Not that there wasn't libidinous appeal to that suggestion. She wouldn't be opposed to testing that carnal notion out, and doing some research on the rumors that Dick was well-endowed, here in this sandbox world she was stuck in, if it wasn't for the calendar reminding her that there was an age gap to factor in as well as the little matter of coming from different universes. Of course it was easier to think logically when Dick's tongue wasn't exploring her mouth's terrain. Veronica's death ray stare, which packed a lot less heat in this world, was still trained on Dick.

Sometime after that though, in the early hours of Saturday, Mac felt her eyes drooping and the effects of attraction and vodka condense internally. It was several hours later when she woke up in a pretzel of arms and legs, unsure where she ended and Dick began. As her eyes started to focus a bit more, she noticed a similar Logan and Veronica puzzle on the other side of the long couch. She heard the vacuum running from another room and figured poor Lucille was already beginning the clean up process for last night's party.

At least the house seemed to be mostly unscathed, she wasn't sure the same could be said for her head though. Thank God she had the weekend to recover. She ignored the pick ax in her head as she woke her "slumber party" guests up so they could leave the scene of the crime before her parents came back.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 16—Jet Planes

On paper, or more accurate, in Mac's head, parking the Caddy on Colony Place, across the street from the Mackenzie house—her old house—seemed like a good idea. In reality, it felt kind of stalker-ish. Which, she supposed was appropriate, since technically that's what she was doing.

She was supposed to be packing; they were flying out first thing the next morning, on a private jet "owned" by Sinclair Enterprises. That was really just tax-speak, which roughly translated into her bio-parents had their own private airplane.

She had left the house under the pretense of running last minute errands. The urge to see her parents and Ryan again proved too great to pass up.

She'd been there almost ten minutes and nothing was happening. It was starting to seem like a waste of time. She had her hand poised on the key and was about to turn it, when a movement out of the corner of her field of vision fractured her focus. She dropped her hand, and turned her head. Ryan was walking out the front door; then he paused, shouting something back into the house before letting it slam.

Curiosity piqued, Mac put her hand back on the key, turning the car on just long enough to engage the power windows. She was still at a good distance, so the acoustics weren't optimum, but it did make it much easier to hear what came next.

The door opened back up and out spilled a very angry sounding Madison ('Cindy'). She stood on the stoop, hands on her hips.

"Yeah, just run away, you little chickenshit. Mom is still going to ground you when you get back." She was shouting.

"You and your threats don't scare me, Cindy." Ryan had paused at the end of the driveway, and was now facing the house, his posture matching that of his 'sister's.'

"They should," 'Cindy' screamed back, her voice sounded menacing to Mac, even from that distance. "And they're not threats, they're promises."

Just then Mac saw the door open again, and her mom came outside, too, pushing 'Cindy' aside. "What is going on? What kind of show are you two putting on for the neighbors?" She had her hands on her hips, not a good sign, she knew that first hand. She was too far away to see her mom's expression, but she didn't need to, she'd been a recipient of enough sternly worded lectures to conjure up the correct image; pursed lips, and narrowed eyes.

Both Ryan and 'Cindy' spoke together, cancelling each other out. Mac was closer geographically to Ryan but both complaints got lost. Evidently her mom heard them though; she threw her hands up in the air.

Mac couldn't hear what her mom said, but it ended with Ryan walking off, heading across the street, right towards the Cadillac. He walked right in front of the car, but didn't even look her way. She lifted her hand automatically anyway in greeting. He was heading with a purpose to Zane's front door, and into the sanctuary of his best friend.

'Cindy', evidently, was instructed to go inside, because she spun on her heel and shook her head, obviously annoyed.

"Don't you dare slam the door—" Mac could hear her mom yelling, the rest of the sentence was drowned out by yet another bang of the heavy door.

Nat stomped a foot, and then, looking dejected, flopped down on the stoop. She didn't break down crying, or any rookie mom move like that, but Mac recognized it for what it was, a cooling off period.

It felt really strange being on the outside looking in on that, instead of one half of the causation.

Mac reached over and grabbed the door handle. The little voice inside her was telling her not to do it, it was a bad idea, she hit the snooze button on her inner voice and got out of the car.

She crossed the street, and went up the driveway to what was, at one time, her house. Her mom was just sitting there, staring off in to space. As she walked up the steep driveway and got closer, she could tell the exact moment her mom noticed her. There never was a flicker of recognition though. She looked for it, prayed for it, but there wasn't anything she could even spin as a positive sign. Logically, she knew it would be that way, but thinking logically in this situation didn't mesh real well. She stood in front of her mom, within touching distance, for the first time in almost 2 months.

"Can I help you?"

"Um, I hope so. Sorry to bother you, but I've been driving around, trying to find my cat, Fritz. He's black and white. Have you seen him?" It was obviously a lie, Fritz had already been dropped off at the pet resort, not a vet's office, but an actual 'roll out the red carpet,' serve tuna tartare from crystal bowls, So-Cal style pet hotel. In short, his stay promised to be more luxe than camping Mackenzie style ever was.

Mac hovered in front of her mom, twisting her hands and tapping a foot. She just wanted to throw herself at Nat and bury her head and cry. Maybe if she kept moving she could tamp down that overriding desire.

"No, hon, I'm sorry, I haven't seen a cat around here. Well, that's not true, I saw Morris earlier, but he belongs to my son Ryan's friend, Zane. He's a big orange tabby, cute, but not the most original name, if you ask me. No one did, however."

She listened to her mom prattle on about Morris, and then it meandered on to cats in general before she reined it in.

"You don't need to hear the life story of Morris-the-cat, not when you have your own to look for," she concluded. "Where do you live?" She patted the stoop beside her, an invitation to sit down.

It was a lot harder question to answer than it should have been. Mac grumbled out that she lived in another neighborhood, but didn't offer specifics, not wanting to reveal her '09'er status because that would underscore the holes in her harmless little cover story.

Not wanting to be rude, Mac sat down next to her "mom," sitting on her hands to keep from touching the woman who could never truly be a stranger to her. She expected to get a whiff of Lavender Fields, the perfume that was Nat's signature scent, but instead she smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. She only had a very vague recollection of her mom ever smoking in real life, she'd been pretty young when her mom quit.

"What made you look here?" Her mom asked, green eyes boring into her intently, as though she cared about what Mac had to say. In her other life, that definitely would have been the case.

You! Mac thought, but didn't utter. I wanted to see you. "Well, he's not in my neighborhood, so he had to go somewhere," she said instead.

"Indeed. Very wise." Nat continued to study Mac. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

This was what Mac had been needing to hear, but she feared the context was all wrong.

"I don't think so. I…" Mac didn't get a chance to finish though, she was interrupted by the
door opening and Madison stomping out.

"Mom," she began in her whiny voice, and then stopped, her mouth in an O of surprise. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Uh, I'm just…"

"Cindy! Don't be rude! Her cat is missing. I take it you two know each other?"

"Unfortunately."

"I go to school with Mad, er Mac, um Cindy," Mac stammered out. She snuck a quick peek at the glowering blond then looked back down at the ground.

"Ah, that's probably where I've seen you," Nat said, she nodded her head.

"I'm Madison," Mac said.

At that Natalie did some more mental dot connecting, and internally tacked on "Sinclair," to her name. Mac could see it in her expression. Guilt weighted her down. It also shuttered down the open, welcoming smile that had always been her mom's default setting.

"Well, I need to continue looking for Fritz. Thank you for your help," Mac said, pulling herself up. She forced down the urge to run back to her car, settling for a fast paced walk.

She gave a slight wave in acknowledgement of her mom's stuttered "good luck" shouted out to her retreating back, but she didn't look back. Honestly, she didn't think she could bear it.

Back in the safe-zone of her car, Mac allowed herself the liberty of a few tears on the drive back, but refused to give into the big wracking sobs that fought for release.

*****The next day, Neptune Regional Airport****

Ducking slightly, though the doorway was taller than she was, Mac walked into the cool gray marble and black leather interior of Sinclair Enterprise's privately-owned Gulfstream jet. She made her way to a recliner in the very back of the cabin. She laid her laptop case on the floor beside her, and then plopped down into the comfortable seat and strapped on the seatbelt.

She had already surrendered her luggage to a steward who had met them in the lobby for pre-flight prep.

Lauren took the seat beside her, and proceeded to buckle herself in. "Just think Madi, when we land, in what, I think like eight hours, we'll be on an island in the middle of the ocean."

"Just think, Lauren, we live less than ten minutes from the ocean, and we don't even have to fly to get there."

"Yes, but this is a different ocean."

"Last I checked, all oceans were pretty much the same, you've seen one, and you've seen them all. Salt water, waves, sharks, jellyfish, coral reefs, etc," Mac snarked, then asked seriously, "where are we going, anyway?"

"Turks and Caicos, dear," 'Mom2' piped up. She and 'Dad2' were up front on the love seat caddy corner from Mac's chair. "I'm pretty sure I mentioned it, Madi."

"You probably did, Mom, I just forgot, that's all." Mac said. It was probably a remnant from her old life; she never knew what campground or national park she was being dragged to until she got there.

The self-diagnosis she arrived at was chosen amnesia.

Just then the captain, who Mac assumed was a contract employee with Sinclair Enterprises, came on the speaker to let them know they'd be taking off in a few minutes. As they waited she studied the opulent interior of the small plane.

Truthfully, she was a little nervous; this was her first flight ever.

For all the vacations she'd taken in her 'real life' they were always to locations that were drivable, up to and including the hellious Mackenzie Family cross-country adventure of '02. They packed up the camper and did a tour of KOA campgrounds in 23 of the 50 states. If the traditional camping jaunts her family took twice a year were tortuous, this was cruel and unusual punishment of epic proportion. It was thirty days of horror. The only semi-bright spot was the stop-over in Disney World and Epcot Center, and even that was mainly just a dull luster.

The camper had its fair share of battle scars, including a couple scratches earned on that roadtrip adventure. The biggest ding was caused by her dad backing into a pole.

Mac was so caught up in her reminiscing that she didn't realize the plane was moving until they were taxing down the runaway. As she realized they were gaining speed, Mac gripped the arm rests of her seat, leaned her head back and clinched her eyes. She was back in her reality with a jarring thud, all thoughts about camping vacations were crowded out, the only thought in her head was the mantra, please don't crash.

Her all-encompassing fear must have been broadcast clearly on her face, and by the death-grip she had on the arm rests, because Lauren's concerned tone cut through her prayers.

"Madi, are you okay? Are you sick?"

"What?" Mac asked, confused. It came out as a groan though because right as she asked they lifted up, and the wheels were no longer on solid ground. She didn't dare sneak a peek from the window, she knew for a fact that to do that would lead to reliving her breakfast from earlier that morning.

"You usually love flying, but you look like you're about to throw up."

"That's a distinct possibility," Mac muttered.

"Mom," Lauren shouted.

"Yes, dear?" 'Mom 2' replied, quieter and less urgently.

"I think Madison's sick."

By then they had started to level off but Mac still felt queasy, however it was easing up a little bit. She kept her eyes closed.

A cool hand reached out to stroke her forehead. "Mad, dear, does your stomach hurt? You don't have a fever."

She opened her eyes to see 'Mom2' kneeling besides her chair, looking a little anxious. She didn't think getting out of the seat so soon after take-off was allowed, but then evidently owning the plane made it easier to rebel.

"A little bit, I'm feeling better though." She tried to reassure her mom and Lauren.

"I'll have Joyce bring you some water," Ellen continued. "I thought you liked flying."

If her stomach wasn't still roiling she probably would've laughed at that statement. Mac was starting to figure she wasn't much of an aviator in any life, instead she just mumbled about how she must have eaten breakfast too fast, or something.

'Mom2' went back to her seat, but true to her word, a tall blond woman in a purple Sinclair Enterprises polo shirt with a name tag that read Joyce came by a couple minutes later with a bottle of water. Mac snickered internally at the personalized label on the water, it also read Sinclair Enterprises.

"Thanks," Mac said, mustering just enough energy for a watery smile.

The woman nodded politely and Mac watched her walk back up to the front of the plane and disappear behind the curtain separating the cockpit.

Mac untwisted the cap and took a small sip of the cold water. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed her sister studying her. Lauren pulled her glance away though when she saw she'd been caught.

As Mac drank her water, little by little her nausea abated. Soon though her eyes got heavy and she drifted off to sleep.

When she woke up a couple hours later she felt fine. She figured it had to be a combination of nerves and motion sickness. She saw the remains of Lauren's salad and sandwich and her stomach started its own protest.

Joyce must had been lingering somewhere nearby, watching, because Mac had only been up for a few minutes when she came by with a big entrée sized Vegan-modified Greek salad with vinaigrette on the side.

Mac eagerly poured a liberal amount of dressing on the salad, and hungrily tucked into it. She suspected whoever complained about airplane food didn't fly on private jets. She wasn't entirely sure meals were even served very often on commercial flights. People probably paid dearly for the privilege of eating bad food, but that wasn't an issue for her at that precise time.

One of things she did enjoy about camping in her old Mac-life was the greasy spoon diners they would often patronize while on the road. Choosing to be vegan did somewhat limit what she could eat, but she always found something she could cobble together and call it a meal. Plus her mom always made sure to have plenty of "safe" snacks on hand, too. Her dad was a big believer in supporting what he called the 'backbone' of their country, those little, independent stores and restaurants. It had trickled its way down to her, though apparently by nurture, rather than blood ties.

After the remnants of her meal had been cleared away, Mac lugged out her laptop and killed a couple hours working on a report that wasn't due until the week after winter break ended. Lauren had fallen asleep, and she could hear soft snores coming from her sister. If it had been Ryan, she'd be either taking pics on her phone for possible embarrassment later on or pounding him with a pillow, or both at the same time.

Lauren, on the other hand, looked so innocent in sleep, her black hair covering her face. Mac thought it would be criminal to disturb her. Plus, she freely admitted to herself, she enjoyed watching the sister who had never been anything but a distant, unobtainable dream since she first saw her.

As always, those thoughts put a stranglehold on all thoughts about papers detailing her views on the future of Artificial Intelligence.

She heaved a sigh and shut down her laptop. As she placed it in the messenger bag, her hand felt the edge of the Sudoku puzzle book she'd stashed in there as she'd engaged in some kamikaze packing after her fictional cat finding mission on Colony Place the day before. If thoughts of Lauren were an ache, thinking about life with the Mackenzie's was this unrelenting throb of pain that refused to recede.

Numbers were about the best distracter she could come up with from her limited selection of amusements, so she opened the book to a fresh puzzle and set to work conquering it. At particularly difficult lines, she would chew on the end of her blue pen as she thought hard about what numbers were needed to complete that sequence. Her plan worked, numbers and the puzzles became her entire focus.

She was just about to start her fifth puzzle when the captain announced they were starting their descent into the Providenciales International airport on Providenciales Island, the most populace of the archipelago. Biting her lip, Mac tucked the book back into her bag, then set to work tightening her belt, in preparation for what was hopefully not too bumpy of a landing.

Less than twenty minutes later Mac was grateful to be back on terra firma. Fortunately, the motion sickness that plagued her during take-off didn't make a reappearance during landing, a fact she was grateful for.

She followed her family through the small airport. Though it was billed as an international airport, it was not a bustling building, especially at that hour of the night. Mac felt thrown off schedule by the long flight and three hour time difference, the nap from earlier had restored her energy, but now those affects had long worn off.

There was a limo waiting to take them to the villa that was their home for the week.

On the twisty, windy road that ran parallel to the ocean, Mac tried to concentrate more on the scenery to the right, consisting of houses, and pockets of commerce.—general stores, and little roadside diners and taco stands, rather than the steep drop to the ocean below.

Given the fact that Christmas was only four days away, she was surprised that there weren't many wreaths, or palms festooned with decorative lighting. Nestled among her clothes were presents for everyone, including Lucille, who actually had the week off, she figured that gift could keep until they got back home. Evidently, in addition to the fact the maid had more than earned a vacation as far as Mac could tell, the villa they were renting came with a full staff, which would be at their disposal the entire time.

It had been a new experience shopping for gifts knowing cost wasn't really an obstacle, she almost would have labeled it fun except for two things, shopping was still shopping, and she hated it with a passion, and also it was more challenging than one would think to shop for gifts for people you, in actuality, had only really known for 6 weeks. She had the self-pressure of fearing her gifts would totally miss the mark, underscore perfectly the masquerade she'd been living.

Lauren, however, had been easy to buy for, by comparison, at least. The year before, she bought a first edition X-Men comic for Ryan with the intent that he'd sell it to help with a semester, maybe two, of college. It hadn't been anywhere near her price range, but thanks to the old-fashioned bartering system, she'd done a little computer work exchange. She had the comic hidden in her room, in the back of the closet. Mac was fairly certain Ryan had forgotten all about it. It was in that vein that she picked out a first edition copy of Frankenstein.

Obviously, Lauren didn't need a college fund, but it stemmed back to another trip to Java's that they'd taken a couple weeks back, after Lauren had mentioned wanting a soy chai latte. Mac was an easy sell; she never turned down chai lattes. It had started when they were discussing books—again—and Lauren explained that calling a book a classic automatically meant it was boring. She tried to explain that there were plenty of wonderful books written in other centuries but she could tell that her sister was unconvinced.

A few days later she'd stopped in, on a whim, to a dusty used bookshop in Neptune, a few doors down from Comp-U-Stop. A battered copy of Frankenstein caught her eye, and it was a nice feeling to know buying it wouldn't break her bank account. It was widely-regarded as one of the first sci-fi books ever published, that made it worthy of the term classic in her mind.

The limo slowed down and made a left hand turn into a twisting, winding dirt road. They meandered around curves for about five minutes, until it turned into a driveway of a sprawling one story stucco house. It was too dark to see details, even with the well-lit pathway, but it was definitely more luxurious digs than the camper she was used to staying in.

'Mom2' accepted the key from the driver, who apparently was employed by the rental company. They entered the house, and Mac looked around in awe, and she was just in the foyer. It was a wide open room with marble flooring, a huge tear drop crystal chandelier, and a real water fountain in the center. It rivaled the Neptune Grand for luxe and formality, yet the pale greens and blues that made up the color palette wasn't off putting at all, it lent unexpected warmth.

It was going on 10 PM local time, which made it just shy of 7 their time, but it had been a long day of travel for them all, so after touring the available bedrooms—Mac counted 9—they all made their selections and settled in. Each room had an ocean view, according to 'Mom2', who was starting to sound like a travel brochure, in Mac's mind, at least.

The room she chose had turquoise blue painted walls, and it had a big wall of windows. She set her bags on top of the matching ottoman in front of the upholstered chair in the corner of her room. They were outfitted with the same pattern as the duvet on the Queen sized bed, a motif of sundry ocean-dwelling creatures.

Lauren selected the yellow room right next door; it was smaller, but very cozy. If she had been traveling with Ryan, there would have been an epic battle for room domination. He would have fought dirty for the bigger room just for the "fun of it," not because the biggest, best of anything was particularly important to him.

Mac changed into a sleep shirt and a pair of boxers and slipped into bed. She was asleep in a matter of minutes, despite her nap on the plane.

She woke up the next morning with the sun streaming in through a crack in the heavy matching curtains that blocked the ocean view. Instead of her usual lingering in bed, trying to put off the day as long as possible, she trekked out of bed immediately upon opening her eyes. It was her first full day in paradise, and it wasn't worthy of wasting. Pulling the curtains apart, she was greeted by the shimmering turquoise waters of the Atlantic just beyond the frame of trees outside the window.

Mac dug through her suitcase and pulled on a pair of jean shorts and her favorite purple Sarcasm is my Super Power tee shirt.

When she wound her way through the still-unfamiliar house and into the kitchen, she saw the cook, that came with the house, hard at work making a full breakfast. Mac greeted the lady who said her name was Emmanuelle, Emmy for short. She couldn't have been much older than Mac was in her other life, probably only around 23, maybe 24.

"People call me Mac," she replied back. At first the words that just tumbled from her mouth didn't alert her self-censor, it was habit. Then, she realized what she just said. "It's because I like computers," she covered. For some reason, she was slipping up more frequently the longer she was in this dimension, maybe it was because she was starting to get more comfortable and therefore kept less of a reign over her tongue. It was the idea that she felt comfortable here that confused her the most.

Emmy promised to make her vegan pancakes and pointed her in the direction of the covered porch, which had unobstructed views of the ocean just off the property. The rest of the family was already seated, tucking into Eggs Benedict.

A few minutes later Mac had a hot cup of black coffee and a full stack of vegan pancakes with maple syrup in front of her. The cook had murmured to her to enjoy her meal, and had addressed her as 'Mac.' Only 'Mom2' had appeared to notice, judging from the raised eyebrow, but no comment was made.

The waves crashed in the background. It was a lovely spot for a meal, winter had not hit the islands, it was around 11:30 AM local time and was shaping up to be a pleasant, non-humid, 70 degree day. Not, of course, that it was that much cooler in Neptune in late December, it wasn't.

She had thought leaving a coastal town to vacation on a tropical island at a beach house would have been something akin to a busman's holiday, but surprisingly it wasn't. Maybe she was just in vacation mode, which was a nice place to be in regardless.

After the meal was done, everyone lingered at the table, drinking coffee, starring at the waves, and talking about nothing of importance. Plans were made, which were pretty much just playing in the water, and filling up the time doing nothing.

Lauren organized a beach walk.

As Emmy finished clearing the table, the Sinclairs' went inside to put on shoes. They planned to meet in five minutes on the beach, next to the rocky outcropping that marked the divide between the villa's property and the private beach below.

Mac grabbed a pair of flip flops and joined the rest of the family already there.

They were only about 200 yards down the beach before she gave up on the shoe idea altogether. Lauren had already given up about 50 yards before she did. Their parents trailed behind, engrossed in their own conversation.

They stayed close to the water line, where the waves played chicken with their feet, rising up on shore; bringing sea detritus with it, and then backing off, taking away more than it gave.

Mac was enjoying listening to more stories of Brittany's, Lauren's new best friend, exploits. Each tale convinced her more and more that her first impression of the girl being a pint-sized version of Veronica was pretty apt. The duo was convinced Mrs. Winters had a secret identity. Mac was suspect about that theory, but she liked the way Lauren laid out the case.

A glance over her shoulder proved they were pretty far down the quiet beach. Their parents were trailing behind a good margin, too. She wasn't paying attention to where she was walking when she felt something squishy under her foot.

Then, the next sensation was one of an intense, hot spreading pain.

"Ouch, damnit," Mac screamed, though it ended in a wail. She collapsed where she was, and grabbed at her right foot. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a purplish looking blob on the sand, and knew instantly that was what had stung her.

Lauren kneeled down beside her, and tried to pry her hand away, but Mac batted it away, not wanting anyone else to touch her injured foot.

"What do you think it was?"

"It was a Jellyfish, Lauren," she said, willing the tears that were pricking her eyes to stay back. She didn't want to be a baby, but the sting was sharp and throbbing. Her parents must have realized something was up, because they were jogging toward them faster than Mac remembered ever seeing either of them move.

"Mom," Lauren said, "hurry up." She made a beckoning motion with her hands. "Madi got stung."

"Stung? Stung by what? I was wondering what was going on." Ellen gently slid her younger daughter over, so she could examine Mac's foot. It was red and swollen.

"A Jellyfish," Mac repeated, then bit her lip so she wouldn't scream when her mom gently brushed the surface. It was a very soft touch, but it hurt nonetheless. "A Portuguese Man-of-War, I think."

"Can you walk on it, sweetie?" 'Dad2' asked, hovering helplessly behind his wife.

"Nope," she said, not wanting to even attempt it.

"Alright, hold on, I'll help you," her dad said as he came up behind her and, putting his hands under her armpits, lifted up until she was up on one leg, keeping her weight off the injured foot.

'Mom2' hovered, dispensing first aid advice, once again proving herself to be a walking travel guide. In this case, however, Mac was grateful. Dipping her foot into the salt water immediately lessened the sting. It still hurt, but it dulled the sharp edges of pain.

Limping back up the beach, with 'Dad2' acting like a human crutch, was a very slow process. Lauren and her mom tried to match their pace, but kept getting ahead. Finally they reached the stairs that led up to the property. Mac was relieved when her dad just picked her up for the last bit of the journey into the house and onto the couch.

She was gently placed on the big, brown suede sofa, a pillow placed under her foot. Lauren set to work gathering the TV remote, her cell phone and a big glass of ice water, while 'Mom2' was able to locate some Ibuprofen for the pain.

They all offered to keep her company, but Mac convinced them to go back outside and enjoy the beach. A glance at WebMD on her phone had convinced her that in several hours to one full-day she'd be okay, it was just a short term, though very ouchy, condition.

She flipped through the TV channels but didn't find anything to keep her focus. Settling on HGTV's House Hunters International for background noise, Mac scrolled through her phone contact list and decided to e-whine to Dick.

Madi: You should be kissing my foot now

She was a little surprised when it pinged back right away. She didn't think Dick would be in such close proximity of his phone.

Dick: Yes dear. (It's my new answer for everything you say, that way I won't be in trouble)

Madi: Don't you want to know why?

Dick: Yes dear.

Madi: I got stung by a jellyfish! It hurts soooo bad.

It was definitely a pain worthy of the three extra "o's" in so.

Mac waited, but she didn't get the immediate ping of a response like she had expected. Just when she was starting to think maybe Dick had left the room and hadn't seen the text yet, her phone rang. A glance at the number proved it was Dick calling.

"Hi, babe," she said by greeting.

"What if it was the mailman calling?" Dick retorted, from the other end.

"Maybe I call the mailman babe, too," she quipped back.

"I've called my mailman babe before and he got pretty pissed," Dick teased. Then his tone grew more serious. "So, a Jellyfish?" There was still an undertone of laughter, though.

"Occupational hazard of paradise," Mac explained. "You're a beach bum, surfer dude; you must have gotten stung before."

"Once," Dick admitted, "last year, in fact. It hurt like a bitch."

"Not going to argue that one. I've got my foot propped up now."

"Did anyone pee on it?"

"No, Dick, no one peed on it. That's gross." She wrinkled her nose in disgust, not that he could see it anyway.

"It's accepted first aid," he defended.

"Not according to WebMD, that's just a wives tale, and it only makes things worse."

"Well Velma, in this instance I will have to disagree with your source. I learned about it on Friends. If it's on a TV show it has to be right, that's like a law and shit."

"Okay, I'm pretty sure that's not true, it's definitely not law and shit. Anyway, what happened to yes, dear?" Mac asked, accenting it in sarcasm. "I like the yes, dears. That plan only lasted three minutes evidently."

"Exception proves the rule. Seriously, I peed on my foot and it really helped."

"You had to supply your own pee for your injury?"

"Well, I asked Logan, but he refused. Evidently the bro code does NOT extend to soothing jelly fish stings." Dick said in an indignant tone.

"When did it stop throbbing?" Mac tried to stop the whine, but it bleed through anyway. She attempted to sit up slightly, but grimaced as the adjustment caused an additional jolt of pain to shoot through her foot and up her leg. A moan slipped out.

"I don't remember for sure, but I was pretty miserable for about a day."

"The pee miracle cure didn't help after all?" It came out as more of a growl; her teeth were still clinched from the pain.

"It took the edge off, which was pretty damn good."

"Bet Logan's pee would have been even better." Mac couldn't resist teasing him. "He probably built up antibodies." She couldn't believe she was having a conversation about Logan's pee.

"Probably, the selfish asshole," Dick grumped.

They chatted a few more minutes until it was time for Dick to leave to meet Logan. He said they were going surfing.

She hadn't even been thinking of the time difference between her island utopia and Neptune, especially with the pain in her foot distracting her from everything else. She disconnected the call with a grin on her face, thinking of the big, goofy guy who was systematically worming himself deeper into her life in both dimensions.

She spent the rest of the day alternating between keeping her foot propped up on pillows, soaking in a warm solution of saltwater, and napping. Both lunch and dinner were brought to her on the couch, and the only times she had to get up were to limp to the bathroom, those visits were short and she kept them to the minimum.

Lauren had self-appointed herself as caretaker. As soon as the rest of the family had come back from playing in the ocean, she had camped out in the chair next to the couch and tried to distract Mac as best she could.

Her foot had ached so bad the previous night she hadn't even wanted to get off the couch to make the short trek down the hall and into her bedroom.

Fortunately, the next day Mac woke up to just a dull itch, the pain had pretty much faded during the night. The sun was streaming through the curtains in the family room.

She was well enough to go out sight-seeing with the family.

That night they had dinner on the beach. This time Mac, and everyone else, were hyper-vigilant in their awareness of Jellyfish. However, there weren't any more infiltrations on the beach, so Mac figured it had just been a short invasion during the tide, and she'd just been (un)lucky enough to fall victim to that particular wash up. She hadn't realized it was possible to get stung even by dead jellyfish. She chalked it up to a lesson learned, one she'd evidently had to learn the painful way.

They spent Christmas Eve and Christmas sticking close to the villa, there were plenty of things to amuse themselves with between the ocean, the pool table, the tennis courts, the hot tub and pool, and the life-sized chess set tucked next to the gardens.

Mac and Lauren had stumbled upon the chess board on accident their third day there. She was happy to discover her sister was fully versed on the rules and was a challenging opponent. The kings, queens, rooks, pawns, bishops, and knights were each over four feet tall, making it quite comical to watch and to play.

It had felt so Secret Garden-esque when she had first spotted the massive chess board with its full suite of pieces standing as tall and still as sentinels. It was tucked off the left of the grove of Bougainvillea, like a fantasy world hidden away from outsiders.

Much of the villa and surrounding property was like a dream world.

Skimping wasn't a word in 'Mom2's' lexicon, everything about the trip was platinum class.

There were a lot of little hidden gems at the villa, including the statue of three Dolphins perched on the top of the waterfall that cascaded into the deep end of the pool. In fact, Mac assumed the villa got its name, Three Dolphins, from that sculpture.

By comparison, the upholstery in the Mackenzie Road Warrior camper was a fading green, and looked worn in places. The faux wood paneling in the living area had lost some luster in their nine years of ownership. However, her dad's pride of ownership was apparent. It had finally been paid off, and though there were still a few dings on the outside, her dad washed it lovingly by hand every other Saturday. There was coziness apparent throughout the interior, but Mac would never admit that fact out loud.

Christmas morning was remarkably similar in both worlds. Lauren, like Ryan, was up insanely early and was so excited as she passed around the gifts.

Mac was happily surprised to see that Lauren actually liked her gift—she'd figured it would be something she'd appreciate later on in life. The highlight though was when she'd opened Lauren's gift to her. In a big box was every computer-related gizmo and gadget she'd decided not to get on their last visit to Comp-U-Stop.

"I had a little help from the store owner," Lauren had admitted with a blush.

"Dave," Mac supplied, hugging her sister tight. "Thanks sis. This is perfect." It really was. In that moment she felt fully connected to her blood sister, like someone finally got her.

Mac felt her parents had also gone above and beyond in the gift-giving department as well. Ellen had confessed that she had always felt a need to atone for the fact her birthday was so close to Christmas. She suspected that Nat had always felt that way, too, but the tighter budget had required more combo gifts as she got older and her wants got more expensive.

The rest of the week went by quickly in a blur of sand, waves, family chess competitions, laughter and gourmet Island cuisine. The return flight went much smoother and Mac didn't get nauseous the entire time.

They were back in Neptune just in time to ring in 2005.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 17—Team Mac

***Friday night, The Bar at Poseidon's Bistro in The Neptune Grand***

"To Mac, waking up and telling us all where we can stick it," Logan said, raising his glass in a toast to their fallen comrade.

Soberly everyone clinked their beer steins, except Veronica who clanked her stemmed wine glass, sloshing a drop of the white wine.

It was just shy of ten thirty, they'd been at the bar for over an hour drinking and just relieved to be away from the hospital, which had grown to become their home-away-from-home, something no one wanted.

Wallace reached out to grab the pitcher of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale sitting in the center of the bar top table and poured himself a refill. Dick was pleasantly surprised when he then poured a top off on his own half empty glass.

"Thanks man," Dick said, finding his manners. Contrary to what some people thought, *cough Ronnie cough* they weren't buried that deep down.

"No problem, you're buying anyway."

"True."

The truce he and Ronnie's bodyguard, and potentially future stepbrother, forged two days ago was apparently still in effect. He and Wallace had been talking more the past hour than they'd done the previous five years combined. Logan and Veronica didn't seem to realize they weren't on a private date, except to interject a brief comment here or there, or when it was time to order more drinks or a plate of Buffalo wings and other hearty snacks.

"Do you think the bolt will work?" Veronica's voice was soft. She was staring at her glass, tracing a finger around the rim. It was directed to everyone, evidently Logan's toast had clued her into the fact that she had chaperones there as well.

Dick shivered involuntarily thinking of the new hardware Mac was wearing in the quest to recover. "It looks like a science experiment gone wrong."

"I know," Veronica agreed, to his shock. "It's very Frankenstein-ey, which ironically is a book she loves."

"I know. She forced me to watch some remake of it," Dick interjected. "Then we had a Halo rematch chaser, afterward."

"It carries a high success rate," Wallace said reassuringly, trying to bring the subject back to Mac. "Plus, now they can drain the fluid pooling in her brain."

"Look at you, taking Mac-a-pedia's place," Dick said.

"I looked it up yesterday. It might be her best chance." The word last, though left unspoken, hung overhead, an invisible specter haunting their thoughts.

Though the results hadn't been as hopeful as they'd wanted on Mac's last set of CT scans, the whole group was surprised the day before when her team of doctor's announced they were going to implant an ICP monitor (AKA bolt) in her brain. The doctors were getting less and less patient with the drug induced waiting game they'd been playing.

Impatience in a doctor was a scary thing.

"I think it will work," Logan said confidently. Then he reached over and grabbed a couple wings from the big platter in the center of the table. He placed them on his appetizer plate, and then licked the orange sauce from his fingers.

Veronica spooned some of the bleu cheese dressing from her plate onto Logan's. She'd tried to take a few dollops from the ramekin earlier and ended up with most of the contents of the too-runny sauce pooled on her plate.

"Thanks babe."

Dick and Wallace exchanged raised eyebrows at Logan's term of endearment for Veronica.

"It has to," Veronica said in response to Logan's earlier comment. Her tone was plaintive. "It just has to. I can't…" Her voice trailed away.

Lose her. Dick didn't need Veronica to complete that sentence, no one did. They all knew what she was thinking; it was what they all were trying not to think. Yeah, he wasn't exactly teaming with friends and family himself, and Mac was the only other person in captivity who understood the complicated morass of feelings Cassidy stirred up in him—the guilt, grief, anger, longing, love and loss. She understood because she felt them, too.

They were in the same fucked up club.

Club fuck up.

Even if she labeled their friendship as pseudo, it was still more real than anything else in his life, exception being Logan, that pathetic lovesick dude who was drowning in Ronnie again, and a life preserver wouldn't save him now. Nothing would. Nope, Dick was sidelined now watching from shore, and there was nothing else he could do but watch.

Logan put an arm around Ronnie and held her tight.

Dry-fucking-drowning.

"She has too much left to do with her life. She's not going anywhere. It's just one more challenge for Mac to overcome, that's it." Dick said. It just kind of spewed out. His tone was forceful though, not usually a description anyone used for him, but he felt confident in what he was saying.

"That sounded almost profound," Veronica said, sounding surprised. "That's means deeply philosophical."

"Thank you for the education." He really sold it by accentuating his gratitude by extending his middle finger. A gesture she inspired a lot in him.

"Guys…" Logan started.

"Don't include me in that, I'm not the one who is always condescending," Dick said, addressing Logan. Then he turned to Ronnie, "and I even know what the word condescension means and everything."

"We're all on the same side here," Wallace interjected.

"Team Mac," Dick said in a faux-cheerleading voice.

"Team Mac" they all echoed, clinking glasses again in another toast.

"Team Mac," Dick repeated, this time without the snark.

"I don't think you're stupid, not really. Mac keeps telling me there's more to you than I remember from Neptune High," Veronica admitted.

"You guys talk about me?" Dick was pretty sure he wasn't doing a good job of covering up his hopeful tone.

"Once," Veronica backpedaled, "it was only that one time."

"When?"

"It was Spring Break. Mac came to Palo Alto for a couple of days. I showed her around campus, tried to recruit her for next year, but she shot that plan down pretty quickly. She didn't talk about you guys much, and of course, being Mac, I couldn't get any good dirt out of her," Veronica reminisced. "She knew I wasn't coming to Neptune, so she came to me instead. I was resolute in not setting foot back into Balboa County, but then, well, plans change." Her voice got soft at the end as she seemed to be remembering the phone call she got a couple days ago that changed her resolution. "Your best friend gets injured, and suddenly nothing else matters."

As she spoke she shredded a Poseidon's Bistro napkin until nothing else was left but black and gold confetti.

"How's everyone doing? Can I get you more beer, or another order of wings, perhaps?" The waitress asked, in an obligatory chipper voice. She was a tall blonde teetering in her unnecessarily high stiletto heels, wearing the standard uniform of low-cut gold sweater and short black skirt.

"Yes, and yes," Dick affirmed.

"And another glass of the house Sauvignon Blanc," Logan added.

Veronica smiled her agreement and appreciation.

"Great. I'll be right back," the waitress said, flashing a parting smile at everyone.

Dick grabbed the last three wings on the platter since they had some hot, fresh ones coming soon. Before tucking into them though he reached over and slathered them in the smattering of dressing left on Logan's plate. He smirked in return of the look of disdain Veronica shot him. He refrained from reminding her that she was the one who had taken all the dressing to begin with.

He took a bite, the bleu cheese taking some of the zing from the spicy sauce coating the wing. Then he took a big drink of his beer to further cool his mouth.

"This has been the slowest week I've experienced in a long time," Dick said. The last time, well time, moved so slow was the week Cass died. Grief, pain, and worry had this way of screwing with time, making it go so slow in the moment, and speed by in retrospect. It was a mindfuck.

"I know," Veronica agreed. "Although, the drive here went by so fast, but everything else since I drove by the Welcome to Neptune sign slowed down."

"I hear the governing body of Neptune is talking about changing the sign to read: Welcome to the Hellmouth." Wallace teased.

"That would be truth in advertising," Logan agreed.

They started sharing stories about being Neptune survivors that supported the widely-held theory about Neptune sitting on a Hellmouth. Nobody came up with any counter arguments; Dick suspected that wouldn't be possible anyway. Their reminiscing and story sharing was interrupted by the arrival of more drinks and their wings.

Veronica reached over to take a few more wings, and then she started to take one of the ramekins of sauce when Dick shook his head.

"You still have a puddle of it on your plate, Mars."

"What are you, the bleu cheese dressing police?"

"Well, yeah, I guess. I just think we all have equal rights to the stuff. You've had more than your share from the last batch. Use that, and let the rest of us divide the new dressing."

She didn't reply, but Dick took it as victory when she retracted her hand away from the dressing container and contented herself with the sauce still on her plate.

"You can call me lieutenant," Dick added.

"No," Veronica said dismissively, further accentuating what she said by waving her hand. "I really can't."

"That's what's wrong with this world these days, no respect for governing officials."

"Only those who are self-appointed, and carry nothing but a made up title," Veronica quipped back. "You can't really be trying to have a serious political conversation stemming from a conversation about bleu cheese dressing."

"You can if the subject is Neptune politics."

"See, Hellmouth," Wallace added. "I'm just a transplant. I came to your strange land fully formed."

"Just drink your beer," Logan said. "All of you," he added, in a tone that sounded like he was addressing Kindergartners. "Eat your wings, drink your beer."

"The 'shut up' part was implied," Dick supplied.

"Yeah, I got that," Veronica said. "Thanks."

They all worked their way through the wings and the other pitch of beer. Having fully exhausted the subject of dressing and subtext-y Neptune politics, they went back to surface subjects, once again tip toeing around the one topic that their thoughts never strayed far from, Mac across town in Neptune Memorial fighting to survive. They'd been living it all week; this change of scenery was a nice diversion, one born of necessity. A group of friends drinking together, it was a heartbreakingly normal cap for a Friday night that began anything but normal, in the depressingly blue ICU waiting room.

Just shy of midnight, Wallace made his leave, insisting he was fine to drive. Finally, at Vee's insistence, he let the bellhop call him a cab. Once he was safely on his way to his mom's house, the three of them headed to the bank of elevators. Dick smirked at the artful way Logan had arranged for Veronica to stay over in the penthouse.

Making an internal bet with himself, Dick wagered that when he woke up the couch that Logan offered to sleep on would be cold and empty.

His confidence in the belief was underscored even more when shortly after retiring to his room for the night—especially to get away from any more reuniting—he left the safety of his territory to get a Gatorade in preparation for the next morning. He opened the door with a flourish and cleared his throat to make his presence even more known. Evidently it didn't pierce the sound barrier enough though because a quick glance over at the couch had him averting his eyes and all but running to the bar and back. Logan appeared to have lost his tongue inside of Ronnie's mouth. No wonder he kept all snark to himself, the dude was rendered speechless. Literally!

Dick slammed the door and muttered 'get a room.' He was pretty sure no one heard any of that, they were only tuned into each others' radio frequencies.

When he drug himself out of bed before eight o'clock Saturday morning, blurry eyed and dragging, the couch was uncreased, not a pillow was missing. He programmed the Keurig brewer for a big, strong cup of coffee. After that kiss he'd reluctantly witnessed the night before, it didn't shock him in the least.

He grabbed the cup before the machine had finished its last gurgle, and watched a drop land on the tray. He also took one of Logan's organic yuppie cereal bars from the basket on the bar. He opened the wrapper and took a bite as he walked back to his room to get ready for surfing.

Originally he'd planned to ask Logan, but was too chickenshit to interrupt the slumber party still going on. Maybe it was his imagination, but Dick was fairly certain he'd heard moaning coming from behind Logan's shut door.

He finished his breakfast and changed into a wetsuit as an episode of Scooby Doo played for background noise. He smiled involuntarily as onscreen Velma started filling some gaps in the latest mystery. Ryan had told him about his special nickname for his older sister; Dick would never look at the geekiest member of the Scooby gang the same way again.

After grabbing a beach towel and a change of street-legal clothes from his dresser so he could go straight to the hospital afterwards, Dick turned off the TV and left the suite.

The drive to Dog Beach from the hotel was less than ten minutes.

The waves were coming in high this morning; it was definitely going to be a good surfing day.

He got on his board and paddled out to the open expanse of the Pacific Ocean to the place where new waves were born.

The feeling of insignificance that surfing always kicked up in him was a welcome diversion today. It did a bang up job of putting his life into perspective, though what was weighing him down these days were outside of his own narrow lens.

Logan was spiraling back into old addictions, and there was no stopping it. Veronica would run back to her new life at Stanford the second that Mac was on her way to recovery, and once again the blinders that lovesick dude wore would fall off leaving him shattered—again. History was a sadistic bitch who liked to wallop you over and over again with the same lessons until you were huddled in a corner bleeding.

Sure, they seemed happy now; Ronnie needed the comfort Logan excelled at providing. It was just a mirage though, he was certain of that fact, but a love of intact body parts inspired Dick to keep that assessment to himself.

Lining the board up at the edge of a wave, Dick rode it back a few feet until it was about to crest. Using his well-tuned surfer's instinct, he gracefully sprung up onto the top of his beloved board, balancing his arms and legs as he made his way towards the sand.

Once that ride was complete, he grabbed his board again and headed back out for a new wave. This time though, Mac invaded his thoughts. She had been making herself at home in his headspace, so that was nothing new. It was easier to spare some thoughts for Logan and Ronnie though, less painful. Fear for her was taking on a life of its own, but that was not the only fear he had when he thought of Mac. He was also scared of his own motives for camping out in the waiting room. True, they were friends in their own right, but he didn't want to face how un-friend-like his thoughts were getting. He could bullshit himself around Logan, Wallace, her family and Ronnie. However, the ocean was his church, his temple; it was the one place where honesty ruled. Selling lies to himself took too much energy, energy he needed out here to stay safe, stay alive.

He was terrified he'd lose her before she even got the chance to tell him to go away, that she didn't really care about him in that way. He could take that, it would hurt badly, but it would be survivable. To lose her to death, however, would not be. Well, physically it would be survivable, but not really, not internally where things really counted.

He made a concentrated effort to picture Mac the way she looked Tuesday before the accident, when she noticed him right before the baseball went off track. Her after shots were just too terrifying, those wires and tubes, the breathing apparatus doing work she wasn't cable of doing on her own. Monitors, Leeds, wires, the ceaseless beeps of machines keeping her tethered to this life.

He hopped up on the board as another big, surf-able wave came to life. He rode it back to shore.

He caught a few more waves, but not nearly as many as usual. Today, he was just eager to get back to the hospital.

Dick grabbed his towel and change of clothes from where he'd stashed it on the sand and went into the public restroom. He took a quick shower; just to wash off all the sand that had collected, and then changed into his khaki shorts and his Sarcasm is My Super Power tee-shirt he knew Mac would appreciate.

When he arrived at the hospital waiting room—his new home away from home—with a cardboard carry-all laden down with to-go cups of coffee, it was only fifteen minutes into visiting hours and the regular gang of Mac well-wishers were already gathered. Minus the senior Macs and Ryan, who he suspected were probably visiting with their daughter and/or sister.

On one of the side tables was another bag of donuts, probably Mr. Mars' contribution again. It was a habit he was getting used to. The bald guy was doing a great job keeping them in pastries. He probably got a discount from his cop days or something. His stomach reminded him that coffee and a yuppie breakfast bar before surfing wasn't a filling breakfast.

Dick grabbed a glazed long john from the white sack, keeping one eye on Veronica, but she was too busy whispering in Logan's ear to grab her taser or make a snarky comment.

He drank his coffee and worked on the donut, wondering how long it would take those two to notice someone else taking up mass in their orbit.

"Where were you man? I looked for you when we were getting ready to come back here, but couldn't find you." Logan said, finally looking up. His gaze landed on the tray of coffees, so he reached over Veronica to grab two of the paper cups. He handed one to her, while keeping the other for himself.

"Surfing."

"By yourself?"

"Well, you were otherwise occupied. I value my body parts too much to interrupt," Dick explained.

Wallace spotted the coffee just then. He grabbed a cup and a powdered donut and took them back to his seat. "Thanks," he directed at Dick.

"No problem, dude. How's your head? Should I have brought some hangover cure? Logan and I have practically patented the orange Gatorade and Advil cure."

"I may not have your practice, or Logan's, but I'm not a lightweight when it comes to drinking either," he said, his voice full of censure.

Dick just held his hands up in mock surrender.

Ten minutes later, the senior Macs and Ryan filed back into the waiting room. They warmly greeted everyone and helped themselves to breakfast.

Mrs. Mac smiled wanly but insisted that Cindy was looking better and she was confident they'd be rousing 'sleeping beauty' shortly. Dick could still smell the faint odor of cigarettes still clinging to her jeans and tee shirt. He hoped she truly believed that, but couldn't help wondering how much was a front.

The round of visits to Mac's room started again.

Veronica took the first turn.

Ladies first.

To pass the time, and send a message, Dick started teasing Logan about the cold couch despite his promises from the previous night. Wallace pretended to be engrossed in one of the Wired magazines Ryan had tossed aside, but he would peak over the top periodically, eyebrow raised.

"We mainly just talked."

Dick didn't say a word, he didn't need to, his skeptical look said more than a thousand words ever could. There was a lot of wiggle room in the way Logan said 'mainly.'

"She's upset," he elaborated.

"We all are," Dick's tone came out more snappish than intended. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wallace nodding in agreement

"I comforted her, that's all," Logan continued to justify.

"In the way only you could," he translated.

"Hey, a gentleman never kisses and tells."

He made a show of looking around. "Yet I don't see any of those around here."

"Nope, none of those are here," Wallace affirmed.

"You don't need to tell, anyway. I witnessed the kiss first hand." Dick admitted.

"You did? I didn't hear you. We thought you went to bed."

"A bomb could have gone off en suite and you wouldn't have heard a thing. Ronnie had your tongue. I just had to grab a Gatorade."

"Wear a bell next time."

"Try kissing her in your own room," Dick rejoined.

That conversational thread was shut down when Veronica, the comfortee herself, came back into the room. She backed up Mrs. Mac's assessment that Mac was looking better, wires and shit notwithstanding.

Dick nominated himself to go next.

He stood in the doorway of room 5 in the ICU and waited patiently—well, as patiently as he was capable of, which in fact wasn't very much at all—as the day nurse, who he didn't like as much as nurse Tara, finished hooking more bags to Mac's IV pole. Nurse Cheyenne or something like that.

By now he knew the name of each component of her drug cocktail, some were designed to keep her sleeping; others were more to relieve the pressure on her brain. There was also an antibiotic that had just been added to the mix because of that minor in-suite procedure she'd had the day before to further reduce the swelling that had been pressing in on her delicate "processing chip," as he'd begun to think of it. That was a very Mac thing, to his mind.

"Alright, I just need to check her reflexes, and then she's all yours again. Just remember, keep it short and sweet, as always. You know the bylaws by now, I'm sure." Nurse Cheyenne said, turning briefly to look at him before returning her focus to the wiring on Mac's head. It was the first time she'd acknowledged him in the entire three minutes he'd been waiting.

"Thanks," Dick replied. He watched the nurse walk over to the end of the bed and move the blanket so Mac's right foot was exposed. She took some kind of dull tipped implement and poked her foot.

Involuntarily he fisted his hands, hating the idea of anyone hurting her further. He watched the nurse's face carefully, but he couldn't tell from her schooled expression what exactly she was hoping to see, and whether or not she got the desired response.

She gave Mac's big toe a squeeze and then tucked the blanket back over her still frame. "Okay, she's yours for the next ten minutes," the nurse said as she gathered her supplies and was about to turn to leave, when she paused. "Well Cindy, have a nice visit with your good looking friend here. I should have such cute friends." Then, with a parting wave, the nurse left the room.

Okay, maybe nurse Cheyenne wasn't so bad, either.

He could just picture Mac's eye roll. He missed that simple gesture that she did so well, she had it down to art.

"Tara, your other nurse, the night one, thought we were dating at first," Dick said after he'd positioned himself in the chair by her bed. "I told her we weren't. She keeps saying you're lucky to have me. See, an endorsement from someone else, a stranger I'm not paying off." He smirked. "Of course, you may have some serious competition from Cheyenne there. You missed it; she was totally checking me out."

He got silent for a minute, but reached out to stroke Mac's non-wired hand.

"Or maybe not, maybe you are more aware of things than we thought. You know, this would be the perfect time to sit up and argue with me. I miss that. I miss a lot of things when it comes to you. Although they are keeping you drugged on purpose, so you won't just sit up and argue. I know that, but it seems wrong somehow. You here is wrong."

Dick balled and unballed his fist a couple of times, trying to get his emotions in check. It was time for a subject change.

"You're missing the continued saga of Logan and Ronnie. Riveting drama right there and I get a front row seat. Woohoo! Lucky me," Dick said dryly. "I got to witness them kiss. They had no idea I saw it either. The dude wears blinders for your bestie there. Those two, I swear. Bet you got more of the story from Veronica than I'll ever get from either of them. I don't need to know."

He gently grabbed the hand that he'd been petting so it was firmly sandwiched by his much bigger hand. He gave it a soft squeeze. There was no return gesture. He didn't expect one, not really, but still, in a way, he kind of did think she'd do something, give some kind of response.

Dead air radio silence of the worst kind.

"Are you in pain? I keep asking that, everyone keeps asking that, I'm sure. Are you tired of that question? It's kind of dumb, isn't it?! Of course you are—you'd have to be. I think that's the worst thing though, not knowing what you are experiencing. Did it hurt when Cheyenne poked you on the foot? Yup, we're on first name basis, she totally checked my butt out, I'm telling you."

He took a deep breath, and briefly let go of Mac so he could stretch on the exhale. Then he grabbed her hand once again. Honestly he wasn't sure if it was more that he was tethering her to this life by holding her hand, or if it felt more like she grounding him.

"Talk about pain, I stepped on a jellyfish a couple years ago. That hurt like a whiny motherfucking bitch baby. Excuse my language, but yeah, that mo-fo stung. We were surfing, my boys and I.

Did you know you're supposed to pee on a sting? Really, I'm serious. Look it up and shit. Logan was supposed to pee on it but he has like this shy bladder, couldn't perform so I had to pee on my own foot. Don't tell the whiny dude I told you that, though, it was supposed to be some secret to the grave, bro shit. What happens in ICU bed 5 stays in ICU bed 5! Got it?"

He shook her slack hand to seal that deal.

"Okay, the lights in your room are pretty dull, that's a given, no one gives a crap about ambiance, natch, but I think there may be something to that rumor I keep hearing that you look better, some coloring is back on your cheeks. I mean yeah, you even make that fugly hospital gown work, but yeah, I think you're going to beat this."

Dick swallowed hard.

"This being a really bad head injury, of course, you are scrappy as hell, Mackster, so keep fighting. Okay? Fight hard for that whole room of people out there who need you back. I need you back. Just come back to us all. I'll come back later."

He leaned down and softly kissed her forehead. As he did it though, a brief glance at the bank of monitors behind her head showed a spike on one of them. He wanted to believe it was her heart rate responding to the kiss. That was probably a fairy tale, but he wasn't opposed to the occasional illusion.

… TBC

Chapter Text

Chapter 18—Luigi's

***Friday, February 11 th , 2005***

Mac scanned the crowded expanse of Lot A—the "poor" lot—searching for a familiar face. It was Friday afternoon, in the middle of 6th period, and they were having their third fire drill that week. She didn't remember having that many in a year, well, except that one time her real junior year, but she quickly shoved that memory out of her headspace.

Up ahead and to her left was a thin, blonde on the short side animatedly talking to some guy who only looked somewhat familiar. The girl had her back to Mac but she was certain it was Veronica. Only once she got closer it was obvious she had the wrong blond. She was about to sneak away when Meg Manning whipped around.

"Madison!" Meg exclaimed, motioning her closer. "I haven't seen you around much now that you're off the squad. I miss our bench chats." She waved at the guy she'd been chatting with, politely but obviously dismissing him so she could focus all her attention on Mac.

"I've been busy."

"So I noticed," Meg said dryly, raising a brow.

Mac didn't need a girly girl-to-tomboy translation dictionary to know it was a reference to her dating life with another certain '09'er of the Dick persuasion. Regardless, she went with a blank expression.

"Dick," she hedged, at Mac's faux-lost look.

"Oh, him, yeah." She wasn't going to elaborate further.

"You doing okay?" Meg asked, concerned. "Your injury must have been worse than we first assumed since you quit Pep."

A pang went through her at the innocent question. Here Meg was inquiring about her health when in another dimension, the real one, she'd been dead for over four years. Despite trying her best to keep it in check, a tear leaked out. Mac quickly reached up to wipe away the evidence. "I'm doing well," she said in a shaky voice. "Mom just got a little freaked, and then with my studies and everything, well, quitting seemed like a good option."

"Makes sense," Meg agreed. "Now that basketball season is in full-swing, practice takes up a lot of time. If you tell anyone at all what I'm about to tell you I will deny it, but you were by far my favorite member of the squad."

Mac swallowed hard before squeaking out, "Ditto."

Their chat turned to more innocuous topics like classes and outlandish theories as to why there was a sudden spate of drills this week. As they talked Mac scanned the crowd. She caught a flash of blond hair on the other side of the lot. Dick. He was tall, therefore easy to find.

Not that she was looking, she lied to herself.

However, he was not alone; flanking him was Logan, Jackson and Cassidy. She became aware of a sharp bite of pain in her palm. She was digging her fingernails into her palm, an automatic, grounding gesture, something she was in desperate need of these days.

Where was a system's manual when she needed one to slog through this weird, murky plane of existence? Four months and it was still a Twilight Zone life, she was certain that feeling was never going to disappear.

She felt anger at Cassidy bubbling up all over again, made even more Technicolor in this moment as she discussed the minutia of her day with one of his victims. The surreal was her ruler these days.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Meg asked, empathy cocooning her words, her brown eyes sincere.

"Huh?" Mac sputtered out. "Oh, um, yeah, sorry. Fine." It wasn't an eloquent rejoinder. "I just thought I saw a ghost." She mentally cringed at the truth she spewed forth.

"Where's Dr. Venkman when we need him?" Meg teased.

"I prefer Dr. Spengler, myself."

"Of course you do," Meg said matter of factly, no doubt implying that the geekiest Ghostbuster was more Mac's/Madison's people. "Who else would you call?"

They traded smiles. The moment of levity was a nice way to relieve her blood pressure, which was spiking up just thinking of all the collateral damage her fucked up ex boyfriend inflicted on everyone, especially this gentle girl standing in front of her.

"Touché."

"Seriously Madi, if you need to talk, I'll listen."

"Thanks," she was shocked to discover she really wanted, needed, to open up to someone, and Meg was offering. She didn't have to go into specifics or anything. "I am a little confused, that's all. I found out something recently, and no one else knows this information. I don't know what to do with it because people will get hurt either way."

"No pressure there," Meg said her soft smile a contrast to her harsher sounding tone. "I guess it comes down to which scenario will cause the biggest fall out."

"Not telling." Mac didn't need to think about her reply at all.

"There you go then. See, you had the answer all along."

"Yeah, there I go," Mac echoed, softly and full of doubt. She still didn't have a clue who to tell or how to open that dialogue. It wasn't much of a plan, but Meg was right, she did have to tell someone about Cassidy. Maybe things were etched on the stone tablet here in this plane, too, but that didn't mean she shouldn't, at least, try.

Should she?

Just then Mac noticed big groups of students heading back toward the building. The teachers interspersed within the crowds tried to make order out of the chaos of the crush, but it was fruitless as people dodged and shoved each other.

Fortunately the distraction was enough to keep Meg's questions at bay, but Mac didn't think she would have pressed her anyway. That was partly why she felt safe saying what she did, it couldn't be classed as giving anything away but it felt nice to unburden herself. However, the irony—tragedy of epic proportion?—of who exactly she chose to seek counsel from didn't escape her. Meg had been Cassidy's collateral damage. The source of her knowledge would overshadow any benefit of warning, she was certain of that fact. No one would take a warning seriously if they thought the source was in need of a padded room get-away.

They headed back toward the building.

"Better now?" Meg asked, giving Mac an impromptu hug.

"Much. Thank you."

"Anytime," Meg replied. "Hey, do you want to maybe hang out sometime? Go to the Neptune Mall, or something?" It was asked like an afterthought.

"Sure. Call me," Mac said. She nodded at the guy who held the door open for them. Since it was almost time for her seventh period she just made her way to the East Wing in prep for Mrs. Murphy's English class, the one she and Dick had together. She was sure he'd turn the conversation to their plans that night. Ever since her party before Christmas, Logan and Veronica had stopped denying their attraction and were all-in dating wise. The cliché of a Valentine's Day celebration was lessened by their double date.

It was a different dimension than she was used to indeed.

********************Later that same night***********************

"So where did you say we were going for dinner?" Mac asked Dick as she flipped down the visor on the passenger side of Dick's yellow quad cab truck—the banana mobile, as she called it in both worlds. She opened the mirror and dug through her clutch until she found her tube of vegan-friendly lip gloss. As she was starting to apply it though, Dick hit the brakes hard causing the car to jerk to a stop.

"Oops, sorry," he said, in a tone that sounded anything but apologetic. "Did I smear your lipstick?"

"You did it on purpose, you ass, and no, your little plan failed. It's clear gloss," Mac smirked though she knew he couldn't see her in the dim lighting of the truck. She again rummaged in her purse, this time looking for a Kleenex to wipe away the sticky gloss.

"Hey, it was accident," Dick defended, "and I didn't say where we're going, but just to let you know, Logan was in charge of our destination tonight."

"So, I should blame him if I don't like it?" Mac inquired.

"Exactly."

"Diabolical."

"Clever," he corrected.

"Cleverly diabolical," Mac compromised.

"It's chosen to Ronnie's taste, I'm sure. It didn't take them long for the transfer of ownership papers on his ball sac to come through."

"I really don't think I want to waste our time conversing on Logan's balls," Mac said.

"Yeah, you're right, mine are much more interesting."

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of shifting our conversation to more philosophical matters."

"A zen, philosophical diatribe of the existential qualities of the male member?" Dick tried.

"Um, okay, first you strung words together without actually saying anything and second, it's still a discussion—I'm using that word loosely—on the male anatomy."

"It sounds intelligent though."

"But it's still a cleverly disguised conversation on balls, Dick."

"Diabolically clever, Madison."

Mac watched as he turned right onto Sixth Street in downtown Neptune. She thought she knew where they were headed. Her theory was proven correct when he pulled into the small lot next to Luigi's Fine Italian Food restaurant. It had been closed for about a year in her old life. She wondered if Veronica knew that, the "real" Veronica that was. She hadn't made it to the replacement restaurant yet, Mama Leone's or whatever.

They parked in the last, available spot in the tiny lot, and Dick got out of the truck first, coming around to help Mac out.

"Playing the gentleman card?"

"Go fish," Dick teased. "It's Valentine's Day, consider that your present."

She smiled her thanks and jumped down.

When they walked into the cozy restaurant with this black and white checker board tile floors and tables with the traditional red and white table clothes, they saw Logan and Veronica at a four top back in the corner. Logan waved, and they made their way back there. It was crowded, which was to be expected the Friday before Valentine's Day. Frank Sinatra was crooning over the sound system about how luck was a lady.

They took their seats across from Logan and Veronica, everyone exchanged greetings. There was a bottle of red wine on the table. Mac glanced pointedly at it.

"What's the point of dating a talented woman if you don't take advantage sometimes of her grey-arts," Logan replied in explanation.

"I hear ya, brother," Dick said as he turned his wine glass right side up and helped himself, then repeated the action for Mac automatically.

"Thanks," she said before taking a sip. "So how long have you guys been here?"

"Not long, maybe fifteen minutes," Veronica said.

"Bobcat here was suffering Luigi withdrawals, it's been what, a week since you last tasted their lasagna?"

"You need to clarify here, are we talking carry out or eat in?"

"Both."

"Three nights ago Dad brought a tray home for dinner, but it's been a week in a half since you last took me here."

"I didn't want her to get the shakes, or anything," Logan said.

"Always the gentleman, Echolls."

"I'm just trying to set a good example for you, Dick."

"Yeah," Veronica echoed. "Take notes."

"Hey, he opened the car door for me," Mac defended, and then smiled at Veronica's look of surprise.

The contest of gentlemanly behavior was interrupted by the arrival of their waitress. She introduced herself as Angie. Veronica jumped in with her order, and Logan ended up asking for the same thing. Dick and Mac exchanged looks, mocking the fact their friends were now ordering in sync. Relying on her memory of the menu as she hadn't really had much of a chance to peruse the menu since their arrival less than ten minutes ago, Mac decided on Tofu Scampi while Dick chose Chicken Marsala.

Once Angie left to enter in their orders, talk meandered back to the symptoms of coupledom Logan and Veronica were now exhibiting.

"At least I don't order the same thing Madison does," Dick rejoined, looking at Logan and shaking his head.

"That's only because she's vegan," Logan snapped back.

"Eh, small detail," Dick said, dismissively.

"That's the only detail that matters. Vegans aren't allowed to eat bacon."

As the guys argued back and forth Mac and Veronica started their own conversation.

"Are you still on the paper?" Mac asked.

Veronica waited a beat before answer, giving her a puzzled look. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Um, no reason, just making conversation. We could swap recipes or try to start a knitting club."

"No, that's okay! The paper is going well. We are covering such hard hitting topics like the fire drill outbreak this week."

"Oh, I'll alert Woodward and Bernstein that they have competition."

"Somehow I don't think Neptune is on their radar," Veronica teased.

"Well, that's their mistake then. A town this shady should be on everyone's radar. I can guarantee it's on every crime syndicates network."

"Sad but true, Madi. So, what do you think, would winning a Pulitzer look good on college applications? Think Stanford would take me then?"

"As long as there's not a run on other underdog winners applying there," Mac said.

"What are you talking about? I am an underdog, the lead underdog," Veronica corrected, and then added in a softer tone, "I think there's a top down conspiracy on the school board. I'm trying to get on the inside, but right now the party line is there's some faulty wiring or a bad boiler, something like that."

"Oh, the plot is thickening. So did I just get some covert intel?"

"You did. If you scoop me, however, my retribution will be swift," Veronica threatened, her tone was menacing but the wink lessened its effects.

"I think I'll wait to scoop you when you have more definitive information."

"I'm working a couple angles," Veronica assured her friend.

"You always do." She said.

Both topics of conversation came to a halt as Angie came back with their meals. Dick refilled everyone's wine glasses.

Mac took a bite of her scampi and let out a soft moan of satisfaction, it was delicious, much better than she'd remembered. The presentation was gorgeous, too.

Dick leered at her.

"Talk about food porn," she whispered in his ear, hoping to make him blush. It didn't work; of course, she knew he was probably born without the embarrassment gene.

"I didn't know we were talking about porn in any format, let alone food," Dick said. "When I think of porn, I don't think about rabbit food."

"Tofu," Mac corrected.

"Tofu, rabbit food, eh, that's the same thing." Dick argued. "I think of naked babes, that's the only accepted form of porn."

"Yeah, when Dick hears the word porn, his ears perk up," Logan explained.

"Don't feign innocence there, Echolls. You are conditioned to do the same thing."

"D'uh. Of course, I don't want to lose my man card," Logan snarked back.

"What man card?" everyone asked in unison, but Veronica's voice led the pack. In return, he gave them each a one finger thank you.

Talking tapered down once they had said all they needed to about food and every other iteration of porn. Eating their meals took precedence.

Once the dishes had been cleared from the table and the dessert orders had been taken, Logan surprised Veronica, and everyone else, by presenting her with a small, wrapped gift.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Bobcat," he handed her the present and kissed her cheek.

"Oh Logan, you shouldn't have." Veronica replied automatically, but she accepted the gift and returned the kiss.

"You're supposed to open it first then say that."

"Oh, thanks for explaining proper etiquette to me."

"No problem, m'dear."

Despite the token protest, she eagerly unwrapped the package. Nestled in the small box was a Swiss Army knife with a mother of pearl inlay.

"You shouldn't have," she reiterated, but the words were diluted by the fact that she was rubbing her fingers over the smooth surface.

"It's a friend for Mr. Sparky, backup if you will. I rest easier knowing you're not fully unprotected for all the danger that seems to find you."

"She's a danger magnet," Mac cut in. It was on the tip of her tongue to start listing some examples, but she caught herself before she cited a couple that hadn't yet happened.

"It's a gift," Veronica replied with a shrug, "and speaking of that, I might have a little something for you, Logan, emphasis on little." She grabbed her red leather purse that had been hanging on the back of her chair and rummaged through it. From its depths she produced a small rectangular object wrapped in white tissue paper.

Logan eagerly tore into it, revealing a leather bound book. He flipped through a few pages, then stopped and read "'The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.' Any one know who said that?"

"Santa Claus," Dick guessed.

"Ghandi," Veronica said.

"James Joyce," Logan revealed before anyone else guessed. "I think we have our new inspirational message."

"That was my sinister plan all along. Look in the front cover."

Logan did as he was told, and a smile stole over his face as he read the inscription. "This is the perfect gift, Veronica." He turned to her, and this time the kiss wasn't so chaste, and it didn't land on her cheek, either.

"Get a room, guys," Dick grumped, finally. Then, he deliberately turned away from the PDA, and looked over at Mac sitting on his left. "Fearing your mean right hook, I couldn't let Mr. Suck Up, over there, be the only boyfriend to score points tonight. I got you something, too, Madi."

Dick was digging in his jacket pocket when the waitress came by with their desserts and a round of coffee.

Mac thanked the waitress and then pushed the plate of coconut vegan cake off to the side so she wouldn't make a mess when Dick finally unearthed her gift.

He triumphantly held up a small white plastic bag that he'd folded over several times and taped up.

"Let me guess, you wrapped it yourself?" Mac asked dryly.

"The maid was off today," he quipped back, but it was said with a teasing grin.

She ripped off the layers of scotch tape and reached into the bag, her hand made contact with a small object that felt like metal. Curious, she palmed it and then lifted her hand out, revealing a heart shaped necklace. Turning the heart over, she grinned at the design on the front, it was a picture of a computer keyboard with a white furry mouse on top.

"What a cute mouse, bet it gets a little squeaky," Mac teased. "Thank you, Dick. It's perfect."

"You're welcome. I wasn't sure what to get a computer nerd who has everything, um genius, yeah, genius, not nerd," he quickly backpedaled upon seeing her scowl. "Do I get a kiss? We can't let them be the only ones committing PDA."

Mac shook her head, but leaned forward to give him a quick kiss. She quickly broke it off. Before Dick could say anything she let him know he wouldn't be going gift-less tonight either.

"I know I am gift enough as it is," Mac teased, "but I got you a small present, too." Digging through the detritus of her purse, she made contact with a silver flask that surprisingly still had a red bow stuck to it, though it had been smooshed down by her wallet hitting against it in transit. It had been a tight squeeze fitting it into her Coach clutch bag that she'd been using regularly during her four month stint in this existence.

Like a kid on Christmas, Dick forcefully and excitedly grabbed the proffered present from Mac's outstretched hand. He turned it over and laughed loudly at the inscription.

"I am definitely 'Naughty by Design.' I love it, babe. It can replace my reused water bottles for vodka storage." It was his turn to kiss Mac, and he went for the surprise "attack" to assure more lip action than the one she'd gifted him with previously.

With the present exchange over, they all continued to tease each other as they ate their desserts and drank coffee. Once again Logan got the same thing as Veronica, a mountainous piece of Tiramisu.

"Hey now, this has always been my go-to dessert since way before Veronica took me here," Logan defended.

"So how bad did it hurt when you got neutered?" Dick asked before taking a big bite off the end of his Cannoli, a puddle of cream oozing out onto the plate.

"Funny, I was going to ask you the same question, Casablancas. You, too, are a whole new brand of asshole around Madi."

"Boys, we're in a family establishment," Veronica cut in. "Do I really need to break in my new gift this early?"

"It's too nice to break on their thick skulls," Mac reminded her. "I'd stick with tasering balls if I were you."

"You are, as always, the voice of reason."

"I'm thinking of getting that tattooed on my ass, actually."

"You should," Dick interjected. "What? You know Madi's ass always has my full attention."

"I do know that," Logan replied, "and that was my point all along, you are guilty of the same balls-in-a-vice-grip crime that you accuse me of."

"I think it's cute," Veronica said.

"Whatever," Dick said dismissively through another mouth full of Cannoli. "So what are we going to do after they kick us out of this fine family establishment? I was thinking we could drop by Casa Casablancas for some Halo action, so you could watch me take down some green men."

"Or watch you lose to the green men, and we could all school you on how it's actually done," Mac corrected.

"I must agree, you are definitely a voice of reason," Logan directed to Mac before sticking his tongue out at Dick.

"That's it guys, keep that confidence, my victory will be so much sweeter that way," Dick said, pointedly ignoring Logan.

After the checks were dropped off, and both guys paid for their own date, and a sizeable tip was left for Angie, the two couples left in their own cars.

On the fifteen minute drive to Dick's house, Mac watched the scenery fly by and her mind drifted back to earlier in the day during the fire drill.

"Where did Cassidy go tonight?" she asked in the lull.

"It's Valentine's Day," Dick said as though that explained everything. In his mind it probably did.

"Actually no, it's not. Valentine's Day is Monday," Mac corrected.

"Well, okay, Miss Know-it-all, it is Valentine's Weekend so Cass is home playing Dungeons and Dragons. D'uh!"

"Oh, I thought he might have a date."

"You two have met, right?"

A huff of laughter escaped her lips, though it was totally lacking in humor.

In the original time line Cassidy was probably crushing on her, but they didn't get together until her senior year.

It wasn't that she wanted him to be on a date, for the poor unsuspecting girl's sake, but she also was hoping not to face him. It was just such a confusing mish mash to know what seeded his depravity, the awful abuse he'd suffered from a trusted adult, but also having come face to face today with Meg kicked up the nausea once again. The coconut cake was a lump in her stomach now.

Dick pulled into his driveway, with Logan's X-Terra right behind him.

They filed into the Casablancas house—mansion—and made their way to the game room in the back of the house. Cassidy was spread out on the leather couch playing a game on the Xbox.

"Am-scray," Dick said, reaching out to remove the controller from his little brother's hands.

"I didn't know you spoke a foreign language," Veronica snickered.

Nervously, Mac hovered in the doorway looking around the room, trying not to make any eye contact with Cassidy, or anyone really. She didn't feel sympathy for Cassidy exactly, but she didn't like the way Dick spoke to his brother.

Of course, in the 2009 time period, present Dick felt a tremendous amount of guilt for that. He probably assigned himself too much blame really, but she wondered how different things would be if Dick had been more supportive and had known about the abuse.

It wasn't the first, or even the tenth, time she'd had that thought, but now she was in a position to force her hand.

"Dick, stop it," she admonished. Her voice wasn't very strong though. Mac cleared her throat, and tried again. "Cassidy was here first. He can play with us, too."

"No. Thanks though, Madison," Cassidy said. The smile he gave her was tentative but genuine. He shoved the controller at Dick, hitting him in the stomach, who let out a little oof of surprise and pain.

He left the room without another word, but he did wave as acknowledgment when Logan said "See you later, Beav."

Mac had hoped her cringe at that nickname was subtle, but Veronica gave her an inquiring look however she didn't say anything out loud.

Dick set up Halo 2, and then he and Logan paired up first. They stayed pretty even at first, and then Dick started to pull ahead. Mac studied their moves. She mentally noted which weapons packed the biggest kickback. She discovered that using a grenade to clear then room, and then burst in with a plasma gun was a very effective. technique.

When Logan finally went down in a blaze, it was finally the girls' chance to showcase their gaming skills. Veronica excelled at sharp shooting, and probably would have easily defeated Mac, except she started using the advantages she'd gleaned from watching Dick in action. She put her own spin on them though.

Veronica had just lined up what she'd been hoping would be a kill shot when Cassidy walked in with a big bag of veggie chips. He silently dropped them beside Mac on the couch. She turned and said thank you.

"Snack attack, Beav?" Dick asked.

"I came down to grab some chips before you guys ate them all, and saw these disgusting things you keep making the maid buy." Cassidy turned to make his escape once more.

"Thank you," Mac repeated.

"You're welcome," he gave her a tight, shy smile and quickly left the room.

Veronica's surprise sniper move had been thwarted by the snack break, so she regrouped with one hand on the controller as she reached into to the bag with her other hand to grab a handful of dehydrated veggies. "Not bad," she muttered with her mouth full.

"Not good, either," Dick volleyed back.

Veronica never did gain the upper hand back again, and Mac's studying paid off making her the victor. Since neither Logan nor Veronica was in the final match up, they made their leave shortly after Mac's big win.

They exchanged good-byes and walked them out to the entry way. After Dick shut the door, he turned to Mac and gave her a not so brief kiss.

"I bet they're off to make out," he said, reluctantly severing the embrace. "We could do that, too." It was said in a hopeful tone.

"Let's finish the veggie chips while I simultaneously take you down in a rematch," she countered.

"No, I'll let you finish the "chips," and I'll take you down in that rematch," he corrected. They turned back to the game room.

With all the mental mapping of the levels she'd done earlier, round two didn't last long and she held onto her champion status once again.

Cassidy didn't come out again, she figured he'd probably fallen asleep or was texting his friends about how big of an asshole his brother was.

They started in on Dick's alternate activity suggestion of kissing, which was a lovely way to spend time in both their minds. She moaned quietly as Dick's hand worked on her nipple. She played with his hair, running her hands through its silken strands as her tongue explored his mouth terrain.

Finally, they broke that off once again and Dick jumped up to get a couple of beers. She was still a little surprised at how understanding and un-Dick-like he'd been when she told him she didn't want to rush into sex in this sandbox dimension.

As he'd run to grab the beers, Mac sat back on the couch and let her eyes wander to the pictures lining the massive wooden shelf that ran the entire length of the stone fireplace. One frame caught her eye in particular. It was a team shot of a minor league baseball team. The Sharks. Cassidy had been absent the day it was taken, but having been the bat boy, his name was mentioned at the bottom after the heading Not Pictured.

That one innocent picture had started so much drama and pain. Mac felt the nausea churning once again. That was it, this was her one chance to change the course of her life. Well, try, at least.

Dick came back into the room with two already opened bottles of Sierra Nevada. He pressed one into her hand.

"Thanks," Mac replied. She took a deep breath and exhaled, as though it would blow out the nausea and nerves. It came out shuddery. She took a sip and prayed she wouldn't gag.

After a couple of minutes of innocuous chatter, Mac pointed to the team picture. "So which one of you was on the Sharks?"

"Huh?" Dick asked confused. "That's a minor league team," he explained. "None of us played on it. The Beav was a bat boy though, um, three years ago maybe. Or two, I guess. I don't remember. Why?" He took a big drink of his beer.

"I just saw the picture and was curious."

"Our mayor was coach."

"I know, Mayor Goodman. He's a weird guy," Mac said. "A fucked up guy."

"Weird? Fucked up? How?" Dick took another sip from the bottle, his grip tightening.

"I, ah," Mac took another cleansing breath. "I heard he toucheslittleboys." It came out in a jumbled mess. She looked at her shoes as she said it.

"What did you say, Madison?!" Dick asked sharply.

"I said, I heard that Goodman molests young boys." Her voice was stronger, more confident in the truth she was telling.

"How do you know that? Who told you that?" Dick asked. He sounded mostly surprised by that statement, but it sounded like he recognized a shred of possibility in there, too.

"I heard that Marcos Oliveres was one of his victims," Mac said instead of directly answering the question.

"He was a bat boy with Cassidy." It was said flatly.

"I know."

"What are you saying, Madison?" Dick's eyes were shut, his fist clenched, like he could filter out what he didn't want to hear.

"Are you sure no one hurt Cassidy?"

"Yes, I am absolutely sure no one hurt Cassidy. He would have told me if something happened...or mom...or someone." Dick sounded anything but sure of that. He finished the last of his beer, and then loudly slammed it on the coffee table in front of him. "Let's get you home."

"Okay. I'm walking though."

"Madison, let me drive. It's late, and you don't live far."

"I know I don't live far, that's why I'm going to walk. Look, are you mad?"

"I'm not mad, I'm…" Dick ran his hand through his hair, messing it up. "I don't know what I am, or what to think, or why the hell you would say something like that." His voice got louder as he went on. "Why would you want to mess with my family?"

Hurt is what Dick looked like, not angry, but hurt.

"That's the last thing I want to do, Dick, hurt you or your family. I just thought if it was possible that Cassidy had been victimized by the Mayor that you and your parents needed to know that. I'm…so sorry." Mac spoke softly. She briefly touched Dick's arm and then left. At the doorway, she briefly paused and turned around to see him slumped on the couch, his head down.

It didn't go the way she expected, she didn't honestly know what she was expecting really. Anger, maybe? Something other than just the pain and betrayal.

Obscured by the night, Mac let her tears flow unchecked as she walked the two blocks back home. She had just turned onto Shady Springs Ct. when she heard a car come up beside her.

She furtively wiped her eyes, and then turned to her right. It was a big yellow truck, Dick's.

He stopped the truck, and rolled down his window. "I wanted to make sure you got home okay, stubborn."

"Yeah, it's a dangerous hood we live in."

"Bad things happen everywhere, Madi."

She nodded her agreement, and then climbed in the front seat. Less than thirty seconds later he pulled into her driveway.

"Thanks for the lift, and for dinner." She turned to give him a quick peck on the cheek but he pulled away right before she could make contact. Whether that was on purpose or not, though, she wasn't certain. It seemed deliberate, but with Dick she never knew for sure.

"You're welcome. See you Monday." He pulled away with a brief wave the second she shut the passenger door.

With trepidation, Mac wondered what the following week would bring.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 19—From the Ashes

**** Tuesday afternoon February 15, 2005***

At lunch, Mac sat at her usual boundary table with Veronica and Wallace. Jackson joined them, too. He usually divided his time between the '09'er table with Dick, Logan, Pam, Meg, and a rotating cast of other richy riches and sitting on the border with Mac and her posse.

She wasn't very hungry; she'd mainly just been pushing her veggie wrap and chips around, making it look like she was eating. Her appetite had taken a nose dive since Sunday and wasn't showing any signs of rebounding.

"Hey, Madi, what the hell did you do to Dick?" Jackson asked around the bite of his ham and swiss sandwich. Mac could tell something was on his mind, the way he was studying her. He'd turned out to be a really good friend in this dimension, and a part of her was sad she'd never really gotten to know him in her real life.

"Nothing," Mac said, trying not to choke on the sip of Coke she'd just taken. "What do you mean?"

Dick was nowhere to be seen. He had sat as far away, as geographically possible, from her in homeroom, and he'd made a point of looking everywhere but at her the entire fifteen minutes. However, that was a marked improvement over yesterday when he was out "sick." She suspected hung over was more likely; Dick's version of dealing with things involved a Vodka chaser.

"He was acting weird before school, and just now, when I saw him in the hall, he had the most lame ass excuse I've ever heard for not eating lunch in the quad. I said something about you and the dude changed the subject so fast I got whiplash, but not before looking like he could kill you with his bare hands and not feel an ounce of regret."

Involuntarily, Mac looked over at Veronica when Jackson was talking about strangulation. Not surprisingly, a fleeting flash of grief overtook her face before going back to a stony default.

"Man, that's just uncalled for," Wallace interjected, not impressed with the implied violent feelings someone could be harboring towards one of his friends.

"Madison and Dick were getting along great the last time I saw them," Veronica said, once she collected herself from the brief reminder of Lilly's death, still very fresh in her mind.

"We had a little disagreement, he'll get over it," Mac admitted. She wasn't certain that were true, telling someone that their younger brother had been abused by a person in authority was not just something one "got over."

She wasn't trying to ruin the 'Brady Bunch' façade Dick was trying to project; she simply wanted to see Cassidy get the help he so desperately needed. She wanted to save her classmates. It was horrible knowing she hurt Dick like that, but nothing about this situation was easy.

She watched Veronica struggle to shake off her grief about Lilly, and felt her own guilt meter spike at the thought that she was trying so hard to save other classmates when it was already too late to protect the one person she most wanted to cover in bubble wrap and keep safe.

Veronica kept a lot of things about herself and her past on lockdown in every dimension of time, but as best as Mac had put together something bad had still gone down at Shelly Pomeroy's party despite the fact that Dick had been with her that night. She hadn't been able to get a confirmation nor denial about Cassidy's whereabouts that particular evening; high school memories ran shallow when beer was involved.

Mac was pulled into the present when Logan nudged her over a couple of inches so he could squeeze himself between her and Veronica.

"Why yes, please join us Logan, thank you for asking. You're welcome, Veronica. I wanted to make sure I was on hand to carry your books. Anything else I may do to service you?" Veronica said, handling both ends of the conversation herself, deepening her voice for Logan's lines.

"Well, I guess I'm just going to sit here and look pretty while you handle the entire conversation yourself, Bobcat."

"Your ventriloquist skills are improving," Mac teased.

"Her lips were moving," Wallace corrected.

"Are you calling me a dummy, Madison?" Logan sounded indignant.

"If the strings fit," Mac quipped with her signature smirk.

Wallace burst out into laughter at Logan's sour expression.

The banter moved towards classes and the piles of homework teachers gave. Wallace attempted to propose a consipracy theory, but Jackson wasn't ready to let the subject of Dick drop entirely. He started pumping Logan for more information on the many moods of his BFF.

"Betina did a drop by over the weekend, and then left just as suddenly for an emergency pedicure or something way more important than mothering," Logan said, his nose wrinkling involuntarily as he spoke the first name of Dick's mom as though smelling something odious. "I don't why she breezed in and then back out again, a nanny crisis perhaps." He shrugged, genuinely clueless about the whole thing, apparently.

Mac schooled herself to remain passive, but she apparently didn't succeed at that.

"Are you okay? You look like you're about to faint?" Veronica leaned in and whispered quietly in her ear.

"I'm fine, thank you." Mac's voice sounded wooden, even to herself. She knew enough about Betina's history of neglect and emotional abuse to fill in the gaps of that 'motherly' visit and how horribly awry it must have gone. She felt stupid for thinking that bringing the senior Casablancas into the equation would have a happily ever after ending for any of the parties involved.

Veronica didn't look convinced but she let it go. Logan brought up their shared journalism class and the subject was effectively changed.

"So I noticed The Navigator was literally flying off the shelves. Your hard charging expose was a hit, Bobcat."

"I really know how to sell out a free paper, what can I say?" Veronica snarked back. "Of course, it wasn't as interesting as the secret life of lunch ladies."

"I can't speak for the rest of the Neptune populace, but I appreciate a little warning when the place educating my mind is constantly failing safety audits. If I'm going to blow to smithereens from a faulty boiler, a little preparation to get my estate in order is a good thing," Wallace interjected.

"What estate?"

"Comic books, my signed Air Jordan's, and my Chemistry set," Wallace quickly rattled off.

"Signed by who? The Nike CEO?" Jackson asked.

"Michael," Wallace said, in a d'uh tone of voice.

"What did you leave me, little bro?"

Wallace and Veronica had moved into the acceptance phase of their parents' dating and were still getting a lot of mileage out the brother/sister bunk bed jokes.

"My Neptune High jersey, it would have been worth something had I lived long enough to graduate. Of course if you fry right alongside me, it'll go to Darryl, my real brother."

Veronica put her hand on her heart. "Real? Am I not real?"

"Blood brother," he corrected.

"If I get pricked, do I not bleed?"

Logan opened his mouth to interject but shut it immediately upon the look Veronica shot him, preemptively before he could make a dirty joke.

"If you tickle us, do we not laugh?" Mac added.

"Okay, enough with the double teaming us with Shakespeare," Logan pleaded. "There's a time and place for the Bard, this is not it."

"Yeah, save it for Mrs. Murphy's class," Wallace said in solidarity.

"Et tu, Fennel?"

"Did you not just hear me?" Logan asked.

"Evidently not, I heard in Health Class that estrogen can clog the ear drum, that explains why women don't listen," Wallace explained in a faux professorial voice.

"And I heard testosterone kills brain cells." Veronica said, turning towards Mac.

"Bullshit," all the guys said in unison.

"Oh, I thought we were just making things up and passing them off as fact."

"Made up or not, Vee, that would explain so much," Mac said.

"Made up or not, Wallace, that would explain so much," Logan parroted.

Lunch ended much too quickly for Mac's taste. She was surprised to discover a little snark with her friends went a long way towards pushing all thoughts of Dick, and by extension, Cassidy out of her mind. It didn't last long, but it was a nice break from the bruises she carried deep inside from one dimension to the next.

After throwing away the remains of their lunch, Mac and Veronica walked back inside. They said good-bye and parted ways in the center hallway. Their usual plan of meeting in the bathroom, by the office, after last period was thwarted by Veronica's dental appointment after 6th period.

No longer having any distractions, her thoughts turned once again to Dick's dead air, radio silence. He wasn't really much of a sharer when it came to discussing his feelings, she knew that, and what's more, she respected that being a member of the same club. Still, as hypocritical as it was, she hated being sidelined when someone she cared about was suffering. She couldn't really expect him to process something this major in three days when she hadn't really been able to process the fact she'd been raised by the "wrong" family in the almost six years she'd accidentally discovered the truth.

Mac looked down at her new shoes, black Coach Sneakers, one of several pairs her bio-mom had stuck in there from a recent shopping trip. They were labeled but one of the least ostentatious new members of the massive shoe collection that made its home in the bottom of her roomy closet. Natalie loved shoes almost as much as Ellen, but she had more of a Keds budget. She was beginning to wonder if she'd die in this sandbox world. If Natalie would remain "Cindy's" mom forever, and Ryan would be a stranger. Would she always be Madison to the rest of the world? At least she had a relationship with Lauren now. That was a fantasy come true, at the very least. Apparently, the fight with Dick had put her in a philosophical mood.

That thought train came to abrupt end when she hit…something. She looked up and was about to apologize when she realized it was Dick.

"Oh…" was what came out instead.

"Madison."

It sounded formal coming from his lips, and that was all kinds of wrong.

"Um, sorry," she muttered, taking a step back.

Dick took a step forward at the same time. She didn't know if their awkward little two-step was on purpose or not.

"My mom came by Sunday. She was, uh, gone by that night, but she and dad agreed to try therapy. With the Beav, ah, Cass, that is. Not for them, they're hopeless." He spoke softly, running a hand through his hair, mussing it up. He didn't quite meet her eyes.

"So, it looks like you were right, he uh…" Dick cleared his throat, and tried again. "He didn't admit anything, but the denial portion of the evening ended pretty quickly. Only one of Betina's precious, freaky clown figurines got smashed. That population never recovered from the night she first packed up to make room for one of dad's bimbos."

Mac reached over to put a hand on his shoulder, but he stepped back again, just out of her reach.

"I hate those clowns," he added, unnecessarily.

"Not a fan myself," Mac admitted. "So, are we okay?" This time it was she who couldn't make eye contact.

"We will be. I just, yeah, I know this is fucked up thing, so, um. We will be okay one of these days. That's all I know."

"But not now?" Mac asked, tentatively. She fiddled with a strand of errant hair.

"Not yet." His voice was just as soft.

"Okay," Mac said, and turned to walk away. Her voice was flat, accepting. What choice did she have?

"Okay?" He sounded incredulous.

"What am I supposed to say? That I don't accept that?" Mac whirled around.

The hall was starting to fill up, the bell for fifth period was about to ring. They ignored the crush of classmates walking by, giving them a wide berth.

"No." He sighed.

"Okay, then. See you in 7th."

"Bye Madison."

It wasn't finality, but in that moment it felt like it.

Her classes', right up until English, passed in a blur. Her body was physically there, but she couldn't quit replaying the inflection, or lack thereof, in Dick's voice as he said bye.

Once she crossed the threshold of Mrs. Murphy's English class, however, time slowed down.

She tried to focus on taking notes as Mrs. Murphy droned on about Hemmingway's use of symbolism. Where Mac was forcing herself to appear to be paying attention, Dick seemed to be genuinely listening to the lecture. He threw out a lot of ass-kiss questions which demonstrated he was actually learning something. She supposed there was a first time for everything.

At long last, the bell rang signaling the end of Mrs. Murphy's English class, and the end of the school day, too.

Mac sighed audibly; she was so ready to go home. The talk she and Dick had after lunch was stilted, at best. Their relationship was anything but repaired. He needed time to come to terms with his little brother, she got that, but she ached to comfort him, to support him through this difficult time, but in typical Dick fashion he was pushing her away. She had no choice but to let him. She stood up and packed up her copy of Old Man and the Sea. Dick was already exiting the class room when he stopped briefly, turned around and made eye contact with her. He gave her a half-smile and half-hearted wave.

Baby steps .

Yesterday he wasn't even at school. Sunday he didn't answer any of her texts, all five of them. Okay, seven. Alright, ten.

She wasn't being stalkerish, she just really felt bad each time she pictured the way he looked as she ripped off the band aid and told him "her suspicion" about Cassidy being molested at the hands of Woody Goodman and the fictionalized story about how she came across this information. He looked like she sucker punched him right in the gut.

Mac poured out into the hall, glad this hellish day was finally over. She looked up briefly, and her eyes locked onto Dick and Cassidy standing in the middle of the hall, like an island in the tide of students eager to leave the school grounds. They were laughing and horsing around, typical brothers in an anything but typical situation, and it made Mac ache.

Dick looked up as though he could sense her staring at him.

The pain throbbed up again as she watched his grin wink out of existence. They'd talked briefly after lunch, but Dick had made it clear that he still needed some space to process the deathblow she'd delivered to his white picket fence existence.

Her ruminations were suddenly shattered by two seemingly simultaneous events; a loud, concussive boom and her name being screamed in terror.

Mac felt something slam into her head with brute force. At first, she felt no associative pain as she face-planted onto the dirty linoleum of Neptune High.

Flashes of objects, a mental montage of images bombarded Mac's senses, overloading her misfiring circuits. Screaming, yelling shrieks of panic and pain. Acrid smoke grayed the heavy air. Mac was drowning in the sensory overload and the pain that threatened to envelop and choke her. She didn't know why she was on the ground, or how she got there.

Someone kneeled down beside her, but the whispered words were lost in the chaos. Then everything grayed out, her name echoed softly until fading into inky nothingness…

TBC...

Chapter Text

Chapter 20—Phoenix Rising

Dick was getting sick of hearing Logan whining and shit about his solo surf excursion the other day. He was acting like a nagging girlfriend without the side benefits inherent in a relationship. Not that Dick tended to let his relations get to the nagging point; he was all about the short-term benefits without that long-term price.

There really was only one girl he knew that he could see casting in that role, and yeah, that just wasn't an option right now. He quickly pushed that swollen, aching thought out of his head space.

So at the ass crack of dawn Tuesday morning, before even the birds were chirping, Dick preemptively averted his eyes and knocked on the door of the love den—AKA Logan's room.

It took three loud thwacks on the door before Logan opened it. "What?" he croaked in greeting.

There was a lump barely visible in the bed that Dick presumed to be Veronica. She was probably naked under the brown, standard issue Neptune Grand duvet.

"Mornin' sunshine," Dick said in a faux-chipper voice. "I was going to catch some righteous waves this fine day, and I thought perhaps you would care to go with." The last part was said in a surfer dude inflection, he further sold it by making a 'hang ten' gesture with his right hand. He didn't need to see Ronnie to know she was rolling her eyes. That thought made him happy as he channeled his inner Johnny Utah, pretty thick, for her benefit. "Dude!"

"Gimme ten." Logan muttered before shutting the door louder than the situation called for.

"The clock starts now. Peace out!" Dick volleyed back, but it didn't really matter being that no one heard him anyway.

********/******/******/*******/*****

The drive to Dog Beach was punctuated by brief bursts of conversation, and then awkward silence. Logan was driving. Things seemed stilted between them lately, and Dick was sure it wasn't just in his imagination. The pixie spy hadn't quite been back in Neptune city limits for a week and she was already wedging herself between them. Logan, of course, was willingly letting her.

Old fuckin' habits!

He wasn't an idiot—contrary to popular belief—he knew a lot of the bad blood between them was his fault, and he would gladly take the lumps due to him for that, but that didn't negate the fact that she still had his bestie's balls in a vise grip regardless of distance. It had always been the way, and apparently it always would.

He wanted to be happy for Logan that they were getting back together, but it wasn't going to have a sparkly unicorns frolicking with rainbows happily ever-fucking-after kind of ending, he knew that. It wasn't just the fact that he was jaded, which being life enjoyed shitting on him he definitely was, it was that he'd watched this soap opera before and it always had the same ending. Logan white knighted, while Veronica bolted. They knew their roles, and they played them to a packed audience. Forget the rain check; he wanted a refund this time around for that particular show.

He had no fucking clue why he'd thought Logan would support him during this purgatory period as they waited for Mac to wake up. That was the role he'd recruited him into this play for, yet once there was a new player cast, he was all but forgotten, an extra cast aside.

Honestly, on the surface, the question could be asked why he would need support anyways. She wouldn't even label him as a friend without using the pseudo tag first.

It was an easy question, but not an easy answer.

Or maybe the problem was it was an easy answer, but he wasn't ready to ask the preceding question in the first place. There was too much going on right now to deal with how's, why's and other useless shit like that.

No, Logan was tapped out these days in the emotional support department.

His other source of strength when things got too much for him was a little too busy fighting to survive.

He was alone, utterly alone.

Logan pulled into the parking lot of the far north end of Dog Beach, their favorite surf spot. The sun was just starting its long climb from the horizon. They got out of the SUV, and shed their street legal clothes they'd put over the required surfing uniform of black wetsuits.

Dick took his cell phone out of the pocket of his khaki shorts, verified no one had tried to call him the night before, and then left it on the front passenger seat.

The guys slammed their doors and went around back to collect their boards from the cargo area.

Dick loved his new board. He'd bought it himself for his birthday back in April. It was a shiny blue Mayhem with Neptune the Sea God sporting a skull face, custom inked by Ed Hardy. It seemed apropos, a sea deity watching over him. It set him back a couple G's but it was worth every cent, to his mind. He knew he was lucky; money wasn't something he needed to lose sleep over. It obviously didn't put a hairline crack in his trust fund. There wasn't anyone else around to buy him stuff, anyway. Hell, he figured maybe he appreciated things more that way. While off the rack boards were of good quality, this was a splurge worth making.

They staked out a spot on the sand, marking their territory with their beach towels and street clothes before heading toward the surf.

The waves were coming up in the moderate range, with swells coming from the south. It was shaping up to be a good day for surfing.

Dick breathed in the tangy salt air as they walked toward the ocean. He paused to attach the leash to his left ankle, and they headed into the water.

Logan started barking like a dog, and Dick flicked him off. Leashing up was a relatively new habit that started after he lost a board last year in some particularly rough surf. Logan liked to give him shit for it, too, normally it didn't bother him, but it was particularly annoying this time.

They paddled out to the point where waves were born, and just bobbed in the water for a few minutes, getting a feel for the conditions.

Other than the feeling of being on the top of a cresting wave right before it breaks, this was Dick's second favorite part of surfing. He felt a part of something larger than himself, just a molecule in a larger atom of existence.

"In a couple of hours it will have been exactly one week since…" Logan said, letting his voice trail off.

"Yeah," Dick agreed, not needing the sentence to be completed. The thought had been his stalker all morning.

"Of all the people for this to happen to, Mac is one of the smartest yet kindest people I know. It's complete bullshit." Logan continued.

"However, it brought Ronnie back to you. So some good came out of this." The words, coated in a bitterness he couldn't deny any longer, came tumbling out.

"Ah, there it is."

"Ah, there what is?" Dick asked in a mocking tone.

"An entrance into that bitch fight you've been wanting all fucking week."

"I don't know what you mean, dude." He had a pretty good theory, however.

"I admit I'm glad to see Veronica again and you jump down my throat."

"You make me sound like some chick on the rag." Dick grumped. "That's right; I'm always waiting to start something with poor, innocent Logan. Aren't you just the innocent victim in all this?"

"A chick on the rag?" Logan echoed. "If the wetsuit fits…"

"Yeah, cause I'm the one acting like a bitch," Dick continued, muttering. "This is happening to all of us, yet you and Ronnie have walled yourselves in so completely. It's fucking disgusting to watch."

"Look, this whole situation with Mac has been making us all on edge," Logan attempted to make excuses. For whom, however, Dick wasn't sure.

"A coma, not a situation, it's a fucking coma," Dick said, his voice rising on the last part. He started paddling forward, ready to take the next wave. He was tired of all the sugarcoating people were trying to do this week, as though not saying the word coma made it nothing more innocuous than a nap, as though they weren't dangerously close to losing the glue that held them all together. Stupid cliché, aside, that was exactly what Mac was.

He was tired of a lot of things these days, watching Logan and Ronnie get back on their collision course to nowheresville, Mac suffering, the same blue walls of the ICU, not having anyone give a damn about him.

The need to get away from Logan, and his thoughts, pressed down hard.

As the wave swelled, Dick jumped up on the board, his arms out for balance, placing his right foot forward.

Logan melted into the background.

He was entering his happy place, a destination he wasn't spending a lot of time in these days.

The wave crested high. This was the moment he lived for; he was nature, he was the wave.

He brought his left foot in not even a millimeter but it was enough to throw him off course.

From behind he could hear that Logan was shouting something to him, but he was to far away to make out the words.

Distracted, Dick wobbled; he adjusted his arms a little to the left, then the right. Frantically, he corrected, re-corrected, and then over corrected.

He was trying too hard to stay balanced.

He felt himself pitch over, falling off his board, free-falling into the cold ocean. He hit his right shoulder on the board on the way down. The water bubbled up over his head, but he refused to give into the panic that could easily overtake him in this situation.

In a matter of seconds, that felt closer to minutes, he felt strong arms lifting him up. Sputtering, Dick weakly grasped his board "Thanks man," he choked out, when he was able to talk, between coughs.

"Go back to shore, before you kill your dumb ass. This is why I didn't want you to surf by yourself." Logan sounded pissed.

"I'm fine."

"Get-Your-Ass-To-Shore, NOW." He punctuated that by none-to-gently pushing Dick in that general direction. He brushed his sore shoulder.

Dick winced from the contact but didn't say anything. He let the waves do all the work, taking him back to shore.

Reaching the sand, he got up and slowly trekked back to where they'd casually flung their towels. Upon examining his board, he was relieved to see that it wasn't nearly as dinged up as he feared, just one tiny character dent.

He toweled off, studiously avoiding his shoulder, which would probably have a nice purple and black souvenir by this afternoon. It was all Logan's fault. The dude was a distraction. He may have helped save him, but it was only because he almost drowned him to begin with. No, Dick knew he wasn't being very charitable but nothing about this week left him in a charitable mood anyway.

He spotted a lone surfer—Logan—bobbing and weaving in and out of a particularly large wave. That scenario repeated itself a couple of times before he rode back to shore.

"You in one piece?" Logan inquired, as he was toweling off.

Dick didn't reply verbally, instead he shrugged his non-bruised shoulder.

"Let's get an omelet, your treat since I saved your ass."

"Saved my ass?" Dick raised a brow.

"Yes, I plucked you from your watery grave. Remember? Did you hit your head too?"

Dick just gaped at him for a second. "You're an ass."

Logan's brain caught up to his mouth. "I didn't mean that."

"What did you mean then? Our friend is in a coma right now. Did that escape your notice too? Is anything not related to Veronica even a blip on your radar?"

"You're really not going to let this go, are you?" Logan shook his head.

"I don't think so, no. I sat there quietly for almost a week, watching you two forget us about everyone else. I'm kinda over that now. I'm sick of all this drama, really the only thing we should be doing now is focusing on Mac." Dick paused, and took a deep breath. Then, upon the exhale, added, "You know what? On second thought I am going to let this go. I'm going to let it all go. Tell Veronica she won. I'm done man." Having said his piece, Dick turned around and walked away, disgusted with the whole affair.

He grabbed his bundle of clothes and headed towards the public restrooms off the parking area. He took a quick shower, just to shed the layer of sand caked on.

Logan had entered the restroom sometime during Dick's shower, he could tell from the dude's off key rendition of "Luck Be a Lady" coming from the stall to his left. That did not help his mood. He didn't need to guess what lady he considered the source of luck these days. Dick shut off the water, toweled off and got dressed all before Logan finished his song. On his way out the door, he gave him the one-finger salute, not that the guy could see it, but it still felt satisfying.

A quick glance at the general locale of where they'd stashed their stuff proved that Logan had stowed away his board. On a hunch, Dick tried the Xterra and discovered it was unlocked. He balled up his damp wetsuit and towel, stashing them in the back on top of his board.

Dick walked across the street to the Neptune Café. It was post-surfing tradition; it seemed strange going there without Logan. His stomach was rumbling though, so he needed to heed that call. Solo dining was hardly something new and different for him.

Michelle, their usual—and favorite—waitress, automatically brought him coffee and creamer without him having to ask. Logan, however, was the cream user. She looked around as he verified he wanted his usual Denver omelet (yes!).

"Just me, myself and I today," Dick answered the unspoken question.

"Okay, love," she said, and then headed off to put in the order.

From the booth by the window, Dick had a view of the ocean beyond, with only the occasional obstruction from cars going by. There wasn't much traffic that early in the morning. He took a sip of coffee and watched a familiar looking, lanky guy with brown hair enter the café.

Dick took a deep breath and wearily watched Logan purposefully stride towards him.

"This is a table for one."

"Yet, still, there's plenty of seating," Logan replied back, taking the bench across from him. "What's good?" he smirked.

Michelle must have seen come, because she brought him a coffee too, and promised to add his usual Southwest Chorizo omelet to the order.

"What are you doing here?"

"I worked up quite the appetite surfing, and saving your ass."

"And, apparently, you worked up quite an appetite causing me to almost drown in the first place."

Logan just cocked his head.

"You're the reason I fell off my board to begin with," Dick tried again, speaking slower this time.

"No, you fell off the board because you were distracted." Logan spoke slowly himself.

"Did you stop and think you might have had a hand in that?"

"No," Logan said, and then took a sip of his coffee with two creamers. After he swallowed, he pursed his lips and said, "well, maybe a finger."

Dick looked confused.

"I didn't have a hand in your wipeout, but maybe I had a finger in it." Logan clarified.

"Just one?" Dick was skeptical.

"Maybe two, but that's it." Logan hedged.

"Which two?"

"Middle and ring."

That was probably the best he was going to get from Logan.

They sat there drinking coffee for a couple of minutes, letting the silence linger. It was less heavily charged this time.

"There's nothing redeeming about Tuesday. It's the most useless day of the week," Logan finally said, out of the blue. He was evidently tired of the quiet, and didn't much care what they talked about as long as they were saying something.

"I thought that Mondays had that dubious distinction pretty well tied up."

"Mondays suck, it's true, but they at least have a purpose."

"What's that?"

"To remind you how much better you had it the day before."

"It's summer, we're out of school, what the hell does it matter what day of the week it is? All we're doing these days is staring at those same four blue walls of the ICU waiting area," Dick said.

"I just was commenting Tuesday is the most useless day of the week. That's it. This week hasn't really been a typical week anyway. It's more of a Groundhog Day of endless repetition."

"Lather…Rinse…Repeat," Dick agreed. "Kind of like you and Nancy Drew. Except if we're going to dust off that tired story, it's more like lather, rinse, piss each other off, break up, get back together, piss each other off even more, break up once again, then quit talking for two years. Rinse, repeat, of course. "

"Oh, we're back to this, huh?"

"I'm not actually sure we've ever really stopped."

"Also, I take offense to your use of the word tired, by the way." Logan added.

"Okay, how 'bout, clichéd?" Dick proposed.

"We hit the pause on this subject while you were busy drowning," Logan reminded him. He grabbed another creamer from the saucer in the center of the table. Evidently the two creamers in there already didn't make it diluted enough. Dick watched as he pulled back the lid and poured the contents in his coffee before taking a sip. "Remind me again why I saved you?"

"No, I believe we ended this subject on the beach when I conceded and told you Veronica won, but since you decided to follow me, you obviously want to keep talking about this." Dick shrugged, "To answer your question, you saved me because I'm your voice of fucking reason. Anyway, now we're on solid land, and we've got some time before the omelets come. No time like the present to hash this out."

"No time like the present? What greeting card did you steal that from?"

"A wise old philosopher once said it, Hallmarkus, I believe."

"Alright, then, spit it out."

Dick hesitated a moment or two before launching into his litany of complaints about the reunion. Absently, he rubbed his sore shoulder, wincing slightly at the contact. He shook off Logan's questioning look.

"As I tried to explain earlier, you've been living in your own little cave since Ronnie's been back, and I get that she's got this fucking pull on you, it's yet another chapter of your epic love, but it's not just the two of you bleeding over Mac. Wallace needs Veronica now, and you two act like you're the only two fucking people left in the world." He took a deep breath, before continuing, talking right through Logan's automatic protest. "You're there for her, great, but we're all dealing with this messed up situation. What happened to Team Mac? It feels like you seceded from the union and held your own dictatorship, and Wallace and I can't invade your fucking borders."

"Are you declaring war?" Logan said, after a brief silence. He raised one eyebrow. "Wallace?" His tone was bleeding skepticism. "This is only about Wallace and his feelings? Why do I find the idea of you being his chosen mouthpiece suspect?"

Their waitress came by and topped off their coffees.

Logan smiled his appreciation at Michelle before taking a sip of coffee and waving an arm in invitation for Dick to take the verbal stage again.

"Yes, Wallace, this is all about my friend Wallace," Dick affirmed.

"Ah yes, the close friendship you two built in three days."

"He's a good dude. Mac likes him, that's enough of an endorsement for me."

Dick saw Logan's face visibly soften at Mac's name, he was pretty sure that was his own damn Pavlovian response as well. If Mac were here she'd hit him—hard—for using her as a reason for their little "tiff." She had more peace-keeper tendencies than he did, which always seemed ironic considering she had a warrior spirit deep within. But it was that, right there, that was keeping her tethered to life; he was sure of it, and very grateful.

"I'm sorry," Logan said at long last. He sighed, and fiddled with the handle of his coffee cup. "I'm not meaning to cut you and your new BFF out of things, it's just…" His voice trailed off, running his other hand through his short brown hair.

"It's just you're not good at the balance," Dick supplied helpfully.

"It's just she's broken, man, and that makes me broken. Or more broken, maybe," Logan explained, speaking over Dick. The last bit was said as more of an afterthought.

"You two aren't…" Dick never got to finish adding his name to the list of people Mac's injury had broken as Michelle chose that moment to bring their food. He thanked her before cutting into his Denver Omelet.

The melted cheddar filled his mouth. As he chewed, he looked out the window. Traffic was getting heavier. Logan seemed to be enjoying his omelet as well, judging by the quietness that stole over them. For what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt much longer, the only sounds that came from their table was chewing their food and sipping their coffee. Eating felt like the better accomplishment at that point, though his 'sharing of feelings' earlier did make him feel a bit better. Maybe Dr. Phil was on to something after all.

Evidently tiring of the silence, Logan cleared his throat like he had this grand declaration to make, but then he ended up echoing Veronica's line of questioning from the other day about his role in Mac's life.

"So, is this the part where you ask me what my intentions are?" Dick smirked.

"Yes, as I'm cleaning my rifle."

"Or borrow your woman's taser."

"Or that," Logan agreed.

"No intentions. I just really like her…as a friend," Dick said.

Logan clearly didn't believe a word; he went the non-verbal route though, flashing him a look full of doubt.

"No, really, we're just the p-word," Dick added. "Platonic."

"I think you might have got Veronica off the case, but you can't fool me."

"Case?"

"Yes, the case of why does Dick "surfer dude" Cassablancas give a crap about the health of Cindy 'Mac' Mackenzie."

"Do I have my own file folder?"

"No, like I said, as far as Veronica is concerned there's not a case now. You finally saw what an awesome person she is, instead of…Well, yeah." Logan shut down that thread at a whiplash pace. "End of the story for her, it's cut and dried. Plus, her energy is fractured now."

"So I take it, however, you're not convinced?"

"Nope!" Logan popped the 'p.'

"I did finally see how cool she is. I've known that for awhile now, dude."

"I know that, you don't have to recap our history as the three musketeers and shit."

"All for one, dude, and one for all. Cowabunga!" Dick backed that up by making a peace sign.

"You're mixing genres there."

"Eh. Whatever!"

"So out with it, Dick. Confession, as they say, is good for the soul."

"If you already know my deep, dark secret why should I bother using my words?"

"You know what, don't. I don't care." Logan was exasperated. "Don't use your words." He used air quotes.

"It doesn't really matter that I'm in love with her, there's nowhere for us to go. We work as friends, pseudo-friends, whatever label you want to slap on it, but as for a relationship, well I have nothing there to offer her. Right now though, it does not fucking matter. She needs all the friends she can get now."

Logan nodded solemnly, but bit back the 'I knew it' he was dying to say.

"So, when did you figure it out?" Dick asked, curiously. He took a sip of his now tepid coffee.

They'd actually had a similar conversation a few days before after Logan teased him about his off-key rendition of "Girlfriend in a Coma" by The Smiths. He'd denied all charges of Mac being anything but a good friend, obviously though his protests weren't convincing enough.

"Before you did, I'm sure." It was said with the confidence of a best friend.

Dick just shrugged, but deep down figured that could be the case. "So, you're not going to tell your temperamental other half that I'm in love with her bestie?"

"That's between you and Mac. Not my business to tell. I'm sure she'll figure it out on her own, but right now getting Mac to wake up is the only thing that matters to her."

"And you."

"I come second," Logan said, with just a little tinge of sadness.

"No, you don't. I may be pissed at the fact that we're all collateral damage in your reuniting soap opera drama shit, but yeah, you are never second place to her. Of course you might want to buy her a leash, or one of those invisible fence shock collars, so she won't freak herself out and run again, but nope, you are definitely not 2nd place, or to quote Mac, 1st loser."

The waitress dropped off the check and Dick dug into his wallet, handing over his black Am-Ex card.

Logan tipped ten dollars and they headed back to the truck.

As Dick sat down on the passenger seat and buckled up, he felt his phone pressing into his butt. Rummaging around, he retrieved it and took a brief glance at the screen.

Two missed calls and five texts. That didn't seem like a good sign.

"Did your phone ring? I didn't hear it go off."

"I left it in the suite, I figured you'd have yours glued to your wet suit or something," Logan replied. He started the truck, and took a quick side glance at Dick before checking the mirror and backing out of the space. "Why?"

"I have five texts."

"Shit. That doesn't sound good."

"Nope," he agreed. Scrolling through them he saw they were all from Logan's phone. "I think someone hijacked your phone." He opened up the message envelopes and scrolled through as Logan headed out of the parking lot towards home.

"My phone was on the bedside table; Veronica probably used it because she knew your number would be programmed in it."

"Aw, under the name snook'ems?"

"No. Honey boo-boo," Logan corrected.

"You're Logie." Dick confessed as he read each text.

Logie: Wallace called. We need to get a move on. Something is happening at the hospital, and of course Logan left his frakking phone here.

Logie: Where are you guys?

Logie: Don't you two idiots ever check your messages?

Logie: Thing two, pull your head out of your ass, and wrangle up Thing One and get back here NOW!

Logie: Wallace still doesn't know what's up, and I'm freaking out here. You better be on your way home. NOW!

As each missive got more and more impatient, Dick's sense of dread climbed as well. He shifted in his seat, unable to get comfortable. He started drumming his fingers' on the door of the SUV. Evidently that tattoo bothered Logan based on the side-eyed looks and put out sighs he was sending out.

"Give her a call, let her know we're coming," Logan said at last. He was going well past the speed limit as he cut the distance between their hotel and the beach.

"Ronnie! Is Mac…is she…Mac's okay, right?" Dick stuttered out as soon as she picked up on the first half of a ring. He'd been afraid to call, figuring maybe he could put off bad news.

He let her speak, not daring to interrupt other than to make an occasional agreement grunt. Nervousness was contagious, and it was Logan's turn to be impatient. Dick thought at one point the cell was going to be ripped from his hands.

With just a grumbled thanks Dick disconnected just as they pulled into the garage.

"Wallace just called her within seconds of sending the last text, it sounds like good news. Enough of the swelling in her brain has subsided for them to start easing up on the drug cocktail."

"English." Logan barked with seething impatience.

"They're going to try to bring her out of her long nap," Dick translated, as they got out of the car and made their way through the dark, dank parking garage. He recapped the intel he'd been able to glean from Veronica as Logan punched the button for their floor on the elevator. They made the rest of the trip up to their suite in silence. Dick couldn't get the images of the ball hitting Mac out of his memory bank. It was footage he wished he could just delete.

The door to their suite was already opened when they spilled out onto the top floor of the hotel.

"Turn back around Thing One and Thing Two." Veronica commanded from the doorway. She shut the door with a resounding thud and in a few quick strides was beside them waiting for the elevator once again. Since it had just let them off, it was a quick process.

"You could have taken my truck," Dick said as they rode back down to the lobby.

"I make it a point to not darken your doorstep. Besides, I'd have no idea where to look for your keys in that wasteland."

"I thought you'd never been in my room."

"I haven't, I don't want to pick up any diseases."

"How long did Wallace say it would take for Mac to wake up?" Logan interrupted the sparring between two of his favorite people.

"It varies blah blah blah and a yada yada," Veronica said. "That's a direct quote, I do believe."

"Will she remember anything?"

"Guys, how the hell would I know?"

"I thought the doctors might have said something."

"Maybe to Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, but Wallace is getting everything third run. Ryan, I gather, isn't the best source of medical knowledge." Veronica explained. "Why the hell did it take you guys so long to call me back? We could have been there by now. You two idiots are the frakking two stooges, I swear."

"It's three, Ronnie."

"I know that, jackass."

"Veronica, stop it," Logan refereed. "Just call a ceasefire you guys, we'll get there soon. We all are on the same side here." He looked sideways at Dick as he said that.

They once again piled into Logan's yellow Xterra, Dick sitting in the back that time. He didn't pay any heed to the murmured conversation up front. Logie was probably getting verbally tased for defending him. Whatever. Instead, his mind was several miles away in room 305 of the ICU waiting for his body to physically catch up.

Pushing the speed limits once again, Logan made the fifteen minute trip in ten.

Sending the happy couple up ahead, Dick stopped at the gift shop off the gleaming lobby. He was in there less than two minutes when a big stuffed bear with white gauze wrapped around its head caught his eye. It was dressed in a white tee shirt saying 'I'm Beary Sorry You're Sick. Get Well Soon!'

He bought that and a red sharpie marker, and then headed back to his new home, the blue walls of the 3rd floor ICU waiting area. Purgatory.

Veronica was cutting off Logan's circulation and Wallace was animatedly talking to Ryan when he walked in. A glance over to the far side of the rectangular room revealed the Macs in deep conference with who he assumed was her team of doctors, and Lauren Sinclair. He did a double take before remembering she was a volunteer there for some non-profit or something. He still didn't have the full scoop and wasn't sure there was much scoop there anyway.

Dick snapped a few more pics with his cell to show Mac when she woke up. It started to hit him that it was a matter of when now, and not an if.

Putting the phone away, Dick sat down in the chair that carried his butt indentation and wrote a quick note to Mac on the bear's shirt.

"Incoming!" He shouted when he was done, throwing Wallace the bear.

The get well present was still making the rounds when Mrs. Mac broke away from the huddle and came over to "Cindy's" friends. With a smile on her face, she explained that while it was a long process, they were going to ease up on the barbiturates. She reiterated what Veronica had said about there being no firm timeline, taking anywhere from hours to up to a day. After that task was done, she briefly hugged everyone and made her way back to her daughter's bed.

*****Four hours later, ICU waiting room*****

Dick watched the wall clock hit one o'clock, and there was still no response in Mac.

Mr. and Mrs. Mac took turns giving hourly updates on her progress, which sadly was nothing more than 'no change.'

"Can I go see her, please?" Dick asked after the second update. He didn't succeed in keeping his pleading tone at bay.

"Me, too," Veronica added from her perch across the room.

Copycat.

Mr. Mac, a soft touch, quickly agreed and escorted them both into the bowels of the ICU.

Veronica got the first visit, keeping it short and sweet. Dick watched from the window, saying a silent Prayer, to a God he wasn't always sure he actually believed in, that the girl in there on that bed would return to them the same wicked smart, feisty but kind girl they all loved. He tightened his grip on the bear.

"Tag, you're it," Veronica said softly in his ear. She lightly brushed his bruised shoulder, but he contained his grimace.

"Thanks." He gave her a brief side hug, and then dropped his arm quickly.

The machines were still beeping, and the IV bag dripping. She didn't look different but he studied her carefully for any sign of movement, any sign that her journey back was underway.

"Come back to me Sleeping Beauty. There's a whole lobby full of fans that need you. Fight through the pain. You can do it. You survived a lot in your short time here; you can win this battle too. I believe in you." Dick lightly brushed her non-IV pierced hand, and then placed another soft kiss on her cheek.

He placed the bear on the bedside table to watch over her, before heading back to the waiting room.

Dick felt lighter than he had in the entire seven days of their vigil.

Mac was finally coming home.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Since it occurred to me that it's been a LONG time since I updated this story (sorry, thank you for your patience), first is a brief recap of the story before this long overdue chapter begins.

Recap: After getting hit in the head with a baseball, Mac wakes up back in 2004 but this time, instead of being a Mackenzie, she finds herself living life as Madison Sinclair, as though she'd never been switched at birth at all. She tries to balance her new life as a '09'er with her own intrinsic Mac -ness . Slowly, but deftly, Dick Casablancas charms his way into her life. She becomes friends with Veronica in this dimension, too, merging the '02'ers and '09'ers. Things with Dick aren't all sunshine and roses though, she told him about Cassidy (using her unique lens into the "future" to try to save her classmates), he's understandably shocked by the truth about his screwed up little brother.

At the same time Mac is in 2004/2005 sampling life as Madison, she is also tethered to the present timeline of 2009 as Cindy Mackenzie, in a medically induced coma. All her friends and family gather in the waiting room as a week drags by, living in their own purgatory hell clinging to the tentative hope that they will get some positive news soon. Logan and Veronica try (not very successfully) to fight the ever-present attraction between them and Dick gets a bit jealous and he's not fully-ready to admit to himself how much he needs Mac in his life despite their unlabeled "pseudo" friendship.

Back in the 2005 dimension, an explosion rocks Neptune High and Mac is caught in that nether world between her past and her 'real life,' at the same time her team of doctors in the present time are weaning the medication to lift her out of the coma.

Purgatory—Chapter 21

How long she'd been out Mac didn't know. It could have been a minute or an hour, or anywhere in between.

She felt like a soul minus a body; lighter than she'd ever felt before. Nothing weighing her down, however, nothing seemed to tether her to life either.

She was in a game tug of war…

Then, suddenly, Mac seemed to be dropped into chaos… Sound was the first thing to permeate the thick gray nothingness surrounding her like a shroud. She heard the heavy thud of falling drywall, a backdrop against the wails and moans that formed the soundtrack of pain from other felled classmates.

Like static on an old radio, the voices drifted in and out.

Names were being shrieked in terror and she thought she heard her borrowed name among the splintered list.

Madison, come on damnit, don't leave me now…

Most names were met with eerie silence as the macabre attendance taking continued underlying the pandemonium.

Acrid smoke was filling her lungs, she tried to cough it out but no sound came out.

The smoke alarm was ringing, incessantly buzzing before echoing in her ears.

Distant buzzing of what she assumed were chainsaws reached her consciousness. At least someone was apparently aware something was amiss at Neptune High. Mac reached down inside her memories trying to suss out what was happening around her, but everything was hazy.

She was drowning in the gray misty nightmare of smoke and fear, which had become a living entity. It was hellishly hot; she didn't have to see to know there were flames licking the walls, trying to edge out deeper into what was once her safe place.

Mac felt something wet splash on her hand, tears raining down, she assumed. She moved her head slightly towards the source. It was a mistake she paid for in dividends. Pain broke through the invisible barrier that had been walling it in.

Another moan leaked through, this time she realized it was her own, merging with the symphony of surrounding whimpers, near her and across the crumbling remains of the hallway she'd known well in this dimension and the original one, too.

She heard the rise and fall of a voice in her ear. The words assimilated, blurring together—working in tandem with the pressure of something being pressed firmly, hard, against what Mac took to be the ground zero of pain.

Nausea waved up, trying to break though the barrier. She blinked—hard—several times in a row to clear out the fog.

That plan was unsuccessful, as the hazy smoke continued to envelope her—death's hug. That was how it felt to her in that brief atom of time, tendrils of pain curled up into and through her body. Her vision started going gray around the edges, the song of misery from other victims, the cacophonic chorus of chain saws and emergency alarms all merged together until the inky blackness swallowed her whole.

The game of tug of war continued…She once again felt that lighter than air sensation. She was a specter hovering over her physical body, then with a jerk she came in for another rough landing.

Mac once again was like a newborn baby leaving the womb—a safe haven—dropping into a different, this time cold, new existence.

She couldn't move, couldn't even open her eyes, it was as though they'd been weighted shut.

Sound trickled in, another channel trying to come through the static. Rhythmic, staccato beeps filtered through the darkness. It would've have been oddly soothing—a white noise effect—had she not been terrified by the paralysis.

Voices, far off and grainy though they were, sifted in and metastasized through her, she recognized the tone, the timbre more than the words themselves.

"…Fight, hon. You can do it…You're my girl, you always have been…I need you to stay with us, hon…"

The smell of Lavender seeped through her consciousness but it followed on the heels of smoke, as though the haze followed her into this dimension.

A deeper voice, a masculine one, followed. It was broken down, lots of stops and starts; typical for his methodical way of expressing himself, but it was what was in those pauses that was affecting her most. She was a daddy's girl, always and forever. His pain was bleeding through.

"… I love you, my precious girl…."

The door shut, she heard the lock click from her prison—her body. The beeping of the machines keeping her alive filled the empty space, punctuated by the occasional scrape of something being moved, and muffled sobbing.

Time passed…ten minutes…twenty…an hour perhaps, Mac wasn't sure. The door opened again, she wanted to let her presence be known, but she still wasn't able to move.

"… .Where would I be without my Q?"

Bond, she tried to respond back, but of course no sound came out. She tried to follow the rest of the rise and fall of her best friend's plaintive pleas for her to come back. The tone was soothing, white noise for the soul.

"… Dick is waiting outside…Impatient…Don't know why….cares…just a surfer dude, but…"

Suddenly, Mac felt something on her hand, a slight pressure, nothing more than that, but it was like another sensation was breaking through the surface.

Before she could puzzle that out, another voice penetrated her darkness.

"… Come back to me Sleeping Beauty…lobby full of fans…Fight through…You survived a lot…I believe in you."

The pressure made a return visit, this time on her cheek.

The minutes, maybe even hours, ticked by. Doctors and nurses continued to populate her room, an endless parade of voices, spouting theories, recommendations and platitudes in equal measure. Mac regaled them to the background, honing instead in on the steady beeping as it tethered her to this reality.

In the ebb of time, sensation started to return in stronger waves—forceful, kinetic.

Light started seeping into the tunnel, beginning slowly, one pinprick at a time until shadows started appearing as Mac opened her eyes, in that moment she felt as though she were a newborn re-entering the world.

The added sensations came at a steep price.

Whereas the return of other sensations—sound, touch, sight—came slowly, doled out to her piecemeal, the sensation of pain rushed at her at once, pushing everything back out in the process. Pain had become her 6th sense, earning a zip code of its own.

As though the air mass shifted, she knew the exact millisecond her mom, the only mom that mattered, knew she was coming back.

"Cindy." Her name, though said as a gasp, was an entire paragraph in just one tiny word. Hope, love, pure joy clung to it, trying to mask the desperation and fear that hitchhiked along for the ride.

Mac slowly turned her head in the direction of her mom's voice, her eyes clinched shut as the pain ticked higher on the barometer. An explosion of red broke through, willowing out like fireworks, exploding through her body, settling in her toes. The beeping of the machine went from separate bursts of sound into one loud, continuous whine. Mac tried to moan from the violence of sensation, but the sound that escaped was rusty, more of a croak. Then before she could react anymore the darkness once more swallowed her whole.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 22—A Zig with a Zag

***June 13, 2009. ICU Waiting Room Neptune Memorial***

Dick's POV

Dick didn't believe in crystal balls, or foretelling the future, or any of that New Age shit. Step-mommy dearest number three—the one that came before Kendall (AKA trophy # 4)—had tried to sell him on clairvoyance and astral projection and other tenets of the whoo-whoo sciences. He wasn't buying though. However, he went from elation at the prospect that Mac would be returning to them—him—to fear in 3.2 milliseconds, and he couldn't adequately explain why.

There had been a 'code blue' called over the loud speaker five minutes earlier, and while no clue had been given as to who the unlucky recipient of that setback was, he knew, just knew, it was Mac.

Fear was the icy hand that ripped into his heart and squeezed until it was a soupy mass flowing through his veins. He shredded the cardboard hand protector from his empty cup of coffee. The cardboard was an easy victim.

Dick's feeling of doom was affirmed when two of the members of the doc-squad pushed through the double doors that led to purgatory and sought out Mr. Mac and Ryan. Natalie was right on their heels, her despair tangible.

His glance slid to the clock across the room. It was 2:27 p.m. He pulled his gaze right back to Mrs. Mac and her entourage.

The words Coding…blood clot…OR reached him, vying with snatches of Ronnie's undisguised elation at the prospect of Mac's return.

Her own crystal ball must have been in the shop.

The memo arrived shortly after though, as Sam's voice crept up louder and louder in accordance to his mounting fear. Underscoring perfectly how the same circumstance affected everyone differently, Dick observed that the exact opposite had happened with Mrs. Mac. She'd gone mute, and she had her husband's hand in a death grip.

Dick didn't bother hiding the fact he was spying on them. He gathered up the now-confetti'ed remains of the cardboard and deposited them into the coffee cup, taking it with him as he changed chairs to get closer to the conference. As he listened to all the medical jargon he didn't fully comprehend, he absently shook the cup, just to have something to occupy his hands.

Veronica—now fully clued in that something was wrong—joined him in the intel-gathering mission. She sank her talons into his sore arm, a causality of his earlier surf spill, but he didn't really pay any heed. Logan sat down next to Veronica and she switched her focus to white-knuckle gripping lover-boy's hand instead.

Dick looked around for Wallace before remembering that he'd gone out to get a couple pizzas from Cho's to fuel the vigil they had been keeping in the waiting room. Nobody had wanted to leave the waiting area to go down to the café for lunch, so they'd elected Wallace as their go-for instead. Dick figured the dude would be back anytime now, but he briefly wondered if someone should text Wallace to let him know there'd been a setback with Mackie. He dismissed that thought quickly though; that news was better delivered—and received—face to face.

Setback?!

What a douchey word that was. He categorized that as stuffy businessman lingo. His dad used to toss it around when a mark would get suspicious about a prospectus and start asking a lot of questions. The Phoenix deal was just a setback, getting sent to the slammer was just another setback, having two sons—one of which was a "sissy" (direct quote)—and a zillion gold-digging wives were just setbacks in a life full of fucking setbacks.

This was way more than just a setback. Whatever it was that had set her doctors and parents in full panic mode. This was a setback of the life-and-death variety. More important, it was Mackie's life or death. Proof positive, to his way of thinking, that the idea of karma was nothing more than a lie- something made up to keep kids towing the line. If there was a grain of truth to that philosophy, he'd be the one with the clot, and Mac would be busy stealing government secrets or some other hacker shit like that. Or, maybe, in an alternate universe, she'd be sitting in the worn down chair shredding the cardboard liner, trying to act like she wasn't worried about his worthless, pathetic little life.

Leaning forward to place the battered cup on the coffee table in front of him, he then rubbed his sweaty palms over his khaki shorts. Waiting was getting harder and harder as time went on, which he thought was pretty fucking ironic considering he'd always been told practice made perfect.

He'd certainly been getting a lot of practice in the art of waiting the past seven days, but he still was far from perfecting it. It really wasn't something he wanted to perfect, truth be told.

Dick watched as the doc-squad turned back around, exiting the waiting room in tandem. Mrs. Mac just swayed back, collapsing into the chair that fortunately was right behind her. She shook off the arm Mr. Mac placed around her shoulders. She continued her breakdown with abandon. It was seven days in the making. He felt like joining her, but held back…barely.

Veronica ignored the not-at-all subtle stay away signals Mrs. Mac was sending, and risked life and limb to lend some comfort, and , Dick suspected, take some comfort from her, as well.

That was the scene Wallace walked into.

He set the pizzas onto one of the end tables with a flourish, and then noticed that the elation everyone had been feeling when he'd left to pick up lunch was gone. The dude had even less of a poker face than Mackie. Dick watched him try on several expressions ranging from happiness, to confusion, before finally landing on wide-eyed fear.

The smell of the pizzas leaked from their cardboard boxes and drifted over to where Dick was still rooted. He tried not to gag at the cloying odor. It was funny. Forty minutes ago, when that errand was first conceived of, his stomach was rumbly with hunger. Now though, dread sat firm, leaving little real estate for anything else.

The boxes sat untouched. Everyone else had apparently lost their appetite, too. It seemed wrong somehow, giving into a base need like hunger as Mac once again lay on a table, fighting for her very survival.

Dick watched as Mr. Mac severed himself from his wife's side and walked over to them, moving slowly like every movement he made physically hurt. The older man stuttered to a stop in front of him and Ronnie, taking a deep breath. Mr. Mac then haltingly explained what was going on, using much the same lingo Dick had caught a snatch here or there of not three minutes before when the doc-squad was explaining how dire the situation really was.

Wallace joined in the conversation, asking questions, clarifying points, showing his roots as a good student-engineer type, IE the kind that always wore that invisible inked kick me sign, or staying true to the dude's illustrious first day at Neptune High, tape me to a flagpole sign. Under normal circumstances, whatever the hell those were, Dick's default reaction would have been to lean over and whisper 'ass kiss', but sitting in this purgatory he was finding himself appreciating that particular skill set.

Wallace's medical jargon-to-Geek translations were helping fill in some gaps as to what was happening in the OR now. Unfortunately, it was the exact opposite of comforting, but maybe that wasn't an entirely bad thing. False hope was the biggest mindfuck of all. He'd lost track of how many times life had taught him that. 503 was a conservative estimate.

What if he lost Mac before he could ever tell her how she helped him through the guilt of being a shit brother to Cass more than anyone else combined just by being her snarky self?

She made him feel normal, like his simultaneous grief for, and hatred toward, Cass was okay. It wasn't even so much that they'd had those soul-searching conversations, just little confessions here and there snuck in between friendly teasing between two 'pseudo' friends.. She knew that zip code very well herself. He'd watched as she'd struggled more than she would ever admit between grieving for her first boyfriend, the one who had died, and hating the monster that hurt her friends and then killed himself rather than pay for his crimes.

The circumstances were different, of course, Cassidy was his brother, not a High School relationship. However, in the grand scheme of things, the underlying feelings he left behind in them both weren't different at all. They were in an exclusive club, and they couldn't afford to lose a member.

What if she was never the same again? What if she was…never again…He refused to even think about the word itself, nor the meaning behind it, which he knew way too fucking well.

What if the only kiss they ever shared was the peck he'd given her while she was in a coma, fighting between two worlds? He fought the urge to punch a hole in the wall of purgatory; he needed the physical pain to squash out the much more throbbing mental pain. Dick touched his bruised shoulder, hoping it would ground him.

Mr. Mac stopped mid-sentence on his third attempt to explain what else was likely happening in the OR as they prepped Mac. His engines shut down and he collapsed into the chair on the other side of his deflated, still-sobbing wife. Veronica reached over lover boy to briefly pat the older man's shoulder.

Dick was pretty sure the breakdowns were contagious. A person could only spend so much time in the Funhouse maze of emotion for so long—fear, dread, hope, despair, guilt, lather, rinse, repeat—before it all caught up and choked you. He was pretty sure he passed his point seven days ago.

He glanced up on the clock on the wall; it was 2:37.

It was only 2:37.

***************Operating Room #315 Neptune Memorial Hospital*********************

Mac's POV:

Once again Mac was straddling two worlds, two dimensions, two time lines, two lives. It was hot, and it was cold simultaneously—both channels of the old radio melded together in one cohesive mass.

She felt like she was enveloped in fog, a gray misty shroud surrounding her. She could hear sounds leaking through but couldn't see a thing.

Beeps from machines, far-off voices asking for clamps, retractors, forceps, and other scary sounding implements filtered in to her consciousness. She felt as though she were drowning—as though she were underwater as life continued on around her, without her.

The game of tug of war continued…

Her pain-filled moans didn't quite succeed in overtaking the cacophony of buzzing chainsaws leaking through Mac's consciousness. She tried to open her eyes but wasn't successful. Mac felt herself being lifted up. She heard a masculine voice giving her name as Madison. It was Dick, a voice she knew well, from this lifetime and her original life too.

Instinctively she knew she was straddling two dimensions, like that damn radio caught between two channels, with neither one coming in completely.

Forceps, a voice ordered, in a clipped tone.

Madison, stay and fight, don't leave me.

Ten CC's of epinephrine.

I need you here; I know you're in pain, but I…I need you. The voice was broken.

Fight damnit, fight! We're losing her doctor. She's flatling.

Madison? Madison?! Come on damnit! You're a fucking paramedic, can't you do…

She was nowhere at all.

She was everywhere all at once.

There was nothing guiding her, no divine voices, or even the grim reaper, but Mac knew she was at the crossroads; a choice had to be made…

She was coming home.

The only question that remained was which home?

****************3rd Floor Waiting Room, Neptune Memorial Hospital*********

Dick's POV

It didn't seem possible, but it was less than three minutes since the last time he looked over at the clock.

2:40.

A lifetime lived in those mere 180 seconds. He refused to allow airtime for the flipside of that statement. It was a concept he refused to make headspace for.

How the hell long did it take to jam open a vein and shove medicine in there to dissolve the fucking clot that was conspiring to take away the only truly good person ever spawned from the Hellmouth of Neptune?

Jam open a vein and shove in the medicine. It sounded so simple, the "life-saving procedure" the doc-squad was performing, but it was anything but. Dick was pretty certain he got a couple things wrong in translation, however, that was what it sounded like to his medical-jargon-virginal ears. Of course, his simpleton explanation also lacked the requisite pompous asshole diction. It was only the cliff noted version of what was happening to Mackie, but at least he had something to focus on as he sat on his useless butt, wearing down that stupid blue chair he was sick as hell of sitting in.

Veronica rose from her chair and made her way to the pizza buffet. She opened one of the boxes and grabbed one of the generous slices. She looked over in Dick's general direction, shrugged, and then explained she was "stress eating" before taking the first bite.

"I didn't say a word, Mars."

"You're thinking it."

"Thinking what?" Dick asked, feigning innocence, adding a hand gesture to really sell it.

"Thinking 'leave it to Veronica to be the first one to tuck into the food'," she explained in a deep voice supposedly trying—and failing—to sound like a dude.

"Last I checked, thinking isn't illegal, though talking in second person probably should be. Dick has always found that annoying."

"Touché!" Veronica acquiesced. "Also, I'm impressed that you know your point-of-views."

"It wasn't all nap time in Mrs. Murphy's English class."

Her expression belied her disbelief in that statement. Dick was discovering that sparring with Ronnie was a pretty good way to keep his mind from churning over the endless loop of nightmare scenarios; it was a more than adequate distraction.

It was important to have a hobby.

Veronica started a trend by being the first one to give into the temptation of stress-eating; Wallace was the next one to fill up his plate with the now-tepid pie. Dick watched but still wasn't up to partaking himself. The Macs didn't even look up from their displays of grief. He still couldn't figure how they kept it together for as long as they had. He'd made a royal fuckup of his life for several years after Cassidy died. He'd done some ugly crying on Logan's shoulder more than a few times. Never once did the dude revoke his Man Card. That right there met his definition of friendship.

A noise at the entryway of the waiting room—purgatory—fractured his attention away from his rumination on loss and grief. A nurse, or so he presumed, dressed in scrubs with a mask tied around her neck, was looking around.

"Family of Cindy Mackenzie?" she inquired in a loud, clear voice.

Veronica raised her hand as if she were in class. The Macs hadn't surfaced from their tears enough to notice life going on around them.

As the nurse threaded her way through the maze of chairs and tables, Dick studied her for a hint about the news she carried. He couldn't get a read on her either way; it was probably taught on day three of Nursing 101-how not to broadcast how you were feeling on your face. Mackie would flunk that course. Shit, he probably would too.

Ryan had evidently noticed something was happening, because out of the corner of his periphery, Dick watched him clue his parents into the fact that there was finally news on his sister.

The Macs stood up, in tandem, as though they'd practiced that parlor trick, and the rest of Team Mac followed suit. Dick listened, but kept his eyes focused on the nurse-and no one else. He couldn't bear to see anyone else's pain, his was too all consuming.

The nurse smiled tentatively, but it didn't reach her eyes.

Was that a bad sign? It was, wasn't it? She was going to say she was sorry but there was nothing they could do. Dick worked a spot on the carpet with his shoe like he was digging for gold. As if he concentrated hard enough on wearing out that section of carpet, he could put off hearing bad news. It was a five year-old mentality; he remembered clapping his hands over his ears so he couldn't hear the nanny tell him 'no more brownies.' After all, it didn't count if you didn't hear it.

The nurse licked her lips and then cleared her throat.

Ronnie grabbed his hand, clawing deep. Dick had to look down for a second to check for blood. He noticed the other talon was sinking into Logan. The dude was probably losing circulation.

Dick tore his gaze from the lovers and his eyes briefly landed on the clock.

It was 2:47 p.m. They'd lived hours in the span of only twenty minutes

"She's stable now, but…"

He looked up at the nurse but didn't hear anything beyond the fact that Mac was alive. He watched her lips move, but nothing made any sense. Truthfully, it didn't need to.

Mac was coming home!

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 23—Closer to Fine

Three days later-June 16 th , 2009

Mac leaned her injured head back against the standard issue white pillow on her bed at Neptune Memorial Hospital, scene of the original crime that monumentally affected her life, the infamous Sinclair-Mackenzie babyswitch.

Now, fast forward twenty years later, it was her home again for who-the-hell-knows how long. She sighed, and then shut her eyes against the wave of pain.

"What's wrong?" Natalie inquired sharply. She was up and at Mac's bedside in a quarter of a second.

Impressive how fast she can move, and yet oh so annoying, though Mac felt bad about even thinking that. Her mom had taken to camping out in the ugly green polyester upholstered bedside chair. They should probably bronze it and christen it the Natalie Franklin Mackenzie chair.

"I'm fine," she reassured her mom, "fine-ish," she then clarified. No, she was far, far from fine, or even fine-ish, but compared to the last several days was definitely getting closer to fine. Whatever. She wasn't about to complain. She was lucky to even be there, and be able to complain to begin with. Hell, though, even just moving her eyeball made her still very much recovering head (and brain) hurt.

She felt like she got hit…by a baseball.

Which, apparently, was exactly what happened to her a week and three days ago, but who was counting?! Not, of course, that she remembered anything about the event that put her back in the one place she promised herself she'd never, ever set a toe in again.

Promises made, promises broken, thrown off course by errant baseballs.

Her head was throbbing; the most-minute movement would send a stab of intense pain. Her leg, where the clot originated was still very achy, the cut they made to insert the clot-dissolving meds into her vein was stinging. It was propped up on a pillow, and she kept having to shift to find a more comfortable (read: less uncomfy) position for it, which of course made her head hurt again. It was a vicious cycle…In short, everything hurt. The body was a truly complex machine, one that was under-appreciated until something went wrong.

Terribly, terribly wrong.

Okay, maybe she was complaining a little bit. She'd earned that right, and pain was a very good reason to complain.

She wouldn't be running any marathons for the foreseeable future that was for sure. That whole thought was laughable because she hadn't been a runner pre-accident either.

Maybe it could be her recovery goal.

Recovery goal, that was a pipe dream, she was barely able to keep her eyes open for more than a two hour stretch at a time and already they were talking about making goals.

It was ironic really, she'd been in a deep sleep for a week, yet even after she woke up she longed to keep on sleeping. It was restorative, recuperative, and a whole gaggle of other –tives, according to the team of medical type people who were always waking her up for various forms of medieval torture. That was also irony redefined.

Natalie didn't respond to her insistence that she was fine-ish, instead she reached a hand around her daughter to click the button on the pain pump remote.

"Mom," Mac began, but that's as far as she got because, truthfully, the immediate response of the drugs coursing through her battered body felt too good. She tried not to use it much, which was pretty messed up in the grand scheme of things, but the pain was grounding…It reminded her she was alive. She wasn't a masochist by any means, she didn't let the remote lie there idle, and she did use it, but not nearly as much as her 'team' had been urging her to do.

There was that word 'team' again, she was hearing it a lot these days—she had a team of doctors, nurses and other assorted medical people, and a team of well-wishers, cheerleaders that had nicknamed themselves 'Team Mac.'

The faint odor of smoke clung to her mom's faded gray cardigan and skinny jeans, which pulled her briefly back to Neptune High in flames, the alarm blaring, her name—but not her name—being moaned plaintively.

It was…jarring.

She closed her eyes to block out that memory and then opened them quickly, focusing on the blank gray screen of the TV in the corner. The flashes were assaulting at odd, random times and in the moment she wasn't sure what station of her mind they were coming from, what time period she'd landed in.

Was it a memory, or was it a dream?

Or, perhaps, this was a dream.

No, even with the painkillers, she hurt too badly for this to be anything but reality.

Maybe the drugs were messing with her. She'd found herself starting to mention to her mom the strange experiences from the past few months, or week, or whatever the hell chunk of time that had passed, but she'd then stop herself before she'd revealed any details.

Mental images of straitjackets bought her silence.

In his short, sporadic visits, Ryan had recapped a lot of what had happened in the waiting room as she was living life as Madison Sinclair. Apparently, cracking under the pain of having a seriously injured daughter, her mom had taken up smoking again, their dad was not happy about that, either. Something was going on with Logan and Veronica, though Ryan didn't know what, nor did he care all that much. And Dick was documenting everything happening in the waiting room on his phone.

That was the strangest revelation of all, in Mac's opinion; beyond the fact her brother was that observant.

"…now that you're out of the ICU, your friends can stay and visit longer," Natalie was saying.

Mac willed herself to pick up and follow her mom's conversational thread. She caught herself drifting in and out of conversations these days, and she was always falling asleep at odd times. She had to be the world's worst company these days.

"Veronica will be by soon to stay with you for a few hours while I run home to get a few chores done," Natalie continued.

"I don't need a babysitter," Mac started to say.

"A babysitter? I didn't know I was here in an official capacity, I thought I was just coming by to gift you with my scintillating company. Is this a paid gig? I should bring my A game, I guess," Veronica teased as she walked through the open door of Mac's room.

"You have an A game?"

"I have nothing but an A game," Veronica volleyed back. "Room 525, nice digs, I must say. A private suite, that's a definite upgrade from your prior accommodations here at Hotel Neptune Memorial. Your parents must have good insurance."

Veronica's comment was casual, but Mac was puzzled by the expression that flitted over her mom's face. It was quick, but she looked annoyed. She figured it must have been worry over paying all the bills that were piling up. After all, almost dying was an expensive affair. Her mom then quickly seemed to snap out of whatever bothered her in that sentence. Maybe she imagined it? Probably! Her synapses weren't firing as quickly these days.

"Well, ladies, I'm going to get out of here. We'll just put this babysitting gig on your tab, Veronica, hon. Love you, Cin. Don't party too hard, ladies, sleeping beauty needs her rest. I'll be back in a few hours." Natalie paused briefly at the door to blow a kiss at her daughter, and then waved at them both, before exiting the room.

"Party! Real funny, mom! I'll try to resist the urge to tap a, mmm, um, beer thingy," Mac rejoined, though her mom was probably out of earshot by then anyway.

"Keg," Veronica supplied, but not without making a face, probably at the mention of beer.

"Yeah, what you said," Mac amended, softly, looking down at the sheet covering her as though it were the most fascinating thing in the room. She averted her head hoping Vee would miss the sudden tears populating her eyes.

She was losing her vocabulary, and most of the time they were simple words, things that came naturally pre-accident. The list of things she'd lost in just a course of a week and a half was ever growing.

The hope that Vee would miss her grief died a quick death as her PI-in-the-DNA best friend crossed over to her bedside, and very gently lifted her chin, well aware that it was part of the ground zero of pain.

"Listen to me; this is going to be a process. Don't you dare be too hard on yourself!"

Mac didn't miss the ferocity in Veronica's voice.

"I lost a big chunk of time. Things that used to come easy take so much longer now. I hurt so badly, all the time," she didn't even hold back the whine that slipped through. "It's not fair."

"Nope," Veronica agreed, "it's not. That's not a new concept for you though. We work for what we have, it's always been that way, always will be, your recovery isn't an exception. What did the doctor say?" She sat on the foot of the hospital bed, down beyond the bar designed to keep the patient from falling out.

"Which one?" Mac asked, since she had a cadre of doctors these days.

"Any of them, or all of them," Veronica clarified. "Pick one."

"My coordination seems to have been affected, more than the language centers, but things may be fuzzy—I may have trouble thinking of the right words, at first, at least. I will probably have holes in what I know, I'll probably never remember the accident itself, and then yeah, I think I fell asleep during the rest of that speech."

"Well, the silvery lining here is you probably forgot more vocabulary words than Dick will ever know," Veronica snarked, with a teasing gleam in her eyes.

It was mean, but Mac couldn't help the shocked bark of laughter that leaked through.

"What? It's true," Veronica defended in response to the look of censure Mac shot her after she'd stopped laughing, of course.

"It's not, actually."

"So, you and Dick really are friends." It was a statement, not a question. "I'd thought, well, I didn't think too much about it actually, I had other things on my mind," Veronica said, her voice growing soft at the end.

"Logan," Mac helpfully supplied.

"You, mostly," Veronica corrected.

"And Logan."

Veronica didn't respond in words to that, but she didn't need to, Mac read the answer clearly.

"Ryan told me some tales from the Neptune Memorial ICU waiting room; you starred in a lot of them. I understand Dick has, has, ah…" Mac began, answering Veronica's unasked question. Then she broke off, annoyed with herself as the thought train sharply derailed.

"Yes, Dick snapped a couple pictures on his cell. Ryan drools in his sleep, by the way."

"Yeah, I know," Mac said over a yawn.

They talked a little more before Veronica's voice faded off into the background as Mac drifted off to sleep again.

Sleep, eat, sleep, talk, sleep—lather, rinse, repeat. That was, in a nutshell, her daily routine post-coma.

An hour later, or maybe longer, Mac wasn't certain, she woke up. Veronica had shifted back to the bedside chair which was undoubtedly beginning to be molded to her mom's butt imprint. She was reading a back issue of Wired Ryan had purloined from the ICU waiting room.

She licked her dry lips. "I'm the worst company ever, these days." Mac croaked out.

"Nah," Veronica argued. "I just finished spending hours at a time, day after day with Dick. A house plant would be better company. Are you hungry?" she asked, changing the subject. "One of the patient assistants, I guess Candy Striper is not the preferred nomenclature anymore, brought your tray by about 10 minutes ago." Veronica tossed the magazine aside. Before Mac could reply, she removed the lid off the plastic tray of food with a flourish. "Voila, vegan fare by zee finest chef at de Neptune Memorial bistro. Bon Appétit."

"Don't quit your day job," Mac snarked. She was about to say she wasn't hungry though, when the rumbling of her stomach disagreed. Reluctantly, she dipped her fork into the wild mushroom risotto with soy cheese, and took a bite. She didn't like being the only one in the room eating, but Veronica declined the pro-offered bite. For hospital food, and an institutional attempt at veganism no less, it wasn't bad. It wasn't good, per se, but it was more than just edible.

"Logan's picking me up here around 4 p.m., we're going to Mama Leones."

Mac was still chewing, so her only response was a raised brow.

"Did you know Luigi's closed?" Veronica continued her running commentary.

"Yes, last year," Mac confirmed when she was able to talk again. "I didn't mention that, in an email or something?"

"I don't think so. I'm sure I'd have remembered monumental news like that," Veronica said shaking her head. She paused, and then quietly added "there's room to think of other stuff now, now that you're…" it was Veronica's turn to break off mid-thought.

"Back from coma-land," Mac said, giving a name to the big old elephant sitting in the middle of the room. She took another bite of the risotto, when she had swallowed, she added, "other stuff like going out with Logan."

"Yup," Veronica affirmed. She hesitated, before softly asking, "Mac, do you, I mean, yeah, do you remember anything from when you were…uh…sleeping?" Veronica looked down at her hands as she asked that question.

She'd tried to adopt a casual tone, but Mac could tell it wasn't idle conversation.

"Not really," Mac said. She'd just been gifted with the perfect opening to share her time spent as a Sinclair, and truthfully, there was no better person to do it with. Vee knew the whole sordid story of her being raised by the wrong—right!—family, she wouldn't have to do any glossing over of details, but she didn't think she was ready to do any revealing. The moment just didn't feel right.

"Oh, yes, that makes sense. It was a stupid question, I guess. Of course you wouldn't remember. It's just I was sitting there day after day, praying you'd wake up, and while we were in our own hell, waiting for anything," Veronica said, before pausing. Mac thought she was packing a lot of meaning into that little word. "Waiting for something," she amended, "all I could think about was what you were up to, what you were experiencing, and what kind of hell you were in." It was Vee's turn to be near tears.

Mac felt bad, not telling her had the patina of lying, but again her energy reserves weren't stocked enough yet to talk about her experiences during her 'long nap'. It was a chat better suited to wine than the steady beeps of the monitor she still wore.

"Are you done eating?" Veronica asked, changing topics again, covertly wiping away the renegade tear that leaked through with one hand, while gesturing to Mac's half-eaten food with the other.

"I'm full." It didn't take much these days. Unfortunately, Mac was certain that wouldn't be a long lasting side-effect. She turned her head slightly to track Veronica's movements as she started putting the lid back over the detritus of the meal, moaning as pain sliced through.

"What's wrong?" An edge of panic colored Veronica's words.

"Just your garden variety pain from a nasty bump in the brain, evidently it's time for another push of the pain pump," Mac assured her friend as she pulled on the cable tethering the remote. "Or three," she amended, pushing the button.

"It looks like a detonator," Veronica remarked.

"I like the explosion of relief it releases," Mac admitted.

The conversation drifted off for a couple minutes, presumably to give Mac time for the meds to take full effect. She tracked Veronica's quest to tidy up the small room, just moving her eyes this time.

After things were completed to Veronica's exacting standards, she sat back down in the worn out green and wood arm chair. "Better?"

Mac figured she meant the pain level rather than the cleanliness of the room. Instead of answering she attempted to do the Vulcan Salute, but she couldn't get her ring finger and pinky to stick together and separate from her middle and index fingers. Pre-accident it had been a simple maneuver. She tried three more times, and got the same end result every time.

Before she could put together a formal pity party, though, there was a knock on the door. "Come in," she said, however, her voice was still a bit rusty from inactivity, so she wasn't able to make it rise as loud as necessary.

"Come in," Veronica echoed, but in a louder tone so the recipient could hear.

"Thanks," a teenager with long black hair said as she walked through the door. "I've come to take your tray." She was in navy scrubs and the nametag read "Lauren." The tag was unnecessary; Mac would've known Lauren Sinclair anywhere. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Nope, you're not. Mac just finished eating, and we're practicing our Vulcan signs," Veronica said brightly.

Mac could tell though that Vee recognized the patient assistant right away, it was in the look she flashed her, but not the tone of her voice.

"Live long and Prosper," Lauren said with a grin, executing a perfect Vulcan salute. "My dad is a huge Trekkie, so I suppose I am by default."

"Yeah, me too," Mac admitted, again her voice had that rusty tinge to it. "I've always like Sci-Fi, I had to sneak it in after NASCAR races though."

"Well, if you're done with your tray I'll take it out of here," Lauren said.

"I'm finished, thanks."

Lauren smiled and reached over to grab the tray that Veronica had already prepared for departure. "I'm really glad you're awake," she added, shyly.

"Me too," Mac replied, sure her confusion was showing.

"I've been assigned to this floor the past couple of days, but you've been sleeping each time I've come."

"I seem to be doing that a lot."

"As well you should, this recovery business is tough work, at least that what my cousin Tara says. She's a nurse here, in the ICU in fact."

"Oh, that explains it," Veronica said, nodding.

What it explained though Mac wasn't sure and before she had an opportunity to ask, Logan and Dick chose that precise moment to enter the room.

"Look who hitchhiked a ride with me?" Logan directed to Veronica, over his shoulder as he walked straight over to Mac's bed. "How are you feeling?" he bent down, giving her a quick hug, studiously avoiding the IV site.

"Alive, but definitely not kicking," she replied, dryly.

"Oh goody, Dick," Veronica said in a monotone.

"It's always nice to see you too, Ronnie. Hey Mac-a-doodle, you're a lot less wired than the last time I saw you." He quickly nudged Logan away from Mac, ready to take his turn to greet the patient.

Mac couldn't help smiling back at the grin he gave her, that only climbed bigger in proportion to the glare he received from her protector, Veronica.

"What Ronnie? It's a compliment!"

"Hi, Dick," Lauren said, shyly.

Dick paused mid-hug and looked over to where Lauren was poised over the tray. "Oh, hey Lauren, I thought I'd seen you roaming these halls, I almost didn't recognize you in the scrubs. You look official."

"I'm volunteering here for the summer. I admit though, when my parents said I get a job, I was picturing something with a paycheck, but my mom is on the board for the Caring Hearts charitable organization, and one of things we do is hire volunteer patient assistants."

"So, naturally you got the job."

"That's right, nepotism is alive and well here in Neptune."

"I think the mayor is voting that in as the new slogan," Logan interjected.

"What happened to Welcome to the Hellmouth?" Veronica inquired.

"Joss Whedon's law team threatened to sue?" Logan guessed at the same time Dick proposed, "No one can spell Hellmouth?"

"One l or two?"

"Well, I'll leave you guys now, I've got dirty dishes to scrub, and trash cans to empty. A payless paycheck to earn, all that fun stuff," Lauren explained.

"Bye, si, um…see you later," Mac backtracked. She felt a blush start to spread. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She was about to call Lauren 'sis', and the only theory she had was force of habit from her coma-dream, or the sandbox world she spent a week—or weeks—in.

"I'll be by with dinner around 5 p.m. See you then, Cindy."

"Mac," she corrected automatically.

"Mac, that's a cool name. I don't think I've ever met a girl Mac before."

"Thanks." Before she could stop herself, Mac found herself saying. "Actually, you and I did meet, a long time ago. I went to your, to Madison's school. In fact, I was at her sweet 16 party." The words just tumbled out, she blocked out the fact that there was an audience. Besides, in the scheme of things, it was idle conversation to everybody but herself and Veronica, the only other person reading from the same script she had.

"Oh, Madi's party. I remember that evening, or hearing about it, at least."

"You were there; I think we talked in the library."

Lauren laughed at that, though it seemed to Mac to have a slight edge to it. "I was exiled there, not allowed to talk with any of Madi's classmates; I might embarrass her, after all."

"You were reading the Westing Game, I think."

"I don't know how you remember that, talking to Madison's pipsqueak sister—that's a direct quote—about books. I still love the Westing Game; it's one of my favorites to this day. 'Smiling without good reason is demeaning.'"

"That's one of my favorite quotes," Mac said. "You have a good memory. The Westing Game is
one of my favorites, too."

In that moment it was just the two of them.

"You have a good memory, too."

"My memory's not so good now. I can't even remember why I'm here," Mac admitted with a frown.

"That's normal, and that's just your short term memory, your long term seems intact."

Before Mac could respond further, a beep sounded and Lauren looked down to the black box attached to the pocket of her scrub top. "Oh, that's me. See you later!"

"Bye."

By the time Mac had turned her attention back to her friends; Dick had found a place to sit on the foot of her bed. "You were at Madi's party? I didn't see you there."

"We didn't stay long," Veronica answered, giving her friend time to compose herself.

"We weren't there either, jackass," Logan corrected Dick. "You guys were broken up by then." He was casually leaning against the window sill. The view of downtown Neptune proper was spread out behind him, but was partially obstructed by the half-drawn institutional drab brown curtains. Too much light bothered Mac's eyes these days.

"No, correction there, asshole, you weren't there, I came by later."

"Why the hell?"

"To see if I could find out whom it was she was sleeping with while we were still together."

"Oh, Detective Dick on the case," Logan snarked.

"Who the hell cares at this point?" Veronica interrupted. "I mean really guys. And news flash, Dick, when did that skank ever not cheat you?"

He settled for the non-verbal route and just shrugged his shoulders—broad shoulders, Mac noted.

"Hey, Thing 2, and Thing 1, why don't you guys go down and get us all some coffee, make yourselves useful. And, if you feel like scrapping it out over that bitch, you'll do it away from Mac, who is still recovering, if either of you dumbasses recall."

"I think they're trying to get rid of us," Logan translated; he spread his arms out as if to say I can't imagine why, those silly girls.

"Ding…Ding…Ding. Good boy, you'll get a donut tonight. Make mine black, two sugars. Soy Chai Latte for you, Q?"

"That sounds perfect; I haven't had one of those in ages. I'm pretty sure they don't put those in IV's."

"Actually, it's just Ronnie trying to get rid of us," Dick corrected.

"I don't care what you guys do, or who goes, I'm just in it for the chai latte," Mac said. "Hey, I'm easily bought, what can I say. We all have our price."

"If that's Mac's only price, we're getting off pretty cheap, Veronica requires dinner and dessert," Logan confessed, leering when he said dessert.

"They're expert coffee bitches by now; they've been perfecting their skills the past week," Veronica explained to Mac.

"Coffee bitches?"

"Technical term."

"Dirty job, but someone had to do it," Logan interjected.

"Alright, we'll be back ladies, I can tell when I'm not wanted," Dick replied over his shoulder as he herded Logan out the door.

"Since when have you ever let that stop you?" Mac heard Logan asking, but Dick's reply was lost as they made their way down the fifth floor hallway towards the elevators.

"Okay, good, the two stooges—one of their newly earned nicknames—have left. You okay? Tell me the truth, and not a Facebook status update. "

"Peachy."

In Mac-speak, peachy was not a good thing, and she could tell Veronica was fluent enough to know that, but wise enough to let it go.

"Okay, sure. If you want to talk about this later, I'm here."

"Thanks friend. I'm okay, really."

Not wanting to push, Veronica steered the conversation towards her new life in Palo Alto, and her study buddies up there, her mentor 2.0 at Stanford, and of course the best place in town to get lasagna. That whole verbal tour of her new life was completed just as the two stooges got back with their drinks.

Dick handed Mac her chai latte first before once again resuming residence on the foot of her bed to work through his own Venti mocha. Logan nudged Veronica out of the bedside chair, stole her seat and then pulled her down onto his lap. Other than a token "oof," she didn't offer any protest.

That spoke volumes.

Mac smirked as Dick rolled his eyes, a default reaction obviously. She blew on her drink first, and then took a sip, letting the heat of the sweetened spiced tea wash the back of her throat and leaned back against the flat hospital-issued pillow, content with just listening to her friends.

Dick was on a first name basis with the barista at the coffee cart in the hospital lobby, a guy named Trent, who he described as an Adam Ant clone. He and Logan managed to make a routine trip to get four cups of coffee a humorous adventure. Veronica then added her own running commentary and reminders as to why the two Stooges was a fitting moniker.

Mac realized she had missed the camaraderie of the four of them hanging out, even though these days she was more outside looking in than an actual participant. She'd missed a lot of inside jokes that had popped up with the waiting room campout that they'd been doing during her long nap. Plus, the whole business of recovery had zapped her of energy. It was exhausting, in a word.

Veronica's recrimination of her being too hard on herself and expecting too much too soon echoed in her mind. She knew her friend was wise, but it was frustrating to think about the long recovery road ahead of her.

All that thinking hurt. Literally!

At first, when Veronica appeared to notice how quiet Mac had become, she started trying to steer the conversation in directions where everyone had equal input, but it didn't really serve to engage the patient as much as planned. Her reserves were fading fast, and it soon became apparent. The group chat soon meandered more towards a private talk between Logan and Veronica, with Dick, who was still perched on her bed, as the occasional conversational plus one.

When she was done with her chai latte, she watched as Dick leaned forward, just enough to take the empty cup and hand it to Veronica. He didn't seem to pay any heed to the dirty look she shot him as she was put on trash duty. She thought she heard Vee mutter softly I'm not your trash bitch, Dick.

As Mac slowly felt the pull of sleep, helped along by the drugs she was being fed a steady dose of, she felt something brush against her foot. She looked over at Dick, beneath hooded eyes. He was reminding Logan of something that happened recently, though she couldn't make sense of his words. It was the gentle caressing he was doing of the foot belonging to her non-injured leg that captured her focus completely. It was almost automatic, as though he wasn't even aware of where his hands were and the tender massage he was giving as he and Logan sparred. In that moment, Mac was very aware of everything Dick was doing. Right up until that moment that sleep dragged her back under.

When Mac once again returned to consciousness, around forty minutes later, though it could have been much longer than that, time didn't mean anything to her really, the room was quiet. A quick glance showed that no one was there. She vaguely remembered Vee mentioning some kind of plans with Logan, though the details escaped her. Dick had probably decided to third-wheel it on their date or something like that. She couldn't blame him, even that would be preferable than watching her sleep.

Just then she heard the flush of the toilet and her door opened. It happened all at once and she jumped a little, startled. Unfortunately, that little movement ramped up her pain level by a big margin. She sucked in a breath, and clinched her eyes shut.

"Oops! Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

She didn't reply, she was still riding that wave of pain with a slight undertow of nausea.

"Mac?" Concern bled into Dick's words.

She held up one finger, the universal 'hang on a minute' gesture.

Ignoring her sign language, Dick went on to offer to call a nurse, or hand her the pain pump. After dismissing the first suggestion, she accepted the second offer. He went on to make the same joke Veronica did about it looking like a detonator, though she opted not to recycle her same reply. She wasn't feeling very clever at the moment.

He once again resumed his usual perching spot on her bed, and also, to Mac's secret delight, continued gently stroking her good leg, too.

Once again the meds circulated quickly through her bloodstream, dulling the pain fortunately, but also dulling the sensation of Dick's soft touch, too.

She thought maybe she was using the pump more today than she had the previous two days but maybe that had something to do with the increased activity. It felt funny labeling visiting with friends as taxing movements though.

"You're looking better there, Mac-a-doodle."

"So are you," she retorted. It was a weak comeback but about the top of her ability at that snapshot of time.

"No, I'm being serious."

"So am I."

"I kicked the lovebirds out. I was afraid their kissy noises would wake you up," Dick explained, even though Mac hadn't asked.

He shifted over to the chair by the bed, presumably since her pain was lessened and didn't seem to require as much comforting in the moment.

Mac's expression broadcast that she didn't believe one letter, let alone word that he'd just uttered about Veronica's departure.

"No, Veronica was willing to choose you over lasagna, but you were sleeping so I said I'd take over her babysitting job," Dick acquiesced, and then added "you can transfer it to my tab."

"I think, maybe, even injured I'm the better choice for babysitter," Mac joked, weakly.

Dick's only retort was his trademarked smirk.

They let the quiet spread out for about a minute before Dick broke it. Sometimes Mac thought that was the outer reaches of his limit.

"I was there, you know," Dick said.

"There?"

"When…You know."

"I don't really know. That's the point; I don't remember anything from that day, Dick. Nothing. Just…nothing." Mac said, finally. Her voice went soft.

"I remember everything," Dick's voice grew soft as well, matching her tonality. "Everything," he echoed. He fisted his hands, and scowled as he seemed to go back in time. "I'm glad you don't remember, actually."

"Me, too," she agreed.

"I think the worst was wondering if you had time to be afraid of the ball flying right towards you." He paused, then amended, "or the second worst thing, at least."

"No, I don't think I did, or if so, I don't remember it at all," Mac reassured him, or maybe it was herself she was trying to reassure. "It doesn't count if you don't remember." That wasn't true, of course, and Mac's whole life was proof of that. She hadn't remembered being switched at birth, but it defined her whole life, and her coma life, too, apparently.

Dick scoffed at that. "Oh it counts alright." His gaze pointedly landed on Mac's bandaged head.

"Eh," Mac grunted the noise somewhere between agreement and disagreement without fully landing in either category. "So, what was the worst thing then?"

"Not knowing what you were going through, if you were in pain while in the coma."

This was the second time in just a span of a few hours that just begged for Mac to release what she'd been holding inside since she first opened her eyes three days ago.

What made her think Dick was the best sounding board she didn't have a clue, but still she found the words, sometimes broken, sometimes not, tumbling forth. She glossed over some important details like it was Madison Sinclair specifically she was cast as, and of course why that was significant, but still she gave him the souped-up cliff notes version of her time back in high school experiencing life as an '09'er.

For someone that couldn't remember the accident that put her in the coma to begin with, what happened during that span of time she was unconscious was certainly cemented.

She told him about their dates, including the double date with Logan and Veronica at Luigi's. She mentioned the party he threw for her despite her asking him not to. She gave a condensed version of Thanksgiving dinner, leaving out Cassidy's role, and mentioned the vacation to paradise during Christmas and the jelly fish sting. Mac ended the tale with the explosion and feeling trapped between two worlds.

"What the hell?" Dick finally asked, undoubtedly not fully processing what he'd just heard.

Mac assumed it was rhetorical but answered anyway. "Vivid coma dream? Wrinkle in time? How the hell would I know? Can you even be in two places at once?"

"I suppose you can. For example, someone can stand at the four corners." Dick hypothesized.

"Four corners?"

"It's this point where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico touch and it's like being four different places all at the same time. If you contort your body, that is."

"Oh," that did sound vaguely familiar. In fact, this whole conversation had a ring of familiarity. "So you think I was living two lives at once?"

"No."

"So, it was a coma dream."

Dick just shrugged. "I don't have any clue. I just know we're glad you chose this dimension, not bizzaro world."

"I know, it really was bizzaro world. I'm still not clear why you played such a big role in my life in that dimension, anyway." Mac presented it as an idle statement, but was puzzled by the quick flash of expression that hijacked Dick's face. He looked…hurt. "I mean we were never even that close in high school." Mac felt the need to explain, to soften the previous comment.

"True," Dick agreed, dismissively.

It got quiet and Mac was trying to think of something to say to change the subject but nothing was coming to her. Just then a sound at the door fractured her attention.

"Dinner," came the now unmistakable voice of Lauren Sinclair. "Hope you're hungry." She was carrying a standard issue plastic institutional tray with a plate covered by a silver dome lid. She placed it on the roller table with a flourish and pushed it towards the bed.

"Starving," Mac lied. "What's for dinner?" She had to force herself to eat these days.

"Rabbit food," Dick guessed, as he lifted the lid off.

"That's right," Lauren giggled, "the finest in rabbit food cuisine prepared just for you."

Mac figured it was some kind of tofu stir fry, it smelled pretty good at least.

"Well, Mac, I'll let you eat in peace, but I wanted to let you know that I was going through my locker here on my lunch break and found my old battered copy of The Westing Game. I thought I'd lost it, which doesn't really matter; it's on my Kindle now anyway," Lauren rambled a bit. "I was thinking maybe you wanted to borrow it. Um, not to read yourself, but I don't know, maybe your mom can read it to you? Or Dick, maybe. Only if you want," she sounded timid, shy, her words bunched together at the end. "I can drop it off tonight before I leave."

"Yeah, yes, I'd like that. That would be nice." Mac stammered, she could feel the heat rising, she knew she was blushing. "Thanks."

"No problem. Enjoy your meal, I'll be back soon." Lauren said, and then exited the room.

Mac watched her leave. She felt like crying, it was torture having short bursts of contact with someone that was still on such the periphery of her life, and it was even worse now that she was back in this dimension. She held back though, one confession today was already more than she could cope with.

"Aren't you hungry?" Dick was asking, pulling her attention back.

"Oh, sure," Mac muttered as she speared a big bite. "Do you want any?"

"No thanks," Dick said quickly.

"You're missing out," she replied, and then placed the forkful in her mouth. No, he really wasn't missing out, she decided as she chewed. It might have smelled good, but it tasted like cardboard.

As Mac slowly worked her way through the taste-free meal, Dick kept up the conversation, his tone light, though it felt forced. He took out his cell and started showing her the pictures he'd snapped in the lobby while she was taking her long nap.

She was laughing at the photo of Ryan sleeping on their dad's shoulder, his mouth open, when Lauren came back into the room.

Mac's gaze honed in on the book in Lauren's hand. The black cover was creased, the corner torn off. It had been well-loved, and read often through the years.

"Are you done with your tray, Mac?"

"Yes, thank you." Mac smiled softly. She loved the sound of Lauren's voice; there was a husky quality now that wasn't there before.

Lauren removed Mac's dirty dishes, and left the book on the table. It was another too brief encounter, and Mac once again felt a loss as this stranger who mattered so much to her left the room. She figured even Dick had to have sensed the ups and downs of her moods, but there were too many variables going on to explain it away.

Feeling drained, Mac leaned her head back against her pillow, her eyes shutting again. She expected Dick to start making excuses to leave, he'd stuck around far longer than she'd expected. It seemed like maybe her friends were afraid to leave her alone, and maybe with what she'd put them through that was a normal reaction.

"Want me to read you a bedtime story?" Dick was asking.

Mac fought to open her eyes, and looked over at the bedside chair; he was flopped down in it, one leg tucked under him, fiddling with the book in his hand.

"Yeah, please." With her post-coma blurry vision, she wasn't going to be reading to herself anytime soon, that was for sure.

"The Westing Game," Dick began. "Oh, there's an inscription. 'Mac, Live Long and Prosper. Get well soon. Love, Lauren.'"

Dick started reading the first chapter. "The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange."

Mac was certain she went pale, though being her default setting these days it probably wasn't noticeable. She was drowning in déjà vu.

As sleep reached its tentacles out to pull her under, Mac felt as though she were still trapped between her two worlds.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 24—The Neptune Disease

Flash forward a few months…September 22, 2009

Fall had come to Neptune, but it was really more of a calendar related distinction than weather driven.

School had been in session three weeks and Mac was slowly easing into it. Of course, slow was the best way to describe her post-coma life these days anyway. At least, in her mind, the recovery phase was crawling, but the doctors told a different tale.

Easy for them to say, they were using scans as evidence, her take was more empiric in nature.

Her body was a road map of bruises due to the newly-acquired habit of tripping over her feet and bumping into objects that she'd sworn weren't there a nanosecond before. Her biggest trump card, however, was the new pair of glasses she was sporting, yet another souvenir from the accident.

The doctors' were frustratingly vague on the period of time she'd have to wear those— a couple to several months—but they were specially fitted with prism lenses designed to combat the blurry and double vision common post-head injury.

She was making the best of her new fashion accessory though; the frames were a bright turquoise blue and could probably be seen all the way from Mars. They were doing their job, too, so that was another plus. They also allowed her to drive, which was a much needed form of independence. Evidently, seeing double of everything was a hindrance to safe driving. Who knew?! She could also read better with them, which of course helped her in her return to academia.

Mac removed her black backpack and eased herself down on the ground beneath a big sycamore tree that took residence in the middle of the Quad. She supposed it could be called her Hearst College thinking tree. That flash, of course, brought forth thoughts of Dick.

As she had slowly started getting better, her visits from Dick started tapering off in direct proportion.

It was…puzzling.

She couldn't figure out that shift, but she didn't have too much time to ponder it, with her days largely filled up with doctor appointments, Physical and Occupational therapies, and approximately 53,001 scans, conservative estimate. Now, fortunately, there was school to focus on, it gave her a much needed sense of normalcy.

Of course the word normal was all relative, she'd always had a tenuous relationship with that concept. It was the curse of being a Neptune native. Fortunately, the accident happened in summer so most of her classmates were unaware of how she spent the early days of vacation—in coma land. It wasn't something she felt necessary to lead with during all those summer catch up conversations.

Mac had just fished out her Econ textbook and was flipping to the third chapter when the ping of an incoming text fractured her attention. She reached into the backpack once more to retrieve her phone from the detritus littering the bag which was already accumulating handouts, syllabi and other classroom souvenirs.

As she was scrolling through the screens to access the text, the idle thought that perhaps it was Dick swam through her mind. She dismissed that possibility quickly, but didn't want to commit to labeling it wishful thinking.

She was utterly wrong in her guess. It was not Dick. She was shocked at the name on the screen but really she shouldn't have been. Her accident was the portal that ushered the Sinclair's into her life.

Ellen: Just thinking of you, and hoping you are doing okay.

As far as she could tell it was just Ellen that was swimming around her recovery, fishing for updates, she didn't think the junior Sinclairs were read into the situation yet. She hadn't got any death threats from Madison, so that evidence seemed to support her theory, she was certain that toxic bitch would've designed a reality that held Mac firmly responsible for everything that had happened that fateful December day in 1988, and maybe Global Warming, too.

It made sense, Ellen was the one that gave her life originally, and she'd have a vested interest in her health and well-being, too. It was stressing her mom out though. The anti-smoking campaign they'd waged in the Mackenzie house wasn't having much success.

It shouldn't have been that way though, the Sinclairs had "anonymously" paid all hospital-related bills through their Caring Hearts charity, but instead of lessening her mom's burden, it apparently tripled them. It wasn't intel she was privy to first hand, but with her hacker chops and whispered words trickling in from fights when everyone thought she was asleep, it wasn't hard to piece together.

Of course, in typical Natalie Franklin Mackenzie spirit she was outwardly peppy while covering her internal struggles. Everything's fine, hon, you just worry about getting better, was a familiar refrain in the Mackenzie household. Mac had finally reached the point where she quit asking what was wrong.

Ellen had known for years that Mac had figured out she was a bio Sinclair, so she wasn't violating any family secret by reaching out to her recovering 'other daughter.' That point had been driven home after she and Veronica had crashed the Madison Sweet 16 birthday party her original junior year at Neptune High, when she had dropped by the Sinclair casa the next day to pick up the purse she had 'accidentally on purpose' left the night before. Mac had taken one glance at Ellen and it was like looking into a mirror, a future-vision mirror maybe, but a mirror nonetheless. The subtext had filled the air during the five minute drop by. They both knew who the other one was, and they both knew the other one knew.

The next day, Mac was getting ready to leave for yet another biannual tortuous camping trip when she saw Ellen parked in a minivan down the block just watching her. Mac had kept that memory under lock and key, a private moment even Veronica never knew about.

She took a deep breath and responded to the text.

Me: I'm fine. Just enjoying a break between classes.

It felt disloyal to her mom even replying, but it felt worse to not answer.

The check in texts came in usually during school hours, or on weekend nights, like her bio mom was having an affair with her 'other' daughter, more proof that she hadn't sat Madison and Lauren down yet. It was probably inevitable though, and she honestly wasn't sure what to think about that. It would be wonderful to have a legit claim to Lauren, but there would be so much fallout and collateral damage left in its wake.

Mac looked down at the screen of her cell once more upon hearing the answering ping.

Ellen: Good. Take care, have a great day.

Me: Thanks. You, too.

Sneaking texts with the woman who birthed her, but didn't raise her, yes, she was definitely another victim of the Neptune Disease, and there wasn't a vaccine for that!

Mac put the phone back in her bag, and forced herself to switch gears back to the Econ book still on her lap. It was a hard shift though, but econ didn't give two shits about her sepia tinged life these days. They were studying monopolies vs. oligopolies, and she tried to concentrate on case studies. It was dry stuff and a slow go.

She'd probably only been reading for ten minutes when she felt the pressure building, and recognized the beginnings of a headache trying to break. She was intimately familiar with the signs these days.

Mac set the book down on the ground beside her, and went through her list of tricks to keep headaches at bay. She pinched the pressure point in the web of her right hand between the thumb and pointer finger, and started massaging it. It didn't always work, but it had been known to lessen the severity at least.

Mac leaned her head back against the tree, eyes shut. She could feel the pain that was trying to progress forward receding a little bit. She just had to remember to take frequent breaks while studying. It was all part of her new normal. She hated that phrase! What was wrong with the old normal?

"Mac?"

At the sound of her name, Mac put an end to the mini-pity party she was playing hostess to and opened her eyes. Dick! Of course! She'd probably summoned him with her earlier thought train.

He was just standing there looking at her, a strand of his blond hair flopped over one of his eyes. Someone skipped the start of the school year obligatory haircut apparently.

Mac felt on display.

"Hi Dick," Mac replied, and gestured to the swath of ground beside her.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I just…I didn't know if you were back to school or not." Dick finally responded. He shook his head, like he was clearing away cobwebs, and then flopped down, shifting slightly so he was facing her.

"You know, they have this great invention called a phone. You call, I answer, and we talk. Pretty nifty! It's even portable these days." Her voice was laced with an undertone of venom she hadn't been aware she'd been carrying with her until it spewed forth.

"Thanks for the instructions; I always wondered how those magic boxes worked." Dick's tone matched her snark.

"Long time, no hear."

"Yeah, I guess. Look, I was actually on my way to class…Yes, I do that," Dick said. He must have seen a look of disbelief on Mac's face that she wasn't aware she was telegraphing. "Sometimes," he added. "Are you going to be here in an hour?"

Mac made a show of looking at her wrist as though checking her watch, even though it was bare. "I supposed I can pencil you in."

"Yeah, do that."

Mac pantomimed writing Dick's name in the air, and they said their good-byes. She tracked Dick's trajectory towards Olscamp Hall on the other side of the vast quad until he was just a speck. It was probably just some misguided guilt that kept him visiting her in those early days post-coma. She was probably imagining that connection that felt like they were building wire-thin link by link. It wasn't the first time she'd misread things, it wasn't going to be the last either.

She forced herself to get back to the task of reading those monopoly and oligopoly case studies. There was one that was especially relevant to Hearst College, and that was the rise of Hearst Mart, another big box store that was owned by Selma Hearst Rose, who was granddaughter of the founder of their university. That conjured up a lot of baggage with it though as Selma had gone missing her freshman—freshperson—year and Vee had been tasked with finding the heiress.

This time Mac remembered to take frequent breaks from her reading, to give her straining eyes a rest.

The hour went by quickly, and Mac wasn't even aware Dick had come back until a white to-go cup with a cardboard sleeve around it was thrust in her face, obstructing her view of the text. She automatically grabbed it, murmuring her appreciation.

"Soy chai latte," Dick announced. He let out a soft oof as he plopped down beside her on the firm ground. He shifted a little bit. "Tree root up my butt," he explained, then shrugged and took a drink of his own coffee beverage.

"Generally, I find it works better if you look first, and then flop down." Mac retorted as she closed her book and tossed it back in the bag.

"Aren't you just full of lessons today," Dick replied. "Besides, that's not how I roll."

"Obviously."

"So, are we going to make small talk first or just get right down to it?"

"Get right down to what?" Mac asked, really selling her confusion by cocking her head.

"You're pissed about something."

"No, not pissed."

"Maybe my definition is rusty, but it sounded to me like you were pretty ticked at me."

"Confused maybe," Mac clarified. "You moved into the hospital waiting room when I was first injured, and then as I got better I hardly ever saw you. I just…You know, I just…Yeah, confused." She shrugged, and then turned her attention onto the cardboard sleeve of her drink cup, to avoid looking at Dick.

"I didn't think there was room for me," Dick admitted softly, after about a minute of silence.

"Room for you?" Mac's confusion was back.

"You had other things on your mind, you know, like getting well."

"Okay. That's true, but you also have no idea how lonely that is. I just wanted to," Mac paused right there, still not looking at Dick, still worrying the corner of the cup protector. "I needed to feel normal, and it's pretty hard to do when going through three kinds of rehab, and fourteen zillion doctor appointments every week."

"And now?"

"I'm done with all the therapies, and I just have to check in with the neurologist every few weeks to make sure I keep making progress." This time Mac ventured a glance over at Dick.

"That's great, Mac." he was smiling. "By the way, I wanted to say I'm digging the new 'do."

"Oh yes, the latest in TBI chic."

"TBI?" It was Dick's turn to be confused.

"Traumatic Brain Injury," Mac clarified. "My hair has grown out quite a bit, mostly covering the Frankenstein scars and holes." She had been wearing hats most of the summer, but was so happy to see when school started back her hair was just long enough to cover what needed to be covered to stop those awkward conversations before they could start. Along with all the drug cocktails she'd been taking steadily, her mom also had her on a vitamin regimen, which probably helped the hair growth. Her mom's distrust of the medical industry was limitless, as far as Mac could tell.

"With the glasses, and the short hair, you're really rocking the Velma look these days."

"Velma?"

"Scooby gang. Velma, you know, the brainiac who helps that dog detective."

"I know who Velma is, I guess I've just never heard anyone but Ryan call me that."

"I heard all your nicknames. Chatting with Ry this summer was very educating."

"Ry?" Mac raised a brow. "Wow, did he knit you a friendship bracelet too?"

"No, but I do know the Mac family secret handshake."

"I don't even know that," Mac teased.

"They told me not to tell you."

Mac controlled, or thought she did, the grimace that crossed her face as Dick's joke hit closer to home than he could have known.

"What Macadoodle? You okay?" His tone was sharp with concern.

"Yeah," Mac said, "just a twinge of a headache. I get those a lot these days." It wasn't a cover story.

"I bet," Dick said not unsympathetically. "Do you need any Advil? I might be able to find a bottle in my bag."

"No thanks. I try to avoid taking stuff when I can, and this one is nothing."

"Oh, good," he replied, running the hand not holding the coffee through his hair again. "Have you heard much from Ronnie these days?"

"Yes, she checks up on me a lot, but tries to act like that's not what she's doing. What about you?"

"Every other weekend, and twice on Sundays until classes started again."

The only acknowledgement Mac made of Dick's innuendo was a signature eye roll.

"Actually, I think Logan is going up to Stanford this weekend," Dick continued when it became apparent Mac wasn't going to reply. "I'm glad the reunion was less of a disaster than we all expected, but if I have to hear him whistle Luck is a Lady one more time I will be the one with a migraine."

"Luck be a Lady," Mac corrected automatically.

"Be, is, whatever." Dick waived a hand dismissively.

"All it took to bring them back together was one tiny coma. My tiny coma."

"It was anything but tiny." This time his tone was not dismissive. "You scared the shit out of me Mac, at a time when I didn't think I could care about anyone, on a day when I only wanted to drown in vodka. I saw the ball coming, and felt absolutely powerless. It's an area code I know well." Dick's tone was bitter, but then he added softly, like an afterthought, "I don't know why the hell you'd want me in your life."

"Do you really want to know why?" Mac asked. She assumed his last statement was rhetorical but didn't want to just let it go.

"Sure, I got nothing better to do anyway."

"You do such a great job of acting dumb, and acting like you are nothing but a dick living up to your name."

"You're not very good at pep talks, you know that?" he grumped.

"I'm not done, Dick," she huffed a sigh. "For someone that says they don't care about anyone, you aren't very convincing. I've seen you drop things on a second's notice to bail Logan out of some jam. I'm going to guess you probably had better things to do this summer than hang out in the smelly waiting room to see if I'd wake up, yet you did it."

"No, the truth is I didn't."

"You didn't what?"

"I had nothing better to do than sit around the smelly waiting room and wait for when you woke up." Dick stressed the when. "I'm not exactly full of social engagements these days."

"I'd think playing Halo all day and drinking vodka all night would be better than the hellhole of a waiting room at Neptune Memorial."

"I did that too, and surfing as well."

"Okay, well you don't need my pep talk so I'll save it."

"So you want me in your life why?"

"You do want my pep talk after all," Mac mused. "I thought I sucked at them."

"You do," Dick rushed to assure her, "but you're the only one offering one right now, so I'll take what I can get."

"Greedy, greedy little bugger."

"Yeah, you have no idea Macadoodle."

A soft breeze kicked up and Mac watched Dick's hair, the errant strand that needed a trim, ripple in response. She reached out with the hand not holding the almost-empty coffee cup and started to brush it, but got self-conscious midway and quickly lowered it again. It was an awkward rookie move.

"I showered," Dick announced, and Mac, knowing she'd been caught, felt her face heating up.

"We'll add that to your pep talk, you have good hygiene."

"That's it? I'm a loyal friend with good hygiene?"

"Yup, that's it. You want more?"

"I'm a greedy bugger, remember?"

"You're not nearly as dumb as you want people to think you are."

"I'm not changing my mind."

"You're not changing your mind about what, Dick?"

"The quality of your pep talk."

"You feel better about yourself now, right?"

Dick grunted, not really committing to a yes or a no.

"I'll take that as a yes," Mac stated. "Evidence is showing that I'm better at this than you give me credit for."

It got quiet and Mac let it stretch out, not feeling a need to fill in the conversational gaps. The quad was pretty much deserted except for one other group of students on the other side of the vast expanse. The wind kicked up another gust.

"Do you really not feel normal these days?" Dick finally asked.

"I never feel normal, Dick. I have never felt normal a day in my life."

"Well, first, normal is overrated, Mac-a-lac," Dick said as if it were a news alert. "But you said you were lonely and needed to feel normal."

"What?"

"That lecture you just gave me when I was kind enough to bring you that tea and milk shit you like."

"Soy chai latte," Mac corrected automatically.

"That's what I said, tea and soymilk shit."

"Whatever," Mac acquiesced. "I just felt like a pin cushion and science experiment rolled into one, and everyone seemed afraid of me. Honestly, I didn't think it bothered me until I saw you earlier today. Things came flooding back I guess."

"What do you mean everyone was afraid of you?"

"Once I got out of the hospital, and was transferred to that rehab place, I don't know, it just seemed like life went on. Well, life went on for everyone but me. People stopped visiting. Maybe they thought it was catching?"

"I'm sorry for my part in that," Dick said softly.

Mac watched him play with a blade of grass.

"I just wasn't sure I had a place in your life," he continued.

"You do," it was Mac's turn to speak quietly.

"So, in your quest to feel normal again, I have an idea."

"Okay, I'll bite. What's your idea?"

"We could go out this Saturday. I hear the youth of today do that kind of thing," Dick said, the words tumbling together. He was aiming for an idle vibe but not quite succeeding.

"A pity date?" She heard her voice rise.

"No! No way, Mac, I don't pity you. I…I the opposite of pity you," Dick's voice got louder, too.

"The opposite of pity?"

"You're the wordsmith, not me."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Dick echoed. "Well, you're easier than I thought," he added.

"And I've just withdrawn the yes," Mac retorted. "It's okay to keep some thoughts private."

"Oh goody, more life lessons. I'm not accepting your no, I am only acknowledging the yes. So, where are we going?"

"Surprise me, Dick."

They talked a few more minutes, ironing out details like what time Saturday Dick would pick her up, before he picked up his stuff and headed for his last class of the day.

The quad started filling up again as another class session let out, and Mac watched Dick get swallowed up by the crush. Though it wasn't a direction Mac would have predicted, after all she and Dick had been through the past several months, it had that meant-to-be sheen to it. There was still an hour left before her next class, but with that headache from earlier still lingering along the edges, and being a little overwhelmed (in a good way) by her conversation with Dick, Mac decided to blow it off, like college kids everywhere. It gave her an added bit of normalcy.

**************Mackenzie household, thirty minutes later**********************

Mac parked her Beetle up at the top, far left part of the driveway, still leaving plenty of room for her dad to use the garage when his shift at Fun Time Motors was over.

She was right back to living at home again. All it took was a bump in the head to lose that bit of hard-won independence.

To be honest though, she thought her parents were doing a pretty good job of giving her space. It was still an adjustment going from living on her own to right back under their parental thumbs, but that became the lowest priority in the early dark days of her recovery period when basic tasks had to be relearned. Now, fortunately, things were getting easier day by day. Parker had ambitious plans for them living arrangement wise for next semester, but that seemed a long way off at this point.

Step by step, day by day, it had become her motto for muddling through her new normal.

Her plans for the upcoming weekend were an unexpected side effect for her new life though—a date with Dick. She wasn't sure that would have happened otherwise. Her accident had allowed Dick to show an extended side to his 'fifteen minutes of humanity' she otherwise had only begun to suspect lingered under his jackass exterior.

Mac hit the button on the garage opener, gathered up her bookbag and locked up the car.

As Mac entered the house through the mud room, she noticed her mom sitting at the battered handmade oak table of their large eat-in kitchen. Natalie had her face buried in her arms, causing Mac to pause, waiting for the tell-tale sound of muffled sobs. She didn't hear anything though.

"Mom?" It was said tentatively.

"Cindy," it was said in a startled sounding gasp. Her mom lifted her head up, revealing dark circles under her eyes, smudged mascara, Mac assumed.

"Are you okay?" Obviously she wasn't, but that's all Mac could think to ask in the moment.

"I wasn't expecting you home so early, hon. Don't you have class now?" It wasn't an answer.

"Headache."

"Oh sweetie, sit down," her mom jumped up, going into mother hen mode, and pulled out the chair next to the one she'd been sitting in.

"Mom! I'm fine," Mac insisted. "You can take a nurse break from time to time. I think you're feeling worse than the patient right now, anyway."

"It's nothing a couple Valium, or maybe a bottle—or three—of wine won't fix, hon." Natalie said dryly. She was already by the counter grabbing a bottle of prescription meds and fetching a glass of water, obviously showing no sign of surrendering the nurse title. "You're trying to do too much these days."

"I'm not the only one, obviously," Mac muttered, under her breath, or so she thought until her mom glared at her as she slapped the pills down in front of her.

"Take these. Your dad should be home soon, I had him stop by to pick up a couple of pizzas for dinner."

Pizza was weekend food in the Mackenzie household, Mac now knew for sure something big was up.

"Where's Ryan?" Mac asked. She dutifully swallowed the pills; it was easier than arguing with her mom.

"I sent him over to Zane's house."

That explained the quiet, the lack of laser guns and blasters that usually filtered out from the living room, overtaking the cramped ranch home. It also didn't do anything to lessen the feeling of impending doom making its home in the pit of Mac's stomach. Not that Ryan heading across the street to the shelter of his best friend's home after school was that a-typical, it's just once she put all the little things together it didn't add up to the linear equation she'd hoped for.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing hon. Why don't you rest up a little bit, and I'll wake you for dinner?"

The request, though bathed in motherly concern, also seemed to carry a plea for some solitude with it as well, so in deference to that Mac gave her mom a quick hug before heading off to her room.

Mac discarded her bag on the desk chair, and then reached in to retrieve her cell phone. She flopped on her double bed with the sagging mattress and scrolled through the contacts, stopping at Bond, her contacts nickname for Veronica.

Me: I fell down a rabbit hole today.

Proving Mac's theorem that Veronica had her phone sewed to one hand, the answering ping came right away.

Bond: Sounds painful. Hard landing?

Me: You tell me. Dick just asked me out.

Bond: curious

Me: I know, right.

Bond: So, when you say out, you mean out out?

Me: Well, not in out. Yes, out out. Date out, to be specific.

Bond: Curiouser and curiouser. Is this a good thing, this out out date with Dick?

Me: Maybe?

Bond: I'll read him his rights.

Me: Are you coming down this weekend?

Bond: I can. Logan was going to come visit me for a change, but plans can easily be changed.

Me: No, it's okay.

Bond: I'll skype Thing 2 later, firm plans up with him. But if I have to I can always text Thing 1 his rights. Even 600 miles away he's scared of me.

Me: Way to wield power from afar.

Bond: You have no idea! And for your date, we'll put Parker in charge of girling you up.

Me: I can actually dress myself. I'm potty-trained too.

Bond: How very renaissance of you. I'm getting the evil side-eye from my prof. We'll do boy talk later.

Me: Bye Bond! Go learn!

Bond: 10-4 over & out…

Mac placed the phone on her bedside table and stretched out on the bed. Her headache was gone, but the feeling that the other, mythical shoe was about to come in for a hard landing was still there. All she could do was mentally brace herself for the Mad Hatter tea party that was about to begin.

She didn't have long to wait.

Her eyes had just shut, her breathing started evening out when the door to her room opened and her dad gently reached out to awaken her.

"Wake up sweetie. Dinner is ready." Her big teddy bear of a dad reached over to give her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

"Hi dad," Mac murmured, sitting up in bed.

"I brought home a pizza."

"So I heard. Did hell freeze over? You realize it's Tuesday, right?" She twirled around to get out of her bed, and followed her dad out into the hallway.

"Your mom is tired, she didn't feel like cooking."

Instead of going into the kitchen, Mac's dad headed over to the dining room table where dinner was plated up and Ryan was already eagerly tucking into a meat-lovers special. Her mom also had a slice of the meat lovers, but was merely nibbling hers.

Mac took her customary seat across from Ryan and reached out for one of the cheese-less pepper and mushroom slices piled on her plate. She took a small bite and studied her family as she chewed. It tasted like cardboard, but that was probably just nerves affecting her taste buds.

Mealtime was quiet, but that was common in the Mackenzie household, eating was serious business. The time spent before and after the meal, however, was usually loud and fun. It was a time to recap your day, a place to debate racing rules and regulations. Tonight, however, Mac watched her mom push the half-eaten remains of her first, and only slice of pizza. Even Ryan must have picked up on something odd though, because though he managed to demolish ¾'s of an entire pie, he didn't really say much as he digested the roughly three pounds of meat and grease he had consumed in five minutes flat.

"There's no easy way to say this other than to just say it," Natalie said finally. She took a deep breath as though diving right to it. She pushed her plate away from her, placing the napkin over the remains of her dinner. "The best thing that ever happened to me began with a mix-up at the hospital."

Mac knew it was coming, hell it was way past time to hear, but still it was one of those moments you could never truly be prepared for.

She wondered where the Queen of Hearts was with those trays of tarts. The Mad Hatter tea party was in full swing now!

Mac heard her mom brokenly go through the events of her birth, pausing for tears here and there, but it was almost as though the events had happened to someone else. Maybe it was because she heard the story in her dreams, and sometimes nightmares, it gave it that grayed edge reality of a bad TV movie.

Her dad was silent, stoic, holding her mom's hand, not adding anything to the conversation though. Ryan's eyes darted back and forth between her and their parents, like he was watching a hockey game.

Ellen Sinclair had reached out to her mom earlier that day to extend an olive branch between the Sinclair and Mackenzie family. She was evidently hoping to have her petit-fours and eat it too.

"We're invited to brunch on Saturday morning at the Sinclair's," Natalie said, her eyes lingering on Mac.

"Brunch?" Ryan asked. It was the first thing Mac heard him say since she sat down.

"Rich people breakfast," her mom shorthanded. "I said we'd be there. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, but we're not the only ones who almost lost a daughter, they did too. I know that pain first hand, so I did what I thought was right. Forgive me, Cindy." It was a plea.

This would have been the perfect time for a tearful confession of her own, a terse recap of what Veronica had discovered all those years before, but it wasn't something Mac was ready to let go of. That gothic secret was so much a part of her DNA she couldn't splice it.

Instead she mumbled that it was a lot to take in, but she could 'pencil in' a rich person's breakfast with the Sinclair's. Going through the motions, Mac said goodnight to her parents and Ryan, and had just enough time to tuck herself into bed before the tears rained down, flooding everything else out.

The Neptune Disease was spreading...

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 25—Playing Catch up (summary chapter)

Since it has been entirely too long since I updated this story, here is a very brief summary chapter for all you busy readers who don’t have time for a re-read or would rather read the new stuff first and then do your re-read afterwards. In Reddit speak, this is the TL;DR, (Too long; Didn’t Read) or as I like to call it, the Teal Deer (I didn’t make that up, I wish I did).

Here’s the good news, I have finished Postcode Envy, and will be uploading the rest of the chapters one at a time, approximately every 3 weeks, depending on my beta’s availability. The entire story is finished though, FINALLY!

This chapter can be skipped when I’ve finally uploaded every chapter and marked it complete. If you’re binging this story, you don’t have to read this summary at all. I will probably leave it here, however, so I don’t disrupt my chapter numbering convention. But when you haven’t updated a story in almost 7 years, I think a bonus TL:DR chapter is called for!

My daughter was 5, I think, when I started “Postcode Envy”, and now she’s a sassy 14 YO. I must give her credit for bringing me back to the fanfic world. She’s an anime fan, and she’s not in this fandom (though I did finally introduce her to Veronica Mars, we binged the show in like 2 months), but she is following my footsteps when it comes to writing fanfic herself.

I’m a proud mom!

Thank you for your patience. I haven’t been getting alerts for my PM’s for a couple of years, so if you did PM me in the past couple of years asking for more chapters on this story, or my others, I didn’t purposely ignore you. And thank you for not forgetting me, nor this story! I hope you enjoy it. It’s been a while since I did any fun writing, so I hope I’m not too rusty.

I will be posting the brand-new chapter (the Sinclair brunch chapter) immediately after uploading this chapter, so I’m not doing a ‘bait and switch’ on you. I promise!

Now, on to the summary…

Summary:

The story starts on June 6^th, 2009, the summer before Mac and Dick’s senior year at Hearst College. For this story’s purpose, and I took a lot of liberties in this AU magical realism world, June 6^th happens to also be the “anniversary” of Cassidy “Beaver” Casablancas’ death. It’s not a good day for Mac, nor Dick, of course.

Mac is already feeling down due to the date, but she’s forcing herself to go about her day as normal as possible. When she stops by a computer store, she briefly looks out the window, only to see Lauren Sinclair, her biological sister, walking by. Lauren is 15, almost 16, and she’s with a friend of hers, laughing and gossiping like the average teenage girl that she is. On impulse, Mac follows them into Java the Hut coffee shop. She makes small talk with Lauren, which of course just fills her with even more longing to have a relationship with this blood related stranger. To Lauren she’s just a friendly stranger to chat with while waiting for their very similar drink order (chai tea), but to Mac this brief interaction is much more meaningful. Once she’s back in her car, she sees a voice mail on her cell, it’s her mom telling her about Ryan’s baseball game in Settler’s Park, a local place near their house. Deciding to kill a couple of hours watching her brother’s game, she finds a seat in the bleachers to watch her brother play.

Dick Casablancas is also having a rough day; it’s not even the afternoon and he was already waiting for the day to be over. He fills a water bottle with vodka and drives over to Settler’s Park, which happens to be the home of this mighty oak tree that he’d started calling his thinking tree. He liked the park’s location because it was not in ‘09’er territory, so he thought there would be no way he’d see anyone he knew.

He was wrong.

Dick spots Mac sitting in the bleachers, and as he’s making his way over there, he sees a baseball heading right towards her. He watches in horror as her head and the ball make contact. Thoughts of Cassidy are now crowded out of his head, but it’s replaced with terror for Mac, his new “pseudo friend,” which is how she jokingly defines their relationship.

Dick and Ryan both run up the bleachers to get to the grievously injured Mac, comforting her as they wait for the ambulance.

Mac, however, finds herself stuck between two worlds simultaneously. She wakes up at one point in the present day, 2009 timeline, but she can’t remember names nor string coherent words together. She then goes back under, only to come back to full conscious in the ER of Neptune Memorial Hospital. The nurse is tending to her head injury and reassures her that they are bringing her mom back to the ER soon. However, the mom that comes into the room is Ellen Sinclair, not Natalie Mackenzie. The shocks continue for poor Mac when she hears she had a cheerleading injury. When they hand her a mirror, her hair is past her shoulders, exactly like she wore it in high school, not the chin length haircut she expected to see. It’s Mac, but the high school Mac, only now everyone is calling her Madison.

To keep track of her new complicated reality, Mac mentally starts referring to both sets of parents as ‘mom1’and ‘dad1’ for the parents who raised her in real switched-at-birth life, and ‘mom2’ and ‘dad2’ for her bio parents, the Sinclair’s.

She’s released from the hospital into the capable hands of ‘mom2’, Ellen Sinclair. When she arrives home (the Sinclair mansion), she’s greeted by Lauren, who is now 12. In this new reality where she’s known as Madison Sinclair, she had never been switched at birth.

However, the Sinclairs and Mackenzies were tied together by fate anyway. In this sandbox dimension, when Mac-as-Madison was a toddler, she and her dad (Bob Sinclair, ‘dad2’) were in a car accident, the car that hit them was driven by Sam Mackenzie, who is a contractor in this dimension. They win a big settlement, and the Sinclair’s get rich once again, while the Mackenzies flounder.

The best part of this strange new life for Mac-as-Madison is the close relationship she has with Lauren. They bond over cartoons, Star Trek, chai lattes, and books.

It’s not always easy to keep track of her life in two timelines though. Occasionally she messes up and uses a slang term not yet invented (bucket list), or quotes lines from movies just released that supposedly she’d not yet seen. But for the most part she does a pretty good job keeping track of her two dimensions.

She works hard to balance her new life as a ‘09’er with her own intrinsic Mac-ness. Slowly, but deftly, Dick Casablancas charms his way into her life. She becomes friends with Veronica in this dimension, too, further merging the ‘02’ers and ‘09’ers. Things with Dick aren’t all sunshine and roses though, when she finally told him about Cassidy (using her unique lens into the “future” to try to save her classmates), he’s understandably shocked by the truth about his screwed up little brother.

Back in the 2005 dimension, an explosion rocks Neptune High and Mac is caught in that nether world between her past and her ‘real 2009 life,’ at the same time her team of doctors in the present time are weaning the medication to lift her out of the coma. 

At the same time Mac is in 2004/2005 sampling life as Madison, she is also tethered to the present timeline of 2009 as Cindy Mackenzie, in a medically induced coma. Time flows differently in each dimension. The Madison Sinclair timeframe (her coma dreamlife) time goes quickly, it starts in November 2004 and goes past Valentine’s Day 2005.

Meanwhile, in the 2009 “present time,” all her friends and family gather in the waiting room. They are camped out at Neptune Memorial that entire week Mac’s in the coma, living in their own purgatory hell, desperately clinging to the tentative hope that they will get some positive news soon. Time moves very slowly in this dimension.

Ryan beats up the kid who hit the baseball into the bleachers that injured his sister. He ends up with a black eye. Dick questions him on it, and Ryan bets Dick $500 that Mrs. Mac won’t even notice his blackeye. Dick wins the bet. Since Ryan doesn’t have $500, he promises to give Dick his X-Man comic, volume 1. But they get caught up in the Mac vigil, and that bet is all but forgotten.

A lot of drama happens in the waiting room during the weeklong wait. Logan and Veronica try (not very successfully) to fight the ever-present attraction between them, and Dick gets a bit jealous. He’s also not fully ready to admit to himself how much he needs Mac in his life despite their unlabeled “pseudo” friendship. Wallace’s mom, and Veronica’s dad also end up reconnecting.

Finally, the story merges again as Mac comes out of her coma. She slowly starts to recover. At first, her friends who camped out in the waiting room during her coma, continued to visit her as she started the long road to recovery. Then, the visits taper off.

School starts again and Mac bumps into Dick. She was annoyed that he’d quit visiting her when she had been moved to a rehab center. He hadn’t thought she’d want him around, so he did his typical disappearing act. They talk it out, and he impulsively asks her out. She surprises herself by accepting his offer.

The revelations don’t stop there, though. Mac leaves campus after her talk with Dick. She has another headache, something she’d been getting frequently after the head injury back in June. She enters her house and sees that her mom is upset but trying to hide it.

Later that night, while eating pizza, which was usually a weekend food in the Mackenzie house, her parents drop the bombshell on her that she was switched at birth with Madison Sinclair. She neglects to tell them that it wasn’t actually a bombshell revelation for her at all. Veronica had discovered that Gothic Secret for her back in high school.

Ellen Sinclair had contacted Natalie Mackenzie earlier in the day to invite them for brunch that coming Saturday, the same day she and Dick were going on a date. The chapter ends with Mac trying to accept the fact that the secret she’d been living with for years was finally out in the open. Her emotions catch up to her and the chapter ends with her crying on her bed.

Okay, you’re caught up now. There’s lots more chapters to come (8), so I hope you enjoy the twisty ride this story continues to take.

And now, on to the continuation of Postcode Envy…

Enjoy!!!

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 26—Rich People Breakfast

Saturday, September 26^th, 2009—Mackenzie house

The shrill beeping of the insistent alarm intruded in her dreams, dragging Mac out of sleep before she was ready.

The teddy bear with the gauze bandage wrapped around its head, that Dick and her friends had given her in the hospital, was still tucked in her arms. She wasn’t ready to go public with the bulletin that she slept with a teddy bear these days, but it was a habit she’d picked up during her three week stay at the rehab facility. It reminded her that she had a full team of people rooting for her to recover, and that as much as she wanted to give up at times making a new life was well worth the exhaustive effort. If there was ever a day that Mac needed comfort and support, it was today.

Her past, present, and probably her future too, were about to brutally collide at brunch at the Sinclair’s house. Her dread and anxiety towards the brunch had eclipsed any excitement she might have felt otherwise about her big date with Dick later that night. She just wanted to bury herself in a cocoon of blankets and sheets and not get out of bed until nighttime. She could fake a migraine, though it wasn’t really shaping up to be faking, she felt the pressure building behind her right temple. She had more headache triggers than fingers these days, but stress was definitely the culprit this morning.

Just as Mac was contemplating committing alarm clock homicide by throwing the still beeping torture device against the wall, her mom knocked once, and then opened the door.

“Wakey, wakey, fake eggs and vegan bakey.”

Mac’s only response to her mom’s faux-chipperness was to groan and put the pillow over her head. It had to be forced, there was no way her mom was any more excited about this brunch than she was. Then again, maybe her mom was looking forward to getting to know her biological daughter better, too. If that were the case, she was in for a major let down.

It was so easy to get caught up in thinking only of herself in this whole mess of epic proportion, but really, there was a whole mass of causalities left in the wake of the Neptune Memorial baby switch case.

Everyone in both the Mackenzie and Sinclair families were collateral damage.

The beeping stopped; her mom must have turned the alarm off. She hadn’t heard the thump of it hitting the wall, or anything murderous like that.

“Ellen knows you’re a freakball vegan, so she said she’d make sure the menu was tailored to freakball vegans, and normal eaters alike,” her mom continued, still in that upbeat tone. “Come on Cindy, you need to get up and get ready, hon. After all, you’re the guest of honor.”

Mac detected the faintest tremor in her mom’s voice; only at the very last sentence though, the part where she called Mac the guest of honor. Proof positive right there that her mom wasn’t anymore enthused than anyone else. Maybe Natalie Franklin Mackenzie missed her calling as an actress? 

Mac felt the pillow being lifted off her head, and the duvet being yanked off. It was a flashback to her school days. She had always been a night owl in a family of morning people.

“Mom,” Mac screeched an automatic response to being forced out of her cozy bed.

“Cindy,” her mom matched her tone for tone. “Come on, up and at ‘em.” The tremor was gone now.

“It’s too early for clichés.”

“It’s never too early for clichés, hon.”

She watched her mom cross over to the closet and open it with a flourish. In approximately three nanoseconds a black dress with a gold belt was thrown across her bed. The grade school flashbacks continued.

“I am capable of dressing myself,” Mac grumbled. She seemed to be reminding people of that a lot these days.

“Cargo pants and combat boots aren’t appropriate attire for today.”

“Combat boots are always in fashion.”

“Only if you are at Boot Camp,” her mom retorted.

That sounded like the better option.

With the outfit selected, Natalie turned around and exited the room, uttering one last admonishment to hurry up and get dressed.

Mac slowly forced her aching body out of bed, and dutifully put on the dress. She grabbed her glasses off the bedside table and put them on. Her hair was still short and choppy, a side effect of the head injury and subsequential lifesaving procedures, so brushing it was a quick affair these days.

Less than fifteen minutes later the entire Mackenzie family was in her mom’s old blue Honda minivan heading towards Shady Springs Court. It was an address she had covertly stalked for years, but this was the first time since her Neptune High school days she’d been an invited guest. Truthfully, this was the first time ever she was actually invited, that time in her junior year of high school she was a party crasher, not a party invitee. Madison’s 17th birthday party had come on the heels of the monumental discovery that it was she who was a bio Sinclair, not Madison. The temptation to see how the other half lived, since she technically was the other half, had proved too great. 

Mac took a deep breath in, mentally counted to 15 and then slowly exhaled.

She felt like she should name the elephant who had been living with her since the confessional dinner on Tuesday, which felt like four months rather than four days ago. She’d began to tell her mom countless times that she’d known the Gothic secret of her birth for the past four years, but the words stuck in her throat every time. There was a battle being fought inside, part of her felt guilty for not telling them it was less earth shaking of a declaration than it could have been, the other part of her, her rational side, thought their crime of covering it up for 16 years was much worse than hers ever could be.

The trip didn’t take nearly long enough in Mac’s book. They were pulling into the driveway of the Sinclair’s McMansion before Mac’s deep breathing exercises had taken effect.

Colony Place and Shady Springs Court were less than four miles apart—3.75 miles to be exact—but being that they were in different zip codes, the lower middle class ’02’er and the upper echelon ‘09’er, that short distance was closer to 100 miles apart in terms of lifestyles. 

Everyone quietly piled out of the van. The whole trip had been pretty much devoid of conversation, which was not the Mackenzie clan’s default setting. As they gathered at the front door—an elaborate affair built around a stained-glass centerpiece that reminded her of The Starry Night by Van Gogh—Mac watched her mom paste on a smile. It was funny the thoughts that crossed your mind in times of strife and stress. Instead of focusing on her nerves, Mac mused that the door alone probably cost more than their van did, even when it was brand new.

Her dad reached out a shaking hand to press the doorbell. Mac rolled her eyes as she heard a snippet from Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture chiming in the background, alerting the Sinclair’s to the Mackenzies’ arrival.

The door was quickly opened, as though the person on the other side had been stationed there in waiting.

“Do come in,” replied an older lady with a faint lilt in her voice. “Everyone is in the dining room.” She smiled warmly and stepped aside so they could enter the vast foyer. One hand was on the door, the other hand smoothed back one of her black curls that had grazed her forehead. A black and white cat peaked out from behind the housekeeper.

Mac recognized the woman right away; it was Lucille, the maid from dreamland, and she knew the cat had to be Fritz. She felt flush, as though a fever had come over her. “Lucille,” she muttered, not fully aware she was doing it. There were so many things in coma-land that she just could not explain.

“That’s right, dear, I’m Lucille, please call me Lucy. I’ve worked for the Sinclair’s for fifteen years. And my shadow, here, is Fritz. Is anyone allergic to cats?”

“No,” Mac’s dad said just as her mom sneezed.

Lucy gestured to the room just off the entryway. “I’ll just put this guy in the mud room. Please sit down. There are name cards by the plates.”

Fritz mewed in protest, as Lucy picked him up. Mac didn’t even have a chance to gauge his reaction in this reality. It took a few weeks for him to warm up in dreamland, but they became good buddies and confidants eventually.

Ellen, Lauren, and Mr. Sinclair (Bob?!) were already seated around the oversized, ornate dining table. Only Madison was missing. Mac presumed she’d planned to make a grand entrance once everyone was there to witness it. She fervently hoped that Madison would behave, for her mom’s sake, for both moms’ sake.

Mac wondered what her parents, the ones that raised her, wanted to get out of this whole brunch. It was her experience that everyone had a motive. As for her bio family, well, she could only guess at Ellen’s agenda. She suspected it was to get to know her better, and perhaps absolve her guilt about lying to Madison all these years.

Mac’s mind rewound back to high school, real high school, not dreamland high school. She had been doing that a lot lately. She remembered spotting her bio mom parked on Colony Drive, just watching her as she was getting ready to leave on one of their biannual camping trips. She had known at that moment that Ellen loved her from afar. However, she’d never got a very good read on her own mom’s feelings, did she harbor similar feelings for Madison? She never saw any signs Nat was pining for her bio daughter, but then again maybe it was a secret longing that simmered in the chambers of her heart, that no one else knew about, especially not the daughter she was raising.

It was hard, however, to think of anyone else’s pain when she was drowning in her own. She had discovered a selfish side to her personality since the accident, but she suspected it was an outcropping of primal survival mode latent in her species.

The Sinclairs were sprinkled around the table, leaving seats open for the Mackenzies to assimilate among them. Mac was happy to see that it didn’t appear to be set up as a Sinclair vs. Mackenzie interrogation. She unsuccessfully tried to bite back a smirk when she noticed place cards at each setting. She had been strategically placed beside Ellen, who was at one head of the massive table. Lauren was on her other side. Madison’s empty space was across from her. Her mom was placed next to Madison, so they were caddy corner from each other. Ryan flanked Madison’s other side.

Mac took her assigned seat, sitting down in the high-backed green and white stripped chair. She looked around the ornate room, the teardrop crystal chandelier catching her eye. She wasn’t ready to make eye contact with anyone yet, her singed nerves making her shy. She reached out to grab one of the coffee carafes sitting in the middle of the table. She poured herself a cup, and took a big, fortifying gulp. She burned her tongue in the process, but it didn’t matter, she needed the effects of caffeine pulsing through her body. The coffee was strong, just like she remembered it from her coma dreamlife. Was remember the right word? She wasn’t sure, but then again, she wasn’t sure of anything in light of her current state of mind.

Mac wasn’t ready to make eye contact with anyone, and by anyone she meant the Sinclairs, at least not at that moment. Instead, Mac pulled her gaze down to the expansive red and gold Persian rug that covered the gleaming hardwood floors, a twin to the one in the entry way. It was exactly like she “remembered” from the coma dreamlife. She mentally amended expansive to expensive, though both adjectives adequately described it. That was a much more comfortable thing to focus on, rather than how closely her dreamlife tracked with the Sinclair house in real life. A noise in the hallway startled her back to reality.

Madison entered the room very subdued; it was not her usual grand entrance. Mac looked up, and met Madison’s eyes, the only one in the room she could look at. In that single second they were no longer enemies but had become teammates instead. Mac was certain it would not last long; Madison didn’t live her life by anyone’s script but her own, and she certainly didn’t care about anyone else’s needs either. However, at least in this one confusing moment in time, Mac was no longer the only one whose entire life was flipped upside down by a single mistake made by an overworked, underpaid staff member of Neptune General Hospital. No, the shrapnel had hit another family just as hard.

Mistake, that was a funny word to describe the error that caused two families such upheaval. It wasn’t a big enough word to describe the damage that was done all those years ago on that December day in 1988.

Mac was lucky, she’d had four years to make peace with the circumstances of her birth, Madison hadn’t had that luxury, she had maybe four days maximum to process that soul-destroying piece of news. The joke was on Mac though, that four-year head start she had did not bring peace at all, only secret heartache.

Apparently, Madison hitched a ride on the same thought train as Mac, as evidenced by the fact that she went over to her assigned seat, grabbed the chair, and dragged it between Mac and Lauren. That little bit of rebellion sent a message loud and clear to the moms, they were forming an alliance. That one little gesture overrode thirteen years of animosity that had started in kindergarten when Madison took Mac’s purple crayon away and refused to give it back. Their art class territorial struggle festered and simmered through the years as more and more grievances piled up adding mass to the weight of Madison’s crimes and misdemeanors. It wasn’t that Mac forgot the past, it was more that nothing else weighed down her soul at that particular atom of time like the exclusive club she and her nemesis were now card-carrying members of. It wasn’t a club she wanted to belong to, but with the secret out in the open, she was now partnered with Madison.  This wasn’t a club she’d wish on her worst enemy, who, as fate would have it, was none other than Madison Sinclair.

Irony was a vindictive bitch!

Ellen was silent as Madison put a wrinkle in her carefully plotted seating arrangement, after all with the life-altering news Madison was still trying to digest, it would be hard to find fault with that. 

Mac continued to ruminate on the irony of fellowship she was suddenly feeling for Madison. This link was big enough to make their turbulent past temporarily irrelevant, it was now the two of them against the world. Well, okay, not the world per se, and not even them vs the rest of the family, after all Ryan and Lauren were just as much “victims” as they were, perhaps even more so since the events of the switch were in motion well before either of them were even fetuses.

Against wasn’t even a word Mac felt comfortable assigning to the situation, this was not a war, instead it felt more like they were pawns on a giant game board, like the life size Chess board at the luxury vacation house the Sinclair’s had rented in Mac’s coma dreamland. Only, in this game, there was no instruction book. She was in Jumanji, a favorite childhood movie. Her childhood-self had wanted to wake up inside the Jumanji game world, it seemed like escapist paradise, a one-way ticket away from school bullies and the pervasive feeling that she didn’t belong in her own world, that she was a stranger in her own family.  But now, back to the present, she was no longer finding comfort in her real-world Jumanji. No, right now all she wanted was to level up and get out of the funhouse maze and back into the world where those family meeting discussions in the Mackenzie and Sinclair houses had never happened. If she could find a lesson in all this, it was to be careful what you wish for. But it had happened, there was no going backwards now.

Mac had no idea how to act, what move to make next, and that was not a place she liked to dwell, that’s exactly why she was a math “nerd,” quadratic equations made sense, it was always ax² + bx + c = 0, there was comfort in that formula.

Mac sneaked a side glimpse at the unusually quiet Madison, there was a faint trace of a scowl. She was slightly hunched in, looking like all she wanted to do was curl up in the fetal position. Mac could relate, she was feeling the same way herself.  Neither of them wanted to start talking first. This was a plan cooked up by the moms, though it seemed to be mostly driven by Ellen, so the verbal ball was in their court now.

Mac’s mind drifted back once again to the coma dreamland, where she’d taken to calling Natalie ‘Mom1’, and Ellen ‘Mom2’, it was probably time to dust that naming convention off and revive it for her current reality.

Though they’d only been sitting at the table for a couple of minutes, it felt much longer than that.

Ellen (‘Mom2’) cleared her throat and channeling her inner hostess, finally said “Thank you all for coming.” She angled her head up slightly, searching out Lucy, her household assistant, and gave her a brief nod. Evidently that was the signal for brunch to commence.

Lucy brought out the silver serving plates heaping with assorted brunch foods including an egg casserole, spinach quiche, pancakes, Belgian waffles, bacon, fresh fruit salad, and croissants. Mac thought back to the definition of brunch that her mom (‘Mom1’) gave Ryan, it really was a rich person’s breakfast. Mac was happy to see that all guesswork regarding what was safe for her to eat and what to avoid had been taken out of the equation, several of the dishes had a little tag hanging off the edge that had been marked with a V. It was a classy touch.

Ryan was already helping himself to bacon and waffles. Lauren, on the other hand, took a small piece of the vegan quiche. Mac wasn’t really hungry, but she followed Lauren’s lead and also took a small wedge of the egg-less quiche, plus some fruit salad.

Once everyone had the chance to load their plates, the discussion got underway. Bob Sinclair, (‘Dad2’) took the conversational reigns. He recapped a lot of what Mac had found out four years ago. His cliff notes overview took a few minutes to mull over, and then to Mac’s surprise, Madison was the first to speak up.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t just switch us back. We were, what, 4? I would have got over it.” Then as an afterthought, she added “I’m sure Mac would have, too.”

Mac gave a terse nod of agreement, that déjà vu feeling she was becoming intimately familiar with once again coursed through her. That was the exact same question that she had asked Veronica back in high school. She looked back and forth between both sets of parents, hoping for an answer this time around.

No one spoke for probably 10 seconds, at the most, but it felt much longer than that.

‘Mom1’ finally said, in a soft voice so unlike her usual upbeat tone, “We love you. A blood test changes nothing.”

Ellen (‘Mom2’) nodded her agreement, but it seemed like she wanted to say more on the subject but didn’t. Mac suspected the slight shake of Bob’s head (‘Dad2’) was what silenced her. She wondered for probably the 225^th time if perhaps ‘Mom2’ had been less sure about continuing to raise a kid who wasn’t hers genetically, but how can you shatter the heart of the daughter whose tears you’d spent two decades soothing away?

“Blood test?” This time Mac asked the question. She was too shell shocked to ask Veronica the how’s and why’s the first time around if the blond PI even knew the fine details to begin with.

“You were severely anemic, Cin,” ‘Mom1’ explained. “We couldn’t get you to eat meat, you never liked it, and it affected your iron levels. At 4 you needed a transfusion, and for that they needed to find out your blood type. I’m O+ and so is your…dad. There would be no genetic possibility of having an A negative child.”

“A lawyer for Neptune General contacted us about a week later,” ‘Mom2’ added. “That is one call I was completely unprepared for.”

Bob (‘Dad2’) nodded his agreement. He sat across from his wife, at the other “head of the table” position. Mac caught him studying her, but he averted his eyes when he noticed her looking back at him.

“So why now?” Madison asked. “Since you all had made the decision to keep us, why not just take this secret to the grave? Seriously, what changed? Why did you guys find it okay to screw with our lives now, but not when we were 4? Are you less attached now?”

Seeing Madison pissed off wasn’t anything new for Mac, but she’d never witnessed it to this extent before. Of course, little slights at school were one thing, this was a whole new stratosphere altogether.

Mac thought she knew the answer to this question, and it all could be traced back to her accident. She also figured ‘Mom2’ was probably feeling guilty about their secret texting relationship, too. She hoped that ‘Mom2’ wouldn’t confess that other part today, there’d be no way for Mac to spin it without having to admit that she already knew the whole story. Even if she did get a reprieve today, and she was keeping her fingers crossed, it would eventually come up. That was a given, her luck wasn’t that good. She often felt like Murphy’s bitch, he could shove his laws up his ass! But today, well she just couldn’t handle an extra helping of drama.

“No! No, no, sweetheart,” ‘Mom2’ quickly interjected, hoping to reassure the daughter she raised. “I love being your mom, Madison, but life is too short. What if something were to happen to either of you? Sixteen years is long enough to hold this in…”

“Too long,” Mac muttered as she gave a sideways glance at Madison.

“You girls will be getting married, having kids in the not too-distant future,” ‘Mom2’ continued. Her voice got soft when she mentioned kids.

“What’s the plan? Do we have 4 parents now?” Mac’s voice started to rise.

“Not the plan,” her dad (‘Dad1’) amended, “but it is the hope.”

“Mac was in the hospital this summer,” Lauren finally said. It was the first time Mac saw any reaction from her except the small smile when they first arrived. “I was her patient assistant for every shift I worked this summer for Caring Hearts. At first mom’s interest in Mac’s condition seemed kind of odd, then I just assumed maybe her concern had something to do with the Caring Hearts charity. But now everything makes sense. That’s your answer, Mads, that’s why they decided it was time to come clean.”

“You fucked my life up because of Mac? Everything this week, our heart to heart is because Mac did something stupid, like break her arm, or some shit like that?” Madison’s voice could only be described as a shriek.

Mac figured the alliance she and Madison had just forged was over already. That was about as long as she expected it to last.

“Cindy was in a Coma,” Ryan corrected. “It happened while I was playing baseball at the park. Some idiot misjudged and hit the ball into the stands. Cin didn’t do anything wrong, she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He had turned bright red; it was one of his tells. Mac figured he was about to go off on Madison, who was a stranger to him, bio sister or not.

Lauren looked like she wanted to add more to the conversation, but then she just shook her head and reached for a croissant instead.

“Oh,” Madison said after Ryan’s correction. Her flat tone wasn’t bleeding empathy. “That was you. I heard someone I went to high school with got hurt pretty badly.” She paused briefly before continuing, “It’s all your fault,” she spit out at Mac, this time with venom seeping through. “You ruined my life; I wish you’d never been born.”

‘Mom2’ was about to interject, probably to chastise the daughter she’d raised, but Natalie spoke up first. “I can only imagine what a shock this is to hear, Madison, but this was nobodies’ fault. Well, except the nurse at Neptune Memorial, and that was just a careless error. Cindy didn’t ask for any of this. You didn’t ask for this, either.”

“Did the nurse lose her job?” Mac asked, ignoring Madison’s last bit about wishing she’d never been born. That was only one small comment in a sea of hatred she’d experienced from Madison through the years, not to mention she understood better than anyone what a screwed-up situation this was. It was a 5-stage circumstance, Madison was obviously on the anger stage. She herself had circled around 4 of the 5 stages of grief for the past four—almost five—years she had known the truth, it was only the acceptance stage that alluded her. Maybe, just maybe, now that everything was exposed, she could work on that final stage.

“I think so,” Mac’s dad started to say, before being cut off by Bob (‘Dad2’). “Yes, she was fired. It was part of the settlement with the hospital.”

Mac had been wondering if the lawsuit would come up. She idly wondered if her dad, ‘Dad1’, she mentally corrected herself, would mention starting Fun Time Motors.

“I hope you sued the shit out of them,” Madison said, she ignored the look of censure her mom (‘Mom2’) was giving her.

“We did settle out of court, our family and the Mackenzies each got a payout. It was never about the money. We wanted to make sure the hospital changed their policies, so this never happened to another family.”

“We started a business with our settlement money, Cindy, Fun Time Motors. Unfortunately, there was a downturn in the market, and we got into some debt. We ended up going into foreclosure, but fortunately the new owner kept me on staff all these years,” ‘Dad1’ said. Mac noticed he kept looking away, like he was ashamed to admit that to her. She had a strong desire to let him off the hook, but there was enough stress with the whole baby switching drama out in the open. It’s not even that Mac thought ‘Mom1’ would be mad that she’d known the truth since high school, it was more that it would make her sad that Mac had any doubts to begin with. There was enough, more than enough, pain to go around as it was.

“Oh, wow, I had no idea you used to own Fun Time Motors, dad,” Mac finally said. She didn’t like lying to her dad, the one who raised her, but she had to say something. “I’d think it would be rough to work for the owners of your old business.”

“At first it was weird, but I was just grateful for a job and to be able to keep a roof over our head, and food on the table.”

“Oh, yes, that is a good thing,” Mac agreed, in a soft tone. She noticed that a large amount of the “rich people’s breakfast” was sitting there untouched. She wasn’t going to be able to help much to reduce all the waste, the little bit of tofu quiche she’d consumed was sitting like a rock in her stomach, any more food and she was sure she’d just throw everything up. She was still fuzzy on the point of this little gathering. Maybe it was just what it appeared to be on the surface, an unveiling of the secrets of her and Madison’s births. But, then again, this was Neptune, there was always an underlying motive.

“I still don’t know what we’re supposed to do with this knowledge,” Mac finally added, ending the silence that fell after her dad had told her about starting Fun Time Motors. She’d already asked a similar question earlier but didn’t feel like she got a good answer. Madison, who’d already defected from her team wasn’t any help, she was evidently pretty content to glower at Mac after convicting her as a traitor who caused this strife to begin with. Mac suspected that she was feeling jealous, like a left-out toddler who thought no one liked her.  She wondered for probably the 999^th time if it was nature or nurture that made Madison the way she was. Her best, and only, theory was that ‘Mom2’s’ mom guilt was the guiding force behind a lot of Madison’s actions, it had made her the spoiled brat she’d always been.

‘Mom2’ and ‘Mom1’ exchanged a glance before ‘Mom2’ spoke up. “We don’t have to decide anything today, Cindy, sweetie. We can start slow. Thanksgiving is coming up; we would love it if you all would join us. Neither you nor Madison are minors anymore, there is not going to be a custody dispute, or anything like that. If you want to have a relationship with us, I am open to that, but it is up to you, Cindy.”

“Yes, thank you for the invitation, we’ll be here for Thanksgiving,” ‘Dad1’ replied. Mac noticed he looked at her mom first before replying for them both. Apparently, he saw something resembling permission in ‘Mom1’s’ hooded expression. “Madison, I know you have a lot to think about, too. Nat and I want to get to know you, too, but it’s up to you. We will respect your decision.”

Madison made a non-committal noise closely resembling a grunt.

Finally, the subject of Neptune General’s baby mix-up seemed to be exhausted. The parents worked hard to change the subject, but no other topic seemed to stick. It was obvious to Mac that outside of her and Madison, the Sinclairs and Mackenzies had little in common. She tried, and failed, to imagine what Thanksgiving dinner would be like. Her only basis for comparison was what happened in her coma dreamland, but fortunately she could exclude the possibility of Dick bringing Cassidy back in her real life. There would be no need to protect Lauren from the broken boy who had destroyed so much of her soul.

The highlight of the whole breakfast ordeal came towards the end. Lauren had excused herself from the table, Mac presumed it was to go to the bathroom, though unlike Ryan, Lauren didn’t seem like the type who needed to broadcast her every bodily function, that seemed to be more of a Y chromosome driven desire. She quickly came back with a piece of paper in her hand.

“Here,” Lauren said, leaning back so she could reach her hand around Madison’s chair. She handed the folded-up piece of paper to Mac. It brought back memories of passing around notes during class. Maybe Lauren wanted to know if she had a crush on a boy? Check here if you have a crush on Dick Casablancas.

“Thanks,” Mac replied automatically. She opened the note and spread it on her lap, trying to be discrete.

If you want to text me, I’d like that. Maybe we could even go to Java sometime?
951-555-5309

Love, Lauren

Mac felt the heat as she started blushing. She reached over and tapped Lauren’s shoulder and nodded. “I’d like that, too,” she whispered.

Lauren just smiled back. Mac was struck by how much it was like her own smile. That Sinclair DNA hard at work.

Finally, it was time to leave. As Mac was putting her seatbelt on in the aging Mackenzie van, she glanced up at the clock in the dash. The rich people breakfast was less than 90 minutes from start to finish, yet she felt like she’d lived a lifetime in that small span of time. She still had a lot of questions swirling around in her head, but it was a start she supposed.

They weren’t even off Shady Spring Court when Mac dug out her cell to add Lauren to her contacts. She fired off a brief text so Lauren could save her phone number, too.

Back at home, Mac headed straight to her room. She saw her mom’s hopeful expression fall and shatter. She knew they’d want to rehash everything, but she was lacking the emotional bandwidth, it had all been sucked dry.

Less than a minute after falling onto her bed, Mac was fast asleep.

TBC…

Chapter Text

***Saturday, September 26, 2009***

Mac woke up with a start but couldn’t remember what exactly had pulled her out of her deep sleep. She used to jokingly compare her deep sleep abilities to a coma, but that analogy died a quick death back in June after she had ended up in an actual coma after getting hit by a baseball.

There was no comparison between those two states, a fact she sadly now knew to be true.

She glanced over at her bedside clock and muttered a string of profanity under her breath. It was almost 6, and she had two hours of grooming work to pack into the approximately 45 minutes of time left until Dick picked her up for their date. He insisted it wasn’t a pity date, but Mac still had a frisson of doubt coursing through her.

Her nap was a good diversion, but when she had once again crash landed back into reality, the memories of brunch with her “stepsister” Madison and the rest of the Sinclairs came back in a wave. She felt like they were now a twisted version of a blended family, though no blueprint for life going forward was drawn up, except for Thanksgiving. Fortunately, that was still almost 2 months away. There was plenty of time to develop an ulcer worrying about blending both of her families, right now the only thing that mattered was making herself presentable for tonight’s pity date.

What did one wear for a pity date?

Despite being assured countless times that was not the case, Mac was still sure she lacked any girly genes. ‘Mom1’, however, was a wonderful mix of girly and athletically inclined, and she made it look effortless. This morning’s wardrobe assistance was not appreciated, but that was mostly due to the fact she was not aiming to dress to impress. Tonight’s pity date, on the other hand, was a different story altogether. There was also the fact that she owed her mom for ducking out on the Monday Morning quarterbacking of brunch with the Sinclairs.

The nap had been a very effective avoidance technique.

As she ventured out of the safe haven of her bedroom in search of ‘Mom1’, Mac tried to prepare herself for her mom’s good-natured teasing. One of the strangest side effects of her injury was how much her mom liked Dick. He was not really known for being parent bait, the kind of kid parents love to see their progeny make friends with. However, he’d been there from the start of her injury, and had practically set up camp in the waiting room as she’d hovered between life and death, and her coma life and her real waking life. But once she was out of the hospital and on her way to recovery Dick had started to drift away again. It was perplexing, but then again, that usually was her pseudo friend’s default factory setting. Things changed once they had a tête à tête on Tuesday, he confessed that he didn’t think she wanted him to be a part of her recovery process. She had set him straight, with the unexpected development of him asking her out. The strangest part of all, though, was her answer—yes! She wasn’t even Jedi mind-tricked into acceptance.

Tuesday apparently that was destined to be her tête à tête day. That also happened to be the day her parents finally explained the reason why she never really felt she belonged in the Mackenzie family; her DNA proved she was a Sinclair. She, of course, already knew that, but no one in her family knew she discovered the truth in high school. It wasn’t like she could just say “I was switched at birth with Madison Sinclair, please pass the vegan sweet potato casserole.”

Could she?

It was now Saturday, and she had managed to squander away too much time with recuperative sleep, not leaving her enough time in her quest to look presentable.

“Mom! Mom, where are you? Can you come up here for a second?” Mac shouted from the top of the stairs.

“Stop yelling, Cindy, I’ll be right there,” came the quick reply. Mac heard the tread of ‘Mom1’ on the stairs before she came into view.

“You’re awake, Sleeping Beauty. I went into your room to check on you and couldn’t rouse you.” ‘Mom1’ continued. She didn’t have to tell Mac it took her back in time to the coma, she didn’t need to, everything was written on her face.

“Rich peoples’ breakfast really takes it out of a girl,” Mac tried to force a little levity in her voice, not wanting to get serious, there just wasn’t time for that. She sniffed the air; her mom still hadn’t stopped smoking apparently. Her mom had picked up the habit again in the early days of her coma, the deal was she’d stop when Mac awoke, but that still hadn’t happened. Of course, Mac knew habits were not an easy thing to break, and their life had become a revolving door of stressors these days.

“Apparently! So, what can I help you with, Cin?”

“Well, I have plans tonight, and I thought I’d make good use of your girly side, Mom.”

“Plans? Do these plans involve a gentleman caller by chance?”

“A man, maybe, though I’d say more like a man-child. As for the gentleman persuasion, well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

‘Mom1’’s face lit up at that announcement. “A man-Child caller, got it. Who?” she asked excitedly. “Anyone I know?”

“Richard Casablancas.” Mac wasn’t sure why she called him by his given name.

Mac watched her mom’s face as confusion was quickly replaced by a big smile. “Yes! Dad owes me 50 dollars!”

Of all the reactions she’d expected her mom to have, that wasn’t one of them. “I didn’t know you were a gambler.”

“I’m not. I only gamble when I know I’m going to win.”

“That’s the exact opposite of gambling, mom.”

“Duh! I told your dad when you were still in the…the hospital that you and Dick would be dating by the end of this year. He thought it would be a lot longer than that until either of you stubborn kids would admit you liked each other that way.”

Mac noticed her mom stumbling slightly over the word “hospital,” but didn’t comment on it.

“Well, as much I’d like to continue to rehash this subject, seeing as I don’t have a team of magic mice to assist me, this Cinderella has to get dressed for the ball. I was hoping that you had a couple wardrobe suggestions for me.”

“There should be a blue dress in there that I bought you this summer. It was the day of, well you know, the day you…Yeah, the day of your, um, accident.”

“Would it look good with combat boots?” Mac snarked. She couldn’t resist.

Ignoring that, ‘Mom1’ maneuvered around Mac, and entered her bedroom. She headed straight for the closet, pushed a couple items aside, and honed right in on a bright blue cotton sleeveless dress. She presented it to Mac with a flourish.

“Perfect. Thanks mom.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie. I’ll put it on your bed, why don’t you go take a shower now.”

“Why didn’t I think of that myself?” Mac asked in a mocking tone, slapping her forehead with her palm.

“I know, I know, you have excellent hygiene.”

“You taught me well, I can bathe myself and everything.”

‘Mom1’ didn’t reply back to that, but her face went soft, Mac assumed that everything that came out of her mouth brought her mom back to this morning’s brunch. Subtext was heavy in the air, coating everything in its wake.

Mac was ready by the time Dick rang their doorbell a prompt 45 minutes later. She got up to open the door when a whirlwind breezed past her. Ryan. She never saw him move so fast, except when running from base to base, of course.

“I’ll get it, sis!” He called behind him.

Before she could shoot that idea down, she heard the door open, and Ryan greet her guest. Apparently, Dick managed to impress her entire family, not just ‘Mom1.’

To stop her brother from screaming out her name, she quickly made her way into the entryway. “Thanks for getting the door, Ryan. You can go back to your game.” The glare she gifted him communicated that his job was now finished.

Judging from Dick’s expression Mac guessed that she cleaned up well. Not surprisingly, she could say the same thing about a certain surfer guy, but then again, he had always been a good-looking asshole. She noticed his hair was neatly trimmed. It wasn’t short, but it wasn’t shaggy anymore.

“New ‘do?!”

Dick nodded, but his smile told her he was happy that she noticed.

She pointed to the door, hoping to herd him out before the rest of her family came out to greet her date, but apparently the stars weren’t aligned.

“Leaving so soon?” ‘Dad1’’s voice sounded large in the tiny entryway of their house.

“Mr. Mac! Hello sir. No, of course not,” Dick stammered out. Mac tried to stifle her smile at his odd mix of casual and formal, they were at odds with each other, but maybe that was a good metaphor for him. 

“I believe you two have met.” Mac said.

“Yes, in the hospital,” Dick affirmed. “Good to see you again, sir. Especially, you know, under these circumstances, not the way we originally met.”

“I think after everything we’ve been through, you can call me Sam. It is nice to see you again, too.”

“Thanks.”

“I hate to interrupt the reunion, but we’ve got to leave now dad.” Mac said, shooing Dick out the door.

Sitting on the driveway, taking up a lot of real estate, was Dick’s big yellow truck. Mac had nicknamed it the banana mobile.

“I can’t believe your truck is still running.”

“This is a quality piece of American automotive engineering.”

“It’s American, yes,” Mac agreed before letting her voice trail off…

“And quality built,” Dick added.

“It’s American, yes,” Mac repeated. “We’ve established that,” she added.

Dick got into the driver’s seat, and then twisted slightly to stow away a plastic bag she only just noticed he’d been carrying with him.

“What’s that?”

“Just something your brother gave me. It was something he owed me from this summer.”

“Oh,” Mac said. It was probably a back issue of a magazine, or something like that.

They buckled up and headed out of Mac’s neighborhood, passing Settler’s Park.

“Where are we…” Mac started to ask, in hopes of filling the brief gap of silence, but as she was speaking, Dick apparently wanted to fix the silence too because he’d started to simultaneously say “I was thinking we’d try…”

They both laughed, and then Dick continued, “Mama Leone’s. Have you been there yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“They have a vegan section, a gluten free section, and just about every other diet anyone could be on. I checked.” Dick looked proud of himself as he said that. “I can read and everything, before you ask.”

“I already guessed that” Mac shot back. “Have you been there yet? I think they just opened about a year ago.”

“I had some carry out from there this summer,” Dick replied.

Mac wasn’t sure how to interpret the downturn his expression took, though it was just a brief flicker.

“As long as you didn’t end up with food poisoning or anything, it sounds good to me.”

“Nope, no food poisoning,” Dick affirmed. “Maybe we’ll see Logan and his Siamese twin there.”

“Logan? I thought he was at Stanford this weekend.”

“Change of plans.”

“Why?” Mac asked, but she suspected it was all because of her “rich person’s breakfast” at the Sinclair’s that morning.

It was only that morning, but it felt more like 3 years ago.

She and Veronica had Skyped a few times that week on the heels of her parent’s big announcement about the baby mix up with the Sinclairs. Veronica was the perfect sounding board since she had been the original custodian of that knowledge. Mac had thought she did a good job downplaying her conflicted feelings, but apparently her acting wasn’t as stellar as she had thought. She surmised that Vee had decided to come home just to be on standby in case a shoulder to cry on was required.

“You act like I’m an expert of the inner workings of Ronnie’s mind.”

“You’re not?!” Mac asked, feigning surprise. She put her hand over her heart for dramatic effect.

“Logan just said that Veronica needed to do something down here this weekend, he didn’t say what and I didn’t ask.”

“Oh.” Mac wasn’t surprised that Bond didn’t share her reasoning, that girl knew how to keep a secret better than anyone else she’d ever met. The secret didn’t seem to matter, she was equally adept at keeping other peoples’ secrets as much as her own. It was a good trait to have. Veronica had always possessed strong friendship skills. “So, are they joining us at Mama Leone’s?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think they were just going to hang out on Dog Beach. Logan and I had talked about us meeting up with them after dinner,” Dick said. “If that’s okay with you,” he added.

“Sounds good to me.”

“We can stop by Java the Hut to get dessert to go, and have a picnic on the beach,” Dick suggested.

“You had me at dessert,” Mac replied. “I make it a policy never to say no to a Soy Chai Latte and they have the best vegan apple crisp in town.”

“And I’m betting the only vegan apple crisp in town,” Dick added. “You veg heads,” he shook his head. “I’ll never understand it, but I don’t mind being a vegan enabler.” He waited a beat, and then clarified, “your vegan enabler.”

They had just got onto the PCH on their way to downtown Neptune. Mac watched Dick deftly maneuver the big truck. She pulled the visor down so she could look in the mirror. She was still surprised by her choppy hairstyle. Before the accident, her hair hadn’t been that long, but still it was a sleek, chin length bob, now it barely covered her ears. The funny thing was she could picture herself getting that same short haircut as a fashion choice, but now it only served as a reminder of the trauma of the last few months.

Sometimes she viewed those frequent reminders as a bad thing, other times she felt proud of herself for everything she had overcome to get to the point she was at now.

Mac dug through her clutch bag and pulled out a tube of lip gloss from its depth. As she was starting to apply it though, they came to a jerking stop as Dick hit the brakes hard.

“Oops, sorry,” he said, in a tone that sounded anything but apologetic. “Did I smear your lipstick?”

“You did that on purpose, you ass,” Mac said, her voice rising. “And your little plan failed. It’s clear gloss,” she said smirking, even though she knew he couldn’t see her in the dimly lit truck. She again rummaged in her purse, this time to look for a Kleenex to wipe away the sticky gloss. She rolled her eyes; that was such a high school Dick Casablancas move. The whole exchange felt familiar to her, but she couldn’t explain why.

“Hey, it was accident,” Dick defended. “I didn’t want to hit the car in front of me.”

“Likely story! That car is like a mile ahead of us.” Mac said. She was about to add more when she heard a ping coming from her cell phone located somewhere in her too small and crowded purse. She dug it out and saw that Lauren had responded to her earlier message. Before she could hit reply, they had pulled into the parking lot of Mamma Leone’s.

Dick held the door to the restaurant open for Mac. She thanked him and took a big sniff of the pungent smell of garlic perfuming the air. She recognized the chorus of Dean Martin’s “Mambo Italiano” projecting from the sound system.

“A little bit of Mac, here I am. A little bit of you makes me your man. Mambo number Five,” Dick sang quietly in her ear.

“I think you’re mixing up the songs,” Mac corrected.

“I know that” Dick said, a little defensively, “but I only know the words to “Mambo Number Five,” so I improvised.”

“I don’t think Dean Martin would appreciate it.”

“But Lou Bega definitely would.”

“Not if you’re singing it.”

“Mac-a-doodle! I’m hurt. That honestly hurts my heart.”

Even though they were just teasing back and forth, an injured puppy expression flashed across Dick’s face. Mac thought maybe he should slap a patent on that look, he wore it so well, as though he’d invented it just for her.

“Somehow I think you’ll be able to rise above the pain and move on.”

“There you go, putting more faith in me than I deserve.” As he said that, his joking tone turned serious at the end.

The conversational back and forth ended at that point by the overly cheerful hostess taking their name and letting them know it would be just a few moments before they could be shown to their table. As the last notes to the Dean Martin song faded, Mac looked around the small restaurant. She took in the rustic wood shiplap walls decorated by Vintage art prints of wine bottles and framed Italian movie posters; the small round bistro tables covered with red checkered vinyl tablecloths. It was warm and cozy, not old and faded like Luigi’s had become towards the end of its reign as Neptune’s token fine Italian dining destination.

As Mac studied the restaurant, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Dick was studying her with the same intensity. She reached a hand up to her hair, a nervous habit she had for as long as she could remember.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Dick snapped out of his reverie. “Just thinking. Sorry.”

“What?! You?! I thought that only happened when you were under a certain tree.”

“I mentioned my thinking tree like one time.”

“Or 50 times, give or take,” Mac corrected.

Before they could continue that conversational thread, the hostess summoned them. As they walked towards one of the tables tucked away in the back corner, the sound system had switched over to Frank Sinatra soulfully crooning about New York.

They settled into their chairs. Mac looked over the menu, there was an impressive array of vegan selections, there were at least 12 to choose from. Most restaurants she patronized only had 3 or 4 choices. The Eggplant Rollatini quickly caught her eye.  She folded the menu and laid it aside.

“You want to get a bottle of wine?” Dick asked.

“Sure. How about that Cabernet right there?” Mac pointed to a wine that came from a vegan vineyard she liked.

Dick nodded in agreement.

The waitress came by their table just then to take their order. As they waited for the wine, Dick worked to fill the brief silence that descended upon them. He started in on some story about one of his classes earlier that week. Mac tried to focus but couldn’t muster much interest in the subject at hand. She thought she was hiding her distraction well.

“Are you okay?” Dick asked. “You seem bored.”

“What?” Mac asked. “Oh, yes, I’m okay. Sorry. It’s been a busy day.” Apparently, she wasn’t doing as good of a job as she’d hoped. When they were teasing back and forth it was one thing, but any lull in the conversation brought her right back into her head. That was a dangerous place to be on that particular day, on the heels of a conversation that had been nearly 18 years in the making.

Mac was glad when the wine arrived. She wasn’t much of a drinker on a typical day, but nothing was typical on that day, starting with brunch with her bio family, and ending with her date with Dick Casablancas. She fiddled with her glass, giving her hands something to do.

“Headache?” Dick guessed.

“No,” Mac said, an undercurrent of surprise in her voice. Headaches were usually her default setting these days, but for the moment she was pain free. Unfortunately, she suspected that after the wine it wouldn’t stay that way, but that was a consequence she was willing to pay.

“I guess my A game needs a little tweaking.”

“This is your A game?” Mac teased in a mock questioning tone. “I was thinking C game, at best.” She laughed as Dick balled up the cloth napkin and attempted to throw it at her. It didn’t go very far, landing in a heap in the middle of the table., narrowly missing the candle centerpiece. “Your pitching arm needs work too. It’s a miracle you didn’t burn the restaurant down.”

“Are you trying to give me a complex, Mackenzie?”

“Trying? You mean I didn’t succeed?”

“It takes much more than that.”

“Maybe I’m the one who needs to brush up on my A game.”

“Oh, you still know how to bring it Macster!”

She felt her mouth turn up slightly at Dick’s patented double entendre, but she did slip in an eye roll, it was an automatic reflex whenever they were together.

“You’re the only girl I’ve ever met who can make an eye roll sexy.”

“You’re the only guy I’ve ever met who thinks an eye roll is sexy, to begin with,” Mac said, turning it all around on Dick.

“I just tell it like I see it.”

“I used to think that was a bad thing,” Mac admitted. “Now I’m not so sure. Maybe I should be more like that.”

“I think whatever it is you’re doing is working, from where I’m sitting you don’t need to change a thing.”

“Maybe your eyes need to be checked out.” Mac muttered.

“Nope. Perfect vision, thank you very much.”

“I used to have that, too,” Mac grumped. “But not anymore.” She pointed to her turquoise framed glasses. “Hopefully I’ll be able to ditch these soon.”

“Yes, I’d noticed the new accessory. I’ve always liked girls in glasses, I’ve got a weakness for super-hot geeks, apparently.”

“So, just to be clear, I’m the super-hot geek in this scenario?” Mac’s skepticism bled into her words.

“Well, if the glasses fit…”

That banter, however, was interrupted by the arrival of their dinner.

Mac looked over at the brown hunk of grisly meat on Dick’s plate, it didn’t make her question her dietary lifestyle. “What did you get?” She asked before cutting off a piece of eggplant and putting it in her mouth.

“Veal Marsala, my Italian go-to. How’s your eggplant?”

“Good. Even better than Luigi’s, though I hate to admit that” she said after she’d swallowed her first bite of dinner.

“I won’t tell Ronnie,” Dick promised, between bites of his meal. “I don’t want to find myself on the business end of her taser.”

“Thanks! I, too, value my life and limbs. You’d think she owned stock in that place.”

“She didn’t?!” Dick asked, mockingly. “So, somewhat off topic, but I learned some interesting things this summer while you were…”

“In a coma,” Mac helpfully supplied. It didn’t sound like Dick wanted to say that word out loud either. She supposed people were afraid that mentioning it would bring up bad memories for her, or themselves. It was never far from her mind anyway, so it didn’t matter.

“Yes, that.”

“Spill. What was it that you learned about me?”

“Well, apparently, as part of a car crowdfunding scheme, a certain hot geek came up with a devious plan to sell the Purity Test results.”

“Veronica told you that?” Mac was taken aback; her friend was not one for secret sharing.

“No, actually it was Logan that shared that bit of intel with us. I’m quite impressed, Ghost World.”

“Don’t be,” Mac said, softly, glaring at the nickname she’d always hated. “I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but Logan and I were in the middle of a hard-core game of Never Have I Ever, high school edition and the confession just flew out of my mouth.”

“I wish I’d been there sharing my wit and intellect with you guys,” Dick said. The slight edge of wistfulness seemed genuine.

“I’m not sure we’d have been able to handle your wit that night.”

“Probably not,” Dick agreed. He seemed lost in thought for a few seconds, before adding “what was your Purity Test score?”

“Like I would ever take that test! And I certainly lacked the funds to purchase anyone else’s test. I just did the brokering of everyone’s results. Do you remember what yours was?”

“Yes,” Dick said simply.

“And it was…?”

“A prime number.”

“23?”

“No.”

“29?”

“Ha! Nope.” Dick said.

“43?”

“What do you think I am, a Boy Scout? No, now you’re way off. That’s borderline insulting.”

“Insulting?!” Mac raised her eyebrows at that.

“Yes, insulting.”

“That’s all I’m going to get? Can I get a clue at least?”

“A prime number bigger than 7 and less than 23,” Dick clarified, proudly. “I don’t think it would be any lower these days, if that counts for something.”

“Nope!” Mac confirmed, decisively.

“So, did you share any other deep, dark secrets with Logan that night?”

“That wasn’t juicy enough?”

“I was just checking to see if there were any other things hidden in your past.”

It was obvious from his expression, that Dick was just teasing her. He had no clue how close to home he’d just hit.

“Just one,” Mac said, and then pantomimed zippering her mouth shut, “and Logan doesn’t know.” She waited a beat, and then softly added, “I guess after today, it’s not really a secret anymore.”

“Really? I was just teasing, Mac. I thought if anyone had escaped the Neptune curse, it was you.” Dick cocked his head, waiting for her to continue. Mac knew that was her cue, and before she was consciously aware of what she was doing she took a deep breath and told him the reason she was distracted earlier in the evening.

Dick was completely silent during Mac’s confession, though she felt like she could read every emotion that flashed on his face—surprise, confusion, and the emotion she hated the most, sympathy. She only took occasional glimpses at him, the rest of the time her eyes were focused on the flickering flame of the candle centerpiece. She spoke softly, haltingly in places.

Dick’s hand reached across the table to grab Mac’s hand which she had resting on the table.

“You could have rescheduled,” Dick said at long last. “I would have understood. I think I would have gone underground after the hell you went through today.”

“I actually wanted the distraction.”

“I get that,” Dick finally said, “and I’m always happy to be your distraction, Macster.” He waited a beat, and then softly added, “Do you feel better now that everyone involved knows the truth?”

“Yes. No. Maybe…You know, I haven’t actually decided yet.”

“And you’ve known this since our junior year?”

“Yes, when Veronica looked my parents’ information up in one of her super spy databases. I never felt like I was in the right family. I can’t explain it, Dick, it was just this gnawing feeling I’ve had ever since I can remember, but I just thought I was adopted.”

“You and Cassidy had that in common, you know. He never felt like he belonged to our family, either.” Dick looked down at the table as he said it, as though he couldn’t bear to look at Mac when he said his brother’s name.

“Yeah, I know. Believe me, we compared notes. Not about me being a Sinclair, of course, but we’d talked about feeling like we were born into the wrong families.” Mac looked down and saw that she and Dick were still holding hands. This time it was her turn to give his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“But in Cassidy’s case I made him feel that way. Dad made him feel that way. It was a lot different from your situation.” Dick waited a beat, and then softly added, “You’re amazing, you know that, right? I can’t blame Mrs. S for wanting you in her life, especially since she got the raw end of the deal to begin with.” He raised his head again, this time looking into Mac’s eyes.

“Raw deal? Maybe,” Mac shrugged. “I’ve never been able to figure out if it was nurture or nature that made Madison, um, well, Madison.”

“It’s a mystery. I’ve always wondered how Mrs. Sinclair could have such a bitch for a daughter,” Dick replied. “Madison, that is,” he added as clarification. “Lauren is awesome.  Now I think I know the answer to that.”

“I don’t think this explains that mystery at all, Dick. My mom, er ‘Mom1’ isn’t a carrier of the bitch gene, either. I always thought maybe the Sinclairs spoiled her too much because they felt guilty or some Dr. Phil drivel like that.”

“I wasn’t calling Mrs. Mac, ah, your regular mom a bitch,” Dick backtracked. “Mrs. Mac and I got along really well this summer. She’s awesome.”

“I know, I heard all about it. I’m not sure what spell you cast on her, but she really liked you.”

“It’s mutual.” Dick said, adding, “I’m like a boy scout, moms love me!”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“I can bring the Casablancas charm when I want to. Remember my 15 minutes of humanity?”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot about that.” Mac teased. She took another bite of her dinner, and waited until she was done chewing before softly adding, “So, now that you know my deep, dark secret are you going to run for the hills?”

Dick just stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head in disgust. Once again Mac was able to read that change as it broadcast itself clearly on his face. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as I thought you did. Why the hell would you think me, of all people, would hold this against you? You are as innocent of a victim as they come. My family tree can’t exactly claim that.”

“What about when I was still in the hospital? You went from camping out in the waiting room, to forgetting all about me.”

Dick scoffed at Mac’s last comment. “I screwed up, Mac. It’s what I do. Remember? I’m sure Ronnie will be happy to remind you.” He waited a beat, and then added, “Didn’t we talk about this already? I didn’t think you needed me anymore, but believe me, I never forgot about you. Your accident has been burned into my eyeballs since day one.”

“And meanwhile I still can’t remember a thing about that day. I guess I thought it would come back to me, eventually at least.” Her voice got soft, and she added, “I’m still waiting.”

“That’s normal, isn’t it? To not remember?”

“Yes, according to my doctors at least,” Mac said. “They also thought it might be permanent. But I still hoped I’d get at least a little flash of memory by now.”

“Not being able to remember the accident sounds like a good thing to me,” Dick replied, thoughtfully. “There are so many things in my life I’d rather forget entirely. I wouldn’t even be able to know where to start with that list.”

“I really don’t know. It’s, well, it’s weird, for lack of a better word. Everyone else has this vivid memory of this event that’s still affecting every part of my life, and for me, it’s a complete blank.” As she said it, Mac knew that Veronica and Parker were the only other people in her world who could understand exactly what she was trying to say, but they weren’t sitting across from her, Dick was. “And then we have the Hallmark Movie of the week aspect of my birth. That’s the same exact thing. My parents—bio and “real” parents—remember vividly the events leading up to learning that they brought home the wrong baby. It’s affected me my entire life, and yet I have zero recollection of that time because no one bothered to tell me. They had all the power, leaving me to deal with the fallout.”

“I can’t imagine that would be an easy thing to explain to a child. It’s not really that easy to explain to an adult, either. They probably wanted to give you and Madison normal childhoods, as normal as things get in the Hellmouth of Neptune, at least.”

“Normal! Well, the joke’s on them,” Mac said. She paused a moment, and then added, “Hellmouth? Yes, I’d definitely use that to describe this iniquitous hellhole.”

“I can’t take credit for that. Wallace was the one who suggested that Neptune is actually the real Hellmouth.”

“Wallace?” Mac’s tone was questioning.

“Wallace Fennel, star basketball player and Ronnie’s bitch who always does her dirty work,” Dick explained.

“I know who he is, thanks,” Mac said dryly. “I just didn’t realize you guys were friends.”

“I lost the friendship bracelet he made me, but he’s a good guy. We got to know each other better when you were in the hospital.”

Mac pushed aside her plate, she’d managed to choke down most of it, despite the turn the dinner conversation had taken. The Eggplant Rollatini was delicious, it wasn’t the food’s fault that the stress of her day had taken an edge out of her normally robust appetite. Dick, on the other hand, earned the clean plate award. She watched him push his dish aside, too, as they waited for the waitress to bring them the bill.

A few minutes later the check was dropped off, and Dick dropped 3 one-hundred-dollar bills with the casualness of the ‘09’er that he was. “That includes the tip,” he explained, though Mac hadn’t asked.

Once they were back in Dick’s truck he asked if she was still up to the dessert picnic idea with Ronnie and Logan.

“Of course,” she assured him. “I always leave room for dessert.”

While Dick went inside Java to order dessert and coffee for everyone, Mac stayed in the car. She dug her cell out of the depths of her small purse. She’d been waiting for the right time to look at Lauren’s text.

Lauren: Hi Mac! It’s Lauren. Thanks for your text earlier today. I was hoping to hear from you. We didn’t really have a chance to talk today with the…well, you know. But maybe we could meet sometime next week? If you want to, if not I get it.

Me: Hi Lauren. Sounds fun! I’m free Thursday after 4. Would that work for you? Java maybe?

Mac hit send and stared intently at the screen as though she could Jedi-Mind trick an immediate response, and when the answering ping came right back, she wondered briefly if maybe that was exactly what had happened.

Lauren: How about Thursday at 4:30 at Java’s? See you there?

Me: It’s a date! See you there!!!

She must have still been smiling when Dick got back into his truck a few minutes later, laden down with bags and a drink tray.

“What’s up with you? Did Ed McMahon just offer you a million dollars?” Dick teased as he passed the bags over to Mac to hold.

“Is Ed McMahon still alive?”

“Did his ghost just offer you a million dollars?” he amended.

“Even better,” Mac said. “I have a coffee date with my bio sister.” It felt liberating to be able to share that news out loud.

“Lauren is awesome! I always liked her a lot. She was always my favorite Sinclair, though now I guess I’ll have to bump her to second place.”

“I’m not becoming a Sinclair,” Mac amended, “I’m still a Mackenzie, but I guess it’s like I gained a bonus family?” Her tone was more a question than a statement towards the end. “I guess the rest of it we’ll just make up as we go along.”

“A bonus family sounds pretty good to me,” Dick said wistfully.

Mac could hear the “or, any family at all” in Dick’s voice, though he left that part unsaid.

A few minutes later they pulled up to the parking lot of Dog Beach.

The sun had already surrendered to the night, but the parking lot and beach beyond was well lit by the strategically placed gas light posts, and the almost full moon above.

Mac was just about to ask if Dick knew how far down the beach Logan and Veronica were, when she saw a flickering light from a campfire about a half a mile ahead.

“Will you protect me from Ronnie,” Dick whispered in her ear as they made their way over there.

“You’re a big boy, I think you can take care of yourself.”

“But Ronnie has a taser,” Dick said, with a slight whine.

“Doesn’t Logan keep you safe?”

“He’s more afraid of Ronnie than I am.”

Mac laughed, but before she could further tease Dick about his healthy fear of her female bestie, the couple in question were shouting out to them.

“Q! We meet again!” Veronica shouted out, her arms waving like she was sending out a SOS signal.

“Bond! You came back to the Hellmouth!”

“Anything for my Q!” Veronica replied. Logan must have taken umbrage with that because she then quickly added, “And for Logan, of course! Is that better, little boy?”

“If he calls Ronnie mommy, I’m out of here,” Dick whispered.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Mac assured him.

As soon as they reached their destination, Veronica quickly relieved Dick of the carry out bags. She eagerly reached in looking for the box with her slice of white chocolate raspberry cheesecake before handing the rest of the pastries back to Logan to finish passing out.

Once everyone had been handed their dessert and coffee, Mac settled down into one of the extra chairs Logan had supplied for their beach picnic. A slight breeze stirred up the scent of the fire. The waves breaking and the popping of the fire provided the background music. She took a big bite of her apple crisp. 

A rustling sound beside her pulled Mac’s attention away from her pastry. She looked over and saw Veronica arranging her chair beside her. “I think it’s time for a little girl talk, Mackie-O!” She said by way of explanation.

“Girl talk, eh? How very Junior High.”

“I had my cell with me the entire time, waiting for you to text the danger phrase, and so far, nada, zippo, zilch. Does that mean I can keep my taser holstered?”

“So far, at least. Dick has been on his best behavior.”

“Sounds promising,” Veronica said, this time in a more serious voice.

“I didn’t even know you’d changed plans and decided to grace us all with your presence.” Mac’s voice held a mild rebuke. “For all I knew you were still in Palo Alto. How would you have been able to aid in my rescue?”

“Teleportation?” Veronica suggested. “My network is vast, you know this.”

“Oh, right,” Mac said, snapping her fingers. She paused, and then added, “Are we doing this ‘girl talk’ thing correctly?”

“Is there a wrong way?”

“I’ll have to consult Teen People and get back to you, Vee.”

Mac looked over at Dick and saw that Logan had roped him in to helping with fire maintenance. They were talking softly among themselves, Mac figured it was probably the male equivalent of their girl talk.

“That’s okay. We can forge our own path, dare to be different. How did things go this morning? I believe you had brunch plans?”

“That was just today, wasn’t it? It seems so much longer than that. The day that never ends.” Mac said. It was the understatement of the year. Then, she added, “You don’t have to talk in shorthand, Dick knows the whole sordid truth.”

“Does he now? Well, then, how did brunch at the Sinclair’s go? Stop leaving me in suspense.”

“Very little bloodshed, surprisingly.”

“That is surprising. I can’t imagine that Madison took the news that she was from the lower zip code by birth right in stride.”

“Well, it’s only been 4 days since she learned the truth.” Mac said, then quickly added upon seeing Veronica’s scowl, “Not that I’m defending Madison overall, just in this one instance.”

“No, no, I get it. We all know I’m not president of Madison’s fan club, but this isn’t exactly a normal situation.”

“Not normal at all,” Mac agreed. “Somehow, at the end, it became all my fault, in Madison’s mind only. I can’t for the life of me figure out her reasoning, but it’s not like we ever shared a wavelength. Overall, it went okay, I guess. As okay as these things can go, at least.”

Veronica must have got up during Mac’s recap, but she was so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed until her decidedly un-touchy feely best friend was hugging her. “I’m glad you don’t have to live that lie anymore.” Veronica said, before severing the embrace.

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Mac confessed. “My mom—um, ‘Mom1’ as she’s now known as in my head—still doesn’t know that the switch was old news to me.”

“Why?” Veronica seemed confused.

“I didn’t want to hurt her. How do you explain that you hired your PI best friend to check up on your parents’ finances because your entire life you’ve wondered why you never fit into your own frakking family?”

“I think you just did.” Veronica said. “Maybe I ran across that info while digging into an unrelated case? Feel free to blame me, say anything you need to take the heat off yourself,” she proposed.

“Maybe,” Mac’s tone was non-committal. “Thanks friend.”

“I don’t think she has to tell her parents anything,” Dick said, his voice rising slightly to be heard over the roar of the surf and the crackling of the bonfire. “It’s not Mackie’s job to say anything about it, you know?”

Mac wasn’t even aware Dick had been paying any attention to her and Veronica’s weak attempt at a girly chat, though she was a little surprised to realize exactly how much his opinion mattered to her. That seemed to be happening a lot these days.

“I mean, it’s just my opinion, my 25 cents, so take that for what it’s worth,” Dick continued. “Or don’t take it, whatever.”

“It’s a penny for your thoughts, Dick,” Veronica corrected. “Though I suppose even that’s too much to pay, for your thoughts, at least.”

“Inflation, Ronnie. Haven’t they taught you anything at Stanford?”

It occurred to Mac that Logan probably hadn’t been read into the conversation yet, and since everything was out in the open between the families, her unofficial oath of silence was no longer necessary. Honestly, that was a relief. She wasn’t going to tell strangers on the street, or broadcast all over social media how her entire life had been ruled by a hospital error, but this was Logan, a friend, not just an acquaintance.

“Hey Logan, what did you guys do while waiting for Dick and me to ply you crazy kids with cheesecake and coffee?” Mac called over the fire. She decided to ease the conversation into her news, instead of diving in headfirst.

“I tended to the fire, you know, manly pursuits, while my lady here ate grapes and watched me labor.” Logan teased.

“He needs to earn his keep somehow.”

“That’s right Sugarpuss,” Logan directed the first part to Veronica, and then addressing the rest of the group, added “I’m just glad I got her on my turf again.”

“Me, too,” Mac agreed. “It was a nice surprise to see my bestie after the day I had.”

Logan cocked his head, reminiscent of his girlfriend’s trademark. “What kind of day was that?”

“Mentally exhausting, in a word. Well, the first half, that is. I have no complaints about the date part.” Mac knew she was rambling. She glanced over at Dick and smiled. “I’ll just come right out with it. Everyone else here knows the sordid tale by now. And now it’s no longer a state secret, I guess. I went home from the hospital with the wrong family.” Mac took a deep breath, and then unnecessarily added “when I was born, that is.”

“What the actual hell?” Logan’s voice rose at the end.

“Sounds like a made for TV movie, I know, but that’s my life.”

“It gets better,” Dick added. “Ask her who she was switched with.”

“Madison Sinclair,” Mac rushed in to say before Veronica could say anything. The look of censure her friend flashed Dick didn’t go unnoticed. His habit of blurting things out always irritated Vee, along with approximately 550 other things. “It’s the Neptune disease,” she added.

“Better?” Logan’s voice was skeptical.

“Better as in the worst possible scenario ever,” Dick explained. “Madison is essentially the anti-Mac. Or is it the other way?”

“Mac’s the anti-Madison,” Veronica corrected.

“Did you break a mirror recently, or something?” Logan asked. “You’ve had a lot of bad luck come your way. And to think, in high school I always thought you had a white-picket fence family.”

Mac scoffed and then shrugged but didn’t say anything to that. What could she say? There were parts of her life lately that could be termed bad luck, but on the flip side, she could argue she’d had a lot of good luck come her way, too. She’d survived a bad accident, Veronica was geographically back in her life, at least in short-term bursts; she now had a legit claim to her bio sister, Lauren, and maybe best of all was her not-yet-defined relationship with Dick. They always seemed to defy definition at every turn, so why should this new step be any different?

“Do you think if the switch had never happened, you and Dick would have dated in high school?” Logan asked a couple of minutes later, breaking up the silence that had briefly settled over everyone. It was a question that had only semi-recently occurred to Mac. After her coma-dream, or whatever the hell her time in the sandbox dimension was, she was thinking the answer was yes. Before then, her answer probably would have been a resounding hell no!

There were so many avenues that question could go down, and everyone had their own opinion. Veronica looked nauseous. Of course, how could that innocent question not affect her? Logan seemed to know that instinctively. From what Mac could tell by the firelight, Logan’s eyes were locked on Veronica, watching for signs of her distress. That was his factory setting after all.

What if the switch had never happened, then maybe Dick wouldn’t have drugged her drink, and maybe Cassidy wouldn’t have had the opportunity to rape her unconscious friend? Once again, Mac thought back to the dreamworld. In that historic rewrite she and Dick were never at Shelly Pomroy’s fateful party at all their sophomore year. That important question had been answered by Dick rambling memories about aunt visits and watching chick flicks. Unfortunately, it still seemed like Cassidy had still gone to the party, but she, as Madison that is, had played no role in anything that happened to her best friend. There was no rewrite button in existence though. If there were, that was one historic event in real life that she would have used it on.

The accident itself was a big blank, but Mac could almost recite the events of her coma dream word for word. It was a mindfuck to the third power.

Reconciling the high school Dick with the college 2.0 version hadn’t happened overnight. Inner pain, grief, and guilt changed a person deeply, Mac and all her Neptune survivor friends were all living proof of that. As she got to know Logan’s alcohol-soaked roomie better, the periods she’d taken to calling his 15 minutes of humanity started increasing in frequency. Then the accident happened, and Dick proved to be a true friend, not of the pseudo label she’d previously marked him with. Despite their sordid history from high school, the inexcusable things he did to people back then, and the connection they both had with Dick’s deceased, murdering baby brother, all that combined to bring them to tonight, their first date. She knew with 100% certainty there would be no Y if X had not happened.

“Yes, I think so,” Mac finally replied. “Everyone kept asking me what my coma was like, and did I remember any dreams. That is a surreal question, but I guess they wanted to know if it was like a big black nothingness, like an extra-long nap. I get it, it’s not like a normal thing everyone is lucky enough to experience.” Her sarcastic default peaked in towards the end of the sentence.

“I know I asked you something like that when you first woke up. I didn’t mean to be rude,” Veronica quickly chimed in.

“It wasn’t rude,” Mac amended. “I never thought that. Hell, I’d ask the same thing if God forbid roles had been reversed. Now that everyone knows about my Lifetime Movie of the Week birth, I wanted to come clean about one more thing.”

“Come clean? How many gothic secrets can one person have, Mackie?” Dick asked.

“Infinite, this is Neptune after all,” Logan replied, speaking on Mac’s behalf.

“It’s not quite a gothic secret,” Mac hedged, “but I had the strangest coma dream after the accident. I dreamed that I had hit my head at Cheerleading practice and woke up as Madison Sinclair. I was still me, I looked like myself, but I lived in Madison’s house. Instead of that rust bucket death trap, I drove a Cadillac. Lauren was my younger sister. I had a maid, that part was fun once I got used to it. Anyway, we were all back in junior year at Neptune High. It felt…real, I guess, not like a dream at all.” She kept her gaze focused on the fire, tracking the dancing of the flames against the soft breeze kicking up from the ocean. “Dick and I were dating, apparently. V, we became friends in that life, too. People whose names I didn’t even know in real life were suddenly my best friends. Jackson Douglas, for one. Um, Meg was alive. Madison was known as Cindy, not Mac. She lived in my house. My own parents, the ones that raised me that is, didn’t even know who I was. Dad, ah, ‘Dad1’ was a contractor who did work for the Sinclairs.” Her voice trailed off. She took a deep breath, let it out, and quietly added “Most mind bending of all, though, is that I know things in this real world I shouldn’t even know. For example, just like the coma dream world, the Sinclairs really do have a maid named Lucille. I also became friends with their black and white tuxedo cat, Fritz. I met the real Fritz today, and he’s identical to the one that slept in my bed in dreamworld.”

At first Mac was afraid she’d rendered everyone speechless; the silence rose up, becoming a living entity in that moment. She added, “This is the part where you all tell me I’m losing my mind.”

“No! Oh Q, no, you’re not losing your mind.” Veronica rushed to reassure her. “There have been countless studies out there where doctors have concluded that people in a coma can, and do, have very vivid dreams. It’s normal.”

“Okay,” Mac said thoughtfully, “that may be true, but how do you explain all the things I got right if this was just a dream?”

“Collective subconscious?” Veronica proposed.

“The third dimension?” Logan suggested.

Mac shrugged. It defied all rational thought.

“So, did Logan and I hate each other?” Veronica asked, trying to sound casual, but she failed at that attempt.

“Ha! I don’t know who you think you’re fooling, Bond! You two were making out within the first month of my strange new life.  It was déjà vu all over again. You know, like it always is.”

“And always will be,” Dick added.

“We’re epic, Bobcat. Remember? We span years and continents, and even alternate dimensions apparently.” Logan followed that declaration up with a growl.

“Oh, right!” Veronica replied, snapping her fingers. “How could I forget?”

“What about the Purity Test? I guess with the Cadillac you didn’t need to raise funds for that sporty Beetle,” Logan asked.

“Well, I guess the new “Cindy” tried, and failed to sell the purity test results. I didn’t get the full story, but Wallace, who was still helping the secretary with admin tasks, told me a little bit about how she tried to hire someone to do the programming. The lesson there is never outsource your coding.”

“Wallace! What was he like in your coma world?” Veronica asked.

Mac heard the wistful tone in her friend’s voice. “Wallace is the same in every dimension, hilarious, helpful and someone you definitely want in your corner,” she stated.

“I got a 19.” Dick said.

Mac just looked at him, confused by the non-sequitur.

“Are you in the right conversation, Casablancas?”

“I am. Thanks for your concern, Ronnie, but Mackie asked me earlier tonight what my purity score was. I forgot to answer her.”

“Ducked the question, is what I think you mean,” Mac corrected, “but you’re right, that is a prime number.”

“Business major. Remember?” Dick replied. Then, attempting to steer the conversation from the Purity Test, he added “I think you mentioned something to me about a coma dream when you were still in the hospital. I don’t remember anything about you and Madison doing the Freaky Friday switch around though.”

“It sounded crazy, Dick. It still does. I guess I didn’t want to be transferred to the mental health floor. Besides, I was still in so much pain, I didn’t have the strength to explain my weird, gossamer link to Madison. You know?”

She saw him flinch a little bit when she mentioned how badly she hurt those first few days after she woke up from the coma. Fortunately, the pain was largely behind her now, except for the migraines she was still suffering from.

“I get it, Mac. No worries. I was just curious, that’s all. There’s one more thing, did you, ah, see Cassidy?” Dick’s voice was so quiet when he mentioned his brother’s name, she could hardly hear him. His gaze was directed at the fire light, too, like he also found the dancing flames held the answers to the universe.

“Yes.” Mac replied. She reached over and grabbed his hand, giving it a quick squeeze.

“Oh.” Dick murmured.

Mac could tell he wanted to ask her so much more about Cassidy, but he was also afraid to break open the gates of his tenuously held emotions. She wasn’t sure when she first started being so attuned to Dick, of all people in her life. Maybe it could all be traced back to their gaming marathons where she learned how to kick his electronic ass so effectively, like an assassin in the night. Honestly, she knew the biggest reason was their iron clad link to Cassidy. They still had corners of their hearts that mourned the damaged boy they both loved. It was a piece of them that they hid away from other people in their lives, in deference to the fact that Cassidy had been the instrument of pain for so many lives, theirs included, of course. His carnage stretched its tentacles through every corner of Neptune, and beyond.

“It was so hard to be around him, knowing what I did about him.” Mac confessed, her voice soft, as she looked down.

“I can’t even imagine.” Dick returned the squeeze, comforting her even though the pain Cassidy’s name released had to pierce him much deeper than her.

Mac suspected what he said wasn’t true though. Dick probably had his own do-over dreams about the broken boy who fractured everyone’s hearts.

“I don’t want to talk about coma dreams anymore,” Mac leaned over to whisper to Dick. A glance over her other shoulder showed that Veronica and Logan had also checked out of the conversation. They were conversing non-verbally, an art they excelled in.

“Me either. I can propose other topics that are more suited to bonfires.”

“A ghost story?” Mac suggested.

“No, even better. Kissing Ghost World!”

“Dick,” Mac screeched, and ignoring the promise of an impending kiss, punched him hard on his arm. If there were going to be any more dates, she had to break him of that insulting high school nickname.  “Stop calling me that!”

“Sorry,” Dick said, though his voice was anything but contrite. “How about we kiss and make up?” He plopped down onto the sand in front of his beach chair and proceeded to pull Mac into his lap. Not waiting for a reply, his lips found hers.

Mac opened her mouth in entry, merging into Dick, as everything else was regulated to the background.

There was nothing pseudo about her feelings towards the guy whose tongue was exploring her mouth.

TBC…                                                      

Chapter Text

Chapter 28—Wake to Dream

Thursday, October 1^st, 2009

Mac walked out of her economics class, the last one for the day, in a daze. Today was the day that she’d be meeting Lauren at Java the Hut.

Finally!

It was the haze of a dream meeting the technicolor sharpness of reality.

She had been dreaming of sisterly bonding with Lauren every single day since she’d learned about the existence of her biological sister five years ago. It had at one time seemed like a fantasy that would never reach reality, but all that changed just over a week ago when both families starring in the baby switch drama—the Mackenzie’s and Sinclair’s—sat down their respective children and revealed the truth. Too bad they were five years too late. Veronica had beat them to it. Mac seized the moment when classmates started hiring her PI friend to dig up dirt on their parents. Finally, she had the chance to quiet that seething inner voice that kept whispering that she wasn’t biologically a Mackenzie. Only that plan was an epic failure, instead of quieting that inner voice, it had the opposite effect. It confirmed what her soul apparently already knew.

Mac was still second guessing her decision to not tell ‘Mom1’ that she had known the entire sordid story since her junior year of high school. She was done with secrets. They had defined her life for way too long.

A deep voice and a light tap on the shoulder interrupted her rumination.

“A Soy Chai Latte for your thoughts?”

She recognized that voice right away and accepted the proffered beverage.

“Thank you kindly, coffee bitch, or should I say, tea bitch, technically.” Mac said. She had been read into Dick, and Logan’s roles, respectively, as beverage fetchers during her “red carpet” stay at Neptune Memorial Hospital during the summer. The drink bitch moniker was Veronica’s nickname, one of several she bestowed on her boyfriend and his BFF. “Of course,” she added “I’m actually on my way to Java to meet Lauren. Not that I’m not appreciative of your gesture.”

“I remember,” Dick said, falling into step beside her in the crowded halls of the mathematics building. “I thought you might want to pre-game it.”

“Pre-game, eh? Isn’t that what you do before going to a kegger?”

“I could always take the drink back.”

“No! I didn’t say that I don’t appreciate your gesture, and I definitely did not say I wouldn’t drink it.” Mac’s voice was a bit sharper than intended.

“I thought I’d escort you to the parking lot,” Dick explained.

“Always the gentleman.”

“Shh. I don’t want that to get out, it might ruin my street cred.”

“The only way that could happen is if you had any street cred to begin with, Casablancas.”

“Touché, Makenzie, touché!”

“Seriously though, thank you. I’m a little nervous. I’m excited, too, of course. I’ve been wanting to get to know Lauren, who is this virtual stranger that shares my blood, ever since I’d learned that she existed, but what if she hates me?” Her insecurity bled into her words as she verbalized to Dick the thoughts that had been haunting her all day.

“Impossible,” Dick said immediately. His tone dismissive. “No one hates you. They couldn’t even if they tried. I know because I did try, you know freshman year at Hearst. It’s impossible,” he repeated. Dick’s voice seemed to carry the same ratio of confidence that hers held doubt. “You’ll be fine. You know, be yourself. The exact opposite advice people usually give me.” He shrugged and said the last bit wryly. “Go figure.”

Who knew Dick gave such good pep talks? That seemed to be her new hobby these days, discovering new facets of Dick’s personality. Mac ignored his confession about trying to hate her their fresh-person year at Hearst. Bygones. They’d moved past that brief, sorry chapter of their shared history. Dick had been drowning in grief and guilt over Cassidy’s recent death. In a desperate move to relieve some of the pressure that had been bearing down on him, he’d begun seeking out other people in his brother’s narrow orbit to share in his pain. Mac couldn’t fault him for that, she knew firsthand what a lonely address pain was.

They walked down the steps of the building and out into the quad. Dick had maneuvered himself over to her other side, so he could hold her left hand while she held the latte in her right.

They’d bumped into each other on campus every day since the week began, which gave weight to Mac’s suspicion that Dick had been avoiding her before. Their talk had cleared things up, and he was set straight about his—wrong—assumption that she didn’t want him around during the lonely weeks she’d spent recovering from her serious injury back in June. That talk had another side effect, too, it ended up leading to their first date on Saturday. That invitation was unexpected, but not unwelcome.

“Any other parting advice?” Mac asked.

“Whatever you do, no matter how much they cry, do not feed the Gremlins after midnight.” Dick stated.

“I meant about Lauren. I was just mentally giving you points for a good pep talk. Now, I’m forced to subtract them. You leave me no choice.” She grumbled, using her best Kindergarten teacher voice.

“I think I have a few ideas on how I can gain some extra credit, Professor Mackie. No, seriously, you’ll be fine. Lauren is so nice, and smart. You know, now that I think about it, you remind me of her.” Dick said, tapping his finger on his chin, as though in deep thought.

“Oh, you mean like we could be sisters?” Mac snarked.

“Maybe,” Dick hedged, adding, “it’s a novel idea, I know.”

They crossed one of the main campus streets into Commuter Lot A. Mac’s distinctive lime green Beetle was parked in the 3^rd row, dead center.

“Wish me luck,” Mac murmured, as they stopped in front of her car. She handed Dick her cup as she dug through her bag in search of her keys.

“Good luck!” Dick said, and then added, “not that you’ll need it. Don’t put too much pressure on today. Take it slow.” He paused, and then added “I don’t think I’ve ever said those words to a chick before.”

Mac found her keys at the bottom of her bag. She pressed the key fob to open the door, and then took her latte back from Dick. She rolled her eyes at Dick’s crack about this being the first time he’d ever told a “chick” to go slow in his life, though she suspected it was the truth.

Dick gently positioned Mac up against her car, his lips meeting hers, his tongue plundering her mouth, exploring its depths. She snaked one hand around Dick’s broad shoulders, the other one cupped his butt, melding them into one.

Reluctantly, she severed the embrace. Mac didn’t want to be late meeting Lauren, regardless of how much she was enjoying Dick’s sendoff.

“Have fun,” Dick said as Mac pulled the door handle towards her. She got into the driver’s seat, tossing her bag on the passenger seat.

“I will. Thanks for the chai latte. See you later!” Mac said, though her words got lost at the end as Dick closed her car door.

She licked her kiss-swollen lips, as she started the car. It was only a 5-minute drive from campus. A glance at the dashboard clock showed she’d be a little early. Her mom (‘Mom1’) always tried to be prompt, but she always ended up trending closer to 10-minutes late. It was something that always annoyed her, a small bullet point on her mental list, but it was there, nonetheless. It was yet another difference between her mom and herself that she’d been cataloging since toddlerhood.

She found a spot less than a block from Java. She must have done something right to deserve that blessing from the parking Gods.

Mac opened the door to the coffee shop and saw Lauren sitting at a table by the window. Evidently her promptness gene came from the Sinclair pool.

Lauren waved.

Mac returned the wave, before hopping into the short line. A few minutes later she had her second latte of the day in hand.

“Hi! Sorry I’m late,” Mac said, sliding into the chair across from this girl who looked so much like a younger version of herself.

“You’re not late, I was just extra early, that’s all.” Lauren replied, before taking a sip of her own drink.

“It’s like I always say, if you’re not early, you’re late,” Mac said.

“You sound just like mom,” Lauren replied. She waited a beat, “um, my mom, our mom?” The questioning tone pressed down. “I’m not sure what to say here.” She laughed softly.

“I’m not sure either. I’ve started calling them ‘Mom1’ and ‘Mom2’, just to keep track of them in my head. Sadly, I couldn’t find a system’s manual for today,” Mac confessed.

“That’s okay, I don’t think we need one anyway,” Lauren replied. “By the way, I like your shirt.”

Mac glanced down at her shirt, reminding herself of what she was wearing. It was her favorite black tee shirt AH: The Element of Surprise. It seemed like an appropriate thing to wear for a coffee shop “date” with the biological sister she always dreamed of.  “This old thing? Thanks. Ryan gave it to me last Christmas. I like your Naruto shirt, too.”

Lauren smiled. “This old thing?” She repeated. “Thanks.”

“So, you’re an anime fan?” Mac questioned.

“I’m a Naruto fan, at least. What about you?”

“I’ve seen it. It’s pretty good. I think I like One Piece, better though.”

“Is that the pirate one?” Lauren inquired.

“Yes,” Mac confirmed. “So, you’ve watched it?”

“Not yet. Maybe I should check it out.”

“Yes, you definitely should. I mean, we are Neptune pirates, after all.” Mac teased

“True! I guess when you put it like that, it ought to be mandatory.” Lauren said.

“Maybe we can make it your homework,” Mac added.

“Homework?” Lauren repeated, raising an eyebrow. “I thought I was done with school, for the day, at least.”

“Yes, homework,” Mac confirmed. “What if I promised not to make you write a report on it?”

“Sold,” Lauren conceded. She stuck out her hand towards Mac. They shook on the promise. “So, what are you drinking?” she asked.

“Soy Chai Latte,” Mac replied. “You?”

“A skinny chai.”

“An excellent choice,” Mac confirmed.

“You, too. It’s funny, I’d always wondered why Madison and I were so different, but I’d just dismiss it as normal sister stuff. You know?”

“I know exactly what you mean. With Ryan, well, being a boy, that didn’t seem that odd to me, all those differences between us. For me, what was so obvious, and so sad, was how different my mom and I are. I loved her, um, I do love her, very much. It’s just I never felt like she got me or something like that.” Mac’s voice got softer, tracing a finger around the rim of the mug. “How are you doing with everything?”

Lauren gifted her a look of surprise. “I think I’m supposed to ask you that.”

“No systems manual to follow, remember? Believe me, I’m getting a lot of support, but it’s not just me and Madison who are affected, it’s every bit as life changing for you and Ryan, as it is for us.”

“I think I’m still digesting it all. What about you?” Lauren played with the mug handle before taking a noisy sip of her tea.

“I’m definitely still digesting it all.” Mac echoed. “This is the part where I wish there was a system’s manual, or maybe even one of those For-Dummies self-help books.”

“You should write one.”

“I’ll put it on my to-do list,” Mac joked, “though I really hope there’s not a big market for a book like that.” The next thing out of her mouth surprised her though. “I already knew about Madison and me. I’ve known since I was 17, just a little older than you are now. My friend Veronica discovered that my parents had won a settlement from Neptune Memorial. I guess I should’ve already digested this news a long time ago, but apparently I never have.”

Lauren didn’t reply, but she cocked her head slightly.

“I haven’t told mom, er ‘Mom1’, that I already knew everything. I’ve tried many times through the years but chickened out every single time.”

“At least you don’t have to hide this anymore. That’s got to feel pretty good.”

“It does.” Mac said. She kept the mostly she’d mentally tacked on the end of the sentence to herself. Lauren was still the best part of this complex equation that represented her life.

“Madison’s not taking it as well as you seem to be.” Lauren’s blurted out, as she started shredding a napkin in front of her.

At the mere mention of Madison’s name, Mac concentrated on not flinching or making a sour face.

“Well, again, I had more time to get used to things,” Mac reiterated. Defending her high school bully wasn’t something she was used to. She was pretty sure she’d never get to that point. “There will be days where she hardly thinks about it at all, though it may take some time to get there. Other days, it’s the only thing she’ll be able to concentrate on.”

“I should have been suspicious about the interest my mom took in your accident this summer,” Lauren confessed, breaking off the brief silence that had bubbled up. “Oh, crap! You probably don’t want to talk about that.” She looked stricken. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Mac rushed to reassure her. “What do you mean?” She reached out and brushed her hand against Lauren’s arm.

“I was permanently assigned to your room once you woke up, and every shift mom asked me a lot of questions about all my patients; how they were doing, any progress, etc. She’d never really gotten that involved before, but this time she played it off as something to do with the family charity and taking more of an active role going forward. It sounded plausible, I guess. Plus, she did a pretty good job making it seem like she was interested in all the patients I assisted, not just you.”

“Why would you be suspicious? I’m sure I would have believed that story, too, if the roles were reversed.”

“I guess,” Lauren finally replied. She took the final sip of her tea, and then pushed the cup away.

Mac didn’t think she looked convinced. “Well, as they say, hindsight is 20/20. It’s not like any of this is a normal situation.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Mac nodded her agreement.

“Uh, this is weird, but I guess what turned out to be the day of your accident, we ran into each other here at Java. Only later, after…you know, your accident, I thought you looked familiar. Anyway, I guess you, uh, knew who I was then? Do you even remember seeing me here?” The confession came tumbling out of Lauren’s mouth, Mac tried to mentally piece together what her sister was trying to say.

“Yes, and yes, but vaguely. It’s actually the only part of that day I remember now.” Mac admitted, looking down at her hands. “Everything else is just a big blank until I woke up.”

“That must be hard, running into a stranger and knowing we’re um, blood related. I actually don’t know what I’d do if I knew who were, and you didn’t know me at all.”

“Hard, I guess, is one way to put it,” Mac admitted. The desire to change the subject was overriding her circuits. “On another subject, are you ready for another Chai?”

“Yes, please.”

Mac went over to the counter to order two more drinks. Overall, occasional conversational ramblings aside, she was pleased at how well things were going. Even when they were discussing the uncomfortable things, she never felt judged by this girl who had always been her unfulfilled wish come true.

A few minutes later Mac sat back down at their table with two steaming cups of Chai.

“Thanks,” Lauren said, grabbing the proffered cup. She blew on it a couple of times before taking a small sip. “Delicious.”

“You’re welcome,” Mac replied. She wrapped her hands around the cup, letting the heat bleed through. “Here’s a fun fact. Did you know Chai means tea in Hindi?”

“No, I didn’t. Learn something new every day, I guess. So, does that mean calling it chai tea is redundant?”

“Yes, you’re right,” Mac agreed. “That would be a department of redundancy department error. So, speaking of learning something new every day, how is school going?”

“Nice segue,” Lauren said, before answering the question. “It’s okay, so far, at least. I can’t believe I’m a junior now. Ryan is a sophomore, right?”

“Yes, he is. Did you know him, before last Saturday, that is?”

“Only his name. Neptune High is so big, and he’s a grade below me. Well, I guess I’ll be getting to know him better now. What should I call him? He’s kind of my stepbrother, I guess?” Lauren mused.

Mac laughed at that and gave a little shrug. “I think this entire situation defies definition, but a kind of stepbrother could work. It’s probably easier than having to explain he’s your sister’s bio brother.” She gingerly took a sip of her tea.

“Or maybe I won’t say anything at all. It’s no one else’s business anyway.” It was Lauren’s turn to shrug. “Well, except Brittany. She already knows everything.”

“Brittany?” Mac asked, even though she vaguely remembered Lauren’s friend from the day of the accident.

As they worked their way through their second round of chai, Lauren launched into a history of her friendship with Brittany, and the mysteries they’d solved together. Their friendship had started in the 7^th grade when Brittany moved to Neptune from Cincinnati, Ohio. It was Brittany who solved the mystery of the missing class hamster. The story sounded eerily familiar, like she’d heard it before, probably in her coma dream.

After exhausting the subject of Brittany and their exploits, the subject meandered over to guys. Lauren was excited about the upcoming Homecoming dance. Kyle had finally asked her out. She explained how, between shifts at her non-paying job, she’d been hanging out at the pool at the Neptune country club, getting to know a certain lifeguard. All her efforts in that endeavor finally seemed to be paying off.

Mac loved Lauren’s smile, and the one dimple that made frequent appearances while she talked about Kyle. They had matching dimples, though Mac thought this girl across from her, with the same DNA, wore hers better.

“What about you? I’ve been doing all the talking. Any boyfriends at Hearst? Or girlfriends?”

“It might be a little soon to slap on the boyfriend label, but I did go out on a date last weekend,” Mac said shyly. “With a guy,” she added unnecessarily.

Lauren laughed. “Yeah, I figured that out already.”

“I guess calling him my not-yet boyfriend was a bit of a hint.”

“What’s this mysterious not-yet boyfriend’s name? Is he from Neptune?”

“Yes, surprisingly, he is a Neptune native. And I believe you know him already. Dick Casablancas.”

“Wow!” Lauren’s surprise was broadcasted on her face. It was confirmation that the lack of a poker face was also a dominant Sinclair gene. “That’s a name from the past. I saw him at the hospital this summer.”

“Yes, I’m sure you did,” Mac confirmed. “He was with me when the…the accident, I guess, happened. Mom, ‘Mom1’ that is, said he hung out in the waiting room the entire time I was out of it.”

“He and Madison dated off and on in high school. I almost didn’t recognize him. He seemed, well, less of an asshole, I guess,” Lauren said, then blushed a deep red after realizing what she said. “Oops. Sorry.”

“No, no,” Mac said, waving off the apology. “He was definitely an asshole in high school. Believe me, back then if someone had told me I’d ever willingly spend more than 30 seconds in the same room with him, let alone go on an actual date, I’d be ironing a straitjacket for them. Fortunately, people change, and who we were in high school isn’t always who we end up becoming. Life changes us, it beats us up, and maybe that makes us softer. I don’t know. Something like that. I sound like I’m a million years old now, but yes, I guess that’s one thing I’ve learned in this world, so far at least.”

“So, is our family mix up one of the ways life beat you up?” Lauren’s voice sounded tentative, like she was afraid the question overstepped bounds of their gossamer connection.

“No,” Mac said immediately, then she waited a beat, adding “well, not really. Maybe. I don’t know. Okay, yes, I guess it was. Sadly, it’s not even close to the only thing that’s beat me up in life, metaphorically speaking at least. However, at the same time, I grew up knowing I was loved. Many of my friends can’t say the same, unfortunately. The trade off, on the other hand, was I also grew up not feeling like I belonged anywhere, until I met Veronica. The Bond to my Q, my 1.0 version to your Brittany 2.0.”

“2.0?!”

“Yes, from all your stories, I’d have to say Brittany is your class’s version of Veronica Mars. Our senior amateur detective, flagship edition, to Brittany’s junior version.”

“Well, every piece of software needs a beta version first, I guess.” Lauren said, snark coloring her words.

Mac didn’t agree, but she was pleased that she had a worthy tech-trash talking opponent. “Agree to disagree.”

“Done and done!” Lauren said decisively, waving her right hand for emphasis.

“Is Mr. Clemmons still principal at Neptune High?” Mac thought there needed to be another subject change.

“Yes,” Lauren said immediately. “I doubt he’ll ever retire. Brittany is a frequent visitor to his office. She does cherish their meetings. I mean, it’s not her fault he keeps his passwords on the bottom of his stapler. Or that his locks are easy to pick.”

Mac laughed. “I guess he didn’t learn anything from the Veronica years.”

“That generation never does.”

“Touché,” Mac said, but before she could say anything more on the subject, her phone pinged a text notification. She planned on ignoring it though.

“Ooh, a text from Dick? You can check it, I don’t mind.”

Before Mac could say anything though, Lauren’s phone also pinged with an incoming text of her own.

“Ooh, a text from Kyle? You can check it, I don’t mind.” Mac parroted back.

“My turn to say touché.” Lauren laughed as she glanced down at her own phone screen. “Yes, it’s Kyle. He just wanted to know how things were going.”

“I thought you only told Brittany about our family situation.”

“Well, I might have mentioned it to Kyle, as well.” Lauren confessed. After a couple of beats, she added, “I was a little nervous, to be honest. What if you hated me?” She admitted quietly, looking down at the table first, before looking back up at Mac.

“I was a little nervous, too,” Mac reassured her. “I guess neither of us had anything to worry about. It’s not like we were total strangers. You were my patient assistant, after all.”

“Good point.” Lauren sounded relieved. “Maybe we can do this again sometime? I don’t want Madison to think I’m replacing her, I’m not, but, yeah, today’s been fun.”

Mac quickly located her phone in the inner pocket of her bag.

Dick: How’s it going? You haven’t called me yet; I’m hoping that’s a good sign.

“I get that. I feel the exact same way with Ryan. He’ll always be my pesky baby brother.” Mac paused. “I had fun, as well, and I’d like to do it again sometime, too,” she agreed, before firing off a quick reply to Dick’s text.

Me: Awesome!

Dick: I was right! I knew you two would have fun together. TTYL…

“Oh, and don’t forget, mom is planning this giant Thanksgiving gathering. You are coming, right?”

“I think I heard both moms plotting something for the holiday,” Mac said, non-committedly.

“Lucille is an amazing cook,” Lauren said, continuing to try to sell Mac on the idea.

“Yes, she is. I’m still stuffed from Saturday’s brunch.” Mac sassed. Her eyes landed on the clock on the opposite wall. She was surprised to see it was after 6 PM.

Time moved quickly when you were catching up on a lifetime of memories with your bio sister who only recently learned about your existence.

A few minutes later they reluctantly said their good-byes, briefly hugging before leaving the coffee shop and heading out in different directions.

Mac got into her Beetle; her motions automatic as she thought back to all those times, she had imagined little scenarios involving sisterly bonding with Lauren. This time those dreams had merged into reality. It truly was a pinch-me moment. No matter what happened in the future, as the Sinclair’s and Mackenzie’s tried to make sense of their cosmic tie, at least Mac’s biggest wish had come true, Lauren was now a part of her life.

Before starting her car, she dug around for her cell, unearthing it from the depths of her bag. Tossing the messenger bag on the passenger seat, she scrolled through until she found Dick’s name in her contacts menu.

“Hey, it’s me. I just left the coffee shop. I had so much fun getting to know Lauren better…Yes, you were right…No, no, I’m not going to repeat that for posterity.” She smiled and shook her head, aware that Dick couldn’t see her over the cell connection. Between the coffee shop visit with Lauren, and the phone conversation with Dick, she wondered if the smile that was currently overtaking her face was on its way to becoming a permanent fixture, she just hoped her face wouldn’t break.

TBC...

Chapter Text

Chapter 29—Attitude of Gratitude

Wednesday, November 25^th, 2009

Mac stood in front of her closet surveying her options. Dick was coming to get her in less than an hour. They were planning a rare evening in; he was taking her back to his penthouse suite at the Neptune Grand. They’d probably just get takeout from Poseidon’s Bistro located in the hotel lobby and then watch a movie. Mac was trying to break Dick of his ‘09er belief that dating someone meant you needed to spend more money on each date than her dad (‘Dad1’) earned in a week.

Dating!

She was still trying to get use to the fact that she and Dick were officially dating, and not just in bizzarro world, but that it had bled out into the real world, too. A year ago, she’d never have believed it. Dick had already started to let his “15 minutes of humanity” peek through by then but, learning to tolerate a guy who used to bully you and your friends, and then moving on to dating him wasn’t necessarily a natural progression. Unfortunately, it took a serious head injury to show her that this post-grief version of Dick came complete with a caring, compassionate side, and it wasn’t buried as far down as she’d originally suspected.

That injury ended up being the catalyst in her life for so many changes.

Deciding that the brown satin blouse and skinny jeans she had on were fine for her evening plans, Mac continued to scan through her clothes looking for an outfit appropriate for tomorrow. The plan to merge the Mackenzie and Sinclair family feasts into one big, festive “family” Thanksgiving gathering had moved from theoretical to set in stone. There never was a discussion where to hold the event, the Sinclairs’ house was the only place with enough space to accommodate everyone. Mac was sure the guest list was close to a mile long. There was also the fact that ‘Mom2’ had staff to assist her with cooking and cleaning.

Her eyes zeroed in on a white topped dress with a black lace overlay collar that flared into a black pleated skirt. If only she could tie that look together with her combat boots. She laughed to herself imagining her mom’s reaction.

Having made her outfit selection, Mac was about to close the closet door when she happened to glance up at the row of storage shelves to the right of her hanging clothes. The X-Men volume 1 comic she’d been keeping for Ryan as a backdoor college-fund was gone. The basket she lovingly kept it in was empty, and she had no idea when it had gone missing. She had given Ryan the comic book a couple of Christmas’ ago after making an under the table bargain with the owner of the local comic bookstore. She’d saved the store tens of thousands of dollars, so he was very agreeable to the proposal she had made involving one of his more valuable comics. It wasn’t in mint condition, but it was still in very good condition, and sold to the right collector, it would pay for a healthy chunk of her brother’s tuition, should he decide to go to college. Otherwise, he could make a large down payment on a house.

Mac was lucky and knew it. She had a scholarship to Hearst, otherwise she would at max, maybe, be able to swing Neptune Community College on her own. However, Ryan wasn’t on the academic track to qualify for a big enough scholarship to afford a 4-year school. She didn’t want Ryan to have to struggle to attend college, or whatever else he’d want to do after graduation, and she didn’t want her parents bearing that burden either.

“Ryan Samuel Mackenzie! Get your ass in here now, or you’ll know pain like you’ve never experienced before!” Mac stood in her doorway and screamed. The threat of bodily injury was usually an effective motivator for the not-so-little pest.

“What do you want?” Ryan asked, ambling up the steps, taking it slow and leisurely, like he was on his way for a social visit instead of answering an angry summons.

“Where is it?” Mac spit out, tapping her foot, not hiding her seething anger.

“Where is what?”

“You know what!” She glared at him.

“No! I really don’t. Mind reading isn’t one of my superpowers.”

“The X-Men comic I’ve been holding for safe keeping. It’s not in the basket where it’s supposed to be.”

“Oh, that.” Ryan’s voice was flat. “I gave it to Dick.”

“Dick?! Dick Casablancas?!”

“Duh!”

 “Why would you do that? Why didn’t you ask me first?”

“It’s mine, right?”

“No! Not really. I mean, technically,” she stammered in her anger, “but it’s more like I’m holding on to it on your behalf, than it’s physically yours.”

“I lost a bet this summer.” Ryan spoke quietly.

“A bet? You were what, 14? What could you possibly have to bet on?”

“I’m 15 now.”

“I know that dummy! I said you were 14 at the time of the bet!  Either way, that’s irrelevant, but the question still stands. What could you possibly have to bet on?” Mac amended, sarcastically. She huffed out a sigh.

“Mom.” Ryan said simply. It was a whole sentence in just one word.

“Mom?” Mac was confused. “What do you mean mom? You know what, the bet doesn’t really matter.  Regardless of what it was for, you should have asked me first before just giving it away.”

“I couldn’t ask you! You were, you know, um…sleeping.”

Mac cocked her head and studied her brother, confused. Then, just like that, she got what he was trying to say. Sleeping, it was her family’s shorthand for the word coma, a four-letter word they still hated saying. Maybe they thought it was too painful for her? Most likely it was too painful for them to hear or even think about.

“Oh.” Now her voice was the flat one, she worked hard to keep the emotions talking about her accident stirred up at bay. “The coma. That answers one question, I guess, but I still don’t know what mom has to do with this bet.”

“I thought you said the reason for the bet didn’t matter,” Ryan snarked. But then he paused before replying, “I didn’t think mom would even notice my black eye. She was too busy worrying about you.” Ryan spoke softly. “We all were,” he added.

“How did you get the black eye?” Apparently, there was even more drama in the waiting room than anyone had told her about. Mac had heard all about Logan and Veronica reconnecting, and Mr. Mars getting back together with Wallace’s mom, and of course she also had the picture retrospective that Dick had put together, including her favorite shot of Ryan napping, and drooling on her dad’s shoulder. However, no one had mentioned any brawling. Did they leave out all the good stuff?

“I went over to Roger’s house. He’s the guy that hurt you. We had a talk.”

“It must have been some talk.” Mac said using air quotes. “So, this bet was Dick’s idea?”

“Yes,” Ryan confirmed. “He bet me $500 that mom would notice my black eye. I said she wouldn’t.”

“I take it she noticed?”

“Right away.”

“So, in lieu of the money you gave Dick your X-Men comic?” Mac hypothesized.

“Yes,” Ryan replied. “It’s not like I have $500 in cash lying around. As you just pointed out, I was only 14. Where would I get that kind of money? Mowing lawns won’t exactly make me rich. Then, I remembered the comic book, so I offered that to Dick instead of the money.”

“Aren’t you 15 now?” Mac asked. She couldn’t resist throwing that back at her brother, and giving him a smirk, before continuing, “How much do you think the comic is worth?”

“Um, maybe $600?”

“Try closer to $90,000. If it was in mint condition, it would be worth almost 3 times that.” Mac watched her brother’s eyes get wide at that announcement; she was surprised they didn’t bug out like they do in cartoons. That was obviously not the dollar value he was expecting.

Ryan’s confession that Dick was now in possession of that valuable property did nothing to allay her fears, in fact it made things worse. Who knew the kind of damage that was being inflicted? He wasn’t known for being careful with his toys, with the only exception being his custom-made Ed Hardy inked surfboard, his child. His word, not hers.

She felt her anger towards Ryan leaking out and transferring to the guy who would be coming by her house shortly. It’s not like she was forthcoming with her brother about the value of the comic book. She didn’t want him to take out an ad in the Neptune High Navigator announcing he was the proud owner of a comic book worth almost six figures. There was a lot of things teen boys were not known for, keeping their mouths shut was high up on that list, and guys in their 20s, and possibly all the other ages, too, she mentally amended, weren’t any better at that, either.

Mental images of the comic being in tatters paraded across her mind, making her anger tip higher on the Richter scale, though the benefactor of her anger had shifted. Fortunately, the guy in question would be darkening her doorstep shortly. She had argued with him about coming to get her since they were going to just end up at his place anyway, but she conceded when he'd pointed out her nighttime driving skills had dulled quite a bit post injury.

Every reminder of what she’d lost pushed forward a frisson of pain. Still, she tried to balance the scales with reminders that she’d gained a lot, too. In that snapshot of time, however, dating Dick was no longer feeling like a check in the win column.

Mac grabbed her cell phone from its perching place by her bed and typed a brief message.

Me: Did you extort Ryan’s X-Men volume 1 comic book????!!!!

She wasn’t expecting an answer so quickly, but approximately 45 seconds after hitting send there was an answering ping.

Dick: What????? The?????? Hell???? Extortion???!!! What the hell are you even talking about, Mac????!!!!

Me: The X-Men COMIC I bought Ryan, it’s apparently now in your possession!!!!

Dick: I’ll be there in 10 minutes; you can yell at me then! You know, in person!

It was a frustratingly vague comment, not an admittance of guilt, but it wasn’t a denial either. Mac resisted the urge to throw the phone.

Belatedly, it occurred to her that by texting Dick beforehand she may have just lost a strategic advantage, but she still had the hope that the head’s up text could serve as a reminder for him to mentally search his mental bank for where he’d stashed the comic. She didn’t hold any illusions that it was locked in a safe for, well, safe keeping.

By the time the doorbell announced Dick’s arrival, Mac was stationed by the door. The sound of laser blasting funneled in from the living room where Ryan was staging war against little green men parading across the TV set. He’d recovered well, evidently, from their brief sibling spat.

“Extortion? That’s a heavy charge, don’t you think?” Dick replied, in lieu of a greeting.

“Well, I don’t know any other verbs that fit.”

“It was just a friendly wager. I’d actually forgot all about it.”

“Of course, you did, Dick.” She sighed. “Do you have any idea how much that comic is worth?”

“Way north of $500,” Dick said immediately. “We ‘09ers, with our inherited wealth, have a sixth sense for these kinds of things.” His tone was mocking.

“Why did you accept it then?”

“Well, you’ve seemed to have already tried me, proclaimed me guilty without a jury of my peers, so you tell me why.”

“Jury of your peers?” Mac asked, ignoring the crack about his motivations.

“You know, us ‘09ers, with our inherited wealth,” Dick clarified, borrowing a phrase he’d heard from Mac more times than he could count, and he could count quite high, thank you very much. “Look, I don’t need the money obviously. I was going to give it back to you.”

“When?”

“Eventually.”

He was back to being frustratingly vague, to Mac’s supreme annoyance. “Define eventually.”

“Christmas?” It came out as a question.

“Like regifting?” She attempted to clarify. “Actually, that would be more like re-gifting to the 3^rd power.”

“Look, Ryan gave it to me a couple of months ago, the night of our first date, in fact. It was payment for the bet he lost this summer. It wasn’t high on my priority list at the time, because…Well, you know. And then, once he finally did give it to me, I forgot about it again. As I said, I wasn’t going to keep it.” Dick said. “Really,” he added, after seeing Mac’s doubtful expression.

“Where is it now?” Mac had her hands on her hips.

“In my room,” Dick said, then added in a much softer tone, “somewhere.” Then, he added, “I think.”

It was more like a whisper.

“That’s Ryan’s college fund.” Mac’s voice rose, and she was pretty sure her blood pressure was getting higher. “We’re not trust fund kids. We don’t have a million dollars stashed away in our couch cushions. That’s a life changing amount of money for us, Dick.”

“You know, most people use bank accounts or 569 plans to save for college, not extorted comic books.” Dick parroted back to her, borrowing the word she’d recently flung his way.

“Extorted?” By now Mac was sure she was right about her blood pressure ticking higher and higher. She could practically feel it climbing.  “And it’s a 529 plan,” she corrected.

“Yes, extorted. I used it in context and everything.”

“I didn’t extort anything, Dick.” She hit the -ck hard.

“Did you buy it?”

“It was a gift from a happy client who happens to own The 4^th Wall Comics next door to Java the Hut. I certainly didn’t win it in a bet with a 14-year-old.”

“I’m 15.” Ryan shouted from the living room.

“Butt out, Ryan!” Mac was surprised he could hear them above the din of his video game. She then turned her focus back to Dick, “I did some work for Derrick, the shop owner. He was appreciative of my services.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Dick winked.

Dick’s volume was barely above a whisper, but Mac heard it clearly, as she was sure was his intention. She just glared, thinking that would communicate her lack of appreciation for his patented sexual insinuation much more clearly than any of the words running through her head ever could.

“He was being blackmailed, so let’s just say with just a little database digging I got him out from under that, saving him respect, embarrassment, and a ton of money,” Mac explained, despite the fact she really didn’t think Dick deserved the truth. “His blackmailer had a couple skeletons in his own closet, which should definitely be a rule that you don’t cause trouble for other people, unless you’ve buried your own bodies so far down, they’ll never be found.” She waited a beat, then added, “asshole,” gifting Dick with another glare, so he’d realize who the ass in question really was.

“I figured there had to be a borderline illegal story behind it.”

“It’s only illegal if you get caught, which I most certainly did not!”

“You better watch it, Mackie, those words can, and definitely will be, used against you.”

“In the court of law?”

“Oh no, the court of Dick.”

Mac groaned and shook her head. As her fist connected with Dick’s upper arm, it was his turn to groan. It was a start, but she could think of another thing she could do to the aforementioned “court of dick.” She was pretty sure he wasn’t a mind-reader, but he took a step backwards, moving further out of her reach, hands blocking her direct path to his second brain. The timing was comical and took a little more sizzle from her anger.

“So, if you’re done injuring me, why don’t we get on with our evening? Or should I just see myself out?”

“I can’t promise I won’t have to injure you, as you say, at some point later in the evening, but I can keep my hands to myself for the present time.” Mac compromised.

“I didn’t say you had to keep your hands to yourself, that would put the kibosh on other activities I’ve planned for tonight.”

Mac just raised a brow. “Oh yeah?”

“Twister!”

“Naked Twister?”

“Now who has the dirty mind?”

“Definitely you, oh Jedi Master.” She said, following it up with a sarcastic curtsy, if such a thing even existed. If not, well, she’d take the credit as the creator.

“Your lessons are starting to pay off, young padawan apprentice.” Dick reached a hand over and grabbed the knob on the front door, he was practically snuggled up against it anyway in his haste to avoid more bodily injury.

“And so are yours. You used padawan correctly, and everything.” She clapped her hands.

“Well, it pays to date a hot 12^th level dork.”

That label stung less these days, than it did when he used to call her that in high school. Part of that was the reverent tone he used, and tacking on hot didn’t hurt the cause, either.

Mac called a quick good-bye over her shoulder to her family, though with Ryan’s video game war still waging she held no hope of anyone hearing her.

As she settled into Dick’s truck, fastening the seat belt, adjusting the radio to her favorite Indie rock station, Mac once again steered the conversation back to Ryan’s comic book.

“I told you I know where it is, or I have a general idea of where to look,” Dick said with a sigh, as he backed out of Mac’s driveway. “We’ll pick up dinner at Poseidon’s Bistro and go upstairs. You can tear apart my bedroom after we eat. I placed our order before I left. I hope you still want your usual.”

“Yes,” Mac affirmed. “You know me so well.”

“Yeah, cause you’re an open book,” Dick rejoined, ironically.

“I’m War and Peace, baby.”

“You’re more peace, less war there, oh vegan one. Although you do have a decent left hook.” 

“I was referring to the book by Tolstoy.” She rolled her eyes, but since they were sitting in the dark truck, he missed that part. 

“Oh, and I thought it was written by Sir Cliff of the prestigious Notes family, one of the most prolific writers of our time.”

“Your English professor must have loved you.”

“Well, she did, until I turned in a book report on Garden State.”

“That’s not a book, Dick!”

“Now you tell me! Duh, I know that, now! That’s why the prof took me off her Christmas card list that year. Apparently, you do one little book report on a movie, and it totally trashes your grade, and your GPA. Who knew?!”

“Me! Logan! Oh, and about 2,500 other Hearst students.”

“It would have made a great book though.”

Mac watched the scenery speed by on the PCH as they made their way towards the Neptune Grand hotel. Dick continued to list reasons why Garden State should have been a novel, and somehow all his reasons kept circling back to the motorcycle sidecar. Other than an occasional grunt of agreement, Mac figured she didn’t have to wax poetic about a movie she’d only watched once, many years ago.

“Right, Mac?”

“What?” Apparently, Dick had been asking her opinion, and she hadn’t even heard the question.

“What planet are you on now?”

“Planet please don’t make me go to the Sinclairs’ for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, I heard that’s an inhospitable place, ruled by an Ice Queen.”

“An ice queen you used to date,” Mac couldn’t resist tossing in his face.

“Right, but she was just a place holder until I got to know the real Madison Sinclair. I’ve since traded up.”

“Be sure to work that into conversation tomorrow.”

“About that,” Dick started, then his voice trailed off.

“You’re flaking on me.” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Dick rushed in, “I was just going to say I’ll need hazard pay.”

“You’re so cruel, making me think I’d have to endure that hell by myself.”

“Never.” His voice got soft. “And it’s not exactly like I have a lot of invitations for tomorrow.”

Mac looked over as Dick said that and saw the briefest flicker of a frown, before he quickly shut that operation down and replaced it with a wry grin.

She waited a beat, then asked, “Hazard pay?”

“Yes, hazard pay,” Dick repeated. “You know, for putting up with Madison, the succubus herself. She has sharp talons.”

“I thought she was an Ice Queen.”

“She is, but she’s also a succubus. They’re not mutually exclusive, especially here on Neptune’s Hellmouth.”

“Good point! So, maybe that’s why you guys seem to find her hard to resist?” Mac proposed.

“Resist past tense,” Dick corrected. “I’m refined now. Once you’ve gone geek, you never go back.”

“I think I should be insulted, but somehow I’m not.”

“You know I think you’re awesome.” Dick said, awe creeping into his voice. He took the 6^th Street exit and turned left.

“And you know I don’t dislike you,” Mac said, parroting Dick’s same serious tone.

“That right there, that flattery, that’s why I keep you around. Stop! You’re making blush.”

“There’s more where that came from, as soon as I get Ryan’s comic book back, that is.”

“Just when I thought we’d left that subject behind us.”

“If you really thought that you don’t know me at all.”

“I didn’t think that, per se, it was more like I hoped we’d finished that conversation once and for all.” Dick back peddled.

“The subject ends just as soon as I have that comic back in my hands, not until then.” Mac spoke firmly. She dusted off her Kindergarten teacher voice just for him.

“Okay, okay. We’re almost there. Let’s have dinner first, then you can snoop in my drawers until you find it.”

Mac’s only reply was a sigh.

Dick engaged his right turn signal and drove into the parking garage next to the Neptune Grand Hotel.

They were settled on the couch of Dick’s hotel suite, eating dinner. Gremlins was droning on in the background.

Mac took the final bite of her spicy eggplant casserole and closed the lid of the take-out container. She placed it on the coffee table in front of her.

Dick was only about a third of the way through his steak dinner.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into a chick flick,” Dick was saying, or at least that’s what Mac thought he said. She couldn’t tell for sure since he started talking before swallowing the big bite of steak he’d just shoveled in his mouth.

“Chick flick!?!” Mac’s tone was incredulous.

“Yes, you heard me Mackie.” He must have swallowed before speaking this time because he was much easier to understand. “Chick flick.”

“You are the first person I’ve ever heard classify this classic horror movie as a ‘chick flick.’” But even as Mac said that a feeling of déjà vu stole over her. Ever since awaking from the coma in June, that had become her factory setting. A lasting side effect of her coma dreamland was the blending of the two realities. She wondered if she’d ever get used to that feeling.

“Well, there’s kissing, and it’s a love story, everyone knows chicks dig that shit.”

“I prefer the Gremlins, Dick. As far as I’m concerned the love angle is just filler between the good stuff.”

“Logan likes the kissing, and shit.” His tone sounded confident, like he’d just proven his own point.

“Logan is a guy,” Mac pointed out the obvious.

“You’d think so, but you’d be wrong.”

Her face must have broadcast her skepticism.

“I mean deep down, not externally.” Dick further clarified, before taking another bite of his steak. This time he finished chewing before adding, “We know who wears the pants in the Mars-Echolls coupling. It’s not the Echolls quotient.”

“Quotient?”

“I thought you were fluent in math.”

“I can traverse math pretty well,” Mac admitted, “but there’s a lot of things out there I can’t traverse.”

“What can’t you traverse?”

“Life?” Mac spit out, then waited a beat before adding, “My new family situation? Give me a quadradic equation any day of the week, I’d be happy. Stick me in the grand dining room of the house that was supposed to be mine by birthright, add lots of strangers I’m blood related to eating turkey, and I’ll go mute.”

“Then I’ll go mute right along with you.”

“How about you just be my mouthpiece? You know what to say, what to do. You grew up in the fancy Nancy crystal chandeliered, real silver silverware, country club setting. You know the difference between a salad fork and a dessert fork, and every fork in between.”

“There you go again, giving me way too much credit, Mackie. I just know how to fake it.”

Dick speared the last piece of his steak and popped it in his mouth. He closed the lid of the

take-out container and grabbed Mac’s discarded trash, stashing them both in the Neptune Grand branded paper bag. “Why are you so scared about tomorrow? How many family dinners have you all had by now?”

“Three, I think? But it’s always been just the eight of us, and Lucille, of course. Tomorrow, we’ll be paraded around the extended family. That changes the equation,” Mac tried to explain. “It changes the quotient,” she couldn’t resist adding, smirking.

“Aren’t you excited to meet other members of your expanded family?”

“Not really. What if they think I’m a fraud?”

“A fraud!?!” Dick’s voice got a little louder as his disbelief filtered in. “You mean, like what if they want to see your DNA?”

“Something like that, I guess. They might think we’re looking for a payday. Or another payday, technically.”

“Where do you come up with these ideas?”

“I can’t reveal my sources.”

“I thought Ronnie was the journalist. Anyway, I already know who your unnamed source is,” Dick said confidently. “Madison.”

“I can neither confirm, nor deny my source. It was more like I overheard my unnamed source say something when they didn’t think I could hear them.”

“Madison was never one for discretion.”

“That was never your strong suit, either” Mac couldn’t resist reminding him.

“Ha! I’m right. Your source is Madison.” Dick gloated.

“I can neither confirm, nor deny,” Mac repeated.

“You’ve just rendered that unnecessary, Mackie.”

Mac didn’t answer. Her attention was fractured by the action on the screen. Billy’s frantic mom was pureeing a poor Mogwai in her blender, though being he had transformed into a Gremlin, and was a threat to her safety, it wasn’t an undeserved fate.

She tried to focus more on the Gremlins reign of terror, and less on thoughts of doom about tomorrow’s family Thanksgiving gathering at the Sinclairs’.

It was an exercise in futility.

****************Begin flashback******************

Madison had been in the kitchen venting to Lauren during the previous week’s Sunday night dinner at the Sinclairs’. It hadn’t yet become a weekly tradition, but they’d been doing it roughly every other weekend. It was still a study in awkwardness, everyone was still trying to get to know each other, but that was hard when the families were opposite in every way. Mac believed that the fact there hadn’t been any bloodshed qualified it as a minor miracle.

Mac had grabbed her empty plate, and headed towards the kitchen, her hand on the door handle when she heard Madison’s nasally voice complaining that something wasn’t right about the whole situation. It took Mac approximately three nanoseconds to catch on to the fact that she was the one being cast as the villain. That didn’t bother her, well, not much at least, what really hurt though was the implicit judgement that was also being cast towards her family, the ones that raised her, the people that always put her needs, and wants, first. And ironically, the very people Madison was looking down on, were the very people who gave her life.

As she was about to storm into the kitchen, Lauren was already diffusing the situation, she’d had a lifetime of experience dealing with the ice queen after all, but as far as Mac was concerned the damage was already done. She pulled the door open with more force than the situation usually called for, but she wanted to make sure Madison was aware of her presence. She put the dish in the sink, and turned on her heel, not even glancing in Madison’s direction.

Lauren had later tried to apologize, but she waved it off, saying she hadn’t really heard anything.

******************End flashback***********************

As usual, her brain wouldn’t stop cycling Madison’s words around, analyzing and then re-analyzing them. It was one of her least favorite aspects of her personality.

“You would think a pureed Gremlin would be a good distractor,” Mac grumped to Dick.

“That always distracts me,” Dick agreed, “but since it’s not working its mojo on you this time, how about that game of naked Twister that you promised me?”

“Promise is a strong word there, Dick,” Mac said, putting extra emphasis on the -ck.

“It is,” Dick replied, “that’s why I know you’ll want to keep your word to me. At the end of the day, a person’s word is all they have.”

“I never promised you a game of Twister in a naked manner,” Mac hedged, “but you did make a promise to me. I need Ryan’s comic book back…NOW!” Mac tapped her foot impatiently, but the beige carpet muffled the sound.

“I thought you were going to tear apart my room looking for your precious investment.”

“I’d have no clue where to start looking. This is your mess. Fix it!”

“How about dessert?”

“How about you stop changing the subject?”

“I’m not changing the subject, just delaying it a little bit. How about I pick us up something sweet first, and then I’ll find your comic for you. Okay?”

Mac sighed but gave a terse nod in agreement. She always had room for cake, and Dick knew exactly how to get back on her good side. With the sharp detour her mood had taken, this would be medicinal cake.

After Dick left the suite in search of vegan coconut spice cake and whatever chocolate concoction he was craving at the moment, Mac tried to focus her attention back on the gremlins wreaking havoc and terror on the tiny hamlet of Kingston Falls, NY.  The cabal of little green terrorists were currently infiltrating the small-town movie theater, watching Snow White. She couldn’t help but draw parallels between Gremlins and her current life. She wondered which Mogwai would represent Madison. Stripe, perhaps, leaving herself as Gizmo. She found it funny how her mind worked. It could spin and meld the most innocuous things and find relevance in any situation. Of course, she would be the one person on the planet to find this campy, classic 80’s horror movie relevant to her screwed up, Made-For-TV movie family dynamics.

Not even pureed demon monsters could save her from the dread of tomorrow’s festivities. At least she had coconut cake to look forward to. Sometimes it was the small pleasures in life that mattered.

As though she’d summoned him, Dick entered the suite, making his usual grand entrance, letting the door slam behind him. He’d be the world’s worst burglar. His hands were laden down with to-go containers, and a small paper bag. He placed one of the boxes on the table and handed off the other one to Mac with a flourish.

“Your dessert, Mademoiselle, zee finest in vegan dessertz,” he said in a poor imitation of a classy French waiter.

“Don’t quit your day job.”

“And now, for your reading pleasure, may I present zee X-Men,” Dick continued, ignoring Mac’s lack of appreciation for his accent skills. He handed her the paper bag.

“Finally! So, where was it?” Mac asked, unveiling the missing comic. She was relieved to see it was in the same condition she remembered it being in.

“I put it in a safe in the front office, you know, for safe keeping.”

“Along with the family jewels?” Mac guessed.

“And the silver.”

“You could have just led with, ‘I have it stored somewhere safe and sound. Now, let me go get it for you, oh wise and wonderful Goddess, whom I’m lucky enough to have in my life,’” Mac suggested. “It would have saved a lot of time, time we wasted with our fighting. Time we’ll never get back.”

“I like fighting with you.”

“Who’s the Geek now?”

“Still you,” Dick affirmed. “How about next time you just hand me a script, and I’ll just read off my lines. That would be a time-saver.” He opened the lid of his to-go box and took a generous bite of his piece of 3-layer chocolate cake. He shut his eyes in pleasure.

“Do you want some alone time with the cake?” Mac snarked, before digging her fork into her own massive slice of coconut spice cake.

“It’s not naked Twister, but it’ll do, for the moment at least.” Dick said, and then grinned as Mac emitted her own groan of satisfaction.

Mac came out of her cake eating stupor long enough to glance up at the screen to see the credits rolling. “Well, you missed the whole movie, Dick,” she said.

“Not true. I saw…Well, um, yeah, I saw the beginning.” Dick defended. “I saw enough to maintain my original opinion about it being a chick flick.”

“And yet you miss the point of the whole movie…again.”

“We’ll just have to plan another rewatch then.” Dick shut the lid on his dessert container, only crumbs remained. He took Mac’s empty dessert box out of her hands, she’d all but licked it clean. He tossed them carelessly on to the coffee table in front of the couch before leaning over towards Mac, pressing his lips on hers. She opened her mouth to let him in. He gently pushed her down, so she was lying on her back, their eyes locked on each other. She moaned softly as he straddled her, gently pinching her sensitive nipples, which were hardening at Dick’s skillful ministrations. She felt how turned on he was, as his now fully charged penis pressed into her, only the barrier of their jeans blocking him full entrance. As their kiss deepened, she ran one hand through his hair, the other gently caressed the outline of his balls, straining through the fabric of his chinos, begging for freedom and for release.

“Left hand red,” Mac whispered huskily into Dick’s ear. “That’s as close to naked Twister as I’ll get.”

“Right foot yellow,” Dick replied, in between kisses. He removed his right hand from Mac’s breast and started to unbutton her jeans so he could move the theoretical game of Twister into the naked realm. However, before he had the chance to successfully shed her of her clothes, the door to the suite was opened.

“I’m so full, I don’t think I’ll be able to eat a thing tomorrow. Though Alicia makes the best green bean casserole in all of Neptune,” Veronica was telling Logan.

“And yet, somehow I’m sure you’ll find room in that bottomless pit you call a stomach,” Logan replied as he walked into the suite. He looked over to his left, and added, “um, Bobcat, I think we have company. I told you this was a bad idea.” He shut the door behind him louder than usual, presumably to alert his roommate to their arrival.

Veronica looked up at Logan’s comment and let out a shriek. “Get a room!”

Mac’s attention, which had been entirely on Dick, however, was fractured at the sound of Veronica’s shriek. She let out a shriek of her own. Embarrassed, she was sure her face was beet red.

“Get a cow bell,” Dick rejoined, as he rolled off Mac, and sat up on the couch. “I thought you guys were at Mama Leone’s.”

“We were, and now we’re here. Apparently, the waitress didn’t want us to stay there all night, something about wanting more tips.” Veronica sassed. “And now I have eyeball trauma.”

“Maybe we should’ve put a sock on the doorknob.” Mac said in a teasing voice, though once she thought about it, decided it wasn’t a bad idea overall.

“Now, you tell me. That would’ve been a good thing to have suggested 30 minutes ago.”

“Is it safe to sit here?” Logan asked, but plopped down on the couch anyway, without waiting for an answer. He pulled Veronica down with him.

“Well, Q, it looks like you two crazy kids had a good time tonight.”

“It was a salvageable evening,” Mac admitted. “After I got Ryan’s X-Men comic book back, that is.”

“What now?!”

“Apparently, Dick extorted my baby brother out of his first edition comic book while I was in the hospital.”

“I won it in a bet, fair and square,” Dick corrected. “I’ve had to defend myself all night against a charge of extortion.”

“I think the better story might be how Ryan got ahold of a first edition comic book to begin with.” Logan said.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?!” Mac interjected, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not as interesting as you’d think. Anyway, after stringing me along, Dick finally “found” it,” she said using air quotes.

“I’m glad there’s a happy post-script to the story, and all extortion charges have been dropped, I presume,” Veronica commented.

“For now,” Mac said. “I’ll leave the door open for future crimes.”

“That’s probably wise.” Veronica agreed, then she added, “Oh, before I forget, Alicia wanted me to invite you and Dick for dessert tomorrow night.”

“That’s so sweet of her,” Mac said. “I’m not sure how much room we’ll have after dinner at the Sinclairs’, but we will muddle through. Besides, I need my Wallace fix. I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“What time?” Dick asked.

“7:30 PM.”

“Your first Sinclair family Thanksgiving. You ready?” Logan asked.

“Ready to be fed to the lions? Of course! Sounds fun!” Mac snarked, putting on her best faux pep squad cheerleading voice. The only thing missing was a pair of pom-poms.

The four friends talked and teased each other a little more, until Veronica started yawning. Mac spared a quick glance at the clock and saw it was almost midnight. She didn’t have a curfew per se, but she still tried to be home before one AM.

After firming up logistics for dessert at Wallace’s house, they said their good-byes and left the suite.

**************Mackenzies’ house on Colony Place*********************

After one more not-so-brief goodnight kiss from Dick at the door, and a promise that he’d be at her parent’s house at 11:45 AM on the dot, so they’d all be on time to the Sinclairs’ feast, Mac put her key into the lock and entered the house.

Her parents usually went to bed around 10, so the voice interrupting her thoughts was unexpected.

“Cindy?”

Mac jumped.

“Mom?!” She looked around for the source.

“Sorry to startle you, baby. I couldn’t sleep.” Her mom was on the old, faded brown velvet couch, several photo albums scattered beside her, and another couple were stacked on the wooden coffee table. Her voice was hoarse.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Come join me, hon,” her mom said, not really answering her questions. She picked up one of the photo albums, shifting it over to her other side, leaving some space open for Mac. She patted the seat in invitation.

In the dim light spilling out of the lamp next to the couch, her mom’s eyes looked blood shot.

Mac sat down. “The photo albums, mom? Are you feeling nostalgic?” She tried not to wrinkle her nose at the smell of smoke clinging to her mom’s clothes.

“You were such a beautiful baby,” Natalie continued, as though Mac hadn’t said anything at all. “You had all that gorgeous black hair. I kept thinking you’d lose it, and end up bald like I was, but that never happened.” Her mom’s voice was soft, wistful. She leaned over and grabbed an album, flipping through several pages until she came to a photo of Mac at approximately 4 months old, sitting up in her baby swing, holding a toy duck. “This is one of my favorites. You loved that duck.”

“Did that make you suspicious, the fact that I looked so different from you when I was a baby?” Mac asked, squeezing her eyes shut.

“No, not at all, and that’s what I keep trying to figure out. Why wasn’t I suspicious? Why didn’t I notice something, anything? What kind of mother doesn’t notice something different about her own baby?” Her mom flipped through a couple more pages of the album, stopping at a picture of Mac sitting in a large basket, in just her diaper. “You were about 7 months here. Look at your big grin, and that dimple. You were the happiest baby, with the best gut laugh.”

“Why did you bring out my old baby pictures?” Mac asked. She kept her theory about her mom wanting to torture herself with guilt to herself. “Is this what you usually do when you can’t sleep?”

Truthfully, she’d had the exact same lingering question herself when Veronica first told her she was biologically a Sinclair. There would have had to be some feature that set newborn Madison and herself as an infant apart, some little detail someone should have noticed. Maybe her ears were a little pointier, or Madison’s nose was bigger? It was a question that had always lingered in her mind, but without the secret being out in the open she never had anyone to give her the answers she’d craved so much.

“No, hon. Honestly, I dug them out tonight because I decided to bring a couple of your baby books with us tomorrow. I know Ellen is interested in seeing what you were like as a baby.”

“And you want to see what Madison was like.” Mac’s voice was flat.

“Um, yes, of course. I definitely want to see Madison’s baby pictures.”

She wondered who her mom was trying to convince, herself probably.

“Mom, I already knew that Madison and I had been switched at birth.” It came pouring out in a rush, all garbled, not even close to the way Mac had always imagined the conversation would go. She studied her feet like they were the most fascinating things in the universe. She couldn’t look into her mom’s warm green eyes; it would be her breaking point. She had tried almost daily since the 16 years of silence was broken back in September to confess that one final piece of the Gothic Secret. It had defined her life for way too long. “Veronica found out about the million-dollar settlement our junior year at Neptune High.”

“Wh…,” her mom started to say, but couldn’t quite manage to get the word out. She paused, probably only for a few seconds, but it took on a life of its own. “Why? How?”

She opened her mouth to say that Veronica was looking into finances for Neptune Memorial, a cover story V had helped her concoct, but that wasn’t what came tumbling out. She figured if she was going to confess, she’d go all in. “I asked her to look into our family, Mom.”

“Why?” Anguish coated the word.

“I’m so sorry.” Mac took off her glasses, leaning forward to place her them on the table. She covered her eyes, hoping to hide the fact they were tearing up.

“Baby, you don’t have anything to be sorry about. I just want to know why you did that.” Her mom reached over to wipe off one of the renegade tears that had leaked out. It was a gentle caress.

“You and dad are the best parents I could ever ask for,” Mac said, her voice hitching over a sob she failed to hold back. “But I always felt like I didn’t really belong here. I’ve been an outcast in my own life. In school, and at home. I honestly thought I was adopted, and you just didn’t want to tell me.”

“Oh, hon…” Her mom swallowed the space between them, engaging Mac in a fierce embrace. She felt herself being scooped up into her mom’s lap, it was like going back in time to when she was a small child, and a mom hug was a powerful panacea to external, and internal wounds. Apparently, it still was. “You always had a place in this family. Our differences are what enriched my life, and your dad’s. You’ve been the best teacher I could ever have, my love. I’m the one who should be sorry, hon.”

“No,” was all Mac could get out. It was a wail more than an actual coherent word. She buried her head in her mom’s chest. It should’ve have felt weird, clinging to her mom, being she was an adult now, but instead, at this one moment when she needed to feel loved more than anything else, it felt like homecoming. It wasn’t until the numbness subsided a little bit, that Mac realized that her head felt wet, ‘Mom1’ was crying, too.

As their cries mingled and merged, Mac wasn’t sure where she stopped, and her mom began. Maybe this was that umbilical cord tether to the woman she always wanted to belong to, but never truly felt like she did—it was a gossamer thread born out of love they’d cultivated, not by genetics. Despite the mix up being an accident, in that moment she knew that she was raised by the right family, and that love was what mattered, not that she and her mom viewed their worlds so differently.

“Hon,” her mom started to say between tears, “I was serious when I told you that the best thing in my life started with a hospital error. The thing is, I don’t believe it was a mistake, not in the grand scheme of things. It never felt that way, not to me. You will always be the daughter of my heart. The daughter meant for my arms. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Madison better, but she’ll never replace you…Ever. I should’ve told you earlier, but every time I tried to, I couldn’t get the words out.”

“I feel the same way,” Mac was able to say, though the words came out broken, and between sobs. “I’m right where I belong.”

Apparently, sometime after her tears had dried up, Mac fell asleep. When she woke up, the lamp was off, the TV was on, spilling dim light into the room. A guy in the informercial was demonstrating how the slap chopper could be used on both onions, and garlic.

Instead of curled up in her mom’s lap, she was now spread out on the couch, her head cradled on a pillow, a pink and purple knit blanket draped over her. Looking over, she saw her mom still sitting upright on the couch, but she’d fell asleep sometime after Mac. She had a bright pink fuzzy neck pillow draped around her; Mac recognized it from her long hospital stay when her mom had barely ever left her bedside. The bejeweled sleep mask her dad had bought her mom from the hospital gift shop was positioned over her eyes.

The grandfather clock in the corner, that appropriately enough her grandfather Franklin had willed to her mom when she was just a child, trilled out six chimes.

Mac remained in her prone position, but rolled her head from side to side, her neck sounding gravelly. She wondered who the clock would go to next. It was hand carved from Brazilian Cherry wood and had been in the family for generations. Ryan would be a logical choice, but she and her grandpa had been very close, and when he died Ryan wasn’t even a year old.

What if the accident had happened before she’d ever learned about the baby-swap? Her mom’s bedside camp out had nothing to do with genetics, it was separate from dietary lifestyles, and it had everything to do with a mother’s love. Would she even have had Veronica investigate her parent’s finances? Would the sense of being on the outside of family life growing up have been driven away in the aftermath of everything else swirling around in her life?

Maybe that didn’t matter because the truth always floated to the surface anyway—it was inevitable.

Those separate, but quasi-related thoughts, circled around in her brain.

It was Thanksgiving and they would be going to the Sinclairs’ in just a few hours. She was going to be on display there, not unlike a float in the traditional New York City Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Hopefully, for her mom’s sake, Madison would behave, and the dread that had been setting up residence in her stomach for a week would be unfounded. She wasn’t feeling very optimistic about her chances, however.

Her mom woke up around 7AM, and the rest of the household came alive not long after. Mac was thankful that for the first time in recent memory, her mom (‘Mom1’) wasn’t hosting. The mess and cursing were kept to a minimum, as Nat’s contribution to the Sinclair-Mackenzie feast was minimal, vegan Waldorf Salad.

This year there would be no dramatic declarations that they’d have to move, because the festivities, and her hosting duties, were shaping up to be an epic disaster. That refrain had made up the soundtrack of Thanksgivings Mackenzie style as far back as Mac could remember. She suspected that a Sinclair feast would more closely resemble the one in her coma dream, Lucille running the kitchen and dining room with smooth efficiency.

Mac was showered, and fully dressed five minutes before their planned departure time, and she was happy to see that Dick was in her living room poised to defeat Ryan in an epic Halo 3 battle. She grabbed her clutch purse, making sure to have her bottle of headache pills on hand, just in case.

They all settled into the Mackenzie’s battered mini-van a few minutes later. As Dick and Mac sat on the bench seat in the back row, she whispered in his ear that she’d finally told her mom she’d known about the hospital mix up since she was 17.

“I’m so proud of you, Mackey-Mac! How did your mom take the news?”

“Good. Maybe too good?” Her voice lifted at the end.

“Too good?”

“She wasn’t mad, or at least she didn’t seem like she was.”

“Mad? How could she possibly be mad at you? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Mac shrugged but didn’t say anything else. She watched the scenery go by. They were almost at the entrance to the Sinclairs’ ritzy development. Her stomach was knotted up. Apparently sensing that, Dick reached over and grabbed her hand.

Three minutes later her dad pulled into the Sinclairs’ brick paved driveway and shut the engine off. Mac sucked in a deep breath, counted to five silently, before exhaling. 

Let the festivities begin.

TBC…

Chapter Text

Chapter 30—Family Ties

***Thursday, November 26^th, 2009 The Sinclair’s house***

‘Dad1’ rang the doorbell, and Mac felt like she was waiting to be led to the guillotine. The Sinclair’s’ doorbell trilled the notes of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, providing a fitting soundtrack for Mac’s underlying feelings of doom. Despite being a frequent visitor to the Sinclair’s less than humble abode, she figured she’d never stop mentally cringing at the pretentious display.

Dick squeezed her hand; he’d been talking her down from several ledges the past couple of days.

‘Mom1’ was dressed in one of the approximately 65 pink dresses she owned, but Mac wasn’t sure if it was new or not, since they all seemed interchangeable, she wasn’t overflowing with fashionista know-how.

Mac noticed ‘Mom1’ white-knuckle gripping the paper shopping bag with the photo albums. In her other hand she was holding an orange vintage salad bowl shaped like a pumpkin. The smell of smoke mingled with the Lavender Fields perfume her mom always wore. The newest target date for her mom’s quest to stop smoking was the week after Thanksgiving. Mac suspected it would be pushed back even farther, that had been the pattern for the past several months.

Stress didn’t play fair.

Mac adjusted her black and white dress and pushed back an errant strand of hair. Her angled bob haircut was designed to obfuscate the uneven growth pattern her hair enacted after her head injury, but the layers were uneven, and she was often pushing hair out of her face. She missed her trademarked colored streaks in her hair. In her opinion, her black hair needed those extra pops of color to break up the monotony. She was denying herself on purpose.  As soon as she’d made a full recovery and the accident was fully in her rear-view mirror, adding some purple streaks would be her survival present.

She tapped her foot. Did they get lost trying to find the front door? Mac felt like they’d been standing on the stoop for 10 hours. Just as she was about to grump about how long the entry process was taking, the door opened. She expected to see Lucille’s graying head, but instead Ellen (‘Mom2’) was on the other side.

“Welcome,” ‘Mom2’ said graciously. She stepped back to give everyone room to enter the foyer and murmured a personal greeting as each person walked in. She reached out and gently touched Mac’s shoulder as she passed by. Mac couldn’t help noticing the soft look on her bio mom’s face. They shared a smile as though they were the only the two people in the room.

Taking the pumpkin bowl from Mom1’s hands, she escorted them down the hall and into the library. It had been one of Mac’s favorite escapes back in dreamworld.

‘Dad2’ was kneeling, adding more tinder to the fire he’d just built in the stone fireplace that flanked the east wall. He straightened up when they entered the cavernous room. Fritz, the Sinclairs’ black and white tuxedo cat, was lounging in front of the fire. He lifted his head up to let out a meow upon noticing the new arrivals, then put his head back down, going back to his nap on the hearth.

“Look at all those books! Your built-in shelves are beautiful,” ‘Dad1’ exclaimed. “So many works of staggering genius. It’s a bookworm paradise.”

“Thank you. Ellen and Lauren are the big readers in the house, this is their favorite hiding spot.” ‘Dad2’ replied. “I must admit, however, dusting these tomes are quite the undertaking.”

Mac doubted that duty fell to her bio dad, it was probably just another bullet point on a very long list of jobs bequeathed to the overworked, and underpaid, Lucille.

Spotting a paisley patterned loveseat on the other side of the room, Mac headed off in that direction, pulling Dick with her.

“What can I get everyone to drink?” ‘Dad2’ continued. “I’ve got a bottle of Bordeaux breathing. I also have several varieties of white wine, if that’s more to your liking, Natalie. And Sam, I don’t know if you’re a scotch man, but I have a 20-year-old bottle of Macallan.”

‘Mom1’ let out a row of three successive sneezes before saying the Bordeaux would be fine, since it was opened anyway. Her mom ignored the incredulous look Mac gifted her with. ‘Mom1’ never drank red wine, let alone an expensive, dry French one. She was even more surprised when ‘Dad1’ accepted the proffered rocks glass of Scotch. She waited for him to spit it out, but he played off his dislike very well. Her dad had been a Bud Light man for as long as she could remember.

As ‘Dad2’ continued playing bartender and fetching drinks, Lucille returned to the library with a group of new arrivals, an older man and a woman who Mac assumed was blood related to ‘Mom2.’ Genes didn't lied.

“Sis!” ‘Mom2’ practically squealed. She launched herself into the arms of a taller woman with the same dark hair, only this woman wore her hair in a sleek bob. After extracting herself from the hug, ‘Mom2’ took a half a step back and beckoned for Mac. “Mac, come here please. I have someone I want you to meet.”

“I’ll save your seat,” Dick whispered in her ear.

“I feel like I’m in a zoo, always on display,” Mac whispered back, before getting up and crossing the room.

“Sweetie, this is my older sister, Alice, and her husband Bill,” ‘Mom2’ said, motioning with her hands. Then she continued, “Al, this is Mac. Her given name is Cindy, but she goes by Mac. She’s a whiz with computers.”

Mac shook hands with her uncle Bill but was pulled into an embrace by Alice. “I think Ellen oversold my computer skills, but it is my major at Hearst College.” She said modestly, as she extracted herself from the hug.

“That’s wonderful, Mac,” Alice said. “It’s an excellent school. Our daughter, Tara, who you’ll meet soon, has a degree in nursing from Hearst. Our other daughter, Maggie, couldn’t get enough time off to come home. She’s with the FBI. They work her too hard, but she loves it. You two will have to talk shop next time she visits. She’s a computer analyst. Beyond that, however, I don’t know anything else about her job. It’s all hush hush.”

Something about the name Tara sounded vaguely familiar to Mac, but she couldn’t recall the where’s or why’s. However, what really caught her attention was Maggie’s job. Learning she had a genetic cousin with hacking skills finally answered her lifelong question of where her computer skills came from. Mac had been collecting those kinds of questions since birth.

“Where are Lauren and Madison?” Uncle Bill inquired.

“They’re around here somewhere,” ‘Mom2’ said, shrugging her shoulders. “I think Lauren was recruited as Lucille’s sous chef for the day, and Madison will be joining us soon. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure Lauren isn’t burning our dinner.”

 After ‘Mom2’ left, Mac stood there a few more minutes making stilted small talk with her aunt and uncle.

The library started filling up as more groups of people arrived

As her eyes searched out Dick, Mac noticed that Ryan had usurped her place on the couch. The two guys were animatedly talking, she assumed it was video game related. She signaled to Dick with her index finger. Apparently getting the message, he extracted himself from Ryan, and made his way back to her. In typical Dick fashion, en route he made a brief stopover at the bar cart for some liquid refreshment.

Dick pressed a wine glass into Mac’s hand, keeping a rocks glass filled to the brim with the pricey scotch for himself. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close. Mac smiled her appreciation for the wine. She felt a little like a rebel drinking wine in her bio family’s library. They were both of legal drinking age, rendering the feeling unfounded, but it lived on anyway.

If there was ever a day that required wine, this was it.

“I’m Dick,” he directed at her aunt and uncle. “I go to school with Mac.” He shook both their hands as greetings were exchanged.

“Are you a Computer Science major, too?” Bill asked.

Mac let out a little bark of laughter, before getting herself under control. “Not hardly.”

Dick rolled his eyes at her, before saying “I’m a business major.”

“He has to call tech support to turn on his laptop.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Hilarious, Mackie, hilarious.” Dick said.

“I’m not technologically inclined, either” Bill admitted. “Fortunately, my daughters are only a phone call away. It’s like having my own private help desk.”

“I hope you’re not including me among your dedicated tech support team, dad. If it doesn’t involve a ventilator, or an EKG, I’m useless. Maggie is your best bet with everything else.” The new arrival said, joining their group. She gave Bill a brief kiss on his cheek, before turning to Alice, and giving her a hug as well. “You look great, mom.”

Mac studied her. The newcomer, evidently her first cousin, was a few years older and a couple of inches taller than herself, but it was her face that really captured Mac’s attention. It’s not that they looked like long-lost twins, or anything dramatic like that, but it was obvious they were biologically connected, despite being strangers. They both had black hair, blue eyes, and a small button nose.

As Mac stared at the genetically related stranger in front of her she was sure this surreal, through the looking glass feeling would be repeated several more times throughout the day. Would she ever get used to this feeling? Was that even possible?

Formal introductions were made. Mac amusedly observed Dick openly staring at Tara. Fortunately, she was totally secure in their relationship, regardless of that new relationship sheen, otherwise she might have started getting jealous. Dick was not known for being subtle, but Mac figured he was cataloguing all the ways she resembled this genetically related stranger. The list was long.

“Ventilator?” Dick inquired, finally engaging Mac’s cousin, rather than just staring.

“Yeah. It’s a breathing machine,” Tara said.

“I’m well-acquainted with them,” Dick lamented. “After this summer, that is. I had a crash course.”

Tara nodded, before elaborating, “I work at Neptune Memorial, so I deal with ventilators, EKGs, heart monitors, etc.... But PC’s, and laptops, on the other hand, aren’t my forte. I have just enough knowledge to be dangerous.”

“Yes! Neptune Memorial, of course. That’s where I’ve seen you. You were Mac’s night nurse in the ICU. Right?” Dick practically shouted, snapping his fingers. He added, “You were the cool nurse.”

“That’s right,” Tara affirmed. “I remember you, too.” Then her voice went softer in tone and timbre as she turned to Mac. “You look wonderful. I’ve been so happy to hear you’re doing so well.”

“I would say what a coincidence,” Mac said, “but I’m pretty sure it’s anything but.” She looked down at the wineglass in her hand.

“Ellen pulled a few strings to get the best doctors, and nurses, including my talented girl here, assigned to your case.” Aunt Alice confirmed. She touched Mac’s hand. “We were all so worried. It was a heavily guarded secret, you know, your birth, but my baby sis and I have always been very close. I’ve waited a lot of years to get to know you. We all have. It’s so wonderful to finally meet you in person.”

“Likewise,” Mac mumbled back, trying to decide if she meant it. She finally decided that she did. “And I suppose you knew the whole time who I was, as well,” she directed that comment to Tara.

“The whole time, no, but I did get suspicious about Aunt Ellen’s sudden interest in my job, and more importantly, one particular patient. She passed you off as the daughter of an old family friend, but it’s hard to dismiss how similar you and I look.”

“No kidding,” Dick jumped in before Mac could. “I thought you looked like an old version of Mackie.” He paused a second, as if his internal sensor went off. “Shit…I mean, crap, I meant older, not old. You’re not old, but you have a few years on Mac though.”

Tara laughed and didn’t seem offended. “I didn’t know 28 qualified me for my AARP card.”

“Dick suffers from Foot in Mouth disease,” Mac explained, grinning.

“I hear that’s going around these days,” Tara teased.

“Ha, ha, ha! I don’t suffer from it; I enjoy every minute of it.” Dick corrected.

Mac rolled her eyes. Then her demeanor turned serious, as she said to Tara, “You remember me, but unfortunately I can’t say the same.” Her tone was rueful.

“No, of course not. You were asleep the whole time you were under my care. Unfortunately, I meet my patients at one of the worst times of their life. I don’t usually get to see them again after they’ve recovered, the ones that do, that is,” Tara paused, taking a deep breath. “At least with you I get a success story.” She tentatively took a step towards Mac, like she wanted to hug her. “I’m glad you and Dick are still close friends. He was a fixture around the hospital when you were sick. I wish all my patients had people who cared about them as much as your support system cared about you.” Tara sighed wistfully.

“Team Mac.” Dick said softly, as if he were remembering those days spent in purgatory’s waiting room, unsure if Mac would even survive. Then, he started to say, “Close friends, I guess you could say that, but now, we’ve actually started...”

“We’re dating,” Mac leaped in, beating Dick to the punchline this time.

“I knew it! Cheyenne owes me a drink.” Tara sounded triumphant. “We had a friendly little wager, after you were transferred out of our unit. I thought you’d be dating by the end of the year, Cheyenne thought it would take longer than that.”

“Cheyenne?” Mac was confused.

“The day nurse in the ICU,” Dick replied. “I caught her checking me out, several times in fact.”

“She’s got a son in high school, not that much younger than you, Dick,” Tara corrected. “So, I highly doubt she was checking you out.”

“Eh! I know what I saw,” Dick said, preening.

Once the argument—if it was worthy of that classification—about whether, or not, Cheyenne checked out Dick’s assets was exhausted, talk meandered back to Mac and Dick finally dating.

Suddenly, a shiver ran down Mac’s back, as though someone stood behind her and dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. She didn’t even need to turn around to know that Madison had entered the room, in her typical grand entrance fashion. It felt as though Madison was mentally trying to vaporize her out of existence. She idly wondered if she had a Mac Voodoo doll up in her room, it wouldn’t surprise her. Truthfully, nothing about Madison Sinclair surprised her anymore. Her working theory was that Madison needed someone to blame, and the fear of losing the parents that raised her, and most importantly their money, made it easier to take things out on her than someone more culpable in the whole mess.

“You two are still dating?” Madison asked Dick, an incredulous edge in her voice. She interjected herself physically between him and Mac. Her tone carried its signature nasally whine, she arched one perfectly shaped eyebrow, and placed her French Manicured hand (read: talons) proprietarily on Dick’s arm. “I wouldn’t have thought you two would last more than 10 minutes, tops.”

“Yes, we’re still dating. It’s been a couple of months now, and we’re still going strong. Thank you for asking.” Mac replied, ignoring the fact that she was purposefully being nudged out of the conversation. That topic had come up a time or three during one of their Sunday night dinners, but this was the first time Dick had been invited to join the festivities. Madison had never really been one to trust anything she couldn’t see face to face.

“Madison, darling, how are you?” Alice broke in, presumably changing the subject. She gave her niece a hug.

“Surviving, Aunt Alice.” Gone was the whiney, simpering voice she’d used on Dick, in its place was poor, pitiful, victim Madison. She was turning in an Oscar caliber performance so far.

Mac stifled the urge to clap and yell bravo.

She noticed ‘Mom2’ coming back into the room with more guests, including her grandma Franklin, the grandmother of her heart, not genetics. Her grandma came up to their group, and immediately gave Mac a hug, reassuringly whispering how much she loved her, before being introduced to Madison, and the rest of the group. Mac noticed both women had the same green eyes, and cleft chin.

Madison was deftly led away by ‘Mom2’ to get to know the Mackenzie and Franklin side of her bonus family. Her new aunt, uncle and cousin excused themselves shortly after, leaving Mac and Dick to their own devices.

“Maybe they could put you and Madison in a receiving line,” Dick suggested, grabbing Mac’s free hand.

“That would be more efficient,” Mac agreed. “or maybe they could just put us in a gilded cage, with a sign warning everyone not to feed us.” She took a big, fortifying sip of wine.

“They can throw the food my way instead, I’m starving.”

“Well, it is a day that ends in Y.”

“I’m a growing boy.”

Mac was about to remind him of his age, and how he was past the growing boy stage of development when Lauren walked over to them.

After exchanging greetings and hugs, Lauren added “id I hear you say that you’re hungry, Dick? You’re in luck, dinner is almost ready.”

“I take it nothing got burned?” Mac teased, flashing her sister a grin. Being able to call Lauren her sister (though it was still a title she only used in her mind), hadn’t lost its luster. Any tinge of regret that would pop up when thoughts of her new reality made their daily rounds faded away as soon as she thought about Lauren.

“No. Nothing ever gets burned under Lucille’s watchful eye. I also managed to avoid cutting off my fingers.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess. Blood isn’t a very good seasoning.” Mac stated.

“Unless you’re a vampire,” Dick corrected.

“Every rule has an exception.”  Lauren agreed, shrugging.

“So, where is Kyle today?” Mac asked, hoping to shift the topic away from vampires.

“Sleeping, I think. He’s only allowed to come out at night,” Lauren teased. “Oh, never mind. I forgot we’re not in Twilight.” She laughed. “At the Kane estate, I think.”

“The Kane’s?” Mac was sure her surprise was etched on her face.

“His dad is a Vice President of some division of Kane Software. Mr. and Mrs. Kane are having their usual catered affair for 200 of their closest friends and business associates.”

“Guess his dad has a key to the executive washroom.”

“I think it’s a gold-plated key,” Lauren joked. She was about to make another comment about Kyle when something else caught her attention.  She let out an excited squeal before saying, “Grandma Cole, over here!” She made a beckoning motion with her hand. “Grandma Cole, my mom’s mom, er our mom’s mom. She’s the best! You’ll love her.”

“Lauren, darling, you look beautiful. You’re so grown up these days.” The older woman said, as she enveloped her granddaughter in a hug. An older man hovered behind her.

“Thank you, grandma. I’d like you both to meet Mac and her boyfriend, Dick.” Lauren said after extracting herself from the older woman’s arms.

“Hi,” Mac said shyly, holding out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, finally.” She looked down at her shoes, hoping to discover the secrets of the Universe from them.

Ignoring the outstretched hand, Mac’s new grandmother folded her into another bone crushing hug, much like she’d just bestowed on Lauren.  She could smell the scent of lavender on her grandmother, she presumed it was Lavender Fields, ‘Mom1’s signature perfume. She felt instantly comfortable with this stranger.  Her grandpa Cole took the next turn.

Another wave of déjà vu broke over her, as she remembered the remarkably similar, yet completely different Sinclair Thanksgiving gathering she’d endured in her coma dream. She had long ago lost count of the details in that dimension that lined up exactly with the real world. It was bordering on becoming the living embodiment of the string theory, which held that the world was comprised of one-dimensional strings layered upon one another, each dimension lay parallel to one another. Was it just a coma dream or had she temporarily dwelled in another universe? As those mind-bending thoughts whirled around in her head, Mac’s gaze landed on Fritz, who, in this string of reality, was lazing by the fire. He looked up just then, as though under mind meld, and let out a faint meow before putting his head back down to continue his cat nap.

As she was released from the hug, Mac internally commanded herself to stop ruminating, and stay in her present dimension. She gave her grandparents the requested rundown of her life. Twenty-one years was too long of a timeframe to adequately cover; however, she did hit all the basics, keeping it brief, and bypassing several key chapters of her life, including a few footnotes she’d never want to get back to Madison.

About five minutes into the conversation, Mac recognized the signs that a tension headache was trying to break the surface, so she found an exit from the group and made her way back to the couch. Dick followed behind, stopping briefly at the bar cart to refill his scotch. He sat down beside her, putting the arm not holding the rocks glass around her shoulders. She smiled wanly at him as she absent-mindedly rubbed her left temple, close to the original point of impact of the baseball. Though she was silently willing the headache away, it had stormed the gates holding it back and began a full force assault.

Mac watched Madison—AKA beta Cindy—holding court with ‘Mom1’ and ‘Dad1,’ her aunt Linda (Dad1’s younger sister) and a few Mackenzie cousins that had just trickled into the library. She had no right to be jealous, since she’d been doing the same thing with the Sinclair and Cole branches, but she wasn’t in a gracious mood. The pain bore down, she gritted her teeth. Passing her now empty wineglass off to Dick, she used her free hand to rub her neck.

“Headache?” Dick asked in a sympathetic tone. He was well-versed in recognizing the signs, another perk of dating her.

“Just a small one,” Mac lied. It was shaping up to be a bad one on her personal Geiger Counter, but she downplayed it, as was her default state. This headache was a blend of all the typical ingredients required to create one of her post-recovery headaches—stress, wine, dim lighting, complex sci-fi theories coming to life, etc. Usually only one, or two, of those triggers were sufficient, but she always was an overachiever.

Fritz woke up again and ambled over to the couch. He hopped up and went straight for Mac’s lap and started to purr. It was melodic and soothing.

Dick leaned over to give Fritz a pat on his head, before murmuring he’d be back. Mac watched him walk over to ‘Mom1’ and whisper something in her ear. She shut her eyes after that, leaning her head back against the couch. She would not have thought there would have been time to have fallen asleep, but the next thing she remembered was ‘Mom2’nudging her awake. The moms were flanking her on either side of the loveseat. ‘Mom1’ handed her one of her prescription headache pain pills that she always kept on hand for emergencies, while ‘Mom2’ handed her a glass of water. She mumbled a thank you before once again shutting her eyes. It was so embarrassing. There was nothing worse in her mind than being the center of attention, she was the opposite of drama queen Madison, who would’ve been crying and carrying on had the roles been reversed.

Once the mom squad was done tending to Mac’s headache, Dick took back his spot on the couch.

“Feeling better?” He murmured in her ear, as he once again put his arm around her shoulders.

“A little,” Mac said. “I really thought I would have stopped having so many headaches by now. I just feel so broken, like I’ll never totally be put back together again. It’s humiliating.” She leaned her head back and draped an arm over her eyes, blocking the room from her view.

“Put back together again?” Dick echoed. “Do you mean in a Humpty Dumpty sort of way?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Mac admitted, dropping her arm. She absently started stroking Fritz’s soft fur.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mackie. From where I’m sitting, you’re already back on that wall! You’re probably the least broken broken person I’ve ever met.” Dick said incredulously.

“Least broken broken person? Is that even a thing?” Mac inquired. She glanced over at Dick.

“Why shouldn’t there be? And if that term doesn’t exist yet, we’ve just invented it now.” Dick shrugged. “I mean we’re all broken, to a certain extent. I definitely am. Logan is. Veronica, too. But you, you are the most put together broken person I’ve ever met.” He paused briefly, let out a big sigh, before continuing. “I’m not sure that being broken is necessarily a bad thing. To me, not that I know anything, it just means we’ve all had plenty of shit kicked our way, and somehow, we survived it. We’re still carrying on. Or somewhat, at least.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Mac said after a brief pause. She continued petting Fritz. It was calming.

“Hey, what can I say, I’m more than just a pretty face,” Dick said, trying, and failing, to say it without grinning. It was his new mantra.

Mac started to shake her head, and then thought better of it, so she settled for rolling her eyes but couldn’t help the smile that pushed forth. “I’m done with thinking too hard, for now at least. I think that’s what gave me this headache to begin with.”

They sat there a few more minutes, letting the silence spread out, the only sound was the cat’s purrs. Slowly her headache receded enough that the thought of food didn’t kick up nausea.

A few minutes later Lucille announced that dinner was ready.

Two tables had been set up to accommodate the large crowd. The main table was in the formal dining room, the adjacent living room held a second table, which was almost as big as the main one. Mac estimated there were over 25 people spread out between all the Sinclair and Mackenzie branches.

In typical ‘Mom2’ style, place cards were tented above each plate. Every name was written in calligraphy. Mac and Dick found their place settings at the main table. ‘Mom2’ had hauled out her best China, in a fleur de lis pattern. The water glasses were cut crystal and probably weighed a pound each.

Lauren had been seated on her other side, with Ryan on Lauren’s left side. Unfortunately, Madison was directly across from her, in easy glaring distance. ‘Mom1’ and ‘Dad1’ were flanking her on either side. ‘Mom2’ and ‘Dad2,’ of course, were both at their respective head of the table positions. The remaining seats were rounded out by Tara, her parents, Grandma and Grandpa Cole, the Grandma Franklin. The rest of the extended families, including sundry Mackenzie cousins, had been relegated to the table in the other room.

Giant serving platters heaped with food took residence in the center of the massive dining table, competing for space with three equally distanced bouquets of flowers, in autumn colors including orange roses, red roses, and yellow lilies. The vases were carved out white pumpkin shells. Holly and ivy garland weaved around the flowers and serving dishes, with pinecones scattered in between like confetti.

Mac was pleased to see a Tofurkey roast parked in front of her. She was certain she was the only token vegan among them. Though the Sinclairs didn’t seem as strictly carnivorous as the Mackenzies, she knew they were meat eaters as well. She caught Dick eyeing the turkey platter; she was surprised there wasn’t a trail of drool down his chin.

“I dare you to try some Tofurkey,” Mac whispered in his ear.

“I’d love to, but I’m allergic to fake meat,” Dick replied, in his normal speaking voice.

“You’re just chicken.”

“I call fowl!” Dick corrected. “It’s against the bylaws to call someone chicken on Turkey Day. That’s mixing genres.”

Lauren, who evidently had been listening in on the conversation, groaned. “Technically, it’s only mixing poultry. But you know what should be against the bylaws, bad puns! I should have you kicked out for that.”

“I agree! Great minds think alike,” Mac replied, lifting her water glass, and clinking it on Lauren’s glass right next to hers. The cups were so heavy it was more of a clunk, however.

“Before we start filling our plates with this delicious food,” ‘Mom2’ was saying, “let’s pray. We thank thee, our lord and savior, for every earthly good, for life and health and family, and for our daily food. Amen.” Mac noticed ‘Mom2’s gaze landing on her as she thanked God for their health and family.

Everyone echoed the Amen, and then started passing the food in a counterclockwise direction. Mac took a couple pieces of the Tofurkey roast, and passed it to Dick, on her right. She watched him pass it along to her cousin, Tara, who also took a slice. When someone handed the turkey platter to Mac, she held her breath as she passed it to Dick. She watched him take several slices. Each side dish that was handed to Mac, ‘Mom2’ let her know whether it was vegan safe, or not. When her mom’s (‘Mom1’) ceramic pumpkin dish came by, she took two big scoops of Waldorf salad. The bright orange of the whimsical bowl stood out among the sea of Mom2’s China platters and tureens.

At last, everyone’s plates were full, and the serious business of eating got underway. For several minutes conversation consisted of asking for salt and please pass the turkey, or corn pudding. However, as soon as more food had been consumed, and the serving plates made their second, and then third trip around the table, the conversation reigns expanded to politics and Thanksgiving sports matchups.

Lauren placed her hands over her ears in protest of the political agenda. She leaned over to Mac and whispered how that was always her least favorite of the Sinclair traditions. 

“Consider yourself lucky that your Thanksgiving table talk doesn’t center around the best NASCAR tracks.” Mac countered.

“No, I guess that doesn’t sound any better,” Lauren agreed. “Do you think this might be our new tradition?”

“A combined family Thanksgiving?” Mac clarified.

“Yes.”

“Maybe?” Mac shrugged, then scooped up a big bite of Waldorf salad. “Probably.”

“Me, too,” Ryan interjected. “Lucy’s an awesome cook. She could give mom some pointers.” He shoveled in a big bite of turkey, with mashed potatoes and stuffing. Mac was surprised that he didn’t drip any of the gravy down his chin.

“I heard that, young man,” ‘Mom1’ said from the other side the table. Her voice was stern. She shook a finger at him.

Mac laughed at the evil eye her mom was shooting her brother. Dick was smirking as he mouthed to him that he was in trouble.

Mac watched Madison push food around her plate. It didn’t look like she’d ate much of anything. She seemed annoyed at Ryan’s joke about having all future Thanksgiving dinners at the Sinclair estate. Mac also suspected there was green tinged jealousy about Dick at play, as well. She doubted Madison had been harboring any rekindling fantasies but sharing with others was never that girl’s strong suit.

It made her sad that while she was getting closer to Lauren, Madison still hardly made any attempts to get to know Ryan. They’d talked a few times at the family dinners, but it never seemed to occur to her to go toss the football with him at the park, or even watch one of his games. Fortunately, none of that seemed to phase her happy-go-lucky—and pesty—baby brother. That was what really mattered in the grand scheme of things, but years of practice being his older sister still stirred up her protective feelings.

They were two months into this new normal—a phrase she detested more and more as time went on—and all she saw in Madison was the spoiled brat she’d known since kindergarten. She thought family upheavals were supposed to make people softer, more compassionate, even ice queens were supposed to thaw out, shave off a layer of frost.

“Look at all this food remaining,” ‘Mom2’ was saying as her guests were eating the last remaining crumbs on their plates. “There’s enough for everyone to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow.”

“That’s great, mom,” Madison said. “I was just thinking how much Mac must love scraps, considering she’s always taking my leftovers.”

Mac took a deep breath. There were always two choices when dealing with prototype bitches like Madison, rise above or sink down to their level. Going low was more fun, but she chose to rise above. “I’ve heard homeless and/or battered women’s shelters take food donations.” She said before anyone could chide Madison for her manners breach. “I’ll bet they appreciate leftovers even more than I do,” she added, unable to resist directing a dig towards her pseudo stepsister.

After a quick, but pointed look, in Madison’s direction, ‘Mom2’ smiled at Mac. “What a wonderful idea, dear.”

“Suck up!” Madison whispered but being that it was more of a stage whisper, those sound waves were easily transmitted across the dining table. She pointed to her nose, as she glared at Mac.

“I’m assuming I’m the leftover in that equation,” Dick said. “However, from my perspective it’s more like I dated the rough draft in high school, and found it lacking in substance, so now I’m dating the first edition.”

Mac wasn’t sure what she appreciated more, Dick sticking up for her, or his use of literary analogy. It had the inherent bonus of knocking Madison down a peg, too. That was always gratifying to see.

Before anything else could be said about Mac’s love of leftovers, pastries stole the spotlight. Lucy pushed the dessert cart into the room, it was overflowing with pies, cookies, cakes, and brownies. She stationed it in the corner of the large room. ‘Mom2’ invited everyone to help themselves buffet style.

Mac smiled as Dick made his way to the dessert station. He grabbed a big plate and proceeded to take a small piece of every kind of pie. There was still a lot of real estate left on the plate, so he turned his attention to the cookies after that. He ended up with a small mountain of just one type of cookie, it was probably some kind of sugar cookie. Mac couldn’t really tell from her vantage point.

“Don’t forget we’re going to Wallace’s house for dessert,” Mac reminded Dick as he sat back down at the table.

“I’ll find room for Alicia’s pie somewhere, don’t worry about me. There’s plenty of time to digest before we start over again,” he assured her. “Besides, this isn’t all for me.” He placed the stack of cookies in front of her. “The sign says they’re vegan Cinna melts.”

“Thanks,” Mac murmured. Cinna melts were her favorite kind of cookie, her mom used to make them on a weekly basis for lunch time treats. They reminded her of snickerdoodles.  She took a bite of the soft cookie.

As everyone was eating dessert, Lucille came around with coffee.

Mac poured a liberal amount of soy milk into her coffee, turning it caramel colored. She noticed ‘Dad2’ doing the same thing on his end of the table, only he was using real cream. For almost 6 years she’d been playing the DNA guessing game with herself. Which Sinclair did X trait come from? What about trait Y? There were no winners in that game, and most of the time she was the only loser.

Mac abruptly jumped off that thought train when she caught some movement down at Mom2’s end of the table. The moms had traded baby albums and were gushing over how beautiful she and Madison were as babies. One of the biggest lingering questions she’d lived with was how both moms could fail to notice they had taken the wrong baby home. She only recently learned that same question had been haunting ‘Mom1’ for years, however, not wanting to add to her mom’s guilt load, she didn’t share the fact that same gnawing, snarling question also lived in her own heart. Maybe she could finally shut down that nagging inner voice.

Mac got up out of her chair, pulling Dick with her. “Picture time.”

“Babies all look like aliens, with those pointy heads.” Dick was saying.

“Pointy heads? You mean like Cone Heads from that Saturday Night Live movie?”

“Yes,” Dick confirmed. “Babies are just a bunch of cone-headed alien creatures.”

“Not our girls,” ‘Mom2’ cut in. “They were perfect. Maybe you looked like an alien, Dick, but Madison and Cindy did not.”

“Look at that perfectly round little head,” ‘Mom1’ said, pointing to a picture of a sleeping baby with dark hair, a tiny button nose. Mac presumed it was herself.

Mom1’s next comment confirmed it. “Cindy was lovely. This was taken the day after we took her home.” Her tone was wistful.

“Nope, no cone head,” Mac reiterated, handing the well-worn picture to Dick. He shrugged, and she took that as agreement.

“And this is Maddie’s first picture in her new home,” ‘Mom2’ replied, handing off an equally creased and battered picture of another tiny, dark haired swaddled baby girl. Mac intercepting it before it reached her mom’s outstretched hand.

How many tears had rained down upon their newborn pictures through the years?

There were differences, like Madison didn’t have as much hair, and it was thinner on top. Her own nose was narrower, eyes weren’t spaced out as far, but it took some intense scrutiny to even see those minor discrepancies. She didn’t know what kind of evidence she was expecting, but the pictures didn’t really crystalize anything in her mind. Her lack of poker face gave away her falling mood. She didn’t exactly think the switch was some top-down conspiracy but calling such a much major black boundary line in her life a “mistake,” had always seemed akin to calling the Grand Canyon a little hole in the ground.  However, now, having seen baby pictures of herself and Madison, it made the whole situation more plausible. The switch was born in a moment of inattentiveness, but there weren’t any striking differences between them, at least not in those early hours of their births, it really was just an honest mistake. A terrible mistake, but a mistake, an error, nonetheless.

Mac fervently wished that the picture swap would absolve both moms from the guilt they carried like a limb, like an extension of themselves, but it was probably too metastasized, too systemic by now to make any difference. She felt bad that she’d never stopped to think of the guilt the moms must have felt from day one. She’d lived with the ache of knowing she was raised in the wrong family for almost five years now, and last night (early this morning?) was the first glimpse ‘Mom1’ had ever given her into the scars she herself carried.

“The only cone head I see here is Madison,” Dick whispered in her ear, before giving it a teasing nip. “I always knew she was an alien.” She flashed him a grateful smile for sensing when she needed cheering up.

Mac passed the beat-up picture to Mom1’s still outstretched hand.

“Madison was lovely, too,” ‘Mom1,’ said. “She’s got the Franklin chin.” She softly stroked the picture.

The moms started comparing notes on all the signs they ignored in those early months, and Mac couldn’t listen to another word. Not with her own world on tilt. Without another word to the moms, who had probably forgotten she was there anyway, she turned around and left the dining room. The rest of the dinner guests had scattered from the table since dinner was over, and they were dispersed around the expansive first floor of the Sinclair house. She looked around for Lauren but didn’t see her anywhere.

Not committing to a particular destination, Mac wandered around until she ended up in the family room. Due to the new tradition of bimonthly “family dinners,” and the mental map of her coma dreamland, she was much more intimately familiar with the layout of the Sinclair house than she’d ever have dreamed of back in high school. Dick caught up to her and grabbed her hand. He nudged her over to the large, beige L-shaped sofa dominating the room.