Author's note: Thanks for reading. This is my first fan fiction ever. I've been addicted to reading other peoples' stories for a while now so I thought I'd try my hand at it too. So please keep that in mind, but don't go too easy on me either. I haven't written stories for a long time and am so excited to have a place to go to try again. I plan on making this a 3 or 4 chapter story. We'll see...Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer-Sadly, I own nothing! These awesome characters I've borrowed belong to Rob Thomas.

"Earth to Mars. Earth to Mars." Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie raced across the vast Hearst College campus to catch up to Veronica Mars, the Bond to her Q.

Their sophomore year had just begun. Veronica had just gotten back from Langley, Virginia a couple of weeks ago, fresh off her FBI internship. Mac had stayed in Neptune working her computer magic as a freelancer both for local companies and also the occasional moonlighting gig for Keith Mars. The money was also still trickling in from the hot ass website she and Logan created. By 02er standards she was pretty rich.

"Q! We must stop meeting like this."

"Hey V. So, that text you sent me earlier. Some case in desperate need of my techie wizardary? Some slob who can't keep it in his pants? Or is it something more nefarious?"

"Yes to both of those actually. You done yet? Do you have time to hit Java with me?"

"I only have one more class, but it's not til 4. So yes, I can definitely squeeze in some time for a soy latte and some super sleuthing too."

"No, Mac, no sleuthing. Not yet anyway. We just need to work out a strategy."

Because of their differing afternoon schedules they drove separately to Java the Hut in downtown Neptune. Mac parked her green bug beside Veronica's silver Saturn SUV, snickering to herself. Gotta love the image of a Mars driving a Saturn. Mac took a quick peak in the mirror at her reflection. This week she was sporting a blue streak in her otherwise black hair.

Five minutes later both girls were sipping their lattes, tucked away in a quiet corner of the popular coffee shop. Veronica outlined the case. It was early on so she didn't have a lot of details to share but she definitely had some financials she needed Mac to dig around in. A basic background search Veronica had instigated seemed to indicate a money trail leading to the Cayman Islands. After Veronica told Mac what she needed her to do for the case the conversation drifted to what they did over the summer.

"So, tell me about the FBI."

"Not much to tell, Q. They just ran me ragged. Sadly not much butt kicking. I hope to change that soon."

"Logan better watch out."

"You know it. So what about you? What did I miss?"

"This is Neptune! Nothing ever changes. I spent the summer retrieving lost emails from over paid execs who don't know RAM from ROM, and rating asses with Logan and Dick."

"Sounds educational!" Veronica said. Her eyebrows quirked up though at the mention of Dick's name.

Mac just snorted. "Yeah, real educational. I'm becoming an expert in the ass persuasion."

"Speaking of asses, how IS Dick."

"I made an important discovery actually. He can sometimes, occasionally, once in awhile be an actual human being. And once in great while say something that is intelligent. Wow, maybe it was an educational summer after all, who knew? Oh, and he even beat me one time in Halo 3."

"Casablancas? Dick Casablancas? Are we talking about the same Dick?"

"That's him."

"Is there anything you'd like to confess, MacAttack? Confession is good for the soul, they say."

Mac laughed out loud at that. "Nope! Nada. Nothing. Just making conversation. Seriously, nothing happened. It's just, well, we actually started talking. He's not so bad. I think he felt guilty for last year. You know, that whole beard comment. Anyway, baby steps I guess. So we're not besties, there was no hair braiding and pillow fights, but I did enjoy our Halo marathons. You're not to breathe a word of that to any one, V, under penalty of a very slow death."

"Okay, well, on that note I think I'll bid my farewell. You work your computer mojo, I'll work my pixie spy magic and we'll go from there."

***********************BeginFlashback********************************************

"Take that, sucker!" Mac jumped up, throwing her Xbox controller down and doing a victory dance in front of the leather couch in the penthouse suite of the Neptune Grand that both Dick and Logan called home. It was her first time playing the game, and she'd won. Mac turned her head to catch a look at her gaming partner, Dick Casablanca. He had a scowl on his face.

"Beginners luck, Ghostworld. Beginners luck."

"Just skills."

"In your dreams!" By now the big surfer boy with shaggy blonde hair was grinning.

After they played a couple more times Dick was fully convinced it was more than just luck. Mac did indeed have skills. He really liked the red streak in her otherwise black hair. It seemed to change week to week. He remembered telling her on the beach several months ago he finally got why Cassidy liked her. The truth was though, he always got what the Beav saw in her. Ghostworld was smart, she was snarky, she had a sweet side, and she was definitely hot.

They quit playing Xbox and started drinking rum and cokes. Mac's drink was heavy on coke, not so much on the rum, it was the opposite ratio for Dick's. The TV was droning on in the background but no one was really watching it. Mac was looking around the suite, really looking anywhere but at Dick. On the other hand Dick was studying her.

"Uh Mac, you were never his beard." The words came out in a rush. "I don't know why I said that. Actually, I do kind of know why. But he did care about you, as much as he could that is. Man, my life is so messed up now."

Mac leaned over and kissed Dick at that moment. When she replayed it in her memory (which happened more than she wanted to admit) she changed things around a little bit so it was Dick who kissed her. But regardless of who instigated the kiss (Mac), it was hot. It was only the click of the key card being swiped that made them pull apart. Logan stumbled into the room unaware of what he'd just interrupted. He was too drunk to notice the glare from Dick and the blush that overtook Mac's face.

"Mac!" Logan slurred. "Did we have plans?"

"No, not really. I just came by to look over the website data. Dick, um, we played Halo. We can go over work stuff another time." Mac said everything in a rush. She just wanted to get out of there. She and Dick didn't have another chance to kiss since that night but they played video games a lot since then. And she discovered they could talk, actually talk to each other. No hair braiding or anything, but Dick was fast becoming someone she counted among her friends. And for Mac, that label wasn't used lightly.

*******************End Flashback***************************************************

Mac was done with classes for the rest of the day. The prof had let them out a little early. Since it was still early in the semester she didn't have a lot of homework yet. She mentally replayed the conversation she and Veronica had had earlier that day. The case seemed to be your basic girl meets boy, girl likes boy, girl sees boy with hooker, girl starts to distrust boy case, but Mac had played Q to Veronica's Bond often enough to know nothing was ever that clear cut.

Mac pulled into the lot behind the apartment she shared with Parker. They decided to live off campus for their sophomore year. After being raped in her dorm room her first week at Hearst, Parker was glad to be living off campus this year. And between the computer geek scholarships Mac had and all the money she made over the summer, she could easily afford to live away from home. The apartment was on the 3rd floor, and if you craned your head to the left and stood on your tiptoes you could see a sliver of the Pacific Ocean gleaming in the distance. Okay, it wasn't exactly considered an ocean view, but it was a nice 2 bedroom apartment and with the castoffs her mom gave them and a big sale at Neptune Furniture Express the place was a step up from standard college kid fare. She and Parker liked to describe it as shabby chic.

Mac entered the apartment and kicked her scuffed black tennis shoes off. She was happy to see that Parker wasn't home yet. They got along pretty well but being a loner at heart, Mac always enjoyed the brief snatches of privacy she got when Parker was out. She grabbed a coke and then stretched out on her big purple sofa. Her sofa, she liked the sound of that. Her mind drifted off to high school, more specifically senior year. Before graduation night, the night everything changed. For some reason, Cassidy Casablancas had been on Mac's mind a lot that day. Maybe it was because she'd been hanging out with Dick lately. She thought she was probably the only person on the planet whose first boyfriend was a rapist, a mass murderer and ended his life by jumping off the roof of the Neptune Grand hotel. Her dating life certainly hadn't gotten off to a very auspicious beginning. And now she was in love with his older brother. Wait, love? No, not love, just a deep like. She was attracted to Cassidy's brother. Yes, that was it, she thought to herself, attracted. God did she want to jump Dick's bones. She was just picturing him naked when the doorbell rang. Shit! It wasn't coitus interruptus, just fantasy interruptus.

Mac could feel the blush creeping over her face as she opened the door and found Dick on the other side. She wondered briefly if she'd conjured him up.

"Hey Ghostworld."

"Dick? What brings you to my humble abode?"

"I was nowhere near your neighborhood."

"And yet, here you are. Okay then. On that note, c'mon in. I didn't realize we'd had plans."

"No, we don't. I can leave if this is a bad time. I come bearing games though, if that helps."

"Yeah, it does. Make yourself at home Dick." But by the time Mac said that Dick had grabbed himself a coke and had settled down on her couch with his feet propped up over the arm. "Uh, I see you've already done that."

Mac grabbed the game out of his hand and loaded it into the X-Box then tried to shove his feet off the couch so she could sit down there too. Dick wasn't going to give in so easily though, so she had to resort to tickling him. Soon though it turned into a full-fledged tickle war. And then from war it quickly morphed into making out. This time Mac was fairly certain Dick had initiated the kissing but that didn't matter, she was a more than willing participant. She could feel Dick's hardness as he pressed into her, and she let out a moan as he kissed her neck. Finally, reluctantly, Dick pulled away and Mac tried to hide how disappointed she felt.

"As much fun as that was, we have a game to play," he said by way of explanation for pulling away.

"Well, get ready for some ass kicking."

"I'm always ready for your ass, Macster." They played Halo a couple times, and true to Mac's word, she did indeed win each time. It was hardly surprising though, as hard as he played, Mac almost always ended up the victor. After laying down the controllers on the coffee table in front of them, Mac stretched out on the couch laying her head on Dick's lap. She stretched her head back a little so she could watch him. He looked deep in thought. At first Mac was tempted to say something sarcastic like I hope all that thinking isn't painful, but something in his expression held her back.

"Is everything okay, Dick?"

"Mostly, yeah." He sighed."I don't know, I guess I just wanted to be distracted today. And I've got to say no one does a better job of that than you." Dick smiled suggestively at her when he said that. "I've just, well, the Beav, um er, Cassidy, has been on my mind a lot today. I was just thinking how this week would be the start of his freshman year. I don't know where he would've ended up going, but it's so weird how things turned out. Not what they should be. Or maybe exactly how they should be, I really have no answers right now."

"He's been on mind a lot today too. I don't know why. I actually suspected it was because you and I have become, well, whatever it is we've become. Gaming buddies? Is this weird? It is, isn't it?"

"No, Ghostworld, this is anything but weird. You and I and our gaming friendship make more sense to me than anything else going on in my life now. But really, do we need to define this right this second?"

"No, I guess not."

Dick didn't stay long after that. They talked about their first week of classes, and also how long they thought it would take for Logan and Veronica to officially start dating. The duo had stayed in touch during the summer, but things were still up in the air between those too. Dick was giving it no more than 2 weeks, however Mac thought it would take at least a month for Veronica to come around and give Logan yet another chance.

When it was time to go Dick kissed Mac. It wasn't exactly time to alert the media, but Mac definitely thought there might be relationship potential there. She actually wanted to date Dick, who knew?! She went into her bedroom and grabbed her laptop. She might as well do a little digging for V. It would distract her from a certain shaggy blonde surfer dude who never seemed to be far from her thoughts—or lips—these days.

While she booted up, Mac mentally inventoried what exactly it was Veronica wanted her to dig for. Mainly just hack into the mark's computer, look for dates, times, suspicious emails etc that indicated he was partaking in an extra circular love life. But V had also indicated something was hinkey with the guy's finances. As part of the Mars Investigations full package Veronica ran a complete background check even on cheating cases and something had seemed off to her.

After about ten minutes of work Mac found a couple suggestive emails, several suspicious chat archives, but not really the "smoking gun" V had wanted. Still, though, it was a start. However, Mac wasn't ready to quit yet. She changed tactics and started perusing other archives on the network. Oh shit, she thought! Hidden very well was basically a blueprint for embezzling, the program was a work of genius. It siphoned off little sums of money from every customer account, 30 dollars or so here, 15 there. However, the transactions were all from customers' of Kane Software, and those little amounts were adding up fast. And the other thing that had Mac so scared, the guy obviously knew a thing or two about computers. She recognized a tracing program on the network. Her own firewalls were pretty secure, but not as secure as they needed to be for this program. Mac knew she was about to be discovered.