Disclaimer: Veronica Mars belongs entirely to Rob Thomas and the CW. I merely borrow the characters for short periods of time.
A/N: Written for the Cliché Ficathon at the LJ community vm-boardwalk.
Five Times Madison Sinclair Didn't Apologise
Madison looked up from the piano as her mother walked into the room where she had been practicing her scales. She was holding the crystal vase which, for as long as Madison could remember, had sat on the sideboard in the front hall. Her mother was looking at her with a stern expression, half of the vase in one hand, half in the other. It was broken.
Madison quickly stood up and tried to appear innocent. "Madison, did you knock this over?" her mother asked. She quickly shook her head. The truth was that she had by accident. Madison had been running through the house even though she knew she wasn't meant to.
But even at the young age of nine Madison had already learnt how the world worked. Her mother couldn't blame her for anything if she denied everything and there was no evidence. She had heard the way her mother would scream at Daddy some nights about things she couldn't understand. Something about other women. But Daddy had never gotten into any real trouble because he would always yell back that he hadn't done anything and that she should get some damn proof before she started flinging accusations.
"Madison." She glanced up from where she had been looking at her shoes. Her mother was still watching her with that same look on her face. Madison tried not to fidget under her gaze. "Do you understand that if it wasn't you then it must have been Miss Edwards? And that I'll have to take her job away from her?" Madison nodded. Her mother asked her again, "So was it you who broke this Madison? I promise I'm not going to be mad if it was an accident."
Madison was resolute. "It wasn't me Mom."
---
"Did you spit in your drink and give it to me at Shelly's?"
Madison looked at Veronica Mars with contempt. "Like I was the only person's spit you had in your mouth that night."
Mars was glaring at her. "You have no idea what you did to me."
Madison was incredulous. "Oh my god! I spit in your drink. You are like so scarred for life." She huffed and turned away.
God, she so didn't need this. Her mother had started to become slightly distant in the past few months, and she had heard her parents fighting in their room at night more and more often, more than half the time about her she was sure. She had come to this party in the hopes of just forgetting for a few hours.
And now Mars wanted to bring up a stupid little prank from over a year ago? How pathetic was she? Mars should damn well just get over it already and move on. She acted as if Madison had ruined her life just for spitting in her drink. Well, it was about time Mars dealt with it and stopped acting as if she was the only one in all of Neptune that had problems.
Madison grabbed another drink and moved to the back of the room.
---
Madison smiled brightly as she stepped out of the church, her white satin dress trailing behind her and her arm linked with her new husband's. She glanced up at Dick and they shared their second kiss as husband and wife as cameras flashed.
Together they walked down the steps and mingled with the crowd of admirers and well-wishers. As they moved toward the official photographer Madison noticed a dark-haired woman standing on the other side of the street and watching them. She paused for a moment and their eyes connected. Cindy Mackenzie. Why was she not surprised?
Well, it was done now. Dick Casablancas was married to her and there was nothing that Mackenzie could do about it. And there was certainly nothing that her mother could do to stop her now. If her mother hadn't been so willing to accept Mackenzie as her daughter and reject the girl she had raised then she would have never have been forced to do this.
When her father had passed away little more than ten months ago, Madison had not been expecting her mother to tell her that biologically she was not a Sinclair. That she had been switched at birth. And that she intended to have her father's will contested so that their real daughter might receive the inheritance that should belong to her. Madison was not going to stand for that. If she wasn't going to be getting her share of her father's money then she'd just have to find another way to look after herself.
And then she had met up with Dick Casablancas again and found the solution to all her problems. The fact that he had been dating Mackenzie at the time didn't matter to her. It simply made her victory over her mother that much sweeter.
Madison broke the eye contact and continued to where Dick and the rest of the bridal party were waiting for her. That woman was not going to make her feel guilty for her actions by standing there looking as if she were watching a funeral.
She had done what was necessary to keep herself safe and nothing more. And Madison was not sorry for it. She was her father's daughter after all.
---
Three years. Her marriage had lasted a grand total of three years. It sounded like such a short amount of time when she put it like that and yet it had felt like an eternity while she had been living it.
The first year had gone smoothly. Until one particular issue decided to rear it's ugly head.
Madison had never expected that Dick Casablancas would be the type of person to want children. But apparently she had been wrong in her assumption. When Dick had brought the subject of kids up Madison had flat out refused. Dick probably thought that she only objected to having kids because she didn't want to ruin her perfect figure. But he too would be wrong in his assumption.
Madison hadn't spent her whole life living in Neptune only to learn nothing from the examples put before her. It was idiotic to bring children into a loveless marriage. It simply wasn't healthy for the kids to grow up in that sort of environment. Madison refused to put her children, if she ever had any, into a situation like that.
It was after many fights on the topic that Dick had chosen to begin finding pleasure elsewhere. Madison was happy to let him do it. Dick kept himself happy and he didn't try to approach her which kept Madison satisfied. His sleeping around didn't bother her and the gossip she could easily deal with. But when she found out that Dick had a kid with Mackenzie, Madison's resolve broke. She was not going to be the brunt of that little joke.
Madison glanced at her ex-husband outside the courthouse where he stood with Mackenzie and their kid. There had been no pre-nup so Madison had come away with pretty much half of everything Dick had owned. Dick had tried to fight it. But though Dick had gotten smarter as he got older, he hadn't spent his whole life manipulating everyone around him like Madison had. He had been no competition for her.
Madison slipped on her sunglasses and smirked as she slipped into her silver Mercedes.
---
Madison stepped out of the room and slumped against the wall of the hospital. She did not want to be in that room with Dick and Mackenzie and Lauren and her husband and all their kids.
Her mother had just died. She had just gone to sleep and that was it, right there in front of them all. She was gone. Never to wake up again.
Madison took a steadying breath as she went over the past six hours in her head. Mackenzie had called her just after dinner and told her in no uncertain terms to get her ass to the hospital. Their mother (Mackenzie's words, not hers) was dying from lung cancer and wasn't expected to last the night. She wouldn't have even bothered to ring but their mother had asked for Madison. She hadn't heard from her mother in nearly ten years and then suddenly this.
She had only arrived at the hospital an hour ago, after her fiancé had finally convinced her that going to see her mother was the right thing to do. Fifteen minutes after that, Madison had found herself in a room with a family that she had once been a part of but had never rightfully been hers. Her mother had then apologised to her. For everything.
Madison had been stunned. To her further shock, her mother had smiled at her, the same soft smile that used to calm her after her nightmares. She had tried to say something, to respond in some way, maybe even to apologise herself but she couldn't. She opened her mouth but no words would come out. Mackenzie and Lauren had been glaring at her expectantly, waiting for her to reply and give a dying woman her peace. But Madison had been unable to do anything more than swallow, look away and sit down on one of the hard chairs. Her mother had turned away, disappointed, to talk to her daughters, her real daughters. Only thirty minutes later she closed her eyes and was gone forever.
Madison glanced at the door she had just slipped out of. She could hear Dick and Mackenzie murmuring behind it, something about how Mackenzie should go ring Mars and let her know what was happening. That quickly restored her strength. Madison straightened and began to move away from the wall. She wasn't going to stick around to be confronted by Mackenzie.
Madison took one final glance at the room which housed the dead body of the woman she had once called Mother and then left the hospital. She never looked back.