Title: Beacon for the Dark Side
Relationship: Mac/Dick
Chapter Rating: pg-13/teen
Overall Rating: nc-17/explicit
Spoiler(s): pre-series, season one
Word Count: 1,620
Summary: (au) Cindy "Mac" Sinclair has spent her whole life as an '09er, but she hasn't let her zip code define her. Choosing not to follow in the steps of her stuck up, social-status focused peers, she lives life on her terms, with her two best friends, Logan and Dick, at her side. Life was good. Life was easy. Until it wasn't.

Beacon for the Dark Side
-Novel-

[Prologue]

Mac was eight years old when she realized the wonders of surfing. One might wonder how it took a girl who grew up surrounded by beaches that long to fall in love with the water, but she had a very good reason for it. Technology. Ah, her first, current, and always love. Anything with wires was Mac's true passion; she could take apart and put back together whatever was put in front of her with little more than a screw driver and a bobby pin. Or so her father liked to boast.

Robert Sinclair, in case anyone was wondering. Just the average genius that used his brain to make the kind of quick buck that wasn't really quick at all. It was safe to say that Robert managed to use his intelligence not only to build a billion-dollar business, but to keep it thriving, which, in turn, resulted in the Sinclair family earning a high status in the 90909 zip code of Neptune, California. So, yes, Mac came from money; a lot of money, in fact. But Mac would like to think that she didn't let that change who she was. Was she of the few that could buy anything and everything she ever wanted? Yes. She could snap her fingers and have whatever her heart desired. But snap her fingers she did not. At least not often. Not unless her computer needed new parts or she was out of soap for her board. The latter of those two, however, was something she could generally just borrow from the neighbors.

She would lean more toward Dick having extra board soap than Logan, however. Or maybe she would just lean toward Dick because if she leaned too close to Logan she would be face to face with whatever bottle-blonde he was dating to replace "love of his life" Lilly Kane that week. She wasn't exactly sure which was worse; Lilly or her predecessors. Prior to her death, there was no love lost between Mac and Lilly. Maybe it was the rivalry of two women searching for Logan's affection; or that's what he thought anyway. Personally, Mac just lumped Lilly in all the general '09er clique, few of whom she actually liked. It was a popularity game that she'd long dealt herself out of.

Mac met Dick was she was five years old. He threw sand in her face for reasons she couldn't remember, and was sure were not worthy of said sand. In retaliation, she slapped the ice cream out of his hand. It then devolved into a shoving match that, somehow, resulted in them running hand-in-hand through the surf and building sand castles that he adamantly proclaimed them to be king and queen of. Her mother said Dick's opinion of her changed on a dime and, instead of wanting to push her, decided he wanted to befriend her. But then, her mother thought Dick was a loveable puppy who was just a few crayons short of a full box. She wasn't entirely wrong. He was her best friend, but she wouldn't say he was the smartest letter in the alphabet. Then again, she liked that about him. Sometimes. He was clever when he wanted to be and sarcastic more than necessary, but those were qualities that had grown on her, even if they did rub most the wrong way. He got away with it, because he was an '09er, son of billionaire Dick Casablancas Sr., and that pretty much said enough.

Mac met Logan a while later, when they were both 12 years old and she'd tagged along with Dick and Duncan to watch a soccer game. While she there to actually watch the game, Dick was there to flirt with the girls, even if they were sweaty, distracted, and wearing grass stains like they were in season. While flirting with Jennifer McCormack, Dick just so happened to meet newcomer to Neptune, Logan Echolls. After shooting the breeze for a while, Dick brought Logan over to meet her, where she was not-so-quietly yelling at the ref for a bad call. Logan, thankfully, did not throw anything at her upon their first meeting. He did, however, insult her (beloved) t-shirt, telling her that Beetlejuice was eight seasons ago. She wore it for two more years in protest, but it ended up growing on him, and he still fondly referred to her as Lydia Deetz. It probably would have been more relevant if she were still the pale girl of her childhood, but, due to her love of surfing, she was no longer the sun-avoiding girl Dick had met all those years ago, even if she did, more often than not, worship the cool, darkened state of her bedroom, equipped with wi-fi and a supped up laptop to the burning rays and crowded beaches.

Long story short, her two best friends were Logan and Dick, respectfully. Or disrespectfully considering their not-even-slightly ashamed dispositions in life. She liked to think she curbed their worst habits, but with lives like theirs, there was little she could do. Despite being switched at birth for all of six harrowing weeks, or so said her mother, Cindy MacKenzie Sinclair was the most adjusted '09er she knew of. Her middle name, in fact, was in honor of the family that raised her for six months, thinking that she was, in fact, their daughter, Madison Sinclair MacKenzie. She sometimes wondered if Madison thought she got the raw end of the deal. For six weeks, she was the daughter of a millionaire, raised by two parents that would, no doubt, have doted on her like they did Mac. Oh, Mac didn't doubt that the MacKenzie family were good people. She'd seen them around town and they seemed like a nice, hard-working, middle-class family. In fact, she sometimes wondered if maybe her destiny should have been to grow up in their house, surrounded by the 'average' instead of the 'luxury' her family could afford. But, the hospital figured out their mistake and rectified it; six weeks late, mind you, but still, it was rectified all the same. So Cindy and Madison were returned to their rightful parents and all was well in the world again.

Again, like she said, she was the well-adjusted one. Because Dick and Logan? She wouldn't wish their lives on anyone. Sure, they played the unaffected role well. Never let it be said that her besties couldn't have been grade-A actors. In Logan's case, he would be taking a page out of his father's book, illustrious actor that Aaron Echolls was. But Mac was happy to say that Logan fell very, very far from his father's tree, especially considering how often said tree took his anger issues out on his son. That wasn't to say Logan didn't have a short fuse – he did – or that he didn't get into fights – only all too often – but he was nowhere as bad as Aaron was, and, for that, Mac could never quite muster any respect for the man.

Big Dick Senior, on the other hand, was more of the 'ignore them until they go away' parent. Absent whenever he could manage it, always on his way to the next big sales pitch, and never showing any real affection or attention to his sons. Sometimes Mac thought Dick played the 'whatever' attitude so well because it was the only way to survive how little his parents seemed to care about him.

It was safe to say that the best friend's bracelets were made at her place. In fact, most things were done at her place. She would be lying if she said Dick and Logan hadn't maybe commandeered her parents for their own, and she couldn't say she minded, either. Ginny Sinclair was a doting mother. Smart, successful and a little on the too hover-y side, she was the kind of mom who couldn't bake to save her life but was always there to lend an ear or a shoulder and could think up a logical argument for any internal or external debate. In her own way, she too was Mac's best friend. The kind that was always looking over her shoulder to make sure she was getting her homework done, encouraged her to always do her best, and worried about what kind of world she was sending her out into, but was unwilling not to let her flourish all the same.

So yeah, Mac was pretty blessed on the family and friends front. In fact, school, in the strictest, learning sense of the word, was right up there with her accomplishments, too. It helped coming from the gene pool of geniuses, but she put her own work into it, too. She also managed to help Dick get through his classes via some intense studying sessions in which he was so not allowed to surf until he finished his work. And she would gladly hide his board until he did exactly that.

It was the general '09er populace that she had trouble with. Popularity was a fickle matter. On any given day, during any given interaction, it was hard to tell where on the fence she fell. Best friends with two of the most popular boys in the school? Check. Popular herself? Question mark. She wouldn't exactly chalk that up as a negative, however. Popularity was not something she went courting. She rather preferred her non-status. She had her two favorite people beside her, a surf board to ride the open waves, and a top of the line laptop to conquer the world with. What was there to complain about? Life was good. Life was easy.

And then, of course, knock on wood.

Easy was far from what it was.