A/N: Mac is injured watching her brother play baseball, and when she wakes up she finds that she's living the life she was always "meant to have" as Madison Sinclair. Some chapters (most chapters) will be from Mac's point of view, and the timeline will skip around a bit as she goes back to high school as Madison. The first chapter is "present time," present being 2009, on the third anniversary of Cassidy's suicide. Dick's POV will cover the present time, detailing what is going on with Mac's injuries, dealing with LoVe reuniting drama, learning more about Mac's life, etc. This is very much AU. The first few chapters are a little angsty as the story sets up, the back in time scenes will be lighter, more fun. I really had fun coming up with this idea, hope it makes sense. Oh, the title comes from a line in Lorde's Royal, definitely NOT a songfic though. Thank you to my wonderful beta, cainc3! Reviews are also appreciated! This chapter does skip around a little bit timewise, I used tags though, so I hope it makes sense.
Obligatory Disclaimer: Nope, still just playing around in this world. Don't own a THING!
Postcode Envy
Chapter 1—Diamonds
June 6th, 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 the 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.
Exactly 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 day dream, 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 to skip finishing 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 it on speaker, and listened to the rambling voicemail of her mom prattling on about Ryan playing ball at Settler's Park and her plans to go shopping, as she put on her seat-belt and started the car. After hitting delete, 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 her destination, 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 rough hewn 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 depths, 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 real 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 on 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—psuedo-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…