I own nothing in the Veronica Mars world and all this is done just for fun.

Reunion night.

That dress! Talk about having to do a double take. But it was definitely her. Stood up on the balcony with Ronnie and that Wallace dude.

Dick felt his mouth grow dry and he quickly swallowed down the beer in his hand. Gia was wittering in his ear about some art exhibit downtown that was apparently the most amazing thing ever but Dick couldn't seem to concentrate. He'd only glimpsed Mac for a second but it was enough to feel his heart in his throat. The palpitations seemed to thud in time with the music. He got a grip on himself and managed to make some crude comment about nude paintings back to Gia, reassuring everyone that he was still the same one-dimensional guy he'd always been.

Dick by name! Dick by nature!

With his heartbeat regulated he took one last look up at the balcony, one more quick glance but she was gone, and it took almost all his strength to stop from stalking the room for her.

Then she was stood in front of him, Veronica glued to her side. Jeez, even after all these years that tiny blonde still terrified him. V begged him for the location of the bar and Dick bust-a-move revealing his concealed belt flask.

One well-timed pelvic thrust. Bam! A smooth move if ever there was one.

The wholly unimpressed reaction Dick received at what he had considered a genius piece of engineering, rolled off him like water off a ducks back. The club lights reflected off the flask's metal as he lifted the thing to his lips a took a sip. One eye on the brunette as the pair walked away.

It wasn't until they were all at Gia's after-party that Dick was overcome with the need to speak to her. He had a bit of a thing for Cindy Mackenzie. He always had done but nobody ever knew about it, except maybe Logan. That wasn't strictly true. Logan had only guessed his friend was into Mac. Dick had never confirmed it, then again he had never denied it either.

There was a fairly good vibe in the room. The sparsely furnished loft was perfect for a party. The music boomed, people danced, it was a place where memories were made.

Mac was dancing way across the room with her friends, really giving it her all. He covertly watched her move around in that black dress, the material hugging every curve of an unmistakably rocking body. To him Mac wasn't cute, she wasn't hot. Those were terms used to describe the plastic blondes he had surrounded himself with for years. What Cindy Mackenzie was, was downright sexy!

It was late in the evening when Dick finally made his move. Veronica had gone all 'Columbo' interrogating half the people in the room about that damn boat and Mac was alone pouring herself a colourful drink from the makeshift bar.

"Hey!"

She turned to see him, took a sip of her drink and smiled awkwardly back at him.

"I don't really dig chicks with short hair but you are totally rocking it" he said.

Smooth move number two.

She looked bemused by his comment and was quiet for a minute before eventually responding.

"Well you certainly know how to wear that suit, anyone might think you actually worked for a living"

Dick smiled. She may have been trying to insult him but all he heard in that comment was that she thought he looked good.

"I haven't seen you around much" he said desperate to fill a growing silence between them.

"Well, we don't exactly run with the same crowd" she curtly replied

Dick took a large gulp of beer. It wasn't going well, she didn't want to speak to him. Dick got shunned by girls on a regular basis, he knew the signs but it seemed to hurt more coming from her.

"Yeah I guess we don't" he sadly replied.

Dick had walked over to the bar because he just wanted to talk to her, it had been so long since they'd had hung out. They had seen each other in passing over the years. Down at the store, the coffee shop, at the gas station, but they hadn't actually spoken to each other since that night at the Neptune Grand when they almost….

Dick let that night way back when they were still at Hearst fill his memories for a second. He wondered if she had ever thought about it. He opened his mouth to ask her but was interrupted by a fast approaching Mini-Mars. The last thing he wanted to do was start round two with 'Murder-she-wrote' so he looked for his exit.

"Well, it was good to see you Mac" Dick quickly announced and felt his heart drop a little at the smile of relief she wore at being rescued by her friend.

Once again he watched the two women walk away.

Veronica had now been back in Neptune for about a month. Mac found she had been called upon to provide her 'special skills' about a dozen times in that period.

It was good to have her friend back.

Life was a hell of a lot more active with Veronica around. The girl was like a giant magnet. Attracting danger and drama wherever she walked. But that magnetic pull also dragged together people. The common elemental force surely being personal tragedy. That's what had happened last time round, Veronica Mars brought together people who really had no business being near each other.

For a start there was the whole Veronica and Logan thing. Those two had so many issues they could make a long running TV drama from it. Mac was happy that they had found each other again after all these years, but she had to wonder if this time they would actually make it work. The odds had never really been in their favour.

But their relationship as rocky as it was had brought her and Dick into the mix. Just being friends to the love birds meant that on occasion they would run into one another. Mac could honestly say that for most of her youth she never thought about Dick Casablancas in a romantic way. Sure, she could admit he was a good-looking guy, tall and more than willing to walk on the 'bad boy' side when the occasion arose.

On the surface what was there not to like?.

But then he would open that mouth of his and all other attractive qualities were blitzed by endless lines of thinly veiled insults. They often started with the phrase 'No offence but..' He had no respect for anyone and didn't seem to care what people thought of him.

It took a very long time for Mac to understand just why Logan stuck with him, but in the end she had started to see what Logan saw which lead Mac to the night when they almost….

Then Veronica had left for Stanford, disappeared almost over night from their lives and that magnetic connection that had forced them all together was broken. They all scattered in different directions, back to their own familiar surroundings.

9 years later, the magnet returns to their lives and within record time Mac had found herself talking with Dick. Every time she saw him Mac thought about that night when they had gotten a little too close to each other. She wondered if he even remembered it. She assumed not. It was barely more than a drunken kiss and he was hardly going to walk her out into his 09er world. Beauty and his Geek. Just the thought was ridiculous.

Mac's phone rang and 'what do you know' it was Veronica.

"Hey Mac, Whacha doing?" Mac smiled at V's opening dialogue.

Those were always the words Veronica used when she wanted something that would inconvenience and possibly make someone break the law.

"Working hard" Mac replied, mindlessly inputting lines of code and sipping coffee from her corporate Kane Software mug.

The job wasn't the most interesting but she didn't mind. Mind-numbing tasks gave her time to daydream about being rescued by Captain Malcolm Reynolds or hanging out in purgatory with only Dean Winchester and Castiel for company. What wasn't great was ever since the reunion those wonderful fantasy heroes all seem to morph into Dick Casablancas and she seemed incapable of stopping it from happening.

"Good, Good" she heard Veronica reply and it was clear from her friend's tone that she was working hard herself. Probably juggling too many tasks at once, as usual.

"Listen I was wondering if you could do me a favour. I'm stuck on a stake-out at the moment and…" there was a pause and Mac imagined Veronica ducking down in her car to hide from view or taking a couple of incriminating photos in the silence.

"My Dad really needs this memory stick. I was wondering whether you could go get it for me and take it over to my Dad."

Mac felt a little disappointed, she was hoping for something a little more exciting, something that would stretch her skills a bit, but at the end of the day a friend in need and all that, of cause she would do it.

"Yeah sure, no problem, but can it wait till morning?, I'm on the late shift at the office tonight".

"In the morning is fine Mac. Okay, it's over at Dick Casablancas' house, I'll text you the address"

"It's over at where now!" Mac felt the blood drain from her face.

Well, be careful what you wish for Cindy Mackenzie. She had just said she wanted something a little more exciting.

"It's at Dick's place, I think it fell out of my bag when I was staying over with Logan". There was a little more silence over the line, something must have been happening at the stake out.

"Ah crap… I gotta go Mac and thanks you're a life saver" then the phone went off leaving Mac shouting 'No, But and I Can't' into dead air.