Title: Monday Morning Therapy
Word Count: 657
Rating: PG for language
Warnings/Spoilers: Post Season Three. Anything before 'The Bitch is Back' is fair game.
Summary: There were fifteen things on Mac's to do list. None of them involved Dick Casablancas.
Author'sNote: This takes place during my Watch Over You Series after There and Back Again.
There were fifteen things on Mac's to do list.
None of them involved Dick Casablancas.
Which was one reason why she was so surprised that at nine AM on a Monday morning, she found herself looking up from her latest computer lab notes to find the Casablancas in question holding two cups of coffee. When he set them both down onto the table, so she could actually smell hers, she realized that somewhere along the line he had been paying attention to how she took her coffee.
"Is this seat taken?" He asked, his voice a curious mix of confidence and timidity. He had a backpack slung vicariously on one shoulder, and when Mac blinked in confusion, it dropped into the crease of his elbow. "Mac?" He tried again. "Can I sit down?"
It only took him saying her name before she allowed her foot to drop out of the chair in front of her. "Go for it." She tried to smile. Then she added. "I didn't realize that you knew that nine am looked like."
"I've been having trouble sleeping since Big Dick and I have been spending time together." It wasn't like Dick to be so forthcoming, but he had promised himself that he would be more open and honest with those he considered friends. If he learned nothing else from that week at the Echolls' Cabin it was sincerity. "He's going to jail next week so I thought I'd get a jump on my classes."
She took a sip of her coffee then, pleasantly surprised that Dick had indeed picked up on her drinking habits, and tried to smile. She was perfectly aware of the deal that Richard Sr. had brokered for his real estate fraud. She had even talked to Logan about how the man sitting in front of her was handling it, Mac just never expected Dick Jr. to be so open about it. "I can recommend a good therapist." She muttered, when she couldn't come up with anything else to say.
"Logan already said that." He played it off, taking a sip of his own coffee. "I need a favor." He said after a second.
His bluntness didn't surprise. However, the fact that he was sitting in front of her at nine am on a Monday morning to get said favor did. "What kind?"
"My computer crashed." He pulled it out of his bag and set it on the table. "I'll give you a thousand dollars to return it to its former glory, plus expenses, and I'll keep you in red licorice for a month."
"What's the catch?" Dick wouldn't be offering so much if there wasn't a catch.
Dick shrugged. "No catch." He responded easily. "I really don't want to go out and buy another one, I have shit on there that I want to keep, and I know you don't turn anyone down if they offer red vines." His eyebrows rose and Mac nodded.
She slid the laptop off of the table and into the double laptop bag that Logan had bought her for her last birthday. It had become useful for her computer business to only keep one laptop in it. "You can keep your money." She told him after a second. "Except expenses," she added as a side note. Anything she put into his aging Dell she definitely wanted back. She drained the rest of her coffee and then pulled a card out of the side pocket of her bag and slid it across the table. "It'll help you sleep." She promised as she stood, pulled her bag over her shoulder and tossed her cup in the direction of the trash can.
"And if it doesn't?" Dick's eyes were crystal clear when he turned them on her.
"It'll help you sleep." She assured him again, ruffling his hair and then handing him another card, this one hers. "My cells on the back if you need anything else."
FIN