He woke with a jump, nearly falling out of the bed. The sheets were tangled around his legs and he was practically soaked in cold sweat, the burning image of his brother lying lifeless in the street refusing to leave his mind even after he was awake.
Shaking his head sharply to clear the visual, he realized that it was a cell phone that had woken him. After another few seconds of listening, he sighed with relief when it wasn't his phone that was alerting him to a new call.
The sound of the shower filled his ears next and he groaned when he realized Mac was already up. Climbing out of bed, he made his way over to the pile of keys and various other objects that was on the dresser. Instinctively, he picked up her phone and checked the caller id.
Logan's number flashed across the screen and he frowned as he walked the short distance to the bathroom door. Knocking loudly, he announced that Logan was calling for her. She sighed irritably and asked him to answer it, promising she would be out of the shower in just a few minutes.
So he answered the phone and the choked sound Logan made at the sound of his voice was almost enough to make him laugh. But it didn't – the confusion overrode any other emotion he could have held at that moment.
"That's where you are?" Logan exclaimed. "With Mac?"
"Dude, what the fuck? Since when are you two friends?"
"Since Veronica asked me to check on her while she's in New York," he countered. "I tried calling your cell phone like six times last night, where were you?"
Realizing that he had ignored the calls because of the Go Fish battle they had been having the night before, he shook his head and flopped back on his bed with a grunt. "Playing Go Fish."
There was a pause on the other end of the line and then Logan laughed, loudly. "Aw, dude, please tell me you got pictures."
"Shut up," Dick grumbled. "Mac suggested it."
"Yeah, you gonna explain that anytime soon? 'Cause I have to tell you, my detective skills aren't quite up to par with Veronica's."
He ran a hand over his face and sighed heavily, letting his arm flop back against the mattress. "Road trip," he said simply.
"Road trip," Logan repeated dubiously.
"Yup," Dick agreed. "Road trip."
The shower stopped running and he closed his eyes tightly, opening them again when he saw Beaver flying from the roof of the Neptune Grand. He shook his head and sat up, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Mac appeared in the room and took the phone from him, sending him a concerned smile as she spoke to his friend.
Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and he noticed that her skin was the color of a freshly-picked strawberry when the sleeve of her robe slipped down her arm. Idly, he wondered how many showers she had taken that morning.
And when the thought occurred to him that she had only taken one, he frowned deeply as he considered how fucked up the situation really was.
Mac hung up her cell phone with a promise to call later that night and turned to face him. Gripping the plastic tightly, she sniffled slightly and shrugged her shoulders. "Veronica asked him to check on me."
"Yeah, he said that," Dick nodded. He gestured absently and opened his mouth to ask her what exactly she was going through, only to be cut off when she hastily set the phone on the dresser and rushed back into the bathroom.
With a sigh, he flopped back on the mattress again. He didn't close his eyes this time.
--
She rolled her eyes as she climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door once she was in the car. Sighing, he slid into the driver's seat and turned the engine over, choosing not to comment on her choice of music when she put a Tegan and Sara CD in the player.
After ten minutes on the road and a semi-comfortable silence, she rolled her eyes again and looked over at him in exasperation. "Do you have to drive ninety miles an hour?"
"Dude," he gestured to the speedometer, "I'm only going eighty-five."
Mac groaned. "If you wreck my car, I swear to God…"
"What? You'll kill me? Like I've got anything left to live for," he retorted bitterly. Her eyes widened and she shut her mouth with a click, flushing in embarrassment.
"Don't say that," she said weakly. Dick scoffed and slowed down the car, switching lanes to get away from the semi-truck that was quickly coming up beside them. She sent him a grateful, if shocked, glance, and he leaned his elbow on the door.
"Just telling it like it is," he shrugged and rested his head on his palm. Shaking her head, she ran her palms over her eyes and leaned back against the seat.
"You know, serious Dick is something I have yet to get used to."
He turned his head to look at her and nodded a little before sitting up and turning his attention back to the freeway. "Yeah, join the club."
--
Driving off at the next exit, he glanced at her worriedly as he drove through the small town. He didn't really know where they were or where the fuck they were going, but that didn't seem to be the point. So he just drove.
She whimpered and thrashed around in her seat a little. He pulled into the parking lot of a run-down diner just as she started to cry, and his heart jump-started when she murmured his brother's name. It sounded pained, broken, and he shook her shoulder to get her to wake up.
In response, she shoved his hand away and choked on a sob, curling further into herself in the tiny seat. Dick groaned and unbuckled his seat belt, adjusting so he could reach her easier over the center console of the car.
"Mac," he whispered, shaking her slightly. "Mac, wake up, it's a dream."
Shaking her head, she responded, "No, no, no, no-"
"Come on," he sighed and shook her a little harder, repeating her name at a louder volume. Her eyes snapped open a second later and she sat up abruptly, almost causing him to lose his balance. She was breathing heavily, wiping at the tears that had fallen down her cheeks, and when he clasped her shoulder she didn't pull away.
Mac lowered her head into her hands and bit back sob after sob, her whole body shaking with the force. Hesitantly, he moved his hand to rub her back, and she inhaled sharply at the contact but made no move to push him away. Gaining confidence, he tugged on her arm a little until she sat up and faced him.
She shook her head back and forth and wiped at her eyes. The gesture was fairly ineffective due to the pace of her tears, but he furrowed his brow when she opened her mouth to speak and choked on another sob.
"Hey," he said gently, tugging on her arm again. "It was a nightmare, it's okay."
"No, it's not," she gasped and shook her head again. "Damnit, Dick, it's so fucking far from okay," she jerked the door open and climbed out of the car, pacing back and forth in the parking lot. Dick stared blankly at the empty air she had just been occupying.
After a moment, he got out of the car and leaned against the hood, trailing her movements with his eyes as she continued to go back and forth on the pavement. Shaky hands tucked her hair behind her ear and finally she stopped pacing, throwing her arms in the air, defeated.
"He's dead," she said quietly. He furrowed his brow and she folded her arms across her chest. "And he was totally fucked up and I never figured it out."
"Whoa," he shook his head. "I lived with him and I never even figured it out," he replied.
Narrowing her eyes, she bit back another sob. "Yeah, because you were so in tune with your brother," she said sarcastically. Dick pushed himself off the hood of the car and took a step closer to her.
"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about," he argued.
"Oh, please!" she scoffed, running a hand over her face to wipe away the remainder of her tears. "Cassidy told me about all of the shit you pulled!"
"The shit I pulled!"
"Mocking him constantly, parading around like the fucking cock of the walk to see if he would say anything, fighting him when he was little so he could 'toughen up,'" she air-quoted the phrase in disgust. "You were horrible to him."
"Oh, shut up!" he shouted, backing away from her. "You dated for … what? Two, three months before he dumped your ass?"
Mac stepped back further from him, gaping. "At least I didn't treat him like a toy!"
"I loved my brother, so shut the fuck up because you don't know what you're talking about!" he all but screamed, stumbling backward as he turned to walk away from her. His vision was blurred from the tears that were quickly gathering in his eyes and he shook his head in a vain attempt to clear them.
Dick got to the end of the parking lot and stopped suddenly, turning around slowly to face her again. She stood next to her car, arms folded across her chest, sobbing.
"If I had known about Woody, I would've, like, done something," he offered, shrugging helplessly. Mac sniffled loudly and nodded, shakily wiping away her tears. He slowly started walking back toward her, hands shoved in his pockets like Beaver used to do.
Stopping a few feet from her, he shrugged again and hastily wiped his eyes. "I would've done something."
Exhaling sharply, she walked the remaining distance between them and wrapped her arms around his neck. He froze, shocked at the action. When she tightened her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder, still shaking with the force of her tears, he wrapped his arms around her waist and held on.
--
"Yes," she promised, nodding into the phone. "Everything's fine."
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, glancing around for somewhere to stay. She sighed heavily and he looked over at her, noticing the irritated expression on her face. He frowned.
"Logan, I'm fine, and you can tell Veronica that, too."
Spotting a lit-up sign for a Marriott, he switched lanes to pull into the parking lot. Mac groaned next to him and he looked over at her again as he turned off the road. Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair and dropped her head against the window, banging it once or twice.
"I don't have to explain myself to you," she proclaimed. A pause as she listened to Logan's reply, then, "I don't know. I just don't. Look, tell Veronica I'm fine and I'll talk to one of you later, okay?" She banged her head against the window once more and said goodbye, shutting the phone off and dropping it in her lap.
Dick parked the car and sat back in the seat. The tension in the car was almost palpable, still crackling from their argument earlier that evening. Mac twisted her head to look at him and smiled a little.
"Is he always that protective?"
He shrugged, "Mostly."
Nodding, she gestured to the large hotel in front of them and unlatched her seat belt. She opened her mouth to speak, paused, and then seemingly changed her mind. Once she stepped out of the car, she dipped her head back through the door and furrowed her brow.
"You okay?"
"Guess so," he shrugged again and got out of the car, leaning against the door to close it. Mac shut her own door and walked around the front of the beetle, trailing her hand along the hood. Gripping the rear view mirror tightly, she laid her other hand on his arm and nodded toward the doors to the lobby.
"Let's get some sleep."
