A Blonde Time Ago...
By Jessica X

~ENTRY04

So thus endeth the story of the WEEK FROM HADES. The rest, as they say, is history. Or is too mortifying to print every detail, so... yeah, sorry. Get your rocks off somewhere else, pervwad.

Alas, there is more to tell, so I came back to update this wretched book of sordid affairs. You want to know how it all turned out? Fine. Here we go - but I'm only giving you a rough outline. Like I said, if you want the naughtier bits, flip to Skinemax.

We spent the next few days getting to know each other, like any reasonable couple. Nobody was the wiser, except maybe Wallace - he knew something was up, but never figured out what. We found stolen moments to make out - a LOT - but it never progressed beyond that stage.

About two weeks before Senior Prom, she started to revert to the Madison I knew and despised. And after one or two tries to get through to her, I gave up and kicked her to the curb. It took only two days for her to show up sobbing on my doorstep, causing my father great alarm. My instincts were to turn her away, but that would have raised more questions than I thought wise, so I guided her into my room and got her a glass of water. Things got... intense. But she was so broken and forlorn that I took her back, of course. To be honest, I wanted her back. I'd been miserable without her.

Isn't that nuts? It took no time at all for me to get hooked on Vitamin M. Even now, with all the time to reflect on it... it's ludicrous.

Then Madison truly surprised me. I'd thought we were getting off to some incredibly lukewarm reboot of our relationship, but on Prom night she showed up at my doorstep with the prerequisite limo, wearing - get this - a tuxedo. Black with deep red tones. It was so trite and lez-traditional, but I found myself touched by the effort. She gave me a corsage, and my father shot us some weird looks, but said very little; he's always been rather progressive like that. So yes, we blew everyone's minds when we walked into the gym together, arm in arm, dewey-eyed. Van Clemmons didn't approve, obviously, but I like to think by now he knows who Veronica Mars is well enough to keep his opinions to himself. And Madison? The entire night, and every night thereafter, she's been a perfect angel.

Okay, so you know that was a bald-faced lie. But she has kept the diva posturing to a bare minimum for my sake, which I appreciate on many levels.

To say the entire student body was shocked would be like saying the straight-to-video American Pie sequels are a teensy step down in quality from the original trilogy. Dick's catcalls fell on deaf ears; they were expected. When it comes down to it, he's a pig, but a harmless pig, you know? Everybody else tried for a while, but about the time we started dancing together and they saw we were serious, they had a lot less to say. Kylie and Marlena gave us a resounding thumbs up; I'm sure they were glad to no longer be remembered as Neptune's sole lesbian couple. I spent a lot of time avoiding Logan and Wallace since I didn't want to hear their thoughts on the matter. In Logan's case, because they would be irritating. In Wallace's case... well, what he thinks means a lot to me.

But later, when I offered to get us some punch, Mr. Fennel caught me by the table.

"So... this some angle you're working? Cause either you're puttin' on a hell of a show out there, or..."

"Or it's for real," I finished for him flatly.

"Madison, though? I mean, I thought she was the Princess of Darkness and so on."

"She is. Was. I mean, she's changed, a little. Now she's..." And being that I couldn't go into detail without lighting up like a Christmas tree, I stopped there.

"Well, color me flabbergasted," he laughed. Silence fell deep and heavy across us, but he finally nodded and said, "That's cool, though."

"You're sure?" I said in an undertone. "If you're freaked-"

"Oh, I'm freaked," he confirmed with a nod. "Got some mental images to work hard on erasing. But... hey, if it looks like you two got a good thing goin' from here, then it's probably true. Who am I to question why?"

"Ours is but to do and die," I finished. "And I am so glad we're almost out of this school, 'cause I might actually die from ridicule if I had to endure the fallout from coming out for very long."

"Glad to know my special lady isn't ashamed of me."

Horrified, I whirled to apologize to Madison, but she was smiling. A huge, blissfully indifferent smile. "R-really?"

"I figure I had this coming," she said in a quiet voice while fiddling with her pocket square. It really was a dashing tux. "What with how I treated everybody else."

"I confess myself taken unawares," Logan put in as he approached, slight grin already in place as he brandished his champagne flute of fruit punch - probably spiked. "In this... grossly unforeseen situation, I would have expected Miss Mars to procure the coattails. She never fails to surprise me."

"Thanks for your two cents, Echolls," I sighed. Secretly, I knew his snide remarks could be ten times worse, and was thankful.

"Anything to help the destitute. Speaking of donations, thanks for clearing up that little matter earlier. Check's in the mail." Then he turned on Madison. "And my, Mister Sinclair. Figured you'd rather give up a kidney than miss a chance to wear your prom... dress. But this does show us who wears the pants in the family."

"Beat it, jerk," she hissed. "Doesn't Veronica have enough strife without your ugly mug butting its way in?"

Logan made a wounded face, placing his free hand over his heart. "Gentlemen. Lady." And then he was gone.

"What fun we're having," I moaned.

"Wow," Madison whispered. "And I used to be like that. I would have laughed at us along with him. It's... like everything's inside-out. Alternate universe style."

This 'irony' of theirs! It just keeps coming!

"Well, I think your tux is fly," Wallace said with a courteous nod. "I mean, unless you want me to dis it, since you're supposed to be in a dress. Really unclear on the rules here."

"Why ARE you in a monkey suit?" I asked her. Burning desire for the truth at the root of all things doesn't take a lunch hour, I'm afraid.

"To prove a point." A quick shrug as she picked up one of the finger sandwiches, sniffed it, and put it back. What can I say? She's a work in progress. "Because I was acting like a total bitchmonster a few weeks back. Yes, I wanted to wear a dress really badly to prom, everybody knows it. I've had it picked out since homecoming. But I thought... if I showed up dressed for you and not for me, maybe you'd see that... I mean it. I'm in this for real."

When the timing was right, she always knew just what to say to make me fall to pieces over her.

"And I'm really, REALLY sorry for trying to pay for everything on our dates - I swear I wasn't trying to rub your nose in my money. You know that now, right?"

"You tried to buy me a CAR on one of them," I insisted.

"But your LeBaron is such an old- I- I mean, that was bad," she said, pouting. "Bad Maddy."

One of my eyes narrowed at her. "Yes, bad Maddy. No biscuit."

"Y'all are some kind of ridiculous," Wallace laughed. "Think I'm gonna hit the dance floor and leave you two being, uh, 'cute' back here by yourselves. Holla at me later, Vee?"

"Don't worry about me. Work your mojo. Party like it's 1999!"

o o o

Endless hours of ridicule and lame slow-dancing later, we found ourselves at the Neptune Grand. I was willing to wait for her to tell me the coast was clear, but she dragged me right up to the counter with her as she requested the room key. One brief, disbelieving look later and we were headed up to a penthouse suite.

"Ooh, champagne," I cooed, delighted as I immediately divested myself of the inch-high heels that were causing my feet to throb unceasingly. "And it's not from a box! Such splurging!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said sarcastically. "Did you WANT the one from the box? I'm sure there's a drive-through liquor store somewhere nearby..."

"Hardy har ha-"

Instantly, she was all over me, groping, shucking me like an ear of corn. As in, I blinked, and we were on the bed with half our clothes on, Madison struggling out of her cummerbund. This was it. I was going to lose my virginity - or, well, lesbirginity. Trust me, it really is like starting ALLLLL over.

"Wait, wait," I bade her, laughing and gasping for breath. "I'm... not sure I'm ready, Madison, what if-"

"You've been holding me back on this forever," she reprimanded as the sash joined her jacket and my dress on the floor. When she began sliding off her slacks, her face took on a slight reddish tint as she whispered, "Please, don't make me wait for you any longer. It's killing me."

"Oh, well when you put it THAT way..."

"Every minute of every day, I want this. Want to be completely one with you. We've been dating all this time, and we don't even know if the sex is any good! I mean, do you want to be trapped in this relationship with me if I can't get you off?"

"You get me off all the time," I informed her softly, causing her breath to catch and her hands to slip off the bow-tie she was trying to unknot. "With your hands, your lips. THROUGH the clothes, Madison. How could we possibly fail now?"

"Exactly; we won't fail. Because I've got Veronica Mars on my side. But before we do this... I wanted to, y'know. Actually apologize, and not just imply it."

"Huh?"

"The trip to the dentist."

"Stop, right now," I hissed at her. I was riding high on arousal, filled to the brim, and she wanted to bring us back down to reality. Take note, boys and girls: your first time is no time to dredge up skeletons. "Come on, I'm really not feeling a brief discussion about-"

"Even if you're the only one who ever hears it and understands what happened, and how I feel. I'm sorry, Veronica." Her lip quivered as she stroked my face gently, passed the hand over my ornate hairstyle. "Sorry I had any hand in what happened that night. I wish I'd just drank the GHB myself and saved you a lifetime of grief. But I couldn't do this without telling you. You get that, right?"

"Well, I guess love really is the new 'feel awful'," I told her, bracing myself. Sharing and caring time. In my defense, she started it. "Because I have one last bombshell to drop before we follow through and, uh, 'cement' our relationship." Band-Aid, Band-Aid, ripping off a Band-Aid... "You're not actually a Sinclair."

"Come again?"

"Maybe later," I quipped feebly. "Turns out you're a Mackenzie. Surprise!"

Madison's mouth worked with that for a moment while I slipped out from under her, grabbed the champagne and started chugging. Burp. Ahh, alcohol: the offensive stuff that makes everything happy and shiny again. Or attempts to do so.

"Wh... how can you... Veronica, what do you mean?"

"Okay." I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly as I sank down next to her on the bed. "Remember that birthday party you had? You know, when Mac and I crashed, and you found her in the library and told her to skedaddle?"

"Mac? Oh, the nerdy girl who's always hanging around in the computer lab. What about her?"

"She was there to... to steal a look at her biological parents. And sister."

"B-but- wait a minute." Madison had this shrewd look on her face now, one I've seen millions of times. It's the one clients get when they think they know better, or suspect we're hanging them out to dry. "This is some kind of crazy prank of yours, huh? Where's the hidden camera?"

"Why do you keep thinking Ashton Kutcher writes my script? Believe me, I'd never tape this. You and that 'nerdy girl' were switched at birth. All, um, four of your parents went in together on a cozy little lawsuit and sued the hospital who handed out babies to any parent who walked by. Bilked them for a huge wad of change."

At first, she started to nod. Then her eyes somehow actually got bigger as she turned to me, trembling in her button-up shirt, boxers and black socks. Even the underwear - she sure went all out. "Wait. Are you- then Mac was supposed to- and I..."

"Remember all those cracks you made about the genetics of the less fortunate members of the Neptune student body? It's kinda funny, because you yourself..."

"I'm really a freaking MACKENZIE?"

"Oh, Maddy," I cooed, caressing her arms and trying to calm her down already (and failing; it was evident). "It's been kind of nagging me for a while now. Didn't you deserve to know? But Mac didn't want anybody else to know. Geez, her parents still don't know she figured it out. So now that we're k-kind of an item, I told myself it wouldn't be fair if we take it to the next step as life-partners without you knowing the truth about your own life. Since it's not fair for some completely uninvolved girl to have found out before you did, anyway."

"How DID you find out?" she asked, ice crystals lingering on her words. "Veronica Mars has to dig up everything, right? So typical."

My heart felt like it was splitting in half. To this day, I still don't know how Madison became so important to me in such a short time, but I couldn't stand to see her hurt this way. "Not this time. Mac asked me to look into her past. That's the only reason, I swear."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." I sniffled a little, but tried to bite it off as quickly as possible. "And she almost told you, you know - out of anger, when you were being particularly nasty to her. Figuring that's about the worst way to get news like that, I headed her off. Not that it's much comfort now, I'm guessing."

Madison took out the bobby pins holding her hair back in the sleek, somewhat-manly hairdo that had gone so well with her tux, allowing her bleached ringlets to cascade down her shoulders. She wiped her eyes, she stared off toward the balcony. "My mother, my father... sister, they never said- I don't really look like either of them, and I always wondered, and the whole time..."

"Problem is, they didn't find out immediately. It took four years for the truth to come out, and by then both families had grown attached to their children, so they decided to keep you. Isn't that good to know? That even when they had the chance to trade you back for their biological daughter, they couldn't because they loved you too much?"

"I have another set of parents." I couldn't tell if she was glad for this information or not. "The Mackenzies... they were supposed to have raised me, weren't they? I'd be... poor. Oh my God, I'm a poor girl living a life I w-was never meant to have. Why... why didn't Mac demand to be switched back? She could be driving my Mercedes right now..."

"Okay, well... I'm gonna go."

That caught her attention; she immediately looked up at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Go? Why, we're- why would you go?"

"Because I think I just ruined your life," I half-laughed. "And, um, I'm betting you'd rather be absorbing this alone than having me lingering in the background. So... I'll see you in school."

"You can't just dump this on me and split!" she snapped - then immediately turned away. "I d-didn't mean it to come out like that, b-but... but you have to stay. This isn't something I can deal with by myself."

"Are you sure? You want the wicked Mars at your side in your darkest hour?"

"Duh."

When she flung herself at me, I wasn't sure whether to duck or pucker up. But then I found myself pinned beneath her as she curled against my side, nestling her cheek between elbow and breast. "I'm... I'm living in a house full of strangers," she whispered. "And across town, there's a man and woman who created me, and we've never met. The nerdy girl, it's- it's almost like we're sisters, right? Since her parents are my parents and m-mine are hers. God, everything's going to hell. C-can't you see that I need you right now?"

I kissed the top of her head. That shampoo of hers... coconut... "Don't forget that evil and misfortune follow me around like lost puppies. You could find a better sidekick."

"Even if we get dragged through the mud at school on Monday, I'm so there," she breathed. "I deserve all this for being the priss I was. Especially since I was hardest on you in the first place. Hopefully, once my punishment is over, you'll still like me - and then we can get to the 'happily ever after' part."

"It's the best part, isn't it?"

"Weird, huh?" she sighed, rubbing my stomach through the sheer silk of my slip. Weird is watching her delicate, french-manicured fingers glide over me and enjoying it the way I was, but I forced myself to focus on her words. "What if... what if we HAD been switched back, or never switched at all? If I was a Mackenzie... maybe I wouldn't have grown up to be so, so-"

"Trashy?"

"Thanks so much." But her tone gave away that she wasn't really angry. "Maybe... I don't know. Maybe I would have been a decent girl if I hadn't been so spoiled by all my money. Or maybe not."

"You ARE a decent girl," I insisted as I squeezed her shoulder, feeling the crunch of over-starched fabric. "Sometimes it takes a mirror."

"A mirror? Oh... You mean seeing how badly I kicked you around, when what you really deserved was compassion and support. That kind of 'mirror'. Yep... you made me see that I was maleficent."

"You mean that you were wicked and cruel, or the Disney character?"

"Both, I guess," she laughed, hugging me tighter, snuggling down onto my body. One of her socked feet stroked along my nylon-encompassed one as she breathed, "God, I love you. What makes you stay with me, anyway?"

"The way you dote on me. It's hard to find somebody who puts on a good swoon." When she pinched the skin covering my ribcage, I shrieked and giggled, "Okay, okay, it's because you're hot!"

"Damn right I am. I can still claim that one."

"Something... I don't know, Madison. But when you started coming on to me, even though I hated your guts... it was like you meant it. Your motives suddenly became so pure and unadulterated, and I could sense that- that somehow, even though you wanted me filleted as badly as I wanted you drawn-and-quartered, when you pulled a one-eighty and started liking me, you were totally committed from the start. I don't know how I could tell, because I usually suck at the whole empathy deal, but I could. Instantly. It's a miracle I fought you off that first time in the bathroom, now that I think about it."

"Veronica."

Now she was crawling on top of me again, and my heart that had calmed itself began picking up speed. This was it. "Yes?"

"It truly is a miracle you fought me off. But this time, I'm shooting for another kind of miracle."

As two hands slid the hem of my slip up my thighs, nails leaving thin white trails behind them, I managed to choke out, "I love you."

"You think you love me NOW," she said with a grin - probably thinking I didn't notice the way her lips trembled for a moment after I'd spoken. "Wait until we make history."

"Oh, I think this has been done before, hasn't it?"

"Nope." My pulse quickened as she passed her hands over my chest, crystalline eyes filling my vision. "I'm going to be the first woman on Mars."

o o o

Over the course of the next two hours, we proved that a sub-par sex life would not be a factor if we ever broke up. It was wild, passionate, and dare I say... educational. Though we started off so gentle and hesitant, almost afraid, once our reservations faded it turned out that Madison's a real animal. After that, it would be a long time before I could smell or taste either cinnamon OR coconut and not start to feel a slight stirring downstairs.

So in conclusion, yes, I'm a moron. But I'm a moron who's happy. Madison and I are still together, and she's transferring into Hearst to be with me. That's dedication.

And the whole baby mix-up thing? Well, Madison went over to meet the Mackenzies, and they were nice to her and everything, but she decided not to pursue any further relationship with them or their son. She says it's too weird and awkward, since she's so used to her own family (relatively speaking). She's hung out a little with her adoptive sister since then, as well, deciding she was lucky to have one instead of loathing her presence. Even she and her mother are less distant than they were, but it'll be a long while before they have anything like a mother-daughter bond.

On the other hand, if you'll believe it, her and Mac have become such close friends that at times, I find myself vaguely jealous. Which is silly, I know, but I can't help it. Sharing that experience of feeling like you're out of place in your own family was an easy starting point for the two of them, I think. But I don't worry about them being alone together or anything. As Madison always says to me, they're more or less sisters. Mac even goes so far as to call me her "sister-in-law", since she thinks of Madison and I as being married. I see no reason to ask her to desist.

Seriously... it's good that she's not suffering too much after what happened with Cassidy. Mac's been through enough. Having Madison around has really gone a long way toward that, so I encourage it wholeheartedly. She deserves a brand new sibling.

Tonight, I'm cooking Madison a veal scallopini that I only know how to replicate because I TiVo-ed something on the Food Network. For about a week now, she has been insisting she was one hundred percent vegan, but last night I caught her literally eating Spam out of the can. Her face was so red, but we both laughed at her (not with her) together. Therefore, since she fell off the wagon anyway, and I know she has a true love of both Italian food and mushrooms...

Oh, and that piece of notebook paper with the heart on it? I had it framed and it now hangs in my bathroom. Why the bathroom? Well, maybe you can guess if I give you a minute. But every now and then, I take it out and look at it... and I can still catch the vague hint of cinnamon.

THE END

(please r&r)