A.N. Nope, don't own anything except my wishful thinking. That's ALL mine. Someone asked in a review, so I thought I would mention that this story starts out after the second season finale. Everything before is canon. So…I guess that means there are spoilers up through "Not Pictured."

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Mac dropped down into the seat across from Logan at his table in the quad. "I seriously need some computer science detox," she said, reaching over to steal one of his fries. "A girl just asked me if I knew where to get a good cup of coffee and I thought she was talking about Java script."

He smirked without looking up from his book. "Nerd."

Glaring, she tossed the fry she was holding at his nose. He sighed and shut his book with a snap. "Can I help you with something?"

"Must detox. Or will implode from knowledge overload."

"And how is this my problem?" he muttered grumpily.

"I will not hesitate to take you with me, Echolls."

Calmly, he set his book aside and picked up his cell phone. "It's always so nice to feel needed. My place, eight o'clock."

"Thank you," she said pointedly. Standing, she snagged another fry and picked up her bag.

"However." The word stopped her in her tracks and she looked back to find him shaking his phone at her. "I will not have you and your cronies drinking me out of house and dorm. BYOB."

She met his eyes in silence for a minute. "I'll try to contain myself," she deadpanned, slinging the bag strap over her shoulder. "Enjoy your lunch, Logan," she added, rolling her eyes and walking away.

xxx

"This is so not what I meant," Mac muttered into her soda, watching the people on the impromptu dance floor writhe against one another.

The throbbing bass was beginning to give her a headache and the dim lighting made finding anyone she knew in the mass of strangers just that much more difficult. Veronica and Logan had, once again, disappeared into the throng on the pretense of finding beverages. Funny how they had veered away from the kitchen to parts unknown.

Sighing, Mac set down her empty cup on the nearby table and began edging her way towards the door. She jerked back as a couple stumbled directly in front of her and landed against the wall with a thud. Staring in disbelief, she shook her head then pushed through a small crowd of people to get to the living room.

Suddenly, someone grabbed her arm and she whirled on the attacker, barely containing a scream. Her wide eyes focused on Veronica, who was laughing and more than a few sheets to the wind.

"Hi," she screamed over the music. "Having fun?"

Mac forced a smile. "Yeah, this is great. Exactly what I needed."

Veronica stopped and frowned at the empty space next to Mac. "Where's Wallace?"

"No show. Considering the team's new practice schedule, I'm not really surprised," Mac said wryly, shoving her hands into her back pockets.

"You seen Dick around?" Logan asked Mac, leaning over from a separate conversation.

Mac started to shake her head, opening her mouth to answer in the negative, but Veronica beat her to the punch. Literally. Rubbing his arm, Logan stared at his girlfriend with a bland expression. "Why do you keep asking her that? Why would she have seen Dick?"

"Well, he does live here," he pointed out, nodding as the guy he'd been talking to wandered off.

"When he deigns to provide his presence," she countered, folding her arms across her chest as she turned to Mac. "On weekends, he's never home. I don't know what he's doing, but he doesn't even sleep here."

Mac started to contradict her, but caught herself and bit the inside of her lip. Veronica didn't need an answer anyway; she was already turning to Logan. "Well speak of the devil and he shall appear," she said, her eyes catching on Dick's figure.

For a moment, Logan stood still, looking as uncomfortable as Mac felt. When Veronica refrained from adding anything, he stepped away from the girls to meet Dick at the door. Mac watched as they clapped high fives and spoke for a minute while Dick's eyes roved over the strangers in his living room. Finally, he sent a half grin in Logan's approximate direction and began pushing through the crowd in a beeline for his room.

Veronica sighed. "I don't hate him, you know."

Mac swallowed her exclamation of surprise and wrapped her arms around herself. "I know," she answered, eyes still following Dick's blonde head high above the others in the room.

And she did know. Veronica might blame Dick for what happened to her, but she didn't hate him. Mac understood that enigmatic feeling completely, but she didn't know how to tell Veronica that. She had spent too much time dodging Veronica's attempts to open the topic for discussion.

When Logan reached them, Veronica and Mac were standing quietly, unable to look at each other. Knowing Logan, he probably noticed, but refrained from comment. "Do you think that girl knows her pants are unzipped?" he asked instead, gesturing with a jerk of his head.

Mac casually leaned to the left, immediately spotting the girl Logan's chin was indicating. Her arms were thrown over her head in utter abandon, writhing wildly in what was obviously meant to be a seductive dance.

The sight made her cringe a little. "I'm going to get a soda. You guys want anything?" she called over the music.

Veronica's lips formed a moue for a second, but when she opened them to respond, Logan clapped a hand over her mouth. "She's fine. We're going to go get some water, right honey?" he pretended to ask her with a smile, while forcing her head up and down into a nod.

Mac took in Veronica's Glare of Doom and edged away. "Cool. See you lovebirds later. In one piece, I hope," she muttered to herself as she hurriedly pushed her way into the crowd.

The suite was large, but even with the crowd of people, it only took a few minutes to get from the entryway to the kitchen. She'd been surprised during her first visit. Somehow she'd expected Logan and Dick to require a more opulent housing situation. Instead, they'd discarded a mansion and penthouse for a dorm suite with the bare necessities: two bedrooms leading off of a large open room with a kitchen in one corner.

When Mac got to the kitchen, Dick was standing at the counter pouring a good amount of vodka into a red cup. Her heart thudded once extra hard then returned to its normal rhythm. Frozen with her toes up against the line of linoleum that marked the threshold between the kitchen and the living room, Mac stared at him. Should she say something or just walk away before he noticed her?

She never knew how he was going to react to her presence. He'd gone from months of avoiding and ignoring her to being a video game buddy when she was a lone and ignoring her whenever anyone else was around.

Dick glanced up while she was still trying to decide what to do, and his hand stilled in the middle of screwing the top back on the vodka bottle. He locked eyes with her for a few seconds, then raised his eyebrows and tilted the bottle towards her.

Mac blushed and shook her head quickly, stammering, "No thank you." She winced when she remembered that he couldn't hear her.

Shrugging, he set the bottle aside and swung the fridge door open. He leaned down to see inside and then raised his head to peer at her over the top of the door. He shouted something that she couldn't hear over the music, so she moved next to him and shook her head.

"Soda?" he repeated, pointing inside the fridge. When she nodded, he shouted again. "Coke?"

"Root beer?" Mac asked, and he glanced inside to check it out.

Emerging again, he shook his head. "Nada."

"Coke's fine."

When he straightened and kicked the door shut, he was holding a carton of orange juice and her soda. He handed her the can and turned back to his own drink.

"Thanks," she said, but of course he didn't hear her.

Tapping the top of the can, she pulled the tab, almost expecting it to explode all over her. It was something Dick would have done a year ago, shaking the can before handing it to her. To be more precise, anything immature and mean spirited was something Dick would have done a year ago. But she wasn't sure she would have been a target. She hadn't even registered on his radar until she started dating his brother.

Now, however, Dick wasn't even paying attention to her. He was busy splashing Southern Comfort into his cup. She frowned. Vodka and bourbon?

Her limited experience with alcohol stemmed entirely from books and 09er parties attended with Cassidy. Her throat squeezed shut.

"Want some?"

It wasn't the sound of his voice that made her eyes snap up; it was the lilt of his words. When her eyes found his face, the smirk on his lips confirmed it. He was teasing her.

She swallowed hard and forced her features into a sardonic expression, despite her rolling stomach. "What is it?"

She hadn't thought it possible, but his smirk got smugger. "A Southern screw."

Her cheeks flamed, her eyes darting away from his. She tried to look casual as she glanced away and gulped down some of her soda, but she was sure she failed miserably. As she was trying to recover her dignity, a guy brushed past her, upsetting her. Once she'd regained her balance, she sighed and wiped at her sleeve, trying in vain to mop up the spilled soda.

She heard a holler from behind her and whirled in surprise to find the jerk who didn't watch where he was going offering his hand to Dick for a high five. The amusement was out of Dick's eyes now, she noticed, and the fact that she could see that so clearly despite the smile on his face made her back away from the kitchen.

Turning again, she plunged into the throng, for once glad of the crowded room. The more people in between her and that kitchen, the better.

xxx

She hadn't wanted to be alone with her thoughts, so she'd immersed herself in the crowd and put off leaving until the last possible second. A second that Veronica immediately rendered impossible by forcing Mac to promise not to walk home alone.

"Veronica, I live two buildings away."

"It's really late," she pointed out, swaying a bit on her feet.

Logan glanced up from his garbage bag. "You staying here, Mac? Good," he said when she opened her mouth to disagree. "You can help us clean up in the morning." He straightened and dropped a final cup into the trash bag.

"Really, I'm fine. It takes two minutes to get home from here."

"Last week, two guys were mugged walking across campus on Friday night. Both of them were over six feet tall. You're a bite sized morsel in comparison."

"Veronica, I don't even have a purse with me," Mac argued, beginning to feel desperate for escape.

"No," Veronica and Logan both said.

"Who's a bite sized morsel?"

The three of them looked up to find Dick stumbling out of his room towards the kitchen, barefoot but otherwise fully clothed. Mac cleared her throat and faced forward again. "Fine. I'll sleep on the couch."

When Mac came out of the bathroom off of Logan's room, he and Veronica were climbing into bed. "Night, Mac," the blonde called as she slid between the covers.

Mac smiled in the general direction of the bed and hurried out of the room. Sometimes Logan and Veronica were too domestic for her to take easily. She kept waiting for things to fall apart, but they didn't and it was starting to make her distinctly uncomfortable.

The living room was dark except for a lamp that Veronica must have turned on for her. Dick was still in the kitchen, nursing a bottle of water and apparently oblivious to her appearance. Walking to the couch, Mac began to unfold the blanket the married couple had left for her.

"Smash Brothers?" Dick asked from behind her.

Somehow unsurprised, Mac refolded the blanket and turned to sit on the couch while Dick set up the game. Glancing at Logan's closed door as Dick handed her a controller, she bit her lip and reached over to flick off the light.

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luvlogan-saraHi! Thanks for reviewing the fic. I'm glad you've liked the first couple of chapters. I hope this one was as good, despite Logan's sad lack of toga.

jacedesYeah, still waiting for the group convo. But don't worry, it's coming up in the next couple of chapters.

Beauty in my BreakdownHi and thanks for reviewing! I'm glad you like the characterization. I was worried that I was making Dick too out of character, but he seems to be shaping up, which is a relief.

VMars13Hi! Thanks for reading and reviewing! I hope you liked this chapter, too.

LoVe23Hi! I'm glad you're enjoying the fic. Please keep reading!

AstraHi and thanks for reviewing! I was surprised how well Mac and Dick fit together, too. Opposites totally attract. And who could be more opposite, right:p

FanFicFairy514I'm glad you're still liking the story. I hope you liked this chapter, too.

wantingchinoHi! Thanks for reviewing! I was pretty happy with the party scene. Attentive Dick is just so…cute. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, too!

ThepersoniusedtobeHi! Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm hoping that the transition between strangers to friends/lovers will be smooth in the fic. At least, that's what I'm going for. We'll see how it goes. :-p I hope you liked this chapter!

SeriousFanHi and thanks for reviewing! I'm sorry I didn't mention before that it was based on canon, but thanks for pointing it out. I hope you liked this chapter! Please keep reading!

litizrealHi and thanks for reviewing! I'm so hoping that RT creates a Mac/Dick subplot. I think it would be a dynamic storyline. Particularly since he could write it so much better than I ever could. :-p I hope you liked this chapter!

heatherHi! Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm glad you're enjoying the fic. Like I told Thepersoniusedtobe, I'm hoping to make the love story a smooth transition. So I might make you crazy a bit longer. Don't hate me!

Miss Higher PowerHi! Thanks for reviewing! I'm glad you've liked the story so far! I hope you enjoyed this last chapter, too!

CkAll shall be revealed in good time…That sounds a bit more mysterious than Dick really needs, but the time he spends holed up in his room will be addressed. Anyway, thanks for reviewing! I hope you liked this chapter!

A.N. Sorry this was a little short. But don't worry, another update will be on the way soon!