A/N: Any fans of The Smiths? This title came from their song of the same name. So, this is a Dick chapter, "present" time (AKA 2009). Drama is about to "blow in from the North." Enjoy! Thank you so much for continuing to read, review, follow & favorite this story. I'm having the best time writing this story & reading your thoughts and theories. Please keep 'em coming…Potty mouth warning is in effect! Thanks to my wonderful & creative beta, cainc3!

Obligatory Disclaimer: Nope, don't own anything in the VM 'verse nor The Smiths songs (& lyrics) referenced in here...

Chapter 8—Girlfriend in a Coma

Dick's POV

June 6th, 2009—Neptune Memorial Hospital, 3rd floor ICU waiting room.

The newer, nicer blue chairs of this waiting room weren't any softer on Dick's butt, at least not after waiting two hours for another, hopefully more detailed, update on Mac's condition. Fortunately, though, this time he had Logan there to keep him company. It softened things, a little bit at least.

Mrs. Mac was getting restless, but leaving the area wasn't an option in her mind—or his either. No, he was in this for the long haul, the hell of it was that he didn't have a frakking clue how long, well long was going be!

Dick watched her frequently get up to pace, or to inquire at the nurses' station, or to go over to the large bank of windows on the far wall that overlooked the roof of the Emergency Room wing below. Sam seemed content to follow in his wife's footsteps, as though he couldn't bear for her to be out of his sight. Ryan was pretending to be interested in an old copy of Wired magazine. A title he was no doubt familiar with being that he was the younger sibling of a computer hacker. Mac had probably subscribed to that magazine since her elementary days; Dick figured while he was reading Ranger Rick she had probably taught herself C++.

Logan nudged him out of his reverie.

"What dude?"

"I'm going to get some more coffee. Want anything?"

"Sure. A Venti, black of their strongest shit. Thanks." He stopped himself from ordering a Venti soy chai latte, as well. It was Mac's go-to order, and one he'd placed on her behalf more than a few times. The wrongness of being here, drinking a cup of coffee while she was there, not enjoying anything, swept over him.

"Venti, black, shit, got it," Logan repeated. "No problem." He worked his way down the row, getting Mac's family's drink orders as well.

Dick estimated that it was his third trip to the lobby coffee kiosk, but it kept Logan busy and he, himself, heavily caffeinated—so, win-win. Whatever the hell got them through today was all that mattered. Pacing worked for Mrs. Mac, reading dumb magazines helped Ryan, getting coffee was Logan's mission, Dick, on the other hand, still hadn't found anything to keep himself focused. He tried a little of everything, but his brain was so overloaded he felt like a toddler that couldn't decide which toy to play with. He supposed some people (Mac!) might say he was toddler-esque on "normal" days, and today was certainly anything but that. The three gallons of coffee in a span of one hundred twenty minutes probably wasn't helping his cause either.

Last they'd heard, Mac was being settled into a room in the ICU, then the team of doctors would review her test results, agree on a plan of action, and only then would they update the family again.

How the fuck long did that take?

Mrs. Mac was now wearing a blue plastic ID bracelet on her left wrist. It was part of a new program Neptune Memorial's ICU had implemented that appointed one family member as "point person," they had 24 hour visiting privileges, meaning they had the right to come and go outside of visiting hours, and were even able to spend the night in the patient's room. Mrs. Mac—Nat!—had elected herself before anyone else in her family had the chance.

Mrs. Mac, it still felt weird calling her Nat, was restless waiting for her turn to see her baby. He figured that was probably why she was wearing down the carpet in the waiting area.

No one had been allowed in yet, including her, which just made things worse in Dick's mind. He tried to picture what she'd look like after enduring all the poking and prodding the last several hours. He figured tubes and shit would be sticking out of her in all kinds of weird places.

Imagining things always made it worse somehow.

After Cassidy jumped, he'd had a lot of images that seared inside him, ripping, tearing and scarring. Paramedics had scooped Cass's body into a black body bag and no one outside those members of the death squad had ever seen the highly damaged remains of his brother. Dick just didn't see how the reality could have been worse than the soupy, pulpy aftereffect he couldn't scrub out of the dark recesses of his twisty imaginings. Alcohol wasn't a powerful enough cleaning agent for that job.

The scent of fresh coffee wafted over to him as Logan came back with a cardboard tray filled with takeout cups.

He sent an eviction notice to those images in his head of Mac on a bed a few thousand feet away from him, connected to tubes—he much preferred remembering her the way she was that morning, before the accident even happened. The sun catching her highlights, her standard issue smirk she wore just for him, and that very brief flicker of happiness that seeing him would induce, until, of course, she had the chance to shut that operation down.

Yeah, he totally noticed.

Dick grabbed the hot coffee from Logan's outstretched hand, taking care to grab it on the paper sleeve so the heat wouldn't seep into his finger tips. He murmured his thanks and took a big sip. It burned the roof of his mouth, but he barely paid attention. As he drank it, the caffeine percolated through his body. The act itself of drinking the coffee gave him a way to occupy his hands, something to do in this empty space of waiting, this purgatory they were all dwelling in.

Mrs. Mac—Nat's—phone seemed to be straining under the weight of all the call volume of well-wishers just now hearing about Mac's accident. The majority were extended family members who cared, but had to do so from a distance. Dick had overheard Nat talking to Keith Mars—Veronica's dad. He was a good dude, though he knew Keith (he'd always think of as Sheriff Mars) and Logan hadn't always been the best of friends. That was a common side-effect of dating someone's daughter.

There was one strange call that had especially caught his attention. It had come through approximately fifteen minutes after they'd moved into this new waiting area, Nat had listened to whatever the mystery caller was saying, and then muttered to hang on, she had to find a more secluded spot. Dick watched as Mr. Mac leaned in closer to his wife so he could hear both sides of the conversation, too. That wasn't actually the part he thought was odd, it was more the hyper aware way Mr. and Mrs. Mac kept sneaking looks at Ryan as they sat on the uncomfy chairs listening to the mystery caller.

Finally Nat got up, phone in hand, Mr. Mac trailing behind her like a really bad stalker. Dick watched them retreat around the corner, out of viewing range. They came back about five minutes later, Nat wiping her eyes with the hand that wasn't clutching her husband's. They sat back down in the same chairs. Ryan looked up briefly from his magazine and asked his mom who that was she'd been talking to. She muttered something about Aunt Linda or whatever, but she refused to look at Ryan when she said that.

The thing about that exchange that terrified Dick was what if the Mac's knew more about "Cindy's" condition than they were letting on.

Logan was still handing out the cups of coffee from his last run downstairs. Dick watched him hand off an extra big cup to Nat, who was back to standing by the window, looking down on the roof. She smiled at him and accepted it gratefully, walking back to the bank of chairs. She leaned over Sam to see what magazine had Ryan occupied—another back issue of Wired.

Dick continued to drink his coffee and watch the people around him, not just their group of purgatory dwellers but the old woman across the room knitting, or the man three seats away from their group dressed like a banker in his gray suit and horn rimmed glasses, clutching his cell phone like a lifeline.

He didn't even try to figure out why they were spending this hellish hot Tuesday in the stifling air conditioned room, it was obviously for the same underlying reason he and the Mackenzies were, someone they cared for was too close on that precipice between living and dying. Mac would've been sympathetically listening to other peoples' tales of woe, sharing hers, too. For someone who embraced the misanthropic label like a badge, Mac spent an awful lot of time showing how much she cared about others'.

A doctor, dressed in a similar set of blue scrub "pajamas" as the one in the ER, walked into the waiting area, lingering at the doorway. All conversation stalled out, everyone looking up at him as if following cue cards.

"Family of Cindy Mackenzie," the guy said in a loud, deep voice that seemed at war with his lanky build. He was a different member of Mac's team of doctors. He saw the family and friends of other ICU patients visibly deflate, they would be lingering longer in their states of doubt.

"That's," Mr. Mac started to say, then cleared his throat before continuing, "um us. I'm her dad." He stood up, clutching Nat's hand, pulling her to her feet in one swift movement. They seemed to move in tandem over to the doctor, Ryan just behind them.

Dick got up out of his chair forcing his feet to obey the order his brain (his Motherboard as Mac would call it ) handed down. Logan got up to join their group, too. They all congregated by the doctor, who was still framed in the doorway.

"I'm Dr. Pence, another member of your daughter's team. My specialty is trauma and plastic surgery. I'm just going to speak freely, if that's okay."

Nat nodded, but the doctor ploughed through not really stopping for anyone to say anything.

"She regained consciousness briefly, but she's unconscious once again. The scans show two areas of bleeding. One is from the primary spot of impact; her skull is also fractured in the location that the baseball struck her. The secondary area is on the opposite side of her brain. This isn't unusual; her brain was bounced around quite a bit in the aftermath of the impact."

"Fractured," Nat echoed. It was gasp of a thing.

It was a scary thing to think about, a broken head, and a bleeding brain.

"It's a closed fracture though; it's a very serious injury of course, but not as bad as it could've been. Our goal, the next few days, is to stop the bleeding. Surgery may be one option, but. Honestly, I'd like to take a 'wait and see' approach."

"So, you're going to sit there as my daughter wastes away?" It was Sam. Dick saw the anger residing on his face, heard it in the way he bit those words out. "Twiddle your thumbs maybe? Play Sudoku in the break room, and just hope she gets better?"

"Sam!" Mrs. Mac, Nat, said sharply, full of censure. Dick watched her jab her husband in his big belly with her sharp, bony elbow. She didn't appear to be holding back. He winced at the contact, but wouldn't back down. "This is the guy who is taking care of our daughter."

Dick agreed with Mrs. Mac, it didn't seem like a great plan to piss the doctor off. The guy didn't seem pissed though; evidently he was used to angry families, undoubtedly an occupational hazard in his line of work.

"No, nothing like that, I assure you. We will be putting her in a sleep state for the next several days, and we have already started giving her a course of Mannitol, a drug that can often decrease the pressure on her brain. We'll be giving her that via IV for the next several days."

"A coma?" Ryan asked, echoing Dick's own thoughts exactly. "Is that what you mean by a 'sleep state'?"

"Yes, we'll be putting Cindy in a medically induced coma, to assure she remains unconscious. We'll be repeating the scans periodically, monitoring the progress very carefully. We will know in probably 72 hours if this will be successful. In the meantime, there is one other thing to keep in mind…" The doctor's voice trailed off.

Sam took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but Nat beat him to it. "What's that?" She once again grabbed her husband's hand, squeezing its life-force.

"The next 24 hours are critical. I've seen people in her age group with much more severe injuries make a full recovery, but it's important that you are prepared for all contingencies."

"Cindy could die?" Ryan asked, or maybe just flatly replied, Dick wasn't really sure what all his tone carried. Nat let go of her hand-breaking grip on Mr. Mac and drew her son into her arms, hugging him fiercely. Dick had no clue if she was giving or taking comfort, he rather suspected it was both in equal measure. She whispered something in Ryan's ear.

Neither Dick nor Logan said anything during the whole exchange, though he knew the conversation was now seared into the recesses of his memory. It was enough that he was allowed to listen in. He didn't think Mrs. Mac would want to repeat any part of that conversation, especially not any more than the 500 times she would have to anyway for the requisite daughter-in-a-coma phone chain. Her phone would probably spontaneously combust!

"The other doctor said something about being able to see her," Mr. Mac was saying.

"Yes, she can have visitors. Like I mentioned, Cindy isn't conscious right now, but studies have shown that coma patients have some base awareness of their surroundings. Talk to her like she's awake, talk to her like you expect a response. Visits have to be limited though, no more than ten minutes, and only one person at a time." Dr. Pence explained. Then, seeing Mrs. Mac's bracelet, he directed the last bit to her, he continued. "You can come and go outside of visiting hours, and a nurse can bring you a blanket if you want to sleep in the chair by her bed."

"Can I see her now?" Mrs. Mac/Nat asked immediately.

"I'll have a nurse come get you; it'll be about ten minutes."

"Thanks Dr. Pence," Nat replied, her tone flat, her eyes wet.

Those ten minutes turned into thirty and Mac's mom was still waiting.

She looked terrified when the nurse finally came to escort her back to the bowels of the ICU. It was about to get real for her, real quick. Dick saw her gripping Mr. Mac's arm like he was the only one who could prevent her from drowning. Her big green eyes were still shiny with those unshed tears. Maybe she didn't want to be crying in front of Mac, just in case…Or maybe she thought once she started they wouldn't stop. He was a little too intimately acquainted with that concept.

Dick watched her follow the nurse through the obstacle course of blue chairs lining the waiting room, and then out into the hall of the ICU until they disappeared.

Logan was still occasionally sipping from his now-cold coffee, the fingers gripping the cup tapping out a rhythm—he was trying to send up an SOS.

"This is a fucking waste of time," Ryan yelled, after his mom had been gone less than four minutes. He threw the Wired magazine down, Dick half-expected to see him stomp on it. It had all the markings of what could end up being an impressive temper tantrum.

Mr. Mac turned to his son, pulled him in and hugged him. No censure for his language or anything, instead he seemed to whisper his agreement.

Dick admitted to himself that he agreed with the kid, he was feeling pretty damn useless himself. He was sorely lacking in the medical degree department. His dad had always been the type to go do something, anything, fill every second of awake time rather than sit idly by, after all there was always a big freaking sea of victims to cheat, savings accounts to drain, marks to con, his time meant someone else's hard-earned money. Dick wasn't his dad—by design—but the desire to do something, any-fucking-thing was ingrained. He didn't linger in bed in the morning, not when he could be out on the waves. This sitting here in hell, doing nothing while Mac was chained down by wires, tubes doing who knew what, engaged in the fight of her life—literally—it was pulling at him.

The wait to go in to see her daughter was about five times longer than the actual visit itself. Just over ten minutes later, yes, Dick was counting down to the second; Mrs. Mac came back into the waiting room, deflated, shoulders down, not looking up at anyone. She walked straight to her son, who stood up; he seemed convinced his mom was the bearer of the worst news ever. She engaged him in a fierce, bone crunching hug; Dick was straining to hear the tell-tale cracking sound.

Evidently Mr. Mac shared the same thought his son did, because he went over to his remaining family, and very gently put his big hand under his wife's chin and lifted it up so he could take in the tear trails lining her face like wrinkles.

"She's…stable," Nat managed to get out between the sobs that overtook her once again. Dick revised his earlier theory about her crying herself out. They were replenished by now. "That was not…that girl in there can't be my…baby." Her sentenced ended on a wail.

Her husband pulled her into his big chest, and Ryan hovered patting his mom's back tentatively. Dick was watching from his chair, his ass numb from just sitting the whole day long.

A sharp elbow to the ribs brought him out of his voyeuristic state. Logan was the owner of the bony, pointy elbow.

"What the hell, dude? I'm going to have that thing dulled," Dick hissed in his ear. "Cut that bony thing clean off."

"Let's just give them some time alone, get coffee or something." Logan ignored the threat.

"I've already had enough to stay awake for a week, man. We can go to the cafeteria or something instead, get some dinner we won't eat."

Logan nodded in agreement, and they both turned to leave when Mrs. Mac's voice stopped them, it was still tenuous but was stronger than it had been. "You guys want to see her?"

Dick stopped immediately and whirled around; he figured his face gave all his thoughts away for free. "Sure," he tried to sound casual, but wasn't feeling that way at all. The need to just touch her was overwhelming his circuits. He clearly remembered the 'immediate family only' clause, but who was he to argue, if Mrs. Mac wanted to take on the Nurse Ratchets of Neptune Memorial then that was her prerogative. He was seeing lots of flashes of Mac in her mom, or vice versa really. Her looks, however, must have been a really recessive gene—Mr. Wu would've been proud of him for remembering that term—but the personality, yup, Mac had a lot of her mom in her.

"Okay, why don't you guys grab something to eat while Sam is in there, and then, when you guys get back, I'll sneak all you back there. Logan, Dick, would you guys mind taking Ryan with you?"

Ryan's protest died before it was born once he saw his mom's expression, evidently you didn't argue with Mrs. Mac—her daughter was a proud beneficiary of that trait, too.

"Come on, let's go sample the five star cuisine of the Neptune Café, It takes me back to the blush of my youth, rubber chicken fried steak with limp green beans—good eats," Logan snarked as he rubbed his belly as though in anticipation of the institutional meal.

As they walked out of the waiting room, Dick took a quick peek over his shoulder as Sam and Nat continued their embrace. Then, she pulled away, saying something to her husband in the process. He turned back around and jogged a little to catch up to Ryan and Logan who were almost at the elevator bank by then. Ryan jabbed the down button.

Nobody said much as they made their way to the café. Dick grabbed a tray and made his side and dessert selections, before stopping at the stir fry station. After choosing his ingredients, he waited for the guy behind the counter to make it in a giant wok. When done, it was nested on a bed of Jasmine rice then handed across the station to his outstretched hand. It smelled delicious, though Dick knew he'd end up wasting more than half of it.

His stomach was this hardened rock of a place now, didn't think he'd be able to squeeze much in the way of food in there. It started getting all gravelly from the second the baseball connected with Mac's head, and only progressed as the interminable waiting period climbed higher and higher. He squinched his eyes shut too many times to count that day, he kept seeing the accident over and over again, his own personal hell of a Groundhog Day. He wished, fervently, he could unsee the whole chain of events; sadly it didn't work that way.

Dick turned around and saw both of his dinner companions waiting in the hot entrée section of the massive cafeteria. Logan selected the meatloaf platter. Ryan had found a sandwich. They all made their way through the line, paying and, by tacit agreement, they selected a table at the back by the bank of windows looking over the parking lot.

The first few minutes, after they sat down, were spent in silence as they picked at their chosen meals, then once they started talking, conversation was a stilted affair full of starts and stops and empty words. Finally, though after what was most likely only ten minutes but felt simultaneously shorter and longer than that, Logan brought up the time he hooked Mac into doing his business class homework for him freshman year at Hearst.

He made several pointed digs at Dick while still keeping the focus mainly on Mac.

Dick smiled as he listened, a real one, and only his second genuine one of the day, the first one of course being when he'd spotted Mac on the bleachers right before her accident. There was a common denominator there—Mac.

He traveled back in time to the day Logan was recapping. He'd wanted to stay and lend his "posterior expertise" to the website—grade my ass dot net—but Mac had made it clear, his business acumen was not appreciated. He'd ended that evening at a party, talking to a washed-up has-been of a rock star who had reached the level of man-whoredom he could only dream of.

Ryan was laughing at Logan's characterization of his sister and her computer wizardry.

Dick was grateful that Logan skipped the whole Max subscript to that tale. He'd never liked that dweeby punk, but it took a long time to realize his simmering dislike was more green-tinged than anything else.

Max and Mac's relationship had been on the brink of implosion sophomore year when she had finally started tolerating being around Dick for more than five minute increments. Veronica had run off to Stanford by then, entertaining unrealistic fantasies of living a normal life after her Neptunian upbringing.

Next, Ryan launched into a couple stories about Mac when she was in high school, in particular the time she got into a fight on the bus. Some bitch named Hadley something—Dick couldn't even remember her—had been picking on Mac the whole year, and finally sick of it, she had tried to call her bluff. The plan had backfired, though, and she'd ended up with a black eye out of the deal, and a new nickname, Scrappy Doo, after she hit Hadley back even harder, almost breaking her nose in the process.

"Scrappy Doo is the perfect name for your sister," Dick remarked. "I've been on the receiving end of more than a few of her punches. She hits hard, for a chick. In fact, I've got a couple bruises from her."

"I think she likes it better than her other Scooby-Doo inspired nickname," Ryan explained. "We use to watch Scooby Doo together, when I was younger, so I started calling her Velma when she would launch into one of her geek-i-fied lectures."

They all laughed at the accuracy of that new name and launched into more Mac stories, especially ones that supported that nickname. Logan shared Mac's link to the Purity test, which was news to both Dick and Ryan. The senior Mackenzie's had never known the entire story behind their daughter's new ride; they'd believed she'd saved up for it teaching senior citizens how to turn on a computer. Listening to Logan outline how she'd managed to bilk classmates for her car fund (himself included), Dick had to admit he was impressed. He'd always known she smart—much more than he was, but that took it to another level entirely, something more akin to cleverness. Logan and Mac had evidently grown closer than he'd suspected, because Logan explained she'd narc'ed on herself about the purity test. If she had been anyone else though, Dick would have assumed she'd been after the street-cred.

The clock on the far wall caught Dick's eye, the visiting hour window was quickly reaching its endpoint. He pointed out the time and everyone got up to throw out the remains of their picked-over meals.

Quietness stole over the group once again as they rode back up to the 3rd floor. The knowledge that he'd soon be seeing Mac, and she would be too fucking still, smacked him upside the head. He'd be off thinking of something else entirely, then the image of Mac smirking would pop in his mind, and the baseball came out of thin air to erase it.

What if she was never the same again? What if she was…never again…He couldn't even think about the word, let alone the not-so-abstract concept behind it. After Cass died, it had ceased being abstract.

He was giving himself mental whiplash—laughing, joking, being painfully normal then suddenly the winds shifted, and reality slipped its noose around him, strangling him back into this new kind of surreal reality. This was a moment his vodka-ized water bottle was born for.

Mr. Mac was in the waiting room when they got back. He hefted his bulk out of the chair to stand up when they strode over to him.

"Nat is in there now," Sam started, his voice cracking under the strain. "Look, Cindy is unconscious, and there's a big, white gauze bandage around her head, and she's hooked to monitors and an I.V. So just be prepared. This is just a temporary state. My girl is a fighter." The last bit cost him a lot to say, it was obvious.

Mr. Mac herded them back out of the waiting room and out into the sterile, institutionalized hallway. They walked in the opposite direction of the bank of elevators, towards the set of double doors at the end of the hall. The sign above proclaimed ICU in big bold letters. Dick watched him push through with authority. They all followed, no one saying much, just the occasional squeak of their rubber soled shoes on the over-washed gray floors.

Things came alive when they pushed open the doors and arrived on the other side. High pitched beeps from monitors and machines working triple time to keep their patient in the land of the living, nurses and doctors barking out orders to each other at the big center desk, crying from emotionally-drained family members who sneaked into the hall to get away from the people who inspired their tears to begin with.

Mr. Mac led them straight to room 305; Mac's new home for the foreseeable future.

They lingered at the door, Dick peeking in, sneaking glances—the entire front wall was glass so it was easier to fully monitor things. Mr. Mac went over to his wife, whispered something to her and then pointed towards the doorway. Dick saw her get up, making a brief stop-over by the bed and leaned in to kiss Mac's cheek.

Mrs. Mac gave them all a weak smile and bullet-pointed the same stuff her husband had already covered.

Ryan went in first. Dick and Logan, by unspoken agreement—maybe it was mind-meld shit—walked further down the ICU wing so Ryan could have some one-on-one time with his sister.

Dick could feel one of the nurses tracking his movements. He knew he had a nice ass, but somehow didn't think that was the inspiration for this CIA spy mission, it was more of the distrust variety. Damn college kids and their party-harty ways, they might throw a raver in the middle of the hospital! He caught her eye and grinned, watching her tentatively smile back before picking up a file in front of her and suddenly finding it engrossing. Ha, busted!

By the time Logan and Dick circled back to Mac's room, Ryan was already back in the hall chatting with his parents. Mr. Mac waved and indicated he was going back to the waiting room, taking his son with him. Mrs. Mac was just about to say something when the same nurse who had been tracking Dick's movement with suspicion came up to them.

"I'm sorry, but we have a strict policy here of family only," she said, in what seemed like a whiny tone to Dick.

Mrs. Mac opened her mouth to say something in reply—a lie or to argue, Dick wasn't sure which—when a second nurse came up to their group. He hadn't noticed her before, but assumed she had probably been hiding somewhere behind the center desk. She had short cropped black hair with thick platinum highlights, and a quick smile. Something about her put Dick at ease, she almost seemed like an older version of Mac really, somewhat in looks but mostly in her underlying attitude.

"Thanks Marie, I've got this. I already told Cindy's family the rules of the floor. I'll be sure to go over them again though."

"Oh, okay, Tara, I just wanted to make sure you dotted all the "I's"."

"I did, the "T's" are taken care of, too."

The cool nurse—Tara—waited until Nurse Ratchet (Marie) was out of ear shot, then she said, "Policy is for suckers. I don't give a crap who you let in to see Cindy, I figure the more fans she has, the better. I've read all the studies, but more important, I've been working here too long, I've seen it all. For the sake of policy though, just tell me you're the freaking Duggar family and these are all your kids." She used her hands as she spoke, including air quotes when she made the joke about the big-ass reality show family.

"That's right, I have a lot of kids," Mrs. Mac rejoined, playing along. She, too, used air quotes.

"Good, that's settled, I don't need birth certificates. I am a strict enforcer of the five to ten minutes at a time rule, however. I guess I do follow some policies of my employer. I'm also a firm believer in positive thinking only. I love my patients, but I want them here with me for as short of a period as possible. I want them to move on to a private room on another floor, then leave this place forever, leading a happy, healthy life. I have seen a positive attitude work miracles, so save your dark thoughts for the waiting room. Happy shiny stuff only around my patient, got it?"

Yeah, Dick totally liked Nurse Tara, and the more she opened her mouth the more she reminded him of Mac, that quiet rebel bit that pulled something deep inside him.

After the nurse went back to her station to continue to keep an eye on Mac's vitals and presumably run interference with nurse Ratchet should the situation warrant it, Dick nominated himself as her next visitor. Mrs. Mac gave him a pat on the shoulder, and told him she'd keep an eye on the time for him.

He took a deep breath, walked through the threshold of room 305, telling himself he could do this, it wouldn't be that bad, and then he totally froze.

ET. She looked like ET. Mac, his Mac, looked like ET. That was his first thought, and second, and third, wholly-inappropriate, but yeah, it's what went through his mind as he took in the tubes going in and out of her, the I.V. stuck in her right hand, the one electrode they were able to stick on her heavily bandaged and turbaned head. E fucking T—that movie alien from before he was even born. His dad made him and Cassidy watch it when he was maybe all of 6, Cass was barely 5. Big Dick had started "man lessons" on his sensitive younger son practically from the cradle. Truthfully, the cuddly alien freaked the crap out of Dick, but he knew how to hide that fact, Cass did not and that's why he'd worn the red bull's eye on his back from the womb.

He took another breath, counted to ten, then pasted on a smile, because that's what Casablancas' always did. He walked over to Mac's bed, staying on the side with fewer wires. He picked up her non-IV pierced hand and held it.

"Hey, Mac-a-doodle, it's me, Dick. You've got to beat this thing. Stay and fight here, Scrappy Doo. I totally stole that nickname from your brother, by the way. Nice little dude. I really like your family. I'd suggest a trade, but I think you probably want to keep them. I see where you get your 'tude—that's Mrs. Mac all the way." He closed his eyes as he just kept up a running commentary, seeing her like she was this morning, before…yeah, just before. "Logan is out there, I see him pacing the hall. He's a bobcat, that one. He's not so patiently waiting to see you. Yes, I poached another nickname. Oh, Ronnie is on her way down from Stanford. I didn't think we'd ever get Neptune's Prodigal daughter back here again. You have some serious mojo there, Mac. Oh, and I totally used prodigal correctly. It's your influence, and my word of the day calendar, too."

The room was cold; Dick could feel goose bumps rising on his arms. With the hand not tethered to Mac, he took the blanket loosely covering her and tugged it up further over her. He wasn't sure how sensitive she'd be to temperature in her current state, but he didn't like the idea of her being cold. He hoped, and not for the first time, that she was oblivious to the pain of her injuries.

A couple minutes and several inane comments and silly jokes later, Mrs. Mac knocked on the window to let him know time was up. He said goodbye and leaned down to kiss her cheek. Not really the first kiss he'd been dreaming about for—well, longer than he would admit to—but then this wasn't the venue he'd imagined either.

Logan went in next, but he was there for all of three minutes. Dick could just picture him telling her all about the conversation with Ronnie. He didn't need to be a fly on that wall to know what topics of one-sided conversation went on during his visit—make that topic, singular.

One phone call was all it had taken for his BFF to topple head-first back into his Veronica-addiction. He could only guess what tomorrow would bring, when they'd be in the same room.

With that all wrapped up, they went back out to the waiting room where Mrs. Mac talked them into going home for the night. She tapped into her mom-magic, making a case for them needing a good night's sleep because if they were sick themselves they wouldn't be able to visit Mac and she needed their support right now. He kind of thought she needed to follow her own advice, but he knew fuck-all about the proper way to talk to a mom, so he just nodded and said his good-byes to everyone.

Out in the parking lot, Logan suggested they just take his car back to the Grand, leaving Dick's in the hospital parking lot. Soul-weary and exhausted, Dick didn't try to argue, plus the hospital lot hardly seemed like a high crime area.

Fifteen minutes later, he dragged himself, geriatric-style, into the suite, letting the door slam behind him. He made his way to his bedroom, slammed that door as well, and gave into the emotions of the day.

At one point, Logan knocked on his door to check on him. He managed to hit the pause button just long enough to mutter he was okay, thanks, go away. Logan hesitated a little bit, before leaving. Dick could tell from his roommate's footfall. That was the beauty in their friendship, the innate ability they both shared to read the other one, they knew when to heed what was said, and when not to. Right now, Dick couldn't face the idea of being around anyone else. He cried for himself, for Mac, most of all for Cassidy, and what was what could have been, and what would never be. The tears fell faster and harder when he realized there was a chance Mac could lose her fight, too.

When the tears had dried up, he grabbed his backpack, digging around until he found the vodka-ized water bottle. He made quick work of it. It did its duty—finally—and he fell into a deep sleep.

He woke up to the sun invading the small crack in his curtains and a pick-ax of a hangover headache burrowing itself deep into the recesses of his head. He'd mentally whine about the pain, but it didn't take long for images of Mac getting hit by a baseball to flash through his memory bank. It put things in enough perspective that he barely gave his own throbby ache another thought. He creakily got out of bed and slowly trekked his way into the en-suite bathroom to palm a handful of Advil.

Once his headache eased itself out, Dick grabbed the first shirt and shorts he saw, not really caring what he wore, just eager to get back to the hospital and spend another day in purgatory. The doctor's vaguely worded warning echoing in his head, that the first 24 hours were critical, she hung on a precipice.

It was now June 7th, but this day wasn't going to be any better than yesterday. Usually he had a sense of relief, the awareness of having survived the horror of Cassidy's death all over again, and it carried over, bleeding into the next day and somehow ended up being a comfort he could cling to, but he lost that ability the second the ball connected with Mac's head.

When he went out into the living room Logan was already up and ready for the day. He had a fresh pot of coffee on the table, and was laughing at the episode of Phineas & Ferb on TV. They exchanged mumbled greetings and Logan pointed to the coffee. Dick grabbed the other cup Logan had put out and poured himself a cup of the sludgy brew. It was pretty much liquid mud, but it was caffeinated liquid mud so he didn't really care.

After choking down the entire cup they left the room and headed back to Logan's Xterra, the same banana yellow SUV monstrosity that he'd had since his Neptune High days.

As they headed toward the hospital Dick started singing softly "Girlfriend in a Coma…I know, I know it's serious…Girlfriend in a coma…I know, I know it's really serious."

Risking a quick glance at Dick instead of the road, Logan gave him the side eye. "What the hell?"

"It's called singing."

"Oh, thanks for the explanation. I didn't actually know what to call that abomination, I'd say of a good song, but that's emo shit if I ever heard it."

"It's The Smiths."

"Again, I say, emo shit."

"They didn't have the term emo back then," Dick corrected.

"Okay, pre-emo, emo-shit."

Honestly, what Logan so eloquently called 'emo-shit' got him through the worst period of his life. He'd never even liked the Smiths until one day about a month Cassidy died. He was dial surfing and found some kind of New Wave 80s punk station, How Soon is Now was on. The raw emotion of it sucked him in, especially the line "I'm the son and the heir of nothing in particular." He could have written that line, his family was the inspiration for it.

"I also find your use of the term 'girlfriend' significant," Logan was saying. Again, he sneaked a quick glance at Dick, presumably to gage his reaction. Then he pulled his eyes back on the road ahead.

"Once again, dude, since you are obviously hard-of-hearing, it's a SONG," Dick said, his voice rising at the end. "I didn't write the lyrics."

"But you could have," Logan said reflectively.

"Mac and I are friends, real friends, true friends from my perspective, pseudo if you ask her, but the common denominator is we are friends. She's a girl, yes, so only in the sense we're friends and she's a girl would the term girl friend be accurate."

"So, you noticed, huh?"

"That Mac has boobs? Yes, I might have noticed something to that effect," Dick said dryly. In fact, her boobs—and the rest of her, too—had been starring in his favorite fantasies for the past several months, maybe longer even. Fuck Logan for reading into him!

Dick glanced at the clock on the dash as they turned into the driveway of Neptune Memorial, winding their way to the back parking lot by the main entrance of the massive complex.

Though, truthfully, his stomach was starting to rumble a bit, Dick was in a hurry to get an update on Mac's condition, so they decided to get breakfast at the café afterwards.

They punched the button for the third floor and waited for the elevator doors to open. Dick tapped his foot; his life was a study in waiting these days. At last, the double doors opened with an accompanying ding. They walked in, selected the button for the 3rd floor and just as the doors were closing, a loud female voice called out to them.

"Hold the elevator, please," she said. Dick suspected he knew the owner of that voice, one look at Logan's nervous twist of a smile confirmed his suspicion was correct. Ronnie. He hadn't heard her voice for two years now, but it had burned itself into his memories, though the singe wasn't nearly as penetrating for him as it was for Logan. Naturally!

Logan quickly punched the door open button and the opening got wider. Veronica stepped on, with Wallace on her heels.

She expressed her thanks and then looked up from the ground that she had been studying. There had been a small smile pulling at her lips, but it quickly faded as she looked up into Logan's familiar hazel brown and green flecked eyes.

Everyone mumbled a greeting, short but polite.

Dick noticed a big, white paper bag in her hands, while Wallace was laden down with a big tray of coffee. It smelled much better than the cup O' mud he had earlier that morning. He focused his gaze on the cups, Wallace tracked where his gaze had landed and gave him a look of censure. All that went unnoticed by Logan and Veronica though, who apparently had forgotten there was anyone else on the elevator.

"Travelling with an entourage these days, I see Ronnie," Dick said, mainly to break up the quiet that had infected the small space after their brief greetings.

"Wallace? No, he's my bodyguard," Veronica corrected.

"Mac and I are tight," Wallace said, but he didn't quite contradict Veronica either. "I was shocked when Vee called me in tears to tell me what had happened."

The elevator came to an abrupt stop and the doors yawned open. They walked out of the cramped elevator, following the gray hallway until they arrived at the waiting area.

Mrs. Mac was back in the waiting room, all alone. Her blond hair was tousled, in a bed head kind of way, she usually had every strand artfully arranged. There were faint circles under her eyes, and she was rolling her head around as though to get the kinks out of her neck. The high backed chair next to Mac's bed was probably not conducive for a good night's sleep.

She took one look at Veronica and quickly rose from her chair. Veronica quickly handed off the white bag to Wallace, who was standing right beside her and then met Mrs. Mac halfway. She bent down and fiercely hugged her daughter's best friend. "Veronica, hon, thank you so much for coming. It means the world to all of us."

"Don't thank me," Veronica could barely get the words out. "I couldn't be so far away and, with this whole not knowing…" Her voice wavered.

"Well, anyway, we all know Cindy's a fighter," Mrs. Mac continued. She cleared her throat and then pulled away from Veronica briefly, wiping the tear that had just escaped from the corner of her eye. Then she turned her focus to Wallace, greeting and giving him a brief side hug, avoiding squashing their breakfast, before pulling away.

"That she is," Veronica agreed. "So I brought breakfast. Dad did, actually." She gestured over to Wallace who then held the white bag up, Vanna White/Wheel of Fortune style, before placing the bag on the table so everyone could help themselves. He put the big tray of takeout cups of coffee down beside them.

"Aw, that was kind of him. Please be sure to tell him we appreciate it, hon."

Dick's stomach rumbled again and this time he decided to heed its call. He stuck his hand in the bag and pulled out a chocolate-iced cake donut.

"Thanks," he said over the big bite he'd just taken. Waiting until he was done chewing, Dick turned to Veronica and snarked, "donuts from a cop, how original."

"Good point, it is kind of cliché, and I'd hate for you to have to suffer along with the rest of us commoners," Veronica retorted. She took the donut from Dick's hand that was poised in front of his mouth so he could pop the rest of it in.

"Hey," he protested.

"Bad Dick, no donut," Veronica defended, while everyone else laughed.

He wrested back the rest of the donut and popped it in his mouth. Since Mr. Mac and Ryan were resting up back at their house, there was enough coffee from the stash Wallace and Veronica brought for everyone to have a cup.

As the five of them worked through the bag of donuts and drank their coffee, Mrs. Mac briefly recapped Mac's condition, bringing everyone up to speed. When she got to the bit about the coma, Veronica let out a gasp. Logan's head jerked up and his concerned eyes sought Veronica.

Dick mentally shook his head. He just knew the next few days were going to be interminable, spanning years in merely days.

…TBC

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