A/N: Here you go, an overdue update! Thank you so much for all the reviews-I read them all (several times!), and thank you so much for taking your time to do so. Also, thank you for all the favorites & follows, and for reading it, of course! So glad the consensus is overwhelming positive, it motivates me, in a good way. (As does all the reviewage!) Thank you so much to my wonderful, ever patient beta-cainc3! This title is from another Lord song, "Team."

Obligatory disclaimer: Guess what? That's right, I still don't own anything in the VM 'verse, but I love playing in it. I don't own the other pop-culturey stuff mentioned in here, either. Bummer! Enjoy...

Chapter 11—The Comatose Don't Dance & Tell

Dick's POV

June 7th, 2009

Dick found a new hobby on day two of his waiting room camp out—watching the Logan/Veronica dance begin again. It was like watching a tennis game, or maybe hockey. The back and forth action—in verbal form of barbs and jabs—went back and forth, punctuated by stilted small talk and more about the fucking weather pattern of Palo Alto.

The Technicolor sharpness of Logan and Veronica's snipes had dulled a bit though in the two years since she'd left Neptune and the sadness that had incited their reunion further grayed the edges. Still, he gave them points for giving it the old college try anyway.

A crick was forming in his neck, though the fact he was still sitting in those hard-assed blue chairs in the ICU waiting room wasn't helping the cause.

The only thing missing was a wooden post to etch the two "I's" in Roman Numerals to truly capture day two of his sentence. True, he was prisoner of choice; he wasn't going any-fucking-where until Mac was awake and telling him where he could go. Hell was her preferred destination where he was concerned; however, the twinkle in her blue eyes and the adorable dimple that showed when she gifted him with her signature half-smile took the sting out of her words.

Star date Captain's Log that would be a fitting marker for the passage of time, one that Mac would, no doubt, appreciate. Cassidy would've been able to tutor him on the finer points of nerdism and Star Date tracking, however, if Cassidy had been around to provide those services things in this reality would be very different. There wouldn't be room in her life for two Casablancas brothers, he was certain of that. Fuck! Dick shut down that thought train really quick, shoving it into the station and throwing the key away.

Dick reached into the bag of donuts on the side table next to him. He'd stationed himself strategically. Nat, he'd noticed, was still nibbling on her first, a lot more lady-like than her daughter. Though he imagined the lack of appetite was more stress induced than concern for her waistline.

He took a big bite of donut, letting the sugary goodness rain down on the floor below.

"Are you planning on saving any for the rest of us?"

Ronnie's voice cut into his ruminations. He finished chewing before explaining "It's a free country, the bag is right there; I'm not the donut guard. No one else is eating them. As Mac says waste is wrong." Dick rejoined. Then, to prove his point, he stuffed the rest of it in his mouth.

The smirk Veronica was wearing went soft at the mention of her friend. "She did say that," she affirmed, her voice low and husky. Her eyes got wide as she mentally rewound the tape on what she just said. "Does," she amended, looking around as though she were afraid that Mrs. Mac might hear her show of pessimism. "She does say that a lot."

Dick watched Logan reach over and pat Veronica on her back reassuringly. He also noticed her barely visible flinch and didn't try to hold back his sigh.

"Where's a remote control for life when you need it?" Dick bit out. "I've watched reruns of this show and I'd like to see some original programming." The only one who seemed to be paying attention though was Wallace who didn't try to hide his annoyance. "Oh come on, you can't tell me you aren't thinking the exact same thing."

Wallace scowled and rolled his eyes, but, to Dick's way of thinking, it wasn't denial, per se. Veronica, evidently, heard him after all because she let her middle finger do the speaking for her.

Dick drained the rest of his coffee and set the empty cup next to the bag of donuts on the table. He looked over to see if Ronnie was still guard-dogging the bag. Her focus was back on Logan. Wallace was now engaged in conversation with Mrs. Mac. No one was paying any attention to him.

Not enthralled with his front row seat to Logan and Veronica's flirting and feeling the need to just get up and move, Dick decided to pay a visit to the lobby coffee kiosk. He took everyone's drink orders and then mentally filed them away.

Downstairs, after ordering and paying for the large order, Dick was standing there just waiting for the barista to make the drinks. A couple minutes later he thought he heard his name and turned around to see Sam and Ryan heading towards him. He waved in acknowledgment.

Sam whispered something in his son's ear then headed to the lobby gift shop while Ryan joined him at the cart.

"Hi," Dick greeted him briefly. "Did you or Mr. Mac want anything?"

Ryan muttered something about black coffee and hot chocolate, and then repeated the order louder to the male barista with a punk '80's hairstyle. Dick dug into his wallet for a few bucks to pay for those beverages, too.

As they stood there waiting together in companionable silence, Dick found himself studying Ryan, he was a skinny boy version of his mom really, with no trace of Mac except the twin smirks they both tended to wear. Upon closer inspection though, he noticed bruising around the kid's eye. Dick did a double take. "Geez, what the hell is with that shiner, Mike Tyson?"

"I went to talk to the guy that hit the ball into the stands."

"Talk?" Dick asked incredulously. "So, how did that conversation go for you?"

"I think the answer to that one is pretty obvious."

"No shit! I think you just wanted to steal your sister's nickname."

"What?"

"Scrappy Doo," Dick grinned. "I always liked that little dog-dude almost as much as his Uncle Scooby."

"What about Daphne?" Ryan asked.

"She's hot, honestly though, Velma is starting to grow on me even more," Dick confessed.

Ryan just snickered, like Dick was revealing some deep dark secret, instead of just talking about which members of the Scooby gang were hot.

Mac would be making fun of them, for sure, for comparing the sexy factor of cartoon characters. Some people had no imagination.

"So, was your dad mad?" Dick asked, a couple minutes later.

"Not really. He gave me a mini-lecture, but it was half-assed, at best."

"What about your mom?"

"She won't notice," Ryan said it softly, it sounded kind of sad. "Mom is a bit distracted now."

"Bullshit. Mrs. Mac will notice right away. I bet you."

"Yeah?" That had his attention.

"Yeah, name your terms."

"$500."

"You have $500 sitting around in your piggy bank?" Dick knew he'd be in deep trouble with Mackie if she ever found out he'd extorted that much money from her brother. He was certain extortion would be the right term, too.

"No, but you do," Ryan said.

"What if you lose? The first rule of gambling is to never, ever wager more than you can afford to lose."

"Okay, well if we're talking rules, the number one rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. So the fuck what?"

The kid had a mouth on him, yet another reason he liked him, but he corrected him anyway, that whole do as I say shit. "Frak."

Ryan just smirked at him, but didn't backtrack. "If I lose, then I'll give you my X-Men #1."

"Where the hell did you get that?"

"I have my sources." It was said smugly.

"Mac," Dick said. It wasn't a question. The interesting part of that story would be how she got the money to pay for it. Something creative and borderline illegal, Dick was sure. He'd not forgotten Logan's revelation, at the dinner the previous night, that she'd been the one who sold the purity test online. Fuck, it was only last night! It felt eons longer than that. He figured that was how time ran in purgatory.

"It's old, kind of beat up. Cindy keeps it in her room. I'm sure it's worth about $500," Ryan explained, in the spirit of self-disclosure. "Maybe even a little bit more than that."

Terms of the wager were interrupted, however, by the Adam Ant look-a-like barista unceremoniously announcing their order and not being very congenial as he placed the carry-all containers filled with take-away cups of hot coffee and Ryan's cocoa on the counter. Dick grabbed one of the carriers, while Ryan took the other one. They headed toward the bank of elevators.

Mr. Mac came out of the gift shop, empty-handed except for a small plastic bag. For a big man, he proved he could move fast. It didn't take him long to catch up to them.

"A gift for the Mrs.," Mr. Mac explained, showing them a blinged-out black satin sleep mask, with fake-ass red and green "jewels" all over. Dick couldn't look directly at the thing, it was blinding.

"I don't know how she's getting any sleep in that…" Mr. Mac paused, and took a deep breath before continuing, "depressing hospital room. I'm going to get her to go home for a couple hours this afternoon."

"I wouldn't if I were you, dad," Ryan said. "It's not going to end well for you. She'll go all mama bear on you."

Dick reached over and punched the button for the 3rd floor. With a ding, the doors opened right away.

Back in the waiting room, Dick set down the carrier he was holding, removing his own cup of strong black coffee. He let Ryan earn his keep passing out everyone else's drinks. Scanning the room, he noticed the pixy spy was noticeably absent. Dick took a seat in the same chair he'd staked out since Mac had become a resident of the ICU. He felt like he owned it now, squatters rights and all that shit.

"Ronnie defect again?"

From his vantage point across the aisle, Dick watched Wallace sit up straight and glare at him. He bit back a grin, obviously he'd hit a nerve. Good thing her bodyguard wasn't packing heat, at this rate he'd be occupying a bed next to Mackie within the day. Wallace's lack of the warm and fuzzies for him was mostly due to his known Logan association more than anything else. Personally, he and Ronnie's shadow didn't have any issues, of their own at least.

"Visiting hours just started, so Nat brought her back to see Mac," Wallace explained. Jackass was said under his breath, but Dick heard it perfectly.

This time he didn't bite back the grin."I'm pretty sure that will be inscribed on my tombstone."

"I'll pay for it myself," Logan said, joining the conversation. His pinched expression broadcasting that he wasn't a fan of Dick's question either.

"What? It's a legit concern. She's got a history of leaving town in the middle of the night."

Ryan staked out the same chair he'd poached the day before, grabbed yet another issue of Wired and sipped on his hot chocolate, seeming to tune out his sister's friends. Dick watched as Mr. Mac left the waiting room, taking his coffee and one for Mrs. Mac, too.

Logan just sat there tapping that SOS again on his coffee cup, with a lost, beaten puppy expression on his face, not even fighting against the current as he fell deeper and deeper down the Veronica shaped rabbit hole. There was no saving him now; the dude was a goner, had been since he and Ronnie locked eyes in the elevator that morning.

The sudden longing for Mac's company caught him by surprise. He just wanted to be around someone else who was intimately acquainted with the mutual combustion that was left smoldering when those two inevitably got back together. They could cuddle together in a foxhole as the shrapnel rained down.

Dick swore he could tell the exact second Veronica walked back into the room by the 10 degree temperature drop. It wasn't in an ice queen type of way, but more in the way that she vampired energy out of a room, leaving only shell behind. She seemed to have aged in the fifteen minutes or so since he'd left for the coffee run. She had circles under her eyes, mascara tracks down her cheeks; her posture drooped, like a slow leak.

Logan looked up, took in her expression, and wordlessly handed his coffee cup over to Dick to put on the side table. He stood up, and made his way around the rows of chairs to get to Veronica. She had stopped mid-trek and was wiping a tear that had leaked out of the side of her eye. Dick didn't avert his eyes or anything as Logan wrapped his arms around her, and she flooded his shirt from her crying. He could hear the rise and fall of Logan's voice as he talked into her hair, but he didn't know what was said. He could imagine it though.

It wasn't a romantic hug, but that's what made it that way, that intimacy of comforting.

It didn't take long to see the inevitable shift come over Veronica, it came in stages. First she held herself a little higher, less hunched inward. Then she sniffed and removed one arm from around Logan so she could wipe an eye. Finally, she pulled away. It looked like Logan deflated at that point, it was contagious.

Veronica noticed Dick watching as she walked back to the bank of chairs their group had taken over. "What?" She inquired, her tone sharp. She sat down two seats away from Dick, Logan sat between them.

There's a wide assortment of supply closets to choose from was on the tip of Dick's tongue. It begged for release, that snarky banter that defined them. He didn't say it. Instead, he asked "How's she holding up?" It was soft, timid, not a natural state for him.

"Not good," Veronica said. She took a deep breath, perhaps to plan out what to say next. "I'm not used to seeing her still and with tubes sticking out everywhere, she looks like…like…Hell, I don't know what."

"My first thought when I saw her was that she looked E.T." Dick confessed, surprised he was telling her that. "All those wires in weird places, it was scary."

She looked over at him, not exactly agreeing but not arguing either. Then she just shrugged one shoulder. Anytime she didn't get her taser out he considered that a win.

Wallace had his phone out and was playing on it-probably Words with Friends or some time-suck like that. He stared intently at the screen, and then started typing really fast.

"Hey, Vee," Wallace asked a few minutes later. He looked up as he said it. "Did anyone call Parker?"

"Parker?" Veronica asked in a confused tone as though she didn't recognize the name.

"Parker? I hardly know her," came out of his mouth before he could stop it, not that he really wanted to though. Habit.

Ignoring Dick, Veronica admitted that as far as she knew no one had called Parker yet.

"I just got a text from Piz; it was an invite to Portland. He and Parker are renting a place together for the summer while they both have internships."

"So he wrangled up some of that Oregon Mountain man charm of his and got her back to Brigadoon," Veronica quipped. "Do you want me to call Parker and tell her what's going on?" It was obvious by her facial expression that this chore may be ranked above dental surgery, but well below being strapped to an ant hill naked.

Dick could tell by the relieved expression on Wallace's face that he was only too happy to give her that job. "That would be great, Superfly. Thanks. I'll get her cell number from Piz."

As Wallace wrote Piz back, Dick listened to Logan filling Veronica in on the gaps of the whole Piz/Parker relationship thing. She was evidently less in the loop than he'd thought, but then again Mackie was not exactly a hard-core gossip chick. She was more the fly under the radar type.

Evidently, from what Logan was explaining, Piz and Parker had formed a Ronnie-survivors group, of the informal sort, sophomore year, after she'd left Hearst, Neptune and them in the rear view mirror. Their sponsor/ pseudo-friendship morphed, like they had a tendency to do, and they started making out and shit. Then the sponsor with benefits thing grew into love and now some summertime shacking up. Dick was certain the end result would be Piz in the baby carriage.

When Wallace had secured the digits, he passed it along to Veronica. She took a deep breath and then started dialing the phone. Her fingers were crossed, probably hoping to get Parker's voicemail. That wish didn't come true.

"Hi Parker, it's Veronica," she said, her nose wrinkling. She tapped the fingers of the hand not holding her cell against the arm of the chair. "It has been awhile," she agreed to whatever Parker had said. "Right." She continued to tap the fingers. "Well, actually Mac is the reason for my call."

Veronica squinched her eyes shut, presumably in preparation of the news she was about to share. Logan grabbed her hand and squeezed.

"We're at Neptune Memorial right now; she's in a coma after a baseball hit her yesterday morning." It was said in one big mass of a run-on sentence. Dick wasn't certain she took any breaths between words.

Parker's shriek and crying transmitted the miles clearly.

With one more person added to the ever-growing list of long distance well-wishers, Veronica quickly ended the call.

"Well, another day ruined," Veronica muttered when she had enough reign on her own emotions.

"You do know how to spread the sunshine, Mars." Dick agreed.

"I don't see you joining the phone tree, Casablancas," she retorted.

"Everybody I know who would actually, you know, give a shit, is already here showing they give a shit," Dick explained slowly, like talking to a child, despite the liberal use of less than child-appropriate language.

Veronica just harrumphed, but her already grief- softened look got even softer, so it was just a little firmer than a melty puddle of goo. He saw the exact second Veronica put two and two together and came up with the anniversary of Cassidy's death.

Being besties with Mac, and with her own part in the tragic affair of course, she had to have some awareness of the calendar, but the accident crowded things out for everyone so there was precious, little real estate for those older events that still curdled around the edges but were still raw in the center.

Logan was gently prodding Veronica for more details when the older Macs came back into the room. There was a foreign look to Mrs. Mac; it seemed to hold a little hope. Before Dick could think positive though—a concept he himself wasn't acquainted with these days—she started speaking.

"They're running some tests now; it has been exactly 24 hours since the accident. She's had three courses of the drugs so far, the hope is that the swelling has gone down, at least a little bit since the baseline test in the ER. She's nowhere near ready to be awakened, but…"

"It's a good," Sam started to take over the status update, but he choked up.

"It's a good test to see if it will be the miracle my baby," Nat continued. She looked over at her husband when she said baby. He grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Our baby," she corrected, "needs to come back to all of us."

The older Macs flopped down in two empty chairs by Wallace, across the narrow aisle from where everyone else was sitting.

Dick had all but forgotten his bet with Ryan when Mrs. Mac loudly exclaimed, "Ryan, what the hell is that around your eye?"

"Um, a bruise?" It was said like a question.

"How did it get there?"

"By a fist," Ryan replied, impressively matter-of-fact.

"Who did the fist belong to?"

"Roger."

"Why did Roger's fist connect with your eye?"

Mr. Mac was no help in the interrogation, though Dick was certain he was privy to more details than Mrs. Mac was getting. She was sounding more and more pissed with each question she asked.

"My fist connected with Roger's nose."

"First?"

"Yes."

"Ryan Samuel Mackenzie, we raised you better than that."

"No, you raised me to fight for the ones I love, and also for those that don't have a voice. Cindy fits both of those categories now." Ryan gripped the arm rests tightly, white knuckled.

Mrs. Mac "got it" just then. Dick watched her jaw drop; he'd have thought it was hinged on there. "So, Roger was the guy who…?" She finally asked, letting her voice trail off at the end.

"Yup," Ryan confirmed.

She just sagged, all anger blown out along with her deep sigh.

"So, little dude," Dick asked since the Macs had resolved that bit of conflict, and he was the obvious victor, "is this a bad time to remind you of our little bet?"

"Tomorrow," Ryan said, making a slicing motion against his throat.

Dick read his signal clearly and nodded.

Quietness spread out through the group for a couple minutes. Ryan went back to his Wired magazine binge, Dick figured, at this point, the little dude could probably start his own tech company by now, especially if Mackie's dominant hacker gene was recessive in him. Or something like that, how the hell was he supposed to retain all that science shit. The kid was flipping pages so fast; Dick was surprised they didn't rip. Logan had picked up his cup of now-cold coffee and was in the process of shredding the paper sleeve that was supposed to protect the drinker from finger burns. Veronica was fiddling with her phone, it was dizzying watching her flip it every-which-fucking-way. He wanted to grab it out of her hands, but he valued his own limbs too much to attempt that.

Suddenly he heard a low grumbly noise, and he wasn't the only one. It broke the frakking sound barrier.

"What the hell was that? Are you giving birth to an alien baby? Sounds like something is about rip through your stomach," Logan teased.

"I'm a little hungry," Veronica admitted.

"Your stomach is still a black hole, I see," Dick teased. "Some things never change."

It was coming up on noon and the donuts and coffee weren't the most filling of breakfast foods. They all decided to go to the cafeteria on the first floor except for the Mac's, who weren't really hungry. Mrs. Mac almost fell asleep a couple times; Dick figured Sam would force her out the door to go home for a nap. He felt sorry for the dude, by his calculations it wouldn't end pretty.

All five of them, including Ryan, picked up their personal belongings and made their way to the elevator. They punched the down button and waited.

After about a minute, they heard a ding and the doors yawned open. Before they had a chance to board, a teenage girl with long black hair and blue scrubs got out. She looked vaguely familiar to Dick, but he couldn't place her name. The scrubs kind of threw him, hell; maybe she was a female, Neptunian Doogie Howser, teen doctor brainiac type.

He wasn't the only one that thought that girl looked familiar, he recognized Ronnie's intent PI stare. She seemed to be coming up with some convoluted conclusion to some case that probably existed only in her mind anyway. He wondered where she kept her spy glass these days, maybe in her imaginary trench coat. He watched her track, and catalog, the girl's movements as she walked quickly down the hallway towards the ICU.

They piled into the elevator car. It was a short ride to the first floor.

Once at the cafeteria the group separated to make their food selections and pay. With all that minutiae out of the way, they reconvened at the same table, by the window, they'd sat at the day before. They might as well have it reserved.

Veronica and Logan were already sitting side by side by the time Dick came back with a chicken stir fry on his tray. He slammed it down hard; to make sure they knew he was there. Did their tunnel vision allow them to even notice outsiders?

"I'm Dick; I'll be your chaperone. Please keep your hands where I can see them at all times," he snarked as he sat down.

"Don't get comfortable, we're putting you at the kiddy table over there." Veronica rejoined, pointing to an empty table across the way. "You and Ryan can talk video games while the adults have a serious conversation."

"Cute," Dick smirked.

"Yes, she is," Logan agreed.

"Don't get me started on you, dude," Dick began.

"No worries there, I wouldn't dream of it" Wallace said, as he put his tray on the table and pulled up a chair. He'd chosen chicken parmesan, which Dick thought smelled even better than it looked. "You brought your taser, right Vee? Then we can make sure Dick doesn't get started—ever."

"Sadly, no, it's against hospital policy, something about no weapons," Veronica snapped her fingers in an oh darn gesture.

"Plus the charge could interfere with life-saving equipment." Dick helpfully supplied. It sounded right, too bad Mackie wasn't there to back him up, or more likely knock his suggestion down.

Ryan was the last to join them at the table. He was the only one still in his teens, and his tray proved that he was still growing. There were two big sub sandwiches, a plate of fries, some chips, an apple, and a brownie. His appetite had definitely rebounded.

Dick smirked and then pointed at the shiny red apple. "Trying to keep doctors away?" He flinched mentally, not a good time or place to say that. Mackie always joked that he had a terminal case of Foot in Mouth disease.

"That's the plan, but it's failing miserably," Ryan tossed back.

"They want you and me to sit over there at the kid's table," Dick recapped. "By they I mean Veronica."

"Actually, I changed my mind," she said. "You can stay Ryan. I'll change the rules so it's by mental age, not chronological."

"Does Stanford offer a major in making up rules as you go along?"

"Not yet, they're having trouble laying the groundwork for the field studies. What about Douchebaggery? Is that on the curriculum now at Hearst? You'd graduate summa cum laude."

"Going for my Doctorate," Dick said with faux-pride. He watched with fascination as she tucked into her double cheeseburger and fries. Logan once again proved his honorary girl status by eating a salad, granted it was a big entrée salad with lots of meat, but still, it had the primary fault of being green.

Conversation rambled in fits and starts, between bites of food. Logan tried to get Veronica to open up about Stanford, but she kept bringing it back around to Mac. On one level he understood that, she was the underlying current as to why they were all here in the first place, but he also needed to focus on something that wasn't the all-in fucking dread and worry that had been stalking him for the past 24 hours. He had to admit, Ronnie-sparring was a decent distraction. He wouldn't give her kudos for that though. She didn't need more encouraging, not that Logan got that effing-memo. He never would.

Maybe Wallace got tired of Dick and Veronica sniping, or maybe he was feeling conversationally left out, whatever his motive, he started in on a story about a project Mac had assisted him with the previous semester, and how pissy she got at the grade he ended up with.

"The next day, I went to class, the prof handed back the report part of the assignment and magically my C+ had morphed into an A- overnight."

They all laughed.

"How did Mac get roped into that in the first place?" Veronica inquired.

"I asked her," Wallace said, simply. "We're friends."

She seemed confused.

"I told you that. We hang out together and everything," Wallace continued. "I always liked Mac, you know that, we got to be buddies through you, but then our link moved, and instead of going separate ways, we actually started hanging out more. She's a great person to have on your side."

"The world didn't stop just because you left," Logan added. His tone was soft, gentle, despite the potential for harshness those words held. "We all moved on and became friends, real friends."

"Even Dick?"

"Especially Dick," Logan started to say.

"I guess I didn't think Neptune would be the exact same way I left it, but I don't know, it seems
like everything changes."

"It does, Ronnie," Dick said. "Is that so bad?"

"Yes. No. Maybe? Can I get back to you?" Veronica said. Then, she was quiet for a couple of long moments. "Depends on the changes, I guess. Look, I, I'll be here for a few days, maybe longer. It depends, on…" She paused and swallowed hard, "yeah, depends on a couple of points."

No one needed a memo to get what she meant there.

Since everyone was done with the business eating, and only crumbs were being pushed around their plates at that point, the group set to work clearing off the table and throwing their garbage out. They made the now very familiar trek back to the elevators. It was starting to be a regular routine, and not of the good variety, either.

With almost equal parts dread and hope, he wondered if the results of Mac's latest batch of tests were back yet. He'd spent the parts of lunch that he wasn't bickering with Veronica trying to push all thoughts of Mackie being poked, prodded and generally tortured with the intent of curing her out of his head. It was mostly an exercise in futility.

They had just stepped out of the elevator onto the drab, utilitarian hallway of the 3rd floor when Dick happened to look over towards the ICU door. He had been thinking of Mac. Shocker!

Mrs. Mac was conferring, outside the double doors of the unit, with a man in a white coat, the doctor he assumed, a woman Dick recognized as the nurse and the same teen girl he'd seen earlier that day.

He was a little surprised when Mrs. Mac spotted them and waved them over. He assumed it was mainly Ryan she was summoning. However, she didn't seem to care when the entire group went over.

She gave the doctor a brief bio of the newcomers—friends and younger brother of Cindy. Short, to the point.

His status update was not nearly as brief. Bottom line was the improvement her scans showed was minimal, but it didn't mean things were hopeless. The doctor was very quick to point out there was still a lot of things going for Cindy.

Dick remembered one of his brainless, bimbo, trophy stepmom's used to yammer on about positive thinking and visualization, new-agey shit like that. He put less than zero faith in it, but in case there was something to it after all, he pictured her big, swollen brain shrinking.

The doctor spoke another couple of minutes recapping the test and explaining other options. Finally he excused himself, leaving just Mrs. Mac, the nurse and the teen Doogie Howser.

He half listened as the nurse, Tara, mentioned in passing that she was permanently assigned to Mac as long as was necessary, at least for 2nd shift. Mrs. Mac seemed to like having one main nurse who was with Mac as long as needed.

"Well, Tara, Lauren, thank you for staying with me while I talked to Dr. Pence again. It helps having people around who know what's going on."

The girl who Mrs. Mac called Lauren spoke first. "I'm just a volunteer; I don't know anything about the procedures. I'm happy to join you though." She laughed gently.

It was then he realized why she looked familiar—she was Lauren Sinclair, Madison's younger sister. She was older looking than the last time he'd seen her. Go figure! Dick had always been surprised by how different the Sinclair sisters were, in looks and personality—night and day shit, literally Lauren always had been the anti-bitch of the pair.

After one last round of 'thank you', the group headed back to the waiting room and those hard-ass chairs that still carried their butt impressions.

–TBC…

***********Reviews are always appreciated! Thank you for reading. Another Mac chapter is next...***************