A/N: Who remembers this story?! So, after taking an unplanned hiatus from this story, and writing all together, I'm baack! And I've remembered how much I love writing. I let some self-doubts get to me, never a good plan! But I am so appreciative of all the PM's, emails, and reviews I got during this break letting me know how much this story is loved, and how much people missed it. I can't say how touched, and how motivating that was, so please accept my "thanks!" I especially want to give a shout out to: cainc3, & Bondopoulos, for encouragement, ideas and of course beta-talents. You ladies rock. Another sounding board and encourager I'd be remiss in not mentioning, is lateVMlover. I hope you all enjoy this update, and there will be more to come. Promise! I hope you enjoy and if you have the chance to let me know if you liked it (or not), I'd appreciate it. Now, here's my gift to you (on my birthday no less)! But first, I've included a recap of what came before, since it's been so (too!) long since my last update.
Potty mouth alert is in full effect!
Oh, and I can't forget the obligatory disclaimer-I own nothing, nada, zip in the VM-verse! RT owns it all, I enjoy playing in his sandbox, though. Enjoy!
Recap: After getting hit in the head with a baseball, Mac wakes up back in 2004 but this time, instead of being a Mackenzie, she finds herself living life as Madison Sinclair, as though she'd never been switched at birth at all. She tries to balance her new life as a '09'er with her own intrinsic Mac-ness. Slowly, but deftly, Dick Casablancas charms his way into her life. She becomes friends with Veronica in this dimension, too, merging the '02'ers and '09'ers. Things with Dick aren't all sunshine and roses though, she told him about Cassidy (using her unique lens into the "future" to try to save her classmates), he's understandably shocked by the truth about his screwed up little brother. They have a fight.
At the same time Mac is in 2004/2005 sampling life as Madison, she is also tethered to the present timeline of 2009 as Cindy Mackenzie, in a medically induced coma. All her friends and family gather in the waiting room as a week drags by, living in their own purgatory hell clinging to the tentative hope that they will get some positive news soon. Logan and Veronica try (not very successfully) to fight the ever-present attraction between them and Dick gets a bit jealous and he's not fully-ready to admit to himself how much he needs Mac in his life despite their unlabeled "pseudo" friendship.
Back in the 2005 dimension, an explosion rocks Neptune High and Mac is caught in that nether world between her past and her 'real life,' at the same time her team of doctors in the present time are weaning the medication to lift her out of the coma. Unfortunately, as Mac starts to regain consciousness back in her real timeline (2009), there's a setback that leaves her clinging to life. And that's where this chapter picks up...
Chapter 22—A Zig with a Zag
***June 13, 2009. ICU Waiting Room Neptune Memorial***
Dick's POV
Dick didn't believe in crystal balls, or foretelling the future, or any of that New Age shit. Step-mommy dearest number three—the one that came before Kendall (AKA trophy # 4)—had tried to sell him on clairvoyance and astral projection and other tenets of the whoo-whoo sciences. He wasn't buying though. However, he went from elation at the prospect that Mac would be returning to them—him—to fear in 3.2 milliseconds, and he couldn't adequately explain why.
There had been a 'code blue' called over the loud speaker five minutes earlier, and while no clue had been given as to who the unlucky recipient of that setback was, he knew, just knew, it was Mac.
Fear was the icy hand that ripped into his heart and squeezed until it was a soupy mass flowing through his veins. He shredded the cardboard hand protector from his empty cup of coffee. The cardboard was an easy victim.
Dick's feeling of doom was affirmed when two of the members of the doc-squad pushed through the double doors that led to purgatory and sought out Mr. Mac and Ryan. Natalie was right on their heels, her despair tangible.
His glance slid to the clock across the room. It was 2:27 p.m. He pulled his gaze right back to Mrs. Mac and her entourage.
The words Coding…blood clot…OR reached him, vying with snatches of Ronnie's undisguised elation at the prospect of Mac's return.
Her own crystal ball must have been in the shop.
The memo arrived shortly after though, as Sam's voice crept up louder and louder in accordance to his mounting fear. Underscoring perfectly how the same circumstance affected everyone differently, Dick observed that the exact opposite had happened with Mrs. Mac. She'd gone mute, and she had her husband's hand in a death grip.
Dick didn't bother hiding the fact he was spying on them. He gathered up the now-confetti'ed remains of the cardboard and deposited them into the coffee cup, taking it with him as he changed chairs to get closer to the conference. As he listened to all the medical jargon he didn't fully comprehend, he absently shook the cup, just to have something to occupy his hands.
Veronica—now fully clued in that something was wrong—joined him in the intel-gathering mission. She sank her talons into his sore arm, a causality of his earlier surf spill, but he didn't really pay any heed. Logan sat down next to Veronica and she switched her focus to white-knuckle gripping lover-boy's hand instead.
Dick looked around for Wallace before remembering that he'd gone out to get a couple pizzas from Cho's to fuel the vigil they had been keeping in the waiting room. Nobody had wanted to leave the waiting area to go down to the café for lunch, so they'd elected Wallace as their go-for instead. Dick figured the dude would be back anytime now, but he briefly wondered if someone should text Wallace to let him know there'd been a setback with Mackie. He dismissed that thought quickly though; that news was better delivered—and received—face to face.
Setback?!
What a douchey word that was. He categorized that as stuffy businessman lingo. His dad used to toss it around when a mark would get suspicious about a prospectus and start asking a lot of questions. The Phoenix deal was just a setback, getting sent to the slammer was just another setback, having two sons—one of which was a "sissy" (direct quote)—and a zillion gold-digging wives were just setbacks in a life full of fucking setbacks.
This was way more than just a setback. Whatever it was that had set her doctors and parents in full panic mode. This was a setback of the life-and-death variety. More important, it was Mackie's life or death. Proof positive, to his way of thinking, that the idea of karma was nothing more than a lie- something made up to keep kids towing the line. If there was a grain of truth to that philosophy, he'd be the one with the clot, and Mac would be busy stealing government secrets or some other hacker shit like that. Or, maybe, in an alternate universe, she'd be sitting in the worn down chair shredding the cardboard liner, trying to act like she wasn't worried about his worthless, pathetic little life.
Leaning forward to place the battered cup on the coffee table in front of him, he then rubbed his sweaty palms over his khaki shorts. Waiting was getting harder and harder as time went on, which he thought was pretty fucking ironic considering he'd always been told practice made perfect.
He'd certainly been getting a lot of practice in the art of waiting the past seven days, but he still was far from perfecting it. It really wasn't something he wanted to perfect, truth be told.
Dick watched as the doc-squad turned back around, exiting the waiting room in tandem. Mrs. Mac just swayed back, collapsing into the chair that fortunately was right behind her. She shook off the arm Mr. Mac placed around her shoulders. She continued her breakdown with abandon. It was seven days in the making. He felt like joining her, but held back…barely.
Veronica ignored the not-at-all subtle stay away signals Mrs. Mac was sending, and risked life and limb to lend some comfort, and , Dick suspected, take some comfort from her, as well.
That was the scene Wallace walked into.
He set the pizzas onto one of the end tables with a flourish, and then noticed that the elation everyone had been feeling when he'd left to pick up lunch was gone. The dude had even less of a poker face than Mackie. Dick watched him try on several expressions ranging from happiness, to confusion, before finally landing on wide-eyed fear.
The smell of the pizzas leaked from their cardboard boxes and drifted over to where Dick was still rooted. He tried not to gag at the cloying odor. It was funny. Forty minutes ago, when that errand was first conceived of, his stomach was rumbly with hunger. Now though, dread sat firm, leaving little real estate for anything else.
The boxes sat untouched. Everyone else had apparently lost their appetite, too. It seemed wrong somehow, giving into a base need like hunger as Mac once again lay on a table, fighting for her very survival.
Dick watched as Mr. Mac severed himself from his wife's side and walked over to them, moving slowly like every movement he made physically hurt. The older man stuttered to a stop in front of him and Ronnie, taking a deep breath. Mr. Mac then haltingly explained what was going on, using much the same lingo Dick had caught a snatch here or there of not three minutes before when the doc-squad was explaining how dire the situation really was.
Wallace joined in the conversation, asking questions, clarifying points, showing his roots as a good student-engineer type, IE the kind that always wore that invisible inked kick me sign, or staying true to the dude's illustrious first day at Neptune High, tape me to a flagpole sign. Under normal circumstances, whatever the hell those were, Dick's default reaction would have been to lean over and whisper 'ass kiss', but sitting in this purgatory he was finding himself appreciating that particular skill set.
Wallace's medical jargon-to-Geek translations were helping fill in some gaps as to what was happening in the OR now. Unfortunately, it was the exact opposite of comforting, but maybe that wasn't an entirely bad thing. False hope was the biggest mindfuck of all. He'd lost track of how many times life had taught him that. 503 was a conservative estimate.
What if he lost Mac before he could ever tell her how she helped him through the guilt of being a shit brother to Cass more than anyone else combined just by being her snarky self?
She made him feel normal, like his simultaneous grief for, and hatred toward, Cass was okay. It wasn't even so much that they'd had those soul-searching conversations, just little confessions here and there snuck in between friendly teasing between two 'pseudo' friends.. She knew that zip code very well herself. He'd watched as she'd struggled more than she would ever admit between grieving for her first boyfriend, the one who had died, and hating the monster that hurt her friends and then killed himself rather than pay for his crimes.
The circumstances were different, of course, Cassidy was his brother, not a High School relationship. However, in the grand scheme of things, the underlying feelings he left behind in them both weren't different at all. They were in an exclusive club, and they couldn't afford to lose a member.
What if she was never the same again? What if she was…never again…He refused to even think about the word itself, nor the meaning behind it, which he knew way too fucking well.
What if the only kiss they ever shared was the peck he'd given her while she was in a coma, fighting between two worlds? He fought the urge to punch a hole in the wall of purgatory; he needed the physical pain to squash out the much more throbbing mental pain. Dick touched his bruised shoulder, hoping it would ground him.
Mr. Mac stopped mid-sentence on his third attempt to explain what else was likely happening in the OR as they prepped Mac. His engines shut down and he collapsed into the chair on the other side of his deflated, still-sobbing wife. Veronica reached over lover boy to briefly pat the older man's shoulder.
Dick was pretty sure the breakdowns were contagious. A person could only spend so much time in the Funhouse maze of emotion for so long—fear, dread, hope, despair, guilt, lather, rinse, repeat—before it all caught up and choked you. He was pretty sure he passed his point seven days ago.
He glanced up on the clock on the wall; it was 2:37.
It was only 2:37.
***************Operating Room #315 Neptune Memorial Hospital*********************
Mac's POV:
Once again Mac was straddling two worlds, two dimensions, two time lines, two lives. It was hot, and it was cold simultaneously—both channels of the old radio melded together in one cohesive mass.
She felt like she was enveloped in fog, a gray misty shroud surrounding her. She could hear sounds leaking through but couldn't see a thing.
Beeps from machines, far-off voices asking for clamps, retractors, forceps, and other scary sounding implements filtered in to her consciousness. She felt as though she were drowning—as though she were underwater as life continued on around her, without her.
The game of tug of war continued…
Her pain-filled moans didn't quite succeed in overtaking the cacophony of buzzing chainsaws leaking through Mac's consciousness. She tried to open her eyes but wasn't successful. Mac felt herself being lifted up. She heard a masculine voice giving her name as Madison. It was Dick, a voice she knew well, from this lifetime and her original life too.
Instinctively she knew she was straddling two dimensions, like that damn radio caught between two channels, with neither one coming in completely.
Forceps, a voice ordered, in a clipped tone.
Madison, stay and fight, don't leave me.
Ten CC's of epinephrine.
I need you here; I know you're in pain, but I…I need you. The voice was broken.
Fight damnit, fight! We're losing her doctor. She's flatling.
Madison? Madison?! Come on damnit! You're a fucking paramedic, can't you do…
She was nowhere at all.
She was everywhere all at once.
There was nothing guiding her, no divine voices, or even the grim reaper, but Mac knew she was at the crossroads; a choice had to be made…
She was coming home.
The only question that remained was which home?
****************3rd Floor Waiting Room, Neptune Memorial Hospital*********
Dick's POV
It didn't seem possible, but it was less than three minutes since the last time he looked over at the clock.
2:40.
A lifetime lived in those mere 180 seconds. He refused to allow airtime for the flipside of that statement. It was a concept he refused to make headspace for.
How the hell long did it take to jam open a vein and shove medicine in there to dissolve the fucking clot that was conspiring to take away the only truly good person ever spawned from the Hellmouth of Neptune?
Jam open a vein and shove in the medicine. It sounded so simple, the "life-saving procedure" the doc-squad was performing, but it was anything but. Dick was pretty certain he got a couple things wrong in translation, however, that was what it sounded like to his medical-jargon-virginal ears. Of course, his simpleton explanation also lacked the requisite pompous asshole diction. It was only the cliff noted version of what was happening to Mackie, but at least he had something to focus on as he sat on his useless butt, wearing down that stupid blue chair he was sick as hell of sitting in.
Veronica rose from her chair and made her way to the pizza buffet. She opened one of the boxes and grabbed one of the generous slices. She looked over in Dick's general direction, shrugged, and then explained she was "stress eating" before taking the first bite.
"I didn't say a word, Mars."
"You're thinking it."
"Thinking what?" Dick asked, feigning innocence, adding a hand gesture to really sell it.
"Thinking 'leave it to Veronica to be the first one to tuck into the food'," she explained in a deep voice supposedly trying—and failing—to sound like a dude.
"Last I checked, thinking isn't illegal, though talking in second person probably should be. Dick has always found that annoying."
"Touché!" Veronica acquiesced. "Also, I'm impressed that you know your point-of-views."
"It wasn't all nap time in Mrs. Murphy's English class."
Her expression belied her disbelief in that statement. Dick was discovering that sparring with Ronnie was a pretty good way to keep his mind from churning over the endless loop of nightmare scenarios; it was a more than adequate distraction.
It was important to have a hobby.
Veronica started a trend by being the first one to give into the temptation of stress-eating; Wallace was the next one to fill up his plate with the now-tepid pie. Dick watched but still wasn't up to partaking himself. The Macs didn't even look up from their displays of grief. He still couldn't figure how they kept it together for as long as they had. He'd made a royal fuckup of his life for several years after Cassidy died. He'd done some ugly crying on Logan's shoulder more than a few times. Never once did the dude revoke his Man Card. That right there met his definition of friendship.
A noise at the entryway of the waiting room—purgatory—fractured his attention away from his rumination on loss and grief. A nurse, or so he presumed, dressed in scrubs with a mask tied around her neck, was looking around.
"Family of Cindy Mackenzie?" she inquired in a loud, clear voice.
Veronica raised her hand as if she were in class. The Macs hadn't surfaced from their tears enough to notice life going on around them.
As the nurse threaded her way through the maze of chairs and tables, Dick studied her for a hint about the news she carried. He couldn't get a read on her either way; it was probably taught on day three of Nursing 101-how not to broadcast how you were feeling on your face. Mackie would flunk that course. Shit, he probably would too.
Ryan had evidently noticed something was happening, because out of the corner of his periphery, Dick watched him clue his parents into the fact that there was finally news on his sister.
The Macs stood up, in tandem, as though they'd practiced that parlor trick, and the rest of Team Mac followed suit. Dick listened, but kept his eyes focused on the nurse-and no one else. He couldn't bear to see anyone else's pain, his was too all consuming.
The nurse smiled tentatively, but it didn't reach her eyes.
Was that a bad sign? It was, wasn't it? She was going to say she was sorry but there was nothing they could do. Dick worked a spot on the carpet with his shoe like he was digging for gold. As if he concentrated hard enough on wearing out that section of carpet, he could put off hearing bad news. It was a five year-old mentality; he remembered clapping his hands over his ears so he couldn't hear the nanny tell him 'no more brownies.' After all, it didn't count if you didn't hear it.
The nurse licked her lips and then cleared her throat.
Ronnie grabbed his hand, clawing deep. Dick had to look down for a second to check for blood. He noticed the other talon was sinking into Logan. The dude was probably losing circulation.
Dick tore his gaze from the lovers and his eyes briefly landed on the clock.
It was 2:47 p.m. They'd lived hours in the span of only twenty minutes
"She's stable now, but…"
He looked up at the nurse but didn't hear anything beyond the fact that Mac was alive. He watched her lips move, but nothing made any sense. Truthfully, it didn't need to.
Mac was coming home!
TBD…
*****Did you love it? Did you like it? M'eh?! I'd love it if you'd let me know your thoughts on it in that big old empty box. Reviews are always appreciated! Thank you for reading!