Title: Under My Skin

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I don't own Coffee Crisp Ice Cream, but if I did, I would be a happier person. If you are sad or need to wallow, buy this ice cream, it's a miracle worker.

Author's Note: ok, it's short. But I got it out. I had to wait until Miller, my new computer was ready. And I've had him for three days, and already I've written three parts of my GG story, and now this one. Miller is an awesome computer. Hope you like it.

I Guess… That's Why they Call It The Blue

Mac woke up to a weird sensation. Her shoulders felt heavier than normal and when she tried to turn she realized why. Dick had thrown his arm around her and he was snuggling her. Dick was a snuggler! Mac tried to extract herself from Dick's embrace without making it obvious. She didn't know why she felt so uncomfortable. She knew that Dick would never hurt her, they had talked about their issues already and she knew he regretted how he treated her. Nothing makes your mistakes more real than finding out your own brother killed your fellow classmates and raped your best friends girlfriend.

His room in the suite was pretty much the same as Logan's (which she saw for a few awkward minutes when she was with Veronica one time) There was a few things around that showed her that there was personal touches. A few pictures, and enough CDs, DVDs and games to entertain the state of Texas.

There was a picture of Dick looking slightly sad in a frame with a picture of his parents and Cassidy. Seeing Cassidy makes her feel slightly panicked, but seeing him so young and scared, it makes her almost feel bad for him. There were pictures of Logan and Dick and then she spied it. A picture of Veronica and herself, smiling in their caps and gowns.

This picture was taken when Dick saw her nothing but the annoying girlfriend of his little brother. He had taunted her with mean names and made it seem like Cassidy was only using her. Now after the fact, maybe Cassidy was using her, but still why would he have a picture of herself and Veronica, when at the time it was taken, he both despised them?

She stared down at her passed out boyfriend, who was snoring contently and she felt the sudden need to disturb that. Like he had disturbed her. So she shoved him and he rolled off the bed. He grunted when he hit the floor hard and she heard a shriek.

'Jesus Mac, what the hell.' Dick yelled and struggled to get up with the blankets tangled around his legs and she just stared at him. Even after being woken up harshly, she still though he was hot. His hair all messy and his eyes a little bloodshot, but still if she let her body do what it wanted, she would be all over him.

Instead she crossed her arms at him and looked at him in the fiercest way she could. 'Explain this.' She said and threw the framed photo at him and he caught it with ease. Of course he was athletic, and not some pale weak girl like she was. 'It's a picture of you and Ronnie… so?''

Mac just continued to star at him. 'Why do you have a picture of Veronica and I?' She asked and Dick put the picture down and made it so it was facing his bed, and he smiled at it and then looked at how pissed Mac was and tried to figure out why she was so mad. 'Did I grope you or something last night?' Mac just picked up a CD jewel case off the floor and threw it at dick and it hit him in the forehead and he howled and rubbed the spot where she hit.

'Geez, Heather, what's your deal?' Dick quipped and went to the mirror and pouted when he saw his forehead turn red. Mac just screamed in frustration and ran out of the suite before Dick could say anything. She bolted and ran to her car and peeled out of the valet parking lot before she could second guess herself. She didn't know why she was so angry at seeing that picture. All she knew was that it made her feel uneasy in her own skin.

She could go home, but then she would have to explain where she was last night. She had merely called her mom and said she was sleeping over at a friends place. She didn't need to tell her mom that the friends were her boyfriend's best friend, now did she? Instead she drove to Veronica's.

Veronica answered the door, and she noticed that she was showered and changed in clean clothes. The dark circles under her eyes were less prominent and she seemed happier. Not as happy as she was when everything was nice and fuzzy with Logan, but getting there. 'Hi, wanna mope together?' Mac asked and Veronica opened the door wider and let her in.

Veronica went straight for the fridge and got out the carton of coffee crisp ice cream and put it on the table. Mac went and got two spoons and they sat together at the table, the only noise was the spoons scrapping the carton.

Veronica looked at her friend, and the grin that had been common place on her friends face since she started whatever it was with Dick was now gone. 'So what did he do?' Veronica asked and Mac shrugged. 'He didn't do anything per se.' Veronica just stared her down and watched as Mac tried to look normal, but was failing at it.

'So what didn't he do then?' Veronica asked and Mac shrugged and put the huge spoonful of ice cream in her mouth, and Veronica watched her friend. When she finally swallowed she looked pale. 'It's really nothing; he just has this picture of us.' Of course Veronica was confused at this and Mac continued on.

'It's this picture of us and it's from before… before Cassidy jumped off the roof, and it's just sitting there like it means nothing. Like he doesn't have a picture of me when he thought I was nothing.' Veronica smiled at hearing that.

Of course Mac misunderstood why Veronica smiled. 'I know you hate him, but why the hell are you smiling?' Mac was getting frustrated. 'No I'm not laughing at him or you. It's just I have gone through this too. Wondering why now you are good enough to date?'

Veronica of course knew how she felt, she had been a pariah according to the school and all of her pervious friends and then Logan snapped his fingers and she wasn't persona non grata anymore. That had to be confusing for any person, especially for Veronica, who had to question everything.

'But do you know what made me get over worrying and wondering?' Veronica said and Mac just shook her head. 'It wasn't what anybody else said to me or to him, every time he walked into a room, he searched for me, not for some other person. He wanted me to be there, and that was enough for me. It grows Mac, and you forget why it bothered you before.'

Veronica smiled and she looked at the door, and Mac looked behind her at the door. No one knocked and there was nothing there. 'You ok there Veronica?' Mac asked and Veronica just smiled. 'It will be. Now go and make up with my pal Dickie.'

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dick and Logan sat side by side on the couch, each with a bottle of JD in their hands. 'Women.' Dick would say and Logan would snort and sneer and then take a big swig. After a few minutes of drunken silence, Logan's turn came up. 'Women.' Logan said with bitterness and whiskey making his voice sour.

'you know I bet Mac is out there thanking god that she got rid of me for a reason I will not understand. I was a gentleman. Hell, I could have groped her and she wouldn't have known, but did I? No!' Dick shouted and then took another swig. Logan looked at his friend, and pitied him.

'Veronica likes to play these mind games. You are nice and dandy when you are saving her ass, but the minute you show some irrational behavior what does she do? Say you are dangerous and that she couldn't love you. Veronica likes to play with my mind. Shit!' Logan yells and feels the need to throw something, but instead he just sits still and tries to figure how what to do to make his frustration disappear.

'Who gets mad at a picture? Who throws a CD.? I mean honestly.' Dick shouted and continued to stare at the flat screen TV that was off and dark. TV made Dick think of Mac, and how she could kick his ass at any game that he tried. He had to smile at that. He liked it that she kept him on his toes. Plus she was seven different ways of hot.

'I try to give her space, and Veronica accuses me of cheating on her, and when I try to spend time with her, I am smothering her. Not letting her be who she is. There is no pleasing her. Well almost.' Logan winked at Dick, and dick didn't even react. There was something definitely up. Maybe dick liked Mac more than any other girl, Dick had 'dated' over the years.

'I am sure that Ronnie will get it sorted out. She's good at doing the chick thing.' Logan tried to say and Dick just sat silent. Taking a slow sip of his JD before putting it down. 'Why would that picture make her mad. I mean it's of her isn't it? It's not some naked picture.' Dick said and Logan just shrugged.

'Like I said Women are a mystery.' Logan said and all he wanted to do was go to Veronica's and beg for her forgiveness. Late last night, he had called her and told her he loved her. She had tried to deny that it mattered until she whispered she loved Logan too before telling him to never call her that late again and hung up the phone. It was nowhere near a solution to their problem, but still it gave them hope.

'I am going to track her down and I am going to get her to explain to me why one god damn picture is cause to throw a CD at my precious head!' Dick said and tried to sit up. The problem with guzzling a lot of hard liquor and sitting down is, when you stand up, it goes completely to your head. Dick felt woozy and he had to sit down. 'After the room stops spinning.'

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wallace came over sometime; to convince Veronica that maybe leaving the apartment was a good idea. They still had two weeks left of break from school, and Veronica thought that was a great amount of time to figure out how to permanently avoid Logan.

Mac loved to watch Wallace and Veronica hang out, because as quick as she was, nothing compared to the two of them. She could see why they were BFF. Even though Veronica cut Wallace down from the flagpole, that act wasn't enough to sustain a relationship. Veronica genuinely cared about Wallace and made sure he knew that she depended on him. Something rare if you were in Veronica's life. They were now watching the first season of Murphy Brown, and every time Wallace tried to explain his theory that Veronica had a lot of the character Murphy in her, Wallace would end up with a fist of fury making sure he knew what Veronica's feelings were.

Wallace left after the first six episodes had been watched, and now it was the two of them. It was almost five o clock, and Mac figured she should go home. When she picked up her cell, she had almost thirteen missed calls. Most of them from her mother, but a few of them were from Dick's main line in the suite. She figured calling her mother, would stop the phone calls.

Ever since she found out the truth of her paternity, her relationship with her mother had suffered. Not because she wasn't their daughter biologically, but because they hid it for so long. She just didn't feel comfortable with that. Like al of a sudden she had to question everything, and it didn't help that things changed so much in the months after that revelation.

She didn't know if she would ever tell Dick, that technically she should have been a 09er. That if things had been different, she would have been just like him.

Her conversation with her mother was anything but stellar or comfortable. Her mother had questioned her about dick and where she was, and she had Veronica lie for her, and tell her that she stayed over at Veronica's, just so she could get off the phone with her mother. She didn't have the energy to go over things with her, and finally she made some random excuse to get off the phone. Veronica smiles at her and hands her a bottle of water and they both sit on the Mars couch silent. Without realizing it, they are almost perfectly mimicking their boyfriends, who are nestled away in a tall hotel miles away.

Veronica clutching onto the bottle of water and taking slow swigs and Mac just staring off into space. TV always makes her think of Dick anyway, and she doesn't get that much comfort in seeing something that reminds her of her boyfriend, but it's been such a short time, that she doesn't have any great memory to back it up with. So instead she shrugs and says as bitterly as she can. 'Men' and Veronica laughs and she nods. 'Men' Veronica says, and this time, her voice is almost hoarse with despair and bitterness. Things were so happy in Neptune, weren't they?

TBC