A/N: Wow, still getting so many reviews on this fic! You guys are just awesome for showing your support on each and every chapter. I know you're in this for the MaDi and last chapter had no interaction between them, but here is a whole chapter full to make up for it ;-)
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 5
This was maybe the last place Dick Casablancas wanted to be. Over on the non-rich side of town, standing on the doorstep to a house he'd never seen before and had located with the help of Logan and modern technology. Inside this house was the girl he had slept with just once, over a month ago, and who was now pregnant with his child. Dick had wrongly assumed that any woman who was unfortunate enough to get knocked up after an encounter with him would go away if enough money was thrown her way, but then the kind of girls he usually went with were not exactly full of morals.
Taking a deep breath and wondering how he could feel so nervous when usually being around women only made him more confident, Dick raised his fist and knocked on the door. When no-one came to answer immediately, he genuinely considered bolting, but just as he'd made the decision to turn away, somebody answered.
"Hi there" the woman smiled, obviously Mac's Mom though she really didn't look anything like her daughter as far as Dick was concerned.
"Um, is Mac... is Cindy home?" he asked, stumbling over the usual name before landing on the one he really ought to be using right now.
"Sure, come on in" said Mrs Mackenzie with a genuine smile, though honestly she was a little bemused.
Cindy really didn't have a whole lot of friends, and only one was male that she knew of. Wallace was a nice boy but as her daughter had pointed out several times, friends was really all they were, nothing more and nothing less. Now here was a rather attractive blond on her doorstep and Mrs Mackenzie was a little lost.
"Ryan, honey" she said, practically tripping over her son on her way to the living room with Dick in tow, "Please go tell your sister she has a visitor"
Mrs Mackenzie shifted awkwardly then, not even sure of this boy's name nevermind why he might be here. Dick didn't notice, his eyes were scanning the living room he was now stood in, the simple furnishings of a smaller house than he would ever live in. Pictures sat on the mantle and hung on the walls, showing Mac as well as her brother through the years. It seemed her parents really cared enough to want to track every minute on her life - Dick was almost jealous.
"What are you doing here?" asked Mac as she appeared, making her visitor spin around fast to face her.
"Uh... I think we kinda need to talk" he told her, his eyes flitting to her Mom and back as he pushed his fringe out of his eyes.
Though he was hardly known for being full of tact and diplomacy, it had clearly occurred to Dick that maybe Mac's parents didn't yet know about her pregnancy. Besides, to save his own hide, he'd rather they didn't know just yet that he was the jackass that had knocked-up their straight-laced, straight-A daughter.
"Fine" Mac nodded once, "We'll go talk in my room" she said, sure that was a mistake, but also not willing to have this conversation in front of her mother.
As it turned out it didn't matter because just as soon as Mac turned back towards her room and Dick followed behind her, hands in pockets, Mrs Mackenzie offered the chance of drinks and snacks to 'the kids'. Though the visitor opened his mouth to speak, he was not given a chance to actually say anything. Cindy cut in, thanking her Mom for the offer but declining it, saying that Dick wouldn't be staying long, regardless of the fact she didn't know yet exactly what he was here for.
The awkwardness hit Mac and Dick like a ton of bricks as they went into her bedroom together. Of course this wasn't where their encounter had taken place, but it was a stark reminder of that night - the two of them alone in a bedroom. The damage had already been done by now of course, but that didn't matter. They both felt the blush rising in their cheeks as they kept their eyes on anything but each other.
"So, uh... I figured I should come over" said Dick, shifting from foot to foot, running a finger along the edge of the desk behind him just because he could, "Tell you I'm sorry, y'know?" he shrugged.
Mac glanced over at him as she dropped down onto the edge of the bed, hugging her arms around her body. She didn't actually think she could be any more uncomfortable right now if she tried.
"You already said that" she pointed out, "but... thanks" she added, realising that if he was going to be decent enough to come over and at least seem genuine in his apology to her, she ought to accept it graciously, even if it didn't change anything or make it better.
"I guess your parents don't know about...?" he asked then, making some odd gestures around his stomach as he flopped into the desk chair in the hopes of feeling a little less out of place here - it didn't help.
"No, I didn't tell them yet" admitted Mac, arms parting and hands going together in her lap, fingers lacing and unlacing like a nervous habit, "I just... I can't find a good way to do it"
"I guess it would've been easier if this had happened with Beav" the moment the words were out of Dick's mouth he knew they were the wrong ones, but it was all too late.
He looked up at the same moment Mac did, and saw cold steel flash in eyes that could be so warm and kind to others. A genuine feeling of regret and a whole lot of nausea hit him as he started to wonder if he was about to get tossed out on his finely-toned ass. Thankfully, Mac stood up sharply but didn't seem to want to throw him out, though she all but yelled when she did finally speak again.
"Why are you here, Dick?" she asked him plainly, "You've said you're sorry and I believe you, what else did you want?"
"Dude, like I'm supposed to know how to make this better" he said, getting to his feet too, if only to stop her having the height advantage as well as the moral high-ground, "I just thought we should talk about stuff" he repeated his earlier words, but Mac only shook her head.
"Talking won't undo what we did" she told him, immediately wishing she hadn't brought it up as Dick's eyes bored two holes into her body.
He wasn't thinking about the consequences anymore, only the actions that came before. Their night together had been unreal, and though Mac's memory of it was fuzzy at best, she did know that nobody had ever made her feel quite the way she had that night with Dick.
"That was one crazy night" he said with a smirk he couldn't help as he looked at Mac, and she swore he must have just read the thoughts clean out of her head.
Turning away to the window, she tried to think of anything else to say to him, simultaneously fighting the blush that rose in her cheeks one more time. She hated that she could get embarrassed so easy, but it was something she never had been able to control very well.
"Y'know, if this happened to Logan and Ronnie they'd handle it easy" said Dick somewhere behind her, though Mac daren't turn around and look at him, even when she replied.
"Usually I handle stuff pretty well myself" she sighed, "but this... this is kinda huge"
"Yeah" he nodded, though of course she didn't see, "I handle everything with beer, which seems like it helps" he explained, "but in the morning, everything's still just as screwed up"
Mac would have liked to have snapped at him for being so thoughtless, for calling their baby a screw up, but then she had thought something similar herself more than once. She'd felt guilty about it, but she just couldn't help herself. The last thing she needed in her life right now was a child, but choices were limited in all directions at this point.
"I really don't have the choice of drinking my problems away right now" she said with a small smile, since it would hardly be her first thought anyway, "not in 'my condition'" she said with a roll of her eyes, like the whole thing was just lame.
Dick nodded as she turned to look at him again then, feeling a little less bashful for the moment. It was crazy to think they had been as close as two people could physically be once and yet now standing a few feet apart across a room felt so awkward and strange.
They had never been friends, even when she was dating Cassidy and spent a lot of time at the Casablancas house, Dick really only deigned to speak to Mac when he had to. He liked to tease Beaver for being younger, skinnier, more shy than he himself was. He also made fun of Mac for being relatively pale, for dating a guy like Cassidy, and for being so into things he considered geeky. She paid him no mind then, and learnt to put up with him as a friend of a friend after, since he was always where Logan was and when he and Veronica were dating, the group of them often ended up at the same parties and gatherings. She really hadn't thought much about him at all in a good long while; now she didn't have a choice.
"Uh, you saw a doctor right?" asked Dick so suddenly that Mac actually jumped a little.
"Nope" she shook her head as she said it, shifting from foot to foot as she went on to explain, "I only have my family's doctor and, well, I know there are all these privacy rules and stuff, but I can't risk him telling my parents, I just can't do that" she said definitely, making a cutting motion with both her hands as if to emphasise the point.
"It's cool" he shrugged, hands shoved in his pockets as he continued to look as nervously awkward as she felt in all of this, "I can totally pay for a private doc"
"No" she snapped immediately, regretting her harshness in a second as he looked up at her sadly, "Thank you, but no" she amended, "I told you before, I didn't come see you about cash"
"I know, I get that" Dick assured her, "but I wanna help" he said, suprising her so much that Mac actually sat down on the edge of the bed again whether she wanted to to not, "Y'know, it's my responsibility too, at least that's what Ronnie said" he shrugged one more time, the movement starting to look like a nervous tic, he'd done it so many times in the past few minutes.
"Oh God" Mac's face was in her hands by now as she groaned, "I told Veronica I didn't want her to do that" she lamented, knowing her friend was only trying to help, but also a little mad and equally mortified that she would go behind her back and fight her battles for her when she'd expressly asked her not to.
"She's just looking out for her bud" said Dick, the bed shifting a little to Mac's left as he sat down beside her and patted her on the back like he wasn't sure if he was doing it right, "Y'know, like I would for Logan or whatever"
He was trying to be comforting apparently, maybe because he thought Mac was really upset, perhaps even crying. Truth was she was only getting more embarrassed by the second, that was all.
"I guess you're right" she said, with a half-smile that she hoped would make him feel like less of an ass.
Dick was trying his best, which still wasn't really as helpful as she would've liked but it was something. He seemed to suddenly notice how close they'd gotten when she brought her head up and their eyes locked. There was the very obvious fact they were sat on a bed too, and that soon had him backing off some, realising that up on his feet and out of the room was a better way for him to go right now, before anything else really crazy happened here.
"So, I should go and book you that doctor's appointment" he said as he made his way over to the door.
"Thanks" replied Mac as she rose and followed him, just a step behind Dick when he suddenly turned around and faced her again.
"You want me to..." he began, running a hand through his blond hair and looking everywhere but at her right now, "You want me to be there, or...?"
"Oh" she replied with genuine surprise to his offer, but only had to weigh it up for a few seconds before she'd made a firm decision, "Well, if you want to, sure" she nodded her reply.
Dick muttered something about letting her know about the appointment and was gone even more suddenly than he had arrived, leaving Mac feeling strangely overwhelmed. She really hadn't expected him to come over to her house and certainly not to talk like a grown up about what had happened. Honestly, she'd truly believed that unless she made the effort to go over to the Grand, she just wouldn't see him again. She'd figured on him denying the child she carried was his and just behaving like the ass he usually was in the hopes all his troubles would just fly away, as so often happened with rich boys like him.
Instead, she had her one night stand turned father of her unborn child showing up at her home, offering her apologies, comfort, private doctors appointments, and support in her time of need. Mac blinked hard as she rolled the ideas around in her mind a moment.
"Dick Casablancas can be a decent human being" she said softly to herself, unable to help the baffled but almost happy smile that came to her lips then, "Who knew?"
To Be Continued...