A/N: I am so in the Leverage zone, writing for the VMars fandom is tougher than usual, but I'm here, I'm doing it, honest I am!

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 7

Cindy Mackenzie was laid out on her bed, both hands on her stomach that as yet showed no real sign of the life that grew within. Of course she knew the truth, the only person here in this house that did. A doctor had confirmed it and she was one hundred-percent, without a doubt, pregnant with the child of Dick Casablancas. It was perhaps the last situation she ever expected to find herself in. The pregnant part was crazy enough but the fact Dick was the father was beyond the Twilight Zone!

Still, a smile came to her face that she couldn't help when she thought of him. For a guy who had always been kind of mean to her and very liberal when it came to sleeping with women, he was actually being really sweet recently and decent about stepping up to the mark. Mac knew she had Veronica to thank, and maybe even Logan, for Dick's change of heart, since he'd started out denying the fact he could even be the Dad. As if Mac would be unsure! She was hardly the kind of girl to just jump into the beds of strangers. Of course, she and Dick had missed the bed completely, having sex on her dorm room floor. It was hardly romantic, but it had certainly been hot and intense. One thing Mac knew for sure was that she had enjoyed herself that night, however drunk and stupid she appeared to be.

Now reality was hitting home with a vengeance, reminding her with a nasty laugh that she ought to have paid more attention when teachers, parents, and friends advised against getting 'drunk and loose' as her grandmother used to say. In some ways she supposed it could have been worse. At least she went willingly into her liaison with Dick, she couldn't say he'd really taken advantage of her, any more than she had taken advantage of him in his own state of more than a little drunk. The other upside was she managed to pick someone who must've been pretty careful or pretty lucky up til now since she hadn't caught anything nasty that night. Pregnancy was still a pretty serious side effect to a night of passion, but not as bad as it might've been.

Mac couldn't help but be just a little happy about her baby. It was a part of her, a being that she made with another person, and that would always be connected to her. Whether a boy or girl, she was going to love this child forever, no matter how awkward its conception was, or how difficult it might be making her life right at this moment.

It was her parents reaction that Mac was dreading most right now. She had to tell her Mom and Dad what she and Dick had done and what that night had caused. In a few weeks time, it was going to start becoming obvious that she wasn't as thin as before, that she was expanding in the stomach area in particular. She had been feeling sick in the mornings, if she actually started throwing up, that was going to get noticed. Ryan could start to realise something was wrong and he would make mention of it, such was the nature of bratty little brothers.

It bothered Mac a little about her studying too. She was such a bright student, and it would be her parents biggest problem with her new situation, she was sure. They would be disappointed that she acted so thoughtlessly as to get herself into this condition, but even more than that perhaps, they would see it as her throwing away a career if she had a child now. Mac couldn't deny that she had to agree with that at least a little bit. She couldn't go back to college the same way she had been before, living in a dorm room and doing as she pleased. That didn't mean she couldn't study at all, and she'd already promised herself she would be finishing her studies one way or another, even if she had to take a year out and/or study from home for the most part. They said you can't have your cake and eat it, but Mac would find away to raise this child right and get her education too. It could be done, she was sure, if she had a little support. Goodness knows how long Dick's interest would last, and being realistic Mac wasn't counting on it for long. Veronica would try to help out, she knew, but she couldn't rely on her friends forever. She really hoped her parents would understand once they got over the shock and be the support she knew she was going to need, but of course until she told them the truth, she would never know for sure.

In some ways, she wondered if they'd care much. It was times like this when Mac was almost glad that her Mom and Dad were not her blood relatives. How much could they really care about her situation? Then she remembered that they chose to keep her years ago and loved her to no end in spite of the fact they were not really her parents. Of course they were going to care she was pregnant, whether they reacted badly or not was the real question. Mac had never really thought about how they might take this kind of news, because she expected that if the day ever did come when she had a pregnancy to announce, it'd be way down the line when she was older and successful, in a serious relationship, maybe even married. Life didn't often go as planned, and this was no exception. She could plan how she broke the news though, and that was what Mac decided she needed to do now.

Sitting up on the edge of the bed, she rifled in the drawer for a hand mirror and fixed herself with a serious look.

"Mom, Dad, I'm pregnant" she said, before rolling her eyes at herself and starting over, "Hey Mom, Dad. I have something to tell you... I'm having a baby"

Mac went on like this for a while, trying out various ways of approaching the subject, all kinds of ways to tell her parents the truth about her condition. She was just starting over for about the thirtieth time, unaware that she was a little less than alone by now.

"Mom..." she began again, only to have the bedroom door pushed open.

"Did you call for me, sweetheart?" asked her mother as she poked her head into the room.

Mac went ashen in a second and very nearly dropped the mirror onto the floor. Thankfully her reflexes were good enough it never hit the carpet, else she might be facing seven years bad luck on top of everything else!

"Er, no" she said quickly, shaking her head, "I just... I'm going out" she forced a smile as she shoved the mirror back into the drawer, grabbed up her bag and squeezed out of the door past her Mom, "I won't be late back" she promised, planting a quick kiss on her mother's cheek and then practically running out the front door, leaving a bemused Mrs Mackenzie in her wake.

Dick Casablancas was laid out on his bed, both hands grasping an old photo album that had seen more use these past few months than the many years that went before. His Mom had put the thing together, a kind of a scrapbook of photographs starting from the day of Dick's on birth, progressing through to his first birthday, then the birth of little Cassidy, and a few shots of the two brothers together as they grew. It stopped when Dick was four years old and starting at Kindergarten. He never ask his Mom why it stopped then, but he knew anyway. That was when Dick stopped caring so much for weak little Beaver. He made new and exciting friends at school and craved Daddy's good opinion too much. They started to tease baby brother, pull nasty pranks on him, and then laugh when he cried. It made Dick feel physically sick now to think of the awful things they had done to Cassidy, the innocent child who never deserved it.

Logan had assured him, more than once recently, that no matter how he treated his kid brother, he did not make him a criminal, a rapist, a murderer, a suicidal. Some people were just made that way, and there were other reasons for his behaviour too. Woody Goodman was to blame for a lot of it, they were all sure of that, but Dick couldn't help but still blame himself somewhat for the way his brother turned out.

This photo album seemed to find its way to the top of any drawer he hid it in, the front of any shelf he tried to lose it on. Since finding out Mac was having his baby, Dick had started thinking more and more about his own childhood, the baby brother he treated so badly, and the relationship Cassidy had shared with Mac before. If things had been different, it was likely that the kid Mac was carrying would be Dick's nephew or niece rather than his son or daughter. Things weren't different though, they were as they were, and the past could never be changed, whether it be something recent or many years before that you'd like to rectify.

"I'm so sorry, Beav" he said quietly, as his finger traced the face of Cassidy in the last picture the album held.

Dick had no idea he had an audience until suddenly there was a gasp from the door he hadn't even heard open, and he turned to see Mac framed there. He wondered why she was gaping at him in such a way, until he felt the single tear on his left cheek and moved fast to wipe it away with the back of his hand.

"Logan let me in" said Mac, feeling overwhelmingly awkward, "I just... Are you okay, Dick?" she checked with him, knowing it was a ridiculous question since he was clearly far from okay, as he moved to get off the bed.

"Sure, I'm great" he lied outright, looking for a place to stash the photo album before she could ask any more questions.

Somehow Mac seemed to have developed super-speed abilities or something, at least that was the only explanation Dick had for her suddenly being at his side, reaching for the book in his hands. Part of him wanted to snatch it away and tell her to get lost, to stay out of his private stuff, but the other half of Dick wanted her to see. He let her take the book from his hands, sighing as if it were the last thing he wanted as he shoved his hands in his pockets and sat down again on the edge of the bed.

Mac wasn't sure how to react as she let her bag drop to the floor and flipped through the pages of the photo album she held. She didn't stop until the back page, two kids of no more than three and four years old grinning madly at her from the the last photograph.

"Is this you and..?" she asked, his name catching in her throat, and Dick never made her say it.

"Yep, that's us" he smile sadly, at happy memories and the loss of same, "It's so weird, to know he's gone, that he'll never be Uncle Beav or..." he trailed off when he realised that he was only hurting himself and Mac as well with what he was saying, "So, you're into computers, right? You wanna play something?" he asked, gesturing out into the living room where the games consoles lived.

Mac shook her head as she put the photo album down on the nearest shelf and came to sit beside Dick on the end of the bed.

"You can't keep changing the subject every time Cassidy gets mentioned" she said, wincing herself at her own words, but knowing that out of the two of them she was going to have to be the grown up here, "He was a big part of both our lives and now we're going to have to be in each others lives whether we like it or not" she reminded him.

"Yeah" Dick nodded, knowing she was right, "It's just... I don't know how I'm s'posed to feel about him, y'know?" he tried to explain and though he was doing so pretty badly, Mac tried her best to listen, "'cause he was my little brother, so I loved the guy, but he did all this bad stuff... to those kids on the bus, and Ronnie, and you" he shook his head.

"I know" Mac sympathised, "I mean, for what it's worth, I did love him" she told him honestly, "I think, on some level, a part of me always will, because that little piece is remembering how sweet he could be, how kind and funny and..." she stopped talking the moment she glanced up and her eyes met Dick's own, "but then I remember the bad stuff, and I don't know how to deal either" she admitted, a shiver running through her both from the way Dick was looking at her now and the fact his fingers seemed to have found hers on the bed.

They understood each other's pain and confusion, it was what had brought them together in the first place. It was what had thrown them into each others embrace and made this baby she now carried. They had a connection that could never be broken even before they'd made a life together, because they were the only ones to really understand what it was to love and hate this same person in equal measure, and at the same time feel so horribly guilty for what had happened to that guy.

It took a moment for Mac to realise that one or both of them had moved, that somehow she and Dick had drifted closer together. She recognised that look that had settled in his eyes and dreaded the even bigger mess they might end up in if she let herself go and allow him to kiss her. It couldn't lead to anything good, she told herself, pulling back sharply and scrambling to her feet.

"Um, I should go" she muttered, stooping to grab her bag and then turning to the door.

"Why'd you come here anyway?" asked Dick curiously, sure she hadn't given a reason yet.

Mac let out a strange sound, a cross between a sigh and a humourless laugh, as she turned around to glance at him again.

"I honestly don't know" she admitted with a half-smile, "I just... I needed out of the house and I wanted someone to talk to, I guess" she told him, her fingers lacing together in front of her, like a kind of nervous habit she hadn't realised she had til now.

"You wanna talk? Talk" he invited, not sure why, except her presence was better than nobody at all and she did at least seem to understand what he was feeling, there was a chance he could return the favour, "It's cool, y'know. I can listen when I want to, even if I probably won't be able to help..." he was saying when he suddenly realised words were not really what Mac needed right now.

At some point when he wasn't looking she had burst into tears, great heaving sobs shaking her body as streams of salt-water rained down her reddenning cheeks.

"I'm sorry" she choked out, trying to wipe her eyes with her hands and calm down at the same time, but neither came easy, "It's just stupid hormones and... and, I just..." she couldn't say anymore as emotions took her voice completely from her.

She looked like she was going to bolt, but Dick didn't want her to leave like this. In truth, he didn't want her to leave at all. Usually when girls cried, he exited, stage left, as fast as his legs would carry him. He didn't do complications and tears and such, he was there for the good times and gone before anything turned bad or ugly. It seemed that was less than true these days, as he got up from the bed and moved towards Mac, reaching out for her. He hadn't expected her to accept a hug too easily, but any port in a storm was never a truer phrase as she collapsed into his embrace, still crying hard.

"Hey, it's okay" he told her, as he held her close and let her sob all over his T-shirt, "It's gonna be cool" he assured her, even though Dick had no idea how any of this was going to turn out well right now, and could just as easily cry too.

To Be Continued...