A/N: Confession time - I've been writing this fic out of thin air. The plan was vague when I started and isn't any much better now. Plus, December is right around the corner, which means Christmas fics, exchanges, and real life stuff that won't give me time enough to figure this story out right now. Peops, the fic is going on hold for a while BUT I'll be back in 2016 with more. I hope y'all will still be around then and wanting to read this fic? (Your reviews mean a very lot to me!) In the meantime, here's one more chapter for the road :)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see Chapter 1)

Chapter 6

Mac had kind of expected it to feel strange when she welcomed Dick home to his own house, and it did. Knowing she was going to be staying here with him, playing nursemaid for lack of a more appropriate term, it suddenly seemed like maybe the dumbest idea that Cindy Mackenzie ever had in her life. She thought so, right up until Dick tried to get out of the car and failed to do so by himself. He really was a mess still and he needed help. There was nobody else to give assistance, Mac was the whole list all by herself. Taking a deep breath, she came down from the porch.

"Welcome home," she said lamely.

"Like I always say, it's not a real homecoming without a hot babe on the doorstep," said Dick with a grin that only failed him when he was forced to try to move any part of his body.

Mac winced on his behalf and tried to help as best she could. On any normal day, she would have blushed like a crazy person from a guy like Dick calling her hot. He was teasing her and she knew it, but honestly, she never had completely gotten over her embarrassed reaction to those kind of compliments from anyone. Now Dick had his arm around her waist and Mac was forced to put hers around him too, just so he had enough support to walk to the front door. This was how it was going to be now, this amount of closeness, for as long as Dick's sprained ankle meant he couldn't walk well unaided, as long as he had his other arm in a sling, until he was back to full strength. Mac didn't allow herself to think about it long enough for it to feel strange. She concentrated on the fact she was being helpful, not on the feeling of hot muscled body against her own.

"Um, I hadn't really thought about the stairs," she said as they made it in through the front door.

The cab driver brought Dick's bag in and dumped it in the hallway, looking impatient about getting paid.

"Dude, do you take ? 'Cause all my cash and cards were totally stolen when this happened," said Dick, making reference to his injuries.

"Oh, I got it," said Mac, helping Dick to sit down at the bottom of the stairs.

She pulled her wallet from the back pocket of her jeans and peeled off a few notes, hoping it was enough to cover the fair. The cab driver smiled and left with a muttered thanks. Mac sighed and closed the door behind him.

"I can totally pay you back later," Dick assured Mac. "Man, it's good to be home."

"Don't be too happy. We still have stairs to tackle, unless we set you up down here for now..." she considered, looking around at the layout.

It was all pretty open plan, and even if they made one of the back rooms into a temporary bedroom for Dick, that would mean moving all of his stuff down instead of just him up. Mac realised she was making this more complicated than it actually was.

"Dude, check out what I have going here!" said Dick suddenly, getting Mac's attention.

Using his one good arm, he was levering himself up, one step at a time on his butt, sprained ankle raised up so he didn't bump it on the stairs. Mac might have been impressed if he didn't look so ridiculous. Her hand went over her mouth so she didn't laugh, though it was tough, especially when Dick was looking so darn proud of his supposedly ingenious plan.

"Wow," said Mac eventually, sure she could without chuckling. "I don't even know why I'm here. Looks like you have it covered," she remarked, following him up the stairs.

Of course when Dick recahed the top, he got into trouble. There was no way to get back up onto his feet with only one good arm and one foot he could put weight on. Mac gave him all of ten seconds to consider options before she took pity on him.

"Okay. Let's get you to bed," she said, reaching to help. "And if you make that into something dirty, I'm going to drop you right back down these stairs," she warned.

"Man, you're strict," said Dick with a smirk he couldn't help. "Y'know I don't think threatening the patient will get you any nursing points or whatever."

"That might matter if I was craving the nursing career option. Since I plan on sticking with my computer skills, not so sure it makes a difference," she told him as they headed for Dick's room.

By the time they reached the bed, Mac did kind of drop Dick, though she hadn't planned on it. For all that Mac wasn't weak of body or mind, Dick was a lot bigger than her and much of him was dead weight against her right now. Hefting him around was not easy. Thankfully now he was to his bed, she couldn't imagine having to get him anywhere else for a while. The bathroom was right there across the room, and if Mac did have to help him get that far, it wouldn't be that hard or that often.

Dick got his own legs up onto the bed and leaned back against the pillows comfortably.

"This is sooooo much better than a hospital bed!" he exclaimed happily. "Don't get me wrong, the doctors were pretty cool, and some of the nurses were hot, plus they have the best drugs in town, but the beds are not comfortable."

"Well, here we have all your home comforts," said Mac, business-like because it was easier than over-familiarity right now.

She pulled the small table over from the wall so it was within reaching distance of the bed. On it was the remote for the TV at the end of the bed, the controller for the X-Box that was set up there too, a bottle of water, and the magazines that had arrived by subscription.

"I should go grab your bag so we can figure out what pills you have to take when," she considered aloud, speaking to Dick though she never looked at him and really didn't require an answer. "You want anything to eat?"

That one did need a response, and yet she didn't get one. Mac tapped Dick on his uninjured ankle until his eyes opened.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty!" she prompted. "You want food?"

"I could eat," he agreed with a grin. "Did you just call me a beauty? 'Cause, babe, I'm not sayin' you're wrong, but us guys prefer handsome or studly or..."

"I'm going downstairs!" said Mac with a huff, remembering too late how dangerous it was to say anything to Dick that sounded even vaguely like a compliment or a sexual remark.

Left alone, Dick let out a long breath and closed his eyes again. Despite how often he had been asleep at the hospital, he still felt kind of tired. The doctor said it was normal, that it was all to do with the shock of what happened, as well as the drugs he was on, the painkillers and all.

Dick still remembered next to nothing about what happened to him the night of the attack. Even the stuff before that was fuzzy as hell. It was weird because he was pretty good with drinking these days. It took a lot for him to be so wasted that he forgot the whole night, but then the doc had said the crack to his head might have caused the memory loss. Dick's hand went up to feel the place on his head where he had taken the blow. There was still a slight bump there and Dick winced when his fingers ran over it. He looked down at his other arm then, in the plaster cast and tied up in a sling. Down further, bandages peeked out from under his T-shirt, holding his cracked ribs in place, and then there was his ankle, bound up to keep the sprain from giving him too much trouble.

"Dude, you are such a mess," he muttered to himself. "But hey, you probably deserved it anyway."

Outside the door, Mac stopped short of walking in, her hand stilled on the handle when she heard Dick talking to himself. She wasn't absolutely sure of what he said, but it sounded a lot like Dick telling himself he deserved what happened to him. Mac had an urge to storm right in there and tell him that was untrue, but honestly, she couldn't do that, because Mac didn't know if it were true or not.

It was hard to believe that anyone, even Dick, deserved the beating he had taken, but she knew better than anyone the mouth he had on him, not to mention his reputation for sleeping with just about any woman who got in his path. There was a chance he had done something that triggered anger in another, and that had resulted in this attack. Whether or not that counted as Dick deserving what he got, Mac couldn't really say, not without knowing the details, but she didn't like the sound of self-pity. It was so un-Dick somehow. Of course, there was a chance she heard him wrong anyway.

"Here we are," she said, deliberately announcing her entrance. "All the colours of the rainbow," she smiled, dumping four bottles of pills onto the table with everything else. "The blue ones are one every four hours, the little pink ones are two with meals, three times a day. Then the white is just at night, right before you sleep, and the yellow are as needed, if the pain flares up."

"I'm not gonna remember all that," said Dick with a frown.

"Me either," Mac agreed. "I'll make a chart," she smiled, reclaiming the bottles and shoving them into her pockets. "I mean, you wouldn't expect anything less from your resident computer geek, right?"

"I guess not," Dick agreed, not even raising a smile at her joke, Mac noted. "Mac, how come you're here?"

"Dick, we went over this," she sighed, feeling awkward again. "You need help and..."

"No, I don't mean the whole helping me out thing, which is cool by the way, I don't know if I actually said that yet?"

"You did," she recalled. "Anyway, somebody has to do it."

"Yeah, but don't you have a job or whatever?" asked Dick then, the point to his original question, Mac now realised. "I heard something about you working at Kane Software..."

"Actually, that didn't pan out," she explained, shaking her head. "I work for Mars Investigations now, helping out Veronica until her dad is back on his feet, and then... well, if they still need me, I'll stay, and if not..." she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders.

"Wow," said Dick, apparently impressed. "I mean, I don't exactly have to worry about what I'm gonna do, 'cause there's always money, but you're not so much rolling in cash."

"Definitely not," Mac confirmed with a humourless laugh. "But I get by, and hey, for the next couple of weeks or so, I got the fanciest digs in town," she smirked, gesturing to the house around her.

Dick had to agree with her, though he never said it. He was so damn tired it was insane, and more than a little overwhelmed that someone like Mac was here, offering to take care of him. Nobody ever did that for Dick, not unless they were paid to. When he thought way back, Dick vaguely remembered his mom being around when he was very young, but as he got older, she got busier. There were maids and cooks and nannies, but it wasn't the same. Dick had been taking care of himself in a lot of ways since he was maybe seven or eight. It never seemed to occur to anybody else to give a damn about him, except for Logan, and that was just a bro thing, something Dick was pretty sure he could never have with a chick. Mac was different, she was special. He knew the reasons why too, but Dick wasn't willing to think about them right now, if ever.

"Dick?" she asked then, concerned about the strange look on his face. "Are you okay? Do you need anything?"

"I'm good, just tired," he told her, yawning right after as if to prove the point.

"Okay," she said, nodding her head. "Well, you get some rest, and I'll be right next door. Just holler if you need anything."

Dick's eyes closed within a second and he never did answer. Mac wasn't concerned. The doctor had said he would need extra sleep for the first few days until his body recovered fully from the shock and adjusted to the amount of drugs he was taking. Mac moved to leave and then doubled back, grabbing the comforter from the bottom of the bed and covering Dick over. With the covers tucked up under his chin and his blonde fringe falling into his eyes, he was almost cute. Mac's fingers itched to move his hair off his face but she thought better of it. This was a grown man she was looking at. More than that, this was Dick. She had to remember that, it was important.

Taking herself out of the door and along to the next room that she had made her own, Mac sat down lotus style on the bed with her computer in her lap. She pulled Dick's pill bottles from her pockets and started making up a quick chart that would remind both of them when he needed to take his drugs, then she had work to do for Veronica. For as long as Dick was sleeping, she may as well dig into this stuff. At least it took her mind off why she was really here, and how awkward her decision could prove yet.

An email popped up after a few minutes, and Mac wasn't surprised to see it was from Veronica. It seemed she had been looking into the staff lists that Mac had 'appropriated' from the 09er's database, and there was something interesting in there. Though she said herself it might be a long shot, two of the bartenders who were working the night Dick was attacked had kids that attended an after school club, a flyer for which Veronica had found in the alley when she went to check out the crime scene. As much as it really did seem unlikely that there was a real connection there, Mac knew Veronica would follow it up, not least because they had very little else to go on right now. With the 09er staff not so much talking, until Dick remembered something himself, this was all they had.

To Be Continued...