A/N: The gap between updates wasn't supposed to be this long, but I got sick, so what can you do, right?

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 12

Despite the fact she had promised Wallace she would slow down and take a break, Veronica had a tough time actually doing so. It really wasn't in her nature to sit around doing nothing when there was work to be done. Besides, the more she thought about this attack on Dick, the more suspicious she got about Missy Stone.

Veronica's gut feeling about the woman was that she was guilty of something. She doubted Missy herself had been Dick's attacker, though women were completely capable of kicking butt. No, Veronica saw no evidence of bruised knuckles when she briefly met Missy, but she would lay good money that the bartender played her part in the crime for whatever reason. She might easily be the owner of the not-a-lipstick used in the crime. Dusting the cylinder for fingerprints brought up one slightly smudgy print that matched no-one in the database, but if Veronica could just nab something belonging to Missy. She knew where she lived, she could go talk to her and maybe get the use of her bathroom or something to pilfer what she needed. Two birds, one stone, it ought to be easy enough.

It was only a half truth when Veronica told her dad she was headed out to meet up with an old friend. The term was pushing boundaries in definitions, but she had met Missy before at least. Keith had been on her back to cut down her caseload too. It didn't seem to occur to anyone that Veronica needed to be working, because it took her mind off other stuff that was less easy to cope with. Another talk with Logan on Skype last night just reminded her how far away he was and how long it would be until he was home again. It hurt too much to dwell on it, and so she worked.

Missy's home address was easily lifted from the records Mac already pulled off the 09er's computer system. A half-decent apartment on the lower class side of town, Veronica checked the number and decided the stairs were safer than the elevator given the state of it, even if that did mean running up three floors.

A pair of drunks nearly knocked her flying in the stairwell. From the look in their eyes when they passed her, Veronica doubted it was only the beers in their hands they had been enjoying today, and it was only mid-afternoon. There was a reason she had one hand on her taser.

"Classy," she muttered to herself, turning to the apartment door.

Covering her hand with her sleeve just to be on the safe side, Veronica knocked and waited. Just when she thought nobody was going to answer, they did, but it wasn't Missy who faced her.

"Can I help you?" asked the tall and kind of imposing young man that peered down at Veronica with an eyebrow raised.

"I hope so," said Veronica with her best winning smile. "Is Missy home?"

"No, she's out," said the guy, folding his arms across his chest and leaning in the half-open doorway. "You a friend of hers?"

"Is that so surprising?" she checked, noting his tone. "Everybody has friends."

"Missy doesn't," he said with a smirk as he shook his head. "'Cept for me, of course. Anyway, like I said, she's not here. I can let her know you stopped by if you want to leave a name."

"Sandy Appleby," she said, still smiling as she held out a hand to shake. "And you are...?"

"Adam Durant," he told her, shaking her offered hand. "She never mention me?"

"Nope, not once, and I can't imagine why not, unless she's real determined to keep you all to herself."

Veronica watched Adam's smirk grow into a real smile, his body language switching from defensive and a little cocky to happy and relaxed. Veronica always knew that a boy could be charmed just as easily as girl if you knew what to say, didn't matter the age or the circumstance. So he was probably easily a half dozen years or more younger than Veronica, didn't matter. The cougar was in these days, not that Veronica considered herself to be that old, but she would work any angle she could to catch the villain.

"I hate to be a bother," she told Adam then. "It's a long drive home again and I... Well, could I maybe use the little girls room?" she asked sweetly.

"Sure," he agreed easily, opening the door wide to grant her access to the apartment.

'Sandy' thanked him and hurried in the direction that he pointed. Straight into the bathroom, Veronica locked the door behind her and took a deep breath. That was almost too easy, which put her a little on her guard. After all, suggesting she liked this guy could be dangerous yet. Getting into the apartment was the easy part, getting out might yet prove harder if Adam really took an interest. Good thing she had a plan for that too.

Opening up the bathroom cabinet, Veronica slid on a latex glove from her bag and retrieved an item that had to belong to Missy, since Adam sure wouldn't have use of such things. There were two boxes, it was doubtful Missy would miss one of them and if she could lift a print, Veronica would have proof that the bartender owned the non-lipstick. That would place her at the scene of the crime at the very least. One step forward, hopefully.

Her mission complete, Veronica flushed the toilet and washed her hands. Before she left the bathroom, she grabbed her cell from her bag and faked a call, talking loudly as she exited into the living room again.

"Sweetie, you know I'd do anything for you, and just think, three weeks from now and we'll be on our honeymoon. Can't hardly wait!" she enthused, noting out of the corner of her eye how Adam stood and stared in shock. "Oh no, I can't say that. No, I have company! Or actually, I am company," she giggled, covering the mouthpiece a second as she looked at Adam. "Sorry, I really should get out of your hair. Thank you so much, you're a lifesaver!"

Adam nodded absently and opened the apartment door so she could leave. On her way out, Veronica spotted a Hearst sweatshirt slung over the back of a chair. Somehow she suspected Missy was unlikely to be a student, Veronica had to guess that Adam was. One more fact to keep in mind if Missy did become a suspect.

When Wallace left the house, Mac really wanted to go with him. Being left alone meant having to face Dick and after what happened earlier, that was really the last thing she wanted to do. It made her sick that Madison could still get to her after all this time, especially when Ms Sinclair wasn't even trying that hard.

Mac had told Wallace a half truth about the encounter, saying she felt wound up by the former bitch queen of Neptune High and that it was just the last straw on top of a bunch of other stresses and strains. Wallace was so kind, it only made Mac feel worse, mostly for lying to him, or at least withholding the whole truth. It wasn't that she didn't trust the guy after all this time, but the less people who knew, the better it was for everybody. Veronica knew, and she was the only one outside of Mac, her biological parents and her adopted parents. She may yet be forced to add Dick to the list, though Mac really hoped it didn't come to that. She could try him with the story she told Wallace, but honestly, she actually thought he was more likely to call bull than her good buddy.

It wasn't that Dick knew Mac better than Wallace could. It was more that they knew her in different ways. Living with someone, being as close as Mac and Dick had to be so far, it changed the dynamics, skewed everything all out of proportion. The connection Mac had always known they had in their own way seemed to be growing exponentially. The more she thought on it, the more Mac realised she and Dick were tied together and in more ways than just those that centred around Cassidy. Madison was a factor too, given that she had been Dick's girlfriend off-and-on through high school, and was living the life that ought to have been Mac's own.

She checked her watch. Dick needed his meds in the next five minutes so there was no avoiding him anymore. She couldn't put her petty issues above his health and pain relief. Mac just wasn't that selfish.

"Okay then," she said to herself, grabbing a drink to take up to Dick.

She trudged up the stairs, steeled herself outside the bedroom door and then pushed her way in. Mac was surprised to see Dick sitting up against a bunch of pillows, pounding the game controller with too much force as he played Street Fighter against the computer. He didn't glance away when she came in, didn't greet her at all. Mac couldn't help feeling as if she were a ghost he couldn't even see or feel.

"Hey, Dick? You need to take your meds," she told him, moving around to the nightstand to retrieve the correct bottle. "Are you listening to me?" she asked, since he hadn't yet reacted.

"Why should I?" he shot back, still completely locked onto his game. "You don't really want to talk to me anyway, right?"

Dick was being a petulant child and they both knew it. Though Mac was pretty sure Dick didn't actually know the word petulant or what it meant, he was still being that way. Sure, she hadn't exactly behaved like an adult with the whole Madison situation earlier, but she had her reasons. Maybe Dick had reasons too, but she hadn't the time or inclination to listen to them.

"I'm sorry I was downstairs a long time. I figured if you really needed me you'd yell or call, it's just, Wallace dropped by-"

"I don't give a damn about Fennell coming to see you, Mac!" Dick suddenly yelled, tossing the game controller down on the bed and glaring at her. "What the hell happened before? I never saw you like that, you scared the crap outta me, and then you just dumped me in here and walked away. I thought we were, like, friends or something, but that was not cool."

Mac was somewhat taken aback and not just because Dick was yelling at her so suddenly. He cared. It hit her on the head like an anvil in a Roadrunner cartoon and she couldn't process. Dick Casablancas actually cared about her. Maybe it was unjust to be quite so shocked about it, but the thought hadn't really occurred to her before. Mac was aware that she cared about his welfare, at least enough to be here and help him through his recovery from the attack, but she hadn't really considered it to be a two-way thing. Dick liked women but that was for sex and all related activities. They were the kind of buddies who played video games together and shared pizza, but Mac didn't think they had gotten beyond that, at least not from Dick's perspective. Apparently she was wrong.

"I'm sorry," she said too quietly, handing him a bottle of water and two pills to take.

Through his apparent anger and frustration, he took them and swallowed down his meds. As mad as he was at her, it would be dumb to make himself suffer any more physical pain and associated symptoms just because of that. Mac wasn't a bad person, Dick knew she wouldn't be here if she were, but he meant what he said. It was not cool how she wouldn't talk to him when all he was trying to do was be a decent kind of friend.

"So," he said, when he was done swallowing his pills. "You going to tell me now what had you totally ugly crying in your room? 'Cause it seemed an awful lot like Madison started it. I know you're way tougher than that, so what gives, Mac?"

She opened her mouth to give an answer but closed it again within a second. She didn't know where to begin. There was a clear answer to Dick's question, but it would mean revealing the biggest secret of her entire life. That had far-reaching consequences, not just for her but her family and Madison's family as well. She couldn't just shout the truth from the rooftops, but maybe she could tell someone, one person who might just get it.

"It... It's a very long story," she admitted after a while, hand rubbing her forehead that was bound to ache before this was over.

"Not like I've got anywhere to be," said Dick, looking too serious.

Mac had an idea his arms would be folded over his chest if he didn't have one in a sling. He sure was giving her a challenging stare and Mac was running out of ways to avoid this topic. She and Dick had been living in close quarters for a while now and there were weeks to go if she was staying until he was fully recovered. They couldn't live with this hanging over their heads for all that time, it would become unbearable.

"Okay," she sighed heavily, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. "Um, this is so weird, I never told anybody this before."

Dick wasn't sure what to think about how nervous Mac looked. Clearly she was about to tell him something big, something she never told anyone else. It made him wonder if he really should've been so adamant about asking what was up, but he felt like he had to know. His mind ran with a hundred different things that Mac might say next, from the possible to the entirely outlandlish, but for once he kept his mouth shut and just listened.

"Okay," Mac started again, eyes mostly closed as she spoke. "When we were in high school, Veronica started running background checks on people's parents for cash. I asked her to look into me because... because I thought maybe I was adopted. Turns out, I was."

"Woah! That's pretty huge," said Dick, eyes wider than Mac had ever seen them.

"You don't know the half of it," she said, shaking her head. "See, it wasn't as if my parents went to an adoption agency or a children's home and picked me out. For four years of my life, they believed I was their daughter."

She glanced up at Dick and realised she had lost him, and Mac wasn't at all surprised. After all, she was being kind of cryptic so far, and Dick had never been the brightest bulb. Pushing her hair back off her face out of nervous habit more than because she really needed to, Mac cleared her throat and explained.

"It turned out that when I was born, there was another baby girl born within a couple of days of me. The people at the hospital got us mixed up. I went home with the Mackenzies, and their biological daughter went home with... with the Sinclairs."

Mac knew her voice had tapered off a little at the end of her little speech, but in the silent room that contained only two of them, and the short distance between her and Dick, he had to have heard every word she said. When she dared to look at him, she could practically see as well as hear the cogs turning in his brain as he thought about what that truly meant.

"So, the other baby was Madison?" Dick checked he had it straight.

Mac nodded her head, feeling stupid when a lone tear streaked down her cheek, her hand shot up to wipe it away fast and she almost laughed at herself for being so dumb. A sniff held back further tears and she looked up to meet Dick's eyes.

"She has my life, my biological family, everything, and I have what she should've had," she said simply. "And she has no idea."

"Dude, that's... Damn, Mac, I don't even know what to do with that."

She wanted to laugh at his expression, and she wanted to cry because of the horrible situation she had to think about too much today. It wasn't that she didn't love the parents that raised her or the little brother who was so much easier to get along with now than he had been ten years ago. It wasn't even about the money really and the fact she had lived as a have-not her whole life, whilst Madison got anything she ever wanted and then some. Honestly, Mac felt cheated out of something much more undefined. She couldn't help the what ifs that swirled in her brain sometimes. She couldn't help hating Madison for always, always flaunting what she had and truly never deserved.

"So, if you two had got switched back, or never got switched in the first place," said Dick after a while, uninjured arm waving back and forth to demonstrate the words he said, "then you'd be Madison and she'd be you?"

"Kind of, I guess," said Mac awkwardly.

"Then I would've dated you-Madison instead of bitch-Madison?"

Mac didn't have an answer for that one. The idea of her and Dick dating, especially back in their high school days was equal parts disgusting and amusing if she were honest. Of course it was dumb and very Dick-like to think anything was that simple. Mac and Madison had their own personalities, and though the way they were raised was a factor, so was their genetic make up. There was really no way to tell if Dick would've dated Madison if she had been brought up as a Mackenzie, or if he would have dated Mac as a Sinclair. Avoiding answering his question entirely seemed like her best bet, and Mac was way more comfortable with letting the whole dating topic slide right by.

"Um, Dick? I don't know if you would ever want to, but you really cannot tell anybody about this," she said definitely. "The only person who knows besides me is Veronica because she dug up the dirt. Well, and both sets of parents, obviously. Nobody else has any idea, not my brother, Ryan, or Madison's sister, Caitlin. Not Wallace or Logan, nobody."

She impressed upon him with her tone and expression just exactly how serious she was about nobody knowing her secret and the importance of keeping it that way. To his credit, as shocked and overwhelmed as Dick looked, he did seem to get it.

"I can keep a secret," he told her, so seriously that Mac couldn't help but wonder.

Dick had to have secrets of his own, and she would lay money that more than one revolved around the nightmares she had seen and heard him experience more than once since she moved in here. He never did like to talk about them, but Mac knew he did remember them, at least some of the time. Maybe some time he would want to tell her about it, but they had done quite enough sharing for one day already.

"I should go finish up my work," she said then, getting up from the bed and heading for the door.

"Hey, Macky?" he called after her, making her turn back at the last. "Thanks for telling me," he said seriously, "and for what it's worth, Madison would make a lousy you."

Mac smiled somewhat at how dumb that sounded, but more so at the sentiment she knew was meant by those words.

"Thank you, Dick," she said, more quietly than she meant to as she left him alone again.

To Be Continued...