A/N: So glad all my lovely readers are still here! Thanks for all the reviews. On we go...

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 14

Mac was walking past Dick's bedroom door when she heard a crash, not loud enough to be a person falling down, but something that she felt the need to investigate. She found Dick looking generally pissed at something, a mark on the opposite wall and a game controller in two pieces on the carpet.

"What happened?" she asked, as if she couldn't guess.

"What happened?" Dick echoed, looking mad about something as yet undisclosed. "Somebody jumped me in an alley and left me for dead, that's what happened!" he told Mac angrily. "So I gotta live with broken bones and an all-around boredomfest for the rest of my life!"

Mac winced at his volume and tried not to smile too much at Dick's over-dramatics. He really was being pretty childish, though she could understand his frustration at being stuck in bed so long. As much as he loved video games and TV, the guy had to be sickening for the outside world, for surfing, partying, and all his other favourite activities.

"It's not for the rest of your life," she told him what he already knew, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed. "It's six weeks tops, and you're practically half way through that already. Be grateful, Dick. Some people really do have to deal with being bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound permanently, and you could've been one of them," she said seriously, meeting his eyes.

Dick let out a huge sigh, pushing his bangs of his forehead with his free hand. He knew he was over-reacting, but quite honestly, it was hard to care today.

"I know," he grumbled. "But dude, seriously? This is not how I want to spend my birthday."

"It's your birthday?" said Mac with evident surprise. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't... Happy birthday," she got out eventually, realising she probably didn't need to explain how she didn't know that. There was really no reason why she should.

"Thanks," said Dick, finding a slight smile. "No big deal, I guess. It's just, one more year and I'm staring thirty in the face. Kinda wanted to make my twenties count while I got 'em."

"You do know that thirty isn't old, right?" said Mac, trying not to laugh at him and finding it hard. "Seriously, Dick, you have all the time in the world for birthday parties."

"Maybe, maybe not," he said, looking too serious all of a sudden. "It's just, when you think about the people in this town, all the stuff that happened when we were in high school - Lilly, the bus crash, Beav - some people don't live to get old, and I'm not sayin' I wanna be old, but those kids that were gone before they were even twenty makes me wanna live the hell out of my life before it runs out on me."

Mac felt oddly tearful as she listened to Dick talk, watching his face, his eyes, unable to look away. He made a good point, she couldn't deny it. They really should make the most of life, because it had the capacity to be stupid short.

"I mean, this thing that happened to me, whoever smacked me around, you just said it could've been worse. Not just wheelchairs and home help. I could be in the ground already."

"Dick, don't," said Mac, shifting uncomfortably.

"It is what it is, Macky," he told her, shrugging his shoulders. "I just don't wanna waste my life, y'know?"

She did know. She understood exactly where he was coming from and it made Mac wish she could do more to help him out. There really was no way for Dick to be in the middle of a party right now. He could barely stand unaided with his bad ankle, and got out of breath fast thanks to his busted ribs. Throw in a broken arm and the occasional dizzy spell, plus the fact he was on an alcohol-free diet until he was done taking the painkillers, there really was no way to have the good time Dick was used to. Of course, that didn't mean he couldn't have a good birthday.

"Okay," she said after too long sat in silent thought. "You feeling up to getting your butt down the stairs today?" she asked Dick.

"If the trip's worth the effort" he told her.

Mac smiled. "It'll be worth it, I promise."

"Then I'm good to go."

"Easy, tiger," she urged him to lie back down when he tried to get up immediately. "I got plans to make first. Give me a couple of hours," said Mac, checking her watch as she got up to leave. "I'll be back," she said in Terminator-style and then she was gone.

Dick couldn't get the grin off his face at both her awful impression of Schwarzenegger and the fact she was clearly planning some kind of surprise for his birthday. There was no way they were going to party like he usually would. Dick may be dumb, but he knew damn well Mac was not going to let him drink and he was in no fit state to dance. He might get a gift out of this though, maybe dinner out in the world somewhere. Quite honestly, Dick didn't care. If Mac was making plans for him then they would be cool, whatever they were.

It was weird how she seemed to know him so well already, and how well they just naturally got along. Back in the day, he never would've guessed they could really be friends. Dick never thought for a moment he would want to be buds with any chick, least of all a nerd like Mac. The world changed a person, even a guy like Dick Casablancas, and maybe he didn't mind that so much. Everybody had to grow up sometime, and he was twenty nine as of today. As much as he wanted to live his life to the full because of all the teens he had seen lose their lives before him, Dick was also patently aware of the people around him who could be ripped away just as easily. Logan was fighting for God and country, could easily be blown up or shot down at any time. Veronica faced off with dangerous criminals and such all the time, and any one of them could get in a lucky shot, a fatal blow. Nobody was safe all the time, and Dick's friends had a habit of putting themselves right in the line of fire. If they weren't proof that life should be lived to the full whilst he had it, Dick didn't know what was.

"Dick!" Mac's voice yelled from somewhere out in the hall. "Did I leave my cell in your room or mine?"

"It's not in here!" he called back, after a quick glance over the bed and the nightstand.

"Thanks!" she replied, hurrying to the bedroom down the hall.

Dick smiled as he saw her flash by the door. He liked that Mac automatically called that room 'mine'. He liked having her around, not just because she was company and help, but because she was Mac. It was weird, because Dick had never once wanted to live with a woman before. The only female he ever shared space with was his mother, and later his step-mother, Kendall. It wasn't the same as choosing to live with a woman, somebody you cared about. No girlfriend Dick ever had was a person he would want to live with, and he never really had chicks as friends. There was Ronnie, but she was only ever really in his life because of Logan. They weren't buds, and she would never want to be, Dick was certain on that. He knew all the reasons too, and most of them he would rather not dwell on.

"Hey, Mac Attack?" he called when he heard her coming back the other way. "You don't have to make a big deal, about my birthday or whatever," he told her.

"Dick? Stop being an ass," she told him, smiling good-naturedly. "And practice your game," she advised, gesturing towards the video game console, "if you want to stand a chance of winning on your birthday."

"Yes, ma'am," said Dick, saluting her with his good hand and reaching for the controller that he hadn't thrown against the wall. "Geez, you are not a chick to be messed with,"

Mac's laughter rang like a bell as she headed off to make her plans, and Dick was pretty sure he never heard a better sound.

"Hey," said Veronica as she arrived at the house.

"Hi, honey," her father greeted her with an absent wave. "Did you know there are at least twenty five different ways to cook salmon?"

With wide eyes, Veronica dropped down onto the couch next to Keith and observed the show on the TV screen. She tilted her head as she stared, then picked up the remote and turned off the set.

"Yeah, no more daytime for you," she told her father.

Keith smirked, knowing she had a point and turned a little on the couch to look at her.

"If I said 'no more cases for you', would that work as easy?"

"No comment," she replied, smiling, her eyes closed for a moment. "I wouldn't mind so much if all the hard work was paying off, but I am getting nowhere fast this week."

"Sometimes it can be that way, you know that comes with the territory," Keith sympathised. "You take some nice pictures?" he asked then, gesturing towards the camera case hanging from her arm.

"Nothing useful," she sighed, putting both the camera and her purse onto the cushion between them. "I was staking out Missy and Adam."

"Back to the Casablancas case, huh?"

"Yup," Veronica confirmed, popping the 'p'. "I thought maybe, just maybe, one of them would give some clue to their involvement in the attack, but nothing so far. Apart from going home to the same place at the end of the day, you wouldn't even know they were friends."

Keith hated to see Veronica look so dejected. She was one of the smartest people he knew, and one of the most determined. There wasn't much in the way of mystery she couldn't solve eventually, and Keith was happy to say he was similarly gifted. The problem was the getting to the right answers sometimes. The road was full of twists and turns, and occasional dead ends. It was frustrating as hell, but it was just the way it worked sometimes. Keith only wished he could be more help, but until his body recovered from his 'accident', he was less than useful to his daughter or their business.

"You ever think of coming at this from a different angle?" he asked Veronica then. "Did you ever ask Dick for a list of people who he may have recently angered?" he clarified when Veronica peered at him oddly through only one open eye.

She had her head flung back into the couch cushions like she was trying to go to sleep, never mind the fact it was barely lunch time. Keith was pretty sure she had been out since stupid o'clock this morning, so it wasn't that strange.

Stifling a yawn, Veronica answered her father's question after a moment's consideration.

"Might be a long list of angry women."

"And their husbands and boyfriends," admitted Keith.

Veronica sighed. "Maybe. I'll talk to Mac about it sometime, but not today," she said definitely, stretching across the cushions and letting her head drop onto Keith's shoulder. "I'm beat, Pops," she told him. "What say you and me take a little time, catch up on some TiVo?"

"Sounds good to me, sweetheart," he agreed, kissing her hair. "Y'know we have a lot of daddy-daughter time to catch up on now you're back here to stay."

Smiling widely, Veronica reached for the remote and fired up the TV again. There wasn't much she had missed about Neptune in all the years she had been away, but her father was most definitely one of the few people she was glad to have come home to.

To Be Continued...