Vote Mars

A/N: So I know its been a long time since I've really posted anything new. That is in part because I've been rewriting/fixing Vote Mars and in part because I've been working on my own work aiming to get something actually published. Sorry for the delay hope you enjoy

She slid into the passenger seat of Mac's car and feels like the worst daughter in the world. A prize she seems to be constantly claiming.

"Why do you look like you're going to barf?" Mac asks driving quickly back to the office where her father is waiting to gush about how good she must have done on the Bar, about how his baby girl is going to be a lawyer.

"I didn't take the Bar." the words just fall out of her mouth like tossed cookies.

"What are you talking about? You were in there for two hours. I know, I waited, I played like a million games of Ticket to Ride on my phone and watched an episode of Buffy."

"I went in totally ready to take the Bar and..." she trails off.

"And?"

"And then I didn't?" She feels a special brand of bad for lying to Mac. She had never intended to take the Bar. Weeks earlier when she had gone to sign up to take the test she had seen that the POST was writing today...

"So what, you sat in there for two hours not taking a test? What did you do? Throw up? Did you throw up? You could have messaged me, I would have come and held you're hair for you." She starts the car back up and starts towards the office.

"Do I really look that bad?" She asks flipping the mirror down and discovering, yes she absolutely looks that bad, she's too pale and she feels cold all over. Since when had lying done that to her? She used to be the champion of lying, to everyone, especially herself.

Maybe she had made the right decision after all. What good was a lawyer who couldn't lie?

"What happened, Veronica?" Mac asks pulling to a stop in front of the office.

"I walked down the hall and there were two doors. One door led to the Bar and the other led to the POST." She tests out the lie because it's the one she plans to use on her father.

That some overwhelming, unstoppable feeling had happened, that it was a last minute decision; not one she had been agonizing over for weeks.

She can almost see the look of betrayal on her father's face if he figured out that she had been planning to take the POST the entire time, that every time he had quizzed her on law she had been trying to apply it to questions that would be on the POST.

She had promised no more lies and this lie of omission, all this time, had been killing her and she feared might kill what little trust he had left in her.

"You got the mail for two hours?"

"It stands for Peace Officer's Standard Training..."

A light seems to go on in Mac's eyes and she nods a little for encouragement.

"So through one door was the Bar and being a lawyer, making dad happy, working with Cliff and running the p.i business with dad on the side... and the other door was the POST, and being able to run for sheriff and to kill all that corruption all while taking down that bastard that ran down my father and killed Sacks..." She has to pause there because Sacks had been a sometimes friend and a good cop when it really came down to it, he didn't deserve what he got, and she'd always thought his moustache was funny.

"So you took the POST?"

"Yeah."

" You're going to run for sheriff?"

"If I pass..."

Mac scoffs at that and it calms her nerves a little, "Like you couldn't have taken that test ten years ago and aced it without all that laywer-y knowledge all up in your noggin." Mac pushes tapping said noggin and she's glad that someone in the car has confidence in her, "When is the next election?"

"Three months."

"Is that enough time? Where are you going to get the money for a campaign?"

Okay, so she hadn't really thought about that and perhaps everyone in Neptune with deep pockets hated her except for Logan who wouldn't be back until two months too late.

She'd think of something.

"I'll think of something."

"I'm sure you will. If you need anything from me just call, or text, or smoke signal..."

"Smoke signal?"

"Uh yeah, I was a scout, I wouldn't use semaphore thou, I'm pretty rusty and might just end up bringing pizza instead of coming to your tech rescue."

"That sounds pretty win-win to me." She smiles and Mac returns it but there's something off about it. She notices the time and how she should really be at Kane software already, but she seems to be dragging out this conversation.

"You want me to come in and help you break the news to your dad?"

Yeah, there is definitely something wrong because no one in their right mind would want to be in the middle of a Mars throw down. This is definitely something they are going to have a talk about later.

"Nah I got this, you go to work. Thanks for driving me to the test...even if I didn't take the one I meant to."

Mac runs her hands across the steering wheel but nods, "Call me later?"

"Will do Mac-attack." she confirms and gets out of the car.

The sun is shining again. It always seems to be shining here and she can't help but find that kind of funny when it's the darkest place she's ever been.

She watches Mac drive off towards her actual job because she has this weird feeling that if she didn't Mac would still be sitting there in her car when she came back out of the office that night.

Plus, she really wasn't looking forward to telling her dad that she was following in his footsteps no matter how hard he protested.

Maybe if she was vague about not taking the Bar he wouldn't catch on about how long it actually takes or that she'd have to go to LA for it.

God, she hoped he didn't talk to Cliff about it.

Taking a deep, steadying breath she climbs the stairs up towards the office.

The second she opens the door she regrets it.

There's a loud pop and she hits the ground, her mind spinning to remember where exactly in her purse Mr. Sparky is sleeping.

She's counting possible exits and possible culprits when streamers hit the ground in front of her.

It's a popper, not a gun.

"I haven't seen anyone drop like that in years." Her dad laughs moving around the desk, the crutches making it a clattering slow affair.

Pushing herself up off the, thankfully, clean floor she narrows her eyes at him, " Why would you give your favorite daughter a heart attack like that?"

" It's a celebration popper. You're just getting paranoid in your old age."

She scoffs at that. It's not paranoia if it's true and it's been true more times than not.

"So how did my little lawyer do?"

"Uh... About that..." She sinks to the couch and watches, pained, as her father moves slowly to sit on the couch with her.

" Oh honey, you can always take it again." He smiles softly and runs a hand through her hair.

Yep worst daughter in the world.

" I'm sure I passed the test I took." She tells him plainly and he smiles brightly for a moment before processing just how vague her words really are.

"What test did you take?" He asks, his voice low and slow like he's preparing for her to just stab him right in the heart.

"The POST."

He chokes on spit, " You did what?"

"I took the-"

"I heard you." He sags back into the couch, his head on the back and his fingers pressed into his eyes.

She's silent for a long moment, waiting for the shit to hit fans.

"Why would you take the POST, Veronica?" He sounds so tired.

"I'm going to run for Sheriff." She tells him as firmly as she can manage, but the way her father looks at her eats away at her resolve.

"How well, exactly, do you think another Mars running for Sheriff will go, Veronica? They'll eat you alive."

"They'll only eat me alive if I let them." She's had people try and destroy her, her entire life...well the majority of it anyway.

"Veronica why do you want to be Sheriff..."

She pushes herself up from the couch. This is it, time for the big Serpico speech.

"I want to be Sheriff...I need to be Sheriff because no one else is willing or able to clean up this mess. The police brutality, the corruption...what they did to you...to Sacks..." Keith looks down at his lap at that and she has to take a breath to steady herself because the look on his face just intensifies that horrible rock feeling in her gut, "I need to be Sheriff because you can't be and this town needs a Mars in office."

She wonders for a brief moment how much of this is guilt over ruining her father's election, how much of it is her desire to fix this for him. To protect people like Weevil who'd made something of their life only to have it ripped away because the rich could.

"The election is going to be painful Veronica you have to know that."

"When did I ever do anything easy?"

"They are going to drag everything out into the open."

She laughed at that, " Since when is that new? They showed the sex tape at my high school reunion. They think I can't handle a little mudslinging? Baby I live in the mud."