Title: It's Enough 1/4
Author: Sara
Pairing/Character: Dick, Mac, eventually Dick/Mac
Word Count: 1621
Rating: PG-13
Summary: She wasn't really sure what she was doing when she pulled into the Casablancas' drive, but part of her knew that she needed this.
Spoilers: Spoilers through 2x22
Warnings: None

Mac doesn't cry at Cassidy's funeral. Instead, she sits in the second row next to Veronica and holds onto her hand so tightly that she's sure she's leaving bruises. Veronica doesn't complain so Mac just holds on and continues to stare at the closed coffin.

The sermon is short, but the funeral procession is shorter. They're burying him on the family lot, next to his grandparents and his second cousin, who died in a motorcycle accident the previous fall. It starts to rain as they lower the casket into the ground and someone is handing out black umbrellas.

Her eyes meet Dick's, who's standing on the other side of the lots next to his mother and her step family. He doesn't look like he's slept since it happened. She thinks she sees a tear run down his cheek as he breaks their eye contact but it's probably just the rain.

None of this feels real to her yet.

Two hours later Mac's drunk and hiding in the coat closet at the funeral home with Dick.

She's not completely sure how she came to be in this position. After the funeral they had returned to the home for the lunch that was being catered in. She had been sitting at a small, round table with Veronica, Logan and Dick, watching Mrs. Casablancas cry several feet away about how she wished that she had been a better mother. None of them objected to this.

Mac had been picking at her salad when Veronica and Logan had gotten up to get more food, leaving her alone with Dick. She wondered silently if they should talk about what happened. She was pretty sure they were the two people in the room who were closest to Cassidy.

She wanted to ask him if he felt as guilty as she did for not seeing that he was in trouble, but she didn't know what to say. Instead, she took another bite of lettuce and stared straight ahead.

"Wanna get drunk?" Dick finally asked, when the silence had become almost too heavy to stand. Mac dropped her fork back onto her plate and stared at him for a few seconds.

"Sure," she finally replied, not caring how completely inappropriate and out of character this was. Going through all of this sober wasn't working for her.

Although going through this drunk didn't seem to be that much of an improvement. She took another swig of vodka from the bottle Dick had smuggled in in his coat pocket before handing the bottle back to him.

She knew that someone was going to eventually come looking for them and she didn't even want to think what it would look like when they found them sitting across from each other in a darken closet. Mac's black dress slid up her legs as she adjusted herself trying to get comfortable, but she didn't care enough to fix it.

All she wanted was for the damn closet to stop spinning.

"This fucking sucks," Dick slurred, finishing off the last of the vodka. It was the first thing that he had said since they'd started drinking.

Mac just nodded as she reached up to run her hands across the bottom of the coats hanging above them.

Just then the door swung open and Veronica loomed above them.

"It's Ronnie!" Dick declared, pumping his fist into the air.

"We've been looking all over for you," Veronica said, kneeling down and Mac tilted her head as she stared at her. "Have you been drinking?"

"Yep," Dick answered proudly, as he attempted to stand, which resulted in him knocking down several coats. They landed in Mac's lap and she reached out to pet the soft fabric.

"Honey, are you okay?" Veronica asked softly, reaching out to rub Mac's shoulder. Mac shook her head and immediately regretted it when everything went out of focus. "What's wrong?"

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Mac answered.

Then she threw up all over coats in her lap.

A week after the funeral Mac was dragged to the mall with her mother for shopping and a movie.

"I'm worried about you, honey," her mother had explained. "I promise that this will make you feel better."

Mac wanted to tell her mother that there was nothing that was going to make this easy for her. Cassidy had turned her life upside down and left her broken. She didn't think that she would ever completely be fixed. But instead she just nodded at her mother and followed her out to the minivan.

She let her mom buy her several new outfits and sat through a movie where perfect people always said the perfect thing at the perfect time, which lead to a perfect ending.

"Wasn't that nice?" her mother asked her on the drive home. "You shouldn't spend all your time locked away in your room. You're not the one who died. You're still alive."

"It doesn't feel that way," Mac whispered to herself, watching the houses pass them by.

She went back to the Casablancas' house for the first time several days later.

Mac had been driving around all morning, no real destination in mind. She had needed some time to think about everything that had happened.

She wasn't really sure what she was doing when she pulled into the Casablancas' drive, but part of her knew that she needed this. Maybe if she sat in his room, surrounded by his stuff, she would get some closure. She climbed out of her Volkswagen and walked across the driveway.

She knocked loudly and Dick finally opened the door, wearing a pair of pajama pants and a wife beater.

"Ghost World, what do you want?" he asked, stepping out of her way as she walked into the hall.

"I'm not really sure," she replied honestly as she walked into the main portion of there house.

"Whatever. Just shut the door on your way out," Dick said before he sat back on the sofa and picked up his Xbox controller.

Mac looked up at the stairs, which lead to the bedrooms, and instantly knew that she wasn't ready to face his room yet. She turned to leave when she noticed the state of the room. There were a number of shopping bags piled in the corner filled with new clothes.

"And here I thought shopping was only therapeutic to girls," Mac mused out loud.

"I needed some new threads," Dick answered from the couch, without looking at her. But it was at that moment that Mac noticed the pillow and blankets bawled up at the end of the sofa and the pile of dirty clothes in the corner. She turned and looked back upstairs; remembering that, to get to Dick's room, you would have to walk past Cassidy's open door.

Mac was pretty sure that Dick hadn't been upstairs since his brother's death.

"You fire that maid or something?" she asked, walking over to the pile of dirty clothes.

"She quit," Dick replied, "She didn't want to work in Casa de Killer or something."

Mac let out a sigh as she scooped up Dick's dirty clothes and headed to the back of the house were the laundry room was. She put in a load of laundry and headed towards the kitchen to take care of the dirty dishes that had been piling up for the last week and a half.

Once she was done she placed the basket of folded clothes next to the bags of new clothes and left without saying anything.

She began to visit the house every few days to do his laundry and do the dishes. It kept her busy for a few hours, where she didn't have to think about life. Besides, there was something almost calming about taking care of someone who seemed to be worse off then she was.

She didn't really talk to Dick much. He mostly just played video games or watched movies while she was there. She finally joined him on the couch on her fifth visit, to watch whatever action flick he had put on.

He stared at her, confused by her action.

"I'm waiting for the clothes to dry," she responded to his unasked question. He had run out of food in the fridge and had been living off of delivery for the past few days. Not the healthiest choice that Mac could think of, but it drastically lowered the number of dirty dishes in the sink.

"I never thought you'd be the housewife type," Dick replied, turning his attention back to the television.

"Someone has to take care of you," she explained, the words coming out harsher than she meant them to.

They watched the movie in silence after that.

The next time she came over she found clothes already in the washer and the dishes were done. She was pretty sure this was Dick's way of telling her that he could take care of himself.

Mac turned to leave when she heard Dick yelling from the sofa for her.

"What kind of dressing do you like on your salad?" he asked, and Mac stared at him confused. "Come on, Ghost World, not that hard of a question."

"Vinaigrette," she finally answered. He repeated her answer back into his cell phone before hanging up.

"Lunch will be here in like 15 minutes, but, 'til then, I'm totally going to kick your ass at this game," he said, handing her an Xbox controller. Mac sat down next to him and accepted the controller, feeling herself relax.

"I'd like to see you try," she boasted, selecting her character.

She won four out of the five games.