Fic: Mac's Long Weekend 7/14 (Veronica/Piz, Mac/Max) PG-13
Title: Mac's Long Weekend
Author: wuoreb
Pairing/Characters: Veronica/Piz (temporary), Mac/Max (mentions), Mac, Weevil, Dick, Logan, Veronica, Piz, Madison
Word Count: 19,000+
Rating: PG-13 (Language, drinking)
Summary: When Veronica asks for a favor, Mac knows it's going to be a long weekend.
Spoilers: Up to 3.20, Season finale
Warnings: None
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I just wish I did.
Author's Note: This is my first fic. Any comments or corrections are welcome.
----- Previous Chapters -----
Chapter 7
Mac hung up the phone numbly. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The worst part was that he'd believed her when she said nothing happened, but it wasn't enough. She told Max about the photographer and he said he couldn't face having everyone they knew thinking that he'd been two timed by Logan Echolls and a janitor. She wanted to plead with him, to ask for time to track down the pictures. Instead she weakly asked, "What does this mean? Are you breaking up with me?" There had been a long pause on the other end of the phone before he said yes and hung up.
As she put away her phone she tried to tell herself that she didn't really want to be with someone who was that afraid of other people's opinions. She didn't quite believe it. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair. She had always been good, a little weird but dependable. She was the plucky computer hacker. She wasn't the type of girl who wound up embroiled in sex scandals. Numbly she walked over to the courtesy bar and grabbed a overpriced of chocolate. It didn't help much, although on the plus side at least she discovered she wasn't nauseous any more.
Walking through the room, her eyes fell on the room service menu. A few seconds later she was explaining to a bemused hotel worker that she had just been dumped by her boyfriend and might possibly be on the cover of a tabloid tomorrow. She needed an epic dessert. She wanted chocolate sorbet, syrup, sprinkles. Hell, she wanted the kitchen sink so long as it was vegan. Room service promised they would deliver a masterpiece.
She wandered around the room, not wanting to settle, not sure what she should do. Numbly she grabbed her computer and booted it up. For a brief second she thought about all the things she could do to Max to make him hurt as badly as she was hurt. But she couldn't do it. She loved him. As she sat there with her head aching and tears building up behind her eyes Mac felt the need to lash out.
Muttering to herself, "All right bitchy counter lady, you picked the wrong weekend to piss me off." After only a few minutes work, she bought the counter lady subscriptions to several magazines, to be delivered here at the hotel of course. Mac smiled grimly as she pictured her reaction to receiving: Tattoo Aficionado, Pierce World, Latino Hard-bodies, and The Masochist Lifestyle. It was a gift that kept on giving. Her co-workers would probably enjoy it too.
Now who else had pissed her off recently? If she really thought about it this whole weekend was Larry's fault. If he hadn't been a blackmailing scum she wouldn't even be here this weekend. Mac frowned thoughtfully. She didn't want to do anything to mess up Veronica's plans. However, a little ground work couldn't hurt. It didn't take long to design a fully functional website purportedly made by Larry detailing his longstanding devotion to sheep. It included the infamous video, an icky ramble about the beauty of sheep, and several animal husbandry articles just to flesh things out. Just to top it off, she also included links to his online resume and myspace page. It wasn't terribly original but it would do the trick. She wouldn't upload it until Veronica gave the okay.
This was actually rather satisfying. Aimlessly Mac looked around the room. Hm, who else deserved to suffer? When her eyes fell on Weevil's pile of stuff in the corner she remembered his rant about H.R. Whistling tunelessly, Mac pulled up the Hurst intranet, and it was the work of moments to get behind the security firewall. The problem with hiring students to work on the computer system was that it made it easy for them to get in.
It didn't take long at all to pull up the records on current workers' comp. claims. There were three still unresolved from last month, Eli Navarro's busted knee, Peter Abadi's carpel tunnel, and Aleah Jackson's sprained wrist. There was only one claim that had been granted and closed right away, Bobby O'Connell, who had a broken toe,
Mac frowned, an idea growing in the back of her head. She pulled up the campus staff website. Yep, the collage had a page with names, phone numbers, and pictures of all campus workers. She snorted, way to help out the stalkers. Of course in this case it was being used for good. She went back to the H.R. site and pulled up data for the last six months, then she cross-checked each name with the staff pictures. Over and over she saw the same pattern, and all the claims were processed by the same H.R. manager.
It wasn't difficult to download all the information she needed. The only problem was what she should do with it. Weevil wouldn't thank her for getting him fired.
Just then she heard a knock on the door. Damn, it was Dick and standing next to him, the room service guy. She had two choices, pretend not to be there and miss out on her food or open it. Against her better judgment Mac opened the door.
He walked into the room chatting happily, "It was really cool of you to order food. I'm starving. So the red-head I hooked up with is sorta pissed that I ditched her to hang with you. But I told her that I wasn't about to let some chick come between me and my buddies. So, now I'm totally free tonight too if you want to hang out."
She stared at him for a second, briefly wondering how he managed to make it through life always living in the moment. She came back to herself when the room service guy coughed politely and handed her the bill to sign. She noticed it was automatically being charged to the room. She probably should share with Dick then.
Mac cleared her throat, "Hey Dick, help yourself to some dessert. I just have a quick phone call to make. Okay?" He nodded, lifting the lid off the room service tray.
She went back to her computer and did a quick search, within seconds she was placing a call the president of the Students for Racial Justice, Hearst chapter. "Hi, I just came across something you might find interesting. According to some private files in Hearst's H.R. web page, white workers who file for workers' compensation have their claims resolved an average of four weeks quicker then other workers. In addition they are twice as likely to get a favorable decision. Plus it looks like the non-Caucasian workers who file claims or grievances are twice as likely to quit or be fired."
There was a long silence from the other end of the phone, and then a hard, "Can you prove it."
Mac smiled, "I can get you records of all the claims filed for the last year. I also have records of disciplinary hearings and contract disputes, although I haven't had time to look those over closely yet. It looks like the work of one manager, but someone at the school should have noticed. I was hoping that you'd be willing to take him down."
The president sounded excited, "When can we meet? If this is true we'll make them pay."
"I can't meet you. The problem is that I obtained this info in a less then legal manner. I can e-mail it to you though." Mac pulled up an anonymous e-mail server and quickly sent off everything she had.
The student activist thanked her, talking about press conferences, and picketing the school's offices. She seemed to be in a hurry to get off the phone and get to work. After hunging up Mac smiled, a certain H.R. manager was going to be very unhappy very soon.
She looked up to see Dick staring at her, "What?"
"Dude, you are totally like batman, fighting the forces of evil."
Mac blinked, that wasn't a comparison that would ever have occurred to her. Veronica as batman maybe, she was more like Alfred. She let the comment pass, and walked over to the food.
He was scooping chocolate sorbet into a bowl that already had some kind of thick chocolate sauce. He also added bits of cherry, marshmallow cream, and chocolate sprinkles from the bowls sitting next to the serving dish. It looked really good. After he finished dishing it up he handed the bowl to her and started making another one.
She wasn't sure if it was him being nice or the fact that she had finally stopped distracting herself with the computer. She felt tears welling up, she fought them desperately, but the final conversation with Max was running through her head. She was staring at her dessert, eyes watering, when Dick gently asked her, "Hey, Ghost World, are you okay?" and the floodgates burst. She set her food on the table and sat on the bed, covering her face, and wishing despairingly that he would go away.
The last thing she expected was for him to sit down beside her, put an arm around her, and try and comfort her. "Is this about that guy you were dating? It'll be okay. You are way too good for him anyway. I could beat him up for you; he's kind of a nerd so it wouldn't even be that hard."
At the last bit, a laugh snuck through her tears. Mac wiped her eyes and pulled away from him, "No don't do that, I'm just feeling a little..." She waved her hand uncertainly. "What did you want to talk to me about anyway?"
He gave her an uncertain look, "You sure you're alright?"
She nodded and picked up her food, "I don't want to talk about him, seriously. What did you want to talk about?"
After a second he pulled a folded up notebook out of he back pocket and pressed the crease flat. He seemed uncertain where to start, "So I was watching TV the other day and there was this guy. He was a real tool and had acted like an ass-hat to a bunch of people. So he made of this list of people he was a jerk to and decided to make it up to them. I was kind of thinking maybe I should do that." He hurried through his speech like he thought Mac was going to laugh at him.
This particular plot sounded kind of familiar. Mac came to a stunning conclusion; Dick Casablancas went and decided to make himself a better person based on the influence of a half-hour sitcom. It seemed fitting somehow. "Uh huh, why did you want to talk to me?"
He seemed relieved now that he'd told her the basis for the visit, "Well, you're smart and I could kind of use your help. I drew of the list of people pretty easy, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to make it up to some of them."
She held out her hand, "Could I see it?"
For a second she thought he'd refuse, but he handed a it over. Each page of the notebook had a name on it, followed by a list of the stuff Dick had done to them. There were a lot of pages and some of the lists were extensive. She was randomly flipping through when she saw Veronica's name. Her eyebrows rose when she read the list of his offenses against her. Wow, maybe he had a point. It was going to be really hard to think of a way to make up for some of this. It was kind of surprising Veronica let him live. Mac was tempted to make a smart-ass comment but when she looked over at him he was staring at his hands miserably. Damn it, he had that kicked puppy look on his face.
Almost against her will, Mac found herself agreeing to help him. "Do you want to go over it now?"
Shaking his head he held out his hand for the notebook. "No, I figured maybe when we get back to Neptune we could sit down and go over some of the ones I'm having trouble with. I figured today we could just hang out, you know, cheer you up." He gave her a wide smile.
Mac shrugged, trying to think of anything they could do that would cheer her up.
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Next - Chapter 8