VM fic: Finger in my pie (NC-17)

[dasq]

 

Finger in my pie

Part 1/1

Title: Finger in my pie (Veronica, Lilly, Logan, Clarence Wiedman, Mac, NC-17)
Author: Kaze
Characters: Veronica, Lilly, Logan, Clarence Wiedman, Mac, a little of the Kane family
Word Count: 9,679 *phew*
Spoilers: season 1
Warnings: NC-17, AU, future-fic
Disclaimer: VM and its characters belong to Rob Thomas.

A/N: I told you I’m in my experimental phase ^_- This time: present tense (partly, at least). And: first time I participated in a challenge. Yay, me.
This is an answer to Lex’s ‘Ask Questions Later’ challenge. It was a struggle. I tried my best…
It was really important to me to make this scenario at least possible, if not probable, so many thanks to my super-boyfriend, who did a lot of research for me and worked with me on this until he, as an engineer, could approve it ;) I tried to leave out the techno babble, but if you’re interested in how exactly this thing works, tell me and I’ll explain (I can even draw a chart!)
Also, many, many thanks to my fabulous betas blue_icy_rose and fickledame who managed to not lose patience with me for making the stupidest mistakes over and over again ;P Seriously, Kaze, a thong is NOT the same as a throng *headdesk*
This is AU (well, it is a future fic with Lilly in it), you’ll get everything that’s different while reading


The challenge:

How to Fix Your Space Shuttle on Re-entry

Jim Lovell: Houston, we have a problem.
- Apollo 13

Luckily for the modern-day space-exploring action hero, most systems on the space shuttle are automated. However, there are those rare times when things go awry - like when that evil multimillionaire bent on world domination damages your orbital maneuvering systems. At those times, it’s helpful to know how to escape danger and execute a de-orbit burn with your manual backup systems. According to flight Dynamics Officer Lisa B. Shore, this will slow your velocity enough so that you begin to fall out of orbit and back to earth (where you can safely land) - and give you just enough time to put the move on that sexy doctor onboard.

The story:

It’s almost eight p.m. when I get the call. I sigh and bump my head on my desk a couple of times before picking up the receiver, burying my face in my free hand.

“Yeah?” I ask gruffly, cursing that they found me. Well, it wasn’t a hard guess.

“Now, that’s not quite the proper way to answer the phone, is it?” My father’s chipper voice is tinned and interrupted by static and I try to readjust the phone’s cord. I catch him just in time to hear “…waiting for you.” Great. No escape for me tonight.

“Um, I really can’t, Jake. I have work to do.” I pray to all the gods I don’t believe in that he will let me off the hook. No such luck.

“You always do,” he sighs and I can picture his exhausted face. “I already sent the driver, Veronica. He’ll be there in five minutes. Please come, okay?” He’s begging now and I feel my resolve weakening. Not even he deserves to be left alone with the bloodsuckers that are his family. My family. Whatever.

“I’ll have to change first,” I say, resignedly, squeezing my eyes shut and hoping that I’ll have some really horrible accident on the way home to prevent me from having to attend yet another of the Kane family’s get-togethers.

“Nonsense. You’re beautiful no matter what you wear. Just come right over, so we can serve dinner.” He hangs up before I can respond and I can’t stop a wry smile from working its way across my mouth. Jake and I have come a long way since he acknowledged me as his daughter and adopted me after my dad, or rather the man I had considered my dad until that day and probably still did, died. My mom had bolted during my sophomore year in high school and had washed up months later on a beach in the middle of nowhere, more vodka than blood in her system and a bullet hole between her eyes.

Dad, the sheriff in this fucked-up town, had been obsessed with finding her killer. I sometimes think that he was searching for my benefit mostly, although I never asked him to. Maybe I could have stopped him. Certainly I should have stopped him when he started fucking up the investigation and poked into a beehive he should have left untouched. My mother had unintentionally crossed the Fitzpatricks in her hurry to get the hell out of Neptune, a hit and run that involved an inebriated Lianne Mars and Liam Fitzpatrick’s younger brother Connor. Her fate was sealed before she had even registered what had happened.

After he had made the connection between the two incidents, my dad had played hero, confronting Liam himself and alone. That earned him a matching bullet hole. And I started my junior year as an orphan, the town’s gossip and Jake Kane’s brand-new daughter. Although back then, the Kanes were the last family I would have chosen to be adopted into. After all, it was the Kane siblings’ fault that I had already been in a bad place before my life came tumbling down around me.

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Lilly Kane used to be my best friend and her brother Duncan - our brother - my boyfriend. After Duncan had broken up with me, I was devastated. But I still had Lilly, right? Wrong. I still don’t know what changed between us, but I don’t care anymore, I know her better now. Shelly Pomroy’s party had been the beginning of the end. Lilly had dragged me there, insisting that it was the right cure for my heartache over Duncan as well as over my mom’s disappearance.

She didn’t care that Shelly was Duncan’s new girlfriend and that I wasn’t quite a welcome sight to both her and her friends. She was Lilly Kane after all, she would never be bothered by trifles like that. Well, someone else at the party obviously was very bothered though, judging by the laced drink I was handed. I somehow made my way to a bedroom, when Lilly was nowhere to be found, and passed out. When I woke up, I was all alone, sans underwear and virginity.

I tried to reach Lilly all weekend, to no avail, praying that she would tell me what I was supposed to do. But when I saw her at school the next day, she subjected me to the same silent treatment I had already received from her brother. Obviously, I was a whore, a slut and pretty much everything in between.

That was probably the worst of it all. Not only having to deal with my rape, but having to do so on my own.

The rest of my sophomore year was hard, especially after my mom was found and my father began his obsession. But I held my head up high, squared my shoulders and showed those 09er sheep that I wasn’t named ‘Mars’ for my candy sweetness.

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When I arrive at the Kane mansion, the party is in full swing, or rather in what Celeste would probably consider full swing. Meaning Duncan is staring at the living room wall, Jake is on the phone with a business partner, Lilly is on her way from inebriated to fully plastered while Celeste tries to talk her out of having another Gin and Tonic sans Tonic.

Jake must have honed his internal radar, because he gets off the phone right at the moment of my arrival and engulfs me in a bear hug. While I’m the first to admit that his family is unbearable, this obvious show of relief and affection towards me is a bit much, even for Jake. I acknowledge the rest of the clan with a halfhearted wave as Celeste looks disapprovingly at my less than formal clothing, Lilly chugs another drink and Duncan switches his stare from the wall to his feet. Now, this is gonna be fun.

During Hors d’œuvre I finally learn what this evening is all about. Lilly is going to fly into space. I refrain from asking hopefully whether it’s a one-way trip. Off my inquisitive look, Jake starts to explain. With the recent cuts in the governments’ budgets due to two very expensive wars, NASA was forced to find other sources of money, mainly private investors. Essentially, they offered their space missions as a publicity opportunity.

So Kane software, who happen to be one of the competing firms to deliver the new interstellar communication software, will offer their product for a fraction of the original price for the CEO’s eldest’s chance to perform a publicity stunt deluxe. Yeehaw.

Of course, I had followed the presentation of the system three weeks ago, where Kane software had used an earth-bound satellite to show off the mighty power of their system by mediating a video conference with just a tiny fraction of their bandwidth. The public had been psyched with the opportunities of having such a communication system. And Jake was psyched about the chance to use a government project for good publicity.

While the world of economics gives me enough of a shudder to prod the reporter in me, I raised my glass with a smile and joined in the toasts. After all, how many chances were there to have my beloved sister abducted by aliens?

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After dinner, Jake motions for me to follow him into his study. I can’t quite decide whether to be relieved to get away from the party for at least a moment - my frequent bathroom visits are starting to become ridiculous - or worried, because Jake wanting to talk to me in private usually means I won’t like the topic.

Jake asks me to take a seat and offers me a martini while pacing through his study like a caged lion. I cringe at the sight of an olive in my glass and look for a place to discreetly drop it, but then Jake suddenly speaks.

“Veronica, I have a problem, and you’re the only one who can help me with it. I, um, I’m being blackmailed.”

I raise my eyebrows. While this is certainly no pleasant affair, it’s hardly unusual for someone with Jake’s standing. As far as I know, he’s getting about twenty blackmailing letters each year and usually lets his head of security handle them.

“Why don’t you let Clarence Wiedman look into it?” I ask and Jake sighs, as if he expected this question.

“This is a matter of…delicacy. Not quite Clarence’s most outstanding quality. But he will jump into action as soon as you find out who it is that’s blackmailing me.” Jake’s very obvious anxiety makes me frown.

“What is so special about this case? You’re never that worried about some freak wanting a piece of your cake.” Jake turns and looks at me contemplatively.

“The NASA software… it’s not safe.”

I almost choke on my martini and motion for him to elaborate. Jake turns again, as if he can’t look at me.

“The blackmailer managed to hack into our system during the presentation and corrupt the test model. Some of my engineers artificially created traffic to use up bandwidth. After the attack, we had to run down all that generated traffic so that at least the presentation kept running. If this happens in operation, the satellite will be useless before you can say ‘Houston, we have a problem’.”

“Let me guess, you couldn’t find the security gap,” I inquire. Jake shakes his head.

“I have people working on this 24/7, but they’ve had no luck so far. The blackmailer demands one billion cash. I can’t afford that, Veronica. I’d have to sell all my shares of Kane Software and this house and pretty much everything I possess.”

“You have to tell NASA. You can’t possibly let them operate with a compromised system.”

“Do you think I want them to? My whole existence depends on that project!” Jake stares at me with wild eyes and I nod my head. Jake calms down again when he sees my acquiescence.

“I can’t inform NASA of the security breach. I invested so much into the development of this system. If it leaks out that it’s been compromised, Kane Software is done for good. Everyone will lose their job and I’ll be right where I would be if I paid the blackmailer.”

I look past Jake for a few moments, every piece of information he gave me churning through my head. Finally, I sigh and look at him again.

“Show me those letters.” Jake smiles.

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Two weeks later, Lilly and I are on our way to Florida, accompanied by Clarence Wiedman, whose presence Lilly never questions once. Here’s superficial for you. Copies of the blackmailing letters stuffed deep into my messenger bag and Jake promised to inform me as soon as he hears more. We came to the conclusion that the blackmailer has to be a NASA employee, because no one else would have had the chance to check the system for security gaps.

Lilly flounces through Miami as if this were a shopping trip, completely oblivious to Clarence’s and my impatience to finally get to Kennedy Space Airport and start her training. After all, the blackmailer has to be someone from NASA, because no one else had access to the system to learn about its security.

Jake had dished Lilly some story about me having to come with her, not only to write a fervent review of the trip, but also to show the Kane family spirit. As if we were the Neptune version of The Simple Life. Lilly, of course, sees this as some kind of all girls road trip, with her daddy’s shadow providing the muscle in case a flirt goes wrong.

I haven’t pushed her yet to stop her endless party and demand that we leave for Kennedy immediately, because I don’t want her to get suspicious. The last thing I need on my quest is an annoying princess trying to play detective because it’s ‘so fabulous’.

But enough is enough and I decide that it’s time to try and get Lilly to set her mind on the thing she actually came here for. Cautiously, of course. So, when she comes back into our hotel suite from her Chinese aloe massage, I remind her that her training begins in the morning and that we should probably check in tonight, and not tomorrow after Lilly wakes up, meaning sometime around noon.

“Aw, come on, Ronnie,” she says and I wince. I hate that nickname and she knows it. That’s probably why she uses it. “This is my last day in freedom, I wanna party!”

I know that there’s no winning with her when she’s like that, so I let her talk me into coming to a club with her, have a last night of debauchery, for her promise to be all bright and early at seven a.m. tomorrow.

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When we enter the club, I realize immediately that this? Bad idea! The Factory is the playground of the rich and beautiful and looking at the other female guests’ skimpy outfits I’m not sure whether I should feel over or underdressed. I see a couple of guys feeding some girls shots or drugs and all I want to do is go back to the hotel, painfully reminded of the night years ago, that I could never quite forget.

But Lilly is only waiting for a reason to call off our deal, so I follow her into the VIP area, ordering bottled water on my way. Lilly is in her element as she flounces towards a large plush sofa and flops down on it, a wide grin on her face.

“This place is so me!” she exclaims and I can’t help but agree. Suddenly, she tensed and sits upright, staring across the room at another table. Before I can make out who it is she recognized in the throng of people that form an obviously well advanced private party, she already got up and is walking over there. I roll my eyes and follow her, anxious to spare Jake another public Lilly-debacle.

“Logan!” Lilly yells and my eyebrows shoot up. For sure, there he is, in the middle of the party, champagne bottle in one hand, his free arm around some girl. Logan Echolls, son of movie star extraordinaire Aaron Echolls and ex-starlet Lynn Echolls, and Lilly’s ex-boyfriend. I have seen him exactly three times in my life, then made it my modus operandi to avoid him like the plague. The funny thing is, I had actually liked him when we first met.

I had been thirteen, shy and innocent, and Lilly, still a friend, not yet a sister, had come to pick me up from my soccer game. I hadn’t known that her brother and his friend would tag along as well, and I was embarrassed as hell when I came towards them after the game, muddy and sweaty. Yay for a good first impression! Logan had been visiting Duncan, his old ‘summer vacation with parents at the marina’ friend and actually, he had been nice to me that first time.

The following summer, he had visited again. I had just started dating Duncan and he had developed into a full-fledged jackass. Snide remarks and hurtful words were the order of the day and I had no wish to see him again. Appropriately, he hadn’t visited that last happy summer, but he had returned to Neptune from his Hollywood home right after my life had gone to shit, again, appropriately. Since I wasn’t ‘associating’ with the Kane kids anymore, I learned about his presence by accident, walking into an ice cream parlor and bumping right into the fearsome threesome. To say that our encounter was less than pleasant would be an understatement yet I at least got the chance to offer him the courtesy of my newly improved sharp tongue. I left him speechless and triumphant and even though he and Lilly dated after high school on her short trip to the L.A. nightlife, I made sure to never meet him again and offer a rematch. There goes that plan.

Logan looks at Lilly disdainfully, which is probably understandable considering her little video stunt with Aaron was the trigger of the raging Echolls’ divorce, and his eyes widen slightly when he notices me standing a few feet behind her. His expression turns smug. Uh oh.

“Lilly!” he exclaims, mimicking her earlier valley-girl style. “And…” he looks at me pensively, snapping his fingers “Victoria?”

“Veronica,” I grit through my teeth and wish for the earth to open and swallow me whole. Not because I’m embarrassed, I just guess hell would be a much more comfy place right now.

“Yeah, right,” he shrugs dismissively, then spreads his arms wide, spilling champagne over some of his co-partiers. They scowl at him but none of them dare say anything. He motions for us to join him and Lilly drags me along as she flounces over to his table and takes the seat previously occupied by ‘random girl’. I sigh as I sit down next to her and stare at the patterns on the wall, already tired of Lilly and Logan’s eternal dance around each other before it even started.

“So, how’s life?” Logan asks. “Destroyed any marriages recently?” There’s an undertone in his voice that makes Lilly refrain from biting back. She pouts instead, then smiles as if he were joking.

“I’m flying into space,” she says instead, eager to get the attention this statement will undoubtedly bring her. Logan just cocks an eyebrow, he obviously heard already about Kane Software’s new promotion campaign. “Let me guess. The final frontier…where no man has gone before…” he taps his finger to his chin as if thinking hard. “Ah, I know! You’ll fly to Mars!” he smirks and looks over at me.

“Bravo, Logan,” I return dryly. “Considering your blood-vodka-ratio, this is probably the wittiest you could come up with. But if your next sentence includes a rabbi and a bar, I’m outta here.”

He tilts his head and smiles at me, then Lilly demands his attention again and I’m forgotten. Mission accomplished! I take a sip of my water and drown out the conversation next to me, letting my eyes wander over the wreathing bodies on the dance floor. Suddenly there’s a voice at my ear, too close for comfort.

“Still there, Ronnie?”

I almost jump out of my skin and turn around to find Logan on Lilly’s seat. On my questioning look he tells me that she had to go for the ‘little girls’. I roll my eyes and start to turn back towards the dancing floor, but Logan stops me.

“So, what have you been up to those last …what was it? Five years?”

“Six,” I correct him, “and if you’re really getting into small-talk-mode, I’m out of here.”

“Wow,” he says, leaning back into his chair, “I had almost forgotten what a bitch you are.”

“Ah, so it’s back to the pleasantries again,” I smile sweetly at him. “Well, you’ll have to dig a bit deeper these days, because the stuff you used to throw at me when we were kids aren’t working anymore.”

He looks at me wide-eyed.

“Does that mean they worked back then?” he asks innocently. Fuck! Stupid, stupid, stupid! I shrug to overplay my faux-pas and shoot him another sickly-sweet smile.

“Well, usually I can only be insulted by people that actually matter.”

He throws his hands at his chest in an exaggerated theatrical way and his expression matches my own in its falseness. “Ow, you wound me, babe.”

“Don’t call me babe,” I reply automatically and cringe at his smug expression. I’m really out of my game tonight.

“Why, babe, bad memories?” he asks and we both know it’s a cheap shot, but it seems that I’m not the only one who’s out of it.

“Wow, Logan. That was so clever. Now, if you learn to do a seal clap, I’ll give you a treat.” He grins at me lecherously and lets his eyes wander over my body, making me feel very self-conscious in the not-party-outfit I’m wearing.

“God, will you get your mind out of the gutter?” I reprimand him, but before he can retort, Lilly is back and instantly claims her seat again.

“Mind? Gutter? Talking about me?” she asks while her eyes wander from Logan to me and back again.

“Yeah, right, Lil,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You’re the center of our universe after all.”

“I sure hope so!” she says to me, smiling widely, then turns towards Logan, a smug expression on her face and winks at him, trying to regain control of the conversation. I finally turn back to watch the dancers again, but I can still feel Logan’s eyes boring into my back, like that scrutinizing look he gave me before, and I can’t stop my body from tensing up as shiver after shiver runs down my spine. This is going to be a long night for sure.

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“Isn’t it awesome that Logan is here right now?” Lilly is almost dancing around Clarence and me as she tells us about everything she had found out from her ex the night before. Apparently, Logan and some of his peers had decided that Florida was the new whatever and were living it up in Miami, straining their respective trust funds with lots and lots of partying. I could tell that Lilly felt at home.

“Miss Kane,” Clarence interjected, “the training will be harder than you might expect. You probably won’t be able to party the nights away.” I look at Clarence, surprised at his open reprimand of a Kane. I can’t remember him doing that before, and neither can Lilly, it seems, judging from her look.

“This ‘training’ is a joke, C. It’s not like I’ll actually have to do something up there.” Lilly turns and briskly walks up to the gates of the Kennedy Space Airport, dismissing Clarence and his concerns. I look at him and shrug before following Lilly into the building.

Inside, we’re greeted by Col. Fitzwilliam, who’s responsible for Lilly’s astronaut stunt. He leads us around the premises, showing us into our quarters and the various training rooms. I’m surprised that no one raises an eyebrow at Lilly’s entourage, meaning the big quiet guy with the black hat and the little sister, but Jake announced us and obviously, money is as strong a language at NASA as it is everywhere else.

The following days are a blur of accompanying Lilly to her training, trying to surreptitiously gather information about everyone involved in this project, while babysitting her party time with Logan so that she doesn’t risk her participation in the space flight. Those party nights are especially bothering, because not only did Lilly throw up on my shoes three times already, but Logan also seems to not have dropped his habit of giving me a hard time.

Col. Fitzwilliam is losing patience with her, I can tell. After all, you can’t stroll into a space shuttle and stomach 10G as if it were nothing. Yet Lilly’s reluctance to concentrate on her training threatens her participation in the flight, and since NASA can’t afford to take off without Jake’s generous support, she’s threatening to postpone the whole program. Right now, though, I’m not that unhappy about the promise of a little extra time in catching the bad guy. After all, I’m not one bit farther than when I came here.

Clarence and I are sitting in my room, pouring over the research information I pulled of every NASA employee who ever had a say or do in dealing with the Kane Software system, when Lilly enters, unannounced. I scramble to hide my files, trying for surreptitiousness and failing miserably as I can tell from the raised eyebrow she shoots my way.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m not here to snoop. I’m here to help,” she smirks smugly and places one buttock on my table, leaning in on us conspiratorially, then pulls out a notepad.

“This is all the info I could get on the guys in the program.” Off our thunderstruck expression, she adds: “What? You didn’t think I was unaware that something’s going on? As if Dad would send his best spies with me for nothing! Don’t worry, I’ll buy you two as much time as you need.”

With that, she rises and saunters out of my room, leaving us gaping and with a notepad full of pillow talk.

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A month later, I’m still no closer to finding the blackmailer. All my leads were dead ends and I’m running out of suspects. Clarence is getting impatient, after all, his only task here is to break some bones after I tell him whose. Right now, he’s looming over me while I’m going through my files once again, as if that would speed things up.

“Maybe I should go and ‘talk’ to the people on your list?” Clarence asks but I shake my head.

“No use in that, big guy. I’m pretty sure it’s none of them.”

“How do you know?” He raises one eyebrow questioningly.

“I have a hunch.” I’m not feeling very cooperative today. Off his doubtful look, I frown.

“I have yet to be wrong, Mr. Wiedman.”

Glancing at my useless files once again, I make a decision and call Jake. He picks up his cell at the second ring, a rare occurrence with my superbusy father. He must be on tenterhooks.

“Hey…. No, nothing new …. Yeah, I know time’s running out. Listen, I have one last idea. I, um, I need the source code of the software you sold NASA. Yeah, I know it’s top secret, but I won’t find this sucker in time, so we need to close the gap…well, your ‘experts’ haven’t been very successful, have they? Jake, just send it over, okay? I have a hunch.” Clarence snorts, but I ignore him. Fifteen minutes later, I have a zip file in my mailbox that contains the source code of Kane Software’s new hope. I instantly forward it and make another call.

“Hey, it’s me, I need a favor.”

“What? No ‘how are you, Mac, old sidekick of mine?’ I’m crushed, V. We used to be friends.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. I haven’t been in contact for a while, but that’s because I’ve been busy saving both NASA and my dad from a rather crucial loss.”

“And that would be?” Mac asks. I can tell she’s intrigued. Good.

“The dear old communication satellite Kane Software is equipping with a shiny new system?”

“Ouch!”

“Yup.”

“What can I do?”

“I just sent you the source code of the system’s software. Find the security gap?”

“Cake. When do you need it by?”

“Um, take-off is tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that’s kinda the problem.”

“You know you’re crazy, of course.”

“I know, please, just try. We can still send them a patch when they’re in space. But if we have to postpone take-off because the software isn’t secure…” I trail off, but I don’t need to finish anyway.

“I get it, V. On it. Just keep your cell on.”

“Will do. And Mac?”

“Yeah?” She’s already distracted, going through all possibilities in her head.

“Thanks.” I can almost hear her grin.

“You’re welcome.”

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The next day I watch Lilly mount the shuttle, grinning and waving for the benefit of the cameras, and I still haven’t heard from Mac. Logan, who Lilly invited to watch her grand departure, is standing next to me, frowning.

“So, I take it you didn’t catch the bad guy, huh?” he whispers suddenly and I whip around to face him.

“Lilly told you?” I ask incredulously. He nods without looking at me.

“Never underestimate the power of pillow talk,” I snort while turning back towards the panorama window to watch the take-off.

“I didn’t sleep with Lilly,” I hear him gritting through his teeth. Yeah, right.

“Yeah, right.” This time it’s him who whips around to get in my face.

“That woman destroyed my family, Veronica. Do you really think I would even look at her, let alone socialize with her like I have those past weeks if it weren’t…” he trails off and turns back towards the window, but suddenly, I don’t find the shuttle that interesting anymore. I stare at him instead.

“If it weren’t…?” I inquire, but he shakes his head, still looking out of the window. I grab his shoulder and force him to turn and look at me.

“If it weren’t for what, Logan?” I suddenly wish I had let it drop, because the intensity of his eyes on me makes me gulp involuntarily.

“If it weren’t for you, stupid.” He brushes back my hair and his hand lingers on my cheek just a second too long to be by accident. I ignore the jab and concentrate on the things he doesn’t say instead.

“But…you hate me.” So yeah, I’m confused. Color me surprised.

He looks out the window again, though I bet he’s not watching the shuttle, and chuckles bitterly.

“Hate you? No, Veronica, I never hated you. After all, you were the first girl I loved. Do you remember that first summer I came to Neptune?” I nod my head mutely, frozen in this place while all my instincts tell me to run as fast and far as I can. I’m not sure what bothers me more, when he stares at me with this intensity or when he looks everywhere but me, proving how much he doesn’t want to tell me all of this. But that doesn’t stop him as the words keep tumbling from his lips.

“I fell in love with you then, the first time I saw you. But I was too shy, too stupid to tell you and so I pined away for you the whole year until I could finally talk my parents into letting me spend another summer there. God, I had to suck up to my father and play the ‘good son’ for months until he agreed to let me come, just so that I could see you again. And when I arrived in Neptune, you were with Duncan.” He chuckles again, this horrible, hollow laugh that runs shivers down my spine and I shudder as he stares at me again, his eyes betraying his turmoil of emotions that he keeps carefully concealed otherwise.

“I swore to myself that I would never go to Neptune again, but when Duncan told me that you two had broken up, I had to come back. I had to see if I was really as over you as I made myself believe or if there was still something…anything that tied me to you. And when I arrive at the Kanes’, I find out that you’re not ‘socializing’ with Lilly and Duncan anymore. Still, I got to see you once and as I feared, you still had this power over me, but everything you said to me was laced with hate and I …I thought the irony would kill me there and then. That you were finally free but you hated me.”

“I thought Lilly was your first love,” I mumble, staring intently at my shoes. He barks out another laugh and lightly punches the glass of the window, resignedly.

“Lilly knew it, what I was feeling for you. That day she came to me and she said ‘I miss her too’ and then she fucked me. I didn’t care about anything at that point. So, yes, she was my first. But love isn’t a word I’d associate with what we had. She was looking for a way to remember and I was looking for a way to forget. It was destined to crumble down all around us.”

I’m gaping. I know I’m gaping. I feel my mouth drying up, but I can’t make myself close it. Logan looks at me for a long moment, as if waiting for me to say something, but what could I say to this? My whole life is built on the belief system that a person is either good or bad, that I can trust few to none people in my life and that everyone else is out to hurt me or fuck me over. Thankfully, he looks away again, shaking his head with a wry smile as if he received an answer to a question that confirmed his suspicions. An answer he doesn’t like.

“Look,” he continues, slapping his mask back on with ease, “just forget I ever said anything. Go back to allowing your father to cause the destruction of NASA property while you keep protecting a family that always treated you like shit. I’ll go back to my meaningless existence of partying like it’s ’99.” He flips me a mock salute and leaves, not bothering to watch Lilly flying into space anymore. When he’s gone, I turn towards to window again, but the shuttle is just a barely discernable spot in the sky. I missed the take-off and I fucked up the investigation. Life couldn’t be better, I think, as I let out the laughter bubbling up in my throat.

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I have given up on finding the saboteur when Mac calls. I can’t believe what she tells me, but I have to admit that it’s the only remaining option that makes sense anymore. I check back with Jake and ring-a-ding, we have a winner. Bad luck, bastard, I’m back in the game and with all the emotional fuck I had to go through here, I’m pissed.

I round up Clarence and fill him in on our way to the airport.

“So, my friend found out that it couldn’t have been a hacker, there is no security gap, that’s why Jake’s MIT geniuses never stood a chance of finding it. Instead, the harmful code is right there, within the source code of the system. It also opens a connection to an external system to make them believe it was an attack from the outside, but this connection only triggers the harmful code, it doesn’t upload it. But now we know that it is someone from Kane Software who blackmailed Jake.”

“Do you have any idea how many software engineers work for your fathers’ company?” Clarence asks me exasperatedly.

“Well, then it’s lucky for us that they have an elaborate logging mechanism to keep track of who engineered what,” I reply smugly. Off his inquisitive look I continue. “Abel Koontz, software engineer deluxe and conveniently on vacation right now. Living it up in ‘Viva Las Vegas’. Seems our buddy has a little gambling problem. Well, his luck is about to decrease dramatically.”

At the airport, my euphoria is kind of dimmed when even my waving Jake’s money and Clarence’s intimidation tactics can’t get us on board of the only machine that is still flying to Vegas today. It seems booked up sometimes really means booked up.

“I’ll call for your father’s private jet. It should be here in a matter of hours,” Clarence informs me, already whipping out his cell. I restrain him with a hand on his arm.

“That’s too late. We don’t have any time to lose.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Clarence inquires, his fingers still hovering over his speed dial.

“There is another option,” I sigh.

When I’m standing in front of the hotel suite door, I’m as ready to change my mind as I’ve ever been. But I already knocked and butting out now would just make me a coward. So, I take a deep breath and try to prepare me for the awkward and uncomfortable. I’m not prepared though for the sight of a shirtless, bed-haired Logan in the late afternoon sun opening his door. Here comes awkward.

“Hi. I, um, I need a favor.”

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Logan Echolls’ private jet is everything you might expect from a multimillionaire’s party vehicle of choice. Plush seats, mahogany tables and a more than fully stocked bar. Somehow I wish my host would retreat there, as I’m used to, instead of sitting opposite of me, staring and making me squirm. I hate uncomfortable situations and usually I’m a master at evading them. After I learned that Jake was my biological father, I managed to dodge Duncan for a whole month, though living in the same house as him.

The silence is grating on my nerves, but I can’t think of anything to say that’s not completely trite for the life of me. Logan seems to figure that the ball is in my court after his big speech and resorts to staring at me, waiting for me to break the silence. Needless to say, I breathe a sigh of relief when we finally touch down in Vegas.

I finally manage to open my trap and thank Logan for the ‘ride’, which immediately makes me blush and mentally slap my forehead, but he takes it in good grace. Go, team me. Clarence and I resolve that we will split up looking for Koontz when Logan announces that he will come with me. Not only does this go strictly against my ‘I work alone’ routine, I’m also not eager to continue the merry plane situation. But Logan is very insistent that I shouldn’t be alone when facing a possibly dangerous man. Suddenly, I’m happy that he doesn’t know a thing about my everyday investigations, or I’d have a shiny new twin attached to my hip.

The Bellagio is about the fifth casino on our tour, playing a recently wed and still tipsy couple throwing away Logan’s money. I can only imagine the field day the press will have with Logan Echolls’ drunken marriage in Vegas and I wonder why he refuses to go incognito. But finally, we hit shit and find Koontz at one of the Black Jack tables in the Bellagio.

Logan insists that he accompanies us to his hotel room and manages to persuade him without attracting too much attention. I call Clarence on our way and inform him about the new development. He meets with us at Koontz suite and instantly impresses us with his amazing interrogation skills. When he lifts Koontz back onto the balcony, I’m sure he’s ready to sing like a soprano, but instead, he laughs. Logan looks as confused as I feel while a muscle starts to tick in Clarence’s jaw.

He pushes Koontz unto a chair and cuffs his hands behind his back. Then he slowly starts to bend his right index finger. I gasp but when I make a step forward, Logan holds me back with a meaningful glance towards Clarence. And I understand that even as the boss’ daughter, I won’t be able to make him stop as long as my father’s company is in danger.

But Koontz just keeps on laughing.

“I’m used to pain, moron,” he says derisively. “Once the morphine stops working and you’re left alone with your cancer the size of a basketball, you gain a new perspective towards pain.” I gasp again and Koontz looks at me, his upper lip curling up in distaste.

“Veronica Mars. Here to save your father, little girl? Can’t stand to lose another one, huh? Let me tell you something: your daddy is a bastard.” Clarence hits him, hard, but Koontz ignores him and keeps staring at me. “His health insurance is a joke! When I started getting sick, I had to sell everything I owned to cover the hospital bills, even the Kane Software shares every employee received at the IPO instead of a bonus. Of course, that was before the streaming video software made them worth millions, software I developed! And I was getting nothing for it. Tell me, Veronica, how is that fair?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t gamble your money away then,” I say, unwilling to let his situation justify his actions.

“Gamble away?” he laughs hollowly. “I’m winning. I’ve always been lucky in games of chance.” He looks away bitterly. “Not like I had any luck otherwise. Everything your father cost me! My wife left me, taking away my daughter, because she said I was obsessed!” His eyes take on a dangerous gleam and I realize that this man will stop from nothing to make my father pay. “But he will see for himself. He will feel my pain when his daughter is gone!”

Oh. My. God.

I move forwards before he can react and get in his face, pulling him close by his collar.

“What do you mean by that?” I grit through my teeth and he chuckles again.

“Come on, Veronica. You didn’t think losing his company is enough punishment, do you? He didn’t deserve this success in the first place. But when the shuttle crashes, he will know what it means to lose everything.”

I recoil in horror as Koontz sneers at me. I can’t believe that this man would manipulate a NASA shuttle full of astronauts to kill the completely innocent daughter of the man he hates. To kill Lilly.

I stumble through the door, when Koontz’ mocking voice reaches me: “He knows, Veronica. Jake knows the shuttle isn’t safe. What do you think of your perfect father now?”

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Jake picks up on the first ring this time, anxiously asking about our progress. It takes me a couple of seconds to muster up enough composure to inquire the truth about what Koontz said. The only answer I get is silence, but before I can hang up, I hear Jake whisper that the manipulations are so slight, they don’t have to be fatal, that the shuttle might be safe. I don’t bother to inform him that ‘might’ isn’t good enough for me.

Mac takes a bit longer to pick up, sleeping off her exhaustion from the previous worked-through night. But she wakes up instantly when I inform her of the new situation. I can hear her typing away, probably searching through the source code again, then she gasps.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Veronica. This is the most devious inconspicuous piece of damage routine I’ve ever seen! It backtracks on the trigger connection and makes one tiny alteration to the shuttle’s control system. The change is so slight, that it won’t be recognized by either the astronauts or ground control, except as fluctuation. But it causes the shuttle to change the angle on re-entry, which might be enough to get it to burn up in the atmosphere!”

At that exact moment Logan comes into the room, pale as a sheet.

“Wiedman called NASA, the shuttle already connected to the satellite. But they say they can’t detect a manipulation, so they refuse to switch to manual controls.” I close my eyes as I think about the devastation ahead.

“Mac, can’t you hack into the NASA computers and force them to switch to manual controls from your place?” I ask, despairingly.

“Yeah, sure. This is the fucking NASA we’re talking about, V. It’s not like they open doors for…oh God.” I lift my head from its resting spot on the table at Mac’s tone.

“I’m stupid! Of course they open doors! At least, your friend Mr. Wannabe-Hacker did! Just find the computer with the trigger connection to, that he used to mask his attack with, and you’ll have access to the satellite directly! You have to look for a modified SAT phone.”

I race back into Koontz’s room, looking around frantically until my eyes fall on a laptop on his bedside table, open and running, connected to what looks like a SAT phone to me. I run towards it, sit down on Koontz’s bed and pull the computer on my lap.

“I think I found it. What do I have to do?” I almost yell into the cell phone wedged between my cheek and my shoulder.

“Is the satellite still connected to the shuttle’s system? We only have access to the shuttle as long as they’re uploading the software!”

I have no idea what to look for, so I simply read everything to Mac that I see on the screen.

“Bingo!” Mac yells. “Now, you have to send the shuttle a warning e-mail.”

“What? An e-mail? Let me guess: shuttle@peril.org? “

“Funny. This is a communication satellite we’re talking about. What do you think it does when connected to your laptop and the shuttle during the upload? Now, type away!”

I do as I’m told and type a quick warning to the astronauts, hoping that the mere fact of my being able to e-mail them will be enough to prove the truth of my warning. Just a second after I send it off, the connection between the satellite and the shuttle is off, meaning the upload is complete and I’m effectively shut out. I pray that I was in time.

I return to the others just when Clarence’s cell phone rings. He excuses himself and moves on the balcony for privacy. Logan shoots me an inquiring look and I shrug, my fingers playing with the hem of my shirt nervously. Koontz sneers at me, but I can stop Logan in time from turning the shackled man into a punching bag.

Clarence chooses this moment to return and inform us that the shuttle received my warning in time. They double checked their system and were able to verify my statement and will re-enter orbit using manual controls. Also, Jake’s engineers had finally managed to finish a patch that would prevent any unauthorized connections. The system is safe, for now.

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Adrenaline is a funny thing, and when you’re no longer running on it, your body claims the lack of rest it had to suffer beforehand. At least, that’s what I tell myself to explain my sleeping through the rest of the night until afternoon the following day. When I step out of the shower in my fancy Las Vegas hotel suite, I’m still weary, physically and mentally, and all I want is to curl up in bed and not face the consequences of Jake’s trip to Denial.

That plan, of course, is shot to hell by a certain Logan Echolls sitting on my bed, playing with my underwear. I snatch the lacy material from his hand and hide it in a fist, while leveling him with a glare. Needless to say, he isn’t impressed.

“How did you get in here?” I ask, trying to will away the blush on my cheeks while trying to surreptitiously pull the dressy towel lower to cover at least parts of my thighs.

“You’d be surprised what money can buy,” he answers casually, lounging back on my bed, watching me with hooded eyes.

The weariness is back and I reply bitterly: “Not really.” He perks up again, attentive to the tone in my voice. He doesn’t comment on it though.

“So, you did it. Found the bad guy. You’re a hero, Veronica Mars. Even though I have to admit you took quite some risks to protect the family you don’t like.“

“They’re all I have left,” I say, not looking at him, but suddenly he’s there and I don’t know who started it, but his lips are soft and warm and dry and it feels a lot like escape and I’m too tired to fight this, so I give in and let myself be carried away in more ways than one.

Logan is frantic, almost desperate, as if he were afraid I’d change my mind, which I guess isn’t farfetched. My body arches into his lips, his touch, while my mind is a mile away, wondering what the hell I’m doing with this guy I used to know as a boy. His tongue leaves a trail of fire on my skin as he moves downwards and his warm breath makes me shudder when it hits moist skin.

I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I grab the headrest of the hotel bed and I stare at the ceiling, disconnecting my mind from my body as I have done so many times, effectively blocking out the sensations. But then he’s doing this thing while his hands graze my sides and I almost jump off the bed.

I know he’s interpreting me wrong as he trails kisses down my thigh and lets his lips wander over the hollow of my knee, as if he wanted to learn my body by heart. Suddenly, I’m right there and I shudder and he smiles while I can’t get my throat to work.

When he suckles on my toes, I find my voice, though I don’t recognize it myself when I whisper hoarsely: “Stop.”

He does hear me though and immediately, he’s beside me, on eye level, taking in the panic I know is written on my face. “What’s wrong?” he asks and tries to touch my cheek but I shrink away from him.

“Get out,” I say, wanting him, needing him to be gone.

“What?” he asks, confused, aroused, a bit pissed. Mainly worried, I guess, but I’m not in the state of mind to analyze him. I frantically try to free the discarded towel we’re both trapping with our weight and wrap it around me.

“Get out!” I say again, almost yelling, though my voice is still hoarse. I throw his shirt at him, luckily he’s still wearing his pants. I can see him withdraw into himself, as he automatically stands and pulls the shirt over his tousled hair and my fingers still itch from the feel of the silky strands. I shove him, harder than necessary and when he turns towards me again with a “Veronica,” that’s as much a plea as a question. I close the door in his face and lean against it until I hear his departing footsteps.

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When I find him, he’s at the hotel bar. Gaze fixed on the amber liquid swirling in his glass. I approach cautiously, as if he were a cornered animal, and thinking about it, that’s probably not that far from the truth.

“They landed safely. Lilly is on her way here,” I say, slowly, lowly, the words feeling like an outstretched hand. He doesn’t react, nor show any sign of noticing my presence. “We’ll fly back home from here together tomorrow morning. Jake sent his jet.” Still, no reaction.

“I never hated you!” I blurt out, too loud, too sudden. But at least, this time, there’s a reaction: he winces, but the still doesn’t look at me. “You caught me at a bad time. Then and now. Shortly after Duncan broke up with me, I …I was raped.” His eyes bore into me, all pretense of ignoring me gone, but this time it’s me who can’t meet his eyes. I stare at the array of bottles on the bar, talking to them rather than to him.

“I’m not sure what happened, I was…drugged. Afterwards, I…I just lashed out at everybody. I was all alone, no one would have believed me and those who would have probably thought I deserved it. And then my mother…died and everyone became my enemy. When you came back, I…you said something, I don’t even remember what, but you were an ass and I just couldn’t take being…whatever I was anymore. So, you became one of them in my ‘me against them’ worldview. But I never hated you.” I stand up to leave, but his hand on my arm stops me. He lets go instantly when he feels me tensing up.

“Do you know who…?” he asks and I shake my head mutely. I want to turn and run, but somehow I’m frozen in place, looking anywhere but at him, my eyes sweeping unseeingly over the ugly paintings in the hotel bar.

“Don’t go back to them,” he says suddenly, muttered under his breath like a prayer. “You don’t belong there, this isn’t who you are.” I think of public presentations and deals with the government. I think of cold stepmothers and incestuous brothers, of sisters that aren’t friends anymore. Of a white dress with a torn strap and of fathers who risk their daughters’ lives to not lose their faces. I can’t help it.

“They’re all I have,” I whisper, not meeting his eyes. I turn to leave, ignoring the hitch in my breath. He does nothing, says nothing to stop me and I feel like walking away from a ledge, a ledge that lures me with its siren’s song about the unknown, stories never told, feelings never experienced. My stomach seems to lag behind, pulling me back towards the dark promise of oblivion, but I keep walking.

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The next morning, Lilly is there and all is back to normal, trembling hands and whispered confessions and warm lips a part of last night’s dreams. Lilly somehow gets Logan to accompany us to the airport, and the ride is almost as awkward as the goodbyes in the airport’s lobby. I wave half-heartedly while staring at my feet and I know that ‘maybe’ is over.

Lilly links arms with me and pulls me along on board of Jake’s jet while humming the ‘Enterprise’ opening melody. “I will see my dreams come alive at last, I will touch the sky. And they’re not gonna hold me down no more…” she sings under her breath while I put on my seatbelt, waiting for the crew to load up the rest of our baggage so that we can finally go back home.

I only notice the silence when Lilly shakes my shoulder.

“You still there, Veronica?” I nod my head wearily. “Good. Cause I have to say something, and I hate being mushy for no reason. You saved my life. I’m not stupid. I know what Dad did and I’d probably never forgive him if I didn’t already hate him for all he cost me.” I look at her confused, and she elaborates, a sad little smile on her lips and I can’t believe that Lilly looks almost… serene. “If he hadn’t fucked around, I’d still have my best friend.” I refrain from pointing out her Lilly-logic, partly because I’m stunned at her admission after she shunned me in high school, partly because she keeps talking, suddenly frantic to explain herself.

“When I found you and Duncan in bed together after Shelly’s party, I just…I don’t know Veronica, he’s always been my little brother, I had to protect him, get him out of there before you’d wake up. And then you said nothing and I guessed you didn’t remember and I just had to keep you away from our house, from Duncan. You’ve always been stronger than him, I knew you’d work past this. But he needed me, V.” She touches my cheek with a trembling hand and I’d recoil if I weren’t frozen in place. “You are the only friend I’ve ever had and I loved you so much. I was so proud of you.”

I finally manage to jerk away from her touch and look around me, taking in the confinements of the plane, the oppressing expensive furniture and the stifling air of appearances. I turn back towards Lilly, a hand at my throat because I suddenly can’t breathe and she smiles sadly at me as if realizing that she had lost me for good. I turn and force my way down the gangway, passed Clarence who seems to want to take off after me when Lilly restrains him.

I feel like throwing up but there’s fresh air blowing in my face that doesn’t seem to make its way into my lungs and I push through throngs of people, desperate to get rid of the lump in my throat that stops me from breathing or crying or both, filling me up with deception and lies and incest.

He’s about to get into a cab when I shove through the airports front doors and when his hazel eyes look up to meet mine, I feel a shuddering bout of breath leave my throat, pulling along carefully constructed walls and lies I told myself. He makes one step towards me, his hand still resting on the cabs door as if indecisive what to do with my sudden appearance. I slowly walk towards him, willing him to give me this one chance to…to be.

“I know this seems like a bad ending to a bad Hollywood movie,” I say, my eyes pleading with him. “I guess to turn this into a supreme embarrassment it’d just need to rain and a Sarah McLachlan song should play in the background, but my iPod phones aren’t loud enough to provide that.” I drop my head and let my hair obscure my features for a moment while I struggle to find the words to explain what’s inside of me.

“I just …you were right. About everything. And I don’t want to be a Kane anymore.” He slowly moves closer, abandoning the cab, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I don’t want to be an Echolls anymore.”

I laugh shakily as his forehead touches mine, his warm hands on my shoulder keeping me steady.

“I hear Mexico is nice this time of the year,” I quip, moving my head back to look into his eyes. “What do you say? Sun, waves, tequila and senoritas?”

He smiles at me, that strange little smile that implies that I’m special. “I’ll take you up on the sun and the waves. Maybe a bit of the tequila, too.”

I can’t help the laugh bubbling up in my throat, and suddenly, I don’t want to anymore, as it cleanses my lungs, dredging up pieces of tar that clog together the tissue and I feel like I can move again, live again. Logan brushes my hair behind my ear, his hand lingering on my cheek, trembling and I feel as if we were thirteen again.

I know that we will possibly, probably, crash and burn, but as his fingers graze my cheekbone, I know what starting over feels like. And that is more than enough to be alive again.