FIC: Before I Sleep (Logan, Veronica, Keith, Wallace, OMC) 1/3
Title: Before I Sleep, part 1
Author: evie_0
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan, Keith, Wallace, Lucas(OMC)
Word Count: 5,128
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This is a kind of AU of my story Living Without Her.
Future fic: in this version of events, Veronica tells her dad and Wallace that she has cancer a lot earlier, and they manage convince her to tell Logan about their son too. (I suck at summaries, and no, I didn't just spoil the original story)
Spoilers: Pretty much safe if you've seen 2x22, with a slight knoweledge of early s3
Warnings: Angst and a tiny bit of drugs
Disclaimer: Not at all mine
A/N: I realise it might be a little odd to do an AU of my own fic, but this story wouldn't leave me alone. Betaed by the always wonderful earth2mars (thanks so much sweetie!)
Hope you like, and remember, comments are love people!
I’m dying. The thought runs through her mind repetitively as her fingers trace the pattern on the couch throw. How can I be dying? She finds a loose thread and pulls, watching the colors run as the string unravels. What about climbing to the top of the Eiffel tower?... What about seeing the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean?... What about turning thirty-nine?...
“Mom?” Lucas calls as the front door shuts and she can hear his loping footsteps make their way down the hall. Veronica takes a deep breath as she waits for his lanky, still slightly awkward looking adolescent form to appear in the lounge room doorway.
He stands at the entrance to the room, and she can’t help but marvel at the way that he has grown over the last few months, his tall frame barely fitting in the doorway. She notices his eyes on her face as he tries to gauge today’s test results from her expression. She gives him a weak smile, and his face falls as he walks toward her small form on the sofa.
“It wasn’t good news was it?”
Her voice breaks as she answers, “Um. Not really, baby... No.” She tries to smile bravely and hide the tears beginning to brim in her eyes, but something about this situation has turned him into the parent and her into the child, and he can see straight through any defense she tries to place between herself and the rest of the world.
But then she is reminded of just how much of a kid he really is when, despite the obvious effort not to do so, the vibrant almost-man standing before her crumbles.
He turns his face away from her, and he takes several deep gulping breaths to try and calm himself, to not fall apart, and it breaks her heart that at 16 he already knows this kind of pain. The pain that she spent so long trying to shield him from that she didn’t even notice when her body betrayed her, and now she is the cause of the agony that is causing her baby to clutch at his stomach as though if he just holds it all in tight enough then everything will be ok.
She crosses the distance between them and takes him in her arms, cradling him just as she did when he fell off the fence and broke his arm, kisses the top of his head just like she kissed grazed knees and child’s tears.
She rocks him slightly in her arms, her heart breaking at the anguish slipping from his lips, she is supposed to be the one to hold her child together and yet she is the one tearing him apart.
He stiffens slightly and then pulls away, his eyes red-rimmed and full of pain as he looks down at her, “Mom, I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, but I can’t just act like nothing is happening, like everything is fine. I’m so sick of us acting like reality is sitting in the corner over there, and we’re just sitting over here with our backs to it and pretending it doesn’t exist.” He turns to walk away from her, then turns back toward her, “Mom, you have to tell grandpa. Or Uncle Wallace… I know you’re scared mom, but you need to tell them, you can’t keep on hiding this.”
She looks at him, his shattered eyes holding more pain than any child his age should have to bear, and she nods, “I know,” she murmurs, “I’ll tell them sweetie. I’m going to tell them.”
He nods and stares down at the floor, and she feels her heart ache as she looks at him, because all she can think now is; I’m dying and I’m leaving my baby behind.
She quickly crosses the space between them and puts her arms around him, pulling him close to her so that his head is resting on her shoulder, rocking him lightly as she tries to will herself not to cry.
I’m dying and the only person I have in the world is my sixteen year-old son.
* * * * * *
“So what’s up?” Wallace asks as she finally sits down beside him on the back porch swing, glass of lemonade in each of their hands, “What is your big news that couldn’t wait?”
Veronica looks over at him
“I’m… uh…” She can’t look at him as she tries to speak, her voice thick and beginning to fail her, “I’m sick, Wallace.”
He stares at her for a long moment as he tries to gauge the level of severity in her tone, “How sick?” he asks, his tone full of trepidation.
“Really sick.” She says with a small smile, trying to shield the tears in her eyes from his gaze even though she knows it pointless to even attempt to hide anything from her bff. “It’s cancer. Um… breast cancer. I’ve… I’ve done the chemo… and it just keeps coming back,” She says, her voice breaking as she looks at the tears forming in his eyes as her words slowly begin to set in, “… I just went back for a biopsy… and it’s come back again… I think… I think it’s… It’s pretty bad Wallace. The doctor says… He doesn’t think I have a lot of time.” The tears are slowly making snail tracks down her cheeks as she looks at his eyes, the deep brown depths begging for her to tell him that it's all some kind of sick joke.
“How…” his voice breaks and he looks away and takes a deep breath before trying to finish, “How long have you been sick?”
“About a year and a half now.” She says, meeting his eyes and seeing the betrayal that lies in them.
“A year and a half?” he asks in shock, “You’ve known you’re sick for a year and a half, and you’re only telling me now?”
“God, Wallace. It’s just… I couldn’t tell anyone... I couldn’t even tell myself… I didn’t even go to the doctor until about six months after I found the lump… I just… It’s scary Wallace, it’s really scary.” Her voice cracks as she looks at him, terror in her voice and pain in her eyes, “I guess I thought… if I didn’t acknowledge it, it would just go away or something.” She smiles wryly, “But that plan obviously failed.”
“Does Lucas know?” His tears are falling openly now, his face as open as it was the first day he sat down at her table, all innocence and unsullied optimism about the innate goodness of the human race.
“Yeah, he knows. He’s been really great about all of it, really supportive and helpful.
He’s a pretty awesome kid isn’t he?” she asks, smiling through the tears falling down her cheeks.
Wallace tries to smile back, but the agony in his expression mars the effect, “What… what does your doctor say? How… uh, how long…?” his voice breaks and he looks away, unable to meet her eyes.
“They, uh, they said maybe… well, I can have more chemo… but it’s pretty aggressive… they said about… maybe six months to a year.”
He makes a slight choking noise at her words, and his shoulders begin to shake, and she reaches out a hand to place on his back. He leans into her and wraps his arms around her suddenly frail body, holding her as gently as if she were made of glass, his hold increasing as their sobs grow.
Veronica clings to him as though he is a life raft in a stormy sea, her arms trembling as she grasps his shirt between her fingers, savoring the warmth of a human body close to hers.
They sit beside each other on the sofa, crying in each others hair as they try not to face the fact that the world is falling down around them.
Finally she pulls away and wipes her eyes, “So, uh, that’s a bit of a conversation killer, huh?” She says, trying for a light tone and almost succeeding.
Wallace just stares at her, his face contorted and his eyes still glistening. She leans back into him, boneless and sinking into the comfort his arms offer.
They sit like this for what feels like hours, but could be only minutes, before Wallace breaks the easy silence by clearing his throat as he sits up a little straighter, “Have you…” he pauses as he tries to search for the right words to say what he needs to without causing her any extra pain, “Are you going to tell Logan?”
Immediately she stiffens against him before straightening to look him in the eye, “And just what exactly am I supposed to say to him Wallace? Hey, I love you, come watch me die?” Veronica spits at him, her pale face contorted in pain and anger as their eyes meet.
Wallace winces at her words and she instantly regrets them as he stares hard at the floor to hide the tears she knows are burning behind his eyes.
“I didn’t say anything about your feelings for each other V, that part’s entirely up to you. But you need to tell him about Lucas. You need to tell Lucas about him.” He says, trying to keep his voice gentle, but the defensiveness builds up in her despite it.
“Oh right. You want me to tell my son that the only reason he doesn’t know his father is because I never told him that he existed? How do you think he’s going to react to that? How do you think Logan is going to feel about the fact that he suddenly has a kid he never heard of before? They would both hate me!”
Wallace looks away from her then and stares across the room at the framed photos that line her walls. A long moment passes before he finally speaks again, his voice soft and his face turned away from her, “You’re my best friend Veronica, you’re my family. I love you and you know it. But this? This is not about you.”
Veronica sits in silence, the sheen in her eyes betraying the calm her military straight posture is attempting to portray. At least five minutes pass before she turns to him, her voice cracking a little as she speaks, “What if he has his own family now? What if he doesn’t want to know him? What if he doesn’t even care?!”
Wallace shifts closer to her on the couch and puts an arm around her shoulders as he pulls her to him, “I’m sorry V, I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you… or upset you… but you know that he would care… and he has a right to know. And Lucas needs to know his father, you know he does… especially now.” His voice cracks as he finishes, still unable to believe that this world could continue to exist without the vibrant woman sitting before him in it.
* * * * * *
It is with trembling fingers that Veronica dials the familiar number, listens to the phone ring as she counts the seconds with her heartbeat. After all this time, the fear of speaking to him shouldn’t be this strong, she thinks. But after telling Wallace it feels as though she has opened a floodgate, and she can’t hide the truth about her illness anymore, which only makes the sound of her dad’s happy voice that much harder to bear…
“Hey sweetie!” her father’s boisterous voice rings out along the line, and she can picture him perfectly; leaning against the kitchen counter with his cheerful grin in place and eyes crinkling slightly at the edges.
The mental image brings the tears that have been burning the back of her throat up to seep beneath her eyelids as she leans her forehead against the cool kitchen tile, “Daddy.” She whispers, feeling all the self control she has clung to all her life slowly sliding out of her.
“Veronica what’s wrong?” he asks, a wary note of building fear growing in his voice, “Is Lucas ok? What happened?”
“No… uh, Lucas is fine… it’s, uh… it’s me.” She takes one final deep breath and forges ahead, her words stumbling over one another, “I’m sick, daddy… I… I have cancer.”
It takes a few seconds for her words to sink in, but she can tell the exact second that they do; there is a sound of held breath being exhaled in a shaky breath, a slightly hollow, almost choking sound. Veronica’s eyes well with tears for both her own pain and her father’s; this man was the center of her life, was the only ally she had in the world for so long, he was more than just her father; he was her inspiration. And now she can almost hear his heart breaking through the long distance crackle.
But then he kicks into protective father mode and takes control. Chemo, natural therapy, whatever they have to do to make her comfortable, whatever it costs it will all be done. Over her protests Keith tells her that he will be coming to stay with her, and Veronica gives in because laced through his confident words she can hear the notes of building panic and despair.
“What about work though, dad? And what about Helen?” she asks, referring to his wife of three years, a fellow PI and his current partner at Mars Investigations.
“Helen can look after the office, and she’ll understand, honey, I need to be up there with you and Lucas right now.”
And so it is that one week later her father is moving into their study/guest bedroom, laying out bedding on the fold-out sofa while she hovers by his side.
He glances up at her with a quizzical expression, “You know sweetie, as much as I appreciate the moral support, I have been making my own bed for over 40 years now. What gives?”
She looks up at him, somehow still surprised after all this time at her father’s ability to read her. She meets his eye and then quickly looks away, staring at the rug on the floor as though it holds all the answers that she seeks.
“I told Wallace… and he thinks… uh, he thinks that I should tell Logan… about Lucas.” She finally mumbles.
Her father looks at her for a long moment before speaking gently, “Are you asking for my opinion?.. Because we’ve had this conversation before.”
She nods in acknowledgement of his point, twisting her hands into the sides of her shirt, old battles and old scars simmer just beneath the surface of this conversation and they each pick their steps carefully because the entire topic is littered with so many landmines. Angry words and her feelings of being trapped and rejected all at the same time, all come rushing back to her as the two of them dance around the issue that led to her running away to San Francisco at the age of 21, the cause of the unbridgeable wall that grew between them and left their relationship a hollow shell of what it used to be.
She sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, her fingernails digging into her palms as she tries to will away the tears that threaten at the thought of all the years she lost with her father because she was too stubborn to simply listen to what he had to say.
Keith watches her, his baby (always his baby girl in his eyes) so torn and weary, and his heart aches at the thought of her in so much pain. He crosses the room and sits down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, “You know what I think honey, but I do understand how hard this must be for you…” Veronica leans her head against his shoulder as he continues, “Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you.”
* * * * * *
“Hello?”
And at that, just his voice, she feels her throat go dry. Nervousness and terror race through her veins, and she feels as though she has forgotten how to speak. For over sixteen years now his ghost has stayed firmly in the past, stuck to back closet in her mind to which she relegated it, but his voice brings it all rushing back to her like an avalanche.
“Hello?” He repeats, and she wonders how many times he’s said it now, how many more times will he say it before he simply hangs up?
“Logan…” She tries to say it clearly, but it comes out almost as a half-caught breath. She hears his sharp intake of breath as realization hits, and she feels torn between bursting into tears and hysterical laughter at the flood of memories that engulf her merely from the sound of his breathing. The silence sinks around them like quicksand and time freezes as she tries to think of a way to tell him all that she has to say, as she tries to hold onto these precious moments before the world comes crashing down around them.
When he speaks it sounds almost like an unconscious action, “Veronica…” He says her name almost like a caress; she can practically feel the whisper brushing across her neck as she nearly shivers against the warmth it brings.
She clears her throat as she tries to pull herself together, tries to prepare herself for the fallout she has been trying to avoid for sixteen years.
“Hi,” she says trying not to sound as nervous as she feels, “uh, how have you been?”
He chuckles a little in surprise at her words, “You called me out of the blue after all these years for small talk?”
Veronica takes a deep breath as she tries to figure out how the hell she is supposed to do this. How do you irrevocably change someone’s life, turn their entire world on its heel, with the least amount of damage?
“No, I uh, I guess not.” She sighs, “Logan, I need to see you. There’s something I need to tell you… and I think it might be better in person. Do you think… could you come out to San Francisco for a few days?”
* * * * * *
Sitting in her sun filled backyard surrounded by the love and laughter of the two men she loves most in the world, Veronica can almost forget that anything is wrong, can almost pretend that her world isn’t ending.
Her dad is standing by the barbecue, waving his tongs in the air as he instructs Lucas on the art of cooking steak. Veronica laughs as his words drift across the yard to where she sits at the small picnic table.
Her hair is growing back after the last round of chemo, it’s almost long enough for her to tuck behind her ears again now. Lucas likes to tease her about the fact that she looks so young with it this short that she’s always getting carded.
She watches him now, grinning at his grandfather’s intricate directions, his shoulders shaking with laughter at some joke she didn’t catch. He turns and catches her watching him and makes a face to convey his discomfort under her scrutiny, but the twinkle in his eyes betrays his good humor. As she looks at his eyes Veronica feels a pang as she thinks of all the pain that she is about to cause him, and the man who gave him those beautiful eyes…
Everything about him screams that he is Logan Echolls’ son; the way he stands with his back straight but his shoulders slightly slumped by the weight of the world; his warm brown eyes like deep expressive pools, windows straight through to every thought that flits through his mind; his height, the way his hair grows, his slightly crooked smile… all of it. When he was a baby he was all her, all pale blond wisps of hair and rosy chubby cheeks, but as he grew slowly into the man he is still becoming he began to resemble Logan more and more. The line of his jaw is perhaps a little softer and the hair a little lighter, but to look at him there is no mistaking who his father is.
* * * * * *
Veronica is in the kitchen cutting vegetables for salad and smiling at her father’s gentle ribbing when she hears the car pull up, she looks out the window and sees him stepping out of the rental car and stare at the house for a long moment before starting up the path to the front door.
She is broken from the memories that hold her tied to the floor as she hears Lucas’ footsteps heading towards the door in response to Logan’s knock.
“No, I’ll get it!” She cries futilely as she rushes to the front hallway just in time to see Logan staring at Lucas with an expression of mild shock and confusion. She makes her way slowly towards them until she is standing beside her son (their son) and she tries not to meet Logan’s eyes, tries not to see the pain in their depths. She gently pulls Lucas to the side and asks if he could go and help his grandfather work on dinner, before she finally looks up into the face of the man who used to be the boy she loved.
It’s almost weird to see Logan again. After all these years of seeing his face on her own child it looks strangely out of place on him.
They simply stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, his eyes asking her for answers and hers begging him to understand. Finally she shakes herself out of the reverie as she steps away from the doorway, “Would you… Can you… Come in.” She falters as she gestures toward the hallway. He walks through the door, flinching slightly as his arm brushes hers as he passes. She stares at him as he stands stiffly in the middle of her small foyer, his eyes anywhere but on her, before she starts down the hallway toward the living room on the far side of the house, inviting him to follow her.
She stands awkwardly in the middle of the lounge room and gestures for him to sit on one of armchairs before taking her place on the edge of the sofa. Her hands twist around themselves as she looks at him, he won’t meet her eyes and she can tell that he already knows every word of her prepared speech before she even opens her mouth.
“It’s, uh, it’s good to see you Logan.” She starts, her voice tentative and she suddenly can’t meet his eyes as she realizes how ridiculous those words are between the two of them.
He looks up at her, his dark eyes fixing on her clear blue ones, the confusion and barely contained anger shining through them as he sits stiffly in the chair, his hands beginning to tug his sweater sleeves over his hands in a gesture that tugs at her heart in its familiarity.
“I’m sorry.” She says, looking down at the floor, trying to find some source of strength in the multi-colored rug beneath her feet, “I, uh, this is just… you know?”
He simply stares at her, his gaze suddenly empty and endless, “Who was that?” he asks, his voice sounding hollow to her ears, and his expression so full of disgust at the decisions she made so long ago.
Veronica clears her throat nervously before answering, “That was Lucas.”
His eyes never leave hers, and his gaze never loses that hauntingly empty emotion as he speaks, his voice sounding strained and full of barely contained pain, “And how old is… Lucas?”
She tries to meet his eyes but he won’t let her, won’t look anywhere near her as she tries to hold back the tears that are burning the back of her throat at the sight of him in so much pain (pain she is the cause of.)
“He’s sixteen…” she finally says, her voice soft with unspoken regrets and full of long buried secrets as he nods, his suspicions confirmed as tears silently form in his eyes, “I’m sorry, Logan… I was scared, and confused… and we were broken up when I found out… and I just… I guess I made the wrong decision.” She finishes weakly as he finally meets her eyes, his eyes so full of anger that all of her justifications whither beneath them.
He suddenly stands and begins pacing the room in an agitated manner, opening his mouth to speak and then just as quickly shutting it and clenching his jaw. After many moments of watching him pace she opens her mouth to speak again, but before she can even mentally compose the sentence he turns to her with his dark eyes blazing and his shoulders tensed, “You made the wrong decision? This is a child Veronica! Our child! My child! This was not like choosing the wrong fucking pair of shoes, this is a human being! How could you not tell me?” Logan takes a deep breath and turns away from her, his shoulders trembling with shock and rage, after a long moment he turns back to her, his eyes flat and emotionless, “Why?... Did you think… did you think I was going to be like him?” he asks, his voice quiet and containing that same sense of despair that existed in his eyes on that long ago day as he fell apart in her arms in the lobby of an expensive hotel.
She looks away from his eyes, looks away from the abandoned little boy that still exists in them, seeks solace in tearing at her broken nails as she stares at her hands, “I’m sorry Logan… I just… I was scared… and I just didn’t know what to do…” her voice fades as she realizes just how empty and pathetic all of her excuses sound and he swings back around to face her, his renewed anger forcing her eyes up to meet his, “You didn’t know what to do?” He shouts, “Hey, well, I’ve got an idea; why didn’t you think of telling the other person involved in the goddamn situation?! Why didn’t you stop and think, ‘hey, maybe Logan has a right to know about this.’? What the hell gave you the right to keep this from me?”
She tries to gesture for him to keep his voice down, suddenly aware of how small her cozy house is and not wanting her son to be introduced to his father this way, but Logan ignores her imploring eyes and hand gestures.
“Fuck Veronica. What did I do that made you hate me that much?” He asks, his tone full of rejection and decade’s old pain.
Standing by the kitchen door, Lucas can’t help but hear the shouted words and pained inflections as these two people discuss this history of his life of which he was never informed. He can’t stop himself from turning his full attention towards them after the first time he hears his name, can’t stop the shock that causes his posture to stiffen at the words he hears. His grandfather suddenly notices his stillness and the way that his ears are turned toward the voices coming from down the hallway and walks toward him, his eyes compassionate but Lucas quickly walks from the room before his grandfather can open his mouth to speak empty platitudes. He walks from the kitchen and heads out the front door, sitting down heavily upon the porch steps as he tries to block the angry voices that are still carrying down the hallway and through the open windows. Lucas stares out at the setting-sun lit sky and feels like he’s stuck at the crossroads of terrified, confused and angry as fuck about whatever it was that kept this guy from showing any interest in the first sixteen years of his life.
“So what was it Veronica? What the fuck did I do? What did I do that gave you the right to keep this… keep him from me?” he is staring down at her with his hands outstretched and his expression suddenly so much like that of a scared, lost little boy. She moves towards him unconsciously, her hands reaching out to his before he flinches and takes a step away from her. The tears welling up in her eyes spill over as she looks down at the floor to avoid the way he’s been looking at her since he first saw Lucas’ face.
“You broke up with me, Logan.” she says, trying to find the self-righteous anger that has kept the guilt at arms length for the last seventeen years, but it’s failing her now as she is faced with the pain in his eyes, “It was… you were the one who said that you didn’t want to ‘play this game’ anymore. Fuck... Logan, I was 21 years old and I was scared and confused ok? I made the wrong decision, and it just… the idea of telling you just got harder the more time that went by. And I-”
He cuts her off with a look and a voice filled with barely contained venom, “So what - you decided to wait seventeen years to tell me? You fucking selfish bitch Veronica! How the fuck could you do this? Not just to me, but to him. What the fuck where you thinking? What… That I don’t deserve to know that I have a child?”
They stand before each other, past words and past actions running through their minds, breathing heavily and at a stalemate in this war that has been going on for more years than they care to count. Anger fills the air between them and she can’t begin to remember why it ever seemed like a good idea that he should know about her child (their child…)
They both suddenly turn towards the doorway as they become aware of a third presence in the room. Keith is standing at the entrance to the room, his expression grim and his eyes severe.
Logan immediately straightens at the sight of him, “Don’t bother, I’ll kick myself out this time.” He raises his hands in surrender as he walks away from Veronica, his eyes never leaving hers. His gaze shifts briefly to Keith and his shoulders slump as he brushes past the older man and father and daughter face each other as the front door slams.
---- Like it? Hate it? Please let me know what you think so far, and chapter 2 should be up in a day or so :)
ETAChapter 2 is now up
Author: evie_0
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan, Keith, Wallace, Lucas(OMC)
Word Count: 5,128
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This is a kind of AU of my story Living Without Her.
Future fic: in this version of events, Veronica tells her dad and Wallace that she has cancer a lot earlier, and they manage convince her to tell Logan about their son too. (I suck at summaries, and no, I didn't just spoil the original story)
Spoilers: Pretty much safe if you've seen 2x22, with a slight knoweledge of early s3
Warnings: Angst and a tiny bit of drugs
Disclaimer: Not at all mine
A/N: I realise it might be a little odd to do an AU of my own fic, but this story wouldn't leave me alone. Betaed by the always wonderful earth2mars (thanks so much sweetie!)
Hope you like, and remember, comments are love people!
I’m dying. The thought runs through her mind repetitively as her fingers trace the pattern on the couch throw. How can I be dying? She finds a loose thread and pulls, watching the colors run as the string unravels. What about climbing to the top of the Eiffel tower?... What about seeing the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean?... What about turning thirty-nine?...
“Mom?” Lucas calls as the front door shuts and she can hear his loping footsteps make their way down the hall. Veronica takes a deep breath as she waits for his lanky, still slightly awkward looking adolescent form to appear in the lounge room doorway.
He stands at the entrance to the room, and she can’t help but marvel at the way that he has grown over the last few months, his tall frame barely fitting in the doorway. She notices his eyes on her face as he tries to gauge today’s test results from her expression. She gives him a weak smile, and his face falls as he walks toward her small form on the sofa.
“It wasn’t good news was it?”
Her voice breaks as she answers, “Um. Not really, baby... No.” She tries to smile bravely and hide the tears beginning to brim in her eyes, but something about this situation has turned him into the parent and her into the child, and he can see straight through any defense she tries to place between herself and the rest of the world.
But then she is reminded of just how much of a kid he really is when, despite the obvious effort not to do so, the vibrant almost-man standing before her crumbles.
He turns his face away from her, and he takes several deep gulping breaths to try and calm himself, to not fall apart, and it breaks her heart that at 16 he already knows this kind of pain. The pain that she spent so long trying to shield him from that she didn’t even notice when her body betrayed her, and now she is the cause of the agony that is causing her baby to clutch at his stomach as though if he just holds it all in tight enough then everything will be ok.
She crosses the distance between them and takes him in her arms, cradling him just as she did when he fell off the fence and broke his arm, kisses the top of his head just like she kissed grazed knees and child’s tears.
She rocks him slightly in her arms, her heart breaking at the anguish slipping from his lips, she is supposed to be the one to hold her child together and yet she is the one tearing him apart.
He stiffens slightly and then pulls away, his eyes red-rimmed and full of pain as he looks down at her, “Mom, I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, but I can’t just act like nothing is happening, like everything is fine. I’m so sick of us acting like reality is sitting in the corner over there, and we’re just sitting over here with our backs to it and pretending it doesn’t exist.” He turns to walk away from her, then turns back toward her, “Mom, you have to tell grandpa. Or Uncle Wallace… I know you’re scared mom, but you need to tell them, you can’t keep on hiding this.”
She looks at him, his shattered eyes holding more pain than any child his age should have to bear, and she nods, “I know,” she murmurs, “I’ll tell them sweetie. I’m going to tell them.”
He nods and stares down at the floor, and she feels her heart ache as she looks at him, because all she can think now is; I’m dying and I’m leaving my baby behind.
She quickly crosses the space between them and puts her arms around him, pulling him close to her so that his head is resting on her shoulder, rocking him lightly as she tries to will herself not to cry.
I’m dying and the only person I have in the world is my sixteen year-old son.
* * * * * *
“So what’s up?” Wallace asks as she finally sits down beside him on the back porch swing, glass of lemonade in each of their hands, “What is your big news that couldn’t wait?”
Veronica looks over at him
“I’m… uh…” She can’t look at him as she tries to speak, her voice thick and beginning to fail her, “I’m sick, Wallace.”
He stares at her for a long moment as he tries to gauge the level of severity in her tone, “How sick?” he asks, his tone full of trepidation.
“Really sick.” She says with a small smile, trying to shield the tears in her eyes from his gaze even though she knows it pointless to even attempt to hide anything from her bff. “It’s cancer. Um… breast cancer. I’ve… I’ve done the chemo… and it just keeps coming back,” She says, her voice breaking as she looks at the tears forming in his eyes as her words slowly begin to set in, “… I just went back for a biopsy… and it’s come back again… I think… I think it’s… It’s pretty bad Wallace. The doctor says… He doesn’t think I have a lot of time.” The tears are slowly making snail tracks down her cheeks as she looks at his eyes, the deep brown depths begging for her to tell him that it's all some kind of sick joke.
“How…” his voice breaks and he looks away and takes a deep breath before trying to finish, “How long have you been sick?”
“About a year and a half now.” She says, meeting his eyes and seeing the betrayal that lies in them.
“A year and a half?” he asks in shock, “You’ve known you’re sick for a year and a half, and you’re only telling me now?”
“God, Wallace. It’s just… I couldn’t tell anyone... I couldn’t even tell myself… I didn’t even go to the doctor until about six months after I found the lump… I just… It’s scary Wallace, it’s really scary.” Her voice cracks as she looks at him, terror in her voice and pain in her eyes, “I guess I thought… if I didn’t acknowledge it, it would just go away or something.” She smiles wryly, “But that plan obviously failed.”
“Does Lucas know?” His tears are falling openly now, his face as open as it was the first day he sat down at her table, all innocence and unsullied optimism about the innate goodness of the human race.
“Yeah, he knows. He’s been really great about all of it, really supportive and helpful.
He’s a pretty awesome kid isn’t he?” she asks, smiling through the tears falling down her cheeks.
Wallace tries to smile back, but the agony in his expression mars the effect, “What… what does your doctor say? How… uh, how long…?” his voice breaks and he looks away, unable to meet her eyes.
“They, uh, they said maybe… well, I can have more chemo… but it’s pretty aggressive… they said about… maybe six months to a year.”
He makes a slight choking noise at her words, and his shoulders begin to shake, and she reaches out a hand to place on his back. He leans into her and wraps his arms around her suddenly frail body, holding her as gently as if she were made of glass, his hold increasing as their sobs grow.
Veronica clings to him as though he is a life raft in a stormy sea, her arms trembling as she grasps his shirt between her fingers, savoring the warmth of a human body close to hers.
They sit beside each other on the sofa, crying in each others hair as they try not to face the fact that the world is falling down around them.
Finally she pulls away and wipes her eyes, “So, uh, that’s a bit of a conversation killer, huh?” She says, trying for a light tone and almost succeeding.
Wallace just stares at her, his face contorted and his eyes still glistening. She leans back into him, boneless and sinking into the comfort his arms offer.
They sit like this for what feels like hours, but could be only minutes, before Wallace breaks the easy silence by clearing his throat as he sits up a little straighter, “Have you…” he pauses as he tries to search for the right words to say what he needs to without causing her any extra pain, “Are you going to tell Logan?”
Immediately she stiffens against him before straightening to look him in the eye, “And just what exactly am I supposed to say to him Wallace? Hey, I love you, come watch me die?” Veronica spits at him, her pale face contorted in pain and anger as their eyes meet.
Wallace winces at her words and she instantly regrets them as he stares hard at the floor to hide the tears she knows are burning behind his eyes.
“I didn’t say anything about your feelings for each other V, that part’s entirely up to you. But you need to tell him about Lucas. You need to tell Lucas about him.” He says, trying to keep his voice gentle, but the defensiveness builds up in her despite it.
“Oh right. You want me to tell my son that the only reason he doesn’t know his father is because I never told him that he existed? How do you think he’s going to react to that? How do you think Logan is going to feel about the fact that he suddenly has a kid he never heard of before? They would both hate me!”
Wallace looks away from her then and stares across the room at the framed photos that line her walls. A long moment passes before he finally speaks again, his voice soft and his face turned away from her, “You’re my best friend Veronica, you’re my family. I love you and you know it. But this? This is not about you.”
Veronica sits in silence, the sheen in her eyes betraying the calm her military straight posture is attempting to portray. At least five minutes pass before she turns to him, her voice cracking a little as she speaks, “What if he has his own family now? What if he doesn’t want to know him? What if he doesn’t even care?!”
Wallace shifts closer to her on the couch and puts an arm around her shoulders as he pulls her to him, “I’m sorry V, I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you… or upset you… but you know that he would care… and he has a right to know. And Lucas needs to know his father, you know he does… especially now.” His voice cracks as he finishes, still unable to believe that this world could continue to exist without the vibrant woman sitting before him in it.
* * * * * *
It is with trembling fingers that Veronica dials the familiar number, listens to the phone ring as she counts the seconds with her heartbeat. After all this time, the fear of speaking to him shouldn’t be this strong, she thinks. But after telling Wallace it feels as though she has opened a floodgate, and she can’t hide the truth about her illness anymore, which only makes the sound of her dad’s happy voice that much harder to bear…
“Hey sweetie!” her father’s boisterous voice rings out along the line, and she can picture him perfectly; leaning against the kitchen counter with his cheerful grin in place and eyes crinkling slightly at the edges.
The mental image brings the tears that have been burning the back of her throat up to seep beneath her eyelids as she leans her forehead against the cool kitchen tile, “Daddy.” She whispers, feeling all the self control she has clung to all her life slowly sliding out of her.
“Veronica what’s wrong?” he asks, a wary note of building fear growing in his voice, “Is Lucas ok? What happened?”
“No… uh, Lucas is fine… it’s, uh… it’s me.” She takes one final deep breath and forges ahead, her words stumbling over one another, “I’m sick, daddy… I… I have cancer.”
It takes a few seconds for her words to sink in, but she can tell the exact second that they do; there is a sound of held breath being exhaled in a shaky breath, a slightly hollow, almost choking sound. Veronica’s eyes well with tears for both her own pain and her father’s; this man was the center of her life, was the only ally she had in the world for so long, he was more than just her father; he was her inspiration. And now she can almost hear his heart breaking through the long distance crackle.
But then he kicks into protective father mode and takes control. Chemo, natural therapy, whatever they have to do to make her comfortable, whatever it costs it will all be done. Over her protests Keith tells her that he will be coming to stay with her, and Veronica gives in because laced through his confident words she can hear the notes of building panic and despair.
“What about work though, dad? And what about Helen?” she asks, referring to his wife of three years, a fellow PI and his current partner at Mars Investigations.
“Helen can look after the office, and she’ll understand, honey, I need to be up there with you and Lucas right now.”
And so it is that one week later her father is moving into their study/guest bedroom, laying out bedding on the fold-out sofa while she hovers by his side.
He glances up at her with a quizzical expression, “You know sweetie, as much as I appreciate the moral support, I have been making my own bed for over 40 years now. What gives?”
She looks up at him, somehow still surprised after all this time at her father’s ability to read her. She meets his eye and then quickly looks away, staring at the rug on the floor as though it holds all the answers that she seeks.
“I told Wallace… and he thinks… uh, he thinks that I should tell Logan… about Lucas.” She finally mumbles.
Her father looks at her for a long moment before speaking gently, “Are you asking for my opinion?.. Because we’ve had this conversation before.”
She nods in acknowledgement of his point, twisting her hands into the sides of her shirt, old battles and old scars simmer just beneath the surface of this conversation and they each pick their steps carefully because the entire topic is littered with so many landmines. Angry words and her feelings of being trapped and rejected all at the same time, all come rushing back to her as the two of them dance around the issue that led to her running away to San Francisco at the age of 21, the cause of the unbridgeable wall that grew between them and left their relationship a hollow shell of what it used to be.
She sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, her fingernails digging into her palms as she tries to will away the tears that threaten at the thought of all the years she lost with her father because she was too stubborn to simply listen to what he had to say.
Keith watches her, his baby (always his baby girl in his eyes) so torn and weary, and his heart aches at the thought of her in so much pain. He crosses the room and sits down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, “You know what I think honey, but I do understand how hard this must be for you…” Veronica leans her head against his shoulder as he continues, “Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you.”
* * * * * *
“Hello?”
And at that, just his voice, she feels her throat go dry. Nervousness and terror race through her veins, and she feels as though she has forgotten how to speak. For over sixteen years now his ghost has stayed firmly in the past, stuck to back closet in her mind to which she relegated it, but his voice brings it all rushing back to her like an avalanche.
“Hello?” He repeats, and she wonders how many times he’s said it now, how many more times will he say it before he simply hangs up?
“Logan…” She tries to say it clearly, but it comes out almost as a half-caught breath. She hears his sharp intake of breath as realization hits, and she feels torn between bursting into tears and hysterical laughter at the flood of memories that engulf her merely from the sound of his breathing. The silence sinks around them like quicksand and time freezes as she tries to think of a way to tell him all that she has to say, as she tries to hold onto these precious moments before the world comes crashing down around them.
When he speaks it sounds almost like an unconscious action, “Veronica…” He says her name almost like a caress; she can practically feel the whisper brushing across her neck as she nearly shivers against the warmth it brings.
She clears her throat as she tries to pull herself together, tries to prepare herself for the fallout she has been trying to avoid for sixteen years.
“Hi,” she says trying not to sound as nervous as she feels, “uh, how have you been?”
He chuckles a little in surprise at her words, “You called me out of the blue after all these years for small talk?”
Veronica takes a deep breath as she tries to figure out how the hell she is supposed to do this. How do you irrevocably change someone’s life, turn their entire world on its heel, with the least amount of damage?
“No, I uh, I guess not.” She sighs, “Logan, I need to see you. There’s something I need to tell you… and I think it might be better in person. Do you think… could you come out to San Francisco for a few days?”
* * * * * *
Sitting in her sun filled backyard surrounded by the love and laughter of the two men she loves most in the world, Veronica can almost forget that anything is wrong, can almost pretend that her world isn’t ending.
Her dad is standing by the barbecue, waving his tongs in the air as he instructs Lucas on the art of cooking steak. Veronica laughs as his words drift across the yard to where she sits at the small picnic table.
Her hair is growing back after the last round of chemo, it’s almost long enough for her to tuck behind her ears again now. Lucas likes to tease her about the fact that she looks so young with it this short that she’s always getting carded.
She watches him now, grinning at his grandfather’s intricate directions, his shoulders shaking with laughter at some joke she didn’t catch. He turns and catches her watching him and makes a face to convey his discomfort under her scrutiny, but the twinkle in his eyes betrays his good humor. As she looks at his eyes Veronica feels a pang as she thinks of all the pain that she is about to cause him, and the man who gave him those beautiful eyes…
Everything about him screams that he is Logan Echolls’ son; the way he stands with his back straight but his shoulders slightly slumped by the weight of the world; his warm brown eyes like deep expressive pools, windows straight through to every thought that flits through his mind; his height, the way his hair grows, his slightly crooked smile… all of it. When he was a baby he was all her, all pale blond wisps of hair and rosy chubby cheeks, but as he grew slowly into the man he is still becoming he began to resemble Logan more and more. The line of his jaw is perhaps a little softer and the hair a little lighter, but to look at him there is no mistaking who his father is.
* * * * * *
Veronica is in the kitchen cutting vegetables for salad and smiling at her father’s gentle ribbing when she hears the car pull up, she looks out the window and sees him stepping out of the rental car and stare at the house for a long moment before starting up the path to the front door.
She is broken from the memories that hold her tied to the floor as she hears Lucas’ footsteps heading towards the door in response to Logan’s knock.
“No, I’ll get it!” She cries futilely as she rushes to the front hallway just in time to see Logan staring at Lucas with an expression of mild shock and confusion. She makes her way slowly towards them until she is standing beside her son (their son) and she tries not to meet Logan’s eyes, tries not to see the pain in their depths. She gently pulls Lucas to the side and asks if he could go and help his grandfather work on dinner, before she finally looks up into the face of the man who used to be the boy she loved.
It’s almost weird to see Logan again. After all these years of seeing his face on her own child it looks strangely out of place on him.
They simply stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, his eyes asking her for answers and hers begging him to understand. Finally she shakes herself out of the reverie as she steps away from the doorway, “Would you… Can you… Come in.” She falters as she gestures toward the hallway. He walks through the door, flinching slightly as his arm brushes hers as he passes. She stares at him as he stands stiffly in the middle of her small foyer, his eyes anywhere but on her, before she starts down the hallway toward the living room on the far side of the house, inviting him to follow her.
She stands awkwardly in the middle of the lounge room and gestures for him to sit on one of armchairs before taking her place on the edge of the sofa. Her hands twist around themselves as she looks at him, he won’t meet her eyes and she can tell that he already knows every word of her prepared speech before she even opens her mouth.
“It’s, uh, it’s good to see you Logan.” She starts, her voice tentative and she suddenly can’t meet his eyes as she realizes how ridiculous those words are between the two of them.
He looks up at her, his dark eyes fixing on her clear blue ones, the confusion and barely contained anger shining through them as he sits stiffly in the chair, his hands beginning to tug his sweater sleeves over his hands in a gesture that tugs at her heart in its familiarity.
“I’m sorry.” She says, looking down at the floor, trying to find some source of strength in the multi-colored rug beneath her feet, “I, uh, this is just… you know?”
He simply stares at her, his gaze suddenly empty and endless, “Who was that?” he asks, his voice sounding hollow to her ears, and his expression so full of disgust at the decisions she made so long ago.
Veronica clears her throat nervously before answering, “That was Lucas.”
His eyes never leave hers, and his gaze never loses that hauntingly empty emotion as he speaks, his voice sounding strained and full of barely contained pain, “And how old is… Lucas?”
She tries to meet his eyes but he won’t let her, won’t look anywhere near her as she tries to hold back the tears that are burning the back of her throat at the sight of him in so much pain (pain she is the cause of.)
“He’s sixteen…” she finally says, her voice soft with unspoken regrets and full of long buried secrets as he nods, his suspicions confirmed as tears silently form in his eyes, “I’m sorry, Logan… I was scared, and confused… and we were broken up when I found out… and I just… I guess I made the wrong decision.” She finishes weakly as he finally meets her eyes, his eyes so full of anger that all of her justifications whither beneath them.
He suddenly stands and begins pacing the room in an agitated manner, opening his mouth to speak and then just as quickly shutting it and clenching his jaw. After many moments of watching him pace she opens her mouth to speak again, but before she can even mentally compose the sentence he turns to her with his dark eyes blazing and his shoulders tensed, “You made the wrong decision? This is a child Veronica! Our child! My child! This was not like choosing the wrong fucking pair of shoes, this is a human being! How could you not tell me?” Logan takes a deep breath and turns away from her, his shoulders trembling with shock and rage, after a long moment he turns back to her, his eyes flat and emotionless, “Why?... Did you think… did you think I was going to be like him?” he asks, his voice quiet and containing that same sense of despair that existed in his eyes on that long ago day as he fell apart in her arms in the lobby of an expensive hotel.
She looks away from his eyes, looks away from the abandoned little boy that still exists in them, seeks solace in tearing at her broken nails as she stares at her hands, “I’m sorry Logan… I just… I was scared… and I just didn’t know what to do…” her voice fades as she realizes just how empty and pathetic all of her excuses sound and he swings back around to face her, his renewed anger forcing her eyes up to meet his, “You didn’t know what to do?” He shouts, “Hey, well, I’ve got an idea; why didn’t you think of telling the other person involved in the goddamn situation?! Why didn’t you stop and think, ‘hey, maybe Logan has a right to know about this.’? What the hell gave you the right to keep this from me?”
She tries to gesture for him to keep his voice down, suddenly aware of how small her cozy house is and not wanting her son to be introduced to his father this way, but Logan ignores her imploring eyes and hand gestures.
“Fuck Veronica. What did I do that made you hate me that much?” He asks, his tone full of rejection and decade’s old pain.
Standing by the kitchen door, Lucas can’t help but hear the shouted words and pained inflections as these two people discuss this history of his life of which he was never informed. He can’t stop himself from turning his full attention towards them after the first time he hears his name, can’t stop the shock that causes his posture to stiffen at the words he hears. His grandfather suddenly notices his stillness and the way that his ears are turned toward the voices coming from down the hallway and walks toward him, his eyes compassionate but Lucas quickly walks from the room before his grandfather can open his mouth to speak empty platitudes. He walks from the kitchen and heads out the front door, sitting down heavily upon the porch steps as he tries to block the angry voices that are still carrying down the hallway and through the open windows. Lucas stares out at the setting-sun lit sky and feels like he’s stuck at the crossroads of terrified, confused and angry as fuck about whatever it was that kept this guy from showing any interest in the first sixteen years of his life.
“So what was it Veronica? What the fuck did I do? What did I do that gave you the right to keep this… keep him from me?” he is staring down at her with his hands outstretched and his expression suddenly so much like that of a scared, lost little boy. She moves towards him unconsciously, her hands reaching out to his before he flinches and takes a step away from her. The tears welling up in her eyes spill over as she looks down at the floor to avoid the way he’s been looking at her since he first saw Lucas’ face.
“You broke up with me, Logan.” she says, trying to find the self-righteous anger that has kept the guilt at arms length for the last seventeen years, but it’s failing her now as she is faced with the pain in his eyes, “It was… you were the one who said that you didn’t want to ‘play this game’ anymore. Fuck... Logan, I was 21 years old and I was scared and confused ok? I made the wrong decision, and it just… the idea of telling you just got harder the more time that went by. And I-”
He cuts her off with a look and a voice filled with barely contained venom, “So what - you decided to wait seventeen years to tell me? You fucking selfish bitch Veronica! How the fuck could you do this? Not just to me, but to him. What the fuck where you thinking? What… That I don’t deserve to know that I have a child?”
They stand before each other, past words and past actions running through their minds, breathing heavily and at a stalemate in this war that has been going on for more years than they care to count. Anger fills the air between them and she can’t begin to remember why it ever seemed like a good idea that he should know about her child (their child…)
They both suddenly turn towards the doorway as they become aware of a third presence in the room. Keith is standing at the entrance to the room, his expression grim and his eyes severe.
Logan immediately straightens at the sight of him, “Don’t bother, I’ll kick myself out this time.” He raises his hands in surrender as he walks away from Veronica, his eyes never leaving hers. His gaze shifts briefly to Keith and his shoulders slump as he brushes past the older man and father and daughter face each other as the front door slams.
---- Like it? Hate it? Please let me know what you think so far, and chapter 2 should be up in a day or so :)
ETAChapter 2 is now up