Fic: (Veronica Mars) Five Times Veronica Didn't Call Home
Title: Five Times Veronica Didn't Call Home
Spoilers: Whole show; takes place the summer after Veronica's freshman year at Hearst
Characters: Veronica, Keith, Wallace, Logan, Piz
Rating: PG
Summary: Her first week at the internship is such of flurry of activity that she doesn't have time to call.
Disclaimer: I don't own the show or its characters or plots.
Author's Note: Thanks to Namarie24 for the edits.
~~~~~
One
Her first week is such a flurry of activity that she doesn't have time to call. She emails her dad the first night after she settles into her dorm at Quantico. The dorms have wireless internet access and the password is part of her reams of orientation material. (She's pleasantly surprised at this fact, although she guesses the speed would not be enough to satisfy Mac.) She's too tired to say much, but she knows he'll be waiting to hear from her. So she whips out a quick “Made it. I'm going to bed so this message will be short, but I can tell you it looks like they aren't planning on letting me get bored. Love you,” hits 'send', and then turns off her computer, changes into pajamas, and falls into the not very comfortable dormitory bed.
After nervously re-reading the entire orientation packet the next morning, she has just enough time to check her email and see his response - he's glad to hear from her, and he understands her brevity because after all, it's the FBI and if she told him more, she'd have to kill him. Veronica smiles. Then she's off to her first day of internship duties, and hardly even opens her laptop from that moment on until the weekend.
~~~~~
Two
Piz calls once during the second week. Even apart from her surprise at hearing from him, the FBI, it turns out, doesn't want her answering her cell phone while she's 'on duty' schlepping coffee and paperwork. He leaves a message, and Veronica wants to listen - really, she does. She doesn't get around to it until that Saturday night. Despite her trepidation, it's just him informing her that he's started his own internship in New York and it looks like it will be great. He hopes hers is going well, too. He doesn't say that he misses her, but she thinks he sounds a little wistful at the end of the message.
They'd lasted three more weeks following the tape, Logan's wildly, horribly ill-conceived assault, and her father losing the special election for sheriff. At first, Veronica had thought things were going well. Piz and Logan had even genuinely mended fences, from what she could tell. In hindsight, she wished she knew what Logan had told him, because Piz had eventually told her that he didn't feel like he'd ever mean as much to her as Logan would. Any arguments she made against that claim were apparently unconvincing. She blamed Logan, outwardly, but the truth was that a small part of her was relieved when Piz had broken it off. The part of her that had been willing to fight for their relationship wasn't as strong as the part that had been - was still - sure that they were bound to disappoint each other. Living across the country from each other only made her more certain.
She doesn't call Piz back. She'll send him an email later, she promises herself, but calling would be too weird right now.
~~~~~
Three
Wallace sends emails at least every other week, and they even manage to talk by phone a couple of times once they work out scheduling. He asks her if she's gotten to firearms training yet (fully aware that since she isn't yet actually attending classes at the FBI Academy, that isn't on the program), and in turn she asks him if the NBA has gotten around to recruiting him yet. They don't talk about the Castle, or what that might have meant for Wallace's sports career.
Once, she awkwardly asks about Logan. Gory Sorokin's connections aren't of the type that she can blackmail with a taped confession, so she can't help worrying about her ex's safety. She can practically hear Wallace shaking his head when she asks. All he'll say is that Logan can take care of himself, and if anything really serious happened he would tell her. “But you gotta focus on you right now,” he insists. “Don't worry about him.”
She supposes he's right. It's easier said than done, though. Logan Echolls isn't as easily removed from her life as that.
~~~~~
Four
The first time she's not truly busy when her father calls, Veronica hesitates before answering. All it takes is seeing his name on her phone's screen for the guilt that she still hasn't dealt with to come rushing back. He's the best sheriff Balboa County has ever had and could ever have. He should have won that election. And no matter what he's said to her about how they each made their own bad decisions, and even though his reaction that very evening had been to make her a delicious dinner, she still can't shake the guilt.
She hasn't bothered to tell her father this, but just before she left to come to Virginia, she'd gotten a call from a number she didn't recognize. It turned out to be Liam Fitzpatrick. All he'd said was that he wanted to congratulate her and her father for playing their roles better than he could have expected, and that it was good for everyone if things stayed pretty much how they'd been going since before Keith became acting sheriff. The wound had still been too fresh for Veronica to do more than ask him what the hell he was talking about. His response had been a mocking laugh, to which he had added, “Have a great summer,” and hung up.
All this passes through her mind again as her cell phone continues to ring in her hand. Finally, she remembers how completely undimmed the love was in her dad's face as he served her that bowl of gumbo. She recalls his excitement for her living out her dream, unchanged by the large part she played in ruining his. She may not feel like she deserves it, but her father loves her. After everything they've been through as a family, the times they've let each other down, and the injustices they've both suffered, he loves her. And she meant it when she told him that she loves him more than anything.
She sniffs, wipes a tear from her cheek, swallows, and answers the phone. “Hey, Dad.”
~~~~~
Five
The night she gets back, she greets an ecstatic Backup, has a dinner that her jet-lagged body can't tell whether it should be counted early or late, and sets her bags in her room before noticing it. There's a small package on her desk that she doesn't recognize. “Dad, what's this?” she calls, picking it up. There's no card on the outside, and the box is nice but plain.
“Oh, that,” her dad says, coming in and seeing her holding it. “Showed up at our door yesterday morning. It didn't seem to smell, or be ticking, or moving, so I thought it was safe to bring it inside. I opened the lid and your name was on the tissue paper, so I didn't look any further.”
“Huh,” says Veronica. Then she narrows her eyes at him. “Wait, this isn't your oh-so-casual way of finally getting that pony for me, is it?”
Keith smiles. “I trust you'll thank me properly if it is.” He leaves her to it.
Indeed, inside on the paper is her name, and she recognizes the handwriting with a combination of a sinking heart and a strange jolt of adrenaline. The photo is from the end of middle school. It's the four of them - Duncan, Lilly, Logan, and Veronica - at, she thinks, their middle school 'graduation' party. They all look almost heartbreakingly happy and innocent (although Lilly would no doubt smack her for suggesting she ever was such a thing). Veronica goes from feeling tears smart in her eyes to a watery laugh when she sees the words on the picture's frame: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. - Henry David Thoreau”. Naturally, Logan would put one of his famous inspirational sayings on this kind of gift.
She turns the picture over and a post-it detaches itself from the back and falls onto the desk. Setting down the picture, she picks up the note. “Veronica,” it reads, “I hope you follow Mr. Thoreau's exhortation. If anyone has the determination to do it, it would be you. P.S. The picture's to help you not forget us little people back home when you're a fed. Logan.”
She reads the note again. Shaking her head, she pulls out the picture's stand and tucks the note inside the space there, then sets the frame carefully on her desk. Forget them? Sure, quite a few of the events of her last few years of life, she'd like to be able to wipe away. At the same time, she's self-aware enough to know that they helped make her who she is. No, there's no way she'll ever forget her friends - and, however she might try, she probably won't be forgetting her nemeses, either. As Logan knows too well, she isn't really the forgetting type.
End