Fic: The Bachelor and the Sheriff's Daughter (10/11) PG~13
Title: The Bachelor and the Sheriff’s Daughter (10/11)
Rating: PG-13 (for language and innuendo)
Summary: Keith requests that Lamb spend time with 16-year-old Veronica to curb her crush on the deputy. Only Keith hadn’t imagined his plan backfiring.
Spoilers: Pilot - 3x14
Pairing/Characters: Eventual V/Lamb, Keith, Lilly, Sacks, mentions Lianne, Aaron, canon Lilly/Logan and canon Dick/Madison
Word Count: 3395 (this chapter)
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars is not owned by me, but by Rob Thomas. I’m simply borrowing these characters for non-profit entertainment.
A/N: Yes, this was inspired by “The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer” but it holds no spoilers for the film and you don’t need to see it in order to understand this.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
~~
Chapter 10:
Lamb had been keeping his distance from both Marses as best he could after that night and finally the day was October 2nd. It had only been a few months since the last time Deputy Lamb had set foot in the Mars home and now Veronica’s best friend and the daughter of one of the most prominent families in all of Neptune had been murdered.
The events that would shatter the world as Neptune knew it were being set in motion and before anyone knew it Keith had been grilling Jake Kane like there was no tomorrow, accusing him of murdering his own daughter.
When Lianne had taken all she could of it, she had left both Keith and Veronica behind. Keith had lost his job as sheriff, Lamb had been elected almost immediately to replace him and nothing would be the same again.
Despite the hell she had already faced from her friends turning their backs on her, Veronica discovered a whole new ring of hell when she awoke alone in the guest room of Shelly Pomroy’s house, her underwear on the floor. There was only one person she felt she could go to and he wasn’t even the man she remembered.
He proved just how much he had changed, how much crueler he had become when he laughed and dismissed her, telling her to go see the wizard even as she cried.
Life was tough and she toughened up right along with it after that. Her friends were no longer her friends, her life had changed completely and she would never again be who or what she had been.
Over the course of the next three years she had found a new sort of place for herself, new friends, new enemies and any day that she could trip up the sheriff was a good day.
At least until he had listened to her on a few cases and even agreed to work with her on a few others. Of course he had claimed that she had been the one playing by the rules and working with him, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was they had somehow begun to build some semblance of a professional relationship. A beginning to rebuild their broken friendship? Perhaps. She tried not to think about it. She had happily blocked most of those memories from her mind.
And just when she thought they were better off as whatever they were now she had been listening to the radio on her way to Mars Investigations to talk to her father about Josh.
Sheriff Lamb is still in intensive care. Her heart all but stopped as her mind replayed those words. She had loved him once, hated him, wanted him, considered him a joke - now all of that was blurring together. All that she knew in that moment, stopped at that stop sign, was that Lamb couldn’t die. So many around her had died already and even if he at times did prove himself to be the devil, she knew nothing would be the same if he died.
Part of her wanted to turn her Saturn right around and go to the hospital to see him, but she knew she would never be let in this soon. Even if she had the fake ID with her that pronounced her as Veronica Lamb, it wouldn’t matter. Not for another few hours.
Twenty minutes later she was standing in her father’s office instead, listening to his end of the conversation as he talked to the county commissioner.
Veronica was already practically clinging to the door frame for support as she watched her father stand from his chair and look down at the phone as though he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“He said that Sheriff Lamb is dead,” he told her sharply. No more preparation than that, no warning. Simply those words.
Had everything just gone into slow motion or was it just her?
"Veronica?" Keith called as he watched her knees give way and saw her land seated on the floor.
"Yeah, Dad?" she asked with a few rapid blinks.
"Are you alright?" She didn't look hurt, but clearly the news had stunned her.
"Yeah. Fine. I gotcha. Lamb's dead. I heard you." Then as she glanced around the room she noticed something was off. "How'd I end up on the floor?"
Keith sighed. Shock, not quite the reaction he had imagined but he decided he could deal with it. He was just about to help her to her feet when the phone rang again. It would be the county commissioner informing him when he was supposed to be at the station as the acting sheriff, he knew. "Veronica, for now, just stay here. I'll take you home when I get off the phone."
Veronica nodded, though the distraction only brought an onslaught of memories. Many of which she had believed to be long forgotten. Lamb's smile, his defiant smirk, how he had hugged her, the times when she had proven she was smarter, the times when she had laughed with him and later at him… It didn’t end. Not until she heard her father trying to get her attention.
“Veronica,” he said again.
“Yeah?” she asked, looking up at him, the tears she would claim weren’t there still stinging her eyes.
“That was Sacks. I don’t know who you were praying to just now, or just what kind of favors the good sheriff’s racked up, but he’s alive.”
“What?” If this was a joke she knew she would shoot someone. This wasn’t anywhere near the realm of funny.
“Lamb died for almost a minute, it seems someone was quick to assume the worst. But they got him back, Sacks said that as acting sheriff and the closest thing to family Lamb has I need to get to the hospital. Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded. He was alive. “Yeah. I just - I need to get something. I’ll meet you there.”
Keith didn’t even have time to protest before Veronica was on her feet, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.
At the hospital, Keith took the manila envelope that contained Lamb’s belongings from the duty nurse almost as soon as he walked into the building. His cell phone, keys, wallet and watch were all that were there. What else he had been expecting to find in the envelope he didn’t know. Nothing about this day made sense but here he was all the same.
Knowing he would be left to fill out the paperwork, he pulled out Lamb’s wallet and began to go through it in search of his insurance information, emergency contact card, anything that would help.
Going through it, he found his driver’s license, credit cards, about $50 in cash and a folded piece of laminated paper he couldn’t decipher. After pulling out what he had been looking for he tried to put the folded piece of laminated paper out of his mind. It wasn’t his business.
To be honest, he had wished none of this had been his business but he had been there when Lamb was attacked, he had been his employer, he would be the acting sheriff for the time being and Lamb didn’t have anyone else. At least not that anyone knew of.
Going through the potentially dying man’s wallet wasn’t something he was enjoying, but the laminated paper looked to be the kind of a photo strip one would get from a photo booth. He knew that if Lamb wasn’t alone in that series of pictures then he would be with someone that he would probably have to notify. If he was lucky the person’s name would be written on the back.
As he unfolded it he saw the last face he expected smiling back at him from over Lamb’s shoulder and he most certainly didn’t need to see the girl’s name to know exactly who she was. Her arms were wrapped around the then-deputy’s shoulders and his hand to where hers were clasped around him. In the next they were seated just beside one another, laughing. The third showed them just sitting cheek to cheek, neither smiling that time but instead giving a shared smoldering look into the camera. Finally it seemed they had decided to reverse the first shot, Veronica being the one seated with Lamb’s chin resting on her shoulder, his arms wrapped around her waist.
Veronica’s long hair in the pictures proved to him that it was an old photo strip, clearly years old from the weekends he had ordered them to share. He had always known they had enjoyed their time together, but this was still a surprise. He realized then just why Veronica had seemed so shocked when he repeated what the county commissioner had told him. Clearly Lamb hadn’t been the only one who remembered those days.
“How is he? Have they said anything?” he heard come from his right.
“They’re working on keeping him stabilized,” he answered when he saw Veronica was beside him. “Did you get what you needed?”
Veronica glanced to her purse. “Yeah.” Then she looked to what her father still had in his hand. “What’s that?”
“I was going through Lamb’s wallet to see if he had any of his medical information in here and I found this.”
Veronica took it when Keith offered it to her. She recognized it immediately despite having tried to put that day as far from her memory as she could. She had no idea Lamb had kept this, couldn’t have even imagined. Especially after four years and all they had put each other through. How worn the center crease looked to be proved how much he apparently took it out, looked back to it, reminisced for better or worse, refolded it and put it right back in his wallet.
She thought back to her own set from the same day, she had kept hers mostly hidden from even herself in a box in the back of her closet. Meanwhile Lamb had clearly kept his copy close. Who knew he had a sentimental streak?
“Any idea why he’d still have that?” Keith asked her.
“Maybe he hasn’t cleaned out his wallet in four years?” she offered. It was obvious her father wasn’t convinced, but what else could she say?
It would be a long night of waiting, Veronica knew, but when Keith finally was called away to the station she knew she would stay where she was. Keith left her with Lamb’s things and save for her trips to get coffee, she continued to wait for any word from his doctor or nurses. She needed to hear that he was going to make it, that he was awake, that he wouldn’t leave her like so many others had.
No guards had been posted outside his door. Why would they? Batando’s dead. You can thank Sacks later. No doctors or nurses had been by in almost a half an hour, the last she heard being that he was stable but they wouldn’t know anything until he woke up.
If he woke up. The thought made her shudder.
Still, she took her chance while she had it, sneaking into his room, his things in her purse that she set between her feet as she sat in the chair that she had pulled to the side of his bed.
He looked so human to her then, she almost couldn’t believe it was him. He was too pale and she had to fight to not imagine the sight that her father had described to her earlier again. Of Batando bringing the bat down onto his head, his blood pooling on the carpet beneath him… She couldn’t. She wouldn’t let him wake up to find her crying over him. If he wakes up, that damn voice in the back of her mind reminded her.
“So you took the fishing pictures off of your phone but kept this one from the arcade?” she asked as she looked back to the photo strip still between her slender fingers. “Why?”
He didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, not that she expected him to. She had typically had the upper hand in their conversations, why should now be any different?
“Guess I get to chalk this up to another thing I’ll never understand. Like how you could kiss me the same night you said we had to end our weekends. Or how you could tell me to go see the wizard after all of that. I was really counting on you and now you’ve got me doing it again. Counting on you to not die and I can’t even pretend to understand the reason for it. It’s not like I have a shortage of people who hate me and yet here I am. At your beside. Hoping you don’t die.”
She finally looked to him again, having to even if not wanting to. So many cords, wires and tubes. The rhythmic beeping of the monitors had been irritating at first but she knew those sounds to be better than any alternative. Save for maybe him barking orders back at the station.
“I missed you, you know? You didn’t want me to forget you when I started going out with Duncan and I realized I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Somehow beating him at the games you and I played just wasn’t the same. And what would Neptune be without its wizard, huh? Or do you prefer the Wicked Witch? Because, really I see more the Cowardly Lion. Or did before you started sort of trusting me again. And the Scarecrow, well, I guess there were better days for that comparison.”
She had to stop herself there, having heard the likelihood of Lamb being left even partially brain damaged after today’s incident had rendered jokes pertaining to his mental deficiencies much less funny in the last six hours.
But her mind, often like her, refused to be stopped. She thought of the Tin Man next. And she had Aaron Echolls’ love of a band she remembered having had a song about how Oz never gave the Tin Man nothing that he didn’t already have. It fit in her mind.
She was his personal Dorothy, though she was sure he would accuse her of being his Wicked Witch. As for Glinda… Now there’s someone Neptune could use.
Before she knew it she was humming what she could remember of the song. At least it was better than something from the movie she was trying to put out of her mind or its subsequent musical.
“Miss?” she heard a woman’s voice call.
Shaken from her reverie she looked to the older nurse. “Uh, hi,” she tried to smile.
“You can’t be in here unless -”
“I’m family,” she nodded quickly. The words were out of her mouth before she even realized she had thought them. Maybe she hadn’t thought them at all, it didn’t matter, they were echoing in her ears all the same.
The woman looked her over, then looked to her comatose patient and left the room a moment later even if against her better judgment.
To get a doctor? To call security? Veronica didn’t want to think about the possibilities. They would have to break out the big guns to get her out of here tonight. Like her father, who just happened to be working the O’Dell case now. What was one more thing she didn’t need to be thinking about?
“Well that was a close one,” she sighed to her still sleeping nemesis. “You know, you’re a lot easier to talk to like this. No rape humor, no deflection, no blatant disregards for truth, no crude remarks. Who knows, maybe we’d still be friends if this had happened sooner,” she tried to laugh. But even then it felt forced.
Lamb could almost feel himself being brought back to the land of the living. A voice, saying his name, sounding so far away. Almost like when his mother would call him inside for dinner when he had been out playing basketball with his neighborhood friends when he was a kid. But something about this was different. For once thing he knew it was taking him way too long to wake up or open his eyes and for another he couldn’t seem to move.
“Think of Sacks,” she went on, “he’s guaranteed to blame himself for not having shot Batando sooner or calling for an ambulance sooner then he did. And just think how much fun you’ll have taking your job from my dad again.”
She kept telling him whatever she could think of to force him to come back. Deflecting her own ways when it came to those in his life who would miss him. She refused to mention herself, she couldn’t admit to him even like this that she needed him to live for her own stupid, selfish reasons. So what if part of her would always be in love with him - that damn sixteen-year-old girl inside of her who had never fallen out of love with the blue-eyed deputy? She’d be lying comatose here herself before she would admit it.
His eyes began to open when she had gotten to mentioning Cliff, catching bits of a monologue about his strip club buddy, about the dancers he would never help put through school like this.
So lose in her diatribe, she had missed the exact moment when his eyes attempted to focus on the all too white ceiling tiles above him. While he tried to piece together where he was and how he had gotten here, Veronica had moved on to talking about all the innocent people he would never see behind bars or at the very least in handcuffs at this rate.
“I always expected an angel at the pearly gates, not some bitter, young pixie,” he managed despite his far too dry throat.
She gasped, her eyes finally meeting his. “Lamb?!”
“What. The. Fuck.” His head was in agony, he still couldn’t move and she was there. From the blinding lights that only added to the worst migraine he could remember ever having - and given some of his hangovers from his college partying days that was pretty impressive - and a strong smell of antiseptic that made him sick to his stomach he could gather he had to be in a hospital.
Veronica calling out for a nurse or doctor or whoever was closest confirmed his suspicion.
But why would he be in the hospital? Had his gun backfired when he shot the mirror?
“You say he’s awake?” he heard a man’s voice ask. It wasn’t familiar.
“Yeah. He just started talking,” she nodded, failing to conceal the hope in her voice.
“Sheriff?” the doctor asked as he shined his penlight into his eyes, checking to see if his concussion had lessened at all.
“What?” he asked, trying to turn his all too sore head from the light.
“Do you know where you are?”
Veronica heard him ask if he was in the hospital, heard him mention being at Mindy O’Dell’s house after the doctor asked what the last thing he remembered was. When she had sat again she couldn’t remember, all that mattered was that Lamb was alive, he was awake and he was talking. Maybe he wasn’t making a lot of sense but Veronica considered that normal for him so that was clearly a start.
The next day Don awoke to find Veronica was back in that chair by his bed. With a magazine in her hands, her boots off and her legs crossed just in front of her. He was almost afraid to ask how long she had been there for.
“Who do I have to threaten around here to get some coffee?” he asked finally, licking his almost painfully chapped lips.
“I suppose that depends on who the first barista you see after you’re discharged from here is,” she deadpanned from behind the magazine. She could be flippant now, now that he didn’t seem to be at death’s door anymore. She would never let him see how scared she had honestly been the day before.
Of course that fact wasn’t going to stop her from camping out at his bedside for as long as she could get away with.
Rating: PG-13 (for language and innuendo)
Summary: Keith requests that Lamb spend time with 16-year-old Veronica to curb her crush on the deputy. Only Keith hadn’t imagined his plan backfiring.
Spoilers: Pilot - 3x14
Pairing/Characters: Eventual V/Lamb, Keith, Lilly, Sacks, mentions Lianne, Aaron, canon Lilly/Logan and canon Dick/Madison
Word Count: 3395 (this chapter)
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars is not owned by me, but by Rob Thomas. I’m simply borrowing these characters for non-profit entertainment.
A/N: Yes, this was inspired by “The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer” but it holds no spoilers for the film and you don’t need to see it in order to understand this.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
~~
Chapter 10:
Lamb had been keeping his distance from both Marses as best he could after that night and finally the day was October 2nd. It had only been a few months since the last time Deputy Lamb had set foot in the Mars home and now Veronica’s best friend and the daughter of one of the most prominent families in all of Neptune had been murdered.
The events that would shatter the world as Neptune knew it were being set in motion and before anyone knew it Keith had been grilling Jake Kane like there was no tomorrow, accusing him of murdering his own daughter.
When Lianne had taken all she could of it, she had left both Keith and Veronica behind. Keith had lost his job as sheriff, Lamb had been elected almost immediately to replace him and nothing would be the same again.
Despite the hell she had already faced from her friends turning their backs on her, Veronica discovered a whole new ring of hell when she awoke alone in the guest room of Shelly Pomroy’s house, her underwear on the floor. There was only one person she felt she could go to and he wasn’t even the man she remembered.
He proved just how much he had changed, how much crueler he had become when he laughed and dismissed her, telling her to go see the wizard even as she cried.
Life was tough and she toughened up right along with it after that. Her friends were no longer her friends, her life had changed completely and she would never again be who or what she had been.
Over the course of the next three years she had found a new sort of place for herself, new friends, new enemies and any day that she could trip up the sheriff was a good day.
At least until he had listened to her on a few cases and even agreed to work with her on a few others. Of course he had claimed that she had been the one playing by the rules and working with him, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was they had somehow begun to build some semblance of a professional relationship. A beginning to rebuild their broken friendship? Perhaps. She tried not to think about it. She had happily blocked most of those memories from her mind.
And just when she thought they were better off as whatever they were now she had been listening to the radio on her way to Mars Investigations to talk to her father about Josh.
Sheriff Lamb is still in intensive care. Her heart all but stopped as her mind replayed those words. She had loved him once, hated him, wanted him, considered him a joke - now all of that was blurring together. All that she knew in that moment, stopped at that stop sign, was that Lamb couldn’t die. So many around her had died already and even if he at times did prove himself to be the devil, she knew nothing would be the same if he died.
Part of her wanted to turn her Saturn right around and go to the hospital to see him, but she knew she would never be let in this soon. Even if she had the fake ID with her that pronounced her as Veronica Lamb, it wouldn’t matter. Not for another few hours.
Twenty minutes later she was standing in her father’s office instead, listening to his end of the conversation as he talked to the county commissioner.
Veronica was already practically clinging to the door frame for support as she watched her father stand from his chair and look down at the phone as though he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“He said that Sheriff Lamb is dead,” he told her sharply. No more preparation than that, no warning. Simply those words.
Had everything just gone into slow motion or was it just her?
"Veronica?" Keith called as he watched her knees give way and saw her land seated on the floor.
"Yeah, Dad?" she asked with a few rapid blinks.
"Are you alright?" She didn't look hurt, but clearly the news had stunned her.
"Yeah. Fine. I gotcha. Lamb's dead. I heard you." Then as she glanced around the room she noticed something was off. "How'd I end up on the floor?"
Keith sighed. Shock, not quite the reaction he had imagined but he decided he could deal with it. He was just about to help her to her feet when the phone rang again. It would be the county commissioner informing him when he was supposed to be at the station as the acting sheriff, he knew. "Veronica, for now, just stay here. I'll take you home when I get off the phone."
Veronica nodded, though the distraction only brought an onslaught of memories. Many of which she had believed to be long forgotten. Lamb's smile, his defiant smirk, how he had hugged her, the times when she had proven she was smarter, the times when she had laughed with him and later at him… It didn’t end. Not until she heard her father trying to get her attention.
“Veronica,” he said again.
“Yeah?” she asked, looking up at him, the tears she would claim weren’t there still stinging her eyes.
“That was Sacks. I don’t know who you were praying to just now, or just what kind of favors the good sheriff’s racked up, but he’s alive.”
“What?” If this was a joke she knew she would shoot someone. This wasn’t anywhere near the realm of funny.
“Lamb died for almost a minute, it seems someone was quick to assume the worst. But they got him back, Sacks said that as acting sheriff and the closest thing to family Lamb has I need to get to the hospital. Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded. He was alive. “Yeah. I just - I need to get something. I’ll meet you there.”
Keith didn’t even have time to protest before Veronica was on her feet, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.
At the hospital, Keith took the manila envelope that contained Lamb’s belongings from the duty nurse almost as soon as he walked into the building. His cell phone, keys, wallet and watch were all that were there. What else he had been expecting to find in the envelope he didn’t know. Nothing about this day made sense but here he was all the same.
Knowing he would be left to fill out the paperwork, he pulled out Lamb’s wallet and began to go through it in search of his insurance information, emergency contact card, anything that would help.
Going through it, he found his driver’s license, credit cards, about $50 in cash and a folded piece of laminated paper he couldn’t decipher. After pulling out what he had been looking for he tried to put the folded piece of laminated paper out of his mind. It wasn’t his business.
To be honest, he had wished none of this had been his business but he had been there when Lamb was attacked, he had been his employer, he would be the acting sheriff for the time being and Lamb didn’t have anyone else. At least not that anyone knew of.
Going through the potentially dying man’s wallet wasn’t something he was enjoying, but the laminated paper looked to be the kind of a photo strip one would get from a photo booth. He knew that if Lamb wasn’t alone in that series of pictures then he would be with someone that he would probably have to notify. If he was lucky the person’s name would be written on the back.
As he unfolded it he saw the last face he expected smiling back at him from over Lamb’s shoulder and he most certainly didn’t need to see the girl’s name to know exactly who she was. Her arms were wrapped around the then-deputy’s shoulders and his hand to where hers were clasped around him. In the next they were seated just beside one another, laughing. The third showed them just sitting cheek to cheek, neither smiling that time but instead giving a shared smoldering look into the camera. Finally it seemed they had decided to reverse the first shot, Veronica being the one seated with Lamb’s chin resting on her shoulder, his arms wrapped around her waist.
Veronica’s long hair in the pictures proved to him that it was an old photo strip, clearly years old from the weekends he had ordered them to share. He had always known they had enjoyed their time together, but this was still a surprise. He realized then just why Veronica had seemed so shocked when he repeated what the county commissioner had told him. Clearly Lamb hadn’t been the only one who remembered those days.
“How is he? Have they said anything?” he heard come from his right.
“They’re working on keeping him stabilized,” he answered when he saw Veronica was beside him. “Did you get what you needed?”
Veronica glanced to her purse. “Yeah.” Then she looked to what her father still had in his hand. “What’s that?”
“I was going through Lamb’s wallet to see if he had any of his medical information in here and I found this.”
Veronica took it when Keith offered it to her. She recognized it immediately despite having tried to put that day as far from her memory as she could. She had no idea Lamb had kept this, couldn’t have even imagined. Especially after four years and all they had put each other through. How worn the center crease looked to be proved how much he apparently took it out, looked back to it, reminisced for better or worse, refolded it and put it right back in his wallet.
She thought back to her own set from the same day, she had kept hers mostly hidden from even herself in a box in the back of her closet. Meanwhile Lamb had clearly kept his copy close. Who knew he had a sentimental streak?
“Any idea why he’d still have that?” Keith asked her.
“Maybe he hasn’t cleaned out his wallet in four years?” she offered. It was obvious her father wasn’t convinced, but what else could she say?
It would be a long night of waiting, Veronica knew, but when Keith finally was called away to the station she knew she would stay where she was. Keith left her with Lamb’s things and save for her trips to get coffee, she continued to wait for any word from his doctor or nurses. She needed to hear that he was going to make it, that he was awake, that he wouldn’t leave her like so many others had.
No guards had been posted outside his door. Why would they? Batando’s dead. You can thank Sacks later. No doctors or nurses had been by in almost a half an hour, the last she heard being that he was stable but they wouldn’t know anything until he woke up.
If he woke up. The thought made her shudder.
Still, she took her chance while she had it, sneaking into his room, his things in her purse that she set between her feet as she sat in the chair that she had pulled to the side of his bed.
He looked so human to her then, she almost couldn’t believe it was him. He was too pale and she had to fight to not imagine the sight that her father had described to her earlier again. Of Batando bringing the bat down onto his head, his blood pooling on the carpet beneath him… She couldn’t. She wouldn’t let him wake up to find her crying over him. If he wakes up, that damn voice in the back of her mind reminded her.
“So you took the fishing pictures off of your phone but kept this one from the arcade?” she asked as she looked back to the photo strip still between her slender fingers. “Why?”
He didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, not that she expected him to. She had typically had the upper hand in their conversations, why should now be any different?
“Guess I get to chalk this up to another thing I’ll never understand. Like how you could kiss me the same night you said we had to end our weekends. Or how you could tell me to go see the wizard after all of that. I was really counting on you and now you’ve got me doing it again. Counting on you to not die and I can’t even pretend to understand the reason for it. It’s not like I have a shortage of people who hate me and yet here I am. At your beside. Hoping you don’t die.”
She finally looked to him again, having to even if not wanting to. So many cords, wires and tubes. The rhythmic beeping of the monitors had been irritating at first but she knew those sounds to be better than any alternative. Save for maybe him barking orders back at the station.
“I missed you, you know? You didn’t want me to forget you when I started going out with Duncan and I realized I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Somehow beating him at the games you and I played just wasn’t the same. And what would Neptune be without its wizard, huh? Or do you prefer the Wicked Witch? Because, really I see more the Cowardly Lion. Or did before you started sort of trusting me again. And the Scarecrow, well, I guess there were better days for that comparison.”
She had to stop herself there, having heard the likelihood of Lamb being left even partially brain damaged after today’s incident had rendered jokes pertaining to his mental deficiencies much less funny in the last six hours.
But her mind, often like her, refused to be stopped. She thought of the Tin Man next. And she had Aaron Echolls’ love of a band she remembered having had a song about how Oz never gave the Tin Man nothing that he didn’t already have. It fit in her mind.
She was his personal Dorothy, though she was sure he would accuse her of being his Wicked Witch. As for Glinda… Now there’s someone Neptune could use.
Before she knew it she was humming what she could remember of the song. At least it was better than something from the movie she was trying to put out of her mind or its subsequent musical.
“Miss?” she heard a woman’s voice call.
Shaken from her reverie she looked to the older nurse. “Uh, hi,” she tried to smile.
“You can’t be in here unless -”
“I’m family,” she nodded quickly. The words were out of her mouth before she even realized she had thought them. Maybe she hadn’t thought them at all, it didn’t matter, they were echoing in her ears all the same.
The woman looked her over, then looked to her comatose patient and left the room a moment later even if against her better judgment.
To get a doctor? To call security? Veronica didn’t want to think about the possibilities. They would have to break out the big guns to get her out of here tonight. Like her father, who just happened to be working the O’Dell case now. What was one more thing she didn’t need to be thinking about?
“Well that was a close one,” she sighed to her still sleeping nemesis. “You know, you’re a lot easier to talk to like this. No rape humor, no deflection, no blatant disregards for truth, no crude remarks. Who knows, maybe we’d still be friends if this had happened sooner,” she tried to laugh. But even then it felt forced.
Lamb could almost feel himself being brought back to the land of the living. A voice, saying his name, sounding so far away. Almost like when his mother would call him inside for dinner when he had been out playing basketball with his neighborhood friends when he was a kid. But something about this was different. For once thing he knew it was taking him way too long to wake up or open his eyes and for another he couldn’t seem to move.
“Think of Sacks,” she went on, “he’s guaranteed to blame himself for not having shot Batando sooner or calling for an ambulance sooner then he did. And just think how much fun you’ll have taking your job from my dad again.”
She kept telling him whatever she could think of to force him to come back. Deflecting her own ways when it came to those in his life who would miss him. She refused to mention herself, she couldn’t admit to him even like this that she needed him to live for her own stupid, selfish reasons. So what if part of her would always be in love with him - that damn sixteen-year-old girl inside of her who had never fallen out of love with the blue-eyed deputy? She’d be lying comatose here herself before she would admit it.
His eyes began to open when she had gotten to mentioning Cliff, catching bits of a monologue about his strip club buddy, about the dancers he would never help put through school like this.
So lose in her diatribe, she had missed the exact moment when his eyes attempted to focus on the all too white ceiling tiles above him. While he tried to piece together where he was and how he had gotten here, Veronica had moved on to talking about all the innocent people he would never see behind bars or at the very least in handcuffs at this rate.
“I always expected an angel at the pearly gates, not some bitter, young pixie,” he managed despite his far too dry throat.
She gasped, her eyes finally meeting his. “Lamb?!”
“What. The. Fuck.” His head was in agony, he still couldn’t move and she was there. From the blinding lights that only added to the worst migraine he could remember ever having - and given some of his hangovers from his college partying days that was pretty impressive - and a strong smell of antiseptic that made him sick to his stomach he could gather he had to be in a hospital.
Veronica calling out for a nurse or doctor or whoever was closest confirmed his suspicion.
But why would he be in the hospital? Had his gun backfired when he shot the mirror?
“You say he’s awake?” he heard a man’s voice ask. It wasn’t familiar.
“Yeah. He just started talking,” she nodded, failing to conceal the hope in her voice.
“Sheriff?” the doctor asked as he shined his penlight into his eyes, checking to see if his concussion had lessened at all.
“What?” he asked, trying to turn his all too sore head from the light.
“Do you know where you are?”
Veronica heard him ask if he was in the hospital, heard him mention being at Mindy O’Dell’s house after the doctor asked what the last thing he remembered was. When she had sat again she couldn’t remember, all that mattered was that Lamb was alive, he was awake and he was talking. Maybe he wasn’t making a lot of sense but Veronica considered that normal for him so that was clearly a start.
The next day Don awoke to find Veronica was back in that chair by his bed. With a magazine in her hands, her boots off and her legs crossed just in front of her. He was almost afraid to ask how long she had been there for.
“Who do I have to threaten around here to get some coffee?” he asked finally, licking his almost painfully chapped lips.
“I suppose that depends on who the first barista you see after you’re discharged from here is,” she deadpanned from behind the magazine. She could be flippant now, now that he didn’t seem to be at death’s door anymore. She would never let him see how scared she had honestly been the day before.
Of course that fact wasn’t going to stop her from camping out at his bedside for as long as she could get away with.