Fic: "Life Comes And Goes" (1/?) PG-13 (LoVe)
Title: Life Comes And Goes (1/?)
Author: Me: the great and wonderful, Lola
Summary: A/U. Sequel to “The Nanny”. Someone decides that the kids are worth more outside of their parents’ possession.
Relationships/Characters: LoVe, Duncan/Meg, {With: Dick/Betina, Cassidy/Cindy, Clarence Weidman, Lilly, others but that gives away who dun it} names in { } marks are minor and not in tags.
Word Count: almost 2, 500 (but don’t get used to it, I’m lazy)
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars characters - Rob Thomas
Ben Echolls - livingArtemis ( http://www.fanfiction.net/u/727038/ )
Anyone you don’t recognize - mine
Spoilers: Very few scattered ones, nothing after 2.21 though.
A/N: This story might be recignised by some people because it's already posted on ff.net. I'm posting it here in hopes that I can get some more praise and adoration feedback. While this is a sequal I don't think that you need to read the first one. But if you want to it's here http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2720985/1/ . You can review on that too!
--
Veronica looked down at the test in her hand, the pink standing out boldly against the white. She was pregnant. She had been married to Logan for two years and she wasn’t stupid, she knew where babies came from, but she was still shocked to have it happening to her.
“I’m going to have a baby.” She said out loud. Veronica looked at her reflection in the mirror and tried to see herself with a swollen belly and that cliché expectant mother glow. Somehow she couldn’t see it. Outside the door she could hear one of the monitors in the kids rooms crackle to life.
Veronica sighed, suddenly feeling older then she was. Already she was a mother of two, and not by her own doing; how would she manage to take care of Ben and Julia and a new baby. Three had to be harder then two.
Suddenly she pictured Meg. Her twins would be born soon and with her two already that would make four. I couldn’t deal with four, Veronica thought, but three I can probably handle though.
“Mommy!” Veronica heard Julia call. The little girl had always managed to wake up early. Before it had driven Veronica crazy, she was used to Ben who slept late, now though she was grateful for her early habits. It would be something to keep her occupied until Logan got home from whatever last minute cast thing had kept him in New York for an extra twelve hours.
Veronica took her time stashing the test at the very bottom of the wastebasket for fear Logan would find it. Then feeling guilty she hurried down the hall to Julia’s bedroom. The little girl was playing happily in the middle of her ‘big girl bed’ with an assortment of stuffed animals. She didn’t seem worried in the slightest that her mom had taken longer then usual to answer her ritual morning call.
“Mommy.” Julia looked up from her game. “Daddy come home?”
“Not yet sweetie.” Veronica responded opening the blinds and letting the pink room fill with sunlight. “He’ll be home very soon and then do you know where we going?”
“We going to the lake.”
“That’s right.” Veronica smiled picking up the brush that sat on the bedside table and starting to work out the knots in Julia’s short red hair. The little girl had such pretty hair that everyone stopped to comment on it and how cute she looked. Veronica loved to dress her up like a doll and take her out to show her off. Ben often got jealous of the attention so Veronica made sure to take extra care to comment on Ben’s many great achievements. Her latest distraction was to point out that because he was a year older he would be going to school in less then two weeks.
With summer coming to an end the family was taking their annual trip to Black Creek, a small lake side town that brought in most of it’s income during tourist season. Logan’s dad owned a large house up there and since he never took the time to see his son he tried to buy him off by offering the house to him at the end of every summer. It was such a big house that Logan had invited three other families to stay with them. The Kane’s who Veronica was on very good terms with and the Casablancas, who Veronica had only met a few times.
The Casablancas were a brother duo that had made it big in the real estate industry. The older brother was married to a young woman he had gone to school with. He knocked her up at graduation and was then somehow convinced to do the right thing and marry her. Dick and Betina had a little boy who was turning six; Veronica didn’t like Ritchie, as they called him, at all and the elder Casablancas didn’t have a very stable marriage either. The younger brother Cassidy was much nicer. His wife Cindy had also gone to school with him but she had managed to keep herself clean. The one time they had met her she seemed very nice, much nicer then Betina but that wasn’t hard to manage.
Logan had confided to Veronica when they got home after meeting them that Dick wasn’t very smart and that if Cassidy hadn’t needed someone older to sign the paperwork for the company then Dick wouldn’t have made any money. He told her that Cassidy was the smarter of the two and was in the process of fading out all the contracts he had had signed with his brother’s name. According to Logan, Dick wouldn’t notice anything until his credit cards started getting rejected and with Cindy’s dad being a lawyer he wouldn’t see a penny in a couple of months.
Veronica finished brushing Julia’s hair and then helped her make her bed before they went over to her closet to pick something out to wear. “I wanna wear my princess dress.” Julia said reaching up to get the frilly pink gown off its hanger.
“No Julia honey, you have to wear something that you can play in. You can’t wear the princess dress outside. How about these?” Veronica held up a pink baby gap t-shirt and a pair of jean shorts. Julia agreed and then proceeded to put in a very good effort at dressing herself, Veronica had to help her with the snap on the shorts. The two of them then went to the kitchen where Veronica poured both of them a bowl of cheerios and helped Julia up onto the high kitchen chairs.
She dug in right away and Veronica sat and played with hers. Even seeing food in the mornings right now tended to make her queasy. “Mom look what I did!” Veronica turned around to see that Ben had dressed himself; luckily for her in shorts and a t-shirt that basically matched.
“That’s great Benji.” She praised him using Logan’s nickname. “Do you want to come sit up here and have a bowl of cereal?” She offered Ben her chair and not touched cheerios; he didn’t seem to mind that they were a little soggy because he dug right in. “Mommy’s going to be right back, she’s just going to the washroom.” Veronica hurried out of the room to the master bathroom where she promptly threw-up. Then she fumbled around in the drawer beneath the sink for the soda crackers she kept there. They usually helped settle her stomach. Sometimes those crackers were the only thing that she could eat until lunch.
Being careful that the taste of the toothpaste didn’t make her sick again she brushed her teeth before going back to the kitchen. “Mommy, I spilled.” Julia pointed to the spot of milk growing on the table. It didn’t look like a very big spill but Julia looked upset.
“I’ll clean it up, Julia. Don’t worry.” Veronica comforted picking up the cloth from beside the sink and mopping up the mess. Like she thought it wasn’t very much and she got Julia settled back down once the spill was wiped up. The kids finished eating and Veronica quickly washed the two bowls in the sink before putting them in the drying rack. Looking at Julia she noticed that she had somehow in the half-hour she was up, gotten dirt on her face. Veronica picked up the cloth again and tried to get the black spot off her cheek.
“Shortie I’ve told you a million times you can’t get the freckles off.”
“Daddy!” Julia broke free of Veronica and ran over to her dad. Logan scooped her up and flipped her upside down over his shoulder. “I think someone is in for a tickle attack.” He carried Julia out of the kitchen to the living room with Ben tagging along shouting, “I wanna help! I wanna help!”
Veronica laughed and reached for the towel to dry the bowls. She was placing the spoons in the drawer when both Ben and Julia came shrieking in to the room. Behind them Logan came with his hands raised above his head and a menacing look on his face. Hiding behind Veronica the kids giggled until Logan let out a roar then they screamed again. “Logan,” Veronica scolded, “would you stop playing abominable snowman and go load the car.
“He’s not abob-ida-bull he’s the tickle monster.” Ben struggled around the foreign word.
“Yeah, the tickle monster.” Logan pitched his voice to a childish level.
“Don’t be such a child. Go get the bags.”
“Last one to get their backpack is a rotten egg.” Logan yelled and the kids scampered off to their rooms to get their backpacks. Logan walked over to Veronica. “I never got to say ‘hi.’” Pushing Veronica up against the kitchen counter he planted a hand on either side of her before planting a kiss on her nose. “Hi.”
“Hey.” She smiled up at him, giving him a light kiss on the mouth. “Thanks for taking them off my hands for a bit. They missed their Daddy.”
“Are they the only ones that missed me?”
Veronica bit her bottom lip, still in aw that after being together for three years he could still give her butterflies. “No, I missed you too but for a different reason.”
Logan’s expression change to one that resembled a kid in a candy store, “There’ll be plenty of chances to make up lost time when we get to Black Creek. I’ll get Duncan and Meg to take the kids down to that little petting zoo. That’ll give us a couple of hours to ourselves.” He gave her hips a bump before chastely kissing her. “We better go make sure they’re not getting into trouble.”
“You’re right. They do have your genes after all.”
“That’s a low blow.”
Veronica shrugged. “Like it’s not true, I took no part in making them.”
“But you are helping raise them. I saw this show on child rearing on the Discovery Channel; genes are only part of it. You can only blame me for so long.”
“I can blame you for as long as I want. Everyone knows in the twenty-first century it’s the woman who rules the house. You’re supposed to just go along meekly with whatever I say. I saw that on the Discovery Channel too.”
“Don’t make me show you who’s in charge…” Logan started before being cut off by Julia yelling.
“Daddy, Ben called me ‘abob-ida-bull’.”
“And you have no influence on them what so ever.” Logan smirked and kissed Veronica one last time before leaving the kitchen to make sure World War Three didn’t break out.
--
By the time Veronica and Logan got the kids, and bags, into the car it was nearly nine o’clock. “You’re going to have to speed to get to the airport before Duncan.” Veronica teased tempting Logan to go a little faster.
“Maybe not.” The sensible side of Logan pointed out the Kane car still in the driveway with the gates just opening. Logan honked the horn as they drove by and Veronica and Logan waved.
“Are we going to beat Uncle Duncan to the airport?” Ben asked seriously.
Logan just laughed. “You’re mom was kidding; there’s no race.” Logan tapped the brakes to make the brake lights come on just as Duncan pulled out of the driveway. Veronica cell phone rang and recognizing the personalized ring tone she answered it.
“Tell you’re husband to stop mocking us.” Meg joked.
“I keep telling him with the Baby On Board sticker his street racing days are over.”
“They are so not.” Logan sped up the car so the just managed to get through the yellow light before it turned red.
“Not fair.” Veronica heard Duncan yell.
“Duncan says that’s not fair.” Veronica repeated for Logan.
“Tell him life’s not fair.”
“Tell Duncan Logan says ‘life’s not fair’.”
Meg repeated the message and Veronica heard Duncan start to reply before Meg cut him off. “Duncan just drive.” Meg laughed before returning back to her conversation with Veronica. “I guess we’ll meet you at the airport if these two children don’t kill us first. Duncan I’m pregnant could you not take those turns?” Veronica laughed. “I’ve got to go Veronica, I have to beat my husband.”
“Bye Meg, see you guys there.” Veronica hung up the phone and crossed her fingers that the boys wouldn’t get a chance to actually race knowing they would take it.
--
“Logan, did you get the camera out of the front seat.” Veronica hurried around checking that all of their bags were loaded.
“Veronica the truck is empty, there’s nothing left in it that we could possible need unless the plane gets a flat and you want me to change it with a car tire.”
“Don’t make fun of me. I’m just trying to be prepared I don’t want to forget anything.”
“You’re just stalling. I know you’re nervous about flying by there’s nothing unsafe about this plane I promise. Now take deep breaths and makes sure the kids have gum to chew.”
“Deep breaths.” Veronica reminded herself as she boarded the small private plane that Logan purchased so he could move easily between any distant movie shoots and home. Once she was on the plane she got the kids buckled in and gave them each a small piece of gum reminding them both not to swallow it. Then she offered the package to Meg for herself and Faith. Joy had been given a soother to suck on while they were taking off and landing.
Logan and Duncan boarded the plane and when they too were seated the mechanical door closed on it’s own behind them. Logan clicked his seat belt into place and the pilot came over the PA system.
“Everybody ready?”
“Yeah.” Logan answered and put his hand over Veronica’s.
Duncan grinned. “Let’s blow this pop stand.”
Logan groaned. “That’s Duncan for ‘you can fly the plane now’.” He informed the pilot who just laughed.
“We’re taking off now.”
“Can I do count down?” Ben whispered anxiously hoping he wouldn’t miss his chance.
“Sure buddy.” Logan hit the buzzer on his armrest. “Do you think you need a helper for count down?” He asked seriously smiling a Ben.
“Sure, but I need you to speak really loud so I can heard over the engines. Ten, nine…”
“Eight, seven,” Ben started, “Six, five,” Faith joined in. “Four, three, two, one.”
Perfectly on cue Julia yelled, “Blast off,” as the plane took off from the runway.
Veronica squeezed Logan’s hand making his knuckles turn white. “Come on it’s not that bad.” He teased gently, lightly brushing his lips against her cheek when no one was looking.
“I’ll feel better when we’re on the ground.” Veronica gritted out between clenched teeth. Logan just held her hand a little tighter.