second installment for salingergurl! out of (i am pretty sure) 3

[acinogan]

hello,
salingergurl , your secret santa is back with more fic for you!  i am trying like heck to get it finished, but this isn't the end...

Author: acinogan
Title: Out Of Harm's Way
Pairings/Characters: Piz/Veronica, eventual LoVe, also Keith, Mac, Heather Button, mentions of Wallace but no sightings yet
Word Count: 5795 this installment
Rating: um, PG-13? a few curse-type words
Summary: near the beginning of sophomore year, Veronica is still with Piz and trying to stay "normal" - and part of that is staying away from Logan.  Then when Heather goes missing, Logan asks for Veronica's help.
Spoilers/Warnings: through end of series, some smut still on the horizon
Disclaimer: I don't own etc.
A/N: much beta help was given by love_is_epic , often of the chatty late night kind.  thanks for indulging me!
A/N 2: sorry i keep stretching it out!  i swear i will only need one more chunk to finish it up.  i hope it's worth the wait  :)

first installment here:
community.livejournal.com/vm_santa/184483.html#cutid1

part 7

When her alarm clock went off, Veronica was entirely unprepared to get out of bed. She hit snooze and rolled over, feeling the waves of the waterbed under her, then took a deep breath to try and get herself going. When that didn't work, she tried to think herself into action, cataloguing all that she had to get done that day. The size of her to-do list just made her hit snooze again when the alarm went off. She switched to lying on her other side and tried the opposite tactic, clearing her mind of everything. That backfired also, since she could get rid of all the clutter, but she couldn't get rid of Logan and the fight they'd had the night before. After she'd walked out of his suite, she'd sat in her car for several minutes, trying to stop being furious. She'd started driving, intending to go home, but ending up wandering around on the PCH again. Most nights over the past couple of weeks, she had felt a need to be out of her room at night when there was no more coursework to do, nothing left to distract her from her growing realization of how miserable she actually was. All of the angry words back and forth with Logan last night had brought that sharply to the forefront and thrown all of her mistakes back in her face. She'd had to pull over, and for a minute she had been worried she would have to call Mac to come drive her home. She couldn't have called Piz; he was partially the reason she felt like she was on the verge of a complete breakdown instead of a temporary one. She didn't want to break up with him. She just wanted to like him more. She wanted him to be...more. She wanted him to yell at her when she blackmailed people. Which she wasn't going to do anymore, anyway, because this time she really was trying to stay on the straight and narrow. If she had only listened to her dad, and, earlier, to Logan, she wouldn't have broken into the Kanes' house for that damn hard drive and her dad would probably be Sheriff again. The summer away from the Mars Investigations office had softened the sting a little, but being back in Neptune and seeing the evidence every day of how much she'd screwed up was overwhelming sometimes. At least if Heather was really missing, that was one thing that wasn't her fault.

She sat up. She should check her phone. She'd put it on silent last night on the elevator ride down in the Neptune Grand, just in case Logan got the urge to call her. Now she actually hoped his smug voice would be on her voice mail telling her she was right about Heather and she'd been with some other prepubescent girl and lost track of time, all's well that ends well.

She slid out of bed and retrieved her phone from her bag on the floor, then sat back down on her waterbed. One new voice mail...3 texts from Piz (a "good morning," a "breakfast?" and a "WAKE UP!!" Jeez, it wasn't that late.) She called her voice mail, mental fingers crossed that it was Logan and things had ended well. Luck was not on her side. It was Mac from last night, asking about going to a movie Friday night. She made an addition to her to-do list (call Mac) and deleted the message.

She sighed. What to do? Wait and see if any word came down the wire later, or go ahead and call Logan and get her least favorite part, the waiting, out of the way? Surely he would not interpret a short, concerned phone call as a white flag or a friendly overture. It was just her being concerned for the safety of a twelve-year-old girl, that's all.

She called him before she could talk herself out of it and waited for him to answer. One ring, two--

"Veronica? Are you okay?" his drowsy voice sounded like he was on auto-pilot, still mostly asleep. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the way her heart thumped in her chest when she heard the way his voice sounded, concerned and rough with sleep. She took a breath.

"I'm just calling to see if you've heard anything about Heather," she said, and something registered. "Why would you think I'm not okay?"

"I had a dream you yelled at me and stormed out of the room. Oh, wait. It's possible that wasn't a dream. It might be that that's actually every interaction I've had with you for months now," he quipped, that beautiful sleep timbre still in his voice, but no more concern, only what sounded to her like sadness. She sighed, hoping after the fact that it had been inaudible to him over the phone.

"So nothing about Heather?" She tried to divert him from the other topic of conversation. She had a mental image of what he must look like that very moment, probably having turned over onto his side once he'd gotten awake enough to string together a few sentences. Most mornings he'd wake up lying on his back, an arm flung above his head, sometimes the hand under his pillow, sometimes on top of it. He slept the sound sleep of the innocent, ironic even while asleep.

"I don't think she got the memo that I'm worried about her."

"I can call her house again today. If you don't hear from her after her school lets out, I guess." Why she'd just offered to do that, she did not know. Since Heather was still potentially not safe and sound, she guessed that was the only thing she could do to help. Wait, would that call involve her being in the same place as Logan? She still had the phone number in her phone from last night; it would be possible just to make the call on her own and let him know afterward.

"Okay. I think she gets out at three," he said plainly, no sarcasm in his voice.

"All right, I'll call later and let you know."

"Thanks." He paused. "I'll call you if I hear from her."

"Okay. Bye," she said and disconnected without waiting to hear if Logan had anything else to say to her. Then she sent a text to Piz, feeling not even a twinge of guilt: "up late studying - slept in - lunch?" and got out of bed for good to go take a shower and get ready to face her day.

part 8

He put down his phone after talking to Veronica and sat up on the couch. He had finally fallen asleep there in front of the TV late last night after driving around for a couple of hours once he'd passed Veronica by and then watching mindless shows for a couple of hours. He reached for the remote to turn off a rerun of Law and Order, then he stood up to stretch the couch-induced kinks out of his back and neck. He headed for the shower so he could clear his head. The almost painfully hot water fulfilled its intended purpose while he considered the events of the past twenty-four hours in a more rational fashion. He was still worried about Heather, but he could see that Veronica probably had a point about a twelve-year-old girl forgetting to tell her parents she was going over to a friend's house. If that wasn't what had happened, though... He pushed the disconcerting thoughts further back in his mind.

Yesterday he had gone from catching a chance glimpse of Veronica to getting her to come see him, then they struck out at each other like they always seemed to do, she ran away and he found her again (too bad he couldn't find Heather that easily), wandering around the same way that he had been. He wondered why she had been crying, why exactly. What thing in her life was so bad than she'd had to pull over to wait it out? Could it have been her fight with him, or was it something bigger that he didn't know anything about? Maybe something with her dad, or maybe her boyfriend was finally starting to bore her to tears, literally. Surely it was only a matter of time before the dynamic woman he remembered broke out of this cookie-cutter thing she had going with Piz. Even if it had nothing to do with him.

part 9

She made her way across the quad to meet Piz for lunch, walking slowly, telling herself that she was enjoying the beautiful early fall day. When she thought about what the rest of her day held, though, she had trouble encouraging her feet to move. After lunch, she had a couple hours of work-study at the library. She needed to call Heather's house again to try to figure out if she was actually missing or just being twelve. She was supposed to spend a couple hours helping her dad in the office. She had an evening Economics class, and finally, she had plans to watch DVDs with Piz. All she wanted was to be alone. That was actually what she had wanted most days since she got back from DC at the end of the summer. Too bad it wasn't happening today. She entered the student center and saw her boyfriend waving happily at her. She managed a smile for him, then joined him at the table, trying to shake off her bad attitude.

* * *

Piz thought she looked a little preoccupied, or stressed maybe. Tired? He hoped she wasn't getting sick or anything like that. He waved at her, and she perked up, so he worried a bit less. She sat down next to him, and as he usually did when he saw her, he felt a surge of gratitude toward whatever force had brought them together: fate, or luck, or being in the right place at the right time, whatever. He leaned over to kiss her cheek, her face upturned. She sighed contentedly, then looked at him searchingly for a second or two before leaning in to kiss him on the lips.

"Sorry I slept later than I thought this morning," she apologized. He shook his head.

"Don't worry about that. You probably needed the rest."

"Yeah." She looked down, settling her bag on the floor beside her chair, then looked back at him. "What's on the menu today?" she asked him. Since she'd gotten back from DC, she had let him pick the food for the both of them, which was sort of strange because she normally had very strong opinions about what she was in the mood to eat. He tried to pick things he knew she liked.

"There's lasagna in the cafeteria line."

"Hmmm. You know, I might just have some frozen yogurt. I'm not very hungry," she said, and he looked at her a bit more closely. Was her face starting to get a bit thinner? She did look tired.

"Are you feeling all right?"

She laughed softly. "Oh, ha-ha. Just because Veronica doesn't want lasagna, something's wrong? I just had a late breakfast this morning, so I'll get the fro-yo now and snack it up after the library."

"You've just seemed a bit, um, stressed lately, or preoccupied? I don't know. I just want to make sure you're okay." He went to hold her hand, and she returned the gentle squeeze he gave it.

"I'm fine." She looked him in the eye, her voice steady and assured, and he believed her.

* * *

Something was wrong with her. Logan knew her well enough to know that no matter how she looked when she was in front of other people, she was not as happy as they seemed to think she was. Even without inadvertently witnessing the late-night breakdown by the side of the PCH, he would have known, just by looking at her. How could these people who were supposed to be her friends, and her boyfriend, not know? This small snapshot he'd just gotten through a window while he was walking past the student center told him that much, that half-second image told him volumes.

It made him angry that she was trapped by her pretenses, that she felt, for whatever reason, that none of these other people were worthy of confiding in. Or that she thought she was being noble by carrying whatever burden it was on her own. He wished she would learn once and for all that she didn't have to do everything herself. If they were still together...

But they weren't. Some deep, secretive, cautiously optimistic part of him, though, had always thought they might be again, someday, maybe.

part 10

Some days she did not mind shelving books but today was not one of those days. She was not in the mood to concentrate on the alphabet or the stupid Dewey decimal system. She kept checking the time on the big clock on the main floor, willing the last ten minutes of her work-study to be over.

Finally it was time for her to leave; she filled out her time sheet and practically burst through the library doors out into the sun. One more thing she had to do before she went into the office with her dad. Well, two things, actually: call Heather's house and then update Logan.

She put her sunglasses on and settled onto a bench just outside the library. She reluctantly got her phone out of her bag and took a second to mentally prep, and then she made the call.

Three rings. Then a young voice: "Hello?"

"May I speak to Heather, please?" She held her breath.

"Um, this is Heather. Who is this?"

"Oh, Heather. I am happy to be talking to you," she said in a rush, relieved. "I'm a friend of Logan Echolls, and he was worried when you didn't get in touch with him yesterday."

"Oh, crap, is he mad? I totally forgot about our game when Michelle asked me over for dinner."

"I don't think he was mad, just worried, and when I talked to your mom, it seemed like she was worried, too."

"Yeah, my dad picked me up from school and said I could go over to Michelle's instead of going to my mom's like I was supposed to and he said he would call her so she would know I wasn't going to be there for dinner, but he forgot. She yelled at me when I called her to come pick me up after dinner and grounded me over the phone, but then I guess she talked to my dad, she ungrounded me when she picked me up." Wow, this girl could talk.

"So everything's okay, just a little misunderstanding about your dinner plans?"

"Yeah, everything's fine. Will you tell Logan I'm sorry, and that I'll remember next week?"

"I sure will."

"Okay, bye!"

"Bye," she said and sighed as she ended the call. What do you know, that had actually been the easy call. Now for the tough one.

* * *

Oh, God, finally, he thought when his phone rang and he saw it was actually Veronica, unlike the four other calls and six other texts since this morning that had not been Veronica.

"Hey," he answered the phone familiarly.

"Hey," she said in return. He knew from her tone that everything was all right, but he waited for her to say the words anyway, on the off chance that he was wrong. "I just talked to Heather, or she just talked to me, really. Everything's fine, it was just a miscommunication between her parents. She says she's sorry she missed your game and she'll see you next week."

"Good," was all he could think of to say right then. "Thanks, Veronica," he managed after a few seconds.

"You're welcome," she replied. The massive sense of relief he felt was not unlike finding Veronica, locks of hair by her recumbent body, in the parking deck, although not as intense. How many bullets would the people he cared about get to dodge? "Goodbye, Logan," he heard her say into the phone and then hang up.

He figured he was probably due for a few free passes for the people in his life. After the last few years worth of paying through the nose losing people when they were killed, or when they ran off, or when they jumped off, he was owed. Maybe he had been afraid that all Veronica's near misses had used up his credits with Fate, and that was a part of why he'd been so worried about Heather. Maybe a guy only got so many chances.

He wished she hadn't hung up the phone. Hell, he wished she was there in the room with him. He never felt quite right without her presence, even if they weren't dating, even if they were actively disagreeing. She was the one person who never left him, not with the finality of the others. She was still in his life, even if it was just on the periphery right now, and he was not out of her life for good as he had feared. Even after all the mistakes he'd made, she was still here. And he needed her, so much sometimes that he was ashamed. He sometimes felt like if she ever gave up on him completely, his life wouldn't matter.

part 11

She called Mac after she parked her car on the street in front of the Mars Investigations office.

"Mac Attack! Movie Friday night, huh?"

"I thought we'd make it a double date, yes. Max really wants to see the stupid thing and I'll feel so much better knowing you're losing that hour and a half of your life, too."

"Such a good friend."

"I try. The 9:45 show?"

"Okay. I'll run it by Piz."

"Excellent. Talk to you later."

"Bye."

She put her phone back into her bag and got out of the car to go into the office.

"Hi, honey, I'm home!" she called out as she walked through the front door. Huge stacks of files were piled up on every flat surface. Her dad came out of his office with another stack in his arms. He set it down in the reception desk chair and smiled at her, indicating the room full of files with a sweeping gesture of his arm. "You got some splainin' to do," she told him, hoping against all odds that this wasn't the start of the annual Mars Investigations Fall File Frenzy.

"It's that time again."

"No!" she moaned dramatically, putting her bag down and sitting on the couch. He sat down next to her.

"We go through this every year. And what do I tell you every year?"

"It's best if I don't fight it."

"That's right," he said reassuringly. "Now start looking through those files - A's through G's are on the desk. I'm going out for a while for the Lewis case. Call me if you need me." He stood up and put on a jacket and cap with an exterminator's logo on them. "Gotta go take care of some bugs."

She groaned at his terrible joke. "If you're going to make me go through the files, you are not allowed to make puns."

"I'll be back in an hour or two." He looked at her for a moment. "Everything okay?" She tried her best to look neutral, not overly happy, because that was a dead giveaway as far as her dad was concerned.

"Just alphabet overload, between this and the library earlier." If he didn't buy it, he didn't press the issue any further. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

"Do you want to come home for dinner before your class?"

"Sure."

"All right. Bye, honey."

"Bye," she returned as he left. She transferred her attention to the large stacks of files and decided to jump right in and tackle the A's. Maybe her dad was right and it was best if she didn't fight it. That would be one thing that wasn't a fight lately, at least.

She started in on the first stack she got to. The repetitive nature of arranging the files seemed to put her into an introspective lull, unlike her stint in the library earlier. Luckily, she was really good at the alphabet, so when her mind started to wander, she could still manage to alphabetize correctly.

She thought about how different things would be right now if she had made just a couple of different choices. If she had stopped herself from dwelling in the past where Jake Kane was concerned and had not broken into his house and stolen from him, her dad might be Sheriff now. And she would not be filing. The only thing that hard drive had gotten her was info that she would never be able to use in any way that helped her for fear of repercussions to her dad or other people she cared about.

While I'm playing the what if game, how would things be different now if I had never started dating Piz, if we had stayed just friends? I made the first move, really. Would he have asked me out eventually if I hadn't, or continued to back off? Come to think of it, that first move had happened about the same time Heather was being pawned off on Logan. What a relief that she was safe at home. Otherwise, she might have ended up indulging Logan in some off-the-clock P. I. endeavors. How would she have been able to stand it if she'd had to check in with him regularly, or, worse yet, go on some terrible claustrophobic stakeout, trapped in a car with him for hours, nothing to do but wait and talk. What would they even talk about? Mundane everyday things, classes, anything other than the issues that had blown them apart if history was any indicator. Of course, if she had never started dating Piz, Logan never would have felt the need to beat him up over what he thought was a sex tape because it never would have been made. They wouldn't talk about any issues anyway, not directly. One of them would say something snarky and the witty comments back and forth would escalate to yelling, and one of them would leave in a huff. Probably her. Logan was usually happy to keep fighting, to lay his cards on the table to get her to see his perspective. She was the runner. In that respect, it was so much easier to be with Piz. He never sent her running out of the room.

She filed and thought for a while longer, until her dad came back in.

"How did it go?" she asked him. She had moved to the chair behind the reception desk once she'd gotten enough of the files cleared off of the desk.

"Fine. No problems. Your old man is the best fake exterminator on the planet."

"Of course you are."

"How's the filing coming?" he asked pointedly.

"Slowly. I made it to D."

"Well, let's stop for the day and go home for dinner. What are you in the mood for?"

"Oh, whatever's fine. Something quick before Econ." He gave her a brief look like he wanted to say something to her, then came around behind the desk to wrap an arm around her shoulder.

"You know, I can take care of the rest of the filing if school's keeping you busy."

"Nothing I can't handle. I can finish the filing." People were starting to notice. She had to do better at being happy. At least her dad still thought she was with Piz on those nights she went out driving around. She needed for her dad to think she was happy. She had already caused enough problems for him.

part 12

About halfway through the movie, Veronica's fingertips brushed the bottom of the popcorn bucket, the small size purchased due to her lack of appetite lately. Maybe things were changing. Maybe this eating would lead to sleeping at decent hours for a change. She was going to get some chocolate now, too - Whoppers, or maybe even Junior Mints.

She leaned over to whisper to Piz, "I'll be right back, do you want anything from concessions?" He shook his head 'no,' then returned his attention to the screen. At least he was following it with some interest. Her mind kept wandering, and she was having trouble paying enough attention to the plot to care what the outcome was. She grabbed some money out of her bag and headed toward the exit door at the back of the theater. She decided she might as well visit the ladies' room while she was already out of the theater before she burdened herself with snacks.

* * *

Logan watched her leave and impulsively stood up to go after her. Dick acknowledged his departure by lifting the paper cup of cola which he had enhanced with Jack Daniels Blue Label. He knew he probably shouldn't be doing this even while he passed under the red 'EXIT' sign, but he couldn't seem to stop himself - not even when he saw her enter the ladies' restroom just off the wide hallway, not even when he knew that the usher with the carpet sweeper could turn around to face him at any second, not even when another female nearly ran into him as she was leaving just after Veronica had gone in. He who hesitates is lost, he told himself, and walked in, hoping that the lady who'd seen him wouldn't tell management. He briefly wished for an 'out of order' sign and a wedge to put under the door. Ah, the good old days. He made a cursory check of the stalls - all but one unoccupied, and he recognized the pair of shoes he could see under the door. He dragged the trashcan over to block the door; that would have to do. Then there was a flush, and after a few seconds, she walked out of the stall and it was too late to abandon his impulsive plan.

She jumped when she saw him and realized he wasn't another feminine bathroom-user, and her hand reached down to her side, he would have bet for the taser that was in the bag that was not at all on her shoulder. She let out a breath when, in the next instant, she realized it was him and not just some random male intruding on the female inner sanctum or some creepy peeping tom. She probably would have tasered him anyway if she'd had the taser with her. It was his lucky day, he thought, as she went to wash her hands. The noise of the high pressure automatic-sensored sink and her back turned to him gave him a few more seconds to study her so he could decide how to proceed. She took her hands out of the sink and the water stopped, leaving the room silent. She glared at him as she walked past him toward the paper towel dispensers mounted along the wall.

He took a breath, preparing to make a witty remark, when Veronica hit the button on the hot air hand dryer next to the paper towels. The noise stopped his words before they left his mouth. He waited for the blower to stop and when she turned her head to look at him, he began to speak again, only to be cut off by Veronica turning on the blower again. He nodded at her, trying to let her know she'd made her point, if her point was "following me into the bathroom hasn't been okay since high school."

The blower stopped, and when she went toward the button a third time, he placed his hand in between her completely dry poking fingers and the shiny metal square, and when she poked his hand instead, she drew back like he was electrified. Maybe he should have thought this through a little further.

* * *

What the hell was he thinking? This wasn't high school; they were out in public, with other people also out in public. She poked his hand unexpectedly when she went to start the hand dryer a third time to buy herself a few more seconds to think while she annoyed him with the noise. It had been a win-win the first two times, anyway. The sudden contact had made her recoil noticeably, and she wondered exactly how he would choose to interpret that.

"What are you doing here?" she asked softly.

"Hoping that waste of celluloid redeems itself with a high speed car chase."

"In the women's restroom," she clarified.

"Oh. Right. Here's the thing."

"Logan..." she said his name, half scolding him for playing around and following her into the restroom, half pleading with him just to let her go on with her life, to stop showing up and reminding her that there were times they had been happy.

He shrugged. "I don't know why. I just saw you get up and I was following you before I knew it." He sounded sincere.

"You're here to see the movie?" she asked, having trouble wrapping her brain around the whole situation. These past couple of days had been so much like high school at times that when he surprised her in the ladies' room, it had thrown her for a minute, so she had needed the time it took to wash and thoroughly dry her hands to get her bearings.

"Yep, ,just me and Dick. Actually, the longer I leave him alone, the more likely he is to get himself into trouble. Maybe I should just get back." He seemed deflated, like he really didn't know why he'd come after her and realizing that had taken the wind out of him. He looked at his feet, not moving to leave.

"I'm glad Heather's okay," she volunteered.

"Yeah. It's good. I'm glad you didn't have to get too involved. I know you're busy." His head stayed down; his hand worried at the edge of his sleeve.

"I would have, if you had needed me," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. He looked up at her through his eyelashes, suddenly still.

She knew that look. She had seen it on a balcony, after the first time he'd come to her rescue. God, she knew that look.

* * *

He held still, afraid that if he moved he would spook her. He held still for as long as he could, watching her eyes widen and her breathing quicken, then he did the only thing he could think of to do to hold her in place, to keep her from leaving. He reached his hand up to cup her cheek, and when she stayed there, closing her eyes slowly, he reached the other hand up as he stepped in closer. She stayed there; she was not running away, he realized wondrously. He took a deep breath in and out, finally relaxing slightly for the first time since he'd trapped them in here together.

* * *

She felt him edging closer to her slowly, felt his hesitance, felt him waiting for her to pull away, to run out of the room. She should run. She knew she should, but she didn't. With her eyes closed, she felt his hands on either side of her face and it felt like home, like the bad parts of the past three years had never happened, just the parts where they found each other. She felt it and she couldn't leave.

She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her like she would evaporate if he took his hands off of her face. She brought her hands up to his waist: her light touch seemed to release something in him, and he bent his forehead to touch hers, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, he moved his head back so he could look her in the eyes again. Whatever he saw there made him smile, and he tilted her face up slightly as he leaned in to kiss her. His lips touched hers, and her eyes closed involuntarily. She felt his familiar hands move around to draw through her hair, press the nape of her neck, and roll down her back as the kiss continued. His arms tightened around her and she molded comfortably against him, her body remembering exactly how it was supposed to be. She let her hands roam over him, up and down his sides and across his back, and he moved his lips to her throat, kissing a trail along her jaw to her ear. She heard his throaty whisper: her name, every few seconds in between kisses. She shivered at the sound, the word he uttered like a prayer offered only to her. He adored her, she knew it without a doubt in this moment. She had always known that, it was just harder to accept sometimes than it was right now.

The haze he had put her in began to clear when a tiny niggling thought started to come back to her, when she remembered where they were and who was waiting for her in the theater. She shut her eyes tightly, hoping that maybe if she blocked the movie theater ladies' room from her vision completely, she could focus on the touch of the man here with her and nothing else. It wasn't going to work, though, she discovered after a moment, and she lifted his face to kiss his lips one last time. When she pulled back, he looked at her questioningly and she tried to smile at him, but she was afraid it wasn't very convincing, especially when his brow wrinkled a little as he brushed her hair away from her temple.

"I have to go," she managed to say, her voice rough. She reluctantly backed away from him, watching his face fall. He remained quiet and moved the garbage can away from the door so she could leave. Her hand on the handle, she paused before she pulled the door open. "I wish we could stay," she whispered without looking at him, then hurried out before he tried to make her wish come true.

When she was back in the seat next to Piz again, he glanced at her, noticing her lack of concessions.

"There was a line; I just went to the restroom instead after I got tired of waiting." And she knew she would not be sleeping well anytime soon.