The Return 4: Arrival (Ensemble) PG-13
Title: The Return 4-Arrival
Rating: PG-13 (for profanity)
Characters/Pairings: Logan, Lilly Kane, Duncan, Veronica, Piz, Wallace (mentions of: Parker, Dick, Mac, Weevil)
Word Count: 2,058
Spoilers: All episodes (from 1.01: Pilot to 3.20: The Bitch Is Back. Just to be sure) Although this is obviously AU and there are obviously going to be some alterations to events and especially some in the last couple of episodes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Literally, nothing. So don’t sue me over his, because you won’t get anything. It all belongs to Rob Thomas and if I had owned it when it was still on the last season would have been way different.
A/N: This story was also no originally mine, and I’d really like to stress that in the first two chapters. The original story can be found here) And this is my first attempt at anything AU, so… enjoy
Chapter 1: Awake/ Chapter 2: Homecoming/ Chapter 3: Forgive
The Return
4
Arrival
~Logan~
“Ladies and Gentlemen. And Veronica.” Logan shouted out, standing in front of the group standing before him.
“Shut up, ass hole!” Veronica replied from her position, leaning against his car, next the open back passenger door where Lilly still sat.
“Continuing on. Since there were two last minute editions to our party, even though I still don’t know why Weevil had to come. But nonetheless, there will not be quite enough bedrooms for everyone to get their own. Four of you will have to share, and since I own the house and therefore am providing the locale for this little vay-kay, I’m not sharing. The room at the end of the hall is off limits since it’s already set up for my ‘special guests’.” Logan did the air-quotes as he turned to walk up the steps to the cabin. He’d honestly only wanted to invite Veronica on this trip, but she wouldn’t have come if he had just told her it was a surprise. If he could have gotten her to agree it would just been him and her. The other guests here were unnecessary to what he had planned, but the trip provided a good bonding experience between him and his new ‘friends’.
“Also, and I should mention this because it really is important. Veronica and Lilly already have bedrooms, since this isn’t their first trip.” He unlocked the door with a flourish and swung it open. “So the remaining six of you can fight it out amongst yourselves who gets what rooms and who rooms with who.” With that he disappeared into the cabin to put his things in the room that had always been his.
He knew exactly who else was upstairs, but he’d let everyone else figure it out for themselves.
~Lilly~
“Classic Logan.” Lilly commented as she hopped out of his SUV. “Dick? Will you grab my bag? I can’t exactly carry it myself.”
The request was called out over her shoulder, her hair shining in the sun and totally hypnotizing Dick. Rushing to the back of Logan’s car, he lifted the hatch and started to unload Lilly’s luggage.
“Dick? You should get Veronica’s too. After all, she’s much too little to carry all of that up.” Lilly made the request, knowing that Dick would take it as an order. As he should. She was having a hard time separating the girl she was and the people her friends had become. Veronica didn’t take orders or back down, didn’t wait for Lilly to take the lead. And Logan certainly hadn’t dropped to his knees at her feet to declare his devotion. Not that she’d really expected him to after the whole Aaron thing, but it was still a change from his days of begging her to take him back. The Donut was apparently off somewhere, raising his illegitimate love child with a girl that had barely registered on Lilly’s radar pre-coma. But the one constant, Dick Casablancas’ desperate need for her approval and attention. And his complete inability to refuse Lilly Kane’s ‘requests’.
Walking up the stairs to her room on the second floor she had an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. She remembered being fourteen, and running down the halls of this house with Veronica, just before her own fourteenth birthday. She remembered getting caught having sex with Logan by his sister in the hot tub when she was fifteen and he was barely fourteen. And mostly she remembered the summer of 2003, the last summer the four of them had spent together. The summer that they had driven up to the cabin every other week for the lake and to get away from all the Neptune bull shit. Lilly let her eyes fall shut as she reached the top of the stairs.
The perfect summer that felt like only a couple of months ago to her, but years to all other parties involved.
Taking a deep breath and letting her eyes open again, Lilly envisioned her baby brother walking down the hall again. That lumbering swagger that all guys have and is somehow specific to each one. Blinking Lilly tried to wipe away the mirage of her brother, but was shocked when she couldn’t.
Reaching out, she stuck out one finger and poked him in the chest.
“Oh, my God!” She squealed out at the same time he looked up and saw her.
“What the hell?” Duncan’s eyes were round and large, shocked. Apparently he was Logan’s surprise guest and her ex hadn’t had the time to inform her bro of her presence. “Lilly? You’re awake.”
And with that, he enveloped her in a bone crushing hug.
~Veronica~
She hadn’t expected this. Out of all the surprise guests, Veronica would have thought that Logan had arranged some movie star. Like Connor Larkin and his current girlfriend.
As Duncan leaned back to gaze at his big sister, Veronica watched as Logan looked longingly at the pair. Veronica turned and headed in the direction of what she knew to be the kitchen, she needed a beer. Half way there she heard footsteps behind her.
“Don’t you need to be battling it out over rooms?” Her voice was probably harsher than she needed it to be, but she didn’t need to give him any false hope. This was part of mission-broken-dreams, her plan to really get it through his head that they weren’t going to happen.
“No. Dick decided that since Wallace and I room at college we shouldn’t have a problem rooming here. Of course when he decided this he called Wallace Winston and referred to me as Piss. Parker and Mac are sharing, too. Dick’s theory again. I thought that the girls should each get their own rooms, but Dick said that there was no way in hell that he was gonna room with an 02er gang-banger. I don’t know what he meant by that, isn’t he the maintenance guy at school?” Piz answered, staring at Veronica with those big pining, puppy dog eyes that annoyed her beyond anything else. They were near the top of the “Why Piz annoys the fuck out of me” list, the very same list she used as a referenced ads inspiration during their big break up scene.
“Yeah, well, Weevil hasn’t always been a maintenance guy. Although, if you ask Logan it was always his destiny. Just like Weevil would say that it was always Logan’s destiny to…” Veronica looked up at Piz to find the puppy look back, at the mention of Logan’s name. “Nevermind.”
Veronica left Piz standing in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen, looking after her. Anymore of this awkward small talk with him where she tried, unsuccessfully, to explain her and everybody else’s past together and she’d go crazy. He didn’t seem to really get her, or them, or the place in which they lived. He didn’t grasp the concept that Neptune was not a place for warm and fuzzies, it was not a chicken-in-every-pot-mini-van-in-every-driveway place. It was not like where he came from, it was different and dark and corrupt and the kids that grew up there had to grow-up quickly and in a different way than he did. They became jaded and shrewd business leaders, money-makers that went on to run Fortune-500 companies. Or worked for them.
Reaching into the fridge and grabbing a beer, she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“Read my mind. Couldn’t watch the family reunion upstairs?” Logan asked, walking towards her in that predatory way that seemed so innate to him. “Me neither.”
“It’s not that I couldn’t watch it, just didn’t want to. We got our reunions with Lilly, and I’ll have my reunion with Duncan. Just not right now, right now is for them.” Veronica corrected, replacing her beer in the fridge and taking out a coke. Logan raised an eyebrow.
“Changed my mind. At first I thought I’d have fun and take a beer, but then I remembered that I don’t like beer and I’d rather wait for those fruity drinks you’re bound to buy at some point.”
“There’s some in there, near the back. I had the caretaker guy bring some up for you. They’re strawberry or something.” Logan tipped his beer back as he watched her dive in for the other bottles.
“My hero. Getting me drunk, and catering to my tastes in the process.” Veronica twisted off the cap, raised the drink slightly in a salute to him and took a large gulp.
“Yeah, just don’t tell anyone where you got it. Parker would probably drink them all and Lilly would scold you for forgoing the hard stuff.” Logan spun on his heel and headed to unknown parts of the house, probably to go play videogames.
~Wallace~
They’d been here a full fifteen minutes and he already felt completely out of place.
Logan had found and invited Duncan Kane. And now, due to some inexplicable coincidence, Lilly Kane had woken up and joined them as well. Now the legendary foursome that Wallace had heard so much about was reunited. The mythical creatures of what they were before Lilly went all coma were about to make a reunion tour and lucky him, he had front row seats.
Still, it didn’t mean he understood the show. Both Piz and Parker had nagged him the whole trip up. Asking and asking what was Lilly like, how close were she and Veronica. Would this change everything? All good questions, and oddly enough, all the very same questions Wallace wanted to ask.
They would have been better off asking Mac or Dick or Weevil. They’d all at least been in Neptune before Lilly Kane had gone into her coma. Unfortunately all three of them were in the third car of their little caravan. Weevil refused to ride with Logan or Lilly, and Wallace refused to ride with Dick or Weevil. Mac wouldn’t drive in anyone else’s car but her own, and in the end accidentally volunteered to take the last two passengers.
“I don’t know Parker, ask Mac. I never met Lilly, didn’t even know she existed until almost a year into her coma. Mac has lived in Neptune all her life and Dick was actually one of her friends, ask one of them.” Wallace threw his hands up in frustration, walking out of the foyer and into the greater part of the house, looking for a couch. He had a headache.
As out of place as he felt, Parker and Piz must be feeling it much worse. They hadn’t known any of them until after high school, and when it came down to it, they were all high school friends and shared high school memories. They had stories about high school that couldn’t compare with the ones from Beaverton or Colorado. They were stories that started out with “When I was steeling files and snooping for information for one of my best friend’s cases…” or “The time I was pinned on a pool table by the Irish mob…” or “When I was arrested/accused for murder…”
How does one top that? They don’t, they just learn to live with their average teenage memories while others have to remember a time filled with murder and intrigue.
Flopping on the couch, Wallace sighed deeply.
“Rough day?” Logan asked, staring at him with one eyebrow raised, a smirk and a beer in on hand.
“Piz and Parker are driving me nuts with all the questions about Lilly. Is Lilly this. Will Lilly and Veronica do that. Are Lilly and Logan gonna get back together? After all, you said they were a big deal before.” Wallace replied, throwing his right forearm over his eyes as he spoke.
“What?”
“That was more Parker’s question. That and if Veronica is going to change and stop talking to her now that her real best friend is back.” Wallace paused, in thought. “You know, nobody has asked me how I am. What I feel. If I’m worried about my best friend ditching me for her old BFF. Trading in the new model for the favored old one. You know why? Because I’m not worried, and I don’t know why she is.”
“You shouldn’t be, Veronica can be friends with more than one person at a time. And you’re friendship is different than what theirs was.
“Good to know.”
5:Reconnect
Rating: PG-13 (for profanity)
Characters/Pairings: Logan, Lilly Kane, Duncan, Veronica, Piz, Wallace (mentions of: Parker, Dick, Mac, Weevil)
Word Count: 2,058
Spoilers: All episodes (from 1.01: Pilot to 3.20: The Bitch Is Back. Just to be sure) Although this is obviously AU and there are obviously going to be some alterations to events and especially some in the last couple of episodes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Literally, nothing. So don’t sue me over his, because you won’t get anything. It all belongs to Rob Thomas and if I had owned it when it was still on the last season would have been way different.
A/N: This story was also no originally mine, and I’d really like to stress that in the first two chapters. The original story can be found here) And this is my first attempt at anything AU, so… enjoy
Chapter 1: Awake/ Chapter 2: Homecoming/ Chapter 3: Forgive
The Return
4
Arrival
~Logan~
“Ladies and Gentlemen. And Veronica.” Logan shouted out, standing in front of the group standing before him.
“Shut up, ass hole!” Veronica replied from her position, leaning against his car, next the open back passenger door where Lilly still sat.
“Continuing on. Since there were two last minute editions to our party, even though I still don’t know why Weevil had to come. But nonetheless, there will not be quite enough bedrooms for everyone to get their own. Four of you will have to share, and since I own the house and therefore am providing the locale for this little vay-kay, I’m not sharing. The room at the end of the hall is off limits since it’s already set up for my ‘special guests’.” Logan did the air-quotes as he turned to walk up the steps to the cabin. He’d honestly only wanted to invite Veronica on this trip, but she wouldn’t have come if he had just told her it was a surprise. If he could have gotten her to agree it would just been him and her. The other guests here were unnecessary to what he had planned, but the trip provided a good bonding experience between him and his new ‘friends’.
“Also, and I should mention this because it really is important. Veronica and Lilly already have bedrooms, since this isn’t their first trip.” He unlocked the door with a flourish and swung it open. “So the remaining six of you can fight it out amongst yourselves who gets what rooms and who rooms with who.” With that he disappeared into the cabin to put his things in the room that had always been his.
He knew exactly who else was upstairs, but he’d let everyone else figure it out for themselves.
~Lilly~
“Classic Logan.” Lilly commented as she hopped out of his SUV. “Dick? Will you grab my bag? I can’t exactly carry it myself.”
The request was called out over her shoulder, her hair shining in the sun and totally hypnotizing Dick. Rushing to the back of Logan’s car, he lifted the hatch and started to unload Lilly’s luggage.
“Dick? You should get Veronica’s too. After all, she’s much too little to carry all of that up.” Lilly made the request, knowing that Dick would take it as an order. As he should. She was having a hard time separating the girl she was and the people her friends had become. Veronica didn’t take orders or back down, didn’t wait for Lilly to take the lead. And Logan certainly hadn’t dropped to his knees at her feet to declare his devotion. Not that she’d really expected him to after the whole Aaron thing, but it was still a change from his days of begging her to take him back. The Donut was apparently off somewhere, raising his illegitimate love child with a girl that had barely registered on Lilly’s radar pre-coma. But the one constant, Dick Casablancas’ desperate need for her approval and attention. And his complete inability to refuse Lilly Kane’s ‘requests’.
Walking up the stairs to her room on the second floor she had an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. She remembered being fourteen, and running down the halls of this house with Veronica, just before her own fourteenth birthday. She remembered getting caught having sex with Logan by his sister in the hot tub when she was fifteen and he was barely fourteen. And mostly she remembered the summer of 2003, the last summer the four of them had spent together. The summer that they had driven up to the cabin every other week for the lake and to get away from all the Neptune bull shit. Lilly let her eyes fall shut as she reached the top of the stairs.
The perfect summer that felt like only a couple of months ago to her, but years to all other parties involved.
Taking a deep breath and letting her eyes open again, Lilly envisioned her baby brother walking down the hall again. That lumbering swagger that all guys have and is somehow specific to each one. Blinking Lilly tried to wipe away the mirage of her brother, but was shocked when she couldn’t.
Reaching out, she stuck out one finger and poked him in the chest.
“Oh, my God!” She squealed out at the same time he looked up and saw her.
“What the hell?” Duncan’s eyes were round and large, shocked. Apparently he was Logan’s surprise guest and her ex hadn’t had the time to inform her bro of her presence. “Lilly? You’re awake.”
And with that, he enveloped her in a bone crushing hug.
~Veronica~
She hadn’t expected this. Out of all the surprise guests, Veronica would have thought that Logan had arranged some movie star. Like Connor Larkin and his current girlfriend.
As Duncan leaned back to gaze at his big sister, Veronica watched as Logan looked longingly at the pair. Veronica turned and headed in the direction of what she knew to be the kitchen, she needed a beer. Half way there she heard footsteps behind her.
“Don’t you need to be battling it out over rooms?” Her voice was probably harsher than she needed it to be, but she didn’t need to give him any false hope. This was part of mission-broken-dreams, her plan to really get it through his head that they weren’t going to happen.
“No. Dick decided that since Wallace and I room at college we shouldn’t have a problem rooming here. Of course when he decided this he called Wallace Winston and referred to me as Piss. Parker and Mac are sharing, too. Dick’s theory again. I thought that the girls should each get their own rooms, but Dick said that there was no way in hell that he was gonna room with an 02er gang-banger. I don’t know what he meant by that, isn’t he the maintenance guy at school?” Piz answered, staring at Veronica with those big pining, puppy dog eyes that annoyed her beyond anything else. They were near the top of the “Why Piz annoys the fuck out of me” list, the very same list she used as a referenced ads inspiration during their big break up scene.
“Yeah, well, Weevil hasn’t always been a maintenance guy. Although, if you ask Logan it was always his destiny. Just like Weevil would say that it was always Logan’s destiny to…” Veronica looked up at Piz to find the puppy look back, at the mention of Logan’s name. “Nevermind.”
Veronica left Piz standing in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen, looking after her. Anymore of this awkward small talk with him where she tried, unsuccessfully, to explain her and everybody else’s past together and she’d go crazy. He didn’t seem to really get her, or them, or the place in which they lived. He didn’t grasp the concept that Neptune was not a place for warm and fuzzies, it was not a chicken-in-every-pot-mini-van-in-every-driveway place. It was not like where he came from, it was different and dark and corrupt and the kids that grew up there had to grow-up quickly and in a different way than he did. They became jaded and shrewd business leaders, money-makers that went on to run Fortune-500 companies. Or worked for them.
Reaching into the fridge and grabbing a beer, she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“Read my mind. Couldn’t watch the family reunion upstairs?” Logan asked, walking towards her in that predatory way that seemed so innate to him. “Me neither.”
“It’s not that I couldn’t watch it, just didn’t want to. We got our reunions with Lilly, and I’ll have my reunion with Duncan. Just not right now, right now is for them.” Veronica corrected, replacing her beer in the fridge and taking out a coke. Logan raised an eyebrow.
“Changed my mind. At first I thought I’d have fun and take a beer, but then I remembered that I don’t like beer and I’d rather wait for those fruity drinks you’re bound to buy at some point.”
“There’s some in there, near the back. I had the caretaker guy bring some up for you. They’re strawberry or something.” Logan tipped his beer back as he watched her dive in for the other bottles.
“My hero. Getting me drunk, and catering to my tastes in the process.” Veronica twisted off the cap, raised the drink slightly in a salute to him and took a large gulp.
“Yeah, just don’t tell anyone where you got it. Parker would probably drink them all and Lilly would scold you for forgoing the hard stuff.” Logan spun on his heel and headed to unknown parts of the house, probably to go play videogames.
~Wallace~
They’d been here a full fifteen minutes and he already felt completely out of place.
Logan had found and invited Duncan Kane. And now, due to some inexplicable coincidence, Lilly Kane had woken up and joined them as well. Now the legendary foursome that Wallace had heard so much about was reunited. The mythical creatures of what they were before Lilly went all coma were about to make a reunion tour and lucky him, he had front row seats.
Still, it didn’t mean he understood the show. Both Piz and Parker had nagged him the whole trip up. Asking and asking what was Lilly like, how close were she and Veronica. Would this change everything? All good questions, and oddly enough, all the very same questions Wallace wanted to ask.
They would have been better off asking Mac or Dick or Weevil. They’d all at least been in Neptune before Lilly Kane had gone into her coma. Unfortunately all three of them were in the third car of their little caravan. Weevil refused to ride with Logan or Lilly, and Wallace refused to ride with Dick or Weevil. Mac wouldn’t drive in anyone else’s car but her own, and in the end accidentally volunteered to take the last two passengers.
“I don’t know Parker, ask Mac. I never met Lilly, didn’t even know she existed until almost a year into her coma. Mac has lived in Neptune all her life and Dick was actually one of her friends, ask one of them.” Wallace threw his hands up in frustration, walking out of the foyer and into the greater part of the house, looking for a couch. He had a headache.
As out of place as he felt, Parker and Piz must be feeling it much worse. They hadn’t known any of them until after high school, and when it came down to it, they were all high school friends and shared high school memories. They had stories about high school that couldn’t compare with the ones from Beaverton or Colorado. They were stories that started out with “When I was steeling files and snooping for information for one of my best friend’s cases…” or “The time I was pinned on a pool table by the Irish mob…” or “When I was arrested/accused for murder…”
How does one top that? They don’t, they just learn to live with their average teenage memories while others have to remember a time filled with murder and intrigue.
Flopping on the couch, Wallace sighed deeply.
“Rough day?” Logan asked, staring at him with one eyebrow raised, a smirk and a beer in on hand.
“Piz and Parker are driving me nuts with all the questions about Lilly. Is Lilly this. Will Lilly and Veronica do that. Are Lilly and Logan gonna get back together? After all, you said they were a big deal before.” Wallace replied, throwing his right forearm over his eyes as he spoke.
“What?”
“That was more Parker’s question. That and if Veronica is going to change and stop talking to her now that her real best friend is back.” Wallace paused, in thought. “You know, nobody has asked me how I am. What I feel. If I’m worried about my best friend ditching me for her old BFF. Trading in the new model for the favored old one. You know why? Because I’m not worried, and I don’t know why she is.”
“You shouldn’t be, Veronica can be friends with more than one person at a time. And you’re friendship is different than what theirs was.
“Good to know.”
5:Reconnect