Fic: Molasses and Taffy pt 2 (Veronica, Logan) PG-13
Part 2 in a post 2.22 fic, Logan's POV this time, still very angsty.
Title: Molasses and Taffy, part two.
Author: Jacqui.
Rating: PG-13, nothing more than what was on the show. Maybe a few naughty words, here and there, but that's just Logan talking.
Character/Pairing: Veronica, Logan, Logan/Veronica.
Disclaimer: They're not mine. Rob Thomas owns all VM related things. And you can blame *him* for the angst.
Wordcount: 3,527.
Spoilers: And then some, baby. It's 2.22 "Not Pictured" all the way.
Summary: It's the small things that get lost when you try to forget the large ones.
Warnings: None, really, maybe some naughty words and SPOILERS for 2.22.
Previous Chapters: found here
forget the large ones'>
*~*~*~*
MOLASSES AND TAFFY, part two
*~*~*~*
"He killed my FATHER!"
It's in that one word, in the cracked tearing of her voice, that Logan knows just how bad it is this time. And she continues to list Beaver's sins, the atrocities, but Logan can't spare him more than a glance as he watches her.
His steps are gentle as he walks towards her, but his brain reels.
Back to the party downstairs, the hurried, business like way she'd rushed through and demanded to know if he'd seen Beaver. Something had told him then, business like Veronica always meant trouble, always.
But he hadn't followed her, he'd wanted to, but he hadn't. His feet were caught in words he couldn't remember saying, vines of drunkenness twisting over his ankles and keeping him rooted to the spot.
He couldn't stop causing her pain. The look in her eyes that morning as she extended the figurative olive branch and made him hope again, that damn look she got when Kendall spoke up and he hadn't been able to deny it, because he couldn't remember what he'd said to her in the first place.
So he'd left her alone until the message on his phone. He might have been stubborn enough to miss the first clue, but he wasn't completely stupid.
And now he knows, that in the time he'd walked around the party, suddenly bored with the people around him, suddenly uninterested in the blank, vapid stares of everyone, the time he'd taken to stroll back to his suite.
In that time, Beaver had pointed a gun at her. Made her cry. Killed her father. Keith. Hurt her beyond anything he could have done himself.
And maybe, if he'd swallowed his pride, Logan might have been able to stop that.
"Give me the gun, Veronica."
He can't let her do it, because he knows she wants to and, given the way she can't even focus, he knows there's nothing to stop her. But he also knows what will happen, because Veronica, for all her witch hunts and ragged, bloody fights to find truth and bring justice, she is not a killer.
And the thought, even the possibility of having taken human life begins to eat at you, from the inside out. A small little worm of bitterness and doubt that burrows into your stomach lining.
Veronica won't survive that. She won't. He knows it. She wouldn't even make it to a trial. The only thing that helped him through that was her, even if he never told her, and he doesn't know if he's enough to do the same for her.
So he takes the gun and she clings to him instead. Like he can save her. That scares him. Because he's nothing if not dangerous and damaging and his veins course with Echolls blood and enough mangled genes of violence and lies and hurt.
But she is soft and she is Veronica and there is nothing else to do.
"My name is Cassidy!"
Logan tries to stop him, but even he has to admit he doesn't try very hard. There's something so far past wrong in the way that Beaver stands on the ledge, begging for an excuse to live, just one reason.
And as they watch the boy jump, Logan feels something tighten inside and it's like a last single fuck you to someone who caused so much pain.
If he has his way, he's going to make sure the headstone reads: RIP Cassidy Beaver Beaver Beaver Beaver BEAVER Cassablancas.
He'll put it on his list of things to do.
But now, there's Veronica in his arms and he can't think past anything further than the look in her eyes and the way her hands hold on to him like he can offer her something other than pain.
***
"It's okay." He whispers the words into the top of her head. His fingers brush through her hair, as if detangling imaginary knots there will untangle the ones inside her. "It's okay."
She clings to him and they both know he's lying. But they both know they need the words.
"Veronica."
Her name, he says it like a prayer, like it's the word that makes everything and anything better. And it does. For him. He can only make one guess at the words that will magic all of this away from her and it isn't Logan. But, he figures, Keith and daddy and father will only break her more.
He can't give her that, he can only offer himself, but she takes it.
There are police swarming downstairs, herding confused huddles of partly drunk teenagers into quarantine, scraping the remains of a monster from the hood of a beamer, radioing back and forth about 'the disturbance' and 'the probable suicide' and 'the crash'. There are police swarming upstairs, sweeping fine tooth combs over the gravel they left behind.
The story isn't up there or down on the street either, it's with them, it's with Veronica, but the police either don't get it or they don't care.
"Hey." He runs a hand down the side of her face, through the sheen of tears drying there. "What...?"
The question sticks in his throat as the elevator makes it way to Cassidy's floor. Her eyes blink at him, far away and distant.
"What about your dad?"
Her face crumples again and he feels like a heel, like he could punch himself into a bloody mess, but he saves that for later, because she's in his arms again and he can barely make out the words muffled into his shoulder.
Plane. Cassidy. Cell.
The bell rings and he feels the loss of Veronica like ripping down the side of him, it's the first time since he caught her that she's let him go. And for a split second, barely even countable, Logan has what he considers one of the blondest moments of his life.
He wonders what's so urgent about finding Mac.
He never really knew Mac, aside from being that girl Veronica hung out with, cute and bright. He remembers calling her Mini-V once and he remembers that they both glared at him. Then Mac had started rambling on about Q and Bond and business structures and he'd tuned right out so he could watch Veronica's face as she smiled.
Then he remembers Veronica's words, strangled, 'He raped me!'
It hits him, when they find her, digging herself back into the wall, making herself small. Naked and trembling and looking so lost. When he watches Veronica fall to her knees and begin to cry again.
Logan turns to the Head of Security, the only available support they were given in the mass hysteria, and he blinks.
"What the fuck's wrong with you, man?" He pushes the guy back out of the room, none too gently. "Didn't you get past page three in the hotel policy and procedures manual? Get some fucking clothes up here!"
He wishes he hadn't tuned Mac out that day, that he'd listened as she'd gone on, that he'd taken the time to know her. Anyone Veronica had a vested interest in was sure to be worth knowing.
It's just him, Veronica and Mac. Waiting for the deluge. He knows that soon enough there'll be police and questions and most likely some off duty, on call, minimum wage, late night counselor sent to guide them through this.
Some haggard, overworked and underpaid automaton who's practiced in convincing strung out junkies that the hit they score for five dollars in the car park at Seven-Eleven is probably not pure grade, because they've given up trying to get them to quit altogether. Someone used to pleading with Rosie fucking Housemaid with the black eye and split lip that it's just fine to press charges against Mr. Rich Pay Check Payer, but knowing deep down that Rosie fucking Housemaid knows exactly which side the bread is buttered on and will keep saying she tripped.
Someone who won't be prepared for this. But geez, how the in the fuck can anyone be prepared for this?
He looks at Veronica, crouching down and crying as she hugs Mac, as they rock back and forth and it hits him in the gut again. Makes him breathless. Veronica is prepared, she's been preparing for years.
She'd told him last summer, after the heady emotions had simmered down some, the details of it. And his fist had clenched behind his back as she described passing out, then waking up alone and realizing what must have happened, the walk to the station and how hard it had been to face Lamb.
And how the bastard had treated her.
Logan watches her now and knows she's giving to Mac what no one had given her and it's healing them both.
He wants to find the mini bar, not get the little bottles that would no doubt make this a whole lot easier, but to find the little paring knife that slices the lemons and limes and slide it up his wrist.
Just bleed his own blood out of his veins, because he can't stand it anymore.
Not for the first time, he hates Aaron and he hates Lilly for everything they've left behind.
If only Aaron had been able to keep his hands off his son's girlfriend. If only Lilly had been able to resist the double thrill of doing the man who was not only her boyfriend's dad, but a Hollywood actor. If only his father hadn't been a pervert who video taped sex with underage girls. If only Lilly hadn't been a bitch that week and had been with Logan instead, or even just given the damn tapes back.
If only Duncan had skipped soccer and been there. If only Logan had the guts to confront her at the carwash so that they would have been together. If only his father wasn't an abusive, violent asshole that thought hitting young girls was okay.
If only Logan hadn't turned his back on Veronica when she stood beside her father. If only he hadn't lead the herd, encouraged the laughter and gossip and bitterness.
Maybe, if any of that had happened, then Veronica might have had someone next to her, holding her when she needed it. Then again, she wouldn't have needed it at all. And maybe Mac wouldn't have met Beaver.
Sometimes he plays that game, if only, too much. If only... then Veronica wouldn't be as fucked up as she is, then he wouldn't be drinking too much, then he wouldn't be the bastard he tries so hard to be, he wouldn't have to.
He wants to change his last name, take away the taint of Echolls from his life, but he'll never be able to take the legacy from his skin. The invisible belt shapes that eventually fade and meld back in. They never disappear, just blend into the thickness of his skin, make it harder. His father's violence is etched there, boiling and simmering underneath, pocked in places above.
Sometimes he plays the game too much and it becomes wistful and indulgent. If Aaron never killed Lilly, would it still be raining? If Aaron never killed her, would his turkey club be ten minutes late?
But now is not flippant.
Now is hard and painful to watch, the slow rebuilding as the faceless man comes back with towels and a robe and bottles of water and various toiletries that Veronica takes out of his hand with a quick nod.
"Don't...?" Logan feels out of place and awkward. "Don't we need to keep...?"
But Veronica shakes her head slightly, a sad look in her eye as she runs her hand down his arm.
"They don't need proof. He's dead."
And he continues to stand there and watch as Veronica leads Mac into the bathroom. Before, when it was just the two of them, she'd clung to him like he was the only thing keeping her together. He knows what's holding her up now.
Mac needs her.
Logan has the sudden urge to call after them, 'I need you!', but he doesn't, because it's really not the time.
***
It doesn't surprise him that they want to talk to Veronica. What does surprise him, when they guide both her and Logan into the large conference room, is that they allow him to be there.
But, he's fairly sure, now that Veronica has slumped again, now that Mac's parents pushed their way into the room and him out of it, that they both need the constant reassurances of touch.
She's so numb, he knows she won't let go because he's keeping her from floating off or falling down. He's the opposite, teetering on the edge of a blade, ready to jump off and obliterate anything that gets in his way. He won't let go of her, because she's grounding him.
They're like magnets and he tries to remember basic science or math and figures that two negatives make a positive, so he won't argue the fact of it.
Eventually, a lackey of some sort brings a large two seater into the room and Logan pulls Veronica down on it, cradling her easily against his side and holding her when they ask their questions.
When they'd first talked to Veronica, taken her aside and left him standing by a group of officers, he'd heard them talking. The mention of a plane as one of them crackled into the mouth piece attached to his shoulder.
"Hey." He'd nodded to one of them. "What about a plane?"
"Huh?" He'd seen the way the officer raked his eyes up and down, wondering who the upstart kid in the confusion was, but somebody behind him must have nodded assent, because the officer had just given a frown. "The Mayor's plane, Woody Goodman? Blew up, right in the sky. We've had witnesses calling into the station ever since, right over Neptune."
Oh, god.
He hadn't needed to ask the time, but he had anyway. Because he was Logan Echolls and it just wasn't fun if he didn't know the exact time the plane everyone knew Keith was on blew up, in full view of Veronica on top of the roof, was only a minute before the message she'd sent to his phone.
Wasn't fun at all if he couldn't burn himself with the knowledge that he could have stopped it.
So he sits with Veronica as she blankly answers the questions, questions that would have sent anyone else into hysterical fits of sobbing. Sits and holds her, trying to pull her closer, even though she's already mushed up into his side. Feels her hands digging into his sides, clinging, trying to pull him closer.
"Miss Mars?" Logan blinks his eyes open at the voice. "Miss Mars? We asked you a question?"
He looks at her, at her face staring forward, the shallow breaths she takes, and he knows she needs out.
"Are we done?" He asks them.
"There's just a few more questions..."
But Logan's already leaning forward, picking the small, ivory rectangle of cardboard off the edge of the table.
"We have your card." If he doesn't get her out of here, she's going to lose it in a spectacular way. "We'll call you tomorrow."
It almost hurts him how easy it is to pull her up and guide her out the door and to the car.
Veronica always likes to lead.
***
There are so many things he wants to say as his fingers grip the wheel.
Sorry I didn't get there earlier.
Sorry your dad is dead.
Sorry I didn't do better.
Sorry you can't stop looking up into the sky, with the saddest look of despair, as if wishes alone could change it.
Words are useless, so he runs a hand down her arm and feels her shiver.
Even with the heater on full, the world is cold.
***
Veronica stops as she holds the car door open and Logan gently takes her hand from the door and closes it. She gives him a look that he doesn't need to interpret. It's the small things that get lost when you try to forget the large ones.
She stops again at the edge of the path and his hand at the small of her back guides her forward. She stops in front of the door and he takes the keys out of her pocket, reaching into the front of her jeans without thinking.
They step inside the door and Logan hisses as he realizes how much of Keith is here, just staring at them, and how Veronica can't even breathe. There's a small whine, timid and questioning, and he looks down and nearly cries.
Her hand is limp, hanging by her side, but her fingers are moving, pushed forward, nuzzled by Backup. The dog keeps whining as he nudges her, his tongue darting out to lick at her skin.
Veronica doesn't move and Logan can't tell if she knows Backup is there or not.
She's ready to fall down.
"C'mon."
He leads her to the couch and she lets him. He holds her and she lets him.
***
She sleeps on his lap, spent and wasted and too exhausted to move.
She'd cried wet circles into his shirt, into his neck, out of herself and into his skin, sliding through osmosis into his blood. Logan can still feel the places her fingers had held too tightly, but he doesn't mind, they're bruises he'll wear with pride.
He can't fall asleep, he can't stop thinking.
His right arm curls around and under her back and it's already starting to ache, but there's nothing that will stop him holding her that last inch from exhaustive sleep to back cracking nightmare.
Veronica had clung to him in a way that made him speechless. He can't remember anyone, not Veronica, not Lilly, not even his mother when she felt particularly weak and let her guard down enough to cry over her shamble of a life, not a single soul gripping on to him like that.
Not caring where or how limbs were placed, just wrapping herself around him. And he sat on the couch, with her face buried into him, with her legs curling around his hip, and whispered the same old words into her ear, her hair, her skin.
It's okay. Veronica. It's going to be okay. I love you. I'm here.
He can't remember when she fell asleep, but he thinks it was a gradual process, a slow soft easing of the tightness in her limbs, the ebbing of her desperation. Gradually, her body had relaxed and her breathing had stopped hitching and she'd slid down his chest until she was lying flat over his knees.
His left hand rests casually on her belly, fingers drawing small, casual circles over the skin that pokes through the top of her jeans and the hem of her shirt.
He knows, has known for a long time that he loves Veronica, knew it by the bitter aching when she'd been with Duncan and, even then, he'd known how masochistic it was to keep torturing himself by watching them. Knew it by the way he'd never been able to stop watching her, to leave her alone, by the way his own breath caught whenever he saw her.
He knows he needs her, has known that since he broke down in her arms and she held him without comment, letting him let go in ways he never felt comfortable with anyone else. Knows it in the way he keeps edging closer to her, even when she tries to push him away. He hung around her like a dog begging for scraps and it made him pathetic whenever he'd preen under her attention, but he hadn't been able to stop it.
But this, this is different. Because it's not a secret that he loves her, that he needs her. It's just a surprise to Logan that she needs him after all he's done.
And the symmetry of it isn't lost on him.
His fingers slide over the slightly warm skin of her belly and he thinks about the year before.
When it was him lying on the couch, cradled in her arms, and she was the strong one. When he'd been bleeding and incoherent and she'd softly, slowly, drawn him back to reality. She'd wiped the blood from his face with gentle swabs of cotton, washed his skin with warm water, caressed each cut with the pads of her fingers. Her breath, blown over his swollen skin, had taken the sting out of it.
Now, every time his hands circle the small frame of her body, they wipe the cuts and the bruises and the swellings that can't be seen. He imagines antiseptic and water that trickles into awkward creases and cools, but feels good anyway, and soft, pillowy bandages.
His pain has always been physical, slashed across the canvass of his back or his thighs, broken bones and bloodied lips. Hers has always been emotional, boiling under the surface.
But they've seen each other and they've held each other.
And Logan can't sleep.
***
end part two.
Onto chapter 3!
Title: Molasses and Taffy, part two.
Author: Jacqui.
Rating: PG-13, nothing more than what was on the show. Maybe a few naughty words, here and there, but that's just Logan talking.
Character/Pairing: Veronica, Logan, Logan/Veronica.
Disclaimer: They're not mine. Rob Thomas owns all VM related things. And you can blame *him* for the angst.
Wordcount: 3,527.
Spoilers: And then some, baby. It's 2.22 "Not Pictured" all the way.
Summary: It's the small things that get lost when you try to forget the large ones.
Warnings: None, really, maybe some naughty words and SPOILERS for 2.22.
Previous Chapters: found here
forget the large ones'>
*~*~*~*
MOLASSES AND TAFFY, part two
*~*~*~*
"He killed my FATHER!"
It's in that one word, in the cracked tearing of her voice, that Logan knows just how bad it is this time. And she continues to list Beaver's sins, the atrocities, but Logan can't spare him more than a glance as he watches her.
His steps are gentle as he walks towards her, but his brain reels.
Back to the party downstairs, the hurried, business like way she'd rushed through and demanded to know if he'd seen Beaver. Something had told him then, business like Veronica always meant trouble, always.
But he hadn't followed her, he'd wanted to, but he hadn't. His feet were caught in words he couldn't remember saying, vines of drunkenness twisting over his ankles and keeping him rooted to the spot.
He couldn't stop causing her pain. The look in her eyes that morning as she extended the figurative olive branch and made him hope again, that damn look she got when Kendall spoke up and he hadn't been able to deny it, because he couldn't remember what he'd said to her in the first place.
So he'd left her alone until the message on his phone. He might have been stubborn enough to miss the first clue, but he wasn't completely stupid.
And now he knows, that in the time he'd walked around the party, suddenly bored with the people around him, suddenly uninterested in the blank, vapid stares of everyone, the time he'd taken to stroll back to his suite.
In that time, Beaver had pointed a gun at her. Made her cry. Killed her father. Keith. Hurt her beyond anything he could have done himself.
And maybe, if he'd swallowed his pride, Logan might have been able to stop that.
"Give me the gun, Veronica."
He can't let her do it, because he knows she wants to and, given the way she can't even focus, he knows there's nothing to stop her. But he also knows what will happen, because Veronica, for all her witch hunts and ragged, bloody fights to find truth and bring justice, she is not a killer.
And the thought, even the possibility of having taken human life begins to eat at you, from the inside out. A small little worm of bitterness and doubt that burrows into your stomach lining.
Veronica won't survive that. She won't. He knows it. She wouldn't even make it to a trial. The only thing that helped him through that was her, even if he never told her, and he doesn't know if he's enough to do the same for her.
So he takes the gun and she clings to him instead. Like he can save her. That scares him. Because he's nothing if not dangerous and damaging and his veins course with Echolls blood and enough mangled genes of violence and lies and hurt.
But she is soft and she is Veronica and there is nothing else to do.
"My name is Cassidy!"
Logan tries to stop him, but even he has to admit he doesn't try very hard. There's something so far past wrong in the way that Beaver stands on the ledge, begging for an excuse to live, just one reason.
And as they watch the boy jump, Logan feels something tighten inside and it's like a last single fuck you to someone who caused so much pain.
If he has his way, he's going to make sure the headstone reads: RIP Cassidy Beaver Beaver Beaver Beaver BEAVER Cassablancas.
He'll put it on his list of things to do.
But now, there's Veronica in his arms and he can't think past anything further than the look in her eyes and the way her hands hold on to him like he can offer her something other than pain.
***
"It's okay." He whispers the words into the top of her head. His fingers brush through her hair, as if detangling imaginary knots there will untangle the ones inside her. "It's okay."
She clings to him and they both know he's lying. But they both know they need the words.
"Veronica."
Her name, he says it like a prayer, like it's the word that makes everything and anything better. And it does. For him. He can only make one guess at the words that will magic all of this away from her and it isn't Logan. But, he figures, Keith and daddy and father will only break her more.
He can't give her that, he can only offer himself, but she takes it.
There are police swarming downstairs, herding confused huddles of partly drunk teenagers into quarantine, scraping the remains of a monster from the hood of a beamer, radioing back and forth about 'the disturbance' and 'the probable suicide' and 'the crash'. There are police swarming upstairs, sweeping fine tooth combs over the gravel they left behind.
The story isn't up there or down on the street either, it's with them, it's with Veronica, but the police either don't get it or they don't care.
"Hey." He runs a hand down the side of her face, through the sheen of tears drying there. "What...?"
The question sticks in his throat as the elevator makes it way to Cassidy's floor. Her eyes blink at him, far away and distant.
"What about your dad?"
Her face crumples again and he feels like a heel, like he could punch himself into a bloody mess, but he saves that for later, because she's in his arms again and he can barely make out the words muffled into his shoulder.
Plane. Cassidy. Cell.
The bell rings and he feels the loss of Veronica like ripping down the side of him, it's the first time since he caught her that she's let him go. And for a split second, barely even countable, Logan has what he considers one of the blondest moments of his life.
He wonders what's so urgent about finding Mac.
He never really knew Mac, aside from being that girl Veronica hung out with, cute and bright. He remembers calling her Mini-V once and he remembers that they both glared at him. Then Mac had started rambling on about Q and Bond and business structures and he'd tuned right out so he could watch Veronica's face as she smiled.
Then he remembers Veronica's words, strangled, 'He raped me!'
It hits him, when they find her, digging herself back into the wall, making herself small. Naked and trembling and looking so lost. When he watches Veronica fall to her knees and begin to cry again.
Logan turns to the Head of Security, the only available support they were given in the mass hysteria, and he blinks.
"What the fuck's wrong with you, man?" He pushes the guy back out of the room, none too gently. "Didn't you get past page three in the hotel policy and procedures manual? Get some fucking clothes up here!"
He wishes he hadn't tuned Mac out that day, that he'd listened as she'd gone on, that he'd taken the time to know her. Anyone Veronica had a vested interest in was sure to be worth knowing.
It's just him, Veronica and Mac. Waiting for the deluge. He knows that soon enough there'll be police and questions and most likely some off duty, on call, minimum wage, late night counselor sent to guide them through this.
Some haggard, overworked and underpaid automaton who's practiced in convincing strung out junkies that the hit they score for five dollars in the car park at Seven-Eleven is probably not pure grade, because they've given up trying to get them to quit altogether. Someone used to pleading with Rosie fucking Housemaid with the black eye and split lip that it's just fine to press charges against Mr. Rich Pay Check Payer, but knowing deep down that Rosie fucking Housemaid knows exactly which side the bread is buttered on and will keep saying she tripped.
Someone who won't be prepared for this. But geez, how the in the fuck can anyone be prepared for this?
He looks at Veronica, crouching down and crying as she hugs Mac, as they rock back and forth and it hits him in the gut again. Makes him breathless. Veronica is prepared, she's been preparing for years.
She'd told him last summer, after the heady emotions had simmered down some, the details of it. And his fist had clenched behind his back as she described passing out, then waking up alone and realizing what must have happened, the walk to the station and how hard it had been to face Lamb.
And how the bastard had treated her.
Logan watches her now and knows she's giving to Mac what no one had given her and it's healing them both.
He wants to find the mini bar, not get the little bottles that would no doubt make this a whole lot easier, but to find the little paring knife that slices the lemons and limes and slide it up his wrist.
Just bleed his own blood out of his veins, because he can't stand it anymore.
Not for the first time, he hates Aaron and he hates Lilly for everything they've left behind.
If only Aaron had been able to keep his hands off his son's girlfriend. If only Lilly had been able to resist the double thrill of doing the man who was not only her boyfriend's dad, but a Hollywood actor. If only his father hadn't been a pervert who video taped sex with underage girls. If only Lilly hadn't been a bitch that week and had been with Logan instead, or even just given the damn tapes back.
If only Duncan had skipped soccer and been there. If only Logan had the guts to confront her at the carwash so that they would have been together. If only his father wasn't an abusive, violent asshole that thought hitting young girls was okay.
If only Logan hadn't turned his back on Veronica when she stood beside her father. If only he hadn't lead the herd, encouraged the laughter and gossip and bitterness.
Maybe, if any of that had happened, then Veronica might have had someone next to her, holding her when she needed it. Then again, she wouldn't have needed it at all. And maybe Mac wouldn't have met Beaver.
Sometimes he plays that game, if only, too much. If only... then Veronica wouldn't be as fucked up as she is, then he wouldn't be drinking too much, then he wouldn't be the bastard he tries so hard to be, he wouldn't have to.
He wants to change his last name, take away the taint of Echolls from his life, but he'll never be able to take the legacy from his skin. The invisible belt shapes that eventually fade and meld back in. They never disappear, just blend into the thickness of his skin, make it harder. His father's violence is etched there, boiling and simmering underneath, pocked in places above.
Sometimes he plays the game too much and it becomes wistful and indulgent. If Aaron never killed Lilly, would it still be raining? If Aaron never killed her, would his turkey club be ten minutes late?
But now is not flippant.
Now is hard and painful to watch, the slow rebuilding as the faceless man comes back with towels and a robe and bottles of water and various toiletries that Veronica takes out of his hand with a quick nod.
"Don't...?" Logan feels out of place and awkward. "Don't we need to keep...?"
But Veronica shakes her head slightly, a sad look in her eye as she runs her hand down his arm.
"They don't need proof. He's dead."
And he continues to stand there and watch as Veronica leads Mac into the bathroom. Before, when it was just the two of them, she'd clung to him like he was the only thing keeping her together. He knows what's holding her up now.
Mac needs her.
Logan has the sudden urge to call after them, 'I need you!', but he doesn't, because it's really not the time.
***
It doesn't surprise him that they want to talk to Veronica. What does surprise him, when they guide both her and Logan into the large conference room, is that they allow him to be there.
But, he's fairly sure, now that Veronica has slumped again, now that Mac's parents pushed their way into the room and him out of it, that they both need the constant reassurances of touch.
She's so numb, he knows she won't let go because he's keeping her from floating off or falling down. He's the opposite, teetering on the edge of a blade, ready to jump off and obliterate anything that gets in his way. He won't let go of her, because she's grounding him.
They're like magnets and he tries to remember basic science or math and figures that two negatives make a positive, so he won't argue the fact of it.
Eventually, a lackey of some sort brings a large two seater into the room and Logan pulls Veronica down on it, cradling her easily against his side and holding her when they ask their questions.
When they'd first talked to Veronica, taken her aside and left him standing by a group of officers, he'd heard them talking. The mention of a plane as one of them crackled into the mouth piece attached to his shoulder.
"Hey." He'd nodded to one of them. "What about a plane?"
"Huh?" He'd seen the way the officer raked his eyes up and down, wondering who the upstart kid in the confusion was, but somebody behind him must have nodded assent, because the officer had just given a frown. "The Mayor's plane, Woody Goodman? Blew up, right in the sky. We've had witnesses calling into the station ever since, right over Neptune."
Oh, god.
He hadn't needed to ask the time, but he had anyway. Because he was Logan Echolls and it just wasn't fun if he didn't know the exact time the plane everyone knew Keith was on blew up, in full view of Veronica on top of the roof, was only a minute before the message she'd sent to his phone.
Wasn't fun at all if he couldn't burn himself with the knowledge that he could have stopped it.
So he sits with Veronica as she blankly answers the questions, questions that would have sent anyone else into hysterical fits of sobbing. Sits and holds her, trying to pull her closer, even though she's already mushed up into his side. Feels her hands digging into his sides, clinging, trying to pull him closer.
"Miss Mars?" Logan blinks his eyes open at the voice. "Miss Mars? We asked you a question?"
He looks at her, at her face staring forward, the shallow breaths she takes, and he knows she needs out.
"Are we done?" He asks them.
"There's just a few more questions..."
But Logan's already leaning forward, picking the small, ivory rectangle of cardboard off the edge of the table.
"We have your card." If he doesn't get her out of here, she's going to lose it in a spectacular way. "We'll call you tomorrow."
It almost hurts him how easy it is to pull her up and guide her out the door and to the car.
Veronica always likes to lead.
***
There are so many things he wants to say as his fingers grip the wheel.
Sorry I didn't get there earlier.
Sorry your dad is dead.
Sorry I didn't do better.
Sorry you can't stop looking up into the sky, with the saddest look of despair, as if wishes alone could change it.
Words are useless, so he runs a hand down her arm and feels her shiver.
Even with the heater on full, the world is cold.
***
Veronica stops as she holds the car door open and Logan gently takes her hand from the door and closes it. She gives him a look that he doesn't need to interpret. It's the small things that get lost when you try to forget the large ones.
She stops again at the edge of the path and his hand at the small of her back guides her forward. She stops in front of the door and he takes the keys out of her pocket, reaching into the front of her jeans without thinking.
They step inside the door and Logan hisses as he realizes how much of Keith is here, just staring at them, and how Veronica can't even breathe. There's a small whine, timid and questioning, and he looks down and nearly cries.
Her hand is limp, hanging by her side, but her fingers are moving, pushed forward, nuzzled by Backup. The dog keeps whining as he nudges her, his tongue darting out to lick at her skin.
Veronica doesn't move and Logan can't tell if she knows Backup is there or not.
She's ready to fall down.
"C'mon."
He leads her to the couch and she lets him. He holds her and she lets him.
***
She sleeps on his lap, spent and wasted and too exhausted to move.
She'd cried wet circles into his shirt, into his neck, out of herself and into his skin, sliding through osmosis into his blood. Logan can still feel the places her fingers had held too tightly, but he doesn't mind, they're bruises he'll wear with pride.
He can't fall asleep, he can't stop thinking.
His right arm curls around and under her back and it's already starting to ache, but there's nothing that will stop him holding her that last inch from exhaustive sleep to back cracking nightmare.
Veronica had clung to him in a way that made him speechless. He can't remember anyone, not Veronica, not Lilly, not even his mother when she felt particularly weak and let her guard down enough to cry over her shamble of a life, not a single soul gripping on to him like that.
Not caring where or how limbs were placed, just wrapping herself around him. And he sat on the couch, with her face buried into him, with her legs curling around his hip, and whispered the same old words into her ear, her hair, her skin.
It's okay. Veronica. It's going to be okay. I love you. I'm here.
He can't remember when she fell asleep, but he thinks it was a gradual process, a slow soft easing of the tightness in her limbs, the ebbing of her desperation. Gradually, her body had relaxed and her breathing had stopped hitching and she'd slid down his chest until she was lying flat over his knees.
His left hand rests casually on her belly, fingers drawing small, casual circles over the skin that pokes through the top of her jeans and the hem of her shirt.
He knows, has known for a long time that he loves Veronica, knew it by the bitter aching when she'd been with Duncan and, even then, he'd known how masochistic it was to keep torturing himself by watching them. Knew it by the way he'd never been able to stop watching her, to leave her alone, by the way his own breath caught whenever he saw her.
He knows he needs her, has known that since he broke down in her arms and she held him without comment, letting him let go in ways he never felt comfortable with anyone else. Knows it in the way he keeps edging closer to her, even when she tries to push him away. He hung around her like a dog begging for scraps and it made him pathetic whenever he'd preen under her attention, but he hadn't been able to stop it.
But this, this is different. Because it's not a secret that he loves her, that he needs her. It's just a surprise to Logan that she needs him after all he's done.
And the symmetry of it isn't lost on him.
His fingers slide over the slightly warm skin of her belly and he thinks about the year before.
When it was him lying on the couch, cradled in her arms, and she was the strong one. When he'd been bleeding and incoherent and she'd softly, slowly, drawn him back to reality. She'd wiped the blood from his face with gentle swabs of cotton, washed his skin with warm water, caressed each cut with the pads of her fingers. Her breath, blown over his swollen skin, had taken the sting out of it.
Now, every time his hands circle the small frame of her body, they wipe the cuts and the bruises and the swellings that can't be seen. He imagines antiseptic and water that trickles into awkward creases and cools, but feels good anyway, and soft, pillowy bandages.
His pain has always been physical, slashed across the canvass of his back or his thighs, broken bones and bloodied lips. Hers has always been emotional, boiling under the surface.
But they've seen each other and they've held each other.
And Logan can't sleep.
***
end part two.
Onto chapter 3!