Fic: Wreck of the Day (LoVe, NC-17)
Title: Wreck of the Day
Author: lit_chick08
Pairing: LoVe
Rating: NC-17 for sex and language
Word Count: 7914
Spoilers: goes AU during/after 3x12 “There’s Got to Be a Morning After Pill”
Warnings: Discusses abortion if anyone is sensitive about that
Summary: Veronica is pregnant and doesn’t want it; Logan does. Angst ensues.
A/N: Written for the Alternate Ending Smutathon at vm_library and beta’ed by the incomparable taken_with_you. This is complete and total angst, and this is your warning! Feedback appreciated, concrit welcome
She had lied.
She had looked her father in the eye and let the lie slip easily part her lips; it wasn’t the first time she had ever done it and it would certainly not be the last, but it was the first time in years that the lie had tasted bitter on her tongue. When she saw the relief flood his eyes, she knew she couldn’t take it back, and so she didn’t. Instead, she went into the bathroom, stood beneath the spray of the shower, and cried. It wasn’t the great gasping sobs she had made when Lilly died; it wasn’t the hot, angry tears of humiliation that she had shed in Lamb’s office the day after her rape; it wasn’t even the bittersweet streaks that had coursed down her face as she watched Duncan disappear with Vinnie. No, these were silent tears of disappointment in herself, in Logan, in the direction she had let her life take.
There was a cruel irony to it, Veronica had to admit that; before Lilly had died, Veronica had heard Celeste say more than once that Lilly would be lucky to escape her teenage years without getting pregnant. She wondered if Keith and Lianne Mars, before the alcohol and abandonment and divorce, had ever worried that their daughter might become pregnant. Veronica didn’t think so; she was so overwhelmingly innocent before Lilly died that the idea of her having sex had probably never occurred to her parents. Even now, though Keith knew that she and Logan were having sex, he almost never brought it up. This would crush him.
She stayed beneath the spray until the water ran cold, and, by that time, she already had a plan of action formed. Veronica didn’t believe in letting a problem fester and grow, and this problem was literally growing every second.
Veronica had logically catalogued her options: abortion, adoption, and keeping it. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that she could keep the thing growing inside of her-she refused to call it a baby-and she knew that if she did actually give birth to it, she wouldn’t have the strength to hand it to someone else to raise.
Veronica had never really picked a side on the whole abortion debate. She wasn’t one of those girls that wore “Abortion is Homicide” and marched on Washington, but she also wasn’t one of those girls at Neptune High that equated abortion with being a feminist. No, Veronica’s opinion on the subject was the same with abortion that it was with most controversial issues: unless someone hired Veronica to care, it was their own private business.
Sitting on her bed in her dingy white towel, her wet hair dripping down her back, Veronica dialed the Neptune Women’s Clinic and made an appointment. She could do this; she had done harder before.
That night, as she thrashed beneath her covers, she dreamt of the only thing she had been able to think of for the last week: Logan and Madison entangled on a bed, Madison once again laying waste to her life.
* * *
Veronica sat awkwardly in the waiting room, nowhere near as confident as she had been when she had been here only two days ago on her investigation. This time, as she sat and faked reading a six-month old issue of Cosmo , she studied the pregnant women in the waiting room, one of whom looked to be about fourteen and was ready to pop, and, unconsciously, her hand ghosted to her flat stomach.
“When are you due?”
Veronica snapped out of her daze and turned to face the woman speaking to her. She was about Veronica’s age, her baby bump discretely covered by a maternity top. “Excuse me?”
The woman gestured towards her middle. “When’s your due date?”
“Oh, I’m not-” Hearing her voice crack, Veronica began again. “I’m not having a baby.”
“You’re not?” the stranger said skeptically. “Then why are you holding your stomach?”
Noticing for the first time that she had wrapped her arms around her middle, Veronica untangled them and firmly stated, “I’m not having a baby.”
The woman stared at her for another moment before realization came over her face. Voice dripping with disdain, she said, “Oh. You’re one of those.”
Veronica watched in shock as the woman got to her feet and moved down a few seats, and, despite not wanting to, Veronica felt the sting of it in her already-battered heart. When the nurse called her name, Veronica gratefully rushed out of the waiting room and into the sanctuary that the nurse practitioner’s office offered.
The nurse was about her father’s age with a kind smile, and Veronica wished that it could set her at ease. She listened to her recite the information that she had provided on the forms she filled out; it was with detachment that Veronica listened to her state the date of her last period, confirm the fact that yes, she was indeed pregnant according to the blood test she had the last time she was here.
Considering the last time that she had gone to the doctor she had been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease, Veronica was not excited to don the paper gown and put her feet in the stirrups. As she felt the cool metal of the speculum, she stared blankly up at the ceiling, startled by the tears that blurred her vision as the nurse gently pressed on her belly.
“Well, Veronica, you appear to be about six weeks along. Does that sound accurate?”
Unbidden, Veronica knew precisely when the…thing-not baby, can’t be a baby-had been conceived. It had been after she had been drugged by Mercer, after he had been arrested.
If Veronica had ever thought that Keith Mars was overprotective before, she hadn’t seen anything compared to how he had been acting ever since he had gotten the phone call saying that Veronica was on her way to the hospital after being drugged and physically assaulted by Mercer. He had been hovering over her so much that Veronica was prepared to taser him if it meant a little privacy.
Wallace, the good best friend that he was, had set up camp on their couch for a few days in his own heavy-handed attempt at being protective before Mrs. Fennel had finally ordered him out of the apartment in order to give Veronica time to herself. Piz had stopped by before he left for winter break, giving her a mix CD of some bands she liked, and Mac brought over some ice cream that they could eat while they watched the movie where Ryan Phillippe played a hacker, or, as Mac liked to call it, porn for geeks.
It wasn’t until Parker came to visit before flying home that Veronica found out what Logan had done. Veronica had been sitting with her savior, trying desperately not to appear absolutely bored with her prattle about the Gilmore Girls when she mentioned that she wished she had a boyfriend that was as devoted to her as Logan was to Veronica.
“Logan and I are broken up,” Veronica flatly stated, wishing that Mac would’ve given her the memo in order to stop this awkward conversation.
“Really? God, then I definitely want a boyfriend like Logan. I mean, a guy who’ll go to jail for you when he’s not even your boyfriend-”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Parker’s eyes bulged. “You don’t know?”
“Clearly not.”
Tossing the long locks of her wig over her shoulder, Parker sighed, “Well, from what I heard from Mac-”
“Wait, Mac knows?”
She shrugged. “I thought everybody did.”
Vowing to kill her friend later, she urged, “Continue.”
“Anyway, I guess that after Logan found out that Mercer was the rapist, he got really pissed, especially since he was the one who told you that Mercer was a good guy and totally vouched for him. So he went to this diner where these cops were having breakfast and he took a baseball bat to their car so he’d get put in lock-up with Mercer.”
“He did that?”
Parker nodded. “So then, the deputies actually put him in the same cell as Mercer. Rumor has it that it took four deputies to pull him off of them; Mercer’s apparently going to need loads of plastic surgery if he ever wants to look good again, which I’m guessing he doesn’t want since being pretty in jail will make him even more of a bitch to some giant weightlifter.” With a wave of her hand, she pronounced, “It was pretty much the coolest thing I had ever heard. You’re lucky someone loves you that much.”
Veronica had sat there in shock for a good twenty minutes, going through the motions of a conversation with Parker; by the time she had left, Veronica knew that she had to see Logan. When Keith had come home with bags of Chinese food, Veronica, who had been curled up with Backup on the couch, asked him point blank, “Did you know that Logan got thrown into lockup to beat on Mercer?”
Keith froze for a moment before quipping, “We don’t say hello anymore?”
“Answer the question.”
With a sigh, setting the bags onto the coffee table, he admitted, “I knew.”
“How long?” When he didn’t answer right away, she repeated, “How long?”
“I posted his bail.”
“You posted-” Veronica stopped, pushing to her feet. “You knew what he did and you didn’t tell me?”
“What difference would it have made, Veronica? You were upset about the break-up, and after everything that happened-”
“Why would post bail for him? You hated Logan, you always have-”
“Whether or not I like Logan, he still did something I wish I could’ve done! Veronica, I wanted to kill...Logan did what I couldn’t, so I got him out of jail. He asked me not to tell you.”
“Why not?”
His face folding into a forlorn expression, he replied, “He said he promised you he’d quit fighting.”
Determinedly, she stated, “I’m going to the Grand. I’ll be back later.”
“Veronica-”
The rest of his words were muffled behind the door.
* * *
Dick Casablancas had this uncanny ability to offend and inspire hatred with a single breath. Any good will that he had ever inspired in Veronica, and it was very slim to begin with, was completely destroyed with his greeting to her.
“Hey, Veronica. Sorry to hear about Mercer almost raping you. I was pretty shocked; I mean, Mercer could get whoever he wanted, so why would he hafta drug chicks to get them? That’s, like, cheating.”
Stung, Veronica snapped, “Yeah, I guess he just took the honor out of raping someone.”
Completely oblivious to her anger, Dick continued, “Logan’s in his room. If you’re gonna ride him like a stallion, I’d just ask you keep it down. I’m gonna be having company over and nothing turns a girl off more than hearing you moan. Unless, of course, you want to join us. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little girl-on-girl tonight, you know?”
Pushing past the bleached blond, Veronica went directly to Logan’s room. As she pushed open the door, Logan, who had been reclining on his bed shirtless, an arm thrown over his eyes, began, “Dick, I don’t want-”
“It’s not Dick.”
At the sound of her voice, Logan sat up, surprise on his face. He hadn’t seen Veronica since the party she had left that night, but he had harassed Wallace to the point of irritation to keep him constantly updated on Veronica’s condition. Logan had even spent a few nights of his own sitting in his car outside the Mars apartment before Keith had assured him that she was fine, that he could go home.
The bruises from his fight with Mercer were yellow against his skin, and his knuckles were still scabbed and raw from the merciless pummeling they had inflicted. Veronica could see the random patterns of contusions along his ribcage, and, as she moved towards the bed, she noticed that every muscle in his body was tense.
Finally, Logan ventured, “Veronica?”
She didn’t answer; instead, shocking him, she straddled his lap, her hands rising to cup his face. Veronica pressed her forehead against his, her warm breath against his mouth, and Logan’s hands tentatively came to rest on her hips. For several long moments they remained like that, perfectly silent yet completely understood.
Finally, she whispered, “I heard what you did, and I know that things are…I know that I’m…”
“Veronica-”
“I do love you; I’m just bad at…well, everything else in our crazy relationship.”
“I don’t exactly think I’m getting a gold star either.”
In a voice that was barely a whisper, she confessed against his mouth, “I want to be with you tonight and I don’t want to figure anything out beforehand. Is that okay?”
His kiss was soft, gently exploratory, as if their last kiss has been years ago and not just weeks. Even if they both knew that this was hardly the smartest thing that either of them could do right now, neither cared.
Veronica hadn’t wanted to admit how badly their breakup had shaken her; since what had happened that night at graduation, Logan had been her constant support, and she had taken that for granted. She knew that this was her mistake, and she knew that sex wasn’t going to fix their problems.
But at the same time, Veronica didn’t know how to put into words how grateful she was that he had done what he had to Mercer, that he had risked real jail time to avenge her. She wanted him to know that she loved him as much as he loved her, and this was the only way she knew how to do it.
Of course, it wasn’t as if this was a great sweeping sacrifice on her part; she had missed his touch.
His hands were warm against the soft skin of her stomach as his fingers brushed back and forth. Veronica recognized the move; it was one he had used the first time they had dated, after he had found out about the rape at Shelley’s party. She had teased him about it then, that she wasn’t an animal that he was going to spook, but it still warmed her heart that he wanted to take things as slow as possible to make sure that she never felt forced again, that she always had the power.
Logan undressed her patiently, no trace of the frenzied passion that had dictated some of their couplings. He peeled each garment away from her skin and then thoroughly kissed the skin he revealed, whispering love words and promises, the tip of his tongue tracing patterns. Veronica couldn’t remember the last time he had taken such care with her, and it brought tears to her eyes that she desperately wished weren’t there.
“Are you okay? Do you want to stop?” Logan panted, immediately backing off, drawing his hands away from the sides of her panties, which he had been about to remove.
“I’m fine,” she swore contrary to the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.
“Veronica-”
“I promise I’m okay,” she said, her hands reaching for the waistband of his sweatpants.
Catching her hands, Logan firmly stated, “Veronica, we’re not doing this if you’re crying.”
Frustrated, she snapped, “They’re not bad tears! I just-I can’t-” Knowing she didn’t want to reveal her heart quite so fully, she wiped away the tears and steadily met his gaze. “I swear to you on everything that I’m not upset. I want this; I want you. Logan, please…”
His thumbs brushing across her cheekbones, he murmured, “I hate to see you cry.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him down, wanting the familiar weight of him against her. Veronica had always hated when Duncan would lie on top of her, feeling stifled and trapped, but she had always felt protected with Logan like this. Wallace joked that she was the damsel that, despite the distress, could rescue herself, but Veronica didn’t want to be that tonight; tonight, she just wanted to be the damsel and she only ever got that chance with Logan.
They worked Logan’s sweatpants off of his hips without separating, their mouths fused together, their movements awkward in their attempts to stay close. When he withdrew, Veronica cried out, trying to tug him back down, but he playfully shushed her with a kiss to her collarbone. His hands gently cupped her breasts, his thumbs tracing ever narrowing circles around her erect nipples. Veronica was convinced she was going to go insane with the tension that he was building inside of her, and she was almost shocked by the cry that fought its way from her throat when he finally lightly brushed over the taut flesh followed by a suggestive lick.
“Logan, Logan, please,” she began to babble, twisting her body in order to remove her underwear.
Frustratingly, Logan stopped her, replacing her hands with his own, carefully drawing the fabric down. Tossing the panties to join the rest of their clothing on the floor, Logan slid up her body, pausing to spread her thighs, pressing a wet kiss against her right inner thigh. Veronica shivered in anticipation, knowing what was coming, knowing that there was no way she was going to honor Dick’s request to keep it quiet.
He feasted on her slowly, deliberately, his mouth sure against her, and Veronica felt as if she was being turned inside out. She clutched at his hair, unsure if she was pulling him away because it was too intense or pulling him nearer because it felt so good, and when she heard him say, “Just let go, baby”, she obeyed, letting the pleasure wash over her.
Logan had barely given her a chance to recover from her orgasm before Veronica felt him slide easily inside of her, the way he had a hundred times before, and she clung to him, both inside and out.
“Oh, Veronica,” he sighed against her ear. “I love you. I love you so much.”
“I love you,” she repeated back, wishing that she had always been able to say it so easily, wishing that she could trust him the way he deserved to be trusted, wishing that she didn’t hold it against him that he had lied for Mercer in Mexico, wishing for a thousand other things that could never be or would never be because she was Veronica Mars and he was Logan Echolls and good things didn’t happen to people like them.
He was trying to keep his control, gritting his teeth as he moved slowly and deeply inside of her, sweat breaking out across his forehead. Veronica clutched at his muscled back, her nails gently scraping across his shoulders, and Logan groaned and gasped her name. Raising her legs, wrapping them around his waist, she whispered for him to go faster, move harder, and he gratefully complied.
Veronica could barely keep up with his tempo, straining to lift her hips at the same pace as his own, and finally, she gave up, simply clutching him, letting him have his pleasure. When his thrusts became short and erratic, Veronica heard him gasp her name before she felt his pleasure spill into her. This time, she gasped when she realized that they had forgotten a condom.
Logan rested his forehead against her shoulder, gasping for air, and Veronica shivered at his warm breath against her cooling skin. He slowly moved off of her, pulling her with him. As he curled his body around hers, Veronica closed her eyes and prayed that Logan wouldn’t hear her sneak out in the middle of the night.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Veronica confirmed as she sat up, removing her feet from the stirrups.
“Well, then, we’ll get you some prenatal vitamins and-”
“No, I, um…I don’t want to be pregnant. I can’t be.”
The nurse gave away no hint as to what she was thinking, but that didn’t stop Veronica from wondering if she was judging her. “Have you given this much thought?”
“I’m a freshman at Hearst, I live with my dad, I’m not with my boyfriend right now; I can’t be a mom. I’d be terrible at it, and it’s just better if-”
“Veronica, you don’t have to justify your decision. Now, we do ask that you take a few days to consider this-”
“I don’t need to consider it.”
The nurse nodded. “I understand that, but it’s standard for the clinic. Also, if you do decide that you’d like to pursue that option, we ask that you bring someone with you as you won’t be able to drive after the procedure because of the anesthetic.” In a gentler tone, she inquired, “Have you told your boyfriend yet?”
She shook her head, feeling her face flush with shame.
“Maybe you should. He could surprise you.”
“He usually does,” she murmured. “I just don’t think it’s a good time for either of us.”
“I can understand that this is very overwhelming. And I know that we discussed the medical problems that someone your size can potentially face with a full-term pregnancy, and that can make it seem even less appealing. But I think that you should still discuss the situation with the baby’s father.”
Veronica nodded absently, wanting to do anything but that.
* * *
She didn’t want to tell him. In fact, the last thing that Veronica wanted to do was talk to Logan, because every time she did, she pictured Madison and her lingerie advice. But when she had been looking at her planner, trying to decide what would be the best option for her abortion, she thought about what it had felt like to have Logan keep the secret of Madison, of not giving her a choice to hear it from him. She knew that if she had the abortion without telling him that she would never be able to see him again without feeling guilt, and Veronica had enough to feel badly about without adding more Logan-guilt to that pile.
It was easy to find him; the only class that he ever seemed to attend with regularity was Human Sexuality, and, sure enough, he was there today. When he was walking out of the class, he had spotted her leaning against the wall and stopped the conversation he was having with a curvy brunette.
“Hey.”
“We need to talk,” she said shortly, needing to keep this as formal and disconnected as she could.
“Do we?”
Shifting uncomfortably, she asked, “Can we go somewhere private?”
Logan nodded, motioning for her to follow him. They were quiet the entire way to his car and the quiet seemed to only get louder as they drove. When they finally stopped near Dog Beach, Logan turned towards her and stated, “You haven’t returned my calls.”
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
“I told you that Madison-”
“I don’t want to talk about her!”
“Then what the fuck do you want to talk about? What do you want to say to me? Do you want me to grovel? Because I’m done-”
“I’m pregnant.”
Logan froze so quickly that it would’ve been comical if Veronica was certain that she wasn’t going to throw up. After a minute of his mouth opening and closing like a fish, he managed, “Pregnant?”
“Yep. Mazel tov!”
“How did you get pregnant?”
“I got lost in the cabbage patch. How do you think?”
“But we were always-”
“Not always.”
Logan was quiet as he remembered the night she was referring to. Finally, he asked, “What are we going to do?”
“I already talked to the Neptune Women’s Clinic. I’m going to ask Mac if she’ll come with me, and I have some money saved up, so I don’t need-”
“Wait, you’re getting rid of it?”
“Of course.”
“Were you even going to ask what I thought?”
“I’m telling you now! What else do you want?”
“I should get a say in it!”
“What say? You wouldn’t have to be pregnant or miss school or take care of it!”
“But it’s not right to get rid of it!”
Hurt that he was so adamantly against her, she snapped, “I know that the organizer of the Neptune bum fights isn’t going to lecture me on morality.”
Fire in his eyes, he fervently stated, “That’s my baby, too, Veronica. You can’t just decide to do this without talking to me.”
“Logan-”
“I love you. I know you don’t believe that right now, but I do. And I can help you take care of the baby; I have millions of dollars that are doing nothing. We could do this-”
“I don’t want to play house, Logan,” she interrupted, her voice harsher than she intended. When she saw the pain flash across his face, she backpedaled, “We can’t take care of a baby. What are you going to do, stay in the Grand and let Dick baby-sit when you have class? Let’s not even mention the fact that every time something goes wrong, you spend weeks completely trashed. It doesn’t make sense.”
“So you’re just going to have this abortion because you can’t handle it?”
“I’m having it because I don’t want it. This isn’t a part of my plans.”
He swallowed hard, looking out the window and taking deep breaths, trying to control his temper. Finally he said, “What if I want it?”
“What?”
“I’ll raise it. If you have the baby, let me take him.”
“What?” she repeated, sure she had misunderstood.
Turning back to face her, he said, “I want to take the baby. You wouldn’t have to do anything but have him. I’ll take him home from the hospital, I’ll raise him, you wouldn’t have to do anything.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m not. That’s my baby, too, Veronica, and I know you hate me right now, but you don’t get to decide by yourself whether he or she lives or dies. I’ll move out of the Grand, I’ll go to AA, I’ll hire a nanny, whatever I have to do, but I don’t want our baby to die.”
Veronica stared at him in disbelief; the nurse was right. He had surprised her. “It’s not that easy! There are other things to consider!”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that I could have problems even delivering a baby! The nurse said that someone my size might have problems being pregnant, that it could put so much pressure on my pelvis that I might not even be able to walk, that I could need a C section! A baby doesn’t just drop out of the sky; I’d have to carry it around in my body for nine months and need fucking surgery to get it out!”
“I’ll pay for any medical-”
“You can’t just throw money at this!” she practically screamed. “Don’t you understand that this could ruin my life, my health, everything?”
Softly, so un-Logan-like, he countered, “For a child? Your child. You don’t have to do anything after he’s born; you don’t even have to see him. Veronica, please?”
* * *
Wrestle a polar bear. Have dinner with George Bush. Be trapped at the bottom of the ocean with only Celeste Kane as company. Marry Sheriff Don Lamb.
All were things that Veronica Mars would rather do than ever have tell her father that she was pregnant, staying pregnant, and allowing Logan to raise the baby.
She and Logan had spent two hours in his car at the beach negotiating the pregnancy and the terms. Logan had promised that he would move out of the Grand immediately, as well as start seeing a therapist to discuss his issues and alcohol dependency; he would hire a nanny to teach him how to care for a child and to watch it while he went to class; he would never allow Dick Casablancas near the child. In return, Logan would pay for all of the pre-natal care and the cost of the delivery. He had offered her $10,000 a month as well as $100,000 upon the baby’s birth, but Veronica had firmly vetoed that. She was already uneasy with this arrangement; she didn’t want to add “baby selling” to the list of her sins.
As soon as they had agreed to that, Logan had driven her to Cliff’s office. After the lawyer had broken out of his shocked daze, he had drawn up the contract with the terms that they had agreed upon, and both of them had signed it. Logan had then driven them to a notary’s office, so that the contract was officially binding. The only thing that Veronica had ever seen him so committed to was finding the keg at a party, and she had no idea what to make of this pod-Logan.
He had driven back to Hearst so that she could fetch her car, and, after practicing her speech a thousand and one times on the drive back to the apartment, she almost felt prepared.
And all of that preparation went out the window the moment she entered the apartment and saw Cliff sitting there with her furious father.
“Did you miss the day of law school that went over lawyer-client confidentiality?” she snapped.
“Veronica Rose, don’t you dare!” Keith exploded. “How could you do this?!”
“I didn’t mean-”
“I asked you! You stood there and lied to me!”
“I didn’t know what to do! I panicked!”
“And drawing up a contract to give the baby to Logan? Was that part of this panic?”
Veronica turned to glare at Cliff, who was attempting to sink into the furniture, before saying, “He wants to take care of it.”
“What does Logan Echolls know about being a father? Did you even think before you signed that thing? You signed your baby over to an alcoholic who gets arrested once every three months! Do you know what that means?”
“He said he’s going to change,” she lamely replied.
“And how often does he tell you that? How many times have I had to listen to you cry because he said he was going to change and he didn’t?” Pacing the length of the room, he demanded, “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I didn’t want to have the stupid abortion that I scheduled anymore than he wanted me to! I was thinking that if he wanted the damn thing so bad, he should have it because I don’t! So stand there and scream at me because I’m so goddamn stupid, but I didn’t know what else to do! You tell me, Dad! You tell me what answer would’ve made you happy!”
Sadly, his anger slowly evaporating, he began, “Veronica-”
“I didn’t want this,” she said tearfully, “and I don’t want to have this baby either, but I can’t…I don’t think I could go through with it, and he wants it so badly…Isn’t it better that Logan has it and it has a chance?”
“Oh, sweetie,” Keith sighed, moving forward and wrapping her up in a hug. As Veronica cried against his chest, he said, “I can help you. I’m a little rusty, but we can take care of it. I’m sure Cliff can help us break the contract-”
“No,” she cut in, pulling back, wiping at her face. “I don’t want to take care of it, Dad. I don’t want this baby, and I don’t want to break the contract.”
“Veronica, think about what you’re doing.”
“I am, and this baby is not going to be raised by me.” With more definitiveness that she felt, she informed him, “This is just Logan’s baby.”
* * *
He sent the check on the first of every month, and on the second, Veronica always sent it back, just like clockwork. Whenever she had to see her obstetrician, Logan came to the appointments, rain or shine, whether he had class or not. He was the one who asked questions about the baby’s development, mostly because he spent most of his free time reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting; when the doctor had asked if they had wanted to know the sex, Logan had leapt at the chance to know while Veronica had simply shrugged, indifferent. Whether or not she was carrying a boy or girl did not affect whether or not she felt something for the child inside of her.
On that day, the “it” inside of her became “she.”
As the summer wore on and she entered her third trimester, her ankles were so swollen that she could barely stand on them; the extra weight had begun to strain her poor back. Most days, she did nothing but sit on the couch simply because it hurt so badly to move that she didn’t want to suffer.
Logan had rented an apartment near the beach and turned the room with a balcony off of it into a nursery; he had brought pictures to a doctor’s appointment to show her that he was living up to his end of the bargain. Despite her assurances that Keith Mars would not maim him if he came to her place, Logan did not press his luck. He tried to give her the option of helping him select a nanny, but she wanted no part of it; the only thing she had done was do the background checks. Eventually he hired a British woman in her late-forties with a sweet smile and a Mary Poppins-esque disposition.
By the end of August with another month ahead of her, Veronica could hardly move due to the pressure on her pelvis. Coupled with her high blood pressure, her doctor decided to induce labor. She had patiently called Logan, explained what was happening, and he had rushed to the hospital despite the fact that there was nothing for him to do.
As she suffered through contractions, she thought of her mother. She hadn’t heard from Lianne Mars in over two years, and, while she had written her off the moment she had stolen the Kane reward money, she wished that she had a mother right then. But even worse, as she felt the baby inside of her fighting to get out, she wondered one day if Logan’s daughter-she couldn’t call the baby her daughter or it would be too real-would think her as selfish and terrible as Veronica thought of her own mother.
The sting of the epidural brought the bliss of numbness, and she closed her eyes as the obstetrician cut into her middle, moving and lifting organs to reach the child buried inside of her. When Veronica heard the shriek of the infant that was being cradled in the blood-slick hands of the obstetrician, she couldn’t help the tear that escaped, her eyes still tightly clenched shut so that she wouldn’t see the baby she had already promised to another.
“Miss Mars, do you want to see her?” one of the nurses queried.
Veronica shook her head before rasping, “Give her to her father.”
* * *
Keith took her home two days later, and Veronica vowed that everything would return to normal now. Even with the pain of the incision still a reminder of what had happened, Veronica went back to school. She had given birth only a week before classes started, but she didn’t care if she returned still carrying baby weight, still walking slowly. None of her friends said anything about what had happened, and Veronica was certain that Mac had threatened Parker within an inch of her life if she asked any questions; Piz, on the other hand, seemed at a complete loss as to what to say to her, and Veronica was fine with that. Silence was better than pathetic attempts at winning her attention.
Once upon a time, Veronica had survived Lilly’s murder, her social ostracism, and her rape by becoming like stone; if you couldn’t feel, you couldn’t hurt. That was the Veronica that had Wallace met that day at Neptune High, the Veronica that Mac had admired during the Purity Test scandal, the Veronica that had been inspired fear and awe amongst her classmates.
The problem, as Veronica was learning, was that she couldn’t go back to being That Veronica. High school was over, Weevil couldn’t intimidate someone to help her, Wallace couldn’t steal a file that would hold the answer; Lilly Kane was four years dead, Duncan Kane was missing in action, Beaver Casablancas had swan-dived off of the rooftop of the Grand, and justice in the form of a bullet had found Aaron Echolls. Bad ass Veronica Mars wasn’t needed anymore; the monsters had been slain and her loved ones were avenged.
As she sat in the Hearst cafeteria, Veronica realized that she didn’t know who the hell she was anymore. She was a college sophomore who had four friends, two of whom were holdovers from high school and the other two were friends only because they lived with the first two; she was a criminology major whose mentor had been arrested for murder; she was a mother to a child she had never seen, whose name she didn’t even know, that was being raised by her ex-boyfriend.
Whoever she was, she wasn’t Veronica Mars anymore.
* * *
Four weeks after the birth, Veronica knew that she was depressed. At first she had found it ironic that she was suffering from post-partum depression when she didn’t even have the baby, but then she realized that maybe it wasn’t as simple as that at all. She had gone to counseling services at the college one day but, when she got there, she didn’t know what to say. Instead, she had just apologized and left.
It was Mac that had suggested the adoption websites. After finding out that she had been switched at birth with Madison, Mac had searched for websites on what it was like to be adopted, and she had said it had helped. So Veronica had found a message board for women who had given up their babies for adoption, but she had been so ashamed to post about how she knew exactly where her baby was and chose not to see her when these women were regretful for having done what they had done.
Once, in high school, she had to read a short story for class about an amputee who sometimes forgot that he was missing a limb because he could still feel it. At the time, she had thought it ridiculous, until she started aching with the phantom pain of her baby. When she would wake up, she would reach for her stomach, the way she had the entire time she was pregnant and would realize once again that the baby was gone. In the middle of the night she would wake up hearing a baby’s cries only to realize that they were only imagined.
It was as if someone had died and Veronica had never even known they were gone.
Six weeks after having the baby, Veronica had woken up once again to the phantom baby cries. Out of irritation, she got into her car to drive to Wal-Mart to buy ice cream, desperate for some sort of comfort food. She was halfway to the checkout when she saw him.
He was standing by a display of diapers, reaching for a package above his head, and she noticed that he looked tired, maybe even as tired as she was. And then she noticed the pink Snugli that was against his broad chest and her heart stopped.
Gripping the package in his hand, he turned and saw her, standing lamely in the center of the floor clutching her carton of Moose Tracks, white as a sheet. He moved slowly, or maybe it just seemed like that, and Veronica realized that she had forgotten how to breathe.
“Hey.”
It took a moment for Logan’s word to register. When they did, she quickly replied, “Hey.”
“Late night craving?”
She nodded. “Diaper emergency?”
“She goes through ‘em like crazy. I thought I had more.”
They stood there awkwardly, neither knowing what to say, when the pink Snugli made the decision for them by beginning to fuss. Immediately, Logan began to shush her, whispering nonsense words and bouncing a bit, and Veronica could hardly believe that this man was the Logan Echolls she had known. It took only a minute for the Snugli to stop crying, and Veronica didn’t even realize that a lump had risen in her throat until she tried to speak.
“You’re-”She swallowed. “You’re good with her.”
He smiled a bit wanly. “You should’ve seen me the first week. I was a mess.”
“Right.” Shifting uncomfortably, she opened her mouth to say that she was leaving but instead shocked herself by asking, “What’s her name?”
“Margaret Lynn Echolls. Maggie, for short.”
She attempted a smile. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Thanks.”
Little Maggie shifted on his chest, and before she could stop herself, Veronica reached a hand out. When she realized what she was doing, she began to draw it back; she didn’t have a right to touch her.
“I should go,” she decided.
“Veronica-”
“You’re doing a good job with her,” she mumbled, trying to fight back the tears that were coming. “I’m proud of you. You’re a good dad.”
Moving into her path of flight, Logan asked, “Do you want to hold her?”
Her eyes went wide. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Logan, please, I can’t,” she practically pleaded.
Purposefully, Logan peeled back the pink fabric that surrounded Maggie, and, for the first time Veronica saw her daughter. She was just as pink as the blanket with a tuft of blond hair that Veronica recognized from her own baby pictures. Her features were small and dainty, but she saw Logan in them, her bow mouth was pursed in sleep.
“This is our daughter,” Logan softly said. “Her name is Maggie. And it’s okay if you’re scared but whenever you’re ready, we’ll be here.”
And with that, Veronica broke down.
In sadness and shame in herself, she began to sob in a way that never had before, and she cried even harder when Logan used his free arm to pull her against his chest, the chest that their daughter was also cradled against, and reassured her, “It’s okay. Everything will be alright.”
* * *
It took her a week to work up the courage to go to his apartment and an hour once she got there to actually go inside the building. When she finally knocked on his door, she was afraid she would pass out during the wait, and then, when he did open the door, she was certain she was going to.
With a smile, he quipped, “The last time I bought cookies, your other troop members wore much sexier outfits.”
Ignoring the joke, she simply stated, “I’d like to see her.”
Logan nodded, moving to let her pass, and Veronica blinked in surprise at the bright, sunny apartment. It was so contrary to everything Logan was that she couldn’t believe that he actually lived there. Coupled with the baby blanket on the floor along with rattles and toys, she was certain she had stepped into a parallel universe.
Maggie’s room was painted yellow with flowers on the walls. Already she had an overflowing toy chest as well as a full bookshelf, and it appeared as if Logan had bought every baby accessory that had ever been made. A rocking chair sat by the doors to the balcony, and the beautifully-carved crib occupied one side of the room. Veronica watched the easy way that Logan picked her up, and Veronica smiled at the onesie that she was wearing, so dainty that she couldn’t imagine Logan buying it. Maggie was awake, her eyes blinking, and she made no fuss as Logan handed her over to Veronica.
Her skin was softer than anything Veronica had ever felt, and she gently stroked the fuzz on her head. She smelled of powder and a smell that could only be classified as baby, and Veronica could not believe that this little person had grown inside of her.
The entire time she was pregnant, Veronica had thought her to be a burden, a cross to bear, the albatross around her neck. But now, as she stared into the tiny, judgment-free face of her daughter, she could not imagine how she had ever not wanted this baby.
“Hi,” she said, stroking her cheek. “I’m Veronica. I’m…I’m your mom.”
Logan, who was leaning against the door, his arms across his chest, spoke up, “Yeah, Mags, you remember her. She’s the one I told you about.”
“You told her about me?” Veronica asked, startled.
Logan steadily returned her gaze, a smile playing at his lips. “I figured you’d show up eventually, and I wanted her to know you when you did.”
“What made you think I’d show up?”
His smile now full blown, he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “You’re Veronica Mars.”
Pressing a kiss to the top of Maggie’s head, she asked, “Do you think I could come by and see her, you know, like visitation?”
“No.”
“No?” she parroted, stunned.
“No,” he repeated, moving away from the door. “You don’t get visitation.”
“Logan-”
“You’re her mother; whenever you want to see her, you can see her. You don’t need my permission for that.”
“You’re just going to let me off the hook, just like that?”
He shrugged. “It’s this new thing I’m trying. My therapist thinks I carry too many grudges and truthfully, I don’t want you to be one of those.” Tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, he informed her, “I was never angry at you, Veronica; I knew you were scared. And I learned a long time ago that patience with you pays off a lot more than trying to push you into something you’re not ready for. I knew that when you were ready, you’d come.”
“I’m sorry.”
Inclining his head, Logan assured her, “I know.”
The kiss was sweet and lingering, and Veronica felt the weight lift off of her heart at the pressure of his mouth against hers. When he pulled away, he grinned in a way that she hadn’t seen since before Lilly had died and declared, “We’ll be okay.”
For the first time in a long time, Veronica truly believed him.
Author: lit_chick08
Pairing: LoVe
Rating: NC-17 for sex and language
Word Count: 7914
Spoilers: goes AU during/after 3x12 “There’s Got to Be a Morning After Pill”
Warnings: Discusses abortion if anyone is sensitive about that
Summary: Veronica is pregnant and doesn’t want it; Logan does. Angst ensues.
A/N: Written for the Alternate Ending Smutathon at vm_library and beta’ed by the incomparable taken_with_you. This is complete and total angst, and this is your warning! Feedback appreciated, concrit welcome
She had lied.
She had looked her father in the eye and let the lie slip easily part her lips; it wasn’t the first time she had ever done it and it would certainly not be the last, but it was the first time in years that the lie had tasted bitter on her tongue. When she saw the relief flood his eyes, she knew she couldn’t take it back, and so she didn’t. Instead, she went into the bathroom, stood beneath the spray of the shower, and cried. It wasn’t the great gasping sobs she had made when Lilly died; it wasn’t the hot, angry tears of humiliation that she had shed in Lamb’s office the day after her rape; it wasn’t even the bittersweet streaks that had coursed down her face as she watched Duncan disappear with Vinnie. No, these were silent tears of disappointment in herself, in Logan, in the direction she had let her life take.
There was a cruel irony to it, Veronica had to admit that; before Lilly had died, Veronica had heard Celeste say more than once that Lilly would be lucky to escape her teenage years without getting pregnant. She wondered if Keith and Lianne Mars, before the alcohol and abandonment and divorce, had ever worried that their daughter might become pregnant. Veronica didn’t think so; she was so overwhelmingly innocent before Lilly died that the idea of her having sex had probably never occurred to her parents. Even now, though Keith knew that she and Logan were having sex, he almost never brought it up. This would crush him.
She stayed beneath the spray until the water ran cold, and, by that time, she already had a plan of action formed. Veronica didn’t believe in letting a problem fester and grow, and this problem was literally growing every second.
Veronica had logically catalogued her options: abortion, adoption, and keeping it. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that she could keep the thing growing inside of her-she refused to call it a baby-and she knew that if she did actually give birth to it, she wouldn’t have the strength to hand it to someone else to raise.
Veronica had never really picked a side on the whole abortion debate. She wasn’t one of those girls that wore “Abortion is Homicide” and marched on Washington, but she also wasn’t one of those girls at Neptune High that equated abortion with being a feminist. No, Veronica’s opinion on the subject was the same with abortion that it was with most controversial issues: unless someone hired Veronica to care, it was their own private business.
Sitting on her bed in her dingy white towel, her wet hair dripping down her back, Veronica dialed the Neptune Women’s Clinic and made an appointment. She could do this; she had done harder before.
That night, as she thrashed beneath her covers, she dreamt of the only thing she had been able to think of for the last week: Logan and Madison entangled on a bed, Madison once again laying waste to her life.
* * *
Veronica sat awkwardly in the waiting room, nowhere near as confident as she had been when she had been here only two days ago on her investigation. This time, as she sat and faked reading a six-month old issue of Cosmo , she studied the pregnant women in the waiting room, one of whom looked to be about fourteen and was ready to pop, and, unconsciously, her hand ghosted to her flat stomach.
“When are you due?”
Veronica snapped out of her daze and turned to face the woman speaking to her. She was about Veronica’s age, her baby bump discretely covered by a maternity top. “Excuse me?”
The woman gestured towards her middle. “When’s your due date?”
“Oh, I’m not-” Hearing her voice crack, Veronica began again. “I’m not having a baby.”
“You’re not?” the stranger said skeptically. “Then why are you holding your stomach?”
Noticing for the first time that she had wrapped her arms around her middle, Veronica untangled them and firmly stated, “I’m not having a baby.”
The woman stared at her for another moment before realization came over her face. Voice dripping with disdain, she said, “Oh. You’re one of those.”
Veronica watched in shock as the woman got to her feet and moved down a few seats, and, despite not wanting to, Veronica felt the sting of it in her already-battered heart. When the nurse called her name, Veronica gratefully rushed out of the waiting room and into the sanctuary that the nurse practitioner’s office offered.
The nurse was about her father’s age with a kind smile, and Veronica wished that it could set her at ease. She listened to her recite the information that she had provided on the forms she filled out; it was with detachment that Veronica listened to her state the date of her last period, confirm the fact that yes, she was indeed pregnant according to the blood test she had the last time she was here.
Considering the last time that she had gone to the doctor she had been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease, Veronica was not excited to don the paper gown and put her feet in the stirrups. As she felt the cool metal of the speculum, she stared blankly up at the ceiling, startled by the tears that blurred her vision as the nurse gently pressed on her belly.
“Well, Veronica, you appear to be about six weeks along. Does that sound accurate?”
Unbidden, Veronica knew precisely when the…thing-not baby, can’t be a baby-had been conceived. It had been after she had been drugged by Mercer, after he had been arrested.
If Veronica had ever thought that Keith Mars was overprotective before, she hadn’t seen anything compared to how he had been acting ever since he had gotten the phone call saying that Veronica was on her way to the hospital after being drugged and physically assaulted by Mercer. He had been hovering over her so much that Veronica was prepared to taser him if it meant a little privacy.
Wallace, the good best friend that he was, had set up camp on their couch for a few days in his own heavy-handed attempt at being protective before Mrs. Fennel had finally ordered him out of the apartment in order to give Veronica time to herself. Piz had stopped by before he left for winter break, giving her a mix CD of some bands she liked, and Mac brought over some ice cream that they could eat while they watched the movie where Ryan Phillippe played a hacker, or, as Mac liked to call it, porn for geeks.
It wasn’t until Parker came to visit before flying home that Veronica found out what Logan had done. Veronica had been sitting with her savior, trying desperately not to appear absolutely bored with her prattle about the Gilmore Girls when she mentioned that she wished she had a boyfriend that was as devoted to her as Logan was to Veronica.
“Logan and I are broken up,” Veronica flatly stated, wishing that Mac would’ve given her the memo in order to stop this awkward conversation.
“Really? God, then I definitely want a boyfriend like Logan. I mean, a guy who’ll go to jail for you when he’s not even your boyfriend-”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Parker’s eyes bulged. “You don’t know?”
“Clearly not.”
Tossing the long locks of her wig over her shoulder, Parker sighed, “Well, from what I heard from Mac-”
“Wait, Mac knows?”
She shrugged. “I thought everybody did.”
Vowing to kill her friend later, she urged, “Continue.”
“Anyway, I guess that after Logan found out that Mercer was the rapist, he got really pissed, especially since he was the one who told you that Mercer was a good guy and totally vouched for him. So he went to this diner where these cops were having breakfast and he took a baseball bat to their car so he’d get put in lock-up with Mercer.”
“He did that?”
Parker nodded. “So then, the deputies actually put him in the same cell as Mercer. Rumor has it that it took four deputies to pull him off of them; Mercer’s apparently going to need loads of plastic surgery if he ever wants to look good again, which I’m guessing he doesn’t want since being pretty in jail will make him even more of a bitch to some giant weightlifter.” With a wave of her hand, she pronounced, “It was pretty much the coolest thing I had ever heard. You’re lucky someone loves you that much.”
Veronica had sat there in shock for a good twenty minutes, going through the motions of a conversation with Parker; by the time she had left, Veronica knew that she had to see Logan. When Keith had come home with bags of Chinese food, Veronica, who had been curled up with Backup on the couch, asked him point blank, “Did you know that Logan got thrown into lockup to beat on Mercer?”
Keith froze for a moment before quipping, “We don’t say hello anymore?”
“Answer the question.”
With a sigh, setting the bags onto the coffee table, he admitted, “I knew.”
“How long?” When he didn’t answer right away, she repeated, “How long?”
“I posted his bail.”
“You posted-” Veronica stopped, pushing to her feet. “You knew what he did and you didn’t tell me?”
“What difference would it have made, Veronica? You were upset about the break-up, and after everything that happened-”
“Why would post bail for him? You hated Logan, you always have-”
“Whether or not I like Logan, he still did something I wish I could’ve done! Veronica, I wanted to kill...Logan did what I couldn’t, so I got him out of jail. He asked me not to tell you.”
“Why not?”
His face folding into a forlorn expression, he replied, “He said he promised you he’d quit fighting.”
Determinedly, she stated, “I’m going to the Grand. I’ll be back later.”
“Veronica-”
The rest of his words were muffled behind the door.
* * *
Dick Casablancas had this uncanny ability to offend and inspire hatred with a single breath. Any good will that he had ever inspired in Veronica, and it was very slim to begin with, was completely destroyed with his greeting to her.
“Hey, Veronica. Sorry to hear about Mercer almost raping you. I was pretty shocked; I mean, Mercer could get whoever he wanted, so why would he hafta drug chicks to get them? That’s, like, cheating.”
Stung, Veronica snapped, “Yeah, I guess he just took the honor out of raping someone.”
Completely oblivious to her anger, Dick continued, “Logan’s in his room. If you’re gonna ride him like a stallion, I’d just ask you keep it down. I’m gonna be having company over and nothing turns a girl off more than hearing you moan. Unless, of course, you want to join us. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little girl-on-girl tonight, you know?”
Pushing past the bleached blond, Veronica went directly to Logan’s room. As she pushed open the door, Logan, who had been reclining on his bed shirtless, an arm thrown over his eyes, began, “Dick, I don’t want-”
“It’s not Dick.”
At the sound of her voice, Logan sat up, surprise on his face. He hadn’t seen Veronica since the party she had left that night, but he had harassed Wallace to the point of irritation to keep him constantly updated on Veronica’s condition. Logan had even spent a few nights of his own sitting in his car outside the Mars apartment before Keith had assured him that she was fine, that he could go home.
The bruises from his fight with Mercer were yellow against his skin, and his knuckles were still scabbed and raw from the merciless pummeling they had inflicted. Veronica could see the random patterns of contusions along his ribcage, and, as she moved towards the bed, she noticed that every muscle in his body was tense.
Finally, Logan ventured, “Veronica?”
She didn’t answer; instead, shocking him, she straddled his lap, her hands rising to cup his face. Veronica pressed her forehead against his, her warm breath against his mouth, and Logan’s hands tentatively came to rest on her hips. For several long moments they remained like that, perfectly silent yet completely understood.
Finally, she whispered, “I heard what you did, and I know that things are…I know that I’m…”
“Veronica-”
“I do love you; I’m just bad at…well, everything else in our crazy relationship.”
“I don’t exactly think I’m getting a gold star either.”
In a voice that was barely a whisper, she confessed against his mouth, “I want to be with you tonight and I don’t want to figure anything out beforehand. Is that okay?”
His kiss was soft, gently exploratory, as if their last kiss has been years ago and not just weeks. Even if they both knew that this was hardly the smartest thing that either of them could do right now, neither cared.
Veronica hadn’t wanted to admit how badly their breakup had shaken her; since what had happened that night at graduation, Logan had been her constant support, and she had taken that for granted. She knew that this was her mistake, and she knew that sex wasn’t going to fix their problems.
But at the same time, Veronica didn’t know how to put into words how grateful she was that he had done what he had to Mercer, that he had risked real jail time to avenge her. She wanted him to know that she loved him as much as he loved her, and this was the only way she knew how to do it.
Of course, it wasn’t as if this was a great sweeping sacrifice on her part; she had missed his touch.
His hands were warm against the soft skin of her stomach as his fingers brushed back and forth. Veronica recognized the move; it was one he had used the first time they had dated, after he had found out about the rape at Shelley’s party. She had teased him about it then, that she wasn’t an animal that he was going to spook, but it still warmed her heart that he wanted to take things as slow as possible to make sure that she never felt forced again, that she always had the power.
Logan undressed her patiently, no trace of the frenzied passion that had dictated some of their couplings. He peeled each garment away from her skin and then thoroughly kissed the skin he revealed, whispering love words and promises, the tip of his tongue tracing patterns. Veronica couldn’t remember the last time he had taken such care with her, and it brought tears to her eyes that she desperately wished weren’t there.
“Are you okay? Do you want to stop?” Logan panted, immediately backing off, drawing his hands away from the sides of her panties, which he had been about to remove.
“I’m fine,” she swore contrary to the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.
“Veronica-”
“I promise I’m okay,” she said, her hands reaching for the waistband of his sweatpants.
Catching her hands, Logan firmly stated, “Veronica, we’re not doing this if you’re crying.”
Frustrated, she snapped, “They’re not bad tears! I just-I can’t-” Knowing she didn’t want to reveal her heart quite so fully, she wiped away the tears and steadily met his gaze. “I swear to you on everything that I’m not upset. I want this; I want you. Logan, please…”
His thumbs brushing across her cheekbones, he murmured, “I hate to see you cry.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him down, wanting the familiar weight of him against her. Veronica had always hated when Duncan would lie on top of her, feeling stifled and trapped, but she had always felt protected with Logan like this. Wallace joked that she was the damsel that, despite the distress, could rescue herself, but Veronica didn’t want to be that tonight; tonight, she just wanted to be the damsel and she only ever got that chance with Logan.
They worked Logan’s sweatpants off of his hips without separating, their mouths fused together, their movements awkward in their attempts to stay close. When he withdrew, Veronica cried out, trying to tug him back down, but he playfully shushed her with a kiss to her collarbone. His hands gently cupped her breasts, his thumbs tracing ever narrowing circles around her erect nipples. Veronica was convinced she was going to go insane with the tension that he was building inside of her, and she was almost shocked by the cry that fought its way from her throat when he finally lightly brushed over the taut flesh followed by a suggestive lick.
“Logan, Logan, please,” she began to babble, twisting her body in order to remove her underwear.
Frustratingly, Logan stopped her, replacing her hands with his own, carefully drawing the fabric down. Tossing the panties to join the rest of their clothing on the floor, Logan slid up her body, pausing to spread her thighs, pressing a wet kiss against her right inner thigh. Veronica shivered in anticipation, knowing what was coming, knowing that there was no way she was going to honor Dick’s request to keep it quiet.
He feasted on her slowly, deliberately, his mouth sure against her, and Veronica felt as if she was being turned inside out. She clutched at his hair, unsure if she was pulling him away because it was too intense or pulling him nearer because it felt so good, and when she heard him say, “Just let go, baby”, she obeyed, letting the pleasure wash over her.
Logan had barely given her a chance to recover from her orgasm before Veronica felt him slide easily inside of her, the way he had a hundred times before, and she clung to him, both inside and out.
“Oh, Veronica,” he sighed against her ear. “I love you. I love you so much.”
“I love you,” she repeated back, wishing that she had always been able to say it so easily, wishing that she could trust him the way he deserved to be trusted, wishing that she didn’t hold it against him that he had lied for Mercer in Mexico, wishing for a thousand other things that could never be or would never be because she was Veronica Mars and he was Logan Echolls and good things didn’t happen to people like them.
He was trying to keep his control, gritting his teeth as he moved slowly and deeply inside of her, sweat breaking out across his forehead. Veronica clutched at his muscled back, her nails gently scraping across his shoulders, and Logan groaned and gasped her name. Raising her legs, wrapping them around his waist, she whispered for him to go faster, move harder, and he gratefully complied.
Veronica could barely keep up with his tempo, straining to lift her hips at the same pace as his own, and finally, she gave up, simply clutching him, letting him have his pleasure. When his thrusts became short and erratic, Veronica heard him gasp her name before she felt his pleasure spill into her. This time, she gasped when she realized that they had forgotten a condom.
Logan rested his forehead against her shoulder, gasping for air, and Veronica shivered at his warm breath against her cooling skin. He slowly moved off of her, pulling her with him. As he curled his body around hers, Veronica closed her eyes and prayed that Logan wouldn’t hear her sneak out in the middle of the night.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Veronica confirmed as she sat up, removing her feet from the stirrups.
“Well, then, we’ll get you some prenatal vitamins and-”
“No, I, um…I don’t want to be pregnant. I can’t be.”
The nurse gave away no hint as to what she was thinking, but that didn’t stop Veronica from wondering if she was judging her. “Have you given this much thought?”
“I’m a freshman at Hearst, I live with my dad, I’m not with my boyfriend right now; I can’t be a mom. I’d be terrible at it, and it’s just better if-”
“Veronica, you don’t have to justify your decision. Now, we do ask that you take a few days to consider this-”
“I don’t need to consider it.”
The nurse nodded. “I understand that, but it’s standard for the clinic. Also, if you do decide that you’d like to pursue that option, we ask that you bring someone with you as you won’t be able to drive after the procedure because of the anesthetic.” In a gentler tone, she inquired, “Have you told your boyfriend yet?”
She shook her head, feeling her face flush with shame.
“Maybe you should. He could surprise you.”
“He usually does,” she murmured. “I just don’t think it’s a good time for either of us.”
“I can understand that this is very overwhelming. And I know that we discussed the medical problems that someone your size can potentially face with a full-term pregnancy, and that can make it seem even less appealing. But I think that you should still discuss the situation with the baby’s father.”
Veronica nodded absently, wanting to do anything but that.
* * *
She didn’t want to tell him. In fact, the last thing that Veronica wanted to do was talk to Logan, because every time she did, she pictured Madison and her lingerie advice. But when she had been looking at her planner, trying to decide what would be the best option for her abortion, she thought about what it had felt like to have Logan keep the secret of Madison, of not giving her a choice to hear it from him. She knew that if she had the abortion without telling him that she would never be able to see him again without feeling guilt, and Veronica had enough to feel badly about without adding more Logan-guilt to that pile.
It was easy to find him; the only class that he ever seemed to attend with regularity was Human Sexuality, and, sure enough, he was there today. When he was walking out of the class, he had spotted her leaning against the wall and stopped the conversation he was having with a curvy brunette.
“Hey.”
“We need to talk,” she said shortly, needing to keep this as formal and disconnected as she could.
“Do we?”
Shifting uncomfortably, she asked, “Can we go somewhere private?”
Logan nodded, motioning for her to follow him. They were quiet the entire way to his car and the quiet seemed to only get louder as they drove. When they finally stopped near Dog Beach, Logan turned towards her and stated, “You haven’t returned my calls.”
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
“I told you that Madison-”
“I don’t want to talk about her!”
“Then what the fuck do you want to talk about? What do you want to say to me? Do you want me to grovel? Because I’m done-”
“I’m pregnant.”
Logan froze so quickly that it would’ve been comical if Veronica was certain that she wasn’t going to throw up. After a minute of his mouth opening and closing like a fish, he managed, “Pregnant?”
“Yep. Mazel tov!”
“How did you get pregnant?”
“I got lost in the cabbage patch. How do you think?”
“But we were always-”
“Not always.”
Logan was quiet as he remembered the night she was referring to. Finally, he asked, “What are we going to do?”
“I already talked to the Neptune Women’s Clinic. I’m going to ask Mac if she’ll come with me, and I have some money saved up, so I don’t need-”
“Wait, you’re getting rid of it?”
“Of course.”
“Were you even going to ask what I thought?”
“I’m telling you now! What else do you want?”
“I should get a say in it!”
“What say? You wouldn’t have to be pregnant or miss school or take care of it!”
“But it’s not right to get rid of it!”
Hurt that he was so adamantly against her, she snapped, “I know that the organizer of the Neptune bum fights isn’t going to lecture me on morality.”
Fire in his eyes, he fervently stated, “That’s my baby, too, Veronica. You can’t just decide to do this without talking to me.”
“Logan-”
“I love you. I know you don’t believe that right now, but I do. And I can help you take care of the baby; I have millions of dollars that are doing nothing. We could do this-”
“I don’t want to play house, Logan,” she interrupted, her voice harsher than she intended. When she saw the pain flash across his face, she backpedaled, “We can’t take care of a baby. What are you going to do, stay in the Grand and let Dick baby-sit when you have class? Let’s not even mention the fact that every time something goes wrong, you spend weeks completely trashed. It doesn’t make sense.”
“So you’re just going to have this abortion because you can’t handle it?”
“I’m having it because I don’t want it. This isn’t a part of my plans.”
He swallowed hard, looking out the window and taking deep breaths, trying to control his temper. Finally he said, “What if I want it?”
“What?”
“I’ll raise it. If you have the baby, let me take him.”
“What?” she repeated, sure she had misunderstood.
Turning back to face her, he said, “I want to take the baby. You wouldn’t have to do anything but have him. I’ll take him home from the hospital, I’ll raise him, you wouldn’t have to do anything.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m not. That’s my baby, too, Veronica, and I know you hate me right now, but you don’t get to decide by yourself whether he or she lives or dies. I’ll move out of the Grand, I’ll go to AA, I’ll hire a nanny, whatever I have to do, but I don’t want our baby to die.”
Veronica stared at him in disbelief; the nurse was right. He had surprised her. “It’s not that easy! There are other things to consider!”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that I could have problems even delivering a baby! The nurse said that someone my size might have problems being pregnant, that it could put so much pressure on my pelvis that I might not even be able to walk, that I could need a C section! A baby doesn’t just drop out of the sky; I’d have to carry it around in my body for nine months and need fucking surgery to get it out!”
“I’ll pay for any medical-”
“You can’t just throw money at this!” she practically screamed. “Don’t you understand that this could ruin my life, my health, everything?”
Softly, so un-Logan-like, he countered, “For a child? Your child. You don’t have to do anything after he’s born; you don’t even have to see him. Veronica, please?”
* * *
Wrestle a polar bear. Have dinner with George Bush. Be trapped at the bottom of the ocean with only Celeste Kane as company. Marry Sheriff Don Lamb.
All were things that Veronica Mars would rather do than ever have tell her father that she was pregnant, staying pregnant, and allowing Logan to raise the baby.
She and Logan had spent two hours in his car at the beach negotiating the pregnancy and the terms. Logan had promised that he would move out of the Grand immediately, as well as start seeing a therapist to discuss his issues and alcohol dependency; he would hire a nanny to teach him how to care for a child and to watch it while he went to class; he would never allow Dick Casablancas near the child. In return, Logan would pay for all of the pre-natal care and the cost of the delivery. He had offered her $10,000 a month as well as $100,000 upon the baby’s birth, but Veronica had firmly vetoed that. She was already uneasy with this arrangement; she didn’t want to add “baby selling” to the list of her sins.
As soon as they had agreed to that, Logan had driven her to Cliff’s office. After the lawyer had broken out of his shocked daze, he had drawn up the contract with the terms that they had agreed upon, and both of them had signed it. Logan had then driven them to a notary’s office, so that the contract was officially binding. The only thing that Veronica had ever seen him so committed to was finding the keg at a party, and she had no idea what to make of this pod-Logan.
He had driven back to Hearst so that she could fetch her car, and, after practicing her speech a thousand and one times on the drive back to the apartment, she almost felt prepared.
And all of that preparation went out the window the moment she entered the apartment and saw Cliff sitting there with her furious father.
“Did you miss the day of law school that went over lawyer-client confidentiality?” she snapped.
“Veronica Rose, don’t you dare!” Keith exploded. “How could you do this?!”
“I didn’t mean-”
“I asked you! You stood there and lied to me!”
“I didn’t know what to do! I panicked!”
“And drawing up a contract to give the baby to Logan? Was that part of this panic?”
Veronica turned to glare at Cliff, who was attempting to sink into the furniture, before saying, “He wants to take care of it.”
“What does Logan Echolls know about being a father? Did you even think before you signed that thing? You signed your baby over to an alcoholic who gets arrested once every three months! Do you know what that means?”
“He said he’s going to change,” she lamely replied.
“And how often does he tell you that? How many times have I had to listen to you cry because he said he was going to change and he didn’t?” Pacing the length of the room, he demanded, “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I didn’t want to have the stupid abortion that I scheduled anymore than he wanted me to! I was thinking that if he wanted the damn thing so bad, he should have it because I don’t! So stand there and scream at me because I’m so goddamn stupid, but I didn’t know what else to do! You tell me, Dad! You tell me what answer would’ve made you happy!”
Sadly, his anger slowly evaporating, he began, “Veronica-”
“I didn’t want this,” she said tearfully, “and I don’t want to have this baby either, but I can’t…I don’t think I could go through with it, and he wants it so badly…Isn’t it better that Logan has it and it has a chance?”
“Oh, sweetie,” Keith sighed, moving forward and wrapping her up in a hug. As Veronica cried against his chest, he said, “I can help you. I’m a little rusty, but we can take care of it. I’m sure Cliff can help us break the contract-”
“No,” she cut in, pulling back, wiping at her face. “I don’t want to take care of it, Dad. I don’t want this baby, and I don’t want to break the contract.”
“Veronica, think about what you’re doing.”
“I am, and this baby is not going to be raised by me.” With more definitiveness that she felt, she informed him, “This is just Logan’s baby.”
* * *
He sent the check on the first of every month, and on the second, Veronica always sent it back, just like clockwork. Whenever she had to see her obstetrician, Logan came to the appointments, rain or shine, whether he had class or not. He was the one who asked questions about the baby’s development, mostly because he spent most of his free time reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting; when the doctor had asked if they had wanted to know the sex, Logan had leapt at the chance to know while Veronica had simply shrugged, indifferent. Whether or not she was carrying a boy or girl did not affect whether or not she felt something for the child inside of her.
On that day, the “it” inside of her became “she.”
As the summer wore on and she entered her third trimester, her ankles were so swollen that she could barely stand on them; the extra weight had begun to strain her poor back. Most days, she did nothing but sit on the couch simply because it hurt so badly to move that she didn’t want to suffer.
Logan had rented an apartment near the beach and turned the room with a balcony off of it into a nursery; he had brought pictures to a doctor’s appointment to show her that he was living up to his end of the bargain. Despite her assurances that Keith Mars would not maim him if he came to her place, Logan did not press his luck. He tried to give her the option of helping him select a nanny, but she wanted no part of it; the only thing she had done was do the background checks. Eventually he hired a British woman in her late-forties with a sweet smile and a Mary Poppins-esque disposition.
By the end of August with another month ahead of her, Veronica could hardly move due to the pressure on her pelvis. Coupled with her high blood pressure, her doctor decided to induce labor. She had patiently called Logan, explained what was happening, and he had rushed to the hospital despite the fact that there was nothing for him to do.
As she suffered through contractions, she thought of her mother. She hadn’t heard from Lianne Mars in over two years, and, while she had written her off the moment she had stolen the Kane reward money, she wished that she had a mother right then. But even worse, as she felt the baby inside of her fighting to get out, she wondered one day if Logan’s daughter-she couldn’t call the baby her daughter or it would be too real-would think her as selfish and terrible as Veronica thought of her own mother.
The sting of the epidural brought the bliss of numbness, and she closed her eyes as the obstetrician cut into her middle, moving and lifting organs to reach the child buried inside of her. When Veronica heard the shriek of the infant that was being cradled in the blood-slick hands of the obstetrician, she couldn’t help the tear that escaped, her eyes still tightly clenched shut so that she wouldn’t see the baby she had already promised to another.
“Miss Mars, do you want to see her?” one of the nurses queried.
Veronica shook her head before rasping, “Give her to her father.”
* * *
Keith took her home two days later, and Veronica vowed that everything would return to normal now. Even with the pain of the incision still a reminder of what had happened, Veronica went back to school. She had given birth only a week before classes started, but she didn’t care if she returned still carrying baby weight, still walking slowly. None of her friends said anything about what had happened, and Veronica was certain that Mac had threatened Parker within an inch of her life if she asked any questions; Piz, on the other hand, seemed at a complete loss as to what to say to her, and Veronica was fine with that. Silence was better than pathetic attempts at winning her attention.
Once upon a time, Veronica had survived Lilly’s murder, her social ostracism, and her rape by becoming like stone; if you couldn’t feel, you couldn’t hurt. That was the Veronica that had Wallace met that day at Neptune High, the Veronica that Mac had admired during the Purity Test scandal, the Veronica that had been inspired fear and awe amongst her classmates.
The problem, as Veronica was learning, was that she couldn’t go back to being That Veronica. High school was over, Weevil couldn’t intimidate someone to help her, Wallace couldn’t steal a file that would hold the answer; Lilly Kane was four years dead, Duncan Kane was missing in action, Beaver Casablancas had swan-dived off of the rooftop of the Grand, and justice in the form of a bullet had found Aaron Echolls. Bad ass Veronica Mars wasn’t needed anymore; the monsters had been slain and her loved ones were avenged.
As she sat in the Hearst cafeteria, Veronica realized that she didn’t know who the hell she was anymore. She was a college sophomore who had four friends, two of whom were holdovers from high school and the other two were friends only because they lived with the first two; she was a criminology major whose mentor had been arrested for murder; she was a mother to a child she had never seen, whose name she didn’t even know, that was being raised by her ex-boyfriend.
Whoever she was, she wasn’t Veronica Mars anymore.
* * *
Four weeks after the birth, Veronica knew that she was depressed. At first she had found it ironic that she was suffering from post-partum depression when she didn’t even have the baby, but then she realized that maybe it wasn’t as simple as that at all. She had gone to counseling services at the college one day but, when she got there, she didn’t know what to say. Instead, she had just apologized and left.
It was Mac that had suggested the adoption websites. After finding out that she had been switched at birth with Madison, Mac had searched for websites on what it was like to be adopted, and she had said it had helped. So Veronica had found a message board for women who had given up their babies for adoption, but she had been so ashamed to post about how she knew exactly where her baby was and chose not to see her when these women were regretful for having done what they had done.
Once, in high school, she had to read a short story for class about an amputee who sometimes forgot that he was missing a limb because he could still feel it. At the time, she had thought it ridiculous, until she started aching with the phantom pain of her baby. When she would wake up, she would reach for her stomach, the way she had the entire time she was pregnant and would realize once again that the baby was gone. In the middle of the night she would wake up hearing a baby’s cries only to realize that they were only imagined.
It was as if someone had died and Veronica had never even known they were gone.
Six weeks after having the baby, Veronica had woken up once again to the phantom baby cries. Out of irritation, she got into her car to drive to Wal-Mart to buy ice cream, desperate for some sort of comfort food. She was halfway to the checkout when she saw him.
He was standing by a display of diapers, reaching for a package above his head, and she noticed that he looked tired, maybe even as tired as she was. And then she noticed the pink Snugli that was against his broad chest and her heart stopped.
Gripping the package in his hand, he turned and saw her, standing lamely in the center of the floor clutching her carton of Moose Tracks, white as a sheet. He moved slowly, or maybe it just seemed like that, and Veronica realized that she had forgotten how to breathe.
“Hey.”
It took a moment for Logan’s word to register. When they did, she quickly replied, “Hey.”
“Late night craving?”
She nodded. “Diaper emergency?”
“She goes through ‘em like crazy. I thought I had more.”
They stood there awkwardly, neither knowing what to say, when the pink Snugli made the decision for them by beginning to fuss. Immediately, Logan began to shush her, whispering nonsense words and bouncing a bit, and Veronica could hardly believe that this man was the Logan Echolls she had known. It took only a minute for the Snugli to stop crying, and Veronica didn’t even realize that a lump had risen in her throat until she tried to speak.
“You’re-”She swallowed. “You’re good with her.”
He smiled a bit wanly. “You should’ve seen me the first week. I was a mess.”
“Right.” Shifting uncomfortably, she opened her mouth to say that she was leaving but instead shocked herself by asking, “What’s her name?”
“Margaret Lynn Echolls. Maggie, for short.”
She attempted a smile. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Thanks.”
Little Maggie shifted on his chest, and before she could stop herself, Veronica reached a hand out. When she realized what she was doing, she began to draw it back; she didn’t have a right to touch her.
“I should go,” she decided.
“Veronica-”
“You’re doing a good job with her,” she mumbled, trying to fight back the tears that were coming. “I’m proud of you. You’re a good dad.”
Moving into her path of flight, Logan asked, “Do you want to hold her?”
Her eyes went wide. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Logan, please, I can’t,” she practically pleaded.
Purposefully, Logan peeled back the pink fabric that surrounded Maggie, and, for the first time Veronica saw her daughter. She was just as pink as the blanket with a tuft of blond hair that Veronica recognized from her own baby pictures. Her features were small and dainty, but she saw Logan in them, her bow mouth was pursed in sleep.
“This is our daughter,” Logan softly said. “Her name is Maggie. And it’s okay if you’re scared but whenever you’re ready, we’ll be here.”
And with that, Veronica broke down.
In sadness and shame in herself, she began to sob in a way that never had before, and she cried even harder when Logan used his free arm to pull her against his chest, the chest that their daughter was also cradled against, and reassured her, “It’s okay. Everything will be alright.”
* * *
It took her a week to work up the courage to go to his apartment and an hour once she got there to actually go inside the building. When she finally knocked on his door, she was afraid she would pass out during the wait, and then, when he did open the door, she was certain she was going to.
With a smile, he quipped, “The last time I bought cookies, your other troop members wore much sexier outfits.”
Ignoring the joke, she simply stated, “I’d like to see her.”
Logan nodded, moving to let her pass, and Veronica blinked in surprise at the bright, sunny apartment. It was so contrary to everything Logan was that she couldn’t believe that he actually lived there. Coupled with the baby blanket on the floor along with rattles and toys, she was certain she had stepped into a parallel universe.
Maggie’s room was painted yellow with flowers on the walls. Already she had an overflowing toy chest as well as a full bookshelf, and it appeared as if Logan had bought every baby accessory that had ever been made. A rocking chair sat by the doors to the balcony, and the beautifully-carved crib occupied one side of the room. Veronica watched the easy way that Logan picked her up, and Veronica smiled at the onesie that she was wearing, so dainty that she couldn’t imagine Logan buying it. Maggie was awake, her eyes blinking, and she made no fuss as Logan handed her over to Veronica.
Her skin was softer than anything Veronica had ever felt, and she gently stroked the fuzz on her head. She smelled of powder and a smell that could only be classified as baby, and Veronica could not believe that this little person had grown inside of her.
The entire time she was pregnant, Veronica had thought her to be a burden, a cross to bear, the albatross around her neck. But now, as she stared into the tiny, judgment-free face of her daughter, she could not imagine how she had ever not wanted this baby.
“Hi,” she said, stroking her cheek. “I’m Veronica. I’m…I’m your mom.”
Logan, who was leaning against the door, his arms across his chest, spoke up, “Yeah, Mags, you remember her. She’s the one I told you about.”
“You told her about me?” Veronica asked, startled.
Logan steadily returned her gaze, a smile playing at his lips. “I figured you’d show up eventually, and I wanted her to know you when you did.”
“What made you think I’d show up?”
His smile now full blown, he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “You’re Veronica Mars.”
Pressing a kiss to the top of Maggie’s head, she asked, “Do you think I could come by and see her, you know, like visitation?”
“No.”
“No?” she parroted, stunned.
“No,” he repeated, moving away from the door. “You don’t get visitation.”
“Logan-”
“You’re her mother; whenever you want to see her, you can see her. You don’t need my permission for that.”
“You’re just going to let me off the hook, just like that?”
He shrugged. “It’s this new thing I’m trying. My therapist thinks I carry too many grudges and truthfully, I don’t want you to be one of those.” Tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, he informed her, “I was never angry at you, Veronica; I knew you were scared. And I learned a long time ago that patience with you pays off a lot more than trying to push you into something you’re not ready for. I knew that when you were ready, you’d come.”
“I’m sorry.”
Inclining his head, Logan assured her, “I know.”
The kiss was sweet and lingering, and Veronica felt the weight lift off of her heart at the pressure of his mouth against hers. When he pulled away, he grinned in a way that she hadn’t seen since before Lilly had died and declared, “We’ll be okay.”
For the first time in a long time, Veronica truly believed him.