A/N: This was banging around in my head, so I figured getting it out here would be the best way to stop it from distracting me from Escaping Neptune. I could really use feedback on this one. It's big on the description, which is the opposite of my usual dialogue-heavy stuff. Please let me know what you think, especially if you read Escaping, because I want to see what works better.

Content note: This takes place during 2.1 (Normal is the Watchword). It's Logan(\)Veronica (aka...angsty, not togetherness.)

After she'd gotten on the bus, he had had enough. He couldn't help thinking how ridiculous it was that their two second encounter had affected him so adversely. He was completely over her after all, right? But he couldn't stop the playback running in his mind. Now, he'd fully convinced himself that she had practically thrown herself at him, right in front of her boyfriend.

She should have just screamed in Duncan's face that she was obviously using him to get at Logan. Because no way could she possibly want Duncan fucking Kane over Logan Echolls. No way could she want a stable, steady, sweet, caring, rich, popular, gorgeous, normal boyfriend instead of the pathetic excuse of a human being staring back at him in the mirror.

"Damn it!" Logan cursed the reality seeping into his brain and he launched the now empty bottle of Jack Daniels into the wall. He decided to get his mind off of Veronica the easiest way he could imagine. Kendall Casablancas was the opposite of Veronica. Tall, brunette, curvaceous, and as overtly sexual as they come. If he was completely honest, the woman was like Vegas. Loosest slots in town.

When they'd each gotten what they wanted out of the afternoon rendezvous, she straightened her clothes, and reapplied her makeup. He walked out without so much as a goodbye. After a warm shower in his own home, Logan felt a sense of ease flowing over him. That ease lasted as long as it took him to walk from his bathroom to his bedroom where he saw the bracelet. SHE'd left the black leather band on his desk during a heavy make-out session a couple months ago. The snaps kept rubbing against his back, his neck, his cheek. She was worried it'd scratch him, so she took it off and tossed it over her shoulder, never removing her lips from his. Where it landed, there it still lay.

Logan froze where he stood, staring at the bracelet, willing it to grow legs and remove itself from all existence. When he realized a tear had worked its way out of his eye and down his cheek, he brushed it away resolutely. He changed into jeans and a hooded sweatshirt and evacuated the room.

He turned on the television while he sought out the most violent video game he could find. Some reporter was blathering on about some tragic circumstance or another. He quickly flipped the set to the Xbox setting and settled himself into the couch for some mind-numbing entertainment.

Twenty minutes had gone by when his thirst finally won out over his determination to not leave the spot he was in. Logan padded into the kitchen and grabbed an orange juice container out of the fridge. He drank straight from the carton as he noticed his cell phone on the counter. He glanced at the screen to find the notice that he had messages. Eight voice messages and nineteen texts was a lot. Even for Logan Echolls.

Curiosity won out and he opened it up to look at the list of missed calls. Enbom, Luke, Madison, Shelly, Sean…a plethora of 09er voice mails always meant the same thing. Party. He opted to skip them and went straight to the texts for a location. After the fourth 'OMG! Did U Hear?!' he became annoyed. Some new couple probably. He mused on the fact that his friends really were shallow and they all lacked lives of their own to gossip about.

He noted that one of the texts from Enbom had video attached and opened it, expecting to see teenage debauchery at its finest. The grainy, shaky video of smoke rising from a cliff caught him off guard. And there it was. The yellow school bus sinking into the ocean. Panicked voices yelled frantically in the background. A closer voice distinctly crying out that they're all dead. Logan's jaw dropped in confusion. Another text finally informed him that it was indeed the Neptune Journalism class field trip.

He always found it absurdly cliché to say one's heart stopped when terror set in upon them. But all the same, his heart had in fact stopped. He couldn't breathe. He steadied himself by grabbing the counter. Images flooded his brain on rapid fire. Images of her. Of them. Of his only attachment left. When he finally gained some composure, the reporter's words about tragedy came back to him. He couldn't get to the television fast enough. As he watched reporters asking questions about the rescue efforts, his phone fell from his hand onto the sofa.

One survivor. One. And they aren't expected to last through the night. One. Survivor. He didn't remember falling to his knees, but the next thing he knew, he was vomiting the entire contents of his stomach onto the Persian rug. At some point in the weeks afterward, he would vaguely remember throwing that rug into the trash can in the back yard.

He found himself sitting on the edge of his bed. His elbows rested on his knees and his hands clung desperately to a black leather bracelet. Tears flowed in silent streams down his cheeks. He needed to know. He needed to make the calls to find out. He NEEDED to know who it was. Who had survived?

He couldn't tell if she was dead. He'd feel it, right? But all of his closest friends were on that bus. If only one survived, he needed to know who. What if the survivor wasn't even one of his friends? Then he'd officially lost everyone.

He had ignored all phone calls. He couldn't handle this. Couldn't handle knowing his last reason for living was probably gone. It was times like these that he hated his mother for leaving him. Alone. It was at the moment he was ready to start screaming that he finally heard it. Like a salve on his shattered heart.

The only person in his phone with a special ringtone. Of course, he hadn't changed it. It was the last ounce of hope he had left that he'd hear that ringtone again. She'd never understood why her ringtone was about bells ringing and he'd always kept the secret. She was the Sarah Brown to his Sky Masterson. The good girl who fell for the Bad Boy. But, admitting that would be admitting he was a sap who loved cheesy musicals like Guys and Dolls.

He leapt across his room, out the door, and down the stairs to the phone he'd left on the couch. He had opened it to answer before he even thought about what this could mean. That's the moment he realized that her home phone number flashed at him. It could be her dad telling him she was gone. He was rendered completely speechless, silently praying for her voice to tell him it was all just a nightmare. He stared at the backyard through the window, hoping for the water in the pool to calm him even a fraction as much as the ocean would have. When had it become dark outside? He held the phone to his ear like a lifeline, waiting for the other end to make the first move.

"Logan?" Her tiny, broken voice finally rang out. That's the moment he felt his heart beat again. A strangled sob involuntarily made its way from his throat. He breathed as deeply as he could to control himself. He was Logan Echolls after all. "I don't know what you've heard…I don't even know why I'm calling you. I just…I wanted to make sure you knew that we're okay. We weren't on the bus." He could tell she had been crying. That she probably still was. "Duncan told me Dick couldn't get a hold of you. That you weren't answering your phone. So, I figured maybe, you didn't know what was going on. Or…" She never added that she feared he had heard and was torturing himself with that fact. Her voice died out. The last ounce of strength she had to even dial him was now gone. And he still hadn't even spoken.

"We?" He finally asked. Anyone else would have been confused, but not Veronica.

"Duncan, Dick, Beaver, and I were all riding separately." She knew he wouldn't care about anyone else's whereabouts. "But…Meg…" She attempted between soft whimpers.

"Are you okay, Veronica?" He attempted. "Do you need me to…" His voice cracked and he failed to finish the sentence. She didn't need him for anything. She had Duncan. And her dad. And Wallace. "Never mind. I'll see you at school."

"Thank you." She answered quietly. "For the offer." In the background he heard someone ask her who she was talking to. Her muffled 'Just a friend' told him she'd pressed the phone to her shoulder. It was the comfort he'd needed and he hung up. He sat down on the couch and flipped the screen back to his game. Her bracelet poked him uncomfortably through the pocket of his jeans, but he didn't move it until he was back in his room a couple of hours later. Right back to its position on his desk.

-Fin-

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