The weirdest thing I've ever found about Veronica Mars is that we never see Veronica trying to finish her case with the Mannings. Don't get me wrong- getting arrested put a damper on things, but we all know that Veronica Mars, Batman of Neptune, doesn't give up that easily. So I have a headcanon that she's working on that case the whole time, on the back burner, just waiting for the day she can finally put Meg's ghost to rest by getting the justice she and her sisters had deserved from someone, but got too late.
And also, I love a fic that puts all the usual characters in someone else's POV. So, here, Lilly Kane (the 2nd) comes back to Neptune as a teenager, and starts to have a look around.
Lilly Kane is good with ghosts.
After all, she was named for one.
But it's more than just that, really. Ghosts seemed to have followed her through life from the moment of her birth. They probably will continue to follow her even when she is a ghost herself.
It's never bothered her much, really. It's odd: it probably should bother her. The way every part of who she is seems wrapped up in the various dead. The way people's eyes will suddenly curtain and she knows they are no longer seeing her, but seeing one of the many ghosts that follow in her wake. But maybe growing up with ghosts as her norm means it doesn't bother her. Or maybe it is because she inherited some of her mother's legendary goodness.
That's what people always first mention when she asks about Meg Manning. She was good. To be honest, Lilly didn't know much more about her mother beyond that until she was quite a bit older. She knew facts, of course; her father, a teen raising a baby on his own in a foreign country, on the run, with no real support, had few others to talk to besides his own daughter. And her dad told many stories.
Most of them were about the original Lilly Kane. Her aunt. Or, rather, one of her aunts. Her dead aunt. Aunt Lilly. The Fabulous Four were a prime feature of bedtime stories. Probably not typical bedtime fodder for a child: the reruns of her father's interrupted youth, but Lilly often realizes that her father didn't really know what he was doing most of the time, and he wanted to talk about his friends, his family, to someone, and his daughter needed bedtime stories either way...
She thinks, whether or not her bedtime stories were typical, her dad did a pretty good job with her regardless.
But not much was known to her about her mother; this woman who died when she was born, barely able to hold on long enough for Lilly to be born after a horrific bus accident, this woman who wanted Lilly far far away from her grandparents' influence.
Facts. She had facts. But the essence of who her mother was always alluded her. Perhaps she didn't ask the right questions. Her father never seemed to understand what more she was looking for when she did, at least.
The ghost of Meg Manning was one that followed Lilly, but she never had much hope of connecting with her.
But then they arrived in Neptune. The case against her father was dropped in light of the child abuse conviction against the Mannings.
Apparently, her Aunt Veronica wasn't very good at letting things go, even if it did take a decade and a half to get the results she wanted.
Oddly enough, she often felt a better connection to this woman than her own mother. Perhaps it was because between the two, she actually spent more time with Aunt Veronica than her deceased mother. After all, it was Aunt Veronica who got Lilly and her father out of the country, while her mother, to her knowledge, had never even held Lilly. Maybe it was because her father's stories contained Veronica more frequently than Meg. After all, Veronica seemed to be a main character in the stories proceeding Aunt Lilly's death, and was at minimum working in the background in any other stories where she was not already a starring character. Even stories about Meg contained Veronica- the story of how her parents first started dating had Veronica, the story of why her parent's relationship ended contained Veronica.
Maybe it was because, aside from the fact that her mother gave birth to her, Aunt Veronica was the one who got her away. Lilly wasn't stupid, and Lilly was curious. And, above all, Lilly's father kept a journal.
That was an interesting discovery one day. Finding her father's journal brought a lot of information to light. Including why Meg wanted baby Lilly so far from the Mannings. Lilly was not stupid, but she was a little afraid. And Aunt Veronica got her away from the bad people.
Lilly felt guilty for it sometimes. This feeling of connection that she had with a woman she hadn't seen since she was a newborn, a feeling she didn't have with her own mother. After all, out of all the people Lilly had never met or couldn't remember, shouldn't it be her mother Lilly felt this for?
It probably didn't help that her father's journal contained much more information on Veronica than Meg. Realizing your father was kind of hung up on your Aunt was strange, but these people were all pretty distant figures to Lilly's mind. Almost more like characters in a story than real life beings. Even her father became someone different in these tales: he was Duncan Kane rather than Daddy.
The first time Lilly had ever really seen one of her ghosts was the first time she met her Grandmother Celeste. She knew her father loved this woman, knew how her father felt the complicated relationship with his own mother keenly. She also knew, thanks to sneaking peaks at her father's journal, that this woman had never wanted her.
Needless to say, they did not hit it off.
But sometimes, Lilly would catch Celeste's eyes becoming unfocused, distant- even as they remained locked on her. Sometimes her father would call out her name and her grandmother would start, as if not used to hearing that name uttered.
That was how Lilly first saw her Aunt Lilly's ghost- in the eyes of her Grandmother. Aunt Lilly could also be found in the way Celeste would sometimes flinch at Lilly's name, or in Celeste's silence, and maybe especially in her disapproval.
Sometimes Lilly would purposefully goad her father into shouting her name in his sternest voice, just to see how her Grandmother would twitch.
Maybe she hadn't inherited her mother's goodness after all.
Lilly hadn't expected to see her Aunt Lilly's ghost hanging around a Mexican American biker gang leader.
She found her Aunt Lilly in a tattoo on the man's side, only revealed by summer muscle shirts if you look at just the right angle. She finds her Aunt Lilly sometimes in how his eyes will widen a moment before flaring back down when he first sees Lilly or when she says something particularly teenager-y. What she really hadn't expected was how she found her Aunt Lilly in his broken chuckle when he first heard her laugh full-out.
Weevil, as he told her to call him, as everyone seemed to call him (why, no one had explained to Lilly yet, but she felt it might be a story she'd never convince them to tell), would often shoot a look at her Aunt whenever Lilly spotted Aunt Lilly's ghost around him. She only ever saw Weevil around her Aunt; he seemed to only be interested in associating with her Aunt, throwing sarcastic quips with biting edge to everyone else, crossing his arms and tensing, eyes narrowing and prepped for a fight, but with Lilly's Aunt he was softly chuckling and trading equally sarcastic barbs (but these, without the poison) with her.
And the glances they would exchange were sometimes full of Aunt Lilly.
Lilly never saw a trace of her Aunt Lilly's ghost in Mr. Fennel. She always called him Mr. Fennel since she first met him at school where he was a teacher. She wasn't related to him, he was never referred to as her Uncle by anyone, but he always seemed to be around her Aunt.
Maybe that was what had thrown her off- this was the man who her Aunt called her "BFF" in her quirky moments and her "best friend" when she was serious. He called her the same in return. Everyone around her Aunt seemed to have the ghost of her Aunt Lilly hanging around somewhere, but there was never a trace of her with Mr. Fennel.
She found out that he had only met her Aunt after Aunt Lilly had been killed, and it made more sense.
Lilly, however, did find her mother's ghost sometimes in the way Mr. Fennel would look at her. It was different from how other people looked at her when they saw her ghosts- Mr. Fennel's gaze would sharpen, as if trying to concentrate very hard on separating Lilly Kane from ghost, on seeing exactly where each began and ended. He'd then, like many others, shoot a quick look to her Aunt.
Everyone always seemed to look at her Aunt when they saw one of Lilly's ghosts.
She found the ghost of her mother everywhere when she saw her Aunt Lizzie. It always felt weird to call Aunt Lizzie her aunt, since she had only seen her once, and it had been awkward in the extreme.
And her father's journal never mentioned Aunt Lizzie.
But one day her father had taken her to a restaurant and said he'd introduce her to her Aunt Lizzie who had wanted to meet Lilly.
Aunt Lizzie was her mother's sister.
Aunt Lizzie was very strange, Lilly thought, but then, she supposed growing up with the Mannings would've done that to anyone. She knows she also has an Aunt Grace, but no one has talked about bringing Lilly to meet her.
Her mother's ghost was everywhere with Aunt Lizzie. In fact, Lilly finally understood what others saw when they looked at her, because she could barely see Aunt Lizzie past her mother's ghost.
Aunt Lizzie didn't seem to see Lilly past her mother's ghost either. Meg Manning filled the restaurant like a fog.
Her grandfather Jake had moved out of Neptune, but would come back periodically to see his son and Lilly.
He always brought a gift with him, her Grandfather. It was in these gifts that Lilly most easily saw her Aunt's ghost.
These were things Aunt Lilly would've wanted- flashy clothing, expensive purses, sparkling jewelry, a sort of style that Lilly thought would be labeled "Wild Heiress."
Lilly personally didn't care much for them, but she accepted gratefully and saw her Aunt's ghost in the tears that would gather in the corner of her Grandfather's eyes.
He never let them fall, though. And her Aunt Lilly's ghost would vanish then, leaving no ghosts, but a sort of bitterness and sense of failure.
Maybe Aunt Lilly's ghost wouldn't stand for bitterness or failure the same as she wouldn't stand for it in life.
The woman who sat in the front of the office her Aunt worked at was introduced to her as Mac. Mac seemed very cool to Lilly- she kept her hair short and styled, and she had a dry sense of humor that worked well with Lilly's Aunt's sarcasm. More than that, Mac was clever. Lilly thought Mac just might be one of the few people as clever as her Aunt, and they were few and far between. Oftentimes, Lilly would drop by the office after school unexpectedly and Mac would always be there, even if Lilly's Aunt was out working.
Lilly admired Mac. But she had first thought she'd be kind of like Mr. Fennel- she thought she'd have to look hard, but she might find a trace of her mother's ghost there.
She didn't.
Maybe that's why she liked Mac so much- she was just Mac, no ghosts at all.
But Mac would still share those looks with her Aunt like everyone else did once in awhile.
It took her a long time to meet her Uncle Logan. Not because she didn't want to, or her father didn't want to, but because Uncle Logan was in the Navy and flying planes when she came home, and wouldn't be back for a couple of months.
Her Aunt kept a countdown that she didn't share with anyone else, but she always knew exactly how many days were left whenever someone asked.
When he finally arrived, Lilly was prepared. She was prepared for the ghosts, told that her Uncle Logan had known both her Aunt Lilly and her mother. She was ready for her Uncle's eyes to glaze over every once in a while; she saw nothing unusual in how he'd always look towards her Aunt afterwards (like everyone, even her father, seemed to), and the sight of her would clear his eyes after a breath or two.
She wasn't surprised when she found Aunt Lilly's ghost in the corner of her Uncle's smiles, or in the watery chuckle he gave when she first met him, or in the way he'd give an extremely dry and somehow satisfied chuckle whenever she got on her Dad's nerves.
She wasn't even surprised to see her mother's ghost in how he'd sigh softly with a strange little smile when Lilly told him she liked acting, or how he'd share a few stories here and there of Meg Manning, or in the Neptune High yearbook he'd snuck into her backpack one day.
But what did surprise her was that there was a third ghost around her Uncle Logan. She wasn't sure who it was, she wasn't sure where this ghost came from or why it followed Lilly. She found it in how her Uncle sometimes gave a pained smirk at her more naive statements, or the way he seemed to have to blink a few extra times whenever she left her long blonde hair down and it swung out around her in what almost was a cloud.
Lilly felt a bit uncomfortable with this ghost. She was unfamiliar with it.
She found out who the third ghost was thanks to Mr. Mars. Mr. Mars was her Aunt's father, but her father always called him Mr. Mars and so did Uncle Logan and Mr. Fennel and Mac, so she did as well. Her Aunt called him dad and constantly asked him for a pony.
Lilly found it funny and began to ask her father for the same thing. Of course, it lost some of the humor when she realized her father probably could get her a pony while it was unlikely Mr. Mars ever would've been able to get one for her Aunt.
Lilly found some of that stuff hard to wrap her head around.
But Mr. Mars helped her figure out who the third ghost was.
She found her Aunt Lilly's ghost in the first minute when Mr. Mars saw her. After that, her Aunt Lilly's ghost never really came up again around her Aunt's father.
But that third ghost did.
She was in the way Mr. Mars would chuckle with a bit of a lump in his throat at any reminder of Lilly's age and youth. She was in his wince whenever colleges or future careers were brought up in reference to Lilly's future. She was in how Mr. Mars stared for a good two minutes at Lilly when she showed him her pretty pink formal dress for an upcoming dance.
Lilly knew who the third ghost was.
Her Aunt Veronica. Now there was a ghost. A living woman who seemed to have been born from fire and a wielder of the flame herself. She hadn't always been that way; Lilly knew from her father's journal and some things that the adults said when they thought she wasn't listening and from the pictures in Mr. Mars's house and the photographs of the Fabulous Four her father had been so thrilled to get back when they were no longer on the run.
Aunt Veronica was not the woman she used to be. She was someone else now, but the old Veronica's ghost followed Lilly.
Sometimes Lilly wondered if her father was still under the impression the old Veronica was still alive, just hiding under this new exterior; he wasn't very good at spotting Lilly's ghosts (she sometimes was grateful for that). Her Uncle Logan seemed to have a better grasp of the concept that there may be some similarities between the old and new, it would be a very big mistake to judge the new Veronica by the old one's measure. But, then again, Uncle Logan was head-over-heels obnoxiously in love with this version of her Aunt- this woman who sought out the truth and then wanted blood for it. Lilly found it simultaneously kind of gross and the sweetest thing ever. Uncle Logan and Aunt Veronica made sense in Lilly's world view, but it was made sort of complicated whenever they tried to fit her father into the group. Maybe they were only meant to work in even numbers- in a group of four or a pair of two. A third threw off the balance of friendship and ease. Or maybe there was just too much history that was left alone for too long. It had been almost fifteen years since the three had been in the same room or in any contact at all. Her Aunt and Uncle had had some sort of strange ("epic" her Uncle told her once with a teasing grin, her Aunt had smacked him on the shoulder with an eyeroll that prompted him to look at her with the mushiest eyes Lilly had ever seen) romance story. Her father had raised her. She once Googled her Aunt's name for fun and saw a long list of crimes she'd solved and an awful lot on how her Aunt Veronica had solved the murder of her Aunt Lilly by accusing the father of her Uncle Logan (and that wasn't even touching on the stuff she'd found on her Uncle Logan- including an interview where he'd talked about how his father had been abusive).
Family was complicated.
The adults thought they hid the more violent and darker aspects of their lives and living in Neptune well, but Lilly wasn't stupid and her father kept a journal.
Sometimes she'd picture her Aunt Veronica as she used to be, as Lilly saw her in some of her Dad's old pictures- the long blonde hair, the innocent trust, the pretty pink Prom dress. But this version of her Aunt was always blocked out by a vision of Veronica Mars- tough, sassy, dark makeup, and boots made to walk all over anyone who got in her way, with a snarl for a smile as she eyed up her prey. Once Lilly had a dream of her Aunt painting herself with the blood of her enemies.
Oddly enough, Lilly didn't find it that disturbing.
She knew if Aunt Veronica was with you, she was with you, and she'd heard a whispered conversation once that told her that her Aunt was pretty irrevocably on her side.
"You've got to be kidding me," she'd hissed at Lilly's father, obviously thinking Lilly was still out on the patio with everyone else. "No."
"Come on, Veronica," her father had tried to cajole, "I just need you to help me with this- a favor."
"Duncan," Lilly had never heard a voice with as much steel in it as her Aunt's, "Let me make something clear to you- I promised Meg. I promised her the last time I saw her before she died, I would make sure that her baby would be safe and protected. I promised her, my friend. I thought she was the last decent person at Neptune, and I was pretty close to right. And I will do whatever it takes to keep that promise to her, even if it includes throwing you under the bus. This idea for Kane software-"
Lilly couldn't hear anything after that, since she'd heard Mr. Fennel start to come inside as well, but she'd caught some words like "Wiedman" "Fitzpatricks" and "investors" so she was pretty sure that they were discussing some sort of plan her father had come up with for his company (it was her grandfather's company, really, but her father had gotten it when they came back).
Either way, Lilly noticed as the months passed on, whatever plan her father had cooked up, had evidently been abandoned at her Aunt's insisting.
Aunt Veronica seemed to be like Uncle Logan- she saw all three of the ghosts around Lilly.
Lilly found her Aunt Lilly in some of Aunt Veronica's jokes, in the way she liked to wear red satin, in her ability to take people down with a quip or two.
Lilly found her mother in Aunt Veronica's mercy, in the way (rare as it was) she was able to let some things go and in the photographs her Aunt Veronica had pulled out as soon as Lilly came to visit- all of them containing her mother, and the stories her Aunt would tell. Lilly found her mother's ghost as her Aunt Veronica led her closer to an understanding of her mother's essence. Maybe it was because Aunt Veronica had lost her mother too, maybe that had enabled her to understand Lilly's questions when her father couldn't. Maybe it was a girl thing.
Maybe it was an Aunt Veronica thing.
(There seemed to be a lot of "Aunt Veronica things.")
Lilly found her Aunt Veronica had the strangest reaction to seeing the ghost of her old self, though. It seemed to worry her, and she always made sure Lilly had a can of pepper spray and she taught Lilly a few defense moves. Aunt Veronica would get sad seeing her old ghost, and then shake her head with a wistful smile. Lilly found her Aunt's old ghost in the way Veronica Mars would brush Lilly Kane's hair for her sometimes when she asked for help with a hairstyle and in the way her Aunt seemed to wince at white dresses.
Yes, Lilly Kane was surrounded by ghosts, and she would keep looking until she found them all and knew their names.
Maybe she had inherited something from her Aunt Veronica as well.