a/n: My best friend in the world and I have a tradition where she prompts me with a song and gets a story for her birthday. The fandom and nature of the story are up to me and based on inspiration. She prompted me with "Split Stones" by Maggie Rogers, and this story is the result. We've had a few peeks, and probably dozens of chapters of fanfic, about what happened that led Veronica to go to Stanford, and what happened to those she left behind in Neptune. This is another one in that collection. Imagine my surprise when the first voice that landed on the page was Keith Mars. While I adore him, I've never thought about trying to write inside his head. I hope this stands as a possible fill in for the blanks we've got. It's compliant with what was planned for season 4 (her FBI internship), the movie, and the books - though it's not particularly relevant to a lot of that because it's an immediate glance sort of thing.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Veronica Mars kingdom, I just admire it from afar.
all I ever wanted was to get rid of it
She's never really known she's a heartbreaker, this little girl he's spent the better part of his life loving. She may have her mother's blonde hair and blue eyes, Lianne's smaller stature, but everything else is more nurture than nature. It's the nurturing he's done and all his failures with her that make her dangerous.
He sees it in her friends after she's gone. He sees Wallace all the time because of Alicia, and the loss is clearly reflected him the boy's face, the way he asks. No, Keith says, she'll call when she's settled. She finally snapped somehow, he still doesn't entirely know details, and decided to cancel her deferment at Stanford.
It wasn't Lianne's features that pried the last of his daddy vice grip off her as much as the tears in her eyes, the way she begged for his help getting the financial stuff under control so she could go north. It broke his heart, seeing all the reasons she'd gone to Hurst blow up in her face at the same time. He didn't even have details, didn't need them when she came back from her FBI internship and begged. What was he supposed to do? There is danger in her tears and he sank.
But he's had to stay behind to see the wreckage and it's not pretty.
He's long been torn between knowing how much Logan cares for his daughter and wanting her to part ways with the troubled mess of a kid. He's seen Logan worry, has been there worrying with him, has heard them fight in quiet tones when they think he's not listening and they don't want him to intervene. There's real passion there and it terrifies him because he can spot the truth from sixty paces: Logan isn't all that stable, even though he's trying to be, and he's got too much in his recent past to be anything resembling okay. He needs time, and he may not ever get through it all. Keith feels for the kid, really, but it's not something he wants his daughter tangled up with, either.
Veronica, for all her gritty resilience, needs stability even as she's bored by it.
Case in point is Stosh, the very nice boy she's been dating. He's entertaining, sure, polite and somewhat well-groomed. Okay, clean at least, if not well-groomed in the way most of the boys her age tend to be. But there's some kind of spark missing. He's never heard them argue. He doesn't think Stosh actually knows all that much about her, or he'd stop staring like she's awesome and start being a little concerned at key moments.
Boredom isn't what drove her to leave, though. Something else happened, and he's sure Logan is a big part of it. Something scared her, and he honestly doesn't even want to know what that something might have been. He can only be glad she's gone, can only hope she's safe.
Maybe with time, whatever fractures are there will heal.
But he still misses her. Phone calls aren't enough and he can't get up to Stanford often enough. She's his little girl and she's been there for the last nineteen years, dogging his steps in a way that was endearing and not uncomfortable. Without her to come home to, or to be accountable to, he finds himself stumbling a bit, staying at work too late and sleeping through the weekend in a way a grown man shouldn't.
Watching her friends, who sort of fill in her gaps as well as they can because they have needs of their own, he isn't sure there is enough. She left a mighty big hole when she went. Staying in touch with him doesn't help them, and it only reminds him of what he's missing.
It's the end of an era. They're not the easiest things to deal with.
He knows a whole mess of shit happened in that last semester, because it took the better part of high school for her to start telling him these things. Honestly, he didn't want to know most of it. Of course, he didn't know he didn't want to know until he knew.
When she leaves, Wallace doesn't ask for details because he probably wouldn't get them anyway. It'd be a waste of his breath to ask and, given the things he does know about her, he isn't sure he could handle the truth. How she doesn't crumble, he'll never know. That girl is a little bit of a trainwreck and probably always will be. She may be an awesome trainwreck, and he may love her like he's never loved another (maybe a sister, just to be clear), but that doesn't mean 'wreck' isn't part of the equation.
The teacher who killed the dean, the sex tape, the stuff with the secret society, the complication of Logan and the way she can't seem to shake it, the sexual assaults when he knows she's been through something similar in the past – those are just the things he knows. It'd be enough to break anyone, to make them run away. Hell, he ran to Chicago (and back) for less.
But they were supposed to do college together. They were doing college together and it was the best. His basketball games and her… doing weird detectivey things that involved concerts and sororities and guys who have test keys… maybe it's good she left so she could get a normal hobby, but damn, he's not that thrilled she went back on the promises that were implied. It was the two of them, plus Mac most of the time, who could do everything and she's gone and now the everything feels a little empty.
Not to mention his roommate.
Piz drinks too much. He doesn't really look at other girls yet, and he has that glazed-over, walking-wounded look too often. It's pathetic and not the first time Wallace has seen someone like that on Veronica's account. Usually it's 'cause she just sold them up the river, but sometimes it's not. This time it's not.
She didn't even call Piz. Piz called her and found out her number was disconnected. He and Mac were sworn to secrecy about those digits with no doubt she'd collect if she had to.
Wallace knows she has her reasons, and he's glad she's safe after all she's done for him. But a best marshmallow sidekick isn't easy to replace.
They were finally getting somewhere. It kind of sucks that he thinks about it constantly because Wallace is his roommate and the second degree of separation from her. Only two steps from you to the girl who broke your heart isn't nearly enough of a buffer. Plus, he knows she and Wallace are still in touch. It's the apologetic look on Wallace's face when his phone rings sometimes, or the way Mac just stops talking when he walks into a room.
And it's not just because she's a hot blonde. He means, he knows she's way out of his league and he was probably lucky to get the girl for as long as he did. What does he have to offer her? Not a whole lot. That's why he's not really surprised it's going down like this. Genuine badass girls need stupid, thug punching boyfriends, guys who aren't afraid to rough someone up to defend their honor. For all the things Veronica is and isn't, she's honorable. Or at least, he thought she was until she up and disappeared.
The thing is, though, he feels a little better when he sees Logan around because she didn't leave him for Logan and Logan is a hot mess. It's not subtle. It makes Piz feel slightly better that at least neither of them got the girl.
He doesn't know how she could just leave, though. In more bitter moments, read especially drunk moments, he hopes she can really feel it. He hopes she's lonely. Then he hates himself for hoping she's hurting.
Just, God, he wants to talk to her and tell her they could've had it all and really been happy. He could see them, in the future, happy and clear. Once they got away from her messy ex, really, everything would've been fine. He probably would've fallen in love with her.
(Who is he kidding with the past and future tense there?)
He probably already did and that's why this sucks as much as it does. If she can walk away without a word, then she doesn't feel the same way and she never did. Then he starts thinking she was playing him, because her connection to Logan is so obviously over against her will, and it makes him angry.
Then he has to drink to calm down. It's probably not the best coping mechanism and he'll stop doing it eventually, but for now while everything, including his roommate, reminds him of her and how she walked away like nothing here matters to her, it'll do.
It doesn't matter anymore.
He knew it was going to be like this. He broke up with her because it would be a 'tough, survivable amount of pain now,' but that isn't how it happened. On one hand, he can survive just about anything because he kind of already has. On the other hand, she was his motivation. Winning her back, getting and keeping her attention by pulling her pigtails like they were in kindergarten again, having her beside him as they both moved forward – those were the goals. It was never a game. He wasn't trying to fake her out.
He didn't think she would leave.
Not that he thought she would stay because of him, exactly. No, he was banking on the others to keep her around, which was probably unfair. He just wants someone to stick around, to make him feel like he matters at all. Right now, he doesn't feel that way.
No one would know, really, if he disappeared. She left fractures, pebbles where there once were stones, broken things. He wouldn't even leave a shadow these days and he knows it.
On top of that, on top of the heavier, existential crisis is the very real fact that he just misses her. Even if he was terrified she was too reckless, overestimated her own ability not to get hurt, too driven to find the truth at any cost – there were good things, too. Her cold feet tucked against his calves in bed, the way she would unabashedly steal food off his plate after hers was gone, her lips moving in time with familiar dialogue during the centennial viewing of the same movie – and him watching her like she was the single best thing in his life. Because she was. She always was. She has been for a long time.
In the part of his brain he didn't let wander freely very often because it only ever bit him in the ass, he imagined them getting older with those same patterns, bouncing through days and weeks and months and years like all they really needed, at the heart of it, was each other. He didn't imagine it with her constantly in danger, necessarily, but a time when she was trained to carry a weapon for her own protection and he wasn't so lost all the time. He can't stay at the Grand forever, because even without the illegitimate child burden on his money it's disappearing too fast, and he figures he would've bought a house on the beach. He knows she's not totally solid on the concept of marriage, but she also likes pretty things sometimes and he probably would've bought her a sparkly, visible promise that he'd love her forever because she stayed and gave his life some meaning.
That's part of what pisses him off now. He can see it, can see them there in that life and it's a happy one and it feels like it might've been his only real shot to have it. And the real mindfuck is he doesn't know now what was real and what was just her biding her time. He knows she was mixed up in some shit before she left, knows she was looking his way again because it's always a little harder for him to get air when she is, but he thinks they could've worked it out together.
And it doesn't matter one bit what he thinks or what he thought he knew. She's gone.
He probably won't be here when or if she comes back.
Veronica is a secret second-guesser. She's always known it about herself. The secret means no one else, except maybe Wallace, knows the degree to which she does it. She can do four things at once, so the constant loop in the back of her mind can keep running, can keep questioning, can keep stabbing at her conscience and her heart – all while she goes to class, pretends to make friends and tries to resist doing background checks on them to make sure they're not assholes, and pretends she isn't homesick as hell.
She left most everything in a box at her dad's apartment when she fled. Her purse, her taser, a collection of fake identification and credentials, photographs, and even her camera. She's already going to be ass-deep in student loans anyway, so she didn't see the problem with dropping a percentage of it on a new camera that hasn't documented her cases for the last four years. Her virgin camera isn't quite as fun as the other one, but it works for her fine arts credits at least.
She calls her dad twice a week and refuses to talk much about herself. She promises she's eating, that dessert for dinner is absolutely still a thing, and reminds him that she doesn't want to know anything about her friends. She could never cut ties with her dad, obviously, but not living with him is weird. She misses his handsome mug and the ways he knows how to make her laugh. She's losing her sense of humor here in this staid environment. She's still her, so her mind catalogues all the short-comings of the people around her. She won't set foot on frat row because she's not trusting. It means she hasn't gone to a lot of parties. That's fine because it keeps her from remembering Troy, Chip, all the things at Hearst that she's leaving behind.
At least, it keeps her from remembering most of it. When she's in the shower, mostly, she remembers the rest and it gets to her. That's where she's almost always had her emotional breakdowns, so her dad wouldn't hear and worry. So she didn't have to explain. Everyone in her life has always thought she loves the cleansing power of a good, hot shower. She's just never bothered to correct them. Even Logan doesn't really know that, at least not in a way they've talked about, and it feels good to have something that's just hers.
The details of it don't feel good, though. Not even at all. When she's in the shower, she feels like she's going to come apart, like she can't scrub hard enough to remove all of her sins against the people she let close. She left them behind and she knows they probably hate her. She hopes they hate her. She wishes Wallace didn't sound like he misses her in his emails, that she could get more than a one liner or a forwarded 'tell me about yourself' survey from Mac. And Piz. God, she wishes she could've fallen in love with him because it would be so much easier, so much simpler, so much clearer.
She usually cries hard enough to exhaust the hot water in her dorm by the time she gets to Logan. Everyone else, she knows, will be fine. Everyone else will understand and will give her the space to do what she needs to do. All she would have to say to her dad is that she's gotten herself into a gang-related pickle and he'd probably buy her a whole new identity. Logan, though, will blame her. Logan will hurt and suffer and she really doesn't think he has enough of a reserve to bounce back. She wants to reach out to him, to tell him he has to be fine and he has to figure out something to do with himself and she can't carry them both because she got in over her head and fucked everything up and she can't stand it.
She usually lets the cold water continue just to calm her down.
In the morning, she's bulletproof again. In the morning, she can smile politely at the guy who buys her a too-sweet coffee, and then she can dump it in the garbage in plain sight so he won't do it again. She's got too much debt, emotional and otherwise, to lose her focus.
Stanford was all she wanted and, after the bridges she burned, it's all she's got.