AN: In light of the impending release of the Veronica Mars movie (this right here? a legit over-the-moon face), I was feeling a little... drabble-ish. I have no idea how things went down, precisely, in the 9 years between "The Bitch Is Back" and the film, but consider this one version of what might have happened for one troubled young man.
Light movie spoilers, ahoy (mateys); if you've seen the trailer and clips, you already know it all. I own not a damn thing, aside from my groovy Kickstarter t-shirt and all the seasons... in duplicate, because I've worn discs out. You'll see some music along the way - songs listed at the end.
The first time he tries, it's been fourteen weeks and five days since he's seen her.
He's at Dog Beach and has no idea why or how. He'd slipped behind the wheel and started driving, an old burned mix blaring through the speakers loud enough to create a shudder in the windows. There's something strangely comforting about volume, about something so intense that it renders you powerless.
A shrink would probably have a field day with this: how the violence of his father's fists had seemed so much worse when the house was silent, as opposed to when the TV would be blaring on. Rambo seemed to be one movie that frequently inspired a cigarette to the arm or a crack of leather. In the passing whim of the fading star, it would lash out at soft boy flesh.
A flick of the wrist, and the Hollywood guns killed on.
This mix dates back to senior year, to days of self-loathing drowned in drinks with Dick and empty sex with Dick's stepmom. He'd never chance another soul hearing it - had even marked it "Veronica's Summer Mix" for plausible deniability. It's not mine, he would tell anyone, should they discover it. She must have left it in the glove box. Throw it out.
He could always make another, right?
Emo shit. Romantic shit. Songs he'd caught her singing in happier days, shared days. But it was all her and that made it the perfect torture tool. He'd surprised himself when he'd found it in the back of a CD binder a week ago.
"I'm only pretty sure that I can't take anymore
Before you take a swing, I wonder, 'What are we fighting for?'
When I say out loud, I'm gonna get out of this
I wonder, is there anything I'm gonna miss?
I wonder how it's gonna be when you don't know me..."
It brings him back to soccer field, to a skinny girl in knee socks and those beautiful blues that knocked the breath out of him as she hugged Lilly and shyly glanced his way. The memories flash fast and furious and the beach looms into view and he knows it's where he needs to be today.
He's surprised the Walkman still spins the disc as he wanders far off from the usual crowds of giggling girls and family pets chasing Frisbees, plunking down near the shore. The waves are choppy, cumulus clouds lingering in the distance. A storm is brewing.
One week. She'll be back in Neptune in one week. But not for long. No, not for long at all, if what he's overheard is true.
What clinches it - the stupid decision he's making right now, as he tugs the ear bud from the left and scrolls through his contacts - is the memory of Alterna-Prom. Because right now, they're stretched across a continent, a rubber band taut and frayed, and somehow, he knows they can't hold on this time.
He's out of her life and he's going to stay that way... unless there's a chance... Unless...
One ring, two, three...
No. He hangs up, shaking his head in misery. No. I can't do this to her anymore. I can't keep hurting her. It's his curse: the one person in the world he wishes he could protect from all sorrow and pain is the one person he seems to expertly shred to ribbons.
If I could change... But can he? Can he ever march to the beat of a better drummer?
I'm so sorry, Veronica. For everything. I'll listen this time. We'll do this your way.
She knows where to find him... or what's left of him, anyway.
The second time he tries, it's been been four months.
Lilly. He traces the name on the memorial fountain plaque, pressing the pad of his finger into each letter until it imprints upon him. A visible reminder of the damage done.
Four years... The seasons come and go, his face grows wearier, but the sting of this date never changes. For better and often worse, Lilly Kane was the first woman to capture his love and would remain important to him until his own last breath. It occurs to him that he'd always imagined his father would be responsible for that, a cruel irony in light of Lilly's brutal fate.
The water trickles and he allows it to cascade over his outstretched palm. Collecting artificial rain.
The iPod plays this time, but the music is the same: the playlist of that summer, the one where he first lost his greatest love. The love he can't move past. Dick tries and Mac is kinder than he would have predicted, but in the end, he's lost without her.
Not being in her life is one thing; not being able to steal even a glance of her is hell.
What do I do, Lilly? he asks the monument.
She's got to be hurting today. The distance must only amplify that loss. Last year, they'd stood together in this very spot, reflecting on the spirited young woman who'd changed both of their lives forever.
"Do you remember the tribute video?" Veronica asks him.
Logan nods, a half-smile emerging. "Yeah. Celeste was so pissed. It was awesome."
Veronica chuckles. "Lilly would be thrilled."
"Yeah, that was kinda her raison d'etre, wasn't it?" Logan muses. His arm wraps around her shoulder as she shivers suddenly. "Cold?"
"No," she murmurs. "Just... sad."
They stand in quiet solidarity, the sun beginning to set overhead. It casts a shadow over the memorial, obscuring all but her name: Lilly.
"What do you think she'd say? About us?"
Logan presses a kiss to the top of her head. "I wonder sometimes if she always knew we'd end up together... Like maybe that's why she wasn't faithful to me. I keep thinking that in her own way, she was keeping her heart from being broken. I don't know..."
"Logan, she did love you. I know she did," Veronica insists, her face tilting up towards his.
"She loved you, too. There's love and in love, Veronica. I just don't know which I had."
Veronica's fingers lace between his, tugging him gently away. "I know what you mean. Come on, let's go."
He'd never paid much though to her words but they echo now in his skull. Had he been misled again? Had she loved him? Or had she been in love?
Was someone else holding her now as she shivered, consumed with silent grief?
He hovers over the call button, weighing the pros and cons. If there's one day of the year he can get away with disturbing her, one day where he can play the you owe me more than this silent treatment bullshit, it's today.
And that right there, that you owe me this mentality, is exactly what drove her away, he realizes. It's part of the Logan she can no longer stand. The Logan she transferred schools to get away from, because breaking up wasn't enough.
One of her favourite songs plays now - or was a favourite, back when they first parted ways as boyfriend and girlfriend. He would catch her singing it often, softly under her breath. A prayer for the fucked-up teens of America.
"And sometimes, when you're on, you're really fucking on
And your friends, they sing along and they love you
But the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence
But you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
And you'll be better and you'll be smarter
And more grown up and a better daughter or son..."
It's settled then, in his mind. Until he changes - and despite all of his protests of how fucking unfair her high expectations always were, he knows that he does need to grow up and change - there's no sense in opening up the lines again. The definition of insanity, etc. etc.
If I want her back, I've got to prove it.
And he will. Whether it makes a difference or not, he will prove it to her. He owes her that much.
The third time he tries, it's been five years.
He thinks of her daily - knows he always will - but he's been... okay. The Acceptance Stage of Grief arrived a good two years after her departure and while he struggles during the summers, aware that she could be home from school, he's decided that she must be happy, wherever she is.
He will never love anyone like he loves her, but there's a lot of songs about not getting what you want n life and well, it's just how it is.
He's cruising down the 101, returning from a trip to Santa Barbara, when the college radio station decides to play a song that he knows all too well. It's one he's always connected with her, ever since he overheard Mac playing it during an all-night cram session; hell, it could've been written about her. It's the kind of song Dick would laugh at him for listening to, perhaps make a comment about his balls being in a certain woman's purse. He remembers a conversation suddenly and the car veers slightly towards the shoulder in his surprise at how clearly he can hear her voice, even now.
"Well, I'm going to miss these moments," she says, the sarcasm light enough to be missed by the casual observer.
"You going somewhere?" he asks.
"Oh! You see this?" She gestures to the hallway beside them.
"Mm-hm."
"Uh, this is high school. We're here for four years and then we move on. And all these people you see every day vanish from your life and you never have to think about them again."
And she had finally followed through on that vow, hadn't she?
If nothing else, Veronica Mars was a woman of her word. If she promised to make you pay for a transgression, you would suffer. If she threw you out of her life, you were a ghost to her.
"Crash and burn
All the stars explode tonight
How'd you get so desperate?
How'd you stay alive?"
He pulls over, earning a few pissed off honks in the process, but it doesn't bother him. He's lost the desire to be angry, to fight everything and everyone in his path. He's changed.
It sinks in now: I'm not that man anymore. Wasn't that the whole reason he'd restrained himself (a few Google searches aside) from reaching out to her? Hadn't he spent the last five years struggling to become a better man for her? Someone she could at least happily call her friend, if nothing else?
"Cry to the angels
I'm gonna rescue you
I'm gonna set you free tonight, baby
Pour over me..."
He's changed phones three times, but the number is always there. He has no idea if it's even the right number anymore, but he can't bear to check with Mac. It's been his lifeline, his tether in times of darkness, to believe she is just one call away. He blocks his number and then dials, listening as it rings once, twice, three times, four...
"And I knew
Love would tear you apart
Oh, and I knew
The darkest secret of your heart..."
There is an answer on the other end and his breath catches as he realizes that this is wrong, all wrong, and quickly hangs up without listening for a reply. Just what are you going to say to her, Logan? Hello? What's up? He shakes his head, tossing the phone on the seat beside him. After this many years, he needs something much more than the mundane, something more meaningful than anything he's ever said to her in the past. Because if he's going to go there, take that risk and shatter all of the hopeful dreams of what could be, he's got to go all in.
He has to be... epic.
Signaling, he pulls back into the flow of traffic, the song coming to a close. Stupid. Impulsive. These are the things he's trying not to be anymore. He'd almost made a terrible mistake just now.
It won't happen again.
"I can't be near you
The light just radiates..."
In the end, it takes nine years and a tremendous amount of pride being swallowed.
It's a scene out of one of those serial killer of the week TV shows that haunts him, even as the media turns, as they will do when you're the son of a famous murdering bastard who's been accused of a murder of his own. There's no amount of liquor that will erase it, not that he tries. He's not that man anymore, hasn't been for a very long time.
He's rolling his eyes as he listens to Miley Cyrus blaring from the sheriff's office, head bowed in contemplation. His ears listen for hints of the case against him, gathering intel, as it were. No one else is going to do it for him, after all. He knows what the truth is: he's innocent. But what is the truth that the cops are trying to sell? What's the media's version of events? What facts lie beneath the cotton candy-spun fiction?
He's suddenly free to go and he rises slowly, remembering to breathe. The bitter, sarcastic brat of a man he once was is pushed down deep, although it's so goddamn tempting to unload on the joke of a man behind the closed door (now playing: Rihanna). He steps outside, drawing in the sunshine and dirt of Neptune, and realizes he's screwed. Absolutely, royally, completely screwed.
He has a list of reasons why he's allowed the radio silence to persist, ranging from the mundane to the completely valid and rational. Every anniversary of Lilly's death brings a set of excuses; every anniversary of the day they split for good brings another set. Every holiday is an altogether messier pile of sentimentality or a pity parade. But even Logan understands that this is far bigger than a break-up.
There's only one person who can possibly get him out of this mess, and she's over 2000 miles away. It's also possible that she couldn't give a damn, even if she knew of this mess - and with the media losing their damn minds, how could she not?
"It's a nice gesture, but it's gonna take some time this time."
They're the last words she said to him and they loop on repeat as he stares at her name on the screen. They're not out of my life forever. They're not I will never forgive you. Nine years... is it enough time?
He takes a chance and dials. Voicemail - clearly a denied call. He expected this. Again, he dials her number, because he knows her, knows she'll pick up eventually. And she answers. His heart skips a beat as her voice reaches his ears.
"So... what's new with you?"
It's not eloquent. It's not pretty or special or anything resembling what he'd dreamed of for their reunion. No, it's almost a cliche, given their track record... and yet, it almost seems... right.
"I need your help, Veronica," he confesses.
She doesn't hang up. She absolves him.
Songs (In Order):
How's It Gonna Be? - Third Eye Blind
A Better Son/Daughter - Rilo Kiley
Malibu - Hole
Feedback is always lovely and welcome... I've considered a companion second chapter from Veronica's POV... Let me know what you think.