A/N – Given I haven't had as much time to do new chapters of Dangerous Curves Ahead and Lightning Rod for Trouble, I thought I would slowly start sharing another story I started writing. I guess with all the angst and drama in those I wanted something a little lighter to work on when I wanted to write and didn't want it to be so intense. So the plan for this one is to be a much lighter tone than the others I've done. I was going to wait until I wrapped up Dangerous to share it, but I know it's nice to have new stuff to read so decided to post this between gaps in the other two.
I'm expecting the chapters here to be much shorter too, although I seem to end up with longer chapters the longer I write a story, so that might happen here too later. For now they are pretty short though. I'm also posting Chapter 1 & 2 together since they are short and Chapter 2 is the one I like better than Chapter 1 (You'll quickly get why). I suppose they could have just been one chapter, but left them as two.
I'm also thinking I may have some unusual pairings in this story versus others, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Of course there will be LoVe too. And my plan is for it to be all Veronica's POV this time.
Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think about the premise of the story once you read Chapter 2. I've been having fun working on it when I need a break from the angst of the other two.
Disclaimer: All original VM characters belong to Rob Thomas.
Chapter 1
Veronica paid the barista and reached out to take the caramel latte and blueberry scone from the bubbly blonde at the drive thru window. She set the drink into her cup holder and headed south along the 101. She knew it might be faster to drive from San Francisco to Neptune if she headed east to the I5, but she hated that drive and opted to stay more along the coast for as much of the drive as possible even if it added more than an extra hour. Because really when the drive was that long, what was a little bit longer?
She started out the drive wondering how many times she'd made it since she transferred to Stanford for her sophomore year of college. She figured it had to be almost a half dozen times, though she much preferred to fly. This week though, given her state of mind and what was going on in her life, she opted for the drive. After graduating from Stanford she'd taken a job with the San Francisco Police Department. With her college degree in criminology she'd been assigned to a division that specialized in fraud cases. While she enjoyed it, she missed the variety of cases that she'd experienced when she was doing PI work. She couldn't help but think back to her dad's own career with the Sheriff's Office and how in a smaller department like that, you got pulled into all sorts of different things and not stuck in specialized units.
This line of thought naturally led her to thinking about the various reasons for her current trip south. She'd taken the week off from work to drive down and spend her birthday with her dad. Even though she saw him at least a couple times a year, it didn't seem like quite enough since they'd been so close before she'd gone away to college in Palo Alto. She also missed seeing Wallace and Mac. She'd seen them a few times over the last four years, but not as often as she would have liked either. So of course spending time with her dad and her friends was the primary reason she'd given to everyone for her trip. Her more secretive reason was to talk to Leo D'Amato. He had taken over as Sheriff of Neptune after Vinnie Van Lowe was kicked out of office shortly after winning the election her freshman year at Hearst. Leo had worked with the San Diego Police department to expose all the corruption that was happening at the Sheriff's office which led to the removal of Vinnie as well as quite a few of his corrupt deputies too. She knew that Leo had been building a new team under him, but it was still Neptune and it seemed that good deputies were hard to keep around. She'd noticed frequent postings of openings for the department when she had occasionally looked. She wanted to talk to him about getting hired as a detective working for him so she could move back to Neptune. She was hoping he'd seriously consider it given her year at the SFPD and her degree from Stanford. She'd actually spent the prior week packing up any personal items that she had at her apartment so if she did decide to stay she could just sublet the apartment without having to drive all the way back. She found she didn't actually have a lot of personal items other than clothes and photos so the processes didn't actually take very long. And not surprisingly, everything fit into her Saturn as well. She hadn't officially given notice at work, but if she did decide to stay she wanted to make it as easy and quick as possible. She was hoping Leo would be happy to have her and that she'd be able to start quickly if he agreed. And those were the only reasons she was willing to entertain as to why she wanted to move back to Neptune.
Of course almost nine hours alone in a car gave her way too much time for her mind to wander to other things she missed about Neptune. She tried to push one specific person out of her mind but after about her sixth hour on the road and at least 10 attempts to not think about him, she completely failed. She decided it wasn't really that horrible to admit that she may have missed Logan too. She had tried to see him when she first came back from her internship with the FBI in Virginia and found out that she'd received a very generous scholarship to Stanford, but he'd ended up going to Mexico with Dick for a last minute surfing trip before school started and she had to leave for Palo Alto before he got back. Before she left she decided she would write him a letter, thinking at the time it seemed more personal than a text and she didn't want to have the conversation over the phone. In hindsight she should have gone with the text. Of course she'd been the girl who had laughed at those idiots who tried to take their high school romances with them to college, and then later realized she wasn't any different than any of those other idiots. She'd tried to be considerate in the letter to Logan, explaining how it was normal for that sort of thing to just not work because they never really did for anyone. She said that she wished him all the best… have a happy life and all that crap… and that maybe someday they could figure out how to be friends again… but at the time she thought it was best if they tried to stay out of each other's lives for a while. She's still not sure what possessed her to write that stupid letter. At least in a text she would have been much briefer. 'Going to Stanford. TTYL'... yeah that would have been better.
Mac had let her know a few weeks after they started the term that Logan wasn't at Hearst anymore. Mac didn't know at the time what he was doing and Veronica decided for her sanity and her ability to be successful at Stanford that she couldn't let herself obsess about it. She asked Mac if she could make sure he wasn't in any actual trouble but if he wasn't it was probably better for them to stay out of each other's lives for a while, like she'd said in her letter. She certainly didn't want another Piz incident to happen. Mac had told her a few weeks later he was fine and had just decided to do something different with his life. That was enough for her and Mac seemed to sense that she couldn't really handle knowing more if she wanted to move on with her own life and have a chance at something normal at Stanford. But who was I kidding, normal was boring as hell. Didn't I learn that lesson before? So yes, she missed him too, but she hadn't actively looked into what he was doing. A part of her was afraid that he'd found someone else and settled down and then she'd have to admit they were actually over forever, so she decided the unknown was better. Maybe now though she was finally at the point of facing reality and finding out what he'd done with his life during the last four years she'd been gone. She wasn't even sure if he was still in Neptune, but she figured someone there might know where he was and what he was doing.
She spent the next part of the drive thinking about her plans for the next few days. Her dad had called her the prior morning and let her know that he had a lead on a bail jumper that had been spotted in Arizona and she convinced him to take the case and she'd still drive down as planned. So she woke up early that morning and headed off to Neptune. She'd been able to reach Mac and Wallace, and they were both able to clear their Saturday evening schedules to have dinner with her when she finally made it in to town. That left her the next day to hopefully spend with her Dad if he made it home late Saturday night or early Sunday and then Monday morning she'd go in and talk to Leo. Her other objective of seeing what Logan had done with his life didn't really have a specific spot in her plan yet, since she still wasn't sure how ready she was for the reality of that situation. She doubted he'd been pining over her all these years, because she certainly hadn't been pining over him, although he always seemed to be there in the back of her mind. She had vehemently tried to deny that to herself though, but every guy she'd agree to go out with, she constantly found herself comparing them to him. But no, she certainly wasn't pining over him.
This would only be the second time she'd been down to Neptune to her dad's new house. He'd finally decided a few years prior that chasing down bail jumpers was getting a bit harder the older he got and decided to give Weevil Navarro another shot working with him. For the most part Keith took on the cases that needed more finesse, and Weevil took on the brunt force type of cases. Although Weevil had actually gotten a better handle on his temper, so they ended up working really well together and he let Weevil take on some of the other surveillance cases too. Between the two of them, they actually were able to take on even more cases than he could when it was just him and Veronica, and he finally felt stable enough financially to finally move out of their old apartment and buy a small house. It was still in the 02 zip code, but it was in a nicer area than the apartment had been, and several blocks from the ocean. It was a small two bedroom craftsman bungalow type house with a small yard that Backup thoroughly enjoyed. He'd given her a key the last time she'd been down, just in case of an emergency, so she was all set to get settled in even though he was still in Arizona.
She was thrilled that traffic wasn't bad and that she made it to her dad's house in time for a quick nap and a shower before Wallace and Mac came to get her for dinner. And if anyone asked, she absolutely did not dream about Logan during that nap.
