I know what you're thinking: "Another story when she still hasn't finished the last one?" And the answer is yes. It also stretches reality to the limit regarding law, law enforcement and probably everything else, but it was wicked fun to write.
Veronica had taken the minimum of criminal law classes at Columbia. Interacting with crooks and cons smacked too much of a life left behind, so the only ones she saw these days were those who sat smirking beside her as she ensured they wouldn't have to shave a million off their yearly bonus. She was good at what she did, enough that her dad bragged about her to his podiatrist and the lady at the doughnut shop. Her reputation at the firm was one of more grudging admiration, knowing that although she was working her way up the ladder faster than most of her colleagues, her success came through tedious effort, late nights and constant meetings. But while she had managed to keep the less ideal aspects of her work hidden from her dad in their phone calls or her rare visits back home, it hadn't been as easy to conceal from those who saw her regularly. After a year of a relationship with law school Veronica and another with law associate Veronica, Piz had finally grown frustrated with the disconnect between his girlfriend and the rest of his life.
"We went out for your birthday. And I came to that dinner party a couple of weeks ago," Veronica had pointed out in that final fight, when he had demanded more and she had wondered where more stopped and tried not to think why she didn't want to give it.
"And you left because Gayle needed your help. Which I get, cause it's your job, but I just want to know when this part is going to end. When can we have an actual life?" Piz watched her face, her crossed arms that refused to be guilty. He stepped back as the realization hit him. "Is this enough for you? Is this just how you want it to be for the rest of our lives?"
Piz was generally so low-key, so accepting, that she truly hadn't considered the idea that he would get fed up and leave, but he did. It was a few weeks of awkward division of property as he found a roommate to move into their place and she found a one bedroom far enough away so as not to run into him at the grocery store or the dry cleaner, but in the years since then she had been free to throw herself even more fully into work.
On the one hand, her focus and success had endeared her to the partners in a way that meant specific, jovial greetings in the hallways and personal invitations to cocktail parties. On the other, it meant that she was entrusted with this.
"I know you're used to flattery getting you everywhere," she said to Gayle. "But this is out of the realm of everywhere."
Slightly tipsy after a New Year's party, Gayle had once told Veronica that although she had no children, she took a certain maternal pride in Veronica's progress. That didn't stop her from using her extra six inches of height to try and outpace Veronica, or a lawyerly hand wave to brush off her concerns. "You've hit it out of the park so far. I trust you," she said breezily.
"Gayle, this is a huge client. We need a real criminal defense attorney," Veronica protested. "I'm not the appropriate choice for this case."
Ruthlessly pleasant as always, Gayle said, "Well, I hope you'll become appropriate because I've chosen you." As if on cue, Hardman passed by and Gayle continued down the hall talking to him. Veronica, dismissed, found herself beside her assistant, Ian.
This was something Truman-Mann did every so often. They tossed a case totally out of the area of expertise of the lawyer in question and watched them sink or swim. The firm wouldn't lose the client if they failed- Gayle probably had an actual expert already prepping as backup- but the lawyer would be looking for a new job. The process was meant to ensure that the firm's associates were the sharpest sharks in town. It made sense and fit with the corporate culture. Veronica still slammed the door as she went into her office.
"Are you alright?" she heard Ian ask vacantly from outside. Veronica rested her head gently on her blotter and said nothing. No matter how high the Truman-Mann standards for lawyers, requirements for assistants were far lower.
In addition to her regular workload, Veronica devoted hours to her case over the next few weeks. It was obvious from the start that she was entering a drama already in progress, one that was in almost every respect the opposite of what she had been hired to do.
Beneflex was the typical client, a large pharmaceutical company that Veronica had dealt with before, but the familiarity ended there. The case was already going to trial, she wasn't going up against individuals or even another corporation, and it wasn't exactly what she would call frivolous. The federal government was alleging that Beneflex had begun marketing Sothutra, an arthritis medication, before the FDA had officially approved it, and now, seventeen years later, complaints were arising about potential liver damage.
The Beneflex CEO assured Veronica that it had just been a matter of paper pushing at the time, that the approval had been basically signed and the government was now just trying to cover its back. Unfortunately there was one last wrinkle that made the case particularly challenging. Seventeen years prior, David and Evie Marks had been young, single Beneflex scientists working on Sothutra. Now married, one or both of them had told the feds that Beneflex had been aware of the possibility of complications, but had ignored it and moved up production and sale of the drug.
Veronica had only seen Evie once or twice, a woman who looked remarkably like an older version of Veronica herself, but she had worked on another case where David had been involved. She remembered him as a rounded man with a face that showed humor easily, and a nervous habit of scratching his forearms. Now he and Evie were claiming that due to the testimony, they were in danger from Beneflex's investors. They had been placed in witness protection several months earlier.
Veronica knew that the companies she represented could be ruthless. There were nights when she held her phone in her hand, wanting to call Wallace or her dad to ground her and assure her that she wasn't an official member of the dark side. Still, she doubted that Beneflex was going to place a hit on a couple of troublesome scientists, and there was no evidence to back up their claims anyway. She suspected that the federal prosecutor was just trying to hide them away so she couldn't question them fully before trial. Judge Dougherty agreed. Despite where his paycheck came from, he was known not to be fond of government overstepping, and had ruled that the witness must be made available to Veronica for deposition.
"You'll meet with the US marshals to discuss safety protocol Tuesday evening and then Wednesday you'll get to depose," Ian reported, looking at his notebook to check that he had gotten everything right. He handed over a post-it with a phone number on it. "You're supposed to call this office to get the address."
Veronica looked at it. She stuck it on her computer monitor. "You think they'll have an extra cloak and dagger for me, or am I supposed to bring my own?" Ian looked blank as usual, waiting a moment to see if she needed anything else before walking out. Veronica had long ago given up expecting him to get her jokes.
She appreciated him Monday evening, though. Ian and Veronica were the last to leave the office. He helped box up the files that she needed and carry them to her car, and even picked up the note with the address of the hotel outside Syracuse where they were meeting, which she hadn't even noticed she had dropped.
"You're going upstate?" he said, lip curling as he handed over the paper.
"Well they have running water up there now, so I should be okay," Veronica assured him.
He leaned against her car door, shutting it for her after she had climbed in. "Good luck getting a decent cup of coffee."
"They have Starbucks now too, snob," she said through the window, but he was already walking away.
Liverpool, the tiny town where she was meeting the marshals did not, in fact, have a Starbucks, but the local diner made a decent enough cup of coffee. Veronica had taken one up to the suite that had been booked at the Best Western for this little adventure. Although she had gotten a chance to relax in the morning, her mood had become slightly sour from the five hours in the car. The marshals still had a few minutes before their official meeting time, but Veronica always arrived early so as to throw people off balance by seeming more prepared, better informed, and she had been waiting for so long that they seemed late.
She didn't quite know how the meeting was going to go or how much room for negotiation they expected. She'd done her research on the marshals and the Federal Witness Protection program, and she knew her case facts cold, but she started going over her notes anyway. At seven, just as her phone buzzed an unnecessary calendar warning to remind her of the meeting, there was a knock on the door.
She opened the door with the chain in, noting the marshal star badge at his belt before she did the photo identification he held out for her.
"Adam Ackerley," he said as he stepped inside, tucking the id away.
"Veronica Mars. Where's your partner? I thought you had a whole Noah's Ark thing going on. "
Ackerley's face slid into a grin at the remark, but his tone betrayed none of his amusement. "He had something to do before he came up."
"Surveillance?"
"His turn to park the car. He should be up in a minute."
"Let's start then." Veronica moved back over to the side of the table she had claimed as her own. "I'll sign confidentiality forms, but I'm going to need voice and video recordings of the deposition, and I'll be questioning about their educational and professional histories."
"Fine." Ackerley seemed surprised that she was taking this so seriously. "I have no problems with your methods, or oversight into your trial. I just have to make sure that the basic safety of the witness is covered. That means ensuring that you haven't been tracked either electronically or in person."
"I wasn't tailed," Veronica said firmly. There were some skills that became automatic, even years after the need for them had passed.
Ackerley nodded. "We'll do our own checks anyway. And you'll have to install an IP scrambler on your laptop."
There was a knock at the door, one with something sly and secretive about it. Ackerley went to answer it. "Ms. Mars," he said. The doorway was surrounded by a miniature hallway and the table was arranged at an angle, so she couldn't quite see him anymore. It made his voice sound odd. "This is my partner, Deputy Marshal Cole."
Veronica got up, eyes down for an extra second as she readied the next page of her notes. She was prepared to shake hands with another stranger and get back to it, but she placed her hand into that of Logan Echolls.
He looked older, which was to be expected, but he was thinner and more muscled as well. If she had known him just from tabloids rather than as well as she did she wouldn't have recognized him right away, possibly at all.
She shook his hand by reflex. Her handshake was something she was proud of. She had an advantage when facing a lawyer who expected little of her based on her appearance, but she had needed to develop a quicker way to get respect from clients and a firm handshake tended to impress. Logan looked impressed too, although it was diluted by all the other things she could see on his face: confusion and irritation and amusement. Before she retracted her hand, he had locked it all away, his expression becoming placid, although she could see a tiny jump at the corner of his mouth.
Ackerley's phone rang. "It's Harris," he told Logan. "I'll go into the bedroom to iron out the details."
"Yeah." After a few seconds, Logan turned to where his partner was disappearing into the other room of the suite. "Mouse, tell Harris that the lawyer is my ex-girlfriend and see if she wants to call someone else in."
Ackerley raised an eyebrow and closed the door.
Veronica seated herself at the table. She picked up her coffee, now lukewarm just about to become unpleasantly chilly. She sipped at it anyway. "Why do you call him Mouse?" Ackerley had a couple of inches on Logan, and were she forced to examine their muscles up close, she suspected that Ackerley's would be larger. She couldn't think of anyone who looks less mouse-like.
"His initials. I kept slipping up the first few months, calling him by his real last name, so just to be safe I switched to calling him AA, and that became Anonymous-"
"Which became Mouse." Veronica nodded, setting her cup back down. "Marshals don't use their real last names?" She had assumed that Cole was Logan's own creation, a way to escape his past.
"Not around non-marshals or DOJ staff while on duty. Secrecy pays the bills," Logan told her, and more than half of her wanted to force him to tell her how in the hell Logan Echolls had become a deputy US marshal.
"Ackerley was telling me that I'll have to install an IP scrambler on my laptop," she said instead. "What about my phone?"
"GPS off, don't do any location-based searches," Logan ticked off, hiding a smile as if he knew just how interested she was, "and we'll make sure your cell provider doesn't give out any traceable information for the next thirty-six hours."
"Good thing I looked up all the Zagat restaurants in the area before I left."
Ackerley returned, his cell back in his pocket. "Harris says your cover's already blown so you might as well stay. But she also told me that she'll have your ass and mine if you end up giving anything more away." Logan opened his mouth, but Ackerley interrupted. "Yeah, you're a vault. Don't try to brag about anything." He settled himself at the table, glancing at his watch. "We've only got a couple of hours before I have to go for the pickup, so we'd better get a move on."
They would probably have finished sooner, but Logan and his partner got into an unnecessary argument about whether Veronica could use her webcam to film the deposition. Ackerley apparently used to work in the marshals' electronic surveillance unit and thought it too dangerous. Logan argued that that he was being too cautious. Veronica eventually tired of the whole back and forth.
"I'm sure you're both prizewinners on the debate team," she said, taking a small video camera out of her bag and setting it on the table. "But problem solved."
Finally they finished with all the rules. Veronica had anticipated most of them and felt slightly more even-keeled about the whole thing. Adam got up and stretched. "I've gotta go play chauffeur." He clapped Logan on the shoulder. "Sure you'll be okay doing the overnight? If you want, I can stay here and you can be the one to drive around as the USMS car service." He said it lightly, but Veronica could see that he was honestly worried about leaving Logan alone with her. "It's a sacrifice, but I'd do that for you, Bartlett." Veronica smiled at that. Apparently quotations were still his voicemail message of choice.
"A selfless man, but I'll be fine. Anyway, I parked and got breakfast this morning, so this is definitely your job." Ackerley still looked doubtful. Logan shoved at him playfully. "Face it, dude, you sold your soul for a half decent Danish, so it's time to get going."
Ackerley grumbled, "If I'd known, I'd have parked the damn car myself," but gathered his stuff and left the room. Veronica moved to do the same. There were certainly questions she wanted Logan to answer, but he represented a part of her life she wanted to forget, a part that she had tried her hardest to cut out and smother. So she buried her interest and readied herself to go to the neighboring room she had booked for the night. Logan would be staying in this one to make sure that it would stay safe for the witnesses arriving tomorrow.
"See you in the morning," she said, already halfway to the door.
"Yeah." She could hear the friction of his chair on the carpet. Apparently he didn't want their first meeting in more than a decade to be an awkward sham of pure business. "Veronica." She turned back to face him. "I didn't know it was going to be you," he said, surprising her. "Mouse did the background check and threat assessment on you. Now that I know it's you I'm actually pissed that he okayed it. All that dodgy shit you got up to in high school should have at least raised some red flags."
"I was pretty careful to keep my actual record clean and Lamb's not around anymore to put in a bad word for me. I did outsmart some FBI agents once, but hopefully they've learned and grown since then." For all her breezy intentions, the sentences felt stiff in her mouth. Those things that she had done, the things that had ruined her dad's career and almost ruined their relationship, were marks of shame for her, exacerbated by the fact that part of her was still proud of them. It was why she had gone cold turkey. Remove the temptation, and pretend that she had been untempted by it in the first place.
"I knew you were a lawyer, but I didn't think that you would be this type of lawyer." Against her will, she was insulted by the minor knowledge he seemed to have of her. That was ridiculous, of course. Although he had crossed her mind over the years, it wasn't like she had a google alert on him. Despite that, she had somehow assumed that he would be more eager to keep track of the details of her life.
"What do you mean 'this type of lawyer?'" she asked instead.
He shrugged. "I assumed Legal Aid or the DA's office. Maybe not for the help the helpless aspect, but the truth of it, getting justice...that was always your mission. Not joining up with the obfuscation brigade."
His voice was non-judgmental, but she felt accused anyway. There were answers she could give him, the things she told herself when she thought of these very questions: about the employees at the companies she defended that got to keep their jobs because her clients didn't have to pay large settlements, about the student loans she'd paid off and the money padding her dad's retirement account, about the safe cushioning of normal. "I'm good at it," she said.
Logan nodded. "Of course you are." For a moment she wanted him to hug her, but she breathed out and let it wash over her, waiting for the desire to pass before she said a more firm good night and went to her own room at last.
Before it was a Best Western, the motel had obviously belonged to another chain. The signs of subtle change were there in the carpet edge in the lobby that didn't match the rest of the pattern, in the door that adjoined Veronica's single room to what had since been turned into the suite, in the faded logo on the machine when Veronica went to get ice at 2 AM.
It was an idle exercise. She'd fallen asleep and woken up twice already and decided to take a short walk. Ice was the only excuse she could find, so she'd grabbed the bucket. As she returned to her room with the full bucket in her arm, she felt a little foolish, especially as she spotted a repairman in the hallway. He was fixing something with the thermostat. When he looked up, she could see that he was attractive.
Not another one, she thought sourly. Weeks without being around any man other than Ian and old white clients and bosses, and suddenly she'd somehow stumbled into a secret hot guy cache. She walked to get back in her room as quickly as she could, giving off the don't even try it vibe she had perfected in high school. She wished that she had worn something a little less sheep-spangled for her hallway sojourn.
"Little ice craving there?" the guy said, because apparently, although it was already tomorrow, her bad luck from yesterday had discovered that it had rollover properties.
"Sometimes I some need help chillin' like a villain," she said shortly.
His eyes felt wrong as he scraped them up her body. "I doubt that." He smiled, slow and confident. Veronica let her lips shift upward stiffly in return, and walked away.
There was something wrong with his accent, Veronica thought as she continued down the hall. It took her another few seconds to realize that it was actually something right with his accent: he sounded as if he were from Brooklyn, while all the locals she had met so far- the gas station attendant, the clerk at the front desk, the waitresses in the diner- had mild upstate accents with almost a hint of Canadian in them. She tried to ignore the instinct, attempting to chalk it up to paranoia after being confronted against all odds by an ex. After all, she didn't really believe that there were hitmen lying in wait for Evie and David, and anyway, no one knew that they were meeting here. She knew that she hadn't been followed, and she had gone through all the covert steps to get the address in the first place.
In her mind's eye, she could see Ian jostling her slightly while pretending to readjust the box he was holding, picking up the paper that fluttered to the ground, reading it for a moment instead of just handing it back, making a comment so she wouldn't notice any of these things.
So much for the brainlessness of her assistant. Fucking Ian. She considered going to Logan's door but without looking back she could tell that the handyman would be watching her out of the side of his vision. She continued normally, balancing the ice bucket as she unlocked her door. As soon as she was inside she dropped it in the sink and knocked on the out of place doors adjoining the two rooms. She hoped that they were still connected.
They were. Logan answered after a minute looking confused but alert, his bare skin disappearing as he pulled on a shirt.
Shame, she thought automatically, and then blew out a little stream of air. Keep it cool, girl.
"What's wrong?" Logan gestured her in, turning around and leaning over to grab his badge from the nightstand. Even in the dim light, Veronica could see the slide of his spine where his shirt hadn't fully pulled down in the back and the capableness of his long fingers as he fixed the star at his waist. Reaaal cool.
"There's a guy out in the hall," she said quietly, breaking her gaze purposefully. "And I'm pretty sure he's the reason you're here."
Logan picked up something that in the darkness Veronica had thought was part of the lamp base but turned out to be a small caliber gun, and strapped it to his ankle. "Proof?"
"My famous gut instinct," she said, trying for a smile.
"Yeah, okay. Anything here you can't leave behind?"
"My laptop and wallet, things like that." She let herself be calm, echoing his total nonchalance.
"Go grab it." When she came back a moment later, changed into her jeans from the day before and holding a bag with her electronics, Logan had unlatched the window and was pushing the screen carefully out of the frame. He turned to look at her over his shoulder. "Middle room on this hall has a removable window in case of fire because the exits are farthest from here." She came over and helped him rest the screen on the grass below. She now understood why they were on the ground floor, and how much planning had gone into this meeting.
Logan made a move to help Veronica over the sill, but she set her bag outside and climbed over herself. He followed after a minute, bringing his own bag with, and returned the screen to cover the window enough that it covered their tracks. Veronica took out her keys and started around the side of the building to the parking lot. Logan caught her wrist and pulled her in the other direction, toward an alley at the back.
"Play human yo-yo with someone else," she snapped, voice low, as she tried to readjust their course. "My car has all my files in it. I need to get them out."
"He's not interested in the case files. I think he thinks you're Evie, which means I need to get you safe and away from here. It's fifteen minutes to the marshals office in Syracuse."
"But I'm not really a witness. You can go take care of your actual business."
Logan looked unmoved. "Ten years ago, I would have let you be the boss, but this whole thing is actually my business." He went around to the driver's side and unlocked his car, a very plain navy sedan, gesturing toward the door near her. "Get in."
Things began, very suddenly, to speed up. There were footsteps in the alley. When Veronica turned, she could see the silhouette of a man- not the handyman; he had been taller- heading toward them. He lifted his hand. Logan was starting the car. "Gun," Veronica said, simple, surprised, and a little too loud. But it didn't matter, because as the word left her mouth, the man fired, the bullet hitting somewhere in the vicinity of the trunk. Veronica wrenched open the back door and dove inside, the whole movement graceless. Logan peeled away onto the road. Somewhere behind them, another car started up, following them with squealing tires. The headlights lit up the car's interior eerily around them. Logan gave the wheel a tense, decisive turn, bringing them up a back road.
The sound of Veronica's breathing filled the car, a ragged reminder of why she had given up the danger biz years ago. "You're not hit, are you?" Logan asked, turning not enough to actually see her but enough that she appreciated the effort.
"No. I'm fine." Her voice was a little high, a peak of tears in the last sound.
"Okay, I think you might be in shock, or have an adrenaline rush. I need you to keep talking to me."
"Right." She pushed out a breath, scrabbling for control. She knew that in some former version of herself, she had faced things like this and had come out alive, but it had been a long time. She had not been prepared to be thrown back in. "Um...I almost got a federally protected witness killed when I was in high school."
"What?"
She started telling him the story of Tom Cruz and Steve the Catahoula leopard dog. Logan began laughing a minute in. "Of course that was you. I worked out of the San Diego office for a couple of years and they still talked about it."
"They should. I thought the marshals were supposed to have a clean protection record for everyone who follows the rules."
"We do. It was just that damn dog. Dude shouldn't have been allowed to keep it, but it was sick, supposed to die a couple weeks after he entered the program, so they let him have it. And then of course it stuck around waiting for your eagle eye."
The lights behind them had faded, either because the men in the car realized that Logan had been heading toward the marshals office or because Logan's knowledge of the back pathways outstripped theirs. Veronica wondered about that. "Do you work out of the Syracuse office?"
"No, Mouse and I were picked to escort David and Evie so no one would be able to tell where they were relocated. We work out of the Louisville office."
Veronica was sitting herself up gingerly. The nausea she had been feeling was abating. Her eyebrows went up as she processed what he had said. "Kentucky?"
"Yes ma'am. The Gateway to the South." She could see the glint of his teeth in the rearview. "I'm now the proud owner of three cowboy hats."
She laughed, helpless against it, and decided just to ask the question that had been bothering her since he had walked into the suite and shaken her hand. "Why the marshals?"
"Dick and I got drunk in front of a Deadwood marathon and he dared me."
"Are you kidding?"
"Yeah. But you believed it for a second." The levity of his voice faded as he continued. "I always admired your dad. Didn't always like him, but I admired him." The laughter was back for a second as he said, "Marshals don't have those pesky jurisdictional conflicts that sheriffs do, though. Perfect for my spoiled side."
"You mean all the sides?"
It was a bit of a nasty thing to say, but he didn't hesitate. "Hey, I'll have you know that I haven't gotten my nails buffed in weeks."
She shook her head, faux sympathetic. "I'm sure your cuticles are a nightmare."
"I guess the answer is that I'm good at it," he said abruptly. "Protecting people from their old lives, making sure they can find new ones. And no one can do a threat assessment like I can."
Something flared in Veronica's chest as she thought of why that was, of the times he had been a threat, and the ways he could see behind the things people assumed to be positive- wealth and good looks and celebrity- to the danger beneath. She opened her mouth to say something, although she wasn't sure what, but they pulled into the parking lot of the huge glass and concrete marshals building. It was half dark but a pair of women came jogging out to meet them and whatever Veronica had meant to say was lost.
Logan set Veronica up on a couch in one of the offices as he went do whatever he needed to, APBs and BOLOs and debriefs. Someone had come with a sweatshirt and a tank top each with USMS emblazoned across the chest, which was good because although she hadn't noticed, her pajama t-shirt was sweat-sticky. She fell asleep in the sweatshirt, but woke around dawn to find it was suffocating her. She'd had strange dreams of Gayle and narrowing hallways and a driver's license that identified her as Evie Marks. What she remembered most from them was not fear, but annoyance that she had been unprepared. She had been burying herself in normal for so long that she had lost the expertise she used to have.
She was also angry. She had underestimated the greed of her clients, of the assistant she saw every day. I'm going to quit my job today, she thought, detached, as she switched to the tank top. She couldn't go back to sleep after she did, so she stood and looked around the office. The gold plate on the desk said that the occupant was named Sam Park. There was a signed football carefully placed in a stand on a shelf and an awful, itchy-looking sports jacket stuck on the coat rack. All the pictures were of women- a middle-aged one who was probably his wife, and teenaged twins- except one which showed what she assumed was a younger version of Sam, looking tough and victorious in marksmanship training, a marshals star logo on the breast of his t-shirt.
Logan cleared his throat behind her. She held up the picture for him to see. "Did you have to go to training?"
He came and took the frame, glancing at the photograph and grinning. "Yeah. Seventeen and a half weeks of hell in southern Georgia. Three of us passed out the first day, it was so hot."
"Were you a third of that number?"
"Nope. I waited until day six. Dropped while we were on a run and cracked my head on the pavement." He leaned down and ran a finger along his hairline. "You can still see where they stitched it up." It was the first time she could remember hearing a story behind one of his scars where he sounded proud.
And they still let you in? was what she tried to say, but her brain didn't seem to send the message to her mouth. Or maybe her mouth had different ideas because she pulled the neck of his shirt so he craned down that last little bit, and kissed him.
"Do you get training in that too?" she asked when she eventually pulled away.
"Only if you're going into the 1950s undercover units to fight the Commies," he said, gently sliding a lock of hair behind her ear. "And you know I was always more into blonde than red."
It was so cheesy that she laughed and kissed him again, longer and with more focus.
When she pulled away this time, she found that Logan had maneuvered them onto Sam Park's squashy sofa. He tipped his head back, resting it, looking dazed and Cheshire pleased. "I won't pretend I didn't want this from the second I saw you standing in your best meeting the marshals business casual, but are you sure this isn't just the adrenaline? You kind of had a lot of excitement for one night."
"I know, isn't it great?" Maybe the adrenaline did have something to do with it- she could tell that her eyes were just a little too wide- but she also felt like she was smiling more truthfully, was more herself, than she had been in years. He laughed.
She shifted, trying to get Logan's to do more than kissing on the world's unsexiest sofa, but his phone rang. He gave a sighing laugh and answered. She settled back against the arm of the couch as Ackerley's voice rumbled from the phone. She couldn't make out any of the words, but he was obviously pissed. Logan rolled his eyes in Veronica's direction, mouthing 'mother hen' before he patiently answered his partner.
Last week, all of this- corruption, disruption, mystery, Logan, chaos- was exactly the opposite of what she wanted in her life. Now her mind was already working on how to keep it. Sunlight began to trickle through Sam Park's office, and with one of Logan's hands resting warmly on Veronica's ankle, she tried to figure out how to get it all back.
Title from the Allen Ginsberg quote, "Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness."
Semi written for one of the VM fic recs tumblr prompts for July, but honestly this whole thing was probably an excuse to talk about Logan's fingers pinning a marshal's badge to his waist, an image that once thought would not go away. Hope that doesn't ruin it for you.