Pairing/Character: Veronica, Parker, Parker/Logan
Spoilers: 3.15
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars is not mine, of course.
The things that can't be changed
Veronica hates parties, especially when they're the typical fraternity house affair, a claustrophobic sauna redolent of stale sweat, cigarette smoke, cloying perfumes, and expensive colognes, packed with drunk and oversexed guys hitting on equally drunk and underdressed girls. She'd never be there of her own choice, not anymore, but she's never flinched at any of the unsavory locations her cases have led her, and she's not about to start now. It's a typical, mind-numbing surveillance of a maybe-cheating boyfriend until Veronica glances across the sweaty, writhing bodies on the frat party dance floor and sees Parker and Logan. They are in their element, wrapped around each other and swaying to the pounding rhythm of the bass line, both a part of the chaos and somehow separate from it, each existing in a world comprised solely the other. Veronica's hand tightens on the tiny camera in her hand as she stares, unable to look away.
It hadn't taken a detective to realize Parker's tentative questioning as to whether Veronica and Logan were over, whether Veronica was truly as done with her ex as she had so blithely declared, meant the tall blonde had an interest. Another huge clue had been Parker, then Logan, coming to Veronica for her blessing. She had ignored the unwelcome twist in her gut and given Logan the permission he had requested. Later, she had tracked down Parker and, with a cynical wish for luck, deeded her former flame to the other woman. Ample warning and brief glimpses of the pair at the food court should have prepared her for the reality, the sheer inevitability, of the pairing. The in-her-face actuality—if across a room at a party neither knew she would be attending could be called in her face—knifes through her carefully constructed wall of indifference.
Logan had once looked at Veronica with that amused adoration, had edged against her and cupped her face with that intense intimacy that always terrified her. She had given up any claim when she had determined it was time to let go of one of the few good things to come out of high school. Now she has no right to the jealousy and pain washing though her in acid waves. She has no right to feel that the last few stable fragments of her world have suddenly cracked away.
No right, but no way of stopping it, either.
The beat changes. Parker looks up, and, somehow, despite the man and the crowd and the distance, finds Veronica's eyes. Veronica spins, not wanting to see Parker's reaction. No matter how Parker feels, Veronica doesn't want to expose her pain to her successor. She pushes through the wall of bodies, never more glad of the small size that allows her to slip through the wildly partying mass, and escapes.
Running away is one of the skills she has honed to perfection.
She leans against the rough stucco of the frat house, the only thing saving her from an ungainly collapse onto the ground. She takes a deep and shuddering breath, then a second, pulling the crisp night air into her lungs. She can do this. She can tuck the jagged pieces of the past away, where they won't hurt her anymore, and move on. Eventually, the remaining ache will subside, either because she'll have healed or because she'll have become inured to the pain.
'Eventually' still dangles out of reach, no matter how desperately she clutches at it.
Curious glances from partygoers who have spilled out of the house remind her she isn't safe. It isn't enough to escape the building. Now she needs to go to ground, to hide where she can let herself break down until she can sort the pieces of past and present back into their safe little chambers in her head.
Somehow, she finds her Saturn and makes it home, although she can't remember a single moment of the journey. She either obeyed the traffic laws, or the cops, when confronted with the erratic driving of the interim sheriff's daughter, chose to look the other way. She stumbles from the parking lot to her apartment, shoves the key in the lock with shaking hands, and pushes into the refuge of her apartment. Curled into a ball on the couch, a worried pitbull shoving his head under her chin, she eases her death grip on her self-control.
Seeing Logan moving on to another woman shouldn't be able to bring Veronica to her knees. She had long ago told herself to try not to get attached, to never fully trust him. After all, Logan was never hers, not really. She had only embraced the inevitable when she cut him free. She just needs to learn to accept it.
Even back in the halcyon days when they snuck illicit kisses in bathrooms and broom closets, Veronica had understood she was a replacement for the girl Logan really loved. He had belonged to the vivacious girl whose blood was spilled onto cold grey flagstones on a crisp October night. Lilly had possessed him body and soul, and her death had stripped away the mischievous boy and left a cynical, sometimes sadistic, man in his place. Veronica had been a placeholder, first for his guilt over Lilly's death, then for his love for the dead girl.
Veronica can never be Lilly. When her best friend still lived, Veronica was the innocent reflection of her friend's shining light. After Lilly's death, the reflection turned dark and cracked. She is too careful, too damaged, to mimic Lilly's carefree spontaneity, to pretend to Lilly's wholehearted joy in everything life had to offer.
Parker Lee has that joy, that same ability to drag her compatriots into adventures they never would have voluntarily attempted, that same ruthless enjoyment of everything life has to offer. All Parker lacks is Lilly's dark and manipulative foundation. Wealth, privilege, and Neptune herself twisted and tainted Lilly Kane. Thus far, Parker has fought and won against the city's poisonous and corruptive influence.
Parker perfectly plays the light and airy queen to Logan's doting king. Around Parker, the mischievous Logan is back. All Veronica has ever been is a proxy, unable to be what Logan truly needs.
A rap on the door shakes her from the tear-streaked daze. Only the fear trouble found her father—and the knowledge her neighbors would be less than pleased by a commotion in the dark hours of the morning—sends her to the door. Furiously trying to wipe away the evidence of her latest bout of weakness, she moves the blinds aside.
The tall, lean blonde hovering outside the door, hand raised to knock a second time, is not one Veronica had expected.
"Parker?" Biting her lip, Veronica cracks open the door. The wrong half—if there could be a right half—of the scene she had been escaping fidgets on her doorstep. "Why are you... is everything all right?"
"That's what I came to ask you."
Veronica steps out of the range of the porch light, hoping the shadows hide the dried tracks of tears. "I'm fine."
Parker, taking this as an invitation rather than the dismissal it was meant to be, moves past, closing the door behind her. "You're still in love with Logan."
Veronica stills. "I'm... I'm not... why..." All her skill at dissembling, at lying under pressure, has deserted her.
"Why didn't you say something?" Parker asks. "I never would have gone after him if I'd known..."
Veronica rushes in to fill the pause. "No, it's over... We're over... it's done. It's nothing." Head down, she rubs at the treacherous moisture in her eyes.
"Veronica, when you look like someone's leading you to your execution when you see your ex with another girl, it's not over, and it's not nothing."
Veronica wraps her arms around herself and leans back against the door. No response comes to mind, no appropriately witty rejoinder appears to ward off and gloss over the truth, burying it so deep in deflection and misdirection that no one could ever unearth it.
"Oh, hon." Parker touches her shoulder hesitantly, fingers feather light. "I didn't realize... you're just so good at hiding what you really feel. I'm so sorry."
Veronica hates the sympathy, hates the compassion, hates that she can't identify the knife that has to be hidden beneath the words. "Why?" she asks, more harshly than she probably should. "Why do you care?"
Parker just gives Veronica a small smile. "You're my friend, and he's your ex, and I knew better. Girl code: friends don't date friends' exes. It's just he's hot, and he's so sweet, and funny, and I knew if you trusted him, I could trust him..."
The bitter laughter that rips through Veronica transforms into choking sobs as Parker watches in concern. Veronica fights her traitorous body, but despite hard lessons and irony and every good reason for every protective barrier she has put into place, she is undone by caring arms surrounding her and whispered words of comfort.
Veronica has a thousand defenses against cruelty and indifference, but honest concern and friendliness always surprise her. Always trip her up and disconcert her until she can scrape away the surface lies and find hidden motives underneath. For now, it doesn't matter. Everything that has been building for a month—or three months, or nine months, or maybe back three and a half years, Veronica doesn't know, can't even keep track of all the sources of all her scar tissue anymore—tears free and she is beyond caring who is there to see.
She doesn't know how long she rains her breakdown against Parker's shoulder, or when Parker pulls her over to the couch. Parker just lets her cry, gently rocking her and stroking her hair.
"It's okay to need him," Parker murmurs later, when worst of the storm has cleared. Her kindness hurts more than anger or pity could have.
"No." Veronica swallows sharply. "No, it's not. Not anymore."
"You... you should talk to him. Tell him. I'd understand—"
"He's happy." Veronica insists, interrupting. "He's happier with you than he ever was with me. He... he deserves it, that chance."
"And you don't?"
"I don't know if I can," Veronica whispers, closing her eyes against the unwelcome honesty but impelled to somehow balance the scales, to offer Parker a sacrifice equal to a rescue on one traumatic December night. "I don't think... I'm not equipped anymore. I... I lost that. And I never figured out how to get it back. But Logan, despite everything, everything, never lost that underlying joy, and I sometimes hate him for it, but... but he deserves someone who can give him what he needs. Not me." After the rush of words, she collapses back against the cushions of the couch and shakes her head. "Not me."
"Veronica—"
"No arguing." She forces a smile, and thinks it might almost look convincing. "You're good for Logan, and I'm terrible for him, and that's the end of it."
"But it's going to effect," Parker gestures between herself and Veronica, "our relationship, isn't it."
Veronica raises an eyebrow and manages a half-hearted tilt of her head. "Wait, when did we start dating?"
Parker exhales a surprised chuckle and rolls her eyes. "Seriously, I don't want this to be weird. Are you... can we..."
Veronica shapes the empty reassurance in her mouth, but can't sound out the words. Finally, she looks away and shrugs. "I don't know."
"Can we try? Please?"
Veronica glances back, meeting Parker's eager and hopeful eyes. Veronica remembers the many sides to Parker: perky and welcoming the first time they met, broken and shorn after the night she didn't remember, uncertain but determined as she fought back possession of her own self, fierce and unyielding as she faced down her rapist, playful and vivacious as she coaxed Mac and Veronica into a life outside classes and cases. Veronica remembers, and maybe she can use the memory of that Parker, the one Veronica respects more than she can ever put into words and had become fond of despite herself, to ward off Parker's present incarnation, the one Veronica has to try not to resent.
Maybe.
Finally, Veronica nods slowly. "We can try."
She has become quite skilled at trying. Success is far less certain.