It was three days until the beginning of the term and Veronica couldn't believe she was doing this, of all the crazy situations she had been in... OK, maybe this one wasn't the worst but it still ranked pretty high.

It all started with what she'd call «the day Don Lamb got to do his job» with the arrest of Aaron Echolls for the murder of Lily Kane and 3 attempted murders, and of Jake Kane for obstruction of justice.

But it was too much to hope that the night would end on a such good note, with her finally reunited with Logan after tending to his wounds and apologizing to him about her, yet again, lack of trust and his understanding ways, no, no, none of that, they were in Neptune after all, so that same night, Logan Echolls got arrested for murder as well.

"What murder ?" would you ask... See, a few hours before Aaron got arrested, Casidy Casablancas destroyed Logan's alibi, and Veronica had been the one who notified the local Sheriff of that, getting him arrested and leaking involuntary that information to Eli Navarro, ex-lover of Lily Kane and leader of the PCH. So, as Veronica almost got burned alive by Aaron Echolls, Logan, because of her, almost got beaten to death on Coronary beach by the PCHers,

Somehow, he survived, but woke up with the dead body of Felix Toombs by his side and no memory of what had happened.

Logan's pricey lawyer had came through for him, thank God, because of the circumstances, he had asked for a rapid judgment, Logan had been beaten pretty hard, his broken bones and bruises proof enough, his opponents had been numerous and all had a past of violent behavior, the few who had gone on stand got crushed by the attorney and without even getting Logan to testify, he demonstrated that no, there had been no witness to the actual stabbing, so Logan might still be innocent, but even if he did stab Felix, it would have been a case of self defense. Logan got out free, and people would think all was right in the world, but it was not.

When PCHers think you killed one of their own, they don't care about what a Judge has to say about it, so they harassed Logan, vandalism, threatening phone calls, all that escalated until one night, they shot at his car when he and Veronica were in it.

And that was when Logan decided to retaliate... For all the harassment he had been victim of, he had endured and not done a thing because he still felt guilty Felix died even though he wasn't sure he had been the one who stabbed the guy, but all gloves had been taken out after that night and despite Veronica's urgings he could no longer let it go, so he started by getting most of the PCHers relatives who worked in 09 households fired, and later after Dick got beaten by the gang, he and his friends set fire to the community pool.

And that was when Veronica couldn't bear it anymore, she had seen the escalation of the turf war between haves and havenots and she knew that violence was the only way Logan knew to defend himself, but she could not bear it anymore and asked him to stop, to calm the game down, to try to live in peace with the PCHers, that discussion went really well... OK not well at all, he denied he did anything, but really, he had been so obvious about the fire, she had seen Dick with a can full of fuel the same day asking Logan to come along..

But he still denied and then dragged out "how she could never put her trust in him", "how she accused him of all wrongdoings every single time" and the fight got louder and louder but he couldn't hear the message, couldn't see that it was killing her to see him in the path of self-destruction, she just couldn't bear it anymore and broke up with him.

The violence of his reaction to that scared her but it horrified him even more, seeing the bits of the broken lamp on the floor and the fear in Veronica's eyes finally got to him, he just whispered "oh my god" and left her apartment in a hurry as if he had seen a ghost. And that was the last time she had seen him... that was three weeks ago...

Where was she ? Oh yeah, she had gotten off track, somehow it always happened when she started thinking about Logan, so much issues, so many regrets... but no, her being here today wasn't because of Logan, no, the problem was her other ex, Duncan Kane, who had left town with his parents when Jake had been discharged with a slap on the wrist, had returned five weeks ago.

First, everything was hunky dory, she would only see him from time to time, at the beach while she walked Backup or at the Java hut when she had her shifts, Logan and him were still ignoring each other, but beside that, nothing noteworthy.

The problem started two weeks ago, when she had let it slip that Logan and her were over when Duncan asked about why he didn't see his ex-best friend for such a long time at the Cafe. She started seeing more of Duncan and didn't think anything of it, but, on her birthday, he left her a fortune cookie that said "True love never ends", his intention to woo her clear enough.

And THAT was the reason for her presence on this 09er porch tonight...