The doorbell rings for the second time. Veronica looks up from her position on her hands and knees and blows a stray lock of hair out of her face. "Logan! C'mon, get the door! I'm still picking up all the popcorn kernels that spilled in the kitchen!" The bell rings again. Dammit! Stupid soundproofing in the media room! Frustrated, Veronica jumps up, narrowly missing hitting her head on the edge of the granite counter top, and races for the door. "Coming!"
Just as she reaches for the knob not even bothering to strain to look out the peephole she can't reach, she hears Logan call, "Did you say something, babe?" His tone lets Veronica know that he heard her just fine and chose to ignore her.
"You lazy ass! Just because you're on leave does not mean I have to do all the work around- Hello?" Veronica pulls the door open mid-rant to find a young, beautiful blond girl looking at her nervously from the porch. Well, good thing I got the door.
She immediately feels guilty at the thought. Veronica likes to think that she has finally matured enough to be genuinely secure in her relationship with Logan - a decade of co-habitation, seven of them married, also helps - but her husband does very much have a type, and this girl is it.
"Are you Veronica?" the girl asks when Veronica looks her up and down, eyebrows raised.
"Who are you?" Veronica's instincts are telling her something is wrong and she stiffens with suspicion. This girl looks familiar, but Veronica can't place her. Whatever her instincts are telling her, though, it isn't to be afraid; the girl is clearly harmless. Still, something is off and she's grateful to hear Logan's footsteps approach behind her. "Who's there?" he asks.
"I'm – I'm not sure how best to answer that for you. I guess I should say Lilly? Although I've been going by Chloe long enough that I think that's the name that will stick."
Suddenly, Veronica understands why this girl looks so familiar. It's the eyes. She has Duncan's eyes. And Meg's cheekbones. And Lilly's hair. And- "Oh my God."
"Holy shit!" Logan stills behind her, shock clear in his face. "I'm sorry. It's just…" He shakes his head to clear the shock and bring forth his manners. "Please come in." He puts his hand on Veronica's shoulder and tugs her gently out of the way to allow the girl to enter.
"I'm sorry for showing up like this. It's just, well, I wasn't sure you would agree to see me otherwise. I also didn't think I would find both of you at once. This is a…convenient…surprise. I guess our info was a little out of date after all." She looks inexplicably irritated at this realization.
Logan leads the girl to the living room and motions for her to sit down. Veronica, meanwhile, hasn't moved from her location by the door. When he leaves the room to get the drinks they all clearly need, he stops in front of her and cups her face."Veronica? Are you okay?" he asks her quietly as he smoothes the lines from her forehead.
Veronica looks into Logan's eyes and blinks away the confusion. "Yeah, she just caught me off guard." She smiles wryly, "Points to her for throwing me off my game. Doesn't happen often."
"Don't I know it," he says tenderly and kisses her lightly on the tip of her nose. "Now go in there and figure out what the hell she's doing here. She wasn't expecting me, so you'd better go start. I'll get us something to drink. Something with alcohol."
Veronica grins back at him and turns to walk toward the living room. She squares her shoulders and puts on her best PI face. If she treats this girl like a walk-in client, maybe she can rein in her thoughts, because right now, all sorts of scenarios are running through them, and it's making her a little dizzy.
The girl is standing in front of the fireplace holding a framed photo in both of her hands. She glances over her shoulder when she hears Veronica walk in, but doesn't put the frame back. Veronica can see that she's clutching it so tightly that her knuckles are white. "We were fifteen there. Your Aunt Lilly threw me a surprise party. If you can believe it, we were actually very fashion forward." Veronica tries for a joke to lighten the tension a little bit as she sits on the couch, and Lilly – Chloe – visibly relaxes. She gingerly puts the frame back where it was.
"It's crazy to see my dad so young. We didn't have too many pictures, and none of him looking like this. He seemed happy." There's something strained around her eyes as she speaks that Veronica tries to identify.
"It was a happy time and looking at how much you've grown is making realize how long ago it actually was! You must be, what, twenty-one now?"
"Yeah, last month." Veronica finally notices the Australian accent that lies just beneath everything Lilly – Chloe! - says.
"Is that why you can be here now, Lil- sorry, Chloe? Because you're over eighteen? Nobody stopped you at the border?" Logan walks back into the room holding a small tray of wine glasses and an open bottle.
"Umm…well, that's kind of why I'm here." Logan sets down the tray and pours out the wine, handing each of the ladies their glasses, then sits next to Veronica on the couch. Chloe sits down on the chair and stares at her glass for a minute as though steeling herself before speaking.
"My dad died three months ago."
Chloe doesn't look up when she says the words; she stares deep into her glass, a frown on her face.
"I'm sorry." Logan manages to sound like he means it, even though in reality he's not sure how he feels. He's sorry for her, at least.
"How? What happened?" Veronica's voice is stunned but quiet. So very quiet. Logan looks over at his wife. He's rarely seen her like this and reaches over to take her hand. She looks at him gratefully and holds on tightly.
"Dad said you know everything, right?" At their nod of confirmation, she continues, "He…he got a letter from my grand-parents telling him that the lawyers were having trouble getting the charges dropped even though I'm an adult now and the Mannings were finally willing to compromise. I guess now that I'm of age, they had no other leverage. We were hoping that with signed statements from them and me that a deal could be reached. Apparently it was harder than we thought. He…went ballistic. I'd never seen him like that. I knew about his condition, but it had never, ever been an issue before. While he was trashing his apartment he hit his head on the corner of the kitchen island at a bad angle. He never woke up."
Veronica chokes out a sound that is somewhere between a sob and a retch, jumps up from the couch, and runs out onto the patio. Logan lets her go, knowing that she needs a few minutes to process before he goes to see if she's okay. While he keeps one eye on the French door, he asks, "You said that your info is out of date? What did that mean?"
"My dad had ways of getting information about what was going on with the people that he cared about. He knew that you joined the Navy, and that Veronica was in law school. He knew that she had come back to Neptune when your – uh, when that singer died. I'm sorry, by the way. I really liked her music."
"Um, thanks." Logan's face is a mix of confusion and sadness at the memory of grief already a decade old.
"Anyway, he'd heard that you guys had gotten back together, I mean, it was in all the papers for a while, but the last thing he mentioned to me about it was that he was pretty sure you wouldn't make it. We didn't hear anything else so we assumed…." she shrugs. "Sorry."
Logan's face hardens at this, fist tightening around his glass. He places it gently onto the table and stands. "Excuse me for a minute, I need to make sure Veronica is okay." He needs to get the hell out of that room before he says something stupid is what he needs to do. This girl has no idea about any of their history and can't understand how her words affect him. Well, some things never change I guess. So much for Best Friends Forever. Fucking Duncan.
Veronica is standing in the dark on the flagstone patio, staring at where the waves on the beach would be seen if there was light. "Are you okay?" Logan places his hands on her shoulders and steps up behind her. Her arms are wrapped around her middle, but she leans back into him, takes his hands and wraps his arms under hers.
"I am now."
Logan kisses the top of her head. His heart still sings when she says things like that to him. "Talk to me."
"I heard what she just said. Duncan's an ass." Logan snorts in response. "But Lo, he's dead. He might have been an ass, but how is it that half of us are gone already? God, we're too young."
"We've always been too young, V. That was part of the problem."
They stand in silence a few moments more and then Veronica turns around and kisses him firmly. "C'mon, we're being rude."
"I think she was rude first," Logan pouts.
"Yes, but we're the adults, dear. Let's go set the example." Holding hands, they go back inside.
"Sorry Chloe. You just caught us off guard." Veronica walks up and grabs the picture Chloe was holding earlier. "Here, keep it. I have another copy."
Chloe shyly smiles in thanks and stows the picture in her bag. At the same time, she pulls out two envelopes. "I'm glad I have both of these on me. When I was going through my dad's papers, I found these letters addressed to each of you. His instructions were to give them to you if anything ever happened to him."
Veronica and Logan accept the letters with matching white faces. Neither is sure what to say.
"Look, I need to get going. Grandmother doesn't like me to be gone too long. Side effect of me not being on the run anymore, I guess. I don't want to upset her."
"Like father, like daughter," Logan mutters low enough so that only Veronica hears.
She elbows him in the ribs as Chloe gathers her things. "Thank you for bringing these. Can we see you again? I have…questions if you don't mind? Maybe in a few days when this sinks in?"
"I'd like that. Dad always- he liked to talk about you." She looks between Veronica and Logan, an unreadable expression on her face, before she settles on Logan and adds politely, "You too, Logan. I'd like to hear some stories from you guys too. Especially about my mom, maybe?"
"Definitely. I'll call you soon."
When Logan returns from walking Chloe out, he finds Veronica sitting on the couch staring at the closed envelope. "I love you," he says softly. She raises her head quickly, looks him straight in the eyes, and says firmly, "I love you, too."
Logan smirks at her tone. "I know. I wasn't looking for reassurance. I have grown out of that, you know." His eyes shift back and forth from her letter to his own on the coffee table and he feels his gut clench slightly. Well, mostly. When he reclaims his seat next to Veronica on the couch, grabbing his letter on the way, she shifts over to cuddle up to him and the negative energy flows right out of him at her touch. He's silently grateful for the comfort he doesn't want to admit he still needs. Veronica's next words break into his thoughts, the underlying anger in her voice as she speaks surprising him.
"After all this time, why the fuck is he sneaking up on us again? Couldn't he just stay gone? What could he possibly have to say to us two decades later?" Veronica jumps off the couch unable to sit still anymore, her tone rising with every question.
"I'm not thrilled with this either, V. Last time he slunk back into our lives, he stalked you into dating him again. I don't particularly relish the thought of opening these letters, especially if he didn't know how happy we are now." Logan is trying to hold his emotions in check. He knows from experience that when they both lose their cool at once, nothing good comes of it. It would be better for him to let her have her freak out, then deal with his own feelings after but, unfortunately, he's the one who's always been on the losing side of their history, and he's more shaken by Veronica's unsettled reaction that he cares to admit.
Veronica spins around from her spot across the room to look closely at Logan. She suddenly sees her words and actions from his point of view, and her whole countenance changes instantly. If she's learned anything from the last decade of being a Navy girlfriend-turned-wife, wondering if their latest argument will be their last when he's half way around the world fighting for his life, it's that she needs to consider what she says and how she says it. And to apologize if she fucks that up, like now. "Lo, no. I'm sorry. I'm doing this all wrong." She walks back over to him and cuddles back up next to him. Their arms go around each other and they hold on tightly for several long minutes.
"I'm sorry too. I'm acting like we're in high school all over again. Look, I know we're okay. I do. It's just that you never really had any closure with him. I never really had any closure with him. It still stings." Logan pulls back from Veronica and presses his letter flat on his thigh, smoothing out the wrinkles caused by his crushing fist. "Shall we?"
Veronica sits up straight next to him, takes a deep breath, and says, "Let get this over with." They rip open their envelopes and start to read. Veronica's is several pages of light blue stationary, hand-written on both sides in Duncan's precise cursive. Logan's is a single typed page with a hand-written "DK" at the bottom. Both are dated three years earlier.
Logan finishes his letter in a few short minutes and throws it down on the coffee table as he gets up and heads for the bar. The remains of the wine on the table are not going to be sufficient to calm the waves of vitriol rising in his gut. Anger of this magnitude calls for the top shelf bourbon.
…looked up some Navy stuff when I heard about you and read about the "just-in-case" letters. Thought I'd try one of my own. …sorry I never got to say goodbye. …know you'll understand why I had to leave for my daughter. …regret the way it all went down with Veronica. …know you guys tried again a couple of times after I left, but I'm glad you realized it was never going to work. You were always more like Lilly, and Veronica was always supposed to be with me. …sorry she and I will never find each other again like we were supposed to. I wanted you to be the best man at the wedding, dude! …good luck with the Navy thing. Girl in every port, if I know you.He pours a large measure into a tumbler and throws it back quickly before pouring a second glass to nurse. He heads for the door and throws out distractedly, "I'll be on the patio when you're done with yours." In about three hours, he thinks bitterly.
It's only about fifteen minutes later when Veronica comes outside looking for Logan, her own glass of bourbon in her hand. Anyone getting close enough would be able to smell the trace of alcohol on her breath from the shot that she's already had. This night's been shot completely to hell; might as well face it well-fortified.
But Logan isn't on the patio. Her shoulders fall in disappointment.
Allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark, Veronica eventually spots him down almost at the waterline, lying in the sand. She grabs a blanket out of the storage bin by the stone shower and crosses the sand. Nudging her husband with her foot, she hands him her glass so she can spread out the blanket. They settle back down and lie quietly staring at the stars for a while until Veronica breaks the silence. "So, from one to Naomi Campbell, where are you on the Logan Echolls Drama Queen Scale?"
"About a six. Which is a definite improvement over the Anna Wintour I was at when I came out here." Logan's voice is mild despite the tension he's exuding. He reaches for her hand and squeezes it.
She's relieved that he's joking with her. She had taken a minute to read his letter before coming out to find him, and she half expected him to be seething. She certainly was, but she couldn't let that take over yet. First she needed to make sure that Logan was all right.
"I'm sorry you had to read that letter," Veronica says, gently poking the bull. "We should have just burnt them without opening them. Note to self, next time you get posthumous letters from dead ex-friends, don't read them. Think we need to post that reminder on the fridge?"
"Veronica…" Logan's voice holds a note of warning.
"I can even pick up some calligraphy pens to make the message look pretty." When she sees that he isn't amused, she lets the bitterness finally break through her facade. "What? Oh, please, Logan! In what way did Duncan's letter enrich your life or your memories of him? It was a load of the ripest shit that has ever been written. It had been almost twenty years since we'd seen each other when he wrote that garbage and in his head, it seemed like senior year could have been last week. I call bullshit. That 'condition' " – Veronica mimes air quotes – "that he had clearly made him hallucinate. 'Find each other like we were supposed to.' Bah!" She flicks her hand dismissively.
Logan looks over at her searchingly. "What did yours say?" he asks quietly.
"Lets deal with one bout of raging anger and pitiful self-doubt at a time, shall we?" Veronica answers with a smirk.
Logan smiles back. "That bad?"
"Worse."
The smile falls from Logan's face and his eyes get sad. "Why does he still make me crazy?"
"You said it before: no closure." Veronica sits up, crosses her legs Indian-style and looks down at him with a determined expression. "How can I give you closure?"
He barks out a laugh. "I don't know that you can, babe." He takes a deep, calming breath. "Look, after everything that happened between him and me, I don't think I could have gotten closure if he would have shown up personally at our door. It might have felt pretty good to punch him again though."
"You would have had to wait your turn," she spits.
Logan looks at her confused. "I thought you guys were all in love when he left. You never gave the impression that you were mad at him. What changed?"
She shrugs. "A psych degree, twenty years of perspective and you." Veronica tugs at Logan's hands to make him sit up facing her. "I regret a lot of things about senior year, Logan - just about everything, frankly - but never once did I regret not going with him. That was my closure. I shut the door on him the minute he left with his baby, probably earlier. Kendall, maybe? Or maybe even finding out Meg was pregnant. Whatever. He was gone and it was fine with me. The only time I ever let any of those feelings out to play was while I was getting my degree and I was finally trying to process it all."
"Help me?"
"With what?"
"Process it all. I want what you have. I can't keep facing this over and over. It's festering and I'm tired of it."
"I'll try, but I'll admit that I'm not a fan of dredging it all up again after all this time." She can't look Logan in the eye when she says this, but she hears his sharp intake of breath.
"You don't think we can handle it? That I can handle it?" Veronica can hear his fear that she's disappointed with him and mentally kicks herself for her idiocy at how she's communicating with him.
"No." She is firm in her response, and she looks him straight in the eye, trying to repair some of the damage she's doing. "I absolutely think you can handle this, that we can handle this. I'm just upset that we've been forced to. Again and again. I just want a nice, easy life. What's wrong with that?" She sighs dramatically and tries to lighten her tone. "But I suppose that it's been dredged up already anyway, so we'd better get it all out of the way once and for all." She begins to crawl toward him and straddles his lap. His hands settle on her hips as her arms wrap around his neck. Logan brings his lips a hair's breadth from hers.
"Are you trying to distract me from making you tell me what was in your letter?" The space between their mouths is rice paper thin.
"Fucking Duncan…" she barely answers.
"Not who I want to be fucking right now, actually," and he proceeds to use every trick he knows to help them both forget Duncan's ghost for at least the next hour or two.
It's actually about three hours later when Logan wakes up in their bed to his body trying to reconcile two very different sensations: a soft tickle on the inside of his arm and a firm sucking of his very present erection. The feelings are both sweet and sexy as hell, and he doesn't know if he should laugh or groan. Veronica, hair wild and looking thoroughly wanton, is making figure eights with the tip of her right pointer finger on his arm. Her left hand is cupping his balls in just the right way and it doesn't take long for his back to arch, that luscious tingling starting in his belly and radiating outward.
"God, Veronica! Fuuuuucccckkkkk!" His bowed torso collapses onto the bed and Veronica crawls up, delicately licking the corners of her mouth. "Jesus, Veronica. You certainly know how to turn a really shit night around, don't you?" He lunges at her, kissing her deeply and letting his hands begin to roam.
"Whoa, cowboy! I appreciate the offer, and might take you up on it before the night is out, but I wasn't looking for a return on investment. I know how much that relaxes you, and I figured you could use it." Veronica quirks an eyebrow at him and smiles.
Logan chuckles, but reaches toward her anyway to kiss her neck. "So you woke me up from a post-sex nap to relax me?" Veronica stays in his arms, but pulls back so he can't nuzzle.
"No, I woke you to keep talking, and wanted you good and relaxed before we started."
Falling back into the pillows, Logan lets out a frustrated breath. "Talk, huh? You want to do this now?"
Veronica settles more comfortably into Logan's embrace. "Want might be overstating things a bit. See this? This is my "I'd rather be having a root canal" face. But I do think it should be sooner rather than later. Let's get this shit over with and bring on the closure, baby! The sooner it's done, the sooner we can never talk about him again."
"Wow, you make this process sound so enticing! See this? This is my "I'd rather be fucking my wife" dick." Logan swats away the hand that is about to flick at said dick. "Hey! Don't damage the merchandise. You break it, you buy it. Be good."
"Pretty sure I already bought it. Besides, I'm always good."
Logan lets his head fall back, eyes closed, and groans. "Ugh! Start already so we can get to the fun stuff. What did you want to talk about?"
"I think we need to lay it all out there. Duncan, Lilly, you, me. Us as friends, us as couples, us as neither of those things." Veronica shrugs matter-of-factly. "It's what worked for me."
Logan looks over, surprised and amused. "So, when did this happen? How? I can't see you walking into a shrink's office and letting loose."
"Yeah, no. I had a professor at Stanford I clicked with. She needed a paper published on how trauma affects relationships. She knew my history and asked if I would mind being interviewed. I was far enough into my degree to have realized that I needed to start acknowledging my past, so I agreed. It turned into a semester of free therapy. I…began at the beginning."
"The beginning…?"
Veronica looks contemplatively at Logan. "Huh." He raises his eyebrow in silent inquiry. "I actually don't know the beginning. Well, yours anyway. How did you and Duncan meet? Why don't I know this?"
"Because we lived in LA at the time."
Logan darted around the families in the hallway, squeezing through the smallest of spaces – okay, shoving his way through the smallest of spaces – in order to finally get to the class they had told him was his during orientation the week before.
His mom followed him down the elementary school hallway, trying desperately not to step on some little child's foot in her three-inch Louboutins. Mind you, at least if they bled on her, the new red soles would hide the stains.
"Logan, sweetheart, hang on! Mommy's coming!" she called to him, concern lacing her tone. Logan stopped and looked back questioningly.
"Now, I know you must be nervous, honey, but kindergarten is for making friends. Don't you worry! Just go on in, walk up to another boy and tell him your name."
"Mom! I know! Can I go already?" Logan responded impatiently. He'd been waiting for this day for months! He couldn't wait to finally be able to play with other kids. Playing on movie sets was fun and all, but there weren't too many kids around, and nannies just weren't the same.
"Come give Mommy a kiss." She pulled up her oversized sunglasses and stuck out her cheek to him. Logan gave her a distracted peck and ran into the class, throwing his schoolbag that was overstuffed with school supplies onto the pile near the door.
There were already a few kids in the class checking out the toys and books on the shelves, but they were mostly girls. One boy, though, was pouring out a giant bucket of Legos onto the polka-dotted carpet. He looked nice enough, so Logan walked over, sat down, and started rummaging through one side of the pile. "What are you making?"
The boy looked up, surprised at being spoken to. "Uh, I dunno. Normally, my Legos come with papers to tell me how to put them together." He looked back down at the piece he was fidgeting with, shy.
"Mine too. What sets do you have? I have a bunch of the castle ones and made a huge set up in my playroom. My favourite is the Fire Breathing Fortress!"
"I have a lot of the space ones. The giant rocket ship is my favourite."
"Cool! I also have a whole bunch of other pieces, though, to make my own stuff."
"My mom doesn't let me have buckets of pieces anymore. She says that they get everywhere, and my sister keeps leaving them all over the floor on purpose, so she had the maid get rid of them."
"Bummer! My dad says the same thing. He hi- yelled at me too when he stepped on some of mine. I got lucky, my mom managed to hide them all in my playroom, and I only play with them when he's not around now."
"What kinds of things do you make?"
"I mostly make cars and guns. Those are fun. Like this gun. This part here is where it shoots the rays from. And this part here is the trigger. And here is what you aim with, see?" Logan said excitedly to his new friend.
"It's so cool! I'm not allowed to play with guns. My mom says good boys don't use guns. And my dumb sister just tells on me when I try and hide them." Duncan said wistfully.
"Well, your sister isn't here. C'mon, I'll make you one too. Then you can be Greedo and I can be Han Solo. Besides, my dad plays with pretend guns all the time. It's so cool. You should come with me to watch him. He makes movies."
"That's so cool! My dad sits in front of a computer all day. It's boring to watch him. I've got a Nintendo though. You could come play Mario Brothers with me. My name is Duncan, what's your name?"
"Brentwood School, where the rich and famous send their kids to learn how to be rich and famous." Logan says sarcastically. "Every time Aaron needed to up his "Doting Dad" quotient, he'd pick me up from school and we'd walk leisurely to the car he'd conveniently parked down the street, giving the paps plenty of time for pictures."
Veronica squeezes him into a tight hug, and brings the subject back to their original focus. "So, friendship borne from Lego and Mario Brothers, huh? I'm really not surprised," she teases. "Why would you make him Greedo, though? I get you being Han, because, of course. But why not have Duncan be Luke? He's so much more of a Luke, all whiny and –. Sorry." She presses her lips tight shut.
Logan gives her the side-eye, but ignores her last comment. "Because one person has to be the bad guy and the other person has to be the good guy, or why would you be shooting each other? Silly girl." He pats her head affectionately.
Veronica snorts. "Oh, of course. Pardon my ignorance."
"Anyway, we became friends pretty much right away. His mom was always calling to set up play dates and whatever. They invited me on a couple of trips. I'd stay there when Mom and Aaron both had to be away." Logan gets a faraway look in his eyes. "You know, I haven't thought about those years in a long time. It's amazing how much I didn't notice. I guess when you're that age, the only things you really see are your friends and their toys."
"What do you mean?" Veronica asks.
"Well, I'm pretty sure we met before Kane Software went public. That didn't happen until they moved here, right?" Veronica nods in confirmation. "The Kanes were well off in LA, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near the level of rich they are now, obviously. I remember they had this big house that Celeste tried to make look like a magazine. God, Duncan and Lilly hated it. The only rooms they could tolerate were their bedrooms and the playroom."
"Sounds like their palace here too, later."
"True, but I guess it was…smaller? Whatever, my point is that looking back I can see Celeste trying so hard to give the impression that they belonged with the rich and famous. She called my mother constantly, inviting her for parties and asking her to stay when I went over. I remember my mother's face when Celeste would call. Slightly exasperated, eyes rolling. Celeste was desperate to use Duncan and me to validate their place in that world."
"Does that mean you guys wouldn't have been friends if Celeste hadn't pushed so hard?"
"No, I think we still would have. But it was why I so close to the family. They tried to keep as close to my parents' world as they could."
"What about Lilly? How was it with her when you were kids?"
It was Logan's turn to snort. "What about her? She was annoying. Couldn't stand her."
Veronica giggled. "I can just imagine. I can't see her wanting to play Star Wars and video games."
"God no! But she did her best to get in our way, I can tell you that. Even at eight or nine Lilly needed to be the center of attention. She'd come in, didn't matter what we were doing, and ruin the game we were playing, demanding that we do whatever she told us to. And if we didn't she'd run to tell Jake we were making fun of her or whatever, and we'd end up having to do what she wanted anyway."
"So what, tea parties and Barbies?"
"Can you see Lilly having a tea party, V? No, mostly sneaking around doing things we weren't allowed to or going places we shouldn't be. Spying on neighbours, shoplifting, stupid kid stuff."
"You never saw any signs of his seizures? I know you told me about that time right after he broke up with me, but nothing when you were kids?"
"I don't know. I guess there were a couple of times, but nothing that made me think he was sick or anything. Like, there was this one time, we must have been, what, six? Seven, maybe? I came over and when I got there, Duncan was crying because his hamster was dead."
Logan walked into the den and saw Duncan standing in front of his mother, head down, stifling his sobs, trying to hug her. She was having none of it, keeping her distance, a cool, detached look on her face.
"Duncan, stop crying this instant. Boys who will be President one day don't cry over nonsense. Your hamster is dead; we'll just get you another one. Now tell me what happened."
Hiccupping, Duncan answers, "I d-don't know! I was m-mad because L-Lisa told me t-to clean his c-cage. Then it was later and h-he was crushed on the f-floor. I don't remember!" He started sobbing again.
"I said stop it!" Celeste stood looking down at her son, concerned. "Was it like last time you couldn't remember? When Lilly hurt her arm?" Duncan nodded.
"Fine. I'll call Dr. Peters and move up your appointment." Looking up, Celeste saw Logan standing there. "Logan! Wonderful! Come and cheer up Duncan. We've unfortunately lost his hamster this morning to an accident. He's…upset."
Duncan wiped quickly at his face, trying to hide the tears from his best friend. Turning around with a forced smile, "Hey! Wanna go practice on the skateboards?"
"Sure, c'mon. That sucks about your hamster."
"Later that day, we went with his nanny and got another one. Sometimes when we got mad at each other or whatever, he'd fly off half-cocked, and then the next minute he'd be fine. I never questioned it. I was used to that at home." Logan shakes his head sadly. "I guess the mood swings ended not long after that. His doctor must have started him on the meds," he shrugs.
Veronica pokes her head up and notices that Logan's alarm clock says that it's almost one in the morning. She shifts slightly, repositioning them so that Logan is hovering over her. "I'm glad you had a place to escape to when you were a kid, even if it was with the Ice Queen and the Crazy King of the Castle. Not all of your memories of Duncan should be bad. He was important once upon a time."
Logan's face tightens, unwilling to let down the wall around the Duncan part of his heart. "Mmm…yeah, well, all it meant was that it hurt more when he disappeared."
"But you wouldn't be you if it hadn't happened that way, and we might not have met. So I'll chalk it up in the win column." Veronica kisses him lightly, nipping his bottom lip as she pulls away.
Logan moves in for a deeper kiss, covering her with his taut, naked body, trying to get as close as he can. "So, has the talking portion of the evening come to an end yet? Are you ready for that return you invested in earlier?" His voice is husky and seductive, and Veronica concludes that they have memories they could be creating instead of remembering. She reaches her arms over her head to grab the headboard, stretching her naked body and spreading her legs, providing Logan all the access he needs in response.
As much as Veronica wants to deal with the Duncan issues quickly, real life has other ideas. Logan may be on leave, but her caseload is not getting any smaller, and the next few days are spent at the office with Mac pouring over background information on cheating spouses and shady business partners.
Logan uses the time to finish building the component hutch for the den and start on the matching side tables. He also catches up on his surfing, sometimes with Dick since Mac is busy with Veronica anyway, sometimes alone. In the last few decades he's developed several coping mechanisms for dealing with stress, and when flying billion dollar jets isn't possible, like now while he's on leave, he has surfing and woodworking to fall back on. It still bewilders Veronica when she watches Logan in his workshop but at least he'd finally found an outlet to take care of both his fidgeting hands and his racing mind and although he never makes anything overly complicated, it is just enough to pass the time while he's at home.
It's taken these days of returning to real life to ground Veronica enough to be able to call Chloe. She definitely wants to see the girl again, and if the number of times that Logan's asked if Veronica's called her yet is any indication, he does as well. She had finally made the call that morning, and they are preparing for Chloe to arrive. Logan sets the pitcher of lemonade and glasses on the table on the patio while Veronica follows close behind carrying a plate of snickerdoodles. She slaps Logan's hand away for the fifth time that afternoon, laughing at his persistence. "Would you stop? You can have some when she gets here."
"They smell so tasty," he whines, but changes course and wraps his arms around Veronica instead.
"They'll still be tasty later." She kisses the tip of his nose, and turns serious. "We should see her again, right? Tell me this isn't a horrible idea."
Logan's brown eyes stare into Veronica's blue ones, anxiety warring with mirth. "A little late now, don't you think? It probably is a horrible idea but we'll only know for sure when she gets here."
They settle into a giant patio chair, wrapped around each other, to wait for Chloe to arrive. Logan runs his hands through Veronica's sun-bleached hair, enjoying the silky feel of the strands between his fingers. "So, I showed you mine, now you show me yours."
"We don't have time. She's going to be here any minute." Veronica answers lazily, dozing under Logan's caresses.
"It's always about the sex with you," Logan huffs in mock outrage, a smile in his voice. "I meant, perv, how did you meet the Krazy Kanes. I wasn't around for that."
Veronica considers before answering. "I think the first time I saw Jake Kane, I was doing a ride along with my dad; he was a deputy then. My mom was…well, she was drunk, I guess, and I was about eight. Yeah, that's right because it was the summer before fourth grade, when Duncan started school here. Anyway, I remember Dad stopping this big silver SUV with tinted windows and two surfboards on the roof. I saw Jake arguing with him over the ticket, but I didn't know who he was at the time. I was just angry that this guy seemed to be calling my dad a liar. I saw the radar gun, he was totally going fifty-five in a forty. So, my dad takes his papers and comes back to the car to write up the ticket. I remember him looking down at the name and being surprised by it. He obviously knew who Jake was. He turned to me, a little smile of satisfaction in his face, and said, "Some days, it's good to be a cop, kiddo!" He just about skipped out of the car. I didn't put two and two together until way later when I first found out about him and my mom."
"You want to know something hysterical?" Logan asks. "I'm pretty sure I remember that too. Jake was driving me and Duncan to the beach for our surfing lesson. I was here because Dad had decided a few years before that Neptune sounded like a great place to get away, park the yacht and 'escape the masses.' I guess all those stories about Jake's hometown at the Kane dinner parties made an impression and we used our house as a summer getaway before we moved down permanently. I can't believe the coincidence. Jake was so pissed, by the way. He trash talked the Sheriff's office all the way to the beach."
"Whatever. He deserved it," Veronica scoffs dismissively. "Duncan I met when school started. I remember, because he was the only new kid in my class, and my friend Suzy Doyle thought he was dreamy."
"Veronica, who's the new kid?" Suzy whispered from under the top of her desk, which was propped open with a ruler so she could organize her school supplies.
"Huh?" Veronica's head popped out from behind her own desktop. "Oh, how should I know?"
Suddenly, a loud voice called out over the noise of the chatting kids, "Duncan! Come sit over here!"
Veronica looked over at her friend, and answered, "Well, Dick seems to think his name is Duncan, so I guess that's who he is."
"Well, he's cute. Go ask Dick where he's from."
"No way! You ask him yourself! God, Suzy, why do I always have to ask all the questions?" Veronica complained. "Like with that lifeguard from the beach this summer. 'Go ask him what time it is, Veronica! Please!' "
Suzy tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Whatever, Veronica. He was ancient anyway. Ugh! Why do all the cute guys have to be one of the cool kids? He's never going to notice me. Maybe if I wear my pink sweater? It's kind of like Madison's, so maybe he won't know that I'm not an 09er. What do you think?"
Veronica looked over at the new kid appraisingly. "Maybe. I think your blue one might be better though." Suddenly, Duncan looked up and caught Veronica staring at him. She dropped her eyes immediately and turned an unnatural shade of red. "Oh. My. God. He saw me looking. Quick, what's he doing now?"
Suzy tried to be subtle and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She saw the pink in his cheeks and the slight questioning look on his face, but then Dick said something and pulled his attention back to the conversation they were having. "Nothing. Talking to Dick. I think you're good."
"God, that was so embarrassing. At least I won't ever have to talk to him." Veronica looked over a little wistfully at the group of girls sitting not too far from the cool boys. "It's not like they're gonna ask us to their sleepovers or anything."
Suzy sighed. "Why won't they? Aren't we awesome? I don't know, maybe you're right. If I wear the blue sweater…"
"We are awesome!" Veronica sat up proudly. "We'll just have to have better sleepovers than them, that's all," she finished, a determined look in her eye.
The sound of the doorbell cuts into the memory, and Logan can't help but quip dryly, "Aww…baby 09ers. How cute, just like honey badgers. They look all harmless until they maul you to death." He looks down at Veronica. "Alright, Buttercup. Let's do this."
"Can you get the door?" Veronica asks, batting her eyelashes coquettishly.
"As you wish." Logan untangles himself and flourishes a bow in response before entering the house to let Chloe in. They both appear through the French doors moments later, and Veronica stands to welcome the girl.
"Hi, Chloe. I'm glad you could come. We would have called you sooner, but…well, it took us a few days to get used to the idea."
"Don't worry about it. I'm in town another couple of days before I need to head back to school, anyway. And I'm sure it must have been very upsetting to hear about Dad that way. Especially for you, Veronica." Chloe catches a glimpse of the glare that flits across Logan's face before he puts on his mask, and blushes slightly. "Sorry. Dad always said- never mind."
Logan busies himself pouring out the lemonade, then excuses himself and goes into the house. Veronica can sense the anger, even though he's doing a decent job of keeping any sign of it off his face. She looks thoughtfully at Chloe and then stares down into her glass.
"I'm not sure what your father told you about me, about any of us, but I think I have a pretty good idea after reading those letters," she says quietly, and looks directly into Chloe's eyes. "This whole thing has been…difficult. For both of us, but more so for Logan, I think. I guess I'm just confused about why your father felt he needed to write us at all. It's been twenty years. Do you know?"
Chloe shifts uncomfortably in her chair under Veronica's scrutiny and shrugs. "I don't know specifically, but he talked about you all a lot. Especially you, like I said. More than anyone else, even my mom. Sometimes, he made it sound-" Chloe stops talking abruptly and her eyebrows crease with unease.
"What?" Veronica prompts, but suspects she knows the answer. "He made it sound like he didn't love your mom?"
Chloe nods and Veronica swears under her breath.
"Now now, dear. It's not nice to speak ill of the dead." Logan chastises as he walks back to his chair at the table, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Veronica looks closely at him, and can see the hard glint in his eye that tells her he's holding it together, but only just. She reaches under the table and puts a hand on his knee, hoping the connection will calm him. His shoulders immediately lower a good two inches, and he exhales softly. She smiles at him, letting the love she has for him fill her expression. He returns her smile, slightly abashed at his reaction, and turns to Chloe.
"Look, Chloe, we haven't seen or spoken to your father in a very long time. If he didn't talk to you about your mother, or made it seem like he didn't love her, I'm sorry. I can only tell you what I knew about it all before you left Neptune. But Veronica has dug out a bunch of pictures of your parents, and we can try and tell you anything you want to know. Just, please, don't assume everything Dunc- your dad has told you is the whole truth. There's a lot of history there, and a lot of baggage. It sounds like he might have rewritten some of it over the years to suit his memories."
"Suit his martyr complex, you mean." Veronica mutters under her breath, low enough so only Logan can catch it. He puts his hand over hers on his knee and squeezes.
They spend the next hour or so looking through old pictures of Meg, Duncan and Lilly. Veronica and Logan tell Chloe stories about what Meg was like, and only a little of her family, since Chloe already seems to know most of the situation there. Chloe updates them on what she knows of the more recent goings on with the Mannings. Her Aunt Liz hasn't spoken to her parents since around the time that Meg died, but has come to visit Chloe several times while she's been in Neptune. Grace, unfortunately, has refused to see Chloe, or rather, Grace's husband has refused to allow his wife to visit but she was allowed to write to say that she is praying for Chloe's soul. Apparently, until Chloe gets baptized into the church as she should have been as a baby, she is unwelcome in that household. Mr. and Mrs. Manning are much the same as they ever were, but after having spoken to them a few times on the phone, Chloe has no interest in seeing them while she's here.
Shortly after they put away the pictures, the discussion moves into dangerous waters. "You mentioned the letters earlier, Veronica." Chloe begins.
Veronica and Logan's eyes meet, and then they look back at Chloe, wary. "Yes?"
"I think I can safely say that my dad really loved you. I mean, even my grandmother told me how you drew him away from my mother, how you showed up at their house one time after you'd broken up, crying, asking why he'd left you. He was always so sure that you would find us and show up one day. He told me all about you being a private investigator, and how you helped us get away. I'm sure you could have found us." Chloe's flushed face is the only visible sign of her distress. Veronica vaguely wonders if her stoic behavior is due to nature or nurture before refocusing on Chloe's words. "He waited right up until that last day, I think. How could you just turn your back on him? Didn't you know how much he needed you? How much I needed a mom? It wasn't like I could expect mine to show up, her being dead and all."
Veronica can only just sit there, stunned. Logan, on the other hand, puts both hands on the table in a slow and controlled manner, stretching his fingers straight, and pushing down on his palms. He looks right at Chloe and says in a soft menacing voice, enunciating every word, "Get the fuck out of our house."
The sound of his voice snaps Veronica out of her stupor. She stands up so quickly that her chair falls over backwards with a crash. "Your father loved me, did he? Did he tell you the part where he fucked his friend's gold-digging stepmother one week before he left? Did he tell you that he didn't even tell me that your mom was pregnant, because, and I quote, 'It had nothing to do with me'? And Celeste can go fuck herself if she thinks she has any right to twist history about why I showed up at their door crying. When your dad left, he asked me to go with him, and I refused. There was never any chance that I would follow, no hint that I even wanted to. If he waited for me, if he made you think that I was coming, then he wasted his life, and yours, waiting. You don't know anything about me, about the decisions I've made or the people I love. My husband just told you to leave. Get out." She turns around and walks down the patio steps to the beach.
Just before Veronica gets out of hearing range, Chloe calls out, glancing knowingly at Logan, "I guess Grandmother was right, sometimes women want fame too, not just money." Logan's hands ball into fists and it takes every bit of training he's had to stay seated while Chloe grabs her purse and quickly escapes through the house and out the door.
Logan closes his eyes and counts to fifty before he feels the adrenaline start to fade. He opens them again and turns to scan the beach for his wife. He can see her sprinting away along the waterline and knows that she's too far for him to catch her, but that she likely won't go too far. He gets up and heads into the house to the office where they had left the letters from Duncan.
He picks them up, grabs a matchbook, and goes back outside to the beach to wait for Veronica to come back. About thirty feet from the house, he digs a small hole in the sand and busies himself finding decent sized rocks to form a ring. Just as he places the last few, Veronica jogs up to him, and he stands to meet her. She falls immediately into his embrace, and they spend a few minutes just holding each other.
After a time, Veronica breaks the silence with, "Well, that answers that question. Horrible idea."
Logan laughs into her hair, pulls back and kisses her on the forehead. "It really was." He releases her and turns around, indicating the small fire pit that he built. "So was not burning the letters before reading them. Care to correct that mistake?"
"I thought you wanted to know what mine said. You don't want to read it first? I mean, I read yours."
"How did you put it the other night? Want might be overstating things a bit," Logan answers with a smirk. "Actually, I wanted to wait until you got back to make sure it was okay."
"You mean so I was here to make sure you didn't do something stupid after you read it." Veronica teases. "Go ahead. Should I get you a stick or leather strap to bite down on first?"
"You're such a comedian." Logan sits down and pulls out the handwritten pages.
My dearest Veronica, If you are getting this letter, my love, it means that the worst has happened and I have died. I'm so sorry to leave you. I know that news of my death will hurt, but know that I will be with Lilly, waiting for you to join us. Please don't cry too much. Even though you never managed to join me, I know you were working on us being together. When I heard that you went to law school, I was thrilled to know that you must have been working to find a way for me to come home so that we could finally be a family, just like we had always planned. Chloe (that's what I call Baby Lilly now) is almost eighteen, blond and beautiful. She could almost pass for ours. I wish you had been able to join us, to help her grow into a woman. She could have used you. I could have used you. I hope, now that I'm gone, you can find it in your heart to watch over her, for me, and for Meg.Logan swallows back the bile rising in his throat and reconsiders his decision to read the letter. His eyes scan the pages quickly, never focusing on any one part too closely, only just enough to get the gist of the ramblings of this stranger he used to call friend. Towards the end, he spots his name and goes back to read the entire final paragraph.
I've waited every day since I left for you to find us. I got news sometimes about you. I know that you tried valiantly to live your life without me after I was gone. I'd heard you got back together with Logan after he was charged with killing Carrie, but nothing after that, so I assume you came to your senses and realized that it is our love story that will never end, not even in death. Besides, with him in the Navy-you know Logan as well as I do-you would never have been sure he wasn't partying it up in every port. I'm just sorry you had to get hurt all over again, because I know you. Your gentle and loving nature could only mean that you would be sad at the inevitable betrayal. I hope, once you get over your grief now, that you will be able to find someone who will love you as much as I do and who is good enough to take care of you properly. Until we meet again, Your devoted Duncan xxx"Wow, you weren't kidding." Logan looks up from the last page, incredulous.
"Yup." Veronica pops the 'p' at the end.
"He was absolutely bat-shit crazy. Completely and utterly deluded." Logan shakes his head. "I'm not even all that mad. This is just pathetic." She quirks an eyebrow at him, disbelieving. "Okay, so maybe I am mad, but that doesn't change how pathetic he sounds."
The whole time Logan is reading the letter, Veronica is sitting next to him, facing the ocean, biting her nails. She had truly dealt with all of these feelings in college, but to be reliving it all now, through Logan, has not been easy. Duncan and Lilly had both been such defining people in her life, and even though she had seen neither one in decades, this is the first time she feels as though she's truly letting them go. Maybe it's because the complete disconnect of Duncan's words confirmed for her once and for all that the image she had of the Kane kids from her childhood memories never really existed. Or maybe it's because she has her life with Logan now to contrast against any made up life with Duncan. Either way, these letters are not something she wants to keep under their roof anymore.
Veronica pulls out a match and gets it ready to strike. "You done?"
Logan dumps the letters into the small pit and creates a shield with his hands so that Veronica can light the edges on fire. They sit and watch as the flame eats away at the paper. When only ashes are left, Logan throws on some sand to make sure the fire is out, jumps up and reaches for Veronica's hand.
"Let's go call our actual friends and do something fun. I think we need it."
Veronica smiles as Logan pulls her up. "You've got yourself a deal, Lieutenant."
The first thing that Veronica notices when she surfaces from a deep sleep is that the bedroom is very dark. Logan's clock in her sightline reads 04:44 am. The second thing she notices is that the other half of the bed is empty and cold. Frowning, she finally hears what must have woken her up: the sound of some kind of power tool coming from Logan's workshop. She climbs out of bed and throws on her robe, mentally steeling herself for the admission that she knows it's time to make. She doesn't want this thing with Duncan hanging over Logan anymore, so she quickly prepares two cups of coffee and walks into the workshop to get this last discussion over with.
Logan is so intent on the sander in his hands, sliding it back and forth over the tabletop to some meditative rhythm in his mind, that when she clears her throat he almost drops it. "Jesus Veronica! Don't you know better than to sneak up on a guy with a tool in his hands?"
Veronica bursts out laughing, spitting out the coffee she was sipping. "You know, I wouldn't always be thinking about sex if you didn't make so many comments like that."
Logan shuts off the sander, sits back on a stool and tries to catch his breath. He laughs when he realizes what he said and accepts the coffee cup from her hand. "Sorry I woke you, baby. I guess Trivial Pursuit wasn't enough to get my mind off things."
"You're just sore because Wallace kicked your ass. Again."
Logan's eyes look at her over the rim of his cup, dancing with amusement. "I was distracted, that's all. I'll get him next time."
Veronica quirks a skeptical eyebrow at him, grabs the sander from his hand and sets it down on the workbench. "Sure you will. C'mon, the end tables can wait till daylight." She grabs his hand, leads him, unresisting, into the den, and pushes him lightly to sit on the couch.
"You're being particularly bossy tonight," he comments, although his resigned face says that he knows what's going on.
"You asked for help, this is me helping. Suck it up, Lieutenant."
A delighted look overtakes his expression of resignation. "That's your job."
Veronica shakes her head, but she's smiling at his attempt to deflect. "No more double entendres until we finish talking," she says, poking a finger in his chest. "Got it?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" Logan responds in his best Navy voice.
Veronica cuffs him lightly and moves to cuddle up next to him. She wants to be held by him during this story, because she's not sure how she's going to get through it otherwise.
"I need to tell you something, something that I realized when I dealt with all this stuff. But…I'm pretty sure you aren't going to get it. It took me a while to accept, so promise me you'll let me finish, ok?"
Logan pulls back and looks at Veronica, concern and questions radiating from his eyes. "I promise."
Taking a deep breath, Veronica tries to figure out where to start. "Okay, so I know that Duncan's letter was crazy, but I also know that it's been replaying in your head all night. Some small, tiny, buried part of you still thinks that maybe I should have been with Duncan. And you also feel like maybe you really didn't know your friend at all, someone who was supposed to be your best friend. That maybe it was misplaced loyalty that caused the shit storm that we went through in high school and it was all for nothing." Seeing the amazed look on Logan's face, she asks wryly, "How am I doing so far?"
"I'd say that we should look into how you can make some money off this amazing talent you seem to have."
Veronica snorts. "Not a general talent, sweets. Just you." She kisses him lightly. "I know because I felt exactly the same way. Look, I meant what I said to Chloe today. I was never going to go with Duncan. I never wanted to. When he told me Meg was pregnant, I tried to act supportive, but the truth was, the way he handled the whole thing made me realize that what I was doing was a huge mistake. Then you let it slip about Kendall and my whole attempt at turning my sexual life into some normal teenage experience just crashed and burned around me. There was no way to turn what he did to me into something acceptable, especially if he was going to belittle it all by cheating on me with her of all people."
Logan quickly cuts in on her story. "Veronica, I've already apologized for Kendall; I think we've been down that road and dealt with it. But I don't think I ever apologized for telling you about her and Duncan like that. When I figured out what was going on, I knew you would never believe me if I just told you. I needed to corner him so that you would come to your own conclusions. I'm so sorry." He lowers his forehead to hers and closes his eyes to hide his guilt.
"Logan, stop. I'm not bringing this up to blame you. Please, I can read you better than that. Once the rage haze wore off, I knew exactly why you did what you did. Bygones. Also, not the point of my story." She lifts his chin with her hand and forces him to look at her. "Okay?" Logan nods. "Good," she says firmly and stands up to pace off some of her nervous energy.
"Then Meg died while I was trying to figure all of this out, and I decided when he told me he was going to run that it was going to be easier to keep my promise to Meg to help the baby if I pretended everything was normal until he left." She walked back over to Logan and sat down on the coffee table in front of him. She reached for his hands and asked him, "Did you once see me upset after he left? Was I teary-eyed? Did I look like I was not sleeping?"
"No, but you were pretty good at hiding your feelings back then," Logan answered quietly.
"Not that good and not from you. Trust me, you would have known."
Logan looks at her for a long minute. Finally, he can feel his heart lighten as he decides once and for all to let it go. She chose him; she did not choose Duncan, period. He smiles tenderly at her. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," she says simply. "But we're not done yet." She laughs as his face falls, but then she turns serious. "I want to talk to you about Lilly."
"What about Lilly?"
"Do you remember how she and I became friends?"
Logan thinks back and shrugs. "It was after you and Duncan started dating, right?"
"Mhmm."
"So, Veronica Mars, if you're going to be hanging around my idiot brother now, I need to know everything about you." Lilly remarked from where she was tanning on the lounge chair next to Veronica. The boys were in the den playing video games.
"Uh, okay, I guess. What do you want to know?" Veronica answered, unsure of herself and very aware that she could not screw this up if she wanted to keep seeing Duncan. Lilly presided over everyone as Queen of the 09ers, and always got her way. It was summer and there would be lots of days at his pool. With Logan his best friend and Lilly his sister, she needed them to accept her if this was going to work. And maybe, just maybe, Lilly would actually like her. So far the limited hanging out that they had done seemed to go okay, although she knew that Lilly thought she was a little vanilla.
"Everything. Have you popped his cherry yet?" she whispered.
"Lilly!" Veronica blushed.
Lilly laughed at her reaction. "I guess that's a 'no'." She sat up and rubbed her hands together excitedly. "Excellent! You, Veronica Mars, are my new project. I have a good feeling about you. You might seem all sweet and naïve, but I've heard you the last few weeks. You can certainly hold your own with Logan, and not too many people can meet his sarcastic comments without flinching. I have a feeling hidden under there is a fabulous sex goddess just waiting to escape! Stick with me kid, and we'll go places."
Veronica laughed excitedly. She couldn't believe that after all this time she finally had an "in". She needed to call Suzy later and tell her everything.
"I have no memory of a Suzy. Why don't I know who that is?" Logan breaks in.
Veronica looks guilty. "Because I'm a horrible person. After Lilly decided to play fairy godmother, she didn't leave me with a lot of time for other friends. We…grew apart. I may have burned some bridges there, which explains why, when Lilly died and everything went downhill, I didn't have any other friends to turn to." She shrugs and then smirks. "Suzy would have been so upset to know you had no idea who she was. She was soooo jealous of Lilly when you guys started dating."
"Of course she was," Logan jokes, arrogant. "All the girls were."
Veronica smacks him upside the head -"Jackass" – then continues. "My point is, I did everything Lilly said and wanted. I was so excited that she wanted to be my friend and I finally got to hang out at the cool kid table, that I channeled everything into that friendship. I told her all my secrets, and assumed she did the same. In my head, she was my best friend. But really, I came to see that that's all it was. In my head."
"Hey guys!" Veronica called as she walked into the Kane's den.
Logan and Duncan were focused on the giant TV in front of them where it seemed like some army guys were blowing up aliens or robots. They barely grunted a hello until there was a giant explosion and the screen went black. Logan swore.
Veronica crossed her arms and restarted with fake cheer. "Again: Hey guys!"
"Hey Veronica." Duncan came over and dropped a kiss on her cheek then made his way over to the mini fridge behind the bar to get some sodas. "Uh, I didn't know you'd be coming over today." He glances guiltily at Logan.
"Lilly and I had plans to go shopping. I mentioned it yesterday."
"You'd better be meeting Lilly, V, because I called dibs on DK for the afternoon. You got him all day yesterday, it's my turn." Logan faux-whined from the couch.
Duncan, relieved that he hadn't double booked his afternoon, laughed at his friend. "Now, now, there's enough of me to go around. A little for each of you." He sat back down, put his arm around Logan's shoulders and made kissy faces at him. Logan scrambled to extricate himself from Duncan's embrace, and the boys began play wrestling.
"Don't let me interfere with your man-date. I just wanted to know where she was."
The boys looked up from the floor in front of the couch where they'd fallen. Logan's eyebrows creased in confusion. "She's not upstairs?"
"No, I checked her room first. I assumed she was in here."
Understanding dawned on Logan's face, and he looked at Veronica sympathetically. "Shit! No, V, wait. She shouted something about being bored maybe thirty minutes ago. Said she had rallied her posse and was going to raise some hell. I just assumed it was Lilly-speak for meeting you."
Veronica looked crestfallen and shook her head. "No, she didn't call me at all this morning. I've been trying to reach her to confirm our plans, but only managed to leave a bunch of messages." She looked at the floor. "We said yesterday we were shopping for homecoming dresses today, though. I'm sure of it."
Duncan came over and put his arm around his girlfriend. "You know Lilly, princess. She dances to her own tune. Don't take it personally."
Logan laughed wryly. "Trust me, Veronica. She does this to me all the time. You get used to it."
Veronica tried to shrug off the slight. She did know that when it came to plans with Logan, Lilly's philosophy was to hold back occasionally to keep him wanting more. She just didn't think it extended to her.
"Veronica, no!" Logan sits up in dismay. "Lilly loved you!"
Veronica smiles slightly at the memory of saying much the same thing to him oh so long ago. "Eh, maybe. In her own way. But think about it. Go on, I'll wait." Veronica's tone is matter of fact, and Logan can't grasp how she can be talking like this. He sits back in the couch and pulls up all the memories he can of Lilly and Veronica. They flit through his mind like random scenes from a movie.
He remembers, smiling, the first day of sixth grade in his new school, when he was trying to find the office with his mom and this tiny blond girl in pigtails pointed them in the right direction on her way to soccer practice.
He remembers Duncan telling him that he was thinking of asking Veronica to the upcoming spring dance. Logan had known that his friend had been crushing on her, and told him that it was too early to ask her to the dance but to ask her to a movie first, while he still had the nerve.
He remembers Lilly appraising her from across the quad during lunch. She had asked him to tell her all about this girl her brother appeared to be dating. Logan just shrugged and said she was smart and sassy. They sat near each other in class and she always laughed at his jokes, but not in that sycophantic way other girls did. And occasionally she dared to volley one back. Lilly seemed to approve, saying that with a little help, Veronica might do her brother some good.
Then there were the times when Duncan wasn't at lunch, and Veronica would approach the table hesitantly, as though she wasn't sure she was welcome. As far as Logan knew, the other girls had included her in their gaggle, but now, taking the time to actually think about it, he realizes that she often sat on the outskirts of the conversation, even when Lilly was around. Lilly, who was the center of every group, every conversation, every event, didn't slow down for anyone. She certainly didn't ignore Veronica by any means, and she probably had considered Veronica her best friend, but it was with the same depth that Lilly treated all of her relationships. Which is to say, not deep at all.
"She didn't know you hadn't been skinny dipping." Logan says, incredulous.
"Nope." Veronica confirms. "She also didn't talk to me about regular friend things like the fact that she was joining pep squad before she did it. Isn't that something friends do? Discuss what clubs they want to join together? She didn't even come shopping with me for my Homecoming dress. She was too busy with whatever other friends she had that week. Not that I knew that, because she never told me about any of it. I told Lilly absolutely everything. She told me next to nothing. I think I was her closest friend. It's just that for her, that meant taking as much as she could, but giving nothing of substance in return. She was who she was."
It was Logan's turn to pace, and he did so with manic energy. "But what the hell does that say about all the shit that happened after she died? You endured everything I put you though, for what? If your friendship with Lilly was as meaningless as you say, that makes those two years in high school so much worse. God, Veronica!" Logan tugs at his hair with both hands, so upset he doesn't know what to do with himself but stare at her helplessly.
"Yeah, well, I will admit that when I was dealing with all of this at Stanford, I had the same kind of freak out you're currently having," Veronica answers drily. "Except with more ice cream and crying. Because not only did I lose any artificial social standing I had for her, I also threw away some actual friends." She stands up and walks over to him, gently disentangling his hands from his hair and holding on to them tightly. "I decided that no matter how she felt about me, to me, she was my best friend. And I acted as I needed to for my best friend. Like I said, I do think she considered me her best friend too, and I need to take comfort in that, even if it's not the same kind of friend I was to her. What's more, without all of that, I never would have gotten Wallace, and Mac, and Dick" - she shudders slightly – "but most importantly, you. I wouldn't change this for anything."
Logan wraps his arms around Veronica and brings her in close. Sadness overwhelms him. "I guess we've both been fucked by the Kanes."
"Both literally and figuratively," Veronica quips and then sees his pained reaction. "Sorry, too soon."
"I'm just so tired of the people I knew when I was a kid turning out to be giant disappointments."
"Not to twist the knife or anything, but that wasn't really news about Duncan. You were already pretty pissed off about what happened in high school even before the letters. All I meant to show you is that you aren't alone in this. Lilly and Duncan treated us pretty much identically. But you know what I realized about that when I was dealing with this whole shitty mess? It meant that there was one other person in this world who understood exactly what kind of pain I was in. And no matter where I was or where you were, whether we were making love or war, silent or speaking, that knowledge saved me." She reaches up and kisses him softly. "That's how I got closure, by realizing that without Lilly and Duncan, I wouldn't have ended up with my family. At the time, it was Mac and Wallace. And later, it was you, too. They gave me you, and for that alone I forgive them."
Logan tries desperately to wrap his head around everything Veronica is telling him. It's true that he hasn't really lost anything with these revelations. He'd always placed so much stock in loyalty from his friends. It was one reason why he was so suited to the Navy. Never leave a brother behind; all for one and one for all and all that crap. It was a code he lived by, and except for those two years in high school when his anger twisted that code inside out, he'd tried to surround himself with people who lived up to it and expected it from him in return. Duncan wasn't one of those people, and hadn't been for a very long time, if ever. Did that knowledge change anything now? No. Had having Duncan in his life influenced where he was today? Well, it had certainly brought him Veronica, there was no denying that, and she'd led him to the Navy, however inadvertently. He could be grateful to Duncan for that, at least.
He refocuses on Veronica. "So, what you're saying is that making friends with Duncan in kindergarten led me here with you?"
"Uh huh. And last time I checked, you liked being here with me." Veronica looks up at Logan from under her lashes, making her tone flirtatious in an attempt to end his brooding. "Unless I'm wrong," she pouts.
She's not wrong. Maybe he can forgive Duncan after all. It's in this moment that Logan knows that he's finally able to shut the door on that part of his life. He looks down at his wife – his wife – and sees flashes of their last decade together and the decades to come. How she looked at twelve in her soccer uniform; at nineteen in her bitch uniform; at twenty-eight in her New York lawyer costume; at their wedding, in her white sundress; last night in her pajamas cuddled in his arms; in her forties, bouncing Mac and Dick's kids on her lap; old and grey, walking with him in the waves. They fought tooth and nail for every bit of their happiness and although they will certainly have all kinds of difficult moments in the future, all he really cares about is that they will get through them together.
Logan grabs her ass with both hands and pulls her to him tightly to let her know exactly how wrong she wasn't, kissing her deeply at the same time. Closure, it tastes as sweet as he'd hoped it would.
Veronica enthusiastically answers him, her own hands grasping him with a desperate need.
They break apart, panting for air. Logan's voice is gravely as he asks, "So, is closure supposed to feel like lust?"
"Why the hell not?" Veronica says breathlessly as she leads him to their bedroom, leaving the ghosts of Duncan and Lilly to dissipate into the ether.