Summary: They become a cliche. They try to fall in love. He tries to stay alive -- she tries to want to stay alive. Pre-series, set after Lilly's death. AU from there. One-shot.
A/N: This is angst, like, to the max, but there's also a great dosage of romance. Please tell me how you liked it, whether the news be good or bad. Seriously. Flame me for all I care -- I just want to know how people liked it! Though flames are mean, and constructive criticism is nice.
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We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
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"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
---
If her insides had not been washed out just minutes, hours, seconds ago, she would feel grateful. Feeling the sun's pressure slide off her skin the moment she steps into the apartment, she should feel grateful.
There's tears sticking to the sweat that's sticking to her skin, the dark circles under her eyes are bruises, almost, they can almost break through her skin and meet her skull. Blood is falling, either physically or metaphorically or both; she hasn't checked a second time, so she can't be sure. Bruises are littering her body, she's been thrust into, drugged, thrust into, spit on, ridiculed, thrust into. She can't be sure how many times she's been thrust into.
So even she knows she should be laughing at the thought of being grateful.
She hears a stir, some movement in her father's room, and she knows that she has to move with all of her speed from the front of the door, but she can't seem to move, not right away. A cry escapes her throat when she finally does begin to move, as if the movement hurts her, has betrayed her, but she muffles the sound with her hand.
When she comes into her room, she lets her hands fall from her mouth, lets the sob escape. She drowns in it, the sound beating against her so hard, too hard, that she drowns again in another. She wonders how she's still breathing when she can't stop drowning in tears.
All she wants is to scrub her skin from her body, wash disease from her insides, but she falls into her bed and wraps herself with her covers instead. As the blanket surrounds her, she feels as though she's soiling it, making it unclean, dirty, so like her, too much like her.
She's about to get out of bed to throw herself from the covers, to have just a part of her that's clean, but it's then that she hears her door open, and Keith steps in.
She's lying on her stomach, her face is against her pillow, but she knows he's entered with a small smile on his face. He's coming closer to her, about to kiss her forehead, to gently wake her up, and she realizes she's still in her dress, still in her makeup, still sweating and drowning.
She pulls the covers up to her chin, allows herself to dirty them so that she can keep her father.
He can't see her, can't know. She's lost her best friend, her mother, any trace of any friend, her virginity. And she knows she will, if he ever finds out; she'll lose him, too.
She doesn't want to be dirty or disgusting to him. She doesn't want him to see a daughter he lost instead of the daughter he has.
She just wants to be his little girl.
"Veronica, sweetie, good morning," he whispers gently. He won't speak loudly, because she's woken up in tears before because he was too loud, too familiar to things too terrible. "We have to leave for Church soon."
Her eyes are closed and she's pretending to sleep. She feels terrible, sick, and now she feels as if her sweat, rather than her tears, is drowning her.
"Veronica." He's trying to wake her up still, now resting on the edge of her bed, shaking her gently. "Veronica, Church is in an hour."
But she's sick. Her insides are clenching and there's dirt coating her skin, and there're waves of exhaustion and nausea that are washing over her. She's sick. She's too sick. A groan escapes her throat, or maybe a gasp. A sob?
"Veronica? Sweetheart, are you okay?"
Too sick.
"Veronica?"
She turns her head, and a sob escapes with the contents of her stomach as she vomits onto her father's lap. He cries out, as if it stings, and she buries her head back into her pillow so that he doesn't witness how her face is caving in.
But she has to say something, because he's about to ask her what's wrong.
"Sick," she mumbles into her pillow, not lifting her head to look at him. She's ashamed. Vomit still rests on her lips. "Too sick."
---
She's in the shower for over an hour, feeling like a terrible cliché. And she focuses on the thought, of how clichéd her life has become. Cliché is better than tragedy.
She told her father, once he scraped her insides off of himself and her floor, to go to Church, to pray to a God she doesn't believe in and there isn't a chance in hell he believes in, either. It comforts him, so she told him to go. But there were tears in his eyes when he left, and she doesn't want to admit that her face may not be as stoic as she'd imagined.
She comes out of the shower feeling only slightly better now that the blood and the soil and the liquid have fallen off her body. She wasn't able to wash off the bruises, but she's ashamed to admit, even to herself, that she tried.
And even though her body has been scrubbed to the point of turning red, semen seems to be clinging to her hair. She looks in the mirror but can't find what she feels. She checks her hair, her neck, can't find the semen, but feels it clinging to her.
It isn't there, so she must be imagining it.
She cuts off her hair anyway.
---
"Where do you think you're going? I thought we were getting it right."
There's shouting.
---
He knows something is wrong.
"What happened to your hair, honey?"
She shakes her head and shrugs. "I've had that hair for years. It was time for a change."
She pretends not to hear her own voice crack, and so does he.
"I take it you're feeling better?"
She doesn't.
She nods anyway.
---
"Are you okay?"
There's silence. It would have been more fitting if someone had laughed.
---
It's another cliché, the way he stumbles upon her at a beach he rarely goes to, on the other side, the right side of the wrong side of the tracks, in the middle of the night. Some would call it a cliché; he later calls it magic.
He just watches her from the pavement of the parking lot, sprinkled with sand and wet from rainfall. He should go up to her; it'd be in perfect form for him to go up to her, make a snide comment, and hope for her to cry.
But she's already crying.
He watches her as she's lying down on her back on the wet sand, where the ocean meets land, watching as the occasional tide pulls close enough to wash under her back. Her eyes are closed, but there's tears falling from the corners of her eyes, pooling into her ears. It's beautiful, the way she cries so quietly, so in synch with the night.
He doesn't allow it, but he feels something moist fall down onto his skin, and it pricks him, leaves him breathless. He won't allow himself to cry for this girl, but his tears haven't asked permission. They do as they please.
He's mesmerized as he watches her. It seems to him that she may be more broken than he is; and instead of feeling pure fucking bliss, instead of being glad she's finally as hurt as he wanted her to be, he's terrified.
No one should be so broken.
---
"I heard someone saw your mother in Neptune yesterday," he'd told her the other day, seriously, his voice soft and concerned. She'd whipped her head around, looked into his eyes and asked him where, so much hope in those blazing blue eyes. And he replied, "At the Camelot. I hear she's charging double now."
There was laughter behind him, but the way her eyes had broken off, the way she'd darkened, the way her eyes were so bright just seconds ago made his insides go numb. And he remembered there's no need to break her; the job is already done.
It becomes routine.
During the day, they work to break her. He knows they can't – you can't break something broken – but he works at it anyway and doesn't know why.
He prefers the nights.
At night he comes to the beach, where he always finds her laying on her back, waiting for a tide to pull under her back and drown half of her body as she looks up at the sky, or cries silently with eyes closed.
He watches her and remembers how broken she is, watches her tattered face search the stars. He thinks he can hear her cry from where he sits, but it's impossible that he can; the ocean breathes too loudly.
Veronica Mars isn't Veronica Mars anymore, she's different, and he thinks he may like her better now. A few days ago he's remembered how much Lilly loved her, and he doesn't blame Veronica, sometimes. Sometimes, he doesn't blame anyone, not even her, no one else but himself.
Even his thoughts are the same as he watches her.
It's routine.
---
It takes four weeks for something to change, for him to see something other than her body on the sand. And usually change is for the better, but it's so fucking unfair that he has to see this that he's actually crying.
He instantly jumps to his feet when he sees her, and he starts to run towards her, sobbing, possibly feeling sorry for himself for having to see this.
"Hey!" he shouts, making it a point to breathe louder than the ocean. "Hey, Veronica Mars!"
She stops because she hears him, and she tries to hide each one; one pill, two pills, three pills, four.
When he reaches her she's standing, hands on her hips, the only trace of tears lining the edges of her eyes. She doesn't say anything when he's standing in front of her, like she should, and neither does he, like he should.
They're standing in front of each other, eyes on each other, breath falling onto each other. He can't stop crying, his sobs turning into pathetic hiccups as he tries to suppress his tears, and there's something that looks like sympathy in her eyes.
He keeps the laughter in his throat, because now is not the time to be laughing, and yet there's something mysteriously funny about being pitied by the girl hiding the little white pills.
But he doesn't laugh. It's actually not that funny.
He wants to say something after standing there with a gaping mouth, hiccups still bubbling, but he doesn't know what. He wants to be comforting, but—
"Your father, he'd-"
But he stops after his first attempt, because he can see the sharp pain in her eyes at the mention of her father, the intake of breath, the way she flinches -- everything he'd ever hoped for weeks ago, and now it makes him numb.
He's hit too close, and now the tears are more visible, are more than just lines coating the edges of her eyes. Her father is her world, her only solace. He lives for her. And yet she'd tried to take herself from him, and he can't help the sharp pang that replaces his numbness. Why—
"Why would you--"
And he stops again, because the look on her face is the same. So he doesn't say anything again for awhile, because now the tears are actually falling from her eyes, and he can see that she's ashamed. And he's still crying, so it's hard for him to speak.
He doesn't know why she won't walk away. She wants to, clearly, by the way her eyes are looking at the waves, still falling under her feet, still surrounding her and leaving her. She's wiping her tears quickly, as if by wiping them as quickly as possible he won't be able to see them, and her breath is hitched. But she won't walk away, and he's glad, because if she walks away now, there's a chance she'll be walking away for good.
He has to say something.
"There's got to be something left to live for, Mars."
He thinks his words are soft. He pays careful, meticulous attention to the way his tongue moves and his breath slowly squeezes out the ten words because she needs to know that he's human, that there's something left to live for.
The words aren't soft to her. They mock her.
So she hardens, closes off and turns to ice.
"Just leave me alone."
She's turning around, pills still in hand, and he panics.
"Hey, Veronica--"
She's not looking at him when she grits out, "You really are a bastard, you know?"
She doesn't know that he's trying, really does care.
He could see where she would be confused.
---
There's a smile hidden underneath it when she sees him, but she guesses he doesn't see because he's not smiling back.
---
"Don't."
His breathing is heavy, heavy enough to feel through her skin.
"Don't what?" he whispers. "Kiss you?"
His breath is sweet, sweeter than anything she's ever tasted, but there are tears in her eyes when he puts his lips to hers, his breath into hers. She isn't kissing back, but it takes him a moment before he pulls back, looks into her eyes and steps back.
He sees the tears, gentle and subtle against her threadbare skin.
"I'm-"
Sorry? He isn't, really. He would do anything to feel her lips again, this time feel her kiss instead of deadened lips.
So instead he says, "Is my technique so bad?"
He was hoping for a smile. She only shakes her head and stands up.
"I have to go."
He stands up with her, grabs her arm. "Wait, don't."
"Don't what?" she mutters, mimicking his earlier tone. "Leave you?"
He smiles, even though it isn't what she was hoping for. "Exactly."
She shrugs him off, turns around, and walks away. He moves with her.
"I can't be sorry I kissed you, Veronica," he's saying as she's walking, quickly, tears tracing the edges of her eyes. Again. "But I am sorry."
She almost doesn't answer, but by the time she reaches her car she has to say something, because he's still right next to her, and now he's leaning against her car with folded arms.
"I'm sorry," he says again.
She replies with a voice soft but not quite broken, not quite what he's used to, not quite what she's used to. "You don't even know what you're sorry about."
There's a pause on his lips as her words become lucid in his mind, as the full effect, full weight of those syllables press into him. And he mutters back, with a gentle, bitter laugh, "No, I guess I don't."
She thinks this is the end, the part where he'll take his weight off her fragile heap and let her drive off to a home not quite warm enough, a father not quite oblivious enough. But he doesn't, he continues to rest his back against the slick surface of her car, continues to stare at her. She looks away when he won't.
So when he speaks again, it's to the side of her face.
"I guess there are so many fucking things I shouldbe sorry about, it's hard to narrow them down," he says softly, gazing intently at her cheekbone, memorizing the small scar across the crevice, the way her cheeks bend inward, how thin they've gotten.
There are dark clouds in swirls above them, wind slapping their skin. The trees are speaking in whispers, the clouds are continuing to slide past each other, fall on top of each other. She thinks the rain will come down in torrents any minute now, and she just wants to cut the damn finger off and go home.
It's a medical fact that when hurt twice, or three times, or four, the mind concentrates only on the most painful attack on the body. And right now she's focusing on him.
"You're only saying sorry because you have no idea why the hell I'm running away," she says matter-of-factly, no trace of emotion, nothing to betray the stiffness behind her thin layer of tears.
"I know why you're running. I'm sorry anyway."
"For what?"
"I'm just so fucking sorry."
It's beginning to drizzle now, soft pellets of rain begin to fall down, and she hopes for rain to wash out her eyes.
"For what?"
"I think you know."
And she says, finally, with her tears finally gone but her voice suddenly broken, "I want to hear you say it."
The drizzle that's softly falling onto their skin is coming down harder. And then the rain comes; rain suddenly begins to softly throw itself onto them as they stand in the parking lot, her hand on her car handle, his back against the door. It's one terrible cliché.
He's glad for the rain; it's easier to cry.
"Tell me."
So he does.
"For leaving you when Lilly did, for letting them talk like they do, for talking worse than they do, for being such a fucking bastard. God, Veronica, I'm so fucking sorry!"
His voice rasps, pleads with her for more than forgiveness, more than faith.
He apologizes, tells her what for, and there's tears beginning to match his eyes with hers.
The rain is beating down violently in a matter of minutes, but he's still apologizing, muttering into her eyes how sorry he is. He stops telling her why and instead just mutters the two words, those two beautiful words into her ears, and his voice is rising with the sound of the rain against their bodies.
"Fuck." He gasps for breath. "I won't ever hurt you again."
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, so sorry.
It isn't long before he falls to his knees and pulls her with him as he begins to sob, sprawled on top of the pavement, her body suddenly against his.
He can't apologize anymore. The rain is too thick, too loud.
Be he can cry, and so can she.
---
She just wishes it wasn't so cold. She misses warmth already.
---
The back of her head is on his left shoulder, his on hers, their ears pressing against each other. They're looking at the solar system in the middle of the park's basketball court, and her neck is beginning to hurt. But she'll only get up if his gentle skin is no longer there to soften the awkward position she's in.
"November Rain," he says quietly from beside her, glancing at the small radio beside them.
They're silent for a moment as they listen to the piano try to speak. And as they're silent he thinks, tries to look at her from the position he's in.
"I'm sorry," he says after a moment, and then looks back into the stars.
"Don't." He stiffens against her, and she quickly adds, "Don't speak. Not now."
He doesn't listen, because their ears are touching and she's soft, so soft, against him. He likes the feeling, and he wants to know it better.
"Will you kiss me?" he asks softly.
She's quiet when he asks this, stares intently at the sky, at the stars, tries to glare at them until they become bright enough to burn holes through her iris.
And then she rolls over, off of his shoulder, lies flat on her back and bends her neck so that she's facing him.
"Lay down with me," she whispers, and he does, instantly. He rolls onto his back, bends his neck to face her, moves closer to her so that their faces touch, almost, not quite. He's upside-down to her, her to him, but neither bother to move.
And she moves her head so that their lips are facing each other, leans forward, brushes her lips against his. It's no more than that, just a brush, but there's something on her lips that he falls in love with. So he sits up, and so does she.
She leans forward a second time and brushes her lips against his. He moves his hands to her face, grabs her so that she can't pull away, and he kisses her with all of the intensity he knows. She kisses back, and soon enough they're both grabbing each other so that the other doesn't pull away. They pull away just slightly, pull back in, pull back out. When their lips part he's still holding his hands to the sides of her face, and she's looking into his eyes, just noticing how they burn through her iris.
He doesn't say anything this time, instead lets himself look at her look at him, listens to guns and roses and crickets and the words I know that you can love me.
Finally he lets go of her face, presses his lips against her forehead.
"About damn time."
And they kiss again, but she has to laugh, so does he, and she thinks she likes the way she breathes in his laugh.
---
"Why did you do it?"
The question is vague, but not nearly vague enough.
And even though she smiles, it's haunting, nothing of lilies or marshmallows. She smiles, and he's frozen.
"Do what?"
---
It's a terrible sound, this dripping in her ears.
---
"I love you."
They're walking along the PCH, hand in hand, broken glass beneath their feet. He tells her then, for the first time, with eyes soft and his voice softer, because he's waited too long to say it.
When she hears him, she pretends as though she didn't.
"I love you," he says, louder this time so he can be sure she's heard.
And she hears it the second time. She pretends she didn't. So he stops them, she turns around, and he grips her shoulders.
"I love you."
She can't pretend anymore, but she can't say anything, either, so she only looks back into his eyes. They stand there for what seems like forever, the cars and the trucks falling past them and making a terrible sound, and she just wants to continue walking, just wants life to continue on walking. He looks at her, as if still waiting for her reply.
She knows she has to say something. But she can't really breathe right now, which makes speaking more difficult.
"And what if I don't love you?" she asks quietly, almost quiet enough for the traffic beside them to drown out her voice.
"I think you do."
"What if I don't?"
"Don't you?"
And his voice is almost broken when he asks her, almost to the point where she considers telling him that yes, she does, in fact, love him. But he's hurt her worse in the past.
"I don't," she says quietly.
He stuffs his fists into his pockets because they're trembling. "Do you think you ever can?"
She shakes her head, and her voice trembles like his fists when she mutters, "I don't know."
"Will you ever forgive me?"
She doesn't answer. The silence is enough.
"Veronica fucking Mars, you do love to break hearts, don't you?"
He turns on his heels and begins to walk away. She walks in the other direction. Neither of them are crying, but it's only because their bodies are dry.
The next day she calls him, and he says it's over, it's fucking over if you can't love me, and then she cries.
Three days later he's on her doorstep with a bouquet of roses and an I'm sorry plastered on his face. She closes the door in his face.
He sets the roses down on the porch and walks home, forgetting his car on the road in front of her complex.
---
It hurts more now, for both of them, and neither have any idea why he's doing it.
She's back at the beach, only now she knows that he's watching. She lies down on the sand the same way she did before, lets the ocean wash over her, and pretends she doesn't know he's in the shadows.
Sometimes she brings her little white pills along, begins to count one at a time, one for each loss, but now there's more pills to count than before and she's sure, if she's ever to swallow them, that she'll die. When the pills are there she can see him coming from the shadows and almost running towards her, but then she takes the pills and she throws them into the water.
She tucks away the bottle and saves the rest for another day.
---
He comes to her house again, without roses, when her father is at Church. He knocks on the door, and when she doesn't answer, he knocks harder. He hears through the wall the sound of her dog, hears the dog quiet down, and knows she's coming. She looks through the blinds, but the door still doesn't open.
He doesn't say anything. He waits for her to open the door. And she does, eventually, and he wants to rush in and hold her as if he never left, but he did leave, so it's not possible.
"What do you want, Logan?"
He's impressed. Clear, concise, cold. She's been practicing.
"What do you think I want, Veronica?"
He tries to be the same. Clear, concise, cold.
"It was over, wasn't it?" she says, and she's still holding the door open, and he's still standing outside. "It's 'over if you can't love me,' right?"
He's quiet for a moment, because he doesn't remember saying those words. He remembers the alcohol, yes. He remembers saying thick, disillusioned words through the phone. But he doesn't remember those words.
"It's never over," he finally says. "Not between you and me. We're like a fucking never-ending story."
She laughs, but he doesn't like the way she does. "Then how come it's ended?"
She moves to close the door, but he doesn't let her.
"No, wait," he says, and he's just betrayed himself. He's tangled, rambling, heated. "Veronica, stop running away and just wait for one fucking minute."
So she does, and for a second he's taken aback because he never really expected her to listen to him.
And so she says something instead, and they speak to each other, in rapid speed, as, for once, she tries to be honest, and so does he.
"I don't love you."
"Not yet."
"Maybe not ever."
"I don't buy that."
"I can't trust you."
"Neither can I."
"You're a bastard."
"I know."
And she's not smiling, but he is, and it's not malicious. It' familiar.
"I love you."
"I don't love you."
"Not yet."
---
They're happy again for a month before she tells herself he's a bastard. He says something and she's left crying, again, and he's left drinking, again. The same things are said. They're a merry-go-round, and she's about to vomit because it's all too fast, it's all too mean. So this time she says it's over, it's fucking over if you can't grow up, and then he cries.
He's back at her doorstep the very next day with roses, and she closes the door in his face. He doesn't forget his car this time, but when she walks out of her apartment hours later, the roses are still set down in front of the door.
He's back again the next day, with a fresh set of roses, and she won't even open the door. When she leaves her apartment hours later, the roses are still set down in front of the door.
And the next day, when he's back at her front door, there's a note already waiting for him.
No more roses. I think we can try again.
---
She won't make love to him, and he blames himself.
"I'm not rough," he says at first, thinking that maybe she's afraid he'll hurt her. "I won't ever make you hurt."
But she shakes her head and smiles, and shows him that's not what she's afraid of. "I know."
"It's been months, Veronica," he says another time, thinking that maybe she just can't bear to make love to a boy who's torn her up. "You can't forgive me yet?"
But she shakes her head and smiles. "I've already forgiven you months ago."
"Are you a virgin?" he finally asks her, thinking that maybe she doesn't want to lose her virginity to a boy who'll eventually break her heart. "I can wait, Veronica, if you're not ready."
This time she doesn't shake her head immediately, and he thinks he's found out her reason. But then she does, she shakes her head, but she doesn't smile.
"No. I'm not a virgin."
He's quiet for a moment, and he tries to think of what to say. He's almost angry.
"Then what the hell is it?" he asks, with words harsher than he'd intended. But he sees the way she seems to flinch, and he corrects himself, saying, with a softer tone, "Veronica, why won't let us be as close as we possibly can?"
And she smiles again, but it's gray and it's forced. "If I told you, you'd never want to touch me again."
He says things after that, I'll always want you, I love you, we need each other, but she can't really listen, because as he talks about sex, about being close and intimate, all she can do is try to keep out the image of her drugged body being torn into and spit into.
She's disgusting. She won't spread the disease.
---
Summer's gone, and she's back in hell. It's less painful now, she has him and now he's there to hold her hand. The others don't need him to continue on as they were last year, but he makes her strong.
"I got you, babe," he tells her with his mouth pressed against her cheek.
---
He's kneeling and there's no reason he should be. Begging won't help.
---
He makes her happy, and she's afraid.
"Just do it and get it over with," she tells him one day, as they're sitting on the sand with their feet in the tide, their shoes still on.
"Do what?" he asks, looking at their feet as he makes them sway back and forth under the current.
"Leave."
He stops moving their feet, and he looks at her instead. He asks her gently, "Why would I want to do that?"
"I don't know why. But you will."
So he takes his hands and he cups them around her face. She tries to look away, and he can't do anything about that. He doesn't say anything about the wet lining along her eyes.
"I'll never," he whispers, and when she turns her eyes to look at him, he can see the tears more clearly. "I'm not leaving you."
She smiles softly and moves her cheek against his hand. It's soft. "Doesn't everybody?"
He lets go of her face and wraps his arms around her entire body instead. He grasps onto her tightly, and she sits there, her hands limp at her sides.
"Not me, Veronica."
It's hard to hear, against the tide, but he can hear her voice nonetheless when she breathes from behind him, still in his hands, "You already have."
He has. Shit, he has.
"Never again."
He doesn't breathe when he says this, but he's able to exhale when he feels tiny hands hold onto his back.
"Never again," she says.
---
"I'm going to lay down and die one day, in this fucking school," she tells him as he stands and rubs circles along her back. "I'm going to die."
He looks down at her car, slits through her tires, and he's mad. He's fucking mad.
"Sorry," he mutters, because it's only been weeks since the last time he didn't give a damn about how she got home. "Sorry."
She shakes her head and she pecks him on the cheek. "For what?"
And she says it as if she doesn't know what he means.
---
They hear that a boy at Neptune High has killed himself, and that his brother is a raging mess.
She sees him writing slut on her locker, but she doesn't say a word. She can wash it off with soap, he needs a way to vent. She doesn't mind.
Logan minds. He finds the guy, beats him until he apologizes because he's fucking sick of people doing things to the girl he needs to protect.
So she won't speak to him, tells him to apologize. He does, mutters I'm sorry to the boy and walks away, and she forgives him in record time.
---
He tries last-minute apologies, tells her they can watch all the movies he's refused to, tells her he won't push her, tells her they love each other, but she's not listening.
---
She's lying down in his bed, fully clothed and on top of the covers as he's taking a shower, and she's sifting through old photographs and new ones, ones with their glue and ones without. Duncan's there, but he doesn't make her smile. She doesn't even look at him. She'll only look at the boy who's in the next room.
She's looking at these photos when she realizes she can't take her eyes off him. Even when he isn't there, she's looking at him. And when she does see him, whenever that is, she's high. She's fucking high.
He tells her each day, every day, throughout the day, that he loves her, and he doesn't mind it when she only smiles and gives him a kiss. But now it makes her sick to remember that no one says it back to him anymore. Lilly's gone and his mother's almost as far gone as hers, and his father's a bastard and she knows it.
She continues looking through the piles of photos, still only looking at him without realizing it. And when she does realize that her eyes won't move, she throws the pictures in her hands to the side and she slides off of the bed.
There's steam coming from beneath the door, and when she opens it, it meets her skin with force. She inhales sharply, and when the steam clears, she sees him with a turned head, looking at her.
"Veronica?" she hears against the soft platter of water droplets falling onto the tiles and into the drain. "Is something wrong?"
She's rooted to her spot, but then she moves, walks towards him and opens the clear, steamed glass door. She steps into the shower, keeps her clothes on and stands beneath the water with him, and he doesn't have time to turn around towards her before she wraps her arms around his chest.
He feels her behind him, looks down to see her hands locked together to keep around his body, and he closes his eyes.
"What's wrong?" he whispers, still turned away from her. He feels her head shake against his back.
"I love you," she whispers.
He can feel a hot waves cascading along his skin, but it's different from the water, it's salty, it's warmer. He tries to turn around and she lets go of him so that he can. He looks down at her and she's only looking up at him, and there's tears falling across her face and falling with the droplets.
"I love you," she says again, and it's till a whisper but now he can see the way her eyes melt when she tells him. "I love you."
And now he's high, he's fucking high, and he kisses her. They let go of each other, and he says, "I didn't think you ever could."
Her clothes are clinging to her skin now, her tears almost unnoticeable, but she won't stop looking at him.
She wraps her arms around him once again, and they stand there for awhile, under the shower, and he doesn't want anything more than this moment.
"I love you," she says again, with finality. "And I don't think I'll ever stop."
---
"I think I'm being followed." She takes a bite, chews, swallows, and continues, "I may have a secret admirer."
He looks at her and smiles teasingly. "Should I be jealous?"
"You're the one that I want, honey."
He rolls his eyes and she shakes her head, quickly swallows the food in her mouth so she can quickly say, "You can't do that. It doesn't look majestic on you, sweetheart."
He laughs. "Neither does that much food in such a small mouth."
And then they're quiet for a moment as they watch the movie playing, and when the misty air comes into view and she hears the words, we'll always have Paris, she looks up at him and he looks down, kisses her softly.
"Let's make sure we at least walk off into the sunset," she tells him.
"You want a sunset? I'll give you the sky."
She laughs. "Leave the pretty words to Bogart."
It's a nice night, the kind where she forgets she's Veronica Mars and he forgets he lives in Neptune, where they can just sit in front of her television set and eat pizza with her father in the next room.
---
"Let's go to Paris."
"When?"
"Now."
She laughs, but he doesn't. She realizes he's serious, so she mutters, "Logan, we can't-"
"Marry me."
She's quiet. She stares at him. And then she tells him, "One day."
"Marry me now."
"One day."
---
"Let's go to Paris," she finally decides, driving to Neptune High on a crisp September morning.
He looks at her and smiles. "Really?"
She nods. "Really."
"Okay. Let's go."
"Not now," she quickly adds, and he chuckles. "Not now. But soon. This summer."
"This summer is soon?"
"It's soon enough."
He rests his head against the seat and smiles once again. "Fine. This summer."
She can only glance at him because she's driving, but a smile erupts onto her face. "And we're not eloping."
"Why not?"
---
It isn't a shot heard around the world; the sound doesn't even graze the outer limits of Neptune.
But it fucking shoots him dead the moment he hears it.
---
When they come into school, the halls still empty, she sees an out of order sign taped onto the door. He looks at her and squeezes her hand, then lets go.
"You do your business, I'll do mine," he says.
"What business do you have?"
"You don't know the half of it."
She smiles – again – and rises her toes to lift herself up to kiss him. "I'll see you at lunch, then?"
"Looking forward to it."
They share a look, a millionth smile, he turns around to leave. And when he does, she turns to move towards the bathroom.
He doesn't look back, doesn't think he has to. He hears her enter the bathroom, hears the door close behind with a familiar thump.
And then it comes, it ends his life in an instant.
There's a shot that suddenly, inexplicably explodes, and he falls to his knees because he thinks the sound came from a someone behind him. The sound comes again, louder than before, and he's on his knees for this second shot. He slowly turns around and sees that there isn't anyone behind him, there's no source for the shot still echoing loudly through the halls.
He sees the door of the girls' bathroom open, and a boy runs out and towards him. He's frozen as the boy comes at him, legs burning beneath him, and then watches as the boy stops suddenly, skids, turns the other way and runs away from him.
The boy's a shadow in an instant, barely a figure, and then he's gone.
Logan can't move. He's stuck on the floor. Either the floor has him glued or his bones have turned to stone; either way, he can't get up and he can't run after him, he can't run away from him, he can't run to where he knows he has to get to.
He hears noises, sees the principal and security run to where he's kneeling. The halls are empty completely now that the sound has been heard all around the school, and slowly everything becomes more real. His limbs turn to feather and he's up in an instant, running to where he heard the shot, runs to where he can't go or shouldn't or doesn't want to.
Someone screams something behind him, maybe. But he's inside the door before the screaming becomes physical sound. And when he's inside, he's on his knees again and he's stone.
She's there, like he knew she'd be, like she said she'd be, but there are two gaping holes in her chest, and there's a terrible crimson color creating a waterfall against her chest and against her shirt. She's breathing a terrifying sound, a sound that makes him cringe, a sound that he thinks maybe means she might have possibly been hit by something.
He drags himself to her, still heavy, and he looks down at her and sees something splash onto her face. He doesn't realize it's his own tears. He thinks it's raining.
He's never fixed a thing in his life. He puts one hand on each hole anyway, thinking this might be a great time for any kind of god to prove He exists. The color seeps through his fingers, is warm and thick against his skin.
He doesn't speak. He knows he should, he should say something to this crippled body strewn before him, but his heart is beating faster, too fast, is about to rip out of his throbbing chest, and he can't breathe anything but the fumes of crimson.
He has to say something to her, but he doesn't know if he can. He can't make this real. He can't speak, anyway. He can't move. He only looks into her wide eyes.
People come into the room which they're in, and there are screams loud enough to tear through his eardrums, and she's bleeding enough, so can't they just be quiet and let her heal?
No one tries to move him, so he kneels at her side, his hands on her wounds, and they watch him, they watch her, and he wonders why the hell a doctor hasn't come yet. He kneels, and he tries to fix her, but he's still quiet.
Finally he knows what to say to her.
"I love you."
There's no reaction from her. He tries to say something else.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
She doesn't answer him. Instead, someone calls out his name from behind him. He ignores it.
"Are you okay?"
Again someone calls him, but it's not her so he doesn't care.
"Sorry." He moves his head against his arm to wipe this fluid coming from his eyes. "I'm sorry."
And she still won't say anything, even though he can't hear the loud wheezing in his ears. He keeps his hands on the holes even though it's not gushing as quickly.
"I've got you, babe," he tells her, pressing on the wounds more carefully, more meticulously.
"Logan!"
He hears this more clearly, so he looks up and sees the principle leaning over him and looking down at her with tears in his eyes.
"Son, you have to stop talking to her."
He shakes his head.
"Logan, you can't help her."
He shakes his head again and looks down. She hasn't blinked for minutes, now. She hasn't breathed since he first came in.
"Get the fuck away!"
He scrambles to a sitting position and takes her in his arms. He takes her and he rocks her in his arms, humming lightly into her ears, asking for her to wake up.
When she doesn't breathe or blink or move or speak, he just talks.
She's been dead since the moment he came to her side, but he doesn't notice. He talks to her even when people around him try to tear him apart from her, and he doesn't realize it's crying, only thinks the scatter of rain has turned into a storm.
And hours later he's still there, and so is the blood. She's gone.
---
He doesn't go to Paris.
He doesn't go to the beach.
He doesn't leave her room.
Her father lets him, or doesn't notice he's even there. He's locked up in his own room. The dog is tucked away between the coffee table and the couch.
The first day he comes back to school, he stays outside, won't enter the building where there's blood flowing through the cracks in the doors.
The second day he comes back, there's a crowd around the flag pole. He pushes his way through and no one says anything. He sees a black kid taped up, some guy taking his picture, and he laughs as he pushes towards the guy and rips him down with the knife she'd always told him to carry (for protection). The kid thanks him.
"Thank her," he says without trying to hide any trace of anger in his voice. "She's the one that gave me this fucking knife."
The kid asks him who she is, but he walks away without giving him an answer.
---
fin.