Logan's the one seeing Lilly's ghost. Maybe it changes the way he sees other things as well. Some things might never be the same if Logan's all of sudden set in finding the real killer, is it?
He had never really been able to fully mourn the loss of her. Not because he was an idiot, a teenage boy without no feelings, but because he could not miss her. Not when she was still around, in his head, all the time. Or, well, maybe it was all in his head, but it might as well be real. So many times had he been sure that after she'd been around him, talking to him, lying in his bed or sitting on the floor, he'd been able to see the fabric stretched out in a way that wouldn't be if she hadn't been there, or the traces on the carpet from her thighs pressing down. He wasn't sure of it, but it was a fact he'd aknowledged as a truth to be able to clign to the fact that her appearing next to him all the time was, in fact, real.
When it all had started, the days he had first been interrogated about her death, it had made him calmer, able to focus on the task. He believed her to still be there so that he could avenge her death, or at least find out the truth – but the truth had already been found out, and the locked up forever, and she was still there.
That had been the answer to his "what for" question. But he still did not know exactly why she was there. He had wondered if maybe it was because of her being the love of his life and everything, bu the could hardly remember loving her – or loving anyone, really. When she had died, the numbness had taken over his body, and he could not even feel the memories of past feelings.
Of course, he still had feelings. Just not a lot of them, and only a certain few. He liked one – the adrenaline.
He saw her all the time. She was in his dreams when he was asleep, and she woke him up in the morning, spooning him. She challenged him into doing stupid things when he was drunk, and she made fun of Duncan whenever he was around. Not that Duncan could see her or hear her – he never reacted to the whispering jokes that made him chuckle at random times in the middle of a group of friends.
And he clung to her, trying to make every little thing prove that she was in every way near him. Not as a ghost - God, he knew she would have hated being a ghost, seeing how she'd always tried to tan a little bit more, but probably never reaching a darker shade of "softly bronzed and happily freckled". Being a ghost wouldn't exactly make her complexion more prone to bronze a little during the long Californian summers.
And now, he was laying on the hood of Veronica Mars' car parked by the beach and even though he had his friends with him, she was also there, sitting next to him, swinging her feet back and forth. Of course, Veronica herself was there as well, with her friend, the flagpole taped new guy.
"Hey! Veronica... Mars." He jumped off the car, swinging a crowbar in his hands. "D'you know what your little joke cost me?" Right. He was angry. Angry at her for putting a bong in his locker before one of those oh so very random drug searches, angry at her for making his dad take away his car and hit him. He almost froze for a second, feeling the anger in his chest, relishing in the pleasure of actually feeling something.
She made a joke about the bong. As if his confiscated car and now shining red back, though hidden under his brown sweatshirt, didn't even mean anything in the world, 'cause she was Veronica Mars and her speciality was making stupid decisions so that other could be hurt without her even caring.
He smiled at her, taking some of that feeling in his chest out on one of the headlights. "Wrong answer." He laughed to himself. "Would you care to guess again?"
"Clearly, your sense of humor," Veronica snarked at him.
He took out the other headlight. Easy, as if he had been at a golf court, or whatever boring place he might have been brought up if his parents had tried to fit in with the other 09ers. "Nope. You're usually so good at pop quizzes. No, the correct answer is my car. That's right. My daddy took my T-Bird away. And you know what I won't be having?" He went closer to Veronica, playing carelessly with the crowbar, watching her every move. "Fun, fun, fun."
Of course, he did not really care about the car. It was just a car, he could lend anyone's car - maybe Dick's. But this was the actual way Veronica Mars always did things - playing pranks on him resulting in taking away important things from him. At least this time it wasn'ther.
He could see her, of course. She was still there, standing besides him all of sudden."Logan," she whispered,"be nice to her. She's my friend, you know. Just because she's not your best friend's girlfriend anymore doesn't meanyou'renot her best friend's boyfriend."
He was smiling, grinning wildly, as one of his friends made him conscious of the sound of motor cycle engines getting closer. Of course, it was Eli Navarro, the guy somebody called Weevil, and his... crew. The grandson of the Echolls family cleaner.
"What do we have here?" Weevil said, having parked his bike and now walking towards Logan.
The hispanic boy - yeah, pretty much just a boy, like the rest of them, Logan thought - was saying something about vandalism. And Logan zoned out, trying to fix his gaze on the other boy, but failing miserably. This wasn't going as planned, but he did not exactly expect Veronica Mars to be proetected by a criminal motorcycle gang, either.
And she was still there, lingering, whispering, "that's Weevil. He's just a boy, Mr. Echolls," in Logan's ear. Right, that's where he had got the difference from, that's why he couldn't see this Weevil as anything but a boy.
"Listen man, I don't have a problem with you."
Really, he didn't care about Eli Navarro. They rarely met, they rarely spoke, and as long as they didn't come crashing each other's parties, they were usually fine. And of course, he had been one of those people who once might have had anything to do with her murder.
Weevil took the crowbar from him, causing her to laugh. "Oh well, he took something that was yours. Wouldn't be the first time. Oh right, you only borrowed it from someone, didn't you?"
Weevil teased them, the whole group of Logan's friends, tearing the headlights and the hood of the borrowed car. Way to get your revenge, dickhead, Logan thought to himself, but he didn't say anything, watching as Weevil got whatever revenge for whatever unjustice he felt the 09ers had bestowed upon him this time.
Weevil finally stops, giving back the crowbar with glee, telling the richer boys to get away. "Except for you," he says to Logan. "You, say you're sorry."
Yeah, right. That would take at least a genie and a little Disney song. "Rub a lamp."
The blow hit him first in the stomach, where the marks of Aaron Echoll's rage had still barely had the time to form the patterns they usually formed into, but the soreness had already set in and made the blow feel so much deeper.
"Be nice to him! He's my friend."
Logan tried breathing despite the pain in his chest and whole body, tried figuring out why Lilly Kane wanted Weevil to be treated with the same Lilly Kane Friend Privileges as her very best friend, Veronica Mars. It didn't make sense. Lilly had barely even known Weevil.
As Logan got back up on his feet, he froze, looking at Veronica Mars, the girl who fucked up so much her best friend died. He sighed, feeling the even rhythm of the blood in every part of his body, until he closed his eyes.
"Okay. Veronica Mars, I am sorry. I shall immediately return to whatever dragon den I came from and think about my sins or... sorry, whatever. That's what Lilly would have wanted. You were her friend."
He didn't feel his blood anymore, and he didn't feel that angry feeling either. His legs could hardly keep him standing up, so momentarily fatigued from the pain from the several little violent adventures people had enjoyed themselves inflicting upon him today.
Veronica stared at him. "Um, yeah, Lilly would have loooved the redecoration thing you did with my car. So nineties grunge chic, you know?"
"Just back off, Echolls," Weevil snapped. "Don't use a dead girl as an excuse for what you're doing. Get the hell out of my way."
Logan shook his head, and turned around, getting into the car with his friends.
"Dude, what was that about?" one of them, Adam, asked.
"I don't even know. Veronica really needs to stop her whole Avril Lavinge thing, right?" the ghost of Lilly Kane mused into Logan's ear, as they left the beach.