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A Lamb/Veronica fic.
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Disclaimer: I may own seasons 1-3 on dvd, but alas, I don't own Veronica Mars. If I did, they would not have killed off Don Lamb, they would simply have him shirtless more often.
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A/N: okay, so I was just cruising the different pairings on the fanfic list, and thought I'd see if anyone made any Lamb/Veronica fics, and ended up finding quite a few, and absolutely fell in love with this pairing. So, I thought I'd take a crack at it.
This will take place in season three, when she's at Hearst, and legal and everything.
Takes place during the episode where they finally catch the rapist, with my own twists.
Okay, enough out of me, and on with the story!
As always, please read and review, I live for feedback!
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It had been a long night. A very long night. Sheriff Don Lamb had been patrolling the dorms of Hearst college all night. Veronica had called him, telling him that she was sure the rapist would take another victim tonight, she just didn't know who, and he should be on the lookout.
He had told her he had real police work to do, and hung up on her. Though, as much as he hated to admit she was right, his own conscience wouldn't let him stay away from the college tonight.
He was about the leave the building he was currently in, making his way out the door to the next one, when he heard a sharp whistle.
For a moment he paused, waiting for the sound to happen again, but it didn't. He was about to leave once more, when he remembered one of his deputy's telling him something about the "rape whistles" the college was supplying, and he burst into action.
He pulled out his gun, moving down the hallway, listening intently for any sound that would tell him where the victim was.
Then he heard a door open, and a familiar face walked out. Someone he'd arrested before. Someeone who had to be involved.
He raised his gun, pointing it at the younger man.
"Sheriff, what's this about?" Mercer asked, nervously looking back towards the room he'd just left.
"I think you know exactly what this is about," Lamb said, moving towards him slowly, the gun still trained on Mercer. "What's in the room?"
Mercer looked back towards the room once before he suddenly dove for the door handle, and got the door closed and locked before Lamb could reach him.
He pounded on the door, trying to shoulder it open once, but it didn't budge.
"Open the door, or I'll shoot it down!" he shouted through the door, and he was now starting to get an audience.
He motioned for everyone to be silent, and tried to hear what was going on in the room. He could hear at least two male voices, bodies shuffling around, and then a distant moaning, an unmistakable female voice.
Dammit.
He shouldered the door once more, trying to get it to budge, but it wouldn't.
He then heard Mercer speak from inside the room.
"You're of no further use to us, Veronica Mars. Time to say goodnight."
"No," he said forcefully, paying no attention to the group of people behind him. "Not Veronica. Not like this," he said.
Backing up slightly, he took aim, right above the door handle, and aimed one hard, powerful, angry kick at the door. Adrenaline was his friend.
The door burst open, just in time for him to see Mercer about to attack a near-unconscious Veronica with a hammer.
"Stop!" Lamb said, but Mercer started to swing the hammer at her head, and Lamb double-tapped him in the chest, watching the surprised look on his face as he fell back.
The other guy in the room held his hands in the air, backing up against the wall.
"I need some help in here!" Lamb yelled out to the people in the hall. A blonde girl rushed in.
"Oh my god, Veronica! Is she okay?" Parker asked.
Slightly relieved that she was a friend of Veronica's, he handed her his handcuffs.
"Put these on him," he said, motioning to the guy against the wall.
As she did as she was told, slightly more forcefully than necessary, Lamb gathered Veronica into his arms.
"Veronica? Veronica, wake up," he said, shaking her lightly.
"The girl," she mumbled, and he almost cried, he was so relieved to see she was okay, for now at least.
"What girl?" he asked.
She told him about the girl she put in her closet before she hid in the bed, waiting to surprise the rapist. How she'd tasered him, and stabbed him with a unicorn toy, then made her way here, only to be drugged again by the other guy in the room, and she'd hid in the closet and hit him with the hammer when they came after her.
This girl would fight 'till her dying breath, he thought, cradling her softly.
"Everything's going to be okay, Veronica," he promised, scared for the tiny thing in his arms. Without really knowing he was doing it, he kissed the top of her head, and the action was not missed by Parker.
"I'll uh, call 911?" she offered.
He nodded as Campus Security made their way into the dorm.
Ignoring them, he lifted Veronica in his arms, leaving the room, paying no attention to the stares and whispers of the students in the hallway.
"Do you need help getting her to the hospital?" Parker asked, catching up with him.
He shook his head, but said, "Call her friends, tell them what happened. Do you know her Dad's number?"
"I can get it," she said, knowing Mac would have it.
"Call him too, tell him to meet us at the hospital," he said, and then left the building with a now unconscious Veronica in his arms.
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The hospital waiting room was a circus. Keith Mars had been allowed to see his daughter, and Don Lamb was still filling out his report at the nurse's station, but everyone else was still forced to wait behind.
Parker, Mac, Logan, Dick, Wallace, Piz, and Weevil were all moving around the waiting room, dying for answers.
Wallace and Piz felt like shit. They had been at the party, and they hadn't saved her. They had let her go off, not even considering the possibility that she might get trapped by the rapist.
Weevil and Logan looked ready to kill someone. It was entirely possible they were planning a murder together, just to relieve their current stress. How much security can there possibly be for a jail cell? they thought, thinking of the second guy involved in the rape. Parker had filled them in as best as she could.
Parker and Mac were comforting each other, scared for their friend, wishing they'd gone with her to that girl's dorm, Parker wishing she'd remembered more about her rape, so that she could have identified Mercer better. And sooner.
Dick just sort of hang around, offering his support to Logan. Because really, Logan was the reason he was here. He hated what had happened to Veronica, but there was nothing he could do about that, he knew that, but he could be there for his best friend. So he was.
Finishing up his report and signing his name, he pocketed the paper and began to make his way back to Veronica's room, but he spotted the doctor and called him over.
"How is she?" he asked.
The doctor had the expression doctor's usually had when they were about to spew out a bunch of technical crap, so he put a hand up.
"Just give it to me straight, doc."
The older man nodded.
"Basically, she's lucky to be alive. The ammount of drugs that were in her system would have knocked out someone twice her size. She's a fighter, but odds are, she wouldn't have lasted much longer if you hadn't found her. We were worried at first that there might be internal bleeding, but we haven't been able to find anything to confirm that, and she hasn't been getting worse, so that's good. She had a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, two broken fingers, she's bruised and scraped over most of her body, and we had to pump her stomach and attach an IV to get the rest of the drugs out of her system. Luckily, though, we found no signs of sexual assault. She took one hell of a beating, but she should pull through. Like I said, she's extremely lucky to be alive."
Lamb nodded, trying to keep his emotions in check. "When will she be able to go home?"
"She has to stay overnight for observation, and she'll have to come back in a week to make sure there's no permanent damage, but other than that, she can go home tomorrow, as long as she stays rested."
Lamb nodded again. "Thank you doctor. I'll go tell her father."
The doctor nodded and walked away, and Lamb ran his hands over his face, sighing deeply before going to talk to Keith.
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"But, she's gonna be okay?" Keith asked.
Lamb nodded. "According to the doctor, as long as she stays rested, she should make a full recovery. She's tough ... I mean, come on Keith, she is your daughter. No way she gives up easy."
His old mentor nodded, tears in his eyes, and then before he could stop him, Keith was hugging him.
"Thank you for saving my daughter," Keith said, backing away.
Lamb didn't know what to say, other than, "Just doing my job."
Keith cracked a slight smile at the man he'd once hated, and saw a bit of the boy he used to know.
"Well, I'd better get going," Lamb said. "Gotta get this report to the station."
"Uh, actually would you mind sitting in here for a few minutes with her?" Keith asked. "I need to find a bathroom and a coffee machine, and I just don't want her to be alone."
Lamb nodded. "Of course."
Keith patted the man's shoulder as he left the room, and Lamb took the empty seat beside Veronica's bed.
He looked down at the broken girl sleeping in the bed, not believing it was really Veronica. Sure, he'd seen her in trouble before, heard of her run-ins with the Fitzpatrick's ... but this was different. She could have died tonight, and he didn't know what he would have done without ...
He took in her marred form, saddened. A large welt above one of her eyes, no doubt from that scum Mercer hitting her. A cut beside her eye, and one on her lip another bruise on her chin, down to her arm, which was held in a sling, to the other one, bruised, with finger casts covering two fingers on her right hand. Ice packs covered her legs, as well as a cold towl behind her neck, so that she wouldn't overheat.
"Oh, Veronica," he said quietly, covering her wrist with his hand, "what were you thinking?"
He leaned his head against the side of her bed, and almost didn't hear her small voice say, "I probably wasn't."
His head snapped up, and he sniffed slightly, blinking away the tears that had begun to form.
"Hey," he said.
She smiled, then winced at the pain. "Hey."
"Would it be cliche if I said you gave us all quite a scare?" Lamb wondered.
"Probably." She blinked her eyes a few times, trying to adjust to the light of the room, but then her eyes opened wide.
"The girl! She ... her closet ... did you find her?"
Veronica tried to sit up, but he put a hand on her slightly less injured shoulder and leaned her back down.
"Campus Police found her, brought her in. She's fine, thanks to you."
Veronica nodded, then winced again. "I have a headache."
Sheriff Lamb chucked at that. "That would be the concussion."
"Ah, yes, I thought I recognised that throbbing pain," Veronica joked, remember her days from playing soccer, and getting beaned in the head with the ball.
"So, uh, do you remember anything?" he asked her.
She replayed as much of the night as she could. "It's gets pretty foggy after I was trapped in the room. I rememeber hiding in the closet, blowing the whistle, you shooting Mercer, and ..."
She trailed off, deciding against mentioning that she remembered him kissing her, as innocent as it had been. I mean, it's not like it was a big deal, he was just worried, and all the adrenaline ... it's not like it meant anything, right?
"And what?" Lamb wondered.
"And then waking up here, with you beside me," she said, trying her best to sound nonchalant.
He nodded once. "Yeah, you just missed your dad, he asked me to sit with you while he went to get some coffee. He didn't want you to be alone."
She looked at him with soft eyes. "Thanks."
He nodded again, and that's when he noticed he was still holding her wrist.
She looked down at their hands, and they were both quiet for a few seconds before he pulled his hand away, clasping both of his hands together and leaning forward in his seat.
"So, the doctor tells me you put up one hell of a fight," he said. "Kicked some serious ass."
"Well, you know me," she said, feeling sleep drawing her back in. "I'm just that awesome."
A few seconds later, and she was out.
"Yes, Veronica Mars," Sheriff Don Lamb said, "yes you are."
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Okay, end of chapter one. What did you think?
Comments, suggestions, praise? ... Reviews reviews reviews! I love 'em!
Until next time ...!