Love, We're Going Down
A/N: So… this happened. Actually, this happened while I was in the middle of writing King of Mars, but I never posted it cause I forgot about it until now and never had time to edit it before. I'm doing it now because I want to mess around with some oneshots before delving into another chapter length fic that I'll get too busy to update regularly. So, because I liked the idea, I offer you this. This picks up about ten years after season three, and they haven't seen each other since the season finale.
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The first day he finds her in his apartment, making coffee and casually reading his newspaper—acting like she belonged, like she always belonged—, he thinks he finally lost his mind. Too many late nights alone, he concludes. Too long without regular social interaction that his mind had to conjure someone up to keep him company. But, if his mind picked her, he figures he might just be a masochist.
Still, for a traitorous moment, he thinks he could live with that. Then, she opens her mouth, though, and ruins the entire illusion.
"Well this answers that whole 'boxers or briefs' question I had for… how long has it been?"
Tersely, he responds, "If memory serves, you found that out firsthand a long time ago." Then he adds, "Ten years."
"That long, huh?"
He glares at her from across the room, still standing in the same spot he stood when he first saw her. He's frozen to the spot and can't think of something hateful to say that would accurately encompass all of the emotions threatening to burst from every square inch of his skin. He settles for, "Yeah."
Pouring him a cup of coffee, she remarks, "You'd think we'd have a class reunion or something by now."
He finally moves to ungraciously accepts his coffee because it was his, damn it, and he really needed caffeine to deal with her now and the rest of his day later. "That was last year."
"Oh. Right. Did you go?"
He didn't remember either, but his assistant was particularly annoying with reminders for the event that week. Not that it did a lot of good seeing as how he ignored it all. "No."
"Why not?"
She seems genuinely interested, but he's been fooled before.
Truthfully, though he isn't sure if she deserves the truth, he answers, "No one I wanted to see."
She tilts her head in that way that reminds him of better and not that much better days of so long ago.
"No one?"
And he swears that he hears disappoint in her voice, and his palms start to sweat. But maybe he imagined it. Like maybe he imagined her. She isn't really in his kitchen right now, is she? He forgets that they didn't exactly part on great terms the last time he actually talked to her.
"No."
"Oh."
She turns around, now busying herself with serving up bacon and eggs. He half expects the food to be arranged in a smiley face like she used to make for him.
"Well, I missed it too. I guess."
The coffee seems to waken his common sense enough for him to finally point out, "You broke into my apartment."
"Please. It wasn't breaking in."
This is more of what he's used to, and he involuntarily becomes less tense.
"I know I set my alarm."
She shrugs, and it annoys him. It's like she's shrugging him off.
"Some pieces of string and a few cans would've been a better alarm."
"You broke in."
"For good reason."
He's curious now. Why was she here? Why now? Why his kitchen? Why now? Of all times. Why at all?
"Which would be?"
Why now? He repeats it in his mind. But he can't really ask her that. He doubts she would ever give him a straight answer. She was always hiding things from him even when they were kids. Once, he didn't even know she was going out on Aaron's yacht with them until he saw her on deck with Lilly, laughing like she'd been there all along and couldn't believe he didn't think she'd come.
Now that he thinks about it, she was always the more dangerous of the two. She's the one he should have stayed away from. Not that he stayed away from the other one either.
He thinks he missed her reply, but judging by the look on her face, he knows he hasn't. He can tell she's trying to figure out how much she should tell him. How much she could get away with not saying. The least amount of information she could part with that would still appease him. So calculating. So Veronica.
He crosses his arms, showing that he could outwait her.
"I missed the reunion," she tries.
"You couldn't wait another nine years?"
They both know he won't let her get away with that kind of answer; so, she's not surprised or disappointed by his lack of acceptance.
She tries again with a small smile. "I had to see you."
"Really." And he's seriously considering this for a moment and immediately knows he's a fool. He's been a fool for ten years and hadn't known it. He rubs his hand over his face and downs the rest of the coffee. "Yeah. Whatever. Do what you want. Take what you want. You usually do anyway." With no further word, he goes back to bed, hoping that a few hours of sleep would make everything go away.
Veronica is left alone next to Logan's espresso machine when he leaves.
When Logan wakes up again later that day, Veronica is still there, but his smiley face breakfast is missing an eye.
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Over the next few weeks, they exchange fewer and fewer words. In exchange, each action or gesture grows in significance. He reads into them more and more. Still, sometimes, she sort of just blends into the background, so much so that he forgets she's there sometimes. But he never really forgets because it's her and she's here.
He's not sure where she's sleeping either. On the couch, maybe. She's awake before he is and he stays in his room after dinner, working away on some software code or other that he's supposed to send to his assistant every week to show his contractors that he's not just frittering away his time and their money. He's tempted to ask her what she does when he can't see her but not tempted enough.
.
She cooks sometimes. Though, no more smiley face breakfasts or smiley face anythings. Other times, he does. One morning, to make his displeasure at her reinvasion of his life known, he almost serves the angry face shaped pancakes he makes to her. Rethinking it, he eats it before she can see.
The surrealness of it all is highlighted only by the routine they seem to settle into without him noticing. He doesn't ask her why she's there after the first time he asked. He feels like he shouldn't ask her either. As if, once he asks, she'll remember she has something to do and then leave him behind when she does it. And, he can't even bring himself to possibly admit that maybe he doesn't want that to happen. As expected, she doesn't offer any answers either.
.
His assistant, Jonathon, comes every other day to deliver grocery or his mail. He doesn't understand who Veronica is and why she's there.
When he asks Logan, Logan just shrugs. He never could answer the former, and he certainly can't answer the latter.
Logan notices that Veronica just smiles at Jonathon whenever he comes by to drop things off. Only, it's not a real smile. It's the calm and quiet kind. One of those smiles that's meant to unhinge someone. Where you don't really know why the other person is smiling, and that's just a little bit creepy. He recognizes it from during their heyday. Apparently, she's still using it, and it still works. Though, he doesn't know why she's using it against his assistant.
Logan finds it amusing that Jonathon is afraid of Veronica because he is too. At least a little. It validates his feelings and lets him know that it's not ridiculous to be afraid of the blonde who's more than half a foot shorter than him after so long.
When she finally does say something to Jonathon, Logan sees Jonathon visibly jump out of his skin at the broken silence and stifles his laughter.
"Can you buy two game hens for next week?"
Jonathon stutters, "Yeah. No problem."
"Thanks."
She goes back to smiling at him, and he sees Jonathan sneaking scared glances at her ever so often, more scared than before when she hadn't said anything to him.
It's the most hilarious thing Logan has seen in weeks, and he laughs out loud. Veronica looks at him like he's crazy, but it only makes him laugh harder because maybe he is crazy. At least a little.
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He's not laughing when Veronica wakes him up in the middle of the night. He almost slips up and pulls her into bed with him, a familiar motion from times past, but she doesn't notice. Or, she lets it go anyway. She's busy and frantic as she moves away from him and throws clothes at him.
She doesn't bother whispering, and it's ridiculously loud for that time of night. "We need to go."
He pulls the shirt she threw at him over his head. Gruffly, to show his annoyance at being woken up, he asks, "What?"
"We need to go now," she stresses the word 'now' like all his answers could be found in that one little word.
The jeans come on and he's just in shoes by the time Veronica drags him out his bedroom. He amuses himself for a moment by imagining Veronica dragging him naked to wherever she was planning to take him.
His mind catches up to him and recognizes her panic. "This isn't a fire drill, is it?"
She's still going fast. "Not a drill, no"
Alarmed, he asks louder, "There's a fire?" His eyes dart around, looking for any sign or indication of when he should start running and where.
"No. Not that I know of anyway. But you're in danger."
Something clicks in his mind and his close friend, rage, embraces him. He firmly digs his heels into the carpet. "Of course," he begins. "What have you got yourself into this time?"
He catches a glimpse of hurt before she expertly covers it up, and it tames him. He feels pathetic.
"Not me. You."
"Me?" He snorts, not believing her. There's not much someone can get up in the confines of his own house.
"Remember our friend Gorya Sororkin?"
"Who?"
"Gory."
"Who?"
"The guy you beat up at the end of freshman year at Hearst?"
"Oh, him," he says before realizing the implications. It's enough for her to gain the upper hand again and continue leading him out of his apartment. "The fucking Russian mob is after me?"
"Just a small, crazy part of it."
"Why now?"
"Because he's insane, and his uncle just died, so he's taken over and is in the process of taking revenge on everyone he blacklisted since God knows when."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah. It's a real list and everything."
"I meant with him. That was a decade ago."
"Did I mention he was insane and just came into power?" She looks him straight in the eye when she whispers a confession. "You were next on the list, but we hadn't found him yet. I didn't know what to do."
He surprises her by asking, "CIA?"
"FBI."
"Congratulationss."
"Thanks. Where's your car?"
"So they told you to look after me?
"Not exactly," she admits.
He doesn't pry further. "We need to take the elevator down to the parking garage."
"Great. Come on."
"But my stuff."
"I already grabbed everything from your desk. It's in my bag."
"How'd you know that's what I meant," he asked suspiciously.
"I knew what to look for."
He thinks he should've known. "But you've seen everything while you were looking?"
Veronica averts her eyes in a rare display of open shyness and apology. "Yeah."
Logan tries to focus on his apparent imminent doom instead of his embarrassment because of… priorities.
The elevator takes forever to get them down to the garage, as usual.
"You need to find a better apartment," she exclaims when they finally reach their level.
"Well, I usually don't have to leave in a hurry."
"Maybe you should think about that for next time."
"I was hoping there wouldn't be a next time. Or a this time for that matter."
"Come on, we're not going to die."
"I prefer the possibility not even be considered."
"Then I suggest you stop pissing people off."
"Yeah. I'll think about it."
"You do that."
Veronica pulls out Logan's keys and his car alarm chirps, signaling to her which one was his, and they hop in. Veronica is in the driver's seat, and he prays to God his car comes out of this okay.
.
They return from the hotel Veronica stashed themselves for eighteen excruciatingly tense hours in time to see someone from the FBI leading Jonathon away in handcuffs. Other people, presumably also FBI agents, are combing his apartment, looking for bugs, or so they said.
They finish up as dawn breaks, assuring him there is nothing else in the apartment—not that they properly explained what was in there in the first place—and apologizing for the inconvenience. He can't bring himself to even pretend to give a shit that Jonathon was selling his software codes to other countries and potentially jeopardizing national security. Or that Veronica lied to him to get him out of his house to set up a sting operation or whatever bullshit they were feeding him. But, with this, he does care that, since her job was done here, she won't be there when he wakes up the next time.
Logan watches the others file out of his apartment slowly but doesn't see Veronica go with him. She's standing in the kitchen, the last to leave.
"Typical Veronica Mars. She always gets her man," he says spitefully before she could leave the way she came. There's more anger behind his words than should be necessary but he feels it all.
On one hand, he knows he's not really mad at her for catching the bad guy and saving the day. In fact, it brings about a flood of warm memories when he's watched her do the exact same thing when they were younger. Only this time, she's carrying a real gun and not just a stun gun.
But, he's hurt. He's finally mature enough to admit to himself that he's hurt because she didn't really come here for him. Not really. And God damn did it hurt.
He sees her mind working, considering him. She tilts her head to give him a meaningful look that teases him with the secrets hidden behind it.
"No," she says simply. But it's not that simple. She continues like she's sad, and he desperately wants to believe that she is. "Not always."
He knows she's trying to convey everything she can't say into that look, but it fails. He can't understand what she doesn't say. Though, he should've been an expert at it after the silent weeks they spent together. They're always so complicated. So unable to be defined with words. So, maybe her silence now was fitting.
Everything is failing between them again, and it feels like they're back in college.
He doesn't want to wait another ten years to see her or until the next time he's in trouble and she needs to save him, but he doesn't stop her when she leaves without saying goodbye.
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Later that day, she wakes up from a much needed slumber thinking that she missed the final last chance she would ever have, and she hates herself for it.
But, as she tends to be when it comes to him, she's wrong.
She opens the bedroom door to her spartan apartment and is hit with a welcoming aroma. It doesn't alarm her though. She fondly remembers that smell. She rounds the corner, through the hallway, and wanders into her kitchen. Despite her quick mind and the evidence she's been given, she's still surprised to see Logan standing over her stove, and it feels right.
"Hey."
"Morning."
"Not quite, sleepyhead."
Logan continues cooking what she thinks is pasta with a white creamy sauce because he knows she prefers it over the red sauce that's usually served. Other people think she goes absolutely crazy over any sort of Italian food, but that's not true. Well it kind of is true, but she still has preferences. And he knows that.
"What took you so long?" She asks as she sets the table for two. Because that seems like a safer thing to say than Why are you here? Honestly, she should know the answer to that anyway. But, she's rarely ever honest with herself, rarely ever lets herself hope or dream or be content. She's afraid that someone will take the happiness away from her because she doesn't deserve it. So, she hides it. She's not unfeeling. She's just afraid.
"I had to pick up some condoms."
She barely bats an eyelash at his response. It's just such a Logan thing to say, and she flippantly responds in kind while nodding. "No glove, no love."
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Veronica hasn't seen Logan for a few days since they reconciled several times in her apartment, and she misses him. He says he's busy sorting through the mess with Kane Software and his other contractors and would see her as soon as he could, but it's not enough. She's worried. They have so much they still need to say to each other. So much to explain and work through before they can really move on and be something.
By chance, she sees the trash piling up in her small kitchen. It was a little after midnight, but she never does things at normal times of the day anyway. Dragging her bag of recyclables behind her, she presses the button for the elevator and waits.
There's a familiar ping and a more familiar voice coming from within.
"Going down?"
She doesn't skip a beat, but her heart does.
"I'm ready when you are."
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A/N: As I was writing it, I thought it could be a multi-chaptered fic, but I didn't have the energy for that, not with my other unfinished stories... Anyway, hope you enjoyed it at least a bit.
Also, for the ardent fans out there, the espresso machine was for you. And me. Wink.
Edit: Just found this fic and though I'd post it. It's rather very unpolished, but short of turning it into something bigger than I would want to handle, I'm submitting it as is. I think I was experimenting with writing in present tense, so sorry if things seem a little off because of it. I'm not used to writing in pretense tense… Hope you enjoyed it anyway. ^^
Update: Whoops. Did not realize that I didn't include the part where Logan realized Veronica was lying about Gory. That... was probably confusing. My bad.