Natural Born Killer is set post-series three and is how I imagined the show would have developed if that clip released onto youtube of had actually transpired into an actual season. Enjoy!
Her spoon clattering dejectedly into her bowl, Veronica sighed wearily as she flicked half-heartedly through the paltry choice of channels, the television showing the usual scourge of reality television shows, where reality was used in the very loosest sense of the word. Spoons and bowls had become quite a prominent fixture in Veronica's life, her eating habits generally revolving around bowls of cereal or ice-cream, Rocky Road topped with whipped cream being her current choice of poison.
Swinging her legs up onto the faded grey sofa, Veronica rested her head comfortingly against the nest of pillows she had dragged out from her bed earlier that evening. The scene was pathetic, she knew and a far cry from the entire days she and Logan would spend in bed together, indulging in all the ridiculously expensive room service and pay-per-view television that Logan's L.A. penthouse had to offer. That, of course, was before things soured and Logan had slipped into his old ways, frequenting the bars of Neptune with Dick and Casey. Angry and incensed, Veronica had walked out, shoving as much as she pack into a lone suitcase and leaving without affording so much as a backward glance behind her. If living with Liane Mars had taught her anything, it was that a leopard rarely changed it's spots, or her penchant for vodka in her mother's case.
Subconsciously at least, Veronica must have believed that the separation was merely a temporary glitch because she was certain that she would never have chosen to move into this apartment had she known her stay there was going to last more than a couple of weeks. The apartment was a depressing space, all bland white walls and boxy cheaply finished rooms. Apart from the still unpacked boxes and untidy scattering of clothes the apartment was completely devoid of any sense of human life, the space appearing almost identical to how it had looked when she had been shown around the place by the overeager estate agent almost six months ago.
Sneaking a glance over at the answering machine, Veronica felt inexplicably sad seeing there was no pleading, desperate voice mail from Logan, begging for her to come back. There hadn't been one in weeks. Though Veronica had swore to her father, that she was over Logan, that she didn't want to talk to him, that she never wanted to see him again, the red flashing light on the answering machine was her one, last connection to her ex-boyfriend and without it she felt lost. Not that she'd ever admit that to anyone, least of all to Logan himself.
The buzz of her cell-phone vibrating on the coffee-table amongst left over takeout cartons and abandoned cups of coffee startled her and reaching for the offending phone, Veronica's heart sank on recognizing the number.
"Agent Mars," she answered reluctantly, stretching resignedly and pulling herself up from the sofa as though preempting the likely reason for the likely reason for the phone call. Four o' clock in the morning and most people were asleep, snuggled up warmly in their beds but not Veronica. Her job as FBI agent offered no such sanctity to such frivolousnesses as a full night's sleep.
"There's been two murders over at UCLA," her partner, John Burke muttered distractedly into the phone and Veronica could hear the wails of his newborn daughter rising in the background. "The crime scene technicians are finishing up at the scene now, so we're cleared to go in." he informed her before calling out the address of the Alpha Gamma Beta sorority house where the supposed murders had taken place.
"I'll meet you there," Veronica replied wearily, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.
Dragging a brush through her sleep tangled lengths of blonde hair, Veronica gathered it into a neat ponytail before rummaging unenthusiastically through the staple black jacket and trousers combination that composed her work uniform.
Ponytails and trouser suits. It was hardly attractive. Then neither, Veronica supposed, brushing some bronzer over her cheek and staring blankly into the small cracked mirror, were the ravaged, bloodied bodies that her job as FBI agent put her in contact with everyday.
Grabbing her keys, Veronica made for the door. Dead college students always made for interesting news and Veronica was certain the crime scene would already be swamped by local media by the time she got there. Slamming the door shut behind her, Veronica sighed. It was going to be a long night.
--
It was still early morning when Veronica arrived on the scene, a faint tinge of blue just coloring the inky-black sky. Drawn by the ominous flashing blue and red of the police cars, the first of the onlookers were gathering. Glancing at the teens, Veronica could see the look of sick horror on their faces, their eyes widened with a sort of morbid fascination as speculation mounted as what exactly had happened in the house. Gathered in a quieter, more pensive clique, was a group of pajama attired girls, all shivering slightly in their thin robes.
The other sorority members, Veronica noted curiously, hoping but not relying on the fact that one of the girls might have some useful information on the killer. By all accounts, the two girls had been dead for hours and the incident had only been reported in the past hour or so. They were probably asleep, Veronica concluded reluctantly, before immediately reconsidering, remembering her own college days. If college students were renowned for anything, it was not their dedication to their studies but rather their ability to party nonstop for days. One of these girls might know something, or could have heard something, she determined, eyeing the girls cooly. Their red-rimmed eyes spoke of their upset and grief of the loss of their friends but Veronica was aware of the cunning actions of people when it came to concealing a crime. Teary eyes and quivering lips were easy to fake and Veronica was determined to quiz each and every girl individually and if there was a liar in their midst, she would hunt her out and reveal her for the murdering bitch that she was.
Traipsing through the damp grass, the muddy green already trampled by a hundred police boots, Veronica wandered over to the Alpha Gamma Beta sorority house, the grey and white expanse of clapboard painting a picturesque scene, undoubtably belying the horror of what lay inside.
"Blondie, you sure you want to go in there?"
Eyeing the balding police officer cooly, Veronica resisted the urge to kick the man in the balls, however satisfying the action would be. While being blonde and petite would be considered advantageous in most careers, Veronica had found the direct opposite to be true in the FBI. Police officers and even her own colleagues could be dismissive or even downright rude, perceiving some sort of deficit in her ability to do her job by the mere fact she had blonde hair and had a relatively attractive face.
"Yes, I do want to go in there and it's Agent Mars to you, Officer," she snapped back, eyeing the police officer icily before walking on past without affording him a second glance.
"What the hell?" Veronica sighed, wincing as she strode purposefully through the chaotic mess of a bedroom that had been so suddenly and inexplicably transformed into a crime scene. In her two years working as an FBI agent, Veronica had thought she had seen it all before but seeing the shocking scene in front of her, she decided she would have to rethink that theory.
"Amy Philips and Karen Jones," Agent Burke informed her so matter-of-factly, he could have been listing off what he had eaten for his dinner and not naming two teenage girls who had just been bludgeoned to death. "Sophomores at UCLA. Both law students and. promising futures ahead of the girls by all accounts."
The two bodies lay sprawled out grotesquely on the twin beds, their faces reduced to a mess of blood and tissue, the injuries obviously as a result of some blunt force trauma to the head. The bright pink walls were now sprayed with a splatter of red, the blood trailing in vast tracks onto the once cream carpet.
"With this much of a mess, I can't believe that nobody heard anything. Didn't they scream?" she mused, peering intently at her partner to gauge his reaction.
"They didn't get a chance to," Burke murmured quietly, his expression solemn as he wandered over to the body of one of the girls, her remains now splayed upon a tangle of blood sodden sheets. "Their skulls were bashed in with a heavy, blunt object and the girls were dead before they ever got a chance to wake up."
"Have we any ID on the weapon?" Veronica cut in curiously, her eyes drawn to the elaborate collage of photographs pinned onto the wall, the pictures glistening with a fine sheen of blood. Their skin glowing with the hint of a summer tan and their orthodontic perfected smile beaming happily for the camera, the girls were captured at significant high school events such as senior prom and cheerleader rallies and though she hated herself for even thinking it, Veronica knew these would have been the kind of girls she would have loved to have hated at high school. There was a certain 09'er quality about them, she mused thoughtfully, an almost arrogance in their way they posed, that brought Madison Sinclaire immediately to mind.
"The lab are working on it," the FBI agent responded absently, picking his way carefully through the crime scene as though sensing there was something they were missing. "Though they are working on the assumption that it was a hammer of some sort based on the series of indentations on the victims' heads."
Moving in to get a closer look, Veronica took a step back repulsed by the sheer quantity of bright red pooled under the victim's head. The fact that the girl had blonde hair was hardly recognizable, her hair stained almost brown by the clumps of dried blood matted into her head. Swallowing heavily, Veronica forced herself to refocus her efforts on the investigation of the crime scene, when a glint of something shiny caught her eye.
"I wonder why CSI didn't process this bracelet Karen is wearing," she mused audibly, bending carefully over the girl's limp wrist, to gain a closer view of the delicate piece of jewelry.
"Bracelet? What bracelet?" Agent Burke demanded impatiently, abandoning his photographing of some of the blood splatter patterns of the wall to investigate Veronica's claims. "CSI didn't find anything on the bodies other than the pajamas they were wearing and a stomach piercing on Karen Jones."
"This," Veronica replied, indicating the thin bracelet to the FBI agent with a pointed finger. On closer inspection, it was easy to see how the piece of jewelry had been overlooked. So congealed with blood, only the tiniest glint of silver distinguished the bracelet as being a separate entity to the sticky, bloody mess that now constituted the gruesome remains of Amy Philip's body.
"Fuck, you're right," Burke murmured, intently photographing the position of the bracelet before removing it with gloved hands and bagging the piece of jewelry for evidence. "I can't believe the guys missed this."
"It's probably nothing," Veronica shrugged, though inwardly she was cautiously hopeful. Girls like Amy Philips didn't wear the cheap, gaudy offerings of Claire's Accessories that the bracelet discovered on her arm clearly was. Girls like Amy Philips, (or Madison Sinclaire), she considered snidely, wore expensive pieces from the likes of Tiffany's and Bulgari.
Her partner didn't reply, just pulled off his latex gloves with an audible snap. "I think we're finished up here, for now. How about we get home and grab a few hours sleep while we can?" Burke suggested wearily and Veronica guessed by the expression on his face that he was thinking of spending a few hours with his wife and his daughter. Veronica had no such loving family unit to return home to, but the thought of her bed and catching a few hours sleep was comforting enough to make up for that fact.
"Sure," Veronica agreed, heading eagerly for the door, already anticipating the few precious hours that would be spent hopefully, unconscious.
--
Dragging her fingers through her shower dampened lengths of hair, Veronica struggled to surpress a yawn as she sat back in her seat, waiting for Mac to show. She was early, having overestimated the extent of the Friday evening traffic and the almost suffocating heat of the bar she had agreed to meet her friend in, was seriously impacting on her ability to keep her eyes open. Plans to catch-up on lost sleep had been thwarted by some unavoidable paperwork and an untimely phone call from her father. Consequently, Veronica was exhausted, certain that the only thing keeping her from falling asleep right there and then at the table, was the innumerable cups of strong coffee she had consumed at the office before flying out the door to meet Mac.
"Hey, Veronica,"
Seeing Mac throw herself into the chair opposite her, Veronica smiled at her friend in welcome, relishing the laid back attitude of the girl. Hair that could be shot through with pink one week, could be tinged with blue the next or even be reinstated to it's natural brown color the following week if an important meeting demanded it. Recruited by a top software computer company for her reputed hacking skills, Mac operated under a relatively flexible work schedule, which unlike Veronica's, at least afforded her the luxury of a full nights sleep.
"Well, what's the big news?" Veronica pressed her friend curiously, her blue eyes widening expectantly as she leaned forward in her chair. Not one for dramatics, Mac never made a big deal out anything, not when she'd landed her dream job at Apple and certainly not when she'd started dating her current boyfriend, Brian Matthews, Veronica only learning about the relationship when a photograph of the happy couple was tagged on facebook. So when Mac had called her at work, saying she needed to talk to her immediately, Veronica had been understandably suspicious.
"Brian proposed and I said yes," she thrilled in a tone so uncharacteristic of Mac, who was normally so calm and reserved.
"That's brilliant news, Mac," Veronica replied happily, grasping hold of her friend's left hand to catch a glance at the ring. "As long as you don't expect me to be a bridesmaid or Maid of Honor or any of those jobs that would require me to wear purple or pink," she added wryly, aiming a pointed look at Mac before politely inspecting the generous ring.
"Nah, that's what cousins are for, so don't worry," she reassured Veronica brightly, her smile momentarily widening as she caught sight of her engagement ring before withdrawing her hand from Veronica and placing it discreetly under the table. "Anyway, what's the news with you, Veronica? I feel like, I haven't seen you in ages."
"That's because you haven't," Veronica scolded her jokingly, knowing the long hours she put in at the FBI were as much to blame as Mac's infatuation with Brian for the recent distance that had set in between the two girls. "And anyway, don't think we're going to be talking about me, when you've just gotten engaged. I expect details, Mac, you know, potential wedding plans, potential wedding dress ideas, that kind of thing," she pressed her friend expectantly, knowing by the look on Mac's face that she was sounding like some crazy sort of bridezilla. "I mean, have you set a date?" she finished lamely, inwardly cursing her late night addiction to reruns of 'Whose Wedding is it anyway?'.
"Probably sometime next June," she replied lightly, a teasing grin crossing her face as she gazed thoughtfully at Veronica. "You know, I'll have to rethink the whole bridesmaids situation. You sound like you'd make a great bridesmaid with all those questions. How does lilac taffeta grab you?"
"You do that and you die," Veronica joked, glowering at her friend with carefully narrowed eyes before the sound of her cell phone ringing incessantly in her bag, forced her to put a momentary halt to their conversation.
"Mars," she spoke resignedly into the phone, rolling her eyes in apology to Mac.
It was Burke. "Veronica, you need to get in here, now. You won't fucking believe this but Amy Philips, one of the victims from this morning, is Congressman Philips' daughter."
"You're joking," Veronica sounded in shock, running her fingers distractedly through the choppy lengths of blonde hair.
"I wish I was," Burke sighed deeply and Veronica could almost visualize the exhaustion on his face. "It's all over the media; there isn't a television station that haven't picked this up as their lead story."
"I'll see you in ten," Veronica agreed resignedly, making plans with Mac to meet for congratulatory drinks later in the week, before rushing out the door.