Disclaimer: I own nothing that has anything to do with Veronica Mars or the characters, unless you count the DVDs. This is just for fun.

Hello everyone! I hope you enjoy my newest fic.

Chapter 1

Hearst College, San Diego was a bustling local college, there were over one thousand students attending the school, but only six of the thousand had been in the car, everyone else was just grateful that it hadn't been them.

It was the Thursday before the Winter quarter was due to begin, it was Veronica and her friends final year, and they had decided to take a roadtrip to Las Vegas for the weekend.

A long drive, but they were excited to go, hit the casinos for a couple of days before resuming their studies.

It was Jackie Cook, Wallace's girlfriend who had suggested the trip. She had returned from New York two years before, after Wallace finally managed through much begging and coaxing, convinced to return, and resume her studies, a year behind her friends but still, she and Wallace were living together on campus with Jackie's then four year old son, Vincent.

She and Wallace asked Wallace's mother to mind Vincent, when Wallace told his former roommate, Stosh "Piz" Piznarski about the trip, his girlfriend of three months Kylie Morrison had excitedly asked if they could come too.

Soon, Veronica Mars and her fiancé of eight months, Logan Echolls, and Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie had also been invited on the trip. Mac had wanted her boyfriend of three years, Richard "Dick" Casablancas to join them, but he had already left on his own pre-term break to Tijuana.

They packed up Logan's black Jeep Commander, a recent upgrade from his bright yellow Wrangler, with everything they would need and want for the weekend, before piling in.

The drive was long, they didn't reach Vegas until the late afternoon, it would have been later, but Logan had been driving. They had booked suites at The Mirage Hotel and Casino, where they ended up spending most of their weekend, between gambling and hanging out in the suites, enjoying the weekend of no responsibilities or obligations, just fun.

On their last night, instead of leaving early to head back to Neptune, the group opted to go out to dinner at Circus Circus, after Veronica had pointed out that they'd stayed in very classy locations all weekend, it was time to get some funny, different photos before they left, and what better place than a hotel and casino set up like a circus?

But before dinner they spent hours in the Adventuredome, which was in essence an indoor theme park.

By the time they left it was just past midnight.

But inevitably the trip had to end, they had to be back in Neptune in eight hours. As they left town, they stopped at the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign, Piz and Kylie had insisted that they couldn't leave without a group picture, a memento of their trip, it would have been more trouble than it was worth to argue, and besides, secretly everyone else wanted one too.

Logan pulled the car onto the median strip, they weren't the only ones there, and they spent several minutes mucking around before they took their turn and stood in front of the sign, Veronica handed another tourist her camera, asking him to take their picture. The man obliged, and soon they were on their way with their photo in hand, or so to speak.

It was just before three am, they had just passed the small town of Barstow, California on interstate fifteen, when Veronica noticed from her seat in beside Logan, who was still driving that he was yawning, struggling to keep his eyes open, "Maybe we should just go back, stay in that town tonight, drive back tomorrow. You're falling asleep."

"I'm fine," Logan insisted, he had become more focused in his studies, and he knew that missing the first day would cause each of them hassles, and it wasn't as though anyone else could drive, everyone bar him and Veronica were sleeping in the back, exhausted, Veronica had been drinking that evening, so had he and everyone else for that matter, he shouldn't have been driving.

Veronica sighed in acceptance, if Logan thought he was okay to drive, she would have to trust him. She had just allowed her eyelids to close, when suddenly Veronica felt the car veer off course, she opened her eyes to see that Logan had fallen asleep at the wheel, and they were careening towards a heavily tree covered embankment, too fast.

Veronica made a desperate grab for the steering wheel, but it was too late, Logan's foot must have still been pushing the accelerator down, because they weren't slowing, if anything they were speeding up.

All her attempt did was cause the large car to go into a spin on the wrong side of the road, before it slammed into the trees, the impact wrapping the car around the trees.

Sometime after the accident, Veronica started to drift back to consciousness, her head hurt, and her arm was throbbing painfully.

Veronica tried to move, but she was being pinned by her seat, which had collapsed against the dash board, she tried to look around, she could just see Logan out of the corner of her eye, the car had impacted on his side first, it was crushed, he was bleeding profusely, moaning in agony.

Her heart ached, she wanted nothing more than to help her friends, to comfort her fiancé, but she could barely even move. It was then that she noticed her bag on the floor of the car, her phone on top of the contents of the bag, her uninjured arm was close to it, and after several fumbling tries she managed to get the phone.

Dialling was no easy task, she only had one hand, and her vision was pretty blurry, but she finally typed in the numbers 9-1-1, she held the phone to her ear, trying to ignore that her hand scraped the roof of the car as she did so, and listened to it ring.

Finally an emergency services operator answered her call. Jane Fremantle had been working as an operator for eleven years, there wasn't much she hadn't heard, but when Veronica Mar's terrified, hurt voice came over the line something struck her, a deep sense of unease, before Veronica had gotten past hello.

"Can I help you?" Jane maintained her professionalism, ignoring the feeling.

Veronica struggled to speak, it took a minute for her to get the words out, "car crashed, my friends, think it's bad." It wasn't too composed, but it was the best Veronica could manage.

"Where are you, miss?"

Veronica hesitated, trying to think of the name of the last town they'd passed, "interstate, just south of... Barstow. Please help."

"I'm dispatching ambulance crews now. Can you tell me how many people are injured? How many people were in the car with you?"

Again Veronica had to think, it was getting so hard to stay awake, "seven, 'ogan fell 'sleep, couldn't stop."

"Just hang on, miss. Help will be there really soon, just keep talking to me. What's your name sweetheart?"

"'ronica. Hurts, so bad."

"I know, honey. Just hang on a bit longer. What do you do Veronica?" Jane could tell from Veronica's voice that she was on the verge of passing out, and she wanted to stop her from doing that as long as she could.

"College, final year... I think..." It was so hard to focus, especially when Veronica could hear the pained cries and moans of her friends, but was unable to help them. She wasn't sure if it was worse hearing her friends suffering, or that there were less cries now, weaker. She was listening to her friends die.

"Wow, final year, how exciting. What college are you at?"

"Hearst... 'Diego." Veronica replied. It was then that she noticed a foreign sound, a siren, "cn hea' 'irens," Veronica reported to Jane, before she finally slipped out of consciousness.

Barstow was a small community, their fire department, and subsequently EMS unit were volunteer run, it had been by sheer luck that they had been gathered for a training exercise, a response drill when the call came across... multiple casualty accident.

The fire captain took the radio call, as soon as it ended, he called out to the assembled group, "Okay folks, listen up! We've got a car accident on the freeway, approximately seven injured, possibly trapped. It's reported as being just to the south, but there is no exact location. Medivac is enroute, but they're half an hour away. Let's move!"

"Is this part of the drill?" One of the volunteers felt compelled to ask, it was too big of a coincidence.

"It's not part of the drill, it's the real thing, so move!"

Jackie had been sitting right at the back of the seven seater, alongside Wallace. It was one of the fold down seats, higher than the others. One of the many trees the car had impacted had fallen onto the roof of the car, crushing it, Wallace was on top of her, shielding her, she could vaguely remember being woken by a the car suddenly veering off course, and then Wallace had pushed her down, protecting her with his body.

She was covered in blood, everything hurt, but the blood wasn't all hers, Wallace was still on top of her, he wasn't moving, as far as she could tell, he wasn't breathing.

The pain was excruciating, she was screaming out in pain, but no one heard her.

Her last thought was, "Oh god, I'm dying, this is it. I can't leave my son, what'll happen to him, he needs me. I love him."

The Barstow fire and EMT crews arrived just minutes after the call. Upon seeing the scene, some people exclaimed in shock, others crossed themselves, prayed.

It was horrific, the wreckage bore no resemblance to any kind of car, the left hand side was crumpled around trees, the car was less than half its full width, the roof had been crushed, windows were all smashed.

It seemed impossible that anyone could be alive.

They'd never seen anything like it, they hoped they never would again.

The crews got straight to work, prying open doors, cutting the tree that was on the roof, so they could pull it off, and remove the roof in a hope of rescuing survivors.

They could see the group of young adults in the car, but it was impossible to tell what condition they were in, all they could do was work as quickly as they could to access the car's passengers.

When they finally managed to clear enough of the wreckage to reach the group, the EMT volunteers got straight to work.

Five of the car's passengers, including the driver had been killed, they had suffered massive injures, there was nothing they could do.

The front seat passenger, Veronica was still alive, unconscious but hanging on. Her head had hit the windscreen, and was bleeding profusely, she also had a severely broken arm, the broken bones had been forced through her skin by the impact.

They got her onto an oxygen mask, started two IVs of saline to compensate for the blood loss, wrapped her head and arm wounds as best they could, placed a cervical collar around her neck, , and lift her out of the wrecked car.

The passenger in the back of the car, Jackie was barely alive when they finally reached her, but in the fifteen minutes it took to free her, she bled to death.

TBC... If you ask nicely