Title: Planets Aligned

Full Summary: Veronica Mars is back after finishing her education at Hearst. This time she has an official Title: FBI agent. But she's brought to a case in her home town Neptune and an old friend is a suspect. Will she clear his name? Will her old memories come back to haunt her? Old feelings and a flame emerge...

Spoilers: Taken place after the end after season 3

A/N: All written within an hour! Was slightly bored and just watched an episode of VM againa and missed it so much... I'm not sure if this is a one-shot or not. It's up to you to decide

Disclaimer: I don't own Veronica Mars. I just own the other characters.

The life of an FBI agent is hard. Dealing with murders was the most difficult. It isn't for me though. Me, Veronica Mars. I was the one who helped solve my best friend, Lilly Kane's murder after everyone else had given up on the case and arrested the suspect who had confessed. I was the only one who knew they had put the wrong man behind bars, and after convincing my father – a private investigator – we were successful in putting the real criminafl behind bars.

Then it was the next murder, but this time it was a mass of murders. A simple class trip to a baseball stadium ended with half a dozen dead when the school bus went off a cliff. The 'O9ers' weren't on the bus, having rented a limo to take them home due to the smell. I had been on the bus too. I was lucky enough to be alive thankful for the appearance of my dead best friend at the rest stop. I was too late to get back onto the bus, so instead I hitched a ride with my friend Weevil.

The police were wrong again. They blamed the once-attempted-to-kill-himself driver. Nope, not him. It was an explosion that killed them. Created by Cassidy Casablanca. He was a sick boy. Mentally. Through all the ridicule by his brother and father over the years had driven him to be an angry boy. He even raped me. I still shudder at the memory. I blamed him for everything, mostly the fact that he almost killed me. I would never admit it to anyone but… I'm glad he's gone. Committed suicide. But then I remind myself that he needed help and we weren't early enough to actually give it to him.

Not forgetting the solving of the rapes going round at university. I had almost been a victim. It was bad enough raping them, but then giving the girls a reminder of it by shaving their heads? Just wrong… this person was behind bars. Stopped finally.

Maybe it was because of all the past crimes I'd seen that had made me immune to puking at the sight of a gruesome murder. Maybe it was like Joseph had said, I was now heartless. I had been out of contact with my old friends for a long time; I only kept contact with Mac and Wallace. Only brief chats we had though.

Mac worked for the Kane's. I guess I should have been upset, but it was her decision. It was a very high-class job and gave her a title. More impressive than she could have ever imagined. She still lived in Neptune so I visited rarely. I was glad to be out of that horrible town where my worst nightmares still lye.

Wallace had achieved his dream: he was a mechanical engineer. He worked somewhere close to the Neptune border, so again we didn't see each other much.

A lot had changed in those five years. I was working at the FBI which was a supposedly better than the CIA. Only 26, going on 27, and one of the top agents in my field. My work consisted on travelling a lot. That was something I had always dreamed of, travelling. Somewhere distant from Neptune.

Travelling wasn't really how I imagined it. I didn't see the sights unless they were scenes of crime.

I visited my father occasionally. He was Mayor of Neptune again, making it better than when it once was under Sheriff Lamb's control… but I shouldn't speak ill of the dead. He and Ms Fennel, Wallace's mother, were still together. Last I visited they had moved in together. Good thing too, my father would have gotten lonely without me living under his roof. We saw each other once over the summer, at his birthday, and at Christmas.

I didn't like to visit Neptune more often than 5 times a year. The other two times went to visiting Mac. Sometimes she was sent on business to New York, where I lived, and we would see each other. She was still the same old shy Mac. Wallace was the same too. Me? I'm not so sure…

I was brought back to Neptune once more on the 5th of April. When I was first told about it I had been speechless. A few years ago a bomb set on the school bus had murdered 7 students. The FBI hadn't gotten involved then. Why now? What crime?

Jeffrey Stone, a handsome black-haired basketball player at the age of 32 had been in Neptune on the 31st of March talking to the Jake Kane on 'business'. At 1:09am he had been found murdered in a ditch. The words 'April Fools' had been written on his forehead.

"Ouch, Neptune," my 'partner in crime' Joseph chuckled to me. "Do you think you'll be able to go back?"

"If it means questioning Jake Kane then I'm in," I smirked at the thought.

Joseph Keen was an odd man. You might have said he was handsome, with his heart-shaped face and curly brown hair and dimples. Only a year older than me yet he seemed like a child. Why did I have to be partnered with him?? That was what I first thought. It turned out he had more insight in the criminals than I had thought. Those 5 years working together had been interesting. But the time was almost up, after solving this case we would have to change partners. I was being transferred to Washington in the summer.

When we arrived in Neptune, our first stop was to questioning Jake Kane. How long had I yearned for this? Too long it seemed. We had full access to the local police's questioning room. The officers sneered at us, so young yet working higher jobs than them. Hah! Some of these officers were the same ones who had ridiculed my investigating skills when I had once lived here. Revenge is sweet.

Jake Kane's eyes were wide with shock and fear when I walked into the interrogation room. I had begged Joseph to let me take this one whilst he sat behind the glass, analysing the suspect's every move.

"V-veronica?" Jake spluttered in shock.

"Nice to see you again Mr Kane," I smiled at him, taking a seat opposite. "Too bad it's under such circumstances."

His eyes adjusted to the sight of me and calmed down. "I see you've done wonders for yourself Veronica. Working for the F.B.I."

"Well I'm very ambitious," Veronica told him before dropping the 'nice' act. "I'm guessing you know why you're here?"

"Someone murdered Jeffrey Stone."

"Why were you meeting with him?"

"I believe I've told the officers before. We were meeting on business."

"Which was…?"

"I don't see how that is important."

"Fine, I'll start with an easier question; when was the meeting?"

It seemed Jake Kane could only answer in only one sentence. He gave short answers like 'angry' or 'three'. It didn't give me any insight on what he was feeling. He'd probably grown accustom to answering like this, who knew what crimes he had committed.

We didn't have evidence to charge him, so he had to be let go. I promised myself that one day, I would give Jake Kane a taste of his own medicine.

It was an end to that day then. We were still unsure what our next move was.

I was back at the station the next day early like Joseph. We began looking into the victim.

He had been spotted at a strip club only hours before the murder. Our first stop was there.

"Suicide?" Joseph asked me whilst I drove.

"What makes you think that?" I raised an eyebrow.

"He never went to college, dropped out of high school. Basketball was all he had. Little known fact, his career was nearly over. He had nothing else to live for."

"So he spends his last hours at a strip club? Seeing some hot stuff for the last time? I thought you were good at this, Joseph," I shook my head. "What about the words? 'April Fools'? You're forgetting the simple fact that he wouldn't have been able to write that on himself without a mirror."

Someone had written the words clearly, a right-handed person, in italic script. Not something you can write on yourself, backwards.

I didn't expect strip joints to be this crowded in the morning. The room stank of cheap perfume and musky cologne. Most of the men were middle-aged. Probably all just skipping their low paid jobs or getting away from their wives. I've seen it all before in cases.

They all eyed me with a strange alluring look. I may be blonde but I don't strip! Idiots. I looked over at my partner who was chuckling slightly. "What?"

"Does this remind you of your first case?"

I groaned at the memory. My first case at the FBI involved me dancing on a pole. Not how I actually wanted to start my career or meet my colleagues.

We made our way over to one brunette stripper with heavy glittered eye shadow around her face that had just finished giving one gentleman a lap dance.

"Have you seen this man? Goes by the name of Jeffrey?" I asked her, holding up a picture of Jeffrey.

"Who's to know?" she asked rudely. Apparently in Strip Class 101 they don't teach manners.

"FBI," Joseph showed her his badge.

"Yeah, I saw him. He was here around 11pm, left at 12:30am," she grunted. "Well I wouldn't say leave… more like was kicked out."

"Why?"

"Dunno," she shrugged. "Ask Jenny." She gestured over at one of the other girls. She had long black hair and a heart-shaped face with an obvious eyelift.

"Yeah?"

"These agents are asking about Jeffrey." I gave her the picture of him. Let's hope Jenny would be more helpful.

"What' do'ya need to know?" Jenny pulled a face. Unpleasant memory…?

"Did you see him leave?"

"Yeah, around half twelve."

"Did he have any writing on his face?" Joseph interjected before I could speak. Again with the suicide theory. He always did this with a case getting too difficult. Eventually I would prove him wrong.

"Yeah," Jenny said surprised. "He was here at twelve, April Fools day. We wrote that on all the customers' head."

Joseph smiled smugly at me. So this proved the writing on Jeffrey's head. Now, the ditch he was found in was only a 20-minute walk from here, meaning he was killed approximately around… 12:50am?

"They say he was kicked out?" Joseph continued.

"He got into a fight with a blond dude."

"Can you describe him?" I asked.

"He's right over there," Jenny pointed to the bar where a blond sat drinking a shot. Looks like we just found ourselves another suspect.

As I took a closer look, my jaw dropped in horror.

"Dick Casablanca?"

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