A/N: Okay, so there was little "irritation" with Wallace over his rant to Veronica. Had I known, I would have prepared you. It's going to be okay. You just had to be patient ;)


"Oh, no you don't. I'm not ready for round two," Veronica insisted, holding her right hand in front of her as Wallace walked in the door.

He held his hands up in surrender.

"I came to apologize. Don't pull out the taser."

"Well, in that case, my friend..." Veronica said, kicking a chair over to him, "pull up a seat, kid."

"I was a jerk the other day. I'm sorry."

Veronica frowned and looked around behind Wallace.

"What are you doing, V?"

"Looking for your tail. It's not between your legs, so I'm pretty much at a loss."

Wallace shook his head and motioned with his hands the universal sign for "come on".

"Let's go, Super Spy. Give me all you got."

"No, no. I'm gonna take the high road here."

"Wha...ok, who are you and what have you done with my friend Veronica Mars?"

"Seriously. I probably deserved about 64% of your little rant, so I'm gonna just let you go ahead and say whatever it is you came to say. As long as it's a net deduction of somewhere in the ballpark of 40% of your whole 'wrath of Wallace' speech then I'm just gonna remain silent."

Veronica hopped up on the desk and made the zipping motion on her lips.

"Well, in my defense...your dad was in the hospital. Someone had to step up," Wallace joked, shrugging.

"He shoots...he scores. From way downtown. That's a three-pointer. Good start, Fennel."

"I was sort of misdirecting my anger," Wallace said, taking on a more serious tone.

Veronica leaned over on her knees.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing important, anyway."

Veronica reached her hand to touch his shoulder.

"If it's important to you, Wallace, then it is important. What's going on in your world?"

Wallace smiled. It had been a long time since he had just talked with his best friend.

"You see there's this girl..."

"Whoop, there it is!" Veronica teased.

Wallace rolled his eyes.

"I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that you read me the riot act because of my love-life choices, and now you're telling me it's because your panties are in a wad about a girl?"

Wallace hung his head and waited for the rest.

"This has got to be good, Fennel. Please. Keep talking, pal," Veronica smiled and crossed her arms.

...

"You know, Wallace, you really didn't have to come with me," Veronica said, turning her head from the plane's window to look at Wallace. They were about 30 minutes from LaGuardia.

"Oh, yes I did. Who's going to be there for Piz when he realizes it's really over?"

"I'm pretty sure he's aware of that already," Veronica said, eyes rolling.

Wallace laughed.

"Umm, so you've said those words to him, V? You said, 'hey, Piz. It's over.'?"

"Well, no, but it's pretty clear, isn't it, when I call to say I'm coming to clean out my things from the apartment to move back to California?"

"We are talking about Piz here, Veronica. Unless you make it perfectly, plainly, crystal clear to that boy that you two don't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever being together - he will hang on with a death grip."

"He's naive, Wallace. Not stupid."

"V, Piz is my boy, you know that. But I'm pretty sure you could show up pregnant with Logan Echolls' baby right now and unless you showed him a DNA test and a marriage license, he would still think there's a shot somehow."

"Ok, now you're just being mean," Veronica said, irritated. Wallace was making Piz sound like a complete idiot. She didn't get what was going on in Wallace's head these days. He tried to offer some lame excuse about a girl messing with his head the day he came to apologize to her, but she knew there was more he wasn't telling her. She'd get it out of him eventually, she was certain, but for now she was perplexed at his bipolar behavior. And what was up with the whole pregnancy analogy? Because her life wasn't crazy enough right now. Being pregnant would have just about been the most f'd up thing that could happen to her at this point.

"Ok, look, Wallace. I love you, but you are about a sentence away from me picking your scrawny ass up out of that seat and tossing you out the emergency exit. So, because I love you, I'm going to put my headphones in and listen to this riveting 'Review of Pertinent Facts for the Bar Exam'."

Veronica put her headphones in Wallace shrugged. He put his headphones in and leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

...

"New York, New York. Ain't she a beauty," Wallace commented as the cab drove them to Veronica's hotel. Veronica wasn't about to even consider staying in the apartment. She told Wallace he was welcome to, but she thought it was best that she stayed in a hotel near where she was scheduled to sit for the exam. He agreed and told her he would probably just crash with Piz.

Veronica had called Piz early in the week to let him know that she would be coming to pack up her things after the exam was over. The conversation was short and tense. He told her he would grab her some boxes and stay out of her way. She didn't mention that Wallace was coming along. He wanted to surprise Piz. He thought it might help take his mind off things. He would occupy Piz while Veronica got her stuff.

"It's definitely different from Neptune, huh?"

"No doubt," Wallace said, his eyes glazed over from all the sights and sounds. "Do you miss it?"

Veronica stared out the window. She had asked herself that same question many times in the last few weeks. It seemed pretty stupid to come sit for the bar exam when she was leaving New York. She wasn't even sure at this point if she even wanted to be a lawyer. Things were just complicated with her Dad's accident. She had to get to the bottom of this whole corruption thing before she could think about anything in the future.

But she'd already shelled out a mint to take the exam and she'd been studying for months, so she might as well go ahead and get it over with. The fact that the last month and a half of her life had been a complete whirlwind probably did not bode well for her chances of passing, however.

But you're Veronica Mars. When has pointlessness and certain failure ever deterred you from charging head on into the fray?

"Yes. No."

"Now who's bipolar?" Wallace laughed.

"I thought I was going to make a life here. I thought this was my future. I love New York. I didn't miss Neptune at all. I mean, I missed you guys. Dad. But I never missed Neptune. Do you know what I mean? I didn't miss what it meant. Neptune was my past. New York was my future."

"You keep saying was."

"Something happened when I came back, Wallace. I can't explain it. At first, it was like I was being sucked back into this nightmare I'd worked so hard to wake-up from. But every day I was there, I started to feel more 'me' again. It's like I left Neptune and left myself in it. I was a different person here. I think that's why Piz and I were so happy. He wasn't in love with me-he was in love with who I had become. And she was in love with him."

"Look, I only had one philosophy class, Plato. You're getting a little too deep for me," Wallace laughed.

"I know, it sounds like I'm tripping or something. I get it. I can't explain it in a way that doesn't sound like I just inhaled half of Dick's stash - but the fact is...the real Veronica Mars doesn't belong here. She belongs in Neptune, California with all the crazy, with all the drama, with all the chaos."

"I'm not sure that's true, V. I mean, yeah, I think you do belong in Neptune. But I don't think it's all chaos. There were some good times. And there will be again."

Veronica smiled. She hoped Wallace was right.