Okay, so I used the script more for this one, and you can really tell, though I changed a few things to make my little AU world work. Like, for example, I cut out the scene where J.D. gives Heather Duke the red scrunchie and had her obtain it another way, which you will find out what that is at the end. And then...Yeah. That's all I can think to say except that I don't own anything or anyone (though I wouldn't mind owning a non-douchey version of J.D., if I'm being totally honest here.) Oh, there is one more thing! I kid you guys not, the part where the students all start getting up, the script literally uses the phrase "going apeshit" to describe what everybody starts doing when the TV crew comes in.
"With the TV crew in the room, the students start going apeshit."
That's literally what it says, word-for-word, I shit you not. How funny is that?
Okay, sorry, just had to share that. :)
"Attention!"
Someone spit out his milk.
"May I have your attention?"
Veronica walked into the cafeteria wearing a pair of black glasses, and the first thing she saw was Pauline Fleming doing God-only-knew-what dressed in what looked like some kind of Indian sari type garment thing. "This school has been torn apart by tragedies," Pauline was saying. "I'm here to fuse it back again, in togetherness! I want everybody to clasp hands!" Veronica took her glasses off, looking at the teacher as if she were insane, which for all Veronica knew, she might very well be, or at least on something. "We need to connect this cafeteria into one mighty circuit!" Pauline yelled. "Look, here's the TV crew, clasp your hands!"
She had said the magic words. Suddenly, everybody was up on their feet going apeshit while Pauline went around making everyone hold hands. Veronica looked at Heather Duke. "Looks like Ms. Phlegm's on another one of her crusades," she said. "Usual success, of course." A TV reporter came over.
"Hi, what's your name?" the man asked. Heather grinned at him. "Hi, I'm Heather Duke," she said.
Meanwhile, Martha Dunstock was crawling under a table while J.D. came up to Veronica from behind and put his arms around her. "Is this as good for you as it is for me?" he asked, and then went and sat down at Martha's table, prompting Martha to come back up from her hiding spot. J.D. nodded at her. "Greetings and salutations," he said. Veronica shook her head in disgust, then turned around and left. Seeing this, J.D. patted Martha's shoulder and started to get up. "I'll have to catch you later," he said, and then went after Veronica and caught up with her in the hallway, bringing a hand down on her shoulder and turning her around. "Veronica, what's the matter? Where you going, huh?" he asked. Veronica slapped him.
"Now what the hell was that for, darling?"
"You promised, J.D., you promised no more!"
"No more killing, I know, but what—"
"So quit being an ass about the deaths!"
"I—I'm sorry, darling. If I'd known that would bother you, I wouldn't have said it. Look, how about we just forget all about the crazy shit going on in there, cut our next few classes, and go get some slushies, huh? That sound nice? I'll buy."
"I won't cut class," Veronica said after a moment of thought, "but we can go after school lets out, I'm fine with that."
J.D. nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, after school, we'll blow this dump and go get some slushies to freeze our brains."
Veronica nodded grudgingly. "Okay. We'll freeze our brains," she said quietly. "What about in the meantime?"
"In the meantime? Uh...Well, I kind of left that Martha girl hanging. You, uh, wanna go and check on her?"
"Yeah, absolutely. That girl seriously needs people looking out for her, she's got it way too rough."
He took her hand and started leading her back towards the caf. "Hey, J.D.?"
"Yeah, darling?"
"What's gonna happen when it's time for you to move?"
J.D. froze. For a long time, he said nothing. "I ain't goin' through that shit again," he said in a low voice finally. "You have no idea what it's like, Veronica. Never in one place for more than a few months, never making friends, always the new kid. It's no wonder I'm so fucked up, huh? My dad blew my mom up, I'm never in the same school for more than about four months at a time, I have no friends, no girlfriend until you, I'm the weirdo with the gun full of blanks, nobody loves Jason Dean, huh? You were right last night, darling. I'm damaged. You know, I, uh...I heard what you said about holding me to my promise. I'm holding me to it, too, just so you know."
"J.D., tell me the truth, had you ever killed anyone before Heather Chandler?"
J.D. closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "One time," he said, "when I was ten, I got into a fight with this other kid. We were living in Kansas at the time, lots of cornfields and shit, and near the edge of town, there were these train tracks. So I get into this fight with this other kid, it gets physical, we chase each other through town and across the tracks into this big cornfield. There was this barbed wire fence, see, and we didn't realize it was there, we were so busy pounding the living shit out of each other. So finally, I manage to shove him off myself, and he, uh...He falls backwards and ends up right on the fence. Literally. On the fence. And the wire was so sharp, it impaled him. So yeah, I killed a guy once before. It was an accident, but still. Wake up call, darling, you're dating a felon. I've killed, stolen, lied, cheated, you name it."
"Then I guess I just have to keep a close eye on you, huh?" Veronica said. J.D. nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I guess you will. So come on, are we gonna go check on Martha or not?"
"That thing this afternoon," Veronica said later as they were sitting on J.D.'s couch. "I'm so angry! It was chaos, fucking chaos."
"Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling," J.D. said. Veronica rolled her eyes, picking up the remote and smacking him on the arm with it. "Hey, ow, that hurt! Hey, you kids are making too much damn noise," he added as his father came in smiling and carrying a video tape in his hand.
"We beat the bitches," Bud said.
"Beautiful," Veronica said, "the Beaver is home."
"The judge told them to slurp shit and die," Bud told them.
He put the tape in and hit play. A large house appeared on the TV screen. "I put a Norwegian in the boiler room," Bud said. "Masterful!" As J.D. and Veronica watched, the house fell apart. "And then," Bud continued, "when that blew, it set off a pack of thermals I stuck upstairs." He laughed. "Some days it's great to be alive!" With that, he turned and left. Veronica looked at J.D., but his expression was hard to read. He seemed frozen, just staring at the screen even though it was blank now. "Do you like your father?" she asked finally. J.D. blinked as if he were coming back to reality from somewhere that existed only in his mind.
"I've never given the matter much thought," he said. "I liked my mother. They said her death was an accident, but she knew what she was doing. She walked into the building two minutes before my dad blew the place up. She waved at me, and then...Boom."
Veronica remembered earlier in the hallway how he'd said his dad had blown his mom up when he'd been saying that it was no wonder he was so fucked up. She hadn't realized how literal he'd meant it, though she supposed she should've known seeing how Bud was the way he was and seemed to be where J.D. got a lot of his issues from. Something occurred to her suddenly. "Since he got what he wanted," she said, "doesn't that mean you guys are moving soon?" J.D. didn't respond right away, and during the silence, the radio DJ started talking. "If I get one more request for that Big Fun song," the man said, I am gonna commit suicide!"
"Hey, they're playing our song," J.D. said, but it was half-muttered and his eyes were distant, staring off into space. There was no joking or cruelty in his voice, just something akin to a vague indifference of sorts, as if he wasn't really there in the room with her. "Here it is," the DJ said, "'Teenage Suicide: Don't do It!'" The song started playing while Veronica watched J.D., who was still staring off into space at nothing in particular. Then, after a few moments, his face twisted into a scowl, and he pulled out his gun, standing up and firing off two shots at the radio, making Veronica flinch in surprise as it exploded into pieces. She sat there staring at him in shock, heart pounding.
"Seven schools in seven states," he said, quoting himself from the other night, "and the only thing different is my locker combination. I ain't going to another, Veronica. I ain't adding an eight state, I ain't adding an eighth school. Until now, no friends, no girlfriends, no attachments. But I couldn't resist you. You're right, darling. He's probably gonna haul my ass off soon. But I won't let him this time. This time, I'm gonna come up with something to put myself one step ahead so I won't have to—" He faltered momentarily, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked slightly. "So I won't have to leave you behind. Because God, Veronica, if I lose you, it'll only add to my damage. I ain't letting that happen. So I'm gonna brainstorm, I'm gonna figure something out so I can stay here. Remember last night when you asked if I wanted a life with you? My answer to that is I absolutely do, I mean...hell yeah. I'm gonna make it so I can stay here and do exactly that. So I can have that life with you. So we can be seventeen." He let out a long, heavy sigh and closed his eyes.
"J.D.?"
"Mm?"
"You wanna go to my house tomorrow instead of here? Play some croquet?"
He opened his eyes and grinned half-heartedly at her. "I'd love to, darling."
Veronica called Betty Finn that night and invited her to join the croquet match, as well, so the next day, J.D. and Betty both came over to play.
"I don't believe it," Betty said, "I'm winning!"
"Don't you start getting cocky on me now, girl," Veronica replied. J.D. was standing a few feet away, watching them as he leaned on his mallet like it was a cane. "I've really missed you," Betty told Veronica. "I know I'm not as exciting as your other friends."
"That is bullshit," Veronica told her, and J.D. snickered slightly as he shook his head. "Now shoot."
"Do you know I'm still a virgin?" Betty asked. "Okay, I French kissed Al Springer once. Total disaster!"
"Shoot the ball!" Veronica repeated. "You know, Betty, your daydreams are much better than my reality, believe me. But now, prepare to die."
"Ronnie!" Betty said, and J.D. couldn't help but laugh at the nickname, turning it into a cough when Veronica turned to shoot him a look that clearly said to shut it if he didn't want to be clobbered with her croquet mallet, which, having grown rather fond of the way his face looked, he decided he would really rather her not do.
Veronica shot her ball, and it hit Betty's. She was about to take two free shots when Betty interrupted her. "You're not gonna go for just those two shots, are you?" she asked. "Go ahead, knock me out. It's the only way to win." J.D.'s eyes shifted from Betty to Veronica, waiting to see what she would do. "It's not my style," Veronica said, and J.D.'s mouth twitched up slightly at one corner. "Nice guys finish last," Betty said, "I should know." Again, J.D.'s eyes moved from Betty over to his girlfriend, gauging her reaction and waiting for her response. To his surprise, she changed her mind, choosing to knock Betty's ball out rather than take the two shots. Then the sound of clapping started up, and J.D. and the girls all turned to find Heather Duke and Heather McNamara coming towards them from the patio.
"Bravo," Heather Duke said, "Brav-o."
Betty handed Veronica her croquet mallet. "I gotta go home, okay?" she said, and J.D. frowned, thinking to himself what a shame that was since he had been growing rather fond of Betty. "Okay," Veronica said, taking the mallet. "Thanks," Betty told her, and then gave J.D. a small grin as she adjusted her glasses, coming over to him and holding her hand out for him to shake. "Nice meeting you, J.D.," she said, and he nodded as he shook the offered hand. "The pleasure was all mine," he said. Betty gave him another grin, then turned to leave. "Bye, Betty," Veronica said.
"Betty," Heather Duke said as Betty went past her, "leaving so soon?" Then, to J.D. she added, "What about you?"
"Oh, who, me?" he said. "No thanks, I'm pretty comfortable right here, I think I'll stick around a while longer."
Heather turned to Veronica, both eyebrows raised, as if to say, "Are you seriously going to let him stay?"
Veronica shrugged. "I invited him over here," she said, "he's my guest, he can stay if he wants."
After a moment, Heather shrugged. "Suit yourselves, I guess," she said. "I'm red."
That was when Veronica noticed that she was wearing Heather Chandler's red scrunchie, the one that symbolized the leader of the Heathers. She scowled. "Where the hell did you get that?" she asked. When J.D. saw what she was talking about, he freaked out internally. He'd taken that off the body before leaving Heather Chandler's house the day of her death. He'd been holding onto it until he figured out what to do with it, even contemplating giving it to Veronica so that she could take control and make the school a better place, so how could Heather Duke have gotten a hold of it? It hadn't left his coat pocket once since—His pocket. Oh, God, his pocket. His hand dove into it on a sudden impulse, only for his fear to be confirmed; there was a hole in the lining, the scrunchie must have fallen through at some point and escaped his notice while he'd been occupied with his promise to Veronica and the issue of escaping the fate of going to an eighth school in an eighth state and changing locker combinations again.
"I found it on the floor in the hallway," Heather said. "It was just sitting there like someone had put it down for me to find. Weird, right? Now, are we gonna play or what? I'm red."
Please don't ask me why "beaver" is capitalized in Veronica's "the beaver is home" line, okay, I have no clue, that's the way it was written in the script, so that's how I wrote it in here. *shrugs* And yeah, I know that the thing about chaos and the dinosaurs is still kind of a jerk-ish thing to say, but it's just such a great line, I couldn't not use it, so I cut out the part about chaos being great and just left the part about the dinosaurs. :P
Also, J.D. IS, for the record, still going to get his hands on Heather's copy of Moby Dick, but like the scrunchie, it will happen differently than in the movie since I've obviously cut out the whole petition and blackmail stuff.
AAAAnd...um...Okay, so the next chapter is going to follow the script almost exactly except for a few things, so it's kind of a filler chapter, really. And...this one seemed longer when I wrote it. Huh. Isn't it weird when that happens, when it seems longer or shorter than it is when you actually post it? I never know whether it makes me mad, upset, or just plain confused when that happens to me, lol.
