TITLE: Missed the Bus

AUTHOR: arbailey

WORD COUNT: 2,070

RATING: PG-13 for language (possible R later)

SUMMARY: Everybody in Neptune has secrets... But not from Veronica, who is knee deep in intrigue trying to fix everyone else's problems. Busy as she is, she almost doesn't have time to think about a certain Tall, Dark, and Juvenilely-Delinquent. Almost. Veronica is running to stand still, and it looks like she may have just Missed the Bus.

SPOILERS: All of season one. Makes an ungodly mess of the timeline for season two.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any rights to Veronica Mars, and this story is written as a tribute only. All borrowed dialogue remains the sole creative property of the talented writing staff.

"Missed the Bus": an American idiom meaning either

1. to have missed or lost some opportunity or

2. to have failed to understand something.

CHAPTER 2 - The Break-up

As the days pass by, the fight weighs on her. Old Veronica would have been horrified. She SHOULD be horrified. But she's not that girl anymore, no longer safely isolated from violence by youth and privilege. But New Veronica, well… Logan was right. She got off on that fight. Just a little.

Duncan's back to his usual smooth faced innocence, the fight forgotten. He's all soft kisses and sweet gestures. And it's adorable, and she's grateful, really, but… She won't let herself finish the thought. This is what she dreamed of for over a year. This is the man she loved- sorry, slip of the tongue- loves. This is what she wanted back. The peace, the ease, the innocence. But though Duncan's back, he hasn't brought those with him.

When they sleep together for the first time- everyone fully consciously anyway- it's stiff and awkward. The whole thing feels patently ridiculous. She doesn't know what to do with her hands, and every move is clumsy and uncomfortable. Sleeping against him, her head pillowed on his chest, Veronica feels… In all honesty, she doesn't feel much. This should be a milestone, an event that will hold some kind of claim. But there's nothing.

And she's feeling stupid, held tight against him. There's a part of her that thought that if she could make this work, then maybe that first time wasn't a violation. Just a deeply unfunny courtship story they could never tell the grandchildren. And yeah, they were both victims, and there's more than enough blame for everyone involved to get seconds, but…

So she loved him, once. But she doesn't love him now, or not the way that she did. There is affection here but no grand passion. Now passion… Passion is something she remembers like a tight knot, burning and… No. What would be the point of dwelling on what she can't have? She's only a masochist on Thursdays. But just the knowledge that that kind of passion exists, well… It makes her realize she can't stay.

He's not what she wants. And she can see that he's missing cotton sundresses. He's missing a girl who's just as dead as his sister, however much blood still pumps in her veins. This new girl, she's bitter, and arch, and severe, and although she laughs all the time, there isn't the kind of softness and innocence he remembers there. She catches him sneaking looks at her, and the boy always looks bewildered. What happened to the Ronnie he knew? She's tired of disappointing him and tired of being disappointed.

Meanwhile, Duncan's growing steadily more unhappy. Meg's looking drawn and pale; she hasn't spoken to him in weeks but something is definitely wrong. He's having dreams about both of them, and the symbolism is depressingly unsubtle when Meg begs for his help in white and Veronica mocks her sentimentality in black. Duncan's getting more and more nervous as he tosses on the horns of a terrible dilemma.

When V goes to see him that night at The Neptune Grand, she makes it easy for him. She says all the clichéd things, but it doesn't matter. They'll serve. And he tries to be upset, but that weight is lifting. She pretends not to notice. If there is anything she is becoming a pro at, it's bowing out with as much of her dignity as she can scrounge.

In the hall outside his room she lets herself go for just a second, leaning back against the expensive modern wall paper, mourning the girl in the cotton sundress and her perfect boyfriend. But it's only a second- not even enough time for her eyes to fill- before he's there, the other boy, at the door of room 1147, filling up the corridor with his loose-limbed scorn. Logan stalks down the hall, straightening his clothes, and smirking interminably.

"Hmmm… what's different about you? Did you cut your hair or something?" He's leaning against the wall tying his shoes.

She can't look at him, she can feel the flush on her collarbones and the last thing she needs right now is him pushing his way into still open wounds. He takes her silence for embarrassment, and it is, but not for the reasons he thinks.

"Uh, FYI, if the cuddling is the best part, he didn't do it right."

She doesn't say a word. There's nothing to say, and as the elevator closes on that leer, she finally exhales. She hadn't even realized she was holding her breath. She doesn't know why she does it, but she calls for room 1147. Mrs. Casablancas answers, and Veronica hangs up the phone with a sharp click. It stings, but she's relieved too. Better the devil you know. And maybe just better to know in general. He's proving harder to shake then she could have ever believed. It's time to banish those lingering romantic notions and finally brush the dust off. She squares her shoulders, rounds the corner, and punches the down arrow.

Several floors below in the elevator, Logan's going out of his brain. He'd been so good about avoiding her. There's got to be somewhere in this town he can go where she can't fucking find him, can't insinuate herself under his eyelids. Kendall can push her into the dark recesses, but only for the time it takes him to get off. Then there she is, upsetting the afterglow. Only this time it's up close and in person. And he feels like he's been sucker-punched, because there's only one reason you slink out of a hotel room at 2 AM. He ought to know.


Duncan hears a one-sided, murmured conversation in the halls, but his thoughts are elsewhere as he dials Meg's number. She picks up on the second ring, and Duncan is startled. He was sure this would go right to voice mail. It is 2 AM, after all.

"Duncan?" she hisses out through the hotel phone's earpiece.

He can hear the confusion in her voice, but there is something behind it too. It sounds like longing, and his heart leaps. To be longed for. God, he can barely remember that feeling. He loves Veronica, but he couldn't stand the way she looked at him anymore. Like she couldn't quite trust him, like her smiles were conditional. Like he's the sweet neighborhood dog that out of nowhere bit her hand. But what happened, all of it… It wasn't his fault. He'll spend the rest of his life loving her, regretting what he's done to her, but he can't give up on the idea of a happy ending for himself.

"Baby?" he says, like it's a question, like he's not the one who called. Or maybe he's just asking for permission. "I've missed you," she murmurs into the phone, and he says, "I've got to see you." "NOW!?" Meg hisses, with as much volume as she dares. She tries to sound scandalized, but she's thrilled and he can tell. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Leave your window open." He moves about the suite, dressing and gathering his keys. He finally feels like he's moving forward.

He pulls up behind the tall garden wall of the Manning house, well away from prying eyes. He hoists himself up over the wall and stalks through the grass until he reaches the tree underneath her window. Climbing up, he feels heroic and romantic. The simple muslin curtains twist in the breeze as he gently pushes them out of the way, and pulls himself into her room.

She standing there just inside the window, looking like a character in a Norman Rockwell painting in her long white night gown, and she catches him when he fumbles a little at the drop. Suddenly they're staring into each other's eyes, and they're both smiling. He cups his hand against her cheek and kisses her. Her mouth opens against his, and he can feel himself falling into her, consumed by her. It's heaven.

He'd been trying to pinpoint the thing that made Meg indefinably perfect- that made his relationship with Veronica completely untenable – and he's finally uncovered it. He should have recognized it that day after Logan's surprise party and every moment since because he's felt it every time he looks at her. That priceless thing: her capacity to forgive him, effortlessly.

It's true that Veronica has tried to forgive him. And it's equally true that he has no right to EXPECT forgiveness from anyone, but when he sees the almost beatific way Meg is smiling at him...

Suddenly he hears a muffled crying and he tenses. "What was that!?"

Meg's smile is gone, and that drawn look he'd been seeing on her face at school is back. "Grace, well… She broke one of Mother's tea cups this afternoon. And she stumbled over her Psalm at dinner. Father set her to writing lines. She's been in there for hours…" Meg is all but sobbing now, silently shaking against him.

Duncan can hardly comprehend what she's saying. He'd known the Mannings were religious, but he'd no idea quite how fundamentalist they were in their discipline. "In where?" he questions, "What do you mean?" Meg hiccups twice quietly, trying to get herself under control, "There is a little space, behind the closet, where Grace has to serve out her penances…"

Duncan pulls her close, and for a moment she collapses against him. Suddenly he can feel tension in her shoulders. He can almost feel her trying to shrink into herself, to disappear from him. "Meg?" She exhales quickly, all the breath leaving her in a single huff, and she sits perfectly still for a beat, then two. "Meg?" he says again, panicking slightly.

"I'm pregnant."

It's interesting because she said it so quietly, under her breath, but the words rush through his brain like a great screaming wind. Suddenly, she's hysterical.

"They're going to kill me. They're going to kill me and they're going to take my baby and they're going to lock it in a closet. I can't stay here I can't stay here I have to go. But then Grace will have no one I can't leave Grace they're going to kill me and they're going to…"

Duncan is rubbing circles into her shoulder blades and shushing her, a stricken look on his face that she can't see because she has buried her face in his chest. "You'll be fine. We'll be fine. No one is going to hurt our baby. We'll protect Grace and Lizzie. It'll be fine."

She glances up at him through tears, wet eyelashes, and blonde bangs strewn haphazardly over her brow and looks at him blearily. She's comforted by his words and his arms, and it's a good thing his image was so fuzzy through those tears or she'd have seen the terror barely masked by his smile. "We'll be fine," he whispers again, struggling to think of a way out of this mess, of someone who can help them... Only one name comes to mind...

A/N: Already breaking my promises! Still, only one day late, hopefully I haven't earned tarring and feathering just yet. This is a bit of a shorter chapter, but such is the way of things when you write the whole (or even just most) of the story at the outset! These scene breaks fall where they may, I'm afraid. 'Course that means you get occasional longer chapters too, so swings and roundabouts... Thanks for all your kind support and nice words, everybody. Feedback is love!