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.
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Enjoy
Chapter 4
Keith and Alicia walked side by side through the centre behind the gurney Veronica was lying on, still in a medicated slumber.
"The drive was okay. We had some problems starting out, they had to give Veronica a sedative to get her here, but it was alright. She's alright, I suppose."
"I'm sorry about everything that happened back at the hospital, grief, you know. If we can, I just want to put it past us..." Alicia then trailed off, thinking about what Keith had just said, "What do you mean, you suppose? Veronica is alright, isn't she?"
Keith tried to remain positive as he explained, "She woke up last week, which is great, but there is damage... She's got some weakness on her right side, her emotions are all over the place, there's some problems with her speech, she can't really talk, the doctor thinks that there's probably some memory loss, but because she can't talk, it's hard to really know. We're hoping for the best, it'll be alright, that's why she's here, to get better, she'll be alright. I wasn't sure you'd be here."
Alicia simply moved closer to Keith, and wrapped her arm around his waist as they walked, silent.
Keith had been stunned when he saw Veronica's room, he had been expecting a hospital like room, it still was, there was a hospital bed against one wall, the furniture was clearly that of a hospital environment. But Veronica's bedding was on the bed, the room was filled with Veronica's possessions, flowers, balloons, and a giant teddy bear.
"Alicia..." Keith murmured in appreciation and surprise. "You shouldn't have done this, it's too much."
"I needed to," Alicia told him simply, "It's what Wallace would have done, what he would've wanted done, to take care of his best friend. I'm just doing what he would've wanted, I don't think he would've wanted me to be sad, to sit around crying."
Keith embraced Alicia comfortingly as tears welled in her eyes.
They waited patiently there until Veronica finally began to wake.
It was now par for the course to Keith when Veronica woke up agitated, some might have said aggressive, it was a nice change when she was waking up from the medicated sleep, drifting slowly back to consciousness, calmly.
"Hi honey," Keith welcomed her back warmly as he rubbed the back of her hand absentmindedly with his thumb.
Not long after Veronica woke up, one of the nurses, Carmen Sanchez came to meet with her, Keith and Alicia. She greeted them warmly making them feel at ease, before moving on to explaining the routines and such of the centre, the assessment process that Veronica would undergo before commencing therapy.
It was going to be an intensive process, over the next couple of days, Veronica would meet with a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a speech and language pathologist, and a neuropsychologist.
They would assess what services they could offer to help her recover, they would then set up for Veronica to start working with them as often as they could, the more work they could do, the more her brain would be able to form new pathways, relearn everything she had lost.
First it was the physical therapist, Jordan Price, who offered to work to improve Veronica's mobility, hopefully get her walking. Then the speech and language pathologist, Enya Louie, who offered to assist Veronica in regaining her ability to speak, and in collaboration with the occupational therapist, Mark Webber, they would help her with the thought processes and such that they believed were damaged, the occupational therapist also offered to help her relearn some fine motor skills, in her weakened side especially, things like writing clearly, brushing her hair, many other things.
They all seemed nice, and keen to help, it gave Keith confidence that moving Veronica here had been the right decision.
Veronica began rehabilitation the very next day, it quickly became evident that it was going to be a long, painful process.
Not necessarily one that Veronica wanted to make work. It hurt so much inside, that she could barely get out of bed in the morning, she felt nothing.
Some days she wished that she had died along with her friends.
Grief was a strange thing, sometimes Dick would wake up and he would feel alright, but then he'd find some of Mac's clothing; neither of them had been great housekeepers. Or someone would ask him how he was, or worse still, someone who didn't know of Mac's death would ask him how they both were, what they'd been doing.
Dick spent weeks just going in circles, sobering up, feeling alright for a while, something triggering him again, drinking, feeling worse, more drinking, passing out.
News of the accident eventually reached Betina Casablancas, Dick's mother. She had just gotten back from spend three months in Europe with her new husband and replacement children.
It had crossed her mind just to let it go, Dick was an adult, surely he could take care of himself, and she knew he didn't want her around.
But she had to go, her eldest son's girlfriend had been killed in an awful car accident, and from what the friend who'd told her of the accident had said, Dick was "rather distraught".
Betina had nearly given up on waiting for Dick to answer the door, when he finally stumbled out. His breath reeked of alcohol, it looked like he hadn't changed his clothes in days, and a quick peek inside the apartment revealed that it hadn't seen the light of day, let alone been cleaned in months.
"Oh Dick, sweetheart!" Betina was appalled, but not so appalled that she might possibly mess up her makeup, or her expensive clothes.
In contrast, Dick soon found himself in a very different kind of rehab centre to the one Veronica was struggling in every day, drug and alcohol rehab, taking him there was the most parent-like thing Betina had done in years.
She had called in a cleaner for the revolting dump Dick had been living in, and organized for Dick to be admitted to an alcohol and drug rehab centre.
Dick had not been willing, but that hadn't stopped her, she had paid two campus security men to forcibly put Dick in her car, on a towel of course.
Child locks had been her friend, as she drove to Sunrise Clinic, a deceptively cheerful name, three hours away from Neptune; Dick cursed and screamed the whole way.
After checking him in, Betina went back to Neptune, checked that the cleaner had done their job; they had, the apartment was spotless, though there was a strong smell of air freshener and cleaning products.
After that, she went to the airport, and left town.
A great parent, really.
Dick fought the staff at the rehab centre, he wanted nothing to do with them, there was no chance that he would open up to them.
The other people weren't so bad, or so he thought.
There was one guy, not much older than Dick, he'd been there a month, cocaine was his drug of choice. Luke, first name's only.
They shared a room for a couple of weeks, it sounds cliché, but after a particularly difficult group session, Luke was upset. At first Dick just called out, in no uncertain terms telling him to shut up, but then Luke started talking.
"What the hell was that psych doing today!? What stage of recovery do we think we're in? Making us publicise that shit! I hate the bitch! She doesn't have a clue!"
Despite himself, Dick replied, "I know, man! I have to go sit in her fucking office every day, listen to her going on about wanting to help. It's bull. If she'd been through half the shit I have, she'd be drinking too."
"I know. My dad beat me every freakin' day, raped me. And I'm just meant to deal, and move past it. Whatever."
Dick couldn't believe he was saying this, but, "My brother killed a bunch of people from school, blew up a bus, then he jumped off a building, my dad took off before the IRS could catch him for fraud, my girlfriend and best friend got killed in a car smash. Mac, that's my girlfriend, she was pregnant, nineteen weeks."
The next day Dick learned a valuable life lesson, don't share personal information with someone you don't truly trust, when he was approached by one of the unit's nurses, Clara.
"Richard, would you please come speak with me?"
Dick of course minded, but he had nothing better to do, and was too tired to pick a fight, he'd save his strength for his session with Dr Lovell.
Clara led Dick into a vacant room, and prompted him to sit down, it was no coincidence that she placed herself between him and the door. "Richard, would you like to tell me about your girlfriend, Mac? Or the baby? Your brother, your friend?"
Dick was stunned for a moment, how could that bastard have ratted on him to the staff?! "Go to hell. You have no idea."
"How long had you and Mac been together?"
"Screw you."
"How about your brother, what can you tell me about him?"
"Get fucked."
"Did you only start drinking after the car accident? Or was it earlier?"
"Piss off."
They kept going for some time, before Dick finally broke.
"Had you thought about names for the baby?"
Dick had been standing at the opposite side of the small room from Clara, but he sat down upon hearing this question. They had thought about it a lot, one night he and Mac had laid on the couch together, laughing as the baby kicked, they had started talking about names.
Neither one was keen to name it after their families, for a boy Dick liked Jacob, maybe David, for a girl, maybe Jodi, or Kaitlyn, Mac was set on Ben for a boy, Sophia for a girl.
They were meant to find out the sex at their twenty-two week ultrasound; Dick supposed he would never know.
Dick was silent for a long time before he told her, "We were meant to find out the sex in three weeks, then the accident... Mac was so sure it was a boy, she wouldn't let me even suggest that it might be a girl. She wanted to name him Ben."
"Ben, I have a nephew named Ben. Your girlfriend sounds like a strong sort of person, what was she like?"
"She was smart, loads smarter than me. She'd already been recruited by the feds to work in computer forensics when she finished college." Dick paused for a minute, before he told the nurse, "They were coming back from a trip to Vegas, Mac had wanted me to go, but I went to TJ. I saw on the news a few weeks back, they reckon Logan, he was my best mate, they think he fell asleep at the wheel, the only person who can tell them for sure what happened, Veronica, that's Logan's girlfriend is in a coma at some hospital in LA. It was Logan, Mac, Veronica, four more guys."
Clara remembered reading about that accident, the picture of the group flashed into her mind.
"So what happens now? I've told you all that, can I get out of here?"
Veronica spent a grand total of ten weeks in hospital and twenty-three weeks in the rehabilitation centre, before she was allowed to return to Neptune.
All those weeks of rehab had paid off though. Veronica's speech was close to normal, a slight slur, but nothing that couldn't be managed, as long as she stayed calm, took her time. Her right arm was still minimally functional, but her leg was strong enough for her to walk with the aid of braces on her ankle and knee to prevent it from buckling under her. She needed a walker, at very least a cane to maintain her stability. To that day she couldn't remember anything between being at the casino and waking up in the hospital, but that seemed to be the extent of her memory loss. Her emotions were still an issue, especially if she was under pressure or stress. One of the hardest problems to manage was the panic attacks, no one could so much as suggest that Veronica go in a car, let alone actually be driven somewhere, without her panicking, mild sedatives were used when they had to."
Her age had helped, the doctors had explained, if she had've been older, she most likely wouldn't have recovered nearly as much.
TBC...
