Heather has trouble sleeping, Heather's still dead, and Heather watches the hierarchy shift and resettle around her. Meanwhile, JD and Veronica have a moment.

It was the sound that kept Heather up at night. There are some sounds you just don't forget, and one of those is the sound of a hacksaw through bone. (She doesn't remember the sound of the knife going into Heather…what, seventeen times? She doesn't remember stabbing Heather at all, just opening her eyes and there her best friend was, dead.)

That's why she's up at 1 am, pacing in front of her mirror. She can almost hear Chandler's voice -"Poor little Heather. Sound of my death bothering you, bitch? Make you want to, I don't know, puke?"

"Ugh," Heather moans, dragging her hands through her tangled hair. Giving in, she picks up her green rotary phone and dials.

"'Lo?" It's an older, gravelly voice.

"Sorry to bother you, Mr. Dean. Can I talk to JD? I'm one of his friends from school," Heather lies.

"Oh," the man grunts, and then -"DAD! Your girlfriend's on the phone!"

"Coming, sport," she hears JD call dryly, and then, hopefully -"Veronica?"

"Nope." She pops the p. "Heather."

"The alive one, I presume?"

"Ha-ha."

"Is there a reason you're calling this late?"

"Don't pretend like I'm disturbing your beauty sleep, Jason Dean. I've snuck out of enough bedroom windows to know when somebody's faking tiredness. Visiting Veronica, this late?"

"I was just about to, when you interrupted," JD mutters, bitterly. "I hope you use your brains for good instead of evil."

"A bit late for that, don't you think?"

JD snickers, and Heather glares into the phone. "I can't sleep," she admits. "I keep hearing the goddamn hacksaw, Dean! It's everywhere -in all my nightmares! And Jesus fucking Christ I -"

"The Telltale Hacksaw*," JD muses, and she can hear his tone change. "Listen, Duke. You killed her. So there's one less high school prom queen making people like Martha Dunnstock miserable. So what? You made the world a better place. Now get some sleep."

The line disconnects, and Heather Duke sleeps a little easier that night.

At Heather's funeral, Heather's miserable and Heather's radiant.

Duke kneels by Chandler's coffin, looking like a beautiful widow whose foreign lover just shot her husband or something melodramatic like that.

Veronica sits near the back, JD's arm around her shoulders. She doesn't know how to feel -sure, Heather Chandler was a vicious bitch, who, the last time Veronica had seen her, promised to destroy her life. But Heather was fun when you got her alone -making vodka lemonades or standing up for Veronica when a jock was being a particularly misogynist douche. Veronica had been crying in the bathroom once because one of her teachers was lowering her grade because she hadn't let him touch her breasts after class. Heather, red-lipped and saint-smiling, had found her and lifted up her chin with one red fingernail. "Chin up Veronica," she'd said. "Heathers don't cry."

Veronica had told Heather what happened, and the girl's blue-gray eyes blazed. "What."

Two weeks later, a bag of pot was found in that same teacher's desk, even though he swore he'd never seen it before. Two days later, seventeen girls came forward accusing him of inappropriate sexual misconduct. He was fired immediately, and Heather and Veronica sat on the steps with red and blue lollipops watching him go.

Heather Chandler was Queen. And now she's dead.

Veronica feels tears and blinks them away.

"Hey, you okay?" JD looks at her, concerned.

"Fine," Veronica says reflexively. "Hey, can we go to 7-11 after this?" She needs a distraction. He shrugs casually, although the concerned look doesn't leave his eyes.

"Whatever you want, darling."

They both happen to be in the library at the same time. Duke sits at a desk with McNamara, the former concealing a copy of MacBeth in the pages of her fashion magazine.

JD sits on the worn-through carpet across the library, leaning back against a bookshelf, Veronica asleep in his lap and curled into a vaguely kittenish pose. He's stroking her hair idly as he flips another page.

"Ew, check out Jesse James and Morticia Adams," Heather M sneers. "Veronica never wore this much black before."

"Hey, leave Veronica alone, ok?" Duke snaps. McNamara blinks at her with surprised, empty eyes. "What's your damage, Heather?"

"Veronica's still a Heather."

"But Heather said -"

"Heather ran away, didn't she?" Heather Duke bites back harshly. "She couldn't handle it. But I can. Now be a good girl and shut up, Heather."

There's a pause in which the two girls look at each other and the world shifts around them.

"Sorry Heather," mutters McNamara finally, and lowers her gaze.

Heather Duke grins triumphantly, just as Jason Dean looks up.

* yeah it's a reference to the Edgar Allen Poe story The Telltale Heart, in which the narrator keeps hearing the beating of the heart of this guy he killed and hid under the floorboards.
**I managed to fit some jdonica fluff in here finally! so proud of myself