Title: Back to You
Prompt by: hannasus
Rating: PG-13
Setting: AU post-series
Word Count: 1,007
Prompt: Backup
Five years, that was how long she had been away. It some ways it felt like a lifetime to Veronica Mars and in others just like yesterday that she was down here on Dog Beach walking Backup. These days it was Backup II that pulled at the leash, since her old friend had passed away a while back now. It wasn't the same, but it was okay, she loved this little guy just as much as her previous companion. It was the good thing about dogs, they weren't just man's best friend, but woman's as well, and they never let you down, never strayed from your side until nature took them away in the end.
Veronica smiled as she breathed the salty air and hurried to keep up with the excitable young pup she had come out walking with. Not much had changed here, most places looked exactly the same, and so did some of the people, though she hadn't seen many she knew yet. She had only been home a couple of days and most of that time she had spent catching up with her Dad and being overly glad to be back where she belonged. The FBI was her dream, so she thought, but when it came to the crunch, she couldn't live that life. She belonged here, with her father, with her friends, in a job she knew and loved. The PI gig wasn't as glamorous as the movies suggested, but it was all she really wanted.
"Hey, boy. What's up with you today?" she asked young Backup as he pulled on his leash. "Wanna run free, huh?" she smiled as she knelt down as his level and made a fuss of her good boy. "Okay, just for a while," she told him, letting him off the leash as he so wanted her to.
She was slightly surprised by how fast he ran away, and ever mindful of him not coming back somehow. Veronica wasn't sure why but she just had an urge to run after her dog instead of letting him come back when he was ready. The tide wasn't coming in, there were no obviously dangerous looking people, she just had to do it. She hurried along the shoreline, calling for Backup to slow down. She was a little breathless when she finally caught up to him, and not just from the running when she realised who he had run to and was currently being petted by.
"Logan?" she was suprised to see him, and yet she wasn't sure why.
Veronica was well aware that her ex was still around, still living in Neptune, in fact she was told he even had a house here now, instead of the hotel suite he had lived in for far too long. Still, to have Backup II run to this guy and allow him to make such a fuss of him, that wasn't exactly a normal reaction. Sure, original Backup would react that way, but this dog never even met Logan as far as she knew!
"Hey," he said from his place crouched down on the sand.
"Hi," Veronica responded with a smile she couldn't help.
He hadn't changed that much, despite how long it had been since she saw him last, when she left Neptune thinking it might well be forever and they hugged and let go of all the badness that had happened between them over the years. They hadn't been together at the end, not even really friends, just people who had known each other, loved each other, and now had to move on for both their sakes.
Logan watched Veronica as she reattached Backup's lead and berated him from disturbing people he didn't know like that. She was embarrassed somehow, in the cutest way, reminding him of when he first knew her, half a lifetime ago or more. She was the same and yet different, what he expected and not. Honestly, he heard she might be back in town, and half-wondered if this was the right place to be to accidentally-on-purpose run into her. Still, he couldn't quite believe his luck.
"So..." she said as she stood straight again and faced him, shielding her eyes from the bright sun over his shoulder. "Um, how've you been, Logan?" she asked, an inane and dumb question and she knew it, but right now no matter how hard she tried to think of something smart to say, she continued to come up empty.
"I've been... good," he nodded unconvincingly. "Kinda hard to sum up five years in a sentence," he considered then, and they both laughed lightly at the strangeness of the moment. "Hey, you wanna go somewhere, get something to eat, maybe?" he asked then, straight out before his nerve went. "Y'know to catch up?"
Veronica opened her mouth to immediately refuse but soon thought better of it. This wasn't the Logan she walked away from years ago. He had to have grown up, just as she had, and they were two different people that might just be able to form some kind of relationship now. A friendship perhaps. Maybe more? She was crazy to think it and she was well aware of that, and yet before her brain had time to think much more she was nodding and accepting Logan's offer of food and time to talk and catch up on things.
Neither knew what the other was thinking, though their ideas on what was happening here were shockingly similar as they walked further up the beach together. Maybe it was time they got to know each other again. If they started from the beginning, there was a chance to build something so much better than they ever had before. The truth was, they both really missed each other these past few years. Now she had come home to him, as much as the town in which she had spent so much of her life. Maybe they were destined to always end up together eventually. Maybe they really were epic after all.
