Disclaimer: …sigh; do I still have to state the obvious? Don't own VM universe – only this plot.
Chapter 10: flaming memories and female hygiene.
Veronica sighed heavily as she watched "her" house go up in flames.
"It's weird," she thought with the weight of guilt pulling her spirit down," I didn't grow up there, but I'm close to tears."
Sheriff Lamb stood by her side and couldn't quite keep a very insensitive smirk from his face.
"So I guess Tivo isn't an option anymore." He stated and without any more words the very-easy-to-hate- sheriff got in his patrol car and simply drove away from the obvious crime scene and waved carelessly to some hectic looking fire fighters, who were desperate to keep the fire from spreading throughout the prestigious area.
Once again Veronica sighed and she readied herself for the unavoidable questions from her fathers former friends and allies; people she used to know, but who no longer saw her as anything other then a "psychotic jackass" and therefore wouldn't be completely interested in her current emotional state.
Veronica decided to do what she did best and slip into a quiet corner of the dark and watch the smoke filled flames almost jumping from the Echolls mansion.
"These last days have been so confusing," Veronica muttered as she rubbed her temples to ease a beginning headache.
Veronica lined up the multiple experiences in her head to keep a thorough record, as she liked to do and said to herself as though she was reciting a recipe for snicker doodles.
"First there was my oh so tender visit from Kendall a.k.a. cheating wife from hell, then Wallace got a visit from his unknown daddy dearest, which was a memory I completely forgot all bout in the midst of my own problems."
Veronica walked over to an unnoticed stone and leaned on it as the fire fighters ran past with smudge and seriousness etched in every line of their faces.
Deciding that her list was the only thing that kept her sane at the moment, Veronica continued her silent task:
"Then let's not forget Logan's surprise visit from Abel Koontz, which caused quite a scene with dear old Clarence Wiedman. Oh yeah, and surprise surprise I had to watch my dad loose his election once again, but this time I wasn't allowed to comfort him."
Suddenly a burst of inappropriate laughter flew out of Veronica's hard lips.
"Jeez, the look on Logan's face, when he realized that he had to embrace my dad when he lost his campaign was priceless."
Veronica's laugh ended in a snort as her mind replayed tonight's events.
"Yeah and what's a night in Logan Echolls' life without getting arrested at a party."
Veronica saw the scene play out in her mind.
She'd attended a party, well, the party had actually been planned and organized by her and Dick, but let's not forget she still had to act like Logan – as Lily so frequently popped up to remind her of.
At said party sweet old deputy Sacks showed up like he did in the last party Logan had thrown in another lifetime and had arrested her.
"So here I am," Veronica mumbled after finally finishing her little internal list.
"Damn Lily, why didn't you let me prevent this?"
As though she was called Lily appeared right in front of Veronica with a truly sad smile on her forever-young face.
"Look V, I know it's suck a cliché, but Logan needed to free himself of this place even though he didn't realize it at the time. Sweet old Weevil actually did Logan a favour."
Veronica couldn't stop her frown and she shrugged it off while asking with a cool tone of voice:
"So can I watch when you tell Logan that Weevil did him a favour by burning down his childhood home and all his memories?"
Lily, who was never what you'd call speechless tilted her head in a perfect copy of Veronicas trademark movement and said matter of factly:
"Chill Veronica, we both know you made damn well sure, that this time around Logan would have a few of his belongings at a safe place."
Veronica didn't respond and turned to watch the still roaring fire with morbid fascination.
"Listen Ronnie, I'm actually quite glad you saved some of his stuff."
Veronica glanced over at her dead childhood friend – and extremely irritating guardian angel and said sarcastically:" really? Well, now I can sleep calmly tonight without a care in the world."
Lily shook her head and gently hit Veronica on the head and answered the sarcastic remark without hesitation:
"No smarty pants, I'm glad because it proves a valid point…" Lily paused to lock eyes with Veronica and continued," no matter how screwed up the two of you have been, you still love him enough to make sure he doesn't suffer needlessly."
Veronica sighed and whispered with a hurting tone in her male voice:
"Yeah, I'd just wish he would have done the same for me."
Suddenly Lily appeared to have lost her temper as she straightened up and walked up close to Veronica and said:
"Look here little miss future P.I. You and I both know that things aren't always as they seem, remember. You sometimes forget that you too had a part to play in that whole misery."
Veronicas jaw clenched and she was about to scream out in anger about Lily not understanding anything at all, when Lily's attention turned from her abruptly and the ghost looked behind her.
"Speak of the Devil," she muttered and after one last warning glare at Veronica Lily disappeared with a small pouf.
Veronica turned with an inspective look, which turned to utter sadness as her eyes recognized the black Le Baron speeding up the road and breaking hard in the gigantic oval driveway in front of the burning mansion.
"No!"
Veronica flinched as she heard the unmistakable desperation in Logan's voice. The fact that it was her own voice only made it that much harder to bear.
Without thinking Veronica ran as fast as possible towards the small figure, who slowly sank to its knees on the expensive tiles.
Logan looked up at his childhood home with dread.
"Why didn't I do something sooner, I knew it would happen eventually?"
As a particular huge flame broke through the window, which had once belonged to his room, Logan slowly fell to his knees.
"No, not again," he kept muttering in despair and although he wished nothing else, Logan simply couldn't look away from the horrid sight in front of him.
"How do I overcome this twice? I can't do it alone." Logan began to wonder, but then she was there and everything didn't seem over just yet.
"Logan, I'm…come here."
It wasn't her voice, but the tone made Logan remember a time of happiness and satisfaction and he automatically let his guard down in front of the only person, who'd ever seen the real him.
Logan looked up and met Veronicas emotional filled eyes and asked in a barely audible whisper:
"Why didn't we stop this?"
It was clear to Logan that Veronica blamed herself as much as he did, but before he could try and make her understand that she didn't need to take this on her shoulders too, Veronica used her new upper body strength and pulled him up into a firm, comforting hug.
"It's so odd," Logan thought as he immediately tightened the embrace afraid that she'd let go too soon, "even though we've switched she still smells like peaches and grass. And why is that all I can think about right now?"
After a few minutes Logan decided to pull out of the hug and turn to his newest and yet so familiar personal tragedy.
"I know Weevil will eventually become my friend, but I'm gonna kill him." Logan stated as the two of them watched the professional people eventually give up.
Veronica looked down at him and to his amazement, she suddenly lit up in a smile.
"Not everything is as it seems," Veronica then muttered and much to his secret delight Veronica gently took one of his hands in hers and quickly began leading the way to the back of the ruin of his former house.
"I remembered something not so long ago," Veronica began and Logan just looked at her, while thinking about the last time she'd voluntarily taken his hand in public.
"Logan, are you even listening?"
Veronicas voice was careful and friendly.
"She thinks I'm about to do a Beaver," Logan understood from her watchful glimpse in "her" brown eyes.
"I was just thinking about…what were you saying?" was all he ended up asking.
Veronica smiled as she recognized his will to keep on living through all the bad things and she unlocked the door to the unharmed pool house and said calmly:
"As I was saying miss Mars…I remembered that you once told me about your pool house being the only survivor of the fire, so one night I simply packed up all the stuff I knew you so desperately wanted back…so…I hope you don't mind."
Logan barely heard his wife's uncertain tone as his eyes fell down over boxes upon boxes lined up covering the entire floor space of the pool house.
Logan bent down over the nearest box and ripped it open. The first thing that caught his eye was a nearly forgotten picture of him and Trina. Logan still remembered how his mother had stood in the backyard one afternoon taking ordinary family pictures, when Aaron had been away making another not-so-great movie.
"I look so young and sort of happy." Logan thought in wonder, " I didn't know we ever looked that normal."
A gentle breeze touched his temple almost like an invisible kiss and Lynne's voice echoed in his mind:" Honey, now you'll finally see that throughout our problems, you really were loved."
Logan smiled and looked up at Veronica with tears in his eyes.
"I don't know how to thank you for this," the words could hardly leave his mouth because of that big lump in his throat.
Veronica's eyes lit up and she sat down on the carpeted floor and looked him intently in the eyes while saying in a unusual serious tone:
"No matter how screwed up we are, I would never want you to go through this new life of yours without any memories…" Veronica sighed and then continued with a small twitch of a smile:
"Besides I think it's punishment enough for you that you'll get to experience leg waxing and who am I to add to a persons misery."
Logan laughed feeling a bit better as he recognized Veronica's self-defence mechanism of teasing, when emotionally involved.
Then the reality of her words hit him,
"Wait, " he exclaimed, "I'm gonna have to wax my legs?"
Veronica jumped to her feet and walked to the door and answered with another smile – identical to the evil smirk she'd received from Logan so many times in the year after Lily's death:
"Yeah, and then there's that little thing called bikini wax too."
Logan didn't see Veronica leave – his eyes were focused on himself in the reflection in the mirror on the nearest wall.
"His" face was now white as chalk and Veronica's signature blue eyes were wide-open in horror.
And although Logan Echolls had just lost his home for the second time, all that was running through his mind was:" Holy crap," at the thought of that upcoming experience in womanhood.
A/N: Well, here's next chapter. I hope you liked it. I chose to skip a few days/episodes of the canon simply because I didn't want the "real" show take over too much. Creative ideas and all.
Still I know nothing too big happened in this chapter, but I wanted the fire out of the way and I just needed to write something – sorry for possible typos, I wrote this 3 in the morning, so… Well, as always please tell me your point of views;)
And really, truly thanks to my faithful reviewers
IluvVM
Duckie2011
Bella
Xosummerxo
Beccakell13
SnarkQueen
GlitterFairyPrincess
Nichole
(And so many more, but I'm soooo tired will give credit to all next time aroun i promise;)– you are the reason this story is still going;)
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