Author's Note: Dear Readers, you've been so so good to me with this fic. I appreciate the reviews so much, and the unconditional support you've given me to write these two to some emotionally and sexually risky places. This next episode is the big one. It's seven chapters long, and it's very much for you angst-lovers out there.

Digging into this topic is the reason I decided to actually write and post this fic at all, because I feel like the show glossed this issue over in an unrealistic way…but I also needed a whole fic to get Logan and Veronica to a strong enough place in their relationship that I thought they could honestly deal with it and come out happier. And it turned out to be even harder to pull that off than I thought! So I hope you continue to gift me with your trust and support through this 7-chapter section, after which we're going to have a lot of fluff and cuteness.

Disclaimer for some discussion of rape, in conjunction with Veronica's canon backstory. Nothing more visceral or graphic than shown on screen.

Chapter 14: Absolution - Part I

Logan

"Hey, gorgeous, where are you at right now?" Veronica asks.

"Work, of all places." I turn my back on the conference room, walking to one side to take the call. "Never saw that coming, did you? Why, what's up?"

"Long day at the office. Wondered if you could come home and hang out with me. Possibly ice cream could be involved."

My fingers twitch on the phone. "Love to, but I kind of…can't for once. Got a meeting."

I was really, really hoping she'd be her normal level of insanely busy today on cases and too busy digging into everyone else's lives to ask too much about mine. Figures, today of all days she comes home from work on time. But this is the potential investor meeting for Safe Drinks, which means fourteen different millionaires and two billionaires flew in for it. I've got the opportunity to scam enough free money out of these assholes to keep college girls un-drugged in all fifty goddamn states. And if I walk, so will they.

"A meeting about what?"

"Just money stuff, you know, some of the stocks I own enough shares in that I'm on the board. But some guys flew in for it, and it was a bitch getting all their schedules to match up, since they were trying so hard to look busy and important and all."

"Ah, ditch 'em. How busy and important can they be?"

"Depends, are you asking me or them? Because those are very different conclusions."

She chuckles, but it's a little subdued. "Okay, no, that's fine. I'll just catch you later. But don't come crying to me if I eat all the ice cream before you get home."

"Has there ever been ice cream when I got home? I'm not aware that this event has ever been documented by science."

"Nah, you're right. Never has been. Anyway, have fun with Mr. Big and Mr. Important and give my best to Mr. Busy's wife."

"Will do. See you later tonight."

I hang up and straighten my tie, then hesitate.

She just called and asked me to come home. Veronica never does that.

She'll call and flirt, maybe hint a little, but like me, she doesn't like to ask for much if she can ever help it. I slip my hand into my pocket and touch the phone. Flip it over. Take it out, then put it back in my pocket, and turn back to the investors with a polite smile.

#

Twenty minutes later.

I come in and toss my keys on the table, lock the door, set the alarm. I might be getting more paranoid in my late twenties, but these days any time Veronica is upset about a case, I set the alarm as soon as we get in the house.

It's already caught intruders twice this year, which our security company tells me is pretty far above the normal bell curve.

"Oh, hey!" Veronica's head turns from the armchair in the corner. She's wearing yoga pants and a huge sweater, despite the fact that it's 80 degrees outside. Her hair is wet, which is a little odd since she never showers at night unless the sex gets too wild to go to bed without rinsing off. And she was just sitting in that chair, staring out the window. My wife, who is always completing 4.2 tasks per second all day long.

My heart gives a big, painful thump.

"I didn't think you were coming home." She gets up and crosses the room to me.

"Yeah, well, I knew you could live without me." I give her a crooked smile and toss the pint of Ben and Jerry's up in the air, then catch it. "But then I remembered we were out of ice cream and I knew there was no way you could live without that."

She slips her arms around my waist and leans her head into my chest. I abandon the ice cream on the counter and hold her, pretending that long, quiet hugs are totally normal after-work greetings for us. Rather than bantery flirting and fervent making out.

When she doesn't pull back after several breaths, I cup the back of her head. "Who do I need to kill?"

"Ah, nobody. It's fine. I'm taking care of it."

I nod. I'm sure she is.

She straightens my tie, taking another look at me. "Holy suit." She blinks. "How do the rich just make a suit look so much…better than other suits? Jacket, shirt, random strip of colorful fabric. Seems like it should be pretty standard."

"Mmm, could be the man makes the suit, rather than the suit makes the man."

"Nah," she says. "I think this suit definitely has a trick or two up its sleeve." She cranes her neck to peek behind me. "Though having your ass filling it out is doing it some undeniable favors."

I smirk. "My ass thanks you for noticing." I grab a grape out of the fruit bowl, toss it in my mouth. "Better fabric, tailored to your actual rich man body rather than made in some boxy generic poor man's shape. That's how they do it. Plus, a little bit of the blood and sweat of the working class dripped into the lining. It's a vibe thing."

I reach to take off my tie and she swats my hands away and loosens it herself, then slowly works the knot free. I stand and let her, the subtle tugs at my neck feeling nice. There's still a tight feeling in my stomach at all the money I just left on the table, but it's starting to ease. There are other rich guys to fleece, and I've got plenty of my own. I can keep bankrolling this company all myself if I have to. Tonight, my wife needs me. Everything else can go hang.

She finishes with my tie and pulls it out of my collar, the whisper of silk over cotton a soothingly sophisticated sound. She hangs it around her own neck so the two ends dangle over her sweater, and then she pops the top button of my shirt. Considers, and goes back for seconds on the buttons so more of my throat is exposed.

"Coat?"

"Mmm-hmm."

She pushes her hands up and over my shoulders, skimming my coat off and catching it when it falls behind me. She carries it to the coat closet to hang it up with my jackets and ski parka for now, ditching the tie on the same hanger. I lean my hip against the kitchen island and watch her. She catches me watching her.

"Rape case," she says conversationally, then pecks me on the side of the jaw. "Ignore me tonight. I'll be fine."

"Mmm, but why would I ignore you when not ignoring you is so much more fun?" I boost her up onto the island and stare intently at her face. It only takes her a second to start to squirm.

"Oh my gosh, Logan, what are you doing?"

I tilt my head. Duck it. Examinine her from all different angles.

"Trying to find…" I say absently. "Ah, there it is." I dive for her and growl kisses in under her ear, blowing raspberries and little bites against her skin until she starts to squeal with giggles. "Knew there was a spot I forgot to kiss last night. It's been driving me crazy all day."

She swats at me. "You're ridiculous."

"Yeah, well you're in trouble," I volley back.

"Hey, what did I do?"

"You're slacking on your ice cream feeding duties. I'm basically fading from hunger here."

I pull out a spoon and hand it to her, but I keep hold of the ice cream and refuse to give her any unless she feeds me first.

"As soon as you do it right, you'll earn your own ice cream."

"Oh, will I now?" she says dryly.

But every time she tries to steal a bite for herself, I tickle her and gobble it off the spoon while she's helpless with laughter, so I get at least ten bites before she successfully gets one to her mouth. By then we've fallen off the island and ended up on the floor under the sink.

She uses a definitely illegal dick stroking maneuver to steal the spoon, after which we trade bites back and forth for a while, leaning against the cabinet while her tiny, bare toes stroke the edge of my shiny talk-rich-assholes-out-of-their-money shoes.

"The dad was there the whole time," she says when we're about halfway through the pint of Ben and Jerry's.

"At the rape?" My stomach goes sour.

"It was one of those parties, you know, where the parents want to be 'cool' so they buy the keg. The dad was there the whole time, saw his daughter start stumbling around. Thought she was drunk and didn't do a thing." She twirls the spoon in her hand. "Didn't see her disappear into the bedroom. Neither of them know who gave her the drugs, or you know, did the deed. Hired me to figure it out."

I reach my arm around her shoulders, pull her into my chest and kiss the top of her head. "That kid, whoever he is, is going to learn the meaning of 'sorry' by the time you get done with him. And if that remorse isn't sinking in deep enough on its own, give me a call. I've got an idea or two for how to make it stick."

"Yup," she says, popping the p, and I know that to her, it's no comfort at all. She could nail a thousand of those bastards and it would still eat at her. The same way it chews on me.

We sit quiet like that while she flips the spoon through her fingers and the ice cream slowly melts into the carton.

Then she peeks up at me. "So how much trouble are you in for walking out on all those rich guys for me?"

I shrug and pick up the ice cream to put it away. She'll be craving it again in about an hour and neither of us like it once its been melted and refrozen.

"With guys like that, and a meeting this big, it can go one of two ways." I shut the freezer. "Either they decide you're lazy and unreliable and write you off. Or, they assume it's a power move and your dick's bigger than theirs, so they want to give you even more of your money." I give her a sly smile. "When you already have as much money as I do, they usually assume it's the second."

She taps the spoon against her opposite hand, then reaches up for me to pull her to her feet.

"I've been looking into this company."

"For the rape case or a different case?" Her rapid changes of subject don't phase me, not after this many years.

She doesn't answer. "Remember when we went to that ball at the Kane mansion, when I shot that guy in the leg?"

"Uh-huh." I start to unbutton my shirt. "Hey, I think I'm gonna grab a shower. Wanna join me?"

She doesn't take the bait.

"At that ball, there was wine glass jewelry that tested for roofies, provided for free by a company called Safe Drinks. Since the girl on my current case was drugged, I started thinking about how roofies have been spreading through Neptune lately. Actually, at about the same time that the Safe Drinks company really got rolling." With her wet hair and leggings, she looks barely older than a teen, but her eyes are sharp, dangerous as she lays out the trail of evidence.

I'm glad I'm wearing long sleeves to hide the uneasy chill this is giving me. My wife, as I have never doubted, is a formidable opponent.

"The parallel timeline is concerning, since the Safe Drinks company is about to get a whole lot bigger. They're suddenly looking for outside funding. A kickstarter, and a big private investment push so they can expand beyond Neptune." She comes around the kitchen island. "I asked myself, what rich 09er would care enough about roofied girls to provide roofie testing kits at every party in Neptune, free of charge?"

"Who says they have to care? You've never heard of money laundering? Tax evasion? Rich 09ers invented weird charity shit for exactly those reasons. Don't think sharing is caring entered into the equation." I finish unbuttoning my shirt and pull it off, but the increased amount of bare skin doesn't slow her down. Fuck.

"Sure, but usually they go for the easy stuff. This requires actual engineering, manufacturing, and distribution, not just handing over a check and cashing in on their tax break. So I figured maybe it was a scam to cover the fact that they're handing out drugs that their tests don't flag, to lull everybody into a false sense of safety."

The blood goes electric in my veins. "Jesus, Veronica, it's a charity. Your first thought is that it's a front for raping girls?"

She folds her arms. "It's your charity."

"What?" Her logical leap from the rape cover up hypothesis to me is so bizarre that my confusion is probably more genuine than it deserves to be.

"It was just shell corporation after shell corporation folded up into a 501c3 like a set of Russian dolls," she says, eyes gleaming. "And so I asked myself, which rich 09er is smart enough to hide their tracks well enough that even I can't get to the truth? And wouldn't want to let the public throw roses at their feet for their altruism." She leans a hip against the counter, fully in the glow of having solved her case now. For once, I don't enjoy the sight. "That list was pretty darn short. Two words long, actually: Logan Mars."

My voice goes sarcastic, then cruel. "Aww, is she proud of her wittle do gooding hubby?" I turn away and stalk toward the wet bar.

"So it is you."

"Who owns the charity that's apparently a front for rapists? Who else could it possibly be?"

I'm coldly furious. It's been years now since she's accused me of a crime, and I don't even know what vulnerable spot of hers I triggered to bring it on. What makes me even more angry is that I'm more concerned for her than surprised that she's probably already called the sheriff on me. My wife just accused me of building a corporation for the purposes of systematic drugging and rape, and I'm worried about what I might have done to make her feel insecure enough to bring this on. I am some kind of fucking head case, that's for sure.

I go to pour, and my hand is shaking so hard I have to set down the bottle of scotch, blow out a breath, and try again.

"Logan, come on, I didn't mean that part!" She follows me across the room. "That was just a theory early in the process. I only told you about it to smoke you out. Which worked nicely, I might add." She leans against the bar next and touches my arm. "It's amazing, what you've put together. The girls you've helped."

I jerk away from her touch. "Don't."

I toss back the drink on my way across the room, only then realizing that I'll need to get close to her again for a refill.

"Why are you being such an asshole about me figuring this out?" She's right on my heels as I try to flee. "Actually no, better question. Why did you hide it from me in the first place?"

"You don't tell me about every single one of your cases." I whirl back around, because she's not going to give me an inch of space no matter what I do, so I might as well face her head on. "Because it's your business. You do your job, I do mine. If it was something dangerous, or something to do with you, I'd tell you."

She arches her eyebrow. "And I suppose this has nothing to do with me?"

I throw out my arms. "What do you want me to say?"

She studies me, annoyingly unintimidated by my anger.

Her voice is quiet when she finally speaks. "I'm proud of you, Logan. Why don't you want me to be?"

It hits me like a Honda Civic straight to the gut and I battle ferociously not to show it. My eye twitches with the effort.

I need to take the fuck off. Hit something, or somebody.

I recognize the urge and even though it feels like it's burning every cell of me, I fight it. And I try to tell her the truth, even while anger hisses through my every syllable.

"You know, there was a time when I still gave a fuck what people thought of me."

"Oh really?" She snorts. "When? Must have been far enough back that status was still measured in Pokemon pogs?"

"Pretty much. I spent a lot of prime Pokemon years trying to impress my famous, mostly absent father." I go back to the bar, get a drink, toss it back whole. "Put a bad taste in my mouth for trying to impress people."

The urge to put my fist through something only burns stronger with the admission. Logan Echolls does not try to be liked. But I know this fucking feeling, I know this impulse, and I know it wants to flip my whole, perfect life like a table. Crack its legs straight off so it can't stand.

I go and sit down on the couch and make myself hold very still.

I'm done fucking things up. The anger will pass. The humiliation—that scrapes at me but I've had worse. I can sit here with her eyes all over me and I don't have to explode.

Veronica comes across the room like she doesn't even see how close to full nuclear strike I am. She's even smiling as she swings a leg across mine, sliding right down into my lap.

"You don't want to impress anyone? No exception for pretty girls?"

Her hands are soft on my vibrating shoulders. I want to scream ugly, terrible things at her so she'll scream back and slam out of the room and leave me alone and stop looking at me.

"This is incredible, Logan," she says. "What you've done. Everything you've created." When I try to look away she catches my face in her palm and makes me look at her. "I need you to hear me when I say that."

"Don't." I lift her off my lap and put her, very gently, onto the couch. I can't even bear to see her face right now, because memories are feasting on my guts.

White dress. Confused blue eyes focusing on me and growing dreamy, aroused.

I pace away from her.

"Logan, what the hell is going on with you right now?"

"It wasn't out of altruism, it was out of guilt," I spit the words at her. "You know that, you have to have guessed that. For all of my parts in what happened to you."

"That wasn't—"

"You won't let me apologize," I talk over her. "I had to do something."

"I did let you apologize," she reminds me, her legs curled up on the couch and her hands tucked between her knees. Still relaxed like we're talking about what movie we're going to see this weekend. "It didn't help."

I brace my hands on the wet bar. It didn't help. She's right. And the millions of dollars I've poured into roofie testing coasters and wine glass jewelry…none of those have helped either. I read the emails we get from girls, about the nights when our tests have come up positive for them and everything they think it might have saved them from. The boyfriends they dumped, the parties they left. I read them over and over again and they don't help.

Veronica's hands touch my back. I didn't even hear her cross the room. "Logan? Are you okay?"

I shake my head.

Her breath comes out on a little, "Oh…" And a second later, her arms come around me, quiet and strong.

I force myself not to push her away. But I can't stop shaking my head; a constant negation.

"Okay." Her voice is rock steady. Maybe my wife is better at dealing with feelings stuff than I gave her credit for.

She pulls me down to the floor so she can reach me better, and then she crawls into my lap and wraps her arms and legs around me like a tiny, blonde koala. I lay my head on her shoulder and try not to think about the fact that she can feel me shaking.

"You didn't hurt me," she murmurs. "It still would have happened, even if you'd never been there that night." She strokes the base of my neck, my back. Hugs me tighter. "I'm okay now. You can feel that I'm okay. And all those girls you saved? They're okay, tonight. They're okay because of you. Maybe that's worth a little bit of guilt, hmm?" She kisses my temple, my cheekbone.

I don't say anything.

"I'm here with you," Veronica whispers, "because there's no man on earth I trust more than you. No one I want to be naked with and sleep beside and let touch me. No one I'd rather have back me up on a dangerous case. If anyone, anyone tried to hurt me, you'd stop them. You can't tell me you don't believe that."

I nod a little bit, the soft knit of her sweater rubbing against my cheek.

"It's okay. I'm okay." She whispers it over and over again until the strength comes back into my arms and I can hold her, too.

I swallow and try to speak, but the sound I make rasps hard in my throat and doesn't quite make a word. She squeezes me harder anyway.

"That's better." Her relief is clear in the break of her voice.

She climbs up to her feet and takes me along with her.

"Let's go to bed, okay?"

I nod. Bed sounds good.

She takes me to the shower with her, and makes slow, sweet love to me under the warm water until I can speak again. And once we're curled together under our comforter, the light all gone, her hand comes up to cup my cheek.

"Promise me something."

I nod, knowing she'll feel the movement.

"You've been carrying this too long," she says. "Longer than me, in some ways. Promise me you'll do whatever it takes to let it go, Logan. I don't want it poisoning you. You did everything—"

Her voice breaks and she just keeps on going, more hoarsely.

"You did everything you possibly could to make sure I wasn't just okay, but that I healed. On—" She stops again, has to take a breath. "On days when I never thought about the rape at all, you were still catching me over and over again, when I didn't even realize I was falling."

She shifts on the bed, coming in closer to me. I always sleep naked, but she doesn't. Tonight, she didn't put on pajamas either. I think it's because she knew how much I'd need to feel the heat of her skin.

"I don't think I even realized how not okay I was about sex until I started to figure out, with you, what it really looked like to be able to trust. To not freeze, to not shy away. To be able to have a misstep or a bad moment in bed, or ask you to stop, and not have that spoil the moment. To have it never be a big deal or come between us."

I turn my head and kiss her palm. "I love you." The words exhale out of me like they're as much a part of me as my breath. "I did all that because I needed you to be okay. I couldn't live…any other way."

She tugs me into her and makes me kiss her lips instead of just her hand. "I need you to be okay, too. Please, Logan. Whatever is going to have to happen for you to let this go? I need you to do it."

I nod into the dark. And then I close my eyes and let her wrap me in her thin, fierce arms so I don't have to think about everything that might take.