Author's Note: Vote came back clear: blue swim trunks will be a one-shot, and I'll post that after Lemonade wraps up! I'm working on a number of post-movie and S4 fix-its, so I should have plenty for you all to read after this fic is over. This will be the last multi-chapter episode, and then I think maybe a 1 chapter wrap up.

A quick note to calibrate expectations. This episode will span 4 chapters, and while it does show Veronica going to therapy, don't expect a full Veronica-in-therapy fic. That would be the scope of a whole story, and be more ruminative than I tend to want to get in my writing. This story has focused on the relationship between Logan and Veronica and so the therapy parts with Veronica will be brief and very Logan-relationship focused as well. Happy reading!

Chapter 21: Therapist Hijinks - Part I

Logan

When I go to therapy on Thursday, I show up with a bug sweeper.

Dr. Lev raises an eyebrow. "Technology has changed a bit since my time, but that looks like a detector for surveillance devices."

"May I?"

She gestures me inside. "Of course. Though I admit I thought you trusted me a bit more than that."

"Oh, it's not you I'm worried about," I say as I scan the doorframe. "My wife was in your office."

Now both of her eyebrows are up. "You think your wife planted bugs in my office, when she was in here having a complete emotional breakdown?"

The detector beeps a positive right at the front edge of her desk. I reach under and peel off the adhesive affixing the tiny device and wave it at Doc Lev. "You clearly don't know my wife."

It's pretty hard to surprise the good doctor. Even I've only managed it twice in our years of therapy, but now her mouth has fallen a little open. When I continue searching for more, she sucks in a tiny breath and reaches for a necklace she must have worn for a long time, but isn't wearing today.

"Under the front rail of the desk is too easy," I explain. "If that's where she put the listening device, it's a decoy, and that means there's at least one more. Maybe two."

Dr. Lev's lips press together and she sweeps across the room and sits down. "Please continue," she tells me in a tightly controlled voice.

I use up most of my therapy hour, and every tip Veronica has ever given me about getting away with illegal surveillance, and I can't find it. I even pull out the most likely books off the bookcase—1984, Their Eyes Were Watching God—and scan every edge, but I don't find the second bug.

"You mind if I call my father-in-law for help?" I ask her. "He's the one who loaned me the bug detector, but if there's anyone who knows more of Veronica's tricks than me, it's him. After all, he taught her at least half of them."

She doesn't look as if she's feeling particularly well, but she nods her assent.

"Hey, Keith. Can I borrow you for a few minutes? I still can't find that bug Veronica planted."

"Since you can't just ask her where she put it, I'm going to assume you two had a fight and she bugged you. Your car, your bedroom? Last time it was your wetsuit bag, have you checked there?"

"My therapist's office. It's in the tall building on Ninth."

He sighs. "I'll be there in ten minutes. Logan…"

"Uh-huh?"

"I did try my best as a father. You know that, right?"

"And you did a hell of a job. I have no complaints. See you in ten."

I hang up and turn toward Dr. Lev. "Sorry about this. You can bill me for the time."

"I should think not. You weren't the one who chose to trample legal and ethical boundaries here." She doesn't move at all, but something about her deeply correct posture tells me she's reining herself in. And when she speaks again, her voice is its normal unruffled state. "Logan, are you at all concerned about your wife's deeply inappropriate invasion of your privacy?"

"If you think this is inappropriate, you'd need a shot of whiskey or twelve for me to tell you some of the stuff she pulled on me in college."

I can see from her expression that this is maybe not the time for jokes. Though that was only half joking. Veronica's jealousy really got away from her for a minute there, in our past. Or, you know, for eighteen months. But on the bright side, I learned almost everything there is to know about illicit surveillance practices, and Veronica learned a lot about surfing, video games, Dick's love life, and my deep disinterest in all the girls who hit on me that I never bothered to tell her about. Sometimes, with my wife, there's just no substitute for cold, hard evidence.

I lay the bug detector on Eugenie's desk.

"My wife will fight inconceivably dirty rather than lose. It's one of the things I admire most about her. Especially when the thing she's fighting for is our marriage." I shrug. "I have no complaints about her tactics, but I knew you wouldn't feel the same. Hence, my little mission today."

I don't mention that when Doc Lev taped Veronica, she was thinking along very similar lines as my wife. Mostly, because she did it with a clearer ethical boundary when she gave the tape to Veronica to use or destroy as she saw fit. They've always reminded me of each other: Doc Lev and Veronica. I just don't like to think of it, because I know Eugenie's ruthlessness ended up with her alone, with all that endless compassion of hers turned toward her clients instead of a lover.

Instead of herself.

She only allows that compassion to peek through for her clients, using it with rigorous intelligence on their behalf within the bounds of her practice. She's in exquisite control of herself nowdays, Eugenie Lev is. But it came too late and she's alone. That digs at me when I let it, because I think in an alternate universe where Veronica and I didn't get back together in college, that could have easily been my fate. Or worse, Veronica's.

Keith Mars raps his knuckles on the door frame. "Hello? Abashed father and professional private investigator to the rescue."

Dr. Lev stands to meet him, and I introduce them. He shakes her hand with a smile.

"I've heard glowing things about you, Doctor, and I want you to know I appreciate what you've done for my son-in-law."

I tense slightly. What has Veronica been telling him? He probably thought I was some kind of head case, before. Did he really approve of our marriage, like he said, or did Veronica blackmail him into it somehow and he's only recently come around? How recently?

"Glowing things?" Eugenie says wryly. "Well, that's not the usual for my clients. Now I know you're lying."

"Well, when my daughter complains about someone as much as she's complained about you, I know they're on the right track." His smile warms along with hers and it takes an extra second before they look away from each other. He claps me on the back. "I meant it as a compliment, son, stop grinding your teeth."

Fuck, sometimes I hate how I married into a whole family of trained observers.

They do have their uses, though. Usually. Today, it takes Keith twenty-five minutes and four different electrical devices to also not find the second bug.

"There are a couple of possibilities here," he says, sitting on the floor as he screws the covers back into the heating vents. "She could have been using a directional mic from the office next door or across the street maybe."

"No." Dr. Lev shakes her head. "I paid to have the office soundproofed. I take my client's privacy very seriously."

Keith favors her with a smile at that. "Much appreciated, on behalf of my family. Well, then the only other possibility is that Veronica took one of the really expensive bugs that currently flies under all the detection methods we have. We can only afford two, because you know, every few months the detection companies R&D catches up with the bug companies R&D and then they're no better than anything else. But we have to keep running in that arms race, so we use the latest and greatest for high end clients or government agencies where their enemies have the same technology we do."

"Is it a possibility that she only planted one listening device?" Dr. Lev asks. "Without going into specifics, I can tell you she was in pretty severe emotional distress when she was in here. Perhaps she only planted one."

"Not a chance," Keith and I say in unison.

The corner of Dr. Lev's mouth kicks up in amusement, and then her expression changes. "Wait. Veronica wasn't in here once. She was in here twice, and the second time she was much more composed."

My eyebrow raises. I hadn't realized she went back to Dr. Lev. Maybe when we were having problems with sex? Wonder if that's what got me that glorious knee-socks and skirt seduction? I make a mental note to give the doctor a big bonus at Christmas.

"You don't by any chance remember where she sat or what she touched?" Keith asks.

"The tree!" Dr. Lev points to the potted ficus tree. "She knocked over the tree. But I watched it catch on her jacket, I don't think there's any way she could have planned that."

"You don't know my daughter," Keith says and pulls the potted plant out.

"I'm beginning to tire of people saying that," Dr. Lev says. "She knocked some dirt out, so she may have buried it in the plant."

"Or, she wanted you to think she buried it in the plant, if you found the first bug and remembered the tree incident," I say.

"Yup," Keith agrees. "And this wicker outer pot is actually perfect, because the dead space in between woven layers is someplace almost no one would ever look."

By the time he finds it in the wicker, I owe Dr. Lev nearly a thousand dollars by her hourly rate, but the grin on Keith's face when he holds up the tiny bug is so much like Veronica's when she solves a case that my heart gives a little, painful squeeze.

Dr. Lev, who has long since given us both up as paranoid and delusional, has to sit down when she sees the second bug. "She…she knows you're not my only client, right? The confidentiality infringement…the things people talk about in here. It is not her business."

"You don't know—" Keith starts, and I cut him off with a look.

"I'll talk to her," I promise.

Dr. Lev shakes her head. She stands, her head held high, and holds out her hand for the bugs. "I'll take care of this."

Keith shifts his weight. "Uh, you may not want to start… What I mean to say is, my daughter can be…a little difficult."

"I can also be a little difficult." Doc Lev smiles coldly.

I get abruptly queasy and Keith and I swap a look. This? This is not at all good.

#

Veronica

Logan comes home like he's a bullet being shot from a high-caliber rifle. As soon as he sees me, he stops dead and narrows his eyes.

"What do you know?"

I fold my arms. "I know you borrowed my dad's bug detector this morning, he ran a mysterious errand this afternoon that left his phone parked at your therapist's office for a good three hours, and I know the bugs I put in her office are no longer feeding. So unless you two are going to family therapy without me and didn't want a record of your bromancy weeping on each other's shoulders, I'm guessing Dr. Lev knows about the bugs and she's on the warpath."

He chuckles. "Well, that saves us some time. You've already figured out the whole thing. Noted." His gaze is clear and strong on mine. He looks…not as furious as I would expect.

I tug a little at my sleeve. "She's not going to kick you out of therapy or anything, is she?"

"Nope. Her wrath is all reserved for you." He doesn't look the least bit relieved about it. In fact, he's kind of tight around the eyes. Maybe it's not her wrath I should be worried about.

"I uh…" I try a smile. "Nice of you not to be pissed that I bugged your therapist's office."

He snorts. "I stopped getting upset about how Veronica-y you are a few years back. I get why you did it."

"It was just to help us, seriously. I've never bugged her office before." Though I have considered doing it many times, especially when he'd come home from therapy all wrecked and go surfing until he basically fell face-first into bed from exhaustion. On those days, I'd second guess whether she was hurting him more than helping him and convince myself to plant bugs just to check in, if not convince him to give up therapy all together. But somehow, I always managed to keep myself on the straight and narrow.

He studies me for a second, nods. "I'm glad you haven't done it before. I…for that shit to work, I need to be able to know what I talk about with her is private. Not that I'm trying to keep things from you, but just that I'm not always ready to talk about that stuff with you. You shouldn't have to be my therapist. That's not what marriage is."

When the hell did my wrecking ball, spoiled little celebrity's son of a husband get so mature? Maybe it's like his abs. I never even realized he was working up to that until one day BAM they were just there. All mouthwatering and enticing.

"Are you staring at my abs?" He sounds genuinely confused.

"Moderately distracted, sorry. Back now." I smile at him. "If you're not mad at me, though, why do you look all…" I draw a circle in the air to indicate his face. "You've got that pinched people-have-been-shooting-at-my-wife expression, but no one has shot at me since last Tuesday."

His expression grows more pinched. Possibly that wasn't the reminder I should have reached for.

"Remember that warpath you mentioned? Yeah, Doc Lev's on it, and I am not sure I want to see where it leads."

I wave a hand. "Eh. The day I can't handle a little old lady is the day I pack in my PI license."

"You were the one who told me she's ex-Mossad. She's not just a little old lady. She's a wartime veteran of Israeli's CIA."

"She's a therapist. What's she going to do, sharing-circle me to death?"

Logan's shoulders twitch. "Yeah, when the two women in my life are locked on a path of mutually assured destruction, the only place I'm going to be is in a bomb shelter. I think I'm going surfing this week, actually. Very far away. Like maybe…Bali." He picks up his phone and speed dials. "Dude, how do you feel about Bali? Yeah, I'll get the tickets. Pack your shorts."

He heads for our bedroom and I tag along at his heels, beginning to frown.

"You're really going to abandon me like that? To her?"

"Without hesitation. I'll tell you the exact same thing I told Dr. Lev about this." He looks me in the eye. "She is a terrifying woman, and she's even more dangerous than she looks. Don't go there, trust me."

I cross my arms and lean against the doorway. "Just out of curiosity, who are you more afraid for, me or her?"

"Myself," he says, and pulls a suitcase out of the closet.

#

Veronica

Logan's been gone for two days, so I'm already grouchy when I walk one of my FBI contacts out of my office with a professional smile. "Don't worry," I assure Rick. "I don't think I'll have any trouble wrapping this up."

By which I mean, his hands are tied by miles of red tape and his boss owing favors to the wrong person and my hands are free as a pair of pretty little doves. To find the evidence of a federal judge's ties to the newest human trafficking ring, and to leak that evidence to all the right reporters.

It's amazing how faster justice gets served after the truth gets printed in headline-sized font instead of the tiny, ineffectual 11-point of legal documentation.

My practiced handshake falters when I detect the sounds of conversation in the Mars Investigations waiting room. Usually we don't have enough walk in traffic to use the couch, much less for prospective clients to get to chatting with each other. I only keep that couch so Logan has a place to sleep when he's waiting for me to finish working late. And so I have a place to enjoy waking him up. Dammit, I miss him. Fucking Bali.

Thinking of Bali makes me think of Dr. Lev, and that makes me realize I recognize the voice in my waiting room.

"What do you think would be more freeing? Seeing whatever woman he happens to be having sex with? Or showing him that his sexual antics no longer hold any power over you in a way that's holding healthier boundaries for both of you. Picture this, just for a second. What if you got a divorce and used the money you took off him to start that restaurant you've always wanted?"

I usher my FBI buddy Rick out of the office with a quick, tight smile, and then turn to stare at my husband's therapist.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

She sets aside a cup of coffee—which I notice has strangely been served in my dad's favorite Keep Calm and Trust Your Private Investigator mug—and stands up from the couch. Next to her is a middle-aged blonde woman with a handful of crumpled Kleenexes and a four-year old Coach purse. Guessing that was going to be my next cheating spouse case.

"Oh, you don't like it?" Eugenie hands over the two tiny listening devices I had planted in her office. "I suggest if you don't like me doing therapy in your office, then you keep your investigating out of mine."

My lashes fly wide and heat flames through my body. Oh, no she fucking didn't.

Dr. Lev turns to the blonde. "A man's affection is such a fragile, misleading measure of your own worth. At least with a restaurant, you'll get dinner out of it."

Coach Purse nods, dabbing at her eyes with one of the crumpled Kleenexes, and gathers up her purse. "I changed my mind," she says to me. "Sorry!"

Dr. Lev gives me a satisfied smile, and starts to follow my would-have-been meal ticket back out the door.

"I'm billing you for that client!" I shout after her.

"Go ahead." She pauses with her hand on the door. "Your half day fee is what? Fifteen minutes of my rate? I think I can afford it." She saunters out.

I breathe, awed, "That bitch…"

"I don't know," my dad says, coming up beside me. "I thought she was quite pleasant." His eyes twinkle. "But then, it's possible I have a greater appreciation for a laugh at your expense than you do."

"Down boy. She may be divorced, but when she was married, it was to a woman."

He crosses the office to clear the cup from the coffee he made her. "I'm not sure if it's escaped your notice, Veronica, but sometimes people like boys and girls. I thought you young people were supposed to be more open minded than that."

I shake my head, ponytail swishing. "You know, in terms of family history, I'm not sure I like our pattern of falling for all the wrong people any more than I like our pattern of cardiac issues."

He rinses the mug in the bathroom and then refills it for himself, taking it into his office as I trail along behind him. "You must be thinking of yourself, honey. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Um, my high school guidance counselor? Best friend's mom? A married woman?" I prop my hip against his office door. "Also, I'm pretty sure dating Logan's bisexual therapist is an ethical violation of extreme proportions."

He picks up his pen and smiles at me, so placidly that I find myself inexplicably irritated. "I don't know if you've noticed, sweetie, but Logan's doing pretty well these days. It might be he won't need a therapist much longer." Dad winks. "Speaking of people who once looked like the worst possible choice…"