Author's Note: I'm having a heck of time writing currently, folks, but I gave it my best shot bc we all need fluffy hurt/comfort sick day fics right now!

Chapter 2

"The important thing to remember is, you can't watch a good movie." Veronica pulled her legs up, sitting cross-legged on the couch.

Logan arched an eyebrow. "Of course not. Why would anyone want to watch a good movie." He waved a hand at the hotel suite. "After all, all this luxury wasn't bought by the literary merits of RMPs of Glory. Or the ironic social commentary in Pursuit of Happiness, starring Lynn Lester and her future soulmate in domestic bliss, Aaron Echolls."

"Ew, new rule. Bad movies are preferred, except anything starring He Who Shall Not Be Named." She hugged a pillow on her lap, grimacing as a spasm of pain rocketed through her empty stomach. "The thing is, you can't really focus on a complicated plot when you're sick."

"Plot wasn't really a signature of the Echolls brand."

"Yeah, but the spray tan isn't good for the nausea, either."

He snickered. "Hey, you're not looking so good. If you need to take a break from reading me the syllabus to curl up in the fetal position for a while, I understand."

"Nah, I'm ace—" Her proclamation was interrupted by a sharper twist of her empty stomach, and she paused for a second, unsure if the dry heaves were about to start again.

"Sure you are," Logan said. "Iron stomach and a cast iron will, that's our Veronica. But why don't you just hold this pillow down for a little while, just in case? It looks like it might make a break for it and I hear bail jumpers are a family specialty."

Her head was whirling, so she let him tilt her down toward the pillow, curling into a small ball in her corner of the couch. "Never let it be said that justice escaped a Mars," she said faintly. But she couldn't nap right now, when she'd just so stupidly reminded Logan of his shitbag murderer of a father. She needed to keep up the banter at least until he was smiling again.

He retrieved the blanket she'd discarded earlier and smoothed it over her shoulders.

"Ah," she said. "Good reminder. Blankets are a necessary accoutrement to the sick day, the older and more embarrassing the better. Extra points for out of style cartoon characters. This, for instance?" She waved the slick surface of the hotel coverlet for emphasis. "Terrible."

"Never let it be said I left a lady wanting." He hopped to his feet and swept a courtly bow. "Let your white knight draw his sword from its sheath, milady."

"I'm really not sure I'm recovered enough for sword unsheathing," she joked.

He wagged a finger at her. "Fairly sure double entendres are outside the sick day protocol. Keep it clean, you naughty girl." He swept the phone receiver off the side table and dialed with a flourish.

"Hi Sarah. Logan here."

Veronica frowned. Why was he never on a first name basis with any of the male hotel staff?

"No, Veronica's not feeling better just yet," he replied. "Yes, the Dayquil was perfect, thank you for that."

Veronica hid her smile by nuzzling further into the pillow. She was petty enough to enjoy that the female staff were apparently also on a first name basis with her, via Logan.

He smiled at her, wickedly enough that she knew she hadn't hidden her reaction well enough. She stuck out her tongue at him and he laughed silently, his whole face lighting up so his next words came out ebulliently cheerful. "Sarah, I'm told a blanket is in order. So many aspects of this sick girlfriend protocol escaped me at first, you understand. Yes. Uh-huh. Yes, a throw blanket."

Veronica frowned and stabbed a finger toward him, mouthing You, too.

"Apologies. Two blankets. The fuzzier the better. Cartoon characters appreciated, but not required. What sort of characters? Surprise me, Sarah. Yes. Yes, thank you. Saltines? What are—oh, the square ones? So this is a thing that people…" He trailed off. "Uh-huh. Why would they want to eat bad food when they already—uh-huh. Uh-huh."

Veronica scowled. It seemed no woman could resist the urge to educate a stray rich boy in the art and finer points of sick days. She faked a pitiful cough, and a wracking shiver.

Logan glanced over. "Right, saltines it is, thanks for the tip, Sarah. Gotta go." He hung up and came over to fuss at Veronica's blanket, folding it over so it'd be thicker. "You're freezing. Want me to run you a hot shower?"

"No. C'mere." She pulled him down next to her. "We've got crucial information to impart here."

The blanket lessons lasted nearly an hour. Veronica was trying to show Logan how blankets made it ever so much cozier to curl up, and felt comforting when you were feeling bad. But he didn't quite understand the lesson, and so she kept changing cuddling positions to try to get him to see the positive comforting properties.

He continued to be mystified through big spoon, little spoon, girl on the lap, boy on girl's lap, and monkey arms. He got momentarily distracted from his mystification during face to face spoons, which might have had something to do with the kissing. By the time they'd made it to feet in lap, Veronica had long since wised up to his ploy, but she was enjoying it so much that she wasn't quite ready to call him on his faked confusion.

"The thing I don't understand," he said, playing idly with her toes. "Is the temperature issue. Aren't sick people feverish and hot? This calls into question the universality of the couch blanket when you're sick."

She argued that point spiritedly for some time. Their disagreement on the temperature issue led to him ditching the Henley, and his current boxer-clad state was possibly part of the reason behind Veronica's very generous amount of patience for blanket and cuddling lessons.

By the time the fuzzier blankets arrived, courtesy of Sarah and the Saltines—"Pants, Logan. You need pants to open the door, even when you're sick. Also a shirt. NOT THE SEXY HENLEY, LOGAN, GOD."—they had compromised on the blanket issue by turning the A/C down to penguin habitat lessons.

He tipped Sarah and closed the door, turning to hold up the still-packaged blankets.

"Cartoon characters it is," he said. "What Disney princess would you say you are? More of a Cinderella or a Belle?"

"I'm going to be a frozen Disney princess if you don't hand one of those over," she said, tossing off the stiff motel coverlet and snatching one of the fuzzier blankets out of his hand. She wrapped it around her shoulders and gave a happy sigh. "Sarah deserves a raise. Now get over here and assume the position."

Logan paused in the midst of removing the packaging from his Belle-emblazoned blanket. "I don't know if I should be titillated or terrified by trying to guess what that might be." He tilted his head, a lazy smirk crossing his face. "Maybe both."

She rolled her eyes and pulled him down so his head rested in her lap. It was tugging at her heart more than she wanted to let on, watching how truly foreign all the little niceties of family and comfort were to him. She'd known his childhood wasn't fantastic, having an abusive murderer for a father and all. But somehow she'd thought in between the worst times, there might have been a little bit of normalcy. Not all cold marble and a revolving door of professional nannies.

She flipped on the TV and it came up to the news. There'd been an earthquake somewhere, and the footage was of a building on fire. The red, billowing flames filled up the whole frame, with the whirl of emergency lights flickering at the edges. She shook her head sadly and flipped past that to Finding Nemo, setting aside the remote so they could watch a motherless clownfish find his family.

Logan normally protested cartoons, but today he lay cooperatively in her lap while she threaded her fingers through his hair, and stroked her fingertips down his cheeks.

"The best thing about a sick day," she said after a while, "is how your mom strokes your hair, and rubs your back. It's like even when everything in the world is on fire, and you feel terrible, you still know there are people who care about you, and everything's going to be okay."

His long lashes had drooped sleepily to half mast, but they flickered open again at this. "Was your mom like that?" he asked. "Before she left, I mean."

Veronica actually had to stop and consider. "I think so. It must have been when I was so young that it's all fuzzy, but I think she must have, for me to know. Dad wasn't really like that. He was more bad jokes and junk food, when I was sick."

Her stomach twisted with pain and she held very still, hoping it would pass. She didn't want to move Logan, not when he looked so comfortable and his hair felt so nice between her fingers. But then a second cramp rippled after the first and she bit her lip.

"Here, your turn." Logan sat up, sweeping a hand toward his lap in invitation. Veronica thought it was really wrong for anyone's shoulders to look that broad when hung in a Disney princess blanket.

"No, I'm okay," she protested. It was so like him to pull away when he was enjoying something so much, like if anybody saw him do it, they might guess he wasn't as bulletproof as his sarcasm liked to pretend.

"I can feel your stomach tensing up." He curled his fingers, beckoning her to lie down. "C'mon, I'm gonna need the momming practice if the Logan Junior accusations keep coming as hot and heavy as they have lately."

She grimaced, crawling gingerly across the couch until his gentle hands caught her shoulders and lowered her the rest of the way, rearranging her blanket to tuck her bare feet in the bottom.

"Another one? What do you even do with all the girls who claim you're the father of their baby?"

"I get a paternity test, whether it's a girl I've ever slept with or not. Since Aaron died and all his money came to me and Trina, there started to be so many that I keep a set of cheek swabs on file with my lawyer. He just calls me to come in when he runs out and needs to do a new set." He paused, then said lightly, "As my loving girlfriend, you'll probably be happy to know that none of the little tykes have actually ever been mine."

"I never thought they were." She turned on his lap and looked up at him. "I know you better than that."

"I'm hardly the patron saint of abstinence, Veronica."

"Yeah, but you might be the patron saint of Trojan." She knew Logan would never risk a child growing up without a father because of him. There were some things that never changed about him, no matter how drunk or high or reckless he was feeling at the time.

He chuckled. "Their sales numbers certainly think so." He held the base of her ponytail and slipped off the hair elastic. "Let me know if I'm getting the momming wrong here."

He stroked her hair, following it down to rub gentle circles on her back. Her stomach unwound and even the pressure in her stuffy sinuses seemed to ease for the moment. She exhaled.

"Hmm. You're kind of a natural at momming, actually. Maybe you should stop rejecting all those paternity tests."

"Haha," he said dryly. There was an odd catch in his tone, though, and he squeezed her shoulder. She snuggled closer into his lap and patted his knee.

"Logan?"

"Hmm?"

"Maybe I'm a little glad you cut class this time."

"You're such a bad influence on me, Veronica Mars." He snuggled her closer and turned up Finding Nemo.