Summary: The bomb goes off in Veronica's car with slightly different results.

NO CHARACTER DEATH. Also, this is from a prompt over on Tumblr 'trembling hands' that was requested. Enjoy!

Close Call

Glass bit into her skin as the explosion from the street created enough pressure to rocket her back. She landed hard against the bed, her mind holding onto the final moment she'd seen Logan smiling up at her from the street. He'd been getting into the car to move it. Her car that Epner had been in just hours before. The bomb had to have been in there.

Veronica was out the door and halfway down to the street before she realized that she had picked herself up off the bed. She darted between the buildings and felt her low heels slip on sand-sprinkled concrete, nearly sending her crashing to her knees. She caught herself and made it to the alley behind their apartment building without going all the way down, though, and slammed to a stop there.

The blue Hyundai was the first thing she saw. Flames poured out of it, the windows shattered, and parts of the car were already melting in the heat. Somewhere between the screaming thoughts that Logan has been in the car, her brain noted that the driver door was handling open. Blown open, maybe, but the angle was funny. Like it had been open when the bomb went off.

"The car just exploded," a voice said behind her and she turned, finding the officer that had been just shy of writing them a parking ticket standing there. He looked dazed, like he'd been tossed back too, but he was on his feet. He motioned vaguely. "He got out to answer me and it just…"

"Logan." His name left her on a breath as she whipped around to where the officer had motioned. Logan was lying on his side with his back to her and, if the dent in the garage door was anything to go by, the explosion had thrown him into it. He'd crumpled to the street like a rag doll where he now lay far too still. Relief and panic warred against each other as she took in the tattered remains of his suit jacket and the blooded matted into his shortly cropped hair, but as she inched closer she could also see the subtle movement caused by what looked like shallow breaths he was pulling in.

He was alive, but he needed help.

"You have your phone?" Veronica called out to the dazed officer and turned just enough to see him nod. "Then call 9-1-1." She waited to make sure he'd do it rather than continue staring blankly at her. Once she saw him dialing she circled around and dropped to the street next to Logan. Her hands trembled as she reached out, fingers ghosting against his face. A soft groan escaped him and a flicker of hope won out against the threatening panic. "Logan? Babe?"

He managed another quiet, pained sound as she saw a pair of brown eyes struggle open. They were unfocused at first, but slowly they struggled to look up at her. "V'ronica?" he managed and started to roll to his back.

"Don't move," she said quickly. "Ambulance is on its way."

"'M okay," he slurred.

"Sure you are." And maybe he was. Maybe the blood against the side of his face was from a superficial cut and maybe the way he was struggling to breathe was more about the panic then the way he'd been thrown from his feet into a barely yielding structure. He wasn't panicking though. He didn't panic. He'd been trained to keep his cool under pressure and, the more she looked, the more damage she could see. The burns, the awkward turn of his arm he was laying on, and the blood that was soaking through his white shirt. He coughed hard, his body jolting, and she found her vision blurring through tears. "Logan…"

He reached up clumsily with his unpinned hand, looking for hers. "Will be," he promised.

"You better be," she whispered, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "You don't get out of your vows that easy."

The rough chuckle he answered with was drowned out by the sound of the sirens and Logan's hand went limp in hers.

She had spent far too much time in hospitals over the years. For the limited number of people she kept close, they always seemed to get hurt, and usually because of her. Even sitting in a jail cell Penn had nearly managed to win by taking one of the few good people in Veronica's life. If he'd succeeded, if Logan had been sitting in the driver's seat when the bomb had gone off…. She didn't want to wrap her mind around what living without him all over again would be like.

And there was about a two day span where it was anyone's best guess on if Logan would pull through or not. Broken bones, shrapnel buried deep, and blood loss that put him into dangerous territory by the time they reached the hospital all led to doctors who were very hesitant to give her hope.

The problem was that that's all she had, so she clung to it with bloodstained fingers and a desperate plea for him to remember that he'd promised to come back to her.

Veronica wasn't sure when she had dozed off at his bedside, but somewhere through the exhausted daze she felt his fingers tighten in hers. She bolted up from where she had been bent over the hospital bed and found a pair of warm, brown eyes watching her. They were a little unfocused, but they were open. Her lips tugged upward as his name tumbled off her lips. "Logan. You're awake."

"Is that what this is? Wasn't sure," he managed, the words riding out slowly as if he were uncertain if they would make it through the drug endured fog.

Her smile broadened a little and she leaned forward, careful as pressed a kiss against his chapped lips. His grip tightened around her fingers and half a moment later she was leaning in a little deeper, her free hand reaching to the side of his face.

As they broke, she heard him loose a rough chuckle. "Is that a thanks for not dying kiss?"

"A you're not allowed to die kiss," she answered firmly, pressing another one into place. "And a I love you kiss." The second, more of a confession, was quieter. She waited as his lips quirked up at the corners and he pulled at her hand until she was crawling onto the narrow bed with him. "You want me right here?" she teased.

"Closer," Logan murmured drowsily, but if the determination in which he kept pulling was anything to go by, he wasn't going to let himself drift again until she was curled up beside him.

Veronica climbed in carefully, feeling him relax next to her and his breathing even out as he drifted back to sleep. She listened to it for a long moment, the memory of him laid out in the street bloodied and burned pushed back by the closeness to him then. It was going to be a long road from there, but she had him, and she got to keep him. Finally, she would be able to sleep tonight.