Authors Note: This took longer than I intended! My job and school are a little hectic right now. So updates could be a little slow, but I am intent on finishing this. Thank you for all the reviews. It's nice to know others are just as furious and confused as I am. This chapter is more of a filler, but the story will start moving. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Veronica Mars or the characters, they belong to Rob Thomas, who clearly cares nothing about them.
The battery in her phone gives out an hour later. Her body feels heavy, from lack of sleep or what she's just heard, she doesn't know. Circumstances tell her to ignore it, replace it with something else, anything. A promise was made when she drove away from Neptune. And she intends to follow through.
In the days after hearing it, she almost deletes it from her phone. The voice over that follows her around pleas with her to do it. Move forward. Stop holding on. Letting go didn't happen a year later and she doesn't expect it to occur. How do you let go of something you still crave? She closes her phone and grabs her bag. Outside awaits.
San Francisco seems like most California cities. Tourists escaping their lives in more boring places, and the temperatures they like to complain about. The population that resides here doesn't have the grit she's used to. Grime from the build-up of decades of crime. She wants to be relieved that it's different. Loneliness doesn't give relief. Still, she's never going back.
It's two weeks later when she meets her bass blasting neighbor. And like in those sitcoms she used to watch with her dad, they find each other in the laundry room. Last load was in the dryer, the whirring the first thing that has calmed her for weeks, when said neighbor walks in. She's expecting a girl with the same hard edge she's had since she was fifteen, a piercing or two in places that distract. The girl appears fresh out of college, one where there are no serial rapists and the freshman dorm has community slumber parties. Jealously seems like the obvious choice. She was supposed to be this girl, a long time ago.
"You're new here right? I'm Casey. I think I live below you."
"I'm guessing you're the reason my whole apartment vibrates like a dental drill at 7am."
"Sorry about that, Trevor's -never going to leave the couch best friend- says it helps him focus on his curls. Whatever that means."
"Well, tell Trevor's best friend, if he wakes me up at an ungodly hour again, I'll be forced to take measures."
The dryer beeps.
She's lived her lonely existence for a month now. Her father's voice unsure beneath their usual banter. Standing in his office (their office) the message would no longer be her secret, over the phone helps her bite her tongue. Cases have been sent her way, occupying her days (nights with burgers on the dashboard and a cluster of neon signs) with stories she might laugh about someday. The friends she had are there but drifting away is easy when communication is in the form of a single letter.
When she's not taking photos outside of every hotel in San Francisco, the coffee shop down the street is quiet and people watching distracts her from herself. But then she starts to think too much about what she was before and who hell she's supposed to be now, and the distraction sends her back to the comforting darkness of her apartment.
As she's counting the cracks in the ceiling late at night the overwhelming need to hear his voice (she doesn't want to forget it) wins. The message plays like before, with the same Logan outro. Before she can press repeat (just to hear it one more time), his voice picks up again.
"Here is your inspirational quote of the day: Dust does rise doesn't it? And so, can I.-Dionne Warwick"
She has to go back.
Mars Investigations didn't hold back on PI tropes. Low lighting, a quirky receptionist, and windows with fogged glass. This cliché never failed to bring her a sense of serenity. Today, she was nervous. Waiting for her father to talk his way out of another long conversation with a CEO claiming his wife is the one checking into less than favorable motels. Keith Mars lumbers out giving her the same expression she's seen for a year. He wants so desperately to save her.
"I need you to listen to something."
The message plays, the palms of her hands running down her thighs, eyes scanning the newspaper on her father's desk. He'll think she finally let herself go.
"Well what do you think they mean?"
"You think I've lost it. Right? Because I'm really starting to question it."
"No honey, I don't think you're crazy. If you were, you would have kept this to yourself. Now, answer my question. What do these messages mean?"
"You're going to send me away."
"No, I promise. Hit me."
He's leaning back against his desk, arms crossed. There's that serenity.
"Dad, I think Logan might be alive."