Title: Untitled (Need)
Author: Wynn
Email: I don't own the characters of Veronica Mars. They are owned by Rob Thomas, UPN, etc. and are used for non-profit, entertainment purposes only.
AN: My first Veronica Mars fic. Unbeta'd, so all faults are mine.
Untitled (Need)
By: Wynn
The door is open. Careless. But then Veronica doesn't think Logan has a lot to care about these days. She peeks her head in, and the room- the room is in shambles. She's seen it disarrayed before, thoroughly searched for the missing poker winnings. But this. Utter destruction fueled by pure fury. And grief.
Lots of grief.
She spies Logan, asleep, stretched out facedown on a couch along the far wall. He's still in his Risky attire, sunglasses askew on his head, white button-up wrinkled and slightly torn at the shoulder. A blue blanket rests bunched up around his waist.
She enters the room, one step, then another, like a deer inching into an open clearing, testing the air for danger, danger, Will Robinson. Or like an enemy venturing into foreign territory, running the risk of pain, torture, and death upon discovery. Because even though relations between her and Logan had improved somewhat, from open seething hostility to something bordering on civil, almost an understanding, a detente of sorts, she doubts very much he'd want her, especially her, to seem him like this.
Vulnerable.
Again.
But she has to know.
She stops four steps into the room, far enough to see. The TV is on and frozen on the screen is the footage- the bridge, the car, the water. The dark, plunging shape that may (or may not) be Mrs. Echolls.
Veronica understands his compulsive need to watch. She watched the Lilly video so many times she has a frame-by-frame imprint of it in her mind. She told herself it was to search for clues, for something her father and the entire Neptune sheriff's department missed. That's what she told herself.
She lied.
Veronica understands, so she doesn't try to steal the disc back.
Logan moves, but he doesn't wake up. She wants to pull the blanket up, tuck it around his shoulders, smooth it over his back. But she doesn't. She can't. Lilly's Veronica could. Could be at ease with those small, intimate gestures of caring and comfort. But not this Veronica. Her sharp edges would tear through the downy comfort, leaving nothing behind but feathery wisps of a useless gesture.
She turns to go; she has a plane to catch. One foot over the threshold and then she hears, "Are you checking up on me, Mars?"
His voice is thick and scratchy with sleep and liquor. Veronica looks back over her shoulder at him. He hasn't moved; his crooked glasses still cover his eyes; and if he hadn't spoken, she would have thought him asleep.
Had he ever been asleep?
"Well?"
Was she checking up on him?
Yes.
"No."
"Good. I don't need a fucking babysitter. That's what I have Trina for." There's no sharpness to his voice, no cutting vitriol, no aggressive hostility. None of the usual suspects usually reserved for her. There's nothing.
She pretends she's not worried.
Logan shifts again on the couch and says, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
She doesn't.
Three hours later her cell phone chirps as she waits in line for a rental car.
"Hello?"
Silence on the other end, but she can hear someone breathing, and her heart leaps at the thought that it might be Mom.
"Hello? Mo-?"
"Thanks."
Logan. Logan calling her. Her brain stops, restarts, driven on by curiosity.
"For what?"
He doesn't say anything, but she knows he's still on the line. "Logan-?"
"For trying."
And then he's gone. The line shuffles one step forward, but she's still standing still.
end
