Title: "Big Empty"

Author: Lila

Rating: PG-13

'Ship: Veronica, with a healthy dose of L/V thrown in for good measure

Spoiler: through "Leave it to Beaver"

Length: one-shot

Summary: Veronica never thought of Lilly as a cliché until she became one

Author's Note:
This story was started around the time of "Kanes and Abels" and took me a long time to fix, and there are certain things I didn't want to change because they fit the story too well. So Duncan's original assumption about "A Trip to the Dentist" sticks, although the incest part is a very minor aspect of the story because it squicks me out too. And the entire thing is AU anyway, so everyone can either pretend it happened or that the entire episode is one big joke. This story has truly been a labor of love because it's taken me so long to finish it. Also, I don't usually write dialogue so forgive me if the voices are a little off. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

"I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything"

"Hurt," Johnny Cash

She never would have thought of Lilly as a cliché, even though people said things like "she sparkled when the others faded into the background" or "her flame burned brighter than everyone else's" - she never would have thought of Lilly as a cliché until it turned out to be true. Because Lilly really was just a poor little rich girl who only wanted her daddy to love her. Because Lilly was pretty on the outside and ugly on the inside and cracked all over. Because everyone loved Lilly and she only loved them back so much as they made her forget about her mother and Duncan and her family loving him and tolerating her. Because any kind of teenage angst, every Lifetime movie starring Tori Spelling, every horror stories suburban parents read in the Saturday paper about children out of control - that was Lilly, whether she wanted to believe it or not.

She knew she was supposed to turn on Lilly, just like everyone turned on her, for being a slut and being a traitor and for breaking Logan's heart. But she couldn't, because it was never about reputations or fidelity or Logan - it was about her and Lilly and how much she loved her. Even if she knows it's not true, she refuses to believe otherwise. Because the Lilly that lives in her memories isn't a fallen drama queen and isn't another suburban horror story and isn't the person the press made her out to be. And in the end, she didn't care who Lilly was inside with anyone else. Lilly was beautiful to her, laughing and whole and full of life. The Lilly she remembers is anything but normal, anything but a cliché - even if it's all a lie.

Because sometimes she's glad Lilly's dead. Not that she'd ever admit it anyone - even to herself - but that doesn't make it any less true. And it's not like she can say the words out loud - because that would make it too real, her guilt too tangible - but she thinks those words anyway. She wants to understand how the one person she loved more than anyone else could turn out to be such stranger. How Lilly could be so many different personalities to so many different people, and how everyone could fall in love with her when she didn't love most of them at all. But more then that, she wants to understand how someone so vibrant and burning with life could end up cold and dead and alone. Not that it made missing Lilly hurt any less, made it any easier to glide through the milestones without her by her side. Because she knows that deep, deep down she doesn't hate Lilly at all - she hates that she never really knew her, even if she loves her. And still…with every breath she wonders what might have been, how her life would be if Lilly had never climbed into Aaron's bed, and with every other wonders if it's for the best.

It wasn't supposed to happen. That was the easiest way to explain it, even if it was the most cliché. But lots of screwy things happened when she mixed alcohol and thoughts of the good times to dull her pain. It would have been Lilly's twenty-first birthday. Five years ago, when her life had been normal, they'd had big plans: a weekend in Vegas with champagne flowing and strippers thrusting and dice rolling - and instead she'd curled up in a ball on the beach with a bottle of tequila and her memories to keep her company. Footsteps kicked up sand behind her, and she knew who it was without even turning - five years and 3,000 miles and she could still recognize him from just the beat of his heart. He hadn't said anything, and she hadn't either, just reached for the bottle and brushed his fingers over her hand and together they toasted Lilly twenty-one times and he kissed her like she hadn't stomped all over his heart a few years back and snapped his soul in two, and she'd clung on for dear life tasting regret and bitterness and memories on his tongue. It had been right and wrong all at the same time, and when he slid her tank down her arms and slid inside she closed her eyes and willed herself back to a time when her life was normal and she wasn't fucking her ex-boyfriend who was also her dead best friend's boyfriend, on a beach, on her best friend's birthday. She couldn't remember much about that night, through the tequila and tears and pain, except a lot of regret. The next morning was all, "This was a mistake" and "Good seeing you, Ronnie" with a sarcastic smirk - and she hoped she'd never have to revisit any of it again.

Except karma loved her too much to let it go and two months later she was calling Duncan to track down Logan's cell phone number to tell him about the baby. She spent four hours scripting out exactly what to say and instead got an inspirational message about fools and shame. And she realized, that telling Logan that their night of teary, drunken sex had turned into to an accidental pregnancy wasn't exactly the kind of thing she could say over the phone. It took three tries and sneaking onto his latest film set before she could corner him in his trailer and talk about their massive mistake. She dismissed the vapid blonde, dumped the pills, and tried to remember Logan when he was smart and nice and his smile reached his eyes. When he wasn't a bad after-school-special and she wasn't to blame for it. He slunk back in his chair, the shell necklace wrapped around his neck, a memory of better times when he was happy and loving Lilly wasn't a cruel joke.

"Veronica," he said as she locked she locked the door and slid into the chair across from him. "Is that happiness to see me?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and winced. "We need to talk."

His eyes rolled skyward. "And I thought you just wanted a repeat of Lilly's birthday." The words came out shaky and when he looked down he couldn't meet her eyes.

"It's about that" she started and then it all came spilling out. The nausea and crying and three positive pregnancy tests sitting on her dorm sink. "I'm pregnant, Logan," she whispered. "And I want to keep it." When she'd broken into the trailer she hadn't known what to say, what to do, but saying the words she knew she meant it. "I'm going to keep it," she corrected herself.

His expression would have been devastated if his girlfriend hadn't already been murdered by his father and his mother hadn't committed suicide and she hadn't ruined what was left of his life. Instead he looked numb and like he might be sick. "What?" he managed to squeeze out.

"I'm pregnant." It was easier every time she said it, a little more real. "You don't have to do anything," she said. "It's not like we planned for this to happen. You have your life, I have mine." And what she really meant was he was a famous movie star with a nasty past and an equally famous girlfriend the tabloids loved and a new movie premiering the next week and couldn't exactly afford an illegitimate baby with a girl he hadn't spoken to since he was seventeen. "I understand if you don't want anything to do with us, but I've made up my mind and I thought you'd want to know. But if you want -"

He interrupted with a harsh laugh that cut through the air angrily. "You planned this didn't you? You'll never be satisfied until I end up just like him."

Her head snapped up. She'd gone through a million scenarios in her head, but somehow Logan thinking this was a set up hadn't registered. She was disappointed in herself - what had happened to Veronica Mars, super sleuth? And then she remembered that she'd gotten knocked up on Lilly's birthday and her perspective had changed a little since then. "Logan, this isn't a scam -" she started.

"Just like it wasn't a scam when you sold me out for killing Lilly." His eyes traced the scar on her temple from her fight with Aaron. "Look how that turned out."

She sighed. "I know I can't say anything to make you believe me. But we need to talk about this. We need to figure out what to do."

He glared at her. "Leave your address on the table. I'll send a check every month." He picked up a script and flipped through it aimlessly. "We're done here, Veronica. You can find your own way out."

But she didn't go anywhere. "So that's it. You'll send money and we never have to see each other again."

He smiled, for the first time all morning. "Sounds like a plan."

"You're sure about this. You really want nothing to do with me or the -"

"Yes," he said firmly. "I want nothing to do with you. Now turn around and walk out the door and don't bother me anymore."

She smiled tightly, gripped the door handle. "It was nice knowing you," and walked out of his life.

Until Duncan's graduation party four months later when he showed up drunk and angry, and she was pregnant and moody and hoped the empire waist of her tank top would hide the belly swelling underneath. Jake offered muted congratulations and Duncan avoided eye contact and Celeste pulled her aside and reminded her about the contract she signed. "I don't want your money," she'd responded. "I don't want anything from you." Celeste had looked smug and satisfied while she sipped her alcohol-free mimosa and avoided Logan. He had a different vapid blonde on his arm and Jake had put up extra security at the gate to keep out the paparazzi. Meg was there, and Madison and Dick and all the people from high school she'd hoped to never see again, and she snuck out to the pool to remember Lilly and get away from it all. They didn't know about the baby. But if they did know…finding whore written on her car would be the least of her problems. Lilly would have kicked their asses for touching her precious best friend, but Lilly wasn't around anymore and she had to take care of herself. No, Lilly was a movie-of-the-week loved far more by her parents in death than in life. And looking at herself, back aching and feet swollen, she knew she was about to star in her own film. Only it wasn't going to be like tenth grade health class when they'd watched "For Keeps?" and all the girls sighed over Stan and laughed at Molly Ringwald's hair and never in a million years thought they'd end up pregnant and poor and scared out of their minds. She stretched her back and rubbed her neck and wondered when she turned into the 21st Century version of Darcy Bobrucz when there was no one to go through it all with her.

She dangled her feet in the water and pictured herself in a pink bikini, back when her belly was flat and her hair almost reached her butt, and Lilly taught her now to do a perfect handstand in the shallow end. It seemed like a lifetime ago and it really was one, because five years ago her only worries had been a date to Homecoming or making the Pep Squad, not supporting a baby or dealing with absentee dads.

She knew he'd follow her. He'd always been exactly like her, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the crowds and memories became too much and he'd creep back to the place where it all ended. "You said you never wanted to see me again," she said as he sat down next to her, sober and shaking.

"I said a lot of things," he said and slipped his feet into the water next to hers. If she moved her toes an inch, they'd touch his. "I know I didn't deal with everything very well."

She pressed an unconscious hand to her belly and tried to smile. "It was big news."

"I'm not apologizing," he said. "I meant what I said about the money. But I could have said it a little better."

"You still don't want to be a part of our lives?" She posed it as a question, but it was really a statement. She could tell, because he wouldn't look in her eyes and kept himself a thick distance from her expanding belly and flinched every time she referred to herself in the plural sense.

"No."

"Why?"

He shot out of the water, droplets sprinkling over her bare legs. "Because I don't want to."

"Why?"

She stepped forward and he stepped back, until she had him backed up against the side of the house and her belly was inches from his. "You can say no all you want, but I want to know why."

He sighed heavily and for a moment he looked seventeen again, his eyes bleeding the way they had on the beach when she threatened to let Backup tear out his throat. "I can't, okay? Let's leave it at that."

"I don't want to."

"I don't really care what you want. You asked a question, Veronica, and I gave you an answer. It's not my problem if you don't like it." She took his hand in hers, pressed it to her belly. His fingers flexed and stiffened against a kick. "Let go of me."

"Even if you cut us out or your life, Logan, we're not going away." She dropped his hand and stepped back. "Send your monthly checks and a birthday card every September and lie to the press all you want. You can pretend we don't exist, Logan, but it doesn't mean it's true."

"What were you expecting?" he asked. "Did you think I'd ask you to marry me and carve out some happy life, just the three of us? This isn't a fairytale, Veronica. There is no happy ending."

She felt like he'd slapped her. "I know," she said and her voice came out like a whisper. "But I thought you might care, just a little bit."

It took him a long time to answer. "I do care."

"Then why?"

He just shook his head and turned to look over the pool. "You don't need me, Veronica. You never needed me."

"You think I want to do this alone?"

"You don't have a choice. You don't want me in your life. I'm just going to fuck you up and you don't need that. Have the baby, be happy. Pretend I don't exist. Don't let him or her end up like Lilly."

And he turned on his heel and walked out of her life.

She filled the remaining months with graduation and shopping and plans. She was valedictorian - the only valedictorian to walk across the stage five months pregnant - and gave a speech about growing up and making difficult choices and choosing the right path, while the audience averted their eyes and tried not to laugh, even though they had reason to. She was barely twenty-one and without a mother and about to become a mother herself - and she'd never been so scared in her life, not even when Aaron had locked her in a refrigerator and tried to set her on fire. It was cliché and predictable, but she wanted a better life for her baby. She didn't want her like Lilly, broken and bloody by her parents' pool. And she didn't want her like Logan, climbing into her arms bruised and wrecked and defeated. And she didn't want her like herself, angry and mean and afraid. She was afraid all the time. That she'd eat the wrong food or do the wrong thing or her baby would hate her forever for letting Logan walk out of her life. He kept his word and sent money every month, and she catches him weekly in the tabloids with articles about drunken binges and girls and wild nights in Mexico. He looks dazed and miserable and like he's trying to run away. She knows where he's going because she's been there too, only she has something to keep her anchored to the ground. She wants Logan to see the baby and she sends him an ultrasound photo every month, and the following weekend there's always an article in "Star" reading something like "Logan Echolls Out of Control" and pictures of shiny handcuffs and bruised jaws and vacant eyes staring at her blindly. She resents Logan for having it easy, for writing them off with the stroke of a pen and returning to his pills and Stoli while she has to deal with the hard stuff like bills and housing and what she's going to do with her life now that's she's joined the ranks of unwed, single mothers. Because all these years later he's still an Echolls and she's still a Mars and like everything else in her life, she has to do things the hard way.

She goes into labor in the middle of the night during the last days of summer. Wallace drives her to the hospital and holds her hand the entire time. There are bloody crescents in the palm of his hand, but he just pushes the sweaty hair off her brow and presses a kiss to her temple. "I don't care about me, I care about you. Now push, girl, push!" It was the hardest - and the easiest thing-she'd ever done in her life, going through labor, giving life, and when the baby came out screaming like a banshee, she laughed in relief. If there was ever any doubt as to her paternity, it ended when her daughter slid out looking exactly like Lilly. Not similar in that blonde-haired, big-eyed kind of way, but exactly like Lilly - and she swallowed the knot in her throat that came with memories of her night with Duncan, and reached for her daughter.

Only Logan was there first, watching with wide eyes. Weevil gave him a firm push with one leather-clad arm and he nearly fell into the doctor holding his daughter in his arms. The doctor slipped the scissors in his hands and told the proud father he should cut the chord, and Logan went through the motions diligently, fingers shaking. He held his daughter in his hands, small enough to break with a snap of his wrist, and shoved her in the doctor's arms, mumbling something about responsibility and fear and the baby being a bloody mess, her blonde hair matted with blood. He would have run, but Weevil was blocking the door and instead he slid down the wall and cradled his head in his hands, whispering, "What have I done?"

In another life, a life where his father hadn't tried to kill her and she hadn't turned him into the police for a murder he didn't commit, she would have reached for him and held him to her heart and told him it would all be okay. But this was reality - her movie-of-the-week - and instead she watched eagerly while the nurses cleaned her daughter up and checked for all ten fingers and all ten toes, and put the baby in her arms and asked what she would call her. Logan stood up, raised his head, and she looked right into his broken eyes and smiled. "Her name is Lilly. Lillian Lynnette Echolls."

He left without a word and never looked back.

They moved into her old bedroom and Alicia helped her with Lilly while her father worked, filling the hours with stories about Wallace and his brother as babies, offering maternal advice her own mother was never capable of. Lianne sent a card the week after Lilly's birth, something generic and Hallmark, something like an afterthought. Duncan sent flowers and set up a trust fund, quieting her protests because the Kanes always took care of their own, and staring down at a replica of his other sister, he had a niece to provide for. She kissed his cheek and thanked him and tried to ignore the awkwardness that always overwhelmed their interactions, and when Lilly started crying she said something about having to feed her and Duncan's cheeks turned bright red and he got out of there so fast he forgot his manners and didn't say goodbye. It was nearly three months before she saw him again, at Lilly's christening when she named Wallace as godfather and Trina as godmother, trying to give her daughter the family she never had - the family her namesake never had.

When Lilly was six weeks old she packed her into the back of the car and drove up to San Quentin and waited behind the glass partition for twenty minutes before Aaron showed up. She held Lilly up to the glass, gurgling and smiling at her grandpa, and explained to Aaron all he was missing out. Because he had a granddaughter he'd never hold and never know, that his legacy would die when he did and when that time came he'd be old and ugly and alone. Because that's what happened to selfish men who killed their son's girlfriends and ruined the lives of everyone who loved her. Because that's how much she wanted him to suffer, for all the pain he caused and the long life he was going to live on the state's dime. He was still banging on the glass and screaming at her to wait when she turned her back and walked out of his life forever, Lilly cradled against her heart.

They moved to New York when Lilly was three months old and she took a job as a researcher for "The Times." She got an apartment on the Upper West Side and her salary paid the half the rent and Lilly's daycare; Logan's monthly checks took care of the rest. Her friends cooed over the baby and asked about the father and she always said something about a fling that went bad. And really, it wasn't so far from the truth. Her life wasn't exciting, but it was simple and happy and normal. She bought a copy of "US Weekly" every Friday and cut out the clippings so Lilly would have something of her father's, even if she couldn't have the real thing. She kissed her daughter a lot, and hugged her too, and never forgot to tell her she loved her. And whenever thoughts of her first Lilly popped into her mind, and she saw Lilly Kane's unseeing eyes and the blood caking her blonde hair, she'd scoop her daughter into her arms and cover her face with kisses and tell her she loved her over and over again until she was sure she believed her. She wasn't going to let her daughter end up like her namesake. And she wasn't going to let Lilly end up like her father, burying his pain in petite blondes and scripts about lost boys who never got to grow up. And she wasn't going to let Lilly end up like herself, terrified of girls who lived larger then life and boys with scars on body and soul. Her Lilly was going to be happy, pretty, inside and out, no matter what it cost her.

She'd sworn when Lilly was born there'd be no lies between them, yet she lied to her every day of her life. Logan kept his promise and sent a check every month and a present every September, but he never called, never wrote, and talked to the press for hours about being young and single and free. She told herself it was better that way, without photographers camped outside her home, but it didn't make it any easier. One day Lilly was gonna grow up and grow old and wonder why she didn't have a daddy. One day she was going to have to pull out the box of clippings and photos and tell her daughter about Logan. And one day Lilly was going to ask her why her father didn't love her or want her and she was going to have to lie and somehow make it better.

They made it three years before the paparazzi leafed through Logan's trash and found her address and she stepped out of her building, Lilly clasped to her hip, and raised a hand to protect her eyes from the flash. Lilly started to wail and she wanted to cry herself, but instead she slipped back inside and made the worst phone call of her life. He was drunk and mean and she could hear a woman's voice in the background, but he said he'd be there as soon as he could and seven hours later he arrived looking like a bad Elvis impersonator with heavy sunglasses. He stepped into the apartment he'd paid to furnish and drank out of glass she'd bought with his money, and looked right into her eyes, his own clear and focused for the first time in years, "We have a problem."

They talked and talked, boycotted the sarcasm because they were older and supposedly wiser, and whether they liked it or not, had a daughter to deal with. Lilly slept through it all and when she went to check on her, she felt Logan's weight resting against her, his mouth open in wonder. He didn't say a word, just pushed past her and crouched down next to Lilly's bed, watching her chest rise and fall and her breath slip out softly. Ten minutes later he came back pale and quiet and dazed.

"She looks just like her," he said softly.

"I know."

"I mean exactly like her."

She reached out, rested her hand on his. "I know."

He dropped his eyes to their hands and his fingers twitched before wrapping around hers. "I'm sorry."

"You've never been sorry in your life."

"You wouldn't know. You never knew me."

"I know you better then you know yourself."

Their hands were still intertwined. "You're all talk, Veronica."

"She's not going anywhere, Logan," she said quietly, tracing small circles on his palm with her thumb. "Neither am I, you know? We're gonna be right here."

He slipped his other hand in his pocket, wrapped it around his grandfather's lighter, remembered the reasons it was in his possession and not his mother's. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

She slipped off the couch, crouched before him like he had with Lilly. "At Duncan's party, do you remember what you said to me?" He nodded. "I promise it's not going to end up that way."

He laughs and doesn't not mean it. "Whatever."

"When someone loves you, Logan. Really loves you, they love all of you. The good parts and the bad parts and even the really ugly parts. No matter what you become, they love you anyway. I can promise I'll do that."

Neither of them were sure what she was talking about, and he reached out to run a hand down her cheek. "You think I can do this?"

"Yeah, I do."

She knew he wanted to kiss her - she could see it in his eyes - but instead he dropped to his knees in front of her and wrapped her in his arms, tight and firm, and buried his face in her hair. She wanted to think about the last five years, about all the ways she'd hurt him and he'd hurt her, but it didn't seem to matter anymore, not with Lilly between them. Some things were better left in the past.

She still misses her first Lilly, still wonders what her life would be like if she hadn't died tragic and young and high on life. But she doesn't wonder if it's for the best, not anymore. California sunshine streams through the blinds and catches Lilly's hair, golden and sun kissed in the morning light, paints Logan's skin a pale shade of brown. No, she doesn't wonder anymore, because her broken Lilly had to die for her better Lilly to live.

So...thoughts anyone? Feedback is greatly appreciated.