DON'T WAKE ME WITH SO MUCH
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars and its characters do not belong to me. I have only borrowed them, here. No infringement intended.
Word Count: 4,759
AN: Here's the final chapter—and it was a tricky one. Thank you for the kind feedback. The last bit was borrowed (read: stolen) from Out of Africa. I couldn't resist, it seemed to fit perfectly. Thanks again for reading!
PART THREE
When Logan opens his eyes, he sees sky. Blush clouds across a dim sky—dusk? dawn?
Did I jump? he thinks. He imagines he's been washed up on shore. He feels like he's spent some time in the water—battered and bruised.
It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop.
He closes his eyes as he sits up. His head is pounding.
If only he could skip past this part and go back to oblivion. There is always a moment—a blissful moment--before memory slides back into place. Like the moment between orgasm and sleep—although usually without the headache. The slow blinking of the eye, the look around the room. In those few moments, there is only the present—no past, no future.
Logan takes inventory: he's in an alley. There's a dumpster, some trashcans. It smells of rotten eggs and stale beer. His lip aches, and his face feels hot. He touches his lip; it's swollen and cracked.
His legs seem to be working, so he stands, brushes pieces of glass from his jeans—a hole in the knee. He pats his pockets—no keys, no wallet. Perfect.
And then he remembers.
He had staggered out of Aaron's office and out the front door. He had no particular destination in mind, and he had ended up at the Checkerboard. It was a dive—dark, dirty, and open—which had been it's main appeal to Logan. He sat at the bar and listened to some old dude playing the mandolin and sing Proud Mary.
The old man's voice was old and slow, and it was the saddest song Logan had ever heard.
"Big wheel keeps on turning," the old man sang, his voice like death "Proud Mary keeps on burning."
Logan held up his glass to toast. "It's a direct address, old man. A command. It's the very subtle difference between 'Veronica, stay' and 'Veronica stays.' So it's 'Proud Mary keep on burning.'" And then he swallowed his drink in one gulp. So what if he could say her name—it didn't mean anything.
He watched as the bartender leaned down, washing pilsners and shot glasses, her breasts pushing forward in her v-neck top, like the rise of the moon. Logan smiled. At least something hadn't changed.
He pointed to the stage. "That guy's going to be a star."
"That's my father," she said, motioning towards the old man. "He opened this place about a million years ago. So he gets to sing whenever he wants."
He motioned to her for another drink.
"You're a long way from the country club," she said, wiping her hands on the towel tucked into her waistband. She lit a cigarette.
"The country club wasn't serving," he said. "Besides, the country club doesn't have the ambiance of this place."
"I know!" she said, pointing the cigarette at him, her eyes widening in realization. "You're that kid. That movie star's kid." She smiled. "I really liked that movie, what was it called? The one where he coaches the little league team."
"Three Strikes, You're Out," Logan mumbled.
"Right, right. That was really good. I read in the paper the other day that he killed your girlfriend because she wasn't good enough for you."
Logan snorted. "That's a new one, the benevolent psychopath. What paper was that?"
"The Star, I think. It was at the grocery," she confessed.
"Well, you know what they say?"
"You can't believe everything you read?" she answered.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Logan pulled out a fifty. "This is yours, darlin' if you keep 'em comin'. And if you forget who I am."
She took the money. "No problem, sweetie. You just relax and enjoy," she said as she moved down the bar.
He traced the rim of the glass with his finger; it squeaked. The glass was definitely not crystal.
His mother's favorite movie had been Splendor in the Grass with Natalie Wood—who may or may not have killed herself by drowning--and Warren Beatty. It's one of the those tragic teenage love stories—without the body count of a Romeo and Juliet. Every year, his mother would watch it again. When he was younger, he would sit next to her. She would rest her hand on the back of his neck and play with his hair, her fingers cold from holding her drink. The ice clinking—against crystal glass—in his ear.
The story is about Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty who are two wide-eyed kids in love. Then Natalie Wood goes crazy. Something about how she and Warren Beatty can't have sex because Natalie is a good girl. That used to be Logan's favorite scene when he was little—Natalie Wood screaming, "I'm a good girl! I'm a good girl!" It seemed funny to a little boy.
Warren Beatty ends up a farmer married to some other woman. Some other non-crazy woman, we are led to believe. And they all lived happily ever fucking after. Just not happily together.
His mother, he realized, had always been a little in love with death. He held up his glass. "To my mother," he said.
Natalie Wood was cast to play the controlling mother in Pursuit of Happiness, but she died before filming began. It would've been a dream come true for his mother, to work with her idol.
"To Natalie Wood," Logan said.
Now Aaron—he claimed that Paul Newman was his inspiration. But Logan's pretty sure Aaron was just saying that because actors are supposed to be concerned about their craft. Even actors who get paid twenty million to run around and shoot bad guys. The new and improved Aaron—the Aaron who did not, apparently, kill young girls and drive mothers to suicide—claimed to love Hemingway. That whole grace under pressure thing. Which made sense, if by grace he meant the belt to the backside.
Aaron said he had wanted to do a remake of A Farewell to Arms. He said it was going to be his life's work. Logan had read it—it was no wonder Aaron liked it. The guy meets some nurse during the war. He knocks her up, then goes AWOL to get back to her. Romantic, right? The baby dies and then the woman dies. So after all that, the guy gets off—no wife, no kid. He's at a bar in the end, totally free. No consequences for his actions. No wonder Aaron identified with it.
Now the old man was singing Walk on the Wild Side. He was even doing to the do-do-do-do's. Maybe Logan was in hell. If hell was full of should have's and if only's.
He unspooled last year, like a roll of film. It was all in the editing. A cut at the right moment, a change in direction and it would've ended differently.
Or had it been inevitable? When he had met Veronica after soccer practice, her cheeks flushed, her knee socks pulled tight, had the course of events already been determined? He couldn't believe that. Events were determined by choices. To go. To stay. To run and catch the train that later crashes.
If only she had stayed behind—the night of his surprise party.
If she had waited and confronted him. She would've known that the cameras weren't his. That he was someone that she could trust. Then she wouldn't have turned him in—she would've asked questions. And they would've gone to the Kane house together.
Or before then--if he had told her about his alibi—or lack thereof--when he found her Lilly case files. He could have said, "Oh by the way, I don't know if this matters, but…."
He hadn't known. It had been different then. He couldn't have known what would happen.
If only he had stayed and waited for Lilly—to give her the shot glass, the letter. Maybe they would've gone to the beach. Fought. Fucked. She never would've gone to the pool house and discovered those tapes.
He sank back his drink. Each cut resulted in a different ending, a different life; he imagined these separate Logans—the one who told the truth, the one who waited—living out their different lives. One of those Logans would be able to call her, drive to her house, pull her close and kiss her.
Then again, if he had told Veronica the truth about his alibi, she may have closed the door on him right away. She never would've kissed him outside the Camelot. That quick, tentative, confused kiss.
If she had confronted him about the cameras, maybe she never would've solved Lilly's murder.
Had it been worth it? She would tell him that it was justice. Lilly had deserved justice. And maybe she'd be right.
Logan looked forward to watching the movies. Like Amy Fisher, the Lilly Kane Story will make network and film executives come: trust, betrayal, murder.
He even looked forward to seeing Buffy try to play Veronica. On screen, it will all make sense—one event leading to the other. Action and reaction. It will be laid out in a succinct timeline. Lilly—viviacious, wild girl—dies in Act 1. Act 2, the mystery. Act 3, the solution. It will seem inevitable that the girl in the green short-shorts washing cars at the beginning of the movie has to die.
Of course, in the Lifetime Moment of Truth movie—A Date with Darkness: the Lilly Kane Story—it would begin and end with Lilly. It will star someone like Melissa Gilbert as Celeste Kane and that Joan of Arcadia girl will play Lilly. This movie of the week will be about mothers and daughters and how the disappointing glare of Celeste propelled Lilly to make dangerous choices.
Maybe the sequel, Light of Justice would be about solving the crime—one girl's struggle to find justice for her best friend. It would star Tracy Gold as Lianne Mars and Veronica would battle anorexia.
Either way—he is tertiary. A bit player. Until the end, that is. Act 3 cannot start without him.
And suddenly Lilly was sitting next to him at the bar. She was wearing her homecoming dress. She shimmered sex. He smiled into his drink, silently thanking it for bringing her back to him—maybe the glass was a magic lamp. His hearts desire at his fingertips. But his heart felt hollow and plastic.
"I was just thinking about you, Lil." He raised his glass to her. He missed her. "What do you think of all this?"
Lilly's smile faltered for a moment. "I can play this game. I can play whatever game you want to play."
"Ah, that's the Lilly I remember. Always playing. It's refreshing." Logan motioned to the bartender. "What's your poison?"
"Whatever you're having," she said. Her voice was low, just a whisper.
"That's my girl." Logan held two fingers up to the bartender. "You know, you screwed things up for the rest of us. But I guess you weren't really thinking of us—of me—were you? It's hard to be mad at you. Mostly because you're not here. I only really remember half. And on some days, it's the good half."
"She really spun you around, didn't she?" Lilly said. She reached out and ran her finger down the side of his face. "You want to get out of here," she said.
"Oh, Lilly. Don't you know? That's all I've ever wanted—to get out of here," he said.
Logan draped his arm around Lilly, and they walked out of the bar together. Logan nuzzled Lilly's neck, and he knew something wasn't right. A hint, a whisper, a flutter of realization in the back of his mind. She led him into the alley behind the Checkerboard and pushed him up against the brick wall. Something about her hair, her neck.
And then she punched him. His head bounced against the brick wall. He stared at her, surprised, as his legs gave out and he sank to the ground. "Thank you," he said, a small smile on his lips.
Of course, she wasn't Lilly. Lilly was dead. Her arm raised up and then down, like swinging an ax, and there was nothing but darkness.
Logan hobbles out of the alleyway. This, he remembers, is why benders are a bad idea—who knows what kind of world you'll wake up to. Like today—mugging victim. His car—the monster rust bucket--is, surprisingly, still parked on the side of the street. He pulls the parking ticket from the windshield wiper.
He touches the back of his head, gingerly, a lump already forming. He breathes in sharply. She clobbered him pretty good. His head hurts, his face hurts, and it feels like she kicked him in the ribs for good measure. His kind of woman—the kind who kicked you when you were down.
He read somewhere that the body's nerves will register the sharpest pain. So this pain, sharp and constant, has replaced the dull ache of the summer. It's a refreshing change.
He sees his keys in the front seat, but his CDs are gone, and his tires are slashed. No doubt the faux-Lilly was pissed about the car. She had probably figured him for a big score.
No car, no money, no phone.
He walks a couple of blocks to the nearest park bench—outside Atlantis Community Garden—where you can score some meth. Which sounds tempting to Logan.
The stores across the street were opening—it must be morning after all. He lay down on the park bench with a groan. This is what giving up looked like. Every drink, every drug had been leading him to this place. He has no money, no credit cards, no ID. John Doe.
Logan has never really given much thought to his future—even before. He figures it is the result of living with actors. For showbiz people, the future only consisted of the next picture. All Logan had ever thought of had been escape. Freedom from Aaron. There was a time when he envisioned that freedom with Lilly. And for a split second with Veronica. He hadn't really thought about the form that freedom would take. He didn't really have any special skills—except an unusually high tolerance for alcohol. He didn't play sports. He wasn't musical. He surfed, occasionally. Usually freedom involved a boat and high seas. Maybe he was destined to be a pirate after all.
But now he is free. So this is what he's going to do from now on. He's going to live on this park bench. He'll go to the soup kitchen that Aaron donated so much money to. He will live off of the sweet irony of it all.
He smiles to himself and closes his eyes. Free at last.
What was so great about Veronica Mars, anyway, he thinks as he drifts off to sleep. Annoying, condescending, righteous Veronica. He refuses to think about how his hands could span across her entire stomach. Or how she could hold his weight when he had to lean on her. Clever, soft Veronica.
He wakes to a police officer knocking Logan's shoes with a nightstick. "Hey. Hey!"
"I'm sleeping here, if you don't mind," Logan says groggily.
"Yeah, you can't sleep here."
Logan sits up, shielding his eyes with his hand. His head throbs. Darkness creeps into his line of vision, and he thinks he might actually faint.
"Kid, are you okay? Did someone do this to you?" The officer speaks into his walkie talkie.
"Yeah, I did," Logan says, as he puts his head between his legs and concentrates on breathing, on not vomiting.
The officer takes Logan to Good Samaritan Hospital—which housed the Echolls Pediatric Wing—which Logan is thankfully nowhere near. The Echolls Pediatric Wing is, of course, larger than the Kane Oncology Ward which had been built two years earlier.
"Do you want to tell me what happened," the doctor asks as she looks at Logan's chart. "James." She flashes her penlight into his eyes, quickly, like the flick of a snake's tongue.
"My friends call me Jimmy," Logan says. He focuses on the stethoscope around her neck. It's like an amulet. He swings his legs back and forth on the bed. He feels small in this room.
"Well, Jimmy, it's too late for stitches." She hands him an ice pack for his head. "But we'll clean you up."
"I'm so glad I came all this way—for a band aid."
"And a bag of ice," she says. "Don't forget." She presses her latex covered hands to his cheek and squeezes what looks like super glue into his lip.
It hurt. A lot.
"This might sting," she says.
"You think?" he mumbles. "That's quite a soft touch you've got there."
The doctors lifts up a syringe.
"Hey, no needles," Logan says. "I've had all of my shots, thank you very much."
"Tetanus. Now don't be a big baby and pull down your pants."
"Now, Doctor, I'm not that kind of boy."
"Cute," she says.
He doesn't look as she stabs him with the shot.
"Now, Jimmy, I want you to be honest with me. Did someone do this to you?"
"I fell," Logan says.
"Do you have a place to go? There's help for you."
Logan smiles. She thinks he's homeless. Maybe he is. "Yeah, um, I don't need help."
"That's not what it looks like," she says. She rests her hand on his head. "I'd like you to talk to a social worker. She'll be here in a second." She pats him on the knee. "It just takes one step to go in the right direction." She smiles at him.
And Logan is suddenly reminded of his mother—not that his mother was about tender touches or mothering for that matter. Before she hit Hollywood, she was the big thing on Broadway, playing Blanche DuBois in a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. And every now and then, usually when it was hot outside, she'd float around the house repeating her lines.
"Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable," she'd say, soft southern accent, fanning herself. "And the one thing of which I have never, ever been guilty of."
"I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is 50 illusion," she'd say, light as air.
And this, the one he thinks of now, "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
And Blanche DuBois, like his mother, met with a bad end.
Is this what he'd been doing? Wandering around finding strangers to help him? Police officers, bartenders, doctors? Was this all because he was afraid of a tiny, blonde girl?
Logan is suddenly struck by the absurdity of it all. The Logan Echolls with a case worker. Son of billionaire movie star, a case to be managed. Someone discussed at staff meetings regarding appropriate measures. A name on a file folder.
He asks to use the bathroom, and he ducks out of the curtained room. He turns a corner, and steps on tip toe—his version of stealth--into an elevator and pushes any button.
On the next floor, he turns a corner and at the counter is Veronica's dad. He's signing some papers, talking to the receptionist. A cane is leaning against the counter. Logan freezes and quietly backs up when Keith sees him.
"Logan," Keith says, and somehow Keith is able to imbibe in those two syllables the sense that he knows exactly what Logan's done and what Logan's thinking. It's really no wonder he was Sheriff.
Logan stops. "Mr. Mars." Logan didn't know what to expect. He had only read the newspaper accounts which had been vague—2nd degree burns, smoke inhalation, broken ribs. But Keith looks okay. Tired, but okay.
"Are you all right?" Keith says.
Logan shoves his hands in his pockets. "You know, just hanging out this summer."
"In the hospital?"
Logan suddenly thinks about what he must look like. Ripped clothes, swollen lip.
"I have a thing for candy stripers. Are you going to arrest me, Sheriff—that's right you're not the sheriff anymore, so I guess I can be on my way." Logan starts to walk by Keith.
"Can I take you somewhere?" Keith asks. "I'm finished with my appointment. I was just leaving."
Logan stops. Why was he always without a ride these days, he thinks to himself. He shrugs and follows Keith out the door.
Logan does not speak. He stares out the window.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Keith says.
"That seems to be the question of the day," Logan says. "I never realized how popular I was with authority figures. And I'm not even under investigation. I appreciate the ride home, sir, but I don't think we have anything to talk about."
"Things haven't been easy for you, Logan," Keith says.
Logan looks at him, like he's just said the understatement of the year, maybe the century.
"So it seems understandable that you might be a little angry," Keith says.
"I appreciate it, but I'm not asking for permission to be angry. In fact, seeing as my one living parent is imprisoned, I kind of don't need to ask permission ever." Logan says. No wonder Keith went out with Becky the do-gooder guidance counselor. They talked alike.
"I remember that you and Veronica used to be friends."
"And I remember how you told me to stay away from her. I also remember saying that it couldn't get any worse than that. And I was way wrong on that note."
"I want you to listen to me. You have a chance to get out from under all of this. But you have to be smart. For starters, you have to stop getting into bar fights."
"It wasn't exactly a bar fight," Logan mumbles.
"Well, you smell like a bar, and you look like someone pummeled you pretty good," Keith says, looking at Logan out of the corner of his eye. "You can do anything you want now. You just have to figure out what that is."
"Thank you for imparting your wisdom, Mr. Mars. But I didn't ask."
"I know," Keith says. "But, that's kind of what adults do. We tell you stuff. You don't listen, and then you make stupid mistakes. It's the circle of life."
Keith pulls up to the Echolls gate. "So what do you want to do?"
Logan remembers that Keith is armed so chooses not to say that he truly wants to find Veronica and take off her clothes and have his way with her.
Instead he looks up at his house—not really ever a home. "I know I don't want to live here anymore," he says.
Keith nods. "Then don't."
Keith makes it sound so easy, like saying it makes things possible. No wonder Veronica thinks she can scale tall buildings.
"Look," Logan says, as he gets out of the car. "I'm sorry. About everything. You have no idea."
"There's nothing to apologize for Logan," Keith says. "You take care of yourself. You go to school. You do your homework. And you go to bed at a decent hour."
Logan cocks his head. "I don't think anyone's ever said that to me before. I'm more used to the stay away from my daughter routine."
"I know, Logan," Keith says. "We'll get to that one later. Just remember what I said, next time you find yourself wanting to do something stupid."
Logan closes the car door, opens the gate, and walks into his quiet house, his footsteps echoing.
Logan is actually relieved to be back in his X-terra. Finally—a familiar feeling: control. And special bonus—satellite radio.
From the moment he turned on the engine, he realized that he hadn't been escaping. He'd been hiding. And all it had gotten him was a night in a jail cell and a trip to the hospital. Not exactly a successful outcome. Weevil, Wallace, Duncan, Keith Mars—they all had been in attempt to hide from the one person he really wanted to talk to.
He's been orbiting Mars.
He smiles at this realization as he drives to the beach. It's where they always have their meaningful confrontations—be it smashing headlights or breaking up.
He sees her before she sees him. She's sitting on the sand. The sun glints off of her hair, longer now. He nearly drops to his knees.
She tosses a ball for Backup every now and then and the dog charges after it, tail slicing through the air in dog ecstasy. She cups hand-fulls of sand and lets the sand pour out, like an hourglass.
Backup sees Logan first and gives Logan a bark as he charges over to him. Veronica turns quickly, about to call off the man-killer when she sees him.
She shields her eyes from the sun with her hand. "Logan," she says.
He scratches Backup's ear. "Hey," he says.
And then she gasps. She must've noticed his face. "What happened? Are you all right?" She takes a step towards him, then stops.
Logan waves his hand in front of his face. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."
"But your face," she says, her fingers touching her own lip, mirroring his cuts and bruises.
"I've been battling some ghosts. Sometimes the ghosts win."
She nods at this, as if she understands. Of course, she understands. She is probably the only person who possible could understand. Which is why he is here, why he couldn't run from her forever.
"I—" she stops. "I—I don't know what to say."
"Veronica Mars? Speechless?" Logan says. "Things have changed. I thought you always saved your best barbs for me."
She grabs the ball that Backup has dropped at her feet and flings it into the ocean. She watches him bound after it.
She is continents away from him. Since she is not looking at him, he is able to move closer. He quietly stands beside her.
"I wish things could've been different," he says quietly.
"I know," she says. She turns to him, sees that he's so close, then turns back to look out at the horizon. "I don't think they could've been. Different, I mean."
"I know," he says.
They do not speak for awhile. They listen to the soft sounds of the water rolling onto shore.
"I've got this thing that I do," she says suddenly. "When it gets so bad and I don't think I can take it. I make it worse. I think about Lilly and how my favorite part of the day was riding to school with her, like there was nothing that we couldn't face. And then I think about the four of us together for homecoming, walking along the beach. And then I think about you, and the weight of your body on mine."
She smiles then, sadly. "How good it all was. And just when I think I can't take it, I go a moment longer. And then I know I can handle anything."
He lets out his breath.
"Do you want to help me?" she asks.
"Anything," he says.
She slips off her shoes. She pulls off her jeans and shirt until she is only in a tank top and her underpants. Pink panties—who would've thought Veronica Mars would wear pink panties.
"Come on," she says, and waves to him as she walks toward the ocean.
He strips down to his boxers, and walks into the water. It's freezing, but he dives under. He comes up a few feet away from her. They do not touch. They do not talk. She stretches her arms out and flexes her feet back and forth as she floats on the surface. He mimics her. He closes his eyes, as the water laps at his ears. Their bodies rise and fall with the rolling waves, like the ocean is breathing. He touches her fingertips as the heat of the sun warms his face.
THE END