Title: Lies My Mother Told Me
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for characters of my own creation.
Summary: "Ryan Mars. Although on my birth certificate is says Ryan Elizabeth Mars Echolls. Hello, Daddy." Ryan Mars, at seventeen, has just found her father, and found that her mother has been lying to her, her whole life.
If it wasn't bad enough that now she had to come here everyday, she now was stuck here, after hours, with her mother. Ryan Mars was now sitting at an empty table playing with her napkin at the Class of 2006 Neptune High 20-Year Reunion. Her mom was off talking to some lady with brown and blue hair and poor Ryan was trying to scam some champagne. Sad to say it wasn't working.
Veronica Mars was having more fun then she thought possible. Two years after high school had ended she had practically run away four months pregnant. Eighteen years later she moved back into her old apartment complex with her seventeen year old daughter Ryan, who was acting more and more like her father everyday. She was happy as a clam that Logan hadn't shown up yet. That would have been a mess, and knowing Ryan, she would have caused a scene.
"So that's what Logan's offspring looks like." Mac said over her champagne flute.
"Yep. I swear she's like his evil twin. She's got my brains and his snark." Veronica nodded looking over at her daughter. "The combination is deadly."
"Does he know?" Mac asked in a hushed-concerned voice.
"No." Veronica said without hesitation. "Think about it. All the stuff he was going through before I left, and then adding a baby on top of that. I couldn't do that to him. I couldn't do that to Ryan."
"Mom," Ryan said walking up to her mother. "I'm going to go outside for some air. It's a bit stuffy in here."
"Okay, just don't go far." Ryan rolled her eyes and walked away.
"God, she looks so much like him." Mac breathed.
Veronica just watched as her daughter walked out of the high school doors and out into the courtyard.
Ryan found a worn yellow bench and sat down, putting her purse in her lap and digging through it. "Come on, where are you?" she mumbled. "Aha!" she squealed with triumph as she pulled out a hot pink lighter and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. She pulled one of the deadly sticks out of its pack and put it between her gloss-shined lips. She tried clicking her lighter on, twice, three times, shake, four times. Ryan groaned loudly as she threw her lighter across the courtyard, immediately digging back into her bag to find another lighter.
Suddenly a flickering light appeared in front of her face. She saw a lighted silver zippo centimeters away from the end of her cigarette. She leaned forward and inhaled the nicotine into her body. She breathed a sigh of relief and looked up towards the zippo holder. He was about her mom's age and looked very well kept. She couldn't help but think she'd seen him before.
"Those will kill you, you know." He said as he took a seat next to her on the bench.
"Slowly but surely." She practically whispered looking down at her fag. She looked over at the stranger. "I'm counting on it."
The man chuckled slightly to himself as he leaned back. "What are you doing here?" He asked bluntly. Ryan looked at him incredulously. "I mean you look pretty young for it to be your twenty year reunion." He amended.
"I'm just here with my mom." Ryan answered as she took a drag.
"Your dad couldn't make it?"
"My dad couldn't even make it to my birth. I highly doubt that a high school reunion would have him running back." Ryan responded.
"Sorry." The man mumbled.
"What about your date?" Ryan said crisply, clearly trying not to acknowledge his apology.
"Ah… Well…" He trailed.
"I see. Your just here to scam on all the people who were ug-os in high school but are now super model status. Nice." Ryan turned her gaze on the man, strangely accusing.
"Not really." He countered.
"Left little wifey at home?" Ryan went on.
"No wife."
"Any rug rats?"
"Not that I know of."
"Unfinished buisness?"
"What's with all the questions?"
"What are you dodging?"
"You're a strange little girl."
"I've been called worse." Ryan said shrugging.
At that moment the school doors flung open and a clearly peeved blonde came through, "Ryan! What did I tell you about smoking!"
"Ronnie?" The man practically whispered.
Ryan stood slowly. "You know her?"
"Logan." Veronica breathed.
"Logan." Ryan repeated. "Logan as in Logan Echolls?" Ryan asked her mother harshly.
Veronica reached for her daughter's hand. "Ryan this isn't the time –" Veronica was cut off.
"Not the time for what mom?" Ryan pulled her arm out of her mother's grip.
" 'Mom'?" Logan repeated.
Ryan whirled on Logan. "Yeah Veronica Mars is my mom." She stuck out her hand. "Ryan Mars. Although on my birth certificate is says Ryan Elizabeth Mars Echolls. Hello, Daddy."
Logan looked from Ryan's out stretched hand to Veronica, to Ryan, his daughter's face. She held so much of his anger in her eyes, that it was too painfully to even think that he missed it before. "The Echolls temper…" He breathed not letting his eyes linger from his daughters.
"Yeah. That's right. And I got it in spades." Ryan picked up her purse of the bench and stormed off toward the parking lot. When she suddenly stopped. She looked up at Logan, who was still staring at her in disbelief and then at her mother, who had tears streaming down her face. "You didn't leave." She said looking at Logan. She then turned to her mother. "You did. You lied to me. Seventeen years, and you could have told me, but you lied to me." Ryan now had tears of her own marring her blushed cheeks. "I trusted you. I held you when you were crying over missing him." Ryan opened her mouth to speak again but instead threw her hands up and turned around.
"Ryan, please, give me a chance to explain!" Veronica said chasing after her daughter.
Ryan turned so fast on her mother that it made her world spin. "No! You had seventeen years of chances and you never took them. Not one." Ryan continued to walk away.
"Ryan where are you going?" Veronica screamed after her daughter.
Ryan turned around and started walking backwards. "You forgot you gave me the keys." Ryan responded shrugging and heading for their jeep Cherokee.
"Ronnie?" Logan said speaking up.
Veronica breathed in audibly and turned to face the man that she loved for every second the world turned.
"Is it true?" He asked sounding strangely vulnerable.
Veronica nodded solemnly.
Logan looked around for something to hit; something to say. It was as if he was a trapped animal with no way of getting out. He began running after Ryan. "Ryan!" he called.
Ryan whipped around "What!" she snapped.
"Whoa, chill, it's just me." Logan said, his hands in the air as if he was surrendering.
"If you don't mind I'd like to be alone right now." Ryan tried saying as calm as she possibly could.
"I know that, trust me, I do, but I think that maybe you shouldn't. You could come to my hotel and stay on the couch." Logan tried to convince her.
Ryan looked around for another option, not finding one. She nodded her head. "Just let me put these in the car." She said holding up car keys.
Ryan turned and walked toward the jeep and opened the unlocked door and placed the keys on the driver seat. She turned back to face Logan.
"We have to stop by my house to get some of my stuff." Logan nodded eagerly.
"Where's your house?" He asked leading her to a bright yellow X-terra.
"Do you remember where mom used to live in high school?" Ryan asked climbing into the passenger side. Logan nodded. "That's where I live."
The ride to the apartment complex was more then a little strange. It was completely silent. Logan even had to look over and check that Ryan wasn't one of his booze induced hallucinations.
"Stop looking at me." Ryan said tonelessly still looking out the window.
"Sorry." Logan mumbled clearly embarrassed.
Ryan audibly sighed. "Sorry, it's just I've imagined this moment for so long that it kind of got redundant. And now that it's finally happened, I don't know, I guess I'm a little bit peeved."
Logan turned into the parking lot and pulled into an empty space. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"Yeah, sure." Ryan said with a slight nod.
Logan followed Ryan up to the second floor balcony and to the apartment 110. Ryan dug in her purse and pulled out another set of keys. "Grandpa?" She called into the obviously, empty apartment.
"You didn't tell me Keith was here!" Logan said in a stage whisper.
"Chill out, he's bed-ridden. Just stay in the living room and he won't see you." Ryan explained quickly. She turned and walked down the hall into what used to be Veronica's room. "Grandpa," She said as she pulled out a backpack and started pulling things out of draws and shoving them in. "If mom asks tell her I'm staying at Lily's. Okay?"
"Do you need a ride?" Keith asked from a room of off the hallway.
Logan saw Ryan smile to herself, "No, Lily's outside." Ryan grabbed a teddy bear off her bed and shoved it into her bag and zipped it up. "Okay, bye Grandpa. Love you."
"Love you too, sweetheart. Hey, grab your pills." Keith answered.
Ryan visible stiffened. "Okay." She mumbled. Ryan marched into the kitchen and grabbed a prescription pill bottle off of the microwave. She looked up at Logan expectantly. "Let's go."
As soon as Ryan shut the door of the X-terra she pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number. Logan could hear a female voice answer. "Hey Lil, I need a favor."
"When do you not need a favor?" Lily Kane asked with sarcasm.
"I'm staying at my dad's tonight. I need you to cover." Ryan said never missing a beat.
"Wait you found your dad? You better give me details Monday morning!"
Ryan smiled at her best friend. "I promise."
Ryan hung up the phone and slipped it back into purse. "Let me guess, Lily's last name is Kane, and her father's name is Duncan."
"Yeah, how did you guess?"
"Let's just say we go way back."
"Dad!" Veronica shouted as she burst through the door. "Dad?" She jogged down the hall to her daughter's room to see if Ryan was there, she wasn't. "Daddy?" Veronica went into her father's room to see that he was just coming out of a sleep-induced coma. "Dad, did Ryan come home?"
"Yeah, she said that she was going to Lily's." He answered trying to sit up.
"Thanks." Veronica ran from the room, towards the kitchen. She grabbed the phone off of the cradle and punched in the familiar number.
"Hello, Kane residence." Lily Kane answered perkily.
"Lily, its Ryan's mom. Is she there?" Veronica asked desperately into the phone.
"Yes and no." Lily said defiantly. "She is here, but she's not accepting phone calls."
"Lily, this is not a time to press my buttons. Where is my daughter?" Veronica yelled letting her emotions get the best of her.
"I told you she's here but she doesn't want to talk to you." Lily responded. Lily knew that if Ryan needed her to cover for her, she was usually mad at her mom or she was just with her boyfriend. And since that wasn't the case, she used the process of elimination.
"Put your father on." Veronica said monotony.
"Uh, Mrs. Mars my dad is kind of busy-" Lily said trying to pull and excuse out of her ass.
"Put him on. Now."
"Okay, okay." Lily held the phone to her chest and walked over to her father's study, where he was watching a baseball game on ESPN. "Dad, Ryan's mom wants to talk to you."
Duncan looked up and held out his hand. Once the phone was securely in his hand Lily made a mad dash for the door. Duncan put the phone to his ear. "Okay, Lily just ran from the room. What happened?"
"Why didn't you tell me that Logan was going to be at the reunion?" Veronica asked accusingly.
"Uh, because I didn't know. Why? Veronica what happened?" Duncan asked sincerely, leaning forward in his chair.
"Ryan knows! She ran off, and she's not here, and she told dad that she was over at your house with Lily but I know that's not true. I think she's with Logan." Veronica rambled.
"Okay, I get why your upset, but if she's with Logan then, isn't she safe?" Duncan asked idly playing with the remote control. "I mean he is her father."
Veronica sighed into the phone. "I know, I know. It's just that… God, I just don't want her to hate me. I know Logan does but…"
"Well, right now, they both have a right to hat you but I don't think that Ryan could ever hate you." Duncan said turning the TV off and walking around to his desk. "And as for Logan, if he thinks about it, he might understand. But you know Logan; thinking is not really is forte."
"Alright, I think that I'll have some burboun and take a nap." Veronica could here Duncan chuckle on the other line right before she hung up. Veronica slipped the phone back in the cradle and walked over to a bookshelf in the living room. She picked up a blank tap and slipped it into the tape player. She sat on the couch with her knees to her chest watching her three-year-old daughter on the screen.