Part 10

"I don't know how to thank you," Veronica gushed as she stepped out of the sheriff's vehicle clutching a bouquet of Malaysian mums. "I mean, I only asked for directions and you were so kind to bring me here."

The sheriff nodded and grinned at her. Veronica was amazed at how accommodating the sheriff was. Then again, she had learned that Keith Mars had served as sheriff once as well. When she had rolled down the cab's window to ask the good sheriff for directions to the cemetery, he had offered to drive her there himself. "Anything for Keith's daughter," he assured her. "Let me go and show you which one is his spot, okay?"

Veronica gave him a lopsided smile. "So you heard that I forgot some things?"

The grin was endearing. "I could actually see it for myself," he mumbled.

"Oh my God!" Veronica gasped. "Did we know each other? I'm so sorry, sheriff!"

The sheriff shook his head and chuckled. "See now if I knew you'd be embarrassed about it I wouldn't have said anything. And yes, we used to date." Veronica flushed. The sheriff extended a hand and then walked her across the grass. "It was a very long time ago. You were jailbait. And call me Leo."

"Jailbait, huh?" Veronica responded easily, wondering about how easily she had become comfortable with this man. It had been almost the same with Logan. There were people that, even when you had no real recollection of them, you could so easily grow to trust. Duncan had done so much for her. She wondered why they had lived in a sort of tight distrust the entire time. Perhaps it was the deception. Maybe Duncan had always been haunted by his lie.

She stared at a white marble angel in the distance. Even if she had no memory of who informed her of this one fact, Veronica knew that white marble angels often stood guard above the graves of those who died so young.

i"I told you before, and I'll tell you again," Duncan's quiet voice came. It was so close to her ear. Veronica wondered why he had been so close then. "I don't want us taking her here. Why do you insist on this?"

It was then that the woman's voice responded softly. "Her son is buried here. She'll blame you for the rest of her life if she learns that you never let her visit."

"She doesn't even know she's here. She doesn't even realize her baby's dead."

Veronica felt a female hand rub circular patterns on her back. She was rolling by, she knew. Seated, there was no control. Even if she wanted, Veronica could not move her legs.

"Fine," Duncan answered. "We're staying for ten minutes and then we have to leave. I don't want anyone taking pictures."

"We're in Hong Kong, Mr Kane. You're just a businessman. I doubt people will be snapping crazily away for stolen photographs."

The chair stopped, and Veronica's eyes were downcast. Then, she remembered that fragrance of strawberries engulf her. Soon, a black-haired woman knelt by her feet. Veronica felt herself hoisted a little, then settled on the grass. They were prickly, and her memories were of an intense need to scratch her legs. Her hand was led to touch the cool marble and trace letters etched on the stone.

The whisper in her ear was assuring, and Veronica wondered why she was being told them. "You can choose a name, and we can change it. Just wake up, Veronica," the woman told her.

She tried to remembered, tried so hard and it was so difficult. What was written there? What letters were embedded into the stone that the woman had run her limp hand over them?

bBaby Boy Kane/b/i

Veronica gasped at the eerie memory. She had been there. She had been aware. It was possible to remember. If she could find snippets of memory from the time when she was insensate, then clearly it was possible to remember that life she had forgotten that she desperately needed to remember.

She could still remember that life with Logan.

"Li Shia knew everything," she murmured.

In her mind, that gravestone was clear and stark. She was going to replace that marker. She was going to find out where Duncan had buried her baby, if she had to beg the liar for that information. Her son was not going to lie forever under a marker that gave him no first name and the wrong last name.

"I'm sorry?"

Veronica blinked away the white etched writing on the black marble. She turned to face the concerned eyes of Neptune's sheriff. "Nothing," she replied with a small smile.

They stopped before a gravestone, and a small plot of green grass against the brownish and dry grass around it. He nodded towards it to indicate that this was what she had wanted to find. "Your father," he said.

"Someone's been taking care of this," Veronica said in wonder. "Did you?"

Leo shrugged. "As much as I want to take the honor, Keith Mars was once part of Neptune's finest. We have funds for this sort of thing, and an arrangement with the caretakers."

"Well, either way, thank you so much." Veronica knelt and laid the flowers down. She glanced up at Leo, who nodded and walked a few feet away to give her privacy. "Hey daddy. I'm sorry it took me so long." She swallowed the knot in her throat. With everything that she had done, each person she met, every place she visited, it seemed like she was slowly waking up and remembering bits and pieces. It was a little too easy, and maybe it was. It only took acceptance that the life she was being told was incorrect. It took someone who would tell her that her dreams were actual memories and not products of her imagination. "I remembered you," Veronica whispered. "Even when I first woke up, I remembered you. But I thought you were just a dream. I'm sorry, daddy."

All through her journey in Neptune, and even while she was on the place, she kept herself from hating Duncan. She recognized what he had done, and she had known that he loved her. He was right. During her life with him, Duncan had never hit her, and had provided her with everything he could provide.

Veronica had been helpless once, alone, hurt. Duncan had taken care of her.

She didn't want to hate him. God help her not hate him.

"Daddy, what did you want me to become?" Veronica sniffled. "I remember you, and I remember that I loved you. But I don't remember what you wanted for me."

She settled down on the grass to sit, because she didn't want her knees to become sore. Veronica looked up to see Leo watching her from a distance. When he saw that she had seen him, he turned his back and walked farther away.

Veronica turned back to the gravestone. "Daddy, did you want me to work with law enforcement?" She thought not, but it killed her that she didn't know.

i"…my action-figure daughter."/i

Veronica smiled at the memory of his voice. "Did you want me to finish college?"

i"I want you to save your money for your college tuition."/i

She shook her head. "Did you want me to live happily ever after with the richest guy I can meet?" Veronica sighed. "I didn't do any of that. I'm jobless, and I didn't finish college."

iHe lay in bed, countless tubes and needles piercing his body. Veronica reached out hesitantly and laid a hand on his arm. His skin was hot, and she felt the fluids pulsing in and out of him moving under her fingers.

"Dad," she whispered tentatively.

Keith Mars opened his eyes blearily. His gaze was unfocused at first, until he looked at her. "Hey," he greeted softly, "is my action figure daughter turning into a crying Barbie?"

Veronica smiled through her tears, then self-consciously pushed her hair back. "And has my tough cookie dad been laid low by health problems?" she teased back.

To that, Keith returned her said smile and replied, "It looks like it, honey."

She closed her eyes. It was then that the tears flowed nonstop. "It's just a bug," she told him, knowing he knew she was lying.

"I'm going to be fine, Veronica," Keith assured her. "How are you and Duncan?"

"We're okay. Don't you worry about us." Briefly, she remembered Celeste Kane's proposition. "And don't worry about a thing. I'll take care of everything, dad."

"Come here." Keith lifted the arm with fewer needles stuck into it, and drew his daughter into an embrace. "I don't want you to worry, or to change your lifestyle for me. We'll survive this, Veronica. We survived a psycho murderer. This is easy."/i

"I abandoned you," she said in realization. Veronica blinked quickly, stupidly. She tightly shut her eyes and forced herself to remember exactly what happened after that conversation. When had she seen her father again?

She needed to know if she had walked away from her father so easily. Duncan had told her about the money that Celeste had offered, and she had taken. Had she been that heartless?

Before she knew it, she was sobbing brokenly, one hand covering her eyes and the other grasping at the grass. "Oh God." What kind of daughter had she been? How had she been able to leave a dying father?

"Veronica," came Leo's low calming voice. He grasped her elbows and pulled her back. She felt his chest against her back. He must have knelt with her when he aw her break down. "Shhhh. It's alright, Veronica."

"I left him," she sobbed. "I left him here to die alone."

The smell of detergent on his starched handkerchief was unmistakable. Veronica felt the stiff and scratchy cloth as he wiped at her tears. "Hey now," he said soothingly. "Veronica, I'm sure there's more to it than that."

But all she could think about was that knowledge, in that swift visit of her memory, that there was a proposition that she must have taken. She needed to know so much, but Leo would not be able to enlighten her on that. Why had she abandoned a dying man?

"Leo, I have to know," she sobbed.

He nodded. "I'll do anything to help you," he told her.

The words scared her, not because of him, because he was so tender and sweet and giving. He could tell just in the simple conversation that he had carried in the car, and the unassuming way he held her as she cried. The words scared her because they encapsulated Duncan's reasons. "Do you know why I left?" she asked uncertainly.

"I wish I did," he told her softly. "Maybe I could have helped you. You were with Duncan Kane then."

"Then it was true," she concluded, voice breaking. Since Duncan had revealed to her that she had left Neptune and ended their relationship when Celeste offered her money, she had hoped that he had lying. After all, it was such a cold and calculating action that Veronica thought she would be unable to do it. "I left and hid in Hong Kong, and let my dad die alone."

"You don't remember anything at all?"

She gave him a shy smile through her tears. "Maybe I played it down some when I said I forgot a few things."

Leo tightened his hand around her shoulder and said, "Let me see what I can find out for you, okay? Will you be comfortable telling me what you know?"

She shrugged. "Most of what I know I was told by Duncan. I'm here to find out the truth. I don't know if I can be comfortable with the past if I only get told."

He stood up and held his hands out. She took them and allowed him to pull her up. "I want to trust you."

He gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Well I want to trust you too. Somehow an amnesiac Veronica Mars is easier to trust than the snarky kid I dated a long time ago," Leo informed her. "So, let me show you how much I didn't learn from the past."

She cocked her head to the side, wondering what he meant.

"And there's that head tilt!" Leo laughed. "You loved to do that. You were the master of the head tilt. You owned everyone!"

That comment lightened her heart. It was such a simple thing about herself, but it was what she came to Neptune for. Veronica needed to find out who she was. A comment as simple as that introduced her to the girl she used to be. Apparently, she dated a cop, and she tilted her head a lot. From the sound of it, she did it when she needed help. That meant she could perform sly manipulation tricks as well.

"I'm going to invite you to the station," he sighed.

"You make it sound like such a big deal."

Leo smirked. "Believe me, if you knew you, you'd know this is a huge deal!"

"Then I'd have to think of the best way to thank you."

His eyebrows lifted. "You're not with Duncan Kane anymore, right?"

Veronica's eyebrows arched, and she shook her head.

"Oh no," he mumbled, "you're not with the bad boy, are you?"

"The bad boy?" she rasped. Even though her voice was still thick with tears, she was curious to grasp as much of her personality as she could get from the words and actions of someone who used to know her.

"Well you were forever bailing out the leader of the criminal element of Neptune, that Navarro kid," Leo told her. "And you dumped me for that Echolls kid, who was easily as bad, if not worse, than Navarro."

At the mention of Logan, she felt a pang of loneliness assail her. Veronica shook her head. "I don't want to be involved with anyone until I feel whole again."

"And if I make you feel whole while I'm helping you remember, will you consider a dinner and a movie? You did dump me very suddenly."

Veronica reached out and squeezed Leo's wrist. "If you help me, I'd thank you forever," she told him as honestly as she could. "But I'm also going to want to meet up again with that bad boy you mentioned. He's the best man I know for me."

Leo shook his head good naturedly. "I'm always going to be left behind," he decided. "I should really consider being a bad guy. Nice guys always finish last."

Veronica's lips curved as quick images teased her brain, of kissing Leo on her front porch, of watching him play with his band, of his arrest of the staff of a pound, of his handing over tapes to her. "Leo, you're going to be perfect for another girl. You don't have to change anything about you."

"Thanks," he said. "I'll wait in the car for you so I can drive you."

Veronica smiled as he walked away, knowing he was giving her that privacy again so that she could say goodbye to her father. "Are you sure you can spare the time, sheriff?" she called after him. "What about your law enforcement stuff?"

Leo turned around with a grin. "I know you, Veronica Mars! Keeping myself around you is preventive. If I leave you to explore by yourself, you're bound to break the law one way or another," he yelled back. "I'll be waiting in the car!"

Veronica smiled and leaned down to touch her father's gravestone. One day with Sheriff Di Mato, and she learned a few things about herself. She dated a cop; she manipulated people; she was consistently with bad boys; she broke the law.

"Well dad, you probably wanted me with that guy, didn't you? You probably disapproved, but you really liked him, didn't you?" Veronica smiled and traced the letters of Keith's name.

iVeronica's jaw stubbornly jutted out as she rode in the car with Keith. Her beautiful white dress was crumpled around her, hopelessly wrinkled after sleeping on Duncan's lap the entire way home after their limo party.

"What possessed Duncan to let Lilly influence him like that?" Keith asked in the car. "You saw how they were. Lilly Kane has never been a good influence to you, Veronica, but I let you stay friends with her because I knew Duncan would watch out for you. Now, with Lilly teamed up with Lynn's boy, those two have gotten to be too much of a handful." Keith sighed. He glanced at his daughter. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Veronica shook her head.

"So you're not going to protest when I ground you?" Keith studied his daughter, with her messy long hair and blotchy makeup. "No Duncan, Lilly or Logan for a week."

"So I suppose I shouldn't go to school."

Keith's eyebrows arched. His perfect daughter never answered back. "Did you learn to answer back from Lilly or from Logan? God knows I've heard those two answer back to their parents more than once."

Veronica glared at her father. "Don't blame Lilly or Logan for this, dad. Just ground me if you'll ground me. We were all equally to blame."

"Oh Veronica," Keith muttered. "If there's a way I can keep you and Duncan away from Lilly and Logan, you two will probably be easier to handle."/i

Veronica released a long held breath. "Daddy," she whispered. Finally, a new memory. It was not one that she had seen in her dreams, but it was real. "If you were alive, you'd probably die," she muttered, then winced at the logic. "Nothing you wanted ever happened. I'm never going to be with Duncan. Not again. You'd probably fry him alive if you find out what he did.

"You thought I'd be easier to handle with Duncan, and he did it. I didn't have a choice."

Veronica blinked away the tears. She was never going to heal if she kept remembering what Duncan had done. She was never going to fix herself if she latched on to the thought that Duncan had to be blamed.

"Duncan does not figure in my life anymore," she said, almost as if it was her vow.

Veronica glanced towards Leo, and saw him leaning back against the vehicle. She looked down at Keith's name on the stone and whispered, "Bye, dad. I'm going off to find your missing daughter, so I can leave Neptune as close to complete as I can be. The new sheriff looks like he's going to help me. Odd, isn't it? Love you."

She walked over to Leo. On the way, she sang softly, "I'm off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Veronica reached Leo, and she saw him frown. "The Wizard of Oz?" he asked. "Where did that come from?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. Did we talk about that movie a lot? Did we watch that movie when we were dating?"

"Definitely not." Leo walked around the car and opened the door for her. When he closed the door, he shook his head. "Damn, I failed again. If I'm going to be such a bad guy, I shouldn't be opening doors for you."

Veronica chuckled slightly. "Don't ever change, sheriff."

tbc