Duncan put his head heavy in his hands. That was not how he pictured his reunion with Veronica after three years. But, then again, he couldn't blame her. Three years of silence and without even a phone call, he sends her divorce papers.
"I'm such an idiot! How could I be so insensitive?" Duncan thought to himself. He really wasn't in the mood to work anymore. So he stood up, grabbed his suitcase, and headed out of the building, the hot sun pleasant on his skin after a morning in the office. He walked across the parking lot towards his SUV but was distracted when he saw someone in their car. At first it appeared that they weren't moving. Their head was resting precariously on their arms and they were slumped over on the steering wheel. But upon second glance, Duncan could see the woman's body raking with sobs. It took him a second to realise it was Veronica. He wasn't sure what to do. He had been such an ass to her, he no longer had the right to be her protector. But he couldn't just leave her there like that, so upset, so broken. It was killing him. So he walked over to her car and tapped on the window, her attention snapping immediatly up to his face. Veronica took a second to wipe the tears from her eyes before pulling the handle and opening the car door. She swung her legs over to the side so she was facing outwards. Duncan bent down on his knees so he was eyes level with her, not caring that he was wearing an Armani suit.
"Are you ok?" The question was rather retorical, but he figured he better ask anyways.
Veronica just looked at him, her glassy blue-grey eyes booring into his.
"No," she answered thruthfully.
"You wanna go for a drive?"
"What?"
"I wanna take you somewhere. You feel up to it?"
"Depends. Where are you taking me?"
"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you now would it?" Duncan asked, letting a little smile play across his face.
Veronica gave him a sly, searching smile before reaching for his extended hand to help her up. Veronica and Duncan stood there for a second, staring into eachothers eyes, both feeling the spark that had shocked through their bodies at the point where their hands had touched. She turned around and locked the door of the car before following Duncan to his truck. He opened the door for her and she climbed in, did up her seatbelt, and waited for Duncan to get in and start the car. The ride was silent for the first ten mintues, Veronica taking the time to look at the passing scenery through the window.
"Do you ever think about coming back?" Duncan asked, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of him the whole time.
Veronica wasn't sure how to answer him. Not a second of any day went by that she didn't think about what she'd left behind and the family she'd once had.
"Sometimes. More now than when I first moved. I was too angry to miss this place." she answered, still looking out the window at the view.
"I miss you you know. I miss what we had."
Veronica was speechless. Three years of seperation and silence and he was telling her that he missed her now? She wasn't sure how to respond. So she spoke from her heart.
"I miss you too. I miss Neptune. I miss our daughter. I miss the sun. I miss Lily," her answers were whispers.
Duncan stole a glace at her. Her head was leaning against the window, her eyes clouded over by grief.
As she looked around, Veronica finally realised where Duncan was taking her. Her mouth dropped open in awe.
"Duncan...no. No I can't do this. I can't go there," she said as her eyes followed the winding, empty road. Thick trees closed in the road on both sides, blocking out the view of the ocean. The trees were so tall that they blocked out the sun, darkness shrouding the road in an eerie calm.
"Veronica it's been three years since you've been here," he said, trying to keep her calm. "I need you to go. For you. For me. For our daughter. Don't you think it's been too long? It's been three years since you've seen her."
"Duncan that's not her. That's nothing more that a concrete tombstone marking an empty grave. That's not our daughter. Our daughter was never found. She was kidnapped and after she was missing for a year, we burried her. We gave up hope. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to keep looking. But you insisted that we needed to move on. And I could have if we had had some closure. It would have been all the much easier if we had just found her body. Then I wouldn't still be clinging to a hope that probably doesn't even exist," she finished in a huff. She had hardly stopped to take breath.
"So you still think she's alive?" Duncan asked, not wanting to drag up old issues. Veronica's insistance that their daughter was still alive was one of the reasons they had split up.
"I don't know Duncan," she said, her voice was barely audiable. "I don't know anymore. I still don't think she's dead. I never gave up hope. I just stopped fighting."
Duncan wanted more than anything to take away her pain. To give her back the one thing in the world she longed for more than anything. But the one thing that could save her was gone. And as far as the both of them knew, she was never coming back.
Duncan pulled the truck through the gates and down the winding path of the cemetary. He kept driving before pulling up at the familiar spot just a couple feet from their daughters grave. He shut off the engine and undid his seatbelt, waiting a couple of minutes for Veronica to be ready. She never said a word.
Duncan opened his door and walked over to the passengers side, opened the door, and waited for Veronica to step out. But she didn't. She continued to stare straight ahead, completely zoned out. Duncan placed his hand on her shoulder but her attention remained infront of her.
"Come on sweetie," he said gently. He reached across her lap and undid her seatbelt, then, with his arm around the both of her shoulders, twisted her body so she was facing outwards. With great care, he placed his hand under her arm and pulled her up to her feet. When he looked down at her hand, it was shaking. His arm still drapped over her shoulders, he led her just far enough away to close the door, locked it, and walked her a couple feet more. Duncan noticed how staggered and shallow her breathing was. He continued to lead her over to the tombstone of their late daughter. When they got there, Veronica's breath became clear and full. She bent down and traced her fingers over the words that did no justice that the little girl who's life had just begun.
Emma Lillian KaneYou're the closest to Heaven
That I'll ever be
And I don't want to
Miss you tonight
Forever Loved
Janurary 6th 2010-Unknown
"Why her Duncan?" she asked. "Why her? She was only six months old when she was taken from us. How's that for justice?"
"It wasn't fair," Duncan said, bending down beside Veronica and taking her hand in his. "I would have rathered it if it were me. At least then you could hae a piece of me. I could have lived through Emma."
"Funny, I was thinking the same thing. That maybe if I was the one that had died that we would have been better off."
"Well it doesn't matter now. It happened this way and there's nothing we can do about it," Duncan told her, keeping his voice as smooth and collected as possible.
Veronica changed her position so she was sitting.
"Do you remeber the song?" Duncan asked as he changed his position as well so he was sitting beside her.
"Of course. It was the song we played at our wedding. It was song we played over and over when I was pregnant with Emma. It was the only song that calmed her down when she wouldn't stop crying. Naturally it would be the song we would put on her tombstone. No parent should ever have to burry thier child," she said calmly.
Duncan reached over her knee and grabbed her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers.
"You ready to go?" he asked.
Veronica didn't answer. She just continued to stare absentmindedly at the grave.
"Veronica?" he asked again.
"Huh? Did you say something?"
"Are you ok?"
"Ya I'm fine. Just reminiscing. Remembering the last time I was with her."
Duncan was silent with her, the both of them remebering the last night they spent with their daughter, the last time they would ever see her.
Since graduating from highschool, Veronica Mars had been a Private Investigator. She had taken over her father's buisness and had a sucess record that millions envied. Her latest case was a doozy. A six year old girl vanishes in the middle of the night while her parents were having a party. Absolutly no clues to her whereabouts. Two days later she was found in the trunk of her neighbours car, suffocated to death from a lack of oxygen. By process of elimination, she had figured out that the neighbour, who was moving to a new town, had decided that since she could get the little girl's father to herself, she would take the kid and pass her off as her own. So she snuck into the house in the middle of the night while everyone was sleeping and brought her over to her house, placed her in the trunk (since she didn't want the girl to be seen in the back of her car) and went inside to get the rest of the boxes. But she ended up passing out on the couch, therefore suffocating the poor girl to death.
That night when Veronica went home, the first thing she did was went into her daughters room and picked her up, clinging onto her as if she was a lifeline. Later that night, Veronica and Duncan climbed into bed, Emma still wrapped tightly in a blanket in her arms.
"Hey don't get too comfortable with you-know-who over there," Duncan had said seeing that Veronica was still holding onto Emma.
"Can't she just sleep in here tonight?" Veronica had pleaded. She gave him her cutest puppy-dog face, the one that always worked on him.
"What? Too lazy to take her back to her room?" he kidded.
"Hard case. Six year old girl suffocated in the trunk of her neighbours car. I don't wanna leave her tonight Duncan. Can she pretty please just stay in here with us?"
Duncan gave her a little smile. "Sure."
He had watched as Veronica slid down until she was laying on her back, her arm still wrapped over the babies back, fingers wrapping gently around the tiny whisps of hair that barely covered their daughters hair, Emma's head resting gently on Veronica's shoulder. Duncan had spent the majority of that night watching the two of them sleep, too afraid that if he closed his eyes he would miss something. Later that day while Veronica and Duncan were at work, their only child was taken, a robbery turned kidnapping while the nanny was watching her. That was when everything turned south.
"It was a good last night with her though wasn't it?" Duncan asked.
"Ya it was. I just wish that it didn't have to be the last night. I wish that I had stayed home the next day. I wasn't feeling all that good but I had forced myself to go. The past three years all I kept doing was blaming myself. That maybe if I had stayed home then things would have turned out differently."
"Ya it would have turned out differently. Maybe I would have lost both of you. But Veronica, listen to me, things didn't happen differenly. It happend this way and there's nothing more that we can do about it. We should be thankful."
"Thankful? Thankful Duncan? Our daughter was kidnapped! We haven't seen her in three years! Our marrige fell apart because of it!" she yelled, all of her anger finally making its way to the surface.
She stood up, starting to walk away from him. But he was hot on her heels.
"Veronica wait!" he said. She turned around and gave him her best glare. But the hurt in her eyes was still apparent and Duncan could see that behind the mask she had put on, she was about to break.
"Im sorry. It was insensitive."
Her expression softened as he talked. He took a step towards her. And another. And another until they were face to face. And as they came face to face, Veronica could feel hot tears starting to prickle behind her eyes. They spilled over before she could help it. Duncan took the last closing step and let her rest her tired body on his chest, resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her body, letting her release all the frustration and anger that she kepy cooped up inside for the past three years. And as Duncan burried his head in her hair, he could feel his own hot tears behind his eyes. Tears for the daughter they had lost. Tears for the relationship that had failed. Tears for a future they no longer had.