Okay, now we're moving into Mars vs. Mars territory. This ep won't be disposed of in a few sentences like the last couple were. You'll recognize a few snatches of dialogue here and there.

Disclaimer: Still 'tain't mine.

X X X X X

I quickly made arrangements to meet Vanessa after school, where she said she'd give me all she had on her affair with Aaron Echolls. I told her I'd be asking around about it, and she said that that wouldn't bother her.

Self-confident, that Vanessa Mencken.

By lunchtime, though, Logan's and my fight had been shoved roughly to the inside pages of the Neptune High gossip column. Carrie Bishop had accused Mr. Rooks -- one of the few good teachers at Neptune High -- of having seduced her and gotten her pregnant.

I didn't believe it, of course, and promised Mr. Rooks I'd look into that, too. It's not like he was Aaron Echolls, after all.

My plate was full.

At lunch Wallace and I got to watch Carrie be tormented by some of her fellow students. I didn't sympathize in the least. Carrie had been the gossip queen of Neptune High for a long time, and she who lives by the poisonous remark shall die by the poisonous remark.

Then I began to ask Wallace a favor when he interrupted with, "Let me guess. Borrow her permanent file?"

"You're half right."

Wallace rolled his eyes. "Who else?"

"Vanessa Mencken."

Wallace looked at me suspiciously. "This have something to do with the big fight you had with Logan Echolls this morning?"

I looked at him with mock disappointment. "I remember you when you were young and innocent."

"Yeah, and then we met."

Right then Duncan walked by and I excused myself to chase after him. I wanted to find out exactly what was wrong with him and I had a plan to do that too.

Did I say my plate was full? So beyond full --

X X X X X

After school, Wallace caught up with me as I was leaving the building. He looked around like he was in a bad spy movie, then held out two files.

"Carrie and Vanessa's files." He yanked them back as I reached for them.

I started to glare -- no one can resist the patented Veronica Mars glare -- when he said, "It's risky enough getting you one of these things. Two of them? If you're caught, I've never met you, I've never seen you, I have no idea who you are."

"I think the part where you eat lunch with me every day might foil that little plan of yours."

He gave me the files and said, "Who are you again?" and walked off.

I quickly opened Vanessa's on top. Hmmm. This was interesting --

This was my day for not seeing people. Weevil this morning, Vanessa now. "You ready?" she said. I shut the file in a hurry. "What'cha got there?" she asked.

"Nothing connected with Logan," I said, then had a thought. "You have any idea about whether what Carrie Bishop's saying about Mr. Rooks is true?"

She said, "I don't believe her."

"Any special reason?"

"Sure. She's saying he slept with her when he could have tried hitting on --" she pointed to herself -- "me."

And right there was the reason why Vanessa Mencken never was and never would be up to the standards of Lilly Kane. Lilly could charm men and women equally. Vanessa didn't do too badly with the guys but I couldn't think of a single girl who could do more than put up with her.

Out loud I said, "You know where Mars Investigations is, right?" She said yes. "Good. I'll meet you there in half an hour or so. I have a couple of things I have to do first."

Then I ran to catch up to Carrie. Our conversation about Mr. Rooks didn't go all that well, but I did have the chance to ask herif Aaron Echolls had ever hit on her or worse.

"No," she said. "I think you're still Neptune's number one skank."

"Yeah, but you're moving up fast."

We sniped at each other for a bit more before I went to my car and got in. Once I cleared the parking lot, I made a call.

Logan answered. "Well, hello there, Machiavelli. Any progress?" He sounded almost happy to hear from me.

"Yeah, Vanessa bought our big fight. We're meeting in about twenty minutes so she can give me the details."

"Good. Nail her to the wall." Despite his generally relaxed tone of voice, the anger shone through clearly.

"Oh, I plan to."

"I can't believe you got Weevil Navarro into this," Logan said.

"I didn't. Just lucky, I guess."

"Weevil Navarro's presence being lucky. That's a new one."

"I was actually expecting Van Clemmons to have to rip us apart. Maybe Weevil thought you were going to hit me or something."

His voice got deadly serious for a second. "I would never do that to you."

It took me a second to get my thoughts together after that. "There's something else I need you to do."

"What is that, O devious tiny blonde one?"

"I need to talk to your attorney. I want the names of some of these other women."

"I can have him call you."

I thought. "Better give me his number instead. I'm not sure when I'll be free."

He gave me the number, which I awkwardly wrote down. Then he said, "So the rumors were right."

"Rumors?"

"You do charge."

You know how sometimes you're driving down the highway and all of a sudden you round a curve and find traffic backed up five miles? "Logan –"

"And now I'm going to say something I almost never say," he interrupted.

"What's that?" I asked irritably.

"I'm sorry."

This is the point in those old Warner Brothers cartoons when the fish or bird says, "Now I've seen everything," and shoots himself in the head. The sun just rose in the west. The Pope has converted to Zoroastrianism. Jessica Alba made a good movie.

Logan Echolls has just apologized, seriously, to Veronica Mars.

He went on, "Force of habit. I've been angry and bitter at you for over a year and a half; it's hard to interact with you any other way."

"The reporter thing? You did fine with that."

"That was business," he said. "This – don't think I didn't notice that you never asked me for money."

Should I tell him I'd been planning to bring it up later?

No. He was right. I wasn't doing this for the money. "I hate that we've been enemies for so long," I said.

"Well, part of it was fun," Logan said. "You challenge me, Mars. I have to be more on my toes around you than with anyone else."

I pretended to be insulted. "So you're comparing me to Dick Casablancas and Madison Sinclair."

"Not only are they not in your league, they're hitting the ball off tees while you're a first ballot hall-of-famer." Then, a bit more seriously, "Look. We used to be friends. But that was before –"

"Before." He didn't need to say before what. "That's a pretty big before."

"We'll never be like that again," he said. "Even if we do have that out between us in a serious conversation."

"A serious conversation? With Logan Echolls?" I asked with more than a bit of disbelief.

"So what, I can't take shots at you but you can spray me with an AK-47?" He didn't seem offended, though.

"Now you're catching on," I said. Then, "Maybe, once this is settled, we can have that conversation."

"I look forward to it," he said. I really didn't, despite wanting it to happen.

Does that mean I'm contradicting myself? Well, you know what they say about foolish consistencies. And if you don't, you should look it up.

"Okay, I'm here," I said, "And she could show any minute. If I have any other questions –"

"Call anytime," he said, and seemed to mean it. "Now go get 'em, Machiavelli."

And then I walked into the office and found out that dad had been hired by Carrie Bishop's parents to provide evidence against Mr. Rooks.

Those people who say, "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade?" What do they do when life just stands back and throws the lemons at your head?