Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Veronica Mars (well my computer I typed this on) and am only having what I hope is harmless fun with the characters. I mean no infringement on any copyrights held by Rob Thomas, UPN, the WB, or any other person or entity with legal rights to the show. And if requested by any of the aforementioned owners I will remove all instances of this from public forums.
Author's note: I have no beta, and I'm ok with that. Yes there maybe some small grammatical and typing errors, but if you don't like it just go read another fic.
Acknowledgment: I got my transcript from picklepocket on livejournal – she's really good and absolutely rocks.
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He knows she's coming down the hall from the look one of his boys gets on his face, and he knows he should just ignore her – like she's been him – but he can't help it. When he sees her he notices the stupidest things, like not only is she alone, but she doesn't look like one of them. Her clothes still jeans and a dark toned shirt, not pink and short skirts. Her look is still confidence, not some approximation of coy innocence. And her aura is still back off, badass, not the god given superiority of birthright. He covers his appraisal with a condescending once over, and makes damn sure the satisfaction at his conclusions doesn't show.
He can see the moment she remembers who she is now, or at least where she thinks she belongs. Her spine stiffens, her chin raises a fraction of an inch and her eyes lock forward. He turns his attention back to his boys as her back retreats, but he keeps her in his sight.
He knows she thinks he made her choose sides, but she did that herself. He had no problem with her living in the middle ground, as long as she considered all sides equally. Even if she doesn't realize it, she was helping hold the peace last year. Dealing not only with when he directly faced off against them over the poker game, but also making sure several of them saw justice.
The only problem is he's sure she didn't see it like that; she thought she was against the 09ers. He accused her once of thinking she was this big outsider, but he sees now the truth in those words. Just as he watches her now fool herself into thinking she's one of them. The problem with Veronica Mars is that she doesn't understand who she is, but – just like everything else - she'll figure it out. And he just hopes he's around to see when it happens.
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When he looks up from his bike and sees her standing there, it takes a second to remember it's not right. He has after all become accustom to seeing her around in the last year, but her face sets him strait quick. "What are you doing here, huh? Shouldn't you be running for Homecoming Queen or something?" he snaps more than he meant to, but her look pissed him off.
She barely bats an eye at his tone, and that bothers him. "I'm safe standing here, right? I mean, you're not gonna shoot me, are you?"
He looks at her for the moment it takes to register what she said. He looks to his bike to hide the surprise at her words. When the hell has she ever known him to be involved with guns? And hasn't he left her out of all this shit going around right now?
His anger from before hasn't dissipated and he continues without thought, "So, did you like your taste? Your little year of living dangerously? Did you get your fill? As soon as they'll have you back, you go running to the 09ers. And as a little bonus, you give it up to the richest boys in school. Wow. Well, I'm sure their sheets are clean." He thinks he should probably stop giving her reasons to hate him, but he's been watching her delude herself for long enough. It's time for a shove, anything to get her actually thinking again. He was hoping the case she took on would be enough, but things are still status quo.
"You don't know anything about me. And you don't know anything about them." Funny how he use to believe that was the type of thing she said about him.
"Yeah, I do. I know that Logan killed Felix. And he got away with it because he's rich and he's white." He's losing his temper, and realizes that whatever he had hoped for this conversation is rapidly deteriorating.
"Six guys jumped Logan. They broke his ribs. They gave him a concussion. Yet somehow he managed to wrestle away one of their knives and stab Felix? You didn't see it. You were out cold."
"So I guess, Felix stabbed himself." Well he argues on auto-pilot, he can at least appreciate that she's thinking this out. And then it hits him, it took a horrible murder and investigation to make her into who she is, and it just may take another to get her back.
"Well, somebody stabbed him."
He's shocked at her immediate implication and starts to think he might have been wrong and she really is one of them. "My boys? Nothing goes down in the club without my say-so."
"So I guess you know about the shotgun blast that almost killed Logan and me? Bikers ride up; blow a hole through Logan's car." He barely manages to contain his surprise at her declaration and scans his memory for anything involving shotguns and yellow SUVs, but comes up blank. While he's trying to think of some other explanation she continues, "You sure you're still in charge?"
As the bus drove away he had the fleeting thought that what she said about getting shoot made sense now. Between the confusion and residual anger he finds her being stranded a little funny.
He doesn't even make it a block before he feels bad for leaving her, and doubles back. After all just because he can see she's really not one of them, doesn't mean everyone can – or would care either way. And more importantly someone already thinks she's worth being shoot at.
As he pulls up she's already on her phone arranging for a ride, but looks relieved to see him. She immediately says, "Never mind." and hangs up.
He plants his feet and can't resist a small smile while he pulls his helmet off. He tosses the helmet to her and simply says "Hop on." Which she does with a nod of thanks and not another word
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They're driving down the road in a comfortable silence when he spots smoke up ahead, and feels her shift behind him. As they get closer he sees a limo with people streaming out and thinks he recognizes a few of them. A fact he's sure of when Veronica goes rigid behind him, and he pulls to the side. She scrambles off the back and runs towards the commotion. For a moment he plans to follow, but then he sees the Casablancas brothers and holds back.
As she watched some girl was crying and ranting hysterically, "It just went straight off the cliff. It didn't even slow down. They're all dead."
Weevil had a million questions running through his head as he watched Duncan embrace Veronica. Who was on the bus? What could have happened? Who could be responsible? How much trouble was he going to catch for just being here? But he cut them off when he saw her break away from Duncan and go to the edge. As she looks over he thinks he sees a glimmer of that fire that use to make her who she was.