Merry Go Round

Summary: Keith has a heart attack and Veronica must readdress her priorities and understanding of Logan Echolls. LoVe. WIP.

Disclaimer: Veronica Mars is owned by its creators and UPN. I have nothing to do with it, and write purely for personal gratification.

A/N: Logan's motivations will, at the end of this, seem opaque. Bear with it. Soon, LoVe goodness will flow free.

It could be any classroom in the school.

The white kids are sat at one side, and within that group, the richest ones are distinguishable by their expensive, well-co-ordinated outfits and shiny hair. On the other side, the Latino kids or the dirt poor white ones are clustered, their hair being not quite so shiny and their outfits not quite so well co-ordinated. In the middle of them, Veronica Mars.

Her eyes are gazing vacantly around the room. Over in the corner, Kelvin Moore flirts with Nicola Baumann. Logan Echolls is reading a surfing magazine. Madison Sinclair is texting on her nastily pink phone. Perhaps it's Lamb her fingers are hot for today.

A message comes in with the dowdy office secretary. The teacher reads it, raises his eyebrows wide, and walks over to Veronica's desk.

"Ms. Mars," he says quietly, putting it down on the plastic surface. It lies there innocuously, crumpled yellow and safe. "A note for you."

Veronica,
You are needed in my office immediately on a personal matter.
Principal Van Clemmons.

She reads it over in a second.

The use of her first name and the personal signature slows her blood to ice. In so few words, there are such infinite possibilities of disaster. Her eyes, already focussed on the way out, miss the way Logan watches her, his eyes casually tilted from the magazine as though he isn't really looking at her at all but at an unknown something in the middle distance.

Clemmons' fatherly ushering-in gesture and his perfectly composed, sympathetic face tell her all she needs to know.

"What's happened?"

"Veronica," he says softly.

"What's happened?" she repeats, louder. Her hands are shaking a little.

"We have just been informed that your father has had a heart attack," he says carefully.

Her hands fly to her mouth. Emotion floods through her so quickly that it can't be separated into distinct feelings. There is a sickening fear though, before everything, which is rushing so fast, so incredibly dizzyingly fast around her that words tumble and fall out of her mouth unbound . "Oh my God, he can't be - "

Clemmons hastily interrupts. "He's alive. He's alive, Veronica." The dizzy fear recedes, mastered by numb shock. "No, the hospital just phoned because they'll need his details, and of course, you'll want to be with him."

Veronica is not entirely sure what she hears after that, or how she gets out of the office and comes to be walking down the Neptune High hallway.

'He's okay', she tells herself. 'He's okay and he will be okay in the future. He will make many stupid jokes and you will laugh at them and he will solve the bus crash, and everything will be fine, because he is Daddy.'

Walking through the quiet sun-lit halls, she realises that she is shaking violently, and that if she tries to get into the Le Baron and actually drive, she'll probably crash.

At the doors, she realises she has left her jacket in the classroom. It was slung behind the chair and she just didn't look. The note had thrown her, engaged her curiosity elsewhere.

She will have to leave it there now, except that someone will probably steal it just because they can, and because she is Veronica Mars, no-one in that class cares a rat's ass if her jacket gets stolen right in front of them. No-one's going to stop it.

'Oh God;, she thinks. 'I'm going to break down, right here at these fucking school doors, because of a jacket.'

She bites her lip down hard; tries to gain the breath that is pounding unevenly in her chest. Veronica tells herself that this feeling has nothing to do with her jacket; it's just a symptom of the shock of her father's heart attack, and on a normal day she'd be able to understand that piece of tiny psychology.

She's still leaning on the wall next to the door, almost unwilling to go outside.

"Veronica!"

She twists around uncomfortably. There is a sick feeling in her stomach that apparently dislikes movement of that kind and hot tears are welling up behind her eyes, barely suppressed. Logan is running up to her, holding the jacket in his hand.

"Forget something?" he says sardonically, slowing down as he approaches her. "Still, why worry when there are good souls like me around to pick up all your clothing refuse?"

"I -" she says blankly, reaching out for it. "I -"

"This is the part where you say it's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?" he suggests blithely. Seeing her total lack of response, he pauses momentarily. "You okay?"

"No," she says slowly, as if this is a strange question to have asked her. "My father's had a heart attack."

And with that, she masterfully doesn't burst into tears. Not at all, because she's Veronica Mars, and she doesn't cry on school property. Not in front of Logan Echolls, not in front of anyone, not even in front of herself.

"Fuck," Logan says eloquently and Veronica wonders what he's still doing there, and why he's looking at her like that. "Can I do anything - I mean -"

She heads him off. "You can drive me home. I'm not feeling too great."

With a dramatic flourish, he holds the door open for her. Veronica's grateful for it, because she thinks her arms feel weak. "Although I have to say, Veronica, as excuses go for the chance to ride in the Xterra, you're really pushing the boundaries of taste and decency."

"Yes, I absolutely engineered this scenario for that very reason," she snaps back, and he grins as if she's serious.

While the car grinds along, she manages to recover her composure. Logan's jeep feels like last summer, and she knows that he probably has a gun in the glove compartment, but despite that, it is strangely also a soothing, safe place.

"Thanks for this," she says. With a considered effort, her eyes rise to meet his. "I'm grateful."

He does not look away from her gaze, so it is really a good thing that the road is poker straight and virtually empty. "You do plenty for me."

"Only because you force me to," she says shortly.

"Yeah, well." His eyes are back on the road, and in that nanosecond of their gaze breaking, his whole body has tensed. "I guess we're just different."

Several minutes later, though, he asks if her dad's going to be okay.

"I don't know," Veronica answers. "I have no idea, Logan, at this point."

"I'm sorry," he says genuinely, although she is not sure if he is apologising for his question or expressing sympathy for her answer. Maybe both.

"It could be worse." She clutches the side of her seat as the Xterra swings around a particularly sharp bend. Logan's really speeding the hell out of the roads now. "They obviously found him before anything too serious - a complication, I mean."

"That's good," he says with a sincerity that surprises her a little. "Well." He jerks the car to a sudden stop outside her house. "Home, sweet home."

"Will you wait while I get his stuff?" she asks. Logan nods, unconcerned.

"I'm officially skipping fifth period today."

"Logan," Veronica says as she steps out of the jeep, "you always skip fifth period. The last time I saw you in Health Class - in fact, I've never seen you in Health Class."

He grins. "So how'd you know I'm supposed to be there at all? Ms. Hauser doesn't register."

"I know things."

"Veronica Mars. Eye on everything."

It is with annoying ease that he navigates her house.

Whilst she frantically packs her possibly dying father's clothes and necessaries into a hold-all, Logan apparently lounges demurely on her sofa, playing with a pen lid, tossing it up and down through his fingers. Even Backup doesn't seem to deter him from wandering about the house aimlessly.

"I sometimes think you prefer my dog to me," she says deadpan when she returns to the lounge to find Logan knelt down and practically barking at Backup in sympathy. The whole summer, she had been increasingly disgusted to find that her boyfriend had a natural and inexplicable affinity with her dog.

His expression is suddenly guarded, and Veronica can't piece together an explanation for the shift in his mood. "Sometimes, I do. Although the conversation lacks a certain something."

"Ah. Finally, the reason why we dated becomes clear. It was really all about the dog, wasn't it?"

"No." His voice has a hard, rough edge to it. "No, that wasn't it."

Rifled by his tone, she tenses up. "Can we just go?"

"Yeah," he says suddenly, and she wonders what it is that's in his voice that wasn't there before. Whatever it is, it's cold and unwelcome. "You know, I've had a change of heart. Here though -" He throws a flash of silver mental at her hand - "take my keys. I believe you know where I live, should you wish to return the car."

Veronica hasn't been expecting that, and it comes as a blow.

"Logan, what's up with you?"

In spite of herself, she cares.

"What's up with me," he replies dismissively and unpleasantly, "is having a social life this afternoon that does not involve ferrying my ex-girlfriends to hospitals."

Is it better to be alone and feel strong than to have someone with you and feel weak?

In a brief second, Veronica finds her answer to that question. The last two years have given her that knowledge, and his keys feel light in her hands. Whatever Logan's deal is, it isn't in her jurisdiction to care.