AN: So many people reviewed my story, Ink, both here and at the other site I post, asking, or demanding, that I write the next part of the story. I wasn't really intending on going any further with it, because I have another piece that I'm working on, but the responce was so heart warming that I had to continue on with it. So here is the first chapter of the sequal, yes, I said first chapter, I'll keep going with this one... seems I really can't just write a short piece after all. Keep reviewing everyone!

Mars Invests

Part 1

She felt like such a baby the first time she had to clean her tattoo. Weevil, who liked to be called by his actual first name now, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to call him Eli, had taken her out for a quick dinner that was high in protein and carbohydrates to help her body heal after the trauma getting the tattoo had put her though. When he drove her to her hotel in San Diego, which she was staying at until she could find an apartment of her own, he gave her strict instructions to clean her tattoo when she got upstairs and then re-bandage it.

"I'm scared to hurt it." She could feel her face redden at the confession, Veronica Mars; bad-ass girl was scared to apply a little soap and water to a wound.

"I'll help you." Weevil looked a bit put out, but she could tell he was making fun of her because of her childishness. She gave him the biggest grin she could and then cocked her head to the side and the put out look left his face and was replaced by a grin of his own. "Come on, Chica. I'm only doing this once."

Veronica led him up to her room, and unlocked the door. She could feel butterflies in the pit of her stomach that where about the size of the one on her back, as he walked into her hotel room, which was ridiculous, Weevil had been her friend for years, and yet all of a sudden, the idea of them alone in her room together made her nervous. She almost regretted the fact that she couldn't bring herself to clean her own back, though the more she thought through the logistics of the task, the more she was happy that she had someone else, since reaching was also a problem.

She placed her purse and keys on the bedside table and wandered into the bathroom to gather the things he would need to clean the tattoo. She turned around and bumped directly into his chest. She was still a bit unsteady, and wavered a bit upon impact, but his hands on her shoulders kept her up right.

"Let's sit you down, before you fall." He smiled gently and guided her over to the closed lid of her toilet.

"Thanks, I'm not feeling great."

"You'll feel better in the morning; the body reacts to a tattoo almost the same way that it reacts to a really bad scrape. A tattoo in the end is trauma to the epidermal layer of the skin. The ink sits below that layer, because that is the layer of skin that you shed over time." He was busy undressing the tattoo while he told her this, completely unaware of the smile on her face.

"I always knew you where smart. I was a little disappointed that you didn't end up going to college; I thought you could be anything. I was worried that you would throw your talent away and stick with being a mechanic."

"I wasn't aware that you thought of me that much." The soap and water on the raw skin hurt a bit, but she could tell that he was no stranger to taking care of this kind of thing, his touch was gentle and caring.

"Of course I thought of you, you where my friend." She turned a bit so she could look at him while he worked. "I worried about everyone, it was my gooey marshmallow center, and Wallace liked to tease me about it."

"I knew you worried, Echolls and Kane gave you enough to worry about. I guess it just didn't occur to me that you would worry about me also." He applied more ointment to the skin, which was cold and made Veronica's muscles twitch.

"Yeah, I worried about them, but I knew in the end they would be fine. You where my wild card."

"How are they all now?"

"Do you really care, or are you just trying to distract me from cleaning my tattoo."

"I really care, and I'm done cleaning, see, that wasn't so bad."

"For you, you can see what you are doing, I would have had to do the whole thing in the mirror, and my depth perception isn't great when it comes to mirrors." She spun on the toilet seat cover to face him. Weevil was now leaning against the sink. "They're all fine, as predicted."

"Let's go into the other room to talk about this. I'm not sure how much I want to reminisce in the bathroom." Weevil helped her to her feet, and guided her to her bed, where she could get comfortable. "Be careful about sleeping on your back for the next few days. You might want to keep ointment and a bandage on it when you sleep for the first week, just so that you don't tare the scab off, you want that to fall off naturally, which also means no scratching."

"Yes, mom."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

"Okay. Now, what's Wallace up to these days?"

"Well, he went to Hurst on a basketball scholarship."

"I knew that part." Weevil made himself comfortable on the other side of the bed, due to the significant lack of chairs in her hotel room.

"Well, he met a very nice girl there, someone even I get along with. They are currently living in North Carolina where Wallace is assistant coaching at a high school, while he works on his masters in criminal law at Duke."

"You must be so proud."

"I am." She tucked a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear; the years had given it a darker tint, making it almost a light brown.

"Echolls, now him, I would think you would worry about more then the rest of us, he was a mess when we graduated."

"Yeah, he was. But now, he's doing pretty well." She paused, Weevil and Logan had never really gotten along, with the exception of the truce that they had had in high school, when trying to solve Felix's murder, they had pretty much hated each other, and not that she blamed them. The only thing the two of them had in common, besides the fact that they where both friends of hers, Logan more reluctantly then Weevil, was Lilly. "Well, he got his act together. His first year at NYU was hard; he partied a bit to hard and got himself into trouble, not that that really should surprise anyone. He showed up at my door one night, asking for some help. I told him that if I was going to help him, he was going to have to get some help for his drinking. A year later, he was clean and sober and doing well in school. He's in grad school in St. Louis at Washington University; he's working on his Law degree."

"Now, that's something I thought I would never hear."

"He calls once a week and checks in, we've finally found that balance that we had in our friendship before Lilly died."