Disclaimer: I don't own anything. And I promise, once I'm done playing with them, I'll put them back. Additionally, I'm not a doctor, so whatever medical mumbo jumbo I use below is purely from Google.

Chapter 3/6

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"Reality"

There is nothing in the world to prepare someone for the sight of someone they love in a cold mortuary freezer. Especially if that someone hasn't seen their loved one for an extended period of time.

The mixture of Nevada and fifty grand hadn't been good to Lianna Mars. She was thinner than either Veronica or Keith remembered, her cheeks hollow and her wrists slight. Of course, the harsh wash of fluorescent light over her blue-tinged, frozen corpse didn't help matters. Veronica choked back bile when she thought of lifting her mother's lids to see her eyes.

She turned away, burying her face in Keith's jacket collar. He smelled like the aftershave Alicia had given him for Christmas and the cinnamon air freshener tree that dangled from the rearview mirror of his generic little Toyota. He smelled alive. She sobbed silently, hating herself for crying again. She hadn't stopped since yesterday.

Keith glanced down to his weeping child, the sound leaving him feeling even more bereft than the sight of his wife on a pull-out tray in front of him. He nodded to the medical examiner's assistant, verifying that it was indeed Lianne on that bed of sterile, stainless steel.

The young woman slid the tray back into its little freezer cubby and engaged the clasp. Keith stared at the lock. It reminded him of the pull of his mother's refrigerator from the sixties. He was appalled at the thought of Veronica's mother trapped inside that freezer. The irony nearly choked him.

They were led out of the cellar into a bland office. A black and white photograph on the wall above a gray filing cabinet showed a small girl with her hand in an elderly woman's. A grandmother with her granddaughter. Veronica wept silently.

The assistant rejoined them. Keith remembered that her name was Tiff. Not Tiffany. Just Tiff. Like the fight, he supposed. As he pondered all possible meanings of her name, he realized that she had been talking.

"-and Dr. Michaelchick thinks that the cause of death was a lethal combination of methadone and levomepromazine, which is used to treat agitated depression as well as pain. However, we could not find any medical records for Mrs. Mars that could indicate that she was treated for either heroin abuse or depression. So, that raises more questions than answers, I'm afraid."

Veronica stared back at the small brunette, letting her words and their implications wash over her. Keith responded for the both of them, "When can we arrange for her to be cremated?"

Veronica started and looked at her father. He hadn't mentioned cremation until now. But, she stayed silent while Tiff flipped through the file. "As soon as you fill out the paperwork. The doctor hasn't requisitioned an autopsy, and unless you'd like one..." she trailed off with a shrug, clearly suggesting that an autopsy wasn't necessary.

Keith nodded and looked at his daughter. Veronica nodded wearily in response.

Tiff slid the file across the desk to them and stood. She was about to round the desk, presumably to find the appropriate release forms when she laid her hand on Veronica's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I found my own mother dead in my bathtub when I was eight. I'm..." the girl paused to suck in a breath. "I'm sorry."

Veronica didn't respond, but then, Tiff hadn't expected her to.

As soon as Keith scrawled his signature across the bottom of the form that would allow for the remains to be sent to them in Neptune, Veronica added hers as a witness, they both acknowledged the fact that neither of them would ever see Lianne Mars again.

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