Veronica Versus The Truth

"Who are you?" A mysterious man asked the stranger tied up in a chair.

"I came here to poison you," the stranger replied.

"Do you know where the codes are?" The mysterious man asked.

"I already told you. The answer is no."

The mysterious man pulled out a bottle and injected its contents into the stranger's mouth.

"Are you sure about that?" The man asked.

"I know where the codes are," the stranger said surprisingly. "How did you make me do that?"

"My poison starts as a truth serum," the man said. "Your assignment is simple, Mr. Whitney. Just get me the codes within the next three hours or you'll die."

Needless to say, Mr. Whitney was a bit frightened to hear that.

"But," the stranger said, "if you give me the codes before then, I'll give you the antidote."

"Thank you for the wonderful meal, Mr. Hamilton," Veronica said as Alex picked her and JD's check at the Olive Garden.

"No, thank you for being so generous," he said once he saw the tip amount.

"I seriously don't know why you had to pay him extra," JD told Veronica once they got outside.

"Well, he's my neighbor, so it feels wrong to just give him the usual."

He also saved my life on more than occasion. Not that I could ever tell you. Veronica thought.

Suddenly, a man collapsed in front of them. JD immediately checked him for a pulse.

"Sir?! Sir, can you hear me?!" JD said. "Help! We need an ambulance!" He said once he found a weak pulse. JD then found the man's wallet. "Here," he said passing it to Veronica, "they're going to need his name."

"Help me," the man weakly said. He then slipped a pendant into JD's pocket, which went unnoticed.

By that point, a small crowd gathered around them, with Alex being among them. "That's my boyfriend, Jason Dean! Saving that guy's life!" Veronica proudly announced to the crowd. She then opened the man's wallet and saw his name: Mason Whitney.

That's when her brain flashed, showing multiple bombs and nuclear codes, including a secret one named "Sanctuary."

"That's my boyfriend saving the bad guy's life," she quietly said to Alex.

"The Intersect was correct in identifying Whitney," General Beckham said via webcam at the Team Sawyer meeting the next day.

"However, Ms. Sawyer incorrectly perceived him as a threat," General Graham said.

"What? How?" Veronica asked, shocked.

"Whitney was a programmer for a classified project named Sanctuary. When he disappeared, he took the data with him on a hard drive."

"So whoever has the chip," Evan started before General Beckham interrupted.

"Essentially has a key to every nuclear facility in the country."

The team took a moment to absorb this information. "Welp," Lydia said, "looks like we might visiting our 'friend' at the hospital."

"Actually," General Graham said, "Mr. Whitney died last night."

"What?!" The team exclaimed.

"He supposedly died of poisoning, but it's still being investigated," General Graham said.

"In fact," General Beckham said, "We could use Team Sawyer."

"We'll do whatever you want, sir," Alex said.

"Excellent. Mr. Heere, Mr. Hansen, connect yourselves to the morgue. The rest of you will go there to search the body for any missing codes. Plus, the Intersect might see a clue that can give us Whitney's cause of death," General Beckham said, logging off before General Graham could get a word in.

"This is just a storage room," Veronica repeated to herself for the hundredth time. "A storage room that just happens to store people. People who are now refrigerated and no longer breathing."

"Man up, Sawyer. Bodies have to be stored somewhere," Lydia said.

"Oh, that man is naked!" Veronica exclaimed upon seeing Mason's body.

"Eyes on the prize, Sawyer," Alex said.

"Oh, I've seen the prize!" Veronica exclaimed, covering her eyes.

"You find anything?" Alex asked, turning his attention to Lydia.

"Nothing yet," she replied.

Alex then noticed something peculiar behind Mason's ear. "Hang on a second," he said before pulling a device out. "What's this?"

A doorbell rang on the Dean residence. JD went to open it, only to see a police officer standing on his doorstep.

"Hi? How may I help you?" He asked, confused. What did Bud do this time?

"Hi, are you Jason Dean?" The officer asked, to which JD nodded. "Do you recognize this man?" He asked, pulling out a picture of the man who collapsed the night before.

"Uh yeah, he was the guy who passed out at Olive Garden last night. Why?"

"Mind if I come in to ask a few questions about your relationship to the deceased?"

"This right here is a tracking bug," Jeremy told the team later at Castle.

"Any details on who was following him?" Alex asked.

"Unfortunately, no."

"But I do have some other news," Evan said quickly. "Over here, I analyzed the blood sample that you guys got from Mason's body. He died by Pentothal poisoning."

"What does that mean exactly?" Veronica asked.

"Initially, the subject becomes very truthful. After it accumulates in the occipital lobe, the victim falls unconsciousness and eventually dies."

"What's the timeline on this thing?" Lydia asked.

"I don't really know. Depending on the dosage, it could be anywhere from minutes to hours."

"I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions, Mr. Dean," the officer said to JD.

"Please, just call me JD."

"Ok, JD. Now, did the deceased hand anything to you?"

JD was a bit confused. "No?"

"Did he say anything to you?"

"He just asked me to help him."

"Did you hide anything for him?"

JD was baffled by this point. "Excuse me?"

"Did he transfer anything to your person?"

Ok, this was too weird. "Sir, I've told you everything I know. I'm asking you to leave," JD said, standing up from his chair and pointing at the front door.

"That's all right," the officer said, leaving his position on the couch. "I think we have everything we need. If you don't mind, I'd just like to get a quick photo for the records."

"Actually, I do mind," JD said. "Leave-"

He was pushed to the ground before another word could get out.

"What's wrong, babe?" Veronica asked shortly after JD came over to her house for dinner. He had been cold and distant all night. "Wanna watch some TV?"

"No, read a book," JD replied rudely.

"Fine, I've got homework to do anyway," Veronica said, defeated.

"What's up with that Alex guy! Last night, you tipped him because he's your neighbor and yet I've barely seen you interact with him!"

Veronica was taken aback by this. "Ok, JD, let's calm-"

"It's because of that skirt you wear all of the time, isn't it?! It makes all of the boys go crazy!"

"That's not true! You're the only one for me!"

"Are you sure?! When was the last time you did something nice for me?! Bought me something just because it's Monday?!"

"Are you drunk?!" Veronica asked.

"Am I drunk?! Who do you think I am?! MY FATHER?!"

"JD, are you okay?" Veronica asked, concerned.

"Words taste like peaches," he replied, calmer than before.

"Ok, I think it's best if you go now."

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Veronica answered it, only to see Alex with a milk carton.

"Sorry to bother you folks. Care to spare some milk?"

"Moo juice coming up," JD said, leaving for the kitchen.

"What are you doing here?" Veronica asked Alex once JD was out of earshot.

"I got some crosstalk on the comms," he said while investigating her house. It turned out that his milk carton was just a disguise for a scanner.

"Why?"

A thud could be heard from the kitchen.

"Well, he was definitely poisoned," Lydia sarcastically remarked in JD's hospital room.

"Ha ha, very funny," Veronica deadpanned. She was not in the mood for jokes.

"Hey, I pulled the video surveillance," Jeremy said, showing his laptop to the team. "A man posing as a police officer exposed your boyfriend to the poison," he said, showing the footage of JD being knocked out and exposed to the poison.

"Why would anybody want to hurt JD?" Veronica asked. Well, Bud maybe. She thought. "He doesn't know any nuclear codes."

"But there is some good news," Evan said. "The person who poisoned him is still looking for the intel chip."

"No, no, no, there is no good news, ok?" Veronica said, with an edge to her voice. "My boyfriend was poisoned by the same stuff as the dead guy! Medical teams are trying to identify the poisoning agent to create an antidote! There's no time! If it's the same poison, then JD only has a few hours!"

"Look, this is easy," Alex said, jumping in to calm Veronica down some. "We find the codes. We give them to the bad guy in exchange for the antidote. We do this in our sleep," he said, as if it were a piece of cake.

"Even if we knew where they were, that's not practical," Lydia said.

"Lydia," Evan warned.

"What? I'm just saying that we can't risk the bad guy endangering millions of people for one person."

Oh, that was definitely the wrong choice of words.

"This is my boyfriend we're talking about! I'm not going to sit around and watch him die!" Veronica exclaimed, before sighing. "I'm getting way too comfortable lying and sneaking around. I'm starting to feel that this," she said, referring to the spy world, "is my real life. It used to be compartmentalized: Personal life and spy life. When I saw my boyfriend helping that sweaty, nuclear-spy freak, my worlds collided. I put JD's life in danger."

Veronica then looked at Evan, feeling a bit of anger rise up again. "You said that I could keep him safe by keeping all of this a secret. I played by your rules and look at where we are!"

"Hansen did nothing wrong, and neither did you. Spy life or not, Dean helped that guy, because that's what a good person does," Alex said.

"What is happening with my life?" Veronica asked, with her head in her hands.

"You're just having an existential spy crisis, Sawyer. It's ok we all have them," Alex replied.

"And if it makes you feel any better, Jeremy and I are working on reversing the tracking signal," Evan said, before showing Veronica the computer bug in a small, rectangular box.

"It's soundproof. We can't have the bad guy know we're onto him," Jeremy said.

It was then that Veronica made an impulsive decision.

She immediately grabbed the box from Evan and removed the lid. "Found the codes. Can't believe where Whitney hid them. I'm gonna keep them on the trench coat kid until we can move them safely," she said quickly before putting the lid back on and giving the box to Evan.

"What did you do?!" Jeremy exclaimed.

"She brought the bad guy to us," Alex said, smugly. "Not bad, Sawyer."

"Except there's only one problem. We don't have the codes," Lydia said.

"Hey, I said it was 'not bad.' I didn't say that it was perfect."

After the others left, Veronica made a bold choice about JD.

"Look, I know that you think I'm just Veronica, your smart and popular girlfriend," she said to the unconscious JD. "But there's a lot about me you don't know. See, I'm, uh, also Veronica, the girl with all these important government secrets in my brain."

Veronica then grabbed JD's hand. "I can make this better. No, I will make this better," she said before sighing. "Everything is so different now. I used to be able to tell you about anything and everything. And now my whole life is a lie."

Shortly after that, Bud Dean entered the room with JD's trench coat. "What do you want, Bud?" Veronica asked, slightly agitated.

"Can't a boy just visit his Pop?" Bud replied, doing that weird "father-son" reverse psychology they always used.

"Why do you care?" Veronica asked rather harshly.

"Woah, what's got your panties in a twist?"

Ok, that's it! Veronica thought.

"How 'bout you get out now before I call security?" Veronica threatened.

"Fine," Bud said, before throwing JD's trench coat at Veronica's face and walking away.

Once Veronica had the coat in her lap, she felt something unusual in one of the pockets.

She found a pendant inside, one that the Intersect said was filled with nuclear codes.

The rest of the team had a plan to capture the person behind all of this. Basically, they had Jeremy wear a black wig and trench coat on the roof to lure out the bad guy. Then, the other members would attack and arrest the villain.

"Why do I have to do this?" Jeremy asked as he put on his costume.

"Because you can pull it off more compared to Hansen and I," Alex replied.

"Plus, it's not like he'll see your face. Remember, your back is to him until he walks over here. Then, we'll take him down," Lydia said.

"Yeah, but it's still terrifying nonetheless. There's a reason why Evan and I normally do tech work instead, you know?"

Then, they heard somebody approaching them.

"Get into position!" Alex whisper-yelled.

When the man got onto the roof, he saw the back of the trench coat kid from earlier.

"I've got to say that you're a pretty good actor. You almost had me earlier," the man said, approaching Jeremy.

Jeremy turned around and shot the guy, but missed. The man got his own gun out and was about to shoot Jeremy, before the others came out of their positions, guns aimed at his head.

"Freeze!" Alex shouted.

"Ok," the man said, moving his gun to the side. "I've got what you want. I have the antidote to save your friend," he said, putting his free hand on a green vial.

The team exchanged nervous glances with each other, before the man continued. "All you gotta do is give me the codes, and the antidote is yours. Use it on your friend and he'll live."

The team really needed to consider this.

"Or," the man said, moving his free hand to a red vial, "I can poison all of you, and you'll have to tell me where you've hidden my codes. Then, you will die too, just like your friend. Your choice."

"I found them! I found them!" Veronica yelled as she ran into the room, holding up the codes.

Unfortunately, the man took this opportunity to escape. He threw the red vial onto the ground, releasing the Pentothal. As a result, the team was slightly confused for a moment, and the man took the codes away from Veronica. He ran downstairs as the team tried to discreetly go after him. At one point, Evan grabbed a crutch from a nurse and yanked it at the bad guy, causing him to fall.

However, it also caused the antidote to fly into the air. Lydia leapt across the room and caught it just in the nick of time. The man then left the building, right before multiple nurses crowded the hallway, which made it impossible to follow him.

"Here," Lydia said, passing the antidote to Veronica.

"No, it's for JD," she replied.

"There's no time to debate this. It has to be you," Evan said.

"You're the Intersect," Jeremy added.

"I won't take it knowing that JD will die without it," Veronica argued.

"You're a good person, Sawyer, but I've got a job to do," Lydia said, smugly. "So take it before I shove it down your throat," she said with a bit more vice.

"Ok, fine, I'll do it."

"Thank you," Lydia replied, as the others breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'll pretend to take it, then I'll run to JD's room," Veronica said, before realizing the gravity of what she just said. "Why did I say that out loud?"

"It's the serum," Evan said.

"I'll put a gun to your head and threaten to shoot if you don't take it," Alex said to Veronica.

"Oh, so you wouldn't actually shoot me?" Veronica asked.

"No," Alex said, defeated.

"Don't waste your bullet, I'm saving JD," Veronica said, before dashing off to his room.

Veronica poured the antidote down JD's throat. She knew that it might be a while before he woke up, so she sat in the hallway with her teammates.

"So, this is it, huh?" Veronica asked, knowing that they would all die within the next few hours. "You know, if I had my diary here, this would be a really big day. 'Dear Diary, today I did my laundry. I saved my boyfriend's life. Saved my own life? Final entry.'"

"I am so sorry about all of this," Jeremy said.

"It's ok. It's not ideal, but I've lived a pretty good life. I mean, how many people can say they landed a helicopter and saved the lives of innocent people?"

"Courageous and honorable members of the U.S. military," Alex quickly said.

"Real pilots," Lydia said at the same time.

"Noted," Veronica said, before noticing a Gameboy-like device sitting on the ground across from them. She went to pick it up out of curiosity. On it, was a fingerprint that the Intersect recognized immediately, as images of cash, poison, and even the Olympics flew across her brain.

She walked back to her team. "Bad guy's name is Riordan Payne. He used to be an Olympic gymnast. Now he sells hard-to-find items, like nuclear codes, to hard-to-find people, who spend a ton of cash on stuff like that."

"Well, they won't get a chance," Evan said.

"Why not?" Veronica asked.

Jeremy then took the device from her and pushed a button, showing a tracking signal downtown. "Because this thing's gonna lead us right to him."

The team arrived at Payne's old and mostly abandoned apartment complex. Evan and Jeremy stayed in the van to watch via security while the others went inside.

Unfortunately, it was one of those places where you couldn't get in without a key or knowing somebody who did.

"I got it! I got it!" Alex yelled, as he excitedly ran up to the door.

"No, I got it!" Lydia yelled, chasing after him.

"Well, which one of you is better at it?" Veronica asked.

"I am!" Lydia admitted proudly.

"She is. Stupid truth serum," Alex admitted.

Lydia used a hairpin to successfully pick the lock. Then, they entered the apartment complex.

"He should be on the top floor," Evan said via earpiece once the field team got to the elevator.

"Thanks," Veronica said as she hit the button.

"I've always liked your style," she said, referring to Lydia's goth-esque clothing style, while waiting for the elevator.

"Thanks," Lydia said with a smile.

"You're welcome," Veronica replied, before turning to Alex. "And Alex, your jaw looks like it was chiseled by Michelangelo himself."

"Thank you," Alex said happily.

"Oh yeah."

When the team finally got to the top floor, they received instructions from Jeremy.

"Turn left and head straight down."

"Copy that," Alex replied.

Once they reached the door, Lydia knocked rather harshly.

"Who is it?" Came a voice from the inside.

"The NSA, CIA, and me, who's a little harder to explain," Veronica admitted loudly.

Alex shot the door handle off and barged in with his team. "Freeze!" He said upon seeing Payne.

Lydia held up her gun too. "My partner would rather shoot you than let you get away!"

Alex lowered his weapon. "Aww, you called me your partner."

"Not now, Alex!" Lydia reprimanded.

"Right, right!" He said while getting back into position. "Where are the codes, Payne?"

"Ah, yes, I still have those," Payne said. "But how 'bout a little antidote, first? In fact, I was just about to enjoy some of it myself. What kind of host would I be if I didn't offer it to my guests?" He said while prepping the antidote.

"Careful there. I haven't killed anyone in a while, so I'm getting a little hungry," Lydia said, her gun still pointing at him.

Payne handed them three small vials of the antidote.

"Wait!" Jeremy yelled via earpiece. "The bad guy always samples it first."

The field team grew suspicious and Veronica tried to hand the "antidote" to Payne for him to try.

Instead, he shoved her aside and made a run for it.

However, he didn't get too far because Lydia shot him in the knee.

"Very unsportsmanlike," Alex said. "I like it."

"The antidote's in the cabinet, bottom right shelf. The key is in my pocket. The codes are in my right shoe," Payne admitted while he tied to a chair.

The team found the antidote and drank some, immediately feeling the effects. They then took some out to Evan and Jeremy.

"Well done, team," Alex said as he about to drive them away. "We cured JD and ourselves. Payne's going to jail. We've got the codes and I just received word from General Beckham. He said that our weapon sites are now more secure than ever."

The team cheered at that.

"JD!" Veronica yelled as she ran up to hug the boy who was just discharged from the hospital.

"Veronica," he said happily while returning the hug.

Veronica then kissed him, as if she hadn't done so in a long time. "I missed you," she said.

"I missed you too."

"So, what happened?" Veronica asked, pretending to not know the truth.

"Oh, apparently there was some drug ring in the area. They're busted now."

"Well, that's good," Veronica said. "Um, do you remember hearing anything in your sleep?"

"No, why?"

"No reason," she said before kissing him again.

Unbeknownst to the two of them, Evan witnessed the whole thing from across the street. He then answered a phone call. "Hello?"

"Mr. Hansen, I've been meaning to ask if you gave any compromising information while under the effects of Pentothal," General Beckham said. "Mr. Hamilton said you didn't, but I just wanted to confirm."

"No, sir," Evan said. "But I might have if I hadn't been trained to withstand Pentothal."

The General ended the call after that, assuming that Evan was referring to their mission in six months.

But that was only half-true.

The other half being that Evan Hansen was in love with Veronica Sawyer.

A/N: Who saw that coming?!

Also, if anyone is wondering what the mission in six months is, then you might want to look at the end of "Veronica Versus The Helicopter" ;).

Side note: I might start to refer to the villains by their last names now.

Thoughts? Any constructive criticism is welcome!