DISCLAIMER: Characters of Veronica Mars, the canon events of their storylines, and recognizable dialogue belong to Rob Thomas.
A/N:
The last 5 chapters of Commence (Along the Road – part 3) were posted the SAME DAY as this chapter.
Click back if you need to.
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If you did NOT read the long A/N explanation at the end of Commence, PLEASE do that before you read this chapter.
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We are now in post-Season 3 territory.
Chapter 1 occurs at the end of April 2007.
About one hour after THE END of Commence (Along the Road – Part 3).
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After 3 fics [more than 200K words telling 2.5 years of storyline], you are finally gonna get a little of Eli's POV in this chapter – in the form of a letter he gives to V to read. And it's gonna turn the last 6+ months of storyline on its head.
Chapter 1
The sound of the wind and waves was nothing compared to the roar inside my head. And it was overwhelming.
I've heard the phrase "my head is swimming" but this was the first time it had ever felt like there were waves crashing inside my head.
I was sitting on a bench, staring out at the ocean, trying to make sense of things. I hadn't cried this much in a long time. If the front of my tshirt – which I had used to wipe away my tears – was any indication, then I had mascara all over my face.
I looked down at the pages in my hands. Three sheets of paper. Handwritten. Front and back.
He'd had a lot to say. A lot that he hadn't been telling me.
Six months' worth of unspoken feelings and untold events.
When Eli and I left the student center, I had thought we would talk. He had put me on the back of his motorcycle and headed for the beach – the same beach where he had taken me after he saw Logan kiss me at the Camelot about two years ago.
Much like that day, he had sat on his bike for a long time. Although he clearly had something to say, he silently stared out at the horizon, where the water met the sky.
I had waited for him to talk. When he did, he had said he didn't know how to tell me, couldn't get the words out. He had handed me this letter, saying that he was going to take a walk. Told me to read it. Then, we could talk.
After finding a bench, I had watched him start to walk down the beach.
Finally, I had opened the letter, which was dated a week ago.
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Veronica,
I don't know if I'll actually give you this letter or not. But I need to at least write out my thoughts before I try to talk to you. I should have told you this stuff sooner. Much sooner. Now it feels like it's too late. I'm not sure why I waited so long. There were reasons at the beginning. Reasons that made sense, but then it just seemed like I'd waited too long. There were a few times I was going to tell you, but stuff would get in the way and it felt like there was too much to say. So I stayed quiet.
I'm sorry. For that and so many other things.
I should have told you what was going on. You deserved that. We deserved that.
I hope it's not too late.
Here goes …
Although she didn't tell me until about a month after my grand opening, my grandmother had started having health problems again. Or I guess the word I should use is: still. Not sure if it was all brought on by the lead pipes or if that just made an existing problem worse. But the bottom line is that her blood pressure and heart problems had gotten bad enough that her doctor practically demanded that she cut back her work schedule. So she went down to part-time hours around the time the shop opened.
She told me, but then swore me to secrecy. She didn't want anyone else to know – no other family or friends. She only told me because she needed my help with bills. For a while, I was pissed at her, partly for keeping it from me for so long (like she did two years ago) but also for making me keep her secret.
Her doctor wasn't seeing any improvement with her working part-time, so she put in her two-week notice. She and I talked about what she was going to do next. Then, we talked to Bri and Ben just after her last day of work.
They agreed to our plan and to her demand of keeping quiet so the family could have a "normal" Christmas. She wanted to have one last Christmas in the house. That's why I asked you to take photos for me to give to my family.
As soon as her Christmas tree came down, she started to pack up the house. I had already moved my stuff out in the fall, but she still had a lot of stuff to deal with. And I was the only one helping her.
That's why I was so thankful when you started being more careful. I needed one part of my life to be calm and drama-free. And I didn't have the time or energy to be your protector.
A couple weeks after the holidays, she had a heart attack while packing and cleaning. She was alone at the house and called me at work. Said she wasn't feeling well. I had her call her doctor while I was driving over. He told her it might be a heart attack (apparently women's symptoms are different) and that she should go to the ER. The only reason she didn't call an ambulance was because I was on my way.
She was in the hospital for about a week. In between visiting hours, I would go to her house to pack.
Right about the time she was discharged, one of my full-time guys quit. That made things complicated for a while. I had to get her moved to Bri and Ben's place, plus find time to drive back and forth to see her. That was around the time I said I thought we needed a break. By then, she had told the family what was going on. So, she would have been okay with me telling you, but things had gotten so complicated. I'd been keeping it from you for months. And you were avoiding me.
The day I visited you in jail – you know how wrong that sounds, right? – I got dragged along with Mac, Parker, and Logan on a scavenger hunt. That night, I had some time to talk to Mac. I didn't tell her everything, but I told her some. And it felt good to get it out. I didn't swear her to secrecy. Honestly, I assumed that she would say something to you. In fact, I really hoped she would. It would save me from having to figure out how to tell you myself. But she didn't tell you. When she figured out that you didn't know, she chewed my ass for not telling you, for putting her in that position.
I was prepared to tell you that night I came to meet you at Parker's party. But when I saw you with Piz … I'm not even sure how to explain it. Like my emotions overloaded and I was numb from the pain. The pain of what I saw, of what had been happening between us, my grandma's health, the stress at work. Just all of it.
In the middle of all that, I spent a night at the B&B and talked with Bri a lot. Also spent hours walking up and down the beach. She suggested that I think about finding a therapist. She said that between all the current stuff, plus Felix's death and everything else that happened during high school, she thought I should talk to someone qualified to help me sort that out. So I did. And it definitely helped.
I don't think I would have been able to handle seeing you (when you brought your car in for inspection and when I asked you to take Carlos's case) if I hadn't started going to therapy. Even still, it was hard as hell.
You said that you weren't dating Piz then, but not long after that Mac told me that you were. That was hard to hear. But not as painful as when Dick came into the shop and showed me that video.
I really am sorry for everything that happened that day. I don't think I've ever been that angry in my life. I was in my car driving over there before I even stopped to think. I didn't even tell anyone at the shop that I was leaving.
The stuff you said that day and what happened (me losing control like that) made me think a lot. Thankfully, I had a therapy session scheduled for the next day.
She's the one who suggested I try writing all this out before I tried to tell you. Also suggested that it would give me a backup plan. That if I couldn't find the words when I was face to face with you, then I could just hand you this.
I love you, Mia. More than I will ever be able to tell you. And I know I screwed up. Many times. I did some things, said some things, and reacted in ways that I wouldn't have (or at least I hope I wouldn't have ) if I hadn't been under all that stress. But the biggest thing I did wrong was keep all of this from you. I tried to compartmentalize things. And it helped a little to have one part of my life feel "normal." For a while anyway. But that wasn't fair to you or us.
I'm not telling you this to get you back. I'm just telling you because you deserve to know.
But if you'll have me, I'll do whatever it takes to make things right, to make this work.
All my love,
Eli
P.S. If this letter is even half decently written, that's all on you. And all the time you spent tutoring me. If you ever decide to change career paths, you'd make a damn fine teacher.
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I'm not sure how long I sat there. Crying. Staring out at the ocean. Looking down at his letter in my lap.
Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? Long enough that I began to wonder when he would be coming back.
I looked down the beach in the direction he had gone. I could see someone, but I couldn't tell which direction they were walking or if it was him.
After a few minutes of watching the person come toward me, I was fairly certain it was Eli. A few minutes more, and I was certain.
As I stood up, he stopped walking. We both stood still, watching each other.
My heartbeat sped up, and I felt like I couldn't breathe.
Why did he stop?
Only one way to find out. I walked toward him.
He stood still with hands in his pockets, waiting for me.
I stopped a few feet from him. He looked down as he pushed sand around with one foot.
There was so much that we needed to talk about, so much that needed to be said. I had so many questions for him. And I needed to finally tell him everything I'd been holding back.
But the first thing I needed was the answer to one very important question: "How is she doing?"
He looked up, his eyes studying me. He seemed surprised that that was the first thing to come out of my mouth.
I stepped toward him, placing a hand on his arm. "Eli …"
"The prognosis isn't good. Her doctor says she's doing better since the hospital, but he has been careful not to say anything too … He doesn't want her … to think everything's just gonna go back to normal."
"She's gonna stay with Bri and Ben?"
"Probably. She likes it there. She feels useful – helps Bri in the kitchen, does some light cleaning. And they don't mind having her. Plus, her doctor says living at the beach seems to be good for her. She's getting out and walking every day."
When he fell silent, I asked, "How often do you see her?"
"Not often enough."
My next question for him: "How are you doing?"
He dropped his head, letting out a laugh. "You couldn't tell by the letter?"
Closing the remaining distance between us, I wrapped my arms around him. For a moment, he didn't move. Then, his arms embraced me. He leaned into me and wept on my shoulder.
The last time I had seen him cry this hard was when we got the news about Felix.
Several minutes later, he stepped away and wiped his face. He apologized for getting my shirt wet. Then, I pointed at the mascara stains and joked that I had already ruined it.
He took my hand, and we walked back toward the bench. On the way, I asked him several questions, trying to fill in the timeline of the past six months, based on what he had said in his letter. I listened as he answered every last question I threw at him. For the most part, I had figured out how the stuff in his letter lined up with the things I knew about and had been there for.
When we got back to the bench, we sat facing each other and continued talking.
First topic was everything connected with the video – the day he saw it and went after Piz, me going after The Castle, and the scene with Gory a short while ago.
"If I hadn't already accepted the internship and committed to the study abroad program, I'd be scrambling to find another excuse to get out of this town for a while." Seeing his expression, I quickly added, "Not because of you. The video. The Castle. I need … some time away from all this chaos." Sighing, I continued, "I recognize that some of the chaos is of my own making – whether or not I instigated it, I certainly didn't do much to resolve it or walk away from it."
"I'm glad to hear you recognize that."
"I do, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to completely give up working cases. It started with my need to solve Lilly's murder, but it became such a huge part of who I am … I'm not sure who I am without it. Part of the reason I started pulling away and avoiding you … was that I knew you didn't want me to—"
"I never asked you to quit working cases – just to be more careful."
I turned his words over in my head, sifted through memories. And I couldn't think of a single time that he had told me to stop. There were, however, numerous times he had asked me to "back off" or let someone else do "the dangerous stuff." If I would have told him at the time how I felt, he would have been able to tell me that I had misunderstood him. But I had kept my mouth closed.
As he stroked the back of my hand with his thumb, I asked him, "What's the answer? Why is it going to work this time?"
"I don't know. But I know we're better together than we are apart." He paused and then said, "And that we need to do a better job of communicating."
Silence fell between us again. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but I knew we weren't finished talking.
Looking out at the water, I let my mind wander through the events of the past several months. I began to ramble mid-thought. "I ask questions because my mind is curious. Sometimes, I don't stop to think if I really want to know the answers to those questions about the people who are close to me. But once I start, it's like I can't stop." I turned toward him as I said, "For the record, I am glad that you were honest. I just wish I wouldn't have asked the questions."
"Me too. I don't want you to see me that way – the way I was. I like it better when you look at me with respect."
"That wasn't the problem. It wasn't so much that it made me see you different … It was that it made me see myself different. It made me wonder if …"
"V?"
"It made me wonder if I wasn't enough for you."
"What are you talking about? How could you ever think that?"
Taking a deep breath, I launched in. The list of crazy thoughts tumbled out of my mouth at lightning speed. Strip clubs, being with two hookers, buying me lingerie, fulfilling his fantasies, mentioning paying for me to get a tattoo, joking about the sexy nurse costume at Halloween, getting offers from other women, and telling me a while back about the dream he had of me handcuffed to a bed.
After a brief pause, I continued, "And I seem to remember when I was arrested two years ago at school for fake IDs that I didn't make, you said something like you would have paid to see them take me out in cuffs. All this stuff piled up, rolled around in my mind, and made me feel like I wasn't enough for you … like you needed something that I wasn't giving you."
He reached for me, taking my face in his hands. "Querida … you should have—"
Anticipating what he was about to say, I cut him off. "You're right. I should have told you … tried to explain how it made me feel."
He shook his head. "Should have given me an opportunity to tell you that I love you … that I love who you are, everything about you. That I don't want or need anything else." Kissing my forehead, he added, "And that you should not let those lies into your head."
My eyes got misty, and I melted into his touch. "Yeah. Hearing something like that might have helped."
"I never meant to make you feel that way. Please believe me."
"I do." I laughed lightly. "You know … I was planning to tell you all of this the night of Parker's party."
"The same night I was planning to tell you everything."
"Yeah … Looks like we've both got some learning to do when it comes to relationships and communication."
Wrapping his arms around me, he whispered in my ear. "So … we're okay?" He seemed unsure as he asked.
After a moment, I found my voice. "We will be."
We sat like that for a few minutes before he released his hold on me.
"How soon do you leave for your internship?"
"A week after my last final. So, two weeks from today."
Taking in that information, he shifted away from me and reached into his pocket as he began to talk. "I don't want you to freak out, but there's something I need to say … before we're thousands of miles apart." He looked down at his hands. "I'm gonna fumble this a bit, so please give me a chance to get this out. I can't imagine my life without you in it – now or in the future." He paused before looking up at me. "You have some thinking to do about whether you want to come back to Hearst with all the fallout from The Castle. And even if you return after a year in Spain … you have to decide if you want to stay in Neptune after you graduate." He was playing with something in his hand as he continued, "My business is here, so I'm here, for now at least. So, there would be things to consider – none of which we need to do now. But I want my intentions to be clear before you go." He opened his hand in front of me. There was a ring sitting on his palm. "This is not a proposal – so you can get that look off your face. This is a promise from me to you … that I want this to work, that I want to work on … whatever the hell we need to work on to make this work."
"But you have a ring in your hand."
"Yes. I do. My grandmother told me years ago that this ring was mine if I wanted it, whenever I wanted it. I just had to ask for it." With his empty hand, he reached for one of mine. "A couple days ago, I went to the B&B to ask her for it." He looked down at the ring as he continued, "When I was really little, she worked for another family … before the Echolls family. She used to help the wife with her gardening. The lady liked to do it herself, but she enjoyed having someone to talk to. One day when they were working in a flowerbed, my grandma found this ring in the dirt. She handed it to the woman. But she said it wasn't hers, said it must have been there from the previous owners. Told her to keep it. It's one of the few things of value she has."
Hesitantly, I began, "So … if I accept this ring from you … what would that mean to you?"
"That you're making the same promise … to try to make this work. You don't have to wear it – unless you want to. And it doesn't even have to mean that we're officially back together. Yet."
I nodded as I processed his words. "It's just a promise … to each other."
"Yes. A promise to try."
Carefully, I took the ring from his hand. "So, this is quite literally a 'promise ring.' Never thought I'd get one of those." A couple minutes passed as I looked at the substantial ruby set in a simple gold band.
Finally, he broke the silence as he took the ring from me. "You should try it on." As he slid it past the knuckle on my right-hand ring finger, he said, "Look at that! It fits."
"Perfectly."
He was smiling as he looked at me, but his eyes were sad as he asked, "So … three months?"
"Yeah."
Nodding, he said, "Mac's been trying to convince me to do something with my new computer."
"Meaning?"
"Social media, video calls, I don't know … she rattled off lots of things I'd heard of and more that I hadn't. She wants to set everything up … so we can keep in touch while you're gone. I'll try not to bother you if you're busy, but I want to be available … so that we can—"
"Work through stuff. Learn to communicate better."
He seemed relieved as he said, "Yeah."
"It seems we're back to this weirdly undefined relationship … not broken up, but not exactly together."
"You can call it whatever you want to call it."
I searched his eyes before saying, "If someone asked you about me … what would your answer be?
"I'd say … you're the love of my life. That's all they ever need to know."
Just then, my phone buzzed. It had buzzed at least a dozen times since he put me on the back of his bike to ride here. After taking it out of my pocket, I looked down at my phone. I saw messages from Mac and Wallace. Showing the screen to Eli, I said, "They're checking on me."
He took the phone from my hand and dialed. He put it on speaker. After one ring, I heard Mac's panicked voice say, "Veronica, where are you? I heard what happened in the food court. Your car is still in the parking lot. Are you okay?"
Eli put a finger on my lips and proceeded to answer for me. "She's at the beach. She's fine."
"Eli?!"
"Yeah."
"So … you're … together?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Um. I guess I can get details out of you two some other time."
Finally, he removed the finger from my lips so that I could respond to Mac. "We're just getting some things sorted."
I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "About damn time."
A/N:
The following lines were borrowed from the movie Forget Paris (1995):
"What's the answer? Why is it going to work this time?"
"I don't know. But I know we're better together than we are apart."
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What you can expect in Part 4:
She chooses to not return to Hearst, but she does not go to Stanford. She does eventually go to law school and get together with Piz, but only after living in another city and being involved with someone else. All the twists and turns here in Part 4 will lead right up to the phone call from Logan at the beginning of the movie, which will begin Part 5 of this series. By the end of Part 5, Eli and V will sort out all their shit, and WeeVer will finally get their happily ever after.
Starting now, there will be a HIATUS (approximately 2 months). After that, I will post the rest of Part 4 and then immediately begin posting Part 5. If all goes according to plan, you should be reading the conclusion of Part 5 approximately one year from now.
And if you haven't already done so, please … let me know what you thought of Part 3. Whether you loved it, hated it, found it confusing – I want to hear from you. Your feedback motivates me and makes me a better writer.
Thanks again for reading, particularly those of you who have been with me since the beginning (28 June 2016, to be exact). I find it hard to believe that it's been four years since I posted Chapter 1 of Stall (Along the Road – Part 1). That was the first time I wrote a VM fic. Thanks SO much for reading and encouraging me to continue writing.
When I am about to start posting new chapters of this fic, I will probably post a one-shot with an A/N letting you know when to expect Chapter 2 of Learning (Along the Road – part 4).
See you in a few months. Stay safe and healthy!
Until next time …
~Jen
28 June 2020