Authors Note:
In this AU, there were liberties taken about naval activities and the reach of WIFI/cell reception in the pacific. Go with it and enjoy!
238 minutes left
There are days in your life that stand out. Monumental days, heavenly days, days you live over and over again in your mind. In the future, you wonder if they were truly as blissful as you imagined, or were you just framing them so?
Yesterday was one of those days, so good that I don't want to sleep. Like fighting the human urge to close my eyes and succumb to slumber will let it continue eternally. As incredible as it was, it didn't subvert the passage of time. Seconds still passed, rolling to minutes, morphing into hours. Time stops for no man, even one who has just had the pleasure of making love for the better part of eleven hours straight with Veronica Mars.
We did take food and hydration mini-breaks.
A few.
It's 2.32 am and I lay beside a sleeping Veronica Mars, we're both naked and spent. The light from the bathroom is on, illuminating her face in the darkness. Her mouth is parted slightly, one arm resting on the pillow, the other, resting on my chest. The fan whirs and hums above us, doing a terrible job of dissipating the heat. I'm not sure if it's coming from the outside, or from us.
Facing her I make a mental inventory of everything; hair, face, soft lines, warm curves so this vision can sustain me for the upcoming solitude.
I was baffled by yesterday's events, after processing the physical aspect of them, I was reeling over the emotional torrent that had ripped through me. It appeared that all the longing had not been one-sided. She loved me, she felt it. The nuggets of memory start processing in a totally new light; the touches, the lingering looks, sexually-charged banter, they weren't in my mind, they happened.
Yesterday, in all its glory. A day filled with confessions, searing kisses and so much lovemaking we couldn't walk. But, what it lacked was talk, real talk. Were we really going to do this? I didn't want to bring it up, because I wasn't sure. I didn't want to break the spell, the fresh, sex, giddy, madness of touching her after a ten-year hiatus. So I shut my mouth, and I just lived in the feeling, even if it was just for one day, of Veronica saying she loved me, and her kissing me first. My mind was wondrously blown.
There are 238 minutes until my departure. While I wanted to dive head-first into this life, it was madness. Suit up, stand on the diving platform, propel yourself off the board into an empty pool below. Starting a relationship with a six-month absence was ludacris. I wanted every option considered, because I wasn't going into this half-way and taking the easy route. It would be long and hard, but most of all, it needed to be right.
Navy life had conditioned me to a process of analysis and risk mitigation. Everything was delivered in daily analytics, flight data, training data, safety procedures, weapons data, mission data. Much of it was on the humble spreadsheet. I'd developed a real affinity for them over the years, relying on them regularly for clarity and consult. So naturally, I construct a spreadsheet in my head. Tabs, columns, rows, trying to make some semblance of order to this.
Option A –
-No first date bliss, no hand-holding, ice cream shops and memories to remind you why you signed up to this in the first place.
-The relationship of option A hasn't actually happened yet. It's weak and can be easily destroyed by loneliness, an angry word or a loitering bar-fly on a lonely night.
-She says she loves me, but is it enough to put up with the distance?
Option B –
-Pressing pause. Returning to friends for now.
-Accept the feelings are there, just putting them on hold.
-Giving Veronica time to consider the realities of us.
-While I'm gone she has the opportunity to explore other options.
Option B was a gamble, a dangerous one. But I was willing to place the bets high, for the long term gains. And let's be honest, if anyone was a gamble here, it was me.
Veronica cracks an eye open and looks at me like she's reading my mind. She used to say that my thoughts were very loud.
Busted.
"What are you doing? Go to sleep!" she groans, shuffling in the sheets.
"Not yet," I grin and touch her face.
She glances at the clock, "It's 2.50 am! If not now, then when?"
I shrug, I was pretty good operating on zero sleep. I run my fingers through her hair because I still can't stop touching her. The fingers want the imprint of her skin beneath my own to last forever.
"If you're going to lie there, watching me sleep like a creepy stalker, the least you can do is let me in." She opens up my arm and burrows into me, arms wrapped and sighs like it's the epitome of comfort. We're quiet and just when I think she's drifted back to sleep she whispers into the darkness.
"Logan."
"Mmm."
"I'm sorry it took me so long to kiss you."
"I'm sorry for the exact same thing."
"I should have kissed you, at the wedding, at the spinster table, in the hotel room. I had a million opportunities and I didn't," she says.
"For future reference, you can kiss me anytime you want."
She tilts her head up and kisses me, this time a brief peck, "Goodnight."
I run my lips across her hair and close my eyes.
She burrows into the nook, deep and warm and I let the mental spreadsheets settle, closing the tabs one by one, enjoying this time, while I had it.
'Goodnight my love."
90 minutes left
My alarm rouses us, Veronica protests my departure as I peel myself from the sheets and head for the shower. With nude glee, I discover that she has followed me.
"Can't stay away from me, can you?" I quip, holding open the shower curtain, eyebrows raised.
I get the water temperature just right and step inside. It's a shower over bath set up and Veronica takes a step in behind me.
"Showering alone is highly overrated."
I don't dispute the fact whatsoever. Although her presence made me doubt I was going to be doing much washing at all this morning.
She stands back, watching me wet my hair and the water fall over my body. Her eyes are devious, hungry, but she keeps a courteous distance.
Of course, I wish she wouldn't.
I level my eyes at her, take a small bow, step to the side and allow her to take the stream. Veronica stands under it, the water cascading over her face, shoulders, breasts, navel, all the way down my gaze follows it. She is the picture of nonchalance, but of course, she knows precisely what she's doing to me, it's kind of hard for a guy to hide it.
I pass her the shampoo, she pours it into her palm and I rest back against the tiles and just watch. She massages her hair, mountains of bubbles form, dripping down. Her eyes closed tight.
I can't help it, I take a step towards her and run my fingers across her stomach. She grins, eyes still closed. My hands make their way to her hair, running through it, helping her massage. Veronica pulls her hands down and lets me finish my hair salon treatment. Eyes still closed, I tilt her head back, rinsing it. I decide I have to kiss her.
So I do.
She tastes of vanilla shampoo, but I don't hate it. I run my hand down, sliding it between her legs, she parts them, granting me access. If you think I got enough of this last night, you'd be very wrong.
She giggles, her knees trembling and she groans, "For years I forgot about your powers." In the wet, my finger finds her clit and I draw circles around it, teasing it, but not touching it.
Out, around, left, right. A drip of water travels from my hand to her thigh.
"What powers?" I whisper into her ear, my curiosity piqued. A finger still tracking its devious path, a figure eight, a love heart, everything but letting it fall where she wants it most.
"You're a sexual psychic."
I laugh.
"Thank you, I think?" I edge it closer, but not close enough. She can put a pretty label on it and think that it's something cosmic, but the reality is much more simple. I just want to touch her everywhere, all the time, and she seems to enjoy that too.
Veronica bites my shoulder, hard. I hope it's hard enough that I'll see her teeth marks tattooed in my flesh every day in the shower for the next week.
"It's a compliment. Take it."
"Will do," My finger wanders, dipping it an inch inside her, then retracting it, then dipping again. She expels a deep breath. I lean down and suck at her neck, the spot right below her ear, I luxuriate in the knowledge that it's in the top five of Veronica Mars' erogenous zones. Of course, it works like a charm, her knees buckle and I wrap my free hand around her ass to hold her upright.
And my finger is still only in to the first knuckle.
"So, if I was a sexual psychic, I would know what you want me to do right now?" I growl into her ear, her cheeks rise into a smile. Her eyes find mine, blue and begging.
I lean forward, kissing her, and let my finger find the spot she desires the most, she swears under her breath and her hand hits the glass for support.
"Sorcery," she moans, reaching down and takes my throbbing cock in her hand.
45 minutes left
We'd spent considerably longer in the shower than I anticipated. I had to speed things up, I was about to leave and we hadn't spoken at all, and I wasn't counting moans, dirty-talk and crying out to the gods.
I'd exited the bathroom to find her lying on my bed and the picture of it was so perfect I couldn't look away. By some erotic miracle, she trusts me enough to let me photograph her, wet and naked from the waist up, wrapped in my sheets. Giving me the gift of a kinky-keepsake for the long days at sea. It's a great momentary distraction for the conversation I know soon has to happen. She leaves the room to let me dress.
I button my shirt, hair still damp, my fingers continually slipping, like they're battling against me and the general logistics of buttoning entirely. Dressed in my camouflage working uniform I appear in the kitchen, where Veronica is semi-dressed (the best kind of dressed), making coffee with bare feet on the tiles. She's wearing my old white Calvin shirt. It hangs just below her hips, I can see the curve of her ass and her black underwear beneath.
What is the phenomenon that women look better in men's clothes than men? Spend $100 on a shirt, yeah it looks okay, but put Veronica in it…
We make stilted conversation and sip at the warm coffee, eyes continually floating back and forth, before finding each other, suddenly shy. Bewildering considering I was inside her not ten minutes earlier. My phone buzzes in my pocket, we both know my ride is now on its way. There is a bizarre sensation like time is flying by, but also stagnant. All that was comfortable and right about last night. The perfect fit, the sex, the confessions are all harsh in the light of day. The urgency of my departure hits us hard, now things are awkward.
I open my mouth to speak, to tell her all the thoughts that meandered through my head these last few hours. That we should wait. That this isn't necessarily goodbye, just a temporary pause, a hibernation.
Old Logan, impulsive Logan would throw caution to the wind, he'd declare Veronica his and let the world know it. New Logan, he was more trepidatious. He knew what kind of havoc he could create unchecked, this needed to be right.
She gets in first, her words fast "Logan," her eyes meet mine, a deep supplicating blue, "I need to tell you that you're not chaos. I'm not scared of you. You are an incredible guy who has completely turned his life around. You have this incredible career; you're respected and smart and funny and kind. You need to stop letting what happened in the past define you. You aren't your dad, or your mom, or what happened with Lilly, or Felix, or Carrie. Not ONE of those things was your fault. Yes, you have shitty luck sometimes, but you're the good guy in all this."
Her words sit with me, several seconds pass before I can move or speak.
"Then why do I always feel like the bad guy?"
While life generally threw people curveballs, for some reason mine were more like Molotov cocktails. Smashing through everything and everyone in their path. Surely another wouldn't be too far away.
She advances on me, takes my hand in hers and gives it a squeeze. "You need to focus on the good things in your life. The good you've become from all the heartache." She sounds like my therapist, the words that people like to tell me over the years. But unless you feel them yourself, they are just words, even if they come from her.
"You know I did it all for you, right?"
I say it, because I can't not say it.
She shakes her head, "Don't say that Logan."
"Okay, I won't," I pause, quieter "but it's true."
She is silent for a moment. I take the last sip of my coffee and put the mug into the sink, staring into it, readying myself. This is the part that takes all the courage, that takes all the energy to come from my heart to my mouth.
"I'm going to say something Veronica, and I need you not to interrupt me. Can you do that?"
"Depends on what you say," she laughs nervously.
I smile at her, beautiful woman, "Veronica, I love you, but..."
She opens her mouth, my hand goes up to quiet her, frustration seeped into my tone. "No. No speaking. We don't have much time and I need to get this out."
Her mouth and eyes close, awaiting my continuation. I steel myself with a deep breath, terrified that one false move right now was going to ruin our entire story.
"I love you. And I will love you no matter what, but maybe this is a good time to think about what you want. I'm going to be gone, and I don't know how long for. You should use this time to think about us, if you want to go down this path with me. I can't promise it will be easy. Go out there, see if there is anyone else for you."
That mouth opens again, so tenacious Miss Mars, my hand goes back up.
"If I get back and you want to be friends. I can deal with that. At the end of the day, I need you in my life, V, in whatever capacity you want me. Okay?"
What I don't say is, do it, go and screw the brains out of hot guys while I'm gone and get it out of your system. Because I can't see you at the bar with a guy like Fuckface again and not commit homicide. All the therapy in the world can't save me from my feelings towards you. We aren't young anymore, everything we do here, I want to be for keeps. We've had two chances now, and we've blown them both, this one will be our last.
She sighs, in agreeance or resignation, I'm not sure.
And at that moment, my phone beeps, I check it, "the Uber is here." The one time they're on time!
Fuck.
Walking to the bedroom, I take a final glance around, lingering on the messy sheets for a moment too long, grab my duffel and walk to the kitchen. Veronica stares at the bag in my hand like she hates bags and all that they stand for.
I completely understand, that fucking bag has haunted me for 5 days straight.
I hadn't yet constructed a viable plan as to how I was going to physically leave. Walk out the door. Of course, I understood the general mechanics of bodily movement. Lift leg, step, heel, toe, repeat with alternative. But whoever created the movement was not walking away from someone, someone like Veronica, for months. The thought of it is unbearable.
I stand before her again, raising my hand for a fist bump with a wry smirk. She looks at me with surprised disbelief.
"Are you trying to fist bump me?" she sneered.
My body shudders with laughter. The kind you force out as a cover when you really just want to cry.
"I hope that's a fucking joke?"
My laugh turns to a warble and I step forward and wrap myself around her, holding her tight against my chest. She grips me firmly around my torso, very firmly. I lean down and inhale the shampoo freshness of her.
Without releasing me, she tilts her head upwards, I pull her face towards me and kiss her, softly. Tracing my tongue against hers, lips grazing, then pulling back, so very reluctantly.
Because I need to remind myself that this kiss may be my last. I was asking her to move on and there was a very real chance that this kiss could be goodbye.
Her face goes into my neck and a sound emanates from her throat, a staggered breathing, like the beginnings of a cry.
Please don't cry, Veronica.
The fucking Uber beeps me again.
"I have to go."
She pushes me towards the door, "Go."
I take one last glance at her, eyes shimmering with unshed tears. I don't make eye contact. For obvious reasons.
"See you soon," I pick up the duffel and walk out the door.
Lift leg, heel, toe, open door, walk down the stairs.
A white Camry waits out the front of my apartment. I open the door and deposit myself onto the fabric seat. I feel like paper, brittle, ready to tear apart at the smallest breath of wind.
"Hey Dude, off to deployment?" Mr. Fucking Impatient points to my uniform, making small talk.
I finger the fabric of my duffel strap, "yeah," is the only thing I can muster.
Thankfully, he gets the hint.
I hurriedly unlock my phone, fingers furiously composing a message to her. I hit the letters so hard they miss and I have to keep fixing the mistakes.
Veronica. I was wrong. Wait for me. Let's do this, let's try, I want to be with you. L. x
I stare at it for a few moments before hitting delete and tucking it back in my pocket.
We'd endured years of this, knocking on decades of emotional ping pong. Surely it couldn't all be for nothing? Did we exist in this orbit for entertainment value only? It was like making your way through years of a TV show only to find they killed off the most interesting character. It's pointless and disappointing. I had to believe that there was a greater destination than this, that we could be something, if only we were given the right chance.
I was determined to wait, to give us this chance, even if it ripped my bloody beating heart directly from my chest.
So I stare out the window and let the remains of Neptune pass me by with a spectacular red sunrise blooming in the background.
At North Island Air Station, we have two meetings and one briefing before suiting up. Boots, flight suit, g-suit, harness all go on in the ready room which is raucous with chatter and catch-ups after months at home. The squadron will make its way across the Pacific today, about a thousand miles west of Hawaii.
I cross the runway, holding my helmet and chat with my plane captain, going over the necessary preflight final checks. I climb up, running my hand across the aluminum fuselage of the Hornet, the name LT LOGAN ECHOLLS printed with MOUTH below it. It's become a superstitious habit, I always touch the name, as if convincing myself that by doing so everything will be okay.
In the cockpit, I strap myself in looking up at the deep blue Californian sky, cumulus clouds scattered on the horizon. I crank the motors, warm up the systems, close the canopy and clip on my oxygen mask, waiting for orders to depart. This is it, the reason that I commit to the long hauls; the flying. It's addictive. To know that at any moment I might be the fastest moving object in the earth's atmosphere was an incredible rush. This feeling makes up, in part, for leaving Veronica today.
The flying is the quiet part, after take-off, after all the de-briefs and checks it's the time to just have silence ( well, as much silence as you can have through earplugs, a five-pound helmet and 110 decibels of screaming engine and thrust ). It was a strange calm, which I needed after the tumultuous overthinking that raged within me these last few days.
It's a perfect, dreamlike flight as we travel in formation, finally spotting the Carl Vinson, like a speck of dust in the vast Pacific. She grows as we fly closer, a thousand feet of steel runway on water.
Kissing off my wingmen, I queue for recovery.
"405 on the 250 for 42. Angels 15. 5.5," I report and the marshall assigns me a holding point in the queue.
I do the maths on my kneeboard card. A few half standard rate turns and wait in line. This is the dance of giant slabs of steel, choreographed into a careful ballet, one so precise the slightest incorrect movement can mean instant death.
No pressure.
I sit in holding, listening through my headset to plane after plane successfully trap before me. Then, it's my turn, the familiar rush of adrenaline shoots from the base of my neck to my toes.
I fucking love this part. Everyone does.
Flying the ball all the way in, keeping it level, in constant contact with the marshall. Relaying fuel, altitude, positioning. I approach and get my response, "Roger Ball," and we're good to go. The stubby runway in my focus ahead. I push into full throttle afterburner just as I clear the deck, the arresting wires catch, hydraulics slamming me into my straps to a full halt. I'm down, all is well. I crack into a wide smile, pleased that I haven't gotten rusty in my time off. Things move quickly now, I pull back, raise the hook, looking to the right for my yellow shirt to direct me to taxi to my spot.
I power everything down in the cockpit while brown shirts chain the jet to the bobbing carrier. We're surrounded by the deck crew, welcoming us onboard with their bright shirts and elaborate hand signals. It's a silent chaotic symphony, perfectly timed and executed.
I've landed on my new home, sea locked with 5000 other lonely humans.
After debrief and meetings with the ship's hierarchy. I have a quick meal in the wardroom before making my way to the cabin.
The stateroom, although cleaned out from its last inhabitants bore the pungent aroma of engine oil, bodies and testosterone. You can scrub all you want, but that shit's never coming out. Airwing stateroom on the 01 level in a prime location directly under the roaring steam-operated catapult. Four males jammed into bunks, sharing toilets and showers with three other staterooms. It's what dreams were made of.
Okay, nightmares.
The creaking, the flaking paint, the rust leaching into every corner. She was an old ship, seven years older than me. It felt like we were both showing our age. I ponder how my life went from living in the Neptune Grand penthouse to this. It was certainly no cruise ship, we were here to work, and work hard.
Josh Campbell 'Bounce' isn't far behind, he enters the room and takes the bunk above me, like always. He earned the name Bounce from quite literally bouncing off the runway and parking his trainer jet into bushes. Josh is my wingman, he's been with me since the Academy. We bonded from the start over our inability to stay out of trouble with our superiors for more than a few hours at a time. He was a surfer too, of the East Coast variety and grew up with a fractured family and a shitty dad. It made sense that we gravitated towards each other.
He has a scar that runs down his face, below his left eyes that jaggers and sweeps toward his lip. Depending on the amount of beer in his system it might be from a bear attack, a bucking stallion fall or the sharpened blade of a transient mugger. Considering my knowledge from the shitty-dad brigade and his reluctance to ever tell the actual story I suspected his scars weren't that dissimilar to mine. People like us locked them up tight, brushed them off with humor and snark in the hope that pretending they weren't there might make them fade.
It didn't work, but it was worth a try.
It's just us for a moment, a brief respite before further bunkmates arrive. "Is Leiha going to hold that baby in for you until you get home?" I ask as he leaps up into his bunk, his feet pull up and disappear, boots still on.
"I told her to keep her legs together," the voice comes from above.
"That's unlike you."
A hand drops down, giving me the finger.
Of course, a family, an unborn baby at home makes my issues seem small, a momentary reality check.
"Did you finish the drywall?" I ask after I abandoned him mid-tool passing last week for Wallace's wedding.
"When I got the call to deploy I've never worked so fast before. All finished."
"How did you manage without me?"
He laughs, apparently not lamenting the loss of my handiwork, "I survived."
"Is Leiha going to list it now or wait until you're back?" I query.
"I think we'll wait."
The thoughts of that house have swirled in my subconscious a few times over the last week.
"How did your wedding date go?"
If I was going to tell anyone, it would be Josh. What we talk about on the ship, stays on the ship. Navy code.
"The wedding went well, the whole week, in fact, got progressively better as the days wore on." I groan dramatically just thinking about it.
"That good, hey?"
"Better," I'm serious now.
A chuckle comes from above, "I'm happy for you man."
"Don't be."
"What?" he asks as he drops back out of the bunk and heads to his locker
"I left with a - think it over, try out some other guy's approach."
He looks at me, brow furrowed in disbelief, "What the hell is wrong with you, Mouth?"
"I can't even begin to explain."
He empties clothes into his locker. "Fuck me! Five, six months of you waiting to find out if Veronica moved on. Kill me now." He hangs himself with an invisible noose, complete with a final gasp for air.
The others enter the room, Paul 'ALF' Armado takes the bunk parallel to mine. Paul scored the ALF acronym - Annoying Little Fuck - he just scraped in the height requirement for piloting jets and, at times, can certainly live up to his name. Luke 'Burger' Trelour takes the bunk beside Josh. Poor Luke engaged in a burger eating competition an hour before a flight, he then proceeded to decorate his cockpit with the remains of said burger. That was the thing about callsigns, do one stupid thing and they followed you around for life. In all honesty, I got off easy, 'Mouth' was just a basic observation.
I head to my locker as the first day of catching up, goading and general grilling begins. Profanities grace each and every sentence with flair. 'Fuck off,' 'Fucking huge!' 'Fuck me!' They really are versatile. Of course, the saying 'swear like a sailor' didn't come from nowhere.
I start hanging my shirts and notice a sliver of yellow peeking out of the top pocket of my service whites.
I pick it up, holding it close to my chest, shielding it from three pairs of eyes only a few feet away. It's a pale yellow post-it, black marker hastily scribbled on it. I recognize her handwriting immediately.
The junior school rush fills me, like I've just received a note from my crush and I don't want the teacher to see and confiscate it.
It reads 'Thanks for last night. Call me. V.' and her cell number is scribbled on the back. I can't help but let a smile spread across my face and I fold it up neatly and press it right back into the pocket for safekeeping.
705 minutes since I left
I strip off my shirt and climb into the bunk. I've got an early call tomorrow, I need to get some sleep. I draw the curtain.
Opening the photos on my phone I stare at the picture I took of Veronica this morning. It already feels like a lifetime ago, like I've transported into another world. I'm Navy Logan now, he's the same man, but he is also different. Navy Logan crossed at least 3500 miles of ocean today and just this morning had her in his arms. Already, the space between us causes me to lose sense of the feeling.
I lay in the bed and send Veronica a message. She'll want to know I'm here, that I'm safe. A devious smile crosses my lips as an idea springs to mind. I lie back in the bunk, pull my pants extra low on my hips, arm above my head and take a selfie, mimicking her semi-nude pose. I chuckle when I look at it.
Not bad.
Saucy, but tasteful. Have I become a soft-porn connoisseur?
I realize that I'm supposed to be back in the friendzone but it only seems fair if I'm allowed to have a topless photo of her, that she has one of me. We were at a cruising altitude of weirdness at his point so we may as well ride it out, bound to each other with compromising selfies.
6.51pm from Logan: Home from work?
6.51pm from Veronica: Yes. Just sat on the couch.
Oh, to be with Veronica, on a couch. Dreams.
6.53pm from Logan: I miss you already.
6.54pm from Veronica: Not me, I'm enjoying all this couch space.
6.54pm from Logan: Liar.
6.54pm from Logan: Are you alone?
6.55pm from Veronica: Just me, Bubba and all my other boyfriends. Why?
6.55pm from Logan: I have a present for you.
I send her the photo, grinning mercilessly, imagining her reaction.
6.56pm from Veronica: I accept this present with many thanks. My birthday is coming up… wonder what I'll get then?
6.56pm from Logan: Only time will tell. I better go to sleep.
6.57pm from Veronica: OK. Goodnight.
6.57pm from Logan: Goodnight. Xo.
It would be months before I got to see this woman, my friend, my love in the flesh again. I closed my eyes and prayed that she would wait. Because while I wanted the best for her, I selfishly wished that best would be me.