Summary: Veronica must decide whether to stand by her husband, the sheriff, or her first love, and brother, Duncan Kane as history repeats itself. Slightly AU future fic.

Spoilers: Anything in season 1 is fair.

Rating: PG-13/R for incest, mainly in later chapters.

Pairings: Veronica/Duncan, Veronica/Leo

Disclaimer: I don't own VM, and am in no way affiliated with those who do.

Chapter 2- Elly

"Uncle Duncan," I cried as my father held my sobbing mother up.

"Hi, Elly," he said weakly. His voice was soft, and laden with pain.

"What did Dad say to you?" I asked, holding in my tears. I would be strong for my uncle. He needed it so badly, and I loved him so much. He shook his head.

"It was nothing. Just routine. Nowhere near as harsh as what Veronica's father said to my father."

It took me a second to register what he had just said.

"Don't you and mom have the same father?" I asked.

"I meant Keith," he corrected. I knew that Keith was like a father to Mom, and she even called him Dad, but I assumed that was just because she wasn't close to her family. I hadn't thought that her brother would refer to Keith as her father, especially when he was upset.

"But why did you call him her father?" I persisted, but stopped at the look on his face. He was too tired, too heartbroken, too torn apart to answer. So I lead him to the bench where I had been sitting with Mom, and sat with him.

"I've got a secret, a good one," Lilly trilled as she bounced down the walkway as her cousin Elly pulled into the Kane driveway.

"What?" Elly teased as she got out of the car.

"I know who Daddy's mystery girl is."

"Who?"

"Guess."

"It's someone I could guess?"

"Maybe," Lilly giggled.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Tomorrow. I'm gonna make you wait." Elly laughed.

"Get in the car. Let's go see that movie."

"Mom," I began as we sat down to dinner, "I was talking to Uncle Duncan today, and he called Keith your father."

"Want some potatoes, Elly?" Dad asked, trying to change the direction of the conversation. I glared at him.

"Leo, if you distract her, she'll think there's something sinister. She's related to me, after all." Mom chided him. "Keith was my mother's husband. He raised me as his daughter."

I accepted the explanation, but I knew there was more to it than that.

I waited in my room. I knew that once my parents thought I was asleep they would go to their room to discuss the case. Sure enough, the lights went out, and I heard whispers. I crept out of my room, and into the linen closet. There is a small tube in the closet that opens in their room. If you press your ear to the hole, you can hear anything that goes on in that room. You'd think that, being a PI and sheriff, they'd have noticed the hole and plugged it up. Maybe they decided that I had the right to hear anything I was clever enough to hear.

"Duncan had another episode the day Lilly died," Dad said apologetically. An episode of what? Why was it so horrible?

"Probably for the same reason he had one the day his sister died," Mom said, her voice steely. What did she think Dad was implying?

"I'm not accusing him of anything."

"You implied. He'll be a suspect because he had an episode. He had an episode because he was heartbroken, and horrified."

"You don't know that. It's the most likely scenario, but we don't know for sure."

"He had an episode when Logan jumped off a bridge. No one accused him of pushing Logan off the bridge, even though that was the night we found the sex tapes of Lilly and Aaron, and solved the case."

"Weevil saw Logan jump."

"Well, if you can trust Weevil, why can't you trust me?" Mom's voice was getting angrier with every word. I wasn't following the conversation at all.

"First of all, you know Weevil's trustworthy. Second, he was an eyewitness, unlike you. Third, his testimony just made sense. Logan jumped from exactly the same spot as Lynne. You, of all people, know how upset Logan was over his mother's suicide."

"I know. And I know that Duncan didn't do it." I had never heard my mother defend her brother before. Of course, the idea of my gentle uncle killing anyone was laughable. Dad just wanted a suspect, and, as farfetched as Duncan was, he was probably the closest thing to an actual suspect Dad had.

"How? In your heart? Because you still love him? You know that wasn't good enough for you to clear Jake Kane when your mother said it, and Jake Kane doesn't have type 4 epilepsy."

"I know. You're right. And I've never even seen him have an episode. I don't have any substantial evidence to clear him. Let's just go to sleep." Mom sighed in defeat.

"Okay," Dad agreed, kissing her softly. I sat in the closet, in shock. I had no idea what any of that meant. What had happened between my mother and uncle that gave her the right to stop loving him? Weren't brothers and sisters supposed to love each other unconditionally?