Title: The Best Memories 3-Same Old Song and Dance
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1,738
Characters/Pairings: Veronica/Piz (mentions of Logan/Veronica, Logan/Lilly)
Spoilers/Warnings: The entire series. Everything.
Disclaimer: None of it's mine. Not the song mentioned, not the charcters, none of it. So don't sue, because it'd be a big waste of time.
A/N: This was written as a response to the current challenge on fanficripples. The song used is 'Lollipop' by The Chordettes.
The Best Memories
3
Same Old Song and Dance
"Hey! What's with all the video tapes?" Piz shouted our to Veronica, lifting the tape on the top of the pile to get a look at the ones underneath. They were all titled and dated. All made long before he ever knew her and all bearing names like Lilly and Duncan and Logan. Two people he never met and one he wished he didn't.
"Oh, I'm converting them all to DVD. Doing a little editing, titles and credits and stuff. You know, memories and keepsakes and sentimentality, all the good stuff." Veronica grabbed her jacket off the back of her desk chair and slipped it on, making for her bedroom door.
Piz picked up a disc and read the title, and another. Same title. Same Old Song and Dance. He set the discs down again, gently so they wouldn't scratch. It seemed like she had been spending a lot of time on making these. But, why are there two copies?
"Hey, I'm going to run and take Backup out for a potty break real quick. You can stay here, I'll be right back." There was hesitance in her voice, like she was waiting for him to argue and follow her outside with her.
She didn't like leaving him alone in her room, he knew that but he wasn't in the mood to go out again so soon after getting here. He turned to look at her, nodding.
"I'll just wait for you in here, then we can figure out what we're going to do tonight. Okay?" He stared at her, waiting for her to turn and leave. In her mind she probably thought leaving him in here would result in him doing some sort of snooping. Finding her secrets or her journal or something. "Sooner you go, sooner you get back."
She nodded, pressing her lips together in what seemed like a gesture meant to keep the words she really wanted to say at bay. Probably her keeping herself from demanding he go with her, that they could 'play on the beach' for a little while. But it was chilly out and he didn't bring a coat and she didn't really like having him with her on the dog walks. Didn't need the company.
Veronica turned back around and called out for the dog as she made her way to the front door. He moved so that he could watch her walk from where he was. She lifted the leash off the hook and clipped it to the pit bull's collar.
The moment the front door slammed shut he almost dove for the tapes. He was dying to see a pre-college Veronica, something that showed what she had been like. She was always saying that she was different when her friend Lilly was alive. The famous Lilly, the one in all the pictures with a giggling Veronica. The two of them seemed so sweet and young, back in the days of their innocence, before Veronica became this hard person she was now. Before the bad ass version of her.
He didn't really know anything about Lilly. He just knew that in every picture Veronica had around her room she glowed and Veronica was grinning. Veronica rarely spoke about her dead friend, but he could see the longing on her face every time her glance caught one of the many photos placed around her room.
Piz picked up the first video cassette, one marked 'Veronica & Lilly: Spring Talent Show 2003'.
The images that filled the screen made him laugh. There she was. His tough girlfriend, dancing around on stage. Her hair was longer than he'd ever seen it, and blonder. She had darker streaks in it now, showing her age and her style now. She was wearing a pale pink dress that looked like she'd stepped out of a fifties movie about a sock hop.
Veronica looked so young and so innocent she danced along to an old song he'd heard his mother playing once or twice when he was younger. She wore pale pink lip gloss and was decked out in pastel colors from head to toe. She looked like the only thing she ever worried about was whether she had any hairs out of place, not whether or not she was going to get the money shot or not.
"His kiss is sweeter than an apple pie. And when he does his shaky rockin' dance. Man, I haven't got a chance." The two girls' voices rang out from the television. Clear and sweet. Something he'd never heard. Veornica wasn't one for huge public displays, didn't want the sole attention of the room to be on her. She preferred the anonymity. This Veronica on the the screen seemed to want the opposite. She reveled in the attention and was comfortable there, on stage.
The other girl, Lilly, looked even more comfortable there, in the center of everything. This was a girl he didn't know, both of them were girls he didn't know. With a stunning sense of reality, Piz realized that he didn't know anything about Veronica. He didn't know how she got from this to who she is now. How she got from Point A to Point B in just a few years.
At the same time she was dealing with murder and rape and everything he was living a normal, if not boring, life in Oregan. He remembered her comments from that first day they met. He'd been so open, telling her what a good place Beaverton was and how trusting everyone was there. And she'd made fun of him with a sarcastic comment that he'd brushed off at them time because he thought she was hot.
At the moment his epipany hit, the camera turned and focused away from the girls as their performance ended. Logan. The camera focused on Logan Echolls, who wore a look of such adoring that it made Piz's stomach drop. He'd seen that look before. So often while he was dating Veronica at the beginning of freshman year. Even now that Piz was with her, whenever Logan thought nobody was looking he looked at Veronica in the same way. As if she was everything.
Piz had an understanding that at the time, Logan hadn't been dating Veronica but Lilly. But the look was the same and Piz had the distinct feeling that it wasn't just meant for his girlfriend but Veronica as well.
Piz looked at the discs sitting on the desk, and the fact that there were two of each. Then he saw it. The large black, leather case lying open on the desk. It was half full of discs, titled and decorated. There was a notecard set next to the case, ready to be slid into it's pristine white envelope.
Ignoring the sense of foreboding he got as he picked up the glossy pink card.
Logan—
I was going through some old tapes of all of us, converting them and stuff. I made you copies. They're not the originals and I know you had some really good ones. Particularly most of the tapes of Lilly and I when we were too drunk to realize you were taping our stupidity. Aw, good times.
—Veronica
Piz put the card back in its spot as he sunk down into the computer chair. Logan was always going to be around. He was always going to know Veronica better, understand her better. No matter what Piz did, Logan would always be better.
"Hey! I'm back." Veronica called out as he heard the door slide open and shut. Piz didn't bother getting up to greet her, she'd be in front of him at any moment. Asking him what he was doing, why he was watching her tapes. How dare he go through her things.
"What are you doing?" She asked, predictably, her voice full of annoyance as she stood there with her hands on her hips and anger on her face. "These are my tapes, my extrememly personal tapes that you have no right to watch."
"Yeah, I know that." Piz said in a monotone, losing any fight he may have had over this. It was never going to work, not when he knew that Logan would always be around, in the back of her mind.
"Then why did you do it? How dare you go through my things, like you have any right." Veronica began to gather her things ups. Her precious tapes that she was so worried about, so angry at him for seeing.
"They're just tapes, Veronica." Piz told her, pointing out the obvious, knowing that it would just piss her off more.
"No, they're not just tapes. They're my memories, and it's my privacy and you have no right violating that. Get out." Veronica demanded, reaching for the CD case and noticing the notecard sitting askew. "Did you read this?"
She held the card in her hand, staring at him with shocked incredulity. He'd really pissed her off now.
"I can't believe you. You not only went through my things, you read my personal…" She trailed off, shaking her head angrily. "Not even Logan, in all his over-protectiveness ever did that. That's what this is about, isn't it? Your jealousy over Logan?"
"It's not jealousy. It's just that I'm sick of always wondering exactly how I don't measure up today. How long it's going to take for you to finally end it because as of right now, I'm kind of sick of waiting for it." Piz was standing now, his voice rising as he got angrier. She always thought he was a pushover, and maybe he was. He was always letting her do and say anything, never calling her out on things and now he was sick of it. He didn't matter to her, and no matter how much he didn't want to admit it, she treated him as such.
"Well, congratualations. You don't have to wait anymore, don't have to wonder. It's over. Now get out." She turned her back on him, continued to stack, unstack and re-stack her tapes. Her back was rigid and he could tell that she was pointedly ignoring him until he left.
"Yeah, I figured as much." Picking up his book bag, he shook his head and turned to the door.
A/N: I've had a writer's block lately when it comes to The Return and haven't been able to get anything on paper for it. Plus I've been sick and it turns out that congestion and coughing aren't conducive to writing chapters in that particular story.