"Veronica," Logan choked out again, his emotions swinging back from anger to astonishment and relief once again. "Veronica…oh god!" he had Veronica in his arms again in less than a second. Veronica, overwhelmed with so many conflicting emotions let out a ragged sob into his chest.

"I can't believe you're really here. I…I really thought you were dead. Everyone…Everyone told me I had to stop looking for you or I'd drive myself crazy." Once again he pulled back so he could look into her face. "I know that we were broken up…Hell, I even understand why you left me," a small, wry smile graced his face as he shook his head, "but why wouldn't you tell me you were leaving? Why didn't you tell me about your dad? Why did you change your name? I just don't understand…"

He trailed off at the incredulous look Veronica was shooting him through the tears steadily coursing down her face.

"Why I broke up with you? Why I didn't tell you about my dad? Why I didn't tell you that I was leaving?" Veronica's voice rose with each word, breaking with anger and pain. "Is that how you remember things happening?"

"Yes," Logan stated resolutely. He had thought about their break up and the subsequent events repeatedly throughout the years and he was absolutely confident that he had sorted out the time line of events, piecing together bits of information from his own foggy brain and others offered from various friends. "You were gone for a couple of days at the beginning of the semester senior year and I couldn't get in touch with you. Then, I come home one day and you'd completely moved out." Logan let a little of the hurt and accusation he was feeling creep into his tone despite his best efforts.

Veronica opened her mouth to respond but Logan cut her off, "Dick said he saw you right before you took your stuff and you wouldn't talk about what was going on." Logan paused again, trying to choke back the tears he felt in the back of his throat. "I know I was fucking up…I know I was drinking too much and not talking to you like I should, but how could you just leave? I loved you so much and you just left without a word. And then," here Logan's voice did choke around a sob, "I had to find out Keith had died by going to your old apartment looking for you! He was like a dad to me and you didn't even tell me he was sick!? I didn't get to say goodbye!"

Veronica was breathing heavily, trying not to sob uncontrollably but unable to stem the tears flowing down her face. "My god, Logan, is that really what you think happened? Are you delusional?"

Veronica's question, her tone of voice, and the sheer pain on her face made Logan remain quite. Admittedly, he had been drinking a lot at the time but he was pretty sure he wasn't that far off base with his version of events.

"True, I left to visit Dad at the end of September without telling you I was leaving. I didn't tell you I was leaving because you had been a prize asshole to me, you had been on a week long bender, and when I caught you making out with another girl, you told me I was a crazy bitch!" Veronica could still feel the humiliation and betrayal freshly as if everything had just happened. "Besides, I was only planning on being gone for a few days."

Flashback:

Veronica tracked Logan to his fraternity house where, Dick had informed her, some huge party was being thrown. Dick himself had been on the way and had offered her a ride. Having lived with Logan and Veronica for the past couple of years, Dick was vaguely sympathetic to Veronica's distress when Logan went on one of his benders and this one had been bad enough that even Dick was a little worried. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder as they walked towards the fraternity house, giving her a rough squeeze.

"Don't worry, 'Ronickins. He'll be back to normal soon. I think he might be having a hard time with his dad," Dick trailed off a little uncertainly. He wasn't really sure how to talk about Aaron Echoll's death with Veronica, who had every right to be ecstatic that the son of a bitch had been killed in prison.

"Thanks, Dick. I just wish he would talk to me about it," Veronica gave Dick a small smile. "I realize it might be a little awkward, but I mean, I understand if he's…sad…or whatever." Veronica was nothing but relieved that the vile man who had killed Lilly and attempted to kill her and her father was dead. But, she wasn't heartless. She could at least listen to Logan and try to sympathize with his feelings, whatever they may be, about his father's death.

She gave Dick's hand a squeeze and then set off in search of Logan. He hadn't been home in two days and she was starting to get more than a little worried. He had had these type of benders early on in their college days but, until recently, he had been much calmer. Usually he limited his drinking to a few nights a week and almost never got blackout drunk anymore. In the last week, though, when she had seen Logan, he had been almost incoherent. She was pretty sure that he must have been sleeping at the fraternity house, but she couldn't be sure and she was worried.

She scanned the rooms filled with people. Everyone was drinking, laughing, dancing. The music was blaring through speakers placed in every room and she could feel the base line pounding through her feet. She was just about to step out onto the back deck when a familiar slope of shoulder caught her eye. She stopped in her tracks and stared into the corner, where her boyfriend of five years was wrapped around another girl. She watched, as if transfixed, as Logan's hand made its way under the blonde's shirt, kneading the girl's breast while he continued kissing her deeply. The girl, who Veronica did not recognize, snaked her hand downwards and stroked Logan's erection through his jeans.

Veronica's breath caught and tears of betrayal and hurt welled in her eyes as she watched Logan break the kiss only to move his mouth to suck hotly on the other girl's neck. He was now grinding rhythmically into the girl's hand. Both parties seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that they had a whole room full of people as their audience. As if she had no control over her body, Veronica took one tentative step towards the writhing couple, and then another. Without quite knowing how, she had reached the couple and stood within reach of Logan's shoulder.

Veronica's hand appeared before her face, to her great astonishment, reaching out to tentatively tap Logan's shoulder.

"Back the fuck off!" Logan yelled angrily without turning to see who was interrupting his fun.

The girl with Logan opened her big, blue eyes to find out what was going on. She looked into Veronica's tear filled eyes, surprised for a second, before she smirked and closed her eyes again, letting out a moan for good measure.

"Logan?" Veronica's voice sounded rusty, like she hadn't spoken in days. At the sound of Veronica's voice, Logan immediately turned around with a goofy grin on his face. Veronica could immediately tell by his glazed eyes and the reek of bourbon and pot that Logan was severely wasted.

"Veronica!" Logan slurred her name happily. "I've been looking for you! I miss you." He enveloped Veronica in a hug, resting most of his weight on her shoulders. Veronica staggered under his weight and tried to push him back.

"Logan, what are you doing?" she hated that she was crying, that he had made her cry in front of all of these people. She could feel eyes boring into the back of her head and she was sure that they had drawn the attention of a more than a few occupants of the room.

Logan grinned at her, "I'm just hanging out with my new friend," his face crumpled into a confused expression, "maybe an old friend…I can't remember. Anyway," he shook off his momentary uncertainty, "I think you're really going to like her." Still keeping one hand on Veronica's shoulder, he placed his free arm around the girl who had yet to flee the increasingly awkward situation. Veronica stared at the girl through her tears. She was taller than Veronica, almost painfully thin, with dark blond hair reaching down her back and wide blue eyes. She looked a little familiar but Veronica couldn't place her. For the girl's part, she snuggled into Logan's embrace and narrowed her eyes at Veronica.

"Do you two know each other?" she said innocently to Logan.

Logan, looking startled at the question, responded, "Of course, this is Ver-o-nic-a." He overemphasized her name. He aimed another affectionate smile at Veronica and squeezed her shoulder.

"Logan," Veronica started again, he voice slightly stronger, "why are you making out with your new friend?"

Logan looked at her incredulously and then looked back at the other girl, scrunching his eyebrows together, "That can't be true, Veronica, I would never do that to you." He grinned, laughing a little as he realized that he had rhymed.

"I just saw you, Logan. You told me to fuck off when I tried to ask you about it!" Veronica couldn't keep her voice from rising. She couldn't believe he was trying to deny what had just happened.

"That can't be true, Ronnie. I only love you," Logan's smile was back, pleased that he had figured out that Veronica was obviously messing with him, and that he had rhymed yet again. He attempted to tap her on the nose but missed and pushed his finger into the corner of her mouth. Veronica batted his hand away angrily.

In the mean time, the girl had wrapped her arms around Logan again and begun sucking his neck. Instead of stopping her, Logan closed his eyes on a moan and covered the girl's hand with his where she was rubbing it up and down Logan's erection, which could clearly be seen through his jeans. Veronica stared wide-eyed at the spectacle before her. She knew beyond a doubt that Logan must be in some kind of blackout state because he wasn't making any sense. That, and Logan would usually rather cut off his own hand than make her cry. It still didn't hurt any less to see him all over some other girl. She couldn't help but wonder how many times this type of thing had happened, if he had fucked other girls while he was blacked out, never remembering a thing so there was nothing to feel guilty about.

"You can leave any time you want," the girl's voice was quiet but mocking. She was staring right at Veronica with a superior smirk while she continued to jack Logan through his pants.

"Logan, please. You need to come home with me," Veronica attempted weakly.

All of a sudden Logan's mood did a complete 180 and he yelled at Veronica, "What the fuck are you talking about, Veronica! You need to quit being a crazy bitch and leave me the fuck alone!"

Veronica reeled back as if she had been slapped, stunned that Logan could yell at her while he was basically getting a hand job from another girl. Unwilling to provide further entertainment to the crowded room, or worse yet, photographic evidence to be sold to some trashy tabloid, she turned on her heel and walked toward the front door. They had been amazingly successful at avoiding publicity, seeing that they were attending school in LA, but every once in a while a story about Logan Echolls and the girl who had famously put his father behind bars would show up in the tabloids or one of the entertainment shows. Both Logan and Veronica hated it and it had gotten exponentially worse sense Aaron was murdered in prison.

As she walked hurriedly toward the front door, she saw Dick standing by the bar and took a quick detour. "Dick, I think Logan might need to go home."

Dick took in Veronica's tear stained cheeks and obviously distressed demeanor and quickly led her to the front porch where it was slightly quieter. "What's going on, Veronica? Are you all right?"

Veronica looked at Dick, trying to decide how much to confide in him. Their relationship had been rocky, to say the least, and things were just starting to get to the point of a real friendship. She had never told Logan about the role Dick played in her rape, even after she found out that Beaver, Dick's little brother, had taken his turn that night along with Duncan. She preferred not to think about that night at all and to pretend that Logan was her one and only. It had been hard to tow that party line, though, when she found out she had Chlamydia and had ruled out both Duncan and Logan through some awkward questioning and, in Logan's case, dated test results from not long before they began sleeping together. She was sure that Logan hadn't been cheating on her, not because she had blindly trusted him back then, but because she had thoroughly checked out that angle before she had approached him about the STD. It turned out that Beaver had been hiding a whole host of dirty deeds to go along with raping Veronica. Veronica and her father, after discovering that Beaver had been molested by the Mayor of Neptune, Woody Goodman, when Woody was Beaver's little league coach, proved that Beaver was behind the murders of two of their class mates and Woody Goodman, himself.

Once Veronica caught up with Beaver after putting the final puzzle pieces together, she again found herself facing a killer without any back-up. She laid out the evidence behind the murders and to top it off, spit at Beaver that she knew he had raped her. Beaver pointed out that she would be the only one who knew since he was going to kill her. At the time, he seemed to have a good point since he was pointing a gun directly at Veronica's head. If it hadn't been for the fact that she was late to meet Logan and he had been worried about her lately due to her involvement in the murder investigations, Beaver probably would have killed her. Instead, Logan had used some of the PI smarts she had taught him, tracked her cell phone, and saved her, the two of them wrestling the gun away from Beaver. Unfortunately, Beaver had slipped away while Logan was checking Veronica to make sure that no permanent damage had been done. He had gone straight to the tallest building in Neptune and stepped over the edge, unwilling to deal with the aftermath of his discovery.

Ever since then, through guilt and a sense of loyalty, Logan had been unable to deny anything to Dick. That is actually how Veronica found herself sharing a condo with both Logan and Dick instead of having the second bedroom as a study as originally planned.

She blinked, deciding Dick didn't need to know too much. "No, I'm not really all right. But, Logan's even worse. I think he definitely needs to stop drinking and probably needs to go sleep it off."

"Why don't you take him home?" Dick asked, not being a jerk, just curious.

"He doesn't want me to take him home, and you know I can't make him," Veronica shifted her gaze so that she was looking over his left shoulder instead of holding his gaze.

Dick reached out and rubbed Veronica's arm, "Hey, don't worry about it. I'll get him home. You can sleep in my room if you want to, and I'll take the couch."

"No, that's all right. Just make sure he makes it home. I want to make sure he's safe but I also want to make sure he doesn't decide to go to some club and make an ass out of himself in front of the paparazzi again. That's the last thing he needs right now, with all the added attention from Aaron's death." Veronica drew in a deep, shaky, breath and let it out, determined to remain calm and refusing to cry as the image of Logan groping the tall, blonde girl flashed through her mind. It wouldn't be the end of the world if pictures like that ended up in the tabloids, it would just be extremely embarrassing for her.

"I've got to go," Veronica choked out as she turned and hurried away from the fraternity house.

A/N – If you couldn't tell, I've kind of re-written history. Since I don't think I made everything abundantly clear in my writing, here are the important points. Logan and Veronica never broke up after the first season. Aaron Echolls was convicted and was then killed in prison right before this story started. There was no bus crash but Beaver did kill a couple of students to keep his secret covered up. Veronica figured it out, found out that he was the one who raped her (along with Duncan b/c really, that was rape) and Logan saved her. Then Beaver committed suicide instead of facing the consequences. There, I think that should cover all of the changes I made to the series.