AN I: I don't own anything but the mistakes. Please review!

Veronica wanted to slide into the floor and disappear the minute the words were out of her mouth. She'd been laughing and playing with Logan, only seconds earlier. He'd been sarcastically sweet, warm eyes and soft smiles, reminiscent of the Logan of her better memories. A lethal combination only Logan could pull off, one he'd perfected probably by the age of seven.

And it had felt right.

Until it hadn't.

Suddenly, he'd flipped them, his body laying over Veronica, his lean muscles holding her down, and Veronica went from being in control to being at someone else's mercy…again. It didn't matter that she knew it was Logan. In that moment, Veronica felt like she was back at Shelley's, alone with a deep vague ache between her thighs and blood tinged sheets.

Veronica fought the unrealistic urge to double check and make sure her underwear really were still on; even though she clearly remembered putting them on after her shower. Instead, she tried not to hyperventilate, when Logan's weight pressed her further into the carpet and his lips found hers.

I liked kissing Logan, she told herself.

I like kissing Logan.

The words were distant, at the end of a very long dark tunnel. Veronica could barely hear them over the growing white noise in her head.

Be normal, Veronica. Be normal, Veronica.

She tried to talk herself down from the rising panic, but she was already bucking against Logan, muscles straining, lungs heaving. Veronica lost the internal battle, and with pure unadulterated fear at the forefront, shook quietly with the force of her own suppressed sobs.

Her face burned in shame even as the tears cut salty trails down her cold, quivering cheeks. It hurt, physically gutted Veronica, exactly how much she had lost. Because she had lost, that much was painstakingly clear, when innocent tussles and sweet kisses were enough to slide her back into frozen, paralyzing fear.

Her muscles had locked with regret and her eyes had filled. Against her will, she had tumbled into half remembered nightmares and sharp twisted truths. Before, she could stop herself, the words had ground their way through her clenched teeth, diving off her lips, and dying in the ensuing silence.

"I was raped."

God, it hurt more to hear it, than to say it.

"What," she heard Logan inelegantly stutter, as he quickly levered himself off of Veronica. His feet and hands grabbed at the carpet uselessly, as he tried to find purchases. Finally, Logan managed to crab crawl backwards until his back hit the base of the couch. The noise was sharp in the otherwise silent room.

"What," he asked again?

Veronica had never felt his absence as keenly as she did in that moment. Never mind, that his physical presence had triggered her meltdown and unwanted confession. Because, the sudden loss of his warmth, his touch, felt like a surgical strike; precisely cold, deliberate, and empty. Cauterize the wound folks, we found a bleeder.

Prepare to remove the Logan from the Veronica…scalpel…amputate from the heart.

"What…," he tried again.

"Raped," spoke Veronica, finding that repetition really didn't make uttering the word any easier. She was still lying on the carpet. Needing to do something, anything, other than continuing to lie there hemorrhaging her worst secrets and vulnerabilities, Veronica sat up. She pulled her aching muscles, brimming with sudden fatigue following the fight or flight panic from earlier, into a sitting position. Unconsciously, she mirrored Logan's posture, leaning into the coffee table, directly across from him.

It wasn't often Logan was speechless. Distantly, Veronica wondered if she should get points for that. Maybe, Lily was up in Heaven, keeping cosmic score. Veronica couldn't bring herself to look further than Logan's bent knees.

Who knew cargo khakis could be so interesting?

She didn't want to see the condemnation she was sure would be there; he still hadn't touched her. Or said anything else of import, just stuttered requests for clarification.

Answers….

And, wasn't that hilarious? Because Veronica, who always needed the truth, didn't have the answers to the most important questions.

Without warning, Logan sprang from the floor, deadly grace, and coiled muscles. He paced, the tension in his lithe frame, visible.

Living room, kitchen, and hallway…turn. Hallway, kitchen, and living room…turn.

Over, and over, until Veronica thought she'd get dizzy from watching him. Even so, she couldn't tear her eyes away. Each step was furiously placed and tightly controlled. Logan's hands, his wide palmed, long fingered, elegant hands, were fisted at his sides, knuckles white with restrained force. Abruptly, he stopped and whirled on his heel to face her.

"Who," Logan practically growled, "because he is a dead man."

"It doesn't matter. God, I don't even know why I told you. Why, did I tell you?"

"Who, Ronnie," stubbornly repeated Logan. His voice was low, the timber as jaded and rocky as if he'd gargled with razor blades instead of the crest she knew sat on his bathroom sink.

"Look," began Veronica, her voice tumultuous and thin. She drew her knees up, closer to her body, until they touched her chin. Trying to find some small comfort as she searched for any explanation that would make sense.

"Look," she tried again. "I've never talked about this okay? It's not on my favorite topics to hang out and dish. Sometimes, I can't handle close contact, and it took me by surprise….my reaction to you, cause before it was really…..nice." At this admission, Veronica blushed and looked down again, before stalwartly pressing on. "I'm sorry I ruined things, I just didn't want you to think it was you."

At this, Logan made a strangled sound, and agitatedly ran his hand through his hair, leaving random stuck up spikes in his wake.

"I scared you," he asked? He sounded distressed and his skin tone had taken on a greenish tone. He swallowed convulsively and Veronica wondered if he was going to vomit again?

"Yes, but only for a minute. Before was fine." Veronica fidgeted nervously. "I think it was when I couldn't move, for a second, I got scared," she finished lamely.

Logan sunk to the floor, all the energy, sucked from his body at the thought that he had caused fear. He knew something about fear, had felt it his whole life, and felt sickened to have caused Ronnie to be afraid.

"We don't ever have to talk about this ever again. In fact, we won't ever talk about this ever again. I was drugged, raped, and I still don't know who. I'll find out eventually, and when I do, I will make them pay. I swear on Lily's grave, I will make them pay. But, until that day, I don't want to talk about this anymore." Veronica was tugging her tattered reserves around her like a shield, battening down the hatches, calling forth Veronica 2.0 like the personal savior she was. "So, now we know each other's personal deepest darkest secrets. Shouldn't we spit on our hands and shake on never bringing this up again?"

Logan, scooted closer, watching carefully to make sure Veronica didn't feel threatened. He stopped just short of touching her and met her hesitant gaze full on.

"You're fucking crazy," he said. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to pretty this up. You are insane, Mars, if you think I'm gonna let this go."

Her mouth dropped open and her shoulders sagged under the weight of his fervent proclamation.

"Tell me how you really feel," she muttered.

"I will."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"First, I'm sorry as hell that I scared you. I didn't mean to. To be honest, you're so fucking beautiful that I forget myself sometimes. And, that is not going to change, even with you telling me about the rape. So, quit looking at me like you think I'm going to leave. You didn't ruin anything!"

Veronica's heart thumped painfully in her chest, and a breath she hadn't even been aware she'd been holding, whooshed out between her pale lips.

"Secondly, I want in. When you find the bastard, I want in, so I can kick his ass. I'll even help you look, so I can kick his ass." Logan pumped a fist in the air to demonstrate his point, "major ass kicking planned for later."

Veronica bit back a tiny smile at his antics. God, it felt nice to be protected. It had been so long since she'd felt safe and loved by anyone other than her father.

Oh, Lily…I miss you.

"Thirdly," and Veronica redirected her wandering thoughts to listen to Logan's third point. "How dare you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," pressed Logan, his eyes flashing dangerously. "How dare you? How dare you think your problem is any less important to me than mine is to you; that I wouldn't care. I thought we were past that now, Ronnie. I mean, come on, you saw firsthand what Aaron did. You keep pestering me to open up and superman myself a giant band aid to fix my craptastic childhood. Why are you pushing me away now? Why won't you let me help you?"

"Because no one did," yelled Veronica, anger and pain and fire igniting her words. "It was at Shelley Pomroy's party, I'm sure someone knew, and no one stopped it. The whole school was there. You were there. You had painted a giant target on my back that the rich bitches of Neptune were only to happy to aim for. They'd been wrecking my locker and car for weeks, why not my body too? And Lamb, god damn Lamb, I told him the next morning; he wouldn't even take the report, laughed me out of the office. So, don't you presume to know what I dare or don't."

Veronica's breath was wheezing by the time she was done, her chest heaving like she'd run a marathon. Inky black spots gathered at the edge of her visual field as the room started to spin. I'm going to pass out, she thought, how trite. As she spoke, she'd seen each barb she'd thrown hit home. Logan had painfully flinched with every word she'd said.

It hadn't made her feel any better.

Which was why she was surprised when he gently pushed her head between her knees and placed a comforting hand lightly on her neck, fingers kneading the taunt skin and muscle bunched at the base of her skull.

"Just breathe," he soothed.

"This is why I don't talk about it," mumbled Veronica from the darkness of her clenched eyelids and her own lap.

"Ronnie…"

"Yeah," answered Veronica, still somewhat breathless.

"Shut up and breathe."

AN II: I'm dying to hear your thoughts. Reviews feed the soul. Thanks for taking the time to read my work.