Title: Mutual
Author: brencon
Pairings/Characters: Logan/Veronica, ensemble
Word Count: 1,976
Rating: PG-13, so far.
Summary: What if Logan and Veronica got together before everything went to hell?
Spoilers: Set pre-series, but is now including season one plot.
Warnings: Swearing.
Disclaimer: Veronica Mars belongs to Rob Thomas and the nice people at the CW
Author's Note: Italics represent Veronica's thoughts and/or voiceovers.
Author's Note #2: The second-to-last chapter. And finally an update!
Crossing her arms, Lynn tried to fight the shiver she could feel gnawing at her back. She and Keith had just left her former home, her husband standing in the doorway, waving her off.
"You alright, Lynn?" Keith asked, looking at her from the corner of his eye as he drove the car in the direction of his home.
Lynn nodded briskly, her hand shaking as she raised it to her hand to block out the groan of fear that passed from her lips.
Keith, knowing what she wouldn't admit it, quickly indicated to pull over. Hitting a lay-by, Keith turned off the engine and sat quietly as he waited for her to release.
Keeping his eyes to the front, he wasn't surprised to hear gasp and sob as she let the fear in. Quietly, he heard her count to five in between shuddered breaths.
"Okay," she whispered, rubbing her palms over eyes, "I'm ready to go."
"Okay," Keith agreed, nodding his head.
He restarted the vehicle and pulled out onto the road. Just as they were coming up to the turn off for his neighbour hood, the police scanner crackled with life. Listening to the details, he sighed at the idiocy of some people – a home invasion gone wrong and… it was at his house?
Picking up the talkie, Keith replied and asked who made the call.
"You're daughter, Sheriff." Keith quickly returned the talkie, turned on the sirens and sped up.
"Keith, what is it?" Lynn asked, but she got no reply
--
Yolanda checked her cell phone for what must've been the twentieth time in the past ten minutes. Logan had told her he was expecting a call from Veronica, but when there was no word; Yolanda began checking her phone as well. The worry set in as they counted past the deadline Veronica had given (even though it wasn't actually a deadline) of when she would call. Getting so impatient, Logan had begun to start calling her, but the first three times had been faulted by the busy tone. Now, when he called her, he got her voicemail.
"She's probably just helping your mom settle in, you know? Unpacking things, hanging up those sweat tops you love, folding your underwear, putting her picture beside your bed, setting up your iPod, checking out your surfer clothes…the usual."
As if awoken from a dream, Logan stared at Yolanda for a moment before speaking.
"Folding underwear? Who folds underwear?" He asked, his voice full with mirth.
"Hey, you know Veronica; every detail has to be perfect!"
"Yeah, but folding underwear? C'mon! Anyway, I'd prefer it if she was taking them off me rather than folding them away neatly," He waggled his eyebrows as only he could and Yolanda snorted with laughter.
"Perve."
--
Celeste arrived at Kane Software, slamming her car door powerfully as she began the long march into the building. Entering reception, each of her husbands employees greeted her with kind words and questions about her daughter, all of which she ignored.
Storming to the elevator, she pushed the button for the floor she wished to reach. The doors slid closed and she started tapping her foot impatiently. As the bell tolled, signalling the doors opening, she found her self surrounded by more of her husbands' lackeys.
The doors closed once more as she waited to pass the final two floors to where she wanted to go.
After an age, it seemed, she finally arrived at her floor. Pushing past the kiss-ass people around her, Celeste exited the elevator.
Stopping before the secretary, she put her purse behind the counter.
"Is he in?" She asked, trying to see for herself through the pulled blinds.
"He just got out of a meeting with the security for the offices and was going to call your husband to enquiry about added security to your home when Lilly arrives home." Miss Sheridan replied, placing the given handbag beneath her desk. Looking at Celeste, she gave her a sympathetic smile as she asked, "How is she?"
"The same, still," Celeste replied, before taking the first step towards his office.
Without knocking, Celeste entered the office, releasing the door handle from her grip, allowing it to slam against the wall.
Planting each foot forward, arms wrapped around her waist, she approached his desk.
"I need you're help, so get off the damn phone and help me!" Celeste ordered, thumping her fist on his desk.
"I'm gonna have to call ya back… okay? Right, you do that," he said, returning it to its resting spot.
"Mrs. Kane, tell me, what exactly can I do for you today?" he asked, resting his elbows on his desk as he interlocked his fingers.
"I need you to kill him, Clarence!"
--
"She squeezed my hand, opened her eyes and looked at me, that's a good thing, right? It means she's getting better? Right?" Jake asked, watching as Dr. Dean checked over his daughter, checking her pupils for reaction.
"It may only have been a tremor," he sighed, returning his torch to the pocket of his white coat. Grabbing her chart, he made a note, and requested that his intern take her down for an MRI, to get films of the internal workings of Lilly's brain, to check on her rate of healing and to see if their was any new internal bleedings.
"A tremor? What does that mean?" Jake asked, his voice cracking as he watched his daughter be wheeled away.
"It means that coma patients sometimes move, maybe open their eyes or, in rare cases, speak. But it doesn't mean their waking up. But I'm gonna do some tests; see if she is waking up, okay? And I'll get back to you as soon as I have the results, alright?" Dr. Dean said, his bed side manners in high use as was the title of the best neuro-surgeon on west coast.
"Okay…thank you, Dr. Dean."
The doctor exited the room, as Jake collapsed into the seat he had been sitting in for the past… God, he couldn't remember how long she had been here, ran his hands over his face and released a slow, shattering breath.
--
Veronica was shaking, her hands trembling as she paced back and forth like an expecting father as she waited for the cops to show up. Glancing up to the bedroom window were her ex was, Veronica fought back the bile she could feel burning through her chest.
What the hell did he think he was doing? Why the hell would he ever try anything like that? Why the hell is he suddenly flipping through loving and caring to crazy-scary?
She took away from internal ramble by the screeching of sirens as the jeep came hurtling towards the house. Without even turning off the engine, her father jumped out of the car and ran to his daughter.
"Honey, what happened? Over the radio it said that a report of a girl having been attacked by a guy in a psychotic rage? Who did this?"
"It's Duncan dad, he went nuts… he's just sitting upstairs, banging his head off the wall… I dunno how he is… I couldn't go back up there dad, I just couldn't… I haven't even gone back inside the house since I got away from him," Veronica said, her voice hitching as she explained what happened. Keith took her in his arms, and squeezed all of his caring and love into, trying to recapture some of her innocence that he knew had long since vanished.
"Lynn, could you take care of her while I go inside?" Keith requested, staring up at the home he had always tried to keep safe for his little girl.
"Of course Keith," Lynn readily agreed, taking the shaking into her arms. She watched as Keith withdrew his gun and slowly edged the door open.
As the door closed behind him, Lynn guided Veronica to the car, opening the door to the back seat and guiding Veronica into it.
"Veronica, sweetie, are you alright?" Lynn cautiously asked, not taking her eyes away from the girl before her. Her eyes were constantly dancing in her head, looking at anything and everything around her except for Lynn. Pushing slightly, Lynn made Veronica focus on her and then the woman before her collapsed into the little girl.
--
He leaned back in his chair, feigning shock.
"Who do you want killed, Mrs. Kane?" Clarence Wiedman asked, reclining back in his chair, resting his hands, still interlocked, upon his chest. He already knew who she wanted to be taken out, but he needed verbal conformation if this really was going to happen.
"Who the hell do ya think? Aaron Echolls! The scum that put my baby girl in a coma, carrying his lovechild! That's who!" Celeste shouted. She launched herself at his desk, clearing it of his mountain of paperwork, phone and non-essential stationary items.
"If we are seriously contemplating this form of action, we will need to discuss it from varying angles of problems, creating a story to cover both of our backs, funds to gather required… equipment and, of course, we need to talk remuneration."
Laying out everything that was needed for discussion, Clarence left everything in Celeste's hands.
"Are you ready to discuss options?" he asked.
--
He'd heard a crack sometime ago, but he wouldn't stop. His neck felt welt, but he hadn't stopped. His body was numb, but he couldn't stop. His mind was cascade of flashes and confusion and he couldn't understand what had gone wrong. Everything had been so simple just hours ago, so clear. And then it had all fallen to pieces.
He'd had Veronica, she'd agreed to what he had said. Right? She'd wanted to be with him again too, hadn't she?
He could loud creatures roaring, getting louder and louder, closer and closer, and he couldn't shake them from the front of his mind.
And then she was saying things, confusing him, ruining their agreement, breaking his heart.
"What did I do? What'd I do? What'd I do? What'd I do?" he whispered repeatedly, finally resting his forehead against his crossed arms.
He was being called out to from the ether, his name echoing around him, and he couldn't keep the voice away.
"What'd I do? What'd I do? What'd I do? What did I do?" he repeated, his eyes misting over as shame coursed through his body.
--
Keith moved slowly through his home, heading for the stairway. This had always been his fortress against the nightmares, against the horrors of the real world. He'd always thought that he could come home, could shut away all the dangers that he faced in his livelihood, to shelter from the storm of human tragedies.
And now that storm had forced its way through the barricade he'd created, shattering all he'd done to protect his little girl in the process.
"Duncan!" he called out, rising stair by stair to the upper level. "Duncan!" he called again, edging his way towards his daughter's room. Pushing the door open, he found it empty. He exited the room and headed towards the guest bedroom.
"Duncan Kane!" he shouted, using the full force of his short stature to convey his anger to the trespasser within his home.
Reaching the room, he slowly opened the door, his weapon before him. His eyes swept the room, the gun following as he searched for the teen. The red stain on the crème wall drew his attention, and his eyes fell to the boy below, damaged and broken, his body in a vertical foetal position.
"Duncan?" questioned Keith, his voice still forceful. The whispering of the body before him was fast, the end of the sentence rolling into the next.
"What'd I do? What'd I do? What'd I do? What did I do?"