Greatly Exaggerated
Chapter 2
Logan ran to Veronica, and dropped to the floor. He lifted her into his arms pulling her head against his chest. He had a flash of memory to a day long ago in a parking garage where he'd held her the same way. Her hair had been curlier that day, but it had felt just as silky where it draped against the back of his hand.
Little Logan was right behind him and dropped to the floor next to him.
"Look what you did to my mom!" he accused, hostility pouring out of him in waves.
"I think she was just surprised. She's going to be OK." Logan answered. "Where's your dad right now. Can we call him?"
"Duh! I already said that you're our dad." Morgan said, a hint of exasperation in her voice.
Veronica's eyelids started to flutter. When she opened her eyes to see Logan staring down at her with concern, she gave a slight shake of the head and squeezed her eyes tightly closed again.
"You're not real," she whispered, refusing to open her eyes.
"I'm real, Veronica." Logan said. "Don't I feel real?"
"You're dead. You can't be here because you're dead," she whispered. "This is a hallucination. Lo? Honey, go in my office and grab my cell. I think I need a doctor."
The little boy jumped up and ran out of the room.
"Veronica. Open. Your. Eyes." Logan commanded gently.
Veronica carefully opened her left eyelid, and seeing Logan squeezed it back shut.
"Hallucination." she said again.
"Veronica, did you really think I was dead?" Logan asked, starting to connect the dots.
"I'm not answering you. You're a figment of my imagination," she said.
"You should kiss her." Morgan said peering over at her mother. "Like Sleeping Beauty."
"Want me to?" Logan smirked at Morgan.
"Yes!" she clapped and nodded enthusiastically.
Logan puckered up his lips in an exaggerated manner and Morgan broke out in delighted laughter.
Veronica's eyes opened again. "Don't even think about it," she warned.
"I don't think Sleeping Beauty wants a kiss." He told Morgan regretfully.
Veronica allowed herself to drink in his face, while he looked down at her, eyes full of concern.
"You look like Logan and you sound like Logan, and you even smell like Logan. But Logan is dead." She raised a hand as if to touch his cheek, but pulled back at the last second.
Little Logan returned to the room with a cell phone. "You want me to call 911?" he asked, still eyeing Logan with hostility.
"No honey." Veronica answered. "I think I'll be OK." She winced and rubbed the top of her head.
"Is your head OK mom?" Morgan asked.
"I just bumped it pretty hard. That'll probably cause a headache"
"I'll help!" Morgan said, running out of the room.
Veronica extricated herself from Logan's arms, walked unsteadily to the couch, and sagged down into it, lifting her hands to her face and taking deep breaths.
Morgan came back with a bottle of pills. "Here mom. Here's some medicine for your headache."
Veronica examined the bottle. "No honey, these pills help me fall asleep. Can you bring the pills that say A-D-V-I-L?"
Morgan took the pill bottle and returned a moment later with a bottle of Advil and bottled water.
"Thanks sweetie." Veronica said, spilling three pills into her palm and swallowing them.
Logan moved to sit diagonally from Veronica on the sectional, his knees inches from hers. "You sure you're ok?" he asked, his eyes scanning hers carefully, looking for signs of shock.
"I will be, once I get an explanation." She said, crossing her arms. "If you're not really dead Logan, how do you explain the body? The dental records?"
Logan looked at the textured ceiling, pawed at his hair, and then looked Veronica in the eye. "Your dad had a friend at the Coroner's office. The body was a John Doe about my height and weight. They lit the Rover on fire before they pushed it off the cliff so that the body would be burned beyond identification, and your dad's friend switched the dental records to identify it as me. How do you not know all of this?"
"You faked your death? And my dad was in on it?" Veronica's voice was rising in pitch, threatening to turn into a shriek.
Logan flicked his eyes to the children and back to Veronica silently asking her if she wanted to do this in front of the children.
Veronica inhaled deeply, regaining her composure.
"Kids? Can you please go play in your rooms for a little while and give me a chance to talk to Logan in private?" She asked.
Morgan got up without a word and climbed the staircase. Little Logan shot Logan a threatening glance before leaving the room.
"Veronica….." Logan started.
"Wait." Veronica said holding up a finger. "That was too easy." She tiptoed to the staircase and looked up.
"Morgan! How many times have I had to talk to you about eavesdropping? Go to your room!" Veronica commanded.
Morgan gave an exaggerated sigh, and stomped off.
Logan let out a little snicker. "She's something else." he said holding up his hands and wiggling his fingers to proudly display his pink fingertips.
"She fingerprinted you in pink?" Veronica quirked an eyebrow. "She has a black inkpad in that box." They both chuckled in amusement.
Catching herself sharing a moment with Logan, she narrowed her eyes at him.
"You faked your death. You left me without a goodbye; and my father was in on it," she said bitterly, counting each point off on a finger.
Logan played with the edges of his sleeves. "I was a coward for saying goodbye in a letter, but if I had tried to say goodbye in person, you wouldn't have let me go, and I would have lost all the strength to leave." He looked up, his eyes begging her to understand.
"What letter?" Veronica asked, her eyes suspicious.
"The 13 page, front-and-back, single-spaced letter I wrote pouring out my heart to you. Detailing everything I've ever felt for you since I was 12 years old." Logan answered quietly, looking at the floor and trying to remember the content of the letter. Understanding came into his eyes, and he looked back at Veronica.
"He never gave it to you, did he?" He asked softly. Veronica shook her head silently, biting her lip to keep the tears from coming. "He never gave you my goodbye letter, and he never told you about the plan, and he let you think I was dead all of these years."
Veronica nodded her head.
"Oh God, Veronica!" Logan said. He left the couch and dropped to his knees in front of her, taking her hands and looking into her eyes.
"It wasn't supposed to be that way." He said his gaze penetrating into her. She nodded, unable to look away from him, and holding her tears in by pure force of will. She concentrated on breathing in and out.
"When I saw you in that hospital bed, with a bullet hole in you, it was the most terrifying moment of my life. I knew I had to get away from you before you ended up dead, and I knew that I would do anything to keep you safe, even if it meant giving up what I loved most in the world." Veronica closed her eyes and inhaled at his declaration.
Logan continued. "Your dad agreed with me 100%. We spent the next week making arrangements with Cliff. I had to withdraw enough money to use as a starter in my new life without raising any suspicions, had to get a fake passport and fake drivers license. Then Cliff backdated my will to leave everything else to you."
"I didn't want your stupid money," she said. "I only wanted you."
"I am so sorry." Logan said, in a choked voice, his eyes full of remorse.
"Oh, I understand why you did it." Veronica said. "You wouldn't be Logan Echolls if you didn't have a stupid hero complex. It's part of what makes you tick. I know you did it for me." she gave him a small smile and gently squeezed his hands.
"But what I can't forgive, is my father." Her eyes hardened again.
Logan started to speak, but she cut him off with a sharp hand gesture.
"Not because he helped you bet away, but because he kept the truth from me. He knew I'd try to find you, so he took that option away from me."
Veronica connected more dots. "The Russian Mafia war! The Kozlov Family wiped out the entire Sorokin Family, - minus women and children - a few days ago in a series of attacks. That's why you're back!"
Logan nodded. "After the dust cleared, Clarence Weidman met with the head of the Kozlov Family – he has some kind of connections there - and obtained assurances on my safety. The hit has been cancelled. He called me with the news yesterday, and I hopped the first plane home."
"The Kanes were in on this?" Veronica asked feeling even more betrayed.
"No, your father worked with Weidman alone." Logan reassured her. "I have no idea why Weidman has been helping me. Maybe your father has something on him? I don't know." He shrugged.
Veronica voice turned bitter. "I talked with my dad on the phone yesterday. He said that he had something important to tell me, but wanted to do it in person sometime this weekend."
Her eyes quickly changed from anger to misery, when she looked back to Logan.
"I needed you!" she said, trying to make him understand. "I desperately needed you. I was pregnant, and alone, and had to be put on bed-rest due to the stress, and I needed you so badly! I literally lost my mind for a while when they told me you were dead. My father could have put me out of my misery. He could have told me that you were still out there somewhere. He could have given me hope. He could have given me your letter to help me get through the night. But he just let me suffer, and I'll never forgive him for that."
Veronica bit her lip as hard as she could without drawing blood, but she could no longer prevent the tears from coming. Once the first teardrop broke free, it was as if a dam had burst. She sobbed and her body shook with pent-up anger and despair.
Logan pulled her off her chair and into his arms. She buried her face into his chest, sobbing.
He brushed chaste kisses on the top of her head and her forehead. He pulled her closer with his arms around her back and rocked her.
"Shhh" he whispered helplessly into her hair. "I'm so sorry...never meant to hurt you...Loved you too much to let you get hurt again...shhhh baby...I'm SO SO sorry...I'm here now for you...I'll never go away again...I promise…always be here for you…shhh" He absently ran his fingers through her hair, gently massaging her scalp like he used to do.
When she finally had gotten herself under control, she lifted her head. Feeling awkward, she began to pull away.
"Please stay." Logan whispered into her hair, squeezing her. "Unless…?" he started, looking down to meet her red eyes. "I don't know…maybe you have a husband or a boyfriend coming home who would be pissed to find you in my arms like this?"
Veronica let out an amused snort. "When has that ever stopped you?"
"Oh. So there is someone in your life?" Logan lowered his eyes, trying not to look stricken.
"I was talking about Kendall Casablancas having a husband," she said. "Not myself."
Logan looked back up. "So there isn't anybody coming home to you?" he asked, wanting to kick himself for sounding so hopeful.
Veronica shook her head. "Add up all of my personal issues and my overprotective friends to the fact that I'm the mother of the world's most snarktastic twins, and the guys are just lining up around the block to date me!" she laughed, ruefully.
"Where's that line?" Logan flirted. "I'm cutting in front."
Veronica's answering smile was flirtatious and shy and sad.
Logan breathed out. "So... about those snarktastic twins?" Logan began, not sure how to broach the subject.
"Yes." Veronica said.
"Yes what?" Logan asked.
"Yes. They're yours. I would have told you about them sooner, if you weren't…you know…dead." Veronica said.
Logan felt as if all of the air had been forcibly removed from his lungs. He gasped for breath, and Veronica, having seen him hyperventilate before, pushed him onto the couch she'd vacated. She pushed his head down to his knees and commanded to him to breathe.
Finally, he raised his head, and the look in his eyes was one of such raw pain, that it shook Veronica to the core.
"I need a moment." he whispered. "Bathroom?"
She took his hand gently and led him to a downstairs bathroom. It was a holdover from the 1950's – all mint and black tile. Fluffy chocolate brown towels hung from several towel bars with a matching shower curtain and fluffy rug. He could hear children playing outside through a screened window, and the scent of raspberry-vanilla hands soap lingered in the air.
After splashing water on his face, Logan stared at himself in the mirror.
"How?" he thought to himself. "The Madison debacle was in January. She would have been almost five months along when I left town."
Then Logan remembered. The Madison breakup hadn't been their last time together. There had been one more night. A night that had felt so surreal that he had half-convinced himself he'd made it up in his head.
One week after the food-court fight with Gory Sorokin, and just two hours after the second bullet had missed him by inches, Logan had opened his penthouse door to find Veronica standing on his threshold. Like she'd done once before, she'd spoken not a word, but instead went straight for his mouth, kissing him with a desperation she'd never exhibited before. He'd lifted her in his arms, and carried her to his bedroom where their lovemaking had been frenzied and feverish.
Afterwards, clinging to each other in the dark, Veronica had finally opened up to Logan.
"They're going to kill you, Logan." she whispered in the dark.
Logan tried to reassure her. "It'll blow over. I'll be alright."
"I'm afraid that it won't…be alright," she said, voice breaking. "I want us to get back together."
"What about Piz?" he asked, fighting to keep his voice neutral.
"We ended things last week after your fight with Sorokin. He was surprisingly perceptive about my feelings for you." Veronica admitted.
They lay in silence for a moment before Veronica went on.
"Remember the summer before Senior year?" She asked.
"Our first Summer of Love? How could I ever forget it?" Logan asked, smiling at the image it inspired of Veronica, in a pink bikini soaking up rays on his father's yacht.
"I thought you were going to get yourself killed by the PCHers, so I ended things."
"That wasn't the real reason." Logan responded, a tinge of bitterness in his voice.
"Logan, that was the real reason. I thought that if I detached from you, it wouldn't hurt as much when you'd gotten yourself killed. But you know what? I never could detach. I tried to replace you, I tried to hate you, I tried to avoid you, but you were always on my mind."
"You've never admitted that before." Logan said, surprised and moved by her revelation.
"But you knew it all along." she acknowledged to him with a small smile. "The point I'm trying to make is, if you had gotten yourself killed that year, I would have hated myself for all of the time I'd spent apart from you, when we could have been together."
Logan twined his fingers with hers.
"The last time your life was in jeopardy, I left you out of fear. This time, I'm coming back to you. You may be killed by the Sorokins tomorrow, or next week, or next year, but if you do get yourself killed, you're going to die knowing that I love you."
"Say it again." Logan whispered, trying to blink away the moisture welling up in his eyes. He'd waited for so long for her to say those words.
"I love you Logan. Always have. Always will."
Logan pulled her into his arms and made love to her slowly, gazing into her eyes and imagining he was transferring a piece of his soul into her every time he drove into her and taking a piece of hers every time he pulled out.
The following morning, they left their favorite greasy-spoon diner with full bellies and dopey expressions of happiness on their faces. Overjoyed to have the love of his life back, Logan had grabbed Veronica and spun her into a kiss just as shot #3 rang out. It should have been him, but Logan had literally spun Veronica into the bullet. He'd watched as if in slow-motion as Veronica fell to the ground, blood blossoming from her chest, and he'd known that he could never risk her life again. He had to go.
"Holy crap! I'm a father." Logan said to the mirror.