evie oh!

Moodtheme!

2008-06-07T02:27:06Z

My first ever moodtheme, made after a request by ever_obsessed set of my creative muse. enjoy :)

download zip file here

Its mostly Sark, Sloane and Irina, but a few others like EvilAsianDentist and Peyton etc. worked their way into a couple.
132 moods. image size 100x60px. If downloading please comment and credit :)

Fic: Make Me Lose Control (Logan/Veronica) NC-17

2007-09-26T15:09:29Z

Title: Make Me Lose Control
Author: evie_0
Pairings: Veronica/Logan
Word Count: 2, 275
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: the finale
Summary: Pretty much a PWP... well, it tried to be, but the plot kept trying to sneak in (a little bit made it.) Set at the end of the summer after the end of season 3, this is my ending for L/V. Hope you like it
Disclaimer: Not mine and never will be
A/N: Betaed by the awesomely amazing afrocurl Any mistakes are mine. Also, kind of dedicated to earth2mars because of a promise I made her way back in January :)

How could she honestly have thought this was never going to happen again, she wonders as she faintly hears the sound of the door slamming shut as he pushes her roughly against the wall, the cool surface against her back a startling contrast to the heat of his body pressed against hers. His long fingers slide agonizingly slowly along her thigh toward the ridden up hemline of her skirt while his face is buried in her throat, as he alternates between biting at her roughly and teasingly licking along her collarbone.

As her head falls back to allow him better access she realizes that all of this—this midnight drive to nowhere that led her to his room, this aching that has been a part of her since she last saw him (bloody knuckles and jackass grin in place), this temporary insanity that prompted her to jump him as soon as he opened his door and this frenzied gasping and touching against the wall of his hotel room hallway—this was all inevitable and she should have known that all along.

She feels like herself again with his body pressed so hard against hers, with the way he remembers exactly which spot on her throat will make her gasp and how she likes to be held. Her hands have somehow tangled themselves in his hair as she pulls his mouth closer to her, needing to be closer, harder, needing to lose herself in him. Her legs are wrapped around his hips, drawing him closer, desperately trying to find enough friction to ease the ache that is building between her thighs.

His fingers fumble with the buttons running along the front of her shirt, grazing against her skin in a tantalizing barely-there way that sends shivers through her system like a ripple effect and causes her to moan into his mouth as his tongue flicks out to glide across her lower lip.

She lowers her arms from his shoulders to allow her hands to run across his chest at the same time as she tightens her grip around his waist to pull him closer. He groans and bites down hard on her shoulder as her hand slides down between their bodies and strokes him through his pants. She fumbles with his fly and slips her hand inside, stroking him lightly, causing him to jerk hard against her touch.

The sudden movement causes them both to lose balance and they fall to the floor in a tangle of mouths and limbs, arriving with a shock that knocks the wind from each of them. She struggles to disentangle herself and sit above him, but before she can even begin to voice her concern for his comfort, his hands are back in her hair, pulling her mouth to his in another kiss. This one, filled with all the hunger of a desperate man lost in the desert, causes all of her thoughts to disappear from her mind as she loses herself in the bliss of his body so close to hers and the exquisite sweetness of his tongue’s teasing exploration of her mouth.

He pushes gently on her shoulders until she is kneeling above him, his hands sliding from her collarbone down over her chest, fingertips flicking against her nipples through the thin fabric of her shirt before he continues down to the hem of her shirt. As he slides her shirt up and over her head his mouth follows its progress, his lips skimming along bare flesh as it is revealed to him. He pulls one lace-covered nipple into his mouth, grinning up at her as she gasps and grabs a hold of his head.

His fingertips are tracing lazy patterns across her sides, sending shivers down her spine and the look in his eyes as they hold hers making her feel as though her veins are pumping electrical currents rather than blood. There is something in the way his hands grasp her flesh, something in his expression that causes her mind to scream at her to lose herself to his will. To just let go.

Her bra is unclasped and removed without her even realizing that his hands were anywhere near her back. Her face must reveal her surprise because he grins wickedly in response before rolling her onto her back and sliding his hands down her belly, his eyes holding hers the entire way as he hooks his fingers under the edge of her waistband and slips her skirt down her thighs, followed by quickly her underwear before dipping his head to kiss a path along the smooth skin of her hips. Her body bends toward his lips of its own volition, and she is barely even aware of the needy moans escaping her as his mouth caresses her everywhere except for where she wants him most.

He chuckles low in his throat in response to her mewling protests, the vibrations sending a tremor through her body straight to her aching center. He leans forward to blow lightly against her dampness, eliciting another low moan from her. He looks up at her and grins before his tongue flicks hard against her clit, just once before he continues moving back up her body, lightly licking a trail around her belly button.

His fingers are lazily running along her inner thighs, gently ghosting against her skin in a way that started out as erotic and is quickly approaching tortuous as he moves his way up her body, brushing feather-light kisses against each individual rib as he goes.

Pulling himself up to rest on one arm he gazes down at her breasts with a faintly predatory glint in his eyes before leaning down and decisively flicking one pebbled nipple with his tongue, each stroke sending a jolt of pleasure through her body like an electric shock. Glancing up at her face and seemingly satisfied by the semi-glazed look in her eyes, he moves on to treat her left breast to the same ministrations before taking the aching nipple into his mouth and suckling rhythmically in time to her ragged gasps for air.

Her hands move from tracing light circles over his shoulders to threading through his hair—the sensations overwhelm her, unable to take any more after he moans around her breast—she drags his head away from her chest and pulls him to her to catch his mouth in a searing kiss, her teeth nipping at his lower lip. He pulls back slightly, a slow smirk playing on his mouth as he allows her only the barest taste of his lips, licking teasingly along the line of her pout before pulling away again, his fingers still performing the same excruciatingly bittersweet torture between her thighs. Her moans of frustration and futile efforts to make him touch her harder only serve to make him enjoy the torture even more, if the expression on his face is any indication. She nips hungrily at his lips but he won’t be swayed from his mission, instead leaning back and staring at her with hooded eyes. She can feel every sensitized inch of flesh on her body tingle beneath his gaze and she feels as though she is going insane as her entire world is reduced to the feelings his fleeting touches are igniting within her.

He suddenly leans in, capturing her mouth in a possessive kiss, their tongues dueling for control while he plunges a finger inside her hot wet depths. Her chest is heaving as her body arches into his touch, his fingers pumping into her, all traces of teasing gone now as she gasps into his mouth. His tongue is both teasing and possessive as he swallows all the desperate moans he draws out from somewhere deep inside her.

How could she have forgotten this? When he touches her she feels as though she’s lost her mind, but found herself. Her breath is catching on every exhalation; she gives herself over entirely to the sensations, freefalling into the waves of ecstasy as she rocks against his hand.

As she comes she muffles her cry against his shoulder, her fingers still caught in his hair as she shudders against him.

She lays in his arms for a long moment, lightheaded from a lack of air and still dazed from her climax, watching him while he looks down at her with a rather self-satisfied smirk gracing his features before reaching up to run her fingertips along his jaw, tracing the lines and angles of his face before pulling them back down to her for a kiss. Her hands move down his back and hook around the hem of his shirt as their tongues battle playfully, she draws away only long enough to pull the shirt over his head before returning her mouth to his. She loves the feeling of his bare chest against hers, the way his skin brushes roughly against her nipples and his hands slide down her back to cup her ass and draw her tighter against him.

There was just a feather light touch of his lips against hers before he moved away from her to dig through his wallet for the condom. She feels the shiver of the cold at his absence and she absentmindedly runs her fingertips along her sides, trying to keep the goose bumps there, trying to keep the cold reality from intruding into her mind just now.

He returns to her side naked and with a smile, leaning down to brush a kiss across her collarbone before settling between her thighs. She groans into his mouth as he enters her, the feeling of him filling her again finally making her feel sane. Their pace starts off slow but quickly builds, their need to block out the rest of the world and lose themselves in each other taking over.

With his cool breath on her flesh her mind is on fire, it feels as though there are flames licking her skin as his mouth devours her whole. She loses herself in the sensations of smooth skin sliding against skin, so lost in him she can’t recall exactly where it is that she begins.

There are fierce and swift possessive kisses and her hands are everywhere, his teeth are scraping over her skin still burning from his earlier gentle teasing. There is no pretense of gentleness here now though, only hard and desperate fucking on a hotel room floor. Her nails leave angry red paths across his back and her teeth do the same in his shoulder while his hands are clutching at her hips, her back, her shoulders so hard that they are sure to leave bruises. There is a hunger and heat between them that she can’t remember feeling for so long; a breathless need to be as close together, as deep, as hard as they possibly can, almost as though they are trying to crawl their way into one another.

Gasping his name like a mantra, her body arches into his touch with her legs latched high around his waist and her hands running down his back, everything else faded away except for the total consciousness of every single part of him; she has never felt more connected or more alive.

He comes a split second before she does, the sensation of him pulsing inside her pushing her over the edge as he groans her name into her shoulder, the vibrations of his voice sending tingles spider webbing across her sensitive skin.

They lay breathless on the floor, legs still entangled and one of his hands lazily strokes her tangled hair as she brushes absentminded kisses against his chest. She’s not sure how much time passes as they lay there, but in the end it is Logan who breaks the silence.

“So… I guess I’ve got something to write about for my ‘what I did on my summer vacation’ essay now.” He laughs as he says it, softly against her hair, but she still hears the note of uncertainty that had entered his voice now that the world had slowed again and reality is beginning its descent. She doesn’t have the answers for the questions he isn’t asking though, and so she just laughs and gently hits him in the shoulder before wrapping her arms tighter around him, sinking into the warmth and safety of his embrace.

Eventually they leave the cold carpet for the comfort of his bed, and it is almost like they have an unspoken agreement not to question what this night meant just yet-- to just wrap themselves in the afterglow of this moment and forget about the world for as long as they can.

She knows that they will find something to fight about soon enough, that something else will happen that will tear them apart yet again. She knows that the two of them are both too stubborn and too volatile to ever have anything stable. She knows that sooner or later they will be screaming at each other again, slamming doors and breaking hearts over something so minor it shouldn’t matter to either of them. She knows that the day will come when she will probably run again, and maybe this time will be the time when he finally stops chasing her. She knows all of these things and more (and she’s also pretty sure she is going to have carpet burn on her ass tomorrow) but at this moment she can’t really find the energy to care, and so she buries her head further into his shoulder and smiles contentedly into his chest as his arms tighten around her reflexively.

FIC: The Sound of Silence Falling

2007-06-25T11:33:50Z

Title: The Sound of Silence Falling
Author: evie_0
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan, Duncan, Weevil, (Lilly)
Word Count: 2, 420
Rating: pg-13
Summary: A series of vignettes about their grief over Lilly’s death that started out as a drabble to break my writers block, and then turned into this.
Spoilers: all of season 1
Warnings: a little angsty
Disclaimer: Not at all mine
Beta'd by madseason_20 and nemo_88. Thanks also to leesh_17 for the feedback as well (I used your line, hope thats ok)

She knows even before she knows. She couldn’t explain it even if she tried, but she knows that something has happened to Lilly as soon as they hear the call on the radio. She feels that shiver in her bones even as she tries to shake off her melodramatic imagination - even as she can hear Lilly’s mocking voice when she tells her about it tomorrow - she just can’t shake loose the feeling that the earth has tilted and it’s never going to be right again.

She knows even as she begs Duncan to tell her. She just needs to have this crawling sensation that is creeping across her skin confirmed. (She just needs permission to fall apart.)

There’s a ringing in her ears as she makes her way to the small group surrounding something by the pool’s edge. She knows - she doesn’t know how but she knows - exactly what she’s going to find, but somehow, when she first glimpses Lilly’s too still form (Lilly was made of movement, Lilly was made of sunshine), she feels the bottom of her universe give way in shock.

Life slows down in fast forward and she feels like the world is just slightly out of balance and it’s pushing her down. She’s clinging to her father’s shoulders, trying to look away but needing to see the body that used to be her best friend. Lilly’s skin is pale, too pale, like she’s missing all the things that made her her. There’s no Lilly in there now. Veronica was never all that sure about her belief in all that talk of souls, but in that instant of seeing Lilly’s sightless eyes she believes. She believes because even as she sobs into her father’s uniform clad shoulder and wails softly at Lilly to wake up, she knows that Lilly is gone, all the laughter and the smiles and the beauty that made her the enchantress they all followed blindly has just disappeared and all that they are left with is an empty shell that used to hold her.

Her father is holding her, walking her back, taking her away, removing the specter of her best friend’s lifeless eyes staring at her for eternity. (She wishes he could understand, those eyes will be there watching her every time she shuts her own.)

His lips are moving, she can hear the sounds but the words can’t make it past the ringing that has filled her mind. He’s holding her up, because gravity is betraying her, it won’t hold her up straight. Everything is out of balance, she feels so out of balance, tilting and falling as she tries to understand.

She’s on the ground and she’s not sure how she got there, the world feels far too small and she’s pretty sure she’s going to be sick. She gets halfway to the grass that borders the patio before she throws up all over the tile.

The world is reduced to details, only the smallest things come through; her father’s hands moving in their circular patterns across her back, Sacks’ timid smile and sympathetic eyes as he hands her a glass of water, her father’s soothing hands clasping hers as they clench so uncooperatively into the fabric his uniform. She clings to the details, clings to the touch because she feels like if she lets go then everything is going to disappear.

She tries to look away when they come to collect the body (her father called her mom to take her home, but her legs still feel like stone, they refuse to hold her weight and so she stays) but her eyes stubbornly refuse to obey. Silently she stares as they bundle Lilly up like garbage, lift her up with false tenderness that seems so out of place amongst the bright lights and cameras, too many people crowding this moment that feels as though it should be somehow intimate.

She knows and she understands; Lilly is gone, the proof of it is lying just 20 feet away from her; a grotesque mimicry of the girl she used to be. But it still just seems so wrong, all so out of context, even as she stares at the corpse that was her friend, her brain keeps trying to compromise; Lilly can’t be gone, she saw her just three hours ago, nobody who laughed that loud, smiled that wide, can be gone so fast. There should have been some warning, some kind of sign. Lilly isn’t supposed to be gone, Lilly was supposed to outlast them all.

She knows that Lilly is gone, cold and gone forever, gone for good, but she can’t help thinking that any second now Lilly’s eyes will blink. This is all some joke, it’s just like the time she jumped out of the big tree in the backyard and pretended she fell and twisted her ankle and had them all carrying her around all day before she got bored with the game and stood up on her own, laughing at them all. Any second now Lilly’s eyes will blink and she’s gonna laugh at them all for believing in a few capsules of carefully applied fake blood.

But Lilly’s eyes don’t move, and Lilly’s eyes disappear when they close the bag; when they carry Lilly away. And Lilly is gone…

XxXxXxX

Flower arrangements in white and blue, and a photo of Lilly smiling stares at him from the top of the coffin and it still doesn’t feel like this could possibly be real. Pews filled with strangers crying for a girl they probably never knew. His girlfriend in a box and no air in his lungs. It all feels so fake; it’s just a movie set and he is here to play the grieving widow in this scene.

They sing their hymns and he remembers Lilly dancing, dancing just for him. She made him keep his hands held to his sides and call her Mistress, and Lilly danced for him with laughter in her eyes.

Too many people with their false sympathy, they spout their tales of a tasteful girl and he can almost hear Lilly rolling her eyes at their hypocrisy. They try to paint the pictures with their words of the girl they wanted her to be and he feels like laughing through his tears. Can’t they understand? Lilly wanted to be an enigma; she was a gossamer thin truth wrapped in so many miles of lies, so that nobody would ever know the truth of her.

They talk about a bright flame snuffed out too soon and he wants to tell them that’s what Lilly wanted, she always said she wanted to die like Marilyn; young and hot and shrouded in mystique (and maybe with a couple of Kennedy’s under her belt.)

He listens to them talk about a girl they never really knew at all and he remembers Lilly’s lips; they tasted like cherry lip gloss and hinted of promises to come. He remembers the way all the bittersweet joy of life with Lilly and all the pleasure spiked with pain. He remembers the way that her eyes danced with laughter always, and in that moment all he wants in life is one more look at Lilly’s laughing eyes.

The coffin’s closed (far more tasteful that way) and he feels a moment of choking panic as she is slowly lowered into the ground; what if Lilly isn’t in there? That box is far too small to hold the personality of that girl. Or what if she wakes up in there? Lilly is scared of the dark, and she could never hold her breath for long. But they lower Lilly down, cover her in earth and Lilly is gone.

This moment feels as though it should be somehow more momentous, but it’s just this; an empty moment full of aching numbness and the space where Lilly is supposed to be. He thought that this moment would feel like closure but right now he feels more lost than ever before.

He stands by the hole in the ground where his Lilly lies, and he remembers Lilly whispering secrets in the sand. He told her all his secrets and she told him never to believe her because she always lied. He remembers Lilly laughing, he remembers her dancing and he remembers Lilly always so alive.

XxXxXxX

He’s having that nightmare again, he can hear someone shouting, someone crying, and he thinks it might be him.

He’s kissing her skin and she feels so cold, too cold, why is she so cold? Nobody is supposed to feel this cold. His lips burn with the sting of her too cold skin, he can feel the mark of her lack of life upon his lips. There is a coppery taste in his mouth and it takes him far too long to realize that it’s his sister’s blood. Her blood, her life, is falling from her temple and she’s not waking up. He’s kissing her wounds and she’s not waking up, Lilly is supposed to wake up, Lilly needs to wake up. She needs to wake up right now.

(He just wants to wake up now.)

He sees her whenever his eyes close, frozen images of her too still form burned against his eyelids until he thinks he’ll go insane; Lilly with skin too grey, with too much red laced through her hair.

He can feel the burn of her cold skin tattooed upon his lips, but he can’t understand how this invisible mark was placed there because he never saw Lilly, he was not the one to see her laid out across the poolside with her perfect face destroyed. They say he never saw her, so why is the image of his broken sister imprinted on his brain?

Silence shatters in the stillness of his mind and he’s sleepwalking through everyday.

Lilly’s pictures on the wall disturb him most of all, he’s almost able to understand those cultures that aren’t allowed keep images once a person has died. Seeing her so full of life just feels so somehow irreverent right now, these flat images are just pale shadows that can never capture all the things that Lilly was.

He misses the way she used to make her faces at him during any tense family moment, and the way she could always make him smile. He misses her bad chick music and he misses her bitchy moods. He misses Lilly, and he feels like no one will hear him if he screams. He feels like a petulant child with a temper tantrum building up; he can feel everything building up inside but he can’t let it out. He feels himself fading under their watchful gaze. They constantly hover, practically reminding him to breathe and he has to keep the smile on his face because if he lets the smallest part out he will just explode.

But Duncan doesn’t feel like talking now, he’s just going to go to sleep. Don’t believe in this shadow that you see, he wants to say to them all, this isn’t really the boy that used to be there, because Duncan just wants to disappear. Because Duncan isn’t really here. Because Lilly has always existed, for as long as he’s been breathing Lilly has been there. So how can he continue breathing without Lilly there to witness it? How can there be a Duncan if there is no Lilly there as well?

XxXxXxX

He parks his bike by the sand and sits by the water, lost in haze of memory (misery) and trapped by the echoes of her smile that still ring through his mind even after all this time without her, and all the broken promises that came before.

He still remembers the way she looked bundled in his leathers, wind tousled and wild and alive, and he remembers romantic meetings in secret. He remembers the first day that he loved her, the first time he saw her tears. He still lives with all the questions, all the things he could have said to change what came even as he knows that they were doomed (she was doomed) long before they even began. And he still remembers the taste of Lilly Kane’s lips the first time that she kissed him…

She smelled of stale cigarettes, and from her lips he tasted her desperation upon his tongue, he savored the flavor, the incredible bitterness that falls from a girl so sweet. The honey in her words was betrayed by the razors in her tone as she offered what she was willing to give, the closed door in her eyes warning all trespassers away even as she invited him in. Enter all ye who dare, for the mind of a girl so lost is a tragic place to find yourself, despite how many do. The tragedy of beauty so marred by a complete loss of faith in humankind, the little girl lost with her woman’s smile.

She was the kind of girl who mocks you with her posture even as she envies you with her hidden eyes; she wants all the freedom she imagines you possess. He wished that he could tell her that nothing in this world is free, but something in the way she moved told him that this is a lesson she had already learned well.

Secret kisses and caresses that make him think that he could be her shelter in the storm, desperation in the dark, her hands hard upon his skin as she tried to find a way to crawl in. She clung to him like a child, and for just a second he saw a glimmer in her eyes that made him pause, but before a single word could pass his lips the girl she wanted to be was in control again. She smiled as she found dominance with her body, gained the power that she needed, and those eyes dared him to mention the tears he saw glisten as they joined, that momentary flicker of defeat and disappointment that he knows will haunt him till his dying days because the chance to ask her why is now forever gone.

She kissed him goodbye and she walked away, and he felt the drag of the undertow but he knew that it was a battle he’d already lost hours ago when the taste of her pain first burned his lips and seared his soul. And she smiled as she walked away.

FIC: Before I Sleep, part 3 (Veronica, Logan, Keith, Lucas(OMC)) NC17 3/3

2007-04-03T15:50:11Z

Title: Before I Sleep, part 3
Author: evie_0
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan, Keith, Lucas(OMC)
Word Count: 5,077
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This is a kind of AU of my story Living Without Her.
Future fic: in this version of events, Veronica tells her dad and Wallace that she has cancer a lot earlier, and they manage convince her to tell Logan about their son too. (I suck at summaries, but no, I didn't just spoil the original story)
-In the final chapter Logan and Veronica finally discuss her illness and try to find some closure to the pain of their past, and Keith and Logan bond a little over their shared grief…
Spoilers: Pretty much safe if you've seen 2x22, with a slight knowledge of early s3
Warnings: A lot of angst and a tiny bit of drug use.
Disclaimer: Not at all mine
A/N: I realize it might be a little odd to do an AU of my own fic, but this story wouldn't leave me alone. Betaed by the always wonderful earth2mars (thanks so much sweetie!) any mistakes are mine.

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on the first two chapters, and I really hope the final part lives up to your expectations… :/

Chapter One
Chapter Two

When Logan steps out into the darkened backyard it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust and for her slight form to become visible. She is sitting on a bench towards the far end of yard, her sweater pulled down over her hands to hide them from the late January night chill.

She notices him when he is about halfway across the yard toward her, he can tell the exact moment that she sees him because her entire posture stiffens, preparing for another battle. He simply smiles at her, or at least attempts to, his face is not feeling terribly cooperative as he looks at her. How could he not have noticed before how thin she looks? How delicate and frail she suddenly seems as she watches him approach warily. How haunted her eyes look.

He finally reaches her and pauses, their eyes meeting and her posture relaxes as she sees the lack of anger in his. He holds out the blanket in his hands and gently wraps it around her shoulders before silently sitting beside her on the bench. The allow the silence to settle over the two of them, wrapping around them like a lovers embrace as they each think of all the words they find too painful to say… I’m sorry… I forgive you… I’m dying… Don’t leave me behind…

Eventually she clears her throat softly and looks over at him with what he guesses is supposed to be a wry grin, “So Lucas told you?” It’s a question, but it’s spoken like a statement.

He nods jerkily, and something, maybe just having her acknowledge it, this horrible thing that he can’t quite bring himself to comprehend, makes him feel as though all of the oxygen is being crushed from his body. He tries to meet her eyes, but as soon he does he has to look away. The openness that exists within them, more open and clear than he has ever seen her eyes before, just makes it so much harder to bear.

“How long have you known?” he asks, his voice soft and slightly hoarse even to his own ears.

“About a year and half,” she replies, turning her eyes away from him again as she sighs, “I just… I didn’t want it to be true… and so it wasn’t. I never imagined that… I don’t know, I guess I just couldn’t believe that I would actually get cancer, you know? It’s one of those things that happens to other people…” She takes a shaky breath and she looks so scared and small that he longs to wrap his arms around her, but he doesn’t know exactly how she would react to that and so he remains stiffly beside her with his arms wrapped around himself instead.

“I didn’t even tell anyone for so long. Only Lucas… and then when I had to start taking time off work because of the chemo I told my boss, and a couple of friends from work found out. I just couldn’t tell my Dad… or Wallace… I just didn’t want them to worry about me… but I guess it was probably partly because of that ‘pretending it isn’t really happening to me’ thing too… I don’t know.”

“How on earth did you manage to keep something like that from them for so long?” He asks as he thinks about her trying to deal with this all alone.

“It wasn’t that hard really, Wallace is pretty busy with work, traveling and stuff, and Dad and I… well, things have been hard with us for awhile now,” her eyes slide over to him briefly before she continues, “And he’s been pretty busy too, so he only ever made it up here once or twice a year… and I’d just usually tell him I had the flu if it was a bad week.”

She stares down at her lap in silence for a long moment, her hands twisting around each other, he watches the way she grips her fingers until her knuckles turn white and he unconsciously reaches over and gently wraps his hand around hers. His rough fingers softly rub against her small chilled bones, and she looks up at him again with a watery half smile that quickly gives way to tears that trickle down her cheeks, glistening in the silvery moonlight in a way that seems almost magical.

“I’m so scared Logan. I’m just so scared of all of this. I don’t think I can do it.”

In-spite of her diminutive stature, there have been very few times in all the years that he’s known her that Veronica has actually looked small. But as she sits beside him, shaking slightly from within her swaddling of blanket, she looks tiny and as fragile as glass.

He reaches out unconsciously and wraps his arms around her, they simply stay there, completely still, each taking comfort from the warmth and familiarity of each others arms. After a long moment, he gently picks her up and moves her frail body across so that she is curled up in his lap as he wraps himself entirely around her.

Her fingers wind themselves into his shirt like a child trying to cling to her mother after a nightmare. Her face is buried in the crook of his neck, her tears mingling with his skin and seeping through into his veins, anguish running though his blood.

He holds her like a baby, swaddled and cradled so carefully in his arms. The tears making silent tracks down his cheeks lose themselves in her hair as he brushes gentle kisses against the top of her head.

He tries to say comforting words, tries to tell her that everything will be fine. But the thought that is screaming through his mind is that nothing is ever going to be ok again. She’s dying and there is nothing he can do to save her this time, no bad guy he can protect her from, nothing is ok. The panic is spreading through his blood as he tries to hold it together (tries to hold her together). He can feel the air leaving his head, he feels about five minutes away from passing out and he can’t find the breath he needs to tell her that everything will be ok.

So he simply sits there, with the woman he has loved in one way or another since he was twelve years old cradled in his lap, and the world is falling apart as they both break down.

* * * * * *

He stumbles slightly on the way to the door of his hotel room, his hand clutched loosely around the open neck of a bottle of Jack Daniels and his head spinning in a way that makes his blurred eyes feel a little less out of place.

His hand fumbles with the door handle, and leans against the wall as the door slowly swings open to reveal Keith standing before him, a slightly concerned expression on his face as he takes in Logan’s red-rimmed eyes and decidedly un-sober state.

Logan attempts a smile, but he’s pretty sure the end result is closer to a grimace judging from Keith’s sympathetic nod in response. He nods toward the half open door and Logan steps back and waves his arm in a slightly self-mocking welcoming gesture, “Make yourself at home.”

He stares at the back of the older man’s head as he follows him down the short hallway, wondering why on earth Veronica’s father is showing up at his door at 2am. When he realizes that they are standing in the middle of the small living room, Logan gestures to Keith to sit on the sofa, as he takes his place in the armchair beside it.

They sit in an almost companionable silence, and after awhile Logan holds the bottle of bourbon out to the other man, Keith stares down at it and pauses for so long that Logan is pretty sure he’s going to refuse, but eventually he nods and reaches out to take it. He takes a swig and winces slightly before handing the bottle back.

“You know,” Logan says as he breathes through the burning sensation in his throat as the alcohol warms its way through his stomach. “A week ago, I thought I had life figured out. I mean, I like my job, I have a nice house, I have good friends. I’m sober.” The last part is combined with a wry look at Keith and a brief glance down at the bottle still clutched stubbornly in his hands, “But life always does seem to have a way of hitting you in the face with a goddamn sledgehammer, doesn’t it?” He takes a deep, shuddering breath and looks across the room as he waits for his eyes to clear.

“Did you know? About the kid… Lucas?” The name feels so foreign and yet so familiar as it slips from his lips, “I mean… You knew, didn’t you, that he was… mine, but did you know that she never told me?.. Why didn’t she tell me?” He stares back at his hands as he speaks, the words flowing through his drunken lips without any real processing or permission, the confusion and the pain that accompany any and all thoughts of Veronica filling his clouded brain.

When Keith speaks, his voice is gentle, and maybe, Logan thinks –colored by regret, “I knew. I knew that he was yours… And I knew that she didn’t want you to know. We fought about it actually.” He pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing in a slightly broken voice, “That was the main reason that she moved up here… to be away from you… and to be away from me. She never really forgave me, I don’t think, for disagreeing with her. And so I lost most of the last seventeen years of my daughter’s life.”

He looks back at Keith again and, maybe for the first time, it hits him. This man isn’t just losing a girl he’s known and loved and hated for almost twenty-five years. He is losing the little girl he carried home from the hospital. He is losing the baby girl he held after scraped knees, after schoolyard bullies, after her whole world shattered into so many unfixable pieces.

For the first time Logan sees the redness in Keith’s eyes, the way that the older man seems to have grown smaller, almost as though he is fading with his daughter.

Keith opens his mouth to speak, but no words leave his lips, he simply sits there, staring at Logan as though he is willing him to understand the agony he can’t vocalize. It is that sight that causes Logan to lose his battle against the painful tears that have built up in the back of his throat (in his heart.) He tries to move away, tries to shield himself from the empathy in Keith’s eyes, but all he can do is stand in the center of the room, almost doubled over as he tries to physically hold himself together. Trying to hold back the gaping wound that has opened from his chest as he thinks of a world where she doesn’t exist. It takes him a moment to realize that the almost inhuman groans filling the room are coming from his mouth, and all he can see is her face before his eyes. Laughing at him and Duncan when they fell into the pool while wrestling when they were 13, the tears in her eyes after Lilly died, the confusion that filled her face the day that they kissed on the balcony of the Camelot, the bittersweet smile as she opened her door the night that the million shattered pieces of his life finally hit the floor…

He can feel himself slipping, can feel the room spinning, when suddenly a pair of strong and comforting arms are wrapped firmly around him. He stiffens at first and then slowly leans into the older man, more of a father than Logan ever really had, and the two of them stand there, motionless as the bottom of the earth drops away from beneath their feet.

Gradually Logan’s racking breaths begin to subside and he becomes aware of Keith’s own quiet sobs, he is standing hunched over with his head almost on the man’s shoulder and all that he can do is clutch the arm he has been clinging to like a life raft a little tighter. Logan slowly pulls himself out of the embrace and places a comforting hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly as his head starts to spin again at the sight of this easy-going and always so strong man crumbling before him. This is the same man who would never admit defeat, the man who never walked away from his convictions, this man who suddenly looks so frail and broken.

An hour later the two of them are sitting side by side on the sofa, a new bottle being passed between the two of them. Memories and legends of the great and powerful Veronica Mars are traded in gentle voices, with soft smiles and bittersweet laughter.

“I think I always thought… without ever really actually thinking it… somehow, through everything, I think I always sort of believed somewhere in the back of my mind… That we would end up together… you know? Even when I didn’t think about her, it was still always just… there.”

Logan’s voice trails off as he stares blankly ahead at the wall, and Keith quietly reaches out a hand and gently squeezes his knee, surprising Logan out of his reverie.

Logan waits for Keith to speak, but no words leave the older mans lips, and they simply sit there in silence, two men for whom Veronica Mars has always been the sun, always their center in some way even when she wasn’t there, trying to imagine living in a world without her light.

* * * * * *

Veronica opens the door with a small smile as she sees him standing before her, “Hey.” She says, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe, “You've missed Lucas. Dad took him out for dinner, and I think they said something about maybe going to a movie too.”

“Oh. Well, uh, maybe… maybe we could hang out?” his expression is almost boyish in its eagerness and she can’t help but respond to the hope that she sees in them.

“One rule;” she tells him sternly as she steps back to allow him to walk past her and into the house. “None of that walking around on eggshells crap, ok? I don’t want you treating me like I’m a fragile little flower. That’s the whole reason I didn’t tell anyone, I don’t want to be treated like some kind of fucking cancer patient.”

“Bullshit,” he says, “you didn’t tell anyone because you were just hoping that if you pretended it wasn’t there then it would just go away.”

For a moment after he speaks there is silence, and he thinks he might have pushed it too far; she’s going to kick him out. But after a moment she nods and smiles at him, “Alright, you may come in.” she says with a flourish as she grandly waves him into the house.

They walk down the hallway through the darkened house, and with a nervous look Veronica invites him into the living room.

Looking around the dimly lit room, it takes Logan a minute to recognize the smell that is wafting towards him, as comprehension slowly takes hold he turns to look at her eyes, only now noticing the slightly glazed quality to her eyes that he had previously mistaken for tears, “Veronica,” he smirks with a mischievous glint to his eye, “Are you high?”

He hears the slight gasp from beside him, and he thinks that prim sound, a sound he hasn’t heard from her in quite that innocent way since she wore pastel dresses and pink lips, is perhaps the sweetest thing he’s ever heard.

She finally looks up at him, a faint blush warming her cheeks, and then grins sheepishly, “Ok, fine you caught me out.” She admits as she walks across the room to the sofa and pulls the ashtray out from its hiding spot and picks up the small joint.

“I, uh, I started it because of the chemo. A friend from work gave me some. And now… sometimes I just need something to calm me down when I actually think about what is happening to me, I guess.”

She looks so forlorn and almost like a child as she sits there in faded jeans and a baggy sweatshirt that swallows her small frame, and all he wants to do is scoop her up in his arms and carry her away from anything that ever made her stop smiling, but he remembers her mandate for the evening and forces a smile as he looks around the room.

“So, what were you watching before I so rudely interrupted your evening?” he asks, gesturing toward the paused image on the TV screen.

“Oh!” She says as she turns startled toward the television, almost as though she’d forgotten it existed, “I uh, I just started ‘Fear and Loathing’, Its one of Lucas’ favorites.”

“I love that movie!” Logan exclaims, setting himself down on the floor in front of the couch, “Are you past the hitchhiker yet?”

“Yeah,” She replies, grinning at the gleam in his eye, “But I can go back to the start if you want?”

“Cool.” Logan replies, settling in to get a little more comfortable and reaching out to take the joint back from between her fingers. She grins at him, and reaches over for the remote as she settles in beside him on the floor.

Raoul Duke and his Samoan attorney have just checked into the first of their Las Vegas Hotels and the guests are turning into giant lizards, and the effects of the weed are beginning to roll over Logan and Veronica in waves when she hears the front door click and sits up suddenly, her head knocking into Logan’s as she turns to him, panic in her eyes as she hisses “Shit! They’re home!”

Logan quickly turns toward her and grips her shoulders, his face pressed close to hers and his expression managing to be both deadly serious and earnest at the same time, “We can’t stop here. This is bat country!” he manages to hold the expression for a few moments before the grin twitching at the corners of his mouth turns into a full blown giggle. The sound of this girlish giggle coming from the mouth of a fully grown man, coupled with the expression on his face, is the last straw for her, and the two of them end up collapsing in a hysterical heap on the floor, twitching and writhing around a new wave of giggles take over each time they try to sit up and attempt a serious expression.

The sound of a throat clearing from the doorway causes the two of them jump and then look guiltily up into the confused expressions of Keith and Lucas.

“Hi!” Veronica chirps, waving perkily and aware in a vague way that in her attempts to sound normal she is acting more like a Stepford wife. She can feel Logan shaking with muted laughter behind her, but she forces herself not to give in to the giggle forming in her throat and not to turn around because she knows that one look at his crossed eyes will cause her to lose any minute control she might currently have over this situation.

“Don’t mind me.” He mutters quietly into her shoulder, snickering softly, “Just admiring the shape of your skull.”

Veronica snorts, she can’t help it, and then tries to disguise it with a cough. It doesn’t appear to help much however, and it just makes Logan’s shoulders shake harder.

“Uhhh, yeah…” Lucas replies, looking both confused and appalled at the sight of these two fully grown adults rolling on the floor with glazed eyes and manic grins, slightly horrified by the fact that these two people are not just a pair of stoned teenagers, but actually his parents. From the corner of his eye he can see his grandfather attempt to smother a grin as Logan serenely smiles at the two of them and waves.

“Well then, I think we’ll let you two get back to your movie.” Keith says as he takes hold of Lucas’ shoulders and guides him from the room, “We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us.” he adds over his shoulder as they disappear through the doorway.

“Ohhh God, did I just get caught completely stoned by my teenage son?” Veronica moans, burying her face in her hands. Logan grins at her, still feeling the lightheaded buzz from laughing so much, “Hey, you got caught by your son. I got caught by the former Neptune Sheriff AND our teenage son.”

Veronica reaches out one hand without removing her face from her lap and grabs a cushion and hurls it in his general direction.

“Hey!” Logan cries as he ducks the flying missile, “Keep that up and I’ll have to send you to the naughty corner young lady!”

“The ‘naughty corner’ Logan?” she asks sitting up to look at him, feeling the laughter bubble up in her throat again as she looks at his face, “Have you been watching re-runs of ‘Super Nanny’ again?”

He grins sheepishly at her, “It’s an obsession, I can’t help it. Plus I thought it might help me… you know… pick up some stuff about being a parent…” his voice trails off as he looks away, before shyly glancing back at her.

“Logan,” Veronica says her tone mock serious as she looks him in the eye with a smirk, “You do realize that Lucas is not a screaming three year-old right?”

Logan tosses the pillow back at her gently and she catches it with ease and hugs it to her chest as she leans back against the sofa, a tranquil smile on her face at how easy and familiar all of this feels.

“What was he like when he was little?” he asks, looking at her with an expression that holds no anger, only a desire to share whatever part he can of their child’s history.

“He was pretty good. He never cried that much when he was baby, he was pretty content to just chill out most of the time. But he could throw some whopper tantrums when he got in the mood.” She laughs as she pictures the tiny blond face colored with frustration, “He once through this absolutely massive fit when I was trying to put him to bed, just because I couldn’t make the sun come up so that he could go outside and play.”

Logan laughs, feeling a bittersweet mix of regret that wasn’t there to experience the first years of his son’s life, but also for the first time there is a feeling that maybe the way that things turned out was for the best. He smiles at her, and reaches out to tenderly brush a stray strand of hair away from her face, “You did a good job with him.”

Veronica’s heart tugs at his expression, at his words, at the unspoken forgiveness for all of the ways that she wronged him. She smiles sadly at him, and reaches out to hold his hand. They sit like that for what seems like forever, the movie forgotten in the background as they sit side by side and rediscover each others hands, fingers tracing patterns across new lines and calluses, fingertips tickling as they run across palms. The effects of the drug and the muted darkness heighten all of their senses of touch, and it feels as though this bond of almost clasped hands is all that exists in the world.

From the corner of her eye she sees his eyes on her, she turns to face him and their eyes hold on each others, gentle smiles tugging at the corners of their mouths and cheeks flushed with memories of nights lost in passion.

She leans toward him and slowly brushes her lips against his, savoring the shivering feeling that rushes across her skin, the delicate tingling that spreads quickly through her veins as his hands find their way to the back of her head, gently tangling in her short hair and pulling her closer to deepen the kiss as his tongue gently explores her mouth. She gasps against his lips, full of feelings she had thought long gone as she lightly moans and runs her hands across his chest until they rest on either side of his face.

The gentle kiss lacks none of the passion of any other that they’ve shared, but it is different; more like a low-burning resilient flame rather than the usual frenetic hands and hearts full of panic of the past. It feels more like a warm caress on a crisp spring afternoon, like a heady wine that fills her mind with the warmest fog. His mouth tastes like home.

When their lips finally separate, they stay with their bodies held close, faces almost touching, as they smile at each other. Soft gentle smiles filled with hope and optimism that make her heart swell.

She leans her head down to rest upon his shoulder as she snuggles into his side and wraps his arms around her, and he smiles contentedly down at her, feeling warm and at peace in a way he had forgotten existed. It might be just for this moment, but laying warm and safe in each others arms they can almost forget the lies and regrets of the past, and the pain that the future holds, in this moment all that exists is the perfect harmony of their heartbeats.

* * * * * *

“So, honey, how many of these steaks are for you?” Her dad asks as he passes her on his way back to his precious barbecue, “I mean, should I put on an extra half a dozen so that the rest of us get to eat tonight?”

Veronica smiles at his teasing tone, grinning wickedly at him because she knows it will make him worry less, even though her appetite these days is practically non-existent. He leans down and presses a kiss against the top of her head before continuing on his way, calling out to Wallace as he goes.

They are all gathered in the backyard, the entire dysfunctional family unit plus a couple of friends, to celebrate Lucas’ seventeenth birthday.

Veronica watches Lucas introduce Logan to all of his friends, the way the he beams as he says to them all, “This is Logan, my Dad.” She watches the proud look on Logan’s face as Lucas jokes around with his friends, the gratitude in his eyes at the way that Lucas never mentions his last name, seems to have no desire to play on any sort of family connections or history.

It’s been nearly two months now since she first told them all that she was sick, since Lucas and Logan learned of each other’s existence. In that two months Wallace has managed to take more time off work and therefore has more time to visit her, her Dad is still sleeping on the fold-out sofa, but she sometimes convinces him to go home to Helen for a weekend, Helen has also made a few trips up and the two of them have been talking about moving up here permanently, opening a Mars Investigations in San Francisco. Veronica had tried to tell her Dad that it was insane to uproot his entire life just because of her, but he just simply smiled at her and asked her what she wouldn’t do for Lucas. After that she lost all of her strength to argue.

And Logan… Logan transferred to his firm’s San Francisco office and just bought a small bungalow two streets over from them, even though he spends most of his time at their house these days. She looks over at him now, standing beside Lucas with a protective hand on his shoulder, he looks so natural as a father, as though he has raised him all his life. The two of them smile at each other easily, laughter flowing between them at some inside joke only they understand.

She’s still feeling so tired and slightly dizzy a lot of the time, the result of her last recent course of chemo. Lucas talked about canceling the party due her health, but she wouldn’t let him and so they compromised; family and a couple of friends at their house this afternoon, and then his noisy teenage party at Logan’s tomorrow night.

Logan catches her watching the two of them and smiles at her before pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and walking over to where she’s sitting. He hands the glass to her as he leans down and places a soft kiss against her forehead before dropping down onto the bench beside her with an arm gently wrapped around her shoulders.

“Have I told you how hot you look today?” He murmers against her ear, she snorts in response as she looks up at him with a disbelieving expression, “Oh yeah, the whole bald fuzz look is totally working for me.” She mutters, grinning at him nonetheless as she reaches up to make sure the kerchief on her head is still in place.

Logan just chuckles and rubs his nose against hers with a grin, kissing her gently and holding her close to him.

Lucas glances over at the two of them, and the grin that blossoms on his face at the sight of them together is so bright and jubilant that her heart swells at the sight of it. He turns away when one of his friends begins speaking to him, but before he walks away completely, he steals a brief glance back and meets her eye and the two of them smile at each other warmly.

She looks around at her family, so much laughter and affection weaving between all of them, and she smiles with a sense of a sort of bittersweet joy as she realizes I’m dying and I have never felt more alive…

~fin~

--- Final A/N Thanks to everyone who read and left such lovely comments on this story so far, I really do hope that this ending was one you liked. That being said, there is so much more that I could still write within this little futureverse I’ve created here that it was kind of hard for me to stop, but I always intended to have at least a moderately happy ending (what can I say? I’m a sucker for the happy endings) and this was the only place I could really end it and let that happen.

For people who liked the original story too, or actually probably more for the people who didn’t read it actually; I hope it’s ok that this story didn’t show as much from Lucas’s perspective. My reasoning for that was sort of two-fold, for one thing, there wasn’t a lot I could say that wouldn’t just be repeating stuff from the first story and also, I wanted this story to focus more on what he represents to Logan and Veronica as opposed to what they are to him… if that makes any sense at all. Another thing I was a little bit worried about was that by not including the flashbacks that I had in the original story (for the same reason as Lucas’s stuff; it would just be saying the exact same thing) it would be a little too unclear as to exactly what had happened between Keith and Veronica that led to her leaving, and her breakup with Logan. I tried to insert little bits of dialogue here and there to show it but I'm not sure how clear it all was, so if you’re reading this story first and have any left over confusion, the answer probably lies in reading the original fic. (Or you can ask me here)

Also, with leaving the story here, I sort of wanted to leave it up to the reader to imagine what comes next. Yes, I did have a specific idea for what happens after this (and one day I’ll probably give in and just write it) but for now you can decide whatever future you would like for them all.

Ok, wow, this is a kind of long author’s note, I just wanted to share that little bit of rambling commentary and explain some stuff. Any other questions feel free to ask, and thanks again for all the lovely support I’ve gotten from you wonderful readers *big huggles to all of you*

Also, on a far more important note, if you click on this link, you can help provide free mammograms (it's free you just click on a button, and it's a very important cause)

FIC: Before I Sleep, part 2 (Veronica, Logan, Keith, Lucas(OMC)) PG13 (this part) 2/3

2007-04-01T16:15:53Z

Title: Before I Sleep, part 2
Author: evie_0
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan, Keith, Lucas(OMC)
Word Count: 3,926
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This is a kind of AU of my story Living Without Her.
Future fic: in this version of events, Veronica tells her dad and Wallace that she has cancer a lot earlier, and they manage convince her to tell Logan about their son too. (I suck at summaries, and no, I didn't just spoil the original story)
-This chapter deals with Veronica trying to explain her decisions to Lucas, and also a bit of Logan/Lucas father/son bonding.
Spoilers: Pretty much safe if you've seen 2x22, with a slight knowledge of early s3
Warnings: Angst
Disclaimer: Not at all mine
A/N: I realize it might be a little odd to do an AU of my own fic, but this story wouldn't leave me alone. Betaed by the always wonderful earth2mars (thanks so much sweetie!) any mistakes are mine.

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on the first chapter, and I hope you like this part too! :)

Chapter One is here

Veronica stares blankly at the television screen, her eyes barely seeing the moving images before her, her mind replaying the past 24 hours events in constant repeat.

All she’s heard from Logan was a strained conversation where he asked her for permission to spend time with Lucas, they managed to be civil, but all the previous day’s anger was simmering barely restrained below the surface.

Lucas meanwhile has basically avoided meeting her eye, any conversation between them is pretty much mono-syllabic and awkward.

The two of them are sitting in silence in the living room, TV on but barely acknowledged and Rocky, their malamute/rottweiler cross that they got from the pound two years ago, sitting at their feet and wagging her tail, blissfully unaware of the that fills the room.

Keith went to bed an hour ago, citing old age but the expression of concern on his face as he left the room betrayed the flimsy excuse.

“So… how’s school, sweetie? Got any girls after you?” Veronica asks, breaking the silence, her tone aiming for jovial but not quite making it.

Lucas just turns his head and stares at her, his expression blank but his eyes full of hurt and anger, looking so much like the way Logan’s had the day before that it makes her breath catch for an instant.

“Sorry,” she amends, “I just… I don’t know… you know?” she asks, holding her hands out helplessly.

Lucas continues to stare down at the floor for a long moment, and when he finally speaks his voice is slightly broken and he won’t meet her eye, “Mom? Why didn’t you tell him… Logan, about me?”

Veronica feels as though all of the air is being sucked from the room, as though she is drowning and flailing, she has been waiting for this question for almost seventeen years now and yet she can’t think of a single answer.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers, because the only other things that come into her mind are irrelevant excuses and justifications that she is starting to realize hold no worth anymore.

“Mom,” he says thickly, trying to fight the tears forming in his eyes, “I don’t need you to apologize, I just need to know why.”

She searches her mind for the answers she knows he deserves, but all thoughts have fled and she comes up empty. She stares at him helplessly, tears filling her eyes at the sight of the child she swore to always protect in so much pain, pain that she caused.

“I don’t know why, sweetie,” she admits, her voice breaking, “I just… I just don’t know. I was… I was really proud, you know? And I didn’t want to go to him, because I knew that he would want to marry me or something… just out of obligation… And I didn’t want our lives to be like that, for any of us…” her voice trails off as her mind drifts back to months and years of loneliness and fear of the future, choices she chose wrong and people she pushed away, “I’m sorry, ok? It was the wrong decision. I know that now… I probably knew it then, it just got so much harder to take back the more time that went by. And I just… didn’t want to deal with it. I’m sorry,” she sobs, trying to hold her expression together, “I know that’s selfish, and I know that it’s hurt you, but I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to do this, I just… I’m sorry, ok?” she pleads, “I was wrong. And I never wanted to hurt you, I never meant to hurt you… either of you.”

They sit in silence for a long time, the two of them lost in their thoughts and imaginations.

Lucas looks at her questioningly, his eyes earnest for answers and any information, “How long were you two together?”

“We were together… God, I don’t know, it was so on and off all the time. I guess it was over like, five years or so… but we could just never made it work, things just always made everything fall apart, we always made everything fall apart. There was just too much history, too many things we couldn’t leave in the past…” The memories wash over her as she speaks, images flashing in her mind of kisses and arguments, a time spent with so much passion. And then she thinks of the way he looked the day before, after all these years without him she didn’t expect her reaction to seeing him again to feel like this. She actually sort of thought that after all this time of seeing his face in Lucas that her senses would be slightly dulled when it came to Logan, but that ghost of a flicker still exists, is still haunting her. It isn’t quite like how she used to feel around him, but the feelings are still there. Maybe, she thinks, after how much emotion existed between the two of them, it will always be impossible to see him and feel nothing.

“I’m sorry that you had to find out like this, that this was how the two of you met. But I just, I don’t know, Wallace told me… I thought… I wanted you to have someone…” she looks at him as tears begin to trickle from her eyes and her voice drops to a whisper, “…When I’m gone.”

Lucas stares at her, new pain etched into his features and tears filling his beautiful eyes, and her heart breaks a little more as he slowly shatters before her.

He was supposed to have the normal adolescence that was stolen from her, he wasn’t supposed to come from school to find her lying passed out on the kitchen floor with blood running from her nose, he wasn’t supposed to hold his mother’s hair back as the drugs that kept her alive killed her stomach, he wasn’t supposed to watch her slowly wither away. His life was supposed to be filled with happiness and fun, not days spent watching his mother lying in a hospital bed with drugs running through her veins, drugs that are killing her to keep her alive.

She had it all planned, after all this time it’s almost enough to make her laugh, shouldn’t she know better than anyone that making plans only leads to disappointment? But in spite of all that, she had still thought that maybe this time things could be different, that maybe this time the plans she made would be good enough, strong enough to survive, but once again all that she is left with broken memories of a future that she got to taste but never touch.

As she looks at him she can feel the panic rising, bubbling up through her body and trying to escape through her mouth. She tries to clamp it all down, her hand flies involuntarily to her mouth as she tries to hold the fear that is quickly spreading throughout her body in prickling waves from spilling out her mouth and flowing out into the world. Because no, no, no, no, no, no I can’t leave my baby all alone, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave him, I can’t leave him, I can’t… I don’t want to die. The anger and the fear are battling for control of her body, her mind, it’s all taking over and this is not how she wanted to live (not how she wanted to die.) And she can’t panic now, he can’t see her like this, she has tried so hard to keep this calm, to be in control for him, but right now it is taking every ounce of self-control that she has to keep from screaming. Not words, not questions, just let fear and anger and desires un-realized come pouring from her mouth in one long non-syllable wail from the depths of her soul.

She is almost shaking with the effort that it’s taking to hold herself together, shivers spreading from the pit of her stomach and her head pounding and fading at the same time. Her thoughts are flying past too fast to even recognize, and she can hear Lucas’ voice faintly in the background, can see him blurrily from the corner of her vision, but the energy to focus her attention to him eludes her. She suddenly notices how erratic her breathing has become, a rattling, jarring noise coming from her chest as she struggles to inhale oxygen past the pressure in her chest. The light is fading slightly from her eyes, but its getting harder to register it. She feels something soft beneath her hands and vaguely realizes that her fingers have wound themselves into Lucas’ hand, her fingernails clutching into his flesh as she struggles to stay afloat. His voice sounds so far away, almost like he’s underwater, but she can hear the hint of panic in his tone even if she can’t make out his words. She tries to speak, but what comes out is barely a whisper, tries to smile calmly, but all that comes are tears. Lucas takes her hand and wraps his free arm around her shoulders, pressing her face against his shoulder as he whispers soothingly to her. His arms are shaky but solid as he holds her, and his voice breaks but he never stops rocking her gently.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispers when the world’s spinning slowly returns to normal, “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…” The hushed whispers tumble from her lips like a mantra, oblivious to his constant shushing.

“Its fine mom,” he whispers in a slightly tear-stained voice, the words cracking as his throat threatens to close, “It’s okay, everything is gonna be okay.” The last part is spoken almost like a half prayer as he holds her tightly, the child becoming the parent. They both know that it’s a lie, a comforting blanket of denial that they wrap around each other tightly, but it’s the only thing that can keep their feet from slipping across the edge and into the abyss.

* * * * * *

Logan takes a final deep breath (at least his tenth by now) as he prepares to knock on the door. He almost turns away, but then after a brief hesitation he lifts his fist and taps against the door. Within five seconds of his knock he hears footsteps rushing toward the door, and then silence as whoever stands on the other side of the door hesitates before finally opening the door, and then just like that, in an almost mirror of two days before, Logan finds himself faced with a strange reflection of himself.

“Hi.” he says nervously, awkwardly.

Lucas half smiles at him anxiously, “Hi.” He replies, giving a sort of twitchy wave and then flushing slightly and ducking his head a little.

They stand before each other while an uncomfortable silence settles around them as the seconds tick by. Logan is just about to speak, break the silence when all of a sudden a large black flash suddenly bursts through the door and launches at his chest.

“Oomph!”

The sound escapes Logan’s mouth as he stumbles back across the porch, his back hitting the low railing just as Lucas half shouts, “Rocky! Down!” He crosses the porch quickly and grabs a hold of the beast’s collar and drags her away from Logan, “Bad girl!” he admonishes as he pushes her back towards the door.

“Christ,” Logan mutters as he regains his balance, “What the hell was that?”

Lucas grins up at him from where he sits hunkered down beside the slightly fluffy black and brown demon, “This is Rocky. She’s normally a good girl, aren’t you, monster?” he says affectionately as he scratches at her ears. “She just gets excited around new people. Sorry.”

Logan crouches down beside him and holds a hand out toward the dog which she sniffs and then begins licking earnestly, he laughs and pats her affectionately, “It’s fine. She gorgeous,” he adds, “but isn’t Rocky kind of a uh, masculine name?”

Lucas laughs, “Yeah, well, blame Mom.”

And at the very mention of her, the air suddenly fills with discomfort and awkwardness again. Lucas stands up stiffly and gestures toward the car, “So, uh, should we go?”

“Yeah, right. You’re all ready?” Logan asks, and at Lucas’ nod he stands and follows the younger man down the steps.

They are silent in the car, the music on the radio providing a very thin distraction. Logan feels the boy’s eyes on him, but whenever he turns to meet his eyes they are swiftly turned away, a faint flush blooming on the younger man’s cheeks.

During his brief surreptitious glances, Logan finds himself appraising the boy. It’s almost scary, like seeing a slightly blurred image of his seventeen year-old self in his son’s face. It feels a little strange, but it creates some sort of bond in his heart as he memorizes in an instant each curve and line that exist in his face. As he looks at Lucas, even though he has only known him, known of him, for less than 48 hours he feels as though the two of them are connected in some strange, almost intrinsic way.

When they finally arrive at the café they find a table and sit down in silence, both of them trying desperately to find a way to break the silence which seems more and more suffocating as each second ticks slowly past. When the waiter comes to take their order Logan almost jumps at the sound. They order nervously, and smile at each self-consciously before settling back into averted gazes and surreptitious glances.

“So what do you do?” Lucas asks finally, breaking the awkward silence that has settled around the two of them like a heavy cloud.

Logan looks across the table at him with no small amount of surprise, “I’m uh, I’m a lawyer. A public defender actually, I mostly work with kids. It’s pretty messed up, but I sort of… I don’t know, I guess I’m still making up for my misspent youth.” he says with a wry smile, “What about you? Do you have any ideas about what you’d like to do?”

“I don’t really know,” Lucas admits. “Mom got me into photography when I was younger, and I love that… but I don’t really know if I want to make that my career. Sometimes I think it could be pretty cool though, you know? The world is just… I don’t know how to explain it, it’s almost like I can show the rest of the world how I see things when I take a picture.”

He looks so earnest that Logan can’t help but respond to his obvious passion in the boy’s face, “It sounds great; I’d love to see some of your pictures sometime if you wouldn’t mind.”

Lucas smiles shyly at him, “That’d be great.” He says, ducking his head a little as Logan grins in response.

Lucas sits in silence for a long moment as he tries to build up the strength to ask his next question, “What was my mom like in high-school?” He suddenly asks, his words tumbling over themselves.

Logan looks at Lucas, slightly startled; so far aside from the slight mention of her name, the topic of Veronica has been out of bounds all afternoon. Logan tries to search his mind for any memory of Veronica that isn’t overpowered by the current haze of ‘evil heartless bitch’ that clouds his mind at the thought of her.

“Your mom? God… she was… Before Lilly died, she was like, just all sweetness and light, for lack of a better term. She just sort of had this… innocence, I guess, she was just so happy… we were all so happy. We lived in almost like this bubble or something… and then Lilly… well, Veronica’s told you about Lilly.” Logan looks away as he speaks, lost in memories of nights of champagne and games, and of children who never really understood the true meaning of loss.

“And then after Lilly… She was a fighter, your mom, she never really gave up, she always had to fight back, always had to… dig at everything… everyone, until she uncovered every secret. And it paid off, she found out who killed Lilly… Found out everything... But… I don’t know…” His voice trails off as he realizes that Veronica’s son probably doesn’t need to listen to every feeling of betrayal that Logan has ever experienced at the hands of Veronica Mars.

Lucas just looks at him and nods, his expression corresponding his complete understanding of all facets of his mother’s personality. He looks away then, studying the ground as the wheels in his mind turn, and he’s silent for so Logan starts to worry a little, just before he is about to speak though Lucas suddenly looks at him, “Aaron Echolls was your dad, wasn’t he?”

Logan flinches slightly at the words, even after all these years those words still feel like a prison, still a yoke he is trying to throw off. His eyes flick towards Lucas, and he sees no morbid curiosity in the boy’s face, just sympathy and a sort of understanding.

“Yeah. Dear old dad.” Logan replies with a sardonic twist to his mouth.

Lucas simply looks at him, meets his eye and for the first time he is the one to hold the contact, “I’m sorry.” he says, his expression so lacking in guile that it seems almost foreign to Logan.

“My mom… she used to talk about you sometimes… Like, she never said you were… my dad or anything. But she used to tell me stories sometimes, and you were in them. I used to… I don’t know, even before all of this, I used to sort of wonder about you,” Lucas tries to meet his eyes, fighting the slight flush that is blossoming on his cheeks, “Just… I don’t really even know… Just the way that she talked about you, you always seemed like someone that I kind of wanted to meet. Maybe not quite like this,” he adds with a ghost of a smile, “But… I just sort of wanted to tell you… Finding out that you were… my dad… it wasn’t exactly a disappointment.”

Logan looks over at him, and for some inexplicable reason he feels torn between grinning like an idiot and dragging the poor boy into a bear hug, or just giving in to the tears burning in the back of his throat. He clears his throat and smiles weakly at him, “Thanks.” He says. He knows that one word is inadequate, but from the smile Lucas shoots at him before returning his attention to the plate the waiter has just placed in front of him, he feels as though maybe it managed to say everything he couldn’t.

“I, uh, I had a good time today.” Logan says turning to Lucas as he pulls the car up into Veronica’s driveway.

“Yeah, me too.” Lucas agrees, grinning over at him unexpectedly, and that smile – the way that it lights up his entire face from the inside – almost breaks Logan’s heart.

Lucas jumps out of the car and waves as he begins loping up the front path. Watching him walk away, Logan suddenly feels overcome by a wave of panic that as soon as Lucas leaves his sight he’s never going to see him again.

Logan steps out of the car quickly and Lucas stops and half turns back to him expectantly. Logan clears his throat nervously, glancing down at the ground before looking back up at Lucas, “We should… Would you like to do this again sometime?”

He feels almost as nervous as a gawky adolescent asking a girl out on a date for the first time, he feels completely ridiculous, not exactly his favorite feeling but unfortunately a rather familiar one. He stares at the kid (his son!) expectantly while he waits for an answer, a long moment in which he is sure the answer is going to be a resounding no, after all, why should this kid really want to have anything to do with him? Look at the family Logan came from, why on earth would anyone want to acknowledge that gene pool? But Lucas surprises him when the corners of his mouth twitch slightly and grow into a smile.

“Yeah… I’d like that.” Lucas replies with a small shy smile before ducking his head as he turns and continues up the front steps. Logan stands and watches until he disappears into the house, with the door shut behind him. He feels the oddest mixture of pride and panic as he watches him, he just seems so strong and together, so much more than Logan or Veronica ever seemed to be. And Logan feels so compelled to stand until he is safely inside the house, as though now that he has found him, his son could disappear like smoke in the blink of an eye. It feels almost strange to be so attached, so attuned, to a person he has only just met, but in Lucas he can see all the things he ever wanted to be, he feels as though he has always known him. Looking at his son - this person that he played no real part in creating, but whom he sees himself in so clearly - Logan feels the broken edge of his soul finally start to become complete.

* * * * * *

It is on their third afternoon together that Lucas lets it slip, the two of them are sitting on park bench watching Rocky eagerly dive about after the Frisbee that Lucas is half-heartedly throwing to her,

The pauses between the two of them are beginning to approach almost comfortable, and the words are starting to flow lightly and easy. Logan keeps on finding himself losing track of the conversation just because he keeps on being distracted by the glow on Lucas’ face as he talks about his love of photography, just the passion that seems to light up the boy’s eyes as he speaks.

“I was gonna go into this program, sort of like a summer camp. But then, you know, when mom got sick that all sort of fell apart…” Lucas’ voice fades away as he draws in a slightly hectic breath and darts a quick glance at Logan’s face to gauge his reaction.

Logan feels slightly numb at first; the words just bounce straight off his head before rebounding and sinking in. It’s a perfectly innocuous phrase; after all people get colds, get the flu, constantly. But something about the boy’s tone and the way that he suddenly looks away after speaking, sends a chill racing along Logan’s arms as an all too familiar sickening feeling rolls over him in waves. He feels as though he’s free falling in deep water, sinking deeper through the heavy darkness as he watches the light fade away above him with no power to stop it.

“Your mom’s sick?” He asks, a little freaked out by how calm and relaxed his voice sounds even to his own ears. It sounds sort of far away though, as though he’s listening to himself through a tunnel. “How sick?.. What do you mean?”

Lucas simply looks at him, his eyes shining brightly with unshed and unnoticed tears and speaks in a voice brittle with long held and hidden agony, “Mom has cancer… She’s uh, she’s dying.”

Chapter Three

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FIC: Before I Sleep (Logan, Veronica, Keith, Wallace, OMC) 1/3

2007-03-30T12:24:49Z

Title: Before I Sleep, part 1
Author: evie_0
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan, Keith, Wallace, Lucas(OMC)
Word Count: 5,128
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This is a kind of AU of my story Living Without Her.
Future fic: in this version of events, Veronica tells her dad and Wallace that she has cancer a lot earlier, and they manage convince her to tell Logan about their son too. (I suck at summaries, and no, I didn't just spoil the original story)
Spoilers: Pretty much safe if you've seen 2x22, with a slight knoweledge of early s3
Warnings: Angst and a tiny bit of drugs
Disclaimer: Not at all mine
A/N: I realise it might be a little odd to do an AU of my own fic, but this story wouldn't leave me alone. Betaed by the always wonderful earth2mars (thanks so much sweetie!)

Hope you like, and remember, comments are love people!

I’m dying. The thought runs through her mind repetitively as her fingers trace the pattern on the couch throw. How can I be dying? She finds a loose thread and pulls, watching the colors run as the string unravels. What about climbing to the top of the Eiffel tower?... What about seeing the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean?... What about turning thirty-nine?...

“Mom?” Lucas calls as the front door shuts and she can hear his loping footsteps make their way down the hall. Veronica takes a deep breath as she waits for his lanky, still slightly awkward looking adolescent form to appear in the lounge room doorway.

He stands at the entrance to the room, and she can’t help but marvel at the way that he has grown over the last few months, his tall frame barely fitting in the doorway. She notices his eyes on her face as he tries to gauge today’s test results from her expression. She gives him a weak smile, and his face falls as he walks toward her small form on the sofa.

“It wasn’t good news was it?”

Her voice breaks as she answers, “Um. Not really, baby... No.” She tries to smile bravely and hide the tears beginning to brim in her eyes, but something about this situation has turned him into the parent and her into the child, and he can see straight through any defense she tries to place between herself and the rest of the world.

But then she is reminded of just how much of a kid he really is when, despite the obvious effort not to do so, the vibrant almost-man standing before her crumbles.

He turns his face away from her, and he takes several deep gulping breaths to try and calm himself, to not fall apart, and it breaks her heart that at 16 he already knows this kind of pain. The pain that she spent so long trying to shield him from that she didn’t even notice when her body betrayed her, and now she is the cause of the agony that is causing her baby to clutch at his stomach as though if he just holds it all in tight enough then everything will be ok.

She crosses the distance between them and takes him in her arms, cradling him just as she did when he fell off the fence and broke his arm, kisses the top of his head just like she kissed grazed knees and child’s tears.

She rocks him slightly in her arms, her heart breaking at the anguish slipping from his lips, she is supposed to be the one to hold her child together and yet she is the one tearing him apart.

He stiffens slightly and then pulls away, his eyes red-rimmed and full of pain as he looks down at her, “Mom, I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, but I can’t just act like nothing is happening, like everything is fine. I’m so sick of us acting like reality is sitting in the corner over there, and we’re just sitting over here with our backs to it and pretending it doesn’t exist.” He turns to walk away from her, then turns back toward her, “Mom, you have to tell grandpa. Or Uncle Wallace… I know you’re scared mom, but you need to tell them, you can’t keep on hiding this.”

She looks at him, his shattered eyes holding more pain than any child his age should have to bear, and she nods, “I know,” she murmurs, “I’ll tell them sweetie. I’m going to tell them.”

He nods and stares down at the floor, and she feels her heart ache as she looks at him, because all she can think now is; I’m dying and I’m leaving my baby behind.

She quickly crosses the space between them and puts her arms around him, pulling him close to her so that his head is resting on her shoulder, rocking him lightly as she tries to will herself not to cry.

I’m dying and the only person I have in the world is my sixteen year-old son.

* * * * * *

“So what’s up?” Wallace asks as she finally sits down beside him on the back porch swing, glass of lemonade in each of their hands, “What is your big news that couldn’t wait?”

Veronica looks over at him

“I’m… uh…” She can’t look at him as she tries to speak, her voice thick and beginning to fail her, “I’m sick, Wallace.”

He stares at her for a long moment as he tries to gauge the level of severity in her tone, “How sick?” he asks, his tone full of trepidation.

“Really sick.” She says with a small smile, trying to shield the tears in her eyes from his gaze even though she knows it pointless to even attempt to hide anything from her bff. “It’s cancer. Um… breast cancer. I’ve… I’ve done the chemo… and it just keeps coming back,” She says, her voice breaking as she looks at the tears forming in his eyes as her words slowly begin to set in, “… I just went back for a biopsy… and it’s come back again… I think… I think it’s… It’s pretty bad Wallace. The doctor says… He doesn’t think I have a lot of time.” The tears are slowly making snail tracks down her cheeks as she looks at his eyes, the deep brown depths begging for her to tell him that it's all some kind of sick joke.

“How…” his voice breaks and he looks away and takes a deep breath before trying to finish, “How long have you been sick?”

“About a year and a half now.” She says, meeting his eyes and seeing the betrayal that lies in them.

“A year and a half?” he asks in shock, “You’ve known you’re sick for a year and a half, and you’re only telling me now?”

“God, Wallace. It’s just… I couldn’t tell anyone... I couldn’t even tell myself… I didn’t even go to the doctor until about six months after I found the lump… I just… It’s scary Wallace, it’s really scary.” Her voice cracks as she looks at him, terror in her voice and pain in her eyes, “I guess I thought… if I didn’t acknowledge it, it would just go away or something.” She smiles wryly, “But that plan obviously failed.”

“Does Lucas know?” His tears are falling openly now, his face as open as it was the first day he sat down at her table, all innocence and unsullied optimism about the innate goodness of the human race.

“Yeah, he knows. He’s been really great about all of it, really supportive and helpful.
He’s a pretty awesome kid isn’t he?” she asks, smiling through the tears falling down her cheeks.

Wallace tries to smile back, but the agony in his expression mars the effect, “What… what does your doctor say? How… uh, how long…?” his voice breaks and he looks away, unable to meet her eyes.

“They, uh, they said maybe… well, I can have more chemo… but it’s pretty aggressive… they said about… maybe six months to a year.”

He makes a slight choking noise at her words, and his shoulders begin to shake, and she reaches out a hand to place on his back. He leans into her and wraps his arms around her suddenly frail body, holding her as gently as if she were made of glass, his hold increasing as their sobs grow.

Veronica clings to him as though he is a life raft in a stormy sea, her arms trembling as she grasps his shirt between her fingers, savoring the warmth of a human body close to hers.

They sit beside each other on the sofa, crying in each others hair as they try not to face the fact that the world is falling down around them.

Finally she pulls away and wipes her eyes, “So, uh, that’s a bit of a conversation killer, huh?” She says, trying for a light tone and almost succeeding.

Wallace just stares at her, his face contorted and his eyes still glistening. She leans back into him, boneless and sinking into the comfort his arms offer.

They sit like this for what feels like hours, but could be only minutes, before Wallace breaks the easy silence by clearing his throat as he sits up a little straighter, “Have you…” he pauses as he tries to search for the right words to say what he needs to without causing her any extra pain, “Are you going to tell Logan?”

Immediately she stiffens against him before straightening to look him in the eye, “And just what exactly am I supposed to say to him Wallace? Hey, I love you, come watch me die?” Veronica spits at him, her pale face contorted in pain and anger as their eyes meet.

Wallace winces at her words and she instantly regrets them as he stares hard at the floor to hide the tears she knows are burning behind his eyes.

“I didn’t say anything about your feelings for each other V, that part’s entirely up to you. But you need to tell him about Lucas. You need to tell Lucas about him.” He says, trying to keep his voice gentle, but the defensiveness builds up in her despite it.

“Oh right. You want me to tell my son that the only reason he doesn’t know his father is because I never told him that he existed? How do you think he’s going to react to that? How do you think Logan is going to feel about the fact that he suddenly has a kid he never heard of before? They would both hate me!”

Wallace looks away from her then and stares across the room at the framed photos that line her walls. A long moment passes before he finally speaks again, his voice soft and his face turned away from her, “You’re my best friend Veronica, you’re my family. I love you and you know it. But this? This is not about you.”

Veronica sits in silence, the sheen in her eyes betraying the calm her military straight posture is attempting to portray. At least five minutes pass before she turns to him, her voice cracking a little as she speaks, “What if he has his own family now? What if he doesn’t want to know him? What if he doesn’t even care?!”

Wallace shifts closer to her on the couch and puts an arm around her shoulders as he pulls her to him, “I’m sorry V, I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you… or upset you… but you know that he would care… and he has a right to know. And Lucas needs to know his father, you know he does… especially now.” His voice cracks as he finishes, still unable to believe that this world could continue to exist without the vibrant woman sitting before him in it.

* * * * * *

It is with trembling fingers that Veronica dials the familiar number, listens to the phone ring as she counts the seconds with her heartbeat. After all this time, the fear of speaking to him shouldn’t be this strong, she thinks. But after telling Wallace it feels as though she has opened a floodgate, and she can’t hide the truth about her illness anymore, which only makes the sound of her dad’s happy voice that much harder to bear…

“Hey sweetie!” her father’s boisterous voice rings out along the line, and she can picture him perfectly; leaning against the kitchen counter with his cheerful grin in place and eyes crinkling slightly at the edges.

The mental image brings the tears that have been burning the back of her throat up to seep beneath her eyelids as she leans her forehead against the cool kitchen tile, “Daddy.” She whispers, feeling all the self control she has clung to all her life slowly sliding out of her.

“Veronica what’s wrong?” he asks, a wary note of building fear growing in his voice, “Is Lucas ok? What happened?”

“No… uh, Lucas is fine… it’s, uh… it’s me.” She takes one final deep breath and forges ahead, her words stumbling over one another, “I’m sick, daddy… I… I have cancer.”

It takes a few seconds for her words to sink in, but she can tell the exact second that they do; there is a sound of held breath being exhaled in a shaky breath, a slightly hollow, almost choking sound. Veronica’s eyes well with tears for both her own pain and her father’s; this man was the center of her life, was the only ally she had in the world for so long, he was more than just her father; he was her inspiration. And now she can almost hear his heart breaking through the long distance crackle.

But then he kicks into protective father mode and takes control. Chemo, natural therapy, whatever they have to do to make her comfortable, whatever it costs it will all be done. Over her protests Keith tells her that he will be coming to stay with her, and Veronica gives in because laced through his confident words she can hear the notes of building panic and despair.

“What about work though, dad? And what about Helen?” she asks, referring to his wife of three years, a fellow PI and his current partner at Mars Investigations.

“Helen can look after the office, and she’ll understand, honey, I need to be up there with you and Lucas right now.”

And so it is that one week later her father is moving into their study/guest bedroom, laying out bedding on the fold-out sofa while she hovers by his side.

He glances up at her with a quizzical expression, “You know sweetie, as much as I appreciate the moral support, I have been making my own bed for over 40 years now. What gives?”

She looks up at him, somehow still surprised after all this time at her father’s ability to read her. She meets his eye and then quickly looks away, staring at the rug on the floor as though it holds all the answers that she seeks.

“I told Wallace… and he thinks… uh, he thinks that I should tell Logan… about Lucas.” She finally mumbles.

Her father looks at her for a long moment before speaking gently, “Are you asking for my opinion?.. Because we’ve had this conversation before.”

She nods in acknowledgement of his point, twisting her hands into the sides of her shirt, old battles and old scars simmer just beneath the surface of this conversation and they each pick their steps carefully because the entire topic is littered with so many landmines. Angry words and her feelings of being trapped and rejected all at the same time, all come rushing back to her as the two of them dance around the issue that led to her running away to San Francisco at the age of 21, the cause of the unbridgeable wall that grew between them and left their relationship a hollow shell of what it used to be.

She sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, her fingernails digging into her palms as she tries to will away the tears that threaten at the thought of all the years she lost with her father because she was too stubborn to simply listen to what he had to say.

Keith watches her, his baby (always his baby girl in his eyes) so torn and weary, and his heart aches at the thought of her in so much pain. He crosses the room and sits down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, “You know what I think honey, but I do understand how hard this must be for you…” Veronica leans her head against his shoulder as he continues, “Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you.”

* * * * * *

“Hello?”

And at that, just his voice, she feels her throat go dry. Nervousness and terror race through her veins, and she feels as though she has forgotten how to speak. For over sixteen years now his ghost has stayed firmly in the past, stuck to back closet in her mind to which she relegated it, but his voice brings it all rushing back to her like an avalanche.

“Hello?” He repeats, and she wonders how many times he’s said it now, how many more times will he say it before he simply hangs up?

“Logan…” She tries to say it clearly, but it comes out almost as a half-caught breath. She hears his sharp intake of breath as realization hits, and she feels torn between bursting into tears and hysterical laughter at the flood of memories that engulf her merely from the sound of his breathing. The silence sinks around them like quicksand and time freezes as she tries to think of a way to tell him all that she has to say, as she tries to hold onto these precious moments before the world comes crashing down around them.

When he speaks it sounds almost like an unconscious action, “Veronica…” He says her name almost like a caress; she can practically feel the whisper brushing across her neck as she nearly shivers against the warmth it brings.

She clears her throat as she tries to pull herself together, tries to prepare herself for the fallout she has been trying to avoid for sixteen years.

“Hi,” she says trying not to sound as nervous as she feels, “uh, how have you been?”

He chuckles a little in surprise at her words, “You called me out of the blue after all these years for small talk?”

Veronica takes a deep breath as she tries to figure out how the hell she is supposed to do this. How do you irrevocably change someone’s life, turn their entire world on its heel, with the least amount of damage?

“No, I uh, I guess not.” She sighs, “Logan, I need to see you. There’s something I need to tell you… and I think it might be better in person. Do you think… could you come out to San Francisco for a few days?”

* * * * * *

Sitting in her sun filled backyard surrounded by the love and laughter of the two men she loves most in the world, Veronica can almost forget that anything is wrong, can almost pretend that her world isn’t ending.

Her dad is standing by the barbecue, waving his tongs in the air as he instructs Lucas on the art of cooking steak. Veronica laughs as his words drift across the yard to where she sits at the small picnic table.

Her hair is growing back after the last round of chemo, it’s almost long enough for her to tuck behind her ears again now. Lucas likes to tease her about the fact that she looks so young with it this short that she’s always getting carded.

She watches him now, grinning at his grandfather’s intricate directions, his shoulders shaking with laughter at some joke she didn’t catch. He turns and catches her watching him and makes a face to convey his discomfort under her scrutiny, but the twinkle in his eyes betrays his good humor. As she looks at his eyes Veronica feels a pang as she thinks of all the pain that she is about to cause him, and the man who gave him those beautiful eyes…

Everything about him screams that he is Logan Echolls’ son; the way he stands with his back straight but his shoulders slightly slumped by the weight of the world; his warm brown eyes like deep expressive pools, windows straight through to every thought that flits through his mind; his height, the way his hair grows, his slightly crooked smile… all of it. When he was a baby he was all her, all pale blond wisps of hair and rosy chubby cheeks, but as he grew slowly into the man he is still becoming he began to resemble Logan more and more. The line of his jaw is perhaps a little softer and the hair a little lighter, but to look at him there is no mistaking who his father is.

* * * * * *

Veronica is in the kitchen cutting vegetables for salad and smiling at her father’s gentle ribbing when she hears the car pull up, she looks out the window and sees him stepping out of the rental car and stare at the house for a long moment before starting up the path to the front door.

She is broken from the memories that hold her tied to the floor as she hears Lucas’ footsteps heading towards the door in response to Logan’s knock.

“No, I’ll get it!” She cries futilely as she rushes to the front hallway just in time to see Logan staring at Lucas with an expression of mild shock and confusion. She makes her way slowly towards them until she is standing beside her son (their son) and she tries not to meet Logan’s eyes, tries not to see the pain in their depths. She gently pulls Lucas to the side and asks if he could go and help his grandfather work on dinner, before she finally looks up into the face of the man who used to be the boy she loved.

It’s almost weird to see Logan again. After all these years of seeing his face on her own child it looks strangely out of place on him.

They simply stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, his eyes asking her for answers and hers begging him to understand. Finally she shakes herself out of the reverie as she steps away from the doorway, “Would you… Can you… Come in.” She falters as she gestures toward the hallway. He walks through the door, flinching slightly as his arm brushes hers as he passes. She stares at him as he stands stiffly in the middle of her small foyer, his eyes anywhere but on her, before she starts down the hallway toward the living room on the far side of the house, inviting him to follow her.

She stands awkwardly in the middle of the lounge room and gestures for him to sit on one of armchairs before taking her place on the edge of the sofa. Her hands twist around themselves as she looks at him, he won’t meet her eyes and she can tell that he already knows every word of her prepared speech before she even opens her mouth.

“It’s, uh, it’s good to see you Logan.” She starts, her voice tentative and she suddenly can’t meet his eyes as she realizes how ridiculous those words are between the two of them.

He looks up at her, his dark eyes fixing on her clear blue ones, the confusion and barely contained anger shining through them as he sits stiffly in the chair, his hands beginning to tug his sweater sleeves over his hands in a gesture that tugs at her heart in its familiarity.

“I’m sorry.” She says, looking down at the floor, trying to find some source of strength in the multi-colored rug beneath her feet, “I, uh, this is just… you know?”

He simply stares at her, his gaze suddenly empty and endless, “Who was that?” he asks, his voice sounding hollow to her ears, and his expression so full of disgust at the decisions she made so long ago.

Veronica clears her throat nervously before answering, “That was Lucas.”

His eyes never leave hers, and his gaze never loses that hauntingly empty emotion as he speaks, his voice sounding strained and full of barely contained pain, “And how old is… Lucas?”

She tries to meet his eyes but he won’t let her, won’t look anywhere near her as she tries to hold back the tears that are burning the back of her throat at the sight of him in so much pain (pain she is the cause of.)

“He’s sixteen…” she finally says, her voice soft with unspoken regrets and full of long buried secrets as he nods, his suspicions confirmed as tears silently form in his eyes, “I’m sorry, Logan… I was scared, and confused… and we were broken up when I found out… and I just… I guess I made the wrong decision.” She finishes weakly as he finally meets her eyes, his eyes so full of anger that all of her justifications whither beneath them.

He suddenly stands and begins pacing the room in an agitated manner, opening his mouth to speak and then just as quickly shutting it and clenching his jaw. After many moments of watching him pace she opens her mouth to speak again, but before she can even mentally compose the sentence he turns to her with his dark eyes blazing and his shoulders tensed, “You made the wrong decision? This is a child Veronica! Our child! My child! This was not like choosing the wrong fucking pair of shoes, this is a human being! How could you not tell me?” Logan takes a deep breath and turns away from her, his shoulders trembling with shock and rage, after a long moment he turns back to her, his eyes flat and emotionless, “Why?... Did you think… did you think I was going to be like him?” he asks, his voice quiet and containing that same sense of despair that existed in his eyes on that long ago day as he fell apart in her arms in the lobby of an expensive hotel.

She looks away from his eyes, looks away from the abandoned little boy that still exists in them, seeks solace in tearing at her broken nails as she stares at her hands, “I’m sorry Logan… I just… I was scared… and I just didn’t know what to do…” her voice fades as she realizes just how empty and pathetic all of her excuses sound and he swings back around to face her, his renewed anger forcing her eyes up to meet his, “You didn’t know what to do?” He shouts, “Hey, well, I’ve got an idea; why didn’t you think of telling the other person involved in the goddamn situation?! Why didn’t you stop and think, ‘hey, maybe Logan has a right to know about this.’? What the hell gave you the right to keep this from me?”

She tries to gesture for him to keep his voice down, suddenly aware of how small her cozy house is and not wanting her son to be introduced to his father this way, but Logan ignores her imploring eyes and hand gestures.

“Fuck Veronica. What did I do that made you hate me that much?” He asks, his tone full of rejection and decade’s old pain.

Standing by the kitchen door, Lucas can’t help but hear the shouted words and pained inflections as these two people discuss this history of his life of which he was never informed. He can’t stop himself from turning his full attention towards them after the first time he hears his name, can’t stop the shock that causes his posture to stiffen at the words he hears. His grandfather suddenly notices his stillness and the way that his ears are turned toward the voices coming from down the hallway and walks toward him, his eyes compassionate but Lucas quickly walks from the room before his grandfather can open his mouth to speak empty platitudes. He walks from the kitchen and heads out the front door, sitting down heavily upon the porch steps as he tries to block the angry voices that are still carrying down the hallway and through the open windows. Lucas stares out at the setting-sun lit sky and feels like he’s stuck at the crossroads of terrified, confused and angry as fuck about whatever it was that kept this guy from showing any interest in the first sixteen years of his life.

“So what was it Veronica? What the fuck did I do? What did I do that gave you the right to keep this… keep him from me?” he is staring down at her with his hands outstretched and his expression suddenly so much like that of a scared, lost little boy. She moves towards him unconsciously, her hands reaching out to his before he flinches and takes a step away from her. The tears welling up in her eyes spill over as she looks down at the floor to avoid the way he’s been looking at her since he first saw Lucas’ face.

“You broke up with me, Logan.” she says, trying to find the self-righteous anger that has kept the guilt at arms length for the last seventeen years, but it’s failing her now as she is faced with the pain in his eyes, “It was… you were the one who said that you didn’t want to ‘play this game’ anymore. Fuck... Logan, I was 21 years old and I was scared and confused ok? I made the wrong decision, and it just… the idea of telling you just got harder the more time that went by. And I-”

He cuts her off with a look and a voice filled with barely contained venom, “So what – you decided to wait seventeen years to tell me? You fucking selfish bitch Veronica! How the fuck could you do this? Not just to me, but to him. What the fuck where you thinking? What… That I don’t deserve to know that I have a child?”

They stand before each other, past words and past actions running through their minds, breathing heavily and at a stalemate in this war that has been going on for more years than they care to count. Anger fills the air between them and she can’t begin to remember why it ever seemed like a good idea that he should know about her child (their child…)

They both suddenly turn towards the doorway as they become aware of a third presence in the room. Keith is standing at the entrance to the room, his expression grim and his eyes severe.

Logan immediately straightens at the sight of him, “Don’t bother, I’ll kick myself out this time.” He raises his hands in surrender as he walks away from Veronica, his eyes never leaving hers. His gaze shifts briefly to Keith and his shoulders slump as he brushes past the older man and father and daughter face each other as the front door slams.

---- Like it? Hate it? Please let me know what you think so far, and chapter 2 should be up in a day or so :)

ETAChapter 2 is now up