Title: Undercover Angel, Part IV
Author: skk670
Pairing/Characters: Ensemble
Word Count: 3,850
Rating: R (Bad Language and Sexual Situations)
Summary: This season's mysteries began to unravel - and Veronica is at the center of it all.
Spoilers/Warnings: Episode 2.14 - AU from there
Authors Notes: My personal take on the season's mysteries.
Authors Notes: Much thanks to my wonderful betas
Ethereal_65,
Fickledame and
Moire2 Part I - The Conspiracy Unfolds Part II - Snake Eyes Part III - Talking to Ghosts Icon courtesy of
merovin_iconic Undercover Angel
Part 4 - The Edge of the Ocean
Logan Echolls never pretended to be a patient guy. Waiting for things to happen had always been torture for him. Maybe it was because the things he waited for ended up being torturous. Like the time between pissing off Aaron and the trip to his belt closet, or that day he waited for Veronica at the Albacore Club, or as he waited for the morphine to kick in when the cops finally took him to the hospital after his beating on the bridge, or - worst of all - that night he waited for Veronica to call him after Keith Mars threw him out of their apartment.
He grunted and shifted in the driver’s seat of his X-Terra. Yeah, he hated waiting. When was the last time waiting had gotten him anything good? He shifted again and then he saw her. She was standing close to the water’s edge, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she watched Backup play in the surf.
Something about her stance, or the long blonde hair being tossed about by the wind or the bleak expression on her face brought back a memory. He remembered seeing her in that exact pose before. He had been surfing with a bunch of his buddies and Veronica had been on the shore, exactly as she was now. She had looked bruised and exhausted, as though life had sucker-punched her hard. It had been after Lilly’s death, after her dad’s accusations…after Shelly Pomroy’s party.
She had looked then as she looked now, fragile and tired and desperately needing comfort. Guilt and regret and love and wanting coiled inside him and made his stomach clench. He understood what she was feeling. He was there too, taking sucker-punch after punch from the invisible hand of fate, a fist that hit harder than even Aaron Echolls. The desire to go to her, to give her comfort, to find mutual comfort, nearly overwhelmed him. But Veronica wouldn’t share comfort with him, not anymore.
Instead, she had thrown him to the dubious comforts of Kendall Casablancas. The warmth and ache twisting inside him disintegrated like a puff of smoke. Kendall had been eyeing him and making veiled advances from the first time they’d met. He’d ignored her while he was with Veronica, though. Logan Echolls may be many things, but a cheater wasn’t one of them.
Then Keith Mars had thrown him out of the Mars’ apartment and Logan had spent an agonizing night waiting for Veronica to call. He had needed for her to explain, to apologize, to allow him to explain, to allow him to apologize, to prove that their relationship was worth saving; to prove that he was worth saving.
But that call never came.
Instead, the next day, Kendall was there. He’d been filled with so much fear and disappointment and anger and self-loathing but Kendall didn’t care. She just wanted him to screw her and Logan wanted that too. So he did. He fucked her and fucked himself in the process. He knew it was self-destructive but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. And now he was afraid that he had fucked up any chance to redeem himself in Veronica’s eyes.
So he had nothing to lose. A confrontation with Veronica wasn’t going to cost him anything he hadn’t already lost. He smiled bitterly to himself. He was a fucking caricature, the poor little rich boy. He should have his own fucking reality TV show. People would tune in in droves to see the battered-but-not-broken emo boy fuck up his life week after week. Daddy would be so proud.
He got out of his car and followed a group of surfers down the beach. This was all too familiar. He had walked down this beach before, hidden in a group of surfers, waiting to get close enough to Veronica to humble himself yet again. He glanced back at the parking lot, scanning for Keith’s car. He snickered. Apparently, Keith Mars wasn’t ready to make his appearance, to once again swoop in and save his helpless, innocent daughter from Logan’s Echolls’ evil clutches.
The surfers continued on down but Logan stopped, still a few feet away from Veronica. She was very still, with her back to him, looking out at the water and the disconsolation rolled off her in waves. Again, the desire to comfort and protect her rose up in him and he forced it back. She wouldn’t accept it nor would she return the favor. Those times - and those days - were long gone. He ached for their untimely demise, just as he ached over the loss of Lilly and of Duncan and of his ignorant unawareness, the only version of innocence Logan had ever been allowed.
“What do you want, Logan?” Veronica surprised him by asking.
He looked past her, to the rolling waves. “How did you know I was here?”
“I saw your car when I pulled in,” she explained. She still had her hands wrapped tightly around herself and her back to him.
He turned to look at the parking lot. He didn’t see her car but his yellow SUV shone like a beacon in the late afternoon sun. He turned back and took a step closer to her only to stop in his tracks at the low warning growl. He looked down and was shocked to see Backup crouched between them, teeth bared and muscles ready to pounce.
“Hey, buddy,” he greeted gently and reached out to pet the pit bull.
“Don’t,” Veronica ordered sharply and turned to face him.
Logan froze, hand half outstretched and stared at her. He didn’t know what shocked him more, Backup’s uncharacteristic distrust or Veronica’s bleak expression.
“Move away slowly,” she ordered, reaching out to take a firm grip on Backup’s collar.
Logan remained frozen.
Veronica knelt down and soothingly stroked the still attack-ready dog. “Stay back,” she ordered softly. “Backup will attack you.”
“Since when?” he asked, equally softly.
Veronica shrugged. “Since I tore up all of our pictures from last summer and one of them ‘accidentally’ stuck to his chew toy. So now, he doesn’t see you as a friend anymore.”
Logan jaw tightened. “And neither do you.”
She looked up at him. “We haven’t been friends for a long time, Logan.”
“There was a time when we were more than friends,” he said softly, as he slowly backed away.
Veronica reattached Backup’s leash. “No, Logan, there wasn’t. It wasn’t real, we weren’t real.”
“Is that why you were so eager to let me go?” He tried to keep his voice even, glancing down briefly at Backup. “Is that why you sicced Kendall on me?”
Veronica frowned in annoyance as she straightened. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me,” he ordered softly. “Beaver told me the whole story.”
She shook her head. “Spare me the melodrama. Cassidy doesn’t talk to you anymore.”
“Fine, he didn’t tell me,’ Logan admitted. “I overheard him.”
She shook her head again, confused.
“When Lamb came in to arrest you, I saw you looking at Beaver,” he explained. “Then Beaver went out into the parking lot and I heard him talking to Mac on his cell phone.”
Veronica’s look was equal parts disappointment and annoyance. “Logan, if you’re going to try to run a bluff, first make sure the other person isn’t holding a straight,” she advised. “You used to be a better poker player than this.”
“What?” he demanded, confused.
She sighed. “Don’t try to play me,” she ordered wearily. “Why would Cassidy go out to the parking lot to call Mac? She was standing right behind him when Lamb led me out.”
Logan stopped, mouth falling open in shock. Frantically, he searched his brain for the memory of that morning. He remembered how defiant Veronica had looked walking down that hallway, proud and unbowed. He remembered her holding Beaver’s gaze, giving him reassurance and strength. And he remembered…a flash of dark hair, streaked with bright pink, over Beaver’s shoulder.
Another image, ignored by Logan’s adrenaline spiked conscious at the time, now rose crystal clear in his mind. He recalled Beaver’s hand on the small of Mac’s back, gently pushing her towards the computer room as Beaver turned and rushed through the crowd. Then, images began to run like a silent movie in his brain: Mac and Beaver’s undecipherable glances when Dick asked about the Phoenix Land Trust; Mac’s quick recovery with the FBLA project; the tremor in Beaver’s jaw when he realized that Logan and Dick had overheard his conversation in the parking lot; the website Dick had been unable to manipulate over his cell phone; Beaver’s uncharacteristic smack-down of his older brother. And the secret that Beaver held over Dick.
Logan blinked rapidly and came back into the present. He looked at Veronica and blinked again. She was deathly pale, as though she had also been able to see the images in his head. Then she turned and hurried away, yanking the still-growling Backup after her.
There was so much for him to think about and too much for him to process at that moment. So he focused on the one issue that stood out among all the others.
“So much for us not being real,” he called after her.
Veronica stopped. Backup turned and paced as close to Logan as his leash would allow him.
Logan walked closer to them, taking care to stay out of the pit bull’s reach. “If what we had wasn’t real then why are you running away now? You only run when you can’t handle things emotionally, Veronica.”
She turned back to him slowly. “Or when I’m so bored that I’m ready to run screaming into the night.”
He shrugged. “It’s only mid-afternoon, but scream away.”
She shook her head and turned away again.
“Why did you send Kendall after me?” he asked quietly.
She stopped again and was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t send anybody after you. She started coming on to you when we were still together. Remember the time I caught her rubbing up against you in the Casablancas’ kitchen?”
“And remember my reaction?” he responded swiftly. “My arms were full of chips and soda and I was trying to get her off of me. She didn’t let go until you spoke up.”
She turned to face him. “Yes,” Veronica agreed mockingly. “Poor widdle Logan needed his five-foot-one girlfriend to protect him from the mean old witch with the big boobs.”
“I didn’t need you to protect me,” he snarled. “I just didn’t want to cause a scene.”
She raised her eyebrows in exaggerated surprise. “No? I guess that’s why you were so discrete about banging Kendall only when her stepsons were safely in school or on buses about to go over a cliff.”
The pain that he had never processed rose inside him, thick and cloying. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I heard about the bus crash?” he asked raggedly.
She looked thoughtful. “Hmm, you were doing Kendall at the time, so I guess you felt spent and fucked.”
He paused. That was how he had felt. Spent because he thought he had lost everyone who had ever meant anything to him; Duncan, Beaver, even Dick, but mostly importantly, Veronica. And fucked because fate had taken away everyone he cared about and left him behind as an empty carcass to rot for all their sins.
But Veronica was here and she was still alive and he was still fucked. He was still an empty carcass. The pain was blooming inside him, like nightshade finding root in the dark recess of his soul.
“My cell phone rang and it was Dick.” He looked down as he spoke, unable to look at her lovely, vibrant face while reliving the horror of those moments. “He was hysterical, blabbering about the limo his dad sent and how you and Meg insisted on taking the bus. I could hear Duncan in the background screaming and crying your name.”
He paused for a few seconds as his voice began to tremble. Once he felt fairly confident that it wouldn’t break on him, he resumed speaking. “I kept asking Dick what was going on but he wasn’t making any sense. I heard people crying and somebody calling 911 and then Dick hung up. I tried calling him back but he wouldn’t pick up, nobody I called would pick up. I didn’t know what was going on,” he choked up, unable to continue.
Veronica spoke then, her voice hatefully cool. “And since it was too soon for anything to be on the news you just rolled over and fucked Kendall again to pass the time while you were … uh, grieving?”
He looked up at her. “I wasn’t with Kendall,” he denied.
Veronica gave him a level look.
He looked away. “I had left Kendall by that time,” he amended.
He looked at her again when she snickered in disgust.
“And you set me up with her, Veronica,” he snarled. “You fucking set me up? Why?”
Backup growled warningly and immediately Veronica pulled him back, shortening the leash.
“I didn’t set you up,” she denied disgustedly.
“Yes, you did,” he contradicted. “Beaver said you did. While he was on his cell phone he talked about it.”
She sighed impatiently. “About what? What did he say?”
Logan flushed. “He talked about joking with you about setting me up with Kendall,” he mumbled. “How he thought neither of us would be stupid or disloyal enough to do it. And how you knew we would.”
Veronica sighed again, but this time it sounded sad instead of impatient. “Just because I know you doesn’t mean I was plotting some vast conspiracy against you, Logan. I knew you didn’t want to be with me anymore.”
“What?” he demanded. “How can you say that? You were all I had.”
“But I wasn’t what you wanted,” she pointed out quietly. “You wanted to be angry and screw the whole world. I kept trying to make it better, to make you better. You were so full of anger and bitterness and your desire for revenge that you couldn’t see beyond it.”
He snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you. Weren’t you out for revenge, Veronica? Weren’t you full of anger and bitterness after Lilly died?”
She shook her head firmly. “The difference is I used it. I didn’t let it consume me. Hating the world and having the world hate me wasn’t my goal. You were spinning out of control, Logan. You wanted to be dangerous and destructive and I knew that if I didn’t get out of the way, you’d destroy me right along with the rest of your world.”
“So you thought dumping me was the way to stabilize me?” he demanded. “You thought that throwing Kendall at me was going to make me better?”
“How are you feeling now, Logan?” she snarled in response. “Feeling all stable again? Do you feel like you’re back in control now? Do you feel like you have power over the world?”
Logan’s mouth dropped open and he took a step back.
Veronica stepped closer, careful to hold Backup’s leash taunt. “Admit it, Logan. I made things too hard for you. I expected so much from you. I nagged you because I didn’t like you hanging out with Dick and your little toadies. I wanted you to be a better person than them. I bored you with lectures about presenting a positive image for the public.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t understand,” he defended himself, his voice cracking. “They attacked me and then they attacked you. I had to defend us. I wasn’t going to back down to them.”
He puffed up with indignation. “Who the hell were they to judge me in the first place? A whole gang of their little choirboys attacked me. I wasn’t going to let that go. And all you wanted to do was ignore it.”
“Ignore it?” she repeated with a gasp. “How was I ignoring it? I was the one who nursed you through the broken ribs and the bruises. I was the one who held your hand during your court visits. I was the one who stayed up nights helping you with your homework. And I did that while I spent my mornings in the hospital with my father, then worked double shifts at the Hut.”
“Where dear ole Duncan showed up everyday to have a cup of coffee because he couldn’t get room service at the Neptune Grand?” Logan questioned viciously.
“At least he showed up.” She shot back. “At least he wasn’t spending his free time setting the community pool on fire or dumping waste along Dog Beach to get it shut down for a week.”
Logan’s head jerked and Veronica snorted with disgust.
“What?” she demanded. “You think I didn’t know about those things? Who else would have been organized enough pulled off pranks like that?”
“Throwing garbage on the beach doesn’t require a lot of brains or planning,” he mumbled.
She smiled, but without admiration. “But pulling down the power lines that ran the conduits for the outer parameter of town did. That, and a friend in high places like, for example, the daughter of the assistant commissioner?” she pointed out with mock sweetness.
Logan said nothing so Veronica continued.
“How else would you have known which line to hit to cause a power blackout for the entire outlying area during two of the hottest days of summer?” She held up her index finger. “And how else were you able to break into the water plant and jam the valves to the outlying water supply? I should be grateful you at least had the decency not shut it off or anything. But we were under a boil order for a full week.”
He looked confused. “We?”
She looked disgusted. “Yes, ‘we’, Logan. I’m one of those people who were affected by your little pranks. I had no air conditioning when the temperature reached one hundred and ten degrees. I wasn’t allowed to shower or wash the dishes or drink the water in my apartment for three days.”
Logan ducked his head. “You were with me during those times, remember?” he mumbled.
“And what a joy that was,” she shot back. “I was there every day to restrict the time you spent with Dick, keeping you away from your ‘defense’. And all those innocent people who had never said or did a thing to hurt you had to wait a few more days before you could plot another way to make their lives miserable.”
Logan looked away, his mouth twisting in a grimace. “If you knew all that, why didn’t you say anything?”
“What I could I say?” she demanded. “I asked you for something as small as spending less time with Dick and you acted like I asked you to cut off your balls.”
“It would have been the same thing,” he snapped. “None of those people were innocent. They stood in front of that courthouse holding up signs calling me a murderer. They wanted me to go to jail.”
The fight seemed to drain out of her. “You weren’t going to go to jail, Logan.”
“Why? Because you knew in your heart of hearts that I was innocent?” he mocked. “And if Veronica Mars wasn’t going to accuse me of a crime, then there was no possible way I could be guilty? Yeah, that was like manna from heaven.”
Veronica stepped back, hurt darkening her eyes.
But Logan was too angry to notice, so he raged on. “Even though I was touched by your faith in me, I decided I needed more than just your unwavering support,” he mocked. “So I hired the best barracudas in the business. There was no way those charges would have stuck. My lawyers had so much evidence against the PCHer’s, they didn’t have chance in hell. You should have seen the shit they had, pictures, surveillance records, interviews…” he trailed off.
After everything Veronica did behind the scenes to make sure the DA dropped charges for that biker’s murder, he pulled that shit on her.
Cassidy’s words reverberated in Logan’s mind like an echo bouncing around in an empty cave. Logan shut his eyes as the truth hit him. “Shit. You provided that evidence, didn’t you?”
Veronica stiffened and looked away. “Somebody had to, Logan. You were so focused on your ‘defense’ against everybody in the 02 neighborhoods that you barely paid any attention to your defense in the courtroom. Did you think that Lamb was going to go out of his way to prove you innocent?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “But my lawyers had people to do that.”
Veronica flushed and her lower lip quivered. But she firmed it and spoke quietly. “Yes, they had people,” she agreed. “They had me. I knew the neighborhood, I could get some of the residents to talk to me, and I knew where the PCHers hung out. Did you think some big Los Angeles security firm with tight-assed Brooks Brothers suit wearing drones could have done that?”
Logan shoved his hands into his hair and yanked on it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered, then he raised his voice. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“What was there to say, Logan?” she asked sadly. “That I believed in you? That I would take care of you? I said that to you, over and over again. You just stopped listening.”
There was no anger or fire in her voice, just sad resignation. She was disengaging herself from him. He had finally gone too far and she was no longer even willing to fight with him. She had long ago given up fighting for him.
Logan opened his mouth but no words came out. His thoughts were jumbled in his brain and the regret had nearly cut off his air supply. Veronica shook her head in disgust and, tugging sharply on Backup’s leash, she walked away.
Logan watched her as she walked back to her car and got in, Backup jumping nimbly into the backseat. She fastened her seatbelt, started her car and sped away, never once looking back at him.
He felt…not numb, because there was too much emotion coursing through him for that. So much so that he was unable to process it all. Nothing in his world was right, nothing in his world was real. He walked back to his car in a daze, unable to comprehend his surrounds. He couldn’t hear the screams of the seagulls or the laughter of the children. He couldn’t smell the greasy scent of suntan lotion or feel the warmth of the sun on his face.
But he did feel the force of the fist that rammed into his temple. The blow was so hard that it sent him reeling into the side of his X-Terra. He blinked to clear the stars from his vision and looked up into the enraged face of Norris Clayton.
***
Author’s Note: My original plan for this story was to write 10 - 12 short chapters and sprinkle in clues. I wanted to have the second-to-last chapter be where Veronica solves the mystery and the last chapter as the explanation of how the clues fit together. Unfortunately, real life has other plans for me and I don’t have the time to devote to this story. So how would you like me to finish this?
1. Write two chapters with the first for the mystery solution and the second for an epilogue (explanation). I think I can have the mystery solution up by the end of this week and the epilogue by the end of next week.
2. Write a super-long chapter that has the mystery solution, ties up the loose ends and the epilogue. It will probably take me about three weeks to post the final chapter.
Please let me know how you would like me to proceed. The majority decision from feedback at LJ (not e-mails) will decide.
Thank you!
skk670