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Veronica woke to an unfamiliar ringing, and even after telling herself to let it go to the machine, the ringing went on and on. When she tried to reach for it, she found that her arms were both trapped. With that realization came her memories from the night before, and the reassuring feeling of Logan pressed against her back.

“It is about damn time,” Lilly said, snapping her cell phone closed. Veronica’s eyes opened to find her friend standing in the door that joined her room to Logan’s. “I mean, I get that last night was a big thing for the two of you – especially since I had to send Taylor home because you two were sharing a little too much of the experience – but I think that you should be up by one. Come on. For the sake of your friends, it’s time that you showered and let the maids do their magic on that bed.”

Veronica shifted, but Logan’s arm only tightened around her. She’d assumed that he was still sleeping since he had yet to open his eyes, but she was obviously wrong.

“Go to hell, Lilly,” Logan told her. His eyes were still closed, but his words were said in a friendly tone. “We’ll get out of this bed when we damn well please, and I can guarantee you won’t be in the doorway when it happens.”

“Please, like I haven’t already seen it all already.”

At that, Logan opened one eye. “Do you and Veronica have a story you’d like to share? Because I’ll get up for that.”

Veronica elbowed him in the stomach.

From the doorway, Lilly smirked. “Probably in more ways then one,” she told him with a grin. “But you should probably shift a little first. Veronica’s probably too sore to take it from behind.”

“Oh my god,” Veronica muttered. “Get out, Lilly. I swear, we will get out of bed, okay?”

“And shower,” Lilly called over her shoulder as she went back to her room.

When she was gone, Logan shifted against Veronica languidly. “Happy Birthday,” he mumbled into her shoulder, his lips trailing soft kisses toward her cheek. Veronica batted him away playfully, but his arms tightened around her, his fingers gently pressing into the ticklish skin at her sides. Veronica struggled against him, only controlling her arms below the elbows as she thrashed against him.

“No,” she said, the word lost in laughter as she pried Logan’s arms away from her. “Lilly is right. We need to get out of bed.”

“But we’ll have so much more fun in bed,” Logan insisted.

“It is my 18th birthday, Logan,” Veronica told him. “And I am in New York City for less than twenty-four hours. I am not going to spend them in a dirty bed with you.”

“The bed is only dirty because you are in it with me.”

“Pervert. And I’m betting it would be just as dirty if I’d have slept in my room.”

Logan faux-gasped. “Veronica Mars! Did you just joke about me masturbating? The innocence really was all in your virginity, wasn’t it?” She socked him in the arm, then rolled out of bed, heading for the bathroom. Logan was just getting up to join her when she stepped out in his robe.

“And where do you think you’re going?” he asked, jumping out of bed and grabbing at her.

“I was going back to my shower, and I didn’t feel like walking through Lilly’s room in the buff,” she explained. “I mean, I understand that it’s a special fantasy of yours, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever going to happen, and you’re going to have to come to terms with that.”

“I thought you were going to shower.”

“I am going to shower. In my room, and alone. Lilly’s going to start making cracks if I don’t walk right, and I’d like to not need a wheelchair to view the city. So you go shower in your room, and I will be showering in mine.” She kissed him chastely on the lips. “I’ll see you later.”

*~*~*

New York was over sooner than anyone wanted it to be, and Lilly and Veronica stood outside of Security and hugged and cried almost long enough to make everyone miss their planes. They were back on the phone almost immediately after Veronica’s flight landed, and it seemed like their friendship was back.

And when Logan invited Duncan over to play Halo that night and Duncan actually agreed, everything seemed to be winding back toward a normal that the four of them were comfortable with. Senior year went far better than any of them had expected six months before, with phone calls and parties and dances that no one actually went to.

Veronica got into Stanford – she’d honestly only applied because her father had forced her to – but she decided on USC. She didn’t tell Logan about Stanford, because he would’ve told her to go, and she wanted to be with him. Only her father knew that she had actually gotten in, and it was still a sore spot between them.

When Lilly came home from her first year at Vassar just in time for graduation, Veronica thought it was a sign that the summer would be amazing, just like New York had been the start of a senior year that had been so much more than they expected.

But she had underestimated Lilly and her ability to turn everything on its head. Often, Lilly was just a catalyst for events that she neither planned nor wanted.

Lilly caused the change, and everyone suffered for it.

A month of tears…

Lilly came home from Vassar in the middle of May, and within a week of her arrival, all of her friends had had their phones confiscated (though only Dick had actually forgotten to silence his) because the incessant vibrations were disrupting classes. Lilly was bored out of her mind.

And then, during finals week, the calls stopped, and Lilly wouldn’t tell anyone what her new source of amusement was. Whenever someone made a joke about Lilly’s calls, she’d just smile, her eyes slightly guarded. Lilly had a secret.

Veronica was the only one who really hounded her friend about it, relentlessly questioning her about her days. But by graduation, Lilly had, for once, managed to keep her own secret.

And that was when Veronica realized that maybe she didn’t want to know what Lilly was doing. If the girl who loved shock value more than she loved her own mother wouldn’t tell people what she was doing, maybe it was a secret better left kept.

The Class of 2006’s graduation was all kinds of ridiculous lavishness, easily outdoing Lilly’s own ceremony. Celeste came out of hiding for her son’s graduation, reappearing without telling anyone to expect her. She hugged her son after the ceremony, reminded him that “all of the good schools are back east” - Duncan had been accepted to both Yale and Harvard - and she was out of California on the next flight.

Veronica’s father had taken the occasion to put their Stanford argument behind them and extend an olive branch. She’d woken up to the smell of bacon, only to find her father up to his elbows in pancake mix, quickly destroying all order that had existed in their kitchen. She shooed him from the room, taking over the breakfast while she insisted that he shower. When she went to her room to dress while the pancakes cooked, she found an envelope on her pillow, Happy Graduation, Veronica written in her father’s precise script on the front.

When she came back to the kitchen, where her father was putting whipped cream and strawberry jam on the table, she waved the envelope at him accusingly.

“What’s this?”

“You know that pony you always wanted?”

Veronica narrowed her eyes on the envelope. “You donated her to a deserving little girl in Africa in my name?”

“Russia,” he told her. When she stood there, still staring at the envelope, he laughed. “Most people open presents to find out what they are, Veronica.”

“You didn’t have to do this, Dad,” she told him.

“You don’t even know what I did. It could be a fifty cent Hallmark card that’ll sing gospel music to you.”

“Then you really didn’t have to,” she told him, but she was smiling now, her finger twisting under the envelope. Inside, she found two plane tickets, and she had to read them twice to understand.

“London?” She looked up at her father, her eyes round and wide. “You’re taking me to London?”

“Well, I didn’t know where else you’d want to go. We’ve got two days in London, and then we can jump on a train to anywhere else in Europe. It’s a plan as you go vacation.”

She threw her arms around him, and he seemed almost as surprised by that as she was by her gift. “You really didn’t have to do this for me, Dad. It’s too much.”

“Nothing is too much for you.” She could feel the start of another Stanford versus USC discussion, and she pulled away from him. Her face was guarded for a moment until she realized that he was going to let it pass. It wasn’t as if there was anything they could change anything at this point anyway. She was already enrolled at USC. She would be signing up for classes in a month.

As her father sat down to breakfast with her, Veronica let herself believe that this year everything would actually go according to plan.

She really should’ve known better.

*~*~*

The graduation went well. Enbom “nudged” Dick as he headed for the stage, and Dick fell into the lap of the guest speaker, a female CEO from some studio in LA. He whispered something in her ear before she forcibly removed him from her lap. When Veronica walked the stage, she could see Logan already to her right, his empty diploma booklet in hand, screaming for her. The only voices she could actually hear, though, were her father’s and Lilly’s.

Afterwards, Lilly and Duncan left with Jake for a brunch with family, and Veronica and Keith were invited out to lunch with the Echollses. The rest of the week would be one long, drunken party, but graduation day was all about families.

“You’re coming over tonight, right?” Logan asked while their parents exchanged pleasantries around the table.

“Of course I am,” Veronica told him, just as she had every time he had asked for the last week. “I still can’t believe you offered your house up for the first party.”

“You’re throwing a party tonight?” Lynn asked. She didn’t seem particularly opposed to the suggestion. Logan’s parents never seemed to care what he was doing, so long as they didn’t actually have to be involved.

“Yeah, just a little graduation thing.”

Just a little thing, Veronica though, with hundred or so of his closest friends. Not that Logan’s parents would care.

“Well, we’re going out to the Cassablancas’ for their dinner party tonight,” Lynn told him, though Logan had already known. “So we won’t be back until late. We were actually thinking about just getting a room at the Grand for the night.”

Logan shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.” He knew that his parents would definitely be staying at the Grand, as they always did when they went to a Casablancas dinner parties. When he was little, Logan had thought that it was his mother’s way of protecting him from his father’s drunkenness and the temper that came with it, but it seemed a little far-fetched at this point. He figured it was probably just because the Grand had a town car that would drive them both ways so they wouldn’t have to worry about DUI-ing it home. Not that Aaron usually worried much.

The breakfast continued on with amicable conversation, even though Keith had never really been comfortable around Logan’s father. He’d always had a feeling about Aaron Echolls, something that he attributed to the nearly two decades he’d spent in the PD. And since he’d learned about the abuse in the family, Keith had been spending a large portion of his free time trying to find a way to bust Aaron for something or – at the very least – separate him from Logan and Lynn. Aaron wasn’t stupid, though, and there wasn’t really much he could do. If Logan wanted to come forward, that would be something, but he understood why the boy wouldn’t. Hollywood was a very fickle jury, and Aaron was a two-faced son of a bitch. It was likely that Logan’s situation would only wind up worse if he spoke up.

That was why Keith had opened his house up to the boy in the beginning, even before he had started dating Veronica. When Logan was around, he often couldn’t help feeling guilty for every way that he hadn’t been able to protect this kid.

And, to be honest, he preferred when they were at his house. In his house, he knew Aaron couldn’t be anywhere near his daughter.

*~*~*

“I’ve got a secret, Veronica Mars,” Lilly said, grinning deviously. “A good one.”

“I’ve noticed,” Veronica told her. Logan’s party was just starting to get going, and he had gone out to the yard to make sure no one was drowning in the pool. The only doors that he’d locked were to the pool house and his parents’ room, and he’d given Veronica keys to both of them, in case things got too out of control for her.

“I swear to god, Veronica,” Lilly said. “It’ll blow your mind.”

“So what is it, Lilly?” Veronica asked. She was pretty sure that she wouldn’t want to know, but this wasn’t really about what she wanted. “Obviously you want to tell me, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s a secret, Veronica,” she said disapprovingly. “I can’t tell you while all of these people could hear.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “You need to ditch your boy toy for a few hours tomorrow and come spend time with me. The group stuff is a blast, but we can’t even talk about all the hot sex that we’re having because the Donut and Logan are always hanging around.”

“Maybe I don’t want to talk about my sex life, Lilly. Did you think of that?”

“Anyone screwing Logan Echolls wants to talk about it, Veronica. Don’t forget that I went there first. I know.”

“He’s different now,” Veronica told her. “He’s grown up a lot since then.” Lilly quirked an eyebrow and pointed over Veronica’s shoulder, out to where Logan and Dick were tossing Cassidy forcibly into the pool. Veronica rolled her eyes. “I meant with me.”

“Yeah, I know you did,” Lilly said quietly. “But he’s still the same boy that he’s always been, Veronica. I just don’t want you to fool yourself. And when he finds out that you gave up Stanford to follow him to college - ”

“Lilly,” Veronica hissed, pulling her friend out of a particularly crowded area. “How did you find out about that?”

“I’ve been your friend for, what, nine years now?” Lilly shook her head, surprised that Veronica would think so little of her. “Of course I knew you applied to Stanford. You used to talk about it all the time when we started high school. How your dad took you when you were little, before you moved to Neptune. How it was just the perfect school.” Lilly rolled her eyes, but the expression was forced and lacked the sarcasm she had been trying to imbed it with. “And I applied to USC as a backup, too, Veronica. And the application does not take anywhere near as long as you spent working on apps. So I knew. And when Logan finds out, which he probably will, that’s going to be way more commitment than he’s ready for. He’s a seven year old with an overactive sex drive, Veronica. I’m just telling you to be careful.”

“Are you going to tell him, Lilly?”

“Of course not.” Lilly rolled her eyes. “You or my ex? I wonder who I should pick. Come on, Veronica, of course I’ll watch out for you. But what about your dad? I bet he’s pissed that you’re going to USC. You think he won’t take that out on Logan?”

“My dad likes Logan.”

“And he loves you,” Lilly told her matter-of-factly. “And you pretty much trump everyone for him. And even if he doesn’t say anything, these things find a way. I’m just looking out for you, Veronica.”

And only after Lilly had drifted back into the crowd did Veronica realize that Lilly hadn’t actually given her any kind of advice at all.

*~*~*

“Hey, Meg, have you seen Logan around?” Veronica had trolled through the house twice and hadn’t seen him anywhere. After her little “pep talk” Lilly had also gone missing, and Duncan had gone home an hour earlier. Basically, if she had to watch Dick do anymore shots off of Madison’s chest, she was going to gouge her eyes out.

“Yeah, a while ago,” Meg said. “Beaver kicked him in the stomach, and it didn’t sit well with the half a gallon of alcohol that was already in there. He went looking for you, but he must’ve given up and gone to lie down. He looked pretty green before he left.”

“Thanks, Meg.” Veronica looked up at the house from the backyard. All of the lights on the top floor were off except in Logan’s room, where an unearthly blue glow illuminated the screens. She’d already seen a bunch of guys go up to play the Dead or Alive volleyball game. They’d been trying to get to the topless level all night, and Logan had decided that as long as they were there, at least no one would be using his bed for any unseemly activities.

His parents’ room would be quiet, but Veronica highly doubted that being surrounded by his father’s things would have made Logan any less nauseous. The pool house also looked dark, but the bathroom was in the middle of the building, so she couldn’t tell if that light was on.

Not wanting the group of boys gathered around the pool to see her unlock the door – mostly because she was pretty sure Logan didn’t need any loud noises in his condition – she cut through the shrubs and around to the side door. It would let her into the tiny laundry room, with doors to the bathroom and the bedroom.

She heard the moaning first, the unmistakable sound of Lilly’s sultry groan filling her ears as she opened the door.

She should’ve walked out as soon as she heard it. It would’ve been the right thing to do, but two things stopped her: 1. this had to be Lilly’s secret, and 2. she and Logan were supposed to have the only keys to this building.

As she closed the door behind her, she quietly rationalized that Logan could’ve let someone else in here, though she doubted he would have willing let anyone else bring someone to his pool house to have sex, least of all Lilly. She also told herself that Lilly wouldn’t do that to her, that Lilly was her friend and most definitely would not screw around with her boyfriend while Veronica was in the house. But she still inched toward the bathroom, knowing that it looked almost directly onto the bed. The laundry room, on the other hand, looked over the back of the bed. Since she hadn’t seen any lights on from outside, she’d be lucky if she could make out a silhouette of whoever Lilly was with, but she told herself that she just needed to know that it wasn’t Logan.

It couldn’t be Logan. He wouldn’t do that to her.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a single door on the Echolls property that creaked, and Veronica inched the bathroom door open just the tiniest bit. Just enough to see Lilly, wearing her bra and nothing else, sitting on top of a very naked man.

Lilly was leaning over him, her long hair blocking his face as she spoke to him in low tones, her hips moving rhythmically over his. “It’s getting you off, isn’t it?” she heard Lilly say to him. “That this is wrong; that you aren’t even supposed to be here.” Lilly ran her long, manicured fingernails down his chest, scraping over his nipple, and he bucked into her. “She doesn’t even know you left, does she?” He said something to her, pulling her down closer, his voice lower than Veronica could hear. Lilly’s returning laughter was dark and teasing. “You’re a dirty boy.”

She didn’t want to – she wanted to run out of the room and search the house until she found Logan, until he could prove to her that she most definitely was not seeing what she though she was seeing – but her eyes dropped down to his hip. If it were Logan, he’d have a little lightning-shaped birthmark. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark by now, and she told herself that, if it was there, she would see it.

But it wouldn’t be there, because this couldn’t be Logan.

So she looked, and saw only bare skin above what Lilly blocked with her knees. Cold relief flooded over her, until the man pulled Lilly’s knees out from under her, flattening her above him. And just along the side of his hip was the birthmark.

She didn’t wait any longer, didn’t bother confronting them or trying to catch his eye from the bathroom. She snuck back out of the pool house and vomited in the bushes behind it, trying hard to keep from sobbing. Then she found her purse in a closet by the door and left the party without speaking to a single person.

The next day, she got on a bus to Portland.

*~*~*

On the bus, Veronica’s phone rang the whole way, alternating between Logan – concerned that she’d left the party without saying goodbye to him – and Lilly – pissed that Veronica had ditched her for their day without the boys. Finally, as she crossed the California – Oregon border, her phone went dead, and she slept for the last four and half hours of the drive.

Her father had been concerned when she’d come home early that morning, crying uncontrollably. He’d been expecting her to spend the night at Lilly’s. The concern quickly morphed to indirect anger and hurt when she told him that she wanted to go to Portland to see her mother. Indirectly, mostly through her grandmother, Veronica had heard that Lianne had spent a few months in rehab, that she had a job and a cute little apartment near the waterfront.

So when Veronica asked to go, she said that it was because she wanted to give her mother another chance. She didn’t tell him about Logan, but he guessed anyway, as anyone probably would have. She wouldn’t tell him what had happened, and when he threatened to go and remove some respected parts of Logan’s anatomy, she broke down completely, crying so hard that words became impossible. That was when he called and bought the bus ticket.

During the night, between calls to find her mother and packing all the things she’d need immediately upon arrival, she’d been planning. She wouldn’t go to USC; she hated herself for giving up Stanford for him now. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him. She’d go to Portland State, which would still take an application, and she’d ace her classes and go to Stanford next semester. London would be cancelled. She’d need the time to get settled in Portland, to fill out her application and get back into contact with the admissions department at Stanford.

She didn’t answer her phone, because she knew she’d tell him everything. She didn’t think he deserved that. She was also pretty sure that she’d forgive him after hearing even the most ridiculous lie, because it hurt like hell to think that he was really going to be gone.

She got to Portland a little before midnight, and her mother was waiting on the platform with the biggest smile on her face Veronica had ever seen.

She tried to forget that her father would probably be crying himself to sleep that night.

*~*~*

Keith wasn’t surprised to see Logan on his doorstep a few hours after Veronica left town, but he wasn’t anywhere near happy to see him either. Since he’d dropped Veronica off, nearly four hours earlier, he hadn’t been able to go upstairs. He wasn’t sure if she’d remembered to shut her door before she left, and he didn’t want to walk up and see her room empty.

So he wasn’t in the best of moods when the boy who’d driven his daughter away pulled up in front of the house. He did answer the door, though, but only because he had a feeling that Logan would sit on the porch until someone showed up.

Keith still hadn’t been able to get Veronica to tell him what Logan had done, which meant that it had to have been bad. If she was being irrational, she would’ve told him why they were fighting. It Logan had done something stupid without thinking, she would’ve come home bitching about it. But he knew she wasn’t answering his calls, and she wouldn’t talk about what had happened. She still wanted to protect this bastard, because she was in love with him. And Keith hated him for that. For hurting his daughter this badly and for not making her hate him in the process.

“You aren’t welcome here anymore,” Keith told him as soon as he was within earshot. “I think you should get back in your car and drive home.”

“Where’s Veronica?” Logan asked. From the sound in his voice, Keith thought that he might’ve been crying. “Her phone’s off, and I don’t know where she went last night. Please just… is she okay?” Logan ran a hand through his hair, and Keith noticed that he was shaking slightly. “God, what happened? Mr. Mars, is she okay? She did come home last night, didn’t she?”

“She’s alright.” Keith hadn’t planned on answering him. He had planned on slamming the door right in the boy’s face, but Logan seemed almost as distraught as Keith was. And Keith knew that Logan wasn’t the actor that his father was.

“Can I - ?” Logan took a step forward, then quickly stopped himself. “Can you just ask her if I can talk to her? I just… Why won’t she answer my calls?”

“She’s not here, Logan.” As he said the words, Keith deflated just a little, feeling their truth somewhere deep inside. “And she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“What did I do?” Logan’s voice was rough, and Keith knew that he had definitely been crying. “God…” He shook his head, redirecting his thoughts. “Then, I’ll just sit out here, okay? I’ll just wait for her to come home. She has to tell me what I did.”

Keith didn’t want to tell him. He thought that maybe Logan deserved to sleep out on the grass for what he’d done, whatever it was, but he seemed genuinely confused, and Keith wondered if Veronica was really sure he’d done whatever she thought it was he had done. And then Keith thought that maybe Logan did deserve to wait there, to worry there, for making Keith doubt his daughter. But in the end, he couldn’t do it. “Logan,” Keith said slowly, his throat working against the words he was trying to push out, “Veronica doesn’t live here anymore.”

He closed the door then, because crying was something he believed men should do in private.

*~*~*

Minus the constant rain, Veronica actually enjoyed a lot of things about Portland. For one thing, it was a whole lot greener than anything in Southern California. It was very naturally eclectic, where California tried too hard. There were, as Lilly had predicted, hippies and pot smokers who hung out in the middle of downtown, but men in ties and business suits ate lunch on the bricks beside them.

Things that shouldn’t have made sense made sense in Portland.

Her semester at PSU went by faster than she had imagined, and nearly all of it had been covered by financial aid and scholarships. When she reapplied to Stanford, she had 3.9, and managed to get almost the same package that they had offered her in March. For Christmas, she insisted that her mother invite Keith up, because Veronica couldn’t go back yet, not when they would all be there. And yet, she knew that if she stayed, her father would be alone for the holidays. Lianne agreed, and Keith took a week off for the holiday, to come for Christmas and then to drive Veronica and her things down to Stanford.

Surprisingly, Lianne rented a U-Haul, and offered to go with them, and more surprisingly, the trip involved no blood shed and only a few choice arguments over restaurants. Both of her parents offered to stay for the night, but she sent them both home, actually believing, for the first time since the divorce, that she might be able to know both of them without hurting either of them. Anymore than she already had.

Her dorm room was a double with separate bedrooms and a common living room and bathroom, and her suitemate was a mousy redhead from the northeast who hardly ever went out. They spoke when they ran into each other, but they weren’t going to be friends and neither really tried.

She was nearly three weeks into the semester when a familiar looking brunette stopped her outside of her Poli Sci class. “You’re Veronica Mars, right?” Veronica nodded, but the girl had already known she was right. She smiled faintly, then said, “I thought Angie was the only one from Neptune who came to Stanford.”

“You went to Neptune High?” Veronica asked. “I’m sorry; I don’t know your name.”

The girl smiled again – she seemed nervous – and extended her hand. “Sorry, I’m Mac. I forget sometimes that just because you know someone doesn’t mean they know you.” She laughed, lightly to herself this time, and then her face turned embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I was just excited to see a familiar face. I’ll leave you alone.”

“No, it’s okay,” Veronica assured her as Mac turned to go. “You looked familiar, too. I just… I couldn’t think of a name. I was just going to get lunch. Do you want to come with me?”

Mac went to lunch with her that day, and it had quickly become a standing appointment. Veronica hadn’t realized how much she had missed Neptune until she actually had someone to remind her of it.

It was about a month later when Mac asked Veronica about why she took off. Even though school had been let out, most of the town heard about it. Logan had called everyone she had ever spoken to, trying to find out where she had gone or if anyone knew how to get into contact with her. A week after she moved to Portland, she’d changed the number on her cell phone, telling her parents that she just wanted to have a local number so that it would be easier for her classmates to get in contact with her.

Neither of her parents really seemed to buy the story, but they pretended that they did.

But Mac had been building up to this question for days now, testing the waters for reactions from Veronica when she mentioned certain things – and people – from Neptune. When she finally asked, Veronica was just glad that it had finally been said.

“So what did he do?” Veronica wasn’t as comfortable with Mac as she had been with Lilly, though she had come to really like Mac. Still, they had only been friends for a month, and they didn’t finish each other’s sentences or eat food off of each other’s plates. That question, though, was practically universal.

“He cheated on me.” It was the first time Veronica had actually said the words out loud, and somehow it was easier to tell Mac, this person who knew nothing about all of her history. They were friends, but they didn’t know each other, and somehow that made it easier to explain this to her.

Mac seemed startled by that. “Really?” She looked down at her hamburger, and Veronica knew there was more she wanted to say. She wasn’t sure she was actually going to say it, though, until Mac spoke. “I just… He didn’t seem like he’d do that. Not to you.”

It was the ending that caught her. Not to you. Not that Logan didn’t seem like he’d cheat. He did. But he didn’t seem like he would’ve done it to her.

It was stupid, but it was the same thing that Veronica had been thinking for the last eight months.

*~*~*

“Veronica, please tell me that you did not smuggle vodka into my dorm,” Mac said when Veronica pulled the refilled Sprite bottle from her bag. When two shot glasses followed, Veronica answered with a shrug.

“We really don’t know each other, Mac,” Veronica said. “And I’ve found that the best ways to get to know people involve alcohol. I’ve told you something revealing about myself, and now I’m going to need to know more about you. We’re going to play Bullshit.”

“And how do you play Bullshit?” Mac drew the curtains closed while Veronica poured each of them a shot. Thankfully, Mac had managed to get herself a single, so her room was tiny, but private.

“Well, I’m going to tell you something. If you think I’m lying, say ‘bullshit’. If I was, I drink. If I wasn’t, you drink. This way, we learn, and if we learn too much, there’s a good chance we won’t remember most of it.”

Mac smiled. “Well, I guess that’s one way to look at it. You first.”

“I told you about… Neptune. It’s your turn.”

Mac bit her lip, considering her question. “Alright. The Sinclairs are the reason I got to come to Stanford.”

“Bullshit,” Veronica said. “You didn’t even speak to Madison in high school.”

Mac shook her head. “No. That’s actually true.” She gestured at Veronica’s glass, and Veronica signaled for her to explain, then took the shot, coughing as she put the glass back on the table. “Well, I’m pretty good at computers, so they hired me a few years ago to set up their system and make sure it was secure. It was really simple, and they just kept hiring me whenever they broke stuff. I wound up spending a lot of time with Madison’s little sister, Lauren – she’s really into computers too - , and she went and found me this amazing scholarship for computer nerds.” Mac shrugged. “I don’t understand how Madison is a part of that family. They’re the nicest people I’ve ever met.” Mac had been looking across the room, but she turned back to Veronica when she realized what she had said. “I’m sorry. I forgot that she’s your friend.”

“No, you’re right. Madison can be a bitch. Most of the time.” Veronica took a deep breath. “Okay, my turn. I was a child model.”

“True?” Mac guessed.

“No, but I should probably be flattered that everyone seems to think so.” Veronica grinned at her while Mac downed the shot.

About half a dozen questions into the game, things started to get more personal as the alcohol started to take effect. By her fifth question, Veronica was on her fourth shot in a little over an hour, and was beginning to feel pleasantly numb. Which is probably why she didn’t realize what she was saying until she saw Mac’s startled expression.

“My ex had a birthmark shaped like a lightening bolt on his hip.”

Mac paused for a moment, as if she was unsure Veronica had actually gone there, but it was too late to take it back. Then she answered, very certainly, “True.”

Veronica eyed Mac questioningly. “You sound pretty sure of yourself. How did you know that?”

“Well, you probably shouldn’t ask questions that have been answered in GQ.” When Veronica didn’t seem to follow, Mac elaborated. “When Aaron Echolls did the interview for GQ a few years ago, they asked if he had any tattoos. He said that he had a lighting bolt tattooed on his hip, because his son had a birthmark just like it. In one of the pictures, he had his boxer-briefs pulled low, and you could see it.”

“Oh my god.” And then Veronica remembered Lilly’s voice, faintly teasing, at the party before she disappeared.

I have a secret, Veronica Mars. A good one. And then, later you or my ex? I wonder who I should pick.

Suddenly the alcohol wasn’t sitting well with Veronica, and she ran to Mac’s tiny bathroom, emptying stomach and then continuing to dry heave into the toilet. She wanted to be rid of it, to expel the truth from her. Mac followed her, hovering in the doorway as she asked if Veronica was okay, and then Veronica began to cry.

Because somehow she knew, certainly, that it had not been Logan in the pool house that night.

And everything was suddenly so very, very wrong.

*~*~*

“Were you sleeping with Mr. Echolls?” Veronica didn’t offer a single pleasantry after almost a year of radio silence between herself and Lilly.

“Veronica?” It was nearly three AM in New York, but Lilly’s voice didn’t sound tired. She just sounded confused.

“Were you, Lilly? Were you sleeping with Logan’s dad?”

“Veronica, how did you find out about that?” Lilly asked. She didn’t seem particularly remorseful, just genuinely confused. Veronica could definitely understand. She hadn’t expected this to be the ice breaking conversation either. “They weren’t supposed to mention that I was on the tapes.”

“There were tapes, Lilly?” Veronica was swallowing shallow, worthless breaths, hoping she could keep herself from breaking down again. She’d barely gotten her bedroom door closed behind her before she dialed Lilly’s old number, praying it hadn’t changed. She probably should’ve called Mac; she’d been really worried about Veronica when she’d finally gotten herself up off the bathroom floor and headed back to her own dorm. But Veronica hadn’t been able to think about anything but that stupid graduation party. And she had to ask.

“Isn’t that how you found out? Did your dad call you?”

“I saw you at the graduation party,” Veronica told her. “I thought it was Logan. Why would my dad have called me?”

“Oh my god, Veronica, and that’s why you left?” Lilly sounded truly distraught. “Veronica, you’ve got to get back to Neptune. Do you have your car? Will your car make it?”

“Lilly, what the hell is going on?”

“Veronica, Mr. Echolls was arrested. He put Logan in the hospital.”

She didn’t realize that she’d hung up on Lilly until she was back on the first floor and dialing her father’s number.

*~*~*

The bus ride back to Neptune seemed longer, somehow, than it had been going to Portland. She was been on the phone most of the way – with her father, then her mother, then Mac – but she must’ve fallen asleep along the way, because the jerk as the bus pulled into the stop woke her.

Her car was still parked in her father’s driveway. She’d been planning on driving it back after spring vacation.

Her father had told her that he’d probably be stuck at the station but that someone would be there to pick her up. The station was in chaos since the arrest, and Keith had been dealing with reporters and paperwork and lawyers for hours.

Cliff McCormack was waiting for her at the stop, a tense smile on his face. “I’m not going to do the hugging thing, kid,” he told her when she found him at the back of the building, “but it is good to see you back. I’m sure your dad could use the pick me up.” She followed him around to the parking lot, climbing into his old Datsun and letting the radio fill the silence.

“How’d you find out about it?” Cliff finally asked.

“I called Lilly,” she told him. “She told me. Is Logan going to be okay?”

“I heard he’s pretty beaten up,” Cliff said honestly. “Your dad wouldn’t tell me much about it, but he’s taking it pretty personally.” There was a long, appraising pause before Cliff continued. “I always wondered why your dad let that boy spend so much time in your house, but it makes a little more sense now.”

Veronica started crying again, but this time the tears were silent and remorseful. Cliff didn’t say anything else, and when they got to the police station, he pulled around in the back, buzzing an officer to be let into the squad car parking lot.

“Knock twice on the back door, and someone will let you in.” He waited for Veronica to step out, then headed back for the gate.

The back door opened into an empty hallway, and it was her father who met her there, opening the door before she’d even finished knocking. She knew that he must be busy, that there was way too much for him to do right now, but when he wrapped his arms around her, she begun to cry in earnest again, her tears blotting the front of his uniform shirt.

Alone in the empty hallway, her father cried, too.

*~*~*

Veronica used Lamb’s computer to email her professors and let the people who would miss her know where she had gone. Then she sat in her father’s office, waiting for him to be able to do something other than be sheriff. Finally, when she couldn’t handle staring at the wall anymore, she took a notepad from his desk. She’d spent a long portion of the ride back wondering what she would do when she got here and whether or not she should actually go to the hospital, whether or not Logan would actually want to see her.

She was beginning to think that maybe a letter would be better received than her actual presence.

An hour later, when her father finally closed his laptop, Veronica was still staring at a blank page. After a year of complete silence, she would’ve expected that she’d have so much to say to him, but none of it would come out. Nothing about the last year fit neatly onto a legal pad, none of her words fit between the neatly traced dark blue lines.

“Do you want to go see him?” her father asked, somehow reading her thoughts. His voice was gentle, as if he thought she was the one that had been broken.

“Will he want to see me?”

Her father paused, his hands folded on his desk. “I don’t know why you thought it was him, Veronica,” her father said, and she looked up, startled that he’d already pieced it together. In one day, he understood what she hadn’t been able to see for months. “But the only reason he stayed gone was because you didn’t want him back.”

“I never - ” Veronica started. She didn’t know what she was arguing, so her father’s interruption was a slight relief.

“He called me whenever he though you might’ve come home,” Keith continued, as though she hadn’t said anything. “Holidays, birthdays, vacations. He never stopped looking for you, Veronica.”

She swallowed thickly, pulling her pen off the paper when she noticed the growing ink spot.

“Did Lilly tell you why Aaron went after him?” Veronica shook her head mutely. She’d gotten so many pieces of information from Lilly in the tiny moment that they talked, but she’d failed to get even one whole story. “He found the tapes, Veronica. He found them, and he recognized some names, so he took them to his room and watched them.” Keith swallowed, obviously trying to stay unemotional as he spoke. “Aaron found him, and he pushed Logan down the stairs. Lynn called me then, on the home line. She called me crying, and I didn’t have any idea what was going on. And when I got to the house, he was taking a belt to Logan’s bare chest.”

Veronica choked back a sob, holding up her hand to keep him from continuing. “I don’t… I can’t.”

Keith took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “I’m telling you this for a reason, Veronica,” Keith said finally. “Because you should know what it took to get his mother to do what you did as soon as you found out what kind of person Aaron is. Lilly’s on her way back from New York, but she was on some of those tapes. And Duncan will be back too, I’m sure, but Duncan and Logan aren’t friends like they used to be. Those are the people who will be there with him. Whether or not you want to be there too is up to you.” He stood up then, and she did the same. “It looks like I won’t be done for a while, but I can take a break to drive you home. Your car’s still in the driveway; you can do whatever you want with it.”

*~*~*

She drove to the hospital without actually deciding whether or not she was ready to see him. She’d gone into the house long enough to grab her keys and a notepad, which she stared at while she sat alone in a sterile waiting room. The nurses looked at her occasionally, their faces silently questioning her. She hadn’t asked for a room number or a patient’s condition. Getting to his floor had been trouble enough, and the letter was still blank in her lap.

At the main desk, she’d had to give her name three times, before finally calling her father, just to be told where Logan was. With the sheriff on the phone, confirming that she was, in fact, not a reporter, the woman told her that he was being moved from the trauma ward to a private room, and thankfully he had not needed surgery. He sprained his wrist and broke a few ribs, and he was covered in bruises, but most of the injuries had managed to be superficial. Luckily, they hadn’t found an internal bleeding.

So Veronica took the stairs up six floors, prolonging the inevitable and wondering why she had even come when she was so terrified of being here.

She didn’t get a single word written while she waited, still unsure what she was waiting for. It was three hours before Lilly showed up, before she saw one familiar face, and the girls hugged despite the tension between them.

Lilly was the first to speak, breaking quickly under the tense silence.. “I didn’t know about the tapes,” she explained. “I was just… bored, and… I didn’t know that you saw us, Veronica. I swear to God, I would’ve told you what was going on. I was going to, but then you were gone.”

“It was Logan’s father, Lilly,” Veronica said, her voice low and strained. “You had to know what he did to Logan.”

“Logan never told me.”

“You can see it!” Veronica exclaimed. Several faces turned toward them, and Veronica lowered her voice. “It’s written all over him, Lilly. He’s a map of scars.”

Lilly looked at the floor. “I knew he was hurt, Veronica. But, honest to God, I didn’t know it was still happening. I only ever saw the scars. I thought it was an old nanny or something. I thought it was over.”

“You never asked him?”

“I’m not you, Veronica,” Lilly said, her voice low and tense. “We can’t all be perfect all the time.” Her face hardened. “Oh, wait, you left him.”

“I thought - ”

“You thought you saw him fucking me,” Lilly cut her off. “Well that says a lot about what you think of the both of us, doesn’t it, Veronica? And you left, and you didn’t say a damn thing to either of us until it suited you.” Lilly’s face was flushed with anger, and Veronica had never been on the receiving end of Lilly’s temper. Not like this. “Do you think this year’s been a piece of cake for the rest of us, Veronica? Did you know that Logan almost dropped out of USC? That after that he almost got kicked out because he kept getting MIPs? Duncan and I have been flying back every month to make sure that he’s not drinking again. You think it’s been easy for us? Fuck you, Veronica.” Lilly looked at her, looked at Veronica’s bag half-opened on the chair, and Veronica knew what was coming next. “Why are you sitting out here, Veronica? Have you even asked to see him?” She looked at the notebook. “What, were you going to leave him a note?”

Veronica didn’t answer. “Yeah,” Lilly said. “Well, I guess it’s more than you left last time.” Lilly’s anger made her seem somehow more than human, towering over Veronica with something more than real height. “I’ve been here, Veronica. And yeah, I’ve fucked some things up, but I’ve been trying to fix it. So you can sit out here, and you can play the martyr like you always do, or you can get up off your ass and be one of us. Not just while it’s fun for you, and you can’t just come back when it’ll be easy. Because I can tell you right now, Veronica, if you sit in this waiting room, you won’t ever see him again. I won’t ever let you do this to him again.”

Lilly turned around, toward the desk, and Veronica called out to her. Lilly stopped, just a step away, and raised her eyebrow inquisitively. “I thought you said you’d pick me.”

Lilly looked confused for a moment, then her face softened as she remembered. “Well, I’d still stick my neck out for my best friend.” Lilly took a deep breath, and Veronica could see that she was trying to keep from crying. “How could you think I would do that to you, Veronica?”

“I saw the birthmark, Lilly,” Veronica said. “Or I thought it was his birthmark at least. I didn’t know what else to think.”

“You could’ve asked me,” Lilly said. “You could’ve asked him. You could’ve not run away.”

“You could’ve not slept with his dad. You could’ve not said all that shit to make me nervous.”

“All what…?” Lilly paused. “All that stuff about commitment and Stanford?” Veronica nodded. “Yeah, well, there’s a coulda for Logan. He was the one who wanted me to tell you that stuff.”

“What?”

“Your dad told him that you turned down Stanford,” Lilly explained. “You really thought he wouldn’t find out? He’s known you almost as long as I have. If he would’ve known you applied, he would’ve made you go, and you knew that. That’s why you didn’t tell him. He didn’t want you to miss that for him.”

“You didn’t tell me to go to Stanford. You told me Logan would leave me when he found out.”

“I told you that it would scare the crap out of him,” Lilly corrected. “And it did. He was terrified that you were willing to give that up for him, but he wasn’t going to leave you.” She shrugged. “And I wasn’t thinking that it would be the only time we’d ever talk about it. I didn’t know that you’d be gone the next morning.”

Veronica bit her lip, already close to crying again. “I transferred last month,” she whispered.

“I know,” Lilly said. “He told me.” Veronica must’ve looks surprised, because Lilly actually laughed at her. “You thought he just forgot about you, right? He knew exactly where you were, Veronica. He has your dorm number on a post-it on his wall.” Lilly shrugged. “But he wasn’t going to come after you when you’d done so much to get away from him. And he didn’t even know what he did. I think that was the part that really got to him.” She paused, glancing down at her watch. “Mrs. Echolls is probably expecting me by now, so I’m going to go back to his room. Are you coming with me?”

Veronica’s nod was minute, barely noticeable, but Lilly saw it. She looped her arm through Veronica’s, and neither was positively sure whether it was a form of encouragement or a restraint. Veronica picked up her bag, then reached for the notebook, but Lilly stopped her.

“Don’t even bring it with you,” she told her. “He doesn’t want a letter, Veronica. He wants you. That’s all he’s looking for.”

*~*~*

“Veronica!” It was Lynn’s voice that sent Logan’s head turning toward the door, eliciting a series of sharp curses as he stretched at least half a dozen fresh bruises and probably tore open at least that many fresh cuts. He was, quite literally, black and blue.

Lilly had walked through the door first, and she continued to the side of Logan’s bed, carefully taking his hand in hers while Veronica hovered in the doorway.

Logan’s eyes were heavy as he looked at her, and it was clear that if his mother hadn’t been so obvious about seeing her, he wouldn’t have believed she was there. “You came back.” His voice was neither excited nor angry, but it sounded like it probably hurt for him to use it. His mother gestured to a cup of water on the table beside Lilly, who helped him take a drink. When she set it back on the table, Lynn stood from her chair.

“Now that you girls are here, I think I’ll get some coffee,” she said. “Lilly, did you see a machine on your way in?” It wasn’t at all discreet, but Veronica had the feeling that Lynn was trying to get herself out of the room just as much as she was trying to give Veronica and Logan privacy. She had to feel awful for this, to feel horrible for how she had let this all play out.

It had to be suffocating for her in here.

At least that was how Veronica felt.

“You might want to make sure you don’t have anything pressing to say to Veronica before you go,” Logan told her, his voice sounding a little better after the water. “She likes to leave without saying goodbye.”

Lilly touched his shoulder gently, speaking in a way that Veronica wasn’t sure she understood anymore. Lilly was right; a lot had happened without her. Lilly was growing up, becoming this person who could handle life, no matter how it was thrown at her. She was here being a friend even when it probably wasn’t easy or beneficial to her.

And Veronica was the one who’d run from all of her problems, who had spent the former part of her evening getting smashed and sick in a friend’s room.

She really would’ve liked to be back in that room right now.

“We’ll be right back, Logan,” Lynn said. When she passed Veronica in the doorway, her hand brushed against Veronica’s arm. “It’s good to see you again.” Veronica nodded, sure that if she spoke, she’d cry again.

She was really sick of all this crying.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not going to commit any crimes against your person, Veronica. You could take a few steps closer.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me about Stanford?” Veronica blurted. “Why did you send Lilly?”

“No,” Logan said slowly. Veronica took a slow step towards him. “I’m pretty sure that when you disappear, I get to ask the first question.” He fumbled with the remote on his bed, lifting the back of the bed higher and grimacing as the movement stretched his abused muscles. When he met Veronica’s eyes again, nothing about him was emotionless anymore. And now that she’d seen him again, she wondered how she’d actually been able to make it out of town. “What did I do, Veronica? What the hell happened at that party?”

“It wasn’t…” She hiccupped over her words, then tried again. “I didn’t know, Logan. God, I didn’t know that you told Lilly to talk to me about Stanford. The stuff she said… I didn’t know that’s what she was talking about. And it shouldn’t have mattered. I know. I know that I should’ve asked you, that I should’ve let you explain. But then I saw Lilly in the pool house. And I didn’t know that he had that same mark on his hip. I didn’t know anyone had that but you.”

She was crying again, and he was still medicated and her words were processing slower than normally. Finally, after a long pause, he said, “You thought I was sleeping with Lilly? Behind your back?” He tried to laugh, but the attempt on left him clutching her ribs. “That’s rich, Veronica.” He paused, and when he looked away from her, she found it just a little easier to breathe. “I thought you knew me better than that. After all of her lying and cheating, how could you ever think I would do that to you?”

She was next to his bed by then, her whole body shaking as she cried, and she was shaking her head, trying to take it all back, to make it all different.

“I didn’t – God, Logan, I wanted it not to be true. I didn’t want to think you could, but my mom could, and your dad, and Lilly’s dad and Lilly. Why was I supposed to think we were so damn special?”

“Because I told you we were special, damn it!” He coughed, trying to reach past her for the water, but she grabbed it first, knowing that he couldn’t move that far without an inordinate amount of pain. Begrudgingly, he let her hold it to his lips. “I told you this was different all the damn time, Veronica,” he said as she put the water back, his voice quieter. “And you didn’t even ask me.”

She dropped to the chair then, more to make space between them than from any desire to sit. When she spoke, the words almost seemed like they weren’t meant for him. “This is all my fault, you know.”

“What? What’s your fault, Veronica?” His voice was gentler now, more compassionate. Familiar.

“This!” she said, her hand gesturing at him. “You! What he did to you! This is my fault.”

“Veronica, I’m still on some pretty strong painkillers,” Logan said, only mildly impatient. “Those are dots you’ll have to connect for me.”

“He wouldn’t have done this to you if I had been here,” she told him. “And you would’ve known it was him, if I told you. You would’ve known about him and Lilly.”

“If you’d been here, Veronica, he probably would’ve put you into the hospital too,” Logan explained calmly. “And it’s not like Lilly was a minor when they started sleeping together.” His voice held only a trace of the bitterness she had expected to hear, and Veronica wondered just what Lilly had done to gain this relentless trust from Logan. “It wouldn’t have done any good.”

“Your mom would’ve left.”

“No,” Logan said. “She wouldn’t have.” He sighed. “Lilly wasn’t his first, Veronica. She wouldn’t have been his last. It wouldn’t have changed anything.” Her crying was softer now, and he reached up slowly to brush the tears off her cheek. His palm lingered against her cheek, and he opened his mouth several times before he finally spoke. “I’m probably going to fall asleep soon,” he warned her. He paused, swallowing. “Are you… are you going to stick around?”

She was still crying, softly, but her lips broke into a small smile, and her hand brushed his. “I’m not going anywhere.”

*~*~*

“You know, the nurses have better things to do than fluff your pillows,” Veronica said when she saw Logan reaching for the call button. “What do you need?”

“You can go home, Veronica,” Logan told her, pressing the call button anyway. “Have you even slept?”

“She slept with her knee poking into your kidney all night,” Lilly said, appearing in the doorway. “And you didn’t even flinch, so I’m going to have to call your bluff, Echolls.”

“You got me, Lilly,” Logan said dryly. “It’s all makeup.”

“Trina’s going to be pissed.”

“Nah, it was my dad’s.”

Lilly’s smile froze in place, and Veronica's fingers dug into the sheets at Logan’s side. His own grin slid off his face, replaced by something just a touch darker. “Too soon,” he decided a moment later, just as the nurse walked in the room. He pointed toward the bathroom, and she helped him out of bed, his arm over her shoulder as he tried to maneuver himself.

“He should hate me for this,” Lilly said, leaning against a dresser on the other side of the room. “It’d probably make him feel better.”

“Been there,” Veronica told her. “Done that.”

Lilly nodded, thoughtful. “You guys did pretty well without me, though, right?” Lilly played with her fingers, her voice quiet. “You know, everything fell apart when you left.”

“It’s never right when it’s not the four of us,” Veronica told her.

As if on cue, Duncan hurtled into the room, out of breath and red-faced. At the sight of the empty bed, he nearly collapsed, his face instantly paling as he swayed dangerously.

Lilly and Veronica were at his side without a word, each with a hand under his elbow as they guided him to the chair. “He’s fine,” Veronica assured him. “He’s in the bathroom. He’s all bruised up, but he’ll be fine.”

“Veronica?” Her sudden reappearance finally dawned on him, and he took in her appearance. “Stanford looks good on you.”

She smiled shyly, but her response was cut off by the click of the bathroom door closing. “Hands off, DK,” Logan warned playfully, his voice sounding raspy. “She’s all hot and bothered for my bod.”

Veronica rolled her eyes, handing the water across the bed to Logan, who was still perched on the nurse’s shoulder.

“Well, you do have it on display there, soldier,” Lilly commented, gesturing at the open slit along Logan’s back. “You did always have a cute ass, Logan.”

“Not for your appreciation anymore, Lil,” Logan told her. “But compliments are always accepted.”

“I don’t need to see that,” Duncan groused.

“I’ve got to give the girls some reason to stick around, Duncan.” He said it jokingly, but Veronica stiffened at the implication, and an awkward silence settled as the nurse eased him back into bed.

“So where’s your mom?” Duncan asked when the nurse walked out, wanting any excuse to break the tension.

“She’s with a lawyer,” Lilly answered when Logan shrugged. “She’s getting the divorce papers ready. She should be back soon.”

“When do you guys have to go back to school?” Logan asked, but he was only looking at Veronica.

“Not for a few days,” she told him. “And I can come visit you during spring break in a couple of weeks.” Her hand was on the edge of his bed, her fingers barely brushing against his arm, and she couldn’t seem to push them any closer to him. When his hand came up to grasp hers, they both flinched.

“I never wanted you to give anything up for me, Veronica,” he told her, his thumb tracing circles on her palm. “And if you still want to leave…”

“I’m here, Logan. I never should’ve left.”