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When he is sixteen, Logan Echolls discovers he can wake the dead in a disturbing and, in his mind, an uncalled for way - he kisses his ex-girlfriend’s cheek. And instead of still being dead, she breathes in and sits up. He stumbles back, away from her.
In the seconds that follow, Lilly acclimates fairly quickly. Logan does not. She focuses on the color of her casket, the dress Celeste chose, and, finally, the fact she was murdered. Which, she concludes, is a bummer, but being brought back from the dead is a plus she tells him with a wink. Logan gapes at her and she smiles prettily at him as she tells him her plan for escaping her own funeral, finding some acceptable clothing, and catching her killer. She tries to climb out of the “hideous, truly hideous” casket Celeste picked out, and he holds out his hand for hers as he asks her who did it. Her eyes get wide, and she bites her lip as she reaches for him. “I’m sorry, Logan. It was -”
Skin touches skin. And on the same same day Logan makes the disturbing discovery he can wake the dead, he learns about an even more disturbing talent - that a second touch makes the recently alive dead again. Lilly’s lifeless body slumps into his arms, and he manages to refrain from screaming out. Instead he tries to kiss her again. Tries to figure out what he did the first time. Tries to will her back to life.
“Don’t do this to me,” he begs her. “Don’t leave me again. Don’t come back just to do this. Lilly. Lilly!”
He is still holding his recently dead-again ex-girlfriend when his parents, her parents, and Duncan walk into the room.
“This is awkward,” he manages to say as he tries to figure out how to explain his predicament, and he flinches when he sees his father’s face.
He does not stay (is not welcome to stay) for the funeral. He does not go back to Neptune High. His parents decide jointly that he has suffered some kind of psychotic break, and he can’t find it in him to disagree. They also decide, jointly, that he needs help. His father holds a press conference Logan watches from the second floor about the difficulty his son is having following the death of his girlfriend. How, as a family, they have decided to send him away to get the help he desperately needs. He watches Aaron break down for the cameras, watches his mother tuck herself into his side, and presses his aching back against the wall. He leaves a bit of blood in his wake, and he grins.
Getting out of Neptune. It sounds like a dream. Getting away from Aaron. It is the dream. It is one last gift from Lilly.
He doesn’t tell anyone what happened. He tucks it away, like he does his other secrets. The things he could never share with Duncan, or Lilly, or Veronica. He doesn’t talk to Duncan after. But he does see Veronica.
Because it’s Veronica, she comes to him.
“So, I hear you’re crazy,” is her opening line as she walks into his room an hour before he will be shipped off to god knows where. Because decisions made “as a family” about him no longer include him.
He’s playing a video game, trying to beat it before he leaves it behind for the foreseeable future. “Yeah,” he shoots off. “I lost some marbles. Did you happen to find any on your way over?”
“Not a one.” She shakes her mane of blonde hair and plops herself next to him. “What happened?”
“Just didn’t feel like staying in this shitty town anymore,” he tells her.
She nods. Quiet and calm. Leans against him. He flinches. “You’d better write.”
“Nope.”
“You’re a dick,” she says, and he cracks his first smile since this whole thing began. He may be a freak, or he may just have truly cracked, but he still has Veronica.
He lets himself lean against her. Swings an arm around her. “I’ll think about it.”
“When are you leaving?”
He glances at the clock, and back at her. “Forty-two minutes.”
She nods again, and wraps her arms around his middle. They sit there in silence, and he soaks her up.
“Logan,” his mother calls up the stairs. “Please finish packing.”
He sighs, and Veronica sighs into him.
“God, I’m going to miss you,” he tells her.
She trembles against his side, and then meets his eyes. “I’ll miss you.”
He doesn’t know why he does it. Not really. He has worked hard at not touching anyone with the exception of Aaron since he re-killed Lilly. But he leans in. And to his surprise, Veronica leans toward him too.
There is no weird spark when he kisses her, no one dying or coming back to life. When he kisses her, it calms him. It brings him back. He can taste her chapstick, and he takes a moment to tangle his fingers in her hair. She snuggles closer, and it feels like home.
“Logan!” his mother yells again, and he pulls back, leans his forehead against hers, and breathes her in again.
“I should get going,” she says softly, and he pulls back and nods. Presses a kiss to her head.
She tangles her fingers in his and squeezes, and he holds on to them until she walks too far away.
Leaving Neptune, leaving Aaron, that’s the dream. But he doesn’t want to leave Veronica. He doesn’t want to be another person who leaves her.
“I’ll write,” he promises.
~~~
He doesn’t write to Veronica. He wants to, to email her and tell her about his new school. His new life.
He had planned to, when he decided that Lilly was probably a fluke and most likely a product of Lilly just having too much life in her to be dead. But instead, he goes to biology and accidentally realives the frog he’s supposed to be dissecting. And he can’t imagine writing to Veronica. He can’t imagine bringing her into this world of his that defies everything he and everyone else knows about how life and death is supposed to work. And he can’t imagine writing her and not talking about this.
He stops eating meat, because he doesn’t really know how this works except for the two cardinal rules of touch dead things once and they’re alive again, and touch that same newly alive thing a second time and it is redead. He doesn’t want to have to go through that every time he wants to eat a steak. He doesn’t want to even know what happens when a steak becomes realive, or if that’s even possible. He thinks about touching people in a way he never has before. He finally stops weighing the pros and cons and just decides to not do it at all when he can’t figure out if a girl he thinks is cute is wearing a leather or pleather jacket.
One day, he brushes a mostly dead rose from a leftover bouquet. It blossoms, and he stares at it before touching it again. Watches it wilt again.
He grabs a napkin and picks out a different dead rose, and brings it to his room. Realives it and watches it for days. It stays alive. No petals fall.
He starts giving the girls in the vegan club ever blooming flowers.
Anthea asks him one day how he does it, and he grins at her and throws his arms open. “It’s magic,” he says.
It’s the best and only answer he has. And, as it turns out, it’s a pretty effective pick up line. At least on the vegan club girls.
~~~
Veronica writes him twice. Once, after his mother dies. He doesn’t want to believe it. He’s pissed off she killed herself at all, that his father let him find out through the news report on the cafeteria television. That his father didn’t have the decency to bring him back for the funeral. He’s pissed off that she agreed to send him away, where he couldn’t be there for her. He doesn’t want to accept it. But if there’s one thing he is thankful for, it’s that his mother doesn’t go out with sleeping pills and chardonnay. Instead, she chooses a way that takes all moral quandary out of his hands. He doesn’t know how to tell Veronica that, that if she’s dead at least she’s dead in a way he can’t undo. He doesn’t know how to tell Veronica there is a tiny part of him grateful she escaped, and a bigger part even more thankful he can’t be selfish and bring her back to him. He almost wants to believe that she knew, that she somehow figured it out.
The second time Veronica writes him, he destroys his room. The second time Veronica writes him, it’s to tell him who killed Lilly. She writes about how that person nearly killed her. How his father nearly killed her. He sees Lilly, reaching out for him, apologizing to him. Apologizing to him right before he killed her, like his father did. He sees Veronica, terrified and cowering in front of Aaron. And he hates himself.
He can’t write her back. He has nothing to say to Veronica apologizing to him, telling him how sorry she is that his father is a killer, sorry that she had to tell him over email but he changed his number and she wanted to at least try to let him know before someone else did.
He has nothing to offer her.
~~~
When he is 28, Logan Echolls opens the newspaper thrown on his stoop, the same paper he has unsuccessfully tried to cancel multiple times, and sees Veronica Mars’ obituary.
~~~
He goes to the funeral. He can’t not. He waits in the line of mourners and shakes Keith Mars’ hand. He stays away from everyone else he used to know, and avoids meeting anyone new. Sits down in the last row, and waits.
He waits until the funeral is over, until she has been put in the ground. Until everyone else has driven away. He waits until Keith is led away. He waits.
And then, when everyone has left and Veronica has been buried, he takes out his shovel and gets to work. It takes a lot longer than he anticipates. He’s hot and sweaty and covered in dirt when he’s done, but he hits casket and he rolls down his sleeves and puts on his gloves. He opens the casket, picks Veronica up, and deposits her on the ground above him. Pulls himself out, and stares at her.
She is twelve years older, but still the girl he remembers. Her hair is shorter, and her father picked what he can only imagine is an appropriate outfit she’d approve of, unlike the last time. He breathes out, and then in again. Rolls up his sleeves, and fills in the grave. It takes marginally less time than unfilling it, but only marginally. It is starting on dawn by the time he rolls his sleeves back down, tucks them in his gloves, and picks up the still dead Veronica Mars.
He has never intentionally done this to anything not a flower or a fruit; and the small part of him that is convinced this is the worst idea ever is also convinced that it won’t work when he tries it on Veronica. That the part of him that can bring things back to life will be gone as quickly as it came, and he’ll just be left with the body of one his childhood best friends whom he also kissed once upon a time in his house.
Which will be much worse than being caught holding the body of his first girlfriend that one time.
He opens the door to his car and slides her in, and drives away.
He thought about all the contingencies. He learned from Lilly to not do it before the funeral. People expect a body at a funeral. He thought about opening up the casket and doing it immediately, but couldn’t figure out a foolproof way of getting Veronica, who tops out at a little over 5 feet, out of a six foot hole and having her still be living again at the end of it. He thought about doing it after pulling her out, but waking up in a cemetery would probably be traumatic. The best he has is to bring her to the apartment he’s renting in town, and make her alive again there, where he can get her some water and hopefully some answers.
He gets her inside and seated upright, and then sits across from her. She’s gorgeous, and dead. Logan gets up, and walks over to her. Brushes the hair back from her forehead with his gloved hand, and kisses her there.
The spark shoots through him, and he stumbles back out of reach, to prevent any chance of redeath.
Veronica coughs a couple of times, and then shakes her head. She focuses on him, and he freezes. “Logan? What the fuck?”
He breathes in. “So, remember how I had that thing where I went crazy? I found out I can bring things, dead things, back to life. And you were dead. So, I kind of brought you back.”
“I wasn’t dead,” Veronica argues. “I was murdered.”
“Which led to you being dead,” Logan snarks. “It’s kind of a cause and effect deal, Ronnie.”
She glares at him, and he glares back.
“Wait a minute - you found out and everyone said you went crazy.” He’s still glaring but nods. “You brought back Lilly?”
Her voice cracks on Lilly’s name, and he softens. “Yeah. Accidentally. Which is rule two. We can’t touch.”
“We can’t touch?”
He shrugs. “Look, I haven’t done a lot of experimentation, because honestly I was always hoping this would just go away and I could lead a normal life. But I’ve figured out two things - I touch the dead and they come back to life. And if I touch them again, they become redead.”
“Redead?”
“Yeah,” he explains. “You’re alive again right now. If we touch again, you’ll be redead. So don’t touch me.”
Her glare comes back full force. “Well that just blows.”
He can’t help it. He laughs. “You want to jump me that bad?”
Her glare amplifies. “No, you asshole. But I can’t just go running back home and telling everyone that my being dead was a temporary thing I just shook off after they buried me, so you’re the only person I have. And I haven’t seen you since I was 16 and you promised to write to me and didn’t.”
“There were extenuating circumstances involving this. I didn’t want you to know.” He turns away from her. “If you wanted to have more than just me, I could set you up somewhere else. The Echolls fortune is mine for the using.”
Veronica doesn’t soften so much as turn her glare on something else. “No. I need to stay here. I need to figure out who killed me.”
“There is a police force in Neptune,” Logan reminds her.
Veronica scoffs. “There’s a Dan Lamb in Neptune,” she retorts. “You blew out of dodge, so you don’t know, but he’s a tool.”
“Okay,” Logan says, sitting back down in his chair. “What do we do?”
~~~
The first thing Veronica does is sneak out of the house after telling him that they should get some sleep after the trauma of being dead and bringing the dead back to life, and that they’ll tackle her murder in the morning.
Logan supposes it’s his own fault it happened, because he should have been more suspicious. The Veronica Mars he knew wouldn’t have put getting murdered on the back burner for a few hours to rest, so he doesn’t know why he expected a 28 year old Veronica Mars to be able to.
He doesn’t know where to start his search, because he no longer knows where any of the Marses live. He takes a stab in the dark and makes his way to the office he found when he googled Keith Mars.
She has already broken in when he arrives, so he doesn’t have to do much to get in as well. He finds her scouring the files, and he picks up a hard candy from a bowl on the desk and throws it at her.
“What are you doing here?” she whisper-hisses at him, and he glowers at her.
“What are you doing here? You are dead.”
“Alive again,” she retorts, and goes back to the files. He throws another hard candy at her, and she sighs heavily. “I’m looking for my file.”
“Find it yet?”
“No.” She slams the cabinet drawer shut. “He must have it at the house.”
“That’s too bad,” he tells her. “We should go home and regroup and figure out where to go from here.”
“We need to get into the house,” she says, and he blanches.
“How are we going to do that?”
She looks him up and down. “Have you been wearing those gloves the entire time you’ve been here?”
He glances confusedly at his hands. “Yeah, why?”
Veronica tips over the cabinet she has been searching through, and pulls out a couple of the desk drawers before walking briskly to him and grabs his elbow. He flinches as she pulls him out of the office, and she pulls the door closed behind them; and then slams her elbow through the glass and opens the door from the inside.
“What are you doing?” He growls at her, as she continues to drag him out of the building and toward his car.
“Setting off the burglar alarm,” she tells him, as if it is obvious. “Easiest way to get Dad out of the house and to the office.”
He groans as she climbs into the passenger seat, and they drive away.
~~~
Veronica insists on joining him on the stake out of her house. He tried to argue that he should go alone because of the double danger of possibly touching each other without protection and being discovered. She had rolled her eyes at him and directed him to her father’s.
It doesn’t take long for Keith to leave, and Veronica grabs his arm and tugs him along the back of the house. He had given her a pair of gloves he’d bought in advance of her alive againing while in the car, and she’d smiled at him like he’d hung the moon.
She pushes up the office window and boosts herself in. He climbs in after her. She goes immediately to the cabinets and he stares at the pictures on the walls. Veronica and a black guy around their age are well featured, and he glowers at him. “Who’s that?”
Veronica looks up from the files. “Wallace.” She smiles as she says it, and Logan hates the guy more.
“Yeah. Who is he?”
Veronica goes back to work. “He’s my best friend, and also my stepbrother. Look, there’s Darrell too. Alicia should already be at work, so we’re okay for right now.”
“Oh.” He stops glaring. “I thought…”
“I did have boyfriends,” she tells him. “Your kiss at 16 was good, but not life stoppingly amazing.”
“Did you have a boyfriend when you -”
“Yeah,” she cuts him off. “I did. Piz. He’s a good guy.” She pulls out a file and grins at him. “Found it! Let’s go.”
They are back in his car before he revisits it. “I’m sorry about your boyfriend.”
She shrugs. “I’m sorrier about other things.”
“Still.”
“I don’t know if he would bring me back from the dead 12 years after we’d last seen each other,” Veronica offers. “And I don’t know if I would bring him back from the dead now, so.”
“Yeah,” Logan tells her, rubbing the back of his neck. “That gets to be a weird question when you’re dating someone.”
“Whether or not you’d bring them back from the dead?”
“Yeah. I’ve only dated one girl where I thought it could be an option. And I panicked and broke up with her before it was a definite.”
Veronica laughs. “You broke up with her because you didn’t want to bring her back from the dead?”
“It’s a huge ethical issue,” he tells her. “And, I mean, I wasn’t comfortable telling her I could do this. So bringing her back would have been really weird.”
“But you brought me back.”
He shrugs. “There was no question.”
“Who was the girl?”
He smiles. “Her name’s Casey. She’s a vegan baker. I used to go into her fridge and touch all the fruit that was starting to go bad. She taught me how to make pies.”
“I can’t imagine you baking pies.”
He grins. “I’ll have to bake you one. They’re supposed to be delicious for everyone who isn’t me. Moreso now that I add things like butter to them.”
Veronica’s laugh fills his car, and he grins in response.
“So were you a man of leisure before this? I heard you got the Echolls fortune.”
He shrugs. “Not really. I spent a couple of years drunk, but that ended in a creepy bar with a lot of animals heads on the walls.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah,” he tells her. “It got bad. Drunk me, as I’m sure you remember, doesn’t make the best decisions.”
“So you touched the animal heads…”
“And I did not touch them again, for long enough for there to be an incident. That was reported in the local paper.”
“Aw,” she says, “I thought I was the first person you intentionally brought back.”
“Yeah,” he tells her, “First person. And I don’t really count that as intentional. I was not of sound mind.”
“So what do you do?”
He shrugs. “I make arrangements for funerals, weddings, birthdays. Always kind of freelancing, because I try not to stay in one place for too long a time.”
“You’re a florist.”
“I am someone who makes floral arrangements in my spare time. How did you end up getting murdered? Last I heard, you were in New York, studying for the bar.”
She nods. “I was. I got a call from Carrie Bishop.”
“You mean Bonnie DeVille?”
“The one in the same. She told me she was being blackmailed and that she wanted to talk to me. I get home, and then -” she drags her finger across her throat. “Luckily, it was strangulation. But you get it. I’m pretty sure whoever is blackmailing Carrie is the person who killed me.”
Logan glances over at her, immersed in the file. “If that’s true, why did we need your dad’s file on you?”
Veronica looks up. “I’ve been dead three days. My dad could get a lot done in that time.”
“Did he?” Logan asks, doubtful.
She sighs. “Nope. Let’s go see Carrie.”
~~~
Carrie Bishop is murdered between the time it takes her to let Logan into her private community and for Logan to pull up to her townhouse and let Veronica out of his trunk.
They find her in her bathroom, electrocuted, and Logan growls. “I am tired of dead people.”
“Sorry,” Veronica tells him, unrepentant. “I’m going to need you to touch her.”
“No.” Logan shakes his head. “I’m not doing it.”
“Logan -”
“Veronica, no. What do we do with her after we bring her back? I can’t just kill her again. And we can’t leave her alive.”
“Why can’t we leave her alive? No one else knows she’s even dead yet. Except for the person who killed her.”
Logan sighs. “There’s the balance of life and death thing. And I don’t want her to talk about how we brought her back to life, or how you’re alive.”
“Logan. She knows who killed me. I would bet my life on it.”
He sighs. “We can’t figure this out another way?”
“We probably could,” Veronica tells him. “But in the meantime, he’s killed me and Carrie.”
He sighs again, this time heavily. “Stay out of sight.”
Veronica grins, grabs his gloved hand and kisses the covered palm before leaving the room.
Logan cracks his neck and pulls off one glove, reaches toward Carrie and touches her cheek. Carrie sputters back to life.
“Logan? What happened?”
“You tell me,” he answers. “You told the guard station to let me in, and then I found you here.”
“I don’t remember,” Carrie slurs. “I had taken something…”
“You hired Veronica because someone was blackmailing you,” Logan tells her, and Carrie blinks at him.
“How did you know that?”
Logan sighs. “She told me. She told me she was coming back to Neptune because you called her. Can you tell me who it is?”
Carrie leans forward, and Logan leans back. “I can’t - why do you care?”
“I think whoever is blackmailing you killed Veronica. And tried to kill you.”
Carrie snorts. “Figures. I didn’t think the son of a bitch had it in him. But I guess after Susan, it wasn’t a stretch.”
Logan’s eyes widen slightly. “Susan? Susan Knight?”
Carrie groans, rolls her neck. “Yeah - it’s a hell of a story. I’m writing an album about it.” She pushes herself up and stands as she says, “We were on the boat and -“
As she works to step out, she slips, and reaches for Logan. He’s able to get out a solitary “No -“ before wet skin touches him, and Carrie is once again not among the living.
“Shit.” When he looks up, Veronica is standing in the doorway. “Guess this is now a dead end.”
Logan glares. “Not a time for puns. Help me. Please.”
Veronica makes her way over and gingerly helps lift Carrie back into the bath. “We’re going to have to call this in.”
Logan nods. “Yeah, okay. But why?”
Her brow furrows. “We had to check in at the guard’s station. They have your information. If we don’t call this in, when they find her…”
“I’m suspect #1. Okay. Well, I’ll call the guard station and you, well -“
“Back to the trunk. I know,” she sighs. And he grimaces as he hands her the keys.
“I’ll fill you in on everything.” She nods, but still looks at him with a maudlin expression as she makes her way back to his car. He breathes out, and in, pulls off his remaining glove, and picks up the phone.
~~~
Dealing with Sheriff Lamb brings Veronica’s derision home; Lamb wants to go over the timeline again and again, wants to talk to him about why he picked now to meet up with Carrie, and every time he answers the same question he pictures Veronica, curled up in a ball in the dark of his trunk. Bored, and cramped, and frustrated. His knee is bouncing and he can feel every muscle coil. Veronica was impatient in life, and everything he’s seen from her post-death life suggests she’s only gotten more so. He can picture her bursting in, demanding answers as he goes round and round with Neptune’s police department.
“I’m telling you - after Veronica’s… after Veronica, I wanted to reconnect with old classmates.”
Lamb’s gum snaps. “Interesting. Because it looks like you’re killing old classmates.”
Logan sighs, and gets ready to go another round when a very different Mars walks in.
Keith looks older than he did even just days ago and Logan winces. “Hi, Sheriff, Logan.”
“Mr. Mars,” Logan acknowledges as Lamb’s cold grin turns smarmy.
“Ah, Keith. Listening in on police scanners again?”
Veronica’s dad smiles benignly and just gives a small shrug. “It passes the time. I see you’re focused on Logan.”
“I am,” the sheriff says. “Bit weird, him coming back for your daughter’s murder, and then just stumbling upon this. Wrong place, wrong time doesn’t quite cover it.”
Mr. Mars nods. “I can see how you would think that.” Logan feels the ground shift under him. “You’d be wrong; but I can see how you would only connect those dots.”
Lamb sneers. “And what’s your working theory?”
“I’m not going to share that with you, sheriff. But unless you’re charging Logan, I highly advise you let him go. He’s got a clean record and a lot of dough to pay for any number of lawsuits.”
It’s not what Logan expects, but Lamb blanches and waves him out. “You can both get the hell away from my crime scene.”
Keith leads him away, keeps a grip on his arm after he thanks the man. “Why don’t you and me go for a little drive?”
Now it’s Logan who blanches. “Gee, Mr. Mars, I would, but…”
And stands there. He doesn’t have a solid reason, doesn’t have anything he can say, to not. Mr. Mars turns and maintains his bland stare. “But?”
“I don’t know if they’ll let me back in to get my car later,” he offers as they walk by it, raising his voice a bit and hoping Veronica hears him, gets that he’s not purposely abandoning her. Mr. Mars’ expression doesn’t change.
“Let me worry about that, son.”
He swallows, and then nods his assent. Keith’s grip twists, becomes less secure, and Logan is hustled over to an old Chrysler LeBaron. “Hey, isn’t this -“
“Veronica’s car, yeah. She couldn’t ever seem to give up on it, even though it eats alternators. And I. Well.” Logan feels the tears forming at the back of his skulls, and bats them back. Veronica isn’t dead, isn’t still dead, he reminds himself. Veronica is just unhappily locked in his trunk. But the man in front of him is the perfect picture of grief, and Logan shudders.
This kind of entanglement is a large reason why he has chosen to stay away from temptation. Keith Mars’ pain radiates from him, and Logan chokes down his guilt as he cautiously opens the passenger side door. Keith gets in the driver’s side, and starts driving away. “What were you doing at Carrie Bishop’s?”
He feels like he’s wandered into a trap. Lamb was an annoyance. An idiot with a badge and clearly a huge ego. But Keith Mars is the real deal, and he can feel the walls close in around him.
“Carrie and I used to run in the same circles,” he says, going with at least a kind of truth. “I didn’t keep in touch with anyone, after. And with, with Ronnie. Well.”
Keith breaks at the stop sign. “Someone broke into my office.”
Logan’s mouth goes dry. “Oh. Had Carrie hired you?”
“She had been talking to Veronica.” Logan starts. “I would be more willing to overlook your presence here if your car hadn’t been seen near Mars Investigations in the wee hours of this morning. So how about you start talking.”
Logan breathes out, low and slow. Tries to think of anything plausible. And in that moment, Veronica is in front of them. Keith curses and Logan gasps. In the time it takes them both to get out of the car, she’s gone.
“Did you see that?” Keith breathes out.
Logan shakes his head. “I don’t - I don’t know what I saw.”
Mr. Mars starts shaking. Logan finds himself gripping him as he slides down. Tears start rolling down his face and Logan pulls the man into a loose hug. “Veronica. I saw -“
“Let me drive you home,” Logan suggests. Keith nods and Logan has him put the address in his Maps app, to maintain the illusion he doesn’t know where the Mars residence is.
They get all the way to the house before Keith remembers Logan’s car. He shrugs. “I’ll call a cab, head back over. Maybe wait until morning. It’s been a bad afternoon.”
Then Keith bullies him into the house, and he meets Veronica’s stepmother, properly. Her face is drawn, her eyes are dry, and they widen slightly when Keith gets to the part of their day when Veronica appeared like a wraith and just as quickly disappeared. “That’s not possible.”
“I know. Except.”
Alicia and Logan both stop and stare at him, for different reasons. Alicia is the one who prods. “Except?”
“Veronica said she saw Lilly, after the murder. I always dismissed it as just a product of wishful thinking, but. It was Veronica, Alicia. I know my daughter.”
Alicia leans over to him, and Logan is an uncomfortable third wheel in the conversation. “Keith, Veronica, she’s gone. And I know you want to chase down answers and I want those answers too. But maybe you need to take a break.”
Keith looks over to him, and he looks down. “Logan, tell me - did you see her?”
“Yeah. I did. But I, I’ve been seeing her since the funeral. So.” Keith and Alicia stare. “I didn’t want to say, because, well.” He breathes out and shrugs. “I’ve already been labeled crazy once. But. That’s what I was doing at Carrie’s. I saw Veronica, and I, I followed her.”
It has the benefit of being the truth, and he aches for Keith and Alicia and the guy Wallace on the wall because it’s also not.
“Veronica said something similar, about Lilly. Said that she saved her from that school bus crash.” Her father leans back. “How did you end up sent away?”
Logan’s ears perk up. It’s a test, he knows it. And every bone in his body is aching to not tell but something that sounds like Veronica whispers softly to give up a bit of the truth. “I thought I saw Lilly. And I don’t know, I thought that maybe it was, like, a prank she’d been pulling. And I grabbed her and she was just. Dead. And it was exactly the kind of excuse Aaron needed to get me exiled. What exactly happened in Neptune since I left?”
Keith seems to accept his explanation as he says, “Not a lot of good, I’m afraid. Come on, I can drive you back to your car.”
Logan shakes his head. “I think I’ll walk a bit. Clear my head. Call that cab when I’m ready. But thanks. For believing me.”
“I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t seen her myself,” Keith acknowledges. “Logan, if you see my daughter again, can you tell me? Just so I know.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, feeling slightly nauseous. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
~~~
He steps outside, breathes in the night air, and walks briskly down the block and around the corner. Pulls out his gloves and puts them back on, and grabs his phone. Calls the burner phone Veronica has claimed as her own. Before it can ring, a car’s headlights - his car’s headlights - turn on. He breathes out, and walks toward it. Veronica sits in the driver’s seat.
“I’m so sorry,” she starts and he waves her apology away as he gets in.
“No, you were brilliant. I’d kiss you if it wouldn’t kill you. How’d you know to do it?”
“I heard my dad, and figured he was pushing for you to leave with him. And I thought, well, I could be a ghost and maybe shift the conversation a little bit.”
“You did at that.” He pauses. “What happened, after I left?”
Veronica sighs with every atom of her being. “Short version is everything - aside from Wallace and Alicia and Darrell moving here - was shit.”
“And the long version?”
Veronica gazes out the window as they wait for a red light to turn green. “The Kanes thought Duncan had killed Lilly. They fucked with the crime scene, found someone willing to take the fall, and Dad knew something was up so they got him recalled. It was a rough couple of years.”
Logan gazes out his own window. “I should have been here.”
“You couldn’t have made a difference. And besides, you had your own nightmare to deal with.”
Logan shakes his head. “I should have at least written you back. I was so sure I could keep this away from you, it never occurred to me you’d end up here anyway.”
Veronica takes her eyes off the road for a second, and gifts him a soft smile. “It’s not all bad.”
~~~
“So, Carrie said something about a boat?”
Logan twirls his chopsticks as he helps himself to some of the lo mein they ordered. “Yeah. She said this guy had already killed Susan Knight, on a boat.”
“Susan died right after college freshman year, so,” Veronica concludes, “we just need to figure out who Susan and Carrie were hanging out with around then. One of the guys has to be the son of a bitch that’s now killed 3 of us.”
“Yeah, okay. How do we do that?”
Veronica groans and her head hits the table, just missing her fried rice. “I don’t know. I usually came up with the plan and then delegated some of the stuff to the other people who were good at those things. But, it’s been like a decade and I’m dead so those avenues are pretty closed.”
Logan groans too. “So, more legwork for me.”
Veronica gives him the full Bambi eyes. “Could you?”
He huffs out a laugh. “Just point me in the right direction.”
~~~
The right direction is apparently Dick Casablancas, who isn’t as much of a font of information as a series of badly constructed innuendos. He can’t recall what he liked about Dick, in high school. Surfing partners, he remembers. But he also remembers genuine fondness for the guy, and now, nothing.
Veronica had given him a brief rundown of Dick’s life trajectory before he made the call, including his father’s imprisonment and Cassidy’s… everything. Maybe that was Dick’s turning point, like re-aliving Lilly was awkwardly his. Whoever Dick had been, whatever their relationship was, he’s staring out over a yawning gulf between then and now.
It makes him all the happier this didn’t happen with Veronica. Getting her back to the cemetery and back in the ground would have been the worst.
But Veronica is, once again, huddled in the trunk of his car. Complained as she crawled in about it, to the point where he almost promised to buy a car with a bigger trunk before he realized that was insane and instead apologized mockingly for not preparing in advance for transporting a body he never anticipated having. She’d glared at him harder as she closed herself in, and he’d silently gloated about getting the last word.
“Seriously, Dick, can we talk about what happened that night?”
Dick stills, grabs a brownie, and shrugs. “I don’t know why you’ve got such a hard on for a lame party from 9 years ago, but fine. I went out on Carrie’s boat with her and Susan and Luke and Gia and some weirdo guy Gia said had the good drugs. I took the good drugs, and passed out. In the morning, Susan was gone. It’s like she pulled a, what was that actress?”
“What, Natalie Wood?”
Dick nods. “Yeah, her. Only Susan never popped back up. We searched the boat, we looked at the water. Gia even had me paddle out to see what I could see, which was a whole lot of bupkis. Whoo, big mystery, and I was questioned thoroughly by the LAPD, so. That’s the end of that.”
“You ever still hang out with those guys?”
“Yeah, sometimes. Weirdo guy with the supposed good drugs is around too often for me to like - they’re not good if you just fucking pass out - but yeah. I hang with Luke and Gia often enough. I’m hitting their engagement party on Saturday. Got a plus one if you’re looking to actually be friendly, and not just ask fucking weird questions.”
Logan nods absently, grabs a brownie. “Yeah, sounds good.”
“Excellent - now let’s hit some waves while we wait for the brownies to hit us?”
Logan nods again as he finishes the brownie before he says, “Wait, what?”
“The brownies, man. They’re my meds.” Flashes his medical marijuana card at Logan. “For the deep dark depression I was diagnosed with. You could probably get away with one too, since your mom took that runner off a bridge and your dad murdered people.”
“Ah, he only murdered one person. That we know of. He didn’t successfully kill Veronica. But I gotta head out, man. I haven’t been surfing in long enough where I want to be going on a trip while I do it.”
Dick shrugs, and starts stripping down. “Suit yourself. I’m gonna get in my gear and hit the beach. See you Saturday.”
He wanders back to the car, watches as Dick heads out the back and down the beach. Watches Dick become a pinprick on the horizon, and wraps on the trunk. Veronica pops out.
“You’re going to want to drive,” he tells her. “I accidentally got high.”
Veronica gapes at him. “I’ve been in the trunk for god knows how long and you were partying?”
“First of all,” he says, pointing a finger at her, “you chose the trunk life. You could have stayed in the very nice, very furnished house I’m renting, but no. You wanted to be adjacent to the action. And second of all, I was seduced by a brownie.”
He jerks back a little as a peel of laughter erupts from her. “Was it a hot brownie?”
“Very. Sex personified. Or, baked. Anyway. I’m more than a little high. Either Dick has the tolerance of an elephant or I need to start living less clean.”
Veronica smirks. “If Dick is anything like I remember, I’d bet good money on the first one.”
“Great. Well, uh, here are the keys.” He drops them next to her, not trusting himself to hand them over. “Where are my gloves?”
“Probably in your pocket,” she tells him. “Unless you’re just happy to see me.”
He grunts, and pulls them out. “It’s both.”
Veronica laughs again, and he seriously considers getting the brownie recipe, pot and all, just to hear her like this more often. “Where to next?”
“Luke or Gia’s,” he tells her, “but in a bit. I have to come down from this. I can see colors, Veronica.”
“You can always see colors, Logan. You’re allergic to shellfish - you’re not colorblind.” She clambers out of the trunk and walks toward the passenger side door. “Come on, princess. Your chariot awaits.”
~~~
Logan stares at Luke Haldeman’s corpse and growls. “How is this guy always a step ahead of us?”
“Well,” Veronica assesses, “it probably helps that he knows all the players in this game.”
Logan grimaces and tilts his head in acknowledgement. “He doesn’t look great.”
Veronica leans down and tries to manipulate an arm. “Rigor mortis. He’s been dead for at least 8 hours. We’re going to have to redead him.”
“No objections here. Step back.” Veronica does as he asks, and he pulls off his glove, starts the stop watch, and touches Luke, who gives a kind of gasp and doesn’t move well.
“Mmmfff,” Luke groans and Veronica and Logan stare in alarm.
“I think the rigor mortis is making it so he can’t actually help,” Veronica suggests and Logan agrees.
“Okay, Luke, sorry man,” Logan says as he reaches for him again. Luke manages to shimmy away,
“Gmmmma. Gmmmma.”
“What are you saying? Grandma?” Luke’s eyes widen slightly and he manages to make a slight negative noise. Veronica groans. “Not grandma. Then what?”
Logan looks at the walls, and sees a couple of pictures of Gia Goodman. “Gia?” Luke struggles and gives the slightest of nods. “Gia did it?”
“Gia’s in danger,” Veronica declares, and Luke’s eyes widen again in the way Logan takes as yes. Luke nods to the best of his ability, and Veronica tries to press on. “Who did this? Who did this to you?”
Luke looks resigned and mumbles unintelligibly. Logan glances down. “55 seconds. Luke, I’m really sorry you’re dead. We’ll try to save Gia.”
And then he touches him, and Luke un-reanimates.
“What’s up with the minute?” Veronica asks, and Logan shrugs.
“I don’t really know. When I make flowers come back to life, something else small tends to… to die, wilt, whatever after a minute. Near as I can tell, there’s a balance.”
Veronica stares at him. “Somebody - someone died when you kept me alive.”
“I don’t know. It’s not a one to one. It could have been, like, a bear.”
“A bear. In Neptune.”
“Large dog, whatever. I don’t know. I didn’t get a manual for how this all works and before you I wasn’t really eager to try it out, so. I’m kind of flying blind here.” Logan sighs. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t see any obits after. But, yeah. It seems to have worked out with you, but that’s no guarantee it’ll work out again.”
Veronica looks stunned. “Logan. You might have killed someone just to bring me back?”
“Yeah.” He swallows. “It isn’t a small part of that ethical dilemma thing. I don’t want to be the person who decides who lives and who doesn’t. But, it was you. And even 12 years on, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t leave you like that if I could do something about it. Damn the consequences.”
“And you didn’t tell me because?”
“You kind of already had your own thing going.”
She bares her teeth at him. Snarls, “I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Maybe I wouldn’t have been pushing for you to re-alive people if I’d known.”
He shrugs, puts his glove back on, and fiddles with some of Luke’s chotskies. “I have free will, Veronica. You can’t actually make me do anything. And I didn’t want you to feel guilty about something you didn’t do, and I didn’t want you to judge me for not letting you stay dead. So I didn’t tell you everything. You can be mad - that’s fine. But don’t take on shit that isn’t yours.”
She sighs. “You’re sure no one died when you brought me back?”
“As sure as I can be,” he answers. “It’s a random proximity thing, so chances are we would have heard. But you weigh like 20 pounds, so, like I said, it could have just hit a large cat or a raccoon.”
“I’m an adult human woman,” she retorts, and he cuts her off.
“Yeah, but does the universe know that?” Grins as she sputters.
And droops when she says, “I’m not going to get over the part where you were cool with someone dying for me.”
Stops and tries to figure out how to explain it and settles on, “Veronica, I would kill for you. Yes, even after 12 years. If I knew it would keep you safe, I’d have done, God, anything. I stayed away for 12 years. And if you want to go after this and never see me again, I get it. But you’re worth the world. So.”
Shuffles his feet as she walks over to him, feels her gloved hand tilt his head until they make eye contact. “I’m going to overlook the obvious moral failings for now. And the slight insanity of being willing to do all of this for a person you didn’t even know anymore. But we’ll probably talk about this in the future, okay?”
He nods, and she presses that same gloved hand to his mouth. He bends slightly as she kisses it, pretends he can actually feel it.
~~~
He doesn’t call Gia Goodman in advance. He just shows up at her door, trying to keep it together, trying to not let it show that he’s spent more of the last few days than he would prefer reanimating and then unanimating dead people. Tries not to let it show that he knows her fiance is dead.
Gia opens the door and greets him confusedly, and Logan realizes they’ve never formally met. Veronica just pulled up the digitized senior yearbook, and he knows her from there and Luke’s walls.
“Hi,” he says, because you have to start somewhere. “I’m, uh, I’m Logan Echolls.”
“Okay,” Gia says long and leading, and it hits him how far his social skills have fallen.
“Yeah. I used to hang out with Luke? In high school. Before I was transferred. Dick. Casablancas. He told me about your engagement and I’m back in town for a bit. Thought I’d try to catch up, buy him a celebratory drink. I, I went to his place but, uh, he doesn’t seem to be home.”
Gia doesn’t move from the door. “Okay. Well. I’ll tell him you dropped in when I see him. Logan. Does he have your number?”
He’s botched this. He knows it, Veronica is going to know it, and he can’t even blame the magic brownie anymore. “I’m not sure. Can I give it to you?”
“Sure,” she drawls out, and they stare at each other across the divide of her door jamb.
“I don’t - do you have a pen? And paper?”
She sighs, and turns away. Leaves the door open as she calls back, “Come on in, Friend of Luke’s. I’ll see what we’ve got laying around.”
He steps in, and gingerly looks around. There’s a guy sitting on her couch, and he looks back at Logan and smirks. “Oh, hey, Logan.”
“Hi. You.”
The guy’s smirk falls. “Cobb. Stu Cobbler. We went to high school together. I was in your journalism class.”
Logan remembers journalism mainly for Veronica and Duncan, but nods. “Sure, yeah. Stu.”
The guy’s face turns, and he corrects Logan with a, “It’s Cobb.”
“Okay, Stu,” Logan responds, doubling down. “I came here to talk to Gia, so.”
Stu stands up, stalks toward him. Logan watches, waits. Nothing about this guy should set off alarm bells. Just a sleezy guy with access to subpar drugs, according to Dick. But there’s something clawing around the edges. Something begging to be pieced together, and he can’t find the puzzle box.
Veronica could, and he knows it. Thumbs the phone in his pocket, and wills her intellect to guide him.
“What did you say you were doing in town?” Stu says blandly, and Logan blinks as he hears Carrie echo in his head.
“Hey, Gia,” he calls out instead. “Any luck with that pen?”
Gia huffs as she comes back out. “Yeah, I don’t know why you don’t just text him. It’s like, who has paper these days?”
Logan takes it from her, begins writing out a number he knows Luke will never ring. “I was thinking of looking up Susan, too. Susan Knight.”
He straightens up. Both Gia and Stu look peturbed. “I tried calling Carrie, but nothing.”
Stu stares, and Logan once again puts his hands in his pockets, thumbs the call button, but doesn’t press it yet.
“What did you say you were doing in town?” Stu repeats, and Logan presses down, so Veronica could hear this next part. He has a feeling it’s going to be a doozy.
Logan swallows. “Veronica Mars. She was one of my best friends growing up. I came down for the funeral. And wouldn’t you know, I keep finding dead people. I hear it started with Susan.”
Gia gasps and Stu pushes forward. “What started with Susan?”
Logan’s fingers brush against some of Gia’s decorations. “You know, my dad used to hit me. And I thought it would only be me. I thought I deserved it. But it turns out, he was just a bastard all around. Such a bastard, that he killed my girlfriend. Sounds familiar, Gia?”
He watches Gia crumble. “He, he said he wouldn’t hurt us if he kept it a secret-“
And Stu reaches into his own pocket and pulls out a gun. Logan is ready, hoists the heaviest piece of shit art Gia has displayed and hurls it at Stu. The gun goes off, the shot a bit wild, but clipping Gia all the same. He grabs the next stupid decoration, the same type he remembers littering his house, and throws it at Stu too, while he grabs for Gia and whirls around.
Stu stumbles from the hit, and Logan takes the opportunity to run, pulling Gia along behind him. She staggers and he notices the blood. “Keep it together,” he demands, and she slumps into him. Stu is slowly marching behind him. Logan envies the sense of certainty he’s carrying, like he knows he’ll win and Logan is going to lose. He pulls the phone from his pocket and says, “I’m sorry, Veronica.”
Hangs up, pulls down some shelving onto Stu, and runs.
~~~
Logan pants as he breaks through to the outer wall, carrying an unconscious Gia Goodman with him. Hears Stu Cobbler dragging behind him, and stashes Gia in a garbage can as he ducks behind one of the piles of junk in the basement.
“Where’d you run off to, Echolls?” Stu’s voice echoes off the walls. “How did you see this little fantasy of yours playing out? You thought that after a decade, you could come back and be the white knight?”
More shots, closer. He wonders if he can bring himself back, or if Veronica will die when he does. If all the flowers he’s ever made bloom eternally will wither with him. Finds a golf club and tries to pull it out without drawing Stu’s attention.
“Marco,” Stu calls out, and a voice from the darkness responds.
“Polo.”
Logan starts. Gambles and takes a peak as he clutches his golf club. He sees Stu in the low lights, and then Veronica, gliding toward Stu.
“What the fuck? You’re dead.”
“Did you think that would stop me?” She doesn’t flinch as Stu fires at her. “I’m dead, you idiot. What are bullets going to do for you now? Stu Cobbler, it’s time to face your day of reckoning.”
Stu turns to run, and Logan pops out and hits him with the golf club, hard. And then again. He goes down, and Logan hits him a third time, and then a fourth for good measure. He stops moving and Logan raises the golf club for a final blow when Veronica gets to him, and says, “Logan, stop. It’s over.”
He drops the club and takes her in. “What the fuck, Veronica?”
“I couldn’t just huddle and wait,” she argues. “He clearly could and would kill and get away with it.”
“That doesn’t mean doing,” he hand waves, “that. He shot at you.”
“Yeah, I was banking on him being scared out of his mind. Kind of worked,” she tells him. “Where’s Gia?”
“Stashed. Hey, I’m fucking furious at you, okay? But, thanks. For saving me.”
She grins. “Well, I had to return the favor. Couldn’t be owing you for the rest of our lives, you know.”
~~~
Gia Goodman survives. Logan considers the odds - one saved out of five attempts. Well, two, if you count Veronica. He doesn’t, because she’s still technically, legally, and socially dead.
No one believes Stu, not about Veronica. No one, except Keith Mars, who claps Logan on the back and says, “I thought we agreed you’d tell me if you saw my daughter again.”
Logan dips his head. “Yeah, but, you know, we didn’t put a time frame on when I’d be doing that. And I didn’t want to risk -“
He glances behind Mr. Mars, to Alicia and Veronica’s stepbrothers. Mr. Mars follows his gaze and scoffs. “I am a professional, Logan. I could handle it.”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have had to. So.” Logan waves a hand. “I did what I could so you wouldn’t.”
Veronica’s dad’s gaze remains steady. “Anything else you want to share with the class?”
“Just that I want to sleep for a week,” he answers. “Solving murders is hard work. No wonder our esteemed sheriff can’t be bothered with it.”
The snort he gets from Keith feels like a victory. The invitation to dinner, less so; but he goes, for Veronica. Listens to their stories of her. Her triumphs and her foibles. And when he finally goes to escape, Wallace follows him out.
“You know, Vee always talked you up,” he says as his opening, and Logan starts.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” The guy pauses. “Back when she wouldn’t talk to me about anything else from before, she would talk about you. How cool you were. How you took care of her. And I thought it was just grass is greener stuff; but, man, did you exceed expectations or what.”
Logan smiles sadly. “Thanks. But I still feel like I’ve failed her.”
The other guy blinks rapidly. “Yeah, man, I’d be surprised if any of us felt differently. But you got the bad guy. So, thanks.”
It’s awkward, accepting it. Veronica got the bad guy. He was just the face of the operation. But he nods his acknowledgement.
“You really leaving town?”
“Yeah, you know, there’s nothing keeping me here. And I think some space between me and Neptune might be a good thing.”
Wallace reaches out, envelopes him in a hug. “Keep in touch. I know it’s not your strong suit, but.”
“Hey, I was 16 and traumatized,” he protests as he disentangles himself from Wallace’s affection. “And I’ll see what I can do.”
He walks out of the house, and gazes up at the sky. Moving on, he thinks. He hasn’t talked to Veronica about it. About what she wants. Not since that first night when he offered to set her up some place on the Echolls family’s dime. It’s a topic he doesn’t want to broach. This time with her, these stolen moments, he’s been complete. But Veronica is a whole separate person, complete on her own and with her own life and her own agenda. She’s going to burst forth into the world and do great things, he thinks, and leave him behind to his floral arrangements.
He sighs, and drives to the apartment.
~~~
Veronica is waiting just inside the door, perched on an oversized suitcase he’s sure he’s never owned.
“What’s this?”
She shrugs. “You said you were transient, right? And you said you were looking to bounce once the case was solved. Well, Stu’s been caught and justice will be served, so I’m all packed up.”
“Where did you even get all this?” He asks, and she snorts.
“Amazon.com, my friend. And your Amex. You really shouldn’t leave your computer unlocked.”
“I didn’t expect to be rooming with a thief,” he retorts as Veronica hands him a packet. “What’s this?”
“Open it.”
He does, and Veronica’s face peers out at him from a variety of IDs. Veronica Echolls. He repeats, “What’s this?”
“Well, I can’t be Veronica Mars anymore. We’re married, by the way.” He flips through and finds the marriage certificate.
“That’s not your birthday,” he says dumbly.
She rolls her eyes. “That’s what you take from this?”
“I’m just - you’re coming with me.” She nods. “And your cover is being my wife.” She nods. “Is it just a cover?”
Veronica picks up a piece of cellophane and covers his face, his lips. He sees her through blue as she moves toward him, closes his eyes when she presses her lips to his through it. Opens them again as she pulls back, pulls the cellophane back, and whispers, “I’d like it to not be. I know it’s weird, not being able to touch, so if you’d rather not -“
“Veronica,” he starts, and then stops. Gathers his thoughts. “I’ve been alone in this since I was 16. And you’re the best person I could think of to come along for the rest of it.”
She grins, and his world tilts with it. “Good. So, do you want to load up the car? I’m going to put on my big hat and sunglasses.”
He does as she asks, and as she gets settled he walks back into the apartment he rented because she had died. Checks the corners and under the furniture, and then walks out. Puts the keys in the box and climbs into the driver’s seat. “Where to?”
“The world’s our oyster,” Veronica tells him. “Let’s see where the road takes us.”
He feels the smile stretching out his cheeks, the first one in years he can remember, reaches over, and takes one of her gloved hands in his own. She’s alive again, and he’s coming back to it too, with her, in the best of ways. It’s time to enjoy the journey. It gave him back Veronica, after all.