Veronica Mars 1. Take Away the Rain

Holes & Hollows

By Lynxgoddess and Illyria13

Disclaimer: Neither I or Lynxgoddess own Veronica Mars, the characters therein, etc.

Authors note: This is a collaboration between Lynxgoddess and Illyria13 exploring the perspectives of two characters. No AU's as of yet.

Timeline: Set season 1, no truly explicit spoilers, as of yet.

Summary: Come follow us into the minds of two characters, their feelings and responses, as life happens.

//

It was raining.

Against all odds and predictions, the normally pristine blue skies had been overrun by the pulsing, dark clouds. The day had started out picturesque, lonely rays of sunrise had cascaded over the beaches and into the homes and business of the costal town; it hadn't changed much as time passed, a gentle breeze rolling in off the Pacific, bringing the scents of fresh fruits and salt out of the ocean. A prefect day, it was a perfectly normal day that the residents of the town took for granted, thinking it was their tribute for being who they were. But it didn't last. Nothing perfect ever does. As the afternoon wore on, the first of the alien invaders made their move, an unexpected ambush that turned the playful winds into chaotic gusts. The atmosphere became harsh and heavy, a static charge warning all to head indoors. Finally, seeing her allies defeated, the vibrant sun bowed out, a graceful retreat covered by the grey and black curtains of her enemies. And so, as even the densest of Neptune, California's population sought shelter, it began to rain. All residents except one, that is.

~!~!~!~

The resounding pitter-patter is what first drew her attention. From the ball of flesh, fabric, and fur, a slight shift of the occupant's head was its first motion in hours. Tempted and attempting to ignore the noise as she ignored everything else, the ball curled back into itself. But it would not go away. Like the tapping of tiny hands against a hollow drum, the noise haunted her. She was haunted by so many things. None of them ever bowed to her wants, staying when she begged them to go and leaving when she cried for them to remain. Maybe this one was better than the others, newer and unknown and maybe, just maybe capable of unmaking the last few inches of her. What did it matter what she thought? They summoned and called and beckoned and no matter the cost she would follow. It moved. Slowly and disjointed and unwilling abandon, the ball moved until it was no longer a ball but a girl and a dog in dark room with no one watching. She stumbled and tripped but the girl made it to the door, the only barrier between her and her seducer. She didn't stop or pause or acknowledge anything as the knob jumped into her hand and the door banged open with the force of the wind against it. As the girl tumbled into the world outside, the door snapped shut behind her, a lonely protest to misbegotten actions. Not caring where or why, the figure was lost in the maelstrom, making its way to roars and grunts of the angry waves.

~!~!~!~

It was raining.

That was the first thing she really knew about today. The awful, saving, confusing, damning fog that played over her memories and emotions was finally lifted by the violent slaps of raindrops on her skin.

Why was she out in the rain?

Her question was cut off as the water rushed up the shore to grab at her feet and ankles, tauntingly inviting her to come join it. For a moment, without knowing why, she was tempted. Quickly shaking her head, the thought was pushed away. If she went in now, she'd never leave. The idea of being trapped and forgotten, held in the embrace of the ocean before her was horrifying and magnetic. But she couldn't. There were reasons why she couldn't, even if she didn't remember them right now.

Tilting her face up to catch the worse of the storm, the questions and concerns and responsibilities and fears fell away from her like so many drops of rain. She stood. Feet spread apart, head thrown back, arms fluttering at her sides, she stood and let the storm take her. Let it remake her into something new, something old, something that could do more than survive the storm but thrive in it.

~!~!~!~

Her hair was heavy. It was an anvil and tried, again and again, to drag her down. The dress wasn't much better, a stained white made whiter by sand and sea spray; it barely clung to the top of her chest, covering her modesty and keeping her unexposed. That bothered her.

What good was modesty now?

Her pale hands and pruned fingers turned to claws and desperation, struggling with the button of her gown. Unable to resist the onslaught of anger and panic, the garment sliced open and slithered down her body to pool at her knees. A shudder followed the possessive movement, disguised by the weight and determination of the dress to stay with her. Seeing the returning tide, she stepped out of the stagnant materials and allowed the ocean that called her here to carry the burden back out with it, never to be found again. As the downpour of the early evening turned into gentle rain and rising mist, the measure last measures of denial and confusion faded away. She turned, barefoot in only a bra and underwear, and left to find her way back, the vapors of the day obscuring and shielding her until she made it.

~!~!~!~

Her father wasn't home, chasing some fleeing criminal or other bad guy. Someplace that wasn't here. She was grateful for that. He wouldn't see the mess she made. The mess she was. As she had stepped back into her old new life, the faithful dog had come up to her, growling and whining, pleading in his way for her to be alright. She wasn't. She didn't even notice him. She locks the door out of habit or spite, she isn't sure which.

What was there left to take?

She doesn't stop until she's in the bathroom and the showers on and if she forgets to take off the rest of her clothes, no one's going to tell on her. The hot water doesn't last long, but while it does she lets it scald and burn the dark things from her. While it lasts. Then she feels the wet fabric and rips it off. The smack they make when they hit the tile would have startled someone if someone was here. No one is.

The water is beyond cold, and she shivers for a physical reason now. She wants to stay in here, with the cold and the shakes and the not feeling. No more water falls down on her, cleansing or punishing because she's turned it off. Stepping over the edge of the tub takes more effort than it should, not from slickness or lack of traction, but because she aches. And she hurts, maybe more than she ever has. And she doesn't think of that right now. She doesn't think of words – _never should have come here – what a slut – grow some backbone_ - or thoughts – _I know better – let this happen – stupid – asked for it_ – or deeds – _fingers in her hair – teeth on her skin – flesh pressing her down – _that echo though her.

She doesn't want to look in the mirror, doesn't want to see, doesn't want to remember. She doesn't want to know. But she does. She does. She does. She looks and she sees and she may not remember but she knows. She'll always know now. No matter what happens from here on, she'll always know this. The way her eyes are empty and shallow. The dark circles and make-up smears streaked her face. The nips and bruises and tiny cuts like the teeth that made them trailing from her jaw to her neck to her shoulders. The red and swollen breasts stinging her every time she moved. The finger imprints marring her wrists and hips and thighs and butt. Yes, she'll always remember this.

She leaves the bathroom and doesn't turn the light off. She doesn't dress and as much as she wants to fall, she gently crawls into bed. The dog doesn't come to her. She pulls the blankets up and sleeps.

~!~!~!~

She sleeps for two days. Her father is frantic and on the verge of coming home without his bounty. She tells him she was sick and couldn't get up. She tells him she's better and he listens. She's lying.

She knows there are things to do today. The dog must be hungry. She feeds it and takes it out to use the bathroom. The mess must the taken off. She cleans the living room and the bathroom and throws the dirty things away. She gets dressed and leaves. She goes alone to a free clinic in a nearby city. The workers don't ask about her bruises or her silence; they've seen it all. The doctor, an older woman, doesn't look at her face at all while she examines her, just looks and draws blood. A worker comes in and asks her questions. Most of them she can't answer; sometimes she lies. She thinks the worker knows this but says nothing. Finally they give her antibiotics and creams and offer one last pill. It's a special pill, what most call a bad one. A tool of the devil for hussies and brazen women who don't wait for the marriage bed and aren't careful. She doesn't care; there was no miracle that night. So she swallows and doesn't gag. They tell her to come back in two weeks for her blood panel results. She nods and leaves and wonders if she'll make it two weeks.

~!~!~!~

She does. Her father is back and watches her closely, sure something is wrong. She tells him it's the kids at school and not to worry because summer was almost here. The food on her plate is mostly untouched and her nights are filled with lack of sleep. The grades she brings home are better than ever and she doesn't speak. He is proud but he worries and hovers. Two days to go and he has another and leaves because they need the money and she told him to. She is alone and wishes she wasn't but is relieved that she is. She doesn't have a mother or a best friend or a boy friend or anyone at all to see her live and die in two weeks.

She goes back to the clinic and they put in her a conference room. She doesn't think this is good. Another weary and jaded worker comes in and sits across from her. The woman hands her a cup and tell her to go to the restroom and fill it while she looks over the results. When the cup is half full she comes back and gives it to the worker who pages for someone else who takes it away. Her hands are washed and clean and she fold them in her lap as she listens to what the worker has to say. She doesn't have HIV or herpes anything that is untreatable. She does have Chlamydia and her exam showed evidence of multiple partners.

She wants to cry but she doesn't feel anything. She is given a bottle of antibiotics that will treat the disease, a monotone lecture about safe sex, and a brochure for sexual assault victims.

Is that what she is, a victim? Or is she a shell, hollowed out by the force of the ocean and the nightmares she doesn't have, as pure and pristine as the salt of the sea can make her?

As she stands up to leave, the woman receives a call and tells her stop. There is one more thing. The worker tells her and she leaves. The pills are stuffed away, the lecture forgotten, and the brochure is thrown in the trash as the girl heads out the door. She knows she is never going back.

~!~!~!~

For the first time, she dreams. There is grabbing and pushing and hurting and laughing, and she sleeps through it all. An eternal bride that never wakes for her wedding night no matter who her husband is, the fairytale princess she always never wanted to be. Her best friend watches, bloodied and broken and stare at her with dead eyes like her own. She wakes up and knows it's a nightmare and a dream and she smiles. Because she can still dream. She goes back to the bathroom and looks in the mirror. She still knows it. But now she knows more and scissors appear in her hand. She cuts and golden innocence and promises fall like rain. When she is done she is different and she knows this. She'll remember this.

She goes back to her room and dreams again. This time her friend is smiling and happy in a sparkly dress, she watches as a ghost appears with long hair and a shy smile that wears a white dress. It is her. She watches as her ghost goes to her friend. They hug and spin each other in circles. She watches as they turn back to her and wave before they laugh together and dance away. She is alone again.

She is Veronica Mars and her best friend Lilly Kane is dead and her mother is an alcoholic who abandoned her and her former friends are now her enemies. She is Veronica Mars and she is hardened and sad and angry and determined. She is Veronica Mars and a victim and her life isn't going to end in nine months and she isn't a mother and maybe never will be. She is Veronica Mars and she is going to find out who killed her friend and who made her a victim and she is going to make them pay. And then they will be very sorry that she is Veronica Mars, the diviner of storms.

/////

He doesn't see her appearance at the mansion, but hears about it from the others around him. Their whispers and their taunts draw his attention, and he sees her in the room looking out of place and a part of him is drawn to her because they were _are_ friends and he knows she is in pain just like he is. The rest of him feels only contempt and rage at her daring to come here, to the party thrown by people she is no longer a part of. In her white dress of lace and silk, of innocence and purity, she stands out among the others, but doesn't seem to let it bother her. He admires her guts and he hates her presence and he watches as she drinks from a cup of plastic and sin, knowing somehow that this night marks the beginning of the end of something he can't describe. So he turns his attention from the only real person standing in their midst and he drinks from his own bottle and thinks that maybe he can make it through _just one_ more night.

He loses track of her after that, whether by purpose or ignorance he doesn't know and can't bring himself to care, and instead joins the rest of the group as they joke and drink and hide their already hidden pain through fake smiles and cutting remarks. And he doesn't want to admit that he is just like them, even though he'd rather slit his own wrists than become them, and then ignores how much that thought appeals to him. Instead, he accepts a bottle full of vice and pastes on his mask of broken shards and wonders when he became so good at lying to himself about how fucked up he really was and thinks that he never knew a time where he wasn't.

He stares at her from across the backyard, looking at the way she is draped over the couch, in the arms of two boys they go to school with. The drooling idiots are all over her, and a flash of irritation bursts through him. But he isn't sure if it is at them, or at her, for allowing them to be there, kissing them on the mouth and the lips and he wonders briefly if she is using her tongue. He sees the blonde Barbie named Sinclair glaring at the trio, affronted at the attention her boyfriend is giving the drunken girl in his arms, and thinks idly that the bitch should do something about it. And he catches himself on that thought, confused as to which girl he was referring to; was it Madison Sinclair with her sickening pink lips and glossy red nails or the inebriated wild child pouring down shots like they were going out of style?

He takes a swig of his beer to occupy his attention, but is frozen by the picture that flashes in his mind. He glances up and takes a second look, and sees an image of a blonde-brunette with a love for boys and money sprawled on red concrete next to an aquamarine shimmer, eyes the color of leaves glassy and blank. The imprint is stuck in his head and now when he looks at the scene in the living room, all he can see is a delicate, porcelain doll, helpless against the ferocity of the boys she is with. He steps forward, not knowing what he is doing or what he plans on doing, but knows that _something_ is always better than _nothing. _It has nothing to do with the dead girl in red and everything to do with the girl that he thought he could love, even though she could never, would never, isn't, wasn't capable of loving him.

Yet _nothing _is what occurs because he too is drunk, and all he wants is to forget the pain. Because isn't forgetting the pain in your life the reason guys like him drink? Or maybe the reason to drink, for a high school rich kid, is that there _is_ no reason; nothing other than his own shattered thoughts and the broken reel of film that plays the endless tragedies of life? Of course, he could create a reason if he really, _truly_ thought about it, but he doesn't because he'd much rather delude himself with the _no reason_ than be honest about the real ones.

But the thing he hates about drinking in front of _them, _his peers and his fellows and his wretched, weakling friends, is that none of them will stop him. Because they know deep down that they too would be drinking the way he does if they had his life; and they won't stop him, because to do so would give him a different target on which to vent his rage and then, God forbid, they might actually have to _do_ something about him, help him, and that is just an unacceptable act. But he doesn't want their help; even though he knows he needs it, because nobody can help erase what has been done.

So he keeps with his drinking and stands in his own shadow and ignores the stupidity of the people around him. He doesn't think about the doll with her own glassy eyes and forgets about the girl-love lying dead on the ground. He knows only about the moment he is in, right here and right now, and decides to live his life two seconds behind, in that moment. Because tonight there is nothing but the drink and the party, and tomorrow there will be nothing but the sun and the porcelain god. And the only _things_ around him are the broken rich children that play Mommy and Daddy and know nothing of the real world because of their own white lies.

He grabs a nearby girl and convinces her to dance, _ring around the rosy _which turns out to be more like a spinning top with arms and legs, and _ashes to ashes _they tumble to the ground with a nursery rhyme _they all fall down_ ringing in his ears. He gets up and leaves her there, finding another girl that catches his attention, and together they drink. Making a game out of it is more fun than just straight drinking it and, with a few others joining in, they drink as if it were water and they were dying men in the desert. And he thinks to himself in the back of his mind, that maybe he should slow down a little, because spending the night in the hospital _been there, done that_ is not the most fun thing to do. But tonight is a night of no consequences and he admits to himself, as he seems to be doing a lot lately, that he really doesn't care if he lives or dies, seeing as how he is doing neither, _both, _at the moment.

A shout of drunken laughter catches his attention, and he spies a large group surrounding someone lying down on a pool chair across the yard. And when he sees the blonde tresses, and the simple white dress, he feels the world fade as he recognizes the nearly unconscious girl. But it is for only a second, and the world returns with his senses, and he is no longer aware, no longer caring; that the girl is Lilly's other half or that he even knows her, once upon a time, because _once upon a time_ was long ago, and things change. Here there are no princesses or knights, no dragons or towers high in the sky; there is only blood on concrete and alcohol to drink and the emptiness of never being loved, and the wondering of a scared little boy that thinks to himself _can he ever love someone?_, as he hides in the closet from the monster with the face of his father.

The only thing he has learned from his father is that alcohol dulls pain, whether poured directly on a wound or savored from a glass, and he takes that lesson to heart. Since he doesn't know the girl in front of him, completely out of it, it is easy to watch as the others pour their drinks on her arms and face and chest, to laugh as they lean down and lick it off, and to join in with his own poison of choice. He drinks and he laughs and for once, the voices in his head are silent, muted by the joy of being the one who is not at the center of attention. And he tells himself that there is nothing wrong with enjoying himself, that the strange-girl-that-is-not-a-stranger wouldn't be letting them do this if she wasn't enjoying it herself, ignoring the voice that is suddenly not mute that reminds him of how much she has had to drink and that someone with a blood alcohol level capable of blowing a hole in the world is not the poster child for consent.

He is brought back when another person joins their merry band of fools and he is affronted and pissed when he lifts the girl onto her unstable feet and starts to drag her away. In this world there are no heroes, and this knight-in-shining armor is destroying his illusions of the way the world works and it is too damaging, too unacceptable. Because he thinks that maybe it should have been him who saved the girl, and maybe he would have, if the other hadn't come along and ruined it all. But he doesn't know if he is jealous or relieved, for being saved from being the hero and all he can wonder is what to do with this dark-haired savior that the blonde is looking at so adoringly. While he can't remember her, he does remember the guy, and to see his best friend taking yet another thing from him brings suppressed urges to the surface.

The white knight is the epitome of everything he never was and it tore him up inside when he envied him or hated him, because this particular knight is no longer white or pristine, and the ruby red of a little sister stains his armor and his helm. But a moat of emptiness stretches between them, and no amount of friendship can ever give them back what they'd lost. And the pain that remained unspoken between them only succeeded in driving them further apart.

It is this that drives him to pick up a cup for his once best-friend and it is his own love for the brother he always wanted but never had that finds nothing morally wrong with spiking the drink. All he wants to give his friend is a good time, where he can finally be at peace with the death of his flower and ignore the pain that threatens to engulf him. He doesn't think about the consequences of this act, because tonight there are none, and by now, he too is so far gone that _right_ and _wrong_ are now _purple_ and _blue _and lights and sirens could appear and he wouldn't do a thing except laugh. So he does, minus the lights and the sirens, and watches as his friend brings the now unconscious harlot inside, and he laughs as he stumbles on the ground he walks, barely catching himself on a nearby table _a person's arm_ and he continues to laugh as he goes inside the house to seek a chair on which to sit.

He is still laughing, though it is quieter and more to himself than others, when he sees the not-white knight ambling, or more like stumbling, down the hall, returning from a room that he shut behind him. As he watches, eyes blurring and head spinning, lungs heaving with hysterical laughter, other people enter the same room and close the door not-quietly behind them. He doesn't understand what is so amusing about them opening the door and walking in, but the thought still causes a fresh peal of laughter to escape, but it stops quickly and suddenly it is hard to breathe. Red dots flash on the edge of his vision, and he lurches drunkenly to his feet, and he thinks to himself that he _must _be dying and it's so strange because he can swear that the carpet appeared a lot softer than it really was. But it's not soft at all; instead the fibers rub against his cheek roughly and he wonders if they are strong enough to rip off the skin and furiously, he rubs his face back and forth across the ugly brown carpet, hoping and wishing and praying that it would work. All he succeeds in doing is give himself a burn across his face and he realizes how truly _pathetic_ he is that he wants a carpet to do what he can't seem to be capable of doing on his own.

So he picks himself up and leaves this place, his very own house of a rising sun, and makes it back to the dwelling that others call 'home'. But it isn't home, not for him, because isn't home supposed to be where the heart is, and last time he checked, the occupants of this _home_ never had hearts to begin with. And he doesn't know how he made it there in one piece, considering the amount he has had to drink, and finds he doesn't care that he did. He pictures a bridge with its' unending tranquility of being high above water and wonders if it would be suspicious if he had an _accident_, the type that ends in twisted metal and a missing body in its' watery grave. It is too late, however, and he doesn't have the strength or presence of mind to even find his way to the ledge, so he drags himself to his room and collapses just barely on the edge of the bed. When the world stops spinning and his ceiling is no longer twisting above him, he'll think about something other than death and blood and loss; instead, he'll focus on the blonde in white lace that he hated because he knew that she was far too much like him and someone like that was dangerous because they had power over him.

The next morning, or rather afternoon, comes too soon and he finds himself in a familiar position, huddled on the icy floor of his bathroom, thinking that yes, the porcelain is his god, and that sooner or later his stomach will stop rebelling and that his head will finally desist in pounding in rhythm with his pulse. He thinks that he will not go to school today and knows he won't be the only one skipping due to post-party hangovers. But then he remembers that today is the first day of spring break and he has a whole week to himself, as dearest dad is filming a movie somewhere in Europe, sister is gone and mother, he is sure, has some kind of hair or nail appointment. So he sinks back to the floor and continues his routine and is thankful for the school board that gives kids like him a holiday. And he won't have to deal with the idiots at his school or the blonde half of his dead girlfriend's soul or his almost best friend with his issues and his so-called problems. Instead he can stay with his only true friend and continue the same empty routine of drink and be sick, drink and be sick, and it's comforting in its simplicity compared to everything else in the world.

And the week is over before he knows it and he goes back to the almost-hell of Neptune High and the students there that think they are the devil's advocate where they're only sad, broken versions of the children they used to be. He joins them however, because a week straight of alcohol has shown him that he is exactly like them, in his very own way, and he keeps his eyes peeled for the blonde in white lace so he can torment and hate her even more than usual. But he doesn't see her and he can't understand the disappointment that flashes through him or the concern that briefly crosses his mind. As the bell rings, and he melds with the crowd of students heading to class, something tells him to look to the left, and he sees a glimpse of the girl that he claims to hate and he stops in his tracks, almost colliding with a wall. Because the girl no longer has long blonde locks and her eyes are hard diamonds of scorn and mockery as they scan the faces that surround her, and he feels something inside of him harden in response but doesn't know why he feels threatened by that gaze.

He is Logan Echolls, son of actor Aaron Echolls and his oh-so loving wife, and he doesn't know what love is because neither do his parents and their job is to teach him everything they know. He is Logan Echolls and at night, he has dreams of the blonde-brunette with green eyes and a smile covered in sticky red blood, holding a lily in her hands. He is Logan Echolls, and he has _no reason_ to drown himself in alcohol or think of slitting his veins open from wrist to elbow or have an accident where nobody knows where his body is.

He is Logan Echolls, and it isn't until later in the day that he realizes why the azure gaze of the now-short blonde unsettles him so much. He is Logan Echolls and she is Veronica Mars and she knows his secrets as much as her own because they are alike, him and her, because they walk with the living but dream with the dead. He is Logan Echolls and he knows only one sure thing in his crazy mess of a world and it is that Veronica Mars has a secret that has changed her, and that she will stop at nothing to take back the rain.

//

End.

Authors note 2: This may or may not be the end of the fic. We are thinking of doing more parts, but cannot promise anything.


	2. Headlines of Tragedy

Disclaimer: Neither I or Lynxgoddess own Veronica Mars, the characters therein, etc.

AN1: This is a collaboration between Lynxgoddess and Illyria13 exploring the perspectives of two characters.

Timeline: Set season 1, no truly explicit spoilers, as of yet.

AN2: Merry Christmas, Lynx!

**Chapter 2**

**Headlines of Tragedy**

**/**

Today is school. Almost everyday is school but today is special because today is the first day she'll be attending now that she's back in her own skin. Did anyone notice that she hasn't been here for a while? They don't because that would mean they see her and all they see is what they want to see. She wishes she could hate them for that, for being young and blind and capable of drowning themselves in drugs or drink or flesh. They can, she knows, she's watched them, lies and drama and excitement filling them up like glasses of wine and spilling out onto the ground. But she doesn't hate them for this when there are so many other reasons why she could.

In pairs and groups the students gather and webs spin between them. It is speech and gossip and essential like air. Their mouths open and noises like screeches and barks sometimes emerge. Laughter, she had forgotten laughter. They laugh at her. They laugh because she is loose and easy and eager to please. They laugh at the lies they make and the people they break because it is all they know and she doesn't care. Once upon a time that had been different.

Once upon a time, in a time not long ago and a place very much like here except not, there were two girls. One was loud and bright and selfish and adored and sensual, the full flush of arousal in summer light. The other is timid and sweet and quiet and pretty, the pale pink of white roses before winter. They are perfect together because they care and clash and complement. But the princess went away, leaving her fragile opposite in a rush of crimson and heat. The sun is gone and the rose wilts.

She's not a rose anymore. She isn't purity and innocence. She once was a lake but now she's the sea. She is obsession and unforgiveness and the garden is dead. But the ashes of thorns won't let the bones of her sister rot in the dirt.

Their laughter used to cut her. It used to bend her head and bow her knees. Not anymore. Their words and slurs and hate can't touch her. She has too much of her own to let theirs in. Her hair is short and it frees her. They freed her. They broke her down and tried to make her sleep like the princess that isn't. She was pieces and chips and cracks but she's better now. The seams are stitched and the edges glued and she looks at them with scorn. Because she is free and they aren't.

Let them laugh. Let them tell their jokes and play their pranks. Let the speculation run through their empty lives. It doesn't matter. They don't matter. For all their money and looks and pride, all they will ever be are wisps of humanity: faint, fading, and nothing in the endless eternity before them.

She walks forward, head up and eyes glaring back at any that look at her. Unafraid because there is nothing left in her to hurt. One brave –foolish- idiot steps in her way. It makes a comment, full of mocking and scorn. A year ago, the idiot wouldn't have dared to say such to her. Two weeks ago, she might have cried at the words. Yesterday, she wouldn't have heard a thing. Today, she gives better than she got, and the idiot is exposed for the weak, cowardly thing it is. It is now the object of their laughter and crumbles under the pressure.

She doesn't. She hasn't. And now, she never will.

~!~!~!~

Today is a day. Most days are. But today is different because she is different and that tells her things. She isn't the only one. She had scanned their faces _– thin pale round flat dark sharp –_ and their eyes – _blue brown green gray – _but she doesn't know any of them. But him, she knows him. His eyes are black and he is shadow hiding in shadows. His edges are cruel and sharp and she loves them. He doesn't love her. She doesn't want him to. The memory doesn't fade while he watches her. He watches her now and he watched her then. Watched while she was broken, watched but didn't see. That much, she remembers.

It is only a moment, an instant, this flicker of memory. In the haze of light and feeling and sound that is that night, his face peers at her from its cocoon of pulsing red and sickly blue. He is removed from her, dark eyes filled with disgust as she danced with the demons of the past. Fleeting recollection and shifting truths are the territory they meet on now. He was there and he saw her and he knows, even if he doesn't _know_. It should terrify her, make her question and hate him. She does, but not for this. Instead, she has the cold comfort of knowing that someone will remember the night she ceased to exist but lived on anyway.

Now that she is broken and better and free, she sees him. She watched him before too. Watched with eyes that couldn't see. He didn't know what breaking meant. He's always been broken and scared and alone and now she is too. He is anger and fear and helpless rage and he is lucky. Lucky that he doesn't remember what it was like to be anything else. But he isn't free. He is strength, enough strength to bear the fractures and live not being whole. He is anger and strength and she is freedom and fury and they are perfect together. They bleed the same poison and live in the same masks and speak the same lies. They are magnificent ruin and forgotten memories and empty graves. They hate each other and don't fit right and that is why they are divine imperfection. In a world that doesn't exist, in a place that time cannot touch, he is Logan Echolls and she is Veronica Mars and together their reflections cast no shadows.

~!~!~!~

There is one other person who should, maybe, see the difference in her. The boy, the one, the only thing she regrets finishing and thanks for being over. But even with the past and friendship and more between them, he is blind, always and never changing. She is glad she doesn't wait for him anymore.

Her knight never comes. Then again, he isn't her knight anymore. Or maybe he never was to being with. He was a prince who pretended to be knight and now isn't either. He dressed low and spoke soft and it was all an act. The worse kind of act is that which makes us believe. She believed. She had believed because he said and did the right things to make her throw down her hair. _Let me in. Let me in._

Was that this story? Was she trapped in a tower, a helpless thing in need of rescuing? Did she sit and wait for her beloved to wash the bad things away?

But she believed in other things now. Things like vengeance and do-unto-others and hatred. She has enough hatred to choke on in the dark light of morning, when the sunless red sky is omen and blessing and prayer for the lost.

She had loved him. They always said they were meant for each other, eternal and forever. He convinced her that she was his and tried to see the deepest parts of her. He failed. They weren't forever. They were hidden secrets and murder and despair. Maybe they had never been anything more than a half remembered wish offered up by lonely children for companionship. But no children lived in the hollows that they had become. He left her, scorned their sweet whispers and fervent pledges. The throne beckoned and he threw her away for all the money and riches in the world. His sister said he was no knight in shining armor. She was right. Duncan Kane wasn't a knight; he was the prince of a castle built on betrayal and lust. Now, he's a boy fed on sorrow and Valium, a sleeping beauty in his own right.

What kind of king could he ever grow up to be?

~!~!~!~

But she is finally back among the real. _In a way_. She is back among her classmates of plastic dolls and cardboard faces, pretending that life is real and that it _matters_. Everything that matters is so far from real, irony doesn't begin to cover it. Still, the motions are familiar and that's something like comfort, she guesses, or maybe its contempt. Irrelevant, in the circles she thinks and the dreams she buries. The rain is over, and so is this first day, this trial, and she thinks she is guilty. Neptune High is shocked, nearly silent, nearly motionless, by the insults she says and the fists she throws. They had to learn, money and lineage and golden child status won't save them from her. Not when determination and courage and kindness and decency hadn't done the same for her. They'll pay, for everything – guilty or not.

Why should she get to have all the fun?

It is over, and although she doesn't want to admit it, today was hard. It was hard to look at the happy memories of childhood and see them tainted with shadows of an ugly truth. It was hard to look into the faces of former friends and tentative allies with their disgust easily visible and ask herself where the monsters were. Not a one of them are innocent, she knows, but it's hard to think any of them might be the monster she's looking for.

There's one face she doesn't search into because she knows it as she knows – _knew_ – her own. She does it anyway, out of spite or thoroughness or something. His white teeth and perfected smile, not directed at her of course, are a beacon to the rich and tattered crowds. They flock to him out because he seems so full of life and daring and maybe just a little bit dangerous for them. And, oh, how wrong they are. Logan Echolls is dangerous, no doubt, but only to himself. And his eyes are dead, even if they, _he_, can't see it. She can, because she's got a matching set of her own. So much they have in common, the dead boy and the ghost girl.

It's hard because of the humanity of it all.

People touch her. It is inevitable, natural, even. An accidental brush of shoulders or the crash of sticky hands, each is a part of the human experience. She doesn't mean to think it but she does. Every touch is theirs and the despair and the helplessness is theirs too. The bodies get too close to her out of chance or love and her skin tenses and tingles and feels a hurt that isn't there. So she yells or snaps or pushes and soon they all know to stay away. Unless they're here to harm and she'll let them try. She doesn't want them near her because she can't stand the way it feels. Its sickening flesh, grabby and clammy and needy and she can barely stand her own let alone anyone else's. And, god, she knows it's not about skin, not really. But that's what skin is to her: pain and promise and power etched into eternity.

Today was a day she wanted to forget. Except she has no choice but to remember because memories are sacred, even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones, they define her even if she doesn't know what they are. So she remembers now because she can't remember then.

~!~!~!~

There was one more thing she had to do, one more person she had to face. The only one who knew what had happened, that's the curse of being dead, knowing everything. A burden she should give anything to place on someone else's shoulders, anyone else, anything else to spare the sister of her soul the agony of knowing how badly her loss ruined them all.

Maybe we're all dead and that night didn't end one life but four. Four little children all in a row…. Cut one down and watch the others go.

Maybe Duncan really is the perfect son Celeste always wished for, willingly drugged and carelessly obedient because it's so fucking easy when someone else is living your life for you. He turns his back on everything his sister taught him about youth. That this life, rich and empty as they were born into, could only be made meaningful, could only be filled, by action. Action and daring and fun times on a steep edge, all liquid want and hard needs and the satisfaction found at the end of a parental breakdown.

Maybe Logan really is the jackass he always pretended to be, drowning in young love's bloody rage and arrogant contempt for the world. He doesn't want to remember the lesson she showed him with her touches and her lips and her love. That he is loved and loving. He is worthy and capable and sometimes there's more to sex than just the rutting of two bodies in motion. He forgets that despite all the other men, her infidelities and her secrets, she always came back to him for a reason. A light thrived in him that she couldn't live without. And he's forgotten to let it out.

Maybe Lily really was the spoiled rich girl everyone paints her as, the fake friends and laughing enemies. She was self-centered and loyal to those that were hers to the end. She was unfaithful and protective of the others weaknesses, Logan's past and Duncan's dream world and Veronica's innocence. She fought with her parents like a hellcat, trying to interject some life into the tomb her house had become. She was shallow and loved to experience everything. Lilly was a lily, beautiful to look at and poisonous underneath. That was how she kept them together, leaving the badness for the world outside and the beauty for a few.

Maybe all the lies and whispers they said about Veronica were true, a slut and a drunk, just like her mother. An apple that rotted on the tree and didn't even bother to fall to the ground, she's the talk of the town for a new generation.

And maybe Thought and Memory don't matter. Not anymore, not here, not now, when she's tired and broken and waiting for all the pieces to fall apart or fit together or do something. When she forgets that she promised to be strong and unbreakable and untouchable.

But she's only tired for a moment. A moment that is a second too long and an hour too short and that's all it takes for her to fall. Falling into mist and memory and time and the stillness of the grave, she is gone before the world begins to spin.

/

He was standing on the ledge of a bridge.

He was standing on the edge of forever, on the edge of a once-golden world, on the edge between nothing and everything with only emptiness and silence howling in his ears. Water flowed below him, cooling and choppy and beseeching, reaching up to him with open arms and asking for permission to enfold him in its' embrace, and he wants to. He wants to step into the abyss and never look back, fall into the darkness and never look up for a hand that's reaching down to save him but isn't actually there. Because that's the truth of the matter, that nobody will save him; he could die right here- here and now, now and here- and the world would never mourn him. It would never even notice he was gone.

And he wonders which is the greater tragedy, apathy or anonymity?

He was standing on the ledge of a bridge, one foot over the edge.

It was strange the things that went through his mind as he looked down at the tempestuous waters below. He thinks to himself that his position is really kind of dangerous and finds that the thought doesn't bother him at all and wonders if maybe he really wants to die. For most people, the fact that they were even on a bridge at all would be a good indication, but not for him, because he has always enjoyed standing here in this spot, tempting fate and the gods and every power out there. Here is where the dead and the almost-dead meet and place bets, on this bridge overlooking a body of water, in the middle of a town named after the Roman God of the Sea. And he thinks that there must be some irony in that, because Neptune had dominion over nothing but the fresh water and its inhabitants and no power over any part of land, so why name a city for a God that can by his very definition never protect them?

But he has no answer for that riddle because a riddle cannot answer and he knows that nothing in the world makes any sense, so of course it made sense that he couldn't answer his own question. And isn't that the sign of someone going crazy, when the voices in the mind start answering back? It doesn't matter though, because he has never been very stable and he wouldn't even know if he was crazy since the insane are going to believe that they are very much sane.

He shakes his head abruptly, forcing his thoughts to the back of his mind because he knows that such things will only drive him mad. And while he's already mad, he doesn't want it to be because of his own thoughts. He'd rather be mad because of the things that he's seen, the things that he's felt; from the things that he's done to others and the things that have been done to him. Because that's the truth to madness: it comes from knowing too much. Too much about the world, about the life people hold to be so precious; from losing the innocence and naivety taken for granted by so many.

He isn't innocent. Not anymore. Not after everything he's been through in his relatively short life. He's seen too much and been lost for too long to ever be anything but jaded. It was fists against flesh, bruises on skin, falsehood and lies and hollowed-out lives that have led him here, to this moment in time and this place in space.

He was standing on the ledge of a bridge, one foot over the edge and arms spread wide like wings.

Logan has always been fascinated by death. The thought, the action, the smell of it seems to permeate every pore of his body and he is just fine with that. And he can't think of a time when there was anything else, when death and the possibility of dying didn't seem to be an intrinsic page in the journal of his life.

Lily died first, her body found crumbled on red-smeared concrete, thrown aside like a broken and used rag doll. And she was used, by everyone in her life; used by him and Veronica and Duncan to fill the holes in their lives. Used by her parents, for the status that comes with having another heir to their empire of glass and sand, by every man that ever looked at her with that same glint of lust in their eyes; used by herself to fill the emptiness of a life lived by others. And it was the others, everyone around the poisonous flower, that couldn't handle it when she was gone. There is a hole in their souls now, because without her they are nothing but shadows.

Lily died first, but even that is not the truth, because Logan died long before her. He died when he was but a child, when he realized that fathers don't pull punches against their sons, mothers do nothing but watch with a martini in hand, and that sisters pretend to hear only the loud music they blast in their room. He died with every split lip and black eye, every lie he told that was believed even in the face of contradiction, and with every time he looked in the mirror and hated what looked back.

But he comforts himself with a cold truth, one of the only truths he can acknowledge without losing anymore of himself to the bitter reality that is life.

He is not the only one.

Lily died first, Logan before her, and Duncan and Veronica will be next; it's only a matter of time. In the world that they live in, with the company they keep, amongst the scattered remains of their families, the only inevitable end for them all is death. He knows this with all the breath in his body, knows this like he knows himself; knows with every brutal lesson, every painful truth, that death is more than the beginning. It is the start and the end, the siren and the scream; the tragedy that was Romeo& Juliet with the ending of Cain & Abel. Because they are all linked, him and Lily and Duncan and Veronica, and the only way left for them to fall is through each other.

And fall they do.

Because Lily died first and left them behind. Because Duncan couldn't handle all the looks and the whispers and the splinters of a life littered with the betrayals of his parents. Because Veronica thought that she was still one of them, still part of the inner circle of battered rich kids and broken dolls. Because Logan didn't know how to be anything other than dead and was lost without the one anchor he'd always had against the storm.

Because they were alive once, all of them, and somehow, somewhere, in some way, they'd lost everything that had kept them whole.

And Lily died first, Logan before her, and Veronica and Duncan are the only two left. But then he thinks of cerulean eyes of stone and shorn golden locks, and realizes that Veronica has already started down the path that will lead her to them. He doesn't know how or why, but he does know broken, and their soft rose of gold has definitely been torn from the bush.

He tilts his face up towards the sky, stares into the inky black of night, and wonders at a world that kills children with such ease. But wondering won't bring any of them back, and it's foolish of him to think differently.

So Logan died first at the hands of his parents. And Lily was second; the victim of a predator within their midst. Third will be Veronica, trapped within the clutches of a deadly secret known only to her. And Duncan will be the last, because the golden boy is always the one who crumbles after all the others fall.

And then there were none.

_Ashes to ashes, we all fall down; Jack and Jill and a broken crown._

He was standing on the ledge of the bridge, one foot over the edge and arms spread wide like wings, and wishes he had the strength to make one foot into two.

~!~!~!~

He sits in the classrooms and ignores the teachers, endless hour after endless hour and all he can think of is the bottle in his car. But he's not an alcoholic, he's not dependent on a liquid beverage, because he's a teenager and there's no such thing as an alcoholic teenage rich boy. _Methinks the lady doth protest too much_ he muses and catches his laughter in his throat before it can gain the attention of anyone else. Because he doesn't need their attention or their fake smiles or false sincerities and it's probably only his own slowly slipping self-control that stops him from making a mistake that he'd regret.

A bell rings and he slips out, walking briskly to his car while glaring at any who look as though they might try to stop him or get in his way. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to listen. He wants to sit in his car and drink the day away while wishing he'd thrown himself off the bridge instead of coming here. He wants to forget these people and how they remind him of ringing laughter and sea-green eyes. He wants to erase the feeling of emptiness that exists without her at his side, the loss of the only good thing in his life. Being hers, belonging to Lily Kane, was the one thing he was good at.

It hurts.

He hates that it hurts.

He twists the cap off of a beer and downs half in long swallow. Setting the bottle down, he lets his head hit the headrest with a soft sigh of relief as he anticipates the drunken buzz he will soon be feeling. But before it can hit, something causes him to open his eyes, and he looks up to see a familiar-but-not-so-much head of gold a few feet away, standing with arms crossed and hard, unforgiving eyes locked on him.

Veronica stares at him and he stares back, am unsettling feeling rising within him. Because he knew her once, not so long ago, and yet there is nothing in her eyes that he recognizes. And a shiver races down her spine, because he remembers this, this feeling of unrest, and he knows that this girl, this person he knew once upon a time, is no longer that girl. She is a stranger, hard and cold, mocking and scornful, and he watches her mouth twist into a smirk before she turns and strolls away, the now-short locks of hair being tosses in the wind.

He sits there for a few moments more, beer bottle growing warm, and realizes that the look in her eyes is one he knows.

And for a split second, he mourns her.

Because he understands better than anyone what dying looks like and just now, he'd seen it in her. And he mourns, because while he'd known it was coming, a small part of him deep down had wished that it wouldn't. Because Veronica was once one of them, and despite everything that had happened, she is one of the few people he has left.

But the second is over and his mourning is done, and now all he can do is accept what is to come.

Veronica has chosen her place in this world-without-Lily. She leaves their inner circle and stands with her father and holds her head high against the scorn of the city. He understands why. Logan may hold no loyalty towards his own father, but he does understand the concept. And sometimes, he wonders if ex-Sheriff Keith Mars had been right. Logan hadn't been surprised that the man could believe that a father was capable of killing his own child because out of everyone in this town, he knows best of all that fathers are made of spice and lies and care most about their own necks before others.

But he has chosen his own place, and that place doesn't allow for him to turn against the rest of the Kane family. He clings to Duncan in a desperate attempt to regain even a small shard of his beautiful Lily because he had loved her. And now, he is all Logan has left.

When the dead are the only living that you know, it's impossible to think of anything else.

But try as he might, he doesn't belong with them, the dead or the living, and he never will. He doesn't belong anywhere. He is alone because none could ever hope to be his equal, alone because he couldn't let anyone else close, ever again; alone because he doesn't know how to be anything else.

He can't save Veronica. He can't save Duncan. He can't save others when he can't even save himself. All he can do is taint them, with his own guilt and his own pain and his own fucking obsession with lies.

Because he is guilty. He is in pain. He is rage and hate and fury wrapped in the endless cycle of being broken without being allowed to show it. He hates without speaking and screams without sound and cannot tell the difference between being hurt and hurting others. It's all the same to him. It will always be the same. And in his head, he is right for what he does even as he knows that he can never be righteous.

~!~!~!~

He walks through wrought-iron gates, down the rows of the dearly departed, and remembers.

He had a snow globe once. It was his favorite of all his possessions because it was the one he kept hidden away, in a dirty and mangled shoe box in the very back of his closet; hidden from his father in a desperate attempt at having something of his own that didn't belong to anyone else. At night, he'd take a small flashlight and creep into the huge space, pulling out the precious object with all the reverence of a man looking upon water in the desert. He'd sit on the ground and cradle it gently, turning it over and over in his small hands, watching as the snow swirled around the tiny castle standing proudly in its' center. And then he would dream; dream of horses and thrones, crowns and jewels, and of the freedom that would exist in such a place. The freedom of living without fear, without pain, in a world where nobody knew his name; the freedom to be somebody other than himself, and even at such a young age, he recognized that what he wanted most of all was to disappear. Disappear into a fantasy world where everybody would forget about him and never even know he existed, until such a time where even he forgot who he had been. He wanted to destroy all remnants of himself until there was nothing left of Logan Echolls, nothing left of the boy he was and the man he could grow up to be.

So he'd sit in the closet and dream away the world until light filtered through the window of his bedroom and drew him out of his head; back into the nightmare that was his life until the next night, where he'd do it all over again. It was his sanctuary and his shelter, his safety from a stormy household and the one place he could pretend was his and his alone.

Until one morning came where he fell asleep in the closet and didn't hear his father calling for him. And for the next few hours, he can do nothing but scream inside as the one safe place and his one most precious object are destroyed at the hands of a man that had never shown him anything but pain.

When it is over, he doesn't move.

He lays there on the ground, covered in blood and drowning in tears, and stares at the shattered ruins of a miniature castle, and realizes things that are far greater than his years.

And all these years later, walking among the dead, he still understands.

What is a man that rules over a land that is shredded and destroyed and ruined by suffering, a land where the air is choked with blood _copper sweet_ and dust that burns through your eyes? But it isn't dust; it is ashes filled with death and souls, once occupied bodies that lived in another time and place where everything and nothing made perfect sense. It's ashes of corpses riddled with agony and peace, and the harmony that exists with such paradoxical emotions is beyond understanding. But understanding is within the ruler of such a place because he is more than just ruler; he is creator and maker and destroyer all wrapped in blood-caked leather and death-choked silk, tarnished silver in a twisted crown that denotes his fallen strength. He is king of a fallen race, a dead people that no longer live because they have seen what is to come for them. He stands high on a pedestal, looking out at his kingdom and he weeps as he sees what he brought down upon it. He remembers a time when he saw more than this, when he could see the empire that existed before ruins, before the chaos and destruction of this kingdom, his domain for the loved and the innocent. He remembers a time where such things existed, in the fairy tales of old breathed on the lips of children and clasped in tiny hands that cradled the shuddering fragility of it all.

But fairy tales are not for little boys that have seen the faces of monsters hidden beneath stretched flesh and breaking bone. They are not for those that have seen the destruction human beings reap on each other and the pain that lies wrapped in shiny smiles and twisted caresses. Fairy tales are for those who have seen without being, seen without breathing; seen by those who can wash such images from their minds. Fairy tales are for pretenders, and he is not a pretender, even as he parades around everyday with a mask of twisted skin and hollow eyes. Pretenders can wake up in the morning and see only the sun in the sky and not the clouds that overtake it. Pretenders can drive fancy cars to school and not think about the blood on the money that bought it. Pretenders can breathe without wishing that water would fill their lungs instead of air.

The world is full of pretenders and as much as he wishes, he will never be one of them. But then there are days, moments really, where he does not wish at all. Instead, he scorns them, looks at them with blinders removed, and sees them for what they really are. These people, these children, these blind, pathetic _sheep_ that go to his school and drink the same beer are nothing more than willingly-blind. They look at the world and see what he sees; only, they look away where he is unable. They blind themselves to the truth and drink to hide it away and leave him alone to face the shattering storm. And it is then that he realizes what he has always known, and it is that he is truly alone, and always will be, because nobody else has the strength to stand with him.

He comes upon the grave he is seeking and stops short at the sight of Veronica lying on the grave of their now-dead flower. He wants to speak but doesn't, feeling the eyes of a soon-to-be-dead ex-friend looking at and above and through him, and nearly steps back at the epiphany that strikes.

He is wrong because there is someone else. There's her. Veronica Mars. And she is like him, more than they'd ever like to admit, because she too has the strength to stand and face the people they once called friends. Only they still are his, even as they are not hers, and sometimes he's ashamed that he stands with them at too many times, too many moments, instead of breaking from them and going to her.

In his lighter moments, he'd like to imagine a time where he could stand with her, them against the world they will grow to hate, against the people they already do. But that time is a distant one; a time that will probably never come to pass simply because he cannot see himself continuing very long in this life. He is too dark, too twisted; been broken for too long and damaged even before that. He is danger and pain, anger and dread, and every fiber of his being screams for the darkness to swallow him whole.

He looks at her and she looks back, a reenactment of another scene between them, not too long ago, and a soft smile gently plays on her lips as she reaches a hand out, beckoning him to sit beside her.

He doesn't want her hand, he wants to save himself, but it's so much easier to believe that he can reach out. It keeps him sane, this belief, because it speaks to him things that go against a lifetime of truths. That he is worthy and not damaged, loved and not alone, found and not lost; that eventually, things will be better for them all.

He looks at her and sees the rose she once was shining through the darkness that stains her soul and for a moment, he wishes things really would change, for him and Duncan and Veronica. But then the moment passes and he shakes his head slightly, feeling another hole grow within him at the shadows that grow in her eyes as she lowers her hand, resting it on the grave of their Lily.

Because they are all dead, even if he's the only one knows it.

He died first, Lily second; Veronica's well on her way to joining them, with Duncan not too far behind.

He stands there, at the foot of the grave, looking down at the bowed head of a blonde girl that had been one of the parts of his Lily's soul and feels inexplicably tired.

And he's tired for more than a moment. Because moments are seconds too short and hours too long and it's not enough time for him to fall. Falling into nothingness, becoming forgotten and lost; fading into mist and memory and time and lying in the stillness of the grave, he was gone long before the world stops spinning.

/

End Chapter.


End file.
