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“Wait.” She watches as he turns away from the door, as his hand slides back to his side, grateful he still will acquiesce. He stands, silent and still. Not the Logan of old, then. Not completely. Her Logan would be fidgeting, playing with his pockets. Ducking his head. This one, this new creature, just waits on her. It makes what comes next both easier and harder. “Don’t go.”
Veronica marks as his eyes flicker to the door and then back to her, guarded but still gentle. "And why not?"
It isn’t an unreasonable query. She can’t deny that. She can’t deny him the answer either, even if it’s almost more difficult to get out than the original request. But she stands her ground. Squares her shoulders and breathes in, breathes deep.
"Because.” She licks her lips. “I need you to stay."
A single, broken smile crosses his lips, and he moves away from her door even as he shakes his head. "And that's all that matters, right? What Veronica needs. You needed to stop dating me. You needed to get away from Neptune. You needed to not talk for 9 years.” Logan crosses his arms, shrugs. “Maybe I'm tired of going along with what you need."
"And I came back here, to this town, to you, because it was what you needed,” she snaps back, before forcibly relaxing. Steps closer. “I was fine in New York, Logan. This wasn't me any more. I fought so long and so hard for this to not be me. But now, it is again. And I need you to stay, because you're still that person. You're still that person for me."
She watches him shake his head again. “You’re still with Piz.”
She fights through the confusion at first, before she figures out what he means. “This isn’t a booty call.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’m still with Piz, as you oh so astutely noted. This is - friends. I like you. And I’ve missed you. And I need you to stay. I need you to be my friend.”
She watches his eyes dart to her again, and then he walks away from the door and toward the fridge, getting out two beers before he continues on to the living room. She trails behind. He slides onto the couch with a grace she admires, the grace she always admired even as she was envious and terrified of it. Twists off both tops and hands her a bottle as she plops down a seat away from him.
“You know, I needed you to be my friend,” he mentions, faux conversationally. “I did. And I’m just… delighted that you’re here, now. That you’re being my friend, now. I don’t have that many left after this most recent development. But,” he continues, pulling at the label, “It doesn’t exactly erase those years you pulled a Houdini.”
“You had my number,” Veronica tells him. “You could have called at any time.”
His sad grin returns, and she wants to banish it permanently. “And said what, exactly? I miss you? I’m mad at you for leaving without so much as a goodbye? How could you let me find out about it when I ran into your best friend the next semester? Because, believe me, Veronica, I wanted to call you and rant about all those things. But those of us you left behind, other than me, made it clear that you wanted your space. So I gave it to you. And you took nine years of it.”
“You want an explanation.” She crosses her legs, lets her hair fall in front of her face. He brushes it back. Her heart stutters as his eyes meet hers.
“It would be nice, yeah. As friends.”
She looks away. Sips on the beer. Silence descends. It’s not uncomfortable. It’s not heavy. It’s just Logan, waiting on her. Like he has been. Like he continues to do.
“I loved you. But I didn’t want to do what we had been doing, the big drama and trauma and then back together again. And you’d been dating a friend of mine, and I’d been dating Wallace’s roommate, and the potential for badness was just… so immense. It was huge.” She sniffles, feels her mouth start to pull downward. Curses the fact she’d spent years breaking down all of her walls. She waits for the sarcastic, biting wit. But all Logan does is hand her a tissue. “And I loved you, but I wasn’t really sure if I liked you. There were times back then, Logan, that I really didn’t. And I knew you loved me, but I was pretty sure you didn’t like me. Because there were times when you really didn’t seem to. And then my dad lost his election, and I broke up with Piz, and I thought - instead of doing the same thing again, instead of going back to you and just doing the same thing over and over again until we just - I needed to leave. And so I did. I applied to Stanford, and tried to be better than I was.”
She dabs at her eyes, and listens to the low rumble of his chuckle. “You didn’t like me.”
“Not always, no,” she answers, and then grins at the sight of his own goofy smile. “You were an asshole. And I wanted to be friends with you, even when you were with Parker. I ate face cake for you, okay?”
He starts laughing and she joins him. “You put in a lot of effort, yeah.”
“I did!” Leans forward to punch him, and then falls a bit against him. His arm comes up and rests on her. “I tried so hard. And you, you didn’t even try at all, with Piz. You were just - you were a jerk.”
“I was a jerk,” he emphasizes, nudging her side, “because Piz was annoying. And because I still loved you, and he was just this guy who was everything I wasn’t. And you liked him. That’s more than you could say about me.”
“Yeah,” she tells him fondly, “but I like you now.”
She watches as the room shifts, as his hold becomes less friendly and more possessive, as his eyes darken. “But we’re not -”
“I can’t. I’m not that person.”
He exhales, and pulls away. Puts space between them. Her side aches with its sudden detachment.
“So, this is for Piz.”
“No.” Because it isn’t. Because this is more than just Piz. “I care about him. I do. I wouldn’t be dating him if I didn’t. But this is for us. We’re not our parents, Logan. We’re better than that. Than them. And I’m not going to do anything that even remotely stinks of them. I won’t do that to you. And, more importantly, I’m not going to do that to myself.”
She watches as he mulls on that, watches his face as he processes what she’s saying to him.
“So, how about we, as friends, sit moderately close together, and watch The Big Lebowski?”
“I’d like that,” she tells him, hands him her barely touched beer, and then slides off of the couch and grabs for the DVD. Pops it in, and then returns.
“So, what has the great Logan Echolls been up to, in my years away?” she asks, and he glowers at her.
“Are we going to talk through the whole movie?”
“No,” she emphasizes as she steals back her beer. “It’s previews. And opening credits. And, okay, yes, probably. But we’ve seen this movie a hundred times and I promise you you’re more interesting to me than The Dude has ever been.”
He rolls his eyes. “Veronica, you love The Dude. You practically had an altar to him in middle school and high school.”
“Um,” she tells him, “I got rid of that when we moved to the apartment. Duh.”
“Yeah, but your obsession continued on.”
She nods. “Well, sure. But I still want to know about you. About your life.”
Clicks the play button, but turns down the sound. “A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski” starts up in the background, familiar and grounding, and Logan turns completely away from the screen to look at her.
“You really want to know what I’ve been getting up to?”
“Well, yeah.” She grabs a hair clip off the table and winds her hair up and out of her face. “All the information I’ve gotten on you over the years has been through the tabloids and the occasional spotting on E!. And while those were fascinating exposés on you with a plethora of hookers, I figure it will be even more amazing straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“Okay, well, you’ve stroked my ego enough by comparing my favorably to The Dude, and by telling me you’ve at least kept tabs on me over the years even if you never degenerated into full on stalking; so I guess I’ll regale you, even though I feel like you’re going to be disappointed.”
She mock pouts. “No hookers?”
He shakes his head solemnly. “No hookers.”
"I guess I can deal with that let down. As long as you can make up for it with stories of general debauchery." She pushes against him and grins winningly as he sighs.
"I'm afraid there's not much of my old debaucherous ways, either.” He shrugs. “I kept my nose clean, head down, worked hard. Got my BA -”
Veronica jerks back. “BA? I thought for sure MA or -”
“I do read, you know. And getting a degree in the liberal arts means I’m a jack of all trades. Which helps with running the club.”
She head tilts, and he mimics her. “Yeah, 09er. Classy.”
“You know, for someone who’s been eating and drinking there for free, you’re a little judgy.”
“Have you met me? All I do is judge. Judge, and then mete out justice.”
He smirks. “I was hoping that had changed a bit over the years.”
“I was going to be a lawyer,” she tells him. “New York City big shot. ‘Destined for greatness’, my dad said.”
The atmosphere changes again, Logan going on high alert. A bit like a puppy, she thinks. Ears perk up when he’s dancing on the edge of hope.
“Was?” He asks, and she listens to the faintest wobble in the question. She smiles at him.
“Yeah.” She turns to the movie, watches The Dude. Logan just watches her. “I was going to tell you earlier. Before you made your mad dash to the door. I really liked a lot of New York, you know? I was anonymous there. No one knew about Lilly, about you. And if they did, they usually didn’t say anything. I had a guy once, in a bar, start talking to me about everything. And the guy next to him told him to shut up and finish his drink. It was amazing. But here… I love this, Logan. I love it so much. I’m built to do this, to be a PI. I hate peace and I hate quiet and I like figuring out the puzzle and being out in the world.”
“You’re coming back home,” he whispers, like she’s given him a present.
She smiles weakly, and slumps against him. “I wanted to make my dad happy. He was so excited about everything, and he’s so disappointed that I don’t want it anymore.”
“He’s not disappointed in you,” he tells her, and she lets the rumble of his chest ease some of that particular ache. “He’s disappointed you’re helping me. That’s entirely different. He’s your dad, Ronica. He loves you so much, it almost hurts to be around. And if he’s upset or mad about anything, it’s that you’re going to be putting yourself in danger.”
“And struggling to get by, and not being acknowledged. Not being great.”
She feels the weight of his arm as he slings it around her, as he squeezes her to him. “You’re still destined for greatness, Veronica. You’re Veronica Mars. There’s nothing that can stop you from doing that. Okay?”
“Right. Sneaking around, taking pictures of cheating couples is the recipe for greatness.”
“PI to the stars,” Logan intones. “Solving the mystery. Bringing down crime families. Bringing down syndicates. Exposing political and corporate corruption. And then writing massive bestsellers about how you did it. Murder mysteries sell, Ronnie. So you won’t be a high powered attorney. So you’ll fall back into old habits. Your old habits were helping the people who needed it. Your dad can fly a fucking kite if he can’t handle that, and you can join him if you don’t see how absolutely incredible you were.”
“Even when I was a fuck up?”
“Even when you were fucking up, you were never a fuck up,” he tells her. “That was always me. Don’t be trying to steal my title.”
“You really were a fuck up,” she laughs, and he laughs with her.
“I had reason to be, thank you very much. And I’d like to think that I’m only a frick up now.”
“Frick up?”
“Very minor fuck up,” he tells her. “Barely worth mentioning. Dead girlfriend aside.”
She turns his head, meet his eyes. “I like you more than I like Piz.”
“I like you more than I liked Carrie,” he responds. “Though that sounds more callous than what you just said.”
She clinks her beer against his, and nods. “Being dead will do that. Plus, you’ve always been a worse person than me.”
She lets Logan, his weight and his warmth, lull her into complete relaxation. Turns her attention back to the screen. Lets everything else just fall to the backburner. Talking to Piz. Finding a place. Going back, getting her stuff. She lets The Big Lebowski act as a balm.
“I want to go bowling,” she murmurs, and Logan groans.
“You want to go bowling whenever you watch this movie. And then you get there, and the shoes smell and the food is disgusting, and you rediscover how bad you are at bowling, and then you pout.”
“How do you know I haven’t gotten amazing at bowling over the last nine years? How do you know that I’m not on the premiere bowling league in the city? How do you know that I don’t have my own ball, my own shoes?”
She doesn’t even have to look at him to know he’s arching an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“No. But I could. I’m just saying. It’s been nine years. There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know about each other anymore.”
He smells her, and she jerks back. “Still marshmallows and Promises. Still Veronica Mars.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do,” he tells her, resting his chin on her head. “But I also know that those are just details. I’ve mellowed, you seem to have mellowed. But we’re still us. I still know you. You still know me. And if we’re going to be - friends - again, then part of that will be figuring out those new little things.”
“Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and watch the movie.”
He snorts. She laces her fingers through his, and he squeezes them. “I’m coming home.”
“You’re coming home.”
It should be strange, how telling Logan makes it more true than telling her dad, than telling Wallace, than when she told Piz and watched his face crumble. It should be strange that Logan knowing makes it real in ways nothing else does.
But Logan is home. It’s not exactly a revelation. But it still warms her, spreads through her like fire. She burrows further into him, chasing away the chill, and he just shifts. Holds her closer to him.
“Piz knows,” she whispers, and he huffs at her.
“What happened to watching the movie?”
She sticks out her tongue at him. “It’s only important to watch the parts I want to watch.”
“Because what Veronica needs comes first,” he says drolly, and shifts her off of him. “If this is going to be a longish break in movie watching, I’m getting the ice cream I assume is in your freezer. Want some?”
“Rocky Road,” she calls, and he nods to her. Moves around her father’s kitchen like he belongs there. She wants to know how that’s possible, when she still can’t find which drawer has the spoons and which cabinet houses glasses and not plates.
“And how is Piz with the whole ‘long distance’ thing?” He hands her bowl over, and she looks at him.
“I think he knows that I’m not so great with the whole ‘long distance’ thing,” she tells him, and eats some of her ice cream.
If telling him she was coming home was like lighting a candle of hope, this seems to set off fireworks beneath his skin. “Are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”
“I’m telling you,” she says slowly, “that we haven’t gotten around to breaking up yet. But that it is coming. And that moving back here is part of the reason.”
“And the other part?”
Veronica steals herself, looks straight at him. “I think he knew, from the second I saw the news report. I think he knew before I did, really, that I never - I was never done with you.”
She watches him, watches his eyes soften. “I never did get to tell you how glad I am that you’re back. Maybe I could do that better, later. After you’re fully moved in. I could take you out to dinner, not at 09er. Maybe for Italian. Work on getting to know each other again.”
“I’d like that.” She scoops up a spoonful of her ice cream, and then dips it into his bowl to get some chocolate as well. “I’d like that even more if it happened after you helped me move in. Carrying the heavy boxes.”
“Oh really?”
“Well, you are one of my only friends left in the area, and Wallace and Mac did just come out for the reunion. And my dad and Cliff are getting up there. Don’t want them slipping a disk or something. I was thinking it would be mostly you and me.”
He inches closer, steals a scoop of Rocky Road. “Just you and me, huh?”
“Well,” she drawls, “maybe Weevil too.”
“You’re a witch, Mars. Straight up,” he says, flopping back into the couch. “I thought that was a moment.”
“Hey, I can’t be planning dates and sexy times right now, Echolls. You’re wanted for murder and I’m not exactly free.”
“If I get sent to prison, will you come and visit me?”
“I’ll smuggle you in a rock hammer and a poster of Raquel Welch.”
“Excellent.”
She’s quiet, for a moment, and then pushes on, asking him the question that has been plaguing her. “Do you think I wasted the last nine years?”
He puts down his bowl, reaches up and entangles his fingers in her hair. “I missed you. I wish you hadn’t gone away. Or that I hadn’t been a jackass and had called you, at some point. I hate the fact that there are nine years of my life where you just aren’t there. And if you’d asked me that when I was 20, or 24, or even last year, I would have said yes and I would have yelled at you and told you that you were a bitch who just punished us both. But I think I’m mature enough to not do that, and to tell you this: we lived, Veronica. And that’s - we are who we are, and we like who we are and who the other one is. You couldn’t waste your life if you tried.”
She stares at him, until her world is his face. “You’re my home.”
“Yeah?”
She nods, and he cups her face, kisses her forehead. “And you got your shirt in my bowl.”
“I used to be smooth,” he grumbles, pulling back and heading for the kitchen. “I used to have game.”
“What game?”
“Game! The game! The most - I’m not getting into it with you, because you and your neck know what I’m talking about.”
“Too bad you got old,” she jokes. “Game is for the kids.”
He growls, and she laughs at the inappropriately placed wet spot on his shirt. “Don’t say a thing.”
“Am I the kind of person who would say something?”
“Yes, because you’re an asshole.”
“But you’re happy I’m coming back.” She says it leadingly, knows she’s doing it. But god help her, she still needs the assurance.
“I’m thinking of moving out,” he says. “Been living with Dick since I was 19, and I love him but. Anyway, there’s an apartment complex that’s just been built. Almost entirely empty. What do you say we check out its amenities? See if it’s some place we could live. Separately, I mean.”
She ducks her head. “You want to live near me?”
“Sure,” he answers. “Why not?”
“I solve the case, and then we’ll look at apartments.”
He nods, and glances at the screen. “You know, when you called me back tonight and told me to wait, out of the hundreds of scenarios I had in rotation for that exact moment, this wasn’t on the list.”
“What, watching The Big Lebowski and eating ice cream with your ex wasn’t in the top ten?”
“Not even close.”
“Sometimes I think we forgot that we were friends, before anything else,” she tells him. “You were one of my best friends, and that was something that just got lost after a while. I don’t know what I was expecting when I asked you not to go. I hadn’t exactly planned any of this. But, even with everything else we were and are, I’m just so happy we’re this again.”
Logan leans in, and she finds herself leaning toward him as well. “Veronica?”
“Yeah?” she answers, hushed.
“Shut up and watch the movie.”
She laughs, and snuggles down. It’s the perfect end to a trying day, week, month, and nine years. Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls, the last two of the fab four, together again.
“One last thing, and then I’ll only talk when I’m saying the lines, I swear,” she promises.
“What?”
“I’m not leaving again.”
He sits up, and she watches him watch her; watches him gage the veracity of her statement. “Good.”
“Hey,” she says in time with The Dude. “This is a private residence, man.”
“I gotta get more friends,” she hears Logan mutter, and it’s perfection.