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jesterladyfic) wrote2010-05-06 08:07 pm
jesterladyfic) wrote2010-05-06 08:07 pm
Entry tags:
VM Fic: The One Thing Needful: Chapter Five
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Dexter: Shut up, Red! I can't have you thinking things like that about yourself.
Tracy: Well, what am I supposed to think when I - Oh I don't know. I don't know anything any more.
Dexter: That sounds very hopeful, Red. That sounds just fine.
Veronica woke up and wished she hadn't. There was nothing good about this morning. Eventually she made her way to the kitchen, but it was empty. There was some sort of message to her on the counter, but that could be anything.
She gingerly sat down and waited for her head to stop pounding. Which probably wasn't going to happen for awhile.
The phone rang and she almost fell over. Surely it was a torment straight from hell. Hadn't someone been talking about hell recently?
The answering machine clicked on.
“Veronica, it's Mac. You need to call me right away.”
Her cell phone started to ring and Veronica groaned. Couldn't a person die in peace?
She looked at the view screen and it blurred in front of her. She was pretty sure it said John.
Something about John was ringing a bell. But bell ringing was bad. That would hurt.
The door knocked. Wait; there was a knock on the door, at the door.
“Come in,” she said weakly from her spot on the couch.
“She does look bad,” Logan said with a wink at Wallace as they let themselves in.
“Why are you here?” she asked, closing her eyes against the extra light.
“To get those eyes open,” he said. “I am very experienced in such things, remember?”
“I'm sure you are,” she said.
“Veronica, come on, drink this,” Wallace said, giving her the thermos bottle, one she vaguely recalled seeing in Logan's possession before.
“It smells nasty,” she said.
“It will heal what ails you,” Logan said from the door.
Veronica started to drink it down, gagging slightly.
“You're trying to kill me,” she murmured, sitting up a little.
“Nonsense,” Logan replied. “I like you carefree. Dancing, happy.”
“Dancing!” Veronica's eyes shot open. “Um, I don't dance.”
“Yeah you do,” Wallace said. “All too well.”
Veronica's mind started to race, as much as it hurt. Images flashed before her eyes. Several important guys in her life, none of them the one who was supposed to be. Bright lights, music, a dance floor.
“I'm going to be sick,” she said, sitting upright.
“It's not as easy as it looks, huh?” Logan asked.
“Go home, Logan,” she said. “I'm sorry, please go home.”
“Talk to me later,” he said. “Please.”
“I, I promise.”
Logan nodded and left. Wallace sat down next to her.
“Wanna tell me anything?”
Veronica nodded slowly.
“A whole lot. Almost none of it good.”
***
Mac came over when Veronica didn't call her back. She brought her laptop and did not look like the bearer of good news. Wallace was still there though he had a class later. On the subject of Mac's haste, he was apparently as ignorant as Veronica, saying he'd been too focused on her to do anything else that day.
“Swear you won't kill me when you see this,” Mac said.
“Should I?” Veronica asked.
She was feeling more sprightly after having showered and letting Logan's remedy do its thing.
“No. I just found it and corrupted it as much as I could.”
Mac set up her laptop and pushed play. Veronica watched in horror as she saw in vivid detail all her actions of the previous night. The ones she remembered and the ones she didn't.
The last part was the worst. It involved Wallace coming up to her and James and her obviously refusing to leave him. Finally he came with her, after a brief makeout session, and when they left the frame...well, it didn't look like they were leaving the party separately.
“Frak,” Veronica said, disbelieving. “Wallace...I didn't, did I? Oh, I did. I thought I felt different today.”
“Maybe that was the copious amounts of alcohol you consumed,” Wallace said comfortingly.
“Wallace, this is serious. Tell me I didn't just-”
“Cheat on your boyfriend and have wild, monkey sex with an almost stranger,” Mac suggested.
“I might kill you later,” Veronica said. “When I have strength.”
“I'm sure it's not what it seems,” Mac said, softening. “I wanted to show this to you. It's on all the campus sites. It's not just you, I just copied your portion, but a lot of other people were doing stupid stuff on this video.”
“Like that helps,” Veronica said, tears starting to come to her eyes.
Far more than she'd felt in a long time.
“Allow me to interrupt,” Wallace said, seemingly wanting to reassure her. Just then there was a knock at the door. “Ignore it,” Wallace told her.
“No, it's probably John,” Veronica said. “I have to tell him.”
“But-”
John opened the door and came in, not looking happy.
“Veronica, can we talk in private? I've left you five messages.”
“I'm sorry,” Veronica said. “I'm so sorry.”
“Can we talk in private?”
“These are my friends. I don't have anything to hide from them. They deserve an explanation too.”
“I'm the one you cheated on.”
“She didn't cheat on anybody,” Wallace said, fed up. “Nothing but kissing.”
“Kissing is enough,” Veronica said quietly, but nobody seemed to hear her.
“Is that true, Veronica?”
“I guess so. Wallace was there.”
“I helped her into the car and we took her home, him first.”
“Who is he?”
“I...I don't really know.”
“So now you're making out with strangers!”
“I know of him, he was in one of my classes. I guess we just...latched onto each other last night.”
“Latching on sounds about right.”
John was looking more and more indignant with the explanation.
“I'm sorry,” Veronica said.
“You were drunk.”
“That seems to be the consensus,” she said wryly.
“Drunk is putting it lightly,” Wallace said to Mac. “Girl was giddy.”
“Sh,” Mac said, watching the back and forth between the lovers.
“Now do you see how evil alcohol is?”
“It's not to be blamed for people's usage of it,” Veronica said, inwardly cringing at what Logan would think of this conversation.
“Well, your use was certainly poor. Why, Veronica? I thought we agreed on things like this. We were something so special.”
“We're not a trophy,” she spit back. “I made a mistake.”
“Well, you're gonna have to not make more of them.”
“That's impossible,” Veronica said.
“Then we're over,” he said.
“I quite agree,” she said. “I'm sorry to have wasted so much of your valuable time. But at the moment, I can see that even though she was wrong, the Veronica of last night was a lot happier than this Veronica has been in a long time.”
John simply gave her a long look which she returned and left, slamming the door behind him.
Wallace and Mac gave each other a silent high five where they obviously thought Veronica couldn't see and when she turned to them their faces were appropriately somber.
“We're sorry,” Mac said.
“No, you're not,” Veronica said. “Listen, Mac, can you get rid of this video?”
“Absolutely.”
Veronica sank down onto the couch.
“I'm gonna have to talk to James, aren't I?” she asked no one in particular.
“He's taken care of,” Wallace said. “I already talked to him this morning.”
“You really shouldn't have,” Veronica said, but cast him a grateful smile.
“Taking care of ya,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “It's okay every once in a while.”
“I rather like it at the moment,” she said. “I'll probably talk to him later anyway.”
“He's a nice guy,” Wallace said. “He won't make you feel bad. It wasn't like he wasn't drunk himself.”
“I guess not,” she said and put her hands on her face. “Oh, guys, how did it all get like this?”
“It's just a fact of life,” Mac said. “Even Wallace was drinking. I wasn't though.”
She smiled a self-satisfied smirk.
“You're a monument of virtue,” Veronica told her sarcastically.
“Nothing wrong with virtue,” Mac answered. “But there's also nothing wrong with being human.”
“Logan is going to be so hard to deal with,” Veronica sighed.
But she put the Logan problem out of her mind. Regardless of her own indiscretions of late, she could still point a few fingers at him if she needed to.
“Rest,” Mac told her as she left, taking Wallace with her to drop him off.
“I gotta talk to Dr. O’Leary,” Veronica said. “My paper needs work.”
“Email him,” Wallace advised.
Veronica was feeling a lot better though. John being gone wasn't nearly the traumatic event that most of her breakups turned out to be. She decided to make the drive to the campus and deal with her life responsibly. If only to make herself feel like Veronica Mars again.
She parked and made the quick walk to the administrative offices. Dr. O’Leary was busy so she sat down to wait.
Logan’s name caught her ear and she sat bolt upright.
“-really improving.”
That was Dr. O’Leary’s voice. The door to his office was slightly ajar. She inched closer.
“Agreed,” came the voice of a woman. “He started out so cocky and spoiled. I thought for sure he would be the first rich kid to get kicked out this year. But he’s put in so much of an effort in my class that the curve was affected.”
“I’ve seen the same things.”
Veronica covered the ear that wasn’t pointed at the door in order to hear better. She was a Mars. Eavesdropping was literally the family business.
“-I don’t know what motivated him, but right about November, he just kicked in with this self-improvement high.”
“Well, Dean Reynolds was telling me about his stint in that rehab center by Carmel. He actually got through it.”
“Good for him. I know what we say about the spoiled, rich kids, but it’s nice to see one doing something with their life.”
“Agreed. We need good students. Speaking of which, I’ve got one coming in here about now to talk about her paper. Excuse me, Karrin?”
“Of course. I’ll see you later, Sean.”
Veronica straightened up and tried to look invisible.
A woman came out and then Dr. O’Leary came to invite her inside. She went, but her mind wasn’t on her paper, and she felt as if the hangover was making a comeback.
***
Veronica didn't feel like doing anything else productive. She was too tired after her exuberant night out and the revelations that just kept coming. She put on some sweats and started flipping through the channels. She was hoping to catch her dad when he came home. She wasn't sure what she was going to say, but she would have to say something. She felt slightly less indignant than before.
Something on TCM caught her eye and she went back to it. The Philadelphia Story. Logan's movie. She couldn't resist.
And then she didn't want to. This movie was her life. It had her relationship with Logan, her new one with John, her disappointment with her father, and her own fall from lofty heights.
It was a relief to know this wasn't a singular event in the universe. But it was eerie as to how similar it was to her life of late.
But the hardest part was seeing in herself the self-righteous pride of Tracy Lord. And they had come by it in different ways, but Veronica's version was no less rigorous in its demands on others. On people she loved. Veronica started to cry again. So many tears, for all the different faults she could see now.
All it took was being drunk. She had to laugh at herself about that. She didn't think she'd be drinking again soon, but at least, for a few moments, she'd been free.
When she reached the end of the movie, Veronica was happier than she'd been in a long time. So, the boy got the girl. But which boy? The right one, she thought. And she wouldn't be too surprised if her own right boy would get her as well. Once she'd groveled a little.
The door opened and her father came in.
“Oh, Father,” she cried out.
He stopped dead.
“Father?” he queried. “What new land of formality is this?”
“I'm so full of love for you,” she said, not caring that he didn't know what she was talking about.
“What gives?” he asked.
“Sit down,” she said, dragging him over. Not at all the Veronica Mars people knew presently. “I've got a lot to say.”
Tracy: How do I look?
Mr. Lord: Like a queen - like a goddess.
Tracy: And do you know how I feel?
Mr. Lord: How?
Tracy: Like a human. Like a human being.
LJ Master Post
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Dexter: Shut up, Red! I can't have you thinking things like that about yourself.
Tracy: Well, what am I supposed to think when I - Oh I don't know. I don't know anything any more.
Dexter: That sounds very hopeful, Red. That sounds just fine.
Veronica woke up and wished she hadn't. There was nothing good about this morning. Eventually she made her way to the kitchen, but it was empty. There was some sort of message to her on the counter, but that could be anything.
She gingerly sat down and waited for her head to stop pounding. Which probably wasn't going to happen for awhile.
The phone rang and she almost fell over. Surely it was a torment straight from hell. Hadn't someone been talking about hell recently?
The answering machine clicked on.
“Veronica, it's Mac. You need to call me right away.”
Her cell phone started to ring and Veronica groaned. Couldn't a person die in peace?
She looked at the view screen and it blurred in front of her. She was pretty sure it said John.
Something about John was ringing a bell. But bell ringing was bad. That would hurt.
The door knocked. Wait; there was a knock on the door, at the door.
“Come in,” she said weakly from her spot on the couch.
“She does look bad,” Logan said with a wink at Wallace as they let themselves in.
“Why are you here?” she asked, closing her eyes against the extra light.
“To get those eyes open,” he said. “I am very experienced in such things, remember?”
“I'm sure you are,” she said.
“Veronica, come on, drink this,” Wallace said, giving her the thermos bottle, one she vaguely recalled seeing in Logan's possession before.
“It smells nasty,” she said.
“It will heal what ails you,” Logan said from the door.
Veronica started to drink it down, gagging slightly.
“You're trying to kill me,” she murmured, sitting up a little.
“Nonsense,” Logan replied. “I like you carefree. Dancing, happy.”
“Dancing!” Veronica's eyes shot open. “Um, I don't dance.”
“Yeah you do,” Wallace said. “All too well.”
Veronica's mind started to race, as much as it hurt. Images flashed before her eyes. Several important guys in her life, none of them the one who was supposed to be. Bright lights, music, a dance floor.
“I'm going to be sick,” she said, sitting upright.
“It's not as easy as it looks, huh?” Logan asked.
“Go home, Logan,” she said. “I'm sorry, please go home.”
“Talk to me later,” he said. “Please.”
“I, I promise.”
Logan nodded and left. Wallace sat down next to her.
“Wanna tell me anything?”
Veronica nodded slowly.
“A whole lot. Almost none of it good.”
***
Mac came over when Veronica didn't call her back. She brought her laptop and did not look like the bearer of good news. Wallace was still there though he had a class later. On the subject of Mac's haste, he was apparently as ignorant as Veronica, saying he'd been too focused on her to do anything else that day.
“Swear you won't kill me when you see this,” Mac said.
“Should I?” Veronica asked.
She was feeling more sprightly after having showered and letting Logan's remedy do its thing.
“No. I just found it and corrupted it as much as I could.”
Mac set up her laptop and pushed play. Veronica watched in horror as she saw in vivid detail all her actions of the previous night. The ones she remembered and the ones she didn't.
The last part was the worst. It involved Wallace coming up to her and James and her obviously refusing to leave him. Finally he came with her, after a brief makeout session, and when they left the frame...well, it didn't look like they were leaving the party separately.
“Frak,” Veronica said, disbelieving. “Wallace...I didn't, did I? Oh, I did. I thought I felt different today.”
“Maybe that was the copious amounts of alcohol you consumed,” Wallace said comfortingly.
“Wallace, this is serious. Tell me I didn't just-”
“Cheat on your boyfriend and have wild, monkey sex with an almost stranger,” Mac suggested.
“I might kill you later,” Veronica said. “When I have strength.”
“I'm sure it's not what it seems,” Mac said, softening. “I wanted to show this to you. It's on all the campus sites. It's not just you, I just copied your portion, but a lot of other people were doing stupid stuff on this video.”
“Like that helps,” Veronica said, tears starting to come to her eyes.
Far more than she'd felt in a long time.
“Allow me to interrupt,” Wallace said, seemingly wanting to reassure her. Just then there was a knock at the door. “Ignore it,” Wallace told her.
“No, it's probably John,” Veronica said. “I have to tell him.”
“But-”
John opened the door and came in, not looking happy.
“Veronica, can we talk in private? I've left you five messages.”
“I'm sorry,” Veronica said. “I'm so sorry.”
“Can we talk in private?”
“These are my friends. I don't have anything to hide from them. They deserve an explanation too.”
“I'm the one you cheated on.”
“She didn't cheat on anybody,” Wallace said, fed up. “Nothing but kissing.”
“Kissing is enough,” Veronica said quietly, but nobody seemed to hear her.
“Is that true, Veronica?”
“I guess so. Wallace was there.”
“I helped her into the car and we took her home, him first.”
“Who is he?”
“I...I don't really know.”
“So now you're making out with strangers!”
“I know of him, he was in one of my classes. I guess we just...latched onto each other last night.”
“Latching on sounds about right.”
John was looking more and more indignant with the explanation.
“I'm sorry,” Veronica said.
“You were drunk.”
“That seems to be the consensus,” she said wryly.
“Drunk is putting it lightly,” Wallace said to Mac. “Girl was giddy.”
“Sh,” Mac said, watching the back and forth between the lovers.
“Now do you see how evil alcohol is?”
“It's not to be blamed for people's usage of it,” Veronica said, inwardly cringing at what Logan would think of this conversation.
“Well, your use was certainly poor. Why, Veronica? I thought we agreed on things like this. We were something so special.”
“We're not a trophy,” she spit back. “I made a mistake.”
“Well, you're gonna have to not make more of them.”
“That's impossible,” Veronica said.
“Then we're over,” he said.
“I quite agree,” she said. “I'm sorry to have wasted so much of your valuable time. But at the moment, I can see that even though she was wrong, the Veronica of last night was a lot happier than this Veronica has been in a long time.”
John simply gave her a long look which she returned and left, slamming the door behind him.
Wallace and Mac gave each other a silent high five where they obviously thought Veronica couldn't see and when she turned to them their faces were appropriately somber.
“We're sorry,” Mac said.
“No, you're not,” Veronica said. “Listen, Mac, can you get rid of this video?”
“Absolutely.”
Veronica sank down onto the couch.
“I'm gonna have to talk to James, aren't I?” she asked no one in particular.
“He's taken care of,” Wallace said. “I already talked to him this morning.”
“You really shouldn't have,” Veronica said, but cast him a grateful smile.
“Taking care of ya,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “It's okay every once in a while.”
“I rather like it at the moment,” she said. “I'll probably talk to him later anyway.”
“He's a nice guy,” Wallace said. “He won't make you feel bad. It wasn't like he wasn't drunk himself.”
“I guess not,” she said and put her hands on her face. “Oh, guys, how did it all get like this?”
“It's just a fact of life,” Mac said. “Even Wallace was drinking. I wasn't though.”
She smiled a self-satisfied smirk.
“You're a monument of virtue,” Veronica told her sarcastically.
“Nothing wrong with virtue,” Mac answered. “But there's also nothing wrong with being human.”
“Logan is going to be so hard to deal with,” Veronica sighed.
But she put the Logan problem out of her mind. Regardless of her own indiscretions of late, she could still point a few fingers at him if she needed to.
“Rest,” Mac told her as she left, taking Wallace with her to drop him off.
“I gotta talk to Dr. O’Leary,” Veronica said. “My paper needs work.”
“Email him,” Wallace advised.
Veronica was feeling a lot better though. John being gone wasn't nearly the traumatic event that most of her breakups turned out to be. She decided to make the drive to the campus and deal with her life responsibly. If only to make herself feel like Veronica Mars again.
She parked and made the quick walk to the administrative offices. Dr. O’Leary was busy so she sat down to wait.
Logan’s name caught her ear and she sat bolt upright.
“-really improving.”
That was Dr. O’Leary’s voice. The door to his office was slightly ajar. She inched closer.
“Agreed,” came the voice of a woman. “He started out so cocky and spoiled. I thought for sure he would be the first rich kid to get kicked out this year. But he’s put in so much of an effort in my class that the curve was affected.”
“I’ve seen the same things.”
Veronica covered the ear that wasn’t pointed at the door in order to hear better. She was a Mars. Eavesdropping was literally the family business.
“-I don’t know what motivated him, but right about November, he just kicked in with this self-improvement high.”
“Well, Dean Reynolds was telling me about his stint in that rehab center by Carmel. He actually got through it.”
“Good for him. I know what we say about the spoiled, rich kids, but it’s nice to see one doing something with their life.”
“Agreed. We need good students. Speaking of which, I’ve got one coming in here about now to talk about her paper. Excuse me, Karrin?”
“Of course. I’ll see you later, Sean.”
Veronica straightened up and tried to look invisible.
A woman came out and then Dr. O’Leary came to invite her inside. She went, but her mind wasn’t on her paper, and she felt as if the hangover was making a comeback.
***
Veronica didn't feel like doing anything else productive. She was too tired after her exuberant night out and the revelations that just kept coming. She put on some sweats and started flipping through the channels. She was hoping to catch her dad when he came home. She wasn't sure what she was going to say, but she would have to say something. She felt slightly less indignant than before.
Something on TCM caught her eye and she went back to it. The Philadelphia Story. Logan's movie. She couldn't resist.
And then she didn't want to. This movie was her life. It had her relationship with Logan, her new one with John, her disappointment with her father, and her own fall from lofty heights.
It was a relief to know this wasn't a singular event in the universe. But it was eerie as to how similar it was to her life of late.
But the hardest part was seeing in herself the self-righteous pride of Tracy Lord. And they had come by it in different ways, but Veronica's version was no less rigorous in its demands on others. On people she loved. Veronica started to cry again. So many tears, for all the different faults she could see now.
All it took was being drunk. She had to laugh at herself about that. She didn't think she'd be drinking again soon, but at least, for a few moments, she'd been free.
When she reached the end of the movie, Veronica was happier than she'd been in a long time. So, the boy got the girl. But which boy? The right one, she thought. And she wouldn't be too surprised if her own right boy would get her as well. Once she'd groveled a little.
The door opened and her father came in.
“Oh, Father,” she cried out.
He stopped dead.
“Father?” he queried. “What new land of formality is this?”
“I'm so full of love for you,” she said, not caring that he didn't know what she was talking about.
“What gives?” he asked.
“Sit down,” she said, dragging him over. Not at all the Veronica Mars people knew presently. “I've got a lot to say.”
Tracy: How do I look?
Mr. Lord: Like a queen - like a goddess.
Tracy: And do you know how I feel?
Mr. Lord: How?
Tracy: Like a human. Like a human being.
LJ Master Post
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