A Barely Breathing Story: Chapter Two

[jesterladyfic]

Chapter Two: Veronica and the Unexpected Phone Call

Veronica is arguing with Logan. It’s not like that’s new or anything but she finds herself unusually irritated with him. Ever since the funeral he’s been clingier than normal and she is beginning to get the urges to flee that had plagued her when they’d first gotten together. She doesn’t feel right about it, she doesn’t want it, but that’s never really stopped anything from happening to her.

Tonight they’re arguing about colleges. It might seem like a normal couple-y thing to argue about but Veronica knows they’re really arguing about the longevity and validity of their relationship. She thinks they’re too young for this. She feels too old for this. It’s just rather confusing.

Part of her problem is her pride, she knows this. She wants to be independent and free and stand on her own two feet. It’s always been a little bit of an issue with her since most of the people she’s loved in life have let her down at one point or another. That and all the worst of human nature she sees in her job. But Logan is different. Logan has money. He has the resources and wherewithal to do whatever he wants for whoever he wants and he wants to do it for her.

She’s always wanted to go to Stanford, but she forfeited her chances for any scholarships when she’d blown off a test for Aaron's murder trial. Granted, it was a really important trial, but still…it has cost her. She’s got the grades and she can get into the college, but she can’t afford it. Logan can and she doesn’t want to let him help her.

Puts a little crimp in the dating relationship, she thinks, pinching her nose.

“Do you think I want you to go to school so far away?” he snaps at her. “But I’m offering you the ability to get what you desire. This isn’t about me trying to own you.”

“Whether you’re trying or not you’ll succeed, it’s just how it works.”

“Right, I forgot, Veronica Mars invented the rules of life.”

“Veronica Mars doesn’t ignore the rules of life because she doesn’t have billions of dollars!”

“She might one day,” he says, eyes flashing, and her heart jumps a little even as a flare of anger runs through her.

“Don’t start that again.”

“Too big and scary for you? Too much of a commitment?”

“We just graduated high school!”

“I didn’t say tomorrow!”

“I didn’t say never!”

“Okay,” he says, instantly cooled down in the way that she hates because it means that he’s being rational and she isn’t.

“Okay what?”

“Okay. So if you’re not going to Stanford where are you going to go? Hearst like Mac and Wallace? Keep the gang all together?”

“We’d be such a lame gang,” she says, taking his conversational way out, attempting to keep calm.

“I don’t know. You get pretty sexy when you lurk in the shadows. Maybe get your bald pal to give you a couple of tips on riding a motorcycle and you’re all set to rule that school.”

“You’re about ten years old, you know that, right?” she asks, as he pulls her close to him and a different heat starts to overwhelm the anger she’s feeling.

“You’d never do this with a ten year old,” he says, bending down to her lips.

She has to agree because that would be so so wrong. This, however, is so so right. She never has to doubt their relationship here. Logan is fire and need against her mouth and she lets her body mold against his, feeling it rub against him in all the right places.

He leans her against the wall, placing one hand behind her head and the other starts to creep up her shirt. Under the ministrations of his talented tongue she starts to forget that they’re in her dad’s office and anyone could come in at any moment and just enjoys kissing him. Lots of kissing, full-lipped and nibbles here and licks of tongue there, and soon he’s moved down to her neck and she’s forgotten the things he can do there until she moans loudly, running her hands through his hair because she doesn’t want him to stop and she never wants to do anything but this ever again.

And he hasn’t really done anything that good yet.

The phone rings though and she starts and he starts and he knocks his head up against hers and she gets stars in her eyes and not in the pleasant way she’s been anticipating. Logan swears and she has to agree with his sentiments.

Still rather dazed Veronica picks up the phone.

“Mars Investigations. How may I help you?”

“By hanging up,” Logan mutters and she glares at him.

“Veronica? It’s Dawn.”

“Hey, you,” Veronica says, going for perky. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m good. In fact…I’m good because…well, Buffy’s back.”

“Excuse me?” Veronica says, not understanding what was said in the slightest.

“Buffy’s alive. Willow brought her back.”

“How does that even happen?” Veronica asks, getting enough presence of mind to put the phone on speaker so Logan will stop looking at her like that and realize that this is a Very Big Deal phone call.

“Willow did a spell. I didn’t even know about it until it happened. But she brought her back to life.”

Logan exchanges glances with her and Veronica doesn’t know what to say either.

“Buffy?” he mouths to her and she nods.

He shakes his head a little and sits down.

“Dawn…how does that work?”

“It’s complicated magic-y type stuff,” Dawn says. “I don’t really get it either. But she’s actually Buffy, not like a zombie or anything. Which can happen.”

Logan rubs his temples a little and Veronica feels like joining him.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s…different. We-we think she was in a hell dimension and that’s why she’s so quiet. She acts a bit like Angel did when he came back from hell, though not so much with the feral growling I’m told.”

“My life used to be so simple,” Logan mumbles. “Hollywood starlets, binge drinking, murder trials.”

“Is that Logan?”

“Sorry, he’s here on speaker; I thought he’d want to know.”

“Yeah, yeah. But, um, well, I just wanted you to know.”

“How are you, Dawn?” Logan asks, surprising Veronica yet again with his perception.

“A little worried, but I have to be happy. I mean, it’s Buffy. And it was bad before. It could get better.”

“Do you need anything? Is Spike all right?”

“Spike’s mad,” Dawn says softly. “He doesn’t think the magic was right.”

“Wouldn’t the vampire know?” Logan asks, exchanging another look with Veronica.

“I just want Buffy back,” Dawn says. “I can’t talk long though. I have to go help Tara. We’re calling people this evening. People who can know the truth. We’re trying to figure out what to tell police and government type people.”

“Call me if anything changes or you need anything at all, okay?” Veronica presses.

“I will.”

“You don’t mind if I tell my dad or Mac or Wallace, right?”

“No…no.”

“Goodbye, Dawnie.”

Veronica pushes the off button and slowly slides to the floor, her mind completely blown yet again by a call from Sunnydale, CA.

“You okay?” Logan asks her, not looking at all okay himself.

“No, you?”

“No.”

“So…resurrection spells.”

“A real thing.”

“Guess so.”

“That worry you?”

“More than a little.”

“Scare you?”

“More than a little.”

“What should we do?”

“Tell everyone.”

So they do. Veronica calls her dad and Logan calls Mac and then Veronica calls Wallace and they have the same startled conversation with each of them and it’s one of the most bizarre things Veronica has ever been a part of and she once switched bodies with a vampire Slayer.

When they’re done, nothing else doing, they sit there for a minute or two processing and Veronica doesn’t even know how to start dealing with this. After a few minutes Logan’s hand finds its way to hers and she’s grateful for the human contact. Thinking about somebody coming back from the dead is bringing up every lame zombie movie he’s ever made her watch and while no one has ever been able to say that Veronica Mars is afraid of the dark, she kind of wishes it were daytime.

“What do you wanna do now?” Logan asks finally.

“Go home and go to bed,” she answers.

“Come on then, Mars,” he says, pulling her up and grabbing her stuff for her. “I got a ride home with your name on it.”

He takes her home and they don’t talk much. She doesn’t know what to say because how is an evening supposed to progress from fighting about colleges to making out to hearing that somebody came back to life?

He kisses her goodnight almost absently and she knows his mind is probably working even harder than hers. But she can’t think about that right now.

So she goes inside and her dad isn’t home so she does what she’s wanted to do since Dawn called, and that is to call Spike. She still thinks it’s kind of funny but he had a phone put in his crypt over the summer so Tara and Dawn could reach him and she knows she’s one of the few people who has the number. How he set it up in the first place, that she doesn’t know.

“Knew I’d be hearing from you, pet.”

“Spike, what happened?”

“Red messed up big time. But…Slayer’s back.”

“Is she okay? Dawn said something about her being in hell.”

“That’s the general party line. Wherever she was it’s hard being back here. Barely speaks, zones out, can still fight like anything though,” he says, pride in his voice.

“I want to come see her.”

“I’d wait,” he says quietly. “Too much noise puts her in a tizzy. Plus my bleeding granddad got all righteously worried and stormed up here the minute he found out. Buffy didn’t have two words to say to him and he took a swing at me and things got a little ugly. The other Scoobies are having kittens as it is and the Watcher will be flying in soon.”

“I just…”

“Wanna help? Yeah, Private Eye, join the club, but time’s key here. Slayer’s in a heap of confusion and adding more people to the mix ain’t gonna help.”

“Okay, but you’ll let me know when you think it’s a good time?”

“My word as a vampire.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

“All you’ll get, ducks. Live with it.”

“Wanna tell me how you’re doing?”

She hears him exhale unnecessarily on the other side of the line and she pictures him in his chair, cigarette dangling in one hand, a glass of whiskey within reach, and she worries.

“Why wouldn’t I be glad she’s back?”

“Dawn said you were mad.”

“Cause people shouldn’t come back from the bloody dead!” he explodes and she concludes that Dawn was right. “I’m proof enough of that. Red messed with some powerful black magic and now we’re all gonna have to pay the price. No one gets away with getting something like her back without paying through the nose for it. Sides, it’s not like she really included me in the idea or thought it out. She left the Slayer to claw her way out of her coffin by herself.”

Veronica’s eyes widen and she tries desperately hard not to imagine that. She still can’t completely push away memories of pounding on a freezer door, barely being able to breathe, feeling heat and space press in around her.

“Beyond possible consequences and trauma, how are you?”

“Oh, just beyond that?” He pauses a minute. “I’m happy to see her. Held her all night that first one. But I don’t know how this is gonna work.”

“You’ll manage and so will she. You’re both strong.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

They hang up shortly after that and Veronica tries to get some sleep. She doesn’t want to think or feel, she just wants to forget for a while because she knows that things are different now.

She does sleep and the next morning her dad’s home and he makes her breakfast just the way she likes it.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks, as they eat.

“College, oddly enough,” she answers.

“Nothing to do with vampire slaying and people coming back from the dead?”

“A little bit, but mostly college actually.”

“Well, then,” he says, folding his hands under his chin, “what’s the verdict?”

“There isn’t one,” she says gloomily. “You know I wanted Stanford but I blew that chance. Logan says he’ll pay for it, I don’t want him to.”

“Good,” he says and she looks wryly at him.

She knows all about her dad not wanting her to depend too much on the rich boy who has the tendency to mouth off to him.

“I could always go to Hearst,” she says.

“I’m sensing there’s a third option here,” her dad says shrewdly.

He’s always too shrewd.

“This is what ties in with the news we got last night. I also have been accepted to the University of Sunnydale.”

He looks sharply at her.

“I didn’t know you applied.”

“It was a whim this summer. I didn’t tell Logan either if it makes you feel better.”

“A little.”

“Good, because I think I want to go there.”

“Your college choice should be based on what you want to learn and what career you want. It shouldn’t be based on feeling bad for some people who are going through a rough time or have anything to do with people coming back from the dead.”

“I wouldn’t normally.”

“No one would normally.”

“I know what you mean, Dad. But I can get the programs I want at Sunnydale. I can also be a good friend. I’ll still be close enough to drive home on the weekends and all holidays,” she coaxes.

“True, but still not the point. You’re reaching.”

“I’m not saying I’m doing it, I just want you to know it’s an option.”

“Okay, you’re an adult now and I will respect your decisions.”

“Did you practice saying that in the mirror?” she teases

“Why would I need to tell myself that?”

“Because that boyish exterior is oh-so-misleading?”

He glares at her and steals some bacon from her plate.

“Go on, get out of here. College can’t come soon enough.”

“Now who’s reaching?”

“I believe it’s you…for the bacon.”

He shoves it closer to her and they eat in companionable silence.

Just after breakfast her cell phone rings and she answers it immediately when she looks at the caller ID.

“It’s Tara.”

“Hi, how are you?”

“A little tired.”

“I can imagine.”

“No-no, not really. We all had a shadow-ghost t-thing try to kill us last night.”

“What?”

“Side effect from Willow’s spell.”

“What happened?”

“Rode in on Buffy’s back from hell, possessed us, tried to kill us. Then Buffy chopped i-its head off.”

“You’re all okay?”

“Physically.”

“So whatever consequences Spike was worried about already happened?”

“Maybe. Still doesn’t change the fact that what happened shouldn’t have happened.”

“You know this magic stuff, tell me why what Willow did was so wrong.”

“She summoned a black god, she used d-dark magic, she took innocent b-blood, she-she upset the balances. It’s hard to explain, but that’s-that’s really bad for the world. It’s dangerous and the only thing she had on her side was power. And she didn’t trust me. She knew I-I wouldn’t approve.”

“And you shouldn’t have.”

“Right. I’m so worried for her, Veronica.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“She-she doesn’t think. She just wants to fix things and she could hurt someone. She already has.”

“How’s Buffy?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“You can talk to me anytime.”

“I know. That’s why I called.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Maybe soon. I-I’m just taking stock right now.”

“I know the feeling. But I’m here for you anytime.”

They speak for a little while longer and Veronica lets her know that she might be coming to Sunnydale, but there’s not much else to say and Veronica hangs up, worried.

She’s never good at choices. Decisions regarding stakeouts or solving mysteries, that she can do. Blackmail she excels at, revenge even more so. But those options don’t apply here and she’s confused. She doesn’t understand magic; she doesn’t understand that world, despite having lived in it for awhile. All she knows is that there’s something dark festering in her friends and she can’t really help. And Veronica’s worth lies in helping, in fixing, in controlling outcomes. She gets Willow a little bit in that way. But she has the feeling that Willow’s desire to help comes from something darker.

Or maybe not. She doesn’t want to think about it. She focuses on Buffy, on having that immense force of good back in the world. Surely that can’t be wrong. And it also can’t be wrong to want to go to Sunnydale and help out while not hurting herself in the process.

Either way she knows she’s going to have to talk to Logan about it soon. She’s dreading the conversation a little bit. She never worries about holding her own against him; she worries about hurting him when she doesn’t have to give what he wants or needs. The choices are a bit overwhelming and she sinks back down on her bed, mind occupied with possibilities and the future.