Archive of Our Own

Title: A Keen Observer of the Human Condition
Author: the_spin

Veronica Mars watches people. A girl can learn a lot that way.

It's partly her father's fault. He taught her everything she knows: how to read facial expressions and body language, to pick out a liar in a crowd of hundreds. "I want you to be able to protect yourself," he told her seriously the day she turned ten and that's why he trains her never to trust easily, to be wary of anything and everything. The world is full of people who might hurt you, and he only wants to keep her safe.

With her father's guidance she learns to soak in everything about her surroundings, to catch tiny details others miss. Her father is a cop through and through, measuring up everyone he meets in thirty seconds flat. Veronica idolizes him, wants to be everything he is because he's everything right in her world, so she learns too. They play I Spy with their eyes closed, relying on one quick glance around the room at the start of the game. No peeking allowed. She learns to file every detail away, cataloguing each one carefully in the recesses of her memory.

Her father loves her. He just wants to keep her safe, to keep her happy. And she is. She has good friends, a good family, a good home. Her father's lessons teach her how to avoid the people who might cause her pain.

Veronica Mars watches people. And she never would have guessed that something so harmless could ruin her so completely.

Lilly Kane is no mystery, and that's maybe the reason Veronica loves her so much. She's fun and feisty and says what she means. Lilly is wild, a thrill-seeker, but she's generous with her affection; Veronica always knows her place in Lilly's heart. Best friends forever, no secrets allowed. They'll always take care of each other, because that's what friends do.

She convinces Veronica to come out to a party at the Kane estate just before the start of her freshmen year (Jake and Celeste are out of town for a fundraiser with the President). Veronica is a bundle of nerves; trips to the Kane's are rife with pressure and potential now that she's started crushing on Duncan, who's maybe the closest thing she's ever had to a brother so it's all a little odd.

Lilly just laughs at her hesitation, pressing a pink halter top and a vodka tonic into her hands.

"Just put it on and drink up," she demands through giggles. "You're making me crazy and I need to get in my Zen space."

Veronica just raises an eyebrow at her, completely forgetting her nervousness in the face of Lilly's antics. This is why they work so well together. "Your what space?"

Flopping onto the bed, Lilly sighs, affecting her favorite world-weary-voice-of-experience-must-enlighten-naïve-and-innocent-friend pose: all sprawled out on the comforter, chin in her hands. "My Zen space, Veronica. Cosmo says the key to successful seduction technique is to exude cool, collected self-confidence in the face of every situation. They suggest fifteen minutes of quiet meditation before every date."

"You're going to meditate?" Veronica asks incredulously. "For Logan? I'm pretty sure you successfully seduced him over a month ago, as I distinctly remember covering my ears for half an hour while you were talking about it."

Lilly's new fascination with her brother's loud-mouthed best friend bewilders Veronica a bit; sure Logan is the son of movie stars and shares some of her penchant for smart-assitude but Lilly's always had guys all over her, most of them older and sophisticated. After all, she'd dated three seniors this past year and even got invited to prom. Why she suddenly decided to go exclusive with a cute-but-not-gorgeous guy a year below her that they've all known forever, Veronica will never know.

Lilly responds by chucking a pillow at her, and Veronica jokingly ducks into a crouch. When she pulls back up, Lilly's scrambling to sit cross-legged at the foot of the bed. She closes her eyes, palms out. "You know, Veronica," she intones, "variety is the spice of life. Gotta keep my man interested." Her eyes screw up in concentration, and for a split second Veronica's actually afraid that she's serious this time. But then Lilly's lip quirk up teasingly, and she lets out a loud "Ohmmmmm."

"Oh my god," Veronica moans, flopping onto the bed next to her.

Lilly just grins, rolls down to lie next to her. "Get dressed, Mars. You've got a date with destiny. Donut's probably going nuts downstairs with all the waiting." She punctuates her words with a playful swat and she rolls up again, sashaying off to her closet, surely with the goal of finding her most revealing tube top to wear over the bikini she's sporting.

Veronica shakes her head, and begins to struggle into the halter top with a smile.

Much, much later Veronica's really feeling all the sangria (Logan mixed it with Absolut, of course), and not at all in a good way. Duncan is an angel, hovering at her side and pushing water at her and Veronica falls a little more in love through the dreamy vodka-haze. He's her knight in shining armor. Steady, reliable Duncan.

But then Dick Casablancas knocks over some display case of priceless urns or something, (Veronica doesn't really process it), and Duncan's forced to deal so he entrusts her to Lilly and this of course is how Veronica ends up passed out on a lounge chair by the pool while Lilly and Logan splash around in the warm summer air. She's lapsing in and out of consciousness, sleepily content under the pool lights and the night sky, when the angry bite of Logan's voice summons her back into awareness.

"Jeez, not right now, okay? She's right over there!"

Veronica tips her head, grimacing at the way the ground sways underneath her, and angles so she can see around the corner of the hot tub she's hidden behind.

Lilly is advancing on Logan, and Veronica's eyes widen as she tugs at the knot of her bikini top, letting the flimsy material flip down to expose her firm, flushed breasts. Logan swallows visibly as she reaches him, relaxes a little when her hand traces up his neck. His eyes stay on her chest.

Veronica should move, say something so they know she's awake but her mouth won't work and the pool lights are so twinkly and everything is too spinny-twirly around her. And though she'll never admit it to herself later, some small part of her is fascinated. This is a part of Lilly that Veronica doesn't share, and Veronica wants to know everything about her. Veronica wants to know everything about everything; her teachers always gush over her in parent conferences. "Such an inquisitive mind," they say. "She'll go far."

"Logan," Lilly murmurs, smirking naughtily. "You know how it is when she's drunk. She's out for the night. No one will see."

Logan's head stays down as he palms her breast with a tiny hint of a smile, letting fingers circle her nipple, but then he shakes his head. "Anyone could come out. Duncan could come out here."

"So let him. Don't be such a pussy," Lilly chides with a twist of her lips, and even from here Veronica can hear the dirty purr in her voice as she presses closer to him. "It's just like the bathroom at school. Or the movie theater, remember? When I pulled down your jeans and started suck-"

She lets out a surprised squeal as he pulls her abruptly to his mouth, and Veronica eyes start to drift shut again as they kiss roughly, all open mouths and teeth clashing. She forces them open again just in time to see Logan's dark head dip down to roll Lilly's nipple in his teeth, and something flutters through Veronica's stomach at the way his shoulders curve, at the way Lilly's head falls backwards as she moans

"Finally," she grins as Logan gathers her close again, and his right arm begins to work under the water. Lilly wraps her arms tightly around his neck. "Thought I was losing my touch."

"Shut the hell up," he mutters between kisses, and she just grins wider.

Veronica's head lolls to the side as she watches them through her eyelashes, hovering on the edge of sleep but fighting hard against the serotonin tide. They are gorgeous together, and for the first time Veronica notices the clean, straight lines of Logan's torso as his skin slides against her best friend's.

She can tell when Logan finally sinks into her by the way his features contract, the way Lilly's eyes roll upward underneath her long lashes. She leans back against the tiled wall of the pool as Logan begins thrusting; Veronica's hypnotized by the heat and the passion in their faces.

"Harder," Lilly pants out over the soft splashing against the walls, and Logan complies, rippling waves across the surface of the water as he tugs her faster against him. Their bodies are slick and shining in the moonlight and they never stop touching each other, kissing faces and nibbling necks and tugging hair. They are not gentle, not by a long shot but it's all still strangely intimate, not at all like the bored couple in the five minutes of porn Lilly forced on Veronica at the beginning of the summer for 'educational purposes.'

She can't hear as they murmur to each other but then Logan's clutching at Lilly's arms, tugging her up flush against his chest. He captures her lips with his own, eyes shut tightly as she tenses against him and shudders out something that sounds like his name. He comes soon after, emotion writ large across his face and Veronica's never seen anything like it and oh my god, Logan Echolls, class clown and underachiever of the century, is in love with her. And suddenly everything about Logan and Lilly makes a hell of a lot more sense.

She watches as they cradle each other; Lilly's fingers skirt softly along his hairline.

"That," she says finally, "was awesome." Logan laughs, the sound warm and rich and joyful in the darkness.

He will never know it, but this is the day that Veronica marks as the beginning of their friendship.

She sits on the empty street across from the Camelot, nerves jangling. It's her first solo assignment and she just wants her dad to be proud. Her father is all she has left: no mother, no house, no friends, no Duncan. No virginity. Everything is gone and this is what she's got left, all she's had for three months now after she woke up with finger-shaped bruises on her hips and a can of shoe polish stripped away the last shreds of her dignity.

Veronica clutches her camera tightly against her chest, wishing she'd thought to bring Back-up. This neighborhood sucks and she's never been out alone at night here, only ever with her dad. The neon signs scattered along the road cast an eerie glow across her dashboard and she steels herself against the shiver tingling its way up her spine.

Just paranoia, she tells herself firmly, but just then the cracking rumble of engines gunning floats through the air. Somewhere, glass breaks and she can hear laughter. PCHers.

Shit.

After a split second of hesitation Veronica grabs her camera and bag, tugs open the door and dashes for the security of the Camelot fence. She really doesn't care to find out what happens to girls who run into motorcycle gangs on the wrong side of town after midnight.

In the darkened courtyard of the Camelot, she huddles down behind the diving board. Now she waits.

Sometime later, the loud clang of the gate startles her awake. She blinks, disoriented, and then shit. Shit, she fell asleep and her watch is still in the car. Her cheating husband could already be gone; she could have been out for hours. What will her dad think?

Chewing her lip, she deliberates. Her dad's number one rule is stay out of sight, stay safe, but she needs to know if the couple's still here; if they left it'd be a waste of time to stay any longer.

She steals around the pool, camera dangling from her fist as she creeps up the stairs to the second floor balcony.

A faint light glows under the door of Room 207 and she moves closer, listening. Is it still her guy? The Camelot is notoriously rent-by-the-hour, after all. As she shifts, a sliver of light from the cheap, chintzy blinds catches her attention.

When she crouches lower, angles her head just right, Veronica can see into the dingy room. Lo and behold, her cheating husband is a cheater indeed, crouched on the bed as he pumps enthusiastically into a pretty blonde on her hands and knees in front of him. He leans in, slicking kisses along her spine as she moans, and Veronica's cheeks flame. There's something familiar in their faces, something that niggles at her memory-

"Hey, what are you doing?" a gruff voice breaks in and Veronica startles around to face the greasy night manager. He's carrying a flashlight, on his rounds for the night.

"Oh," she stammers, trying to keep it together. "I just dropped my earring. Found it, thanks!" and with that she bolts, all the way down the stairs and back to the Le Baron, slamming the door shut behind her.

Heart thundering, she leans back as she gasps to catch her breath, eyes shut tight as she replays the scene. The man's mouth hanging slightly open, features threaded with ecstasy; the woman's rapturous moans: that same wild, passionate abandon that she just barely remembers from a drunken night poolside at the Kane Estate.

Later, after she's gotten her photos and kissed her father goodnight Veronica lies in bed, memory feeding in circles, Logan and Lilly moving and gasping together on an endless tape-loop.

After her rape, Veronica resolved she would not become a victim, would not have her sexuality ripped away from her even though she'd only had a scant three orgasms before. After it happened she masturbated dedicatedly, eyes shut tight as she tried to coax herself to climax but the image of purpling bruises on her hipbone always managed to slide in between the faded memories of make-out sessions with Duncan and scenes from the few romance novels she's forced herself to read and she never makes it, always giving up as shame flushes through her.

But not tonight. With her fingers on top of her underwear Veronica comes for the first time since her rape, remembering a dead girl and a boy she didn't used to hate.

They kiss and tease and laugh breathlessly in the back of his yellow monstrosity, parked next to the moonlit beach after a late movie. It's a heady feeling, finally being with Logan for real even though everything is going to shit around them and he's maybe looking for trouble with the PCHers.

"I love you," he smiles against her shoulder, and it's the third time he's said it since that first awful night with the shotgun two weeks ago. It's so easy to forget everything when he's pressed up against her like this, so easy that she's unbuckled his belt twice since then with the intention of maybe going all the way until the familiar panic kicks in. Both times she ends up giving him a hand-job instead, which he repays threefold.

"We're forever," he pants sometimes in the heat of the moment, pressing soft kisses to her forehead and eyelids. He's a little embarrassed after he says it, she can tell by the flush that creeps up his neck, but his eyes always look like they mean it.

She can't stop all the insecurities, all the worry. She's seen this look on his face before, dark and intense and passionate: for Lilly. She knows he can look at someone like that and still move on.

His face lies; there's no such thing as forever. He should know just as well as she does because they've both lived it.

"Where were you yesterday night?" she murmurs between kisses, even though she has a vague idea what the answer might be and hates the way it makes the bottom of her stomach knot up with dread. She saw the gasoline and she's not stupid. "I called. I missed you."

He moans a little as she nips at his pulse point and shifts, smoothing back her hair. "Dick and Enbom wanted to play GTO after we went over to Pan. Sorry I missed your call." He doesn't quite meet her eyes and a tiny muscle ticks in his jaw. Veronica catches it.

Her heart falls a little more and she tries to forget as he nuzzles below her ear.

When she arrives home that night, lips still swollen from Logan's kisses, her father tells her they're lucky they have the pool at the complex because the free community pool at the park caught on fire last night. The police think it was an electrical malfunction.

Logan may be a good liar, but Veronica's a better detective.

Sometimes clients want more evidence of infidelity than a simple stake-out can provide. High stakes divorce cases, usually, when someone really needs to nail their spouse to the wall. That's why Mars Investigations offers the Gold Package, handily providing photographic evidence of cheaters in flagrante. Her father's always wary of letting her handle these cases, but she assures him that he isn't destroying her childhood and usually their workload is heavy enough that he'd rather have her photographing couples going at it than chasing down potentially dangerous escaped cons.

Today she's surveilling a woman whose fiancé thinks she's cheating with her high school boyfriend. The ex-boyfriend joined the Army after high school and broke her heart, Josh says, and when he got back from his deployment she was already engaged.

"But he was her first love," Josh tells her resignedly. "How can I compete with that?"

Veronica doesn't know what to say, but Josh pushes on. "I just need to know, okay. No uncertainty. I want pictures of them together together. I need proof if I'm ever going to break it off and move on."

So Veronica plants a video feed in Josh's bedroom where he thinks they're meeting up. Two weeks later she retrieves the bug, sits down with her laptop, and watches as Josh's fiancée leads a tall, redheaded man into the bedroom. He scoops her up, kissing her tenderly before laying her back on the pillows. They make love slowly, and Veronica's heart aches at how clearly they love each other. It's so tragic, she thinks, how they wanted to be together but circumstances kept them apart. So very Romeo and Juliet.

Josh is right. There's no way he can compete. So Veronica gets him his pictures, and he gets his freedom.

Veronica teases Duncan about the tacky mirrored ceiling over his bed at the Grand, starts calling him Ron Jeremy whenever they're making out and she catches a glimpse of herself above. He just shrugs with that particular brand of Duncan immovability, tells her that he asked management to take it down but they never got around to it and he doesn't want to be a bother anyway. And eventually Veronica stops noticing it in all its tacky honeymoon-suite-style glory.

When she finally decides to start living her life and that decision leads directly to her lying naked and flat on her back in Duncan's bed, she's abruptly reminded of the mirror's existence. She watches her own face as he rocks on top of her, surprised at how impassive she looks. Forcing herself to relax, she runs her hands through his hair.

"Harder," she breathes to him, and she stares herself determinedly in the eyes as she loses her virginity, scrolling through her turn-on rotation like her iPod click-wheel. Click, Duncan's shoulders, click, Matt Damon, click, the sex scene in Basic Instinct, click, random couple she photographed fucking last week, click, Logan's ass, click, Johnny Damon hitting a home run, click-

But that tiny voice in her head that she can't ever shut off reminds her that this isn't her first time, wonders what she looked like when she lost her virginity for real that lost night. Was she naked? Was it like this? Or did they keep their clothes on? Did they undress themselves or each other? Was Duncan on top? Did she moan, enjoying? Did it hurt? Did she come? It's all a mystery to her and her mind can't ever resist a fucking mystery, wants to gather the evidence and sort it all out and file it away.

Were you even awake? a tiny, insidious whisper asks, and Veronica almost pushes him off her then and there, but no, she thinks that maybe she loves him and she won't let a stupid accident like Shelley's party ruin this for them. She and Duncan belong together.

He comes; she doesn't. He gets her off with his fingers and then they lie together, enjoying the comfortable security of skin on skin.

But when she gets home just before dawn she stalks to her bathroom, burning up with rage and indignation and not even caring that she's blowing her cover. Logan can kiss her fucking ass, she thinks, and wrenches the hot water on. She'll scream like a banshee next time, just to wipe the smirk off of his stupid smug fucking face. Maybe that'll show him how good she and Duncan have it, and he'll regret fucking every whore that comes around calling.

She rips off her tee-shirt, balling it up and throwing it hard at the wall. Turning to adjust the water, she catches her reflection in the mirror- and stops dead. Five small bruises on her arm, from where Duncan clenched a little too tightly at the height of passion and Veronica can't fight the memory that surges through her, of standing naked in front of her mirror staring at the purpling skin on her hips as she lifted the pair of scissors clenched in her hand.

She lurches clumsily to the toilet, heaving up all the remains of their romantic candlelit room service before she climbs into the shower to try to get clean again.

The night Cassidy dies, the sickening crunch that came just before the car alarm went off runs through her head over and over again. Veronica doesn't know if she'll ever feel anything again without her father but she can't process that now, it's too big, and instead she's stuck somewhere in an endless loop of 'he raped me, he raped me, he destroyed everything left in my life.'

She can't turn it off, and spends an hour staring at her ceiling while she wonders if Cassidy's fingers leave bruises whenever he slides on top of a girl. And then she spends another hour wondering if she'd prefer it if they did, if those had been his fingers on her hips instead of Duncan's. Would that change things? Would it be better? Or would it be worse?

Shut up, she tells herself. Shut up with the questions, shut up.

Her door creaks open, and she turns to see Logan silhouetted in the darkness, his face etched with concern.

"You awake again?" he asks and his voice is soft and hoarse. He doesn't sound like the Logan she knows. At her nod he pads closer to the bed, his bare feet quiet on the carpet. She rolls up to sit against the headboard and he climbs in next to her.

Veronica watches his hands as they fold and unfold in his lap; Logan's never left a mark on her, she thinks, not unless she wanted him to. She reaches out, clasps his fingers. They sit in silence, his thumb rubbing gently over hers until sleep finally claims her again.

After the night on the roof everything is different. It takes her a few days to notice but somehow Logan's become the only person she wants to spend time with anymore. When she gets home from New York they go out together every night, to the movies or dinner or the beach or the Grand or wherever. She can't keep her hands off him; even though she still sort of hated him up until a few weeks ago she feels like they're making up for lost time. They kiss for hours but no clothes have come off yet. They are cautious, reluctant.

Wallace calls asking to see her but she always tells him she's too busy. She doesn't say that she needs more time but she thinks Wallace understands and that's why she loves him so much.

But even spending every night with Logan doesn't seem like enough; she feels the tug of his gravity from all the way across town. Something's changed, bonded them together with a glue she can't even begin to understand.

He starts surfing on the beach near her house every morning even though Veronica knows he hasn't been out on the waves for months. She brings Back-up out to walk after breakfast and she can't hold back her smile when she sees him straddling his board out in the ocean. He always lifts an arm in greeting, though they've never once made plans to meet there.

It's easier to pretend they're just running into each other because the idea that she and Logan Echolls want to spend twenty-four hours a day together is too weird to contemplate right now and they're both way too fucked up to even start thinking about that.

She and Back-up play fetch with a ratty old tennis ball, and she glances out occasionally to watch him. When Logan gets tired he'll come back in, drag his board over next to her and grin through slobbery kisses from her dog.

One sunny day three weeks after Aaron Echolls's funeral, Veronica's tossing the ball to Back-up like always but when she looks out across the water for Logan's familiar form she sees- nothing. Just the waves rolling in, like he was never there at all.

Confused, she looks left, right. Did he paddle back in without her noticing?

But he's not on the beach and that's when the icy shards of dread start working their way into her chest. Her feet begin to move toward the shoreline and she doesn't even notice when Back-up's leash drops from her hand. Her eyes are still fixed on the water and oh god oh god.

And then- his board bobs up on the crest of a wave coming in, and Logan half stumbles-half-washes up onto the beach, which isn't unusual in itself as Logan isn't really the best surfer in the world but the blood running down his face from the gash at his hairline most certainly is unusual.

"Oh my God, Logan," she keeps saying over and over as she helps him stand. She presses her fingers against the cut, trying to staunch the bleeding a little.

"Don't worry," he says a little dazedly. "Head wounds bleed a lot. I wiped out. Fucking rock or something."

"I think you need stitches," she says, fighting to keep her voice even. "We're going to the hospital." She helps him up the beach, grabbing a towel on the way that she presses firmly against his head, instructing him to keep applying pressure as she leads him to her apartment.

She was going to take him in the Le Baron but her father's already in the parking lot, putting a suitcase in the trunk of his car. His brow furrows at the sight of Veronica with the dog and Logan in his wetsuit and Veronica sees him put the pieces together, suddenly understanding why she's been so gung-ho about taking Back-up out every day. But then he actually looks at Logan and his eyes widen as he takes in the blood.

"I'm taking him to the hospital," she says but her voice is much less even this time and when she looks down her hands are shaking.

Her father nods understandingly. "I'm on my way to the airport. Let me drive you; you can take a cab home."

She doesn't think she's ever loved him quite so much before.

Logan doesn't have a concussion and with the stitches he shouldn't even have much of a scar. Nothing to worry about, the doctor assures her. She brings him back to her apartment; he's still a little looped on painkillers and the anesthetic. He grins stupidly at her from where he immediately flopped on the couch as she closes the front door behind her.

"What?" she asks suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing," he says airily. "Just the fact that we're alone in your apartment and your dad is on his way out of the country."

The corners of her lips tip upwards. "Oh," Veronica replies as she moves to straddle his thighs. "That."

The lines of his torso are loose and relaxed underneath her as she leans forward to kiss him warmly, and the sudden rush of arousal takes her by surprise. Usually his muscles are strung up tight, humming with energy and motion. His volatility makes her wary, keeps her from giving in to her body's demands.

But today the drugs soften that edge and he's sliding boneless against her and there's no way he could hurt her right now, she thinks, none. When he breaks away from her lips to run hands over her hair she studies his face, taking in his dilated pupils, his parted lips. And she thinks of that brief moment of panic at the water's edge, that split second horror that she might not get him back again.

And then she's tugging off his shirt urgently, practically ripping his clothes off.

The hesitation is clear as day on his face and she thinks he can't quite keep up with everything. "You really want this?" Logan asks, and she can't tell if the darkness of his eyes is from arousal or painkiller or some combination of both.

She lets a kiss serve as her answer as she fumbles in her wallet for a condom; his hands caress her body, up and down her back, over her breasts, sliding across her thighs. She's nervous; she shouldn't be nervous because she's had sex before, lots of sex but this seems so important because it's Logan and maybe because she has something to prove.

She urges him down, leans in to nibble at his flat nipples before guiding him inside her. He lets her set the pace, dragging the flats of his nails along the creases of her thigh. His eyes are wide and shining and fixed on her face.

She still feels a little awkward, isn't always sure where to touch or put her hands, and it's good, really good, but not nearly as explosive as she always expected. His fingers find her clit and she closes her eyes, concentrating. Click, Logan's ass, click, making out in the back of the X-Terra, click-

"Hey," he says, startling her a bit as he tilts her chin down closer to him with his thumb. "Stop thinking so hard, okay?" And when he leans up and kisses her, Veronica comes.

The next morning he's regular-Logan again, thrumming with tension and energy but is full of warm smiles, solid and sweaty spooned against her in yellow cotton sheets. "Morning, beautiful," he purrs as he rolls on top of her but there's no panic this time, not after last night. His quirked lips dip down to meet hers as the weight of his body presses her into the mattress, and she feels glorious.

Logan's eyes are dark, so dark as he slides down her body, settling between her thighs and she thinks that she recognizes something in his face. Her fingers twine into the sheets, clenching tightly as she lets him take control. For the first time Veronica doesn't lock herself away, doesn't close her eyes to run through her standard masturbatory turn-ons; instead her gaze catches on his thick dark hair as he laps at her clit, traces admiringly over the sharp lines of his shoulders and torso as she burns for him. She knows now she has nothing to fear from him.

And when he finally slides back up to kiss her mouth (after two highly satisfying climaxes), she catches a glimpse of her digital clock as his hand smoothes away her sweat-soaked bangs. With a start Veronica realizes he's been going down on her for nearly an hour, and she hasn't thought of anything but him the entire time.

This must be what victory feels like.

After their second and third times, once with her on top again and once with Logan gently urging her calves up over his shoulders, Veronica's seriously wondering why she ever bothered sleeping with anyone but him.

He's dozing again, snoring a little and they're cramped up together in her tiny twin bed

"Logan," she says suddenly. She doesn't want to lose this. She doesn't want this to end. "Logan, wake up."

He groans as he buries his face in the pillow. "Go away," and his voice is muffled by the printed cotton.

Prodding at his shoulder, she urges him onto his back. "I'm serious here."

Finally he gives in, grimacing as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. "What?"

At his frown, she hesitates. Maybe this isn't a good idea after all.

But then he softens, scooting closer and when she looks back at him his mouth is relaxed, eyes gleaming with humor. "What is it?"

"I want you to enroll at Hearst," she finally blurts out. When his brow furrows she presses on hurriedly. "I know you were going to take at least a year off, but… we could go together this way. I don't want you to throw your life away; you could do so much if you just try, Logan."

Immediately, his face darkens with hurt. "So what? I'm not good enough if I don't do the college thing right away?" His mouth begins to twist. "Don't want to be seen with a slacker, is that it?"

"No! No, I didn't-." She exhales shakily; Veronica hates how nothing out of her mouth ever comes out quite right. "I didn't mean that. I want you at Hearst for purely selfish reasons, but I'm not going to tell you how to live your life." She rolls onto her side to face away from him, trying to hide how much she hates the idea of going to school without him.

After a moment she feels his arms slide around her hips, his body pressing firmly against hers. "Okay," he murmurs into her hair, and she can hear the apology in his voice. "Okay. Selfish is something I can get behind," and she feels the smiling curve of his lips pressing into the back of her neck. "So. How much do you think it's gonna cost me to get a late acceptance? Will I be donating a new wing to the library?"

She rolls back to look at him, a tiny smile just tugging at her lips. "Well, how bad were your SAT scores?"

He leans back, a long slow grin sliding across his face. "1510, baby. And 790 on the writing."

She blinks. "You're shitting me," because holy god, that's only ten points less than her and she studied forever but no, she knows all of Logan's tells and he's not lying this time. "You suck at math!" she accuses incredulously. He just shrugs.

"Got a perfect score on the Verbal. That helped things." His eyebrows rise suggestively. "Everyone always says I've got a silver tongue."

She hits him with the pillow in response, trying to muffle her laughter.

*~*~*

In October, May Nichols hires Veronica to investigate the disappearences of several items from her home. She's an economics professor at Hearst; apparently tales of Veronica's unusual extracurricular activities are spreading among the faculty as well as the students.

"My best guess is the housekeeper, but I don't want to accuse anyone without proof," May tells Veronica over an espresso. "My husband hired her while I was on sabbatical in Prague last year and vouches completely for her character. I'd just like to get this over and done with."

May supervises as Veronica makes her way through the house, affixing little fish-eye button cameras on walls and ceilings, in corners and on ceiling fans. She just hopes it will be enough to get May what she needs.

Every night she pours over the feeds but finds no evidence of any of the help lifting anything. She worries that she'll find nothing; that she'll lose the job and the money which she sorely needs to get her camera fixed.

Two weeks later she hits the jackpot with clear video of the thief pocketing a small crystal vase. The only problem: the thief is Mr. Nichol's mistress. Veronica hesitates over the image of the two of them in the bed he shares with his wife. She could so easily wipe the disk; Professor Nichols wouldn't go through what was sure to be a messy, painful divorce.

But her hesitation doesn't last. May deserves the truth, however ugly it might be. She has an obligation to her client.

The next week, Veronica meets May for coffee again. "My sister," May says, sniffling a little. "My own sister, can you believe it? I knew us being apart for a year was hard, but everything seemed so wonderful when I got back. I had no idea."

Veronica nods with as much sympathy as she can muster. "It's awful, to be lied to like that. I'm so sorry."

May blows her nose into a tissue. "But that's not even the worst part. I thought I knew everything about him, you know? We'd been together for so long. I thought we were so close." She wipes her eyes, composing herself. "So if I didn't really know him, how can I ever be sure about anyone?"

*~*~*

He slept with Madison. He slept with her. It's stuck in the tape-loop in her head and it's slowly driving her crazy. She doesn't want to care; wants to throw it off because she knows, academically, that it shouldn't matter. They were broken up, not on a break. It should be nothing. Broken up, but that doesn't matter in her skull when her brain is dissecting it all down, trying to file it away.

Did he kiss her neck? Were they on the bed? Or maybe the floor? Did they laugh? Did he look into her eyes like he looks into hers? Did they talk about her? Did they laugh about her? She knows how Logan can be, especially when he's drunk and hurt and angry.

Did he sleep with Madison because he wanted to hurt her?

Shut up, she tells herself as she slides the keycard into the lock. Shut up! Her fist knocks angrily against the wall but luckily Logan's not in the suite to hear it. There's a note for her propped up on the coffee table. Poolside, it reads.

He's reclining in a lounger when she finds him, mirrored shades firmly over his eyes. "Hey, baby," he smiles. There's an awful tan line at the base of his neck.

"Forgot to put the sunscreen on after the wetsuit again, I see," she says, striving for cheerful. Did Madison kiss his neck?

"I'm attempting to even it out," he grins, tugging off the shades. "You know me too well."

It's possible she might vomit. "Try not to get skin cancer, okay? I've got to take care of some things for a job."

His face falls. "We're not going out tonight?"

"I'll make it up to you on Friday," she says, but what she thinks is maybe I don't know you after all.

*~*~*

Sometimes Veronica wishes she didn't know almost everything about everyone. There are so many things she doesn't want tucked neatly away in her brain: the sound a body makes when as it plummets twelve stories onto the windshield of a Camaro; the shape of the shadows Logan's eyelashes cast against his cheek in the early morning sunlight; the way bruises fade from purple-black to yellow-green to nothing on your skin.

She wishes she wasn't a human lie detector, that she couldn't spot a cheater a mile away. She knows the signs that someone's faking intimacy and caring (and she really wishes she didn't because it's making her feel terribly, guiltily awful for one Parker Lee).

Every morning Veronica gets breakfast in the union after her 8:30 class, and Logan and Parker are always there, eating and talking and flirting. She watches them from across the room, considers getting up earlier to eat before class (which she won't because she has her pride and Logan Echolls isn't driving her away from anywhere), but mostly Veronica studies Logan, watches for his tells. This is the reason she's so damn good at poker; she catches every facial tic, every twinge and hesitation.

She knows what Logan looks like when he's in love; she saw it with Lilly and she saw it for her, and the Logan with Parker isn't the Logan-in-love. He cracks jokes but his expression stays shuttered, no earnest begging eyes this time around. He doesn't scoot his chair up next to her to be close as possible. He never touches her hair.

This new Logan has rules, Mac tells her over coffee as Veronica pretends not to be interested. He and Parker don't discuss his grades, his drinking, his gambling, his attendance record, or his future. This Logan doesn't get too close.

She thinks that maybe she's turned Logan into herself, and it's a surprisingly depressing revelation.

Veronica Mars knows people, and Parker's sure as hell gonna get her heart broken.

*~*~*

She, Logan, and Wallace sit around the desk in Mars Investigations as they trade Psychology flashcards, pausing every now and again to scribble something down. Still having a class together after their break-up was awkward to say the least, but now Veronica thinks it's a tiny bit cathartic. They still get to see each other on a regular basis for a legitimate reason and also have a ready-made awkwardness-free topic of conversation. And with Wallace around as a buffer, Logan's proving himself to be a surprisingly able study buddy.

It helps take the edge off how much she misses him.

"Do you have the notes for the first Cognition unit?" Wallace asks, grimacing distastefully. "I think I lost-"

But he's interrupted when the door slams open and a short young woman with curly brown hair storms into the office. "You," she says angrily to Veronica. "You stupid idiot! Couldn't you have just asked what was going on?"

Veronica recognizes her; a cheating girlfriend that she photographed leaving the Camelot with another man. Emily Tripp. An elementary school teacher, she remembers. The man worked for the Board of Education. Her boyfriend had not been happy. "You were lying to him. You were cheating. He deserved to know."

"I wasn't cheating!" Emily exclaims. "And if you'd come to me you would have known that. I love Mike. I'd never do that to him."

Veronica rolls her eyes at that. "Right, which is why you're meeting with men at the Camelot in the middle of the afternoon."

"The man you saw me with is a social worker!" Emily explodes. "We were trying to go through back channels to build a mistreatment case against the parents of a little girl in my class. And when Mike didn't come to me and went straight to the Department of Education to confront him, his supervisors found out and took away the case." There are hot angry tears shining in Emily's eyes now, and a hard lump of dread is quickly forming in Veronica's stomach. "They started formal proceedings and requested an interview with the parents. But that spooked them and they bolted. We don't have enough evidence to pursue."

The tears are running down her face down, her breath coming in uneven gasps. "I'm almost positive they were abusing her, and because of you we lost the chance to get her out of that house. You stupid idiot."

Logan's gone stiff and motionless beside her. "Let me get you some water," he tells Emily hoarsely as he stands, and when he looks back over his shoulder Veronica's never seen anything like the disappointment in his eyes.

*~*~*

Two weeks later, she's at lunch with Wallace when he tells her that Parker broke up with Logan right in the middle of the cafeteria at dinner last night.

"What?" she blinks, and the sandwich traveling toward her mouth stops midway, hanging in the air. "Are you serious?"

"Like a heart attack," he says gravely, but the whole thing is sort of ruined by the way he's chewing the straw sticking out of his can of Coke. "Guy made a big scene. Mac said Parker told him he isn't ready to move on yet, and the boy got all pissy."

Veronica sucks at her bottom lip, considering. Parker dumped Logan? Definitely not something she saw coming.

Wallace watches her with raised eyebrows, obviously waiting for a response. She shakes herself, reaches to gather her trash onto her tray. Logan isn't a topic she wants to rehash right at this very moment so now is the time for escape.

"Sorry to cut the gossip hour short," she smiles as Wallace scowls at the gentle dig. "But I've gotta run. The Help Desk waits for no woman."

Maybe she misjudged Parker, she thinks as she strides quickly across the quad to the library, dodging around a pack of Theta Betas sunning themselves. Unusual, but Veronica's starting to get the feeling that maybe she doesn't read people as well as she thought. Never in a million years did she think Parker had the backbone to withstand Logan's easy, charming manipulations. Or that Parker would see through him when so many others hadn't.

And if Veronica was wrong about that, well, maybe she's been wrong about a lot of things.

*~*~*

She's restless all night and she doesn't quite know why. A little before midnight she finds herself pulling on her green jacket and hooking Back-up's leash to his leather collar. She just needs some air, she thinks.

Her father raises an eyebrow when she opens the front door but thankfully remains silent. Things are strained between them and Veronica isn't sure why. She doesn't trust him like she used to and she's almost certain that he doesn't trust her. But she doesn't trust anyone these days so she guesses it's par for the course.

The air is cool and dry on her skin as she makes her way to the beach. Lost in thought, she lets the dog and her feet guide her. She's watching the stars, thinking about better nights she's had, better lives that she's led but comes up short when she glimpses a figure sitting on the beach looking out over the ocean, brown hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his head.

This is their spot, she realizes. She just automatically came to their fucking spot.

Back-up is straining at the leash so she lets him go, watches him bound over to the boy. She follows hesitantly. What should she say? 'I'm glad you got dumped because I hate when you're with other people but I guess I'm sorry you're upset about it?'

Veronica settles awkwardly next to him on the warm, damp sand. Logan says nothing, still staring out across the ocean. The breeze stirs her hair as Back-up nudges insistently at her shoulder.

"I was wondering when you'd show," he says finally. "Here to rub it in?"

She turns, studies his profile. His face is blank, still, smooth, and his eyes are red, like maybe he's been trying not to cry. She looks away quickly, wishing she hadn't noticed because it hurts that'd he'd cry for Parker, that he might have had real feelings for her. Her throat is dry and she can't think of anything that sounds like a suitable response.

"I feel like an idiot," he says, voice low and rough. "Every decision I make bites me in the ass." He turns to her. "How do you do it, Veronica?" and she can hear the bitterness rising as his voice gets louder. "How are you so fucking perfect all the time? How do you always make the right decision?" She can hear the thread of desperation in his voice and it makes her ache for him.

She bites her lip. "You know that I don't. I just don't admit it." He says nothing, his mouth still working angrily as he glares out into the dark horizon and she's not quite sure what he's upset about.

She never understands him when they're not together; every quip, every line, everything that comes out of his mouth throws her for a loop. He's so different; he never burns quite as brightly without her.

"Are you still in love with me?" she asks, honest for once in her life even though she knows it's an awful thing to do. "Parker thinks you are."

"Fuck Parker," he says, but he won't look at her, staring resolutely down the beach.

"Logan," she says softly because she knows him like the back of her hand, could probably play him like a violin. She leans against him a little, half because she wants to, but half because she knows it will break him down. "Logan, come on."

Finally he turns back and she can see it on his face again, in the quirk of his lips and the arch of his eyebrows and the corners of his eyes.

"Yes, alright? Yes." He sighs, scrubbing palms over his face. "I just need more time, okay? I can't just turn it off. You don't have to wait to move on or anything."

"Maybe I don't want you to turn it off," she says, and wow, that was not what she meant to say.

His face clouds. "Veronica-" he starts, uncomfortable.

"I'm so unhappy without you," she blurts. "I hate this."

He shakes his head. "You can't do this," he says. "Were you ever happy with me?"

She shrugs, a tiny tip of her shoulders. "Closer to it, at least." She leans into him again, because fuck, she really does want this. She's not lying.

"Oh my god," he says. "No. I just got dumped yesterday."

"No one has to know," she says, letting her breath ghost across his neck and she knows he's gone already because she knows everything about him, has seen him crack for her and for Lilly a thousand different times. She knows all the tricks, filed them all away since that first night she saw him with Lilly in the pool. Maybe it's dishonest, maybe it's manipulative, but.

She thinks she really might love him.

"What about the Madison thing? You do remember that, right?"

"I don't give a shit about Madison," she says, and when her brain doesn't suddenly whip into overdrive, Didhekissherdidtheylaughwasmadisonbetter-, Veronica realizes that it's true this time. Maybe because of how he was with Parker, clearly with her but not at all loving her. She thinks her brain solved that little mystery, tucked Madison neatly away with Parker behind the 'Girls who don't matter" divider. Maybe her problem wasn't about Madison after all; maybe it was about the not knowing.

She presses her body closer, turns her head to let her lips brush under his ear.

"Veronica," he protests weakly, but he doesn't stand a chance. Being with her is better for him, she tells herself. She'll be better this time. She'll trust him and they'll be happy.

She lets her fingers trail up his face like she saw Lilly do a hundred times to end a fight, and that's when she feels him break. He tugs her roughly against him, crushing her lips against his as he moans somewhere low in his throat.

They stay on the beach until dawn.

*~*~*

Veronica wishes she didn't know so much about people, because people always let you down. But if a girl learns enough, knows enough, watches close enough, well, hell, she can do anything.

A girl can get whatever she wants.