anjoufic | Into the Blue 3/?

Title: Into the Blue, Part 3/?
Author: Anjou

anjoufic
Pairing/Character: Logan/Veronica, Logan's POV
Word Count: 4,071
Rating: PG-13/mild R for language
Summary: It's almost summer, and Logan is sinking into the blue.

Letting the days go by let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by water flowing underground
Into the blue again after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime water flowing underground

Once in a Lifetime … Talking Heads

Spoilers/Warnings: S1. Beyond that is just my imagination, running away with me.

Any and all characters that you recognize are the property of Rob Thomas and UPN. Thanks to

suzanne_laura for editing and pep talks.

~*~

When he pushed off from the railing, Logan felt an instant of pure freedom -- just before he heard the sound of mocking laughter. He twisted unnaturally in the open air.

Lilly was standing on the bridge in her pep squad uniform. She waved.

“Buh-bye, lover!” she said cheerfully.

Then she turned into his father’s welcoming arms as Aaron pulled her right leg up and over his hip. He was smirking at Logan over Lilly's shoulder as he ground against her while she moaned, dropping her head back. As Aaron bent forward to kiss Lilly’s long white neck, Logan plummeted head down into a tumbling freefall toward the unyielding cement of Neptune High’s schoolyard.

Logan leapt up off the couch, slamming his shin hard against the edge of the coffee table. The house was dark, but the TV was on and an announcer was droning about Aaron’s affair with Lilly. As he hopped over and shut it off, his eye was caught by the flashing blue lights reflecting off the apex of the cathedral ceiling. He sucked in a breath, heart pounding at the dream and the instinctive fear that the blue lights in the darkness conjured up. Rationally, he knew that Lamb had left some cops to protect them from the fans and the reporters, but suddenly it was as if he could feel them all in the dark, ringing the house. He was surrounded. Logan couldn't catch his breath and he ran through the empty rooms and burst outside to the fresh air.

The only light came from the pool, gleaming like an unblinking eye in the thick darkness, staring up at the empty nothingness of the sky. He dropped onto one of the deck chairs and gasped, putting his head between his knees to try and control the hyperventilation. “Lilly,” he choked out, and that one word was the final push he needed to let the tears he had bottled up inside go.

Afterwards, he stripped off all of his clothes and threw himself into the pool, letting himself sink down to the bottom where he just sat under the diving board, holding his breath and thinking.

He didn't know what to believe anymore. What was real, what was fake -- it was all a jumble in his mind. He'd thought that he knew the difference, that he could tell when people were acting, but could he?

One of the things that he’d always loved about Lilly was that she wasn’t impressed by his movie star parents. Or so he thought. Her own parents were famous, after all, and she knew that public image was very different from private life, that people could project the image of a happy family without actually having one. She'd always seemed so worldly. He’d felt safe with her, believing that she was sophisticated enough to see through Aaron’s veneer. He thought that she’d loved him just enough to hate Aaron, because Aaron was a liar and a bully. They'd never really talked about Aaron hitting him, but he thought she knew exactly how much of a bully Aaron really was. She'd certainly been a witness to enough Echolls family dysfunction over the years, just as he'd witnessed plenty of what they called ‘Kane Mania’.

Now he wondered what she really understood, or worse, if she'd known and still played with fire. Lilly had always loved a challenge.

All this time, he’d been picturing Lilly and himself as loving combatants playing out their own little drama from their opposite sides of the game board -- one step forward, two steps back, knight, pawn, queen. But while he’d been focusing all of his attention on their game, Lilly had been playing several simultaneously. She'd been playing so far beyond his level, it was dizzying.

He burst up into the blue night to find himself facing the pool house. Before they’d left, the Sheriff’s office had sealed the doors with crime scene tape and solemnly instructed them to stay away from the outbuilding. They’d be coming back to collect more evidence, although he didn’t know what they hoped to find after such a long time. Not that he had any intention of finding out what it was that they were looking for, anyway. He had his own reasons for staying out of that haunted building.

"I do trust you", he heard Veronica say, and tried to force away the sense memory of her weight against his groin as she straddled him, listening to his confession. He'd believed her. But then again, he'd been a fool for most of his life. His subconscious was always happy to chastise him, using Aaron's voice, of course. Logan pushed away from the wall and tried to focus on staying afloat, willing the voices to recede as he drifted out to the center of the pool.

The haze of the late California spring hid most of the stars from his view. He wondered if there was already wildfire in the hills somewhere that was obscuring them from his view. Summer, when the air was dry and heavy with smoke, usually meant vacations to someplace exotic, followed by surfing in Mexico and endless parties. In the time after Lilly, he’d thought of parties as a chance to hook up with some blue-eyed bathing beauty. But he doubted there’d be any parties for him this summer; the only blue-eyed beauty he really wanted was lost to him.

Did it signify a kind of self-loathing that he had always been attracted to women with blue eyes? If he were honest with himself, he’d have to say that his original fascination with blue eyes probably stemmed from Duncan, who had the most guileless, innocent eyes when they met. Of course, even Veronica’s eyes had been guileless, once upon a time. Lilly’s eyes had never been that -- not even when they were younger -- but that was part of what he liked about her. He'd thought that she was smart about the ways people could be wicked, thought that she could see just how easy it was for some people to lie.

Then again, maybe he was just being too hard on Lilly. Aaron had become a star based on his ability to convince others that he was something he'd never been -- the hero. How could he expect Lilly to be impervious to Aaron’s charm? Logan had watched Aaron on movie sets for years. Aaron would target a woman, especially one that didn’t like him, and set out convincing her that he wanted her, that he needed her. If she didn’t like him, especially if she was disdainful or dismissive of him, that only made it a bigger challenge, a better game of conquest when she did finally succumb.

And Lilly had loved being paid attention to; she must have felt so triumphant when she thought she had Aaron begging.

He felt the flesh on his back creep when he thought of them together. He closed his eyes but the images were burned into his lids, so he turned over and swam laps hard until they dissolved.

He dragged himself out of the pool and wrapped himself up in towels, piling his clothes in a bundle in his arms. He considered lying down on a deck chair to sleep, but knew that he'd be woken by the gardeners or find his picture in the Enquirer if he did. Instead he stumbled upstairs, exhausted and a little drunk. The police had broken his bed frame in their overzealous search of his room, but he could still sleep on the mattress. But, at some point, Trina would probably stomp in and try to make him go see Aaron. He knew her too well to assume that she’d just give up. He dragged himself up the stairs to the second floor, and his eyes were drawn to his mother's room. Before today, he'd avoided being in there, but now … it seemed like the only safe haven in the house.

The quiet of the room seemed exceptional to him as he stepped in and gently shut the door. Above the divan, he could see the blue light of the pool reflected on the ceiling in an azure-tinged shadow. He looked out the window and over the small balcony at the pool. It was already becalmed, its surface showing not a ripple. Only the water splashed at the pool's edge and his faintly outlined footprints showed that he'd ever been there, and that evidence would be gone long before morning.

He couldn't make himself get in his mother's bed, so he dropped his clothes by the side of the chaise, and lay down on it, dragging the chenille throw that was folded at its foot up and over him. Before sleep took him under, he wondered if Veronica was sorry now that she’d found her truth -- if learning what had caused Lilly's death had been worth it, after all. He'd believed her when she said that she loved Lilly, but he also knew that she’d never expected the answers that she’d found. Was she wondering now if she'd known Lilly at all, like he was? All along, he’d believed that there was one person who loved him just as he was, just a little, and that was Lilly. Even after she was dead, he had still had that one thing to hold onto, but now...

And worse, he felt like a fool because he had hoped Veronica could love him more than just that little bit, that she would wrap him up in the fierce tenderness that was all hers and …

But it was all lost, and he was adrift.

~*~

Logan had seen a movie once about a group of surfers who'd followed summer around the world in their quest for the perfect wave. At the time, he thought it was kind of cheesy -- who needed to travel that far to surf? But after only a few days of being trapped in the house, the ocean that was less than a mile from where he was might as well be as distant as New Zealand’s remotest shore. This was going to be Logan’s endless summer.

The irony was that it wasn’t actually summer yet. He was supposed to be at school, but with the crowd of reporters from around the world surrounding the house, not to mention his father's fans, he didn't see how he could possibly get out undetected. Trina had scoffed at his refusal to go outside the gate, but she had always enjoyed being a part of the 'Echolls Spectacle'.

Besides, even though he never answered the phone anymore, he couldn’t help but notice that an overwhelming majority of the phone calls were for him, which he knew upset Trina. She went out to see their father every day faithfully. After the first couple of days, nobody was interested in speaking to her, although they did ask about Logan. He’d seen that just the other night on the news, how irritated Trina was when she gritted out ‘no comment’ with a fake smile.

Every day, sometimes twice a day, a major talking head would call to talk to Logan. Diane Sawyer had called. Barbara Walters. Oprah. In fact, just about every famous interviewer had called and asked if he’d be willing to talk to them. Katie Couric had traded on the fact that they’d met a few times. His mother had been a big supporter of the charity she’d established in her late husband’s name. When she called, Katie said that she’d been thinking about him, and that she was worried about him. Even if they didn’t tape an interview, she hoped that he knew that he could call anytime. She'd left her private number. But then again, Larry King had also left his, and he’d never laid eyes on Larry King off of the tube. Mrs. Navarro was keeping a list of all his calls for him, hidden from Trina in the drawer where the fattening snacks were kept.

Duncan Kane’s name was never on that list.

Every morning, Logan would wait to come downstairs until he heard Trina leave. He’d have already checked his missed calls on his cell phone, and then he’d check the list. Charlie Rose, yes. Duncan Kane, no.

Initially, Logan had wondered if Veronica had told Duncan that he’d suspected Duncan had killed Lilly. He contemplated whether that betrayal had been the final straw that had imploded their friendship. But then he'd remember Duncan’s expression on the night of his un-birthday party and he knew that it was Veronica that had been the final straw. Logan had put her first, before everyone else, and it had cost him everything.

Every morning when he checked his voicemail, Veronica had always called his cell phone; her name was also always on the list that Mrs. Navarro wrote out in her neat, but foreign-looking hand. Her voicemail messages were always brief. "Logan, it's Veronica. Please call me." She sounded tired a lot of the time, and sometimes the messages were time-stamped in the middle of the night.

He never called her back. He’d decided to take a page from her Spy Girl handbook and act like she was invisible. So far, she wasn’t taking the hint.

Still, he liked to listen to her try and pump Mrs. Navarro for information. If he timed it right, and Trina had left on time, he could make it to the kitchen during the long locker break in the morning when Veronica was sure to call the house phone.

“No,” Mrs. Navarro was saying. “He doesn’t talk to anybody.” She paused. “Yes, I told him you called.” She sounded exasperated. “Every time.” After a beat, she said, “Well, he couldn’t read that. They took his computer.” Mrs. Navarro sounded irritated on his behalf as she continued. “They broke things everywhere in the house – they even broke the frame on his bed!” She listened. “No,” she said, “that’s not a good idea.”

He leaned against the door and watched Mrs. Navarro.

“I have to go,” she said.

As she hung up, he could hear Veronica protesting.

“She’s not going to give up,” Mrs. Navarro said.

Logan shrugged. “You could just let the answering machine pick up the calls.”

“She just calls back until I answer,” Mrs. Navarro said as he crossed the kitchen and got himself a glass of juice.

“You know what?” Logan said, struck by inspiration. “When she calls back next time, tell her I said that I need to do whatever.” Mrs. Navarro looked confused. “I need to do whatever,” he said clearly. “She’ll understand.”

She shook her head. “She’s still gonna call, Logan,” she said. “Her and that Katie Couric. She called again.” She cleaned the counter vigorously. “I can’t watch the Today show anymore.”

“The cult of the tiny blonde,” Logan intoned sagely, "is characterized by its wrongheaded tenacity."

Mrs. Navarro looked at him with a puzzled expression, but he only smiled and went off to the living room to watch today’s continuing coverage of what he mentally referred to as Aaron Echolls Theatre, juggling coffee, juice and pop tarts. He particularly enjoyed watching the news coverage that was being broadcast in languages he didn’t understand, like Chinese. It was always extremely bizarre to see his face pop up behind the newscaster and hear some mangled iteration of his name pronounced haltingly. The newscasters never had any problem rapping out his father’s name. Years of practice had worn the edges of its foreign strangeness.

It was extremely boring, but since there was no one around to amuse him, he had to at least try and amuse himself. He couldn't spend all of his time drunk; even that had become boring.

~*~

He should have known that the other shoe had to drop at some point. The next day, he’d woken feeling stultified by the heat. Ever since the police had been rummaging around in the vents, they didn't seem to be working correctly. The broken air conditioning was another reason for him to stay mad at Veronica Mars.

Of course, if he could have found some way to blame her for the weather, he'd have done it. He told himself he was ignoring Veronica, cutting her out of his life for good, but in fact she was on his mind almost constantly. The first thing he did in the morning was listen to her cell phone messages. He’d start with the latest one, then he'd listen to the old, saved ones. After that, he'd go downstairs and eavesdrop on her conversation with Mrs. Navarro. Then he'd spend an exciting day watching the continuing coverage of the Aaron Echolls Spectacle, hoping that one of the satellite trucks parked outside Neptune High would get a good shot of her. Every night he told himself that tomorrow was the day that he'd go cold turkey, but … he'd wake up and start the cycle again.

And this morning had been worse because he'd been dreaming about her. In his dream, she was laying in his arms on the divan, running her hands over his shoulders, his chest. She was talking to him in her low serious voice, trying to explain something to him, but he couldn’t focus on her words. All he could think was that she was finally there as he leaned in to kiss her.

When he'd awoken for real later, he was lying as if he'd left space on the small divan for her, his arms cast out to the side, molding around the empty air. Her sad voice on the telephone had seemed a particularly hollow substitute.

He showered and dressed himself, then padded downstairs, feeling unsettled and empty.

“Logan,” a voice said to his left, and he stifled a curse. He’d really thought he’d heard the door slam.

“Trina,” he answered, but kept moving.

“Daddy really wants you to come see him,” she said firmly.

He stopped, turned around and looked at her. “I’m not going,” he said, then turned back toward the kitchen.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little unfair?” she asked.

Before he could even plan what to say to that, she continued. “I mean, you’ve heard what other people say he did, but why won’t you let him tell you his side of the story?”

“Because I don’t care?” Logan asked rhetorically, wondering who these 'other people' Trina thought he was talking to all day were.

“You’re lying,” Trina said. “He’s our father, and you’re mad at him, but you do care about him. He’s not a killer, Logan.”

She really was delusional. Logan shook his head and blew out a breath. “You know, Trina, I actually think that it’s kind of nice for him that you’re always on his side.” He glanced over at her and she looked skeptical. “No, I’m really being serious here. It’s the one thing he has that I envy him for.” He paused. “And I think that you’re convinced that he didn’t kill Lilly.”

“Because he didn’t,” she insisted firmly, “and if you’d just talk …”

“But he did have sex with her,” Logan said over her, and she stopped. “I mean, you do believe that, right?”

“He’s really sorry, Logan,” Trina said. “He has a problem!” she said forcefully, off Logan’s scathing look.

“We all have problems, Trina,” Logan said evenly, “and he’s not mine anymore. I’m not going. Don’t ask me again.”

He turned around and walked away. This time when she began yelling he didn’t answer, but just went into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mrs. Navarro!” he said cheerfully. “It’s another spectacular day here at Casa de Echolls.”

Mrs. Navarro was scrubbing rather forcefully at a counter and didn’t answer him.

“Mrs. Navarro?” he prompted.

She turned and looked at him, seemed to be about to say something, then stopped herself. She walked over to the snack drawer and took the phone call list out, then slapped it in front of him. Veronica’s name was underlined several times.

He looked at her, and started to speak, but she tapped Veronica’s name. “You have any messages for Veronica, Logan,” she said clearly, "then you give them to her. I do not like making people cry.” She looked up at him angrily. “Veronica is a nice girl.”

Logan’s mouth was hanging open. “She cried?” he asked, hearing his voice crack like a twelve year old’s. He could feel his whole body flushing.

“No, no, no,” Mrs. Navarro said. “You want to know? You call.” She threw the sponge at the sink and missed, then left the room without another word.

Logan spent the next few hours in absolute silence, just sitting in the living room thinking about how much better he’d felt about taking shots at Veronica when he couldn’t picture how she’d looked when the punch landed. He felt ashamed of himself and then angry with Veronica for still having the ability to get to him after everything that she’d done.

This was why he couldn’t talk to her. He’d just forgive her, even though she didn’t deserve it, because she’d cry. It was easier when she was tough, and he could just convince himself that she was a bitch. After all, she was the one who had lied to him.

She'd sat on his lap with that serious expression on her face and told him that she trusted him after he'd confessed the worst things that he'd ever done. And even he knew that he’d done some really crappy things to people in his time. He’d thought that telling her what he’d done to Duncan, what he’d done to her, was the right thing. It was about more than thinking that he owed her the whole truth. He wanted her to see him like he really was, thought that if she loved him, then maybe he might actually be worth it.

And for a brief moment, he’d thought that everything was going to be OK. Veronica had looked him right in the eye and told him that she forgave him, and then kissed him.

He’d trusted her -- something he hardly ever did -- and she’d lied to him.

He'd never forget coming back to the pool house to find her gone. Even Aaron’s best sucker punches hadn’t left him so winded, because he was always half-expecting them.

And even then, after she’d left him with no explanation and avoided him for days, he had still forgiven her. She had stood there at his locker and looked him right in the eye again, and lied. She asked him for time, and he gave it to her, because he still wanted her, and he’d believed her when she said that he was forgiven.

It wasn’t until she had him arrested that he’d finally realized that she had been playing him all along. He couldn’t even stand to think about what had happened at the beach, because even then, as angry and hurt as he was, he still would have taken her back. Hell, he’d even been down on his knees, ready to beg until her father came along.

He was whipped and stupid and he’d never even gotten any, but he had nothing to be ashamed about. If she was crying now, it was all her own fault. He wasn’t to blame.

Mrs. Navarro appeared again with phone in hand.

“Oh no, Mrs. Navarro,” he pleaded, literally standing up and moving away from her.

“It’s Vice Principal Clemmons,” she said shortly, then put the phone down on the table and left the room. She was still clearly irritated with him.

“Just fucking great,” he said, but he walked over and picked up the phone.

“I heard that Mr. Echolls,” Mr. Clemmons said.

“Awesome,” Logan said. “What can I do for you?”

“You can come to school,” Mr. Clemmons said tersely. “There is the little matter of finals and, although your absence was understandable at first, given the circumstances, my patience has now worn thin. You will come to school tomorrow.”

“And how are you actually going to get me there?” Logan asked. “I mean, logistically speaking. I’m kinda trapped here.”

“Sheriff Lamb’s men will be escorting you,” Clemmons said. “They’ll be at your house at 7:15. No excuses, Mr. Echolls.”

“Just fucking great,” Logan said to the dial tone.

~*~

Part 4