Chapter Text
Logan Echolls wakes up in his childhood bedroom as a 16-year-old with a massive hangover.
This is somewhat disconcerting given that the last thing he remembers he was a 30 something Navy Intelligence Officer moving his (he can’t believe he can say this) wife’s car and looking forward to leaving on an impromptu honeymoon.
And the last time he saw this bedroom it was a charred-out shell.
There is something in between. He thinks. But when he tries to focus on it seems to slip away.
He tries to catch it. To probe at the hole in his memory like a kid with a missing tooth.
All it seems to illicit is a deep instinctual feeling to stop it. That he doesn’t want to know. That that part of his life is over.
Now, Logan may not have Veronica’s curiosity. He may be more inclined to let things be. But even he recognizes that when a voice you’re not entirely sure is your own tells you to forget you’re missing a rather important chunk of memory --- that contrary to popular belief, it’s probably not in your best interest to listen to it. Maybe.
So, he reviews his options.
He could curl back up under the covers, fall asleep and hope that when he wakes up, he'll be wherever he’s supposed to be.
Preferably next to Veronica.
But he has a feeling that is totally his own that that isn’t going to work.
So, instead, he moves over to the desk where his old laptop sits and checks the date.
Then lets out a semi-hysterical laugh.
Because of course.
Of course, even when the universe has seemingly pulled him back through space and time against his will it wouldn’t dump him back quite far enough to save Lilly.
And then he reminds himself that you can’t actually be pulled through space and time.
He thinks.
He goes into the bathroom and examines his face. Pokes at baby fat his cheeks should have long since lost. Examines freckles.
He looks around the room. He puts on clothes.
He looks at the house. Then the block. Then he chooses a direction at random and runs until his not really in very good shape 16-year old body feels like it’s either going to collapse or puke. Possible both.
He walks (slowly) back to Muir Street, back to his room, and back to his desk.
He does about a thousand google searches.
Everything seems to point to one thing. To the impossible. That the calendar on his computer is right.
So.
His options.
It could be a prank.
But it’s just too complicated. Too expensive. Too cruel.
True, he’s pretty sure there are still more than a few people for whom the “cruel” part would be the point, the other two issues would be pretty prohibitive.
It could be someone trying to get information out of him.
But, again, even if it were possible to create well, this, there are a lot of easier ways. And if the aim is for him to mess up and say something classified, choosing to put him here seems… kind of a stupid choice. It’s not liked his teenage years were rife with opportunities to spill state secrets.
So, what’s left?
He could be dreaming.
A few minutes and every method he’s ever learned or heard of to tell if your dream seems to check that off the list though.
He could be hallucinating.
Maybe finally being married to the woman he loves broke something in his brain in a way that years of trauma had failed and he is, even now, sitting in a padded room somewhere.
Maybe he's in a coma.
Something like Life on Mars before Ashes to Ashes screwed with the ambiguity of the mythology.
Maybe he's dead.
Sure, it’s a bit less fire and brimstone than he was expecting, but while he doesn’t agree with Veronica that Neptune is hell, reliving some of the worst years of his life? That might very well qualify --- if it turns out he can’t do anything to change things.
Which brings him up short.
Because.
Because if there is any chance that this is real. That he’s back in time or in another reality or whatever. If he can change things. If he can save some version of his mom or Carrie or Bilbo or any of the other people he’s seen chewed up and spit out by Neptune and the world over the years…
If he can protect Veronica, even if it’s just from his teenage self’s actions…
Then how can he not try?
The answer, of course, is the answer to so much else in his life.
Veronica.
His Veronica.
The woman he was in love with. The woman he had said vows to only a few hours before.
The Woman. Not the kid that would be here.
He told her he’d always come back to her. To them.
If there’s any chance he can find her again, he has to try.
Whether that means figuring out how to wake up or clawing his way up from the bowels of hell.
Still. Getting back to his Veronica will take time. Research. Resources that teenage Logan definitely won’t have access too. That not even adult Logan did.
So, he’ll need a plan.
Possibly a very long-term plan.
And while he doubts this is a have his cake and eat it too situation…. there’s no reason why his plans couldn’t include trying to do some good too, right?