Chapter Text
Veronica, as a general rule, does not like it when people take care of her.
There’s probably a really good amount of material there for any decent therapist to help her dig through, like a fertile field of family trauma, but Veronica prefers to think of it more like a streak of independence. Sick people are gross, okay? And she’s a grown woman. She can admit it when she’s gross. She’s living on her own in New York City, working her first job after law school (which incidentally is paying her enough to afford to live on her own in New York City), and everything is going well, probably way too well, because just after she finishes her project in time to catch one of the last flights home for Christmas, she makes a classic mistake:
She gets the freaking flu.
“It’s just a cold,” she tells her dad, blowing her nose into a tissue at work three days before Christmas. “I’ll be on your couch in time to marathon all the Die Hards before you even finish burning dinner.”
You see, Veronica is generally known as a fighter, and things like upper respiratory viruses generally are not what she’d considered an even match. She’d had the worst allergies of her life the day she took the Bar. Chicken pox during her seventh birthday, no problem. So she goes home and nearly falls asleep in the shower, then definitely falls asleep under every blanket in her apartment and wakes up with every single one soaked through with sweat, and still, she keeps one eye on the clock, because security at JFK is going to be a nightmare surely and (eventually) she’ll want to leave extra early. This is just a cold, she tells herself, fully aware she is lying, right before she falls asleep on top of her suitcase with her nose full of tissue.
She wakes up to the sound of her phone ringing.
Blinking back the bleariness of fever and fatigue, Veronica sweeps the immediate area for her phone. Her fingers hit the plastic, and she picks it up, answering with pale fingers.
“Hello?”
“Veronica!”
Oh. That’s a loud voice.
“Yeah?” Ugh, she sounds awful.
“Oh my god, thank you for answering.”
“…yeah,” she says, waiting, not particularly feeling the glowing radiation of gratitude. Her throat is made of sandpaper and it’s disintegrating.
It’s Jackie. “I was afraid you weren’t going to answer. Haven’t seen you since the Christmas party.”
“Well I’m still here,” Veronica says, gravely, trying to keep her sentences short until she can start sucking on a cough drop. What time is it?
“Well – I just haven’t seen you.”
“Can I help you?”
She likes Jackie. Really, she does. They’ve been coworkers at O’Dell, Landry & O’Dell Law Firm for the past sixteen months, and by virtue of being the same age, the same gender, and both probably a bit too excessively competitive, they’ve been…friendly. Friends. Work friends. Colleagues? Professional acquaintances. Hm.
“Yes, oh my god, yes. Are you going to be in town for Christmas?”
Veronica finally figures out what time it is. She checks the bag that she’d not even finished packing, just as her head gives a really painful throb. Well. She’s missed her flight. There are probably more, right? Ugh, no, everything was booked. She could try to do standby on whatever’s left but – her head gives another throb. Shit. Maybe she can leave tomorrow.
“I wasn’t supposed to,” she grumbles.
“What?”
“Yeah, looks like it,” Veronica says, pulling the phone away from her face so she can sneeze rather aggressively. It’s bad timing, because, when she puts the phone back to her ear Jackie is mid-sentence.
“—so lucky. My friend, he’s in town, and he just got totally screwed. Can you help him?”
What? “Um,” Veronica says. Her ears need to pop. Oh god she hates everything. She needs to call her dad, tell him she’s already missed her flight. “Sure? What—“
“Oh thank you!” the relief in her voice is real. “Thank you so much. Oh my god, this is huge. I owe you.”
Okay, that has its perks. Being owed a favor by Jackie Cook come January 2nd would be useful, probably.
Except that she can hardly think right now, let alone contemplate the ways Jackie could repay her. She feels like she would probably literally kill for some Nyquil right now.
Jackie could probably get her off on murder-three.
“I’ll just send him your info, k?”
“Uh,” she’s missed something. “Sure. Whatever.” She really does need to call her dad. Just - after a quick nap. Yeah. Just one quick nap, and then everything will be fine.
“You’re the best, Mars,” Jackie is saying, and Veronica is already sinking into a horizontal position on her couch when she hangs up.
There is something ringing, in her apartment.
At first, Veronica thinks it’s part of some ridiculous dream. She’s been having some wild ones, honest. But then the ringing stops. And then it starts again.
And then there’s some pounding, something, and it sounds like someone knocking on her door.
What?
“What?” she whispers, sitting up. What time is it? She checks the window; it’s dark out now. Crap.
It’s her door, she’s sure of that, by now. Her door is making noise. No, that doesn’t make sense. Someone is making her door make noise, someone is ringing her doorbell. Okay. She can do this. She can do this. Veronica stands, nausea rolling through her, lightheadedness making her stumble. Okay, after answering the door, she’s going to lie back down, and probably drink some water. Yeah, water would be good.
Just, once the door stops making noise.
There should be awards, for this, she thinks.
Not for walking and standing upright while sick. No, because, surely there would be some needy cancer kid out in the world who would miraculously regain the use of his legs, or something, and really steal her thunder.
No, there should be other awards.
Awards for…being in your bathrobe and fuzziest, two-day old pajamas, hair untouched in over 36-hours besides the pushing it out of your sweaty face, with the pale, wane complexion of the ailing young professional, used tissues falling out of her pockets and cold medicine stains on her shirt…and then opening the door to your very own apartment,
And finding your high school ex-boyfriend just on the other side.
There should just be awards.
It’s Logan freaking Echolls.
She’d win second-place after the cancer kid, probably. No, definitely after the cancer kid they would give the award to her, for gasping at the first sign of recognition, just as his eyes widen too, for the way she slams the door shut pretty much immediately without moving an inch.
Her eyes are wide now. Puffy and bloodshot and wide, surely, as she looks at the back of her front door, mind racing, stomach churning, nostrils dripping (gross).
What fever dream is she having now?
“Veronica?”
The voice shouted through the door – she couldn’t be making that up, probably. No, her subconscious would do a lot to torture her but surely not – not that, not having – shit! – not having him show up on her doorstep out of nowhere out of – shit!
What had Jackie been saying? No. No!
“Veronica!” he shouts again, and Veronica recognizes that she has to make a decision.
“No,” she says, loud, loud enough to either wake herself up or banish his ghost or – she hasn’t decided yet. But surely saying no loudly could accomplish a few different things.
“Ah shit,” she can hear through the door.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks, to herself, and she can hear his sigh.
“Can you just open the door? It’s…it’s been a long day.”
Veronica inhales a tight breath. She’s still not full convinced that this is real.
But she opens the door again.
And there, on the other side, just as she was sure she saw earlier, is still Logan freaking Echolls.
“I thought it was you,” he says, and she definitely feels the same.
He’s tall, taller than she remembered. And older, but, they’re both older now. His face is thinner, more narrow, but, with the slight indent of where wrinkles will form later. He still has all his hair, which, he gets a point for that. For having those genes, apparently.
“You going to make me stand in the hall all day?” he asks, soft, self-deprecating, like he’s also getting over the shock of it all. Veronica takes another breath, and because her nose is all stuffed up, it has to be through her open mouth.
“No,” she says, and she takes a step back, letting him in. “No, Logan, come on in.”
He nods, and she realizes the rest: he’s wearing fatigues (fatigues?? As in US military fatigues?) and he’s got a duffel bag at his side. What?
She shuts the door behind him. “As you can already dell, I’m not feeling great, and I had no godly idea you were on your way, so. Apologies for the mess.”
“It’s fine.”
She watches as he looks around, scoping out the place. It’s not that she – okay – she hasn’t decorated much, because, well, she’s been busy, and currently the aesthetic is more mugs, etc. than anything else.
“I’m making dee,” she says, heading to the stove.
“You’re making what?”
“Dee,” she says, and her nose is stuffed up still. “With honey.”
“Oh, shit, tea,” he says, and he finds a place on her couch to sit.
She pauses, because, she wants to tell him don’t get comfortable, because surely the second they figure this out is the second he’s leaving, but, anyway. She turns on the kettle.
“You wanna go first?” he asks, and Veronica reaches for a tissue and blows her nose. Loudly. Twice.
“Yeah, okay.”
“God you’re sick.”
“And you noticed. Congrats.” The T’s are easier to pronounce now.
“Well I’m just saying—“
“This has something to do with Jackie, I’m guessing.” Veronica looks up over her kitchen peninsula, kitchen counter, thing, the one that juts off of the wall and doubles as her dining room. Her ‘dining area’ she’d converted to an office within a week of moving in.
“Right,” Logan says, shifting his weight on her couch. She can see a dirty sock shoved between cushions and chooses to ignore it. “Yeah. Jackie. She told me I could come here.”
“To my apartment? Why?”
“My flight got cancelled.” Crap, she still has to call her dad. “Pretty much all of them did. There’s a huge snowstorm in Chicago, and another one due here overnight. La Guardia shut down first, JFK like an hour later.”
“Well, bully for you,” Veronica murmurs. Shit.
“I figured, no big deal, just get a hotel for the night, surely there will be something tomorrow, and—“
“Yeah.”
“And—nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a single hotel. I called at least eighty.”
“Eighty.”
“Yeah.” She’s still clearly dubious. “What you want receipts?”
“No I don’t want you here, period.”
He looks at her again, then. His weight shifts again, his gaze lingering. Okay. Clearly he doesn’t really want to be here either, and with good freaking reason. For one, he’s definitely going to catch her cold, and for another, well. You know, the obvious.
“How the hell do you know Jackie Cook?” Veronica blurts, and her kettle starts shrieking.
She’s sitting in the accent chair thing, the one she got from one of her departing neighbors that had originally been covered in cat hair, in part because it’s a comfortable distance away and for another there’s no room on the couch with Logan taking up what feels like her entire apartment.
“We – know each other,” he hedges. She didn’t even offer to make him tea. “When I realized there was no way I was getting a hotel room or getting out of town, well…I got desperate.” He extends his arm over the back of the couch, and Veronica holds the mug up to her nose, letting the steam work its magic on her congestion.
“You know each other.” She’s so glad she’s enunciating better now.
“Yeah.”
Veronica knows that tone too well. Slept together, is what he’s saying. Jeez. Small world.
“She said she was sending me to one of her coworker’s.”
“And you didn’t know it was me?”
Logan leans over his knees then, clasping his hands. He clearly wants her to believe him. “No,” he says, sincere.
“But, my mailbox, or something—“
“She only gave me the address. Someone was coming out just as I got here, and I – I didn’t even check. I just jogged up the stairs. I’ve been in transit for 26 hours; I thought I was getting pretty close to done.”
She has the instinct to ask, then – twenty six hours? – but, she imagines it has something to do with his outfit, which does not appear to have tear-away velcro. Okay.
“I have to call my dad.”
“Your dad?”
“I was supposed to be on a plane tonight too,” she says, sighing. “So. Yeah. Yes, my couch is not yet spoken for.”
“I really appreciate it.”
That bounces through her, for some reason, the idea that he would be thankful, that he was there, in general. She still was fully ready to believe this was a fever dream, but. Ugh. Damn.
Veronica looks around. “I need my phone.”
“Okay.”
She can’t see it. “Do you see it?”
“I don’t know—“
“You’re probably sitting on it.” She stands, crossing to where he is. This is bad, because Logan looks around, and he totally sees the sock, and she refuses to let the embarrassment settle.
“I don’t see it.”
“It was right there.” He’s feeling for it.
“Seriously, Logan, I was sleeping there when you tried to break the door down.”
His face moves, like, he feels enough contrition to wince but not enough to actually follow through. He stops moving his hand.
Logan sighs. He pulls his phone out of a pocket. “Hang on,” he says, and Veronica’s brow creases. What the hell?
He taps, frowning, his shoulders sinking. His thumb finally hovers, his lips tightening, and he hits something on the screen.
There is a buzzing, from somewhere nearby.
Okay. What?
Veronica’s heartrate…well, it picks up, a little, because what neither is going to acknowledge for the rest of their life, probably, is that…she might actually have…
“I think it’s under the couch,” he mumbles, and he leans down, reaching with his free hand.
He passes it over, Beyoncé’s Formation blaring.
“Good choice,” he adds, and the screen is face up, and they can both see that Logan’s number is clearly not programmed into her phone, and –
“Thanks,” she says, and she grabs it. “I’m going to – I’m going to go call from the bedroom.”
“Yeah.”
“You can – there’s clean towels somewhere in the bathroom, if you want to, shower, or whatever.”
“I would…that sounds amazing, actually.”
She nods, tight, holding her phone to the mug of tea she’d nearly forgotten as she gazes down at him. Shit, this was actually happening to her. Logan Echolls, about to see what kind of shampoo she uses.
Veronica turns, heading toward her bedroom, one of only a few doors – he won’t get lost.
“And Veronica?” he asks, and she pauses on the threshold to her room, turning her head so she can see him, still sitting on her couch, still looking at her so earnestly, still so real and insane and alive in her space.
“Thanks. Seriously, just – thanks.”
She couldn’t even remember the last time they saw each other, is the thought she’s having while walking around her room, picking things up, moving her suitcase. She can keep it more or less packed, for now. They could both get lucky tomorrow. Ugh. Damn. What’re the freaking odds.
She and Logan had dated pretty…aggressively, back in high school. All of senior year, part of junior year, an all-consuming series of seasons. It had been everything that teenage angst was made for: the first, desperate love, the kind that almost felt real, certainly felt more real than whatever flirtations she’d had before Logan, and the first few she’d had after.
They’d honestly had plans to give long-distance a try, because…well, they weren’t going to the same colleges, not even close to the same colleges, and, it was just, she made one of the first grown-up decisions of her life when deciding to part ways at the end of the most bittersweet summer of her life. What had she said, back then? A tough, but survivable amount of pain now, or… Well, it didn’t matter. She’d broken both of their hearts, and then she’d gotten on a plane, and she found things to do over the summers so that she was never home for more than a few days, a week max, and all those days were filled with her dad, and, and Wallace and Mac, and –
Anyway.
Crap.
Okay.
She presses the dial button on her phone, listens to it ring.
“There she is,” her dad says, and her stomach sinks.
Her voice is weak, pathetic. And still very sick-sounding. “Guess where I’m not.”
“Whoa now. What’s with the voice? This a new disguise?”
“Ha,” she laughs. “No, uh. I think I caught the plague.”
“Well that’s not funny,” he says, and his paternal love is equal parts predictable and embarrassing.
“I fell asleep and missed my flight,” she explains, quick.
“Ah.”
“The rest appear to be cancelled, until – well. I’m not sure really. I’m going to be on the first one that leaves the ground heading west, I promise.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I’m serious. I’ll be there.”
“It’s okay,” he says again.
Veronica worries her lower lip. She sniffs, unperturbed, by now, at the sound of her own snot. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s not a big deal, sweetie.”
Gosh she kind of hates it when he calls her sweetie, but, she kind of loves it too. See? This is what people do to sick people. She’s not summa cum laude graduate of Stanford University, anymore. Now she’s sweetie. “Your present will keep until after Christmas.”
She rubs a tissue under her nose. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“What are dads for? The pony doesn’t even take up your whole bedroom. Shits more than I’d like, but, I can remember to feed it an extra few days.”
She laughs.
“I just feel bad though, sweetheart. Alone on Christmas Eve.”
Her stomach sinks further then twists all up like a wrung-out sponge.
“Funny you should mention that…”
She’s resigned to this, probably. That’s why she’s dazedly wandering around her apartment with a trashcan, picking up tissues, trying to clean up a little. This is happening, this is her life. Logan Echolls is naked in her bathroom and will be twenty feet away from her while she sleeps. Imagine that.
By some bad luck of the rotation of the Earth, it’s barely six p.m. She’d sort of been hoping that with the dark they could just say a quick good night and then she could hold her bladder until morning, or something, but no, it’s still not too late for dinner. Christmas Eve dinner.
Lovely.
The steam tumbles out of the bathroom before Logan does, and she turns just to realize he’s just cracked it.
Right. Her bathroom has no windows to the outside, it’s all enclosed, and, there’s nowhere else to vent the steam. See this is a problem she would be aware of except it’s only ever her, and she just leaves the door open.
And she’s just about to turn away, keep doing what she’s doing, when her eyes, running over the landscape of her apartment, land ever so fleetingly on the mirror above her sink, and, she gets…a total eyeful, of her ex-high-school-boyfriend, wet hair, towel wrapped around his waist, turning from the door, and, it stops her dead cold.
Logan had always been into his physical fitness, she remembered that.
But this was –
Shit.
Okay.
Well.
Her gaze darts up, and her eyes meet Logan’s in the mirror reflection, and heat surges into her face, and she whips around so quickly she nearly tumbles over the coffee table, and what the hell is she actually doing. It was an accident, she wants to shout, but that would probably make it worse.
Shit. Well. Okay. This is fine, it’s no big deal, Logan is ripped now, and apparently he – yeah, okay, okay – he does something that would put him in some sort of military outfit. Right. Okay, well, those would naturally go together.
She just – she just doesn’t like that this unintentionally pervy glimpse has…has put him on her radar, or something. Well not really. Not like she’s interested. But she was just really prepared to think of him only as some teenage jerk she’d ditched, and now, well. Right. Now she’s remembering that they’d had sex. Many times. It’s just, she’s so zonked with this illness she wasn’t going to have any bandwidth to actually consider this visit more than the literal presence of another human, but, well.
Shit.
She’s washing the seven mugs she’d found on various surfaces when he comes out a few minutes later, still toweling off his hair.
He expels a breath, and she glances from the corner of her eye, as Logan walks over, and takes one of the barstools at the counter.
“Thanks again,” he says, and Veronica puts the last mug onto the draining rack.
“No problem,” she answers, turning, drying her hands. “You said you’d been traveling for awhile?”
“Yeah, I was – “ why is he hesitating? “ – I was, well, I was deployed.”
“I’m guessing not for fun,” she says, and he laughs, soft, like he’s not ready to do it for real yet.
“No, uh. I uh. I joined the Navy a few years ago.”
“The Navy.”
“Yeah.”
“As in like, boats. Boats that go to fight other boats.”
“Yeah we like to call them warships, but, now I’m totally questioning why.”
“Surely boats, send in all the boats, would suffice.”
“Yeah like, just get rid of Navy, just call it All the Boats.”
“Makes sense to me.”
His gaze is warming, and, oh her actual God, this is so freakishly familiar.
“Uh,” he says, averting his gaze for a moment. “Actually, it’s more like the airplanes on the boats. I fly those.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?”
“Well, yes, that makes sense, because, just I imagine just being a regular Navy seaman is too easy.”
“Kid stuff.”
Now, her gaze is warming. She can feel it.
“Right. Well.”
They’re just sort of staring at each other, for a moment. God how long has it been? She doesn’t want to ask, because, then she’d have to admit that she wondered in the first place.
“Hey, you hungry?” he asks, and Veronica has to sniff. Because there is no reason not to (shut up, psyche), she follows through, and she somehow notices that Logan doesn’t even cringe.
“No,” she admits. “But, get whatever you want. There’re menus in the drawer.”
She moves towards the couch, a few steps away, skipping a few extra ones, because sniffing that hard has dropped all the nasal drip into her throat, and now she’s about to have a very violent coughing fit. Shit, when was the last time she took medicine? Didn’t she have a tea. Didn’t she just have a tea. She was sure she made a tea.
“Maybe soup,” she can hear him saying, and she flops onto the couch with a groan.
“You knew when you walked in what you were getting, right. I would get up off your bed but there’s sickness everywhere, sorry.”
“Yeah, I figured. I’ll take a cold over another second in the airport,” he admits, with a slight edge.
She snorts, sympathetic.
“Jeez,” he says, when he’s clearly found the menu drawer. What did he expect? That somehow between law school, and clerking, and work, and whatever, that she’d suddenly have time to actually care for herself? Like an adult? She can hear him pause, considering them. “Got any favorites?”
“They usually make it to the top,” she mumbles, closing her eyes. Ugh her nose is on fire.
“Hm,” he says, deciding. “Okay, I got this.”
He orders Indian food, which sounds…surprisingly palatable, actually. She can hear him call it in.
“Yeah. Hey, also, my friend, she’s sick right now.”
What is he doing?
“…Yeah, just a bad cold.” He laughs at something. “Thanks. Got anything for that?” He listens for an extra minute. “That sounds amazing. Yeah. Please. Thank you.”
She’s frowning into the cushion as her eyes open. It’s just – her insides are twisting, because, in so many ways this is the same boy who’d slashed her tires and then made a flat joke once, er, before they started dating, but, it’s also…he’s clearly an incredibly competent human now, and, it sounds like he’s very successfully charming the grouchy old owner of her favorite neighborhood Indian place.
“Great, thanks again,” he says, and Logan hangs up his phone. “Twenty minutes,” he announces, and Veronica squints, as Logan puts away the menus, then looks around her kitchen, looks around her apartment, and then heads back over to her. He takes the extra chair she’d been using earlier.
“You sure you’re okay?”
She rubs her nose. Then she leans in to a sitting position. “Yes. Well, this is probably where I should mention that I still definitely don’t like to be coddled.”
He smirks, not looking away. “Noted.”
She holds his stare for a moment.
“But,” he continues, “I still definitely don’t like owing people favors, so, forgive me in advance for paying for dinner.”
She narrows her gaze. “Noted.”
He leans back in the chair. “I’m surprised you’re.” He pauses. “I just – most people would probably have left for home a few days ago.”
“Had a case,” she sighs, eyeing the throw pillow she’d definitely drooled on earlier. “It’s not done, but, it’s done enough.”
He’s nodding. “So that’s you now? You’re a lawyer?”
“Are you surprised?”
He rubs his chin. “No,” he admits. “You work with Jackie?”
“Yeah. That’s – I’m still just really surprised that you – “
“Small world,” he agrees, at a murmur. He pauses, his gaze a bit hard, as if he’s debating what to say, for another moment. This is also not a Logan she’s very familiar with. The Logan she knew never had a problem just blurting whatever he felt like, and he usually felt like quite a lot. “We uh, dated. Back in college.”
“At Hearst?”
He wets his lips. “Yeah. She was my first, after—“ he really doesn’t need to finish. “Well.”
Oh. Right. That’s…well. It doesn’t matter.
“Well, you could do a lot worse.”
“It didn’t last very long.”
“It’s fine.”
“I should probably go get dinner.”
She stares at him for a moment. “Yeah.”
They look at each other for another beat, and Veronica has a flash of remembering what he looked like shirtless. Ah.
Logan gets up, going for his duffel, fishing out a beanie and a jacket, the latter he shrugs on over his t-shirt. It’s nice and toasty warm in her apartment, the thermostat by the door too far away to fuss with, but she’s heard no complaints.
“Need anything?” he asks, hand on her door.
“No,” she says, too quick, lying back down. “You can take the keys. They’re by the—“
“Got ‘em. Thanks. I’ll be back soon.”
She hears as the door closes behind him, her head foggy and gross.
The silence is suddenly very loud.
She sits back up, looking over at Logan’s bag. So weird. This is all so weird. She grabs her phone off the coffee table and opens the texts.
Me: So…Logan Echolls.
Jackie Cook: Yeah! Thanks again. I do totally owe you.
Me: Um. Yeah, actually. I uh. I know him.
It takes a minute for the text to come in after some ellipses.
Jackie Cook: I’m sorry, what?
Veronica now hesitates, debating what to say, how to say it.
Me: We dated in high school.
Her phone immediately starts ringing.
Veronica sighs, and answers.
“You what?” Jackie is shouting into the phone. It’s way too loud, and Veronica cringes.
“I told you. I know him.”
“But – but – “ Jackie is clearly still aghast. “Hang on. Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me – are you that Veronica?”
What the hell does that mean? “Uh.” Veronica doesn’t know the correct answer. “Maybe? Probably? I plead the fifth.”
“Oh, cute,” Jackie says, not impressed. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
“No, I mean, holy shit!”
“I know.”
There’s a beat of silence, and Veronica imagines that Jackie Cook is currently working to recall every single thing she knows about her old ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. Wait. This is suddenly an idea she has definitely not thought through.
“Well I know he’s definitely single now,” Jackie says, and Veronica actually recoils.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks, vaguely disgusted.
Jackie hums to herself. “Nothing, probably,” she says. “Look, I gotta go, I’m actually at a party right now, but, I’ll call you, yeah? We should probably talk more about this.”
“Yeah,” Veronica says, suddenly unsure. “Um. Merry Christmas.”
“Oh right,” Jackie agrees, sounding distracted. “Yeah,” she says again, more sure. “Right, yeah. Merry Christmas, Veronica.”
Veronica hangs up the phone, and looks around her empty apartment.
Merry Christmas.
The whole being sick thing has been waiting for her to let her guard down, so she’s dozing when Logan comes back into her apartment a bit later. There’s a moment of delirious alarm when her door just opens like that, and she sits straight up with drool coming right out of her mouth, and pushes hair out of her face when she recognizes Logan coming through her door.
“Jeezus, how hungry are you?” she just says, as if, she’s an actual person with no filter.
Logan is using all that (er, impressive) musculature to carry at least four bags into her apartment, and they look freaking full.
“I stopped for some things,” he says, bright, and Veronica squints against the light in the room. Oh man, she’d really, really love to go back to sleep.
“Like at the outlet mall?”
“Ha, no,” he says, putting down bags. “You hungry? The guy at the restaurant said this was great for head colds.”
“Don’t – I told you. I really don’t need you to take care of me.”
He pauses with his hands on the bags. “Uh. Right.”
She stares at him.
“Logan,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“What’s in the bags.”
He squints with one eye. “Um. Porn? Definitely porn. Porn definitely for me. Porn for me like…Nyquil. Nyquil but like…porn.”
Okay. Okay. She’s definitely furious. But she also very well could kiss him on his freaking sculpted bicep right now.
“Logan, those are the most beautiful words I have ever heard,” she says, and she sinks back down onto the couch.
Logan brings her a something that she’s never had before. He bumbles through the pronunciation (varan-bhat, the container says clearly) but it’s warm, and not too thick, and a bright, healthy-looking yellow, and she sips it slowly on the couch. Logan takes the accent chair and groans into his food when he takes the first bite.
A part of her wants to smile, almost. She forgot he used to do that.
“This is great,” he says, and Veronica hums acknowledgement.
“Arjun has literally never given me free naan before. You must have done something right.”
“Maybe you should try smiling more,” he says, snarky.
“Wait, okay,” he adds, pausing with his empty fork in the air. “Forget I said that. I meant, like, me, as in like – my beautiful smi—okay just forget it.”
The corner of her mouth twitches up. She takes another spoonful.
“So…” he says, because Veronica is not making conversation. “So, your dad, yeah? That’s who you were going back for?”
Veronica nods. She pauses, looking at the food in her bowl. She looks up at Logan, thinking. “Your – your sister, right? Is she still in…”
“I have no idea where my sister is,” he says, taking another bite. He apparently did not over-order, and she realizes he’s been eating plane food for the last day. Hm. Wait, where’s Tina? “Nah,” he adds, wistful. “I’m afraid dear Dick will just have to make do without me this year. Hmm.”
“Wait, Dick? As in—“ she sits up straighter. “Dick Casablancas Dick?”
“The very same.”
“What – okay. Really?”
He laughs, getting it. “Yeah. He’s doing okay. We have a place together back home. Not in like—“ he’s quick to add, which makes her feel warmer, somehow, “—okay, not that Dick couldn’t get someone hot like me, but, you know. He’s uh.” Now he kind of sobers, a little. “Well, he’s what I got.”
“He’s your Dick.”
“He’s my Dick.”
“That’s—“ she doesn’t have all the words. “That’s sweet.”
“Yeah well,” he says, preparing to stand to refill his bowl. “We can’t all have awesome dads like you.”
“He got my a pony this year,” she reveals, joking, not having any idea why she’s joking, and Logan laughs again.
“He did not.”
“Apparently it’s pooping all over my old room. So I have that to look forward to when I get back.”
His expression straightens. “Wait. I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
She tilts her head at him. “Seriously Logan? You’ve lost your touch.”
The smile cracks his lips. “Apparently.”
They put on a movie, because it’s Christmas Eve, and Logan is craning his neck so often from the accent chair that she makes room for him, even though it means pulling up her legs because she’s not going to suddenly want to sit up. The food is warm in her belly, and Logan throws the spare blanket at her when he sees her tucking her hands between her thighs, curling in on herself like a ball. And even though it’s the Ghost of Christmas Past scene, and Muppet Giant Friendly Ghost Man is about to come on, he gets up, goes to his bag, and comes back with the Nyquil he’d mentioned.
She takes it, with a grimace, because her head feels like a balloon on a stick.
When Veronica wakes up later, the lights in her apartment are all off. The TV is off too. She doesn’t know what time it is, but, when she glances out the window, all she can see is the drifting of snow in the dark. Veronica sighs. She can’t even remember falling asleep, but, it was probably before eight o’clock. God, she is sick. She hates being sick.
Veronica stands in her empty apartment, tugging the blanket around herself.
There are four different cricks in her body from the awkward way she’d slept on the couch, probably trying to keep away from Logan, maintaining a respectable distance while unconscious. Ugh. Her neck, dang. Her neck hurts. And wasn’t Logan supposed to be sleeping on the couch? What happened? Where is he?
She couldn’t see him anywhere. Did he—
Did he leave?
A coldness grips her stomach that she did not expect, trying not to think. She, well, okay, this whole thing is ridiculous, but, it’s, well, she just hadn’t been—
Alone.
Stop it, Veronica.
She pulls the blanket closer and pads to her bedroom, recognizing the distinctive lump for what it is. Veronica stands some feet away, for a moment, regarding Logan’s sleeping form, the way his easy breaths rise and fall. He’d made the bed, which is, well that was nice, really. And he isn’t even sleeping under the covers; he’d found another throw and he’s sleeping on top of her duvet with it. He can’t be totally warm, but, it’s…god damn it, it’s polite, is what it is. It’s conscientious.
Logan Echolls…conscientious?
They’d been teenagers when they dated. Not really the pinnacle of anyone’s life, in any regard. They’d been selfish and awkward and inconsiderate in the way that only youth who don’t want to be labeled as such are, who can understand adulthood, to an extent, and in too many ways crave and reject its strappings.
She’d been an obnoxious punk, is what she’s trying to process. Not all of those traits had really gone away, actually. And Logan…Logan had been…god, he’d been king of the assholes, honestly. Them getting together was like lava meeting the ocean. A bad idea, an explosive result, and just, sort of…inevitable, sometimes.
And now…
They’ve only spent a few hours together, but Logan is clearly…well. Adulthood – proper, honest adulthood? – it kind of…suits him.
Veronica looks back at her couch, in the dark empty living room. What to do now? She should go back and sleep there; pretend she never woke up to begin with. But she looks back at her own bed, at the part Logan made and isn’t touching, and it’s just..it’s cozier in here, somehow.
Veronica takes a deep breath, turns on the bedside humidifier, and crawls between her own covers on Logan’s other side.
She falls asleep again watching silent snow drift past the window.