This Time

His thoughts are the predictable ones.

Take Sherman. It's faster.

Why is that asshole in the passing lane?

Fear comes in the form of pictures, not words, movies playing in his head, the same old dreams he has
every night, Lily by the pool, his mother at the railing of the bridge, and him. Coming to the rescue, but
always just a little bit too late.

He can't pinpoint when Veronica became one of the women in his life, not that it's even important. He
stomps impatiently on the gas. All that matters is getting there in time for once.

Artifacts of Faith

Some people have Honk If You Love Jesus bumper stickers. Veronica Mars looks for her
salvation in a highway sign.

She's been making regular after-school pilgrimages out to the city limits for the past year. She pulls her car
off to the side of the road and stares up at the only thing she has any faith in, icon of hope, where Neptune ends
and her life will someday begin again.

Lately, though, there are moments--a star-crossed glance in Journalism class, half-smile shared in the halls,
long afternoons giving way to abandon--when she fears she's losing her religion.

Give and Take

Lianne never thought it was harmless, only necessary. Maybe she is. Maybe she isn't. Her last,
fictional hold on Jake.

But then Veronica. Duncan. Mothers have to make sacrifices.

She expected to find Jake alone, but Lilly let her in. Lilly, who was so much Celeste's daughter, even if she
didn't realize it, eyes boring into Lianne, seeing everything. "Veronica isn't my sister, is she?"

Lianne doesn't know why she did it, when she'd come to offer this very truth. Maybe it felt too much like it
was being taken from her. Maybe she just couldn't let Celeste win again.

In Character

He wasn't angry to find her gone when he came back with the champagne. Piece of ass, more where
that came from. Until he realized the tape was missing.

"I know what you do to Logan. And it stops," she had the gall to threaten, "or you become star of the Internet."

Heavy glass bowl on the table, and he picked it up, brought it down, the way he'd done to the
drug dealer in "Vanishing Point." Some of his best work, really, there by the Kane's pool. Wasted on
the night air. But he knows, and that's satisfaction enough.

What You Do Know Can Hurt You

Logan's excuse is that he really had to know.

"The truth, rich boy?" Weevil's lip curled up in mean-spirited enjoyment. "Well, telling you would be too easy,
but I can show you. Tonight, the old beach shack. If you have the guts."

Once Logan actually showed, the rest just seemed inevitable, getting naked and getting down on his knees
and Weevil giving him a taste of what he gave Lilly.

"Bastard!" Logan shouted as he came, and Weevil just laughed.

Afterwards, Logan felt truly fucked, in every sense, and pretty sure he wanted more of it

So. Now he knew.