Chapter Text
The first text arrives while he’s on his second beer with Parker. They’ve run out of fifteen-years stories, at least those sanitized enough to share with a semi-stranger; the topic has shifted to freedom vs responsibility, the sole point of contention during their easygoing fling. He leaned harder than she did towards freedom, back in college, and finds his new position tough to defend. So he’s glad when the buzz in his pocket gives an excuse to step away.
Clear your schedule and put your affairs in order, is what the message says, just sent from his colleague’s latest burner. I’ve heard rumblings.
He smiles, faintly; for-those-about-to-die humor was always his jam. But, no can do, he replies. Because he bluffed and proposed in a vulnerable moment, and his bluff was called for unknown reasons, so shockingly, he’s altar-bound. I’m getting married in four hours.
Pack first is the only answer.
Logan sighs, checks the time, sighs again. Texts Keith and grovels so he’ll pick up the marriage license, then returns to the table doing his best imitation of contrition.
“You need to go,” Parker guesses, flashing the rueful smile he finds so charming. “So do I, actually--but it was nice, catching up. You seem…healthy. I guess it’s good to confirm, after all these years, that the crap we endured in 2007 was just a…momentary roadblock.”
“Ha, I knew you’d be fine.” He throws down two crisply-folded bills with a flourish. Holds out a hand to help her rise and offers a friendly hug. “You’re an optimist, you make the best of things. But I never mind seeing my prescient brilliance confirmed.”
She pats him on the back, pulls away to search his face, very slightly frowning. “Have a great happily ever after, Logan Echolls. Can’t say I expected you and Veronica to be the fairy tale, but…I guess some things are just fate?”
He winks, essays a floridly-regal bow for old time’s sake, then spins to walk away. Lets the easygoing smile drop as he scans his surroundings, takes his time unlocking the bike. Situational awareness is standard at this point; something so drilled into him, like posture, by years of service he doesn’t always recognize fight-or-flight. But there’s a low hum of excitement, singing along his nerves…and ignoring intuition never pays.
Get your affairs in order was a hint he can’t ignore. And he only has forty-five minutes before his appointment with Jane.
He rides fast, putting the grueling work he’s done on his quads to use, through the ever-more-gentrified streets of lower Neptune. Towards the unassuming, but climate-controlled, storage facility where he keeps tools of the trade Veronica can’t rifle (plus stuff that won’t fit in their beach-front shed).
The door requires a code-- Veronica would bulldog him over an unknown key--and he types it in quickly with one hand while mentally listing supplies. Burners, bugs, passports, cash. Guns for both ankle and shoulder holsters, utility knife, MRE’s. Ammo, duplicate dog-tags, shellfish-allergy medic-alert bracelet and epi pens, XStat wound-sealing syringes and first-aid kit, amphetamines, painkillers and tranquilizers. Night vision goggles, flares, hand-and-foot warmers; all-weather gear, bug spray and sunscreen. Reflective blanket, fire starters, last will and testament, plus the carefully-separate components of plastique. He hesitates over the picture of himself with Lilly, Veronica and Duncan, which he keeps in a frame turned towards the wall. Decides, ultimately, to leave it. He won’t lead anyone, ever, in the direction of his stubbornly-loved almost-wife.
Finally, he eases back the blanket covering his brand-new 911, smiles as he runs a palm along the fender. “Hey there, baby,” he says, testing the paint for scratches. “Still beautiful but bad for the environment, I see. It’s crazy how much we have in common.”
He packs quickly, efficiently, stashes the go bag in his miniscule trunk, shrugging at the tightness in his shoulders. Wishes he had time to meditate and stretch. These are luxuries, though, and if he’s going dark he needs to see Jane first; put words of inspiration in the mental bank to carry him through tough times. His shrink’s like a talisman, these days…proof he tries to be a better man, no matter how grim life gets. Proof he’s worth the faith Veronica places in him by sharing her home. Proof he’s become the hero she once dreamed of, even if she fails to appreciate the reality.
Then he slides his bike onto the rack at the back and drives out before locking up. The thrum of the precision engine vibrates up through his bones, echoing the buzz along his nerves, and he hopes these precautions are so much overkill.
Jane welcomes him with a hug, sensitive as always to his need for comforting touch; begins the delicate dance past his defenses to reach truths he needs to spill. He’s marrying Veronica in less than two hours--he’ll achieve the one thing in life he thought he never could.
When Jane asks the only germane question, though—is this what you really want—his usual verbal nimbleness deserts him. Because yes, himself plus V is his life-long dream, the fantasy that got him through a million dark moments. Despite the shit-show of his parents’ marriage, despite each previous relationship ending in a crash-and-burn. But right this second, Veronica seems to loathe his every trait and choice, and he’s still unsure why she said yes, so he can’t quite manage to nod. He DOES love his girlfriend…fiancée…more than anyone, but he’s not sure she reciprocates. And if she’s lost that feeling, so to speak…accepting rejection with grace seems easier than clinging.
Jane’s disappointed by his lack of follow through--he can tell by the way her mouth quirks sideways. And since this may be the last time he sees her, for months or maybe ever, her displeasure haunts him. Maybe that’s why, once he’s parked in the corner of a movie lot a block from his apartment, and trekked home to change into a suit, he calls her while waiting for his Uber. Lists all the reasons he admires Veronica—to convince Jane or himself, he’s not sure, how committed he remains.
Some barely-a-Millennial in a grey Subaru pulls to the curb as he hangs up, so he collects the ring box and stashes his will in the nightstand. Puts down food and water for Pony, then makes the dog sit so they can hug goodbye. “I’m sure as soon as I leave you’ll climb on the couch,” he tells the closest thing he may get to a child. “But have the decency to wait till I’m gone. This seemingly-rock-solid self-esteem was actually hard-won.”
He tosses his suit coat over one arm as Pony licks his face; takes a last look around the place he’s lived for years, first so happily, later so determinedly. Locks up and walks downstairs, whistling Sway, remembering days gone by when romantic setbacks still seemed epic.
His phone buzzes in his palm as he’s researching cheap-enough-not-to-make-V-suspicious honeymoon destinations. Don’t get on a plane is the first message, sent thirty minutes back, while he was too freaked out by Jane’s questions to notice. Then, more ominously, a siren emoji--symbol of cover blown. His or hers, he’s not sure, but now he’s extra-glad he’s left behind a will. He checks his watch—3:47—and deletes all incriminating messages. Texts sorry, in case needs must, and he fails to make V a slightly-more-honest woman. Queues up stuck in traffic, and fervently hopes needs mustn’t.
All works out, in the end, even if he does have to run through the courthouse hall; even if he is coated with a film of sweat when he shakes his almost-father-in-law’s hand. Veronica’s in a panic, of course, confronting him over his ominous text. So he sends the sequel with his thumb before showing her proof of innocence, and lets himself enjoy the resulting kisses. She hasn’t worn makeup for the occasion, hasn’t done her hair, and she’s wearing a white dress that reminds him forcibly of Shelly Pomroy’s party—on purpose, at least subconsciously, he suspects. But she loves him, he wants desperately to believe she does, and she grips his hands tightly as she waits to hear I do. So he fights back strangely-inappropriate tears and says his lines, then asks permission to kiss her (because that’s what she both wants and doesn’t, these days). Slides the ring on her finger and thinks mission accomplished. Items remaining on my bucket list, zero.
They walk hand-in-hand back to the apartment, she rejects the Grand Canyon and Yosemite but accepts Sedona along the way. Heads straight for the shower upon entering, instead of initiating the honeymoon he’d prefer. He sighs— a big sighing day, it seems--then groans as the street-cleaning notification dings. Of COURSE she parked in the wrong spot again, it’s like she’s privately at war with the meter maid.
His phone buzzes as he skips downstairs, but he ignores it; Veronica’s leaning out the window like an angry, small Rapunzel, shouting something non-romantic. About Fiji maybe, he’s not sure, a lot of noise filters back from the beach, plus he can’t read her lips through the setting-sun glare. He opens the car door as she turns away, and feels all the hair on the back of his neck rise.
The first thing he notices is the dead body, minus both head and hands, sprawled across the center console. The second is a backpack in the rear-seat foot-well, ticking.
Fuck, he thinks, as training takes over, adrenaline spikes, and the word splinters into microsecond-slo-mo. Kicks off the brake and throws the car in neutral so it’ll roll downhill, away from homes; spins and spots the meter maid inching down the road. He yanks her passenger door open, flings himself onto the floorboards and smashes the brake with his hand as, a hundred feet away, Veronica’s car explodes.
His heart pounds, he smells hot metal and burning tires and fights not to flash back to Afghanistan, where bodies in pieces once carpeted the path around him. Sits up, barks “OUT!” and throws the car into reverse as soon as its frowsy occupant complies…not even thinking, really, just obeying the urge to escape. Looks past his shoulder to navigate the mostly-empty street until he’s two blocks away, sheltered safely under a Sac-N-Pac awning. Remembers the text of minutes past, and pulls out his phone with one asphalt-scraped hand.
Congratulations, you’re dead in 180 seconds, it says. Keep clear of Veronica’s car, get somewhere safe, and pick me up at the corner of Wilton and Alameda.
Fabulous, he thinks, a word he mentally pronounces the way Lilly did. Wishes Veronica wasn’t dog-with-bone about perceived betrayals, so he could have let the sorry text stand. He motors out of the bodega lot towards the cinema, where he disables the meter maid's car before abandoning it amidst trees. Clears and smashes his cell and pockets the sim. He tosses the detritus tidily into a wastebasket—littering never pays-- then sinks into his leather seat with a tweaked-trapezius huff, and drives grimly towards the rendezvous.
Nicole’s sprawled on a bus bench waiting, smoking a clove and dressed in black, her own go-bag on the weathered seat beside her. She tosses the butt and slinks over while he parks; he smirks as she climbs inside. He’s never met anyone not named Echolls as prone as she to stylish drama.
“Felicitations on your wedding day,” she says, with irony, as she shuts the door. Tosses her bag in the back, where it lands with a clank. She strips off the dreadlocked wig she’s been wearing all year as he eases past the curb, revealing her own close-cropped hair; grimaces as she removes the fake nose ring, then rolls down the window to toss it out.
“Thank you, we’re registered at Crate and Barrel.” Smoothly, he navigates a right turn. “Fingers crossed you’ll buy us a blender, despite your recent re-gift of a body and bomb.”
“The bomb was Epner.” She sinks into the seat with a groan and unzips her platform boot. “Wanted to string along your little blonde with amateur-hour explosives and weak limericks. I figured out it was there just by watching footage of the Kane School bomb scare, but I suppose you in that suit shut off her brain.”
Bomb scare? he thinks, but what he says, with a smirk, is, “Fiji. Of course. I told you I’d always planned on Fiji for a honeymoon. And you think you’re a comedian, so you bought pizza and passed that fact along.”
“Oh I’m hilarious. You see, the joke’s on him.” She buckles a watch and climbs between seats to rummage in the bag; comes up with a pair of sneakers which she bends to lace. “I put evidence in the public record we may need later, via that body dump, while simultaneously covering your ass. And by the way, you owe ME, not vice-versa; I DIDN’T punch your dainty helpmate when I learned she’d BUGGED MY OFFICE.”
“She what?” he snorts amusement, because Veronica, and adds, “Why, pray tell? Also, should I be heading somewhere specific? Or are we circling the Dog Beach boardwalk indefinitely, like ghosts?”
“Private airfield on Loma Vista,” she says. “I’ve chartered a plane…I hope you still remember how to fly. They want us in Maryland for debrief before we’re sent south. And I pray your Spanish is better than your Arabic; as it stands, you’ll have trouble fitting in.”
“Pshaw, I’m a chameleon.” He jerks a thumb at his chest. “Son of a three-time Oscar winner, lying’s practically my only skill. But yes, my Spanish is passable. Not as good as the Russian I learned in early black-ops years; but then again, I was highly motivated to infiltrate the Sorokin mob without dying.”
“Passable won’t keep our skins intact.” She shoots him a look. “It works solely for people who still exist on paper.”
“Am I really most sincerely dead?” he asks, praying for a no. Because he’s sure Veronica’s crying right now, and he hates to think of her unhappy. Hates to hurt her, though he invariably does—he’s never quite managed to make her truly happy. “Or just AWOL until our targets bite it?”
She shrugs. “D’Amato started sniffing around. Maybe he saw me tossing shots in a plant, the night he pawed your adoring spouse in my club. Or had a premonition of doom—his cover-up of El Despaidado’s first beheading was weak sauce. He began with credit checks, then ran deep background on both of us, before starting favor-trading phone calls testing my cover. I sent an anon text hinting at his Lilly Kane Murder Tapes indiscretion, whereupon activities ceased. But he’s linked our personas, somehow, yours and mine…and he’s highly motivated to dig deeper.” She glances sideways, the expression on her face opaque, as they leave the boardwalk for the less-lit highway--but Logan detects a trace of sympathy. “I don’t know what you see in the Mars girl, Echolls. She’s adorable, certainly, with a vulnerability that breaks the heart. But our crooked Fed walked her home the other night, and no doubt left DNA all over your miniscule couch.”
Leo, Logan thinks, with a sardonic twist of lips, plus a slow-creeping sense of fatalism. Of course. Blandly-charming assholes are Veronica’s crack-- and her stabs at respectability ever motivated by guilt. “I should have narced on that guy in high school,” he says, with a faint, self-disgusted head-shake; because he’d let himself believe, for a few days, that Veronica truly loved him till death do us part. “I had immunity from prosecution and everything. But Keith worked so hard to cover up D’Amato’s crimes…it seemed like an idiot move if I wanted to date his daughter.”
“Shame you led with your heart,” she says. “Or cock, who can say? I had the whole submarine-to-beach trafficking scheme worked out down to details, and there’s that nexus at Maloof you still haven’t explained…”
“I ripped the electronics in the suite while I was babysitting,” he interrupts, with a hand-wave. “Except the kid’s cell, he never puts it down. Turned in video of a hit ordered by the congressman on--you’ll like this, it’s cute—a chipped fake-milkshake card, that’s making its way up the chain as we speak. Then I tracked down some incel hacker with vids of Maloof begging trafficked girls to kick him, those should be in your Dropbox already.”
“Savory work we do, innit?” She snorts. “Or did do. I suppose we’ll have to end El Despaidado at the source, now.”
“Not my fault I had to day-trip to Mogadishu.” He shakes off gloom because he’s dead-dead, and the job remains the job--so what’s the point of wishing he could beg Veronica to explain? “Leaving you to fail at protecting V from D’Amato…and Weidman to let our best lead get shot.”
“He’s losing it.” She points right so he doesn’t miss the dirt-road turn to the airstrip. “Clarence, I mean. He needs to get out of the game, never would have been this sloppy in his prime. Course he’s US Army, so what do you expect? Inferior branches of service never shine.”
“Says my very own personal 007.” He parks inside the hangar, as instructed, and takes the time to pat the car one more time as he climbs out. “Hate to love and leave you after such a short time, baby, but seems that’s the running theme. And just when I had everyone convinced I’d changed.”
“You?” Nicole snorts, and he bobs his brows at her as he collects his bag. Texts Keller with the location of the vehicle using his burner, then hides his keys under the mat. “Hardly, I’ve seen you fight. Starts with sand-in-the-face or a nut-punch every time.”
“Once a bad boy, always a bad boy.” He shrugs, pretending insouciance, as he shoulders his gear, although the words sting. “And for your information, my combat form is flawless.”
“Not as flawless as mine.” She shoots him with a Veronica-esque finger gun that makes his heart hurt; mounts the first step to the sleek Cessna which sits, prepped, on the runway. “Now move your arse, Captain. You’ve been dead almost an hour, the night’s not getting younger.”
He does a slow turn, one last. They’re up on a hill so he can see the Neptune skyline, grey and gleaming below them in growing dark, froth of beach barely visible at the horizon. Home, the worst place on Earth—but he came back anyway, because it’s what Veronica wanted. He wonders if she’ll stay, once she accepts he’s gone. Wonders if she’ll make someone pay for his murder, if she cares enough, still, to fight that hard. Wonders how much she’ll grieve for the twenty-three years they shared, before she decides, inevitably, to move on.
“So the body in my car,” he says, repressing pain with a decisive inhale. Because he’s got no choice about this path, he never has--not since the day he sold his soul to keep V safe from Sorokin. The decisions in his life are made by others, while he stands at attention, ever-ready. “Let me guess. Magursky kid?”
“Got it in one.” She turns, framed in the doorway, hands braced on either side. “El Despaidado’s charming friends left him in a kayak shack near First. I had to saw his hands off and toss them in the ocean when I realized he’d be impersonating you, THAT was a fun afternoon spent.”
“Needs must,” he says, with a shrug, and climbs up after. Settles in the cockpit with a sense of homecoming as she retracts the stairs and secures the door.
“The guiding principle of our lives.” She buckles in beside him as the engine begins to hum. Vibrating through his thighs like the car he hates to ditch, motor-propelled power wholly under his control--sense of freedom looming, and an open sky. “We achieve the impossible no matter the cost, because if we don’t…who will?”
Veronica, he thinks, easing the throttle forward, so they begin a steadily-increasing taxi. Nothing in life is certain except that one truth. “Well, then let’s hear it for God, guns, guts and glory,” he says, with a well-faked lilt, as they accelerate. Smiles at the stomach-drop as they launch themselves into the sky.