Author's Note: Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault in conjunction with Veronica's backstory. Nothing shown on the page.

Chapter 1

Logan

Take me home.

I did what she asked. Cradled the newly-shaved place on her head and scooped her into my arms, her drugged lassitude feeling so un-Veronica I could barely stand it. I put her in her car and drove her home, but now that we're back at her dad's place, I'm not sure either one of us is really okay.

I force myself to sit down in the chair across the room from her because I think it's making her father nervous to see me twitch and pace, and the more uncomfortable I make him, the sooner he's going to make me leave. It's the only reason I'm not wrapped around Veronica like a bulletproof vest right now.

The need to touch her is a thin, jumping panic that thrums beneath my skin. To feel her whole and breathing and reassure myself, over and over, that the worst didn't happen. My eyes stray to the door she once opened to me, wearing nothing but a robe over skin scrubbed raw and red. I've seen Veronica in some of the worst moments of her life, and I've only seen her look broken twice.

I know what rape does to her, how it twists inside her head and eats at everything she knows about herself. I know that to Veronica Mars, losing control of what happens to her body is the second worst thing on earth. And the first would be not knowing what happened. How. Who.

I hate that I know this about her. Nobody on earth should ever be in that position, much less have to do it twice.

It didn't happen, I tell myself for the two hundredth time.

Keith flicks on a lamp and turns down the overhead light. Pulls the bamboo curtain away from the door and scans the parking lot again. He turns to me with a mild smile that does nothing to cover his tension. "You might as well head on home, Logan. I think the action's past here. According to the doctor, we've done everything there is to do. Now it's just waiting and letting her sleep it off. You might as well get some rest, too. You've earned it."

It was me who said we couldn't take her to the hospital, that I should take her home like she asked and we could call the doctor from there. We don't know who the Hearst rapist is. It would be the easiest thing in the world for him to pose as one of the hospital personnel, or to slip into her room if the staff kicked us out for lack of visiting hours. Plus, hospitals are full of ways you can kill a person and make it look like an accident. He may have drugged her for the express purpose of getting her into a hospital where he could kill her without getting a murder investigation opened up.

Keith Mars may have been a law enforcement officer, but he's got nothing on me for paranoia. Or utter lack of faith in the goodness of my fellow man.

"I'm okay to hang out a little longer," I say, my knee bouncing.

"That's not necessary, Logan. But I hope you know how much I appreciate you being there for her."

"I need to stay." It bursts out of me, and when his eyebrows go up, I tack on, "sir." Hoping the extra show of respect will win me enough points. Because it's Veronica's dad, and I can't very well refuse to let him throw me out of his own house. Except that I. Can't. Go.

I search for an argument that's more substantial than If I take my eyes off your daughter right now I won't know that she's safe and I'll be living inside a panic attack that never ends.

"Look, it's not exactly a secret where you live," I say. "The guy heard me coming and took off, so he didn't get what he came for. If he comes to finish the job—" The words choke me, the image of what they mean ending in a dry choke of disgust and impotent rage.

"If he comes back, I can handle him," Keith says with an evenness that doesn't disguise the eagerness beneath. Which makes me like him a whole lot more. "I've been trained to deal with criminals, and I'm armed. You're not."

"Yes, sir," I force myself to agree. "But I'd still like a crack at whatever's left when you're done with him."

Keith chuckles and I relax a little. "I understand."

He takes the chair across from mine and settles in with a creak. I glance at him, but he doesn't seem to want to make conversation, thank fuck. Instead we sit in only half-uneasy silence until his eyelids start to sag and he jerks back awake with a twitch that squeaks his chair.

Veronica whimpers and I tense, but she doesn't wake.

"You might as well go to bed," I tell him in a low voice. "Sleeping in chairs is hell on the back and mine's younger than yours."

He shrugs this off. "Speaking of uncomfortable, Veronica sleeping in jeans probably wasn't my best idea. If you want to step out for a minute, I'll help her get changed into some pajamas."

"Don't—" I cut myself off, but it doesn't disguise the sharpness of the word, or how I came forward in my seat when he started to get up, like I would physically stop him. Which, okay, yeah I would have. Except fuck. Because he doesn't know what Cassidy did to her, and so he won't understand why taking off her pants right now is about the worst thing he could do.

"She's probably going to be missing some memories, if the other survivors' responses to the drugs are any indication," I say. "Veronica's going to hate that, and if she wakes up in different clothes than she remembers wearing, it's going to freak her out. I don't know how lucid she'll be when she first starts to shake off the drugs," I add, improvising quickly. "It might be best to do what we can to keep her calm in the time before she's conscious enough to really absorb our explanations."

Keith nods and sits back. "I didn't think of that. Good point."

I push my luck, nodding toward his bedroom. "Get some rest. I'll sit up with her. I'm a college student, remember? We're good at the all-nighters."

"Yeah, but the doctor said with how small she is and not knowing how much sedative the guy gave her, we need to keep an eye on her pulse and breathing, take her to the hospital if they drop below the numbers he gave me." Keith points to the slip of paper by the phone. I saw him scribbling on it, but hadn't realized that's what it meant.

"I can do that."

He eyes me. Not distrustful, but more like he doesn't think I'll get it. "She's probably going to throw up at some point, and she may or may not wake up before it happens. Could get messy."

I shrug. "Wouldn't be the first time I've held her hair back."

Keith's expression soured a little. "Right. She's a college student, I'm sure you two have attended some wild parties I don't necessarily want to know about."

"Your daughter?" I scoff a little. "Not so much. Once after a stakeout in a garage when she huffed too much exhaust. All you can eat at the new Ukranian buffet, last summer. And gym class, grades seven, nine, and twelve."

Keith's mouth flickers almost into a smile before he smothers it. "Be that as it may…"

"Oh! And when Dick played the lead in the Vagina Monologues."

"Just when I thought this night couldn't get any more traumatizing."

"Never say never," I advise. "This is Neptune."

Keith hesitates, takes a breath. "Look, I know you two are dating and she probably wouldn't appreciate me bringing this up in front of you, but it appears she was given very strong sedative and there's also a chance she might lose control of her—"

"I know," I interrupt. "Doesn't bother me. If it happens, I'll come get you so you can get her cleaned up. You're her dad, I get it." I'm not going to take her clothes off without her being awake to give me full permission, even if it is nothing I haven't seen before. I especially wouldn't do it tonight.

I think Veronica trusts me, as far as that goes. Even when she was almost unconscious in the parking lot, she reached for me, relaxed against my chest, and didn't fight me. But if she feels like she's been drugged and wakes up with a guy pulling off her clothes…If I'm wrong that she trusts me, I don't want to know what her face looks like if she thought I would do that to her. Not too many things would have me wanting to put a gun in my mouth faster than that.

Keith is studying me and I try not to squirm. I've always hated the way he seems to see right through people. I don't know if it comes from his time as sheriff or as an investigator or just being the kind of smart any blood relative of Veronica's would obviously be, but I've never wanted to know what he sees when he looks at me.

But right now, if he sees anything at all, he's got to see that I don't care about fuck-all else in this world but taking care of Veronica.

I meet his eyes.

"I won't doze off," I promise him. "But even if I did, I'm a light sleeper." I had to be, to hear my dad coming.

Keith nods, and slaps his hands down on his legs, pushing to standing. "If anything happens, wake me up. And if you hear anything outside"—this time he gives me a more serious look, like he wants to make sure I'm listening—"then I get first crack at the guy, not you." I nod, but he must not be convinced, because he adds, "Just remember, I'm the one with the gun."

A thin smile crosses my face. "Well, in that case. Be my guest."

He chuckles. "Figured that would be the selling point."

I've always tried to keep my penchant for violence under wraps around Keith, ever since he pinned me against the wall for throwing one of his lamps. Not at her, but because I was losing her and I wanted to hear the sound of something breaking other than my heart. He came in too late to know the difference, and I let him choke me because I knew I deserved it, no matter which direction that lamp flew.

Tonight, though, Keith Mars and I are on the same wavelength, and it's not exactly the straight and narrow.

He goes into the bathroom and the faucet runs for a while. None of it disturbs Veronica, which makes me check her pulse against the number on the paper. But her skin is warm and if her heartbeat is slow, it's at least regular. Keith comes out, then his bedroom door closes behind him and I touch the back of her head. Where the bare patch is, barely hidden by the fall of the rest of her blonde hair. I move the dark green blanket up to cover her shoulder and tiny back, scoot it away from her jeans so it pools on the cushions in front of her. Her legs always get too hot when she sleeps and she's always huffing and kicking at the blankets, trying to get the balance just right so her top half is cuddled into me and the blankets while her feet and legs are bare and free.

Leaves her legs free for the getaway, too. I've always thought that, even when I tried not to.

I sit on the floor next to her and lean my head against the couch. She shifts, her face crinkling in her sleep. "Shhh," I whisper and she quiets. It's better, sitting close to her where I can catch the scent of her perfume. But worse, because I want to touch her even more and I'm afraid I'll wake her. She needs to sleep it off. I read somewhere that the body heals itself better when it's asleep than awake.

I click off the lamp so the only light is the streetlights, bleeding through the thin bamboo curtain over the front door, and retreat to the armchair. This way, she can rest, and if someone is standing on the other side of the door, I'll be able to see them and they won't see me.

Perfect.

I let the room sink into silence. The seconds keep counting themselves off in my mind between when her Saturn's alarm turned on (which must have been her) and when it turned off (her attacker) and then when I came around the corner. Thirty seconds, maybe forty that she was at his mercy. What could he have done with a full minute? Five? How many years of her life could he have ruined if I hadn't been already out looking for her tonight?

Things have been weird between us lately, distant. I've wondered more than once if she was about to dump me again. If she had already done it, I might have been off taking all my regrets out on my liver, or lifting another grand off Mercer in poker. She would have been all alone.

My guts twist and I grip the arms of the chair, forcing myself to imagine a happier picture. Veronica this summer, her teasing grin as she sent a Frisbee sailing across the sand to me. Mostly, people find her at school when they've got a case for her, so summers are quieter. Just me and her, without Veronica carrying the weight of every problem that exists in Neptune.

She rolls over with a little huff of a groan and flails an arm out toward her messenger bag. I sit up a little, but she hates when I offer to help, even when she's dead sick with Ukranian food poisoning. So I subside and wait to see if she's just going for the lip balm she can't seem to survive without. Instead, she drags out her phone, hauling it up onto the couch with a strange, jerky movement like she's only half in control of her body. She flips it open, and then hits a button.

In my pocket, my phone vibrates. I narrow my eyes at her, trying to parse out what lame joke she's trying to make, but her eyes have fallen back closed again and I'm not entirely sure she's awake.

I pull out my phone. "Hookers and Blow, Inc. You hook, we blow."

"Logan?" Her voice is small, like it was in the parking lot, and my heart contracts as I realize this is the farthest thing from a joke. "I think someone might have—I don't feel right. Can you come get me? I want to go home."

My skin goes cold. She is home. Not that she's registering that, or the fact that my voice came from across the room and through the phone at the same time. "Yeah. Of course." I push the words through dry lips.

I click off the phone and ignore the rustling from Keith's room. I cross the living room, not sure what I intend to do until Veronica's arms lift and twine around my neck, her fingers bumping clumsily into each other.

"Logan…" Her face twists like she's about to cry and I lift her into my arms. Spin us around so I can sit down, this time with her draped across my lap. Same couch as when the PCH'ers jumped me, only this time she's on my lap instead of me on hers. I think I preferred it the other way around. I'd rather be the one taking the hard knocks in this relationship.

Her head lolls against my shoulder. "Did I pass out again? You got here so fast."

"I wasn't far away." Disoriented, I tell myself. No reason to panic, because the doctor said she'd be disoriented. Keith's bedroom door opens and he steps out. I throw him a glance, hoping he'll go away once he sees I'm handling things.

"Somebody drugged me. I don't remember what happened."

"I found you, I brought you back here. That's all." I stroke her hair back.

"I thought I heard the clippers," she says, her voice quivering just a little. "They only shave the girl's heads afterward. He must have—"

"No." The word comes out too strongly and I fight it back, trying for a gentler tone. "He didn't."

Her face twists and she starts fumbling at her pants, her thumb hooking in her belt and then dragging free. None of her fingers are working quite right, but she's frantic as she tries to coordinate them enough to push the tail of her belt back through all the loops and unhook it. "I have to check. I have to know, Logan, I have to—" Her voice cracks and her fingernail catches on the leather and rips off, a drop of blood welling up from the base.

Keith comes forward and I wave a hand sharply where Veronica can't see, telling him to go. She wouldn't want him to see her like this.

"Logan, check if my underwear is still on. Please look, I can't. That's how you know." She's crying so hard now, repeating, "That's how you know, that's how you know" and the knot in my throat is so big I'm choking on it. Her dad is watching me and the idea of taking her pants off right now makes me want to skin myself alive. "Please," she begs me. "I have to know. I can take it. I just have to know what happened."

Instead, I dip a finger in the side of her pants, catching the strap of her panties and tugging it so it'll bite into her skin. "Feel that? They're still on. Nothing happened, Veronica, I swear. I got there as soon as you hit your car alarm and I would have killed the guy with my bare hands before I'd have let him touch you."

She burrows deeper into my chest, making a small sound that breaks what's left of my heart. I stroke her hair.

"You're safe. No one hurt you. I promise, no one hurt you."

Her hands clutch spastically at my neck and I gather her up close, rocking her while she cries and letting her hair soak up any sign that she might not be the only one. Quietly, Keith retreats. When his bedroom door closes, I think it's the only time he's ever said in his life that he trusted me with his daughter.

That, or he didn't want me to see him cry, either.

"Don't go," Veronica whimpers. "I'm so tired and I won't be able to help falling asleep again and if I do, anybody can do anything they want to me. I won't even know what happened. Promise me you won't leave me, not even if you put me in a bedroom and you think I'm safe."

My throat spasms, and I want to punch Duncan's face until it doesn't even resemble a face. As for Cassidy…I saw his body when it was all over. There's nothing more I could have done to him and in this moment, I'm ferociously, unrepentantly glad.

I swallow, and scrape out the words. "I won't leave you."

"I have to know. I have to know what happens to me," she repeats like she didn't even hear me. "Promise you'll stay. Promise." She's starting to cry again and I take a firm grip on myself.

Get your shit together for her, Echolls.

"Hmm, I don't know," I drawl, letting my voice go light. "Do I get full punching privileges? None of your 'violence isn't the answer, Logan.'"

Veronica chokes, and I can't tell if that was a laugh or not.

"That sounded like a maybe, Mars," I say gruffly. "I want a Get out of Fistfight Free card or no deal. If I'm going to stay here and protect you from all the roofy douches, I'm talking teeth on the floor and broken bones. Non-negotiable."

Her smile is small and watery, but fuck yeah, I got a laugh out of her. "You're an ass."

"Damn right."

"Then yes," she concedes. "Full punching privileges. But don't tell my dad."

"Do I strike you as the tattletale type?"

But she doesn't answer because she's already asleep.

I stroke the tears off her cheek with my thumb, tuck the side strap of her panties back into her jeans. Her nose is running, and I glance around like somebody might see what I'm about to do. The room is dark and warm and smells like mashed potatoes and Pad Thai, but we're alone. So I yank a tissue out of the box on the side table and dab her nose dry so she won't be embarrassed when she wakes up.

Then I kiss her head and know, without a shadow of a doubt, that there's a spot in hell with my name on it, because she hasn't cuddled into me like this for weeks and I hate myself for enjoying it.

Author's Note: 2 chapters for this one, folks! You may have seen that I started writing for a new fandom but don't worry, I'm not abandoning you yet! The new fandom is Outer Banks, and it's pretty great for Veronica Mars fans, if you already love it and want to read my new fic, or if you want to try a new show!