Author's Note: I've been writing fix-it's for every episode of S4, but when I hit 4x03, I was delighted to see the LoVe moments were already adorable and there was no need to write them a make-up scene. Instead, I got the infinite joy of just expanding a moment when they were happy that we CLEARLY needed more screen time of. I mean, edit down that damn pizza boy and give us some freaking Logan and Veronica on ecstasy! * shakes head at showrunners and their poor decision making*

In the spirit of that, this episode fix it will be four chapters long.

(Also, I wasn't totally clear in the show about if Logan took E, or if just Veronica did, but for this I'm going to assume it was both). This starts in the scene in Nicole's bar, Comrade Quack's when Logan and Veronica went over to bring Dick a spare pair of pants.

Reminder that every episode of this New and Improved S4 series starts in canon and expands off into Trogdor non-canonlandia. I own none of these characters, just playing in the world.

Chapter 1

Veronica

"You don't have a drink. Let's fix that."

I'm so happy to be away from the shitty music from the AirBnb below our condo, that I accept Nicole's offer of a drink immediately. That, and I'm half in love with her after trying on her sap gloves. I've never been much of a brawling kind of girl, mostly because I'm whatever weight class is underneath everybody else's. But when I put on those sap gloves, the weight of them made my fist clench, my arm seem stronger. I could sense how good it would feel to swing and connect, to watch my enemies fall.

It's been the kind of year where even I want to hit somebody. I pull off the gloves, not really wanting to find out what it is about fighting that Logan's always liked so much.

I cross the office and accept the bourbon with a smile, clinking glasses with Nicole. I like how she doesn't give any fucks, but she still hangs loose. Like joy bubbles out of her even while she misses none of the bullshit that clogs up the veins of this bloated town. Nothing about her is set, or hard, but she's still plenty tough. For a second, I consider different phrasings of "How can I be you when I grow up?"

"Ahoy, Ladies!" Dick comes in, raising a drink that's the color of cleaning products. He starts flirting with Nicole, and I don't listen to another word he says until he starts joking about proposing marriage to her and it feels like I just sat on my own taser. And that's before Dick continues by turning to Logan and says, "Hey Logan, ring, got one?"

My jaw drops. He did not. I mean, I guessed maybe Logan had told him about the proposal, but I can't believe Dick's actually going to take a passive aggressive swipe at me for it in front of Nicole? Fuck, in front of Logan?

I feel sick, but my boyfriend just socks him. An easy punch, hard enough to let Dick know he didn't appreciate the joke, but not hard enough to knock the crown off the king of spring break. Logan doesn't even look embarrassed, so I relax, laughing a little nervously.

"Well, pace yourself," Nicole says. "Let's see how well you represent the Quacks in the volleyball tournament this weekend."

"That is fair," Dick says, "Ah! That reminds me." He turns to Logan. "You are playing volleyball with me this weekend. So try to get in shape, would you?"

The fist whips out so fast this time Dick doesn't see it coming and he yelps a little, then snickers. Logan laughs.

I hate how cute they are, those two boys with a few decades of bro-marriage under their belts, but even I'm giggling now, sipping at my bourbon and admiring how wide Logan's shoulders are under that perfectly tailored jacket. I've been so tense lately it's been hard to appreciate that he's mostly…not.

I wonder what it would feel like, to be so secure in your life and your relationship that you just don't even have to worry about it. Then again, that probably comes standard with his highly disciplined post-Navy, post-therapy life. When you get up before five to eat a well-balanced breakfast, exercise, practice your Arabic, and always say the right thing to your girlfriend, you don't really have to spend your whole life apologizing like the rest of us.

I remember a time when that was his role in our relationship, not mine. And I really don't care to examine the twinge in my belly that's not entirely comfortable with the growing evidence that that time has passed.

"Okay." Nicole claps her hands together. "Who's up for some E?" She grins. "It's the only thing that remotely makes me able to stand this whole city of nitwits and dimfucks during spring break."

Logan brightens, and cocks an eyebrow toward me.

After being roofied three times, I don't have much of a taste for anything that takes me out of my right mind, but then…why the hell not? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Besides, Logan's here, my taser fits in my back pocket, and I already know if I pass out, Nicole and her delicious little gloves will pound the face off any frat boy who touches me.

"Yes, please!" I hold out a hand and Nicole shakes a little pill out for each one of us. I dart a look at Logan, but he's already popped his before I can even assure him it's okay if he doesn't want to partake. In the past, he's been very careful about the Navy and drug tests, and he barely drinks since he got on this all-abs-no-carbs kick, but apparently, he's in the mood to cut loose a little, too.

I ignore the prickle of anxiety that whispers to me of gaping black holes in our kitchen cabinets, guilt shadowing his eyes as he clipped a leash to Pony's collar. Wild, desperate sex that left my nail tracks in his back and his fingertip bruises on my hips, both of us pulling each other closer so hard that it hurt as we tried to get past that invisible thing that's been between us.

The tiny pill feels like it's stuck halfway down my throat, and I gulp whiskey to try to wash it down. The fumes scorch the inside of my nose and I end up coughing.

"Whoa, Ronnie!" Dick shoves me aside using a full palm on my ass. I make a mental note to tase him when I'm done choking to death, but then he pops up with a bottle of water from a mini fridge I didn't notice before. "Drink up, girl. The E makes you…thirsty." He waggles his eyebrows. "And so does gettin' some action, in case you old not-so-married folks don't remember."

I gulp the water, then choke on that, too, when Dick's head goes flying forward from the smack Logan gave him in the back of the skull.

"Unless you like playing by yourself…ah-hem, I mean playing volleyball by yourself," Logan says, "You might consider shutting the fuck up."

Nicole snorts. "Uh, you have met the King of Spring Break, right? I didn't hire him to be the strong silent type."

"That's right. You hired me to be the strong, sexy type." He rolls his stomach, making his glitter ab-enhancements catch the light. "It's good to be king!" he hollers and runs out the door, pumping his drink over his head so a little of the Windex-blue slush falls down onto the shoulder of Logan's spare plaid shirt.

"You all good?" Nicole asks me. "Molly does make you thirsty as fuck, so feel free to come back up if you need to grab some waters and can't reach the bar when the tide of douchebags is running too high."

"Yeah, right, fine." I shoot the rest of my whiskey and give her a cool, cynical smile, trying to look like the kind of person who pops random drugs with strangers all the time. Except all my fuck-it-let's-have-fun energy just took a hard left turn with the reminder that I actually have very little idea what E is supposed to feel like. Or what the side effects are. Or that apparently it has something to do with needing to drink a lot of water.

I have a flash of running my fingers through Dick's hair, my mouth mashed hard against Shelly Pomroy's. That night, all my skin felt too sensitive and yet a little achy and sick at the same time. Fuck, is it too late to throw up that pill?

Logan takes the water out of my hand and gives me a little spin that lands me in his arms. He tips his head down to my ear. "I've done E a thousand times. It's fun as fuck and as long as you don't take too much, you won't black out, won't forget a thing, and it's nowhere near strong enough to make you think kissing Dick is a good idea. Real Dick or fake Dick."

I snort into laughter at the image, and give him an appreciative squeeze for knowing exactly what I was thinking and what I needed to hear to calm down. He was quick before, my Logan, but after the training to enter Naval Intelligence, he doesn't miss a thing. Not a bat of an eye, a moment of nerves, or the difference between what the kitchen looks like when I'm hand-battering my dad's favorite fried chicken and when I'm doing his keto chicken breast-egg white weirdness that makes my stomach feel like a rock, and his ass as hard as one.

He unhooks my bag from my shoulder and slides it and my jacket to the floor, tucking them behind Nicole's chair. I start to reach for my taser but he stops me. "If you stuff it in your pocket, you're just asking for somebody to bump the button on the dance floor and shock the fuck out of you."

"Wouldn't be the first time I got a shock from somebody grabbing my ass." My eyes stray back to my bag and I gauge whether I might be okay to put up with an accidental electrocution if it means I can zap somebody when I want to.

"Ah-ah-ah, safety first." He captures my hand and winds it around his neck instead, dancing me across Nicole's office. "No worries. You have a one-man security detail on the clock. Now, let me buy you a drink."

"Oh, your girl's drinking for free all night long," Nicole says in her rolling accent and yeah, I sort of forgot she was still here. She winks at me. "I like her style."

"I like it, too," Logan says, and nibbles my ear playfully. "You okay?" he murmurs in an undertone, and I push up on my toes and kiss him.

"How about that drink, flyboy?"

"Ahh," he groans. "Don't call me that. You'll make me miss my baby."

Nicole arches an eyebrow as she opens the door for us.

"His p-l-a-n-e," I whisper behind my hand. "He used to fly fighter jets, but don't bring it up if you don't want to see a tough guy crying into his beer. He had a hard time giving up the Top Gun life for the Mission Impossible life. Hashtag first world problems."

Nicole just shakes her head and locks her office. "You are fishing from an entirely different pool of men than the rest of us, girl. Damn."

And I just laugh and shrug, because Logan's eyes have lightened to a sweet caramel brown, and he's dancing me down the stairs, lifting me down three at a time with a neat little whirling spin, and I don't have the breath left to tell her she's goddamn right and I know it.

#

Logan

I dance Veronica across a whole floor of drunk spring breakers, weaving her in and out of them. Someone bumbles in between us and she playfully pokes her head up over their shoulder to catch my eye, feigning surprise, only to duck and peek a boo out from under their arm. When she darts low, I take the cue and reach through to slide her through the guy's wide-spread legs. He yelps in surprise as she pops up with a hoot of triumph.

Then I boot a frat boy with one elbow, hip check another out of her way, mash a short guy a shoulder to the face as I groove my way backwards toward the bar. A path is clearing for us, and Veronica's laughing, and I can knock down college boys all night for a smile like that one.

But when we get close to the bar, it's basically a mosh pit. Veronica's lips are getting tight as bodies press in all around her and she gives somebody an elbow to the throat that I'm pretty sure means a dick just touched her ass.

"Up you go!" I yell and she obediently spins around to put her back to me, sighing in a way I can see in her posture but not hear. I grab her by the waist, toss her up like the quick clean and press of a barbell, then drop her onto my shoulders. My suit coat tugs tight under her thighs, and I reach up and steady her legs.

"Two o'clock," she shouts down to me and I pivot without being able to see where we're headed.

I hear Nicole before I see her. "Get your arses up, you bunch of prat-faced twats! I want that booth."

I snort. Guess her E hasn't kicked in yet, either.

Most of the round booth clears with her swipe of a hand, but one guy protests.

"Who the fuck are you, bitch?"

"Samuel L Jackson's delinquent daughter," I tell the guy. "The crazy one. Hey, I heard she can tear a guy's windpipe out through his left ear. Wanna see?"

Veronica giggles as he scrambles to get away. I bend down and she hops from my shoulders straight onto the low-set coffee table. "God, it's fun to be tall!" she groans, and gives a little shimmy, her hips starting to follow the beat of the music. I catch her hand as I circle the table, her boot pivoting easily on the shining surface so we turn together. When I hit the far inside of the circular booth seat, I give her a quick tug that topples her off the table and right into my arms. Fuck, it's cute how light and easy she is to toss around.

She's used to how gymnastic I get when I'm in a good mood, so she pulls her legs up at just the right moment, knowing I'll catch the rest of her weight. She swings right into me, latching on like a koala bear.

I fall laughingly into the seat while she kisses me breathless.

"You two," Nicole teases without any heat behind it. "You need to let me in on the fun to be your three-way unicorn, or knock off that PDA. You're getting me all heated up, and none of the dick in this joint is up to my standards."

"Don't tempt her!" I call over the music as Veronica bites my ear. My girlfriend has a hell of a girl-crush on the bar owner, and I get a possessive squirming in my gut when I consider that she might just take Nicole up on a threesome with the mood she's in.

"Not even for you am I sharing a piece of this," Veronica warns Nicole, rolling off my lap to drop onto the seat between us and give my chest a pat with a hint of a feline curl to her fingernails.

I can't stop the smile that crinkles the edges of my eyes, and my cock kicks in my pants. It may not involve the ring still riding in my breast pocket, but that's a clear claim my girl is staking there.

Nicole tips her chin up to a passing waiter, then smiles at me with a heated tilt to her eyes. "Pity. You look like you could give a girl a bit of bang for her buck. And you…" She turns those melting eyes on Veronica and my dick is way more on board with this plan than the rest of me is. "Adorable and deadly is so hard to keep my hands off." She looks back to me. "Your type, too, mate?"

"I prefer wicked smart and emotionally unavailable, with just enough curiosity to keep that cat a corpse."

Too late, I realize I've let my mouth run away with me when Veronica's not her normal, alligator-skinned self. I pull her into me and kiss her head, so she knows I didn't mean it as a dig. She flashes a quick glance up at me, but then Nicole's pouring shots. We pound the table with the bottoms and shoot. One round, two, then Nicole's grinning and saying, "Ever wanted to assassinate a king? Because I've got a cannon."

Veronica leaps up onto the bench, jumps to the table, and screams, "Show me the cannon!"

And…no more shots for that girl. I burst out laughing and Nicole tosses her something nearly the size of a grenade launcher. Veronica catches it and raises it to her shoulder, her eyes narrowing as she aims in a way that should not technically be hot, but is somehow nuclear.

I rise to my feet so I get enough of a vantage point to see her nail Dick right in the face with the tee shirt cannon. He lights up, waving the shirt she just shot him with, and wearing the shirt I brought him like a cape. I did plaid just to yank his chain so it'd clash with his rhinestones and gold lamé, but it's not bothering him a bit. He bounds through the crowd, bellowing, "Man down, man down! Mankiller Veronica claims another casualty!"

Dick's taking my failed proposal pretty hard.

Which, okay, I get it, and I let him grieve in his own way, but tonight his swipes keep making Veronica's face fall. I'm not going to stand for too much of that. I swipe the tee shirt cannon off her shoulder, fiddle for just a second until I figure out how to reload, and get one in the chamber just in time to blast him right in the crotch.

He screams and doubles over, clutching the stuffed front of his gold speedo and borrowed jeans. "My heirs, dude! Who's gonna father the future princes of spring break if you damage the Casa-cajones?!"

"A question for the ages." Veronica turns to slap me a high five for taking the cheap dick shot.

"Down here with that girl," Dick insists, crowding in between us to offer his own high five. "That was a killer shot. Hundred yards if it was an inch."

It was fifty feet if it was an inch, but I'm not going to argue because he's buying her a round of shots and clinking glasses like he might be done with his pouting for one night. Veronica knocks back the shot before I remember that she weighs about thirty pounds and is about to be rolling on Molly. No way is she going to back down if Nicole's the one pouring, so I toss Dick the tee shirt cannon. As he turns to shoot a co-ed, I snatch his crown, drop it on Veronica's blonde head and sweep her off the table in a bridal carry.

She grins up at me. "Does this make me the Queen of Spring Break?"

"I think it makes you the usurper, Khaleesi." I kiss the end of her nose. "Care to make things interesting while we wait for the drugs to kick in?"

"Oh, a bar fight, just for me?" She splays a hand over her chest and bats her eyelashes. "My hero."

"I was thinking a little catch and release."

She snorts. "After last time? You lost so hard. I got rid of my guy like half an hour before you managed to shake your girl."

"Mmm, true." It's no game at all to see who can pick up a date in a bar like this, not for the two of us. So the game became who could pick up and then get a date to ditch them the fastest. Veronica's soft looks and sharp tongue make her a fatal opponent. "You get a handicap," I declare. "You can't speak."

She brightens. "Ooh, now you're talking. I'm still going to wipe the floor with you. You always have to peel the bimbos off your biceps at the end of the game."

"Well, you can always borrow Nicole's sap gloves if I can't manage to shake the girls on my own."

My old jealous streak has eased since Veronica's job has mostly soured her on men. With the exception of me, her father, and Wallace, her reactions to the male of the species run the very short gamut from disdain to disgust. As for the guys in this place? The question isn't whether she's interested. It's whether she'd tase them, or douse them in gasoline and then tase them. So, jealousy isn't often a problem for me anymore.

Veronica, conversely, is every bit as jealous as she was the day she nearly made Jackie go airborne hauling her off me at…one of those high school dances. Who can remember, with all the crepe paper and cheap whiskey involved?

"Okay, I'll take the no talking handicap," she agrees and drops a quick kiss to my lips before wriggling out of my arms and tossing Dick's crown to a passing sorority girl. "May the best me win."

I laugh as she prowls off into the crowd, as competitive as ever. I salute Nicole, who winks back at me. Then I straighten my back, dropping my face into its stony bodyguard lines and twitching my blazer straight. It only takes about forty seconds before a girl falls into my chest and shrieks, "Oh my God are you Secret Service?"

I give her a quelling look and her eyes widen. She begins to jump up and down, her bright pink bra peeking out of her tank top more with every jump that rattles her prodigious rack. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, who are you protecting? Is the President here?"

I glance away. She shrieks.

"You work for the freaking President?"

"Off duty," I say tersely and she nods, her hands combing down the front of my shirt in a way that feels vaguely distasteful. Like having your hair petted in the wrong direction. Still, if I want to have a hope of winning this game, I need to set the hook.

I let my eyes focus on her, like I'm seeing her for the first time, and her giant breasts jerk up on an inhale as I paste on an interested look. I nod toward the dance floor, giving my eyebrows a little bounce.

She grins and pulls me by the shirt into the crush of people. It's sweltering in here, and when Nicole passes me, she says, "You look hot, fly boy," and pulls my jacket off my shoulders.

I reach to stop her automatically, my hand jerking toward the inner pocket, and her eyebrows go up. "Carrying something special, is it? I'll lock it up." She flicks a dismissive glance at my pink-bra'ed hanger on. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, mate."

"Oh, I wouldn't," I assure her. It's a safe bet because I'm pretty sure she wants to fuck my girlfriend at least half as badly as I want to right now. And the drugs haven't even kicked in yet.

I turn back to my enthusiastically dancing "date," who has found my thigh and is attempting to grind her crotch on it.

I let my stoic bodyguard face drop and a smile explode across my face. "Let's dance!" I enthuse, and break into a gangly version of the Sprinkler, that old standard of white man dancing.

She ducks as my flailing arm nearly takes her out, and I Sprinkler my way through a full 360 degrees, taking the opportunity to check on how Veronica's doing. I can tell from her expression that she's just locked onto her target. He's tall, and a hell of a lot more handsome than I'd prefer, though he's got a very punchable law-school face. Baby soft chin he probably shaves once a month whether it needs it or not.

She gives him a cool, disinterested look, and blows right by him. He pivots to follow like there's a magnet in his pants and it's sprinting to catch up to her round ass in those tight jeans. She stops to give him another killing, icy-blue glance, sweeping her shiny hair over one shoulder and oh yeah, now that little lemming would follow her off a cliff straight to his death. Damn, Veronica can hook 'em fast.

I drop my hands, giving a sly wink to my pink-bra'ed mark as I rev right into an enthusiastic Lawnmower.

"Mow that lawn, bitch!" Dick crowds up behind me, spanking my hip as he humps me. I spin around, giving him flint hard eyes. He glares right back, both of us fronting. With no spoken signal, we both drop into fierce, deadpan white man dancing. I'm swiping the credit card, he's prancing around filling the shopping cart.

"Oh my god, you guys are the funniest!" Pink Bra girl squeals, and hops right into the middle of us, doing a flailing monkey that isn't technically white man dancing, but looks bad enough that it should be. I moon-walk a circle around both of them, and catch Veronica's face spasming with the effort of staying blank as she tries to Ice Queen her mark while also choking on laughter at my antics.

Her "date" is gesturing toward the dance floor and she sighs and finally graces him with a one-shoulder shrug. Dick and I go back to back in Charlie's Angels form, then spin around to point our "guns" at Pink Bra. Veronica sputters into helpless laughter, but her date's leading the way to the dance floor and doesn't see. I flush with new warmth to see her face all lit up like that.

Veronica turns to dance with Punchable Face, dissolving from chilly Ice Queen to clingy, lovestruck girl in the space of a breath. She's all over that guy, cooing and moon-eyed and I choke with laughter.

"Don't look now, but I think Ronnie's about to rip that guy's Casablancas off," Dick says. "She never smiles like that unless you're about to die."

"Don't worry," I tell him. "She'll bury her own bodies." Also, there's no way she's gonna shake that law school kid now, because he's three-quarters of the way to the altar. So I have the time to fuck around.

I grab his hand and the girl's at once, spinning them both into me and dipping them at the same time. Dick goes with it deeper and more dramatic than the girl does, so it's a little uneven but still flashy enough to win me a smile, eye roll, and fond head shake from Veronica.

"Sprinkler off!" Dick hollers and we start sprinklering with a vengeance, our arms flailing right over the top of the girl, until even Pink Bra—who turned out to be a startlingly good sport—takes off. Either out of fear of a head injury or because she finally hit critical mass on our dorkiness. Or maybe was blinded by Dick's rhinestones. Could have been any of those things.

I'm starting to feel the glimmer of the drugs kicking in and Veronica's still got Punchable Face stuck to her ass like a herpes outbreak. So I grab Dick and we ferociously tango across the floor. I spin him out and when he hits the end of my arm, he lets go and breaks into a Running Man, and I Windmill until I'm laughing so hard I can barely breathe.

Veronica's tossing more and more glances my way over her mark's shoulder. I've already won this round, but she'll never call the game early. I spin an imaginary lasso in the air and toss it her way, giving her a lascivious smile and a cocky chin tilt to make her laugh, reeling her back in toward me.

She backs her ass up into her date's lap, and his face pinches closed like he just bit a lemon. I snort with laughter, but then he pulls her closer again and my skin wakes up with a wave of angry heat that sends my knuckles clenching. Her face goes calm, and I can't see if she says something, but he looks mad again and backs away from her, hands raised. She shrugs. He pouts like a baby and stomps away.

I toss my fake lasso, and this time when I start to reel, my girl is coming right back toward me.

Finally.