Fic: "A Clean Start," VM, V/Lamb, R, AU.

Title: "A Clean Start" 1/1
Fandom: VM
Rating/Classification: R for sexual content, adult language, V/Lamb, futurefic, AU
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters.
Summary: AU from S3's "Mars, Bars." 4000 words. She was totally and completely shocked to see Lamb sorting his whites.

Somewhere in the last two years, Don Lamb had moved into their apartment complex and Veronica had no idea. She of the keen detective insight and investigative savvy had somehow forgotten the basics of keeping tabs on one's enemy.

She could blame it on the fact that he'd spent seven months in a coma; proclaimed dead by the mayor, while a sting operation of the Fitzpatricks' organization helmed by one Agent Morris of the FBI took place. Sure. She could blame the fact that handling Vinnie as the elected interim sheriff had been a pain in her ass, and the ass of Neptune in general. She could blame breakups four through seven with Logan and that brief fling with Dick that she wasn't ever going to talk about, even under pain of death.

But, really, it just boiled down to the fact that Veronica didn't give Lamb much thought.

She'd been oddly relieved to know that he hadn't died after all, but even more relieved when the FBI's sting proved successful and landed Vinnie out on his ass and her dad back in office. And she'd been entirely too busy trying to make the Dean's List for the first quarter of her junior year and finagle a third summer internship with the Fibbies to boot. (Agent Morris had, amazingly, warmed up to her since the Great Duncan Escape incident her senior year at Neptune High.)

So when she hauled a blue plastic basket of laundry into the Sunset Cliffs cramped laundry room one quiet Friday night, she was totally and completely shocked to see Lamb sorting his whites. Okay, so seeing any guy sorting his whites was pretty much an automatic heart attack, but seeing this one actually made her drop the basket on top of the nearest closed washer with a weak thump.

He looked up from his task, seemingly surprised that any one else would choose to do the wash on a Friday… and she watched his face as he realized who she was. There was a flash of struggle, one that made her wince and regret thinking of him as her enemy.

Don Lamb had woken up from the coma with speech and motor impairment, as well as a good chunk of memory missing. He knew people, he knew he worked at the Neptune sheriff's department, but 2003-

2006 was almost a complete blank. Dad had updated her periodically over dinner, telling her that, with therapy, Lamb was talking again and moving unaided, but he would very likely never remember the years he'd lost.

She'd thought forgetting one night was awful. She couldn't imagine three years.

"Veronica?" he said, quizzically, as he dropped a pair of boxers into the open machine beside him.

"Hi," she said, quietly, more from ingrained politeness than anything. She didn't even know what to call him anymore. For so long, he'd been "Deputy," or "Lamb," said with loathing and followed up by smart remarks. But he didn't know any of that. He remembered the fifteen-year-old on the pep squad, the girl who brought Dad lunch sometimes and monitored the police dispatch while whoever was on duty took a smoke break or went to pee.

She was twenty now and he had no idea he'd once laughed at her while she cried. He had no idea just how many times they'd argued, fought, bugged each other's belongings, and how many times he'd clapped her in handcuffs.

"Washing your thongs?" he asked, looking pointedly at her piled-up clothes.

The question was slow, emphatic, but, okay, apparently he hadn't lost his inherent sense of assiness. That was nice. Familiar. "And my leopard print tube top," she murmured, biting the inside of her cheek so she wouldn't grin.

"I prefer snakeskin, honestly," he drawled, the glint in his eyes downright… friendly. God, that was weird.

"How are you?" she made herself ask as she took out detergent and a roll of quarters. "When did you move in? I hadn't heard."

"To have heard, you would've had to ask," he pointed out, voice edged with just a bit of the judgment she associated with him. "And I'm fine. Better every day. Like my old self."

"Oh, so, you mean you're worse?" The minute the words were out of her mouth, she flinched.

His eyebrows knitted together and she tried not to notice the slight tremor to his hand as he put the last of his T-shirts in the washer and shut the lid. "Did I… did I do something to you, Veronica? Did I…?" He stopped, and she didn't reply because there was that telltale fumbling for words that told her he wasn't done speaking. "Is… is that why you've been avoiding me?"

How was she supposed to tell him it wasn't "avoidance," it was just plain "ambivalence"? And now guilt. "You didn't do anything to me," she assured. She stalled for a few minutes, tossing her sweats and tees 

in with some Tide. "And I am glad you're okay."

"You could be a little more enthusiastic." There it was again, the friendly glint, and she didn't know what to do with it. He bent to pop the quarters in and she listened the clink of the coins, the slide going in and then the telltale whoosh of the cycle starting. When he stood again, it was careful and she couldn't miss the way he rubbed the back of his head. "Thirty-two stitches," he said, when he caught her staring. "It's a wonder all my brains didn't leak out."

"There kinda wasn't that much to lose." This time, she teased instead of snarked, shrugging ruefully. "Maybe Batando hit a hollow spot?"

"Maybe so." His gaze flickered over her again, and she wondered what he was thinking. Was he trying to reconcile the girl with the long braids and the woman (in her own mind, at least) with the bob? Was he remembering something? "You've changed," he said, after a moment, answering her question.

"I grew up," she offered, uneasily.

"Maybe I'll try that next," he chuckled, the noise rusty from lack of use. He grabbed his empty basket and when he shouldered past her to get to the door, she caught a whiff of soap and crisp cologne.

She tried not to glance at his head. And failed.

His hair had grown over what was clearly a small depression left by the aluminum bat.

Veronica was surprised for the second time that night when the hot sting of tears pricked her eyes.

Doing laundry on Friday nights became a habit. She'd stopped going out a long time ago, except on the occasional "cheating wives" surveillance call, and she found she liked the rhythm of the washers. They helped her think. Sometimes, she brought a textbook or the half-finished notes for a paper in and sacked out in the plastic chairs. Without her iPod or the TV distracting her, it was easier to get things done.

And, of course, there was Lamb. He'd made it a habit, too. She watched him sort, whites and colors, and sometimes they spoke. More often than not they didn't. One day, about two months into the routine, he smiled at her and murmured, "Got an 'A' from my physical therapist today."

"Really?" She put down the case study she was looking over. "What for? Effort?"

"Look." He proudly raised his hand, as if measuring how tall she had to be to ride Space Mountain. No tremors. Not a one.


"Steady as a rock," she quipped, feeling decidedly Cleavon Little.

"Yeah, but I shoot with this one." He raised the right, shaking it like someone with palsy... or someone doing his or her best Gene Wilder. Veronica couldn't help but giggle as he stopped shaking and proved both of his hands were back to normal by turning them into finger pistols and pointing them at her. "Bang."

"That's great, really great," she said, even as she splayed her fingers over her heart and theatrically pratfall-ed out of her chair.

He moved from around the machines to help her off the floor... probably just to keep showing off, because his grip was firm and strong. "You know, I actually believe you meant that."

"That's because I actually did." She stood, dusting off her cargo pants with one hand --the free one, since he had yet to let her go. "It's good that you're making progress. We can get you off disability and back into the Neptune work force!"

He'd asked her at least a half dozen more times if he'd done something to her, if there was something specific he needed to remember and each time, she had deflected. "We just perfected the fine art of banter, that's all. So, catch up, Big Boy," she'd told him the last time.

But, like he'd done then, Lamb was looking at her as if he didn't quite believe her. His thumb trailed over her wrist, pressing down just enough to count the beats. An impromptu lie detector test. "You don't like me, Veronica," he said, softly. "Why are you pretending to? Because I'm... impaired?"

Yes. Yes, guilty as charged. He was impaired. He was broken. He was Lamb Lite. This was not the man she had known. Aside from the sense of humor, everything about him was different. He no longer walked with that arrogant strut. He took five minutes to say what used to take him two, working that Texas drawl to the hilt in order to disguise any trouble he had with vocabulary retention. And he seemed to like her... no pretending required.

"I don't know," she lied, because it was easier than the truth. "I don't know how to do this, Lamb. It's been five years for me and I'm not that kid at the station anymore. You don't remember anything else, but I'm not the little girl you used to know."

A muscle jumped in his cheek and she was shocked when his fingers stroked just slightly up her arm in a caress, when he looked her up and down, taking in her drawstring pajama pants and tight-fitting FBI T-shirt. "No, no you're not," he agreed, the glimmer in his gaze going from friendly and open to something... friendlier. His breath caught in a gasp, but he slowly shook it, and the blatant checkout, away. "But you can start by calling me 'Don.'"

"You can let go of me now... Don," she murmured to test out his suggestion.

"I could, yeah." But he didn't. Instead, he pulled her just the tiniest bit closer, close enough to make her flip-flops catch against the concrete floor so she teetered off-balance... as if she wasn't off-balance already. "Don't want to," he whispered. "I don't want to let you go. Why?"

The note in his voice was curious, almost baffled. And she could more than understand the confusion, because the husky question combined with his blue, blue, not-quite-innocent eyes, sent spikes of heat up and down her body. The places where his fingers still circled her wrist felt like they were on fire.

"Don."

She was literally saved by the bell --okay, maybe just a thump-- as her dryer rolled to a halt. "Uh oh, I'd better fold those before they wrinkle!" she trilled, gently extricating from his grasp.

As she piled everything into her basket, she tried not to think about the fact that she hadn't wanted him to let go either. And her hands shook.

Veronica skipped Friday laundry two weeks in a row, letting her and Dad's things pile up until she had to give up and do it all on a Sunday because she'd taken to wearing her shirts inside out (seams showing were still trendy; no one guessed).

She could no longer claim she didn't give Lamb much thought.

Now, she thought about him constantly. In class, working shifts at the university library, at the dining hall pretending to chat away about nothing with Mac and Parker... all she thought about was him. Him pumping weights at PT. Him trying to remember the right words for fabric softener. And she imagined him everywhere, pictured him going on shift as a Hearst rent-a-cop just so she could run into him on campus, too. (He hadn't thought of gainful employment quite yet and for that she was thankful.) And she thought about how he'd touched her. How he'd looked at her. Not like she was his boss' pain-in-the-ass kid. Not like she was his arch-nemesis. But like she was someone he could want.

And she wasn't nearly as disturbed by the prospect of wanting him back. That... that actually was the least of her problems. She'd dated Logan for four years and had a one-night stand with Dick (after lots and lots and lots of alcohol). For crying out loud, it wasn't like her standards were high. But being wanted by someone who didn't remember her, didn't remember what they had been to each other... who could, conceivably, wake up one day and realize he hated her... what was she supposed to do with that? Logan and Dick, with all of their issues, were consistent. Nothing, absolutely nothing about Lamb Lite was that.

Except that he did laundry on Fridays and he liked Snuggle dryer sheets.

"I don't want to let you go. Why?"

She had no idea.

All she knew was that she wanted to hold on.

One night over manicotti, she asked Dad where exactly Lamb lived. "It's got to be a unit on the ground floor, right? To make things easier on him?"

"122," he said, the amusement clear in his tone. "Mrs. Cardillo moved to Florida about a week before he was released from the hospital. It worked out perfectly. Why the sudden interest in our neighbor's welfare?"

She shrugged, knowing he wouldn't buy it but doing it anyway. "Oh, nothing. I've run into him doing laundry a couple of times. It's nice to see him up and around."

"It is?"

"Yes. It is."

"Mhmm."

"Stop it with the 'mhmm-ing'!"

"How about a 'hunh'?"

"Dad."

"If you go visit, take the man some of your peanut butter cookies."

The next day, Veronica baked some. Just in case.

In the end, she didn't have to trek across the lawn to 122 or haul out the blue basket to see Lamb again. He came to her, knocking on the door of 110 with the sharp, precise, rap of a cop used to the 

neighborhood beat.

Show off, she thought with a grin as she unbolted and unchained.

He leaned on the doorframe, well-worn jeans and faded T-shirt clinging to his body in all the right --and wrong-- ways. There were touches of silver at his temples, something she'd never noticed before in the low lights of the laundry room. Tiny badges of his attack and recovery… proof that he'd aged just a little bit from facing death.

"Don," she greeted, without being prompted.

"Hi, Veronica."

But after that, came the awkward silence. Because they couldn't trade tips over how to get grape juice stains out of a shirt or whether to put the detergent in first or on top of the clothes. She just mutely stepped aside so he could come in.

He bent to pet Backup, who didn't so much as growl… instead whining with pleasure and burrowing into Lamb's touch. Great, Lamb 2.0 turned her dog on, too.

Veronica cursed herself for the telling admission that he turned her on, thankful for the small favor that she hadn't somehow telegraphed that out loud. "What brings you here?" she asked, moving from the kitchen to the living room.

"Your dad said you made cookies. I wanted some."

"Doesn't mean I'm going to give you any," she pointed out, dropping onto the couch.

"What, no sympathy for the retard?"

"You're not a retard, just a reformed moron," she grinned, as he gingerly made his way to her dad's chair. "Not that there's much difference."

Instead of laughing or bantering back, though, he winced. "I must've been pretty awful to you these past few years, huh?"

"La--Don, we don't have to talk about that." In fact, she still didn't want to talk about that. Possibly not ever.

"Then what can we talk about?" he countered.

Shout vs. the Tide bleach pen? Veronica twisted her hands in her lap. She tried to look anywhere but at 

him because looking at him just reminded her that she liked looking at him, that all it had taken was a bat to the head to make Don Lamb hot. And not even a bat to her head.

"How's physical therapy?" she asked, lamely.

"Physical. Therapeutic." He shrugged. "Speech is great, too. Can't even tell I have problems now, can you?"

"I didn't think you had problems to begin with," she teased, automatically. "I just thought you were Texan. Though, I guess could be considered a problem in some places."

"I-is it a problem for you? Am I?"

"No." She laughed before she could think better of it, covering her face with one hand. "No, you are definitely not a problem, Don Lamb… and I think that's the problem."

"Well, think how I feel. You went from 15 to 20 overnight but Keith would still probably shoot me for laying a hand on you."

He was staring at her. Friendly glint. Friendlier glint. And it made her pulse skip and her cheeks grow warm. Her cheeks and other places. God, it had been so long since she'd slept with anyone and she wanted the drought to stop. She wanted it to stop with a man who had thirty-two stitches and a dent in his head, and redemption written all over his handsome face.

"Veronica…?"

Redemption for her, not for him. For every uncharitable thought. For every insult. For every visit she didn't make and every question she didn't ask her father. For skipping three Fridays in a row. For wanting him back when she shouldn't have… and for wanting him even more now that she could.

"I don't want to let you go. Why?"

The decision was made. Just like that. With no debate, no preamble.

"Because I want you to hold on."

"Dad's out of town at a conference. But I guess I'd better be the one to lay on the hands just in case." She rose fluidly from the couch and climbed into his lap before he could protest… not that he was going to. His arms came up, circling around her and she instinctively bent to kiss him. Just millimeters away from his lips, she stopped, remembering… "Is this alright...? Can we...?"


"God, yes," he groaned against her cheek. "Yes, it's okay." He closed the space between them, kissing her hard the first time and then gently, making the second one long and slow and thorough. Until they were both breathless and he was whispering raggedly into her ear. "I couldn't even jerk myself off, Veronica. Not for three months after I woke up. And when I did...when I finally got my hand around my dick, all I could think about was some gorgeous blonde. But I never saw her face... I never fucking saw her face..."

"I don't think her face mattered much, did it?"

"I think it did. I think it was you."

The fierce, crude, revelation pretty much stole what was left of her mind. She arched up, kissing him back and sliding her palm down the front of his jeans to cup him through the already tight denim. He murmured, "fuck," (no problems with the speech pathology of that) and bucked against her fingers. "Fuck, Veronica, I want you. I want to love you."

"Then do it," she urged, pressing her lips to his cheek, his chin and his throat. "Just don't hate me tomorrow."

He pulled back just enough to look at her, cupping her face in both of his hands. "No chance," he whispered. "No chance of that at all."

She didn't disagree, couldn't bear to. Instead, she stroked his cock through his jeans and listened to him gasp her name over and over, until he was begging her to let him up, to let him do it right, to let him inside her.

Veronica took his hand and led him into her bedroom.

She didn't let him go. Even to undress. She interlaced their fingers, tugging at her sweats together and pulling her shirt over her head. He replied in kind, guiding her over buttons and zippers and inside the straining flap of his boxers. He explored every inch of her skin as it was exposed to him, lips feathering kisses across her shoulders and down the line of her spine. He kissed her hipbones and then the flat expanse of her belly and lower.

She knotted her fingers in his hair as he fucked her with his mouth. She could feel the roughness of scar tissue against her fingertips as they brushed his scalp and that should have been wrong, should have been just a little too kinky, but with her knees going weak at the rhythmic stroke of his tongue against her clit, all it felt was right. Don was alive. He'd survived. For this. For her.

When her legs buckled, he caught her against him. He held her as the aftershocks from her climax rippled over her, whispering soothing things against her temple and kissing her with the taste of her still 

on his lips. They knelt there, on the carpet, kissing for what felt like an erotic eternity. Chaste kisses, kisses with just a hint of bite, long, slow, kisses, and sloppy, openmouthed kisses that would never end up on a movie screen but made her toes curl just the same.

"Bed?" he wondered against her lips.

"Yes. God, yes." She echoed his earlier words and they half-tripped, half-stumbled, the few feet to the bed, collapsing on the mattress in a graceless tangle of limbs.

He'd been obsessed with his physique before. Almost too built, according to the story Dad had told her about watching him preen and pose during a meeting in the station's weight room once. But now the body under her hands was fit for different reasons… because of hours struggling to get back to walking straight and holding silverware, the basics of re-learning how to send commands from his brain to his muscles. But he didn't need to re-learn how to touch, how to stroke, how to make her legs open for him and wrap around his hips.

Her fingers ghosted over his face, into his hair, and he stopped her before they could caress the place where his skull was uneven. "Don't," he pleaded against her shoulder. "Don't touch me there."

"D-does it hurt?"

She immediately drew back her hand, dropping it safely below the waist and circling it around his cock as an apology. He gasped, "No," as she fisted him up and down. "No, it doesn't hurt anymore." Then he stilled her hand there, too. "It's been too long, Veronica. I… I do not want to come all over your sheets."

Veronica laughed, kissing the corner of his mouth. "Haven't you figured out that I like doing laundry?"

"I like doing you," he murmured, and then set about proving it.

Afterwards, he helped her strip the bed and haul her blue basket down to the laundry room, where they tested out that longstanding popular theory about the rhythm of the spin cycle and polished off a dozen peanut butter cookies.

Somewhere in the last few months, Don Lamb had gotten under her skin and Veronica had no idea. She of the keen detective insight and investigative savvy had somehow forgotten the basics of keeping tabs on one's heart.

She could blame it on a lot of things, but really, it just boiled down to one: the fact that he was impaired, broken, Lamb Lite… and he was perfect for her.