THE STILL POINT (ON A SPINNING WORLD), chapter one
by: AliLamba
rated: T, for adult themes
notes: I would be surprised if I beat anyone to this plot idea. But it spawned in my head while commuting this morning and I felt the need to see it through for myself.

Veronica had often wondered how she would feel in this situation.

She frowns, more something to do with her face than out of real emotion. She feels…

Nothing.

Her mind is completely and utterly blank. Maybe that is why she's frowning. She thought this would be a happy occasion. Or at the very least a terrible one. She had imagined how or what she would tell her friends. Or her father.

At Stanford she had once studied shock. The body does this wonderful thing when it's threatened, mentally or physically. Adrenaline and other hormones pump through your bloodstream at otherwise dangerously high levels, making you completely oblivious to how badly you're hurt. She's heard of people being rushed to the hospital laughing and joking with the paramedics who transferred them. The moment they are able to calm down, they collapse and die. They bleed out. Their spleen had been ruptured in a fall, or their aortic artery had been torn and no one thought to check. Kindly, their body had pumped them so full of natural morphine they had no idea they were dying. It was kind of sweet when you thought about it.

Veronica does not feel euphoric. She feels totally numb. In fact, she feels number than numb. She feels…vacuous.

She shelves the situation for now.

Veronica wanders back to her computer and opens her email program. She clicks on the first desperately addressed email she sees.

Four minutes later she realizes she is staring out the bedroom window, her gaze lost in the crashing of waves against the shore outside of Logan's house. She glances back at her computer, and then closes the laptop without a second thought.

Veronica turns and starts to make the bed, pulling the sheets across the mattress and flattening the comforter. She pauses after putting Logan's pillows in place.

A long moment passes, and then she draws her hand along the surface of his pillow. She imagines his head there, turned on its side so he could see her face. So he could smile at her, or kiss her, or make her laugh.

So he could tell her he loves her.

Veronica finds an emotion tugging at her heart. She tilts her head, trying to imagine what the feeling could be. It quickly passes. Self-preservation is kicking in. On a small sigh, Veronica turns and lets gravity drag her body to the freshly made bed. She collapses against the clean linens, letting the springy mattress absorb her weight.

She stares silently at the ceiling, thinking for a long time. At some point she simply drifts off to sleep.

Something wakes her up.

Veronica's eyes blink open. The lighting of the room indicates that it is well around noon, and her clothes feel sticky against her skin. She feels that discomfort that comes from suddenly waking up mid-REM cycle.

A good few disoriented seconds pass while Veronica tries to figure out what woke her up. Then the doorbell rings again.

Veronica stands, fighting through the haze of leaving a dream state. Her stomach feels funny, like someone took a piece out of it and her body is trying to accommodate what's missing. She hates this feeling and it's the reason she very rarely naps.

Grouchily, she wonders where Dick is. It's his house too – technically, it's more his house than hers. But the sun is shining through the clouds hanging over the beach, so she imagines he's in the water. He spends most of his life in the water.

In California, peep holes are replaced by giant panes of glass stuck in the middle of front doors. Logan's front door is more glass than wood. She figures the only person who would ring the doorbell without calling ahead or barging in would be from FedEx, or UPS…

But the person standing on Logan's doorstep is wearing an entirely different uniform.

For an entire, sickening moment, she thinks it's Logan. The person is wearing Logan's Navy whites, and immediately she remembers the last time she saw Logan in the flesh – pausing at the doorway to get one last look at her, bag as big as his torso slung over his shoulder. His look had been so penetrating, so desperate, and it haunts her still. It haunts her now.

But it's not Logan. The floor seems to drop out from under her. Her stomach turns into rock. There is no breath in her lungs.

It's not Logan.

There is only one reason why someone not Logan would be on his doorstep wearing Navy white.

She can't fathom that she's moving, but suddenly she's standing just on the other side of the door, staring at this stranger who has come to meet her through the pane of glass. The door opens in front of her, and she knows that she's the only person who could have opened it. Her entire body feels on fire, feels so tense inside that she can only imagine she's going to do something violent – like explode.

"Hello ma'am," this stranger says. Veronica can't reply. "I'm sorry to bother you ma'am. I'm looking for a Richard Casablancas Junior. Is he here at the moment?"

She sucks in a breath. Richard? Dick. No.

"No," she whispers.

The stranger in Logan's clothes ducks his head and mutters shit under his breath. He closes his eyes and clenches his jaw. He is collecting himself. A shake of his head and he looks up at her. "Are you familiar to Lieutenant Logan Echolls?"

Dread starts in her toes, and in the tips of her fingers. Cold, frozen tendrils start to creep in toward her center. She knows the dread is trying to get to her heart.

This stranger must be able to read her expression, because his expression turns serious. She almost wants to call it grim.

Dread fills the vacuum in her lungs where oxygen is supposed to be.

She knows why this stranger is here. She has known since she first saw him. She must be dreaming. She must still be asleep. No, there is no way this person is here for the reason she imagines. These things happen to other people. They happen in movies. They don't happen to Veronica Mars. They don't happen to Logan Echolls. They don't happen in Neptune, California.

"I'm very sorry," he says, quite simply. Her entire body freezes. No.

"Lieutenant Echolls died yesterday morning at 0618 hours."

No.

"He was running a routine mission off of flight deck in the Andaman Sea. There was a malfunction, and his aircraft suffered irreparable damage. He went down twenty miles northwest of the island Kabosa."

The stranger's words enter into her brain and immediately pass right through the holes suddenly peppering her body. She doesn't hear him. She can't hear him. The world is spinning beyond the stranger's body, and her legs feel weak. She wonders – how is she standing? How are her legs pushing her up from the ground? Her eyes look to her feet, and she wonders what these feet do, and who they belong to.

Died yesterday.

Malfunction.

Went down.

This is all a big joke. She looks up at the stranger. Logan must have put him up to it. Logan is coming home early to surprise her, and this is some big funny test to figure out whether or not she's still in love with him. Veronica looks down the walkway at the stranger's car and checks the passenger seat for Logan's familiar smirk.

He's not there.

She realizes – five months early? Logan would come back five months early? No. Not without some sort of phone call, not like this. Her brow furrows. If this is a joke it's a sick one. This stranger isn't welcome here, and his joke isn't funny. Logan's death isn't a funny concept to her. And where the hell is Dick! He is supposed to be here, not Veronica. He's not supposed to spend his whole god-damned day surfing. He's supposed to have a fucking job like the rest of the world. In fact – fuck that guy! Fuck Dick for not being there!

She's gripping the handle of the door too tightly. Her fingers are starting to sting she's gripping it so hard. There's no blood left getting to her nail beds, and the skin is starting to prickle, asking for attention in an annoyingly painful way. She loosens her grip and looks back at the stranger wearing the Navy white she recognizes. He is still looking at her somberly. His hat is tucked beneath one of his arms at the elbow. Above it, just in the crook of his arm, is a folded American flag. She remembers what that part of Logan looked like without any clothes to cover it, when her head is looking for a place to rest and her body is within his arms.

Logan can't be dead. There's no way he can be dead. It wouldn't be fair. Let her be dead instead. Let any number of people with cruel souls and black hearts be dead before Logan is. Not Logan, with his deep brown eyes, his pure soul, and the heart that loves her. Not…not the father of her unborn child.

"I'm pregnant," Veronica finally breathes, and she can't believe she's said it out loud.

The stranger is offering her a glass of water. She is sitting on the couch in Logan's living room, and she feels like there is no blood left in her face, or hands. She imagines how pale she must look, as her limbs run alternately hot and cold with fevers of feeling.

She sees her hands extend to accept the glass. She settles it against her knee and stares at it, seeing it and not seeing it all at once.

The stranger takes the casual chair opposite her. He has been trained to keep a respectful gaze on her face, observing her for movement or reaction. Almost like he is guarding her.

"Thank you," she finally says, long after she has taken the water.

The look of this man is starting to be familiar to her. She notices that he has brown hair and brown eyes. His eyes are lighter than Logan's, and his hair is darker than Logan's, and his face is all wrong…but he wears Logan's uniform, so he must be at least partially trustworthy. He might have known Logan. No – he might know Logan. She is not entirely convinced that this man is telling the truth. She is not convinced that Logan is dead. He quite simply cannot be dead.

"How far along are you?" the man asks casually. She imagines that he must be kind of tired of his job. She would be too, if it was her job to give this sort of terrible, heart-breaking, life-shattering news to people on a daily basis. It must get old after awhile.

"Um," she tries to say. She has no idea how far along she is. Well, that's not entirely true. Logan has been gone for four weeks, so she can only be four to six weeks pregnant. Her heart stammers in her chest. For the first time she thinks of Piz, and New York. Her mind works through the month before she came back to Neptune. She can hardly remember the last time she was intimate with Piz… It had been weeks since they'd made that kind of time for each other before she came back to California for Logan. Weeks, and at least one menstrual cycle. No. This baby was Logan's. It couldn't be anyone else's.

"I'm not sure," she finally admits. Her voice is soft, and hoarse, like she's been crying all day long even though she's yet to shed a tear. "I only found out this morning."

The man nods his head, not giving anything away. Perhaps this is not the first time he's encountered a pregnant partner left behind.

"Can you tell me again what happened?"

She is surprised to hear her own voice do the asking. The man shifts in his seat and looks above Veronica's head, as if recalling the brief he read in the car before walking to Logan's front door.

"Lieutenant Echolls was running a routine flight mission off of USS George H.W. Bush in the Andaman Sea. There was a malfunction with the aircraft undetected by pre-flight checks. His aircraft experienced a small explosion in its left barrel engine at 0616 hours. Mr. Echolls attempted to return to flight deck. Failing that, he attempted to eject. No ejection was recorded or observed by flight crew. Mr. Echolls' aircraft crashed at 0618 Pacific Daylight Time, thirty miles northwest of the island of Kabosa."

"Twenty," Veronica says, correcting him. The man looks at her for a quiet moment.

"Yes," he agrees. "Twenty miles northwest of the island of Kabosa."

Veronica draws in a shuddering breath.

"An immediate search and rescue mission was commissioned. Four by air, seventeen vessels by sea. The mission continued until 0830 Pacific Daylight Time, when Lieutenant Echolls' aircraft was recovered."

A glimmer of hope sparks through her chest. "No body," she infers.

The man looks at her for another breath, but there is a wilt around his eyes. This is the worst part of his job, she can tell. The part where you have to rob a person of all hope.

"No body," he says. "Forensic examination of his aircraft revealed that Lieutenant Echolls had been able to open the hatch and escape his restraints.

"No body was recovered after a seven hour sonar, radar, and dive search of the area. At 2100 hours Burmese local time his time of death was assigned as earlier, on impact."

Veronica looks at the folded flag sitting in the empty chair next to this man. It is so crisp and clean, and so vividly red and deep, perfect blue. She imagines that real hands – no machine – have crafted this flag, and that real hands have folded it. She wonders if the people who made this flag knew what it was for. She wonders whether they had ever received a flag of their own.

"What's your name," she asks, listlessly. The silence is suffocating and she doesn't like it anymore.

The stranger's eyebrows quirk a little. He must not be asked this very often, but often enough not to be terribly surprised. "Matthew," he says. "Matthew Adams."

She nods, accepting his information.

"What's yours?" he asks. She looks up at him, somewhat surprised he doesn't know already considering how many personal details he's told her about Logan's death. Matthew clears his throat.

"Well, I know who you're not. You're not Lieutenant Echolls' sister, who we think is somewhere in Europe. And we know you're not Lieutenant Echolls' brother, who bought a boat four months ago and has been AWOL with his wife ever since."

Veronica is staring at him. There is a dangerous prickle at the back of her eyes.

"And you can't be either of Lieutenant Echolls' parents, who are dead. Lieutenant Echolls has no aunts or uncles, and no cousins of any kind. His family tree is…small."

She imagines what Matthew's day has been like. The only real pressure of his job must be to notify next of kin as quickly as possible, and Logan's next of kin are unreliable to say the least. She does some quick math, and wonders when Matthew was notified of this assignment. It could have been 24 hours ago. Twenty-four hectic hours and now he's finally nearing the end of his mission.

"We only found out about Richard Casablancas Jr. through some old medical records. Lieutenant Echolls chose Mr. Casablancas as an emergency contact two years ago and his records haven't been updated since."

Veronica nods. Her head moves of its own volition. "He lives here," she explains. "He's not here at the moment."

Matthew's lips tighten as he nods again, slowly. He looks at her for a long moment. Veronica's jaw is tight. Her whole body is tight, as if she is holding all of her inner organs together inside her body. If she relaxes, she'll bleed to death.

"I have a few of Lieutenant Echolls' personal belongings. These have been cleared by central command to be released to his next of kin. If you're really pregnant, there would be no one more next of kin than you."

He pulls a clear bag from beside his chair that Veronica hadn't seen before. She wonders what else she's been oblivious to. Veronica reaches out, tentatively, and takes the bag from Matthew's hands. It is not very full. It is certainly not nearly as full as the bag Logan left with, the very same one she helped him pack. Only two things are inside: his wallet, and his cell phone.

She opens the bag on her lap and touches the wallet with her fingers. The black leather is warm and worn in. She imagines it sitting on Matthew's dashboard in his car, absorbing the sun. She picks up Logan's cell phone instead. She touches the screen with her thumb, and the screen blinks into life. It surprises her. The battery is nearly full. That also surprises her. But nothing is quite so surprising as her own face reflecting back at her. It's the photo that Logan had taken on their last morning together, when she was still half-asleep in the pre-dawn light.

She was pregnant then, and she didn't even know it. She is pregnant now. It suddenly feels more real than it did this morning. She should tell her dad. She should tell…

Logan.

Everything inside her chest clenches tightly, and Veronica tries desperately to hold onto control.

"This is me," she tells Matthew, showing him the lock screen on Logan's phone. Matthew squints at it, and she believes him when he looks like he hadn't taken a second glance at Logan's belongings before handing them over. Matthew nods when he recognizes her.

There is a silence, and Veronica prays that he will say something. Something is clawing at her insides, trying to escape her vicious grip of control. It is so much harder to control when Matthew is silent.

"What happens now?" she finally says, and her voice trembles for the first time since Matthew arrived. For the first time since Logan left four long weeks ago.

Matthew takes a steadying breath. She wonders if it was meant to be a yawn, but he was able to control the instinct in his throat. She hates him. No she doesn't. She wants to.

"The official report is still ongoing. It will likely be ongoing for several weeks, as Lieutenant Echolls' aircraft is run through some rather extensive logistical tests. People will be interviewed, statements will be collected, and eventually enough paperwork will be processed for you to receive free healthcare for your child for the rest of his or her life."

An instinct shoots through Veronica's arm. She feels the urge to put a hand to her abdomen. She controls it. Matthew continues.

"Because he died at sea, it is likely that Lieutenant Echolls' body will never be recovered. After the final report is completed, Lieutenant Echolls will be assigned a plot in a naval burial ground. You and Lieutenant Echolls' siblings will have an opportunity to make final arrangements when the time comes. But this is where I have to warn you that it might take awhile. Because of the circumstances of Lieutenant Echolls' death there will be some people who will want to spend a good amount of time getting to the cause. They're not going to want to put this to bed right away."

The circumstances of Logan's death.

Logan's death. Logan is dead. A hysterical laugh threatens her throat because it is so absurdly awful. She is sitting inside Logan's house, pregnant with Logan's child, and now this man she doesn't really know is telling her that Logan is no longer of this earth.

She wants to laugh. She wants so desperately to cry. And more than anything she wants to keep it all together and go to sleep, so she can wake up from this nightmare. Her hands are shaking. She's not sure when they started to, but the glass of water is now trembling against her knee and she has to put it down. When she tries to put it on the coffee table it falls from her hands, or she drops it – she's not sure, but the sound of the water spilling is violent to her ears.

Matthew stands to clean it up, and Veronica stands too. Not to pick up the glass, but to escape. She darts to the closest bathroom and slams the door behind herself, collapsing immediately to the cold tile floor. Her body is shaking erratically and uncontrollably all over, and she observes her hands without feeling. Her teeth start to chatter inside her mouth, and again she thinks back to her studies of shock. This is the second stage, the time when the body has depleted all its energy and can no longer fight back against its injuries. This is the last stand, the final surge against death, and even the body knows it has lost control.

The tears erupt from her body before she can fully find a place to lie down, her shoulders wracked with the most violent shaking. Her legs extend on the tiled ground like they're made of cheap rubber. Her mouth is wet and uncontrollably open, and she hears a howl. It must be coming from her, but she has never heard a sound like that come from her mouth. Not even when she thought her father had died. Maybe because Logan had been there with her then, and in no possible way could Logan be there to comfort her now. Logan is gone. He is dead. Her lungs and throat wail from within, and her whole body caves with the knowledge that he is not on a boat somewhere counting down from one hundred and fifty-two.

It's not fair, she moans, not knowing whether it is out loud or within her head. It's not fair that they had only two weeks together and they will never be together again. She cries, and cries, and cries. She cries until she feels dead herself, until she feels nothing at all, and until she cannot conceptualize life in any sense.

The next sixteen hours are like a movie. Surely, the life Veronica sees cannot be her own.

When the bathroom door opens Matthew is not alone. Dick is standing in front of him, looking scared, tears collected around his eyes. He pulls her upright, and carries her to Logan's bed. He sits next to her on the mattress, as if by proximity he won't have to go through his sudden onset of grief alone. Veronica is no better than a body bag. Her heart still beats but she is nothing besides. Matthew only stays until Dick can pull it together and call Mac, and Wallace, and Keith. Mac finds the pregnancy test at some point, the one Veronica had put on the shelf in the bathroom off of her and Logan's room.

Her dad loses it when he sees the blue stick, shouting at her like only a terrified father can for his only daughter. Veronica observes him impassively, her ears and mind so fogged that his words sound like they're traveling through three feet of water…muffled, warped, like his concerns are not real.

At some point she falls asleep again. She wakes up, and it's dark outside. A light is on in the room, and Veronica blinks so she can see throughout the bedroom without squinting. Wallace is on the floor beside her half of the bed. Mac sleeps behind her on the mattress like another bookend, taking up Logan's pillows. She turns to look into the far corner of the room, and finds her dad upright in a chair, asleep himself.

The room almost feels peaceful. It would have been if Veronica had been capable of feeling peace. Instead it just feels…overstuffed, like these people have invaded her privacy.

She sits up quietly and puts her feet on the floor. Wallace shifts in his sleep but doesn't wake, his elbow inches from her toes. Veronica waits for a small moment and then stands, stepping over his body cautiously and walking toward the door. She has no idea where Dick is. She conceptualizes that he is likely inside his own room and not seeking company. She doesn't want to be anyone's company anyway.

A voracious hunger suddenly erupts in her belly. It is shocking if only because it is the first and only real feeling she has experienced since the onset of her grief, and it is so strong a hunger she almost doubles over under its power. She struggles to get to the kitchen before she collapses, grabbing a box of cereal from the counter and shoving a handful of mixed granola and corn flakes into her mouth. She has to put another into her mouth before her stomach registers that it no longer needs to consume itself. A third before she can stand comfortably erect. She fills a glass with tap water and drinks the entire amount in one long series of gulps. She refills the glass, and drinks another half before her throat no longer feels dry and cracked, and her body gives any sort of indication that it has met bodily requirements.

She looks around the kitchen listlessly. The house suddenly feels claustrophobic. It is filled with too many people, and none of them are Logan.

She picks up the box of cereal and lets it hang limply by her side, as her arm is too weak to hold it up against her chest. She walks toward the backdoor leading to the beach, her feet dragging and clumsy against the floor. The door is not locked. It is never locked. It opens with a soft click, and a gust of cool, salty wind rushes into her face. It tangles in her hair and fills her nostrils. She waits for it to abate before she ventures out. The sand is cold beneath her feet, but not cold enough for Veronica to care. Her body craves impulsivity, it craves some excitable form of release, because all of her anguish is roiling around inside of her and fighting to get out. For now, the deadness inside her soul is winning, her misery a mere twinge that pulses to life every so often. She finds a place to sit because eventually her legs can't carry her any more. The ocean is in front of her, and it seems as if she has made it barely halfway to the water's edge. The box of cereal sits idly at her hip, and over the course of the next few hours, she snacks on it slowly as the inky blackness of night turns to the deep gray of pre-dawn. The sun rises from behind her because she faces the west. It has barely brightened the day enough for the city's night lights to go out when she is found.

Her dad is walking at what could be a normal pace, but he is breathing so deeply and frantically that she knows he had been scared for awhile that he lost her. She wishes she cared enough to be sorry, or cared enough to be happy to see him. It takes so much of her energy to maintain her grief, however, that she feels barely more than numb.

"Hi dad," she says, and immediately she regrets using her voice. Tears spill from her eyes and over her cheeks, and she knows instantly there will be no controlling them. Her dad takes the seat next to her on the beach, facing west, and he looks more annoyed than anything else. The feeling of a knife twists in her gut.

"Hi Veronica," he says back. His voice is not sad or mournful or soft. He never really knew Logan as she knew him, and he will now never get the chance to love him in the way that she did. In the way that she does. He is dealing with this situation in the way he knows how, and she imagines how frustrated he must feel seeing how distant and distraught his daughter is. He must feel helpless, she observes emotionlessly. Tears still soak her cheeks, and for a long time the tears continue to fall. At one point, she tilts her head so that it rests softly on her father's shoulder. The tears run down her neck and soak the neckline of her blouse, making Veronica realize that she hasn't changed since the morning before, and that her clothes are still uncomfortable and overly warm against her skin. She feels the instinct to walk into the ocean, and to perhaps never come out. She feels the urge to walk into this void in every part of her body. The ocean calls to her with every wave against the shore.

Veronica begins to sob openly, and again her shoulders convulse against the weight of her grief. Her body craves an end to her sadness, anything. She curves toward her father's warmth, and throws her arm around him.

"Daddy!" she cries as she feels his arms tighten around her upper body, clinging her to his chest like the child of his she is.

He hears the sound of the waves before he can really conceptualize where the sound is coming from. He can't open his eyes, he's so tired, until a swell of ocean water rushes beneath his body and carries him up the sloping shore beneath him. The panic of feeling so helpless and weak pulls his muscles into action, and he scrambles as the water pushes him onto sand at higher ground and leaves him there.

He cannot stand. His muscles are too weak.

Sun is beating onto the back of his neck from high in the sky. So high he can imagine that the time is somewhere around noon. So high that he can only imagine the sun has been slowly burning him for days.

He has just enough power to push himself onto his back. He gasps in free air, his lungs hungry for it. He feels as though he has just woken from death. His mind is so blank. Sun is blinding…ocean rough against his raw skin…sand rubbing into each and every wound…so weak…

He blacks out again. When he comes back the sun is low in the sky.

Logan is not sure what has woken him this time. His muscles feel so heavy and sore; it is painful to move his head toward a sound.

There is someone there. Someone is shouting at him using words he does not understand. He tries to stand, but his arms do not support his weight, and he falls. His open mouth hits the beach, and wet sand pushes past his lips. He has no energy to wipe it away. The blackness is coming back, and this time he recognizes the signs. He tries to fight it as the person comes closer, and he sees the bare outline of their face beneath a straw hat. It is a man. Logan knows he needs this man's help.

A sound comes from his throat. It is raspy, soft, and weak – just like the rest of him. This man with the straw hat leans down beside him, and it is his eyes that Lieutenant Logan Echolls last see before oblivion is able to claim him once more.

TBC.

I'm going to call this a teaser. Too often I've started a long fic and posted as I went, only to never finish it because I get too obsessed with a deadline and not with the story itself. So I'm going to try to not read any reviews unless I really lose steam, and just dive in and write and write and write until I feel like it's done. Bah! In any case, please drop a note if you have the time. I really really appreciate any comments.