A/N: My everlasting gratitude to the fabulous ELSchaaf, the world's greatest beta.

Part I - Chapter 1

She was pregnant. She'd already known it, already been sure. Didn't even really need to see the proof. But she'd taken them anyway, of course, all three of the early pregnancy tests that had been included in the box. She knew that no amount of running to the store for additional tests, trying to search out "more reliable" brands, was going to change the outcome one bit. And besides, the tests were fucking expensive and she really didn't have money to waste.

(And why were there three tests in the box anyway? Was everybody as absurd as she was, wanting a triple confirmation before going into panic mode? Or did some girls have pregnancy scares so often that they found the volume pack to be more economical?)

Veronica had always known that this was...a possibility. No matter how careful she was, no matter the double, or even triple redundancy of birth control used, there was always a chance that they'd all fail. Of course, there was an even greater chance that you might get knocked up when you'd impulsively slept with your on-again-off-again-on-again, etc, etc, boyfriend, and managed to get so carried away that you'd used nothing at all. Yeah, that definitely put a negative spin on the odds.

Veronica sighed with frustration. The thing that galled her the most was that this was now a situation that was beyond her control, and more than anything, Veronica needed to feel that she was in control.

She hadn't been in control the night it had happened, either.

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She was in The Rose and Crown, the pseudo-English pub right at the edge of the Hearst campus, celebrating the completion of the last final exam of her undergraduate career with Mac and Parker. Then he walked in the door. When she caught sight of him, after so long, she suddenly had to remember to take her next breath.

What the hell was he doing here? These days, Logan Echolls invariably confined himself to one of two types of drinking establishments. The first were the elegant lounges, like the bar of the Neptune Grand, the Marina Lounge at the Neptune Yacht Club, or any number of trendy LA bistros peopled by the famous and near-famous. His other watering hole of choice would have been the kind of dive that smelled of stale beer and staler patrons, anyplace where he wouldn't have to watch out for paparazzi.

The Rose and Crown was neither. It was popular with the college crowd, but it was also respectable enough to enjoy the patronage of both the faculty and visiting family on Parents' Weekend. Veronica would have bet that Logan had never been in this place before tonight.

He'd spotted her the second he walked in the door, of course, as though Veronica-radar were a part of his genetic makeup. His eyes locked on hers, and as always, neither could seem to look away. At that moment, Veronica knew with the certainty of more than a decade of experience with this one man, that before the night was over her life would once again be turned upside down.

It had been almost six months since she'd seen Logan, when the most recent iteration of their relationship, Version 7.0 if her count was correct, had crashed and burned just like all the others. Friends, enemies, lovers. Those were the earliest versions, and they'd each worked for a time. Then came Serious Relationship. That one had had definite possibilities freshman year, until their mutual baggage and her sexual insecurities had combined to tear them apart.

Casual Friends. They'd kept that farce going for more than a couple of years, until the sexual tension that always surrounded them like a miasma had become unbearably oppressive to everyone around them. One night, after yet another drinking game had degenerated into an unending round of mutual Logan/Veronica derision, their admittedly drunken friends had locked them in a room together with instructions to "fuck each other into bearability before you don't have any friends left." They'd emerged from that room three days later with Version 6.0 - Friends with Benefits.

But Logan and Veronica were incapable of keeping things light, of remaining uninvolved in each others' lives, of maintaining emotional distance. So FWB had eventually morphed into Version 7.0, Serious Relationship, Part 2. That had been just before the start of their senior year at Hearst. And this time, for a long time, they thought they'd gotten it right.

Veronica was a woman of stunning intellect and incredible focus. She set her goals high and always found a way to meet them. The only thing Veronica had never been able to figure out was how not to sabotage her own happiness.

She was the queen of the self-fulfilling prophecy. She knew, just fucking knew, that relationships never worked out, that the people you loved, the ones that you let in, who saw your vulnerabilities up close and personal, well, they were the ones who always let you down. And so they always did.

She knew that in the long run, Logan would never stay with her. Oh, she'd never accuse him of lying. Nope, he really believed he could be faithful. But whether it was Madison Sinclair, or that girl from his Econ class that Veronica saw in his Range Rover on the last night before Christmas break, Veronica knew it was always only a matter of time.

Logan explained every way he could think of that the girl had helped him out several times with class notes and he was just returning the favor by giving her a ride to the bus station on a night where the rain was pouring and the wind was howling. But she'd seen him smile as he helped that girl into his car, and she knew that there was more to it than that. There just had to be. Or else why would she be feeling like this?

Veronica was resolved when she told him that she wouldn't be moving into his new beach house after all.

She was achingly sad and overwhelmingly relieved all at the same time. The worst had happened and she had survived. Now she could move on. At least that had been the theory.

Logan's despair was matched only by his anger. Why the fuck did she keep doing this? He moved into his house alone, but this time he was determined to retain some control over his life.

His last semester as a business major would consist entirely of a practicum at a local company, and he'd already made arrangements to fulfill this requirement at Gant Publishing. He'd only have to venture onto campus occasionally to meet with his advisor. So for the first time in a decade, Logan made the decision to take himself out of Veronica's life completely. He knew with a certainty that at this point, it was the only way he'd be able to survive.

But he didn't even try to fool himself into believing that moving out of Veronica's orbit meant that he'd stopped loving her, or wanting her. Or that he ever could.

Why the hell had he stopped here tonight, he wondered. He could easily have taken them to the Marina or the Grand. But the Gant Publishing execs that Casey had asked him to show around the Hearst campus had spotted the pub and he'd pulled into the parking lot without another thought.

Logan tried to tell himself that he could, and should, ignore the fact that Veronica Mars was sitting not twenty feet away from him. And that she was out with girlfriends, not a boyfriend, so she was maybe - probably - still single. He tried to tell himself that he didn't give a fuck if she was single or not, and that he should leave this place right now.

You might as well ask a starving man to ignore the sudden appearance of the one food that could provide him with sustenance.

He was on his feet and halfway to her table before he even knew he'd left his seat. Logan was never awkward with Veronica. With all the ups and downs of their relationship - ten fucking years! he could hardly believe it - he'd never been nervous when he was near her. Tonight felt different.

"Veronica." Her name felt rusty on his tongue, as though, after six months, he'd forgotten how to say it out loud.

He'd approached her from behind, and he could see her shoulders square, as if girding for battle. But when she turned around and looked up at him, Veronica couldn't stop her face from lighting up at the sight of him.

"Logan. This doesn't seem like your kind of place at all."

"Nope," he said with a laugh. "It's not. But Casey asked me to show around some of the execs visiting from his San Francisco office, and they wanted to stop here." He shrugged. "I owed him."

Without thinking, he sat down in the one of the empty chairs and nodded at the other two girls. "Mac. Parker."

"We haven't seen you around much, Logan," Parker, always the most inquisitive of the group, raised her eyebrows at him.

Logan struggled to tear his eyes away from Veronica, and turned to address the others.

"Semester-long practicum, required for business majors. I did mine at Gant Publishing."

"Oh, yeah. Isn't the owner a young guy? From around here?"

"We went to high school with him." Veronica answered Parker's question, making an effort to focus on anything but Logan's eyes, anything but Logan's lips.

Mac wasn't sure what Veronica wanted of her at this point. Should she drag her out of there bodily, or just let whatever might happen...happen? She opted to defer her decision.

"So how was it, Logan? Working out in the real world, I mean?" Mac asked.

Ordinarily, he could have waxed enthusiastic for hours about his recent experiences at Gant Publishing. But at this moment, he was barely capable of stringing together two coherent sentences.

"It was great, Mac. I really liked it." His eyes turned toward her briefly as he spoke. But his fingers, of their own accord, reached across the table to skitter across Veronica's forearm.

He smiled at Veronica suddenly. She smiled back, unable to do otherwise.

Mac had her answer. "Hey, Logan. Parker and I kind of need to get going. Maybe you wouldn't mind giving Veronica a ride home."

"Whaaat?" Veronica really tried, but they all knew it was a token protest only, as she watched Mac and Parker walk out the door with final waves all around.

"Don't move," he said, as he got up to make arrangements with the executives. He offered to leave them his car, but they took one look at Veronica and at his obvious impatience to be gone, and waved his concerns away with smiles.

"No problem, kid. We'll get a cab. Have a nice night."

"Do you want another drink?" he asked Veronica, as he rejoined her at the table.

"Do you?" she responded, looking at him like she was trying to see inside his head.

"No, not really."

They rose then, and Veronica gathered her belongings, but there was no discussion about where they were going. Their feet simply carried them toward the exit.

They opened the door to rain cascading from the sky in sheets, wild and noisy. Logan raised his voice so she could hear him over the din of the torrential storm.

"Wait here while I get the car."

Then he was off and running toward the parking lot, while Veronica huddled in the doorway, the cold and wet seeping into her thin sweater.

"Get in," he yelled, driving up a minute later, reaching across the seat to throw open the passenger door. Veronica hurried across the short distance from the pub doorway to the car and leaped inside, slamming the door shut.

The sudden quiet inside the Range Rover seemed unnatural after the noise of the driving rain.

Logan looked over at her, grinning hugely as he swiped at the rivulets of water that were running down his face. She shook her hair, spraying moisture across the top of the dash.

"The June Gloom seems a little extreme this year," Veronica laughed shakily, shivering in the sudden cold.

"Warm and dry. Got it." Logan pulled away from the curb. And still there'd been no discussion about their destination.

He raced as fast as he dared along the rain-slicked city streets, heading west toward the pricey beachfront properties owned by the well-to-do. They didn't talk; they didn't need to. Each of them knew what was happening.

He finally pulled into the garage of his small beach house, turned off the motor, and closed the garage door. The downpour that had followed them all the way from the pub could be heard only faintly now. Much louder, it seemed, was the sighing of their breath and the beating of their hearts.

And for the first time since Logan had seen that smile of hers, doubts began to creep in. What the fuck was he doing? he wondered.

But then she looked at him, her mouth just slightly open, her eyes heavy-lidded, and he knew they weren't even going to make it out of the car. He'd unbuckled them both and pulled her across the seat and onto his lap in a matter of seconds.

She kissed him then, fiercely, as though she couldn't last another second until she was breathing in air that had first been in his mouth.

"You know this is inevitable, right?" he said softly. "You. Me. Together. Like this."

"Sh," she said. "Don't talk."

His hands were on her then, rediscovering the map of her body. Their breathing became ragged, their bodies running on instinct. He pulled her sodden sweater over her rain-dampened hair, his palms skimming across her breasts in a reverent caress. The feel of her skin against his was intoxicating. He couldn't seem to touch her enough.

Her hands crept under the back of his shirt and she pulled it over his head, moaning at the feel of his skin against her fingers after missing it for so damned long.

"Veronica. I won't last...I want you now." He was nearly incoherent.

"God, yes," she breathed, their bodies, as always, in harmony. She managed to bring her legs together long enough to remove her scrap of underwear, while he unzipped his pants and freed himself. It took only a moment to slide onto him, and then they were utterly lost, moving frantically, savoring every dearly-missed, oh-so-familiar, sensation.

They struggled, both of them, for some measure of control, but it had been too long and control was elusive. Hers broke first, his followed quickly, and they came to rest against one another, their hearts pounding loudly in the quiet cocoon of his car.

If that one time had been the extent of their reunion, it would have been the shortest in their storied decade-long relationship, but it was not. Logan turned off his doubts and shut down his defenses. Without another word, he carried Veronica from the garage into the house and along the hallway to his bedroom, and he refused to think about anything else.

She was here, and he loved her. And he would make love to her as long as she'd let him. Hours later, sleep finally overtook them, their bodies giving way to a combination of exhilaration and exhaustion.

When Logan woke up in the morning, it was still raining, and Veronica was gone.