Song for this one. Rhys Lewis – Reason to Hate You.

There are just some days that roll around unexpectedly and slap you in the face. January 13th is one of those, at least for Veronica Mars it was. Stosh "Piz" Piznarski was finishing moving the last of his things into her shoebox apartment in Brooklyn this afternoon. They were making their own attempts to build a home, a life together, her first attempt at being a proper grown up… with an adult let's move in together, share a wardrobe, pick up more milk on the way home honey kind of existence. And then there it was.. Hidden Treasure, her Neptune High Yearbook.

She hadn't even opened it in about 9 years, not since Wallace had decided to Fed-Ex it to her as a joke a few weeks ago because she had been teasing about his old knees during the aches and pains he was feeling over coaching basketball season this year.

So much of her life was unrecognisable to the version of herself she had envisioned at 18.

She opened up the book and her eyes lingered over all the familiar faces, the memorial page for those kids lost during Senior Year in the bus crash. The one that had narrowly avoided claiming her own life. The photograph of Lilly Kane, her murdered best friend, and the others she had shared with the editorial team of the Kane siblings.

She had heard rumours that her old boyfriend, Duncan Kane was living in Australia with his daughter these days but she wasn't certain, probably best to keep it that way. Kidnapping cases tended not to go away. The inside of the cover was inscribed with all the well wishes and thanks message from her various clients… but she didn't do all that Private Eye work anymore. Then she got to it… the picture of Him.

It was his birthday today.

Logan Echolls.

Her high school boyfriend. The Epic Love of her life. Star-crossed.

Even now the sight of him smiling in his picture made her heart ache; those honey brown eyes looked into her soul from even here as she smiled sadly at the irony of his year book quote.

"It is not in the stars who hold our destiny but in ourselves – William Shakespeare"

If the stars had had anything to do with it, perhaps they still would have been together. No one wrote songs about the ones that came easy, but nothing about her relationship with Logan had ever been easy. She couldn't explain the magnetic pull that she still felt to him, the one that called her home, no matter how hard she had tried to run from it.

Give us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change.

She hadn't meant to stay away for so long, after her Internship at the FBI and her father losing office after the evidence tampering accusations after her take down of The Castle… it had all come at too high a cost. She had to break away, make a fresh start, that video… it had followed her for a while but her studies at Stanford and then Columbia Law School had absorbed almost all of her life up until this point, if it hadn't been for Piz's insistence on trying to become a part of her life after they both found themselves living in New York she probably would still be trying to negotiate the commitment to getting herself a house plant. She might never have found herself giving herself another chance at love.

She hadn't found the strength to try and stay friends with Logan, some people were just coiled inside us too tightly… some loves were just too impossible to let go. Distance had been the only thing that had helped.

She had dated, but no one ever seemed worth it to make her slow down enough to distract herself from her goals. She would be taking the bar exam in 7 short months. She was in her final year.

But a part of her always did wonder… she had been so angry with Logan after he had been with Madison Sinclair, if he had given her just a little more time before he dated Parker… where would they have been now? If she hadn't been so stubborn… so filled with the need for vengeance… could they have made it? Did she wish she could have made different choices? Sometimes.. but they were who they were.

"Our story is Epic.. spanning years and continents.. lives ruined and bloodshed… Epic."

The memories were strong tonight, like something whispering in the cold night air pulling him into her thoughts, unwelcome, unbidden. Wrapping the ghosts of him around her heart.

Veronica had heard from mutual friends she had bumped into over the years that he had gotten his life together, joined the military although she couldn't quite picture the smart mouth boy with a problem for authority figures having the discipline to survive in the Navy.

Turns out New York could be actually really small considering it was home to 8.5 million people and she had heard stories from time to time through classmates she would meet unexpectedly… each time she had been tempted to reach out… but she never did. Not that she hated him, she could barely remember anymore why those revelations about that night with Madison had made her so upset. She had been so young then, so inexperienced. Wasn't everything the end of the world when you were a teenager?

It could have been so easy to reply to those emails he had sent for Christmas during the first few years they had been apart… but those were scars she wasn't sure she wanted to re-open. He was all over the newspaper pages the last two years because of his relationship with Carrie Bishop another girl from their high school and MTV's female vocalist of the year. She had changed her name to Bonnie De-Ville and was tearing up the charts and the gossip columns. Neptune's very own Hometown celebrity couple. Son of a Movie Star and his Pop star girlfriend.

Maybe it was seeing the two of them on the cover of Vanity Fair together a few months ago that had made Veronica finally embrace letting the past go and give Piz a chance? She pondered quietly as she stared at the number in her phone. She wasn't even sure if he had kept it the same. She would just have to swallow this hurt a little longer, she would be stronger. It would pass, eventually. Everything fades with time right?

She had to leave him to the peace he had found and move on with hers she thought finally as she glanced at her boyfriend reading his notes for his radio show tomorrow.

What she had with Piz was solid, her life wasn't in Neptune anymore, it was here in New York and it had a Finals paper to sit in 6 hours she reasoned as she slipped the phone back into her bag and tucked a strand of her blond hair behind ear and focused on her textbook.

Some things you couldn't go back to. Somethings just needed left alone.