Veronica Mars was all sharp edges and bittersweet memories – though with each passing second, the bitter becomes more and more pronounced and the sweet fades a little more into the background. Logan thinks that perhaps this is mostly his own fault, because he's always seen her as something strong and resolute like a stone pillar (even back before… back when she was still rainbows and unicorns), while he is something furious and destructive. A hammer, perhaps. It had always reminded him of unstoppable force meets immovable object, only he refused to see just how breakable she really was until it was far too late. Duncan's inexplicable betrayal and Lilly's murder had been the faults hidden well within her ancient marble face, and he'd used her mother's alcoholism and the way her town turned on her family as nails hammered into her smooth façade.

When he started out on his crusade against the tiny blond, he had no idea he was signing the death warrant for both of them, but their fates had always been intricately and inextricably woven together in designs that he couldn't quite decipher the meaning of.

But all in all, it's more than a little ironic that in the greatest wrestling match in history, Unstoppable Force vs. Immovable Object, it wasn't the force that finally broke the object. There was merely another already overused barb ("Slut… just like your fucking mother."), hammered in one more time, that hit a concealed fault line and caused the entire rock pillar to splinter and crack. But not break. No, it was the cause just before the catalyst. Like shattered glass that splinters without falling from its frame, a single tap would leave her an irreparable mess on the floor.

But Veronica did not wait for that final tap. One afternoon, (right after that damn party that she'd tried to ruin for him) he'd seen her walking away from the office of Neptune's finest, and purposely walked past her just close enough to knock her down as he hissed "God damned slut… just like your mother!". The next morning at school, her hair was cropped, her long skirts and soft hues had been replaces with butch boots and skin-tight Levi's, and her misty eyes and trembling chin were things of the past. Now her eyes held something dark, carnal, almost, and her silver tongue flashed like lightning, landing barbs as sharp as his own. She'd seen the cracks in her pillar, and instead of waiting for something to break her, she'd twisted in and done the deed on her own, and then used the momentum from that twist to become an unstoppable force herself. One made of fury and edges so sharp they'd get stuck under his skin and rip him apart.

And years later, after apologies have been said (a thousand times over), revenge has been taken (and even the two of them might be even by now if they'd just stop hurting each other long enough to count the tally), and they've both grown up enough to know better, he's still hammering away at her broken shards, and she's still trying to rip him to shreds.

But now, after everything they've been through, he no longer wonders what the force backing her unstoppability is. It has all been explained to him far too many times to count, and all of them feel like a punch to the gut and make the bile rise in his throat. It is the force of two explosions too many; the wind created by a boy jumping 20 stories from the roof to an early grave; the sharp sting of unremembered nights and panties on the floor; the gale from doors that slam behind a cheating mother and an ex-lover fleeing with his bastard daughter. (The recoil behind a shot that he didn't let her fire, and the heavy thunk of an ashtray meeting a skull.)