A/N: And thus begins these letters. As of right now, I am sticking with letters and no flashbacks. I may change my mind. Consider yourselves warned. :) Thank you for all the reviews/comments/encouragement. I am addicted to your opinions. Thanks so much in advance for continuing reading this story.

Chapter 17 Letters

Dear Veronica.

I've spent the past few days thinking about what of the nine years are so important that I have to tell you. As much as you want to know, I realize there is a lot of mundane everyday dealings that just don't matter that much. But I suppose that's up to you to decide, so I'll just start with the beginning.

When we last saw each other, you probably knew Parker had just ended it with me. Because of you, of course. She was angry about how I had reacted over the sex tape and I can't blame her. At the time, however, I was in a little bit of denial about my motives for beating Piz to a bloody pulp. When I saw that tape, Veronica, I don't know…I just, I think all the injustices of everything that had happened between us just boiled up and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop trying to protect what I thought was still mine, and it wasn't right, but I would have killed him, probably, if he wouldn't have passed out and my senses hadn't of come back.

When you came to me in your justified anger, promising that this was it, that it was over…I think that it didn't register until I got your email later that summer. You and I, we always had tomorrow back then. There was always another chance, another moment to come that I would have to win you back. So it shocked me. It scared me. To think that you were never coming back.

I took myself down to the career center and the test told me to look into the military. From the information the counselor gave me, I knew I had some time to decide, so I kept the idea of the military, Navy or whatever, on the back burner while I finished out Hearst.

Dick and I spent the summer at the Grand and his dad stayed on a different floor; they spent a lot of time together. Dick was a bit of a mess most of that summer, trying to come to terms with his family dynamics. Everything that was going on with him kept me from thinking too much about my own problems. When Susan Knight "drowned," that shook him up even more. That guy. Seriously. He made all my problems seem trivial. Somehow though, he's made himself a decent life.

I spent most of my time that summer surfing, like usual, and trying not to think too hard. But there was one bright spot, however. My weekly dates with a little girl. Heather Button. I'd like you to meet her someday, actually. She's kind of like a sister to me, much more than Trina ever tried to be. You actually have met her, however informally. Do you remember, right after we broke up that last time…riding in the elevator at the Grand with me and a little girl who was wearing your shirt? That was Heather. That was the weekend she and I met. I ended up 'watching' her for a few days while Dick went partying with her sister. That's a story for another time. A good ol' Dick story from old times. Ha. I'm laughing from the memory. Ask him sometime about his wife. Heehee.

Anyway, about Heather. We spent that weekend together and made a pact to play Mario Kart online together once a week. It evolved from there to meeting her for ice cream down on the pier once a month and then progressed to something more akin to a brother/sister relationship. Her parents had split just before we met, and somehow she thought I was a wise source of comfort or something. I don't really know what she sees in me. But I enjoyed helping her out, and she liked me. It helped to have someone in my life that thought well of me. Beyond you, no one really had much assumption I would amount to much at that point in my life. As much as I needed to be accountable to myself, it helped to have her to check in with. She has this way of looking at me when I do something stupid—that makes me try harder.

We check in still with each other about once a month, even though lately I haven't bothered her, for obvious reasons. I don't even know if she knows about Carrie… but she'll be home during the summer, so I really want you to really get to know her. She's important.

When class started in the beginning of September, I took all the general classes that were required. I went back and forth partying to being sober. Up until the anniversary of Lilly's death. That day I got a little shit-faced. You probably got a lot of hang up calls that day-all from me. That was the day I came to a lot of conclusions. One was that in order to get into a military career or, well, hell, any career, I had to quit drinking. It wasn't doing me any favors. All it did was numb the pain for me to feel later. SO…much to the annoyance of my roommate, I dumped it all down the drain, literally.

I admit I fell off the wagon more than a few times. But I never allowed myself to be that person again, the one that…that I was back then. I wanted to succeed in something, and so I made it my personal mission to get through Hearst with Honors (tooting my own horn here) to give myself the best chance that I could to get where I wanted to go.

Dick and I moved out of the Grand later that school year because it got way too expensive…ha, 09ers complaining about money, right? We moved into a small apartment near campus. He kept up with his frat buddies, but never moved in with them. For some reason, we stuck together.

I dated. A lot. Dick would meet someone with a single friend and he'd shuffle the single one off to me while he wooed his latest conquest. I wasn't interested in anyone for a while, but I went through the expected motions because it was necessary. But the bad thing for me was that I have a type…and so there were many times the girl would be confused as why I just couldn't look at her anymore. I would get your face or Lilly's face mixed in with hers and…it would just be over.

I would like to say that there was no one other than you that ever took a place in my heart…but that wouldn't be true and I'm going for honesty here. There was Carrie, of course. But that came later. My first 'long-term' relationship after you was with a girl named Bryn. We both kind of broke each other's hearts.

Now, I have a lot of experience with a broken heart and the many different processes it can take to get there. It can be nicked at, the way Lilly would nick at mine every time she'd throw another boy in my face for sport. In can be pummeled, the way Dad would pummel mine every time the belt would strike. It can be crushed, like when Lilly died. Torn in half, like when I accepted Mom was gone. Crushed, like when I found out about Dad and Lilly. It can be plucked apart, like a rose, petal by petal, the way mine was all those times during the years we fought or were together and apart, together and apart. It can be drowned, with alcohol.

With Bryn, it was just a swift tear and it was over. We didn't fight, not like you and I used to. I think with Bryn it might have been as close to an easy relationship as I had ever had. It wasn't….exciting or confusing or jealous ridden or any of those things. It just…was. She was an English major and quiet. She was happy that I wasn't drinking, so that worked well for us both. But eventually an opportunity came for her to move to another school and I was enlisting in the Navy—biding my time until they'd take me. Neither of us would budge, and it suddenly was done.

I know you never intended for the memory of you to ruin me forever. But I was always cautious around anyone that I might let get that close, and so when Bryn left, it didn't hurt as much as it probably should have. It only made me think of you, miss you the way I should have missed her…as if you and I were the ones breaking up…again. What tore me up the most when she left was that I didn't have anyone…again.

Right now, I'm thinking of you, with me, here, right now, in my bunk, as I'm writing this in the dark, with my penlight trained on the paper. My bunkmates are all passed out from the long day at sea, and here I am, pouring my past into a letter. Tomorrow I will post it all in an email and send it.

I am so glad that I can confidently say that there is time for more later. I will tell you it all, I promise. But for now, I must bid you good night.

Love you. Spanning Continents.

Logan.

PS Thank you for your letter. It meant the world to me. I love you.

Dear Logan,

Thank you for your letters. Both of them. The one you left in the car and the one I just received. I want you to know, that I feel the same way. All in.

Heather sounds wonderful. I often thought of you, all alone without any family. Trina never counted, even when she still lived in Neptune. It makes me so happy to know there was at least someone besides Dick that mattered to you for all those years apart. And I do remember her. She was with you the night I was at the Grand looking into clues about Dean O'Dell's murder. You and I weren't speaking then, and…I got the feeling Heather was trying to help? I recall a certain…song on the radio. One that I doubted at the time you had ever even heard before that night when they played it.

She was cute. And sincere. And sweet. And you were…awkward. Completely not your snarky self that I had come to expect. I think that's why maybe I never gave you a chance to explain. You weren't yourself, and I didn't know what to do with calm, sad you. In the past when we were apart, you were always quip-full, jack-assy sad. I knew what to do with that Logan. But those months before Parker….you were just….not the Logan I knew. It alarmed me to think that it wasn't you there, talking me down or trying to hurt me with your come backs. Instead, you would give me long looks and it was hard to take….and I pushed it away. With you, I always felt too much. It was never the same with anyone else. And for me, feeling that much…well, I had learned at an early age that if you loved someone too much, they would just hurt you in the end. So I let that thing that tore us apart…keep us apart, so I wouldn't have to take the chance of being hurt even further.

I realize now that real love is worth the risk. I want you to know that, I'm not trying to open old wounds just for kicks. I got over what happened a long time ago, and I realize that I could have been more patient with what happened. When you broke up with me that fall, it hurt, so much more because I never imagined that it would be you to walk away first. And then we were together, and it felt so right, being with you again, I got scared. As usual, I freaked out because you and I are…fire and ice. It's never going to be 'easy' like it was easy for me with Piz or easy for you with Bryn. But just because it's not easy doesn't mean it's not right. This is right. This is what I want. You are who I want.

I'm so glad, too, that you got a real handle on your drinking. I wondered more than once why you never drank when I was with you these past few weeks. Watching my mother be ruined by drink…that's nothing that I want for you. It's an awful burden, and I am so so so glad that you took the initiative to control it at an early age. I think of your mother, too, and what addiction did there…you and I are peas in a pod, aren't we? The gravitational pull of similar grief.

So. Back to my days.

Stanford was never home for me, at least not like I wanted it to be. I came home for one weekend right after I got back to California to pack up my things, store what I wasn't bringing with me, and then I was driving away in my car, not even stopping to look back even for five minutes. I buried the feeling that I was being Lianne's daughter and just kept the mantra that it was for the best…and kept my foot on the gas pedal. Dad never tried to sway me. In fact, he almost packed my bags for me. I think we both knew that my staying was causing more harm than good, and he let me go. He never was a fighter in that regard.

He lost the sheriff's race right before I left for D.C.. And it was my fault that he lost. I never told you the whole story about that Gory guy that you beat up in the cafeteria…but the whole reason Dad lost that election boiled down to that damn sex tape. It was because of my determination for revenge that Dad was suspected of tampering with evidence. He was saving my butt, once again. He would do anything for me, and he really shouldn't have that time. The whole thing could have been ironed out if I would have just trusted him enough to tell him what was going on, but no, of course, I didn't. I thought I could handle things on my own, and that cost him his future. Probably Neptune's future as well. Because of me, another Lamb is in office, making a mockery of the judicial system. But Neptune has Robin Hood or Batman, in the form of my dad. All will be well with him looking out for all of us little people.

The first semester was hard. Emotionally hard. I had to fight back a lot of urges, nosy ones. You're familiar with my nosy urges, but no one at Stanford was. My roommates would look at me weird if I asked a question they deemed too personal and many times I had to physically take myself out of a situation so I wouldn't go searching on Google for a background check on people.

About a month in, I took the job as a Barista at a place near campus. I worked a lot, so a lot of time was spent at that coffee shop, studying or working or both. I didn't date at all that first year. In fact, I think a couple of my roommates worried about whether I was a lesbian, until the second year, when they got me to finally go on a few blind dates.

You'd laugh, I'm sure, but I grew my hair out long again, like when I was younger. I started wearing floral prints, not a lot of black toned items were in my closet. I was astounded when I unpacked my stuff at Dad's that first week and found my old black jackets and bags, like they couldn't bear to be parted from me and had just bided their time until I was ready for them again.

That 'long haired, floral printed' Veronica lasted about six months, and then it was gone, poof. I couldn't quite pull off that part, and so I quit trying. I chopped the hair, not quite as severely as in high school, but enough, and found some solid prints to wear.

There was this guy, Jarred, that asked me out about once a month that whole first year. He was too much like you, in looks anyway. I told him no, no, no…till I was blue in the face. Still, he asked me out. But it just felt weird, dating then, when I was wishing…wishing I were home, with you. With Dad. I was living this alternate life that wasn't mine, and I kept reverting back to the way it should have been….in Neptune. So I told him 'no' for the entire first year at Stanford, and then finally told him yes about Christmas time the next year, after my few 'blind' dates that my roomies set me up with.

We dated for four months. It was kind of how you explained your time with Bryn: easy. Comfortable with nothing scary or hard attached to it. But I grew tired of it, and we ended on amicable enough terms. No broken hearts for either end. And I admit, it did the same thing to me as your break up with Bryn: it made me miss you.

That next summer, after my first year of Stanford, I was offered a work study right there on Campus. The apartment I rented with those other girls was ours through the summer, so it worked perfectly to stay. It was awesome, because all three of the other girls went home, one to Colorado, the other two to Minnesota, so I had the whole apartment to myself. I had Wallace and Mac come up more than once, with the excuse that I had to stay local for an on-call project that my professor needed my help on. So I didn't come home that whole summer. Dad visited maybe three times. It was a quiet summer for me, but at the time, perfect. I wouldn't choose it again, but it was perfect for me then.

I loved your letter. I love hearing from you. You're right; we have a lot more time for more things to say. Keep me in your thoughts, Logan, keep wishing for me to be in your bed. I'll be doing the much as I'm missing you, I'm grateful for these days of collecting my thoughts to share exactly how I spent my time without you. But I still would much rather you here, with me, right now.

Spanning continents. Love you.

Veronica

A/N: I believe it was in Neptune Noir that made mention of the fact that in the 2nd season, when Veronica came to Logan after his EPIC speech, that because he was drunk that night/morning, he was unprepared for her speech that she gave to him, and because of that, he made a decision that never again would he be too drunk for Veronica. Therefore in the 2nd season finale, that is why he was sober when she sent him that text for help. Because he had matured enough to know that at some point, she would need him and so he consciously kept himself limited to his alcohol. I've watched it again and again and have come to realize, that I agree. I also think that towards the end of season 3, he was drunk a lot. JD plays those scenes...slurry or something, which could have been an accident on JD's part or a subtle way to show that Logan knew it was over, therefore, he let himself go. Totally rambling here, but the fact that in the film, he says he was 'Carrie's sponsor' makes me really believe that at this point in his life, Logan is dry, and dry for himself and not Veronica, which makes him even more ready for Veronica than ever before.