Title: The HMS Save My Rich Pasty Ass Please, Wallace

Author: Wynn

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Veronica Mars. They are owned by Rob Thomas, UPN, Warner Brothers, Joel Silver, etc. and are used for non-profit, entertainment purposes only.

AN: Again, many thanks to Arabian for betaing. Feedback is a wonderful and much appreciated thing.

The HMS Save My Rich Pasty Ass Please, Wallace

Or Wallace the Magnificent (Part Two)

By: Wynn

"Shouldn't you stay awake or something?"

"No."

"What if you have a concussion? You could pass out and die."

"I'm not going to pass out and die. I might die if I don't pass out soon though."

"That's not funny."

Echolls put one hand over his heart. "Wallace. I didn't know you cared."

"I don't. Except for the hassle it would cause me having to explain to everyone how I ended up with your dead, broken body in my car. So just stay awake, all right?"

"Fine. I was just doing my part to preserve rule number two."

Wallace glanced at his brother in the rear view mirror. Still sound asleep, head half on and off the back seat. "We're fine like this. Just don't go shrieking your head off in pain."

"How about a low moan? A wheezing groan?"

Wallace rolled his eyes. "Anybody ever tell you that you talk too much?"

"You're the one that requested the chatter. I'll be more than happy to pass out now if you've changed your mind."

"I didn't request the chatter. I just requested that you not pass out and die."

"There's a difference?"

Wallace didn't answer. He rubbed one hand across his forehead and upped the amount of snicker doodles Veronica would have to bake in reparation for this. As of now, the total clocked in at two hundred and fifty three. There was no telling how high that number might climb in the five minutes remaining until they reached casa de los Echolls. Easily into the thousands if someone kept yapping.

"Look, just sit there and be quiet," Wallace said, returning his hand to the steering wheel. "With your eyes open, okay? Okay?"

Wallace got no response. At least not a verbal one. He glanced at Echolls to make sure he wasn't flipping him off or doing anything else that would require a hearty smack to the back of the head, but Echolls wasn't doing anything. He sat slumped over in his seat with his head resting against the window. In the glow of the streetlights, Wallace could see lines of tension around his closed mouth and eyes, in the white knuckled clench of his hands, in the staggered inhale, exhale of his breaths. A faint inkling of pity and guilt wormed its way through Wallace's brain as he looked. He shouldn't have gotten so snippy with Echolls. It was petty and stupid, like poking a cranky, three-legged dog with a stick, and Wallace was raised better than to be a petty, stupid, three-legged dog poker.

Turning onto Echolls' street, Wallace stopped the car. A gaggle of photographers and news vans crowded around the front (and to Wallace's knowledge the only) gate to the Echolls mansion. Waiting, no doubt, to ambush someone, anyone, coming in or out of the place for an exclusive sound bite on tonight's just shocking turn of events. And the son of the movie star murderer arriving home beaten and bloody would surely make for an exciting exclusive.

It would, but not tonight.

Wallace turned the car around and headed back down the 09er hill. He plotted a course for la casa de Fennel, keeping a sharp eye out for any photogs that might possibly give chase.

…………

Two-seventeen in the morning and all Wallace wanted to do was crash. He shifted his mom's car into park and turned off the engine, relishing in the resulting quiet. Living with a hyperactive eight year old didn't allow for many quiet moments in the Fennel household, but Wallace didn't mind. Most of the time. Now, though, now he was grateful for the quiet because it gave him time to think.

But before he could think, he had to do. Unbuckling his seat belt, he got out of the car, popped open the back door, and gathered his brother into his arms. He didn't bother shutting the door; this neighborhood was safe enough. Besides, he didn't want to wake Echolls before he had a chance to decide how to answer the sure to be difficult questions about Lilly, Veronica, and Daddy Dearest.

Wallace carried his brother into the house. It was just as everyone had left it five hours before: TV on and broadcasting something other than Spiderman 2; half-eaten bowl of Doritos on the floor next to Wallace's sure to be flat Coke. Bills strewn across the dining room table from where his mom had been paying them, and dirty dishes still soaking in the sink. Life interrupted.

Making his way to his brother's room, Wallace remembered at the last second to step over the basketball guarding the entrance. He wound around the random stacks of comic books on the floor and laid Darrell down on his bed. Off came the Nike slides, up came the blanket, and then Wallace crept back out of the room. He left the door open a crack, just the way Darrell like it, and prayed that the other sleeping not-quite-beauty in the car would be something resembling quiet once inside.

Winding his way back through the house, Wallace stepped outside. Echolls stood by the trunk of the car, looking around the neighborhood like he'd just landed in the middle of Oz and expected a two foot tall Munchkin to come barreling out at him from behind his mother's hydrangea bush.

"When I told you I wanted to go home," Echolls said as he shuffled up the driveway, "I didn't mean yours."

"I know. But there was a slight hitch in the other proceedings."

"What? You got lost?"

"No. I didn't get lost. I-" Wallace paused. Blurting out the real reason for the turn around in the middle of his front yard probably wasn't the best of ideas. The neighborhood might have been safe enough, but it was also nosy as hell and the whole reason for the turn around had been to keep things on the down low. "You should probably get inside," Wallace said instead. "Get yourself cleaned up."

Echolls shrugged and shuffled the rest of the way inside. Wallace left him to his own devices as he ran down to the car and shut the doors. Racing back inside, he found Echolls standing in the middle of the living room, not touching anything, still looking for that wayward Munchkin. Wallace sympathized. He felt as out of place as Echolls looked, and he was standing in his own house.

Pointing to one of the dining room chairs, he said, "You can sit over there while I, um, go get the first aid box."

"Don't bother. Just tell me where the bathroom is."

"Down the hall, second door on the right." Wallace followed Echolls down the hall. He reached past him and flipped on the bathroom light as he said, "Hydrogen peroxide and band aids are under the sink. Um…" He opened the linen closet and grabbed a few of the old washcloths from the bottom of the pile. Tossing them onto the counter, he stepped back and said, "Better use those. For the blood. Mom's kind of particular about the good towels."

Echolls stared down at the washcloths. He picked one up and held it in his hands. Then he said, "So was mine."

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. They had reached the uncomfortable silence portion of the evening much earlier than Wallace had expected. He was unprepared to deal. "I, um, if you can't find something you need, just let me know. I'll, uh, be out here." And he shut the door. The faint inkling of pity and guilt in Wallace's mind blossomed into a vague notion. He tried his best to squash it by thinking of all the shitty things Echolls had done to Veronica over the past year, but his squashing was squashed by thoughts of the really shitty day Echolls had just had and how it was going to get even worse in about five minutes when Wallace told him about his dad.

So. Wallace felt pity for Echolls. Even some alternate universe version of empathy at their sort of similar feelings of parental loss.

Hell had just frozen over, and Wallace found himself up the creek without his skates.

Unnerved, he crossed the hall and entered his bedroom. The universe might be undergoing a seismic shift out in the hall, but in Wallace's room things were thankfully still very much the same. Picture of the All Mighty Jordan next to his bed; Veronica's spirit boxes on his dresser. Wallace eyed his bed and debated whether or not to flop face first onto the unmade cotton goodness. Eyed, debated, and ultimately couldn't resist the 300 thread count allure. So he fell, flopped, and found himself shooting back up at the harsh yelp of pain that echoed out from the bathroom.

"Ech- Um. Logan, man, you okay?"

No answer. Wallace tried the door knob; it was locked. He knocked and heard from within: "Eyes…"

"What?"

Louder: "Ice. Can you get me… some ice?"

Oh. "Yeah. Sure. Hang on a sec."

Wallace went to the kitchen and grabbed some ice from the freezer. He wrapped it up in a paper towel then headed back to the bathroom. The door was now open a crack; Wallace thrust his hand through the opening and waved the towel-clad ice around like a wet, dripping pom-pom.

"The door's open for a reason…"

Clenching his teeth at the not-quite-order, Wallace entered the bathroom. Echolls sat on the edge of the tub, gingerly grasping the bridge of his nose with two fingers. Wallace dropped the ice into his outstretched hand and turned to go.

"Wait. Why are you here?"

Well. That answered his question of potential brain damage. Putting a big fat check mark in the crazy column, Wallace turned around and said slowly, "I live here. This is my house."

Echolls glared at him. "I know. I meant, why are you here?" He waved the hand not holding the ice around in some gesture that he apparently thought meant something to Wallace. Other than it was another big fat check mark in the 'Logan is Crazy' column.

"You asked for some ice, so I got you some ice. Then-"

"We're not friends. You don't owe me anything. I didn't ask for your help. And no doubt Veronica's told you by now her grand theory on how I killed Lilly. So why are you here? Helping me?"

Oh again. It was the question of the hour (literally.) Wallace could've said he was doing it as a favor for Veronica. He saw the look on her face at the hospital as she tried and failed once again to get a hold of Echolls. She was worried about him; she cared about him, much to Wallace's everlasting chagrin. But that wasn't it, not entirely, and Wallace knew it. Knew it and said it to himself earlier in the evening in one of his rambling interior monologues. So he shrugged one shoulder and said, "You needed help. And I know you didn't kill Lilly Kane."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Veronica knows, too."

"Does she?"

Wallace nodded.

"You know, that's not what she knew this morning. When she turned me into the cops."

"A lot's happened since this morning."

Echolls laughed, but like Weevil's, it lacked humor or warmth. Unlike Weevil's, however, which cut like a knife and sounded just as sharp to Wallace's ears, this was rough like asphalt and covered with a fine coating of crazy. "You're not wrong there," Echolls said. He slid down into the tub and collapsed back against the sides. Propping his head against the wall, he propped the icy towel against his face and said, "In the spirit of curiosity, what happened today to change her mind? Did she suddenly wake up from her afternoon nap and realize she's not the only person on the planet who loved Lilly? Or did she pop the blue pill and take the edge off her raging paranoia?"

"She caught the killer."

Echolls shot up. His eyes were open, alert, and focused on Wallace like twin blood-tinged laser beams. "Who? Who was it?" Before Wallace could even begin to think how to answer that question, Echolls said, "Was it… Was it Duncan?"

Wallace shook his head. "No. It wasn't Duncan. It…" He couldn't do it. He couldn't say it. No matter what Veronica vaguely alluded to about Echolls' relationship with his dad, it was still his dad.

"Come on, Wallace. Who was it?"

"Maybe you should sit down."

"I am sitting down."

"Oh. Um…" Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, "Your dad," shit.

Echolls stared at him like he'd answered in Klingon. "My… what?"

Wallace breathed in, licked his lips, and breathed out. "Logan, man, your dad killed Lilly Kane."

A drop of water fell from the faucet. It sounded like a raging waterfall in the absolute quiet that followed Wallace's declaration. He finally got the whole time stopping thing. In that moment, time fucking stopped and a drop raged like a waterfall. Wallace peered down at Logan. His vague notion grew into a cloudy thought as Logan sat there in shock, struggling to comprehend what was just said.

Then he was nothing but movement, flailing his way out of the tub. "What, she ran out of other suspects? First Jake and Celeste. Then Duncan, Weevil, me. I guess my dad deserved his spin on Ronnie's Wheel of Larcenous Fun, too. Better watch out, Wallace. She might finger you next if you piss her off enough."

"Logan, I'm serious. She found some tapes that incriminated your dad in the murder. He found out she knew and tried to…"

"Tried to what?"

"Tried to kill her to get them back. He locked her in a freezer. Set it on fire."

Logan didn't move. He had his back to Wallace. He lifted one hand, placed it on the wall. Wallace didn't know what to do, so he did nothing. He stood there and tried not to watch Logan, but his eyes kept drifting back from the sink and the door and the rug to the hard lines of Logan's back, the faint tremor of his hands.

Another drop, another waterfall, another seismic shift to the cosmos.

"Is she… is she okay?"

Wallace nodded. Then realized Logan couldn't see him nodding with his back turned and said, "Yeah. She's got some cuts and bruises. Nothing too serious though. The doctors sent her home from the hospital a few hours ago. Or, she left and they didn't try to stop her. You know how she is."

"Yeah… I know."

More silence. Just as uncomfortable as the first, but still Wallace didn't move. He didn't know what to do, but he thought at least his nothing was something. Staying was something.

But not for Logan, apparently, who climbed out of the tub and walked out of the bathroom. Without a word or a glance or even a glower of acknowledgement sent Wallace's way.

Wallace tore off after him, found him fumbling with the lock on the front door. "What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving. I have to see her."

"Who?"

"Veronica. I need to know she's okay."

"I just told you she is."

Logan stopped his fumbling and looked straight at Wallace for the first time… ever. "I have to see for myself."

A three second showdown occurred. Three seconds in which Wallace had a thought, which turned into a plan, which turned into a plot. Weevil had been right when he said Wallace spent entirely too much time with Veronica; a plan like this would never have occurred to him pre-BFF-ness. He knocked a few cookies off the snicker doodle pile, heaved the biggest sigh he could, and said, "All right. All right. Fine. Let me just get my brother, and we'll go."

Logan cocked an eyebrow; his skepticism of Wallace's easy acquiescence was plain as the broken nose on his face. "We'll go?"

Wallace smiled. "Yeah. We'll go."

…………

"I hate you."

Wallace shrugged. "Fine by me, but you're still going." Logan didn't move. He stayed right where he was, slouched and scowling in the passenger seat, resolutely not looking at Neptune Memorial Hospital.

"You said you'd take me to Veronica's."

"No, I didn't. I said we'd go."

"To Veronica's. It was implied."

Wallace started to roll his eyes but stopped after remembering his metaphorical vow not to poke cranky three-legged dogs. "Did you really think I was going to take you to Veronica's? She needs some peace and quiet after the crappy night she's had, and a visit from the Logan Horror Picture Show would kill that quiet. And if I had taken you to Veronica's, she would have brought you here anyways. So you would have ended up here wherever you had gone. I just saved you an embarrassing side trip." Logan stayed silent and pouting, and Wallace let himself roll his eyes. God save him from the rich and bitchy. "Look, Veronica's okay. You're not. So get your ass into that hospital before I kick it in there."

Logan still didn't move. He glanced at the hospital from the corners of his eyes. His hands clenched into fists and he said, "What's the point?"

"Of what? Hospitals?"

"Of everything. Going to the hospital. Getting better. Living. What's the point, Wallace? If there is one."

Wallace blinked. "You want me to tell you the point of living?"

"Yes."

Okay. At least he was honest about wanting to know the meaning of life. Not that honesty made the end all, be all of existential questions easier to answer, but Wallace appreciated the spoon blunt honesty all the same.

"Well," he said slowly, feeling his way around the answer word by word, syllable by syllable, letter by letter, "it's sort of different for everyone. I mean, it has to be, right? People don't want the same things out of life, so the point of living has got to be different for everyone. Me, for instance, the point is to graduate high school, go to UCLA on a full ride basketball scholarship, win the NCAA title four times in a row before being recruited by the Lakers, Spurs, or Magic and land a hella fat endorsement deal so I can buy my mom the house she's always wanted. You, though? I don't know you, so I don't know what you want out of life. But I know what you want out of tomorrow. You want to see Veronica and make sure she's okay. And you can't do that unless you go see a doctor and make sure you'll still be alive tomorrow to see Veronica. So that's your point. At least for the next twenty-four hours. After that… you got to figure that out for yourself like everybody else."

Silence followed his (quite eloquent in his opinion) answer. First a moment's worth. Then a minute's. Wallace leaned forward to check if Logan had passed out again. He hadn't. He just sat there in silence, which almost unnerved Wallace more than his quasi-suicidal talk from before.

Then he said, "I don't like hospitals."

"Nobody likes hospitals. Get over it." Logan glared at him, and Wallace held up his hands. "Hey, I say it with all the love in my heart that I can muster at three o'clock in the morning."

"You're a regular Florence Nightingale."

Wallace winced. Despite all his efforts not to succumb to that particular fate, it seemed over the course of the evening he had, in fact, turned into Wallace, Nursemaid to the Rich and Bitchy. "I'm not your Florence anything," he said, slouching down in his seat and folding his arms across his chest. Cookie count: Four hundred sixty-seven and climbing fast. "Now are you going to get your ass into that hospital or not? 'Cause my brother can't sleep in the car the entire night."

Logan shot Wallace the death glare again, and for a second Wallace thought, truly thought, that Logan's monumental case of stubbornness (second only to Veronica's in breadth and depth) would win out over whatever brains he had left in his lumpy head. But then he sighed and said, "Fine. I'll go."

"Great." Wallace reached for the door handle.

"Wait. Where are you going?"

"With you." Logan looked confused; Wallace sent him a look that could only be described as 'duh' in most circles. "Did you think I was going to let you go in there all by yourself?"

"Um, yes."

"Um, no. That's not how things work in my family. We don't just chuck people out and then run away."

"I didn't think you'd run. I figured you'd drive." Wallace opened his mouth, but Logan continued before he could speak. "Sorry. Unrepentant sarcasm is how things work in my family. The only thing, really."

"Yeah, well, you're not your family. So you don't have to work like them."

"How do you know? You don't know me; you said it yourself. I could be exactly like my family."

Wallace nodded. "You're right. You could be." He opened the door and got out of the car. Leaning back in, he said, "But would anyone else in your family have been worried about the girl who had one family member tossed in prison just hours after trying to get another thrown in, too?" Logan stayed silent and Wallace smiled. "I didn't think so. Now get up, get out, and get a move on. Or do you need me to go get you a wheelchair?"

At that, life sparked back into Logan's eyes. Nothing better to get a guy going than a challenge to his manhood. He got of the car as Wallace retrieved his brother from the back seat, and they made their way into the hospital.

Finally.

(thank god.)

…………