Title: Decade

Pairing: L/V

Rating: PG-13, for a tiny bit of language.

Spoilers: All aired episodes.

Word Count: 2,019

Summary: Future fic. Veronica and Logan think they have moved on with their lives. They both end up in New York, where Logan is an actor and Veronica a photographer. L/V.

Disclaimer: Obviously, these characters do not belong to me. I have just adopted them for a little while.

Author Note: This is my first Veronica Mars fic. PLEASE give me feedback, as I live off of it. If you like, review, if you don't, review. I am planning to write more of this story, but if no one reviews, I will be rather discouraged. Enjoy.

The buildings were sharply delineated against the sky's clear, sharp blue. Not a wisp of white marred its bright perfection. The trees were reveling in the newfound glory of fall, the leaves pooling by their feet.

Veronica had grown to love the slight chill and the golden leaves of autumn in Manhattan, so different from her native Neptune, CA. She was out photographing the windblown leaves in Riverside Park in the heady glow of mid-afternoon. Being behind a camera allowed her to be an observer only, protected from the world by the layers of glass and distortion of her lens. She was doing quite well as a freelance photographer, but these photos weren't for a job. Veronica was thinking of assembling some photos for an exhibition on seasons, and today had seem the epitome of fall's glory, the beginning of summer's decease. Most of all, it gave her something to occupy and distract herself with.

Veronica had had a well-received show in a Chelsea gallery a little more than a year before. Since she'd been employed quite constantly and her name had gradually become reasonably well known in certain circles. At least V. Reynolds had. In a town and with a job where she was so often Googled, the fact that the first hit was a headline that read "Teenage Detective Testifies Against Aaron Echolls; Defense Says She Propositioned Him" with the rest of the links along the same lines made the name Veronica Mars a bit of a liability. A fresh start was all she wanted; a new name let her avoid unwanted and uncomfortable questions about a past she wanted to move beyond.

Besides, her mother had died in a car accident the year after she graduated college; the adoption of the name Reynolds seemed a type of absolution. Veronica had seen her mother in the audience at her graduation, but she had left before Veronica could speak to her. When Lianne was gone, Veronica allowed herself to love her. She used the "Reynolds" as a posthumous sign of forgiveness.

Remembering her dentist appointment, Veronica looked at her watch and rushed to catch the 1 train downtown. She hated being late. They always make you wait anyway, she thought, Dentists just like making you suffer.

She burst into the waiting room and gave the assistant her name. "Could you wait, please," the woman said inevitably. Veronica grabbed the new November issue of Layers Magazine that she had brought with her.

Even engrossed as she was in a review of a new noise-reduction program, she couldn't help but notice the two girls who entered the office soon after she did. Seriously, who goes to the dentist together? Oh, I forgot, some girls can't even go to the bathroom alone. Veronica rolled her eyes at them. They turned on the TV in the corner of the waiting room and sat on the chairs next to Veronica so they could see the screen. She saw out of the corner pf her eye that it was the "Tyra Banks Show". She tuned them out and concentrated on her magazine. Filters. Layers. CMYK. Logan Echolls. What?

Her head shot up as she heard the TV say, "… is Logan Echolls, with costar and girlfriend Olivia Gleeson." She saw the surreally large, smiling face of her sometime friend, sometime enemy and sometime boyfriend.

Her first instinct was to march over switch it off, but her innate curiosity and newly acquired self control kept her in her seat and watching the screen closely.

She saw him sitting on the couch, holding the hand of the woman to his left. Petite and blonde. She almost laughed to herself. She's just his type! She watched him smile easily and field questions about his new movie ("It's really about a guy trying to find himself when he is suddenly and completely alone in the world. Plus a bunch of giant robots, a time machine and AK-47s.), how much he works out ("A lot. You don't get these rock hard abs for nothing!"), his father ("He died a long time ago. I don't like to talk about it.") and, finally, his love life. The blonde stuck out her hand smiling and Veronica saw the glint of stage lights on diamond. The crowd gasped and Tyra practically squealed as Olivia explained that they had gotten engaged last week when they were in Hawaii. "Isn't this soon to be getting engaged?" Tyra voiced the question that Veronica herself wanted to ask. "If you know what you want, it's never too soon," Logan said, wrapping his arm around his fiancée's shoulders.

"Oh god, I wish I were his girlfriend," one of the girls who had turned on the TV said to her companion. "He is so hot," the other agreed, sighing. Veronica glared at them.

He looks so happy, she thought, It's strange.

"Ms. Reynolds?" The dentist's assistant interrupted her thoughts to call her for her appointment. As her teeth were cleaned, she couldn't help thinking about this newly remembered specter of her past.

She had kept him out of her head for so long. Of course, she saw news about him in the tabloids from time to time, but it was easier for her to just pretend that this was a different Logan than the one she had known. Plus, she wasn't exactly Us Weekly's most likely subscriber or any of the other magazines of the same ilk. As a rule she tried to avoid his movies, but she saw one on a plane once. She had cried at the end, even though the two protagonists had survived the alien attack and were going to live happily ever after. She didn't know why exactly; she didn't cry very often.

She left the dentist's office through the revolving doors, buttoning up her light fall jacket against the breeze. She walked rapidly towards the subway station, feeling in her pocket for her Metrocard.

It was four years since she had seen him last. At Hearst College graduation he had kissed her on the cheek, and said, "You'll have a great life, Veronica. You don't need me around to mess things up". The next morning, when she went to the apartment he had rented after sophomore year, Dick said, "He left for L.A. last night. I guess he didn't tell you, huh. Well, see you. I'm gonna be moving soon too, because I've heard there are mad hot chicks in L.A., just waiting for the Dickster. I bet Logan left early so he could get a head start." Dick had graduated with a degree in Economics, but Veronica wondered whether that would ever be put to good use. Or any use.

After freshman year, Logan and Veronica had gotten back together. While being at Quantico, Veronica had learned two things: she didn't want to join the FBI and that Piz and she could not weather a summer apart. The FBI had been a bureaucratic hell, full of people who preferred mediocrity to super-competency, preferring always to see themselves as the smartest one in the room. Veronica was also a little too used to dealing with her problems outside the constraints of the law to fit right in. As for Piz, he couldn't deal with the distance and Veronica couldn't let herself help him deal. When she and Piz broke up, it seemed natural that she and Logan would start spending more time together as Gorya Sorokin's threat hung over his head; there was something about the peril of impending danger that seemed to be a catalyst in their relationship. After working with her dad and the FBI, Veronica had managed to put most of the Sorokin clan in jail and incidentally prevented Logan from being murdered. After they had stopped working together for a common cause, the fights had started again. Both said things that were unforgivable; they had angrily decided to go their separate ways, both looking for a little peace and quiet.

Veronica turned the key to her apartment and greeted her overenthusiastic Jack Russell terrier with a smile and a tummy scratch. Her phone rang, and the caller ID read "Keith".

"Hey, Dad."

"Veronica. How are you?"

"Fine, fine. You?"

"I'm good."

"Why are you calling?"

"I just want to check up on you. I am your father you know."

"Okay, Dad. That's nice."

"And you know how you get sometimes at this time of year."

"Okay, I'm fine. Really."

"That's all I needed to know. Alicia is coming by for some pot roast, so I've got to go prepare that. We'll talk soon."

"Yes, Dad. Bye"

"Bye, honey."

She replaced the phone on the receiver and sighed. This time of year. Nice euphemism, Dad.

There was a blinking light on the answering machine and she listened to her two messages. "Hey Veronica, it's Wallace, I'm just calling because I think I left a shirt at your house when I stayed with you last week. If you could please ship it back to Neptune, because it's one of my favorites. Thanks and I miss you. Talk to you soon." Veronica smiled just hearing his voice and tried to remember where his shirt could be. "Hey, V, it's Norm from Vanity Fair. Annie just canceled on us and our cover is finicky. His agent demanded new talent and options. Call me if you are free Wednesday, because if you are I'm putting your portfolio in. I know you don't usually do celebs, but you're good, and not so much of an artist that money doesn't talk. If you're picked it would look great on your resume. Bye, and don't forget to give me a call at 212-437-0303." She dialed the number. "Hey, Norm, it's V. Reynolds. . .Yes, Wednesday works fine. . . Good to know. See ya."

She went to the fridge to get out some salad for dinner. She sat down in front of her computer, reading her emails and eating her salad at the same time. For several hours, she clicked through her photos from that morning, marking the best ones and making a few adjustments with Photoshop. This didn't take up quite enough of her brain, as her thoughts, uncontrolled, turned back to Logan.

Senior year, they had run into one another on the anniversary of Lilly's death. Too much alcohol and reminiscing and too little inhibition had led to Veronica waking up in Logan's bed, with a pounding headache and an unfortunately complete memory of the night before. She had left him lying there asleep. Two weeks later, Veronica found she was pregnant. After a week of sleepless nights, she decided to get an abortion. No one but Wallace and Mac knew about that, and certainly not Logan. After that, she had managed to avoid him, tidily packing away all those unidentifiable feelings she could only classify as "Logan". She had put him out of her life and out of her conscious thought; she couldn't control her dreams. And suddenly, Logan had infiltrated her thoughts again.

And on this day of all days, she thought, Naturally.

Veronica looked at the windows of the building she could see outside her window. She tried to count the lights of the few people still awake, but stopped to fetch her half-drunk bottle of wine.

She poured herself a slow glass of Cabernet and raised it in salute. "I love you, Lilly, as always," she whispered, draining her glass. She sat staring out of the window, unseeing, tears just hovering, not yet ready to fall.

Further downtown, someone else was mirroring her actions, albeit in a SoHo loft with a bottle of Jack Daniels. "It's been ten fucking years, Lill. And I still miss you."

He drained the bottle, tossed it so it clattered into the recycling bin, and climbed into bed next to his sleeping fiancée. He lay staring at the ceiling as a passing siren wailed by and the laughter of some girls and the tapping of their heels floated up to him. He turned over, covered his head with a pillow and dared himself to fall asleep.

Yeah, so review, please! I should come out with a second chapter within the next week.